"Man, them ofay motherfuckers sure didn't want to turn me loose, did they?" Hanson laughed as he slid into the front seat of Sam's Oldsmobile. He felt good, the way only getting out of jail could make him feel.
"That's a fact," Sam said, "but they can't turn down honest bail." He started the Olds and backed away from the curb. "Did you see the look on that deputy's face when you jived him about the crappy accommodations?"
Hanson slapped his friend's shoulder and laughed again. "Where'd you get the bail anyway, man? And how'd you know I was in the goddamn can in the first place?"
Hanson watched Sam smile across at him. "You 'member that little piece of ankle you brung out to Elsie's yesterday night?"
"You gotta be shittin' me, boy," Hanson said, eyes wide in disbelief.
Sam pulled a half-empty quart of whiskey from under the seat and shoved it across to Hanson. "Just drink some of this and listen. That Billie come wandering round down on Bonner Street in her short jeans this very afternoon. I'm sittin' up there in the Club Matinee messin' around half-tore up and see her out there on the sidewalk." Sam laughed and glittered his gold tooth. "Molly Gee was trying to hassle her about something', and I heard it and come out."
Hanson poured his mouth full of the hot booze and washed the jail taste down his throat. He hadn't figured on Billie-Ann Wheeler helping Him … even if she had found out he was in trouble. As much as he still made up fantasies about her, Hanson knew she was really only a country white girl so ignorant she could hardly tell one hole from the other.
But what Sam was telling him now turned his head around. Could shy little Billie-Ann scrape together his bail somehow and then go find Sam to cut him loose? Maybe he didn't know her the way he thought he did.
He tilted the bottle up again and slugged hard.
"How'd she know not to come down there to the jail herself? How come she knew they was lookin' for her to put the heat on me?"
"That Jed fella told her. But why don't you just ask her yourself?" Sam laughed again and hooked the bottle from Hanson's hand. "She's squattin' down behind your seat."
Hanson turned just as Billie-Ann jumped up squealing. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her squirming into the front seat with him.
"Damn it, baby, am I glad to see you!"
Billie blushed and smiled and lowered her lashes. He could feel her heat against his side and smell the heady aroma of her fourteen-yearold body on the verge of growing into sweet adolescence. Damn it to hell, maybe he could go completely insane and keep this little white rabbit for his very own. Hanson yearned for her as much as ever. His cock grew tight in his pants in its need to be buried in Billie's wet, yielding flesh.
"Hey, Sam, why don't you take' us out to Zeebee Lee's… you know, that old voodoo woman they ran out of town a long time ago." Hanson smelled Billie's hair and kissed it. "I don't know if she'll remember me but she knows my folks real good."
"Sho, man, ain't nobody gonna be botherin' you out there." Sam frowned and shook his head. "Wouldn't stay there myself, though…"
Hanson grabbed the whiskey bottle back and shoved his friend's shoulder. "Shit, that's just what you need. Little black cat bone might keep you out of trouble."
"Had a girl that did a spell on me," Sam said, sucking his gold tooth.
"Couldn't get one up for three months."
Hanson laughed and looked down at Billie. She hadn't said a thing since he'd pulled her up beside him, but she was as close to his side as she could get without going through his shirt. Gently he slipped a hand down along one of her thighs and squeezed it. The pretty girl made a soft noise in her throat and pushed the side of her face against his chest.
"Why'd you get me out of jail?" he whispered, pulling her chin up so she'd have to look at him.
"I w-wanted to," she said back.
"You want to stay with me?"
"Uh-huh," Billie said, nodding; "but I'm scared."
"What you scared of?"
Billie-Ann looked away again and then rubbed a thin finger over a mole on her knee. Hanson saw the tears well up in her eyes and before he could say anything to stop her, her cheeks flooded with hot, salty streaks and she jerked, sobbing, in his arms. "I… I'm so hungry and tired and… oh, please don't fuck me Hanson… please don't."
Sam choked on a mouthful of whiskey, but Hanson paid no attention to his friend's mirth. "Don't you be worrying," he told Billie, patting the side of her sweet bottom, "you ain't gonna be fucked 'less you wanta be." Then he framed her face with a hand and made her look up at him again until a smile began to show through the tears. Suddenly Billie's eyes brightened as if she were remembering something. Hanson watched her dig some bills out of her pocket and hold them out.
"Jesus, baby, that's forty bucks!" Carefully he folded the money into his own pocket. "I'll keep this safe for you… some of it might help show Zeebee Lee that we mean to be paying customers." Hanson was wondering hard where Billie had come up with all the cash. Enough to get him out of jail and forty more left over. And she'd pushed the money at him almost as if she were relieved to be rid of it. But he figured it would be better to let the questions wait.
