Lily of the Springs (6 page)

And I wanted more, Lord in Heaven, I wanted more, and I couldn’t help but press myself against his strong, masculine body, kissing him back as eagerly as he kissed me.

“Remember how we played house?” He whispered, nuzzling a path down my neck to the hollow of my throat. “You told me once you wanted to marry me for real.”

His mouth returned to mine for another deep, wet kiss. I moaned, feeling as if I wanted to crawl right into his body and stay there forever. His questing fingers moved to my inner thigh, stroking the soft hollow, damp now with sweat and secretions that were not new to me, that had flowed whenever Chad kissed me, but not like this. It had never been like this.

His moist breath fanned my face. “Let me touch you,” he said raggedly. “Let me dip into your honey-pot, sweetheart.”

With a soft moan, I thrust my pelvis against his hand and parted my legs to give him easier access, and that’s when I knew for sure that the bad Lily Rae had taken over, and now, also for sure, I’d go straight to hell. But even
that
made no difference. Because Jake’s fingers had slid under the elastic of my panties, burrowing gently into my aching flesh, where no boy had ever touched me before. I gasped, digging my nails into his muscular arms, and closed my eyes, giving myself up to the pleasurable sensations rivering through me.

Jake kept up a steady rhythm, stroking gently. His breath caressed my face, warm and staggered. I kept my eyes closed, my mouth ajar, as soft, kittenish cries issued from my throat. I felt like a flower opening up to him, a fragrant rose, warm from the sun, wet from the rain, unfurling secret petals.

The pleasure became so unbearable that I thought I was surely dying. My mewling cries turned into impassioned moans, and from somewhere far away, I heard a ragged, feminine voice crying out, “Yes, yes, oh,
yes
. Please don’t…oh, please…oh, oh…
Jake
!”

His fingers moved faster, harder, mining my depths with a sure, steady purpose, bringing me higher, closer to a mountain I knew I had to reach, or I would die. He pressed his half-open mouth against my cheek, his gasping breath in rhythm with every sweet plunge of his fingers.

“Yes,” he murmured against my skin. “Come for me, baby. Just let yourself go. I want to make you feel good, Lily. Don’t it feel good?”

I drew in a sharp breath and stiffened, teetering on the edge of a different kind of cliff than the one I’d stood on at the beginning of this night. Jake’s hand stilled, and for a heartbeat of a moment, the world stopped turning. Not a breath of air stirred between us as I stared into his glazed eyes, indigo in the light of the moon.

Finally, his fingers moved again, and the night exploded into a dazzling firework of stars. White-hot flames shot through my core, radiating out from my belly to sizzle along nerve endings from my toes to my fingertips. Clutching him, I gave a sharp cry and shuddered against his hand, still moving, still caressing, still sending ripple upon ripple of glorious pleasure through me. And even when my last gasp had trailed away into silence, and I sagged against him like a limp dishrag, he cupped my female essence, as if reluctant to move away.

He spoke first, his lips soft against my cheek, “Tell me you didn’t let Nickerson do this for you,” he said huskily. “Tell me you saved this for me.”

To my bewilderment, tears burned behind my eyelids as I realized the truth, a truth I’d never admitted to myself. He was right. I
had
saved this for him. That’s why it had never felt quite right with Chad. It wasn’t because I was a good girl, trying to follow the strict rules of my God-fearing parents. It was because Chad had never been the
right
boy.

A memory came to me then. Of a sun-striped summer afternoon, sitting on an old deadfall, drying off after a splash in the swimming hole. A suntanned boy with sapphire eyes and wheat-colored hair, a little girl with curly, dark hair and wide brown eyes, a first kiss in the dappled sunlight, and words spoken by childish voices.

“When we git big, Jake Tatlow, will you and me git married for real?”

“I reckon so, Lily Rae. Ain’t no other gal here in the holler, ‘ceptin fer Alma May Mackelroy, and she’s as fat as my pa’s old sow. I reckon I ain’t partial to
her
a-tall.”

With this romantic declaration, Jake had fashioned a ring out of a twig from a blackberry bramble and placed it on my hand.

