Chapter 24: What Laura Read in the Good Book Part 1

Call me Peggy. I was born on New Year's Day, 1902 on the kitchen table of a small ranch in Texas, near Brownsville, during a winter storm. I was the third of five children, the only girl among them. I was bright and quick, a cheerful child; so much so that people would come up and compliment my mother about how wonderful a daughter she had.

In 1918, when I was sixteen, my two older brothers were killed within days of each other in France, fighting near Verdun. These days, families are spread out, decentralized; call it what you will. In those days, families were tight-knit groups. It was where social life began and ended.

Both of my parents were devastated when my brothers were killed, my father most of all. His first reaction was to turn from the light, changing overnight from a loving, caring father to a sodden drunk. Two months later he nearly died, passed out in a puddle in the middle of the road.

A day and a half after that he was standing in a Baptist church, singing hymns and taking Jesus as his savior. I was mostly confused by all the changes.

I had done well in school, so well in fact, that my father suggested I attend the University. Thus, in 1920, I commenced on a course of study at the University of Texas in Austin, planning on becoming a teacher.

I grew up on a ranch with four brothers. My school had only twenty-five students in my age group, nineteen boys and six girls. I was considerably more athletic than most girls, and even more so than most at the University. I had played basketball in school, but what I found at the University was very different, at least for women. But I enjoyed it, and kept at it.

I graduated with honors in 1924 and found a job teaching Social Studies and English in Brownsville at the high school. Dissatisfied with that, I moved to a grade school the next year and taught eighth grade.

Looking back now, it was clear why I did not like teaching in a high school. The boys were Texans, through and through. Brash, loud, and not terribly respectful of their teachers, particularly a woman. Particularly a woman new to the classroom.

It was 1926 when I began to realize my true nature. I agreed to coach the girl's basketball team for an extra ten dollars a year; it might not sound like much, but in those days it was a princely sum.

Dating was not what it came to be; society was very different from what it became. In those days if an unmarried woman became pregnant she was faced with two choices: immediate marriage to the first man who would say yes or social ostracism for the rest of her life. It was not a real choice. There were no condoms, no birth control... just fervent prayers. All too many of my peers ended up married, because fervent prayers are trumped every time by raging hormones, wiggling sperm and welcoming eggs.

A lot of people would look at the picture I took of my basketball team that year and not believe it. I mean, it was Texas, right? Before civil rights and all that came with it. One of the girls was black, another brown. And in that picture are the threads that would string the rest of my life together. Nettie Jones had her arm around Clara Denham's neck in the back row and Clara had her arm around Nettie's waist. None of the others are touching.

And sitting in the front row, a small smirk on her face was Jane Crawford. In the picture, Jane's hair was shorter than most boys in those days, and I was another month from learning why she was smirking.

We practiced often, usually twice a week and during our very short basketball season, three and four times a week. It did not take me long to conclude that Nettie and Clara had what was considered an "unwholesome" relationship at the time. I was not sure what to do, but one thing I was certain of: bringing them before anyone official would be a terrible thing.

Then, one afternoon after a practice, I found them kissing passionately in a dark corner of the changing room. I ordered them both up to my office and told them that there were things ladies did... and things they did not, ever, do. And they were far beyond the bounds of things proper ladies would engage in.

Clara had always seemed like the smarter girl, but it was Nettie who spoke, and spoke emphatically. "You think that is so, eh? It is not1"

"Girls your age should not kiss anyone," I told her, a little angry, but more afraid.

"Girls our age are getting married in places," Clara said, belligerently. "They get pregnant and that is that."

"That is why you should not kiss anyone," I told them primly.

"We do a whole lot more than kiss!" Nettie said, laughing. "And we ain't gonna get pregnant, not no how, not no way!"

"I am not going to argue with you," I told her. "It is simple. Stop, or I will ask you to leave the team."

The two traded glances. "Just look the other way," Clara said after a second. "We will be more careful, too."

"It is not right," I said, shaking my head.

