Author's Note: This is a part of my LiveJournal serialized storyline called "Road Not Taken", in which I'm keeping various guest characters in the storyline and weaving them together. This section of the storyline involves Doritha Simmons and Jed, who have an affair when Doritha realizes it is over between her and Kid. As background, in earlier installments of the serial, Jed was the one who initially had sent for Doritha in an attempt to break up Kid and Lou (who Jed believed was a boy in an 'improper' relationship with his brother), causing her to break her engagement to Garth and come running to town to try to win Kid back. There is storyline both before and after this, which will be posted eventually.

The lamp in the corner of the room flickered, the fuel was getting low. Doritha idly grabbed her wrapper from beside the bed and sat up, tying the sash around her waist.

"Don't get up," Jed said lazily. "C'mere, willya?"

"Haven't you had enough, cowboy?" she teased.

He grinned, pulling on the ends of the sash. "You surprised me, Doritha Simmons."

"Do tell."

"You and Kid musta done more than I reckoned, judgin' from the ride you just gave me, honey."

She chuckled at the thought. Kid was as proper and awkward as the day was long back when they were sweethearts. They'd never made it past chaste kisses when he left home at fifteen.

"Not Kid?" Jed asked, surprised. "Garth then?"

"Never mind. It wasn't either of our first time, so why belabor the point?" she said, getting a little irritated. "I think it's the height of bad form to discuss past lovers in bed with a present one."

"Okay, just curious."

"You sound like a woman, Jedediah."

"Fine, we won't talk about it, then." He watched the flickering lamplight playing over her golden hair, and wondered what secrets this fine Southern lady had. Maybe someday she'd tell him, but for now, he knew all he needed to for their purposes.

Doritha, though, was getting impatient. It was time for Jed to be getting back to the ranch where he was staying, but he seemed content to lie there playing with a lock of her hair twisted around his hand. The sight of the golden spiral in his fingers sent a memory through her so intense that she jerked her head free.

"Something wrong, honey?" Jed asked.

"Don't you have work tomorrow?"

"Yeah, first thing," he said ruefully. He was feeling satisfied and tired out from his exertions, and didn't particularly feel like getting dressed and going out in the night, riding back home. But she was right, he'd be late to work if he didn't make tracks now.

He got dressed and she lay watching him, brooding a little over how her life had changed. Her mother and Mammy would turn in their graves to see her in bed with this cracker, but then she'd never been able to tame her desires the way they'd told her she needed to. She'd tried, superficially, at least, to obey them. She always kept her opinions, her desires, hidden away from society, like they told her a proper lady did. She'd acted simpering and weak, like she had no opinions. Like she'd be mortally offended if a man tried to take a liberty, even so small as touching her ungloved hand. But …

She turned over. Even Jed would be sickened if he knew what she was really like. Poor white trash like Jed, were always the most puritanical when it came to Southern womanhood, she reflected, and who could partake in it. And long ago, she'd betrayed every ideal of Southern ladies that there was.

Her father had a hundred slaves or more, twenty of them house slaves. He'd traveled through Europe as a young man, and had a weakness for Greco-Roman myth, and each and every slave was stripped of his or her name on arriving at the Estate, and given a name of a mythological figure. Every baby born to a slave had its name picked out from one of his books on mythology. Of course, most of those names got shortened to something pronounceable by Southern tongues, but there was one slave her father owned, who never went by anything but his full Greek name - Adonis. Because it suited him, so perfectly.

She never remembered a time when she didn't know Adonis; he came to the plantation with his mother, her mammy, who was purchased when she was born. Mammy was a mix of white and black and Indian; Adonis was the son of her old master. She and Adonis, like all the slave children on the plantation, grew up side by side. And he was so beautiful, that when he was sixteen he was promoted to assistant coachman. He cut such a striking figure in his coachman's coat, she remembered. At sixteen, he looked like one of the statues of the Greek gods her father admired so and replicas of which were scattered all around the estate. But she had never given him any thought as anything but a well-liked servant, until her fifteenth birthday.

