3 comments/ 26087 views/ 12 favorites April’s Child By: 4glory6 "Annie, you take them children up third floor. They like to wear Miz. Irene out on the trip. And you, Toby, stop moonin' over Annie and get the ice chest goods into the house and in the ice box. You got ice in the ice box didn't you?" "Yes ma'am," Toby answered as he trotted out the kitchen door and down to the Buick car in the drive below. "And you, Miz. Irene. You go take a rest now." Sissy shook her head as her mistress climbed the stairs to the second floor. Irene stopped half way up the stairs. "My, Sissy, did you see the Tiffany window Jonathan had put in the landing? Isn't it lovely?" "Ain't got no time now to look at the fixins in the new house, Missy. I got lots to do to get us settled in first. I'll be lookin' the house over later. But, yes, this is some summer house. Better than most folks' winter houses, I reckon." Sissy shook her head as she watched her young misses pull herself up the banister to the next floor. She didn't know how Irene survived the man. Three babies within three years and Irene barely twenty-two. She didn't know how the old man could have such taking seed in him. 'Course he was always after Sissy's baby, she mused. Said he wanted a baseball teams' worth. He was going to wear that woman out before he was under the ground, even with a thirty-years age difference. People should have known Irene before that man had gotten to her, Sissy thought. The prettiest little thing in Craven County—or any county around it for that matter. Lively and bright eyed. She had young men swarming around her, any of whom would have loved to have her, most of whom tried to win her. But her doctor daddy, no doubt looking for her comfortable future but also looking after himself in the world of influence in the South, had given her to Jonathan Wilton, a member of his club. He was an up and coming businessman in New Bern to boot, albeit he was up and coming a bit late in life. Irene's life had imploded from the moment she learned who she would be married off to. She didn't fight it, though. Or even pout about it. It was the way of the South in 1912. Sissy, the Wilton's black housekeeper didn't know how Irene could have stood another month of the man's trying to put a fourth baby up in his young wife if Sissy herself hadn't managed to get him to thinking that he didn't want to wait until summer to check out the almost-completed summer house in Oriental, on North Carolina's Neuse River almost where it opened into the Pamlico Sound. Even better than what Sissy had been hoping for, Jonathan had to stay behind for this late March trip in New Bern for a week to tend to his burgeoning wood milling and nailery businesses. Construction was booming in New Bern in 1912, and Jonathan's businesses were thriving. That was why he'd been able to build this summer home in Oriental. Sissy was doing everything she could to slow the man down on wearing Irene out. Sissy had come with Irene from her family in New Bern, Irene's father being a prominent doctor there, who had worked hard to arrange a marriage of his daughter to a rich business man, no matter the age difference. Sissy had been Irene's nanny, and she still thought of Irene as her baby girl. When she'd come to the Wiltons, she'd brought along her son, Toby, now nineteen, whose father had come and gone in one April afternoon. Annie, the young Negress nanny who'd come along to the new summer house to herd the three babies, John Junior, two and a half; Andrew, four months shy of two; and Mark, five months old, had been hired by Jonathan at Sissy's hectoring insistence right after Andrew had been born. Annie was not particularly bright, but she was a buxom and malleable twenty, and it was all Sissy could do to keep the hands of the neighborhood lads off her. The few times she hadn't, Annie had willingly laid down for a man. Sissy suspected that Annie laid down for Jonathan a time or two also, but it was nothing Sissy had caught them at—yet. It was just a miracle that the girl apparently didn't conceive easily. What was most certain was that Sissy kept a tight rein on her son, Toby, in this regard. He was a handsome, well-muscled, barely chocolate lad. And of course, at nineteen, he was randy. His father had been white, the result of Sissy having foolishly walked a country lane one day at the beginning of the month of April when the spring sap was rising in more than just the trees. She had lain willingly with the handsome young man coming alongside her in his wagon and smiling down on her, so she bore up under the single parenting as something she had brought on herself—and, as Toby grew, as a blessing. But ever after she'd referred to April as the month for fools—and didn't except herself from that judgment. The first two days at the summer house went well, with Irene spending time playing with her sons until they tired her and then having the nanny to turn them over to. Then, when Sissy could be tempted away from the cooking and cleaning and watching both Toby and Annie like a hawk, the two of them explored the new, cavernous house to note work still needing done and changes to request. As Jonathan was acting as builder for the house, they had to couch each of the changes they thought needed to make the house more livable in terms of ideas he came up with himself. Keeping Toby close wasn't all that difficult for Sissy, He was eager to help and was handy at whatever needed to be done. On the second day in the new house, as Irene was inspecting the little riverside hamlet of Oriental and Toby was shopping in the general store for Sissy, Toby brushed against Irene as he was leaving the store and she was entering, almost knocking her over. He reached out