Chapter 2
Hortense found me rewrapping my foot with a dish cloth. I had cleaned his shirt with soap and full boiling water. Sensing the emergency was over, my son reverted to practical matters. “I’m hungry, Ma. Did Greatgran eat yet?”
I sliced headcheese and tore chunks of bread for both of them. I skipped eating. How my body was sore from a foot wound, I could not explain it. My foot felt somewhat better by supper. I made a stew. Hory helped to wash the dishes. I cleaned up Grandpa after dinner. He grabbed my breasts. Hory caught him at it.
“Don’t touch her, Gramps!”
Regis took his hand off my dress and sulked. Hory put his great-grandfather in his room early. He latched it shut and came to me.
“You will sleep with me, tonight.”
Blood rushed to my face. “I’m sorry I couldn’t go into town.”
“You will give me a fuck every night until you can.” My son whispered. Had he learned what Regis knew?
The words he used last night had been reserved. A day later they had turned foul. “Son, you mustn’t put your seed in me. Let me-“
“Hush!” He glared. His hands fumbled at his pants. “Get rid of that dress and lay down.”
I worked the loops binding my dress to me. I had to lean on him to get fully naked. His rod sprung out while I was half dressed. My son eyed my naked breasts. Did he wonder why his great-grandfather obsessed with them? His hand twitched as I pushed the single petticoat from my hips. I had taken to wearing bloomers. I felt him touch my chest before I saw his hand move. I shuddered.
“They feel soft.” He mumbled. He looked in my eye and his resolve returned. “Lay down and open for me.”
I bit my lip and took his manhood in my hand. “This can be good, if you allow-“
“I said, lay down Mother.” He continued to whisper. For a second he focused on my hand’s warmth, then he pried it off of him.
With difficulty and some pain I sank to my son’s bedding. I spread my legs for him. He took his position between them.
“I’ll try not to jostle your foot, Mama.” He used his hand again to find my spot with his knob. This time he pushed into me dry.
I bit my piled dress and hollered into it.
“Ow! Ma, what’s wrong?” He wasn’t asking about my shriek. Why couldn’t he press in like before? His bulb had popped between my Venus but had stuck.
“It’s not ready for you.” I told him.
“Well, make it ready.”
“I can’t. It’s not right.”
“It was ready last night.” He sulked. “What did you do?”
“I can’t tell you that. It’s not-“
“Listen, Ma, everything is right when I tell you it is. Do you hear me?”
I lowered my eyes. “Yes, Son.” I took his stuck shaft in my hand. It was an opportunity, to show him. I caressed it. “See, that feels good.”
Hory was suspicious. “Are you sure this is going to get you ready?”
“It will.” I used his shaft to manipulate the head inside of me. Up and down, I stroked him and stroked my puss with his manhood. He felt the change, within a minute of my handling him.
“That is good, Ma. And I can feel your puss soften. It’s getting wetter, right?”
I looked away. I could not admit that.
Hory removed my hand and took his cock in his. He didn’t jack his shaft like I had, but he maintained rubbing the inside of my puss with his prick head. A few seconds later, he pushed again. Cock slid haltingly into me until is full hardness was buried. This time he did not delay. He began rocking his hips. His manhood stuttered until my wetness peaked, when it began to slide easily within my sinful passage. Like before, his strokes were shallow, but he enjoyed the movement, the fullness of my flesh surrounding his. “It’s only been a day, but your insides feel more wonderful today.”
Like before, I lay limp beneath him. I could not face my son while he despoiled me. I feared his seed. My body danced without will from his pumping hips. “Maybe you don’t need to go into town.” He mused aloud. His bucking speed up. His shallow strokes lengthened. I felt a heat I had known when his father took me gently. A woman I knew well once confessed that the heat became a mad thing that exploded like her husband. I had never felt that, but it eased my fears. I thought about the woman’s word, each time the feeling came to me.
I dismissed them when Hory hunched his cock into me hard and he cried out. “AAaaaahhhhh!” Hot seed erupted inside my puss. I felt a different thing then, a light tremor that came from my belly. As if my will to resist my son’s violations had rewarded my failure.
“Son.” He remained inside me, to fully enjoy the rush in his head. I wanted to wash myself clean of his fluids. “Let me up.”
