Chapter 5

Barbara didn't know how she mustered the courage to show up for school on Monday. She couldn't bear the thought of looking Sonny in the eye, and though she'd made him promise he would never tell anybody what had happened between them, she was deathly afraid of what she would find when she did finally have to face him and his more worldly classmates. But by the time her initial class period was completed, she was sure from the lack of any change of attitude toward her on the part of Bobby and the other's that Sonny hadn't talked. As for Sonny himself, he sat in his front row seat, looking at her smugly though she consciously avoided meeting his gaze, even when he volunteered to make a comment on the material they were studying at that time.

After class, the students shuffled out in their usual noisy manner. Bobby winked at her as he went out the door, eliciting a few guffaws from his companions. Dora Maples, a rather simple and plain but well meaning junior girl who worked hard at her studies, lingered to ask a couple of questions. Then, after she'd told the girl what she wanted to know, Sonny came back in from the hall, looking somewhat less smug and self-satisfied than he had when the class began.

In spite of her nervousness and embarrassment, Barbara did everything she could to maintain her self-control and authoritative air as the young boy walked toward her desk, a nervous, hopeful smile on his face.

"Sonny?" Barbara asked in a terse voice. "Is there something you want to know about what we discussed today? Or about your assignment for tomorrow?"

Sonny frowned as though with incomprehension. "Naw, I understand all that. That's kid's stuff. But.. . "

"But what Sonny?" Barbara asked, her arms folded across her breasts, her lovely face a cold hard mask.

"But . . . you acted like you didn't even know me today. After . . . "

His voice trailed off and Barbara finished the sentence for him. "After last night?"

"Yeah."

Barbara was doing everything she could to maintain her control over her own emotions, but she was sure that still none of her inner turmoil showed in her face. "Sonny. I told you that what happened last night was an accident. It won't happen again."

"Accidents can happen twice," he ventured.

"Yes. Some accidents. But not that." The self-composed young blonde took a deep breath. "Now Sonny, I don't want you staying after class to talk to me about that. I want you to forget it happened. And if you have any respect for me at all, the most you can do is just promise you'll never, never tell. I know you could blackmail me, but that wouldn't work either. If anyone but me or you ever even shows a sign of suspecting that, I will simply leave. Do you understand?"

"I . . . guess so. But . . . can I come over again tonight?"

"No you can't come over again tonight!" she snapped, her voice raising slightly. Then she repeated more softly: "No Sonny, you can't come there again. That's all there is to it. Now go. I have work to do."

He came to her place again on Wednesday night. She had been living like a hermit the last two days. As soon as school was finished she would go to the grocery store for her food, then go home and enclose herself for the night, curtains drawn, doors and screens locked. Her work, those two nights, became her life; the television, her remorse and her lingering still unsated need. She lived in silent and lonely suffering, but it was a suffering and solitude she knew she deserved. She felt cut off, not just from the school but from the whole human race, like a leper.

Barbara was just finishing a minute steak and a plate of scrambled eggs when she heard the knock on the door, which that evening she recognized immediately as Sonny's. Her first thought was not to answer it, but she rejected that immediately, deciding instead that she would strive for one last confrontation with the youngster with whom she'd acted so lasciviously during her moment of weakness. But just for good measure she left the screen latched and talked to him through it, explaining as calmly as she could that it was just because she did like him that she couldn't let him in the house. Then she hit the clincher: "What would your grandmother think if she knew what you did to me the other night?"

Sonny's eyes widened with fear at the very thought and through the screen Barbara saw his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed. "God, she would just die. Or kill me, I don't know which."

"And that is why I can't see you here anymore. There are never secrets in a small town like this. And if you won't keep mine, I can't keep yours."

After a bit of further, but weaker protest and pleading, Sonny left. Barbara walked, her shoulders shaking with sobs, back down the hall to the living room and the TV set that had become her only companion.

