Storiesonline.net ------- War Comes Home by Azil ------- Synopsis: Slavery in the Civil War Codes: MF Mf inc bro sis interr BF WM Author Note: My thanks to Anthony Matthews for suggesting the idea of Civil War incest, in a post a month or so ago -- it got me started on this. My apologies to the people who have been so kind and supportive of my long-running novel, My Reward. This story interrupted me. I've had other story ideas in the course of writing My Reward -- I just made a few notes so I wouldn't forget them, and then placed the ideas aside for later. This one, however, refused to be put aside. I promise now to get back to MR. This story deals with difficult matters -- not just incest, but interracial sex, and slavery. I hope I haven't offended anyone in the way I've dealt with any of the topics or the characters. That was definitely not my intent. I hope you enjoy it. ------- In a few days it would be winter, and it was growing cold even here in the south, near the coast below Savannah, where a tired man in a tattered gray coat limped to the top of a rise and looked down on a big, gracious house a few hundred yards ahead. It was his home and it looked good to him. In the dusk he couldn't see that here and there a fence was sagging, that the paint on some of the outbuildings was peeling. It's doubtful he would have cared. He was tired, his feet hurt, he hadn't eaten a full meal in two days, but he was home to the place where his family had lived and farmed and prospered for more than a hundred years. Though it would have been nearly impossible to tell from the ragged, dirty clothes, the man was an officer in a proud army -- Major John Archer Richards, CSA. But at this moment he was, like so many people in that time and place, a refugee. He had been walking for several days at the moment we see him descending the hill, the joy of seeing his home putting a bit of spring back into a step that had become little more than a shuffle. More than several days, really. In one sense, he had begun his journey home in August, a few days before Atlanta fell, when he'd been wounded in a nameless little skirmish at a nameless little crossroads. His wound wasn't serious, but it had appeared so, because he'd been knocked unconscious when he fell from his horse. When he'd awakened -- the next day? two days later? nobody could tell him -- his left sleeve was torn and bloody and his arm throbbed, but the furrow where the bullet had grazed him seemed to be healing itself. "A good thing," he muttered to himself, as he looked around at the chaos of the hospital. There was little likelihood, he could see, of getting any medical attention there. His head hurt and his hair was caked with blood and mud, but his mind was reasonably clear, once the long sleep had cleared away. When, after a few moments, he had figured out where he was and why he was there, he had next tried to find out where his brigade was. At this he was less successful. Many of the men around him were too badly wounded to talk coherently. Most of the rest were from a wide assortment of units and had never heard of the Fourth Georgia Volunteer Cavalry. The few who had heard of it knew nothing about it, with the exception of one young lieutenant, himself hurt not much worse than John Richards was. "I hear they got cut up pretty bad," he said laconically. "Somewhere west of town -- lost most of their officers, half the whole outfit, somebody said." He paused. "Your unit?" John nodded. "Sorry," the lieutenant said. John acknowledged the sympathy and was about to ask if the lieutenant had any idea where the remnants of the Fourth were, when a burly sergeant came by and, seeing the two men sitting up and talking, came over to them. "You two," he said, ignoring rank, "are you well enough to move on your own?" Getting a positive response, he told them to get to the train station -- anyone healthy enough to walk, he said, was being sent out on the last rail line still open. To John's questions about the Fourth Georgia, he turned a deaf ear. In fact, he turned his back, moving on to find others able to walk. John and the lieutenant made their way through the panic-stricken streets of the dying city to the nearby train station, where they sat for hours amidst mounting confusion before forcing their way onto an overcrowded cattle car on an overloaded train. There they sat in the stench of the car for another hour before the train pulled slowly out of the station. Disaster piled upon disaster, however. Only a few miles out of Atlanta, the train was derailed where a Federal raiding party had torn up the roadbed. Luckily, it was travelling so slowly that few were hurt in the derailment. But almost a thousand men were milling about in the dark, confused and disoriented, when the raiding party came out of the woods where they had been lying in ambush. The result was half comedy, half tragedy. The tragedy, of course, was the many deaths. The comedy was the confusion of hundreds of soldiers, used to fighting with their units, but here in this place precisely because they had become separated for one reason or another from those units. They ran around in the dark, the officers shouting conflicting orders. Some fought, some threw up their arms in surrender, and some ran. John Richards and the lieutenant were, after firing their pistols ineffectually a few times, among those who decided that the wisest course of action was to fight another day, and hid themselves through most of a rainy night in the bushes along a nearby creek. Eventually, the sounds of Union soldiers laughing over their easy victory died away, and the two young officers crawled cautiously out of their hiding place and began to walk in the direction they guessed was east. Through the night they had walked, until the rising sun in their eyes confirmed that they were heading the right way. And through another day they had walked before they found a Confederate cavalry patrol that had taken them back to a nearby encampment. There the brigadier general in command told the lieutenant that his unit was only a mile or so away. "Fourth Georgia?" the officer mused, checking his maps, after the lieutenant had left. "I think they got absorbed into the Eighth." He scratched his beard meditatively. "But I'm not sure." John asked quietly where the Eighth was. This was what he had feared -- the Fourth, in which he and all of them had taken such pride, had disappeared entirely. The general scratched his beard again. "Not sure," he replied. "I think they might be south of Savannah -- about here," he said, pointing to the map. "So Hood's retreating to Savannah?" John asked. The brigadier spat angrily. "No," he replied bitingly. "The damned fool's heading into Tennessee. Leaving Georgia wide open." He paused and took a calming breath. "The Fourth and Eighth were cut off east of Atlanta when it fell; they couldn't connect up with Hood, so they moved back toward Savannah." The spot to which he'd pointed on the map was almost exactly the spot where John now stood, but now it was December. The general had explained the pointlessness of John's wandering around a dangerous countryside