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Bed of Rose's: Jack_Straw

By: jack_straw



Author's note: Recently, my friend Dynamite Jack challenged Literotica writers to spin a yarn based on the Statler Brothers' song "Bed Of Roses." I have decided to take him up on his challenge and write one for the Holiday contest.

If you've been keeping up with the some of the stories that have already been released, you have a general idea of how the song goes. A lonely young man finds love and purpose thanks to a prostitute named Rose, and her legacy is a man, in every sense of the word.

I'll be honest; I am not a fan of country music. As my pen name suggests, I am, and have been for most of my adult life, a dedicated Deadhead -- that is, a fan of the Grateful Dead -- and I am a rock-and-roller all the way.

However, one thing the Dead taught me was an appreciation of a wide array of musical styles. If you listen to their music, you will hear a variety of influences, ranging from blues to jazz to country. More importantly, they taught me not to disdain styles that I may not like, such as country.

So while I may not personally like the music of the Statler Brothers, and others in the country genre, I respect their songwriting talents and the integrity of their performances. 

And, based on the lyrics, "Bed Of Roses" appears to be a song of deep meaning, worthy of the efforts of such talented writers as DJ, DG Hear and Josephus. I can only hope that my contribution to this series remotely approaches the quality of their stories.

^ ^ ^

Christmas was just a few days away, and I was taking my son and daughter to the mall to do some shopping.

My wife had shooed us out of the house, because she had some gifts to wrap that she didn't want us to see. And, too, I get little enough time alone with my kids, so the chance to accompany them on a shopping trip had plenty of appeal.

As always at this time of the year, my thoughts were drifting back to my past. It was a Christmas many years earlier when my life had changed abruptly.

It was in that frame of mind that I turned into the entrance to the mall and noticed the couple standing out in the cold.

If you live any place with a significant population, you've seen people like them. They stand on a busy corner with a cardboard sign that says something like, "stranded, need help." Or maybe they have on a worn Army coat and the sign claims they're a, "homeless Vietnam veteran, please help." 

They usually look pretty skuzzy, and most folks turn away muttering something under their breath like, "get a job." 

This couple was no different. They looked to be somewhere between 25 and 30, but it was really hard to tell. Life on the road can age you in a hurry, and make you look far older than your years.

The man was lanky and dressed in a dirty jacket, with dank, stringy hair falling over his shoulders out of a beat-up cowboy hat. The woman was also skinny, with a long braid that hung out of a stocking cap and ran halfway down her back.

The word you'd use for him was slimeball, and the word you'd use for her was skank. They looked like they were strung-out on something or other. 

I looked over at my 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, and she saw me checking out the couple. She rolled her eyes, because she knew what was coming. She looked back at her 13-year-old brother, Jo Jo, and they shared a silent smirk.

They'd seen this show too many times before, but I couldn't help it. I pulled into the parking lot at Office Depot, and told the kids to sit tight, that I'd be back in a minute.

I pulled my jacket tight against the wind and walked across the street to where the couple stood.

"How ya doin'?" I spoke as I approached them.

"We've been better," the woman answered.

"I'm sure," I said. "Where you guys from?"

"Ohio," the man answered.

"Long way from home, aren't you?" I said.

"We're trying to get to Florida, but it ain't easy when you ain't got a car and you ain't got no money," the woman said. "And I thought it was supposed to be warm down here."

"Sometimes it is, but, hell, it's December, and we aren't that far south," I said. 

In fact, Tupelo, where we live, is about the same latitude as Atlanta and Dallas, and it can get awfully cold during the winter in those climes, and it can get mighty cold here, as well.

The difference to me, and the advantage Tupelo has over my hometown of Wichita, is that the cold weather doesn't persist. You may have bitterly cold days, but you'll also have January days when the temperature hits 70 and stays there for a few days. And by the end of February, winter is just about done.

"You two got any family?" I said. " Anybody who'll miss you come Christmas?"

"We got a few," the man answered tersely. "Nobody I'm interested in spending any time with, though."

"My dad," the woman said. "But he'll be drunk as shit by noon on Christmas, and my sister'll probably be fucking my brother, or some other family member. That's how she gets her jollies." 

I was saddened by the bitterness I heard in these two. I wish I had a family to despise the way this girl apparently did hers.

I sighed as I realized that there was nothing I could do, except what I had come to do. I reached in my back pocket, pulled out my wallet and took out a hundred-dollar bill. I folded it twice and put it in the woman's palm.

"Look, there's an inexpensive motel about a mile from here, the Skyview Inn," I said. "I know the manager, and he's probably working the desk. Tell him Jack sent you, and he'll let you have a room. It's a bit of a no-tell motel, but the heaters work and the beds are firm. Go on, get out of this cold."

The woman smiled for the first time, and, surprisingly, her teeth seemed in pretty good shape.

"So, Mr. Married Man, how do you know the beds at this motel are firm?" she asked, nodding at the ring on my left hand.

I looked off in the distance, and I guess the pain in my eyes showed, because the salacious smile died on her face.

"There was a time when I was where you are, and I found a home of sorts there," I said. "Look, I've got to go. Go on now, it's cold and you look like you're going to go into convulsions from the way you're shivering. Oh, and do me a favor, and call your family on Christmas. You may hate their guts, but they're still your family. I wish..."

Then I turned away, so they wouldn't see a big, strong guy like me cry. Once I regained my composure, I turned back, shook their hands, wished them luck and walked back across the street, back to my children, two of the three most important people in my life.

Elizabeth looked over at me with a look of supreme puzzlement and a little disgust on her face when I got back in the car.

"Daddy, why do you do that?" she asked. "Every year at Christmas, heck, every time you pass some vagrant like that, you stop and give them money. Those two looked like they were dripping with disease. And you shook their hands. Yuck!"

