Janie is the lush young virgin ... and much depends on just that. Five thousand big green dollars, to be exact ... all she has to do is keep her maidenhead firmly in place until next Saturday night and when - WHAMO! - her rich old suitor would pay that price to Pa as a dowry ... but only on that condition. Pa's fortune rode and fell on that tiny flesh membrane. Of course, it was all Pa could do himself to keep from claiming the choice morsel ... as he checked her out down there every time she passed by. Of course, the other route was open to him ... and if Pa couldn't take care of it, Little Brother certainly would, if he was finished with the cow, that is.
* * *
Chapter One
The firm round globes of Janie's ass still smarted from the strapping her father had given her a few minutes ago, and every so often she would wince a little and shift her position in the rocker. She had been sewing on the new dress she meant to wear when she ran away, but she couldn't concentrate. The strapping had made her horny-the way a strapping almost always did-and now she couldn't keep her mind off her pussy.
It was odd, she reflected, that something that hurt so much should at the same time make her feel so good between her legs. But it did, and lately she'd even begun to sass Pa every now and then just so he'd strap her. She loved it. Not the kind of strappings he gave her when he was really mad, of course. Those almost killed her. But the gentler ones, like the one he'd given her today, were just down right wonderful.
Golly! Was she ever horny! Even her nipples were stiff!
She glanced across the room at her little brother Billy, asleep on his pallet. Billy was nine, and mean as sin, and sometimes he pretended to be asleep when he wasn't. It was awful, having to share a room with someone-especially when you were so horny you just had to do something about it, even if you got caught at it.
Well, she'd just have to take a chance he was really asleep, that's all. She bunched the new dress up in her lap, to serve as a shield from Billy if he should wake, and slipped her hand up under her brief skirt and cupped the silky nest between her legs with her palm. She wore no panties; she didn't even own a pair.
She sat that way for a few moments, completely motionless, feeling the hot, moist lips of her pussy swelling out against her hand-an exquisitely formed fifteen-year-old girl with pert, uptilted breasts, gold-blonde hair that reached to the small of her back, and widely-wet, dark-blue eyes with incredibly long lashes.
She was so hot she couldn't sit still. She pushed the tip of her forefinger between the swollen lips of her burning slit until she felt it touch her cherry, and then ran her finger slowly around and around, in a circular motion. Almost instantly hot juice began to flow, and in a few moments her hand was laved with it. She reached down with her other hand and pulled her skirt back from beneath her ass so that it wouldn't get soaked, as it had more than once before when she'd forgotten to pull it up in time.
She slipped another finger into her cunt, and then a third, spreading the lips wide, rubbing harder now, feeling the lips trying to close on her fingers like a hungry little mouth.
It felt so good that she gasped with pleasure. On his pallet, Billy stirred, and then suddenly sat up and began to rub the sleep from his eyes.
Oh, darn, Janie thought. Now I've woke him up.
Billy pushed the tow hair out of his face and stared at her with his mean little eyes. "Wacha doing?" he said.
"I'm making a dress, silly," Janie said. "What's it look like:"
"Your wedding dress?" he said, getting to his feet.
"No."
He started for the door, scratching at his crotch. "Well, you better get a move on," he said. "You only got a week to go, you know. After that, you'll be bedding down with old Jud Slathers, and I'll have this room all to myself for a change."
"Don't be so sure, smartie," Janie said, moving the folds of the new dress a little so that Billy couldn't see that the dress she had on was hiked up around her waist.
Billy laughed. "The only trouble is, Jud's so damn old. It'll probably kill him the first time he gets at you. Then you'll be back, and I'll have to share the room with you again."
"What a way to talk to your sister," Janie said. "You ought to be ashamed."
"Oh, I am, I am," Billy said. He hitched up the galoshes of his overalls just the way her father did, yawned, and left the room.
Janie immediately slipped her finger into her cunt again - but now she couldn't seem to help thinking about what a terrible situation she was in. She simply had to run away. She had to ...
Ever since Ma had died, life here on the mountain farm where she'd been born and raised had been just plain miserable. Pa had always been mean, but with Ma gone he'd gotten meaner and meaner. He'd taken to drinking more and more of his own moonshine too, and half the time he was so drunk he couldn't stand up. And he'd gotten so evil-tempered that all she had to do was look at him slantwise, and he'd go for the strap.
And now, just a week from today, he was going to make her marry Jud Slathers, one of the ugliest, dirtiest old men in the hills. But he was a rich man, even if he did live in a filthy shack no bigger than the one she was in now, and she knew for a fact that he was going to settle five thousand dollars on Pa for her. Buying her like a heifer, that's what it amounted to. She shuddered, just thinking about Jud. Just the sight of that snag-toothed, leering face with the tobacco juice stains on the scraggly beard was enough to make her sick to her stomach, and the thought of having him do something to her was more than she could bear.
She would die if she had to stay and marry Jud, she knew. She was a beautiful girl, and she wanted the things a beautiful girl was entitled to. The kinds of things they had in the cities, where the bright lights were, where there were men to appreciate her and give her presents and be kind to her.
Yes, she had to run away. And not only to keep from marrying Jud Slaters, not only because she wanted the city things she had a right to. She had to get away, and very soon, before Pa ... The thought of what Pa was surely going to do before she married Jud Slaters made her sit bolt upright, the fingers stirring the thick, hot juice in her honey pot completely forgotten.
As sure as God made little green apples, she knew, Pa was going to shove his monstrous cock all the way to the hilt in her tiny little rectum. He'd almost done it twice before-when he'd been blind drunk-and she knew beyond doubt that he'd manage to really do it the next time. He had only a week left before she was to marry Jud Slathers, and after that he would never have another chance.
The thing was, Jud was giving Pa all that money on the condition that Janie was a virgin. And so, almost every day, and sometimes two or three times a day, Pa would grab her and put his finger in her cunt to make sure she still had her cherry. Every time he did, he'd finger her for a minute or two, getting himself all hot and bothered, and the pant leg of his overalls would bulge out almost all the way to his knee.
When he was only half drunk, he'd let it go at that. But when he was really drunk, like day before yesterday, he'd take out his cock - every bit as big as Janie's forearm, with a knob on the end as big as a peach - and wrestle Janie around and try to get the horrible thing between the cheeks of her ass. And all the time he'd be grunting and groaning and slobbering and cussing because he couldn't afford to break her cherry, like he really wanted to. If he did that, he'd forfeit all the money Jud Slathers was giving him for a virgin. But he was determined to get his cock inside her, one way or another, and day before yesterday he'd actually started to work that big knob into her asshole. Janie had thought she was going to split in two, and she had screamed with pain. But Pa had been so worked up that just rubbing the head of his cock against her twitching little anus had made him go off. Janie had felt a great splash of scalding jism that drenched her whole ass, and then Pa had begun to buck and shake, like a dog shitting peachstones, and Janie had seized the opportunity to wrench away from him and lock herself in her room.
Now, Janie thought about the strapping she'd received less than an hour ago, which Pa had said he was giving her just for good measure. He was going off somewhere, he'd told her, and probably wouldn't be back all night. And now she recalled that she'd seen him put his pistol in his pocket before he left. Which was very unusual, because he usually took his rifle.
"Mind you jeep your eye on that whiskey still, missy," he'd said just before he climbed in his battered old pickup truck and started down the rutted road that wound through the Smoky Mountains for almost ten miles before it finally came out on the highway to Chattanooga. "I want that mash cooked right and proper. If it ain't, I'll be giving you a wedding present you won't like one little bit."
"Yes, Pa," Janie said, rubbing her stinging buttocks.
"And don't be leaving the cabin after sundown. You hear?"
"Yes, sir."
"I don't want none of these young bucks around here fooling with you nohow at all. You hear me, girl?"
"I hear you, Pa."
"Well, make sure you remember it. Unless you crave the ungodliest strapping you ever heard tell of. I'll make them hams of your'n purple up like eggplants."
"Don't you worry, Pa."
"It's you had better worry. Fetch me a jar of 'shine. I plumb forgot to bring one."
She'd run to the cabin, grabbed up one of the quart fruit jars she had just filled with corn whiskey, and rushed back to the truck.
"Mind what I told you now," Pa said. "I don't keep that strap hanging on the wall just for show, you know."
The sound of the banjo clock striking in the other room of the shack brought Janie's mind back to the here and now. She took her fingers out of her cunt, dropped the new dress into the rocker, and went over to twist the wooden knob that locked the door. Darned if she was going to worry herself about Pa or anything else right now. She was going to finish up what she'd begun before Billy woke up and interrupted her.
She hurried over to her side of the room, separated from Billy's side by a blanket suspended on a rope, and drew her dress over her head. Since she'd never owned a brassiere or panties, she was completely naked. Her slender, young-girl's body, with its jutting breasts, tiny waist, flaring hips and long, tapering legs, was without a single flaw or blemish. Her skin - creamy-white and warm looking, like sunlit ivory-was sheened with a thin film of sweat.
She moistened her lips and stood looking down at herself, rubbing the palms of her hands slowly up and down the upper curves of her thighs, wishing Roy Wilson could see her this way. But of course, if he ever did, he'd probably grab her and throw her down on her back and bust her cherry - and then Pa would kill her for cheating him out of Jud Slather's money.
Here lately, she reflected, she had begun to think about Roy Wilson almost every time she started getting horny. He was the most handsome young man in all the hills, and she'd had a crush on him ever since she was a little girl. And that's how he still thought of her, she knew - as a little girl. She wondered what he'd think if he knew she spent so much time in the bushes, waiting for a glimpse of his prick. He wouldn't think she was such a little girl then, by golly.
Because that was exactly what she did. Almost every day she'd go over on the ridge, where Roy had his whiskey still, and hide in the brush and watch him, sometimes for hours at a time. She'd kneel there in the bushes, kneading a breast with one hand while she fingered her pussy with the other, devouring every movement of Roy's big, muscular body.
And always she was hoping he'd have to pee, so that she could see his beautiful prick.
She'd never forget the first time she saw it. Roy-who hadn't been aware anyone was within a mile of him-had taken it slowly, almost lovingly, out of his pants and sent a yellow stream arching up into the air to splash down on a rock six feet away. Janie had gasped at the size of it, at the sheer beauty of it. It had been such a gorgeous-looking thing that she had almost come right then and there, just at the sight of it. She had known just by looking at it, that the long, thick shaft would be satin-smooth to the touch, and she had wanted more than anything to rush over to him and feel it and run her hand back and forth along its length.
Thinking about Roy's prick had started her cunt to flowing again, and she could feel the hot crawl of love juice down the insides of her thighs. She spread her feet apart, curled a finger between the tumid lips of her slit, and then raised the fragrant, glistening fingertip to her right breast and rubbed it slowly back and forth across the nipple.
The spiky pink nipple was already firm, but now it instantly became as hard as flint. She watched it swell to twice its normal size, then put the forefinger of her other hand in her cunt and did her left nipple the same way. Both nipples had changed from pink to fiery-red, and now the little dimples in the tips were beginning to exude tiny pearls of love juice of their own.
She was breathing rapidly now. She lay down on her cot, raised her knees, and spread them as far apart as she could. Then, separating the pulsing folds of her pussy with one hand, she began to rub the exposed inner lips with the fingers of the other. She was so wet that the movement of her fingers made sticky, sucking sounds, while the hot juice welled up between her fingers and flowed over the back of her hand, The heavenly perfume of her pussy was strong in the room now, and she took in one deep breath after another, savoring it.
She rubbed faster and faster, thinking about Roy Wilson's prick, imagining how it would feel if it were inside her. It would be rock-hard beneath that velvety skin, and the big pink head would be swollen and throbbing, the little eye at the end wide open.
Moaning with excitement, she took the pillow from beneath her head and put it between her legs, mashing it up hard against her cunt, and locked her legs around it. Then she closed her eyes and pretended that the pillow was Roy, and that he was doing it to her.
She began to roll her hips, scissoring her thighs against the pillow, throwing her pussy up against it, as if she were meeting Roy thrust for thrust. In her mind, she could feel the head of his prick pounding against the neck of her womb, his big balls slapping against the wet cheeks of her ass with every stroke.
She cupped both breasts with her hands and began to rub the nipples between thumbs and forefingers. She was going to come in a moment, she knew; she could feel that wonderful warm surge starting way up inside her.
"Fuck me, Roy," she murmured. "Oh, fuck me, fuck me!"
The door rattled. Then someone shook it and hit it with a fist. "Hey!" Billy said. "What the hell?" Open up, Janie."
Damn it all, anyhow, she thought Just when I was about to have the best come I ever had!
She put the pillow back at the head of the cot, slipped into her dress, and went to the door.
"What's the all-fired big idea?" Billy said. "This is my room, too, you know."
She tossed her head and flounced past him, slamming the door behind her. What a brat, she thought, what a little monster. He was still one more reason she had to get away from here.
She looked around the front room of the shack with distaste. She tried to keep it as neat as she could, but with Billy the way he was and Pa drunk most of the time, it never looked much better than the pig pen. There were two cots, on opposite sides of the room, and a rickety old table and four even more rickety straight chairs in the middle of the bare plank floor. There were big knotholes all over the floor, and sometimes a rat would stick his head up through one of them and frighten Janie half out of her mind. In one corner there was a big iron cookstove, which served for both cooking and heating, and in another corner were half a dozen six-foot stacks of heavy wooden boxes filled with jars of moonshine. Pa's rifle and shotgun hung on nails at either side of the door, and his clothes hung from a row of nails over the cot he used. On the table sat an ancient battery radio, with the batteries beneath the table, and a wire that ran up through the roof to an aerial. Pa'd once told Janie that the radio was twenty years older than she was.
She glanced toward the door of her room, then turned her back to it and cupped the hot little nest with her palm for a moment. She was simply streaming. The insides of her legs were wet and sticky all the way down to her knees, and the golden triangle beneath her hand was so soaked that it was a mass of dark, springy little curls. She'd have to bathe, and that of course meant a trip to the spring, where she bathed herself every morning.
As she walked down the slope toward the spring, she glanced up toward Piney Ridge, as she had done so many hundreds of times before. There was every anything on the road up there in the daytime but cars and trucks. But she always looked, hoping that maybe, this time, she'd see a bus.
The bus to Chattanooga.
The bus came along the ridge just after midnight, and on nights when Janie was troubled in her mind and couldn't sleep, she'd sit by the window in her room and watch for it, watch it go past up there, and ream about how wonderful it would be if only she had enough money to board it and go to Chattanooga. Where there wasn't any drunken Pa wanting to force his horrible big cock up her tight little asshole, where there weren't any smelly whiskey stills to work over in the hot sun, where a girl could fuck handsome young men like Roy Wilson without having her pa strap her to death for it.
She sighed, and hurried on down to the spring. It came out of a big rock, spilling down almost ten feet to a pool in a stream that ran between the rock and a copse of trees. There was an old, weed-grown dirt road, hardly more than a pair of ruts, that wound through the trees. But no one ever used it except Pa, and she never worried a bit about him seeing her naked and getting himself so worked up he'd try to ram that big ugly cock of his up her rectum. Pa never walked anywhere he didn't have to. And that rattly old truck of his made so much noise that she would be able to hear it in plenty of time to put her dress back on and hide until he had passed by. Of course, there was always a chance that Billy might come this way. But, for some reason, she didn't care one bit whether he saw her naked or not.
She hung her dress on a bush, tied her long blonde hair into a loose knot on top of her head, and waded out into the stream to stand beneath the spring, bending her body to one side to keep her hair from getting wet. The water was icy cold, and she slapped at her shoulders and arms to take the sting out of it. She laughed, watching her nipples shrink back to their normal size, and then, under the cold water, almost shrivel in on themselves. Even her breasts themselves seemed to grow a little smaller.
When she had stayed under the spring as long as she could, she walked over to where the water in the stream ran fastest, and sat down. There was more than one way to bathe dried love juice from a girl's body, and this was the way she liked best of all. Of course, it started fresh love juice to flowing, but that was immediately washed away by the water.
She was sitting in water only six inches deep, but the current, fed by the pouring spring, was so strong that it caused the water to churn and boil, throwing up plumes of spray when it struck the rocks at either side of her. It was so fast that it actually tugged at her body, almost as if it were determined to push her along the smooth pebbles on the bottom.
She spread her legs wide, then reached down and pulled the lips of her cunt as far to each side as she could, leaving the mouth of her little tunnel wide open, the pink membrane of her cherry winking just beneath the inner lips.
The stinging pound of the water against her tender tissue felt so good that she wished her cherry weren't there, so that the water could rush all the way up her. She bit her lip with pleasure, and pulled the lips of her cunt even further apart - until she knew that, if she pulled them any further, something would tear. The water was like a thousand little tongues, rough and insistent, all licking away at her gaping girlhood as hard as they could. At the very top of her cunt, her clitoris stuck out almost half an inch, quivering, sending a tingling sensation through her now slightly gaping anus created a sensation that made it almost impossible for her to sit still.
It was suddenly more than she could stand, and she scrabbled to her feet and started for the grassy spot on the bank where she always lay to dry off in the sun.
"Hi," a girl's voice said.
Janie looked up, startled, unable to believe her eyes. At the back of the little grassy clearing, a young girl was sitting on a fallen tree. She was about twenty, Janie judged, a breathtakingly beautiful brunette in a white minidress that barely reached the tops of her thighs. She wore white boots of wet-looking leather that molded the calves of her exquisite legs as tightly as stockings.
"Oh!" Janie gasped, covering her breasts with a forearm and her pussy with the palm of her hand.
The girl laughed. "I'm sorry," she said in a soft, city voice. "I didn't mean to startle you."
"You've been here all the time?"
"And for some time before you came," the girl said, smiling. "I stumbled on to this spot yesterday, and I came back today. It's one of the loveliest places I've ever seen."
"You've been watching me."
"Do you blame me? You're one of the loveliest girls I've ever seen, too."
"You should have let me know you were here."
"I know, but I just couldn't. I was just too fascinated by what you were doing."
Janie felt her face flush hotly. "If I'd known -"
"But you didn't, dear. And thank heavens for that fact. Otherwise, I'd have been denied one of the most exciting experiences of my life."
"Exciting?" Janie said, stepping out onto the grass. "How could what I was doing make you excited? If you were a man, I could see how. But you're a girl."
The brunette pushed an errant curl back from her forehead and crossed her legs the other way, displaying a brief flash of pale blue bikini panties with narrow, pink-lace edging.
"There's no law that says one girl can't appreciate another, is there?"
"It still wasn't right, you spying on me that way," Janie said.
"You seemed to be having a wonderful time. I was thinking that sometime I might try the same thing myself."
"You were?"
"Yes. And listen. Do you really have to hide your pretties from me that way? After all, as you say, I am another girl."
"They've been like this a year now. Well, almost like this.
"You don't say." She moistened her lips, drawing the tip of her tongue across first the upper lip, then the lower. "Beautiful, absolutely beautiful. I didn't have anything like that until I was nineteen."
"I don't guess I ever saw you before," Janie said.
"And I haven't seen you before either, worse luck. I'm Rosanne Palmer. My brother and I've just rented a cabin two miles from here. We wanted to get away from everything for a while."
"The Shanley place?"
"Why, yes. How did you know?"
"I heard some city people were renting it, that's all."
"You must live very near."
"This is our property. My pa's, I mean. What city are you from?"
"Chattanooga."
"Chattanooga! Really?"
Rosanne was looking at the damp little thatch at the top of Janie's thighs. "Why, yes," she said, moistening her lips again. "Have you ever been there?"
"No, but I sure want to go."
Rosanne crossed her legs again. "Is that a fact? Well, you know, that just might be arranged. If you'd like to, my brother and I'd love to have you visit us. Would you like that, do you think?"
"Oh, would I ever!" Janie walked over to the fallen tree, sat down beside the other girl, and began to brush some of the water off her body with her hands.
Rosanne's eyes roved slowly down Janie's body to the tiny feet and then just as slowly back up again. "Oh, boy," she said softly, her eyes widening a little. "Simply delicious."
"What?" Janie said.
"Nothing." Rosanne got to her feet and smoothed the short white skirt down over her hips. "I'll be back in a second. All right?"
"Where're you going?"
"To my car. It's parked just off the road back there." She paused. "You know my name, but I don't know yours."
"Janie June Hibbins," Janie said.
"Don't go away, Janie," Rosanne said, starting off in the direction of the road. "Don't you even dare think about it."
In a few moments she was back with an enormous beach towel. "This was still in the trunk from last summer," she said, shaking it out. "Stand up, Janie."
"I always just let the sun dry me off," Janie said.
"This way's better. Stand up, dear."
"You don't have to go to all that bother," Janie said.
"It's no bother, believe me. On your feet, baby."
Janie stood up, and Rosanne walked behind her and began to dry her back and shoulders.
"I was almost dry already."
"Not dry enough, darling," Rosanne said, rubbing Janie's hips. "Goodness! What a pretty little fanny."
Now that her back and shoulders were dry, Janie reached up and undid the knot in her hair and let it fall free.
"Is that for real?" Rosanne said.
"What? Oh you mean my hair? Sure it is. Why wouldn't it be?"
"Wonders never cease," Rosanne said, rubbing the towel slowly up and down the backs of Janie's legs. "Now turn around."
Janie turned around and reached for the towel. "I'll do the front."
Rosanne laughed. "Oh, no you won't. Why should you have the best part for yourself?"
"Huh?" Janie said.
"Never mind," Rosanne said, and began to dry Janie's breasts - both at once, squeezing them gently through the towel, running her fingertips from the base out to the tip and back again.
"They're dry now," Janie said.
"Well, we want to be sure," Rosanne said, and began to rub with a firm, circular motion that made Janie's nipples begin to quicken.
"They really are dry now, Rosanne," Janie said.
Rosanne sighed and ran the towel across Janie's stomach, and then up and down the front of her legs. "You'll have to spread your feet apart," she said.
"Why?" Janie said.
"Well, you know. So I can dry you."
Janie reached for the towel again. "I'll dry that" she said.
"Over my dead body," Rosanne said, and slipped the towel between Janie's thighs, forcing her to part her legs. "Oooh, Janie! How delectable!"
"How what?" Janie said.
"Boy, are you blonde!"
"Well, sure."
"Just scrumptious!" Rosanne pushed the towel back and up, drying between the cheeks of Janie's ass, drawing the towel slowly back between her legs so that a thick fold in the cloth separated the lips of Janie's cunt and dried the pink, pouting lips.
But not for long. The rough nap of the towel trailing between the folds of Janie's labia had stirred her so much that she had begun to flow, and now the lips of her cunt began to swell and glisten with drops of love juice.
"Well, will you look at that," Rosanne said. "No sooner do I get you nice and dry than you make yourself all wet again." She extended a finger and traced the tip the length of Janie's steaming little slit and back again. "Why, darling, you're practically spurting! Aren't you ashamed? Whatever am I going to do with you?"
"I can't help it," Janie said.
Rosanne laughed. "Of course you can't, you adorable child," she said, and eased her finger into Janie's sex all the way to her cherry. "Oh, good Lord. This is too much. A virgin, no less!"
