Before dawn had begun to show at her window, Billie-Ann had already decided to leave her stepmother's house. Quietly she packed what few clothes she owned into an old duffel bag, stuffed in her daddy's old bone-handled hunting knife and the naughty pictures she'd gotten from Jed and slipped out of the house while Nora still snored in bed.
As she cut into the woods and found the path down out of the hills, she knew she didn't have a plan at all… no place to go… no place to hide. She thought of waiting for Hanson at Basset's Pond, but by then Nora might be looking for her and it would be just that much harder to get out of Dooberville without being taken back… maybe even put in the reform school. No, she had to leave the county if she could. Maybe even leave Missouri.
If she could get to town and pay the dollar or two it cost to take the bus to Louiston, her chances would be better. Especially if she was out of town before Nora could trudge through the woods to the Crumper house to use their phone to call the sheriff. In Louiston she might get a job as a waitress until she had enough scraped together to put more distance between her and her stepmother.
A longing to see Hanson one more time brought an empty ache to her chest, but she kept on walking. At Basset's Pond she didn't dare stop to rest. Waiting to meet Hanson now wouldn't do her any good. He'd just want to hug and kiss her until she couldn't think straight any more. A tear burned her eye, but she brushed it away and switched her duffel bag to the other hand. Maybe she could write him a letter someday… tell him where she was. Maybe. In another minute, Basset's Pond was behind her.
It was about ten o'clock by the time Billie'd made her way through the woods to where the fork was. It would be easier walking next to the road until she got to town and anyway someone might stop and give her a lift. She'd be safe from suspicion for another two or three hours at least before Nora could spread the word. She was about to step out of the brush and cross the culvert when the noise of a car startled her.
It was heading up into the hills and Billie decided to duck down behind a bush, just to be safe. She saw it was the sheriff's car and when it swung left at the fork and disappeared in the direction of her stepmother's place, Billie felt a little tug of fear. It was impossible for anyone to know of her running away yet and old man Allen had never been in any trouble. Besides that, the last whiskey still in the county had been broken up three years before and she was positive there weren't any working in that neck of the woods any more.
For a while, Billie walked along the side of the road, keeping her ears peeled for the sheriff coming back. Sure enough, not half an hour had passed when she heard the big sedan somewhere behind. Billie watched it pass from behind a huge stump. The deputy was in the car, his jaw poked out ahead as he drove. Whatever the reason for the law to be nosing through the hills, she couldn't take any chances. She'd have to stay out of sight as much as possible when she got to town. Until she was on that bus and heading away from Dooberville.
Billie-Ann was almost to the stop sign at the highway when she spotted Jed Judson's pickup making the turn and heading down the road toward her. For a minute she felt like hiding, but the woods were behind her now and there were only a few tall weeds to squat behind. Then Jed honked his horn and swerved her way. Billie frowned and kept walking.
She'd just have to put up with him for a minute or two.
"Hey, I'm glad I found you!" Jed said, leaning out the window. "Why don't ya get in?"
Billie squinted suspiciously at him. "You don't know nothin' about me running away from Nora?"
"Hell, no!" Jed swore, shaking his head harder than he had to.
"All I want is a ride to town," she said.
"Sure, sure. Come on." He reached over and opened the other door while Billie walked around the truck. It was the first time she'd been with him since she'd traded her panties for the dirty pictures, and there was something about his manner she didn't like. But Billie had to admit that it was safer than being out in plain sight on the highway, especially if the deputy was looking to bring her back to Nora. When Jed backed the truck around and headed down the blacktop again, he smiled at Billie and nodded toward her duffel.
"So you really are running away."
"Yeah."
"Listen, Billie, there's something I been wanting to talk to you about." Jed swallowed and scratched a pimple on his chin. "What I mean … about what happened the other day. I sure hope you don't think I'm crazy or something."
Billie looked at him. "I guess not. It don't matter none."
