By

Donna M.

Madison sat on the fence’s top rail and watched Bryce with the new horse. She was still extremely grateful the unusual, reserved man treated her like he did and offered to teach her to ride. Yet with Bryce it would be much more than just riding horses. He spoke about “being one” with the “proud beasts,” so she had to learn as much about caring for them as riding them. He often spoke of horses being like children, single-minded and believing “everything is about them” even while ceding temporary authority to their riders.

He was speaking to the horse, whispering something right at the horse’s ear that Madison couldn’t hear. She laughed and said, “Does she know what you’re saying?”

He smiled back at her and said, “This filly knows many languages.” His attention went back to the horse.

Bryce was an enigma to twelve-year-old Madison, as he was with most people. He was a friend of her father, although even he seemed at times to be unsure of the reticent man. Rumors circulated that Bryce had been a Special Forces soldier who participated in some clandestine missions in faraway places. She’d heard folks say that he’d killed people. Madison didn’t know what it all meant, though if he was doing something for his country she considered him a hero. Anyway, except for his muscles he didn’t look to Madison like he was a military specialist. He looked like what her mom used to call a hippie. Bryce was well over six-foot tall, with long blond hair he always tied back into a pony tail. A self-possessed man of few words, there was something about his quiet intensity, his imposing stature as well as his icy stare that intimidated people. He didn’t walk like the men Madison knew, instead he moved with a grace she thought of as catlike

As far as Madison was concerned, her dad was a hero too, though he was never in the military or did any courageous deeds that she knew of. Her father was special because unlike her friends’ fathers he never treated her like a kid, talking down to her. He may work in an office, but she knew he worked hard and cared about customers and the job he did. She liked to help him do yard work even while her friends joked about it. His quiet determination while doing the simplest tasks like raking and mowing impressed Madison in a way she couldn’t quite explain. She understood that there was an element of respect within her love for him, and she was happiest when he sent that kind of love back to her. She wasn’t afraid to ask him tough questions since he always tried to answer her truthfully. She once asked him a question about sex after her mom evaded the subject, and her dad answered her honestly even as he remained uncomfortable doing so. Her dad and Bryce were probably as dissimilar as friends could be but to Madison they had one main thing in common, and that was how they treated her with respect and maturity.

When it came to Bryce though, Madison’s mom was quite different. To Madison it was creepy the way she looked at him when her Dad wasn’t around. Madison knew just enough about sex to know that her mom was attracted to Bryce, and she felt conflicted every time she saw it, since her father seemed oblivious to the attraction. Maybe because of that attraction, her mom constantly reminded Madison to be “careful” around Bryce. Madison had reached puberty and the hormones made her dream of boys touching her and doing weird things, so she inherently realized what her mother meant by the warning. Madison somehow knew that Bryce would never touch her like that. She did worry about her mother though.

Bryce called to her, “I think it’s time you two girls meet. Come on over here.”

Madison jumped down from her perch and cautiously approached Bryce and the horse. “What’s her name?”

“Girl.”

“You’re kidding, right?” Madison said, looking up at his inscrutable face.

“It’s good enough for now.”

Madison shook her head. Maybe she’d never understand this unusual man who never treated her like a kid. Bryce had her copy his tone and mannerisms in handling and speaking to the horse. She thought it was silly calling her Girl every time but she didn’t want to piss off Bryce, and the filly in its own way seemed to respond to the name.

“Can I ride her?” she asked him.

“Riding a horse is a privilege you’ve got to earn,” he said, and one more time she wondered if he was pulling her leg. He continued, “Girl has to respect you enough to let you climb on top of her. It’s like s—”

“It’s like what?” she said when he didn’t finish.

“Oh, nothing. Never mind what I was going to say. What I meant was that once you get to know her she’ll let you ride her and not before then.”

“Okay,” she said although she didn’t quite understand what just happened. He was going to say something and then he got nervous and evaded the subject, so unlike his usual laconic nature. Madison spent a bit more time with Girl and then helped Bryce feed her. She liked to watch a horse eat; a strange conjuncture between dignified and comical.

When Bryce drove her home, Madison was disappointed her dad’s car wasn’t in the driveway. That meant he was working late and mom would ask Bryce to stay for dinner “so all this food won’t go to waste,” like she expected an army to be there instead of the three of them. As usual when the scenario occurred, Bryce graciously accepted her invitation. Madison hated it. All through dinner Madison cringed at the way they looked at each other. Her mother was very pretty for her age, prettier than most of mothers in town. She guessed how Bryce felt, a pretty wife feeding him and making goo-goo eyes at him while her husband worked late.

