Their Outlawed desire

New York City

May 1980

"You're what?" Reina McCarthy lashed out at her younger sister, her jaw dropped in shock, her silk gown swirled about her legs, and she grasped the closest thing to her for balance, a faux marble half-column topped with a Vast fern In robust health.

Janis McCarthy lay on the brocaded Davenport plucking, in a moody state, a box of pralines with an irritated shake on The wrist. She disentangled the lace sleeve of her nightgown from the candies.

"Please, don't get all dramatic about it, Reina. I need some advice. If I could turn to anyone else, I would." Janis started rolling her childlike eyes. Reina watched Janis' tongue cover her lower lip as she studied the sweets.

The mannerism was cute on the chubby curly-haired child her sister once was; she thought angrily, but on the heels of the news, she'd casually drop into the conversion; it now smacked of A lewd insolence.

At Reina's protracted silence, Janis looked up. "All right, if you must have me repeat myself, I'm expecting, pregnant with a child." She enunciated the words with schoolroom precision and widened her eyes In mock horror.

"You've been polluted, stained, and ruined, and been made impure-" Reina winced as if the words were a physical assault. "You had sexual intercourse with a man?" knowing she sounded stupid and slow, but hoping to God that Janis would burst out in laughter, indicating that it was all a joke.

Her lips stiffened as they formed the unfamiliar words. Janis waved a pale hand. "All right, say it however you please." Reina stared at Janis.

"With whom?" Limpid eyes drifted up to Mimi's astounded glare, Janis raised a brow and her baby doll lips curved into a smile.

"Common now, Reina, did you think that I was going to tell you that easily?" The audacity of Janis' tone sent irritation running from Reina's head down to her feet.

Her sister who had always been the darling of the family, the perfect-creamy skinned downy-soft debutante of the decades, had now proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she was nothing more than a spoilt, self-centered child, Reina thought within herself with a weary, fatalistic rage that this time, she had gone too far.

"Fine," Reina snapped, "Don't tell me, don't tell me anything, I don't want to know" She turned swiftly towards the door, partly hoping that her movement would force her sister to confess, while also partly hoping that Janis would let her go.

"I don't intend on telling you," Janis thundered. Reina stopped turning slowly. Janis popped another praline past her perfect lips and chewed appreciatively.

"Not that part anyway." Despite her desire to leave, Reina hesitated. It was incredible.

This nonchalance, in the face of the most monstrous confession, made Reina have combined feelings of fear and shame directed at her younger sister. Janis bubbled beneath her breast; without another thought. Reina strode to the satin-covered Davenport on which Janis lounged, grabbed the box of candies, and flung them against the wall.

Reina watched as Janis gaped at the little nuts which clattered to the floor, some bouncing like little marbles. "Listen to me, Janis McCarthy," Reina ground her teeth as they clenched against sudden nausea. "You're in a lot of trouble, and if this cretin who defiled you doesn't step up and does the right thing, you will be stigmatized in this town, we all shall be, neither Mother, not Father nor the whole family wealth can save you from punishment, no one will have you, do you understand? No one. Do you remember Madeline Dawson?" At this, Janis blanched.

She caught the first inkling of fear in her sulking eyes. "Madeline was not even with a child. She was merely caught in a..." Reina struggled for An acceptable euphemism.

"They were caught naked," Janis grumbled, saying it for Pete's sake.

"They were caught in a compromising position," Reina insisted. "Madeline, with that cruel middle-class man and now the whole family, had moved somewhere out West, they couldn't stay here in New York, not after what happened, not with everyone knowing what she had done, is that what you want for us? For people to mock us?" Reina questioned Janis furiously.

Janis watched Reina petulantly as if Reina's reaction was responsible for the scandal and not her pregnancy. Reina shook her head and closed her eyes. "Who is responsible?" Reina questioned Janis, who was busy picking on her nose. "The Pattersons? The O'Briens? The McClures? The Potter's?" Reina spouts out with curious, questioning eyes.

"Pah," Janis spat, "the Patterson's, who couldn't do without them? And their horrid dinner parties! If I never see another swan sculpted out of liver..."

"Pâté," Reina corrected sharply. "Whatever, I can live without it," Janis added.