"Yeah, but it does matter. To me it matters. Ever since I had those pants of yours I can't get you off my mind I love you, Billie, I…"
"Stop it, Jed!" Billie frowned hard at him "You just stop talking like that." There was a strange cast to his eyes that frightened her.
"I know you need lovin'," he rambled on. "I know it after I saw what you done with that nigger last night…"
Billie tightened her fingers around the cloth handle of her duffel.
"What are you talking about, Jed?"
He looked at her surprised, pale-blue eyes. "Why, you remember last night, when you was eaten out by that boy Hanson. I was hidin' in the bushes and saw everything. I knew you was drunk or something by the way you carried on. He got you drunk, didn't he? So he could do that to you."
With a little gasp of anger, Billie turned to stare out the side window, but she was sure her face was crimson.
"Don't worry 'bout it none, though," Jed giggled shrilly. "If you just give me a chance with you there ain't nobody need know any details about what you did with that nigger 'cept me and you and Deputy Sheriff Goodlin."
"Deputy Goodlin!" Billie cried.
"Why, shore," he said nodding. "It's against the law for a nigger to touch a white girl like Hanson Allen touched you." Jed shrugged.
"Actually, it's because he's a grown man and you're so young, but seems to me him being black makes it worse."
They were nearing the town limits now and Billie's heart pounded frantically in her chest. What was Jed trying to tell her anyway? And what had they done to Hanson?
"We caught that black bastard early this morning," he went on, "me and the deputy. They put a fifty-dollar bail on his head." Jed laughed in a loony, loose way. "Take all the niggers in niggertown to raise that much."
Billie tried to make her voice as calm as possible. "Jed, let me out … now."
"Oh, I can't do that. Deputy Sheriff Goodlin has been lookin' for you.
He went up to your house a little bit ago but you was gone so I came lookin' myself." Jed reached over to pat her shoulder but Billie jerked away. "You're not in any trouble; they just want you to write down what that perverted nigger did last night, and that oughta keep him in a cage for a while."
"Jed," Billie said, aware of the quaver in her voice, "let me out!"
"Won't take you but a little bit at the jail," Jed said eagerly. "Then I'm gonna show you how much I really care for you, Billie-Ann. I won't do nothin' so nasty as that nigger done, but if you help I bet I can satisfy you real good. I just know when I see you stripped buck naked that I can…"
Billie had waited until the truck was just starting out from the first stop light in town before she jerked the door handle and kicked her duffel bag out. Then she jumped to the road after it, hooked her hand through the handle and ran as fast as she could.
"You, Billie! Come back here now!"
She heard the truck's engine racing and then the gears grind noisily as Jed tried to get turned around. But before he could swing around the block, Billie ducked through an alley and when she didn't see the pickup, crossed the street and headed for the big glass doors of the Dooberville Community Bank. The remodeled front looked a little too modern for the other stores around it, but because it didn't have many windows, Billie thought she'd feel safe inside.
Once through the doors she stopped and looked around. The refrigerated air was cool on her legs and the thick carpet made the adding machines an typewriters sound muted and far away. And that was when the idea struck her. Hanson was in trouble… maybe bad trouble unless she could get him out. Fifty dollars was what Jed had said it would cost.
Behind the teller's cage the gigantic thick steel door of the safe shined back at her. With all the money the bank had in there, surely they'd let her borrow enough to get her friend out of jail.
A woman with jeweled glasses smiled from a nearby desk and Billie went over. "I need to borrow fifty dollars," she said. "It's an emergency."
"Then you'd have to see Mister Butler's son Jerrold." The woman rolled a fresh piece of paper into her typewriter. "Unfortunately, he's out for the afternoon and won't be in again till Monday."
"But I need it now!" Billie cried. "Could you tell me where he is?"
The woman pursed her lips and frowned.
"Jerrold lives with his father." She gave a smug nod. "Jerrold's father is president of the bank. I'm sure the Butlers wouldn't want to be disturbed at home."
"Maybe if I talked to him…"
"It would be much better if you wait till Monday."
