Saturday, December 14, 2013

PAULA ANGEL TRIBUTE



Parts of this story actually happened but most of this is fiction.  Had I actually asked her to be my girl back on New Years of '76, she might still be alive today.  Instead, a few years later, she'd married and divorced the guy I knew as her boyfriend, bore him a son and was brutally beaten and asphyxiated along with her roommate by her then-boyfriend.  They had the arms of a cashmere sweater tied around their necks and flung over a door.  He beat them unconscious and they choked to death.  Paula was only 20.  This is my tribute to her as to "how it might have been."

She was only my third lover; a hippie chick in a post-hippie world, but she ended up being my most enduring love.
Paula wasn’t “beautiful” in the classical sense, but she was lovely to my eyes.  I adored her and that made her happy.  Prior to me, it had been “bad boys” she was drawn to and her parents were almost relieved when she brought me in to meet them.  Still, they weren’t thrilled that, back in 1975, I had hair past my shoulders but, other than smoking a little pot, I wasn’t a druggie, wasn’t a car-thief, wasn’t trying to mooch off them and I had a job.
Paula was Jewish, born in St. Petersburg, Russia, raised in Israel and a naturalized U.S. Citizen at age 12.  She was rebellious by nature, mainly due to the fact that she had such a slight build.  Most guys would insult her, calling her “flat as a board and twice as hard” but I never found her to be cruel except to those who were cruel first.  I accepted her for who and what she was and she loved that.
We almost didn’t get together.  She had a very possessive, alcoholic boyfriend who was also very large.  The only reason he wanted her was because her family had money and Paula stood to inherit a lot of it.  She admitted to me that she was very afraid of him, but he accepted me for some reason.  I was often the “fifth-wheel” in the group when we’d go out to the disco because Ken “didn’t dance” until he got very drunk.  Me?  I actually disliked disco music.  I much preferred rock, but Paula loved dancing.  I’d spent enough time in California during the late “hippie” years to not care if I was dancing with someone or not.  Paula liked that about me and would drag me out onto the dance floor, sometimes with a group of her girlfriends.  I’d dance with all of them and none of them, just letting myself fall into the rhythms.  It wouldn’t be until we would fall into an embrace during a slow-dance that Ken would finally get up the nerve to come out and push his way between us.  At that point, I’d usually find some other girl to cut a rug with, but I’d look over at Paula and Ken and she’d be staring at me with a sad desire.
It wasn’t until Ken went to jail because of a DUI accident over Thanksgiving weekend that we found ourselves together.  He ran a stoplight, t-boning a car and killing a little boy.  Paula called me, crying and not knowing what to do because he’d used all their rent money to drink and they hadn’t paid that month’s rent, let alone having it for December.  I finally convinced her to move back in with her parents.
We talked a lot on the phone and she would have me come over to visit on Saturday afternoons.  We’d go to the movies with her sister and her cousin.  I never pushed her to do anything or to be anything other than friends.  That didn’t mean I didn’t want her, though.  When the prospect loomed of me spending yet another holiday alone where everyone but me had someone to kiss, I invited her to a New Year’s party.  She eagerly accepted and said she’d meet me at my house. Hours before we were supposed to be there, I received a call from my buddy who was hosting the soiree.  She arrived at my house just as I hung up the phone.
“The party canceled,” I told her.  “Gary and Kim decided it was going to be too much of a hassle and are going to a bigger one somewhere else.”
“That’s fine,” she told me as she slid into my arms. 
My brothers would chide me about Paula, saying she was, perhaps, “the ugliest girl I’d ever dated,” but I didn’t see it that way.  She was perfect, mainly because her spirit matched mine.  She was “House of the Rising Sun” to my “Amazing Grace.”  The music and lyrics were interchangeable and both were wrenchingly beautiful.
“What do you want to do then?”
“Whatever you’d like, Jack.”
“Come on.”
I took her by the hand and led her to the couch.  I didn’t own a TV at the time (I know, hard to imagine, right?) so I turned on the stereo, tuned into my favorite station, rolled a couple joints and we just smoked and talked while listening to the music, with her reclining on the couch and me sitting on a chair. 
She spent some time examining my book collection and then sighed contentedly
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure,” I said.
“How come you never put a move on me before this?”
“Real reason or pseudo-reason?”
She laughed.  “Both.”
“Pseudo-reason is that I don’t hit on other guys girlfriends.  It’s not polite.”
“How gentlemanly!”
“Real reason?  I felt Ken would kill me.”
She laughed.  “He always accused me of wanting you and, after the third or fourth time of him accusing me of that, I told him I did.  He beat me up twice because I said that, but then he realized I meant it – and so did I.  That’s why he got drunk and got into that accident.”
“Why the hell did you tell him that?”