“Allison, that was a fine meal,” he said, patting his flat stomach for show. “Dan is a lucky man.”

Madison wanted to puke, and it wasn’t from the food.

“You don’t have to run off,” her mom said, “stay for a while, have some wine.”

“Sounds good, at least until Dan comes home.”

“I’ve got homework, so I’ll leave you two alone,” Madison declared, seeing that her mom failed to pick up on the sarcasm. As usual Bryce’s expression was indecipherable.

She went up to her room, shut the door when she heard glasses clink together, and turned on her iPod in its docking station so the music would drown out any further sounds from downstairs. “Dad, please come home soon,” she whispered as she looked at herself in the dresser mirror. She was resigned to her fate, looking more like her father than her pretty mother. The glasses didn’t help. She bugged her parents all the time for contact lenses but they always came up with an excuse not to let her get them. She cupped her tiny budding breasts over her t-shirt and lamented that was another way she didn’t resemble her mother.

Her mind went back to the corral and the horse, and then it hit her what Bryce was going to say but didn’t. “Like SEX,” she murmured. A man on top of a woman must be how it’s done, she calculated, like riding a horse.

Two hours later she heard Bryce’s beat-up old Jeep start and drive away. Two hours. She didn’t want to think about what the two of them might have done in all that time, but her fertile imagination filled in the blanks even as she tried not to consciously think about it. She didn’t leave her bedroom until she heard that her dad was home.

“Your dinner’s in the microwave,” was her mother’s reply to her dad’s asking about it. While Allison went back to something she was watching on television, Madison sat with Dan as he reheated and ate his meal.

She asked him how his day went and why he had to work so late. “We’ve talked about this before. It’s a cyclical thing, sweetheart. Clients want things right away and I have to give it to them or we don’t make money. Thanks for asking though,” he said as he hugged her.

“But why late? Jennie’s dad works like regular hours and is home for dinner every day.”

“He has a different kind of job than I have. I’m like a doctor who doesn’t leave his office until all the patients have been treated.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said, “it’s just that I wish you were home earlier.”

“Did your mother say anything about that? Are you speaking for her?”

“No, Dad. I’m speaking for myself.”

Dan was surprised to see a tear form at the corner of her eye. “I’ll try harder to get home earlier if it means that much to you, my not-so-little-anymore woman.” Madison’s heart warmed, thinking of how her dad used to call her his “little woman.”

“It means something to Mom too,” she said though she wondered if her mom really wished for the opposite.

“How are you doing with Bryce and the riding lessons?”

She told him how Bryce wouldn’t allow her to ride until she knew all about horses and was “one” with them. He laughed and said it sounded just like Bryce, and called him a “New Ager.” Madison didn’t know what that meant but she got the picture anyway. She wanted so much to tell him to watch out for Bryce but she couldn’t say for sure what her mother and Bryce actually did. Bryce and her dad had been friends for a long time and she didn’t want to hurt him with false accusations. But she didn’t want him hurt by her suspicions being true either. In her mind that would hurt more.

She sleepwalked through school that week, grateful she was smart enough to coast every once in a while. Instead of riding Bryce’s horse, Girl, he was taking her to a large horse farm in an adjacent county where she could learn more about horses. She muttered to herself, “When will the fun begin?”

On Saturday when they got to the farm, Madison was amazed by the number and variety of the horses there. Bryce knew the owner so they walked around like they belonged while he pointed to various horses and told her of their breed and sex. “Besides the obvious,” she asked him, “how can you tell the males from the females so fast?”

“Practiced eye, I guess, and then there IS the obvious.”

She’d seen what the stallions had underneath them, something her imagination ran wild with when thinking of boys. She quickly squelched those thoughts. The farm’s owner approached and he and Bryce chatted like lifelong friends, which she guessed they were. Madison tuned out their conversation and watched the horses in the largest corral. She heard Bryce say “gelding” and she filed the word away for future questions. At that moment one of the horses snorted and ran around one of the others. The snorting one was obviously male by the large penis which descended down and got bigger and bigger.

Madison gasped when the male horse cornered a female, lifted his front hooves in the air and mounted her from behind. Like she was being naughty Madison turned around and looked to see if anyone was watching her watch the horses. This was sex! Could she dare ask her mom how people did it and how it felt? The stallion’s penis was deep inside the female and he was shivering. She couldn’t see much else before he snorted and got down off the back of the female, his long penis leaking something onto the ground.