Billie found some courage somewhere. "I know somebody will tell me where to find Jerrold Butler. Won't you please?"
The woman behind the desk looked uncomfortable. "Oh, all right. But it won't do you any good. It's the big white house on Maple, two blocks from the corner of the park." She shrugged.
"Please don't tell the Butlers I gave you their address."
After Billie had looked up and down the street and made sure it was safe to leave the bank, she crossed into the alley again and headed for the municipal park. It was the only place in town she was sure she could find and if the deputy or Jed Judson didn't catch her first, maybe she could get to the Butler place. But of course she still didn't have a plan or even the faintest idea of what she'd say to Jerrold Butler… if she found him.
Billie was almost across the grassy park when she saw the white patrol car cruising up a side street. She dropped her duffel bag behind a trash can and slid into the wooden seat of a swing until the car had turned the corner and headed back towards the business district. Jed had probably told them that she'd slipped away from him and Billie knew that her chances of helping Hanson would grow smaller with each passing hour.
Halfway down Maple she spotted the white house and hurried on. It looked to her like the kind of place a banker would live in. She was relieved to find the wrought-iron gate open and in a moment Billie had slipped inside the high hedged yard. For a while at least she'd be safe from the searching eyes of the Dooberville police.
No one came when she rang the front doorbell, and after she'd called through the screen and still didn't hear any movement from inside, she walked around to the back. There was a high wall around what she guessed must be the swimming pool, and before she was close enough to see the water she heard a loud splash. Keeping an eye out for dogs, she crept up to the archway in the wall and peeked around. The turquoise water in the pool was rough with waves but she couldn't see anyone.
Then a blond head bobbed up somewhere near the middle and a younglooking man started swimming toward the side nearest her. Billie watched him lean his elbows on the wet tiles and squint into the sun while the water trickled from his hair. His shoulders were very tan and though he didn't look as strong as Hanson Allen, he didn't look flabby, either. He was almost handsome… in a snooty kind of way. Taking a deep breath, she stepped around the side of the wall and stood there clutching her duffel bag with both hands. "I'm looking for Jerrold Butler," she said.
The boy snapped his head around and Billie could see that he was even younger-looking than she'd first thought. Maybe twenty-one or two… it was hard to tell.
"That's me," he said, starting to smile a little. "But who in hell are you?"
Billie told him her name and that she'd gone to the bank to borrow fifty dollars.
"You must really need that money bad," he laughed, pushing wet curls back from his forehead while he studied her.
"Yes… I do need it. Awfully bad."
"Tell you what," the boy said. "You come take a dip and we'll talk about that money later."
Billie looked around at the house and then back at Jerrold Butler. She really didn't want to go swimming. Anyway, she didn't have a suit and the last time she'd gotten near water without a swimsuit…
Jerrold smiled at her hesitance. "I don't loan money to girls on Friday afternoon unless they come swimming with me."
"Mister Butler," she started, "I…"
"Call me Jerrold. And if you're trying to tell me you don't have a suit, well I don't, either." With those words, he dove, and for an instant Billie saw his white bottom flash to the surface and then slip down with the rest of him into the green depths of the pool. She picked up her bag and turned, her face hot. She was hoping that Jerrold Butler might feel sorry for her and stop her and offer to loan her the fifty dollars right there, but when she heard his head break surface again there was only a long, crazy-sounding laugh.
"Don't forget to close the gate on your way out!" he called.
Billie pressed her lips together angrily and stopped. She could almost see Hanson behind the bars of the jail… waiting for someone. Waiting for her. Suddenly angry, she whirled around and put her bag down on a nearby beach chair. "You mean you absolutely won't loan me any money unless… unless…
"In the nude," Jerrold said, smirking.
Tears of frustration welled in her eyes and Billie let them. "I think you're just… horrible!" she cried out.