Reina's fists clenched by Janis' sides. "What in the world are you thinking? How can you be so indifferent? Do you think you'll be able to bear this child without repercussions? For the love of God, people won't even want to walk on the same street as you!" Janis narrowed her eye.

"Then, perhaps I'll- I'll see someone, a doctor," she said, frowning. Reina gasped and stared at her as if she had grown a second head.

"You'll do no such thing! Do you know how many women die trying something like that?" Janis leaned forward with her mouth twisted in anger. "Do you know how many women die during childbirth?" Reina countered. Inexplicably, a lump grew in the back of her throat, and she had to swallow hard before speaking.

"It's worse, Janis," I insisted. "Much worse, I won't let you do it." Reina was in anguish this time.

A long moment passed before Janis shrugged and leaned back. "All right, I'll go away."

Hope sprang in Reina's heart, "Yes," Reina thought, "You can go to Winesburg! To Aunt Meredith, we can trust her, and we'll tell people you've gone to visit your aunt!" Reina's mood swept upward, "and it won't even be a lie, and the child can stay there with her"

"No!" Janis said.

"Perhaps she knows a good woman in her vill..."

"I said no!" Janis sat up straight, and her feet hit the floor with a slap which abruptly closed Reina's mouth. "I want it," Janis stated.

Reina felt rooted to the spot. "What?" It was a breath of a word.

"I won't leave it there. The baby. I want it." Into Reina's head popped an improbable image of Janis in the parlor with a baby amidst the countless admirers that always assembled around her.

"What would you do with a baby?" Reina asked but simultaneously had the reluctant thought, who would leave a baby behind?

"I don't know, but it could be fun," Janis said in a small voice, then she smiled, thinking, "Men adore babies, you know? I've seen how they turn to mush around them"

A hopeless awareness descended on Reina at that moment, a clarity that allowed her to see that Janis would never fully comprehend the magnitude of her problem, nor would she see how it could potentially ruin all of their lives.

Janis had no intention of helping herself. She would sit back and let Reina come between her and disaster again.

-

Authors note

What do you think about these characters?

Thanks for reading, don't forget to leave a vote and a comment-Pip cheerio.

Reina's POV

This was not worse than when she tried smoking Oscar McCall's cigar at Courtney's ball, even worse than what I had previously considered the most blatant crime possible-when Janis was all raunchy.

No, this time, she had done the unimaginable. This time, she lay with a man. The swift stab of emotion I couldn't identify penetrated my breast and caused mine caused my cheeks to flame up as I covered my mouth with my fingers while paralyzed with the realization.

I was jealous.

The fact that my younger sister knows how it feels to be touched and caressed in a royal touchy way.

"All right, I won't visit a doctor," Janis conceded. "Sit down, would you? Before you faint and knock Mother's noble Eterna Del Rivera vessel down," I gestured at the vase on a nearby table.

I glared at my sister, seeing her now as a proprietor of invisible certainties, a woman who had crossed the sinful act and appeared unremorseful. Janis knew what it felt like to be kissed, not pecked in a stolen drawing-room moment, but kissed, open mouths- searching- hands- the way I once saw a lady with questionable morals kiss a man on the corner of Wall Street.

Janis knew what a man looked like naked; she knew what that bulge was, what it meant, what it could do, and what it felt like. She knows what the desire felt like. She now understands what generates the heat that grows underneath the noble gown. I sat down, stunned by the enormity of my curiosity.

"What?" Janis demanded with a tone of irritation in her voice, "Why are you staring at me like that? I didn't murder anybody, okay? Reina," I chewed on my lower lip, then realized what I was doing and stopped.

"What was it like?" I asked Janis softly, without thinking twice about how she will look at me.

Janis's eyes grew wary. "What? What was what?"

I pressed my lips together, appalled by my gross interest, but the persistence of the feeling would not abate. I couldn't stop myself from thinking so profoundly about the details of touching a man. "What did it feel like?" I repeat, this time, with knowledgeable eyes.

"What?" Janis asked irritably, and then comprehension dawned upon her; Janis raised her eyebrow and looked at me through heavy-lidded eyes, "You mean, it? The much-dreaded act? The desire that turned me into a young so-to-be mother?" I could only nod once. Janis' face softened by a fraction and a smile, unlike the sultry one she issued earlier, she caressed her lips.

