The gunpowder gals

“Suppose your soldiers were offered a bargain, James? That they could do whatever they liked with all the good looking women in this village for tonight, if only they’d agree to try to save the village tomorrow morning. Not much of a peace, but one long enough to try to push this steamer way from the wharf once it’s on fire.” Her fingers closed around his shaft and rubbed it gently. “If they’d agree to a bargain like that, would you agree as well?”

“I – I don’t know.”

Amanda’s fingers undid the belt around his pants, loosening it and then pulling it apart.

“Think about it, James. For one night you could be another Caeser. Rows of helpless women chained and kneeling in front of you, begging for mercy. Do you think you’ll ever get another chance like that in your entire life? Shall I tell you what sort of a play I’m planning on staging for you?”

Amanda plucked open the top button of the uniform pants as she was speaking. If the secret of talking to a mule was to get its attention, there was no doubt that Lieutenant Lee’s ears were as pricked as much as any mule’s could be. And that sure wasn’t the only place he was pricked up.

She turned her head and smiled at him: “If you’ll listen to me I’ll undo all these buttons for you.”

“Do tell, Amanda, do tell!”

“What you should do is search the Henrietta and I daresay you’ll find plenty of chains and neck irons on her someplace. Nobody is ever going to transport another coffle of slaves down this river but the packet captains won’t believe that until the South finally surrenders. So you find all the chains and neck irons you can, and you tell your boys to leave them down in the main saloon.”

She bent to her task again and eased open another button. “OK, so far, Lieutenant?”

“Fine, just fine.”

“Then tell them that each man is to leave a shirt in the saloon as well. And each man is to write down his name on a piece of paper and leave it in one of his shirt pockets.”

She touched another button, pressing down on it against the pressure of the rising flesh beneath to get enough room to wriggle it free. The Reb’s ardor was pushing up a fold of his shirt like a tent post. The school Ma’am put her hand on it and squeezed it gently. James’ whiskers quivered as if he were feeling the heat of a branding iron being held against his body.

“I guess this must be the horn of plenty I’ve heard so much about, sir,” Amanda giggled. “A true cornucopia.”

“Lordy, Amanda, lordy!” The Lieutenant was almost whimpering with pleasure.

“Now, I plan to bring all the ladies down to the boat for their working bee about seven o’clock. We’ll all be carrying food and we’ll tell anybody who asks afterwards that we were ordered to cook the victuals and bring them down to the boat for you. But what we’ll really be doing is taking off our clothes in the saloon and making ourselves up into coffles with the chains. Then we’ll each put on a soldier’s shirt and come up here to the Texas deck, where the village men down below can’t hear anything.”

Her nimble fingers undid the last button and opened the pants as widely as she could, wriggling the top of his pants down around the Southerner’s narrow hips. She giggled again when she discovered there was nothing worn beneath the pants but the bottom of James’ shirt, still draping a column which reared up amid the officer’s rumpled clothing as if were an inflated balloon. But when she touched it through the fabric her fingers found a hardness they couldn’t compress.

“Is this what a husband looks like, Lieutenant? Can I see it?”

Reueben groaned and nodded, his glazed eyes fastened on her as if she was the most fascinating thing he’d ever encountered.

“Alright, but let me tell you first what’s going to happen tonight. We’ll all get down on our hands and knees and kiss the men’s feet to show how we’re submitting to them and begging for mercy. Then you’ll pick a woman at random and get her to read out the name in her pocket. Then she has to take off the shirt and give it back to the man it belongs to.”

Amanda lifted up James’s own shirt, staring at what she had revealed. “Is all this really you? Landsakes, I’ve never seen a body change so much.”

She lowered the shirt on the far side of the shaft and plucked gently at the black curls clustered around the bottom of it: “I surely never saw one as big as this on my illustrations of Greek statutes, but I have seen these before.”

