franksolich acquires a primitive harem (now rated R)

[franksolich]

Romeo came from the pasture across the road, where he’d been repairing a fence, as darkness began falling, having gotten back from Omaha earlier than he‘d expected. 

“I got good news, I got what you wanted,” he said, “but let me grab a beer first.”

Which he did, and we sat on the front porch as he described his acquisition.

“I got us two girls, one 27, the other 29, down in Omaha, and they’re the Hebraic sort that turns you on, a little taller and thinner than most women usually are, dark brown hair, pale skin, appropriately-sized jugs, long slender fingers, slightly larger-than-average nose.

“One might be Italianate, but they both looked Jewish to me.”

This surprised me not at all; I never doubted he could do it, he’s so good.

- - - - - - - - - -

“The problem is, they can’t come up until Friday.”

I winced.  “That’s cutting it close; Big Mo and her men-hating girls, and the carnies, are getting here Saturday.  There’s always a possibility some of them might arrive early.

“That’s cutting it real close.”

“But they both work,” Romeo told me; “one’s a receptionist in a dental office, the other’s some sort of ‘organizer,’ in politics.  They both work 8-5 Monday-Friday, and so can’t get here before Friday evening.

“But they’re ready and roaring for some action, as girly city men aren’t any good.

“Did you figure out yet, a place for us to party, given that some carnies are already at the first place?”

No, I said; “as you know, I had company, and forgot all about it.

“We still have time to figure out where to go, though,” I assured him.

Then I thought of something else.

“It’s been twenty-four hours since the last time, and my men’s needs are recrudescing again.

“I could maybe hold out for another twenty-four hours, but I feel the need to poke.

“Any chance you can find me someone for tomorrow night?  I’m not fussy, just so long as she’s not over 120 pounds and under 5‘8“, and doesn’t have tattoos.

“I’m really aching.”

“I can,” Romeo assured me; “and I’ll get two of them, and we’ll party over at my place, where nobody‘ll come.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“I did their income taxes once, I dunno, maybe fifteen years ago, and was stunned when I saw that their monthly payments for pharmaceuticals was more than their monthly home mortgage payment.

“That was money they paid, not the insurance company.

“It seemed odd, given that both were desk-sitting governmental employees, meaning they had top-of-the-line health insurance, which I was sure should be covering drugs.  I never did see the actual policy, though, but other observations led me to believe that yeah, their out-of-pocket drug bills were really that high; more than their home mortgage payments.”

The business partner and I were driving out into the hinterlands on business.

“Because we’d never been close, I visited only rarely, but enough so that I saw them spending a large part of every Sunday afternoon in the kitchen with those transparent plastic boxes with dividers in them--like fishing-tackle boxes--and a couple of plastic garbage bags with bottles of pills in them.

“They were assorting their medications for the week.  There was one large box and one medium-sized box for him,  and one large box for her.  One time I counted, and he was taking sixty-seven pharmaceuticals every day, and she, forty-two.

“All of them prescription drugs, all of them prescribed by medical professionals.

“One can’t blame the physicians, who really don’t care to prescribe drugs; they’d just as soon patients change their life-styles to deal with most things.  But physicians know what a patient will, and will not, do, and try to instruct the patient on what the patient’s most likely to do.

“And they weren’t going to change any of their life-styles, drug were easier.

- - - - - - - - -

“They got their drugs from a pharmacy in a large retail store, and by mail, from Chicago.

“I happened to go with her a few times to pick up prescriptions at the store; I dunno why, but we’d be there two and a half, three, hours, waiting for the prescriptions to be filled; I don’t think it had anything to do with the quantity of the order, but just lousy ’customer service.’

“A great big huge store with about four employees working in it.

“The prescriptions that arrived by mail caused anxiety; would they get them in time, before their current inventory ran out?  And sometimes there were some pretty large shipping bills, for 'expedited' overnight service, as it was the last minute.

“Isn’t there a point where a person would ask, ‘hey, I’m putting a lot of money and time and trouble into this--what am I doing, that I have to deal with all this?’”

- - - - - - - - -

The business partner let me ramble on for much further; after all, he’s subjected me to hours’-long monologues about his own woes, which years ago included a messy divorce from his wife.  She’d cuckolded him, but for some reason--women’s-libber “logic,” one supposes--felt entitled to half of his property, which of course she never got.

It’s been years, but it still burns, and so he still talks about it.

- - - - - - - - -

After a while, we shifted subjects, the business partner asking me what I was doing tonight.

I told him I was attending another “stress-relieving session.”

“What kind of session?  Where?”

“Oh, just a session to dissipate some negative energy, some stress and tension.”

“I’m wondering how this all came about,” he commented.  “It was, like, really sudden.

“You’ve known your friend Romeo for years; he’s been over to your place constantly after work, for a few beers, but you never paid attention to him until, oh, about a month ago.  And now you’re hanging with him all the time.”

“During idle cursory chitchat with him one day, I let out that I was overburdened with stress and tension, wearing down, wearing out,” I explained.

“Concerned, he suggested he could help me with that.

“Now,” I continued, “you and I both know Romeo’s reputation, and that he’s hardly the best person from whom to seek advice and counsel. 

“However, being an open-minded person, I’m always open to suggestions, no matter their source.

“And besides, what harm would it do?--I’m sure I’m smarter than him, and if something went awry, I could control the situation.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“The problem with your friend Romeo,” the business partner said, “is that he was born too good-looking for his own good--and we all know that no matter what they say, women in fact are seduced by looks, not by character.

“And he’s a good talker, and women love smooth talkers, fall for them in a second.

“Which all of course gives him an inflated sense of himself.

“It’s too bad, because if life had given him a little less good looks, a little less gift of gab, he would’ve turned out okay.”

Right, I said; “women really need to be more like men, and use some judgement in selecting their partners.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Coming from a medical family, they all knew better,” I said as the business partner and I were driving back.

“They all knew that drugs should be used with care and caution, and preferably not at all, if possible.

“But…..they’d been hippies during the glorious Age of Aquarius; science had all the answers.

“It was like, ‘I can do whatever I want to do, and if anything bad happens, the doctor and pills’ll take care of it.’

“’I don’t have to do anything myself, other than sit back and let medical science do all the work.’

“That, rather than the great big chasm in our ages or their hippieism and Democrat politics, was the greatest source of conflict between us, which is why, when I was 19, I generally severed all connections other than the annual Christmas card.”

- - - - - - - - - -

As we pulled up to the house, the business partner said, “Well, nothing’s going to stop you, but be careful tonight; you may be getting into something you’ll later decide you didn’t want to.”

Referring to an, uh, incident of about three years ago, when I’d become a reluctant celebrity in the area, he said, “You know, people think you have balls because you stared a man in the eyes, stared him down so he panicked and ran away, who had a loaded sawed-off shotgun pointed at your chest.

“When I saw that film, I agreed the expression on your face was something like, ‘oh now, go away, don’t be silly, don’t bother me with this nonsense,’ but now I’m thinking something else.

“You were acting the way you did only because you had no idea what a shotgun blast would do.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

About suppertime, I drove out to Romeo’s place, over on the other side of the county.

As has been the custom since the days of the Old Frontier, ranch-hands in addition to good-sized paychecks (but one shouldn’t envy them; it’s hard work and 100-hour weeks aren’t uncommon) are provided lodgings, ranging from ancient single-wide trailer-homes up to 2500-square-foot brick manses.

“Housing” is a matter of negotiation between the ranch-hand and the cattle baron.

Romeo’s place was an older modular home sitting out in the middle of nowhere.

Hmmm, I thought; if only he worked for dutch508 on the other side of the Sandhills.  dutch508 is known to be a generous employer.  If Romeo worked for dutch508, probably he’d live in a nine-room faux Tudor cottage with state-of-the-art appliances and three-car garage.

No one was around, and as the skies looked threatening, I went ahead and walked inside.

- - - - - - - - - -

It was obvious the interior had been significantly tampered with, walls taken down, as it was only three rooms in a space one usually puts six or seven.  The kitchen, dining room, and living room were all one big open space, then there was the bathroom, and at the end the bedroom.

The “big room,” the living-room, was ceilinged with tiles of mirrors, and from there hung an oversized globe, also consisting of tiled mirrors; it was obviously one of those lighting-fixtures popular in discotheques during the 1970s.

There was a music system, but I wouldn’t know enough to figure it out.  A computer with internet access.  And cable television with stacks of compact-discs of dirty movies scattered around it.  Large velvet “paintings” of various wildlife hung on the walls.

The bathroom, oddly, included a bidet.

The bedroom had a king-sized bed and floor-to-ceiling mirrors on the walls.

As I flicked on the lights, I noticed there was nothing such as a “normal” light, even in the bathroom; the interior was lighted wholly by color, sparkles, and glitter.

Romeo was at least a competent housekeeper, though; the whole place was reasonably neat--the definition of “neat” being the man definition, not the woman definition--the only blemish being a few dirty dishes in the kitchen sink.

I was still looking around when the door opened, and Romeo and two women walked in.

