Chapter 4
After school on the following day, Melinda was seated alone at her desk, her head bent forward, her face sheltered in her hands.
She had experienced another frustrating session with her boisterous class. Billy had cornered May again, this time behind the outhouses during recess. Another girl had rushed to tell Melinda, and the young teacher had arrived on the scene just as Billy was pulling down May's panties. Melinda had no sooner broken this up before Jasper and Luke got into a fight at the opposite side of the schoolyard. Melinda could only stand by and scream helplessly at the boys to stop. Finally they did, but not until Luke had suffered a bloody nose.
Melinda's every contact with the adult townspeople had been equally frustrating. She would smile and nod at them as she passed, but they invariably snubbed her.
The situation was beginning to seem hopeless. Melinda was considering writing the county school superintendent and asking to be replaced. "Have a rough day?"
The masculine voice had come from the doorway. Ed stood there, a sympathetic look on his face.
Melinda sighed gratefully. "Oh, Ed, I'm so glad to see you!"
He approached her desk. "Are you really? That isn't how you talked when I saw you last."
"Forget that, please. I'm sorry I was rude."
She stood, and Ed put his arms around her. "It's okay, baby," he said, giving her a little pat on the ass.
Melinda felt such reassurance in his embrace that she didn't protest the intimacy.
After a moment he stepped back. "Have the kids been giving you hell?"
"Yes," she admitted.
"Have the fathers been back?"
Melinda shook her head. "Everybody's been avoiding me as if I were a plague carrier. It looks as if I'm not right for this job. I'm thinking about catching the next bus out of here."
Ed studied her. "You can't do that. There isn't any bus."
"What?"
"Lonnie, the bus driver, is sick as a dog. He was picked up by helicopter and taken to a hospital in Nashville."
Melinda blinked. "I know he had drunk too much and collapsed, but I had no idea it was that serious."
"It isn't how much he drank," Ed said. "It's what he drank. And he's not the only one who's gotten sick from it. There's been a rash of lead poisoning around here lately."
"Why is that?"
"The moonshiners have taken to using car radiators to condense their hootch. That's because the radiators are easy to get and set up. Usually there's no trouble with the batch, but once in a while enough lead settles into the whiskey to be dangerous."
"Ed, that's terrible!" Melinda exclaimed. "Why doesn't somebody put a stop to it?"
Ed smiled faintly. "That's what the feds are trying to do. But all moonshine is illegal, and the T-men want to wipe it all out. The guys around here won't stand for that. They're united against the federal boys."
"Somebody ought to explain to the people who make this . . . this moonshine, what they're doing wrong," Melinda said earnestly. "I believe I could do it."
Ed laughed and pulled her into his arms. "What would a cute gal like you know about making booze?" he asked, and gave her a quick kiss on the lips.
A pleasurable tremor passed through Melinda, and Ed felt it. He tightened his arms around her and pressed his mouth to hers again, this time with passionate force. His tongue bore between her teeth, forcing her jaws apart. He held her so close she could feel his hose-like cock.
Excitement raced along Melinda's nerves. Heat flared in her loins. Becoming alarmed, she struggled and finally succeeded in pushing the brash young man away.
"You mustn't do that!" she said, panting, the color high in her cheeks.
"You liked it," Ed said, grinning.
"I did not! Anyway, I'm interested in this moonshining business." She struggled to bring herself under control as Ed watched her, grinning widely. "I took chemistry in college, so I know what I'm talking about. I could help these people."
"Melinda, listen--they know if they didn't use car radiators the booze would be safer. But it's hard to get the copper tubing and the other stuff to make a real still. The feds have cut off the supply all over this part of the state, and they're busting the old stills as fast as they can find them."
"Copper tubing isn't necessary," Melinda said. "It would be safe to use radiators if they were equipped with a filtration system. The filters could be built easily enough."
"Yeah?" Ed was becoming interested.