Her fingertips juggled his balls lightly, and she watched in fascination as the man jerked as though she was hitting him instead of barely stroking the taut skinned eggs of his testicles. “James, can you feel that?”

“Yes, yes!”

“Fine – fine. So what I’m planning is that whenever a woman is claimed by a man she has to do whatever he says. Whether with him or with his friends as well, and with the other girls in that coffle helping out. Do you think a game like that would make your soldiers happy?”

“God, yes!”

“And you’ll agree to tell your men about the suggestion and let them decide? The women for tonight to save the village tomorrow?”

“Yes! I’ll tell them!”

“Alright, James. Now, just as a matter of interest, if you were a Roman and I was one of the Sabine women, what would you make me do for you right now?”

His hands reached out, one gripping her hair, the other seizing her behind the neck in a vice-tight hold. “Open your mouth, slave.” He bent her head forward, close to the top of his swollen organ. “OK, Amanda, let’s see you fire off my cannon.”

She squealed – quietly. Her jaw hung open as he positioned her where he wished, then pressed her head down onto his rampant prick. He felt her lips slide around him, the dampness of her tongue against and around the side of his cock. Far from resisting him, her head began to bob up and down on his shaft as smartly as a feeding duck dipping below the water.

It was unbelievable, it couldn’t be happening. He could hear his men calling and chaffing to each other out on the wharf, hear one of them singing:

“Sitting by the road-side on a summer’s day,
Chatting with my messmates, passing time away.”

There were shadows stretching out across the smart saloon, sunlight glinting off bottles behind the bar, and this fine looking young school Ma’am snorting and snuffling into his lap as she sucked him with enthusiasm – amateur enthusiasm perhaps but a thousand times more enjoyable because of that than being performed on by a paid whore from Hooker’s Headquarters or Mother Russel’s Bake House. She was right – never, ever, would a chance like this come along again. And if the other woman in the village would really perform like this school teacher . . . Oh Lordy, what a night was a-coming!

“Lying in the shadow underneath the trees,
Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas!
Peas! peas! peas! peas! Eating goober peas!
Goodness, how delicious, eating goober peas!

The officer felt the woman’s giggles coming from deep within her throat and through the tingling nerve endings of his organ as both of them heard the song. His fingers looped around the silk hair net holding the chignon of fair hair at the nape of her neck: clutching it firmly he bent her further forward yet to her work until she was snorting for breath and the locket hanging around her neck was resting on his hip.

Long fingernails scratched lightly against one of James’s legs, others across his stomach. Then one of her hands was holding the bottom of his cock to steady it as her lips slid further and further down the swollen shaft. It seemed incredible to him that any respectable woman could have succeeded so quickly in taking him so deeply into her throat. She was submitting as much as she possibly could to his size, even glorying in it, her jaws stretched so widely apart that her teeth were barely scraping over his rampant flesh. The fingernails which had been running up and down his legs moved underneath and behind his balls, every light scratch making him shudder in delight. The officer bellowed in triumph, feeling himself ready to spurt forth into the school Marm’s throat, holding her immobile and unable to move an inch to escape her fate.

Then the dam broke, the pressure was released, his seed came shooting out of him like steam from the boat’s boiler, a whistle of utter satisfaction from between his clenched lips as Amanda choked, snorted, writhed, continued to jerk her head up and down on his lap to mark his final ecstasy with the ultimate feminine submission. When he was finally spent he watched in fascination as the girl calmly patted her lips with her handkerchief, sucking in her cheeks with her eyes closed, as if draining the last drop of sweet taste from a piece of honeycomb. Incredibly, there seemed some expression of smugness on her face – as if pleased with herself.

Later still, she was sitting in one of the armchairs, a smile still hovering on her lips as she sipped a glass of ginger beer that James had brought her from the bar. He was leaning back in an armchair with his bare feet on the coffee table, drawing in with deep satisfaction from a long nine cigar taken into Confederate service from the boat’s humidor.

“Well, Lieutenant, was that a satisfactory token of good faith?”

