I slept through breakfast the next morning. Jack had
already left for the office when Helen appeared in the
bedroom quite excited.
“Someone’s found Clyde,” she announced.
I opened one eye and looked at my sister. She was
holding a slip of paper in one hand and begging for my
attention.
“Where?” I managed to ask.
“It’s some kennel north of the city. The police picked
him up running along the highway and brought him
there.” She was elated. “Isn’t it grand? I’ll be so
glad to see him again.”
I stepped out of bed and put my robe on. My sister was
reading off the name of the kennel from the slip of
paper.
“Are you certain it’s Clyde?” I wanted to know.
“It must be,” she assured me. “I just talked with the
man who runs the place, and his description was
uncanny. It could not be any other dog.”
“I’m glad,” I said, coming up to her and giving her a
kiss on the cheek. “You’re very fond of Clyde.”
Her bosom heaved slightly and pushed gently against my
own. “Quick!” she said, grabbing both my arms. “I’ll
fry you an egg while you get dressed. I want to go over
there this morning.” She turned and ran in the
direction of the kitchen.
I stepped across the hall into the bathroom. Removing
my robe I sat on the toilet and reached for the hand
mirror behind me. I was curious as to my condition and
spread my legs.
Spreading the lips with the first two fingers of my
right hand, I moved the fingers down two or three times
more, separating the folds as much as I could to get a
good look inside.
The soreness seemed to have disappeared. I ran the tip
of one finger inside. The opening seemed normal. I
tried two, and then three fingers. It stretched easily
but was elastic enough to offer some resistance to
being opened.
I breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was returning
to a state of normalcy.
Spreading my legs a little wider, I held the mirror a
foot away from it and tried to get an idea of its
overall appearance. The outer lips didn’t exactly
close over everything. Well, I wasn’t sixteen anymore
either, I told myself.
The amount of hair growing around that region of me
always struck me as excessive. Except for my head and
under my arms I was not a hairy person, and could never
understand why I had such growth down there.
I held the mirror closer to examine it. Hair grew
thickly on both sides and down under. Rising slightly,
I looked further on down and saw it growing around my
asshole, although much more sparsely.
Sighing, I put the mirror down and stood all the way
up. With two fingers, I gently tried to squeeze the
outer lips shut. They mushed together nicely, but
pouted open again immediately when I let go.
Helen was calling me that breakfast was about ready,
and I turned to other matters.
She sat and watched me eating. Her conversation was
very animated. I knew she was impatient to get out to
the kennel and tried not to appear uninterested. She
was planning a bath for Clyde the minute he got home,
she told me.
As she knew the way, I let her drive although she
offered the chore to me. While I listened to her talk I
kept doing a little exercise I had been taught once
which was supposed to strengthen the muscles around the
opening to the vagina. It must have seemed to Helen
that I was not paying attention.
“You’re miles away, aren’t you?” she was asking me.
I took notice and blushed.
“What are you thinking about, Bea?” she queried.
“I was thinking about a man having one the size of that
pony’s.” Actually I had just come up with the thought
in reply to her question.
“How would you ever find him?” Helen wondered. “Even if
you did, he might be too hard to live with. You know?
What kind of a husband would he make? Every girl around
would be chasing him.” She was thinking of Jack.
“I wonder though, does a man ever have one that big? Is
it possible?”
We were passing a farm where some horses were grazing.
“Maybe you should move up to a horse,” Helen suggested.
“They’re even bigger!”
The thought of something even bigger yet stuffing into
me was a randy idea but frightening.
“Come on,” I said. “I thought I was going to be
killed.” She was getting me excited talking about it
that way. “Were you able to see? Did he finally get it
all in?” I asked.
“I,” she paused, “I think so. I couldn’t believe it.”
“Where did it all go?” I asked, amazed. I held up my
hands in the manner of a fisherman. “It must have been
this long,” I said, looking at the distance between
them. “Now, if you take that same length and lay it
across me here,” I explained, moving my hands to my
body, “the end of it is way up here.”
She shot a glance at where my hand rested. It was
almost exactly between my breasts.
“It can’t possibly go all the way up there, or can it?”
I wanted to know.
“It stretches nice,” Helen giggled.
“Let’s see how you do when your turn comes,” I said to
her.
She giggled some more. We came to a crossroads, and
Helen turned the car to the right. About two miles down
the road we saw the sign indicating the kennel and
turned into it. Pens were all around us filled with
dogs of many different breeds, and the animals
collectively made one great racket as we got out.
