American Ream Pt. 01

Author's Note:

American Ream is intended to be an episodic telling of the misadventures of Frankie Heck, a middle aged single mother trying to survive in a brutal economy. The episodes will stand alone although they will move the narrative forward a bit, more or less like a TV season.

There will be sex, but there will also be story, some of it even a bit funny, I hope.

You don't have to be familiar with the American TV series "The Middle" to follow the story.

*****

AMERICAN REAM

Ream as in: to enlarge a hole by use of a reamer, to extract the juice from; beat, bilk, bugger, diddle, gyp, impale, penetrate, screw, sodomize, cheat. Ya, it means all those things; (I looked that up on the internet at the library). And ya, pretty much all of those things happened to me over the next year of my life.

Episode 1: Frankie Fingers

Out here in the middle very strange things can happen to you right out of the clear blue morning sky...

MY WORST NIGHTMARE

So there I was, lost, all alone, drenched in sweat, wearing a ridiculous home-made Super Woman costume that was stuck to me like a second skin, well, stuck to my spanx like a third skin I guess you'd say; no phone service, not a car in sight, dying of hunger and thirst; and this is like ten-thirty in the morning. It was that kind of a day, believe me.

Anyway, I hadn't had a thing to eat all day, nothing, it's important that you understand that. Then I saw this Little Betty Twinkie laying on the road, crushed, but still in the wrapper. I looked around; I was surrounded by miles of empty farm fields, so of course I didn't see anybody. So God help, me I dropped to my knees on the hot, dusty, pavement, ripped open the package and started shoveling it into my mouth. It was pretty humiliating, but if you knew me, you wouldn't find it too surprising.

Anyways, there I was on my knees, cream filling splattered around my mouth like cum, and I heard the noise, a deep, angry rumble, and before I can even mumble the word "bikers" they were already around the bend and bearing right down on me fast.

I froze; I'm sure this is every woman's secret nightmare; to get kidnapped by a by a bunch of hairy, nasty bikers and get gang banged half to death. I certainly had thought about it a lot... worried about it, I mean.

I couldn't move, my heart was thumping in my chest and I couldn't breathe. They spotted me of course, with my crazy bright red leotard and stupid yellow rubber boots, and they quickly started to form a circle around me. I wiped some of the Twinkie off of my mouth and managed to stand on my wobbly legs hoping I could make a run for it, but by then they had me completely surrounded, their bikes were shutting down and some of them were even getting off. There must have been twenty of them, the air was full of the smell of gasoline, leather and manly sweat. I'm usually pretty plucky, but when I saw all the beards, and tattoos, and heavy boots all around me, I just kinda moaned and sank to my knees. There was no possibility of a fight; I'm five foot two, and light, not to mention forty-one years old and out of shape. I couldn't run, and there was nooooo hope that anyone would happen along to save me; all I could do was play the pathetic card and hope they would have pity on me - not much of a plan.

Crouching down in a cowardly submissive pose I found that the smell of my own sweat was pretty fierce too, maybe that would turn them off, I thought. Ya, I had a lot to learn about bikers. The engines were all stopped, and it became so quiet I could hear the crunch of the boots of the guy approaching me. I lifted my head up to look at him, my lips trembling, eyes swimming in tears, and saw him looming over me, just a big tower of jeans and leather, beard, and a rough, merciless face hidden behind aviator glasses.

It just occurred to me that maybe you might have some questions about how an ordinary, middle aged, middle-class (at least I used to think I was) mother got herself into such a crazy and dangerous situation. Let me back up a bit...

My name is Frankie Heck. I'm a forty-one year old, recently divorced (after sixteen god dammed years of marriage) mother of three, living in Orson Indiana. If you can call it living; the "correction" of 2008 put the boots to my lifestyle, my marriage, and my whole faith in the American Dream.

Dream, ha! American Ream is more like it. Ream as in: to enlarge a hole by use of a reamer, to extract the juice from; beat, bilk, bugger, diddle, gyp, impale, penetrate, screw, sodomize, cheat. Ya, it means all those things; (I looked that up on the internet at the library). And ya, pretty much all of them happened to me over the next year of my life.

