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Blue-Dark Bayou

By: MlledeLaPlumeBleu



6/9/03 Story Submission from MlleDeLaPlumeBleu (what a ridiculous mouthful }:)

(Note: this story is written somewhat in dialect, and any egregious grammatical offenses are absolutely intended.)

* * * * *

It was ever so deep in the swelter; the air hung heavy and rippled over the brackish waters. On eves like this one, the day seldom baked off into balmy night. Heat rose up thick from the swamp, and swirled among the cypress roots. 

And Marie felt that ol' evil come upon her once again, yes, have mercy, there he was- licking at her loins, that canny demon Lust. 

He twisted her thoughts up so she ran hot and bothered, couldn't think of nothing else a-tall, not slipping peaches or skimming cream, nothing- nothing!- but that strange fever and ache.

Oh, it was wanton, no doubt about that.

Even the feel of it- to say nothing of the things that crossed her wicked mind when she was in the grip of it- but did she try to break free? Did she think of the Lord, of salvation, of penitence? No, and that was the wicked of it.

When it come upon her, stole over her like night, she welcomed it. It was a bad secret, and she steeped in it, sweet and dark like blackberries. Like the jam she should be watching close, boiling away atop the Dutch oven. She was in the grip of it, too wrung up to care for that.

But that demon did torment, too.

From the weathered porch, Marie watched her brother Jesse as he made his way home along the bank. He was foreman of a farm crew, and he toiled in earth like the Lord intended- and by virtue of the same, could it then be surprising that it had wrought him every bit a man in divine image?

Marie felt her lips part, and found them oddly dry. Her cotton dress was scant and worn, but it did little to cool her.

Jesse paused by the well, and she could see him better now- how the muscles in his back jumped with life as he hauled on the rope, how the sun adored his blondness, picking out threads and gilding them with its own peculiar alchemy.

He lifted the bucket and drenched himself clean, ducked his head and did it again. 

Marie felt that demon stirring again, and she let him, as her fingers found her hair, tousled, tangled, a bramble of briars, the color of coffee grounds. Oh, her hair was dark, strange as that was- dark as her brother's was fair, and in the evening light ever-close to black.

It wanted a brushing, but there was none handy, so she combed through it as best she could. It lay down well enough, in as much as it ever did. She couldn't be caught undone, even by family- no, that would never do.

Here, now, he was almost to the house. Marie ran to get him a cold drink. Still, that fevery-sweet glow persisted, but it was her own bad secret, after all, known only to her…still, she couldn't help thinking it was unwise, somehow, to give herself over to it like she did. 

She could push it away, after all, until she was alone- she could go off by herself with her torment- but she didn't, even though, uneasy, she thought it might tempt fate not to do so.

In the back of her mind she had the barest reckoning that if it overcame her- like it sometimes did when it reached its fever pitch- if it overcame her, and the means were given at that moment, it might not matter who or what those means were. Temptation takes all forms, she thought, and bit her lip. 

"Lucy? Lucinda-Marie?"

She heard him call out from the porch and dropped her thoughts like a hot rock. He was the only one ever called her that, Lucy, and she didn't altogether like it as a name. She preferred Marie, but Jesse had his own way about things, and there weren't much to say about it.

She came out on the porch, a Mason jar in her hands. The glass was cool to her palms and beaded with moisture.

"Here you are, Jesse- I fixed you a lemonade. You must be fair beat." 

She widened her eyes as she said it, and never once thought it was disingenuous, though maybe it was, to put a fine point on it. 

Her eyes were light blue, startling against her sunbrowned face, and of course Jesse saw this, of course he did. He saw with eyes that looked much like her own. He was her brother, but he wasn't blind.

A smile crossed his lips.

"Thanks ever, Lucy girl."

He was already dry, was Jesse, the heat being what it was. His hair was like bright flax, pushed back from his brow and curving over into a swirl. Marie noticed strange things in her state- the slightly darker gold of his sideburns, the flush of his mouth.

If that ain't the oddest thing, she thought. 

Of course, he was fetching- she knew that. 

He was stripped to the waist and she let her eyes roam him boldly.

Jesse paused in the middle of a drink, his arm frozen halfway to his lips. He looked at her strangely.

"Well now," he drawled. "This ain't a sideshow."

Startled, Marie's mouth bloomed into a beautiful smile.

"Why, I didn't mean no harm by it, Jesse- not a-tall."

"Course not," he said quickly. "I didn't mean to say so."

Jesse put the jar to his lips and drank.

Then he smiled.

" G'won, then- get an eyeful. It's only natural."

Marie breathed out, goaded by her demon as it tickled her nether-regions.

"What do you mean by that, Jesse Aaron?"

"Why, you're my sister, aren't you- and sisters aren't like other girls. Look all you want, satisfy that curious nature."

"I ain't so very curious." She said, sullen.

"I reckon you are," he said, grinning. "Curious as any cat."

Marie shrugged.

"Maybe I am."

Jesse laughed.

"Oh, Lord, Lucy- don't go off your feed! It ain't important."

Marie took a deep breath and let it out again. It sounded ragged, ravaged by the lust that consumed her chest, her belly, her…

Jesse smiled, and looked out toward the fenceline.

"You know, I can't help but look at you sometimes- not in the bad way or anything, now- but Lord, you have the charms a man can't help but notice."

Marie looked up, surprised.

"You think I'm pretty?"

"Oh, I'll attest to't…you're dangerous pretty." He paused, then grinned. "But don't go getting all swelled up o'er it."

Marie twisted her dress between her fingers, this way and that.

That ol' evil rose up and turned over.

"You invite that Manda Jane o'er to stay the night while I'm gone, now." Jesse said, setting down the empty Mason jar. "You hear?"

"Yes."

"Or one of those gals." He looked at her appealingly. "It ain't like I don't trust you on your own, but I feel better if you got someone else with you. It's just common sense, you understand."

"I know it, Jesse. I 'spect you won't be gone too long."

"Naw, just tonight. Might even be back afore morning, but I can't say until we get that crop to Kingsburg."

He stood up and she took the empty jar from the porch railing.

"Lock up and let my dogs out, now. Load up the shotgun."

"Well, of course," she said, smiling, bewildered in her depths- she loved Jesse, didn't she? And he now- well, he loved her. Like a brother, like the Lord intended.

Could she see him as a man?

Should she even try?

No, heaven above- she should not. But she did.

All men are equal in the eyes of the Lord, that demon Lust seemed to say as it curved, relentless, through her belly and thighs. She pitched her hips forward ever so slightly beneath her dress, to dispel the ache.

Jesse kissed her cheek and she felt how it burned her, like fire. Surely this was forbidden flesh. And yet, the very touch sent her all a-flutter, dark flutterings they were, stirring in her softer places.

He pulled back, uncertainty writ in the lines of his face.

"That felt right strange, Marie- are you favorable? This heat-"

"I'm jest fine," she said, overwhelmed. "G'won now."

He did, although he looked oddly, and as she watched that old GMC pick-up trundle down the road her legs nearly trembled down into oblivion.

She ran to the pump and hosed herself down with cool spring water, chastising herself for her wickedness, her wantoness- but beneath that, she wondered. How would Jesse feel? Not just to the touch, she knew her brother's touch- but if he touched her as a man.

How his mouth had burned her.

Would the rest of him burn as much? And if it did, now, wouldn't it be delectable and wretchedly wrong- she couldn't resist the thought.

She was jolted out of her trance by a hand at her shoulder, and she fell back, startled, onto the grass.

Manda Jane laughed.

"Why, Lucinda-Marie- it's only me."

Marie got to her feet quickly. 

"I was jest cooling off. You caught me unawares."

"You might think to 'spect me, seeing's you asked me to stay o'er." 

Her cousin Manda Jane was red-headed and sunny-tempered. She lived on the next homestead, not far as the crow flies, and as such, neither of the girls ever bothered much with formalities. She'd walked over through the woods, before it got too dark for sensible safety, barefoot and unconcerned.

Her eyes were greeny-hazel like sullen water, but ebullient. They weren't as big as Marie's come-hither ones, but they tilted up a little at the corners, kind of dramatic, and her skin had turned a light buttermilk gold from the summer sun. Her lips were bee-stung.

She wore a pale rose-pink nightdress that skimmed her knees, and carried her things in a bundle-roll.

"Look what I done found on the way!" she exclaimed, in a half-whisper, and pulled aside the cloth of her bundle.

"Apples- look here."

"Where'd you come by those? They're right crimson- big too."

Manda Jane shrugged, gave a little smile.

"Conjure woman's garden."

"Conjure woman?"

"Sure 'nuff."

"Thank you all the same," Marie said, feeling better now that Manda Jane was there. "I don't much like red apples."

"Suit yourself, then. More for me." 

Manda Jane stuck out her tongue and took a bite.

Marie smiled, sly.

"Ain't you worried Conjure Woman put a curse on them apples? She don't take much to people stealing her things."

Manda Jane waved it off.

"Hah. She don't take much to people a-tall."

There was no denying that, so Marie didn't think anymore on't. Conjure woman had a wicked streak a mile long.

Inside the farmhouse Marie bolted the door and locked up all the windows. Manda Jane sat in the rocker chair, reading a movie magazine.

"Robert Mitchum," she said. "I don't much think I'd like him."

"Don't you? What, ain't he fine enough for the likes of you?"

Manda Jane rolled her eyes round like billiards.

"I reckon he just ain't my kind."

She took another bite of the apple and licked her lips, slowly, thoughtful.

