Ramona Jean's Sinful Weekend

Jeff responded that he was in the fourth grade.

The comedic, penned exchange, mainly about working for her parents and Jeff's upcoming concert, continued in erratic segments as Mona rung up and gathered his purchases into a brown bag.

As he paid her, a horn blew from the Buick wagon outside, and a battered pickup truck pulled up to the island, requiring the petite brunette's attention.

Panicked, he spun the notebook back around to him.

"You are really beautiful

Do you have a boyfriend?"

She smiled broadly with embarrassment and shook her head, the black ponytail swaying back and forth, as she placed the coins of his change into his hand, touching his palm on purpose.

"Can I write to you & wil you plese write me back?" Jeff wrote hurriedly, misspelling. She nodded as his address appeared on the page.

The petite girl wrote her full name on one of the store's blank invoices, which had their rural delivery route printed at the top. She circled her first name several times and drew two arrows toward it to be amusing.

Back to the spiral notebook, she scribbled "Thank you - best part of my day meeting you! Warning! My parents will read your letters!!!!", then grabbed her windbreaker as he clutched his brown bag of snacks, the heavy deposit bottles clinking.

Mona wanted to kiss this sweet boy goodbye, but the nipple that accidentally slid into a fleeting view as she slid an arm into her attendant's windbreaker would have to suffice as the young man walked out. They exchanged another grin as he courteously held the screen door open for her, Esso jacket secured.

"Bye bye!" Ramona said aloud in her rarely heard, lower-than-expected voice as he passed, and waved to the departing family as she approached the rusted, muddy Studebaker pickup of a nearby neighbor, who filled his tank every Saturday.

Four

The remainder of Mona's day was much more routine. She managed to change into one of her own shirts, a light blue short-sleeved button down Oxford with a Maidenform beneath - effectively ending the immodest peep show after its audience of one - but smiled as she recalled her adrenaline-laced, naughty morning. Grudgingly, after rereading them several times, she ripped out the notebook pages she and Jeff wrote, lest her parents see her flirtatious comments. The white paper would become a brief pyre in the pot-bellied stove centered in the store, its ashes likely to remain undisturbed until the return of cold weather. The young brunette did save the page where he said she was beautiful. She carefully trimmed the paper down to minimum size, framing the words and his address in a town called Rockbridge Baths, and slipped it into her pocket.

As the clock slowly spun away the hours and her afternoon solitude ushered in misgivings and doubt, she realized she may never hear from her new friend again, even after she wrote him. The sun soon set behind the moutains and lightning began to cross the sky. Mona liked the storms because she could feel the rumbles of thunder, and actually hear the more proximate of them, as if God was transcending the deafness he cast onto her and was speaking to the dark-haired girl in their own private exchange.

In a way, an unspoken prayer was answered just before ten o'clock that night, closing time. Mona was reading a book as usual, when a wet man, a very upset wet man rushed out of the downpour into the store, cursorily waved to her and began dumping a handful of change on the counter. On the wall over the counter was a worn but working pay phone - the family's and business's link to the outside world but of no use to Mona. The black metal box and its spinning dial was placed such that it was accessible to the public as well. No glass phone booth sat outside and the there were no soda machines on the store's exterior either. Her dad had always insisted the idea was to get people into the store for a Coke or to call so-and-so, and there was more chance of them buying something else.

The upset man dialed zero and made a multi-coin, long distance call, reading a number out of a small book to the operator. As he rapidly spoke, Mona realized where she had seen the man before. It was her new friend Jeff's father. Once again, the mere thought of the blonde young man made him appear as if she suddenly possessed the powers of a genie. Jeff walked through the door but was troubled also; something was terribly wrong. Maybe they had been in an accident on their retun trip, since their idling automobile was facing south this time. Out in the darkness, the Buick's interior dome light was on and Jeff's mother was in the back seat, and seemed to be comforting the pregnant daughter.

"My sister is having her baby

we think" the young man wrote, fear in his eyes.

Mona saw that he appeared to have blood smeared on his forearm. She rushed over to a shelf and handed Jeff a stack of white bath towels, still in their paper wrappers, hoping they would help in some way. She also retrieved a glass of cold water for the young woman's thirst or to cool her forehead.

