CHAPTER FIVE

Meg should have noticed, when they left the bathroom, that all four of the other women seemed to have something to do in the dining room, but she was too busy trying to act completely normal.

"I see you fared a little better tonight," said Mavis, looking at Meg's dress, an odd look on her face.

"Yes, Bobby is a good boy, and learns very quickly," said Meg.    She saw Sally looking oddly at her too, one eyebrow raised, but ignored her rather than ask what was troubling her.   Instead she went about finding Bobby's night shirt, which she'd purposely put in the wash so it would be in the pile.  She got it on him and took his hand.

"I'll go with you," said Sally suddenly.

"Oh" said Meg.  "All right."

Bobby led the way, climbing the steps, turning the corner and climbing another flight as the two women followed him.  Sally followed Meg as they entered his room with the lantern she had picked up.   They didn't use electricity unless they had to, due to the war.

They tucked Bobby in and Sally watched as Meg leaned down to kiss him on his forehead.   Then, to Meg's surprise, Sally leaned over and kissed him on the cheek.   Sally wasn't one to exhibit feelings like that.

When they left the room Sally went first and was waiting for Meg.

"What happened in the bathroom?" asked Sally, her voice low.

"Whatever do you mean?" asked Meg.  She was glad it was dark, because she was blushing.

Sally's finger came up and pointed at Meg's chest.  "Your dress was properly buttoned when you went in there," she said simply.

Meg looked down and was horrified to see that she had missed a button, and the top three were in the wrong holes.

"Surely ... you're mistaken," said Meg weakly.

Sally folded her arms under her meager breasts.   "I'm not mistaken Meg.  Your dress was not buttoned like that when you went into that room."

Meg felt her stomach knot.   She was in trouble and she knew it.   She threw herself on Sally's mercy.  

"It's just that he splashes so much," she started, wringing her hands.  "And I just thought that ... if I took my dress off then it wouldn't get ruined, and I wouldn't have to change into a new one ..."   She stared at Sally, for some sign that her story was being accepted ... or at least understood.

"You let him see you naked?"  Sally's voice rose above a whisper.

"He's such a good boy Sally, so sweet and helpless.  And he's been so abused.   It didn't hurt anything.   Why he barely even responded."  She bit off that last part.  She hadn't meant to say anything about his response to her nudity.  But her tongue had run away with itself.  It always had, and it had always gotten her into trouble.

"But he DID respond ... didn't he Meg?" probed Sally.   She knew what that response was too.

"Well ... yes ... a little," admitted Meg.

"What did you do?" asked Sally.

Meg was confused.   Sally never talked about anything for long ... never probed like this ... asked so many questions.  This was a different Sally than the one Meg knew.

"Please, Sally, I didn't hurt anything.  He's just a poor boy.   Don't tell Mavis.  She'll throw me out Sally."

"What did you do, Meg?" asked Sally again.   "You touched him, didn't you?"

"Sally..." Meg pleaded.

"Did you touch him?" asked Sally, her voice low.

Meg dropped her head and shook it, not wanting to have to admit this to this strange woman.

"Don't lie to me Meg.  I may be quiet, but I'm not stupid, and neither is Mavis.  If you don't think she saw your dress buttoned wrong then you're a silly goose!   That boy's ... penis ... was limp as a noodle when you brought him out of there.   If you didn't do something then it shouldn't have been limp like that."

Meg knew it was over.  And that made her mad.   She knew that what she and Bobby had done was wrong, at least by the standards of this house, but she hadn't hurt him, and it had been something wonderful and warm and lovely for them both.   She believed that.

"What I did in there is my business," she said, raising her head and standing tall.  "I did not hurt him or coerce him in any way.  If you feel compelled to take this to Mavis then I suppose you will.  But I'll not let you make me feel like I did something wrong.   Everything that happened in there was good, and sweet and full of love."

She started to push around Sally, who lifted her hands and placed them firmly on Meg's chest, above her breasts.

"Stop" she said.

This CERTAINLY wasn't the Sally Meg knew.   Sally didn't have an assertive bone in her body.

"I want to know," said Sally softly.   "I just want to know what it was like.  That's all."

"I don't understand," said Meg.

"Meg, look at me.  I know I'm not attractive, like you.  No man has ever even kissed me, much less anything else.  I know I'll die a spinster, never knowing a man's touch or ... what you did in there.  At least let me hear what it's like to be fully a woman."  Sally dropped her hands.

Meg's eyes grew round and white in the dark.  "We didn't do THAT!" she whispered loudly.   "Please believe that I wouldn't do THAT with him.   He's just a boy!"

"But you did do SOMETHING" Sally probed again.

Meg took a breath and nodded.

"Will you tell me about it?" pleaded Sally, leaning forward.

Her attitude was so yearning that Meg believed her.  "Yes, but not now.  They're probably already wondering what's taking us so long.   I'll tell you, but later.  I promise."

"Done!" said Sally.  She grinned, also something that came strangely to her face.

When they got downstairs Donna and Prudence had already gone home.  Mavis was sitting and darning socks by the stove.  She looked up at the two women.

"Well, took you long enough.  How much tucking in does one skinny boy need?"   She arched an eyebrow.

"Oh!" said Meg.   "He's been in bed a while now.  Sally and I were just talking."

“That’s nice.” said Mavis, looking back down at her mending.  “I thought you’d have fixed that dress by now Meg.”

Meg’s hand went to the buttons immediately and her shoulders slumped.  She’d completely forgotten about that during Sally’s interrogation.  She waited for the questions she knew Mavis was now going to ask.

But when Mavis looked up all she said was “Off to bed with you.  We’ve an early morning tomorrow getting them all off to school.”

That night, the Umpelty Oog struck again.  This time it was in Jenny, Emily and June Bug’s room, and it was Emily who screamed out her horror in the night.  Meg got there first, since she stayed in the room next door.   Patrick and Terrence were next, and then Bobby arrived from upstairs as Sally ghosted down the hallway, belting a robe around her.

Emily cried that, when they’d scared it out of Patrick’s room, it came to hers and was hiding in HER closet now.  June Bug huddled under her blankets, her head firmly covered.  Jenny was in the same bed as June Bug, but peeked out, the covers up to her chin.

Meg was cross.  With all that had happened, she didn’t need this foolishness, and she didn’t feel like screaming again at the top of her lungs.

Bobby held up a finger though, and everybody looked at him.  He squared his shoulders and then began dancing around, throwing boxer’s punches at nothing.   Then he straightened up again, and pointed to himself, and then at the closet.   He took Meg by her arms and moved her close to Emily’s bed.   He shooed the two boys out into the hallway.

Then he marched to the closet door, opened it, stepped inside, and slammed the door closed.   He felt immediately for the stick he had hidden there earlier.  Once he had it in his hand he began banging the walls with it, and throwing his body around inside the closet.  He laid the stick on the floor, opened the door and thrust himself out into the room, falling to the floor and rolling.   There were screams from Emily and the boys.   Bobby hauled himself up and went back in the closet, leaving the door halfway open this time.  He retrieved the stick, bounced himself off the walls a few more times and then broke the stick over his knee with a sharp crack.

Bobby stuffed the broken pieces of the branch up under some clothes on the top shelf.  Then he walked out of the closet, dusting off his hands, slapping his palms together and smiling widely.   He stopped, and put his hands on his hips, like he’d seen in a picture of Peter Pan in one of the books downstairs.  He looked at the women first.  Meg was covering a smile with her hand.  Sally looked on, her mouth open.  Mavis had arrived during the incident, and Meg had one hand on her arm, restraining her.

“What happened?” asked Patrick in a squeaky voice.

Bobby pantomimed boxing again, and then made the same motions he would as if breaking something in half with his hands.  He let his head flop sideways and made his tongue hang out, slumping.

“You KILLED HIM?!” squealed  Emily.  “You KILLED the Umpelty Oog?!”

Bobby straightened up and dusted his hands again, smiling.  Then he went to the closet door and swung it wide, as if to show them it was now empty.

Patrick edged into the room, craning his neck to see.  “Where is he?” he asked, holding on to Mavis’ night dress in a grip that threatened to pull it off her shoulders.

Bobby had thought of that too.  He stuffed imaginary things in his mouth, chewed and swallowed, and then rubbed his stomach.

“You ATE the Umpelty Oog?!” squealed Emily.   She bounded out of bed and threw herself at Bobby, hugging his legs fiercely.

“Wow.” said Patrick in a hushed voice.  He looked up at Mavis, who was holding her nightdress on.  “He killed the Umpelty Oog.” he said, his voice hushed.

