Plain Jane the Chameleon

Once again, for his usual wizardry with words, I send many thanks out to Aaroneous. When it comes to making edits and suggestions to my stories, he is the best. I know how long it takes to go over my mess, and I have no idea how he puts up with my repetitive mistakes. Beyond that, I am fully aware his hard work makes my words far more enjoyable reading.

Plain Jane the Chameleon

June 18^th, 1985. It was a Tuesday.

The day started out poorly but, as time passed, it became one I will always fondly remember. It was the day I started down the path to becoming a man.

The date sticks in my head because it was the beginning of a journey which provided me with many firsts in my young life. There were two on that particular day. My first ever flight and the first time I left American soil.

My overnight Pan Am flight was not what I expected. I couldn't see a thing out of the window I had begged for. Other than the flashing lights out over the wings, there was nothing but blackness. Blackness that didn't help me with what I was leaving behind.

I was born and raised in Hoboken, New Jersey. My father worked for the city as a maintenance man and my mother had a job in the kitchen at the hospital. They met in high school, and "had to" get married. We were true blue collar. If you have ever sat on the metal hood of a car older than 1975 and listened to Bruce Springsteen belting out one of his many tunes, then you know he was singing about us.

Everyone in my family worked. It's all we ever knew. School, work, sleep, repeat. But with four kids, there wasn't any choice, so my older sister and I worked stocking shelves at the grocery store near our house. We earned $2.25 per hour, which was less than minimum wage, but no one seemed to care. It was a good family life. We never seemed to need or want anything we didn't have. Maybe it was the way we were brought up. Maybe we had more than we knew.

At sixteen, I got my license, but it didn't matter because my mother and father only had one car and adding a third and fourth driver only made it a tougher fight to get driving time. So, I hung out with my buddies who had cars.

On weekends or nights during the summer, we pooled our money, filled my friend's brother's Monte Carlo, and drove it around Time Square like we were the Kings of Hoboken. If it wasn't happening there, we drove out to the Shores. We'd cruise the beach strip all day and all night. Many times, we ended up sleeping in the car. They were good times. Times when life seemed simple and fun, but it all came to a screeching halt when I met Lydia.

I first noticed Lydia when her family moved in down the street. She never spoke to me, or any of us for that matter. She was a home body, and her mother kept her close by her side.

Lydia would watch her brother play stickball in the street, but that was it. She wasn't allowed to join us. Her mom said girls didn't play sports. We all laughed at it, because we had heard Mrs. Petrovic had played volleyball back in the old country.

So, for the longest time, Lydia looked on as a spectator, but everything changed shortly after her eighteenth birthday.

Lydia Petrovic only lived five houses down from my place. Like every family on my street, her roots went directly back to Europe. Lydia was born in the States, but her parents and her two brothers were born in Yugoslavia. Lydia was my dream girl. Soft Eastern European looks with long dark hair. She was so pretty. And when she offered to steal away my virginity, I jumped at the chance. It happened a week after my eighteenth birthday. In a fumbling affair I realized I had no idea what to do, or how to please her, but when I looked back, it came to me, neither did she.

Our first-time having sex was during the day. A day when her mother played bridge, her father worked, and her brothers were at school.

Like I said, I fumbled around. I wanted to touch and taste every inch of her, but she wasn't having any of it. Lydia wouldn't let me rub or touch her pussy. Any movement unrequested got me a slap on the hands. She barely even let me suck on her dark nipples. And when I asked her to suck me, she was so disgusted, it almost ended the day.

So, my very first sexual encounter started and ended in pretty much the same way, Lydia with her legs spread, leaning back as far as she could on the family's basement laundry table. The same table they used to fold their clothes. I aimed my cock at the tiny hairs surrounding her hole because she wouldn't do it. With a certain degree of difficulty, I pushed my cock up, breaking the barrier skin. When my push stopped, I was as far into Lydia as I could go. With a small scream from her, and a loud groan from me, I was in. It was the timeless ceremony of breaking a cherry and solidifying a relationship with the girl next door. No longer were we virgins.