"Yes, I guess I am," Janie said. She knew she should make Rosanne stop what she was doing right now, or she wouldn't be able to make her stop at all. It was all wrong, one girl touching another like this; her ma had warned her about it time after time. And yet, now that it was actually happening to her, it didn't seem wrong the least little bit. It felt strange, having another girl put her finger inside her. But it felt good, too. It felt so good she didn't think she could have made Rosanne stop even if she had wanted to. But still, she felt she had to make at least a token protest.
"That-that isn't right," she said, as Rosanne's finger found the little button at the top of her cunt and began to roll it around and around in its oily cup. "You shouldn't ... " She broke off as Rosanne took the clitoris between thumb and forefinger and kneaded it gently, tugging at it, drawing it in and out. "Oh, Rosanne, she heard her own voice saying, as if from far away. "Oh, my goodness, Rosanne ... "
Rosanne was breathing raggedly now. The beautiful dark eyes seemed slightly out of focus, and the smiling, full red lips were parted, trembling a little with the slackness of passion.
"I-I better go home," Janie said. But she knew she didn't mean it. Wild horses couldn't have pulled her away.
Rosanne stepped closer still and, still fingering Janie's cunt with one hand, raised the other to cup the jutting, upthrust cone of Janie's left breast. Then, almost before Janie realized what was happening, Rosanne's soft, warm lips had found her own. A firm, insistent little tongue worked itself between her lips, forcing them apart. Rosanne's tongue was a smooth-rough, tapering wedge that licked along the backs of Janie's teeth, and then explored the roof of her mouth. Then Rosanne drew Janie's tongue into her mouth and began to suck it, rubbing her own tongue back and forth beneath it, chewing on it gently as she worked it further and further back toward her throat.
Janie stood trembling with pleasure, concentrating first on one delight and then another - the thrilling sensation of having her tongue sucked for the first time in her life, the way her hard, frantic little nipple bored against the caressing palm of Rosanne's hand, the constant spasming of her cunt under the other girl's furiously probing fingers. Without really thinking about it, she reached up and began to squeeze her right breast, rubbing her nipple between splayed fingers, feeling the tiny, syrupy emission from the dimple in the nipple crawling down the back of her hand. She could smell the heady, aromatic scent of her sex rising up between her and the other girl, and somehow the knowledge that Rosanne would be smelling it too excited her.
Suddenly Rosanne released Janie's tongue and stood back, smiling, breathing hard.
"What's wrong?" Janie said.
"Nothing. I just had to come up for air."
"Oh," Janie said.
"Did you like that?"
"Gosh, yes. Oh, did I ever!"
Rosanne had taken her hand from Janie's breast, but she was still fingering her between her legs. "You're gushing, dear. Your legs are wetter than they were when you came out of the water."
"Yes, I know. I sure wish you'd do that to my tongue again, though."
Rosanne laughed. "To your tongue, and other things as well." She took her fingers out of Janie's cunt.
"Do you have to stop?" Janie said.
"Just for the moment, darling." Rosanne raised her juice-drenched hand and sniffed at it. "What a wonderful scent you have," Janie." She inhaled more deeply. "I noticed it a moment ago, when we were kissing."
"I'm sorry," Janie said.
"Sorry!" Rosanne said, laughing. "Sorry for what? For smelling so good?"
"You mean you really like it?"
"Like it? Why, you naive little angel, I love it." She put her fingers to her lips and began to lick the juice from them.
Janie took a step backward, shocked. "What in the world are you doing?"
"Tasting you," Rosanne said, twisting her hand around to lick the other side. "Lord, that's good! You taste even better than you smell."
"For goodness sake. I never heard of such a thing."
"There are a lot of things you haven't heard of-yet," Rosanne said, licking the last of Janie's juice from her hand.
"Does it really taste good?"
"It's the nectar of the gods, Janie. Nothing in this world could possibly taste anywhere near as good." She reached down and lifted the short skirt of her dress up around her waist. "You see? You aren't the only one who's pouring, dear. I'm simply soaked."
Janie looked down at her. The pale-blue bikini panties were practically dripping, the thin material stained dark almost up to the waistband, molding every fold and crevice of Rosanne's sex like a second skin.
Rosanne pushed the panties down, stepped out of them, and tossed them aside. Janie stared at the small vee of blue-black public hair and the swollen lips of the wet slit beneath it. The sunlight slanting into the clearing caused the droplets of juice in the dark thatch to sparkle like tiny diamonds.
Rosanne pulled her dress over her head, unsnapped her brassiere, and dropped the garments to the grass.
Janie sucked in her breath in admiration. She wouldn't have believed that breasts could be so big and still stand straight out that way. And she would never have believed that a girl could have nipples like that, either. They were no wider across at the base than her own, but the tips were thick red cones almost as long as the first joint of Janie's little finger.
Rosanne put her palms beneath her breasts and pushed them up and out, smiling at Janie. "I take it you like what you see."
"You've sure got a pretty figure."
"So have you, darling," Rosanne said, and began to spread the beach towel out on the grass.
"What are you doing?" Janie said.
"You've got juice all over you again. You need another bath."
"All right," Janie said, and turned in the direction of the stream.
"Not that way, you little goose," Rosanne said, laughing. "Come back here."
"But you said --"
"Here," Rosanne said, patting the towel. "Lie down, Janie. I'm going to give you a bath you'll never forget."
"You are?"
"You better believe it, darling. Now lie down, like a good little girl."
"But what are you going to give me a bath with?" Janie said as she sank down on the towel.
"You'll see. Now stretch out on your back and put your hands behind your head."
"Like this?"
"Yes," Rosanne said. "Oh, dear ... that perfume from between your legs makes it hard for me to think straight." She lowered herself to her knees beside Janie.
"I thought you liked it."
"I do, you little idiot. That's just the trouble."
"I can smell you too now," Janie said. "You smell nice as can be."
"That's very sweet of you," Rosanne said. "Now you just close your eyes and lie real still. All right?"
"All right," Janie said, and closed her eyes. In a moment, she felt Rosanne's hot breath on her face, and then the tip of Rosanne's tongue brushing against her lips. She thought Rosanne was going to kiss her, and she opened her mouth so that she could put her tongue in it.
But instead, Rosanne merely licked Janie's parted lips for a few moments, and then ran her tongue across her cheeks and down to the hollow of her throat. Then she began to lick her way down to the valley between Janie's firmly pointing breasts. Janie felt her whole body begin to tingle as Rosanne's mouth moved up one of the pouting mounds to the nipple, and then down the other side, and back up to the nipple again, the broad, wet tongue constantly in motion.
Janie felt her nipple being drawn into Rosanne's mouth, and suddenly she wished, for Rosanne's sake, that her nipples were as big and suckable as the other girl's. Then Rosanne opened her mouth wide, drawing as much of Janie's breast into it as she could, and Janie heard herself begin to moan.
Rosanne chewed Janie's breast gently for a few moments, just as she had chewed her tongue, and then moved her mouth over to the other breast and gave it the same treatment. Janie felt the juice from her cunt running down the crack in her ass, tickling like tiny fingers across the little button of her asshole. She began to squirm.
"Lie still, darling," Rosanne said, and brushed her lips down across the smooth swell of Janie's belly to her navel. The searching tongue explored the tiny depression, licking a drop of sweat from it, and then went on down to skirt around the edge of the wet, gold-blonde bush and start down the equally wet flesh of her inner thigh.
Rosanne's tongue never stopped. Down to the dimple in Janie's knee it went, and then along the curve of the calf and the slender ankle - all the way to the bottom of Janie's tiny, high-arched foot. For long moments the tireless tongue massaged the tender hollow of Janie's- instep. Then it was darting in and out between Janie's toes, separating them, licking them one after another. Janie moaned again, wondering how much longer she could stand it before she had to plunge her fingers into her cunt to give herself some relief.
"Turn over on your tummy, darling," she heard Rosanne say softly, her voice thick with passion.
Janie turned over on her stomach, and now Rosanne's mouth and tongue started up the back of her leg, paused to lick for several seconds in the hollow of her knee, and then worked up inch by thrilling inch to the curving swell of her hip.
Then, slowly and lovingly, Rosanne began to lick one of the smooth, firm globes of Janie's ass. Janie I lay with her tingling nipples pressed hard against the ' rough surface of the towel, her cunt seeping juice into it, her asshole spasming every time Rosanne's lips circled near to it.
When Rosanne had licked every inch of the globe she had begun on, she moved her lips over to the I other and gave it the same careful attention.
Will she? Will she really lick that, tool Lord, how \ Janie hoped she would! She'd never even thought of such a thing before Rosanne had started to bathe her with her tongue, but now she wanted it more than -- anything in the world.
She felt Rosanne's breath directly on the crack in her ass, and she knew she was going to get her wish.
Rosanne took a cheek of Janie's ass in each hand, pulled them apart, and touched the tip of her hot, wet tongue to Janie's tiny asshole. It had an electrifying effect on the young girl, and despite herself, she moaned with delight.
"Shh," Rosanne said. She pulled the cheeks of Janie's ass even further apart, causing the little pink hole to gape wide open, and inserted her tongue.
"Oh, oh, oh!" Janie cried. "Oh, Rosanne!"
"Do you want me to do this, or don't you?" Rosanne demanded.
"Oh, yes! Oh, golly yes, Rosanne! It's so good I -
"Then be quiet." And keep your eyes shut. I enjoy it more that way. All right?"
"Yes," Janie said. "Oh, yes."
Rosanne's tongue slipped into her asshole again, and this time Janie forced herself to lie completely motionless and silent. The hot wedge of meat ran in and out, in and out, probing just a tiny bit deeper with every thrust. The puddle of juice beneath Janie's streaming cunt had now spread out so far that she could feel the wetness on the petal-soft skin of her belly. The rich, heady fragrance was so potent that, combined with what Rosanne was doing to her, she was beginning to feel a little lightheaded. She could smell Rosanne's pungent juice too, almost as much as she could her own. But, for some reason, the scent of her own pussy made her even more horny than the scent of Rosanne's - provocative as the older girl's was.
Rosanne withdrew her tongue - slowly, running it around and around the rim of Janie's asshole for a long, final moment. "Turn over on your back again, baby. Raise your knees and spread them apart as far as you can."
Janie did as she was told, careful to keep her eyes shut, and lay waiting, the puddle of juice cool against the small of her back. Rosanne was going to do it to her now, she knew. She was going to do the terrible thing Ma had warned her never to let anyone do to her, man or woman. But from the first moment Rosanne had put a finger in her cunt, she'd known that Ma had been wrong. Ma hadn't ever known what it was like; she couldn't even have imagined it, any more than Janie herself could have imagined it before she'd met Rosanne.
And now she waited with streaming, pulsing cunt for Rosanne to begin. She opened her eyes and folded her arms beneath her head as a pillow. "Hurry, Rosanne."
Rosanne smiled and knelt down between Janie's knees. "Well, now, aren't you eager," she said. "Can you be the same little girl who was so shocked a few minutes ago when ! wanted to taste her juice?"
"I don't think so," Janie said. "I sure don't feel the same."
"You aren't the same," Rosanne said. "And you never will be again."
"Golly," Janie said. "I'm so terrible horny, Rosanne. I just can't wait."
"Neither can I, darling." Rosanne moved a little closer, running the warm palms of her hands up and down the satiny flesh of Janie's inner thighs.
"Oh, please," Janie said. "Please, Rosanne."
Rosanne inhaled deeply. "Lord! That perfume! I just know you're going to have the sweetest little pussy I ever sucked."
"Rosanne, please! I'm so doggone horny I just r can't stand it."
"You know what we used to call a pretty little cunt like yours at girl's school?" Rosanne said. "We called it table pussy. We used to kid a lot about having to eat it with a spoon."
"Honest, Rosanne," Janie said, beginning to squirm, "if you don't do something pretty soon, I think I'll go crazy."
"Well, we can't have you do that, now can we?" Rosanne reached down to pry apart the juicy folds of Janie's burning pussy. "How tight you are. See how your cunt clamps down on my finger-almost like it's sucking it."
Janie moaned.
Rosanne bent forward and glued her mouth to Janie's slit, forcing the passion-thick lips apart with her tongue. Janie felt herself beginning to open to the hot wedge of meat inside it, and she began to undulate her hips, thrusting her cunt hard against Rosanne's mouth. Rosanne's tongue was licking every fold and crevice now, her mouth sucking out the pouring juice with hungry little swallows.
Janie felt as if a dam somewhere inside her was about to .burst. Every inch of her body was on fire. She reached down and caught her hands in Rosanne's hair and began to writhe so hard that Rosanne's mouth slipped off the slippery lips of her cunt for an instant.
"Hey!" Rosanne said, before she quickly recaptured Janie's slit with her mouth again. "Don't shake so hard."
Rosanne buried her tongue in Janie's cunt all the way to her cherry, sucking the labia into her mouth.
"I'm coming, I'm coming!" Janie cried.
And she did-harder and better than she ever had before. And kept right on coming, again and again, until she had had six hot, shuddering orgasms in less than a minute.
A few moments later, as she lay trembling in the aftermath of her ecstasy, she felt Rosanne's tongue leave her pussy and began to lick the juice from her thighs. Actually, there was so much juice that Rosanne had to suck it up, her mouth making pleased little slurping sounds.
"Oh, golly," she said as Rosanne moved her head up to lap at the juice on Janie's belly. "I just kept coming and coming."
"I wish I could say the same," Rosanne murmured through a mouthful of juice. "I was just about to when you started to go off."
"Oh, I'm sorry," Janie said.
Rosanne sat back on her heels and smiled. "There's no reason for you to be. My timing was a little off for once, that's all."
"I never felt so good in my whole life."
"Nothing ever tasted so good, either," Rosanne said. "Both places, I mean. You know, I really can't decide which of your juicy little holes I like the best." She licked her lips, as if remembering. "That adorable asshole of yours is sweet as a nut. I could have sucked it all day. The only thing is, it's so tiny that all I could get in was just the very tip of my tongue."
Janie had completely forgotten all her troubles in the delirious minutes under Rosanne's skilled sucking, but what the other girl had just said had brought them rushing back. She sat up and clasped her hands around her knees.
"My pa wants to get a heck of a lot more than that in there," she said soberly. "He wants to shove his whole big thing up me."
"Up that little hole?" Rosanne said, lying on her side and propping herself up on an elbow. "You must be kidding."
"No, I'm not. It scares me to death, just to think about it. He's got the biggest, ugliest thing you ever saw. It'd split me in two. It'd probably even kill me."
"You must have quite a father. It's big, you say?"
"Big as a bull's. It's more than a foot long and about three inches thick. And the knob on the end is as big as my fist." She raised her arm and made a fist to demonstrate. "This is just the way it looks, Rosanne. Honest. And there's little knobs all over the big knob. There's warts or something all over the shank of it too."
"Merciful heavens," Rosanne said.
"He's been wanting to get it up there for the longest time now. He almost got it in me the other day, but he started coming and threw a fit, and I got away from him."
"But why in the name of reason would he -?
"Because he can't do it to me in my pussy, like he'd really like to."
"Oh?" Rosanne said.
"Because that would mean busting my cherry. And if he did that, he couldn't sell me to Jud Slathers." She told Rosanne about Jud's settling five thousand dollars on Pa to marry her, provided she was still a virgin, and about the way Pa inspected her every day to make sure she still was.
Rosanne had listened with wide eyes and open mouth. "Now I've heard everything. Your father ought to be put in a cage, Janie. He's an animal."
"Don't I know it," Janie said.
Rosanne extended her arm, slid her hand beneath Janie's bottom, and rubbed a fingertip against Janie's asshole. "Putting a horrible thing like that in this little treasure would be criminal," she said as she withdrew her hand and touched her finger to her tongue. "What's your mother have to say about all this?"
"Ma's gone to glory. There's just me and Pa and my little brother Billy."
"I see."
"Billy's almost as mean as Pa, and Pa's the meanest person that ever way. He straps me ail the time until I can't hardly sit down."
"You poor darling. Anybody that would strap a beautiful little ass like that ought to have his balls cut off."
"I wish somebody would. Then he wouldn't be horny for me any more. He'd be like that old gelding horse we used to have."
"I can't imagine why you stay around such people. If I were you, I'd run away."
"That's just what I mean to do. And I've got to do it before Saturday."
"Before Saturday? Why?"
"Because that's when I'm supposed to marry up with Jud Slathers."
"Could your father really make you marry a vicious old man like that?"
"He'd kill me if I didn't, Rosanne. He really would. But what scares me so much is what Pa's going to do before Saturday. He's just got till then to jam that big old ugly thing up my behind. After that, I'll belong to Jud, and Pa won't even have another chance."
Rosanne shook her head compassionately. "I wish you were mine. I wish I owned you completely, every yummy little inch of you."
"Like a wife, you mean?" Janie said.
"Yes, dear. Just like a wife." She reached down between her legs, slipped a finger deep between the glistening, still-wet lips of her cunt and began to work it slowly in and out. "You don't mind if I frig myself a little, do you, Janie?" she said, rolling over on her back and spreading her thighs. "I've just got to put out the fire down there."
"Gosh, no," Janie said. "You go right ahead, Rosanne."
Rosanne lay with her eyes closed, the full red lips parted slightly to reveal perfect white teeth and the moist pink tip of her tongue. The shimmering curtain of midnight-black hair spread out around her head glistened with blue highlights. Her big, firm breasts pointed straight up, and in both of the tiny depressions in the carmine cones of her nipples a droplet of dew was forming. She worked another finger into her slit, and then another.
"Golly," Janie said, shifting her position a bit so that she could see the other girl's pussy a little better. "I wish I could do that."
"Don't you ever play with yourself, Janie?" Rosanne said.
"Well, sure. But I can't get three fingers in. I can't even get one in very far, because of my cherry."
Rosanne was frigging herself faster now. "But you can make yourself come, can't you?"
"Yes," Janie said. Watching Rosanne's fingers moving in and out of the pink crevice in the juice-wet black bush had started Janie's own slit to flowing again. She reached down, put her finger in herself as far as it would go, and began to run it in and out in time with Rosanne's. When she looked down, she saw that dew was forming on the tips of her nipples, too.
"Most girls think about boys while they're fucking their finger," Rosanne said. "Me, I usually think about girls. I pretend to myself that some pretty little thing has got her tongue in there."
"I always think about Roy," Janie said, smelling the perfume of her sex begin to drift up to her nostrils. "He's a bootlegger, but he's one of the nicest, handsomest men you ever met."
"You like him a lot?"
"Oh, yes. But Roy still thinks of me like I used to be. I used to go over and pester him when he was working his still. He'd always laugh and tell me to wait till I grew up a little bit. Now I'm afraid to let him see me over there. He might get so horny he'd throw me down and take my cherry."
"I think that's a distinct possibility," Rosanne said, beginning to wriggle her hips against the relentless thrusting of her fingers. "It's a wonder someone hasn't done that to you already."
"But if he did, Pa would strap the hide off me."
"Yes, that's right. That little cherry of yours is worth five thousand dollars to him."
"I still go over on the ridge where his still is, though," Janie said, rubbing a fingertip back and forth across the oily button of her clitoris. "I hide in the bushes and watch him."
"In heaven's name, why?" Rosanne said.
"Because sometimes he has to pee. And then I get to see his thing."
"Oh," Rosanne said. "Well, that's reason enough, I suppose. But I thought you were afraid of pricks."
"It's just my pa's I'm scared of-because of where he wants to put it. But with Roy's, it's different. I just can't look at it enough."
"Well, there's something about a prick, all right. I rather like one for a change of pace myself, now and then. My brother's prick, for instance, is absolutely-exquisite."
"You mean you've seen it?"
Rosanne laughed. "Yes, you darling little innocent. I've seen it any number of times."
"Roy's isn't near as big as Pa's, but it's big enough for me."
"Almost any prick would be big enough for that tight little honey pot, Janie. Even your little brother's, probably."
"Oh, I'd never let my own brother -"
"Don't knock it till you've tried it, honey," Rosanne said, and laughed. "I don't know when I've had such a crazy conversation. I mean, I don't know when I've had a conversation at such a crazy time. I mean ... oh, I'm so damn hot I don't know what I mean."
"Huh?" Janie said.
"Well, look at us. Here we are, frigging our cunts like mad, and jabbering away like a couple of gossips over a back fence."
"It's fun, though, isn't it? I mean doing both things at once ... well, it sort of ... "
"Yes, it certainly does," Rosanne said. "I wouldn't have believed it, but it actually does."
"Roy's thing is so beautiful. I just wish I could got it inside me one time before I run away."
"You can, you know," Rosanne said.
"But I told you. If I lost my cherry, Pa would do it."
"I'm not talking about your cunt, Janie." Rosanne, stopped frigging herself for a moment and looked over at her. "Hasn't it ever occurred to you that you could put Roy's prick in your mouth?"
Janie sat bolt upright. "In my mouth!"
"Yes, Janie, dear heart. In your mouth. Why not?"
"Why, that would be terrible!"
"Believe me, darling, it would be wonderful."
"Put it in my mouth and ... and suck it, you mean?"
"Well, naturally. What else would you do with it?"
Janie started to say something, then stopped, thinking about the way the swollen pink knob of Roy's cock would feel against her lips - how it would taste if she ran her tongue across the little eye in the end of it, and then all around it, letting it slip into her mouth a little at a time. She felt her saliva begin to flow, just thinking about it.
"It-it's too big," she said. "I couldn't get it in my mouth."
"They're never too big. You'd be surprised what you can get in there, if you want to badly enough."
"And then there's that other."
"What?"
"You know. That stuff that comes out."
"That's the best part of it," Rosanne said. "It's hot and slippery and just a little salty. It's kind of like cunt juice, Janie, only a lot thicker and stronger."
"I don't know what cunt juice tastes like, Rosanne," Janie said.
"You mean you've never tasted yourself?"
"No."
Rosanne shook her head wonderingly. "I don't know how you could have resisted. But anyhow, you'll love the taste of a man's come, Janie. Believe me. I know what I'm talking about."
"Would I have to swallow it?"
"Have to? Why, baby, you'll want to. You won't be able to get enough of it."
Janie's mouth was filled with saliva now, but, strangely, her lips were dry. She moistened them with the tip of her tongue and took a deep breath. "I get a funny feeling, just thinking about it. My mouth's watering something fierce."
"You'll make Roy a happy man. And one thing sure. Once you suck him off, he'll never think of you as a little girl again,"
"Gosh, that's right," Janie said. "I never thought of that."
"And he'll want to suck you too, of course."
"Golly! Do you really think so?"
"I'm positive of it."
"Oh, would I ever like that!"
"Sucking a man comes natural to a girl. But still, there's a certain art to it. If you'll come over to visit us sometime, I'll teach you."
"Couldn't you do it now?"
Rosanne smiled. "I don't know how. If you're going to learn to suck a prick, you must first have a prick to suck."
"You mean I should bring Roy over with me?"
"No, darling. My brother's cock will serve very nicely."
"Your brother's!"
