Angel Lost in the Dark

Short Introduction

For every person that's alive on this planet today there is a story. Each of these stories are like fingerprint in that they are uniquely ours and are created by the choices that we make in life. When we are born we are like blank slates but the moment that we pop out of the womb we begin experiencing changes that will inexorably shape our personality and make our story truly different from any other.

By the time we have learned how to remember, the slate has been written on. We are who we are going to be, and we're going to be what we already are. Every trait that makes us unique can be traced back to a defining moment in time that has imprinted itself on us. That moment may have been a choice on how we reacted to certain stimulus, a completely random thought that was crossing our mind at the exact moment when something happened to alter it in an unexpected way, or maybe the first glimmer of an original thought that somehow gets confused in its translation and is forever linked in the mind as representing a reality that is perverted by our inexperience in processing such original thought. Whatever the cause, they become, for us, the reality, and the reality becomes the fiction. By the time we become men and women and have left childhood behind almost all of us find ourselves filled with unrealistic expectations, images of a reality that bear no relationship with 'real' reality, and a plethora of 'memories' that make no sense to anyone other than ourselves.

Let us suppose that our mother has taken us for a walk in our stroller on a warm summer afternoon and while being wheeled through a park we see a baby girl lying on the grass with her mother. The baby girl is completely naked except for a pair of booties covering her feet.. In our mind there is no thought of sexual attraction, but in the years to come we find that we are curiously attracted to girls wearing tennis shoes or something similar. I'm not suggesting that we all have shoe fetishes, but I am suggesting that all of us (even the most normal) have some sexual baggage that we never agreed to carry with us for life. Somewhere along the line we experienced a "something" that caused a neuron in our brain to short circuit or to fire too rapidly, and - Voila! - we got hung up on something strange and, to us, enjoyable. Others may criticize us, laugh at us, or be disgusted by what they perceive as a perversion on our part, but if they honestly looked within themselves they would find "kinks" of their own that just as strange, just as funny, and just as disgusting as ours. It's what makes all our stories unique.

Most or these kinks are benign. They can be as common as the aforementioned foot fetish or as complicated as the desire to be urinated upon while seated at the breakfast table reading an unpublished pornographic play by Shakespeare. Since the majority of these "kinks" are enjoyed only in the privacy of our heads they cause no problems. As we grow older we become aware that 'our' kinks are not the same as 'their' kinks and we begin to hide them from others. If we're lucky we find a few confidants – wives, hookers, good friends, priests, psychiatrists and psychologists, perhaps kindred spirits – that we feel free enough share these 'secrets' with, but even then we feel strange and different..

There are, however, many of us who are not satisfied with simply enjoying the kink from the privacy of our own head. There are those who need to act out the kink in real time, in the real world, and with real consequences for those who come in contact with our "inner' self. As I mentioned before, most kinks are benign, but keep in mind that acting out your kinks – perhaps fantasies would be a better word – contain risk. Keep in mind that there are some kinks that are more "out there" than others. Some people are unfortunate enough to be turned on by little kids or by torturing animals or by littering the landscape with newly created corpses whose demise is followed by a plethora of "catch-me-if-you-can" messages to the local police authorities. I know I'm taking a non-constitutional stand here, but for those unfortunates there is no hope. We might as well castrate them, execute them, or throw them in prison and then melt the key. For those with this type of link the person is too dangerous to allow him to act on his kinkiness. They can't be saved from their demons and studies have shown that they are incurable.

