The Daughters of Julian Dane

by Lucile McCluskey

  Della moaned softly. Raising her arm in a stretch over her head, she slowly turned to him and felt his manhood pressed tight against her belly, as Ben pulled her even closer to him. His arms tightened around her, bringing her whole body as close to him as she could get, but to Della it seemed that Ben could never hold her close enough. She shivered with delight that quickly turned to desire, as Ben repositioned himself, and his mouth sought the hard nipple of the breast he held cupped in his hand.

  Why was it so much better in the mornings? She sleepily wondered as her hand groped for the taut, smooth, velvety skin of his manhood, which she loved to fondle. Fully awake now, she teased and tantalized him with her hands, her lips, her tongue, and her body in all the ways that she had learned over the years to give both of them the utmost pleasure. She felt all six feet of him quiver and moan, her own desire quickly building to a fever pitch, as he caressed her in all the ways he knew she responded to, until she was begging, “Now, Ben! Now!”

  Minutes later, deliciously sated with sweet relief, Della snuggled in the familiar, warm curve of Ben’s body, his strong arms around her as he asked, “Wonder why we’ve never had any children? A son sure would be nice,” he murmured quietly.

  “After all the crying that Addie did, you want another baby?”

  “Babies are like puppies, you know. They don’t stay babies. And surely, all babies don’t cry as much a she did. Wonder why she was such an unhappy baby?”

  “Probably because she had a sixteen year old for a mother, who didn’t know anything about taking care of babies.”

  “You had two younger sisters, didn’t you learn anything from them?”

  “Well, let’s see, I was two and a half when Henrietta was born, and not quiet five when Johnnie came along ...”

  “Couldn’t your mama think of any girl names like Mary, or Sue, or Jane?”

  “Odell named us before we were born. He was always hoping for a boy to work on the farm, so he wouldn’t have to. Not that he didn’t work us girls plenty hard enough. But mama just feminized our names a bit after we turned out to be girls, at least, as much as he’d let her.”

  “Oh, yeah, I remember now. Jimmy Lee told me something like that once when we were making love down on the river bank.”

  Della moved her head back to look into the brown eyes of the tan, brawny face that she loved. “You never made love to Jimmy Lee.”

  “Well, I would have if she would’ve,” Ben teased. “She was too scared of Odell.”

  Della looked at him questioningly, knowing that he was telling the truth, but wondering how he knew. She had only seen him on their neighboring farm a couple of times, and so far as she knew, he had not had the opportunity to see that much of her oldest sister.

  Ben answered her look. “When I asked Jimmy Lee if she wanted to marry me, she told me why your mama wore the butcher knife.”

  “Oh,” Della said, not wanting to be reminded of that, or to even think of it. “I guess everybody was afraid of Odell.”

  “Well, somebody wasn’t, or they wouldn’t have put a knife in his gut and dumped him on your mama’s front porch that Saturday night. Honey, he was your pa, but he had to be the meanest man I ever knew. I remember the dogs ...”

  “No! Don’t! I don’t want to be reminded of him or anything he ever did.” She didn’t need to be reminded of Odell Haynes. She was never glad of anyone’s death, but the world was better off without men like Odell.

  “You know what?” she asked lightly, not really expecting an answer. “If I ever get rich, the first thing I’m going to do is hire a detective to find mama and the girls.”

  “And share your wealth with them,” Ben said.

  “Of course,” Della replied. “What’s money for if you can’t share it with the people you love?”

  “I hope that means me too.”

  “Top of the list,” she said.

  “Good! Then I won’t have to work. I can stay home and make love to you all day,” Ben said, grabbing Della and kissing her long and hard. Releasing her, “But right now, I’ve got to get up from here and go to work, at least until your ship comes in.”

  “Ben,” Della said seriously.

  “Hmm.”

  “Honey, be extra careful today.”

  “Now, what’s that all about?” he asked, hugging her so tight she squealed. He released her.

  She looked up at him. “I have a bad feeling,” she said. “I guess you’d call it a premonition that something’s going to happen.”

  “Your problem is you’ve been cooped up in this ... Oh. Oh, don’t tell me. This is the last Friday in March. Right?”

  “Yes, but ...”

  Ben was getting out of bed. “Della, I know an experience like that can’t be easy to forget, but do you have to memorialize it every year, after all this time?”

  “It’s not that exactly. But, if you think about it, every bad thing that’s ever happened to us has happened in the last week of March. My mama said she believed that when a person was born the Devil put them on his calendar, and every year, at the same time he gave them when they were born, he tried them as sorely as he could. Hers was the first part of August.”

  “That must have been when she married Odell,” Ben said as he was tying his robe sash, “and that’s the craziest thing I have ever heard.”

  “Well, think about it. It was the last of March, when we were on our way back here to see mama and the girls, that our money was stolen on the bus. It wasn’t much, but it was all we had.”

  “But if our money hadn’t been stolen, we wouldn’t have met Miss Gussie, and you’ll have to admit she was the best friend we ever had. We lived in her garage apartment for more than two years, rent free, except for me keeping up her other apartments,” Ben reminded Della. “And she helped us get this house.”