"I reckon…my kind is like…oh, James Cagney or Peter Graves, maybe. Damn, this is a good apple- you really ought t'eat the other one, Lucy-Marie."

The grandfather clocked chimed ten o' clock.

"Let's go upstairs," said Marie, "I want to brush my hair. It's fearsome tangled."

Manda looked up, smiled.

"Ok," she said, after a moment. Then she brightened. "Sure, now- let's go upstairs. It's near bed-time anyways."

The staircase was steep and straight, and one had best hold tight to the banister in any case. The night hadn't done much to cool the earth, and even the shadows of the house felt hot and static.

"That brother of yours, now- that Jesse- he could be a movie star." Manda Jane said, behind her.

"You reckon?" Marie asked, tickled by the thought.

"Sure's you're born."

She had almost forgotten the terrible wicked wantoness of the early evening, and now once again she could think of Jesse without feeling that wretched pulling, aching need- that inhuman lust.

That proves the ultimate triumph of the righteous, she thought, pleased. The temptation of aberrant flesh had been removed, and her soul had been purged of demonized lust. 

She did not forget, however, that it did not purge her of that most egregious sin- that she enjoyed that lust. Didn't she already miss it, just the littlest bit?

She sighed as she pulled the brush through her thick, dark hair. She could not be redeemed- she had a wicked heart, she wasn't about to change that- but at least she could try to avoid sin whenever possible.

She brushed until her hair fell in a tousled cloud of smooth deep brown, and peered into the looking glass on her vanity. It framed her face most fetchingly, when she cared enough to tend it.

Manda Jane lolled on her four-poster, carelessly flipping pages.

She smiled all a sudden, when her eyes fell on Marie.

"Jesse might be pretty as an actor, but you're so sun-brown, you look like a movie gypsy. You know, when they take a movie star and paint her up dark, and her blue eyes show up like a sore thumb? It's awful pretty even if it's strange." She offered, slowly. 

She had finished the apple and was licking the core, as if she couldn't quite put it down.

"You're the prettiest, I reckon," Marie said, with a smile. "Look at all those red-headed movie stars, like that Rita Hayworth. Your hair's real pretty- so thick. You want I should brush it?"

"Why, sure," declared Manda Jane, setting herself upright, lickety-split, and Marie sat behind her on the bed, pulling the horsehair brush through her deep madrona locks. Manda Jane, meanwhile, continued to lick dreamily at that apple core.

"I cain't help myself," she exclaimed. "It's the best ever, I swear on my mama's grave- notwithstanding she ain't dead yet."

Marie giggled.

Manda Jane paused mid-lick as if remembering something, and looked up, quizzical.

"What was it took your parents, Marie- I don't recall. Was it spotted fever?"

"Yes'm," said Marie. "Took 'em both when I was still a lap child of nine. Jesse was fifteen, and he took up for both of 'em. It weren't like we were all alone- we had aunts and uncles and cousins galore, but he ran the house. Now he's twenty-five, I guess."

"A man," agreed Manda Jane, in an odd voice.

"Are you sweet on him?" demanded Marie, laughing and poking her in the middle back. "Fess up, Manda Jane."

Manda Jane finally tossed that apple core out the open window with a satisfied sigh.

"Well," she drawled. "How do you mean?"

"You aim to be his girl?"

"No," Manda Jane said, blithely. "But I reckon I wouldn't mind too much if he wanted to fuck me."

Marie's mouth opened at that. Something about Manda Jane had changed, right suddenly, and she didn't know what to make of it. The brush dangled, forlorn, from her fingers.

"Aw, now, Lucy-" cooed Manda Jane, turning around. "Don't stop- you ain't shocked, are you now? Are you…Lucy-Marie?"

"No," said Marie, without thinking. 

Manda Jane stood up and shook out her hair. It fell past her shoulders in a robin-red sweep, full and freshly brushed. Marie stared, watching her face, her tilted eyes closed, as she circled her head, her hair moving over her shoulders, soft. 

Her face was one of obvious pleasure, at the sensations, at something, and Marie felt uneasy. Manda Jane's slightly parted lips showed the barest edge of her white teeth, just pressing into her bottom lip in a smile that was decidedly salacious.

Marie stood up and set the brush down on the vanity, giving it an absent pat for good measure.

"You'd lay out for Jesse, then?" she said, hesitant. "Your own cousin?"

Manda Jane opened her eyes.

"Don't let's talk about him, Lucy-Marie."

"Maybe we should go to bed," said Marie, utterly perplexed. 

It was almost like it wasn't Manda Jane at all. But it was. Just…different. She couldn't figure it.

Marie turned out the light, but the big hunter's moon outside still illuminated the room plenty good enough. She could still see Manda Jane, clear as day, gazing at her, an unknown look in her greeny-gold cat's eyes.

Manda Jane smiled.

"How 'bout you, Lucy-Marie?"

She began to come toward Marie, and Marie was bewildered for a moment as Manda Jane drew up close to her. She could feel Manda Jane's presence, so near her own, and it was overpowering, suddenly, and still she didn't move away.

"Would you lay out for your cousin, Lucy-Marie? Would you, now?"

Manda Jane put her hands on Marie's hips, and a strange new riffle shook Marie's ocean. 

What was happening to her? What did had happened to Manda Jane, and what were her intentions?

"All a sudden I need it e'er so bad," purred Manda Jane, inches from her lips. "Pretty, pretty please with honey, Lucy, Lucy-Marie-"

Marie looked at her face and was struck by what she saw. Surely it was that same vice of lust that gazed back at her from Manda's eyes and parted lips.

All a sudden, Manda Jane leaned forward and kissed her full on the mouth, and she felt lust rocket all through her at that touch. Against her will, her own lips parted against Manda's beestung ones, and Manda hungrily deepened the kiss, pushing her tongue inside, gentle but relentless, until she gained access.

Their mouths broke apart for breath and Marie reeled, disbelieving.

It can't be, she thought. She was entranced by the softness of Manda Jane, and enticed by her touch. Could it be like that, for a woman, with a woman?

"Lucinda- oh-" purred Manda, gently pulling her forward against her own hips. Then she kissed her again, and this time Marie kissed her back, if dazedly.

Manda Jane's eyes were feverish wild.

"It's so wretched hot," she breathed. "Let me take off your nightie."

Marie could only nod, stricken with shame and desire and fear and the promise of pleasure, the likes of which she'd only dreamt of in lustful reveries.

Manda Jane wasted no time in pulling off her pale blue babydoll. She let out a mewling moan at the sight of Marie's breasts, round and full, and lifted her own nightdress over her head.

Marie had seen her cousin naked before, it was no surprise, but she couldn't account for the change in her reaction. She ached for that body, now, wanted it against her own, wanted to let all Manda Jane's wickedness spill out onto her flesh. 

Manda Jane's breasts were slightly bigger than hers, and milk-and-honey white with small, taut rose-colored areolas. Her waist was narrow beside her round, milk-fed hips. But Marie could hardly even bear to look as Manda Jane took her own breasts in her hands and caressed them rapturously. Fire spread all through her, and she let Manda Jane claim her mouth once more, as her hand slipped lower, to cup Marie's pussy.

Marie gasped against Manda's mouth, and the redhead drove her mouth deeper and harder, pressing against her, breast to breast.

Manda Jane opened her full lips in a low moan.

"Oh, Lucy-marie- Let me put my tongue to your lips- lick inside you."

Marie's eyes widened, unsure what she meant. Hadn't they already kissed? She wanted more- so she reached for Manda Jane, but she slipped down Marie's body until she was on her knees on the hook rug. Her nipple grazed Marie's body on the descent, and Marie trembled.

Marie looked down at her cousin from the neighboring farm, and saw her wanton, green-eyed gaze, just before she plunged forward, spreading Marie's thighs with her hands, her tongue stabbing right into Marie's unguarded pussy.

Marie threw her head back in the shock of pleasure and cried out, gutturally, horrified that anything could feel so good, and that the pleasure came at the point of another girl's tongue.

Manda Jane purred.

With that she fell to once more, and her warm, firm tongue once again penetrated Marie's folds, ruthless and seeking, as Marie moaned and fell back against the wall, her weak legs barely holding her.

Manda Jane dragged her tongue up the length of her cunt, bathing it in steady, maddening pressure as Marie's knees buckled, and she wondered dimly if her legs were holding her at all, or if it was merely Manda's unyielding tongue that pinned her up against the wall.

Marie's gasps were choked cries, broken off by new surges of sensation with each stroke. Now her cousin was licking fiercely, her hips moving in time, and Marie looked down at the roundness of her ass, the hourglass nip of her waist, and felt a tremor take her, a warning. 


Blue-Dark Bayou Ch. 02



 (This is written somewhat in dialect; reprehensible spelling and grammar are completely intentional- This includes the word "trepidacious", which is not a word at all, but if it were, wow. It'd be one of the swellest words ever.) XXX Mademoiselle

* * * * *

What now, was there to say of it?

Morning did break, bright and balmy, but all too soon it would be vicious day, wrathful with heat- just let the noon hour chime.

She woke early, at the first petulant shaft of sun that thrust itself through the many-paned windows, and rose wearily at its insistence.

Marie'd slept fitful in the horsehair chair by the hearth, legs pulled up tight and curled beneath her, like a child- afraid of the monsters that roiled beneath the bed. Or in it.

The madness of the night before had not gone far from her mind. Even her dreams had been permeated, soaked through by that dark stain, and rendered disjointed and jagged.

