Chapter 3

It wasn’t but about two months later that I noticed my tummy was swollen like I had eaten too many pancakes at the church breakfast. I knew that I wasn’t the sharpest female in the litter, but I was pretty good at putting two and two together and I had a suspicion that the Government man had seeded me in the family way and I was only about seven months away from increasing the family name.

I made up a story about a traveling salesman called Darrin that had taken advantage of me when I swooned from the heat behind the dance hall barn on a whooping and hollering Saturday night. I think they thought I was just trying to protect my trio of cousins from the responsibilities of fatherhood, but I didn’t mind that sort of rumor because the truth of spreading my legs for a revenue agent was a whole lot less appealing tale to explain my less than immaculate conception.

Fortunately, things died down on the home front and my cousins got all-fired hot over giving me heavy duty action in my heart-shaped bottom. I didn’t object too much because any action was better than no action at all. Those boys were downright rude in the nasty things they did behind my back. I think they were all a little skittish about my fast growing belly and they didn’t like bouncing on me like a beach ball just to get their rocks off.

My cousin Arlene who had just turned eighteen took one of those boys and got him to declare his undying love and loyalty to screwing her pussy in its lonesome. The fact that it was the skillful Clyde was a mite disconcerting but she had her right to equal pussy time now that she was all grown up and ripe for loving. I settled for the other two boys and the occasional visitor or guest that got to choose one of the family girls for an evening’s pleasure and warmth under the patchwork quilt. I had been in that pool for a long time now ever since my eighteenth birthday and it was one of the perks of not being married. The married females were exempt from that sort of duty because it would be far too demeaning for their husbands.

All things being equal, I had the baby right there in my grandma’s bed and it had curly blonde hair just like the handsome revenue agent. Of course, I pretended the imaginary traveling salesman had hair just like the new little one and the baby was his “spitting image”. That was a downright lie but it eased the fact it sure didn’t look like anyone in our extended family. The accepted my story so completely that Uncle Hiram and Cousin Festus allowed we should send a delegation down to the city and make the traveling salesman do the right thing and take on the responsibility of fatherhood.

I real quick-like made up a story about that fellow already being married to a proper church-going city girl and having three young ones of his own with all of them in school and learning the good word. They dropped their plan after that and just accepted me as another unwed mother in the family. That certainly was not unusual and generally no questions were asked of an embarrassing nature.