  “Uh, huh, and it was the last week of March, the year after we moved into this house, that the apartment house burned down, and Miss Gussie died.”

  “Yeah,” Ben said sadly. “If she just hadn’t gone back inside for her little dog. People do the dumbest things sometimes, and this is a dumb conversation,” he added. “If you’re up to it today, and the weather isn’t too bad, I want you to get out some, even if it’s just to the grocery store. We’re out of milk and several other things,” he said as he headed for the bathroom.

  When he opened the bedroom door, Addie was just coming out of the bathroom. “Good morning, Daddy,” She said, waiting a moment to give him a kiss and a hug.

  “Morning, Princess. You’re up early,” he said, returning the hug and kissing her on the forehead.

  “Yep. Coffee’s making, and there’ll be sausage and biscuits by the time you’ve shaved. Tell mama to stay in bed as long as she likes. She seems to feel worse in the mornings.”

  Life was too exciting to stay in bed on such a pretty morning, Addie thought. The sun was shinning, the wind was calm, and she was anxious to be on her way to school – to be there in time to see Donnie Whitefield riding his bike furiously into the school yard. He rode that bike as though he was angry with someone, the whole world, or maybe, just life itself. It was how she was finding herself to be at times lately, especially, with the coming of another summer. Addie dreaded summertime.

  Her daddy would work from daylight until dark painting and repairing other people’s houses, as long as the weather permitted. Then he’d drag home so tired that sometimes he’d fall asleep before he ate his supper. She and her mother would work in the vegetable garden, that filled every inch of their back yard, until every muscle in their bodies ached, and they had calluses on their hands. Then they would sweat until midnight in the kitchen. They preserved every bean, every tomato, every kernel of corn, and every pod of okra, and squash by the basket full to help with the winter’s grocery bills, when there was so little work for her daddy.

  Her parents deserved better. They were good, hard working people, the best parents in the whole world. They needed a car that didn’t always have to be re
paired, and her daddy needed new clothes for winter and summer. It was her dream to get a good education and a good job that would enable her to help her parents have a higher standard of living. But then, there was always this other memory – this other person who seemed to live inside of her.

  It had become more than just an occasional thing lately, she thought as she brushed her heavy head of hair and tied it back into a ponytail. Not a day passed now that it did not make itself known to her. What kind of a role was it going to play in her future? Was it going to allow her the fulfillment of her dreams? Life wasn’t always fair, she reasoned. And she wondered as she gathered her books, just what of life’s unfair circumstances had brought Donnie Whitefield to Riverbend in the middle of a school term to live with an aunt and uncle?

  When she reached the school, she took her time locking her bike into the rack. She was hoping that Donnie would come riding up, that he would say something to her, that they might even have something that resembled a conversation. There was so much she wanted to know about him. But just knowing that she would be riding her bike beside him in the afternoon on their way to her house, made the blood in her arms tingle. This was a new sensation to Addie, a feeling she wasn’t sure she understood. And then she saw him.

  A red Camaro was cruising slowly at the curb. Donnie, on his bike, rode slowly beside it, carrying on a conversation with Evelyn Ann Mobley. Addie quickly looked away. Why did girls like Evelyn Ann, with their short, shapely bodies, and their long blond hair, always get what they wanted? He certainly hadn’t paid her any attention like that the afternoon before. She was a fool to think he might ever.

  As she removed her backpack, she wished she was pretty like her mother. She wondered if she would ever have nice full breasts like Della’s, and shapely legs and hips like her. Evelyn Ann had not warned her that Donnie was her property and to keep hands off. Why? Was she so plain that the girl just assumed that no boy, especially one as good looking as Donnie Whitefield, would even look at her? She wondered as she walked slowly into the school building.

  She was sixteen and had never been on a real date with a boy. Church outings where you sort of paired off with a boy didn’t count, she thought. And the few times she had been asked to movies, bowling, or skating, it had always been by boys she didn’t particularly like. And she preferred to stay home watching TV with her folks than to go out with them. But then, there had never been a boy who really interested her before Donnie Whitefield. And apparently, Evelyn Ann had him wrapped up and tied with a ribbon, she mused as she headed for her locker.

  Maybe she should start wearing some makeup on her fair skin. Most of the other girls wore it. She only wore the very light lipstick that Della had bought her because her lips got dry. And her red hair – it had a nice shine to it, and a fluffy bounce when she didn’t tie it back. Maybe she should perm it. But maybe she should have paid some attention to her looks before a boy like Donnie came along. She slammed her locker door shut and decided to forget Donnie Whitefield and get on with her studies for the day.

  “Hey, you in a hurry?” asked a deep, male voice.

  Startled, Addie turned and all but landed against Donnie, who had come up behind her.

  “It’s ‘Addie’, isn’t it?” he asked.

  A strange, tingling feeling crept down her arms as he said her name. “Yes,” was all she could answer.

  His eyes were taking in her hair as though he was seeing it for the first time. “You’ve got the reddest hair, and the greenest eyes I’ve ever seen,” he said without smiling. “Would you do me a favor?” he asked.

  “Sure. If I can,” she answered, noting that he was removing his watch from his wrist.

