Chapter 9

Emporia is a pretty big town, but it isn't a city by any means. It's about twelve blocks from one side to the other, wherever you start, and then you're either at one of the rivers or on somebody's farm. But there's quite a bit of land right around the town that doesn't get farmed because it floods every time one of the rivers rises. And there's lots of willow and rushes and young poplar so walking to the river is like walking through a miniature forest. The kids mostly like the Cottonwood because it's broader and deeper and has stretches where there's sand on the banks and a rocky bottom; it's just more fun to play in.

But Neosho is a quieter, moodier river. Willows grow right along the bank and hang out over the water. And the poplars and cottonwoods grow up through them and their boughs spread way out across the middle of the river and get mixed up with the branches of trees on the other side and it's sort of subdued like a great big church. In the summer there's a humming from bees and chirping from different kinds of birds. And the frogs make a racket and when you hear a splash out in the water you don't know whether it's because a frog jumped in or a fish was leaping for one of the low-dipping dragonflies.

It's sort of steamy, too, because summer days are so hot there and everything's so moist along the bank. And there's a greenish mistiness to the light under all those trees so it's a little like being in some kind of fairy-land.

Eric and I found a place in a bend of the river where the water had cut a shelf under an overhanging bank and then receded, letting a carpet of grass grow, with tiny wildflowers peeking through it. We sat there and let the magic of the place get to us, with Eric skipping a flat stone across the mirror-face of the water once in awhile and a kingfisher squawking and jumping into the air when he did. We got all sentimental telling each other about when we were kids and what our folks were like and... Well, first thing I knew we'd sort of drifted into talking about how, kids ought to behave and that brought up how they ought to be trained and led right into what our kids were going to be like.

I think men like to think about what their kids are going to be like. I think they just like to think about the idea of having kids call them Daddy. Anyhow, Eric got to looking all dreamy and he lay back on the grass with his hands folded under the back of his head and stared up into the trees and got a tender, contented note in his voice. And I'd been sitting right beside him, so I sort of twisted around and bent over him with one hand braced on the grass on the other side of his chest. He put one arm around me and pulled me down on him and held me while we talked. And one of my boobies was being crushed on his chest and I was feeling all warm and gushy inside and kind of sweaty where my thighs pressed together.

That wasn't real comfortable so I twisted some more, so I could get my legs stretched out and my ankles crossed and lean on my elbow and let both boobies settle on his chest without getting squashed. I ran my fingers through the hair at his temples and traced across his lips lightly with one fingernail so it tickled him. And he yanked me down and kissed me real hard to make the tickle go away. His fingers began squeezing the flesh on my back, finding spots where it was soft and kneading it and rubbing gently. It wasn't Emporia to me any more, or the bank of the Neosho River in Lyon County, Kansas. It was some magic corner right outside heaven where there wasn't any time or unhappiness or busy, grubby little people scrambling around for a living. There were just Eric and me and a dragonfly hovering out there over the water. I loved Eric--had loved him from the first time I'd seen him--and for the first time knew I was going to live with him the rest of my life. It wasn't going to be perfect; I knew that. He had his work and that was important to him. And maybe we'd have lots of times when we didn't have enough money... or couldn't agree on the kind of curtains for the living room... or got jealous or something. But he'd be there and I'd make it work.

The humming bees and chirping, fluttering birds and hovering dragonflies were getting awfully unimportant. There were feelings racing through me that didn't have anything to do with the river or the warmth of the day. Delicious tingling sensations raced back and forth over me and my skin felt all prickly and moist and my pussy twitched so hard I tightened my ass-cheeks and jammed my belly hard against the softness of the thick grass. Eric's hands weren't just kneading, either. I mean, not in one spot. They were wandering all over and he was kissing me so hard I could hardly catch my breath.

He was having the same trouble. His chest was kind of heaving and his breath hit my cheek in hot, short puffs that made me tingle all the way to my toes. One of his hands got hold of my bottom and massaged the soft, rounded hump of an ass-cheek and the other was feeling along my side right close to my boobie. I rocked that side up so the breast came off his chest where he could get hold of it and he cupped his big, rough hand around it and babied it while I thrilled to the warm familiarity.

Eric knew what he wanted to do and didn't waste a lot of time getting ready. He worked his hand inside my blouse and eased my bra off that breast and got his hand full of the quivering, sweat- moist flesh. He trapped the nipple between two fingers and sort of rolled it back and forth while it swelled and hardened and shot jagged feelings of pleasure into me.

I wasn't just breathing hard by then; I was panting and squirming. I was rocking my mouth on his so I could feel his teeth through his lips and so my own teeth jabbed into my lips so I thought they'd draw blood. And my tongue was exploring along the full, wet thickness of his mouth and he was sucking at it and gulping it in and threatening to pull it right out by the roots. His body had gotten all tense and hard and I was rubbing my other tit on him and twisting my hips from side to side, trying to rub my pulsing, hungry pussy against the firmness of the ground.

His hand felt down the back of one of my legs to the hem of the short walking skirt I'd worn and found bare skin and started stroking back up, the skirt riding on his wrist. He got hold of my ass-cheek through the flimsy nylon of my panties and squeezed and rubbed some more and I couldn't keep my ankles crossed. My knees just wouldn't stay together. They kept inching apart and I kept rotating my hips so my butt got tighter and my pussy got tighter to the ground.

He got his fingers at the waist of my panties and slipped them inside, working the warm tips over the rounded, trembling, damp mounds of my buttocks. The creases, where my butt met my thighs, were real damp with perspiration and I was almost embarrassed when his fingers lingered there, rubbing slowly from side to side. But I didn't really care. All I could do was push my knees further apart and wait for his hand to plunge into the steaming, throbbing, eager softness of my pussy.

"Eric! Mmmm... Eric... love... !" I whispered against his wet mouth. "Mmmmm!... Mmmm, Eric honey!"

His hand got past my bottom and his fingers slid into the gooey heat between my pussy-lips. God! I couldn't help myself! My hips jerked and pushed my ass right into the air while he stuck one finger right up my cunt! I wiggled around on that blunt, thick, calloused finger while he pushed it back and forth in me. And all of a sudden a wave of fiery excitement a hundred times harder than I'd been feeling swept over me and I smacked my belly on the ground and clamped my thighs together to crush my whole pussy against the hardness of his knuckles.