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Angel From Montgomery Pt. 01

By: jack_straw



Author's note: This is an entry in the fourth semi-annual Jake Rivers "invitational." The initial one was based on the Statler Brother's song, "This Bed of Rose's." The second used the Marty Robbins El Paso trilogy: "El Paso," "El Paso City," and "Faleena." The third had stories based on the various versions of, "Maggie May," or "Maggie Mae." 

The current invitational has looser criteria: the stories are based on any country & western song.

I have decided to do a story based on John Prine's "Angel From Montgomery," as sung by Bonnie Raitt.

While John Prine is not generally considered a country songwriter, his ironic musings have a definite rustic twist to them, and while Bonnie Raitt is better known as a pop singer with a bent toward the blues, her voice in this song has a plaintive quality to it that a lot of Nashville wannabees would kill for.

This is the first of a two-part story.

^ ^ ^ ^

There's an old saying that all good Texans will go to heaven when they die, because they've already been to hell.

Hell in this case was another brutally hot day, hot like it can only get in Texas in mid-July. It wasn't even noon yet, and already the temperature was pushing 100, and the humidity was high, since we weren't so far inland that we got the drier, more Western climate. 

I was sitting in my favorite old rocker out on the long front porch, still in my house coat, shelling black-eyed peas. We had jars and jars of peas put up in the pantry, but there I was shelling more peas. Hell, I didn't have anything else to do, and since I hated being idle, I was adding to the pea population there at the big house my husband and I had called home for over 40 years.

I have arthritis, and every step I take now is a new exercise in pain, so nowadays I do a lot of sitting. Fortunately, my mind and my eyesight are still sharp, and that keeps me from going crazy. 

Unlike Jim, my husband, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer's. It's hard to tell, really, because he's always been a little goofy, at least outwardly. Of course, behind the happy-go-lucky outside was a sharp-eyed, keen-witted businessman, who bought this ranch in the country east of Austin from a bankruptcy auction and turned it into a profitable enterprise.

We made it a family operation, and two of our sons now run the show, and Jim mostly hangs out with the old folks who linger around. That's what he was doing on this morning, sharing the same old stories and off-color jokes in his mangled Texas Spanglish with the crew of Mexicans that was repairing a fence over by the barn.

The boys were having a huge laugh about it all, and Jim was laughing right along with them. But I could see the look on the foreman's face, and it was a look of pity, almost. And I guess I should have expected it.

Raul has been with us from the beginning; in fact, we inherited his family when we bought the ranch. He'd grown up there and we considered him and his people part of the extended family. I knew it pained him to see Jim losing it mentally, ever so slowly as he was.

Me? I just didn't think about it; didn't want to think about it. I'd just love him and care for him right to the bitter end. It's what we do for the ones we love. 

At length, I heard the whine of a engine growing louder, and I soon recognized the little green pickup truck that belonged to my granddaughter, Shannon. She was the youngest child of my oldest daughter, the baby of her family, and a real doll.

I have gone to great lengths to not play favorites with my grandchildren, but everyone knows there is a special bond between me and Shannon. She's the spitting image of her mother -- who is the mirror image of her father -- so I can't help but have something special for her. 

I could tell something was wrong, because she whipped the little truck into the circular drive in front of the house, brought it to a screeching halt amid flying gravel, climbed forcefully out of the cab, slammed the door and stalked into the house, slamming the front door so hard it rattled the glass.

Special or not, she wasn't allowed to get away with that kind of behavior, and I immediately, and painfully, stood up, walked in the door and barked at her.

"Shannon Marie Turner!" I bellowed. "You know damn good and well we don't go around slamming doors like that around here!"

She came out of the kitchen sheepishly, and that's when I saw the tracks of the tears on her dusty face.

"I'm sorry, Gram," she said softly. "I ... I. Oh, Gram!"

And she just buried herself in my loving arms and sobbed uncontrollably.

It took me awhile to get her calmed down enough to get her to tell me what was wrong. When I did, all she did was pull a piece of paper out of the front pocket of her shirt and handed it to me.

I opened it and saw a picture of her long-time boyfriend, Jason, in a very compromising position with a woman who was not Shannon.

"Someone sent this to me last night, and I confronted him about it this morning," Shannon said between sniffles. "He tried to weasel out of it, but I knew he was lying, and he finally confessed."

Turns out the alleged great love of her life had another girlfriend in the city, and he'd been playing one against the other for months.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," I said.

And I was. Jason had fooled all of us. He was a charming young man -- too charming, as it turned out -- and now he'd broken Shannon's heart. They'd been high school sweethearts, and she'd been convinced they were going to marry and live happily ever after.

"I don't know how I can live without him, Gram," Shannon wailed, as a fresh bout of sobbing erupted.

That's when I made up my mind. It was a snap decision, really, but she needed to know that the world wasn't going to end because her first love had fallen apart. 

I had some experience with that, and I felt it was time to impart some of my hard-won wisdom to my granddaughter. But I wanted to do it in a way and in an environment that was uniquely ours.

"Look here," I said forcefully, in my best grandmother's voice. "Run into the kitchen there and let Maria rustle you up some lunch while I get dressed. You'n me are going for a little ride."

"Where are we going?" she blubbered.

"I'll let you know when we get there," I said over my shoulder as I headed back to my bedroom.

I ignored the pain in my knees as I struggled into a pair of blue jeans, a pair of socks and my worn-out boots. I threw on a T-shirt, not bothering with a bra, grabbed my hat and headed off to the kitchen.

Maria, our cook, had been getting tamales ready for the guys working on the fence, so she'd fixed me and Shannon plates, and Shannon had already devoured hers. Once you've had homemade tamales made by a true Mexican culinary genius such as Maria, you'll never tolerate store-bought or restaurant tamales again.

I polished off my plate, washed down with a cold beer -- hey, I'm 71 and I can drink beer for lunch if I want -- then we headed out to the barn.

Shannon didn't say a word as we strode purposefully toward where the men were working.

"Raul!" I said in my most commanding voice. "Get a couple of your boys to saddle up Betsy and Spice for me'n Shannon here. And send the rest of 'em into the house. It's lunchtime."

"Si, Senora Rosa," he answered with a smile, calling me by the diminutive of my given name, which is Rosalie. He barked out a command in Spanish to two of the older fellows, who hopped to the task at hand. Another burst of Spanish and the rest of the crew dropped their tools and headed to the bunkhouse, where Maria was already laying out lunch.

"Gram, are you sure you're up for this?" Shannon asked hesitantly.

"Girlie, the day I can't ride a horse is the day y'all can start throwin' dirt on me," I answered. "You'n me need to go somewhere we can be alone and talk."

After a few minutes, the two men who'd saddled up the horses came out of the barn with the two mares in tow. Betsy was my baby, a sweet-natured filly I'd taken a shine to almost from the day she was foaled, and Spice was one of several smaller girls that we kept for the kids.

Shannon climbed right into the saddle, but I needed a little help, due to my arthritic joints. Petey, the young man who was leading Betsy, helped me get my left foot in the stirrup, then put his hand on my butt and boosted me up and into the saddle. 

I grinned at him, and we winked at each other. I've managed to retain most of my figure, and my ass has always been one of my best features. Even at 71, I still like the feel of a man's hand on my butt, even if it's unintentional. 

Well, I think Petey may have been taking a few liberties, but I didn't mind. I'm still a woman, and while Jim is no longer able to fuck me like he once could, we can still play, and I still like to flirt.

Carlos, the fellow who had brought Shannon's mount out, came back up with a couple of canteens filled with water, which we each tied off on the pommel of our saddle, and off we went. I had a specific place in mind, and we headed there at a leisurely pace. 