Kid had promised to send for her, when he ran away from Virginia with her money. Her father knew nothing of her love for Kid, who was not in their class and not eligible as a suitor. But she didn't care, she wanted him and loved him, and when no word came from him after weeks, then months, she grew despondent. It was harder and harder to tell herself that Kid was probably struggling to survive, probably had no time or money to send her so much as a letter. And on her fifteenth birthday, her mother held a cotillion at the local hall in her honor. The night should have been a triumph; the suitors flocked around her like bees around a flower, her dress was perfection. But her heart couldn't get over the hurt that came when she rifled through the letters congratulating her on her birthday, and saw that Kid had not so much as bothered to send her a birthday greeting. She'd thrown all the other letters into the fire, brooding, as Mammy looked on consolingly.

The cotillion was going full swing, when Doritha somehow could not stand it another minute. She told her mother she had a headache, she had to go home, right now.

"Doritha," her mother had remonstrated. "A lady, a true lady, can hide her discomfort if the occasion demands it."

"I can't," she had snapped. "I'm going home. I'll get someone to drive me."

She had spun around and slipped out among the whirling couples dancing as if her heart wasn't breaking, and for once grabbed her own wrap, rushing out to the gate where the coaches were lined up, the coachmen sitting in the night air waiting for their masters.

Looking down the row, she saw one of her family's horses, and marched up to the coach. "Take me home, Adonis," she had commanded imperiously. He'd jumped down at her command, and helped her into the carriage. But as they headed toward the road home, she had called out the window to him.

"I changed my mind. I don't want to go home," she said, suddenly.

"Where to, then, Miss Doritha?"

"Just drive, I don't care where."

"Yes, Miss Doritha."

She looked out the window, brooding, as the carriage headed out toward the bay, driving along the beautiful beaches she'd walked with Kid so many times. The carriage pulled to a stop, and she leaned out again, to see Adonis checking the horse's front hoof.

"What is it, Adonis? Why are we stopping?"

"He's picked up a stone, Miss Doritha. Don't worry, I'll have it out in a minute."

The moonlight was sparkling on the water, and she shoved the door of the carriage open and called to him to help her down. She walked down to the water, taking off her shoes and wading briefly as he tended the horse. When he was finished, she was sitting on the sand in her fine gown, staring out to sea.

He came and stood at a respectful distance. "Horse should be all right to get you home now, Miss Doritha."

"I don't care," she whispered.

He'd said nothing, yet something made her turn to him.

"You know Kid as well as I do, Adonis. You know we were sweethearts, don't you? Did Mammy ever tell you that?"

When he looked away briefly, she shrugged. "I don't care if she told you, Adonis. I want to know because I want to ask your opinion."

Looking up at him, she caught her breath a moment. She'd never really noticed, how handsome he was, as much as she realized it just then in the moonlight. His face was impassive but surprise flickered across his eyes, at her unusual request for his opinion.

"Yes, Miss?"

"Is he going to come back for me?" She didn't know why she would ask such a thing of a slave, but Adonis did know Kid, had grown up playing with him whenever Kid came to the big house to play with her and Garth, and maybe he could reassure her.

He paused, and she assured him, "Speak your mind, Adonis."

He looked into her eyes. "That fool's gone and forgot about you, Miss, or he'd have written you by now. I'm sorry."

"How dare you say he's a fool," she'd flared, despite having just told him he could speak his mind. She stood and faced him, toe to toe, though he towered over her at over six feet tall. "I asked you, how you call a white gentleman a fool."

"A fool's a fool no matter what color he is. And any man who'd walk away from you is a fool," he'd blurted loudly, and she'd drawn back, shocked at the tone of voice he'd adopted, at the look in his eyes as he stared at her. Shocked but . . . somehow . . . not shocked, but excited, thrilled, alive in a way Kid had never made her feel, though she loved him.

"I - - I'm sorry, Miss. I spoke out of turn, and I - "

She shook her head, actually putting a hand over his mouth. Feelings washed over her, frightening, overwhelming feelings, as she traced his full, sensitive mouth with her fingers. "Miss Doritha," he said huskily, his voice shaking with suppressed desire. He had the courage, the audacity, to reach out a hand and wrap a long blonde curl around his golden-brown hand, staring at it in the moonlight.