On Friday night the football season opened. The temperature had cooled slightly and the sexy blonde English teacher, happy for a chance to get out of her house without having to worry about confronting Sonny, who of course had his duties on the sidelines and playing field, was comfortable in a light sweater and ankle length sheath skirt that somehow made her feel slightly less vulnerable to the stares and catcalls of a group of drunken loggers sitting several tiers below her.

Halfback Danny Morrow took Winders Falls' opening kickoff and returned it to the defense's twenty-yard line. Three plays later Bobby Lane hit Darrel Clayton, the gangly right end for Hatfieldville, with a looping pass for the first touchdown. After that it was downhill for Winders Falls. By halftime the Four Horsemen of Hatfieldville had racked up a touchdown apiece, in addition to the original pass. During the second half Coach Johnson pulled out his stars to give the second string some experience, but even they were a match for the weaker team from the north.

Barbara left the game feeling that she had genuinely enjoyed herself just by being out, even if for most of the contest she'd had very little idea what was going on. As she was leaving the field Sally Morehead, who taught history, caught up to her and reminded her to be sure not to miss the victory dance at the gymnasium on Saturday night. She quelled Barbara's protest that she hadn't planned on going to the dance by informing her it was at least unofficially required of all faculty members. It was supposed to be a show of school spirit. If there'd been any doubt of that in her mind Coach Johnson erased it the next afternoon with a phone call reminding her she was expected to attend.

The faculty members had gathered, at the coach's invitation, in his office before the dance. Everyone was there but Sally Morehead, who'd been relegated to the task of watching over the arrival of the students to the gymnasium and seeing that things didn't get out of hand before the rest of the teachers arrived. At first Barbara had assumed that the gathering was special, that they had been called together there for some specific purpose. But as the coach began a rambling speech about how glad he was to have everyone back for another school year, how glad he was Barbara had joined their staff, how pleased he was with the way the year had begun, she begun to feel he'd decided to take a few minutes off to function as superintendent. That illusion was shattered immediately when he closed the introductory paragraph of his speech by saying how proud he was and how proud he was sure they all were of the team's performance the season's opening game.

Then the coach proceeded to discuss school spirit, sportsmanship and the value of competition sports to prepare students for the competition of life. Barbara thought she was on the verge of passing out from sheer boredom when the coach suddenly and to her complete surprise produced a bottle of bourbon and a case full of brandy snifters, kept in the cupboard beneath one of the trophy cases, and poured drinks all around. It was the first taste of alcohol Barbara had taken since her last night with Greg and as they drank the first of a series of toasts, this one to the team's victory, she felt an almost immediate lightening effect.

Coach Johnson continued to pour and the nine teachers continued to drink their toasts and soon the little gathering had reached a mood of real gaiety. But even though her head was almost spinning from what she'd drunk, Barbara couldn't help feeling that Burt Johnson was acting hardly different than he must have acted twenty-five years ago when as a high school boy he'd probably first raided his father's liquor cabinet and shared the spoils with his friends. He was enjoying the attention he received as dispenser of the drinks, and he was using it as a means of exerting his power over the others. By pouring the drinks, he paced their consumption, and once or twice Barbara, an empty glass before her, got the feeling he relished his ability to keep her waiting. But she was relaxed, almost enjoying herself, and she felt less like an outsider as far as the other faculty members were concerned than she had since she'd come here. She was almost disappointed when, though there still remained a little bourbon in the bottle, Coach Johnson consulted his watch and announced that it was time for the dance to begin and that they should all begetting over to the gymnasium.

The coach put the bottle and the glasses away and they filed out of the main school building, down the arcade and along the sidewalk beside the auditorium to the lighted gym. At first Barbara walked alone in the group, then he moved up and walked just beside her.

"I hope you enjoyed our little party?" he asked.

"Yes, very much," said Barbara with a polite smile.

"And the refreshments . . . " He paused. "I thought you looked surprised. Maybe you found it out of character after everything else you've seen since we met."

"Perhaps I was a.. . little surprised," Barbara ventured cautiously.

