The Bride Wore White

"I caught some winks on the train." He took her hand and pretended to drop some winks, a running private joke of theirs. They stepped out into the moonlit night.

"Aren't you going to lock up the station?" he queried. His words spoke of routine, but his eyes escaped to scan her figure.

"Not up here. Besides, if someone comes down for the eastbound mail in the early hours they can wait inside."

They climbed the short path in silence. On one side was the moon, on the other a streaming river of stars. Ahead of them, to Jack's surprise was a folding camp bed set up in the rustic lookout on the Point. Emma spoke.

"Ute Mary said that she had been consulting her ancestors at sunset each day this week. She told me that she would leave the camp bed set up instead of taking it apart and packing it down the hill each time." An owl hooted in the distance. They kissed. Jack looked Emma in the eye, but his gaze snuck down to her bust line.

Emma laughed.

"There's no one around here. Yes, go ahead and unbutton my blouse and you'll be surprised." Jack's eyes grew large, but his nervous fingers managed to maneuver the buttons out of their holes. Carefully he opened her blouse, and a puzzled look crossed his face. Her bosom was covered by a cloth thing with straps.

"It's pretty, but what is it?" He finally got the words out.

"It's the latest fashion. It's called a 'bra' or a 'brassiere'-- it supports my breasts... especially good for women with large busts." Jack began to get the idea.

"It looks kind of complicated. I think I've seen them advertised in the catalog," he paused, "I mean the bra, not your breasts."

"He just about choked," Emma told Ute Mary later. "When he realized how his words came out he started to apologize. That's when I realized you were right; he was a virgin."

"It's not complicated at all." Emma responded. "Look!" And she reached around and unfastened the newfangled thing. She shrugged her shoulders, and it slipped off. The moon and perhaps the starlight made her full breasts glow. Afterward Emma had told Ute Mary that it was just as she had predicted that she had felt the power of the moon. And Jack did, too.

Or, as Jack told Little Tony later, "the hot stuff that you told me about really worked!" He kissed Emma on her outdoors-worn cheeks, on her unadorned lips and then grazed down her soft skin with kisses to her now freed breasts. His anxiety faded as he felt her nipples rising in excitement, and just the way Little Tony had predicted, they seemed to rival each other for his attention. And then he paused.

"I don't have one of those Dr. Condom's things."

"Ute Mary told me that this was to be our week. She said that the moon was with us, that we need to be united now. Don't worry." There was a note of urgency in her voice. She took his hand, placed it on her stomach and felt deep pleasure. Jack held her for a moment and then rose to work his jeans off. With loving hands and sweet kisses, they removed each other's clothes. His underpants could not hide his growing excitement. He struggled to get them off, then saw that Emma's skirt was off and that she had been wearing nothing under it.

Emma was stretched out invitingly, like the goddess statue he had studied so intently when he had gone to that museum in Chicago. And, just like Little Tony had patiently explained several times, the look on her face and the way she crossed and then uncrossed her legs showed that she was enjoying having his complete attention. Silver drops formed on his staff as he felt it locked into ready erectness. And now her legs were spread for him, a powerful invitation framed in the moonlight by wet, blonde curls.

"Just be gentle, I'm a virgin," she whispered. Barely able to finish saying that and she gasped as he entered her chamber, sliding on their warm wetness. Her mind whirled between sensations as he burst into hidden treasure spots that she had never touched before. Without conscious thought, her arms pulled him closer, stroking his firm hips, feeling everything at once -- smooth muscles clenching and unclenching as he drove into her, his pubic hair and hers meshing each time their bodies met, his balls, heavy with cum, slapping against Emma as his cock plunged and withdrew, deeper and deeper with each stroke, driving her body hard against the canvas. The cot creaked with each thrust, but there was no one to hear.

Emma felt him surrendering to her feminine power -- he had to release and fill her with his excitement. An owl hooted. Emma vaguely recalled that witness to the night's pleasure later on when she spoke with Ute Mary.

"I sent the owl to watch over you," Ute Mary smiled. Emma wondered.

"I hope I hear the owl again!" Ute Mary saw the knowing smile on Emma's face and laughed.

"Many times, will come," the old lady had promised.

Of course, Jack thought, experts like Little Tony and the ladies at Maggie's place might have critiqued this experience. But it was exclusively Emma's and his. His thoughts tried to return to the present on the plow train, but it was hard to do that. Instead, he kept remembering their times together, both in the events in town when Emma came down from the mountains and then in their monthly visits to Paradise Point. He wanted to thank Ute Mary, but she would just smile and turn away. Her moon forecasts were accurate, however, and a week of intimate conversations and readily welcomed lovemaking turned into a wedding proposal.