She shrugged.  “I believe in honesty.  Unfortunately, most guys I’ve gone out with don’t.”
I smiled.  “Well, there’s honesty and then there’s honesty.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that there is a difference between being blunt and using some tact.  Were you blunt or tactful with him?”
She thought a minute.  “I guess I was pretty blunt about it.  I was getting fed up with his drinking.  Nothing seemed to stop him, so I told him I didn’t love him anymore and that I wanted him to leave.  He did, strangely enough, but when he went out, he got drunk and hit that car, killing the kid.”
“Do you feel guilty over that?”
“A little.  But not really.  I never forced him to drink.  I dated him because it pissed my parents off, not because I actually wanted him.  They were always trying to get me to marry a ‘nice, Jewish boy’, not a gentile.  I didn’t want that.  I wanted it to be my decision”
“I’m surprised Ken didn’t come over here and beat me up.”
She smiled and then chuckled softly.  “He might have been working up the dutch-courage to do that.  I think you intimidated him.”
“What?  I intimidated him?  The guy was almost 6 inches taller than me and outweighed me by 100 pounds!”
“Yes, but you always acted like you didn’t care if he saw you holding me or weren’t afraid of him and he felt that you knew something he didn’t.  He thought that maybe you were into martial arts or something.”
I laughed.
“No.  I suck at fighting and run like hell!”
That made Paula laugh a little before a coy look came over her face.
“So, when we’d go out dancing, did you enjoy it?”
“I did,” I admitted.  “Especially the slow dances.”
“Why?”
It was my turn to smile.  “Because I got to hold you.”
“Yeah,” she smirked.  “You got to hold a skinny little troll.  That must have been a real treat!”
I frowned.  “Who says you’re a troll?”
Paula sucked on the joint.  “Most guys.”
“Then they don’t know what they’re talking about.  Only shallow people judge others solely on their appearance.  But I know there are guys that love fat chicks, others – like me – who love skinny chicks.  Some guys like big boobs, some like small ones.  Some guys are tit men, face men or ass-and-leg men.”
“Which are you?” she said, chidingly.
“Ass-and-leg, mainly.  But I like skinny chicks.  And long hair.”
“Even if they’re built like 12-yr-olds?”
I laughed.  Especially chicks built like that and have long hair.”
“So… do you think I’m sexy?”
I looked at her longingly.  “Very much so.”
“Then why aren’t you sitting with me?”
I gave her a crooked smile.  “Because I love looking at you… watching you.”
“You’ve done enough of that,” she said, crawling off the couch and into my lap.  “I need you to touch me now.”  With that, she began to kiss me. 
After we’d made out for several minutes, I asked her a question.
“Paula, you said you were always attracted to the bad boys.  Yet, here you are with me.  I’m not a bad boy, I just have long hair and a beard.  And your parents actually like me.”
“So?”
“So, why are you here with me?”
She kissed me again and then cuddled against my chest.
“For a lot of reasons, actually.  First is that I feel safe around you and I’ve never felt that before.  You don’t intimidate me, you don’t force me, you don’t guilt-trip me and you don’t whine.  You seem to accept me for who I am, not because my parents are wealthy.  I mean, I heard you decline money from my father – and you did it nicely! 
“Jack, I think you’re one of the most intelligent guys I’ve ever met.  Normally, that would make me uncomfortable, but you don’t make me feel stupid or inferior, either.”
“Why?  Don’t you think you’re intelligent?”
“Not necessarily, no.”
“Why do you say that?  You’ve always held your own in a conversation with me, or with anyone else – even my friends!  They like you, and they’re hard to please.”
She sighed.
“I just never felt particularly intelligent.  Braniacs always seemed to look down their noses at me and stuff.”
She sighed again.  “I don’t know how to put this any differently, but I feel some sort of spiritual connection to you that I’ve never felt with anyone else.
“I mean, that last time we were out dancing and Ken got so drunk that he fell asleep on the table and you danced all those slow dances with me?  Something happened inside my heart.  I didn’t want the songs to end and it actually hurt to let you go.  I think I realized then that I was in love with you.”
“You’re… in love with me?”
“Very much so.”
“Why?”
“Because you are who you are!  You’re artistic.  You’re creative.  You’re funny.  You’re smart…”
“Whoa!  Take me off that pedestal right now.  I’m also very flawed!”
She smiled.  “Yes, but you’re flawed in the ways I like.”
She kissed me again after she said that.  We ended up kissing for a very, very long time.
“God, and you kiss better than any guy I know as well!”
I chuckled as she laid her head on my shoulder.
“How do most guys kiss?”
