I slipped two fingers between Linda's full thighs and found her sex arch. The thick, dark hair of her pubes was like a lush jungle as I forced my way through it and searched out the beginning of her crack.
Her sex place was bigger than mine-the lips fuller, the slit deeper.
When I pushed up against her risen clit, I could tell it was longer and stood out more than mine. Linda's soft pumping motion against my slickened knuckles told me I was doing it right.
"I'm not hurting you, am I?" I asked, hardly able to get the words out.
"No! Push harder… harder!"
Accidentally one of my fingers slipped up into her vagina, and Linda raised her bottom up so that I'd do it again. This time I pushed in deeply, raking the sides of her seeping tube. I'd never even done that to myself and when I felt Linda shove her own fingers into my cunt's hungry cave, I gave a little cry of delight. Another moment or two and I'd explode. I just knew it.
My aunt moved her ass suddenly from side to side as if she were trying to escape my rubbing fingers but really didn't want to. Finally she was wiggling so crazily that I wasn't sure I could keep my hand against her clit, but in the next moment she gave a sighing little cry and came, her lush breasts heaving hard against my own.
Linda had rolled over on top of me, and as the first throb of joyenergy shimmered through my own cunt and tummy I tossed my head back and pulled her mouth down to my neck. Nipping teeth prickled along my skin and the tip of her tongue probed wetly into the twisted little caves of my ear.
"Baby-Shelly… come Shelly, come!"
The strange soft creature above me was no man, yet she was making me feel so wonderfully alive, so right! While my shoulders and breasts burned under her open mouth, Linda dug the nubbin of my slit until the itching heights of pleasure enveloped the surface of my body and consumed me. There was no world… no bed… no room-just me, coming and coming and coming.
For the first minute or two after it was over, I was just alive-wonderfully alive, but with no other thought than breathing in and out and feeling the closeness of a soft being next to me. Then Linda moved a little and sighed and I began to realize what we'd done to each other. Never in my life had I imagined I would ever have sex with another female. It was something so taboo that even my mother had never mentioned it.
I waited with closed eyes for the guilt to pour in on me, but nothing happened. Was there anything really nasty about it? Had there been one evil word or thought passed between us?
Linda unwound the wondrous tangle of our arms and legs and sat there on the edge of the bed, looking through the window at the starry sky.
"I didn't plan for this to happen, Shelly," she said after a while.
"It's just that I can't stand my stupid husband… can't bear him touching me any more." She looked at me lovingly. "But you're all soft and gentle and smooth like a newborn kitten. I hope you won't think badly of me. I'd feel awful if you did."
I hugged my aunt close and smelled the fragrance of her newly washed hair. My voice quavered when I spoke. "I liked it, Aunt Linda… even if it is wrong."
"Maybe it isn't, baby." Linda put an arm around my shoulder and kissed my cheek. "Maybe it isn't."
It took me a long time to go to sleep after my aunt had gone back to the house. All I could think about was sex, sex, sex. One thing I knew:
It felt wonderful, whether a boy did it or another female. It was the guilt afterwards that bothered me. Yet the longer I pondered about the whole mess, the less I could believe it was wrong to do things to someone that made them feel so good.
It was late when I woke up next morning. Uncle Nat met me in the front room with a yellow paper in his hand. It looked like a telegram.
"Seems as though Frank's coming up to pay us a visit," he said smiling.
"Sure hope he doesn't decide to take you with him when he goes. Linda has appreciated the extra help you've given her around the place." My uncle noticed my white face and frowned. "Something wrong, Shelly?"
"It's nothing," I mumbled, sinking into a chair. "Just hungry, I guess."
I read the telegram through a haze of fear. It was true. My stepfather had been laid off his job and was on his way to the farm. I swallowed back the bitterness that welled up in my throat and tried to give Nat a brave smile.
"I haven't seen Frank in some time," he said, "but I know he likes poker." He slapped his thigh and pushed a callused hand through his hair. "I'll be lookin' to win some of his last paycheck off him."
Aunt Linda fixed me a late breakfast and I didn't look up once until the plate was clean.
"Anything wrong, darling?" she asked finally, pressing my hand with intimate warmth, a reminder of the night before.
"No!" I blurted quickly. "Nothing at all."
How could I tell even Aunt Linda that my stepfather had already put his cock into one of my holes and was on his way to the farm now to take care of the other one?