“He most certainly did.” said Mavis, her voice loud in the room.  “And I, for one, am glad the ugly beast will trouble us no more.  At last we can get a good night’s sleep.   Off to bed children.  School starts again tomorrow.”

Mavis took charge of the two boys and herded them toward their room.

Emily looked up at Bobby.

“I could kiss you Bobby.” she said, mimicking something she’d heard an adult say one time.

“Well” said Sally, coming across the room.  “I’ll kiss him for you, and you get to BED!”  She reached down to swat Emily’s backside.

Emily squealed and laughed and ran, jumping up on the bed and burrowing under her covers.

Sally looked calmly in Bobby’s eyes and pulled his face down for a kiss.

Sally had never kissed a man.  She’d kissed her pillow, and a few dogs as she was growing up, before she realized that men weren’t interested in her.   And she’d kissed the babies and cooed at them.  So she knew, in theory, how to kiss.  She pressed her soft lips to Bobby’s in an attempt to tell him how powerfully thankful she was for what he’d just done.

Bobby, having already decided that he liked this kissing business, kissed her back.  He kissed her the only way he knew how to kiss ... the way he kissed Meg.

Sally’s world changed forever in that kiss.  It left her weak-kneed and gasping for breath.  She was suddenly quite sure she’d have been a lot happier if she hadn’t done it, because now she knew she’d never be happy unless she had a man to kiss her like that whenever she wanted to.  But she took what was offered, as she did in the rest of her life, and enjoyed it to the maximum.   When she finally sank back down on her heels and turned around, her glazed eyes took in the three other females in the room, all watching her intently.

Meg stepped forward.   “And I will kiss him for June Bug and Jenny.” she said.  

She reacted to that kiss much as Sally had.   She hoped, more than she had hoped for many things in her life, that she’d get the chance to kiss him again.

The girls, however, were having none of it.   

“I can hug him myself.” said Emily, sitting up in bed and holding out her arms.

Bobby went over between the beds and hugged the little girl, planting a quick kiss on her lips.  Then he turned to find Jenny and June Bug standing up in their bed, holding out their arms too.   June Bug hugged him fiercely and planted five or six kisses on his cheeks and lips before dropping like a stone and getting back under the covers.  Jenny, being older, gave him a quick hug and a peck on the lips, and joined her bedmate.

Then, walking very normally, Bobby went past the two women, turned and went toward the stairs.

“You HAVE to tell me!” whispered Sally, her hand gripping Meg’s arm.

“I will.” said Meg.  “I will.”

************************************

Miss Rachael Templeton slogged through the door of her two room schoolhouse, stomping the snow off her feet and going to the stove to get it going.  Once she had a blaze of wood burning, she fed it some coal and closed the pot bellied stove up, adjusting the draft so it wouldn’t smoke too badly.   

Next she went to the sink and looked inside.  Sure enough, there was a glaze of ice in the bottom.   She tried the pump handle, and sighed with relief when she heard the gurgle that meant it wasn’t frozen up.

There wasn’t anything else to do until the children arrived ... if they arrived.  She normally had fourteen students, the vast majority of them from Mrs. Milleson’s orphanage.  Other than them there were the twelve-year-old Halsted twins,  Patsy Brown, who was fourteen and too old to still be going to a combined school, but did anyway because it was the only school available within twenty miles, and Mike Simpson, who only came to school when his father didn’t need him on the farm.  That occurrence was rare, even in the dead of winter for some reason.

She left her coat and gloves on, as the room wouldn’t warm up for an hour or two.  She had stuffed rags in the chinks around windows, and had managed to get the town fathers to supply heavy curtains that helped a little.  But all there was between them and the cold, cruel world outside were clapboards nailed to studs.  The whole place shook in the wind if it was strong enough.

She wandered over to the rope that hung down in the center of the room and grasped it, putting her whole weight on it as she pulled downward.   She heard the doleful tolling of the big brass bell up above and knew that it was being heard all over town.

Then she pulled up a chair next to the stove and sat, huddling, wondering yet again how she had ended up in Hampstead Nebraska in the middle of the coldest winter she'd ever seen in her life.    It wasn't supposed to happen like this.   Rachel came from a good family back east, in Philadelphia, where things were civilized, even during the war.  Her role models had been the beautiful and talented teachers who taught there, women who were respected and revered.  She had looked at her teachers, dreaming about being one of them who, with the wave of a hand, could have a boy taken out and paddled.

Rachel had gone to college to be a teacher.  She did that mostly because that's really what she wanted to do ... to make a difference in young people's lives.   But she also did it because she saw what other choices women had.   She happened to have entered college a year before Pearl Harbor was attacked, which gave her precedence when things started to get tight.  She shuddered at the thought of what she'd be doing if she hadn't been in teacher's college.   She'd heard of women welding, for pity's sake, carrying heavy things, building airplanes and getting filthy.   So she applied herself to make sure she got that sheepskin, and one of those cushy jobs back east.

Except that it hadn't worked out that way.  What no one told her was that there were very few cushy jobs any more, for teachers or anyone else.  And for the cushy jobs that DID exist, there were twenty ... fifty ... a hundred women lined up who would do anything to get them.

Rachel could have gotten one.   All she'd have had to do was sleep with Horace Vandermeister.   But his knowing sneer and his fat belly when he told her "the facts of life" left her so nauseated that she actually cursed at him.   He had promptly, somehow, arranged for her to be assigned to the Hampstead Nebraska Consolidated School.

She had appealed to her father to get her out of her assignment, but she couldn't tell him the real reason why.  He had harrumphed and told her that adversity built character, and that pressure made diamonds and probably six or seven more worn out cliché’s before she quit listening and resigned herself to go to Nebraska.   Besides, wasn't middle America just full of strong, tall men who worked the earth and were windblown and sun-creased and handsome?

That stereotype had bitten the bullet as soon as she stepped off the train and had to carry her own bags.  No one met her.  She was expected to find her way around, arrange for her lodgings herself and introduce herself to the superintendent of schools, Hiram Hochstedder who, when he wasn't conducting extremely important school business, ran Duffy's Tavern over on "B" street.   "These hicks," she had muttered to herself, "can't even name a street, much less treat me with the respect a school teacher deserves."  She conveniently failed to remember that she had absolutely no experience at all in actually teaching.

That first day had been tough on Rachel.  When she asked around for the superintendent of schools, she was referred to a saloon, which no lady of any standing would think of entering.  But she had to, because she had no money, and needed a place to stay.   Her "room" was out back of that very same saloon in a tidy little building with three actual rooms, including a tiny kitchen.  The whole place smelled faintly of manure, but it was somewhere to hang her hat, so she settled in.   It was six months before someone told her she was living in what used to be the stables.

But by then, she had learned a large number of important life lessons, chief among them that, if you aren't nice to people, then they very well may shit on you if they have the chance.   And there was a LOT of shit in this town.   She had adjusted slowly and painfully though, and even though she wouldn't have thought it, she was a better person for what she'd gone through.   It was soon clear that she had no hopes for bagging a rich man in this town, or even a young one.   

And so, her cherished virginity was perfectly safe and intact ... and in Hampstead Nebraska she didn't see much of an opportunity for that to change.

Well, actually, she could probably lose it at the drop of a hat, but it would be with a man over forty-five, probably a farmer and quite likely someone who had a window in his mouth when he smiled.

That Rachel's virginity was intact was a thing of sadness to most of the men in town, including the married ones.  Rachel came from fine Swedish stock, with that clear skin, blue eyes and golden hair that makes men's scrotums tighten.  She was a healthy girl too, with bulging breasts and wide hips.  Her lips were full and dark, even without the makeup women had to give up during the war.   Rachel was a walking, talking baby machine, from the men's point of view.   That the machine was still brand new and had never been taken out on the road seemed a horrible waste.  There was pretty much a consensus among the men too, that it was just too bad that she set such damn high standards for herself.

So, since Rachel didn't have to spend much time on managing men,  she turned all her energies to her students.

To her everlasting amazement, Rachel found out she loved teaching, and was actually pretty good at it.   She loved "her" children and, during the autumn, actually gave serious consideration to staying here.  The war couldn't last forever, and she knew that some thirty young men from Hampstead would be returning when it was over.

Then winter set in and Rachel decided that she had to do a good enough job to get transferred to somewhere civilized.

************************************

By the time it was warm enough to take her gloves off, her first student had arrived.  Patsy stomped into the room like Rachel had, trying to get enough snow off her footwear to make sure they didn't get too wet when the rest melted.  Patsy was an unimaginative girl who, fifty or sixty years ago would have been married already, with one baby on her hip, and another in her belly.  She didn't see the need to learn anything, but was so lazy that she went to school so she didn't have to stay home, where she'd be expected to work.

