My Sister's Love

***

Alex showed up late that afternoon, but I made Mary and Leo tell him that I was under the weather from the events of the night before. Mary said he nodded and sent well wishes, though I suspected his nod was because he already knew and was mostly likely the cause of my trouble.

Mary and I settled into our usual summer routine that week. Mrs. Myers taught me more about cooking and I spent part of my time wandering the city sketching the sites when Mary was at work. I also often spent time plotting how I might repay Alex for his mistreatment of me. Little came to me on the topic and I was forced to be paired with him again during our weekly bridge games with Mary and Leo.

It was as we celebrated our first victory over them a few weeks later that Alex unexpectedly hugged me and whispered in my ear, "We need to talk."

I backed away and glowered at him, but Leo must have mistaken my intent and he steered Mary away, leaving me to my fate.

"What?" I demanded as I went out into the front foyer with Alex following close behind like a dog in heat.

"I'm sorry, Clara. Melly said your drink was spiked and she thought I knew it so she helped you drink it so you could relax and we could enjoy our time together more."

"Helped? I think she was pouring it down my throat! I felt queasy then and bad most of the next day. And she thought I'd enjoy that? Bollocks!"

He laughed heartily at my curse before nodding and trying to sidle up close to me as I continued to slide away, maintaining scant inches between us. He seemed to be enjoying our game, as he kept maneuvering closer. Smiling, he said, "The alcohol, they call it bathtub gin since the bootleggers often mix it in bathtubs to hide the operation from the Feds. As you can guess, that's not the cleanest operation and a friend told me that they've had a few cases of people getting sick as a result."

"I don't know if it was that or that I'd never had alcohol before, but I know this, I don't want more."

"Okay, no more liquor. Hell, it's Prohibition, after all, so that actually seems appropriate, doesn't it?" He laughed despite my look. "But you will go dancing with me again, won't you, Clara? I so want to take you again, to feel you against me—"

I couldn't believe Alex was telling me this even as he was trying to wrap me up like a spider's prey in our siblings' front hall!

"—as we move together on the dance floor. Your body, rubbing against me, felt divine—"

"Did I excite you, Alex?" I asked, interrupting him when an idea suddenly came to me.

"More than anything, Clara. Your dress was so thin, I felt your every curve in my hands, your muscles, your softness..."

He had me practically pinned against the front door, and I was almost praying that we wouldn't be interrupted by Leo or Mary, but probably not for the reason Alex might have thought. With him pressed against me, I felt his growing hardness pushing against me, nearing my special spot that I desperately wanted him to never, ever share, while at the same time I felt the strange sensations of my late night sessions.

My right hand was on his chest with my elbow against the pane in the front door, keeping him barely an inch from my nipples. I was embarrassed that his approach was exciting me as it was and that I was even contemplating this, but it might be my only chance so I went for it.

My left hand trailed down his chest and stomach, sliding onto his pants and then across the hardness barely contained within. With my hand turned out and my fingers pressed back as far as they would go, I ran my palm over him, side to side as if a giant bump in the road, before switching, running the heel of my hand up and down his length. After a couple of passes, my hand dived below to feel the comparative softness of his testicles.

Alex moaned at my actions, but I quietly shushed him as I continued my ministrations through his pants. Another moan, involuntary, but at least quiet, escaped his lips, as I carried on, doing my best to keep him interested.

"I need you so badly," he whispered as I rubbed.

"Perhaps this should be finished outside," I whispered back, leading him to nod.

I opened the latch and the door, gently pushing him out first. Alex was so engrossed in the feelings and his expectations that the door's slam behind him caused him to start and the sound of the lock made the surprise complete.

"You'll never take advantage of me again, you bastard!" I yelled, leaving him out on the porch with his hand covering his uncomfortable bulge. Flipping off the light, I ran up the front stairs as Mary and Leo came running into the room.

Mary knocked on my door a couple of minutes later. "Clara, are you okay? May I come in?" Once I let her in, she added, "What happened?"

"Alex learned tonight that I'm not an easy, speakeasy girl," I told her.

"What did he do?" Her look of concern had suddenly turned dark.

"Mary, I've taken care of it. Did you and Leo talk to him?"