I spent a nervous morning helping with the usual chores-except that I broke a cup while washing it and spilled a bowl of sugar on the tablecloth and really wasn't much help at all. When the men had all gone to the fields to work, Linda cornered me in the hall and pressed me against the wall. I could feel her unbridled titties and hungry hands. When she pushed her lips against mine, I let myself go limp in her embrace. The beating of my heart said, yes, strip off your clothes and fall naked in the bed. But something else cautioned me to wait.
"Linda," I gasped, twisting away from the fingers that had already found the warm wet nest of my loins. "Can't we wait? I want to think about things."
"Just touch me!" she cried. "Touch me or I'll die."
Gritting my teeth to strengthen my resolve, I slid a hand quickly under the hem of her dress and up along the inside of a soft thigh. I'd just pushed under the nylon of her panties and buried my fingers in her soaking cleft when a screen door slammed in another room. It was Billy Joe coming in the house for something. Thankful for the interruption, I pulled myself away and left Linda shaking there in the hallway while I went out to gather the morning eggs. I felt awful to cut her short like that, but there was still a vague, nagging guilt in my mind when it came to playing intimate games with another female. I had lots more to learn about myself-and about other people-before sex could be so casual.
At noon, Nat returned from the bus station in Connerton with Frank. My stepfather saw me standing there on the front steps and held his arms open to embrace me.
"How's my little girl?" he said.
"All right, I guess." I wanted to scream to everyone what he had tricked me into doing, wanted to tell them about the Vaseline and his penis sliding up and down against the skin of my belly until it gushed seed, and the time he'd forced his cock into my very guts while I sprawled in pain under him. Instead I stared back at him without so much as a smile.
"Why, you're getting prettier every day, I swear!" Frank laughed uneasily. His eyes looked bloodshot from too much alcohol.
After my stepfather had unpacked, I wasn't surprised to see him set a bottle of bourbon on the kitchen table-"For emergencies," he told everyone. Aunt Linda had made the boys double up in one room so Frank could have a bedroom all to himself, but I could tell she didn't approve of the uncouth manner with which he treated everyone but Uncle Nat.
All the rest of the day I stayed out of sight. By the time evening rolled around and the supper dishes were washed and put away, Nat and Frank had set up a card table in the front room and started to shuffle a tired deck of cards that my uncle had found somewhere. The bottle of bourbon was close by my stepfather's elbow and both men had water glasses half filled with the amber booze.
More than anything I wanted to slip away quietly and lock myself safely in my room, but Linda had some yarn to work on and wanted me to stay.
Helplessly I sat there with the yarn wound over my hands while Frank leered at my tight-jeaned legs. I could have sworn that he was trying to see the crack of my vagina beneath the faded material-and that made me feel even more angry. Billy Joe was sitting across from me buried in a paperback novel, but when I looked across to him for solace, he lowered his eyes, closed the book and went to his room without a word.
Ever since Jason had forced himself on me in the back of the pick-up, Billy had acted strangely-almost as if he'd lost an important battle and no longer had the right to speak to me again.
I was relieved that at least Jason wasn't around to make me feel even more preyed upon. He had gone into town in Uncle Nat's old Buick, probably to sow wild oats, I thought to myself.
It was almost nine when Nat and Frank got up from the card table and staggered laughing out the door. They said they had to go to town for more liquor. I waited until I heard the pick-up start and lurch out of the yard. Then I said good night to Linda, let her kiss me once on the lips, and started across the dark yard to my room by the barn. It wasn't that she didn't excite me with her whispered suggestions and secret touches when no one was looking; but everything was coming at me too fast. I wanted to be left alone.
I was halfway across the big, rock-strewn yard when the lights of the old Buick swayed into view and illuminated me against the whitewashed buildings. Instead of stopping by the house, the car swerved my way. It was Jason, back from town and driving crazily.
I broke into a run and headed for the shed I stayed in, but before I could reach it, the car careened in front of me and slid to a stop.
Jason was out before the dust blew by, standing in front of me.
"Where ya headin' in such a hurry?" His mouth was pulled down in a strangely humorless smile. He took a long look at my shape in the glow from the headlights and shook his head. "Goddamn it, you look good in them Levi's. Like you're about to bust right out." Suddenly he reached out and grabbed my wrists.
