Herstories Ch 01 1940S Iowa

My intent with these is to write some stories in historical time periods. Obviously, time will tell if I manage it, so wish me luck. I apologize that I haven't done a lot of research for this, but hey, you're not paying for this, are you. Anyway, I hope you enjoy! -Tricia

I am looking for a proofreader or two. If you're interested, please send me a note. -Tricia

*****

It had been hot as Hades today at the factory and it had been a relief to be able to change into my cotton skirt and linen blouse to go to the Friday night dance. When I picked up my friend Ellie in the DeSoto, I was impressed. She'd looked like a wilted flower in her overalls and limp hair at the end of the work day. Now, only an hour later, in her very-short-sleeved flowered dress, her blonde curls once again in their normal place, her make up perfect, she'd been transformed.

Myself, I eschewed make up for the dance. I mean what was the point? We were all women there.

Thank God that the heat was fading as the sun began to slide down on this July night. Like all the girls in town, I'd been looking forward to the Friday dance night. Even if, with all the able-bodied men between 18 and 40 were off fighting the war, it was just us girls. It was a time to let our hair down, forget about the fighter planes we built in the factory, forget about missing our men, and just dance.

Ellie's husband was on a destroyer in the Pacific. Mine was working supply for the Army in Italy. The daily worry about their safety was twinned with the daily desire for their hard bodies in our beds. It wasn't fair that just as we'd had the chance to experience the joys of physical love after our recent marriages, they were shipped off and we might never see them again.

Ellie and I gossiped, of course, about those women who weren't waiting. Those who were sleeping with the older men (or the younger boys), or those men who didn't qualify for the Army or Navy. We got alternatively embarrassed or silly about what we'd heard, but neither of us were tempted. (At least that's what I told Ellie. I'd had some feelings toward Mr. Hooper from church, but he was married and I wasn't going to go for that.)

Anyway, it was Friday and it was dance night and there was a band this week and there'd even be beer and wine. All the young women in town would dance away the week's frustrations even if we only had each other to dance with.

When this tradition started, Ellie and I always went, but we would dance with just about anyone. Everyone did. It didn't see right to play favorites. But after time, some women became more comfortable with one or two others, especially when they played the slow dances. Ellie and I were like that; we'd been friends so long and we were just so much more comfortable with each other. And truly, I felt totally comfortable dancing up close to Ellie and feeling her body against mine when they played the ballads. Heck, even on hot nights like tonight, I didn't even mind pressing up against her sweaty softness. I'd be hard pressed to do that with, say, Mary Sue Walker.

It was half-passed ten when the music ended and we spent some time saying good bye to each other and cleaning up the Grange hall. Ellie and I walked out to my car and she was holding my hand and walking close by. But that had never been unusual between us. She slid into her side of the car and then slid across the bench seat and leaned against me. "That was nice, tonight, Donna," she sighed. "I liked that band. What was that song they played? 'I Wish I Didn't Love You So'? That was so easy to dance to."

"I liked that too. But did you see the way Beatrice was spending so much time with Donnie Ledbetter?"

"The guy with the short leg?"

"Yeah, him. And I saw them leaving together."

"Oh my. Well, we all have to get through this war any way we can," she said. "I don't want to judge." We spent the next 15 minutes chatting away about the other women we'd seen and the music, until I pulled up in front of her house. "Goodnight, Ellie. I'll see you in church on Sunday."

Ellie sighed and scooted across the bench, but then she suddenly turned, got up on and knees on the seat and turned back to me. I saw there were tears in her eyes. "What's wrong, Ellie?"

"I wish I didn't love you so," she said and then before I could react to that, her face was in front of mine and she was kissing me. Not like women kiss each other when they meet downtown. But the way Frank kissed me when we were alone and feeling romantic.

And what was weird was I was kissing her back the same way. Our mouths opened up. Our tongues found their ways in to each other; they twined around each other like slithering snakes. My breath caught. I was feeling suddenly very warm. Sticky in a way that had nothing to do with the heat that was now quite faded. I was enjoying this.

But it was wrong. At least that's what my brain was telling me. I pushed her away. "Ellie, we can't." She fell back on her heels and looked at me. I saw my lipstick mixed with hers on her lips. No doubt she saw the same. She opened her mouth to say something, then her tears came again. She turned and opened her door. "I'm sorry, Donna." And she ran into her house, letting the door swing closed behind her.

I just sat there for a minute, all too aware of how my body had reacted. And knowing that my best friend in all the world was in her house, alone, crying. I sighed, turned off the engine and got out of the car. I felt so alert, alive, my body was singing. I felt shamed because I knew my nipples were hard and my lady parts were damp in my panties.

