Chapter 1
"Honey, please don't worry about it. You get too upset about these things. It's gonna work out okay, just don't make yourself get so tense."
Debbie Lyons listened anxiously to her husband's voice on the phone.
"I'll ... I'll try," she said, "I just feel so awful today. Tom, what's happening to our marriage?"
"Nothing's happening, we just have a couple of problems to work out, that's all. Everybody has problems don't they? Look, you relax today ... maybe take in a movie or something, and when I finish up work, I'll come, home and take you out to Mama Milano's, okay? We'll have a big Italian dinner and you'll feel better."
"All right, darling. That would be nice."
"Good. I gotta get back to work now. I'll see you when I get home. About six. All right?"
"All right."
"I love you, baby."
"I love you too, Tom...."
"Oh, that's what I want to hear, baby, it really is. See you later. Relax now, have a good day."
"I'll try ... I will."
"Good. Bye honey."
"Goodbye."
Tom Lyons' attractive young wife listened numbly as her husband hung up the phone. Then she slowly placed the receiver in its cradle and lit a cigarette. After a deep puff, she rose and began to pace nervously, aimlessly, about the spacious high-rise apartment in Seattle, Washington, that she and Tom shared. She paused now and then to rearrange the pillows in the comfortable, sunny living room, or the bottles of perfume and skin lotion that stood in neat clusters on her lavender skirted vanity table in the bedroom. As she busied herself with her tasks, she lit one cigarette after the other, sometimes only half smoking one before stamping it out harshly in an ashtray.
Her distracted movement, and the small frown that occasionally wrinkled her brow, in no way disguised the fact that she was an exceptionally pretty young woman, with bright hazel eyes that sparkled and changed with her mood, a pert, slightly upturned nose, full pink lips, and a creamlike complexion. She wore very little makeup; indeed, little was needed to fully accentuate the youthful beauty of her face, framed by a soft cascade of light brown hair that fell about her shoulders in a soft page-boy cut. Her trim figure, clad in demure white blouse and bright yellow capri pants, was petite, but alluringly rounded. Two firmly thrust young breasts pushed proudly against the restraining cloth of her brassiere and blouse, like large, ripe pears. Her hips and buttocks, a miracle of softly supple female flesh, flared gracefully outward from the narrow line of her waist and abdomen.
Her legs, well formed and slender, tapered down to her delicate slipper clad feet.
All in all, Debbie Lyons was a decidedly curvaceous and desirable specimen of nineteen year old young womanhood, with a face and figure that never failed to turn heads, both male and female. Yet there was an uncertainty about her, an air of physical and emotional tension that cast a dark cloud over her rare beauty, and an attentive observer could clearly see that despite her fresh good looks, Debbie Lyons was tormented by doubts and a deep unhappiness.
Now, as she continued to pace anxiously through the cheerful rooms of her apartment, small tears formed in the corners of her eyes, tears she had been struggling all morning to resist.
"Oh God," she moaned quietly, wiping them away with a handkerchief. "What am I going to do?"
She paused once more and lit another cigarette, her fingers fumbling nervously with the matches.
Tom and Debbie Lyons had been married only a month, and yet their marriage was at a serious crisis point, and the crucial issue was sex. The young bride had hoped that marriage to Tom, who was so patient and understanding, would remove her deep seated sexual fears, fears that had held her mind and body prisoner ever since she was twelve years old, depriving her of the normal emotional experiences of adolescence.
But on their marriage night, in a little honeymoon cottage they had rented at a Northern California resort, she had become completely hysterical when her amorous young husband tried to remove her clothes, and instead of making love, they had spent the entire evening talking, as Tom patiently tried to draw her out, to find the source of her terror. Finally, in the early hours before dawn, Debbie had confessed her hidden secret, the well-spring of shame and horror that she had never shared with anyone before. Choking with sobs and clinging to his strong broad chest, she had told him about the awful scene she had witnessed as a child that had made her terrified of men and repulsed by sex from that moment on.