I wanted to scream, but the tight fear in my throat had paralyzed me.
Using every ounce of strength I could muster, I twisted my hands free and darted toward the barn. Jason's feet pounded behind me as I burst through the door, slammed it behind me and ducked into a pile of feed sacks. The door crashed open again on squeaky hinges and I glimpsed Jason's figure outlined in the entrance. He advanced into the gloom quickly and I heard him curse when he tripped on something in the darkness.
As I backed up slowly, my shoulder brushed a wooden ladder. It was the way into the hayloft. In an instant I'd slipped out of my sandals and started softly up the crude rungs. If I could hide there, maybe Jason would tire of the game and leave me be.
It was warm and musty inside the loft. In a corner I found a pile of fresh hay and settled down to wait while below my pursuer shoved aside boxes and tools while he hissed my name. After a while there was only the silence of the night.
I'd almost decided that Jason had given up the search when the ladder to the loft began to shake. He was climbing up to where I'd hidden.
Quickly I looked around, frantic for another place to escape to, but the only light was what little seeped through the cracks in the dilapidated roof. It was even too dark to see Jason emerge and step into the hay, but I heard his rapid breathing and knew he wasn't far away.
A drunken laugh frightened me to the quick. "Let's get some light in here and see where Shelly's hiding!"
Almost immediately a trap door in the roof crashed back and the moonlight filled the loft. Jason's shirt was already unbuttoned and he took it off and dropped it as he came toward me. The muscles in his arms snaked powerfully and I watched them despite my fear.
"Well, well… all barefoot and everything. Waiting for me, weren't you?"
"Stay away from me, Jason!" I cried, my voice weak and shaky.
"Like hell I'll stay away," he said back. "You've been staying away from me the last couple of weeks and all I been thinking about is that fancy little body of yours."
I jumped up and started around him, but Jason had an arm around my middle in an instant. He pulled me roughly around to face him.
"One thing for sure, though-I ain't gonna fight you this time to get what I want."
"That's the only way you'll get it," I spit back. Jason's eyes scanned the small loft as if he were searching for something. "Maybe. Maybe not."
Then I saw what he had in mind. There was a bunch of old leather straps hanging from a beam near the ladder. Jason shoved me over to them and pulled a couple down.
"Nothing like a mule harness to tame a balky mule," he laughed, wrapping one of the wide straps around my two wrists and cinching it tight. I fought him every inch of the way, but it was like battling a water buffalo. Jason was big and mean and strong. In another second he'd tossed the free end of the strap over a roof beam and pulled my arms so far above my head that I couldn't quite touch my heels to the straw below me.
"Jason, I'm begging you. Please let me go back to my room. I'll kiss you. I'll go out with you again…"
"You'll kiss me all right," he said, chuckling at my poor bargaining position. "You know, you're mighty pretty all strung up like that. Just like a choice side of beef."
I closed my eyes and felt like weeping, but the tears wouldn't come.
What kind of perversion was he going to try on me as I dangled from the beam? Finally a hot tear fell down my cheek and I tasted its saltiness.
"Quit the damned bawling," Jason snapped. "You ain't gonna be killed or nothing for Christ's sake."
When Jason started stripping off his pants I didn't want to look, but I found myself staring anyway. His cock sprang free and bobbed up, hard and heavy-looking, a muscled truncheon of lust. My mouth was so dry I could hardly swallow, and when Jason unbuttoned my blouse and ran his rough hands over my heaving little melons, I gave a whimper of helplessness. With a long pocket knife, he cut the sleeves out of the pretty little top, then tore the back down the middle.
"I'll buy you another one," he said, dropping the two ruined pieces in the straw at my feet. "It's gonna be worth it."
When Jason reached for my pants I knew it was futile to resist, but I tucked my knees up under my naked tittles anyway, trembling there until the straps cut so painfully into my wrists that I had to submit. Jason waited patiently until I stopped struggling, then slipped the denim down sensuously inch by inch, kissing my navel and then the bones of my pelvis and the hard little pubic bump below. I felt his lips all the way down my thighs and legs until my clothing, panties and all, was in a crumpled hall in Jason's hands. I wasn't ready when he snatched up one of my feet and kissed the bottom of it, biting and licking until hot shivers shot through my loins. I gnawed my lower lip and tried to act completely unruffled by his technique.
