My name is Peggy Larson, I am now an old lady and I have a story to tell.
One week recently, I had my great-granddaughter staying with me, I was obviously very protective of her. During her stay with me I was disappointed by her behaviour and attitude, especially when it came to how she was acting around the boys of the neighbourhood. It was when I tried to give her the benefit of my experience and tried to warn her of the dangers of becoming 'too familiar' with the local boys and lectured my granddaughter about her sexuality, that she said,
"Oh Gran, you don't know the first thing about it, you come from an age where no-one ever 'did it' and the only man you ever had was granddad."
After she had gone I sat and reminisced about my life,
"So I am an old woman who did nothing and knows nothing huh."
It was the 1950's and we lived in Backwoods Hicksville, a community made up of several farms and homesteads in the south. I was a simple backwoods girl from a remote farming community and I had fallen for a young boy who lived on a run-down farm miles from anywhere. We had attended the one room school house together and were probably destined to marry due to lack of other choices. Billy's family was once thriving on their smallholding but when his Ma died bringing my future husband into the world, it meant that his Pa had had to raise him and his two elder brothers on his own. His Pa had done a mighty fine job with the three boys having to be both mother and father, whilst pretty much detached from mainstream life.
Cutting a long family history lecture short, Billy and I decided to marry and there was never even the slightest suggestion that I could, or would, have any other choice but to join his family and become the woman of the house.
On turning eighteen, we were married one morning by the pastor in the small town and a very small reception was held in the village hall, before it was time to leave the bosom of my family and become part of his.
The day was wonderful and I quickly set about getting myself settled in to my new life.
It was only hours into my married life, that the world as I assumed it to be, changed.
Pa had taken Billy out into the barn and shocked him to the core.
"Now listen here boy, Pa started, it aint fair that you get to have a woman all to yourself whilst me, Kyle and Jake aint got no-one."
Billy was a meek and mild mannered boy and was terrified of his Pa, he just muttered,
"No Pa." in response.
"So seeing as I bring you up an all and all the things I have done for you, it's only fair that I get first go with the bitch ok?"
That was bad enough but Pa continued,
"When Kyle and Jake have had their share too, then you and missy can do whatever you want, after all boy, its share and share alike, it would be unfair for them to have to go without."
Again, I won't go into great detail of the conversation and terrible moments between me and my husband, as he explained to me how his Pa and his brothers had a right to a fair share of me. Suffice it to say, Billy had no option but to submit to his Pa's decisions and to wait until last for his new bride.
Naively I assumed I would be safe at least until bedtime, a delusion very quickly destroyed. I was stunned by the awful realisation that Pa was not going to wait a minute longer than he had to.
I had expected a wedding night to remember and here I was only hours from the reception, still only just into the afternoon of my wedding day and I was about to be defiled. Pa stood at his bedroom door, looking at me, expecting a reaction from me, and becoming a little impatient with me. He must have seen this as the most natural thing in the world and was becoming irritated at my hesitation and reluctance.
Billy stared at me, his face full of despair and dejection. He nodded for me to go ahead and in the ten or so steps it took me to cross the room to Pa and his bedroom door, my whole life came crashing down.
Taking my hand, Pa opened the door and pulled me into the room. I glanced back over my shoulder at Billy and saw that he could no longer watch and was looking at the floor.
"Now then Peggy, Pa said, just relax and me and the boys can take what we're entitled to." as he closed the door between me and my husband.
I was ordered to take off the pretty dress that my Ma had saved up to buy for my special day and hesitated at my new white cotton underwear.
"Let's get this stuff off," said Pa none too sympathetically.
Pa roughly turned me around so I had my back to him and roughly snapped open the clasps to my bra. As I instinctively wrapped my arms around my chest to stop the bra falling from my small breasts, Pa wasted no time in impatiently and roughly, yanking down my panties.