Maggie watched Cole and Luana cross the courtyard to the apartment over the garage. She wanted to call her son back. Instead, she comforted herself with the knowledge that Ben Simms would be there; nothing would happen under his watchful eye.
“Gee, Cole, for a minute I thought your ma wasn't goinâ to let you help me with my homework.” Luana laughed. “There was sparks shootin' from her eyes like the Fourth of July. Does she always get jealous when her baby boy is gonna be with a girl?”
Cole bristled. “Cut it out. You don't have a mother, so you don't know how they are. And I'm not her baby boy.”
“Are you a man, then, Cole?” They'd reached the door to the apartment on the far side of the garage. In the shadows Luana turned and pushed herself against him, looking up into his face. “Are you, Cole? Are you a man yet?”
“What do you think?” he growled, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her hard against him so she could feel his erection.
“I think you're impatient, that's what.” She giggled, sliding through the doorway and racing up the stairs.
Cole followed her neat Calvined bottom, reaching for her when she stopped at the top landing.
“Now, you be a good boy, hear?” she said coyly. “I don't want you gettin' all mad at me the way you did day before yesterday. It wasn't nice to leave me out there by my lonesome. I had to walk all the way home.”
“I went back for you, but you'd already left. I didn't know which way you went.”
Luana raised her brows, giving him the wide-eyed innocent expression that Cole knew was just another way of teasing him. There was nothing innocent about Luana.
“Well, never mind,” she told him. “I managed to get back on my own. That's what matters, ain't it? I don't suppose I'm mad at you anymore.”
She led him into the kitchen and saw him wrinkle his nose. The smell of fried onions lingered in the air. “It's my pa,” she said quickly. “He likes them stinky old onions. Sometimes I think I'll never get the smell off me. Did I?” She pushed her palm under his nose, knowing that it held traces of “Djer Kiss.” “Is it in my hair?” she asked, sliding up close and laying her head against his chest. She could feel his heart pounding as though it were going to burst.
“You smell good to me,” he muttered.
“Well, I don't like how this kitchen smells, anyway. Let's go into my room; I want to show you this story I've been readin'. The boy in the picture looks just like you, Cole; that's why I bought the magazine.”
He followed her into the sparsely furnished bedroom. On the narrow iron bedstead were several pairs of socks and the new pink blouse she'd worn to school the other day. Scattered about were schoolbooks and papers, and on the dresser was her hairbrush and a large bottle of shampoo.
Quickly, she reached beneath the mattress and brought out several magazines:
True Confessions, Secret Love, Intimate.
“My pa don't like me readin' these. He says they're dirty.” She giggled. “Maybe they are, a little.” She riffled through the pages. “Here, this is what I wanted to show you.”
Cole sat down on the edge of her bed. He didn't want to look in magazines; he wanted to look under Luana's blouse. She stuck the picture under his nose.
“See, don't he have nice light hair like you? And don't he look a little like you around the mouth? And don't the girl look like me, even a little?”
Cole wasn't sure the boy in the photograph looked like him, although the girl did look something like Luana: long blond hair, full petulant lips, eyes half-closed. But it was what they were doing in the picture that quickened his pulses. The boy was leaning over the girl; he was shirtless, his bare back glistening with sweat. And the girl was lying on her back, one leg lifted to rest on the boy's shoulder, the other wrapped around his waist. Her panties were white, and it looked as though the boy were about to pull them down to see the origin of the darker shadow between her legs.
“Don't you think we look like these two? Don't you.” Luana was saying. “Let's see if we do. I could tilt that mirror and we could see ourselves. Take your shirt off, Cole. I want to see.” She stood and kicked off her sneakers and pulled down her Calvins. She watched for Cole's reaction to her lacy black underpants and was satisfied when she saw him staring at them. “I'll just tilt the mirror this way....” She flopped down on the bed and looked toward the wall. “Yes, that's right. I can see myself. Can you see, Cole?”
