Billie woke up the next morning feeling strangely excited and full of new energy. She jumped naked from the bed and splashed cold water from the old porcelain basin onto her face. A few droplets fell onto her breasts and when she wiped them off with a towel, she realized that her tits were sore to the touch. Just walking across the room made enough friction between her legs to feel awfully good. Even something so ordinary as dressing made her sigh: the way her dress felt going over her shoulders and nipples and back, the way her panties snugged up against her hot mound and clasped her trim little cheeks in tight nylon. Even the way the elastic band cut into the flesh of her hips gave her a rush.
"This is something!" she whispered to her image in the mirror, "really something."
Then Billie-Ann remembered that it was a special morning. It was her birthday and she was fourteen! Hurrying, Billie brushed her hair down and finished dressing. Nora had breakfast ready when she came bouncing into the kitchen and when she sat down she found an envelope beside her plate. Inside was a soiled and crumpled one-dollar bill.
"Thanks, Nora," Billie said, a little surprised that her stepmother had even remembered the date.
Nora shot her a sharp glance that had just the trace of a smile in it.
"In my day we didn't get nothin' for a fourteenth birthday, but nowadays kids expect so much."
Billie didn't think that a dollar was really much at all, but she stuck it in the single pocket on the front of her smock-like dress and started eating. It would have been nicer, she thought, if Nora had kissed her instead. But lots of her birthdays had passed without anyone remembering whether she was alive or dead.
Without being asked to, Billie gathered the eggs and slopped the hogs.
She was hoping that if she worked hard enough that morning, Nora might stay off her back for a while… or at least long enough for Billie to wander alone in the woods. She was starting to grow up and she wanted to be alone and think about so many things that had to be thought about.
While she was feeding the chickens, Nora came up and stood behind her, watching. "We might make something of this place," her stepmother said,
"if you keep putting your heart in it like that."
"I've already told Miz Crumpers that we can use her son Lonnie for a few weeks." Nora nodded toward the overgrown garden patch behind the chicken coop. "I'm gonna have him clean up them weeds and put in some vegetables. It still ain't too late to have enough for canning."
Billie knew Lonnie Crumpers from the time when she'd gone in to town to school. He was ten or eleven by now and not a bad kid that she could remember. "But the Crumpers live ten miles away," she said. "How will Lonnie get home at night?"
"He'll be staying here during the week," her stepmother told her. "I promised Miz Crumpers his room and board and a dollar a day. We can make him a pallet on the floor in your room."
"Aw, but Nora," Billie protested, "I don't have enough room as it is and…"
"Just hush now. He'll be staying in there on a pallet and that's all there is to it. I won't have him in my room waking me up all night."
She picked up a pail and rattled it as if to end the argument.
Billie finished the rest of the chores in sullen silence, and when Nora had stretched out on the couch in the front room for her midday nap, she skipped down the front steps and crossed the road into the cool blue shadows of the woods. For the first time in months, Billie-Ann felt really lonely. She never thought much about not having any real friends her own age, but turning fourteen was kind of special and with no one to share it with… sad. What made it even worse was Nora moving Lonnie Crumpers right into her very own room. Billie bit her lower lip and kicked at a mushroom. The domed white cap split into a dozen fragments and scattered over the crushed leaves and twigs ahead of her.
Billie walked in no particular direction and she was only partially aware that her footsteps were taking her in a roundabout way toward Basset's Pond. Then, when she was near enough to make out the shimmering reflection of the water, she realized at once she'd come that way on purpose… hoping to find Hanson there again. The shock of comprehending this made her skin jump, and she stopped. What business did a white girl have alone in the woods with a colored boy? And Hanson was much older than she was.
The quiet rustle of leaves filled the air above her. Billie scanned the banks of the pond and saw no one. In spite of her shame for coming down to that spot, she felt a little twinge of disappointment, and the loneliness she'd been fighting filled her again.
"Kinda hot today, ain't it?" said someone behind her.
Billie whirled so fast that her long hair flung halfway across her face. It was Hanson, sitting with his back against a tree. A thicket had kept her from seeing him when she'd walked by. Beside him was a stack of paperback books… one was open in his lap.
"I… I…" Billie stopped trying to speak and gulped instead. Her mouth was dry and those peculiar little flutters were in the top of her belly again.
Hanson smiled at her as if he'd guessed what was happening. Then he waved a hand at the books beside him. "See here what I brought ya?"
Billie knelt down beside him and looked at each book in the stack.