Hory rolled off of me and wiped his shining head on my uninjured leg.
With difficulty, I crawled to the stove and took a rag to the warm water that remained in the kettle. My son’s seed had spilled out of my secret place. I wiped it from my puss, and I wiped it from my thighs, and I wiped it from the floor and his bedding.
I slept with my son that night.
In the morning, he put his manhood inside of me and rocked himself to a fresh release. I had to clean myself before I went to clean Grandpa. He did not touch me.
For a week, Hory gave me easier work. At night he told me to remove my dress and lay down on his bed. He forced me to cleave unto him night and morning. At the end of the week, his seed failed to release, although he felt the same joy as if he had.
“What is wrong?” He blamed me. “What have you done?”
“Son, this happens when you bed a woman as much as you have.” I wanted to tell him that he was cursed for his sins. But when his father took me as many or more times in a week, a few days without returned his seed to full. I did not want Hory to think that he had beaten a sin’s curse.
Hory took my explanation with pride. He had bedded a woman until his parts could not keep up. I do not know how much pride he took in the fact that he was bedding his mother.
The second week, I woke early. I finished my chores before the men had fully roused. After cleaning Regis, who sometimes would paw my breasts, but more often would start and rethink his action, I prepared a quick but hearty breakfast.
“I’m going into town.” I declared.
“Wait, Mother.” Hory began.
I cut him off. “We need things, Hory. We can afford some coffee and tea this year. I’ll buy a little more sugar this time, too. Would you like ice candies this winter? I’ll take the cart and mule and return before sundown.”
“Buy bandages, and medicine for Greatgran,…” He rattled off a list. I memorized it.
Only one of us could go into town. Maintaining the farm and pigs was normally a twelve hour job for four people. My son and I barely managed to keep it from falling apart. Our house suffered, but the pigs sold well, especially well since the end of the war. Meat had been nearly eradicated by Sherman’s March. Hory and I were lucky to live in the heart of our state, far from that nightmare and the horrific conditions that had sprang from it. He helped load hams and bacon into the cart. Usually, a buyer would visit once a year and drive a half dozen hogs back to town. I kept that money safe. I took some with me, as the meat would only trade to certain merchants.
The walk was two hours at a good speed. My foot troubled me, but I used Grandpa’s cane and that prevented it from getting worse. I left an hour after sunrise. I reached Danlick an hour before noon. At that pace I just might return before sundown. I had to hurry.
After reaching the square, my hurry had evaporated. So much had changed. There were no men, no whole men, at least. Veterans begged, shaking their stumps at people passing them. I gave a dollar’s worth of pennies and nickels. There were no slaves. A few black women, dressed poorly but not in rags, kept well away from white folk who glared at them. I learned that black men, spotted in town sometimes disappeared. I prayed for the beggars. I prayed the lord to send blacks back to Africa. The biggest change was the women. I saw examples of every job in town being handled by women dressed for the effort.
I looked especially for young women, but girls, who had yet to see their first blood month, worked alongside their mothers, as hard as anyone worked after a devastating war. Many young boys worked too, but they were a vicious lot. They snapped at girls. Some snapped at their mothers.
Shame poured over me like a baptism from the devil. I shook off a sudden dread of returning home. I led the mule to a trading store. Selling the meat was a priority. Their wrappings would only protect them from the sun for so long.
I got good deals everywhere I went. My meat was in demand. The staples I bought were high, but not as high as meat. Coffee and tea were highest. I could afford to spend silver coins. My time in the city lingered.
At a dress maker, I browsed vainly. Ships from Britain had redoubled trade for southern cotton, returning with bolts of fabric inspired by weavers as far as India. I should not have entered. Yet it was God’s grace that led me there.
Enraptured by the beautiful choices of cloth, I hardly noticed the door open. When the woman spoke, I could not help but listen. “We cannot afford this, Sweetheart!” I looked around expecting to see a husband, as if a rare bird had flown into the shop. The voice that answered ran a shiver down my spine. “Mother, you will buy the dress I require, and that will be that.” I did not see the boy, but I heard his voice, young. So young and filled with wickedness.
She asked the tailor for a dress with simple hooks, she emphasized, “that are quickly unfastened.”
