Meet Me in St. Louie, Louie
I can’t believe how fast time goes by. Here it is, 1965 already. When I was young, I guess I knew that I could still be alive in this year, but I couldn’t grasp it on an emotional level.
Recently — well, I wouldn’t say I celebrated but rather noted my eightieth birthday. Yes, me, Esther Milner, née Smith — I’m a granny now. If this keeps going on the same course, I’ll soon be a great-grandmother.
I want to reminisce a bit about my life, in this case, the summer of 1903 when I was eighteen. My family lived in a very nice brick house on Kensington Avenue in St. Louis.
Nowadays, young people think they invented sex. Sometimes, they will say, without really thinking, “Did they really have sex in 1903?” Well of course they did; we’re all here now, aren’t we?
Things have definitely changed, say, what with Helen Gurley Brown and that slightly silly magazine she publishes. True, women nowadays will drop their panties for just about anybody.
But we got around too, back in those days, although maybe not to that level. People certainly didn’t talk about sex openly, in public venues, but now they can’t seem to shut up about it.
****
That summer, after graduating from high school, I had a job as a sales clerk at the big Stix, Baer, and Fuller department store downtown.
I’m on the short side at five-foot-one. Back then I had thick auburn hair. Maybe I wasn’t gorgeous, but I accepted myself as I was.
One thing I should make clear. Women always talk to each other about nearly everything but we keep most of it among ourselves. It was through the women I met at work and in my neighborhood that I found out how to deal with my own sexual desires. Even now, you might be surprised at what girls discuss in private.
Some of those ladies were quite sophisticated, and they read erotic novels or even obtained erotic photos. They would sometimes let me borrow those materials. The pictures may have been in black and white, but they showed just about everything worth seeing in sexual acts.
Even today, there are people who don’t believe women have a true interest in sex. They would be surprised to learn that even “good girls” masturbated back then, often quite a lot.
I know I certainly did. That was my first tactic to handle my growing lustiness. Some of it I figured out on my own because it’s so instinctual. Other techniques came to me through the female grapevine I mentioned above.
A tip I got was about objects to insert into myself for a pleasurable experience. I was already using my hairbrush for that, but I was told that cucumbers and carrots were among the produce items that would work well too. Yes, simple products one could buy at a grocery store. However, I never attempted to peel and eat any of those vegetables later.
One hint I got was from a lady who had seen an anatomy textbook. God has been good to us females because there is a whole group of, let’s call them erectile organs, hidden inside our bodies down there. The clitoris, for example, is actually much bigger than the little “joy button” I had discovered myself.
Some creativity helped me when I thought about the old sofa my parents had stowed in the basement. With my newly acquired knowledge of the female body, I tried an experiment. That was to remove my bloomers, mount an arm of the sofa, and rub my bare crotch back and forth on the rough cloth.
For the first attempt, I sat backwards and held on to the rear panel. That worked perfectly, and I had my strongest climax to date.
Regarding my parents: I’m sure they never considered that their good daughter would be stimulating herself in any fashion. Thus I had to be cagey about when and where I did those activities. In my bed at night with the door closed was one of the best locations, but I used the basement too as I described above. Also, I had to keep my voice down even though my urge was to make a lot of noise.
Fortunately, I never got caught. If I ever had, I’m sure that my backside would have gotten a sound paddling. Now that I think about it, that might have been an interesting experience that I missed.
******
Yet I was craving an experience with another person, and I found that through my best friend, Grace Burnett. She was also eighteen, and she lived down the street from my home.
So were we lesbians? That wasn’t quite it, although we did engage in sexual acts with each other. I had heard the term bisexual, which seems like an accurate label if one had to be applied to us.
Decades later, I was intrigued by the theories that Alfred Kinsey wrote about. His view was that sexual orientation should be looked at as a continuous spectrum, not neat categories lined up like boxcars. Thus his argument was that most people are at least a little bisexual, although many of them won’t admit to it, even to themselves.
Once I read an account by a man describing his youth in the rural Virginia of the 1930’s. With their access to girls severely restricted, guys there would have sex with each other. And no, he didn’t specify exactly which acts they did together.
When they grew up and got married, they put their boyhood romps behind them. They never considered themselves to be homosexuals.
That story resonated with me because it was much like my relationship with Grace thirty years earlier. (Except, as I will describe later, it went on for quite a long time.)
She was also a short girl, but she had dark hair and she was on the plump side. Also, she was rather quiet, but she was one of the sweetest people I have ever met. That summer, I was having some very naughty thoughts about Gracie. Her dad was often at work, even on weekends, and her mother seemed to be out shopping a lot. Thus, on some days we had the run of her house for ourselves.
One Saturday, we were alone together for an afternoon. We were sitting together on a sofa in her living room. It seemed like a completely innocent gesture, but we were holding hands as we talked. Yet I was intrigued and wanted to try yet another experiment.
“Grace, have you ever kissed a girl?”
“Not yet, I haven’t.”