Both women were maybe about 30, one a dark blonde and the other a light blonde, and I was gratified to note that they were both appropriately-proportioned in jugs.

“Well, what do you think of my sex palace?” he proudly asked.

to be continued

[franksolich]

Because it was going to be a short night--all four of us had to be at work, wherever we worked, in the morning--and because it’d been forty-eight hours since I’d last popped, dissipating stress and tension--we got right down to business.

I had the light blond, which was peculiar, given that when with blondes, I prefer dark blondes, and the four of us sat on the superlong couch.  Romeo and his woman nuzzled and kissed, not yet getting undressed.  The light blond began undoing my clothes, but being pretty slow about it, I stripped them off myself, after which I opened her up.

The other three were drinking beer and smoking dope, while I simply vacuumed the jugs of my partner.

When Romeo and the dark blonde began undoing each other, I suggested to the light blonde that we go into the bedroom, for more privacy.

I wasn’t sure what one does on a bed of such vast acreage; the bed here is a single-wide, usually meant for one person, but I’ve never had problems hopping around using it.

- - - - - - - - - -

While we were sucking face, she commented, “I’d like to do it.”

I said no, I wouldn’t like to do it.

“Do you think it’s dirty?” she asked.

I said no, but I just didn’t like to do it, unless I was in a hurry.

“But Romeo likes it when we do it,” she said.

“Well, Romeo can endure it better than I can,” I said; “if we do it, I’ll pop in two minutes, and then being spent, I’m no good for a while.

“I’d just as soon poke, because doing that, I can hold it in longer.”

- - - - - - - - - -

She reached over into the drawer of the bedside table, pulling out a handful of plastic, rubber, foam, metallic, and cloth gadgets and toys.

“No,” I said, shuddering.  “We don’t know who’s used them, where they’ve been stuck.

“However, I know where these fingers”--raising a hand and spreading the fingers apart--”have been, and so it’s safe.”

I put them in her down there, twiddling, but only for a short time, as Romeo and the dark blonde came into the bedroom.  Romeo had a “need” to do it with two women, and so I graciously handed mine over and sat on the bed legs crossed, smoking a cigarette, and watching the two women doing it with Romeo.

Unlike me, Romeo doesn’t pop right away when doing it, even with two women vacuuming his part.

After he was sated, Romeo and the dark blonde went back out into the living room, to do only God knows what, while I got busy poking the light blonde, which I did until about 1:00 a.m., when it was time for everybody to leave.

- - - - - - - - - -

The next morning, the property caretaker asked, “How do you do it?

“How do you do it, having sex with other people watching?  Doesn’t it make you nervous, having an audience?  I know my wife and I couldn’t do it, no way at all.  Not in front of other people.”

“That’s because you were born and raised over in Iowa,” I said, “with all its hang-ups.

“Romeo and I were raised in the Sandhills, where people are more glasnost about things, more open and transparent.

“Besides, it’s convenient.  After we’re done, Romeo gives me a professional critique of my performance, suggesting ways and means of improving it.”

Then I thought of something else.

“Are you going to be around here Friday?” as if I had something for him to do.

No, he said; “the wife and I are going to visit family in Iowa, going on Thursday and coming back Sunday.”

Whoa-ho, I thought gleefully to myself.

to be continued

[franksolich]

“I’m all for inhibitions, madam; the more, the better.”

I was talking with the neighbor’s wife, when she’d dropped by here with the wife of the retired caretaker, who’s having a big garage sale next week, during the county fair.

“I think it’s a very good idea to be inhibited; inhibitions keep a society stable and civil.

“For example, it’s a good thing many of us are inhibited about stealing someone else’s money, or harming a child, or being unkind to an animal, or violating someone’s trust.

“I wish more people were inhibited like that.

“Of course, that’d mean Democrats, liberals, and primitives would become extinct.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“There’s a time and a place for inhibitions,” I went on; “for example, I was rather discreet as a child.

“I was a parent’s worst nightmare, a defective kid with no sense of guile, easily manipulated by others and they being medical professionals, understood better than most, the perils and hazards that posed for me.

“From before I could remember, I was carefully tutored in not presenting myself as a possible target for people with deviant or depraved tastes, or worse.

“I was taught well, too; much to my astonishment, when at a meeting once with twenty-seven deaf people, I learned I was the only one in the crowd who’d never been abused or molested, not even simply ‘inappropriately touched.’

“Nobody laid hands on me unless I knew them, and wanted them to.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“I suppose,” I went on, “I was growing up a prude, despite all the summertime skinny-dipping in the rivers with friends, and the boys’ locker rooms in high school--well, take BainsBane’s notion of what men’s locker rooms are like, multiply her clutched pearls by ten, and you know how it was, crude and coarse.

“I never felt embarrassed about my body--being from a medical family, such is impossible--other than the absence of ears--of course that’s always covered up by my hair--but assumed there was a time and place--such as when taking a bath--for being naked, and that such times and places were rare.

“That all changed when I went away to college, but never mind.”

- - - - - - - - -

The wife of the retired property caretaker, who’d been collecting the dirty laundry for cleaning, came into the dining room, and commented, “You know, I’m not sure what to do about hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer’s white cotton drawers.

“There’s no woman around here with a 56” waistline; they must be fatter down in Oklahoma or something.”

Mrs. Alfred Packer’s underwear had been abandoned here during the precipitous flight of the Packer clan over Memorial Day, after hippyhubby Wild Bill had sworn he’d been infected by ‘the Jesus germ’; they’d all left in such a haste they left everything behind them, their camping gear, the prized cadaver carvers, cookware, &c., &c., &c., including two pairs of hippywife’s freshly laundered underdrawers.

As they obviously weren’t ever coming back for their stuff, I’d collected all of it and given it to the wife of the retired property caretaker, to sell during her garage sale.

“Maybe,” I suggested, “you could sell them on eBay.

“And they’d probably sell better with a catchy title, such as ‘hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer’s white cotton underdrawers.’’

to be continued

[franksolich]

“After he went psychotic on me ten years ago, I ceased all contact with him; if communication were needed about something, I went through his wife instead.

“It wasn’t the first time he’d done it, and what I don’t understand is why ‘anti’-psychotic drugs actually seem to make one more psychotic.

“There’s something about me, even mere mention of my name, that sets him off something violent.

“It’s really bad; that’s why I stopped seeing him even after he became senile and weak.

“And I have no idea why.  He being so much older than me, being in college by the time I entered kindergarten, we were never close.  In fact, probably the only thing we had in common was that we both came from the same two bodies.

“I’m much too young to have done him any harm.”

The business partner and I were on our way out to the wilderness, to do some business.

“It had started with just one single drug for hypertension thirty years before, when I was still a kid.

“As time went on--remember, I’m talking decades here, so it was slow--he was having to take another drug for this thing or that thing, until he was ultimately up to 67 pills a day.

“The same had happened with his wife, starting out with one single drug for premature arthritis.

“I’m no scientist, but I’m sure that drugs, especially in several varieties, cause all sorts of chain-reactions, that become uncontrollable, zip-zapping all over the place.

“The worst appear to be mood-altering pharmaceuticals; they really mess people up.

“I’ve noticed that people who take something simple, such as insulin for diabetes, ultimately end up on a whole lot more different drugs.

“Given my family history, I’m ‘high risk’ for a plethora of afflictions and ailments, but while those things laid low everybody else, thus far it’s pleased God that I’ve never been detected with them.  The afflictions and ailments I have, are wholly different from what they ever had--but to be honest, I’d sooner deal with, for example, bleeding ulcers than with diabetes.

“I suspect I never got the same things they did because by not doing drugs, those things haven’t been ’triggered.’  Genetically, they’re probably there, but latent, and I hope to God they stay that way.”

- - - - - - - - - -

After more rambling, I talked of happier things.

“Well, only a few more days until Saturday, when Big Mo and her crowd, and the carnies, come.

“It’s going to be a great lot of fun.”

Then I thought of something else.

“I’m going to be busy Friday night,” I said; “I hope you don’t have any plans to come out.”

“I do,” he replied; “I’m planning on coming out to join the fun.”

I reeled back in horror.

“Just kidding,” he said; “you know I don’t want to have anything to do with your friend Romeo.”

I reeled again; how is it possible for hearing people to know what’s going on without being told?

“But I’ll be there on Saturday when everybody shows up and the circus gets underway.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

The wife of the retired banker came out this morning, bringing along her younger sister, who lives in Lincoln and is also an avid gardener, and the too-nosy 11-year-old grandson, who was hoping the wind would blow my hair askew, so he could see what someone without ears looks like.

They wished to collect a few small plastic trash-bags of the William Rivers Pitt, for the sister to take home and use in her garden.  I directed them to the currently most-promising spot, a hole on the side where swine excrement from the time of William Howard Taft lay exposed.

“It’s too bad there’s no way you can have all of this bagged up and sold,” the wife of the retired banker said.  “It’s first-class fertilizer.

“Hippies in Vermont and Oregon would go ga-ga over it, it’s so organically pure.  And antique.”