looking for his comrades, and added that he needed officers himself. So John had stayed with him and prepared to help turn back the blue tide when Sherman's army pushed on to Savannah. He had fought hard and well, as had so many. But it was futile -- the tide was too strong. Once Sherman's army left the rubble of Atlanta behind them, they had pushed to the outskirts of Savannah almost effortlessly, destroying everything in their path. The rebels had fallen back, too weak to offer meaningful resistance, until their backs were to the sea. There at last they had stood. And there, a few days before, John's horse had been shot from under him near Savannah in a skirmish with a Yankee scouting party. Uninjured this time, but left behind as both sides scattered after the brief fight, John had begun the weary walk back to the camp. The camp had been abandoned, though, and John had begun walking again, not knowing exactly where, when he recognized a road marker that pointed the way home. Barely conscious even of making a decision, he took that road. And now, after two days of walking, he was here. His own home. He had told himself as he walked that someone here could tell him where the Fourth was -- this was where they'd last been reported, and this was home for most of the men of the Fourth. But had he really come here looking for the Fourth, or had he just come home? He couldn't answer. He was too tired to ask himself the question. The only thing he knew was that he was so happy to be home that it crowded out almost every other thought. Almost -- it didn't stop him from wondering if Marcy was there, and how she would receive him. Marcy was... what? She was his slave, and she was his lover. She was the woman he thought about in the long lonely nights. She had once saved his life, and now she was why he lived. They had been lovers, when the opportunity presented itself, which it too seldom had, for five years. Since he was a grieving eighteen year old boy who had just lost both his parents, and was faced with the man's job of running a large plantation, and she was a fifteen year old maid who crept into his bed one night to bring him comfort. She had come to his bed every night for more than a year, until the war had begun, and John had left his home. And then, a year and a half later, Marcy and her brother Micah had taken a train up the coast to Charleston, where the Fourth Georgia was fighting, and where the young Captain Richards was dying of yellow fever, the same dreaded lowland disease that had carried off his parents. Marcy and Micah had loaded their master on the train and taken him home to die. In a moment of coherence he asked that his younger sister Eliza, the child he had protected and loved, be kept away from him, because he feared dragging her to death with him and wiping out the family. But Marcy refused to let him die, sitting by his bed day and night, washing his body over and over to cool him, and feeding him broths and herb medicines one slow spoonful at a time. At last the fever had broken, and he had been able to speak a few words of thanks, and she had been able to kiss him tenderly to show her own thankfulness. Then, a couple days later, as she washed him, her hand brushed his penis and it moved in response. Marcy had smiled at John, and John had smiled at Marcy, as the penis disappeared into her mouth and her tongue wrapped around it as it stiffened. Her mouth heated him as her caresses had cooled him through his illness. It was as though his fever had returned, but centered on his groin. His cock hardened and filled her mouth, as her head began to move up and down on it. Despite his weakened condition, it took only a few moments of the warm suction and the sight of Marcy's beautiful face, her mouth open for him, to bring him to orgasm. As the jets of sperm burst from him, Marcy welcomed them into her mouth and swallowed them hungrily. While his tremors stilled she sucked and licked him tenderly. Then she pulled his covers up, kissed him softly, said "Sleep now", and quietly left the room. In the coming days, as his strength returned, she took him in her mouth often. Finally she had, after sucking him for a few moments, pulled her dress up around her waist and climbed atop him, both of them sighing with pleasure as she lowered herself onto his cock, and they felt it slowly enter her wet interior. He reached forward to cup her small breasts in his hands, feeling the nipples grow through the thin fabric of her dress. She leaned over to give him better access and said, "I've needed you in me. I've needed to feel you touch me like this." He started to reply that he needed her, but found himself unable to speak as his seed burst out of him and buried itself deep into her. The next day, when she again straddled him, he had smiled at her and gently pushed her off him and onto her back. Then they had made love properly, as he unbuttoned her dress and lowered it off her shoulders, kissing her down her neck and on to her breasts. Taking each small breast in turn into his mouth, while his hand played with the other. Marcy gasped in pleasure as John's lips and fingers sent shockwaves through her body. She arched her back as though to push more of her breast into his mouth. Meanwhile his other hand began pushing the simple dress lower, exposing first her smooth, flat belly, then the hips, fuller than one would have expected on so slender a girl, flaring out invitingly. She raised her ass to let him push the dress down, revealing her full beauty, then she lowered herself back to the bed, spreading her legs and saying, "I want you." But she couldn't have him yet. Not in the way she meant. He kissed slowly down from her breasts, down the smooth, taut flesh of her abdomen, down to where the flesh softened on her lower belly, down to the edge of her sparse bush. Then as her breath caught and her legs widened farther, he teased her by detouring to kiss down the inside of her right thigh while rubbing upward on her left. Her legs widened further still, and she breathed raggedly as his hand rubbed the sensitive flesh where her thigh met her mound, and his lips and tongue kissed lazily back upward. "Oh, please," she whispered, "please." He gave her her wish then, using his thumbs to open her lips, and gazing at the beauty within, the darkly crimson interior, the labia crested in black. It was small pussy, dominated by a disproportionately large clitoris that was now aggressively pushing itself out at him. Lower down was her vagina; it was just a small opening now, but the tissue around it was glistening with her excitement and it seemed eager to be opened wider. One touch of his tongue to her clitoris and Marcy's hips twitched upward. He licked her again, just a bit more, and the hips moved again. He put out his tongue and dragged the full length of it across the clitoris, and Marcy shook with passion, grabbing John's head and pulling it deeply into her cunt, groaning loudly. John let her recover, then began again, licking the outer edges of her cunt, then working his way slowly down to the little hole that now was pulsing with anticipation. When he reached it and