The noise brought a man running out of what must have
been a private house at one time, but had been
converted to an office and other facilities for the
kennel.
“You the ladies for the collie?” he asked immediately.
At our acknowledgment he motioned us to follow him, and
we walked back along the pens to a small brick
structure that looked of recent construction. A number
of bricks that had not been used were still piled off
to the left.
The man was tall, about six feet five or six inches,
but had an enormous pot belly that hung out over his
trouser belt. In profile the trouser belt made a
diagonal line up to where it clung to the small of his
back. His trousers were rather floppy, he had no ass to
speak of, and were too long.
He yanked out a mess of keys from one pocket and looked
through them until finding the right one.
“Here we go,” he said, unlocking the door.
We followed him inside. About six stalls lined each
side of the wall. They were very clean and seemed to
incorporate every convenience available to the up-to-
date kennel operator.
“We keep the real good dogs here,” he informed us.
“Your collie is in this one.” He pointed to one marked
number nine.
Helen walked over and called out Clyde’s name. The big
collie came up to the gate, wagging it tail, but I knew
instantly Helen was looking at a dog other than her
own.
“Oh, Bea,” she said, disappointed. “It isn’t him.”
I came over and reached through the bars, patting the
dog’s head. “You could fool
me, Sis. It’s an amazing likeness,” I told her.
“It’s the eyes,” she said, “and the coloring on the
nose. See that pink splotch just at the beginning of
the nose? Clyde has no pink on his nose. This isn’t as
good a dog as Clyde,” she concluded.
He was a beautiful dog nonetheless.
“Too bad!” the man said. “Make a nice pet. You have
kids?” he asked Helen and then fixing his eyes on me as
if to ask the same question.
We shook our heads.
“Be good pet anyway,” he went on. “Cops found this poor
guy running along the interstate. Well, “he declared,
“somebody’s going to claim him. Too good a dog.”
We walked outside to the car. Helen was dejected and
had little to say. The man wished her luck, and we
drove off.
About a mile along the road her thoughts had absorbed
her attention a little too much, and she failed to
notice a wide truck coming in the opposite direction.
“Yipe!” I shouted, pointing.
She reacted instantly, swerving to the right, but
overcompensated, and the car’s right side went off the
shoulder into a deep gully.
The car was not damaged, nor were we hurt, but Helen
could not get enough traction to move the car either
forward or backward.
“You try it, Bea,” she suggested.
We exchanged places, but I had no better luck. The
weight of the car needed both rear wheels to drive it,
and one wheel just spun uselessly, barely touching the
ground.
“We’ll need a tow,” I said. “You belong to the
Automobile Club?” I asked her.
“Yes,” she sighed, going through her purse. She found
the card in her wallet and showed it to me. Something
in her expression made me feel sorry for her. I patted
her head.
“I’ll go, Helen,” I assured her. “It can’t be more than
a mile back there. You stay here.”
She smiled at me. The warm smile of our childhood when
we had just shared a candy bar, or when pushing little
dolls around inside a doll house, our hands had
accidentally bumped.
She leaned over and gave me a hug, and I could feel her
heart beating through her skin.
Out on the road I was wishing I hadn’t chosen to wear
heels that day. I thought back to myself sitting in the
bedroom that morning and making the choice. The road
was level but at the pace I was trying to maintain, the
walking was giving my muscles a workout.
As cars came up behind me, I tried slowing down to
prevent too much of a bounce and swing to my butt. I
would have welcomed a ride, but wasn’t in the mood for
offering myself as payment, even in jest.
Some cars slowed and went by. I noticed they contained
couples, a not likely source for a hitch for someone
like me. So many women, having once surrendered their
names and identities to a man, are naturally insecure.
Having an unperson then for a partner, the man will
often seek a real individual elsewhere.
I thought of those guys as they went by. From the way
one’s face lighted up, I knew he would have offered me
a lift if the wife had not been along. If women had
anything approaching real freedom in the country, she
would have been happy for him to stop.
An old black panel truck with white peace signs
sloppily painted on it slowed down as it passed. A
number of older teenage boys inside did some whistling
and hooting. I waved at them good-naturedly.
It was a deserted section of the road. I could not
recall any buildings between the kennel and where we
had gone into the ditch. It was a cool day, and I was
in no danger of working up a sweat.