He had tied me under the trap door which he'd opened to the roof, so the moon cast its blue light over both of us. Jason circled me slowly, touching all my curves and bumps, kissing, fondling, even tickling me a little.
"You got some fine-ass titties," he said after a long silence. "Not too big, not too small. Just like oranges." A hand went out and I felt his thumb working on one of my nipples. He was standing very near now and I saw him lift his cock and rest the head of it against my bare tummy.
"This prick of mine wants in there," he said, giving me an evil smile.
"It's been saving gallons of come just for you, Shelly."
I could see one small glistening droplet at the tip, and as he shifted his body it came away and hung there like dew above my tummy. Jason was suddenly kissing my breasts, licking circles over the rosettes and nipples, wetting them completely. I tried to fight the sensations, but it was no good. He was exciting me.
"Don't, Jason… D-d-don't!"
His mouth made a wet line down the middle of my chest and belly and when he paused at my navel again and pushed his tongue deep into it, I felt my labia swell outward with blood. I was getting all squishy down there and instinctively I clamped my thighs together.
"Won't do you any good," Jason said, smiling up. He was on his knees now, his mouth level with my fluff of pubic hair. His hands grasped my hips firmly and he pressed his face against me. The snake of his hot tongue traced the beginnings of my crack, then plunged into the slick damp. I was helpless in my effort to stop the rising button of my clitoris as it grew and pressed back against his caresses.
"Jason… I w-w-wish you'd stop…"
"No you don't," he laughed. Now his mouth circled one of my thighs and started up the crack of my ass. For a brief moment I felt the wet heat on the tight circle of my rectum, but Jason went higher, feeling out each bump of my spine with his tongue and teeth. When he nibbled at the nape of my neck, I couldn't help but lean back against the irresistible sensation. The lobes of my ears were next and I began to moan a little.
Jason encircled my body with his arms and I was glad. What small amount of resistance I had left disappeared when I felt him push his hot cock between my thighs and up against my swollen labia. The blooming lips opened wetly and Jason rubbed the ridged head against my clit until he too was covered with my juice. His penis seemed bigger and harder than it had the night at the drive-in; I could almost imagine it bursting up into my soft vagina. I shook my head and whimpered with the wrongness of it all. I had to get down and force myself to run.
Jason invaded my mouth next and the tantalizing sensation of his tongue licking my lips and teasing along my chin brought another surge of girl-slick from inside me, wetting the shank of his cock even more. My breasts were flattened against his chest as he pulled me close, licking my armpits, shoulders and neck until I was panting and yanking against my bonds.
"Put your legs around my waist," he ordered.
"No!"
"It'll take some weight off your arms." He kissed me again, sucking my lower lip deep into his mouth. Weakly I pulled my knees up and locked my ankles behind the small of Jason's back, Immediately I felt the new angle his cock made at my crotch. It was pressed tightly against the entrance to my body and when I gave a little cry of panic, Jason smiled and nudged the tip of his shaft into the small circle of muscles. I twisted violently against the straps, trying to bring my legs back down again, but Jason had my ass firmly in his grip, my thighs pinned against his sides by powerful arms. The muscles of my vagina opened and I could sense the filling as my tube clung to the big cock, dividing in front of it.
"Ohhh no," I sighed, knowing I was unable to stop rocking my pelvis… unable to stop twisting my body down on the luscious organ. The wrongness was swept away by new fires erupting in my most tender places. The feeling of being penetrated was too exquisite to fight against.
One of Jason's hands went up and there was a sawing, cutting noise. My arms were jerked back and forth, then came free from the beam, but my wrists were still bound tightly together. Jason pulled them down over his head and I clung there while he lowered me into the hay below, his cock still half into my twitching, tingling body. The muscles in my arms were at once relieved and when Jason put his mouth to mine again, I kissed him for cutting me down. He lunged forward and another inch of his meat disappeared between my mound's lips. Having him on top of me, weighing me down against the prickly hay, brought every grain of passion rushing through my blood.
"Tell me you like it!" Jason hissed in my ear.
"Y-Y-Yes… I do!" My climax was building fast and I thrust against his movements, clawing his back as the drool ran from my open mouth.
Something was clearing at last in my head. I did like it, did like a cock shoved up into my body until I was insane with the itch of it. But I still hated Jason-hated and loved him for what he was doing to me.
