Chapter 14

Monica Travers had grown up in Wide Ford and was a very typical young woman, from the Wide Ford point of view. That did not mean she was typical, from the viewpoint of the wider world, however. She was pretty, in a plain way. With some makeup she could have been beautiful, but makeup cost money and her mother couldn’t afford it. Her childhood had been carefree. There was practically no crime in Wide Ford. One reason for that was that the only bar in town had burned down and the closest liquor store was twenty miles away, but the primary reason was because everybody in town knew everybody else and their business. It was a “dead” town, from the viewpoint of the young people who came there to college, and one reason Temberson had a hard time keeping its classrooms filled. Starting an online curriculum had extended the life of the college.

Monica was five-eight, weighed 120 pounds, and had brown, shoulder length, straight hair. Her breasts were neither very large, nor small, and her hips slim enough that a belt was well-advised when she wore pants that weren’t tight. She had dated in high school which, in Wide Ford, meant going for walks, or putting together picture puzzles, or maybe watching TV together. Opportunities to be alone and un-chaperoned were few, but all the young people in Wide Ford understood the wisdom of that. A teenage pregnancy in Wide Ford meant a marriage, and a marriage in Wide Ford meant you were staying in Wide Ford forever. It didn’t help that the only place condoms were sold was the gas station C-Store, owned by Jim Hutchinson, who knew exactly who was buying condoms and who they were likely to be used with.

Monica’s mother, Irene, was very aware of all this, because she had gotten pregnant at age sixteen, because her boyfriend, also sixteen, couldn’t get any condoms. She had the baby and gave her his surname, because he said he was going to join the Air Force and send for her. He did join the Air Force right out of high school but he never came back to Wide Ford again, not even to visit his parents. So when Irene turned eighteen, she still lived with her mother, but had a one-year-old child and no prospects. She got a job working for the grain elevator, in the office, but her pay maxed out within three years. She still worked there. She hadn’t been asked out on a date since her belly swelled with Monica. It was for this reason that she watched her daughter like a hawk, and was willing to enter into a conspiracy to trick a man so that Monica could get out of Wide Ford and see the wide world out there. And Irene wasn’t the only single mother in Wide Ford. There were twenty, if one counted, and there were ten spinsters in town, too. Four of those still lived with their aging parents.

Monica had managed to do a little making out. That was allowed, usually on the front porch, with the light on. Parents weren’t draconian about sex, merely very careful. One of the things that made Wide Ford different from other American towns was that “shenanigans” between members of the same gender were viewed much more tolerantly than they would have been in other communities. There were lots of sleepovers in Wide Ford, for both boys and girls. Nobody spent a lot of time chaperoning such get-togethers. If the children loosed a little passion in that way, instead of the ‘usual’ way, so much the better. Circle jerks impregnated no girls, and girls produced no sperm to fuck things up - literally - while they ... played and explored their own sexuality.

It wasn’t that homosexuality was encouraged in Wide Ford. But it was one alternative to having to live there for years all alone. Of course it was much better if boys and girls eventually got together. Boys were encouraged to find a job (which meant elsewhere) and then find a girl to be ‘normal’ with. Girls were encouraged to meet boys at the college. It was a subculture, decades old, the roots of which were deep in the town culture, and without an influx of outsiders moving in, it would probably keep its teeth clenched on the town’s throat for decades more.

So Monica knew exactly what was going on as she arrived at Mildred’s front door, carrying one small suitcase, and pulled the rope that rang the bell.

She was there to meet a young man who she hoped she’d like. She hoped she’d like him because the plan was for him to remove her virginity and, either out of guilt or affection, take her away from ‘all this’ out into the wide world where she could start a family that wasn’t raised in Wide Ford.

It was the American equivalent of an arranged marriage. Except Bobby didn’t know about the arrangement.

She felt immediate relief when the door was opened by a tall, muscular boy with an unruly shock of blond hair. She thought of him as a “boy” because the only “men” she knew were her teachers and her mother’s friends. The relief was because he was definitely cute.

“Hi,” she said, her voice soft. “I’m Monica.”

“Hi,” he said, staring at her with eyes that seemed intense. “I’m Bobby.”

“Bobby? Not Bob?”

“My dad’s name is Bob,” he said. “Come on in. Want me to carry that?”

‘And a gentleman to boot,’ she thought.

“Sure,” she said, surrendering the suitcase.

He led her directly to ‘his’ room and put the suitcase on the bed, which was a queen.

“I made room in the dresser for your stuff,” he said. “There’s plenty of room in the closet, too.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m taking your room. I’m so sorry. If I’d known, I would have stayed somewhere else.” It was a lie. She was well aware that she was putting him on the couch. That was part of ‘the plan.’

“It’s okay,” said Bobby. “How come you didn’t just stay home?”

“They’re using this opportunity to have the bug man spray the house,” she said. Another lie. She took off her coat and tossed it on the bed.

“Well, Mildred’s a nice lady. You’ll like it here.”

“I’ve known Millie since I was a little girl,” she said, smiling.

“Millie?”

“Don’t you dare tell her I called her that. Only her husband was allowed to call her that.”

“My lips are sealed,” he said, smiling. “So you’re a renegade.”

“Not at all,” she said, tossing her hair in exactly the way she’d practiced. “I’ll put my things away later. I didn’t get supper. Millie said you could cook. Is that true?”

“I can cook, but only the things I like. Don’t you cook?”

“Of course. But I already put you out of your bedroom. I’d feel terrible if I took over your kitchen, too.”