He had stripped to the waist; the room air felt chilly against his skin. In order to look into the mirror, he had to lean over Luana, his face very close to her breasts. He saw the playful look in her eyes and took his cue. “Your blouse has to be opened, like the girl in the picture.” He undid the buttons, revealing her flesh inch by little inch.
“Cole! That girl don't have her blouse open all the way!”
“But you do. Here, put your leg up like she does. Is this the way?”
“Cole, don't you be naughty. We're only seein' if we look like the picture.”
“You're prettier than the girl in the picture, Luana. And you have prettier underpants.”
“You think so? Me, too. I got these underpants and bra for you, Cole, with the money you gave me last time. I like having nice things to wear for you.”
“I like when you wear nice things, Luana.” He felt himself become breathless. He was watching her small rounded belly as it moved with each breath. She was getting that look in her eyes that said she wouldn't mind if he touched her.
“Don't we look like the picture? Don't we, though? Look, Cole, look in the mirror!”
He dragged his gaze away from her to the glass on the wall. He found it strangely exciting to see himself there with Luana as though he were only an interested observer. He watched his hands graze over her skin, saw her wriggle beneath his touch. He pulled her bra straps over her shoulder and exposed her breasts. Still watching himself in the mirror, he touched her, seeing the palms of his hands graze over the stiff little nubs of her pink nipples. He saw her watching him, her eyes directed also to the mirror.
“Oooh. It's like being in the movies, ain't it?” She sighed.
This was like no movie Cole had ever seen. He'd only heard about them from the other boys at school. But this had to be better. This was Luana and her beautiful body, lying here with him. It was his own hands touching her, feeling her. He rolled her over onto her side and undid the hooks of her bra, freeing her breasts of their confinements. In the old barn Luana had allowed him to do this, but she'd never let him take all her clothes off. If he stripped her of her panties, she insisted on wearing her bra and blouse. And if it was her breasts she allowed him, then her jeans remained firmly in place. But tonight would be different.
“Cole! What are you doin'! That's not how it is in the picture!”
“You should see some of the pictures in my magazines, Luana. You're a whole lot prettier than any of the girls in those books, too. And they don't wear anything, nothing at all.”
“Nothing! When are you gonna show me? I want to see those pictures.”
“I'll show you, right now. Just keep looking in the mirror.”
Luana turned her head toward the wall, watching him through the mirror. She lifted her hips to allow him to take off her underpants. When he lifted one of her legs and rubbed a knuckle against her, she squirmed and sighed. She liked it when Cole played with her. He wasn't afraid to see what was between a girl's legs, the way Riley was. Riley only wanted to play with her breasts, and sometimes he bored her. Other times he left her, nerves jangling and strung out tight, and she never felt better until she'd had a nice hot bath.
Cole was different. He let her see how much he liked to look at her. And he knew where to touch her, like now. He was making her feel all funny inside, and there was a heat growing at her center. She wanted to press herself against his hand, and she wanted him to kiss her nipples the way he liked to do at the old barn. But she was afraid she was losing control, and that would never do. She liked the power she held over Cole, and if she gave too much too soon, the money and pretty gifts would stop.
“Do I look like the girls in your magazines?” she asked, her voice hardly more than a whisper.
“Better than the girls in the magazines.” Cole's voice was choked. He was mesmerized by the sight of her, by the excitement of being with a girl who was naked. He imagined Luana pressing herself against his hand, allowing him to open her with his fingers. The tension in his loins was becoming unbearable; his jeans were too tight, squeezing him. He explored her sweet pink-lined cleft, feeling her grow wet and warm. He found the place he knew she liked to be touched and then watched the reflection in the glass. Luana's hips began to move, rotating, her legs stretching out, spreading, hiding nothing from his touch or his view. Suddenly, she clamped her thighs shut, imprisoning his hand, squeezing it against her with contractions of her muscles. When the moment had passed, she looked up at him, her eyes languorous and glazed. “You do such nice things, Cole. Such nice things for Luana.”