licked lightly at the entrance, the girl sighed with pleasure, then her body tensed as he speared his tongue into the darkness within. As he stroked his tongue in and out of the hole, Marcy's hips began moving in a gentle fucking motion to match him, and he knew she was ready. After a few moments, he pulled himself away from her. She sighed with disappointment at first, then realized that greater pleasure was to come. She smiled at him as he positioned himself above her. Her legs were wide and her knees rose up in the air as her hands reached out to guide his cock into her. The cock pulsed as she took it, and he groaned with pleasure at the touch. Then as he lowered himself down and she placed his cock at the entrance to her vagina, they melted into each other. After he was in her, feeling her tightness, the wetness, the warmth, he simply lay atop her for a while, enjoying the closeness, the feel of her, as her hands massaged his back and she purred with pleasure. Then he pulled back slightly and she hissed with an intake of breath. He pulled out very slowly, then entered again equally slowly. Several times more he moved in and out, speeding up only slightly. It was something they had done often, in the time of peace. She smiled up at him, raising her head to kiss him lightly, saying simply, "I like that." Gradually he sped up, and gradually her hands worked their way down to has ass and her legs locked around him. Then he was pounding hard and fast into her and she was thrusting her hips back up at him, matching his speed and power. Harder and harder he drove his cock down into her, and harder and harder she threw her hips up at him, saying, "Fuck me, fuck me," over and over. And then their movements became still more frenzied as she began groaning, straining for her release, and he felt the pressure building up within him. Faster and harder still they drove into each other until, at last, blessed relief washed over her and she shouted out a single high, sharp note as her body tensed. He stroked hard into her stiffened body once, then again, then finally felt his seed shoot out into Marcy's womb. They lay together for a long time afterward, enjoying each other. Then John slowly raised himself off Marcy and rolled onto his side next to her, pulling her close for a kiss. "I didn't think you were ready for that yet," she said. "I didn't either." She smiled. "Since you are, let's do it ten times a day, every day, forever." John laughed, but shook his head sadly. "I have to go back." "No!" Marcy cried out. "You're still too sick to go back." He laughed again. "Not if I'm well enough to fuck you like that." They argued, but John was adamant that he would leave the next day. That night, Marcy came to his bed and they fucked over and over until at last they both collapsed into sleep. The next morning, John arose early, kissed the sleeping Marcy, went into his sister's room, where his kissed that beautiful sleeping girl, brushing her golden hair aside and wondering at the tenderness he felt for her, then walked downstairs and outside where Micah had prepared his horse for him. He shook hands with his boyhood friend, asked him to watch over their sisters, and began the long ride back to Charleston. Up to that time, he had never known that he loved her. She had been an important part of his life, he had cared about her, but she had been just someone he had sex with. Even then, when he knew he loved her, he couldn't bring himself to say it. Nor had Marcy ever said anything. He wondered if she loved him. She was, after all, a slave. Had she simply been performing what she felt to be her duty toward her master? Had she done so cynically, to gain privileges? He had thought about that often on those lonely nights in the following months, when there had been too much time to ask himself too many questions. Why had he never told her he loved her? Did she love him? And most importantly -- even if their love was real and mutual, what could they ever do about it? It wasn't simply that he was white and she black, nor that he was her master and she his slave. Though either of those obstacles was on its own insurmountable. Beyond that, though, he was John Archer Richards -- his father Georgia's Senator at the time he died. His grandfather, John Archer, had been Senator and before that Governor. At nineteen John had been elected an officer when the Fourth Georgia Volunteer Cavalry had been assembled. How could such a person love a slave, he asked himself. He had wrestled with the question alone -- whom could he talk with about such a thing? Many times in those months after he had returned to the Fourth he had gone into Charleston with other young officers to find release from the questions among the ladies at fashionable (and, sometimes, unfashionable) brothels. He had put his cock into the cunts and asses and mouths of women white and black and every shade in between. Many of them were beautiful, all of them willing, but none could satisfy him as Marcy had. Once he had found, in one of the town's most exclusive houses, a beautiful young girl with the same smooth cafe au lait skin and much the same slender, sensuous build as Marcy, and he had thought to himself that here he could rid himself of his foolish obsession. Now, he told himself, he could prove that Marcy, like this girl, was nothing more than just another attractive mulatto who fucked exceptionally well. He had sat for a few moments with the madam, a still-beautiful if well-worn courtesan who had known his father, though she was too discreet to reveal the context, and they had discussed, as though in a parlor in any nice house in the town, the day's events. After a polite interval, she mentioned that she had a couple new "boarders" since his last visit, giving a pull on a tasseled bell-cord, and then asking the maid who answered to send in Marie and Fancy. The madam saw his eyes light up when he saw Marie and she quickly dismissed Fancy. Marie wore a risque version of a standard plantation belle's dress, a dress much like those John's sister often wore to parties, except with a deeply scooped neckline that showed the graceful curve of her neck and much of her breasts. At the madam's suggestion, the girl sat next to him. She allowed her knee to touch his lightly, and leaned ever so slightly toward him to afford a still better view of her breasts. "Marie is just eighteen," the madam said, "but she's very experienced and very skilled. She was in one of the best houses in New Orleans when she was just fourteen -- before the yankees came there, of course. All the gentlemen who visit here say she's one of the most pleasing of our ladies." Marie smiled prettily and placed a soft and tiny hand on his knee, while the madam asked if John would like to have a drink. A moment later, the maid appeared again, with three glasses and a bottle of good Cuban rum, brought through the blockade at great risk and offered here at even greater cost. While toasts were offered all around, to each other and to the Cause, Marie had pulled closer to John, until her arms were around his neck and her head on his shoulder. Then she had looked up