(C) Embers

"Go on, go on. No one's looking."

Betty quiveringly drew in a deep breath and held it in her lungs.
Why was her friend asking her to do this? Was it part of some
kind of game? It seemed so weird, but she couldn't bring it upon
herself to protest. It was hard to say no to Eugenia.

She exhaled, then clutched the sides of her skirt and began to
lift it up. A gust of March air brushed her ankles, flapping the
hosiery cuffed around them. As she pulled further, she felt the
wind on her calves. Her wide eyes darted furtively around the
garden.

"Go on," the girl urged again from behind her. Betty stared down,
watching the crucifix around her neck dangle. Her bare feet sunk
more deeply into the soil as she bent forward and lifted her
skirt all the way up.

Following the rustle of the trees, another gust of air swept over
her, causing small goosebumps to rise on her bare and now fully
exposed bottom.

"Gosh, you really have a magnificent bum," Eugenia cooed behind
her. "It's so awfully plump for a girl so slender as you. And
perfectly round."

"Um. Yeah...listen, Eugenia--"

"Kind of unusual, really. It reminds me of those big bouncy rumps
I've seen on some of those negress cocottes down in the quarter,
only yours is as white as the moon. Haha."

Betty gulped, unsure of what to say. She simply watched her
little golden cross bob back and forth, wondering if what she was
doing was sinful. It certainly felt so, even though she couldn't
figure exactly how. What would her father think? Her mother? They
were only a few yards away. She could hardly bear to imagine what
they'd say if they caught her.

"Show me," Eugenia ordered quite tersely. "I wanna see it."

"I...you are seeing it, aren't you?" Betty asked, flustered. "You
said you wanted to see my backside."

"That's not what I said. I said I want to see your bum hole. That
means I want to see what's between those chubby cheeks of yours,
love. Got it?"

"Eugenia!" Betty said, shivering. "That's filthy. Why would you
want me to do that?"

"God! Don't be such a prude. I'm just curious, is all. It's not
every day you see someone's bum hole, is it? Unless you're one of
those arse doctors, what you call 'em. Proctors?"

"Proctologists," Betty corrected, finding her friend's unrefined
and perverse manner increasingly difficult to tolerate.
"Eugenia...this feels wrong. Maybe you can just find a book on
the subject if you're so curious about--"

"Oh, hush. Just spread those big bum cheeks of yours already,
before someone catches us."

With a deep sigh, Betty finally complied, hoping to resolve this
as quickly as possible. Shutting her eyes tightly, she reached
back and spread her ample buttocks by a quarter inch.

"Tsk-tsk! Come on, Betty. I still can't see it, your crack is so
bloody deep. Spread it wider," she heard from behind her. Betty
pushed her tongue between her teeth and bit down anxiously. She
then pulled her fleshy globes apart a few notches farther, hoping
this was satisfactory.

She blinked her eyes and paused, waiting for a reaction. Her legs
wobbled the minute she heard a suppressed snigger, and her face
went almost crimson. She could feel the cold air fanning her
exposed anus, and she felt incredibly foolish.

"My word, Betty. It's lovely!" Eugenia tittered. "It looks like a
tiny pink star."

"Oh...thank you, I suppose," Betty said, her long dark hair
blowing into her eyes. "So we're done now, right? You've seen it,
so--"

"You ever wonder how all those poofters do it?"

"What?"

"You know, queers. They all take it in the arse, don't they?"

"I wouldn't know," Betty said, grimacing. She reflexively
tightened her anus, and her buttocks tensed against her grasping
fingers, but she remained in place. She had never considered what
queer men do with one another in any great detail. All she knew
was that her father said it was sinful, and she was inclined to
believe him, if only in the most passive and vague of senses.

"Come on, Betty. You know they're all buggering one another like
mad down in the parks and alleyways. Not that I care. I only
asked because I just wonder how one would go about openin' up
such a small hole like that. For buggery, I mean."

"I don't know. I think...we should stop," Betty said. To her
chagrin, she found that her anus flexed uncontrollably as she
spoke. She knew Eugenia was deriving joy from seeing every
twitch.

"We'll stop soon. Hold still. I just wanna try something first,"
Eugenia said, dropping to a crouch and fishing around the soil
with her fingers. "Y'know, I wish I had a nice garden like this
one. My father won't even let me keep a potted plant, he won't.
You've got lots of tasty veggies here, don't you?"

Betty nodded silently. She glanced up a moment. Although the
slatted garden gate had greenery wreathed around it, disconnected
specks of her house were still visible past it, and something
there caught her eye.

There on the sill of her distant bedroom window, she hazily
glimpsed the pewter angel she'd received one Christmas. It was
the last gift she'd ever received from her grandmother.

An upsetting mental image suddenly materialized from her
subconscious. She imagined her grandmother's spectral face
frowning down at her from the heavens, shaking her head in stern
disapproval.

In that moment, Betty felt profoundly unworthy of that simple
gift. There was nothing angelic about her participation in this
symbolic desecration of her childhood garden. And yet for some
reason, she could not stop.

Betty heard Eugenia uproot something up from the soil. Then she
heard a spitting sound, and then another. At first this didn't
alarm her, as Eugenia had an irritating habit of spitting on the
ground, or floor, at will. But then she heard a third
expectoration, and then a fourth, and she began to worry.

"Hmm, this should fit," Eugenia said casually. At this peculiar
intonation, Betty began to turn her head, but Eugenia was upon
her before she could fully grasp what was about to occur.

