1
A GIRL NAMED NATALIE
I think everybody has one Christmas that they will never forget. A holiday tale
that is nothing short of magical and divine; just like the reason for the season itself.
Sure, we all have our holiday horror stories; probably more of those than we'd care
to admit. But I'm talking about that one special Christmas where the wondrous power
of the season captures your heart and overflows your soul with its true and beautiful
meaning. They say Christmas is the season of miracles and is a time for being with the
ones we love most of all. Of course, being with the ones we love is so often what leads
to the infamous holiday horror stories that ultimately drive us into psychotherapy for
years to come. But despite all of that, I believe that at least once in our lives, there
is one Christmas that truly lives up to its reputation and we actually are filled with the
love, joy and yuletide cheer that the Christmas carolers sing about. Well, that one
special Christmas occurred for me when I was twenty years old. And it couldn't have
come at a better time.
I'm Natalie Bennett and I was born in Bellingham, Washington; about ninety
miles north of Seattle. My father Neal was a logger and my mother Paula, already having
her hands full with my six year old sister Stephanie and my three year old brother Ryan,
worked part time as a receptionist for the same company. Then when I was about a year
old, Daddy got a great opportunity to go work on the docks of the Port of Seattle; so my
family moved down to the Emerald City. A few years later, after I entered the third
grade, Mom begrudgingly went back to work and is now a dispatcher for a small concrete
company out of Tacoma.
Prior to becoming parents, Neal and Paula Bennett spent their early married life as
over-the-road truckers, working together as team drivers for a major U.S. transport
company. Separated in age by only six weeks and having been childhood sweethearts since
the fifth grade, my parents had both grown up in the blue collar belt of the Pacific
Northwest, and by the time they graduated from high school, neither one had the money or
the desire to go to college. No one else in either of their families had ever pursued
higher education and this was in the days before people made being a college student a
career all on its own. But with a strong desire to break out and see the country, what
better way to do it than to drive an eighteen wheeler? You make good money and see the
country all at once.
Anyway, they both got their commercial licenses' and training right out of
high school and spent the next several years out on the roads of North America. They
traveled to every state and major city in the lower forty-eight, Alaska and all the
Canadian Provinces. They were looking into buying their own tractor and becoming
independent Owner/Operators when Mom got pregnant with Stephanie. They decided instead to
use all the money they'd saved to buy a house on the outskirts of Bellingham. Having
already seen the country and having always wanted a bunch of kids, they gave up driving
permanently and settled down to raise their family together as a team.
By the time I graduated from high school at age eighteen, my sister Stephanie was
already married, had two little boys and she and her husband were living over in Spokane.
Stephanie was nothing short of a tramp all throughout high school and had gotten pregnant
on her senior prom night. She is now twenty-six and expecting her third child. My
brother Ryan enlisted in the army right after high school; after serving briefly in
Afghanistan, he was redeployed to Germany where he still lives today with his wife and
their two month old daughter. Mom and Daddy had worked so hard all of our lives to
provide us with all the things that they didn't have and tirelessly labored to
instill the value of a good education in all of us. Needless to say, they were more than
a little disappointed when Stephanie and Ryan began making several of the same mistakes
they had.
Now, I had always looked up to my two older siblings, particularly Stephanie. She
was very smart and beautiful and she seemed to always have time for me and had all the
answers to my questions. Ryan was my hero and he would always go out of his way to
protect me. With Mom and Daddy working as much as they did, Stephanie and Ryan often took
on the roles as parents to me and they too, like Mom and Daddy, saw something very
different about me; not that it wasn't blatantly obvious, for I am clearly the runt
of the litter. Just to illustrate, Daddy is 6'5”, 252lbs of solid bone and muscle,
and Mom is a formidable woman of 6'1”. I'm not going to give her specific
weight, for that, as Mom always taught us, is a carnal sin. Let's just say that my
Mom is a beautiful woman, perfectly and sexily proportionate to her height with big
beautiful 35 D-cups and all the voluptuous curves and contours of a hard working, blue
collar goddess. Stephanie is a virtual clone of our mother, standing an even 6'0”
with solid 34 D-cups (probably 36 now that they're filling with milk) and a body
holding its own very well despite having two kids and currently being knocked up with her
third. Ryan is my father all over again, standing just an inch shorter at 6'4” and
weighing in at about 240lbs.