and supported her with his arms and for the briefest moment a look of such longing went between them that they both turned away in embarrassment. But neither of them forgot that moment. As fate would have it, though, as soon as Toby got back to the house, Sissy told him that Mr. Wilton had telephoned. He was able to get a few days away and Toby was summoned to drive back to New Bern to fetch him. Irene came in later, after Toby had left, all rosy cheeked and in better spirits and appearing to be stronger than she had been when they had arrived at the house. Sissy's spirits rose too. She had been right to scheme to get Irene to the riverside and away from her husband for a few days. If Irene was deflated in any way by the news that Jonathan was paying a visit or that Toby had gone to fetch him, she hid it well. She spent the rest of the day humming and planting flowers in the beds at the base of the house while the boys romped around her—showing every sign of making the most of the last few hours of freedom before Jonathan arrived. When he did arrive, stomping into the kitchen and slapping the dust off his driving jacket, he gruffly spoke to Sissy, "Where is the mistress of the house then?" "She be upstairs taking a nap," Sissy answered. "She wore herself out planting flowers and tending the boys this afternoon. I think it best not—" But Jonathan was already striding up the stairs and stripping off his riding jacket. He entered the master bedroom, finding that, indeed, Irene was asleep on her back on the bed. She had on the long cotton frock buttoning down the front that she had been wearing in the yard. She woke with the buttons of her bodice undone and Jonathan squeezing her breasts and sucking at her nipples. She was full of breast milk as she was still suckling the baby, who was about due a feeding. Instead, the father was getting the milk. As he roughly suckled, he pulled up her dress from the hem, pulled her undergarment down to her knees, and roughly assaulted her maidenhead with thick, calloused fingers. It wasn't her mother's milk he was after. She was writhing and gasping and groaning when he had become hard; moved on top of her with his hands grasping her wrists, pinning her arms over her head and forcing her flat on the bed under him; crushed her small body with his large frame; thrust inside her; pushed deep again and again, putting all of the power of his strong body behind the thrusts; and loosed his seed. He had done nothing to pleasure her; he had withdrawn just as she was building to her own pleasure. But, of course, the coupling was about procreation, not her pleasure. Irene could not come down to dinner, saying she was too weary. Jonathan ate alone, in the dining room. The children had been served earlier in the kitchen, and then the nanny took them to bed in their dormitory on the third, attic floor of the house. Annie's room was next to the nursery dormitory. Jonathan retired early for him, as well, fucking Irene again roughly, seeding her once more, anxious to fill out his baseball team and cognizant that, in 1912, part of the wealth of a prominent citizen was counted in the number of sons he had—with the regard by his peers being enhanced by how fast he had them. Jonathan was getting a late start in life on that; he didn't want talk going around that he was past his prime. Later in the night, with Sissy and her son safely snoring away in the bedrooms opening off the kitchen on the first floor, Jonathan quietly left his bed, where Irene was moaning softly in her exhausted sleep, stole to the third floor, and gave his seed as well to the willing nanny, Annie. As he entered the room, she smiled up at him, naked, her legs already spread, knees bent, hand between her thighs, working her clit. She had known he would visit her; he'd been doing so for months. He was upon her immediately, sliding inside her, plowing her, as she laughed, arched her back, and grabbed for the rungs of the brass headboard overhead. Even in 1912, a white businessman in the south having a black by-blow or two didn't win demerits. Sissy, exploring the house at night to assure herself that all was as it should be, was on the landing up to the third floor when she had to admit that all was not as it should be. She heard the thumping of the headboard of Annie's bed against her bedroom wall and Annie's muffled wailing. He must have his hand smothering her face for a sound like that to be produced, Sissy thought. She almost went up there, but she held back. He was the master, the provider and controller of all. And Annie was a foolish young woman. Sissy had ample proof that Annie was never taken against her will. Withdrawing, Sissy softly opened the door into the master bedroom, momentarily worried that she didn't remember to check on Toby's room before coming up, but, sure enough, Irene was restfully sleeping in the bed alone. In the morning, Jonathan was gone, but Irene didn't appear downstairs until after noon, looking wan and lethargic. Sissy's thoughts were that she would have to start bringing her mistress' spirits up all over again. Thank God the monster of a husband she had wouldn't be back until next week, the day after the First of April. April Fool's day, Sissy thought. That made her think that their world was full of fools. Irene's father for forcing Irene on the monster. Jonathan for being a foolish old man with a dream and ambitions that would put his young wife in the grave. And, as she looked at Annie with the children in the yard and thinking of the disturbing looks she'd seen go between the foolish young woman who couldn't keep her legs together and her son, Toby, foolish because all young men of nineteen were randy and foolish, she called herself a