Red River Woman

What do You Think So Far?

2006-04-07T17:38:00.000-07:00

If you have read this far in Claire's adventures in The Red River Woman, then let me know, dear, by dropping me a line at henrietta@redriverwoman.com. Following Claire around, trying to keep up with her lusty life is simply exhausting and it's just too, too much trouble to keep writing about her unless someone (besides moi) is interested.

Chapter 9

2004-11-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

“There’s quite a lot to tell,” Andre said. “Are you sure you’re not getting sleepy. It could wait.”

She moved her fingers gently throught the hair on his chest and kissed him again. “No, I want to talk – at least I want to listen to you talk. Besides, after I start work at the Juttisons’ school, I don’t know when I we can have another night together – just the two of us. I don’t think I could sleep anyway with you so close.”

“Let me know if you get bored.”

“Don’t be silly. You won’t bore me. Aren’t you awfully young to be in the legislature?”

“I suppose so, but I’m qualified I think. I have a bachelor of arts degree from LSU and I’ll finish law school in another year.”

“Still, that doesn’t seem like enough to get you elected – not at twenty-four.”

I guess it wouldn’t be for someone who wasn’t a Beauxyeaux. I was actually elected when I was 22. My father, Clement Beauxyeaux held the seat for 20 years, until he died. Being his son was enough to get me elected to replace him.”

“What do you do for a living? I mean, the legislature doesn’t pay well enough to live on what they give you – and you seem to live pretty well – not that it’s any of my business.”

He smiled. "I have enough to live on without working actually, although I’d go crazy–and maybe fuck myself to death – if I didn’t have something to keep me busy – besides the plantation that is.”

“Plantation?”

“Belle Fourche. It’s on the west bank between here and New Orleans.”

“It belongs to you?”

“Well, to my family, but I have control of it although I share part of the income with my mother – as long as she lives – and with my sister Camille and her family.”

“Not with Denise?”

“She’s not part of the family–at least not that side of my family.”

“What do you mean? I know she has a different mother, but she had the same father didn’t she? How does she get left out?”

“Her mother was my father’s mistress – at least one of them – but they were not married although they had three children together. My father provided for them separately.”

“What about Pierre in Baton Rouge. Is he one of their children? No, wait, I already know he’s not. Denise told me he had a different mother from both of you.”

“Yes, that’s right. You see, my father was born in a time when it was common for a white man to have a mistress among the demimonde. Do you understand what that is?”

“I think so. They are light-skinned colored people. I’ve heard they have a very exclusive society in New Orleans.”

“That’s right. My father had mistresses both here and in Baton Rouge. Pierre’s mother was the one in the capital.”

“It sounds very complicated. How did he manage to keep it quiet.”

“There was not much need to keep it quiet. It was so common, no one thought much about it and certainly it was not something we talked about – at least not around my mother.”

“But she knew about the other women – and their children?”

Andre shrugged. “It’s just the way things are–or rather the way things were. Times have begun to change.”

“I don’t think I’d like know that my husband had families and children with other women.”

“Perhaps it would have been different if men and their wives had the same freedoms in making love that they had with their mistresses.” He touched one of Claire’s breasts and gently cupped it with his hand. “If they really wanted wild sex, they had to find a mulatta woman to indulge it,” he said.

“Then Denise is colored? That’s seems hard to believe. She’s dark, but she doesn’t look like a black woman.”

“She’ got very little black blood. Her grandmother had a black father, so she’s only one-sixteenth colored. That’s not enough to make much difference if she lived anywhere except New Orleans. She could pass for white if she wanted to anywhere else.”

“Then why doesn’t she move?”

“I think she rather likes her life here and is quite happy with her place in society. She’s at the very top of her world. Why should she go somewhere else and be a nobody.”

“She certainly lives well. Is she rich? She said something about a patron. I think she said he was your mother’s brother. Is she your uncle’s mistress?”

“Yes, but he’s very old and infirm now. I think all he does is visit her from time to time for a drink and a chat about old times.”

“If he supports her, what will happen to her when he dies?”

“Oh, don’t worry about Denise Dettonville. She has plenty of money already and Uncle Gaston will leave her with plenty more. My father left her the house on Burgundy – actually he had already given it to her mother – plus rent property in Faubourg Marigny. She’s well taken care of.”

“How does she have the last name Dettonville? Is that your uncle’s name?”

“Oh, no. It doesn’t work like that. Her mother’s last name – and her grandmother’s – was Dettonville. She doesn’t have our family name.”

“But Pierre in Baton Rouge, isn’t his last name Beauxyeaux like yours?”

“Aha,” Andre laughed, “You’re quick my dear. That’s a matter of great friction between him and the Beauxyeaux family. He started calling himself Beauxyeaux when he was a boy – as soon as he found out who his father was. It caused quite a stir with mother and her friends.”

"Really? Why?"

“Because it violates one of the rules of the custom. The children a man has by his mistresses – especially his mulatta mistresses – are never acknowledged legally. They’re taken care of financially as a matter of honor, but they are not claimed as heirs.

“Do you care that he claims to be your father’s son?”

“I did once, but now it’s an asset for me to have a brother like him. Politics is a strange business – at least it is in South Louisiana. His friendship is of great value to me during an election.”

“You’re on good terms with Denise as well.”

“She’s one of my very best friends. I depend on her help, especially with my sexual adventures. Without her help, how could I continue to see you?”

“And others?”

“I hope you don’t resent there being others.”

“Not especially. I’ll have to wait and see how much they interfere with my getting what I want from you.” She let her hand stray to the patch of hair between his legs.”

“You have not worries there, I assure you.”

“I wasn’t talking only about other women, either.”

“You don’t mind my taste in other men?”

“Mind? No I don’t mind at all. I enjoyed that night in Baton Rouge with Bart very much. I wouldn’t want it to be the last time I – that is – we enjoyed ourselves that way. I wonder if sometime we might try it with another woman too.”

“I adore you, Claire,” Andre said kissing her. “You are rare – truly rare in this world – at least for someone with tastes like mine.”

“I think we are very similar in our tastes,” Claire said. “I find you exciting in many ways, and not just sexually. You are smart and someone with a future. I could learn to love you – in good time of course – but not too much and not too soon. ”

“Let us make a pact then,” Andre said. “Let’s open ourselves up to each other. Let’s have a relationship of adventure – taking pleasure were we can find it – and a relationship of trust. Neither of us will be dishonest with the other.”

“I would like that,” Claire said. “And now, I’d like a change to be honest with you.”

“Always, mon cher.”

“To be honest, I’ve not quite satisfied my lust for you tonight. I’d like to feel you deep inside me again so I’ll have something to remember when I’m alone. We may not be able to be alone together again soon and who knows, next time we may not prefer to be alone.”

“My dear,” Andre said. He took her in his arms and when both were satisfied, they fell asleep
contented.

*****

Dubby brought coffee and a breakfast tray to Claire’s room and pulled aside the drapes to let light into the room.

Claire woke and stretched under the sheet Andre has spread over her when he got up and left before daylight. As he was leaving, he kissed her and told her he had business at Belle Fourche and then later in Baton Rouge, but that he would send her a message through Denise to the École Juttison as soon as he could return to New Orleans.

“What time is it, Dubby?”

“Just seven, Miss Crane. Shall I draw you a bath?”

“Yes, please.” She looked at the clothes she had worn yesterday hanging in the armoire and wished she had brought a change.

As if she were reading Claire’s mind, Dubby told her that Denise wondered if perhaps she would like fresh underwear and – Denise thought – she also had a summer frock that might fit her well enough to wear home.

“That would be wonderful, Dubby.”

At exactly nine o’clock, Mme. Dettonville’s carriage arrived at the École Juttison and deposited Claire on the sidewalk. She was dressed in a simple beige dress, a bit short by conservative standards, but quite respectable for a young woman of Claire’s age.

When she was inside, Claire set out to find Miss Ophelia. She found out that the woman was again occupied, but that Claire should wait in the parlor and Miss Ophelia would join her at ten.

Promptly as the hall clock finished striking ten dull strokes, Miss Ophelia opened the door and came in. The pucker of her lips was quite pronounced.

Claire stood up and wished the older woman good morning, but Miss Ophelia did not return the greeting.

“We begin our day at Juttison School quite a bit earlier than 9 o’clock, Miss Crane,” she said. She sat down on a straight-backed chair that was placed near the door. She did not ask Claire to sit down, and because there was not another chair near the one Miss Ophelia had chosen, Claire remained standing.

“We did not set a time to meet this morning, Miss Ophelia, and I assumed you would have other matters to attend to before you were able to see me.”

“Don’t be argumentative, Miss Crane. I do not permit my staff to make assumptions about my affairs. I expect them to be available anytime I desire to see them.”

“Of course, ma’am. I’m sorry if I seemed argumentative. I assure you I had. . .”

Ophelia waved her hand dismissing the rest of Claire’s sentence.

“Staff are expected to be out of bed and fully dressed by 4:45 in the morning. They should have checked on the girls assigned to them to be sure they are out of bed at five and have finished their toilets in order to be at their places in the refectory at six – precisely.”

“Is that so?” Claire said. “Then may I ask if you intend to offer me a position on the staff?”

“I believe that’s what you came here seeking, is it not?”

“Yes, ma’am, I had hoped to find a position, and I am flattered that you seem to be considering the idea positively, but we have not discussed my duties or my compensation.”

“Beggars can’t be choosers, Miss Crane.”

“I hope I did not give you the impression that I was begging, Miss Ophelia. Of course, I need to find employment, but I hope that it will be satisfactory both for me as well as my employer.”

“I believe yesterday when my sister Susan interviewed you, you said something to the affect that if you did not find employment you did not know how you should get on. I believe she said you would were quite desperate, and that you did not know to what extremes you might have to go in order to survive.”

Claire felt a flash of anger, but she quickly suppressed it.

“Yes, I did say something along those lines, but I at the time I was feeling a bit of panic. Miss Susan appeared to dismiss me after our. . .” Claire paused for just a minute to give a hint of emphasis to the word Ophelia had “. . .our interview and she had not mentioned employment. That’s why I brought up the subject. I suppose I did sound rather concerned, but I thought I was being dismissed without any discussion of a position here at the school.”

“Miss Susan defers all questions about staff to me.”

“I believe she said as much at the end, but I did not know that until I brought up the subject of employment. I suppose I was confused about the purpose of my – my chat – with her.”

“The purpose of your “chat” with her, as you call it, is none of your business. We are not in the habit of explaining our methods to those we interview.”

Claire began to realize that defending herself to the woman was a fool’s errand.

“Yes, ma’am,” she said, hoping that was a sufficient reply to Miss Ophelia’s complaints and the woman’s need to dominate the conversation.

“I believe you said you had some facility in French and arithmatic.”

“Yes, ma’am. I believe so.”

“I am prepared to offer you a position as an instructor in French and in mathematics. You will teach two French classes each day; one for beginners and the other for more advanced students. In addition you will teach advanced arithmetic to the senior girls.”

“Advanced? Do you mean algebra?”

“Why no, of course. Only basic figuring – multiplication and long division – what a lady needs to know to run a household. Any further knowledge is not ladylike.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I will also expect you to join with the other teachers in teaching the girls sewing as well. These classes are more informal and take place in the evening and on the weekend–except on Sunday of course–which is a day of rest and devoted to reading scripture and other uplifting texts.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“For the time being you will share a room with Miss Greenbirch.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Miss Greenbirch will also provide you with suitable cloth and a pattern to make yourself some suitable clothes. The costs will be deducted from your wages. We expect our teachers to dress modestly. The dress you are wearing now and the one you wore yesterday are quite unsuitable.”

“Really, ma’am?”

“Indeed. Although I think they might serve for someone in a different social position, they are entirely too fashionable for a teacher. They give quite the wrong impression.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

That will be all for now. Your first French class meets directly after luncheon. Miss Greenbirch will show you where to meet the class and introduce you to the girls. I’ll send for you later in the day. I’ll have other things to discuss at that time. You may go now.”

The woman got up from her chair to dismiss Claire but Claire stood awkwardly where she was and did not move.

“I said you may go.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Claire said, “But if I would like to know something more.”

“Well, what is it? I’m quite busy.”

“I would like to know what I will receive as compensation. I would also like to know if I will have any time off from my duties during the day, and at what time I will be free in the evenings. I am also anxious to know about my day off. I’m quite new in the city and would like some opportunity to explore.”

Miss Ophelia stared for a long minute at Claire with a lowered brow that, combined with the pucker on her mouth, gave a forbidding visage. “You will be provided room and board and a stipend of $5.00 per month.”

“Five dollars?” Claire asked. The amount was much lower than she had hoped for.

“Yes, five dollars, half in cash and half will be kept aside for you in a savings account.”

“In a savings account? In a bank?”

“Of course not. It will be in an account here at the school administered by Miss Susan on your behalf.”

“Will I have access to the account?”

“From time to time, but not until it has a sufficient balance to cover any charges you may incur.”

“Charges? What sort of charges?”

“For breaking things. Being wasteful of the supplies we provide. Damage to books and equipment by your students. That sort of thing.”

“Will I receive interest on the account?”

“Certainly not. We keep it entirely at our expense and trouble as a convenience to you. Interest is not appropriate.”

“When will I be at liberty at the end of the day?”

“If by ‘at liberty’ you mean when will your duties end, then you may assume that you can retire when the girls assigned to you for supervision have finished their evening studies and have gone to bed. We insist that all lights are out for the girls at ten o’clock. The staff members are expected to be in bed by eleven, unless they have permission to stay up after that to attend to duties, such as preparation for your classes and grading papers. Because you days will begin quite early, we encourage the teachers to retire as early as is consistent with their duties.”

Claire was stunned at learning what would be required of her at the Juttison school, and she stood speechless as she listened.

“If, however, by ‘at liberty’ you mean will you be allowed to leave the school at the end of the day, then I can tell you that you will have no such liberty at all. Juttison school must be very jealous of our reputation and that includes the reputation of each of the staff members. We can not have our teachers wandering the streets of New Orleans – certainly not in the evening and certainly not alone.”

“Surely I will have some free time away from the school – for shopping – to visit friends.”

“I know of no call for you to shop. The school will provide whatever you need. That’s another reason we will retain part of you stipend–to cover expenses we incur on your behalf. As for your visiting friends, we are quite particular about our teachers’ associations away from the school. Your acquaintance Mme. Dettonville, for instance. I know of her only slightly, but I am not impressed that she is a suitable companion for you.”

“Surely I will be able to leave the school sometime.”

“You will be allowed to leave, in the company of another teacher one afternoon each month. You will not have a regularly set time. You must apply to me in writing for permission to go out at least one week in advance and you must already have arranged with someone else to go along with you when you make the request. I will then decide if I can spare both you at the time you request. Now, I really must go. Find Miss Greenbirch right away. Perhaps she can loan you something suitable to wear for your first class.”

Claire followed the woman out of the room with a heavy heart.

Chapter 8

2004-11-16T14:20:00.000-08:00

Denise and Claire had finished dinner on the veranda. Dubby had brought fresh candles and the two women were sipping dark coffee from delicate demitasse cups.

“Dinner was wonderful,”Claire said. I think I am ready to agree with you entirely about the French having more talent with food.”

“Americans do some things very well, business and trade for instance, but food and stylish clothes really belong to the French.”

“You speak about the French and Americans as being so different, but surely, even though a great many people in New Orleans were French originally–as well as from former French colonies in the Carribean–surely you consider yourselves Americans now. Louisiana has belonged to the United States for well over one hundred years.”

“Well, of course you are right, and I don’t mean to sound as though I’m not a good American, but it’s just that in New Orleans we have a great many traditions we rather enjoy and want to preserve.”

Oh, and I glad you do. I am looking forward to getting to know the city. I think I’ll enjoy living here a great deal. I like the – what shall I say? – the freedom from so many prudish constraints. You seem so free sexually.”

“Well, a few of us are – but not everyone – and the old French families are very snobbish and strict.”

“I don’t think they could be more prudish and hateful than the Juttison sisters appear to be. I’m looking forward to meeting more of like you and your family.”

“Getting to know people like me will not be a problem, but it will be very difficult for you to get to know many in my family – that is to say, in Andre’s family – for although we are half-brother and sister, I don’t associate with the part of his other family that includes his mother.”

“You know your half-brother Pierre.”

“He’s not in the part of Andre’s family I’m referring to. And I think I ought to warn you that you must be careful if you develop a great affection for Andre, and most people do – men and women. You are quite taken with him aren’t you?”

“Yes, I do have a strong attraction to him. I like him a great deal.”

“You need to know that a relationship with him will have its limits.”

“You make it sound like such a mystery.”

“Not when you understand our ways in New Orleans better, you see. . .”

At this point, Dubby interrupted to tell them that Andre had arrived and wanted to know if she would receive him.

“Certainly, Dubby. Show him up.”

When Andre walked into the candle light on the veranda, Claire felt a familiar stirring in her. He was dressed in a dark well-cut suit and he was as handsome as she eemembered him, perhaps more so dressed as he was as a gentleman now instead of the rough clothes he had worn in Baton Rouge and on the barge trip to New Orleans.

He smiled at her as he came in, but stopped for a moment to kiss his sister on the cheek before turning to Claire. He walked to her and bending over kissed her too, but full on the lips. His kiss lingered for a moment well beyond the length of time a kiss of greeting would last.

