Chapter 3

JOCK FELL INTO A CHAIR BESIDE ZOE AND demanded gruffly, "What's the idea of pulling out your tits for every horny guy here to suck on?"

She seized the gold handkerchief and thrust it into the crevice between her big round breasts, smoothing it out to cover as much of the great fullness as possible. She said, "I didn't-pull them out, Jock. Clitey did."

His lips set grimly. "Yeah, she'd do that. She paints her own tits gold and dangles them into every guy's hands and mouth. If a woman ever raped her men, your sister Clitey does."

"I know."

"Are you going to paint your tits gold and tease all the men with them?"

"God's sake, no! I'm not like Clitey, Jock. Honest, I'm not. You know you're the only man who ever ... took me to bed. You-forced me."

"Sure I know that, baby. And when I know you better, I'll tell you the truth about me. When I do, you won't think I'm quite as much of a heel as I'm damned sure you do now."

"Jock, I-I already know it."

His face colored a little. "You couldn't know what I'm talking about. Nobody knows it but me."

"Link knows. He told Clitey and she told me. They laughed about us both being ... virgins. She said they thought it was 'sweet' that we broke each other in."

The boy's face grew redder and redder, until his neck and even his ears seemed ready to burst. "You mean they had the nerve to--? "

"They certainly did. And maybe it was natural, or anyway understandable, that they would. I'm Clitey's 'Little Sis', and Link-likely thinks of you as his baby boy."

"Yeah, I suppose he does ... Well, if they could have seen us going for it, they'd have known we were plenty old enough to work off a hard one, wouldn't they?"

She protested, "J didn't go for it-you did! I thought you were ... killing me!"

He grinned delightedly. "Yeah, I sure took you down and screwed you good, didn't I? And I've got a pecker to be proud of, haven't I? I've seen it beside other guys' petes, in men's rooms and other places, and I've never spotted one any bigger than mine-lots of them not near as big. Hey, baby, I hope I didn't really hurt you bad. Did I?"

She shook her head indifferently. "No. After I'd had a bath and soaked my ... middle real good, I found out it wasn't cut up as bad as I'd thought it would be. I guess it just hurt to be broken into for the first time."

"Yeah, and by such a big hard one, baby. Look, Zoe, don't you think you'd like to have it all the time?"

She went tense. "No I Don't you ever even suggest screwing me again! Why, God's sake, I wouldn't let you-"

"Baby, it's not rape when you're married. And, like I told you afterward, I sure wish you'd marry me." His voice dropped to a plaintive note, and she. suddenly realized how young he was; how defensive, how eager to be a man who could be desired and loved by a woman.

He begged, "I'll be good to you if you'll marry me and go home with me, baby. I'll screw you easy, let you learn to want it before I jump on you again like I did the first time. And I'll be good to you in other ways. We'll have a hell of a good time, up in the plains and breaks of the Panhandle, taking care of the birds."

Zoe didn't answer him for a minute. Her mind was running too fast for words, the thoughts crowding in on her fears and emotions.

She didn't love Jock Tawnley; she didn't believe she ever could. He simply was not the type of man she had always been sure she could warm up to, could thrill to the touch of, could welcome the prick of. He was too boyish, too uncertain, and too boastful.

Yet, if she married him and they made a serious effort to love each other, and if he would be as good to her as he was saying he would, courting her as a wife instead of a sweetheart, well, then who could tell what would happen between them?

And the Tawnley Feather Farm sounded like paradise. Certainly it would be freedom from this lousy house, from Clitey and the strings of men she took to bed, from the baring of Zoe's breasts and the ravishing of her crotch, and from the permanent role of professional prostitute that Clitey seemed to intend to make her into.

Being married to this clear-eyed boy, even though she might have to open up to his over-sized pecker every night, might not be so bad. A girl could learn to put up with a pecker, to like it, finally to want it and grab onto It. and pull it into her crotch. And whether she was ever able to achieve that happy state or not-well, God's sake-it would be a damn lot better than taking on the hundreds of peckers that Clitey would shove at her if she stayed here.

There was only one thing that scared her, more than she'd ever been scared in all her life before ...

She asked quickly, breathlessly, "Jock, what about Link? Is he at home a lot?"

"No, he's gone more than half the time. Why?"

"I'm ... afraid of him, Jock. His eyes-they terrify me! I can't explain it, but I-"

"You don't need to explain it to me, baby. I've lived with him as long as I've lived anywhere, and I know what he's like. He's tough as hell, and all the people who work for him are scared of him well, anyway, everybody except Mendez. That damned Mex wouldn't be scared of God and the devil rolled into one. But Link doesn't bug me-probably because he's never been mean to me. I'm his only kid, and that makes me a privileged character around the place. You'll be privileged too, if you're my wife."

"But you said that Link doesn't like women, that he doesn't want any women living there."

"That's right, but he'll let you stay there. He'll have to, because he said I could marry a virgin if I. could find one. And Clitey told him you'd never been screwed till I got you. He won't go back on his word. If Link says something, he sticks by it."

"What do you do on your feather farm?"

"Well, I've just done odd jobs up to now, whatever chores Link handed out to me. I just graduated from high school last June. Link wants me to go to the university, but I've told him a dozen times that I don't give a damn about any more education. And when I've got a wife, and maybe kids-why, I'll want to make a living for them."

"Will you work at the farm? Do you want to stay there?"

"Sure, why not? It's the prettiest place in the world. And Link said, a while back, that if I decided against college for sure, then I could take my pick of jobs at home. I've always typed letters and stuff for Link, so I could be his secretary. I've done a lot of his ordering, so I could be head of his supply department. There are a lot of other possibilities. He'd shuffle his other help around to give me whatever work I wanted."

"It must be a big operation."

