April’s Child

"My mama would like seein' me sitting in no gazebo with you and munchin' on no picnic basket, Miz. Irene."

"Then we'd have to find someplace else to take that pleasure, wouldn't we Toby?" The smile she gave him was a provocative one, and he looked away from her, overwhelmed with a feeling he knew his mama would hate a lot more than seeing him having a meal with a white woman.

They hadn't been picking long before Irene shuddered, noticing that there had been a sudden drop in the temperature.

"It's getting cold, Toby."

"Yassim, I noticed that too, Miz. Irene. Best we go back to the boat and row back across the river. And maybe we need to leave sooner than—"

The end of his sentence was blotted out by the clap of thunder, which was followed by the opening of the skies and lowering of a sheet of rain. The deluge was so thick so fast that they both were soaked instantly. Toby looked at Irene in astonishment. She had worn no foundation garments. The cotton of her dress had become nearly transparent and, soaked, it clung to every contour of her body within seconds of the start of the storm. The dress was plastered to her ample, still lactating breasts, just as it clung to her thighs and to the curve into her maidenhead, following the line of her mound, and even revealing her pubic hair and the puffy wings of her folds. She might as well have been naked standing in front of him.

Toby gasped and tried to look away in embarrassment, but he couldn't stem either his curiosity or his lusty interest. He also couldn't hide the similar effect of the torrential rain on his own clothing. The bulges of his muscular torso, every curve and angle of it already known to Irene's inspection, was clearly discerned against his soaked, clinging shirt—as was the meaty manhood between his legs, instantly beginning to engorge over what Toby could see.

"The hut," Irene called out, turning toward the shed at the base of the bluff.

But Toby reached out with a hand, grabbing her forearm. "No, who knows if this will rise the river fast.? Up the hill, to that lean-to at the top."

Electrified by the touch of his hand on her arm, Irene turned to him, and whispered, "Oh Toby."

With only that, she was enveloped in his arms, the two were straining to meld into each other, and he was kissing her on the mouth, through her straggly, soaked hair above her ear, on her neck. And, as he bent her back, fingers struggling with the buttons on her bodice, on her breasts, as he dipped his face down to them.

Whispering, "Toby, Toby, Toby," and then a hissed "Yesssss," as his mouth found her nipples and suckled her, sucking out drops of mother's milk. She ran a trembling but emboldened hand between them and grasped his hard staff through the wet material of his trousers.

"Miz. Irene!" he exclaimed.

"You are a man, Toby. Be a man for me," she hissed at him between clinched teeth.

He was breathing heavily. Taking his lips away from a nipple, he murmured, "No, we can't. this is wrong."

But, unhearing, unheeding, determined, Irene unbuttoned his fly and pulled his shaft out to put a lie to what they couldn't do. His lips went to hers. His tongue breached the lips and invaded her mouth cavity, claiming possession of her. She yielded to him without hesitation.

A clap of thunder, a nearby flash of lightning, and the crash of a falling tree just beyond the berry patch pulled them apart.

"The bluff. The lean-to," Toby called out in a hoarse, lust-laced voice. "Quick. The path. Over there."

He turned Irene to face the entrance to the path and nudged her. Another nearby lightning strike propelled her onto the rising path.

They had only climbed half way up the hillside, when the towering blackberry bushes on either side and tree canopy overhead gave them some sense of protection. Irene was moving ahead of Toby. Toby reached out for her, encircled her body and pulled her back into his muscular chest.

"Oh, yes, Toby, yes. Here. Now," Irene whimpered, as he took his arms away only long enough to pull her long skirt up to bunch at her waist. One hand shot up to cup and squeeze a breast, while the other one slid down her belly and into her bush, where he gripped her mound and ran fingers into her folds, seeking and finding her treasure and her entrance.

She turned her face to him, whimpering "Toby, Toby, Toby" over and over until he had captured her lips with his and taken her breath away. She jerked and lurch, pulling away from the kiss and crying out as, spreading her folds with his fingers, he entered her with his shaft and immediately started to plow her. Such was their excitement and passion that, with another nearby lightning strike, she was jolted with an orgasm and he ejaculated, releasing his seed deep inside her in one, two, three strong spurts.

"Again!" Irene commanded.

"That strike was too close. The lean-to."