There were a couple of mysteries and a science fiction or two and something real thick that looked like a novel about a man with a lot of women. It was enough reading to last her quite a while and the nicest birthday present she'd gotten all day… the nicest birthday present she'd gotten ever. Except maybe when her dad had bought her the sandals.
"Thanks," Billie said. "They all look real good. I cain't wait to start one."
"You really do like to read, don't you?" Hanson asked, studying her.
Billie dropped her lashes and smiled. "It's… all I have to do, I guess." For an uncomfortable moment or two both of them were silent.
Billie knew that she should probably take the books and go, but she couldn't bring herself to. She wanted to stay. She couldn't stand for that lonely feeling to come back again to haunt her… not on her birthday. Maybe a few minutes longer would be all right. "I'm fourteen today!" she said brightly, trying to make conversation.
Hanson gave her another long, warm look. "Well then, I'm glad I brought you somethin'. You can call those books your present from me."
Billie nodded, smiling. "That's what I was thinking." She hugged the books and looked around nervously. When she glanced back at Hanson he was looking at her bare legs below the hem of the short dress she had on. At the same time Billie studied his smooth features and muscled shoulders. What was the danger Nora always nagged about? What was the real reason a white girl wasn't supposed to ride with a black boy? When Billie-Ann rode with Jed, her stepmother never said a thing about it.
Billie compared the two men in her thoughts. Seeing Jed's cock had given her an excited feeling all right, but it hadn't been anything like when she'd stumbled upon Hanson naked in the pond. Maybe that was it. Maybe black men had a way about them that made girls more sexy, Billie thought. She looked at him again while he drew circles in the dirt with a stick, and decided that there was something about Hanson that made her feel light and fluttery in her chest. But whatever might scare her about him took second place today. Alone in the woods the two of them were cut off from the hates and troubles of life outside and at least for a short time she could enjoy another person's company.
"You're so quiet," Hanson said, breaking the silence.
"Just thinking."
"Let me guess." He puckered his mouth, then tilted his head at her.
"You're thinking here I am alone with this niggah in the woods… I wonder how long it'll be before he grabs me and…"
Billie blushed and gave a shy little laugh. "I really wasn't thinking that at all…"
Hanson was laughing, too, but kept on. "… and then you're thinking, boy, I sure am glad nobody can see us…"
"I… I don't think I care if anybody does," Billie said, even though she knew that was only partly true.
"Well if you don't care, I sho do!" Hanson said, looking down his nose at her. "I mean just what do you think all them niggahs in Dooberville would say if they saw me with a white girl?"
Billie-Ann tried to hold it back, but then burst out in shrieking giggles and it was plain that Hanson was enjoying her amusement. "I don't know," she finally was able to say. "What would they say if they saw us together?"
"Here's what they'd say." Hanson grinned mightily and shouted, "Look out, boy, the sheriff's comin'!"
That set Billie off laughing again. It wasn't at all like she might hurt Hanson's feelings-he seemed to want her to laugh, and she understood how the way he poked fun at the ugly way some things were made them seem silly and ridiculous. Billie looked at Hanson like she'd never really seen him before.
"I never met a colored…" She mumbled to a stop but then went on, sure that he would forgive whatever she might say. "I never met a colored person like you before."
Hanson slapped his thigh and looked slyly at her. "That's what an education'll do for a black man."
"Gosh!" Billie felt almost as if Hanson were working a spell on her or something. It was mostly the warm way she felt talking with him. "I bet college is tough."
"Nothin' to it." He leaned back against the tree again and gazed up into the thick leaves. "All you need is a little natural rhythm and a good ear."
While Hanson chuckled quietly, Billie-Ann considered what he had said.
She was still wondering if she might have natural rhythm when he put his book down and stood up.
"Let's take a swim and cool off… what do you say?"
Billie felt herself stiffen. Already Hanson had grabbed the bottom of his jersey with both hands and was skinning it up over his head.
"Maybe I'd b-b-better not," she said. "I don't have anything to wear."
Hanson hung the jersey on a tree branch and reached for the buckle of his blue jeans. "Okay, but it's mighty hot to sit out on the bank."
Billie-Ann's heart was in her throat. She didn't know whether to run or turn her back or what. If Hanson let her see his big brown cock closeup she might faint. But then she knew she was letting her imagination run away with her. Of course, Hanson wouldn't just strip down to the buff right in front of her… it was silly to think he would. Just like she'd figured, he left his underwear on, though there didn't seem to be much to them. They were made of some blue satin mesh and hung low on Hanson's hips. The holes in the loose-woven material were just big enough for her to spy some brown skin underneath. Hanson stretched, and the shelves of muscles in his chest and flat stomach moved, completely capturing Billie's attention. He was really built, she kept thinking.