"Oh Jason… Jason, I'm coming. Oh! Ohhh!" I strained against the straps that bound my wrists, sinking my teeth into Jason's shoulder. He cried out and ground himself into me so hard I couldn't breathe. Our slipping organs grew even slicker as his semen poured and jetted into me and oozed out into the hay. Then all was quiet.
I kept everything out of my mind except the beauty and the warmth of a body on mine… a breathing, living man inside of me. Then suddenly Jason was pulling away. I felt his cock slip out and tried to catch it with my cunt, but he was already on his knees. No, I thought, don't leave me empty again… so warm, so wet, so slick to stay like that.
Don't leave, Jason. Don't you see that's why I hate you?
"Jason!"
"Gotta go to bed." He cut the leather straps on my wrists with his pocket knife and picked up his jeans. The familiar lonely feeling that had saddened me at the movie that night was creeping through my guts like a monster I couldn't control. Didn't he care anything about me?
Didn't he care at all?
"My things… you ruined my blouse." For an instant I thought I'd cry, but I clamped my eyes shut and forced back the sobs.
"Here, you can have my shirt," he said, tossing it at my feet. The ladder thumped until he was down and I heard him go out through the outside door. Slowly I cleaned myself up with the torn blouse and put on my Levi's and Jason's shirt. How could anything that made you feel so wonderful while it was happening leave you in shambles when it was over? For a long time I stared up into the starlit sky, thinking. I thought of Linda and her disgust with Nat, thought of my mother's warnings. Sex was fun-oh God it was wonderful-but if men were all such beasts, then a woman would always feel like one too whenever she coupled. I stood up and clenched my fists in frustrated anger. Now I knew how they were, how men wanted to make females grovel and hate and be afraid. I choked back another sob and grinned bitterly. Tomorrow was my birthday, and I resolved to begin again now that I'd be sixteen.
There'd be no more men forcing me into their evil games and lies. I could be strong too.
My sandals were at the bottom of the ladder where I'd left them. After slipping my feet in, I headed from the barn to my room. It was still pretty bright out, and I saw the pick-up parked near the house. Nat and Frank were back from town and probably drunker than ever. The old kerosene lamp on the table brought an amber glow to my room when I lit it and I'd turned to close the door when a voice scared me out of my wits.
"No need to light that," Frank said. He was stretched out on my bed with a quart of liquor in one hand. My brain almost refused to accept the rest. He was naked from the waist down and his resting cock lay against one hairy thigh. I clutched Jason's shirt tighter against my breasts and shivered with fear and disgust.
"Get out of here," I stammered.
"Now you may as well shut that kind of shit up," he said, swinging a leg off of the mattress and putting the bottle on the small table by the bed. "Nat's busy in the house…" His voice took on a filthy tone.
"With Linda."
A vision flashed before me of Linda trying to fight off her drunken husband, but being forced down, her legs spread as Nat stuck his cock roughly into her. My stepfather took a step, swayed and caught the corner of the bed and then took another. I wanted to break and run, but he had already gotten between me and the door. Oh God no, I thought, not again! But if I humored him, maybe I could put it off until there was a better chance to…
"Aren't you at least going to let me get into something else?" My voice hadn't given me away yet. I tried to smile and look sexually agreeable.
Frank narrowed his eyes with suspicion. "You mean I ain't gonna have to convince you?"
I turned away, afraid he might see the lie in my face. "Not if there's something in it for me. Once you promised a car… or did you forget again?" I heard him uncork the bottle and swallow heavily from it.
"Well now… Hell, I haven't forgot nothin'."
I turned, feeling the advantage was mine again. "Make me an offer."
Frank scratched fingers through his mussed colorless hair and shrugged.
"Okay, okay. I'll get you that damned car. By God, we'll go in first thing tomorrow. It can be your birthday present."
Of course I knew he was lying, but then I was too. Making my hips slink, I came across the room and started unbuttoning his shirt, praying all the time that my nerves would hold out. My hands trembled terribly on each button, but Frank didn't seem to notice. He was staring at the little mountains of my breasts pushed tight against Jason's thin cowboy shirt.
When he reached out for me, I stopped his hand and smiled. "Why don't you just get in bed and we…"
"Oh, no," he shook his head. "You ain't gonna get out that door."