“They… don’t,” she laughed.  “They just open their mouth, slobber all over you and try to ram their tongues down your throat, thinking that they are showing you how much they desire you.  You… kiss.  I mean, you somehow make it the most erotic thing in the world, even though it’s only our lips touching.  Good God, Jack, I’ve almost had three orgasms from you kissing me like that!”
I shook my head.  “Paula, I don’t do anything special.  I just kiss like I want to be kissed.”
“I know,” she said, resting her head on my shoulder and breathing against my neck.  “You kiss me as if to say I’m the most beautiful, sensuous woman in your life.”
“You are.”
Paula was silent for several moments and then I felt something warm and wet splash against the opening in my shirt.  She hugged me and began to sob against my shoulder.  I simply held her, caressing her hair and back.  I loved her hair, which was thick, dark, and hung all the way down to her ass.
“You bastard,” she decried softly.
“What?”
“I never cry.  Not in front of a guy, I don’t.  Not with my lovers.  I never show them that I’m this weak or vulnerable!”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t!  And here I am, crying against you because you say the most beautiful things!”  She rose up to face me again, leaned back to arms-length and looked at me.  “How the hell do you do that?”
“You said you wanted honesty.  I’m giving it to you.”
“Bastard,” she said, grabbing the hem of her sweater and pulling it up and off her body.  She wore nothing beneath it.
Paula was very slightly built.  Her breasts were barely two mounds capped by quarter-sized, mocha-brown nipples.  She looked at me shyly as she revealed her upper body to me.
“Oh, God, you’re beautiful,” I breathed as I bent to lick at her left nipple.
Paula’s back arched, pushing her chest against my mouth and face as I made love to her breasts.  Her fingers combed through my hair, raking my scalp and pulling me tighter against her.  Once more, I felt light, warm drops hitting my face and shoulders.  Somehow, she’d managed to remove my shirt as well and we both sat on the chair clad only in our jeans and socks.
I kissed my way down her belly and she leaned back, her arms stretched from my neck, and my own encircling the base of her spine, palms resting just above the gentle swell of her tight little ass.
I made love to her belly-button, licked along the ridges of her hip-bones, watched as goose-flesh appeared on her olive-tan skin when I nibbled along the curve of her waist, back to her breasts, then up her arms to her shoulders and neck, ending in another long, sensuous kiss.
We didn’t speak the entire time that we spent seducing one another.  We didn’t hurry.  We were so comfortable with each other that we didn’t need to.  Instead, we let out all the pent-up feelings inside and focused on love-making as an art-form.  I made love to her back side the same way as I did to her front, nibbling at her neck just below the base of her skull, then kissing my way down her spine until she was bending her forward.  I leaned down to kiss the rise of her ass-cheeks as they peeked at me from the tops of her low-rise bell-bottoms and nibbled all along her waistband, making her breathing ragged and sobbing.
To me, her skin was flawless, tanned and smooth.  She had dimples above her butt-cheeks that I adored.  I kissed each rib, each vertebrae in her back, making her shiver when she felt my tongue peek out to flick across each bump.  I nuzzled her shoulder-blades, her neck, her earlobes.  I stroked her hair until I had it in a pony-tail and then pulled on it, forcing her head back, revealing her neck to me.  She told me she never felt so vulnerable as when I did that.
“Let me up,” she finally gasped.
“Why?”
“Because my panties are soaked and I need to get them off!”
She stood and slowly stripped for me, allowing me to take in the curve of her ass.  As she lowered her jeans, I could smell her arousal.  My fingertips stroked down from her lower back and over her ass cheeks as she slid the material down to her ankles and stepped out of them.  She froze when my fingers traced their way down her butt-crack and moaned when I tickled her back hole, gently touching the dampness of her sex.
Paula turned and presented herself to me, smiling.  She was no longer self-conscious of her body because she knew I loved all of her, worshipped her – had been worshipping her – and I wasn’t just “doing things” simply to get her to fuck me.  I was doing something she’d never experienced – I was making love to her.
The sensuous drumbeat of Cream’s “We’re Going Wrong” filled the air and Paula laughed.  The lyrics were just the opposite of what we were feeling, but somehow it became our song.  I drank in her loveliness, the bushy “V” of her thick thatch of pubic hair that was matted down with desire, the way her long hair brushed against me when she swayed, how her nipples hardened and poked out like two brown erasers and most of all, how her brown eyes looked into mine.
Paula had me stand and looked me in the eye as she undid my belt buckle, pulling it out of the loops.  Then she slowly undid the buttons of my fly and then eased the material down, revealing my cock to her gaze.  She bent forward gently grazed the tip with her lips as I stepped out of my own clothes, but stood up with me and we embraced, swaying nakedly to the slow, hypnotic beat of Ginger Baker’s drumming and Jack Bruce’s beautiful, haunting singing.