invitingly into his eyes and suggested softly that perhaps they might finish the bottle in greater comfort in the privacy of her room. Once in the room, Marie had turned and looked questioningly at him -- did he want her now, her eyes asked, or did he want to drink and talk a bit more first? Weeks with no release except what his hand could provide -- and little of that, given the lack of privacy -- combined with the impetus of her resemblance to Marcy to rule out further conversation. Almost as soon as she looked at him, John had grabbed Marie and pulled her tightly to him, kissing her hungrily and grabbing at her breasts. Marie, having had her share of experiences with young soldiers, and not wanting another dress ripped, danced away after a second, turning from John and asking flirtatiously, "Captain, can you help me with my dress?" John clumsily unbuttoned the girl's dress, then she turned around to face him and tantalizingly lowered the bodice, revealing two perfectly-formed tan hillocks, sticking straight out from her chest, each topped with a small chocolate aureole and a tiny nipple just becoming erect. As John's eyes widened appreciatively at the sight, Marie smiled with the assurance of a performer who has delivered a line and received the anticipated response. As he moved toward her, she said, "That isn't all, Captain," and smiled again as she lowered the dress past her hips and then dropped it to the floor. "It's all yours, Captain -- all yours, all night, to do with as you please." John came to her and took her in his arms, feeling her firm young breasts as she turned her open mouth up to receive his kiss. His mouth attacked hers eagerly, his tongue spearing between her lips. She sucked it into her mouth, while her hands were busily undressing him. When his tunic was off, she dropped to her knees before him, pulling down his pants and taking his already hard cock into both her hands. She smiled up at him. "It's a big one," she said happily, telling him the lie every man loves to hear. "I'm going to have fun tonight." She licked it up one side and down the other, smiling up at John, then put it in her mouth and began to bob her head up and down, taking it deep into her. She was, as the madam had said, skilled. She sucked hard, wrapping her tongue around his cock and swirling it caressingly, then bobbing her head, pulling his cock far into her, always looking up at him. Finally, she took both his hands in hers, and placed them at the back of her head, urging him with a motion to fuck her face. He complied, pulling her head toward himself as his hips pushed his cock into her, then easing her head backward so he could do it again. Meanwhile she sucked as well as she could while his cock drove into her throat. She had timed things well; he could last only a few strokes before he felt his time coming. He pushed his cock as far as he could into her, pulling her face hard into his belly as he shot his sperm into her throat. Thorough professional that she was, Marie swallowed his sperm, choking only slightly on the invasion of her throat. As he stiffened, relaxed, and then stumbled backward against the bed, Marie held his cock in her mouth, licking it clean. Then as he lay back on the bed, momentarily quiet, she pulled his pants off the rest of the way, and cooed at him, "That's the way to do it, Captain. I like a man who knows how to really give it to a girl." John relaxed for only a few seconds, as the girl began kissing his neck and chest, licking at his ears, kissing again down his neck, sucking his nipples, then kissing down his belly. Again she took his cock in her mouth, this time accompanying it with a finger in his ass. John thought briefly of letting her just suck him off again and again through the night, but such passivity wasn't in keeping with his mood this evening. He lifted the girl off his cock and pushed her down on the bed, grabbing her breasts with both hands and squeezing, then putting one breast in his mouth and sucking as hard as he could on the small nipple. "Ooh yes, Captain," the girl crooned. "You're hot for little Marie, aren't you?" He didn't pause to respond as he continued squeezing and sucking her breasts, then plunged a finger boldly into her vagina. She grunted at his roughness, but then began moving her hips in time with the sawing motion of his finger. "You want to fuck me hard, don't you?" He answered with another finger, then a third, driving them in and out as she thrust her hips back up at them. "Well, that's what I'm here for, Captain. I'm here for you to fuck -- as hard as you want." With that invitation, John climbed between her legs and pushed his cock into the young whore's cunt. She adjusted her hips with a practiced motion to let him glide smoothly in. From the first moment he pounded into her with all his strength. She took the blow and then put her arms around him. "That's the way -- take me hard. Little Marie likes to be fucked hard." As he drove into her again and again, she kept calling for more. The harder he slammed into her, the harder she wanted it. This bore no resemblance to lovemaking, it was simply rutting. He pounded his cock into her, heedless of her desires, uninterested in her pleasure, until his seed roiled up inside him and he spewed it into her. But, though Marie was indeed beautiful, perhaps even more so than Marcy, and though she fucked skillfully and with every appearance of passion, and though he shot into her so often that she seemed finally to be leaking sperm from every orifice, and though she willingly spread open whatever hole he demanded -- still, when morning came and he left her, Marcy continued her hold on his mind. And that hold was still there now as he dragged himself wearily up the steps to the front door of the big house, Someone must have seen him coming, because the door opened suddenly, just as he stepped onto the wide veranda, and his sister Eliza rushed forward to throw herself onto him. Had the tiny girl been any larger, she probably would have knocked him down the steps. His sister held him close, crying with joy, finally gasping out, "Omygod, they told us you were dead!" He cried too, in the happiness of being home and seeing that his sister was safe. The two embraced tightly for a long time, mumbling incoherently their joy at seeing each other again. Eventually, when their initial wonder was over, and the chilly evening forced them into the parlor, Eliza explained her first words to him. Neighbors serving in the Fourth had passed through the county months before, she told him, and they had told her that John had been terribly wounded and that the last they had known of him he had been in a hospital in Atlanta as the city fell. The implication was obvious, though unstated -- he was either dead or in a Yankee prison, which might be worse. John had dozens of questions he wanted to ask, but fatigue washed over him. It was wonderful just to sit in a comfortable chair; the questions could wait another day. Except one -- there was one question he had to ask immediately, though he didn't know how to phrase it. "Where is... everybody?" he asked haltingly. A small, sardonic