Claire enjoyed his kiss, even though she felt a bit awkward with the intimacy the man took in front of his sister.

“How have you two been getting on?” he asked.

“Oh very well,” Claire said. We’ve had quite a conversation – mostly about you – and a lovely dinner.”

“I suppose she’s told you all sorts of disagreeable things about me.”

Denise broke in before Claire could respond.

“Not nearly so disagreeable as your telling her I was your aunt.”

“Oh, that!” Andre laughed. “I can explain about that.”

“I don’t want to hear it. No explanation will save you. I have decided to punish you severely.”

“Oh, please have pity on me, dear sister. But if you do punish me, please don’t do anything that will turn this beautiful young American lady against me.”

“Oh, I don’t think there’s any danger of that,” Denise said. “I think you’ve already established yourself with her quite well.”

“Has she said anything very beastly about me?” Andre said to Claire.

“Only that I must be careful about falling in love with you, if I understood her.”

“Don’t listen to her. Fall in love with me if you like.”

“It sounds as if I would be joining quite a crowd if I did.”

“You certainly would stand out in a crowd of any sort, but tell me this. Who do I have to warn me against falling in love with you, Claire.”

Claire knew she was blushing but she hoped it was hidden in the candlelight. “I will take that responsibility, I think,” she said.

“Well spoken, Claire,” Denise said. And I suggest you take care that he does not fall in love with you. I think he would become even more of a pest than he is usually.”

“Now why do you suppose my sister hates me so?” Andre said. “What have I ever done to deserve such abuse.”

“Maybe telling me she was your aunt.”

Andre had remained standing near her chair and now he bent and kissed her again.

“I will not be deterred. I will love you in spite of the pain and danger.”

“Just so you know you’ve been warned,” Claire said.

“Won’t you join us for coffee, Andre?” Denise asked. “Or would you prefer a glass of wine. I can have Dubby send up a fresh bottle.”

“Coffee would be wonderful, although if you don’t mind, I’d much prefer a bourbon. Do you think Dubby could manage that.”

“There’s no need to disturb her. The bourbon decanter is there in the console and I’m sure there is still ice there too.”

Andre walked back into the parlor to make his drink and while he was out of her hearing, Denise leaned toward and whispered: “I think he intends to stay the night. Do you mind?”

“Why would I mind–he’s your brother and naturally if he wants to stay. . .”

“I’m rather certain he doesn’t plan to stay where I put him. I think he will probably join you as soon as he can manage it.”

Claire smiled. “I’m quite sure I’d be disappointed if he didn’t. Do you mind if he does? I could lock my door.”

“Oh, my dear, enjoy him all you want under my roof, but for heaven’s sake, don’t lock the door. He would keep the whole house awake rattling the latch and pleading with you like a puppy wanting out of the kitchen at night.”

“Claire,” Andre said coming back on the veranda, “Would you like a bourbon?”

“No thank you, she said. I’ve had a good deal of wine and it’s made me drowsy and I don’t want to drop off to sleep quite yet.”

“Denise, I think I’d like to stay the night if you don’t mind,” Andre said, but he was gazing into Claire’s eyes and not looking at his sister.

“I had Dubby make up your room this morning. It’s all ready.”

“You’re so thoughtful.”

“Not at all.”

“I’m spending the night too,” Claire said, but I have to go back to the school in the morning so I think I ought to go to bed soon.”

“Of course, dear,” Denise said. She had finished her coffee. “Andre, if you’ll excuse us, I think the ladies will leave you to finish your bourbon.”

“Sleep well,” Andre said. He sat down a the table and looked after the women as they walked away.

*****

Claire was sitting in front the mirror at a vanity dresser brushing her hair when she heard a soft knock at the door. She arranged the front of the mauve peignoir Denise had loaned her so that the light fabric lay in loose folds over her breasts enough for modesty, but not concealing them entirely.

She opened the door enough to see Andre waiting outside. He was wearing a satin dressing gown with a belted sash around his waist. He wore bedroom slippers, but his calves showed naked below the hem of his robe.

“Can I come in?” he whispered, but Claire had already opened the door to let him in. As soon as he was inside and the door shut behind him, Claire took his face in her hands and returned the kiss he had given her on the veranda earlier.

“There,” she said. That’s better. I didn’t get to kiss you back before.” She lowered her hands from his face and moved them down his chest to open the front of the robe and let her fingers play lightly on his pectoral muscles.

Then it was his turn to take her face in his hands and put his lips on hers in a long sensual kiss as she continued to explore his body under the robe, feeling the hard mounds of his buttocks.

“My dear,” he sighed as he finished the kiss. “You are such a treasure.”

“You are too, Andre,” she said. I have such a desire for your body. I want to touch you all over.”

“Do whatever you want, Claire,” he said. “I am yours to use as you want.”

“Then lie down on the bed and let me touch you. I’ve never been able to explore a man before. I want to know every inch of you.”

He dropped the robe on the floor and opened his arms to her. “Come and explore me, my love.”

She made him lie down on the bed on his back and began slowly to touch and kiss him, beginning with his dark curly hair and working her way downward. He put his hands behind his head and shut his eyes as she kissed him lightly on the lips. He might have been sleeping, except that his great verge reared its stiff length throbbing above his stomach from the patch of hair between his legs.

After a few minutes neither of them could resist the passion generated by her attentions to him. He drew her to him, and getting on top of her and between her legs, he entered her and with long and gentle lovemaking gave her what she had not had from him in Baton Rouge.

Presently she lay in the crook of his arm in a contented but wakeful peace.

“Are you sleeping?” Andre asked.

“No. I’m wide awake.”

“Good, because I am also awake and I have things I want to talk about.”

“What is it, Andre?”

“I shouldn’t trouble you with my worries, but I find myself drawn to you very strongly and that makes me want to unburden myself to you. I do hope you won’t think I’m a weak man – needing a woman to talk to – but I’ll be honest enough to tell you, there are things that worry me.”

“Certainly you can tell me anything you want, Andre. I have a strong feeling toward you to – not that I want more that we have right now with each other. I really don’t want to be too attached right now – and this sounds awful saying it – but I’m not ready to settle down with a man yet. I’ve just now gotten my freedom and I want to make my own way for awhile.”

“That’s how I feel too, Claire, and I’m so grateful to have found someone who feels the same way. Settling down – with a wife – is what I want someday, but there’s too much uncertainty now to consider such a thing.”

“What is it that you’re worried about.”

“Are you aware of the news and politics – of what’s going on in the world, especially in Europe?”

“You mean the war?”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t read the newspapers since I left Shreveport, but I thought President Wilson promised to keep us out of their war in Europe.”

“I’m afraid we won’t be able to stay out of it. Did you know that the German’s had sunk the Lusitania?”

“You don’t mean the ocean liner do you? The Germans sunk it? That’s terrible.”

“It was bound to happen. We’ve been shipping war materials to the British and French and the German’s have been warning us against violating our neutrality.”

“What do you think will happen?”

“I think we’ll end up sending troops to France.”

“Americans troops? Do you think anyone will go?”

“I think volunteers will line to go.”

“But you won’t go will you?”

“I probably will have to.”

“You mean you’ll volunteer.”

“Yes.”

“But why, Andre. Please don’t think more that you ought to think by my saying so, but I just can’t bear to think of anything happening to you.”

“You’re sweet to say so, but I’ll have to. Did you know that I’m in politics?”

“Denise said you were in the legislature. Why does that mean you have to go to the war?”

If I want to advance in politics after the war, I’ll have to go.”

Claire was quiet for a moment considering what he had said. She did not know much about politics or the legislature or going to war, but she understood intuitively how they were related – at least for a man. For a moment she felt anger, first because men and their affairs were inconvenient for women, but her first anger was replaced by another that did not like the way women were left out of such affairs.

“I don’t know much about it,” she said. “But I want to learn as much as I can. You must tell me everything.”

“It may not be fair to trouble you with it all.”

“You tell me whatever is on your mind. I’ll let you know if it troubles me more than I can manage.”

“You have a bit of an edge on your voice.”

I don’t mean to, but I think women need to be treated with more equality. If we’re to have the vote, then we need to get used to being troubled by the affairs of the world.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Then tell me what worries you.”

“First, I need to tell you more about me than you already know.”

She rose up from the bed on an elbow and kissed him.

“Nothing would please me more,” she said.

Chapter 7

2004-11-16T11:03:00.000-08:00

Chapter 7

“Now what’s this about eating crawfish?” Denise asked.

Dubby returned with a fresh bottle of wine iced in a silver tub.

“Ms. Battle said to tell you that dinner would be ready in half and hour,” the maid said. “She said I was to tell you that it would be best not to wait longer than that.” She put the wine down on the table between Claire and Denise and left the room.

“We had best obey Mrs. Battle’s dictum about dinner,” Denise said. “But we’re wasting time, dear. Tell me. What about crawfish.”

“We were at Pierre’s restaurant,” Claire said. “I guess he’s your brother too.”

“Yes, he’s another half-brother, but he has another mother entirely. We all three share the same father, but we have different mothers. Actually there are more siblings too, not just we three.”

“Really?” Claire looked at her puzzled.

“Creole families have some unusual connections, my dear – at least unusual for Americans I think. It’s complicated, and I’ll explain more about it later if you like, but right now, I want to know about the crawfish.”

“Bart and Andre were ordering our dinner and asked if I liked crawfish. I said I had never eaten them and I thought the idea sounded disgusting.”

“Yes?”

“Andre asked how I knew I didn’t like them if I’d never tried them, and he made me promise to eat them.”

“And did you like them?”

“Oh, yes – by the time we ate, I had drunk enough wine to be ready to try anything – and I was very hungry too.”

“So what happened then?”

“When we had finished dinner, Andre asked us to go with him to his apartment for more wine. He also promised me a long soak in a hot bath, and after a week on the barge taking baths in the river, the idea was very tempting.”

“Oh, I understand. Isn’t it a wonderful tub? He has a lovely apartment on the river doesn’t he? I go there often when I visit Baton Rouge, that is I do if legislature’s not in session. I wouldn’t go near the place when it’s full of cigar-smoking politicians and such.”

“He doesn’t live there all the time?”

“Oh, no. Only when the legislature is sitting or when he has other business in Baton Rouge.”

“Where does he live the rest of the time then? Here in New Orleans?”

“My dear, how very little you know about my brother. He has a home in the Vieux Carré of course, or rather his mother does, actually she merely has life tenancy – it belongs to his family and he’ll own it when she dies. He stays there when he’s in the city although he sometimes stays here too – it depends – but I think it’s his place to tell you about all that, not mine. Besides, it’s almost time for dinner and I want to hear all about that night in Baton Rouge and I we won’t be able to talk frankly at dinner with Dubby lurking about the table. Andre will be coming after dinner and I want to hear your tale before he comes in to tell his. Now do tell me what happened.”

“I’m not sure I ought to talk about it. I didn’t know he was a politician – it might cause a scandal if it got out.”

Denise laughed. “He’s quite a scandal already, my dear.”

“But it involves things about Bart too, not just Andre and myself.”

“Well, I would assume so! If you’re worried about revealing Andre’s taste for men as well as women, don’t be concerned on my account. He has no secrets from me. In fact, one of the reasons he occasionally spends time here with me instead of at his mother’s house is because sometimes he chooses to entertain men he can’t invite to his mother’home – your river man Bart– for example.”

“Have you and Bart. . . ?”

“As I said before, my taste runs to young men, very young men, you might say, and Bart is much too old to interest me. I also ought to tell you that I don’t care for making love with other women either. I have made the ‘crawfish test’ in that direction, so I’m not speaking out of ignorant when I say I don’t’ like it. I’m not as adventurous as my brother. Perhaps not as adventurous as you either.”

Claire smiled. "Oh I'm afraid you're getting a bad opinion of me."

“Don't be silly, mon cher. I'll match you tale for tale later on, but, Claire, we can talk about me some other time. Tell me about Baton Rouge.”

“Bart and Andre had their baths first, so I could take my time soaking.”

“That was thoughtful.”

“I thought so. Anyway, when I had finished my bath, I put on the robe Andre had left for me and went out to join them on the balcony. They were sitting close together in the dark near the railing and when I first saw them, Bart had his arm across Andre’s shoulder, sort of playing with his hair with his fingers. Doesn’t Andre have beautiful curly black hair?”

“Yes, yes, of course. He has lovely hair, “ Denise said somewhat impatiently. “Go on.”

“It was dark and I really couldn’t see that well, but it looked as if Andre had one of his hands between Bart’s legs. I can’t be sure about what he was doing, but from behind them, I know Andre was reaching in that direction – perhaps his hand was merely resting on Bart’s thigh, but I don’t think so.”

“Probably not. Go on.”

“When they heard me behind them, they stopped whatever they were doing and Andre got up to get me a glass of wine. I sat down next to Bart and asked him if Andre had been touching him. I suppose I may have felt a little jealous that something was going on and I was being left out.”

“What did Bart say?”

“He told me that Frenchmen are more affectionate toward other men that American men are and I asked him if he didn’t mind being touched like that by a man. He told me no, that he actually enjoyed having sex with a man occasionally. I was going to ask him how in the world two men had sex with each other, but that was when Andre came back with my wine. He had heard us talking and asked me if I hadn’t learned anything about eating crawfish – that you needed to try it first before you decided if you liked it or not.”

“I told you he was quite a talker.”

“Yes, you did, but that’s about all he said. The next thing was, he had his hand inside my robe touching my breast. He has wonderful hands, doesn’t he?

“Yes, wonderful hands, lovely hair–from what I hear, a magnificent verge as well. What happened then?”

“Verge?” Claire asked. “Doesn’t that mean ‘stick.’”

“Yes, stick. It’s what we call a man’s pleasure instrument. I think the word in English is ‘dick.’

Claire nodded and smiled.

“Yes, dick is one of the words Bart taught me.” Then she continued: “I guess the wine had slowed my reactions, but I found myself getting excited by what Andre was doing, then I remembered we weren’t alone and I almost made him stop because of Bart, but then I felt Bart’s hand on my other breast, and – well– I guess I decided that I liked that as much as I liked eating crawfish.”

“Oh, I know quite what you mean. I adore making love with two men – young men to be sure – but I much prefer their not giving each other too much attention.”

“I was kind of surprised about that.”

“About what?

“The two of them did show each other a lot of attention.”

“Yes, I suppose they would, knowing them. I hope it didn’t interfere with your enjoyment.”

“No, not a bit. After I got over my initial surprise, I thought it was pretty exciting – I mean it certainly made them more excited, and I think I benefitted a great deal from how passionate they got with each other. Anyway, I certainly didn’t get left out.”

“Go on.”

“Well, Andre flopped down on the bed on his back and pulled me down on top of him.”

“I like being on top sometimes, but not right from the beginning.”

“I wasn’t on top like that – if I know what you mean.”

“Then how were you on top? Tell me.”

“He pulled me down to squat over his face with my thighs on the sides of his head. That’s why I laughed when you said before that he made love with his mouth.”

“Yes, I remember. Was he good?”

“He was wonderful, but he got better.”

“Yes?”

“That was when Bart got in bed with us. At first he was straddling Andre too and started sucking my nipples while Andre was working me with his tongue.”

“How exciting. Go on. Go on.”

“Yes, it was exciting, and that’s when I really got a surprise.”

“What was that?”

“Bart got on his knees between Andre’s legs and started playing with his. . . What was the French word you used?”

“Verge.”

“He was playing with Andre’s verge, sort of waving it at me and smiling. I had tried to put Bart’s dick in my mouth before, but it’s really too fat to get much into my mouth, but I knew how much he liked me sucking on the head. Looking at Andre’s dick waving around in front of me, I leaned over and put it in my mouth like I had Bart’s and I got a nice surprise.”

“Yes?”

“Well, in the first place, it’s not quite so fat and thick, so I was able to get as much in my mouth as I wanted, except that it was so long.”

“I’ve heard as much – although I’ve never seen it except once when he was drunk and I had to put him to bed. Unfortunately he was much too drunk then for it to be anything but a worm, although I could see that it might be of a respectable length when it’s erect.”

“There was no end to it, Denise.”

“Not really.”

“Really! After I got as much of it in my mouth as I could without putting it down my throat, I began running my hand down the length and it just didn’t stop, even when I reached the hair at the base. I pushed my hand down further, and found another two or three inches.”

“Now that was a surprise!”

“Well, yes, but that wasn’t the biggest surprise.”

No?”

“No. Bart put his hand between the cheeks of Andre’s ass and began playing with him with his finger. That really got Andre excited and he got even more active with what he was doing to me. He started sucking me, as well as working his tongue back and forth in me. And, it seemed his dick got even longer and harder. I still had his dick in my mouth and he pushed up with his hips and sunk about three inches down my throat.”

“Oh, my goodness!”

“At first it scared me and made me gag, and I saw stars flashing behind my eyes when he did it, like I do when I climax. Even after gagging, I still wanted him, however, and as soon as I caught my breath, I sucked him back into my mouth and pushed myself down as far as I could. It felt so good down my throat like that, like it was so long I might be able to get enough inside me to touch the place where his tongue was giving me so much pleasure.”

“Well, perhaps, that’s how it seemed. I’ve had the experience, but it touches that spot better by
putting it where Andre had his tongue.”