The tailor was a lucky few, unfit for the army, scrawny, weak, often smarter than they were credited. “For an extra dime, I can sew flaps into the skirt, if you need swifter access.” He cleared his scrawny throat. “Yes.” the boy answered. “That will do nicely.” A thin whine erupted from the woman. “But won’t it ruin the look?” Her son chided, “That’s not important, Mother. You will only wear it at home.”
Encouraged by the shopkeeper’s suggestion, the boy asked, “My mother has the worst taste in sleepwear and unmentionables. What do you suggest, to liven her up?”
I listened, horrified, as the canny tailor described decadent garment after degrading garment. Upon placing their order, which would be picked up in fifteen days, the suffering mother was driven away by her forceful child.
“Ma-am,” the shopkeeper called to me, “have you decided?”
I sputtered a, “No, thank you.” and pointed my nose at the door. Marching out, I huffed, “How could you say such things to a clearly disturbed boy?”
“He wasn’t the first to ask about and order such things for a mother.” The snidely spoken sentence was chopped in half by the door I shut behind me. Exiting, I realized I had been holding my breath. Gasping, I went to my cart and mule. “The devil has swept this town.” I told the beast.
I did not return until long after sundown. My foot hurt worse, and my spirit was exhausted.
“Mama, you deceived me.” Hory hurried to unload the cart. He hurried me into the house and ordered me to strip. I saw that Regis’ door was latched. “After I get a fuck from you, I will sleep and rise early, like you did. I will make you work hard all day, damn your foot!”
Weeping, I undressed and sank to my son’s bed. While I was gone, he had exchanged it with mine from the loft. Hory’s anger changed his motions that night. He pulled out farther from my puss before ramming it into my sin filled hole. He bucked into me and growled. His manhood ravaged long and hard my insides. The tremor I occasionally felt returned energetically. “Oohh!” I cried as my son pushed his flesh into me and dragged it back out. That night, his anger held back his eruption. It felt like his father had taken me to our bed. I cried out twice more that night, before Hory shouted with pleasure and pumped hot seed up against my womb. I had never before felt as much. Regis’ condemnation echoed in my dreams. “Slattern!”
My son did not stay long inside of me that night. I cleaned myself and slept beside him. He woke me by dragging me to my feet and ordering me to begin my chores. I worked harder than ever, the following week. However, I saw that he worked as much as I, as if he refused to be bested by a woman. Had he heard stories of the women who had replaced so many men in town?
A week of unsustainable effort put many things in order at our farm. The sty no longer languished. We paid the price the next Sunday. Instead of going to church, we lay at home and ate cold food. My son tried to bed me that night, but he was too tired.
Seeing my boy’s erection go ungratified, I was drawn to it. Already cursed for not remembering the Sabbath and keeping it holy, and worse sins, I was determined to reduce my son’s transgressions. “Please, Honey,” I had not ever called him that, only my husband, “Let me.” I caught his manhood and drew my palm across it’s powerful length. I stroked my son to an eruption of his seed. At first uncertain, but tired enough to allow my assertion, he cried out with pleasure from my handling of his cock.
We slept late, waking at the crow of a rooster. Our next week lagged far behind the previous one. Nothing important suffered for our lethargy. Those nights, he told me to wrestle his manhood to his satisfaction. In the mornings, he made me strip my night clothes and cleave unto his burning seed.
“Is she a sucker? Has she sucked you yet?”
I entered the house, almost too tired to discern words from Grandfather’s rasps.
“Be quiet, you old fool.” Hory was curt. “Mother, we are hungry.”
I made them supper. That night, my son abstained from pleasuring himself with me. Uneasy at the change, I tried to appreciate it. In the night, he woke me by opening my mouth and putting his stiff rod into it. I sputtered awake. “Hory! What’s this? How could you?”
“I want to try this.” He asserted. “Open your mouth and suck on me.”
“Do you live to degrade me, your mother who brought you into the world so she could love you with God’s love?” I preached.
“I couldn’t sleep.” It was the first time in weeks, he responded with less than a demand. “Greatgrand said-” He halted.
I kept quiet.
Turning to me, moonlight our only means to see each other’s eyes, his flashed with powerful need. “I have to know.”
I looked away. My future would be full of endless, despicable shame.