Then there was general pandemonium as Mrs. Milleson's brood flooded in through the door, accompanied by two of the women who worked there.  There was a man with them too, which was surprising.   She looked more closely as the man took off a ridiculous coonskin cap.  No, he was a boy, maybe Patsy's age.  Two of the Milleson girls were hanging off of him like Christmas ornaments, and he bent over to help them out of their coats.   She started to tell him to stop, because it was too cold in the school house yet, but the women were also removing the coats of the other children.   They didn't look like they were cold and she shivered.   If she ever lived here long enough to get used to this kind of cold she was going to find a pistol and blow her brains out.

One of the women stood up.   What was her name?   Hortence?  Paula?  Oh yes ... Prudence.   Her husband was off at the war.   Rachel smiled at her.

"This is our latest acquisition," Prudence said, indicating the boy.  "His name is Bobby, and he's mute."

Rachel sighed.   Another one that didn't talk.   She already had that odd little girl with that odd little name.  Who in the world named a child June Bug?   If she'd been named June Bug she wouldn't talk either.    On the other hand, June Bug had a knack with numbers, and with a pencil and paper, she could do things that a lot of much older children couldn't do.

"Do we have any idea of his capabilities?" asked Rachel.

"Only that he can write ... at least a little," said the woman.  "We're not sure.  We thought he was simple-minded, but he's a little too quick at picking up some things for that to hold water in my opinion."

"Well, then, perhaps we have something to work with," said Rachel.   The boy was staring at her.   All males stared at her.   She corrected her estimation of his age upward.  But his gaze wasn't lustful, like those of most men.   He was just looking at her ... with a look that was more like "just interested" than "wishing you were naked".

She walked over to him, smiling the smile she used with men when she wanted them to pant and beg to please her.

"Well, Bobby is it?   How nice.   I'm happy to meet you Bobby.  My name is Miss Templeton, and I'll be your teacher.   Prudence tells me you can write.  Is this correct?"

He nodded.

"And can you read?" she asked.

Another nod.

"How about numbers.  Do you know anything of math?"

Yet another nod.

"Well, we'll see," said Rachel  "Let me get the little ones to practicing their letters and I'll give you some tests."   

She ignored him then, getting out paper and pencils and the ragged forty year old texts she used to teach writing.   Most of the children were so young that all she did with them was teach them the alphabet, and work with them on writing the letters out.  With the older students she worked on arithmetic and reading, as well as cursive writing.

Once she had set tasks for all the others, including the Halsted twins who finally tromped in through the door after all the others were already at work, she turned to Bobby.  She sat him down at a desk and gave him pencil  and paper.   She started out asking him if he could write his name, and if he knew how old he was.  Then, for lack of anything else she could think of she asked him if he knew how to spell the colors of the rainbow.   He had performed everything perfectly and she realized he was no halfwit at all.   She changed to math and set him some verbal challenges.   He scribbled on the paper and she saw that he had division and multiplication down pat.  She tried a bit of algebra, which bothered him not at all.

Rachel looked at the boy anew.   "How long have you been going to school?" she asked him.   He scribbled for a minute and handed her the paper.  It said, in succinct and grammatically correct English that the had been in the orphanage system for as long as he could remember and, choosing to learn rather than be beaten, he had soaked up a little knowledge.

Rachel looked at him surprised.   "And you read too?"

Bobby listed his favorite books and authors, and Rachel's opinion of him went up another notch.  She paused, thinking like she usually thought.

"Why didn't you just pretend that you didn't know how to read or write?" she asked.  "You had to know that if I thought you were a halfwit that I'd put you in a corner and leave you alone."

Bobby scribbled.  "I'd have been bored to tears.  Besides, you sound like home.  Your accent sounds like Boston."

She smiled.  "Well, at least you don't know everything.  I'm from Philadelphia, and we don't sound anything like those pretentious snobs in Massachusetts."

Rachel went over to a shelf and pulled down a book.   She came back and showed it to him.   It was called A Connecticut Yankee In King Arthur's Court, by Mark Twain.    "Have you read this yet?" she asked.  Bobby shook his head and she handed him the book.   "You can read that until the rest of us are done.  I'll have to test you some more to figure out if there's anything I can teach you or not."

Rachel spent the rest of the morning with her usual students, every so often glancing over at Bobby, who was reading at a rapid pace, his attention solely on the book.   He looked up when she took her coat off and she exposed her thrusting, well-filled bodice, but then went right back to the book.   She was both surprised and, to be honest, a little disappointed that Mark Twain seemed more important than her ability to mesmerize the males of the species.

School only went until noon, since most children were expected to work at home, as well as go to school.   And, truth to tell, Rachel was going over the same things over and over again anyway.  She was going to start reading to them soon, and teaching them to read too, but that hadn't started and couldn't really until they had a good grasp of their letters.  Normally she was bored in the afternoons, and she saw Bobby as a chance to do something besides be bored.  When the women came back to collect the children, Rachel asked if Bobby could stay for further testing.  The woman, whose name she didn't know, looked at her intently, and then nodded her head fractionally.   Then she turned to Bobby and spoke to him.
"Bobby, do you remember how to get back to the house?"

Bobby nodded and a voice came from outside.  "Come ON, Meg, they're beginning to scatter."

Meg looked at Bobby as he nodded.  "All right.  You come straight home after the teacher is done with you.  All right?"

Bobby nodded again and smiled.

Rachel had watched the whole exchange and, with a woman's radar, had seen something there that most women and almost no men would have seen.

"You like her don't you?" asked Rachel.

Bobby stared at her, his eyes going flat.

"Now now, Bobby, it's perfectly normal for a boy to have crushes on a pretty woman.   And she's quite pretty in her own way, don't you think?"

Bobby nodded fractionally and she smiled.

They sat, Rachel asking questions, and Bobby writing his responses.  She found out he'd come from New York.  She was hungry for news, but  Bobby couldn't tell her much of that.  She asked him about foods he missed, and learned that he had never eaten outside an orphanage, and didn't even know about regional foods that were world famous.   He knew he had been a lot of places, but didn't know the names of them.  Finally she asked him about the children at Mrs. Milleson's house.  On that he was brilliant.  He wrote about what made them tick, and how he got them to do what he wanted them to do, even without talking.   He told her the story of the Umpelty Oog, and what he had done to kill it.  She laughed and clapped.   
Suddenly she put her hand over her stomach, which growled audibly.  She looked at a locket watch that was pinned to her dress.  

"Oh my goodness, it's almost three.   You'd better get home.  And I need to go home and get something to eat too.   This was fun Bobby.   I'll arrange for us to spend several afternoons a week together if you like.  I can get the books you need to read.  You have no idea what kind of literature there is out there Bobby, but I'll teach you about it.  I'll speak to Mrs. Milleson.   Now, off with you."

Bobby got up and shrugged into his coat before putting his ridiculous hat on.  Then he turned and his eyes swept from her face to her feet and back up again.  His eyes lingered on her breasts and she felt herself flushing beet red.   He smiled, waved and darted out the door, running pell mell toward the Milleson House.

Rachel realized her heart was beating firmly in her chest.   His gaze had been so personal, so intimate, as if he could see clear through her clothes.  And yet, it had been friendly too, as if to say "You are naked and beautiful and a vision of loveliness - for which I thank you kindly ma'am."  It jarred her somehow to be appreciated so obviously, but so ... safely ... too.

She shrugged into her own coat, banked the fire, and left, closing the door firmly behind her.

************************************

Herding the children back home after school was the first time, Sally and Meg had had to talk privately.  The children wanted to make and throw snowballs, like they had seen Bobby do, and the women strolled slowly in the frigid air.

"So now, tell me," ordered Sally excitedly.

"There's not all that much to tell," said Meg, sounding grumpy.

"Come on Meg, don't back down.  You promised," wheedled Sally.

Meg looked over at her friend, who had changed so much in just hours.  She'd watched Sally kiss Bobby last night and experienced a rush of emotions, not the least of them, to her chagrin, jealousy.  And she was feeling that again, but for different reasons.

"I'll tell you.  I'm just upset about HER."  She nodded over her shoulder.

"The teacher?  What did she do to you?" asked Sally.

"Nothing, but she's back there trying to get her hooks in Bobby.  I just know she is.   And Bobby, poor thing, probably doesn't have any defenses against a woman like her."

"She is pretty," sighed Sally, who thought all other women were pretty.  "but she's just a teacher.  Surely she wouldn't see anything in Bobby.