They traded glances again. "You should talk to Jane," Nettie said finally. "You talk to Jane. Then we will listen."

"What has Jane got to do with this?" I asked, a little exasperated. It sure seemed like they were trying to buy time.

"Talk to her, please," Clara pleaded. "She explains things better than we do."

I had little more than a year of experience teaching by then; I hated it when high school students had defied my authority; now it seemed like it was happening again. At least they were more polite.

I did not want to remove two of my better players from my team, and there was no doubt that if I said anything about this or tried to make an issue out of it, a huge wall of mud was going to dump on them. So I temporized, and told them I would think about it.

That evening, Jane showed up at the rooming house where I rented a room. I walked outside with her, down to a small area of trees, not far from the ocean.

"We all been friends," she told me, "since we were little. All of us. We made a pledge to ourselves; we were going to go to school until they stop us. We deserve an education every much as boys do."

I nodded and told her I had gone to the University myself, the only person in my family to ever do so.

Jane stared at me for a few seconds. "You got a beau?"

"That is none of your business."

"You are kinda old, you know?"

Of course I knew. I was twenty-four. I was the only girl in my high school class not married a month after we graduated and who had not become a mother within a year. Half of the women I attended the University with were married already as well.

"I am wondering," Jane said, her voice soft and mild, "maybe you might not like boys that much."

"I like boys just fine. I just have not met one I want to marry."

"Been kissed?" Jane asked and I blushed.

"It is none of your business, girl!" I said sternly.

She laughed at me. "Nope, never been kissed! Miss, before you do anything about Nettie and Clara, think about one thing. I have kissed them both. I have kissed every girl on the team. Every last one. And I have had my fingers under their skirts too."

I was staring, stunned, while Jane continued on. "And you know what? Every last one of them has had her fingers under my skirts as well. Inside, too. That place."

I blushed, turned and ran for my room. I knew about fingers and that place. I surely did. I had also heard often enough that such things were the devil's work, self-abuse and worse. None of that had stopped me, though. Late at night, many, many times I found comfort and solace with my hand, so much so that I never needed a man, I never needed to risk everything on something so dangerous.

The next day no one said anything and we did not have a practice. The day after that we did practice. The girls played very aggressively, easily much better than they had been playing. I applauded them all, afterwards, in the changing room.

Jane stood up, and the others did as well, gathering around her like a choir backing up a lead tenor. "We took a vote. Nettie and Clara were wrong to be doing that, where you could find them. We agreed that you should give them six whacks on their bare butts, each. Then, since I am the ringleader, a dozen for me."

"I should just go to the Principal and tell him about this."

"You do that, and we all promised. Each of us will name all the others as being part of it. You do that and you ruin all of our lives."

"And I am supposed to just spank a few of you and let it go?" I was dumbfounded at the arrogance in the girl!

"Yep!" Jane agreed. "Unless you want to lose us all, that is what we decided."

She waved and Clara put her thumbs in her skirt and pushed it down over her hips. A second later her undies and stockings followed. She turned around and grabbed her ankles, wiggling her backside in the air.

My throat had gone dry the instant I saw her sex; now it was there, wiggling at me. Her nether lips were clearly visible from where I stood.

"Go ahead, Miss, spank her. A half dozen with your hand," Jane reminded me.

Dazed, unable to stop myself, I stepped forward and brought my hand down on her bottom. It was not a very hard blow, and my hand rested on her warm skin for a second. A second blow and I was dizzy, my ears were ringing. A third, and I saw a trickle of moisture emerge and run down her leg.

I knew what that was! I got wet there myself when I used my hand!

The next time could hardly be counted as a blow, and I found that she really was wet down there. Very wet. My fourth blow was simply running my hand over her bristly fleece.

The last two were more caresses and not blows.

I stood breathing heavily, my face flushed with embarrassment.

"Now you are getting into the spirit of things, Miss!" June told me. "Now a half dozen for Nettie!"

