Pretty Paula's Poodle Skirts

INTRODUCTION & DISCLAIMER: As you might have gathered from the title and description, its time for a trip back to 1957, and the long-gone days of poodle skirts, bobby sox, pony-tails, diners, drive-in movies, classic cars, rock & roll music and juke boxes.

Robbie is a young man who escaped from his awful family and rents a room from a married couple, when they take in another boarder, a pretty college student named Paula. Things get interesting from this point.

Please note that as this story is set nearly 60-years in the past, views expressed by some characters about the disabled and homosexuals are written to reflect those common at the time, and for plot development and background. They are not the opinions of the author, nor should they be taken as offensive.

All characters who engage in sexual activity are aged 18 years and older, and all characters and events are fictional, with similarity to real persons living or dead coincidental.

Please enjoy, and check out my other retro stories.

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When the end of the long Maryland summer of 1957 drew near, 19-year-old Robbie McKinley didn't let a day go by without thinking about how great things were for him, and how the past 12 months had been the best of his life to date. Robbie's life was as close to perfect as he could envisage.

Robbie, a tall, dark-haired handsome young man, wasn't a rich trust fund kid, who lived a life of luxury without having to work. Robbie worked hard every day in construction, was learning to become a qualified builder, and for the past year had rented a room from a couple aged in their 50s named Mr. and Mrs. Collins. His landlords lived in the suburbs of Baltimore, not far from a college campus, and after their own three kids grew up and left home, rented out two of the bedrooms to young people. Robbie shared a car with his friend Tommy, and was saving hard to buy his own automobile. So why did Robbie, with a life that on face value appeared to be a humble, hard-working one, consider that he lived in Utopia? The answer was that he did not have to put up with his family's shit any more.

Robert McKinley, Robbie's father, was an overbearing, authoritarian stentorian, quick to anger and impossible to please. Robbie was embarrassed to share the same name as the man, who was not so much a man as a German Shepherd dog that could speak English. The father and son had no time for each other. When Robbie had studied hard, his father asked why he was wasting his time with stupid book learning and not out listening to music like normal kids. When Robbie neglected to study, his father would say he was a loser who would achieve nothing in life. And when Robbie attempted to join the army when he turned 18 and was rejected due to having a very rare type of the already rare AB negative blood, his father assigned the reason to his son being 'some sort of homosexual'. He blamed most of the problems in the world either on homosexuals or communists.

Martha McKinley, Robbie's mother, was a woman with a heart as cold as the depths of the North Atlantic Ocean in winter, the mothering instincts of a fish and a tongue as sharp as a razor and as poisonous as a Black Mamba snake. Mrs. McKinley rarely paid any of her children any attention, and when she did it was only to punish them.

Robbie's sister was Lorraine, two years older than him and a teenage tear-away with a bad reputation at school and in the neighborhood. Lorraine had gotten herself knocked up at the age of 18 to Billy, a local greaser hoodlum whose most significant achievement in life was getting himself kicked out of high school for vandalizing a bathroom. Now Billy and Lorraine were married with their twin son and daughter, living opposite her parents, with the kids a pair of uncontrollable brats who screamed incessantly and perpetually misbehaved.

Wrapping up the family was Lorraine and Robbie's younger brother Patrick, now aged 16. Patrick was born with major intellectual deficiencies, and his father referred to him as 'the spastic'. Robbie always told himself that his brother could not help the way he was and that he should not speak nor think badly of him, but it was impossible not to be embarrassed when Patrick went around impersonating an elephant or a rooster in the town's main street, or chasing a car while barking at it.

Patrick never spoke properly, instead pointing at things and grunting, impersonating animals or screaming when angered, something that happened often. Patrick had gone to a special school, or 'spastic school' in the words of Mr. McKinley, until he was expelled in his mid-teens after smashing twenty windows, this a violent reaction to being punished for cutting school and chasing old ladies while pretending to be a bull. Now Patrick spent his days in the front yard, playing with empty cardboard boxes, pretending to be a wide variety of animals and chasing people who came to the house, again while making animal noises most frequently roaring, growling, mooing and hissing. The postman especially dreaded visits to the McKinley house, and salesmen and Jehovah's Witnesses avoided it altogether.

