Chapter 11
Embarrassed, looking straight ahead through the van's windshield, Nola sensed the taut anxiety in Fritz Fleming, the fire boss, as he wrestled the vehicle along the winding mountain road. "Are we in danger?" she asked softly, her eyes slanting to watch his long, strong arms twist and yank the steering wheel.
"We sure as hell aren't in for a picnic," Fritz grinned wryly, turning his gaunt face to look at her briefly, his slightly crooked teeth giving his face a wolfish appearance. "That fire is chasing us like a greyhound after a rabbit."
Nola swiveled in the passenger seat to peer through the rear windows, gasped with fright and awe as she saw flames race up a giant fir tree a hundred yards behind them and explode out the top. The fire, fifty yards to their left seemed to be keeping pace with the careening bus.
"It's gonna cut the road," Fritz swore softly.
Nola stared into the back of the bus where the boy, Kenny Callister was sitting on the floor, struggling into his clothes. Terry perched defiantly on a pile of blankets they had brought from the school.
"For crying out loud, Terry," Nola snapped at her, "put on your clothes."
"What the hell for?" Terry retorted contemptuously, seemingly unaware or uncaring about her obscene posture, knees spread, cunny lips parted in a slight pout, the burnished copper mesh adorning them glistening richly in the bus' interior lights. "We're all going to burn up, any way."
"Oh, hell, get your britches on," Fritz said curtly.
Then Kenny grasped the backs of the seats and leaned forward. "Mr. Fleming, can we make it another half-mile along this road? There's a canyon walled by steep, rocky slopes. A small stream runs down through it and there is a road of sorts back into the mountains about a mile and a half."
"Into the mountains we don't need to be going," Fritz said quickly.
"But there is a huge cave in the canyon's dead end wall," Kenny persisted. "I once belonged to a Boy Scout troop in Ogden and we explored it one summer. I think we could get there and be safe from the fire."
Flames were now dancing along parallel with the jouncing van. And the fire was jumping the road just as they passed. Nola thought the fire was all around them as she stared through her window at the reddish-orange curtains to their right.
"Son," Fritz gritted, "I think you better watch sharp and tell me where to turn."
"We're going to die. We're all going to burn up!" Terry screamed from the back of the Dodge.
"Shut up, Terry," Nola yelled, "and put your clothes on."
"Screw it," Terry muttered, but began dressing.
"Around that big shoulder of rock," Kenny yelled, arm pointing through the windshield. Nola nearly toppled from the bucket seat into Fritz' lap as he swung the van to the right.
Flames were darting tongues across the narrow canyon and starting fires on the western slope. Some five minutes later, Fritz exhaled raggedly, a deep sigh of relaxing tension. "I think we've escaped the fire for awhile-if the wind doesn't shift and sweep the flames up this canyon. How far is it to that cave, Boy?"
"I don't know-just keep going," Kenny said dully.
"I'm not going to stop," Fritz swiveled his head to grin at the boy. "Why don't you move to the back windows and keep us posted on what the fire is doing?"
Kenny moved away immediately.
Nola was aware that her racing pulse was beginning to slow. There were no more swirls of smoke in the headlights and the air was cool and clean.
"Nothing much surprises me," Fritz chuckled softly, not turning his head to look at Nola, "but I was kind of shocked, waltzing back into the brush and seeing them. You'd been watching them-all that time?"
"I don't want to talk about it," Nola said curtly, not looking at him.
His amused laugh brought a hot flush to her face and she knew that she was blushing with shame and guilt. Very softly, he teased her, "Hey, don't panic on me like that. Hell, when you gotta take a leak, you gotta take a leak. Fucking is like that, too. When people need a piece of tail and a hot screw, they need a piece of tail and a screw. Son of a gun!"
"Will you please shut up, Mr. Fleming?" Nola said weakly. "I said I didn't want to talk about it."
"The name is Fritz-I told you that, Miss Jones. Nola," he chuckled with easy amusement. Then he leaned forward, body tense, his lanky six-foot frame seemed coiled. "We're running out of canyon. There's the dead end."