My particular kink is based primarily on exhibitionism and voyeurism. I am not a practicing exhibitionist nor do I walk down alleys in the midst of night peeking in windows for gawky thrills. I admit I go out of my way to put myself in situations where there is a pretty good chance that I will enjoy a flash of skin, a peek up a skirt or an unintentional (or better yet, intentional) show or unrestrained lust on the part of a exhibitionistic couple doing 'their thing." As outwardly conservative as I am have managed to "dress' up in biker clothes to observe the action at biker weekends, sit a bar for hours and hours at a time watching the girls during Spring Break at the Colorado river, and literally hundreds of days spent walking the beaches of Southern California, waiting and watching the women in their skimpiest bikinis. I've never had the opportunity to be on Bourbon Street during Mardi Gras but I did manage to go to the Burning Man event in Nevada and I consider New Orleans to be one of my favorite cities. Like most people I have absolutely no clue as to what caused my personal link. It didn't manifest itself until later in my life, although I'm sure my defining moment had been planted long before. It wasn't until I was in college that I discovered that side of me and it took me another twenty plus years to really come to terms with it and actively pursue it, so with that in mind I will begin this tale. Primarily it's about my relationship with Angel, but she doesn't become the main character until much later in my life. Before I introduce her you must first be introduced to Ellie, who I met in college, as well as Helen, my wife of over thirty years. Once you have heard everything you can only judge me as being benign or dangerous. I'm letting God judge my foolishness.

CHAPTER ONE

I was born at 10:38 on the morning of December 7, 1941 in a hospital in Waipahu, Hawaii. My mother and father had planned on being married in late January in a small church high in the hills over looking the Harbor but unfortunately fate intervened. He was killed a few hours before I arrived in the world. He was an innocent victim of the "day that would live in infamy." When I was six or seven my mother took me to his gravesite, but all I really remember of thar experience now was of standing on a boat watching gooey black bubbles coming up from out of the ocean floor and floating away with the tide.

Being 1941, having a child out of wedlock was looked on as being immoral, so when the "whore" and the "bastard" left Hawaii and moved back to the mainland no one seemed to mind. We settled in a city called Santa Monica, California near where my mother grew up. A year later we moved to San Pedro where she found a job working in the shipyards.

Obviously I don't remember any of those war years, but from the stories she has told me she worked the day shift and in the evenings she went to school and studied nursing. Between the work, the schooling and the studying she needed to do, there was very little time left for me, and I'm sure that being raised by babysitters, neighbors, and anyone else that she could find left its mark. She never married and once the war was over and she had graduated from her nursing courses we moved to a small bungalow a few miles north of the Los Angeles Coliseum, near where her parents had recently moved.. She got a job at General Hospital, which meant I was still being watched over by strangers during the day, but at least she was home most evenings.

My mother was a "good" person, and by that I mean that she did her best, but since she was still young, attractive and single I grew up with a succession of father figures. She always introduced them to me as "Uncle Jack" or "Uncle Bill" or "Uncle Harry," They were never introduced as boyfriends or suitors or fiancés or dads. Nor were they introduced as to what they really were: Fuck buddies.

Some of my "Uncles" only stayed two or three days, but most stayed longer. When I was twelve my "Uncle" Joe" moved in and he stayed for five years. He and I learned the fragile art of communicating with each other and he taught me how to concentrate on my studies and helped me with my homework. I learned to love him as I might have learned to love a real father, but there was never a legal or spiritual contract contemplated as far as I knew between him and my mother. Perhaps her heart had been hardened by experiences in life but she didn't take his sudden death nearly as hard as I did. He was only forty, but age makes no difference when you're squashed between two semi's in a forty three vehicle pile up in the Tulle Fog on Highway 99 near the off ramp that takes you to Weed Patch. Within two weeks "Uncle Bernie" moved in and life went on.

Thanks in part to the discipline that "Uncle Joe" instilled in me I managed to graduate from High School with a 3.8 average and earned a scholarship from the University of Southern California. Although the scholarship paid for all my tuition and school related expenses such as books, I had to work part time to pay for rest. Luckily we still lived in the bungalow my mother had bought in 1946 which was only a few miles from the campus so I didn't need to worry about housing. Between the financial help my grandparents gave me and the part time job working at a Bowling Alley just off campus I was able to buy a my first car, a 1953 Packard. It wasn't much of a car but I was still young and inexperienced and this was my first real adventure in what I referred to as the "real world." The car gave me a certain freedom that I desperately needed.