The black panel truck had turned around and was slowly
coming back the other way. As it came up abreast of me,
it came to a stop. The driver, a young kid about
twenty asked if I wanted a ride.
Some pleasant tone in his voice temporarily disarmed me
and I said okay.
“I’m just going to the kennel,” I said.
“Get in,” he said in a matter of fact tone. “I’ll turn
around up ahead.”
I walked around to the other side of the vehicle. A
short, fat boy of seventeen or eighteen was already out
of the truck and held the door open for me. I stepped
up in, and the boy doing the driving told me to find a
seat inside.
A curtain separated the body of the truck from the
driving area, and as I stepped through, it took me a
moment to become accustomed to the dimness inside. I
soon noticed there were no seats. Two boys were seated
on the floor near the rear. The floor was covered with
blankets and sleeping bags.
The truck started up, and I sat down on one of the bags
to keep from falling.
The boy who had been driving came through the curtain,
and I concluded the fat boy must obviously be at the
wheel. The boy sat down next to me.
“Peace!” he said, chewing on what must have been gum.
He had moved a little too close to me, and I grew
apprehensive. “Whatever you say,” I told him, shifting
my position so as to let him know I didn’t welcome any
funny business.
“Know,” he chewed. “A woman gets in a gig like this, I
read she’s hoping one thing.” He was seated Indian-
style and leaning slightly forward, his head nodding
slightly as his jaws worked on the gum.
“You better go back to school and learn how to read,” I
said, getting up. “When’s your kid brother going to
turn this thing around?” Looking through the curtains,
I got a glimpse of Helen standing alongside the car as
we drove by. I was positive she had seen me, too.
Recovering from his initial surprise, the gum-chewing
kid stood up and, grabbing my arm, spun me around. I
lost my balance and fell, landing hard on my bottom. He
flung himself on top of me immediately, pressing the
bulge in his trousers into my crotch as hard as he
could.
“You ain’t gonna act so uppity, lady, when you find out
there’s real cock on board here,” he snarled.
I pushed at him. He was actually hurting me with his
weight and knew it. The two boys at the rear moved
forward to watch. He wasn’t about to budge, and just
lay there. He began pressing the bulge rhythmically
against me. I got the impression he was trying to work
it up as it in no way felt hard.
“Real cock, lady,” he said again.
I reached up with my mouth and bit him hard on the
nose.
He rolled off, screaming and holding his nose. Coming
back, he whacked me across the face with the back of
his hand.
“I’ll bite your tit off for that,” he swore. “Hank!
Bijou! Sit on her arms,” he commanded the other two.
The two boys got on either side of me and sat with all
their weight on the insides of my elbows. I could feel
the circulation in my arms being cut off almost right
away.
“We, got her good, Macho,” one of them told the gum
chewer. It was true. I couldn’t do much more than move
my shoulders.
“Now, let’s see what kind of a cunt this one’s got,”
the one called Macho said. He pushed my thighs aside
violently, pulling the tendons. I cried out in pain. My
legs had never been spread apart that wide before.
Grabbing hold of my panties, he tore them off in one
quick yank. All three of them started to laugh at once.
“Look at that,” Macho leered.
“All hair,” snorted one of the others.
“Lady, you have got one hairy ass,” Macho said to me.
“Feel on it, Hank,” he urged.
The kid on my left reached down and ran his fingers
roughly into my vulva as if he were fingering gravel.
“That’s enough,” Macho said suddenly, irritation in his
voice. “Now, lick ’em off,” he commanded.
“Aw, Mach,” Hank protested. “I ain’t one to eat no
pussy.”
“That’s why you got to lick ’em off,” he said, smiling
through clenched teeth. “You got to learn what these
dumb cunts are made of.”
Hank stuck the fingers in his mouth quickly, pulling
them out almost immediately. Macho and Bijou roared and
kept up the teasing. I shut my eyes hard.
“You know, Beej,” Macho declared, “I’ve heard it said,
a man who will eat cunt will eat cock, too.”
“I’ve heard that, yeah, yeah,” said Bijou, agreeing.
Hank tried to change the subject. “You gonna fuck her?”
he asked, nodding in my direction.
“Maybe she’s gonna eat a little cock first, then we’ll
talk about ass,” Macho answered. He unhooked his belt
buckle with one hand. Sucking in his stomach, he
reached down with both hands and slowly unbuttoned his
fly. Standing straight on his knees, he pushed his
levi’s and undershorts down below his groin.