“Yes, I’m sure, but I didn’t get the chance.”

“No?”

“No. The only one that got dick in that end was Andre.”

Denise laughed. “Tell me.”

All the time I was sucking on Andre and he had his tongue in me, Bart was working on Andre’s ass with his fingers.”

“Mmm?”

“Then he started trying to put his dick in Andre’s ass, but it was too big – and it is big, I can tell you that.”

“But as good as eating crawfish, I’ll wager.”

“Oh, yes, but harder to eat than to fuck, if you know what I mean.”

“I know exactly. But, what happened then? Did he stop trying to get Andre to take his dick?”

“For just a moment. That’s when I decided to help.”

“How is that?”

“I put my finger in my mouth and wet the end of Bart’s dick with spit. He shoved and Andre shoved back, and Bart got about half his dick inside.”

“What did Andre do?”

“He just about went crazy. He couldn’t do anything but make sounds since he had his face buried in me, but you could tell by the sounds that he really liked what Bart was doing to his ass.”

“I’d like to see Bart fucking somebody if he’s equipped as well as you say. If he were just a younger man. . . I much prefer big fat dicks, although, you’re right they’re better for sucking if they’re not quite so fat.”

“It was over pretty quickly after that. I was already beginning to reach a climax when Bart put his dick in Andre’s ass, and it did not take more than a dozen strokes with the full length of his verge before both were shooting seed. I suppose, since I’ve told you so much already, I’ll also tell you that most of Andre’s seed went down my throat.”

“Oh, my goodness. Really. More of that crawfish challenge, I suppose?.”

“Well, I didn’t think of it as a challenge just then. I was already sure I’d like it.”

Dubby appeared in the doorway from the parlor to announce that dinner was ready to be served and asked if should she bring it up to them on the veranda, or would they eat in the dining room downstairs.

Chapter 6

2004-11-13T20:05:00.000-08:00

When Susan Clutcher had unbuttoned Claire’s dress to the waist, she slipped the garment off her shoulders and it settled in a pool of cloth on her hips, then she paused.

“Why what’s this?” She said. “You’re wearing one of those French brassieres.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m not sure such a garment is decent,” Mrs. Clutcher said. “Where ever did you get such a thing? Surely not in Shreveport.”

“Yes, ma’am. My mother suggested it because I have a large bosom and I needed support. A simple shift did not hold me tight enough and it was not very modest under my clothes.”

In fact, Andre had presented her with the brassiere before they left Baton Rouge. When she asked him how he happened to have it on hand in his apartment, he replied with a wry smile and a wink, “I keep a few assorted pieces of ladies’ clothing on hand for emergencies.”

“And his little costume parties,” Bart had added with a snort and a laugh.

“Surely a corset would have served,” Mrs. Cluther observed.

“Yes, ma’am, but they are awfully hot and uncomfortable.” She leaned back resting on the woman’s hands. “It’s quite easy to unfasten,” she said. “Can you manage it?”

Mrs. Cluther had indeed already managed the unfastening and the brassiere too settled into the puddle of cloth on Claire’s hips. The woman’s hands then began a slow and gentle exploration of the Claire’s newly exposed flesh.

“Oh, dear,” she said. “You have had rather a beating. What a brute your father is. Even for a man, he is especially a beast. But you seem to be healing nicely.” Her hands explored under Claire’s arms then around her body. She reached a bit further until he held the young woman in a loose embrace. She continued her exploration, this time moving her hands up to cup Claire’s breasts, at first loosely, then more firmness.

“Mm,” Claire sighed. “Your touch is so gentle.”

Mrs. Clutcher stroked Claire’s nipples with her thumbs, very softly at first, then less so as she applied just a bit of pressure with her forefingers and thumbs.

Claire let the woman touch her in silence for a few minutes, then she said, “Miss Susan?”

“Mm?” The older woman’s tone was impatient as if she were annoyed at being disturbed in her thoughts.

“I wonder if I might change my position. Although your hands are very pleasant and soothing, I feel a little awkward sitting on the floor.”

“Yes. Yes, I suppose if you are uncomfortable. Come with me.”

She took got up from the chaise and pulled Claire to her feet. “Come with me,” she said.

Claire stepped out of the dress and petticoat and left them lying on the floor with the discarded brassiere. She took the older woman’s hand and wearing only her brief silk bloomers, another gift from Andre, she allowed herself to be led into the bedroom.

Mrs. Clutcher pulled the counterpane away from the sheets. “Why don’t you lie on the bed?” she asked.

Claire lay down on the bed on her stomach and Mrs. Clutcher immediately continued her explorations, beginning as before with a faint clucking of her tongue about the evidence of the beating, but proceeding without a much delay to applying attention to Claire’s breasts, as if they needed consolation as well, although they themselves had not been abused by the Reverend Mr. Crump’s beating.

“Are you comfortable now, Claire?”

“Why yes, ma’am, much more comfortable, but perhaps if I may, I’d like to lie on my back now.”

“Yes, dear. By all means you may. Please do turn over.”

Claire turned over and as she did so, she moved her own hands over her body from her shoulders over her breasts, flattening them somewhat, then reversing her movement, she brought her hands up to lift her breasts and looked with a hint of challenge into Mrs. Cluther’s eyes.

The muscles of Susan Clutcher’s jaw began knotting again. She took Claire’s hands firmly in her own and held them at the young woman’s side. Staring not into Claire’s eyes but at her breasts, she lowered her head and touched a nipple with her tongue, then sucked it into her mouth. Holding the nipped between her lips, she flicked it with her tongue and sucked harder.

Claire moved under her and resisted the woman’s hands which were holding her, but not with enough force to break away from the restraint. She took a quick breath and pushed her chest upward into Mrs. Clutcher’s face.

Mrs. Clutcher released one of Claire’s hands and began manipulating the other nipple between her thumb and forefinger. Claire put her free hand firmly on top of Susan Clutcher’s iron grey hair and held the woman’s head to her breast. “Oh, that is so soothing,” she said. “So very very soothing.”

Mrs. Clutcher was breathing heavily now. Her licking and sucking and manipulation of Claires breasts, while still gentle, compared to the violence of her love-making with Bart and Andre, grew more insistent and demanding. She moved her free hand under the waistband of Claire’s silk bloomers and pushed down to run her fingers into the soft patch of hair between her legs.

“Umm,” Claire sighed. “Oh, Miss Susan, whatever are you doing?” She made no effort to stop Mrs. Clutcher in her attentions either to her breasts or he spot where her fingers were gently exploring between her legs.

Mrs. Clutcher made no comment, but her breathing grew ragged as well as heavy. She continued sucking Claire’s nipple, although she had shifted her attention to the nipple on the other breast. She put her newly freed hand up inside her own skirt and after some initial difficulty among the petticoats and her own bloomers, she found the place she was seeking. Her other hand, which had remained between Claire’s legs found the spot she had been seeking, the same spot that Andre had recently attended with his tongue. Immediately Mrs. Clutcher’s finger produced sensations similar to, if of a somewhat different exotic nature.

Claire found herself surprised that she could be sexually aroused by another woman, but she had also been surprised by her response when she had made love with two men at the same time, especially when one of them had allowed the other to fuck him in the ass while he had been fucking her with his tongue. She remembered, even as Mrs. Cluther’s finger was raising her to a high level of excitement, how Andre had told her back in Baton Rouge, “You won’t know if you like it unless you try it.”

No more than a few minutes passed in Mrs. Clutcher’s bed before Claire felt herself approaching a climatic moment.

“Oh, Miss Susan,” she whispered hoarsely, as she began to feel the now-familiar approach of a climax. Her body began to tremble (not entirely involuntarily) and her breath came in gasps. “Oh, Miss Susan. I feel so strange. Oh, dear, I feel as if I am going do die.”

Mrs. Clutcher continued her attentions to Claire unabated and to herself in silence until Claire began to shake in earnest. Her legs jerked in quick spasms and she spread them apart pushing her pelvis against Mrs. Clutcher’s hand. Mrs. Clutcher too showed signs of reaching a climax and after a few more seconds of violent breathing, she withdrew her hand and wiped it on a handkerchief she pulled from a pocket.

“Put your clothes on, Claire,” she said. “And do something about your hair. It’s quite disarranged.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Claire said, then “I wonder if I may ask you a question.”

“Yes, what do you want?”

“I wonder if perhaps you are prepared to offer me employment.”

“Employment?”

“Yes, ma’am. I believe that is what Miss Ophelia had in mind when she invited me for luncheon.”

“Did she? Well, yes, I think she said you had some French or was it arithmetic.”

“Both, ma’am.”

“She’s in charge of the teaching staff. I only manage the business affairs.”

“Perhaps then, I could help you manage your affairs.”

“Don’t be impertinent.”

“No, ma’am, it’s only that I do need employment or else I don’t know how I shall get on. I shall be quite desperate, actually. I don’t know to what extremes I might have to go to in order to survive.”

Mrs. Clutcher eyed her closely with the devious visage which had been captured quite accurately in the sepia-toned photograph in the hall.

“I’ll speak to Miss Ophelia on your behalf,” she said, “But I’m sure Miss Ophelia will want to have her own interview.”

“That’s quite all right,” Claire said. “Do you think Miss Althea will want one as well.”

Mrs. Clutcher looked at her with a hostility that overrode the devious visage for a moment.

“Don’t be impertinent.”

*****

An interview with Miss Ophelia was not convenient that afternoon, but she would see her in the morning. She arranged for Claire to spend the rest of the day at the school and to share a bedroom with Miss Greenbirch overnight.

When Claire had deposited her belongings with Miss Greenbirch, who revealed a first name of Rachael when she took Claire to her quarters, she borrowed writing materials from the woman and sat down in the front parlor to compose a letter to Andre. She enclosed that letter (inside its own envelope) with another brief note to Andre’s aunt and wrote on the outside of the second envelope the address on Rue Burgundy he had given her when she left him at the barge that morning.

She gave a maid, whom she found sweeping the steps of the house next door, a dime to deliver the letter, then sat down again in the parlor to read from a copy of Blaise Pascal’s Pensées she found in the bookcase. She had struggled with the text as far as the beginning of Article II, Misére de l’homme san Dieu when a letter was delivered to the school by a garçon from the household of Mme. Denise Dettonville, Andre’s aunt. The boy was instructed to wait for a reply.

The letter was written in French, but Claire read it easily – especially since she had only recently been immersed in reading Blaise Pascal.

My dear Miss Crane, the letter began:

I am delighted to know that you have found temporary refuge at the ÉcoleJuttison and that you are optimistic about permanent employment. I shall write immediately to our mutual friend Mrs. Merryweather and let her know you are safe for the present, and with good prospects for the future.

If you are free this evening, I would very much enjoy entertaining you for a modest dinner at my home. You are also welcome to spend the night as well if you wish. Doing so would allow you to have a leisurely dinner without the necessity of hurrying back to the école early in the evening – as I suspect there may be a curfew. Please let the garcon who bears this letter know if you can come and I will send a carriage at the hour you name.

I hope very much you will be able to come.

Denise Dettonville

Claire sent the boy back to tell Mme. Dettonville that she would be delighted to come to dinner and that she would be ready to leave in an hour if the carriage could be sent. She then went looking for Miss Ophelia, but found that she was conducting a class and could not be disturbed. She received a similar message from Miss Althea as well, and was informed that Miss Susan was napping with instructions not to be disturbed. Finding that Rachael Greenbirch was also not available, Claire wrote a note addressed to the Misses Juttison telling them that she had been invited for dinner and to spend the night with Mme. Dettonville, who she explained was the friend of Mrs. Merryweather with whom she had spent the previous night and that she had decided to go, so as not to inconvenience the Juttisons and Miss Greenbirch with dinner and the night’s lodging.

She quickly sponged away the interlude with Mrs. Clutcher and, although she wore the same silk underclothes, she changed her dress, choosing the close-fitting white eyelet she had ashore in Baton Rouge the evening she met Andre. She added a white silk scarf over her shoulders and arms. It was the middle of August in the hottest time of the year in New Orleans, but the scarf was necessary for fashion and modesty, not for warmth. When she was ready to leave, she waited on the leather sofa in the dark entrance hall so that she could get away as soon as the carriage arrived.

*****

The carriage delivered Claire to an ancient two-story mansion on Rue Burgundy on the downriver side of Esplanade Boulevard just outside the French Quarter in Faubourg Marigny, an old New Orleans suburb that was settled early in the 19th century by free people of color and immigrants from Italy and Germany. The house was built of brick that had faded to a pale shade of the original red. The old brick glowed in the orange light from the gas lanterns on either side of the door. She could see the a lamp burning beyond the cut-glass entry, but no light was visible behind the closed shutters.

Claire pulled the chain beside the wrought-iron grill protecting a cut-glass door. A chime responded softly from deep inside the house. The driver kept the carriage at the curb while Claire waited and Claire was glad he stayed. She would have been frightened standing alone on the dark sidewalk and hoped someone would answer the door right away. Except for the gas lights at the mansion and a bare electric bulb across the street, the only other illumination on the street was a gas light at the corner. Most of the street was very dark, especially the black holes that hid the doors into the other buildings on the street.

To Claire’s relief, the door was opened almost immediately by a black girl wearing a maid’s uniform. The girl was in her early teens, and she had a plain square-jawed face with a wide nose that dominated the region above a mouth that smiled at Claire.

“Are you Miss Crane?”

“Yes, I am. I’m here. . .”

“Oh, yes Miss Crane. We were expecting you. Please come in.” She stepped back and opened the door for Claire to go in. She spoke with a French accent, but her English was refined, not like the way Negroes spoke in Shreveport.

Behind her Claire heard the carriage clatter off down the street as she looked about her in the entrance hall. She made a soft gasp caused by her first impression of the elegance she had entered, but she had no time to look about her at length. A vision of dark-haired beauty was sweeping toward her.

“Bon Soir, Miss Crane. Bienvenue. Welcome. I am Denise Dettonville. I am so glad you came.”

"Merci, Madam. Enchanté,”

“Oh, parles-tu francais?”

“Oui, madam.”

“Delightful, my dear. How very delightful,” Mme Dettonville said speaking French. She clapped her her hands without making a sound doing so. “Dubby, let’s have some light in the upstairs back parlor, but not the oil lamps, let’s have candles. Candle light is so much better, don’t you think, Claire? May I call you Claire?”

“Oh, please do madam. Shall I call you Denise?”

“Oh, yes, do. I think Americans can sometimes be very entertaining – the women that is – not so much the men, except the younger ones. Young American men have such vigor and they're so virile.”

She used the French word garçons, when referring to young men. The French word implied a male in his late teens or early twenties, certainly not as old as thirty. Although it was difficult to tell, Denise appeared to be in her mid thirties.

“. . .but I find Americans who don’t speak French very tedious. One can say so many things better in French than in English don’t you think?” Denise continued.

“I haven’t thought much about it.” Claire answered. “I haven’t had much practice speaking French except in school. I read and write French much better than it speak it.”

“Then you must read and write French very well because you speak it quite well. Your accent perhaps needs some polish, but we can practice that, if you like.”

“Oh yes, I would like that very much.”

“Ah, good, very good.”

She spoke to the maid again as she followed them up the stairs, “Dubby when you have seen to the candles bring the wine – the Chardonnay – it should be chilled by now. And chill a second bottle also.

“You will have a glass of Chardonnay won’t you, Claire or would you prefer Sherry? Sometimes Americans do, but sherry is too heavy for the season I think, and white wine is so refreshing on a summer evening. We will sit outside on the veranda.”

Dubby brought the wine to them on the veranda. A breeze found its way over the rooftops bringing with it the particular summer smell of the Mississippi moving its great black mass past the city behind the levee.

“Now, tell me, how did you find the École Juttison?”

“I don’t really know yet, but I suppose I’ll have a job – teaching French and mathematics I think – but the Juttison sisters may prove to be difficult employers.”

“Oh, really?” How do you mean?”

“They are very unfriendly and they're very sour when they speak to you. I’m afraid they are also very parsimonious. Luncheon was a pretty meager affair and the girls ate in silence listening to a reading about women’s suffrage.”

“And don’t you think women ought to have the vote?”

“Why certainly, but it’s not pleasant to hear about it while one is eating lunch.”

“Indeed not. A meager affair, did you say?”

“Very. A thin soup–cabbage I think–but my portion did not have enough cabbage to be absolutely sure.”

“How dreadful! Besides not speaking French, the next most tedious thing about Americans is their lack of imagination with regard to food. It’s a shame they aren’t more inventive in feeding themselves and somewhat less imaginative in their dress. My dear! So many bows and puckers and ribbons and so little shoulder and bosom. And such heavy jewelry. They quite miss the point of being women.”

Claire laughed. “I hope you will help me with both food and dress.”

She looked at the Frenchwoman’s evening dress. Was it watered silk? And the color was wonderful, a deep blue. One would think it was black except where the candle light shown on it. She wore sapphire drops on her ears and a matching sapphire necklace. Her hair was very dark and beautiful, and it too shown in the candle light.

“You are very beautiful Denise,” she said. “I hope I’m not being forward in saying so. We have only just met.”

“How sweet you are, Claire. A woman always likes to be told she’s beautiful, especially by another women – if she’s sincere of course and not being sarcastic or obsequious. There are any number of women in the world quite capable of bitchiness, and you can never quite trust some of them to be truthful when they give you compliments.

