American Front

"And how do you know that?" she asked.

"How many girls have I brought there before you, do you mean?" he returned. "Does it matter? If we aren't doing this for fun, why are we doing it?"

To that, she had no answer. Kimball had never claimed to offer more than amusement, or to want more than that from her. Under those circumstances, wondering about others before her was foolish. She hadn't been a virgin there in the Pullman car on the way to New Orleans, either. She nodded and said, "Let's go."

The restaurant was in the far northwest of Charleston, well away from the fancy part of the city. It was, in fact, much closer to one of the Negro districts, which began only a few blocks away. The proprietor, who looked as if he might have been a quadroon passing for white, greeted Roger Kim ball as an old friend. If he was used to seeing the submariner in variegated company, he gave no sign of it.

What he did with those little shrimp made the visit worthwhile. Cooked with rice and okra and chopped bacon and some spices he coyly refused to name, they made a better meal than A

He handed A

As he'd predicted, the desk clerk placidly nodded when Kimball signed the registry, Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson Davis. A night's rent was a night's rent. The second-story room was small but surprisingly clean. Kimball locked the door behind him, lighted the kerosene lamp, and then turned to A

"Not a thing." She smiled back. From a lot of men -from most mensuch brashness would have put her off, but it was what drew her to Roger Kimball. She stepped forward into his arms. He squeezed her to him, tilted her chin up, and delivered an authoritative kiss.

For him to get out of his uniform, a little later, was the work of a few moments. Once naked, he saluted her without using his hands. He took his time about undressing her, pausing to kiss and caress each new bit of flesh revealed. She sighed with relief when, after detaching her stockings from their garters and sliding them down her legs, he finally peeled her out of her steel-stiffened corset.

"You men are so lucky not to have to wear those things," she said, "especially in weather like this."

He set his hand on her sweaty belly, then let it stray lower. Suddenly impatient, she caught his shoulders and pulled him onto her. He rode her hard, which was just what she wanted. When they were through, he rubbed at his back. "You clawed me good there," he said, sitting up.

"I hope it was good," A

Afterwards, they lay side by side on the bed, too spent to move, neither of them much wanting to get back into stifling clothes when being naked felt so much better. Roger Kimball fell asleep first. A

Sometime in the middle of the night -the lamp had burned out, leaving the hotel room very dark-she woke up, needing to use the chamber pot. Her motion woke Kimball, and they made love again, lazily this time, she on her side facing away from him, barely touching save at one sweet place in the warm, muggy night.

When A

Roger Kimball sat bolt upright. Unclothed though he remained, he was suddenly and obviously a military man, not a lover. "What the devil…?" he said, his voice sharp as a cracking whip.

Right under the window, a black man, without intending to, gave him his answer: "To de barricades!" the fellow yelled. "De revolution comin'!"

A

Below them, the cry grew louder and came from more and more throats, till it seemed to fill the whole world: "De revolution! De revolution comin'!"

Scipio was talking with one of the cooks in the Marshlands kitchen when the woman's scream came from upstairs. "Good God in heaven, what can that be?" the butler exclaimed. Since he was talking as an extension of the estate rather than in his own person, he used the elegant formal English he would have employed when addressing A

"Du

Scipio followed. He had no sooner reached the foot of the stairs than another scream rang out, this one louder than before. "No! Godalmighty, no!" the woman up there wailed.

"Who dat?" the cook demanded.

"I believe that is Cherry," Scipio replied. Had it not been undignified to do so in front of the cook, he would have scratched his head. The second scream and the wail had both come from Jacob Colleton's room -so, presumably, had the first. But that made no sense. Cherry had gone up to Jacob's room a great many times. Scipio didn't know exactly what she and the mistress' gassed brother did behind that closed door, but he did know she'd always kept quiet about it till now.

The closed door opened, then slammed shut. Cherry came ru

She dashed down the stairs, moaning, "Dat debbil! Dat horrible debbil! What he try an' make me do!" She ran past Scipio and the cook, both of whom stared even more, for she was not covered at all from behind. She opened the front door and ran outside, out toward the fields if the direction from which her cries came was any indication.

"Damn white folks," the cook muttered, glaring up toward the closed door from which Cherry had emerged.

A moment later, the door opened again. Jacob Colleton wheeled himself out to the banister. "Come up here, Scipio," he croaked.

Scipio obeyed, as he had obeyed white men and women^every day of his life. "How may I help you, sir?" he asked, his voice the polite, attentive, meaningless counterpart to the mask of service stretched across his face.

Instead of answering at once, Jacob Colleton wheeled back into his room, motioning for Scipio to follow him. Once they were inside, Colleton demanded, "What's the matter with that wench? Has she gone mad?"

"Sir, I would not have the faintest idea," Scipio answered stiffly.

"Oh, don't act stupid with me," Colleton said, anger bubbling in his hoarse whisper. "You know we don't play caroms up here. We were about to screw, not to put too fine a point on it, the same way we've screwed two dozen times before this, when all of a sudden she went tearing out of here as if -I don't know as if what. I haven't found anything she doesn't do-and like doing, too, by God."