I think she’ll do it. Marsha thought, After all, keeping my mouth shut all those years has got to be good for something! And to her way of thinking, in a very small way it had, because...
“The Shower 2 Plus” are excerpts from my American mid-twentieth century ‘Becoming’ of age semi-fictional novels: "For Better or Worse" And, “Becoming”
The Shower 2 Plus
Seagate, New York
June 21, 1956: 6:17 p.m.
Exhausted after this long day. Wanting to be alone with her thoughts, for the first time Marsha was glad Mitchell had duty and she would be alone.
Spitting foam into the sink, rinsing her mouth with a palm-full of water. Wiping her hands and face, Marsha stood back looking at her reflection in the mirror.
Yes, of course she did look as she’d looked yesterday and the day before yesterday.
But yet she knew something was different! Oh, there wasn’t a hint or even the hint of a hint but be it wishful thinking, she was sure she’d actually felt the force of Mitchell’s ejaculation last night and Marsha knew! After last night, she knew!
Unhooking her bra and stepping out of her panties, she carried them to the clothes hamper in the closet.
Passing the large mirror atop the dresser she stopped.
Marsha stood looking at her nude body from forward, then turning to the side looked at herself in profile. Turning full forward again, lifting her breasts from beneath, Wonder what they’ll look like when they begin to grow? I’ll enjoy that: being big busted... or bigger busted. Mitchie sure will.
Bringing her hands tightly down the sides of her body then pushing her fists into her straight waste making sharp indentations and, as she had almost every day since she was mature enough to realize, thought, If only I had hips! Smiling, thinking, Now it doesn’t matter! Further wondering how she might look later, in a few weeks... in a few months. Turning sideways again, pushing her stomach outward from inside, Marsha caused only the slightest protrusion.
Certainly not in Mitchell’s opinion because in her husbands eyes he saw his wife as beautiful. However in Marsha’s hypercritical eyes she had moderately small, sagging breasts and her buttocks were nothing more that a double-sided bulge on her back-side. Her hard stomach was deeply concave with an ‘outie’ navel that she thought of as “ugly as hell”, that her husband always told her was “cute as a button!” Whatever ‘cute as a button’ meant.
Always regular with her ‘period’ except, ot ‘all’ times, coming on the day of their mattiage... Their ‘second’ marriage. Their ‘in the eyes of God’marriage.
Looking at a calendar, There’s thirty-one days this month. My period should begin… calculating… about the twenty-eighth. Further thinking, If I’m not bleeding by the fourth of July, she decided, I’ll tell Mitchell he’s going to be a daddy.
But, Where’s the money going to come from if I am pregnant and they want me to quit working after I start to show?
Coming up with the only plausible answer, “Mother”!
****
Attempting to make up for the neglected years of her daughter’s childhood, Rhea had been as attentive to Marsha as possible; since the wedding, via ‘long distance’, of course.
I think she’ll do it. Marsha thought, After all, keeping my mouth shut all those years has got to be good for something! And to her way of thinking, in a very small way it had, because...
****
Bedsides the large, plush wedding that Rhea had all but insisted on making for her now, for the first time, ‘beloved daughter’. Also, that two-and-a-half carat, pear-shaped diamond engagement ring Marsha wore most certainly did ‘not’ come from Mitchell’s saving account, because he didn’t have a savings account. And even if he had, a ‘two-and-a-half-carat-diamond’? Also, Rhea had paid for a one carat diamond ring that Marsha had given Mitchell as an engagement present. To say nothing of the five thousand, one hundred, sixty dollars they had received as wedding gifts that Rhea was holding for safe-keeping that was earmarked as a down-payment on a house when Mitchell is discharged and he and Marsha return to Chicago, minus, of course, the one thousand dollars they’d taken to cover expenses when the day after their wedding they left for New York City.
****
Moving from the mirror she turned the television on – Planning on eating the corned-beef sandwich she’d bought ‘to go’ at the Kosher delicatessen across the street from the Bensonhurst subway station in bed while watching television – Taking the cushions from the sofa while thinking of the newly-found relationship between herself and her mother…
‘Yeah’, she thought sadly, guess keeping my mouth shut all those years has been good for something after all, And, as Marsha had wondered ‘every’ day since she was old enough to realize,‘Why?’ she wondered. Why is mother a whore?
Rhea Goldman…
Rhea Goldman was a small woman. Five foot, two inches, in height. Rhea weighed one hundred sixteen pounds, had long, straight, raven black hair, a beautiful, oval shaped face and a flawless, olive complexion. She had dark brown eyes, thick lashes, and eyebrows that were always plucked in the current style. She also had well rounded hips and buttocks and was built pretty much in exact proportion to her size… Except for two features: Rhea’s breasts were large—and made to appear even larger by her diminutive size—and her legs were thin.
Taking great pride in her breasts, Rhea ‘well’ knew how to use them to her best advantage… And use them, she did!
As for her legs? Rhea had found that by wearing the highest heel of any shoes that were presently in fashion, the radical arch of the shoe would add curvature to her calves, giving at least ‘some’ shape to her lower legs.
In addition to Rhea’s exotic appearance, Rhea also had a quick mind and a pleasing personality, and many/most of the men she would meet quickly became enamoured of her.
The youngest of three sisters and one brother, coddled and spoiled, best described Rhea Goldman was exquisite and beautiful… and selfish, narcissistic and, ‘oh, yeah, just ‘slightly’materialistic.
Eli Goldman...
The eldest of four boys: A kind, generous, softly spoken man, Eli Goldman was five foot, seven inches, in height, had wide shoulders, muscular arms and a broad, tapering torso. With a pleasing, manly face, Eli had curly, dark brown hair, a freckle scattered forehead, light blue eyes, an amiable smile and a fairly prominent Semitic nose.
Forced to drop out of high school less than a year prior to graduation due to his family’s financial problems, which were created when his father had committed suicide because his inherited fortune had been lost early in the great depression, Eli found himself without a trade and was, in time, forced into menial labor.
Though not highly formally educated, Eli was extremely intelligent, but the deep love he had for his wife and his ‘very’ trusting nature—and the fact that he ‘truly’ considered Rhea a delicate china doll that was ‘always’ kept on his pedestal of adoration—did not, however, allow him to see ‘any’ of Rhea’s imperfections—physical or moral.
Pearl, Rhea’s widowed mother, had, on the other hand, been able to keep most of her husband’s money intact throughout the depression.
Though she felt Eli was beneath ‘any’ social strata that her family had been able to maintain through the years, she knew he was a good, hardworking man that always had and always would treat her youngest daughter with love and respect.
Not only was Eli fully accepted by the family, he was also the person that many of the family’s more educated members went to when a good, common sense answer to a specific problem was required.
Pearl was a generous person who often gave gifts of ‘things’ or cash to her children.
It was for this reason, and knowing that he could ‘never’ give his wife the finer things in life… The ‘ things’ Rhea was used to… The ‘things’ Rhea deserved, that Eli had ‘never’ objected to, or questioned where the extra money and unaffordable clothing and household items came from.
Joli Stewart is raised in the lap of luxury on her father's plantation near Charleston, South Carolina. High spirited, non-traditional and head strong, Joli refuses to accept any interference in her life or her romantic decisions. Follow her life dur
Based on the memoirs of a Pearl Harbor survivor. Letters from two pen pals take the reader on a journey into the past, a past where nightmares came true, and when hatred reigned.