They struggled on up the path, stumbled into the lean-to, and, discovering a straw mattress making up most of the dry area in the lean-to, tumbled onto that. Irene fell on her back. Toby came down on top of her. With one hand, he reached up and opened his hand under her jaw and pushed her head back, flat against the straw. With the other, he slapped her legs open and knelt between them. Understanding his intent, Irene spread her legs, bent them, her feet on the surface of the mat, and elevated her buttocks to him. Toby slid inside her and fucked her to another seeding.

Finished, he slid down her body and buried his face in her mound, moving his tongue into her folds, as she clutched at the hair on the back of his head to hold him close to her, and groaned and moaned and gave sounds of pleasure that she never, in her wildest dreams, believed were possible for a woman. He brought her to another explosion and then another. And then, young and virile, rose up over her and fucked her again to another ejaculation.

The storm passed quickly and the sun had been out for some time when the two struggled out of the lean-to, sleepy eyed because the coupling had exhausted them both.

"We'll have to dry these clothes before we go back," Irene said, as she peeled her dress away from her body. "You too," she said. "Don't be shy about me seeing it in all its gloried. I've had it inside me," she added with a laugh. Still, she gasped when she saw how thick and long it was.

Feeling wanton, she went down on her knees and took it in her mouth. It was Toby's turn to gasp. But he reached down and pulled her up. "If these clothes am gonna dry, we'd best start them to doin' that. The sunny patch down there by the riverside."

They moved quickly down the path and shivered as they stripped off the now cold as well as damp clothes. While Irene lay their clothes out on bushes in the sunlight to allow the now-warm air to reach them from both above and below, Toby went in search of the rowboat. The rise of the river had sent it up the bank and into some bushes.

When he came back, covering his privates as best he could, he said, "I'm afraid the picnic you brought is ruined. There is nothing for us to eat."

Irene laughed. "Take your hand away from it, Toby. I want to see you in all your glory. There is nothing we don't know of each other now. We will be Adam and Eve for this brief time we have. And feeling totally free and naughty, she said. "You already feasted on me in the shed up on the bluff and I gave you drink of my mother's milk. Now it is my turn to eat you."

She turned to him, shoved him hard on the sternum, and surprised by the push, Toby went down on his bare rump on the soft grass in the sunlight with a laugh. Irene came down on her knees between his bent legs and, grasping the base of his staff in one of her hands, took it in her mouth. As she gave him suck, he half reclined under her, holding his torso in an incline with the heel of one hand buried into the soft earth below his shoulder. He ran the other hand into her luxuriant, raven-black hair and helped guide the bobbing of her head in a rhythm that pleased him the most. That established, he moved the hand to her breasts, squeezing one after the other. Balancing himself without the need of the support of the other hand, Irene sucked away as he grasped both breasts, milking them, and producing drops of milk.

Having had all of the sucking he could endure, He grabbed Irene's waist and pulled her body up and over him, letting it hover there over his body momentarily. She looked down into his eyes with a dreamy look in her eyes.

"May I have permission to fuck you again, Miz. Irene?

"Oh, yes. Oh, yes, please," she murmured, aroused by the mere utterance of that word from his lips. "You need never ask again whenever we can manage it."

And knowing what was coming next because that was the position she'd seen Toby take with Annie and wanting what she'd seen Annie get, she reached down and held his shaft steady as he lowered her on it, playfully dragged the glans over her secret nub repeatedly inside her folds and teased her treasure with it to hear her moan, before he pulled her passage down on the hard, thick, long rod.

She rode his shaft to another explosion and then another as he squeezed her breasts with his hands. He nuzzled his cheeks to her breasts, his shaft moving slowly and deep inside her, hard and building up to an explosion of his own. He turned his mouth to one nipple and then another, closing his mouth over the plump, taut nipple and sucking, taking the whole aureole in and rhythmically sucking hard, as, moaning and sighing, Irene arched her back and pushed her chest in to his suckling lips, feeling herself release the nectar in short bursts. She moved her pelvis on his hard erection, as he suckled her dry of her mother's milk and slathered her deep repeatedly inside in his spurting cum.

Never before had Irene felt so connected, so possessed, so naturally used, so totally fulfilled, so much as one as with this beautiful young, virile light-chocolate man moving deep inside her and suckling the last drop of milk from her breasts.

