Top online Novelist Blogger Queen has released a new novel entitled "Kurse of Miss Kane" about a woman who thinks she is cursed due mysterious things in her life and times. This novel is minus the rosy colored glasses of passed novels Blogger Queen has written and should NOT BE CONFUSED with her real childhood, which was filled with fun filled days with a great family who got her through many hurdles. Take a moment to read the first few chapters and you decide if it should be published as a book, or possibly made into a movie. Blogger Queen is a novelist and blogger and has been on the net since 1984 when a chemist friend thought she'd enjoy playing reality based games with his buddies on the net of that time, which was simple user groups. Here is the first few chapters of "Kurse of Miss Kane"
“THE KURSE OF MISS KANE” BOOK 1
“THE KURSE OF MISS KANE” BOOK 1
Blogger Queen
© Copyright 2014
CHAPTER I --- THE KURSE OF MISS KANE – HOW IT BEGAN!
Hello, my name is Miss Kane and I’m not thoroughly sure when the Kurse of Miss Kane actually took hold of me. Maybe it was always ongoing in my family, but what I can recall, or as I can remember of this Kurse of Kane is that it’s a very real curse.
I was about to be born. Out of the 4 children my mother had, the hospital refused to sedate my mother with me, because mom’s water had broken in the middle of the night as she slept soundly, so she was quickly rushed to the hospital, almost giving birth to me in a taxi cab; A real drama unfolding that many would not soon forget! Actually someone said it was a huge black limo that dad hired to take them to the hospital, but by the time it drove up to the entrance of the medical facility, my head was popping out and mom was 10 center-meters.
This may have been a good door of opportunity for me to be born very quickly, but for some strange reason the best the hospital staff could do out of fear for both mother and me, was to give her the drug they were familiar with, to not to induce the pregnancy, but to slow it down, which might have been a big mistake, as they waited for my mother’s doctor to come. I was supposed to be born quickly, but the dreaded Kurse of Kane took hold on me, or claimed me.
This may have been a good door of opportunity for me to be born very quickly, but for some strange reason the best the hospital staff could do out of fear for both mother and me, was to give her the drug they were familiar with, to not to induce the pregnancy, but to slow it down, which might have been a big mistake, as they waited for my mother’s doctor to come. I was supposed to be born quickly, but the dreaded Kurse of Kane took hold on me, or claimed me.
After a very traumatic birth by mother, the very next day she contracted a horrid dreadful Staph infection, out of the blue, less than 24 hours after I was born. Most probably it cropped up out of nowhere because of the burden put her in having me was a strain for a woman who birthed other babies, even though the oldest son, a heavy birth, but was brought into the world with as much less stress as they were doing in those days. As stated my mother was heavily sedated when the others were born, but with my birth it was something out of a nightmare for both mother, newborn and doctor.
Miss Kane was immediately separated from her mom and taken home by Dad, with many thoughts running through his own head of him getting ill, or even his new born daughter picking up the taboo infection. At least that is what I felt it could be because our growing family was destined for wealth and lots of money and we were growing fast.
In Miss Kane's Own Words: Besides being rushed out of the hospital and not bonding with my mother due to her sickness and ill health, I did bond with my father. Also, strangely enough, although it must have started out on my second oldest brother’s part as a bit of jealousy, I also bonded with my brother too although he did stutter and didn’t say much in conversation, which probably calmed me down with him just quietly staring at me and not talking due to the stuttering, or perhaps the jealousy turned into fascination as I may have looked up at him and smiled. So in the end, he and I had a wonderful brother-sister relationship up until my younger sister became a bit prettier and sweeter in the late 1970’s. I also was very close with her as we grew up. (More on that later in story). And in just a few short years, when I was just 4 years old, my brother and I were fighting over a car rest in the back seat, not belted in as our grandfather drove us back to their house in on the beach! Ten stitches closed up that first head wound, Then about 6 months after that incident my brother again wounded me by hitting me over the head with a winter shovel. That sustained 10 more stitches but in the back of my head. Both incidents were extremely traumatic and may have contributed to my tantrums and odd social behavior later in life or perhaps triggered mental stress to be more compounded. Whatever the facts, life was starting to look like a curse in many ways.
Miss Kane's original thoughts: Bad luck, bad genes, bad DNA (a man once said he loved me, but that my DNA scared him!). Even bad timing and bad parenting in many areas, although my parents were wealthy as we grew up. But understand that this curse is in social isolation form, where your peers go against you and you are like an outcast. Outcast Syndrome, a curse. Throughout my life the curse would come up many times as if it had the right timing and mine was shot to hell.
Another strike against me was my strange two knuckled fingers, even having a look of a curse with the middle knuckles on each hand missing all together, not fused with the upper knuckle to make up for space, because my fingers were noticeable and stubby. That is a part of the puzzle of the Kurse well thought out and a long saga to be detangled. Although my mother and grandmother had almost the same fingers as me, and were concert pianists, piano never came to me easily, nor offered to me as a gift for being gifted ., but more like, “If you are not a good girl, I’m going to make you take piano lessons and you will not like that!”
Piano, the curse, no middle knuckle; then infuse that with a hyper belt surrounding me making me seem unstable, cry-babyish and cranky all the time. Though there was potential for focus and rare gifts of the brain, no one around wanted to pursue it, rather they ran from it and left me alone crying out with questions and maybe that is the reason I created an older man to answer me.
Although I inherited my mothers digits, my knuckles were more “stand-alone” than other family members who were afflicted. My older brother has the affliction but each slightly developed middle knuckle was fused together with the top knuckles on each hand, giving the illusion of normal looking hands. They were not a magic trick, it was a mutation, or just “a curse” as many in the old days would say. Most children were drowned on purpose or buried alive for any limb out of shape or not right.
My older brother was a huge baby, they said. The story some told proclaimed the oldest son something like 13 pounds before he was born with a full head of hair. When the forceps were put inside to pull him out, mother was out of her mind and sedated heavily, and has said to me many times that she didn’t recall a thing as she did with my second oldest brother and youngest sister.
Only my birth she remembered. But the other births were not without a bit of drama too as was with my birth. There was a thin-based rumor that mother fell in her best friend’s house on their spiral staircase while wearing high heeled shoes that she could not bare to part with. That might have damaged my older brother, or been a part in it, the shock of the fall so close to the birth. She may have feigned (being an actress from Broadway and the drama of the Opera she loved so much) the okay sign and everyone was relieved, but maybe it was like a Houdini trick where in the end he bled and maybe mother’s son had a few strikes against him besides the fact that mom’s threshold of pain was quite large due to her contracting Polio 10 years earlier at summer camp and had to spend 2 years in an iron lung.
My older brother was a huge baby, they said. The story some told proclaimed the oldest son something like 13 pounds before he was born with a full head of hair. When the forceps were put inside to pull him out, mother was out of her mind and sedated heavily, and has said to me many times that she didn’t recall a thing as she did with my second oldest brother and youngest sister.
Only my birth she remembered. But the other births were not without a bit of drama too as was with my birth. There was a thin-based rumor that mother fell in her best friend’s house on their spiral staircase while wearing high heeled shoes that she could not bare to part with. That might have damaged my older brother, or been a part in it, the shock of the fall so close to the birth. She may have feigned (being an actress from Broadway and the drama of the Opera she loved so much) the okay sign and everyone was relieved, but maybe it was like a Houdini trick where in the end he bled and maybe mother’s son had a few strikes against him besides the fact that mom’s threshold of pain was quite large due to her contracting Polio 10 years earlier at summer camp and had to spend 2 years in an iron lung.
And the Kurse of Miss Kane was not just the oldest daughter’s problem. The older brother fell into the mess as well. In fact, at the age of 3 years old, Miss Kane was playing in her families garage one morning and heard a crash that sounded like the little beads attached on one of the housekeeper’s, sister’s hats that she loved so much. The little Miss Kane thought she had dropped it and could hear the beads falling on the pavement. But it was her older brother who had run through a locked front glass door and split his left thumb almost off the limb. As she ran up to the top patio, Miss Kane remembered how her older brother always ran through the living room like a rocket and Mother saying to him, “Please don’t slam that door!” But he always did slam it.
Now that Miss Kane is older, she feel that possibly one evening her mother locked the outer all glass door so that when her older brother ran through the living and tried to get out the door and slam it, which he enjoyed as an attention getter, that he would realize it was locked and simply stop and open the door. Well, he didn’t realize what was going on until he was halfway down the street headed for his favorite blue bike, a trail of brightly colored fresh blood following a trail from his left thumb. He seemed to notice it and wiped it on his pants leg.
As he did so, Miss Kane saw a little bone stick out, and lots of blood pouring into a puddle. The housekeeper was a trained nurse and ran ahead of Miss Kane's shocked mother, other brother and grabbed Miss Kane's older brother along with his father, as older brother was just going into shock. She saw the blood all over the broken glass, and saw her father leading my older brother out to the car to go to the hospital. Although her mother screamed and shouted and cursed at the top of the street, it was a very calm scene like it was just a movie.
