"Hell, stupid, gators don't have no balls!" Junie Belle's daddy spat, and she stepped back from the now quiet saurian. She shuddered.
Her dad and brother were doubled over the long dark carcass glistening faintly in the old truck's parking lights. The moon was down, as she knew it had to be for this.
As usual Bubba had made one of his dumb remarks. He wanted to use his fish knife to cut off the balls. Balls! That kid sure had a scrotum for a brain.
Junie wiped her nose on her arm and hoped she wouldn't get roped in on messing with the beast. She snuffled her nose noisily across her arm again.
"Keep goddamn quiet back there else I'll split your tail like I done the gator's!"
Junie cut her eyes around, apprehensively on the lookout for the game warden. She wished she could stay safely on the truck.
"Pa," she whispered, "I better get on top of that truck and keep a lookout."
"Now you're using your head. Watch for car lights. Shit, Bubba, what're you staring at? We got work to do." Bubba busied himself at once.
Junie braced her bare foot on the running board of the ancient pick-up and swung lightly to the top of the cab. Through almost total darkness she could make out the beams of light from cars on the distant highway. She strained her eyes to be sure none turned off onto the narrow sand and gravel road leading their way.
"Get the goddamn tail up in the truck quick."
Junie was hoping they'd be out of here soon. She could feel the same cold sweat she had known on the few other times. They couldn't go poaching often because the gators weren't as plentiful as they used to be. Clem cursed them for that. "Used to be," he'd say, "you could hear them big bulls bellerin' and snorting all over the Glades after a female." Junie always thought it sounded like he was talking about himself, the way he used to be with her mother in bed. Before her mother died.
"Wet down the tarp."
Bubba took a section of tarpaulin and a couple of gunny sacks out of the pick-up. He took them to the edge of the swamp water and soaked them. Clem spread the sacks over the gator tail and threw the tarp over them.
For a minute it looked like a car light turning off the highway. When it didn't reappear she decided she was seeing things.
This was a risky business but Clem said it was quick money, and he had to have it to buy the dumpy fishing camp they were starting up. Sure wasn't like that camp they were in at Pahokee. Shit! Her dad got run out of there. People wouldn't put up with his drinking and trouble-making in Pahokee.
Sometimes she wished the game warden would catch him. If he went to jail again she'd be rid of him for awhile.
Junie stiffened at the glint of a bobbing light up ahead. That had been a car turning in. There it was again! Closer now, moving slowly over the water-filled pot holes of the narrow road.
"Car lights yonder down the road," Junie called to Clem. She scrambled down into the car seat. Clem heaved in behind the wheel, got the motor going and pulled the door to him at the same time. He's a fast bastard when he's running, Junie thought.
Bubba hit the truck bed on top of the gator tail as the truck began bumping over the rutted road. It was hard staying on the road and trying to see with nothing but parking fights. At the turn-off, Clem took the turn on two wheels and stirred up mud on the short trail to the shack. Looking back Junie could see the pair of lights bouncing on the long road from the highway. She heaved a sigh. They were going to escape again. As they neared the shack Clem cut the parking fights. From the dim glow of the rising half moon they hurriedly pulled the tail from the truck and dragged it to the door.
Junie's hand groped for the string hanging from the bare fight bulb. Clem and Bubba shoved the tail under the house.
"Bubba, you go keep an eye out for that car," Clem growled. "Junie Belle, move the truck around back." He began ripping off his stained clothes and went out to the pump to wash the blood off his skin.
When Junie came from behind the shack where she had hidden the truck they all three watched the fights go past the turn-off. They waited tensely while the sound of the motor stopped and started and the car backed up the narrow road from where it came. They held their breaths. Would it turn in? No, it backed in to turn around and headed on out.
"Some fool got lost," Clem muttered. "Come on, Bubble-ass, let's cut." The two of them carried the once-powerful tail of the gator to the rickety dock boards. Clem took his most prized possession out of its sheath in his belt and went to work. He wrapped the hide in the tarp and stuffed it in a hole in the bank behind the saw grass under the dock. Bubba cut and stabbed at the muscular meat. Junie had filled a dented old pot with water from the pump for the thick "steak" that would feed them tonight.
After supper Junie watched her dad reach for his bottle. Her heart sank and she braced for what she knew would follow. It always did. Clem slammed a couple of glasses on the bare wood table and filled one with cheap whiskey. A couple of hefty shots went into the other one.
"Son of a bitch if we don't drink it up tonight." Clem hefted down half the glass. "Okay, Bub, put some hair on your chest." The boy lifted the glass, took a drink and swallowed hard. Leering, he handed the glass to Junie. She shook her head and waited, her arms wrapped around her middle. Wide eyes went from the increasing grossness of one slowly flushing face to the other. Clem laughed. There was white saliva at the corners of his flabby mouth. "Maybe it'll put hair on your chest too, Junie. Or maybe on your tits. I wouldn't like that."
It was coming. Junie could see the whole thing. Her father's dark blood would pound heavily through him and be dammed up in the groin. Suddenly she reached for the glass. It was empty. She handed it to her father.
"Little Bubble-ass finished the whole thing." Clem poured another.
"Drink it up, girl. It'll make you hot." No, she thought, it'll just make it easier.
Bubba reached for the bottle. Clem viciously hit his arm away. "Not now, boy, later. You got a lot a years of good fuckin' time coming. In a while now you can watch how a grown man does it. Remember, boy, a woman's got three places you can put it. There's only two of them I like. Ain't that right, Junie?" She hadn't thought of that. Jesus, now. Not to be ripped open there. He saw her turn pale and laughed, hard, biting, enjoying the fear he had built. "I wouldn't do a thing like that to you, Junie, my own flesh and blood-my own little screwing machine."
Junie grasped her glass hard, the flesh of her fingers bone-white. She swallowed half her drink. Maybe tonight-just maybe-if he gets drunk enough-he might want me to do just his balls again. When he wakes up in the morning it'll be easier. Just squeezing and sucking. And that'll be the end for a while. Maybe. Jesus, if I didn't have to spend all night. Some time sure as hell-
Her dad's eyes looked like two flashlight beams, and she knew she was in for it.
"Come on, gal. Time for bed."
When her dad told her it was bedtime, Junie Belle always shuddered. Bubba went out on the dock and Clem pulled Junie down on him on his stale-smelling cot in the corner of their sleeping room. His hands fumbled for her pants zipper. Junie took off her clothes stoically, telling herself maybe they could get it over with in a hurry.
His hands slid over her shoulders and across her breasts. She could feel the nipples harden in reaction, but she pressed her lips together and vowed to feel nothing. The calloused hands cupped her bottom and he squeezed hard.
"You'll do, daughter. Soon's you get some meat on your bones, you'll do." His huge cock bumped against her thigh and she jumped as if burned. His bloated face loomed over her and she felt him slobber as he pressed his mouth into her belly.
"Come on, Junie. Lick the ole man's balls."
She knew it! That was his favorite. But maybe that was better. She might be able to finish him off real fast. She squeezed her eyes tight shut and twisted herself blindly into position.
His roughened fingers jabbed into her. She plunged her tongue through the mass of coarse hair and found the swollen balls. She licked. First one, then the other.
"That's right, daughter. More. Oh, that's real good."
She darted her tongue faster, gasped for air and felt the throbbing tube hard against her cheek.
"More, daughter. Stuff it in your mouth. Gobble up those balls." He thrust against her mouth. "Eat 'em."
With a sob she crammed them between her lips. The balls were much too big. Only one stayed behind her lips. The other kept slipping out. She rolled the one around her mouth like a giant grape. Clem stiffened his legs and thrashed, and hope flickered through her that he was ready to come. The ball slipped out and she slurped in the other.
"Slow down, gal," Clem panted. "I want it to last."
Junie was tempted to finish him off, but remembered another time she had disobeyed him. After his orgasm he'd leaped up and snapped his belt out of his pants and come at her with blazing eye. "I'll teach you not to mind me, you little bitch."
So she squeezed her eyes tight and made her mind blank. If only he wouldn't touch her, especially on titties and down there. His horny hand searched over her, lingering, making her dread its path. As she knew it would it found her nipple and began nipping it between coarse fingers. Junie's nerve ends stood up and reached, ignoring her silent protests. Pleasurable pain coursed on a track that ran a straight line from nipple to a spot low in her left side and leaped from there to her very center. She twisted and told her mind to stay blank.
"That's it, daughter. Get hot. That's the way I like it." The big man writhed on the mattress. "It feels so good."
She buried her face deeper into his mass of hair. He groaned. "Not so hard now. Let's make it last all night, all night." Her hot sigh fanned him. He jerked. "Do you like that, daughter? Do you like the old man's balls?" His penis was now at its stiffest, upright along her neck as she sucked on the testicles.
His hand switched to her other nipple sending fresh torrents of heat streaming through her. His rank odor sucked in by her nostrils and mouth gagged her. But gradually her own mounting pressures in breast and groin made her forget all else. She fell into a nowhere of grunts, thrills, redness, nerve tingle, musk, chills and sourness that swirled into a helpless surrender.
He groaned in a frenzy. His broad upstanding penis flipped rhythmically against her cheek as her head bobbed up and down. His fingers clutched her convulsively.
Through the pounding in her head she heard another pounding. At the front door, the door to the room where they kept the counter and junk to sell the customers.
She raised her head and looked at her father. He listened, dazed. "I'll be a goddamn son of a bitch," he said softly. "Where in hell's Bubba?"
They heard the door open and Bubba come in, talking to someone.
"Daddy," Bubba stood in the shadowy doorway. "Game warden's here, daddy. He wants to talk to you."
The three members of the Grice family stiffened and Clem's cock drooped. He pulled on baggy pants that covered his fading condition and padded heavily out to the store.
"We're closed up for the night," he told Jim Brink.
Junie held her breath and peeped carefully around the doorway. Jim stood there, tall and grim.
"Where's that alligator tail, Grice? I know you took one tonight. Where is it?"
"What the hell you talking about, Jim? You think I'd take a chance like that?"
Junie pressed her hands together and thought if Jim was only smart enough to take her dad away. He wanted to bad enough. If only he was smart enough. It's under the dock, Mister Game Warden. The gator tail is under the dock. Junie squeezed her eyes tight and tried to burn the thought into the game warden's brain.
CHAPTER TWO
Brink's eight years with the Game and Fish Commission had firmed and trimmed him in both body and mind. He detested the guts and the very existence of men like Grice. Men, hell, he thought to himself, swamp rats.
"You know what I'm talking about, Grice, and I think you'd poach anything in the Glades if you thought you'd get away with it."
"You can't stand there in that uniform and accuse me of nothing ya don't know. That's the law."
"I saw some lights up the branch road. They didn't come out. There's a gator carcass up past this place in the ditch. When poachers don't have time to take the whole animal, they take the best part quick. Isn't that right, Grice?"
"How the hell would I know something like that now, Jim?" Clem's bloodshot eyes opened wide but his mouth twisted in mockery. 'I'll look around."
"Not in here with no warrant, ya won't!"
"I don't need it for outside."
"Go ahead."
Brink walked out and checked around the house with his flashlight. Spotted the old pickup. The bushes. The dark water. Nothing. He knew it would be like that. Swinging the light up he saw Bubba now sitting on the dock again.
"Where you been tonight?"
"Right here at the camp all the time. I came out to the dock while you was talking in there."
Jim hesitated with another question on his lips. What's the use, he figured. The kid's as much a liar as the old man. Brink got back in the patrol car with the green GFWFC insignia and drove down the bumpy shell-rock road, bright lights glaring. Bubba reached down at the edge of the dock, pulled on a length of heavy fishing line. The tarp-wrapped meat came with it.
After sunup, Junie and Bubba put a couple of cane poles and some worms in one of the three old rowboats. They poled out to where the water deepened and the tall grassy weeds thinned out for patches of lily pads. They figured that's where the bream and specks would be bedding about this time of year. They were. Real nice bream running close to a pound each. In half an hour they had ten nice ones plopping in the dirty water at their feet in the boat. The water seeped in through the old, weak seams. It would take a couple of hours for it to get over an inch or so deep. There was an old oil can rattling around under the stern seat for bailing, if anyone wanted to bother. A couple of small bass took the worms near the edge of the weeds. Though too small, illegal size, they kept them.
"Some bigger ones out farther," Bubba said, "over past those old stumps. We need some chub or frog necks." Junie knew it was illegal to cut out the throat latch of frogs.
"We ain't got any," Junie said without looking at him. She stuffed their fish in a sack and left it in the swilling water in the boat. The fish would stay alive and fresh till they got back to the dock.
"We could get the gig and the net." There was a trailing off in his nasal voice. Junie sensed he wasn't thinking of bass and frogs. Again there was the silence that could last between them for days. For a split second her eyes darted to Bubba. He was staring, open-mouthed, at her jeans. She waited for a moment and looked down at herself. The damn old zipper had slipped almost all the way down exposing part of her lower belly and the hair under it. Slowly and easily she pulled the metal tab back to the top, pressed it in to make it catch. It would hold for awhile. Bubba snickered.
"Didn't catch any hair, did ya, Junie?" His laugh was a choking sound.
She held the fishing pole over the water and twisted it to wrap the line around its length and pressed the hook into the bottom. "We're going back to the dock." She picked up an oar and started poling. "Junie."
She put the blade of the oar against the soft bed of the water and pushed easily. The boat moved over the weed tops slowly toward the half-rotted wood pilings a hundred yards away.
"Junie," he said again. No answer. He leaned toward her from the bow. "Did the old man do it to you last night, Junie?"
She could feel the anger and detestation for brother and father welling in her throat and flushing her face.
"Was he doing it when the warden came? Bet he was real mad with a big one on, huh, Junie?"
She raised the oar from the water and swung it at him. He ducked and jumped to his feet. This time Junie had better control of the oar and jammed it at his middle. He reeled back with no room to move in the bow. Caught off-balance, he splashed into the water. Junie pushed the oar into the water again and swung the boat away from him toward the dock. He came up yelling through water and weed trying to reach for the side of the boat. The water was waist-deep and the soft ooze of the Glades water pulled at his bare feet.
"Walk in, you little bastard," she yelled at him. "Maybe it'll clean up your outside."
It'll take him about ten minutes behind the boat, she thought, time for me to get the old man's knife and start on the fish.
Standing in the boat, the light breeze gently tugging at her loose blue shirt, she pulled alongside the dock and threw the sack of fish on the rickety platform. With one end of the boat rope in hand she stepped to the dock and made fast to one of the wet, brown wormy pilings.
She approached the open front door of the shack. It was as weather-beaten as the dock but drier. She could hear Clem snoring off last night's whiskey. The knife was still in its worn and scuffed leather sleeve on his pants belt flung over a chair. She drew it out and looked at it. The blade was eight inches of steel turned dark gray by water and blood. Except for the gleam of its finely honed cutting edge.
Junie took the knife out to the dock and began cleaning the fish. She enjoyed the warmth of the sun on her bare tanned arms.
She dumped the bones and scales into the old garbage hole and took the bream fillets inside and threw them in the rusty freezer.
The old man was still snoring away. Sounded like an air boat with a miss in the engine.
"Let's go, June-Bug. We gotta make those signs for daddy." She'd forgotten. Bubba had cut up some cardboard boxes and was drawing across them with a marking pen.
FISHING CAMP
For a moment Junie's heart lifted. She couldn't figure out what was making her feel a pang of hope. She stood still and stared into her own thoughts.
"Shit, Junie. There you go again, always daydreaming around. Get busy."
Balls! She almost thought of something. Something important. And that dumb ass Bubba made her lose it.
Whey they finished the third sign, Junie put down the marking pen. "We better go get these up somewhere."
"We gotta make some more signs first, Junie. Keep your pants on. What's your hurry?"
"Daddy said get those signs out, so folks could find us. Daddy wants 'em up." She wanted the signs out, too.
Bubba babied the old pick-up truck until it took off in a shuddering start and stirred up clouds of dust around them as they made the quarter mile run to the cut-off. They turned right toward the highway entrance, looking for likely places to post the signs. Junie watched with concentration for a standing object to nail the sign against. Some place where it would be sure to be seen by anyone coming from the highway.
"Stop, Bubba. That big old palm tree. See? Just when they round this curve they'd see this thing, smack!"
Bubba pulled over and creaked back the hand brake, leaving the motor running. Junie was already out of the truck trying the sign at various elevations.
"Right about here, Bubba, where it'll be sure to hit 'em."
He shook his head and laughed at her eagerness.
"Sure don't know why you're so anxious."
For a moment Junie almost caught hold of the stray thought that fluttered around the edges of her consciousness. Again it eluded her.
"Don't know why I'm anxious. I just am"
They covered the area twice and found two more places that Junie thought satisfactory for the other signs.
By the time they got back to the camp they had a customer already. Junie looked at him swiftly. Something about the man was vaguely connected to something. But as she studied him the connection weakened and almost frayed away.
Tall, strong-looking guy for his age.
"You folks taking over this old fishing camp?"
"Yes, did you see our signs?"
"No, I didn't see no signs. This is a spot I like to come to. I come here before when the mean man and his wife-he said she was his wife-run the camp. I stop coming while they are around, but since they went away I come now."
"You're our first customer. I'm Junie Belle and this is Bubba. Now don't stay away again, hear?"
The old man's eyes twinkled and he laughed all over like a dusty tropical Santa Claus. His talk had a foreign sound.
"You two young ones don't run this place, no?"
Bubba stood there as usual like a dumbbell, scrapping his big toe in the sand. Junie's smile broke off and she jerked her head toward the shack.
"Our daddy runs the place. We just help out." She paused. "What's your name?"
"I be Axel Andersen." He held up his can of worms. "I little fish of a customer. I got my own bait and I sit down there by the dock, up against that old Australian pine."
"That's all right." Junie suddenly felt happier. Sure was good to have someone around.
"I go down and wet a line, then."
Bubba lifted a hand, but still didn't say anything.
"Can't you talk?" Junie swung on him furiously after the old man was out of earshot. "You gotta talk to customers."
"Shit, you did all right."
"You're stupid!"
Junie Belle went inside to her cot in the corner of the sleeping room. Strangled snores still came from the other side of the curtain partition. Daddy was out for the day. She quietly slid the cardboard carton from beneath her cot. In the carton were her clothes, jeans and shirts and her sweater, and under them, on the bottom, was her magazine.
Ragged now, it still reminded her of the pretty wife of the customer back at Carson's before daddy was run out. Carson's had cabins and customers would come and stay all weekend, sometimes longer. That woman was different from most of them. Instead of bulging flesh popping out of shorts and a halter, she wore trim pants over perky little hips. The way she walked she knew they were perky.
She always looked so clean, her face and neck and even her fingernails. His fingernails were tapered, every one just so, and all pearly. Junie would stare at her hair, the color not so different from Junie's-except for a thin dark line along the part. And Junie would wonder how she could learn how to fold a shiny coil across the back in a fat glossy bump.
Sometimes Junie would brush near the woman to enjoy the beautiful perfumy smell. The fourteen-year-old-it was two years ago-never forgot the smiling woman. When other customers went out in boats she lounged on the big porch swing and turned the slick pages of big colorful magazines.
And when the woman went away she left behind part of the outside world in the pages of the magazine. The world of fancy ladies in flaring silk pants, jeweled sandals, long earrings, and pearly fingernails-even toenails. Sets of matched luggage to take onto airplanes. Leather coats with fur collars. White teeth. Long eyelashes and all blue around the eyes with a tiny fine dark line around the eye.
Ladies who wore dresses half-way between their knees and their whatchamacallits. Long, long pearls. Sipping from glasses with stems. Stepping from a shiny car, driven by a man with white teeth and one raised eyebrow. A gleam in his eye for the lady. A sweater that comes up around his neck. And a man with a black eye, smoking a cigarette.
Some day. Junie lay on her cot and turned the well-known pages. Some day she would wear a ruffled blouse, with a big ring flashing on her slim white hand. She fell into a trance of some day, and escaped from the cot, the shack, daddy and Bubba.
The slamming of the screen door of the store snapped her upright. She stuffed the magazine under the cot and jolted to here and now.
She felt sick, and the thought she had been groping for fluttered out the window.
"Come on, Junie," bawled Bubba. "The air boat's here for that gator skin."
CHAPTER THREE
Axel Andersen's seamed and somewhat soured face was a mask made for him by nature. The sun burning down from the sky and reflected up from the ocean had leathered it, and the salt had pickled and preserved it. His hands, used to the big, blue water hooks, had some trouble with the small wire ones for fresh water pan fish. Bass hooks were easier, but most of his fishing now was for pleasure, close in along the bank or a short way out in a slowly sculled boat from Clem's dock. A far cry and more than ten years away from the big, flashing kingfish of the South Atlantic. The big fish had required strong arms for jigging and hauling nets.
