Chapter 2
Myra huddled in the chair, feeling the prickles of rough velour through, her brief panties and all along the backs of her legs, as she hugged her small breasts in child slender arms, trying not to cry. It was hard not to cry when you were barely twelve and you had everything taken away from you, including Mommie.
Mommie was gone. Dead. Though Myra couldn't understand what death was, she knew Mommie was dead. Gone. Taken away in a very long, very black car.
She could remember sitting all that horrible night beside Mommie's bed, holding Mommie's clutching, hot hand, bathing away the beads of sweat on her forehead, wiping at the stuff Mommie coughed up. Then that one, final paroxysm, when Mommie had called out, "No! No! No ! " as if in protest, then had fallen back on the pillow, very still, very quiet.
Myra bad sat there, beside the bed, holding Mommie's hand long. after the doctor had given up trying to shoo her away as he packed his bag and made phone calls. Myra had a momentary panic. Who would pay for those phone calls? And then she knew it wouldn't matter. Mommie wouldn't have to worry about bills any more or how to spend. what little money there was all so that the extra. pennies and dimes and quarters could go into the book Mommie called The Escape Hatch.
Well, Mommie had found an escape hatch. She was gone. And Myra was here, looking up at the two men who frowned at each other and at her. One of them had Mommie's book, looking at it.
It was the fat one, the one with legs that didn't quite measure up to the rest of him. He poked at his nose with his fist. "Well," she almost made it. Another thousand and she and the kid . . . He looked up at the thin one. "Where was she escaping to?"
Myra knew. There was a small farm with a tiny house and a little apple orchard and a vegetable garden, way back in the country. "Off the beaten path, Myra. That's why it's cheap. And that's why we want it. Off the beaten path. Oh", God! Away from men. So we can live clean. So you can stay clean like I never was. Men!"
That was funny. Mommie hated men when she talked to Myra, but she was always having men up for a visit, always careful to shoo Myra out to her cot in what they called the "futility room," mostly because the hot water heater and the refrigerator-freezer and the rusty old spigots were always breaking down.
It was a great joke with Mommie, though Myra never quite understood it. "Don't worry your head, spriggings. It won't always be like this. When we get The Escape Hatch . . . " And Mommie would get that far-away look.
Myra knew what Mommie did with the men that came to visit. She, had peeped. A couple of times. She even knew what it was called. Mommie tucked the men. She had lain on her bed, her legs spread out sometimes naked, sometimes right in her shift hiked up around her bubbies. Mommie had beautiful bubbies, round and firm and tipped with little amber-pink nipples.
Myra slid her eyes from the two policemen and glanced down at her own small breasts huddled inside her best dress. They weren't nearly as large as Mommie's, and the nipples were tiny Just little pimples, really.
The men had straddled Mommie and driven their peckers into her, right between Mommie's legs. And then both of them had squirmed and moaned and jerked and heaved and got all sweaty.
Myra frowned down her front, recalling her own legs and her little pee-hole. How could a man get his pecker in, there? And why would he pay Mommie for letting him get all hot and sweaty and red in the face? But he had. That was how Mommie had paid the bills and put something aside for The Escape Hatch.
The thin policeman leaned over and studied Mommie's book, shaking his head. "And what do we do about the kid? You know what's going to happen if you send her back to that mill town, don't you?"
The one with the short legs nodded. "Sure. Some bastard of an uncle or cousin will screw her inside of three days and right there's the makings of another like the one we carted away." The stout one looked up suddenly, shaking his head. "Not me, buster. Not me. I got sympathy running out of my ears. But I've also got a wife who'd take one look at that jailbait and head for a lawyer."
The thin one nodded. "Yeah. And I got three teen-age boys. Can you see me introducing that little number in my house? She's too cute and too developed. Hell, even I'm tempted. Right here. Right now."
Myra lowered her eyes, looking at her long, slim legs. They were talking about her, about her body, as if it were something apart from her, as if it tempted these men right here, right now, even when she was doing nothing with it. Not even wiggling in the big chair.
It wasn't like that time when Mommie had one of her "gentleman friends" in the living room they hadn't gone to Mommie's bedroom yet -when Myra had to go. Simply had to. She couldn't hold it in a minute longer, so she had scuttled from the "futility room" to the bathroom, passing the open arch to the living room.
On the way back, things weren't so urgent so she didn't run. Not deliberately sauntering, but not dashing past the opening, either, because sometimes Mommie's gentlemen friends were interesting to look at, lean and a little rakish.
Not this one. He was fat and porky, with little squinched-up eyes that spotted Myra, nailing her right in the archway, along with the over hearty bellow of his voice.
"Didn't know you had a kid sister, girlie. That there one's right cute. I could take a piece. of that myself. Even if she is a mite young."
Mommie had flown at him then, yelling at Myra to get back into bed. Mommie had hurried the perky man out, protesting, as she flung his money after him, saying, "And don't come back."