  “I have P. E. today, and I forgot and wore my watch. I don’t have a lock for my locker yet, and I don’t want it traded for somebody’s fix for the day. My grandfather gave it to me.” He was holding it out to her.

  “Sure. I’ll be glad to,” she said as she accepted the watch and their hands touched, causing, that tingling sensation again.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll see you after school.” The bell was ringing. He rushed past her toward the stairs at the end of the hall.

  Addie hurriedly strapped his watch on above her own, and pulled her sleeve down over it as she thought of the warmth of his touch. “Well, Evelyn Ann,” she muttered as she rushed to her class, “I think I’ll just see how tight your ribbon is tied.”

  Since she was a sophomore and Donnie a junior, their paths didn’t cross again until lunchtime. She wouldn’t have known he was there if the voice of Evelyn Ann hadn’t called from across the lunchroom. “Donnie! Over here!” Addie heard. She looked up from her tray of food to find him standing behind her, his tray in his hands.

  Looking down at her, he said, “They just told me I have to check with the office after school – something about my transfer. It shouldn’t take but a couple of minutes. Will you wait for me?”

  “Sure,” she answered, moving her tray over to make room for his.

  “Thanks,” he said. “But I’d better go over there. She picked me up last Friday when my bike had a flat and it was raining,” he said apologetically.

  Addie blushed with the embarrassment of presuming that he would sit with her. “Well, you can’t be rude,” she said smiling.

  “Right. See you.” he answered, and he began to thread his way between the tables and chairs of the crowded room.

  Addie watched him go and noted the way his shirt stretched tight over his muscular shoulders. It looked like he had outgrown it. Her eyes traveled down to his narrow waist and hips, his long legs in jeans that were just as tight as the shirt, and noticing that his jeans were just a little short made her realize that he was wearing clothes that he had outgrown. She watched his muscles move as he walked and a warmth began to build in her whole being that made her feel flushed and tingly from head to toe. It was a pleasant feeling, and she sat there a few minutes savoring it. Wait for him, she thought, only ‘til the end of time. And she wondered how to go about attracting him to her? She’d ask her mother.

  She watched him stop beside Evelyn Ann’s table. He seemed to hesitate before squeezing into the space allotted for him beside the girl. A glimpse of his face as he turned, and Addie thought he looked even more unhappy than usual. And she wondered again what caused him to always wear such an unhappy look. Suddenly, she was seeing that other sad, unhappy face that kept appearing to the other memory. Who was this man, and why was he so unhappy? Where did he belong in her life? But then, where did any of the strange scenes from out of the past, that kept appearing in her memory, belong in her life? Other people didn’t have two memories. What boy would want a girl who saw people and places from another time? And suddenly she knew that it wouldn’t matter to her what any other boy thought – only Donnie Whitefield mattered.

  She wasn’t sure she understood this strange attraction she felt for him, but watching him take the seat beside Evelyn Ann, and seeing the smug look on the girl’s face took her appetite away. She looked down at her food and knew she wouldn’t be able to swallow another bite.

  One of the classes that Addie shared with Evelyn Ann was English, her first class after lunch. Addie was already in her seat when Evelyn Ann came in, followed by Heather Franklin. They stopped by her chair.

  “Oh, Addie,” the girl said in her sugar sweet voice, “just in case you haven’t heard, Donnie Whitefield is mine.”

  “Really,” Addie said in a disinterested tone of voice. “I wonder if he knows that? I think I’ll ask him this afternoon.”

  “You won’t get the opportunity,” Evelyn Ann said smugly, and walked on to her seat, followed by her friend.

  I will unless kowtowing to you is worth more than twenty dollars is to him. Her daddy had said at least four hours at five dollars an hour, and from the looks of it, Donnie could use some new jeans and a shirt as bad as she could. I doubt that he’ll pass that up for you, she thought.

  The rest of the school day dragged by slow
ly. She thought that last bell would never ring. When it finally did, she rushed to her bike to wait for Donnie, but when several minutes had passed and no Donnie, she began to wonder. Had he gone off with Evelyn Ann? Had he changed his mind about working? His bike was still in the rack. Then she saw the red Camaro go creeping by with just the two girls in it. The student parking lot was empty. Minutes later, he came running out the door, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, as he approached her. “I didn’t think it would take that long. Thanks for waiting. Will your dad be angry?” he asked as he accepted his watch, which she was holding out to him, and strapped it on hurriedly, then unlocked his bike chain.

  “I don’t think so, but it wouldn’t hurt for us to get moving. He’ll be waiting for us,” she answered, wondering what kind of people he was used to who got angry if you were a little late? And feeling that strange tingling sensation again, she swung onto her bike and rode ahead of him, faster than usual to make up the lost time. The wind had gotten up, rather sharp and raw, so they rode with their heads down against it. They had almost a mile and a half to go.

  When they reached the house, they parked their bikes beside the garage and joined Ben in the kitchen. “You’re a little late,” he said, “and your mother said milk and cookies before you go, but be quick about it. I’ve put your cleaning supplies in the truck.”

  “Thanks, Daddy,” Addie said, giving him a hug and a quick kiss on the cheek.