fool as well for having brought Toby to Oriental. She refused to think of her young mistress as a fool—more as a victim of the plight society assigned to young women. * * * * Irene's spirits did lift. She showed increasing interest in furnishing the house and planting the gardens. Jonathan gave her carte blanche to do so, not that he had any interest in it. What interested him was seeing a strong structure built, using his materials, being recognized and greeted in public—and building a baseball team. She worked hard in the garden, always wanting to have the children around when she did so, using Toby's help in doing the serious digging and tree planting whenever she could enlist him. The Buick required almost constant attention, so Toby was often in the drive while Irene was in the garden. When he worked on the car, he stripped down to his cotton trousers so that he wouldn't get grease on his shirt. This elicited guarded gazes from both Annie and Irene that put a scowl on Sissy's face and forced her to do some orchestration on who was where when. At the first opportunity, she thought, she'd find some excuse why Toby had to go somewhere else. She worked on this scheme in her mind—she was a good schemer, she knew, even if she had to say it herself, because she was so good few suspected it. But for the life of her she couldn't come up with the scenario she needed. Toby was the family chauffer. He was needed to shuttle Jonathan and the family back and forth between the New Bern house and the Oriental cottage—or so the family called the mammoth structure on the Neuse River. Perhaps she could make Jonathan decide he wanted an autocar for himself, she thought. He certainly could afford it considering how fast his businesses were growing—and taxing him. He probably could be convinced he needed one of his own for his business trips around New Bern. That would save wear and tear on him. He was still taking a horse and buggy for that, but it was the twentieth century, and he liked to keep ahead of others. He would see the advantage in being the first one in New Bern to own not one, but two, autocars. Yes, that would work, she thought. But she didn't have the time or opportunity to put her plan into play. Jonathan had been gone for five days, when Irene saw them. The older boys were in the kitchen, where Sissy was showing them what went into the making of the chocolate chip cookies that they then would eat, sitting around the kitchen table, while drinking milk. The baby was down for a nap. Irene had decided she wanted ferns to grow on the shady side of the house and went down to the riverside where she knew there was a thick bed of them that wouldn't miss some roots and fronds. Toby, naked, was lying on his back in the ferns on the riverbank. Straddling him was Annie, also naked. She was rocking back and forth on his shaft. Both of them were in obvious ecstasy. As Annie rocked on his manhood, Toby reached up and squeezed Annie's pendulous breasts. Annie moaned deeply for him, and he raised his torso up, taking each breast in his mouth, in turn, and suckling them. Annie moaned even more deeply and moved her pelvis in more insistent action on his buried staff. Although Irene was out of sight to them, the couple weren't out of sight to her. She was rooted to the spot. She had no idea that coupling could be this sensual. Her own breasts ached at the vision of Toby suckling Annie's nipples, and she cupped and squeezed her own breasts, emitting her own deep moan and feeling the wetness not only of her seeping mother's milk creeping into her bodice, but also the wetness of her want into her loins. A hand dropped down to her lower belly, clutching at the muslin of her dress. As she watched, Toby reclined back on the ferns; grabbed Annie's waist between his hands; raised his buttocks and thighs, leveraging off his feet; and, beginning with long slides and became faster and faster, thrust his shaft up between the wings of Annie's folds until he gave a little cry and jerked. Annie cried out and spasmed as well, arched her back, and collapsed forward on his chest. The pleasure of orgasm was obvious on both their faces. And instead of just rolling her off him and leaving, as Jonathan always did with Irene after he had ejaculated, Toby kept himself inside Annie. He raised their torsos again, his lips going to her nipples, which he played with his tongue and teeth. Annie was moaning deeply. They began to rock, and it was evident and Toby was on the rise again and that they were going to copulate once more. Frustrated, embarrassed, and aroused, Irene pulled back. The ferns would have to be left for another day. She moved quickly back to the house. She passed through the kitchen, barely pausing to greet the boys to whisper something—she knew not what—about the need to go to her bedroom. Sissy watched her go with more knowing than wanting to know in her heart. In her bedroom, Irene lay back on the bed, only in her undergarments, slathered her fingers with cold cream, slid a hand between her thighs, and pleasure herself to an orgasm—thinking as she did so, not of sour, demanding old man Jonathan but of Toby. Fantasizing of Toby's lean, muscular, light-chocolate body coupling with her as she'd seen him doing with Annie. Not just taking pleasure, but giving pleasure as well. She dreamed of what could not be . . . could it? * * * * "I think that not wise, Miz. Irene," Sissy said as she handed over the picnic basket in the kitchen of the Oriental cottage. She castigated herself for not asking what Irene had in mind before preparing the food. "Have you looked at the sky outside. I don'a like the looks of that at all. I don'a know what it looks like is about to happen, but I don'a like the