I had never seen a black person partially nude before; it was not much different from Clara; darker skin, puffier lips, her hair down there was softer than Clara's. And she was nearly as moist.

I just rested my hand on her bottom, my fingers lying along the crack in her lips. I looked at Jane. "I can not do this."

"Go ahead," Jane said, "rub her. You want to do it; you can not tell me you do not. Just pretend it is yourself. You do rub yourself?"

I nodded, still numb. My fingers had moved, lightly stroking Nettie's pussy lips. She wiggled a bit, getting more contact with my fingers.

I looked down. I was about to do something unspeakable to a thirteen-year-old girl; something I had trouble admitting I did to myself, even in the privacy of my own room.

Nettie spoke quietly, "Do me, Miss! Do me! I am dripping!"

So, I did it. My finger penetrated her, sliding inside her moist tunnel, then I started rubbing. After a minute or so, Nettie let out a sigh and pulled away.

"You do that good!" she said, a big smile on her face, as she pulled up her skirt.

Jane walked up to me and stopped, standing just inches away. Without a word, she took my hand, and led it inside her skirt, where it turned out; she was not wearing anything under it. "My turn," Jane breathed softly.

I was damned for all eternity; I knew it. I found she was moist and slippery and my finger fit inside her perfectly.

Jane smiled and closed her eyes, but started talking as I pleasured her too. "We are like the ten musketeers, Miss. Today, you will stand in front of each of us and bring us off. Tomorrow, after practice, why, all of us will return the favor."

It took about five minutes for Jane to achieve her pleasure. Then, one after another, I stood in front of each of the others and did the same to them, including the twin seventh graders. The last was Arlene, the Mexican girl.

Arlene was taller and huskier than the others, with wild curly hair that sprouted in all directions. Unlike her teammates, when I started rubbing her, she reached out and cupped my breast through my blouse and started rubbing it. I found myself rubbing her harder, my finger pistoning in and out of her. In a few seconds, both of us gasped at about the same time as we reached our climaxes.

When I turned, the others were all watching, eyes bright.

"Now you know our secret," Jane said calmly. "Except if you tell, you tell on yourself. Tomorrow, we will take turns rubbing you; and then none of us can tell, because we would be telling on ourselves as well."

The next day, when I rose to dress, I stared at myself in the mirror over the dresser. I was damned, I was sure of it. All of the sins and wickedness of the flesh my father had talked about when I still lived at home did not begin to compare with what I had done with those girls. I tried to think, but pictures would flash into my mind of Nettie, of Arlene and Jane. I experienced the same smells, the feeling of exhilarated excitement that was beyond compare.

I knew the devil had me in his grip, that I was doomed. All my life I kept myself pure in the certainty that someday the right man would come along and we would marry. Then there would be a small house, children, and a life like I had known as a girl, stretching out into some distant, unknowable future. And I had thrown it all away. For what? A moment's pleasure that had not even been mine? The promise of pleasure to come?

I dressed more conservatively than usual; I was quite prepared to let the girls practice as usual after school, then come back to my room, without tasting any more of the forbidden fruits.

Jane was in my class; there was no avoiding her gaze all day long. Her smile, her dancing eyes. At lunch I saw them all sitting together at their two tables, pushed together. Chattering away as schoolgirls do, as I had once done when I was their age. Except when I was their age, I had not even discovered pleasuring myself; that had come in my first year of high school.

During practice, it was impossible not to see the smiles that came my way, the whispers into a teammate's ear. And when I called on them to stop, they trooped quietly to the changing room.

I went and leaned against a wall, unsure of myself, my heart hammering. And Jane and Arlene came for me and I followed along, unsure why I was so docile. Jane had me lift my skirts and then put her hand there, rubbing me as I had rubbed her the day before.

When my release would not come, she kissed me on my lips, full and hearty and then I did come. Nettie was next, and she too kissed me full on the mouth; I had no trouble achieving release almost at once. Then Clara, who not only kissed me, but touched my breasts.