"I did," said Meg softly.  "I can't control myself when I'm around him," she admitted.   "Sally I've done things with him I never even THOUGHT about doing with any other man."

"So ... TELL ME!" shouted Sally, scooping up a handful of snow and flinging it at Meg.

So, while the children played, and they moved slowly toward the house, Meg confessed how it had started, and then how she felt, and what Bobby's penis felt like in her hand.   She hadn't meant to admit or talk about getting his semen in her mouth, but she was so excited remembering it that it just spilled out.

"In your MOUTH!?" squealed Sally.   "Oh how HORRID!"

"NO!" said Meg, while wishing she hadn't said anything about that.  "It wasn't like that at ALL!  It was wonderful!   It was delicious!   Sally I know it sounds strange, but I LOVED it!"

"Really?"  Sally was intrigued.  She knew so little of sex that anything she heard was interesting and, since her parents' basic rule was that anything at all that had to do with sex was dirty and disgusting, getting semen in your mouth wasn't actually any more disgusting to Sally than anything else.   She'd just never thought about that.

Meg could tell that Sally was neither disgusted or horrified, and that calmed her.   This new Sally was someone she WANTED to talk to.

"Really," she confirmed.  "In fact, it was so delicious that I ... well ... last night ... I put my mouth on him and drank it all."

She stopped and tensed, waiting for Sally to explode, and call her a slut, or a whore, or, at the minimum, a tramp.

But Sally didn't explode.   She did stare, as she thought about what boys did with their penises, and that wasn't too attractive to think about in terms of putting one in your mouth.   But, Bobby had just had a bath, so it was nice and clean, and that didn't seem so bad to Sally.  All Sally had ever thought about was the usual thing a man did with a woman ... where his penis went in a different ... orifice.

"But you didn't let him ...?"  she couldn't say the actual words, but her meaning was clear.

"No," said Meg, suddenly wondering why she'd never thought of doing that with him.   Then she realized she'd never thought of doing that with any man.   She'd thought about it in hazy fantasies, but, other than the feel of her fingers on her pudendum, she had no idea what it would feel like, so it was impossible to really think about.  "He only touched my nipple."

"Really?"  That got Sally excited again.  Her own nipples were so sensitive that sometimes it drove her to distraction as they were scraped by her clothing.

So then Meg had to describe how Bobby's naked hip had pressed between her leg, while his fingers pinched her nipple, and he kissed her.   Meg wasn't quite sure whether she'd had an actual orgasm or not.  She'd heard of such things, but never talked about that with any human being, so she didn't know quite what an orgasm was supposed to feel like.

They both realized that they had stopped, facing each other, and that the children had drifted down the street.  They hurried to catch up.

"Ohhh" sighed Sally.  "If only something like that could happen to me."  

Meg walked, thoughtfully.   The green eyed monster still played in the back of her mind, but it was more associated with that blond school teacher than it was with Sally.   Sally truly was very plain and, until recently, so shy and retiring that no one thought she'd meet a man.  Meg liked this new, excited and talkative Sally.

"What if you gave Bobby his bath next time?" she asked quietly.

Sally stopped, her mouth open.  "Oh I COULDN'T!" she moaned.   Her pale face pinked up a bit in the cold air.

"And why not?" asked Meg, suddenly wanting someone else to do the terrible things she had done and that she didn't want to be terrible any more.  If someone else did them too then it couldn't be terrible, could it?  Sally was one of the nicest women she knew, and maybe this would help her find some happiness too.   "I don't think Bobby will care one way or the other.  Didn't he kiss you back last night?"

Sally's eyes glazed over.  "He sure did.   I thought I was going to fall down!"

"See?" pronounced Meg.   "He already likes you.   And I don't mind sharing him."  She thought about that for a second.  "Well, actually I do mind, but I SHOULDN'T mind.  He's not mine or anything.   I just know how I feel when I think about going in there with him again."

Sally's eyes came back into focus.  "Do you think you'd ever let him ...?"  She still couldn't say it.

Now it was Meg's face that warmed up in the frosty air.  "How could you ask me something like that?!" she said, trying to keep herself from thinking about it.

"The last time you tried to put me off you were hiding something," said Sally, her eyes narrowing shrewdly.  "Are you trying to hide something now Meg?   Have you thought about letting him ... letting him make ... love to you?"   She almost couldn't finish that sentence.

"I don't know," said Meg, slumping a little.   "Until yesterday I'd have chased you down the street for asking me a thing like that.   But I can't do that now.   I get all ... itchy when I think about him and playing with ... it."

"Maybe we should BOTH give him his next bath," suggested Sally.

Meg shook her head.  "Mavis would never buy that.  You all are already busy putting the children to bed when I take him in there.  She'd know something strange was going on."

"Have you forgotten what she said last night?" Sally asked incredulously.

"OH!" yipped Meg.  "I actually HAD!   Oh Sally, what are we going to do?  You HAVE to do it next time.   Then maybe Mavis will decide it was just something simple that happened to my dress.   I mean she'd think I wasn't in a hurry to go back in there with him.  Wouldn't she?"

"I don't know if I could do it," said Sally.

"Just wash him and leave it at that.   He's just a boy.  Surely it doesn't get hard every single time he takes a bath," said Meg.

"Well, I think I'm crazy for this, but all right," said Sally.  She felt an unexpected and unfamiliar excitedness that made her warm all over.

That decided, they gathered up the children and hurried home.



CHAPTER SIX

When Bobby came in the back door and stomped his boots clean, Mavis noted that Meg and Sally took an inordinate interest in how school had been for him.   He had written several notes to Mavis in the last week, in response to questions from her about one thing or another, and she knew he was much smarter than the rest of them thought.  She also knew that, in his heart, he was a good boy ... or man, as it were.  She too had seen the marks on his back, and knew that that could have made him mean, but hadn't.  And he was almost a man, she thought.  She looked at him speculatively.   She hadn't taken the time to think about him all that much.  He'd fitted in well, and hadn't caused a single problem.   Well, not yet anyway.  She'd also seen what swung between his legs.  She'd reacted to that lovely penis herself, and she certainly couldn't blame two young, single women for noticing it too.  

Could that be a problem? she wondered.   There would certainly be a sensation in town if either of them turned up with a swelled belly.  She pondered that for a minute and snorted.  There was no way in the world Sally had the gumption to take up with the boy.   And Meg ... well Meg might bear some watching.  It WAS possible that she had just loosened a few buttons because it was hot in the bathroom, and then re-buttoned them wrong.

She looked at Bobby.  He was smiling.  He had a beautiful smile.   He was a handsome man, or would be if he got a little more meat on his bones.   And that would happen too, at the rate he ate.   He had asked for paper and pencil and was writing a note to Meg.   She got up from peeling potatoes and went over to see what was going on.

Meg had just finished reading the note.  "His teacher wants to spend some extra time with him," said Meg.   She didn't sound happy about that, though there was no real reason why it wasn't a good idea.

"Well, he needs an education," said Mavis neutrally.

"Yes ... but ..." Meg's voice dropped off.

"But what, Meg?" asked Mavis calmly.

"Oh nothing," said Meg, handing her the note, her jaws clenched."

The little danger flag in Mavis' mind inched higher on the flag pole.

************************************

Over the next week Rachel kept Bobby behind at school three more times.  That he was intelligent she could tell immediately upon testing him some more.   But when she asked him why he couldn't talk, he got a guarded look in his eye and couldn't provide any information.  At one point she made him open his mouth, to see if he had a tongue or not, and he looked at her strangely.   In the process she got close enough to him to smell his scent.  He didn't smell like most of the men she met on a casual basis.  They smelled of stale sweat, and most had poor oral hygiene too.  Bobby, on the other hand, smelled good, like a man should in her mind.  And his breath was clean too.

She asked him about that, and learned through his writing that he had been taken to a dentist once, and after that he had done everything possible to make sure he never had to go again.   She looked again and saw where the tooth had been pulled.  He showed her the new toothbrush Mavis had gotten him, that he still carried in his pocket, and used each time he ate.

He read everything she gave him, and only rarely pointed to a word to have her explain its meaning.  While she didn't have the classics in the school house, she owned a few herself, and knew people who would loan her things ... Chaucer, Shakespere, more of Twain's work and many others.  During regular school he sat in a corner and read, unless she needed him to help, which he did willingly.   He was a wizard at teaching the younger children their numbers, and how to add and subtract.  And he sat with them and helped them draw out their letters too, showing them his own and then watching closely as they tried to copy that.    She smiled at the two girls who had a crush on him.  If June Bug and Emily had been ten years older they'd have lost their virginity to him by now.   She wondered what it would be like lying with Bobby.