That seemed promising, so I took the next step, “Well, would you like to, I mean with me?”
She didn’t look down in embarrassment, but she gazed straight at me. “Sure, if that’s what you want, I’m ready for it.”
“I admit, I’ve never done it either.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure it will work out fine.” I was surprised that she was reassuring me.
This can’t be too complicated. I held her upper arms and pulled her towards me. At the first touch of her lips on mine, a charge went through my body. One must have gone through hers too, because she kissed back, quite passionately.
It’s called a “make-out” session nowadays, but we got deeply into it, wrapping our arms around each other and kissing all over our faces. At one point, she murmured into my ear, “Esther, I love you.”
That was unexpected, and then I was embarrassed. Yet I expressed my true feelings about her. “I love you too, you know that.”
I was inspired to push it further and rub my hands over her body. That must have been okay with Grace because she reciprocated on mine. My fondling grew bolder, and I pressed my hands against her breasts, then I dropped them down to feel her thighs and then her round behind.
My heartstrings were definitely thumping at that point. The infelicitous expression now is, petting above and below the waist but over the clothes. I’m not sure when that was coined, but I don’t remember hearing anything like it in 1903.
When her mother came home later, we were sitting there on the couch. “Why Esther, it’s so good to see you. Would you like some lemonade?”
“Yes, Mrs. Burnett, I’d like that very much.”
Later, we found out that she’d be out on Sunday too. Grace and I just looked at each other, but we knew what that implied.
That night I imagined being with Grace as I lay in my bed. I inserted my trusty hairbrush with one hand while I used the other one to rub around the opening. The result was soon intense, and my body lifted off the bed as I struggled not to yell out in pleasure. Some squeaks and gasps come out of my mouth anyway.
As I got my breath back, my thoughts about Grace were strong yet unsettling too. I was going to take a big step forward, and I knew we’d have to make up my own rules about how to proceed.
*****
The next day, I was over there by ten o’clock. We had all afternoon for ourselves, so we started where we had left off the day before. By then I knew how I wanted things to go, assuming that Grace would go along with me. And oh yes, she did, in a really big way.
As we held each other, I remember asking her, “Have you ever, you know, touched yourself? You must know what I mean.”
“Of course I do, but it’s far beyond mere touching I’d say.” She was moving faster than I had expected. I fumbled around for my next line.
“I was thinking that we could — I’m not sure how to put this — ah, touch each other, that’s a way to say it.”
Grace smiled at me and said, “Esther, you must fondle yourself to get a climax. I certainly do. It’s quite normal, you know.”
I was blushing for sure; I could feel my face warming up. “So I think we could do it to each other, I suppose.”
“Sure, you mean our private parts. That sounds lovely.” She winked at me. “Let’s open up our blouses and start there.”
Oh, she’s practically reading my mind. But I went ahead and unbuttoned her blouse, and she did to the same to mine. When we pulled our chemises down, I saw her round breasts and she saw my smaller ones. I felt awe in looking at a woman’s bare body for the first time.
We rubbed each other’s breasts, and she took the initiative of putting her mouth on me. I had heard of that, but I didn’t expect Grace to know about it. She had a lot of surprises for me that day.
The sensation was so strong that I leaned back a bit, moaned, and ran my fingers through her hair. “God, that feels so good.”
She stopped for a second. “You’ll note how stiff our nipples are getting.”
“I’ve seen that often enough with myself.”
Grace giggled, “I bet you have! I’ve done that too, plenty of times.” She lectured me a bit. “It’s a key female pleasure zone.” Perhaps she didn’t know what erogenous meant.
I wasn’t sure how far we’d take it that day, but Grace was ready for more. “This is so nice, but we should go to the next step,”
I knew what she was talking about, but I still asked in order to confirm it. “And what would that be?”
“I’m sure you know. But, just to be safe, we should go up to my room.”
“Would your mother catch on if she knows we’re up there?”
“No, she’ll just think we’re just having some ‘girl talk’ ”
Right, I knew what girls talked about. And we were definitely going to be having a girl something. Once up there, she closed the door. I was standing there feeling quite awkward. “I’m not sure how to do this.”
“Don’t worry, sweetie, I know what to do.”
“I thought you hadn’t done this before.”
“Absolutely, I haven’t, but it’s pretty obvious, I think. Here, first, let’s take our bloomers off. Our shoes too, because we’re going to be on my bed.”
We left our discarded items on the floor, and we sat on the edge and kissed for a while. Then she said, “Let’s show ourselves to each other. We should know what we look like.”
She sat against her headboard, lifted her skirts, and spread her legs. I got my courage together. If she can do this, then I can do it too. I sat at the opposite end and faced her with my legs apart.
For a few moments, we stared at each other. Her pubic hair was dark and springy; mine was straighter. She teased me. “So you are a natural redhead! You’re so beautiful, you know.”
I felt warm all over, and there was a tightness in my throat. “I don’t know what to say right now.”
“You don’t have to say anything. Just come on over here.”