"No, when he saw us coming to open the front door, he turned and ran away."

I giggled. "Even better. Maybe he'll learn a lesson out of this, but I wouldn't count on it."

***

Leo spoke to me a couple of days later when Mary was out back. He looked apprehensive as he asked, "Clara, are you okay? Did my brother hurt you?"

"I'm fine, Leo, and yes, Alex did, but I think he learned his lesson and won't be trying it again. Please, just let it be."

He nodded and smiled. "My little brother can be a ladies' man at times, or at least, what he thinks is a ladies' man. He'd promised to be on his best behavior with you, but must have gotten carried away. If anything happens again, let me know and I'll box his ears for you." Seeing my questioning look, his smile turned to a grin. "It wouldn't be the first time, though I must admit it has been quite a while since my last beatdown."

I looked at him in disbelief. "You'd do that to protect me?"

His nod warmed my heart, but his words crushed my soul. "I'd do anything for my wife's little sister."

***

Alex came by to apologize a few nights later, but, while I accepted his apology and forgave him, I was determined to avoid being alone with him again to avoid future temptations. Therefore, other than our bridge games, we generally avoided each other as the summer continued, but what I couldn't avoid was hearing Leo and Mary in their passion, frequently late at night long after I should have been sound asleep. Mary was much quieter when she put her mind to it, but Leo's attentions to her wellbeing were probably much more pronounced across the width and breadth of the second floor of their home than they assumed .

Therefore, I frequently joined in their lovemaking from a distance as what Leo would have called in legalese "an interested third-party." In doing so, I became quite versed in how to please my little nub, which Mary's nursing anatomy book called a clitoris, and having some first hand, or at least, left hand, experience with the male member, I sometimes imagined it playing a part.

Many were the nights that I massaged myself to ecstasy while imagining it was me instead of Mary in Leo's embrace. My bedroom door locked, knickers tossed, legs spread wide, and knees pulled high, I attacked my clitoris with one hand while rubbing my nether lips with the other.

One night while being particularly aggressive with my work, my fingers working my slit went deeper than usual, causing a stab of pain. I clamped my legs together for a moment but by the time they reached their peak, I was joining in with both hands, with two on my clit and two deep inside. My release came some moments after their efforts ceased, so I had to experience it in blessed silence. Deep inside, though, my screams were echoing like thunder rolling across the land, as I wondered if I would ever experience the real thing.

***

Chapter 5

My teaching went well and I attended several dances in Philadelphia during the 1921-22 school year. Several teacher friends about my age went together and I enjoyed the dancing and their friendship. At one of these, I met a nice young man named Samuel Coolidge and later went on a couple of real dates with him. He claimed no relationship to then-current vice president but he excited me with approximately equal lack of fervor. Samuel did give me my first welcomed kiss, but it was about as boring as his personality and further dates weren't in the cards.

Mom and Dad (who now insisted that I was old enough to call them that instead of my former pet names for them) had a telephone installed in the house that spring, so my arrangements with Mary for my summer were made across the scratchy wires instead of by post.

I departed the train in Columbus in early June 1922 to be greeted by Mary and Leo, only to see at once that something was wrong. Mary looked different, perhaps even ill, so I rushed forward to hug her only to have her attempt to lessen my embrace.

"Mary! What's wrong?" I demanded, only to have her smile and look at Leo before turning back to me, grinning.

"Our baby is due in January! You're going to be an aunt!"

***

Mary's morning sickness subsided a few weeks later and the doctor recommended that she quit her job to spend less time on her feet. Mom and Dad came to spend time with us in late July and Mom helped make baby clothes and linens while Leo and Dad painted and arranged the nursery. We had a wonderful time together but it passed all too quickly and they were soon on their way back to Philly.

With Mom gone and Mrs. Myers off for a few days, Mary and I had time to talk. We sat at the kitchen one morning in early August drinking coffee after Leo departed for work.

"Clara, can we talk?"

I laughed. "Sis, we've always talked. So what about?"

"Ahem...men...and your future. You're 19 now and two years into your career. Have you given any thought into what you want to do...and who you'd like to do it with?"