Junie saw Axel sitting on a camp stool on a small point of dry ground jutting out to the deeper water.
"Hi, Axel, doin' any good?"
"A couple about the size of your hand, Junie. It'll be better when the sun gets lower."
"Get a couple more and I'll clean them out for you."
"Not many folks going fishing around here today, eh, Junie?"
"They don't know we're here yet. We gotta get a couple more signs down on the highway pointing to the camp. Today there's just you and a couple others bought some bait. They went down to the canal. If we had the boats out at two dollars apiece, and some bait business and some sandwiches I fix, that would be pretty good. And we gotta get cold drinks in yet if that corn-poppin', wheezing old power motor would handle the load."
"Maybe I take a look at it, Junie. I worked on the old engines in fish boats. But that be not recent."
"Neither is that old thing we got, not by twenty years. But you ain't gonna do not work on it, Axel. It's pa's camp. Let him fix it or blow it up."
Axel lifted the fishing pole until the bait cleared the water. He decided the worm was still on solid, and plopped the bobber back in the water.
"This ain't the right place for you growing up, Junie."
"Hell, I'm growed up. But you're sure right. It ain't no place for growin'. Someday, and damn soon, I'm just going to break loose and get me a job in a town."
"What do you know how to do, Junie?"
"Well, I know-" She paused and looked at him. "Yeah. I know how to fish, to handle a row boat and take care of a camp. That's all the hell I know." She dropped to the ground and sat with her arms tight around her knees and stared at the bobbing float. "But I've gotta find some way, some how. I think there's a lot of folks working in the towns that don't know from a damn what they're doing. At least at the start. And I gotta start some place."
"You oughta get educated, Junie. That's best these days."
"Maybe I could be a whore, Axel." She looked directly at him and teased him with a grin. "That ain't hard to learn now, is it? Maybe even you-" Junie stopped talking and breathing. Christ, she thought, I'm passing the hurt along. The old man's face drained to a gray color beyond the time of sea and sun and years.
"Junie," he said slowly, "in my way, I love you. Don't hurt yourself no more."
Junie, her eyes welling, picked up his fish and ran to the dock. She put the small fish on the cleaning board, scaled them and with three or four deft strokes of the knife separated the plump meat from head and viscera. If Axel had been her old man things would have been a lot different. School and some decent clothes and things to do for a girl. Things that-well, she didn't know just what, but different things. She put some wet water grass on a few sheets of paper, laid the fish on it, wrapped it and walked back to Axel.
It was near midday, and the few who were fishing had already got their bait and left for whatever patches of water they thought might be productive. Nobody had taken a boat. Looking over her shoulder Junie saw a colored woman coming down the road to the camp. No boat there, she knew, just bait. Clem could take care of that. Mostly she just wanted to talk some more to Axel. Or maybe not talk. Just sit awhile.
"I wrapped your fish, Axel. I'll leave them over here in the shade."
"Thanks, Junie." She sat down.
Clem puttered around the store, checking what bait was left, putting up an old display card of snelled hooks. He crossed out the twenty cents printed on the card, and with a piece of crayon marked it fifteen cents. Who the hell's gonna buy them, he thought, when they can get a dozen plain hooks for a dime.
A shadow fell across the counter. Clem turned and saw the dark woman standing in the sunlit doorway.
"Get you something?" he grunted.
"I just got a new pole," she said. "Need the bait." Clem's eyes raped her. Big, full breasts, not too much belly, wide, strong hips and thighs. He cut about twenty feet of nylon line from a spool, put an assortment of bass and pan fish looks on the counter.
"There's the floats over there." She picked five from a tray. "What kinda bait you want? You need a boat for bass."
"I'll get the boat tomorrow. Sunup time's best. Just gimme some worms now. After I rig up the pole I'm fixing to get some eating fish for tonight."
"Okay," said Clem. "Get the pole set and I'll get the bait when you're ready."
"Mister, I'm broke. Can I pay you for this in the morning when I come back for the boat?"
"What the hell do you think ... V He started to put the equipment away.
"I get paid tonight when the lady comes home. I gotta cleaning job two days a week and I'll pay for this and for the boat before I takes it out. First thing in the morning."
"If I give you this stuff you know damn well you'd never show up again. You got some man waiting down the road for you to bring this?"
"Ain't got no man," she said. "He took off three-four months ago for the North with more'n a hundred dollars I had. I fishes by myself to eat. Working money pays the rent, along with my sister. We been living round the Glades long as you has." Clem looked at her more carefully.
"You ain't that old, gal."
"Twenty-four."
"Like I said, you ain't that old. What's your name?"
"Pearl." She smiled, and her face shone. She knew he was appraising her movements as she stood back, then leaned on the counter and waited.
"What do you do besides house cleaning and fishing?" Clem finally said.
"Ain't much else to do. Cook some meals at home. Wander around. You know. I been here before. Young gal sold me bait."
"I ain't seen you here. 'Course I coulda been out. Things kinda hard for ya?"
Pearl straightened, slowly tucked her loose green blouse into the waist band of her skirt. It pulled down tight to just above the nipples of her full, well-separated breasts.
"No," she said and laughed with a quick, loose-throated sound. "Nothin' much hard since Eddie went North. He the one I told ya. He was the hardest."
"How do you mean?" Clem's guts were tightening.
"You know what I mean, man. His hard times were the good times." She laughed again.
Clem walked around the counter top and stood facing her. "Maybe there's a couple of poles we could fix and it wouldn't cost nothing. And maybe you'd need the boat every now and then for some free bass."
Pearl took in his size-thick arms and neck over a heavy girth. The cotton fishing pants bulged at the top of the left thigh.
"Big man like you could take a lot of working."
"You look like you're the kind of a gal who could really enjoy working like that. And you ain't been doing much lately, have you?"
"I had a couple little jobs some time back but, you know, man, some gals like that kinda work regular."
Clem's eyes were on her breasts. Through the blouse he saw the dark aureoles with the rising black nipples in the center. A few years back he had come close to having himself a black girl. Often and often he'd remembered how close he'd come, and thought about how good it would have been. The difference in color had excited him even more. He had come within a hair of looking down at the white and redness of his genitals against the girl's darkness.
Clem put a hand under one of Pearl's breasts and felt its full weight.
"They's full," she said, "ain't no kid ever milked them. I'll bet that ain't true of what you got hanging there." Her laugh came easily and with the hot sound of animal lust. She lightly brushed her hand down his naked belly to his rising penis.
"You got a little gin in this place?" she asked and looked around.
"You don't need it." Clem leered at her and got a bottle of wine from the closet. "But it does make things hotter, don't it?"
"I gets hot enough. It just makes me do more."
Clem poured two glasses full of the dark red wine and gave one to her. She took it and searched in her shirt pocket. "Got any cigarettes?" Clem reached behind the counter and pulled out half a pack. She took one and lit it.
"You sure like to take time, don't you?"
"You in a real big hurry to snoot that thing off? They tell me white gab likes to hurry it up. I likes it more slow and fancy." She looked at the wine and gulped down a mouthful. "Sure you ain't got no gin?"
"No." The little whiskey left he was saving for later. "Wine'll get it hot enough." He filled her glass again and walked to the door. "Just wanted to see where the kids were," he said. Junie was with Axel. She'd find excuses not to come in the store as long as he was there. Bubba was nowhere around. Probably down the highway with another sign.
"That gal out there yours? She looks about ripe for some man."
His senses full of what was coming with Pearl, he nodded. "Yeah, she's ripe. Just little-titted and short channelled and-" he stopped.
Pearl took a long look at him. "Ya mean you've been screwin' your own kid, don'tcha? Man, you must be a hard-up bull. Well, that's family business. Nothin' new about that. I had an uncle visited us once from Georgia. I was fifteen and big. He laid me five times in two days. My sister saw it. She got her share. Hell, that man musta lost pounds of juice. He was big like you and full of it." The recollection pleased her.
"You take it where it is," Clem grinned. "You can't sit around pretending your goddamn hand's a hot pussy. You ever had a white man on you?"
"No. That I ain't had. Once at school a white kid took it out and waved it at me. Wanted me to go down on him. I showed him a real honest-to-god black tit. We mighta made out but some ass-creepin' teacher came around the building and we took off."
"Only thing we're going to take off is these clothes. Bring the glass back here."
He led her into the back room with Bubba's canvas cot and the crepe that hid Junie's, to his old box spring and mattress. He finished his wine. Pearl put her glass on the table, took a final drag on the cigarette and crushed it out in the tin top of a coffee can.
"Get these damn clothes off. And take a look at a real hot prick." He unzipped his pants and let them drop to the floor. His penis pointed to her, its deep red head already wet and shiny with desire.
Pearl unbuttoned her blouse and the waist of her skirt. She swept them aside to a chair.
"Man, you ain't had that thing out in the sun, has you?" She took it in her hand and her dark skin emphasized the white area of him.
Clem ran his hands over her breasts and took the nipples in his fingers. He ground his turgid organ into her belly.
"Bang me good with it, hear?" she said through wet lips. "I want that red cock pushin' right through my guts."
They moved to the bed. Clem rolled heavily on top of her and then over on his back. She knelt across him putting a nipple against his lips. He pulled it in his mouth and ran his rough tongue across it. Clem put his hand down between her legs and felt the moist, spread lips of her opening. He worked his fingers in and out.
Pearl moaned. He put two fingers in and felt the throbbing and pulling of her vagina. Opening his mouth wider, he sucked more of her soft flesh into his mouth until the nipple lay on the back of his tongue.
"Ain't no milk there, baby, but you keep tryin' for it." She pulled back and gave him the other one. "Can't have just one gettin' it all. Pull on this one as much as you want, baby." He pulled as he had before, and bit enough to make her squeal and pull back. "You plain mean. I don't like bitin'. You wanta try hurtin', put that cock of yours in me and shove all you want."
"Get your head down on my balls first." Clem turned her by the hips as she reversed her legs around him. The mound of her cunt pressed against his chest as she backed along him. Her lips encircled his cock and he pushed it farther back in her mouth and pulled it out. "Get down there," he groaned, "and swallow my nuts."
She put her hand under his legs and around the loose flesh of his scrotum. Her head went down farther as she pressed the two firm testicles into her wide open mouth. She sucked them back with her cheeks and tongue.
"Like that, gal. Like that. Tongue them good."
She raised her buttocks to get her head deeper between his thighs. He spread her open in front of his eyes. The black, kinky hair surrounded the point of the pink clitoris. He rubbed it and moved his fingers in and out of the suctioning vagina. Pearl eased his balls out of her mouth. She was panting with lust.
"Get 'em back in your mouth." Clem ordered, trying to reach for her head. "Suck 'em back in."
"Anytime you want," she said, gasping. "But right now fuck me, man, and fuck me hard." She twisted around on him, grabbed his cock and jammed it into herself. Eyes rolling, she began rising and falling on him, pushing down against him hard and lifting almost the full length of his pulsating prick. "I'm gonna pull that white stuff out of you so high in me I can taste it."
Clem's hands squeezed her tits.
"I'm gonna shoot it off now." Pearl felt the hot semen squirt into her. She worked harder until her own spasms drew more out of him. They panted heavily.
Motionless for a moment, Pearl slowly raised herself. Some of their juices dripped down over Clem's balls. She started putting on her skirt and blouse.
"A white man's better fucking than I heard," she said. "We'll do that again."
"You're too goddamn loose," mumbled Clem.
"I was hot. Next time I tighten up."
Clem turned his head and saw Bubba staring, his mouth open, in the doorway just behind Pearl.
Another customer? A young fellow sat talking to Axel. Only he wasn't leaning against a tree the way Axel was. Or leaning against anything. Sitting straight as if he were ready to spring up and be on his way.
"Mornin', Axel. How're they biting?" Junie looked at the newcomer, but didn't think of what to say to him. She suddenly felt rumpled and wondered if her zipper was holding. She clutched at it to make sure.
"Well, good morning, Junie Belle. This be a new fisherman come by. What you say your name was?"
"Uh-Colt." He made the answer reluctantly. Like he was sorry they asked.
"You going to fish?" Junie asked him. He didn't have any tackle with him. And if he wasn't truly a fisherman, he'd never be back this way again.
Colt looked at Axel's fishing rod enviously. "Guess not this time. Didn't bring no gear."
She relaxed. This time.
"Here, boy. Hold mine for a spell. I didn't come out here to do a lotta work, you know. I'm seventy-nine years old."
Junie slapped Axel smartly on the arm, laughing raucously.
"Yeah and any young guy would trade muscles with you, Axel." She looked quickly at Colt, and he was staring at her. Then he reached for Axel's rod. Axel passed it to him.
"Here, catch you a bream."
Colt reeled in the line and lifted it from the water to check the bait.
"What're you using?"
"Aw, just some little old worms. Here's the can."
Colt carefully detached the dangling half worm from the hook and mounted a fresh one in its place.
Junie squatted down by Axel, and started to wipe her nose on her arm. She snuffled instead. Every now and then she turned her eyes onto the young man. His face was full of trouble. That was her first impression. It was a homely face. Big with big brow. The features were all part of a perpetual frown.
Lordy! How could his troubles be any worse than hers? Whatever was wrong he was sure gloomy about it. He stared into the water expecting the worst and his features settled themselves into a deeper frown.
He looked like if he got mad enough he could break you in two. And it wouldn't take much to make him mad.
A white crane fluttered down at the edge of the water. Colt watched the bird walk and stand motionless. He gave it his full attention and his frown eased off.
The three of them stared at the bird snapping up a snack from the water. A tug on Colt's line brought him back to business. He reeled in an empty hook and examined it. Again the frown softened.
"This ain't a good time to fish," he said.
"Not to do any good it ain't," Axel agreed. Colt gave him a look that said he understood him perfectly.
A flood of peace flowed through Junie's body and she laughed out loud hugging her knees to her. Axel laughed with her, and Colt's frown relaxed another notch.
CHAPTER FOUR
Junie found herself humming a song an old fellow at Carson's used to sing a lot. Jimmy Crack Corn. He would strum a banjo.
Jimmy crack com-I don't care Jimmy crack corn and I don't care Jimmy crack corn and I don't care da dum da dum da dum.
It was the don't care part she liked. Happy and unhappy at the same time. She could almost die from the misery of the dumb way she lived. And nobody cared a shit about her. Her throat thickened and broke off the humming.
Unhappiness was hateful to her; her natural good spirits rose time and time again to the surface. Every time they were beat back they healed themselves and bubbled up anew. Like that poor old three-legged cat at Carson's.
Colt came fishing every day. Soon as that big construction job opened up on the new condominium he would have to knock off fishing. But for now he fished. It was sorta like having a friend.
Junie emptied the pan of dishwater out the door and twirled around in joy.
Jimmy crack corn-I don't care Jimmy crack corn and I don't care Jimmy crack corn and I don't care-
She wished she didn't look so sloppy. Every day the ladies in the magazine drifted farther away from her. Every time Colt lifted his eyes from staring at the water and looked at her. She sighed.
Junie took a rag and wet it at the pump and crawled into the old pick-up to use the rearview mirror. She rubbed away the dirty places, those she could see. Her neck now looked gray. Anyway, it's better. She hurried lightly down to the old pine tree to see who was fishing. Colt was fishing. She didn't see Axel, and slowed her walk, suddenly shy.
The wet bag on the ground beside him was plump.
"Anything in here?"
"A couple."
She picked it up and headed for the dock. "I'll clean them for you."
"You don't hafta do that."
"That's all right. I can do 'em real fast. Daddy has a real sharp knife that cleans 'em fast."
When she came back Colt was not there, but had left his tackle.
"He's inside trying to buy an artificial lure," Axel said.
"I thought you weren't coming today."
"Oh no, I come. Old fella like me's got to sleep late now and then."
Junie laughed and looked toward the store.
Bubba was in the store waiting for customers to wait on.
"Naw, we ain't got any." Bubba spit briefly off to his side.
Colt knew teenagers (he was twenty) at the migrant labor camp. He had a brother the same age as Bubba, fifteen he guessed. He was a spitter, too. To show how big he was. His brother had the same gray skin and shaggy hair and yellow teeth-but that stupid expression on Bubba's face! No, Frankie wasn't that stupid looking.
Bubba spit again. "What you want an artificial for? Catch more with chub and worms. What's the good of an artificial?"
Colt's gorge rose sending a bitter taste to his mouth. Bubba looked at him with that stupid face.
"What you want an artificial for, huh?"
"It's more sporting." Bubba stared.
"Never mind. Bait's all right. I'll take some worms. Give me a box of them."
Bubba got the worms and took Colt's change, moving his fat lips to count it.
Colt went outside and drew in a lungful of fresh air. He saw Junie down by the bank holding his pole for him.
"Thanks, Junie."
She handed the pole to him. "I didn't do any good for you."
Colt set down his worms and fitted one to the hook.
"Junie Belle! Customer wants a boat!" yelled Bubba.
Shit! Why couldn't he do something?
Junie went out on the dock where a man in a red and blue plaid flannel shirt and khaki pants was trying to make a choice from the three leaky row boats.
"You want it with a motor or without? Motor's two dollars extra plus fuel," she said.
He wanted it with. So Junie had to go in and bring out a motor and attach it. The man helped her carry it. By then Bubba came out and told her to watch the store. While she stood in the empty store, dusting off the counter and rearranging the displays she heard Colt's '57 Chevrolet motor turn over. She pulled back the greasy curtain and watched puffs of dust follow the automobile down the little road.
Colt took the turn toward the main road and turned east on the highway for a short stretch to his place. The Happy Times Mobile Homes was a distance out from town. And that was just exactly the way he preferred it.
He pulled up alongside his own small trailer-the folks here called them mobile homes-and used his keys on the double-locked door.
He dropped the bag of bream in the sink and struck a match under the messy skillet on the burner. He grabbed up the heavy skillet and wiped it out clean with a wad of newspaper. He took a bottle of oil from the refrigerator and poured it over the bottom of the pan. If that had a been his mom she'd a put a big hunk of lard right in the middle of the pan, he thought. But Colt now read a newspaper each and every day of his life, and he saw once a recipe for pan-frying fish.
He separated several small fillets Junie had cleaned for him and wrapped the others to stuff in the top of the ice box. Refrigerator, he corrected himself.
He spread a sheet of newspaper on the sink counter and poured a small mound of corn meal in the middle. First shaking salt and then pepper on both sides of the fish he dunked each side in the corn meal, then dropped them into the sizzling pan.
After supper Colt drove the Chevrolet to the corner of Happy Times where he always bought gas. The owner let him work on the old car there and use the tools. He wanted to put in the carburetor kit before it got any worse. The car was torn down and ready for the kit when Colt happened to look out and see a car with two-way radio antenna bristling.
The guy in the green-gray uniform was that game warden. Instinctively not liking the law, Colt kept out of sight.
That was no problem. But the sight of another driver pulling in was a different matter. Colt stiffened and his heart beat double time as he glided around back where the tires were kept. He stood without moving and watched the hard young man with thick hair get out of the car and peer into its interior with Ned, the gas pump jockey. Colt kept his vigil and saw the man straighten up and look keenly around, as if he could sense Colt's presence. He stopped breathing until the man finally paid Ned and started to leave. Suddenly he leaned from his window and said something to Ned. Ned stopped to think in that slow way of his and answered. The man stared at him for a minute and drove away.
Whew!
Colt installed the kit and wished he knew what Ned's answer had been. And what was the question.
Before he left he wanted to ask Ned about it, but couldn't think of a way to do it without sounding too interested. So he lifted a hand to Ned and said, "See you, hear?" and drove off.
His face had settled into its accustomed worried preoccupation when he got back to his trailer. He went in and locked the door. After drawing the oirtains across the windows, he pulled his suit case from beneath the bunk.
From a slit in the lining he took an envelope and shook out a stack of green bills. With total concentration he counted.
"Nine hundred five dollars." He nodded with satisfaction and enclosed the money once more in its wrappings. Locking the suitcase this time he slid it carefully under the bunk.
CHAPTER FIVE
On the dock Bubba's dirty wet balloon of a face, with its small pimples like flaws in cheap rubber, leered at Junie.
"What did that nut you was talkin' to want-besides fishing?" Junie remained silent "He came in the store for some of them artificial baits. We don't need their kind around here. They don't catch nothin' and the other folk'll think we don't have no fish around the camp. A fucking nut."
"What the hell would you know about fishing for fun-a couple of meat fishermen like you and the old man?" Junie blazed at him. "Get outta here and leave me be." Bubba stood still, watching her.
"The old man don't waste no time with customers like that," he said. "He just gives them what they wants and collects. And it ain't artificial." His sniggering laugh caused Junie to look up at him from where she sat on the dock.