It was pretty clear what we were going to do. We kissed and hugged, rubbing our bare thighs on each other. Then her hand went between my legs, and mine went between hers.
“Esther, you’re all wet down there.”
“Well, so are you.”
“You know what that’s all about, don’t you?”
“I suppose so.”
She teased me again. “That’s so a hairbrushes can slip in more easily! Just kidding. Here, I got mine.” She took a brush out of her nightstand drawer. “I’ve got one for you too. But as you can see, mine is bigger.”
It was an impressive piece of wood, that was for sure. I must have looked confused because she explained the details. “We’ll take turns. I’ll be first because, well, it is my house. Sit next to me and move this around inside of me. Stroke me all around the sides with your other hand.”
I didn’t know the correct terms yet, but it was going to be mutual but not simultaneous masturbation.
“Let me get my pillow under my behind so you’ll have a good angle.”
It was easier than I had expected, and the benefits were well worth it. As I thrust her brush back and forth, she lifted her legs up and out. Our faces were close, and we spoke into each other’s ears.
I said, “You really like this, don’t you?”
“Oh yes, it’s even better than what I could do to myself.”
It was fascinating to watch her approach her peak and listen to the noises she was making. When she climaxed, she made a very big fuss about it. Her legs clamped around my arm, and she leveraged a hold on my shoulders to lift herself up and sideways. The sounds she made were extremely loud.
We sat for a moment gathering our wits, then we kissed and cuddled. She said, “Esther, it’s your turn. And don’t forget to put the pillow under yourself.”
I got into position near the head of the bed, and she used the other brush on me. Maybe it was only in my mind, but it did feel stronger than my own actions on myself. Grace cooed endearments into my ear.
As I reached my orgasm, I grabbed her hand holding the brush and moved it in the way I wished. I also put my other hand down to assist her in stroking me. It was amusing to briefly look over and see our bloomers on the floor.
I was glad we were alone in the house because I could make all the noise I wanted to. Somehow I was flat on my back after it was over.
For a short while, we lay there and exchanged confidences. I told her about the woman with the anatomy textbook and how I had mounted a sofa arm.
She said, “That’s an interesting technique. I’ve sometimes held my pillow on the bed and gotten on top of it. That works very well.”
“I’ve never tried that, but now I’m sure I will.”
Afterwards, we lay there with our arms around each other. Without planning it, we both fell asleep. When we woke up about fifteen minutes later, it took me a moment to remember where my bloomers were. They were on the floor, not on my body. Grace noted her watch. “My mother is supposed to be home in an hour or so, but I’d like to go out for a walk with you right now.”
I agreed. She also noticed our discarded underwear and said. “It would be fun to walk around without our bloomers on, but even I’m not that uninhibited! I almost forgot; sniff your fingers.”
Her scent was on mine, and I knew mine was on hers. She laughed. “We should wash up first!”
When we were out walking, my gait was a bit unsteady yet jaunty at the same time. Probably Grace felt the same way. I wanted to hold her hand, but I figured that wasn’t a good idea. We smiled at each other instead. We were two young women facing a big world.
On that Sunday afternoon, people out for their own walks noted us and smiled too. Two nice girls who are friends. I thought, if they only knew that we are lovers now. We wandered around for a while until we settled down on a bench in Fountain Park. Once there, we didn’t say anything because it didn’t seem we had to.
******
There are some of aspects about that time that are worth digressing about.
The first was the general attitudes that people had about same-gender relations. Some probably had never heard of that or believed only the most wicked indulged in it. I don’t know exactly what my parents or Grace’s parents thought, but I’d guess they assumed that their daughters were incapable or ignorant about such matters.
That actually helped our affair quite a bit. Had I tried to be alone with a man in those days, that might have aroused some suspicions. I wasn’t chaperoned as closely as some girls were, but it was a common practice among all social classes.
However, Grace and I could get away with quite a lot because no one worried about what we did together. In the eyes of others, we just had a friendship, nothing more.
Also, I loved the clothing we wore back then. Never mind short-shorts; I really did feel sexy because of the outfits we had on. I looked so prim on the outside, but I was humming with desires inside my own body.
Our underthings were also modest by today’s standards. Yet I miss those ample white bloomers I owned. Those garments also opened up in the back, which facilitated all kinds of naughtiness.
To add to that, we also usually had black stockings going above our knees plus high-topped shoes. And hats; we have lost the appeal of those hats from that era. I suppose the whole look could be called “Edwardian,” even if that referred to the British king across the Atlantic.
In many ways, those clothes were more flattering for a woman’s looks than the skimpier outfits of today. For example, Grace’s plush backside and round thighs looked much better than they would have with a mini-skirt or shorts.
****
I was interested in male companionship too, Of course, the long-term goal was marriage, but there was an interim try-out period before that. The term dating wasn’t used much as far as I recall. In the present, dating is almost synonymous with having sexual relations of some sort, and everyone knows it.