"I could build one and show the people how it works," Melinda went on. "But I would have to get to a library where I could find a good chemistry textbook. And I'd need a few materials from a hardware and drug store."
Melinda saw in this project an opportunity to do something for the local people that would win their acceptance. It would give her a reason for remaining in Horner's Hollow and some hope for the future. There was no time to lose.
"How long would it take to drive to the nearest library?" Melinda asked excitedly.
"That'd be at the county seat," Ed said. "A little over an hour."
"Then we could make it today before the library closes." She took Ed's hand and looked earnestly into his eyes. "Drive me, Ed! Please. This might mean a lot to everyone around here."
Ed's interest increased. "Well, I was fixing to do some farm work before the day was over, but. . . okay. My truck's right outside."
Melinda picked up her purse and she and Ed left the schoolhouse together.
Melinda withdrew two books from the library and made her purchases, which Ed placed on the floor of his pickup. It was dinnertime by then, and Ed offered to buy her a meal. She accepted.
They went to a modest little cafe on the main street of town. The atmosphere was severely plain, but the food was wholesome and plentiful.
More relaxed than she had been for a long time, Melinda chatted freely with Ed across the table. They got to know each other.
Melinda learned that Ed's mother had died when he was twelve years old and his father had passed away four years later. Ed had taken over the family farm and had run it successfully, bringing up a younger brother and sister. Ed's sister had since married, but his brother was only fifteen years old and still living with him. The deputy sheriff's job augmented Ed's farm income, giving him a percentage of the fines levied against people he arrested and mileage fees for serving legal papers.
Melinda admired Ed's character, finding him to be altogether different from the impression she had first gained of him on the bus. But his male aggressiveness continued to make her uneasy, and his rather rough exterior jarred her sensibilities.
On the way back to Horner's Hollow, as she sat a bit closer to him in the pickup, Melinda was aware of Ed's sexual vibrance. It was having its effect on her, quickening her pulse rate and making her cozily warm between the thighs. Because she had discovered she liked him as a person, and because of the project she had in mind for helping the local citizens, Melinda felt a hundred per cent better about her situation in Horner's Hollow. For the first time since she had arrived there, she was almost happy.
The narrow dirt road wound around the crest of a hill, furnishing a sudden view of a magnificent red and gold sunset.
"Oh, let's stop for a minute!" Melinda said impulsively.
There was a wide level area at the hill's promontory, and Ed guided the pickup off to the side of the road. He stopped the vehicle and set the brake.
"Isn't it beautiful?" Melinda enthused as she gazed at the rim of sun which glowed dull orange through the gathering mist. The clouds were gilded delicately.
Ed was looking at her rather than at the sunset. "You're beautiful," he said, and slid against her.
Melinda turned to look at him, and he caught her parted lips in a bruising kiss. His tongue surged into her mouth. Melinda caught her breath. Ed's hand lit on her breasts and began to caress the full, sensitive mounds.
A dam seemed to burst inside Melinda, and she was flooded by a wave of sensuality that took her completely by surprise. She believed she should fight Ed, but for the moment she couldn't. His hand felt too good as it rubbed her nipples through her thin blouse and bra. The nubs firmed and pushed forward, asking for an even more intimate caress.
Melinda returned Ed's kiss, stroking her moist tongue against his.
He slid his hand down across her belly and to her thighs. An alarm went off in her brain, but she ignored it. Melinda let the aggressive man move her thighs apart and stroke their bare inner surfaces. His work-roughened fingers were abrasive against her tender skin, but the intimate contact made her throb with desire.
When Ed's fingertips touched the silken barrier of her panties, pressing her soft, hairy pussy through the thin cloth, Melinda's alarm sounded so loudly that she had to take heed. She broke the kiss and grasped Ed's arm, pushing it away.
"We mustn't," she said. But she was breathing hard, and her limpid eyes conveyed a message totally different from her words.
"I want you," Ed said huskily.
"That wouldn't be right," the prudish little girl within Melinda declared.