Ellie didn't lock her door. No one did around here. I let myself in and not seeing her downstairs went up to her and Steve's bedroom, guided by the hallway light. She had thrown off her dress (it was on the floor) and lying on her face on the bed. Her half-slip was all askew and her arm was under her. Even in the half light, I couldn't help but see her hand inside of her panties, touching herself.

"Ellie," I said gently, needing to talk but knowing I would embarrass her.

She turned over so fast, rearranging herself, trying to pretend nothing was happening. Her arm covered her naked breasts. (Oh! There was her bra, on the other side of the bed.) "Oh, God! Donna? What are you...? I was just... I thought you'd..."

"Don't worry, Ellie. I dare say if you walked into my bedroom at night, you'd have a fair chance of catching me touching myself too. Can I come in?"

"Um, I guess."

I crossed to the bed, kicked my heels off, then put one knee on the bed beside Ellie and sat down with my leg crossed under me. I took both her hands in mine (noting the dampness on her left hand), and looked her right in the eye. "I am so sorry, Ellie. I didn't mean to hurt you. You are my best friend in the world and I love you too."

"I...I...I'm sorry too, Donna. You don't need to be sorry. What I did was wrong and perverted and I never..."

"Hush, dear heart," I lifted her hands to my mouth and kissed each one, surprised at the pleasant scent on her left; why did it smell so good. "I don't think it was wrong or perverted. It was just a surprise, that's all."

"You don't think it was perverted?" she was clearly surprised about that.

"When I used to work at the library, I found this book hidden in the back about the history of, they called it Lesbianism, through the ages. it talked about the ancient Greek women who would pair with each other just like their men were pairing up. All the way to many of the suffragettes who were 'lesbians' or 'sapphists'. And in the 30s?"

"Where'd they get those names?"

"Apparently there was this famous woman poet named Sappho on a Greek island called Lesbos, who wrote about her love of other women. They didn't seem perverted. I saw one poem. It was beautiful."

"Oh," she said. She'd stopped crying now but her face was red and she looked so vulnerable with tears running down her face. "But you don't want that, so you said..."

"I said I was surprised. I came back because..." I leaned in toward her and, still holding her hands, licked a stream of tears from the right side of Ellie's face, "I couldn't leave you crying." I licked tear on the other side of her face. "And because of this." My mouth moved to hers and then we were kissing.

It was a long kiss. Or maybe it was many kisses following right after each other. But it was a kiss that was from the bottom of both our hearts, expressing the love we'd felt for each other since we'd first met and all the things we'd shared.

Like when she'd gotten her first monthly visitor and I had held her when she was crying; just like, 3 months later and I got mine. About the time she told me what a handie was, so I could do that to the Jason that I dated in High School to stop him from pressuring me to put out for him. Or how we'd been each other's maid of honor and helped each other figure out the ins and outs (no pun intended) of sex with our husbands. Or the time Ellie miscarried and how I comforted her through the month of the blues that followed. We loved each other. There was no denying it.

And it was so wonderful to kiss her like this. She smelled better than Frank did, for one thing, even with the sweat covering her body. And her lips were soft, and she seemed to like to kiss just because we were kissing. And frankly, I loved it when she put her tongue in my mouth and I captured it with my lips and she pulled it out again. And she loved it when I would lightly bite her lips, making small sounds in the back of her throat.

I didn't resist when she reached up and cupped my breast in one hand. It gave me leave to reach out and cup hers too. It was so soft and full and I found myself feeling electrified as I ran my fingers gently around it shape and over her stiff nipples.

She pushed me away and I suddenly thought I'd gone too far. But no, "It's not fair," she said reaching for the buttons on my blouse. "I want to touch your skin so much." So, there was an awkward moment while we struggled to get my blouse then brassiere off. But when they were off, Ellie pushed me back on the bed and leaned over me, taking one nipple in her mouth. I gasped with the pleasure of it. Frank had never done anything like that with me. Never. But this? This was bliss. Bliss with electric bolts of pleasure shooting out from my nipple.

She switched to the other breast after a while and the need was growing between my legs. A need so great, something I'd only experienced a few times with Frank. I found my legs spreading on their own. My hand on its own pulling up my skirt. My fingers of their own volition reaching under the waist band of my cotton panties. I needed. I needed so badly to touch myself.

But Ellie's mouth left my nipple and her face came to mine even as her hand caught mine at the waistband. "Let me, Donna, love. Let me."

