Chapter 7

The swelling in Rachel's face went down considerably, but the color was slow to fade. She decided that school had to go on, despite the condition of her face. It had been four days since the attack, and she was going crazy trying to find some way to be useful to the people who had helped her.

When Meg and Sally got the children to school, and they saw Rachel's face, they were aghast. They'd heard all about the incident, of course, but had not seen the woman. Her face was still a sickly yellow and purple color on the left side, while the right side of her face looked almost normal. Her lips were still split and swollen where her intended rapist had struck her, and the wound from the knife on her throat was clearly visible.

"Would you like us to stay for a while?" asked Meg impulsively. "To help?"

Rachel looked at her, assessing her as a woman, and as a person from town, and, for the first time, as a potential friend. Rachel didn't have many friends ... hadn't tried to make any really. Now, though, with the outpouring of care from women whose names she hadn't even known before the incident, her attitude about other women had changed. Her brush with death had made both subtle and not-so-subtle changes in her outlook on life. She had done some serious thinking once she could martial thoughts at all. The four women who had taken her from her house had mothered her like hens, even trying to spoon feed her. Their obvious concern pulled her mind back to sanity and then overrode what would have been her normal irritation at having to rely on others. She had felt safe with them as they drew her life story from her, sometimes against her will, but in a way that made her glad that now, at least, somebody in this town knew something about her and accepted her as ... as what? She had thought about that too, and the realization that those four women would be content calling her their friend had cut through her tough exterior like the knife that she had known would take her life.

Their chatter had soothed her in ways that nothing else would have. Eventually she had been able to appreciate their outlook on life, here in this harsh place. One woman, when she had been giving Rachel a sponge bath had sighed and said "I'd just kill to have a body like yours. Then maybe Herb would look at me like he looks at you."

That had led to a very frank discussion of men, and their faults, and Rachel found out just how valuable a good reputation was. The women didn't blame her at all for being beautiful, or for the fact that every man in town - at least according to them - had been seen raking their eyes over her body while she walked, or shopped. They blamed the men for having wandering eyes and talked about other beautiful women who did not have the sterling reputation that Rachel had.

And now, here was another woman who seemed to care about her for some reason. And she knew this woman to be single. She was good looking too, in a frontier sort of way. Rachel chided herself for that characterization. That was what the old Rachel would have thought. Now she looked at the young woman and admitted that, anywhere in the world men would notice ... she didn't even know her name!

"I'm sorry" said Rachel thickly. "I know I should remember your name."

"Meg" said the woman.

"And I'm Sally" said the other one.

"Could you read to some while I work on math with the others?" she asked, worried that she might embarrass them. It was still possible these days that people were illiterate.

"I love to read," said Meg, smiling.

"And I can do whatever," added Sally.

There was a mild rebellion involving some of the older Milleson children when they found out Meg was going to read, while they were expected to work on their numbers.

"I read to them at home," said Meg, shrugging her shoulders.

Then all the children wanted to know what had happened to their teacher. They stared at her face with the unbridled curiosity of children.

Rachel raised her hands for quiet.

"A bad man wanted to hurt me. He did hurt my face," she said. "But Bobby saved me and made the man stop hurting me."

All the children's eyes went to Bobby, who had been standing silently in the background, watching the women talk.

"Really!?" asked Patrick, his voice awed. "He killed the Umpelty Oog when it was in the closet!" he said excitedly. "And then he ate it!" Patrick stuck out his chest like he was the one who had done everything.

Rachel looked at Meg and mouthed "Umpelty Oog?"

Meg mouthed back "Imaginary monster."

Rachel smiled and then winced as her lip cracked open again. "Well, Bobby is my hero," she said firmly. "I'm not surprised he does nice things for other people too. Now, we have learning to do!"

She hustled around, separating the groups and waving at the book shelf, which had only a dozen worn volumes on it. Meg looked at them and picked one to read from.

By the time any of them noticed it, the morning had passed and it was time to adjourn school.

"Oh my" said Sally. "Mavis will be having fits over us being gone so long."

Meg nodded and then looked at Rachel. "Will you be keeping Bobby late today?"

Rachel shook her head. "I'm tired, and the doctor has ordered me in no uncertain terms to rest in the afternoons. It will be a week or so before I can spend extra time with him."

When the children were all bundled up and ready to leave, Rachel touched Meg's arm.

"Thank you. I mean that. It was nice of you to stay. I know you can't do that often, but I'm really glad I got to meet you. You too Sally. I'm sorry we never got to spend any time together before this."

Meg smiled. "Well, it was just the neighborly thing to do, that's all. But you're welcome."

Mavis wasn't actually having fits at the absence of her employees. She rarely got any time to herself. There were always children or other women around, for the most part. She didn't worry about her employees. She did wonder where they'd gotten to, but spent the time writing a letter to her sister that she'd put off for a month. It needed to be a long letter to tell all the news, and she was, in the end, grateful that she'd been able to get it finished.

Sally tried to take the brunt of the blame when the children all piled into the parlor and began taking their coats off.