Back then, one was seeing or going with or courting someone else. By the way, unlike that guy in Virginia I mentioned earlier, I fully intended to continue with Grace even if a man came into my life. Grace would think the same way about herself.
So you may say, isn’t there something wrong, dishonest about being involved with two people at the same time? The way I saw it, what happened between Grace and me was completely distinct from whatever I might do with a man.
In fact, I knew that I’d confide everything to my female friend, but any boyfriend would not have the same amount of knowledge about what was going on with her. I felt no guilt about that. So, please, spare me your judgments. Life gets complicated at times.
*******
An interesting male prospect arrived on Kensington Avenue that summer. The Truett family purchased their house just to the east of ours, and their son John was nineteen at that time. Yep, he was literally the boy next door to my house, 5133 to my 5135.
Yet progress was initially non-existent. He had to know where I lived, but a couple of times he passed me on the sidewalk without acknowledging me at all.
I was miffed that he didn’t seem to notice me. I figured that some more dramatic action was necessary on my part. Here’s another thing you may judge me on. Esther, it’s not fair to use your sexual wiles to land a man. And it’s just not romantic.
Well, what’s wrong with it? I was completely honest with John about what I wanted and what we were doing. He was always free to do as he thought best. I made it very clear that I wanted to be his girl. I didn’t use trickery, but I could be quite blunt.
Also, not romantic? If one is honest about it, love and lust are inextricably entwined. It’s been that way for millennia.
Now my older sister Rose had said, “When you get to be my age, you’ll realize that there are more important things than boys.” She could be quite annoying indeed. I should have responded, “Really? So what are your priorities then?”
****
The pattern back then was that “good boys” would meet and marry “good girls.” Until such a girl was in sight, they would rely on various methods to satisfy their urges. Most commonly, I suppose they worked on themselves much like I was working on myself. A few would hire prostitutes, or cavort with “hussies.” A hussy was defined as anybody sexually wilder than you were.
Well, I put the strategies I had developed with Grace to good use. I got my chance because of my siblings. Rose threw a party at our house for our brother Lon. And she invited John! As that expression goes, I seen my opportunities and I took them.
At first, I was subtle about it, and I didn’t take much notice of him at that party. Then, I did play a little trick of hiding John’s hat to delay him leaving, I will admit to that.
Everybody else in the family was in bed by that point. My plan was to have him accompany me as I turned out the gas lights in the house. Those things could be dangerous if the flame went out and the gas kept flowing. Thus the company added an odor that could be detected if the gas was in the air.
I knew I looked good because I had dressed up for the party in a short-sleeved blue dress. There was a yellow scarf around my neck and a yellow bow in my hair.
I also guessed that John probably had no idea of how to handle someone like me. My intuition told me to be bold with him. I understood that he was basically a decent guy, but I was going to risk a quid pro quo with him. I would give him some pleasing things and he would do the same for me. I wasn’t going to show all my cards that night, but I was going to reveal a lot of them.
He might bolt, but I was prepared for that. Sure enough, he tried to leave but I stopped him. It started well, but I detected how tentative he was. For one thing, he kept calling me Miss Esther.
“You can drop the ‘Miss.’ ”
Then he said, “This has been a great evening. I’ll never forget it, Esther.”
The problem was that he was shaking my hand, and I sensed he was about to walk out.
Some people, especially those from my age cohort and even younger, might say, Esther, you didn’t merely flirt in that situation. You were very naughty.
That’s an understatement! But I was thinking strategically, for the long term, and I had to do something to make sure he didn’t forget that evening or, more importantly, me. I first used some humorous sarcasm.
“You not thinking of leaving now, are you?”
“It really is time that I go.”
“Not if I have anything to say about it!”
I pulled on his arm, and sure enough, he went with me. I knew exactly where I was taking him, too. There was a small sitting room off the living room on the first floor. Earlier, I had checked, and the door could be locked from the inside. I also had an oil lamp in there burning on a low light.
When I had closed the door, I said, “Be my guest. Sit over there on the couch.” It was easy then to sit next to him, holding and kissing him. I doubted that he had ever done that with a girl. As for me, it was quite appealing although qualitatively different from smooching with Grace.
Perhaps I am a risk-taker because it was possible that my plan wouldn’t work and then he would spurn me as a “loose” woman. But it struck me that he wasn’t a judgmental kind of person. In any case, I felt I had nothing to lose.
I gently put my right hand into his lap and I felt his erection through the cloth of his trousers. I already knew that males his age would get quickly aroused from merely kissing a girl. He wasn’t startled, yet I sensed that he was a bit perturbed anyway.
“Esther, what are you doing?”
I said quietly, “It’s quite simple. I’ll do some things to help you and you will do some things to help me.”
“I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll show you everything you need to know.”
In that case, I was relying on knowledge my female informants had given me because I had no first-hand experience to go on. One of them had said to me, “Notice that the word gentleman has the word ‘man’ in it. They mostly all react in the same way.”