“Indeed it was, Amanda.” There was a pause as James wondered whether to speak aloud of his curiosity about her behavior. “May I be permitted to inquire as to how you came to be aware of that particular practice? Of course it’s none of my business but you do seem to be a very . . . a very worldly-wise lady for one in your profession.”

Amanda smiled disarmingly, looking like a teenage miss caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

“Oh dear, must I hold a candle to my shames? Very well then, James. The teacher before me in Stony Creek was an elderly man of European origins who died very suddenly from a chill. Since he had no relatives the school board put aside all his books in case some of them might be useful for the school. But I suppose they never examined them very closely because when I went through them I discovered a German volume called ‘Gestohlen Fraun’. My German is very weak but apparently that means ‘Stolen Women’. It’s of no matter about the words anyway as the book is full of skilfully executed drawings of the most lascivious kind. In fact it was the drawings which gave me the idea of approaching you.”

“Really?”

“Yes. The story appears to be about two sisters of the Italian aristocracy and their maids whom are captured by bandits and taken to a mountain lair where they are subjected to every whim of the bandits. The illustrations show many of the . . . the activities in a most life like way. They certainly give the impression that the men involved are greatly enjoying themselves.”

James grinned and blew onto the glowing tip of the cigar: “It sure sounds like hot stuff for a demure village school teacher. The good people of Stony Creek would probably burn you at the stake as a witch if they knew what their school marm was studying.”

Amanda blushed prettily: “Very well, I will confess that ever since I found the book a month ago I have indeed been studying it very closely – more perhaps than is good for me. I fear it has indeed aroused some regrets about my own unmarried state and a lack of a male partner to help me experiment with some of the activities shown in the illustrations.”

“But now you’ve cast aside your scruples?”

Amanda’s smile became as inscrutable as the mona lisa‘s. “Why, sir, it seems that fate has conspired to make a virtue out of desire by forcing me to cast them aside. But did I really do it properly? I was fearful that you would start laughing at my efforts.”

James spluttered and tugged at his whiskers to regain a measure of self control: “No, Amanda, I didn’t feel at all like laughing. You were very good, I do assure you.”

Amanda bowed her head in appreciation: “Oh, thank you so much for saying so. Do you think I might crave your indulgence in helping my education further in these matters?”

“I’ll be – I’d be delighted, Amanda. What have you in mind?”

“Well, Lieutenant, I daresay all the other ladies whom might come to this evening’s social even are already married – or, at least, they’ve acted the part in the past. I, however, am still – what shall I say – uncharted territory? And I would much prefer that my situation should be altered before this evening’s public performance. Do you think you might possibly visit the schoolhouse about three o’clock this afternoon? I have a meeting scheduled there with the village ladies earlier but I daresay our business will be concluded by then. So I shall know then whether the ladies are agreeable to the arrangement and if I will need your assistance.”

“My assistance?” He thought he understood what she was asking yet still couldn’t accept the reality of it.

“Why yes, James. In fully introducing me to those of your gender. In playing the role of a founding father. Surely you know what I mean?”

James coughed as if he’d swallowed a piece of burning tobacco.

“Lord, Amanda, I’m exfluncticated, tetotaciously exfluncticated. I haven’t ever had such a day for cutting up didoes, nor never even dreamed of such a one. But you can bet I’ll be there on time, with my hair in a braid.”

“Thank you, kind sir. And now I must go before your men wonder what’s keeping me up here for such a time.”

He helped her down the boat’s steps, he escorted her back onto the rough hewn planks of the landing stage, he walked along it with her and reluctantly parted company with Amanda by the line of horses. Both of them pretended not to notice the wide grins on the faces of the Rebel troops. Perhaps Amanda was genuinely unaware of them the Lieutenant thought. He, wiser in the way of soldiers, would not have been at all surprised to learn that his men had already got a pretty good idea of what had happened on the Texas deck. Perhaps they’d even guessed somehow about Amanda’s shameless offering up of the village’s women – an offer he was now convinced she was likely to be on her own in making. Certainly none of the respectable wives of Stony Creek would consider such hellfire and brimstone behavior; of that at least he was sure.

