Chapter 1
As the rickety bus chugged through the Tennessee hills on a sweltering afternoon in September, Melinda Johnson twisted uncomfortably in her seat. The bus had turned onto a rutted dirt road and the jostling ride had caused Melinda's miniskirt to creep out from under her, exposing her beautifully tapered thighs and placing her panties in direct contact with the hot leather cushion.
The coarse-grained leather burned through the thin nylon to evoke unwelcome memories of Harry Rolf teasing and probing at Melinda's sexual crevice, arousing her to fever pitch, then leaving her unsatisfied. The pretty blonde squirmed in embarrassment.
Melinda would have lifted her hips and folded her skirt underneath her, but she didn't wish to draw additional attention to herself. Already she was aware of being stared at. The bus contained a dozen passengers, mostly men in blue jeans or bib overalls and work shirts. One, seated directly across the aisle from Melinda, eyed her steadily between pulls on a hip flask. He was in his forties, grimy and unshaven, and he stared at her golden thighs as if he wanted to eat them. Melinda read lust in the glances of the other men, as well, and resentment in the eyes of their dowdy women. She wondered whether she had made a mistake in accepting as her first teaching assignment a school located deep in the hill country, cut off almost completely from the rest of the world.
Perhaps she had been too anxious to leave Nashville, Melinda reflected. But she had to get away from Harry somehow. An ambitious young insurance salesman, he was the man Melinda's mother had picked for her to marry. Melinda had been persuaded that she was in love with him, and they had become engaged. Then the sex had started. Fucking, Harry had called it when he got aroused and allowed his Southern refinement to slip. Fuck-fuck-fuck. That was all Harry had wanted to do.
Melinda's thoughts were broken by a shrill note sounding above the rattle of the bus. The driver glanced in his outside mirror, and his gaze stuck there as the bus bounced along in the center of the narrow road. Curious, Melinda looked through the rear window. A cloud of dust about a quarter of a mile behind the bus was rapidly gaining on it, and she realized the high-pitched sound was a siren.
As the cloud drew closer, it separated to reveal two cars. In the lead was a battered station wagon. Pursuing it and gaining was a gray sedan with a red light flashing on its roof.
The bus suddenly lurched onto the shoulder of the road, tossing Melinda violently against the young man who sat next to her in the window seat.
"Nice to meet you, honey," he said in a hillbilly drawl, and grinned. His twinkling brown eyes stripped the blouse off Melinda's full, firm tits. .
She reddened and would have put the fellow in his place if it weren't for the fright that gripped her as the station wagon skimmed past the swaying bus, missing it by inches. The bus immediately lurched back to the center of the road, bouncing Melinda in the seat and stinging her posterior.
A squeal of skidding tires made her twist around again. The front of the gray sedan dipped as it fishtailed behind the bus, and Melinda was sure it would crash into them. She saw the face of the man at the wheel as he struggled desperately to control the car, his features frozen in shock and fear. Melinda gasped as the car swerved off the road, down the short slope at the side of the roadbed, and into a clump of brush where it came to a cushioned halt.
The scene was quickly obscured by dust, and Melinda faced the front of the bus, shaken. In the distance ahead, the speeding station wagon was only a spot of dust over a rise.
"Good going, Lonnie!" a passenger in bib overalls shouted, and walked forward to squat next to the driver. The hillbilly, obviously a farmer, handed the grinning young driver an uncorked flask. Melinda was amazed as Lonnie tilted the bottle to his lips while he drove with one hand.
Though she didn't usually speak to strangers, Melinda couldn't resist asking the man who sat next to her, "What was all that about?"
He glanced her way. Brown-haired and about twenty-five years old, he had strong, even features. But his face was dirty and bore a two days' growth of beard. His checkered shirt was rumpled. Again his sharp eyes undressed Melinda, and she felt a shiver travel down her spine.
"Don't you know who was in that station wagon?" he asked, then shook his head. "No, I reckon you wouldn't, being a city girl and all. He was a corn runner."
"A what?"
"A booze runner. Those were T-men chasing him. Lonnie just saved some squeezings from getting confiscated by the law."
Melinda's pretty mouth dropped open. She began to realize that the people on the bus not only, dressed and talked differently from her friends and neighbors in Nashville, but lived by different rules as well.
Several passengers took turns moving forward to squat beside the driver, offering him drinks from their flasks. Lonnie heartily accepted all the offers while the bus rocketed down the road.
