"Penny, you get your little butt in here and do the dishes!" Penelope Farrell heard her father's yell but the only effect it had was to cause her to hunch her shoulders tighter to her neck. She knew he would go back to the couch and the TV.

Penny was ten years old that summer. She lived with her father and her brother, Carl. Their house was on a street of other run down houses that ran next to a pine and alder forest near the coast of Northern California. Penny's mother had died when she was only four years old. The scant memories she still had of her were fading fast. It didn't help when her dad got drunk and slapped her for her failures to please him. But even that wasn't as bad as what Carl did sometimes.

Penny picked up the coins she had stacked on the hard packed dirt. Once again she counted them. They still only totaled $13. 47. She had been saving for a month to buy a ticket on the bus to go visit her aunt. Aunt Sheila was her mother's sister. She had offered to take Penny after her mother died but Penny's father needed the welfare money.

When Penny had called the bus station the man had told her a ticket to Portland cost $27.95. It would take a lot of cans and bottles to make that much but Penny was driven to escape.

She replaced the money in the butter tub and put that back into the hole she had scraped out of the dirt. Standing up she kicked the dirt back over her treasure and added the dead branches on top of it all. She had to be careful because Carl had stolen her money once before.

Penny slipped between the trees, moving away from the house and deeper into the forest. Her knees were dirty from kneeling on the ground and one of them had a streak of dried blood from a thorn. She reached the pile of logs the storm had twisted from the ground and dropped there the winter before. She started around it. She was headed for the cliff where she could sit and smell the salty breeze and look down at the waves foaming over the rocks and splashing against the edge of the land.

Somewhere off to her left a twig snapped. Penny froze in her tracks, hardly daring to breathe. A rustling followed the snap and it seemed to be coming closer. She ducked low and held her breath. The sound stopped and she let her breath out as silently as she could manage. She inhaled again and waited, ready to bolt if she needed to run. Then the noise started up again but it was moving away from her now. She straightened her legs and then went up on her toes to peer over the logs. Just above the tallest of the bushes she saw a head of tangled brown hair. Carl! She breathed a sigh of relief that she had eluded him.

If he found her out here there was no telling what he would do. The least of her worries was that he might make her tell him where she hid her money. Unconsciously her hand moved to press against the vee between her legs as she remembered the last time Carl had messed with her. She had bled and her 'pussy' (as Carl had called it) had been sore for a long time. Even Carl had been scared when he saw the blood and it made him stop. That was just from his fingers.

So far he hadn't put his thing in her but he said he would when she was old enough. She just hoped she could save enough money to go to her aunt's before then.

She might have told her dad what Carl did to her but she didn't trust him either. Carl had told her that Dad would never believe her unless she let him put his finger up her to prove the truth. The idea of her father's scarred and dirty fingers (so much like Carl's!) inside her made her skin crawl so she didn't say anything. All she could do was try to stay out of Carl's way and save her pennies for the ticket that would be her escape from all this.

When she no longer heard her brother's steps she continued toward her safe spot. She thought she should put her money there but it would be too easy to lose. Animals came there and she had heard that coyotes and raccoons liked to chew on things people had touched for the salt. Besides, it was all rocky there so there was no way to hide anything except by putting more rocks on it.

The trees thinned and she began to feel the wind. She smiled when the first salty caress tossed her red hair back. Then she stepped out of the trees into sunshine. The bushes ended with the trees, leaving only the grasses that ran right to the edge of the cliff. They tickled her bare legs as she walked through them. Something -- a mouse or a shrew, maybe -- tore through the grass away from her path. She stopped and watched the progress of the tiny creature as the grass shivered and then stilled.

She skipped along now, distance making her forget for a time the hell that was her life. Unlike most kids, Penny hated summer. It was a scary time for her because she couldn't go to school. Sitting in class she knew for sure she was safe. Carl had quit school three years ago, when he was eleven. Her father didn't even know where the school was, so he could never come and take her out of class. Even though some of the kids at school teased her and made fun of her ragged clothes and torn sneakers, she felt good there.