At the far end of the property, there is a stand of hills, and in the midst of it is a natural spring-fed pond. When we first bought the place, it was just a standing pool of water, with a little creek running down into the flatter countryside. 

But the scenery is so beautiful, with wide-open spaces in every direction as far as you can see, that we decided to make that our go-to spot. We hauled some rocks up there, dammed up the pond, leaving just a small outlet so water could still get down to the flats, and fenced it off so the cattle wouldn't come in there. 

It became our family swimming hole and picnic place, and it also became the place of refuge, a place where we could go to be alone. At one time or another, everyone in the family had gone up there to reflect, brood, pray, think -- and, yes, to fuck. I'll have more to say about that in a bit.

When we approached our destination, after about an hour's ride, we reached the gate. I tossed Shannon the keys and she slid off Spice and walked over to let us in.

We picked our way up through the rocks, until we reached the pond. Shannon helped me to the ground and we let the horses wander free in search of the grass that lay nearby. We took our canteens and headed off to the flat rock that overlooked the pond.

I took off my hat and let the fairly substantial breeze caress my hair, which I still keep fairly long, a little past my shoulders. It's mostly gray now, but it still has the naturally tight curls I was blessed with as a girl.

We sat back on the rock and let the sun warm us with its glow.

"So, what did you want to talk about, Gram?" Shannon asked at length.

"Shannon, sweet, I do know how much you're hurting right now," I said. "That first love is always the hardest one to lose. You think it's going to last forever, but most of the time it don't. I need to tell you about your grandfather, so you'll know you ain't alone in this."

"What do mean, Gram?" Shannon said. "What about Poppy?"

"I'm not talking about Jim," I said. "I'm talking about your real grandpa, your mother's father."

"I don't understand," she said.

"That's because you've never been told," I said, and through the mists of time I looked at her face and saw the face of the first man I'd ever truly loved. "Poppy isn't your biological grandfather. You see, I had your mom, Angel, by another man, long before I met Jim."

I took a big swig of the luke-cool water from the canteen and proceeded to tell my granddaughter the story about how I became the Angel from Montgomery to a cowboy with an itch in his boots. I didn't give her the bump-and-grind, the way I am about to tell it to you, but I think she got the gist of it.

^ ^ ^ ^

My given name was Rosalie Barrilioux and my parents were originally from Cameron Parish, in the far southwest corner of Louisiana. By the way, it's pronounced Rosa-LEE, not Rosa-LYE

Everyone always said I looked just like my mother, and that's why Daddy was gone so much during my childhood. He couldn't stand to look at me day-after-day as a reminder of my mom.

I still have an old picture of her in a casual pose, plus their wedding photo, and she was indeed a real Cajun beauty, with dark curly hair, big expressive eyes and full lips.

That's about the only way I have to remember her, because she died when I was 3-years-old trying to give me a brother. 

She had what is known as a partial previa, a condition where large blood clots block the birth canal. While it's still dangerous nowadays, it's not usually fatal, thanks to early detection through ultrasound technology. 

But back then, it was almost always deadly, and it killed my mother and my baby brother. Daddy's people worked the fishing boats in the Gulf of Mexico, but when Mom died, he left me with relatives and went off to work on various drilling rigs as a roughneck. 

This was before the days of off-shore drilling, and he went from one oil patch to the next, from California to Canada, and all points in between. He would come back periodically, dropping into my life for awhile, then drifting off.

That period molded me into the flinty, independent woman I became. Conversely, I craved my father's love, and I believed it was a personal rejection when he'd take off. It was only much later that he admitted it hurt him too much to see his dead wife reflected in my face.

Everything changed when I was 11, when Daddy showed up in Cameron with a new wife. He'd met her while he was working in Texas, and he had decided it was time to settle down and be a father again.

He'd been frugal with his money and he had enough to buy a small place in Montgomery, a small town few miles outside of Conroe, where Florence was from, and he also bought a gas station in Conroe. It quickly became a thriving enterprise, thanks to Daddy's knowledge of machines and his hard work ethic.

I moved in with Daddy and Flo, and after going to the primary school in Cameron, I started junior high there in Montgomery, and settled in to a new life.

Back then, Montgomery County was pretty much in the country. Now, of course, it's been swallowed up by the urban sprawl of Houston. The town of Montgomery used to be a really small place, but it's grown to be about the size Conroe was when I was in school more than 50 years ago. Conroe is now a small city, kind of like Galveston on the other side of Houston, not really quite a suburb, but still well within the metro area.

When I first got there, I was a little rebellious. I really didn't want to like Daddy's new wife, and I resented him for marrying her. In my mind, he was besmirching the memory of my mother. 

Over the years, I had built up such an idealized image of my mom that I felt like he'd betrayed her when he took up with Flo.

Fortunately, Flo was a sweet woman who truly loved my father. She turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to either of us, and she ended up giving me a little brother and a little sister.

But I was prepared to hate her at first, until she fired the first shot in her campaign to win me over. That happened that first Christmas, when she led me out to the barn and showed me a pony that was her and Daddy's gift to me.

Flo had grown up around horses, and she made it her business to pass her love of horses on to me. I took to it like a duck to water. I used to jokingly say that I was the reincarnation of a Mongol princess, someone who was born to the saddle.

When I was in high school, after I had become a well-seasoned rider, I started doing a few rodeos, as a barrel racer, which was at the time the only event open to females.

I was never all that serious about it, and I didn't go too far to compete. But I usually fared pretty well when I did enter a rodeo, because I always had a knack for getting horses to do what I wanted them to do. It was like I had a innate sense about how to communicate with a horse.

But, far more than riding, my interest in the rodeo was watching the boys, and having them watch me.

Although I wasn't a bad girl after I moved back in with Daddy and Flo, I was still a bit of a handful. I had always been very independent, and I didn't take to Daddy's discipline very well.

As I entered Montgomery High, my looks and my athleticism led me to become a cheerleader, which combined with my riding skills made me pretty popular. I was much more interested in the social aspect of school than in the classroom. I knew I wasn't going to college, so I just worried about making decent-enough grades, and I could do that without too much effort.

I dated around in high school, but I never settled on one particular guy, and I was still happily playing the field when I graduated in 1955. I quickly got a job as a clerk for the drug store downtown, and settled into life post-high school.

I was just kind of spinning my wheels waiting for something to happen that would determine my future. It was a little over a year after I graduated from high school when something happened.

It was at the Montgomery County Rodeo in Conroe that summer, when I met Clint Rouse. He was a bronco rider and a pretty good one. The first time I laid eyes on him, my little heart skipped a beat.

With Clint, it was a case of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts. Honestly, he really wasn't much to look at. He had a nose that looked like it had been broken a time or two, and one of his front teeth was partially missing. Moreover, he had this shock of sandy blond hair that he simply couldn't do anything with.

But he had some kind of weird sex appeal, because he always had women falling at his feet, me included. He had sky-blue eyes that sparkled when he smiled, and he smiled a lot.

Combined with the chipped front tooth, it gave him this crooked smile like he knew a secret only him and God knew about. Plus, he was lean, and well-built ... everywhere, as I quickly found out.

I was riding that night, the first night of the two-night rodeo, and I actually won, one of the few times I actually came in first. Our eyes met and I swear sparks flew between us. I mean, I felt myself getting wet just from that one look, and I think he knew it, because he sought me out afterwards and asked me out.

I was grooming my horse in the back area, getting her ready to head for home when I felt this presence behind me. I turned around and he was just looking at me.

"You ride pretty good, little lady," he said in a real West Texas twang.

