Uncle Frank, Pauline, Sex, and Me
Copyright© 2024 by Fatbastard
Chapter 39
Coming of Age Sex Story: Chapter 39 - Coming of Age in 1960s New Zealand. My father's much younger brother guided and mentored me from early adolescence through my teenage years and a series of girlfriends. While each story can stand alone, readers will get most out of this series if they read chronologically starting with Andrea, and progressing through Bronwyn and Robyn to my adventures with Pauline
Caution: This Coming of Age Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including mt/ft Teenagers Consensual Romantic Heterosexual Fiction Farming School Vignettes First Oral Sex Petting
May - 1963
I wondered if I should have rung from the School Office, but it was too late for that now, and I stepped up onto the veranda and rang the front doorbell. Nothing happened for some time, and I was about to ring again, when the door was opened by a woman about my mother’s age. She looked tired and drawn. I don’t think she recognised me, but since I was in school uniform, it wasn’t too hard to work out that my visit was about her son.
“Gareth is sick.”
“I’m David Kerr and he’s in my cricket team. The school asked me to visit, because we are concerned about how he is coping.”
“Come in.” I stepped into the hall. “Gareth! David Kerr is here to see you.”
Bartlett appeared from a room down the hall, in jeans and a flannel shirt. He didn’t look good. “Is there news about Sparling?”
“There is – can we go somewhere and sit down?”
Mrs. Bartlett (I guessed), led us through to the lounge, and offered tea and biscuits. I accepted, and as soon as she went to the kitchen, I fronted her son.
“No bullshit mate – you’re not sick. You’ve stayed home because you feel like shit!” Bartlett wasn’t happy, but didn’t say anything, so I followed up. “And the reason you feel like shit is that you blame yourself for hitting Sparling, and you know he’s in hospital and you’re afraid he might die!”
“I didn’t mean –”
I didn’t let him finish. “Of course you fucking didn’t!” I had raised my voice slightly, and just for a second, I gave a thought to Mrs. B in the kitchen and how she might react to my language.
“But –”
“And there’s not a single person on this earth who thinks you did!”
Bartlett looked doubtful, and also a little relieved, so I followed up. “Unless I have that wrong, and you ran in intending to kill him?”
“No. He looked pretty uncomfortable, and I was trying to give him one a bit short, and follow that with a straight yorker!”
“Good plan – but he ducked right into it!” I decided to do what Frank would call ‘normalising’ Bartletts response. I didn’t have to lie. “I’ve been deeply in the shit too. I’ve been blaming myself for siccing you onto him and encouraging you to bowl at him full pace. Bloody silly, but that’s what I’ve been doing.”
Bartlet looked just slightly better. “How is Sparling? Is he going to be alright?”
“No one knows yet. He’s in intensive care, and he might die, or he might pull through.”
“Shit!”
“Gareth!” Mrs. B had appeared with tea and biscuits, and evidently objected to her son’s language. I was pleased she hadn’t heard me earlier. I didn’t wait for Gareth to apologise.
“The boy who was hurt was James Sparling. He’s in intensive care, and there’s nothing more anyone can do except wait. They’re keeping him sedated and waiting for this brain swelling to go down. It’s no one’s fault.”
Mrs. B nodded. “Absolutely, but you should go and see his parents!”
I seized the opening. “We could say how sorry we are about what happened without taking on responsibility or blame.” I eyeballed Bartlett. “Are you up for that?” He thought for a few seconds, then nodded.
“How can we get hold of them?”
I must have looked blank, but Mrs. B had a suggestion. “There probably aren’t too many Sparlings in the phone book. We can try a few.”
We did, and got lucky with the second call. Sparling’s father answered, and was pleased to hear from us. He said his wife had been camped in the ICU annex since Sunday afternoon, when their son had been transferred there from the neurosurgical unit after his condition deteriorated. He said he was going there soon to try to persuade her to take a break, and suggested we meet in the hospital cafeteria.
I told Bartlett to put on his school uniform, and get the books he would need for his afternoon classes. He didn’t look pleased, but I knew best. I had a silver Prefect’s (capital P) Badge that said so and I was Captain (capital C) of the First Fucking Cricket Eleven. And my shit didn’t stink – much.
I thanked his mum, and we said goodbye to her. She seemed relieved that ‘the school’ had taken charge of her son. I waited until we were settled into Harriet before I gave Bartlett the next bit.
“I’ve come round and dug you out of your cave, and I’m dragging you back to school. Wanna know why?”
“Suppose so. Look – I know it’s not my fault. But it feels like it is!”
“It was exactly like that for me too!”
“You didn’t hit him!”
“No, but I told you to see how he handled pace. It wasn’t my fault, just like it wasn’t yours. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, but I still felt like shit and didn’t sleep much the last couple of nights.”
Bartlett looked a little relieved. “Do you still feel bad”
“A bit, but not often, and not at all since I’ve had the project of checking on you,”
“So what do I do about the shit feelings?”
