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A Nursing Lady

June 15, 1944

The train crammed with military personal, the “men” of Baylor, on their way home for summer vacation, had been forced to split into smaller groups that were scattered throughout the long train.

Frank Rizzo and Mitchell Lipensky were together in the middle section of the second from last car, which for some reason was not quite as crowded as the other cars.

“Hey,” returning from the toilet, Frank dropped onto the seat, “don’t stand up or look like you’re lookin’ or nothin’, but the lady across the aisle’s,” motioning with his head, “feedin’ her baby.”

“Yeah? Big deal!”

“With ’er tittie, Mitch. With ’er tittie!”

“Yeah?” Standing, he looked about.

Pulling him down, “I tol’j’ya not to stand!” Leaning back so Mitchell might see beyond him, both boys looked across the aisle.

In her mid-twenties, the moderately attractive lady had dishwater blonde hair and was minimally twenty pounds overweight. Stretched at the seams, the top three buttons of the cotton housedress she wore were open, revealing the white mound of her left breast. Nestled in her arms, the baby was partially wrapped in a blue receiving blanket. One of the baby’s small hands clutched the lapel of her dress, while its other hand squeezed the flesh of her breast making five small indentions in the soft flesh.

Having no idea that the blanket covering her chest had slipped revealing her breast, nor that she was being watched by the two boys across the aisle, lost in a daydream, her forehead resting on the vibrating window, the lady gazed absently at the passing scenery.

Her eyes closed, opened… and closed again.

Pretending to look out the window, as though something of interest was passing on the other side of the train, every few seconds the boys looked across the aisle.

“Frankie,” Mitchell whispered, “I think she’s sleeping.”

“Yeah.”

Dropping all pretense, Frank and Mitchell watched the lady intently.

This was the first time that Frank had ever seen a “real live tittie,” and so long since Mitchell had that, for him, this, too, was a first. Besides, by then he’d grown tired of the memory of Louise Ann’s titties and considered the possibility of using what he saw then—minus the baby, of course—as possibly the focal point of his future masturbatory daydreams.

The opening and squeezing of the baby’s fingers on the pliable flesh was beginning to affect both boys, and neither wanting the other to see what each suddenly had, first one then the other crossed his legs.

Unconsciously shifting the weight of her baby, the lady’s nipple pulled from its mouth.

“Huuh!” Both boys inhaled sharply as their mental cameras clicked the picture they saw: large normally, milk-swollen then, lines of blue veins ran beneath the translucent flesh ending at the lady’s turgid, dark pink nipple.

In her sleep, out of habit, lifting her breast from beneath, the lady put the nipple back into the baby’s mouth.

Latching on instantly, a foamy circle of thin milk formed around the baby’s puckered lips.

“Greedy little kid’s kind’a making me thirsty.”

“Yeah, me, too.” Thinking, Maybe I’ll go into the toilet when this is over. Mitchell said.

Oddly, Frank coincidentally had the same thought.

Pitching around a bend, the lady’s head bounced against the window, waking her. Looking at her baby, she saw that the blanket had slipped and that her breast was fully exposed. Embarrassed, instantly pulling the blanket over the baby’s head, glancing about to see if anyone had seen her, she saw the two boys gaping at her from across the aisle and, her anger apparent, the lady stared back.

Averting their eyes, sitting back, both boys looked straight ahead.

Waiting till “things” subsided, Mitchell went into the toilet. When he returned a few minutes later, Frank made the same trip.

“How’s ’bout us callin’ each other on the phone sometime?”

“Yeah, and maybe we can come to visit, on the streetcar.”

“Yeah, why not?”

                                                                                   ****

Twenty minutes later the train pulled into Union Station in downtown Chicago and many of the servicemen aboard rushed into the arms of their loved ones, and the men of Baylor into the arms of Ma and Pa, Mom and Dad, or Mommy and Daddy.

Impulsively running to his father first, feeling a pang of disappointment, the hug quick and perfunctory, Walter dropped his arms even as his son’s arms were still about him, but Mitchell’s disappointment was quickly dispelled by his mother’s welcoming enthusiasm.

“Mitchie, we’ve missed you so much!” Kissing his cheek, she held him at arm’s length. “My God, Walt, it’s only been… what? two months since we’ve seen him last and, good God, look how he’s grown!”

Occasionally he would see women with protruding stomachs and he’d never really thought too much about it but, standing at arm’s length, Mitchell was able to see his mother also. “You’ve grown, too! How’s come your belly’s so big?”

“Mitchie, I, uh… I’m…”

He knows! Thinking, he surely knows! Thinking he’d go along with it, Walter, who very rarely joked said, “Your mother swallowed a watermelon seed.”

Looking at his father, thinking, A watermelon seed? “Mom swallowed a watermelon seed,” he asked, “an’ that’s the reason she’s so fat?”

Continuing the joke, “Sure, Mitchie, what else?”

Shooting an angry glance at her husband, Myra was about to respond when Walter picked up Mitchell’s suitcase and began to walk away. Thinking, This isn’t the place to go into it, taking hold of her son’s hand, they followed.

Finding the watermelon seed story more than a bit hard to believe, but never known as a kidder—he is his father, after all, and fathers do not lie to their kids! So supposing it was possible, Mitchell told himself, I’d better be real careful whenever I eat watermelon