"Don't call me that now," she whispered, stretching up on tiptoe to do the unthinkable: kiss a slave on the mouth, pull him to her, and soon she found herself in his arms, carried back to the carriage, where he turned her from a little girl dreaming of romantic love with Kid, to a woman.

They knew what they did that night under the stars was wrong. It was wrong by every standard of decency the two of them had ever been taught, for a white woman to give herself to a colored man. But they couldn't stop, not then and not for weeks and months afterwards. Kid drifted to the back of her mind, a pleasant romantic fantasy, since she could never have a future with Adonis and never thought of him in those terms. She still held out hope that someday, her future would be with Kid, who while not suitable, was at least not completely forbidden. She and Adonis both knew this, and lived from day to day only, believing their love was something that they could have for now, and remember all their lives once it had to end.

She never knew exactly who gave them away. The slave system was so vicious, so degrading, that often slaves desperate for better treatment turned traitor on another in hopes of gaining preference with the master or mistress.

But one morning, her father had taken her for a ride in the back woods, speaking to her firmly, if obliquely about duty, chivalry, codes of conduct and the importance of remembering one's class and the distinctions of race. Foolishly believing she and Adonis had been completely discreet, she was not sure where he was leading with this.

"You have a place in our world, Doritha. Remember that and stay in it from here out," he said, his voice kind, but his eyes hard. He got down from his horse and helped her from hers. Leading her by the hand down a small path, he added. "I have to show you something, so you never forget again."

She never remembered getting home, her father must have had to carry her, but the sight of Adonis hanging from a tree, his face distorted, his back and chest scarred with the lash, because he'd loved her, would be burned in her memory for all her days.

Doritha felt hot tears forming in her eyes, even now, three years later, at the memory. Though she'd never been allowed to show her grief, her life had changed forever that day. The same gossip that had reached her father, somehow seeped its way into the other fine homes. This presented a problem, since marriage was the only "career" that a woman of her class had available to her. Her one-time sweetheart Kid had abandoned her, that was clear, but marriage to another suitable County bachelor was out of the question. Her crime was never spoken of directly, but she was cut in the thousands of subtle ways that a fallen young woman of her class could be cut, everywhere she went. She gave up hope that Kid would ever send for her, knowing Adonis had told the truth that night on the beach. Kid would be only a pleasant, childish memory of innocent love to her now. When her father died and she had no way to make a living, she turned to Garth, who had moved away just as the scandal broke about her and Adonis, and knew nothing of it.

She smiled humorlessly, thinking of her reaction when she believed Kid still cared after all this time. He represented so much to her . . . her lost childhood, her innocence. Somehow she could be that girl again, she had foolishly believed, and feel the old feelings for him again. Maybe bury the pain from her loss, by rekindling what she once shared with Kid. She knew now that would never be, that he'd moved on and forgotten all about them, and she would have to find some way to stand on her own. She was no lady, and never could be one again.

The streets were crowded with onlookers watching an impassioned speaker, when Jed and Doritha came out of the Sweetwater Restaurant together. As the pair edged closer to the platform, they saw an older, white haired man shouting out at the crowd, a younger brown-haired woman sitting quietly at the edge of the stage.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness," the man shouted. "That's from the greatest document in our Nation's history - the Declaration of Independence. How then, can we deny our Negro brothers the same rights that our Declaration of Independence has set forth? As our President once said, has he not the right to eat the bread, without the leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns? By what authority -"

Jed smirked at Doritha, "Abolitionists. Let's get out of here, I can't stomach that nonsense."

Doritha looked up at the man, shouting in defense of others' rights, as half the crowd openly mocked him, and over at the woman sitting bravely beside him; then followed behind Jed, lost in her own thoughts.

"That there is the kind of talk that's gonna bust this country wide open," Jed said, disgustedly. "Fine talk about freein' the slaves, tellin' us Southerners how to live, with their high-and-mighty ideals."

"Well, a lot of folks think it's wrong to own slaves."

"That ain't the point. It's about Washington decidin' what's right and what's not for other folks. This slavery thing is just the starts of it, Doritha. And what kinda plantation you think your father'd have without slaves to run it?"