“First time, huh?” Bryce said behind her, making her jump. “Don’t be embarrassed, it’s a natural thing,” he added as he stood next to her and placed one boot up on a fence rail.

“Will she have a horse baby now?” she asked.

“We’ll see, but that’s what the whole process was all about.” Unsure of himself and worried that he’d go too far with the young girl, Bryce nonetheless explained that the mare had been in heat and that the male had smelled it, and since he was the strongest stallion in the corral, she let him mate with her.

“You mean, like, she could have said no?”

He chuckled. “Horses aren’t like people.” Pointing toward the mare, he said, “She played a role in the action but in the end she couldn’t ‘say’ no.” He went on to explain the estrous cycle in animals to wide-eyed Madison, summing it up as “Nature’s way.”

“But people aren’t like horses, are they?”

Bryce shook his head, saying “Us humans are the exception, I guess, although I’ve met some women who sure put out the signal like I could smell ’em in heat.”

When he saw the incredulous look on her face, he quickly held up a hand and said, “I said too much, and if you say anything I’ll deny it all.” He laughed. She didn’t. He probably didn’t realize that she wasn’t thinking of horses right then but about him and her mother. And her father. For several nights the image of horses mating played a part in her vivid dreams.

Madison cringed when one afternoon later in the week he brought her home and her father’s car wasn’t in the driveway. One more “Why don’t you stay for dinner, Bryce?” invitations. One more acceptance. During dinner when her mom asked how things went at the horse farm on Saturday, Bryce told her dispassionately how they saw some mating going on. Allison said, almost in horror, “You let her watch THAT?”

“Why not? She’s old enough to understand. Why keep things from her?” he said, and Madison was surprised he challenged her mom like that. They talked a bit more on the subject but Bryce stayed firm in his belief that Madison was old enough to grasp everything, including sex between horses, and thus between people too. Madison loved him for treating her like an adult, especially when no one else did.

“You shouldn’t be talking to her about sex,” Allison said, as if Madison wasn’t there sitting with them at the table.

Bryce backed away a little but not completely. “I’ll leave the human aspects alone, but horses do it naturally and breeding is part of the game. They’re majestic animals, not toys.” Madison saw her mom was unusually flustered by the sex talk but she didn’t know why.

During dinner, Dan called to tell Allison he’d be home much later than planned, basically telling her not to wait up. After the call, the remainder of the meal was mostly a silent affair. Madison caught the furtive glances her mom gave Bryce every once in a while, so when dinner was finished she hung around with the adults in the hope that nothing would happen between them. She had homework though, and couldn’t make excuses forever and eventually went to her room.

She didn’t put music on this time, instead listening to what they might say or do.

She heard wine being opened and poured along with the clinking of glasses. She couldn’t hear them word-for-word but knew they were talking, at first about her she guessed. In time their voices muted until they weren’t talking. Nevertheless, Madison knew they were doing something—kissing, maybe? The thought pained her and she wanted to cry. That’s when she heard them on the stairs and quickly closed her bedroom door. They were whispering as they walked by her door and into her mom and dad’s bedroom. She reopened her door and overheard her mom giggle a couple of times before she made a few moaning noises.

“Disgusting!” she muttered. “No wonder mom didn’t like us talking about horses having sex” Madison said under her breath as the first sounds of a headboard banging against the bedroom wall reached her ears. She thought of her dad, closed her door, turned on some music to drown out the noise, and began to cry.

Madison wasn’t sure who to hate more, Bryce or her mother, so she began with her mom since she had to be the instigator. After all, she was the one being unfaithful to her marriage vows, not Bryce. The following morning was cold, but not any colder than it was around the breakfast table. Her dad was clueless, probably thinking of work instead of family, and her mom was probably thinking of last night rather than today. She glanced at her hard-working father and wondered how her mom could let another man into their bed.

She didn’t pay much attention to anything at school for a few days, instead sorting out the mess she was in even if it wasn’t her fault. She wasn’t sure any more on how she felt about Bryce. He’d been nothing but nice to her all along. She appreciated his matter-of-fact nature around her and how he didn’t speak to her like a kid the way every other adult did. She even understood to an elemental degree how a rugged, handsome man like Bryce could attract her mom’s attention, and how easy it would be for him to fall for her. She admitted to herself that in some nebulous fashion she was jealous of her mother for having sex with him. An insidious thought worked its way through her mind; she wasn’t as pretty as her mother and never would be, she knew, so would she ever attract the attention of men like Bryce? Boys she knew weren’t interested in her, not for her looks anyway. They liked blond hair and big boobs and she had neither.

