Chapter 2

On my return bus trip to California, almost exactly the same thing happened. I was nearing the end of my journey. The bus paused momentarily in Bakersfield to pick up passengers. This time I was sitting alone, about halfway back from the front of the bus. I suppose I looked harmless enough because one of the boarding passengers, an attractive young woman, chose to sit next to me. Again, I was sleep-deprived and groggy with fatigue, and therefore bolder than I was naturally inclined to be.

This woman was considerably older than the Mexican girl I had played with on the trip north ten days earlier; I'm a notoriously poor judge of female age, but I'd guess she was in her mid-20s, or perhaps a little older. In other words, she was about ten years older then me. She was a good looking blonde with a more than adequate figure.

I was incredibly impressed with the way my luck was running. For a kid of my nearly monastic background, just the close proximity of two attractive women in such rapid succession was enough to my head spin and cock swell. The most remarkable thing about those two encounters, however, was the girl's apparent willingness to accept me as an equal. This was heady stuff for a kid thoroughly conditioned by a mother, grandmother and aunt to regard females as authority figures. In other words, nearly all my previous experience with members of the opposite sex was as a subordinate.

At the time, however, I was even more impressed by the deft, worldly way I was conducting myself. This new lady and I -- her name was Helen -- quickly struck up a conversation, and within an hour or two, we were well on the way to becoming best friends. We had exchanged seats, so she was sitting next to the window. Somehow, in the confusion, my arm had mysteriously found its way around her shoulders. She took the hint and quite willingly came to lean back and nestle her head against my shoulder. For want of better support, her left arm was resting in my lap.

As with the Mexican girl, my hand came quite naturally to rest on her breast. She didn't object. Instead, after a few moments, she sat up, turned toward me and offered me her moist red lips. Ignoring the other passengers, we cuddled and kissed. As before, my cock quickly began to respond. Then she resumed her earlier position, leaning back against me, but with a major difference. She lifted my hand from her rounded blouse and inserted my fingers under her collar, clearly inviting me to wiggle my way beneath her brassiere. I quickly slipped my fingers under her bra and found her bare nipple, which, almost intuitively, I began to tease between my thumb and forefinger. This was only the second time, except when I was a nursing infant, that I had touched a female breast.

At the same time, she began to tease me by touching my hard-on through my closed pants, first with her elbow, then her forearm, and finally with her hand. We were far too exposed to the other passengers for me to gain the relief the Mexican girl had given. Instead, when I felt the tide beginning to rise, I'd whisper a plea in her ear to back off lest I disgrace myself and my uniform by cuming in my pants.

By this time, we were such good friends that, although she was also bound for San Diego, she agreed to get off the bus in Los Angeles and spend the night with me in a hotel. However, Mother Nature had something to say about that. After we pulled into the terminal in Los Angeles, I stood up and almost fainted from an excruciating pain in my lower abdomen that prevented me from standing upright.

I was very embarrassed. I knew what the problem was -- the dread "blue-balls" caused by excessive sexual stimulation of males without relief -- but because of its sexual connotation (and my Victorian upbringing),. I was sure Helen would not know what the problem was, and I was too shy to tell her.

However, visions of my virginal romp in an LA hotel quickly faded. I was far too sick to think of anything more strenuous than sitting down. Therefore, I suggested we board the next bus to San Diego, which we did. We no sooner sat down than I fell into a deep sleep. My next dim recollection was of the bus driver shaking me, and Helen pleading with me to wake up. We were in San Diego.

I have no recollection of the next half hour or so. Helen later told me, however, that once off the bus, I had walked briskly around the depot, peering into each of the phone booths, and then walking outside and around the block. She managed to catch up with me, and led me to the pile of luggage on the sidewalk so I could claim my seabag. My next conscious memory was standing with Helen at a street car stop, then boarding the La Jolla street car with her.

She led me to her apartment. Then, while she scrambled eggs and made toast, I took a long soaking bath. I remember feeling guilty as I listened to her apologize because she had no bacon because we had so much bacon in our mess halls After supper, we went to bed. I was modestly wearing my skivvies, and was surprised and even mildly shocked to see her coming out of the bath entirely naked. Nothing in my experience or reading even hinted that women could be so immodest. I clung to the recollection of her rosy tipped breasts and how warm and good she felt as we cuddled under the covers all the while I was in the service -- at least until I met Shelly.

However, the next thing I heard was Helen calling me to breakfast. She was a secretary at Consolidated Aircraft, and had to go to work. I didn't have much time, either. My leave was up. I had to find a way to Camp Pendleton at Oceanside before 4:00 pm.

We walked together to the corner street car stop. She gave me her phone number. We embraced and kissed and promised to get together as soon as possible. My street car interrupted us as it clanged to a stop. I looked back as I stepped aboard. We exchanged farewell waves. I never saw her again.

