Chapter 1

Far from city lights the ebony, the night sky was ablaze with a sea of stars. In the darkness of the cornfield the ambiance of the chirruping crickets was interspersed with the sounds of the Glenn Miller Band playing Tuxedo Junction, In the Mood, String of Pearls, and Moonlight Serenade. In the niche which had been hollowed out on previous occasions, a gray 1937 Plymouth coupe sat from which could be heard the passionate murmurings of the two teenagers inside.

In the car, the light from the radio cast a greenish patina on the kiss-washed faces of the boy and girl. In breathless anticipation, the girl shuddered as the boy spread her legs and pushed his gouging finger inside her youthful vagina. “Please DON’T Billy,” she said while in the awe of the new feeling.

The boy’s probing fingers had just torn her membrane, her lower lip bleeding from the reaction to its searing pain. Alive with passion, though her body tingled in the confusion of aching desire. “Please be GENTLE Billy.”

“I’m sorry,” he said as he felt her blood painting his fingertip. Pulling it out he stared in disbelief, reached into his pocket, and pulled out his handkerchief, cleaning off the blood. “I didn’t realize I could hurt you,” he said in contrition.

She kissed him tenderly, took his hand, and placed it back between her legs then grasped his erect penis that she had been fondling before her hymen had been torn. “I’m all right Billy, just be gentle sweetie.”

As they petted—she gently stroked, him sliding his finger in and out—tingling waves quickly replaced the discomfort. Yearning to go all the way with the boy she loved ... to feel the long-awaited penetration of his swollen maleness she thought I WANT you, Billy. TAKE me.

Pulling his finger out he grasped his penis and held it against her wet, spongy threshold. Once again, her strict, moral discipline prevailed as her forearm parried his thrusting penis and she said, “I’m sorry Billy but I just CAN’T.”

In another defeat, he sagged back into the seat as tears soaked the naked girl’s freckled cheeks. Leaning into his body she implored, “Please don’t be mad Billy,” then pillowed her lips on his.

Taking the turgid prominence of his penis in her hand she rapidly moved the thin sheath of outer skin over his swollen muscled rod and stroked. Soon he moaned then shuddered and gasped as he tensed his body and spewed his seminal essence over her hand which glossed her fingers.

With his erection sagging to the level of his disappointment his cock became a worm of its manly presence as he wondered will I ever know Laurie Cross in the Biblical sense. Though her hand had addressed his need he wanted more. With the aroma of their sexual essences filling their nostrils his heart swelled with love and frustration. Once again, he was cheated of carnal knowledge of the girl he loved so totally.

Desperately confused Laurie Cross asked herself why is this supposed to be so wicked. She loved Billy Ingraham and wanted him to let him take her, to make her his. She wanted to give herself to him. She wanted to feel something inside her that was larger than her finger. While two of his fingers had gently sawed inside her she longed for the wonder of his erect penis to take their place.

But as a “good girl” she knew her responsibility. Though it was hard to resist giving in good girls of the time were taught that by sacrificing instant gratification it would be worth the wait when on their wedding nights when their sacrifice would be generously rewarded. She knew that other girls did these things with their boyfriends, and some went all the way. As his sex-musked finger traced her lips she wondered if other girls allowed these “perverted” things. I don’t care, I love Billy. And when this dreadful war is over, we’ll be proud that we waited. The thought filled her with a sense of guilt she couldn’t explain.

At seventeen Billy Ingraham was gorgeous in her eyes. He was captain of the football team, and prom king; everybody liked him. She was proud to walk hand in hand by his side at school. While trying to appear modest she knew that her friends envied her which was bathed in a sense of pride.

This war can’t last forever she told herself. And after the war when we’re a married couple we can seek our level of propriety... or (giggling to herself) not be proper at all. She blushed at her perverse thoughts.

She wanted to get married after graduation but her father, the pastor of the Bethesda Baptist Church, told her that he wouldn’t consent until she reached twenty-one. She begged him to allow it, but he told her that too many girls married young and found unhappiness in later life. He told her that he wanted her to be “a grounded adult” when she and Billy finally got married.