I looked over at my daughter and just stared. I love her more than life itself, and most of the time she's a sweet person. 

But she is 16, and occasionally, she shows a touch of the teenage bitch. I honestly don't know where she gets it, since my wife Kathleen doesn't have a bitchy bone in her body. Maybe it's just the school environment she's in. 

"I think it's time I told you my story," I said simply. "When we get home, plan on sitting down with me for about a half-hour. This is very important, and you need to hear it."

She looked at me funny, because I had never once intimated that I had the kind of past that I'd had. Kathleen knew all about it, but I'd made her promise not to say anything to the kids until I felt like they were old enough to understand it. It looked like that time had come for Liz.

We put the encounter behind us as we went to the mall and got some shopping done, then had lunch at the food court. We had an enjoyable day, although I was a little quieter than usual, thinking over how I was going to approach my daughter.

We returned home to the rich aromas from the kitchen. Kathleen and I were going to a potluck Christmas party at the home of a close friend that night, and she had a casserole in the lower oven and a custard pie in the upper oven. 

Kathleen is a wonderful cook, and it takes a committed exercise program for us to maintain a reasonably trim physique.

I kissed the back of her neck while she stood over the kitchen counter whipping some fudge. She shivered and looked back at me seductively, the way she always did. After 22 years of marriage, we still express a deep and abiding love for each other. But her face took on a serious cast when I whispered in her ear.

"It's time for Elizabeth to hear the story," I said, and I told her about the encounter with the homeless couple. Kathleen nodded and said she'd leave us alone. Then she turned around and kissed me.

"Good luck," she said.

"It'll be fine," I said. 

I called Liz down to the den, turned on the Saturday NFL game for background noise then sat down on the sofa next to her.

"Sweetheart, you know me as a father, a husband, a well-respected businessman, a dedicated Christian and a pillar of the community," I began. "Trust me, I wasn't always that way. It's just by a quirk of fate that I ended up here, and it's thanks to a remarkable woman I met here that I became the person I am today."

In spite of myself, I felt my eyes watering, the way they always did when I thought about Rose.

"Her name was Rose Madison, and she made a man out of me, in every sense of the word," I said. 

Elizabeth snuggled up to me as I told her about Rose and how she changed my life...

^ ^ ^

My given name is John Strahan Jr., but I've been called Jack all of my life, to distinguish me from my father.

When I was young, in junior high and high school, I was called Jack Straw. I was 13 in November of 1972 when some of the guys I was hanging out with at the time talked me into going to a Grateful Dead concert at the convention center in downtown Wichita.  

We all dropped some acid and had the time of our lives. Early in the show, they played "Jack Straw," and when they hit the climactic coda line, "Jack Straw from Wichita cut his buddy down," we all about freaked out. From then on I was Jack Straw from Wichita.

The fact that I was taking LSD at the age of 13 should tell you something about what I was like as a kid.

My folks just didn't have a clue how to handle me. Dad was originally from California somewhere and Mom was from Texas, and they settled in Wichita when Dad got out of the Air Force. He was a machinist at the Boeing plant and she was a nurse.

I had a sister, Beth, who was four years older than me, and she was everything I was not. She was nice, quiet, smart and straight. I was smart enough, but I wasn't quiet or nice, and I definitely wasn't straight.

I smoked my first cigarette when I was 9, my first joint when I was 10 and by age 12, I was a full-fledged, longhaired doper. My folks yelled at me and tried grounding me, but I just ignored them and snuck out anyway. 

Nothing they did stopped me from doing whatever I wanted, especially after I sprouted to my adult height of 6-foot-1, several inches over my dad's size.

I hated junior high, but, strangely enough, when I started my sophomore year at Southeast High, I kind of liked it. Oh, I still didn't have any use for class and teachers and homework, but school was where I hung out with my buddies from the street, who were all a little older than me.

Things were kind of motoring along until I was 16 and a junior in high school, when something happened that completely changed my life.

It was a cold Sunday in January 1976. Beth was a junior at KU, heading into the spring semester after the winter break. She normally would have driven her own car back up to Lawrence, but during the break, the engine had thrown a rod, and she'd had to leave the car at home until Dad could get the money to fix it.

So around 9 o'clock that morning, Mom, Dad and Beth packed up the station wagon with her belongings and set out. I had no interest in going with them. The idea of riding in the back seat of my parents' car and listening to Dad's country music for five hours had no appeal to me.

Besides, I could hang out and get stoned and play my rock-and-roll music at full volume without any interference from my folks. The three of them gave me a hug and off they went. Dad said they expected to be back around 6 o'clock.

Throughout the afternoon I had a few buddies over, and we got pretty ripped, then around 4:30 I sent them home and began to air out my room. I used a bong, which didn't produce a lot of smoke, but I didn't want there to be any chance of Mom and Dad smelling anything.

By then, we had sort of reached an uneasy, unspoken understanding. They didn't ask or complain about what I did when I was out cruising the streets with my friends, and I didn't smoke pot in their house -- at least not where they could tell.

Well, 6 o'clock came and went, then 7 o'clock, and I didn't hear them returning. I fixed a can of soup to eat and paced the kitchen, getting a little worried. When it got be 8 o'clock, I found the phone number for Beth's dorm and reached her roommate. What she said sent a trill of fear down my back.

"I haven't seen them all day, and I'm starting to get worried," the girl said. "I expected them around noon."

I promised Beth's roommate that I'd keep her posted, and told her they probably just had car trouble. 

Inside, though, I knew something bad had happened. I knew Dad had to work the next morning at 7 a.m., and he was about as reliable as they come. I didn't think there had been any car trouble. He was a machinist, and he kept his car's engine in tip-top condition.

