Message-ID: <10564eli$9804231411@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
From: john_dark@anon.nymserver.com
Subject: {SJR}"The Adventures of Me and Martha Jane 09C"( bf mF mF+ )[32/52]
Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories
Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d
X-Note: This message was posted by a secure email service. Please report MISUSE OR ABUSE of this automated secure email service to <abuse@anon.nymserver.com>.
Path: qz!not-for-mail
Organization: The Committee To Thwart Spam
Approved: <usenet-approval@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
X-Moderator-Contact: Eli the Bearded <story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
X-Story-Submission: <story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
X-Original-Message-ID: <6hmfsj$nsu$1@sparky.wolfe.net>
The following story is posted for the entertainment of adults. If you are
below the age of eighteen or are otherwise forbidden to read electronic
erotic fiction in your locality, please delete this message now. The story
codes in the subject line are intended to inform readers of possible areas
that some might find distasteful, but neither the poster nor the author
make any guarantee. You should be aware that the story might raise other
matters that you find distasteful. Caveat lector; you read at your own
risk.
These stories have not been written by the person posting them. Many of
those e-mail addresses below the author's byline still work. If you liked
the story, either drop the author a line at that e-mail address or post a
comment to alt.sex.stories.d. Please don't post it to alt.sex.stories
itself. Posting the comment with a Cc: to the author would be the best way
to encourage them to continue entertaining you.
The copyright of this story belong to the author, and the fact of this
posting should not be construed as limiting or releasing these rights in
any way. In most cases, the author will have further notices of copyright
below. If you keep the story, *PLEASE* keep the copyright disclaimer as
well.
This particular series is by Santo J. Romeo. That might even be his
real name. The version that I have copied used his initials, and I have
followed suit. It is more a tragic story of coming of age than simply a
sex story, and individual segments might not contain any sex. The entire
story, however, is a hot one.
========
**** WARNING **** WARNING **** WARNING ****
THIS DOCUMENT IS A SEXUALLY GRAPHIC STORY ABOUT AN INTENSE SEXUAL,
EMOTIONAL AND INTELLECTUAL RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN A TEENAGE GIRL AND
A YOUNG BOY AND THE COURSE OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP OVER A PERIOD OF
10 YEARS. IT IS A DRAMATIZATION ABOUT REAL PEOPLE AND THEIR CON-
FLICT WITH SOCIAL EXPECTATIONS. IF THIS SUBJECTS OFFENDS YOU OR IF
SEXUAL LANGUAGE UPSETS YOU, OR IF YOU DON'T WANT THIS MATERIAL SEEN
BY UNDER-18 OR OTHERWISE UNQUALIFIED PERSONS, DELETE THIS DOCUMENT.
THIS DOCUMENT IS COPYRIGHTED 1994, 1996 BY SJR. SO--HEY, YOU CAN
COPY IT BUT YOU CAN'T CHANGE IT OR SELL IT UNLESS I SAY SO.
====================================
THE ADVENTURES OF ME AND MARTHA JANE
by S.J.R.
sjr <73233.1411@CompuServe.COM>
============
PART 9C:
Easter Sunday, 1956.
I knew the paper that day would be no larger than a regular daily.
I told my stepdad I could handle the load with my Schwinn.
In fact, the Easter edition was so slim that the entire load fit into
my front basket, and I pedaled up the big hill on Given Avenue at a brisk
pace with nominal effort.
As I rounded the hill and turned to roll into the long downgrade that
led to my route, a thin snow flurry began. Spare, tiny flakes floated
lazily down to white-frosted lawns and rooftops. I felt rather heroic.
I had become attached to the hill I'd conquered over the past six months
and to the bloated carrier bags that I now slung around my back and
shoulders with routine nonchalance. I had not grown taller, but from the
way I was climbing that hill every day and the way I handled multiple
deliveries on the big hill at the top of Exchange Street on Saturdays, I
had grown in strength and endurance. I felt I had learned the message
behind Pogo's little joke, which I had seen not long ago in the Sunday
comics: "We have met the enemy, and he is us!" My physical limitations
were my major enemy. I felt that if I could not overcome them, then I
must develop effective workarounds.