Now that Miss Kane is older, she feel that possibly one evening her mother locked the outer all glass door so that when her older brother ran through the living and tried to get out the door and slam it, which he enjoyed as an attention getter, that he would realize it was locked and simply stop and open the door. Well, he didn’t realize what was going on until he was halfway down the street headed for his favorite blue bike, a trail of brightly colored fresh blood following a trail from his left thumb. He seemed to notice it and wiped it on his pants leg.
As he did so, Miss Kane saw a little bone stick out, and lots of blood pouring into a puddle. The housekeeper was a trained nurse and ran ahead of Miss Kane's shocked mother, other brother and grabbed Miss Kane's older brother along with his father, as older brother was just going into shock. She saw the blood all over the broken glass, and saw her father leading my older brother out to the car to go to the hospital. Although her mother screamed and shouted and cursed at the top of the street, it was a very calm scene like it was just a movie.
Or maybe even the fact that on Miss Kane's birth certificate was a strange listing of 4 Fetal deaths before her own birthmy birth certificate came along. That’s “4” fetal deaths listed, not miscarriages, “Fetal Born Dead!” According to my own birth certificate, she had the other two children, my older brothers born normally, but 4 listed as “Fetal born Dead”. Who were all those others “fetals born dead”? Would I be in there somewhere? Not miscarriages, not live births, but dead fetal births, “4” is a high rate of mortality but why so many?
As I grasp my life now, I refer back to that birth certificate of mine, which was riddled with errors, and not just 1 or 2 unnoticeable, but many of them. First was my mom’s age, which was 1 year early. That was crossed out and her real age inserted, an odd “31” years old, not typed. Another error was my father’s occupation, which was typed out as “President Manufacturing Corporation”. That title was crossed off like a horse scratched out of the race, to “Owner Manufacturing Corporation”.
When I married years later (which slowly turned cursed too), the Justice of the Peace (a woman) looked at me a few times before stamping it. And Once I recreated it and typed in the correct info, not hurting the original, and explaining if need be, with both certificates intact, It looks cursed, but then again, you create what you are afraid of, and I was always seeing myself as holding The Kurse of Miss Kane in the palms of my hands, or the proof of such a curse and not in my vast imagination.
As for me, I was told that from the moment I was born, I cried from then on through the “teething stage” and up on into the older stages. Everything scared me, everything got my attention. I saw shadows, ghosts, figments, sick children, my dead relatives I knew nothing about, even though they did die horridly. I saw my uncle floating above my bed and crying and hungry. How could I know then that he died a full blown anorexic, a very rare case for a boy?
“She cries at the drop of a hat,” said my father.
“I think my 2 other boys were a bit jealous of her at first.” Mom added.
“I’d say they were taken-aback over her,’ said Dad. “Other children may have felt guilty, that somehow they had caused the unnecessary crying our daughter does.”
“I remember when our second son would not even leave me alone for a second when I had his sister in my arms…but eventually he got bored and went back to school,” said mother.
Other than the sweet version recalled by my mom and dad, I feel the second son at first would tease me in the crib at I slept, he may have shaken the sides of the crib to scare me, and it worked. And a few months later when I walked, I felt he was instrumental in various head injuries that I suffered and drove me even farther into The Kurse of Miss Kane.
Miss Kane discusses her Grandmother: The one person I could not understand was my mother’s mom, my grandmother. She was a terror train. I was so afraid of her. She would scare the pants off me. She would say things like, “If you keep being a bad girl, I’m going to chain you to the bed!” The way she said“chain you to the bed” invoked such torture and pain I would suffer at her hands chained to my own bed. Grandmother was not kidding I saw her doing it to me in my little mind’s eye.
And usually, I had not done anything yet, she would take one look in my wavering scaredy-cat eyes and would try and get me to push her even just a bit farther than I would have dared. I didn’t get away with much with her and although my oldest brother who also had the strange fingers, the Stigmatism of the eyes and the supposed ‘hairline disability; was the favored child by granddad, and that may have enraged my grandmothers mental disorder Munchausen’s
By Proxy, a sort of sickness some mothers get so they can garner more attention by getting their own children sick, then running in to save the day, becoming very friendly with the perplexed doctors. The survivors of Munchausen’s (my mother) would eventually become very child-like with her own children, which she did as we grew up, especially with my younger sister.
Some of the survivors children developed Hypochondria and severe anxiety disorder that led to intestinal problems as did my uncle, which when he witnessed their long time neighbors, a real estate executive, being stabbed over and over in the back by his wife, with blood spattering all over the tended grass, that only served to aggravate my uncle's nervous condition. The real estate developer was dead and 7 years later so was my uncle!
And usually, I had not done anything yet, she would take one look in my wavering scaredy-cat eyes and would try and get me to push her even just a bit farther than I would have dared. I didn’t get away with much with her and although my oldest brother who also had the strange fingers, the Stigmatism of the eyes and the supposed ‘hairline disability; was the favored child by granddad, and that may have enraged my grandmothers mental disorder Munchausen’s
By Proxy, a sort of sickness some mothers get so they can garner more attention by getting their own children sick, then running in to save the day, becoming very friendly with the perplexed doctors. The survivors of Munchausen’s (my mother) would eventually become very child-like with her own children, which she did as we grew up, especially with my younger sister.
Some of the survivors children developed Hypochondria and severe anxiety disorder that led to intestinal problems as did my uncle, which when he witnessed their long time neighbors, a real estate executive, being stabbed over and over in the back by his wife, with blood spattering all over the tended grass, that only served to aggravate my uncle's nervous condition. The real estate developer was dead and 7 years later so was my uncle!
I recall when Grandmother came over to our apartment in New York City. She would head straight to the piano in the living room and have a playoff with my mother. We would laugh and hoot and carry on until Grandma threatened to touch us on a certain place on our ears to make us go blind, "that would show you all!"
Grandmother’s favorite song was from the Broadway play Oliver! where Nancy the barmaid sings about her criminal boyfriend Bill Sikes, “As Long As He Needs Me,”grannies favorite, she pounded the keys with a pure Russian emotion. She meant every word, even if she was singing about some long lost boyfriend. I listened to the words as she sang them with venom and vigor:
As Long As He Needs Me By: Lionel Bart © Copyright 1959
As long as he needs me...
Oh, yes, he does need me...
In spite of what you see...
...I'm sure that he needs me.
Who else would love him still
When they've been used so ill?
He knows I always will...
As long as he needs me.
I miss him so much when he is gone,
But when he's near me
I don't let on...
...The way I feel inside.
The love, I have to hide...
The hell! I've gone my pride
As long as he needs me.
He doesn't say the things he should.
He acts the way he thinks he should.
But all the same,
I'll play
This game
His way.
As long as he needs me...
I know where I must be.
I'll cling on steadfastly...
As long as he needs me.
As long as life is long...
I'll love him right or wrong,
And somehow, I'll be strong...
As long as he needs me.
If you are lonely
Then you will know...
When someone needs you,
You love them so.
I won't betray his trust...
Though people say I must.
I've got to stay true, just
As long as he needs me.*
Oh, yes, he does need me...
In spite of what you see...
...I'm sure that he needs me.
Who else would love him still
When they've been used so ill?
He knows I always will...
As long as he needs me.
I miss him so much when he is gone,
But when he's near me
I don't let on...
...The way I feel inside.
The love, I have to hide...
The hell! I've gone my pride
As long as he needs me.
He doesn't say the things he should.
He acts the way he thinks he should.
But all the same,
I'll play
This game
His way.
As long as he needs me...
I know where I must be.
I'll cling on steadfastly...
As long as he needs me.
As long as life is long...
I'll love him right or wrong,
And somehow, I'll be strong...
As long as he needs me.
If you are lonely
Then you will know...
When someone needs you,
You love them so.
I won't betray his trust...
Though people say I must.
I've got to stay true, just
As long as he needs me.*
She finished the tune with an extra chorus and her throaty deep operatic trained voice seemed to hold that last note “Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee” as I stood behind her at a fake rapt attention. She scared the hell out of me, that’s all I knew, with her Mongolian looking eyes, unattractive features and aloof personality, she made for someone to be reckoned with. You could not win with that one. I did my best.
Grandmother was unfairly mean to me, strange. As I grew up, we clashed, but more as I grew up and began to understand things about Grandma, after her horrific death of Uremia when her intestines exploded inside her! With Grandma now passed on, and quite drastically, I noted an acute weird embarrassment arising in me about my mom.
