Note: This story was dynamically reformatted for online reading convenience.
 
 SOUTHERN MATINGS

   by Holly Rennick

   AUTHOR'S NOTES

   The setting comes from a suggestion by Wet Dream Girl, whom you'll find
at storiesonline.net.  We considered co-authoring a Southern story, but as
a co-writer I'd probably get bitchy, what my therapist might label a
competitive control manifestation.  (Only my therapist understands me and
she only costs the price of cable.  Hey, Oprah, want to publish a book of
my short stories?)

   So here's what Wet Dream Girl and I decided: I'm writing this one and
she's writing a parallel tale, "Dixie Flowers", about the character
Frances. Two slave-owning girls, two ways of mistressing.

   Way down upon the Suwannee River...

   ANTEBELLUM

   I'd seen never seen a Negro's penis.  Black boys, yes, of course, when
we'd pass them swimming in the river, whooping and swinging from the rope
tied to the cottonwood.  They'd avert looking our way as if we were the
naked ones, but slaves to tend not look at you in any case.

   "They're from the jungle," explained Mama, fixated like me on their
lithe, black nakedness.

   I supposed their origin to account for something, but noted that white
boys their age swim just the same.

   I'd see the Negroes at auction, shackled for pre-bid inspection, but
clothed to foster the perception of better breeding.  Potential bidders
would freely open the attire to inspect for scars or deformities.  It
wouldn't be unknown to shroud a poorly-set arm under a serviceable topcoat.
Lash-marks spoke of willful disobedience, a potentially bad investment.

   Mama considered herself aloof from the mechanics of the auction, leaving
it to Papa to complete the transactions.  She'd hover near, though, peering
at physiques and making known her prognostications.  In matters of
commerce, Mama was astute for a woman.  Even for a man, actually.  Maybe
women know more about reading testicles, I wondered.

   My friend Frances Butler and I had little interest in the transactions,
other than if one of our fathers might be bidding on a girl who might
become a companion.  Mama's girl, Cassie, was an actual girl when Grandpa
bought her and she'd stayed with Mama ever since.

   What we liked best about auction day was the hustle and bustle.  Our
friends would be there.  Vendors would sell ices.  While our parents did
their business and enjoyed the camaraderie of our class, we could wander,
acting grownup.

   Frances and I were by the sale line, chatting about school and church,
how boring were both.

   "Hey, Abbie.  Let's act like we're looking for a field boy."

   I must have looked doubtful.

   "No one will know we're not really," she assured.

   "I'll make a list of their ages and things," I volunteered.  I liked to
make lists.

   Frances and I approached a black one near the end of the line.  His
unshackled legs marked him a servant who already knew his station.  When we
sauntered before him, he didn't lift his eyes.

   "How old are you, boy?"

   "Fifteen, ma'am," as he continued to stare downward.  I'd have thought
him older than me, but we were the same age.

   I wrote, "Boy, 15."

   "Know your letters?" It's good when they do because they can do more
jobs, Papa always said.

   "Yes, ma'am."

   I wrote, "Letters."

   "Where'd you learn?" my curiosity getting the better of me.

   "Jus' on my own self, missy.  Not when Ah be workin'."

   "Let's see you," Frances interrupted, glancing sideways for anyone we
might know.  As one was purchasing a Negro's progeny, a buyer had every
reason to inspect that sort of capacity.

   I only realized her intent when she reached to part his britches.  There
before us was his penis, a fat black worm.

   He stood motionless.

   Frances lifted the organ between two fingers as if it were unclean, but
at the same time, something of value.  "You make lil' pickaninnies?"

   "No, ma'am," still staring downward.  "Ah ain't never."

   "Here, Abbie.  You check it, too," suggested my grinning friend.

   Poking it with my finger, I was surprised at its sponginess, how its
skin hung down around its tip.  I could have lifted it to see below, but I
didn't want to.

   "Watch this." Frances retook possession.

   She'd told that if you keep rubbing, they'll get hard, "Pulling the
taffy," she called it.  "Then be ready!  The whiter they make it, the
stronger it is!" She did it all the time, she boasted, showing me a stain
on her skirt.

   I didn't want to make my list of ages and things.

   "We have to go," I interrupted, but not before Frances had closed her
grasp and a start of fear passed the boy's face.  If a white man saw him as
Frances intended, the boy would be beaten terribly.  We'd just get warned
to stay away from what we didn't understand.

   But I did understand.  It wouldn't even be his fault.  He's just a
Negro. Would you blame a cow when you milked her?

   "Maybe we'll buy you," teased Frances, letting go with a bold squeeze.

   He offered no opinion.

   Walking back, I saw Mama's bonnet in the midst of a clutch of ladies
bunched together about a buck to mask their purpose.  The Negro winced, but
otherwise stood stoic.  The women laughed, Mama louder than most.

   Imagine my surprise when we boarded the buggy at afternoon's end! 
There, at rope's end was the one we'd touched.  Nothing in his demeanor
suggested that he remembered me, but I knew he did.

   "Papa," as nonchalantly as I could, "we needn't rope that boy.  You can
tell by looking that he'll stay."

   Papa looked at me.  "You and your mother know more about darkies than
me, it seems."

   "No, sir," realizing my impertinence.

   But he waved for Clay, our supervisor, our Negro who almost wasn't a
Negro, to untie the purchase.

   The boy gave me the first glance he'd allowed and trotted behind all the
way home, validating my estimation.

   "You got a name, boy?"

   "Titus, missy," allowing his second glance.

   As it started to rain, I dashed into the big-house where, with a little
luck, there would be fresh-baked cakes.  The boy I left standing in the
downpour until someone would tell him what to do.

   ***

   From the door I heard Mama and Cassie in the kitchen.

   "Cassie, hon, we got us a new boy."

   "Ah seed him come in wid' you, Missy Abbie."

   "You got some space in your bed, girl?"

   "Ah sho' 'nuf do," laughed the servant.  "Got one special place fo' dat
boy."

   The two laughed like sisters.

   Cassie had never been allowed to marry, Mama had told me, because it
would only bring her heartache.  Sending her the new boys must have been
Mama's way of compensating, but I'd have thought there'd still be heartache
when Cassie's newborns were sent to be wet-nursed in the field-house. 
There was no time in the big-house for a black baby.