Sure enough, a little after 9 o'clock, the doorbell rang and I answered the door to find two Highway Patrol troopers on the front porch. I knew without saying why they were there.

I had long developed the hippie's disdain for cops, but I have to say those officers were a Godsend. They were compassionate, and the older one held me while I cried.

The Kansas Turnpike winds its way from Wichita to Topeka and Kansas City through the Flint Hills, an isolated series of craggy ups and downs. 

The weather had turned bad, they had run into an unexpected bit of sleet, and Dad had hit a patch of ice on a fairly steep sloping curve. The car had spun out of control into the path of an 18-wheeler.

Just like that, my parents and my sister were gone, and there wasn't even much left to bury. Neither of my parents had any life insurance, and the pension money from Boeing all pretty much went for the funeral expenses.

Of course, I couldn't afford any kind of headstone or cemetery plot, so I had what was left of them cremated. Dad had never bought the house where we lived, simply rented, so I had to move out, and it didn't take me long to lose track of their ashes. 

That has always preyed on my mind, the fact that I have no place on this earth where the memory of my family can be recognized. It's like they never existed, especially considering there wasn't much family to mourn for them.

Dad had a brother and sister in California, and Mom had a sister living in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. They did all come for the memorial service, but I balked at the idea of going to live with any of them. I didn't know them, and my thinking was that I wasn't willing to leave my comfort zone in Wichita.

After I was forced out of my house, I moved around some, living with friends here and there in different areas of the city. I quit school and tried to get a job, but I wasn't willing to cut my hair or give up drugs. 

Hell, drugs and alcohol became my refuge. When I was blitzed I didn't have to think about the awful way my family had died. Ever so slowly, over the next year, I gradually parted with anything valuable I owned, selling it to make money to buy drugs.

By the time 1977 rolled around, I was pretty much living on the street, and I decided that Kansas in winter wasn't a good place to be homeless. So I packed up a backpack, stocked up on some speed and a bit of weed and hit the road. I was headed for someplace warmer.

I had a friend who had moved to New Orleans, and I headed in that direction. I spent some time there, but it was a nightmare. I'm ashamed to say that I was pushed into doing some awful things there to make money. After the third time of selling my body to some man, I couldn't stand it and left.

They say you're either gay or you're not, and I'm not. To this day, the memories of my letting those men do what they did to me almost makes me retch. I vowed when I left New Orleans that I would never subject myself to that again, and that I would never return to Louisiana if I could help it.

Now, I was no virgin, far from it. But I'd never been in love, not even close, and my idea of sex was a blowjob or simply sticking my cock in a girl in the back seat of someone's car, pumping hard for about five minutes, shooting my cum in her, zipping up and moving on. In other words, "wham, bam, thank ya, ma'am," was my mantra.

Before I knew it, Christmas was right around the corner, and I was really feeling the blues. 

Although my folks and I had never really seen eye-to-eye, and even though Beth and I weren't close, we still enjoyed close family times at Christmas. It was the one time of the year when we all set aside our differences and came together as a family.

I had gotten shit-faced drunk the previous Christmas, so I wouldn't be quite so haunted by the memories. It didn't work too well.

By this time, however, I had run out of money for drugs or booze, and I was more concerned with simply eating. It had gotten so I would panhandle at truck stops or on the sidewalks in city centers for a few coins or a buck or two to buy a hamburger, and I wasn't above rummaging around in dumpsters.

I found myself in West Memphis, Ark., one day in mid-December that year, and I was looking at the big Mississippi River Bridge with some longing. My life had no meaning, no purpose and I was awfully close to simply walking onto the bridge and jumping off. 

But I couldn't do that. Regardless of my despair, I had too much will to live to do that. What being homeless and having to beg for meal money did do was cure me of my rebelliousness, and cut my teenage ego down to almost nothing. I learned humility on the streets, and it was a valuable lesson. 

Once I determined that I was going to live, or at least die trying, I thought that getting someplace warm might help. I was fortunate enough to catch a ride with a trucker who was headed for Birmingham.

I had no interest in going to Birmingham, but after looking at a map, I decided to go with him as far as Tupelo, then turn south on Highway 45 and head for the Coast. 

He was a kindly fellow, and bought me breakfast. On the road, he talked softly and confidently about his relationship with the Lord, and how it sustained him through some tough times. 

I just kind of half-listened. It was the same spiel I'd heard before. I had no God at that point. God, if he even existed, had pretty much abandoned me, left me forlorn and alone.

All too soon, we were in Tupelo and I was back on the streets.

At first, Tupelo was a pretty unforgiving place. There were no rides to be had and precious little money to be begged. I wandered the streets of the town, sleeping in alleys and trying to stay away from the cops.

It was Sunday, exactly a week before Christmas, and I was standing on the main drag, a block down from the First Baptist Church. My little cigar box was open and I was holding a hand-written sign saying I was hungry and begging for help. 

A well-dressed man who looked quite rich walked by with his wife and college-aged daughter, and for some reason I kind of lost my head. The gnawing pain in my stomach had become so acute that I was really desperate.


Bed of Rose's: Jack_Straw



"Please, mister, I haven't eaten in five days (which was true)," I said. "Can't you spare something?"

Nothing, although the daughter looked back at me with some pity.

Another couple walked by, and they looked right through me and didn't even slow down. Two more families ignored me as they walked by, headed for their big, fancy church, and finally one man cursed me and told me to get lost or he was going to call the cops.

Out of nowhere, a woman swooped in.

"You fucking hypocrite," she bellowed, and the man looked startled. "You don't mind spending a little money on me on the side, then you go in your god-damn church, where you sit there in your nice fancy clothes with your prissy little wife and your obnoxious brat of a son. But you can't spare a dollar for some down-and-out kid. Why, you ought to be ashamed of yourself!"