Adults were, if not inimical, untrustworthy at best. My peers and
those who were slightly older had gone Brando, all in upturned collars or
black motorcycle jackets and t-shirts. Boys my own age, nearly fourteen,
began outracing me physically; I watched them grow taller, while I stayed
where I was. I had been tall at twelve or thirteen; but I could see that
at fourteen I would be below average in size. Even in the winter cold I
would sweat bullets when delivering the heavy orders on Saturdays in the
project, while bullnecked Charlie performed the same feat without even
breathing hard.
As the Easter flurry advanced slowly into light snowfall, I sat on a
customer's front porch away from the chilly wind and rubber-banded my
goods. After a long winter, mornings were breaking earlier. In the
early hush, the sky slowly brightened into a warm greyish glow. The
Easter edition would be an easy throw; people would be waking later than
usual. I could afford, for once, to relax. Unrushed, I lapsed into one
of my most dangerous habits: thinking. I recalled the day a few weeks
earlier when Tony mentioned that I'd saved up enough to buy a small
motorcycle, for which I could legally obtain a license on my fourteenth
birthday. But I preferred for some reason to stay with my Schwinn.
Besides, the money saved by not buying a motorbike would be more useful
when I could finally visit New York.
Keeping busy, making my own breakfast seven days a week, spending
Sundays at the Tremont and several evenings each month making door-to-
door subscription collections on my route -- all of it left me more
isolated from my parents and sister, and from acquaintances. I was only
dimly aware of Mom's next pregnancy, which produced a baby half-brother
they called Tony Number 2 a few weeks before Easter. Naturally, every-
one's attention shifted to him.
Keeping two jobs had cost my participation in plays at school. It
was physically impossible for me to do it all, considering how much hard-
er my relatively small frame had to work to accomplish the same thing
that others seemed to manage with less effort. But if I kept working and
building myself up, I thought, then a later day might find me doing plays
again as well as everything else.
The fact that I was now wearing eyeglasses had been a major setback,
leading me to believe I was somehow defective. An eye test at St.
Michael's in February revealed that my vision was far from perfect. A
few weeks later, Mom took me to an optometrist.
The following week, we returned from his office with my new eye-
glasses.
"How long will I have to wear these things?" I asked Mom petulantly
as we were riding home with the plastic-framed monstrosity on my face.
"If you're like most men on your side of the family," my Mom replied,
unaffected, "you'll probably have to wear them the rest of your life. At
least when you read, anyway."
This depressing thought sent a chill up my spine. For days I would
stop at every reflecting surface I passed and adjust and readjust the
frames, to no avail. They hurt my nose. They burned behind my ears.
They never seemed to sit neatly on my face. My mother's lack of concern
didn't help. Nor did the kids at school, who started calling me "four-
eyes" and "spec". Kids who wore glasses on tv and in movies were always
portrayed as anemic, brainy misfits. The glasses made me feel ugly and
deformed. I hated them.
That Easter morning I carried, safely hidden in a zippered pocket
inside my quilted carcoat, the latest of three letters from Martha. I
kept her mail in a folder with my schoolbooks, not because they contained
intimate material, but because I never wanted them to be considered part
of the garbage my parents would force me to discard. Sitting on a cus-
tomer's front porch after preparing my papers, I leaned back against the
stuffed bag and gently opened the white envelope from New York. She used
plain unlined paper. I marveled at the way she wrote in almost perfectly
straight lines.
Martha. She had an address in Manhattan on East 87th Street. "It's
the East Side," she wrote, "but definitely not a ritzy block. The
building is a hundred years old. It's a walkup, which to you tourists
means no elevator. It's an old building with very small apartments.
Over the years the newer buildings just grew up around this block. It's
so old, the shower is a stall in the kitchen, because the building was
here before indoor plumbing was common. Has hot water, though--at least
it's not a coldwater flat, like the building next door to mine. The
apartment even has nicks in the walls that hold the old-fashioned oil
burning lamps that were in here before electricity was installed. It has
a small living room, and a really tiny fireplace that actually works.