She felt listless, blunt-stunned.

Even so, there were things to attend, it wouldn't bear forgetting.

Marie dared not so much as creep into her bedroom to fetch her housedress, mindful as she was of what lay there. The house, by morning, was cast in blessed silence; it was hers not to disturb it.

Instead she went out, onto the dry, sparse grass of the side lawn and took a dress off the line. It was one of her better ones, and not meant for rough use, but no matter. A ruined sundress was nothing beside a wracked, wrecked soul, was it now? Marie thought not.

She took herself into the kitchen and hasty shed the trappings of last night's shame in favor of this morning's laundry, wind-dried fresh and crisp. When she was done, the sullied nightgown lay over the kitchen chair-back, sweet in pale blue but tainted with invisible sin.

And Marie, why, she was clad in red gingham check and felt ever so much the better for it, if not exactly virtuous. For the bare truth of it was, there was no divesting herself of what was now tainted irreversibly- her very flesh. The thought made her weak, and she cast it off, turning her thoughts to the morning chores.

She lit a fire under the stove and put on the kettle, then made her way out to the hen-house and gathered the eggs. Last night's bread had risen, so she put it in to bake, all the while dreading what particular hell would come down with that sound of a step on the stair.

Trepidation coiled up and sat, indolent in her belly like a cottonmouth snake, until she could scarcely bear it.

But the morning did go on, as her apprehension grew, almost to a fever, and she worked harder, taking down the big cast iron pan where it hung on a horseshoe nail and scrubbing it out with coarse corn meal. When she had done, she rubbed it out with a smear of grease and set it on the stove. 

It was all there, ready at her hand. As every morning, she was jenny-on-the-spot with Jesse's breakfast- yet she dared not wake him.

The words he'd said, oh Lord- but she couldn't think of that now. All because he'd et that wretched apple. Oh, make no mistake, that's what it was. Conjur' woman reveled in such thick draughts of badness, and Marie was certain as she ever had been that this was a sickening trick 0f the old witch's vengeful nature.

It weren't Jesse, she told herself, firmly. Them weren't his words, what come out his mouth. Get a handle on it, Lucy-Marie, and be gracious, Saints alive. He's bound to feel right mortified o'er it.

After all, hadn't he told her-

Just what she wanted to hear?

Heaven above and Lucifer under! It would never do to think like that. She reproved herself, all the while knowing it was a study in futility. Why, Jesse might have been innocent, that much was true- and blameless, because of it- but she, well now, she wasn't. She done lusted after her own brother, and weren't no b'witched apple to blame.

None to blame but Lucy-Marie, to put a fine point on it.

It was real near eleven by the grandfather clock, and not a stir from above. 

She drank black coffee from a cracked china cup, wincing at the taste, but forgoing all sugar and cream. She needed to be sharp, not lulled by pleasant distractions.

The clock had struck noon by the time Jesse came down, in time with the chimes of the angelus. The slow and steady creak of the wooden stairs betrayed his halting steps, and there he was, him, every bit the fallen angel descending, hand at his temple, rubbing his brow, his hair in rumpled spurs and curls of gold.

Marie swallowed- everything, all things- pride and fear and prejudice, and poured him a cup of coffee.

"Lord Christ," he murmured. "Lucy-doll, what time is it?"

He looked-

Well, now, he looked rueful.

Certifiably, he looked rueful.

But he didn't look all too ashamed. 

"Well," she stammered, fixing a bright smile over her face, for him, "Well, now- it's...twelve noon. I reckon you'll want your breakfast."

Jesse drew up, sudden.

"Noon?" he exclaimed. "I got to get out in the field, I done missed the boys, hours ago- didn't cousin Beau come by to fetch me?'

"I sent them on," said Marie, "I told them you wasn't feeling altogether well."

Jesse nodded, slowly, and sat down at the table.

"All right then." 

He shook his head wryly. 

"Just as well, I guess, you drove Beau off- he wouldn't have been so all-fire pleased with me this morning, considering all I done to his little sister."

Marie felt a blush creep over her jawline, and her shoulders felt all drawn-up, funny, as she cracked eggs into the pan. Jesse weren't one to gild the lily, of course, but- to be so cavalier in the face of what he done, why that was pure brass. If that was to be the way of't...

Ought she say something? 

"I s'pose you got back early- last night, that is." She said, vaguely, keeping her back to him.

"Yes'm, I suppose I did, at that." Jesse's voice was sheepish.

He gave a short, clipped laugh, followed at the heels by a groan.

"God's presents, Lucy- I feel like I been hit with a sledge. Almost like I been drinkin' still water." 

She risked a glance at him. His blue eyes were good-naturedly bleary.

He looked over at the stove, gave her a plaintive smile.

"Say, I sure could use some coffee. Take pity on a boy, Lucy-Marie."

'Course she'd already poured it. Ages ago, now. She'd just forgotten, and who could blame her, things bein' what they were.

She handed him the cup.

"I daresay there's a good deal of 'shine sickness about," she said, hesitantly, trying to make light of it. "That's a prime malady in these parts."

Jesse took a long drink of his coffee, his eyebrows drawn up like he was pondering something real tricky, and Marie could see what Manda Jane'd said about him, movie stars and whatnot. All the same-

Don't think on't, she thought. You don't want to think about that, or Manda Jane neither.

Jesse sighed.

"Well, I reckon I know what it feels like, and this is a real fair likeness. I'll say that much. I'm strung up like a hung puppet."

He exhaled slowly, and leaned back in his chair.

Marie couldn't believe him, his audacity- to saunter down midmorning as if nothing much'd come of it, clad only in worn denim, and no, she would not look at his chest, thank you all the same.

She took up her wooden spoon and stirred the eggs with a vengeance.

"Where's Manda Jane, then?" she managed to ask, hoping her voice sounded common normal enough.

Jesse couldn't help but laugh, just a little, though it was a wan laugh, to be sure.

"Sleeping justified," he said. "I don't guess we'll be seein' her for some hours yet."

Marie threw in some sausages and crumbled-down soda crackers along with the eggs, unable to ask what plagued her like locusts- why did he act so? Like that? The boy was unruffled, that much was plain, as if it weren't no thing that he'd almost had his own baby sister up under him, that she'd almost been prey to his lust.

"I surely don't know what come over me," Jesse said, rubbing his hair slowly with his hand. "I ain't never so much as looked crosswise at Manda Jane- and not like that, for certain. I can't believe I done her like that, I surely can't." He paused, shrugged. "But I did, sure 'nuff- there ain't no doubt about that."

"No, I don't guess so."

He turned to her, his eyes opening a little. 

"Oh, Lord, now Lucy- you got to forgive me...I oughtn't have got up to that kind of thing with Manda Jane... even as she's kin, she is your friend, withal." 

Jesse shook his blond head, perplexed.

"Thing is, Lucy- I don't know's I could've stopped it. I wasn't even in my head- or at least, couldn't hardly have been right in it. I don't even rightly know how we got to your room- I woke up on your bed, and I'll tell you, that was a shock near big as wakin' up twixt the wall and Manda Jane."

Marie drew in her breath, suddenly.

Could it be he didn't remember at all?

"Do say something, Lucy- we've allus been straight with one another, now, ain't we? It weren't a-tall decent, what I done, I know that- why, come to think of it, Lucy- where'd you get off to, that I could get up to anything with Manda? You sleep down here all night? I must have missed seein' you when I come home, I reckon."

"Why, yes," she said, slowly, pouring the rest of the hot coffee into the pan and stirring everything up altogether. "I reckon that's exactly what I done. Truth to tell, I ain't so fond of sleeping with Manda Jane- there's times she snores something awful."

Jesse laughed.

"That ain't all she does, I guess." He paused. "Hell's kitten, Lucy- I'm awful sorry. I oughtn't talk like that around you, about them kind of things. It ain't right."

Marie smiled as she set a heaping plate down in front of him.

"Don't fret o'er it, Jesse-boy. I ain't exactly delicate."

"I know that," he said, uneasy. "All he same, it's hardly fit conversation." 

He sighed. 

"After this I reckon I'll go down and mend fences around the hutch. They been broke for a while now, and now's as good a time as any, seeing as I got a free day and all." 

He smiled at her. 

"Maybe it'll put the sense back into me."

He fell to, and ate like a ravenous man, like he hadn't had a meal in days, handily dispatching what all was on his plate- and after that, finished all that was left in the skillet.

"Now that's something more the like," he said, stretching. The muscles of his torso gave her pause as they rippled coyly under his flesh.

He went for his boots, glancing back at her with a grin.

"I feel near human again, Christ almighty."

"Well now, what else would you be?" Marie said, with forced cheer, mustered up from the depths of her gut. 

Jesse made an incredulous face.

"Can't say's I know- I felt, almost b'witched, I reckon- if'n a man could know what that was like."

Marie laughed, too loud, she thought, too jubilant for what it warranted. 

"G'won- you."

When he had left, Marie sank down into his chair.

He didn't know. How could it be?

Where were you, then, Lucy-girl? Reckon I didn't see you, lying there, not a stitch, with that flame-headed Manda Jane lappin' on you like a barn-cat to a saucer of cream-

Oh, she'd been there, sure enough.

She'd looked into his eyes, right into them, and he'd said-

He'd said, "I'll take you next."

Just see if I don't.

The chair was still warm from his body- his body- and Marie leapt up as if scalded, intent on putting a distance between herself and whatall might harbor his essence. 