The next time she was at Bryce’s place, he sensed right away that something was wrong. “Would you like to ride today?” he asked, trying to cheer her up. “Girl told me that she likes you and gave her permission.”

He made her do most of the work in saddling the horse, including carrying the heavy western saddle out of the barn’s tack room. She set to the task with grim determination, not wanting to appear that she couldn’t handle it. Once the saddle was tightly cinched on Girl, Bryce helped her up into the saddle with a hand briefly at her bottom. It might have only been for a second, but his casual touch there had an immense impact on Madison. When she settled into the saddle’s seat, she felt the moisture in her panties and was momentarily perplexed. While she took the reins and he stood alongside Girl giving Madison instructions, his hand remained on her back between her waistline and the cantle. Does he know what he’s doing to me, she thought? The wetness seemed to spread as the horse began to walk.

She tried to pay attention to what he was saying but all those strange images her ingenuous mind conjured up of her mom having sex with Bryce got in the way. Then there was the way her damp crotch itched as it rubbed against the seat. The itch was different from any she’d ever had, and when she figured out what it was, she involuntarily moaned.

He heard her and asked what was wrong. “Nothing,” she replied and the matter was left there.

After several transits around the small corral, Bryce moved away from them and allowed Madison to control Girl on her own. There’d be no galloping today, Madison mused, but a sense of exhilaration nonetheless flowed through her and a few strange shivers ran up and down her spine to go along with it. She intuited that these shivers went with the itches. So, while enjoying the momentary freedom from his hands-on guidance, she longed for him to touch her again. When he held her and helped her down from the saddle, his touch once more ignited something deep inside of her.

Madison was a smart girl. No matter her sexual naiveté, she knew what happened to her on the horse, and she knew how good it felt. That night while in bed she explored her body as every girl has learned to do. She touched herself and thought of Bryce’s firm touch. Her imagination traveled to different faraway places, like Bryce’s house where she imagined she was naked and he touched her bottom as he had while she was on Girl’s saddle. Places like her mom and dad’s bedroom where she imagined Bryce without clothes and her mother laying there with her legs open and her arms extended out to him. In that daydream, Bryce’s penis was long and dark like a stallion’s. She envisioned many things, her imagination on fire along with her crotch. When she touched herself again with less trepidation, she shivered harder than she had earlier while riding Girl, and her fingers were suddenly soaking wet. She muttered, “Wha? What…?” Until a second, much larger shiver ran through her and she moaned loudly.

Without her pajama pants on, she cowered under her bedding hoping her mom and dad hadn’t heard her in the throes of what must have been, she realized, her first full orgasm. She had a restless, dream-filled night.

The next morning she hatched her plan.

When Bryce scheduled her next riding lesson, Madison talked him into letting her stay at his place overnight. She said, “That way I can cook you a nice Sunday morning breakfast and then I can ride some more. That is if I have Girl’s permission.”

He muttered, “I don’t need a woman around to fix breakfast,” but his smile gave him away. After a moment or two, he said “Girl is already under your spell, and so I may as well join the club.”

Madison didn’t hear much beyond the word “woman.”

Her trouble began when she tried to convince her mom and dad that an overnight stay would be okay. Even though Bryce was his friend, to Dan he was still a single man and she was a young girl spending the night alone at his house. Madison’s approach was in asking her dad not whether he trusted Bryce but whether he trusted her in making the right decisions. He said that yes, he trusted her. Allison was a different story. Madison realized that since her mother slept with Bryce she could hardly think that he would leave her daughter alone if given the opportunity. As Allison explained her reluctance, all Madison heard was jealousy in her words. To protect her own secret, Madison knew her mom in the end couldn’t say no. She was going to spend the night with Bryce!

That Saturday was much like others. She rode Girl for extended periods so, in Bryce’s words, “she gets to know you better.” Today he was going to saddle his other horse, a gelding named Stu, and ride with her outside the confines of the corral and onto adjacent paths that extended beyond his property line. She joked once that Stu might think his name was “Stew” and he might get nervous. Bryce didn’t like the joke, as if the horse might actually make the connection. When he explained what made a horse a gelding, Madison thought it was a barbaric practice and wanted an explanation.

“You saw the stallion mating that time at the horse farm, right? Well, stallions aren’t always the best riding horses because of their temperament around other horses, not just fillies and mares. To a horse, it’s not barbaric at all; just makes him easier to get along with.”

“How would YOU like it?” she asked impetuously.

“Gelded horses don’t know what they’re missing,” he said, smiling. “But I would.”