The meat flopped out. He had no erection, but the penis
appeared to have the potential of being quite large
when hard. The testicles clung close to the base and
had very long hairs growing out from the sac that
contained them. There were not too many of them, but
they were quite long.
The skin covering his penis grew down over the head,
encapsulating it. I took this to mean that he was
uncircumcised though I had never seen one like it
before. I stiffened.
“How ’bout it, lady?” Macho urged, taking the penis in
his hand and lolling it at me. “Getting’ hungry?” he
grinned. “You want to be fucked, you’re gonna have to
work on it a little,” he informed me, moving it closer.
“I’ll bite it off, so help me,” I seethed out at him
through clenched teeth. Probably remembering his nose
he changed expression as if he were convinced I meant
it. He backed away. I felt I had won some kind of a
victory.
“She don’t eat, Mach,” Hank said.
“Shit she don’t eat!” Macho exclaimed. “They all eat.
There ain’t a woman around don’t want it. What do you
think makes the dumb cunts so dumb? It’s cock, man,
cock,” he bellowed.
Spitting into my vulva suddenly, he rubbed the spittle
into the lips with his fingers. Leaning forward, he
tried to run the spongy organ into my vagina in its
flaccid state. The exercises I had been doing all
morning evidently had made it possible to thwart him.
He got nowhere.
I was afraid his continued frustration might lead to
further violence so I relaxed. At one point in his
struggles then, he succeeded, by careful tamping, in
getting the hooded tip just inside the entrance. For
some reason he could not feel the degree of success he
had thus achieved and allowed it to fall right out
again.
Hank and Bijou remained breathless, apparently afraid
to make any comment. The truck slowed down to a stop,
and I heard the motor turn off. The fat boy appeared
through the curtain, combing his hair and staring at
me.
“Tony, you fuck her,” Macho said, getting off me. “I
ain’t ready yet.” He sat back against the wall looking
dazedly at his penis.
Tony unbuttoned his fly and pulled out a penis that
quickly hardened. It had a long, thin look to it. He
broke into a smile and knelt down between my legs.
He didn’t quite know where to put it, but jabbed away
at me anyway. He poked a few places that really hurt
and I howled. Both he and Macho interpreted my cries as
sexual. Macho crawled back over to me.
“You like that, huh? Fuck her good, Tony. She’s loving
every minute of it. “He began to laugh softly.
Tony finally found the right spot, but got only two
good strokes inside when I felt him come. Then, instead
of leaving it there to pump the full load into me, he
yanked it out. The stuff flew all over. Everybody
backed away and I felt the pressure come off my arms.
They, had fallen asleep.
“You some nut, Tony?” Macho yelled.
“He’s crazy, Mach,” Hank volunteered. “I keep tellin’
you.”
“Yeah,” piped in Bijou.
“What did you take it out for?” Macho was still yelling
at him, totally amazed. “You leave it in, dummy, ’til
it’s all dumped inside,” he emphasized. “Ain’t you
never fucked?”
Macho had a lot of the come on his levi’s and
undershorts, and was daubing disgustedly at himself
with a corner of one of the blankets.
I used my torn underpants to wipe it out of my pubic
hair where most of it had lodged. Some of it was oozing
out my vagina. I rolled the panties into a ball and
stuffed them between my legs. Getting up, I smoothed
down my dress, adjusted my shoulder bag, and made a
move for the curtain.
Tony was standing closest to the partition. I winked at
the inexperienced kid as I went by. He had seemed
sheepish and ashamed of himself during the heap of
abuse they had piled on him, and blushed at my wink,
turning his face from me.
“Hey, Tony, grab her,” Macho yelled, getting up from
the floor and pulling up his pants.
I dashed past Tony who for some reason sought not to
hold me, slid across the front seat and jumped out onto
the ground. The truck had pulled into a wooded area off
the road. The macadam was visible about fifty yards
away, and I struck out for it, first taking off my
shoes.
There was shouting and sounds of a scuffle inside the
panel truck, then the back end opened, and looking
back, I saw three of them pile out.
They were soon right behind me and closing fast. They
caught me about five yards from the road, but I fought
furiously now, with a shoe in each hand, screaming my
head off.
I heard the brakes of a truck, and just as quickly as
they had caught me, they let me go and ran back into
the woods. I reeled out onto the road in the direction
of the truck. A man was getting out. He was tall,
slight, and fortyish.
