Counting Freckles

I think that many of our tastes are formed when we are quite young and tend to stay with you forever, or at least that's been my experience.

This is a story about my growing up, and hope you enjoy it.

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1. The love of my life.

The first moment I saw her, I knew I wanted to marry her. She was a tall slender woman with flaming red hair who looked like a movie star to me. I watched every move she made all day, every day, and her beauty was unmatched by any woman I had ever seen. She had perfect white teeth that sparkled when she smiled, and that face would light up the room at those times. Her face, neck and arms were covered with freckles, and I wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of my life counting them.

Although she was in her thirties she dressed in the fashion of the sixties, with long flowing skirts and loud colors. She used to wear a green and rust colored paisley dress that was a particular favorite of mine, and days she wore that were special indeed.

There were a few obstacles that stood in the way of my quest of this ravishing goddess. One of the major problems was the fact that Mrs. Murray was married. The other thing standing in my way was the fact that she was my teacher. My third grade teacher. These were quite formidable problems, although at the time I didn't understand why. All I knew was that I loved her.

I excelled in third grade, so much so that if you reviewed my report cards from my school career, it looks like someone else stood in for me that year. I wanted so much to please her that I studied every night and did my homework willingly and thoroughly.

When Mrs. Murray would make the rounds of the room, the times when she would stop by my desk would almost cause me cardiac arrest. I would watch as she would point at my paper, but my eyes were fixated on her pale freckled arms and the downy hair that covered her forearms, so light in color it was almost invisible.

At times like those I would attempt to make contact with her, brushing my arms against hers in a clumsy and childish mating ritual. I didn't know whether she noticed this or not, but I was too oblivious to know or care.

Mrs. Murray would always explain to us the virtues of natural living and eating right, and when I saw the see would eat fruit and granola as snacks, I followed suit. This despite the fact that I would have much preferred the candy bars and chips all the other kids munched on. Not me, at least not when I was in Mrs. Murray's classroom.

As I had mentioned, Mrs. Murray was married, and I hated her husband. Not that I knew him or anything, but he was living with the love of my life so I despised him. I thought of ways of winning her away from him, but one day in the spring he came to visit Mrs. Murray at school, and he came into our class to be introduced to us.

As I looked at the tall and handsome man in his Marine uniform, my heart sank. He was like a living G.I. Joe, and we all stared in awe at this man with his chest full of medals as he told us what he did in the service.

This became a geography lesson, as Mrs. Murray rolled down a map and explained where Vietnam was. This was where Sgt. Murray was going to be headed pretty soon, and it seemed like it was on another planet. We all got to shake his hand as we left the classroom to go lunch, and I dawdled enough to be last even though my desk was at the front of the room. I was hoping he would leave so I wouldn't have to shake his hand, but he was persistent, so I grabbed my lunch and walked up to him at the doorway.

"This must be Adam," Sgt. Murray said as he held out his hand. "I've heard a lot about you, young man."

I watched my hand disappear inside his massive paw and tried to give him a handshake that would make him wince. Looking back at this it must have been comical, but he didn't laugh and just shook my hand. I was very polite and smiled before walking down the hall. When I made the turn to go to the cafeteria I saw them kiss each other in the doorway, and it was then I decided that I hated him, and I hoped that he would get shot.

2. Time passes.

I really didn't hope he got killed, but the thought did cross my mind for one brief second. I also thought that pretty soon I would be old enough to join the Marines, and then I would be an even bigger hero than Sgt. Murray was. Then Mrs. Murray would fall in love with me.

Next year I suffered through fourth grade with a miserable teacher who could not possibly compare with Mrs. Murray, but I did make a point of running into Mrs. Murray in the halls as often as possible. Additionally, I would stay after school and drop by her room to offer my services. You never could tell when you needed someone to go clap the erasers against the wall outside to clean them.

I'm sure I was a major pain, but Mrs. Murray never failed to greet me with a smile. Several times I was allowed to go outside and clean the erasers for her, and I did so with an enthusiasm unmatched in blackboard history. What she thought of this grinning and goofy kid who would race back to her room covered with chalk dust and somewhat lean erasers, I can't imagine.

