Chapter 5

The cruelties of the night were emphasized by the bleakness of the day. Myra awoke to pain. Her groin ached with the brutal misuse of her virginity. The ache spread upward, through her stomach, and downward, through her legs. The muscles of her back felt bruised and drawn. She rolled over, wincing with the pains that shot through her, and tried to sit up. For a moment muscles refused to obey, and she moaned.

Lem laughed, ugly and high. Myra opened her eyes and saw him, dressed, squatting on his heels by the pile of grimy blankets. He whinnied again with nasty laughter. "Know you been screwed, doncha? You'll git over it. And beg for more. At's the way it is with girls. Think they don't want it, pertend they don't and ails time itchin' for it. But once they has it, ain't no stoppin' 'em. Look at Connie. Didn't want it, no how. But now? She'll fuck at the drop of a hat. An' if a guy ain't got a hat, that's all right, too. She'll fuck. Loves it. Like you're gonna. After a few more times." He grinned, what he probably imagined was aningratiating grin. "You'n me, we gonna do jess fine. Seas fine.

Myra stared at him, feeling revulsion churn at her insides. "We're not. You hurt me. You and Uncle Ben. I hate you. Both, of you. And I never, never want to do that again. Never."

Lem sprang up, laughing. "Oh, you'll fuck again. Lotsa times. You're built for fucking." He flipped an insolent hand at her and trotted out of the room.

Myra sat up, staring around the dilapidated room, the cracked and peeling walls, the gray, unwashed windows, her eyes carefully avoiding the huge sagging old bed and the gross figure of Uncle Ben slumped at the edge, his hairy legs splayed out.

Sissie, the simple one, was seated on the pile of blankets near Myra, staring with blank, lack-luster eyes at nothing.

"Maw ! " Jessica was whining and pointing. "Sissie's peein' in bed again."

Well, whyn't you take her outside? I kain't be responsible fer that chile alla time."

"It's Connie's turn." Jessica said it peevishly grabbing Sissie's limp wrist, hauling the unresisting body to a crouching, shambling waddle. Yellow liquid dribbled from gray, sodden panties and ran down the child's fat, whitish legs.

Aunt Louisa slumped. in the, doorway, scratching absently under her ribs, so that her dress, filthy and sleazy, hiked up rhythmically, exposing swollen, blue-veined knees. As the two girls shuffled around her, she gave each an impartial swat on the rump, sighing, "That chile." She swung around and followed them at a tired shuffle. "Gonna fix brekfuss."

"Where can I take a bath?" Myra called to her, feeling the stickiness of her legs, smelling the sharp, ainmoniac odor of her own body.

Aunt Louisa stopped, turning to stare at Myra. "A bath?" As if it were something she had heard tell of but never quite believed in. She paused, eyes filming, as if she were trying to recall hearing of such a request before and where it could possibly be satisfied. "Paw was aiming to fix up a tub in the lean-to but he ain't never got around to it."

"You know I been busy. Ain't had the time."

Uncle Ben made it a martyr's statement. "Been busy."

"For sixteen years ? " Aunt Louisa managed weary scorn before she started her shambling walk across the dog-trot toward the kitchen. Over her shoulder she flung at Myra. "They's a wash tub in the outhouse. Ask your Uncle Ben to fetch it."

"You know I kain't. Ain't got the time. Cotta git me downtown in my truck and git me some business. Cotta support this yere family, ain't I?"

"Be the first time. Wasn't for Jed's pension, we'd starve." Over a slumped shoulder she explained to Myra. "Jed was my first husband. Got hisself kilt in Korea." As of briefly cheered by the prospect of telling this grievance to new ears, Aunt Louisa turned back, leaning In the doorway. "On'y reason Ben married up with me. That and Lem was coming. Wislit I'd a took the lump sum and gone off with your maw."

"I done the right thing by you, didn't I?" Uncle Ben spoke with lofty disdain. "Didn't have to, did I? Seem as it warn't certain Lem was mine."