Right after that Mommie had warned Myra to never come past the archway when any of her "gentlemen friends" were there. And she consulted The Escape Hatch book more and more frequently and cried over it a bit, shaking it at the ceiling and talking to somebody up there. "Soon! Soon now! And she'll be free of all this!"
Myra hugged herself closer, feeling the pressure on her bubbies and squeezed her, legs together, so that her little thing, that little pee-hole, was pressed tight together, scratching against the stiff velour of the chair. What were the two policemen going to do with The Escape Hatch? That was Mommie's special secret.
The fat one slapped the book into one hand. "You know what we gotta do, don't you? This goes to the State for probate and the money somehow gets used up, except for a little bit that will go to some slob of an uncle."
"And the kid?" The thin one looked unhappy.
"To the county. Till they ship her back to relatives. And from what we seen here, I know just the kind. Hell, I got out'n one o' them mill towns myself. Just in time to stay honest." He grinned. "If you call being a cop honest."
So Myra passed from social worker to social worker some baffled by her lack of interest in what would happen to her; Why care? The Escape Hatch was gone. Mommie was gone. There was nothing but, aches left behind aches in her stomach, where tons of lead seemed to have settled, and in her heart that still somehow beat in the vacuum of her chest. And aches behind her eyes, from ,trying not to cry, and in her throat, from swallowing sobs before they came out.
Now she was on the bus, in a seat all by herself, headed for those unknown relatives where the social worker, the prim one, had assured her she would be happy. Not that Myra had believed her. There wasn't any happiness left. Just misery enclosed in a young, lush body.
She wasn't even surprised when the man sat down beside her, laughing at her and saying, "Hello, beautiful. This seat taken ? "
Her whole body felt so miserable that she barely noticed the man's hand on her knee, and then only as a little area of warmth in the whole chill of her body. His hand moved up her leg, sliding inside her thigh, pushing up her dress as the man pretended to lean across her, looking out the bus window, as if it was something exciting to see a brown, barren field.
His shoulder brushed her breasts and she tried to shrink back from him, but he leaned against her, pressing her breasts, and down below his hand was moving up her thigh. It was exciting, disturbing. Nobody had ever touched her before. Except Mommie, rubbing her down after a shower.
The man's hand slid over her little pee-hole, starting funny, wiggly feelings all up inside her. And his shoulder kept pressing against her breast, making sudden, hot flashes inside. And when one finger slid into her pee-hole and sort of tickled, Myra gasped, feeling hot sparks run all up her insides.
Then there was the bus driver looming over the man, picking him up by the collar of his coat.
"I seen the whole thing, buster. In my mirror. I'm keeping an eye on the little lady."
"I bet you are." The man tried for a sneer but it didn't quite come off. "Leave me alone. If the little lady has a complaint, let her make it. We were doing all right until . . . "
The bus driver held the man upright in one beefy hand. "The little lady may not look it, but she's just twelve years old. And doesn't need to complain . . . I'm doing it for her."
Passengers were turning around to stare at the man and the bus driver and Myra, who was ducking her head and huddling down so no one would notice her breasts.
"Now, look here, driver." The man was trying bluster. "I'm a paying passenger. You can't assault me like this and . . . "
The bus driver shook the man and marched him on tiptoe to the front of the bus. "You may have paid, but you're not a passenger. Not anymore. Out!" And shoved the man, down the steps, to the roadside.
The man glared up. "Look, I got as much right on that bus as any other passenger."
"Sure." The bus driver leaned out and grinned down at the man. "Get back on . . . and meet her three brothers each bigger'n me at the terminal. And what's left the sheriff can have." He pulled back, offering space. "Step aboard."
The man looked pale . . . "At least give me my bag."
The bus driver swaggered back down the aisle, grinning down at Myra and patting her on the shoulder with an enormous but oddly gentle hand. "I got a kid sister just your age. So I watch 'em. You're okay for now." He reached up and snatched the man's single bag from the rack above and swaggered back down the aisle. At the door the man reached for it but the bus driver swung the bag behind him, then forward and let go. It tumbled through the air, across the ditch and into brambles.
The man was still scrambling up the far side of the ditch, frantically reaching for his bag when the bus pulled out. The passengers strained around to watch him, then turned to look at Myra, curiosity and outrage mingled.
One stout, smiling lady came over and sat down beside Myra. "I'll just rest here a mite. My George, he'll be asleep in three minutes. Always sleeps on buses." The stout lady chuckled. "Come to think of it, he also sleeps in easy chairs, or in front of television, or . . . " She signed. "I reckon he sleeps most of the time. Except when he should. Which is why I got thirteen children." She chuckled again. Which ain't no way to talk before a twelve-year-old, even if you do look a mite . . . " she coughed, "mature."
Myra was a little baffled but grateful. She didn't really know what the stout lady was saying, nor take it in, but it was comforting. And gave her time to get herself together, to quiet the excitement that seemed to emanate from her little pee-hole and under her breasts. It was very interesting excitement, something she had never experienced before and wasn't quite sure whether she liked it or not.