Imagining him in bed with her mother, Madison had no rejoinder.

They rode down several paths, and she enjoyed it all especially when Bryce called her “a natural.” He talked about more rapid gaits, like trotting and galloping, explaining that they’d come in time. “I know,” she said, “when Girl knows me better.”

He laughed, and she admitted to herself that she loved his laugh tremendously. Jealousy was rearing its ugly head again.

“You can make breakfast, Maddy, but I’m the dinner cook around here,” he declared when they got back to his house and after they’d stowed the tack and fed the horses. On an outdoor grill he cooked two thick steaks and a couple of oversized baking potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil. Madison commented that her steak was way too big, and after looking her up and down in an exaggerated fashion, Bryce stated that she needed the protein. He’d rubbed the steaks beforehand with some seasonings, and the result for Madison was a newfound appreciation for a medium rare piece of meat, something she heretofore looked down her nose at. Bryce was pleased to see her eat like she did, although as usual he didn’t express his pleasure with many words. She helped him with the few dishes and utensils that needed washing, enjoying the domesticity, the feeling of being a partner with Bryce and not just a tag-along. Later, he surprised her by offering her a glass of wine.

Bryce surprisingly grew loquacious in describing the Cabernet they were drinking, most of it lost on Madison, although she liked its taste and felt really special drinking it with him. He began to say that it was Allison’s favorite, but stopped himself in time, acknowledging how that would sound to her daughter, who he hoped didn’t know what they were sharing. Instead he asked Madison about school and what her plans were for the future. She loved the fact he didn’t say “when you grow up.” She was reluctant to share all her dreams with him, but she did talk about what colleges she wished to go to and what she wanted to study.

She got a tingle when he asked her if she’d like him to start a fire. The whole notion of sipping wine in front of the fireplace with a handsome man like Bryce seemed so romantic, and it did something unfamiliar to her insides. By the time she asked for a second glass she most definitely decided she was going to be in his bed that night. What happened then would be nature balancing the scales, her mother be damned.

When sleeping arrangements were discussed, Bryce said, “I have to warn you, I don’t wear pajamas to bed so make sure you don’t sneak up on me in the morning.” He laughed after he said it so Madison knew he meant it innocently enough and not as a tease.

“This is such a nice house, and you’re a nice man,” she said, “so why aren’t you married?”

Taken aback by the question, he thought about it for a while before saying, “I was going to say that I haven’t found the right woman yet, but that would be dishonest.” After a breath or two, he continued “I have…known…the right woman for me but she’d already been taken, so here I am, living alone.”

“You mean she’s married?”

The way he looked at her when he said “Yes” confirmed he was talking about her mother. She was sad for him and doubly sad for her father. It wasn’t just sex, she thought; Bryce loved her mom. Did her mom love Bryce back, and if yes did it mean she fell out of love with her dad? Then she felt jealous again, asking herself why she wasn’t as pretty as her mom so boys and men would fall in love with her like that. Not for the first time, she wished the way Bryce treated her was more than mere respect for her maturity. She’d find out soon enough, one way or the other.

A range of emotions, added to the two glasses of wine coursed through her and did more than bolster her determination as bedtime approached. In the spare bedroom she stripped and looked at herself in the dresser mirror. She was flushed from the wine as well as thinking about how Bryce would look and feel. The fingertips of one hand absently went to her vulva and came away wet. Now that she’d experienced masturbation and its resulting orgasm, she quickly worked her fingers until she doubled over with a soft moan and shortness of breath.

She waited a little less than an hour after Bryce doused all the lights and went to bed before she slinked into his room and climbed under the covers next to him. He stirred but didn’t awaken. She felt his warmth as she lay next to him, that warmth translating into some of those sexual shivers she was getting to know and love. She tentatively reached over and palmed his penis, surprised by its heat and thickness more than anything else.

He awoke with a start and yelled, “Madison! What are you doing?” She jumped and let go of his penis but otherwise didn’t move. He clambered from his side of the bed and said, “You shouldn’t be here,” and then more to himself than her, “I was afraid of this.”

Madison whispered, “Why can’t you make love to me like you do with my mother? I’ll let you.”

Momentarily stunned, Bryce stood by the bed and stared down at the naked, uncovered girl highlighted by faint moonlight. He said, “I’m sorry that you found out about me and your mom. I didn’t set out to fall in love with her but it happened. However you feel, this is so wrong, and you need to go back to the other bedroom and forget everything.”