“Grilled cheese?” he asked.

“Perfect,” she smiled.

Monica had dressed for her initial meeting with Bobby with great care. She knew Millie would be gone to game night when she got there. Her grandmother went to game night, too. She knew that Millie would be home around nine, and would go straight to bed. So for the two hours before Millie got home, and however long she could extend it after nine, she’d be alone with a boy... really alone with a boy ... for the first time in her life.

How she felt about that was complicated. She was fully aware, primarily through television, that there was an exciting world out there, where girls got to wear beautiful clothes, and get all made up, and get their hair done. You could do all sorts of fun things in a big city. But you had to get there, and that was the challenge. At slumber parties, lots of hair got done, but that didn’t count. And most of the things girls in Wide Ford used for makeup weren’t intended for that purpose.

Monica knew why this was important to her future, but it seemed completely mercenary to go to Millie’s with the express plan of seducing a boy she’d never even met and lure him into marrying her. What made it worse was that the only thing she knew about seduction was what her mother had taught her. And no teenager thinks her mother is a good source of information on something like that.

What saved her from having a mini breakdown was that she was completely convinced it was a stupid idea, which wouldn’t work in a million years.

That did not mean, however, that she wasn’t going to try. She’d wished for the freedom to do things, and see things with a boy, and now the shackles had been removed.

And so she dressed as her mother told her to dress, in tight jeans, a colorful T shirt, and no bra. For the first time in her life, she was allowing her nipples to run free, and her mother had told her to do it. Her nipples, as it turned out, liked freedom.

She was painfully aware of the protrusions in her shirt that her perky nipples made, as she stood, watching Bobby move around in the kitchen. Asking him questions was easy, because it kept her from having to think about what to do next. He was friendly, unguarded, and seemed like a really nice guy. He was different from the boys she’d known in high school, but in ways she couldn’t quite elucidate. He seemed a lot more mature, for one thing, but other than that, he was just an interesting guy.

He asked questions, too, but her answers weren’t as entertaining as his. He had gone hiking in the Rocky Mountains. He had been to big cities and places like Six Flags. He had his own car! She noticed a difference in his voice when he talked about home, particularly his sisters, who he said were the best sisters a guy could have. Monica was an only child. She’d wished for a sister or brother all her life.

“They sound so cool. I wish I could meet them,” she sighed.

“Maybe you can. Julie says she might come here to go to college.”

“Really? Why?” Monica’s question was genuine. Why would any girl want to be a miner? Why would a girl intentionally come to Wide Ford?!

“Mostly to be with me,” he said, his mind trying to remember how long it had been since he flipped the sandwich he was cooking.

“Be with you?” Monica queried.

Bobby’s mind snapped back as he realized he’d said something dangerous.

“We’re just really close,” he said.

“I never heard of siblings so close that they wanted to go to college together,” said Monica. “Especially at a college like this one.”

“This is a good college,” he defended.

“I know, I know,” she said, waving a hand. “I’ve just spent so many years wondering if I’ll ever get out of Wide Ford that I can’t imagine someone planning to come here.”

“Why do you want to get out of Wide Ford?” he asked.

“There’s nothing here,” she sighed. “No jobs, no men, no future. Nothing.”

“So you don’t have a boyfriend?”

Monica perked up. This was something her mother had talked about.

“No,” she said, trying hard to sound “available.” Her mother had said to sound ‘available.’ “How about you? Surely a handsome guy like you has a girlfriend back home.”

This was a critical point. A girl back home would be a major stumbling block. It wasn’t fatal, but it would make things harder.

“Sort of,” said Bobby. If he’d thought about a scenario like this in the past, he might have answered differently. But he’d gotten used to the idea of not dating, and not engaging in chit chat with a girl. On the other hand, he was also used to being at ease with a girl, and hearing compliments from them.

“What does that mean?” asked Monica.

Now Bobby had to dig himself out of a hole.

“Well, I like her a lot,” he said.

“And does she like you back?”

“Well, yeah. I guess so.”

“But you haven’t made plans?”

“Plans?”

“You know. Plans. Like marriage?”

Bobby laughed.

“Nope. No marriage for us. That’s not going to happen.”

“Does she know that?” Monica felt entitled to ask this out of a feeling of sisterhood.

“Oh yeah. She knows it,” he said, still grinning.

“So ... I don’t get it,” said Monica. “You like each other. But you didn’t classify her as just a friend.” She blinked. “Do you have sex with her?”

She covered her mouth immediately with one hand. She hadn’t meant to actually ask that question. It had merely been the unintended by-product of the epiphany she’d just had. She’d heard of “friends with benefits” but this was the first time she’d met such a “friend” in person.

“I’m sorry!” she gasped. “That was so rude of me!”

Bobby’s head had turned toward her in shocked surprise. Whether by unconscious design or not, he hadn’t really “looked” at this girl. He hadn’t examined her, as he would have back in high school. Now, he did. He was a guy. She was sort of cute. He noticed the nipples.

His penis perked up in his pants.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“No. I can’t believe I asked you that. It was totally uncalled for.”

“It’s no big deal, okay? I haven’t been doing this adult thing very long. Neither have you, probably. Adults can talk about sex, can’t they? I mean they do it all the time, right?”

“I have no idea,” said Monica, who in fact, had a pretty good idea. Once her mother had announced there was a viable ‘target’ living with Millie, she had been enthusiastic about wanting to talk about sex, which had seemed creepy to Monica, at first.