Homecoming Ch. 02

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Every action has a consequence.
4.7k words
4.71
56.4k
10

Part 2 of the 10 part series

Updated 09/22/2022
Created 03/21/2007
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Frinkles
Frinkles
97 Followers

Once again, I'd like to thank Techsan for the marvelous editing job. I'd also like to thank everyone who rated and commented on the first chapter of my first story. This chapter contains a bit more character development, so I apologize before hand for the lack of "steamy" content. I am still getting the hang of telling the story in a way that doesn't have you going back to ask, "...but why did he/she....?" I welcome all feedback. It's the only way I can improve the story and my writing. Merci!

Chapter 2

Lu awoke from her self-induced, post-coital haze only after hearing her name called a second time. The cobwebs of inebriation had long since sweated from her system, leaving her sore and tested body resting languidly on the banks of the pond. This was the pond that she and her childhood friend used to share on hot summer afternoons like this.

He had left home. He had forgotten about her. A self-centered, arrogant man had returned in his place. Now this man was calling her from the path leading to her embarrassment; she seemed powerless to avoid the inevitable shame that would surely show in his eyes.

She had only been allowed to enjoy a few seconds of satisfaction before she heard him call her name and realized she had shed her clothes along the path to her purgatory. He would be at the edge of the clearing in a few moments if his voice accurately betrayed the distance between them.

Propping herself up on one elbow, Lu listened intently for his footsteps on the well-trodden path. It would be impossible to lie about what she was doing if he found her lying here on the bank—drunk, naked and revealed. Her only hope was to jump into the icy waters and allow Daniel to discover only two of her secrets—not that he would have given a damn anyway. The young man had paid her scant attention these past four years.

Daniel's sour attitude and aloof behavior was what had driven her to seek the sanctuary of the cool waters and shady bank of their pond in the first place. She'd had fond memories of their friendship on this grassy shore. Using this sanctuary as a private place for sensual exploration and escape seemed only natural to her. Emboldened by her solitude and the mental lubrication afforded by Mother Carven's peach wine, Lu had honed her sensual craft into a fine art during the previous spring evenings—her body was the canvas, her nimble fingers the artist's brush.

But she had been wrong to trust the silence and solitude of this lazy hot afternoon. Discovery of her shame lay just beyond the brush lining the shore of the watering hole; and, as she dove into the crisp, clear water of the pond, she silently prayed that skinny dipping and drinking were all Danny would discover when he reached the clearing to the water's edge.

"Goddamit, Lu, Mama is gonna beat your ass when she finds out that you've been drinking and swimming instead of weeding the back garden." Daniel's voice thundered; the irritation in his familiar southern drawl was unmistakable.

"Oh, and if you think I'm going to miss my first Sunday dinner since I got back from school just because your lazy ass can't be bothered to do what you are told, you got another thing coming," Daniel continued, his misplaced irritation rising as he scooped up Lu's discarded clothes littering the path.

Hearing himself, he winced at his words. He'd meant to sound recriminating and annoyed, not cruel and angry. But the guilt of his own sin—his self-pleasuring at Lu's expense—was tying his stomach in knots, forcing him to overcompensate. He had violated Lu. Without laying a finger on her, he had intruded on her privacy and used her body. He was more than ashamed; he was crestfallen at his actions.

Worse still, his desire to touch her—to feel his naked body pressed against hers, had not been slaked. If anything, the memory of what had just transpired on the banks of the pond had begun to arouse him anew. He would have to keep his distance, or suffer the betrayal of his body. Even now as he stood at the water's edge watching Lu, the smooth brown skin of her naked shoulders clearly visible as she turned to face him from the safety of the water, he felt a familiar tightness in his groin. His only relief was in the knowledge that Lu had been sober enough to get up and dive into the water, preserving what little modesty the pond could afford her.

As he stood at the edge of the pond, Daniel lifted Lu's discarded clothes up over his head before resuming his verbal attack on the girl.

"Unless you want an ass-full of thorns and brambles, you'd better get your butt up here, put on your clothes and get up to the house," he demanded. "Your mama sent me to collect you and I don't have time to play games with your lazy ass."

Again, he inwardly winced at the harshness in his tone and hoped that the distance between them had softened its tenor.