"Don't say it that way," Rosanne said, laughing. "Fred has a lovely prick. And it's not too big for you, either. It's more or less 'mouth-sized,' you might say." She paused. "I'll teach you all the tricks, Janie. And then you can practice until you can do them too."
"But I don't even know your brother."
"A prick's a prick, baby, no matter who it's on."
"Maybe he wouldn't want me to."
"I assure you, darling, that's the least of your worries. He'll not only want you to, he'll undoubtedly insist on sucking you off too."
"And after that, you'll be ready to give your friend Roy the best suck he's ever had. So how about it, baby? Will you come over to the Shanley place and visit Fred and me?"
"If I can get away from Pa long enough. That's a pretty far piece over there. But if I can figure some way to do it, I'll sure be there."
"That's my sweet little girl," Rosanne said. "And Janie?"
"Yes, Rosanne?"
"Were you paying attention while I was sucking your cunt?"
"Lord, yes!"
"Then you'd know just how to go about it, wouldn't you?"
"Sure."
"I'm terribly hot, Janie." Rosanne reached over, took one of Janie's hands, and put it on the dripping black nest between her legs. "See?"
"Gosh, are you ever," Janie said. "You're burning up."
"Would you like to put out the fire for me, Janie?" Rosanne said softly. "Would you like to suck me, darling?"
Janie's mouth was watering so much she had to swallow twice before she could answer. "Yes," she said.
"I want to suck you some more, too," Rosanne said. "Just lie down on me facing the other way, so we'll each have our head between the other's legs."
Eagerly, suddenly almost frantic with anticipation, Janie lowered herself over Rosanne's body. "Like this?" she said.
"Yes," Rosanne said. "But move that pretty ass back this way a little."
Janie moved back until she felt her cunt press against Rosanne's face. "Is that better?"
"Perfect," Rosanne said, and instantly slid her tongue into Janie's slit.
Janie could hardly wait to start sucking, but first she wanted to explore Rosanne's pussy. She rested her chin in the warm, stucky hair, inhaling deeply of the rich, dizzying aroma that gusted into her nostrils, and then gently pried the steaming pink lips apart with her fingertips.
Rosanne's tunnel was filled with juice that now welled up and poured out the bottom of her slit in a tiny rivulet. The glistening satin-pink inner lips were pulsing stickily against Janie's fingers, as if they were trying to suck them deeper inside. As Janie pushed the walls of the tunnel apart, fresh juice rose quickly inside it to form a little pool.
Spreading the hot pink lips as wide open as she dared, Janie lowered her head and began to lick the inner labia. The taste of Rosanne's juice was sublime, and she began to suck at the inner folds greedily, working the warm sweet fluid back to her throat so she could swallow it. Meanwhile, she felt her own juice pouring out over Rosanne's face as the other girl's tongue quickened its darting thrusts against Janie's cherry. Oh, Lord. If only I didn't have that little pink door down there! If only Rosanne could stick her tongue all the way up inside me!
Janie sucked Rosanne's cunt dry of juices as far down as she could reach, and then moved her lips back to suck the other girl's clitoris. The feel of the hot little morsel between her lips was delicious, and she could feel the vibrating flesh swell and swell until it was as big and hard as a small marble.
Beneath her, Rosanne had begun to squirm and moan, her hard, sweat-slick breasts punching up against Janie's belly. Suddenly she drew her tongue out of Janie's cunt and began to lap at it furiously, dragging the flat of her tongue the whole length of the slit, like a dog lapping up water.
Janie cried out with pleasure, and then rammed her pointed tongue down in Rosanne's tunnel until the tip was buried in the pool of juice at the bottom. She sucked up the juice and swallowed it, and forced her tongue down the tunnel again. This time she just held it there for a few moments, feeling Rosanne's cunt suck at it just the way Rosanne had sucked at it with her mouth when they had first begun to kiss.
"Oh, my God!" Rosanne's muffled voice gasped from the drenched nest between Janie's legs. "You're going to make me come!"
"I'm going to come too!" Janie cried, and shoved her tongue so far into Rosanne that she thought for a moment it would tear loose from its roots. She was so excited now that she was squirming almost as much as Rosanne, her belly slapping against the other girl's with wet, sucking sounds, her hard, sharp nipples boring into Rosanne's flesh just as Rosanne's were boring into hers. She began to plunge her tongue in and out of Rosanne's cunt as fast as she could, trying to sink it deeper with every thrust, pausing only an instant now and then to swallow another mouthful of Rosanne's honey.
And now the warm flood deep inside her broke loose, and she began to come. She cried out softly and mashed her cunt against Rosanne's face at the same time she seized the other girl's clitoris with her lips and teeth and tried her very best to suck the juicy little love button all the way down her throat.
She came so hard she thought she would faint. Rosanne was coming too, she knew, and wave after wave of scalding love juice flooded into her mouth as the other girl began to thrash about beneath her in the ecstasy of orgasm. The mouth on Janie's cunt had drawn her labia inside it, as if it meant to suck her inside out.
A great warmth filled Janie's body, and she lay her cheek on Rosanne's steaming black mound and closed her eyes. And came and came and came ..
Chapter Two
When Janie heard the banjo clock in the front room strike midnight, she blew out the coal oil lamp on the crate by her cot and went over to stand at the window and watch once again for the bus to Chattanooga.
Pa hadn't come home yet, and she guessed he might be away all night, the way he'd said he might be. Over on his pallet behind the blanket, her little brother Billy was snoring as loudly as a grown-up. She was grateful. The only peace she ever had around there was when Pa was away and Billy was asleep.
As she stood there, waiting for the bus to go by up on Piney Ridge, she raised her hands to cup her sharp-nippled breasts through the thin cloth of her dress, thinking about Rosanne. She'd probably never see Rosanne again, she knew. There was so little time left between now and Saturday that she'd have to spend every minute of it trying to figure out a way to get far enough away from Pa so that he wouldn't be able to find her and bring her back.
That was the awful part about being only fifteen, she reflected, feeling her nipples beginning to swell out against her palms. An underage girl belonged to her pa, just like a pig or heifer. And if she ran away, all her pa had to do was tell the sheriff. Pa and the sheriff were as thick as thieves, and there was hardly a Friday morning when the sheriff didn't come out to the shack to pick up his case of free moonshine. Once Pa told him Janie had run off, every lawman in the county would know-maybe every lawman in the state. No matter where she went, they'd find her and bring her back. And when they did, Pa would strap every last inch of hide off her - Jud Slathers or no Jud Slathers. Not that Jud would mind a little missing hide, of course; the only flesh he didn't want to be missing was that little pink membrane in Janie's pussy.
So it wasn't enough just to run away. She had to run far and run fast, and that meant taking a bus to Chattanooga, and then getting on an airplane and going to the ends of the earth-maybe even as far away as one of those foreign places like New York or California.
And to run away like that meant she had to have a whole lot of money. She didn't know what it cost to ride an airplane, but it was bound to be a lot. Even to ride the bus to Chattanooga cost a lot. She wouldn't be surprised if riding an airplane to California or New York would cost as much as fifty dollars- maybe even more. And right now she had twenty cents-two dimes, hidden in the locket Ma had left her.
She felt moisture from her nipples seeping out against her hands, and she dropped one hand to the warm little nest between her legs and began to move a fingertip back and forth between the lips of her slit.
Somehow, she vowed, she was going to get the money to run away. How she was going to do it, she couldn't even imagine. But she had to have it, and she was going to get it, one way or another.
She sighed, staring up at the ridge. There was a full moon, and the ridge was so bright that she could I see almost as well as if it were daytime. And now, just beneath the crest of the ridge, straight across from the cabin, Janie saw something that made her forget everything else completely.
There, on the abandoned road that led down from the ridge through Nuzum's Notch, a car was moving very slowly with its lights out. As she watched, the car halted by the mouth of the China River cave, where she had played so often as a child, and two men got out. She could tell they were men, but no more than that.
The men moved quickly, their shadowy forms merging briefly with the larger shadow of the car before they separated from it again and started toward the cave. And now they were carrying something between them, something that looked very much like another man.
Janie realized she had still been fingering herself. Now she dried her finger on her skirt and pressed her face against the windowpane, straining her eyes into the night.
The three shapes were swallowed by the black shadow at the mouth of the cave for several minutes. Then two of the men came back alone. They got into the car, still without having made a sound of any kind, and let the car coast down the slant of the road for a long way before they started the engine. The lights were still off.
Janie watched the vague shadow of the car until it was out of sight, and then stood staring across the hollow at the black mouth of the cafe, stark against the silver-gray of the moonwash on the surrounding rocks.
A person would be crazy to go up there, she told herself. A person would have to be touched in the head to even think about it.
She was still telling herself this as she hurried out to the other room, took down the spare lantern from its nail on the wall, picked up some matches from the box beside the cookstove, and set out for the cave.
She had been running up and down these hills all her life,' and except for slowing down a little when she circled the grove where Pa had his still, and which he had surrounded with trip-wires and deep, covered man-pits as a protection against revenue agents, she ran all the way.
China River cave wasn't much bigger than the cabin. Janie lighted the lantern, set it on a rock, and looked about her.
As always, running any distance at all had made her horny. The friction of her thighs against each other had always had that effect on her, even when she was little, and often she would run around the cabin a time or two just to achieve it. But now, when she didn't particularly want to be horny, she was a little annoyed.
There was nothing at all in the cave, she saw. She knew it as well as she knew her own room, and there was no place where even a small object could be hidden, much less something the size of a man. She picked up the lantern again, walked over to the edge of the underground river, and stood looking down at the rushing water. The river poured through the cave so fast that the water seemed to boil. Janie shuddered. It was terrible to think about what had happened to the man the other two men had carried into the cave. The current would have sucked him out of sight in a second, she knew, and now the onrushing river would speed him through the bowels of the earth forever.
The lantern didn't give enough light to see any of the blind fish she knew were in the river. They were round and white with a knob-like head, she recalled-just like pricks.
As she turned to leave, the lantern glinted on something in the dust just in front of her, and she stooped to pick it up. It was a narrow gold tie-clasp with the name Duke engraved on it in very small script.
She studied the clasp thoughtfully for a moment, then tossed it into the river. She wouldn't want anyone to know she'd seen it, because then they might suspect she'd seen a whole lot more. She put out the lantern and left the cave.
As she started down the slope, Janie saw headlights on the road that led to the cabin. They were still a long way off, but they were coming fast. That would be Pa's pickup truck, she knew, and she began to run. If she meant to reach the cabin before Pa did, she'd have to run like blazes. What he'd do if he found her gone was just too awful to think about.
It was a good thing her skirt was so short, she reflected as she raced across Froggy Bottom and started up the opposite slope toward the cabin, this was no time to be hampered. She wished she dared drop the lantern.
She ran faster than she had ever run before, even in the daytime, and every time she came to one of Pa's trip-wires or covered man-pits, she leaped right over it, rather than lose the time it would take to run around it. But still, she had to circle around in back of the cabin, to keep herself out of the headlights of the approaching truck, and she reached her bedroom window only a few seconds before the truck pulled into the yard. By the time she'd pushed up the sash and climbed inside, Pa and some other man were already stomping across the creaking planks of the front porch.
Then Pa was hammering on the door of her room. She hid the lantern behind the curtain and stood trying to catch her breath. Over on his pallet, she could hear Billy snoring away as hard as ever. It would take an earthquake to wake that boy.
"Wake up in there!" Pa yelled. He was drunk, she could tell. Real drunk.
"That you, Pa?" she called, trying to make her voice sound as if she'd only just awakened.
"You know durn good and well it is. Get yourself out here, girl. We got us some company."
Janie waited about as long as it would have taken her to put on her dress, and then opened the door and stepped out into the other room.
"Breakfast," Pa said as soon as she appeared. "And don't let the grass grow, either." He was bald and toothless, but his shoulders and chest were enormous, and when he moved his arms, the bulging muscles writhed beneath the freckled skin like so many snakes. He was sitting at the table with another, much younger man, and right now he had that mean grin on his face, the one that meant he was mighty pleased with himself. "Eggs and ham and grits and taters and some of them damson preserves," he said. "Stir your stumps, Janie June."
"Yes, sir, Pa," Janie said as she hurried over to the cookstove. "I'll have it fixed in no time, Pa."
"You'd damn sight better. I'm hungry enough to eat a horse, dead or alive."
The young man sitting at the table with Pa had dark hair and eyes and a small, neat mustache, and he was every bit as good looking as Pa was ugly. He smiled at Janie and started to get to his feet.
Pa laughed scornfully. "No need getting up for the likes of her. That's only my daughter, Janie June."
The younger man whistled softly. "Great God," he said.
"What in tarnation's wrong with you, Burt?" Pa said.
"You didn't tell me your daughter was so pretty. In fact, you never even said you had one."
"I might as well not have, for all the good she is around here. A lazier female never came down the pike."
"I never would have believed it," Burt said, running his eyes up and down Janie's body. "Who'd of thought any daughter of yours would look like that? No offense, of course."
"All her looks does is make her sassy. It was the same with her ma, until I knocked some sense into her head." He slammed his fist down on the table. "Hurry up with them victuals, girl!"
"I'm hurrying, Pa," Janie said.
Pa reached out and turned a knob on the old battery radio on the table. "I figure there just might be something interesting on the radio about now-eh, Burt?" He laughed knowingly.
Burt laughed too. "Why, yes. I think you might be right about that, Elmore." He was still staring at Janie. "My name's Burt Connor, Janie June."
"I'm right pleased to meet you," Janie said, aware of the way her sweat-damp dress molded her breasts and belly, and turning a little to one side so that Burt could see her figure in profile.
Harsh and strident guitar music filled the room, and Pa turned the radio down a little. "Fetch us ajar of 'shine, girl."
Janie took ajar of whiskey and two water glasses to the table and went back to the stove, undulating her hips a little more than was absolutely necessary, just to see what Burt's reaction would be.
Burt's eyes widened and he swallowed hard a couple of times. "You got a steady beau, Janie June?"
"No, sir," Janie said.
"I think you're funning me," Burt said. "I bet you got a whole slew of them."
Pa laughed harshly. "You're growing calf eyes, Burt," he said, filling the glasses. "You must've seen a girl or two some time or other. But a man wouldn't know it, the way you're gaping at that one."
"I've seen my share, all right," Burt said, staring fixedly at Janie's breasts, a glazed look in his eyes. "But I sure never saw anything as gorgeous as -"
"Shhh!" Pa said, jerking his head toward the radio. "Listen."
" ... and the Chattanooga police still have no leads in the robbery and abduction tonight of notorious gambler Duke Mahannah," the voice on the radio was saying through the crackle of static. "Informed sources, however, have revealed that Mahannah's wall safe, which his kidnapers apparently forced him to open, contained almost thirty thousand dollars ... In another and possibly related incident, three convicts escaped from a prison van passing through the city earlier in the evening. At a late hour, police were still uncertain whether the escapees were involved in Mahannah's abduction and robbery, but the fact that they are known to have stolen a car near Mahannah's club would seem to point very strongly in that direction ... "
Pa switched off the radio, downed the entire glass of moonshine in four long swallows, and winked at Burt.
"Well, now, what do you think of that? Damned if it don't look like somebody's gone and stole that poor Mr. Mahannah's thirty thousand dollars." He shook his head and clucked his tongue. "Course, you can't believe everything you hear on the radio. Right, Burt?"
Burt was looking at the place where the hem of Janie's skirt met the tops of her thighs. "No," he said absently.
"You reckon it was them convicts that done it?" Pa said, pouring himself another glass of whiskey.
"It sure looks like it, don't it?" He laughed.
"Uh-huh," Burt said. "How old did you say she was, Elmore?"
"Fifteen. She got a little ripe before her time, I guess," Pa said.
But shook his head and reached for his whiskey. He drank some of it, coughed, and drank some more. "You make good liquor, Elmore. For as strong as it is, it's right smooth."
"Well, I thank you. I take my pains with it. Janie June, what the hell's holding up them victuals?"
"It's all ready, Pa." Janie filled two plates at the stove and carried them over to the table.
"You taken another minute getting this over and I'd of strapped the butt right off you," Pa said. "You burned them taters, too."
"Can I go to bed now, Pa?"
"Why not stay up with us a while?" Burt said.
"You do all the things you was supposed to do today, Janie June?" Pa said, forking a slice of ham into his mouth.
"Yes, sir."
"You watch that mash all the time it was cooking?"
"Yes, sir."
"You slop the pigs and all?"
"Yes, Pa."
"Anybody come around here today?"
"No."
"You stay close to home, like I told you?"
"I just went as far as the still, is all."
Pa washed down the ham with a long swallow of whiskey and pushed his chair back a little. "Come here a mite closer, girl."
"Oh, now, Pa," Janie said.
"Come here!"
"Pa, please. Not right in front of Mr. Connor."
"Mr. Connor ain't going to mind one damn bit."
"But, Pa ... "
"Either come here, or go get the strap. One or the other."
Janie stepped close and raised both hands to hide her face.
"Did you think I was going to forget to inspect you? You figure I was so drunk I wouldn't think to?"
"No, sir," Janie said.
"Put your feet farther apart, damn it," Pa said. "You trying to fret me or something?"
Janie spread her feet, and a moment later she felt Pa's hand slide beneath her skirt. Then Pa's finger was on her slit, the tip punching gently against her cherry.
"Great God!" she heard Burt Connor gasp. "Elmore, that's your own daughter!"
Pa laughed, continuing to work his finger around in Janie's pussy. "I sure hope I ain't discommoding your eyeballs none, Burt. This is just something a girl's daddy has to do, now and then."
"But why are you -"
"Of course, there ain't no law says you got to watch me."
"No, but -"
"And if you was watching any harder, your eyeballs would be sticking out on stalks like doorknobs."
Janie spread her fingers a little and peeked through them at Burt. He'd half raised himself from his chair to watch what Pa was doing to her. His face was red and sweating, his eyes popping. Janie moved her feet further apart so Pa could feel her better. Somehow, having a handsome man like Burt watch Pa do it to her was kind of fun.
"But what the hell are you doing, Elmore?" Burt said.
"What's it look like?" Pa said.
"I mean why. Why are you doing it?"
"Just checking the bride-to-be, is all," Pa said.
"Bride-to-be?"
"And right soon, too," Pa said, slipping another finger into Janie's slit. "She's getting herself hitched come Saturday."
"At fifteen?"
"Sure. What the hell, Burt. Her ma was only fourteen."
"But I still don't know why you're -"
"I'm just checking to see she's still got her maidenhead. No maidenhead, no marrying. That's the condition the bridegroom and me agreed on. He's expecting a virgin, and that's what he's going to get."
"I see," Burt said.
"I check her every day," Pa said. "And the day it ain't there is the day her hide gets nailed up on the barn door."
"Who's the lucky man?" Burt said.
"A rich old coot, name of Slathers."
"You're doing it too hard, Pa," Janie said.
"Well, I reckon you've still got it all in one piece," Pa said, withdrawing his fingers. "And damn lucky for you, you have, too."
"Can I go back to bed now?" Janie said. "I'm mighty tired."
"Go on, then," Pa said. "I want you pert and lively in the morning, girl. You hear?"
"Yes, Pa," Janie said as she turned toward the door of her room. "I was real glad to meet you, Mr. Connor."
Burt wiped the sweat from his forehead and sank back in his chair. "It was sure some introduction," he said, extending a trembling hand for his whiskey glass. "I'll sure say that for it, by God. You're a right entertaining host, Elmore."
"Why, I thank you," Pa said. "You get on to bed, Janie June."
In the dark of her room, Janie felt her way around the blanket to her cot and sat down. She was filled with excitement. She knew now who the two men up at the China River cave had been, and she knew who it was they had thrown into the river. And she knew that at this very moment-here in the cabin or in the truck or somewhere - there was thirty thousand dollars.
It sounded like all the money in the world. And one thing sure: it wasn't going to stay where it was one single second longer than it took her to find it. And she would find it too, by golly! There were only just so many places Pa and Burt could have hidden it, and sure as anything, sooner or later, she'd find it. And the minute she did, she'd be on her way. To New York, maybe, or California. She'd just find out at the airport what airplane was leaving the soonest for the farthest-away place, and get on it.
It was all she could do to sit still, just thinking about her good luck. There wouldn't be any marrying up with that awful old Jud Slathers now, by golly! And there wouldn't be any more worrying about Pa splitting her ass wide open with that terrible big prick of his. Because, sure as the sun would come up tomorrow morning, she was going to find that money!
And then it struck her that she still hadn't finished the white dress she'd been working on, the one she meant to wear when she ran away. She had only two dresses-the one she had on, and another one just like it hanging on a nail at the end of her cot-and neither of them would do at all. She did have the shoes Pa had ordered for her from the Sears catalogue - still in their box beneath the cot- for her to be married in.
She had to finish her running-away dress right now, she knew. She had to have everything all ready so that, the minute she found the money, she could leave.
She lit the lantern on the crate by her cot, got the dress and her sewing kit from the old hump-back trunk in the corner, and sat back down on her cot to go to work.
Out in the other room she could hear Pa and Burt Connor laughing and telling jokes.
They'd probably be roaring and cussing in there all night, celebrating the terrible things they'd done to poor Mr. Duke Mahannah.
She had to smile, though, when she remembered how Burt's eyes had bugged out when Pa put his fingers in her pussy to inspect her. She'd never seen a man look so horny in all her life. It was a shame he'd been sitting down at the time; if he'd been standing up, his pants would have bulged out a foot. Judging by the way he'd been sweating and licking his lips, he'd been sitting there with his thing as hard as an old hoe handle.
And now she became aware that Billy, on his pallet on the other side of the blanket, had stopped snoring. She tilted her head a little to one side, listening.
Sure enough, she could hear him breathing hard and fast, practically gasping - the way he always did when he was playing with himself. He did it all the time, she knew. She'd caught him at it so many times she couldn't even keep track of them. Once, when she'd caught him doing it in the privy, he'd thrown the catalogue at her.
She laughed to herself and began to sew again, humming softly. She'd never been so happy. After all, this was probably the last night she'd have to spend in this hated place.
Suddenly Billy cried out, and an instant later his bare feet were pounding across the plank floor toward her cot. She frowned. What now? What's the little monster up to this time?
Billy's face was contorted with fear as he rushed up to her, and his eyes were as big as dollars. He fell to the floor at her feet, threw his arms around her knees, and began to wail. He kept rolling his head back and forth, his shaggy, tow-colored hair yellow in the lantern light.
Janie put the dress aside and sat looking down at him, bewildered. This was the first time she had ever seen him either cry or act afraid.
"Oh, Janie!" he bawled. "Oh, goddamn!"
"Hush," she said. "What's the matter with you?"
He looked up at her, his thin, mean little face streaked with tears. "Lord A-mighty, Janie! I'm a gonner."
"Will you stop that?" she said sharply. "What in the world ails you, anyhow?"
"It's my brains," he choked. "They're running out my peter!"
Janie felt her jaw sag. "They're what?" she said. "What're you talking about?"
Billy scrabbled to his feet. "Look," he cried, pointing. "Just look at that, Janie!"
On the front of his nightshirt, about a foot below his waist, was a wet, sticky-looking stain the size of Janie's palm.
