Southern Living 1949

This story is dedicated with much appreciation to Jim, my friend.

It is a work of fiction.

Southern Living: 1949

"Aw, come on, Bobbie-Jean! Just let me touch it some," Snooky whined. He had his hand up Bobbie-Jean's skirts and was groping for the imagined wet spot on the crotch of her cotton panties.

"No! Stop it, Snooky!" the girl shouted. She tugged Snooky's hand from between her thighs and slid herself from the arm grip he had around her neck. She flung open the door of the Buick and scrambled out. Snooky was close behind her, in hot pursuit.

The red-clay under her feet was slippery from the earlier rain and Bobbie-Jean very nearly lost her footing as she stumbled through the dark towards what had been a small bonfire only an hour past. Bobbie-Jean looked frantically around the small clearing for signs of the others. She could hear Snooky's squishy steps in the muck as he followed her from the car to where the others had previously been gathered around the fire. Everyone had disappeared.

As Snooky made his approach, Bobbie-Jean grabbed a rotted tree branch from the ground and brandished it in his direction. "So help me, Snooky Slade, if you don't go on now, I'll lay you out, but good!" she threatened making a swipe through the air with it for his benefit.

Snooky drew up short. He knew Bobbie-Jean's temper all too well. He thrust his hands in his pockets and kicked sheepishly at the ground. The bulge in the front of his pants was shriveling rapidly. "Aw, you know I didn't mean nothin', Bobbie-Jean. I was just was foolin' around some," he sighed sounding dejected.

Bobbie-Jean had known Snooky Slade practically all her life. He was one of her brother's closest friends. Bobbie-Jean relaxed her stance, but still held the tree branch ready to swing again. She glanced about at their wooded surroundings and called out, "Billie-Lee! You better come on out here, right now!" She paused and listened for any response. All she could hear was some rustling branches in the breeze.

"Billie-Lee, you better git on out here 'fore I take this here branch to Snooky!" she demanded in an even louder tone. Snooky made a furtive attempt to come nearer, hoping to catch her off-guard and disarm her of the wooden club she wielded.

Bobbie-Jean resumed her defensive posture again. "Uh-uh, Snooky!" she warned with a hiss. "Don't you make me have to hurt you none! I bust your head wide open and my daddy is gonna be wantin' to know what for. You wanna be dealin' with my daddy instead of me some?" She asked. Bobbie-Jean and Billie-Lee's daddy was the county sheriff. Snooky didn't want any trouble with the law, or any irate daddy, much less Bobbie's.

The sound of breaking brush and heavy footsteps heralded the hurried arrival of someone else. "Hell's tarnation, Bobbie-Jean! Folks a mile up the creek can hear your squallin' and caterwauling'! You wanna git the whole county up at this time of night? Pipe down some, would yah?" Billie-Lee snarled as he emerged from the woods with another girl in tow.

Two other couples emerged from the brush in time to witness the fray. "What's goin' on?" one of the girls asked with wide-eyed innocence. Bobbie-Jean dropped her weapon and rushed to her friend.

She pointed an accusing finger in the direction of her would-be assailant. "It's Snooky! He tried to git fresh with me!" she complained. The other girls formed a protective and sympathetic circle around her, hugging her shoulders as any good friend would.

"Snooky Slade! Now, you know good and well that Bobbie-Jean is engaged to be married," one of them pointed out with pure shame.

Billie-Lee gave his sister a scathing look. He had only moments before had his own fingers inside the willing cunt of her friend. It wasn't the first time Bobbie-Jean had foiled his fun. But, the mood he was in now, it just might be her last.

Snooky spoke up in his own defense. "Well, if Bobbie-Jean is so engaged, then why did she agree to come out on a date with me tonight?" he demanded indignantly. The boys all took a shoulder to shoulder stand along side the crest-fallen Snooky looking expectantly at Bobbie-Jean for answers.

"It weren't supposed to be no date, Snooky, and you know it!" Bobbie-Jean spat back.

"Then, why'd you set all alone in the car with me?" Snooky sneered. "No gal sets up in a car with some other guy if'n she's promised," he pointed out while his friends all nodded in agreement. "She even let me kiss on her!" he said defiantly. "I hate to say it Billie-Lee, and I ain't meaning you no disrespect, but your sister is a prick-tease!" Snooky looked down at the now deflated bump in his pants.