"I suppose."

"Sure, and you know as well as me, maybe better, that most of the slaves on plantations like your pa's, they're better fed 'n dressed than most poor whites, anyhow. I know yours were. The likely ones, had it damn easy, living in the big house and hardly workin'. What'll happen to 'em if Lincoln gets 'em freed? You think they'll be able to figure out how to make a livin' for themselves? Most of 'em been taken care of from birth, never had to think for themselves. Like children," he claimed. "They're just like children," he repeated, spitting a long stream of tobacco juice on the ground as they walked.

Doritha closed her eyes a moment, disgusted, thinking sadly of one such slave who someone like Jed would dismiss as a mere child with no rights.

He'd slipped into her room, under cover of night, and into her bed, where they'd made love while his mother, her Mammy, slept heavily in the little adjoining room. Afterwards, as always, he'd been drowsy and she'd lain awake, more alert and alive than ever before or since, watching him as the lone candle in the room played over the muscles in his chest, running her hand over his ribs and stomach, feeling the muscle and sinew alive and warm under her touch.

"You're so beautiful," she whispered.

He'd chuckled. "Most white ladies wouldn't say that. You must be in love," he'd teased.

"I am in love, but don't know any lady any color who wouldn't think you were perfect," she'd murmured.

"You're just like Shakespeare," he'd said sleepily.

"I'm like what? Where are you getting that, Adonis?" she wondered.

He opened his eyes and looked at her. "Remember? When your daddy used to read the sonnets, one a night, after dinner?"

"I think so ..."

"Remember that one, 'My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun, Coral is far more red than her lips' red; if snow be white, why then her breasts are dun; if hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.' Well, that's a colored woman, isn't it? But at the end, he says, 'I grant I never saw a goddess go; My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground, And yet, by heaven, I think my love as rare, as any she belied with false compare.' So you're just like Shakespeare."

She stared at him, astonished. "How did you remember that?"

"I liked it when your pa read it out, and thought it over to myself after. Came back and told ma, and wrote -" he stopped.

"You wrote it down?" she said gently.

"Yes," he admitted. "I know how to read and write. You won't tell on me, I hope," he said, teasingly.

"Of course not. I just can't believe you can remember something you heard once, so long ago. Daddy's sonnet phase was, oh it must be three years ago now. I can't remember a single one."

"That's because you were always daydreaming. I saw you."

"You watched me, even then?"

He played with her hair. "I always watched you, Doritha. Ever since we were little. Never thought I'd ever get this close to you . . . thought you were like a rainbow you see off in the distance and can never touch."

She caught her breath as he leaned over her. "You're my rainbow, come down to earth, Doritha," he whispered, before leaning in to kiss her.

Her memories were cut short by Jed's slapping her on the bottom, "Hey how about a little slap and tickle in the livery before I take you back to the station, Sweet Pea?"

Doritha grimaced. "Sorry, it's not a safe time for me right now," she said stiffly.

"Oh. Well, maybe in a few days, then?"

She looked down, her old training as a belle rising up and dictating she not offend a suitor, no matter how irritating she found him at the present moment. "That'd be fine, Jed."

"Listen, think about what I said to you the other day. Those folks I talked to you about could use a woman to help with this scheme we got going, and the South needs all the help it can get."

Doritha was startled by the wave of revulsion for her friend and lover that rose up in her heart at his words. The South, her mind mocked bitterly. The great Southern culture that had killed Adonis, that told her she couldn't feel what she felt, speak her mind, have any dreams other than flattering a man her whole life. The South needed her, did it? She looked back at the platform, at Reverend Burke and his wife, still trying to persuade the crowd, still trying to effect change that would have meant so much to Adonis. She looked back at Jed. "I'll be glad to help you," she lied. "We'll talk about it tomorrow."

"That's fine, then. I'll walk you home, and we'll meet up again to chat some more tomorrow."

Doritha looked back at the Burkes, and resolved; she would do whatever she could to help them. Her life was going to count for something good, and knowing Adonis wouldn't be for nothing either. She would be sure of it.

Thanks Dede for your beta!

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