by Selena Kitt
“The world’s changing,” Mama piped up, fluffing out the skirt on Lottie’s cornhusk doll. “Girls can go to college and be all sorts of things nowadays besides wives and mothers.”
Preacher Harris tipped his wide-brimmed black hat back and cocked his head in my direction. “So what are you fixing to be, Rosie?”
“A teacher.” My voice didn’t sound as clear and solid as I wanted it to.
“Oh, well that’s all right then.” He seemed satisfied with my response as he sat back, picking up his glass of lemonade again. Then he frowned and leaned forward, wagging a finger at me. “But you best be careful—don’t forget about what happened to those kids at Kent State.”
I saw Billy Ray roll his eyes, his fingers still working the corn husk in his hands. He had it all separated into thin rows and was twisting it into something. “I don’t think Rosie will be participating in many war protests.”
The preacher raised an eyebrow at his son. “And why not?”
Mama stood, brushing the back of her dress off, and held her hand out to Lottie. “Let’s go in and sit down. I’ll get supper on the table.”
“Good idea.” Daddy stood and stretched. “I’m as hungry as a devil.”
“John!” Mama’s eyes got wide and she snapped the dishtowel tucked into her apron at him.
“What?” He gave her a sheepish grin. “Preacher here can perform an exorcism if we need one.”
Preacher Harris chuckled. “Luckily the remedy for your ailment is just some fine home cookin’.”
When we got inside, I managed to finagle my way next to Billy Ray on one side of the table across from the preacher and Lottie, who kicked incessantly. Daddy sat at the head, as usual, and Mama barely sat at the other end at all after Preacher said Grace, getting up a hundred times during the meal to get all the things she forgot to put out. By the time the meal was over, it looked like we hadn’t eaten a thing off the table, it was still so filled with food.
“Strawberry pie?” I offered as I helped Mama clear and put away.
“I wouldn’t say no to that.” Preacher winked, looking down at his daughter. “How about you, punkin?”
“Is there whipped cream?” Lottie perked up.
I smiled, pulling a big bowl of fluffy white stuff from the fridge. “Whipped it myself.”
No one had said much during the meal—we were all too busy eating. But dessert was a slower process, now that our bellies were full, and our mouths had less to do, so the talk started flowing. I still wasn’t paying much attention. Billy Ray’s hand was inching my skirt up my knee while he speared a fat, juicy strawberry on his fork. He had a spot of red juice on the corner of his mouth that I was just aching to kiss right off.
“Well, I don’t disagree with you about the war,” Daddy said, leaning back in his chair. “But I think if a man gets drafted, he should do his duty and serve his country.”
Preacher Harris put down his fork. “My wife is consoling her poor sister as we speak, who is so prostrate with grief she can barely get out of bed most days.” He paused, looking around the table at each of us in turn. “All because her son ‘did his duty’ and ‘served his country’.” He let the silence stretch longer this time, and I felt, suddenly, like I was listening to a sermon. “He was just nineteen years old, John. How can anyone justify that in the eyes of the Lord?”
My father held up his hand in protest. “I’m no warmonger, Preacher, but I’m not a pacifist either. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. That’s part of being a man.”
“I just don’t agree.” Preacher Harris’ voice rose, his face reddening in anger. “Violence is never the answer.”
“I don’t know.” My father shrugged. “Even the Bible says there’s a time for war and a time for peace.”
I stared at him in disbelief. He was just as against the war as preacher was, and we all knew it. Why was he arguing? Billy Ray’s hand tightened on my knee and I glanced at him. His ears were red and his jaw was working hard.
“If you had a boy, you’d understand.” Preacher Harris sighed. “Rosie can’t get drafted.”
“No.” My daddy frowned, rubbing his chin. “But she could get hit by a bus, or get struck with some awful disease—”
“John, bite your tongue.” Mama made the sign of the cross—her mother had been Catholic.
Daddy held up both hands this time. “I’m just sayin’. We all care for our children, but we can’t protect them from life.” He glanced at me and winked. “Things happen that you don’t expect—including good things, like college applications, or not-so-good things like war and the draft. At some point, we have to let them go and live their own lives.”
Preacher Harris pushed away his half-eaten strawberry pie, his brow creased in a deep frown. “Well, if they ever drafted Billy Ray, there would be no way I’d let him go.”
The pressure on my knee increased and I gasped, looking over at Billy Ray. His face was set, his eyes dark. “You can’t make my decisions for me.”
This time it was preacher who held up his hands in protest. “Now, son—”
“No.” Billy Ray’s voice grew loud. “Don’t ‘now son’ me. I may not agree with the war and all the reasons we’re fighting over there—but I’m no coward.”
“No one said you were,” my father interjected, trying to make peace at the dinner table now that he saw my mama’s wide eyes and Lottie covering her ears against her brother’s tirade.