"What do you mean by that? You mean that black girl that came down the road a while back? I've seen her before. She bought some bait."
"Well, the old man sold her more than bait. Or she sold him, I dunno." He giggled again. "Maybe you coulda got somethin' outta that fella you was talkin' to. He mighta had a couple of bucks. We got more to sell than bait, ya know. Ain't nothing free-for strangers. Besides, he seemed to like you."
"You're a natural born pimp, Bubba."
"What's that?" he asked.
"Ask the old man. Then maybe the two of you could get yourselves a stable and go into the business proper. And maybe they'd throw your asses in jail too."
She knew Bubba would ask Clem what "pimp" meant. That was one word he hadn't come across in the family vocabulary.
"What about your ass, Junie? Where would they put that?"
Yeah, she thought. I know damn well what they'd do if I ever told them about pa and me. They'd haul him off all right and me along with him to jail or a detention home for God knows how long. Getting outta here somehow will be a hell of a lot easier and faster than from a prison yard.
If only she had some friends or some money. Christ, pa and Bubba and she never had either one. Clem screwed anybody that ever tried to help them one way or another until he got kicked out.
Bubba turned to walk away. "Maybe when that guy comes back he'll know where to put it."
Her gaze drifted over the water beyond the dock and the camp. Maybe he would. Under a clean dress, in a clean room and with good clean food and friends and love, whatever the hell that would be! There was a long way to go and a lot of things not to do before-
"Miss," The voice called to her from the bank. Junie turned and saw a young man standing there. Khaki shirt, the usual denims and work boots. She got up and walked toward him.
"Miss," he said again.
"Bait 'n' stuff's over in the store," She answered. "Want a boat?" He didn't have any tackle so she figured that let that out.
"No, not right now. I'm looking for a friend. Thought maybe you'd seen him around here. Name's Chuck Johnson."
"Customers don't give their names generally," said Junie. "What'd he look like?"
"Well, somethin' like me, I guess, A little taller, light hair, about a hundred seventy pounds."
"Don't remember."
"He likes to fish with a fly rod. Uses artificial baits. Drives an old Chevy."
Junie had recognized Colt's description before this and became wary of the stranger.
"He a friend of yours?"
"Yeah. We, uh, worked at the same place. Used to do a lot of fishing together. I heard he came over this way when he up and quit that job. Figured he'd still go fishing around here. Sure he ain't been here yet?"
"No." said Junie. There was something about the way he asked the question she didn't like: too direct, too sharp, too eager. Almost like a county cop.
"Maybe he'll write you a letter."
"Naw, he ain't much for that. He can write better than most folks, but not for lettin' them know where he is, I guess. I'll be by again, if you don't mind. If he's around he'll drop in here. Sure appreciate it if you wouldn't mention his friend was looking for him. Like to sorta surprise him. Maybe him and me would get one of your boats and go out for bass. Okay?"
"Sure," said Junie. The young man waved a hand at her and moved on down the road. She watched him. Walks like a farm boy, she thought, like a duck, feet well apart for balance over chuck holes. Or, as pa would say, "still got his fucking feet in the furrows." Held his body straighter. Maybe he hadn't walked in them so long. Maybe he'd even rather trip and fall getting out. She thought the whole goddamn world is walking around the holes they've dug only to get stuck in cowshit.
Some day, someday soon, so help me Jesus, I'll get loose. She turned from the day graying over the lead waters of the swamp, to the skeleton of home.
Clem was inside by the window.
"What'd he want?" he asked Junie.
"Nothing. Just looking around. He's new here. Wanted to know how the fishing was."
Clem had a new bottle of whiskey on the counter. He tore open the plastic wrap around the cap and poured himself a drink. Where the hell did he get the money for that, she wondered. What did he kill and sell for that? No, most likely promised some liquor dealer on the edge of town free fishing bait and a boat for a day. About right, two and a half bucks for the cheapest each of them had.
Clem was a trade-out man. "Ya don't need money to fill your belly. They got something you want, you got something they want." Deal.
"Light the goddamn light," he growled. "It's getting dark. Where's ol' Bubble-ass?" He returned to the window and looked out into the darkening twilight. "He sure can come and go like a goddamn swamp duck. Ya hungry?" Junie nodded. Fixing something to eat would take a little time. Not long enough, though. It would just put off what she had seen in pa's face and the way he hooked his thumb in his belt, pushing his pants lower. She looked in the cupboard and took out a bag of beans and went to the old ice box for a piece of what was left of the gator meat.
"We got some meat, navy beans, bread and grits. It'll take time to fix."
"That's all right, Junie. You know how to fix everything good. I ain't in no hurry. Woman's made to take care a things, like I been tellin' ya." He added more of the whiskey to his half-finished glass. Junie had to move past him to get the pot for water. He pressed her against the wall easily without hurting her, and grabbed her wrist, bringing her hand down.
"See, honey, it ain't up for you yet. But you got more than beans and grits for your supper. You got a dessert, too." He let her go.
"I ain't hungry for nothin'."
"Take it nice and easy, honey." She hated that word honey. He always used it when he wanted her-one way or another.
She got the water and poured the beans into the pot. Then the meat and the grits. Hell, he won't know the difference, she figured. It's one of our "regular" nights.
Clem went to the door and yelled, "Bubble-ass." Within a few minutes the boy came in. "Close that damn door," Clem ordered. "Where the hell you been?"
"Checking on who's around the place," said Bubba.
"Checking on what gals might be sitting on a bank in the dark, ya mean. You ain't gonna get nothin' that way. That's kid stuff. You what now? Fifteen-sixteen?"
"Almost sixteen. You know that."
"How many gals you had, boy?" Clem laughed and slapped him on the back. "Not none. You just been looking and showing your hard little pecker to Junie, and then jerking it off. Ain't that right?" He swallowed half the whiskey in his glass.
"Ain't that right, Junie?" The two of them said nothing. "Get supper." he mumbled.
"Won't be ready for a while yet," the girl answered. "Quite a while. We gotta wait. I'll check." She dreaded the coming night. She had a feeling Clem had something unusual in mind.
"Awright, check it. Bubs, you bring that bottle of wine in the closet behind the counter. And a couple of them hurricane candles-in the room." He grasped his bottle and glass and lumbered into the back area. He sat down heavily at the table. Bubba came in with the wine and two candles and put them on the table in the darkened room. Clem put the candles upright and lit them with a kitchen match he took from his pants pocket.
"Comes a time when a man has to explain the facts to his son." He leaned across the table at Bubba. "I mean what everything looks like. Know what I mean?" Bubba shuffled his feet. "There's a lot of things besides just putting it in and screwing." He took another drink, looked around the room and back at Bubba's face. "Ya got your tongue hangin' out, ain't ya? You've been peekin' around the corners at me and Junie and maybe me and your ma. And some others." He leaned back in the chair, enjoying Bubba's open-mouthed slavering. "What you need, boy, is the real thing. Tonight you're gonna get it. I'm gonna watch ya pump yourself dry. You gonna get it all the way, boy. Now, you pour some that wine into your gut and some for Junie. Only she gonna have some hard liquor, too. Junie," he bellowed, "Come here, now."
She heard him call and knew he was on fire with lust.
"It'll be ready soon." The meal was about done.
"Bring it here now, gal. We're waiting for you."
Junie brought in the hot food with three plates, and set them on the table. Standing, she dished out a portion.
"What the hell are the candles for?"
"'Cause I like the goddamn light that way, that's why!"
Clem half rose from the chair, glaring at her and at Bubba's glazed eyes. "Never mind, honey. I just figured it might be nice for us. Junie, have some wine."
"Eat your supper." She didn't know what else to say. It might be better if he didn't eat, just drink the whiskey and sleep it off. It would be faster. He took a spoonful of the food and washed it down with another drink. "Ya want some wine or hard liquor, Junie?"
"Neither," she said. Clem raised his hand and brought the back of it within an inch of her face.
"You rather have this?" She knew he meant it, and reached for the wine. At least that would make it easier, not harder.
"You finish that up like a good, lovin' girl, and just relax easy." She finished the drink. It was warm and sour-sticky. He poured her some of the whiskey. "A little chaser and you'll feel just right." His eyes never left her.
Bubba finished his drink, and spoke for the first time.
"I ain't hungry."
"Maybe not for supper, you ain't, but for something else. That right? You're just about a man now, ain't ya?" Bubba nodded. "Junie, you know what else makes a man hungry besides his belly, don't ya?"
She knew only too well. He had always chased Bubba off before, but tonight he had a real family gathering planned. A few times before, Bubba had come over to her bed at night when the old man was in a drunken sleep and rubbed his hand over her breasts. She had wakened to hear him whispering, "Just feel it, Junie, just pull it up and down." She had yelled at him and kicked out at his stomach. He had left her and gone away mumbling his frustration.
But tonight he had Clem backing him up. At least, she thought, he's not as big and as strong as the old man. She took a drink of the whiskey. Clem's prurient anticipation tugged the corners of his mouth into a loose-lipped grin. He looked from one to the other, waiting for the alcohol to settle deeper. He had two puppets on the strings of lust, and he wanted to watch them jerking in passionate play.
"Bubba," he finally muttered, "drop them pants off and show Junie what's makin' ya hungry now." The boy looked at Clem. Then at Junie. He unbuckled his belt, zipped down the jeans, and without rising, kicked them off under the table. "How's it doin', boy?" Clem leaned toward him. "Stickin' up and hurtin'?" Bubba, still watching Junie, nodded quickly.
Clem turned to Junie. "Now you and me can't just sit here like this, can we? Let's all get just natural. Take those things off." It was a command this time. Junie, warmed and dulled by the liquor, took another swallow from the glass. She unbuttoned her shirt automatically, and let it hang over the back of the chair. Bubba stared at her nipples. She kicked off the pants.
"Bubba, go over and show Junie where ya hurt." The boy stood up and stepped to where she sat. His cock stood out toward her face, the foreskin covering the dark, red head. His balls were right underneath. He reached down and put a hand under one breast and pressed the nipple. "Feels good, don't it?" Clem breathed. Bubba didn't heai anything except the blood pounding in him. He moved his cock closer to Junie.
"Feel it, Junie, feel my nuts, too." She encircled it with her hand and pulled the skin back. The head glowed in the candlelight; a couple of drops of thin liquid oozed from the opening. Bubba's legs trembled slightly. "Ya gotta suck it, Junie, like ya done pa." He put the moist end against her lips.
"Over on the bed," grunted Clem Junie rose and walked to the bed, Bubba's hand reaching down for her cunt. "Never mind that," said Clem. "You ain't got sense enough to take your pecker out in time. We don't want her knocked up."
Junie lay down on the bed and Bubba sat on the edge, not too sure where to put his prick. He felt her breasts with both hands, and leaning over, put a nipple in his mouth, sucking it back on his tongue. Junie couldn't help beginning to respond. She stretched her hand to his balls and gripped them firmly, feeling one moving against the other. Looking over at Clem sitting open-legged on the chair about five feet away, she saw him watching intently. His cock lay up against one thigh. In the light of the candles it seemed to be working its way up past the hair on his belly. She grasped Bubba's cock and pulled the skin back farther.
"Get your head between her legs, Bubs, and lick her all the way back to her little asshole." Bubba twisted around, not really knowing or seeing, just wanting his lust satisfied. He pushed Junie's legs apart, and his mouth and tongue searched and licked the open, moist pinkness with the urgency of his own throbbing. He pressed his prick to her face. Junie raised her lips to him and took it in her mouth. Bubba grunted and tried to press it in deeper. He raised his head for a moment.
"I gotta come."
Clem rose and stood over them. He looked down at Junie's tight-cheeked sucking.
"No," he said, "Take it out and jerk it off into her mouth. I wanna see it come in Junie's mouth." Junie, still looking at Clem's hardening cock, kept her lips apart and firmly grasped Bubba's prick. She pointed it to her throat and worked it up and down the way Clem had taught her. Bubba's aching balls exploded and the semen shot from the end of his cock onto her tongue.
"Keep your mouth open till it's all out," Clem ordered. When it reached the back of her throat she wanted to swallow, but waited for the final spasm from Bubba. Clem was staring intently into her mouth. Bubba lay still.
"Lick the rest of it off," the man growled. "Get up, boy. You've blown your load." He grabbed the boy by the shoulder and pulled him away from Junie. He lay down on the bed. "Get your lips around my balls now, Junie."
"My jaws ache," she said, and rubbed them gently with palms.
"Just put them in your goddamn mouth. Your tongue'll work on them. Bubba, you get back there and lick her pussy."
She pushed one of his balls into her mouth behind her teeth. Her tongue had to move over it. Bubba lifted her leg to make room for his mouth against her. There was no sound except the wetness of their mouths and Clem's heavy breathing. Despite herself, Junie felt a climax about to engulf her all the way from her firm breasts to her cunt.
"Put it in your mouth, now," muttered Clem. "And suck. Suck hard." She took his cock full back in her throat while pressing Bubba's head hard between her legs. The feeling broke loose inside her in animal abandon. It rushed through her in a wave, transmitting itself to Clem's prick. She gulped down his warm stickiness. The two males withdrew from her. Clem went to the table and poured liquor into his glass and Jun-ie's.
"Drink it," he grunted. "It'll be real nourishing with the supper you've had." He burst out laughing. "That's the best I've had in a time." Junie looked at the whiskey and gulped it down. What the hell, she thought, I'm their whore. She felt like whimpering in a corner.
"Look, Junie," said Clem. "Bubba's got another hardon from lickin' ya." The boy moved toward her. She reached for his cock.
CHAPTER SIX
"You folks oughter get shut of this boat." Colt and Junie had stopped rowing to bail water. The fool boat was getting leakier every day.
"Can't. It's the best of the three."
Colt looked at her in wonder and then shook his head. He scooped a canful of water and tossed it over the side. The midsummer sun flooded them with heat that warmed the blood to a tropical languor and made Junie's hair a tangled glory. Colt stared at it, but he only said, "I'll look at it when we get back, but I ain't had much experience fixing boats. Most of my fishing's been from the banks."
Junie's heara quickened. He never said anything about where he came from and what he used to do. She thought about this a lot, especially since the stranger had been around asking those questions.
"Have you done a lot of fishing?"
"All my life."
"How old were you the first time?"
"Aw, I dunno. Fishing's the only fun I ever had. Before I come here I'd go ever chance I got. Sometimes only coupla times a month." He became quiet then and picked up the oars.
"What kept you so busy?" she persisted. He cast a sidelong glance at her. "I mean if fishing was your only fun why didn't you do it more often?"
"I wasn't there to have fun. The camp wasn't there for fun."
"Was it a fishing camp?"
A faint smile stretched his lips. "Nope. Labor camp. Migrant labor camp."
Junie had a swift image of the migrant labor camps the Grices had driven past in their travels from one fishing camp to another. The poorest of the poor worked in those places.
"I wondered where you were from." He had nothing more to say.
"That's funny," Junie babbled on. "I've always lived in fishing camps where daddy worked. For me fishing was work, not fun."
"What's your idea of fun?"
"I don't know. Reading, I guess."
"Do you read a lot?"
"Oh, all the time." She was going to have to get a new magazine some day. She was wearing out the one she had. "Do you?"
"I read the paper every day."
He looked at her and the sun glinted off his squinted eyes. Or maybe he was smiling. If fishing was his fun, he was having fun right now. And she was working. Work can be very enjoyable if you're lucky, she thought.
"How long you been working for your dad like this?"
"Since Mama died. I was twelve then. When she was here she always helped daddy and took care of me and Bubba. Bubba was eleven and I was twelve when she died." Those years before Mama died she now remembered as the happy years, though she hadn't known that at the time. Whenever she thought of her mother's death, she became troubled and apprehensive. Something had not been right. She noticed Colt's cloudy look was back.
"Let's try here," she said.
They put up the oars and dropped their lines over the side. She had only suggested stopping as her way of distracting him from his gray thoughts. But it did prove to be a lucky spot.
Soon she saw his face ease off from his stern expression to merely unsmiling. She relaxed too, and pulled in a small bass to toss on the pile. He wet his hands and picked up the slippery fish and dropped it carefully in the water.
"Now what in tarnation did you do that for?"
"Too little."
He was a strange one all right. Junie felt a particular pull toward him when he did something like releasing an undersized fish. And with the game warden nowhere around! Every difference she could discern between the men in her family and Colt made her cherish him more.
"You can swim good, can't you, Junie?'
"Sure."
"We may be swimming back. This boat's taking on more water." They began bailing again. Junie pointed to an islet off to the south.
"Why don't we tie up over there and have our lunch? Then we can rest before going back."
Colt looked over the distance briefly and picked up the oars.
It was a small spot of land above the water line. Farther into the Glades it would be a hummock. Spanish moss drifted over them in the warm breeze. They lounged on a sun-dappled rock and ate cheese sandwiches. Junie wondered if she'd ever be this happy again.
"You're my first fella, Colt."
He lifted startled eyes. "I can't be your fella, Junie."
"Why not?"
"I just can't." Tensely. "I don't want no woman. I got things to do."
Color flooded up from her heart into her throat and began a painful climb to her scalp. "Well. Would a woman keep you from doing things?"
Colt tossed the last bite of his sandwich at a curious frog. "I guess she would. Be just like a big ole rock bumping 'round your neck." He turned to look at her. "Ain't you ever had a fella?"
Her color subsided slowly. "Not really. Iffen a boy started hanging around, daddy or Bubba would always chase him off.
"Guess they was jealous." She looked at him quickly. "You better not go telling them I'm your fella or they'll stop letting me fish at the camp."
"No worry about that," she said dryly. "We ain't got enough customers to spare any." Junie's gaze fell absently on the glinting water. "Colt, you ever had a girl before?"
He seized her upper arms and almost shook her until something in her eyes stopped him. He let her go and drew in a long breath. "You're not my girl, Junie. I've had a coupla girls. I fooled around some with girls in the camp." His eyes hardened. "Dolores wanted to take me over to be her guy, that would've suited her fine."
Is that what he was running away from? Dolores?
"Nope. Not for me. I couldn't see getting stuck in a labor camp all my fife raising a lot of little Puerto Rican kids-"
Junie nodded wisely. " 'Course you wouldn't want Puerto Rican kids."
Coifs eyes flashed anger at her. "Any kids, Junie."
Not understanding his sudden anger Junie sought to change the subject.
"Do you have a brother or sister?"
He laughed a short, bitter bark. "Well I guess I do. Six brothers and five sisters. That is, when I left home I had six brothers and five sisters. Might be more now."
Junie remembered the swarms of ragged children she had seen around migrant labor camps. She wondered how long he had been away, but was afraid to ask.
"You just got the two of you, Junie. That's a nice size family. Your folks used some sense." She'd never thought of it that way, but was glad of his approval, even if only of her parents' restraint in not having too many children. "You and Bubba and your pa-nice sized family."
"Mama would make it a better size, but then she's dead."
He considered allowing one more member in her family, and finally nodded.
"Yes, a girl needs her mother."
For a moment Junie felt her need keenly and her throat thickened with it.
"But you got your pa and your brother to look after you. Reckon you'll be all right."
She stared at shifting dots of sun sifting through the Spanish moss onto the big rock.
"You don't know what a migrant labor camp's like. If you did you'd understand why I'm not going to let nothing trap me like that. Nothing!"
"We're hard up, too. I mean you see how bad off we are."
"No Junie. It's not the same, not the same at all. Those camps are vicious. The bosses are mean and the workers are mean. It's nothing for a guy to pull a knife on a guy over twenty-five cents. All those people got to look forward to is a good drunk. Even if one of them tries to save up their money or send their kinds to school something always happens. The crop fails or the jalopy breaks down. God, I think they're all working to keep their old cars held together so they can go to the next job to do the whole thing over again."
They were silent. Then Junie said gently, "Don't you like your family?"
He crashed a fist into his palm. "I hate them. They're just misery. Outside the camp people turn their faces away from their kind." He looked at Junie levelly. "Don't look like that, Junie. I love them, too-the whole miserable bunch. Some day I want to go back and take them all away from it." His face tightened. "If only they weren't so-so sorry!"
Junie nodded slowly. "Yes. Now I remember. I used to think that way about Mama. Since she's been gone I forgot about that. Now I only think of how much I miss her. But I used to feel so mad at her-like you say-when she let daddy treat her mean-" she stopped and asked herself what her mother could have done. She could have left! No, where would she go? If Junie left, where could she go?
"Yeow!" Junie bolted to her feet slapping her bottom where a creature had stabbed painfully. "A snake!" she cried. Colt quickly examined the ground.
"Look here! A baby scorpion got you!"
"I don't care! It hurts!" She danced and slapped. On the ground with his tail curled over his back was the small ugly scorpion.
"Come on, take down your jeans, I'm a gonna have to fix it."
Junie was struck still by the new turn things were taking.
