Ramona Jean's Sinful Weekend

Ramona Jean Tompkins was a pipsqueak, and frequently mistaken for a younger girl. The simplicity of her outfits, and her lack of nail polish and cosmetics didn't dissuade the misperception. Sporting a faded plaid shirt and worn jeans, and her usual battered boots or saddle shoes, the flat-chested, five foot tall woman was frequently offered a reduced bus fare or movie admission in Gordonsville.

The theater operators didn't know the 'underprivileged', dark-featured girl, always a solitary patron, was near her twentieth birthday as she walked past the concessions - she always brought her own piece of fruit - and through the aroma of popcorn. She was there for a Saturday matinee of Hitchcock's Vertigo, the latest spring 1958 release. Besides, they rationalized, she was only getting half the movie - the images on the screen, but not the soundtrack, since she was a 'deaf mute'.

"Deaf as a post," was the quote from the doctor that examined her as a four year-old. While on the trip home, those on the bus buried their noses in newspapers describing the recent Allied invasion of North Africa, and her adoptive mother, Madelyn, sobbed all the way back, holding the sleeping youngster. Born in Appalachia, Ramona was the premature, unplanned child of a teenaged mother. The toddler was represented as completely healthy by the agency, which vanished soon after.

"We shoulda got us a dog instead," Calvin Tompkins had said. He was generally a good man and father, but was prone to insulting verbal tirades. The adoption of the little girl was his idea, to distract his wife from the losses of their own children. Polio took their teenaged daughter Daisy during the depths of the depression, and their son Cal Jr., who had been enjoying his exotic, Hawaiian assignment on the USS Oklahoma, was killed on a Sunday morning the previous December.

So, they raised the little girl as best they could. Public school was out of the question, so Ramona's world consisted of the family's white-framed combined home, general store and filling station - which served a highway in the Blue Ridge foothills - and the dolls, coloring books and magazines within. A happy, inquisitive child regardless, she communicated largely by grunting, pointing or pounding on a table or wall to get someone's attention, and helped keep the store stocked and swept up. Nights she slept soundly upstairs in her room, or, in the heat of Virginia summers, on the second floor's screened-in side porch. Sunday was her least favorite day, as she couldn't grasp why she had to wear an uncomfortable dress and shoes to a hot building where everyone sat on hard benches and then stood for random intervals and looked at books with no pictures and moved their mouths in unison.

Madelyn, busy with running the store, kept the girl's jet black - they surmised she had Cherokee blood - hair short, so as not to have to 'fuss with it', and 'Mona' was often mistaken for a boy by customers of the general store and those purchasing gasoline from Esso pumps out front. As yet another war raged, this time in Korea, nature intervened, if only subtly. Ramona's summer tomboy days of denim overalls without a shirt beneath had come to an end. Almost immediately, Calvin insisted on the addition of a disguising training bra beneath her clothes, since he and 'people didn't want those things staring at them'.

It was at about this time that Calvin's drinking escalated, as he lamented his perceived lack of success and prestige. Luckily a flat tire soon changed their lives.

One overcast morning, a shiny blue Lincoln limped into their gravel driveway on the rim. As Calvin fixed the innertube, silent Mona improved the driver's mood with a small bouquet of picked wildflowers and her big smile.

The driver was an Alexandria socialite on her way to the University of Virginia, but more importantly, was on the Governor's educational advisory committee. That fall Mona was attending a State school for the deaf an hour away in Staunton, at no cost to the family. It was a boarding school, but she would be home holidays and to work at the store during the busier summer season.

Despite a rocky start and some insensitive juvenile remarks labeling her a 'half breed', Ramona flourished at the institution, meeting other deaf children enduring similar struggles. She learned math, to read and write - her mother framed the first post card she received from Mona - and mastered sign language. She found the dormitory luxurious, as it was her first time living with central heat and indoor plumbing. She would forego most social activities to stay in her room and read, and completed all twelve grades over five winters, earning nearly straight A's and proudly receiving her diploma by the time she was nineteen. She returned to the store and relieved her parents of much of the burden, handling the books and written orders from suppliers. They even planned an early summer vacation.