With a swift movement, Eugenia jabbed the tip of a dirt-encrusted
carrot up Betty's rear end. Its tapered end squarely bypassed the
girl's tight sphincter.

Betty screamed, much more loudly and desperately than she even
realized, and her anal ring immediately fought to restrict the
intruding object, scrunching like a vise grip until its momentum
slowed.

"Oww! Eugenia!" Betty cried out, her crystal eyes watering over.
"What are you doing?! That hurts!" The sensation in her bottom
was extremely foreign to her, and she panicked, realizing that it
had triggered an urge to run to the toilet.

"Stop!"

Eugenia climbed on top of her from behind, using the full weight
of her stockier body to bring Betty down to her knees. She then
wrangled the struggling girl to the ground, pinning her under her
knees and pushing her face into the topsoil.

Betty shrieked, but the sound was muffled by a clump of dirt. She
felt Eugenia shove the carrot deeper, thickening as it travelled,
and an intense burning sensation shot up her rectum.

"Stop crying, you big baby. It's just mother nature," Eugenia
taunted, grinning as she rapidly sodomized Betty with the
saliva-slicked vegetable for a few seconds. Betty managed to lift
her head up high enough to let out an ear-piercing shriek.

Eugenia cupped her hand over Betty's mouth to mute her wailing,
and then grabbed the leafy greens of the carrot, tugging it free
from her rear end. With a twist, Betty finally managed to free
herself, and then rolled over in disbelief, sobbing
catatonically.

"Ew, you got it all stinky," Eugenia said with brattish sadism,
sniffing the carrot and laughing. She then paused, cocked her
head, and tossed it aside.

"Oh, bother. Pull up your knickers, Betty, I think someone's
coming," she said, her voice suddenly a bit fearful.

Betty was greatly confused. Her friend always had a penchant for
misbehavior, even when they were little--but why did it now take
on such a perverse bent? And there was the searing, alien
sensation that lingered in the wake of her violation.

Neither of those things, however, caused as much dissonance as
the realization that there was a trail of wetness that now
trickled from her sex, and a sudden rigidity to her nipples
beyond what could be merely explained by the weather.

What in the world did it mean? She didn't have time to think
about it now; she heard someone approaching.

With shaky hands, Betty pawed at her smudged-up hose until they
were back up over her thighs. She brushed the dirt and tears from
her face, and hurriedly swiped her dress. In a moment, her
housemaid swung the garden gate ajar, looking properly concerned.

"My goodness, is everything alright?" the woman asked, looking at
the two girls covered in dirt. She spotted the uprooted
vegetable, but did not make much of it--for why would she?

"Sorry, Annette. A gopher came and surprised us, 'e did. Tried to
get that carrot over there. I'm awful scared of rodents, it's a
phobia o' mine," Eugenia said with surprisingly convincing
innocence in her tone. "But 'e got scared off when you showed up.
I'm so glad. Oh gosh, do I hate rodents."

Annette looked at the two girls curiously, then, observing that
Betty was quite a bit more unnerved than Eugenia, came over and
helped the girl to her feet.

"Oh, is that all? The way you two were screaming, I thought a
wolf had attacked you both. Gophers? Is that true, Betty? Your
parents have gone through so much trouble to rid us of those
horrible critters. What a plague," she said, helping the girl
brush herself clean.

Betty merely nodded, as she couldn't bring herself to tell the
truth about what really happened. Eugenia's face was now eerily
devoid of any of the devilishness she'd displayed moments
earlier, and Annette merely seemed to find the girl charmingly
silly. This woman had only been working for Betty's family for a
few months, and seemed to be unaware of Eugenia's history of
troublemaking.

"Girls your age shouldn't be so afraid of a little rodent,"
Annette said, holding her weathered arms akimbo with her knuckles
pressed firmly against her hips.

Eugenia nodded, smiling almost dopily. "You're right, Miss. It
was so silly of us to holler as we did, and cause such a ruckus
over it. I'm sorry."

A smile slowly inched its way up Anette's doughy face, and she
patted them both on the heads.

"Well, I should get back to my work. Turkey's not going to cook
itself. Are you staying for dinner tonight, Eugenia?"

"Oh, I would love to, but I have some stuff to do later..."
Eugenia said, staring blankly off into the distance for a moment.
"But, thank you for asking. I would love to stay for dinner again
sometime soon."

"You're welcome anytime, dear," Annette said, adjusting her
headscarf and turning to the gate. "Oh, Betty. By the way, your
father wrote from the Carolinas to say he'll be delayed by a few
days. Should be back by next weekend."

"Okay, Annette," Betty said, glowering at the ground. Annette
paused, thinking to ask if anything was bothering her, but then
concluded Betty was merely expressing the usual melancholy a
young girl feels when family is distant, and she left quietly.

"I should get going," Eugenia said cheerily, picking up her
knapsack. "What are you doing tomorrow?"

"Packing," Betty said, holding back further tears. "I...probably
won't have time to entertain visitors."

Eugenia scrunched her bulbous nose and brushed her long blonde
hair out of her face. "Oh, I see. Now that you're off to that
fancy college I suppose you won't have any more time for me."

"That's not true..." Betty said, wincing as another sting surged
through her anus. "I'll, um, write you when I get there..."

"You'd better," Eugenia said deeply, her expression softening.
She reached out, patting Betty on the bottom one last time, to
which Betty merely tolerated with shut eyes.

As she watch her friend take off, she realized that the crotch of
her hosiery was absolutely soaked.


To be continued...