"Pa always said my brains would run out if I didn't stop playing with myself," Billy sobbed. "And now they've gone and done it."
Janie stared at the stain with fascination. It was jism, all right, no question about it. But Billy was only nine years old, for heaven's sake! He wasn't near old enough to come yet. He wouldn't be for three or four years.
"That isn't your brains, silly," she said. "Stop that blubbering."
"It is too!" Billy said. "Pa warned me many a time. And now -"
"You came, that's all," Janie said. "Like all boys do, sooner or later. Only with you, it looks like it's sooner."
"It's my brains, damn it."
"It's not. It's what comes out of boys when they play with themselves."
"It never did before."
"It will from now on, don't worry."
"You mean that stuff comes out of people! Just like it does out of the he-stock? Like it comes out of the bull?"
"Yes."
"I'll be goddamned," Billy said thoughtfully, bowing his head to look at the spot again. "There was this real funny feeling in my peter. And all at once, there's that stuff shooting out of me." He glanced up at her through the tangle of hair hanging over his face. "Does it come out of you like that?"
"It's just not the same with girls, Billy."
"It kind of pained me and felt good at the same time. You reckon I hurt myself doing it? Boy, it sure feels funny down there."
Billy wasn't the only one who felt funny down there, Janie reflected. All this talk about coming had made her slit begin to itch, and she could feel herself beginning to flow.
"It'd be pretty hard to hurt yourself that way," she said, surprised at the direction of her thoughts. "But maybe you'd better look, just to be sure."
Billy started to raise his nightshirt, then caught himself and turned his back to her.
"You'll have to face this way," Janie said. "How can you see anything, standing with your back to the lantern like that?"
He hesitated, then turned around to face her again. "Well, shut your eyes then."
"Don't be silly. I've seen it before - dozens of times."
Billy looked at her strangely for a moment. Then he shrugged, grasped the bottom of his nightshirt with both hands, and raised it up to his waist.
It was hard for Janie to keep from showing her surprise. Always before, Billy had had his thing in his hand, playing with it, and she'd been able to see hardly any of it. But now, with nothing in the way, she could scarcely believe her eyes. Billy was only nine, but his peter-soft, hanging straight down, with a tiny pucker of foreskin at the end - was a good five inches long and almost an inch wide. There wasn't a single hair, she noted, either above the stem or on the round, pink-white balls beneath it.
"It-it looks all right," Billy said dubiously. staring down at himself. "It just feels funny somehow."
She shouldn't do this, Janie knew; it might lead to all kinds of trouble; but she couldn't help herself. She reached out and pressed the soft white meat between thumb and forefinger.
Billy flinched. "Hey, what the hell?" he said.
"Does that hurt?" Janie said, making her voice as casual as if she'd been examining a bruised knee.
"No," Billy said. "It don't hurt. But you shouldn't ought to -!"
"It isn't the least bit tender?"
Billy pushed out his lower lip, scowling at her. "No," he said.
Janie nodded. "Good," she said, running her fingertips along the stem to the hairless pubes and back again. The skin was satiny smooth, just like she'd known the skin on Roy Wilson's big cock would be when she'd watched him from the bushes at his still.
"You're making it feel funnier than ever," Billy said.
Out in the other room, Pa and Burt Connor were whooping and laughing.
"You better hope Pa don't walk in on us this way," Billy said.
"The door's locked," Janie said. "The shank seems to be all right, Billy. But I think we'd better make sure about the end. Don't you?"
"That's where it feels the funniest-on the end."
Janie leaned forward, cupped Billy's balls with one hand, and with the fingertips of the other began to push the foreskin back from the moist, pink glans.
"Oh, oh," Billy said.
"What's the matter?" Janie said, baring the little knob completely. "Does that hurt?"
"Naw," Billy said, closing his eyes. "It don't hurt none at all, Janie. It ... it ... "
Holding the foreskin back with her fingers, Janie ran the ball of her thumb across the seeping eye of his glans. Almost at once, Billy's penis began to stiffen. Then, slowly, it began to rise - until it stood straight out, hard and quivering.
"Well, for heaven's sake," Janie said. "Look what happened."
"Hot damn," Billy said.
"Are you sure I'm not hurting you?" Janie said, as she closed her hand on the hard, pulsing little shaft and began to milk it as if it were the teat on a cow.
"God A-mighty no!" Billy gasped. "Do it harder, Janie."
Janie squeezed a little harder, and lengthened her stroke. She was breathing just as fast as Billy was, and she felt the juice pouring out of her cunt onto the cot beneath her. She raised her free hand, cupped a breast, and began to roll the swollen nipple through the thin material of her dress.
Billy shuffled a little closer to her, so that his penis was only a foot from her face. She bent her head, narrowing the distance even more, and looked at the pearl of moisture forming in the eye of the glistening little plum-shaped knob now just a few inches away from her eyes.
"Janie ... " Billy said, his small body shaking violently. "Janie, I want you to ... to ... "
"Yes?" Janie said. There was an aroma coming from Billy's prick, she noticed for the first time, now that she was so close to it. It was faint, but it was there-a sweet, musky smell that set her to inhaling more deeply. "Yes, Billy?"
"I want you to ... to do me like the heifer done," Billy said.
She glanced up at him. His eyes were shut tight, an angelic smile on his sweating face ..
"What?" she said.
"I was taking a pee in the meadow," Billy said dreamily. "The heifer came over and ... and began to lick my peter. It felt awful good, Janie."
"I'll just bet it did."
"Just wrapped her tongue all the way around it, and sucked and sucked. I thought sure she was going to suck it off me. I'd sure admire to have you do my peter like she did, Janie."
"But I don't have a big, long old tongue like the heifer does, Billy."
"No," Billy said, "but you could lick it good just the same, couldn't you?"
"Well, yes, I suppose I could."
"And then you could put it in your mouth and suck it," Billy said. "And that'd feel just as good as what the heifer done."
"Do you really think so?"
Billy moaned softly and moved so close to her that she could feel the heat of his body on her face. "Please, Janie. If you do, I'll never be mean to you again, so help me God."
The smell of Billy's glans was stronger now, a little sharper somehow, mingling with the perfume rising up from the welling slit between her legs.
"What if you ever told pa?"
"I'd never tell him! I'd die first!"
Janie felt her mouth juicing with saliva. "Well, I just don't know, Billy," she said thoughtfully. "Do you really think I ought to?" She slid off the cot to her knees before him, ran out her tongue, and licked the pearl from the eye of his glans. "Are you really sure you want me to, Billy?"
"God A-mighty!" Billy said hoarsely. "Do it to me, Janie! Please, Janie! Do it to me like the heifer done!"
"You might come again, you know."
"That's what I want, Janie! That's what I want!"
"Well," Janie said, moving her mouth toward the moist little knob, "in that case ... "
There was a sound at the window.
"Oh, God!" Janie cried, jumping to her feet. For an instant, she could see a blur of white against the glass. Then the face was gone, and she dived for the lantern and blew it out.
Billy yelped and began to cry. "It was Pa!" he wailed. "He caught us, Janie! Now he'll kill us both!"
Janie tried to still the pound of her heart against her ribcage. It was true, she knew; if that had been Pa out there, they were as good as dead. He might want to ram his monstrous cock up her ass, and he might rob and kill people like Mr. Duke Mahannah - but he thought anybody who did what she'd been about to do to Billy should be burned alive. She'd heard him say so a hundred times.
"We're gonners, Janie!" Billy said in the darkness. "Pa's going to nail our hides to the shithouse door!"
"Listen," Janie said. From the other room she could hear Pa stumbling around, cussing to himself about something. "It wasn't Pa," she said, taking the first deep breath she'd had since she'd heard the sound at the window. "He's still in the cabin."
"Then who was it?" Billy said.
"I think it was Burt," Janie said. "The man that came home with Pa tonight."
"What would he be doing out there by the window?"
"He probably had to go to the privy," Janie said. "When he saw a light on in here, he figured he'd take a peek."
"Well, he sure got one hell of an eyeful then," Billy said. "And now he'll tell Pa, sure as shit stinks. He saw you start to suck my peter, Janie!"
"Hush," Janie said. "Pa might hear you." She walked to the window and looked out in the direction of the privy. In a few moments she heard the flat slap of the privy door being shut, and then the dim outline of a man's figure loomed on the footpath between the privy and the cabin. She drew the curtains over the window and went back to her cot.
"That's who it was," she said. "We had us a big scare for nothing, Billy."
"It won't be for nothing if he tells Pa."
"I don't think he will," Janie said.
"Yeah? Why not?"
"Because he knows what Pa would do," Janie said. There was a strange, pleasant taste in her mouth, and she realized suddenly that it was the aftertaste of the droplet of juice she'd licked from the eye of Billy's glans. "He doesn't look like a mean man at all, Billy. And besides, he likes me. I could tell from the way he looked at me while Pa was inspecting me."
"You mean Pa shoved his finger up you right in front of him?"
"Yes," Janie said, feeling around on top of the crate for a match to light the lantern. "You should have seen Burt's face." She lit the lantern and sat down on her cot.
There was the sound of the front door opening and closing, and in a few moments Pa and Burt were laughing and joking again.
"You see?" Janie said, smiling at Billy. "He isn't going to breath a word. Everything's going to be all right."
Billy's face was still pale with fear. "Don't be so sure," he said. "He just ain't drunk enough yet, that's all."
Janie ran the tip of her tongue across the roof of her mouth, tasting Billy's juice again. It was odd, she thought to herself, that the flavor would last so long, when there'd only been such a tiny drop of juice to begin with. It was almost as if she'd licked up a whole mouthful of it.
What was it about love juice that made the taste of it last so long, she wondered? Rosanne's, for instance. The taste of Rosanne's sweet, juicy cunt had stayed in her mouth for hours-right up to suppertime.
She ran her tongue slowly across her upper lip, remembering the way she and Rosanne had sucked each other, there in the sunny clearing by the spring. She'd practically been drinking Rosanne's juice then, just as Rosanne had hers.
Of the two, she decided, she liked Rosanne's juice much better than Billy's. But that might be because she'd had so little of Billy's to judge by. Billy's was good too-very good. It was so good she wanted some more of it.
"Billy," she said softly, feeling her slit begin to grow hot and itchy again, "come here."
"Huh?" Billy said.
"Don't you want to finish what we started? Don't you want me to do you like the heifer did?"
Billy looked at her incredulously. "You out of your mind?" he said. "Look what happened."
"But no one can see now," Janie said. "Please, Billy."
"No, sir!" Billy said, turning away. "I ain't never going to do that again."
"But I want to, Billy."
"I don't care."
"Please, Billy. You promised you'd never be mean to me again. Remember?"
"That was before I got the shit scared out of me," Billy said, and walked around the blanket around the blanket to his own side of the room.
Darn little monster! Janie thought as she heard him drop down on his pallet. It was a wonder somebody as pure mean as that didn't poison himself.
She got the new dress and tried to work on it again. But she'd made herself so horny that she kept puckering the stitches. Finally she realized it was no use, and she put the dress away and blew out the lantern. Then she lay back on the cot, pulled her skirt up around her waist, and slipped her fingers into her streaming pussy. She just had to have some relief-and that was all there was to it. She could work on the dress later, after she'd made herself come a few times.
As she frigged herself, she thought about Rosanne, pretending it was Rosanne's fingers in her slit.
She'd come once, and was just ready to come again, when she recalled how surprised Rosanne had been to learn that Janie had never tasted her own cunt juice.
The sudden recollection excited her so much that she felt a rush of saliva pouring into her mouth. Golly, how in the world could I ever have missed doing that? How come I never even thought about it? Well, she was going to make up for lost time.
She raised a dripping hand to her face, sniffed deeply of the maddingly provocative scent of her pussy for a long, dizzying moment, and then curled her tongue around a finger and drew it out to the tip very slowly, almost fainting with the heavenly taste of herself.
She sucked her juice from each finger in turn, then licked it from her palm and the back of her hand, mixing it with the saliva churning in her mouth, swallowing greedily.
Who needs your old juice, Billy? .she thought as she reached down between her legs to drench her hand again. You silly little boy, I taste ten times better than you ever did!
She lovingly sucked a finger dry, then another.
You taste just wonderful, Janie, she said to herself as she lapped the warm, fragrant juice from her palm, thrilling with the wonder of her new-found delight. By golly, you taste even better than Rosanne!
Chapter Three
The next morning, just after daybreak, Janie opened her door silently and tiptoed out into the front room. Pa lay sprawled out on one of the cots, snoring away, his toothless mouth yawning open. Burt Conner lay on his back on the floor, his head and shoulders under the table, an overturned whiskey jar beside him.
The ancient radio on the table was grating away: a weather forecast. Janie turned it off and walked back to the middle of the floor and stood glancing about the room. Where should she look first?
Then she noticed that Pa's pickup truck wasn't in the lane, where he usually left it. That meant he'd put it in the barn last night. Maybe he hadn't wanted it to be too handy for her or Billy to look around inside it.
She went out to the barn. By golly, Pa had even shut the doors. She opened them and walked over to the truck.
When she tried to open the door on the driver's side, she found it was locked. So was the door on the passenger's side.
Now she knew the money was in the truck. It had to be. This was the first time she could remember that Pa had ever locked the doors. And why would he do it now? Unless ... She went up on her toes to try to peer inside the cab. She couldn't even see down as far as the seat, let alone see whatever might be down there on the floorboards.
If only Pa didn't wake up so easy, she thought. If only she could get the keys out of his pants and ... Something nudged against the small of her back, and she gasped and whirled around, sure it was Pa who'd gone around to the other end of the barn and sneaked up behind her.
But it was only the heifer.
Janie sighed with relief. Then, vexed, she put her hands on her hips and frowned at the ungainly animal that stood looking up at her, chewing its cud.
"Well, what do you want?"
The heifer put her tongue out about six inches, lolled it around, and drew it back in again.
"Oh," Janie said, remembering what Billy had said about the way the heifer had licked his peter. "So that's what you want! Well, just for your information I haven't got any peter. So there, smartie!"
She started to turn away, still somewhat irked with the heifer for having frightened her, when it occurred to her that what the heifer had done to Billy she might very well do to Janie. In fact, the heifer might like to lick a pussy - especially one covered with fragrant dried love juice-even better than she would a little boy's prick.
She glanced over her shoulder, to make sure no one had come out into the barnyard, then stepped close to the heifer and raised her skirt.
"Lick me," she said. "Lick me, the way you did Billy."
The heifer looked up at her, chewing rhythmically. Janie moved forward until the golden triangle between her legs was brushing the heifer's nose. "You'd better try it. It tastes even better than it smells."
The heifer's long, thick tongue shot out, burrowed its way all the way back to Janie's asshole, then dragged back and up, forcing the lips of Janie's cunt wide apart, flattening itself out in the gap, and finally drawing its entire length across the swelling button of her clitoris, the rough, hot meat searing across it like a thousand little mouths.
"Oh!" Janie cried, and seized the heifer by the ears, arching her back so that her pussy pushed out against the heifer's tongue. "Oh, do it again!"
The heifer did-a dozen times or more-while Janie closed her eyes and felt the juice pouring out of her slit harder than it ever had before. Then the heifer took its tongue out of Janie's cunt and began to lick the dried juice from her mound and the tops of her thighs.
"Put it back inside me, darn it! I was just about to come!"
But the heifer took a slow, final swipe at the fresh juice seeping past the burning lips of Janie's slit, ran its tongue back to lick briefly at her asshole - and turned away.
"Darn you, anyhow!" Janie cried, running around to stand in front of the heifer again and mashing her mound against its nose. "Put it up inside me again, do you hear?"
The heifer backed away, turned, and walked off.
Janie looked after it, almost in tears. "Oh, you must be the meanest heifer that ever lived." The heifer lumbered over to the other side of the barn, lowed contentedly, and began to scratch its back against the wall.
She reached down, fingered her juicy little slit for a moment, then sighed and reluctantly turned to leave. Maybe, a little later, she'd be able to treat her pussy to a proper frigging. But right now, she had to do the chores.
When Janie had finished her outside work, she went back into the cabin to fry some mush for her and Billy's breakfast. Pa was still sprawled on his cot, and Burt Connor was still lying on the floor with his head under the table. As Janie walked past Pa on her way to the cookstove, she noticed the big, long bulge in his drawers, and she quickly looked away. Just the thought of Pa's shoving that hideous thing up her rectum scared her spitless. It would either kill her or ruin her for life, she knew, one or the other, and she felt her asshole begin to tighten defensively.
She worked very quietly, anxious not to wake Pa, the only sound the soft sizzle of the mush in the grease. Leaving half the mush in the pan for Billy, she put the rest of it on a plate and went out to the front yard, where everything didn't smell of sweat and whiskey.
She was sitting on the stump near the well, finishing the last of her breakfast, when she saw Sheriff Orv Loonsey's cruiser approaching. What now? she wondered.
The cruiser came slowly up the lane and rolled to a stop in the yard. The sheriff got out on one side, and a gaunt, slack-faced old man with a matted gray beard got out on the other.
"Jud Slathers!" Janie heard herself say out loud, as she stared at the man she was supposed to marry come Saturday. "What in the world is he doing here with the sheriff?"
"Well, howdy, Janie June," the sheriff said as he walked up. "Say hello to the bridegroom, Janie."
"Humphf," Janie said, and turned up her nose, ignoring Jud completely.
"You'll be wanting to see Pa, I guess."
"Why, yes," the sheriff said. "If he's handy."
She got to her feet. "I'll fetch him," she said.
"You don't have to, little sweetheart," Slathers said. "Yonder he comes now."
Janie glanced toward the cabin. Pa was coming down the steps of the porch, heisting up the straps of his overalls.
"I reckon he must've heard us come up," the sheriff said, smiling, as he forced his eyes away from Janie's breasts. "Howdy, Elmore."
"Howdy, Orv," Pa said. "Morning, Jud. What brings you out this way, Orv?"
"There was three convicts busted loose from a prison truck in Chattanooga last night," the sheriff said. "Got loose and stole a car and got clean away."
"Oh, yeah," Pa said. "Yeah. I heard about it on the radio."
"They're bad customers," the sheriff said. "All three of them. They was all doing life for murder. They was seen coming this way. The car they stole in Chattanooga was a new white Ford. You seen any cars like that go by anywhere around here?"
"No," Pa said. "But then, I ain't been out of the house all morning." He looked over at Janie. "You been out and around. You see any such car as that?"
"No, Pa," Janie said.
"What we figure is, they've come up here in the hills to hole up for a while," the sheriff said, stealing another look at Janie's breasts. "I've been going around, asking folks to be on the lookout. Them's dangerous men, and I mean to get them." He glanced at Jud Slathers. "When I went by Jud's place, he wanted to come along over here with me and pay his respects to Janie June."
"Well, now!" Pa said. "That's right thoughtful of you, Jud. Janie's a lucky girl."
"That's for damn sure," Jud said, lofting another stream of tobacco juice at the stinkweed.
Janie sat watching the sheriff talking with Pa and continued ignoring Jud Slathers.
"And them convicts ain't the only bad actors on the prowl around these parts," the sheriff was saying. "You happen to hear about that robbery and kidnapping down in Chattanooga last night, Elmore? Somebody stole thirty thousand dollars out of Duke Mahannah's safe and hauled him off somewhere."
"Well, one of my deputies just told me on the radio he'd run into Mahannah's brothers. Stopped them for speeding, down by Mungerton. Vince and Ed, their names are. They had Duke's wife with them on the trail of whoever kidnapped Duke."
"Do tell," Pa said, tilting snuff into his lower lip. "Well, they're a far piece from home. What makes them think the kidnappers brung him up here, anyhow?"
"They got some kind of a clue, the deputy says. Just what, we don't know. They don't do a whole lot of talking, them boys. As best he could piece it out, they mean to settle things personal. They ain't the kind to go to the law for help, and that's for sure. They'd just as soon kill a man as look at him, and maybe a little sooner. What they'll do to them kidnappers is just plain pitiful."
"Funny they'd bring a woman along, though, ain't it?" Pa said.
"Not if she's as much a wildcat as I hear tell she is," the sheriff said, casting a sidelong glance at Janie's legs. "They say Duke's wife is twice as tough as Vince and Ed put together."
"That's a fact," Jud Slathers said. "I've heard that said, myself." He splashed the stinkweed plant again and grinned over at Janie. "Hey, there, little sweetheart! What're you looking so down in the mouth about?"
Janie looked away from him, biting her lips. It was beginning to look like she wasn't going to get that money after all, doggone it! Just a few minutes ago, she'd been scared the sheriff had come out after it. And then, when she'd found out he hadn't, and had begun to breathe easy again, she'd found out poor Mr. Duke Mahannah's brothers were on their way to do the same thing. It looked like the devil was just bound and determined that she wasn't going to get to run away.
"I say, what makes your mouth look so sad, Janie June?" Slathers said, walking over to her. "For a girl about to marry the richest man on the mountain, you sure -"
"Oh, shut up!" Janie said. "You awful old man- go away!"
"Hoo!" Slathers said. "You hear that boys?" She's sure got a pile of sass. ain't she?"
"She's going to get a strapping, is what," Pa said, glaring at her. "You talk more respectful to Mr. Slathers, girl. You hear me?"
"Mind you don't strap her too hard," Jud said. "I don't want me no purple-bottomed wife on my honeymoon, Elmore. If they's one thing I can't stand, it's a woman with a bruised butt."
"She'll be lucky to have any butt left," Pa said.
"Ah, now, Elmore," the sheriff said. "She's just nervous about the marrying. All brides are."
"Give Mr. Slathers a little kiss," Pa said. "To show him you was only funning."
"Why, sure, Janie June," Jud said, stepping close to her. "Give us a little sample of what -"
"No!" Janie said.
"What?" Pa roared. "You defying me, girl?"
"No, but I just can't -"
"Go get the strap and wait for me in the barn," Pa said.
"Please, Pa!" Janie cried. I -"
"What're you waiting for, girl?" Pa said. "Get your hind end on out in that barn."
Janie got up and started off, her eyes blurred with tears.
"I surely apologize for her, Jud," Pa said. "I'll make her sorry, don't worry."
Jud laughed and walked off with the sheriff.
When Janie went into the cabin to get the strap, she found Burt Connor peeking through the curtain at the cruiser, just now turning around in the lane.
"What the hell's going on out there?" he said. His dark hair was stringing down over his face and his strong, square jaw was stained with beard. He looked even more hungover than Pa did.
"Nothing," Janie said, brushing the tears from her eyes with the back of her hand.
"Nothing?" That's a sheriff out there!"
"He just wanted to warn Pa about some jailbirds."
"What jailbirds?"
"Some that got loose from somewhere. They were seen up around here." She took the strap down from its nail on the wall and turned toward the door.
"What're you doing with that thing?" Hurt said.
"Pa's going to use it on me."
"He must be crazy," Burt said, aghast. "That thing would kill a horse."