It started out as a slight flush to my face when she showed up at my 2nd grade class when we’d moved to New York City. I remember she was wearing cherry red lip stick, a mink coat, which she had folded around her forearms, and a blond looking wig but exuding of expensiveness and eccentricity. She had the money, and the money didn’t embarrass me at first, it was my mother herself, her personality, her persona, her aura, she was like a rare star and was called many names to match her. “Snow Queen” “The Lady in White” and “Snow White”. And the woman could sing opera like a pro, in many languages and you’d never know she even held a very heavy Brooklyn accent if she spoke like when she sang opera.
When I think back to then now, I was terrified I’d see her in the streets of New York City when the classes started going on field trips to the Museum and Central Park. So I would cry and carry on and put on a big show so I wouldn’t have to go on these field trips. In the end they’d try to drag, push me and even threaten me with expulsion if I didn’t go, but I didn’t budge. I had the solution. “Let me be with my brother! Please! Please let me be with my brother, he’s in the 5th grade. I won’t be bad if you let me sit in his class, I promise,” I would cry and rant until they caved. I found myself sitting on the top floor of the school where the older kid’s classes were.
“We have a guest today,” said Mrs. Greenberg, a teacher that would one day notice my talents and help me. But for now she was told I was a trouble maker cry baby that hated field trips and was afraid. But when she realized I was the sister of one of her quietest students she became intrigued. She was one for bringing out the student and their gifts, and she’d been all over the world, read to the class, asked questions, put the scare into them, made them remember things.
In fact, I do recall that day when I sat way in the back and even started asking questions. She called on me even though I was in 3rd grade at the time and was sitting in a large 5th grade class not knowing anyone but her older brother, who was not a talker. This little girl’s answers about what the United Nations Building stood for were “right on the money”. She knew current events, that was for sure.
“What class are you in?” Asked Mrs. Greenberg as she came around and to the back of the room at the round table where visiting trouble makers sat. Today there was no trouble maker, but this girl seems different, special and full of potential.
“I’m in 3rd grade,” said the young curly-headed, skinny child. She looked rambunctious and could easily go off the charts with emotion, but Mrs. Greenberg found this little girl to possess something someone had obviously missed due to, but not in part to, the hyper activity the girl exuded. It’s sad how much the State needed bodies in the chairs to get the budget monies, but so much was mis-diagnosed, mis- read and missed all together.
After the class was over, Mrs. Greenberg called the young girl and her older brother over to her desk. The boy seemed nervous, like he’d done something wrong.
“Don’t worry,” said Mrs. Greenberg, smiling, and her red curls tightly curved around her moon face. She wore ‘cherry lip stick’ ….
“Next time, go on the field trip, eventually you may end up in my class and I won’t allow you to stay with any other class… I assure you you’ll love it. What is the problem dear?” asked Mrs. Greenberg, trying to reach the little girl.
Tear welled up in the girl’s eyes. “I….I….I….think I’ll run into my mom and she’ll see me and bring attention to me!” blurted out the little Shirley Temple look a like, minus the confidence, as if Shirley Temple was Dorothy looking around for the witch!
“I’ve met your mother, she’s charming,” said Mrs. Greenberg. “But she is, how shall we say,” said Mrs. Greenberg as she tapped her pointer finger on her chin unconsciously. “You mother can be exasperating for a sensitive child such as yourself.”
“Yes, it’s not easy. I have to convince her it’s not really her, it’s just that I don’t know how to act and usually I spill stuff, or break something, but then she says, ‘don’t forget to break something at the table,’ and I end up spilling something…”
“Don’t worry honey, you will grow out of that. Be as you are. But try and focus in more. I’ll help you. I’ll talk to your mom one day, promise. For now, go back to your other class. Who do you have as a teacher?”
“Mrs. Fohr,” said the girl with distaste.
Mrs. Greenberg rolled her eyes… “Oh, that one,” she said. “I see the problem. Well, just try and put up with that old bat. I hear your 4th grade teacher is a very nice man, and I have a feeling you will be going to him next. Go on kid, stay loose, go on the next one, maybe it will be fun! Come on, what are the chances of meeting your own mother on the street! And even if you did, it should be a blessing to see her, not a curse!
About 2 months after that day, a field trip was scheduled to Central Park. This time someone talked me into it and I remembered Mrs. Greenberg’s words. Although I didn’t see the sharp 5th grade teacher, messages were sent through my older brother. He would say, “Mrs. Greenberg says hello. She wants to know if you are going on the next field trip because she isn’t going to let you stay in her class anymore until you go on at least one,” explained my shy brother.
“Okay, so I’ll go.” I was already getting butterflies in my stomach because at that exact moment my mom walked into my bedroom asking, “Going where?” She liked when we had field trips and had asked on many occasions to be a chaperone, but was told that every position was filled already, and they were not lying to mom.
Lot’s of normal mothers and some dads liked to help the school. And it was sort of an ego trip according to one of the popular girl’s mothers who’d chaperoned many times. She was a tough Puerto Rican lady who didn’t let anyone get away with anything. But she had daughters of her own, 4 of them, so she was a trusted chaperone and did the job better.
Lot’s of normal mothers and some dads liked to help the school. And it was sort of an ego trip according to one of the popular girl’s mothers who’d chaperoned many times. She was a tough Puerto Rican lady who didn’t let anyone get away with anything. But she had daughters of her own, 4 of them, so she was a trusted chaperone and did the job better.
So for the first time, there I stood in line by height and heading out the door of the school for a field trip to the Central Park Zoo, and a little swim in the wading pools they had at that time. We walked down 57th Street, then hit the park end, and started walking down toward the 41st Street. Because it was one of my very first field trips, I was very nervous, looking around in all directions, watching the people, especially the women walking down the street.
The rest of the teased me as usual, but this time I felt a slight twinge of something, a foreshadow I wished to simply ignore. Out of the blue I looked up when I saw the whole class, including Mrs. Fohr look toward the other side of the street on the park side. There she was, my mother, the Snow Queen herself walking briskly as if she owned all of NYC! Why out of all the streets in New York City, did she have to be right there? And for me it was like something out of a Twilight Zone episode. A few kids recognized her, and called out, “Hey, there’s your mom over there!”
The rest of the teased me as usual, but this time I felt a slight twinge of something, a foreshadow I wished to simply ignore. Out of the blue I looked up when I saw the whole class, including Mrs. Fohr look toward the other side of the street on the park side. There she was, my mother, the Snow Queen herself walking briskly as if she owned all of NYC! Why out of all the streets in New York City, did she have to be right there? And for me it was like something out of a Twilight Zone episode. A few kids recognized her, and called out, “Hey, there’s your mom over there!”
“Where is she?” I asked, scanning the streets in all directions, sweat breaking out on my brow and my heart starting a steady hard beat, the type you felt in your ears and throat. The beat of “fear” “foreboding” … it was happening just like I imagined night after night, the nightmare of running into my mother in the middle of a street. I broke out of the line and ran down an alley with one of the bad kids David and his pal Marco, but both boys were yelling at the top of their own lungs,
“Look, it’s her mom, Look, it’s like she said would happen!” Said David, smirking.
“Do you think her mother followed her just to mess with her?” asked Marco to know one in particular.
“Now class, calm down, everyone calm down,” but the way Mrs. Fohr said it didn’t calm nerves, it’s was like needles being put in your palms.
There she was, I was actually looking at her exiting the old Gucci store across from the park. I thought I would die of a heart attack. Everything became surreal as my mom saw us, waved and ran against the light almost getting hit by a taxi in the process. Back then I thought it was some kind of magic my mom possessed, but I realize she really wanted to chaperone and must have heard from one of my other siblings that I was going on the field trip. She knew where we would be, so she just went there and stopped at her favorite store on the way. I remember standing there feeling like a mouse caught in a trap and it showed on me red face.
“Why are you so upset ‘cause you mom is here?” Asked one little girl who was the teacher’s favorite, a straight blond haired, blue eyed child any teacher would love.
I began crying, dropped to the sidewalk like I’d been wounded, and also trying to block it all out, like it was a nightmare. Suddenly, a few minutes passed and I looked up to see my mom walking away quickly, as if she was embarrassed that I was ashamed of seeing her there. Everyone was talking at once and the teacher was trying to calm the class to continue the trip to the zoo. “She’s gone, stupid girl,” said Marco.
“God, you are ashamed of your own mom,” said another black girl Marlene, whose own mother worked at our school. I didn’t think I could handle that with my mother.
We went on into the park, to the zoo, then into these dirty looking wading pools. I cried and didn’t want any part of that. There was something about water that scared me as a child. As the other kids played in the pools, and I ran out to the edge of the concrete stand, the teacher sneered at me, saying I’d ruined the trip and under no circumstances would I ever have to go with them again, not as long as she was the one taking us.
The teacher, Mrs. Fohr was a very mean German woman who despised me and I would pick up on it and act out on it. She, like the school bus driver we had before we moved to New York City (Later….), placed my desk behind her own desk to block me from the other children the first week of school. I was isolated as soon as she got my schedule and personality in check in her mind, which was very cruel and mean.