She turned, first this way, then that, wringing the hem of her dress.

All a sudden, a thought occurred, and she glanced up at the staircase.

Would Manda Jane recall what they done- or like Jesse, would she plead that strange amnesia? 

Marie didn't feel inclined to linger and fret on it. It had been trouble enough with Jesse. On the spur of the moment, she ran outside, down the weathered porch steps and onto the land.

In the distance she could see the form of her brother as he labored with the fence, wiping his brow and lifting rail after rail as if they were no more than straw. His body was accustomed to such work- welcomed it, in fact- 

What about last night's work? Purred something delicious and vile from the nether and ether of her mind. Not his customary fare, but he took to that like a duck, now, didn't he?

Marie winced, and willed it away. Lust, again- the demonized voice that spoke out of turn, the bane of her piety, the scourge of all her days.

She veered down the loamy path that led away from the homestead and into the swamp. Marie kept on, as the depths enclosed, and the light grew less and less, blotted out by the relentless vine and vegetation. And presently, as the path threatened to fade away altogether, she was presented a new path- narrow, and overhung with rampant green. 

The road to Conjur' woman's place.

Here the kudzu was thicker, the trees monolithic, but Marie scarcely hesitated. She wasn't afraid of Conjur' woman, so much. She kept to herself, withal, save for the occasional summons- a pregnancy, a well divining- things that found use in her art. And it found use in many things; she could predict seasons with fair insight, or advise in planting the year's crop- it was even said she could speak a sort of bastardized broken tongue to the beasts of the hearth and field, though Marie couldn't attest to't herself.

And, it mustn't be left out- Conjur' woman dealt in witchery proper; omens and curses and spells, potion and poultice. A body could seek her out for goodwill- herbs and cures- or for bad, whatever that dark ill-wish might be.

Conjur' woman weren't necessarily bad in the marrow of her bones, but she was bad with necessity- didn't take well to bein' crossed, or stole from, like most folks- only she had considerable more power in vindication than most unfortunates. If it were anything, she was possessed of a wicked temper, and a humor more wicked still, but it wasn't pure undiluted evil of the bottled variety, not a-tall that. She herself, now, had only a mild malevolence- pity for the weak, contempt for the self-made fool, and disdain for the wicked.

Marie was none of these, to her own mind, least not as Conjur' woman saw it in her particular view.

At last the conqueror kudzu parted ways with the path, and her eyes did behold Conjur' woman herself, in the living flesh, settin' up on her porch like a queen on a rickety throne of oak. 

She was old, it was hardly told how old. Her origin race wasn't rightly clear to the eye, save for that she was human- her skin was burnished, tarnished, folded like an Indian blanket- brown as dried apple. Her eyes were pallid and of no color a body might recognize. She wore gypsy rags, and jangles- maybe less for their charm than their charms, Marie thought, rapt with the sight of her.

"Come 'ere, come 'ither- you," she said, as interest sparked up in her deep-buried eyes. "I don't guess you've come out fer nothing, Miz."

Marie drew close in, watchful, but not wary.

She reached into her apron pocket- and there it was, the apple core. She'd hastily thrust it away, out of sight, before Jesse came down to the kitchen and saw- and suspected the nature of his affliction.

"I have this," she said, halting. "And I come by it honest enough- though it weren't gotten that way. I 'spect you might recognize it."

Conjur' woman took it from her hand and turned it in her fingers, gazing at it, slow and thoughtful.

"Eh. And you et this apple, child?"

Marie swallowed and found it bitter, but best to dispense with it.

"No ma'am, not me. But my cousin Manda Jane- she et one- and my brother too."

A grin creased Conjur' woman's face at that, and she seemed real amused, all a sudden, like it was the funniest, most intricate joke ever told.

"And you found yerself in yer brother's way, is that it, girl? Him under the influence of that apple, I don't doubt it much- if she be pretty, it wouldn't matter who she was, once she got in his eye." 

She leaned forward.

"Whatsit you want, girl- what d'ye seek from this ol' witch o' the wood? Revenge? You want he should pay fer what he done?" 

She paused, licked her beveled lips. 

"Or is it- somethin' else?"

Marie shook her head, violent with the spin and churn of her thoughts.

"No, that ain't it- not precise, nohow..." 

She struggled to capture her thoughts, now that Conjur' woman had made her head reel.

"I was in the way of Manda Jane, I reckon- "

"Ah," Conjur' woman intoned. "Yer girl-cousin, then."

"Yes," Marie said, shame-faced, but pressed on. "When Jesse come upon us- and I didn't know it, but he'd took up and et that other apple, the one I didn't- Manda Jane must have left it on the table." 

She took a breath. 

"And he done come upon us, and we- we were in the throes of sin, Conjur' woman- and he done took Manda Jane, took her like demons had hold of his shoulders- and I slipped away, as I was able- but not before-" 

Her voice dropped to a whisper. 

"Not before he said he'd take me too."

"And he would've." Conjur' woman agreed, without philosophy.

"Won't you help me?" Marie cried, agonized.

Conjur' woman eyed her.

"What would you have me do- Lucinda?"

And Marie blanched back at the use of her given name, that it should be so known to this old mother of the swamp.

"Oh, yes, I know ye by name, I know the all of ye- its tiresome business, it is. I see it all. Go and look in my well, if ye don't believe it-" she chuckled. "No, don't- if ye value yerself, that's a better thought- don't ye ever do what this old witch tells you."

"Please, you needn't do a thing, jest tell me- what's the nature of this curse?"

Conjur' woman frowned at that.

"Curse? Hmmph, girl- it ain't no curse."

"Sure it is," protested Marie, incredulous. "Set by you to teach the apple-stealers, and rightful so- but I've gone awry of't, and I 'spect you can tell me how long it'll plague us-"

"Hmmph, girl, and hmmph agin. Them apples ain't curst- far from! Why, they're blessed, I daresay, in a manner of speakin'..." she chuckled again. "Surely to some."

She gestured to the tree.

"Them's love apples, girl- though true to tell, they got precious little to do with love in a poet's sense- ain't you never heard of 'em? It's a charm, bought by some to win over the will of another's desire, if it ain't freely giv'n." 

Conjur' woman shook her head and cackled.

"No, them apples ain't curst, but whosoever thinks to pluck in Conjur' woman's garden best tread with care, that's certain."

Marie faltered.

"But- how's the spell broke, then? What remedy?"

Conjur' woman leaned back in her chair, sighing.

"Why, it's more than likely gone already- it ain't an enduring charm, though it burns plenty hot- packs a bit of a wallop that'll catch you on the return, true 'nuff, but it wears thin in a matter of hours- don't you fret on't, child. Yer sweet brer Jesse-boy, he'll be right as rain from now on. He won't recollect a thing 'bout you."

"He didn't," Marie said, slowly. "Not a thing- but he recollected Manda Jane, withal- recollected her plenty."

"Well, you said she et the apple, too- so they'd remember each other. Now accourse he won't be remembrin' you, girl- as you ain't et none of't. What good for the giver of the apple, if the unwillin' can recollect the deed?"

"I reckon that's true, though none of that figures here."

"Still, there it be."

Conjur' woman smiled, a curious smile.

"Tell me child, whatsit now? Is that all ye want of me?"

Marie bit her lip.

"It's what I done come for."

"Then what's keepin' you from walkin' right on home? Now you got yer answer, girl- ain't you a-feared of this ol' witch?"

Marie shook her head, relieved at the question- it took her out of herself, didn't it? Out of the darker thoughts that dared to rear their heads now that she knew all there was to know.




Blue-Dark Bayou Ch. 02



" I don't reckon I'd call you a witch- there's a fair big difference 'tween a witch and a Conjur' person, that's surely told."

The old woman paused.

"Ah, Lucinda- that's mighty wise of you, girl, withal. We ain't the same, not a bit- though most don't care to know it."

She paused, rubbing her gnarled finger over her chin.

"Well, now, you've always been a gracious child to me, even in passing on the street, ain't ye. So I'm goin' to do you a good turn, in light of all that." 

She looked at Marie then, deep, ever so deep- and knowing, ever knowing- and Marie could scarce believe anyone could reach through her eyes like that, without tearing out her spleen in the process- but Conjur' woman did it.

"I'm going to give you what you want- what you really want- yer's for the takin', child- but ye must be honest o'er it, say it, only once."

Marie knew whereof the Conjur' woman spoke.

Her mouth was dry, and she could barely speak, but she did- for who could hear her blasphemy out here in the kudzu, among the snakes and the vines?

"My brother," she whispered, thickly. "I want Jesse."

"Of course ye do," said Conjur' woman, her eyes bright with incandescence in the fading light. "And ye'll have him, child- I'll see to that."

Marie swallowed, trying to regain her voice, now the dreadful words were said.

"You'll give me another apple- for Jesse?"

"Oh, no, nothing like that, child- that's a shabby parlor trick the likes of you won't be needin'."

"What'll I do then? He don't recollect any of it-"

"And that just tore you up, now, didn't it, child? I know it did. Even as you suffered all them pains of the righteous," Conjur' woman pursed her lips in dark sympathy. "But lissen, now- lissen here. I'm gonna fix all o' that."

"How?" Marie's pale eyes were wide in her sun-tinted face, and her heart beat like a bird in a box.

"I'm gonna take that pesky conscience off your back. To hell with all that godly guilt- I'll jest take it all away."

"Can you do that?" Marie said, in disbelief.

"I jest done it," pronounced Conjur' woman, settin' back and looking mighty pleased with herself. 