Penny loved English and reading. Her favorite class, though, was geography. She looked at the pictures of places she would go one day when she was older. The strange looking people with their strange and brightly colored clothes made her long to be older sooner. She even wanted to go and see the naked people in Africa and South America. Maybe she would go naked with them if it was warm enough.

She was thinking about geography as she picked her way carefully over the rocks and lowered her feet to the narrow path that slanted to her cave. It wasn't far and she had no fear of heights so it didn't bother her that she was one misstep away from a twenty foot fall to the rocks below.

She reached for the lip of rock and pulled herself into the shallow cave. With her foot she kicked a pile of droppings off the edge and watched it break on the rocks. Then she pulled the towel she had hidden from behind the big rock and spread it out. A picture in her geography book showed a Muslim man sitting on a patterned piece of rug. The caption said it was a prayer mat. Penny didn't think about prayers when she sat on her towel. But she guessed it was a kind of prayer to think about how her life would be better when she was older.

Thinking about the natives in the jungle made Penny smile. Letting her eyes scan the sea below she made sure there were no boats. Then she pulled her tee shirt off. She toed her shoes off and pulled her shorts down followed by her underpants. When she was naked like the natives, she sat cross legged on her towel in imitation of the Muslim.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The sunshine was warm on her pale freckled skin. The breeze was a little cool, but it just made her feel more tickly. Goosebumps formed along her arms and legs and her little nipples poked out. She pressed a hand over them and rubbed. When they were hard like that it felt kind of good to rub them. It gave her a little tingle between her legs when she did it.

That was something that puzzled Penny. When she put her fingers down there it felt good. When Carl did it, it hurt. But he was rough with her. He only wanted to make himself feel good, though she couldn't figure out why it made him feel good to hurt her. She didn't mind it too much when he made her take his thing in her hand. It was funny to watch it get stiff and he got a silly look on his face just before it squirted the stuff. If he would just make her do that she wouldn't mind. After he squirted he would usually leave her alone for a few days.

He tried to make her put it in her mouth once but she threatened to bite it off. He slapped her for that but at least he didn't make her suck on it. She was smart enough to know that he would want her to suck it until it squirted and she didn't ever want any of that sticky, smelly stuff in her mouth!

Penny sat there until the sun was beginning to sink into the ocean. It would be too cold then to be naked. Also, it would be too dark to find her way back up the cliff. She stood up, rolled the towel into a ball and stuffed it back behind the rock. When she was dressed again she climbed up to the top and went back through the trees.

She watched the house for a few minutes before she went home. The pickup was gone from the carport, as was Carl's bike. She was glad. She looked both ways before running across the road and into the house.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'm pleased to present to you this year's Valedictorian, Penelope Farrell," said the Superintendent. He turned sideways and held an arm toward where Penny sat on the podium. She smiled and brushed her long red tresses back over her shoulders. Rising to her feet, she nervously approached the speaker's stand and adjusted the microphone. She was eighteen.

Penny had never saved the money for that bus ticket. As things turned out, Fate had made it unnecessary. A week before she turned eleven her brother was caught with some of his friends raping and beating up a girl behind the convenience store. They sent him away to reform school. While he was in there he had fought with some other kids and they said he had killed one of them. It would be a long time before he would get out, if ever.

It was just a year after that when her dad, drunk and out of whiskey, got into his pickup and drove off. Penny was making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich when the police came. Her father was killed when he drove his truck through the guard rail and off the freeway overpass.

The people at Child Services weren't very nice, except for Mrs. Sterling. Penny told her about her aunt and Mrs. Sterling made sure that all the papers got signed to allow Aunt Sheila come and take her back to Portland. Penny felt out of place for the first few months with her aunt. She met her Uncle Jim and her cousin, Hank, for the first time. Uncle Jim was nice, but Hank didn't seem too happy that she was there. After a while, though, they got along okay.

Penny's graduation speech was kind of corny, she thought, but it was what was expected of her. When she finished and the auditorium erupted with applause she blushed and returned to her seat. Shortly later she rose again to accept her diploma. Then a little after that everybody was on their feet and all the grads were tossing their hats in the air. Penny was so happy that she cried.