I had played by the rules all my life, went to school, raised my kids, paid my taxes, obeyed the law, gave to charity, everything I was supposed to do to achieve the American Dream; well instead I got the American Ream so hard I can hardly walk straight any more. I won't bother you with the details of my financial woes, but you can trust me on this, I'm flat busted broke. My shitty house is underwater, all of my credit cards, store cards and debits cards have been cut up, I probably couldn't even borrow a nickel from a loan shark right about now.

Everybody was always saying to me, "Hey Frankie, so much shit happens to you, you should write a book," ya, people kept saying that to me so I decided to give it a try. What people don't know, or weren't telling me, was that writing is hard work! Now, I'm not really a hard-work kind of person; sure I can go in spurts when I have to, but I'm not cut out for anything that takes commitment and dedication, you know - like writing a book.

So why am I writing this now? First of all, 2009 was a bat shit crazy year. There was weird shit, and funny shit, and dirty shit... I don't mean dirty like, well shit dirty... okay maybe I shouldn't use that word. There was so much obscene, outrageous, should-never-happen-to-a-middle-aged-mother in Middle America stuff that happened to me that I almost feel... obliged to write it down. It's like, if this can happen to me, Frankie Heck, in the heartland of America, then maybe it says something about America, or maybe it just says something about me; you decide. And the second reason is that I am so broke that I'm even willing to try something hard if it might make a buck. Of course I won't write it all at once, just one freaky thing or another kinda strung together with longer running stuff...well you know what I mean.

To sum up; I'm broke, desperate, weird shit happens to me all the time, and I'm gonna tell you about it if you want to bother to read on. Thank You.

After those idiots in Washington let those fat cats on Wall Street nuke the economy, man, there was no work at all out there for a newly single mother trying to raise two of her three kids (the other one went with his dad, but that's another story), not even minimum wage, shit jobs, nothing; so I figured I was lucky when I landed a job as a car salesperson at Orson's only car lot, Ellert's Motors. Well think again Frankie; without commission the job paid less than minimum wage, and had no benefits of any kind. It's not too bad if you can sell a car, but that was something I hadn't been able to do in the three month's that I'd been there, which was why I was in the owner's office getting reamed out (verbally) on the day that my life really started to come apart.

Old man Ellert chewed out my ass, telling me in no uncertain terms that he was going to fire me if I didn't sell a car by the end of the month. Like I needed any more pressure than I already had; I was just a couple bad breaks from having my kids taken by child services and landing my own sorry ass in some overcrowded women's shelter.

Now, I'm what people call "plucky", but I was feeling close to despair when suddenly there was a ray of hope; I'm not sure if that's a message to "never give up," or just a demonstration that the universe likes to fuck with me. Anyway, when I came out of the old man's office and was striding, tight faced towards the lot, I heard a man call out my name. It stopped me in my tracks because the voice actually sounded happy, not angry or disappointed or whiney.

"Hey Frankie, I heard you were working here; long time no see," he said. I didn't say he sounded original, just happy.

I turned around and there was Stevie Elhert, Mr Elhert's only son, and an old high school classmate of mine. He was looking pretty good for his age, he was only a year younger than me, but he still had all of his light brown hair, and his slightly weathered face was helped out by a deep, healthy looking tan. He was casually but, at least to my eyes, expensively dressed with some kind of tan, soft material pants and an open-necked dress shirt. His blue eyes were bright, and his straight teeth were brilliantly white as he walked up to me.

I was going to put out my hand, but he enfolded me in a hug which took me completely by surprise; "It's good to see you Frankie," he said sincerely. He squeezed me and stepped back to look at me from arm's length.

"Hey Stevie," I said blushing a little, it had been ages since anyone had said a nice word to me.

STEVIE

Stevie hadn't been so good looking in high school, in fact he'd been awkward and a little twitchy on account of his loud mouthed father. A lot of kids made fun of him, but I was always nice to him, not Frankie Fingers nice, (were gonna get to that, don't worry) but friendly and polite. He had gone off to University in Chicago and then we heard that he'd had a falling out with his dad and had gone to Arizona or Mexico or something to start his own business. We also heard that he was married, but I didn't see any ring on his finger, and no tan lines there either. Sure I looked right away, you better believe I'm exploring every option these days, no matter how much of a long shot they might be.

"Wow, I didn't know you were back in town," I said.

"Just been back a couple of days," he replied, and then shook his head in what appeared real admiration; "You're looking good Frankie; you've really kept in shape," he said.