After Clara, the two seventh grade girls, Jill and Lynn Holmes, took their turns. They were fraternal twins, different in many startling ways. Jill just kissed me and rubbed my breasts, but Lynn was more aggressive, as she was when they played. Lynn did not put her finger inside me to give me pleasure, she sought out the little nubbin that even the lightest contact would rouse me to a great heights. Which is what happened when Lynn rubbed me there.

Arlene waited until last again. I was breathing hard, still in disbelief that I would permit such a thing to happen to me. And Arlene, as she had been the day before, was different than the others. She kissed me, unbuttoning my blouse until her hands could roam free on my breasts. I was beyond caring what would happen if someone would come in; and when Arlene dropped and kissed my breasts, I ran my fingers through her wild hair, and felt wild abandon myself.

She pushed my underwear down and then ran her fingers over my sex, and I trembled with my release. Then she sank to her knees, using her hands to spread my legs a little further apart, then kissed me where I had never imagined one person would kiss another.

Beyond where I was standing, Jane was kissing Linda Collins and both had their hands down the other's skirt. Shirley Wills was kissing Lynn Holmes, while rubbing under Jill's skirt. Clara had Nettie's blouse off and was kissing her breasts. Their other two teammates, Joanna Ridge and Beverly Miller, were kissing passionately as well.

Arlene sucked on my nubbin, her tongue ran over it and I was transfixed as my world shimmered in glorious lights and sound and my legs nearly collapsed under my weight.

It took another twenty minutes for everyone to become presentable again. I told them that they were to tell anyone who asked that I had held them over for extra practice and a pep talk.

After that, the first practice of a month was longer than usual. I found that I could lock the changing room doors so that no one could enter, without my unlocking the doors first.

Arlene, even though she was not in my class, would stop in after school on days there were no practices and we would talk about our families and our lives, about goings on in Brownsville and in Texas. Twice that fall, Arlene and I were alone at something other than a practice, where we kissed and touched.

I had long since made peace with myself about the fact that I enjoyed touching the girls and that being touched back was a wonderful feeling. Again, my realization was slow that there was something different about the girls on the basketball team, different than the other girls their age. Some of the other girls smoked and some drank. Not my basketball team. Other girls got in trouble and mine did not. Other girls in my class laughed and giggled, flirting with boys. My basketball team did not. They had better grades than most everyone else, too.

In short, I realized one day in the early spring, they were head and shoulders more mature than their peers. And that spring something else happened: we won our games.

In those days, there was serious concern, particularly from older people, that girls should not compete, that it was not feminine or ladylike. But there were already women athletes that were famous in tennis and golf, figure skating was an Olympic sport, and women's basketball had been a demonstration sport in the 1924 Olympics. The team wanted to win, I wanted to them to win. We practiced as hard as we could and by the end of March we were the girl's basketball champions in the area around Brownsville.

There was no state competition that year, not for grade school girls, so that was that, pretty much. The high school coach, Mrs. Gillespie, had been to several of our games and was eagerly awaiting their graduation.

Howard Holmes, Jill and Lynn's father, offered us a special treat. He had, he said, a small lake well stocked with fish. We could come up on a Friday after school, he would supply barbeque fixings and then we could spend the next two days, relaxing. There was a cabin at the lake, he told me, and it would easily sleep a dozen people.

There were no problems arranging things, and one day after school we boarded Mr. Holmes' stake-bed Ford truck and rode out to his ranch and the lake. It was a nice cabin, and there really were a half dozen bunk beds in each of two bedrooms and a full sized bed in a third.

After showing us the cabin, he told Jill and Lynn they were to be the hostesses and left in his truck.

We ate barbeque beef and fresh-caught bass and catfish from the lake; we even played a little basketball on the hard clay driveway that led to the cabin, which had a basketball hoop placed off to one side of the main door.