“But, let me tell you that you are very pretty yourself. You look wonderful in white. So few can wear it well. One must be very young, and have flawless skin I think. Your skin is so smooth with such a rosy glow. There are too many like me in New Orleans – dark Creole women. We are quite common, but you will stand out from the crowd. Your beauty is so fresh, so fair. I would look like a full-rigged sailing ship if I wore white.”

The two women laughed together and drank their Chardonnay, talking of various things, wine, and clothes and hair styles and shoes. Claire was anxious to learn from the elegant woman.

After several minutes the wine began to produce a pleasant effect on Claire. She felt quite content and happy.

“The wine is wonderful, Denise,” she said. “To tell the truth, I’ve only had wine once before, and that was red. I drank some in a restaurant the night I met Andre in Baton Rouge, but I’m beginning to remember now that I liked it very much then too.

Andre had been on her mind since she arrived and she wanted to ask Denise about him. He was the reason she had been invited to visit Denise after all. She was wondering if he would also be there for dinner. She hoped he would.

“Will Andre be here for dinner?”

“No, not for dinner. He has an appointment with an associate. Political business I think, but he promised to look in later when he is free.”

"Politics? Is he involved in politics?"

"Why yes. He's in the state legislature. Didn't you know?"

"I'm afraid we did not talk very much the evening we met, and not much about his affairs at all on the trip down from Baton Rouge. I did wonder what he did--for a living I mean, but we never got around to talking about it."

"Well, then, you have a lot to learn about my brother."

“Your brother? I thought he was your nephew."

“Whatever do you mean?

Claire thought she had made a mistake speaking French. “I understand he is your nephew. Is that the right word in French? Neveu?” she said speaking English.

“Yes, the word for nephew is le neveu certainly. Did he tell you I am his aunt? I shall cut off his ears! He told you I am his Tante?”

“Yes, and I wondered that he could have an aunt as young as you, but then I supposed. . . “

“What a scoundrel that man is. He told you I am his aunt! What a knave he is. Such a scandal! He told me that you and he had quite a festive party the evening you met, but he only teased me with the knowledge, he refused to give me details, the scoundrel. He said you’d tell me all you wanted me to know.”

“Did he now?” Claire said and smiled. She was not yet prepared to comment further about the first night with Andre until she knew how much Denise knew about the man’s sexual tastes. If the man was in politics, the party she had had with him and Bart would not be safe to chat about.

“I shall cut off his ears and his fingers one by one, perhaps his testes as well. The very idea. I am not his aunt. Not at all! I am his half sister.”

“Oh, are you really? Why in the world would he say you were his aunt.”

“It’s his wicked wit, I should think. He’s referring to my – patron – who is his mother’s brother, but we have different mothers so to call me his aunt is a very bad joke on his part. I’ll cut off his ears and testes I swear. Perhaps I ought to make him a Jew.”

“What do you mean? How can you make him a Jew?”

“I will cut off his foreskin. I shall get him drunk and when he passes out, I shall circumcise him. And I shall use a very dull knife and pour raw whisky on his wound.”

Claire was only vaguely aware of what circumcision was, but it sounded drastic, especially the whiskey. She laughed. “ Oh, I do hope you don’t do him any damage there, if I know what you mean. It would be quite a pity. He is so well set-up as a man.”

Denise waved her hand to dismiss the subject. “Being his sister, I only know that sort of thing by hearsay. I do know he’s a great talker and I never rely only on his account of things. He’s also a great joker, but it’s hard not to love him. He’s so handsome and cuts such a very fine figure, don’t you think?”

“Yes, I think he’s very good looking, and I suspect he has any number of ladies setting traps for him.”

“Indeed, but he is a such a wily fox, he’ll not get caught – not until he finds a trap that appeals to him more than his freedom.”

Claire was pleased to find that Andre was not likely to get caught soon. He’d be free for her to enjoy for a while, he just hoped he wouldn’t lose interest in her too soon. She would much rather lose interest in him first. Remembering how he looked naked and how much pleasure he had given her, and she him, she began to feel warm inside. She was looking forward to seeing him later and she knew she was nowhere near losing interest in him.

“May I ask you a question?” she said.

“Certainly.”

“You said before that you preferred to speak French because – if I remember correctly – because one can say many things better in French than in English.”

“Yes it is true.”

“For instance?”

“Well in speaking of love, I think. French is such a lovely language for speaking of love – and for making love too I think.”

“You mean French has special words? What words does French have that English doesn’t”

“It’s not a matter of the words, exactly, it’s more the way the words sound when spoken in French. Some words sound so crude in English, but in French they sound, well, more sensual. Less rough. Less vulgar.”

“For example?”

“Well, it may be just a matter of taste, of course. Sometimes rough and vulgar words are exciting, but I much prefer a more gentile beginning. Do you know the meaning of the word pussy when one is speaking of sex? Well, when one says it in English, it sounds rather crude, I suppose because cats are not always friendly creatures, but when one says the word in French, it summons up a certain tenderness, a cosiness, a gentleness that is missing when one says it in English.”

“I’m not sure I know what you mean. I really don’t have much experience with the language of love making.”

Denise smiled. “Perhaps not a great deal, but I think you have some experience? With Andre perhaps?”

“Well, yes, that was indeed quite an experience, but I there really wasn’t much talk – even at the beginning. I think it was the wine. It all happened so very fast, and. . . well there was not a lot of talking.”

“Oh, my dear, that doesn’t sound like Andre at all. I sometimes think he prefers to make love with his mouth best of all.”

Claire burst out laughing. The wine was made her daring.

“Denise, what you say is quite literally true, he made love with his mouth, but he did almost no talking.”

“Oh, my dear!” Denise laughed. She clapped her hands. How clever you are and what fun! Now you must tell me all. There was no seduction over the wine?”

“I suppose the wine itself was the seduction. We had already drunk several glasses with Bart at the restaurant.”

“Bart? Bart Dillon, the barge man? With you and Andre? After dinner? Not really!”

“Yes, the three of us went to Andre’s apartment after dinner. Bart introduced me to Andre. I came down from Shreveport on the river with him.”

“Did you? What an adventure you must have had. Now you really must tell me all about your voyage – and about the night in Baton Rouge. Was it Bart then who did the talking.”

“No one talked much, including me, except right at first, before anything happened, except maybe between the two of them while I was having my bath.”

“Between the two of them? Oh, do tell me all about it. I must confess, I find the idea very exciting.”

“It started with the two of them teasing me about eating Crawfish at Pierre’s restaurant.”

Denise called Dubby and asked for another bottle of Chardonnay and told the girl to tell the cook to take her time with dinner.

Chapter 5

2004-11-11T07:25:00.000-08:00

Claire waited on an old leather sofa where she had been told to
sit by the woman who answered the door. The sofa was in a dark
entry hall and faced a yellow-faced clock hanging on the opposite
wall. Behind the glass front of the clock, a pendulum marked the
slow passing of time making a sound that was more of a clunk than
a click as the minute hand crept from one Roman numeral to the
next.

The hall was illuminated only by the dim light that managed to
filter through the screen of shade trees in front of the house
and shine weakly through the frosted glass pane of the front
door. Outside the door was a plaque of polished brass that read:
“Juttison School for Young Women.” The school was in a large old
house on a tree-shaded street of the American Quarter, where the
Greek Revival architecture of the homes and their expansive park-
like grounds distinguished that part of the city from the close-
packed commercial buildings and anonymous fronts of the homes in the Vieux Carré where the descendants of the original French
residents of New Orleans lived as separately as possible from the
Americans on the upriver side of Canal Street.

Clair had left Bart and Andre at the barge where it was tied up
at a wharf at the foot of Bienville Street in the French Quarter.
Andre had decided to accompany them from Baton Rouge and he had
assured Claire that he had many good friends in New Orleans that
would provide her with very good food, wine and other diversions.
When she left the barge, he gave her a slip of paper with the
name and address of an aunt where she could contact him when she
was free after her meeting with Miss Juttison. Claire had begun
to like Andre very much since the first exciting night in Baton
Rouge and she was looking forward to being alone with him without
a third party. They had made plans to meet later in the day if it
were possible.

She set out from the dock at 7 o'clock in the morning carrying
her heavy pasteboard box and pillow case stuffed with clothes.
She had to take her possessions with her because Mrs. Dillon was
expected at the barge in mid-morning. The box was tied with heavy
twine that cut into her fingers. She had to put it down and rest
several times and shift it from one hand to the other often. Now
both palms were red and swollen from carrying the box. She
listened as the wall clock struck 11 o'clock with a dull sound
that matched the clunking of the pendulum.

She was dressed in a fresh dress, one of her favorites, a cotton
print covered with small pink roses, and she had rubbed her black
patent leather shoes with a dab of lard to make then shine.
During the long, hot walk, however, she sweated through the dress
in front and under her arms, and her shoes were dusty from the
streets. Her hair was plaited in braids which were wound into a
neat bun on the back of her head, but it was damp too and
although she had not seen herself in the mirror, she knew her
hair probably needed attention.

She saw a mirror on the wall next to the door where she had come
in and she got up to go see if she make any improvement to the
way she looked. She had only walked a few steps toward the mirror
when she heard the sound of footsteps behind her. She turned and
saw a tall grey-haired woman coming out of the dark hallway
toward her.

"Miss Crane?" the woman asked, looking first at Claire, then at
the pasteboard box and pillow case on the floor beside the sofa.

"Yes, ma'am," Claire said. She stood up and smiled. "Are you
Ophelia Juttison?"

The woman nodded but did not return Claire's smile. "Yes, I'm
Miss Juttison," she said. The woman looked closely at Claire
through steel-rimmed glasses. Her eyes were close set and her
lips were drawn into a sour pucker that looked as if were
probably permanent.

"What is it that you want, Miss Crane?"

"I. . . that is, Miss Elizabeth Belton, a friend of my mother’s
in Shreveport said I should come see you when I got to New
Orleans."

"Yes, that's what Miss Greenbirch said you told her, but what do
you want?"

Claire did not know what to ask for. Aunt Elizabeth had only told
her to find Miss Juttison. She had not told her what to expect
from the meeting. Claire had not thought beyond the necessity of
finding the woman and presenting herself to her. She had not
thought she would need to know what to ask for, but it seemed
that Miss Juttison expected her to know what she wanted.

"I think Miss Belton thought you might be willing to help me."

"In what way?"

"I need to find employment. And I need a place to stay."

"I see," Miss Juttison said, but her expression seemed no more
enlightened than before and her mouth increased its pucker. She
stood looking at Claire closely for several long moments without
speaking, inspecting the younger woman's hair and dress and shoes
as if she might find the answers to several questions she
disliked asking but wanted answers to.

"Have you come to New Orleans alone?" she said finally. The
pinched-mouth frown deepened.

"Yes, ma'am."

"You have been traveling alone?"

"Yes, ma'am."

“How is that?”

"On the train, ma'am," Claire lied. Miss Juttison certainly would
not like knowing that she had made the trip on a barge alone with
a river man. She also intentionally misinterpreted the older
woman’s meaning, replying as if the woman had wanted to know how
she had traveled rather than why she had traveled alone.

If Miss Juttison detected Claire’s answering a question she had
not asked, she did not say so.

"You traveled all the way from Shreveport? And alone?"

"No ma'am, from Houston."

"I thought Miss Belton lived in Shreveport with her sister’s
family."

"Yes, ma'am she does. But I lived in Houston."

"Why did you leave Houston?"

"My mother died and I no longer have a place to live there."

"No relatives to take you in?"

"No ma'am."

"Why did you decide to come to New Orleans? Shouldn’t you have
stayed in Houston where you are known by people?"

Claire had begun to dislike the woman's questions and she also
disliked having to remember the string of lies she was telling.
She wished she had spent more time thinking about the interview
and a plausible story to tell the woman.

"I. . . that is, Miss Belton thought there would be more
opportunity in New Orleans, ma'am. It’s much bigger than Houston
and has more opportunities. I have also heard that it is more
cultured."

“New Orleans is a hostile place for young women, especially
pretty young women. And Culture is a matter of taste. How old are
you?"

"Twenty." Now she had another lie to remember.

"How do you know Miss Belton?”

"I cleaned for her sister, and I sewed for her sometimes when we
lived in Shreveport," she added quickly. She included the detail
about sewing, because it was closer to the truth than the
cleaning. Aunt Elizabeth did most the cleaning in the Crump
household, but Claire sewed for both her mother and her aunt.

"Do you sew well?"

"Yes, ma'am, pretty well."

"Did you make your dress?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Miss Juttison’s pucker eased a bit and she looked more closely at
Claire's dress.

"Did you pick the material yourself?”

“No ma’am. Not directly. My mother gave it to me – before she
died.” That was only partly a lie. Claire’s mother had given her
the cloth as a birthday present.

“Did you sew it on a machine?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Can you do hand work too?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Embroider?"

"Yes, ma'am. And I can crochet too."

"Crochet? Indeed?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Needlepoint?"

"No ma'am, but my grandmother taught me lace making and tatting."

“How much education do you have?”

“I’ve finished highschool.”

“Did you study a foreign language?”

“French ma’am.”

“Depuis quand êtes-vous ici?”

Claire looked at the clock on the wall. “About half an hour,” she
said. She did not think Miss Juttison’s French accent was
particularly authentic – at least she did not sound quite as
correctly French as Mademoiselle Beauvoir, her teacher in Shreveport.

“Répondez en français.”

“Je suis ici depuis la demi-heure, madam.”

“A Novelle Orleans non ici a la maison.”

“Aujourd’hui.”

"Today? Indeed? Are you good at arithmetic?”

“Oui, ma’am. Je crois.”

“You may speak English now.”

“Yes, ma’am. I believe I’m fairly good at figures.”

“But no needlepoint?"

"No, ma'am."

"Sit there and wait," Miss Juttison said gesturing towards the
sofa.

She watching Claire as she sat down, then she walked off down the
hall, back into the gloom from which she had emerged. Clair
returned to the sofa and the vigil of the clunking clock.

When she had stared at the clock for the better part of another
half an hour, she got up from the sofa and walked about in the
better lighted end of the hall inspecting the ornaments and
pictures. Overall the room had the look of elegance, but of the
sort that made the impression that the house had at one time
enjoyed a better economy. An occasional table below the clock
provided for the display of a smallish plate with an ivy-covered
Gothic church building painted in the center surrounded by a
scalloped gold border. Gold old-English letters identified the
building as Christ Episcopal Church, established 1803.

Turning to look at the wall behind the sofa she saw a sepia-toned
photograph of three women tightly enclosed in an oval wooden
frame which appeared to be birds-eye maple, but which on closer
examination revealed itself to be painted faux-bois. Two of the
women were seated and the puckered mouth of the one on the left
revealed her identity to be none other than Miss Ophelia
Juttison. The seated woman on the right, while not quite so
puckered as Miss Ophelia had a somewhat duplicitous expression
suggesting that she would not be particularly reliable. The woman
standing was younger than her sisters and prettier but with perhaps more internal anger in her countenance than the other two.

The Juttison Sisters

“That’s Miss Ophelia and her sisters.”

Claire turned to see that Miss Greenbirch, the woman who had
answered the door earlier, had returned.

“Oh?” Claire said. Are they all associated with the school?

“Well, yes,” Miss Greenbirch answered. They all live together in
their own apartment, but only Miss Althea – she’s the youngest –
the one standing in the middle – actually teaches. Miss Susan –
she’s the other one – she manages things.”

“Manages things? What does she manage? I did not get the
impression talking to Miss Ophelia that she would need help
managing anything.”

Miss Greenbirch eyes opened wide and her eyes darted quickly back
into the gloom in the dark end of the hall, as if to see if
Claire had been overheard. “Shh!” she said looking back quickly
at Claire and then at the picture over the sofa as if it too
might be listening. “You’ll want to be careful about what you
say, Miss Crane. Miss Ophelia and Miss Susan are really very
particular about any sort of insolence.”

“Oh, I hope I didn’t sound insolent. I just meant that Miss
Ophelia seems to be quite capable.”

“Oh, yes, she is, but Mrs. Clutcher is very capable too.”

“Mrs. Clutcher? Who is she?”

“That’s Miss Susan’s married name.”

“Then Miss Susan is married?”

“Well, no. Not any more. Mr. Clutcher died. She’s a widow.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. And how about Miss Althea? Is she married
too, or a widow?”

“No, she’s never been married.” Miss Greenbirch looked quickly
into the gloom and at the picture again. “She’s not likely to
either.” The last sentence was spoken in a whisper.

“Oh? Why not. She seems pretty enough and she has a sweet
expression.”

“I don’t think Miss Ophelia and Miss Susan will ever allow it.”

“No? They don’t want her to marry?”

“They won’t let a man get close enough to ask her.”

“Surely there ought to be some men in New Orleans they would
approve of.”

Miss Greenbirch too another quick look around. “They don’t
approve of men at all.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“They are quite hostile to men. They think they are all brutes
and beastly and are the ruin of women altogether.”

“How odd. Why did Mrs. Clutcher ever marry if that’s the way they
think?”

“I’m sure that’s a mystery, but he didn’t live very long, so it
didn’t matter in the long run.”

“How did he die?”

“He vomited to death.”