"He'll get us all killed!" Melinda blurted in alarm.
"I wouldn't worry about that," her seat-mate said with a chuckle. "Lonnie knows this road so well, he could drive it blind."
The driver had heard Melinda's exclamation and was looking at her in his inside mirror. He had good eyes, large and blue, beneath a high forehead topped by neatly combed blond hair. He looked like a city boy, Melinda decided, and she felt a responsive tingle as his twinkling eyes met hers. He shifted his gaze slightly, and she realized he was staring at her legs.
Melinda quickly looked down. In the excitement as she had twisted about, her miniskirt had crawled hip high, exposing not only her smooth golden thighs to their very tops but the crotch of her peach-colored panties as well. Blushing, Melinda clamped her thighs tightly closed and tugged at her skirt. The skimpy garment was completely out from under her at the back and would pull only a short distance at the front, barely covering her hips and loins. Melinda remained conscious of the hard leather seat against her behind. The ultra-thin nylon of her panties furnished practically no protection at all.
The impressionable twenty-one-year-old began painting erotic pictures in her mind. She imagined that the handsome bus driver had glimpsed her hair-bordered slit through the filmy material of her pants, and she visualized his penis stiffening. I'll bet he would like to stick it into me, she thought, and her pussy tingled more hotly against the leather seat.
Suddenly Melinda's mental censor shamed her for thinking about the bus driver's cock. She jerked her eyes away from him, her cheeks burning.
"All the girls go for Lonnie."
Melinda glanced sharply at the man who sat beside her. "What did you say?"
The fellow grinned. "Never mind. My name's Ed Tackett. What's yours?"
"I don't give out my name to strangers," Melinda sniffed, disliking the man's forward manner and the sloppy way he looked. What a difference, she thought, between him and the neatly dressed driver. Lonnie was the only person on the bus with whom Melinda could begin to identify.
She was grateful that he had stopped drinking. The passengers were returning to their seats.
"You visiting relatives in these parts?" Ed inquired.
"No." Melinda didn't look at him.
She felt his eyes caressing her breasts, then moving down to stroke her bare, smooth thighs. The dirty, disheveled man's inspection made her feel creepy.
"We're almost to Tolliver, folks!" the bus driver called without turning his head. "We're going to take a quick rest stop. It'll be another hour to Horner's Hollow."
Melinda's heart quickened. Horner's Hollow was the end of the line for her. She wondered what it would be like. If it resembled the town she was now entering, Melinda feared she would have difficulty adjusting to it.
The bus rumbled slowly between the dusty frame buildings that lined a widened stretch of the road. Two cross streets had a scattering of structures on them. None of the streets were paved. Two old Fords and a black pickup truck were parked on the main thoroughfare, and Melinda was surprised to see several wagons hitched to mules.
Since it was Sunday, most of the businesses were closed. A few people moved along the board sidewalks, glancing into the windows of the stores.
The women wore shapeless cotton dresses which extended well below their knees. They used no make-up. Their hair was pulled severely back into knots.
A gaunt dog with drooping ears sniffed along the edge of a building while a smaller, yellowish mongrel lay sleeping in the dust. There was an air of torpor about the town that depressed Melinda.
"This here's Tolliver!" the bus driver announced as he swung the lumbering vehicle to a stop in front of the town's main building, a two-story general store.
Several men sat on upended barrels in the shade of the store's wooden canopy. One, with tobacco stains on his white whiskers, whittled while the others talked.
The door of the bus opened to admit a puff of dust. The farmers with whiskey-swollen bladders crowded the aisle, eager to take advantage of the rest stop. Their women shuffled along behind. All glanced silently at Melinda as they passed, and her feeling of being out of place returned.
" 'Scuse me, honey," Ed said, and got up. Melinda moved her legs to the side to let him out. As he brushed past, facing her, he gave her thighs another visual caress.
What a coarse person! she thought. She imagined how awful it would be to go to bed with him. Even Harry, who usually was polite, became vulgar when they were having sex. Toward the end he had begun demanding that she kiss him in a way no decent girl would do. He also had pleaded for Melinda to let him kiss her between the legs. She had found the mere idea revolting and had told him so.
Ed was the last person to alight from the bus. The driver, who had remained in his seat, grinned at Melinda. A little thrill went through her. He was very good-looking. But he would probably turn out to be like Harry, she thought. Men! Harry had made her disgusted with all of them.