"Oh pleeeeese," I replied dismissively.

Because this had started out to be just another day, of course I had rushed out the door in a mess, with my hair barely presentable and no makeup on. Probably what was grabbing his attention was my clothes. I'm still in pretty good shape, but I've been putting on weight lately, especially since Mike left, fortunately it's going mostly to my boobs and hips, and not so much to my stomach or face.

The thing is, because I'm so broke I haven't bought any new clothes in almost a year, so the ones I do wear are hugging me pretty tight. I mean, I've gone up a full bra size to 38C, but I haven't been able to buy any new bras, so I'm kinda spilling out everywhere; it's uncomfortable, but men kinda like that sort of thing. I was wearing a purple blouse with the top three buttons undone, not because I was trying to impress anybody, but because I couldn't get them done up; I had put a purple sweater on over top of the blouse and buttoned it higher, but the top button on that kept popping open too, and the next one down was so tight that there was a gaping pull right at mid-breast. I had on a tan skirt that was supposed to be just above the knee, but because it was pulled so tightly across my hips it rode up a couple of inches higher; I had on nude pantyhose that didn't have any runs, at least not below mid-thigh.

"Come on, talk to me for a sec,' he said nodding his head towards the coffee area and taking me gently by the upper arm. I felt an immediate flush; it feels nice to be complimented, even if the reason is that your clothes didn't fit. I looked over my shoulder and saw Mr Elhert standing in the doorway of his office scowling at us, and although that was a little unnerving, it also gave me a kind of thrill as well.

I looked up at Stevie as we walked, he's about five-eight, and asked sweetly; "Are you going to be in town long, Stevie?"

A couple of the salesmen, they're all men except me, were standing by the coffee machine; they smiled at Stevie like brown-nosers, but he must have given them a look or something, because they quickly moved away.

"Ya, I could be, could be," he replied while he poured us each a cup coffee. "I've got some time right now and I'm going to give dad a bit of a hand around here, he won't admit it, but he needs it." He didn't touch the donuts; I really wanted one, but restrained myself. "I heard you and Mike split up, is that true?" he asked.

"Ya sure, what can I say; the economy you know..." I replied with a little causal laugh that I didn't really pull off; it wasn't actually an explanation either, but he didn't seem to notice.

"That's too bad," he replied as he handed me a coffee; "but I was real glad to hear that you were working here, dad should've gotten a woman on the team ages ago, and you should be great at it."

"Well, I'm having a hell of a time getting started," I replied ruefully; he obviously knew the score on that, I'm sure he'd heard me getting chewed out just like everyone else in the dealership.

We were standing side by side, just touching slightly shoulder to shoulder; "about that... I think I could give you some advice," he said conspiratorially. "I've been pretty successful in sales these last few years."

"I'd love some advice," I replied enthusiastically, laying it on a little thick. I pressed a bit more tightly against his arm as I turned to look up at him.

"The number one rule in sales Frankie; sex sells. Sex sells without fail."

I must have looked a little confused.

"You're not using your strongest asset; come on Frankie, you've got all the right equipment, you just need to put it out there," he said in a low, encouraging voice.

"Me?"

"Of course you."

"What, you want me to put on a bikini and lay on top of a car?" I asked and broke into giggles at the thought.

He smiled at me and nodded his head; "People would pay to see that. I'd pay to see that, but that's not what I mean. You know, you're a sexy woman, so do your make up that way, and you know, wear your clothes that way. Turn it on, the way you dress, the way you talk, body language, all that."

Now I was confused; I hadn't thought of myself like that for a long time. Mike wasn't the kind of guy to give a compliment or make a gesture, you know, so our love life had never been what you would call torrid. In the last few years the only thing we did in the sack was sleep. I had long ago fallen into a frumpy, housewife-mother thing which was normal in Orson; I hadn't even heard about that whole Milf thing that was going on.

Of course I knew that sex sells, it just never occurred to me that I had any to sell. "Well sure ..." I replied to his smiling face; "all women know how to do that, I just didn't think it was appropriate for Orson, you know, it's such a family place."

He gave me a bit of a friendly bump against the hip that took me completely by surprise so I had to grab his arm to keep from falling over; he had pretty good guns. "Sex sells even in Orson," he laughed.