Ed chuckled tensely. "Baby, it wouldn't be right not to finish what we started."
He wrapped his arms around Melinda and drew her crushingly against his chest. Their mouths fused more hotly than before. Ed's hand glided down her side and dipped underneath her short skirt to resume caressing her bare upper thighs. Melinda's passion took another surge as Ed stroked his tongue in her mouth. He twisted her body farther toward him so she was seated on one hip, and he moved his hand to her exposed buttock. He kneaded the resilient flesh through her thin panties.
Melinda felt as if she were being caught in a whirlpool. Her brain spun giddily. Ed grasped the elastic band at the top of her panties and drew it down, slipping his hand directly onto her buttock, his fingertips teasing the hot, tight cleft between that mound and its twin.
No! Melinda thought desperately. Oh, God, no!
She began to struggle.
Ed had proceeded too far to be rejected, especially since he could tell that Melinda's need was as strong as his own. Though she tore her mouth from his and began to beat him on the chest, he succeeded in pulling her silken pants down to her knees and jamming his hand between the tops of her smooth, hot thighs. His fingers toyed with the hair-covered lips of her pussy.
Blinding flashes of sensual delight seared Melinda's brain. The glands in her vulva exuded honey, and her' cunt lips became slick as Ed manipulated them deftly. Her clit was a hard little pea against the tip of his middle finger. He rubbed it, and Melinda moaned.
"Let's get out of the car," he whispered. 'There's a nice grassy spot at the edge of the woods."
"No!" Melinda exclaimed.
"Then I'll take you right here, but it won't be as good for either of us."
"You're not going to . . . take me at all," she declared, panting, as she tried to push him away. "Now let me go!"
Ed's patience ran out. His experience had taught him that there were girls who had to be forced a little, to make them do what they really wanted. He had never known a girl as attractive as Melinda. His instinct told him that unless he followed through with her now, he might never get another chance, and he wouldn't be able to respect himself as a man if he let the golden opportunity slip away.
Ed opened the door behind him and grasped Melinda by the back and thighs, pulling her across the seat. Her skirt slid hip high, exposing her beautiful blonde pussy. As Ed stood, his cock pushed his pants outward like a tent top. Melinda kicked and screamed as he lifted her in his arms.
He kicked the truck door closed and carried the writhing girl into the woods. Melinda felt desperately afraid and humiliated by Ed's rough treatment, but her body sang with an all-encompassing desire such as she had never known before.
Ed dropped her onto the soft grass at a location hidden from the road by the trees. He landed beside her, partially covering her body with his own. He stripped her panties the rest of the way down her legs and off, then quickly slid between her legs, taking hold of her thighs from underneath and spreading them wide apart.
Melinda beat at his tousled head and tried to kick, but that was impossible because of the way Ed was holding her.
He's going to fuck me! she. thought. Oh, God, I can't let him!
But what Ed did next was even more shocking to her. He bent his head between Melinda's thighs and pressed his open mouth against the soft, hair-rimmed labia of her cunt. She gasped as Ed began to suck her sweetness, spreading her cunt lips with the audacious action of his lips and thrusting tongue. He speared the soft, wet core of her vagina, stroking his tongue in her slippery, narrow crevice and swiping it rhythmically across the tingling tip of her clitoris, "Ooh!" she cried. "Ooooh! Ooooh!"
Melinda's whole body seemed to melt before the blowtorch Ed was applying to her pussy. Her muscles softened to the point where she couldn't move them. Her arms and legs fell limp. Wave after wave of indescribable delight swept through her, rocking her sanity.
Ed was licking every soft, moist, tasty portion of her cunt, inside and out, wiggling the sensitive, excitement-puffed lips, flogging her clitoris with his tireless tongue. Melinda's belief that this was wrong was washed away in the floodtide of exquisite sensations that engulfed her. She had never felt anything so wonderful.