"Ain't you going to get off, miss?" Lonnie asked.
"I don't believe so," Melinda said, her voice thinner than usual.
The driver continued to stare at her in a friendly way. Melinda became nervous and glanced out the window.
She wasn't aware that Lonnie had left his seat until she saw him from the corner of her eye, standing next to her. She turned her head and was embarrassed to find herself staring directly at the manly bulge in the front of his snug pants. Her cheeks warm, she looked out the window again.
Lonnie squatted beside her. "You're going to Horner's Hollow, ain't you?" he asked in a gentle but strongly masculine voice. She smelled the liquor on his breath.
"Yes," Melinda said primly, not looking at him. "I'm the new school teacher there."
He chuckled. "Man, those kids sure are lucky!"
She didn't say anything and thought, Why doesn't he go away?
"Scoot over, huh, and let me sit down beside you?"
Melinda was about to cut him verbally for being brash. But the sight of his handsome face close up, and of his friendly grin, tempered her indignation.
Clutching her skirt as closely about her thighs as possible, and marveling somewhat at her own action, she slid next to the window. She was careful to keep her skirt under her buttocks as she sat back.
Lonnie slid into the seat she had vacated. "You kept the cushion nice and warm," he said. The remark excited Melinda, prickling the tiny hairs on the back of her neck.
"I really don't have anything to talk about," she announced in a tart tone. Her cheeks glowed prettily.
"That's all right," Lonnie said. "I'd rather just look at you, anyway. Want a drink?" He offered a flask he had gotten from a passenger.
"No, thank you," Melinda said piously. She turned to look out the window. She was distressingly aware that her heart was thudding.
Being alone on the bus with the handsome driver excited Melinda in an embarrassing way. She tingled between her legs and felt like squirming. Though her gaze remained averted, she knew Lonnie was ogling her long, shapely thighs and the impudent swells of her breasts.
"Dang, but you're pretty," he said in a passionate, low-pitched tone.
The compliment pleased Melinda, but she felt she had to protest the young man's boldness. She turned to face him, but before she could speak he did something even bolder: He placed his hand on her thigh, wedging his fingers between that smooth, golden column and the one next to it.
Melinda gasped as Lonnie slid his hand up her legs and under her skirt. The side of his little finger pressed her warm softness through the crotch of her panties. The intimate contact sent a shock wave rushing through her. Her nipples tingled and her vagina throbbed.
"Stop that!" Melinda exclaimed, and tried to slap the impudent fellow's hand away. But Lonnie sawed his hand up and down against her sleek panties. The responsive flesh inside wiggled, and he could feel her curly hairs through the thin nylon.
Melinda felt insulted, because it seemed that the bus driver was treating her like a tramp. But his lewd touch excited her tremendously, and this was frightening. Melinda felt as if she were with Harry, except that she and the driver had no relationship to justify the intimacy. Even if they had, she believed it would have ended the same as with Harry, in frustration. Melinda didn't want any more of that.
She struggled, as much against the giddy feeling that swamped her brain as against Lonnie's caressing hand. But the tanned, blond-haired man was determined. His breath bathed Melinda in whiskey fumes as he laughed and kneaded her soft, hairy vulva through her panties. He used his other hand to shield himself from her flailing blows.
Melinda became desperate as the strength drained out of her muscles. Her thighs, which had been pressed against Lonnie's hand, opened as if of their own accord. Her arms fell limp.
"You hot little dickens," Lonnie husked softly near her ear, and fingered the crotchband of her panties away from her moist, puffed cunt lips.
Melinda moaned, writhing voluptuously as the audacious young man stroked his fingertips up and down the sensitive edges of her slit. Her skirt extended just far enough over her thighs to conceal the lascivious caress. But she felt it to the tips of her toes, which curled downward in her shoes.
The glands of Melinda's vulva secreted a viscous fluid, inviting deeper penetration. As soon as Lonnie felt the erotic moisture on his fingertips, he wormed his middle finger into the slippery mouth of Melinda's channel and glided it all the way up her cunt, which became instantly slick throughout. He stroked his finger slowly in and out of her pussy, rubbing the firm, tingling head of her clitoris and stimulating all the nerve ends in her vaginal mouth.
Lonnie carried Melinda's hand to his lap. She felt the hardness of his penis.
"Take it out of my pants," he said huskily. "We can jazz each other off before the other folks get back."