He stomped hard on the brake and Terry and Kenny and blankets and packaged food skidded forward. "Hey, Boy, where's that damned cave? Goddamnit, there's fire above us!"
"Swing to the right," Kenny said tersely, "just drive right over the brush and you'll see it."
Nola braced her hands against the dash panel as Fritz shifted into low gear and swung the van sharply, sent it crashing through and over bushes. And there was a great, yawning black maw before them.
"Hope this hole in the hill has a solid bottom," Fritz muttered, aiming the Dodge into the darkness. He didn't stop until the vehicle was at least fifty feet from the opening. "Thank the Lord," Fritz said, voice softly crooning.
"Thank Kenny," Nola smiled tremulously, un-pocketing her flashlight and getting out gingerly. As she wandered around, inspecting the huge cavern, she asked, "Will we be trapped in here very long?"
"Maybe three or four days," Fritz called. "The water in this little stream that runs out of the mountain is cold and good. And we have plenty of food in the van. I think the first thing we better do is get things more or less organized for the rest of the night."
Nola warily strolled toward the mouth of the cave, watched the eerie orangish glow of the fire reflecting into the cave. She turned the flashlight beam on her watch-just a little before midnight. "I think," she called shakily, "I'm too keyed up to sleep."
She returned to the bus and stood watching Terry and Kenny unloading the blankets. She heard Fritz, with them in the van's headlights, agree, "That's right, split this stuff four ways." Then she heard him approaching her. "I'm going to cut the lights pretty soon. We'll need the battery." He passed her without speaking, striding out of the cave. In a few minutes he was back with an armload of firewood. Dropping it, he confronted Nola, "Come on and help me. There's a lot of it just outside the cave. We'll need it for light and to dispel the dampness in here."
Without a word, she followed him, held her arms for him to load them with wood. "How old is Terry?" he asked as they strode side by side back inside.
"Twenty-four, I think," Nola replied absently.
"And Kenny?"
"I don't know," she frowned. "Fourteen or fifteen."
"He's a real good kid-hard worker, husky. Must be built well in other areas, too," he laughed, amusement and mockery in his tone.
And Nola sensed she was blushing again.
While Fritz built a small fire about ten feet in front of the bus, Nola brought a box of sandwiches, four cups and a jug of coffee from the van.
Hunkered about the fire, eating, Terry said, "Kenny and I made down our beds over there. We left the other blankets behind you and Fritz, Nola. Is that okay?"
Nola looked up, saw the spread blankets at the flickering outer circle of the firelight. "Sure," she said dully. "Like I said, I don't think I can sleep."
"Who's going to sleep?" Terry laughed merrily, confidently.
Nola glanced quickly at Kenny who stared into the fire. She resented the warm flush that flowed like a fever through her, from her loins upward into her firm breasts. Her meaning certainly didn't escape Kenny. By the way Fritz lit a cigarette and flipped the match into the fire, she knew he hadn't missed her intentions, either.
Surely, Terry, she was tempted to blurt out, you haven't the gall to strip off your clothes and take this kid between your naked thighs and- fuck? With the rest of us here, watching?
But Terry's smirking smile and the slow, deliberate way she scratched at her crotch answered Nola's question more eloquently than spoken words. Sure, she would!
Nola dreaded the instant when Terry would make her move. Yet, her mind flirted with a morbid expectation. Would Terry and Kenny do it under the blankets-or on top.
"I'm going to turn in," Terry announced abruptly. "Give me a few minutes, Kenny."
For just a moment, Nola studied Kenny's solemn face, saw him lick nervously at his thin lips. The obedient stud, she was strangely envious of Terry's brazenness and forthcoming pleasure.
She stood and turned to spread the blankets allotted her into a pallet.
"Let me show you something," Fritz said, taking off his boots and Levi jacket. Deftly, he rolled his foot gear in the jacket and positioned it under the blankets. "Make a good, makeshift pillow."
Obscurely, Nola heard Kenny moving away from the fire, muted conversation behind her, near the far side of the cave. Her eyes took in Fritz Fleming on his knees beside his own blankets, the lumpy improvised pillow-and the prominent lumpiness elsewhere-in his khaki plants. I bet you could really show me something, she thought dully, perturbed by the drumming pulse beat in her breasts, in her crotch where there was an increasing heat and burning itchiness. She wondered if Fritz could see the throbbing veins in her throat.