“Am I glad to see a new face,” I cried. “The last four
were getting stale.”
He came up to me and held me steady for a minute.
“I saw three. Were they kids?” he asked.
I nodded. “And consider ourselves lucky we’re not
school teachers.” I was very much out of breath. I
showed him my shoes, and he held me while I put them
back on. “How do I look?” I asked. “If you say like a
gang-bang, mister, you are batting two-fifty.”
He laughed in a compassionate way that appealed to me
and told me to get in the truck. It was a small pick-
up, and I noticed he was only carrying a pair of tires
in the truck bed.
“Snow tires,” he said, noticing my curiosity.
“In Texas?”
“Mostly for mud,” he smiled. “Where to?”
I explained what had happened to Helen and me, and
described the road. He said it was about six miles from
where we were but that he would be glad to take me. He
put the truck in gear and drove off.
“I think some man must have invented heels,” I said. I
had turned the rearview mirror in such a way that I
could use it for grooming. “If you only knew how hard
it is to run in them.” I was busily combing my hair.
“All those movies when the girl runs away from some man
in the woods. She always gets caught.”
“Heels,” he said.
“Heels.”
“Did it ever occur to you,” he began, “that maybe a
woman might have invented them to make sure the man
caught her.”
“So what?” I said. “Either way it’s a case of an equal
human being handicapped to make another human took
superior. It doesn’t matter who did it, except if it
was a woman as you suggest, that might mean women are
more clever.
“I predict a long, enjoyable friendship,” he said.
“Why not?” I asked. “Here’s your mirror back.” I turned
it back a little, and he adjusted it to where he wanted
it.
“By the way, don’t you think you should report that
little episode to the police?”
“And make folk heroes out of that bunch?” I blurted
out.
“I feel a pun coming on,” he chuckled.
“Exactly,” I said. “I don’t want to see that crew again
in court or out of it. I’m leaving Texas in a few days,
anyway. It’s just a business trip.”
“What do you do?” he asked.
“Write,” I said.
“Don’t tell me. Human interest stories. Our embattled
youth, et cetera. Am I right?”
“Right!” I exclaimed. “And I want to find out first
hand just how depraved they are on account of they’re
deprived. Actually, I work for a big tire company and
go places where it doesn’t snow looking for people who
buy snow tires.”
“It snows in Texas,” he said.
“Not much, I’ll bet.”
“I told you they were for mud. I live off the highway
on a winding dirt road,” he told me.
“Alone?” I asked.
“When youšre not there, yes, he answered.
“You’re not a hermit or something like that, are you?”
I asked.
“Would you rather I had said I lived with my mother?”
he wanted to know.
“Well, I know a man who lives alone, that is, not
quite,” I added. “There’s a little mare pony he keeps
around the house, and the two of them are like an old
married couple.”
“No ponies,” he said. “Just me and myself.”
“Interesting arrangement,” I remarked. “How long has
this been going on?”
“Oh!” he pronounced. “It was love at first sight.”
“You mean, when you passed that first mirror it hit you
all of a sudden like.”
“Yes,” he said, “but now you’ve come along and broken
us up.” He brought the truck to a stop, reached over
and embraced me.
It was a long, low-keyed kiss that said, let’s take our
time about this. He was filled with the strength of
unhurried passion. I hadn’t been kissed like that in a
long time and savored the moment.
We broke, and I clung to him, wanting to forget somehow
his maleness, his hardness of body for a brief time,
and it was easy to pretend with him. He had that rare
quality that blurs the sexes. Deep down inside me was
a gnawing sadness that I was weaving fantasies again.
“Know something?” I murmured.
“What?”
“I’m not wearing any underpants.” I stared ahead out
the windshield at the roadway. He was kissing along the
bone behind my ear, and it tickled gently.
“Know something else?” he came back. “I don’t even know
your name.”
“When is a good time to find out?” I asked, moving my
body around so that I could kneel on the seat facing
him, my bottom on his lap. Apparently, I had lost the
panties in the woods, and felt my hairs crinkling
against his fly. My hands were clasped behind his neck,
and our noses touched.
A car came up behind us and went on around.
“What does it look like we’re doing?” I asked him. I
could feel the flesh underneath me swelling upward in
his pants.
“A little noontime smooching, maybe,” he replied.
“Please tell me your name.” He asked the question
seriously.