Her hand slipped under my panties. I knew I was soaking wet down there. I was embarrassed that she was gonna feel that, even as the touch of her fingers on my mons felt so right. I grabbed her wrist. "No, Ellie, I'm all sloppy and gross right now."

"You could never be gross, my love," she whispered and began to kiss me again. I let go of her wrist and her fingers slid easily along my labia and then inside me. It wasn't just one finger either. There were at least two. Maybe three. And they were sliding in and out of me. In and out and I pulled my mouth away from Ellie's because I suddenly need to breathe. "Oh!" I said as she push more deeply in. "Oh! Yes! Oh Ellie. That feels so good! Oh Ellie!"

And then I was cuming, my thighs pulling together, my vagina locking hard on Ellie's fingers so much that I thought I was going to break them. A wave of bliss rode through me. It was so much stronger than it ever was when it was just me. So different from those couple of times when Frank's thrusts had given me an orgasm. "Oh God, Ellie. Ellie." I said when I could talk. "That was marvelous."

I started to rise from my back. Her fingers started touching the folds of skin just above my opening, making me shiver. "No, Donna, let me do it again." Oh how I wanted that. But I wanted more to let her feel it too.

"Later. It's your turn now." I more forcefully got up and she reluctantly took her fingers from my panties. I pushed her down on the bed but instead of going to suckle her beautiful breasts, I grabbed the waistband of her half slip. "I want to see all your skin," I said.

She giggled and said, "You little devil, Donna," as I started to pull down her slip and panties together. She raised her hips up off the bed and then she was beautifully naked in the moonlight and the light from the hall. "I alway thought that you were gorgeous, Ellie. But tonight I think you're a goddess." That brought more giggles. "Do you trust me, my love," I asked in a whisper.

"Of course," she said.

"Then let me try something I read about."

She bit her lower lip but whispered "yes." I pushed her knees apart and then her thighs, opening her to me, letting me see her like I'd never seen her before. Her sex glistened with her secretions. Her curly blonde hair barely covered the intriguing folds of her skin and the opening looked pinks and smooth and suddenly very enticing. I'd been taught and had believed up to this moment that our vaginas were gross and ugly. But now I thought just the opposite.

I dropped to my elbows between her thighs looking at her sex up close. I'd smelled her scent on her hands a little while ago, now I smelled it up close. I reached out with a finger to touch the swollen nubbin at the top of her opening. She shivered. "You're so beautiful," I said again.

"Isn't it gross?" she asked.

"Anything but," I said then leaned forward to taste her.

"What are you doing, Donna? What... That's wrong... You can't."

But she stopped when I started lapping at the pink skin inside of her. She moaned in pleasure as I licked one lip and then the other. I couldn't believe how much I was enjoying this. But I was. I pushed my tongue deeply into her and that's when she started swearing.

I'd never heard such language from Ellie before, but her uncontrolled words just encouraged me more. Of course, I won't repeat what she said, that'd be impolite but I'd say my vocabulary expanded as I thrust my tongue in and out of her. My face was covered in her vaginal juices by now and I found that sexy. I wanted so much to give her what she gave me. I remembered when I touched myself how good it felt to touch my, well I didn't know the word just then but I do now, my clitoris. So, now I took Ellie's in my mouth and suckled at it.

Now she was just repeatedly calling my name. "Donna! Donna! Oh Donna!"

Then suddenly she was spasming, pushing my face off her and twisting her limbs and making her call out "Ooooooh!" in one long, long syllable. For a moment I thought she had a seizure and I was scared. But her body calmed and from deep in her throat she said, "Oh goddamn, Donna. That was amazing." She rolled up on her shoulder, looking down at me. "Now let's get your skirt off so I can try that."

Much later, when we were still, cuddling each other, her wrapped in my arms and her back pressed into my front, I remembered something. "Oh, drat. I need to go let Jojo out. She's probably piddled on the floor."

"I don't want you to go," Ellie said, grabbing my hand as I tried to unwrap my arm from her. "I want you to stay her forever."

"Me too, love, but..."

"Can I come with you? I don't want to be alone tonight."

"Of course. You should probably bring a night gown."

"I don't want to wear a nightgown in bed with you," she said. "I want to feel you on my skin."

I could only smile. "Me too, Ellie. Me too."

We sat up. The room smelled of women. Sweat and perfume and vaginal juices and lust. And I loved it.

We got dressed (we later realized we'd swapped panties) and went down to the car hand in hand. I let my dog out and Ellie went up to my bed. She was naked when I came up the stairs.

I had thought we'd go to sleep at my house, but well, we didn't get much sleep that night.