Naturally, Robbie was happy to escape the chaos of home and make a life for himself. Mr. and Mrs. Collins were a nice couple, and Robbie looked forward to coming home from work every day. At first, there had been another young man renting the other room; a guy called Eric, who had moved out in July when he had married. Robbie was sorry to see him go, as Eric was a nice guy and provided Robbie with somebody to talk to about sport and music.

Mrs. Collins, a slim, gray-haired woman with glasses, had sourced another tenant, mentioning to Robbie that a college student would be coming to live with them. She had made a note of this on the calendar for the last Saturday morning in August, in her usual indecipherable scribble - 'Paul, arrive 10 a.m.'

Mr. Collins, a tall, bald man who like his wife wore glasses, always complained about her terrible handwriting, and often said that his wife could have worked in intelligence coding during the Second World War. Mrs. Collins would always retort that her writing was perfectly legible, and that Mr. Collins should get stronger glasses.

On the Saturday morning Paul was to arrive Mrs. Collins, especially house-proud, made sure the house was spic and span, and told her husband to wear a tie. Robbie got himself ready, checking his hair in the upstairs bathroom mirror, applying gel to get it perfect. He was wearing a white tee-shirt, blue denim jeans and black shoes, and decided that Mrs. Collins would probably prefer that he wore a shirt with a collar when greeting the new arrival. Robbie went into his room and changed into a light-blue shirt with a collar instead, and went downstairs.

At 10 o'clock, Robbie looked out of the window as a maroon car pulled up in the driveway and a middle-aged man wearing a brown suit and a hat got out of the driver's seat. Out of the front passenger seat emerged a slim, middle aged woman with her hair tied back in a bun. The dress she wore looked like it was from 1947 rather than 1957, and she cast nervous glances around her.

Out of the left rear seat emerged Paul. Robbie looked at him, confusion on his face. Paul wore a cream-colored shirt and brown trousers, had red hair and wore a Davey Crockett hat. Most puzzling, he looked no older than 14-years of age. Was Paul some sort of child genius, who graduated high school four years earlier than most kids? And even if he was, surely he should be living with a parent or guardian?

He looked at his landlady, confused that she would have taken on a kid to rent a room from her. Mrs. Collins looked out the window and said, "Oh there she is, what a pretty girl."

Robbie again looked outside, and saw stepping out of the car a most beautiful young woman. She wore a white blouse and a blue poodle skirt, with her long red hair tied back in a pony-tail with a blue ribbon. On her feet, the girl wore white bobby socks and pristine white shoes.

"She?" asked Robbie, confused.

"Yes, her name is Paula," said Mrs. Collins. "Paula is starting her first year of college, and will be living with us from now on. I wrote it on the calendar, didn't you see it?"

Robbie shook his head at Mrs. Collins terrible writing. Paula. Not Paul, but Paula. A girl would be moving in. Not just any girl, a very pretty girl. The young boy must be her brother. It all made sense now, unlike Mrs. Collins' penmanship.

Mr. and Mrs. Collins went out to greet the family, and Robbie, keen to greet Paula and assist her with her things, went out too.

"Doctor and Mrs. O'Donnell, I'm so pleased to meet you," said Mrs. Collins, extending her hand to the middle-aged couple. "I'm Heather Collins, we spoke on the telephone, and this is my husband Howard."

"We're pleased to meet you too," said Doctor O'Donnell, as he and his wife returned the handshakes, Robbie noticing that Mrs. O'Donnell wiped her hands on her dress after doing this. Doctor O'Donnell indicated his two kids. "I'd like you to meet Paula, and her younger brother Joshua."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Paula and Joshua," said Mrs. Collins. "We're looking forward to you staying with us Paula."

"Thank you, Mrs. Collins, and it's nice to meet you too," said Paula politely, shaking hands with first Heather and then Howard Collins, before looking at Robbie.

"This is Robbie McKinley, he rents our other room," said Mr. Collins.

Robbie shook hands with the four members of the O'Donnell family, feeling Paula's long slender fingers with soft skin in his hand. Mrs. O'Donnell seemed reluctant to shake his hand, and discretely wiped her own hand on her dress afterwards, much like she had done with Mr. and Mrs. Collins. Doctor O'Donnell looked him up and down with a stern expression, Robbie unable to miss that the man was concerned that he might be some sort of bad influence upon his teenage daughter.

"So, which major are you studying at college, Robbie?" Doctor O'Donnell asked.

"Actually Sir, I don't attend college," said Robbie. "I'm learning to be a builder, and work construction."