Jerrold Butler laughed, obviously not bothered by her tears. "Most people would jump at a chance to swim in my father's pool with the future president of Dooberville Community Bank," he said, paddling onto his back. Billie could see the black patch of his pubic hair under the wavy water, and for the first time she noticed the half-empty whiskey bottle setting under the shade of a lawn chair.
"I bet your dad wouldn't like it… wouldn't like what you just said to me."
"My parents have gone to St. Louis for the weekend," Jerrold said, treading water just under the diving board. "No one here but me… and you, of course."
Kicking off her sandals, Billie slipped her pullover top off, then wiggled her jean shorts down. She was afraid to look up at Jerrold, but he'd stopped splashing altogether now. Finally she slipped off her panties and ran to the edge of the pool, thankful that the wall around them was too high for any neighbors to peek in. The cold water took her breath, but she went quickly down the ladder until the wavelets tickled her chin. Then she edged along the overflow gutter with her hands until she got to a place where her toes could touch.
Jerrold hadn't moved from staring at her, but now she heard him paddling across. "I didn't think you'd do it!" he said, coming up close to her. "No shit, I really didn't think you would."
When her eyes met his, she felt herself blush again, but she kept looking anyway. "I told you I need that money." The feeling of the water against her naked skin felt nice and when she moved her legs a little the currents she stirred made her fine pubic hair wave and tickle. Billie was getting ready to push Jerrold away… in case he tried anything, but he splashed off toward the deeper end of the pool.
"Come on, I'll race you!"
"I can't swim!" she called back. Even before the words were out, she knew she shouldn't have said them. In a flash Jerrold Butler was back, grinning with mischief. Then he pried her hands off the edge of the pool, holding her firmly by the wrists as she lost her grip and pulled her backward in the deep water.
"Don't… please don't; I'll drown."
"Then you'd better hang onto me, baby!" he said, laughing crazier than ever. "God, you're pretty!"
It was worse than what had happened at Basset's Pond. The strong boy was pulling her into even deeper water, and once he pretended to lose his grip on her hands. After the second mouthful of water Billie had to cough out, she threw her arms around his neck and pulled her titties tight against his chest. The sensation was exciting even though she didn't want to enjoy it, but at least she wouldn't sink. The wave's moved their bodies apart and then together again, and Billie felt the boy's stomach press up against hers.
"You've got a beautiful body," Jerrold said, his voice low, "but you couldn't be over fifteen or sixteen; am I right?"
Billie nodded, pleased that he'd overestimated her age by a couple of years. Maybe she'd just let him think she was sixteen. They were near the other side of the pool now and Billie was able to reach out a hand to the gutter. She really wanted to get out of the water and back into her clothes. "Can't I have that money now?" she pleaded.
But Jerrold seemed not to hear. He was kissing her between the shoulder blades. His hand moved down her waist, out over one hip, then slipped around to lightly touch her cunt hair.
"Listen, we could drive down to Williamston tonight… just you and me."
"Don't… please… just let me have the money!"
"What's your name again?" he whispered, keeping his lips against one of her shoulders.
"It's Billie," she mumbled, "Billie-Ann, but…" Now Jerrold's fingers were stroking open her labia and though the feeling was warm and shuddery and good, she knew she couldn't let it go on.
This time when she tried to pull herself up Billie managed to hook a knee in the little gutter and shove herself clear of the sucking waves.
For a second she teetered for balance and though surprised that Jerrold didn't grab at her and pull her back, she gave a final lunge, rolled over on the slick tiles and staggered to her knees.
"You're not going to get away that easy," Jerrold said as she started running.
Billie could hear a splashing sound as he pulled himself out of the pool to chase her. Her body felt heavy after being buoyed by the water and she'd only managed to get one foot through her panties before the pounding of Jerrold's feet came up behind her. Letting the dainty things go, Billie started running again… the sleek nylon wrapping around her ankle as she fled through the arch of the surrounding wall toward a long, screened-in porch. She managed to get the flimsy door open and shut behind her before Jerrold thundered up, laughing and swearing loudly. His cock was heavy and thick with excitement and slapped wetly against his thighs.