   "I declare, girl.  Sometimes I wish I was one of you," Mama exclaimed.

   Cassie chuckled, but provided no opinion.

   ***

   I'd once trailed Cassie into the pines, knowing that I shouldn't. 
Negroes know their way through a thicket better than do the whites, though
we own it.  Clay was waiting and although I was too far to really see, I
watched them brazenly strip and lie together, Clay at first on top, then
the other way.

   I imagined myself to be Cassie, knowing what to do.  Maybe it was only
the rustle of the pine needles, but I could hear the swish of their black
bodies.

   ***

   Being our house-girl, Cassie had her own room below the stairs, space
for nothing but bed and trunk.  How she managed to fit Titus in, I could
hardly guess, other than realize that people can stack horizontally.

   Sometimes at night I'd sneak down the stairs and listen.  The two would
be murmuring, sometimes giggling, above the slow thumping on cotton-stuffed
mattress that could have only come from two bodies interlocked in
protracted purpose.  At the end, Cassie would hum.

   They say that Negroes do it like animals, but I'd seen animals mate. 
The sound of Cassie and the boy was not that of animals.  Animals, you can
tell, are hurried.  Two Negroes under the stairs, on the other hand, have
all the night before they're called to their duties.

   I was glad for Cassie that they didn't make a baby.  Actually, I was
glad for the boy, too, as even a Negro male would want to raise his own. 
It wouldn't matter if he came from a jungle.

   ***

   Another time from the hall I heard Mama and Cassie laughing.

   "It isn't fair, Cassie.  You get more out of one time than I get out of
five!"

   "Not all'as, Missy Abbie!" Cassie chuckled.  "Jus' when Ah's da teacha,"
and the two tittered all the more.

   "And you get it more times in a week than I get in a month, girl!"

   "He be such a good student, dat boy!"

   If it weren't for their voices, I'd have thought I was listening to a
pair of girlfriends telling tall tales.

   ***

   Frances pulled me aside in church.  "You made your new boy do it yet,
you know, in the air?"

   What could I do but lie?  "Sure."

   "Where?"

   "In the woods," fast on my feet.

   "Good way to tame them, right?"

   I agreed that it was.

   ***

   What the boy did with his spare time wasn't my concern, but I'd leave
one of my old primers by Cassie's door and, in a week or two, find it there
again and leave the next.  It wasn't a half-year before I was leaving books
I myself just finished.  Probably he just liked to hold the volumes, I told
myself; Negroes would like to do that.  But I knew that he was studying
every word.  Did he read by candlelight, wedged between Cassie and the
wall?

   Cassie, of course, knew of my books.  The house-girl knows everything.
She'd no idea of the letters, but she knew that learning was gold.  Once
when she and I were alone in the kitchen, she enveloped me in her swaying
breasts.  "You be a good girl, fo' sho', chil'.  Good white girl, good
Niggrah, don't make no dif'ence."

   I valued what Cassie thought.  Always had.  Always will.  She'd whopped
my behind enough times when Mama wasn't there to do it herself.  They both
knew it was better than involving Papa when I sassed an ancient Negro. 
Papa would have laughed.  For Cassie, it was sassing an elder.  Mama might
have seen it as a little less, but if forced to choose, would have sided
with her house-girl.

   It's good to grow up with two mamas.

   ***

   We were at the Butlers for a Sunday social and the adults were playing
dominoes.

   My friend pulled me aside.  "Let's go watch the blackies rut."

   "Rut?"

   "You know, make their little black babies," as if I were a dullard,
which maybe I was.  "They do it behind the wash-house."

   "And you watch?" to make sure I understood.  It didn't seem right to
watch them make babies.

   "They like me to."

   "They do?"

   "The bucks, anyway.  They're better than white men, you know."

   That, I didn't know.  Fortunately, Mama called.

   ***

   Titus proved to be an able Negro.  He could do his share in the field,
but more importantly, he could solve situations.  He was the one to devise
the bale lift that white men from other farms came to copy.  He was smart
enough to let them think that it was Papa's design.  He was the one devise
a scheme where hard-workers were rewarded and Papa ended up with more
profit.  He was smart enough to first lead Mama through the economics and
then let her sell the logic to Papa.

   As Titus was too old to play with the younger boys on Sunday afternoons,
I didn't again see his penis, though of course I could have stood him
before me in the barn.  He'd have never told a soul, except maybe Cassie,
and she'd have said that I was just curious, same as any white girl.  But
remembering his fright when Frances set out to prove her skill, coupled
with my own hesitancy about things I didn't understand, I left him be.

   Frances remembered his penis, too, figuring that she could bring a
Negress to carry her drawing supplies.  We'd go up on the knoll, taking
Titus to cut a path through the brambles.  Once on top, we'd make them
fornicate.

   "If the girl doesn't want to, it's even better," my friend assured me.
"You give them a five-cent piece afterwards."

   I said that Cassie would find out and tell Mama and we'd get blamed.

   ***

   That night I crept down the stairs to leave The Merchant of Venice
outside Cassie's door.  I had to wait almost an hour before the two inside
extinguished their candle and began their mating, and maybe half that long
before they quieted.

   "Missy Abbie," Cassie scolded me before breakfast.  "You's gonna catch
yo' death of cold, you sitting out dere."

   I was mortified, but she just grinned.  "Dat boy be ready fo' somebody
mo' his own age, one dese days," before firing up the stove.

   I thought of Frances.  "Cassie?"

   "Chil'?"

   "If you ever need a dollar for anything, you can have it.  It's 'most
all I have."

   She looked at me with surprise, then lay aside the kindling to take me
to her.  "Abbie, dat's yo' dollah.  Bein' cu'ious ain't got no price."

   On the knoll at Frances's prodding, I'd have acted fashionably amused at
their coital antics, aloof to their union.  Listening in the dark, however,
I'd touched my breast.

   ***

   Two things remembered from childhood:

   (1) Mama asleep.  Papa's sound from Cassie's room.

   (2) Papa away for the day.  Cassie herding me into the kitchen.  Clay's
callused feet going upstairs.

