PROLOGUE

Neil Anthony, also known as DrSpin, wrote a series of stories for Ruthie's

Club broadly entitled Housewife - 1946. They were tales of various women in

various places in that first year of peace after World War II.

Other writers, including myself, were taken with Neil's idea, so we asked if

we, too, could write Housewife - 1946 stories. The project isn't over, but

today there are eighteen stories by seven different writers in the series.

Two of those stories have been previously posted to

alt.sex.stories.moderated. They are: "Franchhoek" by Father Ignatius and

"The Russian Front" by H. Jekyll. They both are very well written as you

would expect.

I wrote two stories for the series and I am posting them here as one, for

reasons that will be evident when you read them. At Ruthie's Club, they were

entitled: "Housewife - 1946: Kansas City" and "Housewife - 1946: Flatland"

Of course, at Ruthie's Club, the stories are beautifully illustrated.

**

Now the legal stuff.

This is fiction intended for legal adults readers. If it is not legal, DO

NOT read. This is a copyrighted work. Reposting or any other use strictly

prohibited without the express, written permission of the copyright holder,

except may be posted as part of a review or posted to my pre-approved

archives.

Copyright 2002 by E. Z. Riter writing as Ezra Zane

**

And the plea for replies.

E-mail address: ezriter@hotmail.com

Please! Give me your comments!

**

Where you can find me.

The works of E.Z. Riter are archived at www.storiesonline.net and at

www.asstr.org (ftp://ftp.asstr.org/pub/Authors/E.Z.Riter) And at

www.ruthiesclub.com

The works of E.Z Riter writing as Ezra Zane are archived at

www.ruthiesclub.com which is a fully illustrated pay website.

**

And the credits.

I want to thank DrSpin for the idea, and Ruthie and Gail for editing. I hope

you enjoy. E.Z.

**

And, lastly, the two stories themselves.

**

HOUSEWIFE 1946: FLATLAND, TEXAS

By Ezra Zane

Lucy Jane Stigert turned eighteen on August 28, 1943. She had soft green

eyes in a pretty face, strawberry-blonde hair, and a voluptuous body with

full breasts and hips made to welcome a man. She was sweet and caring, but

with a singular purpose of mind.

She was one of those fortunate people who knew exactly what they wanted from

life, and she'd known since she entered puberty. She wanted to stay in

Flatland, be a wife, and have babies. She wanted a good man to be her

husband, a man who would care for her and treat her right, a man to lavish

with her love as she made his home. When she was fourteen, she set her

sights on the best man available and never wavered. His name was William

Luke Wesley, but everyone called him Cotton.

In 1943, girls like Lucy Jane didn't go to bed with boys. They flirted and

teased and held out unspoken promises. If things got serious, they let him

feel their breasts through their clothes, but hands rarely strayed below the

waist. No one taught them how to tease a man yet hold him at bay. It was

instinctive.

Cotton's hands knew Lucy Jane's breasts. His mouth knew hers and the soft,

white heat of her neck. And he knew there was a time or two or three as they

petted in the front seat of his father's pickup on a dark and lonely

country road that Lucy Jane's virginal resolve had crumbled and all he

needed to do was lay her back to receive her eager surrender.

He didn't. Boys like Cotton didn't push girls like Lucy Jane to go all the

way. In places like Flatland, those were the rules. Each night they both

went home to masturbate in their own beds, calling the other's name, until

blessed relief temporarily assuaged their agonies.

The war changed the rhythm of courting but it didn't change the rules. There

was an undertone of urgency, for the war could carry the boys away and they

might not come back. Maybe it was programmed in men to marry and conceive

before going off to die, or maybe it was only a sexual need, but in wartime,

the marriage rate soared.

December 27, 1943, First Baptist Church, Flatland, Texas, U.S.A.

Twenty-one-year-old Cotton Wesley stood tall and proud at the altar waiting

for his bride to come down the aisle. His A&M College Corps of Cadet uniform

was pressed. Its Sam Browne belt and brass buttons gleamed. In the spring of

1944, he would graduate from A&M, receive his Army commission, and join the

war in progress, but today he was going to marry Lucy Jane. His father,

Charlie, stood as his best man. His brothers, Seth and Mark, and his three

best friends stood as groomsmen. Cotton's only regret was that his mother

wasn't there to see him. Bertie died in the summer of 1942 and all her men

missed her.

After the wedding, they drove to a hotel in Lubbock. Cotton wasn't a virgin.