smile danced across Eliza's doll-like face. "Most of the slaves are gone," she answered. "It seems like one or two slip away every night lately." She shrugged. "But soon I guess the Yankees will be here and it won't matter anymore." Then her composure broke down. "Oh, John, I've been so frightened," she cried. "The yankees scare me -- I've heard about the things they do." She rushed over to his chair and sat in his lap, holding him tight. "Thank god you're home." He held her and comforted her as best he could. When her tears had subsided, she drew away from him, though still sitting on his lap. She tried to laugh and said lightly, "I'm sorry -- I'm so silly sometimes. I know everything will be okay." She looked up over her brother's shoulder. "Marcy's still with us," she said brightly, standing up, "and Micah." He lurched to his feet and turned, and there she was, as beautiful as ever, standing quietly and politely, as a good servant should, waiting to be spoken to. He stepped toward her, wanting to take her in his arms, then realized that he couldn't while his sister was present. Eliza said simply, "Marcy, the master is home -- isn't that wonderful?" Marcy politely murmured her pleasure. "I know you're tired, John," his sister went on, "so perhaps Marcy can help you up to your room." She kissed him again. "We have so much to talk about tomorrow." When he and Marcy had ascended the long staircase and entered the master's chambers directly at their head, Marcy closed the door carefully behind them, with just a glance back at the young woman watching them from the hall below. Then John took her in his arms and kissed her deeply. "My god, I've missed you, Marcy," was all he could say. "I've missed you," the slave responded quietly. Then, when they had held each other a long time, she said, "You need a bath." "Do I smell that bad?" he asked, laughing. After she had nodded with a smile, he said, "I stopped noticing a long time ago." He pulled off the ragged tunic that once had been handsome, resplendent with brass buttons. She came close again and hugged him. "I need a bath, I need to sleep," he said, caressing her. "Most of all, I need you." They kissed again and again, slowly making their way to the big bed. When at last they were there, Marcy slowly lowered herself into its softness, bringing her master down atop her. There he kissed her tenderly, rolling over so she was on top of him as he cuddled her in his arms. Despite the strength of his passion, however, fatigue and the first soft bed in months overwhelmed it, and as he held her, he drifted into sleep. When she felt his arms go limp, Marcy remained still for a few moments, not wanting to wake him. Badly as she wanted to feel him inside her again, it had not been hard to see that he was on the edge of collapse. She looked into his face, not fully peaceful even in sleep. When at last she felt it safe to move, she arose, then removed his filthy clothes, with just a longing glance at the dormant cock she wanted so much, and covered the sleeping soldier. Then she slipped quietly from the room, to let Eliza know that he was sleeping and to discuss what they would tell him on the morrow. John slept far into the next afternoon, his sister or Marcy looking in regularly to see if he was waking. When at last Marcy saw him begin to stir, she closed the door quietly behind herself, removed her dress, and crept across the room and into the bed beside him. Her movements didn't waken him, though he stirred again. She paused a moment to let him quiet down, then she moved closer to him, gently pulling the covers down to expose his body -- now lean and hard from living a lean and hard life. She touched the wound on his arm, looking at it carefully to reassure herself that it was healed properly. At last Marcy began caressing his chest and stomach, then gently took hold of his cock. She saw a smile spread across his lips and she felt the penis hardening almost as soon as she touched it. She held it just a moment before bending over and reaching her tongue out to softly lick its head. John awoke slowly, thinking at first that he was dreaming. He was in camp, sleeping on the hard ground, when Marcy pulled aside the flap of his tent and lay beside him. He had thought this a perfectly ordinary thing to happen, and had smiled with pleasure as she took his cock in her mouth. Marcy saw the smile of pleasure, and then the surprise followed by a bigger smile as his eyes opened and he realized that it wasn't a dream. She took her lips from his cock just long enough to smile at him and offer a brief "Good morning." He replied, "Very good," then leaned back against the pillow to close his eyes and concentrate on the suction on his cock and the waves of pleasure it was sending through his body. As her head bobbed up and down, her hands were equally busy, caressing his stomach and chest, diving under him to knead his buttocks, and finally to flicker at the entrance to his ass. After months of deprivation, however, it took little to send John over the edge, and it was only moments after he awoke that his cock twitched in Marcy's mouth and shot hot jets of sperm into her throat. She swallowed the sperm greedily, then continued sucking and licking gently until his cock began to soften. John pulled his beautiful slave up close to him on the pillow. They kissed long and hard, and he could taste himself on her lips. As he caressed her soft body, he thought of the hundreds of nights he had dreamed, awake and asleep, of her. How he had imagined the soft curves of her hips, the swelling of her breasts, and most of all the warmth and wetness of her pussy. He had imagined how she'd hold him, how she would gently urge him to take her, and though she was doing those things now, it was a thousand times better than the dreams. He had just come powerfully in her mouth, but the accumulated lust of months made him hard again almost immediately. As she his cock harden, she rolled over on her back, her legs spread open and she said, "I've waited too long for this." He entered her. The lovemaking began slowly, with mutual kisses, hugs, and caresses. He felt her small, hard breasts and rolled her nipples between his fingers. He ran his hands down her sides and on to her back. He felt her hips and let his hands rest there, feeling her strong muscles as her hips flexed to fuck him. She was equally busy, rubbing her hands on his chest and around to his back, feeling his powerful muscles and glorying in them, then at last moving her hands down to his buttocks to tell him it was time for more. John hardly needed urging. He could feel her hunger in the thrusts of her hips, and he responded in kind. His strokes became stronger, faster, more urgent, as the wonderful feeling of her hot, wet cunt worked on his cock and on his brain. The tightness of her sheath sucked him deep into her on her upstrokes and reluctantly released him as they pulled away from each other. Again and again they pounded at each other, their hunger driving them on. Again and again John slammed down into Marcy's open vagina, and each time she slammed her hips back up at him. The gentleness