   ****

   At 18, I married Lawrence Todd Overton, the young man for whom I'd been
groomed for a dozen years.  The Overtons owned the Mercantile.  Lawrence
was handsome, all-in-all a most-promising match.  Our fathers agreed that
land needed capital and capital needed land.

   Lawrence was enough intoxicated by the end of the wedding reception to
tear my dress.  I was frightened, but Cassie had simply told me to do what
was asked.

   At first, Lawrence was only displeased with my hesitancy, but whisky
drives displeasure to anger.  When I didn't lie the way he wanted, he pried
me apart and thrust as an animal.  Tears made him only the baser,
delighting in my futile retreat.

   When he was spent, my blood was yet seeping.

   I'd lain immobile, hoping he'd leave, but within an hour (or maybe more,
I'd no idea) he was again swearing and smirking.

   "You liked it?"

   "I'm not very good," I admitted, which must have been the wrong answer.

   "Well, damn it, maybe this way!" bending me over the edge of the
mattress.

   Face-down, I didn't know what was happening until he entered me in a way
I didn't know could be done.  The pain was anew and again there was blood.
He laughed when I bawled, this time not for the hurt, but for the shame.

   "I'll make you want this way best," he told me, no longer drunk, as he
orgasmed in my rectum.

   ***

   Cassie must have quizzed the wash-girl, as Cassie always knew when I was
bleeding from the backside.  She'd never ask why, but rock me to ease my
humiliation.

   ***

   Lawrence and I lived within sight of the big-house.  It would be years
before Papa was ready to divest himself, but Mama already anticipated a
more-genteel lifestyle, not that of the working mistress, but now the
matriarch.

   Just as Lawrence would be the next master, we'd soon need a new overseer
and all agreed that given Clay's tutelage, Titus would be the next
top-Negro.  A tobacco farm thinks ahead, not by weeks or even harvests. 
It's by generations, not unlike how, inch-by-inch, the river changes its
course seaward.

   Titus, of course, wanted the task.  Smart Negroes aren't dumb.  He'd get
his own shack and more importantly, security as long as the enterprise
succeeded.

   At last being a permanent part of the farm, he'd merit a regular mate.
I'd have thought they'd give him Cassie, as the two were already in every
sense one, but Cassie would be passing breeding age and, in any case, was
needed by Mama.

   ***

   Lawrence's bridal gift was my own attendant, Nelba, a year younger than
me and already a dressmaker.  The girl was prettier than most whites.  Lots
of Negroes have white blood, but mostly from ugly whites.  With her thin
lips and high cheekbones, I could imagine Nelba was from an Ethiopian
princess and maybe a French explorer.

   But as I saw it, Nelba could just as well do my sewing from the
field-house, and in any case, it wasn't as if she'd been my girl for long
enough to be special.

   Nelba was properly servile, so much that I found her a bore.  Cassie
would take on her mistress when she deemed Mama was on a bad track.  Once
the three of us were in the Mercantile.  "Ah don' cah what you sais, Missy
Abbie.  Dat dress is too tight on yo' backside." After the feathers settled
(and Mama abandoned the purchase), Mama and Cassie got along almost like
the latter was white.  I wanted that kind of companion, not a Nelba.

   Plus, who wants a servant that gentlemen will eyeball, forgetting about
you?

   Titus and Nelba hadn't any say in their matrimony, but they'd breed
well.

   ***

   Nelba and I had our boys almost together, my Jess a week before her
Book, a name maybe chosen to encourage.  Negroes do that sort of naming
unless we assign them a proper one.

   Attired in my baby dresses, Jess looked just like me, said Mama.  Book
likewise took after his mama, but more tan.  Maybe Titus had relatives
lighter skinned than himself, I supposed, though I thought it never went
that way.

   Titus took to his newborn more than did Lawrence to ours.  Lawrence and
Titus both had full days of work, but Titus didn't drink whiskey on his
porch afterwards.  Of course he didn't, as he'd not have had whiskey, but
he could have reflected on his labors drinking mash if that's what he
chose.

   No, Titus wanted to carry little Book to visit the field-house, spin
yarns with his friends, enjoy the eveningtide.  He'd tie his child on his
back, the same way Negresses do while they work the fields.  I supposed it
to be an African trait.

   If I were out strolling, Cassie behind to help with little Jess, we'd
stop where our path crossed that of Titus and Book to compare parental
experiences.  Babies of whatever color are more alike than different.

   It was Cassie who said to pay it no mind.  If Jess was hungry and we
were in a quiet spot, even with Titus there, go ahead and nurse.  "Titus.
He done seen 'nuf befo', just mo' darker," petting her own chest fondly. 
"An' Ah gonna stand watch, case folks be comin'."

   As I nursed, Titus looked away, not unlike when I'd once touched his
penis.  Except this time he was still talking his share, serious about
fevers, laughing at what we found funny.  There's much that can be
discussed about babies.

   Cassie was a bit more astute.  "He done looked 'xactly, chil', but ain't
never going to tell you you's pretty 'cause he cain't."

   I suppose Cassie noticed how I arranged our strolls to intersect Titus
and Book, but she didn't steer me otherwise.  I suppose that Titus guessed
that when I focused on the treetops, he'd permission to watch.

   "Missy," advised Cassie.  "Jus' don't make him think yo' wantin'
sometin' you don' wanna give, you heah?"

   I didn't answer, but not because you don't need to answer a Negro.  I,
of course, didn't want anything, but your other mama maybe knows things you
don't even know about yourself.

   ***

   Titus and I were sitting on the knoll by the river, Cassie down the
path. The water lay flat in the late sun, but the current ran swiftly.

   "Titus?" I'd been nursing, but couldn't nurse away something on my mind.

   "Ma'am?"

   "You remember when we bought you?"

   "Ah don' 'membah nothin' of den, ma'am."

   Of course he did.

   "I'm sorry," saying what needed to be said.  "About what my friend and I
did, I mean."

   "Folks gotta look," acknowledging.

   "Well we weren't buying.  Just pretending."

   "Didn't come to no harm."

   I recalled his ill-masked fear when Frances started to fondle.

   "Anyway, ma'am," he continued.  "Ah knowed you's good when you gave me
da books." He thought a moment more.  "An' Ah thanks you."