"I have been teaching kids your age who are just about the most
brilliant boys and girls I ever met. Of course, you're just as smart as
most of them. What many of them lack, though, is your sensitivity, and
your creativity. Some of them are not bright at all, but just problem
children whom it seems I can't help much. I hope I can learn to work
with them, they've led such hard, often cruel lives. Some conditions in
the neighborhoods where these children live can be described only as
real-life nightmares.
"Which reminds me: I hope you are not having that same old dream. I
wish I knew what it meant. If it happens again, please try to describe
exactly what it is that happens in your dream, how you feel and what
you're thinking. But I hope the dream hasn't come back. I hope you are
well, and happy, and growing, and learning. Please don't wear yourself
out with all that work; your school is the most important thing, and your
well-being."
Although I had read the letter a thousand times, I could read no
further that morning. I wiped my eyes dry, replaced and aligned my
specs, and hid the letter inside my coat. Standing, I slung the heavy
bag over my shoulder and started on my way.
I had written her several times. I had not told her much about
myself, except for the jobs. I hadn't told her that the reason I was
working so hard was because I wanted to come to New York and see her, and
I wanted to do so more than once. I didn't tell her about my dream, my
parents, my loneliness, or anything else about my inner life. I didn't
want her to worry. Above all, I didn't want her to see my failings.
Therefore, I didn't tell her about the glasses. I didn't tell her that I
had not grown taller.
Someday, soon, I knew I'd have to ask her if I could see her in New
York. I wondered if she would refuse. She was in a truly different
world now. Had she fallen in love with someone? Surely, with her looks
and her charm, she must have met someone in a big place like New York
City. Each time I read her letters, I wondered how much she didn't
reveal. I wondered, as I walked through the waxing snowfall that Easter,
if, when I asked her about going to see her, she would then be forced to
tell me that she had someone and that it wouldn't be a good idea for me
to show up. Or if she had met someone and I did visit, what would I do
when she introduced her boyfriend? And if she indeed had a boyfriend,
why was I breaking my back for the money to visit her? What would be the
point?
Martha, I thought as I walked along with my carrier bag slapping my
hip. Snowflakes smashed silently into my new lenses. Martha Jane.
Just after Easter I woke up one morning with a burning pain in my
side and tummy, and a heavy twinge of nausea. Luckily the paper load was
light that day and the weather mild, but as I finished and was on my way
home I still sensed a creepy nausea. Except for a bout with the 'flu, I
had never been so sick.
When Mom saw that I was still in bed at breakfast time she asked what
was wrong. I told her I didn't feel I could handle the ride on the
school bus without throwing up. She shoved a thermometer in my mouth and
read my temperature.
Tony stopped in my doorway and asked, "What's goin' on?"
Mom sighed. "Well, he doesn't have much of a temperature. It's just
under one hundred."
Tony grunted, "C'mon, Speedy, you're not that sick. Get up and get
ready for school. You'll feel better when you start movin' around."
Mom, in her bathrobe and slippers, followed him into the living room
as he donned his carcoat and got ready for work. "Well," she said, "he
does have a little fever, not much. Do you think it might get worse?"
"Damn. People go to work and school all the time when they're a
little sick. I go to work when I feel like shit, myself. Hell, he ain't
sick. Get him dressed and get him to school."
My brief nap did leave me feeling improved, and I supposed Tony was
right. Besides, I didn't want to admit that anything could floor me that
easily, and I did have to keep up with my work. So I dressed and boarded
the bus as usual. But during the long ride to school the pain and nausea
increased. I began perspiring. Repressing the desire to throw up was
becoming an effort.
As usual, I arrived at school and got into the line of 8th graders.
Sister Immaculata led us into the church for our daily eight o'clock
Mass. Halfway through the service, I feared I could no longer hold back
my urges. At one point some bitter stomach fluid jumped into the back of
my throat; trembling, I knew an eruption was looming.
Climbing over the other students in my pew, I crept softly to Sister
Immaculata, who sat in the aisle seat in the back pew looking prim and
fresh in her starched white Dominican collar and pristine black robes.
"What's wrong, child?" she asked, a little irritably.