He stood in front of me and held his dark knob to my face. “Open, Mother.”
I sucked my son’s cock, not for the last time.
Secretly, I hoped to find a bride for my son. My suffering was due to our petty neighbors. I learned from one of my few true friends, the day we missed church, several women discussed asking the sheriff to drive us off of our farm. They couldn’t stand the smell. The pastor was able to calm things, by adding certain jibs about loving thy neighbor, to his lecture.
After the night’s unspeakable transgression, I managed to leave our bed without waking him. I fixed food for breakfast and lunch, expecting to return to make supper. The week of lesser effort had helped to heal my foot. I reached the town in record time. I inquired at the church about upstanding women of the town. Who of them had elegible daughters?
There were many. The reverend was delighted to hear of my healthy son. He recommended three women with daughters who might suit a pig farmer. All were poor. It seems it would not be my son who attracted a potential bride, but the farm’s income.
Heading to the first home, a short walk from town, I passed the dressmaker’s shop. I gritted my teeth, determined to purge it’s nasty keeper from my thoughts. Fighting them, I remembered something. I counted the days. Fortune had either blessed or cursed me to return here on the day the mother and son would pick up their order. Or had some part of me secretly counted? I marched past. I halted, agonized over my hesitance. Plain and simple, something inside of me needed to talk with the other woman. The two would no doubt arrive and leave together. I must not be found out by the son. That had to be a rule.
I went to a carpenter next door. I asked the woman if she could carve wood as well as she could build cabinets, thinking to buy a colorfully painted figurine. The woman surprised me with a wink. Looking over her shoulder, she drew a box from a bottom shelf. Revealing the contents nearly sent me screaming out the door. I panicked and backed out, apologizing profusely. I cowered in the shadow of the tailor’s shop, my mind filled with lacquered wooden shapes that promised powerful delights and powerful degradation. Saving me from self torment, I spied the mother and child. He marched her up to the shop and made her open the door.
I asked myself one last time, to forget about this poor woman. Was not my own suffering enough?
Entering the shop, I swallowed dryness in my throat and approached the counter.
“Yes, Ma-am and young master, they’re all ready.” The man announced.
“Mother should try them on, first.” The boy seemed to enjoy the red flush that filled his mother’s face. The tailor kept his amusement closer to his vest. The simple screen in his shop reeked of impropriety.
I stepped up. “Excuse me. Am I hearing that a young man would be allowed in the same room while his mother changed.”
The tailor almost sneered. “And what will you be buying, Ma-am?”
I set my obviously heavy coin purse on the counter. “Possibly nothing, if I find a lack of proper, Christian sensibility exhibited here.”
The scrawny man sighed. “Yes, I do see the concern, Ma-am.”
“Mother,” The boy announced, “Pay the man and we will take our things.”
“Are you sure, Sweetheart?” The woman’s voice, I liked the sound of it. “If we bring things back for alterations, you will have to wait longer for Mama to wear all that you wanted.”
Boys were easily burdened by such decisions. He fell to his mother’s ploy. “Well, in that case, I will return in an hour. Be ready by then.” He managed feigned dignity striding outside.
The tailor leaned over the counter, “I will sit here and face the window. Will that be sufficient, Ma-am?”
“That would be most appreciated.” I agreed.
The other woman nodded. “Thank you, Mrs, um-.” She fished.
“No thanks are necessary. I’m sure the gentleman was already anticipating how to protect your modesty.”
“Would you then, hold the mirror for me?” She offered. I caught her eyes. A kindred spirit burned within.
“Yes, but let’s move the screen to the far corner. To minimize temptation, however unlikely.”
The woman grinned, and it brightened the room as if she had not grinned in a year.
Safe behind our barrier and shelves heaped with bolts of cloth. I paused and took a deep breath. “I have a son who commands me, and I can do nothing about it.”
“I knew it.” She whispered. “I mean, I felt something between us, something that had to be shared. It is unspeakable, yet I burn to speak.”
“You speak of a thing that cannot and must not be told to even God’s servants?”
“Yes.” Her whisper quieted.
“And does begging for God’s rescue or punishment leave you hollow?” I dared.
The woman’s eyes filled with tears. We hugged, simply hugged for a long while.