Her head jerked.  Where in the world had THAT thought come from?  She looked at him, as if he might be working some magic spell on her, but he was simply reading at the time.   Reading with those deep brown eyes of his, under those too long lashes of his.   Her head jerked again and a child asked a question.   She was only too happy to focus on that.

************************************

It was Friday night when the accident happened.  Jerry and Terrence were playing catch in the parlor.  They were throwing a rolled up sock back and forth.   When Jerry's throw went wrong, Terrence dove to catch it and hit the clothes tree that several coats were hung on.   It tipped, and the weight of the coats sent it into the window nearby.  There was only one hook on the clothes tree that wasn't occupied, and that was the one that hit the window.   The glass broke with a crack and tinkling sound as the pieces fell, mostly outside in the snow.   Terrence was still off balance, though, and he instinctively tried to grab onto something to stop his fall.   His nine-year-old hand landed on the broken edge of the glass still in the window frame and nearly took two of his fingers off.

The breaking glass got everyone's attention.   Terrence's screams as he saw his bloody hand got them all running.

Mavis knew it was bad when she saw the amount of blood that had already spilled and welled out of the boy's tightly closed hand, which he was holding to his chest as he sat and rocked and screamed.

She had towels brought to her and had Meg hold Terrence tightly while she pried his hand open to try to stop the bleeding.   Her blood ran cold when she saw the damage.   He had to be seen by a doctor, and he had to be seen soon.   She stuffed the end of the towel against the wound and let him close his hand again.  Then she instructed Meg to help him hold the hand tightly closed.   Prudence and Donna were already gone, since it was so close to bedtime.   That only left her and Sally to take care of the kids, since Meg was tied up with Terrence.

She went to the desk and, with bloody hands, wrote a note.  She called to Bobby, who had been standing and watching.

"Take this down to Doctor Johanson's office.   He lives upstairs from his office.   If you can't find him there, go to the saloon.  He has to get this note, Bobby, and he has to come soon.  Terrence could bleed to death if not.

Bobby took time to get his coat, which was good, because it was bitterly cold in the night air.  He ran, but when he got to the Doctor's office on C street all the windows were dark.   He headed for the saloon.  The back door was closer, so that's where he went.  He burst into that door, into the kitchen, where an amazingly fat woman was standing at a big wooden table rolling out pie crusts.  She looked at him and frowned.

"Don't need no snot nosed boys hanging around here!" she barked.  "Now GIT!"  She brandished the rolling pin in her hand.

Normally, Bobby would have done exactly what she said.  But he couldn't.  

"Doctor" he said explosively.   He was so unused to speaking that only one word came out.   He held up the bloody note and the woman paled.

"In there." She pointed to a set of double glass doors with lace curtains making it impossible to see through them.   

Bobby darted to the doors and pushed one open.   Inside there was a table, set for dinner.   Through another set of doors Bobby could see the saloon proper.   He was in the dining room.    There were six men sitting around the table, smoking cigars, the remains of dinner cluttering the table.   A bottle of whiskey stood unstoppered beside a man wearing a vest.   The doctor was sitting in another chair.  Bobby had been with Mavis one time on a shopping trip when she stopped Doctor Johansen to ask him a question about a rash on one of the children.  She had introduced Bobby, who, of course, had said nothing.

Bobby went to the man and thrust out the bloody note.   The man read it quickly and jumped up.

"Gotta go boys," he said, grabbing his coat.  "House call," he added.   He went out the doors to the saloon immediately.  Bobby started to follow but was grabbed by the collar of his coat.

"No you don't, boy!" said the fat woman, who had followed him into the dining room.   "You go out there and the constable will make my life miserable for a month.  Out the way you came in!" she said.  Bobby wondered if she knew the constable himself was one of the men sitting at the table.   She manhandled him with surprising strength and dragged him back to the kitchen and to the back door.  She opened the door, shoved him through it and slammed it again without another word.

He pulled up the collar of his coat and started down the line of buildings that abutted the saloon.  He had to pass a smaller building, set back from the alleyway, and noticed that there were lights in its windows.   He didn't think anything of that until he was right beside it and heard a muffled scream.  It obviously came from that little building.   He heard a woman scream "GET OUT" and then a sound he knew only too well, that of a hand hitting flesh.   He moved closer, and heard the woman crying and pleading  "Don't do this."

Bobby stood there, unsure of what to do.   Whatever was going on in there wasn't any of his business.   He thought to go on and the woman screamed again, a terrified sound.  There was another slap and a gruff male voice shouted "SHUT UP BITCH, OR I'LL KILL YOU!"   

There was a pile of discarded trash and crates against the wall and Bobby saw a board lying loose.  It was about three feet long, and narrow enough that he could grip it.   He picked it up and stole closer to the nearest window.  There were curtains inside, but there was a slim gap in them that let him see part of the room.

He could see half of the back of the man, and beyond him a bed with a woman on it.  The woman lay crossways on the bed, her knees at the edge, her feet hanging down.  The man raised his right arm and slapped the woman again, making Bobby wince.  He had put all of his strength into that blow.   He couldn't see the woman's upper body, but he could see that she was naked, though her clothing lay on the bed under her.  He realized her dress had been torn open and she was lying on top of it.   He could see that the woman had golden blond hair between her legs that puffed out and looked strange to Bobby.  

He could also hear her terrified screams as the man pushed his suspenders off his shoulders and let his pants fall.

Bobby didn't have a clear understanding of rape, or the ins and outs of sexual behavior between adults.  But he knew that nobody deserved to be treated like this.  

Then the man moved, and Bobby saw that the woman was Miss Templeton.

After it was all over he couldn't remember running to the door, or pushing it open.  What he did remember was the knife in the man's left hand as he stood over Miss Templeton and the stiff penis that jutted from the man's groin.   He remembered the man turning his head toward Bobby, and the snarl on the man's face as he raised the knife.

And Bobby remembered swinging the board, aiming for the side of the man's head.

The man went down instantly, and the board was jerked from Bobby's hand, driving splinters deep into his fingers.

************************************


Level two of Mr. Maslow's pyramid is where events like this take place.  Bobby, according to Mr. Maslow, had just defended someone he cared about.  It was an animal reaction, which is quite normal on the lower levels of the pyramid, but it was based on a very human thought process.

************************************

Bobby stared at the blood where the board, for some reason, seemed stuck to the man's head.   He noticed that the knife was lying on the floor, and that the tip had a reddish glint to it.

Then he looked at Miss Templeton, who lay splayed on the bed, naked and sobbing.   There was blood on her too.  It was coming from a wound under her chin, and had trickled down her chest to cross one pale breast.

He couldn't help but notice her breasts, even though that wasn't uppermost in his mind.   They were probably twice as big as Meg's, and rounder.   Meg's nipples were brownish, but Miss Templeton's were pink.

Then she saw him and struggled to sit up.  Once her motion got going she flew up off the bed and she tripped over the man's body at her feet.  Bobby stepped forward and caught her, his hands sliding up her sides to her armpits.   Her forward motion made her take a step and she stepped on the man's body, then up and over it into Bobby's arms.   She was crying hysterically and her grip on Bobby was so strong he couldn't have broken it if he'd have tried.   He would have spoken then, but he had no idea what to say.   The man wasn't moving, and Bobby didn't know if he was in trouble or not.

So he just stood there and held her.   Her torn dress covered her back, as it was still whole across her shoulders, but her naked front was pressed against him.   He knew that, yet he didn't think of her in the same way he thought of doing this with Meg.  He did not get erect.

Bobby began to suspect more and more that he was in trouble.   He'd spoken to the fat woman, but not to anyone else.   Maybe he could still get away with playing mute.   He knew he had to go get someone.  He couldn't stay here, and he couldn't just leave.   He remembered that the constable was in the saloon, or had been when he left the dining room.

She finally began to calm, her shuddering breaths coming more easily, and words beginning to tumble out of her mouth.   She must have said "Thank you" ten or fifteen times in between her recounting of how the man had forced his way in, and ripped her dress said he would kill her if she screamed.

He pried Miss Templeton back away from him, his eyes going automatically to those big, round pale breasts.   He pulled at the tatters of her dress where the buttons had been ripped off, and pulled the cloth to partially cover her.  Her hands gripped him, but he pushed her to a chair and made her sit in it.  He saw pencil and paper on a table nearby and wrote "I'll get help" on it.

She looked at the paper without reading it, still sobbing.  Bobby shook her and pointed at the note.  She brought it close to her face.

"Noooo, don't leave meeee" she wailed.