Janie carried the strap out to the barn and sat down on a keg to wait for Pa. This wasn't going to be one of the beatings that made her feel good afterward., she knew; it was going to be a holy terror. She listened to the sound of the cruiser dying away in the distance, and a few moments later Pa came in, rolling up the sleeves of his shirt.
She knew what to do. She got down on her hands and knees, pulled her skirt up over her back, and waited.
Pa didn't say a word. He picked up the strap, slapped it against his palm a few times, and then came over to stand a little to one side of her, on a line with her hips.
The strap whistled through the air and splatted against her buttocks. "I'll teach you, you little feist," Pa said, and brought the leather down again in exactly the same place.
"Oh, Pa!" Janie cried. "Please, Pa!"
"Don't you 'Please, Pa' me, damn you." He brought the strap searing across her hips at the point just above where they met her thighs. "You've defied me for the last time, girl."
She began to whimper. "Pa, it hurts awful!"
"What does?" he said. "Oh! You mean this." And he swung the strap twice in rapid succession.
"God-Amighty, Pa!" she wailed. "You're killing me."
"That's right," Pa said. "You told the truth for once."
But she wasn't really, Janie realized. The truth was that Pa wasn't hitting her nearly as hard as she'd expected him to. In fact, he wasn't even hitting her as hard as he usually did. It hurt, all right, and the cheeks of her ass felt as if they were on fire, but it sure wasn't the whipping she'd been figuring on.
And then a thought struck her, and she was sure she knew why Pa wasn't taking the hide off her. His heart just wasn't in it, was why. He was just going through the motions. He was so worried about those Mahannah boys coming after him that he couldn't rightly put his mind to anything else. Why, he was so worried he'd even forgot to inspect her cherry before he began to strap her!
The strap slashed down again. And although Janie cried out for Pa's benefit, she had all she could do to keep from following the cry with a gasp of pleasure. Golly, but it was good! Pa wasn't doing it hard at all. If only he'd keep on doing it just like this, he'd have her coming all over the place. She was already so horny that she could feel juice dripping from her twitching cunt, and when she looked back between her legs, she saw that the blonde fur was saturated with it. "Oh Lord, Pa," she pleaded silently, "please don't stop!"
But he did. He brought the strap stinging against her grateful flesh only six more times. He was aiming haphazardly now. One blow even missed her hips completely, and another caught her across her legs just above the backs of her knees. But the very last blow was much more rewarding- a wonderfully biting slash on a direct line with her anus that brought her to the very edge of orgasm.
Just once more, Pa, she prayed to herself. Just one more time like that, Pa!
From the corner of her eye, she could see Pa start to swing the strap again. Then suddenly he lowered it and turned away. "I reckon that'll hold you till suppertime, at least," he said absently, and strode off toward the door, his face clouded with thought.
Janie watched him go, so disappointed she could have cried. Doggone those Mahannah brothers, anyhow, she thought as she got to her feet and put both hands behind her to feel the burning globes of her ass. If Pa hadn't been so all-fired worried about them, he'd of strapped her tail until the cows came home.
Squeezing a tender buttock hard with one hand, she reached down with the other and raked splayed fingers through the drenched little curls between her legs.
One thing was sure: she was going to have to get some relief - and get it in a hurry. And it was going to take more than just her fingers this time. She was going to have to use that rubber prick she'd hidden up in the hayloft.
The thought of the rubber prick excited her, but it frightened her too. She hadn't used it often, because she'd been afraid she'd get too carried away. It made her feel so good she was always scared she'd forget herself and jam it up her so hard she'd break her cherry. And if she did that, Pa would skin her alive. But the way her pussy was throbbing right now, nothing else was going to satisfy her. It was risky, all right, but she'd just have to take a chance. It was either that or have her cunt drive her crazy.
Chapter Four
Janie hurried over to the ladder that led to the hayloft and started up it, climbing two rungs at a time, remembering the, afternoon she'd found the rubber prick in the trash over at the Shanley place. Every year, somebody from the city would rent the Shanley place for the summer. And every fall, when they left, Janie would go over to see what they'd left behind.
Usually she found very little, and hardly ever anything of real value. But last fall, when those two young schoolmarms from Nashville had moved out, she'd found some things that she'd had to look at twice before she could believe her eyes.
There'd been a book with drawings of naked men and women in it, doing all kinds of things to one another, and a lot of advice about the best ways for people to make other people happy. But what had fascinated Janie most - before she found the rubber prick - was a sheaf of glossy snapshots of naked girls with their legs spread so you could see their pussy. Some of the girls had been holding it apart, so you could see it better, and some had put their fingers up inside it. One girl - who'd looked to be no older than Janie - had been eating a banana with one hand and pushing another banana into her slit with the other.
Then, at the very bottom of the trash heap, Janie had found the rubber prick - pink-white, with a red glans.
At first, she'd stared at it with disbelief, sure that her eyes were playing her false. Could such a thing really be? she'd wondered.
She'd hesitated for a moment, then picked it up and brushed the dust off it with the hem of her skirt, marveling at it, turning it this way and that.
Yes, it was a prick, all right. It was about eight inches long and an inch and a half wide, with a knob on one end shaped like a small turnip. There was even a little eye in the knob, and when she squeezed the smooth, firm shaft, it gave a little beneath the pressure of her fingers, just the way she'd always imagined a real prick would do.
Except that it was smaller, it looked exactly like the prick she'd seen Roy Wilson take out of his pants when he had to pee and thought nobody was watching.
I wish it was Roy's prick, she'd thought, squeezing the rubber shaft as hard as she could. I wish I had his prick in my hand, by golly!
Then she noticed that the rubber object had a faint aroma, and she brought it to her nose and sniffed at it.
Why, that smells like a girl! she thought. It smells just like I do, when I get all hot and bothered.
Why should a man's prick, even a make-believe one like this, smell like a girl's cunt? And then, suddenly, she had realized what the prick had been intended for, and why it smelled the way it did.
"Those schoolmarms were pleasuring themselves with it!" she'd said aloud. "That's why it smells that way." She'd sniffed at it again. "And they must have been doing it day and night, too. Their smell's still on it, strong as can be."
She'd sat down on a rock by the rubbish heap and pushed the head of the prick between the lips of her cunt and moved it around experimentally, working the blunt cone of the knob back hard against her cherry.
It had driven her wild, and she had come so many times that afternoon that she had lost track.
Now, as she took the rubber prick from its hiding place behind the loose plank in the hayloft, she was so eager to frig herself with it that she fumbled and dropped it in the hay. She recovered it quickly, went over to where the hay was thickest, took off her dress, and lay down on her back.
Now that she was ready, she teased herself for a few moments, tracing the velvet-smooth head of the prick back and forth in the horny sweat that had begun to lave her belly, becoming more excited by the second. Then she raised the sweat-wet knob to her breasts and rubbed each quickening tip in turn, watching the dew begin to seep from the dents in the ends of her nipples.
When her nipples had swollen to twice their normal size, she drew the prick slowly down her body to the top of her slit. She left it there for a while, teasing herself again, then rubbed it slowly, tantalizingly, down the slippery lips, brushing them without parting them, until the moist knob came to rest against the button of her anus.
She raised her knees a little higher, tickling the glans of the prick against her asshole, feeling the spasming in her rectum as the ridged rim of her anus began to open and pout out against the now dripping rubber knob that caressed it. Then, placing her hands flat against the sides of the shank and rolling it between her palms, Janie pushed the glans hard against the ever-widening mouth of her anus and rotated it until she suddenly began to shake so much that she couldn't keep it in its oily socket.
She paused until she had control of herself, then moved the glans up to her slit and began to move it slowly in and out between the puffy lips, sinking it all the way to her cherry, listening to the tiny, wet, sucking sounds it made each time she drew it back up to the level of her lips.
As always when she was frigging herself, she began to think about Roy Wilson. "Oh, but that's so good!" She ground the glans against the membrane of her cherry. "Oh, if that was only Roy's prick down there."
Moaning, rolling her hips, she lay the prick lengthwise in her gap, forcing it down between her lips so that they pressed against it on either side, the firm rubber buried in membrane the entire length of her slit, the big knob extending beyond it to rest against the tiny, pulsing anal button. Slowly at first, then faster and faster, raising and lowering her hips in rhythm with the movement of her hand, she rubbed the prick back and forth in her flooding crevice, dragging the glans firmly all the way up to her clitoris with each upward stroke, and pushing the other end of the prick down to her anus when she moved it in the other direction.
The perfume from her pussy was filling her nostrils now, rich and wonderful, and she closed her eyes and sniffed the exciting scent greedily. It was so strong she could almost taste it.
By golly, she thought, I will taste it! And she took the prick from her pussy and brought it back to her mouth. Then Janie grasped the prick and put it back in her lathery slit and worked away, jabbing it from side to side.
She came and came and came, until she was exhausted and weak. Slowly she put her dress back on and started to go back outside the barn. All the while she had the funniest feeling that someone was watching.
Chapter Five
When Janie stepped off the bottom rung of the ladder, she happened to glance in the direction of Pa's pickup truck, and then hurried over to it. The door on the driver's side was ajar, although only a short time ago it had been shut and locked. Has Pa or Bun taken the money out of the truck? she wondered. That is, saying it was ever hidden there in the first place? But it had been hidden there, she was sure. Otherwise, why would the doors have been locked?
She peered out into the barnyard, to make sure no one was approaching, then climbed up into the cab and looked on the floorboard. There was nothing there except a few empty moonshine jars and the jack handle Pa carried in case of arguments.
Although it was almost too heavy for her, she finally managed to raise the seat up high enough to look beneath it. There was only Pa's tool kit and tire chains and the other things that had always been there.
She got out, left the door ajar exactly as she had found it, and stood thinking for a moment. Then she walked down one side of the barn and back the other, looking in each stall and feed bin.
Nothing.
She heard a series of dull thuds outside so she'd have to put off a more careful search of the barn till later.
And besides, she really ought to go down to the spring and bathe. She'd gotten all sweaty and sticky pleasuring herself with that rubber prick, and the dried cunt juice on her pussy and thighs was beginning to feel a little unpleasant.
But first she wanted to see if anyone was in the cabin. If no one was around, she'd have time for a quick search of the front room. At the very least, she'd have time to look in the suitcase under Pa's cot.
In the cabin, she made sure Billy wasn't in the back room, then went immediately to the suitcase and pulled it out far enough to open it. It was completely empty.
She pushed the suitcase back beneath the cot, and then noticed a dozen or so flat pint whiskey bottles in a heap at the far end of the cot. They hadn't been there the last time she was in the room; she was certain of it. Pa never used such bottles, although she could remember seeing some of them around a long time ago. She looked at the mound of bottles, frowning thoughtfully. It was all very strange.
Then she remembered the loose board in the floor back by the cookstove. But when she raised the board, there was nothing beneath it. And none of the knotholes in the planking was really big enough to shove anything down inside, she decided.
"I've just got to find it," she told herself, sweeping the room with her eyes, trying to discover a possible hiding place. "I've just got to!" She thought about the way old Jud Slathers always wanted to kiss her - and how, come the marrying, she'd have to let him-and felt her stomach turn over. And even before the marrying, of course, Pa was sure as anything going to tear her apart with his big monster of a prick. "Oh, Lord," she said, raising her eyes toward the tarpaper ceiling "please let me find it before Pa ruins me or I have to marry Jud Slathers. Please, Lord! I'll be beholden to You as long as I live."
Then she heard Pa's voice just outside, and she ran back to her room and closed the door behind her.
"I still don't know what you was doing out by the barn," Pa was saying as he came in. "There ain't nothing interesting in that truck, Burt."
"Hell, I know that," Burl's voice said. "I was just looking around, I told you. Just killing time."
"You sure you wasn't looking around for Janie June?"
"Me? What the hell for?"
"You know what for. But what you might not know is how dead you'll get if you try pronging her. That cherry she's toting around is worth five thousand dollars to me, Burt."
"Yeah. You told me last night."
"I mean to collect it, too. So keep your hands in your pockets and your pecker in your pants."
"You got no cause to fret on that point, Elmore."
"I better not have," Pa said. "I wonder where the hell she is, anyhow?"
"Beats me," Burt said. "I haven't seen her since she came in to get the strap."
Janie walked over to her cot, careful not to make the floor creak, and sat down. She really ought to work on her running-away dress while she had a chance, but she just didn't feel like it. It was not being able to find the money, and now she was beginning to be very nervous about it. She'd been so sure it would be in either the suitcase or the truck, but it hadn't been, and no matter how hard she thought about it, she couldn't think of any other place it could be.
" ... reason I was looking for you was to tell you we've got ourselves a problem," Pa was saying.
"That sheriff, you mean?" Burt said. "I saw his damn cruiser from the window."
"No," Pa said. "Why're you shaking so much? If you want some whiskey in that glass, hold it still."
"I had too much last night," Burt said. "That's why I'm shaking." He laughed. "But fill it up."
"You ain't going to be laughing when I tell you what Orv Loonsey said. That's the sheriff you saw."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. And you ain't going to be hard-pronged for Janie June, either."
"What're you getting at, Elmore?"
"You just might recollect Duke Mahannah had a couple of brothers."
"Sure. Vince and Ed. What about them?"
"Well, those gents are on our trail."
"What?"
"You heard me. They was seen down by Mungerton, which is just about four whoops and a holler from here. And they got Duke's widow with them, too. She's the one used to dance buck naked at the Elks' smokers and-"
"To hell with her. What about Vince and Ed?"
"Orv's deputy stopped them for something or other. The gist seems to be that they're aiming to settle our hash. Of course, the deputy didn't know who they was talking about. He said they had some kind of clue to the bastards that did Duke so dirty - meaning you and me."
"Nobody could have recognized us. We had those stockings over our -"
"There's only one thing it could be," Pa said. "The license number on the truck."
"Come on!"
"It's the only answer, Burt. Somebody saw that truck when we was leaving, and got suspicious. Hell, for all we know, they might even of saw us putting the body in it."
"Why wouldn't they have told the law? Why tell the Mahannahs?"
"Because it was one of Duke's outfit that saw it, is why," Pa said. "And you know damn well they wouldn't be calling in no law."
"But even if that's what happened, they still wouldn't know who the license number belonged to."
"No, they wouldn't," Pa said. "Not for about an hour. That's how long it would take them to get some politician to find out for them. Hell fire, Burt, half Duke's boys are politicians already. You know that."
"My God," Hurt said.
"So you and me are likely to have some right lively company," Pa said. "Which means we'll want to welcome them proper. How're you with a rifle, Burt?"
"No damn good," Burt said.
"Well, then you'll have to use my shotgun," Pa said. "You know how?"
"I've never fired anything but a hand gun," Burt said. "Like last night. I was always more of a knife man, myself."
"Well, hand guns ain't going to get it," Pa said. "Not with them Mahannahs. They've got them too, and they're a damn sight better with them than we are. What's called for is something with some range. It looks like you're going to have to learn to use a shotgun, Burt."
"Hell, I'm willing. When do we start?"
"Right now. We'll go off down by the north forty," Pa said. "That way, we won't go scaring hell out of the chickens and such."
"How about that pile of flat pints over there by the cot?" Burt said. "We could use them for targets."
"We'll find something else," Pa said. "I been saving them fancy bottles for Janie June's wedding. I'm going to have her fill them up with my best 'shine, and pass them out to the wedding guests."
"A nice touch," Burt said.
"I kind of like it, myself," Pa said. "Well, let's get going, Burt. Just ease that shotgun off the wall there, and we'll have us a little practice."
"We'll take along a jar of whiskey, all right?" Burt said.
"Why, sure," Pa said. "In fact, we'll take two. I've been known to take a drink myself, don't forget."
Janie sat very still, listening to the front door open and shut, thinking about the way Burt Connor had probably been watching her with the rubber prick in the hayloft. He was sure a strange man, she decided; she couldn't figure out just what to make of him. But he was sure scared now, she knew. She'd sensed that in his voice when Pa had told him about the Mahannahs. But Pa wasn't scared a bit. He'd never been scared of anything or anybody. In fact, he was probably hoping the Mahannas would show up, just so he could kill them.
But what if they killed Pa and Burt instead? She started shaking again. If they killed Pa and Burt, they'd get the money ... her money ... Then a new and terrifying thought came to her, and she jumped to her feet with a cry. If they killed Pa and Burt, they'd kill her too, to keep her from ever saying anything!
She just had to find that money! That's all there was to it! And she had to find it before the Mahannahs got here! She wanted very much to go to the spring and wash the dried cunt juice from her legs and pussy, but that would just have to wait for a while.
She ran into the front room and searched it again, even looking in the same places she'd looked before. She searched it from wall to wall, looking under and behind every object, steeling her nerve to reach down into every rat hole, looking through the bedclothes on the two cots-looking everywhere.
When she was satisfied the money was not in the cabin, she went out on the porch and looked there. She was perspiring profusely now, and her dress molded her breasts and torso like still-wet pink paint, the dark cones of her nipples seemingly on the verge of punching through the thin cloth.
She looked under the steps, and then under the porch itself. Then she followed the path all the way to the lane and back again, searching the weeds on either side. She looked beneath and all around the stile.
But she found nothing.
And as usual, all that exercise-the rapid movement of her thighs one against the other - had made her horny again. She stepped close to the stile, so she would be shielded from view from the front, and put her hand between her legs. Sure enough, she was streaming.
She took her hand off her pussy and looked at her dripping fingers, and for a moment she was tempted to go back to her room and relieve herself.
But no, she decided-she just didn't have time. Not with those Mahannahs on the way to kill Pa and Burt and take back Mahannah's money. She'd go to the spring and bathe herself and put out the fire in her pussy at the same time. And then she'd start looking for the money again. Maybe Pa and Burt had left it somewhere along the road that led up to the lane ..
She ran all the way to the spring. Without removing her dress - since it needed cleansing too - she stood under the spring for a few moments, then sat down in the stream and spread her legs wide so that the rushing current could bathe her pussy inside and out. But of course the nibble of the water against the membrane of her cunt felt so good that fresh juice kept rushing down to replace the juice that was washed away.
She didn't stay long. When she stepped out of the stream, she took off her dress, squeezed as much water from it as she could, and put it back on again, knowing it would dry on her body before she got home.
She was crossing the road through the trees when she heard the car engine. It was so quiet she thought it must be a quarter mile away. But when she glanced in the direction of the sound, she discovered to her amazement that the car was less than fifty yards away. It was an enormous car, shiny-black as wet coal, obviously a rich man's car, moving toward her without a single sound except the soft, quiet thrum of the engine.
She stopped in the middle of the road, pleased. It must be Rosanne's car, she thought to herself. Nobody but Rosanne and Pa had come along here for as long as she could remember. She smiled and waved. Rosanne must have come back in the hope of seeing her again.
But when the car drew to a stop, she realized she'd been mistaken. There were three people in the front seat-two men and a woman-and for several seconds they sat staring at her through the windshield without any expression at all.
Then the man on the passenger's side leaned out the window and beckoned to her. "Come here," he said. He was middle-aged, she saw, with shaggy black brows and two gold teeth.
"What do you want?" she said.
The man smiled, revealing two more gold teeth, further back in his mouth. He had a heavy, beard-stained jaw and very thin lips. "We're just trying to find our way," he said in a hoarse voice.
Janie walked over to the car. The woman sitting between the two men was about twenty, Janie guessed - a very pretty redhead with dark-green eyes and full red lips. She was sitting with her legs crossed, but her skirt was so short that Janie could see a tiny vee of red pussy hair.
The man behind the wheel looked very much like the other man except that he was younger and had no gold teeth.
"You fall in the water somewhere?" the man with the gold teeth said, smiling, as he ran his eyes up and down Janie's body. "You're soaking wet."
"No, sir," Janie said. "I got in the water intentional." - "Intentional?" the man said, his smile widening. "You hear that, Vince? She did it intentional."
"Knock if off, Ed," the younger man said, frowning.
The woman was still looking straight ahead through the windshield, twisting a ring around and around on her finger.
Janie felt as if her legs were turning to rubber. Ed and Vince! She was looking straight at the Mahannah brothers! And that redheaded woman was Duke Mahannah's wife!
"What you looking so scared about, honey?" Ed Mahannah said, the sun glinting on his gold teeth. "You think I'm going to bite you, or what?"
"I said knock it off," Vince Mahannah said. "Ask her, why don't you?"
"You live around here?"
"Of course she lives around here," the woman said, still without looking at Janie. "You think she's a summer tourist?"
"No," Janie said. "Not close around here, anyhow."
"We're looking for a gentleman named Mr. Elmore Hibbins," Ed said, his eyes on Janie's breasts. "He's a real good friend of ours, you see. We were in the neighborhood, and we thought we'd look him up."
"And surprise him," the woman said.
"Yes," Ed said. "And surprise him. You know where he lives?"
"What was the name?"
"Elmore Hibbins. He's got a farm around here somewhere."
Janie pursed her lips for a moment, then shook her head. "I never heard of anybody like that," she said. "There used to be a man named Higgins, though. He lived down the other side of -"
"Hibbins," Ed said, his eyes narrowing a little as he studied Janie's face. "He's got an old green Ford pickup truck-if that jogs your memory any."
"No, sir," Janie said. "I'd know if there was anybody around here like that." She shook her head again. "I'm sure sorry, but I just can't help you."
"Listen," Ed said, lowering his voice a little. "We know he lives around here. See? We had a friend of ours in the license bureau look it up special, so we could drop in on him."
"What the hell, Ed?" Vince said. "You're running your mouth too free again."
"So what's the difference?" Ed said.
"It's hot, just sitting here," the woman said. "Let's go."
Ed opened the door and got out. "I'll just stretch my legs a minute," he said. "A long ride always cramps the hell out of my legs." Then, before Janie knew what was happening, he grabbed her around the waist with one arm, yanked open the rear door of the car with his free hand, and shoved her inside.
"Now what?" Vince said, whirling around in the front seat. "You crazy or something, Ed?"
"Lock the back doors from the front," Ed said, climbing in after Janie. "And drive over there behind the trees, so nobody'll see us from the road."
"Moron," the woman said as the rear door locks clicked and the car turned off the road into the trees. "You're even wackier than Duke was, Ed. Did you know that?"
"This little cunt's lying," Ed said. "She knows damn well where that sonofabitch lives. Anybody can see that. Even you, Sharon."
"Well, so what if she does?" Sharon said. "What're you going to do about it? Twist her arm until she tells you?"
"I'll do worse than that, by God," Ed said. "All right, kid. Where the hell's that rat live?"
"Don't hurt me, Mr. Mahannah, sir," Janie said, cringing back into the corner of the seat.
"You hear that, Vince?" Ed said. "She even knows who we are, for God's sake!"
Both Vince and the woman turned around to stare at Janie, and now their faces were as hard as Ed's.
"How'd you know that?" Vince said.
"I heard the sheriff talking to my Pa this morning," Janie said. "He came around telling folks to watch out for you."
"You're lying," Ed said, drawing back his fist. "You see this?"
"Stop that, stupid," Sharon said. "Let her talk."
"Yeah, Ed," Vince said. "Take it a little easy, will you?"
"All right," Ed said. "Talk, then. And fast."