I agreed that 740 cubic tons of vintage pig droppings 1875-1950 could make some bucks if packaged and marketed as vintage manure, but it would be a lot of trouble.  “I think that after the next elections, either this year or 2016, when happy days are here again, the owner of this land’s finally going to sub-divide it for construction of river-side homes, and the William Rivers Pitt’ll be leveled, used as fill-in for low spots on the ground.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“It’s remarkable, how thick and lush the tomato plants grow on it,” the sister said.

Ostensibly they’re “heirloom” tomatoes, I told her; “nobody ever planted them here.

“In those days, again, circa 1875-1950, pigs were oftentimes fed table-scraps and unneeded garden produce, and this place had many years of bountiful gardens, which included vast surpluses of tomatoes.

“Usually the tomato seeds passed through the digestive system of the pigs intact, and so that’s the source of these tomatoes, that still regenerate themselves every year.”

“They look good,” the sister said to the wife of the retired banker.  “Are they?”

“They’re very good,” she was told; “people come out here to pick them all the time, during season.”

“So you never run out of tomatoes,” the sister said to me.

Uh, no, I said; “considering they originally passed through pigs, when I want tomatoes, I buy them at the grocery store in town, which are probably safer.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

Feeling guilty because I hadn’t been giving the carnies any attention, I drove through the Italianate tract next to this, to their camp-site by the river.

There’s only four carnies there right now, laid off up in South Dakota for a lack of business.  As there was nothing for them to do, Louie, the owner, had sent them down here to wait for this county fair, which starts next week, and usually brings in a good gate.

Italianate Jesus is apparently one of the “supervisors,” with the other three--hippyhubby Wild Bill’s brother with both eyes on the same side of his nose, a heavy-set heavily mascara’ed tattooed woman, and an old guy with white hair standing straight up and with a perpetually running nose--just being ordinary employees.

The camp was, for now, set up with their old trailer and a couple of pup-tents.

I wasn’t sure where they were getting their water--probably from the river, boiling it on the campfire--but did notice they had sanitary facilities; a folding camp-stool with a plastic bag hanging underneath.

There weren’t enough chairs, so I just sat cross-legged on the ground as we talked.

Italianate Jesus illuminated me that Louie had taken a hit, after the freak show quit on him near the end of the summer last year.  “That freak show was a great draw, and without it, we’re just an ordinary run-of-the-mill carnival, nothing special.

“The hyper-mammaried woman pulled them in to gape and gaze, and the beach-ball with toothpicks for arms and legs did almost as well.

“Since then, all I’ve known is that Ebony, the fat white woman, and Ivory, the fat black woman, are now riding off into the sunset on the disability gravy train, getting more money than what the rest of us make working.

“They could’ve remained contributing members of society, if they’d stayed with us and worked.”

Yeah, said the handkerchiefless carnie with the running nose, as he wiped under his nose and then licked it off.  “Some people get all the breaks when it comes to government hand-outs, especially if you‘re a woman, and fat.”

I asked how they were doing, like in the food and money departments.

“We go to [the big city] every day,” Italianate Jesus said; “to visit the food pantries and hustle up some gas money.  We do okay.  And Gerta here”--pointing to the heavy-set heavily mascara’d tattooed woman who chain-smokes cigarettes faster than I do--”turns a trick or two for an extra ten, twenty, bucks.”

I looked at Gerta.  “She can get ’clients’?”

Gerta heard me, and snorted.  “You’d be surprised, honey, at some of the tastes men have.”

- - - - - - - - - -

After subtly ascertaining the carnies hadn’t been to where they’d camped last year, and discovered that site set up for Big Mo’s crowd, I was reminded of something else.

“Hey, you know you can come to me any time you want, if you need something; I’m always happy to help.

“But I’m going to be busy Friday night, so I’d appreciate it if you had all your needs and wants in before then.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

It was really hot and humid Tuesday afternoon, and I was thinking of taking a dip in the river when most conveniently, an automobile pulled up into the front yard.  They were three women from the big city, one with whom I used to work, but I didn’t know the other two.

All of them about 40-45 years old, somewhat chunky, and with big ones.

They wanted to swim too, but found the pools in the big city too congested.

I said yeah, sure, fine, let’s go, and so we went, driving from the house down to the river in the open jeep they’d ridden from the big city.

They all took off their outer garb, revealing two-piece swimming suits underneath, and also big stretch-marks.  But as the stretch-marks were because they’d borne infants, these gallant eyes saw none of that, only smooth, soft, uninterrupted skin. 

These gallant eyes also subtracted about forty pounds from each of them, making them very aesthetic indeed, excepting for their big ones, which one, no matter how gallant, couldn’t “erase.”

However, there wasn’t going to be any sex here, not even touching, as two of them have husbands and the third a boyfriend, any of which could beat me into a pulp if his woman were used by anybody but him.

- - - - - - - - - -

I stripped, and started walking into the water.

“Hey, wait, where’s your swimming suit?” one of them hollered at me.

Turning around, I said, “Swimming trunks are for wimps and queers.  Real men don’t need trunks.”

This was nothing they’d expected, anticipating only regular swimming.

They laughed, and walked into the water themselves.  We all got good and wet, and sooner or later all four of us were laying in the sand, all three women with their tops, but not their bottoms, off, betraying what ponderous weight those things surely must be.

“You’ve got to be the most self-assured man I’ve ever seen, when naked,” one of them said.

I lit a cigarette, gazing at a distance, after which I told them why.

- - - - - - - - - -

In late afternoon, because it was still bright and hot, we decided we’d go back up to the house and grill some hamburgers for a  quick, light pre-supper.  They all grabbed their tops, but didn’t put them back on; I left my clothes in the sand.

I drove, because it’s an open jeep, and I hadn’t driven one of those for a long time.

But perhaps a little meanly, I wanted to jiggle their jugs a bit, to see them flap around, and instead of going across the meadow directly back to the house, I took some of the rougher parts of the terrain, over which we jostled and bounced.

(Yes, we had seatbelts, and they were used; I won’t drive a motor vehicle without them in use.)

They “whee’ed” and squealed, and their jugs indeed did flop around.

How big-jugged women can stand that, I have no idea.

I parked the jeep in the back yard, and went to set up the grill for cooking.  The three topless women laid on towels on the ground, soaking up the sun, and rubbing lotion on each other.  Nothing should be inferred from this, but I noticed they caressed each other’s jugs even better than Romeo can.

Being women, they probably know the best places on women, while men have to guess

- - - - - - - - - -

“You really should put on an apron,” one of them said to me; “you might burn yourself.”

“Aprons are for wimps and queers,” I said; “real men don’t need aprons.”

“Besides,” another one said, “we like to see.  The whole thing.”

Already facing them, I put crossed my hands and covered myself in faux horror.

“But you’re not hard yet; don’t we turn you on?”

Actually, yes, they didn’t.  My gallant “mind-tricks” could evaporate the stretch marks and some of the pounds, but big jugs are pretty much indelible.  But I couldn’t say that, saying instead, “It’s too early yet,” without any idea of what it was “too early” for.

The women took their hamburgers before the food was fully cooked, and trooped up the steps to the table on the back porch, where they also dipped chips.  I took a while, so as to ensure my own hamburger was edible, and came up a couple of minutes later. 

- - - - - - - - - -

Now, the three of them had promised to be “ears” for me, to let me know if they heard someone coming, but they all had fallen down on the job, because at that same moment, out of the door from the kitchen came the property caretaker.

“Dude,” he said.

to be continued

[franksolich]

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” the neighbor said when he was here in mid-evening; “he’s used to you.

“It’s not anything he wants to get involved with, but you awe him, impress him.

“And besides, [the retired property caretaker] was catching you unawares all the time.”

There’s a difference, I insisted; “He was almost old enough to be my father, and given who he was, there wasn’t anything he hadn’t seen before anyway.  So it was no big deal.

“But [the current property caretaker]’s younger and I want him to think well of me, as a paragon of rectitude and propriety.

“You know, when BainsBane was here, I thought he might be a decadent bacchanalian, the way he stared at her jugs, and kept staring at them for the longest time.

“But it must’ve been just a temporary aberration, because when he took her ‘for a ride’ out into the country, while I assumed there was going to be some poking going on--and him a married man--nothing of that sort happened; he picked up your kids too, and took everybody out for a ride in the country.

“And alas for BainsBane, who had to wait until Romeo came along to woo her.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” the neighbor repeated; “he's awed by your brazen audacity, how you get away with so many things being so unlike anybody else around here.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“You’re pretty retarded,” the business partner said to me.

We were on our way to do some business in the bottom of the Sandhills, and he was driving.

Since I’m deaf, we have to use a “system” when it comes to driving, talking, and listening.  He can do all three at once; I can only drive and talk, or ride and “listen,” because I have to look at the person talking, instead of at the road.

When I need to “listen,” he drives.

- - - - - - - - - -

“I used to think a lot of stuff about you was uniquely you, your perceptions, attitudes, and conduct.

“But then a couple of years ago, my sister-in-law gave me an article, saying ‘that sounds like franksolich.’