Then there is me! I'm barely 5'2” and weigh 100lbs soaking wet. I
don't know if it's still considered a carnal sin for a woman to openly confess
her own weight, but then again: Who gives a shit about a mere 100 fucking pounds? If it
wasn't for the fact that I have my father's eyes and chin, my mother's
gorgeous auburn hair and alabaster skin; not to mention the same blood type, you'd
think I was adopted or that my mother had a one nightstand with the Butcher, the Baker or
the Candlestick Maker. When people would see the five of us together, they couldn't
get over how tiny I was compared to the family of Goliath's that surrounded me and I
was given the so called loving nickname "David" by the extended family and close
family friends. And while being the smallest and the youngest in the family had its
disadvantages, it also afforded me seemingly extra special treatment, attention and love
from the rest of the family and friends. This made Stephanie and Ryan jealous from time
to time; especially Ryan, for he suffered big time from the middle child syndrome. But
despite everything, I always knew that I was deeply loved and treasured by my family and
they all knew that there was something very special about me from day one.
My teen years were difficult for I was not nearly as beautiful as Mom and
Stephanie; at least, so I believed. I didn't date that much throughout high school,
and even with Stephanie's reputation as a slut preceding me, guys just weren't
interested. Of course after the Stephanie years, Ryan was like a faithful and overly
protective guard dog when it came to me and guys might just have been afraid to approach
me. Not that it mattered, for I wasn't nearly confident enough in myself or my looks
to have any interest in them. You see, while Mom and Stephanie both flaunted eye popping,
D-cup cleavage, I barely filled in B-cups. And while they both had narrow and mature
faces with perfect noses and high cheek bones, my face would have been better suited on a
baby faced twelve year old and even had the button nose to boot. The only things that I
had going for me were my hair, my skin and my downstairs. As I said, I have my
mother's gorgeous auburn hair that is full, shiny and flowing down to the middle of
my back and I also inherited her heavenly soft and smooth alabaster skin. Then there are
my legs; though they're short, they're perfectly curved, immaculately shaped and
sexily defined with exquisite muscle. And if you think those sound good, you ought to see
my ass; wrapped up in tight designer jeans, its lethal!
Another reason I didn't date much was because I was, for the most part, a
nerd. I loved school, loved learning and loved books more than both the former. When I
was a sophomore, I started working as a student aide in the library before, during and
after school and that didn't exactly help in attracting guys. I was fascinated with
mechanics and how things worked. Daddy and Ryan had taught me everything they knew about
engines; cars, pickups, motorcycles and eighteen wheelers; everything from minor repairs,
to overhauls to complete rebuilds. Then the older I got, the more I became drawn to
engineering; the mechanics and genius that goes into the actual construction of massive
engines; everything from eighteen wheelers to military and civilian aircraft and even the
Space Shuttle. Working in the library, I began reading every book I could get my hands on
about engineering and my interest was leaning more and more to aeronautics and the space
program. I developed a passion for aerospace and astronomy. By the time I was a junior,
Stephanie and Ryan had both moved out of the house; and even though Mom and Daddy had
always hoped that all three of us would go to college, they were not really surprised when
Stephanie and Ryan didn't. And despite their dreams for all of us to continue our
education, the truth of the matter was that Mom and Daddy could only really afford to send
one of us and I think they were secretly elated when it turned out to be me. I sent out
applications to some of the biggest universities in the country that had accredited
Aerospace and Engineering schools. I even applied to the Air Force Academy, though I knew
that I would never pass the physical exams due to my poor eye sight and my history of
asthma.
But then came the accident on the docks. It happened in the early summer between
my junior and senior year. I won't go into the details, but to make a long and
grizzly story short, all my hopes and dreams of going to college vanished in one fell
swoop. Daddy was badly injured and was no longer able to work. Though he had medical
insurance, it didn't cover everything and that combined with the everyday expenses of
life sucked my college fund completely dry within six months and we were on welfare by
year’s end. I was devastated.
In total despair for most of the summer and into the fall, I figured that I might
as well go ahead and get pregnant just like Stephanie did. But thanks to Ryan's
overprotection, my lack of self-confidence and my overall lack of interest in dating, I
couldn't even do that. And thank God, because early in January of my senior year,
Mrs. Fortune; the librarian at my high school, proved herself to be my guardian angel.