This shocking suggestion jarred Melinda out of the blissful dream-state into which she had slipped. She suddenly felt humiliated and ashamed, realizing bitterly that her body had betrayed her. She struck Lonnie a stinging blow across the side of his face.
He recoiled, blinking with surprise and pain. Melinda pushed his hand away from her hot thighs.
"Why, you're just a goddamned teaser!" Lonnie said. He swung partially atop her and jammed a leg between her thighs.
For a giddy moment Melinda feared he was going to rape her right there on the bus. But some conversation from the front of the vehicle broke the spell. The passengers were returning.
Grim-faced, Lonnie scurried back to his seat at the driver's wheel. Panting, her cheeks red, Melinda tugged her skirt down.
My God, she thought desperately, I've never let a stranger get fresh like that with me before. What was the matter with me?
She quickly absolved herself from guilt by putting all the blame on Lonnie. He was drunk, and he obviously had no respect for women. What a shame, he was such a good-looking fellow.
But Harry also was good-looking, and he had no respect for her. She wondered how a girl could know whom to trust?
The other passengers glanced at Melinda as they returned to their seats, the women disapproving of her miniskirt and make-up, the men admiring. In her seething anger, Melinda felt more than admiration from the coarse-looking males. They were a drunken, lecherous crowd, she concluded, and Lonnie was the worst of the lot.
She considered complaining to the bus company about the young driver, but had no idea where the company's office was located or even if they had one. They were a backwoods outfit that ran a bus along this route only once a week. Perhaps the vehicle in which she was riding was the only bus they owned.
Ed, who had been seated beside Melinda next to the window, returned. Giving her a smile and saying nothing, he dropped into the aisle seat. Melinda hoped he wouldn't try to strike up a conversation.
As soon as everyone was on board, Lonnie yanked the lever that controlled the door, and the door slapped shut. He started the noisy engine. Melinda caught a glimpse of his face in the mirror as he swayed on his seat, tugging the large steering wheel. His eyes glinted savagely, and his normally handsome mouth had taken on an ugly twist.
Lonnie slammed successively through the gears as the roaring bus gathered speed, raising dust from the roadway. He pulled the flask from his pocket and drew the cork out of it while steadying the steering wheel with his arm. Tilting the bottle, he took a long swig. The flask was nearly empty when he corked it and stuck it back into his pocket.
Melinda's eyes met Lonnie's in the mirror, and she read hurt in them. She realized he felt she had wronged him by hitting him. It was as if Lonnie believed his manhood, or perhaps the "heroic" deed he had performed back on the road, had entitled him to take liberties with her.
Melinda steadfastly refused to consider the possibility that she was to blame for his conduct--that the way she was dressed and the exposed manner in which she accidentally was sitting had led him to a wrong conclusion about her, or that he had interpreted as an invitation her remaining on the bus while the other passengers got off at Tolliver. His calling her a "teaser" had fallen on nearly deaf ears.
Ed's sidelong glance diverted Melinda's thoughts from the bus driver. The slovenly fellow was inspecting her thighs again. He's wishing he could get between them, she judged. Fat chance!
"Are you getting off at Horner's Hollow," Ed asked, "or are you fixing to ride all the way to the county seat?"
Melinda didn't reply.
Ed continued to watch her for awhile, then slouched in his seat and let his whiskery chin come to rest on the collar of his dirty shirt.
Lonnie drove at a reckless speed, the huge bus swaying on the twisting, narrow road. They climbed higher into the hills. The brushy, sparsely wooded land gave way to denser forest. Large rocks were scattered over the slopes. The place had a rugged charm, Melinda was forced to admit, but her shock over Lonnie's lewd conduct and her fear over the way he was driving prevented her from fully appreciating the scenic beauty.
The other passengers were stoic, saying little. The men sipped from their jugs. Melinda had the feeling that they still were watching her, as if she were a curiosity in their midst. But to her way of thinking, they were the curious ones. She wondered whether she would ever feel at home with them.
Melinda was a bundle of raw nerves when the bus finally arrived at Horner's Hollow. As the name suggested, the community nestled in a bowl-like valley. Its floor was covered by a patchwork of small farms. Corn was the most prominent crop, but the rows of tall green stalks were interspersed with fields of hay, strawberries, and garden vegetables. Horses and mules grazed in rock-strewn pastures. The bus rounded a bend at a dairy farm and entered a cluster of crude structures which comprised the town.