"Please, Rose, not here," the man hissed as he looked around to see that a few people from across the street had turned to see what the commotion was all about. He hurriedly fished a twenty out of his billfold, threw it on the ground in front of me and walked away quickly.

"Bastard," the woman muttered.

I scrabbled on the ground to pick up the bill, then looked up to see who it was that had come to my rescue. That was my first good look at Rose Madison.

As I said, I'd never been in love before, but I felt something the first time I laid eyes on Rose. She was a little older, probably 35 or so, and while she wasn't a raving beauty, she was good-looking enough. 

Handsome; that's what you would call her. She had a pleasant, open face, with an unobtrusive nose, mischievous eyes, lips that were meant to be kissed and long hair that was a natural brunette color. 

She was kind of smallish, maybe 5-foot-4, if that, but she had a very nice body. She was slim, but not skinny, with breasts that were just a shade over perfect, a curvy butt and trim legs. She was dressed in jeans, a snug sweater and a waist-length jacket, with a long scarf thrown around her neck.

"What's your name, son?" she asked in a voice that sounded like she was from some place up north.

"Uh, Jack, ma'am," I said. "Jack Strahan, but my friends call me Jack Straw from Wichita."

"You must be joking," she said with a snort of laughter. "A fucking Deadhead in the birthplace of Elvis. Oh, that's rich."

"Seriously, ma'am," I said. "Jack Strahan really is my name, and I am from Wichita."

She just looked at me with amusement in her eyes.

"First thing you need to know about me," she said. "I am not 'ma'am.' My name is Rose, not ma'am. And it's a pleasure to meet you, Jack Straw from Wichita. I was headed over to the café when I saw you over there. Care to join me?"

I couldn't turn down an invitation like that, so I gathered up my things and followed her down the street to this greasy spoon diner. A few of the patrons greeted her, but some just avoided her eyes, even as she winked at them knowingly.

It didn't take me long to figure out that she was a hooker. The exchange in front of the church had been the first clue, and the way some of the men and women in the diner treated her was the clincher.

As I wolfed down a full plate of bacon, eggs, grits and pancakes (yes, I'd gotten used to grits), Rose managed to pry my story out of me. She was good at that. 

"So, where do you want to go?" she asked, and I noticed a sparkling in her eyes and a serious look on her face.

"I don't know," I said sullenly. "I've got no place to go. It's Christmas and I've got nobody to love, nowhere to be, nothing to do. I'm just nothing."

"Don't you ever say that!" she said sternly. "Everybody is somebody. We all have a soul and we all deserve somebody to love. Look, maybe I can help you. Why don't you come with me, and get cleaned up, get some rest. You probably haven't had a good night's sleep in ages. I've got a friend who could use a helper, if you're willing to work. Tomorrow, I'll chat with him, and see if maybe we can work something out."

I guess the look on my face gave me away, because she looked at me seriously.

"There won't be any of that," she said, then she smiled. "I don't give that away to just anybody. Now, you coming?"

You bet I was. At that point, I was already smitten in a way I had never been before. Forget having sex; I just wanted to be with her, to talk to her and listen to her. Nobody had taken the time to treat me with any kindness in almost two years, and I was like a kid in a candy store.

We left the café, and walked a half-block to where she had her car parked. It was small, but functional, and she drove a mile or so to a small house in a quiet, lower-middle class neighborhood. It looked neat and well kept, except for some things that looked like they needed repair.

I looked around and saw the Christmas tree in the front window, with a few presents underneath, and a few decorations scattered about. I felt my heart breaking as I recalled the Christmases I'd enjoyed at home when I still had a family to enjoy them with. 

Rose showed me where the bathroom was, told me to empty my pack of the dirty laundry I'd been carrying around, then laid out a T-shirt, flannel shirt, jeans and underwear on the bed in what she called her guest room. They were men's clothes, but I knew better than to ask where they came from.

It had been so long since I'd taken a hot shower in a real bathtub that it was almost an orgasmic experience. When the weather was warm, I could find a stream in which to bathe, and occasionally I could find a park or some place that might have a public shower. But those places were few and far between.

When I finally used up all of the hot water, I wrapped a towel around my waist and walked into the spare room to dress. After a full breakfast and a hot shower, I was feeling kind of drowsy, but I had several questions in my mind that I needed to have answered.

The clothes were a little loose, but they were clean and warm, and I wasn't about to complain. Rose was sitting in her front room doing some knitting and watching a football game on television when I walked in and sat down across from her.

"Rose, why are you doing this for me?" I asked. "For all you know, I could be some drug-crazed maniac, yet you welcomed me into your home like I belonged here. I don't get it."

"I'm not sure why," she said, putting down her knitting and looking at me evenly. "You just looked so lost. In my business, I've learned how to read a man, and I could tell you were harmless, at least to me. You were hungry, dirty, cold and alone, and I guess I'm just a sucker for a good sob story. Plus, you're cute."

She smiled at me then and returned to her knitting, and I swear I felt my emotions tumbling. Right then, I decided that I would do anything this woman wanted, anything, just to have a chance to love her.

"Oh, by the way, your clothes are in the washing machine," she said. "Now, you look like you're about to fall out, so go get some rest."

So began my relationship with Rose Madison.

The next day, she took me to see her friend, Joe Murphy, who owned the Skyview Inn, over on Highway 78. Joe needed a handyman, someone to do odd jobs around the place. He let me live in one of the rooms at the far end of the building and took out a nominal amount out of my pay for rent.

I didn't see Rose for a couple of nights, then I happened to be sitting in the room when I heard her voice outside, then her throaty laughter. I walked to the window and saw her escorting some fellow to one of the rooms nearby. They kissed at the doorway, then went inside. 