Tom had been so understanding, she remembered, so gentle as he tried to overcome her fears, never forcing her to do anything she felt she couldn't handle. Yet after a month of marriage, and despite efforts on both their parts, Debbie had only barely lost her virginity, and was growing more and more frightened of making love, until now, she could not bear the thought of it. It had been two weeks since she had even allowed Tom to touch her, and she knew that her husband, a handsome and muscular foreman of a construction crew, was growing deeply frustrated, though he tried not to show it. She knew he needed release, full sexual release, but she could not give it to him. Instead she was growing more cold and hostile by the day, until now she felt as if she must be going insane, unable to break through her fear, unable to stem her growing frigidity, unable to love her husband like a normal woman.
The troubled young wife sat on the wide sofa, taking a deep puff on her cigarette, and tried once more to come to grips with her problem. She leaned back and closed her eyes, and at once her mind was .flooded with memories ... memories of her childhood ... when she was twelve years old, and her innocence was shattered by events so terrible that they still kept her frozen in fear as if they had happened only yesterday. Now where her mind drifted back, back, back, and she could once again smell the old smells, hear the old sounds....
She was sitting in her bedroom of her parents' fashionable home in suburban Seattle, dressing her favorite doll and looking forward to her parents return from a weekend trip to Los Angeles. She was glad they were coming back. Then Uncle Andy, who had been staying at the house and taking care of her, would go home. Although her fortyish bachelor uncle tried to be friendly, there was something about him she didn't like. He was always hovering around her with a strange look in his eye, and trying to hug and kiss her. When other grownups played with her it was fun, but with Uncle Andy it was different. He was fat and balding, with narrow little eyes that sometimes scared the little twelve year old, and he had a funny smell that she didn't like at all. He always called her 'my pretty little angel' or 'little baby doll', and his niece didn't like that either.
"After all," she said to herself as she sorted through her doll clothes, "I'm twelve years old now ... I'm not a little baby anymore. I wish he wouldn't call me those things."
But she contented herself in the happy knowledge that her mother and father were coming back, and Uncle Andy wouldn't be around except for occasional visits.
She heard the doorbell ring downstairs and ran to her window to see who it was. Maybe Mommy and Daddy got back sooner than they were supposed to, she thought excitedly.
But she saw no car or taxi out front, only a motorbike with a basket on the front that read Western Union Delivery. Her heart sank, for the prospect of being rid of Uncle Andy right away had filled her with happiness; now it was only a letter or something, and she'd have to face a dreary afternoon in her room hoping he wouldn't come in. Sadly she returned to the place on the floor where her dolls and doll clothes were spread out and began to dress her favorite, telling it what it would be like when her parents finally came home.
Moments later the door to her room opened and Uncle Andy walked in holding a yellow piece of paper in his hand, his face white as a sheet.
"Debbie," he said in a shaking, strangely quiet voice, "there's something I have to tell you."
The portly man sat heavily on her bed and stared at her in a queer way, as if he was unhappy, yet also excited at the same time.
"What's the matter, Uncle Andy?" Debbie asked fearfully. "Is anything wrong? Aren't Mommy and Daddy coming home today?"
"No, Debbie," her middle-age uncle replied slowly, small beads of perspiration breaking out on his forehead. "They're not coming home today ... in fact ... I'm afraid they're never coming home." The little girl held her breath, and her heart pounded like a hammer in her chest as he continued. "You see ... they had an accident on the way to the airport ... and I'm afraid ... I'm afraid...."
Suddenly the little girl jumped up, her eyes wide with horror and anguish, as her nimble young mind leaped to what he was trying to say.
"They're dead!" she screamed. "They're dead aren't they?"
"Yes ... I'm afraid so."
Debbie cried out like a wounded animal and fell to the floor of her room, sobbing wildly, overwhelmed with shock and grief. Her parents, whom she loved so dearly, were gone forever.
"Oh no," she sobbed miserably, "what am I going to do? Oh Mommy . ... Mommy
... Daddy....please come back to me ... please...."
"I'm afraid they can't come back, Debbie. But don't you worry ... you'll come to live with me now, and I'll take care of you just as they would."