"Yes, the Sunday school teacher-superintendent-coach who serves whiskey to his faculty in his office on Saturday night." The coach laughed as though proud of himself. "I'm not as simple and one-track minded as I appear. I believe there are a number of things a person can enjoy doing in this life. Some of them are best done moderately. Like drinking. Perhaps dancing falls into that category too. But I sure hope I can have one with you tonight."

Barbara looked sharply at the coach, wondering if she hadn't misjudged him even more than she'd thought. This time when she smiled her smile was genuine, and the only thing troubling her was the lingering knowledge in the back of her mind that if he knew the truth about what she had done with Sonny Wilkens last Sunday night instead of talking nicely to her like this he would be organizing a lynch mob to have her run out of town. "Yes," she said after a moment. "I'd be very happy to dance with you, Coach."

The gymnasium was softly but by no means dimly lit. Along one side of the basketball court a long table was laid out with hors d'oeuvres and two large bowls of punch. Rock-and-roll music was blaring on a record player over a general buzz of conversation. Several couples were dancing in the center of the floor and off in one corner two girls were practicing a dance-step together while a third rather plain-looking girl looked on, but the great bulk of the student body was just standing around talking and waiting. It became evident, when the faculty entered, that what they'd primarily been waiting for was Coach Johnson himself. The music and the dancing and even the chatter suddenly stopped. Bobby Lane led a resounding round of applause, which the coach acknowledged like a smiling falsely modest politician. He then made a speech quite similar to the speech he'd made a short while earlier in his office. Then the music and dancing resumed.

Still conscious of the effects of the alcohol she'd imbibed, Barbara went to the punch bowl and filled her glass, then milled around among the students and faculty. Several very hard rock songs played, than a ballad began and the coach came to claim his dance. Aware that a considerable amount of attention was being focused on her, the supple young blonde let the coach take her lightly in his arms. Though he was slightly awkward on the dance floor she followed him easily enough. It seemed that his dancing was supposed to be meant as an example rather than a means of entertaining himself or her. He held his body just away from Barbara's his face almost but not quite touched her cheek, and he still took her left hand in his own rather than wrapping both his hands around her body, as couples in Barbara's younger age group were prone to do.

Then their dance ended. The coach stepped back and gave a slight bow and thanked her. There was more brief hand-clapping from some of the students standing around, including, Barbara noted, most of the starting line-up of the football team. She saw Bobby smiling at her, again leading the applause which she knew was for the coach rather than herself, yet now she smiled warmly back at him, remarking to herself that in spite of his less than exemplary behavior in class she did have to admit that he was going to be a very handsome young man. Then Barbara was distracted by a tug at her wrist and as she turned she found Sonny looking up at her face.

"Miss Wilkens? Can I have the next dance please."

For a moment Barbara almost lost her composure. The coach was still standing just beside her, virtually the whole student body was looking on, and here was this young boy who in a momentary fit of delirium she'd performed an illicit and unspeakable sex act with, asking her to dance. Then, managing to stifle the gasp that had almost risen in her throat, she forced a smile to her lips and shook her head.

"No thanks, Sonny. That's kind of you to ask but I really don't think it would be proper for us to dance. Why don't you go find one of the girls and . . . "

"Bull!" the coach's voice cut in. "There's nothing improper about you dancing with

Sonny, or with any of the players either." He grinned as Barbara looked at him again with surprise. "Heck, it's not like you're old enough to be their mother or something. And I bet you're young enough you can really dance to this stuff they play. Go on, give her a whirl Sonny Boy."

Before Barbara could offer further protest the coach gave her a slight shove on the small of her back and she was almost pushed into the youngster's eager arms. He wrapped his hands tightly around her back, hugging his body warm against her, and as he started to awkwardly guide her across the floor Barbara felt compelled to push his small trembling body back to a respectable distance away from her won, soliciting a raucous burst of laughter from Bobby and his bunch. Then, as soon as that dance ended and another faster song began, Barbara felt another strange hand take hers from behind. She turned to find Bobby looking at her with a friendly confident smile. She smiled back, shrugged, and began to undulate and gyrate her body in a sensuous teasing rhythm to the music as Bobby danced for all the world like a British rock star before her. Only out of the corner of her eye did Barbara notice Sonny moving disconsolately away, almost slinking.

