I knew it as surely as everybody in Westfield -- that Lucille was a husband stealer.
You can't keep that kind of information quiet in a town of only 4000-plus.
And I've been told that just about every town, no matter what its size, has its Lucille Warren.

Just as it has its Susan Dolan, though nobody'd ever bothered to tell me that.
Susan Dolan, that's me.

They even talked about Lucille down at the Young Christians' League where I spent a lot of time in Bible classes and helping out with the office work for our foreign mission.
I never heard my folks talk about her, though.
They were good-living religious people, and I can truthfully say I never heard them spread any gossip about anybody.
Even if they ever did say anything about people like Lucille Warren, I know they wouldn't have dreamed of saying it in front of me.
My folks and my faith protected me from things like that.

And so I was really upset the first time I discovered that my boy friend Johnnie was seeing Mrs. Warren.
I asked him about it one night while we were sitting in his truck.
I asked him if it was true.

He gave me a straight, honest answer.
"Look, Sue baby", he'd said.
Much as I love you -- well, a guy's a guy and Lucille's willing to -- to come across.
Honest, kitten, that's all it is -- I don't even like Lucille much".

I guess it was at that moment that I realized what I was up against in the person of Lucille Warren.
But it didn't seem fair.
My love for Johnnie was young and clean -- how could I possibly compete with a woman like that, who didn't hesitate to use her sex.

Johnnie was a trucker with a small lumber outfit in a town about twenty miles away, and he was also pretty good at anything in the carpentry line.
It was a vivid, sharp February morning that Johnnie first made his appearance in my back yard, bringing some stuff Dad had ordered.
I wasn't in the habit of batting my eyes at delivery men, but the moment I saw Johnnie, I knew he was different.
He wasn't only different -- he was it.
He had an easy masculine grace about him, the kind that kids don't have, but that I had sometimes admired in other older men.
His smile was quick, and his eyes held some promised secret that made my knees go limp.

The most unbelievable thing about the chance meeting was that he seemed interested in me, too.
I could hardly believe such good luck was mine.

And now Lucille Warren had gotten a look at him.
I guess she was between affairs or something, but anyway, she had set her sights on Johnnie, my Johnnie.

I didn't like it one bit.
But what could I do?
A man had to have his release -- at least that's what the boys used to say in high school -- and I wasn't providing it for Johnnie.
Neither was his wife.
She wouldn't have, even if he'd asked her.

But he wouldn't ask her -- he wasn't the kind of man who would force his wife to submit to him against her will.
And he wouldn't leave her either -- he'd told me that.
He was too honorable to leave his wife penniless and leave those helpless children without their daddy.

Johnnie loved me and wanted me.
But the only love I was giving him was the pure kind.
It was weeks before we even kissed for the first time.

Against my folks' wishes, we'd been seeing each other for short rides in the truck.
The rides were tame enough -- mostly we talked.
But by the time the first crackling of spring came around, we both knew we were hopelessly in love.
Yet even then we did nothing much but talk, and maybe neck a little.

"It's so crazy", I told him once.
"I always imagined I would probably end up marrying a minister or somebody like that.
Somebody with no vices.
You know".

"And you fall for a lumber jockey".

"Who drinks far too much".

"And smokes too much".

"And", I was ticking off the items on my fingers, "swears too much and goes out with the boys, whoever they are, too much, and who ever goes to church and won't even listen when I try to persuade him to come back to the fold".

He examined his nails carefully.
"I could walk out the door".

"Don't you dare".

"And never show my face or my truck around here again".
He still wasn't looking at me.

"You wouldn't".

"Or I could visit Lucille Warren".

"You wouldn't.
Please!
You wouldn't".

He shrugged noncommittally.
"I might".

And now he was seeing her.
He'd just admitted it to me.
I huddled miserably beside him in the truck.
It was all my doing -- his seeing her.
Johnnie and I had been innocent in our love, and that was the way I wanted to keep it.
At first, Johnnie hadn't understood -- how could he, not being a religious person like me?
But then he had said, "All right, kid, if that's how you want it, that's how it'll be".

But what had I done, trying to keep us pure?
I had driven him into the arms of that scheming woman.
I had just the same as delivered him into the hands of the Devil!

So one week later, I surrendered to him in the little motel on Route 10.
My very first time.
I was desperate to hold him, to give him whatever in this world he wanted or needed, and to keep him from the clutches of Lucille Warren.

And, though at the time I blushed to admit it even to myself, there was in me a growing desire, a sexual awareness, that Johnnie had set in motion, an awareness that no other man had ever triggered.
I wanted him, with a terrifying fierceness.

Astonishingly enough, it was my own voice I heard there in the darkness, begging this man to make love to me.

"Love me, Johnnie".

"I will, kitten"!