Back at the Oriental cottage, the storm had come and gone, and although Sissy worried that her mistress and her son had been lost on the river on the fast-breaking thunderstorm, she was just as worried of what else might have been keeping them.

One look at them when they returned to the house confirmed her worst fears in that regard.

It was the First of April. April Fools' day. And all Sissy could think of was what fools Miz. Irene and Toby were—and what a fool she'd been to let it happen. And what a fool Mr. Wilton was for not treating Irene right and making her vulnerable for this. And, while she was about it in fingering fools and talking about vulnerability, what a fool that hussy Annie was for teaching her precious son what there was to do with a woman. Yes, Sissy knew what Toby and Annie had been doing. At least that, though, was among like folks. And Toby was a strapping nineteen-year-old. Of course he could easily be led to it. Sissy had been younger herself when she'd first bitten that apple.

"Such is the world of us all. All of us just April fools," she muttered when a humming Irene, her dress obviously not having been on her the whole live long day, had passed through the kitchen and was mounting the stairs to her bedroom.

Sissy slept fitfully that night. Twice she left her bed with the sole purpose of checking Toby's. It had been tousled, but it was empty both times. She knew he was upstairs. She didn't know how far upstairs, though. Hoping for the lesser of two evils, she prayed that it was up on third floor, fucking Annie. But in her heart she knew he was on the second floor, inside Irene. What to do?

Such foolishness. It was the spring. April. April foolishness. The fools of April. It had been April when she had conceived Toby. She could still see the face—and other parts—of that handsome young white boy. Handsome, young . . . and virile. And so quickly come and gone.

Wearily, she went back to her own bed. What to do? What to do? She went to sleep of thinking of her own white lover, the young farmhand beside the country road, laying her gently on her back in the clover, pressing his hand between her thighs and looking down into her eyes with lust and a question in his. Thinking of her legs going to putty as he found and worked her treasure spot. Her legs spreading as if by their own volition, him rising up over her, entering her, sliding deep, pulling out, sliding in again, as she clutched his shoulder blades and raised her hips to meet his slides. Sliding faster and faster. The hold, jerk, and cry. Sighing as she felt him come deep inside her. Knowing even then that she'd conceived. Not caring if only he stayed inside her, came alive again, and plowed and sowed her once more. Which he did.

What could she say or do? Her precious children—Irene and Toby both. Young and ripe, both of them. Deserving the pleasures of life. Irene certainly not getting that pleasure with her old man husband; just getting worn out. Sissy had had her white lover too. If only for an afternoon.

But such folly. Such young fools. Nothing but tragedy could come of up. Not that the old goat didn't deserve it. Especially with what he was doing with Annie.

Above her, on the second floor, Toby was hovered between Irene's open thighs, thrusting again and again inside her, as Irene clutched his shoulder blades and raised her hips to meet his young, virile, furred thrusts, exploding for him repeatedly and crying out as he drowned her passage with his spurting seed. Holding, panting, murmuring intimately to each other of shared love, waiting for him to recover, as, still inside her, he lowered his face to her breasts, nuzzled them, clamped his mouth over a taut nipple, and suckled, teasing out her milk. Coupling again and again with an urgency from the knowledge of both that Jonathan would reappear at the summer cottage the next day.

* * * *

What Sissy could see on April Fools' day, Jonathan could at least suspect when he arrived at the cottage the next day. Even a large slice of blackberry pie at dinner didn't cause him to stop looking at Irene and scrutinizing her demeanor. What was making her flash those little smiles and to blush as she did and to seem to be in off in a little world of her own for brief moments?

What was making Sissy so jittery and on edge—and a bit cross? Why did Irene look up startled and smiling when Toby passed by the window, whistling happily? Why did her hand go to her breast at that particular moment.

He took her to bed early and fucked her silly, pumping her with his seed again and again through the night. Her strange behavior must be because of his frequent absences of late, he reasoned. She was thinking of it being time to have another baby. Well, he knew how to make that happen. A woman with child was a happy, docile woman.

She lay there, docilely, opening her legs on command, lightly laying her fingers on his shoulders as he huffed and puffed between her legs, a little secret smile on her face. Denying him nothing, but giving him nothing of herself other than his rights as a husband. She had no worry of him putting another baby inside her.

