A Loss, A Gain

In honor and memory of one of Literotica's great citizens, an exemplar of intelligent prose, common sense, decency and fair minded discussion. Oggbashan, a Lit Immortal.

[Finding Uncle Saul's journal tucked away in a trunk in his attic shouldn't have been a surprise. I didn't even know he kept a memory book, although he was the observant, introverted type. He had lived the last five years of his life in Wellfleet, on Cape Cod. My father's brother hated the warm months that entailed tourists and crowded beaches, so he mostly played hermit for the summer, but the rest of the season it was grand. He wrote, took long walks on deserted beaches, used his high-end camera for nature photographs, and as far as I could tell, he was happy.

Saul was an attentive, if sometimes distracted, uncle. My father always said Saul lived in his head too much. But Uncle Saul always made a point to visit on the occasion of every niece or nephew's eighth birthday, flying out from where he'd settled in San Diego, when he would make a gift of a pen knife, and spend a week instructing you on the fine points of blade care, safety, whittling techniques. I don't know why that birthday was significant for him, but he never missed one of ours, and a knife was given to male or female alike. I remember being thrilled with mine, and the prospect of a special visit from him.

But he died in May, and I was charged, with a couple other family members, to go through his effects, get the house ready to sell, do mop up after a death, none of which is ever anyone's favorite activity.

The journal was a sporadic mix of personal reminisces, and mostly relayed experiences as unconnected events. The overall effect was a mosaic portrait of the man. Given the subject matter for this entry and the level of detail involved, I cannot believe it is not true—he was not one to embellish. But of course now I harbor a family secret. I doubt I will ever reveal it to the others. I've saved the journal to share with the family but have carefully, so no one will notice, removed the pages containing this particular incident.

I've done the lightest of edits and put a couple explanatory notes in square brackets. Not everyone is Jewish.

Dated October 1978, several years after the event in question.]

****

Mitzi's request could hardly have been more surprising. It was just after Pesach [Passover], in April 1970, and I hadn't seen the whole family for over a year. I had finished my year of duty in an infantry platoon in Vietnam, had home leave for two weeks before heading down to Fort Dix and my last six months of service.

I was relieved to have come home in one piece, and my chances of surviving the next several months in New Jersey were far greater than crouching at the edge of a tropical rice paddy and getting shot at. No one talked about the war, and if I was in uniform, people avoided me like the plague. Even without the clothes, my military haircut at that time, and probably my demeanor, stood out and marked me wherever I was about. Except for family time, being stateside tended to be an uncomfortable experience.

We were in the old family vacation home in Harwichport [on the Cape], had finished prayers and a good meal, and I was luxuriating in the presence of everyone. My parents and my brother Ben, along with Aunt Rachel and her husband David Goldschmidt, with their two daughters Mitzi and Wendy, who was just finishing high school and thinking ahead to college in Boston. Uncle Isaac and family weren't there that year, cannot remember why. The Wallenstein family.

Mitzi had taken me aside on an after dinner walk in the neighborhood. It was warm, the crickets out buzzing away. Mitzi was the most gregarious of the cousins, inevitably cheerful and engaging. Her dark hair was back in a pony tail, her long dress, more formal than usual, elegant and flowing.

"I have a rather large favor to ask."

This, of course, is rarely an opening line that is welcome. What could she (or they?) want of me? I was in the army, had no money, wasn't even home but for another couple days before getting shipped down to Fort Dix.

I looked at her, probably with some alarm.

"It's Wendy."

I tried to think what sort of favor might be involved. What trouble could Wendy possibly have? I couldn't imagine her doing drugs, or that she had difficulties of any sort. Studious, polite, loyal. If you wanted your ideal, rule-abiding, cautious sister, daughter, family member, you couldn't do any better than Wendy. And this was her older sister asking.

"What about?" I was out of ideas.

"Guys."

"Okay, guy trouble." I laughed. This at least made sense.

"She have an unfortunate boyfriend?"

"No, that's exactly the point."

"Alright, no boyfriend. So?"

"It's a big deal, Saul."

"Mitzi, I think you went eighty plus percent of high school without a boyfriend if I recall correctly. I don't see anything unusual about that."