"The sheriff just said he sure had his hands full," Janie said. "He said it was first one thing and then another. He said he'd no sooner heard those jailbirds was up in the hills here than he heard there were some other dangerous men up here too."
Sharon laughed shortly. "I feel slighted," she said.
"Oh, he said there was a beautiful lady, too," Janie said. "He said he figured you were all up to some kind of meanness, but he didn't know just what."
"What else did he say?" Ed demanded.
"Nothing," Janie said.
"Nothing?"
"Not that I heard," Janie said. "I only heard a little, while I was walking past him and Pa on my way to -"
"You heard more than that."
"No, I didn't. Honest."
"Why'd you lie about not knowing where we could find that rat, Elmore Hibbins?"
"He's a nice old man. I didn't want you to do him any meanness." She noticed that Ed was looking beneath her brief skirt, straight at her pussy. "Oh, please, Mr. Mahannah, sir. Please don't hurt that good old man."
"Why, what gave you that idea?" Ed said. "We don't mean to hurt him at all, honey. We just mean to give him a talking-to." He put his hand on Janie's knee. "Where's he live?"
"Will you promise not to hurt him?"
"Well, we might hurt his feelings a little," Ed said, moving his hand slowly up Janie's leg. "But we sure won't do him any bodily harm. Right, Vince?"
"That's right," Vince said. "We just want to give him a stern lecture, miss."
"For his own good," Sharon said. "Tell us where we can find him, darling."
"Well," Janie said, "you follow that road back there on down the mountain about four miles. You'll come to a crossroads, but you keep straight on past it for about half a mile. There's a dirt road cuts off to the right. Mr. Hibbins lives down that, maybe a mile."
"That's quite a ways," Ed said. "We figured it was right around here somewhere."
"He lives where I told you," Janie said. "I've known him all my life. He and my pa used to go coon hunting together almost every night in the week."
"Well, don't you worry yourself about it," Ed said, running his hand up Janie's thigh until the tips of his fingers brushed against her pussy. "Like I say, we're just going to give him a little straight talk."
"Don't do that," Janie said, trying to draw back further into the corner. "With your hand, I mean."
"Why not?" Ed said. "It's pretty enjoyable, if you ask me." He slipped a fingertip into Janie's slit. "Wow! You've got a little furnace in there."
Vince and Sharon were both still turned around in the front seat, watching them. "Some family I married into," Sharon said, glancing at Vince. "Here his brother's not even cold yet, and he's got to go around feeling up little schoolgirls."
Janie tried to push Ed's hand away, but he snaked his left arm around her, pinioning her own arms, and pushed his finger up her all the way to her cherry.
"It's not possible," he said incredulously. "It just can't be."
"What?" Vince said.
"The kid's a virgin," Ed said. "At least I think so. It's the first time in my life I ever came across one."
"Well, leave her that way, and let's get on with our business," Vince said. But he was staring hard at Ed's probing finger, and he made no move to turn back to the steering wheel.
Sharon, too, was watching the movement of Ed's linger with great interest. She moistened her lips.
"Are you sure, Ed?"
"Hell, yes," Ed said. "It's like a little drumhead in there."
"Are you really a virgin, darling?" Sharon said.
"Yes," Janie said, trying unsuccessfully to twist away from Ed again. "Please stop, Mr. Mahannah, sir."
"Stop, hell," Ed said, rolling her clitoris back and forth beneath the ball of his thumb. "How old are you, honey?"
"Fif ... fifteen," Janie said. "Oh, please, Mr. Mahannah!"
"Fifteen, and you're still a virgin?" Sharon said, eyes widening. "Unbelievable."
"Well, she's not going to make it to sixteen" Ed said, reaching down to unzip his fly. "Your days of being a virgin are over, honey. As of now."
"For God's sake, Ed," Vince said. "What's the matter with you? We've got some killing to do. Or had you forgot?"
"It'll wait," Ed said, and suddenly his cock was out of his pants and standing straight up, so hard it seemed to be vibrating.
Janie took one look at it, then gasped and closed her eyes. It was even bigger than Roy Wilson's, she saw to her horror. In fact, it was almost as big as Pa's!
"Oh, don't," she wailed. "Oh, please, Mr. Mahannah, don't put that thing -"
"Just you relax now," Ed said, pulling her toward him so that she slid down on her back. "You put up a fight and I'll knock your teeth in. You keep on fighting and I'll snap your neck like a chicken bone."
"I never realized you were so well hung, Ed," Sharon said admiringly. "How come you never let me in on that fact before?"
"Ed, for God's sake," Vince said again. But he had turned all the way around in the seat now, his arms on the back, watching avidly.
"So just spread those pretty legs and enjoy yourself," Ed said. "After a couple minutes, you'll be hoping I never stop."
Janie tried to cross her legs, but Ed pried them apart again. Then he was over her, almost crushing her, and she felt the glans of his penis forcing its way between the lips of her pussy, moving slowly back to mash against her cherry.
"Oh, no, Mr. Mahannah," she said. "Oh, please, no! Pa will kill me. He inspects me every day, and he ..."
"Quiet," Ed said, increasing the pressure of his glans against her tender membrane.
"Oh, it hurts!" Janie cried.
"Quiet, I said," Ed grated.
"Janie felt something tear. There was a searing burst of pain in her pussy where her ruptured cherry had been, followed at once by an even greater pain as Ed's big cock forced open the tight walls of her vagina in its headlong plunge to her womb. Janie felt something hot and sticky-much hotter and stickier than love juice - welling out of her cunt, and she screamed.
"You broke it, Mr. Mahannah!" she cried. "You broke my cherry!"
"Damn well told," Ed said, forcing the last inch of his shaft inside her and grinding his wiry black pubic hair hard against the golden silk of her mound.
"I'm bleeding!" Janie said, beginning to whimper.
"Well, naturally, darling," Sharon said, her voice tight with excitement. "What else?"
"You're sure playing hell with that upholstery, Ed," Vince said. "She was dripping wet to begin with - and now look. All we need is for you to plaster one of your usual big wads all over it."
"Screw you," Ed said, drawing his cock almost out of Janie's vagina and then shoving it all the way in again. "You're just jealous it isn't your prick in here."
"Oh, Lord!" Janie said. "Oh, Mr. Mahannah, please don't do it any more. It's tearing my insides out."
"You know, this is really something to see," Sharon said, her face flushed. "I think I could get my jollies, just watching it. Does it really still hurt, darling?" she said hopefully.
"Oh, yes, ma'am," Janie said. "It hurts awful."
"Really?" Sharon said delightedly. "It really does?"
"Stop that damn yakking, slut," Ed said. "Didn't you ever see anybody get raped before?"
"No," Sharon said. "Sorry to say."
"Oh, please!" Janie said.
"This is beginning to get me pretty worked up, Ed," Vince said. "It reminds me of when you and I were kids. You remember that time we cornered that little Betty Campbell in the bushes behind the grade school?"
"You shut up, too," Ed said. "And besides, it wasn't Betty Campbell. It was her sister Susie."
"Yeah, you're right. It was Susie."
"Raise your left leg up a little more, will you, darling?" Sharon said. "I can't see -"
"Both of you shut up, damn it," Ed said, increasing the speed of his thrusts. "I'm going to be coming any second now."
"Aw, hell," Sharon said. "Can't you hold off just a little longer, Ed?"
Ed grunted, and pumped his prick into Janie's pussy so hard the car began to rock.
Janie lay with her eyes shut, her lower lip caught between her teeth. Something very strange was happening. There was still some pain, but very little, and there was less of it with every stroke. And now, in back of the pain and slowly replacing it, she could feel the first stirrings of pleasure. The hard hot meat choking her pussy from lips to womb was beginning to feel good!
"Oh, my goodness ... " she breathed.
"You hear that?" Ed said. "She likes it, by God!"
"Who could blame her?" Sharon said. "That whanger of yours is the kind of cock most little girls can only dream of."
Janie began to breathe very fast, and suddenly she realized that she had crossed her ankles behind Ed's back and was beginning to roll her hips on the seat.
"Oh, my," she said, raising her pussy up as far as she could. "Oh, my, Mr. Mahannah!"
"Here it comes!" Ed shouted. His body stiffened and trembled. "Now, now, now!" He arched his back so suddenly that Janie, impaled on his prick, was lifted six inches off the seat. "Now, by God!"
Janie felt his hot come pouring out inside her, and she scissored her legs around the small of his back and hugged him to her with all her strength. The feel of his spurting discharge against the membrane of her vagina and womb triggered the well of her being, and she groaned with ecstasy as she began to come, feeling her own copious flow of juice descending to mingle with his. The sensation was so heavenly that she almost lost consciousness, coming again and again, rapidly, one time after another, biting at his shoulder in her frenzy to come even faster and harder.
Then, to her dismay, she felt Ed withdraw his prick and start to move back from her.
"Oh, please, Mr. Mahannah," she said. "Leave it in there!"
Ed laughed shortly and zipped up his pants. "Open the doors back here," Vince," he said.
The door locks clicked. "Out, kid," Ed said, pushing the door open.
"But why, Mr. Mahannah?" Janie said, sitting up.
"You heard me," he said. "Beat it."
"Thanks, darling," Sharon said.
"What?" Janie said.
"For the show," Sharon said. "Too bad there can never be an encore. But losing a cherry is a one-time affair."
"I said to get out," Ed said.
Janie got out, and Ed drew the door shut.
"What if she tells?" Vince said. "Maybe we'd better invest a bullet."
"You kidding?" Ed said. "These mountain girls never admit they've been raped. They know their folks would kill them. Hell, you heard her say so herself."
"Just the same -" Vince began.
Vince is right, Ed," Sharon said. "You could go to the pen for life. Better put a slug between her tits and make sure."
"Forget it," Ed said. "What kind of manners is that - to give a kid her first fuck and then shoot her? You talk like a couple of yahoos. Move this car on out of here, Vince. We've got some important shooting to do."
Janie wasn't able to take a full breath until the big black car was out of sight around the bend, where the road skirted the edge of the woods and almost doubled back on itself. The shock of her near brush with death had been bad enough, God knew, but the sudden realization that she had lost her cherry - something she had forgotten during those moments of orgasm - had left her almost too weak to stand.
She would be killed now, she knew-strapped to a bloody pulp. And that event would take place the very next time Pa slipped a finger into her cunt and found nothing to impede it.
She raised her skirt and looked down at the crimson evidence of what had happened to her in the back seat, then quickly flipped the skirt down again to hide it.
Oh, Lord, she thought as she ran back down to the stream to wash the evidence away. I'm ruined!
She cleansed herself quickly, thankful that there were no telltale stains on her dress, then started back toward the cabin, running as fast as she could. She had to warn Pa and Burt about the Mahannahs. Just as soon as the Mahannahs realized she'd sent them on a wild-goose chase, they'd be back. And when they got there, they'd have even more blood in their eye than they'd had when she met them.
She was afraid to go anywhere near Pa for fear that he would inspect her. But she had to; if she didn't warn him and Burt, the Mahannahs would kill them both. Which meant she might never find the money. Pa and Burt had hidden it too well - so well that, if they died, the knowledge of where the money was would die with them.
She heard the first shot when she was within a few yards of the place where the road made a hairpin turn and started back in the other direction. It was Pa's rifle, she knew; she'd heard it so many hundred times she was certain of it.
And now there were other shots - pistol shots - and the deep roar of a shotgun. Then there were so many shots that they blurred together for several seconds. Then there was a short silence, followed by two more rifle shots and a final roar of the shotgun.
Janie knew what had happened. Pa had taken Burt out to practice with the shotgun and they had spotted the Mahannahs on the road. They'd probably seen them coming and laid for them in the brush beside the ruts. However it had happened, it was all over now, or there'd still be shooting. There'd be some dead people; that was sure. And it wouldn't be Pa and Burt, because their rifle and shotgun had been the last guns she heard.
She ran through the trees until she came to the brush by the turn, and then bent over so that she would be less easily seen, and proceeded more slowly. When she came to a small opening in the brush, she stopped and pushed the leaves aside carefully to peer out.
The Mahannahs' car, apparently, had skidded off the dirt road and turned halfway around in the weeds on the far side of it. Both the doors on the driver's side were open, and the engine was still running.
Down the road, a few yards from the car, Pa and Burt were standing with their guns in the crook of their arm, each of them tilting up one of the whiskey jars they had taken with them. Midway between them and the car, Ed Mahannah lay on his back, his face a red mask, a revolver still clinched in his right hand. In front of the car, almost beneath the wheels, Vince lay facedown, the top of his head blown away. Sharon lay on her back in the grass between the ruts, one knee raised slightly, her skirt up around her waist. There was a seeping bullet hole just below and to the left of her navel, and a dark stain an inch beneath the lower slope of her left breast. Her arms were flung out to either side, and the forefinger of her right hand was caught in the trigger guard of a small automatic.
"Well, Burt," Janie heard Pa say, "for a beginner, you done right well."
"It was just luck," Burt said modestly, tilting his jar up again.
"Maybe so," Pa said. "But you couldn't of taken that bastard's scalp off any slicker if you'd used a meat cleaver."
"Well, that's nice of you to say, anyhow," Burt said. "One thing-we don't have to worry about the Mahannahs any more."
"That's for certain," Pa said. "Kind of a shame about Duke's wife, though. She was a right fine-looking woman." He paused. "Still is, with her dress hiked up like that and all."
"I don't know why it's a shame. She came out shooting just like the men did."
"And shooting just as wild, too, thank the Lord," Pa said, starting toward the car. "Let's take a little closer peek at our handiwork."
"What happens now?" Burt said.
"Why, we take turns, I reckon," Pa said. "Maybe flip a coin to see who's first."
"What?" Burt said.
"You don't aim to let it go to waste, do you?"
"What're you talking about?"
"That fine piece of redheaded pussy yonder. Just look at it, will you?"
"You serious, Elmore?"
"Damn right. A man that'd pass up something like that would have to be a lunatic."
"For God's sake, Elmore. You mean you're -?"
"What the hell's the matter with you, Burt? You squeamish about pronging corpses or something?"
Burt looked at him for a moment, then drank the last of his whiskey and tossed the jar into the weeds. "We've got to do something about the car and bodies," he said.
"I already told you what I'm going to do about one of them bodies," Pa said, looking down at Sharon. "And that grass beneath her ain't going to grow a whole lot higher before I do it, too."
"Hiding the bodies won't be too much of a problem," Burt said. "But what're we going to do with the car?"
"We drive it off a cliff I know about," Pa said. "It'll end up two hundred yards straight down, in forty foot of water." He laughed. "With the Mahannah boys and this pretty red-haired thing inside it, of course."
"You sure nobody will find them?"
"I can double-guarantee you they won't. Hell, the only way you can get down there is to fall down."
"Well, we'd better get them loaded in the car, then," Burt said. "Somebody might come along here."
"You worry too much, Burt," Pa said, leaning over to put his rifle and whiskey jar on the ground. "We'll heave the men in, all right. But the little lady here is going to have to wait a spell. In fact, I don't see no point in heaving anybody in until afterwards." He began to unbuckle his belt, looking down at Sharon. "You ever see a prettier little red-haired pussy than that, Burt?"
"Come on, Elmore," Burt said, laughing nervously. "You aren't really going to -?"
"I ain't?" Pa said. "Well, you just watch me for a while, and then see what you think."
In the brush by the side of the road, Janie shuddered and turned away. She moved off very slowly, careful to make no sound, watching for dried twigs that might snap beneath her foot and give her away. When she was well back into the woods, she walked faster, and finally she ran.
She took the long way home, and she ran every foot of the way. It wasn't that she was in any hurry to reach the cabin. It was just that she wanted to get as far away as she could from the place where so many terrible things had happened-and were still happening.
Chapter Six
When Janie got home, she went directly to her room to see whether Billy was there. She was just as sweaty as she'd been when she left for the spring, and she wanted to bathe at the pump. But first she had to make sure Billy wasn't around to see her. Pa had said a hundred times that if she ever let Billy see her naked, he'd strap her within an inch of her life. Billy had heard him too, and he was just mean enough to sneak up on her so he could tell Pa and get her strapped.
But Billy wasn't in her room, or in the barn when she looked there, and so she went to the pump and drew a bucket of water. She carried the bucket and the gourd dipper over to the corner between the cabin wall and the lean-to shed built against it. Here, she was shielded from two directions, at least, and she could see for a considerable distance in the others, far enough to run inside before anyone got close enough to know what she was up to.
She took off her dress, held her long blonde hair away from herself with one hand, and ladled the cool, clear water over her back and breasts and shoulders until the bucket was empty, shivering a little, frowning at the way the water caused her nipples to pucker and fade from red to pink, trying not to think about what had happened.
When she had finished, she took the bucket and gourd back to the pump and, carrying her dress over her arm, hurried to her room.
"Caught you," she heard Billy's voice say as she started around the blanket that divided her half of the room from his. "Caught you good this time, by God."
"Why, you little devil!" Janie gasped, whipping the dress up in front of her to cover her nakedness.
He had been standing just the other side of the door, with his shoulders flat against the wall, in the one place in the room where he knew she wouldn't see him when she came in.
"Darn you, Billy!" she said. "You were just trying to trick me."
"I wasn't just trying. I done it."
"What makes you so mean, anyhow?"
He grinned and moved away from the wall, his pinched, evil little face leering knowingly at her from beneath the tousled shock of whitish yellow hair.
"I was spying on you from behind the corncrib," he said. "When you taken the bucket back to the pump, I run over to the porch before you could turn around again. I saw you the whole damn time."
"You doggone little sneak," Janie said. "You're the meanest boy I ever saw."
He spat through his teeth, hitched up the straps of his overalls, and spat again. "You're sure growed yourself a mighty fine pair of knockers, sis," he said. "If they stuck out any more, you couldn't see your feet."
"You stop talking that way," Janie said. "You hear?"
"Don't get so sassy," he said. "After last night, you got no call to get so feisty."
"What do you mean 'after last night'?"
"When you was wanting to suck my peter."
"I didn't want to. You were begging me to."
"You wanted to, all right. I could tell."
"Well, what if I did? What's wrong with that?"
"They ain't nothing wrong with it. It's just funny you'd want to suck my peter, and then get so all-fired riled just because I see you buck-ass naked behind the shed. It don't make sense."
"Oh, shut up, Billy. What do you know about anything?"
"Girls never make sense, nohow. Here I just got through seeing all you got. And now you're hiding it again, like I wasn't even supposed to know it was there. How much sense is there in that, for God's sake?"
"You think you're pretty smart, don't you?"
"I ain't as dumb as you, by God. And besides, what're you afraid of?"
"You know what Pa said about you seeing me that way."
"He ain't going to know unless I tell him."
"You'll tell him, all right. You probably can't wait."
"I won't either. Not if you let me see you up close like this."
"No."
"All right, then. I'll tell him soon as he comes home."
"You said you weren't going to be mean to me any more."
"I won't be mean if you ain't. And it'd be mean if you didn't let me see you up close."
"You promise not to tell?"
"Sure I do. I might be wanting to look at you again sometime."
She lowered the dress and held it down to one side. "There," she said. "Take a good look, Billy."
"Boy howdy," he said. "Damn if you ain't built to hell and gone."
"You satisfied now?"
"Hell, no," he said, staring at her pussy. "The more I look, the more I want to."
"Well, you've seen enough for one time," she said, and walked around the blanket to her cot. She halfway expected him to follow her, but he didn't, and a moment later she heard him leave the room.
She tossed her soiled dress into a corner, sat down on the side of the cot, and slipped a finger into her pussy, curious to see how it felt now that she no longer had a cherry. She'd expected the place where the cherry had been to smart a little. But it didn't. Not even when she frigged herself experimentally a few moments with first one and then two fingers.
This ought to be one of the most thrilling times of her life, she reflected, as she pushed her fingers as far up herself as they would go. She felt cheated. What should have been such a happy time was spoiled by the certain knowledge of what would happen the next time Pa stuck his fingers up her.
She played with herself another minute or so, trying to get herself into the mood to really masturbate. But it was no use. She couldn't keep from thinking about Pa and the strap, and her pistoning fingers pleasured her hardly at all. And for the first time she could remember, there was so little juice that it didn't even run out of her slit. In fact, it didn't much more than moisten her fingers. And as for her nipples, they were only half hard, and absolutely no juice had seeped from them at all.
Finally, in disgust, she jumped up and got her running-away dress and began to work on it furiously, trying to get her mind off what was ahead for her.
But she had had a trying night and morning, and soon she grew sleepy, and lay back to rest her eyes.
She didn't realize she'd dozed off until she came awake to the sound of voices in the other room. It was Pa and Burt, and she could tell right away that they'd gotten themselves drunk all over again.
There was the pound of a fist on the door. "Janie June!" Pa called. "Get yourself out here."
"Yes, sir," she called back. It'll happen now, she thought as she hurried into her other, everyday dress. He'll inspect me, and it'll be all over.
Pa and Burt were sitting at the table, both with whiskey jars in front of them, their faces flushed and slack with drink.
"Get to cracking on that stove, girl," Pa said. "Burt and me's hungry as sin."
"There isn't anything to cook," Janie said, starting for the front door. "I'll have to fetch something from the smokehouse."
"No, you won't," Pa said, pointing to the stove. "I brung in a ham just now. Fry us up about half of it, and brown some taters. And don't take all day doing it, neither."
"Yes, sir," Janie said. "I'll fix it faster than a cat can wink its eye."
"You better," Pa said, raising his jar. "How's it feel to be a rich man, Burt?"
"Right good," Burt said. "No, sir, I can't complain one bit."
"And how's it feel to be the champion shotgun shooter of Tennessee?"
"Shhh," Burt said, glancing at Janie. "Watch it, Elmore."
Janie busied herself getting a fire started, then began to slice off huge slabs of ham for the big iron frying pan. The pan was eighteen inches across, and Pa had told her it had been in his family for more than a hundred years. The older a pan was the better, he said, because after eight or ten years the grease soaked all the way through the iron.
As Janie sliced potatoes to spread around between the pieces of ham, she noticed that Burt was staring at the hem of her skirt. She didn't think much about it at first, since that was what men always did, but when she realized that he looked almost as much surprised as he did horny, she began to wonder. Could it be that the already too-short dress had shrunk even more than the last time she washed it?
As she dropped pieces of potato into the pan, she reached down with her other hand, making it casual, to see just how short it was.
It had shrunk by golly! Why, she could feel pussy hair beneath it! No wonder Burt was gawking at her. He could see the bottom part of her pussy, even when she was just standing there with her arms down at her sides. When she moved around, and raised her arms, he could see all of it.
Oh, darn it all, anyway, she thought. That doggone dress is going to be the ruin of me. When Pa sees my pussy, it'll remind him he hasn't inspected me all day. And that will be the last of Janie June Hibbins.
"Well, this here cabin may not be much," Pa was saying. "But it sure beats forty foot of water at the bottom of a cliff, hey, Burt?"
"Shhh," Burt said again. "Later, Elmore."
Pa laughed and took another drink of his whiskey. "Like I told you before, you worry too much," he said. "Ain't nobody ever going to know about it but you and me and the fishes."
