by Rose Caraway
An’ what if Miss Mary Mae starts showin’ in a few months’ time? What then? That night’ll cost ’em both more’n all the bottles in the General Store. An’ I coulda saved ’em from such a terrible lesson, if only they’d let me.
By now, I bet you’re wonderin’ just who am I to talk against those fancy bottles, blamin’ store-bought whiskey for bringin’ people low? Must be I got somethin’ ’gainst liquor, you think. Prob’ly just some old preachy teetotaler, you’re guessin’. But that ain’t me. I’m all for a good time. Got me a kick stronger’n any mule. An’ from the first sip, my aim is true. Moonshine’s my name.
Weren’t born in no factory. Never had no label. An’ ain’t been aged in a barrel, given time to plot an’ plan, figurin’ the best way to worm into a body, fill it with foolish longin’ an’ send it off in the wrong direction. I ain’t no good at deceivin’ ’cause Moonshine burns all the way down. Only an underhanded, overblown bottle-drunk drives a woman-lovin’ woman into the arms of a cheatin’ man who barely remembers what he done or why he done it.
Used cannin’ jar’s good enough for me, don’t even have to be clean. Still in the cellar brews me up fresh. An’ Miss Amelia, with her strong, tender fingers, pours me careful-like into an old jar an’ caps me tight. Coulda been Grandma’s pickled rhubarb or Aunt Molly’s prize-winnin’ blackberry jam inside once upon a time. An’ just like a taste of home-cookin’, Moonshine shows you what’s real. Sears clean through lies an’ fool dreams. When you tip me back, you cain’t hide from yourself an’ you don’t wanna. You can see right through me like I see through you—strong an’ cool as sulphur water from the town pump. I just cure a different kinda thirst.
Now, say the night of the barn dance didn’t happen like I first said. Ol’ Lou came ’round the back a’ the General Store ’stead a’ headin’ for the front an’ bangin’ through that squeaky screen door with his week’s pay. Say he held out his dollar an’ wrapped his hand ’round somethin’ real. Held me up to the night sky an’ let the moon shine right through. “Hell with that old barn dance,” he said, already sweet an’ lazy-minded after the first swallow. Home he went, arm ’round his pink-cheeked Sue-Beth, to have the kinda good time a man don’t have to regret an’ a woman won’t soon forget. Wouldn’t even’ve seen Miss Mary Mae, eyes sparklin’ as she sashayed down the road in her new dress, proud to be posin’ in what Annie made so special for her, takin’ in praise words with a “Thank ya, kindly” that she couldn’t wait to bring home. Miss Annie shied from dances as well as the back porch of the General Store. Not Mary Mae, though, not this night. Now that she was of age, she just stepped up an’ bought herself a little jar, then took it right on home. In the year she’d been stayin’ in the pretty little cottage, it had come to feel more like home than the house she’d been raised in, an’ Miss Annie was the best teacher she’d ever had. An’ after a mouthful of Moonshine, Mary Mae knew it was time to do some teachin’ of her own. The gal’s heart was full, an’ I made it fuller.
Walkin’ down the dark lane, Mary Mae hummed to herself, hardly aware of her own voice, just feelin’ it. When she arrived, she smiled big an’ held out the jar. She didn’t let Annie protest the drinkin’, nor helpin’ her out of her day clothes. Soon, they sat together on the bed in their short, delicate shifts, the ones they’d hand-embroidered together with sun-yellow stitchin’ a few weeks back. For minutes that stretch to feel like hours under the influence of Moonshine, they just looked at one another.
Slowly, with quiverin’ fingers, Mary Mae reached around to unbraid Annie’s long, brown hair. Eyes down as she toyed with her neatly sewed hem, Annie couldn’t stop grinnin’. Mary Mae was touching Annie with the hands of a woman not a girl, pressing her nose into the thick mass of chestnut curls an’ beyond to the nape of Annie’s neck beneath, inhalin’ long an’ deep. Annie shuddered, holdin’ in a girlish giggle, an’ Mary Mae kneeled up to lay her back in the sweet softness of clean white sheets to spread her legs with poised hands an’ honest kisses.
“What are you doin’?” Annie whispered, knowin’ full well.