I could never, from that point on, do anything RIGHT in the 3rd grade class and do not recall much of what happened day to day, just the crisis stuff and bullying by the teacher stuck out.
It was a weird one. What was even stranger was that toward the middle of the term, she got very sick and was out for almost 2 weeks. When she returned I saw her taking these green and red capsules and imagined me as one of those capsules in her body after she took it. I pretended I was that pill and as she stood by her coat closet, discreetly swallowing the pills, I pretended to go down a wrong tube in her throat and fall out of her vagina.
The whole class would see it fall on the floor between her legs. I would on occasion masturbate about it. I could slip in and out of her vagina at will in the fantasy. I often, although she was so mean to me, would play with myself imaging me shrinking and jumping down her throat only to be pushed out of her private part. I was taught that it was okay to masturbate but to keep it private. More on that later though. All I knew was that I was healthy in that area and knew what I was imagining and it was just that, imagining myself as a pill being taken by a mean teacher but for some reason it began to bring on my child’s orgasm, which I could achieve very easily by seeing it and running it focused through my mind.
I could never, from that point on, do anything RIGHT in the 3rd grade class and do not recall much of what happened day to day, just the crisis stuff and bullying by the teacher stuck out.
It was a weird one. What was even stranger was that toward the middle of the term, she got very sick and was out for almost 2 weeks. When she returned I saw her taking these green and red capsules and imagined me as one of those capsules in her body after she took it. I pretended I was that pill and as she stood by her coat closet, discreetly swallowing the pills, I pretended to go down a wrong tube in her throat and fall out of her vagina.
The whole class would see it fall on the floor between her legs. I would on occasion masturbate about it. I could slip in and out of her vagina at will in the fantasy. I often, although she was so mean to me, would play with myself imaging me shrinking and jumping down her throat only to be pushed out of her private part. I was taught that it was okay to masturbate but to keep it private. More on that later though. All I knew was that I was healthy in that area and knew what I was imagining and it was just that, imagining myself as a pill being taken by a mean teacher but for some reason it began to bring on my child’s orgasm, which I could achieve very easily by seeing it and running it focused through my mind.
I wonder if she is still alive after all this time, so I looked up the woman several times through the years until the Internet yielded the info I sought. She came up at age 88 still alive but with a private phone number. I sometimes felt the need to call and ask if she remembered me. This teacher noticed my two knuckled fingers and would pass me by when teaching the other kids how to write in script.
Was it the curse that denied me my scripted writing which I cannot do to this day? But I’d also like to tell her that I can type over 100 words per minute. She’d either claim not to remember me, be passed on, or would pretend indifference which is the same as not remembering, probably the latter.
Was it the curse that denied me my scripted writing which I cannot do to this day? But I’d also like to tell her that I can type over 100 words per minute. She’d either claim not to remember me, be passed on, or would pretend indifference which is the same as not remembering, probably the latter.
Because of her, Mrs. Fohr, my third grade teacher, there was no way I could learn how to use script writing. She pointed this out to me and the class on more than one occasion. And she made sure I knew she thought it was very shocking and very inferior. She was a staunch woman, almost like the Nazi’s who got away because they didn’t commit any real crimes during the war, but were either rich Jews that got strong and paid through, or part of the German Youth Organization types that lived until they were 100 years old! She could have been Jewish, who knows.
Miss Kane Recalls: I readily acted out (up) and was sent gladly by her to the hallway. Out in the hallway. I would pretend my fingers were these shuttles that carried convicts and criminals. I would run my finger across the brick cinder block impressions and walk back and forth as did a lot of the other kids sent to the hallway, except they were not playing any games they were just pacing. Each convict had a distinct personality and I always knew it was fake, not real, just a product of my mind. I would spend the whole afternoon out there, after we’d come back from lunch.
A nice blond, blue eyed boy whom I struck up a serious friendship with had been left back in second grade so now I was sort of on my own, now alone trying to meet other types. Also, being intensely teased about my crooked fingers and personality and anything else about me, including my hair and clothes. It seemed endless. Due to my older brothers first coming to the public school, before me, might have played a part in it with my peers, although the teachers (minus Mrs. Fohr) seemed to like me and know who I was and where I came from.
They knew my mother Snow White would raise monies, and talk a big game, and constantly pestered her for donations and her stamp on the project they might be doing for the school. Due to mother working everywhere from London to Broadway and back again, these little PTA projects were like little marbles compared to a Faberge eggs she hoarded and showed off about.
A nice blond, blue eyed boy whom I struck up a serious friendship with had been left back in second grade so now I was sort of on my own, now alone trying to meet other types. Also, being intensely teased about my crooked fingers and personality and anything else about me, including my hair and clothes. It seemed endless. Due to my older brothers first coming to the public school, before me, might have played a part in it with my peers, although the teachers (minus Mrs. Fohr) seemed to like me and know who I was and where I came from.
They knew my mother Snow White would raise monies, and talk a big game, and constantly pestered her for donations and her stamp on the project they might be doing for the school. Due to mother working everywhere from London to Broadway and back again, these little PTA projects were like little marbles compared to a Faberge eggs she hoarded and showed off about.
It would always be very traumatizing for me, the way things went with my mother and I. Is it ordained and part of the Curse of Miss Kane? As we grew up, we clashed. As I got older my acute embarrassment increased over her, not because of her, she was so beautiful and aptly named anything with white or angel in it really fit mom to a tee.
I talked loud, was out of control, and always wanted to play with the blocks, and the teachers would try to sway me over to the little fake kitchen, or the crayons, just to get me out of the center of the room, where t he blocks were set up. In the end they rearranged the whole classroom because of me, just to get me over to the corner where I wouldn’t be a distraction. But I realized I was a distraction and knew what I was doing. I knew they thought
I was mentally unstable, or socially retarded, but I just found it easier, at least until my mental capacity grew in my brain, to play along and pretend I was mentally out of control, which I probably was. And it wasn’t like some of the other children in the class, mostly foreigners, but a few white girls with blond hair and pigtails would have a seizure or some sort of screaming fit. I remember seeing this one girl named Ramona sitting way to the back of the classroom bobbing up and down and pulling her hair. And then there was this boy from Romania that knew hardly a word if English.
Years later I would bring it to his attention when were in the same class in 7th grade but he complained to the teacher that I was bothering him and to move me, so I was isolated yet again because a boy who once was isolated like myself, in kindergarten was now complaining that I was getting in his face. Eventually he was moved to the smarter class upstairs.
I was mentally unstable, or socially retarded, but I just found it easier, at least until my mental capacity grew in my brain, to play along and pretend I was mentally out of control, which I probably was. And it wasn’t like some of the other children in the class, mostly foreigners, but a few white girls with blond hair and pigtails would have a seizure or some sort of screaming fit. I remember seeing this one girl named Ramona sitting way to the back of the classroom bobbing up and down and pulling her hair. And then there was this boy from Romania that knew hardly a word if English.
Years later I would bring it to his attention when were in the same class in 7th grade but he complained to the teacher that I was bothering him and to move me, so I was isolated yet again because a boy who once was isolated like myself, in kindergarten was now complaining that I was getting in his face. Eventually he was moved to the smarter class upstairs.
I was an extremely sensitive child and immediately thought bad things like seizures or bobbing would happen to me. As they held this pretty little pixy blond girl down on a piano bench, she twisted and turned and shook, and I thought it would happen to me. I could feel it. Of course, it didn’t, but I always carried that fear inside me and would pause and pretend I was going to have a seizure like the girl at school.
I would spook myself then run into my parent’s room only to be told to be “…a big girl and go back to bed!” Dad would get up and walk me back sometimes, and assure me, but I felt a curse lingering everywhere. I saw phantoms and symbols of it everywhere I went and everything that I did. I pretended to be afraid of the dark, but in reality I was afraid of the curse. I knew it was there at an early age. That is why I was isolated so quickly although I was never diagnosed with any mental disorder. Yes, I was hyper and prone to tantrums, and yes, I did talk out loud to myself, but again, I was aware of it, and knew what I was doing…
I would spook myself then run into my parent’s room only to be told to be “…a big girl and go back to bed!” Dad would get up and walk me back sometimes, and assure me, but I felt a curse lingering everywhere. I saw phantoms and symbols of it everywhere I went and everything that I did. I pretended to be afraid of the dark, but in reality I was afraid of the curse. I knew it was there at an early age. That is why I was isolated so quickly although I was never diagnosed with any mental disorder. Yes, I was hyper and prone to tantrums, and yes, I did talk out loud to myself, but again, I was aware of it, and knew what I was doing…
But it was that coming summer that a lot of the curse would be put to the test. My parents sent my 2 brothers and myself to a day camp on the coast between Cape Cod and Connecticut. It was right on the ocean and called Rocky Hill. We’d be picked up by a yellow school bus and driven to this camp. While being driven we were teased relentlessly by the other children, mostly kids from our own neighborhood, even a boy named Shane who shot my brother and I while we played on the lawn of our own house, he lived across the street and had a pellet gun.