She in turn stared at his penis as it twitched and grew stiff in spite of his words. “See, I think you like me and want to do it.”

He glanced down at his growing erection as if surprised by it. “I can’t help that. I like you a lot. You’re a cute, desirable girl, naked in my bed, so this is a natural occurrence even though we’re never going to do anything.”

She grew breathless and faint upon hearing him say how desirable she was to him and how looking at her made him get as big as he was. She reflexively spread her legs and placed a hand at her exposed, moist vulva, and begged “Please?”

“If you’re not going back to the other bed then I’m going to sleep on the couch. In the morning we’ll forget any of this took place.” He turned on his heels, grabbed a pair of jeans that were tossed on the floor and left her alone in the big bed.

She couldn’t forget. Tears welled in her eyes as she pondered his rejection. She buried her face in a pillow—his pillow—and smelled his scent, a musky scent fully a man’s. With the afterimage of his looming erection burned into her brain and now his manly scent lingering in her nostrils, the breathlessness was back as she began desperately fingering herself. She climaxed as her mother’s face changed to hers in her fevered imagination, dreaming that Bryce was inside her. This orgasm was huge.

Madison was slightly disoriented when she awoke to morning sunlight, and before remembering where she was. She tiptoed back to the guest bedroom and dressed before going down to see Bryce; somehow hoping that she could change his mind and get him back into bed.

He was in the kitchen pouring a coffee when she said “Good morning.”

His expression was sullen so she knew sex was out of the question. He said, “I guess we had an agreement on breakfast, but after that I think I should take you home.”

She cooked up some bacon, scrambled eggs and hash browns with none of the enthusiasm she’d imagined before last night’s debacle. They ate in silence, further destroying any domestic ambiance that might have been present under other circumstances. She didn’t say anything until they were in his vehicle. “You had the perfect opportunity, so why didn’t you take it?” she said, trying to stifle tears and losing the battle.

“You know why,” he answered. “Your mom.”

“Yeah, because you’re so in love with her and couldn’t possibly hurt her,” she said, mimicking his speech. “But what about my dad? You don’t worry about hurting him, and I thought he was your friend!”

He muttered, barely audible, “He IS my friend.”

“Like I’m your friend too, right?” And that sarcasm ended the conversation. When they pulled into the driveway, Dan was out back burning some leaves and brush. The way he waved when he saw them was like a dagger to Madison’s heart. As she exited the truck, she turned to Bryce and said “I hate you,” and stormed off.

“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” her dad asked when he saw the tears.

As Bryce’s truck pulled away, she said, “Oh Daddy! Bryce touched me…and…and…raped me!”

The wheels were set in motion and there was no stopping them now. Those wheels could grind anyone to a fine pulp, and that’s what they began to do to Bryce.

After Dan took Madison to the hospital and called the Sheriff, they took samples from her for what they called the “rape kit” before a female Deputy Sheriff stood by the examination table Madison sat on and asked her many questions. “Did he penetrate you?” was the trickiest one she had to answer.

Everyone always told Madison how smart she was, and she needed to use those smarts now. “I don’t know,” she said, “but he did say something about me being too small for him. Most of what he did was…outside.” Otherwise Madison was vague enough to be quite believable. The Deputy wrote everything down in a little notebook before leaving and letting Dan come back into the room to be with her. A few minutes later Allison stormed into the examining room and breathlessly asked what had happened.

Dan answered her with, “Bryce raped her last night,” sticking out his arm as a barrier to stop her forward charge.

“That can’t be,” she said, momentarily stunned. “Bryce would never do such a thing.”

Mother and daughter held eye contact long enough for Dan to wonder what he was missing. “I don’t doubt our daughter. Why would you?” he said with a perplexed tone as the Sheriff himself knocked on the room’s doorjamb.

“Excuse me for interrupting, but I just spoke with my Deputy and then the County Attorney. Mr.” —he looked down at a piece of paper in his hand before continuing— “Bryce Abillard has been served a search warrant and the State Police crime scene unit is at his house now. So far he has been cooperative yet closed-mouthed, and he’s being transported to headquarters for questioning as we speak.” He walked a bit closer to Madison before saying, “You’re a brave girl for talking to your dad when you did and not waiting, that way we’ll get the evidence so Mr. Abillard will be punished as he should be.”

Madison thanked him for saying she was brave even though she didn’t feel brave. What struck her then was how much her mother looked like she wanted to refute the accusation but didn’t know how without calling her own daughter a liar. “In a day or two we’ll have you come in to my office and make your statement official. We should know by then what we’ve got for corroborating evidence,” the Sheriff said before leaving.