Like many Aggies, as A&M students were called, he was a regular visitor at

The Chicken Ranch in LaGrange, the biggest and oldest whorehouse in Texas,

where a plain, thin, little country girl taught Cotton how women liked their

loving.

"Let's undress, Honey," Cotton said. Quickly, his uniform was neatly folded,

but Lucy Jane remained fully dressed. He yanked down his Jockey shorts. She

gasped and plopped on the edge of the bed, staring at his erect appendage.

"Lucy Jane, has your mother been telling you those old wives' tales?" She

nodded. "It'll hurt some at first, but I'll make you a promise. Before you

and I go back to school, you will love sex," he said, drawing out the "o" in

love. He helped her stand and began undressing her.

Lucy Jane's mother hadn't filled her head with negative tales about sex. Her

mother told her what Lucy Jane knew instinctively-sex was magnificent and

wonderful and the greatest thing that could happen to a girl next to having

babies. Her mother had told her to be shy and reticent because her husband

would expect it.

Lucy Jane knew her groom was correct. She would love sex. She was dripping

in her eagerness to begin. As much as she anticipated having Cotton between

her legs, she was stunned when the reality of her enjoyment exceeded her

wildest dreams.

They moved into a small apartment in College Station. In May, Cotton

graduated and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States

Army. His orders sent him to the 141st Infantry Regiment, 36th Division, VI

Corp, Seventh Army. The 36th Division, Texas National Guard in peacetime,

was nicknamed the T-Patch because their unit insignia was an arrowhead with

a big "T" in it. The T-Patch, which had been slogging through the Italian

campaign, came "off the line" on June 29, 1944. Cotton arrived while they

were on R&R preparing for the invasion of southern France on August 15.

With Cotton gone to war, Lucy Jane didn't consider even once living with her

parents. She wanted to be the woman of the house and to have a man to care

for. She lived with Charlie who was alone in the big farmhouse outside

Flatland since both Seth and Mark had enlisted. Lucy Jane was happy there.

She worked hard as all farm women do. She clucked over Charlie and he

watched over and cared for her, too. The bond between them grew. She wrote

her husband every night, sending him long missives filled with love and

small talk.

She missed Cotton with an ache inside her that sometimes made her crazy, an

ache that made her nipples so sensitive the brush of her dress against them

made her moan. The thought of what she was missing made her sex ooze. Her

hands, skillfully applied in the quiet of her room, only relieved the ache

for a few hours and then it returned stronger than before.

On a hot, dry Saturday in September, 1944, she came downstairs dressed in

her finery. Charlie asked, "Where are you going, Lucy Jane?"

"There's a big USO party at Reese Air Force Base in Lubbock. A bunch of us

are going in the church bus. I'll be back late, Charlie."

She fought to meet his eyes and tried to smile innocently. Acting innocent

was difficult when your husband was six thousand miles away fighting a war

and your diaphragm was tucked neatly in place. Lucy Jane danced with every

airman who asked her until she let one guide her from the floor. In a sad,

quick coupling in a broom closet, she became an adulteress with a man she

couldn't identify an hour later.

As the bus carried the exhausted women back to Flatland, Lucy Jane stared

out the window. Waves of remorse flooded over her and she fought back her

tears, but when the guilt ebbed, the need flowed greater than ever. Her

turmoil carried her to the edge of explosion.

Charlie Wesley heard the crunch of tires as the bus stopped in front of the

house. He walked down the stairs to meet his daughter-in-law.

"What are you doing up?" Lucy Jane asked.

"I'm waiting for you. Did you have a good time?"

"Yes, I did. There's another dance next Saturday. I'm going again."

"No, you're not. Get to the barn, Lucy Jane."

Lucy Jane cringed. "No," she gasped. She, like most women on the plains,

knew the punishment for adultery. "I'm not your wife, Charlie. You can't

punish me," she said defiantly.

"Cotton asked me to care for you as a husband would."

"Then do it, Charlie. I've been caring for you like I was your wife. Except

for one way, you care for me like you're my husband," she countered. She

stepped toward him, her hands clenched in fists of frustration and her eyes

beacons of honesty. "Do you think I enjoyed tonight, letting some man I'll

never see again have me like some cheap whore?" She fell against him,

burying her face in his chest to sob uncontrollably. His strong arms held

her and she felt safe there. He ached from wanting her as he stroked her

back and comforted her until her crying ceased.

Lucy's shoulders drooped as she trudged toward the barn with Charlie right

behind her. She stared up at him balefully as he wrapped the coarse rope

around her wrists. She didn't resist when he guided her over the middle slat

railing of the stall and tied her bent double, wrist to ankle. She shivered

when he raised her skirt and pulled her underpants to her knees.