“Vomited to death? That really seems strange. What was the cause
of his vomiting. Did he have a disease or was he poisoned by
something?”

“I’m sure I don’t know. I understand that he just started
vomiting one evening after supper and died within an hour.”

“Not really! But wasn’t the cause investigated?”

“It must have been looked into I’m sure, but I don’t know. It
happened before they moved to New Orleans. I think it was the
money Mrs. Clutcher got from Mr. Clutcher’s estate that they used
to establish the school.”

“Then at least one man has proved to be fortunate for Miss
Ophelia and her sisters,” Claire said, then before Miss
Greenbirch had an opportunity to reply, she added: “Did Miss
Ophelia send you to talk to me?”

“Why yes. How silly of me not to have told you already. Miss
Ophelia said for you to put your things in the cupboard there. .
.” She pointed into the gloom “. . .and to bring you to the
refectory for luncheon. Afterward you’re to visit with Mrs.
Clutcher – actually we call her Miss Susan, not Mrs. Clutcher.
She doesn’t like to be called Mrs. Clutcher by the staff or the
girls.”

*****

Luncheon, a meager affair consisting of a thin soup and bread,
was eaten in silence. At a table raised a step above the other
diners, the three Juttison sisters were arrayed side by side in
the same order they held in the photograph in the hall except

that Miss Althea was seated rather than standing between her
sisters. The girls, who ranged in age from about 6 years old to a
few that Claire thought might be about her own age, where seated
at three long tables. Three women, older than the students, were
seated at a separate table. Miss Greenbirch led Claire to a seat
at this table and they two sat down quietly without exchanging
introductions or greetings, only silent nods recognizing the
arrival of the two.

In spite of the fact that more than twenty young women occupied
the refectory, the room was not filled with laughter and chatter
as one might expect in a room filled with young women. Instead
they listened in silence as one of the older students, who was
seated alone at a small table in front of the raised dais, read
from a tract explaining the virtues of women’s suffrage.

After no more than half an hour, the reading stopped and at the
Juttison sisters’ table Miss Ophelia shook out a loud clang from
a brass bell she picked up from the table. Immediately every one
in the room stood and the refectory emptied quickly.

Miss Greenbirch took Claire’s arm as the two got up.

“Come with me. It’s time to meet the other sisters,” she said.
Her voice had a nervous edge.

She led Claire to the raised dias and the two stood looking up at
the three women who remained seated gazing down at them, like
three judges in a French law court.

“Miss Susan. Miss Althea. This is Miss Claire Crane,” she said,
then added quickly and appearing even more nervous, “Miss Ophelia
has already met Miss Crane,” she said nodding at Miss Opelia.
Miss Crane, this is Miss Susan. . .”

Miss Susan nodded with the same duplicitous expression exhibited
in the photograph in the hall.

“. . .and this is Miss Althea.”

Miss Althea smiled with a bit of anger in her countenance. “How do you do,
Miss Crane?” she asked.

Miss Susan rose abruptly followed by Miss Althea quickly and Miss
Ophelia more slowly and with greater dignity.

“Come with me, Crane,” Miss Susan said with little grace and
great severity and walked toward the door without looking back.

She led Claire up a back staircase to a large parlor on the
second floor and waved her into a straight-backed chair facing a
velvet chaise lounge where Miss Susan settled herself by putting
her legs up on the chaise and kicking off her shoes.

“Now, Crane,” she said. “Let’s have an accounting of yourself.”

“Accounting, ma’am?”

“Exactly. Tell me why you took it upon yourself to travel, quiet
alone, I understand, from Houston, where you must have had at
least a few friends who could have been helpful to you in your
destitution, to New Orleans where you know no one, and where it
is necessary for you to depend on the kindness of strangers.”

“My mother died. . “ Claire began, but the older woman waved her
hand dismissing the beginning.

“I know about that. You told my sister that much. In taking off
from Houston alone on a train – she pronounced the word ‘train’
if it were the equivalent of a gypsy wagon – where you could have
been severely compromised in several unpleasant and disgraceful
ways by marauding men who would have used you shamefully and
abandoned you. What could you have been thinking? I hope, very
sincerely that you were not compromised during the journey. You
were not, were you?”

“Oh no, ma’am. No not at all. I took great care to prevent any
such thing. I made the acquaintance of an elderly woman who was
traveling with her maid and put myself under her protection.”

“Indeed? What is the woman’s name? Perhaps I know her. Did she
detrain in New Orleans?”

“No, ma’am. She was traveling on to Birmingham, in Alabama.”

“I know where Birmingham is,” Miss Susan snapped. “What was her
name?”

“Josephine,” Claire said Christening her fictitious benefactor
with the name of one of her mother’s friends in Shreveport.
“Josephine Merryweather. Mrs. Josephine Merryweather. And her
maid’s name was Mary. I don’t know Mary’s last name.”

“One generally doesn’t know a maid’s last name–unless that’s the
name she’s called. I prefer to call a maid by her last name. I
only call someone by her Christian name if I hold her in special
affection.”

“Yes, ma’am,”

“I must tell you, however, Crane, that I don’t believe a word you
say. I don’t think you came by rail. The train only arrived from
Houston at ten o’clock this morning, much too late for you to
have made your appearance here as early as you arrived. And the
previous train was day before yesterday. If indeed you came by
train, where have you been keeping yourself – surely not alone in
a hotel, I hope.”

“Oh, no ma’am.” Claire decided she needed a new strategy and she
needed one quickly. She remembered the Juttison aversion to men.

“Well, Crane?”

“Oh, Mrs. Clutcher, I had hoped to avoid the horrid thing that
forced me to leave home, but I think I must throw myself on your
kindness and understanding by telling you the truth.”

“I should certainly think so. And don’t call me Mrs. Clutcher. I
prefer ‘Miss Susan.’”

“Yes, ma’am, Miss Susan.”

“Well, I propose you start telling the truth immediately.”

“In the first place, I did not travel from Houston, but from
Shreveport. The train arrived last evening and Mrs. Merryweather
was kind enough to break her journey to keep me company with her
maid at a friend’s house in the French Quarter.”

Claire felt she was on safer ground now. She knew for a fact when
the last train had arrived from Shreveport. Andre had mentioned
it during the trip down the river from Baton Rouge.

Claire expecting to be asked the name of Mrs. Merryweather’s
friend, and she was prepared to produce the name of Andre’s aunt
in the French Quarter, but Miss Susan did not pursue the matter.

“Go on,” Miss Susan said. “Why did you leave Shreveport? Not
because your mother died, I presume.”

“No ma’am. I ran away from home.”

“Ran away? I declare. Whatever for? That doesn’t recommend you
particularly well, you know, but I trust you had a good reason.
Tell me what possessed you to flee your home?

“Oh, Miss Susan, I had to run away. My father beat me very badly
and I had to leave because I was afraid he would do so again. My
aunt, Elizabeth Belton, Miss Ophelia’s friend helped me. She put
me in touch with Mrs. Merryweather, who took me under her wing
during the journey here.”

“Your father beat you? Why did he beat you? What had you done?”

“I refused to marry the man he chose for me.”

“He beat you because you refused to marry?”

“Yes, ma’am. He wanted me to marry a very old man. . .” She
calculated Miss Susan’s age quickly as being greater than the 40-
year-old Mr. Birder. “. . .an old man of sixty who had grown
children older than me.”

“Not really.”

“Yes ma’am. And I just couldn’t bear the idea of intimacy with
such a man.”

“Well, I should think not. How dreadful. I certainly can see why
you objected to having a dreadful old beast wallowing around on
you – such a pretty fresh young woman. So sweet and pure as you
are! The idea is repulsive in the extreme.”

“Well yes, ma’am. That and because he beat me. I’m afraid I may
have permanent scars on my back as a result.” Tears came into
Claire’s eyes, aided by nervousness and fear.

“Oh, you poor thing. Come here closer and let me comfort you.”

Susan Clutcher beckoned for Claire to join her beside the chaise.
Her severity of expression abated somewhat, but not the visage of
duplicity which was as permanently set as in the photograph.

Claire knelt on the carpet beside the chaise lounge. Miss Susan
put a hand on her head and drew the younger woman to her breast.
“There, there, my sweet. Let me comfort you.”

Claire relaxed into the woman’s breast as much as was possible
considering the stiff corsetting that constrained Susan
Clutcher’s bossom.

Miss Susan caressed Claire with her hand, moving it gently on the
girl’s back. Does it still cause you pain?”

“Yes, ma’am, some.”

“Let me see.”

Claire turned her back to the other woman still kneeling beside
the chaise. “Would you unbutton me please, ma’am?”

“Oh, yes, dear. Indeed I will.” And Susan Clutcher began with
fingers that trembled just slightly to unfasten the buttons of
Claire’s dress. The degree of severity on the older woman’s face
was modified again, this time by a knotting of the muscles of her
jaw.

Chapter 4

2004-11-08T11:39:00.000-08:00

Claire soaked for a long time in the big white porcelain tub that stood on shiny brass legs over the tile floor of the bathroom. She rubbed herself with soap again, and ducked back under the water to rinse. The men had taken baths first quickly so she could bathe last and take her time. She had left them sitting in thick white terrycloth robes smoking on the balcony that looked out over the Mississippi. She ducked under water again and picked up her wine glass from the table next to the tub. She frowned. It was empty, so she decided it was time for the bath to be over.

She got out of the tub and dried on a thick terrycloth towel like the robes, then slipped on the robe Andre had left for her and tied it around her waist. Toweling her hair, she made her way across the dark parlor toward the doorway to the balcony. It was lighted by moonlight shining over the water.

The two men were sitting in wicker chairs drawn close together on the far side of the balcony with their feet propped up on the railing. They moved quickly, putting their feet on the floor when they hear her approach. In the moonlight, Claire saw Bart remove his arm from across the Andre's shoulder, and Andre moved an arm too that may have been resting on Bart's leg, but Claire could not be sure because the men had their backs to her.

What she had seen seemed odd, even for two men who were very close friends.

Andre stood up and took her hand.

"More wine?" he asked.

"A little," she said. "Thank you."

He left the balcony for a moment and Claire sat in the chair where he had been next to Bart. She looked at the man.

"Did Andre have his hand on our leg?" she asked. She was giddy from the wine. Perhaps she had been mistaken.

"Frenchmen are like that," Bart said. "They show other men more affection than American men do."

"Oh," Claire said. "Don't you mind his doing that to you?"

"Why would I mind?"

"I don’t know. It just seems odd."

"Why’s that?"

"I don't know," she said again. "It just does."

"You're not the only one who's willing to try anything once," he said and chuckled.

She thought showing that kind of affection was strange, and Bart's offhand manner made her think maybe it had something sexual about it. The idea puzzled her because the idea of men having sex with each other was entirely new. She had no idea how or why two men might have sex together.

She had been thinking of Andre naked while she soaked in the tub. She had seen his bare feet and hairy calves below the terrycloth robe and knew he had nothing on underneath. The thought was exciting and she did not like the idea that she might not be included in whatever they were up to.

Andre Beauxyeaux

"Did you like eating crawdads?" Andre said behind her as he returned with the wine and handed it to her.

She drank a sip and put the glass down on the railing.

"Yes," she said. "I really did, but I already told you that."

"Then you must remember not to decide about something until you've tried it."

He bent down and kissed her on the mouth, then put a hand inside her robe and pinched gently on her nipple. She was startled, but the wine had slowed her thoughts and she did not move away from the kiss or his hand for a long moment. Then she remembered Bart in the chair next to her. What would he think? But she felt a hand on her other breast pinching the nipple with a different touch. Bart, she thought and relaxed under the hands.

Andre got down on his knees in front of her chair and began kissing her inner thighs, moving slowly upward with his lips, spreading her legs further apart with his broad-muscled shoulders as he went. Her heart began to beat faster and she moved herself toward his mouth. She reached down and felt the hard muscles of his arms as they pulled her to him.

She spread her legs wider, wanting him to hurry. Taking the crisp curls of his hair in her hands, she pulled him toward the place where she wanted him to be, but he would not be hurried. The tiny stickers of his smooth-shaven cheeks brushed along her inner thighs.

"Oh, Andre, she said. "I like that."

The Frenchman's mouth reached its goal between her legs and his tongue continued inside.

"Bart," Claire cried with a soft whimper, "Pinch harder."

Bart dragged hard-calloused fingers over her nipples and she shuddered as Andre continued to give her pleasure between her legs.

Bart worked the nipples between his thumb and forefinger, harder now.

The wine and the sensations she was feeling began to take hold of her.

"Oh, yes, Bart," she whispered. "Oh, Andre, yes, yes."

The Frenchman pulled his face away and spoke softly. "Are you ready to try something else new?

"No, Andre, don’t stop," Claire said, almost crying in her need for him to continue what he had begun. "Please don't stop."

"Come with me," he said. "We must go inside and do it right."

He took her hand and led her to the bedroom. He had dropped his robe on the terrace and was naked in the moonlight. She looked at his hard body and put out her hand to feel his butt. It was hard and smooth, like marble, but it was not cold like marble.

Bart, also naked now joined her with Andre walking toward the open French doors. She felt his big hand cupping her ass, and when she looked she saw that Bart had also cupped Andre’s ass with his other hand.

They walked through the open doors into the bedroom where Andre fell on the bed on his back.

"Come, mon cher," he said motioning to Claire. "Sit here on my face and I'll treat you to something else new."

She got in bed as he told her and straddled him facing the man’s stiffening prick with one knee on either side of his head, but she was too slow for him and he pulled her down to him, pushed his tongue back into her. She closed her eyes in pleasure and leaned back, thrusting her tits into the air and squirmed herself against his face.

Bart got into the bed with them and stood straddling the Frenchman with his legs spread. He was facing Claire and he took her tits in his hands again. She opened her eyes and saw his big familiar dick thrusting upward, bobbing in front of her face. His hairy thighs bulged as he stood with his legs spread apart and moved his hips back and forth in front of her face, making his heavy testicles swing back and forth between his legs.

She squirmed again pressing down on Andre's mouth, then reached out and took Bart's nuts in her hand and pulled him toward her. He moved closer on the bed until the head of his dick was inches from her mouth. The head showed like a round ball under the swollen foreskin. She could smell its maleness and feel the heat of it so near her nose and mouth.

In the dim moonlight shining through the door to the balcony, she could see a pearly drop glistening at the end of his dick.

"Taste it," Bart whispered. "Lick it off with your tongue, Claire, darling."

She looked at the glistening drop shining on the end, the drop grew heavy and fell in a long stringing drop, disappearing in the darkness of Andre's heaving chest between her legs.

That's his seed, Claire thought. I don't want to have a baby.

"Oh, Bart," she whispered. "I want to, but it's got your seed on it."

"It won't give you a baby just to taste it, Claire sweety."

“I don’t know. . .” she whispered.

“You won't know if you like it till you try it."

She smiled then reached out with her tongue and touched another glistening drop that had replaced the first one. It was salty a little, and sweet a little, and she liked it.

She licked the head all over then and sucked gently at the slit for more seed. Bart let out his breath through his mouth in a long, contented sigh.

"Ooh, baby, you're something else." he sighed.

Just then, Andre touched someplace inside her with his tongue that sent shivers of delight through her. She squirmed hard again on his face and plunged her tongue under the foreskin of Bart's dick, pulling the skin back from the head with her hand, she began running her tongue around and around on the head.

"Oh, yeah, baby," Bart sighed. "That’s it, sweetheart."

He thrust his hips toward her again and she opened her mouth wider trying to take more of the man. Andre pulled her down tighter and moved his face from side to side between her legs. She opened her mouth wide and pushed hard on the Bart, trying to get still more of him into her mough, but the thick shaft stuck without going down her throat. She gagged and tried to cough. White stars exploded behind her tight-shut eyes and she drew back, but Andre touched the spot inside her again and that brought more white stars of a different kind and she tried again even harder to force Bart’s dick down her throat. She opened her mouth wide and managed to take a little more.

"Goddamn, yes," Bart croaked . "Goddamn, sweetheart, eat it. "Eat the fucking thing."

Claire backed off from trying to swallow the shaft, and squirming on the Frenchman's face, she licked and sucked the big head hard, squeezing the shaft and milking it, wanting more of Bart's sweet-salty seed. The shaft was slick from her mouth and her hand moved fast up and down the slippery shaft.

"Easy, sweetheart," Bart said. "Easy or I'll come too soon."

He pulled back away from her and reluctantly she let go of him, but looking down she saw Andre's dick throbbing and hot between his legs in front of her. She reached out and took it in her hand. It was not as thick and fat as Bart's but it was much longer. She ran her hand down the length, pulling the foreskin down off the flaring head. She bent over and sucked a glistening drop of seed from Frenchman's dick head, then ran her hand further down the shaft into the patch of hair around the root.

The root was hidden from view in the hair and she discovered that he was much longer than Bart. Andre drew his legs up and bucked up into the air, pushing his ass from the bed and thrusting against her hand. He heart pounded as she moved her hand further and further down the shaft discovering how very long it was. It was longer than Bart's, much longer. It seemed to grow even longer. There was no end to it, then finally her fist reached the end in the curly nest of hair between his legs. She moved her hand back up the shaft slowly, marveling at the length. It seemed almost as long as her forearm.

"God," she said aloud. "It's so long. Bart. Look how long his dick is!"