The largest building was a plain white church. It stood back from the road, its modest steeple rising above the surrounding roofs. Across the meandering dirt side street was the single-roomed schoolhouse. Melinda felt a momentary elation, quickly tempered by the starkness of the frame, white-washed structure surrounded by a grassless yard. Two crude outhouses were situated behind the main building, their doors standing open to reveal benchlike seats with holes cut in them. With a shudder Melinda realized that was where she would have to go to pee. The door of the school also was open, but no one appeared to be around.
The bus stopped in front of a general store with a rough-hewn exterior. It was closed and on the dusty window was a lettered sign: Horner's Hollow--U.S. Post Office. Across the street a small garage yawned open, exposing a grimy work bench laden with tools and parts of machinery. A bare-chested man, .whose pants hung below his protruding belly, grinned and waved at the bus before bending over the engine of an ancient car. A farm truck stood out front, next to a lever-operated gas pump.
Additional structures were scattered along the main road and single intersecting street. Most of these appeared to be private houses, though "shacks" was a more descriptive term. The majority were unpainted. They had crooked chimneys and sagging steps.
After the harrowing ride, Melinda's main emotion was simple gratitude for having arrived safely at her destination. But when she had breathed a sigh of relief, depression settled over her. Horner's Hollow was even cruder and more provincial than she had expected.
"We're going to stay here a few minutes," the bus driver announced as he got out of his seat. He swayed, and Melinda concluded that he was very drunk. Again she thanked God for bringing her through the journey safely.
She was the last person out of the bus. When she finally stepped to the ground, a group of people were gathered around the bus driver, who lay on his back in the dust. He was writhing and grimacing in apparent pain, clutching his middle.
"What's the matter with him?" Melinda asked a gap-toothed fellow who had gotten off the bus.
The passenger gave her an unperturbed look and shrugged. "Drank too much, most likely. There was probably a touch of bad stuff in the lot."
"You mean the liquor was poisoned?"
"Naw. Just a mite green maybe. Lonnie'll be okay. He ain't much of a drinking man, I reckon."
"Give us a hand here," Ed requested, and took hold of Lonnie's legs. Two other men from the bus grasped the driver's arms, and the three carried him back onto the vehicle.
"Come on, folks, we better be moseying," someone said.
The remaining passengers hurriedly boarded the bus, one settling himself in the driver's seat. The bus snorted, spewing acrid fumes from its exhaust, and started rattling down the road. It quickly gathered speed, raising a cloud of dust that settled over the town like a thinly woven blanket.
"Wait!" Melinda cried. "My luggage!"
"Ain't these your bags, miss?" a young voice beside her asked. It belonged to a teen-age youth with red hair who wore bib overalls, one suspender dangling. A grin lit up his freckled face as he pointed to two suitcases sitting side by side on the ground.
Melinda sighed with relief. "Yes, those are mine. Thank you. I thought the driver, being sick and all, had forgotten to . . . take them . . . out of the ..."
Gathered in a loose circle around Melinda were perhaps two dozen people--men, women and children. They were all staring at her. Except for the freckle-faced youth, no one smiled.
A tall man in an ancient-looking frock coat stepped forward. He wore a black string tie around the rumpled collar of a once-white shirt. His face was gaunt, his eyes dark and penetrating, and he was bald except for a fringe of scraggly brown hair above his collar.
He looked Melinda up and down and said, "So!"
"I... I beg your pardon?"
"You are Miss Johnson, aren't you?" the cadaverous man inquired. His voice was surprisingly mellow and contained a great deal of latent power. It suggested education and bore no trace of backwoods accent.
"Yes, I am," Melinda replied. "Are you the Reverend Perkins?"
"That is correct." He looked at her disapprovingly.
The onlookers remained silent. Melinda felt more uncomfortable than ever.
"The school superintendent told me in his letter that I'm to stay with you and your family," Melinda said to the preacher.
"Well now, that depends ..."
"On what?"
"On whether you're a righteous woman!"
Reverend Perkins boomed. The sudden force of his delivery made Melinda's knees tremble.
"Amen!" an onlooker shouted. Murmurs spread among the crowd.
Melinda was confused and frightened by the preacher's attitude. She searched the faces of the surrounding townsfolk. "I... I don't understand."
"You don't?" The preacher -gestured with a sweep of his hand. "Look at you--eyes all painted up, red stuff on your mouth, wearing that skimpy dress that hardly covers your privates!" His eyes lingered on Melinda's exposed thighs.