From that very day, on Tuesday night's while her parents were at a Fellowship meeting and her brothers were at the gym participating in boxing classes, we practiced sex in her basement. I wouldn't say either of us got any better at it, but it felt good, and the more we did it, the longer I lasted, and lasting longer is why I ended up on a plane bound for London.

Like many good things, they have a tendency for not lasting. The more times we had sex, the more possessive Lydia became. Even though she wasn't allowed to speak to me in public, she didn't want me hanging out with any of my friends. A line was drawn in the sand. Going out with friends, equals no pussy. And at eighteen-years old, pussy is very important. It might even be a key part for survival.

So, for thirty glorious minutes, and those thirty minutes included arrival, sex and departure, I was a very happy guy. The rest of the week, I was a miserable wretch.

As school came to an end and summer break neared, I weighed my options. I continued doing what I loved on Tuesday and then sat around pouting every other day of the week. It was time to move on. Either we had to start doing more in bed, or in our case, the basement, or I was going to try and hook up with one of the Italian girls down on the shore.

In the end, the decision was made by a higher being.

It was after one of our many Tuesday nights alone when Lydia's mom came knocking on our front door.

A series of events had led to Mrs. Petrovic coming to our house. The first was Lydia being overly upset with me because I was going to be working with my father for the summer. It was more money, but it meant way more hours. Lydia explained to her mom, I was being mean to her. She told her mom she wanted to date me, and I kept putting her off. According to Lydia, her mom told her to be nicer to me.

So, in an effort to get me to change my mind, she 'nicely' offered to let me, as she put it, 'do the deed', one time and one time only, bareback.

"Just to see what it will feel like when we are married and I'm on the pill", she said.

Yeah, Lydia spoke about getting married every time we hooked up. Looking back, I think she wanted us to be more 'couple like', than what we were. But we were kids.

The marriage thing bothered me, but I also wasn't on the list of eighteen-year-old guys who would refuse an offer of no condom sex. So, one Tuesday night, horny, and stupid, with my entire body shaking like a leaf, I put my bare cock into Lydia. I surprised myself by pounding away for almost seven full minutes. Lydia appeared to be bored by the time we got to three, but she waited until the five-minute mark until she told me to hurry up. So, for the first time in my life, I filled something other than a sock, tissue or condom. It felt incredible, and it was the evening where I had learned and wanted to last longer. Bareback sex was incredible, but the feeling of joy quickly flew out the window when Lydia's mom came down the basement stairs with her arms filled with a wicker basket of laundry.

Trying to explain to my parents why their son and her daughter were to be married, was the first of two reasons Mrs. P. was downstairs. The second was the Petrovic boys were very unhappy knowing their sister might be fucking an English low life like me. And if the rumors they heard at the gym were true she might even be pregnant with the 'low life's' child. Mrs. P. told my mother her sons were were 'dying to spar with me', so they could demonstrate their boxing skills. Lydia's mom was here to warn my mother. Her sons and husband would be looking for Michael. Two to beat me. One to force me to marry his only daughter and keep her honor safe or kill me. It would be my choice.

Six days later, Lydia and her parents showed up at my house, again. Everyone seemed relieved they had been able to keep us 'young lovers', apart. But not enough where they thought a situation of this nature was to be swept under the carpet. No, the Petrovic's had a very simple solution. The easiest way to stop the rumors and to stop their daughter from having pre-marital sex was to have their daughter get married. This wasn't a request. They told my parents a date in July. It was the day the wedding would be held. By then I could save some money and get an apartment. Until then, we were to stay away from one another.

In the evening I heard my parents talking. Having two daughters of their own, they knew how the Petrovic's felt, but I will never forget hearing my father make a joke about what was happening. He told my mother it wasn't like anything would help. There was no way Lydia's cherry would "grow back". I also remember the sound of a slap and both of them laughing.

My mother and father had a heart-to-heart with me and took everything into consideration. In the end we all thought it would be best for me to maybe spend my summer as far away from Hoboken as possible, and just outside Newquay, Wales, seemed like the best place for me to be.

Lydia snuck out of her house the night before I left. She begged me not to go. She offered me sex. Then threatened me with no sex. I couldn't win.

When the dust settled, she had called me every name in the book. Most of those being not so nice. And she also promised to never speak to me again. Actually, her words, verbatim, were, 'never, ever, fucking again, you stupid asshole'.