looks of that sky at all." "We'll be fine, Sissy. They told me at the general store of the blackberry patch just on the other side and inland a bit that is open for picking. I haven't been out on the river at all yet. And wouldn't it be such a treat for Mr. Wilton to have a delicious blackberry pie waiting for him when he comes tomorrow?" "Across the river? You said down to the river. Surely you're not—" "Toby will take me. He's already waiting down by the gate for me. He'll row me across and help me pick the berries. We'll be back before you even notice we are gone." Sissy pursed her lips and crossed her arms tightly under her ample bosoms. This would not do, not at all. If only she'd known of the plan. "It's not wise at all, Miz. Irene. You just go out there and look at the sky. You don'a want to be caught on the river with a sky like that." "Here, let me look," Irene said, as she swept up the picnic basket and glided out of the kitchen door. It took Sissy a couple of moments too long to realize that Irene didn't just look at the sky, she skipped down the back porch steps and trotted off toward the gate and the river road she'd have to cross to get to the town pier where the Wilton's new rowboat waited. Annie had come into the kitchen with a crying baby, and before Sissy could shoo her out again and go to the back porch, Irene had already reached Toby, who had taken the picnic basket from her, and the two had turned to cross the road. Sissy was mortified, tossing off a few choice words she'd heard white men use before but never had said aloud herself and immersed herself in work in the house, hoping and praying for the best, but expecting the worst. Toby rowed the boat, while Irene sat back in the bow and watched for the signs that would tell her where the berry patch was. A grassy area rising to the base of a small bluff. There was a small hut at the base of the bluff and a hillside, covered with the blackberry bushes, and a path to the top of the bluff, where there was a lean-to shed. As Toby rowed, putting all of his muscle into pulling the oars, Irene lay back and looked on admiringly, running her hands through the water they were gliding through and humming happily to herself. Every few pulls, Toby looked up at her with admiration of his own in his face and gave her a smile. Irene smiled back. They found the blackberry patch easy enough, but as they grounded the boat, Toby looked up in the sky and said, "It don't look good up there, Miz. Irene. Maybe we best go right back downriver to Oriental. I think there's a storm a comin'." "If so, it's well off, and now that we're here, there's no reason not to pick the berries. We'll do that first. We'll leave the basket here in the boat. If a storm is coming in, we can always take the picnic basket back to the house with us and seat it in the gazebo in the garden." April’s Child "My mama would like seein' me sitting in no gazebo with you and munchin' on no picnic basket, Miz. Irene." "Then we'd have to find someplace else to take that pleasure, wouldn't we Toby?" The smile she gave him was a provocative one, and he looked away from her, overwhelmed with a feeling he knew his mama would hate a lot more than seeing him having a meal with a white woman. They hadn't been picking long before Irene shuddered, noticing that there had been a sudden drop in the temperature. "It's getting cold, Toby." "Yassim, I noticed that too, Miz. Irene. Best we go back to the boat and row back across the river. And maybe we need to leave sooner than—" The end of his sentence was blotted out by the clap of thunder, which was followed by the opening of the skies and lowering of a sheet of rain. The deluge was so thick so fast that they both were soaked instantly. Toby looked at Irene in astonishment. She had worn no foundation garments. The cotton of her dress had become nearly transparent and, soaked, it clung to every contour of her body within seconds of the start of the storm. The dress was plastered to her ample, still lactating breasts, just as it clung to her thighs and to the curve into her maidenhead, following the line of her mound, and even revealing her pubic hair and the puffy wings of her folds. She might as well have been naked standing in front of him. Toby gasped and tried to look away in embarrassment, but he couldn't stem either his curiosity or his lusty interest. He also couldn't hide the similar effect of the torrential rain on his own clothing. The bulges of his muscular torso, every curve and angle of it already known to Irene's inspection, was clearly discerned against his soaked, clinging shirt—as was the meaty manhood between his legs, instantly beginning to engorge over what Toby could see. "The hut," Irene called out, turning toward the shed at the base of the bluff. But Toby reached out with a hand, grabbing her forearm. "No, who knows if this will rise the river fast.? Up the hill, to that lean-to at the top." Electrified by the touch of his hand on her arm, Irene turned to him, and whispered, "Oh Toby." With only that, she was enveloped in his arms, the two were straining to meld into each other, and he was kissing her on the mouth, through her straggly, soaked hair above her ear, on her neck. And, as he bent her back, fingers struggling with the buttons on her bodice, on her breasts, as he dipped his face down to them. Whispering, "Toby, Toby, Toby," and then a hissed "Yesssss," as his mouth found her nipples and suckled her, sucking out drops of mother's milk. She ran a trembling but emboldened hand between them and grasped his hard staff through the wet material of his trousers. "Miz. Irene!" he exclaimed. "You are a man, Toby. Be a man for me," she hissed at him between clinched teeth. He was