Hanson looked over at Sam. "What this little angel needs is a warm bath and some food in her stomach." He laughed softly and wiped a hand across his mouth. "If I don't get something to eat myself I'm gonna back myself into a weird drunk."
"I ain't breaking your arm with the bottle," Sam said with a woozy smile. "It's that jail you trying to forget."
Sam drove until they were almost to the county line and the sun had sunk in the west. It had been so long since Hanson had been there that he almost didn't recognize the rambling old rundown farmhouse Sam finally stopped in front of. As a young boy he'd played around that very same yard while his mother talked for hours to old Zeebee Lee about all manner of things. Usually his ma had come away with a charm in her pocket for something. An ailment that had been troubling her or a cow that wouldn't calve.
Hanson left Billie-Ann sitting on the big front porch and went inside to find Zeebee Lee. The silver-haired old woman didn't like it when she peeked through the window and saw that Billie was a white girl and so young, but after Hanson told her how the same little white girl had gotten him out of jail, Zeebee softened. When he pulled a ten-dollar bill from his pocket and made her take it, everything was set.
"It's just I don't abide no trouble out here," Zeebee Lee said in her raspy voice. "Had enough trouble with townspeople as it is."
"Ain't nobody even know we're here," Hanson told her. "And we won't be around long anyway. Sam's gone back to town to pick up my old man's truck and take it back to him. Then he's gonna bring all my things from home." He smiled and put his hand on Zeebee's shoulder. "We'll be leaving tomorrow for sure."
The wrinkles on the old woman's face formed into what could pass for a smile. "I go get some food cooked. That girl looks skinnier than a fence post."
"Don't fatten her up too much, Zeebee; I like 'em that way."
Zeebee Lee studied Hanson's face. "Can she love good as a black woman?"
He smiled and scuffed one of his boots back and forth on the floor.
"Would you believe me if I told you I don't know yet?"
The old woman clinked her bear-claw necklace and made a clucking sound in her throat. "Zeebee Lee can help. After supper I make nice little dolls."
Hanson put out a hand. "Now hold on, Zeebee. I don't want no gris-gris spells worked on me."
Zeebee shook her head as if she already had her mind made up. "Dolls make everything fine… you see," and she turned and waddled into the kitchen.
Hanson went back out to the porch and took Billie by the hand. "Come on, honey," he said. "We'll go down to the barn and draw some water and get us a bath. Zeebee Lee gonna have us something to eat in a little while."
Still silent, Billie let him lead her across the yard. She had hardly said ten words since he'd gotten out of jail, but he knew it was only because she'd made the decision to leave home and wasn't used to it yet. Every time he looked at her she drooped her long-lashed lids and blushed a little. God, how he wanted to get her into bed with him.
Somehow she looked even younger than when he'd first met her, and her forlorn little-girl-lost manner made her that much more desirable. For the first time since he'd been obsessed by the lovely fourteen-yearold, he had to admit there was something about her he loved. Yes, he was starting to love Billie.
In a small storeroom in the barn there was a battered galvanized tub.
He filled it from the well just outside, then brought back a couple of buckets of boiling water from the house that Zeebee Lee had made ready for them. He felt Billie watching him as he readied the bath and tested it with his hand.
"Just right," he said smiling at her. "Zeebee give us a bar of soap, too."
Billie rubbed her narrow palms on her jeans and looked worried, so Hanson walked over to her and pulled her close against him. Billie's adorable pubescent breasts heaved against his chest as if she were scared to death.
"Listen to me, little girl," he whispered.
Billie looked up wide-eyed.
"We gonna be living together from now on, right?"
She nodded.
"So way I figure, sharing the bath water is a good start."
Billie smiled then and started undoing her belt. Hanson pretended to be busy with his own clothes, but couldn't help watching when the pretty girl slipped her shorts down over her willowy legs. Gracefully she bent her knees and dipped to step out of each leg hole. Hanson clenched his jaw tight. Next came her panties, and her face pinkened softly, but she stepped out of them, too, and straightened to undo the snap of her top.
Hanson was out of his pants and shorts now, and though he'd been afraid that his erection might frighten Billie more than she already was, there was nothing he could do about it. Then he skinned out of his shirt and dropped it on the growing pile of their shucked clothes.