"Come on, take down your jeans."
Her first thought was for her ragged underpants. Wouldn't an opportunity like this happen when she wore ragged drawers! But then when weren't they ragged?
"Don't be silly now. I'm just gonna fix the sting."
In desperate inspiration Junie turned her back and lowered jeans and underpants together. Colt clapped at her plump cheek with a handful of warm mud. "Let that dry on there now. It'll feel better directly."
Something felt better already. She turned her head shyly toward him. Didn't he even want her? Drawing a blissful sigh, she saw that he did. From her experience, the signs were too well known to her.
Though Colt began whistling nervously Jun-ie's face became suffused with radiance.
Colt leaped up and gathered their picnic litter. Junie watched him. How different from Bubba.
"Let's start back now. The mud can dry with your jeans on."
My, he sure was in a hurry to get away from this spot. Junie kept smiling to herself all the way to camp, as they rowed and bailed alternately.
They stepped onto the dock, and her smile faded when Bubba greeted her in a raucous voice, "Hey, Junie Belle, what happened to your pants?"
She saw her daddy look sharply, first at Colt, then at her.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Despite the bright, clear, early Florida morning Junie felt depressed. Not only the crowding events of several days lay heavy on her, but it was that time of the month. Instead of a normal period, Clem had made it for her a recurring psychological as well as physical ache.
Her mother had been alive the first time Clem had violated her. It was a day such as this, Junie remembered, when her mother had been taken, for the second time, to the County Hospital. Junie never really knew what was wrong. She recalled complaints about stomach pain. The first operation hadn't helped much. To Junie, she had seemed even weaker and tireder after that. It hadn't made much difference to Clem. He had still got in bed with her at night. At night Junie heard him cursing at her and heard her mother crying often.
Junie remembered her first period when Mama had explained the reason for it as well as she could: a natural thing that would happen to her every month for years to come. Junie had asked her if it happened to everybody.
"No," her mother told her, "just to girls so's they can have babies."
"Does it happen to you?" Junie asked. She had never thought of her mother as a girl.
"Of course. Well-it did. When I had Bubba something happened inside-but you never mind about that."
Later, after her mother had died Junie reasoned that in some way her father had been to blame for her mother's death.
One night before her mother made the last trip to the hospital her father had come raging out of the bedroom slamming the door. He was angry as hell about something, and Junie heard her mother's name mingled with the curses he was muttering. Lying in bed, the door slightly open, she had heard and half-seen him pouring a drink. Peering into the lighted room from where she lay, she saw his flushed and scowling face. Every now and then he'd glance at her door. She pulled the covers up tightly just in case, through anger and pure orneriness, he'd come in and backhand her across the face. It had happened before for no reason she understood.
After about fifteen or twenty minutes sitting at the table drinking, he got up and started back to his bedroom. He hesitated and stood for a moment staring at Junie's room. Then he walked toward the door and pushed it open, only not as hard as was his usual way with doors. Junie grabbed the covers tight and shut her eyes. (Maybe he'll think I'm sleeping.) But she knew well enough even if he thought she was asleep it wouldn't make any difference. He came over and sat on the bed beside her. She closed her eyes tighter.
"Junie, ain't nobody sleeps with their eyes screwed up like that. Yer pa just wants to talk to you awhile. It ain't that late." She opened her eyes and stared at him.
"What do you want to talk about, Pa," she asked.
"Nothin' much, I guess. Mostly, I want some company. Yer goddamn ma-" his voice was rising in anger through frustration and with the effect of the liquor. He saw the scared look on Junie's face and dropped his voice.
"What I mean, honey, is yer ma ain't feelin' so well now and went to sleep. It gets kinda lonely around here when it's still early and everybody's already in bed." She figured it was about ten o'clock. Bubba was in bed in the other half of the room, which her mother had partitioned off with a heavy blanket.
"Now, you and me," Clem went on, "we don't need all that sleep. We ain't too young or sick. In fact, you're a healthy young woman now, ain't ya, Junie?" She nodded. "Twelve and healthy, that's right."
He grabbed the covers and threw them back. "It's too damn hot in here for two warm-blooded ones like us." Except for the panties she wore, her body lay exposed to him. He had never seen her like this since her mother had first told her she had to start wearing a top.
Clem just sat there staring up and down her length.
"Sure are healthy," he murmured in his throat. He covered one breast with a hand. "Bet you're gonna have the biggest titties of any girl in town. You're gonna have a lot a good-lookin' boy friends soon." He rubbed one breast and then the other. Junie reached for the covers, but he pushed them back and pulled her hand away. "You don't wanna do that, honey. Your pa just wants to make you feel good. You just lay still now, and I'll show ya."
His hand still held her wrist. With the other he turned her nipples between thumb and forefinger. She kept her wide eyes on him and he looked down at her breasts. It did feel good, an excitement she had never known before. Not knowing whether this was right or wrong for him to do or her to feel, she arched her breasts, feeling a firmness in the nipples.
He bent over her and took one in his mouth. After a minute he straightened up.
"Now don't that feel nice, Junie Belle? That's what your tits is for-playing and suckin'." His hand moved down over her panties and felt the pad between her legs. "Are ya bleedin', honey? Well, we can take care a that real easy. Yer ma didn't tell ya that, did she? Let's pull these off, now." She lay fearful of his violence, his strong hands, her own stirring inside. He pulled the panties off her legs. The pad remained.
"Just spread your legs a little," he growled. "And we'll get rid a that thing and take care of it." He pushed her legs apart, took the pad from between them and threw it on the floor.
Rubbing the hair just above her virgin area, he bent toward her. "Don't that feel better, girl, don't that feel good?" He put his mouth to her nipple.
Jesus god in heaven, Junie thought, if this is what lovin' is it's good. The excitation of taut nerves was causing feelings in her that she didn't understand. She had known nothing like this before. Maybe, she thought, Clem was trying to be nice to her for a change, to teach her things she was supposed to know. Maybe this was something she had to learn from her father just as her mother had told her about the "monthly."
She couldn't see past Clem's head and shoulder, but, from his movements, she knew he was fumbling with his pants. He raised slightly and pulled them off. Still blocking her view, he raised his head. His hot whiskeyed breath blew across her face.
"Now there's something I want ya to see, honey. Something good for ya. You ain't never seen a man-or a boy-thing, have ya?" He put a hand on her crotch.
"Just Bubba's. When he was littler."
"Naw," breathed Clem, "That's different. Things grow up like your tits. A man does too. Ya wanna see?" She was afraid to say no, and equally afraid of what he wanted to show her. She sensed now that all this "loving" wasn't for her, but for him-for something he wanted and she didn't. Something that was all wrong. She shook her head, half expecting him to hit her for it. Instead he put his mouth over a breast and licked a nipple for a few seconds. He sat back, moved his hips forward and pulled in his heavy gut. In the light from the doorway she saw his swollen penis sticking up, the redness of its smooth head made darker by the half light. She stared, fascinated, and started moving slowly across the bed away from him. He held her down firmly by the shoulders.
"Just take it easy, gal. It's gonna be good to ya." He grasped her wrist and brought her clenched fingers against it. "Open your hand and feel it." He squeezed her wrist until the fingers opened under the pressure and put her palm against the shaft. "Now hold it tight."
Involuntarily her hand closed. It was hot and throbbing with his blood pounding into it. He moved her hand down until it was under his scrotum and she felt the two objects inside.
"What do they feel like, honey?" The youthful heat had left her now and she felt colder, not knowing what to do or say. She was plain scared. He insisted, "What they feel like?" and tightened his thumb and forefinger around her wrist.
"Like-like two little balls, I guess."
His pleasure chortled in his chest. "Why, gal, you learn fast, real fast. That's exactly right. That's my balls. You gonna make good friends with them. You'll see." God, did she ever in the years that followed! "Now," he grunted, "we gonna put my cock where that old pad was."
She half rose in fear. "No-no. Leave me alone now, Pa." He let her move away a little on the bed, then threw his weight down beside her. Taking her forearms and pressing his elbows into the mattress he rolled on top of her.
"Jesus, no, Pa. You're too heavy. You're hurt-in'."
"You just lay still, gal. It ain't hurtin' you yet. We just gonna put it in easy." He forced her legs apart with his knees, reached down and pushed his cock past the soft lips and against the vagina. A little harder until the head began to slide in.
"It hurts. Get it out!" she yelled. "Get it out of me!" She tried to twist herself clear, but she could hardly move her body against his weight and strength.
"Listen," he snarled at her, "you keep your goddamn mouth quiet. Yell again and I'll smash your face back in your skull."
His heavy hand fell across her throat pressing down until only her breath would come and go and no sound. He kept inching into her, pulling back a little for another thrust until stopped by the membrane of her virginity.
"It's gonna feel better when your little cherry lets it past." The pain was multiplied by pure animal fear.
"It's gonna tear all the insides outta me," she moaned.
"Ain't gonna do no such thing. See!" With a long, hard push he entered her almost fully, and came at the same time. Despite the pressure of his hand on her neck she screamed and a red haze took over her brain. She lay still, waiting to die. Clem slowly pulled his cock out of her and stood up. He looked at the blood on both of them.
"That's gonna feel better in the mornin'."
He threw the bed covers over her and pulled his pants on. "Only next time," he said, "you gonna ask me for it-in your cunt or in your mouth. We just now got to know each other, honey."
She only half heard and couldn't move or speak. He left the room.
Clem came driving down the road to the dock and pulled over to the side. Junie had heard him leaving before sunup. He got out of the truck. "Got rid of that new hide." He referred to their latest alligator. She had about given up hoping for a miracle from the game warden.
"Where?" she asked, not much caring.
"Air boat. I met it down at the bend."
Junie didn't know who the air boat operator was. She had never seen him. She knew only that he took out fishermen once in a while and gigged frogs the rest of the time. These characters came over the "sea of grass" like noisy little hurricanes and were gone. But they knew the Glades at night as well as a motorist knew familiar highways in daylight.
To Junie they were part of the fauna of the vast marshland. Sometimes at night she heard the sound of the small airplane motors and the whirl of the propellers pushing the flat-bottomed boats over the grassy water. And the bright light of the boat man's headlight would be searching out the darkness.
Clem went into the store and the day was quiet. Behind the building Bubba was putting some oil in the wheezing little engine that supplied their limited power. He finished and came walking slowly over to Junie, wiping his hands on an old rag that was greasier than they were.
She looked down the road, thinking it was about time for Axel to show up. He wouldn't miss a day like this. But it was still very early. He'd be wandering in anytime now.
"Ain't nobody here yet. Let's take a boat out and do some cane-polin'. The old man can take care of the customers-if any show up."
"No," said Junie, without looking at him.
"We could take the poles over to the bend in that back canal. There's some two-three pound bass in there. I ain't told anybody that, but I've seen them."
"No," Junie replied, "it's too far." She walked over to a pine stump and sat down. She'd like to talk a little to Axel. Safe, gentle, harmless-good, even.
"When we gonna do it again, Junie?"
"Get the hell out of here," she yelled at him. "Go shove it in a rabbit hole!"
She saw Axel about halfway down the road, carrying his camp stool and pole. She jumped up and walked down to meet him.
Bubba watched her for a moment and ambled to the store. On reaching the old man, Junie took the folding seat and, swinging it easily from her hand, walked along beside him.
"Thought you might be earlier today, Axel. A good morning for sun and fish."
"The morning will wait and the fish, and today I think, Axel, you sleep a little. But still I come now. For so many years I was up laying nets before the dawn and I would day 'Someday-someday I just stay in a warm bed and let the fish, instead, wait for me.' So today." He smiled when he heard Junie's laugh.
"So it is good I make you laugh. It is better than making you swear like I hear you do, no?"
"That's because there's more to cuss at than laugh at," answered Junie. Axel just shook his head and they went on to where he customarily set his canvas stool. Junie unfolded it and set it firmly on the ground.
"Need bait?" she asked. "I've caught some on a big, bare hook shining in the sun. But not here."
He took a quarter out of his pocket and handed it to her. Junie ran over to the store and brought back a box of bait. He put a half worm on the hook, carefully threading it over the bend and up the shank. Junie just watched him, neither saying anything. He swung the line over the water and watched the float settle in the middle of the small ripples.
"You ever married, Axel?" Junie finally asked.
"No," he said slowly. "Never settled with a woman. Too many seas to go to. Too many ships. And then much fishing."
"Oh. I thought maybe you had some kids."
"Well, maybe one. A girl-we pleased each other one time before I sailed. Two, three years after that I went back and saw her. She had made marriage then. She told me maybe her first born-she had two-maybe the first was mine. It-he-looked like me. How can you tell with babies? Maybe. I don't know. She was happy with a nice family. A good place for anybody's child. I had many friends. Men I shipped with. And there were the times in port."
Junie have never heard Axel talk so much at one time and never about his past life except his work. She felt there was a lot more he could tell her about places in the world he had seen and the people there. For a moment he wasn't just an old man sitting at the edge of the Glades in the morning sun.
"Didn't you want your own nice house and a wife and kids?" she asked him.
"How it is me that you make laugh," he said and paused a long breath. "No. Not till it was too late, I think."
The bobber suddenly disappeared below the surface of the water. Axel quickly lifted the bamboo pole and brought out a plump bream. He took it off the hook and threw it in a patch of grass in the nearby shade. He left on the hook the piece of worm still hanging there and added part of another.
"For number two now," he smiled.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Everyone had cleared out of the shack, and Junie had some delicious time to herself. She fumbled under the clothes in the cardboard box beneath her cot and took out her only link with the world outside the fishing camp.
Starting at the very beginning she turned page after fascinating page, dreaming over each in turn. She stared at the sparkling lady in the flared silk pants, her pearled toenails encased in jeweled sandals. She turned to a woman with shiny lips and long earrings; to a woman with matching pieces of luggage, an airport; to college girls wearing leather coats with fur collars.
For a long time she studied a picture of a very pretty girl with fantastic eyes. Blue shadow and long lashes. She wondered how the girl made the dark line around the eye.
Junie's eyes were blue, and her lashes were long. But they sure didn't look like this. For one thing the lashes were light and they didn't show up. If she had some money she'd buy some stuff and make her eyes look like these.
She turned to ladies in very short dresses. Wonder what happens when they sit down? But they wouldn't care. Ladies wearing long beads. Pearls. Ladies drinking from stemmed glasses. Ladies by a new car. Handsome men.
How did that man get his teeth so white? What was this one thinking, with that expression on his face? Is he laughing at the lady? She likes it if he is.
This one's sweater comes up to his chin. That would be scratchy.
This one smoking a cigarette has been in a fight.
There's that pretty blouse with the long sleeves and ruffles and a big twinkling ring-
Junie heard Clem's voice outside the shack. She stuffed the magazine under the clothes and busied herself straightening the covers on the cot.
"Junie Belle, I want you to go to town and get a few things."
"You mean up to the store, daddy?"
"No, I mean to town."
That was strange. He must be getting her out of the way for some reason of his own. She shrugged. So much the better.
She washed her hands under the pump in the yard, and with a piece of comb she struggled through the tangled snarls of her hair. She peered at small sections in turn in the rearview mirror of the pick-up. Hair has to look nice to go to town.
"Where'd you get the money, daddy?"
"Never you mind 'bout that," he said, swatting her backside, and added, "Take your time. You don't have to hurry back."
In the village she finished at the hardware store and then went into the five and ten. This was happiness. Time to roam around and look at the pretties to her heart's content. And even a couple of dollars left over. Bribe money, so she could spend without qualm.
Irresistiby she was drawn to the food counter.
"Hot fudge sundae," she said casually, as if this were an every day thing.
A girl with small packages took the stool beside her. The girl's eye lids were blue and her lashes were darkened. Junie caught her own reflection in the mirror behind the counter. Not too bad with her combed hair. She had a lucky face that was shaped right, but the eyes, yes, the eyes were unglamorous.
After spooning the last sticky bite of hot fudge from the pit of the tall dish Junie paid her bill and strayed to the eye makeup counter.
There the clerk's eyes were liberally surrounded with blue coloring. Her lashes were heavily darkened and she had the thin black line drawn around each eye.
Junie picked up a small tube that said: eye shadow-blue.
"Can I help you?"
"I want something for my eyelashes."
The clerk rolled her fingers over gold pencils and gazed at Junie shrewdly. "Light brown? Here you are."
Junie hesitated. "I want to make a dark line around my eyes-" The clerk handed her an eyeliner. Junie was uncertain. "Is it hard to do?"
The woman flipped over the big mirror at the counter, and Junie's face loomed about twice as large as she'd ever seen it. "Just hold the corner of your eye out steady. No, like this."
She spread the skin around her eye, pressing in several wrinkles. Junie wondered if that was how the woman got those wrinkles around her eyes. Well. Wrinkles were other people's problems. She had her own.
"Let me have the eyeliner. Hold your eye steady now. See? Now the other one." Cripes, it sure looked dark.
The woman turned the mirror back and Junie stared into her eyes for a moment. "How much?" she finally asked.
The clerk made rapid calculations on a pad and said, "That'll be two dollars and forty-nine cents." She could add figures real fast. "How about an eyebrow pencil?"
Junie studied her blonde brows. Then she pulled the crumpled bills and change from her jean pocket. This was going to take damn near all of it. "No, that'll be all for this time." She stuffed the purchases into her other pocket and took a last look at her glamorous eyes.
On the street she saw a car like Colt's parked in front of a beauty shop. When she came alongside she glanced in and her heart quickened. It was Colt's car! She stood looking around to pick out the most likely place he could be. "Junie!" Colt!
"Oh, Colt! I thought this car was yours."
"Can I give you a lift?"
"Yes, thanks." She got in feeling foolish. "Where you headed?"
She opened her mouth and stopped. She couldn't go back to the camp, not without the truck. "It's too soon to go home. Daddy sent me to town to get rid of me and I haven't been gone long enough."
"Long enough for what?"
Junie broke into peels of laughter. "Oh, Colt, that's the first joke you ever said."
"It is?" Colt laughed too, catching the merriment from her. "You want to get a cup of coffee?"
"That would be real nice."
"Well, it's pretty good at the diner where I go." He shifted gears on the old Chevrolet and pulled away from the curb.
The girl behind the counter wore blue eye shadow and thick mascara. She had used eye liner. Junie kept stealing glances in the mirror behind the counter. From a distance the eye liner looked very good. She now wanted to apply the blue shadow and lash darkener so Colt would get the full effect.
She saw two girls come out of a door marked LADIES.
"I gotta go, Colt." Junie sped to the ladies' room and applied eye shadow. She sure looked different. Then the mascara. Boy! Did she ever look like something!
Colt seemed not to notice her new eyes. He looked at her, but said nothing.
"Where do you live, Colt?"
"You know that trailer park off the highway before you get to the turn off for your place? Happy Times Mobile Homes. I live in there, in a trailer. A mobile home."
"You have your own trailer?"
"Yep. I'd show it to you only it's kind of a mess."
"Oh, that's all right, please show me."
"Come on."
In his place she could feel a warm beat in her throat. It was a happy heat. Happy about being alone with Colt at his house, sitting on his bed, in fact. Happy about her new sense of attractiveness. She fluttered her eyelashes.
"Notice anything different, Colt?"
"You mean your eyes?"
"Well?"
"Ehh-I liked 'em all right before."
"You never said so."
"What am I supposed to-oh, forget it."
Junie's feelings of power and allurement began to ebb. She lowered her lids for maximum effect, then lifted them, startled, when he said, "For cripes sake, Junie Belle, knock it off."
Her disappointment was sharp. The eye makeup was a culmination of a long time dream. The elation at her achievement gave her that much farther to fall when it failed with Colt.
"What you got against my makeup? Everyone wears it. Why don't you like it?"
"I got nothing against the junk if it's done right. Junie-" He tilted her face toward the window light and began laughing. "I'm sorry, Junie. Next time you put this stuff on, don't put on so much-and-wash your face first. I don't know much about it, but I do know you're not supposed to put this gook on a dirty face."
Junie's eyes fell then and she crumbled. Teras gushed from the madeup eyes, streaming mascara down her nose.
Colt laid her head against his shoulder and patted her back gently. "Hey, don't feel bad. Tell you what. Want to take a shower? Come on, let me show you."
Junie had never before had such tender treatment from Colt. Or from anyone. She brightened and snuffled, drawing her nose across her bare arm.
Behind a small door he showed her a tiny compartment with shower. "Go ahead. I'll wait out here. Take as long as you want. Here's the soap, here's a towel. Okay?"
Junie undressed in the small room and tossed her clothes out the door.
"Ooh," she cried, "it's warm." This was really nice. No wonder Colt always seemed clean. He could do this every few days if he wanted.
"You still in there?"