"We're gonna pass Number One!" one of the laborers called across the aisle to some buddies who had started a card game. The young telegrapher was snapped back to the current situation. He had not noticed that they were slowing down. The men's eyes were drawn to the electric lights of the premiere train. Powdery snowflakes were lit as they passed the windows. The Pullman car effect -- brightly lit interiors and brief scenes from rooms where blinds had not been pulled -- showed the men snapshots of the life they had not reached.

In the lounge car, men with gold watch chains and big cigars tipped the attendant who was bringing another round of some beverage. The laborers made up dialog for the movie-like flickering scenes.

"Waiter! I'll have what he's == havvvvingggg, oh my God!" They were past the lounge car and now were going by the Pullman cars, some with darkened rooms. At the shocking outburst, all eyes turned to the well lit, framed scene of a man totally distracted with the gift he was receiving from the half-dressed woman who had taken his penis deep into her mouth. His hands stroked her bare back. She paused for breath and his hands swept over her hardened nipples.

The rest of the windows offered mundane scenes. Waiters in the dining car clearing tables after dinner, mothers amusing children in their coach seats, the news butcher making a last trip of the evening through the aisles to hawk his souvenir books and snacks. But no one in the snowplow train was talking about that.

"Damn! I recognize him, that's Charlie Wood! The guy with the big claim near Mount Westblitz." A couple of the men chimed in agreement. Jack recalled that Wood was one of these working stiffs till he made a fantastic mineral discovery on what under a different name had been a Ute holy site.

"He never smiled like that when I worked with him!" laughed another of the witnesses. "Wonder who the woman is?" The chorus of suggestions came to no conclusion. Whoever she was, she had a million-dollar mouthful, they agreed. Charlie was her captive.

Jack thought about a recent time with Emma. It had not even occurred to him to be up for deep kisses like that. But he did remember her leaning over him, her hair softly brushing his bare stomach, and then with sweet little kisses she had brought his resting love tool back to life. He wondered if Ute Mary had been coaching her again. He grabbed his heavy coat and joined the line of workers ready to pile out of the old coach.

They eased to a stop ahead of the siding. Big Tony was first off and began yelling instructions. Obscenities big and small helped with this crew. Big Tony had once explained to Jack that some men did not understand that he was serious unless he dished out a dose of profanity.

"Dothis-dothat!" Jack called it. He joined some of the men who trudged ahead to inspect the slide. He had tried on the way up not to think about what might have happened, but now he faced stark reality. The slide had carried the little, wood-frame station down a slope, smashing it against some boulders. Jack's heart fell.

Big Tony and Little Tony consulted. Would it be safe to follow the slide path down to the wrecked station? It looked as though there was nothing left above them on the mountain side. Johnson Barr came dragging through the snow to join their huddle. Jack remained silent. Everyone knew that he wanted to get down to the disarrayed timbers of the Paradise Point station as soon as possible.

Jack saw the short figure of Ute Mary stumbling toward them from the stalled Pacific Limited. She was wrapped in a Pullman blanket and had bruises on her face.

"I was with Emma! I held her hand," she blurted out. There was anguish in her voice. She looked helplessly at Jack and then told the men that she had been aiding Emma a dress fitting when they heard tree branches snapping and had then felt the little station moving. Ute Mary struggled for words to describe the crashing furniture, cracking woodwork, and breaking glass.

"Do you think there's a chance of it happening soon again?" Big Tony interrupted. He had to get the trains moving. Ute Mary squinted at the moonlit slope above the station.

"Not until the elk return," she opined. She meant "spring" Jack realized. Big Tony understood and waved for some of the men to join them. Aiding each other, they made their way down the slope toward the wreckage. It was half walking, half stumbling, linking arms.

Emma was dead.

As the burly men lifted the desk that had pinned Emma, Jack and Little Tony knelt beside her. Someone had brought another Pullman blanket and they slid her body onto it as gently as was possible in the painful situation. And then Jack wept. Emma had been trying on her wedding gown. Through his tears he saw the pins that marked adjustments to be made. She had picked it out of the mail order catalog. It was white, of course, with just enough lace to honor tradition, she had assured Jack. But it was made for the 20th Century figure, not the 19th, he recalled her telling him.

For a long minute the rough-handed men, Johnson Barr, and Big Tony stood silently, hats removed in spite of the cold. Then Big Tony began issuing orders. Some of the men would struggle back up the slope with Emma, wrapped in the blanket. Little Tony and Johnson Barr would get back to work with the plow.