“Doin’ what’s right,” answered Mary Mae, confident an’ strong. “I love you, Annie,” she said. An’ before Annie could answer the same, Mary Mae was pressin’ her mouth to the bloomin’ lily between Annie’s parted thighs. Safe an’ Moonshine-drunk in the darkness of their little home at the edge of town, they knew themselves—every inch—an’ they knew love.
An’ that’s what I do.
Cherries in Season
KD Grace
My fruit sense tingles the minute I walk through the door of Maggie’s greengrocer. My mouth waters when I see them. They’re displayed center stage on the shelf between the plums and the strawberries like round, plump little exhibitionists practically screaming eat me! I forget entirely about the cucumber and tomato I’d planned to buy to go with the lettuce I’d grown in my own little plot.
Maggie has cherries!
Cherries! That’s what I want, and I’m not looking at anything else.
At least not until I hear his voice.
“They’re really good this season.” I look up into eyes the color of toffee and the rest of the package is at least as edible. The hair, that makes me wonder if he’s just hopped out of bed after wild sex, is that golden color of ripe, full summer, and suddenly cherries are not the only thing I’m hungry for. I manage a thought for Maggie, wondering where she is. In the three years I’ve lived here she’s never trusted her shop, nor her exquisite produce, to anyone else. Then my mind returns to cherries and the delicious bloke offering them.
Anyone into grow-your-own knows that just because something looks succulent and ready to eat doesn’t mean it is. “It’s not really season yet.” I manage to sound like I’m not flustered, like the T-shirt hugging the hard geography of a seriously broad chest isn’t interfering with my higher brain function, like those eyes aren’t melting me like butter on hot toast. “These are early, and they’re still a little too expensive for cherries in season.” I shoot him a quick glance, then feel the heat rise and spread up my chest and over my throat as though just by making eye contact he might be able to read my naughty thoughts. I nod to the cherries that seem to be taunting me. “They may look nice, but how do they taste?”
He closes the distance between us in a heartbeat. There’s no one else in the shop at this hour of the morning but us. He’s taller than I thought, and I feel the warmth radiating off him and smell the delicious combination of good clean male sweat mixed with the early morning air.
Suddenly I want to eat him as badly as I do his cherries.
“Two words,” he says, brazenly popping a cherry between my lips, an act that makes me blush like a schoolgirl.
“Two wo’ds?” I mumble around the cherry.
“Sun trap,” he replies. “The orchard is perfectly situated to catch the best rays.” A knowing smile crosses his full lips as the taste of the cherry hits my tongue and I catch my breath in a little moan that’s only slightly less than orgasmic sounding. “I know the grower,” he continues, eyes twinkling, “this year his contract with another shop ran out and voila!” He pops another cherry into my mouth just as I make an ungraceful effort to spit the pit of the previous one into my hand. “Location, location, location,” he says and produces a pristine tissue for my pit, then adds, “These cherries are ripe and succulent and practically begging to be eaten two weeks, sometimes a full month, before any of the other cherries are. They’re such little sun hogs that they absorb all the bright spring and early summer heat to arrive in Aunt Mags’s store way before the others and tasting like the best sex ever.”
Jesus! Did he just say that? Had he read my mind? I lay a hand against my chest, suddenly aware of the thin tank top I threw on this morning and my lack of a bra. I was just going to buy veg with Maggie and maybe a few early risers there. No one would notice or care how I was dressed, but right now my nipples were feeling as heavy and as plump as the cherries.
I spit
the second pit into the tissue mumbling something incoherent, and we both laugh nervously. Maybe he’s noticed my nipples too, I mean, I’m nobody special, and certainly not at this hour of the morning, unshowered, no makeup, dirt under my nails from my veg patch, my hair tied back in a careless ponytail. But there is something about eating cherries that’s as close to good sex as you can get. And this time, he raises a third cherry with a look on his face that confirms it. Just as I open my mouth for the reward, he pulls it back ever so slightly, and I bite into it with my front teeth. An explosion of sweet ruby juice runs down my chin, onto my chest and onto the tight swell of my breasts. How the hell could one cherry have so much juice?