Bobby looked at the man.  He had the look of the dead.  Bobby had seen death before, on more than one occasion.  Back where he had come from men ended up in alleys looking like this man looked.   He went to the man as Miss Templeton's eyes followed and he kicked the body, which rocked and settled again.   His intent was to show Miss Templeton that the man was no threat to her.  Then he went back to her and pointed at the note again.

The door was still open when he turned to it, and her cries for him not to leave her were still calling out to him as he closed it behind him.   He ran back to the saloon, and through the kitchen door.  The fat woman was still there, but she only had time to take a breath to yell at him and he was already through the double doors into the dining room.   The Constable had just stood up and was putting on his coat, his cigar clamped in his jaws.

Bobby went to the man and grabbed his arm, pulling.

"What?!" the man growled, jerking his arm.  "What are you up to now, boy?"

Another man at the table spoke up.

"He cain't talk Homer.  He's one of Mavis' brood."

Bobby jerked again, harder, making it obvious that he wanted the constable to come with him.

"Well let's just go see what kind of trouble you found boy," said the man.

Four men followed the constable out into the back of the saloon as Bobby pulled him.  They moved as a gaggle toward Miss Templeton's house, one of them announcing that that's who lived there.  When they got to the front door Bobby reached for the knob and a hand closed over his wrist.

"Is she in trouble boy?" asked the constable, his voice low.

Bobby nodded and the man reached beneath his coat and pulled out a huge revolver.  He pushed Bobby to one side and opened the door.  He only had to take one step to be able to see the whole house, for all intents and purposes.    His eyes swept first to the body on the floor, and then to the source of sobs in the chair.   Her condition, and the knife on the floor made it obvious what had happened.

"Jules, check that man," he ordered tersely, as he stepped toward the young woman in the chair.

"It's all right miss," he said in a surprisingly soft voice.  "It's all over now.   What happened here?"   Her dress was hanging open in the front, and he couldn't keep himself from noticing her lush body either.

Rachel, between sobs, told of the man coming into the house and threatening her with the knife.  She told how he'd ripped her dress, and told her that she'd be glad when he was finished.   She'd fought and he'd threatened to kill her.   Then Bobby was there.   She looked around at the men, who were all staring at her.  

"Bobby was here," she said.  "Where's Bobby?"  She lunged up out of the chair and gripped the constable's coat lapels.   "WHERE'S BOBBY?" she screamed.   She couldn't remember what he'd done, or if the man had stabbed him or not.  "He saved meeee," she cried.

"There there, he's fine.  He's outside," said the constable.  "You're bleeding missy.  We need to get the doctor to take a look at you."  He patted her head like she was a dog.   "Missy, I have to ask this.  I know it's hard, but I have to ask.   Did he have his way with you?"

Rachel's head came up and her eyes cleared.  "NO!" she said.   "Bobby saved me.   Where's Bobbeeeeeee" she started crying again.

"He's dead, Homer," said the man who was kneeling beside the rapist.  "Kid must have hit him with the board.  Had a nail sticking out the end.  Punched clean through his skull.  Fell where he stood, more'n likely."

"Well SHIT!" snarled Homer.

Rachel flinched and leaned away from him.

"Sorry ma'am" he muttered.  "Him bein' dead kind of complicates things."

He stood up and looked at one of the other men.  "Jasper, get on over to Mavis' house and fetch doc.  Since this boy is the one that come and got him, I s'pect that's where he is.  Tell 'im I got a dead body and a mostly raped woman, and I need 'im over here.   Get there Pronto, Jasper."

The man took off running and bumped into Bobby, who was shifting from foot to foot in the doorway.   Homer leaned out and grabbed him.

"Don't you go nowhere, son.  We got us a mess here, and you're neck deep in it."  He pulled him into the room.

As soon as Rachel saw Bobby she leapt up out of the chair, her dress flopping open and she rushed to hug Bobby, again gripping him so hard he couldn't get away.  The men looked at Bobby with a mixture of emotions on their faces.  They'd seen what she was pressing against him too.  Some of them felt ashamed at feeling lust for a raped, or almost raped woman, but later on they'd shake their heads and talk about what a fine figure of a woman she was.  Most of them had wished they could see that body ... even if it wasn't like this.   And there it was, pressed up against a dumb orphan kid.

The constable gave up trying to separate Rachel from Bobby and spoke to the man nearest him.   "Kenny, your place isn't far.   Why don't you go see if Eunice will come over here and sit with Miss Templeton."   He spoke next to Jules again.  "See if she's got some more dresses or something she can put on."   He turned to the last man.  "Tom, I guess that leaves it up to you to go get Blaine Coggs."   Blaine was the town undertaker.

Homer went over to the dead man and rolled him over to check for himself.  He made a sound.   "Know this feller.  Throwed him out of the saloon earlier tonight for causing trouble.   He was drinkin' hard and had no money to pay.  Should'a throw’d him in jail."

Kenny got back first, and came in to announce that Eunice was on her way.  Eunice got there right on his heels, and had two more women in tow.  They shooed the men out into the snow and gathered around Rachel to do what only women could do for her just then.   They had to pry Rachel's arms from around Bobby.  When they told him to leave too, Rachel's sobs and pleas for him not to go were so pitiful that finally Eunice relented.

"You stand over there, and turn your back," she ordered.   Bobby did so, wondering where all this would end up.   

The women had just gotten Rachel into another dress when there was a thump on the door and Doctor Johansen called out.   He was let in, and Mavis charged in right behind him.   She saw Bobby and rushed over to him.

"Are you all right baby?" she asked anxiously.  "They said there'd been a killing and that you were involved!   Bobby what's going on?"   

Bobby was tempted to just tell her and be done with it.   Life was getting way too complicated for the teenager.   But just then Homer called in, asking if he could come in.  Since none of the women in the room knew what actually happened, he was welcome, as long as he answered questions.   The doctor did a cursory examination of Rachel and pronounced that the throat wound was minor and would take care of itself.   He was more concerned about Rachel's mental state.  The women conferred and announced that Rachel would be going with them, and that they'd take care of her at Eunice's house until she recovered.   Kenny looked pleased, until his wife caught him looking pleased.   She knew he'd been in this room before she got there, because he'd described the scene to her.   And she knew how poor Rachel Templeton had been dressed, so she knew what her husband had seen that he HADN'T described.   

She faced her smirking husband.  "Kenny Holland, don't you be thinking you're sleeping in our bed tonight.   You just go on over to the hotel and get yourself a room.  I'll send word when you can come back home."

He tried to resist.  "Now Eunice, don't be that way.   Why can't SHE get a hotel room?"  There were groans from two of the other men, who were looking in through the open doorway, and Homer shook his head sadly.   He grabbed Kenny's arm and pulled him to the door before Eunice could go looking for something to hit him with.   As he was led out Kenny kept complaining.  "What in tarnation did I do?  I HELPED for pity's sake!  And it's ME that has to find someplace to sleep?"

The doctor went to the man on the floor and leaned down.  He pronounced the man dead and then stood up.   "Nothing more I can do here.   I still got an injured boy to finish tending to, if this town can settle down for an hour.   Homer?  I got to stitch the boy up.  Try to keep a lid on things for a while, all right?"

Mavis faced Homer.   "I'm taking Bobby home," she said firmly.   "And don't you argue with me Homer.  You and I both know that man needed killing, and Bobby didn't mean to do that anyway.  He was just trying to protect his teacher."

Homer raised a hand.  "Mavis, you know I'll have to ask some questions.  Just don't let him wander off somewhere hard to find."

She sniffed and tugged on Bobby's coat sleeve.   "Come along Bobby.  It's past your bedtime."

Homer shook his head, watching them go and turned to Jules, the only one left in the room.   "Boy just killed a man, and probably saved a woman's life ... and he's got a bedtime.  If that don't beat all."

Back home, Bobby was sent to bed on his own, while attention turned back to Terrence.   Mavis had had to dose Terrence with whisky to sedate him enough so that the doctor could sew up his hand.  Terrence fought the drink, spitting it out, until Doctor Johansen had taken one stitch without any anesthetic.  Then he had drunk what he was told to drink.  For a child that small, it had only taken three ounces and he was out like a light.   It had taken over forty stitches to put the hand back together, and the Doctor still wasn't sure he'd have the full use of his fingers when it healed.  It was the wee hours of the morning before any of the adults got to bed.

School was cancelled the next day, of course.   Mavis didn't want people to think that either she or Bobby were hiding or embarrassed so, despite her late night, she got up and took Bobby to do the grocery shopping.   Word had indeed spread all over town.   No one had been killed by violence in Hampstead for thirty years or more, and it was all anyone could talk about.   Most people, once the dead felon was identified as a stranger, who had probably ridden the rails into town and likely would have made his escape the same way, decided that justice had been done.  