Refusing to be intimidated by his latest tantrum, Lula ducked her head under the pond's surface only to return with a mouth full of water which she spat in Daniel's direction before responding, "You get the fuck away from here, you pervert. Just what the hell did they teach you at that military school? It sure as hell wasn't manners."

"And you sure as hell didn't learn to behave like a lady," Daniel retorted, throwing Lula's clothes into the water for good measure before turning on his heels and retreating back into the brush, feigning disgust.

"Haul your ass up to the house in fifteen minutes or Mama's going to have more than my ears to box. And when she's through with the both of us, I might just decide to kick your ass."

"Oh...is the big bad soldier boy gonna beat up a little girl? Is that what they taught you at soldier school?" She taunted in reply from the perceived safety of the water.

There it was—that famous brand of Lula Corning petulance that made Daniel's hair stand on end. Lu simply couldn't keep her mouth shut. She pushed everything and everyone to their very limits. This reality was not lost on this woman-child. Even has she hurled the insult at Daniel, Lu wished that she had simply kept quiet so as to avoid the embarrassment of walking back home naked as the day she was born. Fortunately, her fears were unfounded when she realized that Daniel hadn't even bothered to take the bait and turn around to respond to her taunts. With a strange mixture of relief and rejection at his dismissal, Lu swam back to the shore to collect her soggy clothes.

"Damn, nothing is more uncomfortable than wet clothes over wet underwear." She cursed under her breath, securing the snaps on her overalls even as she hurried up the path to catch up with her oppressor.

She hadn't traveled far before nearly running into Daniel's broad back. He had been waiting for her just a few yards away on the overgrown path; and, as she cursed at his perceived clumsiness, she'd guessed that Daniel had turned his back on her as a gesture of the "gentlemanly" discretion he'd learned at school. This presumption was immediately obliterated when Daniel's imposing form turned to face her.

For a split-second, his angry façade had been breached; a new and uncomfortably different expression had settled briefly in its place. In that instant, Lu experienced an unfamiliar and unsettling feeling in the pit of her stomach. The person standing before her was a complete stranger, his handsome features transformed by an almost palpable essence she could not quite place—this uncomfortable electricity lingered between them. For a moment it was there—and then it was gone.

"Shit, Lu! Watch where the hell you're going," Daniel growled, his steel gray eyes darkening from what Lu could only guess was a new found inexplicable rage.

What the hell was wrong with this guy? Who pissed in his beer? Whatever wrongs she believed were being visited upon her by this angry man, Lu thought it wise to launch her complaints silently. The dark cloud that had passed over Daniel's almost beautiful countenance only seconds ago had frightened her; but the anger that came in its wake had terrified her even more. She'd never seen him this angry; she could only guess that her behavior had been the cause for the disgust now twisting his face in sour grimace and marring his sun-kissed features. He was angry at her and Lu had no idea why.

There was a time when each would have fought to the death to defend the other—Daniel championing her when the white boys called her vile names like "half-breed" and "nigger;" and she becoming his avenging angel should anyone dare tease Daniel about his "funny-talking Jew mother." But somewhere during the journey from their childhood to young adulthood, that bond had evaporated and this uncomfortable chasm now stretched between them.

Lu was loathed to admit it, but Daniel's new attitude towards her was like a knife in her heart. For four years, three years at the military academy and one at West Point, she'd put up with him dismissing her in favor of his friends. The reason for his new found aloofness was no mystery—she was no longer a naïve little girl.

She was colored; she was a girl; she was younger; and, she could be annoying—she understood that much. But now that he had returned from his first year at West Point, it seemed like she'd lost her big brother forever. He had outgrown her and become one of "them." This cold reality had left Lu heartbroken.

Daniel's assessment of the situation was quite different from Lu's. After the view he had been treated to this afternoon, widening the chasm between them was exactly what Daniel intended to do despite the nagging voice in his head that goaded him to pursue these new feelings he'd discovered for his former childhood playmate.

It didn't matter that they weren't blood related, she was still his "little sister" - goddammit!"