"Oh, Reina," she called at me, "It was wonderful," Janis said breathlessly. "I never felt so good before in my life. I reckon the feeling."

The words were astonishing, but at the same time, strangely intriguing, after years of hearing the disgusting murmurs quickly hushed by the married women in our Mother's club, and then the sky whispered musings made amongst my contemporaries to speak with someone who knew about the deed and thought it excellent, was utterly unexpected.

And for some reason, I found it exhilarating. I tried to maintain my comfortable position. "It was wonderful?" I repeated breathlessly.

Janis closed her eyes and nodded. "Oh yes, Reina, it was so pleasurable; I can't stop recurring all the steps he gave and all the mysteries that were hidden in between our legs."

"Tell me who the father is," I said, leaning forward in the seat towards my sister, hungry to know the identity of the person who had wrought such pleasure.

Someone I know? How strange it would be that one of the shallow young men who hung around the streets of wall Street was capable of such a mystery. Which of those silly dogs were able to refurbish my sister so? But at the question, Janis' face closed up.

"No, I ain't spilling that; it's a secret,"

"Why not?" I exclaimed.

"Because I don't want you to know," Janis toyed with the fringed sash of the morning negligee.

I threw my hands up in frustration, and embarrassment swallowed me. "Alright, fine, can you at least tell me this? Will he do the right thing by owning up to his abhorrent behavior?"

Janis pursed her pretty lips and stared obstinately towards the Ireland marble fireplace, her fingers on the hems of her gown. She was fabricating a lie, I could tell; she always got that dazed look on her face when she was about to cook something up.

"He's dead," Janis turned her face back to me and raised her chin.

"How's that? He wanted to marry me, and now, he's dead. Will you help me now? will you make people accept that?"

I slumped into my chair, "They won't believe this, and neither do I" I ignored Janis' exasperated sigh. "There's only one thing left to do."

"What's that?" The stilling of Janis' pale hands told me more than I wanted to know about my sister's accurate measure of concern. For Janis to turn to me at all should have been evidence enough that I was desperate, despite Janis' casual attitude.

The both of us had never been close; I had always been the smart and authoritarianism one and Janis, the pretty one with the charm; while I used to think the enmity originated from Janis' side, my jealous reaction towards Janis' predicament shed an uneasy light on the subject.

"I'll help you," I said finally and looked Janis in the eye, "I'll do the only acceptable thing" my fists balled in Janis's lap. Janis licked her dry lips and looked, at once, defensive and expectant.

I swallowed hard. "I'll do the one thing that will allow you to have your baby and keep it too; I'll find you a husband."

"What?" Janis spat out with a surprised look on her face indicating-that's not what I ever expected of you, Reina McCarthy.

"I'll find you a husband?" I repeat, looking at her stunned face.

-

Authors note

1) what do you think about this chapter?

2) Do you think Janis lying?

Don't forget to leave a vote and share

Queenstown, Missouri

June 1980

He slowed to a stop, and with a jerk of the head, he flipped a lock of dark hair out of his eyes and studied the group's movement.

It was possible, and he supposed, that the appearance of the afternoon scene in the backward little town was cause for much excitement, but he hoped it was something more worthy of attention than that.

Lord knew he could use a little excitement at the moment, and he was busy with his supplies when he caught the eye of a cowhand leaning against the weathered clipboard of the store and moved closer.

"What's happening with the ladies?" The man turned a beady gaze on him, spat onto the planking of the boardwalk, and shrugged, "New folks came in."

Summer raised an eyebrow, "That, so?" He shifted his eyes back to the crowd.

"I reckon that's the one bringing them dancing girls," he mused, squinting at the gathering crowd as if to see better.

"That answers nothing," He frowned at the man as he hissed and walked away, leaving Mister Summer on the spot.

After loading the sacks of flour, he headed back to the store, noticing that it wasn't just women gathering at the stage now a few men had stopped by to look, hell, before long, the entire town might be in attendance.

Summer thought, hating that he was feeling a mite of curiosity. A little boy in a shabby, red vest raced by, and Summer nabbed him by the scruff of his collar, "Hold up!" he said, laughing as the little boy skidded to a halt in the dirt.