   It occurred to me that slaves never thank their owners after thinking.
"Thank you" was what they say when you give them a shirt.  Not "I thank
you" for something further past.

   "You're welcome."

   Both of us must have realized that mistresses don't owe the closure.

   "You know how to read, actually?"

   Titus's teeth showed brilliant.  "Shake speare, Ah takes mo' time." The
bard's name as two words made me realize he'd probably never heard it
pronounced.

   "Me, too," I volunteered.

   "Cassie, she liked me tellin' da Merchant of Venice in mo' easy words."

   I didn't think.  "Before or after you bed her?" The idea of Cassie
sleeping with him made me angry.

   He looked downward and I felt ashamed.  "I'm sorry," I offered, my
second time.  He wasn't bedding her.  We'd put them in the same place to
sleep and what happened was only natural.

   "She be a good woman," Titus retorted as if I'd challenged Cassie's
fate.

   "She's smarter than us," I acknowledged.

   "Ah knowed that, ma'am, but didn't figure you might."

   "I'm not a ma'am, out here, I mean," glad for the change of subject. 
"I'm still just a missy."

   "Cain't say that, though.  You's married."

   "I'd rather be here," absently baring both breasts, something I'd never
done in front of him before.

   I nursed little Jess while he watched.  I liked that, Titus acting like
a white person.  "I'll bet I can do yours too," I decided.

   With care we exchanged sons and I nursed a black baby with white milk.

   "You twos be glad Ah'm yo' mama," beamed Cassie when she joined us, me
still feeding hungry Book.  "My two growin' granchil'en, dere."

   "We's gonna read you Shake spear, Grannie," grinned Titus.

   "Mercy me!  Ah don' live in no jungle.  Now you tuck yo'self in, girl,
'fore some nosy Niggrah sees you like dat."

   When Titus took his baby back, the side of his black hand touched the
paleness of my breast, the brush leaving my nipple wetly re-erect.

   ***

   It wasn't until I heard Lawrence with Nelba that I understood.

   My husband had led me to believe he'd be surveying the bottomlands, but
it was Titus I saw riding off with the boys, flagsticks to mark the planned
picking.  A master can't be everywhere, but it was odd as the surveying was
what he'd indicated.

   Mama I could see on the big-house porch, so I'd take Jess for her to
watch while I checked the progress on building the wash-house.  When they
finished, washing would be easier, I hoped, though of course I was just
guessing.  The covered shed was my idea; the piped tub was Titus's.

   Cassie cooed at little Jess with grandma, but when she saw the direction
of my exit, she intervened.  "You not be wantin' to go dat way.  Dey be
doin' jus' fine, dem Niggrahs."

   "Doesn't hurt to know I'm checking," I ruled.

   "You jus' maybe don' go, you heah?"

   But a mistress can do as she likes.

   It wasn't the wash-house that concerned Cassie, I realized when I passed
Titus's shack, expecting to maybe see Nelba and Book sunning on the steps.
From the sounds within, Nelba was home, but not caring for her baby.

   The sound of Lawrence was not his voice, but rather his grunts.  Nelba,
on the other hand, was giggling.  Between the vocals was a thud-thud-thud,
not that unlike what I used to hear when Titus roomed with Cassie.

   Cassie was waiting when I returned, tears streaming, to the big-house.
How could he?  The black bitch!  What kind of mother was she?  He'd lied to
me!  All the Negroes surely know.  Damn that man!

   And I saw the larger picture.  Why was Book only tan?  I already knew.
What did Titus know?  That, too, I already knew.  A son not of his own
seed. Damn that Lawrence!

   I hated this place.  I'd take Jess to Memphis and take a position.  Papa
would give me money.  Or would he?  It wasn't as if Lawrence had done
anything Papa would find intolerable, though I suppose he'd give his
son-in-law a few profanities about discretion.

   Damn this place to hell!

   "It don' mattah none, chil'," Cassie soothed me to her bosom.  "He be a
mastah an' she'd jus' a girl.  You got his white chil'."

   The truth was worse than the fact itself.

   "But Titus?"

   "Don' you fret 'bout him, chil'."

   "So what do I do," at a loss.

   "Jus' pretend you never knowed.  We all pretends sometimes, 'cause we's
all maybe related."

   ***

   Lawrence I didn't even bother confronting about his flagrance.  I just
hoped he'd doze into stupor on the porch.  If he woke up drunk and aroused,
I took him silently however he placed me.  It didn't even hurt.

   I managed to avoid Titus for some days.  Cassie and I still strolled
little Jess, but we'd take a different path.  It was inevitable, though,
that we'd cross; the farm wasn't that big.  From Titus's greeting, so open,
I knew he'd not guessed the secret's letting.  He was glad to see my baby,
to show me his.

   "We be movin' on," suggested Cassie.

   "No, Cassie," I corrected, but in so doing, my voice faltered.

   "You be worried?" Titus wondered.  "Dat baby looks fine to..."

   "She done found out, boy," interrupted Cassie, ending the charade. 
"Ain't yo' fault none.  She ain't blamin' 'bout you."

   Titus blinked back tears like mine, a white person's.

   What do you do?

   "You two chil'en jus' sit wid' yo' babies a bit," Cassie decided.  "Me,
Ah be up da path lookin' out," and with that she departed.

   I guess we had no choice but to cry together.

   "You knew?" I so wanted him to deny.

   "Maybe dat's why he brought her wid him, even," Titus judged.  "Maybe
but what she wants it."

   "Him to bed her?"

   "She wants light-skinned babies, Ah s'pose."

   So she seduces my husband?  But no, she didn't do that.  She'd probably
been raped enough.  We're supposed to fear them raping us, the confusing
thing.  At least she'd been allowed to marry a top-Negro who'd go survey on
the days the master wanted her.

   This much I knew.  "Book's your baby, Titus, because you love him."

   We rocked our children until Cassie returned.  "You two be brothah an'
sistah in da Lord.  An Ah's watchin' out like a mama."

   It made me feel a little less alone, Titus my brother, and Cassie
watching out.

   ***

   But feeling a little less alone doesn't make it so.

   I survived the time it took for my seething to convert into a plan only
because Lawrence was too distracted or too drunk to force himself on me too
many times.  Or maybe he was just doing Nelba extra.  Let him.