Billie was still having trouble getting the catch loose on her top, her arms raised as she struggled with it. Hanson could see where the tight material was pulled over her breasts and wondered if he could trust himself to get it loose without touching her. When he walked over, Billie turned her back so he could help. There was nothing to it really, but he pretended the trouble was more complicated so he'd have a chance to breathe in Billie's loveliness. Looking down the back of her body stirred his loins wildly. The tiny waist seemed smaller than ever and her narrow hips were like before, curving smoothly out only enough to show she was female. Only inches away from the small of her back, his cock pulsed ready, and he longed to press it against the firm tan skin. Instead, he let his eyes follow the perfectly straight line of her crack between the plump pink cheeks, then down the unbroken sweep of her girlish thighs and childishly thin calves. Billie was standing slightly splay-footed and Hanson found himself adoring the way her thin toes spread out against the wood floor. When he knew he couldn't pretend the clasp was caught any longer, he let the top fall forward over her shoulders and off. Billie started to move away, but he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to him. The top of her head was chest high, and she had to look up… her wide, wet mouth open slightly. Each freckle on her cute nose was a wonder of perfection, and when he noticed that her silky hair was curtained over one pink-nippled breast Hanson had to close his eyes for a second in thankfulness to the gods that he knew were watching over him. Moving slowly so he wouldn't scare her, Hanson curved one arm under the backs of her knees and cradling her body with the other, he picked her up and lowered her into the tub.
"Hanson," she murmured, almost too quietly for him to hear. It was the first time she'd said a word in hours and he leaned close to her face, smiling.
"What is it, baby?"
She lowered her eyes for a second, then looked at him and said, "I…
I love you, Hanson."
The water in the tub swished as he pulled her face to his and let their lips touch. Billie didn't resist but opened her mouth to him instead as he let their tongues play gingerly for a moment. Then Hanson stepped into the big tub behind her-his chest to Billie's back-and started to scrub her shoulder blades with a bar of soap.
"Ohh, that feels so nice," she breathed, pressing back against his fingers.
His rigid cock was pressed upward between her ribs and his belly, and when he moved once and it ground against her, Billie didn't show that she was bothered. Hanson put his arms around her lovely middle and scrubbed the girl's flat belly until she moaned and pushed her back harder against his chest. Carefully, he moved his hands lower, tangling fingers into the sparse fur of her pubic hair. Billie flopped her head backward onto his shoulder, panting lightly.
"I'm trying to say there ain't nothing wrong with it," she said, voice full of emotion.
"There ain't," Hanson whispered into one small, perfect ear. Then he sucked the tight lobe between his teeth and nibbled until Billie straightened her long legs against the end of the metal tub and shivered from head to foot. The feel of her palms flattened against the muscles of his thighs was something he'd never experienced so completely… not in all his times with beautiful women.
Hanson tried to cool down then and together they soaked lazily…
Billy taking her time exploring the muscled ridges of Hanson's shoulders and chest with her excruciatingly innocent fingers while he watched the expressions dance and flicker across her face. There was a whole world of hassles ahead of them-problems to be solved, things to be talked over, but for the present he knew nothing was more important than their discovery of each other.
Now the two of them were facing in the tub, and he thought he saw a question in Billie's eyes. She had been having a hard time keeping her gaze from the stiff jut of his erect cock as it bobbed just under the surface of the soap-clouded water.
"You want to look at it better?" he asked.
Billie sucked her bottom lip and went pink under her freckled tan, but her eyes never left his. Slowly she nodded yes. Hanson raised himself in the tub so that his cock pushed out of the water. Billie-Ann gave a little gasp as the water trickled off his smooth skin.
"Every time I see it, it looks bigger," she said.
"Reason it's so big now is because you make it that way," Hanson said.
"Go ahead; touch it if you want." He was amazed at how close he was to coming, and all he'd really done was press himself against Billie's loveliness. But then he'd spent many hours dreaming of her, and now that she was squatting in the water only inches away, it was almost too much for one man to bear. He was sitting tailor fashion on his heels and when Billie's fingertips touched the taut swollen glans, Hanson let out a lungful of air and leaned back against his end of the tub. Gently she encircled it with her whole hand and squeezed.
"Gosh, that makes me feel so funny inside," she murmured. "To have my hand on you." He saw her face cloud and she wrinkled her brow. "Maybe I better not…"
Hanson caught her wrist before she could pull away. "Don't be thinkin' it's wrong. No matter what anybody ever told you."
"Maybe it is, though," she said. "Wrong, I mean."
"No chance in hell," Hanson told her, then laughed at his choice of words. But Billie's arm relaxed and she left it against his throbbing meat. Once more the smooth skin of her fingers circled him, tightening and loosening experimentally against the steeliness. His foreskin was stretched back clear of the glans and as Billie tested and pulled, she saw how the skin could cover some of the glistening ridged crown.
"I didn't know it would do that!" she gasped.
"Haven't you ever seen a boy before?" Hanson asked, noticing right away that his question had embarrassed her. "Aw, come on, every girl's seen at least one. Your brother maybe or some guy…"
Billie nodded. "But not close-up."
Their eyes met and both had to laugh. Hanson was sure then that she'd be all right… that with his tender urging Billie would become a sexual dream come true. He took another heavy breath and felt his sphincter tighten as the turbulent pressure in his bails filled him with a pleasant and expectant ache.