I still had it, wrapped in a bit of cloth and tucked in the cedar jewelry box Uncle Virgil had brought me from England when he’d returned from the war. For years, I’d kept it there along with mementos from high school—a dried, flattened corsage from my first formal, the first Valentine’s card Chad had given me, and a picture of Marlon Brando in “A Streetcar Named Desire,” cut out of Daisy’s mother’s
Look Magazine
.

“No,” I whispered, my face hot against his warm, bare chest. “I never let Chad do that.”

He released a deep sigh and withdrew his hand from my panties. “Good.” Still tingling from his touch, I bit my bottom lip to keep from protesting.

He kissed me gently. “Let’s get in the car,” he said. “You feel how hard I am for you? Let me love you, Lily Rae.” He took my hand and placed it firmly against his massive hard-on.

That’s what boys called it, I remembered. Once, after a heavy make-out session in Chad’s car, he’d complained about having a hard-on and I had had no idea what he was talking about.

Curious, I traced my fingers up and down Jake’s rigid member. He drew in a sharp breath and closed his eyes. A thrill of power went through me at his reaction. With a sense of wonder, I grew bolder, molding my hand to his flesh, exploring.

Jake uttered a muffled oath and grabbed my hand. “Stop,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Let’s get in the car.”

I stared at him, my heart racing. Touching him so intimately had rekindled sweet fire between my legs, and now I knew Jake’s touch would put it out.

Bad girl
. That’s what I was. The bad Lily Rae had completely taken over. But I’d crossed that line from good to evil ten minutes ago. There was nothing I could do now but follow this path wherever it led, even if it was the road to Hell and eternal damnation.

Great Aunt Ona’s Old Fashioned Chocolate Cake

1 ¾ cup sifted flour (cake flour)

½ cup cocoa

2 ¼ teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

½ cup shortening

1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons sugar

2 eggs unbeaten

¾ cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Sift flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt together. Cream shortening thoroughly, add sugar gradually and cream together until light & fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each, then add flour alternately with milk, beating after each addition until smooth. Stir in vanilla. Pour batter into 8” pans. Bake in moderate oven at 375 degrees 25-30 minutes.

Chocolate Buttermilk Icing

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup cocoa

¼ cup butter or margarine

½ teaspoon soda

2 cups buttermilk

3 teaspoons corn syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

While cake is baking, bring icing to low simmer. When cake is done, poke holes in it with fork; pour icing over hot cake.

J
ake’s Plymouth sped down the dark road toward Adair County. From the radio, Eddie Fisher sang “I’m Yours.” If Jake had noticed I’d earlier changed the station, he hadn’t said anything, nor had he changed it back to his hillbilly music.

Still lost in a pleasant daze, I stared out the window at the dark fields on my right, but fully aware of Jake’s hand caressing my left kneecap when it wasn’t shifting gears. His touch sent pleasurable shivers rippling through me. We’d barely talked at all since we’d left the weed-choked lane on the moonshiner’s property. When I’d asked why he’d dressed up like an Indian just to scare me, he’d admitted that his bootlegger friend had been the one to come up with the idea. I supposed if I had a lick of sense, I’d still be mad about it, because even now, it seemed downright cruel. But how could I be mad at him after what had happened in the backseat of his Plymouth?

It had hurt at first.
Lord
, how it had hurt! I hadn’t expected that—not after the delicious feelings his clever fingers had aroused in me. It wasn’t that I was ignorant. I lived on a farm. I’d seen roosters rutting with the hens. I’d watched our old workhorse, Solomon, mate with a neighbor’s mare. But no one, certainly not Mother, had told me that sex was
pleasurable
…or that it hurt the first time.

It hadn’t lasted, though. Jake had waited for it to subside, holding me gently, his lips nuzzling mine. After a moment, the sharp ache was gone, and there was only a satisfying fullness inside me. When he began to move, I forgot there had ever been anything but pure pleasure as an almost unbearable sensation of need and piercing sweetness shimmered through my body.

I was a woman now. A real woman. Everything had changed. I didn’t know what would happen tomorrow. I didn’t know how this would affect my leaving for secretarial school in August. There was only one thing I
did
know.

I was in love with Jake Tatlow.

“Almost there,” he said, down-shifting for the right turn onto Opal Springs Ridge Road.