He shot at us several times and hit my brother in the chin. In fact, before we’d be carted off to day camp, my housekeeper took us to the park to play after school let out. A boy and his brother, who lived a few houses down, this boy Mike, rode his black bike right into me and his handlebar struck me on the right upper part of my face, leaving a red mark that was seen for years. He meant to hit me. I saw his eyes as he got closer and closer to me and I just stood there staring, not believing he’d really hit me, but he did, with his handlebars, than acted like it was a total accident.
He shot at us several times and hit my brother in the chin. In fact, before we’d be carted off to day camp, my housekeeper took us to the park to play after school let out. A boy and his brother, who lived a few houses down, this boy Mike, rode his black bike right into me and his handlebar struck me on the right upper part of my face, leaving a red mark that was seen for years. He meant to hit me. I saw his eyes as he got closer and closer to me and I just stood there staring, not believing he’d really hit me, but he did, with his handlebars, than acted like it was a total accident.
What was so different about my family than others there in the neighborhood? Why did they all tease me and my brothers? Why, I kept asking myself as we walked along the beach in single file at Rocky Hills exploring the low tide tidbits. There were dead fish carcasses, Stingray shells, empty of the fish itself, and just laying in the hot sun smelling up the beach line. There weren’t big shells, not the ones you saw on TV. And the water was not blue, it was dark and forbidding, no one went in the ocean, but instead used the pool facilities at the camp.
As I walked at the end of the line, isolated with the rest of the children, a mix of Jewish boys and girls from the rich city areas like Park Avenue, Madison and upper crust of lower East side. All of a sudden I had an urge to be with my brother. There was only one way to get to him. I started to have a tantrum and carry on and cry so much that the whole procession of campers and counselors turned around, headed back to camp and dropped me at the shooting range where my brother was with his age group. Although this is many years before Mrs. Greenberg’s class and the field trips Mrs. Fohr used to bring us on that I refused to go to, for fear of bumping into my mom, which did happen!
I got to be the only 4 year old girl who got to shoot the bee-bee guns that only the boys shot. The girls would shoot archery, but when I shot archery I would get a bruise from the taunt string, and the pain became scary for me.
After a few hours of shooting I was reunited with my age group and kissed my brother goodbye, knowing we’d see each other after lunch and head for the buses to go home. The food at this camp was terrible. I can still smell and taste the food and drink at Rocky Hill Day Camp. The juice was usually pineapple juice; the food was hot dogs and beans, or ravioli (ugh!). And the dessert was coconut cookies. It was a very strange combination, like trying to get a little kid like me to like Sushi.
Even my first camp out was a blow out, when while making Some-mores with chocolate bars and marshmallow and graham crackers, I all of a sudden got “the runs” very badly. It must have been something I ate earlier, but the counselors got me up to the office bathroom and I sat on that toilet for what seemed like hours. Finally when everyone else was asleep in the big smelly green army tent, the counselors cleaned me up and were laughing with me about the incident, saying I did very well and didn’t panic. But why it only happened to me, I asked myself.
That’s when I started thinking that maybe I would have faired better if I had been born a boy! I always had that with me since early times. There were about 8 slots, because of the 4 dead births my mother had before I was born. Maybe if I had been born in one of those slots I would have been a male baby and it would have ended different. Maybe, maybe not. Destiny is a tricky thing. We have freewill, we have the right to go whatever path is laid before us, and usually I’d pick the constantly wrong path, but then get righted, but then the curse would flare up and I’d lose it.
At first, it seemed almost normal until I started talking about it with other kids at my school. It got around fast in that school and before I knew it I’d isolated myself even further than having my desk put behind the teacher away from the other kids. But it was all true. The only other person who had anything to say about it, believe it or not, was our housekeeper from theWest Indies , who saw him and clicked her teeth and said his name in her thick accent really loud.
Then I would get in on the game and it was almost like at first my father was upset at “me” for bringing it up, but then Mom would either pretend she did not see it as she tidied up the den in her own masked nervousness about the matter. A few times after the initial nudge about it, my dad would scream at older brother and ban him from the den. He would just stop, get up sort of dazed, and walk out of the room into his bedroom he shared with my other brother.
“Why does he do it” ran through my mind. It seemed so normal until I realized it was a private thing, I just could feel it deeply in my, well, you know what I mean now.
Dad only said to us that it was a totally normal thing, that is how you found yourself and it was all part of growing up and moving thru puberty, nothing more, nothing less. But older brother seemed to take that a step farther by doing the act in public which, of course, is totally taboo as I learned when I went to my next grade after Mrs. Fohr’s horror class.
Later on that week, my parents took us all out to dinner at the Plaza Hotel and a show and movie atRadio City Music Hall
For the first time I didn’t say a word, a nudge or anything, I was so embarrassed that someone would see him, and he was sitting next to me. I actually saw him have his release, and he did his usually hand ritual and smelled it, then took a napkin and wiped it all away and laid back in his movie chair and started to do it all over again. I didn’t know what to do or say.
But my father had noticed too. So as we drove back to our apartment across town, he yelled at my older brother, “When we get home, I want you to get out of my sight until you can conduct yourself better, so go to your room as soon as we get home. I think it’s time we had a talk!”
Dad turned to my sister, brother and I and began lecturing us about it, as mother sprayed her signature perfume in the cab and began to compulsively clean lint off my camel haired coat. “Masturbation is not a bad thing, kids!” said dad as quietly and calmly as if he was reading the funnies. But it’s a private thing, so if you do it, make sure you are alone.
“Why?” I asked, trying to get him to spill more beans on this.
“Because that is the way it is…you are discovering your body and will be discovering yourself in many ways as you get older like your brother,” explained Dad. “Just come to me and we’ll talk about it if it bothers you, it’s all normal! Even ‘that’ is normal, never feel guilty, but what your brother is doing is wrong and he should keep it inside his bedroom, not out in the open.”
“Why?” I asked again.
“You can be very exasperating, but as time goes on you’ll see why, now let’s have quiet now.”
“Bourge, why are you telling the kids so much?” whispered my mother as we all got settled into the big yellow cab.
“They need to know eventually. I don’t want them learning it in school, in the schoolyard, all wrong information, before you know it, one of them will come home saying they are pregnant or got someone pregnant!”
“The way our oldest son is heading, he may get himself pregnant!” said mother, suppressing a laugh.
“This is not a laughing matter,” said Dad.
“I think your son needs to see ‘someone’ professional, if you get what I mean, dear.”
“No, not my son,” said Dad. “I won’t discuss this now.” Dad was upset and you could see it in his bronze face, a slight flush under the lotion he used to darken his skin. His hairpiece was a bit askew, but only I would notice because at times he let me stand in his dressing room and watch him apply the glue to the head and push on the ‘rug’!
“No professional help, he’s getting enough of that as it is!”
“Okay, whatever you say Bourge,” Mother said, using the French nickname for him.
As for me, I discovered masturbation very early in life, quite by accident. I was watching a movie on how spiders lived. Our 2nd grade class was sitting in the dark. I got a bit drowsy and bored and laid my head on the table, but watched this spider start to devour a fruit fly really close up.
I was wearing a dark blue one piece simple dress and white thick stockings. I also had a habit of moving my legs back and forth which relaxed me, but this time I was doing it sort of slowly, because the stockings, which were thick, rubbed back and forth against my thighs, legs and crotch so languidly and procured such a curious sensation.
I started to move ever so slightly my tailbone area back and forth as my legs went too and fro which produced that new feeling between my legs, making my underwear become a ‘French Tickler’, though at the time I did not know what it was. My private area was on fire, but not hurting fire, it was a sort of urging type of feeling, like “keep going, you are going to get some surprise at the end, but be careful or all you will get is detention or a tongue lashing.
Even the words tongue lashing, along with watching that spider eat the fly, and being in a dark room where no one was paying attention to you because that is what you always what I craved so they would not give that up too easily, I was safe with this new thing. I thought about my brother and that blew my concentration, so I pushed him out of my mind and made myself look at the movie again.
I did this very discreetly and finally I felt something building in the private area and there was this weird hot feeling, or explosion only in that one area. I was a bit breathless and as the feeling ebbed, I felt let down like I should have made it last longer. And I most certainly would not do what my older brother did, to do it publicly?
Never, I could never ever do that. That I was sure of. As the last of the feeling left me, the spider split the cocoon it had made to suck the life out of the fly and that brought me such a feeling. Not a bad feeling, but as a little girl, it was the first pangs of sexual gratification. How my older brother found his, and did it in such a public place, only enhanced my mind into wanting to know all about it. And you can be 100 percent sure I would never ever get caught.
When the lights came on, no one was the wiser, but Mrs. Epstein said I looked like I had been napping and not paying the least bit of attention.
“What is the AIM for today, you read it now out loud, come up here,” she said to me.