with which they had begun was forgotten -- now lust drove them on. Marcy gulped and gasped for air, making squeaking sounds of passion as her arms and legs locked around him and he responded with ever-stronger thrusts. Such a pace could not be kept up for long, and soon Marcy's release washed over her, as a cry of joy welled out of her. Another couple strokes, a grunt of relief, and John stiffened as his seed shot into her. Then they collapsed and were still. When they had both recovered, he lay beside her and slowly gathered the courage to say what he had wanted to tell her for so long. Finally it came out: "I love you, Marcy." Her response was perhaps not what a man expects at such a moment. She laughed. She laughed with pleasure at finally hearing the words, and at the trepidation with which he uttered them. "I love you, too, John," she replied, stumbling over his name, which she had never used before in speaking to him. Then they both laughed at their own awkwardness, and at the joy of their discovery. They laughed and embraced, and then the embrace turned into slow, sensuous love that ended not with momentous orgasms, but with mutual sighs of satisfaction. In fact, it didn't really end -- it simply melded into another session of caresses and kisses. When at last this slowed, and the lovers lay side by side, still gently touching as though to assure themselves that the moment was real, they began to talk. So much had gone unsaid between them, there had been so many questions that couldn't be asked, that neither of them knew where to begin. As often happens in these moments, when love is first discovered, much of the conversation consisted of repeating "I love you" over and over. At last John began to tell the story of his love, how he had discovered after his illness that he loved her, but couldn't tell her. "I don't know how long it's really been," he concluded, "but that's when I first began to admit it to myself." "I've loved you since we were little kids," Marcy answered. "I can't remember when I didn't love you. I was so scared that first time I got in bed with you..." Her voice trailed off in reverie. At John's wondering look, she laughed. "I was afraid you'd kick me out." It was John's turn then to laugh. "Not much chance of that." She leaned forward and kissed him lightly on the lips. "I remember it so well," she said, "I kissed you just like that. Then I put my hand down there," she touched his cock, stroking it gently, though it was now temporarily unable to respond, "and then I put it in me -- it hurt a little, but I wanted you so bad, I didn't care." "Why then?" he asked. "Because you were hurt," she answered. "I knew you needed me," she smiled, "even if you didn't know it yet. We were both hurting," she added. "Because my father had died?" John asked. Marcy nodded, then started to say something, but cut herself off. "Yes," was all she said. Then John touched on the subject that both of them feared. "What do we do now?" he asked. "We can't marry, we can't even live together openly. I don't want you to have to hide." "After the war..." Marcie began, then stopped. "No, it won't change," John answered. "The laws may change, but people won't. The war may make it worse -- people will go on hating for a long time because there's been so much pain." Eventually, having no answers, but not really caring in the glow of their now acknowledged love, they separated, when Marcy reminded him that he needed to talk with Eliza, and he remembered he was hungry. After washing weeks of dirt away, John descended the staircase to the dining room, where Eliza awaited him with his meal. "We have breakfast for you," she smiled when he entered the room, "even though we're getting closer to dinner time." He didn't care what the meal might be called. He sat eagerly at the place that had been set at the head of the long table. Eliza sat at his side, sipping a cup of herb tea. The meal was less lavish than the breakfasts John remembered. Just bacon and eggs with ersatz coffee. At least the eggs were cooked right, he thought gratefully -- apparently the old cook had not yet left. He tried not to show his surprise at the fare -- certainly it was more and better than he had been eating in recent months. Nonetheless, anyone who has been away, John had thought that things would be unchanged at home, and when he had thought of being home, one of the thoughts -- the most important other than Marcy and Eliza -- was of the delicious and abundant food. The disappointment apparently showed on his face. "I'm sorry," Eliza said sadly. "It's all we have." He tried to cover up with a smile. "That's all right, it beats johnnycake." "John, I've got to tell you," Eliza began, very intensely, "I told you last night we needed to talk. This is one of the things -- not the most important thing, but..." Her voice trailed off as John waited. He waited a long time, as Eliza tried to find a way to tell her story. Finally, she blurted out, "Oh, Johnny, I've done such a bad job!" Then she burst into tears. John pushed back his chair and put out his hand, as Eliza again sat in his lap. They had done this so many times as they grew up, her big brother/hero comforting her through broken toys and hurt feelings and scraped knees. They had relied on each other for love and comfort -- their mother too often ill, their father too often absent. "What's the problem, Lizzie?" he asked, reverting, as she had, to their childhood names. "We're poor," she sobbed. "I've spent all our money!" He held her tight and comforted her, smiling slightly. "Everybody's poor now, little one." She laughed at the name he had used so long ago, then leaned her head against his shoulder, snuggling in the comfort of her brother's arms. All these months, she thought, this is what I've needed. She just wanted her brother to take all the weight off her. Finally, she regained control of herself and resumed her story. "Everything's so expensive now," she said, "and we can't sell most of our crops any more, because of the blockade." John nodded. "We completely ran out of money about six months ago. I'm sorry, Johnny, I tried to run things well, but I didn't do it right." Before she could begin crying again, John touched her lip and said, "Nobody ever taught you. Whoever thought you'd be running a plantation? Besides, the high prices and the blockade are something nobody could do anything about. If I'd been here running things, we'd be just as broke." She smiled. She'd thought she'd been doing wise things, but the money just kept going out, with nothing coming in -- it was good her brother understood. "I went to Mr. Clifford at the bank, but he said you'd borrowed against the plantation before the war..." She looked questioningly at him, but he just nodded. She went on, "... so he said he wouldn't loan me anything because what you borrowed was more than the plantation is worth now." John nodded again -- he guessed what was coming next, and confirmed it with a glance around the room. Eliza followed his eyes. "I started selling the furniture then -- I didn't want to, but there was no choice." He looked around the room again. When first