"Don’t I know it, honey," Bart laughed. "It's a humdinger. Longest one I've ever seen on a white man, and he knows how to use it too. Just wait 'til he fucks you with that thing." He chuckled. "Baby," he said. "I like being along while you discover the world."

She did not answer, but bent over again and took the Frenchman's dick in her mouth. It was not as thick and fat as Bart's dick and whe was able take it more easily. She sucked the pipe dry of seed again then relaxed her throat and took deep breath. Slowly she went down on the long shaft. Slowly, inch by inch, she took the man's dick further and further down her throat. She had managed a little less than half the length when she coughed and had to pull back, but she took another deep breath and began again.

Deep in the pit of her stomach she began to feel a new ache, very much like the one between her legs. She pushed the dick into her mouth slowly again. It seemed that somehow if she could swallow enough of it, she could make it reach the ache down deep, that it would even reach the spot where Andre's tongue was giving her such pleasure.

Again and again she took the young man down her throat, and each time she managed to swallow a little more. Each time she pulled off, she would run her tight fist up and down the full slippery length milking his seed, wanting it more and more each time she stroked it. She was concentrating so hard on swallowing Andre's cock all the way, that for a while she lost track of what else was going on in the bed.

She opened her eyes to see Bart on his hands and knees in front of her. He was kneeling now and Andre's legs were spread wide apart on either side of Bart's thighs. Bart had Andre's nut sack in his hand and was squeezing the nuts in his fist and pulling them gently away from Andre's groin, twisting them as he pulled.

Andre still had his tongue deep inside her, and as Bart pulled and squeezed the man’s nuts, Claire heard a muffled moan from the man under her. He flexed his big-muscled thighs and thrust his butt up off the bed, pushing his dick further into Clalre's throat, stretching his legs further apart.

"Umm" he moaned. "Umm. Umm.”

Claire took Andre's dick from her mouth for a moment to watch as Bart pulled and twisted on the young Frenchman's nuts. With one hand he cupped Andre's ass where the root of his cock disappeared into his body, then he began to work his hand on the the man's ass the way he had worked Claire's tit out on the balcony.

"Um. Um umm," moaned the Frenchman and spread his legs wider apart, pushing and squirming against Bart's hand.

Claire watched fascinated at what Bart was doing to the other man and now much Andre was enjoying it. For a moment, she felt a touch of jealousy, but Andre's hot tongue carressing her own hot spot reminded her that she was getting her share of pleasure too, and she decided that what Bart was doing to the man was making Andre work on her harder too. Just to make sure, however, she reached out and pulled Bart's head to her tits.

He took a nipple in his mouth and sucked hard. She held him against her for a moment, but with him sucking her tits, she could not see what he was doing to Andre, so she drew back to look.

Bart put the thick middle finger of his hand in his mouth, then put it dripping with spit against the pucker of Andre's asshole.

"Um. Umm," Andre moaned again. He moved his head enough under Claire to say in a rasping whisper, "Oui, chaud homme, Yes, That's it," then he went back to licking inside Claire with his tongue.

Claire pinched her own tits and rocked back and forth on the Frenchman's face getting more excited as she watched.

Bart pushed the first knuckle of his finger inside the other man as he continued to pull and twisted on the man's nuts. Andre squirmed, thrusting his stiff cock up in the air.

"Suck my cock, dearest," he rasped from between beneath her. "Mon Dieu Claire mon cher, suck my dick. I am dying."

She took the man in her mouth again and pushed the long shaft deep inside her, much deeper now that she had begun to learn how.

Andre make noises like muffled crying between her legs. His chest heaved and his pectoral muscles were hard between her legs. His rippled flat stomach moved in and out as he thrust up harder with his thighs. Bart shoved the finger another knuckle deeper inside the Frenchman.

Claire reached down, still sucking juice from Andre's cock, and began kneading the mounds of muscle on the man's chest. Under her, the man made a noise in his throat. It sounded as if he were begging for something.

Bart shoved the finger all the way inside the man. Again Andre made the noise, begging for something.

Bart turned his finger in the man's ass, stretching the sphincter, then he began pumping it in and out of him. Andre made the begging noise again.

Claire continued working the hard muscles on his chest. She touched his nipples and they were hard and swollen, like hers were inside Bart’s mouth.

"Um, ummm," Andre begged. He sucked and thrust his tongue hard between Claire's legs.

"Pinch his nipples, Claire" Bart told her. "He wants you to pinch his nipples. It drives him crazy."

"Uh, huh, Uh huh," Andre grunted, nodding his head between her legs.

Claire took the hard balled ends of the man's nipples in her fingers and pinched.

“Eeeee. Uh huh. Uh huh.”

"Harder," Bart said. “Do it harder.”

He moved between the Frenchman's legs pushed his knees under the man’s ass. The Frenchman lifted his butt so Bart could get under him.

"Uh, Uh-huh."

Bart pulled hard on the nutsack and took his finger out of Andre's butt. He rocked back, and with his free hand put the head of his fat cock between the cheeks of the man’s ass and pushed against him.

Beneath her, Andre grunted and moved his ass away from Bart. Claire watched with fascination. She could not believe what Bart was trying to do, but the idea of seeing him try to fuck another man in the ass made her even more excited. She pinched hard on Andre's nipples, then sensing how she could help, she took one hand away and put a finger in her mouth. She reached down and put the wet spit on the Frenchman's sphincter, making it slippery. She spit in her palm and rubbed it on Bart's dick.

"Oh, yes," Andre said from under her ass. She took Bart's wet swollen dick and began to guide it into Andre. She pulled the foreskin back and put the fat round end of the head to the shincter and held it there until Bart pushed into the man, stretching the opening just enough to hold his dick in place.

“Umm. Umm,” was the sound the Frenchman made. He lifted his ass and pushed toward Bart.

"Uh, uuh, uuh," He was making the begging sound again.

Claire closed her mouth on Andre's dick, sucking. She pinched his tits hard. Bart pushed forward with his dick and the head disappeared inside the other man.

Andre squirmed beneath them. "Eeeee. Eeeee."

Claire kept pinching Andre's tits and took his dick deep, shutting her eyes and seeing white stars again. She opened her eyes to look at Bart's dick close enough to smell his man smell, and the shaft was buried halfway inside, stretching the Frenchman wide.

"Mmm," she sighed, remembering how the man had stretched her like that on the barge. "Umm," she moaned squirming on the Frenchman's face and choking on the long dick she had in her throat.

"Ooooh," Bart whispered. "That’s good, man. You got a sweet ass buddy. So good. Oh, you're my hot asshole buddy."

Andre was making the begging sound again. Claire pinched his tits hard and, keeping her eyes open this time took his cock deep down her throat.

Bart drew back until just the head of his dick was in Andre, then thrust forward slow and steady. Inch by inch his fat cock pushed inside the younger man. Inch by inch the swollen shaft stretched Andre wider and wider. Claire watched fascinated as Bart’s dick disappeared fat inch by fat inch inside the man.

"Eeeeee." Andre bucked high in the bed, then reached for the backs of his thighs and pulled his legs higher and spread them wide so Bart could enter him further.

When the Frenchman threw his legs up, it pulled his shaft partway out of Claire's mouth, but she went with it and pushed it down her throat again.

Bart put both hands on the backs of Andre's thighs and shifting his weight to give himself room, he bagan to fuck Andre hard. He pounded into the man again and again, pushing deep him, landing hard with the full weight of his big butt against the man's widespread ass. Bart was fucking so hard, Claire could not keep Andre's dick in her mouth and she leaned back to watch.

He pinched Andre's tits and swirmed on his face, watching the Bart fuck the younger man. It was violent, angry fucking. Harder and faster than Bart had ever fucked her. She wanted to be fucked like that she thought. I want to get banged with his big ass like that. She pinched harder and harder on Andre's nipples. The young man squirmed under her and rocked up with his butt to meet Bart's hard fucking thrust for thrust.

"Eeeee," Andre cried. The cry was muffled as he continued to work his tongue between her legs "Eeee, eeee, eeee."

Claire felt the thing coming again, like the time when she and Bart had fucked on the river bank. It was building deep inside her, between her legs where Andre worked with his tongue and in the place she had tried to touch with Andre's long peter down her throat. She wanted the dick in her mouth again and pushed Bart back to get to it.

She opened her throat wide and pushed the length down towards the spot. Then in a flash of pleasure Andre's dick touched the the spot where the young man was working with his tongue.

Under her, Andre pushed up with his ass to meet Bart's pounding.

"Ooooo," Claire moaned. It was coming now. She drew back off Andre’s cock and cried out. "Oh, eat me. Eat me, Andre. Fuck him Bart. Fuck him hard. Oh, I"m coming. I'm coming."

She took Andre in her mouth again and pushed hard and the dick was all the way inside her, stretching down her throat and hitting the spot over and over. She saw white stars and the orgasm took her. Her face was in the nest of Bart’s hair. She smelled Andre’s hot sweaty ass and saw the thick dick ram hard all the way and hold there just inches from her eyes.

Through her passion, she heard Andre cry out, "Oh God, I'm coming too. Fuck me Bart. Please fuck me hard. I'm coming."

Claire pulled back from the man's dick in time to see a thick white stream jet from the man's dick, then took the man again in her mouth as he shot again and again, filling her mouth and her throat with his hot, sweet come.

"Yeah, baby, drink his come, sweetheart. Suck him dry," Bart rasped. "Oh, God, I'm coming too."

"Oui, mon Dieu," Andre moaned from under Claire's ass. "Shoot in me, Bart, mon cher. Shoot your hot come in me."

Gourged by Andre's dick down her throat and with the man sucking hard on the spot where his dick hit inside her, she could no longer see Bart’s dick buried in Andre's butt. All she could see were white stars.

Chapter 3

2004-11-08T09:34:00.000-08:00

Baton Rouge was big, the biggest city Claire had ever seen, much bigger than she remembered Houston. Buildings and wharfs stretched along the Mississippi River for a half mile or more as they passed by one after another along the bank. The barge cast a long shadow across the water toward the city. The sun would set before long.

Bart guided the craft from the stern with a tiller. The river had been wide as a sea for days, ever since they left the Red River and entered the Mississippi. They stayed close to the shore now and the muddy bank moved by faster than it had on the Red.

Claire was a little scared as they bore down on an old wooden landing ahead and she did not know how they would stop once they got to it, but Bart was calm as he sat in the stern at the tiller guiding the barge toward the ancient wharf.

Behind the river front, up on a high bluff, Claire could see wooden warehouses, and beyond them, tall buildings in the town. Most were red brick, like in Shreveport and Alexandria, but some were buff-colored stone and taller than any she had ever seen. The wharf came toward them faster now. Bart jumped up from the tiller and ran forward on the deck. Agile for his size, like a quick moving bear, he picked up the end of a mooring line coiled on the bow and tossed the loop on the end high up and over a bollard on the dock.

The line payed out fast and stretched taut as the barge continued down river on the current. Then the line stretched even more as the craft turned slowly until the bow pointed upriver. Bart ran back and yanked the tiller over, and the barge swung against the wooden pilings, then stopped with a bump that made Claire grab hold of the deckhouse door facing. Bart threw a stern line over another bollard, and they were fast to the shore.

He sat down on the deck to pull on his boots, then turned with his back to the city to unbutton his pants and tuck in his shirt. Claire watched impatiently. She was already dressed to go ashore. She had gone inside the cabin and pulled her best dress on over her shift when Bart first pointed out the city on the shore ahead. The dress was white eyelet with ruffled collar and cuffs and fitted her close over her breasts and hips. Too close, Papa had said, but she had sewed it herself and was not about to pull out the stitches and to make it bigger.

Bart went back Inside the deckhouse to get his hat and Claire went in after him to hurry him up. It was cooler now, but waiting for them to land, even in the shade had been hot and she was afraid of sweating through the dress, making dark wet spots under her'arms and at her waist.

Besides, she was excited and ready to go ashore and see the town.

"It'll still be there whether we hurry or not," Bart said, smiling at her impatience.

"I'm so excited," she said. "What will we do first?"

"Whatever you want. If you're hungry, we can eat supper."

"In a restaurant at a hotel?"

"I ain't dressed right for that. You got to have on a necktie."

"Oh."

"But there's a good place not too far away where the food's better than any restuarant. You ever eat Cajun food, Widow Leblanc?" He grinned at her.

She smiled back at him. "You mean like the French people that live on the bayous down here?"

"Yeah, that's the ones."

"No, I never ate any of their food. Is it good? Pappa said they were dirty and would go to hell because they're Catholics and they drink whiskey."

"I don't expect they're more likely to go to hell than a Baptist preacher that beats his daugher, Widow Leblanc, and they're no dirtier than most. No cleaner either, I reckon, but they can cook like all get-out. Crawdads and hot pepper stewed up together with rice and beans. Sausage stuffed with rice and pork too, called bo-dang."

"Crawdads?" She made a face.

"Don't go turning your nose up at something you ain't never tried now."

She smiled. I guess you're right. I'll try anything once."

"That's my girl," he said. "Let's go. I'm hungry.

He propped a ladder from the deck of the barge to the wharf and they climbed up. When they were at the top, Bart pulled the ladder up after them and stuck it under a dense growth of foliage sprouting from a willow stump next to the bank beside the wharf.

"Why'd you do that?" Claire asked.

"I don't want the ladder walking off while we're gone."

"Oh," she said. She felt uneasy. New Orleans was much bigger even than Baton Rouge. What would it be like there if thieves would take a boatman's ladder in Baton Rouge.

*****

The building looked from the outside more like a saloon than a place to eat, Claire thought, but she could Tiear the noise of dishes and smell food from the sidewalk outside. She stayed close to Bart and followed him in through the open door.

Inside was hot and heavy with the smell of spicy food. A momentary lull in the babble of voices let her know their entrance had been noticed, then the talk started up again, but she could not make out anything that was being said.

"Are they speaking French?" she asked.

Bart nodded yes, but did not speak. He was looking around the room as if trying to find someone.

"Hey," a man's voice shouted over the general noise of the diners. "Hey, Dillon."

Bart looked around to find the voice shouting his name.

Across the room he saw the man standing behind the bar pouring liquor into a shot glass from a dark green bottle.

"Pierre Boyo," he shouted back at the man and waved. He took Claire's hand and pulled her across the room toward the bar where he took the man's hand and shook it laughing.

"You ol' son-of-a-gun," he said. "How you doing?"

"Good, you old river rat. Tres bien. Tres bien." The Cajun was looking at Claire.

"Uh, Claire," Bart said. "Meet my friend, Pierre. Pierre, this is, uh – Claire.

"Enchante," Pierre said. He extended his hand across the bar and when she gave him her hand, he bowed over it and touched it lightly with his lips. "Pierre Beauxyeux, at your service, Madamoiselle,” he said looking up at her with his head still hovering over her hand.

"Claire - uh. . ." She looked out the window behind the bar. In the distance she saw a white bird flying against an orange sunset over the Mississippi. "Claire Crane," she said.

"Enchante," Pierre said again, looking closely at Claire then back at Bart.

Bart saw the man look first at Claire then at him.

"Where's that worthless brother of yours anyway?" Bart asked.

"Ah, yes, your good friend Andre," he said and smiled again at Bart. Something was odd about the smile, Claire thought, something that the men knew between them.

"He's about. In the back, I think. He'll be delighted to see you, and Madamoiselle Crane." He again looked at Bart with the same strange smile as before. He gestured toward a table. "Sit down – over there by the window where there's a breeze from the street. And here, take some wine."

He poured red wine from another dark green bottle into glasses with long stems and pushed them by their bases toward Bart. "I'll tell him you're here."

Soon a good looking young man approached the table. He waved at Bart and spoke before he reached them.

"Bart, mon ami, mon tres bon ami."

"Yo, Andre. You're a sight for sore eyes, you handsome devil."

Andre sat down in a chair on the opposite side of the table from Bart and Claire. He had a French accent like his brother, Pierre, but not quite as strong. He was younger than his brother. Twenty-four, he said when Claire asked. And he was very handsome, with dark, almost black eyes, and dark brown curly hair that seemed to shine in the light from the candle on the table. His teeth were straight and white and his eyes flashed when he smiled at her in the candlelight, which he was doing now, amused by something she had said about eating crawfish. She felt a strange warmth stirring in the pit of her stomach as he looked directly into her eyes.

"Have you ever eaten the crawfish?" He asked the question as if he were asking more than merely a question about the food.

"Well, no. Is it good."

"I think it is very good and so does our good friend Bart. Isn't it very good Bart."

"It's very good," Bart said smiling. He too spoke as if he were talking about something else.

"Then I guess I ought to try it," Claire said. The feeling stirred again as Andre continued to look into her eyes. ". . .If you both think it's that good." Somehow she felt as if she too were now talking about something other than food.

"Claire's the kind of girl that will try anything once," Bart said. "Aren't you Claire, sweetheart."

Claire smiled looking into Andre's eyes. "Yes, she said, "I'm willing try just about anything once."

"Oh, good. I think that is an excellent thing -- that that you have an adventuresome spirit," he said.

Claire saw him glance quickly at Bart, meeting the other's eyes. "It delights me to find a woman with a spirit of adventure. Don't you agree, bon ami," he said.

"Sure do," Bart grinned. "How else you gonna find out what you like."