Lucy Jane heard the sizzle as he yanked his belt from his jeans. She steeled

herself for the first blow on her naked and exposed backside. Instead, she

felt a callused hand gently stroke her bottom cheeks. She moaned. His breath

came in rasps as his hands explored her legs. "Yes, Charlie," she whispered.

"No," he barked and jerked her skirt down to cover her. He yanked the knots

free and strode out the door. Ropes still dangling from her wrists, she ran

after him, grabbing his arm to make him stop and look at her. "I'm sorry,

Lucy Jane," he said.

"Don't be sorry. Take me back to the barn and do what you want to do. Like

we were, with me tied over the railing and you behind me."

"You're Cotton's wife."

"Am I? I live with you and cook your meals and wash your clothes. And deep

down in my heart, I love you more than I do Cotton. You're a big, handsome

man in the prime of your life, Charles Wesley, and you make me hunger." She

raised on tip toes, took his head in both hands, and pulled his lips to hers

for a passionate kiss. "And don't pretend you don't want me. I've seen the

way you look at me when you think I don't know." She waited for his reply,

but Charlie was mute. "Please do it, Charlie. Don't make me beg you."

"A begging woman is hard to resist," he gently teased.

With big, hot eyes and husky voice, she begged for what she wanted as she

led him back to the barn. "Hurry," she pleaded as he tied her across the

rail again.

Her sex was bloated and wet. Her hips twitched. "Fuck me good, Charlie. Fuck

me good," she demanded. His strong hands seized her by the hip bones as he

rutted into her. "Oh, God. Oh, God." No human but Charlie heard her screams

as he wrung orgasm after orgasm from her before filling her with his sperm.

He undid her ropes, put his arm around her, and led her to his bedroom. "You

'll sleep in here from now on," he said. He tugged her hair to raise her

face to his. She melted under his kiss.

"Now undress me and make love to me," she whispered.

Charlie and Lucy Jane tried to hide their new relationship, but love made

subtle changes and small town eyes knew their neighbors. Small town tongues

wagged like a rattlesnake's, smelling out the worse and spewing their venom.

In peace time, they would have been ostracized, their condemnation gloated

over in the pews of their church. In war, they were understood, forgiven by

some and tolerated without comment by most.

Despite their sin, each day their love grew. On Christmas Day, 1944, Lucy

Jane lay in Charlie's arms in their bed.

"I love you, Charlie. I don't want to be Cotton's wife. I want to be your

wife, here on the farm in Flatland. And I want babies. Your babies."

"I want the same thing."

"I'll write Cotton and tell him."

"No! Men at war do dangerous things when their women write that kind of

letter. You keep writing like nothing has changed. I'll tell him when he

gets home."

April 21, 1946, Flatland, Texas, U.S.A.

Charlie was waiting at the station when the train pulled into Flatland. The

men embraced before starting the journey home in Charlie's pickup. On the

way to the farm they talked of war and family and friends. The farmhouse was

in sight when Cotton asked his father to stop.

"Dad, I don't love Lucy Jane. I came home to get a divorce." Father and son

stared out opposite windows without speaking as the long minutes passed.

Cotton sighed. "We married because there was a war and we were young and

impetuous. Lucy Jane wants to live here and have babies. I don't. I'm not

the right man for her and I never was, but I didn't know it then. I want to

go to law school... to see the world... to live in a city where there are

more people than coyotes and real trees rather than cotton and tumbleweeds."

"I'm sure Lucy Jane will understand, son," Charlie said, and turned away,

unable to face this man and what he needed to tell him.

"She has someone else, doesn't she?"

The wind whipped dust devils across the horizon as father haltingly

explained to son how he and Lucy Jane lived as man and wife, how they loved

each other and Adam, their baby. The son listened with his mouth hanging

open. Then he began to laugh. He laughed until tears ran down his face.

"Damn, but you don't know how happy that makes me. I've felt so guilty, so

damn guilty, about asking her for a divorce, and for wanting to move away

and leave you alone here. I'm glad you have each other. I wish you all the

happiness in the world."

Lucy Jane was overwhelmed by anxiety and near tears when the pickup pulled

up outside the farm house that was now her home. Charlie came in alone and

explained. She sobbed on his strong shoulder in relief. Then the three of

them talked and cried and talked together.

Three days later, the divorce documents separating Lucy Jane Stigert Wesley

from her legal husband were filed. Cotton was ready to move on.

"Where are you going?" Charlie asked.