he had entered the room, he had thought his memory was playing tricks, because the dining room seemed bigger than he remembered it. Now he realized that it wasn't bigger, it was just emptier. He shrugged. "Everybody in the South is selling furniture, it seems." He mused, "I wonder who's buying it?" Eliza smiled. She'd been so frightened about telling John this, but he didn't seem to care. "The people we were saying were unpatriotic at the start of the war. The ones who kept their yankee money or gold instead of turning it into Confederate money." She laughed -- a short, bitter laugh. "I wish we'd done the same." John smiled at her. "At first I got some good prices," she continued, "but then, because everybody was selling, I couldn't sell most of the rest. That was when..." Her pause indicated that worse was to come, but again her brother had anticipated her. "You know, little one, I was offended when I sat down here just now." He picked up a knife. "I was thinking that my return was an occasion that justified using the good silver." "Oh Johnny," she sighed. "It was Mama's pride." "She'd be prouder of you," he said soothingly. "It sounds like you did the things you needed to do, even things that were hard." He smiled at her. "I'm proud of you." "And," he added, "I want you to stop worrying." "I'm not worried -- too much," she amended. "I hoped you'd be able to solve it." He smiled at her naïve faith in him. I wish I were as smart as you think I am," he laughed. "But actually, you should thank Father." At her quizzical expression, he went on. "You said a minute ago that it was unpatriotic to save gold." He laughed. "I thought so too, but I did it anyway because Father told me to." "Before he died," John went on, "about six months before, Father and I were talking, and he said he was afraid there might be war." John snorted. "Afraid? -- I was hoping there'd be war. I was all full of how brave I'd be and the medals I'd win." He shook his head sadly. "Anyway, he said if there was a war, he'd get as much cash as he could and he'd either deposit it outside the country or buy gold. Then he made me promise to do the same." "Why did he say that?" Eliza asked. "He said we'd lose. He said the yankees had all the factories, and all the railroads, and a lot more people." John looked up at the ceiling, as though to aid his memory. "I got angry with him for talking like that. I said the things we were all saying back then -- we used to think none of the other stuff mattered because we were braver and smarter and we were right." He laughed. "Well, I don't know about the brave and smart and right," he paused and added, almost to himself, "I really don't know." He paused, lost in thought, then went on, "But I know that there are a lot of them and not enough of us, and they have better guns and more guns, and they have shoes and we're mostly barefoot, and they have food and we're hungry. Being brave and smart and right doesn't matter much, does it?" Eliza shook her head sadly. "Father knew, didn't he? What did he say then?" John blushed at the memory. "You know the sort of thing he'd say. He just laughed and said, 'You're a young fool, but that's okay. Young men need to be fools.'" "He was right, both about the war and about me being a fool." Eliza shushed him with a finger on his lips. "You're not a fool -- I'm very proud of my brave brother the..." She paused and laughed. "What are you, a major? A colonel?" "Major," he replied. "Anyway, luckily I listened to him, and when Lincoln was elected, I remembered what he'd said. I took a big loan on the plantation, even before the election. Clifford thought I was an idiot. I sold the house in the city, and I sold everything else I could." Eliza looked at him wonderingly. "Most of it's in a bank in Bermuda, some's in gold here." He smiled at her. "We're definitely not poor. I'm just sorry I didn't tell you about it. The last time I was here, things were doing all right; I didn't even think about it. More recently, I thought you might need the money, but I didn't think it was safe to send you a letter telling about hidden gold." Eliza was too relieved to be angry that he hadn't confided in her. "You mean everything's going to be okay?" John shrugged. "If you say it's okay to lose a war and have our entire way of life destroyed -- yes." "Where'd you hide it?" "In the smuggler's hole." They laughed together. Like many families in coastal areas during the colonial era, the Richards had engaged in some free-lance smuggling, using a tunnel from their basement to the river that ran in front of the house. Many homes from that time had such features. Though the tunnel had decades earlier collapsed at the river end, there still was a hidden door in the basement, leading to a cave-like enclosure where John and Eliza had played with Marcy and Micah and other children. Eliza was delighted that John had chosen it as a hiding place. She hugged him close. "I knew everything would be okay when you got here." "Has it been bad?" he asked. "Have you been hungry?" She considered. "It's been scary," she said. "I worried a lot. But we haven't been hungry. Micah suggested this spring that we stop raising cotton, since we can't sell it anyway, so we planted almost all the fields in food -- so we've had enough for ourselves, and some to trade." "Good for Micah," John said. "That was a good idea." Eliza smiled happily at John when he said this, then paused, the smile fading into apprehension. "That brings up another subject," she began tentatively. John looked at her curiously. Eliza paused for a long time, then apparently decided to plunge in. Determined, she said, "I love Micah." Seeing the look of horror on John's face, Eliza stood up and backed away from him. "I love him," she said again, uncertainly. "Impossible," John said. "You're a child -- you don't know what love is. You haven't... ?" A look of even greater horror came across his face. Eliza paused, undecided whether to tell the truth, then nodded. "I love him," she repeated doggedly. John's reaction perhaps might seem priggish and hypocritical to people of another age. Like all of us though, he was a product of his time and of his place. As such, he asked himself, then roared out, the questions any such man would ask. How could his sister, a mere child, do such things? How could a woman of breeding, a Richards... ? He stopped, unable to go on. "Get your things packed!" he shouted. "You'll have to go to your aunts'." Then he softened -- he loved Eliza too much to stay angry at her, even in these circumstances, and he recognized his own mistakes as well. "It's my fault," he said. "I shouldn't have left a young girl unsupervised. I should have sent you there when Mother died." But Eliza didn't go. Though frightened at her brother's explosion, she had remained surprisingly calm through his tirade. Now he saw that she was looking over his shoulder. When he turned to follow her eyes, he saw Marcy. He blushed slightly as he realized that the woman he loved had been listening to him. He stammered. "It's different," he said finally. "She's... my sister." Marcy merely looked at him calmly, smiling slightly