breathing heavily. Taking his lips away from a nipple, he murmured, "No, we can't. this is wrong." But, unhearing, unheeding, determined, Irene unbuttoned his fly and pulled his shaft out to put a lie to what they couldn't do. His lips went to hers. His tongue breached the lips and invaded her mouth cavity, claiming possession of her. She yielded to him without hesitation. A clap of thunder, a nearby flash of lightning, and the crash of a falling tree just beyond the berry patch pulled them apart. "The bluff. The lean-to," Toby called out in a hoarse, lust-laced voice. "Quick. The path. Over there." He turned Irene to face the entrance to the path and nudged her. Another nearby lightning strike propelled her onto the rising path. They had only climbed half way up the hillside, when the towering blackberry bushes on either side and tree canopy overhead gave them some sense of protection. Irene was moving ahead of Toby. Toby reached out for her, encircled her body and pulled her back into his muscular chest. "Oh, yes, Toby, yes. Here. Now," Irene whimpered, as he took his arms away only long enough to pull her long skirt up to bunch at her waist. One hand shot up to cup and squeeze a breast, while the other one slid down her belly and into her bush, where he gripped her mound and ran fingers into her folds, seeking and finding her treasure and her entrance. She turned her face to him, whimpering "Toby, Toby, Toby" over and over until he had captured her lips with his and taken her breath away. She jerked and lurch, pulling away from the kiss and crying out as, spreading her folds with his fingers, he entered her with his shaft and immediately started to plow her. Such was their excitement and passion that, with another nearby lightning strike, she was jolted with an orgasm and he ejaculated, releasing his seed deep inside her in one, two, three strong spurts. "Again!" Irene commanded. "That strike was too close. The lean-to." They struggled on up the path, stumbled into the lean-to, and, discovering a straw mattress making up most of the dry area in the lean-to, tumbled onto that. Irene fell on her back. Toby came down on top of her. With one hand, he reached up and opened his hand under her jaw and pushed her head back, flat against the straw. With the other, he slapped her legs open and knelt between them. Understanding his intent, Irene spread her legs, bent them, her feet on the surface of the mat, and elevated her buttocks to him. Toby slid inside her and fucked her to another seeding. Finished, he slid down her body and buried his face in her mound, moving his tongue into her folds, as she clutched at the hair on the back of his head to hold him close to her, and groaned and moaned and gave sounds of pleasure that she never, in her wildest dreams, believed were possible for a woman. He brought her to another explosion and then another. And then, young and virile, rose up over her and fucked her again to another ejaculation. The storm passed quickly and the sun had been out for some time when the two struggled out of the lean-to, sleepy eyed because the coupling had exhausted them both. "We'll have to dry these clothes before we go back," Irene said, as she peeled her dress away from her body. "You too," she said. "Don't be shy about me seeing it in all its gloried. I've had it inside me," she added with a laugh. Still, she gasped when she saw how thick and long it was. Feeling wanton, she went down on her knees and took it in her mouth. It was Toby's turn to gasp. But he reached down and pulled her up. "If these clothes am gonna dry, we'd best start them to doin' that. The sunny patch down there by the riverside." They moved quickly down the path and shivered as they stripped off the now cold as well as damp clothes. While Irene lay their clothes out on bushes in the sunlight to allow the now-warm air to reach them from both above and below, Toby went in search of the rowboat. The rise of the river had sent it up the bank and into some bushes. When he came back, covering his privates as best he could, he said, "I'm afraid the picnic you brought is ruined. There is nothing for us to eat." Irene laughed. "Take your hand away from it, Toby. I want to see you in all your glory. There is nothing we don't know of each other now. We will be Adam and Eve for this brief time we have. And feeling totally free and naughty, she said. "You already feasted on me in the shed up on the bluff and I gave you drink of my mother's milk. Now it is my turn to eat you." She turned to him, shoved him hard on the sternum, and surprised by the push, Toby went down on his bare rump on the soft grass in the sunlight with a laugh. Irene came down on her knees between his bent legs and, grasping the base of his staff in one of her hands, took it in her mouth. As she gave him suck, he half reclined under her, holding his torso in an incline with the heel of one hand buried into the soft earth below his shoulder. He ran the other hand into her luxuriant, raven-black hair and helped guide the bobbing of her head in a rhythm that pleased him the most. That established, he moved the hand to her breasts, squeezing one after the other. Balancing himself without the need of the support of the other hand, Irene sucked away as he grasped both breasts, milking them, and producing drops of milk. Having had all of the sucking he could endure, He grabbed Irene's waist and pulled her body up and over him, letting it hover there over his body momentarily. She looked down into his eyes with a dreamy look in her eyes. "May I have permission to fuck you again, Miz. Irene? "Oh, yes. Oh, yes, please," she murmured, aroused by the mere utterance of that word from his lips. "You need never ask again whenever