In fact, he was so powerful-looking it made her feel helpless and she hugged her books tighter against the front of her flimsy little dress.
It would be better if she went home… right away. Before Hanson got the wrong idea. It was then that Billie realized Hanson had been watching her again, and she gave him a weak smile. His hip jutted out and he was rubbing a hand slowly back and forth across his broad chest.
"I been thinking about you and I got a theory."
Billie shrugged. "Oh?"
"The trouble with you is all your life people been telling you never let a niggah boy touch you." He put his hands on his hips and scratched one leg with the sole of his foot. "So now you're just shivering and ashaking, scared to death that we might bump up against each other or that I might grab you real good and give you a heart attack or something."
Billie-Ann tried hard to meet his eyes. "Maybe…" She knew he was right. Hanson always was.
"So why not let's get it over with?" He put out his hand, palm up.
"Here, give me your hand."
Billie stepped back another foot, eyes wide and mouth set tight.
"Cain't w-we wait?"
"Come on! Put your hand on mine. Ain't nothin' gonna rub off."
Not to do it would have made her feel like a complete idiot, so Billie extended her arm and laid a trembling hand in Hanson's. He closed his fingers warmly over it but didn't try to pull her closer.
"Relax, for Chrissake!" he ordered. "I ain't breakin' any bones, am I?"
A laugh caught her unaware and she shook her head. "No. 'Course not."
But her knee joints felt weak and loose.
"So see there," Hanson chuckled, releasing her fingers, "we got it over with now, and you look as well off to me as you did a minute or two ago." He put a finger to his chin and took in the full length of her body. "Fact is, you might even look a little healthier."
"You must think I'm awful stupid," Billie-Ann mumbled, looking down at her feet.
"Naw." He put his hand out again and this time Billie gave him hers without hesitation. "It's them old folks that are stupid. My parents ain't no better'n yours. If my mother knew I was down here alone in the woods with a white girl, she'd run me out of the house with a shotgun."
Billie had just decided that she liked the way her hand felt inside Hanson's… liked the way his fingers wrapped clear over hers, hiding them. This time when he released her, she let her palm linger for a moment against his and then quickly took it back.
"Well," he said, shrugging, "I'm gonna get wet. Why don't you stick around for a while and we can talk some more?"
Billie-Ann watched him wade out until he was chest deep. Then he pushed forward and swam a few strokes to an old overhanging tree.
"Boy, that sure feels fine," he laughed, blowing water from his mouth.
The water did look inviting. Maybe she could wade a little anyway and cool off some. Quickly she kicked off her sandals and gingerly stepped through the broken branches and rocks until she felt the mossy bottom under her feet. The water lapped around her ankles and she made her way out from the bank carefully until it was up to her knees. Hanson hung from his elbow on the old waterlogged tree, watching her and making little splashes with his feet. Billie walked in circles, feeling the fine silt at the bottom squish between her toes. She was glad she'd decided to get a little wet. She was trying to stay away from what looked like the deepest part of the pond when her foot touched a big flat rock. Billie put her weight on it but immediately felt the rock shift forward and then she was slipping down into the drop-off.
"Hey! Watch out!" Hanson yelled, but Billie barely heard his words as the cold water closed over her head. The thin little dress she was wearing ballooned out with trapped air and she felt her bottom smack into the soft mud. Then she was paddling with both arms for the surface. Two strong hands closed around her tiny waist and her head broke water.
"Gosh!" she gasped, slinging her water-soaked hair from her eyes.
"I didn't know whether you could swim or not," Hanson said. He was standing very close.
"I can't," she said, smiling, "but I think I was just 'bout to learn."
Billie was glad Hanson was so tall. She still couldn't touch bottom with her toes.
"There's a big old hole here. I didn't know it came this far back or I would've warned you." His hands clasped her middle just a little bit harder. "You better just hold around my neck and I'll walk you out to the far bank. Mud's too slick to climb back the way you came."
The lapping water tickled Billie-Ann's neck and she circled her arms around Hanson's neck as he'd told her. Her teeth had begun to chatter with the sudden shocking chill, but with her body close to his chest, she could feel his warmth. The way her dress was floating up in the water bothered Billie, but she couldn't do anything about it. Hanson walked carefully, feeling his way along the uneven bottom, but almost every step he took made their bare legs brush together. The wetness of her panties made her feel as if she didn't have any on at all, and every so often their bellies touched, too. She felt his hipbones bumping hers, but the harder she tried to keep it from happening, the more their bodies seemed to stick together. Then Hanson's cheek was touching her own and she felt his short round nose brush tenderly under her left ear lobe. His arms seemed like strong bands of muscle around her back; then their legs almost tangled and Hanson staggered and stopped in the deepest part of the pond.