Through a confusing exchange between Jeff, his father, and the spiral notebook, they asked if the young man could stay and wait for the doctor to call back, and he would relay the information that bleeding Kimberly was being taken to UVA hospital. They would come back to retrieve the son in a couple hours.

As the station wagon sped away, Mona led Jeff into their living room, which was immediately behind the large area that comprised the store. She was a little apprehensive about revealing just how modestly the family lived. The tour was short, as there were only the two rooms, including the kitchen, which was partially within a slant-roofed addition on the back of the structure and smelled of pine cleaner. She turned on lamps and ceiling fixtures, but the rooms seemed dim compared to the bright florescence of the store. A narrow staircase led up to the bedrooms, its worn bare wood steps nearly a century old, as the main building was constructed by a carpetbagger soon after the war between the states, Mona explained in her awkward speaking voice. She shrugged and pointed out the family's radio, in case her guest wanted to listen. The 1930s relic was considered by the young woman as a stand-in for the television they were saving for. Also, there was another black phone on the wall by the dull white refrigerator, but it had no dial. It was an extension of the pay phone in the store, and would ring when the doctor called back.

Soon the two young people were sitting at the white porcelain kitchen table playing rummy and drinking soda, and Jeff leapt up to answer the wall phone. He relayed the information to the doctor. The conversation seemed to calm him somewhat, but the young man was still quite concerned.

Within minutes of the call, the lights went out, a common occurrence during storms. Mona lit a lantern kept nearby, and they continued their game. It was after midnight when the young woman offered to make up the sofa with sheets and a pillow for Jeff, as it looked like he may be there a while. She gave him a long, reassuring hug and a kiss on the cheek, then hopped out the back door with another lantern to hike the stairs up to her 'summer' room. With no electricity, her indoor bedroom without a fan would be too hot in the humid night.

Straddling a single outdoor repair bay for the gas station, the wooden framed porch was not much more than a platform with screens on three walls and a roof. A few boards tacked to the support posts around the lower half of the periphery ostensibly served as a railing. It was here that Mona slept most hot nights on an old bed next to the house's windowless exterior wall to avoid all but the most windblown rains, and kept a small, ancient dresser for her nightgowns and blankets. Their 'private' clothesline spanned the space lengthwise as well, and the hanging underwear made strange shadows on the white clapboards as car headlights passed by. As a child, Mona pretended they were monsters that she would make disappear with a wave of her hand.

While the porch was essentially wide open, the young woman changed clothes there routinely, since they were surrounded by woods and unkempt pastures, the space was unlit and it was nearly always nighttime when it became necessary. As she stood stripped to her panties and folded her clothes, she remembered the sole paper she had saved in her jeans pocket from her morning dalliance, and placed into the cigar box that she kept in her secret place, a hidden chamber in the old dresser she discovered as a child. Mona slid a mint-colored, cotton nightgown over her head and looked forward to sleeping late - assuming her guest had departed - on this Sunday morning, a rare treat. She had to miss church - not that she minded - due to a lack of transportation.

As Mona nearly drifted off, she stirred and noticed a glow from the front of the building. The electricity had returned, but after the excitement of the unexpected visitors, she had forgotten to shut off the exterior lights, and especially, the large, floodlighted Esso sign, which 'cost a fortune' to keep lit, according to her father. The pumps were also on, and anyone could just drive up and help themselves to a tank of gas. Lastly, it was illegal for them to even be open before noon on Sundays, which it technically was.

Despite the steady rain, she feared the lights would attract customers like moths, and planned to dash down the stairs and quickly reach the electrical boxes to shut everything off, then sneak up to her regular room without disturbing her houseguest. The rain pelted her as she hopped down the stairs from the porch, stepped up onto the back stoop, and carefully opened the door. She was able to enter the store and pull down the requisite switches, darkening the concrete front yard, as it was, of her home, leaving the three gas pumps as sentinels in the moonlit downpour.

Mona was chilled and damp, especially her backside, and a closet in the kitchen was where the bath towels were kept, since that was the site - with the appropriate closed curtains - of the family members' baths in a large oblong metal tub, stored on the back stoop when not in use. Primitive, but the steamy, stove-heated well water - derived from the hand pump adjacent to the sink - was welcome during the winters.

