Ramona Jean's Wanton Honeymoon

As the bride and groom sat and sipped coffee, their fellow patrons at the pancake house were unable to discern that beautiful Ramona's husband had violated her at length into the wee hours of that morning. They were unaware he had penetrated his semen-splattered bride with the neck of an empty Royal Crown Cola bottle, relentlessly rubbing her clitoris until she begged him aloud to release her from his clutches.

The evening of December twenty-fourth found the young couple holding hands at a candlelight service in historic Bruton Parish church. They retired early - lest Saint Nick skip their chimney - after Ramona, donning only panties, an unbuttoned men's pajama top and a Santa hat, recited aloud and signed The Night Before Christmas from memory for her groom.

A small ceramic tree - placed by the motel proprietors - with colorful plastic bulbs graced a table in their room, and after the fire died, was the only light until Christmas morning dawned clear and cold. The newlyweds had but one gift each for their new spouse. Ramona opened an envelope that contained a clipped magazine ad for a portable Philco television - the exact model that awaited them at his parent's house, still boxed for it's journey to their tiny apartment in Blacksburg.

Jefferson's gift from his bride was a small box, and within it was a set of keys - automobile keys. Calvin - often with his daughter's help - would fix up an old car or two during the slower winter months and sell it to supplement the family income. This autumn the subject was a brown 1949 Chevrolet Deluxe four door sedan. Little did Ramona know she was vacuuming and wiping down the interior of her future wedding and Christmas present until the surprise was revealed just before her ceremony - yet another secret. While she didn't have a license due to her deafness, the petite girl had learned, with her father's tutelage, to swiftly and gleefully navigate the unpaved back roads with the seat in its forward-most position, while sitting on an extra cushion and leaving a cloud of dust in her wake.

While guaranteed reliable, the car was not pretty, rusted slightly in places, and huge. A veritable tank, it quickly received the nickname 'M48'. It's size allowed the easy transfer of most of the their belongings to the studio apartment they rented near Jeff's new job in Blacksburg. He could walk to work days and take the car to campus for his night classes.

After a family New Years' Eve celebration in Rockbridge, the newlyweds were off to start their new life in the college town. Ramona kept the small apartment spotlessly clean, and alphabetically arranged the bookshelves, reading when not watching the TV, lip reading quite a bit of the dialogue.

The couple was on quite a budget, but Mona's frugal upbringing had taught her how to live economically. Their cupboard and second-hand refrigerator sparsely stocked, the young lovers ate many a meatless meal, peanut butter sandwiches, spaghetti with tomato sauce, or beans and rice, but none of that seemed to matter as they writhed or slept in each other's arms each night.

One cold, snowy day, the twinkle had seemed to lessen in Jeff's eye. He of course was happy with his wife and loved her more everyday, especially after dragging her into this new existence where they had to watch every penny - without a whisper of complaint from her. But his job - at the same hardware chain store as Lexington - and classes had become routine, and the snow and gray atmosphere cast a gloomy pall on yet another Saturday afternoon after his shift at work ended.

As Jefferson sat on the apartment's hand-me-down sofa and signed a thank you to her - an open hand motioned away from the base of the of the chin - for bringing him a cup of coffee, he noticed a strange expression on her face for such an inauspicious occasion. To Jefferson's surprise, his wife lifted her bulky pullover sweater off, revealing a flannel shirt, which she unbuttoned and opened to reveal her bare breasts. Ramona knelt on the rug in front of him and unzipped the fly of his khaki work pants, part of the store's uniform.

Jefferson smiled broadly, looking forward to a near-topless hand job or possibly sex from his wife - although the wrappers from the sanitary belts recently in their bathroom trash can argued against her climbing up and riding him.

Enshrouding his flaccid penis in the closed fingers of one hand, Ramona spoke, smiling broadly at the blonde young man she loved. Her voice, that of someone unable to hear the words they were forming, sprang more from her palate than her throat, but didn't even seem unusual to him anymore, it was just the way his girl talked.

"I've been saving this for a rainy day," she opened her fingers, extended her tongue and slowly licked the abbreviated underside of her husband's dick, then giggled, looking into his blue eyes, widened with surprise.

Seven

"You have arrived at your destination, one hundred yards on the right." The precise but impersonal computerized GPS voice said.