Billie-Lee studied his sister for any sign of guilt. Bobbie-Jean was engaged. It didn't set well with him, but it was a fact, just the same. He gave his sister a thorough look-see. Bobbie-Jean wasn't just some young filly anymore. She was a full-grown woman, even at eighteen. She had a perfect shape to her, with an hour-glass figure and long, shapely legs. He wondered why their father let her leave the house dressed like she did. His gaze traveled downward to catch a glimpse of a bare calf. It was just inviting trouble, especially from guys like Snooky Slade.

Bobbie-Jean had always been a thorn in her brother's side. When they were kids, during the war, he took a paper-route to earn himself some pocket money. Bobbie-Jean couldn't let well enough alone. She demanded a paper-route and some pocket money of her own. Working was a man's business; not something just any snot-nosed bratty little girl had any bee's-wax doing. Dad had even offered to pay her an allowance just to keep her at home instead, but she wasn't having none of that! She just had to prove that she could do as well as he could running her own business.

Even when he had gone off to junior college in the next county over, Bobbie-Jean got herself transferred to the same campus to attend summer-school, just so she could graduate early. Next month, she was going off to Jackson to some business college there. She only did it because he had enlisted in the army and was about to leave home himself. Since they wouldn't take girls in the service, she one-upped him again by enrolling in a secretarial school and getting herself engaged to a soldier who was already finished with his basic training.

Billie-Lee's frown deepened. He was fed up with his little sister's shenanigans. If she had let Snooky kiss her, she deserved whatever she got, he thought to himself. Someone should tell that soldier-boy fiancé just exactly what his 'intended' had been up to.

"She let me French her, too, Billie-Lee!" Snooky said in an attempt to add more fuel to the fire.

Bobbie-Jean had no idea what 'Frenching' even meant, but she wasn't about to stand accused of anything Snooky was dishing out. "Did not!" she protested sharply. "I ain't never Frenched nobody, you big ol' fat liar!" she sputtered.

Billie-Lee's face turned an angry shade of purple. He thought about his own experiences with girls who teased. He'd been nearly twenty before he found a girl who allowed him to get his own cock wet. Before that, he spent a fortune on burger dinners, beer, and movies only to end his dates with a climax into his own handkerchief. He had as much invested in new kerchiefs from McCrory's Five and Dime as he did movie tickets.

Rafe Lewis eased his way towards the Buick unnoticed. He retrieved a now warm beer and popped the tab on it. Billie Lee turned his way at the noise, and Rafe tossed him a can of Jax in a pretense of soothing his ruffled feathers. The girls were all loudly shrieking protests about being prick-teasers.

Rafe eased his way over to where Delores Jackson had seated herself on a log in front of the dimly glowing embers. He tipped the beer can over her head and dumped its content in her hair. Shocked, all she could do was stammer and swat aimlessly at the air, squealing in revulsion before leaping to her feet and fleeing. The simple action prompted a full frontal attack; boys against unarmed girls.

The boys howled as they advanced. They shook the remaining unopened cans and spewed them at their rapidly retreating victims. The girls scattered into the woods to escape the impromptu assault. Certain they weren't being pursued, Delores stopped and bent over heaving breathlessly in the dark.

"My daddy's gonna kill me!" she whined. "He'll never let me out of the house again!" she wailed as she slung the froth from her arms. She straightened herself and scrubbed at her mouth and chin with her shoulder to wipe away the fermented brew.

"Shhh! Listen!" Bobbie-Jean hushed Delores, mid-complaint. The whine of an engine and slinging gravel could be heard behind them. "Billie-Lee! Bill-lie-Lee!" she screamed, dashing back in the direction from which they had come. In the clearing, there was only a dying pile of hot ashes. Even the tail-lights of the Buick had disappeared.

"Oh, my gawd, no!" came a mournful cry from Jimmie-Sue. She was on her hands and knees, crawling about in the dark. Her tone was clearly one of great distress.

"What's the matter, Jimmie-Sue," Delores asked, feeling for her friend in the dark.

"I fell over the log," Jimmie-Sue cried. She was sitting up now, rubbing at one ankle.

"Are you hurt? Is it broken?" Bobbie-Jean asked with grave concern as she knelt beside the shadowy figure of her friend.

"I don't think so," the frightened girl replied. Tears glimmered in her eyes as she searched the darkness for Bobbie-Jean's face.

"If you aren't hurt, then why are you crying?" Bobbie-Jean asked.

"I pee'd myself," the girl wailed. "I pee'd my pants!"