For one of the few times in my life, I was struck speechless. My insides were doing flips and my tongue felt like it was filled with prairie dust.

"Y-you ain't so bad yourself," I finally managed to spit out.

He introduced himself and I responded, then he asked me if I wanted to go grab a bite to eat.

"I've got to help get this trailer home, and it's late tonight," I said. "But I'm not riding tomorrow, so why not then."

He was riding in the afternoon session the next day, which was Saturday, but he was free that night, so we made a date of it. I failed to notice that Flo was looking in our direction. All I had eyes for was Clint. She didn't say anything, though, at least not right away.

Turns out, he was from Sweetwater, which is a little west of Abilene. He was trying to make a living at rodeoing, and he wasn't doing badly at it. He was hoping to get on the pro circuit, but it was a lot harder then than it is now, and it's not easy now. 

But he was paying his dues plying the rodeos in Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico, picking up some winnings here and there and getting experience. 

He was planning to travel further afield later in the summer, to try his hand at some of the bigger rodeos, such as the Frontier Days event in Cheyenne, Wyo. For a girl who'd never been further from home than San Antone, it was thrilling to think about.


Angel From Montgomery Pt. 01



On our first date, he took me to the drive-in, and we had hamburgers and cokes sitting there in the cab of his pick-up truck. I was nervous as hell, because I wanted him like I'd never wanted anyone before. I kept telling myself this was crazy, that I wasn't that kind of girl, but I knew where we were going to end up that night, and I wanted it.

I wasn't a virgin, but I hadn't been with a lot of guys. Nevertheless, I considered myself somewhat experienced. I'd actually only had intercourse with three boys, and none for the past year.

Back in the days before the birth-control pill, you had to be real careful about sex. Let me make one thing very clear. We may not have lived in the kind of sex-drenched society kids grow up in today, but we knew what it was. We weren't as naïve in the Fifties as the books make us out to be.

And with my independent streak -- bordering on rebelliousness -- I was lustier than most of the girls in the Class of '55. 

Still, I had a reputation to uphold, and I wanted to finish high school. It wasn't like today where kids have babies and nobody thinks twice about it. Girls who got pregnant in high school back then simply disappeared. 

Either they got married, were shipped off to relatives or were sent to group homes for unwed mothers. They sure as hell weren't allowed to stay in school.

The first two guys I had sex with dutifully used condoms, and the sex was kind of ho-hum. But the third guy had the misfortune of fucking me like a madman when the rubber broke. 

It was the weirdest thing. On the one hand, I was hysterical that he shot his sperm into me without protection, and I think I bruised him on the chest trying to get him off of me. 

But, paradoxically, the feeling of his hot cum jetting up into my womb triggered an intense rush that I quickly figured out was an orgasm, the first one I'd ever had that wasn't self-induced. Don't look at me like that. Of course, we masturbated in those days. We just didn't admit to it. Hell, why do you think I enjoyed riding a horse so much.

From then on, if I got to the point where I might have sex with a guy I was dating, I'd take care of them with a blowjob or a hand job, but I wasn't going to risk a condom breaking in the middle of passion. I lost a few boyfriends that way, but that was just too damn bad.

It was hot, so I was wearing a sleeveless cotton dress that extended to about mid-calf and sandals. It's funny when I think back on it. I could probably pull out that dress today and it would look perfectly stylish. There have been plenty of times over the intervening years when that was not the case.

Clint wasn't a big talker, but that night the conversation just flowed easily. We talked about ourselves, telling each other about our backgrounds, trying to learn as much as we could about each other.

When we finished our burgers, we just cruised around town, the way kids did back in those days. I saw a few of my girlfriends from school and they kind of oohed and aahed about my date.

We'd made about two passes down the drag, when he put his arm around me and pulled me to him, and I went more than willingly.

"Where can we go to be alone for awhile?" he said. "Maybe have a couple of brews without attracting a lot of attention?"

I told him I knew just the place to go. It was a little back road that wound back toward the San Jacinto River. The river was the favored recreation spot even in those days, before the whole area was covered up when they built Lake Conroe back in the '70s.

Where we used to go was in a state wildlife area, and thus was public domain, but you still had to be careful where you went. Back then, you could still occasionally come across some old boy's whiskey-making operation, and the shiners didn't take kindly to kids interrupting their work.

I could feel myself getting wet, and once again wondered what the hell I was doing. But I was feeling mighty frisky and decided to go with the flow.

On our way out of town, Clint stopped at the little curb market just on the edge of the line that marked the white part of town from the black quarters that stayed open late, and bought a six pack of beer. Then we headed out to the country.

Neither one of us wanted to get drunk, but we did want to enjoy the buzz and the mellowness of our incipient lust. Hell, one six pack wasn't enough to do more than give us a buzz anyway. 

I mean, he was a West Texas boy and I was a Cajun. Daddy started letting me drink a beer or two at home about the time I was 16, and every West Texas boy I'd ever met could put away some beer. It just wasn't that big a deal.

There was a fairly substantial breeze that night, and it did a couple of things for us. 

One, it sort of stoked our fires the way it caressed our bodies with its warm touch. Second, it helped keep the mosquitoes at bay. It had been dry that summer anyway, so the skeeter population was down anyway, and the wind just shooed them off.

I don't know if it would have made any difference, but it was nice not to have to worry about too many bug bites

Because it was cooler with the breeze blowing, we sat out by the river side on the blanket he'd conveniently had in the bed of his truck and talked, tossing the empty longnecks into the water. And when we'd polished off the six pack, we just sort of melted together.

Clint's tongue was insidious, but not insistent, as it slithered into my mouth, jousting with my own.

"You know, I think you must be an angel," Clint said with that crooked grin as we broke our clinch. "An angel from Montgomery County."

Looking back on it, I'm pretty sure it was a bullshit pickup line that he'd probably used on dozens of women, but it sure worked on me. I felt myself creaming in my cotton panties from the way he was kissing me and holding me and touching me.

His hands slid effortlessly up my legs, under my skirt, and I simply spread my legs and let him have at it. When his fingers got inside my panties, I felt myself shudder with a mini-climax, and I knew I was a goner.

Abruptly, Clint reached behind me and slid the zipper to my dress down. As soon as it was open, I shimmied out of it and tossed it aside, leaving me in my panties and bra. I quickly discarded those items and lay back on the blanket naked and ready for this man to fuck me.

Clint stood up then and pulled his shirt off, then his undershirt, which was what they refer to now as a wife-beater. While he reached down to pull his boots off, I gazed appreciatively at his lean, hard-muscled physique. Next came his jeans, then his shorts.

My God, how can I describe my first good look at Clint Rouse naked. For one thing, he was the first fully-naked man I'd ever seen. None of my previous sexual experiences had involved either one of us getting naked; we'd simply moved our clothes around to get to the good parts.

Clint had no excess anywhere, except where it counted. His half-hard cock was swaying in front of him, and it was a beauty, long, slender and cut, which was a first for me. All the other men I'd had before that hadn't been circumcised, so this was a doubly-good treat.

And he wasn't shy about his body either. He strutted over and knelt down beside me.

"You are beautiful, you know that?" he said softly. "You're 'bout the prettiest woman I think I've ever seen."

Then he bent down and kissed me softly, but with an undercurrent of passion. His left hand was stroking my sex, and I was purring and squirming like a cat on a hot tin roof. Yeah, I know that's a cliché, but that's exactly how I felt at the moment.

I was ready for him to get going, but I was about to find out just what it meant to be truly consumed by a man.

Clint's lips and tongue caressed my jaw line, then slid down my neck to my chest, and I gasped when he captured first my left nipple, then my right, in his lips and sucked me gently.

