---

THE SECOND IN A SERIES OF SIX STORIES.

---

Esther Kimble was a lovely young woman.  In fact, she could have been a model if there were more than just a handful of women’s magazines available to work for in 1934, and any of them were close to Fort Worth, Texas.

“That girl has skin as smooth and fair as any woman I have ever seen,” boys used to say.  Those are the things that boys used to say that are worthy of being shared.  There were boys that said things a lot more explicit than that that involved Esther’s skin as well, but those do not bear repeating, nor should they indicate just what type of girl she was.

As beautiful as Esther was, she was as smart as any girl in her class at R. L. Paschal High School.  Any boy too, for that matter.  “It don’t seem right that a single heavenly creature should be gifted with both intelligence and beauty in such abundance,” was not an uncommon observation from her peers, or who would have been her peers if any had measured up.

And yet, despite her obvious talents and gifts she did not have a date through all her years at Paschal High School.  The reasons were twofold.  Without ever trying, she was intimidating to the point where few if any had the courage to ever actually ask Esther out on a date.  And then, she never showed an inclination whatsoever that she wanted to go on one.  She was quite content in her efforts to be the very best student she could be, her spare time reading F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck or Ray Bradbury just for pleasure.  For pleasure, mind you.  Most students avoided those authors like the plague when they were assigned reading.  To pick up a tome penned by one of them by choice was unheard of.

---

---

In the time not spent with her slender nose in a book, Esther was a regular attendee of First Christian Church.  Located at 612 Throckmorton Street, the church was the oldest in Fort Worth.  The Renaissance Revival style architecture made the facade of the structure nearly as imposing as the beliefs espoused inside its walls.  When Esther wasn’t being entertained by Hemingway and Fitzgerald, she was being inspired by Mathew, Mark, Luke and John.  Her young faith was as strong and supportive as the six thick cast Corinthian columns that lined the front of the entrance to the church.

That would all change when she was invited to attend a dance with an older cousin.

Francis Brooks was the older male counterpart of Ester Kimble.  Every bit as attractive, educated, driven, and gifted as Ester, Francis Brooks also had the benefit of being five years her senior and already a graduate off West Point.  His people were from Wichita Falls and had a long history of serving in the military, and then Texas politics.  He was continuing that tradition.  He had recently been stationed at Tarrant Field Airdrome where he was furthering his training as a pilot, a relatively new option.

Tarrant Field would later be renamed Fort Worth Army Airfield, then Griffiss Air Force Base, and eventually Carswell Air Force Base.  But in 1934 all those changes were far in the future, like the jets that would replace the prop planes that Brooks was learning to fly.  To Brooks, Fort Worth, Texas was as different as Wichita Falls as enchiladas were from peanut butter and jelly.  He felt like the folks in Fort Worth seemed to be cut from a completely different cloth.  In a letter back home to family he would note, “They are all plenty friendly.  At least I think they are.  They seem to have traditions all their own.  But I’m getting used to it.  The one thing I can’t get used to is the size!  Fort Worth is huge!”

It certainly looked smaller when Francis looked up and saw Esther Kimble walk through the door with her slightly older cousin.  In his 24 years, Francis had never beheld a creature as lovely as Esther Kimble.  He first thought that he may have been influenced by Cocktails for Two playing on the loudspeaker.  Duke Ellington was known to affect a young man’s senses.  But things had not subsided by the time Ray Noble was crooning The Very Thought of You, at which point the young officer had already made his way to the pair of girls that had just entered the dance.  As I Only Have Eyes for You played, twenty minutes later, Esther Kimble and Francis Brooks were locked in a trance that made them oblivious to everything and everyone else around them.

---

---

Despite the obvious impropriety of such a thing, Esther did not put up any more than cursory resistance to the initiation to join the officer for an evening ride in his convertible.  A half hour later, Francis was opening the passenger door on his 1934 Ford Model 40 Deluxe Phaeton for Esther to enter and slide onto the brown leather trimmed seat.  In double time, he was behind the wheel next to her and guiding  her around the sights of Fort Worth, like she was the one that was new to town.  They drove past the Tarrant County Courthouse, the Stockyards on the north side of town, and then back towards the River Crest Golf Club, stopping on the way so Esther could explain the new Botanic Gardens being built on University Street.

“They dig out what will be the small lakes and ponds in the gardens, and then bring elephants over from the Fort Worth Zoo and have them trample the earth where the ponds will be to compact it,” she said.  “It’s really quite a sight to see!”

But of course, the only sight the young officer was interested in seeing was on the seat right next to him.

Over the course of the weeks that followed, the two would be together at every opportunity, though the number of those were much fewer and further in between than either of them wanted.  The age difference, the fact that he was in the military and considered itinerant, and mostly his outsider status precluded an introduction to Esther’s family.  Theirs was to be a romance of chance conducted in secret and to remain chaste.  Until it no longer could.

A man of honor, the young officer had committed to keeping the relationship within the bounds of moral purity.  Yet, as their drives in the Ford Phaeton became longer and Esther sat closer to him, every time their skin touched that commitment became more difficult.  When Esther insisted, after a prolonged period of time and much soul searching, that she deemed it was time for them to satisfy the longings they both felt for one another,  Francis piloted the Ford dangerously close to the Westbrook Hotel.

The 221ci flathead V8 was overheating as Francis parked it, but not nearly as much as the two passengers inside.  Checking in at the front desk by himself, and then meeting Esther at a rear entrance, they were alone in the room less than half an hour after the suggestion had originally been put forth.  As dashing a figure as the officer cut in his uniform, Esther found him to be even more so as that same uniform lay in a crumpled pile at his feet on the floor.

For his part, the older and more experienced young officer took extra care in unwrapping a package that was as lovely as he’d ever encountered.  To her surprise, Esther was not the least bit embarrassed or encumbered to be standing in front of him naked.  She was completely ready to turn herself over to him for The Act.  The only thing she feared would be Possible Consequences.

He assured her, “It’s impossible to get pregnant the very first time.”  Somehow that reassurance, coupled with the obvious desire they were both feeling, made that proclamation believable.

---

---