"Oh, I see," said Doctor O'Donnell in a disapproving tone, looking down his nose at Robbie.

"Robbie is very handy to have around the house," said Mrs. Collins, neither Doctor nor Mrs. O'Donnell appearing overly impressed.

"So, why don't we get your things?" Doctor O'Donnell asked his daughter.

"Could I give you a hand?" asked Robbie.

Doctor O'Donnell looked at him and said, "Thank you, young man that would be a great help." He handed the car keys to his son. "Joshua, you give Robbie a hand with your sister's things."

"Sure Dad," said the boy, leading Robbie around to the back of the car and opening the trunk. In the back were two cases and a box. Robbie reached for the handle of the larger one and to his shock, it flew open. Robbie's eyes went wide at what lay on top; Paula's underwear. There were a number of pairs of cotton panties in various colors; white, pink, light blue, lilac, lemon, light green and white with pink floral print, and several bras of similar colors.

Joshua sniggered at Robbie's discomfort as he hastily slammed the lid back and fumbled to close it, succeeding just as Paula came around the back of the car. "You're strong," said Paula, as Robbie effortlessly lifted out her heavy case, and Joshua took the second, smaller one.

"No, not really," said Robbie modestly. Paula reached into the trunk and took the box, then closed it after her, before walking with her brother and Robbie towards the house, where her parents were speaking with Mr. and Mrs. Collins.

Paula hissed at her brother, "I thought you promised me that you weren't going to wear that stupid hat in public anymore?"

Joshua laughed. "I also promised you that I wouldn't read your diary and take money from my friends to let them read your diary anymore, so Paula from that you can pretty much gather that I have a problem with lying."

"You'd better not have been reading my diary, Joshua," Paula warned.

"You know what the swell thing is Sis?" asked Joshua. "You will never know for sure. If I say that I haven't been reading your diary, I might be telling the truth, or I might be lying. If I say I have, I could be telling the truth and really have been reading it, or I might just be saying I have when I haven't read it at all simply to annoy you. Or the truth might lie somewhere between these. I may have read it but never let my friends read it; or I might not have read it myself but let my friends read it. It must drive you crazy, not knowing."

"Well, at least you won't be driving me crazy so much now I'm in college," said Paula. She turned to Robbie. "My apologies for my brother, he seems to have been put on this world just to be a pest."

"Mr. and Mrs. Collins have a wonderful house, Paula," said Doctor O'Donnell as they entered the house. "Staying here while you attend college will be so much better than living in the college dormitories."

"I don't disagree with you, Dad," said Paula.

"You mean you agree with me?" asked Doctor O'Donnell. "Don't use double negatives when you speak, Paula, it makes you sound uneducated."

Paula blushed and rolled her eyes, while Joshua smirked.

Mrs. O'Donnell said in her nervous voice, "Plus it will be so much healthier for you, living here. With so many young people at college, there must be no end of infectious diseases in the dormitories."

"Mom," Paula protested.

"Come now, Cecily," said Doctor O'Donnell. "Paula is attending college in Baltimore, not in Biafra. There will not be any infectious epidemics on a university campus, I can assure you."

"You can never be too careful, George," said his wife. She turned to her daughter. "When on campus, make sure you wash your hands twice as long every time you eat or visit the ladies room. There will be germs everywhere."

Paula's fair skin blushed even redder, and Joshua laughed, his mother fixing him with a glare. "There is nothing funny at all about infectious diseases, young man," she said to her son. "Would it be funny if Paula ended up in an iron lung and crippled because she caught some strain of polio immune to the Salk vaccine?"

"Let's not start this again, Cecily," said Doctor O'Donnell, aware that Mr. and Mrs. Collins and Robbie were looking in embarrassed silence. He looked at Paula. "The most important thing is that in this environment you have a proper routine, and can study harder. Straight A's are what your mother and I expect from you. You may think of me as squared and not cool, but I can assure you there is nothing squared about studying hard."

Paula, Joshua and Robbie each exchanged glances at the way Doctor O'Donnell had tried and failed to use the expression 'square', but said nothing.

Doctor O'Donnell continued talking. "Paula I know that you're 18-years-old and like to listen to your rock or roll music, but this rock or roll won't get you good grades. I cannot stop you going to a diner with your friends and playing the duke box and would not try, but remember study comes first."