Even as he warred within himself, Daniel knew he was waging a losing battle of emotions. His new found desire for Lula crept into the unguarded corners of his mind. A daunting leviathan, this desire invaded every fiber of his being. He wanted to touch her; to taste her; to trace his finger along the invisible line traversing the length of her body—from the valleys of the flawless cinnamon skin between her breasts to the soft dark curls of her mound. Daniel nearly wept from frustration.

How was it humanly possible to spend an entire summer with her—living in the same house, taking his meals at the same table, sleeping under the same roof—without crossing the line and giving in to this temptation? In only few short minutes, Lula Corning had become Eve's lure—a forbidden object of desire. He was loath not to partake of the beautiful, ripening fruit of this woman, now struggling to keep up with his heart-pounding gait.

"What the hell is eating you?" Lula prodded incredulously, struggling to catch her breath as the two reached the shaded porch.

Refusing to acknowledge Lula's question, Daniel bounded up the stairs to the screen door before jerking his thumb behind him in Lula's direction and addressing Lula's mother standing in the doorway.

"She was swimming and drunk as hell off Mom's peach wine. Just check her breath if you don't believe me." Daniel grumbled in disgust before disappearing behind Mamma Corning, making his way to the kitchen.

Lula's jaw dropped in amazement—her face colored from the heat of her anger and surprise at this new betrayal that had come so easily to her friend. Unshed tears pooled in her eyes as she balled her fists at her sides, digging her nails into the flesh of her palms in an effort to control the rage fighting to the reach the surface. Rage won out.

"You...dirty...rotten...snitching...SON OF A BITCH." Lula bellowed back, oblivious to the slack-jawed shock marring her mother's pretty mocha features.

No sooner had those words passed her lips, Lula wished she hadn't opened her mouth. She braced herself for her mother's wrath. She was not disappointed. The sting of Mama's hand across Lula's face silenced her verbal onslaught against Daniel. This was not the first time her mouth had gotten her in trouble with her mother; but it was the first time Daniel had been the cause of this trouble with her mother—she hated him for it.

"Good lord, Lula. What has gotten into you?" Mama demanded reproachfully, "Cussing...drinking? I know I raised you right, child! I swear to God, you are not going to be one of those "wild children" running the streets and getting into lord only knows what kind of trouble."

Mama's eyes bored holes into her daughter before she continued, "Get yourself up those stairs, get out of those clothes and stay in your room until I decide you can eat with decent folks."

The legendary "Wrath of Lula" had been neutralized, and Lula knew it. She also knew that she hated Daniel with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns. After this fresh betrayal, she would only be satisfied with his head on a pike. As she stomped up the staircase to her room nursing her reddening cheek, she silently swore she would never forget this slight from her "brother."

For Daniel, the betrayal had been distasteful work, but it was the only way he could guarantee that Lula would have nothing to do with him for a few days. Unfortunately, as he listened to Lula storming up the stairs to her room—only a few doors down from his own—he realized that he wasn't going to be able to quell his desire and stay away from her for three hours let alone a few days. He needed to permanently alienate Lu's childhood affection for him.

He was well aware that Lula had harbored a small and harmless crush on him for the past four years. He'd suffered her endless complaints that he hadn't been spending any time with her, opting instead to hang out with old friends that they used to share as children—at least that was what she'd believed. Daniel had known otherwise. He knew that their "old" friends had grown up well-schooled in the lessons in hatred their parents had taught them. The careful cultivation of insidious intolerance and racism had flourished quite nicely in the hearts of his and Lu's white childhood friends—a fact that hadn't escaped Daniel's notice.

From the fifth grade through to his first year in high-school, he'd learn to speak with his fists, challenging anyone who even hinted that the color of Lula's skin made her less of a person. At first, he'd come home bloodied and bruised, refusing to tell Lula why he didn't want anything to do with her or their friends. As years passed, and Daniel's mettle and physical strength grew, there were days he'd come home from school and lock himself in his room, refusing to tell anyone why he had blood on his clothes but not a scratch on his body. Mrs. Corning had been undone by his sullen behavior.

His mother and Mamma Corning suspected that he was fighting at school, but Daniel was adamant in his refusal to confirm their suspicions and insisted that Lula stop tagging along wherever he went. Finally, it had taken calls from the principal and thinly veiled threats from parents demanding to know why their sons were coming home looking like they'd been in the losing end of a bear fight before Emma Carven decided that it would be safer for everyone concerned if her son finished out his high-school years at military boarding school.

