Spring Fire

SPRING FIRE

By

Vin Packer

Spring Fire

By Vin Packer

First published 1952.

ISBN:  978-1-936456-12-3

This book is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

A new revolution was underway at the start of the 1940s in America
—a paperback revolution that would change the way publishers would produce and distribute books and how people would purchase and read them.

In 1939 a new publishing company
—Pocket Books—stormed onto the scene with the publication of its first paperbound book.  These books were cheaply produced and sold in numbers never before seen, in large part due to a bold and innovative distribution model that soon after made Pocket Books available in drugstores, newsstands, bus and train stations, and cigar shops.  The American public could not get enough of them, and before long the publishing industry began to take notice of Pocket Book’s astonishing success. 

Traditional publishers, salivating at the opportunity to cash in on the phenomenal success of the new paperback revolution, soon launched their own paperback ventures.  Pocket Books was joined by Avon in 1941, Popular Library in 1942, and Dell in 1943. The popular genres reflected the tastes of Americans during World War II
—mysteries, thrillers, and “hardboiled detective” stories were all the rage. 

World War II proved to be a boon to the emerging paperback industry.  During the war, a landmark agreement was reached with the government in which paperbound books would be produced at a very low price for distribution to service men and women overseas.  These books were often passed from one soldier or sailor to another, being read and re-read over and over again until they literally fell apart.  Their stories of home helped ease the servicemen’s loneliness and homesickness, and they could be easily carried in uniform pockets and read anywhere
—in fox holes, barracks, transport planes, etc. Of course, once the war was over millions of veterans returned home with an insatiable appetite for reading.  They were hooked, and their passion for reading these books helped launch a period of unprecedented growth in the paperback industry.

In the early 1950s new subgenres emerged
—science fiction, lesbian fiction, juvenile delinquent and “sleaze”, for instance—that would tantalize readers with gritty, realistic and lurid stories never seen before.  Publishers had come to realize that sex sells.  In a competitive frenzy for readers, they tossed away their staid and straightforward cover images for alluring covers that frequently featured a sexy woman in some form of undress, along with a suggestive tag line that promised stories of sex and violence within the covers.  Before long, books with sensational covers had completely taken over the paperback racks and cash registers.  To this day, the cover art of these vintage paperback books are just as sought after as the books themselves were sixty years ago.

With the birth of the lesbian-themed pulp novel, women who loved women would finally see themselves
—their experiences and their lives—represented within the pages of a book.  They finally had a literature they could call their own.  Of course, that’s not what the publishers of the day intended – these books were written primarily for men… indeed shamelessly packaged and published to titillate the male reading public. 

Many of the books were written by men using female pseudonyms and were illustrated by cover artists who never read the content between the covers.  However, a good percentage (primarily titles from Fawcett’s Gold Medal Books imprint) were written by women, most of whom were lesbians themselves.  For lesbians across the country, especially those living isolated lives in small towns, these books provided a sense of community they never knew existed… a connection to women who experienced the same longings, feelings and fears as they did
—the powerful knowledge that they were not alone.

We are excited to make these wonderful paperback stories available in ebook format to new generations of readers.  We present them in their original form with very little modification so as to preserve the tone and atmosphere of the time period.  In fact, much of the language
—the slang, the colloquialisms, the lingo, even the spellings of some words—appear as they were written fifty or sixty years ago.  The stories themselves reflect the time period in which they were written, reflecting the censorship, sensibilities and biases of the 1950s and early 1960s.  Still, these lesbian pulp novels are a treasure in our collective literary history and we hope you will enjoy this nostalgic journey back in time.

It was two-thirty in the afternoon, late September, with the sun beating down the way it does then in the Midwest, and the dust in the streets. The girl, Susan Mitchell, was wearing a green linen suit that clung on her large body heavily, a round white straw hat from which short pieces of blonde hair hung limply, and brown and white shoes with low heels that made her long feet look longer. She was not pretty. She was not lovely and dainty and pretty, but there was a comeliness about her that suggested some inbred strength and grace. It was in her face. It was in the color of her eyes
—deep blue like the ocean 'way out there, but quiet and still. It was in the structure of her cheekbones, high and firm coining down to pull her chin up. She walked that way, too. She walked easy and sure. She was following College Avenue down to where the main gate was, and the road that led through the gate to the campus of Cranston University. All around her there were signs in the windows of bookstores and drugstores and dress shops and bars and the signs said: "Welcome Back C. U."

The gate was open and the wide slate walks surrounding the immense green lawn were dotted with boys and girls, walking together in groups, sitting alone on benches, standing thoughtfully in doorways, and waiting wearily in long registration lines. Susan Mitchell had registered two weeks ago.

"You'll have enough to think about during rush week," her father had promised, "without worrying about getting yourself enrolled. We'll do it early. Then you can concentrate on impressing those sorority gals. Don't be nervous, either. Remember, your father still loves you, no matter what."

And so it was there again
—his fear for her. His fear that she was not good enough. Because he had not been. He had worked hard, and not gone to college, and not had luxuries, and not learned not to say "ain't," and not anything. Until the war and the men came that day and looked at the factory and talked with him and signed papers and he was rich then. And then he was afraid.