When Ed's hands crawled up her body to surround her firm breasts and squeeze them, Melinda couldn't tolerate the clothing that separated her throbbing mounds from his fingers. She found the strength to turn partially onto her side and lower the zipper at the back of her blouse. Though an inner voice cried Shame! she unhooked her bra and settled onto her back, pulling the clothing down off her shoulders.
Ed continued to kiss her pussy voraciously, mouthing the hairy, thick outer lips--gliding his maddening tongue in and out of all the slick inner folds-nibbling at her clit and sucking it--tongue-fucking the hot, palpitating mouth of her vagina. When he felt her push her blouse and bra down, he grasped the garments and hauled them the rest of the way to her waist, causing her tits to bob free. He clutched the satiny, resilient orbs and rubbed his thumbs across Melinda's stuck-up, throbbing nipples.
This new sensation, coupled with the magnificent stimulation she was receiving from Ed's mouth, destroyed Melinda's last bastion of resistance.
She was amazed to hear herself cry, "Oh, darling . . . take me! Do it now!"
Ed lifted his head and knelt between her thighs. He clawed at the metal buttons on the fly of his Levi's. His cock leaped out--long and hard, quivering with lust for the precious blonde-haired beauty.
The sight of his massive erection, pointing nakedly at her, shocked Melinda out of her mood of warm acquiescence. Suddenly Ed was just a coarse hillbilly, determined to degrade her--wanting her only as a sex object, as Harry had, but not offering even the degree of love that Harry had pledged.
"No!" Melinda cried. "We can't do this!"
She started to scramble to her feet.
Wild with lust and enraged by the girl's hypocritical turn-about, Ed slapped her across the face. The stinging blow knocked Melinda flat against the ground. Her cheek burned and her brain went woozy.
Ed quickly ran his hands underneath her and grasped the satiny air-pillows of her ass, squeezing them as he lifted. He scrambled forward on his knees, lodged the tip of his penis in Melinda's flaring, wet cunt and pushed, driving all seven inches of his bone-hard manhood into her.
She gasped, staring up at him. His hot cock throbbed powerfully inside her, stretching the walls of her vagina. The tip of his pecker touched her womb. Melinda felt brutally impaled--like a bug on a pin.
"Now you're gonna get it!" Ed husked. "Goddamn, you're gonna get the fucking of your life!"
"No ... !" she cried. "Oh, God, no!"
But Melinda realized it was too late to fight. Ed was already deep inside her, and he felt wonderful there. Her passion surged. She wanted Ed to complete what he had started, though she couldn't bring herself to admit it.
Ed fucked Melinda with long, sure, steady strokes, rolling and twisting her ass in his hands as he pumped his prick in and out of her from a kneeling position. He handled her as if she were a doll, his strength dominating her completely. Her head and shoulders pressed heavily against the ground as her body angled upward, her legs flopping at the flanks of the hard-fucking male. Melinda's titties shook. She moaned.
Ed's hard, thick cock stretched the elastic membranes of her pussy as it glided in and out. Melinda's channel was so slick with desire that there was no resistance--just blissful, well-oiled friction that thrilled every nerve end in her cunt and in his penis.
Soon Melinda began to writhe responsively, pushing her gold-tufted belly against Ed's deep-plunging thrusts. Unable to gain any leverage in her present position, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around Ed's middle. She pulled against him, driving her pussy vigorously against the coarse hair at the base of his cock. The rough edges of his fly hurt her tender cunt flesh as she pressed against him, but she didn't lessen her efforts one whit.
"Ooh, yes . . . yesss!" she panted, completely caught up in the excitement.
Ed dropped her ass to the ground and lay forward atop her, supporting himself on his arms. He twisted his head and swooped to gobble up a dancing pink nipple which he licked and sucked lustfully as he kept fucking the lovely girl.
When Ed went into the short strokes, Melinda squealed with unbridled joy. She fucked passionately with him, maintaining the rhythm. Ed pounded his hot cock into her-driving, reaching, stretching, gliding-slapping his balls against her ass. Melinda went wild. He had awakened within her a passion which Harry's less-vigorous screwing had barely tapped. Moaning and gasping, Melinda threw her hips against Ed's piston-like thrusts. Her belly undulated spastically. Her cunt rippled along the length of his rod, gulping at his plunging pecker as if she were trying to swallow and digest it.