"Damn it, Elmore," Burt said nervously. "You better watch what you -"
"And that other's even safer," Pa' said, leaning forward to turn on the old radio. "Them fishes ain't even going to see it."
"No crap, Elmore," Burt said, jerking his head toward Janie June. "Talk about something else."
"How about the high old time we're going to have us in Nashville?" Pa said. "That suit you?"
"That'll be fine," Burt said, and lifted his own jar. "And the sooner we make Nashville, the better."
Country music filled the room-twelve-string guitar and five-string banjo. Pa turned the volume down a little. "Takes the damn thing a while to warm up," he said. "Must be a. female radio, hey, Burt?"
Janie edged her way around the wall to the door of her room, watching Pa out of the corner of her eye, hoping against hope that he wouldn't take a notion to turn around and look at her. Then she let herself inside, ran to her cot, and stripped off her dress. Thirty seconds later she was back at the stove again, wearing the dress she had taken off when she came home.
And now Pa did look over at her. "Where'd you go?" he said, frowning.
"Out in my room," Janie said.
"Hell, I know that, goddamnit," Pa said. "I mean, what for?"
"The grease was spattering," she said. "I didn't want to get it on my fresh dress."
Pa looked at Burt and shook his head pityingly. "Ain't that just like a woman now, Burt? I tell you, they're all a little touched-every damn one of them."
Burt snickered. "I liked the other dress better, Janie," he said. "A hell of a lot better."
"What was so damn special about it?" Pa said.
"Oh, I don't know. It just appealed to me somehow."
"Well, just don't get yourself into too much of a sweat," Pa said, looking hard at Burt. "Just don't let anything about that girl get you too worked up, my friend. Because I aim to deliver her to Jud Slathers just the way she is right now." He narrowed his eyes a little. "You know what I mean, Burt? You follow me, boy?"
"Sure," Burt said easily. "And like I told you, you got no reason to fret yourself one bit."
Janie felt herself begin to tremble. Pa's mind was on her cherry now, she knew. If he and Burt kept talking this way, he'd inspect her, sure as anything.
"What's all those flat pints in the corner for, Pa?" she said, hoping to shift his mind somewhere else. "You want me to fill them for you, or what?"
"Yeah," Pa said. "And out of that special barrel I been saving. You know the one?"
"Yes, Pa."
"They're for the wedding guests, come Saturday."
"That's mighty good of you, Pa," she said.
"Good, my ass," Pa said. "I figure by spreading them around, I'll drum me up some new business."
"But you aren't going to be around to -" Burt began.
"Now you hush," Pa said quickly.
"You want me to wash the bottles good, Pa?" Janie said, filling two plates with the ham and potatoes.
"Damn well told," Pa said. "But only on the outside, where it'll show. If they don't look scummy on the inside, folks will think my booze ain't got no belt to it."
"How's that again, Elmore?" Burt said.
"Folks hereabouts are peculiar, is all," Pa said. "They think 'shine without a little scum and charcoal in it ain't worth drinking. They think it ain't no better than you can buy in a store."
"I'll be damned," Burt said.
Janie served the ham and potatoes. "You want anything else, Pa?" she said.
"No," Pa said. "But you burned the goddamn taters again, I see."
"You want me to bottle those pints now?" she said, hoping to get out of the cabin before Pa started thinking about her cherry again.
"Tomorrow will be soon enough," Pa said. "How's your butt feel?"
"Sir?"
"From the hiding I gave you this morning," Pa said. "Is your butt proper sore, or ain't it? If it ain't, I can cure that situation damn fast."
"It hurts something awful, Pa," she said.
"Glad to hear it," he said. "How about that, Burt? Wouldn't even kiss the gent she's going to marry."
"A scandal," Burt said, grinning. "I'm surprise at you, Janie."
Pa laughed. "And here she'll be bedding down with him the rest of her life, come Saturday," he said. "Or maybe I should say the rest of his life-seeing as he ain't exactly no spring chicken."
Janie began to tremble again. Talking about the wedding might put Pa in mind of her cherry.
"Can I go to my room now, Pa?"
"What for?" Pa said. "You spend half your life in there."
"I don't feel so good," she said. "I want to stretch out a while."
"Well, go on then," Pa said. "You're just too damn excited about marrying Jud, is all. A thing like that is bound to churn up a girl's innards a little, I reckon."
"Yes, sir," Janie said, backing away toward the door of her room. "Thank you, Pa."
"Well, Burt," Pa said, "dig in on them victuals. That pig ain't never et nothing but goobers, and I sugar-cured him right good. As for them taters, they been seeped in virgin pee for nigh on a month."
"What?" Burt said.
Pa laughed. "Just funning," he said. "The actual truth is, they've only been soaked in it a couple of nights."
Janie closed the door behind her and walked around the blanket to her cot. She was still trembling. It had been a very close thing in there, what with her doggone shrunk-up dress, and all that talk about marrying. She was just darn lucky Pa hadn't thought to finger her. Next time, she wouldn't be so lucky.
"Now, what's all this about you drumming up some new customers for your booze?" she heard Burt say. "You aren't even going to be here, Elmore."
Pa said something in reply, but he had lowered his voice. Curious, Janie went back to stand close to the door, where she could hear better.
" ... and I don't want her knowing about it just yet," Pa was saying. "So don't talk so loud."
"All right," Burt said. "But what're you up to?"
"I got me ten and a half barrels of pretty sorry corn," Pa said. "Batches I run off while I was drunk, most of them. And some I just plain didn't do proper with. There's two that Janie June botched up while she was learning, and one god-awful batch I just can't explain nohow."
"That's a fortune, ten and a half barrels," Burt said. "Too bad."
"Well, it won't be, come the wedding."
"How so?"
"Because I'm going to sell every drop of that stuff to the guests," Pa said. "That's why I'll be passing out them flat pints of my best sipping whiskey. As samples, you know."
"As samples from the bad barrels, you mean?"
"Right."
"Aha," Burt said.
"Oh, I'll make them a good price on it, all right," Pa said.
"I'm sure," Burt said.
"And by the time they get around to picking up their bargains, we'll be gone."
"I'm right disappointed in you, Elmore. I always figured you were an honest man." He paused. "And you haven't told Janie June you're pulling out of here?"
"She'll be a married woman, won't she? What's it to her?"
"Which reminds me," Burt said. "How about Billy?"
"What about him?"
"Well, I was just wondering. You don't aim to drag him along with us to Nashville, do you?"
"You simple or something? How much hell's a man going to raise with a little shit like that around? I mean to spend my time pronging them high-class city hoors, not wiping some damn kid's nose."
"Well, what're you going to do with him, then?"
"Take him down to his grandpa's and grandma's in Wynette. They been pestering me to keep him ever since he was knee-high to a duck."
"Good idea."
"I figured we'd take him down this evening."
"Is that far? Wynette?"
"Naw. Two- or three-hour round trip, maybe - counting the time to share a jar with the old folks."
"You think it's smart, being gone that long?"
"What do you mean?"
"When those Mahannahs don't get back to Chattanooga, some of the boys in their outfit are going to begin to wonder about them."
"Let them."
"Yes-but they just might come up here to see what happened."
"How're they going to know where to come?"
"The Mahannahs knew, didn't they? Probably from the license number on the truck, you said."
"That don't mean they told anybody else," Pa said. "In fact, it'd of been a point of pride with them not to. They'd want to keep you and me for themselves, Burt. That's just the way they was."
"Maybe so. But -"
"They was hill folks to begin with, you know. You kill a Mahannah, and a Mahannah is going to kill you. And he ain't going to bring in anybody from outside the family to help him do it, either."
"Just the same -"
Pa laughed. "You're just bound and determined to worry about something, ain't you?" he said. "Besides which, your victuals are getting cold."
Janie went back to her cot and spent the next fifteen minutes letting out the hem of her shrunken dress. When she had finished, it was still too short, but at least it reached an inch or so beneath her pussy. She'd just have to be careful not to bend over or reach up for anything in front of Pa, that's all. And later, when Pa and Burt left, she could wash out her soiled dress and dry it fast by the stove.
Why did Pa have to be so greedy, she thought to herself as she began to work on her running-away dress again. He already had half the money he and Burt had stolen from Duke Mahannah. Why didn't he just go off to Chattanooga now, without waiting to marry her to Jud Slathers just so he could have even more money? But no, he was just too darn mean and greedy. Like the way he was going to sell the wedding guests that bad whiskey.
When she thought of the wedding, and about what she'd have to do with Jud Slathers afterward, it was like a fist clenching in her stomach. She'd never be able to run away from Jud, she knew. He was a rich man. He owned half the valley and most of the mountain, folks said. He could pay to find her and bring her back no matter how far she went, even if it was to the ends of the earth. Just a runaway girl was easy enough to find and bring back; a runaway wife-a rich man's wife-would be even easier.
And then there was what Burt Connor had said about someone coming up the mountain to see what had happened to the Mahannahs. She hadn't even thought of that, for gosh sake. What if Pa was wrong? What if some of the Mahannah's friends did come up? Darn it all, anyhow, now she had to start worrying about that again.
What was she going to do? she wondered. She had to run away-she had to. And yet she couldn't run away unless she found the money. She felt a tear start down her cheek. Doggone it, Pa and Burt had hidden that money so good she'd never find it. She began to sob.
She heard the front door open and close.
"Where the hell you been, Billy?" Pa said.
"Fishing," Billy said. "I didn't catch nothing, though."
"Bundle up your clothes," Pa said. "Right now."
"What?" Billy said.
"You heard me."
"But what for?"
"You're going to be living with grandpa for a spell."
"You mean it?" Billy said. "Hot damn!"
"Get cracking, boy. We're leaving right now."
"Yes, sir!" Billy said, and a moment later he burst through the door and rushed around the blanket to confront Janie. "I'm going to stay with Grandpa," he said. "I won't have to put up with you no more."
She dried her eyes. "Goody for you," she said ..
He ran back to his side of the room and began to I gather up his few belongings. "You got something I can wrap my stuff in, Janie June?" he called.
"Wrap it in your other shirt," she said, and took the last stitch in her running-away dress. Well, at least it's ready, she thought to herself as she hung it on the wall beside her cot. Now if the good Lord will only let me find the money so I can wear it!
"Good-bye, you dumb girl, you," Billy called as he jerked open the door to the other room.
I wish I was a boy, Janie thought. Pa wouldn't be selling me to Jud Slathers then, by golly! "Goodbye, Billy," she said.
Then, as the door slammed behind him, she glanced down at herself and raised her hands to cup her breasts, feeling the pouting nipples begin to quicken beneath her fingers.
"No, I don't," she said aloud, smiling to herself as she pressed the nipples a little harder. "I wouldn't be anything but a girl for all the tea in China."
Chapter Seven
When Pa and Burt got back from Wynette, just before suppertime, they were roaring drunk, and Pa was in one of the meanest moods Janie could remember. He and Burt must have got into it about something, she decided as she cooked supper for them. They kept giving each other hard looks, and muttering things about how they wouldn't trust each other any further than they could throw them.
And then, sure enough, Pa started talking about the wedding again - so drunk he was more or less talking to himself, with Burt just sitting there scowling at him.
Janie served their supper, picked up her pink dress, which she had washed earlier and had been drying on a chair back by the stove, and started for her room.
"By God!" Pa said, slamming his fruit jar down on the table. "I damn near forgot! Janie June, get your butt over here." He turned around in his chair to glower at her, his eyes red and unfocused. "Get over here, I said!"
Janie took a step toward him, then paused, trying to keep from shaking. "What do you want, Pa?" she said.
"You know damn well what. I ain't inspected you all day. I just plain damn forgot."
It wouldn't do any good to tell him Ed Mahannah had taken her cherry against her will, Janie knew. Pa wouldn't believe her. And even if he did, he'd be so mad he'd kill her. If he'd been sober, he might only strap the hide off her. But, drunk as he was now, he'd kill her sure.
"You can't, Pa," she said.
"What!" he roared, half rising from his chair. "You defying me again, damn you?"
"Oh, no, sir," Janie said beginning to cry. "Oh, no sir! It's-it's just the wrong time, Pa. I-I fell off the roof today."
"You what?" Pa said incredulously.
"I couldn't help it," Janie said.
"You're lying. You only fell off it a couple weeks ago."
"Oh, no, sir. It was a month, Pa. Don't you remember?"
"Well, I don't give a good goddamn," Pa said. "Get yourself over here. I mean to -" He broke off suddenly, and then slowly sank back in his chair, his toothless mouth spreading wide in a grin. "By God," he said, shaking his head from side to side and reaching over to nudge Burt in the ribs. "Ain't that something? Ain't that the funniest damn thing you ever heard, Burt?"
Burt rubbed his ribs, reached for his whiskey jar, and frowned at him. "You crazy, Elmore?" he said.
"Don't you get it?" Pa said, and then laughed so hard the spittle flew out of his mouth. "She just fell off the roof!"
"So she said," Burt said. "What the hell's so funny about that?"
"She's a bride, damn it," Pa said, trying to keep from choking. "She's going to marry Jud Slathers Saturday, and she just fell off the roof!" He went into another uncontrollable laughing fit. "Can't you just see that old fart's face, Burt? Here he pays five thousand dollars for a cherry, and when he takes her to bed on his wedding night -" He broke off again. "Oh, my God! I'd almost give him back his money, just to see his face."
"You better hope he thinks it's as funny as you do," Burt said. "And you damn sure better get your money first, too."
Pa was choking and gasping, the tears rolling down his cheeks. "Don't you worry about that," he said. "As soon as the preacher gets his five dollars, I get my five thousand." He held his sides, laughing. "Oh, my God! Great Lord A-mighty! It's the funniest thing ever happened on the mountain!"
"It wasn't so funny seeing those people stop up there by the cave," Burt said darkly. "That worries me, Elmore."
"You're always worrying," Pa said, wiping his eyes. "They wasn't any of the Mahannah crew, I told you. Stop fretting yourself."
"Just the same, I -"
"They was just spooners, damn it. Looking for a place to fuck."
"In a cave?"
"Sure, in a cave. There's a lot of pronging goes on in there, Burt. I never been in there yet I didn't find a pile of rubbers." He broke out laughing again. "Oh, that poor damn Jud Slathers! That horny old fart is gonna be fit to be tied!"
Janie backed away slowly until she reached the door of her room, then turned quickly and went inside, closing the door behind her without a word.
She'd gotten away with her ruse only because Pa was so drunk, she knew. And just because he'd sidetracked himself that way didn't mean she was safe. He might take another notion to inspect her any minute now. In fact, he was almost sure to. Once he got all the laughing out of his system, he'd start thinking a little straighter. And when he did, he'd realize she'd tricked him. He'd come tearing back here to shove his finger up her-and then he'd kill her.
The time had come, she knew; there wasn't a minute to spare. She had to run away - and she had to do it right now, before Pa got his wits about him again. To wait any longer would be just plain suicide.
But it was broad daylight, and she had only the two dimes in her locket. And she couldn't just go up to the road on the ridge and beg somebody to give her a ride in their car. No matter how far she got that way, it wouldn't be far enough. Once Pa told Sheriff Loonsey she was missing, the sheriff would spread the word all over the county, and she'd be back here in no time.
But wait! She didn't have to go up on the ridge. Not right away. She could go somewhere and hide for a day or two-until Pa and the sheriff figured she was long gone - and then go up there.
"That's it, by golly!" she exclaimed. "My goodness! Why didn't I ever think of that before?"
Excited now, she whipped the dress over her head and put on the new white dress she had made to run away in. She'd go over to the Shanley place and stay with Rosanne, by gosh! Rosanne had invited her to visit with her and her brother when she and Janie had had all that fun at the spring. Rosanne liked her, she knew; she'd be glad to help her. Maybe she could stay with her three or four days, maybe even a week. It was even possible Rosanne would lend her the money for bus fare to Chattanooga. Or better yet, Rosanne might even take her back to Chattanooga with her. After all, hadn't she said she wished Janie belonged to her?
Out in the other room, Pa was still laughing and making jokes about Jud Slathers and Janie on their wedding night.
Quickly, Janie put on the mail-order shoes Pa had ordered for the marrying, then hurried over to the trunk to get her locket and earrings. Scarcely able to contain herself, she fastened the locket around her neck and threaded the small gold hoops through the punctures in her earlobes. The new shoes were just a little loose on her tiny, high-arched feet, but not enough to matter.
She was ready.
She went to the window, raised the sash, and crawled out backward, being very careful not to tear her dress on the splintered frame as she lowered herself to the ground.
A few moments later she was safely in the trees, running along the path that led to the Shanley place, two miles away. But a short distance further on, she paused to take off her shoes. She wasn't used to them, and she could run much better without them.
When she came within sight of the Shanley cabin - big and well kept in its broad clearing in the trees - she stopped long enough to put on her shoes again. It was rapidly growing dark now; the cabin seemed to be standing in a pool of purpled shadows. As she watched, a light came on behind one of the windows, and then another. There was a big white car in the yard between the cabin and the dirt road that curved in toward the cabin and then away again.
She went up on the porch and knocked at the door.
There was absolute silence for almost a full minute. Maybe they didn't hear me, Janie mused, and knocked harder.
The door opened a crack. "Yeah?" a man's voice said.
It must be Rosanne's brother, Janie knew. What had Rosanne said his name was? Frank? No. Fred? Yes, Fred-that was it.
"Hello, Fred," she said.
The man didn't say anything, and he didn't open the door any wider.
"I've come to visit with Rosanne," Janie said. "I'm Janie June Hibbins."
The man opened the door and stood looking at her. "You don't say," he said. He was a very big man, and young, but completely bald, dressed in gray coveralls. He was holding a gun, the barrel pointed down at the floor.
"Oh, my goodness," Janie said, staring at the gun.
"Don't let it worry you," the man said, motioning her inside. "A man just never knows who's at the door, that's all. Come on in."
"Thank you, Fred," Janie said, stepping into the room. And now she saw there were two other men there, also in gray coveralls, and both holding guns. "Oh, my," she said, taking a step backward. "Oh, my goodness!"
The man by the door closed and locked it and put the key in his pocket. "We've got ourselves some company, boys," he said, smiling at Janie. "Miss Janie June Hibbons, no less."
The other two men studied her narrowly for a moment, then put their guns away. They were both young too - lean, hard-looking men with close-cropped hair. One of them was hawk-faced; the other had features as small and even as a girl's, his short hair almost as blond as Janie's own.
"I don't like this," the hawk-faced man said, coming forward. "What's she doing here, Gus?"
"She says she's come to visit somebody named Rosanne," the man by the door said, his eyes roving up and down Janie's body. "Pretty little piece, isn't she?"
"What's this Rosanne look like?" the hawk-faced man said. "Talk up, kid."
"She's got real black hair and blue eyes," Janie said, trying to control the tremor in her knees. "She said she was staying here. Her and her brother Fred."
"Well, they ain't here no longer," the hawk-faced man said. "So you can just turn around and -"
"Just a damn minute, Jack," Gus said. "Is that any way to treat a lady?"
The blond man spoke for the first time, "I'll treat her to something, all right," he said in a soft, lazy voice, staring at Janie's breasts. "After four years in the pen, I'll -"
"Shut up, Earl," Gus said.
The pen! Janie thought. So that was it! These mean-looking men in the odd gray coveralls were jailbirds. They were the men who had broken out of a police truck in Chattanooga the night before. They even had a white car outside, like the sheriff said they'd stolen to get away in. And they were dangerous, too, he'd said; they'd all been doing life for murder.
"Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you," Gus said. "But your friend and her brother are gone."
"But we're here," the blond man said. "And we're even gladder to see you than she would be."
"I ain't so sure," the hawk-faced man said, going over to draw the blinds. "I ain't so sure about that."
"They were just plain unfriendly," Gus said. "All we wanted to do was stay with them a night or two. But no, they wouldn't have it. They just packed up in a hurry and high-tailed it on out of here." He laughed. "Didn't even say good-bye, as a matter of fact."
"I see," Janie said, turning back toward the door. "Well, then, I'll just -"
Gus put out his arm to bar her way. "You must live real close around here. We didn't see any other cabins, though."
"I live two miles from here," Janie said.
"How'd you get here?"
"I walked."
"You tell anybody where you were going?"
"Gosh, no. I -" Janie began. Then she caught herself. "Of course, I didn't have to. My pa and two big brothers already knew where -"
"Sure they did," Gus said, grinning at Jack and Earl. "For a girl, you aren't too good a liar, are you?"
"Please," Janie said. "I just want to go home."
"What?" Gus said. "And make us think you're unfriendly, like your black-haired friend? Why, I'm surprised at you."
"I ain't sure I like this," Jack said, going over to peer around the edge of a blind. "We better get rid of her, Gus."
"You see," Gus said, "it just so happens we haven't seen any pretty young ladies in quite a time. We'd sure enjoy a little feminine company, if you -"
"Quite a time is right," Earl said. "Four years' worth." He stepped closer and reached out to touch Janie's hair. "Man, man. I think I'm going to go off, just looking at her."
Janie dived for the door, but Gus caught her around the waist and dragged her back. Then, moving quickly, he stepped behind her and clamped his big hands on her arms just above the elbow.
"Which one of you boys wants to unveil her?" he said. "It's about time we saw whether the rest of her's as pretty as her face is."
"No!" Janie said, trying to struggle. "You leave me alone!"
Smiling, Earl reached out and ripped her dress down to the waist. Then he stepped back, shaking his head. "Look at those tits," he said reverently. "Jack, just look at those pointers."
Gus laughed. "Finish the job, Earl," he said.
Earl tore the dress the rest of the way off and tossed it aside. "Well, what do you know," he said.
"No panties, either." He sighed. "What do you think of that little gold thing between her legs, Jack? Is that a beauty or is it ?"
"She's something, all right," Jack said. "She's really something."
"It's about time you showed some interest, Jack," Gus said. "I was beginning to wonder about you." He released Janie's arms and stepped around to look at her from the front. "Perfect," he said softly. "Most perfect thing I ever saw."
"Who'll be first?" Earl said.
"I will," Gus said. "After all, I saw her first, didn't I?"
"Okay if I'm second, Jack?" Earl said.
Jack shrugged. "Why not? The slippery the better."
"What are you going to do?" Janie said.
"Nothing you'll regret, beautiful," Gus said. "Earl, Jack, bring that mattress in from the bedroom. We'd be too cramped up out there."
Earl and Jack were back in a few moments, dragging the mattress across the floor to the middle of the room.
"You'll be sorry," Janie said. "You just wait."
"Sure we will," Gus said. "Now you're a smart girl. I could see that right away. And so you know what's going to happen is going to happen, no matter what you do." He gestured toward the mattress. "The thing to do is lie down and be friendly. That way, we won't get mad, and you won't get hurt."
Janie bit at her lip, trying not to cry. It was true, she knew; there was absolutely nothing she could do about it.
"Be smart," Gus said gently. "Lie down."
She hesitated a moment longer, then walked to the mattress and lay down. Meanwhile, all three men had begun to take off their clothes. They were very fast about it, as if they were racing each other to be the first one naked.