“It turned out it’s not just you; it’s pretty much generally all deaf people, this ‘social retardation.’

“According to this article, it apparently happens because of the isolation and apartness; one doesn’t have the same experiences, or has them much later than hearing people, that encourage social maturity to evolve.”

Yeah, I said; “And it doesn‘t wound me to admit that I can be pretty juvenile at times; nobody‘s perfect.

“You have no idea how miserable that’s always made me,” I went on.  “For example, chronologically, [the neighbor’s older brother] and I are the same age, exactly the same age.  But I can’t ’relate’ to him, and the way he is, and the things with which he deals, because he’s had more things that age one, makes one older--experiences, responsibilities, wider exposure to the world and people.

“There might as well be a generation between us.

“I really belong with him, and others chronologically my age, but I’m instead with hanging around with people 10-15 years younger than myself.”

“Right,” the business partner said; “but at least your genetics are retarded too, because at least superficially, you look younger than you are, and so when you’re with us, you don’t look out of place.”

“That’s a silver lining, of course,” I said, “but it’s around a very big dark cloud.  I really want to be with my own, people my own chronological age, but it’s never going to happen; compared with them, I’m always destined to be everybody’s vulnerable, naïve, youngest brother.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“My sister-in-law also gave me a copy of an article about arrested development, again saying, ‘you know, that sounds exactly like franksolich.’

“That could be, but not necessarily because of deafness; some sort of traumatic event, or events, that causes one to ’freeze’ at a certain age.

“You’ve always struck people as having attitudes and conduct more suitable for, say, someone twenty-one years old, rather than your real age.  A twenty-one-year-old’s an adult, and can be responsible, diligent, reliable, trustworthy, and all that, but still one’s a pretty young adult, again with a streak of juvenility.

“I think you stopped growing, emotionally, at about that age, twenty-one. 

“That was right about the time all the troubles and pressures in your life were fading out, and you’d put up with a world of woes, the preceding four years--too much happened too soon, too fast, and you were too young. 

“Most people are given years, decades--and as fully-grown adults--to absorb and deal with similar crises, but you had all these things, big things, happening all at once.

“I remember that when we had supper with [a long-ago college roommate of mine], he commented that everybody had serious concerns that you weren’t going to make it.  And it didn’t help that you struggled to deal with them on your own, and you were having to deal with a lot.

“And so it’s as if, sometime around the age of twenty-one, you woke up one morning and said, ‘Okay, that’s it.  I’m tired, I’m exhausted, I’m drained, I’m worn out.  I don’t want to deal with growing up any more‘--and so you didn‘t.”

Admirable accuracy, I thought to myself; that’s not quite the way it happened, but it’s pretty close to the way it happened.

- - - - - - - - - -

“Apparently you’re pretty run-of-the-mill when it comes to deaf people,” he said, “another pea in the pods, nothing unusual, but then another time my sister-in-law gave me article about deaf people, and said ‘that doesn’t sound like franksolich…..at all.’

“It was about how deaf people can be such timid wimps, always afraid of other people and new things, afraid to take risks, afraid to assert themselves.

“And there you are, brimful of sheer audacity and an impressive skill at extricating yourself from unpleasant people and situations.”

“But don’t be so hard on them,” I reminded him.

“It’s true most deaf people are wimps, but it’s understandable, this being silent and unseen, especially if one’s always being thwacked on the head with a two-by-four because one wasn’t ‘paying attention’ or is ‘stupid’ or ‘disobeys’--when one has no idea what he was supposed to be paying attention to, or supposed to be learning, or supposed to be doing.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“As I said, we were never close, given the great chasm in our ages, but then the past ten, fifteen, years, when we were the last surviving two of a large family, he and his wife made attempts to draw me closer, but really, I didn’t want to have anything to do with them.

“By that time, there appeared to be serious cerebral damage done both of them, from side-effects of the ‘cocktails’ of pharmaceuticals they were taking.

“Medically-prescribed pharmaceuticals are no different than illicit drugs, or alcohol; they’re composed of chemicals that affect the brain, for better or for worse.

“I have no skills in dealing with brain-damaged people.”

The business partner and I were coming back, and this time I was doing the driving and talking, while he did the listening.

“They became fixated on an old old issue, going clear back to when I was a kid, and for some reason--I dunno the reason, don’t have the slightest idea--it was very important to them that they convert me to their point of view.

“My family was of mixed denominations, my father being an Episcoplian, and my mother a Roman Catholic, and all the children were raised Catholic.  From the time I was first aware of God and religion, I felt eminently comfortable what I’d been born, Catholic.

“The older brothers and sisters, descending in the abyss of hippiedom, of course rejected God and religion, instead alleging themselves adherents of science and logic.

“Science and logic is a good thing to have; I’m enthusiastic about science and logic,” I said as I lit another cigarette.

“However, reality is Infinite, while the human capacity to see and understand is finite.  What’s finite can’t comprehend the Infinite.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“None of the other brothers and sisters made as big a deal out of it as this brother and his wife did; they were, and even today in their corroded cerebral condition are still, belligerently hostile and intolerant of the slightest notion of God and religion.  They’re Nazis about it, like the SidDithers primitive on Skins‘s island; hard-core iron-clad cold-blooded Nazis.

“Again, I have no idea why ‘converting’ me to their nonsense was so important; they both put a lot of time and work into it, which of course considerably frayed our already-tenuous association.

“I’m talking years of being yelled at about it.

“The very last time we met in person, seven years ago, their cerebral cells already fossilized, when leaving, I said, “I’m rather appreciative of God, and all that God’s done for me, and given me.  **** this shit.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

Since I got back home late, I stopped at the bar in town to have a hamburger, extremely well done, pressed down hard on the grill so as to squeeze out every drop of grease, french fries cooked on the grill rather than in the fryer, and a side-dish of sour cream.

Wanda, the cook of Polish derivation whose specialty is Japanese cuisine, was cooking.  It was a slow night, so she had time to wait on me at the cash-register too.  As I paid, she pointed and commented, “I thought you should get done with your supper first before telling you, but anyway, that woman over there, at the end of the bar.  She’s been waiting for you.”

I looked, curious because I hadn’t expected to meet anybody here.  There was in fact a woman sitting at the end of the bar, maybe 30-35 years old, dark hair, slender, her pair about the sizes of grapefruits.

I went over and introduced myself.

“Romeo sent me,” she said; “he wants me to teach you something.”

I inwardly groaned; I didn’t want to deal with Romeo tonight.

“Oh no,” she said; “he’s on call tonight, and so has to sit at home and be available, in case he’s called.

“He told me to have you take me to your place, where I’m supposed to teach you something.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Since she was from the big city, and so obviously had her own motor vehicle, I suggested she follow me back here, so we wouldn’t have to come back to town to get it.  She also told me she had only a couple of hours, as she had to get up early in the morning.

When we arrived here, I turned on the lights in the living room and waited for her to give a clue about what we were supposed to be doing.  She took off everything but her panties, and sat down on the couch.

“I’m not in any condition to be poked,” she explained, “but it doesn’t matter, because what we’re going to do doesn’t involve poking.  Besides, I’m supposed to show you how to let a woman do it to you, not hop around in the sack, at least tonight.”

My face fell.  “But madam, I want to poke.  I need to poke.”

“No, Romeo says you have to learn this before Friday; he says I’m supposed to show you how to let me do it.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“I already know that stuff,” I protested; “I’ve had women do it to me.  Not often, but for years.”

She looked puzzled.  “But Romeo said you’ve never had a woman do it, that all you do is poke.”

It dawned on me.  “Romeo’s never seen me let a woman do it, that’s all.  He’s just never seen it happen, and so assume I haven’t ever let it happen, period.

“The problem with it, madam, is that while it’s okay, in fact a lot of fun, it causes me to pop too soon, and I’d rather go on for some time before I pop.

“I don’t like to pop, and then be no good for a while.  It’s a hassle, sitting around waiting to recharge.”

“Well, I‘m sure that on Friday night, there‘ll be plenty to do inbetweentimes,” she insisted.  “These woman from Omaha, I’ll bet they’re probably pretty imaginative, and can keep you entertained until you’re ready to let them do it to you again.

“Your friend Romeo’s already taken care of this--he really wants you to do well Friday night; he says you‘ve been under a lot of stress and tension lately--and so whether or not you’ve had a woman do it to you before, we might as get it done again.”

- - - - - - - - - -

She waved her fingers, motioning for me to come forward, which I did, standing in front of her.

She pulled my shorts off, and intimately handled and closely inspected what‘d been under there.

“You know,” I said, “besides the problem I have, another reason I’ve been hesitant about having a woman do this to me is because I’ve always had the impression most women don’t like to do it; they consider it humiliating.  And who can blame them?

“I mean, it’s not like having a slice of pizza.”

“I love to do it,” she said.

“I’ll bet Romeo has you do it all the time,” I speculated; “he likes having it done, and unlike me, it takes time before he pops.”

“Yes, he does like it,” she said, “but there’s a problem with your friend Romeo; while he wants to be pleasured, he doesn’t care the least about giving pleasure.  Women like BainsBane go ga-ga over him because he’s so big, hung like a horse.

