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