From her supine position on the mattress, Janie looked at them as they peeled off their undershorts, then closed her eyes. They all had big pricks, and all of them were standing straight out; but Gus's prick was bigger by far than either Jack's or Earl's, and his shaggy balls were as big as Janie's fists.
Oh, my gosh, Janie thought. And he's going to be the first one to do it to me!
She felt Gus crawl between her legs and his hairy chest mash down against her breasts. Then his glans touched the lips of her pussy and began to force them apart.
"Damn it's tight," he said.
"You're built like a horse," Jack said. "You better grease her up a little. You don't, and you'll tear her up."
"She's already sweet and juicy," Gus said. "But damn, is she tight."
"First time I ever heard a man complain because a cunt was too tight," Earl said. "Just shove it up there, damn it."
Gus did, and Janie yelped with pain. But the pain was brief, and although she thought Gus's big prick would surely split her vagina, she raised her pussy up to meet him and ground it against him. The sooner she could make him come, the sooner it would be over. And she'd do the others the same way. Then, maybe, they'd let her go.
"Why, you little devil," Gus said, pumping away. "Boys, this kid can fuck like a mink."
"You don't have to tell us," Jack said. "Whoo-ee! Look at her go, Earl!"
"What do you think I'm doing?" Earl said. "Watching Gus? Hell, I'm not going to last, Jack. The come's halfway out of my cock already."
"There's more where it came from," Jack said. "Let 'er fly."
Janie felt her juice flowing out around Gus's prick; she could feel its tickling path down the crack in her ass. And now, she discovered, she wasn't thrusting her pussy up at Gus for his benefit; she was doing it for her own as well. That big piece of meat felt awful good in there, by golly! It had started feeling good all of a sudden, and it was feeling better by the second. She hoped now he never would come.
But he did-with a tremendous surge of hot seed that scalded the neck of Janie's womb. Janie cried out with surprise and disappointment, and clamped her legs around Gus's back, drawing him hard against her, trying to drain out some more.
Gus lay with his full weight on her for almost a full minute, making odd little sounds deep in his throat. Then he withdrew his prick-soft now, dripping with come and Janie's cunt juice - and staggered to his feet.
"Your turn, Earl," he said tiredly, slouching over to a chair to sit down. "Believe me, boy, you're in for something."
"I believe you," Earl said, and sank to his knees between Janie's legs. "Boy, you came a potful, Gus. It's all over."
"I wouldn't be surprised if you did the same," Gus said.
Janie spread her legs and raised her hips, waiting for Earl's prick. It went in easier than Gus's had, but it seemed to go further up inside her, and she began to roll her hips as hard as she could.
"Lie still!" Earl said. "I'm too close to coming as it is, damn it."
But she couldn't stop, and she no sooner felt Earl's glans brush the neck of her womb than he came with a load every bit as copious as Gus's had been.
Earl didn't lie in her embrace for a while, as Gus had done. He was angry, and he withdrew and got up at once.
"Look what you did," he said. "Why the hell didn't you lie still, like I told you?"
"I'm sorry," Janie said. "I just couldn't help it."
"My first piece in four years, too," Earl said. "For God's sake, kid!"
"There's always the next time, Earl," Jack said, getting down over Janie.
Janie reached down between her legs and spread open the lips of her cunt with her fingers. "Hurry up," she said.
Jack laughed. "I can't hardly see your slit for all the come," he said.
Janie could feel the warm, sticky substance all over her, from just beneath her navel to halfway down her thighs. There was a spreading puddle of it beneath her, too, she knew; she could feel it and hear it squish every time she raised and lowered her hips.
"Hurry up," she said again.
Jack eased the head of his prick into her, then slowly pushed it back till it touched her womb, and began to fuck. But he didn't use an in-and-out movement, as Gus and Earl had done. He kept his pubic hair mashed hard against Janie's, moving his prick in a rapid, circular motion that soon had her crying out with joy.
"Oh, that's good!" she panted. "Oh, my goodness!"
"Hey!" Jack said. "You're gonna buck me off of you."
"Oh, do it!" she said. "Do it, do it, do it!" And then, a moment later: "I'm coming! Oh, I'm coming!
She came four times, at thirty-second intervals, and was just starting to come again when she felt Jack's discharge spurting against the neck of her womb. "Oh, Lord!" she gasped, and came so hard she thought all her insides were coming out.
Jack started to withdraw.
"Oh, don't," she said. "Please don't."
"Got to," he said. "It's Gus's turn again."
Gus was already standing by the mattress, his prick stiff and ready. "Dog fashion, this time," he said. "Over on your hands and knees, beautiful."
They all fucked her that way - first Gus, then Earl, then Jack - and how many times she came she would never know.
After Jack had pulled his prick out of her, she stayed on her hands and knees for a few seconds, catching her breath, then sank down to a sitting position and looked at them.
They stood all together, watching her, their pricks soft now and their faces lined with fatigue.
"Oh, but that was so good," Janie said, drawing her fingertips through the foot-wide pool of come on the mattress. "Just look how much came out."
Gus looked at Earl and Jack, shook his head slowly, and reached down for his undershorts. "You're a wonder, sweetie," he said, his voice hoarse with exhaustion. "I've had myself some great pussy in my time, but I never ... " His voice trailed off, and he begun to put on his undershorts.
"Aren't we going to do it again?" Janie said.
"Again?" Gus said. "Good God, kid. What do you think we are?"
"No more for me, thank you, honey," Jack said. "I'm just plain fucked out. I admit it. I just couldn't take any more."
"Same here," Earl said, looking down at his prick. I couldn't get another bone on with a gun at my back."
"Please," Janie said.
"Forget it," Gus said. "You're just too much woman for us, that's all."
"I'll bet I can make you want to," Janie said.
"Oh, yeah?" Gus said. "It'd take even more of a wonder than you to do that, sweetie."
Janie jumped up and walked over to him. "I'll show you," she said.
"Not even if you're thinking what I think you're - thinking," Gus said. "We're just too far gone. You don't know your own strength, kid."
She went down on her knees in front of him and took his prick in her hand. "You just wait," she said. "You'll see."
"Holy damn," Earl said. "She just might have something there, Gus."
"I doubt it," Gus said. "I haven't got any feeling left south of my belly-button."
Janie touched the tip of her tongue to the eye of Gus's prick, then brushed it across the glans to the ridge and worked it slowly all the way around it. Then she pressed her lips softly against the glans, kissing it, sucking out the drops of juice that began to seep from the eye.
"By God, Gus," Earl said. "That's beginning to do me some good, even if it isn't you."
"It's a beautiful thing to see," Jack said. "I'm starting to feel a little itchy, myself."
Janie sucked harder, opening her mouth wider, trying to draw the big head inside. And then, just as she finally succeeded in getting it into her mouth, she felt the shaft in her hand begin to swell and stiffen. She could hardly breathe, with her mouth so full of prick, but she pushed her face forward little by little, feeling the glans hard against her tongue and the roof of her mouth, and at last she felt the throbbing knob start down her throat.
Since her mouth was too full to suck, she moved her head back and forth - slowly at first, then faster and faster, until the head and shaft were as big and hard as they had been the first time Gus had fucked her.
Then she let his prick slide out of her mouth, swallowed the juice that had collected in her throat, and went over to kneel down in front of Earl.
It took her much less time to make Earl's prick hard and throbbing than it had Gus's, and when she got to Jack, all she had to do was lick the glans for a few moments.
"There," She said, smiling, as she walked back to the mattress. "Now we can do it some more."
"I think the little lady deserves a damn good reaming," Jack said.
"My prick's ready, but I'm tired as hell," Gus said.
"Me, too," Earl said. "I damn near can't stand up."
"But she deserves it," Jack said. "We can ream her three ways at the same time. If that don't satisfy her, there ain't anything ever going to."
"Three ways?" Janie said. "What three ways, Mr. Jack?"
"In your cunt and your mouth and your ass," Jack said.
"Oh, no!" Janie said in alarm. "Not back there!"
"Why not?" Jack said. "Some girls like it there better than --"
"It'd split me wide open," Janie said. "Please, Mr. Jack, I don't want -"
"It wouldn't do any such thing," Jack said. "You just don't know what you've been missing."
"You could never get it in her ass, anyhow," Earl said. "Hell, it was hard enough even getting it in her cunt."
"It takes the right technique, that's all," Jack said.
"It would kill me!" Janie said.
"Only with pleasure, honey."
"You intend to do the honors yourself, I take it," Gus said.
"Damn right," Jack said. "I ain't had my rod up a tender young ass since -"
"Oh, please!" Janie said. "It'd rip me clean apart!"
Well, we got three good hard-ons here going to waste," Gus said. "Which do you want, Earl? Mouth or cunt?"
"Mouth," Earl said. "I've never been hornier, but I'm just too beat to fuck."
"I know what you mean," Gus said. "All right, then. Let's plug up those holes." He lay down on the mattress and motioned to Janie. "Straddle me, beautiful. Just ease yourself down and camp on the peg."
"No!" Janie said.
"You haven't got a choice, gorgeous," Gus said. "Remember? You don't want to make us mad, and we don't want to make you sorry."
He was right, Janie knew. She didn't have a thing in the world to say about it. She'd almost forgotten how dangerous and wicked these jailbirds really were.
"Go on," Earl said. "I'm anxious to get my cock in your mouth again."
She began to cry, but she went to the mattress and got down over Gus, facing him. As she lowered herself on Gus's prick, Earl straddled Gus too, facing Janie, so that his glans was within easy reach of her mouth. With Gus all the way up her cunt, she leaned forward, took Earl's prick into her mouth, and began to suck. Beneath her, Gus raised and lowered his hips, shoving the head of his cock the entire length of her vagina and back again, faster and faster.
She had just begun to wonder when Jack was going to put it in her when there was a sudden, blinding pain in her asshole. She felt a scream rise in her throat, only to be choked off by the prick in her mouth. She tried to scrabble up, but Gus had reached behind her to grab a buttock in each hand, and Earl had seized her around the shoulders.
She knew what had happened. Instead of gently easing his prick up her rectum little by little, as she had expected him to, Jack had simply aimed it at her anus and jammed the entire thing up her all at once.
And yet, although she could feel Jack's pubic hair rubbing against her anus, and knew his cock was up her rectum all the way to the hilt, there was now no pain whatever.
She just couldn't understand it, she reflected as the two big pricks slipped in and out of her cunt and rectum. All that hard, hot meat in her ass, separated by only a thin membrane from the even larger piece of meat in her vagina ... She would have sworn she could never have lived through it.
She began to suck Earl's prick again, drawing it as far into her mouth as she could, rolling her tongue beneath it, feeling the steady pound of Gus's glans against the neck of her womb.
And now, to her astonishment, the prick in her ass was beginning to feel just as good as the prick in her cunt ... Jack had been right, by golly. She just hadn't known what she was missing. By gosh. Jack's prick was starting to feel even better than Gus's did!
She began to feel warm all over, the way she always did just before she came. She wasn't so much sucking Earl now as she was being fucked in the mouth, and she held her head motionless, enjoying the plunging prick even more that way. Somehow, all three of the men had hit on exactly the same rhythm, so that their pricks ran in and out of her mouth and cunt and ass in perfect unison, each man burying his meat to the pubes with every plunge.
Then, to her horror, Janie realized all three pricks had begun to vibrate violently, and she knew the men were on the verge of orgasm.
No, no! she thought. Not yet, not yet!
But then she too began to come, and seconds later her mouth and vagina and rectum were flooded with three simultaneous discharges. Writhing, she drank the hot fluid spurting against the roof of her mouth, feeling more and more jism shooting into her cunt and up her ass. It seemed the men would never stop coming - at least she hoped they never would.
As she gulped down another enormous gout of Earl's seed, she tried with the lips of her cunt and the mobile rim of her anus to suck at the pricks in her vagina and rectum, determined to drain them of every last precious drop.
And meanwhile, she came constantly, harder and harder, without pause or let. She was half out of her mind, almost delirious, oblivious to everything but the endless orgasm that stretched on and on and on - until the room began to spin around her head in a dizzying blur. Then there was a sudden, dazzling burst of brilliant lights, followed at once by utter darkness. She felt as if she were floating up and away - out of the cabin and into the night and up among the stars ..
When she returned to her senses, the room was empty She sat up, and then tilted her head to one side, listening. She could hear a car. She ran over to the window and put her eye to the crack between the blind and the frame. The car that had been in the yard was just turning onto the road, its headlights sweeping a wide arc against the trees beyond.
Oh, darn! she thought as the car picked up speed and roared away. Why couldn't they have stayed long enough to do that to me just one more time?
Then, as she turned from the window, she caught sight of her ruined dress, lying there where Earl had thrown it after he had ripped it off her-and suddenly the desperateness of her situation came home to her full force.
She felt the tears start. Her dream of running away was over. She couldn't stay here at the Shanley cabin after all. Pa or the sheriff would come here looking for her. And without Rosanne and her brother here to protect her and say they'd never seen her, she would have no chance at all.
And now, with her dress torn to shreds, she couldn't even go up on the ridge and beg somebody for a ride. She was just plain sunk, darn it; all she could do was go back home.
Then, for a brief moment, she thought about asking Roy Wilson to hide her and, somehow, find a dress for her. But she knew she couldn't do that. It would just be risking Roy's neck, and she liked him too much to do that. Because Roy's cabin was probably the first place Pa or the sheriff would look, even before they came here to the Shanley place.
She walked over to where her dress lay and picked it up. It wasn't only shredded; it was torn into three separate pieces. She brushed a tear from her cheek, and then wadded up a piece of the dress and wiped the come from her belly and pussy and thighs. It took another piece for her hips and the backs of her legs. Then she discovered there was even some come in the hollow of her throat and between her breasts, and she used the last of the dress on that.
When she had finished, she went to the door, glanced back once at the mattress in the middle of the floor, and left the cabin.
She turned toward home and began to run - a very young girl on a dark path in the nighttime forest. She ran faster - naked and afraid.
Chapter Eight
When Janie reached home, she circled around through the trees so that she could approach the cabin from the rear. Then, walking softly, she crossed the back yard toward the window of her room. But just before she reached it, she paused for a moment to look up at Piney Ridge, thinking about the bus to Chattanooga that came along up there every night-the bus she now would never be able to take.
Then, as she started toward the window again, she tripped over something and almost fell.
"Darn that boy, anyhow," she muttered, looking down at the fishing rod and the wooden box her brother Billy had kept his tackle in. "Always leaving things where a body is bound to -" She broke off, frowning down at the rod and tackle box, the sight of them reminding her of something Pa had said about fish. What was it now? She bit at her lip, trying to think. He'd been telling Burt that nobody would know where the dead Mahannahs and their car were but him and Burt and the fish in the forty foot of water at the bottom of the cliff.
But that wasn't it. He'd said something else about fish, too. He'd said ... Yes, that was it. He'd said, "That other's even safer. Them fishes ain't even going to see it."
Janie shut her eyes and took a long deep breath. Now she knew where Pa and Burt had hidden the money. When she'd heard Pa saying those things, she'd been so worried about his inspecting her cherry that his words had gone in one ear and out the other.
But now she knew what he had been hinting around about. By "that other," he'd meant the money. And when he'd said, "Them fishes ain't even going to see it," he'd been talking about the blind fish in the river up there in China River cave What it all meant was that the money was in the water with the fish.
"Oh, Lord!" Janie breathed as she eased up the window sash. "If only they haven't moved it somewhere else!"
Once inside, she tiptoed to the door to the front room and put her eye to the crack between the door and the jamb. Pa was sprawled out asleep on his cot, and Burt Connor was asleep at the table, his head resting on his forearm and his mouth slightly pursed, as if he were whistling.
Janie watched them for a moment, aware for the first time that she could still smell the scent of Earl's come rising from the heated skin between her breasts, and then went around the blanket to put on the everyday dress she had washed and dried by the stove. It wasn't near as nice as her running-away dress had been, but it would just have to do.
Then, carrying the lantern and matches she had taken from the front room when she had gone to the cave last night, just before Pa and Burt got back from Chattanooga, she crossed to the window and climbed out.
Twenty minutes later, the lantern beside her, Janie was lying flat on her stomach beside the rushing water in the China River cave, her arm in the water up to the elbow, feeling along the knobby surface of the undercut rock beneath her, probing for what she knew had to be there.
At last she found it-a taut wire tied to a fist-sized projection on the rock. The pull of the current on whatever was on the other end of the wire was so strong that the wire almost cut her fingers as she drew it up hand over hand. If she hadn't been such a strong girl for her size, she wouldn't have been able to pull it up at all.
The thing on the end of the wire was a thick plastic bag, as big as a gunny sack, and more than half full of paper money.
Just as Janie started to undo the wire from the gathered top of the bag, she thought she heard something. Her fingers froze on the wire, and she crouched there, motionless, feeling her nipples tingle with sudden fear. She heard the sound again - the rattle of pebbles dislodged from the slope beneath the cave.
It had to be Pa or Burt Connor, she knew. Whoever it was, he'd kill her for sure. He'd know she knew what had happened to Duke Mahannah, and he'd kill her and throw her body in the river.
Her breasts ached and her pussy was spasming, as if she were going to pee without wanting to.
She'd never thought so fast in her life. Whoever it was, he would already have seen the light of her lantern, so there was no use trying to do anything about that. But if he didn't already know who was in the cave, she still had a chance to keep from being caught.
That chance - and it was her only chance - was to hide in the water. And since a wet dress would give her away later, she'd have to take it off.
She dropped the bag back into the river, then quickly took off her dress and shoes and wedged them into the crevice between two rocks, where no one could see them. Then she slid into the water, and, making sure of each handhold before she trusted her life to it, worked herself back beneath the overhanging stone shelf, just as she had done so often in play as a little girl. Only her head and shoulders were above the hissing surface of the water now, and she hooked her fingers over a small ridge in the rock and fought the savage tow of the current that threatened to tear her hands away at any second and send her hurtling through the bowels of the earth forever.
She heard the hollow pound of heavy boots in the cave, and then Pa's curse of surprise when he found no one there.
The water was so cold that Janie was sure her breasts had shriveled up to almost nothing. The tender membrane lining her vagina felt as if she had pushed an icicle in there, and her tight little anus felt as if it had frozen shut forever.
Swearing steadily, Pa began to pull up the wire attached to the money bag. The bag broke through the surface of the water, and a moment later Janie heard the soft plop as Pa dropped it on the cave floor.
Then, suddenly, Pa's swearing broke off. "Burt!" he said. "I didn't hear you come in."
"I didn't mean for you to," Burt Connor's voice said. His voice was flat and cold. "Caught you red-handed, didn't I?"
"What're you talking about?"
Burt's laugh was ugly. "I kind of figured on you double-crossing me, Elmore. But I didn't think it'd be so soon."
"Listen here -" Pa began. "Hey, now! What're you doing with that knife?"
"You're a dead man, Elmore," Burt said. "Did you know that?"
"You got me wrong, Burt," Pa said, his voice breaking. "I wasn't going to take the money. I just seen a light up here, and I -"
"Sure," Burt said.
"Get away with that knife!" Pa yelled. "Don't do it, Burt! Burt, listen to me. I swear I never -"
"Good-bye, Elmore," Burt said, and then Pa's body splashed into the water only a yard from Janie's head. And, in spite of herself, Janie cried out. The next instant, Burt had reached down, caught her by the wrist, and was pulling her out of the water.
But when he had dragged her up beside him, and had seen who it was and that she was completely naked, he gaped at her in stunned disbelief, forgetting for a moment to retain his viselike grip on her wrist.
That moment was all Janie needed to wrench loose from him and dart for the mouth of the cave. He lunged after her, but his clutching hands slipped off her wet body and he could not hold her.
Down the slope she raced, with Burt just behind her. His legs were longer than hers, but she knew every foot of the way and he did not. On the other hand, she was still a little tired from all that fucking and sucking with the jailbirds at the Shanley place, and the four miles of running she had done to get there and back again hadn't helped either.
She felt the sting of the wind against her wet, bare skin and the tug of her long blonde hair streaming out behind her. Oh, if she could only reach the cabin before he caught her! Then she could grab Pa's rifle off the wall and keep him from killing her.
And then, just as she was almost halfway across Froggy Bottom, she slipped on the dew-slick grass and fell. She was up and running again almost at once, but now Burt was only a few steps behind her. As she started up the slope to the cabin, she cast a terrified glance over her shoulder and saw that he was even closer than she had thought, the knife in his hand flashing horribly in the moonlight. She'd never reach the cabin now, she knew; she was as good as dead this very second.
And then she remembered. The pits! The brush-covered man-pits Pa had dug around the grove where he had his still. The pits he'd put there to trap revenue agents who got too close.
The nearest pit was only a dozen yards away. She veered toward it, and at the last instant swerved to one side, hoping that Hurt would crash through the thin layer of brush and fall into the pit below.
But it was not to be. Burt had changed his own course when he saw her change hers, and his pounding feet skirted the pit by inches.
He had her now for sure, Janie knew. There wasn't any other pit she could lead him to without doubling back the way she had come. She could already imagine the knife sinking into her breasts and belly, and she heard herself begin to whimper.
Then she felt another surge of hope, and she ran even faster. She'd forgotten about the trip-wires. There was one in the ankle-deep grass thirty yards ahead. It was the last one between here and the cabin, and it would be her last chance to save her life.
She reached the trip-wire only a step before Burt did, leaped over it, and sprinted on. Burt's foot caught on the wire and he went sprawling headlong, his body skidding across the wet grass to come to a sudden stop against a stump.
Janie ran into the cabin, jerked the rifle off the wall, and ran back outside. She'd just have to shoot Burt, she guessed; there didn't seem to be any other way to keep him from killing her.
But he lay completely still, and as Janie cautiously approached him she saw that his neck was bent at an odd angle and that his eyes were wide open, staring at nothing.
He was dead, she knew; he'd hit his head against the stump and broken his neck.
Poor Mr. Connor, she reflected as she turned back toward the cabin. He hadn't been all that bad, but he had sure enough been a very strange man.
An hour later, just after midnight, Janie waved down the bus on top of Piney Ridge. She paid her fare with a fifty-dollar bill and then, carrying Pa's scruffed, cardboard suitcase, walked down the aisle till she found an empty seat. Then she sat down, put the suitcase on her lap, and sat smiling out the window into the night as the big bus roared back to life and started off down the mountain on its way to Chattanooga.
It had been a pretty full day, she reflected, as she slipped her hand beneath the suitcase to finger her cunt. She was thirty thousand dollars richer, and she'd been fucked so many times she couldn't even remember. And now, doggone it if all that rushing around to get back to the cave and climbing up the ridge to the road hadn't made her horny again!
She rubbed her clitty harder and harder, as she had done all her life, then suddenly remembered she no longer had a cherry, and pushed two fingers up her cunt as far as they would go.
"Oh. Lord, Lord," she said to herself, feeling the juice beginning to pour out around her fingers. "I'll never, never, never get enough."
The woman across the aisle cleared her throat. "Look how tight that girl's holding that old wreck of a suitcase," she said to the man beside her. "You'd think she had a fortune in there."