"Sister...I feel sick. I think I should go to the restroom."
"Now, just be patient. Mass will be over soon, and you can go."
"But, Sister, I don't need to...'go'. I feel sick. And my stomach
hurts."
"Oh. Well...patience, child. The service will end soon and we can
take a look at you."
Sister Immaculata did not have more time to protest or to talk me
into thinking I felt better. A split second later, to my own surprise as
well as hers, I noisily and violently threw up a huge serving of redolent
vomit directly into the lap of her long brown robes. She rose instantly
as the pale yellow stuff spilled down her clothing and onto the floor.
Grabbing my arm, she rushed me through the nearby rear door and into the
vestibule. Despite my best efforts, I deposited another raging load that
drenched her entire right side and clung to every shiny bead of the heavy
rosary and the large silver crucifix that hung from her hips.
When we were safely in the boy's restroom at the rear of the church I
began to cry. "I'm sorry, Sister," I sobbed, almost hysterical with
embarrassment. "I'm so sorry, I tried to hold it back!"
"It's all right, dear. You couldn't help it. I didn't realize you
were so ill. Poor child, I should have listened to you. It's all right."
I was kept in seclusion in a small office in the rear of the church,
with Sister Immaculata sitting beside me and holding my hand until
another nun and the assistant pastor showed up to relieve her. Thank-
fully, the other students couldn't see me there. I feared I could never
face them again; so many of them had both heard and seen me throw up on
Sister Immaculata.
For my entire stay in the office, which lasted almost an hour until
yet another priest showed up to drive me to St. Joseph's hospital in the
official black pastoral Chevrolet, I apologized again and again for
drenching Sister Immaculata. Secretly, in my impish self that I never
let anyone know about, I was telling myself that this was what stupid
adults had coming to them for not listening to me. There was, indeed, an
almost satanic satisfaction in being able to say secretly, "There! Now
they'll believe me."
At St. Joseph's I was examined quickly by a tall doctor who smiled
indulgently when he was finished and had me lie down on a hard-cushioned
cot until my stepdad arrived. Both of them stood in the doorway of the
antiseptic room and joked and chatted. I had appendicitis. They would
have to operate. I would be in surgery that afternoon.
"Operate?" I repeated fearfully from the cot.
They both laughed. "Mr. Lobianco," the doctor chuckled, "I think the
word 'operate' made your son turn white as a ghost."
They were amused at my stunned reaction, but I wasn't. How could I
have allowed myself to get so sick? It was a sign of weakness and power-
lessness that I found totally unacceptable.
But there wasn't much I could do about it: within the hour I was
dressed in a thin cotton hospital gown and wheeled into surgery. Lying
face-up on the surgical wagon in the middle of a small operating room, I
looked up to find myself surrounded by white-masked faces. Firm hands
placed a cool damp white cloth over my eyes, and then I felt the ether
mask covering my mouth and noise.
"Just relax," a nurse crooned. "Relax, now, and breathe slowly
through your nose. Don't open your mouth, dear. Breathe only through
your nose. Understand? Breathe deeply, now. Thaaaat's right."
I could not relax and trust them. I felt overcome by all those faces
and then I saw only the unfocussed white of the cloth over my eyes. Sud-
denly the acrid odor of ether burned the lining of my nose. Then my
throat burned. I felt as if I were being suffocated. I became aware of
the low buzz of the bright neon operating lamp that I knew was suspended
just over my face. I made a brief moaning sound to let the others know
that the gas was burning my nose and that I couldn't breathe. Sensing no
reaction from them, I groaned more loudly. But they ignored me. Then I
panicked: I could not breathe, I was choking. The lining of my nose
burned so painfully that I felt my sinuses would burst. Someone held me
down with a ruthless pressure on my chest. I was afraid to open my mouth
and scream, fearing that to do so would cause the ether to burn my mouth
and throat. I began thrashing about and moaning, then moaned louder and
louder. Unable to scream through my mouth, I screamed through my moan
and felt my throat scalded by the force of the sounds I was making. I
heard someone shout, "Grab his arms!" I struggled violently, grasping
and scratching into space. But I couldn't move! The buzz of the operat-
ing lamp grew into the deafening, terrifying buzz that I'd heard in my
dreams. The white cloth over my eyes began to swim and circle in my
sight, even though I knew my eyes were closed. I could feel myself
drifting, then sinking back into nothing. I was shrinking, dying, and
the white universe expanded swiftly. My moans and the wild buzz merged
into a single strange sound that rose to a blaring hum and then slowly,
slowly, slowly decreased in frequency and then in volume, until it became
a low helpless drone in the drowning murk. I surrendered to the white
death, and to the blackening veil and the silence that fell quickly and
softly over everything...