She had also learned to carefully speak aloud, but knew her fabricated words sounded unusual, and was wary of the reactions of strangers. So, Mona kept her pencil and spiral notebook handy to write down most of her conversations.

Back home for good, she missed her interesting and more worldly school friends, put away her nice clothes and returned to her baggy jeans, shirts, bobby socks and loafers.

Two

What remained unseen beneath the oversized clothes was the body of a young woman - the nude, light brown-skinned torso Mona saw in the full length mirror clearly for the first time in her dorm room. By senior year, she had what could be called a 'boyish' build. Her hips were only marginally wider than her waist, but her feminine bottom had expanded, at least when viewed from the side. She had a few wisps of black hair between her thighs, which did little to camouflage the conspicuous trident of flesh - ample, finger-sized outer labia, and the protruding hood of her clitoris that graced the adult-sized genitalia which her diminutive pelvis could not quite fully withhold.

What had stalled on her journey to womanhood, she believed, were her breasts. They were small and steeply sloped, seemingly the minimum flesh needed to support her nipples, which were dark brown, hemispherical, and, Mona believed, disproportionately large and swollen looking. Their outward projection was more evident without one of the restrictive Maidenform AA cup brassieres she usually wore around her ribcage. It angered her father if he happened to see her without restraint, even in a nightgown when she crossed her arms across her chest when they passed each other at sunrise on the path to the outhouses behind their building. The girls at school were mostly consoling, assuring her there were practical athletic, as well as backless and strapless fashion advantages to being a 'Flatty Patty', and after all, it was ultimately the silken slit between her legs the boys were pursuing.

With the help of her friends, Mona had learned to walk in borrowed high heels, albeit with newspaper stuffed in the toes to compensate for her smaller feet. Dresses loaned by other petite girls, hairstyling, and a little makeup 'shined her up' for school mixers - the music free equivalent of a prom - and she had a pleasant time with the awkward boys, but was glad when the events had ended, and she could return to her introverted ways.

Bookworm Mona had not eschewed all social gatherings at school. Her favorites were the scandalous but silent - punctuated with an occasional unheard squeal or giggle - sign language discussions, usually late at night and led by the older girls, about boys, kissing, romance and the biggest mystery of all - S-E-X.

Sometimes embellished with crude illustrations, the various elements were explained and debated, some in fact and others in conjecture. Mona couldn't believe that a man's pee-pee could grow large and rigid enough to fill and even hurt her insides. Surprising her peers with her boldness, she readily admitted to having seen several 'dicks' - one of the words the girls called them - by coincidentally being in their backyard shed on an errand and spying through the gaps in the siding. Some impatient male customers simply urinated into the underbrush behind the store instead of waiting for the occupied outhouses to be vacated. The fleshy spigots seemed too small and limp when shaken - like wet washrags - to transform into the formidable predators the girls described.

The unofficial education at school filled in a lot of the blanks her mother's discussion omitted. Madelyn, more frank than many mothers had been, had said that a naked wife lying in bed underneath her naked husband - obviously permitted only after marriage - would produce a baby. Any attempt at such activities before nuptials would ensure eternal damnation for both participants. Mona, having read most of the Old Testament and all of the New, wasn't worried too much about the damnation, as the boys weren't exactly knocking down the door.

As of her last year in school, Mona, with large dark eyes and high cheekbones, had let her straight, raven hair grow to her shoulders. She was not without admirers - local young men who knew, despite her appearance, she was no longer jail bait - flirted with her a little, but the scribbled conversations fell short of asking for an actual date. To the local boys, some of them barely literate, the problem of how to converse smoothly for an entire evening - or long enough to determine if the stigma of her handicap, some of them hoped, left her self-esteem lacking to the point she was an 'easy lay' - just seemed insurmountable. No matter, the resolute young woman dove into her work, since the store and land, she was told, would eventually be hers.