“Do you know what he did?” Billy Ray turned his eyes to my father, but he was pointing at his own. “Does the Classification II-D sound familiar to you?”
Daddy frowned. “I’m not familiar with that one…”
Preacher Harris was white as a sheet, his voice low and shaky when he said, “Two-Dee…registrant deferred because of study preparing for the ministry…”
“My cousin died in Vietnam after being drafted.” Billy Ray’s voice shook too—in anger. “Half my classmates are over there right now, and I don’t know how many of them are going to die.”
Preacher Harris’ eyes pleaded with his son. “Then you must understand why I did what I did.”
“I am not nor have I ever been preparing to enter your ministry…isn’t that right, Dad?” Billy Ray looked across the table at his father, crossing his arms over his chest. I could almost feel the thundercloud hanging over the middle of the table.
Preacher Harris swallowed hard. “It was just a little white lie…”
“It was wrong.” Billy Ray slammed his fist down so hard on the table that the silverware clattered. “You lied to them and you lied to me. And you, of all people, should have known better.”
“I did what I had to do.” Preacher crossed his arms, too, his chin jutting forward.
Billy Ray nodded, pursing his lips. “And I’m going to do what I have to do.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m enlisting.” Billy Ray stood, glancing down at me. His eyes were full of sadness. “Tomorrow.” With that, he slammed the screen door and pounded down the porch steps, leaving all of us in stunned silence. I could see Mama wanted to say something to make it all okay again, but there just wasn’t anything to say.
“I’m sorry.” Daddy said the words to preacher, but he was looking over at Lottie, who had tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. I knew just how she felt.
“Excuse me.” I put down my napkin and ran toward the door, going after Billy Ray. He was squatting down next to the barn, petting Harley. I touched his shoulder and he looked up at me and took my hand. As if by some unspoken understanding, we walked away from the house instead of towards it. We didn’t talk again for a while, walking until we neared a clearing at the other end of the field.
“Now you know why.” He tilted my chin up, searching my eyes. “Do you understand?”
I nodded. “Yes.” I didn’t like it, and I didn’t want him to go, but I did understand. In fact, I’d never been more proud of anyone—proud and scared all at once. “But I wish there wa
s no war.”
“So do I.” He put his arms around me and we stood like that for a long time. I listened to the sound of his heart beating like a promise. “Your daddy was right, Rosie. Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. It’s part of being a man.”
“And what do we women get to do?” I swallowed past the lump in my throat.
“Wait.” He sighed and I felt his lips brush my hair. “And hope. And pray.”
I looked up at him, seeing everything I had ever wanted shining in his eyes. “Then I will.”
He smiled. “I know you will.” Reaching into his pocket, he said, “I made something for you.” It was the cornhusks, the ones he had been twisting on the porch. He had made them up into a ring. “It fits my pinky, so maybe…” He slid it onto my ring finger. It fit perfectly. There was no time for anything else. The preacher was calling for his son, and I held him as long as I could.
“Meet me in the barn tonight,” he whispered into my ear and I nodded my assent as we started our walk back to the house.
* * *
He never said what time, but it was past midnight before I was sure Daddy was sleeping. I knew Mama wouldn’t wake up. I avoided that creaky third step and was careful not to let the screen door slam back. The night was cool, the moon full overhead lighting the path to the barn like a black ribbon as I followed it along, wondering if he would be there, hoping he would be, afraid he might be.
I didn’t dare turn on a light, but the moon was bright enough for me to see a little ways in when I opened the door. The animals stirred—Jupiter nickered, sounding as confused as a horse could sound. I crept into the barn in bare feet, hugging myself, a ghostly figure in my white nightgown.
“Billy Ray?”
The lamb bleated at my intrusion.
“Up here, girl.” He poked his head out from above me, up in the loft.
My heart in my throat, I went to the ladder and started to climb. It had never felt like such a long way up before, and when I got to the top, Billy Ray was there, holding out his hand to help me.
“You’re a vision.” He held both my hands in his and out to the sides as he looked at me.
I laughed, sounding nervous, glancing up at him in the dimness. “What can you see in the dark?”
“Enough.” He slipped his arm behind my back and pulled me in tight to his body.
Of course I knew what we were here to do, what we were here to finish, but my head panicked anyway. I was like some little rabbit cornered and searching for a way out, even as he kissed me and my body responded like a wildfire spreading in a dry summer heat.
“Billy Ray…” I pushed against his chest, breaking our kiss. “Maybe…”
“It’s all right, come here.” He led me along and I followed him over the rough boards until I felt the soft cushion of hay underfoot. “I made us a little bed.”
There was a fleece blanket spread out over a thick nest of hay, and he led me down onto it. We lay there belly to belly in the moonlight coming in from the loft door—he’d opened it wide, and the breeze was cool and delicious against my bare legs.
“I was afraid you weren’t comin’.” His breath blew warm over my cheek.