*****

The Clarke family near the Newguay area of Wales had roots dating back a couple of centuries. In fact, my father's youngest brother still lived on a seaside farm. The same farm where my father was born. And now, twenty years after my dad left the farm, he was sending his eldest son back. Of course, as he stated, it was 'for my own good'.

My father's sister-in-law, and her two children picked me up at the train station in Bristol. They held a sign with my name written in crayon and were waving tiny American flags.

Their car was a European model with a name I couldn't pronounce and a style I had never seen before. And when my aunt jumped behind the wheel, I was amazed it was on the passenger side. I mean I knew about right-hand drive, but I had never once witnessed it.

Three hours later, after making a few stops, we arrived at the Clarke home. During our trip, we had traveled over lots of countryside, and I had witnessed some of the most scenic land I had ever laid my eyes on. Even though my previous travel experience was limited to sneaking across the river and cruising the streets of all the boroughs in NYC and the Shores in Jersey. I knew beauty when I saw it.

Working on Aunt and Uncle's farm most days wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it might be. My uncle let me drive a small old tractor around to tend to his small herd of cattle and the horses that seemed to freely roam the property. By the third day, most of the horses would come to me for food when I approached, which, to me, was pretty cool. But what I liked the most about their farm was chilling outdoors most evenings, looking off in the distance at the ocean. It was strange looking at the Atlantic from the other side.

On the fourth day at the farm, I was near the road, pitch-forking hay off a wagon and hand pumping water into the cattle's drinking trough when I saw her for the first time.

She rode past me on an old balloon-tired bike. The paint was faded enough on the old metal frame that it looked like pale-yellow skin, and the clanking of the chain told you it had been ridden for more than a few miles. On the front of the bike, fastened to the handlebars was a basket. It was filled with a loose bouquet of wildflowers, the same as the ones growing at the most northernly point of my uncle's farm.

The girl raised her hand in a friendly wave as she pedaled by me. No words were spoken. No long stares. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just a single wave. The same kind of wave she would give me every time she saw me for the next eight days.

Before I get to the point where she finally spoke, I should probably tell you a bit more about the stranger on the bicycle.

The first few times I saw her, she wore long dresses, and her dirty blonde hair was pulled back into a ponytail or fluffed up on top of her head. Some days she wore a big floppy hat. Others, she didn't. When we went to town, I saw her at the market, but didn't recognize her due to the boots and dirty overalls she wore. And on Saturday when I saw her, her hair was jet black and she was wearing jeans and a short metal studded leather jacket, with boots. I thought the girl should be on a motorcycle and not something needing pedal power.

On Sunday, the hair was still black. So was the jacket. But her pants looked like the tight capris Lydia liked to wear, but these caught your eye because they were wildly striped black and white. Monday and Tuesday, her hair wasn't black, but it wasn't yellow. It was lost somewhere in between. Wednesday the long strands were way closer to the first time I saw her. Also, after the weekend, gone were the jeans. She was back to dresses. To tell the truth, at times, I wasn't even sure it was the same girl. And every time I did see her, I checked twice to be sure.

*****

"Alright?"

A female voice came from behind me.

"Pardon me?"

"Alright?"

"Why wouldn't I be alright?"

With pursed lips, bike girl looked me up and down. I pulled the T-shirt I had removed out from between my belt and hip, wiped my face with it, and pulled it back over my head.

"Where you from then? You the Yankee I'm hearin all the gossip bout?"

"Pardon?"

"I said...where...are...you...from? Or do you not speak Englius?" She intentionally mispronounced the word.

"New York, and yes I do speak English, or at least a version of it."

"Jane." She told me without getting off her bicycle.

"Mike."

"Michael?"

"No just Mike or Mikey."

"Fine. Michael it is."

"What about you, just Jane?"

"Plain Jane, that's me."

"Have you been riding past here every day?"

"Indeed."

"Were you at market last week?"

"Correct again."

"Then, there is nothing plain about you."

"Why do you say?"

"Everyday, your look changes. One day your dress was so blue you blended into the sea so much the bicycle looked like it had no rider. The same as the day it rained, and you wore gray. And at sunset when you had on a yellowish orange outfit. Your appearance changes like a chameleon."