we can manage it." And knowing what was coming next because that was the position she'd seen Toby take with Annie and wanting what she'd seen Annie get, she reached down and held his shaft steady as he lowered her on it, playfully dragged the glans over her secret nub repeatedly inside her folds and teased her treasure with it to hear her moan, before he pulled her passage down on the hard, thick, long rod. She rode his shaft to another explosion and then another as he squeezed her breasts with his hands. He nuzzled his cheeks to her breasts, his shaft moving slowly and deep inside her, hard and building up to an explosion of his own. He turned his mouth to one nipple and then another, closing his mouth over the plump, taut nipple and sucking, taking the whole aureole in and rhythmically sucking hard, as, moaning and sighing, Irene arched her back and pushed her chest in to his suckling lips, feeling herself release the nectar in short bursts. She moved her pelvis on his hard erection, as he suckled her dry of her mother's milk and slathered her deep repeatedly inside in his spurting cum. Never before had Irene felt so connected, so possessed, so naturally used, so totally fulfilled, so much as one as with this beautiful young, virile light-chocolate man moving deep inside her and suckling the last drop of milk from her breasts. Back at the Oriental cottage, the storm had come and gone, and although Sissy worried that her mistress and her son had been lost on the river on the fast-breaking thunderstorm, she was just as worried of what else might have been keeping them. One look at them when they returned to the house confirmed her worst fears in that regard. It was the First of April. April Fools' day. And all Sissy could think of was what fools Miz. Irene and Toby were—and what a fool she'd been to let it happen. And what a fool Mr. Wilton was for not treating Irene right and making her vulnerable for this. And, while she was about it in fingering fools and talking about vulnerability, what a fool that hussy Annie was for teaching her precious son what there was to do with a woman. Yes, Sissy knew what Toby and Annie had been doing. At least that, though, was among like folks. And Toby was a strapping nineteen-year-old. Of course he could easily be led to it. Sissy had been younger herself when she'd first bitten that apple. "Such is the world of us all. All of us just April fools," she muttered when a humming Irene, her dress obviously not having been on her the whole live long day, had passed through the kitchen and was mounting the stairs to her bedroom. Sissy slept fitfully that night. Twice she left her bed with the sole purpose of checking Toby's. It had been tousled, but it was empty both times. She knew he was upstairs. She didn't know how far upstairs, though. Hoping for the lesser of two evils, she prayed that it was up on third floor, fucking Annie. But in her heart she knew he was on the second floor, inside Irene. What to do? Such foolishness. It was the spring. April. April foolishness. The fools of April. It had been April when she had conceived Toby. She could still see the face—and other parts—of that handsome young white boy. Handsome, young . . . and virile. And so quickly come and gone. Wearily, she went back to her own bed. What to do? What to do? She went to sleep of thinking of her own white lover, the young farmhand beside the country road, laying her gently on her back in the clover, pressing his hand between her thighs and looking down into her eyes with lust and a question in his. Thinking of her legs going to putty as he found and worked her treasure spot. Her legs spreading as if by their own volition, him rising up over her, entering her, sliding deep, pulling out, sliding in again, as she clutched his shoulder blades and raised her hips to meet his slides. Sliding faster and faster. The hold, jerk, and cry. Sighing as she felt him come deep inside her. Knowing even then that she'd conceived. Not caring if only he stayed inside her, came alive again, and plowed and sowed her once more. Which he did. What could she say or do? Her precious children—Irene and Toby both. Young and ripe, both of them. Deserving the pleasures of life. Irene certainly not getting that pleasure with her old man husband; just getting worn out. Sissy had had her white lover too. If only for an afternoon. But such folly. Such young fools. Nothing but tragedy could come of up. Not that the old goat didn't deserve it. Especially with what he was doing with Annie. Above her, on the second floor, Toby was hovered between Irene's open thighs, thrusting again and again inside her, as Irene clutched his shoulder blades and raised her hips to meet his young, virile, furred thrusts, exploding for him repeatedly and crying out as he drowned her passage with his spurting seed. Holding, panting, murmuring intimately to each other of shared love, waiting for him to recover, as, still inside her, he lowered his face to her breasts, nuzzled them, clamped his mouth over a taut nipple, and suckled, teasing out her milk. Coupling again and again with an urgency from the knowledge of both that Jonathan would reappear at the summer cottage the next day. * * * * What Sissy could see on April Fools' day, Jonathan could at least suspect when he arrived at the cottage the next day. Even a large slice of blackberry pie at dinner didn't cause him to stop looking at Irene and scrutinizing her demeanor. What was making her flash those little smiles and to blush as she did and to seem to be in off in a little world of her own for brief moments? What was making Sissy so jittery and on edge—and a bit cross? Why did Irene look up startled and smiling when Toby passed by the