"God, you're a pretty girl, Billie-Ann," he whispered.
She felt his lips against her skin. Billie closed her eyes and clung tight to Hanson Allen's strong neck. Things kept trying to come into her mind… bad, disturbing things that Nora had hollered at her as long as she could remember and yet her pounding senses threatened to push all that away. Hanson had her in his arms and they were in water up to their necks and their bodies felt delicious pressed together under the surface. Why did she keep feeling it was so wrong… wrong like touching herself… wrong like getting a ride from a colored boy she'd known all her life? Hanson nuzzled her neck again and she felt his tongue dart into the inner curls of one ear. Then his mouth was very close to her own and when she tried to turn her head, strong hands framed her face and held her. Full, brown lips brushed damply over hers …
"No, Hanson… nooo!" But even as she mumbled the words, his tongue had forced her lips apart. Billie felt faint. A colored boy… a black … a nigger was kissing her. He was licking her lips and teeth and mouth, covering her with his spit.
"You're too pretty not to kiss," he told her, wetting the tip of her nose and then each cheek in turn. Her dress was still floating high in the water and Billie thought she could sense some new hardness graze her bare tummy. The fronts of their thighs touched. Billie sighed, confused with the lovely sensations that she knew she shouldn't be enjoying. Finally she let her head flop onto his shoulder while he devoured the soft skin of her neck.
Strong, warm fingers pushed up under the waist of her dress and rubbed the narrow place between her sharp little shoulder blades until Billie couldn't keep from moaning She was sure now that the hardness she'd felt against her tummy was Hanson's huge shaft jutting up from his groin but trapped against his stomach by the thin mesh shorts he wore.
She could feel it better now, because he was pressing a hand against the small of her back, making their bodies rub and touch and cling. It was much different from daydreaming about sex. More like when she'd played with her cunt… it was that kind of feeling, but more intense.
Hanson guided her bottom near again and Billie gasped as her hipbone raked over the hard length of his penis. Then he'd taken her whole ear into his mouth, nibbling and pinching it with his teeth. Billie-Ann gave a little whine, half-panic, half-excitement, as Hanson covered her lips again, sucking her spit into his mouth as if she were some exotic fruit he wanted to munch. The rush of thrilling heat that swelled her loins made Billie's mouth go soft, and she let him mash it open until even their teeth scraped. Hanson was trying to make her move her ass up and down and though she tried to resist him, the deliciousness of being so close weakened her. For an instant she let the water buoy her against his stiffness. Billie whimpered with the feverish closeness of their parts, but a sliver of guilt worked its way into her pleasure, and she arched her mound back away.
"It's not like we were really doing it," she whimpered breathily against Hanson's neck, trying to free herself from Nora's glowering face.
"What you say, baby?" Hanson whispered.
"Nothin'," she sighed, "nothin' at all."
Kissing her again, Hanson put both hands on the outward swells of her asscheeks and forced her body against his with such heated passion that it took Billie's breath away. Underwater, the lips of her cunt were being forced apart and the sensitive insides rubbed against the ridge of his cock… her flesh hidden only by a thin piece of nylon.
"Oh, God… maybe we'd b-better quit."
But Hanson lurched in the water, and for a second Billie thought they were going under. Frightened, she hooked her ankles behind his long legs and clung to his neck all the tighter. Hanson groaned. Their pelvises were so tightly pushed together that she could feel him pumping himself up and down against the bare skin of her tummy. But his mesh shorts… they were pulled down!
"Billie," he whispered hotly, "Oh, Billie, you're so damn fine!"
Her mind reeled. She could clearly feel the outline of his meat sinking into the soft flesh around her navel. His hands clutched her bottom harder than ever, making her move in rhythmic circles. Then a tiny hot jet of something spurted against her belly. Again and again it spurted and each time she could feel the warmth clearly touching her skin before the water washed it away. When she looked down beside them, long milk-white tendrils floated up in the pond and Billie was sure what had happened.
Everything seemed dreamy and unreal but they were moving through the water again. Thankfully, Billie felt the cool shade of the big tree that hung over the pond and she circled first one hand and then the other around a mossy limb. Then Hanson was helping her along it and up onto the grassy bank. Finally he staggered out himself and collapsed beside her. She saw right away that he'd jerked his mesh shorts up again, but they barely covered the swollen, pulsing organ that had just burst its juices against her stomach.