“You remind yourself that you’re not to blame, and then you get on with your life. Over and over. You talk about feeling like shit with people you trust, and you don’t confuse them or yourself by pretending to be sick. The quicker you get on with your life, the sooner you’ll be back to normal”
“What if he dies?”
“We’ll go to his funeral, and you’ll feel even worse for a while, but you still won’t be to blame!”
I channeled Frank. “Sparling might be out of danger by the time we get there – or he may be dead! We haven’t any control of that. We haven’t got much direct control over our feelings either, but we can control our thinking! No blaming bullshit!”
It was a good story, and I kept repeating it to myself as we found a park and followed the signs to the cafeteria, but I was scared about meeting Sparling’s parents, and about what they might tell us. Bartlett seemed to be holding up, but the test would be if we got bad news, or if we felt blamed.
Mr and Mrs. Sparling saw us straight away, and Mr Sparling stood and waved us over. After introductions all round, he asked what we wanted to eat and drink and went away to get it, leaving us with his wife. She looked absolutely exhausted, and (as Frank would say) as though she had ‘cried herself out’.
After a moment or two of rather uncomfortable silence, Bartlett took the lead. “How is your son?”
Her smile was wan. “He’s not getting worse, and the surgeon said the op went well, but the swelling is the problem. They’re treating it, and everyone’s hoping for the best.” She looked at us closely. “Thank you for coming.”
There was almost a question on the end of her statement. I guessed that it would have been ‘why you two in particular?’, so I grabbed the conversation.
“We have both had your son very much in our thoughts since the accident.” I nodded towards Bartlett. “Gareth here bowled the ball he ducked into, and I was the one who got to him first after he was hit.”
“They said his heart had stopped?”
“I couldn’t find a pulse, and he wasn’t breathing, so we started CPR. Gareth ran to get someone to call the ambulance.”
Mr Sparling had come back carrying a tray with cups of tea and sausage rolls. He had some strong opinions about the need for batsmen to wear helmets. Rugby players and cyclists too! His business had taken him to the USA, and he had watched gridiron and baseball where the players were required to wear them.
“Bloody ridiculous. If he had been wearing a helmet this would never have happened. He’ll wear a helmet when he plays again!” He glanced sideways at his wife, and it occurred to me that there was a little element of what Frank used to call ‘whistling past the graveyard’ in his statement.
We drank tea and scarfed down some sausage rolls, in a slightly uncomfortable silence. Mr Sparling tried to draw his wife into conversation, but the reality was that there wasn’t much to say.
Eventually Mrs. Sparling smiled and nodded as she got up and gathered her things. “Thank you for coming. I’m going back to the ICU waiting area. Please give Alec your numbers. We’ll let you know when there is some news.”
We stood and said our goodbyes, and Mr Sparling wrote our numbers in a pocket diary. We left him standing in the cafeteria and I drove Bartlett back to school, sending him straight to his afternoon classes, and insisting that he ring me before he turned in that evening. I reported to the Head. He was pleased.
“Well done Kerr. It is usually best to get back on the horse, and it certainly wasn’t good for Bartlett to be skulking at home. Keep Mr Smythe in the loop.”
“Yes sir. Thank you sir!”
I went to chemistry, then english, and after drive duty, I got in two hours for Frank, and went home for tea. Pauline came over for the night, and Bartlett rang as promised in the middle of my ‘blow by blow’ account (well as much as I could tell her in good conscience anyway) of my weekend with Greta. She gleaned enough from my story to have some pretty definite ideas.
“We have done some stuff in Drama that was pretty freaky, exploring the edge between trust and control. Sounds like that’s what Greta is into.” I Hmmed. “Why do you think she called a halt?”
“Dunno. Earlier on, she talked about me having other relationships and not being sure she could handle that.”
Pauline looked thoughtful. “You don’t want to give it a try with her?”
“No. No way I’m giving you up until I have to!”
Pauline grinned, and then looked serious. “Do you think you can still make it work with her as a fencing coach?”
“I think so. I asked her, and she says she is fine with it.”
“You should try hard. It’s obvious that fencing gives you a real buzz.”
We snuggled up together. Pauline was bleeding, so I rubbed her off through her panties, and she sucked, licked, and stroked me to a very nice climax. We both slept well, and were just leaving in the morning, when the phone rang. It was Mr Sparling with good news. Their son was improving, and they expected to return him to the neurosurgical ward that afternoon. He said he had already given Bartlett the news. I wrote a note for Mr Smythe and collared a ninth-grade kid to deliver it before homeroom. Physics was boring as usual.
No cricket practice, so I put in a couple more hours with Frank, and went to Jean-Paul with Dad that night. Brian Pickmere, the coach, worked with me for about fifteen minutes and then suggested some free play. He was more technically proficient than Greta, and a whole order of magnitude bigger, faster, and stronger. He hit me an awful lot more than I hit him.
“See me at the end of the session.”
I asked Dad to wait and went to speak with Brian.