From then on the night went almost too fast. Barbara danced with one boy after another. At the encouragement of both the faculty and the students, she really let herself go, showing even the pep squad girls some things they didn't know about modern dance. But though she shared herself freely, dancing with anyone who asked, it was Bobby whom she found as her most frequent and most compatible partner, and gradually her original opinion of him changed from down-right dislike and mistrust to a liking and sense of real rapport with him.

On several occasions Barbara's eyes would meet Sonny's. He was watching her continuously, and obviously sulking. She tried to smile at him and he merely scowled, then, still feeling loose from the bourbon she'd drunk in Coach Johnson's office, she returned her attention to her dancing. She went through several more partners and again found herself with Bobby. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sonny's face redden bitterly. Then a new song began, a slow ballad. Bobby took her in his arms, pulling her body gently to his own. For a few brief moments Barbara forgot herself completely. She lay her cheek softly against his shoulder, her arms wrapping around his back, her breasts snuggled warmly against his chest. She felt, in that brief span of time, as if she had come back home, as if all the strangeness and the barriers between her and the world around her had fallen, and she was again at one with her surroundings. She was in the arms of a man, even if he was only sixteen years old, and her body was responding naturally and without inhibition to the warm and secure embrace.

Then for some reason she opened her eyes and found herself staring straight into the wounded eyes of Sonny Wilkins. He was glaring back at her with a look of hatred and resentment the likes of which she'd rarely ever seen, and never on a face so young. She seemed trapped, fixed in his gaze. Then Bobby started to turn her on the dance floor, and as she followed his lead she saw Sonny pivot and start away toward the front entrance of the gym. He looked back at her once, his eyes menacing. Then he was gone out the door.

Bobby was still holding her firmly in his strong young arms. His body brushed hers smoothly, seemingly without conscious effort on his part. But the trembling that suddenly possessed her supple young body derived more from nervousness or outright fear than the excitement building smoothly through her loins and breasts. The look on Sonny's face lingered hauntingly in her mind, and her realization of the delicate situation she was in gripped her like an icy hand. Sonny was possessed of information that, if exposed, could place her in the most serious predicament she'd ever been in in her life. Her teaching career would be ruined and she might even find herself subject to criminal prosecution. She had just rejected and humiliated him, and suddenly she feared that in spite of the difficulties telling on her would pose for him, he might be just angry and bitter enough to want to expose her at all cost. She realized that after what she'd done to him the previous Sunday night, he probably couldn't imagine that her dancing with Bobby and the rest of the football team was just innocent fun.

Barbara let the young quarterback guide her several more steps across the floor. Then she stopped, gently disengaging herself from his arms.

"I.. . I want to step out and get a breath of fresh air," Barbara stammered as the handsome youngster studied her sultry, now worried face. "W-wait here. I'll be right back."

She bit her lip nervously, then pushed past him and made her way across the gymnasium through the dancing couples to the door, where science teacher Edmond Talbert was enjoying a cigarette.

"Just getting some fresh air," Barbara explained as she brushed past him. She hurried along the sidewalk that flanked the auditorium, crossed through the arcade and emerged onto the mall before the front of the building. After a moment she spotted Sonny's shadowy figure, walking quickly across the lawn toward the corner of the campus. "Sonny!" she called, starting hurriedly down the mall. He glanced back, then continued. She stumbled after him and called his name again just as he reached the sidewalk that bounded the school's front lawn. Now he stopped, standing almost in front of Bobby's blue pick-up. He waited, looking back at her. Then when she was halfway across the lawn he turned suddenly and continued along the sidewalk. "Sonny, Sonny, wait!" she called at the top of her lungs. She followed, half-walking, half at a run. She reached the sidewalk and started down it just as Sonny was crossing the street at the corner. He stopped again and looked back, then continued. And Barbara walked several more paces before she stopped suddenly.