"Hell, it sure is. Wait till you see it ... And you will see it, won't you, Zoe, baby? You will marry me and go there to live?"

She still hesitated. One tumble in the sack didn't make for affection-especially when the tumble was by two virgins, with one of them raping the other.

She said, "You know something, Jock? You've never even kissed me. You've been my lover and you say you want to be my husband. But you've never kissed me."

His face was afire. "I know, love. And I'm sorry as hell about it. I was so sure you were a whore. And nobody kisses whores. But now that I know you were my very own little virgin, I'll kiss you as much as you want me to." He leaned toward her, his arms closing with her inside them.

She tried to push him away. "Not here, Jock!"

"Hell, why not here? Nobody is paying any attention to us. We could get right down here on the floor and screw for dear life, and they'd never even see us. They're all too busy playing with Clitey's tits, and trying to gamble a thousand dollars into fifty thousand."

"Okay then. Kiss me. If I like it-"

"You'll like it, baby, I kiss good. And this will be the best kissing I ever did."

She didn't know whether it was his best, but it certainly outdid any kiss she'd ever had before. His mouth almost literally consumed hers, and his tongue seemed to reach halfway down her throat. One of his hands crept under her dress and inside her panties, touching her crotch, welling warmth and moisture into it, and his other hand pressed against her back so tightly that her breasts were crushed on his chest. She could feel the racing of his heart, and her own answering beat. She knew it was pure animal passion, not a woman's lifetime affection, but it was with her nonetheless, letting her respond to his kiss. She gave herself to it then, answering with her own tongue, her own heat, her own hand against the front of his pants where his pecker was pressing the cloth, almost hard enough to burst through it, The kiss went on and on, until she was dizzy, and until the boy was shaking feverishly. He let her go quickly then, moaning, "If we don't stop, we'll be on the floor I And I don't reckon you could stand it for me to put it to you again this soon, could you?"

"Oh, no Jock I-I just couldn't. Give me a few days ... let me wait till we're married."

His face lighted. "Our kiss was okay then? You'll marry me?"

She touched his lips with her forefinger and then carried the dampness of it to her own mouth. "It was the best, and the biggest, kiss I ever had, Jock, It made me want to take a chance on marrying you. Maybe we can learn to love each other after we're married, if we try hard enough and long enough."

"Sure we can, Zoe, love." He put his hand on hers gently, tenderly. "Gads, I think I love you already, baby. If I don't, I'm damn close to it."

Suddenly his touch tightened. "Hey, baby, we could fly to Nevada tonight, get married without waiting, and be back here in the morning. Nobody'd even notice we were gone. Let's do it!"

"Can we leave without telling Clitey and Link? Won't they have to give their permission before we can get married? I'm only sixteen. And you can't be much older."

"I'm eighteen. But we'll say I'm twenty-one and you're eighteen. Nobody out there will give a damn whether we're lying or not. They'll marry us okay."

"Wait a minute, Jock, I have to know this ... Will you-will you really leave me alone-until I have time to ... to get over the way you raped me? I'm not hurt real bad, but I'm so sore I just couldn't let you do it to me again right away."

"Okay, okay, love. We won't screw until we get to the farm, not unless you want to. I won't touch your crotch unless you ask me to-till I get you in my own bed, the bed that'll be ours ... Come on, love. Let's head for Reno or Las Vegas, whichever has the first flight out!"

They slipped out the one door to the Corral and up the half-flight to Reem's post. The guard waved them past, grinning slyly. Jock hugged Zoe happily. "That guy thinks we're going upstairs for some more illegal sex. He doesn't know that we're going to get ours legally from now on."

At the airport they found a plane leaving for Vegas in fifteen minutes and took it. Jock said he wished they could fly their own ship, but he and Link and Mendez were in one of Link's cargo planes. They'd delivered a load of fighting cocks to Juarez and were on their way home when they stopped off for a night at Clitey's. Usually Mendez made the delivery of birds to Mexico alone, but this time Link had decided to come along at the last minute, and had brought Jock with him.

As Zoe and jock settled into their plane seats for the trip to Vegas, he told her, "I've never had buddies, or ever close friends. Link didn't want me bringing kids home, and I couldn't go to their houses without having them back. I never minded too much though, because I knew the kids wouldn't have any fun at our place."

"Why not? You said it was beautiful there. And big. And rich. So what?"

"Well, Link-likes us to keep to ourselves, you know. He treats unexpected company real lousy-usually he orders them to get out. Unless a visitor is there to buy birds or conduct some other business, Link doesn't want him around. And Mendez-well, that Gole Mendez is the meanest son-of-a-bitch on earth. He'd as soon kill a guy as to light a cigarette. Everybody in Wayside Corners-that's the little town we're closest to-hates his guts. And they don't like Link much better, because he's never been friendly to anybody in town."

Zoe felt a faintness, a sickness inside. "You ... you frighten me, Jock! I don't want to live in a place where the boss hates women and the foreman hates everybody. I don't want to-"

"Now, now, love, it's like I told you. Link won't let anything hurt me-or you either. I'm all he's got, and he won't let us get into trouble." He pulled her face to his and kissed her deeply. "I'm just telling you all this to show you how alone I've been all my life. Link never says he gives a damn about me. Nobody has said they loved me since my mother died when I was six. You'll be the first person to love me and let me love you. It'll be ... well, it'll be damn near heaven to me, love."

He kissed her again, and she returned his kiss. But she could not help thinking, What kind of place is the Feather Farm, really? Why should Link hate visitors? What is going on with that horrible Mendez man that was screwing some woman named Tutie Bear? Are he and Link mixed up in some crime that they can't afford to let anybody off the farm find out about?

What will happen to me if I go there to live? But, what will happen to me if I stay here with Clitey?. . . So what damn choice have I got?