The family went home in silence. It took only an hour before Allison entered Madison’s bedroom, closed the door and said, “He didn’t rape you, did he,” as a statement and not a question.

“Yes he did, exactly how I told the Deputy Sheriff.”

“I don’t believe you,” her mom said, “and I know why you did it. Someday you’ll burn in hell for hurting a fine man like Bryce, and I’ll do everything in my power to protect him.”

Madison said, almost shouting, “Even by destroying Dad, another ‘fine’ man?”

“How did you come out of me?” Allison said as she began to cry.

“I wonder the same thing.” Madison retorted, dry-eyed and angry as her mom left, slamming the door on the way out.

The next day a different Deputy Sheriff stopped by the house and talked to her and her parents. He explained that preliminary tests showed no traces of semen in the rape kit but they found traces of Madison’s DNA in secretions found in Bryce’s bed along with fairly fresh, non-degraded samples of Bryce’s semen all over the sheets. His semen was mixed with some DNA still being analyzed, indicating (in his words) that Bryce had had sex very recently with someone else, or that at least he’d “ejaculated” while Madison was in his bed.

Dan was furious, looking like he’d kill Bryce if he got his hands on him.

Of course, Allison knew right away who the “someone else” was.

Madison began to have second thoughts after seeing how her dad was taking it, though she knew that his friendship with Bryce was betrayed by her mom long before Madison killed it with the accusation.

Bryce was indicted and arrested, refused a lawyer, couldn’t post bail, and thus remained in jail where rumors circulated he’d had fights with and severely injured fellow inmates and had to be kept in solitary confinement. He was provided a court-appointed lawyer but refused to speak with the flustered young woman. The County Attorney spoke to Madison several times, she figured to make sure her testimony would be solid. Madison told a convincing story, confessing just enough that she liked Bryce a lot up until he touched her. To the law, because of her age none of that mattered anyway. She saw the hate in all of them, from the Sheriff’s deputies to the State Police investigators and prosecutors, and felt sorry for Bryce. Her motivation was in tatters as she began to realize ruining Bryce wasn’t the way to punish her mother.

Everything changed when, a month before Bryce’s trial was set to begin, a military contingent swept into town and took over his defense. Two Colonels paid his bail and a Major became his attorney of record. At first the County Attorney questioned the Major’s credentials as well as the legality of a military officer representing a civilian in a non-military trial, and was chastised by a Superior Court judge for not knowing Federal law and not checking that the Major was indeed a member of the Bar in eleven states, including theirs.

Bryce was amazed that while he was in jail several men he served with took care of his horses and his property, the latter almost vandalized by townsfolk until “discouraged” by the stern military delegation. Unbeknownst to everyone, they’d been there within a day of his arrest.

“You’re not going to give her up, are you?” Major Oscar Connelly said to Bryce as they stood near the corral and watched the horses pretend they didn’t care for each other.

“Nope,” he answered and left it at that.

After nearly a minute of easy silence, Major Connelly said, “There never was anyone I’d rather have watch my back than you, Captain. Now it’s my turn to watch yours. You need to make the hard decision or you’re going to be fucked.”

“I’m not a Captain anymore,” Bryce said, shaking his head.

“Okay, so maybe you should’ve just fucked the tight little liar and took your punishment like a man. Instead of this,” leaving it up to Bryce to figure out what “this” meant.

Bryce looked at his old comrade in arms and said, “You didn’t mean that, did you? She really is a special kid, only jealous of her mom and me.”

“Special, alright; a special cock-teasing liar.”

“You’ve got it wrong, Sir. She’ll eventually fess up to the truth, and I won’t throw Allison to the wolves just to save my sorry ass.”

“Yeah, ‘just’ makes sense, since your sorry ass is my worry even if it’s not yours. You saved mine a few times and so it’s my turn to reciprocate.” After a few moments, he continued, “You understand, Captain? I’m not letting you fuck yourself because you fucked a beautiful woman and not her daughter. You got me?”

Bryce didn’t answer.

Major Connelly spit at the ground and said, “Too fucking bad you’re not a gelding like he is,” pointing at Stu, who looked back at him with the closest thing to a quizzical expression a horse could make.

Prior to the trial, the Major filed so many motions the assigned judge’s head was spinning. Major Connelly knew his way around a courtroom—and around prosecutors—and knew when he was being sandbagged on discovery. The unaccounted-for DNA profile was the key, and the Major needed to have the contributor identified. He unequivocally trusted Bryce so he knew there was only one contributor to name even if Bryce wouldn’t name her.