Neither of them spoke. Billie looked at Hanson's brown skin… looked at his small, tight ears and woolly hair, the rounded nose and thick lips. Hanson Allen seemed beautiful to her, but she felt so terribly afraid and so awfully young beside him. Nora's hateful warnings echoed in her ears and though she clasped her wet hands tight against the sides of her head, she couldn't shut them out. What would a colored boy think of any white girl he could mess with like Hanson had messed with her? Maybe her stepmother was right-maybe she was trashy.
Hanson rolled over and gave her a long, passionate look. "Listen, Billie…"
"I've got to git home," she said, standing up. Her nipples were pointing straight out from the slight swells of her growing titties, and the way her wet dress clung it wasn't much different from being naked.
"Billie, I really care for you." Hanson's eyes bore into her like coals in his dark face. "I want you to go with me to Elsie Shelton's this Thursday night. Have a little beer. Dance some, maybe."
Billie-Ann looked up at him knowing she couldn't have heard right. No colored boy took a white girl out at night. And especially not to Elsie Shelton's. But a weirder thought than that was making her face go hot and red. In a way, she really wanted to go.
"You know we cain't, Hanson." Billie tried to pull the wet wrinkles out of her dress, but it only showed more of her lithe little body.
"How tall are you anyway?" he asked. "'Bout five-foot-four, I guess."
"You look like a pretty little colt of a girl. Them legs… So nice and…"
"Look, I've got to go…" Billie started around to the other side of the pond. Hanson grabbed her and swung her around. Billie felt his closeness again and realized why she was so lumpy… her tight little cunt ached for more scratching.
"Nobody's gonna know if you go with me over to Elsie's."
"They'd know," she said, not trying to pull away from his grip. She wasn't quite so afraid of him now, but the obvious fact that Hanson could do about anything he pleased with her gave Billie a chill.
"Onliest people that go to Elsie Shelton's is other niggahs," he laughed.
Billie wasn't used to the way he used that word to call his own kind.
It even made her wince sometimes to say it.
"I cain't go… really!" Hanson let her pull away and she walked to the tree where she'd left the books he'd given her. Hanson's footsteps crunched close behind her.
"I want to see you again, Billie. I'll get my pa's pickup Thursday. You wait behind the big elm by the road just down from our place and I'll pick you up at eight."
Billie was filled with emotions she wasn't used to handling. As soon as she had her sandals on, she clasped the paperbacks and started back out through the woods. "Bye, Hanson… thanks for the nice books."
"You be there!" he called after. "You ain't had no fun till you been to Elsie's."
All the way back home Billie felt strange things twisting and tearing inside her. Of course she couldn't possible go with Hanson anywhere. A lot of it was being afraid of going against the rules, but even more than that was her not being able to trust her own emotions. Billie's heart went crazy each time she thought of the way he had clutched her to him in the pond. And yet though Hanson did frighten her, she remembered happily what he'd said to her just before she'd left: "I want to see you again, Billie." That's what he'd said, she thought, smiling. God, a grown man really wanted to see her again!
When Billie got home, her clothes were still wet. She tried to let them dry in the sun before going inside, but finally gave it up and decided she'd try to make it to her room without Nora catching on. Mrs.
Crumpers' car was parked in front and when Billie went up the porch steps she heard the two women talking in the kitchen. Lonnie was sitting quietly by his mother, and his eyes met Billie's for an instant as she crept around the corner and into her room. By the time she'd changed to some dry clothes, Mrs. Crumpers was gone and she could already hear the boy chopping at the stiff weeds in the garden patch out back. It was just like Nora to put him to work on his first afternoon there, Billie thought. And on such a hot day, too.
Billie stretched back on her cot and thought about the dirty pictures Jed had given her, and Hanson Allen… especially the details of what had happened to her at Basset's Pond. She could remember vividly how it had felt to have her warm young mound pushed tight against Hanson's cock. When she thought of that same big thing pressed deep into the soft flesh of her tummy, Billie had to rub a hand over the magic place where his seed had gushed out against her bare skin. Why did growing up have to happen so fast? she wondered. It seemed that most of her life she'd been bored, waiting for… something. And now it was on her all at once. Billie frowned and closed her eyes. There was a lot more to being fourteen than she'd imagined. And every day would find her just a little bit older-a little bit smarter about things. With a sigh, she picked up one of the books Hanson had given her and quickly lost herself in the words.