They were in there for about an hour, then he left. I watched, then 20 minutes later, a car pulled up, another man got out, went to the door and Rose let him in. I gave up after the third man went in.

For some reason, I was filled with jealousy and remorse. I mean, I knew on an intellectual level that Rose was a whore, but somehow I had separated that knowledge from my emotions.

But seeing it like that seemed to stick a dagger in my heart. I was already falling in love with her, and I didn't want to think about those men fucking a woman I loved.

I know; it was pretty childish of me, but you have to understand how raw my emotions were during that period. 

I had lost my entire family in one fell swoop, I had pretty much been abandoned by the friends I'd thought I had in Wichita and I had been used unspeakably by the friend I'd met up with in New Orleans. 

And, of course, living hand-to-mouth on the road with no place to call home and no idea where my next meal was going to come from had played havoc with my mind.

Uncannily, she seemed to sense something was wrong, because she came to see me the next day. She wanted to take me to get some Christmas presents, but I just kind of gave her the cold shoulder.

"Jack, what's wrong?" she asked.

"I ... I saw you last night," I said. "I heard your voice outside, and at first, I thought you were coming to see me, but..."

"Jack, honey, I was working," she said softly, brushing a hand over my face and rubbing my tears into her palms. "It's what I do. Joe lets me come here with my dates, where I know it's safe, and now that you're here, I feel even safer. Jack, this is my job. I'm not proud of it, but it is what I am. Come on, I'll tell you about it while we shop."

And she did. Turned out we had more in common than I thought.

Rose was originally from New York, as I had suspected, and had come to the South with her husband and daughter. He'd been a bit of a lowlife, a Southern charmer with a wandering eye for the ladies and a penchant for drug trafficking.

Apparently, he'd ripped off some dealer up north and had fled to his old hometown to flee the dealer's wrath. It had taken them a couple of years, but they had tracked him down and shot him to death. 

Rose could have handled that all right, except that when they did find him, her daughter was with him, so they killed her too, to eliminate any witnesses.

Devastated, Rose could have left Tupelo, and its bad memories, except that she didn't want to leave the place where her little girl was buried. 

A year or so after that, Rose had brought her mother down to live there, so she could take care of her. Her mom was just senile enough to require someone to look after her at the assisted-living home, to run errands for her and be there to help with the doctor's visits and getting her medicine taken care of. 

So Rose needed a night job, and there wasn't a night job in Tupelo that paid as well as prostitution, especially the way she practiced it. She had a pretty upscale clientele, and they paid her well for her services.

Behind the closed doors at the Skyview Inn, her men were her friends, lovers and confidantes, but out in public, she was a filthy little whore, someone to be ignored or talked about in disapproving tones.

To the outside world, she put up her Yankee shield of brass to make people think she didn't care what they thought about her. But I was soon to learn that behind that shield was a caring, vulnerable woman who cried at night at the cruel things people said about her, often to her face.

I discovered how caring she was that first Christmas. She invited me to spend the day with her and her "family." Her mom was there, and so was Joe, along with a few other misfits and lowlifes that she called friends. 

And Joe brought along his daughter, a gawky 12-year-old named Kathleen. Joe was divorced, and his ex-wife in Jackson had custody of his daughter, but every other year Kathleen spent Christmas with him, and this was his year to have her for the holiday.

At the time, I really didn't think much of her. I mean, she was nice and all, and pretty in a girlish way, but she was just a kid, and, besides, right then I only had eyes for Rose. 

We opened some presents, and I was gratified to see that there were a few for me, including a much-needed pair of boots. Then we all sat down to Christmas dinner, and in the middle of it, I had to leave the room. I closed the door to the guestroom and just broke down and cried. 

I had pretty much bottled up my emotions about my family, but that day it all came rushing out. These people didn't have much to give, but they had opened their hearts to a stranger and had accepted me as one of them. 

After awhile, I heard the door open, and Rose came in. She just held me while I let it all out, and she whispered in my ear that I could always come to her, that she'd always be there for me.

I dried my eyes, then rejoined the party. Later, after the table was cleared from dinner, we all sat around and sang Christmas carols. Under the circumstances, it was one of the best Christmases I've ever had.

Over the next year, Rose -- and Joe -- helped me get on my feet. I was able to save some money, and move into a small place of my own, and bought a working automobile. It wasn't much, but it ran. In addition to working around the motel, I also fixed up some things around Rose's house.

Every Sunday, she'd invite me over for lunch and we'd talk. She had quickly figured out that I wasn't just some dumb doper, that I was actually quite intelligent. She gave me books to read, and encouraged me to think about my education.

With her help, I started studying to get my GED, so I could at least think about going on to college. I finally cut off my lengthy ponytail and started trying to look like a more respectable person in hopes of making a better impression on her.

I don't know if that was what did it or not, but for some reason, she started being more affectionate toward me, and I started catching those glimpses of longing in her eyes.

Whenever we got together, we would get into some incredibly deep philosophical conversations. We would often talk about why God had taken from us the people we loved most in the world, whether it was through some moral flaw of ours or whether it was just the way things happened.

Thanks to those conversations, I was able to finally come to grips with the tragedy that had so scarred my life, and I think I helped her come to terms with her loss. That, as much as anything, was the thing that bound us together spiritually and emotionally.

A year passed, and it was Christmas Eve, a Sunday that year. Rose invited me to her house, saying she had a special present for me that she wanted to give me that night.

I honestly had no clue what was going to happen. I mean, I'd dreamed about making love with Rose almost from the first moment I'd seen her, but I really never thought I had a chance. 

In some ways, I had regressed socially since leaving Wichita. Back there, I could usually pick up some chick and fuck her, but the months of being homeless and rootless had taken me out of my comfort zone, plus I didn't have drugs as an enticement.