By the time the sun was down, everyone was tired, but happy. Instead of sleeping in the bunks, we spread blankets on the floor, and as soon as the lights were out, people were kissing and touching. That night was the first night I made uninhibited love to Arlene, right next to Clara and Nettie.

By the time Mr. Holmes fetched the truck on Sunday afternoon, there was not a girl on the team I had not brought to orgasm, and who had not returned my attentions in full measure. I spent more than my fair share of time with Arlene, but there was no one I slighted.

After that the school year seemed to blur by like lightning. The school board offered me a nice raise, by their standards, to return and I agreed.

Twice during that summer I spent time with Arlene; the last time on a weekend visit to the ocean, where we stayed in a hotel. We made love often that weekend, but at the end Arlene told me that in high school things were going to be different. I understood and while I felt like a lot of joy and pleasure had gone out of my life, at the same time I felt a small burst of relief that there had been no indiscretions.

In the fall, I had five new eighth-grade girls join the team and three new seventh graders, only Jill and Lynn returned from the prior year. I talked to each of the girls before the first practice; both of them were unhappy, they really missed the other girls and were not in the least ashamed to tell me they missed the sex they had the year before. The new girls, Lynn told me, were not like their older friends. They were still seeing the others, but they were going to miss the "extra practice" sessions.

One of the new girls was Jenny Curry, a slender but tall girl (for those days, she was five eight) with flaming red hair and a face full of freckles. Almost at once, Lynn fell madly in love with her and the two of them became good friends.

Jill fell in with Anna Brown, one of the seventh grade girls. Anna was a little on the heavy side, but she had more spirit than most of the other girls. One of new eighth grade girls was Patrice Jones, Nettie's sister. Nettie told me that her sister did not even seem interested in masturbation.

We went on a class outing, walking about a mile to the newspaper, where for most of the day we were shown the presses and typesetting equipment, then allowed to visit the reporters as the premier event of the day.

When we finished, school was out for the day, and most of the class evaporated there downtown, a lot of them to go window shopping. Patrice stuck next to me, as I made my way slowly back towards the school.

"My sister says, if I have a problem. That I should talk to you."

"If there is anything I can do to help, I will. Not just for girls on the team, but anyone in school," I told her.

She lowered her voice. "I have this itch," she waved in the direction of her midsection. "There, that place. I scratch it and it feels almighty good. I heard tell that bad things happen to people who do that sorta thing."

"That is not true," I told her. "A lot of people do it."

"That is what Nettie said, but sometimes she likes to pull my leg. I never know."

"Trust me, Patrice, other girls have the same itch. The trick is not to let a boy scratch it."

"I look at Charlie Foster and I surely think about letting him," she told me.

"Patrice, it is not easy, you have to be strong. Scratching that itch yourself is a lot better than letting him do it."

She lowered her voice again, "I think Nettie's letting that girl, Clara, scratch her itch."

"Patrice, I grew up with two older brothers and two younger brothers. The only way we got any privacy was to look the other way. We made a deal, when we were little. You can not help seeing things when there are seven of you living in a three-bedroom ranch house. You look away, and if you can not, you pretend you did not see anything. Because if you start telling on each other, you would never have any privacy again."

"You do not think that is a sin? Two girls like that? Kissing and things?"

"Patrice, I am not God and I have not been put in judgment over other people. You consider what it would be like if Nettie was fooling around with some boy. Your sister has dreams, Patrice. Dreams of going to college. Dreams of becoming a teacher -- a baby would pretty much end those dreams."

"Nettie is really smart," Patrice agreed. "You are right about a baby." We walked in silence for a while.

"Miss, is that why you ain't married?" Her question came out of the blue.

I tried to sound normal. "No, I have not met a man I want to scratch my itches," I said, trying to be humorous. "My own hand does plenty well enough."

"You do it?" She seemed shocked at the thought.

"Yes. I suspect a lot of women do. I do not have the nerve to ask them, though."

She looked at me. "You let me ask."