One afternoon after school, she caught me curled up in a ball and sobbing like a baby in
the back corner of the library. After snuggling me for awhile, I finally calmed down
enough to speak and I ended up pouring my heart out to her. Within a few days, I got a
phone call from the Dean of Admissions at the University of North Dakota. The man
introduced himself as Thomas Fortune, Mrs. Fortune's brother-in-law. He told me that
he had received a call from her a few days earlier regarding a very special student named
Natalie Bennett who dreamed of one day becoming an Aerospace Engineer or even an
astronaut. After hearing my situation, he had asked for my academic records to be faxed
out immediately. Then after reviewing them for a couple of days and pulling a few small
strings, he was now calling to offer me a full academic scholarship to the University of
North Dakota. He went on to tell me that UND has produced some of NASA's greatest
minds, for it housed one of the most highly accredited Schools of Aerospace Sciences in
the country. I burst into tears and could hardly even speak as I saw all my dreams being
miraculously resurrected right before my very eyes. Things like this don't happen!
But somehow it was! And to me of all people! The following August, I loaded up my beat
up old Chevy Nova and headed east on Interstate 90 out of Seattle toward my very bright
future, which now began in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
2
NATALIE’S REVELATION
Upon arrival at UND, the wave of blessings that had begun flooding over me earlier
in the year continued when I met my roommate, Lucy Vidor. Though I'd had a lot of
friends back in Seattle, I never truly had one I could call my best friend. Well,
that's exactly what Lucy and I became. Over the course of our first year, Lucy
became closer and dearer to me than Stephanie, and I loved her with all my heart. Lucy
was from Fargo, North Dakota and was an Economics major. Then in the summer after my first
year, I met the boy I was going to marry: Eric Lawrence. Eric was from New York City,
where both of his parents were white collar criminals. His father was an investment
banker and his mother was a stockbroker, both living and breathing the maelstrom of Wall
Street. Needless to say, they were extremely well off, even despite the recent economic
crisis. Why he had chosen to come to UND when he had his pick of Ivy League schools just
aching to get their hands on him was beyond me. Eric was everything I thought I'd
ever dreamed of in a boyfriend. He was charming, kind, considerate and ruggedly handsome
for a white collar juvenile delinquent, as I affectionately referred to him.
After overloading myself with my studies the first year, I automatically did the
same thing my second year and as a result, I had little time to devote to Eric and our
relationship, but he never seemed to mind my commitment to my education. It wasn't
until late in the spring of my second year that Eric and I had sex together for the first
time. It was my first time ever to have sex and I have to confess that I didn't
really understand what all the hype was about. Sure it was nice, but there was something
about it that I was obviously missing. With no complaints from Eric however, I simply
brushed it off, citing my lack of experience in the whole dating realm as the culprit and
figured I would learn to enjoy it the more we did it. By the end of my second year, I had
a 3.9 grade point average, had the dearest friend in the world and had met the man of my
dreams. That summer, I celebrated my twentieth birthday and Eric took me out for a
romantic evening and again, I struggled to get into our sex life. Having continued on
this same pace for months now, I began to wonder if it had something subconscious to do
with Stephanie and my want to not be like her. I have to admit that I was extremely
cautious, maybe overly so every time we went to bed.
Since I hadn't been home in over two years, my parents came to Grand Forks to
visit that summer between my second and third year, and they brought incredible news.
Completely unbeknownst to me, they had filed a lawsuit against the Port of Seattle right
after the accident and now it had finally come through, netting them nearly five million
dollars in damages. Asking what they might be able to do to help me financially, Lucy and
I had both wanted for some time to move into our own apartment off campus, so Mom and
Daddy paid for it. Lucy and I moved into our new two bedroom place with all new furniture
that my parents provided and thanks to his father, Eric and I spent the remainder of the
summer taking flying lessons. I was on my way to space.
As the first semester of my third year began to wind down after the Thanksgiving
Holiday, which I spent in New York City with Eric's family, I began to really feel
homesick. It suddenly occurred to me that I hadn't been home to Seattle in over
three years, not even for the holidays. I got a call from my Mom around December 7th and
she told me that Ryan and his family were coming all the way from Germany and that
Stephanie, her husband and my two nephews were coming home as well for a big family
Christmas. I told her that I wouldn't miss it for the world and that I would be
bringing Eric with me. Mom was so thrilled that she broke down in tears. All her babies
were coming home for Christmas.