"Mary, I haven't rescued my flier or anyone else of interest, I'm afraid. Billy Briggs, Alex Walsh, and Samuel Coolidge aren't exactly my ideal candidates, for, as Mom used to say, dog catcher, much less anything having to do with matrimony, if that's what you mean."

Mary nodded. "I've been hearing reports about young women getting out and about, with some getting into trouble because things have changed so much so quickly. I just want to make sure you're not feeling that pressure and that you're getting by without doing anything...bad."

"No, big sister, I try to stay on the straight and narrow...at least most of the time."

She laughed heartily at my joke and the expression with which I'd given it, but little did she know that my big exception was those late evenings she shared with Leo, and at a distance, with me.

***

My nephew, Christopher Shandley Walsh, was born on January 20, 1923, but I was unable to take off from school to assist. Mom did, however, going to Columbus to spend a month with her first grandbaby and his parents while Dad and I worked in Philadelphia. My turn came again in June, right after school was out, when I left for my third annual trip.

Leo met me at the train station. "Clara! You're looking great," he said, pulling me in for a hug. I felt as if I could have stayed there all day, but he quickly released me and retrieved my bags. "Mary and Christopher are at the house, so let's get you there so you can meet your nephew."

Little Christopher grew quickly that summer, and he seemed to enjoy his time with me after our initial meeting. He wanted to nurse almost constantly so Mary and I would frequently sit together and talk as he suckled. My eyes were drawn to her breasts, now larger than my own for the first time since she'd left for England all those years before.

Mary grinned. "They're huge, aren't they?"

Indeed they were, large and swollen, veiny, with her areolas having grown in size and become much darker than in earlier years. "Do they hurt?" I asked.

"Sometimes, if they swell too much or if this little fellow doesn't do his job. He takes care of most of it, but...sometimes I have to express to ease the pressure, though in that case..."

She hesitated, casting a nervous glance before she continued, "...Leo helps sometimes."

My eyes grew wide. "He expresses for you?"

Mary giggled before biting her lower lip with a funny grin. "No, Clara, he suckles me, drinking the milk like Christopher, though he's usually...he's usually rubbing me, down there, to high heaven while he's doing it. It really is then. Heaven."

Mary's eyes drifted closed and her head rolled back on the chair as Christopher continued to nurse happily. Seeing her breathing change, I thought she was going to have an orgasm while sitting there in the rocker, but she opened them a moment later with a curious smile on her face. "We want to do it with him...ahem, in me—"

"His cock?"

She smiled again as she nodded. "His penis," she said, using the term in her anatomy book. "We just started, ahem, making love, again recently so it still hurts a little right now, but the doctor said I should continue to...adjust...over the next month or two and we'll be back to normal before long where we can really do it. When we can and when he suckles me, well, one of the other moms said it's like fireworks for her. I can't wait to try it like that."

While I knew that Leo's penis had been in Mary's pussy any number of times, including at least once making little Christopher plus the innumerable sessions when I'd played along, her rather blunt admission suddenly made me feel queasy. She wasn't done though.

"Right now, since it hurts, he's doing what some of the men in his outfit said the French girls liked, going down on me with his tongue. Oh, Clara, it makes me—Clara? Clara, are you okay?"

It was all too much. That Leo would do so much for her pleased me to no end, but to know exactly what he was doing and doing it to her rather than me hurt like a thousand knives to my heart even though they were lawfully married and I was nothing but the sister-in-law. Realizing that I was having such evil thoughts about my sister's husband made it all even worse.

"Mary, I'm not feeling well, ah...headache. I may just go lay down for a bit. Okay?"

"Yes, sweetheart. Get some rest and ease your head. I hope you feel better by dinner."

I lay on the bed, trying to put Leo out of my mind, trying to avoid thoughts of his efforts with Mary, and, most of all, trying to promise myself that I wouldn't join in with them again in the future.

Though it took a great deal of effort the rest of that summer and the next, I put my fingers in my ears rather than on my clit and covered my head with a pillow when needed and the the feelings I'd harbored for Leo for so long were slowly pushed back, confined to some dark, hidden recess in my heart where they wouldn't be a problem in the future. As such, I worked to limit my affections toward and emotional displays with him, making even Mary, perhaps remembering my problem with Alex, question if all was okay between us.