Still, he was out of sorts in the morning, tuning into the tense behavior from Sissy and the relaxed and happy state of not only Irene but also that black boy, Toby. When he fucked Annie in her room in the early afternoon, while Irene had the boys with her in the garden, Toby was working on the Buick, and Sissy was busy struggling with a butcher knife and the leg of lamb Jonathan had brought from New Bern, Annie whispered of the storm and how Irene and Toby had been out in it—Irene wanting to pick those blackberries that had gone into his pie—for hours on the first day of April.

The next day, Jonathan declared that he wanted to go fishing out on the river—and that he wanted Toby to go with him.

He returned three hours after they left without fish—and without Toby.

"When we got to the other side of the river, that darky just bolted and ran into the woods," Jonathan. "Can't trust those darkies without chaining them to something."

Sissy was upset, but not thrashing about on the floor upset. Irene kept demanding, almost hysterically, that they had to muster up help and go look for him.

Jonathan said, "Why go to that bother? Can't trust those darkies. He probably just ran off. I can drive the Buick. When I go back to New Bern, I'll just hire another driver and handyman. I'll try to go for a white boy this time. More reliable." He turned stern eyes on Irene. "Maybe an older white man."

Jonathan went back to New Bern the next day. Irene had come down with a vomiting-type illness the previous evening, and Jonathan had slept in another bedroom.

The days went on and soon it was early July. The family had remained in Oriental because Irene rejected all ideas of moving back to New Berne just to return to the riverside cottage within a couple of months. For the first couple of weeks after Toby's disappearance, she went out every day looking for him and asking anyone she met whether they had seen the Wilton's young, black driver. No one had. She enlisted men from the town to take her out on the river, up to and beyond the blackberry patch, looking for signs of Toby. In the evening she would walk down to the riverbank and stare at the water, as if he would emerge, smiling from the depths. But he never did.

As the months went on Irene began to drag around more and to become increasingly despondent. She cried at the smallest irritants, running to her room and shutting herself in. And she became totally listless, not showing interest in much of anything, including her boys. She ate like a bird, but put on weight.

Sissy mothered her as best she could, but there came a day when she got on the phone and called New Bern. It wasn't Jonathan she called, though. It was Irene's father, the doctor.

He came almost immediately in his Model T Ford. Sissy took him aside and spoke intensely with him in whispers before he went up to Irene's bedroom. Irene woke from an exhausted, snuffling sleep to find her father sitting on the side of her bed, a syringe in his hand.

"I'm here, sugar," he whispered. "You are exhausted and need the rest this will aid. You have a nervous condition. We must prevent a breakdown. I'm taking you to a hospital I have a hand in for a rest. The mountain air will rejuvenate you."

The drive from the coast west and up into the mountains, to the hospital outside Ashville Irene's father talked of—although it wasn't just a hospital, Irene could see from the sign over the gate; it was a sanitarium, a place where folks buried their difficult and crazy relatives alive—went by with Irene sedated and only half conscious. All she knew was that Sissy was with her, patting her arm occasionally and saying that the boys were safe, that Irene's mother was at the cottage. That Sissy would not leave the flighty Annie alone with a pet turtle to care for.

Irene knew that she should object to being taken to a sanitarium. But she . . . just . . . didn't care anymore.

At some point she rallied enough interest to ask Sissy about her husband, Jonathan. "He hasn't visited me here, Sissy. Ever. Is he angry with me?"

Sissy pursed her lips. "That man don't know you be here and we not be tellin' him you are. For all he knows, you run away."

"But surely my father would have told him—"

"When Mr. Wilton asked your father, your papa cut him off, sayin' if you had run away, it was no more than that husband of yours deserved. Mr. Wilton just clamped his mouth shut on that. It wasn't the only thing your papa told that man that he knew. I not be talkin' 'bout that, though. My lips is sealed about that, they are."

Irene's baby was born a week after Christmas. It was a dark, berry-brown girl, the color of Sissy, its grandmother. Not white, like Irene or Jonathan, or even a light chocolate brown, like Toby. But it was so much like Sissy, that there was no doubt that Sissy was the grandmother, which made Toby the father. There was no surprise in Irene's eyes when they first brought the baby to her.