"He's yourn, all right. Looks and mean disposition they's yourn, all right." Cheered by what she obviously considered a fitting retort, Aunt Louisa turned and shuffled off.

Uncle Ben glared after her and then turned to fasten his bleary eyes on Myra, twisting his heavy face into a grin. "Hi, kid. You'n me we had us a high ole time last night, didn't we? Gonna do it again. Gonna really learn you how to screw, real good. Yessiree!" He licked fat, petulant lips, his eyes squinted, staring at her legs, traveling up her, to fasten on her breasts. "Yeah, you got 'em. Nice titties."

For a moment he seemed to forget her, struggling into faded, torn overalls, pushing his pendulous belly and tucking it in, as he wrestled into the shoulder straps, working them over the grimy remains of an undershirt.

Myra backed up, working her aching legs to push her back to the wall, pulling futilely at her shortie to cover herself, miserable with the drying, sticky reminders of last night's foulness. "Please, could I have a bath?"

"Now I been studyin' that. Jess that. The kids generally goes down to the crick . . . But I tought jess tought fix up that ole waslitub. An help you." He licked his lips, grinning. "An' scrub your back . . . and them titties."

Breakfast was another misery for Myra, eating cereal lumpy oatmeal that almost gagged her out of a bowl that still had remnants of past breakfasts welded to it. And feeling all the time the eyes of Uncle Ben and Lem coursing over her breast as they shoveled food greedily, chomping heavy jaws and swallowing with great swelling gulps.

Uncle Ben aimed his spoon at Connie. "You take Myra down to the crick. She wants to bathe." As if this were a peculiar and not necessarily commendable ritual.

"I'll go. To show. you the way." Lem smirked. "The way to bathe. In the crick. It's tricky."

"You ain't goin' to no crick this day, Lem." Uncle Ben said it with angry belligerence. "Gotta have a helper on my truck, don't I? Else how'm I gonna make me some money, now we got an extra mouth to feed."

Jim and Jessica broke into a chant, apparently simultaneously inspired. "We're goin' to the crick! We're goin' to the crick! We're goin' to the crick."

Aunt Louisa looked up from pecking at her food. "Better take Sissie. She's gettin' kinda ripe."

"Aw, Mom!" Connie whined a protest. "Us'ns kain't have no fun with Sissie along. You gotta watcher alla time, else she'll walk in over her head. An she ain't got sense enough to come up."

Aunt Louisa sighed wearily. "Ain't goin' for fun. Myra wants to bathe." She looked vaguely around. "Might even find some soap."

"Soap ! " Connie regarded this amenity with scorn and then looked at Myra with awe, as a person who actually used soap. "Us'ns scrub down with sand." And then added with truthfulness, "Sometimes."

Myra was too miserable, too uncomfortable with the stickiness on her legs and around her privates to protest this mass expedition for a bath. She just wanted to be clean, as if, with water she could wash away some of the ugly memories of the night before. Just to be clean again! And forget the two men who had used her body, the body that had so treacherously betrayed her by wanting the very thing she hated.

The expedition was halted for a moment as Connie giggling, told them to-wait. She had to speak to someone. And she ran into a house down the lane.

Sissie came to a shambling halt as soon as Connie's leading hand was gone and simply stood, staring at nothing, her mouth working as if she still chewed on some of the lumpy oatmeal.

Jim and Jessica flopped on the side of the path, limp, seemingly boneless. Jim looked up at Myra, at the edge of her skirt and then on up, stopping at her breasts. "I'm gonna be a submarine and go way down deep and blow everybody up with bombs."

Jessica rolled her eyes in mock coquetry. "Connie's gone to see her boyfriend. So's he'll come down. Reckon they'll screw behind the laurels. Thinks we don't know. I watched 'em plenty times. Joe's got a big pecker and makes her squeal."

"Aw, he ain't so much ! " Jim disparaged the absent Joe. "It ain't no bigger'n Lem's if as big."

Jessica defended the absentee. "He couldn't get it in me. It's big!"