I looked up at the board where she wrote in clear letters: AIM. Next to that was the main deal of the day which read “To do the best you can do to focus and understand! Ask questions!”
I read it clearly and with conviction. My voice did sound like it had a bit of sleep, but I think it was the orgasm I must have experienced. My private part due to the rubbing against the wooden chair was chafed and I felt the need to touch myself there, or at least sit back down. Finally she told me to sit. I did. It was relief to know I didn’t rub the skin clear through. I thought maybe I was bleeding, but later, after I was excused to the little girl’s room, I saw white discharge, knowing exactly what it was for some strange reason.
In the interim, I discovered Masturbation at age 7! I thought about my older brother, but my little developed mind could never image doing that so public, in front of anyone or everyone. It was like a “must hide it vibe”, no one can know you do it, even though it’s something all humans discovered, some earlier, some later than others.
So when I masturbated, I made sure it was at night when I could hear the housekeeper’s golden bangles as she walked down the long hallway of our apartment, so as not to get caught. Also, Dad wore the signature Gucci shoes, so when he came through the hallway, the 2 18-karat gold bars attached to the top of his shoes would jingle like a cowboy walking into an ambush.
Mother wore expensive flowing dresses and I could actually hear the swish of the fabric as she walked down the hall. Usually she would come in to the room to check on me, and feel my forehead, see that I was hot (from masturbating), and she thought I was sick and would wake up the whole household, take my temp, and then call it a false alarm.
My sister was always asleep and an atom bomb wouldn’t wake her once she was asleep in the bed next to me. My brothers never got up at night to try and catch me, it was just accepted, not pursued, except in my own mental mind.
I almost got caught once though while watching a boxing match. Two black, sweaty guys were clubbing each other, ducking and punching up a storm as I pulled the blanket over myself and began masturbating while watching them beat each other up.
My father was away and usually took 3 days away from home, then would come back for 3 days, and travel on that last day to his lace factory in another state. My mom was out with the lady married to the man who used to run the Miss USA/Miss Universe pageant. Sis was asleep and my brothers were asleep in their bedroom.
What I hadn’t counted on was the housekeeper removing her golden bracelets that were my major alarm system, never failed. As I watched the match, I began to masturbate faster and faster, trying not to let the blanket move, just for it to seem I was moving my legs as I did and family knew about.
As my release got closer then exploded and was ebbing, my housekeeper walked into my bedroom and saw the remnants. She yelled at me and pulled off the heavy blanket and saw how sweaty I was. Luck for me she didn’t suspect, but thought I was getting sick like mom did the other night. As she yelled in her thick accent, I heard the word “castor oil”.
This was the first time I’d been caught, even when I was at summer camp I was careful not to get caught and there were at least 15 other girls in the room in bunk beds plus two counselors roaming around with flashlights.
Years after, I even got to ride horse’s English style and a friend of mine and I used to have masturbation races for real. It sounded gross, but I always won because I had become so in tune to my own release at such an early age. And although in a strange way I was lucky never to really get caught doing it, my brother would do the public masturbation on up until I visited them when I was at my sister’s wedding.
He lay on the bed and knew very well I was sitting on my mother’s balcony at her Condo. I walked in and he must have heard that sliding glass door, but he just kept going, and I was totally disgusted. Afterwards I had the gall to say something to him, “I saw what you were doing, God, you still masturbate…”
His answer to me was a simple, “F-off!”
I’m sure now that my father told my two older brothers about how babies were made, but when they decided to tell us, my parents bought a book called “How Babies Are Made” and it simply put the whole process with photos and cute writing, read out loud by my mom. It was a “no holds barred” way to tell us the right educational way and they, my parents, thought sis and I were ready.
When mom sat us down and read the part about the actual sperm/egg transfer and how it was done, sis and I laughed at the photo of the man and woman smiling and laying on top of each other with the blanket pulled up to their normal looking faces. From then on we knew and would joke all the time about it until my father took us aside and explained, then stressed with a light poke, not to joke about such a thing. It was natural as masturbation, just not in public, it’s a private thing. “Your mother read you the book, right?”
“Yes Daddy,” we answered together, my sister and I, trying hard not to look at each other lest we’d break out laughing.
CHAPTER III
From the very start, when I was old enough, my second oldest brother and I were sent to school. I was in Kindergarten at that time, and right away I was isolated and sort of kept away from other children. I talked to myself during quiet times, which disrupted, but I remember knowing I was just making up stuff in my head and I was aware of what I was doing, an attention getter mostly. When you are at home, it’s hard to compete with your own mother for attention. It boiled down to that, a curse in itself.
I talked loud, was out of control, and always wanted to play with the blocks, and the teachers would try to sway me over to the little fake kitchen, or the crayons, just to get me out of the center of the room, where t he blocks were set up. In the end they rearranged the whole classroom because of me, just to get me over to the corner where I wouldn’t be a distraction. But I realized I was a distraction and knew what I was doing. I knew they thought
I was mentally unstable, or socially retarded, but I just found it easier, at least until my mental capacity grew in my brain, to play along and pretend I was mentally out of control, which I probably was. And it wasn’t like some of the other children in the class, mostly foreigners, but a few white girls with blond hair and pigtails would have a seizure or some sort of screaming fit.
I remember seeing this one girl named Ramona sitting way to the back of the classroom bobbing up and down and pulling her hair. And then there was this boy fromRomania
I was an extremely sensitive child and immediately thought bad things like seizures or bobbing would happen to me. As they held this pretty little pixy blond girl down on a piano bench, she twisted and turned and shook, and I thought it would happen to me. I could feel it. Of course, it didn’t, but I always carried that fear inside me and would pause and pretend I was going to have a seizure like the girl at school. I would spook myself then run into my parent’s room only to be told to be “…a big girl and go back to bed!”
Dad would get up and walk me back sometimes, and assure me, but I felt a curse lingering everywhere. I saw phantoms and symbols of it everywhere I went and everything that I did. I pretended to be afraid of the dark, but in reality I was afraid of the curse. I knew it was there at an early age. That is why I was isolated so quickly although I was never diagnosed with any mental disorder. Yes, I was hyper and prone to tantrums, and yes, I did talk out loud to myself, but again, I was aware of it, and knew what I was doing…
But it was that coming summer that a lot of the curse would be put to the test. My parents sent my 2 brothers and myself to a day camp on the coast betweenCape Cod and Connecticut
He shot at us several times and hit my brother in the chin. In fact, before we’d be carted off to day camp, my housekeeper took us to the park to play after school let out. A boy and his brother, who lived a few houses down, this boy Mike, rode his black bike right into me and his handlebar struck me on the right upper part of my face, leaving a red mark that was seen for years. He meant to hit me. I saw his eyes as he got closer and closer to me and I just stood there staring, not believing he’d really hit me, but he did, with his handlebars, than acted like it was a total accident.
What was so different about my family than others there in the neighborhood? Why did they all tease me and my brothers? Why, I kept asking myself as we walked along the beach in single file at Rocky Hills exploring the low tide tidbits. There were dead fish carcasses, Stingray shells, empty of the fish itself, and just laying in the hot sun smelling up the beach line. There weren’t big shells, not the ones you saw on TV. And the water was not blue, it was dark and forbidding, no one went in the ocean, but instead used the pool facilities at the camp.
As I walked at the end of the line, isolated with the rest of the children, a mix of Jewish boys and girls from the rich city areas like Park Avenue, Madison and upper crust of lower East side. All of a sudden I had an urge to be with my brother. There was only one way to get to him. I started to have a tantrum and carry on and cry so much that the whole procession of campers and counselors turned around, headed back to camp and dropped me at the shooting range where my brother was with his age group.
Although this is many years before Mrs. Greenberg’s class and the field trips Mrs. Fohr used to bring us on that I refused to go to, for fear of bumping into my mom, which did happen!
I got to be the only 4 year old girl who got to shoot the bee-bee guns that only the boys shot. The girls would shoot archery, but when I shot archery I would get a bruise from the taunt string, and the pain became scary for me.
After a few hours of shooting I was reunited with my age group and kissed my brother goodbye, knowing we’d see each other after lunch and head for the buses to go home. The food at this camp was terrible. I can still smell and taste the food and drink at Rocky Hill Day Camp. The juice was usually pineapple juice; the food was hot dogs and beans, or ravioli (ugh!). And the dessert was coconut cookies. It was a very strange combination, like trying to get a little kid like me to like Sushi.
Even my first camp out was a blow out, when while making Some-mores with chocolate bars and marshmallow and graham crackers, I all of a sudden got “the runs” very badly. It must have been something I ate earlier, but the counselors got me up to the office bathroom and I sat on that toilet for what seemed like hours. Finally when everyone else was asleep in the big smelly green army tent, the counselors cleaned me up and were laughing with me about the incident, saying I did very well and didn’t panic. But why it only happened to me, I asked myself.