"Clara, did...did something happen between you and Leo?"

"No, silly. Nothing's wrong; I'm just having some personal issues that I'm trying to work through, you know, where I'm going and what I'm doing with my life."

She accepted that, giving me the out I needed even if it wasn't the solution I wanted.

***

Chapter 6

I met Kendall Grimes during the spring of 1924. He was a reasonably good-looking man, almost a year my senior, and was nice. Like so many our age, he was too young to have fought in the war, so he was looking for his place in the world. His profession at the time was an auto mechanic's assistant, though he'd been through three other jobs in the two years prior.

We "dated" for two months that spring before I headed to Columbus for the summer to spend time with Mary and little Christopher and to avoid Leo to the extent possible. Christopher was walking and talking, though toddling and babbling may have been the correct terms most of the time, and I was kept on my toes keeping track of him. Aunt "Kaewa" became his favorite play toy of the summer, particularly after Mary discovered, some weeks after my arrival, that she was pregnant with her second child.

Leo noticed my reservedness eventually and spoke with me one evening while I was playing with Christopher. "Clara, I hate to ask this, but...have I done something to offend you or hurt you?"

My breath caught, realizing that I'd become too obvious in my actions, but I tried to act surprised instead, replying, "No, Leo. Why?"

"You don't seem the same around me as you once did. I understand if the circumstances of your life have changed, but I'd never want to be responsible for hurting you."

I waved my hands with Christopher grasping my index finger on each hand. "No, nothing like that Leo. Maybe I'm just older. Maybe I've just changed a little? Maybe this little guy is more of a handful than I could ever have predicted?"

He looked into my eyes, all too deeply for my comfort, and nodded, but he looked hurt nonetheless as he turned away. Considering my circumstance and the effort I'd put into distancing myself from him, I could offer no help.

***

Mary tried to "set me up" with some of their friends in Columbus that summer, but I declined all comers as I kept telling myself that I was actually looking forward to seeing Kendall again. Sadly, I looked at him as being like a second or third place finisher, an also-ran far behind Leo, but still one of the better prospects in a mostly boring field. With no other viable options, I felt myself settling for the nice, decent-looking fellow, even after realizing I was using those same, boring descriptions over and over, unable to come up with anything that touched me more deeply, for anything better. We'd written a few letters each during the summer, and I'd even spoken with him over the telephone wires on one occasion when we'd been able to arrange it by letter.

Kendall knew my arrival time, but had begged off, saying he had to work that afternoon, so I took a hack home. The driver was carrying my luggage up the walk toward the house when I saw a man walking with a young woman who was pushing a baby carriage. I gave a polite hello as they neared but was heading up the walk when I heard the voice.

"Clara?"

I turned to see the man smiling at me. I recognized him immediately even though I hadn't seen him in at least three years. "Billy!"

He nodded before turning to the woman, "Honey, this is my friend, Clara O'Grady. She and her big sis grew up in the house here so we played together as kids. Clara, ,this is my wife, Liza, and the wee one here is Billy Junior."

We greeted each other politely before the taxi driver returned so I could pay him. With the man pulling away, Billy asked, "Have you been away this summer? We moved back home with my parents a couple months ago so we can save money for a place of our own."

"I've been away with my sister and nephew. Now, I'm looking forward to being back home for work. Teaching and the fall, you know." I didn't add that I wanted to see if I can get my life in order and maybe decide where I was going with it.

They wished me well and I went inside to see Mom.

***

Kendall came over that late that afternoon driving his new car, a used 1921 Ford Model T painted yellow rather than the usual black, that he'd purchased during my absence.

"They don't come that way from the factory," he explained. "My mechanic friend has a paint shop and we did it together. Doesn't it just look the bee's knees?"

Kendall's expression for "great" inadvertently made me realize the car looked something like an oversized bumblebee, but I controlled my urge to laugh and he took me for a drive, rumbling through our section of the city and beyond. After getting a bite to eat at a cafe, he finally parked the car in the East Fairmount Park and we got out and walked before finding a secluded spot. Kendall droned on about his summer and about his car and I listened politely thinking of about a thousand other things I'd rather be doing.