I yelp and, Jesus, I sound almost like I’ve just orgasmed. Suddenly I see that there’s cherry not only on my tits but on his white T-shirt too, and fuck, if his nipples aren’t as hard as mine! His tight little points rise in salute as mine return the favor. The sweet tart flavor, the jewel-red splash on white cotton, the 3-D definition of the flesh below has me seriously struggling to find my breath.
“Oh Christ! Oh god! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” I hear him say, his breath is as fast as mine. His face is tinged a lovely shade of pink. I look down to check the damage all embarrassed and flustered and there it is—straining against his light summer trousers like the cucumber I originally came to buy. I’ve made him hard! I’ve actually made him hard. It’s been a long time since I’ve made anyone hard. And my body remembers exactly how to respond. Suddenly I’m wet and tetchy and I feel as ripe and ready to be eaten as those cherries.
He’s saying something about sparkling water taking out tough stains and, from somewhere, he produces a bottle and more tissue. He’s just ready to hand them over to me when he catches his foot on a crate of potatoes and we both get a fizzy bath. My tank is suddenly see-through, and my nips aren’t even trying to behave themselves. And neither is his cock, which has gotten its own splash of fizz.
I can’t tell what he’s saying because we’re both yammering on at the same time, not making any sense as we try to be polite. I swear nothing like this has ever happened to me before, and I can’t help wondering what the hell was in those cherries. But he’s lovely, all embarrassed and befuddled when he offers me a handful of tissues. With the look of horrified contrition setting so charmingly on the strong lines of his jaw, how can I help myself? I grab him by the wrist and guide his hand right on down to a soft landing on my left breast.
“Oh god,” he gasps, dropping the tissue. His eyelids flutter and a tremor runs through his whole body. There’s a jerk of further expansion in the front of his trousers. “Oh god,” he repeats.
Mortification and arousal are a bizarre mix, and I’m about to apologize and run for the door when I realize I’m no longer holding him against me, but he’s cupping me, taking the weight of my breast into his palm, worrying my wet, chilled nipple to stretch and strain against cherried fabric.
“Oh god,” I respond, stepping closer to his warm hand. “Honestly, I didn’t …I never…I shouldn’t have…” And damned if I haven’t forgotten the English language in its entirety. Damned if I haven’t forgotten my own name!
Our eyes are super-glued in a gaze that feels completely combustible, that feels as physical as his fondling of my breast. Then he steps closer and I feel his breath on my face, smelling of morning coffee and cherries, humid and labored, and becoming more so as he guides my hand to rest on his erection. I think I might have whimpered at the hot, tense feel of him beneath stressed fabric. At my first touch his reflexive action results in a near painful squeeze of my breast and a harsh grunt. For a moment I think he’s come, but then he takes control, settles my hand and shifts against it, guiding my fingers with his own to show me what he needs, and I’m a quick study. I feel his breath hitch; I feel his hips shift closer to my touch. Even through trousers it’s not difficult to tell that he’s thick enough and long enough to scratch my itch, and fuck, my itch so needs to be scratched.
I become reckless and giddy stroking the cock of this man I don’t know, stroking him hard, grinding my hips in empathy. I’m making subtle little squeezes and wriggles in my shorts, my pussy gripping and gaping and gripping again on the slippery seam, the rub exquisite in the absence of the panties I also didn’t bother with this morning.
Our breath is tight and tense and spastic until it finally stops and there’s no movement. We could be statues accept for the gaze that binds us and the heat that scorches us. How can so much lust be compacted into so little movement? How can the crescendo of arousal be so totally all consuming and yet focused and narrowed down to tight little centers of heat waiting impatiently to burst free and explode?
I come first, with no more stimulation than his hand on my breast and the rub and stroke of my pussy against my shorts— that and the knowledge that I’ve made this gorgeous man hard. He grunts and jerks and strangles a cry before it can escape those deliciously parted, cherry-scented lips. His grip on my wrist is bruising as his cock spasms inside his trousers, inside my hand, and I feel an impossible surge of liquid heat that keeps my pussy trembling and grasping against the drenched crotch of my shorts.