That was especially true once I got settled in Tupelo. For some reason, I just couldn't connect with the few women I encountered there. I knew Rose would never tolerate my getting back into drugs, and I loved her too much to risk losing her over that. 

But it seemed that without that as a prop, I couldn't get over that hump.

Rose's house was warm and cozy when I arrived a little after dark. She had fixed a nice meal, and had dressed in a fairly snug dress that accentuated her cleavage without being showy.

After dinner, we adjourned to her living room, and she sat real close to me on the sofa. She threw her long brown hair back and looked at me in a very disconcerting way.

"Jack," she said in a sultry voice. "Back in Kansas, did you ever have a girlfriend, someone you really, really liked?" 

"Honestly, no," I said. "I mean, I knew some girls, and I even... you know."

"Fucked them," she finished.

"Yeah, but I've never been in love," I said. "Or at least I hadn't been, until..."

"Until what?" she said.

"God, Rose, do I have to spell it out?" I stammered. "Until I met you. Don't you realize how much I love you? How I've felt about you since the first time I met you. You picked me up -- a filthy, hungry kid -- fed me, took me in, found me a job and helped me get my life back. I owe you my life, and, God, I love you so much I can't stand it."

"You sweet, sweet boy," she said, bringing her face up close to mine. "Wait here. I have a surprise for you."

My eyes were on stalks when she emerged from her bedroom dressed in a transparent negligee of a filmy black material. I was mesmerized by the way her breasts swayed, and at the almost nonexistent pubic bush that the material failed to hide.

My mouth was dry and I was blinking rapidly at the vision of loveliness before me. She sauntered into the room until she stood right in front of where I was seated.

"Of course I've known how you felt," she whispered. "I saw it in your eyes that first day a year ago. But I needed to know you, to see if you were worth my time and trouble. Love is an easy word to throw about, but there is a difference between love and infatuation, between love and sex. Sex, to me, is something I sell one piece at a time to anyone with the money to afford me. But love? I don't give away my love to just anyone any more. I made that mistake once, and it cost me everything I hold dear. But, for you, Jack... For you, I'll give you my love, because you need it. You need me, and... I need you."

With that, she bent over, took my head in her hands and kissed me, deeply and insistently. I could feel my cock throbbing in my jeans, threatening to bore a hole right through the material. 

It had been almost two years since I'd been with a woman, since right before my trip to New Orleans, and while I jacked off with some regularity to relieve the tension, it's not the same.

She stared into my eyes as we broke apart and she pulled me up from the sofa.

"Come on, love, let me show you how a man loves a woman," she said in a voice that sent goose bumps all over me. 

When I got in her bedroom, and saw the big double bed, with the covers turned down just so, I almost blew my load right there. Even more, she'd lit votive candles all around the room, giving it a soft, sexy glow.

Slowly, she stripped off my shirt, then the T-shirt I had on under it. She raked her fingers over my chest then bent down to lick and suck my rock-hard nipples. The whole time, she was massaging my throbbing cock through my jeans. 

She stood up then and we kissed again, and this time I filled my hands with her beautiful tits. They were nice and plump, with brown tips and nipples that were jutting out stiff in arousal. I must have been doing something right, because she closed her eyes in reverie and hummed in approval.

Satisfied that I had the right idea, she pushed me gently until I fell back on the bed, then pulled off my shoes, my socks and my pants, leaving my jockeys to where a big, slug-like ridge bulged.

"Nice, very nice," she said softly. "You have a very nice cock, Jack Straw from Wichita."

But she didn't do anything with it right away. Rather, she got up on the bed and lay across my body, and we kissed again, feverishly. I felt her soft skin against my body, and I felt like I'd died and gone to heaven.

I reached down with one hand and caressed her butt, then ventured further, to the well-trimmed space between her legs, and discovered that she was dripping wet.

Somehow, that sent my arousal soaring. Until that moment, there had been that little kernel of concern that she was merely doing this just for charity, that she really didn't have her mind, body and soul in it. But her wetness told me differently. She may not have loved me like I loved her, but her feelings were sincere.

"Oh, Rose..." I started, but she just shushed me and slid down the bed.

When she got up between my legs, she flipped my underwear down, and my cock sprang up as if it was on a trampoline. She took it in her hands and softly caressed it, then swirled a finger around the tip, getting the crown nice and wet.




Bed of Rose's: Jack_Straw



She looked up at me with a devilish smile then opened her mouth and slid the head between her lips. I groaned as she took half of my length in one smooth motion then began to slowly -- very, very slowly -- worked her mouth back up then back down again.

My God, was it ever good. I'd gotten blowjobs before, but those girls were rank amateurs compared to Rose. She knew just how much pressure to put on my cock to extract maximum pleasure, she knew just when I was about to lose control and she knew just how to stem the tide of cum with a squeeze of her hand.

Twice, three times, four times, she did that until I was writhing on the bed in ecstasy, yearning for release.

"God, please Rose," I gasped. "I need to come. It's so, so good."

"Then you're ready," she whispered.

She got up on her knees, reached down and pulled off her negligee and tossed it aside. I drank in the visage of Rose's naked body, with the light sheen of sweat already covering her body from the warmth of the room and the heat of her arousal.

Holding my cock at the base so that it was aiming high toward the ceiling, she straddled my hips, aimed the head of my dick to her pink hole and slowly impaled herself on me.

I have no words that can describe the feeling of Rose's sugary walls as they enveloped my cock. She was hot, wet and surprisingly tight. When she had me in her cunt to the fullest, she just held me there and told me to take a deep breath, to get my control so she could fuck me properly.