Personally, he didn’t care at all about any other women as long as he could only find a way of getting the school teacher stretched out across her own desk, sans crinoline, drawers and all her other clothing. The very thought of such a scene was vividly exciting – too exciting. All the way back to the paddle steamer he could only retain control of an involuntary arousal by digging his nails into the palms of his hands, feeling as ready to explode at any second as the barrels of gunpowder stored in the Henrietta’s hold. And three words he whispered repeatedly under his breath:”Veni, vidi, vici”.

Amanda was right. He did feel like Caesar and like a conqueror. Or perhaps more like a Mark Antony, matched against a queen defending her own territory with remarkable powers of courage, cunning and wantonness.

Amanda herself returned to her home feeling well content with her efforts. At least she’d succeeded in making an ally of the Rebel officer. Nor did she have much doubt that he was an honorable man who would stick to any bargain that he made. As for his men, the promised treat ought to seal the deal which would save the village. The only people whom needed to be canvassed now were the women. Of course she couldn’t predict their reaction but at least they’d surely listen seriously to any idea at all for saving their homes from certain destruction. Then they would have to make their own choices.

Not that it was going to be easy to just up and tell the ladies the story. Before she went to her pre-arranged meeting Amanda had several nips from a small stone bottle of applejack discretely hidden away in the bedroom of her small home. From an even more discreet hiding place she withdrew her yellow covered German volume and weighed it in her hands for some time, her face a study in concentration.

Eventually she dropped the book into a basket to take to the schoolhouse with her. Perhaps this was a time when a book could be worth a thousand embarrassing words. Maybe the applejack would help as well.

There was certainly no shortage in the way of an audience. There must have been thirty women waiting outside the schoolhouse for her to unlock the door. All of them looking deeply concerned. Some tried to question Amanda as soon as she appeared but she said nothing until the school room was full, all those present standing. With crinolines and bustles at the height of fashion it was quite impossible for any respectably dressed female to have attempted to sit down at the pupils’ desks.

Amanda went to her usual place in front of the blackboard and explained the situation in a few simple sentences. The Henrietta was loaded with gunpowder and had been captured by the Confederate cavalry. The Reb officer was determined that the powder would never reach the Union army and was going to set fire to the vessel at dawn. The only possible way of saving the village from certain destruction was for the burning boat to be poled out from the wharf and into the river current before it exploded. Only the Confederate soldiers had the strength and discipline to stand a chance of managing the feat. The Rebs were not going to risk their lives to save the village of Stony Creek without some special reward being offered.

“Now, ladies. Having heard all this I suspect that most of you have reached an understanding of what I might be talking about. There are only three things which men will risk anything for. We’ve got no choice but to feed them and we don’t have enough money to tempt them into risking their lives for us. The third male imperative is making love to as many women as they can. And that’s our only bargaining chip.”

Amanda picked up her basket: “Any of you whom choose to leave right now can of course do so. I suggest you make arrangements to get your most valuable possessions out of the village as soon as possible. If any of you are willing to make the sacrifice necessary to save our homes, please stay.”

Euphemia Fitzpatrick stepped forward. She was short and well rounded, normally with a bright smile for everybody. The district midwife, with a strong personality and thus of great influence on the other women.

“Well . . . well, Amanda, for land sakes! Have you spoken to the Reb officer about this?”

“Yes, he’s certainly agreeable.”

“I just bet he is!” Euphemia giggled, relaxing the tension. Some of the other women also smiled.

“But what exactly did you say to him?”

“We agreed on an arrangement I suggested. But perhaps there is no need to discuss that until we’ve sorted out the wheat from the chaff – if you’ll pardon me for using such an expression. What happened was that the officer showed me a book of his and lent it to me. A German book with some drawings in it.”