window, whistling happily? Why did her hand go to her breast at that particular moment. He took her to bed early and fucked her silly, pumping her with his seed again and again through the night. Her strange behavior must be because of his frequent absences of late, he reasoned. She was thinking of it being time to have another baby. Well, he knew how to make that happen. A woman with child was a happy, docile woman. She lay there, docilely, opening her legs on command, lightly laying her fingers on his shoulders as he huffed and puffed between her legs, a little secret smile on her face. Denying him nothing, but giving him nothing of herself other than his rights as a husband. She had no worry of him putting another baby inside her. Still, he was out of sorts in the morning, tuning into the tense behavior from Sissy and the relaxed and happy state of not only Irene but also that black boy, Toby. When he fucked Annie in her room in the early afternoon, while Irene had the boys with her in the garden, Toby was working on the Buick, and Sissy was busy struggling with a butcher knife and the leg of lamb Jonathan had brought from New Bern, Annie whispered of the storm and how Irene and Toby had been out in it—Irene wanting to pick those blackberries that had gone into his pie—for hours on the first day of April. The next day, Jonathan declared that he wanted to go fishing out on the river—and that he wanted Toby to go with him. He returned three hours after they left without fish—and without Toby. "When we got to the other side of the river, that darky just bolted and ran into the woods," Jonathan. "Can't trust those darkies without chaining them to something." Sissy was upset, but not thrashing about on the floor upset. Irene kept demanding, almost hysterically, that they had to muster up help and go look for him. Jonathan said, "Why go to that bother? Can't trust those darkies. He probably just ran off. I can drive the Buick. When I go back to New Bern, I'll just hire another driver and handyman. I'll try to go for a white boy this time. More reliable." He turned stern eyes on Irene. "Maybe an older white man." Jonathan went back to New Bern the next day. Irene had come down with a vomiting-type illness the previous evening, and Jonathan had slept in another bedroom. The days went on and soon it was early July. The family had remained in Oriental because Irene rejected all ideas of moving back to New Berne just to return to the riverside cottage within a couple of months. For the first couple of weeks after Toby's disappearance, she went out every day looking for him and asking anyone she met whether they had seen the Wilton's young, black driver. No one had. She enlisted men from the town to take her out on the river, up to and beyond the blackberry patch, looking for signs of Toby. In the evening she would walk down to the riverbank and stare at the water, as if he would emerge, smiling from the depths. But he never did. As the months went on Irene began to drag around more and to become increasingly despondent. She cried at the smallest irritants, running to her room and shutting herself in. And she became totally listless, not showing interest in much of anything, including her boys. She ate like a bird, but put on weight. Sissy mothered her as best she could, but there came a day when she got on the phone and called New Bern. It wasn't Jonathan she called, though. It was Irene's father, the doctor. He came almost immediately in his Model T Ford. Sissy took him aside and spoke intensely with him in whispers before he went up to Irene's bedroom. Irene woke from an exhausted, snuffling sleep to find her father sitting on the side of her bed, a syringe in his hand. "I'm here, sugar," he whispered. "You are exhausted and need the rest this will aid. You have a nervous condition. We must prevent a breakdown. I'm taking you to a hospital I have a hand in for a rest. The mountain air will rejuvenate you." The drive from the coast west and up into the mountains, to the hospital outside Ashville Irene's father talked of—although it wasn't just a hospital, Irene could see from the sign over the gate; it was a sanitarium, a place where folks buried their difficult and crazy relatives alive—went by with Irene sedated and only half conscious. All she knew was that Sissy was with her, patting her arm occasionally and saying that the boys were safe, that Irene's mother was at the cottage. That Sissy would not leave the flighty Annie alone with a pet turtle to care for. Irene knew that she should object to being taken to a sanitarium. But she . . . just . . . didn't care anymore. At some point she rallied enough interest to ask Sissy about her husband, Jonathan. "He hasn't visited me here, Sissy. Ever. Is he angry with me?" Sissy pursed her lips. "That man don't know you be here and we not be tellin' him you are. For all he knows, you run away." "But surely my father would have told him—" "When Mr. Wilton asked your father, your papa cut him off, sayin' if you had run away, it was no more than that husband of yours deserved. Mr. Wilton just clamped his mouth shut on that. It wasn't the only thing your papa told that man that he knew. I not be talkin' 'bout that, though. My lips is sealed about that, they are." Irene's baby was born a week after Christmas. It was a dark, berry-brown girl, the color of Sissy, its grandmother. Not white, like Irene or Jonathan, or even a light chocolate brown, like Toby. But it was so much like Sissy, that there was no doubt that Sissy was the grandmother, which made Toby the father. There was no surprise in Irene's eyes when they first brought the baby to her. April’s Child They only let Irene hold her daughter twice before they whisked the baby