"To visit some new friends in Houston and then on to Washington, D.C. I want

to be there by May 1."

The End

HOUSEWIFE 1946: KANSAS CITY

By Ezra Zane

On December 7, 1941, when Pearl Harbor was attacked, Martha Brown was the

socially active, thirty-year-old wife of Dr. Edmund Brown, a prominent

surgeon in Kansas City, Missouri. She was a registered nurse with extensive

operating room experience, but he insisted she quit working when they

married. She was tall, patrician, and naturally lean with long black hair.

Light brown eyes, medium lips, and a straight nose anchored her handsome

face. Her best feature was her warm and sincere smile.

In the terrible, traumatic days after Pearl Harbor, she wanted to enlist or,

at least, return to work, but her husband forbade her. She acquiesced and

buried herself in her social activities. The day she learned her brother had

died in North Africa, she volunteered for the Army Nurse Corps, cut her hair

short, and told her husband she was going to war.

On September 19, 1943, only ten days after the invasion at Salerno by the

Seventh Army, she went ashore with the first wave of nurses. Her unit

followed the soldiers up the Italian peninsula. Naples, Cassino, Rome. In

July, 1944, Seventh Army pulled her unit from the war zone for rest and

relaxation. When they invaded southern France on August 15 and stormed up

the Rhone, her unit was with them.

She kept a formal barrier with all the men regardless of their rank,

insisting they call her Captain Brown and always returning the politeness,

because every man she met propositioned her. Crude and direct or sly and

subtle, all made their interest known. She didn't feel honored. They wanted

to bed any woman they met.

She held no expectation that Edmund would be faithful to her while she was

gone. He hadn't been faithful when they were together. She had no intention

of being unfaithful. It happened the first time on a fierce, bloody day in a

field hospital south of Cassino with a doctor new from medical school and

old from repairing mangled boys-a doctor who needed the primal release and

reaffirmation of life as much as she did.

It happened other times since then, but rarely-only when she met a man who

made something click inside her. Sex with her wasn't only relief for them.

It was joy for her.

December 23, 1944, U.S. Army Field Hospital, Remiremont, France

"I haven't seen you before," he said as she stopped by his cot in the

hospital ward.

"I've been at an evac unit west of Selestat," she replied, looking at his

chart.

"Who are you?"

"Captain Brown, ANC," she said coolly. She knelt and flipped back the

blanket to examine his leg. "How are you doing?"

"I'm fine. How are you doing?"

The question surprised her because she couldn't remember a soldier asking

about her. She looked at his face for the first time. Strong, young, lean,

he had an infectious lop-sided grin, clear blue eyes, and an inviting

innocence. She tingled from head to toe. "Oh, my, I haven't felt that in a

while," she thought. Her hand lay lightly on his leg. "I'm fine..." she

murmured as she checked the chart for his name. "...Captain Wesley."

"I want out of here, Captain Brown. My unit needs me."

"You guys are all crazy about fighting," she said almost to herself.

"Every damn man in the T-Patch is crazy about killing Krauts," he replied.

His voice tried to be light and he smiled, but his eyes were cool and sad.

Without thinking, she rubbed his leg reassuringly. His hand covered hers and

she realized her tingling hadn't stopped since their eyes first met.

"What else makes you crazy?" A leading question from a woman to a man. An

invitation.

"You. Get me out of this bed and I'll buy you dinner." He grinned from

ear-to-ear.

She stood up, looked at him thoughtfully for a few moments, and said, "I

think we can get you out of here for a nice dinner and I'll talk to the

doctor about you going back to your unit in three or four weeks."

"I've been ambulatory for a week now. I'm ready to go."

"I'll see you soon, Captain Wesley."

"Don't leave. I know you have a sunshine smile, but you've only teased me

with it." She smiled. "Oh, now that's a nice smile, the kind that melts a

man's heart. Merry Christmas to you, Captain Brown."

"Martha."

"Hi, Martha. It says William L. on my charts, but call me Cotton."

Her eyes caressed his body before she leaned over to whisper in his ear. "Is

your gun clean, Cotton?"

"Clean, loaded, and locked, Martha," he replied.

"Then we'll both have a Merry Christmas."

Captain Martha Brown, ANC, shared a rented room in a tiny house owned by a

French war widow who lived there with her twelve-year-old daughter and

ten-year-old son. When the Germans occupied the area, four officers had

commandeered the widow's house - and her - using both without compensation.

Captain Brown and Lieutenant Susan Potter, another nurse, overpaid the rent,

in cash, in rations, and in care.

