Chapter 2
Tommy smiled and finished removing his pants. He peeled off his underdrawers and Kay's eyes widened. She stared with unwilling fascination as his nozzle broke free to stand at attention. As a little girl she remembered seeing mens' machinery before as they fired away over the sides of boats. She had seen Tommy's before, too, and she had envied his freedom from so much unbuttoning. But this was the first time she had ever seen an erection.
Good heavens, it's big! Surely the convent girls were wrong when they said men actually put that tremendous thumping thing inside girls. It's impossible. Or is Tommy a freak? Is that why he's so wild? Something has to be wrong with him to be as careless of his boat as old Sam said he was.
Kay wanted to get out. His great purple-tipped thing was ugly. Looking at it, Kay knew she was looking at something evil. She waited for her chance to escape. Tommy waited too.
Finally she began unbuttoning her sweater. Tommy had stripped off everything but his undershirt. Kay shuddered at the nameless horrors that would come when he completed that final act.
Tommy waited. She was removing an arm from her sweater, then he whipped his undershirt over his head. Lightning-like, Kay rammed her arm back into the sleeve and lunged. Tommy was still blocking the doorway with his near-naked body. She caught the hem of his undershirt and jerked.
Instead of struggling with his tangled clothing, Tommy grabbed her by the bib of her overalls. She twisted, struggling to free herself. She thought of slipping out of the overalls but, it would be too hard to do. Tommy forced his head back through the neck of his undershirt so he could see again. Breathing fish and old whiskey, he tried to kiss her.
Kay was vaguely mystified. She knew Indians couldn't handle liquor very well, but Tommy didn't seem that drunk. And she wondered why Tommy Taskoosh had set his sights on her, of all people. She was only sixteen and underage. It didn't make sense to her.
Indians like Tommy were always hunting for blondes, and Kay's waist-length hair was such a dark brown that against her milk-white skin it seemed as glossy black as Tommy's. He was a smooth-looking young stud and Kay knew the smell of fish would wash off. She wasn't so sure about the smell of whiskey.
She twisted, trying to loosen his grip on the bib of her overalls. Tommy got his other arm around her. He began to rub his hand across her tender young breasts. Despite the way they were hurting, Kay felt a sudden stirring within her.
He fought to kiss her again. Locked in silent combat, they struggled. His arm grew tight around her, and he began fiddling with the strap of her overalls. She batted at his hand, wondering how it would feel if he were touching her bare breast instead of rubbing her tit through the scratchy cloth. Tommy laughed, exhaling another wave of whiskey-breath. He tried to kiss her again.
She bent over, trying to get away from his foul breath, and she found herself facing his throbbing penis. It smelled better than his breath.
Tommy sensed the hesitation in her struggling movements. "You like it?" he asked. "Want a taste?"
Kay had heard words like cocksucker as a little girl. She had never given them much thought. Now suddenly she faced the possibility that maybe people actually did things like that. Horrified, she caught herself wondering what it would be like to put that sausage-sized piece of flesh in her mouth. It was so purple-ugly that she couldn't imagine why the thought was so strangely, perversely attractive.
"Taste it," Tommy urged. "If you like it, I'll give you a whole one."
He was fiddling with the straps of her overalls. In a minute he would have her so undressed she could never brave the chill wind outside. And that great purple throbbing penis was still jerking up and down in time to Tommy's heartbeat. She couldn't do what he asked. She couldn't believe that anyone really did that; it was just something people joked about. But she wondered what it would feel like just to touch it. She thought that if she did touch it, Tommy would relax enough to let her loose. Cautiously, she put her hand out.
She felt Tommy's hands slide down under her loose-fitting overalls and worm their way up under her sweater. He tried to find his way under her underwear, but he couldn't quite make it. His hands cupped her firm young breasts with a thickness of cloth between them. He squeezed.
It hurt. Kay's hand clenched involuntarily over the shank of Tommy's penis. His hands clenched tighter over Kay's tender young breasts, and she screamed-not so much from the pain as from terror. Tommy stopped squeezing. They remained frozen in this strange posture-with his hands under the bib of her overalls while she was doubled over the throbbing nozzle that she now gripped with both hands. She remembered garbled stories that other girls had told about how to hurt a man. But she remembered the pain when Tommy's hands had closed over her breasts. She decided not to struggle again.
Tommy strained, and she sensed dimly that he was struggling against his own over-eager instincts, his mind blown with the thought of a sixteen-year-old virgin's hands on the part of him that begged for handling.
They remained in frozen expectation. It was strange, interesting-but Kay knew it was wrong.
What does Tommy really want me to do? Surely he doesn't expect me to put it in my mouth! She squeezed experimentally. Tommy stiffened, and she felt him tremble as he strained against her. Puzzled, she gripped the shank of his instrument. She felt his hips moving. It reminded Kay of the motion she had observed with innocent twelve-year-old interest when sled dogs coupled.
She saw the loose skin sliding up and down the shaft of Tommy's tool. Would he expire in howling, yapping ecstasy like the sled dogs? Maybe I can escape then. His hands cupped her breasts. Through the scratchy cloth she could feel his searching fingers. She felt her nipples rise to marble hardness as she squeezed his purple-tipped thing. Then she felt new revulsion and horror as the thing in her hands forced its glowering damp tip out of the encasing skin.
Straining to control her mixed fascination and disgust, she caught the straining skin and tried to draw it back down over the head of his thrusting penis. Tommy's hands tightened over her breasts, and he groaned.
"Wait!" he said in a strained voice. "Wait till we get undressed!"
That was the last thing that Kay wanted to wait for. She fastened her other hand over the throbbing knob at the end of his maleness. She wasn't sure what was going to happen, but Tommy was moaning and bucking and jerking.