"Yes. It's real nice." Too bad she had to put on the same dirty clothes. She opened the door cautiously and reached for the jeans.
"Come on, I won't look."
Colt stood facing the window while she dressed. He sure was a strange one.
"Now you look right nice." With just a shower? And with her hair hanging damply down her back? "Anytime you want to use my shower you can."
Junie took a deep breath and the eye shadow popped out of her pocket and rolled under the bed. Boy and girl dropped to the floor and went after it.
"Get up, Junie Belle!" Colt's voice was sharp. She sat up, stricken. "Don't go crawling under people's beds."
"I was just-"
"I'll get the damn junk."
She became warm all over with the surge of blood through her. "I guess I'd better be going," she said, offended.
He handed her the eye shadow.
"Okay. Back to the camp?"
She flushed. "I have to go to town and get the pick-up truck."
He stared at her a moment without speaking, then said, "Come on."
CHAPTER NINE
With Junie in town and Clem out in one of the boats, Bubba roamed the camp as he pleased. He liked to pretend that if the others never came back it would be his. He'd fix it up good and have the bedroom with lots of girls. And booze. And good eatin' and all the things a grown up man should have. Then, by damn, if he got a hardon they'd take care of it right now. Anyway he wanted. And no back talk from a Junie Belle. He liked what the old man had told him once: all ya gotta do is feed 'em good at both ends.
Bubba went into the store and rummaged through the top chest where he had seen Clem put a bottle of wine. He found it behind some cans they put bait in for customers who wanted a lot more for a day's fishing than the small paper boxes held.
Bubba took the bottle down and poured two inches of wine into a glass. A couple of gulps and he could feel a warmth trickling into his belly. Walking to the door, he looked around. Right now it was his. Slugging down the rest of the drink, he took the glass back, picked up the empty bottle and went outside. The black woman he had seen here the other day was coming down the road. Running behind the building he threw the bottle in the trash heap and went back to stand in the doorway. Pearl came up smiling, leaned the long pole against the side of the bunding and put down the bait bucket she was carrying, and something tightly wrapped in newspaper.
"Hi ya," she grinned. "Clem here?" Bubba shook his head and went inside, knowing she would follow.
"He went out to check on the fishin'."
"Don't he know the fishin' round here by now?" Her laugh was short and throaty. "When he a comin' back?"
"Soon now. Been gone about a hour. Be here soon."
"Okay. You come call me when he come. I'll be fishin' in the bend canal." He wondered how the hell she knew about that place. "Right now I needs some chub and bait." She went over to the small livewell. "Ain't too many, is there? Get that bucket for me, will ya, boy?"
Bubba went out for the bait pail. He took it down to the saw-grass and scooped in water and sand. When he got back to Pearl she had the little net poised over the tank. "Only 'bout eight or nine here." She lifted out five and flopped them into the bucket, picked up a box of worms and started to leave.
"That's more'n a dollar's worth," said Bubba, not sure what Clem would want him to do now.
"Don't you worry 'bout that, boy. You just tell the man when he come back, ya hear?" She headed out to the canal.
Clem had gone about a half mile into the Glades, away from the air boat route, where he had a seine net stretched under the surface of the deeper water. One of the boats would be coming by that evening to pick up his illegal catch of fresh water fish. He had laid the net over the sunfish bedding area and, lifting at several points, was satisfied that the haul would be a good one. He left it and headed back to the dock.
Bubba would have followed Pearl, but he knew Clem would beat the hell out of him for leaving the camp. He looked out over the water and in the distance saw Clem rowing in. Just wait, he thought, till he finds the black girl came looking for him. The boy walked to the dock and waited. Clem finally pulled alongside and stepped out of the boat while Bubba took the line and tied it to a piling.
"Anybody come in?" he asked.
"Well," Bubba answered. "Somebody came in but didn't buy no bait. Just took it."
"What the hell you talking about? Somebody stole bait while you was here?" Clem grabbed his arm.
"Wait-wait now," Bubba spluttered. "That black gal came back to see ya. She took some chub and went fishing. Told me to fetch her when you got back."
"Oh, well, now, that's different." Clem relaxed his grip and pushed Bubba's shoulder. "You just go ahead and do that. You tell her I got back and to get her ass over here and pay for that bait." Bubba grinned at him. "Get that goddamn look off your face and take off." The boy trotted off down the road and turned to his left toward the canal. The brush stood in heavy clumps along the bank with open patches between them where a fisherman could get down to the water's edge. He found Pearl in one of the openings surrounded by thick foliage.
"Pa's back now," he said. "Wants for ya to come to the camp." He saw one bass lying on the bank, fresh caught.
"All right, boy, freshen up that bait water and you bring it back while I get this stuff." She lifted the pole, wound the line and picked up her paper-wrapped package.
"What's that ya got," he asked, "lunch?"
"In a way, boy, ya could call it that."
"Maybe some other kind of bait than we got."
"Ya could call it that, too, I guess." Her laugh put an end to the conversation. They walked back in silence.
Clem noticed only a couple of chub left in the bait well. That'd take time getting some more. Clem looked around the store with satisfaction. First time he'd ever had his own place. He had sure come far since that bleak day after his dad run away and his ma put him in the orphanage. Ten years old then, and he liked to never got over it.
Looking in the closet and under the counter for what he hoped would be some remaining liquor, he found nothing except empty bottles of various sizes. He wanted a couple of drinks before Pearl got back. He glanced out the window and saw her and Bubba coming toward the camp.
He watched her intently. The loose-hipped, easy swinging walk, the blouse pushed against her by the light breeze tightened his testicles and started the blood moving faster through him. And making it even better was knowing she wanted it with no holds barred. There was nothing she wouldn't do to or for a man to satisfy her own lust.
They came into the store. " 'Fraid I wasn't gonna pay ya for the bait?" Pearl smiled at him mockingly.
"Nope, I figured you'd be back when Bubba told me you was here." He turned to the boy. "You go on down the road and wait for Junie. Tell her to go back and get more chub. You go with her. Now, git out." Bubba hesitated, looking from one to the other. He knew damn well what he'd be missing once they got in the back room. "Git the hell along now," Clem shouted at him.
He left and started slowly toward the main road. At the cut off he started on a wide circle toward the back of the building, taking full advantage of the scattered scrub pine and palmettos on the way.
Pearl had put her package on the counter in front of her. "Got a drink?" she asked Clem.
"Not a damn mouthful. I been lookin'."
"I figured maybe not. And you can shove that wine. Though it's better than nothing. Sometime." She unwrapped the paper and set down a fifth of gin. "I brought us tins-for five dollars." Clem looked at the bottle and could already feel the liquor burning down his throat.
"Five bucks hell. That ain't no morn two-fifty. Beside, I ain't got no five bucks right now." She started to rewrap the bottle.
"Okay," she said flatly. "I'll just take it out fishing. Good for maybe a couple of trips."
"Give ya two-fifty."
"Shove two-fifty up your ass. Five bucks and that's cheap seeing as how I brought it all the way out here."
"Wait a minute." He went into the bedroom and took a five dollar bill out of a tin box shoved under his bed. Coming back, he threw it on the counter and grabbed two glasses. Twisting the plastic seal off the bottle he half filled them.
"Up yours too," he laughed and took a gulp of the clear, unwatered liquid. Pearl took a drink.
"How about one of those smokes?" She indicated the package in his shirt pocket. He threw it toward her with a book of matches stuck in the cellophane wrap. He drank again.
"Ya been laid since ya was here last?"
"If you could call it that. There's a short-order cook at a place I go. Short-order pecker, too." She laughed. "But I eat good there." She turned on him suddenly. "What the hell business that of yours?"
"Not a damn bit," he admitted and added more gin to the glasses. "But I don't want a dose of clap or something."
"They cleaner than you, you son of a bitch," she yelled at him. "I put out but I put out careful. I figured you all right 'cause you ain't gonna catch nothing from your own gal."
Clem waved the subject away with a gesture of his hand. "Forget it," he shrugged. She took a long drink and said nothing, her eyes glazing a little from the beginning effects of the liquor.
Bubba had come to the back of the frame building and looking in a corner of the partly covered bedroom window could see they weren't there. He waited.
Clem poured another drink apiece and nodded toward the door behind him. "Let's take these in there." He put the bottle beside the bait, well away from the counter. Pearl followed him into the room. She took a sip of gin and looked down at the front of his pants.
"How long you been carrying that hardon for me?" The rise under the cloth ran from his crotch over to his pants pocket. He kicked his shoes off, unzipped the fly, let the pants fall to the floor and stepped toward her.
"You can't tell how hard it is till you give it a good feel." She took it in her hand and felt its length between her palm and fingers.
"Bet you got a good load ready to shoot from those balls." Her hand dropped to them and lightly squeezed.
"Get this damn stuff off," Clem breathed heavily at her, pulling her blouse out of the skirt. She lifted it over her head, unbuttoned the skirt and let it drop. Her body was dark and smooth in front of him as he put his hands on her full, heavy breasts and fingered the nipples.
"You sure got good tits." One hand went between her legs. "And a hot cunt." He pulled her to him and rubbed his cock against her belly. They moved to the bed.
Bubba had been watching them and when they moved out of his line of vision he went around to the front door and into the store. From behind the counter he took a small half-pint bottle and looked around until he spotted the gin. He filled most of the smaller bottle and silently, on bare feet, left. Picking up Pearl's pole and worms he headed back to the spot where she had been fishing.
Pearl sat on the side of the bed with her legs apart. Clem stood in front of her and guided the end of his prick to her mouth. "Suck on it for a bit." Putting his hand behind her head, he pushed into her mouth full against her throat. She gagged slightly and shoved him back but her lips and tongue worked on it until he pushed her back on the bed. Leaning across her he took, in turn, her stiffened nipples in his mouth. She moved rhythmically under him.
"Pull my tits back in your mouth. Take all you can get and suck hard, baby, suck me like you want it for your big cock." Clem raised one breast between his hands, stretching the dark aureole wide with the raised nipple hard in the center. He drew it as far into his mouth as he could. Not for Pearl but because he wanted to possess every bit of her sex as long as it lasted. She writhed under his mouth and pulled at his prick.
"Fuck me now, man, shoot it in me." Clem rose.
"Get on your knees on the bed." When she did he knelt behind and over her.
"You ain't gonna put it in my ass, are you? It hurt too much."
"Hell, no. I'm gonna let your pussy soak it good." He put the head in and pushed it the length of her vagina. She grunted a little and arched her back. He grasped her hips and pulled her to him, pressing hard into her until he felt his balls against the lips.
"It can't go no more," she whispered.
"Then get your hand down there and get my nuts wet with your pussy." She did as he ordered, pressing them against her and rubbing her moisture over them with her fingers.
"Do it now," she pleaded. "Bang your cock in and outa me. Now!" He moved in and out of her, hard, a couple of times. She moaned and shuddered under him, climaxing with a hot wetness he felt around his unreleased prick. That was what he wanted. Withdrawing, he moved off her and lay on his back. She was still kneeling when he put her head down.
"Now, you start licking it all off. Lick yourself off my cock and then my balls." She was still feeling the aftermath of her passion, and almost eagerly went up and down the length of his spear with her tongue and lips, tasting some of the juice that had been inside her.
"Get my nuts in your mouth." She did and moved them with her tongue. "I'm gonna come," he mumbled heavily. "Keep sucking on them and jerk me off." She tightened her hand around his prick lying against her cheek and worked it up and down. His breath left him in gasps as the semen spurted out onto his belly. He lifted her head from between his legs. "Now, lick the come off me." She did.
"I need a drink," said Clem, rising. They both reached for the glasses and finished the gin they held. Clem pulled on his pants and went to the front of the store. Nobody had come in, the gin was where he left it. He glanced at it again. Sure as hell didn't seem they had drunk that much. He took a slug out of the bottle as Pearl came through the doorway adjusting her blouse and skirt.
"You sure don't leave much for a man and woman to do in bed," she said. "You can put a little more gin in that glass." She put it on the counter and waited. Clem deliberately capped the bottle and put it back.
"Not at five dollars. Next time you bring one regular price and then we split it."
"Next time it cost you more or I take what I got home. So, man, save your money and get real horny. It be worth it." She looked outside where she had left the fishing pole leaning against the building. "Some son of a bitch has made off with the pole," she yelled back at him. He went outside. "Bait bucket's still here. Seems they'd taken that too, unless-"
"Bubba's more'n likely gone fishing with it. You go check before ya start sraaming. Told that damn kid to wait for Julie. Bet he's up the canal. You find him, you send him back this time."
"If he don't have it," she said, "you gonna buy me a new outfit." She started off, carrying the bait bucket. By the time she reached the bend canal, the effects of the gin were slowly turning into a pounding head and physical letdown. She walked along the rim of the canal until she reached the spot where Bubba had found her. He was there all right, the pole lying half on the bank and half in the water.
"What the hell you doing using my pole?"
"Ya said you'd be back so I figured I'd carry it out here for you. Then all you have to tote would be the bucket." She sat down beside him.
"Sure could use something besides fish right about now."
Bubba glanced at her. "Like what?"
"Like a drink maybe. Even that lousy wine your old man gets. Even a beer." The sun was building up a daytime hangover.
"Like this?" asked Bubba. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the gin he had taken.
"What you got there? Water? I don't need that." She kept her eyes on the bottle, not sure, but-
"Gin," said Bubba.
"Where you get that?"
"From the bottle in the store. When you and pa was in the back."
"You a good boy. Pass it there."
He moved back and raised his arm holding the Dottle.
"You gonna charge me for that? Give you fifty cents." She reached for it. Bubba drew his arm farther back.
"I don't want no money."
"What do you want then?"
"I want," he said, "I want what ya gave pa in the bedroom." She looked him full in the face.
"You a kid," she said. He didn't move. The clear gin sparkled in the sunlight. "Give me the liquor first."
"After," he said.
She hesitated. "Okay. How you want it?" He put the bottle back in a side pocket.
"I wanta feel your tits." He moved close beside her. She pulled the blouse off her shoulders and down under her breasts. They were softer now and the nipples lay against them. Bubba, breathing hard through his open mouth, passed his hand over them and into them. He groped under her skirt and pushed a finger into her. She was still moist.
"That where you want it?" she asked quietly. He shook his head and went back to her breasts.
"Kneel here in front of me," she said. He moved as she directed. "Take your pants down." He unbuckled and pulled the zipper down, pushing the pants down around his thighs. His prick jumped toward her, smaller, whiter than Clem's, but hard as a board. The redness stretched the thin skin on the end tight and smooth. Pearl took it in her hand and felt it throbbing and just about to come. She looked up at him and smiled, deliberately teasing.
"What you want me to do now?"
"Put it in your mouth and pull on it." He was quivering. "Suck it, please, suck it." Pearl took it between her lips and rolled her tongue over the bursting head. Reaching underneath for his tight balls she sucked hard a couple of times, knowing he couldn't wait. In a moment he ejected and spasmodically squeezed her tits. He remained still for a moment and pulled back.
"You like that?" she looked up at him. He just nodded. "Okay. Now give me that gin." Feeling half dazed with the emotional release, he gave her the bottle.
"You do it again sometime."
"We'll see." She took a long drink of the gin. She'd be fine now for the trip home.
"Boy," she laughed, "I sure got my fresh juice for the day."
CHAPTER TEN
The boy darted in and out through clumps of busy workers at Bergensfjord. The excitement of imminent sailings sang in the blood. And the American yachtsman wanted to see him about something.
Wait. Not me, a mere boy. And now the call of nature, at a time like this. But I daren't take the time. The American. Still one avoids shameful accidents.
Part of his mind looked out for a private spot. He kept the yachtsman in view too. It was the chance he'd been waiting for. To go out across those lively waters, far out, over the seas. Perhaps if he stood by this shelter where no one could see-
But of course. It was not a boy the American had sent for, but a young man, himself. Why did he think he was a boy just now? Hadn't he already done a tour of duty at sea? Although a young man, he felt the same sting of eagerness as when a boy.
Eager to talk to the yacht owner and equally keen to relieve his bladder, he made his way in the direction of the yacht, and watched for a safe place.
Twitch! Wha-what?
Yes, yes. Not a boy, not a young man, but an old man ready to wet the bed if he doesn't get a move on.
Axel hobbled on sleep-weakened legs outside his shack to a very safe spot, his privy.
The American yachtsman was long dead. Axel had indeed signed on with him, later became his captain, and traveled all the seas of the world.
Although an old man now Axel relished the pleasures of living as keenly as when a boy. As when a young man. The many seas he had sailed, the many fish he had lured, the many women he had caressed, had dulled none of his ardor for each day's living.
Seventy-nine years hadn't dulled a thing. He could do without the women easier. That made life a lot simpler. Now it seemed-he chuckled over his smoking pan of fried potatoes, salt fish and egg-they chased him. His six feet three inches were still straight and strong. On his scalp the gray crop grew thick as ever.
He'd always thought old men were unnecessary, in particular penniless old men. But apparently if you're jolly and like to talk and laugh, if you've been all over the world a few times and a sure knowledge of women comes through in the timbre of your voice-you old fool!
This day and age a young feller has it more complicated. That smart young man Colt that Junie's so sweet on, he'd best get educated. Bubba too, if he can, Axel thought dubiously.
After enjoying his breakfast and mopping his plate with a crust of bread Axel ran a comb through his gray thatch and got ready to go down to the store on the highway.
It was the day his check arrived. He would pick it up at the store and then buy fresh supplies. Maybe something a little different today just for a change.
His legs gave him trouble only when he first got out of bed. Now they were fine, and he walked briskly, relishing the pull on his muscles, the blood pumping strongly and his sweat seeking the sun.
"Yep, it's here, Axel." Good old Mr. Wilson reached under the counter for the envelope. Old! Probably twenty years' Axel's junior. But somehow old.
Axel took his time looking over the meager stock. When he saw an item he knew he was needing he set it aside.
Uh-oh. Here comes that game warden fellow. He'd been nosing around the fishing camp some. Always meant trouble, the law. If he could, Axel would warn Clem Grice that the law was on the way.
The fellow bought a newspaper and sat on a camp stool to read it. Might be time.
Axel took his provisions and the change from his check and strode briskly down the highway. He could drop off the food and still make it to camp ahead of the game warden if he spent much time reading that paper.
Sorting out the carton of milk and balogna for the ice box, Axel hastily stowed them away and returned to his march camp-ward.
Junie wasn't around anywhere. And one of the boats was missing. Axel clattered into the store, calling, "Anybody here?"
Clem came sleepily from the inside room.
"Hi, Axel. What do you want?"
"Nothing today, but I thought I'd tell you looks like the game warden's on his way. He was up on the highway few minutes ago. I thought you might like to know this."
"Shit, that don't worry me none," said Clem, shifting his eyes from one corner of the room to the other. "Got nothing illegal around here."
"I know. But it be nice to know when the law is coming, I think."
Clem shot a glance at Axel. "Yeah, you're right. I sure appreciate it. Yeah, thanks."
"Is Junie here?"
"Naw, they're both out in the boat. They might not be long though. Why don't you go on and fish?"
Axel realized, in his hurry to warn Clem he'd forgotten his tackle.
"Hell, use mine. Go on." Clem was much friendlier than usual, warmed by the old man's concern for him. "You know, you're one of the best customers I got."
Axel thought but didn't say that he hardly didn't know of no more customers. Maybe Colt, and he didn't spend much.
"Well, thanks, Clem. Guess I will fish a little. Come down and set a spell if you're not too busy."
Clem's eyes darted furtively. "Got things to do." He glanced out the window toward the road. "But maybe later on I'll come down."
Axel went out into the sunshine and took a deep breath of fresh air. Fine day for fishing.
Axel started out of a light nap when Clem plopped down beside him. "Nosy Jim just left."
"I must have dozed off. I didn't hear anybody."
"Waren't much to it. He didn't find nothing so he left."
Axel felt his warning had been useful.
Clem took a small stone from his pocket and swiped his knife blade across it lovingly.
"That be a fine knife you got there."
"Yep. Had it a long time. This baby and me has been through a lot together." Back and forth, swipe, swipe. Clem's rheumy eyes narrowed. "The scales and hides this little blade has sliced off. Yes-and other things. It's always with me, right here. Where I go it goes.
"I remember once when I was young and full of piss and vinegar I got in with a bad gang and did some deer poaching. Acourse I wouldn't do that now-" He cut his eyes at Axel. "You didn't know I served a little time, did you?
Well, one night me and this pack of fools went out to the edge of the swamp to get us some deer. This was way up in the northern part of the state-"
"Let's have that light a second, Clem. Oh. Thought I saw something."
"For crissakes, Barney, keep your mouth shut."
The band moved silently on the marshy footing. Clem's ears were almost stretched to catch any sound from their prey. There! The scrape of a bush. Clem flashed his jack light smack into the disgusted face of Wilbur Watson.