   More than just hurting Lawrence in return, I wanted something for
myself. Something of value.

   It was Wednesday, Lawrence's day in Cookeville to negotiate contracts
and arrange shipments.  There'd been the day when I'd have wanted to be
there, as tactical negotiation can increase a farm's take by a tenth.  Let
the whole harvest burn in the wagons, for all I cared.

   I'd sent the house-help to hoe the fields, to turn back the encroaching
vines.  A tobacco field remains wrested from the brambles for only as long
as you guard the perimeter.

   Titus I'd asked to re-cane the breezeway wall.  His fingers were faster
than even those of a woman.  While the servants were gone made the best of
sense, as he'd have the corridor to himself.

   I let him start before I entered.  He was no longer the one I'd laughed
with, shared babies, even.  He was here for my bidding.

   "Hot, isn't it, boy?"

   "Yes, ma'am."

   "Maybe you take off your shirt, then," anger, my strength.

   "Ah's not that hot, ma'am."

   "Take it off, I told you."

   He froze for just a second, then complied.  His back was oiled ebony.

   Behind him, I opened my blouse.  "It's just us here, Titus."

   He kept his hands on the cane as I pressed myself against his skin,
rubbing up, then down his spine.  My nipples, already engorged with milk
and now hardened with dominance, trailed wetness on his blackness.

   "Missy Abbie," he pleaded.  "Ah don'..."

   "Nobody will know," I promised.

   "Ain't right," he protested.  "Ah's a Niggrah."

   "It's our justice, Titus."

   His lack of question told me that he knew of what justice I spoke.

   I'd planned to turn him and take him against the wall.  Lying with a
Negro seemed unduly intimate, though that's of course what Lawrence had
done with Nelba.

   "But mo' dan dat," he trembled, "You don' wan' no black baby."

   "I don't care."

   I'd be ostracized, but that was no penalty for one who didn't want to be
who she was.  Titus, I imagined, would be mutilated and sold down the
river. Negroes getting punished is how things work, even if it's not fair.
Legally a child's slave or free depending on the mother, but out here it
would be what Lawrence and Papa said.  My black baby would be sold away,
like Titus.

   When Lawrence went to Cookeville, they'd say, "There's a white man so
sorry that his wife went with a Negro." My revenge.

   But losing the baby was what struck me, the reason I realized that I did
indeed care.  Oh, God!

   I rested my head on Titus's shoulder and that's when I cried.  Once
started, my tears rolled onto his steadfastness.

   He never tuned around, but when I backed away, he consoled, "You's a
good woman, Missy Abbie."

   "And you're a good man, Titus."

   "We's a good paih, den," he decided, still facing away, and I agreed.

   He knew he could have raped me and it wouldn't have been a rape.

   ***

   "You done took da boy," Cassie stated as fact as soon as she saw Titus
leave.

   I was too distraught to remember who was in charge.  "No ma'am.  Only
these," touching my breasts to confess guilt.

   She read my eyes.  "Dem's all you want to take a manchil' down," pulling
me to her.  "Do what you needs to, chil', but don' get yo'self in no
condition, you heah?"

   She felt so soft.

   ***

   Titus and I met near the quarry where the moss is thick, Cassie posting
watch at the foot of the path.  "Ah'll keep dem babies right heah an' sing
dem if dey wake.  You two jus' move 'long now." But her voice turned stern
to Titus.  "You get her in a condition, boy, an' you's a dead Niggrah. 
Maybe she be dead, too."

   Hearing Cassie talk to Titus about sex excited me, but the assessment
frightened.  The quarry was where they'd slabbed the limestone to build the
big-house.  More than one slave had been crushed.

   "Titus?" I was lying, my head against his side, watching the treetops.
Since the day I'd tried to rape him, both of us wanted the other's touch.
Sometimes I'd even rest his head on my breast.

   "Missy?"

   "Do you want me like you'd want a Negress?"

   "No, missy."

   Negroes don't wear drawers.  A Negress could just squat in her skirt,
never you mind.  A male who'd certain thoughts would be obvious to
everyone. Titus, his trousers just a reach away, was obvious.  I pictured
his penis from the day we bought him, so black.  Why shouldn't I remember
it?

   I tried to sound dispassionate.  "I've been with a man and I can tell
what you're imagining."

   He twisted his legs another direction.  "Jus' accidental."

   "It's natural."

   "No, missy.  You's white and Ah's black."

   "It's natural for the other two." He knew which.  "Anyway, it's not
about black," my boldness suddenly waning.  "We'd be committing adultery."

   "No, missy, we cain't do that thing."

   "Titus?"

   "Missy?"

   "You can touch me, though."

   "Ah cain't." But he knew who was white and who was black.

   I placed his hand on my stomach and pulled up my skirt to show him
where.

   "Go ahead, Titus, touch inside."

   When he reached into my bloomers I shivered.  When I parted my thighs,
he inserted his finger, just a knuckle's worth, nothing like Lawrence's
invasions.  More like being kissed with wide lips.

   A knuckle's worth brought justice.  Though Lawrence would never know,
nothing could more damn a man of his ilk than to have his white wife so
willingly violated.

   But why then did I savor the physicality?  Why did I want Titus to keep
his finger there, to move it inward?  Was it something primordial, being
taken by an animal?  But he was no animal.  We'd cried together.  A part of
him inside me made us more together.

   I let his finger penetrate, so unlike Lawrence's penis against my
rawness.  Womanhood wanted Titus within, in harmony.

   Titus stroked my desire when I raised my hips to further the tingling,
both a warmth and a coolness.  I tried to writhe away, but at the same
time, tried to push tighter.

   Your first climax, unintended and unexpected, is frightening until you
know it for what it is.  When it came upon me, I moaned more in
astonishment than in satisfaction, although, of course, I realized the
latter.

   "Titus!"

   He looked at me in alarm.  "You's hurt, Missy Abbie?"

   "Oh no.  I've just never..."

   He looked with puzzlement, then dismay.  "You nevah done that?"

   I shook my head, not ashamed.

   "But you's married!"

   "Maybe, but that doesn't mean..."

   He grinned his biggest.  "Well, dat's fo' sho'.  You can make yo' baby
an' not have it come on," and actually kissed me before we remembered.