Mitzi hesitated. "Okay, you know she turned eighteen in January."

I laughed again. This was an old joke in the family. Wendy was born at twenty minutes past midnight on the First of January, 1952. First baby of the year in our town, a nice little record in the newspaper, a footnote to a birth. But the joke was that her father, David Goldschmidt, esteemed Certified Public Acountant, got screwed big time. He still groused about it. If Wendy had been born an hour earlier on December 30th, her father would have been able to deduct her as a dependent for tax purposes for the whole year before. As it was, he missed out on an entire year of tax benefits.

"Sure. Turned eighteen, no problem there."

Mitzi hesitated again. "She hasn't had a single boyfriend."

"Okay. But she's going off to college, I cannot imagine she'll go more than a couple months at Tufts before she pairs up with someone. Or at least has the opportunity to do so."

Mitzi shook her head. "You don't understand some of the complications of women-folk, Saul. We get worked up over guys. Over our looks, how we appear to others, whether we're attractive, all sorts of stuff."

This, so far, was not news to me.

Mitzi went on. "Wendy, as you well know, is not ay sheine maidele [a handsome girl]."

This was true. Wendy was short, barely over five feet. Chubby enough to the point of being teased. Wide hips, almost no waist, the big flat Ashkenazi ass. Wire-rimmed glasses, curly, untamable hair that stood out as wide as it was tall, making her resemble a hedgehog. Almost a Jewish Afro.

And the nose. The long protruding nose of our ancestors. But her broad face was appealing, a sharp chin, her eyes lively if shy.

None of this is what I said though.

"On outside appearance? Right. On inside qualities, she's right up there with the best of them."

"You are correct about college, Saul. All it will take is a suitable illegal keg party and someone will be willing to take the plunge with her. But here's the rub."

I shrugged. "Okay?"

"No boyfriend, no kisses, no breasts being fondled, no sthupping. Understand?"

She seemed exasperated, as if I was missing something, although I was beginning to get a bad feeling about the conversation.

"Sure. Virginity. And like I said, all of this can be handled nicely in the first couple months of college freedom."

"That's exactly it. But here's the thing. She would like to have had some experience with male," she hesitated, like reaching for the right word, "desire, before that happens. Doesn't want the first time to be a complete surprise."

Now I found myself distinctly uncomfortable.

"So what I am supposed to do, Mitzi? You want for me to procure for her? Find one of my buddies, which I remind you there are none in town at the moment, for a mercy fuck?" I felt annoyance creep into my words.

Mitzi put her hand on my shoulder. "No. You." I flinched.

"Me? You're nuts, Mitzi. This is your sister. My cousin!"

"It would mean the world, Saul. Absolutely the world."

I shook my head. "No way."

"Look at it this way. One time. With someone she trusts. With someone who will be good to her, treat her with respect. Can you say that about all first sthups?"

She was right on that score. Certainly for me. And despite a number of conversations, with both male and female friends, almost nobody, if they were honest, raved about their first copulation. It was the later ones that made the headlines.

We talked a little more. I was adamant. No interest. Mitzi tried every argument and angle she could think of.

The whole thing went south the moment I thought about putting my penis up Wendy's shmundie. I could not imagine doing so. Or even getting an erection up for her at all, to tell the truth.

We had wandered back to the house. Mitzi paused at the foot of the stairs up to the porch.

"Will you at least promise me to think about this, Saul? Sleep on it for a night?"

I gave her my promise, most reluctantly.

And I did not sleep well that night.

You can ask my family, or anyone really, and they will tell you I am generally more than ready and willing to do a mitzvah, for anyone, but no one had ever asked for this sort of "good deed" before.

By great mental effort I could almost wrap my head around the benefits of honoring the request, to agree to the favor in principle. Until I got to the part about putting my erection inside of Wendy. This, of course, is primal. When confronted by this sort of thing for most of us, a million different thoughts raise their stubby little hands and cry "No!"

Wendy was my cousin. I was just two years older than her, we had played together growing up. I remembered pushing her in a swing when she was three. She wasn't quite the little sister who tagged along, it was but close enough when our families got together.

But Mitzi was right, Wendy's years had led to adulthood, a young woman now at the cusp of a new chapter, college coming, freedoms, independence.