The military in wartime was like that. You never knew from one day to the next where you'd be or what you'd be doing. When I checked in, I quickly learned that my arrival was a surprise to the receiving clerk. I wasn't on the roster. Apart from the fact that I was standing before him, orders in hand, I didn't exist. Or if I did, I was hidden away somewhere in a file drawer.

When that happened -- and it frequently did -- the luckless soldier, sailor or marine was assigned to a "casual company" until the missing orders were found. That's where I was sent. Don't be misled by the nomenclature. Casual companies are casual in only one respect. You don't get paid because they don't have your pay records. Otherwise, they make sure you haven't gotten lost again by counting you at least three times a day.

We did get liberty, but only for a few hours every week, so a visit was out of the question. I didn't have the price of a long distance call, so I couldn't call her, and I didn't know her address so I couldn't write, although I desperately wanted to do all three.

I spent two months in that miserable casual company before my orders were found. A jeep was sent for me, and I was driven 30 some miles up into the mountains at Cuyamaca where an isolated little cadre of 120 marines was undergoing scout/sniper training. This was elite stuff, and we were treated accordingly (with a beer ration on Fridays and lunch on Wednesdays with a flag officer from Camp Pendleton attending.)

The nearest liberty town was little more than a wide spot in the road. As near as I could tell, the major export from Julian was apples (and farmer's daughters?) I met one on my second liberty.

The best place I know to meet young women is in church; especially a Methodist church. The congregation is always (perhaps foolishly) glad to welcome fresh faced young marines into their midst. How we repaid that hospitality was a different matter. I was invited to Sunday dinner by a middle aged couple sitting in the same pew (frankly, I had selected that pew because of the young lady sitting on the aisle.) That's how I met Phyllis.

Her parents interrogated me during dinner, asking questions about my background, schooling, Marine Corps experiences, what I intended to do after the war; the usual things parents of a young girl will instinctively ask any young man who breaks bread with them, no matter how remote his potential as a prospective son-in-law might be. No doubt feeling sorry for me, Phyllis broke into the conversation and invited me to attend a meeting of the Methodist Youth Fellowship that afternoon.

I gratefully accepted, and after thanking my hosts, followed her out the door. Phyllis was a pretty little girl. I'm sure she was several years my junior -- certainly not older than 15 -- but while the dress she wore fell modestly between her knees and her bobby socks, there was nothing modest about the shape of her young breast or the way her hips filled out her dress.

As we walked back toward the church, much to my surprise, she asked, "Would you rather see our gold mine?"

To tell the truth, I've never cared much about Methodist Youth Fellowship clubs, but I discovered a sudden interest in geology. Actually, I thought her invitation was so pregnant with possibilities that I fell all over myself trying to say yes.

She giggled when she saw me betray my inner thoughts by blushing, and offered me her hand. "This way," she said, leading me away from the church up a side road toward the mountain.

The road ended at a shed. We climbed up a steep bank behind the shed and nearly tripped over a narrow pair of rusty rails, like those of the miniature narrow gauge railways you'll find in amusement parks. Phyllis took the lead, turning left and following the tracks into the brush. I following close behind her, already feeling my cock beginning to twitch as I watched her ass move under her dress and speculated about my immediate future.

We soon came to tunnel into the mountain. However, our way was barred by a locked iron gate. The gate was adorned by a large crudely painted, weathered sign.

Mine Closed

No Trespassing

I stopped. Apparently this was the end of the line. Phyllis, however, had stepped to the hinge end of the gate. "Help me lift this damned thing!" she said.

Although I was mildly shocked to hear this pretty little girl curse, I quickly joined her and found it was possible to open the gate simply by lifting it off its hinges. We lifted and pulled, and quickly had an opening large enough for slender young bodies to slide through. Little Phyllis was full of surprises.

She stood on her tiptoes and reached into a hidden niche where she found an issue flashlight marked USMC. Apparently I wasn't the first marine to storm this particular beachhead.

Switching on the light, she led me further into the mine tunnel. The tracks curved gently to the right, obviously turning deeper into the mountain. As we advanced deeper into the mine and the light of day fell further behind, moving shadows cast by Phyllis' light playing off the heavy upright timbers on both sides of the track gave the place an eerie, otherworldly feeling.

Abruptly, when she was about six feet ahead of me, she turned into a narrow crevice. I was left momentarily in the dark. I was about to protest when she turned and aimed the light beam on the ground in front of me. As I joined her in a gallery that opened off the main tunnel, she handed me the light. "Hold this a minute," she said.

I took the light, and almost immediately heard the rasp of a striking match, and saw that she was lighting an old fashioned kerosene barn lantern. When she had adjusted the wick to her satisfaction, she took the flashlight back and turned it off. Meanwhile, aided by the lantern's glow, I looked around and saw we were in a shallow cave. A thick pad that looked like a tumbler's mat was on the floor next to the back wall.