   I'd damned Lawrence even more!  "There's a white man so sorry that his
wife went with a Negro to have her first flashes," they'd say.

   ***

   When we came down the path, Cassie looked us over.

   "He did it safe, Cassie," I assured.

   "Den he didn't do it right," she judged, slapping my bottom as I picked
up my still-sleeping baby.

   "Yes he did," blushing because Titus was right there.

   ***

   Cassie must have quizzed Titus, for the next day she pulled me aside,
judging, "You done lets Titus' fingah give Massah Lawrence his due."

   I nodded.

   "But ain't no two people stops dere."

   She raised me.  She knows me, I realized.

   "So's now it's jus' 'bout pleasuh.  You jus' do three things.  Keep yo'
baby nursin'.  Save yo times till jus' aftah yo monthly.  An' den dis,"
giving me a flask that once held a curative.  "Jus' one drop inside befo'
you takes him.  Den you has yo fun."

   Opening it, it smelled like sassafras.  I didn't know if it worked, but
on the other hand, I didn't know it didn't.

   "Da truth is, though," she added, matter of factly.  "We still gets
chil'en wid one on the tit and you cain't save yo'self fo' a month, so
maybeh two drops."

   I kissed her.

   "Well, maybeh three drops." she decided, "when he do you mo' dan once."

   ***

   Cassie must have again quizzed the wash-girl.  The day after I started
my period, Cassie gave me a look and I returned a nod.  The day after I
didn't spot, Clay told Lawrence about the tax bill, a half-day to
straighten out at Cookeville, but my husband didn't mind.  He'd have the
rest of the day at the bar with the other growers.

   Titus and Book met Cassie, Jess and me where the tobacco field runs into
the pines.  From there, Titus and I came upon a clearing which, best I
could remember, might have been where I'd once watched Cassie and Clay.

   Did every Negro know that we were slipping off?  Maybe that's the safest
kind of secret -- one known by all who'll never tell the few who don't.

   "Titus, you know why we're here?"

   "Maybe," instinctively facing away as he'd done in the breezeway.

   "Because I want to.  With you."

   He didn't answer.

   I reached my hand around his waist and found the lump through his
gabardine, yet just a soft package of flesh.  But even as my fingers
closed, I could feel the hardening.  Titus was above all other things still
a slave, disposed to obedience.  I hadn't even considered the possibility
of refusal.

   "Can I touch it?" as if I weren't.

   "No, missy," as if he weren't erect.

   "I can have you whipped."

   "You can do that."

   "But I wouldn't," I admitted.

   "I knows that, too."

   "Don't you want me to?" suddenly fearing.

   "You don' wan' no baby."

   When I undid the string, his penis rose, a black staff in the sunlight.
Only when I pulled the end skin fully down did I realize what the Bible
means about Jews being circumcised.  Lawrence was like a Jew.  Titus was
like a Gentile.  I was just a Christian.

   "Titus?" pulling his sheath over him and then away, aroused in arousing.
"Can you put your thing in me and not make a baby?"

   "Ah don' think so."

   "For just a moment, so we'd really have done it."

   "Maybe that."

   I undressed, spread myself on the pine needles and tipped up my head to
watch him settle between my legs.  As he pushed inward, I realized that he
was slipping within himself, smooth against my flesh.  When we were fully
one, his nappy black flowed into my nappy black hair, the outside place we
were the same.

   And that's how we did it, mated for just a moment.

   "Once more, Titus"

   He surely knew he couldn't last forever, but he'd the benefit of
learning in Cassie's bed.  Time and time again he glided, not hurrying, not
puncturing.  Toward the end, my own fluids wetted the passage of penis
within foreskin.

   I was yet nursing.  It was just after my monthly.  That morning I'd
applied the medicine, knowing that Cassie's "But ain't no two stops dere."
might be correct.

   My orgasm ebbed and rose at will as Titus slowly mastered his mistress.
Knowing that I'd been satisfied, he tried to extract, but I locked him with
my heels, driving up against him until he climaxed in return.

   I'd applied three drops, not sure if I'd even need one.  As Cassie
watched our babies, the prescription for three was right.

   ***

   Our matings:

   (1) Papa and Mama.

   (2) Papa and Cassie.

   (3) Clay and Cassie.

   (4) Titus and Cassie.

   (5) Clay and Mama.

   (6) Titus and Nelba.

   (7) Lawrence and Nelba.

   (8) Lawrence and me.

   (9) Titus and me.

   POSTBELLUM

   Can that time have been hardly more than a dozen years ago?

   We'd only wanted sovereignty in our economic affairs, not war against
our own kind.  Papa already knew soldiering and Lawrence looked his part in
gray.  Maybe he'd have changed to fit his commission, but both were killed
within the year.  Mama died the next, Cassie, Clay, young Jess and myself
at bedside.  They say it was the fever, but it was just grief.

   Papa died charging Yankee bayonets.  The army never said how Lawrence
went, but our Negroes say he wandered into Yankee cannon-fire, too
intoxicated to retreat.  Negroes know things we're never told.

   Cassie says that no man will ever hurt me that way again.

   ***

   I'm the only way the farm can carry on.  Clay or Titus could run the
planting and harvest, of course, but what buyer will deal with them as
equals?  Jess and I move up to the big-house, Cassie still under the
stairs. "Dis room's jus' mah size," the wisdom that comes with being maybe
fifty.  I don't care about having the big-house, but this way I can leave
that bed behind and sleep in Mama's.

   Clay's going north.  The eve of departure, he sends Jess with the boys
to hunt coon and rapes me.

   I swear and spit as he bears me up the stairs, no more to him than an
armload of tobacco into the curing shed.  Where is Cassie when I call for
her?

   He strips me in the twilight filtered through the windows, careful to
not tear my clothing.  I cry, but it does no good.  Pinning my forearms to
the bed that once was Mama's, he rises on his elbows for me to better
witness my insemination.  He uses his knees to spread mine.

   His erection, longer and fatter than either Lawrence's or Titus's, bobs
and waves as he centers himself above me.  It tracks me like a blackbird
saddling up to a fallen peach.

   I look away, but then again watch it when it touches me.  Until now I
hadn't understood why he'd thrust a pillow under my head.  Why am I
watching?