Then came the full burst of Melinda's orgasm, shaking her from head to toes and filling her with indescribable warmth. Ed let out a frenzied groan, ground his prick even deeper into her pussy, and shook in the maelstrom of her completion, spewing his thick, viscous cream into the pit of her clutching cunt.
Melinda's hands, which had been gripping Ed's back, slowly released their hold and slid to the ground. Her legs did the same. Her brain was still wheeling, though in ever-widening circles-turning more slowly.
Gradually an awareness of what had happened and what it meant seeped into Melinda's deeper consciousness, and bliss changed to humiliation. She felt Ed's oppressive weight against her breasts and belly. The coarseness of his clothing scratched her.
"Get off," she said.
Ed pushed up on his arms and looked at her. He grinned, his face pleasantly flushed, brown hair hanging across his forehead. "Pretty great, wasn't it?" he asked cockily.
Melinda shut her eyes. She could feel Ed's penis softening inside her, shriveling to less than half its former thrusting bulk.
"Will.. . you ... please ... get... off... . me," she said, speaking every word slowly and distinctly as if she were having difficulty controlling herself. Her tone was frigid. Her eyes remained closed.
"Now listen," Ed told her, "don't go giving yourself a bad time ... or me, either. We did what we were both hankering to do, and we had a helluva good time at it. It wasn't wrong."
"GETOFF!" Melinda cried.
Shaken, Ed backed up, withdrawing his soft cock from her very slick vagina. He stuffed his slime-coated penis into his clothes and buttoned up.
Melinda held one hand in front of her pussy and the other arm across her breasts. "Where are my pants?" she demanded, still refusing to look at Ed.
He glanced around, saw her panties lying on the grass, and handed them to her. She opened her eyes. They shot sparks at him.
"Well, turn the other way!" Melinda snapped angrily.
Ed turned. She was spoiling the whole thing for him. It was one thing for a girl to fight beforehand, but when she gave a man this business afterward, she really hurt his ego. Ed knew, however, that he had given her a strong climax and she had enjoyed it. She might try to kid herself about that, but she couldn't fool him.
After she was dressed, Melinda walked past him, heading back to the truck. She hated him and herself, as well. But he mainly was to blame, she believed. He had forced her. She conveniently forgot that at one point she had asked him to do it. She couldn't ignore the earth-shaking truth of her magnificent orgasm-the first really good release she had ever had--and she blamed herself for the enjoyment. Climaxing so strongly with a man she didn't love, a crude lout whose only purpose was to defile her, was shamefully degrading. Melinda believed she had acted like a slut, and in the context of her moral upbringing there was nothing lower than that.
Ed climbed into the truck beside her. She sat well over on her own side of the seat. He started the engine, backed the pickup around, and resumed the drive to Horner's Hollow.
Darkness was closing in, and Ed turned on the truck's headlights. The beams wavered back and forth across the twisting, uneven road. Melinda was jostled in her seat, causing discomfort as Ed's semen trickled out of her still-tingling pussy, sopping the crotchband of her pants.
They rode in silence. The ultimate in sensual pleasure had turned to bitterness for them both.
My God, Melinda thought suddenly, what if he made me pregnant?
She had been on the pill while she dated Harry. She had a supply of them left, but she hadn't taken one in over a week.
As they approached Horner's Hollow, Ed made an effort to break down Melinda's reserve by placing his hand on her knee. But she stiffened and pressed her legs against the door, out of his reach.
He responded to the hurt by deciding to be as independent as she was. He had lived well enough without her for twenty-five years; he could continue to get along without her if need be. That would be better than begging her forgiveness when he had only done what she had wanted him to do.
It was clear that the young teacher still had a lot to learn.