Was that all, then? Was that all, indeed?

"What about Jesse?"

"What about him?"

"Ain't you gonna make him want me- ain't you gonna take away his guilt, too?"

Conjur' woman threw back her head and laughed.

She laughed until the trees rang around them, until she couldn't laugh no more.

"Why, ain't you a doll, child- so I'll tell ye a truth yer mama never knew-" 

She leaned in close. 

"Men ain't so broke up about virtue as they'd have womankind be- yer brother among 'em. And though he be a good enough man, he'd take you in a bare instant- if he thought he could."

Marie nodded, numbly. It was true, all of it. Men were beasts, they were sin- and she didn't care, not one lick, not one speck. Conjur' woman was as good as her word.

She turned to go, edified, changed- for the best, if not the better.

"I don't reckon I should thank you," said Marie in a low voice.

Conjur' woman stared out into the swamp, and she smiled, slow and dark.

"I don't reckon you should."

When Marie's red-printed dress had disappeared into the kudzu, Conjur' woman allowed herself a chuckle.

"One more woman in the world, Lord- aren't you and yer cunt-fearing boys all a-tremble?"

Marie made her way back to the homestead, same as she came, and good that she did, because the sun was fast abandoning the land. Had it really been as long as all that?

Not so very long- it had been well o'er noon when Jesse traipsed out to tame the wayward fence. 

When she broke out of the wood, out of the tangle of cypress roots, it was just approaching dusk, though the air was no less heat-struck.

Jesse glanced up from where he stood at the well, bucket in hand. He watched her meander, as she wove her way leisurely toward the house, and he slowly lifted the bucket up and let the water drench him, coursing down over his body- well-used and salty with earth.

"Where'd you get off to, Lucy-girl?" he drawled, as she neared him.

"Nowhere altogether special,"

Jesse eyed her a moment, then ducked his head for another cascade. Water hung breathless on his lashes and brows, darkening them from gold to light brown.

"Just done finished the fence." 

"Where's Manda Jane, then?"

He broke a smile, rolling his eyes with good nature.

"She done set out for home some time ago. I was hopin' you might be around to take the edge off that little powwow, but you done made yourself scarce."

Marie cringed.

"How'd that end up, then?"

"Well as could be, to my mind. She didn't seem too broke-up o'er it.""

"She weren't mad?"

Jesse shook his head, deliberately.

"Nope."

Marie paused, fingering her hair.

"About Manda Jane- it don't bother you none, her bein' your cousin and all?"

"Not particularly, I don't s'pose. It ain't so very unusual."

"She's blood, though, Jesse- your own kin. Our own."

He shrugged and gave her hair a tug, laughing.

"How you do fret, Lucy-doll. There ain't much bad to come of it. Manda Jane ain't at all sorry, and I don't reckon I am, so where's the harm?"

Marie looked up at him, marking the curve of the bones in his cheek.

"I don't know." She said. "Maybe it don't matter."

"What don't matter?"

"If'n there is, or if'n there ain't." She shrugged. "Harm, that is."

Almost without thinking of it, her eyes had moved, down the length of his body, coming to rest on the cut of his loins, the barest part of which she could see above his jeans.

"What do you mean to say, Lucy-Marie?" Jesse asked, slowly. 

"Aren't you a sight," she said, brightly. "I reckon you'd best dip a few more pails afore you come up to the house."

"You look like you could use a scrubbing your own self," he remarked, quietly.

He spoke true. Her legs were fairly streaked with blue-grey bayou mud beneath her sundress, and her hair fell around her shoulders in a tousle of seal-brown billows. 

Marie felt her netherest regions begin to tingle under his gaze.

"Then douse me, Jesse Aaron- if you reckon I need it."

Her brother seemed to hesitate, but in the end he lifted up the bucket, and cool well water splashed over her, making her gasp. 

Over her shoulders, her breasts, her belly. It coursed down her legs, and the mud ran rivulets into the dry grass.

Jesse regarded her with a strange gaze that was bold and not at all brotherly.

Marie felt a little tremor of fear.

She was clean, no doubt about that.

For his part, her brother seemed to be in the grip of some cold-burning fever. It consumed his eyes, even as they consumed her, and she shuddered, inward, at his expression.

"Ain't that your church dress?" He said, in a low voice.

She nodded. 

The cotton print dress clung damply, tracing her contours. Marie could feel it drawing upward over her thighs, wrapping itself around her waist and clinging across the span of her breasts- 

A flush crept over her. Yes, she thought, this is wicked- but it didn't matter now, did it? Conjur' woman'd seen to that. 

Jesse, she pleaded with her eyes. Be a good brother to me, do what you mustn't.

And then, that demon hissed in her ear, do it again.

Yes, thought Marie, and surely he could feel her longing- why, it must be tangible.

She saw his hand tremble and clench-

Abruptly, his eyes broke their circuit.

"You best get on up to the house," he said, softly, turning away. 

He threw down that bucket, and it clattered into the depths of the well.

Breathless and mortified, Marie ran, stopping when she reached the porch. She watched him from a distance, as he hauled that bucket topside once more and dashed himself under a deluge of water, his face turned upward, as if seeking salvation.

But there weren't no rinsing of sin, once you'd been tainted- Marie knew that well enough.

She went into the house on trembling legs, climbing the stairs to her room. It was a pure shambles, much to her expectations, least as far as the bed was concerned.

She stripped off her soaked dress, and lay down on the ruined bed. The beaten brass made its token protest manifest in a series of groans and winces, but Marie cared little enough for that, at the mercy of her rudely thwarted arousal.

Conjur' woman said it- all men are sinners. 

She ran her fingers over the rumpled quilt and thought of Jesse's body, taut and thrusting- here, he'd been, and here-

And he'd lain here, asleep, his head crushing the pillow with his dark dreams, after he'd fucked Manda Jane insensible- her brother, Jesse Aaron. She buried her face down, into the depths of the quilt, and it was there she did catch it- the barest hint of a masculine scent.

That scent was madness made- and she did crave him- worse than even before. She was seized by it- taken by an odd, unrelenting impulse to go to her brother's room, to crawl into his bed, to roll bodily over it and dwell in the nearness of him. 

His bed, she thought, all a sudden. 

After a moment Marie got to her feet and crept down the hall. The wide planks of the wood floor were worn and rubbed-smooth from years of use. 

Jesse's room was the last door- never locked- why would he, after all? The key pointed out from the old lockplate, where it dwelled- a weathered, scrolly black thing. Her fingers traced it for but a hung moment, and then she pushed the door open, shivering as she stepped into the darkness of his room.

Had it suddenly grown cold in the farm-house, or was it a merely a wicked trick of her passion, driving all her blood down below, as it did, to throb and boil in her loins?

Jesse's bed was weathered, too, black wrought-iron, heavy as a strong-man's casket. It was made-up, now- and manners dictated that one never lay upon a made-up bed- so decorum preserving, she'd be forced to get in, now, wouldn't she?

Throwing back the coverlet, Marie closed her eyes and slipped between the sun-bleached sheets. She imagined her brother, his body, his face- the only boy she couldn't admire with her arms. His body had lain here, where she was right this moment- it gave her a strange, unearthly thrill to think of his naked flesh against the linen. He was so pleasing to the eye- that blond head glowing in the ardent praises of the sun, that form, oh Lord- born of honest use, every bit a son of Atlas, holding her world captive on the broad spread of his shoulders. Would he be as pleasing to the touch?

She heard the door slam below.

"Lucy?" 

She heard him call out.

A pause, and then his tell-tale step on the stair.

"Hey, Lucy-girl- Looks like we're in for it tonight. It's gonna storm somethin' fierce, I reckon- good news, though, for the crop. We already done lost our electric; that won't come back tonight."

There was a creak as he opened her bedroom door, but he wouldn't find her there, now-

"Lucy?"

"Yes...Jesse?" Marie managed, trepidacious.

"Aw, now there you are-" and he turned his course- did he think nothing of it? "Them thunderheads are all black and boilin', up over the ridge, fixin' t o come down-"

Marie half-way sat up, eyeing the door as it swung open.

"-like the wrath of God..." he finished, stopping fast where he stood.

He held a lantern in his hand, did Jesse, always the mindful one.

Night came quickly to the edge of the swamp.

Marie did not blink- the light was not enough for that- but she swallowed, ever slight, at the way of his eyes.

The old tin lantern cast a sulky ring of tangerine-blue outward from his hand, fading ever to black toward the sloping corners of the room, shunning acquaintance with all things that lay outside the circle of its influence.

The light played havoc along his brows, making him look like a fantastical villain, even as it uplit his face, painting his lips and cheeks with divine light- every bit a heavenly angel made flesh.

Marie could hardly even breathe, to look at him. Her fingers clutched weakly at the coverlet, aching to do away with false modesty, but no, let him do it, if he would- let him cast the first stone into the abyss.

Her shoulders were bare, the faded quilt's edge hovering somewhere below her collarbone. 

Jesse could see the beginning of the hollow between her breasts.

"You got anything on under there?" he asked, quietly.

She shook her head.

He nodded slowly, exhaling through his lips.

He closed his eyes, seemed to re-gather himself. Struggled to.

"Is it the storm, then? Saint's blood from above, Lucy- I don't mind you sleepin' with me, if that's all- only put on your night-dress," he shuddered. "You ain't a lap-child no more."

Marie stayed silent, wide-eyed in the warm half-light.

Her brother's hand shook ever so slight, causing the lantern light to sway.