   His incremental disappearance within me demonstrates who's now in
control.  His every advancement loosens my tightened flesh another fraction
of an inch.  Why am I watching this?  Only when at last fully within, I
realize that he doesn't want to hurt me.  I'm just the only owner left. 
Why are my nipples hard?

   He withdraws and I again watch his deliberate insertion and feel my
helpless yielding.  My whole body is slick with sweat.  Again and again,
each entrance more slippery.  Always slowly.  I know he's watching my eyes.

   I fight, cease and climax.

   When Jess returns (we can hear him cleaning his rifle), I rise, dress,
light the tallow and go downstairs to shoo him onward to bed.  He's covered
with the grime of the woods.

   "We got three down by the ford, Ma!" too pleased with his marksmanship
to notice that I've forgotten my shawl and my nipples stand outward.

   "You did!  You must be a pretty good shot." Clay's semen is yet mingling
with my own liquids.  I press my thighs together in fear that it will
trickle down my legs before he exits.

   "Deah you is," Cassie emerges from the darkness, her torso wrapped in a
sheet in the manner of African women.  Her nipples stand as erect as my
own. "You's been huntin'," noting Jess's attire.  "And you ain' goin' to
walk mo' dirt into dis house."

   Jess acquiesces and she sits him down.

   Cassie turns toward me.  "Missie Abbie, you go get yo'sef back to bed
and leave me get Jess hea' cleaned up," as she wets a rag from the
washstand.

   Mounting the stairs, I look back to see Cassie standing behind my son,
rolling his head back against her breast while she mops his forehead.  As
she reaches to loosen his collar, she catches my stare.  "Good night,
Missie Abbie."

   Returning upstairs, I leave the flame lit and take Clay in my lips, what
Frances had smirked about Negro girls liking to do to white men.  But as I
find it good, maybe it's more than just African.  I turn myself to face his
feet, raise my knee to cross his shoulder and lower myself to him.  We view
each other by the candle's flicker.

   We mouth one another slowly, as we have until dawn.

   The walls are thin and I hear the mingle of Cassie's Jess's moans.  When
Clay lets me again climax, I suppose they hear mine.

   ***

   Bearing clean sheets the next morning, Cassie rules, "You's now
redeemed, chil'."

   I nod, knowing she sees Clay's juice, once white and slippery, now
invisible and absorbed into my neck and chest.

   "Some dem Niggrah boys, dey wan der turn wid you, but we vote it be Clay
do it, in he's da top Niggrah.  He be the one dat bes' knows how to do yo'
rappin'."

   I nod again.  He knew how.  My curses on the stairs were the only words
exchanged.  I wish I hadn't.  There'd been nothing that needed be said.

   "But Ah made him wait till jus' aftah yo' monthly.  An' Ah done reckon
it bettah to info'm him 'bout how Massah Lawrence done hu't you."

   A reconstructive justice.  He'd touched me many ways in many places, but
never did Clay touch my rectum.

   ***

   Book has two sisters, light-skinned like him and likewise born before
the War.  I hardly care, am almost glad, actually, as maybe it reduced the
times Lawrence was on me.  Did Nelba do it that much better, that he'd give
her three babies to my one?

   Titus and I draw up an agreement about farm wages, but we all know that
none of us, Negro or white, will end up with cash.  Farming's all we knew
how to do.  With a little luck, the lot of us will someday earn enough to
disperse, letting the vines reclaim.

   ***

   With Papa gone, there's really no reason to pretend he'd behaved
otherwise.  I want to know about this place I so hate.

   "Yo' daddy, chil', he be mah fu'st," Cassie chronicles.  "He be courtin'
yo' mama an' doin' me afore ridin' home.  Got him two vi'gins in da same
month."

   She looks for excuse, his, not hers.  "He neveh beat me none.  Den Ah
got to like it.  Dat's wha he like me stayin' heah in de big-house
aftahwards," Cassie reflected.  "Not what a chil' needs to heah in da
night, but what dey do sometimes."

   Knowing I'd have never pursued, she tries to set me at ease.  "But he
nevah got me in no condition.  You ain't got no siblin's dat I know."

   I don't ask if Mama knew.  Surely she woke up at least one night and
went to the head of the stairs.  I just hug my remaining mama.

   The other half I found more upsetting as a girl, but it's now just a
chapter in another life.  "Tell me about Mama," still holding to her.

   She thinks a minute.  "You mos'ly heard what Ah heard, chil'.  Clay
goin' in yo mama's room when yo daddy's gone.  Dem two doin' it all
aftahnoon while Ah showed you cookin'.  Missy Abbie lookin' beautiful
aftahwards." She grins.  "Mah job was to watch 'round, same as fo' you an'
Titus."

   "Am I...?" I was so white, could I be anyone's but Papa's.

   "Dat med'cine all'as worked, I do believe," Cassie assures my lineage.
In larger sense, however, Cassie's correct.  "But like Ah says, we's all
maybe related."

   It seems sinful to not then admit what I'd known.

   "Cassie?"

   "Yes, chil'?"

   "I followed you one time when you went with Clay."

   She smiles in her full-lipped way.  "Ah knowed dat."

   "You did?"

   "When Ah was on top, Ah could see yo eyes, big like a Niggrah's!"

   We laugh as she once did with Mama.

   "Day say when you's on top, his seed don' come in so fa', but I nevah
took it fo' truf."

   My remaining mama.

   ***

   I pass the foot of the stairs late at night and hear the murmuring,
sometimes giggling, above the slow thumping on cotton-stuffed mattress that
could only come from two bodies interlocked in protracted purpose.

   At the end, Cassie hums and my son whispers.

   ***

   Titus shares my bed when I beckon, just as Mama beckoned Clay.  As the
Negroes assume that a woman needs a man, there's no reason for subterfuge.
What Nelba thinks, I don't care.

   I religiously count my days and apply Cassie's potion, but sometimes I
fail and yet don't conceive.  This, plus Nelba's barrenness after Lawrence,
makes me wonder about Titus's seed, but I never tell him that.