[Enclosed in the journal here is a family photo from maybe the year before in front of the Harwichport house. The whole extended family. The Wallenstein siblings in the center: my grandparents Irv and Mira, his brother Isaac and sister Rachel. Progeny clustered around each sibling: Isaac and Ruth's four, Saul off to the right, looking trim and wiry, with a Boston Red Sox baseball hat on, with my father Ben next to him. Tall Mitzi and short Wendy far at the other side next to Rachel's husband David Goldschmidt. Wendy is in jeans and a baggy flannel shirt. She looks stiff, her nose sticking out beneath her glasses.]

A question suddenly arrived in my head. I had neglected to ask Mitzi earlier. Was the request coming from Mitzi alone? I puzzled over this for some time but concluded that she never would have asked without Wendy's knowledge and permission. Otherwise, how weird was that? Asking me to shtup her sister? But the uncertainty lingered overnight.

The doubt dissipated the moment I sat down to breakfast with the crew the next morning. Wendy looked over to me and quickly averted her gaze. She knew. Even Mitzi, talkster extraordinaire, was quieter than usual, her banter forced and just a beat off normal.

Alright. A conspiracy then.

Mitzi collared me as soon as possible after the family meal.

"So, nu? Any further thoughts?"

I am not sure what my expression indicated, but Mitzi's face did not like my reaction.

"Let's go outside," she said, taking me by the hand down the steps to the back yard.

Again we talked. Long enough to have covered every base we had covered the day before, three or four times over.

"You're only here another couple days, Saul. It would make such a difference. More than you could possibly guess."

I felt cornered, off-center, pulled in multiple directions.

"Okay Mitzi. I am not saying yes, alright? But let me have a talk with Wendy first. So far I have only heard from you."

She beamed at me.

"Oh Saul, that's wonderful. Wait here, I'll fetch Wendy. Maybe you two can take a walk or something, someplace private."

"I didn't say yes, Mitzi." I repeated myself.

"I know, Saul. Hold on, stay right here."

Wendy came out, shy as a fawn. But she smiled. "A walk perhaps? Away from town? It's a gorgeous day."

We didn't speak for several minutes as we went by the summer homes with their carefully cultivated plants, the hydrangeas and lilacs that would be in full bloom in a month or two.

I asked about her studies and college plans, just to start talking about something.

She seemed relieved that I had finally spoken, and I got a wheelbarrow full of excited chatter. She was good at math but really would prefer something in the humanities. English major likely, but maybe linguistics or cultural anthropology. Nothing that sounded practical to me.

Then she got quiet, looked a little embarrassed.

"I've gone on and on about myself. What about you Saul? How goes it with you?"

I shrugged. "Okay. At the moment, just glad to be alive."

She looked up at me.

"Right. The war. Nobody ever talks about it when you're around. But it's on everyone's minds. What's it like?"

"It's about as bad as you can imagine. At least in the field. Not all the time, just most. Even when things are okay you know they can change in a moment."

"You ever shoot someone, Saul?" Her voice had a tremulous edge I had never heard before. Her question took me by surprise.

"Once. But that was only time I thought of it that way. After that first one, it was just business." I looked away.

She was quiet.

"There must have been something good in the army. What's been the best part?"

"The best was also the worst. Both wrapped up in the same event."

She looked puzzled.

I told her about the time my platoon was out along the rice paddies, doing a village sweep, when we got ambushed. We had been going single file, about ten meters apart the way we were trained, on top of a paddy dike. All hell broke loose. Bullets flying everywhere, we all dove face first into the rushes along the paddy for cover.

A buddy, Robby Cornwall, who had been one of the lead guys walking point, had got hit and went down. We heard him moaning. I managed to get over to him.

"Saul!" he whispered, hoarse and loud. "I can't feel my legs! I can't feel them, man! I can't move! It's all over!" He'd been shot in the back.

I told her how his eyes bored into me, an expression that is still seared into my brain. Wide eyes. Fear in capital letters. Like death had knocked on his door. I'd seen it before. But never so close.

"I'll get you out, Robby." I didn't think I'd uttered a lie, but it probably seemed that way to him.

"Can you move your arms, Robby?"

He nodded.