So I improvised. And John responded as I had hoped. I undid his trousers and took his stiff cock out. Yes, the word had that meaning back then, although probably girls like me were assumed not to know it.
As that lady would have predicted, John began moaning as soon as I began stroking him. I had also planted a container of hand lotion in that room. That lotion was applied to him.
From those women, I had a fair idea of what men did to themselves and how I could approximate it myself. I held him tightly at the base while I ran my right hand up and down. From the reactions John had, it seemed to work perfectly.
At one point he seemed to be genuinely curious. “Esther, how far are you going to take this?”
That struck me as amusing. “Oh, you can be assured, I’m taking it all the way to the end.”
It doesn’t take guys that age very long for their first shot. I could tell from his voice and the feel of his body when it was imminent. I did take one precaution. “Please don’t yell.”
That must have registered with him because he did it as quietly as could be expected. I noticed a throbbing within him just before that. I had never seen a man ejaculate before or even viewed a photo of it. But I was transfixed by witnessing the two bigger streams coming out of John’s cock. “Oh my, that’s truly amazing!” I kept stroking until his last spasms were finished.
Except, I hadn’t thought about where it would all come down, which was as quite a mess on the sofa. In a few moments, he said, “I’m so sorry about your couch.”
I wasn’t going to let my faux pas ruin my evening. “Don’t worry about it; hardly anybody comes in here.” I hoped I’d be able to clean it up the following day.
After a bit more kissing, I said, “All right John, it’s my turn now. You do know that women have their own ways of satisfying themselves?”
Fortunately, he knew what I was talking about. “Yes, I have heard of that.” I didn’t embarrass him by asking where he had gotten that information. I guessed guys had their own private talks, especially when they wanted to impress one another. They’d make up the details if they had to.
He said, “I admit, I’ve never seen it myself.” Then he asked a predictable question. “What do you want me to do?”
“It’s not that different for us, I suppose. We use our hands too. And your hands will help me in this case.”
My hairbrush was upstairs, but any girl worth her salt can accomplish it with just her fingers. And I had his fingers to work on me too. In addition, I was very aroused by all of that kissing, cock handling, and watching the spectacle that had resulted.
A flair for the dramatic was necessary, so I reached under my skirt and pulled my bloomers off, leaving them on the floor. Then I turned on the couch and spread my legs with both of my feet on the cushion.
That indeed startled him. I was sure he had never seen a bare female crotch before, except perhaps in one of those photographs. He actually said, “Do you want me to touch you? I don’t know how to do that.”
I tried not to laugh too much. “Touching is an understatement. But I certainly know what to do. Here, give me your hand.”
He caught on quickly, and I guided his hand in all the right ways. Probably I should have taken my shoes off as I had with Grace, but I just ignored that.
I had learned something from my adventures with Grace. Because John and I were inexperienced, it seemed best to take turns so we could concentrate on what we were doing with each other.
It was certainly going well for me. I put one leg up the back of the sofa and the other was waving around in the air. As I neared my climax I was able to remind myself, Esther, don’t yell!
Some sound like a long “eek” came out of my throat. Then while I was coming, I leaned forward and held on to John’s upper arms. When I was done, I fell back flat on the cushion.
John had a knack for asking serious but mildly amusing questions. Maybe he was a bit too polite, but considering what he had just done with me I had no problems. He said, “Esther, did I do it right?”
I had to laugh at that too. “You just saw my reaction, so yes, you did fine, more than fine.” I saw that his erection had returned — no surprise there — and it was poking out of his unbuckled trousers. I leaned forward and playfully rubbed one finger around the tip of it. “I assume that feels good?”
“Yes, of course.”
“As you have seen, I know exactly how to deal with your problem.”
He asked another inadvertently funny question. “Will that work?”
“Sure it will. You’re nineteen, there’s a lot more where that came from.”
That time we made sure his handkerchief was covering the end of his cock when he ejaculated. My curiosity got to me again, and I watched his shot coming up into the cloth and spreading out.
He looked a bit dismayed when holding his soaked item. I wanted to be a good sport about it — I had already decided that he was a keeper — and I offered, “You don’t have to put it back into your pocket. I’ll take care of it.”
“Are you going to throw it out?”
Now I was amused by my own statements. “Why destroy a perfectly handkerchief? No, I’ll wash it out for you.” Hah, you’re doing the typical female thing of cleaning up the messes men make. But it was a very special mess, done at my request, so I accepted it.
Anyway, I suppose nowadays what we did would be called handjobs and finger fucking. To my old ears, those sound a bit brusque. Yet, as I mentioned, people have been doing those same acts for countless centuries.
****
A bit later, I decided to take another risk. John and I were in the dining room, and I had poured myself some brandy — into a water tumbler because that was all I could find. I had moved the oil lamp onto the table.
My guess was that nobody from my family would come downstairs at that hour. If one did, they might be a bit perturbed that it was beyond my bedtime but well, we just had that big party earlier. Having John sit there wouldn’t be unduly alarming. It’s so nice that Esther is having a chat with the boy from next door.