"Silly!" I scolded, taking his cock in my hand. "I was just going to get out of these clothes."
Frank's face went soft as I moved his foreskin down over the enlarged head and then back again. Over and back, over and back… faster, faster. He staggered backwards to the mattress and collapsed on it with a sighing moan. I glanced quickly at the door, measuring how fast I'd have to run, thinking of a place to run to.
"Damn Shelly, just keep doing that for a while," he grunted. "I knew you were a hot-ass little girl all along."
"Oh sure," I said, caressing his balls with my other hand. "I just like to get something in the bargain too." I was pumping Frank's huge cock as fast as I could now and the head surged darkly with blood every time I brought my fingers up.
"Jeeeesus," he gasped, closing his eyes. "You'd better lay off that…
It…"
Swallowing my nausea, I forced myself to lean forward and wetly kiss Frank's stomach, praying for his semen to explode.
"Don't worry," I whispered. "We've got all night to do it again."
"Yeah… But…"
My fingers rolled the slick eggs inside his sac and I watched the muscles along his thighs tighten with his building lust. Now I watched the tiny slit-like orifice at the tip of his glans. A tiny droplet appeared suddenly, glistening in the yellow light from the lamp. Then a thick, whitish glop rose like a fountain from his shaft and fell wetly against his furry chest.
"Shee-it!" Frank coughed.
I dropped his pulsing, come-soaked cock and broke for the door. As I made the porch just outside, I glanced back long enough to see him grasp his purging member and fall half off the bed, cursing while he jerked the milky semen from his body.
The door on the pick-up stuck when I first tried it, but I banged it frantically with my fist and it popped open. There was a growling call somewhere behind me, but I switched on the ignition and shoved with all my might against the starter pedal on the floor. Thank God, Uncle Nat always left the keys in the truck. The old pick-up turned over lazily at first and then a little faster. More than anything I wanted to pump the accelerator, but I remembered watching Billy drive and his warnings against flooding the engine.
Quickly I looked back at my room. Frank was coming down off the porch now, starting across the yard. I could see the long lines of his shiny semen reflecting the moon off his legs and stomach.
"Hey… you!" he called.
The engine coughed blue smoke and bucked to life just as my stepfather came up beside me. He reached for the door, but it was stuck again and I let the clutch out fast while the motor raced.
"Little bitch!" he swore as the truck pushed him backwards and he sprawled in the dust. I flicked the lights on and steered the old clunker up the narrow, rutted road which led eventually to the highway and Connerton. With no money and not even a driver's license I knew I'd have to go back to the farm in the morning. But at least for now I was safe. I thought maybe I could find a place to stop and rest and pull myself back together. Any place… just so long as another man didn't try to touch me.
As I turned left from the dirt road onto the blacktop, I heard a yipping bark behind me and turned to look through the rear window. It was Napoleon, my uncle's German shepherd, pressing his black nose wetly against the glass. He always liked to sleep in the back of the truck and I'd brought him along with me by accident. For the past week, the big friendly dog had been following me around a lot, so I felt just a little less lonely now with him close by.
When the lights of the town grew closer, I gripped the big, worn steering wheel and kept my toe down on the gas pedal, thankful to be free of males for a while.
I'd almost driven by the big, lighted tent on the side of the road when I realized what was going on and something inside made me pull the truck onto the shoulder and turn around. It was a revival meeting on the outskirts of Connerton-place where I might find some comfort.
Craning my head up over the steering wheel, I wound through the battered cars and trucks parked all over the unused cornfield by the tent. I found a place at last and told Napoleon to wait in the cab until I got back. He scampered happily onto the seat and closed his eyes.
As I wandered up, a fat man in a shiny suit grinned pleasantly at me.
"Glad to have you, Sister." There were a couple of vacant folding chairs in the back row and I took one and sat down to listen to the tall, bony preacher up front. He wore a brightly checkered jacket, floppy pants and wing-tipped shoes. I could clearly see the crazed gleam in his eyes all the way from my distant seat.
"You have to take care of your neighbor!" he shouted, shaking his snow white hair, "if you want God to take care of you."
Some heads nodded and a man hollered, "Amen, Brother!"
The preacher raised both hands and looked up at the top of the tent.
"People tell me they looooove God!" He looked at the audience again.
"Well, friends, I just tell them to give somebody in trouble a helping hand and find out what God's love is all about!"