Three

Mona panicked as she awoke. The alarm clock - which she had set and left next to her head, so the vibrations would at least awaken her, had rolled away and had already exhausted its winding. Six twenty - Oh no! She had overslept by forty minutes. The petite young woman bolted upright, slipped her nightgown off over her head ran a brush through her hair, then grabbed her denim shorts - jeans cut off and hemmed just above the knee. Damn it! Three cars waiting in line, she saw out the window- supposed to be open at six. Damn, damn, damn. Next she needed a bra. Shit! They were all still pinned on the clothesline on the upper side porch, no time to run out and retrieve one. Before hopping downstairs, she pulled a red print sleeveless blouse from the folded clothes stacked on the ironing board. Awww! Buttoning the blouse, she realized it was her mother's, a few sizes too big. Mona tied and knotted the tails off around her waist, then clutched a dark blue Esso windbreaker as a hedge against the cool morning air as she slammed open the electrical box and flipped the pumps, interior and exterior lights and signs on, and dashed out into the dim morning barefooted - her father had poured a concrete pad by this time - to dispense gas for the patient customers on her first Saturday running the store alone.

Hopefully the early morning patrons - all regulars who knew Mona and to hold up their fingers for the number of dollars worth of fuel they desired -.wouldn't squeal to her parents about her opening twenty-two minutes late. Calvin and Madelyn, taking their first vacation in years, had gone to visit some relatives in North Carolina, and left their daughter in charge.

Business was good this weekend morning, as the warm sun rose higher and some travelers from distant cities stopped in. Most Virginia counties and municipalities had metal 'tax strips' that fastened to the front license plate, with the embossed name proudly displayed. Mona had been too busy to change her outfit - she was hiding her lack of a brassiere from the public with the partially zipped up windbreaker, but it was getting hot. She was about to run around to the exterior stairs - the only ingress - of the second story screened-in porch where the undergarments were hung to dry, out of view , more or less, of the customers, since the patrons sometimes visited the backyard privies where the remainder of the clothes were hung. She planned on changing into one of her own shirts as well, but a yellow and white '56 Buick station wagon with a plate from Rockbridge County, which was a couple hours southwest, pulled off the highway and up to the pumps.

Smiling, hair in a high ponytail, Mona walked out with her small clipboard and tethered pencil, which had preprinted forms asking the patrons to request their quantity of fuel, and if they wanted their oil checked.

The station wagon was carrying a blonde family, parents, two young adult siblings, and a suit bag and trombone case in the back. The woman in the back seat had a wedding band and appeared several months pregnant - but the college age man next to her had to be her brother - they almost looked like twins.

"Let's get her to check the oil..." the father said, laughing.

"Howard! No!" the mother exclaimed as the petite girl used a long handled sponge mop to wipe the bug carcasses from their windshield. "That li'l bit couldn't reach the radiator cap!"

In the rearview mirror, Howard noticed his son was enamored with the pretty, diminutive Indian maiden as she walked by. She and the son exchanged a pleasant smile.

After several rings of the bell that tolled at the gallon mark, the fuel hose nozzle was removed from the Buick and placed back into its slot. Mona took the man's bills, signed a 'thank you' and smiled again at the young man in the back seat before disappearing into the white clapboard store.

"What is this, deaf Munchkin land?" the daughter asked cynically.

"Kimberly!" her mother scolded.

"Hey Jefferson," the man spoke to his son via the rearview mirror as he gathered a few bills. "Why don'tcha go grab us some Nehis, Co-colas and nabs? Maybe find an Oh Henry for Miss Grumpy," referring to the pregnant sister, whose newlywed husband had left her with more than just his surname before reporting for an overseas Air Force deployment.

"Honey, we just ate!" his wife protested about the refreshments.

"Let him go, Susan..." he replied, proud he was giving his shy son a chance to flirt a little with the barefooted gas jockey, even though she was deaf and probably too young for him. The young man was a bit shorter than most of his peers, and even though he had been on the wrestling team, they worried about his self confidence sometimes. The family was on their way to a regional collegiate band competition in Maryland, where Jeff had a trombone solo, so it was a big day for him.

