Chapter 24

“How could I do it with you?“ Bernadette came back.

She had a point. Was one really any worse than the other? Still, he felt a loss, somehow.

“Does that mean you won’t ... with me any more?” he asked.

She put her kickstand down and turned, right in the road to kiss him, grinding her pussy into his loins. When she was done, she stood back, a smoky look in her eyes.

“I love you, Nathan,” she said, breathing deeply. “I’ll never stop doing that with you.”

“What about me?” asked Hilda Mae, some impatience in her voice.

“You did it too, didn’t you?” asked Nathan. “To Moses.”

She, like her sister kissed him and humped him lustily.

“I love you too,” she said. “I’ll always love you.” She smiled at him. “I could love you right now if you want.”

That part of Nathan that is in every man ... that part that says “You’re mine!“ growled inside him. He looked at her lips, lips that, by her own non-verbal admission, had recently sucked at a black boy’s cock. She was his sister, and no matter how much he wanted to...

Did he really want to do that? he asked himself. His eyes roved to her breasts. He did! He felt it in his gut. He would lay with his own sister if she allowed it. Both of them! That was too much. He pulled back, feeling guilt again. He didn’t want either Moses or Curtis Lee to do that with them either. He closed his eyes but that didn’t help. His mind’s eye saw white legs, wrapped around black hips, as those hips rose and fell between those legs.

“Maybe later,” he mumbled. “I don’t feel too good right now.”

Bernadette grabbed him and he opened his eyes. “I do love you, Nathan. I like Curtis Lee ... maybe even a lot, but he could never take your place in my heart.”

“That’s the problem,” said Nathan, agonized. “You’re my sister, and I shouldn’t feel like I do about you. I can never marry you.”

“Marry me?” she said. “Why on earth would you want to marry me?”

“If I did what I want to do I’d have to marry you!” he said, his frustration boiling over. He stopped. “Now do you understand?” he moaned.

She did. She understood very well. She had contemplated what that might be like, not only with Nathan, but with Curtis Lee as well. She had clamped down on those thoughts, true, but she’d had them. She knew what it felt like to yearn to feel something thick and solid pushing into where only her fingers had been. She just hadn’t believed that Nathan would ever think of doing that too. Hilda mae stood by, nervously. Her emotions and thoughts were remarkably like those of her sister’s. She’d thought about having full sex, but was easily satisfied if she could tickle that spot deep in her throat with a prick.

“Oh,” said Bernadette. “We can’t do that.”

“No! We can’t!” he moaned. “But that’s how I feel about you. And I feel the same way about Hilda Mae! Is it any wonder I’m a little jealous of him? Of both of them? And that doesn’t even take into account that they’re colored. What if they fall in love with you like I have? What if they want to do the things married people do? Do you have any idea how dangerous that would be for all of us?”

Bernadette’s own frustration bubbled up.

“Of course I know it! Do you think I don’t know what Daddy would do if he even found out I’d held Curtis Lee’s hand?“ Tears began to run down her face. “But I like him. I can’t help that. And I know Hildy likes Moses to. She wouldn’t do anything with him if she didn’t!” She was so unhappy she sat down in the road. “I don’t know what to do!“ she wailed.

They were completely at a loss, too young and too inexperienced in the hard lessons of life to know where to turn. Eventually they all moped on toward home. Hilda Mae was carrying the stringer and the fish were dragging through the dirt as she plodded along. She had been nothing but happy with the way things were going. She liked Moses, and he liked her. She loved doing things with Nathan too. Everything was perfect. Sure, she had to be careful, but kids get used to being careful while sneaking around. They never think they’ll get caught. Now, the serious nature of the conversation sank into her bones like cold water thrown on a body baking in the sun.

Her reaction, as they passed Flossie’s, wasn’t as strange as it sounded.

“Hey!” she said, stopping. “Let’s ask Miss Flossie what we should do.”

Neither of the other two took it seriously, of course. To confess everything to their teacher would be insane. She was an adult. She would do something terrible. Adults always did. Their negative attitude about it sank Hilda Mae back into the depths of despair. She looked over her shoulder twice, as they walked on by Flossie’s house, the hope she had felt slowly dying. They were right. Why had she thought Miss Flossie would be able to help?

They were savvy enough to put up a good front when they got home. They hadn’t cleaned their fish yet, and Marian gave Nathan one of her good knives to do the work, telling him to do it out in the back yard, and to bury the guts, heads and tails. She was in a pensive mood. Harvey had been very rough with her this day, and she’d have to be careful to cover the bruises he’d left behind. He had been particularly savage with her breasts, biting them, almost drawing blood. She had loved it then, but they were sore now and she worried. If he got much more violent than that, he could really hurt her.

The mood in school the next week was strange, at least from Flossie’s point of view. Most of them were perky and happy. She saw things between Johnnie Sue and some of the boys that looked remarkably like flirting, but now she did it with all of them, Nathan included. It was probably a phase. Flossie remembered those difficult days, when hormones raged through her body and she felt urges to do the most outrageous things. She remembered being either gloriously happy, or miserable, with very little in between. The Wilson children, though, were morose. Something must have happened at home ... something very negative. Bernadette, usually bright and cheerful, was practically non-communicative. Hilda Mae simply looked mournful. Nathan seemed to be tightly wound ... on pins and needles. During recess she stepped beside Nathan and spoke to him without looking at him. “So, are you ready to paint some more?”

“I guess so,” he said.

“You don’t have to, you know,” she said, assuming he had lost the desire to paint. “I can do it myself.”

He looked at her, frowning. “No, it’s not that. I want to help. I’ve just got things on my mind.”