His hands clenched uncontrollably over her breasts. "Oooohhhh!" Kay moaned. It hurt. Yet suddenly, perversely she found herself wishing he would do it again. She held onto Tommy's throbbing stick with both hands while he bucked and jerked and lunged and moaned, "Oh, oh, OOOOHHHH!!!!"
Then she felt the warm juices flow, saw his nozzle spurt like a spastic fire hose, firing great gobs of white goo across the cabin.
His hands released their passionate grips on her breasts. Suddenly Kay realized he wasn't holding her at all. His hands slipped out of her overalls as she straightened. "Wait!" Tommy wailed, "Next time'll be better!"
Kay scrambled over his limp, spent body. She ran across the deck and sprang into her outboard. The outboard started on the first jerk. She was twenty feet away before Tommy appeared on deck, yelling something she couldn't hear over the roar of the outboard motor. Kay wondered. Had she led Tommy on in some way without really knowing or intending to? As the skiff headed toward the cannery, she remembered the feel of Tommy's hands on her tender young breasts. Would it have been a mortal sin just to let him fondle her through her clothing? But then she realized Tommy Taskoosh was not the kind of boy who would be willing to leave it at that.
When she got back, Sam was just finishing up with cannery repairs. He looked despairingly at the pile of unprocessed fish, then at the low-setting sun. The Tlingit women had been at work fourteen hours already. There was no use starting up again until they had eaten and slept.
Kay went toward the kitchen to start supper. "Where's the fuel can?" he asked as she walked past.
"I forgot it."
Sam looked at her. Abruptly she remembered Tommy had her oilskins too. A puff of smoke shot from his boat, and a moment later the ragged sound of his engine reached them across the chill gray waters of the inlet.
Kay suddenly knew she was going to faint for the first time in her life. If she didn't faint, at least she wanted to faint. Tommy Taskoosh was going to unload his fish. She would have to face him again, face him under old Sam's watchful eye and pretend nothing had ever happened.
Then she saw Tommy's boat turn in a sharp half-circle and chug out to sea. She saw old Sam looking. He knew as well as she that Tommy had fish to unload.
There was an awkward silence. "Tommy wants to marry me," she finally said.
"You'd have to get permission," Sam said.
"From you? Oh, you mean from the Mother Superior."
"I mean from his wife in Anchorage."
"Oh!"
"And if it's all right with her, then all you've got to worry about is his other wife in Sitka and his girl friend in Ketchikan."
Thoughtfully, Kay hung her oilskins inside the kitchen door. She got the oil-burning stove going and started a stew, then she shed the rest of her clothes on the way to the bathroom. She was down to her underwear by the time she turned the corner out of Sam's sight.
The hot water faucet was stuck so tight she couldn't open it. "Sam!" she called.
Old Sam stuck his head in the bathroom and saw her struggling with the faucet. He was reaching to turn it on when he saw something else. Kay's breast was an angry-looking purple. Where Tommy's overeager fingers had pinched and twisted, the tender flesh was turning black and blue already. "What happened?" he started to ask, then old Sam saw the answer in Kay's eyes.
"I'll kill him!" Sam said. He didn't seem angry or upset. He didn't raise his voice or shout like other irate fathers. Instead, old Sam wrapped his naked daughter in his arms and patted her back.
Suddenly Kay was crying-shrieking and wailing like she hadn't since she was a little girl and old Sam used to kiss away the hurt from a skinned knee.
Finally Kay became uncomfortably aware that she was naked-a fully developed young woman sitting on an old man's lap. A sudden warm, tingling rush of blood suffused her face, her neck. Even her perky young breasts were blushing between the bruises.
She knew that to old Sam she was still just his little girl. It had felt so nice to be in his arms again, cradled in his lap while he patted her back and kissed her bruised breasts to take the hurt away. It wasn't at all like Tommy's brutal overtures.
Finally old Sam realized he was holding a well built young lady in his lap. "Go finish your bath," he said.
As she got up, he once more said methodically, "I'll kill him." Suddenly his gray face became pale. "Kill him," he croaked, then he fell off the chair.
Kay stared horror stricken. Finally she half-lifted, half-dragged him up onto her bed and got a blanket over him.
"Nitroglycerine," he managed. "In the bathroom."
Kay found the pills in the medicine chest and for a little while Sam seemed to regain a healthy composure. "Do you have a bad heart?" she asked.
Sam grinned feebly. "Since before you were born. Didn't you know?"
Kay hadn't.
While she watched, his face turned ashen again. She remembered the radio. It was new, and once she figured out the controls it wasn't nearly as complicated as the one they had four years ago. She interrupted a gabfest between a half-dozen fishermen and their wives ashore and finally talked to a doctor via a radio-telephone.
The doctor told Kay what to do. Old Sam's gray face became even more pallid, his shallow breathing interspersed with deep gasping sighs. Kay tried to keep him warm. Frantically, she asked what else she could do.
"There'll be a plane there in four hours," the doctor explained. "We'll get him to the hospital and make some tests."
An hour later old Sam roused. Kay put her ear to his lips. "Goddamn Indian!" he warned. "All those Taskoosh ... crazy."
Kay waited for more, but old Sam lapsed into mumbling incoherence. Old George Taskoosh had always been a responsible citizen and one of the leaders of the Indian fishermen. Sadly, Kay realized her convent training was no preparation for the harsh facts of life in Alaska. She glanced at the clock. In three more hours the plane would be here.
The plane was still two hours away when old Sam roused again. He sat bolt upright and repeated in a conversational tone, "I'll kill him!" He fell back on the bed, and Kay knew it no longer mattered when the plane arrived.
Suddenly the whole world turned into a blur.