My lust was climbing to the stratosphere, and I responded by grasping his now-rock hard cock and stroking him gently, the way I'd done for other guys. But this was different. This cock was going in me, and I didn't care one bit that there wasn't a rubber in sight.

But it wasn't going in me until it was good and ready, until I demanded -- no, begged -- for it. Clint's mouth suckled my breasts for a few minutes, then slashed its way down my stomach, then there was a moment of reprise as he settled between my legs.

Then I felt him pulled my hips up with his hands, and his tongue lashed at the dripping entry to my pussy. My head shot up like it was on a swivel, I was so surprised. No one had ever done that to me before, and I cried out in some shock.

"What are you doing?!" I gasped.

"Just givin' my angel a good tongue-lashing," he said, staring at me with that guilty grin. "What's the matter? You ain't never had anyone do this to you before?"

"N-no," I answered hesitantly. "Hell no. They always said it was dirty. Course, they didn't mind me putting my mouth on their cock, but..."

"Oh, man, are you in for a treat then," Clint said as he returned to his work with gusto.

That was it for me as far as conscious thought was concerned. The feeling of Clint's mouth on my steaming, streaming cunt was absolutely indescribable, but I still remember every detail vividly, even after over 50 years.

I just latched onto his unruly hair, opened my legs wide and rode him like I was in a barrel race -- or a broncing competition. I squeezed my tits and felt the crackle of lust sizzle through my body from the sensations emanating from my sensitive nipples. 

Foaming spittle and pure gibberish escaped my mouth as a feeling like I'd never had before roared through me like a hurricane. I gasped and cried out as my orgasm swept me along on a tidal wave of passion.

Then, as a white-hot explosion blew through me, I heard myself telling Clint, "please, God, fuck me, fuck me, fuuuuuuucccccck m-m-meeeeeeee!"

And, boy did he.

He pulled his face away from my drooling crotch, wiped his mouth with his undershirt, then knelt between my legs and slid his dick right up me, in one smooth stroke. His nice long cock filled me deeper and better than anyone ever did, before or since. 

He was perfect for me, but I don't think it would have mattered if he hadn't been quite so well-endowed.

Emotionally, we were one right from the first moment we were joined. It was just so right. We flowed together like two rivers coming together, merging our lust together, for (we thought) all eternity.

God, Clint had amazing control. Even though we were in the throes of an unstoppable passion, he kept a measured pace, not going too fast and not too slow. It was just enough to keep me at fever pitch, and I rocketed along from climax to climax, until my mind was just a void.

As good as it was, it couldn't last forever, and I was seeing black spots in my vision as I felt Clint pickup his pace. I vaguely heard his words of endearment, but, honestly, I was too far gone to make sense of anything he was saying.

I did hear his rhythmic grunting as he neared his own finish, and with a final cry I arched my back and came again as I felt him tense up, felt his cock swell, seconds before he sprayed jet after jet of hot, creamy cum deep in my womb.

For long minutes, we floated on a sea of lust as our movements became jerky and languid in the afterglow of sex. At last, our bodies relaxed, and we just fell together, giggling at the wonder of what we'd shared.

I didn't think anything could be better than that moment, and if we could have bottled it and just brought it out whenever we needed it, none of the heartache that followed would have happened.

The first dose of reality hit me when I got home that night, two hours after usual. I think Daddy and Flo just assumed I'd come home from my date at my normal time of 11 o'clock, which had been my curfew during high school.

Flo was sitting up waiting for me. She took one look at me, and just sort of nodded her head knowingly.

"I figured as much," she said. "Just so you know. I managed to put your father to bed, but it wasn't easy. He's very disappointed in you."

"Wait a minute," I said angrily. "I'm 19 years-old, and you ain't got no call to treat me like a child."

"True, but while you live here, I expect you to abide by the rules," she said. "Especially now that we've got little ones in the house. I can't have you stumbling in at all hours of the night like this. If you can't behave, well..."

She didn't finish the statement, and I wouldn't have heard what she said anyway, because I'd stalked off to my room.

That's when I made the worst decision of my life. I laid in bed thinking about the incredible sex I'd just enjoyed, thought about Clint, contemplated life on the road, brooded about the fight I'd had with Flo, and made up my mind.

I was tired of Conroe, I was chafing in the house there with Daddy, Flo and the two babies, I was restless and I wanted out. 

It was a spur-of-the-moment decision that I might not have made if had been completely sober, or if I'd truly slept on it and thought about it rationally the next morning.

But I didn't. I lay there wide-ass-awake, and the more it worked on me, the better the idea sounded. 

So, I got up, dressed in some jeans and a blouse, and in the predawn hours, I quietly packed a suitcase with as much as it would hold. I wrote a note explaining that I'd fallen in love with Clint and that I wanted to be with him, and while everyone was asleep I slipped out the door.

I walked to the closest pay phone, called the cheap motel where Clint was staying and asked him to come pick me up, that I wanted to go on the road with him. I think he was a little taken aback, but 20 minutes later, there he was. I climbed in his pickup and off we went.

In that moment, I felt as free as a bird ready to fly. Little did I know what awaited me out there in the big bad world.

To be continued... 



Angel From Montgomery Pt. 02



Author's note: This is the second part of a two-part series of stories in the fourth semi-annual Jake Rivers Invitational, this one based on country-and-western songs.

This story is based on John Prine's "Angel From Montgomery," as sung by Bonnie Raitt. It picks up after Rosalie, describing her first true love to her recently-heartbroken granddaughter, tells of running off to be with that lover on the Great Plains rodeo circuit.

Apologies for the delay in getting this second part done. I had hoped to have it completed a week or so earlier, before going on a little vacation, but that didn't quite happen.

^ ^ ^ ^

For awhile, life on the road with Clint was fun and romantic. We followed the circuit all through the Plains, and we did make it up to Cheyenne. I even sent my family back in Montgomery a postcard from the Frontier Days celebration.

Clint was everything I could have hoped for in a lover, and he taught me just about everything I know about sex.

He'd always introduce me as his Angel from Montgomery, so much so that a lot of people called me Angel instead of my real name. I wanted so much to believe in our love as something that would never die, something that would last forever.

I loved that man, and I'd have done anything for him.

After the summer was over, he took me back to Sweetwater, where we stayed in a little trailer on the ranch his folks owned..

That's when the bloom started falling off the rose. I'd already noticed that Clint didn't shy away from the attention of other women. No, sir. He basked in the glow of all the rodeo girls he charmed, even with me standing right there next to him.

I really don't think he could help it, but it pissed me off.

Then, once we got to Sweetwater, we set up housekeeping, and that was when such a practice was considered living in sin. For sure, his family didn't like it, and they looked at me like I was Coonass trash, which I guess I was.

Of course, they didn't mind an extra hand around the barn, especially someone who was as good with horses as I was. So I pitched in, hoping to ingratiate myself into their good graces. 

Most Saturday nights, we'd go into town, to some honky-tonk, to drink a few beers and dance, or at least we did for awhile. I got tired of it pretty quickly. I'd never been into that sort of lifestyle before, so I really didn't know how to handle myself.

Soon, Clint was going without me, and often he stayed way past closing time. I'd go on to bed, rather than wait for him. I had a bad feeling I didn't want to know what he was up to.

As the weather turned cold, I started to really get homesick, and I also started to get sick in the mornings.

Everything came to a head one Saturday night a few weeks before Christmas. I knew I was pregnant, and I wanted Clint to commit to me. I hadn't told him yet, but I think he suspected it. 

But he got duded up that night and was gone before I had a chance to talk to him about it. I made up my mind that I was going to wait up and have it out with him. Either he was with me, and our baby, or he wasn't.