"If anything is out here we done scared 'em off." Wilbur said.
"All right. Dry up."
They continued deeper into the swamp and Clem's sixth sense warned there was something hiding off to his left. Something breathing. He grasped his shotgun at the ready and let the others go forward without him. It should be right about here!
"Ow!"
Clem jumped in astonishment at the scene lit by his light.
"Well, well, well. Look what I done trapped." The others turned back to stand gaping at the pair of "deer." Black and scared shitless, a young buck was caught with his pants down and his pecker up. His girl was exposed to the utmost when her lover withdrew from between her knees. Her black face went gray as she closed her legs together and fumbled at her skirts.
"Pardon us now for intrudin' like this," babbled Clem. His fingers clamped around her wrist. "Don't go getting dressed up on our account. Go ahead, boy, with what you was doing. Don't let us stop you."
"Aw, Clem, let 'em be," whined Barney.
The boy had replaced his penis inside the pants and was fastening his pants.
"I said go on with it, boy."
"Please, mister, let us go. We didn't mean no harm-" the boy stuttered.
"Losing heart, are you? Looks like we'll have to finish his job for him, guys."
"Come on, Clem, will you?" Barney said again.
But the others were breathing hard and began tossing their frail consciences in the pot of group action, as they loosened belts and dropped pants.
"PI-please, mister. Lily's just a young girl-please let us go-" Tears gushed from the boy. His girl appeared stunned with terror.
"We'll just show you how it's done, boy. Watch this." Clem's heavy cock flopped from his pants. As he lowered himself over the girl, the boy flew at him in a fury of pounding fists.
"Hey! Wanta fight first, do you?"
While Clem restrained the maddened youth, Wilbur thrust himself onto the wooden girl. In short order old Wilb was groaning and shuddering. He lifted himself up, gasping.
No one was sure what happened next. One minute the black girl lay there ready to faint; the next she was on her feet and gone. The pack beat the bushes but failed to recapture her.
Clem had maintained his hold on the boy.
"Look like your girl done got away, boy. That don't suit me too good. See this?" He wagged his wang. "What happened to yours, boy? Lessee. Kinda petered out, didn't it? Come on, guys. I think we better teach this young buck some manners."
The frustrated deer poachers helped Clem hold the boy spread-eagled, and Clem released the boy's drooping penis.
"I got me a good sharp knife here that'll cut these off clean as a whistle."
The toughs snickered at the boy's terror. Clem sliced the knife through the air inches above the genitals.
"See, boy? I can relieve you of all this trouble then you'll never again get yourself in this embarrassing fix."
The boy lay perfectly still, his eyes bugging out.
"Acourse, it may be that you'd rather keep the balls and all the trouble that goes with 'em. Okay, guys, we'll let him off this time." Clem stood and made as if to replace the knife in its holder on his belt.
"I don't think you realize how easy that would a been, boy. Looka this edge. Ever see anything like that?"
Clem turned the edge and lifted the boy's balls with one hand. "This old knife would slice through these like butter. You'd never feel a thing."
Slowly, as if possessed, Clem drew the blade decisively across the sack, and the balls dropped softly on the ground.
The only sound after that was the howling of the black boy and the retching of that lily-livered Barney. Axel suddenly felt very tired. "Aren't you going to wait and see Junie Belle?'
"Tell Junie I see her tomorrow." Axel began his walk home.
This was no place for a girl. If she had any teaching and some of the things girls need she'd be a pretty young lady. It would take a heap of teaching, though. The old man sighed.
That man Clem was no fit father for a girl.
Axel tried to stop thinking about it.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Pearl was amoral. A teacher had told her that once just before the school had suggested she get the hell out. Only in better words on a piece of paper to her folks. She had shown it to her mother-her father had taken off for god-knows-where a year before.
"What's that mean?" she had asked.
"It mean," her mother sighed, "you can't go back to school." Good. So she stayed home. The teacher had tried to tell her what was wrong about playing with the boys. The way she played, that is. Raising her own little garden of blossoming peckers. That's not the way the teacher had put it. She had said, "You must keep yourself covered and not permit the boys to-ah-fondle you. Nor you them. You must learn a more lady-like, a more circumspect behavior."
Pearl bad been pulling on a boy's cock in the basement with another one waiting, and having a hell of a time. The teacher, walking through to the stock room, had caught them. The two boys had run off fastening their trousers. Pearl had just smiled at the teacher as though she had been caught doing no more than chewing gum in class.
The moral lecturings that followed left her wide-eyed and nodding in agreement because that's what they seemed to want. And all the time wondering what the hell they were talking about. Like, man, you were hungry and there was all this good food around and you weren't supposed to eat. Maybe that's why so many grown-ups looked the way they did. Their guts were all out of shape from just wanting.
Pearl and her sister Ella were straightening up the little three room cottage they shared. A couple of their friends had dropped in the night before with several six-packs. The beer and cold meat sandwiches had rounded out the evening, but it sure made a mess.
Pearl answered a knock on the door. It was Frank from the diner. He had been one of the boys from the school, and they had continued an easy, friendly relationship, especially rolling around in bed. Frank took care of her in the diner, too, when he was on duty.
"Thought I'd drop over for a while. Got a hour or two before work. Get us some glasses and we'll have a couple." He took a bottle out of a paper bag and put it down. Ella brought out three glasses and Frank poured. "Need only about half the bottle for the job tonight. Makes all that food fixing easier. Maybe I'll come back when I'm off tonight. Okay, Pearl? I bring Pete, okay?"
Pete was a very special hound Frank had raised from a pup. They had had some real fun together, the three of them. Ella too, after she'd seen how it worked one night.
"I don't know about tonight, Frank," Pearl said. "Gotta go out."
"Okay. Change your mind, stop by the diner."
"That's good. We'll wait and see."
Frank, drinking slowly along with them, asked Pearl, "Gonna do some night fishing?"
"Maybe. Sometimes, when it's cool, the big ones get hungry at night." They laughed.
A short time later Frank picked up his bottle. "Gotta head out for work now. See you all later." Pearl nodded.
"Thanks for the drinks," said Ella. He left, hoping Pearl would stop by his place of work. He'd like the three of them to get together in eight or nine hours with ol' Pete. Or without.
"I gonna stop by the doc's," Pearl said casually.
"What for? You gonna get a rabbit test again?"
"Thought I might."
"But you just had one a couple a month's ago. And you been careful."
"Couple of times I ain't so sure. Maybe doc'll give me some of those pills. He knows me real well. They don't cost much, either."
"Yeah, that be good for us. But you don't need no rabbit test."
"Maybe not, but it would sure help my amoral."
Pearl walked up the flight of stairs to Doc Main's office. There were a couple of chairs in the small waiting room. No one was there. She sat down, and in a few minutes the middle-aged doctor came out of his office. He knew Pearl and liked her. She was what she was. Ethics weren't his specialty, and he didn't like nor understand preachers of whatever kind.
"Something wrong, Pearl?" he asked.
"No. Just want one of those tests again."
"All right," he said, "but you probably don't need it. Have you been using the jelly I gave you?"
She nodded. Sometimes she had, sometimes not.
He motioned her into the office-a desk, two chairs and an examinining table near one wall.
"What you need, as I've told you before, is a diaphragm,"
"Damn thing's too much trouble and gets in the way."
"Then get your boy friends to wear condoms."
"It ain't the same, doc. They say so, too. I want to ask you to give me those new pills. That's best, ain't it?"
"Yes," he answered. "The contraceptive pill is the best answer we have. Why don't you just marry, Pearl? That would solve the whole thing."
"Solve, hell. I'd be lookin' around again in a week. Then there'd be fights. There's one husband but lotsa boy friends. And I likes more'n just one. They's different."
That's right, he knew. Pearl didn't want the same old steak three times a day and she wasn't going to change her appetite. Maybe time would, but right now, no. He prepared the necessary procedure and sampling for the pregnancy test.
"You can check back for the results."
"About the pills, doc. Can I have some?"
He reached into a bottom drawer of the desk, and handed her a small compact. "There's a month's supply. Twenty-one. Don't take them during your period. The instructions are with them Next time you'll have to get a prescription and buy them at the drug store."
"Doc, I surely appreciate this. Any time you want-" He knew what she meant and shook his head.
"Don't doctors feel like other men?"
"Yes, they do, Pearl. And any time I feel that way, I'll tell you-after my wife." He smiled and walked to the door with her.
"You do that, doc. Any time."
She was only a couple of blocks from Frank's place, and decided to drop in. The two drinks she had had made her hungry. Frank was behind the counter when she slid onto a stool.
"Hi," she said. Frank turned from the grill where a hamburger sizzled for the one customer waiting at the other end.
"Sure didn't expect you so soon."
'Nothin' much to do," she told him. He flopped another burger on the grill, put the first one in a bun and took it to the man down the counter, along with a cup of coffee. Pearl waited till he came back.
"This mean I can come over tonight?" he looked at her eagerly.
"If not tonight, soon." She took the plate he gave her with the hamburger and French fries. "You just keep it up good. We take care of it soon." The customer had finished his meal and slapped some change down.
"If s all there, Frank," he called, and left.
Frank moved around to the stool beside her. "Just so you don't forget, baby." He took her hand and put it under his apron. His pants were open. Pearl felt his cock rising and she squeezed it, "You go back to work now, man, until we put that in its own little stove and cook the juice right out of it." She took her hand away as someone came in.
Frank returned to work, staying close to the counter top until his erection subsided. Pearl teased him with a laugh and went outside, heading for Clem's camp. The short contact with Frank had aroused her. Maybe Clem and then, tonight, Frank-and Pete-and Ella. She hummed to herself a hit of a year or two back: What the world needs now is love, sweet love. A pretty good world, she figured, with lots of friendly screwing.
Pearl had left the pole and bucket with Bubba. Maybe some fishing today, maybe not.
She didn't feel like it. Tomorrow was one of her two working days at the old lady's house. That'd keep her tied down and tired by tomorrow night. She didn't want to wait that long, anyway.
When she got to the camp, about an hour's walk, she saw Junie talking to the old man who fished there a lot. Bubba was on the dock and came toward her.
"Kinda late to come fishing," he said. "Your stuffs inside the door by the wall. Pa's inside, too."
"Maybe I don't feel like fishing. It is kinda late."
"You and pa gonna do it again?" he half-whispered, hoping there might be some place in the act for him.
"Go on outta here, now. You just keep your britches tight."
Pearl reached the store and saw Clem inside.
"Didn't expect you to show up today," he told her, and noticed she wasn't carrying anything. "And I ain't got a drink in the place."
"Don't need no drink."
"Well, this is a helluva time to come around telling me that. Kids 'n' everybody here and supper coming up soon." She knew he didn't give a damn about the kids being there and he'd eat when he felt like it. He had something else in mind.
"You wanna take time and get it fancy tonight, don't ya? You wanna lay your Md, ain't that right?" He didn't answer. "Get rid of them for awhile and well do it any way you want."
"Naw," he mumbled. "You bring a bottle with you in a day or two. Two-fifty kind. And you can take lotsa time workin' it up. That'll be better."
"What's wrong with a fast one, now?" she asked. It had been a long walk, and she wanted something for it.
"No. You come back in a day or two like I said." He went to the door and called, "Junie, you and Bubba get in here now!"
"Okay, man," said Pearl, "only next time maybe you wait."
"There's your pole. Take some bait and go fishing. Ain't dark yet."
"Nope," Pearl flipped at him. "Goin' back to town-and get laid, gonna play awhile and get laid fancy. See ya, man."
"That cook friend a yours?" He squinted at her.
"Maybe," she smiled. "Maybt him-and Pete."
"Go screw yourself."
"Maybe that too." She took something out of the folds of her skirt pocket and held it up. It was one of those plastic, rubber-like squid lures salt water fishermen used mostly as surface teasers-a body six inches long with trailing appendages. One and a half inch in diameter. Before she could draw it back, Clem grabbed it out of her hand.
"You give that back here," she yelled. Junie and Bubba had come in.
"In a day or two." She stared at him and walked out. Didn't need that now, anyway.
Only used it for fun once or twice with Ella. But it was kinda good when the boys were busy. A real master-bait.
Clem stuffed the lure in his pocket. "About time to put some supper on," he told Junie.
"Whaf d Pearl want, Pa?" asked Bubba, wondering why she left.
"HoVd you know her name?" Clem turned Bubba toward him.
"I heard you say it when she was here before."
"Just shut your mouth, then."
Junie said nothing while fixing some food for them. She knew Clem had had Pearl Just by the way he acted with her. If he had sent her off like that there would be only one reason. When she saw Clem pull a bottle of wine from the closet she knew. He poured himself a drink. He said nothing while they ate, only glancing at Junie and Bubba, who figured for sure something was coming up.
Pushing the plate back, Clem turned to Bubba.
"You and Junie get yourselves some of the wine. Make ya feel good."
Bubba hurried to get two more glasses. Clem filled them. "Got another bottle, too," he said. "Been saving it." Damned bar, Junie thought. Got them at the store for a buck each. Bubba filled all three glasses.
"Drink 'em down and we'll have our second little meeting." They drank, Junie getting hers down faster than usual. Get it over with-the wine'll make it faster and easier.
"Get your clothes off, Junie. Nothing like a pair of tits to give a man a hardon. Ain't that right, Bubba?" The boy nodded, watching Junie take off her shirt. Her young, rounded breasts were firm and white. The nipples still lay flat against them. She took off her skirt, and Bubba stared at the small mound of hair below her flat abdomen. Clem enjoyed both the look of lust on Bubba's face and Junie's nakedness.
"Don't just sit there, boy," he said. "Get those pants off." Bubba almost broke the top fastener getting out of them and freeing his pecker. It stood straight out toward Junie. "Feel if it's real hard, gal. Hard as it's gonna get." Junie took it in her hand.
"It's hard," she said.
"Feel it more. Always a little more bone to stiffen." She ran her fingers over it, pulling the skin back and playing with the swollen head.
"I'll come, pa," whined Bubba.
"Junie," Clem directed, "get that old ruler under that little table by your bed." She did.
"Now you tell me how long his cock is. Right from those tight little balls on." She put the end of the ruler against Bubba and looked at the numbers.
"'Bout five and a half inches."
"How big around?"
"I can't measure that way with no stick ruler."
Clem reached in his pocket and pulled out the lure. " 'Bout that big?"
Junie stared at the gadget. "About," she said.
Bubba put Junie's hands on his balls, and rubbed her breasts. "Pa, I gotta come. I gotta. Let me and Junie do it now."
Clem half laughed at him, saying to Junie, "Bubba's almost dripping on the floor he wants to fuck you so bad. You want him to fuck you now, Junie?"
She shook her head, almost enjoying Bubba's frustration. "I hope it breaks his balls."
"Junie ain't hot enough for you," taunted Clem, "Bring the ruler here and measure mine." He had taken his pants off at the table and now stood up. She put his cock alongside the measure.
"About six inches."
"Ain't all the way up yet. You just hold that stick there and make it go up more." Junie did as she was told while Clem fingered her nipples.
"Pull on it," he ordered, "and rub my balls. How much now?"
"Six and a half and wide as the ruler." That'll please rum, she thought, and we'll get going and finish.
"Wanta fuck with Bubba now, Junie?"
"He ain't got sense enough to take it out when he comes. He'll knock me up."
"That's right. Bubba, you get that thing on the table. Junie, fie on the bed." Well, at least that's better than Bubba shooting inside her. She lay down. Clem sat near her head.
"Bubs," he said, "you kneel over Junie backwards." The boy eagerly straddled her with his cock above her chin. "Now," Clem continued, "you pretend what you're holding is your prick and you screw Junie with it slow and easy."
Bubba was trembling with passion, but he pushed the lure into Junie's cunt all the way. It was dry and she pulled up a little. She could feel the dangling ends of it moving against her thighs as Bubba worked it in and out. Just like a cock only not as smooth. When it moistened she couldn't help but react to the feeling.
Clem saw her nipples stiffen and her eyes staring straight at Bubba's prick and balls hanging in front of her. She could feel small spasms starting inside her. Clem put her hand on his own member. She hung on. Feeling that in her grasp, watching Bubba's twitching and the continuous movement in and out of the teaser was bringing her to a climax. Clem watched her belly muscles tighten and her hips rise for more of the thrusts.
"Feel it good, Junie. Get it all." The spasms increased and the waves of releasing passion shot through her.
"Pull Bubba's cock." The words came from Clem's husky throat. She pushed her other hand under Bubba and pulled on him. She was in a wild haze of feeling as Bubba came fast on her as she felt her own urges climax.
Bubba automatically stopped his artificial screwing as Junie pulled the thick fluid out of him.
"Get down, Bubba," Clem commanded. Junie lay with her eyes closed when she felt Clem urge her by the shoulders to a sitting position. He stood in front of her and put his prick against her lips. She opened her mouth and sucked it in, her hand unconsciously surrounding his nuts. With the inside of her cheeks and her tongue urging his erection to shoot its load of semen, Clem pushed her head closer to him and thrust forward.
She felt her mouth fill with his coming. Clem moved away from her as her eyes closed again and she lay back on the bed. Clem had again used her as he wanted. Made her feel as he wanted. Drained and filled her as he wanted.
Exhausted, she drew a cover over her nakedness and felt a long and forlorn cry sounding somewhere within her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The bills lay in neat stacks on Colt's bed. Twenties, tens, fives, ones. Colt counted each stack in turn and wrote down the amount in his well-used notebook. His face darkened and settled into its worry creases. That damn construction job was supposed to be started by now. Always something to hold a fellow up.
Colt laboriously added up his columns of figures, and then added them again. Yet. Under seven hundred.
This was the most money he had ever had together in his few years of fife. But he had become frighteningly aware of its perishability during the weeks he had lived in the mobile home park and operated a car.
Even with the practice of many stringent economies-which he well knew how to do-the money had a way of melting away in front of his uneasy eyes.
Fist hit palm as Colt puzzled over the green stacks. Soon as that construction job opened up he could start working and replace the bills missing from his hoard. He hadn't gone to the trouble of getting the money and of carefully hiding it only to have it disappear like this.
There was rent, never-ending. Then that car. It always needed something or other. Luckily he could work on it himself, or it would start costing too much, as he knew from the way customers got stuck by the comer gas station.
Fist hit palm. There must be a way to escape from the constant concern for basic livelihood, which had been his lot since birth.
Get educated, Axel kept saying. That was fine except you get to be too old for schooling. Colt's heart lurched at a sudden loud knocking at his door.
He quickly combined the bills, twenties on the bottom, then tens, then fives, and the ones on top. He bound them with a rubber band and laid them in his suitcase with the notebook.
Knock, knock, knock, knock.
"Wait a minute." It wouldn't be Mr. Miller for the rent already. Colt closed the suitcase and shoved it under the bed. His eyes darted about hastily to make sure nothing was left out. He stood up and smoothed the cover over the bed.
Knock, knock, knock, knock. Colt impatiently opened the door on the last knock and stood staring stonily at the young man with raised fist. The boy looked not unlike Colt, same gray eyes, same thick light hair.
"I see you found me."
The boy nodded briefly and pushed in.
"Yeah, Chuck. I found you."
"Come on in and set. I see that's what you're fixing to do anyway."
The boy was already inside, but he remained standing. He looked around the place with a certain curiosity. His sharp eye noted a corner of the suitcase that still was visible under the bed.
Colt saw his glance and moved impatiently between his visitor and the bed. "Might as well set. I ain't going to stand here all night," Colt said, sitting on the bed. He nodded his head toward a straight chair, but the young man didn't move.
"Let's have it, Joris. I know you didn't track me down to stand there gawking at me."
"You look different, Chuck."
Colt smiled faintly. "I aim to look more different before it's over."
"I came to take you back, Chuck."
Colt shook his head slowly. "Not a chance."
"It's all right for you, Chuck, but what about the others? What about them?" Joris spoke tensely.
"The others will have to get away same's I did. Each one will have to find their own way."
"Run? That what you mean?"
Colt was silent, thinking. If you wanted gone bad enough you ran if that's the only way you had. Joris' eyes snapped.
"Everyone cain't take off like you done. Mama couldn't run away-"
"If mama wanted outta that hole bad enough she'd stop spawning-" Joris turned away.
"You don't care nothing 'bout none of them, do you?" Joris accused.
"It don't do 'em any good if I do."
"You won't come back then."
"Joris, you could get out, too. If you want you can stay with me. I'll help you break away from 'em."
Joris shook his head. "You're different, Chuck. You don't even seem like my brother no more."
"What's the use breaking away if you're not going to change?"
Resentment and reproach were in his brother's voice. "I cain't leave 'em"
Colt sprang up. "You think staying and suffering along with 'em is going to do them any good?" Joris stared with angry eyes. "Stay with me. If you better yourself you can go back and help them later."