"Hallelujah!" a big, black woman shouted from the row in front of me. I felt like shouting too. Something about the preacher's words made me feel good inside.
"Don't say you love God and then call some acquaintance out of his name!" The preacher made a sweeping gesture with his hands and studied the people before him. "Backbiting ain't done nobody any good any time.
Why, you wouldn't do anything like that to God, would you?"
There was a shout from the front row and an old man got down on his knees. "Praise the lord," he rasped.
People all around me got to their feet on a signal from the preacher and the quartet of singers behind him broke into a fast-riding spiritual while a black brother pounded out an irresistible throbbing back-up on an electric organ. I stood up too, completely lost in the music-so lost in it in fact that I hadn't noticed the tall blond boy who'd taken the seat next to me.
"Want a sip of this?" he asked, pushing an open can of beer my way.
"It's kind of hot in here tonight, and Brother Clyde up there tends to make it even hotter."
I shook my head and looked back to the front of the tent again. I wasn't even going to speak to another male. Not here, not anywhere… ever.
The music roared and swirled around me and I rocked gently to the beat, thinking about what Brother Clyde had said and hoping the boy next to me would go away. After a while my curiosity got the better of me and I glanced quickly over at him. He was wearing an expensive shirt, faded Levi's and leather boots that didn't seem as though they'd seen much work, not farm work anyway. Yet he was as strong-looking as Jason but taller and better looking.
"Now listen!" shouted the preacher over the throbbing music. "We're gonna show God's love tonight, you hear!"
"Thank you Jesus!" yelled a thin woman not far away. She threw herself into the aisle and rolled around until her clothes were covered with sawdust. A few other people stood close by to keep her from hurting herself.
Brother Clyde smiled broadly and nodded like he knew everything there was to know. "Now I want everybody here tonight to throw your arms around that neighbor beside you and show him what Jesus is talking about!"
I looked shyly to my left, but the woman there was already hugging someone else. My face flushed red and for a moment I felt like bolting from the tent and running back to the safety of the old pick-up and Napoleon.
"Well folks… What are you waiting for?" The preacher's eyes seemed to be burning right at me when he spoke and I turned away from them and looked up at the blond boy's face. Our eyes met and I could see that he was embarrassed too. Then he gave a little smile, dropped his empty beer can on the floor and held out his arms.
"Hello neighbor," he said.
I put my arms around his middle and felt his hands warm on my back. We stood like that for a few seconds, and I sensed the heat of his body, its softness and hardness where we fit together. I closed my eyes and thought of Jesus and thought of the Song of Solomon. I thought of my mother and sex and Frank, my stepfather, and Jason and…
A gentle hand pushed my head up and there were lips on my forehead, pressing wetly. Then they were gone. "Brother Clyde is right," the blond boy said. "That's what Jesus is all about."
I pushed my way out of his arms and stumbled through the clapping, singing people until I was outside in the cool, evening air. I was almost to the pick-up when I heard footsteps behind me,
"Hey, what's the hurry?" It was the boy again.
The damned old engine wouldn't turn over fast enough to catch and as I sat there straining my foot against the starter, he leaned against the door and watched me through the open window. I hoped that Napoleon would bark at him, but the dog just hung out his tongue and tilted his head to one side. The boy reached across and scratched Napoleon's ears.
"Look," he said, "I don't know what your troubles are, but I'd like to be around when you work them out." He motioned back toward the tent and shrugged. "You can't blame me for kissing you in there. Have you ever looked at yourself in the mirror?"
"What do you mean?" I snapped, just as the old truck shook itself into life.
"I mean you're about the prettiest chick I've seen since I left New York." He gave his easy smile again and the grey eyes sparkled. "Go ahead-just go ahead home and take a close look in the mirror." His next words were almost a whisper. "With or without clothes."
I let the clutch out with a jerk and steered the truck out of the lot toward the highway while the blond boy stood watching me, arms folded across his chest. After shifting into second I chanced a quick look back. He was waving, but I snatched my eyes back to the road again and chewed my lower lip. I was tired, awfully tired. Maybe everyone would be asleep back at the farm. Maybe I could get some rest without being bothered. But even before I got to the dirt road which wound toward Uncle Nat's, I was wondering if Aunt Linda would mind letting me use the full length mirror in her closet-just for a quick look, anyway.