People weren't quite sure whether or not Rachel still had her virtue or not, and that caused some arguments.   One group of five women banded together and  held out that, if she were truly soiled by the man, even though it wasn't her fault, the town couldn't very well retain her as the school teacher.  That group also concluded that the town needed no vigilantes running around loose, and that Bobby would have to go too.

Various people suggested that if, in the future, any daughters of these five women were heard to be screaming, or seen to be suffering rape, it would just be assumed they were trollops who needed no interfering do-gooders bothering them.  

Several fistfights almost broke out.  

Once Rachel came out into public, though, all that changed.  The left side of her face was swollen grotesquely and was the color of mixed hues of black, blue, purple and yellow.   She had difficulty speaking clearly.   She had obviously been beaten severely, and it made people ill to look at her.   She had recovered her equilibrium, though, after spending 48 hours in the care of good and nurturing women.   

She had also heard about the five women who wanted to run Bobby out of town, and it was for that reason that she appeared in public, disfigured as she was.   She sought out each of the five women.   She faced each one of them down and offered to let the woman examine her maidenhood herself to determine its status.  When each one of the women refused, Rachel suggested that they close their mouths and keep their opinions to themselves, turned and walked out.

In the end, Rachel was considered a heroine by most, though she'd be hated by those five women for the rest of her life.   Three of them left town after the war, tired of the grief they got over that incident.    Rachel's telling of the story, and how, had it not been for Bobby, she'd have been both raped and killed, also turned him into a local celebrity.

Rachel wanted to start school up again after three days, but several people convinced her to let her face heal more before the children saw her.   She looked in a mirror and had to agree that the smaller children would be shocked and frightened.

During the three days school was out, Bobby was a celebrity, not only in town, but at home too.  Donations of clothing came in, the result of Homer's description of what the boy was wearing when he was interviewed about the incident.  Mavis had been there with him, while he wrote out his description of events  The only detriment to Bobby was that everyone's estimation of his intelligence rose significantly.  He was no longer considered to be simple minded.  Homer also saw several of the carvings Bobby had been doing on the long winter evenings as he sat, listening to the radio.  June Bug and Emily didn't much care for the radio shows, and played on the floor then.   When Meg read, though, Bobby couldn't carve, because his lap was full of little girls.

Only Mavis had said anything to him about how everybody had underestimated him.  She had seen and read what he wrote for the constable.   On the way back to the house she looked at him out of the side of her eye.

"You're a lot smarter than you let on, aren't you?" she asked casually.

Bobby looked over at her, but couldn't hold her eyes.   He wasn't ashamed of what he had done ... not in the way you or I might feel shame at doing something sneaky.   He'd had a hard life, and getting what he could out of a given situation was just something he had always done.  But these women had been good to him, and he knew that.   He also knew that Mavis still didn't know just how much of a trick he had been playing.   Acting simple-minded was only the tip of the iceberg, as it were.

He looked back in her eyes, which were still staring at him, and nodded.

Mavis smiled and put her arm over his shoulder, pulling him against her.   "I suppose somebody who's gone through what you've gone through can't be blamed for taking what advantage can be found.   You're a good boy Bobby.  I know you've got a good heart."

They walked on a bit further and Mavis spoke again.   "About Meg ..."   She looked over at the boy who acted so much like a man and stopped.   When he looked at her there was something almost like fear in his eyes.   It troubled her, but she couldn't put her finger on why.

"Never mind," she said.   "Homer thinks you could sell your carvings," she said, changing the subject radically.

 Bobby, glad the subject had changed from Meg, raised an eyebrow.

"Indeed" she said nodding.  "He thinks you could sell them at the Dry Goods store.  They're really beautiful Bobby.  I'd like to have one myself."

Bobby had completed three more carvings, all of dogs.  He was working on a horse, but wasn't happy with it.  He hadn't seen many horses up close, and was using a picture in a book as his model.  Wood had been a problem at first.   When Mavis had seen him trying to carve on one of the pieces of wood he'd sneaked back out of Patrick's closet after "killing the Umpelty Oog" she recognized that it was poor quality wood.  She took Bobby to the attic, where some old furniture had been stored.  One table had a broken leg and she had picked up that leg and handed it to Bobby, telling him it was walnut.   It was hard to carve, but the results were, indeed, beautiful.   He'd used about a third of the table leg to make the carvings Homer had seen.

Having nothing else to say, Mavis finished the walk home without talking further.

Two days later Parson Jenkins visited Milleson House, his arms full of donations for Bobby.  At the bottom of the pile were two sheets of sandpaper.   "The constable asked me to give you these," he said simply, handing them to Bobby.   Bobby had looked at the paper dubiously, and the Parson then explained what it was for.  Bobby had lit up and ran to get one of his finished pieces.  He'd smoothed it as best he could with the edge of the knife.  The sandpaper made what was already beautiful a work of art.

Being intelligent, he just assumed that, after the incident,  bath time would change.  He was sure he'd milked it for everything it was capable of providing.  Now that the women all thought of him as just quiet, he assumed they'd also assume he could bathe himself.

It did change, but not in the way he had thought it might.

The next bath night things went as usual, with Meg reading while the smaller children got their baths in shifts.  On this particular night June Bug went first, and Emily second.   When the last shift was out and dressed and Meg had closed the book, she stood up and stretched backwards, her hands on her slim waist.

"Sally?" she called out.   "My back is sore tonight.   I don't know if I could do all that bending over in the bathroom.  I'll put the little ones to bed if you'll take care of Bobby.  Would that be all right?"

Bobby sensed something disingenuous in her comment.  His finely honed sense of survival recognized falsehoods many more times than not.   But he didn't know why Meg would want to avoid their play.  She had obviously liked what had happened between them.  He didn't understand women at all most of the time, with a few exceptions.   So he just sat and waited for something to happen.

"Surely Meg" said Sally.  "I guess that would be fine."

Mavis looked like she was about to speak, but then went back to dressing Terrence, who had trouble due to the big wad of bandages on his injured hand.

"Come on Bobby," said Sally, and held out her hand.

Bobby got up and, as he followed her into the bathroom, remembered her kiss, his reward for killing the Umpelty Oog.   He began to suspect that this was no accident, and for some reason that made him feel good.

When Sally closed the door, however, she looked pale and nervous.  She didn't fill the tub, as Meg always did.   Bobby, by habit, just stood there.

"I don't know what to do," she said, as if she were talking to someone else, or perhaps herself.  She wasn't talking about the bath part of why she was in this room, but, of course, Bobby didn't know that.

Bobby took her hand and led her to the hot water tap.   She tittered nervously and relaxed a little bit, turning her head to look at Bobby.

"I know what you and Meg do in here," she said.   Bobby tensed up.   "She told me about it," she went on.  Bobby relaxed again.

She didn't seem upset to Bobby, and he decided to just simply act normal.  That had worked for him in the past.  Sally finally started filling the tub with hot water.  He started unbuttoning his shirt.   Sally turned to watch him, her eyes going wider, but she didn't move away from him.  He wasn't hard, and when he dropped his pants and stepped out of them, and then removed his drawers, Sally looked almost unhappy as she stared at his manhood.   She had forgotten the water, and Bobby reached past her to shut it off before there was no room to add cold to it.  Sally blushed and moved.

"Whatever is wrong with me?" she said, again to herself.  "I'm a grown woman," she said firmly.  She turned to Bobby.   "Just how much help do you really need?" she asked.   When he made no sign she asked "Do you need any help at all?"

Bobby knew he couldn't lie to this woman.  She was too intelligent for one thing - she read as well as Meg did, though not with the emotion of voice.  And she claimed to know what he and Meg had done, yet came with him anyway.

He shook his head.

"But you want me to help ... don't you?" she asked.   Her natural fear of rejection had bubbled up to the surface of her thoughts.  She didn't know what she'd do of Bobby rejected her too.

Bobby smiled and nodded.

Sally felt a rush of relief that made it suddenly hard to breathe.  She felt her nipples tingle at that smile.   She too thought he had the most beautiful dark eyes and welcoming smile she'd ever seen.

Bobby stepped into the tub and sat down slowly, because the water was hotter than usual.   He made a sighing sound and leaned back, closing his eyes.   Then he opened them, sat forward, reached for the sweet smelling soap, handed it to Sally, and then leaned back to close his eyes again.