Her cheeks turned red.
"You look like a child of the devil!" Perkins proclaimed.
There was a hushed silence.
Melinda was deeply hurt. She said, "You have no right to insult me this way."
"You, insulted?" the preacher thundered. "You? A painted hussy? A Jezebel? How would it be possible to insult someone of your kind?"
"Amen!" screeched an old woman in a sunbonnet, who stood at the preacher's side.
Melinda felt as if she were slowly melting into the ground.
Reverend Perkins launched into a bitter tirade against sin and degradation, waving his arms as if to call down the powers of heaven upon the frightened girl who stood before him, cheeks glowing from shock and humiliation. Perkins's dark eyes glinted fiercely as the scathing words poured from his lips.
"I will show you what decent, God-fearing people think of your kind!" he raged. "This is the condition in which you belong!"
Perkins lunged at Melinda. She screamed in terror as his bony hand clutched her miniskirt and gave it a vicious tug. The fasteners popped. A seam split down the side. The preacher whipped the torn skirt away, and Melinda was left in blouse and panties.
Her minibriefs were made of thin nylon whose pale-pink color harmonized with her skin. The sleek fabric clung smoothly to her mount of Venus, revealing a shadow of the lovely blonde hair that grew there and a suggestion of the puffy slit that traveled downward to disappear between her smooth, soft thighs.
Everyone--men, woman and children--stared at her in shocked silence. Even the preacher, realizing that he had gone too far, shut up and took a backward step. Melinda felt his eyes, and the eyes of the others, probing shamelessly through her skimpy panties, caressing her pussy. She was mortified. And yet she was thrilled. A wave of intense heat spread through her, causing her skin to tingle. Her knees felt weak as she stared back at the eyes that seemed to devour her. A swamp began forming between her thighs.
Suddenly the surge of conflicting emotions overwhelmed Melinda and she burst into tears. She jammed her hands in front of her hot crotch and held them there.
"I will . . . show you to the house," Perkins said stiffly, his voice faltering for the first time. He stripped off his long coat and threw it around the quivering, half-naked girl.
Melinda clutched the preacher's coat closely about her as he guided her by the arm. The hushed, staring crowd parted, allowing the preacher and Melinda to round the general store and hurry along the dirt street between the church and schoolhouse. Melinda kept her eyes directed downward in shame. She was confused by her perverse excitement. Juice had dribbled from her vulva, making her thighs slippery as they rubbed together. The crotchband of her panties was sopped.
Reverend Perkins's house was located behind the church. It was easily the finest residence in town. Though consisting of only one story like the others, it was comfortably large and had a serviceable coat of white paint. Behind it rose a water tank on stilts, suggesting the presence of indoor plumbing.
Perkins guided Melinda up the steps and into the house. They passed through the living room and down a short hall.
"This will be your room," Perkins said, opening a door.
Only long enough for me to change clothes, then I'm going to get a ride out of here, Melinda was about to reply. But the words wouldn't come.
Melinda had chosen the teaching job in Horner's Hollow because she believed some experience in a one-room school, at the outset of her career, would help her decide what grade level was best for her to teach. She still felt that way. Beneath her naive and girlish exterior, Melinda had a character to be reckoned with. She had been taught to live up to her obligations, and now that she was in Horner's Hollow she was determined to stay and make the best of it. As for the rude and insulting behavior of the bus driver and preacher, they were to be pitied for their ignorance, she believed. She hoped to bring some enlightenment to the backward community which would rub off even on them.
She turned to face Reverend Perkins as he followed her into her room. "Where are my bags?"
"They are being fetched," he said in the curiously formal style which he apparently considered appropriate to his profession. Melinda supposed it impressed the simple hill people.
The red-haired youth with the broken suspender brought in the bags and gave Melinda a smile. He was the one person in town that she liked. Holding the preacher's coat closely about her with one hand, she opened her purse and offered the boy a quarter.
"Oh, no, ma'am," he said, grinning as he backed off awkwardly. "I don't want your money."
"But it's a tip for carrying the bags. In the city ..."
The preacher interrupted, saying, "You will soon learn, young woman, that city ways are not favored here."
Melinda slammed the coin away and snapped her purse. What clods! she thought. The lot of them!
"If you'll give me some privacy," she said in cutting tones, "I'll get dressed."