Aunt Sheila was wiping away tears, too, when she came through the reception line. She hugged Penny and sobbed that she was so proud of her. It made Penny cry again and then her Uncle Jim was crushing her against his chest and kissing the top of her head. Penny thought then about her father. She hadn't thought too much about him in the seven years since he died. And she never thought about Carl, except when she had first come to Portland. Then it was only when he came to mess with her in a nightmare.

"So what's the program, Honey?" Uncle Jim asked her.

"We're supposed to have a 'lock down' party at the Elks Club, but I don't want to go." It was an effort by the school board to prevent the graduates from going off to drinking parties. They could go to the lock down and leave when they wanted to. But if they left they couldn't return. Everybody was supposed to bring sleeping bags and stay until the next morning.

"Oh, you should think about it," Aunt Sheila said. "It might be the last time you'll see some of your friends. People tend to drift apart after they go off to college. Trust me, I know." Sheila Findlay was thinking particularly about her high school boyfriend who had "drifted off" to the Army and Vietnam. He had been sent home in a body bag.

"I'd rather go home, I think," Penny said. The truth was that she really didn't have that many friends. Most of the girls didn't like her because most of the boys did. Most of the boys liked her because of the things she did to them in parked cars and her bedroom when Hank and Aunt Sheila and Uncle Jim weren't home.

The abuse Penny had suffered at Carl's hands had perversely quickened her sexual instincts. In Portland she found that she could get boys to do what she wanted simply by stroking their cocks. When she was fifteen, Penny fell in love. Brad hadn't been satisfied with a hand job. To satisfy him, Penny had bravely taken him in her mouth. When he squirted she swallowed. To her surprise it wasn't as bad as she had feared. The next day she sucked him off again.

In fact she became fascinated with giving blow jobs. Brad had been the first, but even while they were going together, Penny was bestowing her oral favors on other boys. She liked the way different penises looked and tasted. When Brad found out what she was doing with other guys, he broke up with her. Sheila never went steady with any other boy after that.

Her cousin Hank, two years younger than she was, had his first sexual experiences with the pretty redhead. The two teens had a lot of firsts together. After she stroked him off and sucked him off, he finally gave in to her pleas to lick her. He found that he enjoyed it. They played with each other's ass. It was with Hank that Penny had first 'gone all the way' when she was sixteen. While Hank was pumping into her slick pussy she chuckled to think that Carl had been just Hank's age when he wanted to fuck her. It was a sort of sweet revenge on her bastard brother to give herself to fourteen year old Hank.

At home after graduation, Penny changed into a pair of shorts and a tank top. She looked at the nice watch Aunt Sheila and Uncle Jim had given her for graduation. It looked nice on her wrist. Then she sat at her dresser and looked at her reflection in the mirror. Her hair had been styled at the salon for graduation. It was shiny and copper colored. The ends curled in ringlets. Her green eyes were bright. She cupped her breasts. She still liked to sit naked whenever she could. It still made her feel good to rub her nipples. Now at eighteen, those sensitive nubs capped sizeable breasts.

Her hips curved nicely down to her firm thighs. She had a little roll at her waist but it was not unattractive. Hank liked to bite her belly when they played. Thinking about Hank made her sad. After the summer she would go off to Seattle to the University. She could have picked a school closer to home but the UW had awarded her a scholarship. The Findlays weren't rich. The scholarship would cover tuition, books and housing. All that remained was pocket money. Penny had a job lined up for the summer as an intern at the local radio station to cover that. She was planning to major in Communications.

Her aunt didn't have a clue about Penny's sex life, not to mention what Penny and Hank got up to when they were alone. Penny thought that Uncle Jim might have his suspicions, but he had never said anything to either of them. What Penny would really like to have had as a gift was a night with her uncle. Jim Findlay was tall and strong. It had taken Penny several weeks to warm up to him. Once she did, he became her ideal man. She had suffered a crush on him since she was thirteen. She had been with her aunt and uncle just a few months when she had awakened in the middle of the night. She started out of her room to go pee but saw that the light was on in their room. She could hear some noises and then her aunt groaned.