Just in time she shoved the lock down on the screen door, but Jerrold laughed all the harder and scooped up a dandelion digger from a nearby flower bed. Billie's heart dropped as she watched him jam the implement into the crack between door and frame. Afraid that the thing wouldn't hold, she turned and raced across the porch and into the big house. She heard the snapping sound of a lock breaking, Billie spun around in the middle of the big front room, looking for a way to escape. When she spotted the stairs she didn't hesitate any longer.
The sound of the screen door crashing open made her give a little cry of terror as she ran up the steps two at a time and turned down the long hall at the top. There was a bedroom at the far end of it, and Billie only hoped there'd be a bathroom nearby. She could lock herself in and maybe talk Jerrold out of whatever he wanted to do. He reached the top of the stairs as Billie stumbled to get away, but as she bounded through the bedroom door, two strong arms encircled her naked body and pushed her sprawling across the big double bed.
"I could scream, you know!" she gasped, trying to twist free from Jerrold Butler's grasp.
"You'll only get one chance," he growled, "so make it good."
He forced her over on her back again and drove a knee between her clamped thighs. Billie opened them with a cry of pain, and Jerrold shoved his hips into the gap.
"All I wanted was to borrow fifty dollars," she wailed. "Please let me go!"
"Don't give me that shit!" he snarled. "Jumping in my pool with nothin' on… you gotta be begging for it."
"But you told me if I wanted the money-" Billie's words were smothered by Jerrold's mouth. Against her belly she could feel the warmth of his cock… but this time the cock didn't belong to an eleven-year-old boy!
Her sheer, damp panties were still clinging to one ankle as the boy on top of her moved his hips into a better position, then slipped his cock down over her mound until she could feel the pressure of it nudging her wet cuntlips. Then Jerrold lunged, and her flesh parted slightly, wetting his glans with her love juices.
Billie was more afraid than she'd ever been in her life. Afraid of Jerrold Butler's cock and afraid of the thick, hot stuff he could pump into her vagina. But her arms felt so thin and weak fighting his stronger ones. Below, in the softness between her thighs, she knew her slit was being pushed apart to make room for another inch of his penis.
Trembling with effort, she tried again to close her legs, but they only squeezed tight against her attacker's own thighs.
"That's it," he moaned, humping his back to drive his cock in. Billie tried to twist her hands free, but Jerrold only stretched them higher above her head. She knew he was more than halfway into her, and like always, her struggles were bringing the pitch of her own body to a new tension. Every time he went deeper into her cunt and rubbed her sensitive membranes with his cock, a prickle of electric fire filled her stomach and breasts. Billie pressed her face down against the pillow and closed her lids tight… trying as hard as she could to think of something else. It hurt. He was so much bigger than Lonnie, and the flared head of his organ made sucking sounds as it mingled in her sex oil. By the way Jerrold's breathing sounded Billie knew he wasn't trying to make it last. If only Hanson would rescue her, she thought, but it struck her that Hanson might want to do the very same thing to her, and Billie's first fear was replaced with another.
"You sweet-smellin' little bitch," Jerrold panted into her hair. Then he tried to kiss her again on the mouth, but Billie turned her head from him and felt his teeth against her neck and ear instead. The steady friction of the boy's body against her clit had made her nipples, burn and sprout against his chest, and now their rubbing was doing things to other parts of her.
"Oh, stop, stop!" she sobbed.
"Don't you like it?" he growled, jerking her hands even higher. Billie looked at his blond brows and arrogantly handsome face.
"No… I don't…" And it was partly true. She couldn't stand the way he'd forced her like some piece of white trash that the banker's son had rights to. But the other things that were happening had Billie terribly mixed-up. The savage way her slim bottom was being pressed against the mattress made her want to wiggle free, but the wiggling only increased the feeling of being pressed down until she had to admit that it was a kind of nice feeling. The bad part was Jerrold Butler.