“Okay,” she said. She stepped away to break up a tussle between Leon and Otis.

At supper that night, Nathan said: “I was down at the store and a lady asked me if I’d help her paint her kitchen. She offered me five dollars.”

Bernadette and Hilda Mae stared at him.

“Who was it, dear?” asked his mother.

“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “She lives over that way.” he pointed vaguely with his fork. “It’s a white house with green shutters,” he lied.

Harvey looked at him, but didn’t say anything. There was a sneer on his face, though. He didn’t have to say anything.

“Well, I suppose five dollars is five dollars,” said his mother. “You won’t ruin any good clothes, I hope.”

“I’ll be careful,” said Nathan. “I told her I could help out in the evenings for a bit each night.”

After supper Bernadette and Hilda Mae came to his room, where he was lying on the bed reading.

“What was that all about?” asked Bernadette.

“I’m tired of sneaking around,” he said. “Now I can go help Miss Flossie whenever I want, and they won’t ask questions.”

“Oh,” said Bernadette.

They left. It still didn’t feel right to initiate anything, and besides, their parents were still up and awake. He didn’t ask them to stay either. Controlling his urges seemed to require that he control all his urges, and not just the ones that were so dangerous.

He went to Flossie’s that night. She was surprised to see him, but opened the door wide. She was still wearing the dress she had worn to school that day. Nathan could smell something good in the air and he looked to see her supper on the table.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to interrupt your supper. I can come back another time.”

“Nonsense,” she said. “I was just sitting there feeling sorry for myself because I didn’t have anybody to talk to. Come on in. Won’t your parents miss you?”

“I told them a woman hired me to paint,” he said. “I didn’t tell them who. Actually I told them I don’t know her name.”

“You really shouldn’t lie to your parents, Nathan,” she scolded.

“I assume you have a middle name,” he said blithely. “I don’t know it, so I wasn’t lying completely.” He smiled. “Oh, and now we have to paint the outside white, with green shutters.” She looked confused and he explained that part.

“I don’t have any shutters,” she said, laughing.

“I’ll make you some,” he said, smiling.

“It’s good to see you smile again. This last week in school I thought you were going to waste away from sadness.” She looked at him expectantly. The relationship they now had, at least here in this house, was such that he couldn’t miss the invitation to talk about whatever was bothering him.

“I can’t talk about it,” his face closed down. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that,” she suggested gently.

“No, you don’t understand. If I told you, you’d hate me forever, and I don’t think I could take that right now.” He said it with the kind of feeling that convinced her he believed that. She couldn’t imagine what could be bothering him that she’d hate him for. She felt a stab of worry. Two of her other students in the past had been recruited for the Klan. It happened right after they graduated, and both of them had come to her to ask her what they should do. Could the same thing have happened to Nathan? Had he accepted already?

“Even if you joined the Klan I wouldn’t hate you,” she said carefully, watching his face. Nothing happened, except he looked faintly surprised, and she felt much better. She took a another stab.

“You haven’t gone and gotten some girl in the family way, have you?”

The reaction to that was more visible, though not the look of pain and anguish a young man would have if he knew he was going to get married very soon, not having planned that. Still, the way he jerked and looked away suggested she was getting warmer.

“No, it’s not that,” he said. “Not really. I told you I can’t talk about it. Are we going to paint or what?”

If she chased him out with her questions, it wouldn’t do either of them any good, so she subsided.

“I’ll just go and get changed, and then we can start.” she said.

She went into her room and closed the door.

Nathan looked around for the paint, but didn’t see it. The brushes she kept wrapped in oil cloth when they weren’t being used weren’t visible anywhere either. He stepped toward her door, meaning to speak through it and ask her where they were.

The door was old, and didn’t fit the frame well. He stood by the door and yelled: “Miss Flossie, where’s the paint?” She didn’t answer immediately, and for no particular reason, he reached out to touch the door as he drew breath to yell louder. That light touch on the door was enough to defeat the tired old latch, which was stuck in the ‘in’ position anyway, and the door swung open two feet. Flossie was standing there, facing him, having walked toward the door to answer him. She was naked, and held the shirt she intended to wear in her left hand.

It surprised them both. In the split second before she reacted, and pulled the shirt to her chest, Nathan saw what he had only dreamed of. She was shaped like an hour glass, with a narrow waist and broad, almost manly shoulders, above swelling hips. Her breasts, without the bra she usually wore, were large and heavy looking, though they sagged only enough to make a line of something like shadow under them. Her areolas were coal black, and the fat nipples that sat on them were the same color, making her skin look chocolatey brown. Thick, black pubic hair enhanced that effect, as did the hair on her head. Nathan noticed those black spots, including her eyes, and when she opened her mouth, the pink of it, and the white of her teeth made him think of some kind of chocolate desert, with cream and strawberries.

For Flossie, the unpreparedness claimed her ability to think. Her eyes went to his face, an automatic response to see where he was looking. Like most women, she saw his eyes looking at the parts of her that men usually look at. His eyes moved swiftly, wildly, and the look on his face was of pure surprise. She realized in that instant that he hadn’t done this on purpose, and was just as surprised as she was. In that split second she was aware of two distinctly different minds inside her head. The modest Flossie wanted to scream at him for looking at her like that. To rail that he was invading her privacy. That was the ‘Proper Flossie’.

But there was another Flossie inside, the one who had dreamed of this boy.

One of those dreams had put them in a grassy meadow. She was on her knees, and he was standing in front of her, leaned over backwards as she stroked his erection. When she had waked from that dream, she had recognized instantly that she had dreamed of Johnnie Sue and what she had seen Johnnie Sue doing. She had replaced Johnnie Sue with herself, and Jesse with Nathan.