"I can see where you're going..." I nodded; I was thinking that it sounded like work, but maybe the payoff would be worth it.

"You want to sell cars don't you?" he asked.

"Of course, yes I'd really like to sell cars. Hell, I'd really like to sell just one car before your dad fires me."

"So turn up the heat a little," he replied shrugging his shoulders and spreading his hands in what I would call a Jewish manner, brushing my boob as he did it. I don't mean the brushing the boob part is Jewish, I meant the way he spread his arms, you know, like he was making an obvious statement; I didn't know if the boob brush was on purpose or not. And for the record, I have never had my boob brushed by a Jew as far as I know. But we're getting off track here...

"It's no crime, it's nothing against women, it's just a fact of life, so hey, why shouldn't you, with your dynamite body, cash in like everyone else."

Now I was really blushing; "dynamite body?" no one had said that about me since high school. I was beginning to think Stevie was living in a bit of a time warp, but if that was going to work in my favor, well that was just fine by me.

"Maybe you have something," I replied with a bit of a choke in my voice. We were pressed pretty tight together now, hip to hip; I wanted to push up against him even more, but I could see all the salesmen looking over at us with daggers in their eyes.

He gave me a break by moving around so he could look me in the face, no longer touching. "I'm gonna sell my dad on a great idea," he said in an eager voice. "Get everyone in costume for a Halloween week sale event, do some other promotional stuff; it'll be fun. We used to do it down in Phoenix and it was a big seller, and you know why?" He didn't give me a chance to answer; "Because it gave our sales ladies a chance to get away with looking very hot, all in the name of fun."

"Ahhh ya," I replied trying to sound enthusiastic; again it sounded like work, and I didn't have the money to buy the kind of costume that made you look good.

It was like he was reading my mind because he said; "I have some costumes that would look great on you Frankie."

"You have ladies costumes?" I asked, maybe a little too quickly; hey if the guy was into costumes it was none of my business.

He grabbed me by the shoulder; "Hundreds of them Frankie, thousands!" and he laughed when he saw the look on my face. "You didn't know? I've got thirty costume stores in Southern California and across the Southwest; quality shops, top of the line; they make almost as much as my dealerships, and there a hell of a lot more fun."

I laughed with him, noticing that he still had a grip on my shoulder; "Costumes, who knew?" I said, and that made him laugh harder. Okay, I thought, he likes costumes, I can live with that, but more to the point I was sure that I'd heard him say "dealerships", ya with an s. It sounded like goofy little Stevie had done a whole lot better than his sourpuss dad.

It couldn't hurt to have a friend like that, so I repeated myself with more enthusiasm; "Costumes, yaaaa, sounds like a great idea; we could use some fun around her."

"And sex," he added in a low voice moving in close to me with a pretty funny looking leer.

"That too," I replied and gave him a big, playful wink. I was flirting! Me, after all these years. I was getting flushed and a bit excited, I hadn't had this kind of fun in ages, and if he wanted to keep it up I was sure willing to go along.

"I should bring some costumes over to your house some time and let you make a pick ..."

Before I could say anything the Old Man intervened. "Stevie! Stevie, come and give me a hand with these invoices will you," he shouted from his office doorway; "Frankie needs to get back to work; this isn't a dance hall for God's sake."

Stevie waved at him casually and then said to me with a grin; "got to humor the old man;" he lowered his voice; "we don't know how much longer he has to live," he kept smiling and put a finger to his lips.

"We'll talk Frankie, good to see you again," he said out loud as he turned and sauntered off towards his glowering dad.

"You bet Stevie," I called after him, and then under the eyes of all the salesmen I stuck my nose in the air, yanked my clothes into shape and strode out onto the lot with a big grin on my face.

Hang on; I'm getting to the biker part.

Once I knew I was out of sight of the boss, I hooked up with Chris, the other outcast at Elhert's motors and my only friend there. He promised to cover for me, which he did a lot, while I dashed to Brik's school.

It was like the universe was trying to tell me something, all this stuff about costumes on the very day that I had to dress up for Brik's class. Once I got to the school, I grabbed my bundle and hurried down to the old change room in the basement where I changed into my homemade costume. I had thrown it together only that morning, after Brik sprung it on me that he needed me in a Super Woman costume, in his class at nine-thirty that very morning. Brik is a bit on the special side, and he does shit like that all the time.