I was unconscious into the evening. When I awoke I lay partly on my
right side in a huge, soft hospital bed. I blinked. I was actually
alive. I had a pounding headache.
"There you are," said the sugar-sweet voice of a very pretty
nurse. Her gorgeous face was the first thing I saw when I opened my
eyes. "Feel all right now?"
"It stings," I moaned, referring to my stitched and tightly bandaged
tummy.
"Well, don't you worry, that'll go away. Say, mister, what happened
to you in there? It took four people to hold you down. You're really
strong, you know that? You're just about the strongest young man we've
ever seen around here. You feel better now?"
I never had the chance to answer the lovely nurse's question. She
was so beautiful, all I really wanted to say was that she had made me
instantly horny and that I wanted to screw her brains out. But the pain
of the stitches in my side became my overriding concern. That, and the
pesky injections three times a day that left my right arm cramped for
several hours; and the unfilling diet of jello and Cream of Wheat; and,
during the next three days, the parade of relatives that passed through
my room.
As with my first hospital stay, years ago following the fight in the
project, everyone in the Ricci clan showed up or called or sent a card.
But now the Lobianco family and a vast array of their kin cruised in and
out of view. My stepdad had fifteen brothers and sisters, and it seems
most of them showed up. Almost all of them lived in the Little Flower
parish, in the same part of town as the hospital. I met for the first
time the enchanting, smoky-eyed Aunt Theresa Lobianco who would be a
major figure in my sexual fantasies for many years. And Josephine
Louise, who worked nearby, stopped in on her lunch hour each day to grin
and joke around and then exit, leaving me with a horrendous erection.
And then there was the phone call from Martha.
She spoke first with my Mom, who filled her in on all the medical
details and then handed the phone to me.
"What are you doing in the hospital again, cowboy? Can't you stay
out of trouble?"
With my heart pounding, my mind swirling, and everyone in the room
listening, I had to carefully consider every word I spoke and every
expression on my face. After beating around the bush for a few sentences
I asked, "So, are you married yet?"
"Married!?" Martha laughed hysterically. "God, I don't have *time*
to get married!"
Mightily relieved, I didn't even hear the rest of our conversation.
Martha couldn't say when or if she would be back for a visit. She wanted
me to hurry and get well.
I wanted to hurry and get well, too. I was already growing bored and
giddy with impatience, knowing that I was under strict orders not to work
at delivery or on the paper route for at least three weeks. That would
be three weeks without money for New York. I still didn't tell Martha
about my plans. The conversation got sidetracked onto my upcoming four-
teenth birthday and, due a few weeks later, my graduation from grammar
school.
When the phone call ended I spent the rest of that day in a nearly
morbid silence. I pretended to be irresistibly sleepy. Most of the
visitors left the room as the nurse tucked me in for my final evening at
St. Joseph's. I closed my eyes and allowed the others to think I was
sound asleep. Meanwhile, I kept listening to the sound of Martha's
telephone voice, which clung to my brain like syrup. She was not
married. I wondered how long she would remain so, and how I could make
up for three lost weeks.
I would go home the next day and spend my birthday on the living room
sofa, doing makeup homework to keep up with my classes. And all day long
for three weeks I would simply think: Martha. Martha.
====================================
THE ADVENTURES OF ME AND MARTHA JANE
by S.J.R.
============
PART 9C
-30-
--
+--------------' Story submission `-+-' Moderator contact `------------+
| story-submit@qz.little-neck.ny.us | story-admin@qz.little-neck.ny.us |