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Crawling into a damp leafy nest under the trees, Benny
put his hands behind his head. Nina was wonderful, but she was in danger, and it
was his fault.
“Thanks, Cindy.” He turned his head to spit the
bitterness out of his mouth. “Thanks for the fun. Geezis. Talk about hormone
driven male apes.” Hormones and enzymes guaranteed to make a woman ovulate,
even if she were on the pill.
He lay for hours, staring up at the barren limbs.
Spring was coming. He had to get home. Maybe he would die there. If he was
lucky. If not, Cindy’s spec-agents would nail his ass and he’d be wearing a
collar again, humping every bitch Cindy brought for him to breed.
“ESP. I don’t have ESP,” he shouted. “I
can’t breed Janissary warriors for your dammed project, bitch.”
A sob escaped his throat. Benny cut it off and
clenched his jaws together.
He was broke. No matter, there was work in Philly.
“Yeah, just fill out a work report. Asshole.”
Eyes wide, Benny sat up. He snapped his fingers.
“Shoot, the docks.”
Unloading train cars wasn’t the easiest work, but it
paid well if a man could take the strain and the boss wasn’t too hungry. Benny
flexed an arm. Nina was great, she took no more than a guy could give and loved
every moment of it.
His legs and back were stiff, but that wasn’t
unusual. Scowling, he sniffed the air. Funny, but somebody must be burning
trash. Plastic and burned meat. If the cops caught them, jail-time in a work
camp was the lightest sentence they would get. With a shrug, he lay back.
The docks, yeah. Then home to Hell and Cindy.
A siren wailed in the distance. Alarmed, Benny jumped
up. Red lights flashed in the sky. Benny saw a small house. He ran to it,
dodging through the brush, and dived through a shattered door.
Inside was a gray, dingy room and a flickering light
bulb. Sparks snapped from the greening wires, Benny winced. It was damp and cold
here. Wind hissed through a cracked window. He was dreaming, right?
His attention was drawn to the bed. Sweating even in
the chill of the room, a tall, old man groaned and shuddered in a way every man
is familiar with. Benny saw Sue’s face, strained and staring at the ceiling.
Benny scowled at the stranger.
“Hey, this is my dream. Get the freek out, scuds.”
Unable to hear or see him, the john ignored Benny and
knotted a condom. It went in a rusting wastebasket with others from the girl’s
night’s work. The old man sat up between long, slender legs.
McMasters smiled at the girl.
Five-two and a shy smile that drove men to the brink
of insanity, made them whisper her name as they made love to their wives. The
hair, despite the damp sweatiness caused by her trade was yet a dark, unruly
cloud that halo’d a small, almost beautiful face.
God, but he could feel desire stirring again.
McMasters felt a slight twinge of shame. She was only
fourteen, and small for her age. The ninth grader was so thin, almost emaciated.
Her eyes were narrow, cat-like above high, sharp cheekbones. She was erotically
oriental in appearance from a breed-Indian mother. If not for a lack of
education, she could go far in the Party.
“Sue,” McMasters whispered. “You are an exotic
flower.”
Very pretty, Benny had to agree with the john. He
groaned and remained in the shadows. There was something there that made a man
look once, just to appreciate the form. Then there was something that forced
your eyes at her again.
McMaster couldn’t quite put his long, age warped
finger on it. She had the indescribable, haunting quality of a porcelain May
West. It made a man want to ravage her, then weep because he had destroyed
something incredibly rare and priceless. He groaned, not certain his limping
heart could stand another try.
He wanted to cuddle. To hold and cherish. Only for a
night. Forever.
That he had a loving, statuesque wife at home was
nothing when Sue raised those sad, water-green eyes. Only a fool like her father
could not appreciate Sue.
The john advanced a step, ready to plead his cause.
His knees shook from exertion. He was ready to drop. His heart pounded in a
weak, unsteady thread that promised death was only moments away.
I need your love
more than life itself. One more chance, he pleaded in silent hope. Let
me worship at your altar, Venus of my soul.
Benny scowled. He glanced around to see the shadowed
form of Grampa Waya and clenched his fists. The old fart was smiling at Sue in a
way that would at the very least guarantee a few skull knots from Gramma
Waya’s favorite cast iron frying pan.