That’s when I started thinking that maybe I should have been born a boy! I always had that with me since early times. There were about 8lots, because of the 4 dead births my mother had before I was born. Maybe if I had been born in one of those slots I would have been a male baby and it would have ended different. Maybe, maybe not. Destiny is a tricky thing. We have freewill, we have the right to go whatever path is laid before us, and usually I’d pick the constantly wrong path, but then get righted, but then the curse would flare up and I’d lose it.
STAY TUNED FOR MORE OF THIS BOOK AS IT IS CHURNED OUT BY MISS KANE! BOOK II COMING!
CHAPTER II – AND ANOTHER THING ABOUT MASTERBATION!
Older brother discovered public masturbation around age 12. At first I noticed he was doing it in our elegant den where we all lived at this rich apartment building on the East River in New York City
But this novel is not about them. It’s about a curse that has lurked in our family for maybe over 100 years, especially now that we have the Internet to verify deaths, births, mental illnesses and strange happenings. Older brother would come into the den as the rest of our family watched television.
Usually it was some detective show like McMillan & Wife orColombo
His big head lay on a big pillow against the love seat chair where you could stretch out. It was very “French” looking, with the big wheels at the bottom and the intrigued patterns of yellow, green and brown woven carefully into the fabric. The pillow and his body would shake. He’d then lift his head up, look around at all of us ignoring him and then he’d get down to business.
He’d skim his “tool” with his right hand then he’d lift it to his nose and take a big whiff of the smell left there from his sweat. He didn’t seem the least bit self conscious. He would just continue as the TV blared and no one in the room would bat at eye at him. This was my older brother! No one stopped him as he masturbated right in front of my whole family, and sometimes a guest of the family would be there too, and they’d ignore it as well.
Then one day I could take it no more and broke the nervous silence. We were all riveted on the show but I was watching my masturbating big brother. His fervor on this increased as the TV show played out. Was the emotional response of “shame” ever planted in this kid’s head? I would guess not.
But this novel is not about them. It’s about a curse that has lurked in our family for maybe over 100 years, especially now that we have the Internet to verify deaths, births, mental illnesses and strange happenings. Older brother would come into the den as the rest of our family watched television.
Usually it was some detective show like McMillan & Wife or
His big head lay on a big pillow against the love seat chair where you could stretch out. It was very “French” looking, with the big wheels at the bottom and the intrigued patterns of yellow, green and brown woven carefully into the fabric. The pillow and his body would shake. He’d then lift his head up, look around at all of us ignoring him and then he’d get down to business.
He’d skim his “tool” with his right hand then he’d lift it to his nose and take a big whiff of the smell left there from his sweat. He didn’t seem the least bit self conscious. He would just continue as the TV blared and no one in the room would bat at eye at him. This was my older brother! No one stopped him as he masturbated right in front of my whole family, and sometimes a guest of the family would be there too, and they’d ignore it as well.
Then one day I could take it no more and broke the nervous silence. We were all riveted on the show but I was watching my masturbating big brother. His fervor on this increased as the TV show played out. Was the emotional response of “shame” ever planted in this kid’s head? I would guess not.
At first, it seemed almost normal until I started talking about it with other kids at my school. It got around fast in that school and before I knew it I’d isolated myself even further than having my desk put behind the teacher away from the other kids. But it was all true. The only other person who had anything to say about it, believe it or not, was our housekeeper from the
Then I would get in on the game and it was almost like at first my father was upset at “me” for bringing it up, but then Mom would either pretend she did not see it as she tidied up the den in her own masked nervousness about the matter. A few times after the initial nudge about it, my dad would scream at older brother and ban him from the den. He would just stop, get up sort of dazed, and walk out of the room into his bedroom he shared with my other brother.
“Why does he do it” ran through my mind. It seemed so normal until I realized it was a private thing, I just could feel it deeply in my, well, you know what I mean now.
Dad only said to us that it was a totally normal thing, that is how you found yourself and it was all part of growing up and moving thru puberty, nothing more, nothing less. But older brother seemed to take that a step farther by doing the act in public which, of course, is totally taboo as I learned when I went to my next grade after Mrs. Fohr’s horror class.
Later on that week, my parents took us all out to dinner at the Plaza Hotel and a show and movie at
For the first time I didn’t say a word, a nudge or anything, I was so embarrassed that someone would see him, and he was sitting next to me. I actually saw him have his release, and he did his usually hand ritual and smelled it, then took a napkin and wiped it all away and laid back in his movie chair and started to do it all over again. I didn’t know what to do or say.
But my father had noticed too. So as we drove back to our apartment across town, he yelled at my older brother, “When we get home, I want you to get out of my sight until you can conduct yourself better, so go to your room as soon as we get home. I think it’s time we had a talk!”
Dad turned to my sister, brother and I and began lecturing us about it, as mother sprayed her signature perfume in the cab and began to compulsively clean lint off my camel haired coat. “Masturbation is not a bad thing, kids!” said dad as quietly and calmly as if he was reading the funnies. But it’s a private thing, so if you do it, make sure you are alone.
“Why?” I asked, trying to get him to spill more beans on this.
“Because that is the way it is…you are discovering your body and will be discovering yourself in many ways as you get older like your brother,” explained Dad. “Just come to me and we’ll talk about it if it bothers you, it’s all normal! Even ‘that’ is normal, never feel guilty, but what your brother is doing is wrong and he should keep it inside his bedroom, not out in the open.”
“Why?” I asked again.
“You can be very exasperating, but as time goes on you’ll see why, now let’s have quiet now.”
“Bourge, why are you telling the kids so much?” whispered my mother as we all got settled into the big yellow cab.
“They need to know eventually. I don’t want them learning it in school, in the schoolyard, all wrong information, before you know it, one of them will come home saying they are pregnant or got someone pregnant!”
“The way our oldest son is heading, he may get himself pregnant!” said mother, suppressing a laugh.
“This is not a laughing matter,” said Dad.
“I think your son needs to see ‘someone’ professional, if you get what I mean, dear.”
“No, not my son,” said Dad. “I won’t discuss this now.” Dad was upset and you could see it in his bronze face, a slight flush under the lotion he used to darken his skin. His hairpiece was a bit askew, but only I would notice because at times he let me stand in his dressing room and watch him apply the glue to the head and push on the ‘rug’!
“No professional help, he’s getting enough of that as it is!”
“Okay, whatever you say Bourge,” Mother said, using the French nickname for him.
As for me, I discovered masturbation very early in life, quite by accident. I was watching a movie on how spiders lived. Our 2nd grade class was sitting in the dark. I got a bit drowsy and bored and laid my head on the table, but watched this spider start to devour a fruit fly really close up.
I was wearing a dark blue one piece simple dress and white thick stockings. I also had a habit of moving my legs back and forth which relaxed me, but this time I was doing it sort of slowly, because the stockings, which were thick, rubbed back and forth against my thighs, legs and crotch so languidly and procured such a curious sensation.
I started to move ever so slightly my tailbone area back and forth as my legs went too and fro which produced that new feeling between my legs, making my underwear become a ‘French Tickler’, though at the time I did not know what it was. My private area was on fire, but not hurting fire, it was a sort of urging type of feeling, like “keep going, you are going to get some surprise at the end, but be careful or all you will get is detention or a tongue lashing.
Even the words tongue lashing, along with watching that spider eat the fly, and being in a dark room where no one was paying attention to you because that is what you always what I craved so they would not give that up too easily, I was safe with this new thing. I thought about my brother and that blew my concentration, so I pushed him out of my mind and made myself look at the movie again.
I did this very discreetly and finally I felt something building in the private area and there was this weird hot feeling, or explosion only in that one area. I was a bit breathless and as the feeling ebbed, I felt let down like I should have made it last longer. And I most certainly would not do what my older brother did, to do it publicly?
Never, I could never ever do that. That I was sure of. As the last of the feeling left me, the spider split the cocoon it had made to suck the life out of the fly and that brought me such a feeling. Not a bad feeling, but as a little girl, it was the first pangs of sexual gratification. How my older brother found his, and did it in such a public place, only enhanced my mind into wanting to know all about it. And you can be 100 percent sure I would never ever get caught.
When the lights came on, no one was the wiser, but Mrs. Epstein said I looked like I had been napping and not paying the least bit of attention.
“What is the AIM for today, you read it now out loud, come up here,” she said to me.
I looked up at the board where she wrote in clear letters: AIM. Next to that was the main deal of the day which read “To do the best you can do to focus and understand! Ask questions!”
I read it clearly and with conviction. My voice did sound like it had a bit of sleep, but I think it was the orgasm I must have experienced. My private part due to the rubbing against the wooden chair was chafed and I felt the need to touch myself there, or at least sit back down. Finally she told me to sit. I did. It was relief to know I didn’t rub the skin clear through. I thought maybe I was bleeding, but later, after I was excused to the little girl’s room, I saw white discharge, knowing exactly what it was for some strange reason.
