Chapter 1

I'd been on that Greyhound for most of two full days when we finally pulled into Augusta. I was "home," but it didn't feel like home. I had only been living in Augusta for about six weeks when I'd left to join the army.

My folks had moved there from Indianapolis while I was still a freshman at Indiana University. That left me a "nonresident" of the state and faced with either moving with them to their new home in Georgia, or declaring my independence at the age of 18.

With no money and no job, what could I do? Not long after the end of freshman year, I followed Mom and Dad to Augusta.

Now, after 22 weeks of basic and advanced training in the U.S. Army, I was home for almost two weeks' leave before going to my permanent duty station: Ft. Dix, New Jersey.

My folks met me at the bus depot and we drove home. It was good seeing them, although Augusta still didn't really feel like "home" to me. But the weather was surprisingly mild for late January -- a big improvement over the winters I remembered up north.

It was 1957. "The South" was a very different place than what I was used to in Indianapolis or Bloomington. Augusta was a pretty, graceful little city, but the "Southern way of life" was going to take some getting used to.

Being new to the town, I knew no one. There was no "girl back home" waiting for me. Almost four days of my 12 days of leave were going to be taken up with Greyhound time, coming or going, so I was looking at only eight days of civilian life.

But I thought I'd solved to "no girl back home" problem. Tomorrow night -- my second night in town, we'd be going to the airport to pick up Millie Barkley, the pretty girl from Catskill, New York who had been my pen pal for three years -- ever since we were both high school students.

I'd never actually met Millie in the flesh, but we'd become intimate pen friends, and over the past three years, our letters had become progressively flirtatious, suggestive, and, well -- promising. We were two very young, somewhat lonely people who'd connected, through the written word.

Especially in the weeks since I'd been in the army and isolated from other social opportunities, Millie's letters had become a lifeline. She was still living with her mother back in Catskill, a small town up the Hudson River, well north of New York City. Now in her first year out of high school, Millie had a job in a department store, and was flirting with the idea of enrolling in junior college.

I expected to resume college someday, but for the moment, I was just an army private. The initial military training hadn't been much fun, but I had high hopes for Ft. Dix. It was in central New Jersey -- close to both New York and Philadelphia. To me, that promised to be a relatively glamorous assignment.

Millie and I had exchanged photographs on several occasions. I knew she was a pretty brunette, fairly tall and quite thin. I had a nice photo of her in a plaid one-piece bathing suit that showed she had thin-but-pretty legs and a shy smile.

In all the photos, her face had a wistful expression. It always reminded me a little of the pictures of Anne Frank that I'd seen in magazines. Anne Frank's photographs, though, were black-and-white and a little blurry, whereas Millie's features always came through sharp and clear.

Still, Millie seemed to have the quality of a waif about her. She was young-looking and very thin. She looked as if she needed protecting.

I was eager to meet her at last. She wasn't my girl back home, but she was as close to it as anyone. As anyone in Indiana or Georgia. Her only "rival" for my affections was as much a stranger to my past life as Millie was -- the female Marine I'd met on the Greyhound, on the way home.

My parents didn't know it, and probably never would, but for one brief night, alone with Delores Gallegos in the darkness of the Greyhound, I had enjoyed the most intense sexual experience of my 19 years! It had only been -- what? Thirty-six hours ago, and our time together had been measured in hours, not days.

But it had been unforgettable!

Waiting for Millie's arrival at the local airport, I thought of those stolen hours with Delores. Would I ever see her again? What effect would that brief, glorious experience have on the coming few days with Millie? Could we possibly get along as well, in person, as we had, for three years now, in our letters?

I thought Millie and I had possibilities. I sure hoped so.

The plane she arrived on was a Southern Airways flight. Somewhere -- Richmond, perhaps, or Raleigh, Millie must have had to transfer to that ramshackle airplane for the remainder of her flight to Augusta. I was near-certain that Southern Airways didn't fly to Catskill, New York.

The plane's passengers slowly emerged and walked down an outside ramp, across the tarmac to where my Dad and I waited for Millie. I saw her, and took the few moments before she saw me to appraise my "girlfriend" -- if that is what she was going to be.