He steadied it.

"G'won now," Jesse said- strange catch in his voice, now- "And I'll turn my back."

She remained still as the night, perfect, immovable. The quilt slipped a little, of its own accord, settled down, and one of her breasts was there, bared to his eyes, and he could not avert them quickly enough.

Nor did he try, if the truth be told.

That's powerful strange, thought Marie, fleeting-

She regarded him boldly with her pale eyes- they shone from her sun-bronzed face, in contrast to her hair, sable-dark- all of it muted in the dim-lit room, but he was aware of it, oh Lord, yes- his sister's charms were no less by lamp-light.

"You best get yourself out of here," her brother said, in a low voice, changed, somehow- thicker, the honey turned to grit.

His tone was deadly sober, tinged with warning, and it inflamed her, aroused her- it was Jesse, and yet it was a Jesse she'd never known- a Jesse she longed to know in her deepest nether-regions.

Marie held frozen where she was, defying him, breaking his heart and painting it black with the stain of his own unnamable desire.

"Oh Lucy," he said. "You don't know what you done, girl-"

He let the door close behind him.

Marie felt her belly burst into flame, and snakes and butterflies- as he came toward her, setting the lantern on the rickety bed-table and lowering the wick with a turn of his wrist.

The butterflies fanned the flames, and those flames, they licked at her ribs, curled up over her tongue. If only he would kiss her- he might feel them...

Without warning, her brother had taken the quilt in his hands, pulling it back and away from her, her nakedness laid out before him. Marie did not move, resigned to his mercy- had she not begged for this?

Her brother was beautiful to behold, a study of a man- she could barely hold him in her sights- he had all the glory of the harvest fields, the sky, the hunter's moon- all poured into the contours of his face, his ruthless form- and every lesser thing; the tilt of his head, arch of his brow, the gilt of his lashes. All poured into the mold he broke from, a mold not meant for her- and yet-

"Jest look at you," Jesse said, softly. "My own baby sister."

Marie snatched at the quilt, mindful that she ought t'at least try- but he kept it just out of her grasp. Her eyes were wide and luminous, straining to absorb the faltering light.

He tilted his head.

"You're a sight, Lucy-Marie- nary a nightdress, mud on your feet."

"There ain't no mud on me," Marie countered, boldly, but Jesse put a warning finger to his lips with a meaningful vault of his brows.

She trailed off, losing her words.

"Why- your hair's lookin' like a charity-house wig," he chided, softly, wrapping it around his fist. Marie felt her head pull toward him, and whimpered softly with longing. 

"So how is it-" he said, pausing, his mouth at her ear -"how is it I like it?"

Overcome, Marie turned her head and met his mouth with hers- she felt his surprise, at first, but then he gave himself over to it, unable to resist.

As his tongue parted her lips, she felt the dampness of her thighs, and breathed out, as Jesse pushed deeper- her own tongue grazing his as they wound the kiss back and forth. Lust wove an intricate, unknown pattern- mutable, chaotic- and utterly beyond Marie's comprehension

"Is that what you wanted, Marie?" he asked, chasing his breath in the shadows of the room. "That I should kiss you?"

Jesse was upon the bed, then, before her- clad only in his jeans. 

He moved his body over hers, slow, his eyes hard as diamonds. Marie trembled at the nearness of his flesh- him half-naked, her entirely so. 

"I reckon I'll do it again," he said, holding himself above her on his hands.

He leaned down, bent his blond head and placed his mouth over hers, deliberate, exquisite, and she nearly went blind from desire.

Her brother's kisses were terrifying in their allure.

Marie rose up and took hold of him, pulled herself up against his chest, and let him kiss her throat, her dark hair spilling back over his hands, as he ran them over the flesh of her wanton back.

Her heart hammered, her senses swung wildly. Jesse's lips caressed her, slipping ever lower. Her brother was a stranger to her body- though clearly no stranger to its kind...

His hand closed over her breast and she moaned.

Such hands he had- callused to a dull and delectable roughness from his work, strong as a vice, from the same, if he wished-

But he didn't wish for that, now- he rubbed his palms over her nipples, taunting them- not exactly gentle. Slowly, he twisted them, pinched them between his fingers, and Marie's eyes flew open in shock at the revelation. Little triggers fired off, down to her loins- her breasts, the hot-wire to her pussy, and he'd just crosst her wires, now, hadn't he?

All the while, he watched her with a languid eye that belied the hunger of his gaze.

"Whatsat, Lucy-girl-" he cooed. "You want I should kiss them?"

He bent his head, and she ran her fingers into his blond fore-swirl, gripping it in her clutch as he lowered his treacherous mouth, covering her breast in blissful warm pressure. Marie kissed his hair, mindlessly, as he traced the line of her stomach with the tip of his tongue, then back again, over her breast as he flicked the nipple and sent her spinning into shivers. 

He rose up, then- her brother, eyes all a-fire with the strangest expression. 

She lay back on the bed, watching him through half-lidded eyes. Her entire body was at his command, wet for him, shaking with want of him- 

"Please, Jesse-" she whispered. "Take what you want."

"I've every mind to," was all he said, and Lord save him for the way he said it-

Marie closed her eyes, running her tongue over her bruised lips, swollen from her brother's passionate assault.

When she opened them again, Jesse had slid his blue jeans off, and then there he was before her, every muscle, every inch. His cock was poised, wickedly rigid, indecently broad- long enough to give her pause, but Marie found she enjoyed that kind of fear.

He looked her in the eye, silent, daring her to touch him.

Then he moved to re-claim his place above her, gently easing her thighs apart until he rested between them. His skin was wretched smooth, smoother than any farm-boy's had a right to be- and hot as a gin-jar.

She felt him against her, and it set off a tingle in her nether region.

Belated thunder clapped outside, and the deluge began, battering the windows.

Jesse's cock, Lord above- her brother's cock- grazed her low, snaked over the lips of her cunt, and Marie nearly died of want. Great bells rung deep inside her, down below, and she leaned against him, desire wracking her body as his fingers roamed down; his coarsened hand touched her nether-lips and drew across them, down, until his fingers were tipped in her wetness.

Marie caught at her breath.

"Just like honey," he whispered, smiling as his dark intent revealed itself. 

Her mouth opened over his shoulder in a lustful kiss as his fingers moved lazy over her pussy, stroking, knowing.




Blue-Dark Bayou Ch. 02



"Is all that sugar for me?" Jesse purred, wickedly. "For your brother, Lucy-girl?"

She nodded against his flesh, feeling his muscles jump as he touched her. He was taut as a strung bow. She shuddered.

"I reckon I got your sugar-whip," he said, his mouth beside her ear, and she felt the touch of his cock against her pussy- firm, intent upon purpose- the broad head smooth against her like hot, sheared velvet. 

Marie moaned, taking his face in her hands, letting her fingers crumble over his set lips. 

The lust hung heavy in his eyes, thick and oppressive and lush as the kudzu- choking out everything around it- and you couldn't tame kudzu, Lord knew- you shouldn't even try-

She felt a tremor pass through him.

"Wait," he said, the words dredging up from somewhere underwater. "Lucy- Lucy, wait, now. It's not for you- what I done to Manda Jane-" 

He broke off, shaking his head, no doubt to clear his mind of the images his own words evoked therein. "We needn't, notwithstandin' all we done- even with all that's come down- we needn't do this." 

Jesse paused, deep, slow draws of breath stirring his shoulders.

"There're other things I can do, baby-girl- feel near as good, other ways...What's done is done, - spilled milk and all- better to lap it up than weep-"

He stroked her hair with absent, ferocious tenderness.

"Tell me to stop," he said, in a hush.

Marie tilted her eyebrows.

"Whatsat, now?" she breathed, coolly.

Jesse bit his lip, closed his eyes.

"I ain't no animal, Lucy-Marie- tell me to stop, and I will. Beg me to stop this."

"Well, now- I reckon you don't want to stop," said Marie, slowly. "So you put it to me." 

Marie smiled, felt it curving over her lips like bad water. 

"Oh, ain't it the way."

She met his eyes and saw his trouble brewing, turning back o'er itself, oh- this way and that-

"Well, let me tell something ain't your mama never told you," she hissed, leaning up, her face even with his. "It's your sin, my brother, my boy- you own it- and I ain't gonna carry it for you, no- I got my own. So you, now- you best decide. To own it or leave it be- but know that its yours, Jesse, to do as you dare."

"You don't know what trouble you'll bring down like that," he vowed, darkly.

"Don't I," she said.

His lips were inches from her own, and gorgeous sullen in their set.

"Oh, but I do, Jesse-" she whispered. "I know it most powerful well. I brought down this sin- I called it up. And I'm master of it- make no mistake." She narrowed her eyes. "But that ain't the rub of't, not a-tall. No, I 'spect that's you, brother strong and sweet, brother weak and willing- it's all the same." 

Marie touched his jaw with one trembling finger- her blood-Icarus.

"You can put it away, boy, but you won't lay it on me...or," she told him, in a breath, "you can lay it on yourself- and put it in me."

Jesse's eyes flashed black with the force of his inner weather.

"All right then," he said, his chest heaving with the labor of breathing, breath fettered by lust...

Marie started as she felt his cock touch her- parting her lips- and the ache in her pussy surged like the lightning that even now bleached the sky beyond his window.

He did not toy with her, no- he was past that.