When he finally got the report, he instinctively knew there would be no trial.

Dan came home and robotically walked about, not saying much of anything to either Madison or Allison. He remained quietly troubled throughout dinner. Madison had never seen him like that, so she wondered what he found out. She learned what it was after she went to bed. Her father’s screaming was easy to hear.

“How long have you been fucking Bryce behind my back?” he yelled.

“What are you ranting about?” Allison fired back.

“Major Connolly was very quick in giving me a copy of all the forensic evidence, especially the DNA found on Bryce’s bed, quote ‘a strong familial match to the victim’ end-quote mixed in with Bryce’s semen. Why?”

Madison couldn’t hear everything her mom said, but she did hear things like “working late” and “needs,” before she hollered back, “He never took me for granted like you do!”

Then her father shouted, “What does that mean? You mean like getting the mother-daughter combo special? Is that what happened, you pimped your own daughter out to your boyfriend? I bet that must have been some kind of post-coital proposition!”

Her mom was crying and so Madison didn’t hear a response if she gave one. Dan was on a roll and his daughter heard it all. “You knew him, and you knew how she looked up to him and yet you let her stay overnight. You set her up as a victim and now maybe she’s emotionally scarred for life. I hope the sex was worth it.”

Allison suddenly was shouting back, “Emotionally scarred…bullshit! She knew about me and Bryce. You understand? She KNEW! I think she made the whole rape thing up to get back at me or some kind of jealousy thing!”

“Madison would never do that! I know my own daughter, I guess a lot better than you do,” he yelled.

“Maybe you don’t,” Allison answered.

Madison knew then and there that she had to tell the truth, not for Bryce or her mom, but for her dad. His “little woman” had betrayed his love no differently than her mother betrayed their marriage vows.

Later that evening she sat with her father and told him the whole story; not trying to sugar-coat anything or place extra blame on her mom. Dan called the County Attorney and the man wasted no time in coming to their house despite the late hour. While Allison made herself scarce, Madison retold the truth to the shocked prosecutor.

“Do you know the seriousness of what you did?” he asked her, and she nodded, choking on any words that she might have otherwise said. The County Attorney made several calls, including one to the presiding judge and another to Oscar Connelly’s cell phone. Bryce’s name would be cleared by morning.

Outside the Sheriff’s office the following day after Madison gave her statement, Major Connelly approached and asked to speak with her alone. Dan acquiesced.

“I won’t lecture you, young lady. You know what you did and the damage it’s caused, both to your family and Mr. Abillard. However, I see in you the same qualities I like to see in good soldiers, the qualities Mr. Abillard—Bryce—saw in you and talked about. Good soldiers are honorable, admit their mistakes, and work hard at not repeating them. Are you like that?”

“I don’t know, Sir…I mean, Major…I…I’ll try…”

“The ‘Sir’ is fine,” he said and chuckled. “I know you’ll do more that try. Moving forward will be difficult for you and your family, but don’t think that my client can’t forgive you. He already has.”

“Thank you, Sir,” she said as he put his hand out to her and she shook it.

By the time Dan and Madison got home, Allison was gone along with her clothes.

Dan tried to be stoical but his suffering was obvious; after all, he'd lost a friendship, his marriage and maybe even his daughter. Madison turned morose, treated like a pariah in school as many of her friends abandoned her as quickly as her mom had. The rumor around town was that Allison had run to Bryce but he refused to take her in. Where she went after that was still unknown.

Madison tried to be as forbearing as her father but it was hard. She felt miserable, and yet who else could she blame but herself? Ironically the thing she missed the most was spending time with Bryce and his horses. Major Connelly said that Bryce forgave her, but did he really? Maybe someday she could build up enough courage to see him and apologize face-to-face, still remembering the feelings she had down there while in Girl’s saddle. Like real sex, someday it would happen but not very soon, she lamented.

Her dad wasn’t ostensibly treating her any differently, but to her there was a coldness that couldn’t simply be in her imagination. She offered to help him with the yard work but he declined, saying he wanted to be alone. And that’s what they both were in essence—alone. He stood over the smoking pile of leaves and brush, looking into the distance at nothing at all. “Burning leaves,” Madison whispered to herself. “That’s my legacy…my family ruined like so many burning leaves.” She tamped her despondency by remembering Major Connelly’s words to her. “I’ll be a good soldier. I really will,” she declared to the sky, its echo eventually meeting with the smoke rising from her father’s burning brush pile.

Donna M.

© 2014

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