Daniel had complied without complaint. He was tired of fighting, tired of lying and tired of the wounded look in Lula's eyes when he refused to tell her why he'd given in to fits of rage.

Mrs. Carven had also offered to send Lula off to school, either up North or somewhere abroad, where the girl had a better chance of escaping the brutal realities of "Jim Crow" and racism. Lula refused the offer time and again, threatening to run away if the Moms sent her away to school. Mrs. Carven indulged the child's petulance, not because Lula's threats had been persuasive, but because she knew from experience that no amount of distance from the south could truly protect Lula from the blind hatred of racism.

When Lula had refused to be sent away from her two mothers, Mrs. Carven decided to home school the child, teaching her all the considerable knowledge she had acquired before she'd run away to the States to escape the brutality and ugliness of anti-Semitism and fallen in love with Joshua Carven, Daniel's father. In another life, Emma Rabb had been the daughter of a great scholar and Renaissance man who had been intent on filling her mind with all the knowledge he'd possessed—a feat which he managed to do before he was brutally murdered in front of their home.

The only reason for this act of inexplicable brutality had been an intangible hatred of "her kind and her people." Her father's death had served as a harbinger of things to come and motivated Emma to leave Europe for a more "tolerant" country.

Ironically, she'd fallen in love with a man from the south, a part of America she'd been taught was infamous for its intolerance towards people like her. However, Joshua Carven—a man of considerable means—was virtually untouchable in the elite North Carolina community. As such, the smitten young Joshua Carven had become Emma's champion and protector and eventually her husband. Upon their union, the Carven family's money, power and influence also made Emma virtually untouchable. Notwithstanding all of this money and power, it was Carvens' kindness that had made a lasting impression on her.

And so it came to pass that an act of unspeakable violence had driven Emma Rabb away from the only home she'd ever known only to find unimaginable acts of kindness and love that would keep Emma Carven in the strange, unlikely sanctuary of the vast Carven estate she now called home. This was a home that she shared willingly and lovingly with her best friend Caroline Corning and her daughter, Lula. Lula was the daughter she'd always wanted but could never have.

Lula was the woman Emma Carven had wanted to become before she was driven from her home. Lula was the daughter Emma ached to protect as fiercely as she protected her own son; and she would be damned if Lula was denied the opportunity to satisfy her thirst for knowledge just because her skin was brown. Lula's precociousness and seemingly thick skin was what both mothers hoped would shield the young hellion from the evils that awaited her outside the walls of the Carven estate.

Daniel had known otherwise, and it had been a bitter day when he realized that he could never protect his little "LuLu" from the raw, open sore of hatred that awaited her in the real world. That knowledge had almost been his undoing; and, as a result, he had given himself into self-destructive fits of violent rage that could only be quelled by removing him from the situation and sending him off to school.

The irony of Daniel's current predicament was not lost on him. Now, instead of protecting her from vicious indifference and brutal intolerance, Daniel was protecting Lula from himself. He would have to bear the heartbreaking weight of her hatred in the process. His only hope was that his new infatuation would pass and he could resume his friendship with the girl he'd once only considered a sister. However, in his heart he knew that the scene on the shores of their pond had changed their relationship forever—Lula simply hadn't been made aware of this fact...yet.

Later that evening, after a somber dinner, Daniel passed by Lula's bedroom door and heard the unmistakable sounds of misery. She was crying in her pillow and cursing the day he was born. His heart endured another twist of the knife with every heart-wrenching sob torn from her lungs.

"This is for the best" He fought to convince himself as he headed down the hall to his own room.

Another stab of guilt teased at his heart as he realized that, thanks to him, Lula was probably going to go hungry tonight. Her recent outburst was sure to earn her bed without supper unless she swallowed her pride and apologized to both her mother and him. There was more hope that the Pope would set up residence in their fruit cellar than Lu apologizing to anyone. As Daniel turned the knob to enter his room his shoulders slumped from the weight of his guilt over what he'd done to his "Lulu."

Frinkles
Frinkles
97 Followers
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