"You are Nettie's sister. She is a dear friend, as well as someone who was once on my basketball team. You let friends and friends of friends ask questions... and you give honest answers. That is what friends are for."

"Last year, there were extra practice times," Patrice said, stripping off another layer of cover over what I thought had been safely buried. "We have not had extra practice. And we are not very good."

"Everybody has different things that motivate them," I told her. "Even teams are like individuals in some things. They have a personality. The extra practice was something they wanted, something they asked for. Last year not a single girl missed a game or a practice. Not ever."

She knew who I was talking about. Heidi Dietrich was tall blonde and an albatross around the team's necks. She wanted to do as little as possible and it was sapping the spirit of the team. On the other hand, there was no way I could tell her she could not be on the team. Heidi missed half the practices and was late or left early for most of the rest.

"Bitch!" Patrice mumbled under her breath. I let it go, not wanting to agree and unwilling to disagree either.

"Thank you for talking to me, Miss," Patrice said, and turned and started running. I grinned. She was a good runner; too bad we had to play half court basketball. She would have been competitive on a boy's team.

About a week later, I received a note from Mrs. Gillespie, the high school coach, and I went over to her house for tea on a Saturday morning. Her husband was off to the police station, where he was one of the deputies.

"I wanted to talk to you about the girls you coached last year," she told me, after we engaged in pleasantries for a very few minutes.

"Sure," I said, but mentally crossing my fingers. I should have crossed all my fingers, my toes and my eyes.

"They are intensely competitive; they know how to play as a team. Frankly, there are a lot of hurt feelings on the part of the other girls on the team. Your girls are just flat out better. Just two of the senior girls have any chance of playing this year. They, and the other older girls, want me to make the freshman girls sit out this year 'to pay their dues.'"

I relaxed slightly. I had not been a coach long, but I surely had been coached at the University for four years. "Mrs. Gillespie, you are the coach. They should not make your decisions for you and neither should I."

"I caught two of them kissing, the other day, in the showers."

I swallowed. "They were a very physical group. There was a lot of hugging and kissing. Girl stuff."

"Not naked in the shower, trading tongues."

I did not bother to answer, because there was no answer.

"The question is, what do I do?" she asked.

"Now I am confused. I could understand the question about whether or not to make them sit out the year because they are freshman." I was a little angry and even more afraid. I went too far. "Me? I play the best people on my team. Some of the girls, particularly the seventh graders, did not play nearly as much as the others. That is what coaches do, Mrs. Gillespie."

"Let me put this another way. I have watched them. I think those are not the only two. Maybe it happened over the summer, but I do not believe so."

"And maybe you should just look the other way. Personal lives are personal lives, after all. None of our business!"

"So you would just let it go?"

"No, of course not. We do not have showers at the grade school. It costs too much. I would remind them that hot water costs money and they should ask their parents if their school taxes should be increased to pay for long showers."

"What if it had been a boy?"

"A boy in the girl's showers?" I sniffed. "That breaks so many rules, I would pretty much think I would have to talk to the parents. Then we would all sit down with the guilty parties and have a little chat about their future."

"In other words, you would just ignore the whole problem?"

"I think I would make it clear that I did not approve of people kissing in the showers, or any other place where others might see them and take offence."

She looked at me and I realized what she was going to say next. "You are not married, are you?"

"No, nor am I seeing anyone." I bit my tongue and said nothing more. I had, I realized, said too much.

"I have a daughter their age," she told me. "I would die if something like that happened to her."

I shrugged, still unable to be quiet. "I wanted to go to the University. Boys in high school would have been the death of that. You might talk to some of those girls. You might find they want to go to college as well. Maybe they do not like the risks involved with seeing young men."

Mrs. Gillespie looked at me coldly. I took a sip of my tea, and then put down the cup. "I should be going," I told her. She showed me to the door without another word.

I did not notice any extra coolness towards me from the other teachers at the grade school. The second year I coached them, the girls won only half their games, not all of them. At the end of the year I was told they were sorry, but I would not be needed the following year.