The young girl turned her tear-ravaged face slowly towards the bulky man on the bed. He was trying to look sympathetic, but his eyes seemed funny and glazed as they traveled over her slim little body, just beginning to bud into young womanhood. Debbie felt herself begin to tremble with fear, and she grew dizzy, as if the floor beneath her had fallen away and she was plunging into a bottomless abyss.
"Would you like that Debbie?" she could hear her uncle saying as if from a great distance.
"Would you like that?"
Leaving her childhood home proved to be a deep shock for the pretty little girl, for she had been happy there, passing her days in sheltered idyllic innocence, with two loving parents who doted on her. She had her dolls, her toys, her own room decorated in pink and white, a virtual fairyland to play and dream in. She wept bitterly on the day a short time after her parents untimely death, when Uncle Andy took her to live in his own house on the other side of town.
"I know you'll like my house," he said, as they drove away from her old home for the last time. "You'll have your own room there, too. I know you'll like it."
But when they approached the new house, little Debbie's heart sank. It was a gloomy looking building, two stories high, in a crowded, run-down area of Seattle, Seeing her disappointed look, Uncle Andy tried to cheer her up, telling her that the inside, particularly her room, was much nicer. But this too, proved false, for the interior of the house was almost as drab and spare as the outside. The furniture was old and falling apart, and there was hardly even a picture on the cracked paint of the walls to brighten things up.
Her own room was an even bigger disappointment, for it was tiny, with only one window looking out on a vacant lot; a narrow bed stood in the corner, and the only other furniture was a wooden table and chair. Ugly, cold linoleum covered the floor.
"How do you like it?" Uncle Andy asked, placing his chubby arm around her shoulder and breathing heavily from the climb upstairs with her suitcases.
"It's ... it's very nice," Debbie managed to say, wriggling away from him, barely masking the intense dislike she felt for everything connected with her uncle.
"Good ... good," he replied, setting down her luggage and box of toys. "You just make yourself comfortable and I'll fix us something to eat."
The portly man smiled toothily at her, then, turned and went downstairs. Debbie stared miserably at her new home and wondered how she could ever be happy again in such an ugly place. But with typical youthful determination, she decided to make the best of the situation, as she knew that was what her mother and father would have wanted.
Life with Uncle Andy proved to be difficult. Debbie soon discovered that he drank heavily, often coming home quite late, crashing into furniture, and using the most abusive language she had ever heard. Yet she adjusted as best she could, and after a couple of months had managed to turn her cheerless room into almost a pleasant place with the addition of some pretty curtains and pictures. She found two girls her own age to play with, and although she sorely missed her parents and the life she had with them, her youthful resilience enabled her to make do with her new circumstances, and hope for better things to come.
And then, one day in late Spring, it had happened ... the terrible thing that no amount of youthful determination would ever, ever erase from her mind!
School had let out early that day because of a special teachers meeting. Debbie had rushed home, eager to play with her dolls and enter the make believe world she shared with them, where she was happy. Even though she was at an age when many girls no longer played with dolls, she had such great affection for her little 'friends' that she still spent hours with them every day. If only Uncle Andy, who rarely worked of late, wasn't half drunk in the kitchen....
To her surprise and delight, however, the house appeared to be empty. Overjoyed at being alone in the house, she quickly ran to her room, changed from her school clothes into a tee-shirt and a pair of shorts, and got out her dolls.
Opening the box where she kept them, however, she saw immediately that one was missing, her favorite. She always put her dolls away very neatly, and it was odd for one to be missing, especially her favorite-the blonde doll with the blue eyes that opened and closed. Puzzled, she searched her room, but it was nowhere to be found.
