Monroe Stokes & Alma Jean Beers, The Real Story
This is a very different story from what I usually write.
I created None of the main characters, they are Annie Proulx's. I did create Shirlene. In this story I'm filling in times when you weren't looking - showing some of the heretofore unseen years.
WARNING - Hetero Sex!!
Monroe Stokes & Alma Jean Beers, The Real Story
Monroe Stokes was a pudgy little boy. His family moved to Riverton from Cheyenne when he was 8, for it was thought to be a better place to raise a family. Monroe had an older sister, Peony, and an older brother Wilferd. lj-cut
Monroe never had a nickname, though he desperately wanted one. How could you shorten Monroe? Monnie? Roey? Naw, that was crap. He'd never have a nickname and he knew it! His second grade teacher kept calling him Mr. Stokes, even though he asked her not to. Oh, she was a girl, and he knew all girls were dumb and had Cooties, so he never got close to Miss Jenkins. In regard to Miss Jenkins, Monroe was correct, she was dumb. Word is still out on whether she had cooties.
Monroe was not a popular boy. Oh, he knew that too. For one thing, he was too good in his class work. Stood out like a sore thumb. By the 3rd and 4th grades, he was getting affirmations from the teachers for his good work, and this made up, in part, for his unpopular status with the other children.
Something happened though in 5th grade that would set the course for the rest of his life. Barry Smallwood had a party, to which every child in his class was invited, that was the rule. If he did not invite every little girl and boy from his class, his parents would cancel the party. It was totally up to him. So, Monroe was invited along with the kids that Barry really wanted at his party.
After the volleyball game, and before the cake and ice cream, Barry's teenaged sister said they could play "Spin The Bottle" and she gave them a big coke bottle to use for the spinner. Monroe just imagined that all the girls were praying not to get picked by the coke bottle when Monroe was spinning, but they were willing to live dangerously. Several kids had taken a turn, and had gone into the closet to "do the deed". He'd never kissed anyone and had not really planned on kissing anyone ever, but here he was, and unless he wanted to get laughed out of town, he'd better go along with the rules they'd laid out.
When it was his turn, Monroe grabbed the coke bottle so hard, it squirted out of his hand. Everyone snickered, and he had to start all over again. This time it actually spun, and it seemed to stop right in front of Alma Jean Beers. He just looked at her; started to sweat, and gulped. Alma Jean stood, took his hand and lead him into the closet. Once in there, they couldn't see a thing. Alma Jean, in her determination to get this thing overwith, went to grab his hand, but she grazed the front of his pants at the same time. Suffused with electricity now, Monroe could have lit up that closet bright as daylight. This was his inaugural "woody" and small though it may be, it was memorable.
Having found his hands by now, Alma Jean pulled him forward, cupped the back of his head and pulled him towards her face, determined to give him a quick peck on the lips and be out of that stuffy closet. What happened though, was that Monroe, still relaxed by her inadvertent "grope", gave his soft lips to her and pressed in, effectively fixing her in place. Alma Jean took hold of his face on both sides, and kissed him back. It was a thoroughly enjoyable sensation. They both knew it. And they both forgot to breathe.
They pulled apart gasping for air, and Alma Jean coughed a bit. Monroe, ever solicitous asked if she were alright. By now they could hear hoots and jeers from outside the door, so they opened the closet and went back to the circle, both wearing a faint flush and a tiny smile. Everyone of the 5th graders noticed and so, forever more, they were dubbed as a couple. Which suited Monroe just fine. He was in love, and it was a bad case.
In the summer between Sixth and Seventh grade, Monroe grew a foot. Literally grew twelve inches taller in one summer. He was noticed at the municipal swimming pool, and although the girls didn't swoon over him, they nodded their heads in appreciation for what Nature had wrought in him in such a short time. Usually, the comments began with "Who would have ever thought that Monroe Stokes . . " He felt their gazes and took it as a sign that he wasn't as repulsive as he once was.
After the 8th grade, he got a summer job unloading trucks at a local grocery store which hardened his muscles a bit and by the time his Freshman year began in September, he had shoulders where none had been before, and a waist. He needed a belt now, and it was a bit easier to keep his shirts tucked in.
Ah, High School; means just one thing. Dances.
Monroe was still pretty good in his class work; math was his best subject. He stuck to his studies during the first semester, and into the second. By the time February rolled around, he was gathering his courage to ask Alma Jean to the Cherry Ball. They had gazed at each other over the years, but no notes passed between them. There was no one sent from his camp to go ask someone in her camp to find out if she liked him. He always felt that she did, and she knew that he liked her. Had since that day in the closet.
Monroe felt the weight of tradition bearing down on him, so he first went over to the post office to ask Mr. Beers if he might ask Alma Jean to the dance. He promised to be respectful, to have her home on time, and everything a father might want to hear. However, Mr. Beers felt that Freshman year might be rushing it a bit. He gave Monroe license to come to the house, to spend time with Alma Jean, but she could not go out on a date until her Sophmore year. More to the point, not until the New Year, so a year from now, he could come back and ask for permission to date his daughter.