It was 3 in the morning when I heard him come home. He kind of stumbled in, then he stopped when he saw me sitting on the tiny sofa that was about all the seating there was in the little front room of the trailer.

I could see the smudge of lipstick off to the side of his mouth and as he walked by, looking mighty guilty, he smelled of perfume.

"Was she pretty?" I asked with as much sarcasm as I could muster. Clint was halfway through the door to the bedroom, and he stopped and stared at me hard. I'm pretty sure that was the last thing he expected me to say.

"She was OK, not as pretty as you," he said finally. "But she was there, and you weren't."

"That's your excuse?" I said, my Cajun temper coming to a rapid boil. "You think it's all right to cheat on me just because I don't feel up to goin' to some smoky bar and swilling beer until half past never? Whatever happened to us spendin' time together, just you and me? Goddamn it, Clint, I love you, and you ain't got no call to treat me this way."

"I'm sorry, Rosalie, I ..." he started, then turned away and walked into the bedroom. There was nothing he could say that could make it right, and he knew it.

He came right back out and stared at me long and hard, and I knew he'd seen my suitcase sitting on the floor by the bed. I stood up and walked over to the sink in the tiny kitchenette, which afforded the only window in that part of the trailer.

I stared out the little window as the tears started to gush from my eyes. Then, the dam broke and I started sobbing. Clint came over and tried to console me, but I angrily pushed him away.

"Leave me alone!" I said through my sobs, as I dashed toward the door. "Please, just leave me the hell alone!" 

I stood out in the cold night for maybe 10 minutes, getting control of my emotions. Everything was haywire in my mind, but one thing I knew: I needed to go home. I wasn't sure what kind of reception I'd get, but I knew it would be better than living like this.

In that moment, I made the decision not to tell him I was pregnant. If he guessed and said something in the short time we had remaining before I left, I wouldn't lie about it, but I wasn't going to volunteer the information.

I thought that if I told him, he'd try to do the "right thing," and get me to marry him, and I had finally realized out that Clint Rouse wasn't the marrying kind. 

Oh, I'm sure he'd have tried, but I'd figured him out in that moment of clarity that came from a deep emotional wound, which he'd inflicted on me by coming home with evidence of cheating on his person.

Clint wasn't capable of fidelity. I think I'd known it all along, but I'd been so blinded by love that I couldn't make myself believe in my head what I knew in my heart.

I knew if I married him, I'd be setting myself up for endless heartache. Better to get the heartbreak over with now, in one fell swoop, than to open myself up for pain in small doses, all the time, for however long it took to finally drive me away.

And, trust me, my heart was breaking. I'd given him my heart and soul, even turned my back on my family, and he'd played with my heart, then tossed it away as casually as a smoker tosses aside a cigarette butt.

He was sitting on the sofa nursing a final beer when I came back in the trailer. He looked at me with those deep blue eyes, with an expression that was designed to melt my heart. He'd used it on me before when we'd argued, and I'd always caved in before.

Not this time. I shook my head sadly as I told him how it was going to be.

"I'm catching the bus and going home in the morning," I said. "Either you can take me or your pa can take me or I can walk. But I'm leavin'. This was all a big mistake. I appreciate all you've done, Clint, but it's over. I can't share someone I love, and you obviously don't love me enough to stay away from the whores at the honky-tonk."

"Angel," he started, but I cut him off.

"Don't Angel me," I said sharply. "You know that's what they are. Aw, hell, I'm as big a slut as they are, I guess. I ran off from home for you, so what does that make me."

I could feel the tears and bitterness coming on me again, and this time I let him when he got up off the sofa to hold me and console me.

"You ain't like them at all, Rosalie," he said. "Don't ever sell yourself short like that. You're a hell of a woman, and you're gonna make some cowboy a mighty fine wife someday. But it ain't gonna be me. Hell, I know what I am. I'm a free ramblin' man. I thought I could settle down with you, because I do love you, no matter what you think. You and that baby you got in there need someone who's gonna be around, and I cain't guarantee I'll be there. I got to roam, Angel, and ... Aw, hell, you know how it is."

I stared at him in disbelief.

"You know?" I said.

"Of course, I know," Clint said. "You've put on 10 pounds in the last couple of weeks and you're getting sick in the mornings. What else could it be? Look, Angel. If I really deep down in my heart thought I could settle down and be a proper husband and father, I'd drag you to the Justice of the Peace and we'd get hitched in a heartbeat. But I can't. I know it and you know it. It'd be a waste of time, for both of us."

And that was it. We spent our last night together just holding each other, fully-clothed, then we got up in the morning and drove over to his parents' house. I had some business to attend to with the Rouses before I left.

They were in their church clothes eating breakfast when we came in the kitchen door. As usual, his parents looked at me like I was something the cat dragged in, until I said I was leaving.

"But, see, there's the matter of my pay," I said. "I've worked here for free for a couple of months now, and I need the bus fare to get home. I don't imagine you can just catch a bus from here to Houston on a couple of bucks."

"We didn't exactly put you on the payroll, because you really weren't..." Mr. Rouse started to say when Mrs. Rouse jumped up and interrupted him.

"Come on, dear, we'll take care of that," she said, giving her husband a stern look, which he wisely took under advisement. 

Mrs. Rouse, especially, was so eager to be rid of me that she was willing to give me about anything I wanted. I never could figure out where their animosity came from. I worked hard for them and I was never anything but polite in all of my dealings with them.

I followed her back to their study, where she opened the wall safe and pulled out a stack of bills, peeled off a dozen or so, closed the safe and handed the bills to me. There was $1,200 there, which was more money than I'd ever seen in one place.

That incident left a distinct impression on me, especially a few years later when that family in Kansas was murdered, in eerily similar circumstances. Yeah, I read the book. It was kind of creepy, but I read it anyway.

I wondered if the Rouses realized how dangerous it was to keep that kind of money around a house that was fairly isolated as their place was. I'll bet they rethought that policy when they heard about what happened to the Clutters. 

We drove into town in silence. Whatever needed to be said had been said the night before. I knew at some level I'd always love him, and that has in fact been the case.

Clint waited there at the bus station in Sweetwater until the bus came, then we embraced before I got on the bus. I swear, he looked like somebody had just run over his favorite puppy dog, and as for me, I cried until well past Abilene.

With all the stops and then the layover in Dallas while I waited for the southbound bus, it took me two days to get to Conroe, where I got off. I hesitated a long time before I made the call for someone to come pick me up.

It was Flo who answered, for which I was eternally grateful. She squealed when she heard my voice.

"Praise Jesus!" she cried when I told her I was home, which surprised me, because I'd never known her to be a particularly religious person. "I'll send your daddy to come pick you up right now."

"Um, Flo, I'd appreciate it if you'd come," I said sheepishly. "I need to talk to you first, woman-to-woman."

"Oh my," she said. "I'll be right along."

Turns out Daddy was righteously pissed at me for leaving like I did, but he cried like a baby when I stepped through the door. I was also gratified to get a heartfelt welcome-home from my little brother and sister, who were both little more than toddlers. They'd missed their Rosie.

Surprisingly, Daddy wasn't angry when Flo told him I was pregnant. Disappointed, yes, but he was just so grateful to have me home safely that he accepted the news with as much grace as I could reasonably expect.

I had done a lot of thinking on the long bus ride home, about my life and about my future. I knew I couldn't stay in Montgomery during my pregnancy, and I really didn't want to stay in Conroe either. Too close to home. I really didn't care what people said about me, but I just didn't want to deal with it until after the baby came.

