Life in the southern hill country of Illinois was hard. Simple things, like bad water, bad cow's milk or a snake bite could kill you dead. It was a rattler that had taken John's wife, leaving him with two daughters, 10 and 11, and Josh, 8.
Knowing he could not sustain their small farm alone, John, within a month, left his children to tend the land, their care left to the preacher, while he headed back to the more civilized and populated eastern Indiana to find a new wife.
The two girls matured quickly and took care of their brother Josh. Ann's cooking was tolerable as the younger Beth took care of cleaning the house. They both corralled their younger brother as best they could as the creek was his favorite haunt. Chasing him down became their favorite pastime, as they laughed and giggled.
Two months, almost to the day, the handsome John returned with pretty and stout Apple and her two girls. At 25, he was 10 years her senior. She too had lost her husband six months earlier and was anxious for a new mate. He had done well in courtship as they had arrived in a well-built wagon loaded with furniture, furnishings and books.
Apple, being of strong body and mind, was intimidating at first, pushing all of the kids, including Josh, to perform daily tasks and doing their studies. But also wise, she spent a great deal of time in the woods, rocky crevices and grassy fields frolicking with her five children, treating them equally. But her favorite soon became Josh. She made time alone with him for talking, walking on logs, wading in the creek or sitting on slabs of rock midstream. Josh spent long hours watching her weave by candlelight and when John was away from home they would cuddle in her bed and whisper and giggle to the wee hours of morning, she leaving him sleeping until breakfast the next morning, sending the girls to roust him.
The family prospered and the children grew, but try as they might, John and Apple failed to expand the family. Their hilly farm, along with the handful of other families on decent land, provided a good life. John was the building foreman when they expanded the small church. Apple's two gals married off young as was the custom and moved farther west. Then, one of John's daughters moved back east to live with his sister. The other one married early also.
At 16, Josh was a stout, strong young man working beside his father long hours. Apple missed her time with Josh, but occasionally there was time to chase each other and talk on the rocks. With her years of tutelage, he was the smartest man in the county and like a good mother she yearned for him to have a better life. She soon convinced John to let him go east under an apprenticeship in a windmill and tannery. He would learn the trade and how to run a business!
A good father, John, was soon badgered into allowing his son to go. Apple sweetened the pot by reminding her husband that they would be alone in the cabin and free to do as they wished, making as much love and noise as they wished.
Josh would only be a six day walk from home, three by horse or wagon. Happily, Apple would pick up some of Josh's chores, she had added, but the pot was sweet enough
Josh was soon in his new position. It had been a bittersweet departure for Apple and Josh. She had cried under their favorite tree, causing his eyes to moisten. They had held each other close. Apple had felt the need to keep a vigilante eye peeled should John approach, such was her and Josh's sorrowful consoles. Seen for a distance, they could appear sensuous.
After Josh's departure, John discovered a new woman, in Apple, that he could barely believe existed. Sexually, she blossomed, or revealed her true nature, and every night was sexual bliss for him. He believed, surely, with all of the semen he was putting into her belly she would become pregnant. Under the full moon coming through the window, brightly illuminating most of their bed, he would often watch her now naked body ride his manhood, her smallish, hard nipple, perky breasts bobbing up and down, her hips thrusting. She was much more vocal now, often begging him to push deeper or faster. She would often orgasm twice or three times. Sex out-of-doors was not uncommon.
Life was good for John! Life was good for Apple!
Life, now at his 18th year, was good for Josh!
His employer, ironically, Mr. Tanner had married a 23-year-old, homely looking, girl from back east. Mr. Tanner also wanted male offspring, but is 64 years and the difficulty of getting an erection was preventing his wishes from becoming reality.
A worldly, down to earth gentlemen, Mr. Tanner had offered his young wife, Emma, to Josh. He promised Josh that he would not be responsible for any child, male or female, that he might implant in Emma's belly. Josh was a virgin and of course, at first, shied at the notion. That, and the notion that Mr. Tanner was to be present at each and every union. Still, youthful virility, and Mr. Tanner parading the nude Mrs. Tanner, with her ample and well proportioned feminine attributes, in front of him caused any misgivings he might have felt to evaporate. Misgivings were the only thing that evaporated, as he soon had the other thing deep inside of her.