“It’s Bea,” I said, doing a little shaking action with
my butt as if to settle more comfortably in the seat I
had chosen. “And yours?
“John.” He was becoming cramped, and grunted. “Lift up
a minute,” he begged, tapping me lightly on the hip.
I raised my rear end, and he quickly undid his belt,
pushing his trousers and undershorts down as far as he
could reach. His stiff penis, freed at last, swelled
out further and stood at attention. It had a slight
lean to the left.
I lowered my bottom again and covered his erection with
my dress. I felt it tamping against my belly and
reached down under the dress to bend it downward
slightly.
The thing felt like a stiff, warm handle, and resisted
being bent. I had to throw out my chest and jut my rear
end upward in order to point the fat thing correctly,
and could not relax until it had started to go in.
It went nicely. I could feel the ripple of pleasure
running through his body, and worked my knees back
father on the seat so that it could go all the way in.
“Oh, that’s nice,” he said, his breath shuddering. He
lurched his bottom forward, and I felt the last of it
sock up in. He began a grinding motion with his rear
with an occasional good hard up-thrust as the moment
suited him.
We had to stop the furious squirming frequently as cars
passed, but as the feeling grew more intense inside me,
I found myself little caring who or what was outside
the truck.
It felt good getting it this way. The hard meat worked
in and around more. It rotated and dug at the sides,
and I was conscious of the thick base up against my
clitoris pushing and massaging.
He was going to come before I did, and I began some
hard grinding myself to try to catch up. He had stopped
fooling around and was trying to make deeper thrusts,
though it must have been difficult in that position.
The thrusts increased rapidly. He leaned forward
suddenly, and I felt the jolts inside as he pumped out
the hot sperm in four or five successive spasms.
A warm glow enveloped my entire body knowing his come
had filled me. He lay back against the seat exhausted,
his eyes closed. I kissed his wet brow and ran the
fingers of one hand through his hair, He was taking
long, deep breaths.
His organ shrank slowly while still inside me. I could
feel it retreating into itself. The warm come, shot
straight up into me, was slowly running back down along
the sides of his organ and covering the balls.
We sat there like that enjoying the warmth between us.
His come was like a balm cementing our union, and I
hesitated to move.
He was the first to break the spell.
“Let’s do that again, very soon,” he said, opening his
eyes.
I lifted my dress as I moved off him, looking down to
see how much had run out of me. I was soaking wet but
nothing compared to what was all over his lap.
“I have some Kleenex in my bag,” I said, half standing
while reaching into it and fishing out the bunch I had
suddenly remembered putting there that morning.
I offered about half of them to him, and used the rest
on myself.
“Do you always travel without panties?” he asked me as
he sopped away at the goo. It had run down underneath
his balls, too, and he was busily wiping while holding
his scrotum up over his belly.
“Aren’t you glad?” I asked. “One less obstacle to our
pleasure.” He was looking me as if I were probably
telling him the truth. “Silly,” I said, laughing, “the
peace freaks wanted a souvenir. It’s probably flying
proudly this second from the truck’s radio antenna.”
He laughed at that. “What do you write about, anyway,
Bea?” he asked, tightening his belt.
“Pets.” I said. “Stories about people and their pets.”
“If I went out and bought a pet, would you write me
up?” he wondered. He started the truck and we moved
off.
“If it were unusual in some way,” I told him. “The
animal wouldn’t have to be unusual. It could be your
relationship with it, or an adventure it had gone
through. If you had a pet, John, what would it be?” I
asked him abruptly.
“A twenty-five year old brunette female, about five-
six, a hundred and twenty pounds.”
I interrupted his little whimsy. “Seriously, John, what
would you own?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Give me a couple of days to
think about it and I might have an answer.” He turned
and flashed a smile at me. “I’ve never thought about
owning an animal.”
We drove the rest of the way in silence. It wasn’t far.
I recognized the spot where Helen had gone off the
road. Tracks indicated she had been pulled out already,
and as we approached the kennel, I recognized her car
in the parking area.
Helen came bursting out of the office when she saw me
get out of the truck.
“Holy Smokes, Bea,” she shouted. “I called the cops on
you. What happened to that other truck?” She looked at
John and smiled. “it doesn’t look to me like you were
in any trouble exactly.”
“Wait until I tell you,” I said. “You’re just looking
at the happy ending. This is John, Sis. John, this is
my sister, Helen.”