"Now, Tom -- this girl is away from home," my father cautioned. "You treat her with respect, y'hear? You make sure she's comfortable."

I didn't have to answer. Millie had seen us and rushed over. "I made it!" she said.

I felt awkward, not knowing whether to hug her, or shake her hand, or what. Finally I grasped both her forearms and kind of held her out at arm's length. "Hey, Millie!" I said.

"This is my Dad -- Bill Sutter."

Dad was a little cooler than I was. He shook Millie's hand, and asked her whether it had been a comfortable trip.

"It was my first airplane ride!" she said. I flew to Baltimore on Eastern, and then got this little plane for the rest of the way. It was exciting!"

I looked at the disreputable-looking Southern Airways plane, which seemed to need a paint job and God knows what else in the way of maintenance. "I guess flying in that thing would really be exciting!" I said.

We got Millie's two small bags and headed for Dad's Ford, close by in the outdoor parking area.

"Gee, it's warm here, for January!" Millie said.

"Yeah, warmer than it was in Texas, too," I agreed. "I guess because the ocean's not that far from here."

"This is as far south as I've ever been," she said.

"Well, we're pretty new here ourselves," I said. "I'm not going to be able to give you much of an expert tour of the city."

"Mom and I will take care of that," my Dad said. "We haven't been here long -- but longer than Tom. And it's a pretty small town."

All this time, I'd been looking Millie over as subtly as I could. Her clothing was pretty ordinary -- inexpensive little skirt-and-jacket set, plain blouse. I knew she came from a one-parent household -- she and her widowed mother were alone. I knew they didn't have a lot of money to throw around.

And I figured the round-trip airfare to come down here had eaten up her savings pretty thoroughly.

It was a little disappointing, though, how skinny she was. She was really rail-thin, and as far as I could see, she didn't have any bust line at all. My thoughts strayed briefly to my encounter with Delores -- the Mexican-American Marine with the oversized breasts; breasts that had been sweaty and heavy in my hands, there in the darkness -- just two nights ago.

Millie was as pretty as her photographs had suggested, although her dark eyes and coal-black hair made her seem a little alien here, down among the Southern belles. The few Texas girls I'd gotten a decent look at were different from Millie, too. Her name was "Barkley," but maybe there was a little Italian or other Southern European heritage, somewhere in her ancestry.

But, God -- she was really skinny!

We got Millie home all right and I put her stuff upstairs in the guest room. Dad introduced her to my Mother while I was still up there, and I could hear them getting acquainted. It sounded like my folks were going out of their way to make Millie feel welcome.

That was nice. But I was having second and third thoughts about my anticipated romantic interlude with the New York Girl.

She was so tiny and thin! She looked like a junior high school kid, only maybe taller. She'd probably never even kissed a boy.

The things I had imagined us doing... well. Maybe none of that was going to be in the cards.

Next morning after breakfast, Mom and Millie disappeared. "Mom's taking her shopping," my Dad said. "The supermarket and stuff -- and Mom's gonna buy Millie a light jacket. That coat she brought down from New York is 'way too big and bulky to wear around here -- during the day, at least."

"I don't think her family's got much money," I offered.

"Neither does yours, far as that goes," Dad said. "but we can get the girl a little jacket. Listen, Tom, I can tell you're a little disappointed in Millie. I mean, she looks like she's about 13! I don't know what you were expecting, but she's a little young for you, I can see that."

"Dad! She's about ten months younger than I am!"

"OK, OK, fine. But what I'm saying, even if she's not Jayne Mansfield or something, I'm expecting you to treat her with respect... And more than that -- you take her out while she's here and show her a good time and all -- just as if she was Denise, visiting you from back home."

Denise wasn't my old girl friend. But she was the best-looking girl from my high school in Indianapolis that my Dad had ever seen around our house. She was the kind of girl no man would forget -- no matter how old he was. And, hey, my Dad was only -- what? Maybe 41. Even younger, when he'd seen Denise.