Like thousands of young boys, Billy was going away to fight in the war. While tamping down her fear that he might not make it back Laurie denied that he could be taken from her. Maybe if he weren’t so positive about getting through it unharmed, I would give in to his pleading to go all the way with him. Deep down though it was settled. She knew he would be coming back. God simply wouldn’t let a boy as wonderful as her Billy get hurt in this awful war.

Wondering how much longer she could hold out Laurie wished for sex with Billy even more. In the end, though, her virginity was based on parental expectations. It was too important to lose in an act of sinful lust. Deep down though she always wished that Billy would ignore her words and make the decision to what was rightful. She hoped that Billy would just force his hardness between her legs and take her. If her virginity had been taken from her by the boy, she loved it wouldn’t be the same as if she had given it away as Mary Jane Resnick had done with other boys.

After that last night in the cornfield, she wouldn’t be with Billy again before he went overseas. How many times would she think of her last night with him before he left for the Army? Sinfully proud of him she wasn’t surprised when he wrote that he’d been promoted to corporal before shipping out. At the same time, she hoped he wouldn’t have to kill anybody. “Thou shalt not kill” had been planted so firmly in her mind by her father that she felt chosen in the eyes of the Creator. She constantly prayed for Billy’s protection but never succeeded in shaking the gnawing fear that this precious gem could be taken away like two of their classmates had been.

On June 28, 1944, Billy’s mom called and asked Laurie to come over. Though Mrs. Ingraham wasn’t specific over the phone Laurie heard something in her voice that set her on edge. On the phone, her future mother-in-law simply told her that she’d missed seeing her, that she felt close to her that night and wanted to talk with her “future daughter-in-law.”

As the kind woman tenderly shared the news of her son’s death strange thoughts raced through Laurie’s mind as her entire body felt like it had been injected with Novocain. Recalling their last night in the cornfield when she was in Billy’s arms, it seemed to her that her embrace tried to provide a ring of protection that would shield him from harm. As her once future mother-in-law held Laurie in her arms, she could almost feel Billy’s warm, muscular body snuggling against hers, his hands fondling the sides of her breasts.

But as she listened to the grieving Mrs. Ingraham’s futile words the feeling of Billy’s hands turned cold. She sensed Billy’s finger moving inside her vagina and remembered his hardness in her hand. The haunting warmth of his sperm that had covered her fingers turned cold. She remembered rubbing her fingertips together, the warm slipperiness of his essence. But as Billy’s mom hugged her the tips of her finger and thumb seemed to be sliding on ice. With a flash of shame, she thought, please don’t let her think that Billy was bad... and that I’m a bad girl.

Both women knew that there was more to Billy Ingraham than sexual lust. Laurie grieved for the loss of those passionate moments ... moments where she could have known the feeling of Billy’s manhood inside her. Billy’s mother grieved for the son who had sprung from her womb, the lost hope of his marriage ... the grandchildren Laurie would have brought her. As they sobbed both women hugged each other harder as if to reverse what could never return.

The next two months passed in grief and anger, bitterness, and recrimination. Laurie’s mother—a joyless woman—having become pregnant with her before marriage lived in fear and recrimination. Through the years she lost even the memory of her youthful passion.

Laurie’s father (Jericho Cross) tried to comfort his daughter In He’d wanted to see Laurie married and starting a family but had been convinced that both she and Billy should wait until they were more mature. In refusing his daughter’s permission to marry so quickly after graduation he thought he had the answer to keeping her single until she was an adult. As a Pastor, he had seen many couples who had married too young only to fall into quagmires of unhappiness. He liked Billy Ingraham and thought he was an honorable young man that would come back from the war with his wild oats having been sown in Europe. He knew that his daughter’s and young Ingraham’s relationship was passionate and hoped they wouldn’t have the same kind of accident that had befallen him and his wife when she became pregnant with Laurie. At the time of Billy’s leaving, he was thankful that the War would divert Billy’s intentions and protect his daughter’s virginity until it was the right time to give it up.