Women I have known: 07 Aunt Beth
Aunt Beth was exactly twenty years older than I was, as we shared the same birthdate.
For my twentieth birthday, she took me to a play on the stage at the local playhouse theater.
Our birthday has not always been celebrated together since I turned ten and she turned thirty. We were at Disneyland, staying at the hotel with her family and mine. She had been married for five years, twice, and was single for almost ten years.
She called me her rescuer because I became the focus of her grief when her marriage blew apart. She related stories of pain, anger, frustration, deceit, mental strife, and sexual inadequacy as a couple when she would tell her tales of woe and hardship.
About the time I turned eighteen, she was all over me, wanting to go with her, take her places, and act as an escort this Christmas season. As an assistant to the County Board of Supervisors, Aunt Beth grew more socially important as it became evident, according to my dad, of her climbing the powers of the county for more influence.
When I asked her, "What did dad mean that she was 'climbing the powers of the county for more influence?'"
Her response was, "He has seen the success I have in the county offices and he is jealous."
We were at a Christmas cocktail party a year later at some bigwig's home. Aunt Beth had more to drink than usual. She was drinking egg nog and adding more brandy. By the time the party was winding down, her strapless dress was nearly sliding over her small breasts. At one point, while we were dancing, I placed my thumbs beside her breasts inside the strapless dress and lifted both sides of her dress in the front because she wasn't.
When the dance was over, I ushered us to the car and left. It was about ten thirty Friday evening, and we were about forty miles from her house. She began to feel like she was going to throw up, so I pulled to the side of the highway, scurried around to her side of the car, and assisted her in getting out. She was stumbling and unsure on her feet because she had removed her heels and was in her nylons when we stopped. The side of the roadway was crusher gravel and sharp and painful to her bare feet.
Aunt Beth was able to hobble away as I held her waist. Bending over forward, I listened to her wretch and sputter for three or four spasms, after which she stood up straight rapidly and then threw up all down the front of herself. She had mostly been drinking egg nog, so she produced a curdled slurry that rolled down her chin, dripping and smearing onto her chest and into her strapless bra.
The slipperiness of the vomit soaked to her waist. As it began to run inside her waist, she writhed loose of my grip. She fell forward, stumbling and eventually collapsing in the water along the highway right of way. Now her head was soaked, her glasses broken, her dress muddy, her hairdo fraying apart, becoming a straight muddy mess dripping mud and grime.
Of course, she was balling by now and mad as a hornet. I attempted to pick her out of the ooze at the bottom of the drainage, but she decided to fight me instead of allowing me to help. She fell again in the mud and landed on her back in the deeper part of the drainage ditch. Her dress, formerly white with green accents, was by now black, gray, brown, and torn at the hip.
She was so mad she'd ceased crying, seemed more lucid momentarily, but then said, "Dale, you have been the best thing that ever happened to me. Tonight you are willing to help me when I am fighting your kindness, getting you filthy with vomit, mud, and drain ditch effluent; magically, you are not mad at me, still. Every other person in the family considers me trash and a slut, because I am. But you either do not care how I am or care too much."
"Please, Aunty Beth, let's just get you home now. Everything will seem better in the morning, and even now when I get you home. You can get those clothes off and take a shower,
get clean and toasty again and into bed to sleep it off."
While I was attempting to get her to cooperate, she became a romantic drunk. She had no idea how pathetic she looked. Her makeup was a fright, her dress was torn and ruined, her heels were soaked, and she was covered in ditch water, mud and vomit.
She wobbled and staggered from the alcohol, and she was attempting to get me in a kissing hug. I stepped back away from her because she was a filthy, slimy mess, but the hood of the car was behind me, and she leaned into my face with her filthy hair and face and kissed me fiercely on the lips. I couldn't help myself. I kissed her back.
When my tongue met hers, she pulled away and said, "You taste like cowshit smells."
By then, I was erect, filthy, and losing my patience. "Well, Aunty Beth, I think you are terrific and maybe the smartest family member, but you are the stinky one."
Aunty Beth said, "For that, I reward you with another kiss."
