Chapter 18

One of Nathan’s sisters, Bernadette, to be exact, was also away from the house that Saturday. She went to the library. That was because she already knew how to make biscuits, while Hilda Mae was in the process of learning that time honored craft, along with the mysteries of making the gravy that went with them sometimes.

Miz Hopkins was just leaving when Bernadette stepped up on the porch. She explained she was going to town, to do her marketing, but that Bernadette was welcome to go on in and dig through the books to her heart’s content. It was while she was engaged in that activity that Curtis Lee came in the back door, as was his habit, to spend some time of his own digging through books. He stepped into the room and Bernadette looked up. Her eyes widened. Both of them were thinking of the exact same moment in time ... a moment in the past, when she had been naked.

“Curtis Lee!’ she squeaked.

“Miss Bernadette,’ said Curtis Lee softly.

The honorific he put before her name was something almost habitual for Curtis Lee. He had been taught that by his mother, to be applied to everyone, and not just his ‘betters’ as she called them. It was just manners, pure and simple.

But to Bernadette, the honorific implied something more. It was manners, true, but it was much more. It was something that suggested approval ... acceptance ... even admiration. Coming from this boy’s mouth, it suggested something more intimate than that. He had held her fate in his hands, and had, for whatever reason, chosen to handle her fate gently. She had always thought about that incident in terms of the danger it represented for her and her siblings. Now, she suddenly thought about the fact that a male ... an adult male ... had seen her naked, pleading on her knees, in a patently sexual situation. Her eyes widened even more as she felt the flutter in her stomach that she now recognized easily as ardor. And she was feeling it in the presence of, if not actually for a Negro male!

Had Bernadette known some rarely discussed history of the South a little better, she would have known that the sex between plantation owners and nubile slaves wasn’t the only interracial sex that went on during those tumultuous times. White women, neglected by their husbands, who elected to bestow their hard pricks on those slaves, instead of on their wives, often found themselves sexually frustrated. While it was much more dangerous for them to dally with a big buck slave, the buck’s silence was guaranteed, and many a proud white woman found out that a stiff prick is a stiff prick, regardless of what color it was. Bernadette wasn’t the first woman to be attracted to a black man, regardless of what she thought.

Had it happened a year or two earlier, her reaction might have been entirely different. Bernadette, however, had already dabbled in the taboo, and looked forward to dabbling many more times. She was quite aware of the ‘wrongness’ of that little flutter in her belly, but ‘wrongness’ didn’t have the terror that it had in the past.

“Miz Hopkins went to do her marketing,’ said Bernadette, unsure of what to say, and feeling shy.

Curtis Lee stared at her. She looked so ... normal. She had looked that way the day after, in school. He had been amazed that she didn’t look any different than she ever had. He had always thought she was pretty, in a safe, uninvolved kind of way. But he had never been able to get the image of her naked out of his brain. Every time he saw her he remembered that. He remembered it now.

“I should leave,’ said Curtis Lee.

“No!’ she said, unable to keep her mouth silent.

“It’s not proper,’ he said, feeling what he knew would soon make his pants tent outward.

“I don’t care,’ she surprised herself by saying. “I never got to thank you.’

Both of them knew what she was referring to.

“White people’s business isn’t my business,’ he said automatically.

“I know. That’s what you told Nathan too. He told us.’ She looked away. “But you don’t understand! What you did for us ... keeping silent like that ... you may as well have saved my life, Curtis Lee.’

Curtis Lee remained silent. He was well practiced at that.

“I owe you my life, Curtis Lee,’ said Bernadette emotionally.

“It wasn’t that bad,’ he said tentatively. “They wouldn’t have actually killed you.’

“It would have been the same as if they did,’ she said, her eyes misty. “They would have sent Nathan away, or maybe me, to a boarding school or something like that. My Mamma would have hated me forever. Who knows what Daddy would have done!’

“Can I ask you a question?’ he asked suddenly.

“Yes.’

“If you knew you could get in that kind of trouble ... why would you... ‘ He didn’t finish.

Bernadette looked up at the ceiling, and then at him. Her eyes were shiny with tears.

“I don’t know!” she said, almost sobbing. “It just ... happened. We had that class, and Hildy and I were curious. There were things going on at home too ... things I can’t talk about ... but something just happened and all of a sudden we were doing things, and I was so horny and it was so much fun and if felt so good... ‘

He looked at her steadily.

“Haven’t you ever done anything like that?’ she asked, hoping he would have his own experiences that would help him understand how she had felt.

“I don’t have a sister,’ he said, as he had said it to Nathan.

“No! With some other girl!’ she moaned. “Haven’t you felt horny with a girl?’