The momentary silence was deafening, before the cluster of friends burst into tearful laughter together.

*****

Billie-Lee steered the Buick onto the main highway headed back to town. His mood was severe as he thought about the girls they'd left abandoned in the woods. He'd have to go back for them, of course. But, not before they had learned a valuable lesson. He pressed the accelerator a bit harder as they glided over the asphalt road.

He was more than a little annoyed by his friends. There'd be hell to pay when the story all came out. He knew his sister and her friends too well. They'd all be sure to tell their fathers about how they were deserted in the woods. They'd be smelling of beer when they told it, too. As the driver, Billie-Lee would have to take the brunt of the blame for it all. He could see his dad taking the keys to the car from him. He probably wouldn't be allowed to borrow it again for the rest of his life. At twenty-one, that could be a very long time.

Billie-Lee whirled into an empty gravel parking lot at the edge of town. His friends would have to hike the rest of the way home on their own. He had a duty to go back and find the girls before something really serious happened to them. He'd spend the next hour with his hat in his hand explaining to every father how it had all been just a harmless prank.

Billie-Lee and his friends had a history of carrying out harmless pranks. It wouldn't be too difficult for anyone who knew them to understand that this was just another event in a long line of more memorable ones. Most of those had been pulled in high school. They were just kids then; a rowdy group of bored youngsters with nothing but time on their hands.

Once, the school held a boxed-lunch auction. This was an event where the girls put together a picnic lunch for two, packaged it in a box they wrapped and decorated themselves, and placed it up for auction. Everyone in town turned out, since it was followed by a Sadie Hawkins dance. The men bid on the boxed-lunches, according to their love-interest. Usually, the prettiest girls in town gained the most and highest bids.

Billie-Lee and one of his friends spent the week preceding the dance in the woods. They laid some traps that would capture, but not harm, any wild animal who ventured into the baited cage. The day before the dance, they landed a rather large opossum. The morning of the dance, they put that opossum in a pretty box, complete with ribbons and bows. They placed it on the table with the other lunches. It was the fanciest boxed-lunch on the table, and on the card, they wrote the name of the prettiest available female in the county.

The opossum played its part perfectly, lying still and calm inside the box, as opossums will do when cornered and threatened. The box was in high demand, and the boys who sat snickering behind their hands at the back of the auditorium were fearful that the opossum might come back to life before the bidding was over. It didn't.

The boy who bought the box couldn't wait to see what kind of lunch it contained. In his excitement, he opened the box inside the auditorium. Predictably, the opossum, seeing light and hearing the chatter of the audience, came to life on cue. The ensuing chaos cleared the auditorium in record time. The high school Principal was on the verge of an apoplectic fit. He canceled the dance, vowing never to hold another one until the culprits were caught and punished for their crimes. If anyone knew who had done it, besides the two of them, they didn't tell.

This time, it was different. The boys were all considered men now, and expected to behave as gentlemen. Compromising the safety and the reputations of all the girls involved wasn't exactly considered a harmless prank. Sure, there would be some repercussions, but nothing too serious. At least, that's what Billie-Lee hoped.

"See yah tomorrow, Billie-Lee!" Snooky hooted, leaning inside the window and giving the hood a rap of his hand. Billie-Lee nodded and watched in his rear-view as his friends disappeared into the dark. He glowered as he gripped the steering wheel tightly and turned the automobile back in the direction of the missing girls.

His thoughts turned to Bobbie-Jean again. He let out a low whistle as he replayed the image of her breasts heaving with indignation. She looked almost indecent standing there with the branch poised for action. Action; that's exactly what he needed, he thought to himself as he tried to dismiss his sister from his mind. He adjusted the front of his pants to accommodate his expanding penis.

Billie-Lee was a good-looking young man. He was fairly tall with dark brown eyes and wavy black hair. He adjusted the rear-view mirror to catch a glimpse of himself as he sped along the dark country road. He'd look even better sporting the uniform of an enlisted man, he thought. He had enough southern charm to appeal to most of the girls he met, but, sadly, not enough experience to persuade them to pull down their panties for him. At least, he had a success rate of two, which was two more than Snooky had. It angered him that Bobbie-Jean would lead Snooky on like she had. It made her no better than what Snooky had called her; a 'prick-tease'.