Toward the end of my fourth grade year, Mrs. Murray didn't come in to school for a couple of days. I was worried that she had gotten sick, but it turned out that was not the case. Something far more serious had happened.

Sgt. Murray had been killed in Vietnam. Just like I had hoped for, if only for a second. The news did not bring me the joy that I thought it would. Instead, it brought a sense of guilt that was overwhelming me, and I went through the last couple weeks of school in a daze.

Mrs. Murray did not return to school those last couple of weeks, and I was left to stew in my guilt for the entire summer. The next September on the first day of the school year I raced past her classroom, almost hoping she wasn't there. She was there, however, and I spent the day trying to avoid her.

By the end of the day, I could no longer live with myself, and so after the school day ended I went down to her classroom. I had a speech in my head all prepared to give to Mrs. Murray when I entered her room, but when I saw her my mind went blank. She was just as beautiful as ever, although the smile didn't seem quite as bright and the face not quite as glowing when she saw me at the doorway.

"Hello Adam! How's fifth grade so far?" Mrs. Murray asked.

I stammered and stuttered a minute before it all came roaring out of me. Through the tears I explained to her how it was my fault that Sgt. Murray had been killed. I had wished it to happen, although only for a second, and I really didn't mean it. I only thought it because I loved her and wanted to marry her and spend the rest of my life with her. All this while bawling like a baby and peppered with "I'm sorry" over and over again.

I found myself in Mrs. Murray's arms, hugging her as tight as possible while she comforted me and tried to calm me down, because I was hyperventilating and damn near going into convultions. Finally I managed to get a little control of myself, in large part to Mrs. Murray's soothing voice and her rubbing my back.

"It's all right Adam," Mrs. Murray said, even though it sounded like she was crying too. "It was nothing you did or thought that caused what happened. It just happened."

"Really?" I asked sniffling.

"Really," Mrs. Murray said as she looked at me with watery eyes of her own. "You can't wish for something like that to happen, even if someone did mean it. If wishes worked like that, Jerry would still be here, because I wanted him to come home more than anything. I never wanted him to leave either, just as badly. So you see, it wasn't anything you did, and I know you're fond of me just like I'm fond of you. So don't ever think that way."

"Okay," I managed.

"Thank you for being so honest with me Adam," Mrs. Murray said as she dried our tears with her handkerchief. "We're still going to be friends, aren't we?"

That was something she didn't have to worry about, because from then on I made a vow to myself that whenever she needed me I would be there. Any time, any place. Of course, the call never came, but I kept stopping by the classroom until I had to go to another school for junior high.

Even then, I would stop by a couple times a year after my school day was done to see how she was doing. She aged gracefully, remaining as beautiful as ever throughout the ensuing years.

As I grew older and went to high school, I met girls and went on dates like everybody else. Nice girls all of them, but they all had a fatal flaw. They weren't Mrs. Murray. None as beautiful, none as caring, and none as kind as she was.

3. High school graduation.

Mrs. Murray surprised me by coming to my high school graduation. I guess she had always made it a point to attend them each year to see the students she had taught, but in my mind she was there for me. After the ceremony she came up to me as I stood around with my folks, and I excitedly introduced Mrs. Murray to them, even though they had both met her years ago.

"After all the years and all the teachers he's had, I think you're the only one that ever made an impression on Adam," my mother said to my embarrassment.

"Adam was one of my favorites too," Mrs Murray said as she handed me an envelope. "Decide which college you're going to yet Adam?"

"Probably SUNY, but I got accepted at a couple of others too," I said, and then turned so that my folks couldn't hear. "I was kinda thinking about joining the Marines first though."

The look of joy on Mrs. Murray's face vanished as the words came out of her mouth, replaced by a look of horror.

"No. Go to college Adam," Mrs. Murray said in a cold voice. "Go to SUNY, get an education and have a wonderful life."

Mrs. Murray leaned over and kissed me on the cheek while putting that wonderful smile back on her face before leaving to say hello to some other kids from her past.

I opened the envelope which contained a nice card in which she wrote how proud she was of me and how special I would always be in her life. It was signed Joyce Murray. Joyce. All those years and she had been Mrs. Murray, and I had never even thought of her having a first name. Joyce. How perfect.