But I knew what he was driving at. "Don't worry, Pop," I told him. "I'll be real attentive to Millie. She's been a real friend, for a long time now. She may look like she's 13, but she's a sweet kid. I'll make sure she goes home feeling like she's seen some real Southern Hospitality -- Indiana-style!"

All four of us went out together that afternoon -- the first full day of Millie's scheduled four-day stay with us. Dad drove us all over town, pointing out historic buildings, and telling little stories about Augusta's history. I was surprised how much he'd learned in his short time as a resident.

Millie wanted to see the Augusta National Golf Course, and we drove by there, and stopped in the parking lot and got out to look around. But we couldn't get in to see very much. It was pretty, though -- even in January.

"Unfortunately, Millie, our membership papers at Augusta National have been delayed -- probably lost in the mail," my Dad said. "We'll have to wait until later to have lunch at the club."

Millie knew he was only kidding.

When we got back home, Millie helped Mom in the kitchen making supper, while Dad and I tried to find something to watch on the television. "They've only got three channels down here," Dad complained.

Back home, we'd had six, and another on the way. Some things seemed pretty backward, down here. "I don't think we get but two channels, back at the post," I said. "We've got a TV in the dayroom, but most of the guys would rather just shoot pool, or play ping-pong."

"You meet any girls out there?" Dad asked me.

"Ha!" I said. "Fat chance. The town next to the base, Killeen, is just a little wide spot in the road. If there are any young girls there, you can bet their folks keep 'em locked away tight."

"Slim pickins, huh?"

"I'll say! Being at Ft. Knox was better. I mean, Louisville was a good ways off, and hard to get loose to go there -- but once you got to Louisville, well, it was a real city! I met a girl there, at a Servicemen's Club and I got to go out with her twice!"

"Twice in eight weeks! You're a regular Casanova, boy!"

"They only let me loose the two times. Then it was off to Texas."

"Reckon after 14 weeks out there in -- what is it? Killeen? You're probably a little -- ahh -- antsy."

Yeah, my Dad wasn't stupid. He'd been in World War II -- for the whole damned war. Four years! He knew about "antsy."

He didn't know about Delores Gallegos, though. Without Delores -- three nights ago it was, now -- I'd have been a whole lot antsier! Hell, I thought, I might'a gotten laid more recently than ol' Dad, here!

Dad sat quiet for awhile and then he said, "You taking Millie out tonight?"

"I guess so," I said. "I don't know where to take her, though."

"Well. Take her some damned place. Go to a movie! You can have the car. And take the house key, in case we're gone to bed by the time you get back."

Chapter 2

We looked at the paper before supper and I showed Millie what was playing in the nearby theaters. I asked her if she saw anything interesting.

"Maybe that Glenn Ford one, there," she said, pointing to an ad for a comedy called "Don't Go Near the Water."

"I liked him in 'Blackboard Jungle, '" Millie said.

So, after helping Mom with the supper dishes, we were off to see Glenn Ford. But on the way there, Millie suggested we just go someplace for a milkshake, or coffee.

"You OK?" I asked. Millie seemed a little -- pensive.

"I'm fine," she said. "but it's like we've barely met, and we haven't talked or anything, except in front of your folks. Wouldn't you rather just go off by ourselves and maybe get to know each other a little better?"

"Sure. If that's what you want. But, you know, I feel like I know you pretty good. We've been writing all those letters now for..."

"Yeah. But letters aren't the same. I was nervous about meeting you in person. And you were probably nervous, too."

"Sure I was," I admitted. "But it wasn't like a -- a blind date or something. We've been -- pretty friendly!"

Millie was blushing, I think, although it was getting dark and I couldn't see her all that well in the passenger seat. She didn't respond to my allusion to our sometimes steamy-hot letter exchanges.

Maybe I was blushing, too.

"How about this place?" I asked. It was a well-lighted, attractive-looking little café. It was past time for dinner by now, and there were only a few customers visible inside.

"Sure."

It didn't turn out to be a milkshake kind of place, but Millie seemed comfortable ordering coffee. We were in a booth alongside a row of picture windows, and had plenty of privacy.

When the coffee arrived, Millie sipped it and turned her eyes up to look at me. "I'm not how you pictured me, am I?" she said.