In the interim, I discovered Masturbation at age 7! I thought about my older brother, but my little developed mind could never image doing that so public, in front of anyone or everyone. It was like a “must hide it vibe”, no one can know you do it, even though it’s something all humans discovered, some earlier, some later than others.
So when I masturbated, I made sure it was at night when I could hear the housekeeper’s golden bangles as she walked down the long hallway of our apartment, so as not to get caught. Also, Dad wore the signature Gucci shoes, so when he came through the hallway, the 2 18-karat gold bars attached to the top of his shoes would jingle like a cowboy walking into an ambush.
Mother wore expensive flowing dresses and I could actually hear the swish of the fabric as she walked down the hall. Usually she would come in to the room to check on me, and feel my forehead, see that I was hot (from masturbating), and she thought I was sick and would wake up the whole household, take my temp, and then call it a false alarm.
My sister was always asleep and an atom bomb wouldn’t wake her once she was asleep in the bed next to me. My brothers never got up at night to try and catch me, it was just accepted, not pursued, except in my own mental mind.
I almost got caught once though while watching a boxing match. Two black, sweaty guys were clubbing each other, ducking and punching up a storm as I pulled the blanket over myself and began masturbating while watching them beat each other up.
My father was away and usually took 3 days away from home, then would come back for 3 days, and travel on that last day to his lace factory in another state. My mom was out with the lady married to the man who used to run the Miss USA/Miss Universe pageant. Sis was asleep and my brothers were asleep in their bedroom.
What I hadn’t counted on was the housekeeper removing her golden bracelets that were my major alarm system, never failed. As I watched the match, I began to masturbate faster and faster, trying not to let the blanket move, just for it to seem I was moving my legs as I did and family knew about.
As my release got closer then exploded and was ebbing, my housekeeper walked into my bedroom and saw the remnants. She yelled at me and pulled off the heavy blanket and saw how sweaty I was. Luck for me she didn’t suspect, but thought I was getting sick like mom did the other night. As she yelled in her thick accent, I heard the word “castor oil”.
This was the first time I’d been caught, even when I was at summer camp I was careful not to get caught and there were at least 15 other girls in the room in bunk beds plus two counselors roaming around with flashlights.
Years after, I even got to ride horse’s English style and a friend of mine and I used to have masturbation races for real. It sounded gross, but I always won because I had become so in tune to my own release at such an early age. And although in a strange way I was lucky never to really get caught doing it, my brother would do the public masturbation on up until I visited them when I was at my sister’s wedding.
He lay on the bed and knew very well I was sitting on my mother’s balcony at her Condo. I walked in and he must have heard that sliding glass door, but he just kept going, and I was totally disgusted. Afterwards I had the gall to say something to him, “I saw what you were doing, God, you still masturbate…”
His answer to me was a simple, “F-off!”
I’m sure now that my father told my two older brothers about how babies were made, but when they decided to tell us, my parents bought a book called “How Babies Are Made” and it simply put the whole process with photos and cute writing, read out loud by my mom. It was a “no holds barred” way to tell us the right educational way and they, my parents, thought sis and I were ready.
When mom sat us down and read the part about the actual sperm/egg transfer and how it was done, sis and I laughed at the photo of the man and woman smiling and laying on top of each other with the blanket pulled up to their normal looking faces. From then on we knew and would joke all the time about it until my father took us aside and explained, then stressed with a light poke, not to joke about such a thing. It was natural as masturbation, just not in public, it’s a private thing. “Your mother read you the book, right?”
“Yes Daddy,” we answered together, my sister and I, trying hard not to look at each other lest we’d break out laughing.
CHAPTER III
From the very start, when I was old enough, my second oldest brother and I were sent to school. I was in Kindergarten at that time, and right away I was isolated and sort of kept away from other children. I talked to myself during quiet times, which disrupted, but I remember knowing I was just making up stuff in my head and I was aware of what I was doing, an attention getter mostly. When you are at home, it’s hard to compete with your own mother for attention. It boiled down to that, a curse in itself.
I talked loud, was out of control, and always wanted to play with the blocks, and the teachers would try to sway me over to the little fake kitchen, or the crayons, just to get me out of the center of the room, where t he blocks were set up. In the end they rearranged the whole classroom because of me, just to get me over to the corner where I wouldn’t be a distraction. But I realized I was a distraction and knew what I was doing. I knew they thought
I was mentally unstable, or socially retarded, but I just found it easier, at least until my mental capacity grew in my brain, to play along and pretend I was mentally out of control, which I probably was. And it wasn’t like some of the other children in the class, mostly foreigners, but a few white girls with blond hair and pigtails would have a seizure or some sort of screaming fit.
I remember seeing this one girl named Ramona sitting way to the back of the classroom bobbing up and down and pulling her hair. And then there was this boy from
I was an extremely sensitive child and immediately thought bad things like seizures or bobbing would happen to me. As they held this pretty little pixy blond girl down on a piano bench, she twisted and turned and shook, and I thought it would happen to me. I could feel it. Of course, it didn’t, but I always carried that fear inside me and would pause and pretend I was going to have a seizure like the girl at school. I would spook myself then run into my parent’s room only to be told to be “…a big girl and go back to bed!”
Dad would get up and walk me back sometimes, and assure me, but I felt a curse lingering everywhere. I saw phantoms and symbols of it everywhere I went and everything that I did. I pretended to be afraid of the dark, but in reality I was afraid of the curse. I knew it was there at an early age. That is why I was isolated so quickly although I was never diagnosed with any mental disorder. Yes, I was hyper and prone to tantrums, and yes, I did talk out loud to myself, but again, I was aware of it, and knew what I was doing…
But it was that coming summer that a lot of the curse would be put to the test. My parents sent my 2 brothers and myself to a day camp on the coast between
He shot at us several times and hit my brother in the chin. In fact, before we’d be carted off to day camp, my housekeeper took us to the park to play after school let out. A boy and his brother, who lived a few houses down, this boy Mike, rode his black bike right into me and his handlebar struck me on the right upper part of my face, leaving a red mark that was seen for years. He meant to hit me. I saw his eyes as he got closer and closer to me and I just stood there staring, not believing he’d really hit me, but he did, with his handlebars, than acted like it was a total accident.
What was so different about my family than others there in the neighborhood? Why did they all tease me and my brothers? Why, I kept asking myself as we walked along the beach in single file at Rocky Hills exploring the low tide tidbits. There were dead fish carcasses, Stingray shells, empty of the fish itself, and just laying in the hot sun smelling up the beach line. There weren’t big shells, not the ones you saw on TV. And the water was not blue, it was dark and forbidding, no one went in the ocean, but instead used the pool facilities at the camp.
As I walked at the end of the line, isolated with the rest of the children, a mix of Jewish boys and girls from the rich city areas like Park Avenue, Madison and upper crust of lower East side. All of a sudden I had an urge to be with my brother. There was only one way to get to him. I started to have a tantrum and carry on and cry so much that the whole procession of campers and counselors turned around, headed back to camp and dropped me at the shooting range where my brother was with his age group.
Although this is many years before Mrs. Greenberg’s class and the field trips Mrs. Fohr used to bring us on that I refused to go to, for fear of bumping into my mom, which did happen!
I got to be the only 4 year old girl who got to shoot the bee-bee guns that only the boys shot. The girls would shoot archery, but when I shot archery I would get a bruise from the taunt string, and the pain became scary for me.
After a few hours of shooting I was reunited with my age group and kissed my brother goodbye, knowing we’d see each other after lunch and head for the buses to go home. The food at this camp was terrible. I can still smell and taste the food and drink at Rocky Hill Day Camp. The juice was usually pineapple juice; the food was hot dogs and beans, or ravioli (ugh!). And the dessert was coconut cookies. It was a very strange combination, like trying to get a little kid like me to like Sushi.
Even my first camp out was a blow out, when while making Some-mores with chocolate bars and marshmallow and graham crackers, I all of a sudden got “the runs” very badly. It must have been something I ate earlier, but the counselors got me up to the office bathroom and I sat on that toilet for what seemed like hours. Finally when everyone else was asleep in the big smelly green army tent, the counselors cleaned me up and were laughing with me about the incident, saying I did very well and didn’t panic. But why it only happened to me, I asked myself.
That’s when I started thinking that maybe I should have been born a boy! I always had that with me since early times. There were about 8lots, because of the 4 dead births my mother had before I was born. Maybe if I had been born in one of those slots I would have been a male baby and it would have ended different. Maybe, maybe not. Destiny is a tricky thing. We have freewill, we have the right to go whatever path is laid before us, and usually I’d pick the constantly wrong path, but then get righted, but then the curse would flare up and I’d lose it.
STAY TUNED FOR MORE OF THIS BOOK AS IT IS CHURNED OUT BY MISS KANE! BOOK II COMING!