"Do you oppose the change?"

"Not at all."

"You been watchin me, Michael the Yank?"

"Maybe, a bit."

"Then, it is I. Plain Jane the Chameleon."

Jane smiled from behind her sunglasses and gave me a fake curtsy, while still seated on her bicycle.

"I believe the chameleon part, but not the plain or ordinary bit."

"Ordinary I am, but extraordinarily ordinary."

"How so?"

"Oh, dear Michael. I lady never divulges her secrets. It keeps the allure alive."

"I see," I told her. But I really didn't. Not one bit.

"I like your hair, Michael. It's like a sophisticated Rob Lowe mullet. Pure Yankee haircutting magic."

"Thanks, I suppose."

"It's a compliment. Learn to take them where and when you can get them."

"Then, thanks."

"But if I had my way, the puny moustache would have to go."

Her body lifted off the ground as she put her weight on the pedal. With nothing more than a wave, she was gone, disappearing down the rarely used farm road. From a hundred yards away, I heard her.

"Later, Michael the Yank."

My fingers rubbed the few hairs under my nose. Embarrassed by their lack of growth, I told myself they would be gone tonight.

*****

After my second week of work my aunt gave me a surprise, and some freedom.

In one of the out barns on the property, she and I pulled open a large wood door clad with rusty tin. In the shadows I could easily make out the shape of a car hiding under a tarp. She lifted one corner and motioned me to grab the end closest corner to me. Backing up, we pulled the heavy covering away from the metal frame. Standing in awe, I eyed the ugly beige paint on the toyish looking vehicle.

"My brother Martin parked this here a couple of years ago when he moved to Spain. Hasn't seen the light of day since. Keys are in it if you're interested. If not, help me re-wrap it."

Interested? I was way past the point of interest. Like any 18-year-old given keys to a car while on summer break, I was ecstatic.

Diving behind the wheel I immediately regretted my decision.

It wasn't that the wheel was in an incorrect position for me, it was the shift stick at my left thigh. I had never driven a manual transmission. The whole multiple movements of clutch, shifter, and gas pedal were new to me.

My aunt, ever the mother, ever the teacher, climbed in beside me and read me the riot act. The car bucked and jerked enough to give the strongest of necks whiplash, but after fifty or so starts and stops around the pasture, I got to a point where the car wouldn't stall when I took off.

"Be safe lad. Do some exploring in your free time. Remember these words and you'll do fine, "you're never too young or too old to start living your life."

I would remember her words for the rest of my days.

*****

My travels took me mostly to small towns, and small towns meant mostly empty roads. But daily, I would venture further and further. I ventured to lots of the small coastal resort towns and did some sightseeing. A true tourist.

One of my favorite pastimes was sitting on the stubby nosed hood of the car and staring out at the water. But the thing I enjoyed the most were the empty dirt roads lined with stone and trees. I was on one of those empty roads when my life changed.

I wouldn't say I was lost, but I just wasn't completely sure where I was. So, with a can of warmish soda resting on the roof of the car, I opened a paper map I had found in the glove box and tried my best to see which direction to go.

"Lost, are you?"

To my surprise, Plain Jane was standing behind me. I was beside the road, and she was under an apple tree, behind a hedgerow of piled stones. The jet-black hair was back. So were the tight jeans and spiked jacket.

"Not really, I just enjoy reading maps. It's an American thing."

"Cheeky little bastard, aren't yah? It's not an 'American thing', it a 'lost' thing."

"Apparently, yes. To both."

"Oh, I wasn't asking a question. I was stating a fact."

"Okay, so I'm lost."

"Lost like that moustache of yours," she teased.

Jane easily hopped the stone wall and came over to the car. Putting her shiny black fingernail down on the paper, she moved it north and south. Finally, it came to rest in a spot by a cove or inlet.

"We're here. This is your place." Her nail drew an imaginary line. "All you need do, is follow this blue line north or south. Every town has a name sign. You get to one and figure out you're going the wrong way...turn the feck around." She turned to me before she continued. "And, if you think you're on the blueline, but can't see the sea on your left or right...you're going the wrong way. Pretty easy, yeah?"