"Where could she be?" Debbie wondered aloud. "Maybe I left her down in the kitchen!" She raced down the stairs to retrieve the doll before her uncle saw it and flew into a rage, as he always did if one of her toys was left out. But a quick glance around the kitchen convinced her that it wasn't there either. She was about to go back to her room to look again when she heard a strange sound, a muffled groan that seemed to come from the cellar. Terrified, she stood absolutely still, straining to hear. Once more the sound came from below. It was like a dog whimpering or someone moaning weakly for help. The sound sent icy shivers racing through Debbie's pubescent young body, and she felt goose pimples on her slim, bare legs. She wanted to run, but something held her rooted to the spot. The grotesque sound came again and again. Someone ... or something ... was in the basement.
Maybe Uncle Andy's hurt himself, she thought suddenly through her fear. It was entirely possible, she knew, that he had fallen down drunk in the cellar and needed help. Slowly, her little heart pounding violently beneath the youthful swelling of her budlike breasts, she walked to the door of the cellar and opened it slightly, careful not to make any noise. The sounds were clearer now, and she could even make out certain words....
"Oh ... OOOHHHHH ... my angel ... unnnngggghhh...."
She knew at once that the raspy voice belonged to her uncle, but he didn't seem to be calling for help. Something about his tone made the little girl shiver from head to foot and for a moment she was tempted to run back upstairs. But her curiosity to know what was going on, and why her uncle was making such strange sounds, overcame her fear. Slowly she eased the door open and slipped inside, onto the dark landing at the top of the cellar steps.
A single light was burning in the dark room below, enabling the innocent seventh grader to see her way without falling. She was glad she was wearing her white tennis shoes, for their rubber soles made no sound as she slowly descended the first few steps to a place where she could peer down without being seen. She hardly dared to breathe as she crouched down and peeked through the railing.
As she struggled to adjust to the dim light, the first sight that met her eyes was a piece of her doll's clothing, about halfway down the stairs. "Oh dear," she thought, "Maybe Uncle Andy found my doll and is hiding it from me to punish me!" At the bottom of the steps, she could see one of her doll's shoes, and then there was a large pile of what looked like ... like Uncle Andy's clothes! She still couldn't see her uncle, but the strange sounds told her he was over in the corner near the light. Stealthily she descended a few more steps, craning her neck to see what was happening. The sight that met her eyes almost caused her to cry out in fear and shock.
Seated on a wooden chair in the corner of the dimly lit cellar was Uncle Andy, and he didn't have any clothes on! The rolls of fat on his flabby body were glistening with a light film of perspiration. His fleshy thighs were spread wide, and in one hand he was gripping a huge swollen column of flesh that grew rigidly upwards from the dark forest of curling hair at the bottom of his belly. In his other hand, Debbie realized with a shock, he was clutching her missing dolly! He had ripped off its doll clothes and was rubbing it over the hairy mounds of his chest, groaning and murmuring, his face twisted in a hideous, frightening mask.
"Oh, my little angel ... oh ... ooooohhhhhhhh," he moaned, his pudgy hand pumping up and down feverishly on his lust-hardened penis.
In her hiding place on the cellar stairs, Debbie cowered in horror, fighting down the waves of nausea that the sight of her lewdly writhing uncle created in her. Totally innocent, she had no idea what he was doing, but her instincts told her that it was wrong, dirty! Moreover, it was the first time in her young life that she had seen a naked male body, and her uncle's vulgar obesity revolted her to the very core of her being.
As if in a nightmare, her disbelieving young eyes fastened on the huge purplish-red shaft clasped in Uncle Andy's furiously pumping hand. The depraved circumstances in which she gazed at a penis for the first time made it seem to Debbie to be the ugliest thing in the world, rubbery and swollen, wriggling like a horrid snake. The sight of her nakedly pink dolly crushed against his sweatily glistening chest while he was jerking maniacally at his awful fleshy pole, made Debbie want to cry, but she knew that she mustn't make a sound that would reveal her presence. Numbly she watched, a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach, as her uncle continued his obscene manipulations.
On his chair in the cellar, Uncle Andy, unaware of his niece's presence, continued to gratify himself with steadily mounting passion.
He grunted and moaned, pressing the little blonde doll to his body, rubbing it sensuously over his nakedly throbbing chest and stomach, then lowering it until it was pressed against the hotly pulsing sac of his sperm-inflated testicles. The fat man's pudgy mouth twisted in a contorted grimace of ecstasy as his lurid excitement increased. The speed of his rapidly stroking hand mounted, and his eyes opened wide.