“But that’s all there is to him.  He’s just a big dick, nothing else.”

She touched and probed and rubbed.  I squirmed.  “This is like a physical examination by a physician.”

“It’s my job,” she said, “like the unappellated eohippus on Skins’s island, I’ve inspected thousands.”

- - - - - - - - - -

She finally yanked my assembly.

“Well, as a bonus,“ she said, “you’re so much cleaner than most men.

“A tad bit larger than ‘average,’ but not so much as to be out of line.  It’s in perfect proportion to the rest of you.

“And so nice-looking, too; the surgeon who clipped you did a good job.

“I’m guessing you’re more arousing to women when you’re not aroused, than when you are; that you just casually walking around naked subtly electrifies them, turns them on.

“It’s too bad it’s been so underused, or so I’ve heard,” she added.  “Lost opportunities to make so many women happy.”

- - - - - - - - - - -

“Now, get up there,” she said, and I sat on the back of the couch against the wall, while she kneeled on the cushions.

Then she began stroking, and we both watched the expansion.

But alas she had barely gotten underway, as if she were having a popsicle, than I popped.

The suddenness seemed to shock her.  “Romeo takes forever.”

“But on the other hand, Romeo doesn’t last as long as I do, when it comes to poking,” I pointed out, needing to defend myself.

“Anyway.  I told you this would happen; it’s never not happened.  And now I’m no good for a while, until I’m recharged.  If we had all night, it’d be okay, but we don’t have all night.

“I tell you what, madam--both you and I’ll tell Romeo I had the lesson, I let a woman do it to me, and I’m sure I can bluff my way through Friday night.  I had a long day today, and you probably did too.

“Let’s just go out to the back porch for a while, have a drink and a cigarette, and then call it a night.”

Which we did, but she also let me lay on top of me so that we could suck face and I could grope and paw her upper pair, at the same time holding her body tightly against mine, but not going in.

- - - - - - - - - -

In the morning, I arose about 5:00 a.m. and went into the kitchen to make coffee.  While standing there, I glanced through the doorway to the dining room, seeing the property caretaker sitting at the table, so no point in taking trouble to put anything on.  He was writing a note.

“Dude,” he said, as I walked in.

He and his wife were leaving about mid-morning to visit family in Iowa, and he was writing a list of things I had to do while they’re gone; they’ll be back Sunday evening.

I looked at the list.  “Geezuz,” I said; “do you need another ream of paper to write on?”

“Well, I forgot to write down the most important reminder.  Big Mo’s she-women are coming on Saturday, so be careful; you know that they always believe the woman, even when she’s making it all up.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I said, as the business partner and I were driving through the Sandhills.  We’d gotten done doing business, and were headed back here, myself driving.

The trailer we were hauling had been loaded on our way there, and so the business partner had to do the first half of the driving, as while I have no problems pulling an empty trailer, or a trailer filled with inanimate objects, I won’t pull a trailer with live beings on it.

“It’s like when before I was born, God say, ‘Okay now, I’m going to give you a good body.

“’But because I don’t mean to give you any more than what I give everybody else, I’ll deny you ears.’

“Men who are bald, or short-statured, or rotund, got nothing to complain about; at least they have the chances to acquire social skills, to get along with other people.”

- - - - - - - - - -

We stopped by the side of the road to have cigarettes; the pick-up truck we were using is for re-sale, and so best not to odorize its interior.

“Does your friend Romeo know Big Mo and her girls are coming?” the business partner asked.

No, I said; “I haven’t told him yet.  All I’ve told him is about the carnies coming.

“I’m holding off as long as possible, because I don’t want to give him any ideas.  You know that despite they’re primitives, with that many women, the odds are that at least one of them might appeal to him.

“And being primitives, attracted to superficial things, all of them are likely to get turned on by his winsome blond good looks, his gift of gab, and ultimately, his equipage.

“The last thing I need to deal with is a horde of screeching she-women all hot and excited.”

“Actually,” the business partner said, “I think you should let him know about them.”

- - - - - - - - - -

When we got back to town, we paid a courtesy call upon the retired property caretaker’s wife; he’s still undergoing physical therapy down in Lincoln, and she’s been alone.  However, she’s been busy, getting ready for a big garage sale the week of the county fair (next week).

“I looked up these cadaver carvers on the internet, to see what they might bring,” she said, “and I’m coming up blank, because apparently they’re considered medical, not general-use, implements.

“The blades are Sheffield steel, the best steel there is.

“And oh my, they’re so big and heavy.  I can barely lift them, much less use them.”

Ah yes, the cadaver carvers.  hippyhubby Wild Bill had years ago gotten them from an auction of surplus governmental property from a county coroner’s office down in northeastern Oklahoma, but then abandoned them, and much more, when he was up here over Memorial Day.

“Price them high,” I suggested; “they’d be handy for someone wanting to butcher a bison.”

I inquired what she was going to do about hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer’s white cotton underdrawers, with their 56” waistline.

“I suppose I’ll put them out for the sale, rather than on eBay,” she said; “they won’t fit anyone from around here, but there’ll be lots of people from outside this area, that they might fit.”

- - - - - - - - - -

We came back here, but on the way took the long way around, so as to check over the camp-site by the river, all set up for Big Mo & Co., to be sure the miniature Swiss Alpine chalet with the Clivis Multrum, the miniature Dutch windmill with the water-pump inside, and the miniature Missouri River houseboat, covered with chicken-wire fencing, hadn’t been messed with by anybody.

I started when I looked at the lilliputian houseboat.

It was full of chickens; there was no sign of it, but obviously Big Mo had arrived, from Illinois.  Early.

to be continued

[franksolich]

I was in the big city, picking up a check, after which I stopped in at a gasoline station.

I noticed a woman was staring at me, but ignored her, as I had no idea who she’d be; after all, there’s lots of times people stare at me for no decipherable reason, but as no harm comes of it, I don‘t worry about it.

Just as I was getting ready to walk out, she approached me, tapping me on the elbow.

Now, sometimes people, when wishing my attention, do that--there’s nothing wrong with it; it’s entirely appropriate--but the way it was done, I suddenly sensed this was someone who knows me.

“Hello, franksolich,” she said; “it’s good to see you again.”

I looked at her.  She was middle-aged, stout, with wrinkles and significant skin blemishes, and her hair was beginning to grey.

However, because of fond associations with the past, my gallant eyes didn’t see any of that; they saw only a nubile young woman fresh and soft, and I wanted to have her again.

“You haven’t changed hardly at all,” she insisted.

Now, I couldn’t lie and say the same, so instead I uttered, with sincere effervescence, “Damn…..it’s s-o-o-o-o good to see you, madam.  It’s been so long, too long.  It’s wonderful to see you.”

After which we embraced and hugged, something I do, well, maybe, once or twice every three or four years.

I’d known her in college, but lost track of her when I took off for the socialist paradises of the workers and peasants during the early 1990s…..without remembering to save my Christmas card list with names and addresses.

We quickly got caught up; I told her, briefly, all that had transpired with me.  Her fate however had not been as happy as mine.  She’d become a desk-sitting governmental bureaucrat after graduation from college thirty years ago, with the resultant decadence and decay that happens when one’s overpaid and underworked, and in too easy, too secure, of a job.

It was all very sad.

However, because of fond associations with the past, my gallant eyes didn’t see any of that; they saw only a nubile young woman fresh and soft, and I wanted to have her again.

- - - - - - - - - -

I always counted my “first time” as happening in a dusty room of an attic when I was a sullen insolent 19-year-old.  The lighted digital clock on the table said “2247” when I’d gone in, and “2302” when I’d left.  But if the “first time” means complete hopping around in the sack, she’d been it, some months afterwards.

We went to the coffee shoppe next door, to sit and talk a bit.

“You know, that was all set up on purpose,” she commented.

Sure, I said; “I always suspected it, and wondered why so many people went through so much trouble to do it.  Originally, I thought it was a prank, so I’d do something stupid or ridiculous, and everybody could make fun of me, but later it dawned on me it might’ve been for some other reason, either silly or serious, but not that reason.”

“Everybody was concerned for you,” she said; “there were so many things happening, pulling you down.  Everybody had you on ‘suicide watch’ the entire four years.”

Nonsense, I said; “I had no intention of doing such a thing.”

“But we weren’t sure,” she continued; “you were under ungodly stress and tension, and we didn’t know how a person could possibly take all of it, and were sure you’d have to snap.  It hardly assured us that you wouldn’t talk about anything that was happening--”

“There wasn’t anything to talk about,” I interrupted; “they were my problems, my pressures, and they needed dealt with.  By me; I wasn‘t articulate enough to talk about things at that age.

“And like good luck, bad luck sooner or later ends; I got over all of it.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“You know we had an audience,” she said. 

Uh huh, I said, “Based upon later comments by others, I was sure they’d all been sitting right outside the door, listening.

“Life’s unfair, the way hearing people can do that, but deaf people can’t.”

“They”--she referring to my six roommates and a couple of other people--”were doing more than just listening; they were actually seeing, too.