The teen-ager left, but Preacher Perkins remained. He was watching Melinda, and she was surprised to note a slight smile on his thin lips. His eyes twinkled brightly.
"If you're waiting for your coat," she snapped, "I'll give it to you after I've gotten dressed."
Perkins stepped to the door, but instead of leaving the room he swung the door shut and turned to face Melinda.
"My dear..." he began, his tone becoming unctuous, "the way I talked outside was for the benefit of the townsfolk. They expected me to berate you for your style of dress, of which they don't approve." He moved closer to Melinda. "But between us, there needn't be hostility. We are both acquainted with the outside world. We understand each other."
He placed his hand on Melinda's shoulder. "If you will cooperate, I can make things easier for you here." He began to open the coat Melinda was wearing.
She resisted, clutching the garment more firmly about her. "Get out of this room!" she ordered.
The preacher's eyes narrowed, and a steeliness came into them. "Young woman, that is no way to talk. You are a guest in my house."
"Guest? The school district is paying you to board me."
"In the eyes of God, you are my guest," the preacher said firmly.
"Will you please leave God out of it? Now if there's nothing else ..." Melinda was afraid of the unpredictable preacher. Her heartbeat quickened.
Perkins was breathing hard as his beady eyes moved over her. Suddenly he reached out with both hands, catching Melinda by surprise, and tore the coat wide open. He stripped it off her shoulders.
She gasped and backed up as the preacher stared at the front of her close-fitting silken panties. He lunged again, and Melinda screamed when he grasped her arm. Despite his emaciated appearance, Perkins was strong enough to shove her staggering toward the bed where she fell face-down. He pounced onto the bed beside her, holding her down with his arm and shoulder while he grasped the elastic top of her panties. He gave the flimsy garment a yank, pulling it off her ass. His cock turned bolt-hard as he stared at Melinda's luscious white buttocks. She screamed again and twisted wildly, causing the tempting globes to shake.
"Be still, my precious child," the preacher whispered next to her ear as he stroked her quivering ass cheeks. The scent of alcohol on his breath was overpowering.
He's just a drunken lecher like the rest of them, Melinda thought, and yet he calls himself a man of God! But this shock was overshadowed by her desperate fear as Perkins wrenched her onto her back and clawed at the front of his trousers.
"No! Ooh, no!" she cried, flailing at him.
Perkins managed to subdue her with one hand while he opened his pants with the other. He was staring at her delightful cuntal slit, so fresh and pink in its forest of golden curls. When his cock leaped out through his fly, the wicked thing was stiff as an arrow. Skinny, and with a bald purplish head, the preacher's prick was longer by far than Harry's. Melinda gaped at it, and was momentarily petrified.
"That's my sweet little cunt," the Reverend Perkins crooned obscenely as he slid his hand down over her tufted mound and onto the lips of her vulva. The velvety flesh was warm and slickly coated with the honey of her excitement.
The preacher's lascivious middle finger poked into Melinda's soft, oily crevice. She gasped. Perkins's prick quivered, the bald head thrusting toward her like a fist. Staring at it in horrified fascination, Melinda could push only half-heartedly at Perkins's diddling hand.
The preacher stroked Melinda's pussy with obvious delight, his eyes glinting, his lips moistly parted. His alcoholic breath surrounded the confused, passion-plagued girl. She didn't want to give in to the repulsive man-her decency cried out against it--but after all she had gone through during the last few hours her resistance had dwindled nearly to zero.
A rapping sounded at the door. "Clem Perkins!" a woman called through the paper-thin panel. "Is everything all right in there? I heard screaming."
"It's my wife," the preacher whispered, and clamped his hand over Melinda's mouth.
"Yes, dear," he called back. "I was just giving the hussy a lecture, and she resented hearing the truth."
Lowering his voice, Perkins told Melinda, "Don't yell, and don't say anything about this later, or I will ruin you in this town. I can do that. The people listen to me."
When he took his hand away from her mouth, Melinda's brain was reeling. She remained silent as he backed off the bed, his softened penis flopping obscenely out of his fly.
"Remember what I told you, young woman," the preacher declared loudly, for the obvious benefit of the listener outside. "The wages of sin is eternal damnation!" He straightened his clothes and zipped up.
Melinda lay panting, concealing her genitals with her hands, as the Reverend Perkins strode pompously from the room, closing the door behind him. Confused and badly shaken, Melinda couldn't possibly forget what he had said-or done.