"You can't help mama later. She died giving birth." Colt's face whitened and his shoulders drooped as he sat down slowly on the bed. "So you needn't be worried no more 'bout her spawning."
"I didn't know."
"'Course you didn't. How could you know?"
"Don't you see, Joris? You was right there. You couldn't help mama none."
"I was out looking for you."
"For crissake, what could you do for her if you had a been there? What could I a done?"
Colt's face was drawn. He clapped fist into palm. He didn't know where he had failed. Of one thing he was sure. Staying in the migrant labor camp and sharing the miseries of his brothers, sisters and parents was impossible.
"Don't you see how hopeless it is, Joris? Come on out with me. You have to take on some strength for yourself before you can help anyone else."
"I can't leave 'em, Chuck."
"Damn it, you'll end up as trapped as they are. Is that what you want?"
"At least I'll not be running out on them."
"You don't mind being miserable then," flung out Colt. "Any more than any of them" He crashed his fist into his palm, "Man in the head trailer told me your name was Colt Jarman."
"That's a name I picked."
"I don't understand you, Chuck."
"You can believe you have to be what you was borned if you want, but I decided to be what I can. One day I got a bellyful of the camp and the roaches and Mr. Whitehall and the sad kids and I told myself am I going to be a sniveling Chuck Johnson all my life? I told myself I wouldn't be any worse off to try to be somebody. I named myself after that young guy in the pictures. It has a good cracking sound. Like a young gun. Colt. Colt Jarman."
"I best be going, Chuck. You're not coming, are you?"
"Stay with me, Joris."
"No. I reckon I'm different than you."
"I know what you're thinking, Joris. But I ain't going to give up my whole life for the little bit of help I'd be to them."
"I hope you get all you're looking for, Chuck." Resentment stood darkly in Joris' eyes.
"One thing sure. I ain't never going to get a woman involved in that kind of a life. The kind of a life a woman has at a labor camp. At least I'll be doing something to keep the misery from going on and on."
Joris looked at his brother queerly. "There's one more thing I ain't told you."
Colt waited.
"Dolores. She's pregnant. I thought you oughta know."
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
After the short shrift she had been given at Clem's place, as she had now come to call the fishing camp, Pearl walked back to town. She didn't think of herself as being ill-used when Clem had sent her off. It was just kind of strange with men. They wanted you so bad they seemed to have ten arms and hands all over you-feeling, pushing, opening, grabbing. Then, when you walked up and said, "I got all those hands reaching for you, too, take what you want, baby," sometimes they'd turn off and leave you standing there reaching. But, she reasoned, a woman's always ready even if she don't want it. A man has to want it to be ready. Too bad a cock ain't just naturally born stiff.
She walked down the short main street of the town to Frank's diner and went in. There were perhaps a half dozen customers keeping him busy enough filling orders. When he saw her, his wide grin gave her a good feeling. Frank never said no except when he was already worn down or just too damn tired after a day and night when the other cook hadn't shown up. Or another girl. She knew about that just as he did about other men. They both romped in an open field and liked it that way.
"What'll you have?" he asked after she sat down. "Hungry?"
"Just some of that pie and coffee. I'll be real hungry later on."
"Maybe about three-four hours from now?"
"That's just about right."
His smile widened. "Me, too." He set a generous cut of pie and a cup of coffee in front of her and turned back to the grill. "My friend Pete get hungry 'bout then, too," he said over his shoulder. She shook her head. He knew what she meant. Just straight. She finished the food and stood up.
"See ya later, Frank."
"Okay. Take it easy, now." He looked at the clock on the wall. Three hours and he'd be off. Pearl took her time walking home down the darkened street. Ella would be there, maybe with a boy friend she'd met a month or so ago-Ron something. Kind of a quiet type who, when he got worked up, she judged, would pull a ring out of his pocket. Ella better watch that. God, can you imagine being tied up with one!
When she reached the house the light in the living room shone dimly orange through the heavy window curtains.
She opened the door and went in. There was a quick scuffling movement on the couch. Ella and Ron were sitting there, Ella's blouse draped over the back of the couch. Ron was awkwardly fumbling with the front of his trousers. Ella laughed gleefully. "He was just gonna take them off when you came in, honey. He been getting real hot for the past hour." Ron just looked at Pearl. "You almost have to show him what to do with it," Ella went on, "he ain't been around much. Sure is different."
Pearl smiled at him and said easily, "Don't mind me at all." She saw two drinks on the cluttered coffee table.
"There's more in the kitchen. Fix yourself one."
Pearl found a bottle of bourbon near the sink. Ron must have brought that. She and Ella bought gin once in a while, though usually one of the boys left enough for the times they weren't having a party. She poured herself one and added some tap water. Frank would bring more. Returning to the room she sat in a chair facing them.
"Don't let me stop ya," she said, smiling at Ron. "Ella and me believes in lovin' a man and givin' what he needs 'cause we needs it, too. Want me to go out?" She hesitated. "Only ain't no place to go. Frank'll be over after awhile. The four of us could have a nice, warm little party."
"Frank know to come over?" asked Ella. Pearl explained that she had stopped by the diner.
"That'll be great. Ron'll be with us and all ready again." She hadn't bothered to put her blouse back on and Ron was fully aware of it. His eyes kept wandering to her breasts, a little smaller than Pearl's, although she was a year or so older. She picked up the two glasses from the table and handed Ron his.
"Finish your drink, honey, and we'll fix another." Ron gulped it down and Ella went to the kitchen.
"You and Ella want to go in the bedroom, just go ahead. Pay no mind to me," Pearl said. "Frank and me do it right here with Ella around." She laughed at his bug-eyed expression. "Sometimes she be right with us, too."
"You mean all three?" Ron murmured. "All lovemaking?"
"Three, four, five," Pearl shrugged her shoulders, "what difference just as long as everybody hot and happy gettin' what they want?"
Ella returned and, in setting Ron's glass in front of him, brought a breast within an inch of his face. He reached for the drink at the same time bumped into her breast, and drew back quickly, still not used to the idea of Pearl's being there.
"I was askin' Ron if you and him want to go in the bedroom, Ella."
Ella looked at him. "You want to, honey?" His eyes rolled toward her as he took a drink. He just stared at her breasts and said nothing. He was tlunking about Pearl's "three-four-five."
"No. He want to stay right here for now." She reached over and patted his fly. "My, my, seems like you got something growin' in there. It hurt ya, honey?" She felt gently along his groin. "Ya want to show us? Maybe we can help it." Ron straightened back against the couch. He wanted to throw his clothes off and screw Ella, but, with Pearl there? He wasn't sure they weren't having fun with him. He'd never been with more than one girl at a time, and not very often at that.
"That's right, Ron," nodded Pearl. "Ella's good at helpin' with hurtin' things like that." She put one foot up on the chair, and her skirt dropped back to the top of her thighs. Ron could see the curly black hair. And the slit in the middle of it.
"Now," Ella whispered to him, just loud enough for Pearl to hear, "you take off those tight old pants and we see what that swellin' is." She unbuckled his belt.
"Both of you gonna keep your clothes on?" His voice was tremulous, and perspiration dampened his forehead and upper lip.
"Not if you don't want us to," said Ella. She raised from the couch without getting up, and slid her skirt from under her. She unbuttoned his shirt and drew it back over his shoulders. While he worked his arms out of it, Pearl undid her blouse slowly, and dropped it over the back of the chair. She slipped out of her skirt, enjoying every moment of Ron's bewildered passion. "I'll get us another drink," she smiled, "then our Ron won't feel so bashful."
Ella nodded at him. "We tryin' to help you, honey."
In the kitchen again, Pearl poured three stiff drinks, without adding water, and brought them back. She set them down. Ron was untying the second shoe. He took off his socks and, pausing a moment, pulled his trousers off. When he leaned back his cock bounced against his belly.
Ella put her long fingers around it, feeling the ridges under the black skin. Pearl rose and sat on the other side of him. There was no place for his arms except around them. Ella brought his hand around until it was filled with one of her breasts. Pearl raised his arm from behind her and brought it down pressing his hand into her cunt.
Ron swung his head from one to the other. He had never thought of anything like this except in a wet dream. He was vibrating from the pounding in his prick. Pearl spread her legs and let his searching finger into her. Ella leaned over him and put a nipple between his lips while Pearl gathered his balls in her hand.
"You wanta come, honey?" Ella murmured, "you just let it," She held his cock straight up and worked it up and down. "We fix that big growin' thing for you." In a spasm he thrust up from the couch and his sperm shot up and over his chest and Ella's hand. Pearl watched it spurt from him. She could almost feel it inside her-almost taste it. She rubbed it into him while Ella slowed down her motion until it was drained. Ron lay back on the couch, muscles twitching slightly.
"God-a-mighty," he breathed, "that was the best, god-a-mighty, you sure did it to me good."
"You get some more when Frank come. Then we have a real party. And it last longer." Pearl rose and passed the drinks.
"Time for some food," said Ella, and went to fix some sandwiches.
Ron looked at Pearl. "Ain't never felt before I could sit naked with two girls. Now, I'm gonna want it a lot. I want it all the way. Ella and you sure is good to me. I do anything you like."
"Now you're hangin' loose and easy. Way it should be. You get a hardon you tell Ella or me. Same with Frank. We want it, you give it to us one way or another. See? That's where it's at." He nodded, stood up and headed for the the John.
Ella came back with fish and cold meat sandwiches. "Where's Ron?" she asked. "Takin'aleak."
He returned and the three of them ate the food while waiting for Frank. A short time later Pearl answered a knock on the door with "Come in." It wouldn't be anyone but Frank at that time of night. Frank came in and closed the door. For a half minute he took in the scene. The naked bodies in the soft light of the room from a table lamp.
Ron, though at ease by now with the two girls, was nervous at the entrance of a fully clothed man. Pearl took care of that. She walked over to Frank.
"Come join the party. Don't stand there like you ain't never seen skin before. We been waiting for you."
"Man, looks like I been missing something. If I'd a knowed you had all this going I wouldn't a been able to work. Maybe I'd just a quit and come running. I'm gonna get me a drink quick." He held up a filled paper bag and headed for the kitchen with Pearl beside him. "How long Ron been here?"
"Couple hours," Pearl answered.
"Been screwin'?"
"Nope. Just feeling. Ella jerked him off. He all ready again. Like I said, we been waiting for you."
"Bring their glasses in. We got plenty for everybody."
Pearl went the short distance to where Ella and Ron were sitting. He had one arm around Ella, and a hand on each breast. She was pressing his cock against his thigh. "You just take it easy till Pearl and Frank are ready too."
"That's right," Pearl said, "we bring the drinks first." She took the glasses back to Frank who had the bottle opened. While he poured the gin into the four glasses Pearl eased the zipper of his trousers down, reached inside and released his prick.
It began to fill her hand and the pouring became unsteady.
"Baby, I gotta get these clothes off right now. You bring two of these glasses." Pearl served the drinks to the other two, and took one from Frank. He took a gulp of his and immediately stripped down. Pearl took his organ in her hand and led him over to Ella.
"Here's one for the other hand." Ella laughed and squeezed it, bulging the tip even more. She did the same with Ron's.
"We got a couple of good drink stirrers here, Pearl." Everyone laughed, except for Ron. He wasn't sure what the hell she meant. "You just do what Frank do," Ella told him. Pearl sat on the couch near her sister. Everyone held a glass.
Frank knelt on the couch over Pearl, his legs straddling hers. Ron got up and took the same position in front of Ella. He felt his dick being bent down and watched as Ella dipped it into her glass and moved it around in the gin.
Pearl was doing the same with Frank's. It felt cool, almost cold, until they took them out and put them in their mouths. The stirring was repeated three more times. The coolness of the drink, the sensitizing of the tender skin by the alcohol and the sudden heat of the mouths brought passion to its height.
"If we gonna fuck we better do it now," Frank gasped out the words. He stepped back to the floor. Ron followed, unsure what to do now. He knew only that he had to do something or blow his mind. Ella told him to sit on the couch. She pushed his knees apart and, with her back to him, eased herself down, putting his standing cock into her.
He thrust upward as she sat heavily on him. Pearl got on the floor on all fours, her shoulder against Ron's thigh, her wide eyes looking directly at where his cock was sunk almost to his nuts in Ella's gently moving open pussy. Frank mounted her from the back, shoving into her in short, steady strokes.
Both Ron and Ella watched as Pearl murmured, "You got it all the way, baby." Each could see what the other three were doing and feeling. Ella rose up and down on Ron, her wetness shining on Ron's prick as it pulled it in and out. Frank pumped in and out of Pearl.
There was an aura and a scent of lust around the four as they strove more furiously for release. Ron's hands quickened their kneading of Ella's breasts.
"I'm corning hard, honey," he panted against Ella's shoulder, "I'm gonna shoot it."
"lift it into me, man, shove it up." He raised his hips till his balls were almost off the couch. Ella moaned as Ron came deep in her. Pearl, excited to the limit by Frank's increased tempo, and seeing her sister and Ron in the throes of climax, moved forward and thrust her face against them and licked eagerly where Ron's cock was joined with Ella's cunt.
Frank, moving slightly forward with her, jammed into her with full, fast strokes. He grunted deep in his throat as he ejected into her. Her thrill of completion was muffled, with her mouth buried in the source of sex.
Late the next morning Pearl walked to the diner. Frank, busy as usual, looked surprised. "Didn't expect you'd be up till this afternoon." He smiled and poured her a cup of coffee. "Get you a sandwich or something? Lunch?" She shook her head.
"No, coffee's fine."
"Musta had a big night," he joked.
"Big enough."
He leaned over the counter, close to her and half whispered, "Sure was good, baby. You the best. We all do that again soon, huh?"
Looking at him over the rim of the steaming cup she said, "You know we going to. That's too good." She sipped her coffee while he left to attend a customer. When he came back she asked, "Okay if I take Pete for a walk today?"
"No," he said, hesitantly. "This kinda soon, ain't it?"
"He might need some exercise, tied back there while you workin'."
"Where you goin'?"
"Just walkin', maybe fishin'."
"Okay, baby, but you tell me after how good the walk is, okay?"
"Sure will."
"
"Remember, he only for me, you-and friends."
"You think I ain't mindful of that?" She looked directly into his eyes.
"I know, I know, baby. Just be careful." He looked around. "Be careful how you feed him. He tied behind the diner."
Pearl finished her coffeee and strolled to where Frank kept the hound tied. On seeing her he loped to the end of the long rope holding him by the collar, raised his paws to her, and whined a welcome. She untied the rope.
"Come on, boy, time for a walk. Time for us to go walking." He followed her nuzzling her legs as she set off for the fishing camp.
She took her time. The day was fine and clear, and she enjoyed watching Pete searching along the side of the road for whatever he was looking for. When she reached Clem's, he was washing down the dock with a bucket of water dipped from the side. She was at the dock before he saw her.
"Don't the kids generally do that?" she asked.
"They off somewhere. That your hound?" He pointed at the dog.
"Friend a mine's. Real smart." Pete went up to Clem and pressed his nose against his crotch.
"What the goddamn hell is he doing? Get him outa here." Pearl called Pete and made him sit.
"Ya wanta go inside outa this sun?"
"Yeah."
Clem walked to the store, followed by Pearl and the dog. Inside Clem said, "I don't feel like doin' nothin' right now."
"You worn down? Maybe too much, huh?"
"Maybe in a day or so. I ain't ready for ya. You and the hound kin go fishing."
"Sometimes it real good when you're tired a little. Takes longer. That's why I brought Pete. He's special. Bet you ain't never had it like that."
"What d'ya mean?"
"Pete special trained for about three years now. He don't hunt like other hounds. He trained to people." The dog ducked his head under Pearl's skirt. She stepped back and moved his head away. Stepping over to Clem she patted the man's belly. "Here, Pete, here." The hound went quickly to Clem and started licking at his pants.
"He wants you to take 'em off," Pearl laughed.
"You teach him that?" Clem asked.
"Nope. Friend of mine."
"How? Just make him, how?"
"From a pup by puttin' some food there and jelly and things he liked. And gin. He loved that liquor like dogs do. Only place he got those good things. Then, after awhile he just naturally wanted what was underneath when he grow up. He got the taste. He love it."
Clem had never had that kind of excitement before. He felt the stirring within him. "He don't get going enough to bite?"
Pearl laughed. "Hell, no. He just want to taste and lick. That what he wants. He wouldn't hurt nothin'."
"You show me," said Clem and went to the bedroom. Pearl sat on the side of the bed and unbuttoned her blouse. Immediately, Pete was alert, watching her as though this were the signal for him to join her. She took the blouse off and then the skirt. Leaning back on her elbows, she said, "Here, Pete." The hound, eyes steadily on her pussy, ears moving forward, wagged his tail furiously and started licking her, his long tongue Tunning all the way from her anus to the top of the mound. She sat up.
"Wait, Pete." The dog backed off. She looked up at Clem standing watching. "Try it. It feels great when you ain't too hot." Clem took his pants off and Pete watched him with his tongue hanging from the side of his mouth.
"Just lay back a little so he can get to it." She reached over, rubbed Clem's balls and lifted his soft cock. "Here, Pete," she murmured again, quietly. "Here." The dog moved quickly and started licking without pause. His wet tongue covered in one stroke after another Clem's balls and followed with his cock as it moved from side to side and up and down under the soft, urging pressures. Pearl leaned across him and put a nipple in his mouth.
"Don't that feel good, man? Pete'll give you a hardon whether you want it or not. You can't help it."
Clem could feel his prick starting to swell, which seemed to excite the hound even more with increasing more frantic licking. Pearl looked down at the dog.
"He sure workin' it up." As it raised hard, she threw herself on top of Clem and put it in her. Pete whined a little until the two were joined and Pearl had taken her hand away. He went back to them, his tongue moving faster than ever from Clem's balls up over Pearl.
"You ever been fucked and licked at the same time, man?" Clem moaned.
"God," he breathed, "nothing better." As they moved against each other they felt the roughness of Pete's tongue.
Clem jerked hard in and out of Pearl. She gasped in climax as Clem spurted into her. Pete never let up. As Pearl raised off Clem, the dog lapped at the juices coming from them.
They lay back as the hound moved under Pearl's direction, from one to another. Finally Clem asked, "How much your friend want for the dog?"
Pearl sat up, laughing. "Wait, Pete. That's all now. Wait. What he want for this hound? Man, he take no price for Pete. Would you?" She laughed again. "Look," and she pointed at the panting dog. Clem, leaning on one elbow, glanced at him. Pete was standing watching them, waiting for more. He had his own erection.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Junie didn't mind doing chores when daddy and Bubba were not underfoot. Her father had gone to town and Bubba was out some place.
She brushed the straggly broom acoss the bare boards of their sleeping room. She had finally been able to budge the sticky window open. It would be good to have the place aired out. No matter if flies came in, she could chase them with a fly swatter later.
Always before there had been an undercurrent of sadness in Junie's feelings. Nowadays, she couldn't help it, she felt ready to bubble over every minute. This was what being in love was like. The only thing missing was something she knew was a part of love, but doubted she would ever have. She wanted nothing to do with being touched, having already been touched enough.
True, Colt didn't love her back. That, too, was missing. But it just wasn't possible to feel so much for a man without him starting to feel back, she told herself confidently.
She was humming and smiling a little as she straightened the covers on Bubba's bunk.
"Don't bother, Junie Belle, I only aim to mess it up right away." Shit! Little brother was back!
"You ain't going to bed in the middle of the day, I hope."
"Why not?" Bubba leered and grabbed at her.
"Cut that out, Bubba, or I'll tell daddy."
"Don't be so touchy, Junie." He moved closer. "Come on, let me have it. You'd like it too." He twirled a rope.
"I don't like it, I hate it!" she cried passionately.
"Please, Junie. Nobody's here. Let me have it."
"Stay away from me, Bubba Grice! I mean it."
"Aw, why?"
"If you don't leave me alone I'm going to tell daddy."
"Oh, all right," Bubba began twirling the rope absently.
Junie bent over to tuck in his cover, and quick as a snake Bubba seized her hands and drew them together behind her.
"Stop that, stop it!" she gasped.
"I ain't gonna hurt you none. Specially if you dry up." Bubba wound the rope around her wrists and secured it. "Stop bouncing around, Junie. This ain't gonna hurt."
"The rope hurts, you bastard. Take it off."
"What you get for being so selfish. It won't take me long, shape I'm in." He pushed her onto his bed and pulled the jeans over her thrashing legs. "Why don't you quiet down and then we can get it over with."
"You bastard. I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!"
Bubba loosened his jeans and nipped out his penis. He spread Junie's legs and inspected his target.
