Chapter 5
A light snore escaped Ned Dow's lips as Laurie watched him sleeping heavily in the master bedroom of the main ranch house. After her return from White Chief Canyon, she had tiptoed up to her room, showered and changed into fresh clothes, then gone in search of her uncle to offer an alibi for having arrived home so late. Now she was thankful to find him asleep, laughing softly at herself for having forgotten, during the months at school, that it was his habit to nap for an hour or so after lunch. She crept stealthily out of the room and returned to her own, already relishing the opportunity she would have to relive the events of that peculiar day in private.
Back in her room, she undressed, pausing now and again to view herself in the full-length mirror on the wall next to her vanity table. Not that she was vain, it was simply that now the luscious lines and contours of her young female curves had become important to her through Ken Chester's appreciative eyes. There was no mistaking that he openly admired her female charms, actually drooled while gazing at her naked young breasts and the firm tantalizing swell of her buttocks. And for once, looking at herself realistically, she began to understand the magnetic attraction her young body had for a man.
After all, Ken Chester was a man, a real man, handsome and lonely. But most of all, she was disturbed by his remarks of what it took to be a woman. She remembered his words explicitly: That no virgin was really a woman, and he had said that only a man could transform a girl into a woman. There had been a note of contempt in his voice when he had said the word girl, and now she found herself smarting at the thought that he regarded her as a mere girl.
For several months now, she had sensed that she was entering into a new cycle in her life. Her rapidly developing young body was playing tricks on her, sexual tricks, and often she woke in the morning with an exciting moisture between her heated thighs.
Now she visualized Ken Chester's naked body as she had seen it that day at the pool. She thought especially of his long thick penis, seeing it swollen and erect from a distance, and later feeling it pressed like a scalding staff against her smooth naked back. Until today she had not permitted her thoughts to wander to sex, but now she recalled with exciting clarity every detail of his lust-engorged penis and the semen-bloated testicles beneath it. She was actually enjoying these lewd pictures in her mind and feared the intrusion of a single thought or idea which might inhibit them, turn them into painful instruments of shame and guilt. Before her death, Laurie's mother had instilled in the pretty young girl a sense of decorum that had successfully blocked out any specific imaginings about sex.
Now, however, her imagination was opening up and she was able to drift gradually into sleep, the deep, languorous sleep of limpid sensuality.
"So you rode up into the Chiquitas today, eh? Well, I'm sure as hell glad you had enough sense to high-tail it home before the storm hit," said Ned Dow to his niece that evening at dinner. Ned Dow was a bear of a man, well over six feet tall, and his every movement, as well as the booming sound of his voice, conveyed an impression of hugeness. Although Laurie had never been really afraid of him, her love of the man was tempered with a solid respect for his sheer size and the authority with which he handled the affairs of the ranch.
"Yes, Uncle Ned, I had a dandy ride," she responded, smiling happily as she once again thanked her lucky stars for his habit of sleeping after lunch. Then she sat for a moment staring at her empty plate with wide eyes, wondering if she dare tell him about meeting Ken Chester at the pool. Her uncle might question her about the details of the encounter, and she was not certain that she could lie successfully. After a moment, an alternative topic for conversation came to mind her uncle's prize stallion who had not been rounded up with the other stock spooked by a bear two nights ago.
"Say, Uncle Ned, did you get a lead on the black stallion yet?" Laurie asked, her interest kindled at the thought of the virile black stud.
"It's just as Hank told you, he saw his tracks leading down into Boggy Canyon. But he's tough and can stand conditions that would kill an ordinary horse in nothing flat. . . How come you're all of a sudden so interested in that ornery stud? You're supposed to be concernin' yourself with books and the English language. That's why I'm payin' through the nose to send you to a good school, because you've got your mother's brains and can make sense out of things."