His arms flexed taut, like the strike of a whip-snake- and he did strike, oh yes- he struck forward, his eyes rivet on her face, and Marie's mouth fell open in a sudden moan as she fell back beneath him. His cock slid in her wetness, and his hips re-doubled their onslaught, pushing through her, into her, filling her with the hard evidence of his devotion to sin.

His succulent-bitter, unbearable- sweet damned devotion.

Her body was tantalizingly resistant, even as it screamed for him- the confines of her pussy maddeningly coy, refusing to yield as easy as that, and he bore down, steady, insistent, until Marie felt herself spreading to accept him- and there was a pleasure in that, now- one she could hardly describe- as he broke through each barrier, parting her own deep, red sea, like Moses, with his staff-

He brought heat with him, did Jesse, pulsing radiant waves of warmth that heated her outward through her innermost flesh, which he penetrated, mercilessly slow, sinking his loins deeply, his mouth parted as if he sighed, but she did not hear it. 

At last Marie felt the wordless delight of his most forbidden flesh, as the head of his cock touched her deepest wall, a bumper to a skiff. 

He could go no further- her brother lay between her thighs, her brother's cock was now buried inside her to the hilt- his flesh touched her own where they conjoined, the flat of his loins flush against her pussy.

"Can you feel the weight of my sin, little sister?" He shuddered, darkly. "The sin on my back? I done took it all, it's down to me-" he dropped his brow to her shoulder, his voice to a whisper. 

"Can you feel it?"

She nodded, wordless, breathless- feeling him throb within her, at the mercy of his blood- the blood they shared.

Jesse's eyes closed, and he breathed out, threw back his head, soaking in the sensation of her, heartlessly wrapped round him like the hot mouth of hell.

"I can feel it, Lucy- baby-girl," he murmured, in the stillness. "Mercy." 

Marie reached up to touch him, ran her hands over his chest and down his arms.

"Your shoulders are strong," she breathed, "strong enough to carry this cross."

And then he was gazing down at her, eyes cloven in the semi-dark, and he smiled, a twist of his lips that held both ecstasy and menace at equal vantage.

"I'll be nailed to the cross of you," he snarled, "before I'm through."

And he began to move, rolling his loins into her, his cock forging deep, slow draws that carved out her shape, relentless, as it learned her confines.

Marie gave herself up to him, her thighs falling open, as her brother dredged her depths, stretching her deliciously inside. Her vessel re-made in the image of his cock.

Her breath escaped her in a string of clipped moans, and she saw him smile.

"Oh, mercy, yes- do make them little sounds, baby-girl-"

Jesse's qualm of conscience seemed to have resolved and thawed itself into adieu- he surely looked pleased enough now. 

A flash of lightning illuminated him, etching him against the dark, and Marie saw the cut of his body above her, his thrusting hips, his arms flanking her like columns of elaborate granite. That perfect wave above his brow had broken, and his blonde hair spilled forward, toyed with the corners of his lust-fevered eyes.

He battered her pussy lovingly, fucking her- oh, yes, that was what it was, to put a fine point on it. Her brother was fucking her. Drawing outward, driving in- ruthless, unceasing.

Marie understood the look on Manda Jane's face, now-

It ought to feel wrong, she thought, dimly, as a black spiral of pleasure began to build deep within her. It should feel mis-fit, somehow, sinful as it is...

But no- it was as if her brother's cock had been forged inside her- a hand to a glove.

Biting her lip, Marie took hold of the bars above her head, held fast to the bed-frame so she could push against him, force him deeper.

Jesse exhaled, lowered his body closer to hers, fucking her harder, faster now. The flat of his loins struck her pussy abruptly with each thrust, racking up tension on that sensitive part, that secret part...no secret to him.

"You like that, don't you now." He gazed at her, rapt, watching her face. "Course you do...you're a woman, aren't you- even if you are my sister."

Marie opened her eyes, looking up at him, salacious, moist of lip.

He kissed her open mouth.

"Your brother'll treat you right, girl-"

Marie sighed, her brow all drawn up, feeling the steady pulse of his labor- the mounting pleasure binding her loins. 

"-don't you worry it," a whisper.

Her thighs shook, and he stilled them with his hands, pushing them outward, further- as Marie nodded, gasping, yes- silent, but he knew, anyhow.

She cried out as he slid in, deeper, yet deeper- and how was it possible?

Yet there he was, up inside her in a new place- not so far removed, but different, all the same. Jesse lay over her, settling over to the side and resting on one arm. And now she could see his cock, as it rose and fell, plunging into her- her thighs spread to receive his blasphemous ministrations, her pussy- a pretty little thing- gracious, adoring.

Jesse looked too, smiling that dark smile.

"Oh Lord," he shivered. "Are we ever deep in the sugar now."

He moved slowly back over her, covering her, reaching his arms under her back.

She moaned and he shushed to her, soothing, pulling her upright with precious small trouble, her brother, built of his burdens- 

"But Lucy-doll, mindful of sugar-" he murmured, "You got a sweet spot, girl- deep inside you...and I aim to hit it."

He drew her with him as he kneeled, and her thighs spread to straddle him, sliding easily outward over the slant of his hips.

He held her tightly, against the warm, solid wall of his chest, letting her sink down onto him. Marie gasped as his cock pushed deeper, seeming to curve forward, up, inside- 

"There," whispered her brother, sounding softly satisfied, like a barn-dwelling tomcat let in to sleep by the hearth.

-and Lord, it was sweet, almost too sweet- that same place Manda Jane had struck with her fingers, wasn't it, oh, yes- she reckoned it was...

He moved, began fucking her once more, hard, from beneath- but now she could move too- and she did, with a wild cry, now fighting his thrusts, now joining them- now taking them- 

"Come, now," Jesse said, through his breath. "Come, now, Baby-girl- on my cock- that's it- you just take what you need..."

He pressed his eyes shut against sensation.

"Mercy."

She wrecked him, trashed him, pummeled him- and he let her- his eyes hard, glowing with need, drinking her in, the sight of her-

It hit her like a thunder-clap, like fury.

Marie's mouth flung open, as his cock pushed upward through her, and suddenly it was there- ripping all through her, pulsing around her- emanating from her brother's loins and stiff, pumping cock- 

The incredible sweetness of it stunned her blind.

Different than Manda Jane, oh, no question-

A different animal.

Her brother.

"You ain't no baby-girl," he whispered, breathing out, a shuddery sigh. "Not no more."

Marie smiled at him, languid, pleased beyond all reckoning.

That sweet after-ache persisted and she wallowed in it.

He was beautiful to her, Jesse- his cold-feverish eyes, his full lips- dusky things- pulsing with barely rendered breath. How to please him? She longed to- and he needed much pleasing, that much was clear...

Should she do as Manda Jane had? 

She recollected his face, the look of him, as he lay up under her cousin.

Marie hesitated, then pushed him slowly back onto the bed with her palms, settling herself astride his loins. He watched her, with a slow smile.

"You see I'm still a lap-child, Jesse- and an arm-baby, and a knee-child," she murmured, leaning forward over him, as he took her in his brutal arms.

How to imagine it- Marie could not, had she not seen it- looking down at her brother's parted lips, feeling the soft shadows of his breath on her breasts- as she shifted her hips, slamming his cock, deep inside her, like a thick, dark secret.

His hands held her, curved mindfully around her hips, the muscles of his stomach taut and working beneath her palms.

"You best stop now," Jesse said, his voice a lust-choked hush. "Or you'll get more sin than you reckoned on."

Marie had no intention of stopping, Lord no- she hit him that much harder, undulating, twisting her body in ways that would bring their ultimate sin down that much quicker.

Jesse's back arched and his breath quickened- his hands clenched her like iron as his head fell forward and a growl rumbled deep in his throat.

"Lord, yes, Jesse-" moaned Marie, captivated. "Give me that sugar-"

The beast heard, and burst forth- his guttural roar piercing the storm outside. He pulled her hips down, hard, and she gasped, breathless, as he drove up, vicious, inside.

Marie could feel it all, every bit- the shudders, the rupture, the strange hot jets of sin that coursed into her.

She lay herself over him as he came, thrilling to the hardness of his body, its powerful motion- as he slowly subsided into uneasy rest.

Marie stroked his brow, laid her head against his chest.

Her brother- her lover? His sin was still inside her.

"It's ours now, Lucy-girl-" he said, softly. "Can't be undone."

His golden head lolled back on the pillow, his eyes rivet on the storm that raged just past the ancient glass of the many-paned window.

Marie sighed, slipping down beside him to lie on her back and gaze at the winding cracks in the ceiling plaster. There weren't much thought in it.

"I 'spect you think I led you a-stray- took you for a walk along the brimstone beach," she purred, indolent. "A long swim in the Lake of Fire- I reckon that."

"I reckon not," he said, slowly, touching her hair as if he'd never seen the like before. 

And he hadn't, not like this. Not laid out over her shoulders, caressing her naked breasts in lust-dampened tendrils- not spread out over the disheveled bed of their corruption. His bed.

His sister's hair, dark like this newly wrought secret.

"Spilt milk," he said, mildly.

"Manda Jane said you look like a movie star."

Jesse grinned.

"Really now? I reckon I wonder what sort of movie."

They didn't speak of it, overly, after that.

Things had taken a turn, and strange things thrive in changed air.

Better to lap it up than weep.

Days dawned hot and hell-struck, when afternoon burned clean through like a hot slicing wire. 

And Marie felt that old evil rise up. 

Her brother toiled in earth, like the Lord intended, oh yes- even when he dealt in sin, and he came to her, those days, with a dark and knowing smile.

