Chapter 2

May 29, 1943, Saturday

My mother rustled me out of bed early before seven, "Get up. Jane just ran out of flour for baking and you need to run a few pounds over to her." She stood over me until I got moving.

Running an errand to my favorite sister-in-law? No need for any more incentive than that. Who knows? I might just get another baby feel. I looked out the window and saw it was raining. Not really hard, yet. Just the large drops of a spring shower.

Down in the kitchen, mom loaded me up with ten pounds of flour wrapped in oilcloth. I was at Jane's backdoor two minutes later. She let me in wearing the same robe as yesterday afternoon, but now it was dusted with flour and other mysterious stains.

"Morning, Calvin. You're a sight for sore eyes, I've got to get this cake in the oven right now, or I'll never get it done by the wedding." I set the flour on the counter and said, "I'll be seeing you at the wedding then." She noticed I made no effort to leave.

"Oh, stay awhile, Calvin, your house has to be crazy right now, with Polly yelling at everyone." She, as I did, thought my sister a bit of hysteric. "You want some coffee?" She reached for a white pot with blue splotches tossed on it.

No one had ever offered me coffee, at least not seriously. "Sure."

"How do you take it?"

I blurted out, "Cream." I had no idea, but my mom used cream.

She poured my cup and reached into the refrigerator for the cream. As she bent over I could see well up the backs of her smooth thighs. I wondered if she ever wore a girdle. She was living alone, who would know? She set the coffee down in front of me and her robe billowed open and for about one hundredth of a second I caught sight of her bare breast. I did a fast review of the memory and decided that I had seen the entire thing, nipple and all. My blood pressure dropped sharply as my blood supply headed south.

I quickly looked at her face to see if she knew how much she had educated me in the last fraction of a second. She grinned at me as she poured the cream, but gave me no sign that it was anything more than the hundred smiles she's offered me in the past. Jane gave me no sign that she knew she had exposed her ripe, luscious, full, plump, curvy breast to me. She returned to the counter, faced partially toward me and began to prepare her cake. I watched the wondrous pair as they bounced and swayed to the movements of her mixing the ingredients, not thinking about anything else, and totally aroused. The coffee, I imagined, was flavored with the cream that would soon flow from her breasts. I didn't slyly glance out of the corner of my eye at the bobbing beauties. I simply stared at them as they flowed with her body movements. I didn't notice the smile forming on her face as she stirred the ingredients.

"Calvin, you might wear them out looking at them that hard."

My heart stopped. I was caught, and I was dead. My mother would cut my head off and mount it as a warning to all horny boys not to stare at women's tits.

She giggled. "No one's stared at them like that since your brother went off to the war." Seeing how embarrassed I was, my face red as a ripe, fall tomato, she stopped laughing. "I didn't mean to embarrass you, Calvin, but you seemed pretty interested in them."

"I... uh... uh..." I was speechless, knowing my life was now over and I was in need of a eulogy.

"Stan always told me I had the prettiest little titties in the county. Do you think so?" She went back to her mixing and bouncing.

"I... uh... uh..."

"Oh, don't be afraid, Calvin, speak up. Do you think they're pretty?" She smirked at me as she poured the mix in a cake pan. She wiped off a spot of flower from her robe.

"Yeah, they are." I got it out. I said it!

"Are you sure?"

"Jane, you're teasing me." I was beginning to sweat. The kitchen was sweltering from the oven and my excitement.

She slid the pan into the oven now giving me a view of leg leading up to her round bottom. Before standing up she looked back to see if I was looking. Satisfied that I was she picked up her coffee and joined me at the table.

"I don't want to tease you, honey." What happened to Calvin? "It's just I feel comfortable around you. You're such a nice boy and you remind me so much of Stan that you almost make me forget myself." Her hand crept out and settled over my wrist.

"I do?" Stan and I did look a lot alike even though we were almost seven years apart in age.

As she leaned to me the top of her robe blossomed and I could easily see the full petal inside. "Yes, you do. You remind me so much of Stan." An alarm louder than any on Flash Gordon's spaceship sounded in my ears. I knew I should get up and run, but I didn't. I couldn't move.

"Calvin, It's been hard being alone since Stan left." Her finger traced a line up my wrist. "Remember, in Stan's letter, how he said you should help me out?"

I whispered, "Yes." My heart pounded in harmony with the siren in my ears.

"Will you help me then?"

How could I turn down Jane, the woman who treated me kindest of all my sisters and sisters-in-law? "What do you want me to do?"

"Calvin, a woman, when she's separated from her man grows to miss him; she misses his presence, his smile, his touch..." She squeezed my hand. "One thing I miss most was when we laid down in bed and held each other. I felt so warm in safe in his arms."

My eyes easily conveyed my ignorance of these feelings.

"While the cake is baking, would you come into the bedroom and just lie with me, hold me, and make me feel safe and warm?" So soft was her face, her brown eyes so shining, her touch so electric on my wrist, I would have given her anything.

"Okay." I said, trying to sound calm, as if I did this everyday. Women were such a mystery to me. Especially women who showed me kindness, I didn't know if I was doing right or wrong here as the distinction blurred under her gaze and touch.

She stood and took my hand. "Come with me, Calvin," and she led me to her simple bedroom. A few family pictures on the wall, an afghan on the bed, her dresser with all its small crystal bottles of fragrant liquids.

She pulled down the covers to show me the spotless white sheets. I watched her peel back a top sheet, slip under it, and move over to make room for me. "Calvin, you'll need to take off your pants and shirt. I don't want to get the sheets dirty."

My mouth opened to tell her that I just put on clean clothes when a Testosterone Angel rose up on my left shoulder, slapped me in the face and screamed, "Shut up." Hesitantly I removed my shirt and draped it over her dressing table chair. My hands trembled as I unbuttoned my pants. I was ashamed that I had a huge erection, and she would see it. I pushed the pants to the floor and while still bent over I slid under the sheets she was holding up.