"Hey mister, git offa me!" the little boy squirmed beneath Summer's grip, his collar around his ears, "Whaddya want?"

"What's going on over there?" Summer asked. "I don't know, a couple of city folk is all duded up real slick, and Miss Dippy told me to get my Momma they's fancy rigging they got on."

Summer put him back on the ground, and the little boy shrugged his clothes back into place. "That's it? fancy clothes and the whole goddamn town flocks to see them?"

The boy looked back at the gathering group, "Why not? ain't much else doing," he said, then added, "See ya," and ran off like a shot.

Summer glanced after him, then back to the gathering, which now seemed to be moving; whoever it was wanted to get someplace, and the mob was moving with them, he smiled cynically to himself.

I bet they were surprised to find themselves celebrities just for showing up. Well, it didn't matter to him anyway, he decided to stroll back to the store, and they weren't anyplace near Georgia.

Half an hour later, Summer could not help but stare at the stunning light brown-haired woman, with dazzling blue eyes, in a dark blue traveling suit who entered Mrs. Secrets boardinghouse; He was sitting in an armchair near the front desk, waiting for Old Avalon to come back with his pay when she entered, gracing the room with both beauty and an elegant smile.

'She had to be the one who drew the crowd earlier.' He thought, for she was exceptionally well dressed and was followed by a gentleman whom Summer hoped to heaven wasn't her husband, if only to maintain his faith in the rightness of all things.

Mrs. Secrets' straight face stood tense and inhospitable behind the front desk, somehow exuding both awe and disapproval simultaneously. "Can I help you?" she barked at the newcomers.

"Are you the proprietress?" the beauty asked in a voice that was meek to his hearing.

At the sound of it, Summer felt something wither inside of him-his confidence or his optimism, or perhaps both, she was just as pretty as a fucking picture.

"Yes, I am," Mrs. Secrets' sour air of displeasure looked to have taken a beating in the face of beauty's apparent breeding, and she attempted a gruesome smile. Summer wondered what on Earth could have brought such a beautiful noble to a filthy, little slum-like Queenstown, and ironic isn't it? A slum called Queenstown.

"We require two rooms, the cleanest you have will do" beauty pulled off her gloves a finger at a time with excellent snapping efficiency.

"Every one of em's clean," Mrs. Secrets said peevishly, taking a card from beneath the desk. "I'll set you up in my best rooms, and I run clean house here."

"I'm sure you do," beauty concurred in a tone that warned to Summer's ear that the place had better be clean. "Do you have someone to take our bags up?"

Mrs. Secrets finished filling out the check-in card with painstaking slowness and turned it to beauty for her signature. "I'll get 'em up there," she promised. "Rooms 3 and 4, upstairs to the left, privy' to the right, second door, which you'll find clean as well."

"Very good," the cultured voice said, effectively ending the topic of discussion by tone alone. "I'll appreciate you having the bags taken up directly as I would like to freshen up for supper. Could you recommend a reputable establishment where we could dine?"

Mrs. Secrets' expression screwed up uncertainty at this question."You want to eat?"

"That's correct" her lips curved in a forced, though pretty smile.

Mrs. Secrets pursed her lips. "There's only one place in town for the likes of you," She spouted out. "Roosevelt's place, out the door, to the left."

It was beauty turned to perplexed, Summer noted with a private smile, but she didn't ask what manner of evil her ladylike senses should be on the lookout for.

"Roosevelt's then," She said with a nod.

"That'll be cash upfront now," Mrs. Secrets added as if their fine clothes and high-class demeanor weren't fooling her.

"Now just a-" Mrs. Secrets piped up, but beauty cut her off.

"Pay her," she instructed. "But the implications m..." She sighed and shook her head.

"Just pay her, Mr. Flynn; what difference does it make?"

Mrs. Secrets glanced at the card in her hand. "Thank you, Miss..."

"McCarthy," She replied.

"I appreciate your understanding, Miss McCarthy."

Miss McCarthy waved her hand in dismissal and headed for the stairs. Before he knew what he was about, Summer stood and cleared his throat. Beauty, as he preferred to think of the lady, turned and fixed dark-lashes blue eyes on him. he felt the blood stall in his veins.

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