“Now do something nice for me,” Cole said hoarsely. The rigidness in his loins was unbearable. He grasped her hand and drew it toward him, already anticipating relief.
“No, I can't!” She pulled her hand away as though it had been scorched. “I don't know what time it is!”
“I do. It's early, it's early.” He searched again for her hand.
“No! I have to know exactly what time it is! My pa might come home. I'm always worried about the time, Cole, always!”
Cole glanced at his watch, a handsome gold Piaget. “It's not even nine o'clock.”
“If I had a nice watch, I'd know what time it was.” Luana smiled. “And I could be nice like you want me to be.”
Cole got the message. He dug into his hip pocket. “Here's fifty dollars. Now you can be nice, can't you?”
She stuck the money under her pillow and reached for the belt on Cole's jeans. As her hand searched to free his sex from his jeans, she leaned over him and whispered, “I know how to be nice, Cole. Just you wait. I know how to be very, very nice.”
Â
Ben Simms was almost sober when he drove his pickup onto Sunbridge land. It would be light in another twenty minutes or so. Dawn. Sunday morning. He'd have to sleep an hour or so and go heavy on Scripture to cleanse himself of his animal lust. He was disgusted with himself for doing all the things a man does when he hasn't been with a woman for a couple of months. If a man ever does anything like that to Luana, he thought darkly, I'll kill him with my bare hands and ask questions later.
His stomach felt sour and his mouth tasted the way mouse fur smelled. For a moment he wondered guiltily if Luana realized he hadn't come home last night.
Then he told himself defensively that every man needed to go on a rip every so often. It might be sinful, but it proved he was a man.
He cut the engine of his truck and glided down the little rise leading to the garage. He stumbled out and tried the front door. Good, he nodded in satisfaction. Luana had locked it. He fished around for his key, jiggled it a little, and finally got the door open.
The place looked the same as when he'd left. The dishes from supper had been put away. Luana's schoolbooks, pencils, and notebooks were stacked neatly on the kitchen table. The small living room was neat and the television was off. He walked around the corner and peeked into Luana's room.
She was lying almost spread-eagle, the sheet and light blanket half-on and half-off. She looked like an angel in sleep, he thought. Then he saw black lace panties and a black shoulder strap, and his eyes widened. He walked boldly into the room, staring down at his daughter in her fancy underwear. One lone, shapely leg with a light feathering of pubic hair showing at the panty line made him draw in his breath. Suddenly Luana rolled over, her buttocks exposed, the sheet falling away from her breasts. Anger spilled out of him when one pink-tipped breast escaped its lacy prison.
Ben leaned over, reached for a hank of Luana's hair, and pulled her off the bed. All he saw was pink flesh. “Where did you get those sinful things?” he demanded.
“What sinful things?” Luana asked cursing inwardly for having been dumb enough to put the set back on after Cole had left. “What's wrong, Pa?”
“That underwear,” Ben said through clenched teeth. “You cover yourself back up before I turn your flesh as black as what you're wearin'.”
Luana hastily complied. “Miz Tanner give it to me, Pa. She said it was just to sleep in. She said it cost sixty dollars but don't fit her no more. It's just to sleep in, Pa,” Luana whined. “I wouldn't never wear this under clothes. Never, Pa, I swear it.”
Ben looked down at his daughter's frigntened eyes. Luana never lied to him. If she said Miz Tanner give it to her, then she did. Just for sleeping.
“I don't want to see you in that outfit ever again. You ain't old enough for the likes of that. That's something your ma would have worn. Under her clothes,” he said tightly.
“Well, I ain't like Ma. I just wore it to sleep like Miz Tanner said. You see for yourself, Pa.” She smiled up at him, a sweet, innocent smile. “You want I should make you some breakfast, Pa?” she asked.
Sleep was out of the questionâhe was wide awake now. “Yeah, might as well. Make up a kettle of grits and some bacon and eggs. I'm gonna take a shower. The groceries are in the back of the truck. You can bring them up.”
“Okay, Pa. I'll have it ready by the time you're done shaving. Are we going to church?”