I lost my virginity before school ever started. The Fraternities were having rush parties and in the two weeks prior to registration and I was trying to attend as many as I could. It seemed like every night I was coming home drunk out of my mind. I had never been a drinker before, but I have been a drinker ever since. Thankfully I never became an alcoholic, but over the course of my life I have certainly tipped back more than a few. My mother never caught on because she was asleep by the time I got back at two or three in the morning, and luckily I never had an accident in the car or even stopped for drinking under the unfluence. Because of my financial obligations I wasn't intending to join, but a party is a party, and if I was to experiment University life in its fullest parties seemed as good a place as any to begin.

To those of you who don't know, rush parties pull out all the stops. They try to present their "house" in the best (or the worst) light depending on the type of members that they wanted to recruit. The "animal' houses hosted parties that would scare the shit out of the average parent whose son or daughter had just graduated High School and was away from home for the first time. Even the more moderate and conservative houses always made sure that their were plenty of kegs of beer and a inordinate amount of Sorority girls available for your visual pleasure, if not more. It was 1959, and while the sexual revolution had yet to flower the seeds were there and the bees were trying to make as much honey as they could. Some flowers, I soon realized, were known to be a little more willing to give up their pollen than others.

None were as willing as Ellie.

It was so many years ago that I don't remember the name of the Fraternity, but I'm sure it was one of the more animalistic ones. Beer flowed freely from an unending supply of kegs and the Sorority girls were, for the most part, fairly free with their pollen. From what I could observe they were keeping up with their male counterparts beer for beer and occasionally I saw couples walking up the main stairs, presumably to satisfy their need to produce honey privately in one of the bedrooms.

Not really knowing anyone, I simply walked around from room to room with a large paper cup filled with beer and watched. Whenever something – or someone – got my attention I tried to blend in with the background and watch and listen unseen. Anonymity gives you the feeling that you're invisible, and invisibility in a crowd gives you the chance to hear conversations that were not meant for your ears and see sights that you weren't meant for your eyes. I was taking full advantage of my invisibility and was enjoying the moment and the time.

I was well into my fourth beer when I stumbled upon a conversation between a co-ed and an overly muscular frat brother. They were seated side by side on the leather couch in the middle of the large living room. The first words I heard when I walked by was, "Yeah, I know, but I'm a little worried that I'll get a reputation. I did the same thing last year, remember?" Her voice, while not whispering, sounded conspiratorial so stopped to listen.

"So?" he responded. "That was then and this is now. It's a whole new group of people. Come on, Carol, be a sport. You know how much we need pledges this year."

He leaned over and began whispering in her ear. I couldn't hear what he was saying but I took a position a few feet behind the sofa and pretended to study the large landscape painting that hung on the wall waiting for the audible part to begin again.

"You know you want to do it," I heard him say as his moved away from her ear. "I want you to and they want you to, so where's the downside? Everybody wins, right?"

"I guess," she replied, "but you've got to promise that you'll be satisfied with whatever happens. I may not do everything I did last year. Last year was spontaneous."

"OK, so be spontaneous again. We'll just start dancing and little by little work up to it. Pretend you're a little drunker than you feel and just go with the flow. When the time's right I'll dare you to get up on the table and do a dance for us. Don't say yes all at once, of course, but I'm sure that everybody would start encouraging you and you can take it from there. Just remember to let them convince you that it's OK. That way you won't feel so embarrassed."

"OK, Nick, I'll do it, but don't get mad if it turns our different than last year."

"Disappointed maybe, but not mad. Come on, baby, you know you want to do it."

"All right, I guess. As long as you promise not to be mad at me.