Outside, in the summertime fields behind the motel, a thousand crickets serenaded us.
"Will you always love me this way"?

"Uh huh.
Always".

"Mmm".
And I snuggled closer to the man I loved.

It was as blissful and fulfilling a night as any bride ever experienced.
I had had no wedding ceremony, no witnesses, no certificate of marriage, but I had all the joy that goes with them.

"Johnnie?

"It can't be wrong, can it?
Not really".

Johnnie rose on one elbow.
"Stop worrying.
It's never wrong if love is real".

I took great comfort from his words, and smiled to myself in the darkness.
Infinite peace, complete contentment.
Idiot's delight, I later discovered.

I felt no conflict between what I was doing and my strict religious upbringing.
I had always resisted the passes made at me by other kids, and many times I had thought about my love for Johnnie who, being thirty, brought a maturity to love that the kids around town could know nothing about.
I had also thought a lot about how God must look on true love, and so in a way I was keeping my promise to God, my promise to remain pure until I was married.

I was practically a bride, after all.

There would have been a ceremony if it had been possible.
Of this, I had no doubt.
Wouldn't Johnnie do practically anything in the world to insure my happiness?
Of course he would.
He'd not only told me so, he'd proved it.
It wasn't Johnnie's fault that he was hopelessly tied down to that frightful woman who did her best to make his life unbearable.
Just because he was honorable enough to want to continue supporting his two children, as any decent man would, that was no reason he should be denied his own small share of happiness too.
And if I could contribute to that, I'd do it.
The cost didn't matter.
No price is too high when true love is at stake.

And I had no doubts about how true this love was.
I'd never even petted with a boy, and after I met Johnnie he never touched me for the longest while, not until I all but threw myself at him.
He was plenty attentive, all right, but he behaved like a gentleman, and I figured that, emotionally, I was closer to his age than to my own eighteen and a half.
What could a mere twelve years matter?
It wasn't, I was sure, a difference in age that came between people, but a difference in maturity.

And hadn't I rescued him from Lucille Warren?
She'd have gotten him, if I hadn't stopped her.
After all, Lucille Warren was a husband-stealer from way back.

But I'd been a good girl and now God was blessing me with the gift of this magnificent man and the wondrous love we shared.
It was only fitting that we seek out whatever joy our union might bring.

"Love me"?

"Uh-huh.
Love you".

"Always and always, Johnnie"?

"Always".

"Mmm".

Convention time in Boston.
A chill wind in the air and the narrow streets packed with snow.
From the entire eastern half of the nation they'd be coming, members of the Young Christians' League, and I'd been chosen to represent our chapter.

I had mixed emotions about going.
I'd been seeing Johnnie almost a year now, but I still didn't want to leave him for five whole days.
But I had looked forward so much to being with this church group.
I hadn't been doing as much work as I used to in Westfield and I felt funny about that and wanted to work harder than ever.
I wanted to just throw myself into the good works of this fine group.
So I went to Boston.

The first meeting was held in Faneuil Hall, a great big place where we were able to meet members from all the other states.
My cousin Alma, at whose home I was staying during the convention, introduced me to a group of young people from Rhode Island.
One of them was a very friendly, lovely fellow named Ronald, a boy about my age with slick, blond hair and dancing blue eyes.
He looked very different from Johnnie -- in fact, he looked sort of like me.
I thought so, and he mentioned it, and Alma said so too.

After the meeting, there was going to be a party at someone's house.
I assumed Alma would get me there, but in the confusion of the meeting breaking up, we were separated.
Outside the hall, I anxiously looked around for her, then all at once there was a hand on my elbow.

"Hey, there, beautiful twin of mine", Ronald said.
"Need a pumpkin to get to the party"?

I couldn't help laughing with him.
"Well, I should find Alma" -- I began.

"Alma, Schmalma.
Come along with me".
I went.

By the time we arrived, the party was already going strong.
A couple of the girls were laughing rather shrilly and I realized they were drinking.
My folks wouldn't dream of having alcohol in the house, so my first taste of it had been -- of course -- with Johnnie.
I hadn't liked it at first -- it was bitter and burning.
But when Johnnie disguised the taste with ginger ale, I enjoyed it.
Of course I enjoyed 'most anything if I did it with Johnnie.
Johnnie I suddenly realized he'd been totally out of my thoughts all evening.
But that was only natural, I decided;
surely he was still resting snugly in my heart.

"I don't see Alma anywhere", I said.

"She's invisible tonight.
C'mon, let's find out where they're keeping the glasses".

I drew back.
"I -- I don't think so, Ronald.
Not for me".

"Aw, come on".

"No -- really".

He shrugged.
"Okay.
But at least come along while I get lubricated".

The kitchen was jammed.
Strange faces, most of them, and I wasn't even sure all of them had come from the League meeting.