“You’ve made me cum five times already,” she admitted softly, her eyes still locked with mine as she pressed herself against me.  Nobody has ever done that… not without touching me.”
“I want to touch you now.”
“I know,” she replied, smiling.  “I want you to.  I want you in me.”
Paula pushed me onto the couch, straddled my legs, grabbed my cock and slid it between the brown edges of her pink pussy and slowly lowered herself onto me, gasping and closing her eyes as “Soul Sacrifice” began to play.
My lady rode me, her face a study in bliss.  She would move her hips in a circular motion, faster and faster until she would stop  and shake a little, put her arms on my shoulders and breathe heavily, then begin again.  I let her.  I let her enjoy herself.  One of the things she’d revealed in the past was that she was always on the bottom.  I was freeing her.  I gave her this control and yet, I controlled her more than any other man in her life.
She came at least a dozen times; gentle, quaking orgasms that made her throw her head back, letting her hair sensuously brush against my legs as her arms braced against my chest.  Her mouth would open in a silent scream and I’d reach up to strum her nipples to make her shudder and fall forward.  After an hour of lovemaking this way, she fell against me and said, “Enough!  I can’t do it anymore!”
“No.”
“Mfph?”
“My turn.”
I grabbed her by the hips and began to move them back-and-forth, shaking her like a rag-doll.  Paula clawed at me and bit my shoulder before she rose up again, but didn’t stop me.  Instead, she began to chant, “Fuck me!  Fuck me!  Fuck me!” with each thrust.
And I fucked her.  Hard.  Violently.  Ramming my cock as deep into her as I could, then moving her so that only the tip remained inside, then slamming it back into her womb again.  After 10 minutes, she fell against me once more.  I felt her drool on my shoulder as she wimpered and begged me to cum in her.  I grabbed her ass, squeezing it as I began to arch my back as well.
“Cum for me, baby!” she begged.  “Cum in my pussy.  Make me yours!”
I could feel it welling up and cried out hoarsely, “I’m so close… So fucking close!”
“Cum in me,” she cried.  “Spurt it in me.  I want to feel it splash against my womb.  Make me your woman, Jack!  I need you to cum in me!  Fill me with your seed!”
I cried out something unintelligible and bucked upward, almost throwing her off me. 
She cried “I can feel it!  I can feel you cumming!” as the first spurt hit the walls of her pussy.  She dug her fingernails into my back and bit the spot where my shoulders and neck met, sending what felt like 10,000 volts through my system and making me arch again as the next few spurts shot out of my cock like a rocket launch.
Eventually, I was reclining on the couch and she was between my legs, lying against me, my arms wrapped comfortably around her.  We were exhausted and sweating, even though the room was rather cool.
“Happy New Year,” she whispered to me.  I looked at the clock and it read 12:33 am.  It was the first time I’d fucked-in a new year.  With any luck, it wouldn’t be the last.
“I love you,” she said softly.
“I love you, Paula,” I responded sincerely, kissing the top of her head.

Eighteen years later, I sat at her hospital bed.  The product of that first New Year’s lovemaking was on my left, holding my hand.  Angel, our first child, sat with me, crying softly.  She was a taller version of her mother and had blonde streaks in her light brown hair, but her mother’s features dominated – the doe-eyes, hawk-nose and sensuous lips.  Wade, Thomas and Evelyn sat on the other side of the bed, staring teary-eyed at their dying mother and holding her other hand.  But neither Paula nor I were crying – or, I was fighting not to.  She smiled at me and squeezed my hand in hers.
“You’ve let me cry often,” she said.  “Nobody ever let me do that.  You’re the only person that I could do that with, so I’ll shed no tears now.  You’ve made me happier than I ever deserved.”
“You deserved ever minute,” I told her, smiling, but fighting away my tears.
“Jack, it’s your turn to cry hun,” she said in a fading whisper as one of the machines clicked and more medication was pumped into her cancer-ravaged body.  “Show them all that it is okay to cry, that you can still be strong and cry.”
I cried.
I cried - we all cried as she slipped away.
I cried as I held Angel and she cried against me as well. 
I cried as I held my other children… our children.
But she was right.  It wasn’t a sign of weakness to cry because it made us stronger as a family.  We grieved together and found joy in each other.
Two years later, my eldest daughter, Angel married a good guy – the youngest of a family of 12.  His oldest sister had just been widowed and I found she had beauty in her own way, even though she was nothing like Paula. 
Angel introduced us at a family picnic and was happy when Scarlett and I hit it off.  So were the rest of the kids, though Evelyn took a little longer to come around.  She’d been 8 when her mother passed away and 11 when I began to date Scarlett.  We married on Evie’s 18th birthday.  She was also the maid of honor.
So, yes… life goes on.  It must.  Paula would have wanted it that way.

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