It didn't seem as if they had noticed me, so I followed them to the Recreation Room down into the large spacious basement and I watched them and the others dance for over an hour. Nothing seemed to be happening. The beer was flowing freely, and the more they drank the more animated and risqué they became, but so were all the other couples that were there. Skirts whirled during fast pieces, and occasionally a flash of panties was seen but it certainly didn't seemed planned. More sexual in my mind was the sophomoric groping that occurred during the slower songs. Hands roamed over butts and breasts as the couples hugged each other tightly and swayed to the music. It was erotic for an outsider like me to observe. I knew what sexual attraction was and the mechanics for intercourse, but the extent of my personal experience was limited to masturbation. Although I had copies of Playboy magazine and some others whose names I forgot, I had yet to see my first naked girl. It was due to a lack of opportunity rather than a lack of interest.

When I found my cup empty for the umpteenth time of the evening I carefully made way back to the keg, making sure that I didn't stumble into anyone. The line was long so I decided to get rid of the last cup before filling up. There was a line of boisterous and rowdy guys and girls in front of me and I silently bided my time until it was my turn to use what I had already learned was the only downstairs toilet. There was another on the other side of the room marked "Girls" but there was a large sign on the door that said "Out of Order" and the door was locked. Drunk or not I was still rather surprised to see girls using the same facilities as the men, in the

"Nick told me that Carol was going to dance for us again" I heard a male voice in front of me say.

"All RIGHT!" said another.

"She's just a whore at heart" said one of the girls.

"You're just jealous." Said another.

After finally reaching the head of the line and doing my business, I headed back to the keg to get another beer. The line was much shorter now and as I was pouring the beer in the cup I noticed every one on the floor move back as four muscular fraternity brothers were moving a table out into the middle of the room. I started to hear random voices chanting "Carol, Carol, Carol," and as the voices increased in volume more people joined in the chorus until it seemed as if everyone was involved. She was modestly shaking her head and waving off the their encouragement, but she was laughing and smiling in a way that suggested it was all for show. While she continued her protesting I found a good spot to observe the performance, if and when it was given.

The encouragement continued for a few more minutes with yet more of her feeble attempts at getting out of it. Finally Nick grabbed her around the waist with both hands and literally lifted up onto the table. She shook her head and protested one last time. She began to step off the table but Nick stopped her and said loudly "Come on, everybody wants to watch you dance. Dance for us."

"No they don't," she said. "I'd feel silly up here dancing all by my self." She said it, but she made no further attempt at stepping off the table.

"You did it last year;" a voice came from somewhere in the crowd.

"That was different," she yelled back. "Last year I was drunk."

"That can be fixed," someone said, and suddenly cups of beer were being set on the table in front of her. She bent over and picked one up and drank the cup without coming up for air. A lot of it spilled out of her mouth and soaked her blouse. A lot of laughter ensued over her "accident" after some else yelled out "Take it off so we can dry it for you." She laughed, and unbuttoned the blouse.

"Don't get your hopes up," she said as she took off the blouse and stood there wearing a standard white bra. Not particularly sexy by today's standards, but stores like "Victoria's Secret" were still in the future so the sight of her standing there with only a bra between her naked skin and my eyes was getting me aroused.

Someone turned on music and she tossed the blouse out into her audience with instruction to make sure that someone had it washed and dried for her. Then she picked up another beer and began to move around. "I don't know why you want to see me dance. I feel stupid being up here all alone,"

Stupid? Of course it was stupid, but she wasn't. She was smart enough to know that she wanted the attention, and she was wise enough to realize that those who enjoy attention can sometimes become jokes. She wanted to show off yet have the excuse that she had been talked into it. She wanted to avoid the responsibility of her actions and now she could blame not only the beer but the clamor of the crowd as well. Perhaps if she worked it right no one would ever know how much of it had been her decision and not theirs.

I was the only one that knew of the conversation I had overheard so I suppose I can't be an impartial judge, but I thought she was woefully inadequate as an actress. To me she was as transparent as could be, but in the end nobody really cared. All that mattered was that she had fun, we had fun, and the fraternity made their quota of new pledges. As long as no one got hurt there was no harm. It was all just a matter of a little innocent (or maybe not so innocent) fun laced with a little adolescent decadence.