Mona's plan to sneak by the sofa was foiled as Jeff awoke and sprung toward the wall phone in the kitchen. The blonde young man, wearing only his striped boxer shorts, nodded as he listened, said a few words, then smiled and held the phone against his neck. He reached for the notebook he and Mona had been keeping their card game's score on. He held up his sloppy cursive notes to her, written next to his losing rummy total.

"It's a girl 6 pounds 4 oz

healthy was almost breech

Kimmy will be fine

after some rest.

My dad wants to know

if he can wait until

morning to fetch me

because of the storm?"

Mona nodded with a big grin, genuinely happy for him. She had been standing in place, arms folded across her chest to mask the translucency of her clinging, wet nightgown, braced for the worst but hoping for good news.

"Congratulations, Uncle Thomas Jefferson!" Mona said, continuing to cursorily cover her chest. Her visitor had a toned body with broad shoulders, and both his muscles and light brown leg and body hair were more prolific than she expected.

"Thank you," he said, forgetting she couldn't hear him.

The two young adults stood staring at one another, and an uncomfortable silence formed, then Mona smiled with an idea and stepped into the kitchen, her wet bare feet leaving their imprint on the worn, checkered linoleum tile floor.

The blonde college man's eyes traveled up the bare legs of his hostess and took in the view of her glossy, rain-dampened behind, a small but shapely inverted heart, almost imperceptibly quivering. Mona's mid-deluge journey down the uncovered back stairs had rendered the rear of the nightgown nearly transparent, and the visitor could detect the small pink flower pattern on her white panties.

As Mona crouched down to pull one of her dad's 'special' bottles from the cabinet under the sink, she realized her nightgown was plastered to her butt, and her pulse quickened, since she was again giving Jeff yet another show, if only for a moment until she extracted her father's 'rot gut' - inexpensive whiskey.

She poured two small glasses, then opened the refrigerator. The houseguest was treated to a nicely revealing silhouette as the appliance's light passed through the nightgown, hanging away from her upper torso. Mona then clutched a church key and opened a can of RC Cola, and split it between the two drinks.

As they clinked their glasses together in a toast, the blonde young man was surprised, as his freshman year at VPI had included quite a bit of alcohol, but he was unaware that a few of Mona's schoolmates in Staunton snuck all types of liquor into their dorms.

Smiling Mona covered her breasts with one arm and drank with the other as the whiskey stung their throats. After a few more sips, she stepped toward him, and grabbed his wrist. Before he could ask for an explanation, they left their nearly finished drinks on the table, and she was leading him outside into the downpour, the screen door slamming behind them.

In seconds he was off the covered stoop and out in the rain. It soaked and chilled him, not merely counteracting the alcohol, but jolting his awareness. The young brunette he had become infatuated with that morning was standing on a higher step, no longer covering the suddenly transparent nightgown. His view of the tempting dark orbs that had assumed an even greater projection away from her torso was brief as she pulled him to her by the forearms, then clutched his waist. Mona tilted her beautiful face to the side for an absolutely unforgettable first kiss.

Their bodies collided at the same moment their mouths touched, forcing their senses into chaos as the taste, the feel of skin on skin, and the touch of an opposing gender's physique, the contrast of his sinews against her and the young woman's breasts pressing against him, and softer, smaller limbs clutching his midsection.

Jeff's lips caressed Mona's with building urgency, as their faces leaned from side to side. Water was everywhere, vainly vying for their attention, failing to envelope them or dilute their joy.

Soon the tips of their tongues met, soft and as wet as the atmosphere. The young man groaned with pleasure, and Mona could feel the vibrations of his deep voice on her lips, an unexpected thrill. A man had entered her - yes, only his tongue. but still a body part - for the first time. Lightning flashed and thunder rumbled, shaking the ground and the porch step on which the young woman stood, turning the page of the unspoken prayer for a romantic kiss, now fulfilled.

Five

The two rain-drenched young people were laughing as they stepped back onto the porch and finally out of the deluge, which had served its purpose and began tapering off. After their lingering first kiss, Mona had lured him out to play in the dark of the storm, running from him like a child. Once caught, stocky Jeff was able to hold Mona's arms - she only weighed eighty-six pounds if the penny scale in their store was correct - and spin her, feet off the ground like a figure skating pair for several rotations before loosing his own balance. They fell together onto the wet grass, culminating in more heavenly, markedly un-childlike kisses, arms and legs entangled. Once on the porch, her torso was again lit, and she kept one arm covering her breasts.