away. When she insisted on seeing it again, they sent Sissy in. "Now, you know you couldn't keep that baby, child," Sissy said, embracing Irene and rocking her back and forth. "We alls got to make sacrifices on that. I seed to it that it had a good home, though. What you gots to do is to get better so that you can go home. You have other babies who need you. Annie's gone, and your mother has found two good women to watch over the babies and take care of the summer cottage. Mr. Wilton, he be beside himself with confusion and dealing with tellin' folks why you tain't be at home. He have no time for the babies. You need to get well and go be the mamma to the babies you can keep." But Irene was still in the sanitarium, although slowly recovering her wits and being weaned off the drugs her father had been giving her, when Jonathan keeled over and died of a heart attack in his New Bern office in the middle of a staff meeting. He had been working furiously to deal with the grasping for every-expanding businesses and with his own demons and had worn his heart out. It wasn't all that unexpected. He wasn't a young man and he'd been working too hard. Irene's father came to the sanitarium to drive her down to New Bern to the funeral, which was to be on April First, 1913. "A fitting day for the old fool to be buried," an unforgiving Sissy had muttered from across the room when Irene was told her husband was dead. "The orderlies have packed up all of my things, Papa," Irene said, when he arrived. "Are you moving me to another sanitarium?" "No, honey, I think it's time for you to go home now. Maybe the summer cottage rather than right back into the bustle of New Bern. You are well enough for that now." Irene looked searching at him. Was that both sadness and guilt she saw in him? Sissy had been musing enough about her being sold off to a man trying to baby her to death. Had Sissy gotten to her father too? Sissy had ruled the household of Irene's family home even more than she'd managed to do in the Wilton household. Had Sissy put some of the blame for Irene's breakdown on her own family? Was the doctor at least tacitly accepting that blame? "Where's Sissy," she said, having been thinking of the woman who had been rock her entire life. "Isn't she going with us?" "Sissy has gone on ahead. She'll meet us at the cemetery," he answered. And there Sissy was, at the cemetery, standing off to the side, as any person of color would be expected to do at a white man's funeral in the South in 1913. Before Irene caught sight of Sissy, though, she saw that her boys weren't there. She asked her father where they were. "They're still in Oriental, at the summer cottage," he answered. "We thought them to be too young to be here. And we figured that was where you'd go after the funeral." It was then that she caught sight of Sissy. But the woman wasn't standing alone. There was a young man standing on one side of her—Toby. And a young woman on the other side—Annie. Both Toby and Annie were holding bundles, one of which was fussy. Irene could hardly contain herself through the burial service, her copious tears not really being for Jonathan, something that most of those in attendance never needed to know. At last, though, she stood alone at the covered grave, with her parent standing off a bit toward the road and Sissy and her brood standing on the other side of the grave. With wobbly legs, Irene started walking toward Sissy's group. Toby met her half way, putting his arm around her and leaning down and kissing her on the lips. A baby was cuddled between them—Irene's baby. And Toby's baby. Unmistakingly Irene and Toby's baby. "We named her April," Toby said in a shaky voice. "I hope you don't mind." Irene started to cry, and Toby held her close. When she could control herself, she gestured toward Annie. "Annie has a baby too?" Did Toby have a baby by another woman as well? "Yes. It's a boy. Spittin' image of Jonathan, it is. Red hair and temper and all. When Mr. Wilton found out she was with child he railed and ranted and threw her out of the house. I think he only acted that way because Annie told him the baby would be mine. Guess that surprised Annie too. Mr. Wilton's anger is part of why Sissy brought your father in and we spirited you away to Ashville. Your father would never tell Mr. Wilton where you went. You can bet that didn't set right. He puffed right up and turned redder than a beet. Wouldn't be surprised if that helped kill him. Sissy's kept Annie with her. And me and our baby, of course. She says it's time for us all to go home—to Oriental." "Yes, it's time for you all to go to the summer cottage now, honey." The voice was that of Irene's father. He and her mother had come up to the grouping of black father and daughter and white mother. "You're a rich woman now, with businesses owned," her father said. "But maybe, under the circumstances, you best just cash checks on the business from the house at the river. Good men have been put in place to grow your businesses in New Bern. Your mother and I'll go home now. We'll visit you one of these days soon. Toby has your Buick. He'll drive you all to the river and to your new lives together." "Papa, Mama?" Irene said, with a choked voice. "You mean that you don't—?" "We want you to be happy," Irene's mother interjected. "That's all we ever wanted. We messed that up for you, but all we want now is for you to have what you want and to be happy. We don't want you out of our lives. We will visit soon—after you all are settled." Irene watched her parents walk off toward the Model T parked on the road before, still holding her tight as if she might evaporate into thin air if he didn't, Toby turned her, and walked her back to her new family.