"Oh ... OOOHHHHHHH ... my little one ... my angel ... I'm cumming! I'M GOING TO CUM ALL OVER YOU, MY LITTLE DOLLY!"
Debbie's mouth flew open at his words. He was calling her dolly the same names he had called her! Hot tears of anger and shame filled her eyes, and her body was racked with icy waves of disgust. It was as if he really wanted her as the object of his nasty playing! The realization sickened the little girl. I'll never let anybody touch me like that! she vowed. Nobody would ever do to her the awful things Uncle Andy was doing to her doll!
"Fuuuucccckkk!!!" her uncle cried like a tortured animal. "Oh FUUUUUCCCCKKKK! I'M CUMMINNNGGG! CUMMMIIIINNGGGGG!"
Suddenly Uncle Andy's grossly naked body began to writhe uncontrollably in the chair. He was still pulling furiously at his lust-swollen penis, howling and crying out more obscenities. Then his jaw dropped open, as if he had been jolted with electricity, and from the tiny hole at the tip of his thickly bloated rod of flesh, a jet of milk-white liquid erupted, splashing onto his hairy stomach and onto the plastic nakedness of Debbie's little doll. The horror stricken child watched incredulously as the thick substance spewed out of the wildly throbbing penis held so tightly in his jerking hand. He groaned incoherently and covered the doll with the sticky substance. Burning tears poured down Debbie's cheeks as the loathsome release unfolded before her innocent eyes.
I hate him! I hate him! she ruminated bitterly as she watched the thick white fluid cover her favorite doll. It seemed to the terrified child that she had been betrayed, shamefully deceived by all of her childhood fantasies, and that here, in the dark cellar of her foster home, she had been once and for all stripped of her innocence. Somewhere in the subterranean reaches of her consciousness, she vowed that she would never be fooled again.
The young girl never mentioned what she had seen to her uncle, for she was too ashamed and mortified to even ask for her doll back, although she knew he had thrown it out after his vulgar abuse of it. Indeed, she soon abandoned her dolls altogether. They didn't seem to be as much fun anymore. She retreated more and more into her room to avoid her uncle's company, keeping the secret shame locked away in her heart.
By the time Debbie was sixteen the orphaned child's body had developed ravishingly beautiful proportions. Her tiny pubescent breasts had blossomed into two firmly upthrust, pink-tipped mounds that jutted out proudly, even beneath the demure blouses she always wore. Her pretty face became even more lovely, with glittering hazel eyes and sensual, softly shaped lips. Her hips curved enticingly, and her legs became long and slender. She was constantly besieged with requests for dates from the local boys, but she refused them all. Not that she wasn't attracted to young men, far from it. Often she would develop crushes on a handsome athlete or a good looking student in one of her classes, and she yearned to have one of them take her in his arms and kiss her tenderly. Yet, when she finally did start dating, hoping that her fears had diminished with the passage of time, she rigidly avoided all physical intimacy. The moment a boy tried to put his arm around her she would grow aloof and haughty, refusing even to pet in a harmless way. She became known as a 'cold fish' and soon the boys stopped asking her out.
Even before Debbie graduated from high school, she had decided that she would never be able to live the way normal girls did; her sexual fears were too deep. Even though she longed for male company, she felt it was hopeless, for the moment anything sexual entered the scene, she became cold as ice, distressed, and unable to return affection.
She entered nurse's training, working with vigor and determination at the local hospital. Even though she was a model of efficiency, her co-workers noticed the deep tension that lay behind her mask of precision and organization, and some of her peers even tried to speak to her about it. But she refused to discuss the matter. She was finally living on her own now, away from her horrid uncle, and had a quiet life in a small apartment; although she knew that deep inside she was desperately unhappy, she avoided the subject completely, throwing herself into her work.