I would surely have enough time to finesse the brandy glass by putting it on the floor under the table cover.
I was feeling quite relaxed, and I put my feet up on an ottoman. My bloomers were still on the floor in the other room, but so what? Maybe I wasn’t such a good girl after all.
John had declined my offer of a drink, and he did look somewhat tense again. This guy worries a lot, but on the other hand, I believe he does respect me.
I inquired, “So John, you seem a bit quiet right now. Has all this been bothering you?”
He was forthright, for sure. “Honestly, I’m not sure what to think.”
“You should understand that I want to be your girl, I want to be going with you. So, I admit, I had to do something big to get your attention. Now, it’s your choice, you can easily find a girl who is, ah, more restrained than I am.”
The brandy was affecting me. I leaned forward and said, “But I’m a lot more fun!”
He seemed to be pondering what I had said. I continued, “If I may ask, what are you doing this weekend?”
“Tomorrow, I planned to go to Forest Park and see how the fair is coming along.” That was the World’s Fair being constructed for an opening the following year.
“That sounds great. I’d like to come along with you.”
“All right, if that’s want you want, we’ll go together.”
After having broken some rules in the sitting room, I was ignoring another one. I realized I had broken a cardinal one by not letting the male initiate an outing. Either John hadn’t noticed or maybe he was fine with what I had done. I gave him the manly task of making the arrangements. “So when and where should I meet you?”
“That will be at the car stop on Union Avenue, say at eleven o’clock.”
I should have controlled myself better, but joy and the brandy overcame me. I got up and sat on his lap; I put my arms around him and kissed him. “I know you’ve got to go soon, but this is all going to work out so well, you’ll see!”
*****
So on Saturday, I was at the streetcar stop and — there was no John! He wouldn’t stand me up, would he? I decided to board the car anyway and go on my excursion. Then, just as we were pulling away, John came running after the vehicle. He caught it too. (Those things were rather slow, which is why anyone who could afford one later bought an automobile.)
I think he was truly late, but maybe he did it for the dramatic effect. The surprise did have an impact on me. The car wasn’t shaking, but I surely was.
When he got on and sat next to me, my universe was certainly reeling. I’m not going to mince words. My pussy tingles were intense. (The word pussy was used back then, but probably not tingles.)
The crotch of my bloomers was also getting damp. I couldn’t help myself; being eighteen is a very juicy time for everybody.
Yet we were both a bit subdued on the short trip down there. I had no real experience with boys before and I doubt he had any with girls. Somehow what I was doing with Grace seemed so natural. In contrast, this new relationship was putting pressure on both of us.
When we disembarked, I put out my arm for him to take. When he did that, I started to feel better.
Much of Forest Park was filled with fair construction projects. Yet it was very pleasant to walk with John along the perimeter down to Oakland Avenue and then east from there. It was obvious that this exhibition was going to be both huge and spectacular.
When one is young, walking those distances seems easy. I was happy to have his company during that time. Esther, I think you’ve done it and got him for yourself.
*****
When I saw Grace the next week, I mentioned my trip with John, but I tried to downplay it a bit. Our late-night activities seemed better left unsaid. I did say, “Of course, this isn’t going to change how I feel about you.”
“I already understand that. But, I’m very happy that everything is going well for you.”
She also hadn’t been to see the fairgrounds yet, but I agreed to go with her for our own tour of the place. That repeat outing was pleasant, but it felt different with a female friend. Perhaps we didn’t feel the need to impress each other.
She hadn’t seen the half-completed fairgrounds before, but she was dazzled by it. (Everybody who saw it was.) The formal name of it was the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, which commemorated an event that had happened one-hundred years earlier. It wasn’t just the present state of Louisiana; it was enough land bought from Napoleon’s government to double the size of the United States.
We felt comfortable chatting about it. I said, “That was part of the land we are standing on right here in St. Louis. Not that many people were living here then.”
“I know about that. So why did the French sell it for pennies per acre?”
“Napoleon was a better general than a statesman. For one thing, he wanted to finance his endless wars.”
We walked around the entire edge of the park until we were back at Union Avenue.
*****
In another week, we two ladies took our own affair to a new level. It’s called a pajama party now, but the idea was that a cot would be set up in Grace’s room and I would spend the night on that. I’m sure everybody thought, how much trouble could two girls get into? Quite a lot, actually.
Women would wear different things under their nightgowns, but Grace and I had “pantaloons” instead of our daytime bloomers. Those fit more snugly, and they came down almost to our knees. In any case, we weren’t going to be wearing them for long.
Erotic photos of girl-on-girl lovemaking existed then, and we had seen some of those that I had borrowed. That was the first time I had ever seen what is now called a “strap-on” being used. The lady getting penetrated from behind was dressed as a nun. There is nothing new under the sun, is there?