The introductions over, Helen started in about having a
“goody” to tell me. It couldn’t be any more interesting
than the one I had for her, I said. She went back
inside to telephone the police that I had been found,
and I talked with John.
“If you want to heat things up, it’s all right with
me,” I told him, “but it will have to be without
strings.” I explained about my job, my love of New
York, my desire for independence.
“After you know me awhile,” I went on, “you’ll see that
I value friendships highly. I’m independent,” I said,
“but I need people, also. Even men.”
“An independent women can’t hope to be any man’s pet,”
he said. “I’ll take what I get. What do I have to lose?
”
“Why, you lose me, John,” I said.
“On your terms I never really have you in the first
place,” he came back.
“Materially, no!” I exclaimed. “But why is material
possession the only way to think about your
relationship with a woman. Are we really just property?
A man’s daughter leaves home, he doesn’t have her
materially and, yet he still has her in other ways,
still loves her, and she him.”
“A man wants to feel he’s important to a woman,” he
stated.
“You don’t think the father is important to the
daughter?” I asked.
“It’s a special relationship of diminishing importance
in his everyday life. Anyway, Bea, you’re comparing
apples to oranges,” he said. “Granted, the pair bond
between a man and a woman should not be an owner-
possession thing, I don’t think you can compare a
daughter to a wife.”
“I guess what I was trying to say was that you speak of
your daughter as yours all of your life, whether she’s
there at home with you or not, or whether she’s had ten
husbands in Timbuktu, she’s still yours, your
daughter.” I insisted.
“Go on,” he said, calmly.
“Why then, the moment a woman ceases to act as if she
were an indentured servant, or what is the term, having
left my bed and board, does she cease to be your wife?
You’ve had a more intense relationship with her than
you’ve had with any other woman, yet you’ll put up with
less.”
“It must be,” he said, “that people have a low regard
for the objects that have satisfied their sexual
appetites, and a high one for those who have not. If we
all could fuck our mothers and our daughters, our
sisters and our aunts, we might see a little more
clearly.”
Helen interrupted our discussion by her return. “They
want to talk to you, Bea,” she said.
I stepped into the office. There was no one inside, but
I noticed the telephone off the hook and picked it up.
Since Helen had brought them into it, I decided to tell
the police the entire story. I told them I would not
sign a complaint. I was in Texas only a few days, I
said, and didn’t want to stay.
They settled for a description of the truck, and the
names of the boys involved. They would pick them up for
questioning, and perhaps put a scare into them.
Just as I was hanging up, the tall, pot-bellied man who
ran the place came into the room from a rear doorway.
“Glad to see you back, miss,” he said. “Your sister was
plumb worried about you.” He fumbled in a shirt pocket
for a cigarette. “Did she mention my cheetah?”
“You have a cheetah?” I asked him.
“Most beautiful cat in the world,” he asserted,
lighting the weed, and blowing out the match with his
first puff.
“I promise to ask her,” I said, turning to go. He was
leaning on the counter with both hands. The sleeves of
his shirt were rolled up past his elbows, and I noticed
the arms were quite hairy.
“You all come back, now,” he waved. He had a look about
him, the kind of an expression on his face I used to
think belonged only to old torn cats.
Helen was suggesting the four of us, Jack, herself,
John, and I, get together that evening. She suggested
her place, but John came in with a good pitch for his
place in the woods.
As I rejoined them I said we might have to wear hip
boots. John laughed.
“I told your sister I lived on a muddy road,” he said
to Helen, “but it’s actually quite dry at the moment.”
“Well,” said Helen, “let’s hope it doesn’t rain then.
His place all right with you, Bea?” she asked.
“Well, those aren’t exactly the conditions I had
anticipated,” I put forward. “John told me he lived
alone.”
“I see,” said Helen, catching my meaning. She looked
from one of us to the other, savoring the thoughts she
must have been thinking.
“But let’s see what develops,” I continued, smiling up
at John. “Well have to postpone our debate,” I said to
him.
We parted then. As we were driving off, John pulled the
pickup alongside my window. He was holding something
tightly in his fist and extending it outward.
“Present for you,” he said. “Compliments of John
Young.”
I reached up and took it. It was my torn underpants. I
looked at him in complete surprise. “How did you?”
“Wedged down between the door and the seat,” he said.
“See you later,” he waved, and drove off.
I held the torn, stained reminder of the morning’s
adventure up for Helen to see.
“Come to think of it, Sis,” she observed, “I’d like to
hear your story first.”