Confirming with Eric a few days prior, we planned to head out early in the morning
on December 22nd, so he was going to spend the night at my apartment on the 21st. With a
near 1500 mile drive, Eric rented a big fancy SUV. Why we weren't flying was beyond
me. But since Eric, Lucy and I had become like the three musketeers over the past two
years, I was actually looking forward to spending a few days on the road with him, just
the two of us. Eric brought his stuff over on the afternoon of the 21st and even had to
shove a pair of his sneakers into my bag. Leaving him to his own devices for the evening,
I went to work at the campus library. I got off work at 9:00pm and went out for a
Starbuck's with a couple of the other girls that work at the library. I got back to
mine and Lucy's apartment around 11:30pm and it was so cold out that I nearly froze
to death just going from my car to the front door. The temperature was minus 8 and with
the wind blowing like it was, it was easily minus 30 wind chill. I fumbled with my keys,
unlocked the door and went inside.
If I live to be 100 years old, I'll never forget the overwhelming shockwave of
nausea that tore through my body as I came into my living room. Eric and Lucy were both
stark naked and in the throes of heated sexual passion on the sofa. Their bodies were
drenched with sweat and Lucy was riding Eric's cock like a wild horse. The frigid
winter air blowing through the door snapped them out of their passionate trance and Eric
flung Lucy across the room like a rag doll when he saw me. With tears streaming down my
face and my chest muscles straining to contain my exploding heart, I felt anger, betrayal,
disgust and hurt eating away at my soul like hydrochloric acid and violating every fiber
of my being. With their sweat laden bodies glistening in the soft glow of the fire
burning in the fire place, the two dearest people in the world to me up to that moment
stood motionless, staring at me with blank faces.
Feeling the vomit rising up my throat like magma inside a volcano, I stormed up the
hallway and into my room. Lucy came stumbling in a few seconds later tugging up her jeans
with one hand while trying to close her blouse with the other. Between my thundering
heart echoing in my ear and my uncontrollable sobbing, I couldn't even hear what Lucy
was saying; nor did I even want to. Eric suddenly appeared behind her, buttoning up the
fly on his jeans. I snapped up my duffle bag and pushed past them with all my might and
heard myself roar like a T-Rex at the top of my lungs. Once again my size seemed to be
against me for Lucy was 5'9” and Eric was 5'11”, but my anger more than
compensated for it this time.
The next thing I knew, I was throwing my bag in the trunk of my beat up old Nova
with Lucy pleading desperately for me to hear her out. Eric stood silent further up the
passenger side with his thumb up his ass. In an instant I slammed the trunk, turned to my
supposed best friend and spit in her face. Lucy stumbled back a couple of steps and it
was so cold out that my spit almost immediately began to freeze on her skin.
“Fuck off and die, cunt!” I snarled.
I turned sharply on my heels and rounded the drivers' side of the car. I
needed to get away as fast as humanly possible. I hadn't taken three steps when I
felt my left foot slip out from under me. My arms whirled wildly around, reaching and
stretching frantically for something to grab on to as the rest of my body spun out of
control. In the blink of an eye, I hit the ice covered pavement with my left ankle jammed
between my ass and the frozen ground. Dazed and confused for a few seconds, I was snapped
back to reality as I felt Eric's hand grab my shoulders.
“Natalie? You okay?” He asked.
My mind clicked back into full and present company and I swung my arms violently
around over my head. I could feel my swinging fists land a few good shots on his face and
body.
“Get your fuckin' hands off me, you worthless piece of shit!” I roared.
Eric stumbled backward and I got to my feet. Lucy was gathering Eric up in her
arms and checking him for damage. He was bleeding badly from his nose.
“Don't you ever fuckin' touch me again! Either of you!” I screamed.
“Natalie, please!” Lucy begged.
“Go to hell you miserable fucking whore!” I snapped.
I couldn't remember a time in my life when I'd ever been so angry or when
I'd had such an overwhelming desire to physically hurt somebody. I actually wanted
to kill. Spitting profanity like a street walking Bronx hooker, I hobbled to the
drivers' side door and got in. Starting the engine, I took a quick second to try and
collect myself as best I could. My face was a sloppy mess of snot, tears and of all
things, sweat. Taking a couple of deep breaths, I suddenly realized that I was burning up.
My insides felt like they were on fire. For the first time in my life, I was completely
consumed by seething hatred.
I hated Eric and Lucy with a mortal passion; two people who not more than fifteen
minutes ago, where two of the dearest people on Earth to me. I guess it's true what
they say, that there definitely is a very thin line between love and hate. I didn't
like feeling this way; being this full of hate and rage was actually starting to scare me.