Some days, that demon was restless enough that when she came down to him, flushed with lust, he just took her right there in the field.

Jesse was a beast of burden, 'twas true- but Marie's burden was the beast.



Blue-Dark Bayou



It will be utter sin if I do, she thought, desperately. I could push her away- make her stop. I could pull my cunt away from her mouth…

Manda Jane looked up with those cat eyes. They no longer looked ebullient, they were snapping and fuck-crazed.

She licked harder, faster, as Marie's breath came quicker, and then, suddenly, her fingers grazed Marie's pussy, briefly, somewhere below her wildly working mouth.

Marie's pussy ached at the touch- but that ache was shattered into unbearable fulfillment as Manda Jane's fingers struck home, driving straight up into her.

At that intimate invasion Marie wailed and flung her thighs apart, as the red-head's fingers pushed and pulled inside her, along with her feasting mouth. 

How many fingers was it? Marie could not be sure, and she didn't really care- but she felt a startling new pleasure as Manda curved her fingers out, touching her somewhere strange, a secret place inside her lowest belly, and she quaked as Manda pumped her open and licked her pussy- and suddenly, instinctively, she seized Manda Jane by the hair with both hands and pulled her deeper, pitching her hips against her face.

And then it happened- Manda Jane's thrusting and slathering drove her over the edge, and the sin exploded in her pussy, radiating outward through her body, over and over, and she battered Manda Jane's viciously licking face with a barrage of shuddering pumping.

She moaned up into a wail, and finally a scream, clutching her cousin's thick red hair, riding her face, and Manda watched her, hungrily, drinking it in with narrowed animal eyes. She kept on, not slowing her attack even for a moment, nor the plunge of her fingers.

Even after Marie subsided into breathless moans of disbelief and rapture she flicked her tongue slowly over her pleasure-ravaged clit, bringing Marie's body into tiny convulsions.

When she finally disengaged her sweet, beestung mouth, and pulled her fingers from Marie's swollen pussy, her cousin rose up, looking indecently pleased. 

Manda Jane wrapped her arms around Marie's waist and they tumbled backwards, falling onto the bed, kissing, their tongues roaming each other' s mouths lasciviously. They writhed together slowly, and Marie sought Manda Jane's breasts, sucking the nipples in and out between her rosebud lips. It was mindless, now, sin without thought, and she drank deeply. She knew what to do.

Marie lay back as Manda Jane crawled forward, on all fours. Marie grabbed her smooth, round ass and pulled her down, as Manda Jane sank onto her mouth with an exquisite sigh, tilted by a moan as Marie entered her pussy, running her tongue up the slit, once, twice, three times. Manda Jane was wet and her tongue traced patterns in the wetness, as she followed her instincts and plunged deep into the other girl, tonguing the hole, then the clit. 

It didn't take long; Manda Jane was obviously close from the beginning, and when she did as Manda had, slipping her fingers up inside the tight warmth, Manda gasped through her bee-stung lips, and began to bounce gently, her breasts shaking, her eyes closed, as Marie struck with her tongue, meeting Manda's pussy at each fall. She curled her fingers, pushing outward as she stabbed, deep and true, and Manda began to spasm above her, rubbing her open pussy all over Marie's face as she choked out her moans. Marie could feel her coming, how her pussy clutched and she licked her clit, in ecstasy, until Manda rolled away, rubbing her breasts and biting her lip.

Marie tried to catch her breath in the pause, but as soon as she had, Manda Jane's hand found her thigh.

"Again," she snarled. "I'll eat you again- oh, Lucy-Marie, I want to."

"I can't…not again-" Marie murmured, as Manda Jane parted her legs, but she lay back, lacking the strength to resist.

Suddenly, through her haze of weary rapture, she became aware of a figure, behind Manda Jane. She might have yelped in her surprise, she might have hollered, but there wasn't time. Before she collect her thoughts, he moved forward, his head thrown back, and Manda Jane gasped in surprise as he entered her. She thrust her ass up in the air to feel him more deeply, her mouth open, eyes closed, moaning. 

Marie was shocked to her core- Manda Jane had no way of even knowing who it was that stood behind her- why, it could be anyone, anyone at all. She didn't know him from Adam's housecat. An intruder- in every sense of the word! 

Stunned by Manda Jane's brazeness, she could only stare up at him, his shadowed face. His back was to the window, and she could see the silhouette of him, outlined starkly against the night sky- strong and brutal shoulders, chiseled arms wrought in human clay.

The moonlight glinted like gold in his hair.

Marie went cold, all at once.

It was Jesse. She had thought it was a stranger, but no- far worse than that, it was her own kin. Still, she couldn't rip her eyes from the sight of him, fucking Manda Jane from behind like some animal, and how she rose up and mewed and wailed, so they were a pair of animals, weren't they- oh Lord, yes.

Moaning, Manda Jane dove back into her pussy, and Marie felt a surge of horror as she gazed up at her brother, inches away, the flesh of his loins slapping against Manda's backside as he drove into her, working his cock like a thundering piston.

She was unwilling- and yet, she felt the fever building in her loins, as she watched and felt; a not unfamiliar thought entered her mind unbidden, and she let it stay- not embracing it, but not pushing it away- that Jesse was fucking her, not Manda Jane, and his wicked cock was thrust up inside her own cunt- she, saints above, his own little sister- and she came, sudden, sharp, violent, crying out for mercy.

Jesse was right behind her, she could hear his breath catch and twist- but she couldn't stay, couldn't bear to look at him again. She pulled away and stumbled out of bed, pulling her nightdress over her throbbing body. Jesse let out a deep growl and buried himself inside Manda Jane, who moaned and writhed on his cock.

Trembling, Marie crept toward the open door, pausing to catch her breath in the shadows of the room. Jesse had fallen forward over Manda Jane, his lean, rippled back stretched out, arched over hers, his head bowed to her shoulder blades, his forehead resting betwixt. His sides rose and fell, heaving, as he breathed, and his breath sounded unnatural, thick and hot like some nightmare beast. 

Manda Jane, beneath him, rested languid on her hands and knees, her face upturned and her eyes closed, her breath warring with his. From the high, bare window moonlight splashed down on them, spilling over their bodies, bathing Jesse's back in a blue glow. 

Marie could not look away from them- the wanton pair- coiled like sinful serpents upon the bed. Mesmerized, her eyes traced the curve of her brother's loin, and she realized that he was still inside Manda Jane, that he steeped in forbidden flesh, just basking in that dark pleasure.

And Manda Jane, his own cousin- she seemed pleased enough by it, didn't she, gasping softly, open-mouthed, at empty air. Her lips did smile, Marie thought, horrified to find yet another deadly sin rearing its head in her breast- envy.

It had been but a scant few moments, but Jesse's hips began to move once more, yet again, first slowly, and then more surely and Marie could not believe her eyes. Surely he wasn't able-

Surely he wasn't going to take her again.

Manda Jane moaned anew, feeling him rise up inside her, filling her outward, swelling with each thrust. And each thrust became more forceful, fuller, as he rode her creamy hips to damnation, relentless, driven by something unearthly.

And Manda Jane gave a great scream, a lunge, and suddenly, she was on top of him, bucking her ass wildly, her red hair slapping over her shoulders and around her shaking, upthrust breasts. That hair- the banner of Jezebel.

Marie could no longer bear it. She broke for the door- but she looked back, Lord help her-

And Jesse met her gaze.

He held Manda Jane about the hips with his strong hands. As she flailed and cursed and fucked him, the muscles of his stomach rolled and worked beneath her. 

And he smiled at Marie, as her own eyes, wide with fear, met his- salacious with lust- and promise.

"If you stay, you best believe I'll take you next," he murmured, darkly. "Jest see if I don't."

Was it a threat, a warning? Or something worse- a promise…

Marie shuddered and bolted from the room, trying in vain to rip away, to tear free of the vision. It seemed seared into her very soul, the devil's cold-brand. She saw her brother's pale eyes, clouded with arousal- his lips twisted into a smile of carnal menace and intent- oh doubt that not! - what he intended.

What had possessed them? What had o'ertaken her sweet cousin, her beloved brother? Those eyes- Jesse's, and yet not his. Portals to hell, to her corruption, Lord preserve…

Marie threw her arms out over the weathered wood of the supper table, her mind blurring like spring grass in a hurricane- like it had under cousin Manda's mouth. Her demonized mouth, and cloven, lashing tongue.

Take my Sin, Lord- tear it from my loins, Marie thought, wildly. I have sinned upon a woman's lips- my mother's sister's child! How she devoured me- how I welcomed my own ruin, giving myself up to the devil's pleasure not less than twice!

Above her, the sounds of the flesh raged unabated- Manda Jane's guttural cries, the pounding of the bedposts on the floor. 

I am weak. Cast out this demon, before I taint my flesh yet more-

But she could not say it.

It was too black for word in thought, for any thought but the wordless kind, and in her mind's eye the image rose up, her brother, her blood- taking her, filling her with the forbidden fruit of his loins.

Suddenly, a roar split the night, a roar and a curse from the beast who'd claimed her brother, and a shuddery wail from his willing whore that climbed the very atmosphere like a spiral of smoke.

At last the house fell into merciful silence- 

Marie cast her gaze around the dark kitchen, dazed.

It was then that her eye fell upon a single object, illuminated by the sullen moon upon the table before her. Slowly her fingers reached out.

It lay across her palm, innocuous, deceptive, mundane- an apple core.