Billie-Lee squinted and wiped at the fogged windshield with the sleeve of his shirt. It had started to sprinkle again. The girls would be soaking wet and most likely one or more of them would be sick before he could even get them home. He switched on the wipers and leaned forward in his seat to gain better visibility. The gravel road was hard to find in the dark. It was still early, but in this weather, it made it seem much later than it actually was. He was in a hurry to find Bobbie-Jean and her friends before someone else happened on them, and then, there would really be hell to pay.

A quarter hour later, he pulled up to the clearing in the woods. The girls were all huddled together in the dark. The fire had only a breath or two of smoke left in it. They were all shivering and soaked to the skin; miserable in their circumstances. Billie-Lee hustled them into the Buick. He pretended not to notice the large, yellow stain on Jimmie-Sue's pants and he didn't ask how it happened. He didn't want to know.

Once snuggly fitted inside the car, the girls collectively let Bobbie-Jean do their talking for them.

"You just wait 'til I tell Daddy what you did, Billie-Lee!" she huffed at him. "You and your friends are all bastards!" she proclaimed with a screech of profanity. It was the worse thing she could think of to call her brother. "Daddy's gonna kill you! I hope he shoots you for what you done!" she sneered.

"If you know what's good for you, Bobbie-Jean, you won't say a damned word to Dad about this!" Billie-Lee warned. "And, that goes for the rest of you girls, too!" he added. "Just keep your damned mouths shut and let me do all the talkin', or else!" His knuckles were white as he gripped the wheel. His threat, though vague, was convincing enough to induce a prolonged silence from everyone.

Billie-Lee methodically delivered his human cargo, one by one, along with a lengthy apology he had carefully rehearsed in his head, to the parents of each of the girls. So far, so good, he thought as he eagerly relinquished his custody of the last one of his sister's friends.

Back in the Buick, Bobbie-Jean began a new rant.

"I hate you, Billie-Lee!" she vehemently pouted, while curled against the door with arms folded across her chest. "You think you're so high and mighty that you can just get away with anything, dontcha?" she hissed. Billie-Lee was thinking adamantly about a few things he would like to get away with at that very moment. The ideas made him turn red in the face.

"Shut-up, Bobbie-Jean! Don't even talk to me anymore! Just shut up!" he snarled back. 'Prick-tease'. The word reverberated in his head. Bobbie-Jean, the 'prick-tease'. Bobbie-Jean, the brat! Bobbie-Jean, the tempting jezebel.

Billie-Lee abruptly pulled into a thicket just off the side of the gravel road, only a mile from their home. He squeezed the steering wheel tighter and stared straight ahead. His lips were pressed tightly together.

"Why are you stopping here?" Bobbie-Jean asked. "You better not make me walk the rest of the way home in the rain! You're in enough trouble as it is!" she sneered.

"I'm not in any trouble at all... yet," he ominously growled back. He turned his head slowly in her direction and peered at her in the dark. His cock leaped to attention, straining to be set free.

Bobbie-Jean glared defiantly back. "What's wrong with you, Billie-Lee? Are you sick or something?" she asked. Her brother's breathing seemed labored and he was acting strange.

"Did you French Snooky tonight?" Billie-Lee demanded.

Bobbie-Jean gasped in horrified disbelief. "What?!! You know I didn't, Billie-Lee!" she protested. Her voice softened when she asked, "I don't even know what that is. What is Frenchin', anyway?"

Her sudden change in demeanor made his breath catch in his throat. His gaze traveled to her chest. Her blouse was wet, soaked in fact. It made the outline of her breasts impossible to ignore. Her innocent declaration made her so much more appealing, as a woman, not as his little sister. He grabbed her by the back of the neck and roughly pulled her towards him.

"This!" he croaked as he covered her lips with his own. He pressed his tongue between her lips and used it to pry her clenched jaw open. She struggled, both in an effort to breathe and to free herself from him. His tongue was so forceful and insistent. It tasted bitter, the way stale beer smelled.

She opened her mouth to complain, but it only allowed him to probe deeper with his tongue. She tried to spit it out, but that only served to incite him more. She pushed hard against his chest with her palms. She couldn't breathe! Panic overcame her. Panic and something more. Her heart raced in her chest, and she felt as if she might faint. She closed her eyes and went limp as he pulled her closer to him, wrapping his arms around her. She was trapped in his arms.

She felt a strange flutter in her abdomen, like butterflies, lightly flapping their wings. It was as if she was floating in midair along with them, and she didn't want to open her eyes. She might fall back to the ground. She was terrified. Too frightened not to resist, but too excited to want it to end. She let out her breath with a long sigh and she felt calmer for a moment.