How beautiful, I thought as I watched her talking to Jack House, one of my classmates for the last dozen years. How incredibly attractive she still was, dressed simply but smartly in a long sleeved dress that was short enough to show that she still had incredibly great legs.

Joyce. That was how she signed the back of the leather bookmark that she had put inside the card as a present. Follow your dreams, it read, and was signed simply, Joyce. I wanted to follow my dreams, that was for sure, and my dreams were the same then as they had been for as long as I could remember.

4. Making deliveries.

That spring I had gotten a job driving around a VW bug for a drug store, making deliveries in this little 'pill cart', as it was referred to. I beat the crap out of that little car as I made my rounds on the weekends, enjoying listening to that engine whine as I drove the thing into the ground. The boss was amazed at how fast I got deliveries made, but he wouldn't have been so choked up had he seen the way I drove when out of sight of the store.

Summer meant I could work full time, and one day as I took the box of orders to the car to put them in a logical sequence for delivering them, one name caught my eye. Joyce Murray. I had no way of knowing if it was 'my' Joyce Murray or not, but I saved that one for last and raced through the rest of the orders in record time before delivering that order.

The house was a nice little split level that was beautifully landscaped, and when I rang the doorbell my heart started to pound rapidly. The was no answer to my ringing, and because there were prescriptions in the order I could not leave them without a signature, so I went around to the back of the house. There was a car in the driveway, so at least someone was home.

As I came around to the back, I saw her. Mrs. Murray. Joyce. She was just getting up from pulling weeds in her flower bed, and when she glanced up and saw me, her eyes lit up as she walked up to meet me.

"Adam, so nice to see you," she said while looking at me curiously. "What brings you here?"

"Uh, the stuff you ordered from the drug store," I said holding the little bag up. "I couldn't leave it at the door because of the prescriptions."

"Of course Adam," Mrs. Murray said. "Come inside so I can pay you."

I followed Mrs. Murray up the deck stairs, enjoying the view of her long legs from behind, and seeing her freckled thighs for the first time. The pale down on the back of her legs sparkled in the sunlight, and I almost fell up the stairs when I missed a step due to my careful inspection.

By the time we got to her sliding back door my erection was as hard as steel and throbbing, and as Mrs. Murray let me in I tried to position it so it wasn't quite so obvious.

We chatted as Mrs. Murray went into her purse and dug out her checkbook. She was wearing a sleeveless denim blouse, and as she wrote out the check my eyes devoured those beautifully sculpted arms, so incredible slender yet shapely with the outsides of them densely coated with freckles.

The blouse stopped at the shoulders which seemed to be equally endowed with more of the same, and my imagination raced at the thought of taking that blouse off and seeing for myself.

It occured to me that I never seen Mrs. Murray wearing a sleeveless blouse before, which was just as well, because I was having trouble staying in control as it was. The insides of her arms were a pale china white in comparison to the outsides and after Mrs. Murray finished writing the check, she reached up to hand it to me.

As I leaned forward to take the check from Mrs. Murray, my eyes caught sight of something incredible. I only got a glimpse for a second, but when Mrs. Murray's arm lifted, I saw a large tuft of flaming red hair sprouting out of the deep hollow of her armpit.

Her arm came down as quickly as it went up, but there was no mistaking the fact that Mrs. Murray had hair under her arms. Not a little stubble, or a few stray hairs, but incredibly hairy armpits. While a few of the hippie chicks in school didn't shave under their arms and I thought that it looked kinda sexy on them, it was something altogether different to see Mrs. Murray like that, and I found it was incredibly exciting.

For the rest of my visit I longed for another glimpse of that exotic sight, but the opportunity did not arise. I left after a few minutes, awkwardly walking back out to my pill cart with my erection ready to explode.

"Stop by and say hello anytime Adam," Mrs. Murray said as I walked down her driveway.

"I will," I assured her, and gave an enthusiastic wave as I pulled away, hoping to get one in return, but Mrs. Murray had already headed back to her gardening.