Cotton was dressed when Martha arrived on Christmas Day. She handed him a

cane and led him out of the hospital into the biting cold, her arm through

his to assist him as they walked four blocks to her quarters. They had a

sparse but pleasant Christmas meal with Lt. Potter and the French family

before she led him upstairs to her room.

By age, experience, and rank, Martha Brown was a senior nurse. As such, she

often was a combination big sister and mother superior to the other nurses

in her unit, advising them on war and life and death, and on the men who

fought and lived and died. What her nurses had confessed to her confirmed

her own observations. The men were all different, yet all the same in one

respect - the fierce, animal lust of their initial coupling, as if the beast

of war unleashed the beast in man who took woman as he had in caveman days.

Cotton surprised her. He was calm, shushing her and slowing her hands. She

was the animal. Strong hands held her wrists by her sides, pinning her to

the bed as she writhed under his mouth and moaned her need. Strong arms

trapped her legs, teasing her by denial as she cursed and begged for him to

enter her. She squirmed to bury him in her and pleaded for his weight on

her. His hand muffled her scream. Her orgasms left her limp, floating in a

semi-comatose world while he continued rutting with each thrust bringing her

own tremors, increasing his tempo and force until he lay spent on her.

When she regained control of her mind and body, she did something she'd done

for no man. She took his flaccid cock in his mouth, licked it clean of their

juices, bringing it ready again. She laughed as she mounted him and slowly

rode. Her body took up where it left off, a succession of little orgasms

until he exploded in her again and they slept.

They spent every available minute together, knowing the time would come too

soon when they would part. They cocooned in her room, warm and safe in a

cold, unsafe world. They talked. They made love. That wasn't the term Martha

would use for her other couplings, but it applied with Cotton.

"I've got to go. The Bulge is over and Eisenhower has turned the T-Patch

south again. We're crossing the Rhine," he said.

She held him fiercely and cried. She had no illusions she'd ever see him

again. This had been a heavenly interlude in a time of hell, and those sweet

memories would sustain them through the hell to come.

April 19, 1946, Union Station, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.A.

"Martha! Martha Brown!" Martha tried to see the man calling her in the crush

of G.I.s pushing to board, but the crowd forced her toward the train.

"He's over there, Major," a soldier said to her.

"I can't hear him. What's he saying?"

Word came back over the verbal bucket line. "He says go toward the rear and

save him a seat."

Martha saw him when he entered her car and her unbridled grin matched his

own. They hugged and kissed and fell into the seat, holding hands, lost in

each other in a sea of humanity.

"Looking forward to going home?" he asked.

"Kansas City isn't home anymore," she said. "My brothers are dead, Bobby in

North Africa and Billy at Iwo Jima. Mom withered away and died last year.

Oh, I've got some cousins there, but nobody close."

"How about your husband?"

"He filed for divorce and I gladly agreed to it. I'm going home to sign the

papers and wrap up loose ends." A tear slipped down her cheek. "To say my

goodbyes to my family."

"Come to Texas," he said. "A pretty woman is always welcome."

"Thanks, but I'm moving to Washington. ANC is lending some of us to the

Public Health Service for three years. I think I'll be career military."

"Some lucky man will snap you up."

"I'll never be a housewife again," she said fiercely.

"I was talking about a mate, in bed and out, or don't Public Health nurses

do what you do so well?"

"You're a bad man, Cotton Wesley."

"Let's get off for a day or two in Charleston."

She hesitated and her eyes told him the truth. The war was over and they

were stateside again. The old rules applied to courting. Not the war rules

where almost anything was acceptable and all was forgiven. The old rules

where only whores and sluts committed adultery.

Martha Brown was neither. That's what her eyes said. That and "I want you so

much I hurt, but I can't."

"How's your wife?" she asked. It was as much an answer as a question.

"Fine, but I don't think she'll be my wife much longer. We married for the

wrong reasons and we need to divorce for the right ones. She may be all

right with that. There was a definite change in her letters in late '44. I'

ll bet she already has someone else."

They held hands and talked. They napped with her head on his shoulder. They

ate in the dining car, holding hands under the table.

In Louisville, Kentucky, she said, "I'm changing trains here. Let me give

you my Washington address. I'll be there after May 1." She neatly wrote the

information. "Housing is tight in Washington. I've rented a room in

Georgetown from a war widow with extra space." She handed him the paper.

"This is her number, but she'll get the message to me. Call me, Cotton."

"I will," he said.

She gently kissed him goodbye.

The End
E. Z. Riter