“Not like that,’ said Curtis Lee. “I’ve never even seen a girl naked. Except for... ‘ he didn’t finish.

Bernadette blushed.

“If I’d have known I wouldn’t have looked,’ he said. He’d wished he hadn’t looked each time he had stroked his long, hard prick, thinking about what he’d seen. Hilda Mae, with her back arched and a cry of pure pleasure coming from her mouth as her white breasts strained upwards ... Nathan’s head between her thighs ... Bernadette, so slim, with her own bulging white breasts, watching avidly, her hand between her legs ... Why his memories centered on Bernadette, he didn’t know, but her memory was seared into his brain, as if it were branded there.

“You’re a real gentleman,’ said Bernadette suddenly, feeling that she had just found the perfect categorization to put him into. “You know that, Curtis Lee? You are a real gentleman.’ It was the highest compliment she knew.

“But I did see you,’ he moaned. “And I can’t forget that. I’m no gentleman, that’s for sure!’ His own frustration bubbled up.

“You think about me?’ her voice was high.

“No!’ he tried to deny it.

“Yes you do!’ she said, seeing it in his eyes.

“I’m sorry,’ he moaned. “I can’t help it. You were so... ‘

“Naked,’ she said.

“No ... yes ... that’s not what I mean!’ he pleaded. “I have to go!’

“No you don’t!’ she said forcefully. He cringed, and she moderated her voice. “You don’t have to go. We’re just talking. We’re just friends talking.’

“But we can’t be friends,’ he cried mournfully.

“Can’t I choose my own friends?’ she asked.

“How can you want to be friends with me when I saw you like that?’ he groaned.

“How can I ask you to be my friend when you saw me with Nathan?’ she shot back.

“I don’t care about that!’ he mumbled. “That’s your business.’

“Isn’t it my business to decide who is my friend and who isn’t? You could have ruined my life, Curtis Lee, and you didn’t. You were nice to me when you saw me doing something most folks would horse whip me for. You were nice to all of us.’

“But I’m a nigger!’ he said explosively.

“No, you are not,’ said Bernadette, staring steadily at him. “I like you, and I’ve never liked a nigger in my whole life.’ She looked confused. “You are just Curtis Lee, to me, she said. You’re colored, but I don’t care. I like you.’

“I can’t stop thinking about you that way,’ he moaned.

“Okay, then, so you’ll have to think about me that way. Since you actually saw me, I suppose I can live with that.’

“Really?’ he said weakly. “You’d do that for me?’

She laughed. The whole situation seemed completely ludicrous to her. Here she was, a white girl, telling a black boy that he could think about her naked if he wanted to, and he was thanking her. That, after he saw her doing something that would have ruined her whole life if he’d have spoken a single word about it to anyone. Come to think of it, considering what she was willing to do with her own brother, the fact that she wasn’t horrified about a black boy thinking about her naked didn’t seem so crazy.

“Yes,’ she giggled, as he stared at her like she’d gone mad. She thought about Nathan, and what he looked like when he saw her naked.

Her laughing calmed. She went to stand in front of him. He leaned back at the hips and she almost looked down.

“I bet I know what happens to you when you think about me naked,’ she whispered. His eyes got huge and he started to step back. She reached out and grabbed his sleeve. “I know what happens to Nathan when he thinks about me that way. It happens to you too, I bet.’

“Miss Bernadette ... please,’ he begged.

“You listen to me, Mister Curtis Lee ... what’s your last name, anyhow?’

“Waggoner,’ he gasped. “Curtis Lee Waggoner the Third.’ His response was both automatic and an attempt to recover his dignity.

“You listen to me, Mister Curtis Lee Waggoner the Third,’ she said calmly. “You are a gentleman, regardless of what you may think, and as far as I’m concerned, there is nothing a gentleman can think of ... or do ... when he thinks about me naked ... that I can’t live with.’

Then, on impulse, she got up on her tiptoes and planted a very quick, very sterile kiss on Curtis Lee Waggoner the Third’s fleshy lips.

Curtis Lee Waggoner the Third fled, his dignity in tatters. But, since he had permission, he only fled about a quarter mile. Then he stepped behind a tree and unzipped his pants. He beat his meat like it owed him money, painted the tree bark with four strong streams of thick white spunk, and then went home. When he got there, he felt unaccountably light on his feet. Having been granted the freedom to dream had caused a fundamental change in his whole outlook on life.

Nathan came home, dressed in the same clothes he had been in when he left that morning, and triumphantly presented his mother with supper. She promptly called her daughters into the kitchen to teach them how to bread and fry fish.

At supper, the answer to what Bernadette perceived as “her problem’ came to her.

“This is so good,’ she said enthusiastically. “I wish there were more. Why did you only stop with four?’ she asked her brother.