So after the turn of the new year, I set about finding a cheap apartment and a job in Houston until such time as the baby came. I finally found a little garage apartment in a working-class section on the north side of Houston. 

Today, that neighborhood is a high-crime area rife with gangs of various ethnicities, but back then it was a fairly quiet area, and reasonably safe. Daddy found an old Ford for me to drive and I took it to go look for a job.

That turned out to be easier said than done. Not many places were hiring pregnant 19-year-olds, especially when there wasn't a husband in sight. I finally found a job -- irony of ironies -- as a waitress at a tavern a few blocks from my apartment.

It could have been a real nightmare, because the clientele wasn't the best. The place was kind of seedy and it had a few shady characters hanging around that I had to fend off. Fortunately (I guess), the tavern owner, a big middle-aged fellow named Sal, had my back. 

Of course, in order to gain his protection I had to sleep with him, which I wasn't real keen on. But it wasn't like it is today, where such a practice would be cause for a lawsuit on the grounds of sexual harassment. 

I needed that job, he knew it, and I was willing to do what it took to keep it. He wasn't a bad lover, and he didn't hurt me, which he easily could have. I think he sensed that I'd fight him if pushed too far, and he was a lover not a fighter, although he could hold his own in a scrap.

I put up with it, and there was a part of me that welcomed the intimacy as I came off the rebound from Clint.

But in other ways it served to drive home what I'd lost. Sex with Clint had been an expression of love. Sex with Sal was just part of my job, and I always felt used when it was over. .

I was approximately eight months along and starting to really be uncomfortable when tragedy struck. It was in late June when Cameron Parish -- my parents' old home -- was virtually wiped out by Hurricane Audrey.

Out of all of Daddy's and my mother's people, the only ones who survived were my grandmother, my mother's mother, and my mom's sister, Aunt Polly, and her family. 

I think Mamere had a sixth sense about what was coming, because literally at the last minute, she decided she wanted to leave, and Polly, her husband and their three kids helped Mamere get out.

Folks down there had never seen a storm like it before, especially that early in the year, and most of them weren't prepared. They thought the sand dunes along the shore would protect them, but the 12-foot storm surge rolled right over the dunes and washed everything away.

Losing so many loved ones in the storm changed my father in ways even my mother's death didn't do. He became very depressed, and took on the attitude that he was like that guy in the old comic strip that always had a rain cloud over his head.

The memories of all of the family he'd lost haunted him until the day he died, and that day wasn't all that far off, as it turned out.

I worked at the tavern almost until the day my water broke one night while I was behind the bar. I called Flo frantically to meet me, then Sal drove me to the hospital, for which I was grateful.

I honestly don't remember a lot about going through labor and Angel's birth; it was all such a blur. But I do remember clearly the sound of Angel's squalls moments after she was born, and the feeling of her squirming body as she was placed in my arms. 

I looked down at her and I knew immediately that she was going to favor Clint. What little hair she had was blonde and when she finally opened her eyes, I could see they were sky-blue, unlike my deep brown. 

I sent Clint a brief letter, telling him about his daughter and that we were fine, but I never got a response, and I wondered if he even got it. I felt like he would have sent some acknowledgement if he had.

I never went back to the job at the tavern, nor did I return to the dingy little apartment I'd called home through my pregnancy. I look back on that period as a kind of exile I put myself through as punishment for the sin of leaving my family for something as "trivial" as love.

Of course, it wasn't trivial, but I felt like I needed to be alone to try to mend my broken heart and to pay for the pain I put my family through. Something deep in me needed for me to be subtly degraded so I could learn the lessons from my mistake. 

And it was certainly degrading to live in that little place, working at a menial, sometimes dehumanizing job -- a job that included barely-consensual sex on the side -- and trying to scrape out a living, all while carrying a growing baby in my belly. 

I resolved when I left the hospital with Angel and returned to Montgomery that I would never live like that again. And I haven't.

The first thing I did was work out a rent agreement with Daddy and Flo. I was going to live under their roof again, because it was easier to live there with a newborn baby than to try to find another place. But things would be different this time

Flo was pretty much a full-time mom, although she worked part-time giving riding lessons. But she had my little brother Michael, who was 5 at the time and getting ready to go to school, and my sister Cheryl, who was 3. 

So she could watch Angel right along with them when I was working, and conversely, I could watch Mikey and Cherie when Flo needed to get out and work. It was a good arrangement that worked well for the next few years.

As for work, I had made up my mind that I was going to do something I liked for a living, and what I wanted to do was work as a veterinary assistant. 

I knew my way around animals, and I had the sense that that was what I wanted to do with my life. I wasn't sure yet exactly how I would accomplish it, but that was my goal, and I bugged the local vet mercilessly until he hired me on.

I also helped Flo with her riding lessons, and got to be quite a good teacher. Before I knew it five years had passed, and my little Angel was getting ready for school.

As the kids got older, Flo's riding school began to become a bigger and more important enterprise, especially after Daddy sold his gas station. His health had begun to fail, and in the spring of 1962, he'd come home with the news that he had lung cancer.

It was still a couple of years before they officially linked cigarettes to cancer, but I didn't need a government study to know smoking was bad for your health. Just listening to Daddy hack and gack -- even before he was diagnosed with cancer -- told me that.

It broke my heart to see him waste away like he did, and to get away from the awful reality of Daddy's condition, Flo and I spent more time at the riding school. And it was in that capacity that I met Jim Wilson.

Flo and I had taken the kids and gone to a livestock auction over in Brenham. She was looking for a couple of horses to add to her stable in order to meet the demand for riding lessons, and we had taken the kids and made a field trip out of it.

Jim was there bidding on some cattle for breeding stock for the ranch where he was working over in the Austin area. His family and Flo's family had long been acquainted, and their paths had crossed at auctions like that many times before. 

He was a few years older than me, probably 29 or 30, and he'd been divorced about two years, so I guess Flo thought to play matchmaker. He hung out with us and I found him fun to be around. He was a natural wit, and sharp as a tack.

However, I really didn't think a lot about him after we went back home. I had dated some, and a few of those relationships had turned sexual, but I was being very careful, and all of the guys I dated sort of faded away when Angel started coming into the picture.




Angel From Montgomery Pt. 02



I sort of forgot about him until a week or so later when he called out of the blue. He said he was in Conroe and asked if I'd like to have dinner with him. I said yes, so we went to the best steak house in town, and that was the beginning of our relationship.

He never said until long after the fact, that the only reason he'd come to Conroe that Saturday was to call me for a date. I guess he was pretty sure of himself, because he just shrugged his shoulders and chuckled when I asked him what he'd have done if I'd said no.

"You didn't, did you?" he said.

Unlike Clint, it took a long time for me to fall in love with Jim. I mean, he was funny and fun to be around, but I just didn't sense the spark in my heart that I thought I should feel. 

There were a few times when I almost broke off the relationship, because I just wasn't sure of my feelings, and he was going so slow.

Don't get me wrong, I liked him, and he was certainly handsome enough to draw any woman's attention. 

He wasn't particularly tall, but he was powerfully built, with broad shoulders and sturdy legs. And he was very good-looking, with ruddy features and thick red hair that he wore in a style a lot like President Kennedy, kind of bushy and brushed back off his forehead.

Jim had a couple of things going for him, though.

For one, he knew about Angel from the get-go, knew about my situation as a single mother and it didn't drive him away. On the contrary, he and Angel quickly became fast friends, and she often tagged along on a lot of our dates.

For another, he had Flo working for him. I had come to love Flo immensely. By turns she was the mother I'd lost and the big sister I'd never had. A lot of what I've made of myself in this world I owe to her. So when she told me I needed to jump on Jim Wilson, it had an effect on me.

