Southern Heritage

I moved out the way as they pounced him.

Dinner was a rather quiet affair between my brother, father, and I. I ate lightly, having no desire for what I was tasting. It might as well have been ashes in my mouth. I was cranking the old car and pulling it out the barn while everyone else was settling down to watch 'Oklahoma' on CBS.

I could hear the music as I pulled down into neighborhoods most white people wouldn't go into. A blending of blues, jazz, and the new sounds coming out of the big cites. It seemed to come from every doorway. I heard laughter and the sounds of children and adults having fun.

When I parked in front of Maryloo's house, I stepped out into what felt like another world. A place where everyone was friendly to one another. Where a neighbor would help you just because he was your neighbor. Looking over, I saw a card table under a big tree and dozens of kitchen chairs under it. The old men looked up from their game of Dominoes and I saw looks on a few faces that weren't nice, but most just seem to be curious as to who I was.

The front door to Maryloo's opened and the screen door closed with a loud slap. I smiled when I saw LuAnn, her younger cousin, walking towards me. She had come to the house a couple of times to help Maryloo when Mom wanted to do some major redecorating. She was about Tommy's age.

"Ohhhwoo! Would you look at this? Someone done gone and gotten me a white boy for Christmas. But damn it, they done deliver you early. I'm gonna have to put you up somewhere or everyone's going to want to play with you," she said with a sassy wink.

I grinned at her.

"Wouldn't want me worn out before Christmas even gets here," I said grinning and shaking my head.

"That's just what I'm talk about. I got to hide you somewhere. Maybe once I get you unwrapped I can hide you under the bed. Take you out and only play with you at night." She lifted her hand like she was about to start undoing the top button on her shirt.

"LuAnn, I'm going to bust your black ass in a second!"

I looked up from the young flirt to see Maryloo coming out her front door. She had a glass bottle of beer in her hand as she walks over to meet me. "This is my present," she told her cousin in a whisper as she handed me the beer.

The young girl pouted. "It's not fair. No one ever gets me a white boy for Christmas."

"Maybe next year," I told her after taking a sip. It was not the brand I would normally have bought, but it was ice cold.

"Go get a plate of food and take it out to your uncle Harles. That fools gonna starve to death playing dominoes one day." She looked back up to me and I saw a slow smile cross her lips. "Come on in. We been keeping your friend company." Maryloo took my hand and pulled me to the house.

"Willy, my boy!" I was suddenly wrapped up in strong arms as I stepped inside. Curtis' face was right in front of my nose and I could smell the malt beer on his breath. "You done landed me in Heaven my boy. These women can cook better than my Momma and..." he leaned in to me a bit more. He must have been thinking he was whispering but I could probably have heard him back out at the car. "...God damn that ass on some of these girls!"

I wrapped my arm around Curtis and he led me, or I support him, over to the table. I saw Maryloo hold out a plate to me. As Curtis took a seat between two of Maryloo's cousins and started flirting with the pair of giggling women, I smiled at the woman I loved.

"You just help yourself to anything you want now, Willy Boy," she told me.

I leaned towards her a bit. "I need a bed for that not a plate," I said in a whisper.

She smiled, shook her head and gave my arm a pop. "Get you some food. We'll see about desert once you get something else in you." She grinned at me and disappeared off towards the kitchen. I heard what sounded like a large Marine division at work in there.

The dinner table was loaded with things to eat. I didn't see a turkey like we had but the ham was huge. There was a monstrous tray of fried chicken and a small mountain of potato salad. The big blue bowl full of black-eyed peas and the red checkered cloth covered plate of cornbread next to it drew my attention.

One of the giggling cousins got up to go get something. Curtis wrapped himself around her chubby sister and pulled me down into the empty seat.

"Willy Boy, I think I'm gonna marry me this one," he told me, looking at her smiling face.

"Do you even know her name?" I asked taking a sip of my beer. I looked at the girl and winked. She smiled back at me

I saw Curtis trying to puzzle it out.

"It was W something, wasn't it?"

"Wilhelmina," she said laying her hand on his arm. "I've told you twice now. You forget it again and you can sleep out under the tree by the fire barrel." She nodded her head off towards where the older men are playing dominoes.