Maddie Sue Payne Turner - named after her both her grandmothers - pulled the Toyota Sequoia onto the gravel roadside and parked on the narrow strip of grass. A petite, elderly woman, her long silver hair braided precisely behind her head slowly exited the back passenger side, and - with the aid of her grandson- stepped slowly with her cane onto the weed-infested concrete. Standing in the warm Virginia sun, tears filled her dark eyes as she looked at the white clapboard structure, unorganized underbrush covering its perimeter. A yellow bulldozer sat nearby, still chained to its latest victim, the canopy over where the self-service gas pumps once stood.

" Mommy, why is great gramma Mona crying?"

"She used to live here, honey, it was her house at one time. She met your great grandfather here."

"How do you say 'wow'?" the child asked, then repeated the sign language to his great grandmother, who patted him on the head and smiled.

"Is it going to fall down?" the child inquired.

"No, they're going to fix it up and make it a visitor's center! Some smart men at a college figured out it was built before the Revolutionary War, and that some famous men who were later presidents may have stayed here." The woman told the child. The core of the building was much older than the Tompkinses were led to believe when they bought it.

"Where is great grandpa now?" the youngster asked.

Stepping slowly toward the structure, Ramona's memories flooded her mind, yet she was able to sort them out, the first of which was meeting the cute, shy but thoughtful, blonde young man as his family bought gas on a warm June morning in 1958. She blushed as she recalled the untoward, dirty, scandalous things they did - at least at that time they were considered so - later that night as fate brought them together. But it was not in vain; she married that young man, and they remained together through his monetarily lean college years and finally saw his lifelong success as a pharmacist. Petite Ramona was warned not to get pregnant due to her small stature, but her want of a child was greater than the pain her body might have to endure, and her daughter Madelyn Susan, was also a petite beauty, with Mona's dark hair and features and the brilliant blue eyes of her father. Now Maddie Sue was a grandmother herself.

"They're probably lost," announced a chuckling Jerry Turner, Maddie's husband.

The family had taken two cars, and each lost sight of the other in Charlottesville traffic. Jerry was about to call his son, driving the other SUV, but they appeared in the distance.

Several minutes later, a confused elderly man was walking across the gravel and broken glass of the concrete pad in front of the building, which historians determined dated from the 1750's.

Thomas Jefferson Payne did not recognize the childhood home of his wife. Absent gas pumps and signs from its last commercial iteration, a smoking paraphernalia shop, confused its façade. Moderate dementia clouded his frustrated mind the last few years, and there were days he - sadly - didn't know his wife.

Followed by his family, Jeff walked into the building.

"What is this place?" he asked, his voice altered by age. "Not gonna buy this, are you?"

"No Dad! It's Mom's old house! The gas station! Remember Calvin and Madelyn?" Mona's daughter replied, her own childhood memories of the store returning with a sudden clarity. The walls were cracked and stripped bare of any shelves. Cigarette posters littered the floor.

Suddenly Jeff caught up with is wife at the base of the stairs. A smile spread across his face.

"Elizabeth Taylor," Jefferson said.

Everyone registered a quizzical expression, wondering where his thoughts were headed.

Everyone but Ramona. She knew exactly, and raised a hand when her daughter's lips began to move, probably to offer a correction.

"Burl Ives." Jefferson pointed at his wife. "We saw Cat on a Hot Tin Roof that day! Terrible movie, depressing." The elderly man chuckled and looked up the stairs, remarkably unaltered, except for thick white paint, darkened with dust.

Thomas Jefferson Payne knew that staircase. He knew where he was now. He recalled the Esso gas pumps, his sister's imminent childbirth, what a bloody mess it made of the back seat. Most of all he remembered the miracle of meeting the sweetest, prettiest girl he ever saw, and soon knew he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. As a near-penniless young man, he had stared at the simple woodwork pattern on that newel post as he rehearsed the sign language for the most important question he would ever ask.

The moment that November day came back to him as if it had been only a week ago, not six decades.

He stood in front of gray-haired Mona, and spoke his words as he signed them perfectly for her.

'I love you forever, please marry me Ramona Jean.'

Ramona Jean sobbed with joy and hugged her husband.