Grampa saw Benny scowling and even for a ghost went a
little pale. He winked out shaking a pleading head.
Only a block from the renovated warehouse on the
corner of Sedgely and Third Streets, she could hear them, the kids, singing at
the top of their lungs. Pastor was in rare form this morning. On the few, very
few Sunday mornings she could, she would escape her father and his crowd of bar
buddies and go there. They were like a family in that packed old warehouse,
insulated from a cold, bitter world.
Sue closed her eyes for a moment, trying to shut out
the picture of a greedy old man. His belly sagged despite a regimen of exercise
and diet, his hands soft and sweating even in the damp chill. An old lecher by
anyone’s standards.
Sue wondered briefly, bitterly, if his wife, Nellie,
knew. Or, for that matter, gave a damn. McMasters joked about pilfering the
household budget to pay for his sessions.
She tried, lord knows she tried to believe there was a
God. One who cared, who loved her just because she existed.
A faint grin formed on the full, bruised-rose lips.
The kids in the warehouse were screaming and laughing. One of the preacher’s
plays.
Which skit was it?
She closed her eyes to dream her way into it but her
mind was filled only with the presence of the john and the man’s shaking, deep
breaths.
Small, even white teeth bared to show a small gap in
the middle of the incisors. Her face tightened, the eyes dark and smoldering.
There was a knife on the dresser.
In a husky, Tuscallusa drawl, Sue whispered, “You
done had your time.” One hand crept to fading bruises put on her throat by the
roughrider last night. McMasters’ fellow Juvvie Court judge, Harrison. “Now,
git.” The words grated and choked, they came out a soft gravel, ugly with
promise. The bruises went deep as the jerk tried to keep from going soft before
he finished. Other marks on her body attested to Harrison’s vises.
McMasters gasped. Sue winced. Shoot, he wasn’t that
bad. He was kind enough. Gentle. His body stance spoke of an odd mix of contempt
and pity. She turned from the mirror, her arms coming up to cover breasts bitten
and marked by Harrison and his quirt.
A small movement in the corner distracted her for a
moment. A small frown clouded the lean face. It was that boy . . . A ghost,
may-hap. He was naked but for a black eye patch and a scowl. Crouched there, he
was rock hard and all boy and there was a deep hunger in his remaining eye as he
followed her small movements.
A faint creak of warped floorboards snapped her away
from this waking dream. Fearing it was Harrison she cringed. McMasters’ slowly
shuffling feet crept towards her.
“Ah, Sue,” McMasters whispered, a crooked, gentle
smile on the wrinkled face. “You’re so damned beautiful. If I could, I’d
cover you with emeralds to match the spring green of those lovely eyes. Ah, but
how? You show every mood with those eyes, one moment dark with warning or gray
with storms, the next light and sweet with joy.”
His hands reached out for her.
“No, you’re not angry with me, despite the rage in
them.”
She slipped back, her buttocks pressed against the
dresser and a little of her anger came onto him.
“No, my love. Let’s get to bed. One more time. I
brought my –”
She shook her head and McMasters snapped, “I paid
your father –”
“And you got every penny’s worth, Mr. McMasters.”
Her eyes wandered to the corner but the kid was gone. Sue shivered, rubbing the
goose bumps off of her arms. She glanced back and a smile ticked at the corners
of her mouth. He looked so tragic. McMasters was a sweet old bear. A regular, he
showed up every Tuesday and Sunday like clockwork. But the man could sink her if
he wanted. A kid didn’t dis her high school principal.
A weary, helpless depression moved through her.
One word to a Juvvie cop and she would be back in
front of Harrison. Harrison . . . God help her if that happened again. They
wouldn’t find enough to harvest her blood let alone any organs for the market.
Her last report card, a sheet of plastic with the
recycle symbol in glaring red at the top, lay on the floor where it fell last
night. B-average, an oddity in a time when Condom
101 was the only real course. And, of course, How to Duck Properly During a Drive-by. No repeats for failing
either course. One took you to be sterilized and the other to Hell.
Anger crystallized with small shards of ice.
McMasters was a sagging tower of indignation.
Sue murmured to herself, “You roll with the punches,
baby. You roll with the punches.”
©2003 StoriesByEmail.com
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