When she was satisfied that I wasn't going to blow my load at the first insertion, she started with a slow, sinuous up-and-down motion, rhythmically rocking up and down on my throbbing cock. Her hands fanned her long dark hair as she swayed to the music of our lust.

As much as I wanted to take in every little sight and sound of our coupling, I had to clench my eyes shut to hold back my orgasm as long as possible. And Rose was patient; she knew just when to go fast and when to go slow.

Truly, it felt like we could have fucked forever, but it was really only a few minutes before our motions were becoming harder, faster, jerkier as the passion overwhelmed us. Rose's breathing was getting ragged as she worked herself up and down.

Just about the time I felt like I was one or two strokes away from coming, I took control. I don't remember doing it consciously, but I wrapped my arms around Rose's smaller body and deftly rolled her onto her back.

My twitching, pulsing cock slipped out of her sheath for just a moment, and for just that moment I knelt there between her legs and gazed in wonder. Her eyes were soft and dewy with incipient climax, her breasts were heaving, and her legs with spread wide in eager invitation, her wet pussy actually trembling.

I was ready. I gathered Rose in my arms and my cock knew where to go. I sank myself into her all the way in one screaming thrust and we both went wild. We thrashed on that bed as I ripped my cock back and forth for a full two or three minutes as the orgasmic sensations consumed us.

I think I gasped and cried out as I felt the electric crackle of my cum as it exploded from my scrotum and out the end of my cock, basting Rose's womb with all the pent-up passion I'd had stored back for months.

We clutched at each other as the lust carried us away, and we laughed insanely as we kissed frantically.

Finally, the feelings passed, and I slumped onto her sweat-covered body, then rolled onto my side. We just held each other in the juicy afterglow of our lovemaking. I had never felt more secure in my life.

"Merry Christmas, Jack Straw," Rose whispered.

"Merry Christmas, Ramblin' Rose," I answered back, and we laughed again.

We rested some, then we did it again, slower but with no less passion than before, and when we finished, we fell asleep in each other's arms. 

By the time Christmas morning dawned, I knew I had passed a major threshold in my life. When I had entered Rose's bed the night before, I was still a child in many ways. After that night, however, I knew I was a man.

We tried not to let on to our friends who came by to celebrate the holiday that we'd become intimate, but I think they sensed it. But they had too much respect for Rose, and I guessed they liked me well enough that nobody said anything.

Later that night, after we'd got to bed and made love again, I looked over at Rose and I told her what I was feeling.

"I wish you didn't have to go out with those other men," I said. "I wish you didn't have to work the night and let them use you like you do."

"Jack, my love, it's what I have to do," Rose said wistfully. "I wish there was some other way, but that's the course my life has taken. It's what I am. I believe I was put on this earth to please men that way, and, I think, being a whore is my penance for the sins I committed earlier in my life, sins that cost me... cost me my child."

Then she just buried her face in my chest and wept bitterly. She would never forgive herself for the way she put her daughter in harm's way.

"I love you, Rose," I whispered. "And I always will."

She looked at me then, her eyes glistening with her tears, and she imparted some wisdom.

"I know you do, and I love you too," she said. "But, long-term, I'm not the woman for you. I'm not your life partner. Someday, you'll meet someone special, someone closer to your own age, and you will love her with the same heart you have for me. All I can do is prepare you, teach you what you need to know, and when the time comes, let you go. You'll know when it's time."

At that moment, I couldn't believe it would happen that way, but it did. 

Early the next year, I took the GED, got my high school diploma and enrolled at the nearby junior college with an interest in business administration.

I continued to stay in my little apartment in Tupelo and work for Joe at the motel. Rose still worked nights, which, by this time, had evolved more as a call-girl operation that simply walking the streets. But she was still whoring, and it took a lot of understanding for me to accept it.

We still got together on Sundays, and sometimes we made love. She could always tell without my saying so when I needed it. 

And there were times when she needed me, as well. That was especially the case in July 1980, when her mother passed away. Rose took it hard, and I spent a lot of time comforting her. 

I think that was an important time, because it signaled that I had matured to the point where I no longer felt sorry for myself for the tragedy that had engulfed me back in Kansas.

Unlike my abortive high school career, I took to school at Itawamba like a duck to water. I guess because I was paying for it (with help from Rose), I took it seriously. I made almost all A's, and that, along with my test scores, earned me enough in scholarship money that I could go on to college on my own.

By going to summer school and loading up on the hours, I finished junior college in a year and a half, and in January 1982, I moved to Starkville and enrolled at Mississippi State. I got a job at the college through work-study and plunged into university life.

I hadn't been there long when Rose called me and asked me to come see her that weekend, that she had something important to tell me.

I got to her house on a Friday afternoon, and I was appalled by her appearance. She'd lost weight and she looked exhausted. In a flash, I remembered that she'd seemed fatigued that Christmas. Somehow, I knew, but that didn't make it any easier to accept when she sat me down and gave me the bad news.

"Jack, I have leukemia," she said. "They're only giving me about six months. I'm so sorry."

I wanted to scream and curse God for once again taking away someone I loved. She knew it, and held up her hand to stop me.

"Really, it's all right," she said. "It's nobody's fault, least of all God's. You're not the same scared kid you were when your family died. You're a man now, and I expect you to act like one. Cry if you must, but don't be bitter. I'm more ready for this than you know. I'm looking forward to seeing my little girl again, and Mother. All I ask of you is that you make me proud. Help those in need, the way I helped you. Do it in my memory."

And that was it. Oh, I saw her pretty regularly as her health declined, and I did my best to buoy her spirits through the difficult days.

In the end, she didn't make it six months. Rose died in mid-May, not long after I finished my first semester at State. She'd just turned 40.

In spite of my promise to be a man at her death, I was still pretty inconsolable. I was standing over her casket at the wake, crying my eyes out when I sensed a presence next to me and I felt soft arms encircling my waist.