"Damn, Willy boy, this one seems to have a mean streak. Maybe I should marry her sister."

I grinned at Willow, she smiled back.

"I wouldn't do that, Curt. Her sister's got an even meaner streak," I warned him jokingly.

A hand popped me in the back of the head.

"I heard that. Get your white ass out my chair."

"Yes, ma'am," I told Mimmy as I got up with my plate and my beer.

She gave me a smile, a wink and plopped back down next to Curtis.

Taking my plate, I wandered over to by the kitchen door. I looked in on a scene that any base commander would have been proud of.

Maryloo was directing her family around the kitchen like a master sergeant. They moved when and where she points. I saw even more food just beginning to be prepared. I looked over to the oven and saw Maryloo bent over pulling out loaves of bread. I watched her youngest sister spreading butter on them just out the oven.

"She loves you."

I turned and had to look way down to the tiny woman standing next to me. She looked not a day under two hundred. I gave her a smile. She just barely returned it.

"Ma'am?"

"I said she loves you. I've heard her talking with some of the others when it's quiet at night. I've heard her talking about you. She's worried herself sick over you for the last five years. Now she's if anything even more worried. She's afraid you're going to give up your life to try and be with her. That what you gonna do?" the little old lady asked me. I realized then that Maryloo was looking over at me from where she was slicing the hot bread.

When our eyes met, I knew I had the old woman's answer.

"I couldn't give up my life to be with her. She is my life. I wouldn't give her up for anything in the world."

The little lady just looked at me for a second then started cackling. I could see she only had about three teeth in her head. She reached up a thin bony arm and caught my neck. With surprising strength, she pulled me down and placed a kiss on my cheek that smelled of beechnut.

"You treat my granddaughter right, you hear me? The whole damn world is going to try to treat you both wrong, but so long as you treat her right it will be okay."

I nodded.

I looked up as Maryloo stepped up next to me and layed a thick slice of buttered bread on my plate.

"Granna, you trying to steal this young man too? You about as bad as LuAnn," she told her grandmother in a low voice.

The old lady cackled.

"If I was ten years younger and my hip wasn't hurting I would make his toes curl." She smiled as I felt her hand pat my ass. I watched, chuckling, as she tottered off toward a radio I heard playing.

Maryloo smiled at me. "Come on, lets find you a place to sit."

Bellies full, the relatives moved out the house one by one. Looking out the front door, I saw a large fire was going in an old oil drum under a large tree near the card table. Laughter rang out from it every few seconds.

I knew one of the giggling sisters had taken Curtis off in that general direction earlier. I gave thought to going to find him when I felt a soft hand run up my back and onto my shoulder.

Maryloo looked up at me smiling. She handed me an open beer and she nodded towards the fire. "That will go on till after midnight."

I nodded and took a sip. The cold brew helped the overfull feeling in my stomach a bit. I looked at her beautiful eyes.

"I want you to come with me," she said to me after a second's pause.

The dim lamp with it's yellowed glass shade gave the room a soft feel. Her scent was all around me as she closed the door behind me. She turned and looked up at me, her hands behind her back. I heard her turn the lock.

"William... I love you." I saw her swallow. "I have loved you for many a long days, though many a long nights, wondering if you were still alive. I don't know what to do about that love, Willy boy."

I stepped over to her and put my arms around her. I rested my head in her soft hair.

"I love you too." I made the decision I had truly made years ago. "I want you to marry me. I want you to be my wife." I felt her shoulders shake under my hands.

"Oh Willy boy, I want that. I want that so badly. But it can't be." She looked up at me. "The laws may have changed. They may say we can but you know as well as I do how little things have really changed. If I marry you, your family's going to fire me. Your father will disown you. Where will we live? Here? That won't be a fire barrel that's burning out front if we try that."

I felt it then, the fear that she and all her relatives must had. I knew from having seen the card that father was in the K.K.K. What that really meat to a ...person of color came home to me then.

"My family will protect me from as much as they can, but if I stand myself out there like that?" she said softly.

I pulled her to me tighter as I felt the tears. I knew then what I would do for her.

Anything.

"Maryloo."

She slowly looked up at me.

"Be my wife. Whatever happens... happens, but for a short time or for a long, we at least will be together as we should have been for years now. I don't have a ring on me... I've planned this out terribly... but would you please marry me?"