I let my feet tangle with his, realizing he’d taken his boots off. “Had to make sure everyone was asleep.”
“I think the whole world’s asleep.” He leaned his forehead in to touch mine. “Except you and me…”
“And the lamb.” I giggled as a soft bleating came from down in the barn.
“Are you afraid?” He kissed my cheek, his lips grazing my skin.
I nodded. “Are you?”
“Of this?” He shook his head as he slid a hand behind me again, pressing my belly to his.
My arms went around his neck, my nightgown shifting up as I twisted the dark, curly hairs at the nape of his neck in my fingers.
“Not this.” I nuzzled his neck, kissing him there. He made a low noise when I did that. “What about the war? Are you afraid of that?”
“I’m not afraid of going…” His hands, moving down my body over my nightgown, paused at my hips. “I am afraid of never coming back.”
“What did your daddy say?” I asked, wincing when his fingers dug deep into my flesh at the words.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he growled.
I stayed still, listening to his breathing, my heart beating against his chest. “I’ll miss you, Billy Ray.”
“I’m not gone yet.”
His mouth found mine in the dark and we rolled together over the blanket, back and forth so many times I was breathless and dizzy on top of him when I finally broke our kiss. He wouldn’t let me go, though, as he pulled my nightgown high up over my thighs, his hands cupping my behind as I straddled him.
“Sit up,” he told me, and I did, using my hands against his chest for balance. I could see the flash of his eyes in the moonlight, half of his face in light, the other half in shadow.
His palms moved up my legs, my hips, over my ribs, taking my nightgown with them. I reached around and unbuttoned it at the back of my neck so he could slip it off over my head, and then shivered as the air touched my bare skin. I was sitting on him now just wearing a pair of white cotton panties, and his eyes swept over me from top to bottom.
“You’re beautiful…” His hands were trying to span my waist. I felt beautiful, like some virgin sacrifice, a bleating lamb, pale and vulnerable and trembling. He gathered me to him, kissing me breathless again, pressing my naked body against his clothed one, and I squealed when his belt bit the tender skin of my belly.
“This is hardly fair,” I whispered, unbuckling him.
He leaned back as I unzipped his jeans and struggled to pull them down, not helping except to lift his hips, watching me work them off. I ignored the bulge in his underwear and started at the top button of his shirt, working my way down and spreading it wide when I was through, exposing his chest and belly to my hands.
I had a sudden flash of fear, remembering some of the images of the war on TV—soldiers’ wounded—and the thought froze in my mind of Billy Ray being among them. My fingers moved over his ribs, his chest, feeling the strong beat of his heart and knowing that just one bullet could stop it forever made me crazy with something—fear and longing and some sort of desperation. I wanted to keep him.
I had to fight not to cry, then, but I couldn’t stop. I slid fast down between his legs to keep it from him, so he would think that the wetness on my cheeks was just saliva and not my tears as I freed his cock and began to lick the length of his shaft. He jumped in surprise, gasping and groaning out loud as I took him into my mouth, wanting to swallow him whole if I could.
“Oh yes, Rosie,” he murmured, his fingers in my hair. My tongue ran over the soft head, that little ridge around it that came to a point at the back like an arrow shooting straight into my mouth. I worked my way up and down the shaft, kneeling between his legs and gripping his thighs with my hands. I sucked and licked and gulped the length of him until he was panting and holding my hair in both hands, making a low, growling noise in his throat.
“Easy,” he moaned, pulling me off, and I let his shaft throb there against my wet cheek, panting with my effort. “Damn, girl.”
He was reaching for me, guiding me up toward him. I wiped my cheeks with my hands, settling beside him and letting him kiss me again, nothing between us now but my panties, and he was working on those. His fingers found the elastic band, edging them first down one side, then the other, but they caught in the sticky wetness between my legs and he abandoned them for the moment, rolling me to my back and feathering kisses over my neck.
I gasped when his mouth covered my nipple, sucking gently while he sought its twin, finding and tweaking it between his thumb and forefinger. The sensation was sweet and bright and it made my body come alive like heat lightning on a hazy summer night. I couldn’t help the noises I started to make, mews and cries. Downstairs the lamb began bleating with me, too.
“Billy Ray!” I cr
ied when his mouth left my breast, leaving a wet trail down my belly as he settled himself between my legs. “What—? Oh God…”
He had my panties down to my knees and his head under them, his tongue parting my lips with a gentle back and forth motion, pushing past the soft, curly brown hair toward my center. When he found that secret place, the tender bud of flesh I thought only I knew about late at night with the sheets pulled up tight between my legs, I nearly screamed, grabbing his curls in my fists.
“Oh God, oh God, oh God,” I whispered over and over, aware of the irony of what Billy Ray and I were up to and my taking the Lord’s name in vain, but I just couldn’t help it. His tongue between my legs was the most glorious, exquisite thing I had ever felt, and I never wanted it to end.