As the screen door slammed inaudibly to her, Mona stepped back inside the cluttered store, its colorful, packed shelves displaying everything from wiper blades to baby food, its walls posted to the tin ceiling with advertising for cigarettes, sodas and fertilizer. The pretty brunette removed her jacket, even before punching the gasoline sale amount into the large beige cash register. Its detectable, rhythmic jolts were comforting to her as she stood on a flipped over soda crate, which gave her a better height to slide the bills into the drawer of the machine. She turned to the side to face an electric fan, and tugged at her oversized blouse by the flattened lapels that formed the neckline. The moving air flowed freely around her otherwise un-shrouded upper torso, given that the arm openings on the sleeveless cotton top fell almost halfway to her waist.

Calvin of course only approved of such skimpy tops for his wife and daughter's use around the house, since any clothing that revealed so much as a peek at a bra strap or panty waistband to outsiders he considered 'whore-ish' her frustrated mother had scribbled once. Imagine his shock if he had seen her now, she thought, as it was almost certain that a full side view of her 'tit' - another schoolmate term - was possible through the large arm hole, even when she wasn't tenting the fabric away from her body. It pleased her to think she was rebelling against his tyrannical dictates. Much more so, the idea of 'showing off' a little to a stranger - teasing, the school girls called it - a man she found attractive, suddenly intrigued her. She thought about the smiling young man in the station wagon. It would be okay, even fun, if he looked, she thought. Suddenly, as if she was a sorceress and had conjured him, that very young man approached the screen door.

Ramona had a split second choice to make. She could turn to her right and greet him, or turn to the left, act as if she was innocently unaware of his presence, and maintain the fan's exposing airflow. The young male was a harmless middle-class stranger, who likely would never stop here again. Cheered on by an imaginary chorus of the more daring girls at school, Mona, butterflies careening in her stomach and pulse suddenly racing, pivoted to the left and the red print top ballooned away from her body.

The young man stumbled on the threshold as he passed through the doorway. She turned nonchalantly back to the right, and out of the slipstream of the fan, as if she was unaware of her exhibition, As their eyes met, he was flushed red and his mouth hung open.

Mona smiled, as she was obviously successful as the embarrassed young man partially regained his composure, if not his skin tone, and produced a shy wave. The customer's hair was buzzed short on the sides, and his honey colored bangs hung over his forehead at an angle, their clipped uniformity was evidence of a very recent haircut. He stood frozen in his tracks for a moment as she reached for her ever present spiral notebook. To her it felt as if her arm motion created another momentary peek at her breast, unintentional this time.

"Hi! Can I help you?" she wrote in her quick flowing cursive with its large loops. She handed him the book and short pencil, then gathered the shirt closer, feigning modesty.

"Hello I'm Jeff" he wrote in his strained, sharp-cornered longhand, unable to think of anything else - including why he had entered the building or even what year it was. He had seen his first 'live' titty, small but beautiful and absolutely enticing.

"Nice to meet you - I'm Mona " the words appeared on the lined page, sans formal punctuation.

"Oh like Mona Lisa

Sorry I startled you"

"You didn't silly

Mona is short for Ramona

Didn't you see my name patch on my ugly jacket?"

Jeff shook his head, trying not to be too obvious that he was staring at her blouse as she wrote her responses. Her torso and arm movements came ever so close to another peek at one or the other of those wonderful small breasts, their large nipples pressing outward against the red cotton when the top was properly aligned. This was even better than any trip to the lake or country club pool, he thought.

Mona put her hands on her hips and feigned annoyance, then quickly wrote

"They make name patches

for a reason JEFFREY!

Pay attention!!"

The young man didn't realize she was kidding at first, and the nervous grin fell from his face. The petite brunette smiled at him, looking into his blue eyes, and his lips curved open to reveal his teeth once again.

"Jefferson" he wrote " Like Thomas Jefferson" as he realized the brunette was kidding.

"Who is he?" she scribbled, shrugging.

They both laughed out loud

"Your laugh is beautiful" he wrote on the next page.

"Thank you "

Then he asked a somewhat juvenile question, but changed his wording as he prefaced it with another compliment.

"I ain't haven't seen a girl work at an Esso

I think it's swell

What school do you go to?"

"I am but a serf, forced to work here by the lord of the manor

I'm 20 I already graduated

What grade are you in, Thomas Jefferson?" She asked, knowing he was probably in college.