“Right in front of you; most of them were watching through the window, but you didn’t see them because there wasn’t anything to prompt you to look out the window.  You were concentrated on something else.”

She laughed.  “You treated me as if I were delicate, fragile, and that if you touched me too hard, I’d shatter.  I surely hope you’ve since learned that women aren’t as breakable as you used to think we were.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

Around suppertime, I thought I saw something going on down by the river, and peered through the telescope to check.  There’s a high-school telescope that’s mounted on a railing of the back porch, put there years ago by the now-retired property caretaker, who thought I should keep better tabs on my company; it’s about 500 yards from here to there.

It was a woman, but I couldn’t tell much else.  She was walking from a car to the lilliputian houseboat, where the chickens were stored.

Reasonably assuming it might be Big Mo, I got into a truck and drove over there.

She was a taller middle-aged woman, with closely-shorn near-white hair and considerable body-tattoos, and from the way her fat was, obviously afflicted with dropsy, from too many pharmaceutical drugs.

She smiled upon seeing me, and I smiled back, jumping out of the truck.

After introductions, she told me she’d come early so as to get set up for the rest of the anti-men she-women primitives coming here.  And besides, she was going nuts in Chicago; she had to get away.

We indulged in some idle chitchattery, during which time she inquired about the best pharmacy in the big city, and illuminated me as to their plans.

 

- - - - - - - - - -

When it was time for me to leave, I got into the truck and drove six miles up the road to see the neighbor’s wife, who’s handy for venting.

“Damn, damn, damn,” I said; “all that work, and for nothing.

“Originally, they all were going to camp out there, but now the plans are that they’re just going to use this place to park Big Mo’s chickens and hang around the Great Outdoors during the day…..and then at night, they’ll all head to [the big city] to stay in the three-star luxury hotel there.

“I feel s-o-o-o-o-o used.

“It was Ms. Vanderbilt-Astor, the NJCher primitive, who convinced them to change their plans; she told Skippy and Wills that this place is infested with snakes, and they being who they are, got all worried and afraid.

“And then the great-aunt from Chicago reminded everybody that franksolich lives out here ‘somewhere,’ and the rest of them got scared.  They wanted to spend nights where they can be ‘secure.’

“Damn, damn, damn,” I repeated; all that work, and for nothing.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Still indignantly flapping my arms, I got back into the truck and drove to town, where I met the business partner for supper.

“You know, my place is a popular place to camp,” I told him, after ranting.  “I could’ve given that spot to someone else who’d appreciate the opportunity.”

Or to the carnies, the business partner reminded me.  “I told you so; you have to quit trying to please people who aren’t going to like you anyway no matter what you do, and please people who’re grateful.”

“Damn,” I repeated.

“Well, you’ll still have them during the day,” he reminded me, “and I have no doubt they can compress twenty-four hours of miser--er, amusement, for you, down into twelve hours, no problem.”

Now, the business partner’s never been enthusiastic about any of the campers here, and so usually doesn’t get involved, and it surprised me when he made a suggestion.

“Their concern about snakes--despite that you’ve never seen any--is understandable, and yes, we don’t want that to complicate their enjoyment here.  But their concern about franksolich is silly, preposterous.

“The primitives have no idea what franksolich is like, not the slightest clue.

“How about while they’re here, you just be you, and I’ll be franksolich?”

to be continued

[franksolich]

Darkness had already fallen, but I hadn’t gone to bed yet, when Romeo came by.  He was on-call for the night again, and had come out this way to check on something.

And, forlornly, to tell me something.

“The women from Omaha, they called and had to postpone.  They can’t come tomorrow night.”

I fumed.  First, the rejection of my hospitality by Big Mo & Co., and now, this.

“It’s not all bad,” he assured me.  “They’re coming here next Friday night; I’m supposed to go down there and get them, bring them back here.”

“Next Friday night,” I said, between clenched teeth, “the whole entire northeastern corner of the state’ll be right here, just five miles away.  We’re going to get no privacy; we might as well have the party in the middle of Times Square on New Year‘s Eve.”

I knew the women weren’t playing a game, with plans of dropping the idea.  No woman’s ever been known to say “no” to Romeo, and so there was probably a legitimate reason they couldn’t come tomorrow night.

Since he probably hadn’t had supper, I suggested to Romeo that he explore the refrigerator for something to eat.  He did, and came out with a handful of strip filet steaks, and fired up the barbeque grill.  I’d eaten earlier in the evening, but went inside to look myself, coming out with an already-cooked dried-out hamburger that had been in there, and tossed that on the grill to cook some more.

As we waited, sitting on the back porch, Romeo having a beer, he said, “And they’re giving us a bonus, for having to put it off.  A friend of theirs is coming up too.”

Uh, problem, I said.  “We’re just two guys, and I’m not about to let a third one get in on these sessions.

“Maybe you can handle two women at the same time, but I’m equipped to handle only one.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“It’ll work out,” he said.  “I also got more information about them.  I know you prefer Hebraic women, and thought one of these might be of Italianate derivation, which she is, although she at least looks Jewish.

“The second’s of Greek derivation, but at least she looks Jewish.

“I’ve been told the third one, who I haven’t seen, is also tall, slender, dark brown hair, pale skin, long fingers, reasonable jugs, and a slightly-larger-than-normal nose, so she apparently also looks Jewish--but she’s of the Argentine persuasion.”

“I’ll judge them when I see them,” I said.

- - - - - - - - - -

Romeo commented that I seemed “out of sorts.”

Yeah, I’m sorry, I said; “My hospitality’s been rejected by the primitive she-women.  They’ll be around, but they’re not going to camp here.  Apparently the accommodations aren’t nice enough.”

Romeo looked at me as if I were Bozo from Outer Space.

I suddenly remembered; while I’d told him about the carnies coming, I hadn’t told him about Big Mo & Co., for fear that he’d try to pick one of them up, causing all sorts of problems for me.

Well, that didn’t matter any more.  As far as I was concerned, Attila the Hun was welcome now.

And so I explained Big Mo & Co. to him.

“Whoa,” he replied; “all those women.”

“Primitive she-women though,” I reminded him.

“Oh, but with that number, at least one of them’s probably worth bedding,” he said.

“Anti-men primitive she-women,” I added.

“Oh, but after I get done with her, whichever one it is, she’ll be pro-man.  For sure.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

After Romeo left, it was about midnight, and so way past time to hit the sack, but before I could, a flashlight appeared in the darkness, approaching me on the back porch.

It was hippyhubby Wild Bill’s brother, the one born with both eyes on the same side of his nose; one of the four carnies camping about a mile south of this house, waiting for the carnival to get down here from South Dakota and set up for next week’s county fair.

He said if it wasn’t too much trouble, he wanted to visit.  I said no, no trouble at all, and directed him into the garage to the three ancient refrigerators kept there, stocked with beer.

As the grill was still burning, I also suggested he check the refrigerator in the kitchen, for anything he’d like to cook.  And so he brought out a half-pound steak and slapped it on there.

These were perhaps the real reasons he’d come; food pantries don’t give out beer, and food pantry food can get monotonous.  A self-centered motive perhaps, but one couldn’t blame him, as the life of carnies isn’t exactly a bed of roses.

He said the four already here were doing fine, given their circumstances.  Because business had been slow up in South Dakota, Louie, the owner of the carnival had laid off four of them--the four now here--telling them to come back on board when the enterprise reached this county fair, which always does well.

They were still going to the big city every day, to visit free food places and cadge up gasoline money.

Their problem was with the heavy-set heavily-mascara’ed tattooed woman, who chain-smoked cigarettes, and even though cigarettes are cheaper (although not by much) in Nebraska than in the states surrounding, keeping her supplied with them was straining the budget pretty badly.

- - - - - - - - - -

I asked him about news from northeastern Oklahoma; he had none, and so instead elaborated on all that he’d told me earlier; what’d happened after the precipitous flight of hippywife Mrs. Alfred Packer and hippyhubby Wild Bill over Memorial Day.

“Wild Bill’s convinced he was baptized, getting the ‘Jesus germ,’ and’s been worse than ever.”

I pointed out he hadn’t been baptized; he’d simply fallen into the water near to where Lamond was baptizing other people.  That bolt of lightning that had occurred when I raised my hand towards the sky, startling him so he fell off the boat, had been a nice coincidence, but only a coincidence.

“That’s true,” the brother said, “but he believes he got baptized.

“Once we got back, he started taking laxatives, cathartics, emetics, and other purgatives, so as to expel it, this ‘Jesus germ,' but this far, the only result’s been his chronically upset stomach and sore rectal aperture.

“He’s been a monster, beating hippywife two or three times a day, besides hitting any of his brothers who happen to be in reach.  He’s really easy to set off.  Wild Bill’s no happy man.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Well, that was terrible,” the neighbor’s wife said; “all those people watching you.”

By the way, the neighbor’s wife has never seen franksolich less than appropriately attired.