Billie steeled herself against the sensations, but her inflamed little cunt was beginning to throb with all the rubbing and she could feel the fullness of her abdomen.
Jerrold was making funny sounds in his throat and ramming his body against her. Billie felt his hold loosen on one of her wrists, but she knew it would be of no use to try to escape now. His hips rocked and dipped and plowed at her ravaged little cunt and she knew that his cock must be squirting her full of cum. She was tired of struggling… She didn't want him to know that he'd finally managed to excite her.
But he went on and on… rubbing her sleek cunt until with a sudden consuming panic, Billie knew it was too late to hold onto the fragments of her shattered emotions any longer. The tingling, stormy thrill was filling her thighs and belly and she had to clench the covers with her fingers to keep from squirming. Billie bit her cheek and cried out with the effort of trying to stop what was happening, but the tickle grew into a solid core of turbulent exhilaration as the cock in her cunt kept fucking and fucking and fucking. Then her will dissolved completely and she knew she couldn't keep her trembling bottom still another second.
"Ohhh, nooo!" she whined, writhing, trying to disguise her fever as an effort to get free. "Get off!" Billie choked, coming blindly, her breath hoarse and dry in her throat.
"Baby," Jerrold mumbled, hugging her at last. "Baby-doll…"
"I hate you, hate you, hate you!"
When it was over, Billie felt sick. Jerrold fell off of her, a dreamy smile on his face, and she got up quickly and sat on the edge of the bed while the sickness passed. Numbed, she felt the jizz ooze out of her cunt and soak the bedspread until finally she composed herself enough to untangle the panties from around her ankle and slip them on.
"What about the money?" she asked. Her voice was so flat and calm it surprised her.
"Come around to the bank on Monday," Jerrold said lazily. "I'll arrange something for you then. Of course, you'll have to have a co-signer and …"
Billie-Ann doubled her fists and brought them down as hard as she could on the side of Jerrold Butler's handsome face. He pitched up from the bed with a yell and clamped a hand over the red place that was already swelling under one eye.
"What the hell is wrong with you anyway!" His eyes glared fiercely, but Billie stood her ground.
Inside, she felt like a scared little girl.
"I told you I needed the money now!" She was frightened, but angry and tired, too. Tired of being pushed around.
"Okay, okay for Chrissake." He stood up, tenderly touching the place on his cheek and studying Billie closely. "I don't have fifty bucks I can spare, but-"
"I want a hundred now," she said, staring into his eyes until he looked away. "Not to borrow-to keep."
Jerrold put his hands on his hips and gave her a smile, but Billie could easily see it was an uncertain one. "Who do you think you're trying to pull one on?"
But she was sure of her advantage now. Jed Judson had told her only a little while before about the law and little girls being naked with older fellas.
"I'm fourteen," she blurted, dimpled chin stuck out in challenge.
"Maybe I should just go down to the police station and-"
"Wait now," Butler said, waving his hands. "Why don't we go out tonight together and I'll buy you dinner and we can talk this over."
"No!" Billie folded her arms under her breasts and pouted. "Go get my clothes-then give me the money."
She waited alone in the bedroom until Jerrold returned, sheepishly carrying the things she'd pulled off at poolside. Billie saw that he'd put on his swimming trunks.
"I didn't know they let people like you work at banks," she snapped, grabbing her things out of his hand.
"I've only been doing it since I flunked out of State U. If I mess this job up my old man'll disinherit me for sure." He looked at her apologetically. "Listen, if I had known you really didn't want to play-"
"You owe me some money," Billie repeated, buckling her leather belt and slipping into her sandals. She almost felt sorry for him, but it wouldn't do her any good getting soft now.
Jerrold left the room again, and after a minute he returned, mumbling.
"This is all the cash there is in the house." He held out four twentydollar bills and a ten. "I swear it is."
Without a word, Billie-Ann folded the money into her pocket and pushed by him out of the room. She heard his footsteps behind her as she went downstairs and across the big front room, but she kept her eyes straight ahead. Finally at the door he jumped in front of her.