"And you," he reminded Jack, "need to report." He did not say more. Jack nodded and made his way back up the hill, the tears freezing on his face. He worked by habit now, silently entering the musty old coach to pick up his lineman's gear. No one spoke to him, not sure of what to say.

Down the line where Train 1 sat in clouds of steam, its engine seemed to sigh impatiently. Electric lights of the dining car illuminated the trackside snow banks, making it easy to spot the first pole with intact wires. Jack clambered up the pole, cut off the broken wire that had made unwelcome contact with the ground, and clipped his portable telegraph key to the copper strand that would connect him with the world. All without thinking about what he was doing.

With cold-cramped hands on the apparatus he managed to break into some chit-chat with the PP call letters for Paradise Point. He repeated that and then the line went silent. He could picture offices going silent, too, on edge, waiting. Somehow he tapped out the official messages. And from the pole -- in the light from Barr's engine -- he could make out the shape of Little Tony's plow bursting through the snowy debris.

After that, down the pole, and things circled around him. The track was clear, and Johnson Barr eased the work train and the plow backwards downhill next to the passenger train. A few of the makeshift work team watched eagerly for a repeat performance of fellatio in the Pullman windows, but all the shades were pulled against the murky light of winter dawn. Instead, they saw a family with children wolfing pancakes in the dining car. Waiters brought fresh coffee to other early risers. A man in a coach looked with annoyance at his pocket watch. Not all saw this tableau. Some men on the plow train slumped exhausted, perhaps from the knowledge that they now were on a funeral train, and certainly from their night of back-breaking labor.

Conductors consulted with each other and Jack. Train 1 was cleared by the Chief to proceed to the next telegraph station for orders. The plow train could back down the hill to Goldstrike. Everyone looked at their pocket watches. Once again Jack climbed the pole and tapped out the message. The Queen City & Pacific was open for traffic again. Somewhere far off, Jack realized, someone would relay his message to the Queen City stock exchange and share prices would rise.

As the plow train rumbled down the hill, Jack sat with Emma in the old baggage car that carried tools. Some of the toughest men came in to spend a few minutes with him. They left before they would tear up. He tried to think of all the arrangements that would be needed. He tried.

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A few weeks later, Helga bustled about preparing Anne's room for a visitor. A "purple visitor" in fact, Anne's code word for an occasion when she would wear her luxurious purple robe. Even though city council members would be dropping by to conclude their afternoon's business with a relaxing frolic, she was not to be available. Business had been routine recently, but this next caller was to be Johnson Barr. Helga pulled a picture of him out of a chest of drawers and propped it up. Anne looked at it and enjoyed the warm glow that she was feeling. Her clitoris seemed to take on a life of her own when Johnson was with her. None of the play-acting needed with other men.

She heard Maggie's voice from downstairs, greeting "Mr. Barr" -- taking his coat. She heard his footsteps on the stairs. The door opened and in a flash they were in each other's arms. His kisses seemed more urgent than ever and so Anne was not surprised when he pulled back as if to take a breath. She was surprised when he reached into his breast pocket for an envelope.

"Whew!" he exclaimed. "Before we go any further, let me show you this letter." He pulled a folded paper out of the envelope and handed it to Anne. It was type-written on QC&P letterhead. She read some bureaucratic language and then with a shout of joy realized what it was.

Downstairs, Helga and Maggie rolled their eyes, trying to imagine what sexual thrill Mr. Barr must have offered to elicit the loud reaction from Anne.

"Yes," murmured Johnson. "It's a letter of recommendation from the company. We can move to California." He paused, "if you want to come with me."

"Only if I can have a garden. With roses." They laughed.

Johnson Barr had done a lot of thinking after that night on Paradise Point. It was going to be time to settle down and Anne knew that. But now was a time for celebrating. Anne slipped out of the purple robe and let the lamplight gild her curves. Johnson, her Johnson, watched her with love in his eyes as he waited in the sturdy chair. Thinking was not necessary now as she straddled him; their eyes locked; she opened herself to feeling dimensions of pleasure as the growing strength of his engorged head pressed deeper and deeper into her core.

They looked down and watched with joy as he slipped smoothly in and out, their bodies tuned to each other's needs. Losing control, she arched her back; Johnson's strong arms held her safely; then the hand that controlled the massive steam locomotives was stroking her breasts. Anne shuddered as the tiniest precise movements poured electricity through her from tip to toe; she closed tightly around him. His pent up cum jetted deep inside her; it was hers now. It felt good to welcome his vigor. And now she would have him in her garden forever.

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Postscript - I looked through some on-line old newspaper files, but only found elements of this story. Around this time there was an ad for a new girl at Maggie's place.