The young woman stepped inside briefly, and returned with two pastel-colored towels and they began drying themselves off. After mopping her hair, Mona tucked the towel - which amply covered her - under her arm pits, then raised a foot and began to slide the sticky panties down her legs from beneath. She halted as she realized how easily her actions could be misinterpreted.

"Do not get the wrong idea, Jefferson!" Mona said aloud in her truncated diction, wagging a finger at him. "We are both getting dressed after this!" The panties hit the bare wood porch floor with a slap as she let them fall around an ankle.

Taking a cue from her, Jeff wrapped his towel around his waist and followed suit. The family's wash tub and wringer sat next to them on the porch, and they draped their dripping undergarments over the edge. Retrieving them later was an errand Mona dared not forget. The pretty young woman then attempted to slip her nightgown off from beneath the towel, one shoulder at a time, with suddenly disastrous results. She cried out in surprise as the towel plummeted to the porch floor the moment she pulled the soaked gown over her head, revealing her petite nude body, bathed in the warm glow of the kitchen light, filtered only by the slightly misaligned screen door.

Mona tossed her wet nightgown at her blonde guest's face, grunted and placed her hands on her bare hips in disgust. If she had to have a man look at her, see her little bare breasts - again - and the pubescent hair accompanying her, well - pussy, the schoolmates sometimes called theirs - she was glad it was him, the first male ever to tell her she was beautiful; the first man to kiss her. As she stood, exposed, the thrill of her exhibition to a stranger that morning was still there, and magnified, but an element of affection was now present, she realized.

As the cold wet cotton slid down his face, Thomas Jefferson Payne saw his first - in person - naked woman. Her curves were adolescently subtle, but her features were provocative. The wonderful view was brief as his hostess squatted, legs to the side, and retrieved her towel, loosely pressing the pink terrycloth against her chest with one hand and waving the index finger of her other hand.

"Some manners you have, mister! You could have turned around!" she said, grinning but locating the rusted handle behind her and flinging the door open. Backpedaling, Mona knew the occasional flashes of lightning had revealed her dripping see-through nightgown to him out in the yard, and little had been left to his imagination by now anyway.

"I know," he smirked and shrugged. "My turn?"

Mona had learned some lip reading, much of it during her frequent movie attendance. Based on the context, she realized Jeff's penis may soon appear, the first naked one, in proximity, that had any predilection -she assumed - for her. While she trusted this young man, and her curiosity was certainly piqued, she was suddenly afraid of seeing his organ as if it was an apparition. Possibly, she was enjoying the suspense like a schoolgirl, she realized, as he adjusted the towel on his hips, threatening to fling it open.

"Ohhhh No!" she pulled the door shut behind her and quickly hooked it, stranding her guest on the porch. "No quid pro quo!" Mona's dark eyes flashed as she smiled and backpedaled further into the kitchen. "I'll be back," she said, still clutching the towel, which was loosely draped and failed to cover her hip as she turned to run into the living room.

"You are just awful!" Mona exclaimed as she turned to see his silhouette in the window watching her rush toward the stairwell. She unsuccessfully tried to cover her backside with the towel before she hopped up the stairs, finally out of sight of her persistent admirer.

Once in her room, the brunette wanted to transform herself into the type of sophisticated city, or at least in-town girl her visitor must be used to, and wear her most modern, 'grown-up' dress, sewn and fitted by her mom and kept secret from her overbearing father due its cut out back and somewhat risky neckline. But to look 'right', it needed stockings and heels and there wasn't time, since she had locked her beau out of the house with swaddling clothes as his only defense against the mosquitoes. Clean shorts were nowhere to be found; her most recent pair remained up on the side porch; long jeans would be uncomfortably hot. She randomly grabbed an older dress from the deep recesses of her closet and slid it on. She felt a little juvenile, as it was a dress she wore a few years before at school, store bought - a rarity. It was dark green plaid print with short white-cuffed sleeves and a white peter pan collar. It was shirred across the front, hugging her torso to the waist, and had a below-the-knee hemline that would have looked better with crinolines beneath. Practical and safe enough, she thought as she zipped up the back.