True close-ups of what to do with one’s mouth on female genitals were not available, but I had heard enough from my sources to understand how to do it. Besides, there is nothing quite like experimenting and figuring it out for yourself.
Grace was eager to give it a try too, which is what we intended to do in her room that night. There was a lamp on low light sitting on her nightstand so we could see what we were doing. We would have to be quiet about it, of course. And we had prepared that afternoon by both taking baths so that our bodies would be clean and fresh.
We started where we had left off in earlier sessions, which was to hug and kiss on her bed. Soon our hands were inside each other’s pants, rubbing and fondling our sensitive places. The expression now, “getting into her pants,” was quite accurate for that kind of foreplay.
I boldly stated, “This was my idea, so I’ll do you first.” Thus we pulled our pants off, and her lovely round thighs gripped me as we rolled around together.
Then we used an arrangement we had decided on earlier. Grace sat on the edge of her bed, her pillow supporting her behind for a good angle again. I knelt on the floor in front of her. As she spread her legs, I gazed at her up close for the first time. I think anybody, male or female, beholding that for the first time would be impressed.
Grace said, “Go ahead, sweetie-pie, let’s see what you can do.”
I knew that subtlety was important in these actions, and I knew what I enjoyed on my own pussy. Thus I assumed it couldn’t be that difficult to figure out, and it wasn’t.
At first, I licked her from top to bottom and back again for a bit. Then I used my fingers to gently pull her lips apart and I kissed and licked her deeper. Her response was almost immediate. She moaned and ran her fingers through my hair. “Esther, you have such nice hair.”
Some of my blunter side was apparent in my unspoken thought. Yes, and I have a very nice tongue too.
A pleasing aspect of oral sex was that I was giving her such pleasure while being so close to her body. For one thing, I could taste her, and that seemed much like my own flavor. Yes, girls are curious about licking their fingers while guys in turn will taste their own semen. That may seem obvious now, but it wasn’t universally acknowledged in 1903.
Also, I could see and feel the visible part of her clitoris pushing up and stiffening. We both knew that there were other and more extensive erotic parts just inside our flesh.
Grace soon had her legs up, waving them around in the air while she braced herself on her bed. We had to keep our voices down even if the door was closed, but she said my name several times anyway.
Then I could easily tell what was happening to her. She grabbed my head to push my face in deeper, then she clamped her legs around my head. Some indescribable noises came out of her mouth, which were louder than I thought prudent but there was nothing to be done about it at that point.
It seems that if women come hard enough while they are sitting up, they will often fall flat on their backs at the end. That’s what Grace did, anyway. I got up on the bed and we held each other.
As she kissed me, she said, “Esther, I can taste myself on your lips.”
Maybe I was pushing things a bit, or maybe I was teasing her. “You know it’s soon time for me to taste myself on your lips.”
I think she was teasing me too. “Of course, that goes without saying!”
When we had reversed our positions, she looked up at me from her kneeling position. I could see a look of concern on her face. I reassured her, “Don’t worry, honey, just follow your instincts. Imagine what you do to yourself and translate it into doing that to me. Does that make any sense?”
Sometimes she seemed so serious. “Yes, I get it.”
“Besides, you already saw and felt how I did it.”
She was a good student because it was my most amazing sexual experience up to that point. At the end of it, I also wound up flat on the bed with my legs up on her shoulders and my feet were behind her neck. Then I looked over and saw that she was grinning at me.
“So was that sufficiently naughty for you?”
I knew she was being tongue-in-cheek and I replied, “God, naughty doesn’t begin to describe it.”
Later, instead of getting on my cot, I stayed in her bed and we fell asleep with our arms around each other.
******
I took Grace to an ice cream parlor to meet John. She had seen him on our block a couple of times, but she hadn’t known his name until then. Of course, she now knew all about John and me, but he only knew of her as my friend, not my lover.
That was indeed a slightly awkward situation to be in. Grace and I responded to it by having a fit of giggling.
John, in his slightly overly-serious way, commented on it by saying, “You two are certainly in high spirits today.”
That only made us laugh even more.
****
I’ve done quite a bit of “kissing and telling” in this already. Let me note that I was soon able to convince John to orally pleasure me. We got away with those sessions because Grace was kind enough to let us use her house when her parents were away. The first time with him was in her basement however, not upstairs.
Yes, he did know what I was talking about, but he was honest enough to admit that he had never done that before. I, of course, knew exactly how to guide him. He was discreet enough never to question exactly where I had picked up my knowledge.
Of course, I orally pleased him too, and for that, I had to rely on a few of the photos I had seen. Being a gentleman and yet also a man, as I have described, he eagerly went for it.
For the first couple of times, I sucked on him and then had him ejaculate outside my mouth. That was indeed — call it amusing — because watching a man shoot off because of your own efforts is very pleasing.
Eventually, I wanted him to go off in my mouth, and that was interesting too. It was satisfying to grip his behind and feel his semen firing into my mouth as he moaned with pleasure. Sometimes it was indeed difficult swallowing it all, and some would run down my chin.