"What do you mean?" I asked. The direct question shocked me a little, and I guess my expression answered her question.

"It's my own fault," Millie said. "I sent you those pictures, and I guess I looked pretty good in them. They were the most flattering pictures of me that I could find."

"Hey!" I said, finally getting my bearings a little. "You look just fine! You're -- a pretty girl!"

"Yeah, thanks," Millie said, dismissively. "But I haven't got any boobs!"

I looked around to see if anyone had overheard. She wasn't exactly whispering. Nobody was paying us any attention.

"Well," I said.

C'mon, Tom, say something gracious, here!

"That's not true," I finally said. "I could tell in your pictures that you were... thin."

Millie laughed. "Yep. That's me -- thin," she said, seemingly a little bitterly.

On that night in 1957, the glory days of the skinny little British fashion model, "Twiggy" were still almost a decade in the future. There were no glamorous role-models to serve as reference points for young girls like Millie.

Just Jayne. And Marilyn.

And my own most prominent female reference point, at that moment, was Delores Gallegos -- she of the bodacious bosoms!

But Millie wasn't a shrinking violet. "I may not have any boobs," she said defiantly, "but I'm a grown-up woman, just the same!"

"I know that," I lied.

"I'm not even a virgin!" Millie declared, with not-a-little pride in her voice.

I looked around again. Surely somebody had heard that one!

Millie was defending her non-virtue, with considerable verve. "I did it with a guy when I was only 15!" she declared, searching my eyes for a reaction.

I guess I was supposed to say "Wow" or something. It was kind of surprising information.

"We did it three different times!" she confessed. "I liked it! Well. Not at first. But after that, I liked it!"

"I never thought you were just a kid," I tried to explain. "I knew you were a -- a grown-up woman."

What a liar! Ever since she'd gotten off the plane, I'd felt like she was my kid sister.

"I did it with another guy once, too," Millie said. "That was after I had started writing to you, even."

Well, OK. We hadn't ever pledged eternal fidelity. My thoughts hadn't strayed very far from Delores Gallegos -- who "did it" with me just -- what -- how many hours? -- ago. I reached across the table and took Millie's hand. It was the first time, I think, that I'd touched her since I had grabbed both her forearms at the airport, the night before.

"Listen, Millie. There's nothing wrong with that," I said, forgiving her infidelity, if that's what it had been.

"I know," Millie laughed, "--but after you and I really got to writing to each other -- we were both still in high school -- I kinda lost interest in those guys."

"The guys in your school?"

"All the guys. It was more -- fun -- writing to you, back and forth. I'd always answer your letters the same day they'd arrive! I felt closer to you than..."

"That's sweet, Millie," I said. I meant it. I'd felt a closeness to Millie, too, writing those letters -- especially in recent days, when I had been spending all my time in military isolation, learning to be a soldier.

But our letter-writing hadn't ever stopped me from trolling for female companionship. Not hardly!

"I had a few dates," she elaborated. "But mostly, I really kinda pretended that I was your girl."

I didn't know where to take this conversation. It did make me feel renewed affection for Millie. But I also started feeling -- responsible for her. She was passing up perfectly good hometown boys because of our letters? Was that good news for me -- or bad?

I knew I didn't want the total responsibility for Millie's happiness -- present or future.

The waitress came and asked if we wanted more coffee. I said yes, and I told Millie we should order pie, too. My mind was racing by now, trying to figure out what to say, and do, about Millie.

We stayed in the restaurant a long time. The bill didn't amount to much, but the waitress never made us feel uncomfortable, and I left her a nice tip.

Back in the car, I looked at Millie and said, "hey, it's still only 9:30. You want to catch the second show?"

"No."

"Kinda early to head home."

"Let's just sit and talk some more," she said.

"I know a nice place," I said. It was a pocket park I'd noticed, not far away. We drove there. The park was dark and deserted, although there were distant streetlights, and houses on the opposite side of the narrow residential street. Behind the park, there was a cornfield, right there inside the city limits! Of course, the cornstalks were all barren and broken.

It's pretty warm out," I said. "Want to sit in the park? We can sit under that gazebo, on one of the picnic tables."