He had driven her from Kansas City to register, and when she had finished, he had asked someone how to get to "Greek Town," and with him she had first seen it

"Greek Town," was the home of the sororities and fraternities and it was magic over there, close to the stadium, within walking distance of the campus, but not huddled up in narrow streets the way the dorms and boarding-houses were. It was magic, with street after street of grand houses
—brick, stucco, stone, and fresh white wooden houses. Each one had a gold plaque with shining Greek letters, and nearly all of them had spacious yards, winding driveways, and huge white columns that stood impressively, symbols of magnificence. Then she too had felt a
thin shiver of fear.

Tomorrow she would go to the sorority houses to be judged; but now as she walked on the campus she forgot about that momentarily, and smelled the grass that had been cut and watered, and it was good. The ivy, crawling up along the walls of the building, was massive and cooling, and the big trees made shade along the path. She sat for a while on the rock bench there where the breeze came along, and it was peaceful.

A group of laughing girls passed, arms entwined, faces glowing with excitement.

"… anyway," one of them was saying, "it turned out he was from St. Louis
—Webster, in fact—and he knew loads of kids I knew."

"My God!" another shrieked. "Didn't you tell him / was from Webster?"

Later Susan Mitchell walked back toward the gate and the street leading to the hotel where she was staying. A convertible whizzed by and kicked up clouds of the dust that settled near the curb, and at the corner when it turned, the tires squealed nervously. In the doorway of a restaurant, a tall boy stood holding hands with a small, brown-eyed girl whose hair was flaxen. "God," he said, "all summer I had you on my mind, Annie. No bull, € thought about you all summer."

When Susan Mitchell reached the lobby of the hotel, the low leather couches and chairs were filled with girls, and several rows of luggage were lined up near the desk. She asked for her key, wary of the arrogant, crooked-nosed clerk who always yelled, as he did now. "Speak up, girlie," he said. "I ain't deaf and I can't read lips.”

"Susan Mitchell," the girl said louder. "Four-o-one."

He handed her the metal key with the wooden tab attached and she hurried off to the waiting elevator.

"Good God," the uniformed pimple-faced boy said when she stepped into the small box. "You girls! Up and down all the damn day long! I never seen the likes of this bunch. The sororities are welcome to you!"

* * *

"The next name, girls," Mother Nesselbush said, "is Susan Mitchell."

At her feet, sitting on the wide tan rug, the members of Tri Epsilon polished their nails, knitted, rubbed cold cream into their skin, and rolled their hair up on rags and into curlers and bobby pins. Mother Nesselbush thumbed through the papers on the card table in front of her. She was a fat woman with a nervous twitch in her jowls and short, squat legs. Twenty years ago she had been a slim coed with long golden hair, a gay young face, and a heart-shaped Tri Epsilon pin attached to her budding bosom. Five years ago, when J. Edman Nesselbush fell dead, she returned to the Cranston campus and took over the duties of the housemother at Epsilon Epsilon Epsilon. Now she was a wide dowager with wiry gray hair and a worn, wrinkled face. In place of the pin now, there was a gravy stain from the noon meal slopped onto her broad, lace-covered chest.

"Now," Mother Nessy began, "a little about this girl."

The information on Susan Mitchell had been obtained by Edith Wellard Boynton, '22. Mrs. Boynton relished the task. She was a superior sleuth, and she would often come from an assignment with copious notes on such intimate details as the estimated income of the candidate's father; the color of the guest towels in the candidate's bathroom and the condition of said bathroom; the morals of the candidate, the candidate's mother, father, brother, and sister; and ever important, the social prestige of the candidate's family in the community. Then she would type up her notes and send them special delivery. Susan Mitchell's report read:

An absolute
must
for Tri Epsilon. The Mitchell girl is 17. Her father is a widower and a millionaire. There are no other children. The Mitchell girl owns a brilliant red convertible, Buick, latest model. Edward Mitchell belongs to Rotary, Seedmore Country Club, Seedmore Business Club, and Seedmore P.T.A. Susan has been educated in the best private schools. She is not beautiful, but she is wholesome and a fine athlete. Every room in the Mitchell home has wall-to-wall carpeting. There are four bathrooms. No mortgages. Edward Mitchell's reputation is above reproach. They are definitely nouveaux riches, but their social prestige in Seedmore is tiptop. Susan has a fabulous wardrobe. Kansas City Alum Association puts a stamp of approval on this girl, and a definite "Yes! Yes! Yes!"

When Mother Nesselbush finished reading what Mrs. Boynton had written, there was a sudden minute of silence. Then Leda Taylor spoke up.

"What if she's a muscle-bound amazon? Do we have to pledge the girl just because her father is worth a mint?"

Leda Taylor did not have a father. Not a father she knew. Jan, her mother, had raised Leda singlehanded with the help of her job as a dress designer and a good stiff Martini. It had not been easy for Jan. As Leda grew older, Jan's age became more obvious to men and she always had to say, "I had my baby when
I
was a baby, really
—I was just a baby when little Leda was born." Little Leda grew fast and fully and richly. She had long black hair that shone like new coal, round green eyes, a stubborn tilt to her chin, proud pear-shaped breasts that pointed through her size 36 sweater, and long, graceful legs. Jan had taught her never to say "Mother." Leda said

"Jan." She said, "Oh, God, Jan is getting higher than a kite!" when they were all out on parties like that--Leda and the men who clambered after Jan and Jan with her glass raised and her voice growing shrill. Leda said, "Jan, for the love of God, let me pick my own men. I don't want your castoffs," when she was home in the summer and Jan was always entertaining. Then in the fall, Leda said, "Take it easy, Jan. Stay sober," and the train moved away, toward Cranston and college and the house.