And then she met Tom. She was eating in a small cafe near the hospital on her lunch hour, glancing through a magazine in a corner booth, when she heard some raucous male laughter. Looking up she noticed that a crew of workmen from a nearby construction site had come in to eat; they were full of boisterous spirits, joking and heckling each other. At first her reaction was the usual distaste she felt in the presence of 'uncultured' men, but just as she was about to turn away in disgust, she noticed that one of them was gazing at her directly. He was extremely handsome, about six feet tall, with a broad, muscular body. Curly blonde hair topped his rugged yet boyish face, and his skin was tanned from working outdoors and gleamed a bright bronze. Even in his tight denim work clothes, he had an air of strength and assurance that was immediately appealing to her, and there seemed to be a quality of gentleness about him that, in Debbie's eyes, set him apart from the other young men. She found herself staring at him openly, until finally he smiled, jolting her back to reality. Immediately she buried her face in the magazine, feeling utterly ridiculous at having stared so openly, but the next instant, he was sliding into the seat across from hers in the booth. She drew back, utterly astonished at his audacity.
"Hi," he said in a warm voice, an ingenuous smile on his face. "My name's Tom. What's yours?"
Debbie was totally flustered. No one had ever dared to approach her so brazenly. Caught completely off guard, she was at a loss for words.
"You've got a name, haven't you?" Tom asked jokingly.
Debbie's lips drew back tightly. "Yes I have," she snapped, "but I'm not in the habit of giving it out to strangers. Excuse me, but I have to go."
She gathered up her purse and coat and quickly strode out of the restaurant, embarrassed by the whole incident; but when she was about two blocks away, she heard a voice calling to her.
"Hey! Hey, miss! Wait!"
Turning, she saw the blond man was rushing down the street towards her. She quickened her pace, hoping to get to the hospital before he caught up with her, but he reached her side in seconds, out of breath and grinning from ear to ear.
"Miss ... I...."
"If you don't leave me alone, I'm going to call a policeman!" she stated coldly, continuing to walk.
"But I just wanted to tell you, you forgot to pay your check at that place!"
Debbie stopped in her tracks, and her jaw dropped open in surprise.
"I did? But...." She realized that in her haste to escape the luncheonette she had completely forgotten to pay.
"But it's okay, I paid it for you."
He grinned at her brightly, and she found herself unexpectedly charmed by him.
"You sure were in a hurry to get away," he said. "With all those apes in there, I don't blame you. Why one of those bozo's might even come right up to you and ask you your name!"
Debbie found herself laughing at his remark, laughing at her own foolishness, and for the first time in many months the tension in her body seemed to relax.
"I'm sorry I was so silly in there," she said.
"Don't apologize. I understand, believe me. I don't usually do things like that myself, but when I saw you, I couldn't help myself. I know I was being kind of fresh, but I didn't know how else to do it."
There was something about the handsome young man that made Debbie trust him completely. Perhaps it was the twinkle in his gold-fringed eyes, or the warmth in his voice, she couldn't be sure, but she was so charmed by him that day that she finally agreed to a date. And after two wonderfully romantic months, he proposed marriage, and she accepted. That had been a month ago, a month of what was supposed to be the happiest time of a woman's life....
I should never have gotten married, Debbie thought miserably, as her mind returned to the present. It was a mistake, a horrible mistake.
She knew that deep inside she loved her husband of only one month, loved him desperately; yet even he couldn't break through her overwhelming resistance to sex. Her mind was still tormented by the hideous vision of Uncle Andy crudely ejaculating his scalding white sperm onto her little dolly; she could still see his jiggling folds of fat naked flesh quivering lewdly under the cellar lamp as if it were only yesterday. Nothing seemed to help-not all Tom's gentle understanding, nor even her own desperate desire to be a good and loving wife.
Nervously, she reached for another cigarette and was dismayed to find the pack completely empty-her last pack of cigarettes. Somehow the realization that she was out of cigarettes broke through her last ounce of reserve, and tears suddenly cascaded down her cheeks. Curling up in desperation on the sofa, like a child in utter misery, she wept bitterly into the cushions, until finally, a merciful sleep overtook her.