The two men smiled at each other and Claire thought of the expression on Pierre's face that had puzzled her earlier.

"So. . .," Andre said looking back at Claire and fastening his eyes on hers. ". . .we will see what we can find for you to try. Would you like that?"

"Well, yes, I think so," she said then added, ". . .at least once anyway."

She drank from her wine glass and looked down at the liquid for a moment. She had already finished two glasses before they ate, and this was her third. At first, the wine seemed bitter, but after a swallow or two, she began to enjoy the subtle taste hiding under the bitterness. She also like the effect it had on her spirits. She was feeling happy and light hearted. Andre was having a strange effect on her and she was enjoing how it felt.

She looked up and met Andre's eyes. And she had never seen such a handsome a man. Memories of the nights on the barge floating downriver rose into her mind and found herself wondering what it would be like to have Andre on top of her naked. She could see he was muscular under his clothes – not big like Bart's barrel-chested, bear body, but well built in a classic way. The biceps of his upper arms filled out his sleeves the twin mounds of his pectoral muscles pushed against his shirt front. The top buttons were undone under this collar and she could see the deep valley that ran down between the mounds.

The wine was taking away her inhibitions and she found herself wondered how big his dick was, if it was big like Bart's. Then she became aware of her thoughts and almost afraid as Andre looked into her eyes, that he could read them.

She sipped again from her wine and found the glass empty.

"Ah, you have finished your wine," he said. "Shall we go then?"

Both men stood up from the table.

"Go?" Claire said. She had been deep in a fantasy about the Cajun man and had missed an exchange between him and Bart.

"Yes, to Andre's house," Bart said. "He has some better wine and the air will be cooler nearer the river."

"And there will be something new for you to try," Bart said.

"Oh, what? A different wine?" Claire was still sitting at the table. She was looking up at the men, but her eyes were at the level where Andre'sa shirt was tucked into his trousers and she could not resist the temptation to glance lower. He eyes did not remain there for more than in instant, but what she saw increased her excitement. When she looked back up into his eyes, she saw that he had noticed the glance at his trousers.

He smiled at her and fussed at tucking in his shirt more firmly, and arranging his tousers a bit as well, smoothing them down in front as her eyes followed his hand. "Yes, a different wine to be sure," he said, ". . .and something else that will make you feel like a new woman."

"What?" Claire said. She felt her excitement continuing to grow.

"First, after your trip down the river, I thought you would like a bath in a real tub with running water."

"A bath in a tub with running water?" Claire said. "A wonderful idea."

She got up from her chair, then had to sit back down quickly. "Oh," she said. "I'm a ittle dizzy."

The men laughed. "It's the wine," Andre said. "Here let me help you. Just get up slowly and I will support you. The fresh air outside will make you feel better in no time."

He took her hand to help her up and then put a strong arm around her waist. He put his other arm around Bart's shoulder and together the three left the establishment. Smiling, Andre's brother Pierre watched them leave.

He reached over and patted the butt of the bar maid standing near him. "Marie, I think my brother is about to have a party," he said.

"Oui, Pierre," she said. "But a very private party. Le ménage à trois, n'est pas?"

"Mais oui, mon cher. Mais oui," he said.

"We might have le ménage as well. Should I send for my friend Collette to come at closing time? "

"Mais oui, mon petite cher. Mais oui," he said.

Chapter 2

2004-11-06T11:57:00.000-08:00

Claire hurt between her legs, but it was a dull hurt and had a good feel to it, not like the awful way her behind and back hurt after the beating. She stretched under the blanket, liking the way the rough wool rubbed across her bare nipples. They also hurt from his pinching them, but it had a good feel to it too. She smelled coffee and opened her eyes.

Inside the deckhouse was dark, but she could see the grey light of early morning under the cowhide that hung over the door. She heard whistling from somewhere outside and felt the floor underneath sway slightly to one side.

Bart pushed the hide away and came in. Inside the deckhouse was a little lighter from the morning light coming in, then plunged again into shadow when the opening closed again. Claire sat up onthe quilt pallet on the floor, pulling the blanket up to cover her breasts.

"Morning," Bart said. "I brung you some coffee."

Claire reached for the enamel cup, but he held it away from her and turned it so she could take it by the handle.

"Careful," he said, "It's hot. I don't want you to burn yourself."

"Thank you," Claire said, smiling at him as he sat down next to her on the pallet.

Bart was barefoot and naked from the waist up, wearing only trousers. He was a lot older than her, maybe as old as her papa, but he was big muscled and hard – hard all over she remembered, hard belly and butt, big hard thighs covered with brown hair that looked wiry but felt soft as down rubbing between her legs with the hard thing between them. She had known a man had a thing – which is all she knew to call it – but she had not known a man's thing got hard and as big as Bart's. She had seen one on a baby boy changing diapers in the church nursery, but the boy thing was little and soft and looked like a fat pink worm.

Without thinking about it, Claire reached out and touched Bart's chest. It was hard under the mat of brown hair. She remembered how he felt tight against her in the dark. Another feeling, like she had felt last night replaced the dull hurt between her legs.

Bart frowned at her. "Careful, you'll spill your coffee," he said.

Claire pulled back her hand, puzzled by the frown.

Bart sipped from his coffee.

"Why didn't you say nothing last night?" he asked.

"What do you mean? About what?"

"You know. That you hadn't ever been with a man before."

"I don't know. I started to, but after a while – just before you. . . just before we started doing it, it didn't seem to matter. Nothing seemed to matter. I mean, did it matter to you?"

Bart did not answer right away, but sat looking down into his coffee cup.

"I would have been easier at first and tried not to hurt you. Maybe I wouldn't have done it at all."

"But I wanted you to, and you didn't hurt me, at least not much, and it only hurt a little at first."

"Still, the first time for a woman . . .” he said. “Well it ought to be special, not on a pallet in the deckhouse of a river barge."

Claire did not answer. She let the blanket drop and set the enamel cup on the floor beside the pallet.

"It was special enough,” she said. “Do you think a pallet is special enough for the second time?" she asked.

*****

Claire sat on deck in her shift and watched the dense green river banks move by on either side of the barge. Thick willows hung over the water and brushed the sides of the boat when Bart took it close to the muddy red bank. Once a snake, green like the willows, dropped aboard from an overhanging branch, then looking like a tiny green river itself , twisted across the deck and over the side into the red-brown river.

Bart walked the deck back and forth with a pole keeping the barge in the center on the stream, except from time to time going closer to one side than the other or pushing clear of half sunken logs that blocked the channel. Claire asked why sometimes he steered away from the middle and he told her because that was not always where the deepest water was, but he did not say how he knew. He was still barefoot, but wore his shirt unbuttoned and loose, not tucked into his pants.

In mid-morning, the river widened out and he came to sit by her while the barge drifted with the downriver current.

"The river was what made Shreveport a port, but there's not much traffic now. It keeps getting choked up with logs, and most of the freight goes by railroad now anyway,” he told her.

"My grandparents, Mama's mother and father, came up the river when they settled first settled western Louisiana," Claire said. "Granna used to tell me about it. They came from Tennessee down the Mississippi to New Orleans on a barge, maybe like yours, then took a paddlewheel boat up the Mississippi to where the Red River joins it, then to Shreveport. Grandpa bought a farm outside town and that's where they lived until Grandpa died in 1900. Mama sold it after Gramma died. That was in '03."

The log raft’s built up too much on the river for paddle boats now. Big ones never could get past Alexandria most of the time."

"I like the river better than the train," Claire said. "I rode the train to see Papa's folks in Nacogdoches, Texas one time."

"Your paw's the preacher, ain't he?" Bart asked. His voice was soft and gentle.

Clair nodded.

"He the one that beat you?"

She nodded again.

The beating was how they got started making love the night before. Her back and butt hurt too bad to lie down except on her side and she had to sit down and get up slowly. Bart saw tears in her eyes and asked her what was wrong and she told him her husband had got drunk and beat her and that was why she had to get out of Shreveport or he might do it again.

"I thought you was a widow. Who's your husband?" he asked.

"You don't know him. We live over in Bossier City."

He looked at her like he had another question – probably about how she knew Aunt Elizabeth – Betty – but he did not say anything else except to tell her to stay out of sight in the deckhouse until they left Shreveport.

Later, when they stopped for the night and Bart tied the barge to a tree on the bank, he asked her if she wanted him to rub witch hazel on her back again, and she said yes. That is how it got started the night before. Now of course, he knew she had never been married because she was a virgin when they first made love.

"Why'd your paw beat you?"

"He wanted me to marry somebody and I said no."

"Who?"

"Isaiah Birder."

"Why didn't you want to marry him? He's got a business and a big house on Maple Street."

"I don't love him. Besides, he's too old and fat."

"He's younger than me. A lot younger."

"But he's soft and fat. You're . . .”

"Any way,” Bart interrupted. Don’t get any ideas about marrying me.

“Well, not especially, but I know one thing. I loved what you did last night."

"Hush," he said. "You shouldn't talk like that." He sounded gruff, but Claire could see he was trying not to laugh.

"Why not?"

"You know just as well as I do why not. Decent folks don't talk about it – not decent women anyway – and men just talk dirty with whores and other men."

Claire knew he was right, but she was not ready to be quiet about it yet.

"What's it called?"

"What?"

"What we did."

"Ain't decent to say."

"Bart, you tell me now. If you've done it with me, I at least have the right to know what we did."

"We made love."

"That's just kid stuff, like kissing and holding hands. It's got to have another name when a man puts his thing in a woman."

"Fornicating."

"That’s an awful thing to call it. Fornicating is supposed to be bad. It says so in the Bible.”

"I guess some folks think it is bad.”

“Isn’t there some other word, besides the one from the Bible. I don’t like that one.”

Yeah, but it’s not decent to say it.”

“Tell me.”

“It’s called fucking.”

“Fucking? I like that better. It sounds exciting.”

Yeah, we been fucking, and I guess it is exciting, but they'd skin me alive in Shreveport if anybody every found out I been fucking the eighteen-year-old virgin daughter of the Baptist preacher."

"Seventeen."

"God Almighty damn!"

"What's a thing called?"

"What thing?"

"A man's thing. The thing between your legs. I know it's called something besides a thing. Claire could see he was trying not to laugh.

“It’s not a word you ought to know.”

"Why not?"

"You know just as well as I do why not. Like I said before, decent folks don't talk about it – not decent women anyway – and, like I told you, men just talk dirty with whores and other men."

Again, Claire was not ready to be quiet about getting the answer to her question.

"What's it called?"

"Depends.”

"Depends on what?"

"I don't know. Who you're talking to. What you're going to do with it. If you talk to a doctor about it, you call it a paynus."

"Paynus?"

"Yeah. And sometimes you call it a peter and sometimes a prick. Sometimes a dick. It just depends."

"Peter and Dick? Why not Tom or Harry?" She laughed.

"I don't know. I guess you could call it that if you wanted to."

"What about the sack thing under? What’s that called?"

"The doctor word is testicles. There's two of them in the sack. The dirty words are nuts or balls. They're what holds a man's seed. When the seed shoots out, it's called coming. When you shoot seed in a woman, it's what gets her with a baby."

"Baby? Did you put seed in me? Am I going to have a baby?"

"No. I pulled out and shot on your belly. I knew you was a virgin and probably didn't know nothing, but if you get come in you, you might get a baby. Sometimes you do and sometimes you don't. You have to be careful. It depends on your time of the month – when you bleed. If you get your period and bleed after you do it, you won't have a baby."

"How do I be careful?"

Bart shrugged. "I don't know. You need to ask a woman. You need to find you an old black woman in the Quarter in New Orleans when we get there and ask her.

Claire was quiet, thinking about what Bart had said. She was disappointed. Something she had thought was pure pleasure had a risky side to it.

*****

Late in the afternoon, Bart tied the barge to the shore again for the night and built a fire to cook their supper. He put potatoes under the fire and left it a while to burn down into coals.

As Claire watched from the barge, the man stripped off his shirt and trousers and dove into the water. For the brief moment he stood on the bank before diving, Claire saw for the first time in the light a fully naked man. He was hairy on the chest and legs and had a narrow trail of hair that traced a path from his chest to a thick patch between his legs. His – what had he called them? – his dick and balls hung pendulous between his legs from the nest of hair. The hair on his chest like his beard, was sprinkled with grey.

He stayed under the water for a long time, but not long enough for her to be concerned, then came to the surface, blowing water and air from his mouth like an animal.

"Come on in," he called. "It feels wonderful after being in the sun all day.”

"I don't know how to swim," she called back disappointed. The water looked wonderfully cool and refreshing. "I'll drown."

"No you won't," he said. "It's shallow. Look, I can stand on the bottom."

He lifted both arms over his head and stood dripping water from his beard. The hair on his head was wet and plastered down. He looked young, except for the beard almost like a boy.

Clair got up and pulled the shift over her head. She stood for a moment naked for the first time in her life in the open air. At first she was shy, afraid without the protection of clothes that the man would not like the way she looked, but then she saw admiration in Bart's face and tossed her head back for him to look at her.

"Come on in, love," he coaxed and clapped his hands on his chest.

She stood for a moment longer on the deck, then jumped toward him.

The water took her, smooth and cool on her skin like silk sheets. Her head went under for a moment, then she felt his arms take her and draw her to him. She kept her eyes shut and let them fondle her; Bart's gentle hands and the cool smooth water. She put her head back and felt his lips on hers, first gentle, then harder, more insistent.

******

She held him tight and lifting her legs she wrapped them around his waist. She buried her face in the soft wet hair of his chest, then slowly she slid her body downward slowly until she stopped resting on the the stiff jutting shaft of his dick which was now hard and hidden under the water. She held tight and buried her face in the soft hair of his chest.

"Fuck me again, Bart," she said. "Fuck me here in the water."

*****

Claire washed out her shift in the river and while Bart fried ham and made coffee over the fire, she lay naked on the blanket Bart had spread for her on the grass. After they ate, Bart rubbed witch hazel on her back and butt again. The redness and swelling were going away, he told her, except for the places where the strap had cut into her skin, but they were healing too, he said and probably would not leave scars.

"I got a woman in New Orleans," Bart said as he packed the witchhazel away in a wooden medicine chest.

Claire turned onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Just that I already got a woman in New Orleans. I won't be able to keep you once we get there."

"I didn't plan on anybody keeping me. I don't plan to belong to anybody."

"It ain't easy for a woman if she don't have a man to take care of her."

"I don't want a man owning me. That's why I didn't want to get married to Mr. Birder. I don't want to belong to anyone but myself."

"It's hard for a woman to be on her own. Not anywhere, but especially not in New Orleans."

"I got the name of somebody to look up," Claire said.

Bart looked relieved. Claire was uncertain whether it was because she already had plans for when they got to the city or because he was not expected to figure out something for her himself. Either way, Claire was annoyed at him for some reason she could not exactly put her finger on.

"Anyway, I plan to look after myself. I don't want to belong to anybody," she said again.

"Not many women can get by on their own except whoring. Even then, most times, they live in a whorehouse with someone taking care of the business side."

"I don't plan on being a whore either."

"I just brung it up so you'd know what you was up against when we get to New Orleans."

Claire was quiet while Bart cleaned up the frying pan and put out the fire with water he dipped from the river with an old leather bucket. When the fire was out, he dipped a second bucket full and put it aside to let the silt settle out overnight to make coffee with in the morning.

"How long before we get to New Orleans?" Claire asked.

"About two weeks from Shreveport this time of year. Maybe a little less if it's been raining upriver and the current picks up."

"How do you get the barge back to Shreveport once you get to New Orleans? You don't have an engine on it."

"I pay a steam tug to pull me back up along with maybe five or six others. Used to, before they had the tugs, you just sold the whole barge for lumber once you got there. Most of the houses in parts of New Orleans were built out of barge boards."

"Will we go through any towns?"

"We get to Alexandria tomorrow, but I don't aim to stop.”

“Why?”

“Nothing to stop for. They ship a little cotton on the river still, but I got a full load from Shreveport. Anyway, lots of folks know me there. Your paw may have sent word out to be on the lookout for you. If somebody saw you with me with a young woman like you, they might put two and two together."

“Do we go through Baton Rouge?"

“Yes, middle of next week probably."

“Can we stop in Baton Rouge?"

"Why?"

"It's the state capital and I'd like to see it."

"People know me down there too."

"But it's a big place. Surely we wouldn't stick out too much."

"If my woman in New Orleans heard about us being together, there'd be hell to pay."

"Just tell her the truth; that I was running away from being beat by my paw."

"That wouldn't prove nothing to her."

"Would she really think we'd been fucking all the say down ther river?"

Bart laughed. "You act like you're the only woman I could pleasure. My woman knows me pretty well."

"Even if I'm only seventeen and a virgin."

"You ain't a virgin no more."

Claire looked back at him angry, but she did not know exactly why. Something about her was still virgin, she thought, even if a she had slept with a man. She let the subject drop for the time being.

"She won't know you fucked me unless you tell her. I won't."

"Well, it would give me some talking space if it came up, I reckon."

"Then we can stop in Baton Rouge?"

“Well, maybe. Most of the folks that know me are river folks anyway. None of them is likely to know my woman. Probably don't even know I got one."

"Oh, then we can stop."

"I'll think about it."