Without a word, she turned her back to Fritz, sat on her blankets, drew up her feet and removed her boots and socks. She started to shuffle out of her jacket, felt Fritz' hands at the collar and the cuffs, helping her. "Thanks," she said tersely.
She fumbled ineptly with her boots and jacket, trying to emulate what he had done, then surrendered them to him as he laughed indulgently.
"Don't patronize me," she snapped curtly.
"Never," he chuckled.
Silently, she watched him replenish the fire, go to the van and return with cups of steaming coffee. Before the small campfire blossomed anew, she glanced toward the black, gaping entry to the cave and could see the dancing gleam of the flames outside.
"It's weird and scary," she said, an involuntary shudder vibrating through her body. She watched the tall, lean woodsman rise lithely to full height.
"Doesn't seem to bother Terry and Kenny," he laughed, low and amused.
Nola turned her head and squinted, trying to see beyond the campfire. Her heart bounced when Terry called out musically, "Hey, Kenny! You aren't going to sleep in your clothes, are you!" In a moment, she yipped gleefully, "Hey! That's the boy-man!"
She watched Fritz step around their spread blankets and strolled toward the van, balancing a cup of coffee in his right hand while he lit a cigarette.
"Get under the blankets-with me," Terry yelped. "Hurry-before your nice doggie catches distemper. And I got a nice doggie house under the blankets for him-all warm and fur-lined," she added.
Dumbly, Nola got to her feet and trailed Fritz to where he stood, a hand braced on the bus. Terry, you're a slut, she frowned, disgusted at the surge of excitement and anticipation that sprang from her aching loin upward through her flat tummy and into her hard-tipped breasts.
They're going to fuck, she whispered to herself. Right here and now-with us watching them.
She stood close beside Fritz, breathing hard and fast. She stole a glance at his face, surprised it wasn't gleaming with carnal appetites. But his features, sharp and craggy, were relaxed.
Amused, tolerant lights shone in his pale blue eyes. Stealthily, she lowered her gaze to the normal tenting of his pants, surprised and puzzled there was no abnormal bulge of genitals.
For a moment, Nola cowered as he loafed a long arm across her shoulders-companionably. No more in the gesture than if they were watching a tennis match. But that was no tennis match going on under the agitated blankets not fifteen feet from them. There were two fuzzy balls in play-and they were supplying the racket!
"A penny for your thoughts, Nola," Fritz whispered.
"Those I would sell you," she said, trying to be blase. To herself, she said, There isn't anything else of mine I'll sell you-at least not that cheaply.
"I'll pay you the penny tomorrow," he said with mock solemnity.
"I was thinking how brash and brazen they are-how lewd," she said hesitantly.
Before he could reply, Terry complained loudly, "Damnit, these blankets gotta go!" And there was a stormy thrashing and she kicked them away, leaving them both exposed, the naked youth between her splayed thighs, her feet jostling in the air above his lean, loping ass. "Come on, Stallion, get it in the old corral and let's ride the range together."
Kenny heaved forward over her, rolling her ass high as he barreled her back on her shoulders. "Oooohhhh, booooyyyy, you hit my hot little fuck-hole that time," Terry shrieked with delight. "Hunch me again-hard. Come on! Wait! Let me get my fingers on your pecker and guide it- you slipped out. Now! Plunge the prick to me."
Nola was uncomfortably aware of pricklings and tinglings of passion needling deep in her itching, burning vagina. Am I jealous of Terry -lying over there on her back, her feet kicked high in the air, with that kid between her thighs and jabbing his rock-hard penis into her?
Terry's cajoling whimperings seemed loud and distorted in the cave. "Come on, Kenny, brace your feet and force your cock into me. This is wonderful . . . Uh-uh-ugh . . . Ooohhh, your prick is big and my pussy is so tight. Faaaannnn-tastic! I feel it going now. So tight-so hard. I feel like your prick is really stretching my juicy little fuck-hole."