But what really started turning me around was the first time we made love, early on New Year's Day in a plush hotel room in Austin.

Jim invited me to be his date at a stylish New Year's Eve party there in Austin. It was an eye-opening experience to say the least.

I found out that Jim Wilson worked at the ranch where he did because he wanted to, not because he had to. I met his family at this party and they couldn't have been more different from the Rouses. 

His folks were big-time cattle ranchers, but they could not have been nicer. They owned a large spread near La Grange, but Jim had gone to work for a neighbor who was getting on up in years, both to help him out and get some experience running a ranch. 

For a girl who'd grown up in a working-class environment, and who'd seen some hard times in her life, the whole night was a revelation, beginning with our arrival at the hotel, the Driskill, right downtown. 

It was like some European castle, elegant and majestic, and as we walked through the lobby and saw Jim greeting and introducing me to friends who looked like royalty -- albeit of the Texas variety -- I felt real insignificant.

Fortunately, his family and friends went out of their way to put me at ease. They acted quite impressed when I told them I was a veterinary assistant, although at the time I wondered if they were just being polite.

Later on, I would learn that in cattle country anyone associated with veterinary medicine is held in high esteem, including the assistants.

Of course, being that I was originally from Louisiana and with a last name like Barrilioux, I got a fair bit of teasing about football, since Texas was going to be playing LSU the next day in the Cotton Bowl in Dallas. 

I have to say I gave as good as I got in that exchange, especially the next day when Daddy's beloved Tigers whipped the Longhorns 13-0. 

As the night progressed, I danced with Jim and he held me quite close. I was about to learn something about men that night, that you shouldn't give up on a man with a slow hand.

I still wasn't sure about my feelings for him -- my heart didn't just go pitter-patter every time I saw him, the way it did with Clint -- but I did want him. I'd gone without loving for almost a year, and I needed it.

Besides, I was 25-years-old and I could sense time starting to slip away from me. I didn't know if I could afford to wait around for the bells and whistles to go off the way they did with Clint.

As midnight approached, we drank a champagne toast, and afterward, we made a graceful exit up to our room.

Now, in some quarters at the time, the idea of two unmarried people sharing a hotel room would have been thought of as sinful. But we were right on the cusp of the sexual revolution, and in a sophisticated setting like we were in, it was well within accepted practice.

I was feeling just right as the door closed on the room. I'd paced myself the way I always did at a party and I was feeling good, but very much in control. I've always had a very low opinion of people who can't handle liquor, especially those who drive when they're drunk.

Jim sat back in the plush chair sipping a soda just watching me as I swayed in front of him in a provocative way.

I settled onto the carpet between his legs and ran my hands over his tuxedo-clad body, and I could see the sparkle in his eyes as my hands found his bulging crotch.

"Keep that up, and I may not let you leave," he said in a voice husky with lust.

"Why, sir, I believe you brought me up here to do just that," I purred as I slowly unbuttoned his shirt, raking my fingers over his stiff little nipples.

"God, Rosalie, I've wanted you so bad, for so long, ever since that first day," he whispered as he pulled me up into his embrace and crushed my lips to his.

We kissed with a fearsome passion, as our tongues wrestled together. I frantically pulled his shirt off, and he reached back and fumbled with the zipper to my dress. 

When he had it open, I stood up and let it shimmy off my body. My slip quickly followed, then my hose, my bra and panties. I stood in front of Jim panting in my desire, naked to his gaze.

"Like what you see, cowboy?" I said softly. He just stared at my full breasts, which sat high and proud on my chest, my flat belly and the dark curly patch between my legs that hid my dripping sex.

"You are so very, very beautiful," Jim said.

He stood up then and casually stripped naked, revealing a very nice-looking cock that was already standing at full roar. We stood together in that dimly-lit hotel room, our naked bodies together for the first time, and I could feel the tension in his body as we kissed.

His hands softly stroked my body, sending sensations of delight all through my body. And I was responding in kind, feeling his muscular body, the taut butt and the flat stomach, the hard flesh jutting from between his legs, eagerly seeking release.

I knew what I had to do, what I wanted to do.

I turned him around and softly pushed him onto his back. I hovered over him and licked each of his nipples, while softly and slowly stroking his cock. But I didn't tease him, moving quickly into position between his legs.

I ran my nose softly up the underside of his dick, inhaling the essence of his arousal. I wanted to taste him, and I didn't waste much time. I slashed my tongue up the shaft of his cock, licking him up like an ice cream cone.

As I came up to the crown, I opened my ruby-red lips and sucked him in, slowly, lovingly. Jim's wasn't the biggest cock I'd ever taken, nor was he the smallest. Truthfully, he was just about perfectly-sized for sucking, and I've enjoyed sucking his cock ever since.

I watched Jim's face as I bobbed up and down on his churning meat, and the look he had was one of rapture. His eyes were closed and he had a beatific smile on his face.

"Joyce never liked to do this," he whispered, almost to himself, referring to his ex-wife.

Her loss, I thought. Personally, I could never imagine not doing anything and everything to please a man you purported to love. Hell, I was willing to do just about anything with men I didn't necessarily love. To me, it was all part of the give-and-take of pleasure in sex.

That, by the way, was something I learned from Clint. Maybe that was why the women all went crazy over him. They understood that he would give everything he had when he was with a woman -- any woman.

My mind was soaring in mounting lust, just from hearing Jim's words, and the passionate inflection in which they were delivered. As I worked, I could feel his hips thrusting harder, more urgently. He wasn't demanding in his urgency, but I could tell he was getting close.

I swirled my tongue around his shaft as I pumped the base of his cock with my fist, feeding as much of his hard throbbing flesh into my mouth as I could take. As I worked him, I slid my free right hand under my body and found my bloated clit.

The moment I did, I felt my body start to take off on an arc of lust in rhythm to Jim's powerful thrusts.

Up and down, up and down, I could hear the sloppy wet sounds of my mouth on his dick, and the soft moans from Jim's throat, the equally squishy sounds of my clit being strummed like a maestro by my fingers..

Suddenly, there was a quickening of the sounds, a sort of panting noise, then I felt his cock swell, and at that moment I plunged every bit of his cock into my throat and swallowed hard as his cock erupted like a volcano.

I milked his cock with my lips and drank his spurting seed with my throat, feeling the warm tangy sauce flow straight into my stomach.

As I tasted Jim's cum, I felt my body go rigid seconds before I shivered in a powerful climax, like I hadn't had in quite a long time. I swallowed every drop, smacking my lips with an exaggerated sound to emphasize my pleasure.

I crawled up his body and we just cuddled together, our hands softly caressing each other, and soon I could feel his arousal start to climb again, just about the time I could feel his fingers delving into my boiling puss.

Yeah, I used those words, too. I'm always amused by the succeeding generations that think they invented sex and coined the code words for the sex organs.

I've pointed out to my children and now my grandchildren the obvious: How in the hell do they think they got here in the first place? We fucked, just like they fucked, and just like every generation has done and will do as long as humans exist on this earth.

Anyway, Jim's touch on my clit and around my ...vagina ... was heavenly, and we kissed slowly, with the smoldering passion of two lovers who have been working slowly up to that point in our lives where it starts to catch fire.

I slowly stroked his cock until he slowly rolled me onto my back. I opened my legs in an unspoken invitation, telling him with my body language to come on in and love me.

And, boy did he.

He climbed effortlessly onto his knees and slid his cock right up me, no muss, no fuss. There was nothing overly dramatic about it, not like it had been that first time with Clint. But the feelings were there, nonetheless.