I watched the twin lines of tears run down her dark skin. I saw them reach her chin and hang there. I saw them fall into her open cleavage as she looked down.

"I don't know what to do," she said softly.

I pulled her into me then. To comfort, to protect... to love.

Holding Maryloo in my arms, I felt her heart beating against my chest. I looked down into her eyes and she looked up at me as our faces closed. Our lips met, soft at first, then with a growing need for more. I kissed her upturned mouth reveling in the silky feel of her lips against mine.

Turning my head, I smiled as she kissed her way across my cheek to my jaw line. I shivered a bit as her lips touched my neck. Her breath was hot against my skin as her mouth descended to the hollow by my collar. I opened the top button of my shirt allowing her more access. Her hands closed on mine, pushing them out the way. I grinned as her fingers went to work with a frantic pace on my shirt.

I tilted my head back and just reveled in the feeling of her lips kissing my chest, her mouth hot and wet moving around my upper body. Hunting for the places that make me respond.

I looked down when her hand went to my belt. I watched in a state of total surrealism as she undid the belt and then unhooked my pants. I stepped on my heels and pushed my shoes off as she knelt down and pushed my pants lower. I watched her face as she looked me over. She looked up at me from her knees and smiled.

"You are a beautiful man, my Wiley boy." She smiled at me, then grinned. Her finger nails ran up the back of my legs, scratching the skin in away that tickled. I tried to pull back a bit, but her hands were on the cheeks of my ass, holding me in place.

My eyes went wide when she leaned in and placed a kiss on the head of my cock.

"Oh my god," I said in a soft whisper as I disappeared into her mouth

. Those warm soft lips ran down the length of me in a tight, caressing massage. I felt a soft suction that seemed to pull me from hard to harder. I looked down and watched her head bobbing on me, then she was pulling me deeper. Her fingers wrapped around the base, her lips tight, her tongue working fast and wet.

I brought my hand up to rest on her hair. Her soft hair, like a warm curly sponge under my fingers. So very different from the slick straight strands of the Asian girl who did this for me once years ago for the first and last time.

I could tell after a few moments that Maryloo didn't have the other woman's skill at this but I enjoyed it all the more for that.

Slowly her mouth moved off me. I watched, silent, as she stood up in front of me. Her hands went to the dark black buttons down her front and then they were opened one by one. In a puddle of cloth, the dress fell to the floor. The white bra and panties all but glowed against her skin.

She reached behind her but I stepped forwards and wrapped my arms around her pinning her arms at her sides. My lips found her and caught her gasp of surprise. I let my fingers wander up her back till it found the strap and I unhook the little clasp. I felt the shoulder straps slip down, then the front falls as she moved her arms back to the front. Her hand found my cock and her fingers took it in a tight grasp.

I leaned down and sucked in the dark nipple. The taste of her so different, but all that I remembered from the last time we were together. The hard suck at the hardening nub, the taste of her. Turning her back loose, I cup her breast and pushed her deeper into my mouth as I suckled.

Her fingers tightened in my hair, and then ever so slowly she pulled me back. Her nipple left my mouth with a pop.

"Not quite so hard Willy. A little more gently." She told me softly. She smiled as I nodded. "Don't worry. I taught you how to tie your shoes I can teach you this."

I grinned up at her and leaning back in I gave the tip a lick. I smiled when she shivered. I placed soft kisses on her skin making my way back up to her lips. I looked into her beautiful eyes and smile.

"There is something I want you to teach me. Something I've never done." I let my eyes slowly look down then back up. I smiled as I saw her eyebrows rise. She let out a giggle.

"Willy boy, that is such a naughty thing to be asking me to teach you." She shook her finger in front of me. Then smiled. "I would love to teach you how to do that... but not tonight. I have been running around all day sweating it wouldn't be a pleasant thing right now. I'll let you try that after I get me a shower one night. Sound fair?"

I looked her in the eyes and slowly nodded.

"Does that means you're going to be mine? Forever?" I asked after a seconds thought.

I saw the feelings cross her face. The worry, the desperate fear... for me. For what a life with her would mean for me.

She closed her eyes and looked down. Slowly she nodded.