Nola was aware of a seepy, slimy hotness in her skivvies as she watched the boy's bobbing ass as he labored over Terry's supine body. The boy's grunts were deep and guttural, mingled with Terry's carnal, depraved pantings.
Nola's legs felt wobbly and muscles twitched in her thighs. Her buttocks tensed in hard bunches, the crack pinched tight over her butt hole. The squirmings of passion in her insides were almost maddening and her mind seemed to glaze with erotic yearnings.
She inhaled deeply and knew that Fritz must smell her musky female aroma. She knew, at his slightest urging, she would retreat to the blankets, lie down, let him strip her, would spread her legs and invite him on her to screw his cock deep into her succulent cunny.
The slosh-squish, slosh-squish of Kenny's prick gliding in and out of Terry's pussy was like a rhythm instrument supporting her high-pitched mewlings and squealings and whinings, encouraging him to "POUR THE PRICK TO ME!" she yelled suddenly, body humping frantically under him as she orgasmed.
A temptation that seemed to curdle her blood almost lured Nola across the short, intervening space so she could observe the lascivious meshing of boy and woman. But she drew back, instantly afraid she would break and ask Fritz to give her some.
The petting of Bob Chapman had never aroused her passions as they were from watching the young boy pump the prick into the immodest Terry.
Weakly, she sank to her blankets and watched Fritz join her with a mingling of eagerness and apprehension. "You virgin?" he asked quietly.
"Shit," she breathed. "I know what it's all about." She succumbed to the desire to tell him a little about herself. "I told someone I lost my- maidenhead-to a student in college. Not exactly the truth."
"Younger, huh?" Fritz guessed.
"Twelve," Nola replied.
"I was fourteen," Fritz responded, as if they were both confessing tragedies. He gestured with his coffee mug. "They turn you on, don't they?"
Nola bit the tender inner lining of a cheek. She exhaled slowly. "Goddamn! You've heard of sympathetic illness? Where a person suffers the symptoms of sickness of a friend?" She laughed self-deprecatingly. "I can feel it-his prick punching me."
Nola was dizzily aware of Fritz' hands undoing her clothes, but she remained stoic, if not calm. A delicious shiver went through her as she felt the faint draft of the cave against the bare skin of her back. "I was twelve, the first time. An uncle did it to me," she said, voice dreamy, docilely shifting her body about so he could strip her down to bra and wet panties.
"I lost my cherry in tent-church," Fritz said. "There was a revival meeting in this little town. There was a woman minister. She was about forty and holier than thou. And there was a 'sister'-about twenty-five. She was in charge of distributing hymnals and passing the collection plates and played the out-of-tune piano and led the singing."
Nola was silently, locked her fingers, arms folded around her updrawn knees. She mumbled "don't," but didn't mean it as he slipped the hooks of her bra. She stiffened as he eased the halter forward to free her luscious breasts from the cups, but she deigned to let him pull the straps from her arms, keeping her hands clasped.
She dropped her face to watch his hands mold around the sloping cones of her tits, his fingers and thumbs forcing the nipples to ripe, tumescent points. "Do you enjoy this?" she challenged him.
"As long as you do, sure," he said, mouth close to her face, breath blowing softly in her right ear. "About the nicest set of jugs I ever had my fingers on."
Without moving in protest, Nola said, "You aren't-we aren't going to do anything," she whispered. "Don't get the idea we're going to do what Terry and Kenny are doing."
"Not going to do what?" he laughed softly, fingers dipping under the waistband of her moist skivvies. She shuddered with pleasure as one of his fingernails dug delectably into her belly button and little spasms of erotic fantasies ping-pinged deep in her loins.
"Not going to-fuck," Nola said poutily, damning her obliging knees for drifting apart to permit him to palm the upward curve of her pussy. "Oooooohhhhh," she sighed, toes curling as he ran a finger deeply into her sex-hissing vulva and scraping her tumid clit.
"Want to tell me about your first time?" Fritz encouraged.
"Do you want to tell me about yours?" she retorted.
"You first," Fritz needled, his left arm, supporting her back as she tossed her head back as he began finger-fucking her slowly.