She knelt by the tub, rubbing the soap all over his chest.   He had a little more muscle there now and she liked the feel of the swells and dips of his chest.   Knowing how sensitive her own nipples were, she washed over his several times.    She was about to nervously take the plunge of rubbing lower when he sat forward, leaning over to expose his back.  Her eyes took in his scars, and her reaction was much the same as Meg's.  She touched him tenderly there, at first, but it was clear he had no residual pain.

Then he stood up, and turned to face her.   He was still soft.  Since he and Sally had never done anything he didn't know what to expect, and his emotions were still fairly sedate.

"Should I wash you ... there?" asked Sally, her hand rising toward his penis.

He nodded.

"I've never done this Bobby," she said.

Bobby leaned over and kissed her, his lips soft.  She rose into that kiss as his tongue tip wormed its way between her lips.   Her own tongue responded and again she was breathless at the pleasure that streaked through her.   She could feel that he really WANTED to kiss her ... that she was attractive to him in some way.  Part of her couldn't believe that, but his lips on hers made it clear, beyond doubt, that he wanted her to kiss him back.   She did, pressing herself against him as much as possible with the edge of the tub in the way.  She knew she was getting her dress damp, from the drops of water still on his body, and remembered seeing Meg, with water spots on the front of her dress.   Meg had taken her dress off for this boy ... had let him touch her body.

Sally pushed away, as the emotion of contemplating being naked with him overcame her.   It was too foreign.  She thought of the other things Meg had done.  She could do that, she thought.  Her hand reached for his penis and she was shocked to find it longer and much more firm.   She looked down and saw that her hand had felt truly.  Her hand gripped him, but didn't move until he reached and moved it for her.

She learned the rhythm quickly, and could tell by his face when she was doing it the way he liked.   Her nipples tingled again and she thought back to a time, over a year gone now when they had gotten a baby whose mother had died in childbirth.  The father was off at war.   They had to bottle feed the baby, which was going to be collected by relatives from California, but it would take a week for them to arrive.   Sally had the first night feeding, and the baby was hungry, but didn't want the rubber nipple it was offered.   Its piteous cries In the night had stabbed deep into Sally's heart and, in desperation, she had offered it one of her own nipples.   It quieted immediately as its first sucks made her nipple extend.  She had so little breast flesh that she could pass for a man if she tried.  Her hips could give her away, or her nipples, if they got erect.   The baby had sucked and, when the sensations were so strong that they almost made her faint, Sally had pulled that baby off that nipple, which had extended to almost an inch.   It looked deformed to her in the dim light of the bedroom.   She had been able to get the baby to take the bottle eventually, but had to offer it a real nipple three more times before it went back to sleep.

Sally let go of Bobby's penis and stepped back.   "I can't get wet with you," she whispered.   Her fingers flew to the buttons of her dress and she pulled it apart with no sense of shame at all, baring her flat chest and letting the dress drop to the floor around her feet.  Her passion had overcome her self image.   Her pubic hair was so sparse that it was hard to see, but Bobby easily saw thick, plump lips between her legs that he suddenly thought might be nice to kiss, like the lips on her face.  Then she stepped forward, out of her dress and took his prick in her hand again.

She pinched a nipple, which had already begun to swell and elongate as she stroked Bobby.  

"Could you suck me?" she whispered.   "Right here?" she pulled at the nipple.

Bobby leaned over and sucked the growing nubbin into his mouth.   Sally moaned, her hand clasping his prick tighter and jerking spasmodically, rather than in time.   Bobby felt the flesh in his mouth get bigger and more firm, until it was almost like sucking the tip of his little finger.

Sally wavered, her head spinning at the streaks of joy that shot through her due to his suckling action.   Her hand came and cradled the back of his head, her fingers sliding through his long hair as she told him how much she loved what he was doing.

Her orgasm frightened her, because she'd never had one and didn’t have any idea how strong those feelings could be.   First she couldn't breathe.  Then her knees sagged and she had to grab the edge of the tub to support herself.   Her whole body froze.  She couldn't breathe, her hand stopped moving on Bobby, and her knees bent and then locked.  She felt the pleasure streak to the area between her legs and she suddenly wanted to touch herself there, but couldn't without falling down.

"Uhhhhhhh" she groaned in a long sigh as the feeling receded enough that she could move again.  Her knees failed and she sank to rest on them, her face right in front of her hand, and the tip of Bobby's penis.   When Meg had described putting her mouth on him Sally had shuddered, thinking that was crazy.  Now she looked at the organ and knew it had to be as good as Meg had said.

She leaned forward to let it slide between her lips.

She had to move her hand to get as much in her mouth as she wanted, and Bobby groaned.   Her whole body felt hot, like it was next to a huge red-hot stove, as she knew from the sound that she was pleasing the man who had pleased her so much.   He cheeks caved in as she sucked hungrily.  She tasted something, and, as her mouth evaluated that taste, she knew it was the taste that Meg had talked about.   It was a mixture of a hint of bitter, with a stronger hint of sweet, and another sensation she couldn't identify.  

She knew he liked to be stroked, and since she couldn't move her hand, she moved her mouth instead, sliding almost off, to suck just the round knob and then back down.  Bobby groaned again and she got more of that taste.  His hands slid through her hair and he helped her move, not grabbing tightly, but with a feather light pressure.

Then he groaned again and suddenly her mouth was overflowing with the taste ... his taste.  She wanted to laugh as she thought of a time she had taken as big a bite of pudding into her mouth as she could get on the spoon.  The pudding had flowed all over her mouth in an explosion of flavor, and now his juice did the same thing.   She swallowed gratefully, liking the taste now, like Meg did, and wanting it to go on.  She sucked harder and moved her mouth on him again, milking the thick fluid out of him until there was no more.   His penis wilted quickly, and she felt sad somehow that it was over so quickly as she pulled her mouth off of him and swallowed the last dregs that still coated her mouth.

Bobby wanted to hug her ... to feel her naked skin against his, and he started to step out of the tub.

Still on her knees, Sally giggled.  "No, silly" she said.  "You're still all soapy."   

To Bobby's disappointment, she pushed him back down into the water and then stepped back into her dress and pulled it up to cover her.  Then she washed him properly, doing his hair and talking to him, telling him how much she had liked tasting him, and how wonderful his mouth had felt on her.  

When she was done, and he stood back up he was stiff again.  

Sally laughed a high tinkling laugh of delight.  He wasn't quite as hard as he had been before, but Sally didn't care.  She got to her knees again and happily sucked until she got another mouthful of pudding.  

When he was dried off she hugged him then, and kissed his lips, wanting another of those delicious kisses.   Then she checked her hair in the mirror and, taking his hand, led him out into the dining room.

Mavis was doing more of her endless needlework, mending a pair of pants that had somehow gotten the knee torn.  Meg had put the children to bed with Donna and Prudence's help.  Normally the latter two would have buttoned up their coats and gone home by now, but for some reason they all found cause to sit around the table.  Their conversation would have sounded normal to an outsider, but to Mavis it was obviously forced, as they found things to say that didn't need saying, and talked about things they could have talked about on the morrow.   Meg had gotten Bobby's night shirt from his room while she was upstairs, and had draped it over a chair back.   Mavis's keen eyes saw Meg's glance dart to the bathroom door more than once as she talked about a new recipe she had gotten from the storekeeper's wife.

Again, Mavis was about to speak of her suspicions, but as she drew breath, the bathroom door opened and all conversation stopped.  Mavis almost laughed out loud.   She looked at Sally, whose face had a luster that was usually lacking.   She wasn't smiling, exactly, but she looked lighthearted in a way that was alien to her usual demeanor.

"You look like you just got some mighty good news," Mavis remarked, her eyes going back to her work.

Had she been watching, she'd have seen Sally blush.   She took the time to dart a glance at Bobby's penis.  It looked darker than the last time she'd seen it.  HE was smiling.  It wasn't a grin, but it spoke volumes to Mavis.   Meg stood up and picked up his night shirt.   He raised his arms as she slid it up them and over his head.  It all looked so normal ... almost.   But Meg's fingers lingered on his shoulders, and slid to his chest to grab the material and pull it down.   She was smiling too ... at Bobby.

Mavis almost laughed again as all four women hugged the boy good night.  They were so transparent.  She'd have to do something soon, before things got completely out of hand ... if they hadn't already.  She was surprised when he came to her and bent to kiss her on the cheek.  She was also surprised at how that made her feel.  It was just a simple kiss, but it was so loving that it made her want to wiggle in her chair.

"Good night Bobby," she said.   He smiled.  She realized she could get lost in those eyes.

Both Meg and Sally took him upstairs to his room, while Donna and Prudence decided suddenly it was time to go.

Yes, she was going to have to do something ... and do it soon.
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Chapters 7 and 8

orphanage_blues_5-6