We got out and walked across the darkened ground. The picnic bench was most comfortable when the table portion was used as a seat. We both propped our feet on the built-in bench intended for sitting.

"Warm enough?" I asked. Millie was wearing her new light jacket.

"It's great!" she said. "Back home, it's still mid-winter and terribly cold!"

"It can get cold here, too," I said. "But it doesn't last. Right now, I think it's a little warmer than usual, for this time of year."

"I'm warm enough," she said.

Silence.

"Feel, here," Millie said.

"What?"

She had half-turned to face me, both of us seated, side-by-side on the table-top. Her little jacket was open and she gestured toward the front of her blouse -- toward her flat chest. "Feel me here," she said again.

Reaching across me for my left hand, she brought it to her chest and placed it over her right breast. As advertised, it was very small. No bra. She was training-bra size, I guessed. Still, I could feel the warmth of her little bud of a breast, through her blouse, under my hand.

It wasn't a handful, but it felt -- good. Warm, and real. And good.

"See," Millie said. "I do have tittles! I mean, I know they're not much -- but they're there!"

"It feels nice," I said. Truth.

"It feels nice to me, too," Millie said. "I pictured us doing this. Only -- in my imagination, it was summertime, and we were on a beach or something. And we didn't have clothes on, or anything."

"You've got a vivid imagination," I said. My hand still caressed her little breast.

"Touch it, inside my shirt," she said.

"My hand might be a little cold," I warned.

"I don't care." She reached up to unbutton her shirt, dislodging my hand, which I let drop, neutrally, into her lap for the moment. Then she firmly grasped my hand again and brought it back, this time, inside the little blouse. Her breast was warm and felt sweet in my hand. I could feel the special softness around the surprisingly prominent nipple. I hoped my hand wasn't too cold. If it was, Millie didn't seem to notice.

I shaped my fingers around her nipple and softly manipulated Millie's breast.

"Oh, God!" she said. "That feels so good!"

I hoped it really did. It felt good to me, too -- although her response seemed -- almost extreme. I mean, I'd barely stroked her little breast, and only for a moment.

Maybe she's faking it. Pretending a passion she doesn't really feel.

I was young and inexperienced -- almost as inexperienced as Millie -- but I wasn't a fool. I knew about pretense and phoniness. If Millie was just being an actress, I'd know it, soon enough.

I reached down to her leg, just above her knee, and put that same left hand there, reaching just under her ample skirt, lightly grasping her lower thigh. Millie's feet, resting on the picnic table bench, immediately opened wide in a gesture of complete acceptance.

I allowed my hand to slide up her inner thigh, toward her center. Her body language was entirely cooperative. She facilitated the movement of my hand, upward.

The heat there, high between her legs, seemed to radiate from her body. I felt the fabric of the panties between her legs. It was hot and damp there. Only a thin band of cotton separated my hand from her nether lips.

There was no miniaturization here, at Millie's warm center. My hand was touching the well-developed sex of a full-grown woman. She moved, sensuously, every time my hand moved on her, even a little. She seemed to be yearning, straining to increase my touch.

Millie was moaning into my ear, her arms now reaching around my body to pull me closer. Her response was shocking to me. Growing up, I had done my share of groping in cars and on blankets with young females, some of them as eager as I to explore new sexual frontiers. Usually, there had been a reticence -- a partial holding back -- the product of a partner's fear, or shyness, or misgivings about the path we were taking.

Even the most willing partners -- the girls who, eventually, had let me go "all the way," had shown this characteristic reserve, this holding back of themselves.

Millie had no reserve. Her pussy seemed to try to swallow up my probing fingers. From shoulder to knee, she squirmed and pushed at me, trying to bury her whole body in my arms, and -- seemingly -- trying to bury my whole arm in her body!

"Oh, Millie, I..." My statement was smothered in a wild kiss, Millie's tongue driving itself deep into my mouth. She was grinding, now, on my hand. I got the message. I pulled the panties to one side, and now I could feel the lush richness of her hairy, soaking wet cunt.

"Oh, Jesus!"