at his words. His resolve strengthened as he spoke, though. "I'm sorry, Marcy," he said, politely but firmly. "This is an issue between my sister and me." Marcy spoke softly. "I'm more involved than you think." Then Eliza spoke. "Marcy is your sister, too." John, about to speak, stopped and stood totally still, his lips locked as they were, just beginning to open. He stayed like this for some time before managing to utter a one-word question: "What?" "Your father was also my father," answered Marcy, placing the explanation in the simplest possible terms. John never, after his original shock, doubted the truth of these words. There was no proof -- the only people who knew the truth were dead. Perhaps it was because his trust in Marcy was so complete that he couldn't conceive of her lying. Perhaps also it was because he saw the small, almost imperceptible likenesses -- especially between Marcy and Eliza, and between himself and Micah. Perhaps it was because he had found at last the explanation for the perfect unity of spirit he had felt with Marcy for so long. Marcy had proceeded to outline the facts, speaking slowly, almost matter-of-factly. Explaining that her mother had become Senator Richards' mistress in her early twenties, not long after her husband died. She bore the Senator three children, Marcy, Micah, and their younger sister Minerva. John recalled their mother, though he had been young when she died, giving birth to Minerva, as a very beautiful woman. He said so. Marcy inclined her head, acknowledging the comment, before going on. She addressed the question that had immediately occurred to John -- the one he was afraid to ask: Why hadn't his father freed them? "He was afraid that if he freed us, your mother would figure out why, and he didn't want to hurt her. He always said that she would die long before him..." John nodded. His mother had always had poor health, perhaps part of the reason why his father had sought sexual pleasures elsewhere. Marcy was going on, "... and that we would be free then, and he'd send us north and help us get started in a business. But..." she shrugged and smiled sadly. Yes, John thought. But. But his father (their father, he corrected himself) had died at the same time as his wife, within hours. And the promises and plans and good intentions had come to naught. He turned to Eliza. "You knew this?" he said, part question, part statement. "Not at first," she replied, after a pause. "Marcy told me after Micah... after we..." She stopped. "It's wrong," John said simply. "Is it?" asked Marcy. "She loves him, just as you and I love each other." He sank back in his chair. "How can it be wrong then?" she went on. "John," she said -- the use of his first name still sounding strange to both of them, "there's something I never told you -- might never have told you if this hadn't happened." She paused and collected her thoughts. "When you were so sick, in the fever, I sat by your bed..." She waved away the gratitude John began to express. "You talked a lot then -- things I'm sure you don't remember." She paused to look at him. He nodded, puzzled -- he remembered nothing of those days. She resumed. "Sometimes you talked about how much you loved me," she smiled her pleasure at the memory. "But often," she added, "you talked about how you loved Eliza." John looked at her wonderingly. "Well, of course..." he began. But Marcy shook her head. "You talked of her as a lover -- or as someone who wanted to be her lover." Eliza seemed as surprised as John at this statement. As John turned, embarrassed, to look at her, he saw that this was something that she and Marcy hadn't discussed. Marcy smiled. "The way you talked then, makes me wonder if it isn't jealousy that makes you so upset now." Then she took a couple steps toward him, taking his hand to bring him to his feet and holding him close as she said, "Don't worry, I've never been jealous that you love my sister." She kissed him tenderly. When they separated, however, John didn't know what to say or do. First he reached to Marcy to embrace her again, then he turned to look at Eliza, seeing that she was as confused as he. Paralyzed by indecision, he stood still for several seconds, then turned and walked out into the cool day. Eliza tried to follow him, but Marcy stopped her. He walked aimlessly about the fields, barren now after the harvest. Barren probably for some time to come, he thought as the outside world briefly intruded in his thoughts. He tried to distract himself by concentrating on business issues, seeing now the disrepair that had escaped him the night before. But distractions didn't work -- falling fences were of little interest to him. He returned quickly to the chaos of his feelings. He knew he couldn't give up Marcy, but that meant dealing with the knowledge that she was his sister. Which meant that Micah, who was Eliza's lover, was his brother. How could he have a black brother and sister? For years now he had been struggling to cope with being in love with a slave -- and now, just as he had felt he was learning to live with that fact, he found that she was his sister. And what of Marcy's statement that he loved Eliza? His head swam in confusion as he leaned against a small brick building, a slave's cabin -- now deserted. Of course he loved her, he argued to himself. She was his little sister; he had protected her and coddled her for years. But, he realized, Marcy's words had stung him so strongly precisely because he had known that there was truth in them. Yes, he had protected his sister. But the protectiveness had grown into love, and as her beauty had grown with the approach of maturity, so had his feelings. He had never admitted it to himself, but now that the words had been spoken, the truth crushed in upon him. He pondered without reaching any conclusions until, glancing across a field, he saw a tall, thin figure striding toward the house. He recognized the walk, and the ramrod straight figure, as Micah. Marcy's brother. His brother. Eliza's lover. He walked to the house. Marcy was waiting for him as he entered. He uttered the one-word question, "Eliza?" and she answered also with one word, "Upstairs." He knocked briefly on her bedroom door, but didn't wait for permission before opening it. He saw his sister lying on her bed, her face streaked with tears. With two long strides he was beside her, cradling her in his arms as he'd done so often, and kissing her temple tenderly. "We'll have to move away," he said. "We can't stay here." She looked at him quizzically. Then, realizing what he was saying, she held him tightly, sobbing now with joy and relief. "Maybe Bermuda, but I don't know if that would be any better. Haiti, perhaps, or Brazil. There has to be someplace." She kissed him. "I don't care where," she said. "Just so we can all be together." She kissed him again, now deeper. "I've always loved you, Johnny, but I didn't know until today that you loved me the same way." Her hand, at first caressing his chest, began to move downward. "Marcy says she and Micah don't mind..." ------- The End ------- Posted: 1999-10-30 ------- http://storiesonline.net/ -------