I suppose most would take it that way, I replied; “but given the time and place and people, it wasn’t a big deal, being watched in flagrante delicto.  Initially of course there was shock, and then embarrassment, but those wore off quickly.  Everybody does sex, even if they’re not being watched; being caught in the act doesn't make it any more 'bad' than not being caught in the act.

“But really, again, given the time and place and people, it wasn’t a big deal.”

- - - - - - - - - -

The neighbor’s wife’s known the “back story” for years, but anyway, when I was in college, I lived in a big old house with six other guys, two of them from Omaha and four, like me, from western Nebraska.  We were 18-23 years old; I was the youngest.  It was a bad time to be me, and so I was evolving into a rather sullen, insolent individual.

We were all nice guys, traditional, conservative, church-going, all that, but we were guys after all, and it was sort of Animal Houseish.  It was also one of the most famous ‘party houses’ near campus; living there could be pretty raucous, noisy, and coarse.

The oldest one there, the informal “boss” of the house, was a cowboy from western Nebraska who was in graduate school.  Feeling sorry for me as if a lost and confused youngest brother, he favored me.  He was the one who ‘saved’ me from having to live in a dormitory, as I wasn’t exactly social. 

He’s since been married for years and years and years, to the same woman, and has several children, all of them contributing members of society.  In all the years since, whenever I’ve needed something, he’s been one of the first in line to be sure I got what it was I needed. 

“But alas, he’s gotten older, heftier, and balding, which makes me very sad,” I said.

- - - - - - - - - -

“One morning right after I moved there, when I walked into the kitchen, I saw him standing propped against the sink, smoking a cigarette while talking with two of our other roommates, who were seated at the table, ready to rush off to classes.

“They were dressed, and he was stark naked, but acted with as much composure and poise as if he’d been wearing one of those three-piece suits he later wore as a banker.

“This guy was confident.  It’s been years, but I’ve yet to see another person so nonchalant, so suave, when in a situation that’s usually considered vulnerable, defenseless, embarrassing.

“Well, what does one do when confronting a naked person?  One can’t help but look, but on the other hand, it’s impolite to look.  And one’s concerned about what the naked person’s thinking; one expects him to turn red and retreat, but what if he doesn’t?

“One’s not supposed to stare, but I did.  He, and the two at the table watched me for my reaction; this was probably some sort of unplanned by-chance ‘test’ to see what sort of roommate I’d be.

“He had a tight, firm body, and wasn‘t small.

“’Nice hair,’” I bravely said as I walked by with arched eyebrows looking down, it being obvious to which hair I was referring.”

- - - - - - - - - - -

“I thought it odd, but didn’t question it.  I had God, and then him on a slightly-lower platform; it‘d be ungrateful of me to question whatever he did, no matter how bizarre.

“We were all guys, and of course could be coarse and vulgar, but the extent of our own exposure was usually merely sleeping in the buff, or undressing in one’s bedroom and then walking down the long hallway to go take a bath.

“He however, for whatever reasons, preferred long-term exposure.

“One got used to it.

“If he knew girlfriends or parents wouldn’t be visiting--and being a hearing person, he always knew when it was safe--he’d lay on the couch in the altogether watching television; it didn’t make any difference to him what we other six thought.  It was his turf, and he could do as he damned well pleased.

“He was so nonchalant about it, so cool.  He was laid-back and mellow about everything.  Nothing bothered him.”

- - - - - - - - - - -

“I wanted to have his attitude--actually, I needed to acquire his attitude, his steely nerve and insolent confidence--and so like him, began sleeping without anything on, or if up and about, if it was early and there wasn’t anybody around to be offended, insouciantly remaining in the buff until it was necessary to put something on.

“It worked.  I grew flippant, even when provoking comments, catcalls, from the other roommates.

“In fact, I became rather cocksure about it--’well, whoop-de-do…..so…..?’ sometimes squeezing or jiggling what dangles, for extra effect.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“By the time I graduated from college, I’d changed considerably--not only because I no longer did significant wear-and-tear to underwear, but because of so many other things that‘d happened--and some people didn’t like it.

“The older brothers and sisters, and friends from high school, insisted I’d become arrogant, swaggering, and full of myself, and they didn’t like it.  I got yelled at a lot, but they hadn‘t lived my life, to know what it was like.

“As far as I was concerned, it sure as Hell beat what I’d been before.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“So…..how are you going to handle it?” the femme asked when she dropped by later in the morning, bringing with her things she thought I could use.  She’s moving to South Dakota at the end of the month, where she’ll be teaching dance and the theatre arts.

“How are you going to handle all these anti-men primitive she-women, especially the way they slapped you in the face?”

I dunno, I said, “but I’ll figure out something.  I’ve thought about introducing them to the carnies and to Romeo so as to get their panties in a wad, clutching their pearls, but I haven’t decided yet.

“For now, I’m just going to let things evolve naturally.”

- - - - - - - - - -

A little bit later, Big Mo drove up into the front yard.

She was curious about another “good” pharmacy in the big city, being unsatisfied with the one I’d suggested.

Pharmacies aren’t exactly anything about which I know a whole lot, but I pointed out the one I’d sent her to had a reputation for its great customer service.

“But it’s a small one,” she said, “and with a small inventory.  Some of what I need, they have to have overnighted from Omaha.  They don’t carry every drug in the book.

“They carry something for the West Nile virus, but not the East Nile virus or the North Nile virus or the South Nile virus, and I got those, too.”

Well, I said, “then probably you’ll have to use Wal-Mart instead.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Even though they were going to spend nights in that three-star luxury hotel in the big city, the primitive she-women would be spending days out here, and so I thought it a good idea to get Big Mo, their leader, acquainted with the terrain.

“Let’s go into town so I can show you what’s what, and what’s where,” I suggested.

Big Mo agreed; she needed to pick up some things anyway.

As we were going there--it’s eight miles away--she confided in me the sordid details of her recent divorce, including that she resented her ex-husband because he gave her everything she wanted, catered to her every whim, fulfilled her every desire.

I arched my eyebrows.  “Resented” him for that?  It must be women’s-libber logic.

- - - - - - - - - -

But regardless, I found myself fond of Big Mo; her style and manners with the locals.

She talked the language, knew her stuff, and got all nice and friendly with red country folk.  And her liking of them was sincere, honest.  At heart, Big Mo showed herself  a “down home” sort of person, and those we met, reciprocated her warmth.

I wondered how the others’d be.  CaliforniaPeggy and the cbayer primitive, although elitist blue-state snobs, would probably get along okay with the hoi polloi, given that their good breeding and manners would override any repugnance they had about Republicans and “fundies.”  While “cordiality” isn’t the same thing as “affection,” it sure beats many other ways one could act.

The others coming here, I wasn’t so sure.  In fact, I was rather uneasy.

- - - - - - - - - -

Near the end of our trip, Big Mo told me she needed to get more chicken feed.

I hit a brick wall.  The town’s small, circa 1500 people, but I had no idea where one would get chicken feed.

In the halcyon days of yore, every small town boasted a chicken hatchery and accompanying feed store.

But because of the constant, clamorous blue-state primitive demand for cheap groceries in the face of inflation--as if food grows on trees--such small-town businesses had consolidated over time so as to pare expenses, and have since concentrated in larger places, abandoning smaller places.

As far as I knew, Big Mo would have to buy chicken feed in the big city, probably at Wal-Mart.

Primitives demand cheap goods, and they get them.  And if they don’t like where they have to go to get them, well, it’s their own damned fault.  They wanted cheap goods.

I’ve lived around here thirteen years, and I was damned if I could think of any place that sold chicken feed.

Finally a gentleman at the gasoline station directed us to a lawn-mower and small equipment repair shop, where chicken feed was sold out of a back room as a favor for local poultry hobbyists, although Big Mo balked at the price.

to be continued

[franksolich]

After we unloaded the chicken feed--we stashed it inside the miniature Dutch windmill, around the water pump--and I was leaving to walk back up to the house, I asked Big Mo, “Okay now, who’s still coming, and when?  Is everybody meeting here first, or at your digs in [the big city]?

“I need to keep a census so I can know if something’s wrong.”

She consulted a list she kept on a piece of paper tucked behind her ear.

“Well, I’m still the only one who’s arrived and checked at the hotel,  but right about this minute, Skippy should be in the airport in Omaha, waiting for the great-aunt from Chicago and the husband-hating elleng primitive to arrive on later flights from their homes.  Since I was the only one who could drive this distance, everybody else has to rent cars, and they’re sharing rides and the expense.

“Skippy & Co. should be at the hotel sometime around supper-time.

“Tomorrow morning, Saturday, the cbayer primitive’ll arrive into Omaha, and she has to hang around until LynneSin and the bitter old Vermontese cali primitive arrive on their flights two, three, hours later, and they’ll drive up here, to meet us here, not at the hotel.

“About early afternoon tomorrow, the raccoon-bitten Aerows primitive and Wills should arrive into Omaha about the same time but on different flights, but they’ll have to wait around until late afternoon when flyarm arrives, and ride up here with her.  We’ll be back at the hotel by then, and we’ll have supper.