She was standing directly in front of Bobby's pick-up parked against the curb. Next to it was the new Chevrolet Darrel Clayton's father, who owned the local sawmill, had bought him for his eighteenth birthday. Music was blaring from the tape-deck in the vehicle, loud in spite of the fact that the windows were rolled up. But that wasn't what had attracted the troubled young blonde's attention.

A single bare leg, a girl's leg, was sticking up from the backseat of the car, the bare foot planted against the rear window. The sight was somehow so incongruous that for a moment Barbara couldn't take her eyes off it. She imagined, absurdly, that the owner of that sensuous lovely brown thigh had gotten into the car bottom side upwards, and she stared through narrowed eyes at the gently jerking of the bare, tapered limb. Then slowly she stepped down off the sidewalk, moving up alongside the car. And as she peered through the window into the backseat the sight that greeted her almost caused the shocked young blonde to pass out on her feet.

The leg belonged to head-cheerleader Sandy Black, who was generally considered to be one of the best looking girls in the school. Up until recently, she'd been dating Bobby, though she was a senior and he was only a junior. But now it looked like she'd given up Bobby for good. She lay on her back in the rear-seat of the car, the one leg planted up over the top of the seat, her other leg sprawled on the floor-board. Her skirt was bunched up about her waist and her panties were nowhere to be seen. Kneeling on the seat, bent over between her wide-parted thighs, was the young owner of the automobile. And the act he was performing was the vilest spectacle the young teacher had ever beheld in her life.

Darrel's face was buried flush against the brunette cheerleader's exposed and defenseless loins. Her hands were entwined in his hair and she was holding his face to her cunt as if she would like to swallow him up. But Darrel hardly seemed to be resisting. He was going after her naked little vagina like it was a plate of strawberry shortcake. He was eating her pussy, sucking and tonguing it with a subservience and effort that almost defied belief.

Aghast, Barbara stared through the window, the horribly swinish scene momentarily blotting all else from her mind. It was awful. The depravity of it was beyond comprehension, and yet the girl lying on her back in the car seemed to be enjoying it like nothing else in the world. Her whole body was squirming and writhing like a sex-crazed heathen, her face contorted with lust, her head flailing from side to side on the seat of the car.

Her whole body trembling in vicarious physical identification with the girl being orally ravished in the automobile, it took all Barbara's strength for her to jerk her eyes away from the compelling and lascivious spectacle. Then she noticed that Sonny had stopped again on the other side of the street that bounded the side of the campus. She was about to make a move to go after him when the song on the tape-deck ended and the hard-driving rock music was suddenly replaced by a cat-like wailing, the words of which became only gradually intelligible to her ears:

"Oh eat me, Darrel! Eat my cunt. Deeper! Tongue it deeper!"

She stared back through the window of the car, an unwanted flutter coursing through her loins at the thought of what Darrel was doing to the girl. God, it was worse than what she had done to Sonny the other day. There seemed now to Barbara in her muddled mental state something as perversely unnatural for a man to be licking and sucking a woman down there as it was naturally perverse for a woman to suck off a man. She couldn't even work it out in her mind, but it was just too depraved and, completely forgetting her lost evening with Greg, she thought she would die of the sheer shame of it all if she were ever subjected to such a thing herself. But with all her revulsion she was nonetheless entranced and again she had to fight to jerk her eyes away toward the corner where Sonny, just at that moment, was turning slump-shouldered away from her and starting on off down the street.

Then she heard the faint crackle of footsteps in the gravel behind her. Over her shoulder she saw that Bobby had just stepped off the curb. And before she could even turn to face him he was upon her, his hands going around her waist to pull her back against him, the tell-tale hard bulge in his trousers pushing right up between her buttocks.

"Oh suck it, suck it!" Sandy Black chanted banshee-like in the car. Down the street Barbara could' still see Sonny, walking swiftly away though he was looking back over his shoulder at her and Bobby. And behind her Bobby's pelvis was pressed hard against the cheeks of her ass. His strong arms were still tight around her, his hands now moving up to cup tightly over the rounded swells of her breasts. And the warmth of his breath on the sensitive back of her neck was causing undeniable little chills to dart relentlessly down her spine. And though she struggled silently, she couldn't get away, and again in spite of herself she let her eyes drift back to the shocking scene taking place in the back of the car.