Laurie's bright face lit up with an affectionate smile and she reached across the table to squeeze her uncle's massive forearm. "How do you know I'm not planning to write a book about horses?" she said mockingly, her green eyes ripening with glee at having posed a question that she knew he could not answer. She frequently delighted in drawing him out this way, knowing that his male pride would rear up and cause him to launch lengthy explanations for the questions he asked.
This time, however, he merely grunted and leaned forward slightly to stare unflinchingly into her eyes. After what seemed an eternity, his gaze dropped to the taut white material of the blouse stretched to the breaking point by her ripely budding breasts. She had seen him stare at her that way before many times since her parents' deaths, and had never known what to make of it. But this time, so soon after the eventful encounter with Ken, the lewd meaning behind his glinting eyes became clear. He was thinking of her sexually!
"Okay, love, you've got me I don't know whether or not you're planning to write a book. But I can guess that you're not." His gruff voice, normally loud, was quieter and almost quavered with male emotion. "As a matter-of-fact, that black stud might just interest you the way a healthy man interests a healthy woman . . . That ornery black bastard might just make you think of yourself as female. Hell, you're old enough to start thinkin' that way . . . Ain't nothin' wrong with thinkin' of yourself as a woman."
"Uncle Ned!" the astonished sixteen year old flushed, embarrassed and a little amazed at the possibility that her uncle might be right. There did seem to be some sort of weird link between her musings about the stallion and whatever notions she had about herself as a female . . . But, there was something, some connection she failed to understand. Since that encounter in the dark interior of Ken Chester's cabin, she had found it nearly impossible to think of the blond ranch-hand's caresses without soon thinking of the fierce stallion! Was the horse a kind of sexual symbol in her young, inexperienced mind?
Then, as they sat there in silence, she was shocked to discover that even in her childhood she had somehow compared her uncle to the black stallion she had watched mount and furiously ram his "cock" into the brood mares.
"Hell, girl!" the big man roared in his accustomed voice, his eyes twinkling and familiar again. "Despite your momma's bein' a lady and all she taught you, you're still female and just as full of natural hankerings as anyone else. I'm only try in' to get you to realize it. It ain't wrong to think about sex . . . and any time you want to come to me . . . to talk about it. . . you can feel free to. You understand?"
"Of course, Uncle Ned, but about the stallion . . . " Her voice trailed off with the uncertainty of what she was going to say next to the towering man across the table.
"Besides that," he barked, "it's no damned secret that you're already equipped with more than enough of what it takes to be a hot little item in the right man's bed. All right, I know this sounds mighty bold to you, but don't be silly and bolt before you stop to mull over what I'm sayin' . . . If something happened I mean if you happen to get in a dither and land up under some good-lookin' boy for Christ's sake don't get caught and come home in foal. If you're gonna have fun, be careful, that's all."
"Okay, Uncle Ned, if that ever happens, I'll remember what you've said." Then, changing the subject for her own relief, she asked if he would mind if she spent most of the following day riding Sniffy up in the Chiquita's.
"Sure, go ahead," Ned Dow said benevolently. "That's what vacations are for . . . Just be careful of snakes and storms, that's all I ask."
"I'll be careful," she assured. "Who knows, maybe if I ride along quietly and keep in the shadows, I'll catch sight of the stallion."
"Maybe," he said as he drained off the glass of beer that he always had with dinner, no matter what the fare. Laughing, he added: "But don't let that black stallion catch you. You never can tell, he might work up a yen for a pretty girl like you." His statement provoked a shudder in her, a tremor caused as much by a dark fear as by tiny instinctive surges of lewd fascination with her uncle's warning.
Later, as she prepared for bed, Laurie took extra care at brushing her hair and even spent the better part of an hour manicuring her nails. There was no sense kidding herself: She definitely planned on riding up to Ken Chester's cabin the next day. He would probably think that her appearance there was a blatant invitation for more of what had happened today. And perhaps that would not be far from wrong; she was not exactly sure of her motives for wanting to see him again. One thing she knew, even if he was older than she, and a complete stranger, she could not tolerate his thinking of her as a mere girl!