I drove like a maniac down to a deserted road nearby where I pulled off on the side. Looking around to make sure no one was around, I skipped into the woods where I dropped my pants to my knees and peeled my underwear carefully off of my swollen cock. The cotton was stuck onto the tip of my dick because of the cum that had been leaking out of it for the last half hour.

I took my cock into my fist and gave it a couple of brisk pulls while my mind replayed the beauty of Mrs. Murray. It took less than a minute for me to cum, and after the milky fluid had spurted onto the ground I felt ashamed at what I had done, and so I quickly pulled my pants up and got back to the car.

Over the next month I got the chance to deliver a couple more times to Mrs. Murray, and even volunteered to help her out around the house with chores. I felt I was making progress toward winning her affections, and waited for the chance to make my move. Clearly I could not live like this for the rest of my life, and I had to tell her how I felt.

I went with my family on vacation for a week in late July, and while it was fun and all that, I couldn't wait to get back home by the end of the trip. I drove past Mrs. Murray's house the day after we got back, hoping to see her doing her yard work or something. I didn't see her and the car was not in the driveway, but I did see something that was disturbing. On the manicured front lawn was a 'FOR SALE" sign.

5. The final delivery.

I made a point to drive by Mrs. Murray's place several times a day for the next week, hoping to see her car in the driveway so that I could talk to Mrs. Murray and find out where she was moving to. Maybe to an apartment nearby, I thought, since a big house like this was a lot for a widow to take care of. How many times I had imagined moving in there myself.

In early August, I drove by and there was a big SOLD sticker over the realtor's lawn sign. Still no sign of Mrs. Murray. I had almost given up hope of seeing her again, when one afternoon while I was turning in the keys to the pill cart, the owner gave me a couple of orders to deliver on my way home. I didn't mind doing that since he was generous about slipping me money for gas when I used my own car.

I took the two bags and headed for my car in the back of the drug store. The one order was way across town but when I saw who the other order was for, I delivered that first one at top speed. After I dropped that one off, I had one delivery left, which was the bag with Joyce Murray's address on it.

Mrs. Murray's car was in the driveway so I pulled behind it and raced up the stairs to her door. She opened the door and greeted me as I reached for the bell and let me in. The house was full of boxes stacked up all over the living room, and the sight was depressing.

"Oh Adam. I'm so glad I got to see you again before I left," Mrs. Murray said as I followed her into the kitchen. "I was going to drop you a line to give you my new address anyway, but I did want to say goodbye to you personally."

"I saw you were selling the house," I said nervously. "Where are you moving?"

"Florida!" Mrs. Murray said excitedly.

"Florida?" I groaned in response. "How... why are you going all the way down there?"

"I've been thinking about it for a few years, and when the opportunity came up to teach down there I finally decided to go for it. My old bones just can't take any more of these brutal New York winters," Mrs. Murray said with a chuckle.

"You're not old," I said while my heart broke into a million pieces. "You can't just leave like this."

"The moving truck comes tomorrow morning and I drive down right behind it," Mrs. Murray said, and as she spoke I guess she noticed that I was not taking this well at all.

"There's nothing for me up here anyway, Adam dear," Mrs. Murray said as she put her hand on my shoulder.

"Yes there is!" I said. "I'm up here."

"I know Adam," Mrs. Murray said with a smile. "And you can come visit me any time you're down that way. I'd like that very much."

"I don't think you understand," I choked out while trying to stay in control of my emotions, and not doing all that well at it. "I love you."

There. It was out there at last, and my words hung in the air in the awkward seconds of silence that followed.

"I... I love you too Adam," Mrs. Murray finally said. "You've always been my favorite student..."

"I don't mean like that," I blurted out. "I love you and I want to marry you and be with you for the rest of my life."

"Adam honey," Mrs. Murray said as she reached up and put both her hands on my shoulders. "Adam, I'm very flattered that you feel this way, but I'm an old woman. I'm going to be 50 next month. What's a young boy like you want with an old bag like me anyway? There's plenty of girls your own age who would love to be with you."

"I've already been with plenty of girls," I exaggerated wildly. "It's you I love, and you aren't old. You look exactly the same as you did when I was in your class. You're still the most beautiful woman in the world."