“Is everything all right? How do they fit?” The man called, breaking our mutual sharing of distress.
“Well enough.” The woman sputtered.
“They look good on you.” I followed loudly.
“Thanks!” She said aloud. “What about this one…” She leaned close. “May I say it first?”
“Of course.” I fidgeted. As much as I wanted to spill my story, I sensed she had suffered longer.
“My husband was a coward. He was shot by his own men. My oldest boy wrote he would have shot him, if his friend hadn’t. My oldest did not return from the war. William, my youngest boy was ten. He longed to go to war, to be with his brother who had survived two battles. Before the third and last, when no lie could convince the greediest recruiter, I caught him about to run away. I begged him to stay, to be my son a little longer. I held him to my chest, and I opened my blouse to him. I had not a child since the war, but there was milk. That was my first shame, but to risk both my sons frightened me more than William ever has, since.”
She had made her bargain to the boy over three years ago. As his body matured, her breasts, offered in sin for his safety, lost their interest. He began demanding greater sins from her, which she performed with mounting anguish, until she was his doll. Nay, dare I say, slave. Yet none of her suffering exceeded her desire to protect the last of her family.
“May you find him a wife soon.” I offered. My bias spoke for me.
“Five months back, under a blood moon, we married in defiance of all that is holy.” The poor woman shrunk back, expecting a righteous lambasting. She confessed, “I am become my son’s cunt.”
The devil had taken this woman. I did step back, horrified. Yet, who was I to judge? My fornications were wicked, yet incomparable to this woman’s rejection of God to embrace Satan. A second thought stifled my indignation. Righteousness springs quickly from lesser sin. Too often, the wicked cause great wickedness against those they perceive as more wicked and less strong. The revelation floored me.
I stumbled over words, trying hard to respond before she considered me an enemy. “You can still be saved. Um. The savior does not-” I stopped myself. I was no preacher. Meeting her eyes with all my heart, I proclaimed with the love of a neighbor. “Lost sheep should find each other, if there will be no rescue for us.”
She calmed at that. She smiled through her tears, looking very much like a lost sheep who discovered the wolf she feared was but another of her flock.
I was stupid then. I asked, “You said a word I don’t know. What is, cunt?”
Horror returned to her expression. “It is the vilest word for the place on me that is defiled by my son’s attentions.” Never fall so low to be called it. She warned.
I gave her another hug. “I will try not to, Friend.”
The door opened. “Ma, it’s been an hour.” It had not been an hour. We quickly unwrapped their purchases and re-wrapped them after mussing with the garments. Paper shuffling and folding warded the son long enough. He poked his head around the screen.
“These will do, William. Thank you.” She spoke brightly. Cheeks red, from rivers of tears, he confused for embarrassment.
William examined me. “I don’t like her.”
“She did hold the mirror for me.” The unnamed mother tried. She saw his suspicious leer. “But we never have to pay attention to her again.” The woman nodded curt thanks and followed her son out the door.
I continued to examine the tailor’s goods. He was a competent if not inspired craftsman. Suddenly, he sprang for the door and shouted. “Hey, you forgot to pay!” He nearly raced after them but looked to me instead, with suspicion equal to the boy’s.
“Christian propriety, indeed.” I huffed. I took ten silver dimes from my purse, and a nickel. “That is all those items were worth.” I never returned to the tailor’s shop.
I managed to visit the three elegible daughters. One mother made lunch. The others served tea.
Homely and rude, two daughters proved to be. The third was polite, but deferred to her mother excessively. That should have been a good sign, but the future held a new set of opportunities for women, I believed. Bold women would ascend new heights in society. This girl needed that lesson more than she needed my son.
I returned home nearly empty handed, but in time to make dinner.
“What’s this, Ma?” Hortense spun the eight inch, wooden shaft between two finger tips.
“Vile villainy!” Regis roared.
I sighed convincingly. “I bought it as a pot holder, but it’s not the right size. I’m sorry for wasting a penny.” It had cost fifteen cents. Its not like Hory had ever counted our money. I should begin teaching him, I thought.
Bored, he tossed the item over his shoulder. It snapped against the floor and rolled under his bed. That night, after I sucked seed from my son’s manhood, and he was fast asleep, I used the wooden cock to discover a pleasure I had never known.
to be continued