Paula managed to hold back her laughter at how her father said 'rock or roll' and 'duke box', and said. "You know I always study hard, Dad. I almost never get a grade lower than an A."

"Obviously you need to study hardest in English, the way you split your infinitive like that," said Doctor O'Donnell. "One does not say 'almost never', one says rarely."

Joshua coughed in an attempt to cover his amusement. Mrs. O'Donnell said to Paula, "Your father is right, studying hard is the most important thing. And you must attend church every Sunday. Please promise me that you will attend Mass every Sunday, Paula?"

"I promise, Mom," said Paula.

"Good, because you and your friends already listen to sinful rock or roll music which is bad enough. If you fail to go to church now you are in college, it will be 12 years of Catholic school gone to waste," affirmed Mrs. O'Donnell.

"Mom, my friends Patty, Susie and Jill are attending the same college, I assure you we will all attend Mass every Sunday morning," said Paula.

"How about we get Paula set up upstairs?" asked Mrs. Collins.

"Excellent idea, Mrs. Collins," confirmed Doctor O'Donnell. Everybody went upstairs, Robbie carrying Paula's case and placing it down next to her bed.

"Thank you, Robbie," smiled Paula.

Leaving Paula to get acclimatized to her new room, Mr. and Mrs. Collins went downstairs with Doctor and Mrs. O'Donnell for tea in the lounge room. Robbie stayed upstairs in his own bedroom, while Joshua, who was supposed to stay downstairs with his parents, snuck back upstairs.

He looked into Mr. and Mrs. Collins' bedroom, and was taken by the ornate shape of the light fitting over their bed. It looked somewhat like a UFO, and given Joshua's fascination with flying saucers, he could not resist turning it on. Illuminated, the lampshade looked even more like some exotic alien craft from outer space. He turned it off and then on again, before deciding that it would look really cool if the light was switched on and off again in quick succession. Joshua flicked the light-switch on and off again, the UFO-like lightshade looking great, illuminated and then dark in quick succession.

Paula emerged from her room to see her brother in her landlords' bedroom, flicking the light on and off. Before she could say anything, she saw the light flash brightly and go out altogether.

"Uh, oh," said Joshua in dismay.

"Uh oh is right, Joshua," said Paula, standing behind her brother. "You aren't supposed to be in here. Look what you did to Mr. and Mrs. Collins' light, you idiot."

"It wasn't my fault," protested Joshua. "Maybe the bulb would have gone anyway?"

"Is everything okay?" asked Robbie, emerging from his room.

Paula sighed. "My snoop of a younger brother decided to break the light, by coming into a room he's not supposed to enter."

"It's probably just a blown bulb," said Robbie. "I'll take a look at it."

"Thanks Robbie," said Paula. She indicated her brother. "You, back downstairs and stay out of things that don't concern you."

She went back to her own room, while Robbie took a new globe and went into Mr. and Mrs. Collins bedroom. He took off his shoes and climbed up on their bed. Unscrewing the bulb was not easy, it seemed to be jammed, and was hot thanks to Joshua turning it on and off again.

Just when he was getting somewhere, he heard two sets of footsteps; Paula's on the landing, and a second set coming upstairs.

"Mom, I was just coming downstairs," said Paula.

"Before you do, there's a few private things we need to talk about," said Mrs. O'Donnell, her voice sounding anxious.

"Mom, there ..." began Paula, but her mother cut her off.

"Now, as I was saying earlier, you need to make sure that your hygiene is to the highest standard when you visit the ladies' room at college," said Mrs. O'Donnell. "You must wash your hands thoroughly, and use adequate amounts of soap on every inch of them."

Robbie felt uncomfortable, and he could see from Paula blushing that she was too. Mrs. O'Donnell, unaware of his presence in the adjacent bedroom, kept right on talking.

"Now, one thing I noticed here is that Mrs. Collins stocks the bathroom with soft, absorbent toilet paper. I think it would be a good idea if you ask her if you can take one of the toilet rolls and put it in your bag, to use when you go to the bathroom at college, rather than using the college toilet paper."

"Mom, the college toilet paper is perfectly fine, I'm not carrying my own toilet paper with me," complained Paula. "I don't know why we are having this conversation."

"Yes, but the girl who used the bathroom before you might have some sort of infectious illness, and you may catch it from using the toilet paper from the same toilet roll," asserted Mrs. O'Donnell, to which Paula rolled her eyes.