"What kind of a chick are you anyway?" Jerrold asked, frowning. "Just take the money and leave without so much as a 'go-to-hell'?"
Billie kept her expression straight and cool. "I got something important to do." She stepped by and went down the long walk. Just before she closed the wrought-iron gate behind her, she glanced back to see him standing open-mouthed in the doorway to his parents' house.
Then she hurried down the street toward where she thought the river cut through Dooberville. Now that she'd gotten the money, Billie knew where she had to go… to the colored part of town to find someone who could bail Hanson Allen out of jail.
As the houses along Bonner street began to get shabbier and more paintpeeled, Billie knew she was heading in the right direction. Finally, she could smell the river, and when she got closer to the business part of black town, she could see the shops and bars along one side of the street busy with Friday-afternoon excitement. Billie was embarrassingly aware of the dark faces turning her way as she walked by the open doorways. She wanted to turn to ask for help but was still too afraid and uncertain to try.
The heavy smells of greens boiling and of sizzling barbecue made her realize she hadn't eaten all day, but there wasn't time to think of food yet. The cool eyes of one black boy about her own age looked boldly at her lithe, bare legs but when she chanced a smile at him, he spat in the gutter and strolled proudly by.
Billie had stopped near the comer of one street when a girl in a red dress staggered suddenly from a noisy bar and took her by the arm. The colored girl's eyes were bloodshot and she smelled of cheap whiskey.
"Honey, you's in the wrong part of town for Friday!"
Billie stared at her, speechless with terror, afraid that at any moment more blacks would stumble from the bar and help run her away.. or worse.
"I need help," she finally managed to say.
"Ain't nobody 'roun' here be able to help you." The woman rocked unsteadily in her run-down shoes. Another voice, a man's, boomed from somewhere inside the darkened bar.
"Billie! That you I see?"
Billie didn't dare believe it was Sam, even though it sounded like him.
But when the broad, khaki-shirted man strode out into the sunlight and she saw his flashing gold-tooth smile, she gave a little squeal of joy and twisted away from the black girl's grip. "Sam!" Billie blurted,
"you gotta help… they got Hanson in jail and they're looking for me, too… I got the money to get him out, but you see I can't because-"
"Hold on, hold on," he laughed. "Let's go around back where we can talk." He snugged an arm around her shoulders. "Sounds like one hell of a mess to me."
Sam took her elbow and together they walked around behind the bar, where his battered Oldsmobile was parked. The black girl stood watching them for a moment, then shrugged and stumbled back into the noisy bar.
Billie could tell that Sam was a little boozed up, but he listened, nodding while she told him how Jed Judson had tried to get Hanson in trouble with the law because of her age and why she couldn't bail him out herself. It didn't take him a minute to come up with a plan of his own.
"You give me that money and get down in the back seat. I'll go spring our uppity brother and drive you two out of this goddamn town before that deputy pulls any more bullshit."
Billie did as Sam told her. When she felt the car stop across from the jail and Sam left her alone, she tried to stay calm, but couldn't help think of what she would do or where she'd go after Hanson was free again. For one thing, the day's adventures had proven to Billie that she was too young to be on her own. She needed somebody like Hanson to protect her, but realized, too, that the time would surely come when he'd want to do sexy things to her. That's what made her feel so small and weak and soft. Billie's heart thumped crazily and she stretched her legs into a more comfortable position. Maybe he wouldn't want her, though. Maybe he had another woman somewhere. Maybe Alicia Shelton.
Billie felt a twinge of jealousy and wondered if she was going crazy.
Afraid of Hanson and afraid of losing him. But there was another, more serious, complication now. Jerrold Butler had filled her full of cum and she just knew she was knocked up this time.
Billie-Ann looked down at her slim girl-child's body. She was so mixedup… so very, very tired. Maybe having Hanson to talk to would make everything all right again. She closed her eyes and prayed that Sam would be able to get him free.