For a second we stand breathless, stunned, staring at each other in the honeyed sunlight streaming through the storefront window making his hair look like it’s been showered in copper. And he leans in, all cherry-breathed and humid and smelling like summer heat itself and just as his parted lips brush mine, just as the very tip of his tongue flicks over my lower lip, Gemma Braynard bursts through the door with her three devil spawn who are all over the store like a bad rash, dirty little hands on everything. She’s yelling for her darlings not to touch and to be good for mummy. We jerk apart like we’re rocket propelled. I break for the door embarrassed, overwhelmed and horny as hell for more. As the door shuts behind me I hear Gemma ask about the cherries.
I don’t live far and I can’t get home fast enough, barely making it through the door before I’m stripping. I make it upstairs to the tetchy pleasure of the shower massage. There I sit sprawled in the tub, one leg over the edge, the other braced against the tiles directing the pulsing jets of water between my legs, down over my distended clit and up over the pout of my labia. The shower massage is good in a pinch, but it’s not what I need. Not nearly what I need. I think of cherries and cucumbers and a toffee-eyed greengrocer with a cock that I made hard, a cock that I took care of, a cock that I want inside me.
I eat a cheese toastie for lunch, too embarrassed to go back for my cucumber and tomato and not about to waste the petrol to drive to the supermarket. As I settle in at my laptop to get a few hours of work done, I wonder where Maggie is. I wonder how long she’ll be gone, and if maybe I will have to drive to the supermarket instead of having to face the man I practically attacked over a couple of cherries. And he did call her “Aunt Mags.” If that’s the case, if Maggie is his aunt, and she finds out I’ve gone all cougar on her nephew, I might not be welcome back anyway. Absently I wonder how old he is. Old enough for Maggie Kittredge to trust him running her shop, and old enough to know a thing or two about cherries, other than they’re red and they taste good. And anyway, I’m not that old, I reassure myself, and I’m looking a whole lot younger these days after the divorce. Plus I have nice tits, so why wouldn’t Cherry Bloke like playing with them?
It’s early afternoon when I notice the note pushed through my mail slot. It’s written on one of the small paper bags Maggie keeps on hand for produce. It simply says Cherries are in season.
With my heart racing and my pussy gripping in muscle memory, I open the door to find another paper bag filled with ripe red cherries and another note inside.
Cherries are in season—and on the house as an apology for my bad behavior. I hope you’ll come back and pick up the things you originally stopped in for. And anything else you might need. I work until five.
Hal
I get to the shop just before it closes in case I need a quick escape, or in case we continue with the groping
after hours. This time I wear underwear. After all, the free cherries might just be Hal’s good business sense. He may not be looking for another encounter. But I still make sure plenty of cleavage is showing, and the skimpy summer skirt offers much easier access than the shorts did.
When I arrive Hal’s waiting on two elderly ladies, and a third is fondling the melons near the back. He sees me and offers a smile that’s almost shy, and the blush that climbs his slightly freckled cheeks goes straight to my crotch. I return his blush, and my nipples offer a stand-up greeting through the bra.
I wander around the store feeling up the produce and listening to snippets of conversation. Maggie’s on holiday—first one in ten years, and Hal’s filling in. The ladies seem totally enthralled by him. They take their time talking about the weather and their grandchildren and the horrid state the world’s in. And Hal, like his aunt, doesn’t rush them. He makes them feel like they’re the most important people in the world. He recommends the most succulent fruit and the tenderest, most tasty runner beans. When the last customer leaves the store with a smile and a wave over her shoulder, he walks quietly to the door and turns the OPEN sign to CLOSED. My heart thumps as I hear the click of the lock, as I watch him pull down the shades, and then I suddenly find myself the center of his attention.
He looks at me from under thick lashes and heavy lids, and he’s not smiling. My tummy jumps nervously. “You owe me,” he says at last.
“I’m happy to pay,” I say feeling a bit confused about the cherries, and I reach into my bag for my wallet.
He shakes his head and in two quick strides is standing beside me. “Not the cherries. Those were a gift. I’m talking about the hard-on I had all day thanks to you.” He nods to my bag. “There’s nothing in there that’ll compensate for that. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to wait on customers with my cock leading the way? I spent the whole day thinking about your gorgeous wet frontage and fantasizing about the rest of the package.” He rakes me with a look that breaks a sweat in the tight plunge between my breasts and makes my pussy quiver.