"YES!"

I grabbed her under her hip and lifted her up into my arms. I spun us around and together we collapsed laughing onto her bed. The springs gave an almighty squeak of protest then settled as she moved to lay on her back next to me. I rolled over till I was looking down at her. There were tears at the corners of her eyes.

"Make love to me," she said softly. Her hands brushed my face, caressing the skin by my eyes. "Make me yours."

Leaning in, I kissed her lips feeling her passion building as I shifted myself up and over her. I settled my weight down as she opened her legs and wiggled down a bit. I felt her hand slip between us then, I closed my eyes as I felt the most wonderful tightness in the world surround the head of me. I smiled as she moaned, the whole length of me slowly slipped into her. Warm... wet... tight. Mere words lend so much less to what I was feeling. Her hands came around to my back and her fingers dug into my shoulder as I pushed deeper.

"Oh, my Willy boy... oh that feels so good now. Oh yea, just like that."

I started a slow rocking thrust that took me almost out of her then all the way back in. Her hand closed on the back of my neck and I felt her lips rise up to meet mine in a hot kiss, filled with all the words we had never gotten to speak to one another.

Her legs opened a bit wider, her thighs rubbing against the sides of my hip, then she was even more open and I felt her legs come further up my side. Leaning back I caught the underside of her knees and pushed her even more open.

Sounds came at me then, distant ones at first, the people out by the fire barrel laughing. I couldn't make out the words but every once and awhile they burst into laughter. I wondered for a second what had happened to Curtis but that thought was lost in the next thrust.

I listened now with a total focus on this wonderful woman, that I had known for my whole life. The one woman that had always been there for me. I looked at her face, shiny with a growing sweat. Her eyes were closed and her mouth slightly open, soft moans coming out with each thrust. I saw the tip of her tongue come out to lick her lips then her eyes open and she saw me looking at her. She smiled softly.

"Feel good?" she asked me, running a hand across my chest, to my neck, then to the side of my neck.

I slowly let her pull me back down. Her knees push against my arms as she pulls me down. I felt my foot find the metal rail at the foot of the bed. I pushed off against it driving into her a bit deeper. I got a grunt then a moan that sent shivers through me.

"This feels wonderful. I wish we could stay like this forever." I told her in a soft whisper that was all the breath I could muster for speech.

She laughed under me, sending wonderful pulses along the length of me.

"We would get damn all hungry and mighty sore before long," she said. "Oh damn."

I started to push harder . Try though I might to make this last I could tell I was getting closer every second. I drove myself in, hearing the bed squeaking in an even rhythm under us. Her breath left in a grunt with every push.

"Cum in me," I heard her say under me.

The words stop me in mid thrust. I look into her eyes not believing I heard her right.

"You...sure Maryloo?"

I see her take a deep breath then nod.

"Cum in me my Willy boy. I'm your woman now. I want to feel you... I want to feel... it." She pulled me deeper, using her hands on my waist.

I moved my arms and her legs come down my sides as I rested my weight on her and moved across her body. Our skin, wet with sweat, moved like white satin on dark silk. I pulled myself up into her by the headboard while pushing off the footboard.

I listen to her with wonder under me as I felt it begin. The rush up through me was sudden and powerful. I wasn't sure I could have stopped had I wanted to. As it is, I release into her with a flood of passion driven need. I clutched her too me as I emptied myself into the warm depths of her. I listened to her moaning my name as she shuddered under me. Her fingers clawed at my back as I heard her begin to cry out louder then louder still. She turned her head at the last second and I felt her more than heard her as she screamed out her lust into the pillows.

I rolled off the top of her and pulled her to me as she shivered and twitched against me. I felt her legs jerk every few seconds. Her breath was a wet heat against the side of my neck.

"Oh...my Willy boy. Oh my god. You can do that to me for the rest of my life."

I pull her to me holding her tight to my side. "I will. I promise you that. I will."

Holding each other in the dark we listened to the sounds from outside. The laughter of her family. I wondered about my family, if there ever was laughter like this. So free of constraint.

I turned my head and let it rest on her soft hair as I hear her breathing slow to a soft rhythm. I smiled and placed a kiss against her skin not really caring where it landed. Sleep took me into a dark embrace.