Needless to say, there were two beds in the upstairs master bedroom. The bed springs of one of those beds was singing its nightly song much to the condemnation of Mr. Tanner, whose feeling of loss is quite understandable, but he dared not complain, though Mrs. Tanner was begging Josh much like Apple was begging his father... to go deeper or faster. Her multiple orgasms grated on his last nerve, but there was little he could do, having lost control of the situation and his desire for a son to leave his rich estate.
Within the year, there was a baby boy on her hip and one in the oven, another boy, or so Mr. Tanner hoped.
Back in the hill country of Southern Illinois, John felt very little as the tree he was chopping down crashed to the ground and repelled backwards. As John, himself, repelled backwards trying to avoid the battering ram, it caught his uplifted chin and broke his neck, killing him dead... instantly. On the frontier, the simplest thing can kill you dead! Apple found him lying there. She fell on her knees and wept. God only cries for the living!
A practical Apple knew what she must do. Within a week of the burial, she dispatched a letter east to her stepson, pleading for him to return home so that their farm remain intact.
Within a month, Josh showed up at her door. They spent many an hour weeping and remembering years passed and talking about what was needed to keep life on track.
The first few weeks were hard but they soon smiled their first smile as a new baby calf was born. Apple and Josh were soon visiting their old haunts, walking the large downed tree that crossed the creek, wading in the deeper pools, hand catching fish only to toss them back, laughing heartily.
No longer the virgin, Josh's gaze lingered on Apples body as her drenched, linen dress clung to her, outlining every crevice of her ultra thin body, her nipples in particular. Lifting herself from the slab of mid-creek rock within inches of his face, her butt cheeks seemingly bare, he felt the tightness at his crotch and quickly glanced away, feeling uneasy, forcing the heart felt incestuous thoughts from his mind.
Their frequent hugs, her frequent touches of affection around the cabin did little to ease his uneasiness or tightness in his crotch. As she had done in chilly weather, as he remembered, she bathed herself by the fire. With her dress unbuttoned down the front, she pulled it this way are that way to scrub herself thoroughly, while he, as before, sat cross-legged on his bed staring out of the window, allowing her her a sense of privacy. Now, however, his left hand fingers pulled at his erection. He longed for Emma, trying to dispel his other longing.
She, finished her bathing, would indicate it was his turn and they would switch places. Unlike her, he would strip nude and used her bathwater and rag to scrub himself. He was content to use her water and rag.
She too tittered beneath her dress, but finishing, stifling her intake of orgasmic breath.
Finished with his bathing, he would put on clean pants and they would continue their lives in the tiny cabin.
Apple never flaunted her femininity but she desired more from the man sharing her cabin. The relationship as mother and son was a wall that would be hard to dismantle, but tear it down she must. He had told her of fathering two children, telling her he had experienced the favors of a woman, but she knew he would never make the first move. She pondered how they could become more intimate.
They bathed every three days. One evening, after she had bathed herself, she relinquished the stool but remain close to the fireplace as he removed his shirt. When he hesitated to remove his pants, she told him not to be so formal and didn't he remember. She had bathed him years earlier and that she intended to do so again. She waited a long minute, refusing to budge or break the graze, but he finally stripped and sat down on the stool.
Apple bent numerous times to wet and soap the rag, starting at his back and shoulders, moving to his chest and face.
"Stand up." She directed.
She continued down his legs, letting the water stream down his buttocks as she squeezed water to rinse them. When she turned him to face her, his cock was rigid.
"I bet Emma found this to be quite to her liking." She smiled as she lathered his manhood. "You're a bit larger, in length and thickness, then your father."
She noted the surprised look on his face. She informed him that there were no secrets between husband and wife and that John had read aloud his letters home. His surprised look was replaced with one of embarrassment and she laughed heartily at his expense.
She handled his manhood as she would have a son's, never touching it bare handed, soon rising from the stool and making her way to the stove to make them some tea.
She glanced once or twice at him as he dressed. It was a start, she thought.
When it was time for a bath again she heated the large pot and placed it in front of the stool. Josh moved to his bed as was his custom and looked away. This time Apple removed her dress and stood as she began to bath.
"Why do you use my bathwater to bathe with?" She asked. "I have offered to make your own water."
The question caused him to turn his head towards her. Surprised at her nakedness, his gaze lingered, her left leg propped up on the stool, as she washed her under thigh up to her buttock.
"I.. just... like.. to." He stuttered.