Amanda wondered if there was a recording angel up in heaven writing down this blatant falsehood against her name. Her sins certainly seemed to be accumulating at an alarming rate. She laid the German volume on her desk, opening it at the bookmark. There was writing on one page, a detailed drawing filled the other one. A drawing which she’d spent hours looking at, a masterpiece of composition and depravity.

“Ladies, this is the book I’m talking about. Classical students would describe it as a pornographic work, which means that it deals with sexual matters in a totally uninhibited way. As I understand it, the story is about some ladies kidnapped by brigands and thereafter used in the most shameless way. One of the scenes in the story is depicted on the illustration on the opened page. It was made quite clear to me that the Rebs intend to act out the roles of the kidnappers and we are to become their helpless captives. What that means is, I think, made quite clear by this illustration. Those of you who wish to may step forward and take a look. Thereafter you may stay or go, again as you wish. But I repeat what I’ve already said: if some of us at least don’t agree to submit to the Reb’s demands tonight then our whole village will be a heap of smoking ashes by breakfast time tomorrow.

“I’ve just one other thing to say. If any of you want to get up into a pulpit and lecture me on my wickedness, I’ll bear your reproaches without argument. I just hope that the first lady to cast a stone will still be in the same way of thinking tomorrow when she’s trying to make a wickiup for her family out of branches and blankets.”

A chorus of dissent came from her audience and Euphemia shook her head sharply: “No, no way is anybody here going to say against you, Amanda. I reckon you’ve been smart enough to see straight off the only way there might be out of this mess. Aye, and determined enough to do what has to be done. There’s only question I guess I’d like to ask you right now, if you don’t mind.”

“Go ahead.”

“Well, what about you? You’re single, with your good name to lose. If the worst came to the worst at least you could make up your baggage tonight and move back into Kansas with the next upriver boat. So are you fixing to be at the Reb party tonight or not?”

Amanda lifted up her head and stared straight back: “I’m intending to do whatever I need to do to save my home. As for my good name, I guess it wouldn’t pay anybody to start talking about this business. Not unless they want to cause a whole peck of trouble for themselves and the entire village.”

The teacher was astonished when there was a spontaneous ripple of hand clapping inside the school house. She’d been half expecting to be run out of town on a rail by outraged matrons when they got the drift of her notions but things were turning out more like a school prize giving ceremony. There was a sudden movement in the audience and an old lady limped out, her hand resting on a walking stick. The widow Dawson, from the oldest established family in Stony Creek, and the richest. The widow owned both the tavern and the tannery.

“Amanda, I want to say to you that I surely admire your spirit and good sense. Now I guess I’m not able to be one of your recruits, but I want to tell you that I’ll stand behind you and any other gal that helps to save my property. I’ll also take care of any blabbering bitch by seeing to it that her ears get notched. So, tomorrow, you give me the names of those that have done the deeds and I’ll put two hundred dollars in cash in each lady’s hand as a mark of gratitude.”

Amanda was almost reeling. She seemed to be making as successful a speech as a Senate candidate arriving on the village green with a barrel of free beer. Although it was true that the widow’s promise of a bounty for successful sinning drew far more applause than Amanda’s words had received.

“Just one thing, Amanda. Before I leave, can I take a look at the book that Reb gave you? Just to satisfy my curiosity.”

The teacher nodded and waved her hand towards the desk. The widow limped over to it and bent over the book, fiddling with the spectacles perched on her nose. She stared down at the pages, then gasped aloud. Amanda felt her own cheeks burning, every line of the illustration etched on her own memory. The artist’s viewpoint was that of an observer standing by a large spoked wagon wheel mounted flatways and waist high on a post. Four women were around the wheel, each of them chained by the neck to a spoke. And around each of the women were men – men with long hair and long beards, but covered with very little else. And the women were in the same condition, their clothing removed and dropped on the floor or thrown across the wheel.