Millie was thrashing about, still trying to take in the fingers of my left hand, still seeking my mouth with hers, and moaning, desperately, in my face the whole time.

In the stillness of the evening, I could smell her arousal around us. I had never experienced anything close to this! Even with my penis nestled hotly in Delores Gallegos' welcoming cunt, my hands grasping those well-remembered, oh-so-heavy breasts -- even then, I'd never experienced a sex act so -- so abandoned as this one was becoming! My fingers -- all four of them, were now palm-deep in Millie's pussy, and she continued grinding, trying to devour them.

And then she climaxed! My experience was limited -- very limited -- but I'd seen a girl have an orgasm before and, compared to Millie, that girl could have been sitting in church on the front row! Millie grunted and shuddered and churned herself on my hand until I thought she was going to break it off at the wrist. Her mouth sought mine again and again, kissing, licking, biting me until I was actually becoming alarmed that she might really do some damage -- or at least give me some marks that would be hard to explain to my parents when we got home.

I had an erection that was straining to leave my Levis, but I had enough sense to know this wasn't the time or the place. It was dark in the little park, but people across the street, if they looked out their windows, could probably see us here, in the dim light of the distant streetlight on the corner.

With relative gentleness, I continued to massage Millie's pussy with my soaked left hand, slowly bringing her down from what had been -- for me at least -- a singularly thrilling, heart-pounding experience.

And I hadn't even been the one who had come!

Finally, I once-again covered her wet, hairy center with the remains of her white cotton panties, at the same time wiping my hand partially dry on them, higher up, away from the critical area.

"Wow!" Millie said.

"Yeah."

"That was wonderful!" she said, sounding like she meant it. "I didn't think I'd ever stop coming!"

"It -- didn't take you very long to start," I blurted, instantly hoping I hadn't insulted her or offended her.

"I've been waiting a long time for us to be together," Millie said. "I've had all kinds of dreams and -- fantasies about it. I guess I was just really ready."

"I've -- never seen anything like it," I admitted.

She reached over and placed her hand on my crotch, quickly finding and wrapping her fingers around my still-rampant erection, still tightly trapped in denim. "Poor baby!" Millie said. "He wants to get out of there!"

My mind was racing. Plenty of hormones churning through my bloodstream, and enough blood to keep my penis pointing skyward indefinitely. But also more sober thoughts: worries about being seen, worries about going farther, whether or not we would be seen. I barely knew this girl, really. I'd been harboring all these -- negative kinds of thoughts about her. How she didn't have any breasts, how she seemed foreign -- not-quite-right.

Not the dream girl I'd always pictured myself becoming involved with.

"We -- better not do anything else right here," I said, finally. "We could be seen too easily." I was going to be the sensible one. She continued to squeeze my erection gently, sensuously, and I wasn't ready to register any immediate objection to that.

"Lets go back to the car," she said. "I want to suck you."

I tried to find some fault in that suggestion, but was unable to come up with anything.

Chapter 3

That night, Millie became only the third girl who'd ever taken me into her mouth. Like the other two, she lacked experience and skill. But, unlike the other two, she didn't lack enthusiasm for what she was doing. She took me in as if she were accepting a long-anticipated gift.

I sat in my Dad's Ford, in the front passenger seat, glancing about for people who might be watching us from their windows, or while walking the family dog. It was a little late for walking the family dog, but it could happen.

I didn't want to get caught. It would be the kind of luck I thought I'd always had. (Actually, I realized suddenly, when it came to luck, I hadn't had a whole lot to complain about, that past week or so.)

Kneeling between my legs, on the floor, Millie kept raising her eyes to look up at me, without taking her mouth away from its task. Sometimes she would stop for a moment, withdraw, clasping my penis in her hand as she smiled up at me.

Anne Frank.

I felt a little guilty. This was 1957. Things were different, in 1957. You probably don't understand how it was, then. Oh, sex had been invented, all right. People "did it," even without being married to each other or committed to each other.

But the sexual revolution was still years in the future. We were taught that you saved it for marriage. Or, if you were from a liberal family, maybe you were taught just to "be careful" and if you were going to do it, do it "only with someone you love."