Chapter 1

2004-11-06T07:22:00.000-08:00

Clarinda Roemyrtle Crump sat on the front porch of the Baptist parsonage and frowned at Mr. Birder while she waited for her younger sister, Cordelia, to bring out the pitcher of lemonade for her and her suitor. At least the lemonade it would have ice in it. Their papa, the preacher of the River Street Baptist Church, had told Mama to buy some ice so Mr. Birder could have his lemonade cold.

She hoped drinking iced lemonade would make him sick. She had heard that ice cold drinks made old people get the cramps, and Mr. Birder was close to forty, which might not be old if you were forty, but it was old if you were seventeen. That is how old Myrtle was, seventeen, and Papa told her last Sunday night she had to marry Mr. Birder. She hoped he would get sick from the lemonade and have to go home.

They were sitting in straight chairs she had dragged out on the porch from the dining room before he got there. She had put one in the late afternoon sun near the railing, and one in the shade, which is where she sat until he got there, but he dragged the other one out of the sun into the shade too, up close to hers instead of sitting in the sun across from her.

"Don't you want to sit in the swing?" he asked smiling. He had a crooked incisor on the upper right side and it lapped over the tooth next to it. Long hairs grew from his nostrils and he had black tufts in his ears.

"Makes me sick to swing," she said.

"You was swinging last Sunday when I was here."

"Makes me sick today."

Behind them the screen door banged shut as Cordelia came out carrying a tray with a pitcher of lemonade, two glasses, and a plate of raisin oatmeal cookies. Chunks of ice rattled in the pitcher when she put the tray down on the wicker table under the living room window.

"Mama said you-all might like some lemonade to cool off with," she said.

"Thank you kindly, Miss Dee," the man said.

Myrtle set her jaw tight and said nothing.

"You're welcome, Mr. Birder," Dee said and smiled at him all sweetness and light. She put the tray down on a table between the two straight chairs and went back in the house.

Myrtle hated her sister for being nice to the man. She was fifteen and thought marrying Mr. Birder would be wonderful. He owned a hardware store on First Street and had a big house with two bay windows on the front and a maid to cook and clean up and mind the three kids he had by the wife that died in childbirth a year ago the fourth of July.

Well, Myrtle thought, Dee is welcome to him, but Myrtle was not ready to marry any body, especially an old man with three kids already, no matter how many bay windows he had, including the one pushing out his trousers behind his belt.

"Arguing won't do you any good," Papa had said, but she argued anyway and he sent her to her bedroom to cool off.

"I didn't ask you if you wanted to get married," he said. "Mr. Birder is a good Christian man and he'll make you a good living. Be thankful to God Almighty he wants to marry you when he could have any woman in Shreveport. Me and your mama have seen you through school. You can't spend the rest of your life sitting around the house doing nothing but eating three meals a day off my table.

“What do you expect in life anyway? Women get married off if they're lucky enough for somebody to want them. You want to be an old maid like your Aunt Elizabeth, eating off your sister's husband and sleeping on the parlor sofa with no place of your own?"

Aunt Elizabeth got up and left the table without finishing supper, but her brother-in-law pretended not to notice.

"What do you think you'll do if you don’t get married?”

"Teach school."

"For the rest of your life? Women teach if they can't find someone to marry them.”

"I'm not an old lady. I'm just seventeen. If I do decide to get married someday, somebody else will come along and want to marry me then."

"Somebody has already come along. Myrtle."

"But Papa, folks don't tell their kids who to marry like they used to do. People marry who they want to nowadays. It's 1916."

"And that's what's wrong with the world. There's people going to Hell all over because they've lost all sense of morality. Christians don't do something just because the world does it, young lady. ‘Be in the world, not of it,’ the Bible says."

"But, papa, I don't love Mr. Birder. He's old and he's got a pot belly and hair in his nose."

"Myrtle, you stop that kind of talk. It's no kind of talk for a lady. You’ll learn to love what's good for you. Now stop talking back to me and make up your mind to do what I say. I'm your Father and I know what's best for you. ‘Honor your father, the Bible says.’"

That was when he sent her up to the bedroom she shared with Dee and that was the last he said to her about it. Her mama was the one who came to tell her Mr. Birder was coming over on Wednesday after supper to sit on the front porch with her and drink iced lemonade.

Mr. Birder cleared his throat. Lemonade sure looks good," he said looking at the pitcher on the table between them.

Myrtle nodded with her teeth clenched tight but did not speak.

“Sure would like some," he said.

"Then get some," she said and did not move to get it for him.

The man's face turned red and the hairs in his nostrils stood out straight, but he did not say anthing. Myrtle glanced at him after a moment and saw that his face was not as red, but he was staring at her with a hurt look on his face. He saw her look in his direction and cleared his throat again, then he spoke.

"Miss Myrtle," he said, "I hate for us to get started off wrong. I admire you very much and, like I told your Paw, I can make you a good living–give you just about anything you'd want."

“Nobody’s paid any attention to what I want yet.”

She looked at him when she spoke and saw his face get red again. By now the sun had moved far enough for the whole porch to be in the shade. She go up and moved her chair away from him to the railing. His face looked red enough now for him to get sick without drinking the iced lemonade, but being mad had made her mouth dry as powder and she got up to pour a glass for both of them.

She handed him the glass and sat down again.

"Thank you, Miss Myrtle," hje said and drank a big swallow.

She nodded but said nothing, watching his Adam's apple jerk up and down. After a moment, he spoke again.

"Is there somebody else you got your head set on? Somebody maybe your Paw don't know nothing about?"

It was none of Isaiah Birder's business, but she answered anyway, telling him the truth.

"No."

"Then I guess I just don't understand, Miss Myrtle. I thought you liked me."

"I like you all right, Mr. Birder. I just don't want to marry you. I don't want to marry anybody. Not now."

"But, I can make you a better living than most any man in Shreveport.”

"Shreveport's not the whole world."

"I got my hardware business and the house, and. . ."

"And three kids already."

"They're good kids."

"I guess so, but I'm not ready to be a mother yet–not for kids that aren't mine."

"That's not a very Christian way to talk. A good Christian woman ought to want to look after three motherless children."

"Looking after them and being their stepmother's not the same thing."

"I don't know what's different about it."

"Teddy is thirteen, almost as old as I am. I don't even remember before he was born. I was too young."

"I don't know what difference that makes."

"Sleeping with his paw for one thing. I'd rather sleep with Teddy."

There. She'd said it and damn him. She did not want him and his bay window wallowing all over her.

"Miss Myrtle! That's... That's not a decent thing for a lady, particularly a young lady like yourself to be talking about. You shouldn't even be thinking about things like that, much less saying anything like that. What do you know about that sort of thing anyway? It's not fitting to say to a man on you're paw's front porch, him being a preacher and all."

"You did intend to sleep with me didn't you? If I married you?"

Mr. Birder's face went purple-red now, but he did not look like he would be sick. He was just mad.

"That's not something a Christian woman talks about."

"Why?"

"You of all people ought to know better, being a preacher's daughter. Thank you for the lemonade. Go on in the house now and tell your paw I want to talk to him out here on the porch."

Now she was scared and her hands trembled a little as she picked up the lemonade tray, but her voice did not quaver when she spoke.

"Will you hold the door open for me, Mr. Birder," she said, and walked past him into the house.

Her papa was sitting at the dining room table reading the paper. Her mama and Dee were crocheting near the window, taking advantage of the light. She did not see Aunt Elizabeth. She was probably sitting in the kitchen by herself. That is what she usually did after cleaning up the supper dishes.

"Mr. Birder wants to see you on the porch, Papa," Myrtle siad, then she turned and went straight up to the bedroom.

She pulled the stool out from under the dressing table and looed at herself in the mirror. She was pretty with dark blue eyes and chestnut hair and she had a good figure. She knew she was pretty, but right now she wished she was homely, like her sister Dee, then maybe Isaiah Birder would leave her alone.

She turned away from the mirror and looked out the back window at the vegetable garden in the yard. Her mother and father had the front bedroom above the porch so she could not overhear what Mr. Birder had to say to her father.

After a while, she heard her father's footsteps climbing the stairs and turned on the stool to face the door. He did not knock when he came in. For a moment, he just stood without speaking, breathing hard from climbing the steps.

She heard her mother below, calling up from the foot of the stairs.

"Abner? Abner, what is it? What's happened?"

"Girl," her papa said, "I’m mortified and ashamed of you for what you said to Mr. Birder. I’ll not stand for talk like that from my own daughter.”

She nodded. She held her hands tight together in her lap. A beating would be worth it to get out of marrying Isaiah Birder.

"You've done a very wicked thing, Myrtle, a sinful thing for a woman, talking like that to the man who's going to be your husband."

His voice was low and unsteady. She could not tell if he was angry or grieved, but he could barely control himself.

“I don’t want to be his husband. I don’t want to be anybody’s husband.”

"You can thank the grace of God he's still willing to marry you," he said.

"No. I wish to God he didn’t."

Myrtle spoke the quick denial like a pistol shot.

"Abner? Answer me," Mrs. Crump cried from the foot of the stairs. "What's going on up there? Answer me for the love of God. "

Myrtle heard her climbing the stairs. She was a fat woman and climbing the stairs was hard work for her.

"Now you hush your mouth, Myrtle," Her papa said. "You're asking for a beating and I’ve a good mind to give it to you for your own good–for the good of your soul. I won't have you going to hell for sassing me and taking vulgar to the man who wants to marry you."

"Abner!"

Myrtle heard her mother's heavy footsteps on the stairs.

"Beat me if you want to, papa," she said. She thought she could stand a beating from him better than she could marry Mr. Birder. "–but I'll willingly go to hell before I marry Isaiah Birder. Beat me to death if you want to and you can go to hell too."

Her mother stood behind her father in the door.

"Abner! What are you doing? Myrtle, what have you done?"

"Sarah, bring me my strap."

“Abner, no.”

"Do as I say."

Her mother was crying. "No, Abner. Please, no."

Dee was outside in the hall too now and she was also crying.

"Go ahead, Mama," Myrtle said. “Get him his strap. I don’t care.” She felt calm, like she was watching it all happen in a dream. "Get the strap. I don't care if he beats me to death. That's all he can do, beat me to death, but he can't make me marry Isaiah Birder if he takes me to church tied up and gagged or in a coffin."

"Hush, Myrtle," her mother said, then, "Abner, let me talk to her. I can talk some sense into her."

"Get me my strap, Sarah."

"Please, Abner, no."

"Get the strap."

“Let me talk to her."

"Mama, Papa, let me marry him. I want to marry him." It was Dee.

"Get downstairs. Dee," her father shouted at her.

"But Papa. . ."

"Go get the strap, Sarah, or I'll beat all three of you. Get it. Now!"

"I'll get it, Papa," Dee cried. "Don't beat me, Papa. I'll get the strap." And she did.

*****

Myrtle hurt all over. Not just her behind and her back hurt, but all over. She had been determined when he beat her not to cry, but it hurt too much and she had to. He made her take off her dress and leave on her shift, but it still hurt bad. After the first few strokes of the strap she started to cry.

When she started to cry, he stopped and asked her if she was ready to marry Isaiah Birder, and she said no, and he started to beat her again. She screamed and begged him to stop, but each time he asked her if she was ready to marry Birder and she said
"No! Never!" and he would start beating her again.

Her mama stayed outside in the hall for a while, then she went back in the bedroom and begged him to stop too, but he kept swinging the strap, breathing hard, gasping for breath, like he was running up a hill. Outside in the hall, Dee was crying, then she started screaming too.

Finally, Myrtle did not know how long it lasted, but she heard a man's voice in the room besides her father.

"Stop it, Brother Crump. Stop it," he shouted. It was Isaiah Birder. He must have caught her papa's arm, for Myrtle felt the wind from a final blow that did not land.

"I don't want her anymore, for God's sake," Birder shouted. "God Almighty, you can hear her screaming all over Shreveport. And Mrs. Crump too, and Miss Dee. You can hear them screaming all over town for God's sake. I don't want her anymore and, God Almighty, everybody in Shreveport knows she won't have me either."

*****

Aunt Elizabeth came up to the bedroom after it was over and helped Myrtle out of the shift and put witchhazel on the welts and held her while she vomited, and she must have slept for a while, maybe an hour or two, but now she was awake. Outside the moon was white on the vegetable garden in back of the house.

She listened to the quiet house. Mama was in bed. Myrtle could hear her soft crying from across the hall. And Papa was sitting in the swing on the porch. Myrtle could hear the chain creak with his weight clear upstairs in the back of the house. Dee had cried herself to sleep in the bed next to her. Myrtle got up and started packing.

She did not have a valise, but she got a pasteboard box out of the attic and stuffed everything that would not fit in the box into a pillow case. She had a little money, about two dollars in change and she put that in her purse, and carrying the box with the pillow case on top, she went downstairs, avoiding the step that creaked near the bottom.

She went quietly into the kitchen, heading for the back door, but stopped terrified. Someone was sitting in the dark at the kitchen table. She was afraid that her papa had come in from the front porch. She could see the dark form of a body framed by the white moonlit doorway. She saw the glint of a butcher knife lying on the kitchen counter.

“Myrtle?”

She recognized Aunt Elizabeth's whispered voice.

"I'm leaving," Myrtle said. "I’m running away. Don't try to stop me."

"Don't worry about that. I should have told you to run off last Sunday night after they hatched up your marrying Isaiah Birder. Here, I just wanted to give you something."

She pressed money into Myrtle's hand. Some bills and change.

"It's not much. I wish I had more. God keep you. Try to get word to me how you are. Your mother will worry, but maybe she'll understand too."

Myrtle's hand closed on the money and she took it without regret.

"Where will you go?" Aunt Elizabeth asked.

The reality of what Myrtle was doing struck her. She had no idea where she could run to. She had not thought of anything yet but escaping from the house.

"I... I don't know, Aunt Elizabeth. I haven't thought..." Suddenly she felt trapped.

Where did she have to run to?" She fought to hold back the panic. "Take the train to Houston, I guess, if I've got enough money for the ticket."

"Won't do. The train doesn't come through till 10 in the morning. Your paw will be down at the station looking for you."

"What should I do, Aunt Elizabeth. I can't stay here."

"Go down to the river. And don't let anybody see you between here and there. Go to the wharf at the end of Pine Street and hide in one of the sheds until daylight. There's a man named Bart Dillon who has a barge tied up at the wharf. He stays on it. When you see him come up out on deck, go down to the barge and tell him Betty sent you. Make sure nobody sees you.

"Who's Betty?"

"That's the name he knows me by."

Myrtle looked closely at her aunt in the moonlit kitchen. She realized suddenly how little she really knew the woman. She had always been there, but in the background without much to say, cleaning up and cooking for her mother, but not saying much about what she did or thought. She was gone sometimes in the afternoon, but she just said visiting friends. Myrtle had always thought she went to see Miss Sims, who lived upstairs from the drugstore and sewed for people. It was strange to think that Aunt Elizabeth knew other people and one of them was a man named Bart Dillon. It was strange to think of her as Betty.

"What then?"

"Tell him you want to go down river with him to New Orleans."

"On the river?"

"They'll be watching the railroad station."

"I didn't think anybody traveled on the river anymore."

"Not many still do. That's why you may get away without getting caught.”

Myrtle nodded.

"When you get to New Orleans, go to 234 Prytania Street in the Garden District. I wrote the address down. It’s with the money I gave you. It's a girl's school. Ask for Miss Ophelia Juttison. Sheand her sisters own the school. Tell her I sent you. Tell her I know your mother or something. Don't tell her you're my niece. She might feel like she had to contact your mama and papa if she thought you had run away.

Don't give her your right name either. And don't tell Bart your right name either. He may know who you are, but he won't let on like he does. That's the best I can do for you."

"Thank you, Aunt Elizabeth. I don't know how to thank you, but I won't forget you helped me."

"I won't forget you helped me either," Elizabeth said. Myrtle did not know what her aunt meant, but she put the words away to think about later and slipped through the door into the moonlight.

When she got to the river and found the barge Elizabeth had described to her, the man Bart was sitting on deck smoking a pipe in the moonlight, so she did not hide like Elizabeth had told her, but walked to the edge of the pier and spoke to him.

“Are you Bart Dillon?” she asked.

“I am,” he said looking for the voice that spoke out of the night. “Who are you girl?”

“My name’s Claire. My friend Betty said I might could go down to New Orleans with you on the river.”

He looked at her for a long minute before the spoke, trying to see her better in the moonlight.

You got a last name, Claire.”

“Beauvoir.” It was the last name of her French teacher at school.

“You a Cajun?”

“No, but my husband was. He’s dead. I’m a widow.”

“You look mighty young to be a widow.”

“No law says a widow’s got to be old.”

“I guess not. When you want to leave.”

“I’m ready to go now,” she said.

“Can you wait ‘til daylight? He laughed.

“If I can spend the rest of the night on board ,” she said. I haven’t got anyplace else to go.

“Sure. Come aboard, widow Beauvoir, and welcome.”

Introduction

2004-11-06T06:35:00.000-08:00

Welcome to the on-going creation of Red River Woman,an entry in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo.org.) The story chronicles the adventures of Clair Leblanc, a woman who dared to face life on her own terms at a time when a woman alone in the world was a rare thing. Claire's story is a work of fiction. Names,characters, places and incidents are the product of the author's imaginagion or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead,) events, or locales is entirely coincidental.