"Okay ditch your gear." I did mine as well. "Grab around my neck and hold on tight. We'll get ourselves out of here."

I still don't know how I did it. It must have taken an hour although time was meaningless in my head. One hundred meters I dragged him? Two hundred? Must have been at least that. I could crawl forward maybe a couple minutes at a time, before stopping, bullets still flying, the noise and chaos impossible. But my focus was pinpoint. All I could think of was getting away from the paddy, back to shelter the way we'd came.

But Robby held tight, and I got him safely back, then watched the dustoff helicopter take him away on a stretcher. He looked at me just before getting carted in. "Saul, I owe you man. I owe you." I told him he'd be okay. I was shaking. I haven't seen him since, but I heard he got back to the states, alive, but paralyzed.

[Since finding the journal I have looked around a bit. Found an AP photo online of "Robert Cornwall" and Ron Kovics at a veteran's anti-war protest, both in wheelchairs. Photo was dated late 1972 so he was likely alive when Saul wrote this, although he maybe didn't know this.]

I didn't look at Wendy.

I took a deep breath. "The best and the worst. Disaster and saving the life of a comrade. I don't know how I did it. Just instinct took over. And Robby managed to hang on. And a miracle I got out of that alive too."

There was a very long silence.

"I don't want to talk about 'Nam any more, Wendy."

"Yes," she said in a small voice.

I paused.

"So, Wendy. It appears Mitzi has made a request of me." Even starting this difficult conversation was preferable to more war stories.

Her face reddened. "Yes. Saul, she did so with my permission."

It was my turn to be a bit undone. I had things backwards, thinking that Mitzi perhaps had been the prime mover.

"But Wendy, why me? Why put the burden, and the potential hazards, right at my doorstep? Not to mention a thousand other complications for this little endeavor?"

"Saul, you're sweet. You've always been good to me. Good to everyone in the family, except maybe that one thanksgiving a couple years ago."

I didn't need to be reminded of that one, it took the whole weekend for me and Wendy's father to calm down enough to talk to each other again. I waved a hand.

"Saul, I don't think you quite know what it is like to be a female virgin."

This I could agree with, and said so, but also suggested it was far easier for a female to shed her virginity than a male.

"So many of these first times are not so great," she went on. "I've heard stories."

"But certainly there is someone in school, or someone you know in town, who you are attracted to, for which such an encounter, would be more natural? Have some meaning? Potential for a real relationship, however short?" I was aware of perhaps sounding petulant.

She shook her head.

"No one as nice as you Saul. I know you've had sweeties before. I know you've—you know—done it."

I couldn't argue with this, although I had never revealed this to Mitzi or any of the other cousins.

And then the thought of my penis disappearing up Wendy's channel came up again, and several parts of me recoiled.

I shook my head. "I don't think so Wendy. It's too strange. Too close to home. And what if it is a bad experience, for both of us, not just you? But me too? Look, I adore you as a cousin. You're special. This sex thing has a power of its own, it can do all sorts of warpage and twisting stuff. Pull fabric out of shape, alter thinking and shift everything. You don't do it lightly."

"Agreed. But you're only thinking of the negative, Saul. Can you see fit to think about potential positives?"

She looked up at me. Not imploringly, but earnest. "Sure, experiences can be good or bad. But you have to agree that every experience, every single experience a person can have, can be a learning experience."

She had me. I laughed.

Then she laughed too.

"So us shtupping is just a learning experience? That's it?"

We laughed some more, then neither of us said anything for a bit while we walked. Even the street we were on, leafy and narrow, was quiet.

I finally spoke.

"No matter what you think, I don't travel with condoms, Wendy. We'll need to remedy that." Was this an excuse? A delaying tactic?

She shook her head. "No need. I'm on the pill."

I stopped and stared off into the maples at the side of the road to digest this piece of intel.

"Seriously? For how long?"

"Six months."

I looked at her.

"I wanted to be set. Prepared. For any eventuality."

Oy. she was that desperate.

"Okay. My health is fine, we'll be okay on that score too."

We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to figure out how to do the deed. This ended up being a good thing, since it took my mind off the event itself. Maybe like a new actor worrying more about the lighting or his costume, rather than his actual performance.