01 - Jamie

(Codes for this chapter are: female teen/female teen, consentual, lesbian, true story, first, oral sex.)

This story begins in December of 1969. In the small town of Edwards Texas atop its namesake plateau. It is a sparsely populated county, two thousand people, two million goats. It is a place which an Englishman passed through a hundred years ago. No doubt to get somewhere else. The book he wrote about his journey was titled, “High, Dry and Dusty” That sums up the geography around here pretty well.

We live in the county seat. There is a courthouse off to one side of the courthouse rhomboid, the library and city hall are in the basement. 1,600 people live in Edwards, the sprawling single campus school across the street serves the whole county. We have a single screen movie theater, a couple of clothing stores, a Piggly Wiggly grocery store, a Sears and Roebuck catalog store. There are two pharmacies, one of which has a soda fountain.

This is really significant because the two people in town who sell condoms have each known you and your parents since you were six years old. The town has a few cafes and restaurants. My mom, Katherine, used to work at Kevin’s; Kristin’s mom runs Miss Sheri’s. But we almost never indulge in the interest of saving money. There are several churches, my friend Eva’s dad is Pastor at one.

“Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil, cleve to that which is good.” -Romans 12.9

Mom likes to quote that. It means we should stay away from bad people and keep the good ones close to us. Mom is not a Michael Corleone “hold your friends close and enemies closer” lady. In this I am like Mom. I am like her in other much kinkier ways too. Over a long period of time I had decided that I was going to follow all of mom’s teachings, explicit, implicit and implied. The events of the past week had made it clear to me that was the correct decision.

School has just ended on Jamie’s sixteenth birthday. Mine was a few days ago at the end of November. George, my wonderful big brother is wearing his finest outfit. Polished boots, ironed blue jeans, an ironed Western shirt, silver bolo and his best suede jacket. Jamie and I are in our room changing into our best dresses. Beautiful simple cut dresses that accent without trying to overpower our feminine beauty; that is what George says; he bought the dress Jamie is wearing.

When we emerge from our room. George complements both of us on our dresses and our appearance. George combines the understated politeness of Gabe, my dad, and the no-nonsense honesty of mom. He just has a sweet way of communicating to Jamie and me how much prettier we are when we wear nice dresses and just a tiny smidge of makeup to accent our natural beauty, rather than more.

Most of all he let Jamie and me know how he thought that we were special people. When he looked at us he saw intelligence, drive, compassion and thoughtfulness. If other people could not see that, could not appreciate us for being us ... Couldn’t love us for being who we were, well then we just did not need them. Mom says the same thing. I thought that all moms had to say things like that; although I now know that Katherine is just a very special mom.

George bought the dress that Jamie was wearing. Two years ago, he figured that Jamie was going to stay at our house. So, he spent his money to buy her a mattress, employee discount at the farm supply store that he worked at. Then he took some pine boards and built a bed for her in my room. He said it was an early birthday present for both of us. So, at thirteen Jamie had a home and I finally had a sister.

George was constantly buying things for us, spending his money on us, not just Mom and Dad’s. He had asked me what I wanted for my sixteenth birthday about a month or so back. I had asked him if we could wait for Jamie’s birthday. Because what I really wanted to do was go out just the three of us together. I already had a plan to keep us all together.

George said sure, we could wait. But that Jamie and I should plan on dressing nice, because he planned on taking us to the best restaurant in town, to buy us a nice birthday dinner. That is George, too good for this place and the selfish little girls around here. I just needed to maneuver George and Jamie together, we would graduate right after he got back from Vietnam. Jamie could marry George and we could all stay together, “cleve to what is good.”

The girls like Michelle circle George like sharks smelling blood. Jamie has the same problem, the groping, ham handed little boys here want her because her drunken, disinterested family is loaded. In both definitions of the word. George saw right through the she-sharks. Jamie was burned by a smooth talking little parasite named Joey; three seconds and he was done.

I am Lisa, your storyteller and the third lonely musketeer. I am a nerdy little bookworm, Velma, not Daphne. I was really upset when George told me that he and Punch had signed up. But he sat me down and in his kind way told me that he knew that the girls who pretended to like him did so because he was reasonably attractive. That is a gross understatement. That they saw that he was going to get back and go to Austin or College Station, and then other places.

That by signing up together he and Punch wouldn’t be drafted a year apart. (Their birthdays split January first.) That they would go in together, train together. They could look after each other over in Vietnam. Then once they got back we could all go to Austin or College Station together. He knew that I was going to be successful too. That I was smart, determined, resourceful and beautiful.

That conversation and the frustration that I felt with little boys in Edwards who just wanted blow jobs or hand jobs led me to the decisionthat I made tonight, listening to my big brother, and reveling in his kind, sincere honesty and brotherly love. I saw how truly special George was.

My decision was completely logical. It withstood scientific scrutiny. I would seduce my big brother. I truly loved him not as a wallet and a disembodied penis, or as a one way ticket out of Samuel Butler’s Erewhon. I loved him for him. He loved me for me. He loved Jamie for Jamie, I just needed to breach that “no sex between siblings” wall.

That taboo was not strong with me or with my friends. We had all read the Bible stories of our venerable ancestors like Sarah who married her brother Abraham, and of their grandson Jacob who married two sisters who were Abraham and Sarah’s great-grandchildren. We had read Jesus’ words as written in Matthew (5:17): “Think not that I have come to destroy the law, or the prophets. I have come to fulfill them.” Historically family relationships were used to strengthen political and economic power. Practiced by the ruling class it was forbidden of peasants for obvious reasons.

Like the Bible says marriage is between one man and one woman, who is his first cousin, and her younger sister, and the older sister’s handmaid, and the handmaid’s younger sister who is the handmaid of his cousin. Oh, and they should live in his father-in-law’s house and have at least 13 children and found a religion. Just to make Jacob’s domicile choice even more relevant, we were trying to hold on to grandpa’s farm which we shared with my cousins, aunt and uncle.

So we climbed into the grey primer split hood Dodge pickup truck that George had found for sale really cheap and brought back from the dead. We squeezed tightly into a bench seat with wonderful people. We sat on a JC Whitney Navajo rug seat cover, and George checked the mileage written on a three by five card because it had no gas gage. Actually it had no instrument panel.

He flipped the toggle switch that he bought at the Farm Supply to energize the ignition coil and pushed the spring-loaded starter button to engage the starter. Then he unlocked the huge Master lock on the substantial chain attached to the steering wheel.

At first, I wanted to laugh. Who in their right mind would steal this? But I reconsidered. Almost everyone in this town was poor. We were doing better than most and George was just being prudent. I am certain that he could have bought a whole lot of parts, or heck a nicer truck with all the money he spent on us.