The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.

- L.P. Hartley

In 1927, it especially was a foreign country in terms of sexual mores, the role of children, family life, and much more. My aunt, Susan Van Alst, née McKenzie, found that out the hard way. Now that it’s 1985, some readers may think this story has been exaggerated or made up.

I’m pretty sure it’s accurate. A few of the broader details were related to me by Aunt Susan herself. The main part was told to me by her best friend Valerie Briggs. The latter had heard about these directly from her friend, and she had witnessed a few things herself. Valerie was not shy about relating the most intimate details. By the way, Susan was the sister of my mother, who has also passed.

I met Valerie at Aunt Susan’s funeral. She had such a great story that we agreed to talk further a few times on the phone. I’ve tried to reproduce her tale as accurately as possible.

This took place in 1927 when Susan was eighteen. She lived with relatives on the outskirts of Clifton, NJ. Clifton was a long-established old town, but it had many undeveloped areas that now, of course, are completely suburbanized.

She had graduated from high school and just gotten a job as a clerk in a bakery. However, she had ambitions to be a teacher and she had plans to attend the New Jersey State Normal School in Montclair, which was just about to mutate into the Montclair State Teachers College.

What got her into trouble was a boyfriend, Jake, who lived down the road from her house. He had a car, a 1921 Chandler Six, which he used to commute to the Newark College of Engineering (now the New Jersey Institute of Technology) about seven miles away. He was finishing his freshman year and was nineteen-years-old at the time.

The 1920s were a time when sexual mores were challenged by the coming of the automobile. The car, of course, gave young people a place of privacy for what we might now call “fooling around” with each other. The older generations didn’t take this well, and there was a lot of tension in families because of it. Girls usually had strict curfews – early ones, like 7:00 PM.

Both families knew the couple was dating – or courting each other as the phrase went. It was assumed that they were being properly chaperoned. What they had missed is that both Jake and Susan usually had some free time in the afternoons after school or work. They would meet and, well, fool around as I said.

Susan was a tall and heavy-set girl with dark, almost black, hair. She usually pined it up in a bun at the back. She had gray eyes and wore steel-rimmed glasses. She also might be called then by that old expression, a “hot number”. She understood her own sexuality and was eager to use it for her pleasure.

She started meeting Jake in his car in the late spring of 1927. They were careful and clever and they knew that an unwanted pregnancy would be a disaster for them.

They parked and went into the back seat of the car. On some occasions, Susan would be riding her bicycle and she would see Jake’s car approaching. She would then hike up her skirt and ride with the back of her underpants visible, pressing down on the seat. She would smile and give him a come-hither look to snag him. Then she would hide her bike in the bushes.

There were plenty of places just off the side roads where they could find some privacy. It was in the old Chandler that they explored the joys of sex. Orally seemed to bring the best results, although sometimes they used their hands for mutual masturbation. He was careful to never ejaculate in or near her vagina.

Back then, information about sex was scarce. I don’t have any data on this, but maybe half the population had never even heard of oral sex. Somehow, through the young person’s grapevine, they heard about techniques that would work for them. Valerie, who was eighteen and also a virgin, seemed to be an accurate source of information and she shared it with the other two.

Susan had discovered masturbation and practiced it whenever she could. If possible, she would insert something into her vagina like a carrot or the handle of a hairbrush and twirl it around. One she used a cucumber which unexpectedly did fit into her.

She was worried at times that she was out of control and turning into a sex maniac. Fortunately, Valerie also masturbated and reassured her friend. She said, “Why do you think women have a clitoris?” Susan didn’t know what that was, but when Valerie described it Susan realized that she already knew about her own; she just called it “her button.”

Valerie said, “You know how sensitive it is. It only exists to provide pleasure for women.”

Susan said, “It’s almost too sensitive. I have to touch around it, not push down directly.”

In the car, Susan and Jake tried what is now known as “sixty-nine” (back then it mostly was just the number after sixty-eight) a few times. However, they found it a bit awkward to do in the back seat. Thus they usually took turns pleasuring each other and concentrating on bringing the other one to orgasm.

Often Susan got it first. After a make-out session back there, she would open up her blouse and undo her bra and he would fondle her nipples. Then she would lift up her skirt and take off her underpants. She would sit on the edge of the back seat while Jake kneeled in front of her. He would then kiss, lick and caress all the sensitive places within her crotch. Her legs would go up and out as if on their own volition. Jake would be amused seeing her stockings and shoes waving through the air.

She would continue playing with her nipples or put her hands down there to help him out. Usually, she needed to be finger-fucked – with both of them using their hands – in order for her to reach orgasm.

They would switch positions when it was his turn. He would lean on the seat while she was the one kneeling in the footwell. She became adept at licking, kissing, and sucking on his penis in just the right ways.

Often when he came she would try to swallow it. Sometimes it was more than she could handle and a sticky clot would come back out of her mouth.

At other times, she would pull him out at the last moment and aim his cock in one direction or the other. Of course, there would be a mess as his cum landed on the seat. A little might get on her clothes.

This went on after his semester ended. He had used the car to get to a part-time job over the summer and Susan had her job at the bakery. Everything would have been fine if they hadn’t made a mistake on a day in July. Jake drove her all the way to her house and let her out. Her Uncle Walter McKenzie, her father’s brother, had taken Susan and her mother into his house after her father passed a few years earlier.

As far as I am able to determine, the relationship between Walter and his former sister-in-law was purely domestic; there was no romantic component. I suppose that suited their needs.

Walter saw her get out of Jake’s car and he was immediately suspicious about what they had been doing. Usually Jake stopped short of the house, and she would ride her bicycle or walk the rest of the way. It was just a fluke that on this day he drove her all the way.

Walter had a distrustful mind and began to suspect what was happening. He decided to investigate on his own. On some days he would get in his Chevrolet pickup truck and drive around the area during the time he knew that Susan should be coming home. He had already noticed that often it took her a lot than expected to get back from her job. His quest was for Jake’s car, which he figured had to be parked somewhere nearby with the two young people inside.

On his fourth attempt, Walter saw the Chandler sitting away from the road but still visible. He got out and approached the back of the car as stealthily as he could. First, he looked through the back window and then the one in the rear door on the driver’s side.

What he saw was Jake’s face buried in her crotch while her legs were up and out. After a few moments, he knocked on the window glass. The two young lovers tried to jump out of their positions, but they knew that they had been caught without any chance of denying it. Walter made a motion indicating that the window should be rolled down, and Jake did that.

Walter seemed calm and collected, which unnerved the pair more than a loud tirade would have. All he said was, “You two stay there and I’ll come around to the other side.” While he did the two tried to get their clothes in order. Otherwise, they seemed shocked into silence.

When Walter got to the passenger-side door open he opened it and pointed towards Jake. “Now you, my young Valentino, I’ll deal with you later. You should go home, right now.”

Jake thought for a second that he should drive there. Walter noticed his confusion and said, “Walk there, or hitchhike, but just go.” It was only about a mile away.