I looked over and was pleasantly surprised to see Kathleen Murphy standing there just holding me. We had been friendly over the years, as she would sometimes spend time at the motel helping out her dad, but I hadn't seen her in over a year, and she'd blossomed into a real beauty.

She was 17 now, and had soft red hair, lightly freckled skin and emerald green eyes that seemed to dance. She had also filled out quite a bit. She had grown to a couple of inches under six feet, but she had enough meat on her bones to make for some most enticing curves. 

"I know how much you loved her, Jack," Kathleen said quietly. "But she's gone now. Please know that I'll be there for you if you need someone."

I looked over at her and smiled, and she smiled back.

Later, after the service, when everyone had gone back to Rose's place for lunch, she and I talked, really for the first time and I learned just what a smart, charming young woman she'd become. 

She surprised me by saying that she was moving to Tupelo for her senior year of high school. There were two main reasons, she said. One was that she and her mother weren't getting along, and the second was that she was fed up with her high school.

Since her parents' divorce, Kathleen had been living in Jackson and attending a private academy, and she had grown tired of the ultra-preppy atmosphere there. She wanted to go to a real high school, she said, one with some diversity, something Tupelo High offered.

Kathleen moved in with her dad, went to work at the motel and set about getting her college future planned.

I soon found out there was a third reason why she wanted to move back to Tupelo. Seems she'd had a crush on me since the first time we'd met, that first Christmas at Rose's, and she wanted to be closer to me in hopes that I might reciprocate her feelings. 

Smart girl. We started dating, and the friendship we'd always had quickly blossomed. 

After graduating from high school, Kathleen enrolled at Ole Miss, where she studied a pre-med curriculum. At first, she wanted to be a doctor, but soon she changed her mind and decided to become a pharmacist.

We waited until after I finished at State, then in June 1984, we were married. I took a job as a salesman in Oxford while Kathleen finished college. We rented a small house, an old Tudor-style house right on the main drag that heads south from the courthouse square, and set about making a life for ourselves.

Kathleen earned her pharmacy license in December 1987, and we decided to move back to Tupelo. 

Not long after Rose died, I was flabbergasted to learn that she had bequeathed her house to me, along with a trust fund worth about $10,000 that was to go for my college education. Since I had scholarship money paying for college and a job to pay the rent, I kept that money in the bank until I needed it.

I had rented out Rose's house while Kathleen and I were living in Oxford, but we moved back into the house when we returned. Kathleen got a job with a smallish, family-owned drug store and I found work as a salesman for a furniture store.

In 1990, Kathleen blessed me with a daughter, who we named Elizabeth Rose, then three years later we had our son, Jo Jo -- John Joseph, for his grandfathers. 

At that point, we reluctantly moved out of Rose's old house and bought a larger home in a more suburban neighborhood. We still own the old house, however, and we rent it out to young families who are just starting out their lives together.

In 1998, the fellow Kathleen had been working for decided to retire, and offered to sell his drug store to us. I took the trust money Rose had left me, bought the store and we set ourselves up as a business. 

And that's where we are today. Our little family-oriented pharmacy has a nice niche in the community, and it's been successful. I've also got some other real estate holdings, and we've become active in a church. In case you're wondering, it's not the First Baptist Church. We're Presbyterians.

I left my Jack Straw from Wichita persona behind when I started on the road to becoming a man, and I quickly found I didn't miss it. Rose had seen the real person that I was and could become, and I didn't need that disguise any longer.

^ ^ ^

"So you see, sweetheart," I said to Liz as I finished. "I learned to give to those in need, because you never know what that gift might produce. It's called paying it forward; taking the gift someone gives you and passing it on. That's the legacy your Aunt Rose left with me. I can't do anything but honor her memory by giving to those who need it." 

"But Daddy, what if they just go buy drugs with the money you give them?" Liz asked.

"If they do, then so be it," I said. "A gift isn't worth giving unless it's unconditional. Once I give them whatever I can, then it's theirs to do with as they please. Maybe they'll buy drugs, maybe they're scamming, but maybe they are hungry and maybe they are cold and need shelter. God will know what the outcome is, whichever way it goes." 

"I didn't know," Liz said as she burrowed into my side and I hugged her tight. "You are the best daddy I could have. I love you, Daddy."

"I love you too, sugar plum," I said.

I thought about what I'd revealed to my daughter, and how she had accepted it. 

There was the fact that I was a rebellious dopehead when I was her age. There was the fact that I'd been hungry, homeless and pennyless. And, finally, there was the fact that the woman who saved my life was a prostitute. 

Of course, I didn't give her the juicy details of what went on that wonderful Christmas Eve when I learned how a man loves a woman. She can probably figure out for herself what went on in that bed of Rose's. 

My wife was upstairs getting ready to shower, and I decided to join her. We talked a little about Rose and how my story impacted our daughter. I think Liz learned a valuable lesson about the true meaning of Christmas, and the real spirit of giving. 

And I think she understood the love I'd had for Rose, which transferred easily to the woman who became my wife.

Kathleen knows that Rose was the first love of my life, but she also knows that she's become my soul mate in ways that even Rose couldn't be. She's become my life partner, someone I couldn't live without. And, of course, she's been the grateful beneficiary of the lovemaking skills I learned from Rose.

Rose Madison truly made a man of me, in every sense of the word. I'm convinced that she saved my life, because I was close to the end of my endurance at the life I was leading at the time. It was in that bed of Rose's that I shook off the shackles of my childhood and became a responsible adult.

As I headed to the bathroom to join my wife in the shower, I looked upward with glistening eyes and I blew a kiss to heaven.

"Merry Christmas, Rose," I whispered.