When he told her of her dad's decision, she was angry, and disappointed, but being an obedient girl, she would abide by her daddy's dictum. They made plans to get together at her house the coming Friday after dinner. Monroe brought his books with him, and they started out thinking they would study or do their homework together, but that never materialized. By the time the family was inside, in front of the tv, Alma Jean and Monroe were on the front porch swing, chilly as it was, the privacy was worth it.
They held hands and talked of everything and nothing. They told the songs they liked, and the singers. They talked about the kids at school, and the teachers too. Their world was small, they did not discuss current events unless it happened in their small sphere. Who liked who, who was going steady, who was cheating on who. If anyone was actually cheating – like on tests at school, they didn't know anything about that. Doubted anyone they knew would do such a thing.
Monroe put his fingers into her waistband of her skirt and touched her skin. But that was as far as he tried to go. That was thrilling enough for now.
A month later, he had both hands around her ribs, completely touching her skin, holding her, feeling her breath go in and out of her lungs. By summer he was cupping and nuzzling her breasts. In Sophmore year, first semester, he was sucking on her breasts and nipples. They had not been to a dance yet.
Her daddy thought he'd been strict and effectively protected his daughter from getting into a situation before she was mature enough to handle it.
By that summer, she was unzipping his fly and putting her hands into his pants and rubbing him, but not inside his briefs, just through the cotton of his underwear.
He was caressing and rubbing her, through her clothes, to climax. After she would cry out shaken to her core, he would kiss her skin, all that he was allowed to touch, and then go home and masturbate. They talked a lot about getting married, and being virgins when they wed. There was no Pledge in those days, but they would have signed it with a clear conscience if there had been.
In Junior year, they had escalated the things they dared to do. Under the guise of doing homework at the library, they would lay in the park, in the dark and strain against their clothing, against each other and feed their frustrations. One night, Monroe pushed AlmaJean (AJ as only he called her) down, to lie flat, and he pulled up her skirt, fingering her clitoris through the silky fabric of her panties, He bent over her and breathed his hot breath right on her, making her moist, and she bucked her hips up to his mouth. Oh how amazing that felt, oh my god, she was trembling like an aspen in the mountain winds. She pulled her panties aside to allow him access to all of her that needed his wet, warm mouth. Monroe's tongue, free at last to delve into her folds went crazy and lathed and loved her till she cried out in her new found ecstacy. Not her first orgasm, but the best yet. He could no longer refrain, nor restrain his lust and his longing for her, his own woman, his AJ. He unzipped his pants and pushed his engorged penis into her in one lunge that both of them had waited and waited for, seemingly forever.
Bucking and fucking on this hard ground in the park, they reached climax together, his first, her second of the night and kept pumping until all sensation had diminished, or more likely, till they were so exhausted, they could no longer move against each other.
When she got home, she went to the bathroom. She noticed blood on her panties, and some on her skirt. She washed them out in cold water and tried to think of a place to hang them to dry; somewhere her mother would not see them. Monroe also went to the bathroom when he got to his house. Having sex with AJ had left him sticking to his underwear, and so he went upstairs to wash up. He noticed blood on the washcloth. At first he didn't know what to think, maybe she was having her period, which they'd never discussed because it would be embarrassing to talk about it. And then he remembered his Freshman Hygiene class, and how they discussed the hymen. He recalled some of the crude boys bragging about popping their girlfriend's cherry . . . so this was it. They were no longer virgins.
Recklessly they continued exploring all of each other's bodies and fucking with abandon and without protection throughout the balance of their junior year. In February, AJ told Monroe that she was "late". She was terrified, and didn't know what to do. "We can get married, I love you, you know I do."
"How will we live? What about finishing school? What about our parents? They'll be so disappointed." She was in panic mode.
Monroe began to caress her and sooth her in the best way he knew how, by rubbing her between her thighs, then blowing on her with his warm, seductive breath, and then ripping her panties aside to suck her senseless and tongue fucking her till she writhed and came – calling his name. It worked to distract her. For a time. But then he was keyed up and needed to be sucked too, and she obliged him, licking and sucking greedily. Just before he came, he pulled away from her and inserted his cock inside her till his balls slapped against her ass. This was the best, pumping into her as hard as he could, she calling him "baby", coaxing him, "fuck me baby, fuck me Roe!" and he came harder than he'd ever come, inside her or being sucked off. She had given him a nickname!
AJ got her period soon after that, and the pressure was off. But Monroe told her he was going to work inside the grocery store. He wanted them to get married. They needed a bed of their own, an everyday bed where they could enjoy their sex life anytime they chose. No more taking chances of being discovered in the park. He wanted to begin their life in public as a married couple.
Alma had begun working an after school job at the Dairy Queen, and was not making all that much, but sometimes the tips were good. They agreed that they would both save as much as they could, and they would soon marry. The money would get them started off right.