Jim worked his cock in a slow rhythm, but fast enough and hard enough to stoke our respective fires. Up and up, Jim fucked me, not as a sex object, but as a lover. And I was responding in every way, my body shivering in delight as he worked his cock in and out, and around and around.

Because we'd both already had one climax, we could take our time, and we talked, telling each other what felt good and what we liked. Jim was from the very first a very considerate lover, and he has spent his life trying to please me.

After awhile, I could feel his pace change. His motions got harder, more intense, and the sounds he was making were more earthy, less intelligible. I was climbing higher on the express train to climax also, but I was afraid I might not get there before Jim was done.

I guess he sensed something, because as he began to fuck me harder, he raised himself up, stared at me with a sparkle in his eyes and reached down to strum my clit with his fingers. He rolled it around in time to his thrusts, and I reached up and grabbed his shoulders to give myself some leverage.

We were getting close and I could feel the sensations welling up through my body, until just about the time I reached a peak, Jim took both of his hands, grabbed my waist, gave me about a half-dozen really extra-hard thrusts and exploded deep in me.

Seconds later, my body shuddered with a full-body orgasm, and as he released his cum, he fell on me and we clutched at each other, kissing deeply while the feelings carried us away.

Later, after we had come back down to earth, we talked, really talked for the first time about what we each wanted out of our lives. 

Before, we'd always kept our conversations light, I guess because we were unsure about where we were going with our relationship. I was learning that behind the witty, upbeat jokester was a man who had some insecurities about life.

His divorce had taken a lot of his self-confidence, and developing a relationship with me was restoring some of that.

He knew he wanted to own a ranch, but didn't want to go into debt to do it, and he wanted to do it on his own. Like I said, his folks were super-nice people, but they tended to hover over him just a bit, and he wanted to be his own man.

But, and this was the crucial part, he couldn't do it alone. He needed someone beside him to bolster him, to plan with, to help him fulfill his dreams. 

He needed me.

And, it just so happened, his dream fit into what I saw myself doing, working with animals for a living.

That early morning pillow talk was where Jim and I first formed our partnership, and in the coming weeks it solidified, until the night when he proposed to me and I accepted.

I had found that even though I hadn't necessarily fallen "in love" with Jim at the outset, I discovered that respect and friendship can grow into love. It never had the bells and whistles that my first love with Clint had, but in many ways it was better, because it was deeper.

Because for all the passion and love I'd felt for Clint, there was always a little part of me that didn't quite trust him, didn't quite respect him, certainly not the way I have with Jim.

Once Jim and I committed our lives to each other, that was it. Neither one of us ever entertained the first notion of being with anyone else.

Of course, the year was filled with psychodramas. Daddy was hanging on, I think waiting for our wedding, which we had scheduled for the Saturday before Thanksgiving. Well, we all remember what happened the day before in Dallas.

We seriously considered postponing the wedding out of respect for the president, but we decided there wasn't anything we could do about it, so it went off as planned. Still, it wasn't a real festive occasion. 

We were in Jim's car the morning after the wedding, driving down to Padre Island for our honeymoon and missed the furor over Oswald's shooting. I will say this: after everything that went on that weekend, Jim and I needed a few days of solitude on the beach.

It became something of a joke in our family -- well, not a joke exactly, but more along the lines of black comedy -- that something like that could only happen to us. 

Daddy went into the hospital for the last time not long after we got back from our honeymoon and died the day after Christmas.

All of that -- Daddy's death, the killing of the president in our home state and our new marriage -- meant that 1964 opened without as much of the hope and promise that the previous new year had brought for us.

Nevertheless, Jim and I -- and Angel -- quickly set about making our dreams come true. Jim found a cattle ranch over near Georgetown that was in receivership, and at the auction, he was by far the most aggressive bidder, getting the acreage for far less than he would have on the open market.

The first time he took me out to the spring pond was when I fell in love with it. He took an extra blanket out there and we went skinny-dipping. 

Then we made love right there under the warm spring sun, with the gentle breeze caressing our bodies, and I believe that's where our first son was conceived.

It took a lot of work to get the house and the barn back into shape. The people who'd had it before had grown old out there, but had stubbornly refused to sell and they'd gone bankrupt when they couldn't pay their bills.

It was sad, really, and made us both determined that we had people to pass it on to. If not our children, then others that we trusted. 

Fortunately, all of our children, especially Angel, took to the life of ranching with a passion, and we sent both of our sons to Texas A&M to learn the agricultural business. Jim feigned distaste over that decision -- he was and always would be a UT man -- but I know he was really proud when both John and Neil graduated from A&M with honors.

We also had another daughter before I decided that we had enough babies in the house. Between the kids and the Chavez family -- Raul's people -- that had been working there when we bought it, it became a very successful operation, as it is to this day. 

In fact, Raul is now a shareholder in the corporation that we formed to streamline the operation of the ranch. He built a very nice house on a couple of acres that we gave him for a wedding gift. 

Flo stayed in Conroe and ran a flourishing business with horse lessons, raising my brother and sister, and doing so quite well. Mikey is now an architect in Chicago and Cherie is a teacher over in Spring. 

Flo eventually sold the business and moved out to the ranch with us, although for a long time she spent more time traveling with her girlfriends than she spent at the house with us. She lived to see the new century and passed away quietly in her sleep at the age of 94.

As for Clint, I saw him once a couple of years after Jim and I got married. He called me and said he was competing in a rodeo there in Georgetown and he wanted to see Angel. 

I had contacted him again, because Jim wanted to adopt Angel and we needed the birth father's consent. Seeing Angel just once was the only condition he placed on signing away his parental rights.

We agreed that he would be introduced as simply an old friend of mine, but I think Angel knew what was up, although she never said anything about it until several years later. I mean, it was obvious to anyone who saw them together that she was his daughter. She looked just like him.

Seeing Clint again was weird. I did have a few butterflies and there was still the echo of those bells and whistles I've talked about. And, too, there was just the slightest hint of tension between Jim and Clint that couldn't be denied.

But Clint was a gentleman and didn't overstay his visit. He was there and gone in a couple of hours, and he left the signed consent form that allowed Jim to legally become what he'd already been for quite awhile -- Angel's daddy.

Sadly, it was about a year later that I read where he'd been seriously injured in a rodeo accident. He'd taken to riding bulls, one threw him and he fell wrong, breaking his neck. He lived for about a year after that then died of what I'm pretty sure was a self-inflicted overdose of pain pills.

^ ^ ^ ^

"So you see, Shannon, sweet," I said as we got up off the rock and got ready to head back to the house. I could see some summer thunderheads building off in the distance and I didn't want us to get caught in the open if it stormed.

"You will always have your first love, and, yes, Jason will be your first love. You can't change that. But it's not the end of the world. I always treasure my time with Clint, but he wasn't the man for me. Your Poppy, he was the man I was destined to be with, and I've nurtured his love over the years and we've been very happy together. You'll find the man you're destined to be with, I'm sure. You've got too much to offer for there not to be plenty of young men out there who will be happy to take Jason's place. And it will be his loss."




Angel From Montgomery Pt. 02



"I hope you're right, Gram," Shannon said as she burrowed herself into my shoulder.

"I'm sure of it," I said as we walked arm-in-arm back to where the horse were quietly grazing.

Later, as we rode leisurely back to the house, I caught sight of Shannon as she turned back toward me, and I could feel the tears start to fall. For in that one moment, I saw the years melt away, and for just that one moment, I was 19 again and in love for the first time.

^ ^ ^ ^ 

"Make me an angel that flies from Montgomery
Make me a poster of an old rodeo
Just give me one thing that I can hold on to
To believe in this living is just a hard way to go"