But at the moment, it was the only way I was going to get through this with my sanity
intact. Slamming my right foot down on the accelerator, the tires spun wildly as they
skidded slowly backward on the ice searching for dry pavement. I could see Eric and Lucy
fleeing for their lives in the rear view mirror as I let off the gas and hit the brakes.
When I finally came to a stop, I threw it in drive and punched the gas again. This time
the tires gripped immediately and I sped off into the frozen North Dakota night. A few
moments later, I was racing on to Interstate 29 and heading south toward Fargo.
It's nearly ninety miles, about an hour and a half long drive from Grand Forks
to Fargo. By the time I entered the Fargo City Limits, my ankle was hurting so bad that I
could barely concentrate on driving. I needed medical attention. Having been to Fargo
several times with Lucy, I knew it well enough to know where the county hospital was. I
parked right in front of the emergency room entrance and practically had to crawl inside.
An X-ray determined that nothing was broken; just a bad sprain. So while the nurse
wrapped me up in an ace bandage, the doctor wrote me a script for some painkillers and a
pair of crutches. Wheeling me down to the pharmacy where I got my pills and crutches, I
then did my best impression of Tiny Tim over to the discharge desk for the raping of my
insurance company.
The sun was just coming up over the tiny skyline of Fargo as I hobbled out of the
hospital on my crutches. I pulled another pair of socks out of my duffle bag along with
one of Eric's tennis shoes that he had stuffed in my bag the night before. I got
back in the car, pulled both socks over my injured foot and then slipped on his size 11
shoe to protect it. A few minutes later I was turning westward on Interstate 94 as the
sun was now completely clear of the horizon behind me. The throbbing pain in my ankle
practically drove me to tears and I wanted so much to down five or six painkillers; but
with such a long drive ahead, that was completely out of the question. Besides, I needed
the pain to keep me awake. I hadn't slept in nearly twenty-four hours and now after
the hospital co-pay, I had no money to pay for a motel room. All I had was a gasoline
credit card to get me home. I only hope it wasn't maxed out.
“Merry Christmas to all, and to all fuck off and die! Especially Natalie
Bennett.”
Despite the freezing cold, my old Chevy Nova was holding up remarkably well and I
was making fairly good time. About seventy miles east of Bismarck, I couldn't hold
it anymore; I had to pee. I pulled into a rest area in the middle of the frozen tundra
and hobbled on my two newest best friends into the ladies room. At least I knew that
these two friends wouldn't fuck me over and if they did, it would be my own fault.
Doing my utmost not to let any part of my body touch the freezing and filthy commode as I
relieved myself, I pondered that thought. Had Eric and Lucy's infidelity in anyway
been my fault? Lucy? Absolutely not! She's just a backstabbing slut and a whore.
Eric? No! I put out for him plenty and he never once complained that I was a bad fuck.
But then again, he never really said anything at all. Okay, he did comment that I needed
to work on giving better head, but other than that I'd say I pleasured him
exceptionally well. He also commented that my vagina was extremely tight, but I always
took that as a compliment. And so what if I refused to let him fuck me in the ass!
That's really disgusting.
In all honesty, I didn't really enjoy sex and I guess it could have
inadvertently become obvious to Eric while we were doing it. If I'd learned anything
about men it was that they love to fuck and they love to know that they are good at it.
They also love to know that the women they're fucking are really enjoying it. Or do
they? The longer I hunched over the commode on my throbbing ankle, the harder I began to
mind fuck myself. I loved Eric, didn't I? Yes! I think so! And as such, I did
whatever I could to make him happy, didn't I? Fuck, I don't know! If he
wasn't happy, then why didn't he talk to me about it? Simple, he had Lucy to
talk to about it while he fucked her! And since he had a whore like her to fuck in the
ass and to suck his cock like the chrome off a trailer hinge, it’s no wonder he forgot
about how unhappy he was with me.
The hate was surging through my veins like boiling acid and practically eating me
alive; only now it had taken on a third target - me! I finished my business and hobbled
back out to the car on my crutches, cursing myself for a prude. Wrestling my crutches
into the backseat, I dug my keys out of my pocket, slid them into the ignition and turned
the key. If you've never heard an automobile engine throw a rod, be grateful; for it
means that your engine is permanently shot, never to run again. The sound is unmistakable
and when you hear it on a frigid December morning in the middle of the North Dakota plain,
thousands of miles from home with your heart broken, your soul crushed and your badly
sprained ankle throbbing, you truly want nothing more than to lie down and die.
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