"Oh, Junie Belle. I think you kidding me when you say you don't want none. You're wet!"
Junie stopped talking and stopped struggling. Best get it over soon as possible.
"If you'd a been nicer to me I'd play around with you some, but you don't deserve it."
Junie clamped her teeth together.
Bubba positioned his tip at the entrance and drove forward. He pushed through the resisting cavity and gasped, "WOWIE! This pecker of mine knows right where to go! He sure do!" He drew back slightly and thrust into her deeper. Tears slid from Junie's eyes and dropped onto the bed. Bubba pulled out and drove in, breathing hard, tearing her apart with his ugly mean cock.
She hadn't been used much this way, as daddy preferred other methods. And daddy would be plenty mad when he heard about this. He'd skin that boy alive.
Bubba grunted at his job, pulling back and penetrating deeper with every forward thrust. His big face was swollen and red and the veins in his neck stood out.
With a yelp he drove to the hilt, filling her cavity with the cruel meat. He was right. She could feel the wetness. But it didn't mean a thing. She still hated him.
Inside her his pecker throbbed hotly, churning up her juices against her will This stupid shit-ass was going to make her come if she wasn't careful. She steeled herself against him, and he groaned as her muscles tightened around his length.
He now had a glassy stare to his eyes as his big butt rose and fell over her.
Pelvis bumped pelvis with every thrust. In spite of everything she could do a warmth began to course over a route from thigh to thigh. With every tide, branchlets started radiating out from her center through her belly and in the direction of each breast.
When the current alternated it brought back reinforcements from its travels. Always the heat returning to her center was more than when it flowed away.
Bubba began sweating, and great drops fell on her face.
The ebb and flow of her currents continued. Every surge was carrying her closer to the point of no return. She struggled against the tide and her struggling swept her more helplessly into the hot swirl.
Bubba breathed harder. His hands slid under her buttocks and lifted them to him. She commanded her cunt to feel nothing, but it didn't listen.
His sweaty pubic hair was tangling with hers. At every thrust, she could feel the tide come in stronger toward her center. Her cunt had now become a pulsating nerve center. She knew it was already too late and she was in for it.
To her disgust her hips rose to meet him. Every jab of his penis brought her nearer the vortex.
"I can't stand it, Junie. You're damn good, damn good!" It wouldn't be long for him either. He already didn't know what he was doing. Nothing could have stopped him now. "Like that, oh, Junie, like that!"
Junie felt she couldn't stand it another minute, yet she still fought against it.
Bubba had reached the end of the course. He stabbed his cock in short fast jabs now, and his legs began to stiffen. He reared his head back and let out a howl of agonized delight as the convulsions seized him and the scalding fluid spurted into her, spraying her deeply.
He pulled from her and lay gasping on top of her. The hot needle spray inside her had brought her whole interior to the point of convulsion, but it very gradually ebbed away, leaving her empty and stony.
Her wrists hurt dreadfully.
"Untie my bands, Bubba. They hurt."
He undid the knots. She shook her hands to start the blood flowing. "Don't think you're going to get away with this. I'm going to tell daddy. And I'm going to tell him you didn't use anything or take it out. Maybe you knocked me up!"
"Hey! Anybody here?" Colt!
Bubba bolted up and squeezed through the window.
Junie pulled on her jeans and ran her hands over her hair. She heard the front screen door slam. When she got to the store she saw Colt standing uncertainly in front of the door.
"Colt?"
"Oh. Thought no one was here." He came in and peered at her. "I come to tell you something, Junie. I gotta go back home for a couple days." He paused. "My brother thinks I got Dolores in the family way. You know, Dolores, the girl I told you about?
"I don't think the kid's mine. I know it ain't mine. But I'm gonna take her some money. I'll be back by-" He stopped and looked at her closely. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing," she said, breaking into floods of tears.
"Aw, Junie. Don't take on like that." He pulled her head against him and patted it. "Something's really wrong, isn't it?"
She clung to him and sobbed rackingly.
"Come on, Junie. You better tell me what's wrong. Maybe I can help."
She shook her head and cried harder.
"What is it, Junie?"
"If I tell you," she gasped, "you'd hate me."
"No, I won't hate you. Now tell me."
"You'll never speak to me again."
"I'll speak to you again."
Junie's sobs eased off. Colt patted. "Come on."
"Bubba-"
"What about Bubba?"
"He raped me."
Colt drew back, horrified.
"That ape! I'll kill him!"
"He did it against my will," Junie sobbed, "and didn't use nothing and maybe he knocked me up and daddy didn't say he could."
"Come on. You better sit down."
"No! I can't!"
"Where's your dad?"
"He's in town."
"I'll tell him about this. When he gets back, I'll tell him. He's going to be mighty mad."
"He sure is. He didn't tell Bubba he could do it."
"Now, now. You're going to be all right."
"He only lets Bubba do it when he's drunk and in a mood. But he makes him do it right."
"What?"
"Sometimes daddy gets in a mood where he'd rather watch than do it hisself."
"WHAT!"
"Do you hate me, Colt?"
Colt dropped his arms and stared at her, his face frozen in horror. She looked at him anxiously.
"Are you never going to speak to me again?" He took a step back and opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came. He turned abruptly and strode out to his car.
Junie heard the motor start and she looked at her reddened wrist. She rubbed at the wrist and smiled faintly. Now Colt was gone. He hated her. He would never speak to her again.
Now she remembered what she had tried so often to think of. Something she wanted: someone to take her away from here.
But there was no one. Now she would have to stay here with daddy and Bubba.
She took a box of worms out doors and removed the lid.
"Here, wormies. You want to be free? Go play now."
She laughed softly.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
She tore out the lady in the silk pants. There would never in this world be money enough for pretty pants like that-or pearl fingernails and toenails. Those fancy open shoes with jewels would cost this whole fishing camp. Now the lady fluttered to the floor like confetti.
And this one with the wet lips and dangling earrings. In little bitty pieces she won't look so good.
The five suitcases all alike in different sizes, with mirrors and hangers and satin linings. They weren't going anywhere.
The srniling airline stewardess in front of a big wing of a airplane: she'd never get off the ground.
The laughing girls in their leather coats and fur collars. They wouldn't be needing those books no more. They fell in jagged pieces on top of the airline stewardess.
You with the eyes! Did your guy laugh at you when he saw you? Fish bait! That's what those eyes were good for. Here, minnows, want some fancy eyes for dinner? Tiny, tiny bits of eyes? Bites?
You in the short dresses. I'll see to it you won't be setting down and showing yourself.
Took a heap a oysters to make all them pearls. Back where they came from! Those pearls can go down to the little crick.
Drinking from those fancy glasses will lead to a lady's downfall. Down you go, lady.
And you! Got you a new car, ain't you? And a good-looking man. Lota good it'll do you spread all over the floor in little bits.
You think you got white teeth? You think you got something to sneer about? How do you like this? Lady, there he goes. Why don't you go, too?
Know something? Your neck won't be so damned stiff when I get through with it. Makes me itchy just to look at you.
Take your last puff, buster. You got another fight comming up.
Reckon you won't be needing your ruffles no more, Miss Sparkly, "What in tarnation! You sure making a mess, Junie Belle. What's that box a worms doing out by the door step?"
Old fire breath back from town. How would you like to fall to the floor in little bitty pieces? You and your bottle?
"Clean up that mess and I'll let you have a drink, Junie." Balls!
"Come on now. Get that chicken grin off your face and pick up the trash all over the floor. Looks like you'd try to keep the place clean like most daughters would."
Clem had made a head start on his drinking in town. Now he poured a generous glass and handed it to Junie. "All right, girl. You can have some, but you gotta clean that up later, hear?" He took a stiff pull on the bottle, and smacked his lips.
"Drink up, honey. It's getting toward bed time." He looked at the sun slanting in the window, and cackled. "Come on, I said you could have it. You can clean that up later." He leered at Junie. "Come over here."
"How'd you like for me to cut you up in little pieces, daddy?"
"Shut your mouth!" The back of his hand crashed into her lips. "What you want to talk smart-ass for? You and me are going to bed-before I get too sleepy." He stumbled aginst her and brought them both to the bed. She lay still while he undid and pulled off her clothes.
He quickly ripped off his clothes and she heard the clatter as the knife hit the bare wooden floor.
Balls! His pecker scorched against her thigh. She moved, but her leg only brushed back and forth pulling his foreskin taut.
"Atta girl. Rub your daddy." He buried his fleshed face in her neck.
He grabbed her hand and clapped it over his genitals.
"Come on, honey. You know what to do." His cock throbbed under her touch until he twisted his hips slightly and her hand dropped to the bed. "Come on, damn it, we're going to do it." His paws bunched up the flesh of her breasts. "You're getting right good, Junie Belle," he said, slobbering. "My little girl's growing up."
He picked up her hand and held it against his balls. "Don't play dumb on me now. You know what I want. Rub them balls together and when they blossom up I'll let you suck on 'em-"
She lay passively staring at a fly tangled in a spider's web at the window. When he let her up from here she would go free the fly. Or maybe swat it. Balls!
"I'm not going to fuck you right off, Junie Belle. We're going to play around some first."
He ran his hand between her legs. "Why, Junie, you're plumb wet. I think you're gettin' to like this some. Yep. You're right wet"
Clem guided her hand over his balls and rubbed it around in a circular motion. "Ah, daughter, that feels good. When I get done with you, you'll have the real hang of this. Takes some longer 'n' others, I guess." He squeezed her fingers around his testicles.
She could feel the boiling heat from his body, and thought maybe it wouldn't take long.
His rough paw scraped down her back and seized a fistful of buttocks. "I'm ready, Junie girl. Give the old man's balls a good licking." He pushed her head down between his hairy legs. At the same time he dug a finger into her. "This is the wettest you've ever been. You've getting to be a regular lady."
Her mouth pressed against the stink of him.
"It's all right, girl. You can start to lick now." He ground his throbbing manhood into her face. "That feels good, Junie. More. Lick 'em more." His stiff rod slapped against her cheek like a sting. He pressed one of his testicles between her slack lips. She began sucking absentmindedly. It was like rotten meat.
"Ow! Careful, daughter. Keep your teeth away from 'em. Don't hurt your old man."
With her fingers she mechanically stuffed the other ball in with its mate. Her cheeks bulged with their burden. Teeth! It would take more than teeth to take care of these tough old rotten nuts.
Balls!
"That's a girl. Only not so fast, now. I don't want to come yet. Let's make it last."
Maybe this wouldn't take long. He seemed about ready to explode. His busy fingers fastened on a nipple and the nipple stood up, but its needs couldn't reach her.
He pressed her head hard against his hairiness and she couldn't breathe. As suddenly he backed off. "I didn't mean it. Slow down. Oh, it feels so good! No, goddamn it, slow down. Goddamn it, goddamn, GODDAMN!"
Clem thrashed around like a beached whale, yelling and spurting sperm into her hair. He had to fall back limply to catch his breath. She lay dazed. He raised himself up heavily and glared at her.
"I told you to slow down, goddamn you. I'll teach you how to mind." He reached for his belt and lashed out at her.
Junie lay quietly and listened to the cracking of the leather making contact across her. She felt the hurt, but the hurt couldn't reach her. There was something she was trying to remember.
She tried and tried to think of it all the time her pa finished his bottle and later lay snoring.
She stared at the window. That was it! The fly in the spider web. She was supposed to free it. Or-The fly had stopped struggling. No, there it was, still flailing. Well, she could fix that.
Junie trampled on the fallen ladies and crossed to the fly. She raised her hands carefully to the web and with a sudden clap between her palms, ended the fly's troubles. She lifted the body out of the web and laid it on the sill. Now. You're free.
Balls!
She clattered over the fallen knife and bent to pick it up. Balls! Look how sharp. You could hold these with one hand like this. The knife would slice through like a chicken wing. 'Course, that would make a lot of blood. Lord, look at the blood.
"EEEEEEEEE! Yow Eeeeeeeeee-!" A scream like that would push you clean out the door. Your feet could fly with that shrill yelling driving you. You could run and run and run and run and run-
"Why, Junie. Whoa, Junie. What be wrong? Come in, child."
"Axel-"
"Now, sit down and breathe."
"Axel-"
"What's the trouble, child?"
"Axel-I cut off pa's balls with his fishing knife."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Colt's old Chevrolet took the bumps faster than usual as he headed down the little trail to the camp. Bos homely face was creased into its most grim lines, and he took no notice of the mellowing lushness of the outdoors around him as summer reluctantly gave up its last days. He stared at the road seeing into his turmoil of thoughts. Shock and revulsion had driven him from the camp and from Junie. But even in his headlong flight he had known he couldn't let it go at that.
There was no way out of it for him. No way out of sitting for hours on the bed in his trailer looking into the linoleum pattern for answers, hitting his against fist palm. Finally, of course, the answer was nearby locked in the suit case under the bed. In the end, there being no way out, Colt had bent down and dragged out his savings.
When he pulled in at the camp there was no one in the store. Colt strode down to the dock. Axel was sitting braced against the palm tree slowly reeling in a bream.
"Thought you'd took off."
"Naw."
Colt squatted beside the tired-looking old man and waited till he released the undersized fish.
"Axel, where's Junie?"
Axel looked full at the boy and his eyes held pity. Colt's face tightened. Axel heaved a long sigh.
"She's gone, boy."
"Gone? Where? She had no place to go."
Axel nodded. "But she couldn't stay here after she-after she did what she did."
"What she did? But what'd she do, Axel, tell me!"
"The way I got it from Junie-she was pretty upset but I think I got it straight. You left here and Junie got it into her head she didn't have a friend left in the world-'cept me, a ole broke down fisherman-"
Colt winced. "Is that why she left?"
Axel looked at him sideways. "Junie told me she spilled the whole story to you-about the way she had it here with the old man and the boy, her father and her brother-" Axel trailed off and stared across the water, ignoring the tug on his line.
"Axel, where's Junie now?" The old fisherman drew a breath.
"After she took care of her old man with his own knife, she ran away, had to."
The color drained from Colt's face. He waited, searching Axel's face. Axel continued.
"Boy, that little gal took her daddy's own knife that he was so fond of-and cut off his balls."
Colt's eyes closed for a moment. Then he stood up uncertainly. His voice was low.
"Don't reckon I'll be able to find her then."
Axel's wintry blue gaze held on Colt's face for a long minute. Then he looked away and busied himself with his fishing. He began to talk.
"On your way back, Colt, you might stop by my place."
Colt alerted. "But I never been there. I don't know where you live."
"You know the filling station and grocery store up on the corner at the highway? Before you get there take a turn off where that path goes off in the trees-"
"There where that rickety foot bridge is?"
"That'll be the place. Cross that and you'll see a shack back there."
Colt was already walking. Axel raised his voice. "Don't try to take your car across that bridge. You pull it out of the way across the road."
Colt was gone.
Axel heaved himself up to go home and then remembered it was only a small shack. He sat down again to wait a spell.
They were all gone now. Clem tried to lie still, as every move hurt.
"Man, you done got yourself in a mess this time." Pearl opened her mouth wide and let the merriment roll out, Clem cut at her with the back of his hand.
"Stay away from there, black woman."
"Whoo-ee! I guess I will! Ain't nothin' there for me. Better not thrash around like that, Clem. You getting blood on your bunk."
Bubba was looking kinda poorly too, white around the gills. Hell, he didn't have nothing to worry about. Shit! Clem had a notion to close up the camp. Might as well There weren't no customers nohow. Customers came one time and then never came back. Lots of times they'd look around some and not even stay the first time.
"Your daddy's having his period, Bubba. It's up to us."
She nipped her hand across his pants over the loosely hanging bag.
"Cut that out, Pearl," Bubba said. Bubba was a good loyal Md. He wouldn't fool around right in front of his old man and let his own father drool himself to death.
Pearl unbuttoned her blouse. No bra, of course. "Shit, Bubba, I was all set for a good fucking. The old man's got himself screwed up. How about it?"
Bubba pushed her away sullenly, but his penis thrust against his jeans.
Clem was going to get rid of that black bitch for sure. She was nothing but trouble.
"Hey, daddy-o, look a what you're doing to your bed. Better lay still, hear? You wait right here. Pearl will fix you."
Pearl went behind the curtain to Junie's bed and rummaged through her belongings. Soon she reappeared holding some Kotex. "This'll fix you just fine, big boy. I guess the tiger's done been defanged." That hideous laugh filled the shack again.
Before Clem could protect himself, she had ripped the adhesive from his stomach, laid back the terrible bandage to expose the bloody nothingness. Clem had not wept since he was ten years old. But he had a time holding back tears as he stared at the wreckage of his manhood. His sleeping penis lay in the soft bed of blood and mucus where his balls had been.
Pearl shook her head slowly and her eyes widened in wonder. "Ain't never seen no man in this fix before." Clem shuddered. She pressed the Kotex across the mess and secured it with new adhesive tape.
Bubba turned his eyes away in shame. Yep. That's how it would be from now on. Shame. What hurt the worst, Clem told himself, was knowing that his own Junie had brought this shame on them. After all he'd did for that girl-
Pearl's hand darted swift as a snake and slid down Bubba's zipper. His penis sprung out alertly, backed by solid balls.
Clem tried to look away, but his gaze was riveted to the full, swollen testicles. Bubba kept his eyes averted, but made his crotch accessible to the black fingers cradling and lifting and stroking. With a moan he leaned his head back on the wall and pushed himself to Pearl.
"Atta boy. Bubba wants his Pearl, any blind man can see that." She raised up his penis and buried her mouth against his balls. Holding his penis with delicately stroking fingers she began a slow gobbling of his balls. Her tongue licked lightly at first one then the other.
She drew a testicle between her lips, slowly into her mouth, her hot mouth, as Clem could testify. Then she began sucking and moaning. Bubba stiffened up tight against the wall, everything forgotten except the world of his crotch.
Clem's own legs were stiffened out in front of him as if in the throes of passion himself. This was as near as he'd ever come again to shooting his seed.
All the agony of his life gathered in him for this moment. He was ten years old again, and he was sniveling in bed by himself in a room full of orphans.
He was an old man, finished. Only really finished. A man with no balls was no better'n a alligator. 'Cept gators have their own way to make out.
A man's gotta have balls. He felt the hot spurt of fluid from his wound and from his eyes.
"Oh, goddamn it, Pearl. Go girl! Oh girl! Oh Pearl!" Bubba was raving like a demented man. He looked feverish, pinned against the wall by his passion.
"Ai-yi-yi-yi!"
Pearl drew back slightly, and eased off the way she did to make it last. But that boy was beyond lasting.
"Don't leave me now, Pearl girl. I'm coming-I'm coming!" With a yell, Bubba arched his back and gave up his load. It jetted in sticky eruptions into Pearl's waiting mouth. She took the convulsing penis deeply into her mouth and milked it dry.
Bubba and Clem jerked in a paroxysm of passion. But Clem's only eruption was from his eyes.
Junie sat at Axel's kitchen table. She was stony-faced as she watched Colt step through the doorway.
Junie's eyes stared at him from her still face. He shook her.
"I'm all right."
"Look, Junie, I'm sorry I ran off that way. I just couldn't stand thinking of-" Colt suppressed a shiver.
"Junie, are you all right?"
"Don't look like that, Junie. I come for you. We gonna leave here. You're coming with me and we're never coming back. Junie? You want to come with me?"
Junie shook her head, smiling slightly. Her lips barely moved.
"You don't know what I done."
Colt pulled up a crate and sat down, looking carefully into Junie's face.
"I know."
"What?"
"I know, Junie."
As if a stopper were drawn from her pain, Junie Belle crumpled inward sobbing raggedly.
"It's all right, honey. Cry till you're eased. I'm not letting you go back. From now on you're gonna be all right. Look, Junie, I brung my savings. We're gonna go over to Miami and I'll get work on a high rise job."
Later Junie felt more like herself than she ever had before.
"But, Colt, you were saving that money to better yourself-you wanted to-"
"Hush, honey. We both gotta better ourselves, ain't we? Look at you. You're too damn pretty under all that dirt to be such a mess-"
Junie thought of something else and turned away. Colt went on. "I been thinking. We're both of us gonna have to get some schooling. You're through with fishing camps and I'm sine as hell-" he broke off.
"Colt?" She dropped her eyes. "Colt-would you want me to stay with you-and-"
"Are you worried about that? Hey! Wouldn't you want to? You mean you wouldn't want me to touch you?"
"I don't know. I'm all screwed up. Maybe we could start out gradual."
"Honey," his voice broke. "You're never going to do a damn thing you don't feel like. Truth is I feel kind a screwed up, too, by all this."
"Maybe I'm not good for a man."
"Don't start talking dumb now. What's wrong if we take our time? I reckon we got plenty of time to take."
Junie sighed with satisfaction. "I reckon we have, honey."