"Oh please Bobby," Barbara whispered under her breath, her hands coming up to seize and tug at his wrists. "Let me go. Let me go before they see us."

"Before they see us?" Bobby chuckled into her ear. "Why shouldn't they. We can see them."

"But.. . " Barbara turned her head to look pleadingly over her shoulder, and the moment she did the handsome, mature-looking youngster pressed his lips hard over hers, his tongue forcing its way deep into her mouth in spite of all her efforts to resist. At the same time he was beginning a gentle movement of his buttocks against her hips, working the hard shaft of his cock tenting up like a pole in his trousers rhythmically against the crack between the tight-clenched cheeks of her ass.

Then almost violently she jerked her head back around, and now she was even more appalled at what she saw in the car. While Bobby had kissed her Darrel Clayton had shifted around in the car seat, straddling now at reverse-directions over the half-naked girl beneath him. Now his enormous cock was protruding lewdly free from the crotch of his trousers, poised right over the excited young cheerleader's lustfully ovaled lips. She was holding his turgid cock in her hand, bending it down so that it pointed right at her face even as Darrel continued his licking and sucking up between her scissoring thighs. And as Barbara gasped in disbelief, the girl lifted her head willingly off the car seat to take the thickly distended penis right into the open hollow of her mouth.

"Ooooh," Barbara groaned as Bobby's hands continued to maul over the lush young swells of her breasts, the friction of her brassiere-cups rubbing back and forth over her nipples causing little tremors of unwanted delight to course maddeningly out over her flesh. "Let me go. Let's both go . . . back inside."

"We got plenty of time," Bobby said. "And they're just getting started too."

He kissed her on the back of her neck, then he bit her, so hard it was everything she could do to keep from screaming aloud. And letting that serve as a distraction, he dropped one of his hands down from her breasts to seize the hem of her skirt, tugging it up her thighs almost to the tight leg-bands of her panties before his hand covered suddenly full over the lust-heated plane of her thinly haired little cunt.

A ravishing shock of delight rippled along Barbara's thighs as the youngster's loins ground again hard against her buttocks, now naked except for her flimsy little panties. She was still struggling with all her might and yet she felt powerless in his strong grasp and in spite of herself almost thankful for her inability to resist. Then she shuddered as she felt him slip one of his fingers slowly between her thighs from the front, pulling aside the tight elastic crotch band that was the only thing left to protect her already lustfully heated little cunt.

"Oh please," Barbara whimpered, squirming her buttocks back in retreat from the finger prodding up between her thighs, searching through the sparse moist hairs that lined her burning little vaginal lips. Then an even more violent shudder racked her body as Bobby's probing finger made sudden delicious contact with the throbbing nub of her clitoris. He stroked the tiny bud to fully pulsing rigidity even as the near-panicked blonde school teacher continued to struggle to free herself from his grasp. Then her legs almost collapsed beneath her as Bobby fingered back down along her hair-lined cunt lips, parting the warm moist folds of her flesh, and he inserted his plundering finger straight up into her warm little pussy.

Barbara sucked her breath in hoarsely, trying to hold back the groan of pleasure building in her breast. There was nothing she could do to escape and tears of shame spilled from her eyes as she found herself reacting involuntarily to the teasing caress of her vagina. For a moment she did let her body go completely limp in Bobby's arms. Then, thinking she'd surrendered to him completely, the athletic young boy relaxed his own grip on her trembling form.

Considered in the light of what was to happen later, Barbara's sudden decisive effort at defense can only be to her credit. In spite of her lust-inspired state of delirium the moaning blonde saw her chance and almost reflexively she seized the wrist of the hand wedged between her thighs, shoving it downward so Bobby's middle finger slipped with a sucking pop from her moistly heated little cunt.

And before Bobby could move to regain his hold on her she was free, running as fast as she could away down the sidewalk.