Jim rolled over and hit his sister alongside the head. "You ain't supposed to screw yet. Ain't I tole you? Except me."

Jessica pounded her brother's chest with puny fists. "He ast me, didn't he? And was gonna gimme a dime."

Jim sat up, scowling. "Whacher do with the dime? I ain't never seen you spending no dime."

Jessica shrugged. "Well, he couldn't, so he didn't give me it"

Jim nodded at this display of wisdom and canniness. "On'y he shoulda give you something, jeas for tryin'. "

Myra, in her brief existence, had not known many children, except at school where behavior, if not exemplary, was at least supervised by adults who wouldn't have stood for such behavior. Outside of school she had lived with and for Mommie. They had been a complete and satisfactory unit. So she didn't know if other children dealt this casually with sex. She didn't think so. Such casual concupiscence would certainly have been surreptitiously whispered around the playgrounds. And yet maybe that was why Mommie hadn't wanted her out playing with other children, so she wouldn't learn these things.

It never occurred to Myra that her mother was trying to protect her from the truth about herself, the knowledge that she was a whore. Children seemed to learn those things and were thoughtlessly cruel in taunting another child.

But these children seemed to regard sex as some kind of game, an integral part of their lives. And now, at twelve, Myra had been forced to learn to know more than she ever wanted to know about sex, the meanness and ugliness of it. And she didn't intend to learn more.

Connie came bouncing back, her flabby bosom shaking as she moved. She was smirking, a very private, very smug smirk. "Let's go." And hauled the flaccid, dull Sissie to her feet.

As they approached the swimming hole Jim ran ahead, shedding his shirt as he went, shouting, 'Last one in is a mother-fucking dog!" and disappeared behind a clump of bushes. Almost immediately there was a splash and shout.

Jessica, a little late because she was studying the clothes Myra wore, ran after him screaming, "Wait up! Wait up for me!" when it was obviously too late.

Connie led the placid Sissie around the clump of bushes and Myra followed, to discover the cleanest place she had seen yet in this new, grimy environment into which she had been thrown.

Here the stream widened into a pool of clear water where Jim was cavorting in midstream, waving his arms in a great pretense of drowning. Then, with horrible gurglings, he surface dived, showing his skinny bare rump.

Jessica was already peeling out of her dress and wading out, naked, to scream at Jim to wait up for her.

Connie led Sissie to the water's edge and shoved her down. The girl sat placidly, her legs extended into the water, her hands patting the surface in aimless pleasure. Connie herself hauled her dress over her head and stood on the little beach, naked, peering around expectantly.

She glanced over at Myra who was still silently admiring the beauty of the little cove. "Aincha gonna bathe? Then git undressed." She turned around, perring back at the bushes, preening her heavy flabby body and lifting her arms so that the flabby breasts tightened. "Go on. Git undressed."

Jim had surfaced and was watching her intently, as if awaiting a moment of revelation. He added his shrill voice to Connie's. "Go ahead: Git naked! The water's swell."

The water, she decided, would be some protection from the basilisk stare. She stripped, stepping out of her panties with difficulty, trying to balance on one leg in the loose sand. She paused a moment at the water's edge, testing it with her toe. It was cold. With a shiver she stepped forward. And stopped, turning as Connie hailed someone. It was a boy, towheaded, stocky, grinning around the bush.

Connie clumped playfully up the strip of sand, twisting and turning her body in massive coyness. "I tole you she was cute, din't I? Din't I?"

"Yeah." The boy came around the bush, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts. At least they were clean. He was shorter than Lem and wider across the shoulders. And brown where Lem was a fish-belly white. "Yeah! She's cute, all right." He ignored Connie's display of charm and passed her, walking toward Myra. "I'll give you a quarter for a screw."

"Hey!" Connie was indignant. "You ain't never give me nothin'. "

With brutal indifference he passed her, his eyes on Myra. "Who needs to?" He grinned at Myra. "Hows about it? Two bits, cash money, for a fuck."

It was Myra's first experience with the commercialism of sex. But it was to be far from the last.