Page 9 of My Darling Clementine

She’d been happy and prosperous in California, but dropped everything and hurried home to Boston because the father who wouldn’t accept her needed her.

What he needed was to humiliate her. Tom Dennison wanted to punish his daughter one last time for daring to be someone he didn’t approve of. He ‘won’ their lifelong battle by ignoring her wishes, wants, and dreams even from beyond the grave.

What a terrible, screwed-up, complex relationship they’d had.

Jim and An knew her father better than anyone alive, they’d witnessed his weaknesses and flaws. Encouraged to express her years of pent-up emotions, they helped her navigate through her confusion and wounded pride, back to the person she chose to be.

How did she luck into finding the only two souls capable of understanding it all?

Through her dad.

Wait. That meant he knew she’d need Jim and An. That meant he knew his actions would be devastating - and left her in healing hands.

“God damn it, Dad, did you love me, or not?”

After a long, boring five-day journey, with only one more day before she reached Independence, Missouri, Clem finished washing up while the water was still warm. Standing in front of the last full-length mirror she’d see for another handful of years, she stood naked and took stock of her appearance. Never comfortable with her image, she forced herself to look with honesty, bracing for the same old disappointment.

Clem re-wrapped her breasts in a wide strip of linen, mashing them as flat as possible while still being able to breathe. She then pulled on the double layer of underwear she’d sewn a handmade johnson between, and nestled the leather sausage at a discreet angle down between her legs. Over those she pulled a third pair of underwear, then her pants, shirt, vest, and coat. As the finishing touch, she wound her pocket watch with care and left its gold chain dangling.

She twisted sideways, examining her silhouette, then over her shoulder at her backside, more pleased than she’d ever been with her reflection. Even with her breasts bound flat, she breathed easier in these clothes, stood taller, felt more in control than she ever had in a skirt.

Taking a deep breath, she let it out in a rush. Clementine Lorelei Dennison was dead. She let go of the insecure, inadequate, and disappointing young woman she once was, and took back her confidence, once again assuming the swagger of manhood she’d learned to emulate. Clem couldn’t wait to return to the life she’d created for herself, where she was respected for her skills, had friends, and a brother she’d found when she needed one most. She didn’t look back.

Chapter three

Rocheport

Keziah Walker, the local minister’s daughter, was born and raised in Rocheport, Missouri, a provincial riverside village with more cows than charm. Her best friend growing up was a farmer’s daughter, Sharon Gallagher. They saw each other every day at school, and on Sundays after church. They did everything together, from fixing fences on the farm to waxing church pews as penance for some sin or another.

As the girls grew older, their closeness led to tentative kisses and furtive touches, each more intoxicating than the last. On Kizzy’s fifteenth birthday, July 4th, 1845, she and Sharon lay in each other’s arms exploring their sexual desires in the Gallagher barn when her brother caught them naked in the hayloft. Thinking everyone was at the holiday picnic, they were unaware the ten-year-old hid between bales of hay to spy on them. But when a seismic orgasm caused Kizzy to shriek, all hell broke loose.

The kid ran back to the picnic, bleating an alert. Both sets of parents made a terrible commotion, which didn’t quiet down until both girls uttered an insincere apology before the entire congregation for their wanton ways. That was Kizzy’s first scandal, and Rev. Walker’s best-attended sermon to that date. He discovered that denouncing sin from the pulpit grew his congregation, due both to fear of being shamed, and to learn of the latest moral crimes of his daughter.

Kizzy’s anxious mother sent her to finishing school in St. Louis until it blew over. At Mrs. Higgleworth’s School of Deportment for Young Ladies, Kizzy confirmed her preference for women, enjoying many crushes and secret romances. She came home well-mannered, accomplished in cooking, a gifted artist, and skilled in the art of seduction.

With one scandal already to her credit, Rocheport was willing, even eager, to believe her capable of others. Taking advantage, her father increased the membership of his congregation through passionate sermons denouncing her for a variety of sins, always harkening back to the evils of sex in general.

At the Rocheport bar every night of the week, card players shared stories about the gold strikes happening out west, but every Sunday after services, all anyone could talk about was the minister’s beautiful daughter and her scandalous ways. Sent away at fifteen, Kizzy matured during her two years at Mrs. Higgleworth’s, now so beautiful people caught their breath at sight of her.

Her face and form became favorite topics among both men and women. Everyone agreed that when Kizzy turned it on she could lead Saint Peter astray. The busybodies talked about her hourglass figure, delicate nose, high cheekbones, peaches and cream skin, and the sweet dimple in her cheek at every opportunity. Some people attended services only to witness her public confession. Her merry blue eyes could melt even the most judgmental heart, and Kizzy’s smiling mouth, full, wide, plump, and kissable, made them relish their doubts about the sincerity of her repentance. Several respected gossips knew the powerful persuasiveness of those lips from personal experience, but for reasons of their own, hesitated to say so.

Since her return from Mrs. Higglesworth’s, Kizzy had endured a year’s worth of her minister father’s accusations over many real or imagined sins. From the pulpit he denounced her vanity, laziness, parental disrespect, and then accused her of theft, bearing false witness, and rumormongering. The last made her laugh out loud, but she duly confessed and repented so he wouldn’t badger her all week at home. Rev. Walker made public parenting from the pulpit his church’s doctrine.

But Kizzy had learned her lesson the hard way. Older and wiser now, she kept her sexual proclivities between herself and the women she bedded. The number of her paramours that came from curious church members amused her, most of them married matrons seeking a forbidden taste of sin. But through a lapse of good-judgment, or a perverse desire to get caught, it was her latest conquest which led the good reverend to discover her continuing sexual activities with women.

Late last night, following Saturday night choir practice, the Rev. Michael Walker was about to lock the doors of his church when he heard strange sounds coming from the choir loft. He climbed the stairs with alacrity despite the rheumatism in his knees and caught Kizzy kissing and caressing his bare-breasted new choir soloist. He exploded with self-righteous anger.

“How dare you?” he thundered, staring daggers at them both as the young mother pulled her disheveled clothing into order. “In my house of worship?”

Kizzy sighed and rose to her feet, standing between him and the soloist. “Don’t you mean the Lord’s house of worship?”

The mortified woman pushed past them both. “I didn’t know what I was doing,” she sobbed as she fled.

“She’s right, Father,” Kizzy agreed, staring down at him. Now a head taller than him, she enjoyed towering over the short man with the big mouth. “The sin is mine. I almost had her convinced when you barged in.”

He glared back at her, eyebrows beetled. “Keziah Walker, you’re more beautiful than your mother on her wedding day, but you’ll never be half the lady she is.” Her father’s eyes glazed over as he added her latest sin to his Sunday sermon.

The little reverend stared up at his daughter, accusations flying to his lips. “You’re a seductress, a Beelzebub who draws innocent women to your evil ways.”