One of the women was also thrown down over it, each hand gripping a spoke, only her legs and feet still clad in silk stockings and court shoes. The rest of her body was totally bare, a shamelessly exposed plump derriere lifted high for all to see. More than that, the largest brigand of all was standing directly behind her, his beard plaited into two halves and his hand guiding his manhood into her cave of Venus. The pen which had rendered the drawing had shown remarkable skill in not only depicting his victim’s expression of pop-eyed surprise at this violation but her equal astonishment at the size of the interloper she was being required to find accommodation for.

Across the wheel another woman was on her back, wedged between two spokes, nothing left to protect her modesty save the ribbons in her hair. Two men were holding her legs up and widely apart, two more of their fellows had stood up between the spokes, each one claiming a prominent breast to fondle. Between her splayed out thighs yet another bearded brigand was kneeling, applying his tongue into her innermost recesses to the laughing approval of his fellows. As for his victim, her head was tilted back, lips and tongue showing in a long drawn out cry as her hands apparently joined those of the male malefactor’s in playing with her own bosom, to their evident delight.

Another prisoner, a shapely girl with long black hair, was in much the same position, each of her hands scratching the backs of the men holding firmly onto her teats, but her eyes fastened on the bandit who was holding her hips as he cleaved her open with his masculine scepter, a sport which several of the other felons were clearly eager to partake in as soon as this lucky pioneer had slaked his desire and quitted the promised land. In the meantime several other outlaws were crowded around the last of their booty, the oldest of the women, with high piled, disordered hair and still wearing a corset from which twin piles of flesh had overflowed. Kneeling on the floor her arms were lifted up as if to shield off the heads of attacking snakes which threatened her, but apparently in fact placating them with strokes and pats as she dealt with the closest one by giving it a place of refuge within her mouth.

At least, Amanda thought, at least that is one part of the picture which I now understand better than I did before. But what is widow Dawson going to say?

At first the widow kept on staring at the page, apparently taking in every detail. Then her shoulders heaved as if in distress at the sight. Amanda got ready to rush forward and support the old woman should she collapse. A strange sound came from the frail body – like the sound of a barn owl hunting. The widow was hooting with laughter! When she finally turned away from the book her hand was up to her eyes, dabbing away tears of mirth.

“Oh dear, Amanda, that’s sure some pumpkins. I’ve been of steady habits all my creation and maybe I missed out on some real interesting experiences because of it. Well, I guess I’d better go and take all the other un’s that are too long in retiracy for these sort of games. But don’t you go giving that book back to those Georgia boys – it’s too good for those goober grabbers. Come on Violet, come on Mabel, come on Keziah, come on Lydia. Let’s go back to our homes and pray for these ladies’ good works tonight. Even if we’re all too much of a age to get down on our knees, we can still pray for our homes to be spared.”

The widow began hustling out the other old ladies in the school room like a flock of geese. All of them very respectable, all part of the backbone of the village congregation, and all looking mournfully over their shoulders as the widow drove them away from the open book. Seeing the righteous being led forcefully away from temptation was a cause of satisfaction to many in the audience, especially the more unrighteous of the village women who were finding a refreshing change in sinning suddenly becoming a civic virtue.

Amanda let out a deep breath and took out the stone bottle she’d put inside the basket. “OK, ladies, I guess you can step up in your own time and take a look. Anyone of you who feels she might need fortifying first is welcome to take a taste of anti-fogmatic.”

It was an offer which received plenty of takers. In fact there was quite a hint of discreet pushing and shoving for a taste of the liquor, but nowhere as steady a demand as there was to take a look at the book. In fact within seconds it was picked up and being passed around from hand to hand, from one cluster of examiners to another knot of lowered heads and gasped exclamations: “Lord a’mercy! I never seen the like in all creation!” “Would never have believed to see such carrying-on all on one stick!” “Those sure are European ways, I guess