   Wouldn't it have been something if I'd always known that Titus was safe!
All that worry about a black baby!  Maybe it was for the best, though,
letting things happen over time, over places on the farm.  Things happen
slowly on a farm, mating in particular -- how we first rape one another and
then the deliberate strokes over long and continued bedding.

   If Lawrence hadn't bedded Nelba, Titus wouldn't have his children today.
The Lord looks out for His own.

   ***

   Book's a bright child, nothing he got from his biological daddy.  I
tutor both Jess and Book in their lessons and most often the Negro outpaces
the white.  As I nursed them both, I'm a fair judge.  They say that by
strategic breeding we can improve their characteristics.  Well, as Jess and
Book have the same father, maybe Nelba's smarter than this white woman.

   As Jess takes to farming, it makes more sense for him to go off with
Titus.  If anyone, he'll be the one to carry on.  Book, on the other hand,
will surely end up a teacher of Negroes.  He loves the classics, same as
his daddy of heart, except Book has time to read further.

   I've not planned it, but then I've not planned against it.

   Book and I are reading the Merchant of Venice, a challenge for a boy
who's never seen a stage.  The afternoon is sultry and I've worn the
chemise I've had since my days of nursing, the one that hangs loose.  My
blouse is décolleté and I suppose Book maybe sees my breast in the process
of sharing the volume.

   A boy seeing your breast isn't noteworthy, but then again isn't
something to be ignored.

   When I turn the page, I expect he sees the other.  Having but one child
at least preserved my bust.

   "So tell me, Book.  Shakespeare has Jessica sneak out dressed as a page
to spend the night with Lorenzo.  Do you think what they're going to do is
wrong?"

   "Maybe, ma'am.  He's a Christian and she's a Jew."

   "Her father.  She's just a girl with Lorenzo.  She wants to do it."

   "Maybe, ma'am."

   "It's what two people do together, back then and this very day.  It's
natural."

   When Cassie serves us tea and biscuits, she smiles.

   Book sits very still when I reach behind to fetch the blotting paper, my
breast nuzzling his arm.  I'm not sure if boys presume nipples to be always
hard, so I don't know what he read in that.

   When I get the best of him and he moves to cross his legs, I instruct
him to sit straight.

   "Shylock, he's the Jew, Book.  Not like us.  We're Christians, just the
same in God's eyes.  He doesn't care about who's what color.  I don't.  Do
you?"

   "No, ma'am."

   He turns the page when I rest my palm on his thigh and move across the
coarse linen of his trousers.  We give them emancipation, but we don't give
them underclothing.  I'd watched little Book's penis grow from that of an
infant to that of a youngster swimming by the riverbank.  Now adolescent,
his erection is firm and ready.

   Cassie again smiles when she gathers our cups and plates.

   Book acts as if he's been caught misbehaving when I suggest that we
continue in my room, but complies when asked to draw the curtains.

   Without pretext, I have him take off my shoes, reach up far enough to
remove my stockings and help me out of skirt and blouse.  The petticoat I
undo myself.  While he watches wide-eyed as I pull up my chemise, I
remember what Cassie had said about me watching her and Clay, "Yo eyes, big
like a Niggrah's."

   I lie on the bed in only my drawers and motion for him to strip.  He's
thinner-haired than was Titus at the auction, but has the same penis.

   I let him pull away my bloomers to look, but not put his hand between my
legs.  Rather, I have him kneel between my knees and lean forward until we
met.  I've only to guide him a little.  "Go ahead, Book.  You're a free
man."

   As he enters, slipping African-like within his own skin, I remember
Titus's first penetration, so long ago, yet still so present.

   I'd wonder if I'd continue to imagine being with Titus, but no, Book's
but a youth.  He's nervous, but Negroes, especially young ones, are
tractable.  Lawrence, Titus and Clay already knew about women when they'd
entered me.  To Book, on the other hand, I'm the tutor and I hold him
motionless within, our skins touching from feet to cheek, black against
white at every point.

   Yet coupled, I roll Book underneath and rise as had been Clay above me
on that same bed.  But picturing Cassie in the clearing, I continue higher
to kneel above his hips.

   I envision a girl, a pubescent Negro girl, watching wide-eyed from afar
how I plunge again and again to complete Book's education.  The girl
approaches, peering to see how we connect.

   Book has surely heard his mother's moans.  Negro shacks offer no
alternative.  Do mine sound like hers?

   As my friend Frances once announced, Negroes are better at it than white
men.  As masters or as servants, I would add.

   When Cassie awakens us, her advice: "We's bettah plan ahead next time.
Don' wan' no black babies."

   ***

   Add to the list of matings:

   (10) Clay and me.

   (11) Jess and Cassie.

   (12) Book and me.

   I see in Nelba's eyes how she wants another child.  Another
light-skinned one.  Will Nelba seduce Jess or Jess seduce Nelba? 
Emancipation makes it problematic.  My unacknowledged grandchild will at
least be born free.

   Add to the list of matings:

   (13) Jess and Nelba.

   I keep lists.  As Cassie knows, we're all related.

   When it thunders, Jess and I watch the tempest from the porch, him on
the chair, me standing behind.  How will we survive in this descending sea
of blackness?

   "Let's get you cleaned up before you track in more dirt," I ask.

   I don't know if he feels my heartbeat against his ear, but he holds
perfectly still as I cradle his head against my nipple and reach to loosen
his collar.

   Add one more to the list.

   THE END

   POSTSCRIPT

   My friend Cindi who knows math says that four sexually-active females
(Mama, Abbie, Cassie and Nelba) and six males (Papa, Clay, Lawrence, Titus,
Jess and Book) gives us 24 coupling combinations.  My story has just 14, so
it's not as if it's indiscriminate.  It's quite discriminate, actually.

   I'm not counting Frances, as she's virgin when last seen in this story.
Ask Wet Dream Girl about a Dixie Flower's deflowering.

   ***

   Holly on the Web

   Wherever you found this story on the web, thank you to the server.  My
problem is that I've no systematic way to update the various servers.  As
literary errors (or just lame word usages) are made known, I'll repair that
which is salvageable on /~Holly_Rennick.  My website's
not much graphically, I'll admit, but HTML isn't my native language.  If
you take the time to read me, don't wade through an early version.

   You can contact me via the site's message form, that HTML code by the
smart people at ASSTR.
   Holly