As always all is fair in love, and we both found that funny. He would always have a handkerchief ready to help me clean up. Then I would kiss him so he could taste himself on my mouth.
There is still a certain squeamishness in our society, and some women don’t like the taste of semen and some men don’t like the taste of pussy. Such people often can’t abide their own flavor. I never had that problem with my lovers.
I was indeed difficult at times to find privacy in a big city. At times I envied rural lovers who may have had a handy barn or even the nearby woods for their romps. (The phrase “a roll in the hay” was one that I had heard.)
The three of us grew quite adept at finding trysting places for ourselves. On a couple of occasions, Grace and I used her back porch, and once she used mine.
There were some times, if the weather permitted it, when I went with one of my lovers to some public place like a park. That could be a bit risky and it was hardly ideal to be outdoors anyway. We kept most of our clothes on for whatever we were trying to accomplish and we always got away with it.
I think that the use of automobiles in later decades was almost as big a part of the “sexual revolution” as the recent introduction of The Pill. Once people had cars, they were no longer tied to transit and could just drive off with each other in any direction. The back seats of cars were very different from the wooden seats of the trolleys I knew in my youth.
There was also an idea promoted among young females that — well, fellatio — could cause pregnancy. That lie was supposed to discourage misbehavior, but I never fell for it. One of the terms used back then was something like “tasting a man’s seed.” Hah, drinking it was more accurate.
*****
My life since that year might have been a bit different from other women of my generation, but then who’s to say? There are many secrets that people keep to themselves. Anyway, I didn’t wind up marrying John after all. Our visits to the World’s Fair the following year were near the end of our time together. That’s the way life breaks sometimes.
I married another man named Timothy Milner when I was twenty-one two years later. That lasted until he finally passed in 1961. I’d say we had a good life together, and we had two children who now have offspring of their own.
Grace got married around that time too. Perhaps this is indeed unconventional: our friendship and also our intermittent love affair lasted another two decades until she moved out of the St. Louis area. It’s not that we had problems with our husbands. As when we started in 1903, our relationship was in a distinctly different part of our minds
So where did we find the time and the opportunity for that? As I’ve said, since many people believed that two women wouldn’t have sex together, it was possible several times per year for us to accomplish it.
Our husbands certainly never suspected anything. Sometimes, we would visit each other’s homes and wind up chatting together while lying in our beds. That was considered completely normal. So perhaps the wilder sides of our personalities stayed with us.
******
I eventually became an elementary school teacher, first in the St. Louis system and later in neighboring Clayton. I retired from there in 1952. Yet we liked the town so much that Tim and I bought our second house there in the 1920’s.
In 1939, when I was fifty-four, we made a trip to New York to visit the World’s Fair in that city. I suppose I was impressed, although it couldn’t compare with the thrill of being nineteen and seeing the St. Louis version.
Now there is another one in New York again, but the novelty of these events long ago wore out for me. It’s just as well perhaps, because I probably couldn’t get there anyway.
Over the years, like those women I knew in my youth, I would try out whatever was considered the hot erotic novel of the time. For example, it wasn’t until a few years ago that an unexpurgated version of Lady Chatterley’s Lover became available in the United States.
My opinion (you may disagree!): Lawrence was certainly ambitious, but he couldn’t rein in his habit of overstating everything and going for some very purple prose.
Then as he began to move, in the sudden helpless orgasm, there awoke in her new strange trills rippling inside her. Rippling, rippling, rippling, like a flapping overlapping of soft flames, soft as feathers, running to points of brilliance, exquisite, exquisite and melting her all molten inside. It was like bells rippling up and up to culmination.
Et cetera, et cetera. And that’s just the first part of the paragraph. At the risk of sounding like a grumpy Philistine, I thought, Come on David, let’s move this along already.
*****
Every now and again I made a trip back to Kensington Avenue to see my old block and the houses John, Grace, and I lived in. We had fun on that street and elsewhere, but we were serious too in our feelings for each other.
Now the very last streetcar line in the city, the 15-Hodiamont, still runs behind them a block away. It now has streamlined cars from the 1940’s instead of the wooden ones that seemed so modern at the time. Yet it appears inevitable that the line will be replaced by buses too. It’s hard to believe that a city with so many lines will soon have none at all.
As I suggested at the beginning of these memoirs, one’s sense of time changes as one gets older. For me, 1903 seems like only yesterday, while for young people now, it’s ancient history.
Times passes more quickly than any of us can imagine, so try to live life to the fullest.
####
Sally Benson wrote a series of short stories and then a novel based on her own life growing up in St. Louis. Those became the basis of the screenplay for the movie, although her version of the script wasn’t used. I made up the character of Grace Burnett for this story. The rest of Esther’s life after 1904 is also entirely fictional and thus different from Benson’s.
The 15-Hodiamont line was replaced by buses the following year, 1966. John’s old house at 5133 Kensington is still there, but 5135 (where Sally Benson did live) was demolished in 1994.
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