Monroe had promised to take AJ to the movies to see Psycho, a chiller, thriller by Alfred Hitchcock that was finally making it's way to Wyoming and other places in the middle of the country. When he showed up, Peony and Wilferd were with him, He looked at her abashed, knew she wanted to be alone with him, but really felt he had no choice but to invite them along, or be rude, and walk out on them. Monroe couldn't be rude. It wasn't in him.
In the theatre, she sat beside him stiff as a board. Declined any popcorn or jujubes, and said not a word all night till he took her home. When he walked her to her door, still apologizing, she just glared at him. "Don't ever pull a thing like this on me again, Monroe, I don't like surprises." What she said was bad enough, but she hadn't called him Roe, and that hurt him more than anything she could have done. And he knew she was really upset with him.
The next day a tall, lanky cowboy walked into the Dairy Queen and turned his brown gold eyes on her and asked, "what's filling and cheap?". Alma was done for already. By the time she'd refilled his coffee cup for the last time that afternoon, she was smitten, and on fire.
Though she couldn't seem to get him to ask her out, she wrangled an excuse for him to take her to a dance, right before he left for that summer job. She "accidentally" rubbed against him, and started showing him what being her boyfriend might mean for him. He was careful and respectful of her, and they did not have sex. But she made it seem like he took her farther than she'd ever been willing to go before, and now he'd sullied her. Perhaps they might oughta get married, if that's how strong they felt on each other. And he agreed.
While Ennis was away on that mountain, Alma was pleased to tell everyone that she was engaged to be married when her young man came back from his job. Her family was planning, and sewing, and scrounging up ideas for decorating a church for a winter wedding. When she got too strung out and needed some stimulation, she'd go hang around the grocery store and Monroe would fall into line, fuck her and give her what she wanted. He thought he could tie her to him with the strong physical needs they shared, but she had her eye on that cowboy, and there wasn't nothing he could say or do, to change her mind.
The night before Ennis came back, she spent the whole night in Monroe's bed, romping and straddling him, sitting on his cock, and on his face, and blowing his mind. His heart had already been blown. Then she told him it was over forever.
During the years she was married to Ennis Del Mar, Alma never returned to Monroe's bed, well, maybe never is too strong a word. She shopped in his store, and smiled demurely at him. Then after both girls were up and walking, she came to Monroe, all contrite and needing help.
She explained that times were tough with two young children and her husband didn't make all that much as a ranch hand. She wheedled and sighed until he offered her a job in the grocery store, though he hadn't planned on taking on extra help for several more months. Alma was a good worker and eventually, he was glad he'd hired her. They were a good team in the store as well as they'd ever been in bed. That's a fact. She knew Monroe would do anything in the world for her, and she reveled in that. Cause her husband seemed oftentimes, to have other things on his mind.
The sex wasn't all that great either, at home. Things her husband liked to do didn't bring no babies, that's for sure. Sometimes she wished she wasn't such a good woman, she'd love to climb ol' Monroe's frame, jump his bones, as the young ones were saying these days. And she remembered. He had pretty damn nice bones. She thought maybe she'd just take on an extra day in the store, here and there. Not every week, but a few times a month. Who knew what might happen?
Thing was, wasn't anything gonna happen cause Monroe wasn't about to fuck a married woman. He had more respect for himself than that. And besides, AJ had already broken his heart the limited amount of times he could allow.
He gave her a job, and he gave her extra days when she asked, but he wouldn't give her no ride on his pony. Last couple weeks, he'd been thinking of asking Shirlene over at the Bank out for a cup of coffee. He thought she was a nice, cheerful woman, who kept herself neat and who never had a bad or ugly word to say about anyone. He liked that about her.
Monroe began squiring Shirlene to church, and to the dances, and to the picture shows. Alma was beside herself cause her man had an unusual affinity for a friend a his, and they lit out periodically for the mountains to uh . . fish together.
One night, after Ennis had been back from his fishin' trip about three weeks, he finally decided he wanted to have sex with her. They were going at it, just getting good and then she unloads her decision that "as far behind as we are on the bills, we shouldn't be doing this without no protection."
Well, shit, he pulls back and looks at her. "If you don't want no more a my kids, I'll be happy to leave you alone." And he did.
After that, it was all downhill and they were getting lawyers and heading for the divorce court. Alma made sure to report every bit of it to Monroe, letting him know that she'd soon be available. No longer a married woman. She desperately wanted back in his bed, and she wanted to dispel Shirlene before she got too ensconced there. She leaned heavily on the "all we've meant to each other, all these years we were together, etc etc." and it worked. Monroe stopped seeing Shirlene, and waited for Alma to make it official.
It wasn't more'n nine months after AJ's divorce that they were married. They were actually very well suited to each other, and for the most part, they were happy in their choice. Little by little, Monroe got the story from Alma, what the problem had been with her and her husband.
It took several years, AJ and Monroe had two boys by then, but Ennis and his partner, Jack, and Alma and Monroe became friends, which was great for the girls and all the rest of the family. Hard feelings just caused problems, and there are enough of those in life as it is.