“CaliforniaPeggy won’t arrive until Sunday afternoon, and she’ll ride with the NJCher primitive, whose flight lands in Omaha about supper-time, at which time we’ll be having a cook-out here, but they’re going to the hotel, and won’t come out here until Monday.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Back at the house, feeling guilty, I decided to do something for the carnies camping over at the other place, at the same time being illuminated about when the rest of their crowd’s coming.  There’s four of them here right now, and there’s supposed to be about thirty of them arriving sometime during the middle of the night, very early Sunday morning.

I loaded a truck and drove over to the Italianate spread, where the four were camping.

From the edge of the pasture, I noticed Italianate Jesus was poking the overweight over-mascara’ed tattooed woman, on a sheet laid over the ground near the trailer.  Figuring it bad manners to intrude, I skirted the edge of the pasture, looking around for the other two.

Wild Bill’s brother, the one born with both eyes on the same side of his nose, and the handkerchiefless one with the always-running nose were standing on the banks of the river, fishing for lunch.

“I brought you some stuff,” I announced, as I got out of the truck.

“A couple of cases of beer, some steaks and condiments, buns and bread, bags of chips, and for the lady, a carton of cigarettes.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Then I drove to town, to eat lunch at the bar there.  Yashoda, the cook of Japanese derivation whose specialty is Germanic cuisine, and who’s the head chef at the country club in the big city, was substituting for someone else, smiled when he saw me.

No one had to come and take my order, a hamburger well-done, pressed down hard on the grill so as to squeeze out every drop of grease, french fries cooked on the grill rather than in the fryer, and a side-dish of sour cream.

Life’s a lot less complicated when others can read one’s mind; no chitchattery necessary.

As it’d been a slow lunch hour, Yashoda himself came to the cash-register when I went to pay.

“That stacked blonde over there, at that one table,” he said, putting his spread-out hands way out in front of his chest, “she’s looking for you.

“dutch508 sent her to you.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

Curious, although not as curious as the last time, I went over to the table indicated, and after introducing myself, pulled up a chair.

She was blonde, but rather than stacked, she was sagged.

Of course she wore clothing appropriate for both the public and the weather, but she must not have been using a brassiere, as her jugs underneath the blouse hung straight down, their tips actually rubbing on the surface of the table.

So, I said; “you’re not from around here.  Your body language has an ‘accent’ that’s different.”

“I’m from dutch508’s stable,” she said.  “He told me to come see you.”

A fine man, dutch508, I agreed.

“Oh, he’s much more than just ‘fine,’” she said; “dutch508 is s-o-o-o-o-o-o good.

“He’s got a big pool and sauna in his basement, and it’s fun when we all go down there.  Him and ten, twelve, of us girls.”

I arched my eyebrows.

Oh no, she protested; “dutch508 can handle all of us on his own.

“He did have a problem several days ago, though, when some broad from Minneapolis showed up.

“But never mind that,” she said; “he sent me here to teach you how to like something you don’t like.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Now, wait a minute,” I said, suddenly growing somewhat hostile.

“I know what dutch508 has in mind, and it ain’t gonna happen.

“Even if I were blind, I still wouldn’t be turned on by a pair more appropriate for a hippopotamus than for a human woman.  It’s a bodily deformity, it’s grotesque, it’s way out of proportion to all other parts of one’s being.

“I feel sorry for women hauling around such an enormous burden.”

She didn’t even flinch.  “dutch508 told me about your attitude, and I guess he was right.”

“I have no idea why women with this burden don’t see it; they’re being admired for their freakness, not their beauty.”

“So…..you’re a man, and you don’t like them.  Did something happen to your brain at some time?”

“No, my brain’s fine-tuned for aesthetics--”

“Well, dutch508 was pretty insistent that I teach you how to learn to like them, and if I go back there and tell him that I failed, he’s going to ask why, and what do I tell him?”

“Tell him it was doomed to fail from the beginning,” I said.

“I’ve always been this way about it, and it’s far too late for me to change.  I was hostile about oversized pairs even before I reached sexual maturity.  Even as a kid, I didn’t like the sight, all these poor women having to tote around all this extra weight.  For nothing.

“My first touching experience with them waited until I was 14 years old, though, and I was at a truck stop out in western Nebraska in the middle of the night with my best friend.  We were too young to drive, but we drove anyway--there’s no traffic out in the Sandhills in the middle of the night, and a particular 225-mile stretch was all ours.

“We stopped at the only truck stop that was open in the middle of the night--225 miles west of where we lived--and walked right into the middle of throngs of burly hardened truck-drivers and their molls, women all out of proportion on their bodies with fat bulges in all the wrong places, an inch of make-up on their faces, sordidly drunk, and wearing skimpy halter-tops.

“As we walked inside the door, one particular woman sitting on a barstool, drunk and smoking a cigarette, saw us and squealed, “Oh, lookee here, a couple of young ’uns.  Two root beers for the boys, please.”

“As she turned around to look at us better, her big jugs swung around too, slapping us in the face.

“Both of us never cared for oversized women’s upper parts especially after that, always associating them--even if appearances contradicted--with loud, brassy, heavy-set over-cosmeticized, loose women.

“But, I tell you what, madam.  We’ll go to my place, and you can give it your best shot.”

- - - - - - - - - -

Some hours later, the two of us were sitting on the back porch, soaking up the supper-time sun.  She was going to have to hurry, to get back to the other side of the Sandhills by morning, but wanted to put down a couple of beers and cigarettes beforehand.

I was sitting on a chair facing her on the chaise longue, her ponderous weights looking very much like fat flattened pancakes.  Really big pancakes.

While I of course had taken off everything, she’d never taken off her panties, despite my frantic pulling at them, insisting it’d get me all aroused, when I was supposed to get aroused by her top half, not her bottom half.  “You’ll just want to dive in, and forget all about what you’re supposed to learn to like.”

“Well, madam,” I said; “I tried, I tried my damnedest, and it didn’t work.  I did everything to them that you told me to, and some that you didn’t.  I played with them, I flip-flopped them, I caressed them, I kissed them, I vacuumed them, I twirled them, I nibbled them, I nearly smothered myself burying my face in them, and it didn’t work.

“I’m still as soft as Jello.

“You’ll just have to tell dutch508 I’m incorrigible on the matter; oversized jugs just can’t turn me on.”

to be continued

[franksolich]

“Well, I’ll look for a woman for you, who’ll teach you to like them,” Romeo said.

He’d just gotten off work in early evening, and was over here cooking his supper on the grill in the back yard.  I suspect he does this because this place is merrier than his place.  Also, it should be pointed out that I don’t feed the masses by myself; lots of people bring, and leave, food here for cookouts, and there’s always leftovers available for anyone who wants them.

Uh, no, I said; “if dutch508 can’t do it, then nobody can.  Don’t bother.”

“I talked with one of the women down in Omaha today,” he mentioned; “the Argentine.  The reason they decided to not come tonight, and come a week from tonight instead, is that they want to go to the county fair too.

“The Argentine, she says she’s heard a lot about you, mostly from some really fat guy with the Omaha Police Department.  She says he doesn’t seem to like you, but from what he’s complained about you, she’s gotten to like you.

“She says the Italianate woman is an organizer for the Democrat party in Omaha--I’d been told she was a political organizer, whatever that is, but hadn’t been told which denomination.  Is that going to be a problem?”

“I don’t know why it should be,” I answered; “I’m a nice guy.”

“She also says the Greek woman, after seeing that picture of you smoking a cigarette, is all hot and excited to meet you.”

“What picture did you send her?” I asked; “nearly all pictures of me show me with a cigarette.”

“That one that was taken at that one place.”

“Oh.  That was a good one.  Better than the one taken at that other place.”

- - - - - - - - - -

“About the primitive she-women,” Romeo continued; “are any of them here yet?  I don’t want to have a lonely evening.”

Yeah, right, I thought to myself.  Romeo never has a lonely evening; all he has to do is show up where there’s women, gab a bit, and he’s got one for the night.  It’s just too bad he never gets the same one for more than one night, but he creates that problem himself, by never calling any of them back.

“Well, you’ll have one tonight,” I advised him, “a lonely night, I mean.

“Big Mo got here yesterday, and if what I was told panned out, Skippy, the great-aunt from Chicago, and the husband-hating elleng primitive are in [the big city] right now too, at that fancy-smancy hotel, where they’ll all spend the night.

“The rest’ll come on Saturday, and Sunday, although I get the feeling Ms. Vanderbilt-Astor, the NJCher primitive, isn’t ever going to come out here at all, instead spending her time enjoying all the features of that three-star luxury hotel, like the free massages and beauty treatments and cosmetologic services.

“Coming out here into the wilds intimidates her; she’s afraid of fresh air and wild animals, being more used to living near the squalor and stench of Newark instead.

“She’ll probably paddle around the hotel all day in a bathrobe and slippers, getting treated like the queen she apparently supposes she is.”

“This guy Skippy, what’s he doing at a get-together of anti-men primitive she-women?”

“Well,” I replied; “Skippy’s a member of the male race, true, but he’s a wimp, not a man.”

to be continued