Glancing at the illuminated clock on the dashboard, I felt a curl of apprehension in my stomach. Almost one in the morning. Oh, dear Lord, I hoped I was doing the right thing.

The car bounced up the rutted road leading to Opal Springs. I’d instructed Jake to let me out just after we passed Sylvie Lou Blankenship’s house; I’d hike the rest of the way up the road. Just in case someone should be up, I didn’t want them to see me getting out of Jake’s car, which they’d surely recognize. If Daddy found out about the two of us, it would make the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s feud look downright neighborly.

Jake turned to me, his foot on the brake as the engine idled. He reached out and stroked a finger down my jaw. I quivered under his touch. “Lily Rae, this is just the beginning of the best summer of our lives,” he whispered.

I nodded, my heart lifting even higher. “Oh, I know, Jake. I just can’t believe…” I shook my head.

“What?”

“I can’t believe I ever thought I loved Chad,” I said, dropping my gaze shyly. “It’s
you
I love, Jake Tatlow. I’ll love you forever.”

He lifted my chin with a forefinger, his eyes soft, and brushed his mouth over mine in a tender kiss. “Meet me tomorrow after church? In our old spot down by the creek?”

I nodded, already imagining it—the dappled sunlight, the swiftly flowing water over smooth, warm rocks. Jake’s naked body sliding over mine. Lord, I
was
bad. There was no saving me now.

He kissed me once more and leaned across me to open my door. I slid out of the car and watched as he drove off down the road, his taillights finally disappearing around the hairpin curve.

***

Something wasn’t right. My steps slowed as I neared the house, my heart beginning to pound. All the lights were burning. Even the ones upstairs. Which made absolutely no sense at all. What were the boys doing up at this time of night? Even my own light was on, which meant…

I swallowed, trying to rid my mouth of the sour taste of fear.

Mother and Daddy must’ve just gotten home from Louieville, and for some reason, they’d got everybody up, including Norry. And I was sure I knew why. Somehow, they’d gotten word that I was missing from the party. They were probably worried sick about me. How could I have been so stupid to leave that party without even telling anybody? Oh, Chad and Pat-Peaches had seen me leave, of course. But if asked, would they tell anybody the reason I’d stormed off?

Dear Lord, maybe the whole town of Russell Springs had been searching for me during those three hours we had been parked out in moonshine country. Oh, it was for sure I was in big trouble now. And when they saw the state I was in—my dress all rumpled, my curls tangled and damp from the heat of the night and my sweat. Oh, Lord. My cheeks burned, and darned if I didn’t smell of motor oil and…my cheeks grew hotter…good loving. How could they
not
know what I’d been doing?

No use trying to sneak into the house
. With a sigh of resignation, I climbed the rickety four steps to the porch. Might as well go on in and face the music. What would they do? Graduate or not, I knew I wasn’t too big to get a whipping. Not as long as I still lived under Daddy’s roof. But would they do worse? Would they kick me out of the house? Would they pin a scarlet “A” on my dress like they did to that poor Hester in Hawthorne’s book—the one Mr. Grider had made us read and write a paper on last semester—and make me wear it everywhere I went? Well, then, me and Jake would just have to run off together and get married.

The thought calmed me. I wasn’t in this alone. I had Jake now, and if he had to, he would fight for me. I opened the front door and stepped into the house. If the light hadn’t been on, I would’ve thought the room was empty. That’s how quiet it was inside. But Mother sat in the rocking chair next to the cold pot-bellied stove with a sleeping Charles Alton in her arms, his blond curls peeping out from his blanket. Mother’s head lay back against her chair, her eyes closed. She rocked slowly, back and forth, and with each motion, the floorboards creaked in protest. Her face was pale, and appeared etched with new wrinkles since I’d last seen her.

I felt a pang in her heart. Poor exhausted Mother. She wore the same pale blue dress she’d had on this morning, along with thick, brown support stockings and sturdy black “old lady” shoes that I vowed to never, ever wear.

They must’ve just gotten home, I figured. Surely Charles Alton was doing better or the doctors would never have sent him home. I glanced around. But where was Daddy? And why was it so quiet if everybody was up?