"We stayed to help Rachel," she said. Taking Meg's line, she added "It seemed like the neighborly thing to do."

"Well, considering what happened, I suppose it was," admitted Mavis. "Don't make it a habit, though. There's things around here that need doing."

"She's nice," said Meg. "Nicer than I thought."

"Is she now?" said Mavis. "Actually it was kind of nice around here ... quiet for once. I just wish I'd have known. I'd have had a nice long soak in that tub you all love so much."

Neither woman took the bait, though, and Mavis, once again, let it drop.

About an hour later though, Meg stopped beside Mavis, on her way to do laundry. "You know, if we helped out at school say, one day a week? You could have that nice long soak."

Mavis snorted. But then she said "I guess I could at that."

That night, as they listened to the radio, Bobby pulled out the table leg and began carving on the end of it. It was shorter than it had been in the beginning, but still looked a little awkward, and Mavis decided to go visit the cabinetmaker's shop down on Broadway.

The next day, while the children were in school, she did just that, taking Bobby's table leg with her, with its half finished carving on the end. She also took two of his finished carvings, which were set high on a shelf to keep them away from the children.

"Good work," said the man, examining the face of a German Shepherd, its ears stiff and raised, as if it heard something. "No need to ruin good furniture. I got lots of scraps laying around. I'd be glad to be rid of them. You say it's that boy who done this? The one what saved that girl from the rapist?"

Mavis went home with a gunny sack filled with chunks of cherry, walnut, pecan and mahogany. When she dumped out the sack for Bobby that afternoon she found more sandpaper too and a roll of oilpaper that had various chisels inside it. A small wooden mallet was rolled up with them. There was also a disk shaped carving, that looked a little like a sunburst with a face in the center. The cabinetmaker had said it was designed to go on a tall chest of drawers, with fancy woodwork framing a mirror on top. The disk, he said, would be attached above the mirror. He had suggested that Bobby attempt to reproduce it. The tools, he said, could be returned at some unspecified time in the future.

Bobby, when he came in from school, picked up the tools and examined them. Then he looked at the sunburst carving which, he noticed, had a crack running through it that had ruined it. He found a board end that was about the right size, put it on his lap, and started removing slivers of wood with the tools. As Mavis watched him, she realized that with the board on his lap, it was more difficult than if were on a more solid base. She motioned to Prudence and they went up to the attic and brought down an old stained and scratched Queen Anne end table that a chair could be drawn up to and one's legs put under. Once a couple of thin strips of wood had been fastened to two sides of the top, it provided a place where Bobby's scrap of wood could be laid and stabilized as he pushed or tapped a chisel. The work went faster and was cleaner after that.

It only took Bobby four hours to make the reproduction. It was rougher than the original, the lines not as straight, and the face not as crisp, but the women thought it was gorgeous.

On Wednesday, Bobby somehow got coal dust all over his face and hands when he did his chores. He'd never had that problem before. His shirt was black as well. He didn't seem to notice, and sat at his table to try smoothing the sunburst face he had carved. Mavis walked by and saw the condition he was in.

"What in the world happened to you?" she asked. "I hope you don't think you're coming to my table for supper looking like that. We're having a guest tonight. Meg invited your teacher to come for supper."

Bobby looked at his hands innocently. There was paper and pencil beside him. Paper and pencils lay all over the house now. He wrote the word "Bath?" on it.

Mavis looked at him shrewdly. "One of these days I'm going to have to find out just what goes on in there," she said. Bobby looked at her as innocently as he'd looked at his hands. She thought briefly about just taking him into the bathroom herself. But she had to get ready for supper.

"Prudence!" she called. Prudence looked up from the beef hindquarter she was butchering on the cutting table in the kitchen. "I'll finish that up. Bobby's gotten himself filthy and says he needs a bath. Since both Meg and Sally are in town, why don't you take care of it this time."

Mavis almost laughed as Prudence lit up with a smile and immediately abandoned the meat that would be their supper for days to come.

Bobby had been thinking about Meg. He had dirtied himself with coal dust on purpose, knowing that Mavis would demand he clean up. His ploy to get a bath in the middle of the week had worked, but not quite as he had planned. On the other hand, Prudence's lush body was interesting too. The only two women Bobby had ever seen naked were Meg and Sally, and they were as different as night and day. He wondered if he might get to widen his available store of information with Prudence.

Prudence, as it turned out, had been thinking about her unfaithful soon-to-be ex-husband, over in Europe. She was tortured by visions of him and his no-doubt young tart, clasped together, making the beast with two backs ... making a baby in her ... instead of in Prudence, where it belonged. She had seen Bobby naked before, and it only made things worse. Or better. It depended on how she looked at it. Right now, she wanted to see him naked again.

Taking him in the bathroom she started the bath water while Bobby added coal to the heater. She turned to see him standing, his hands at his sides.

"Well, go on. You can't take a bath in your clothes. I've seen you unclothed before." She watched as he took his shirt off. He now had pants that fit him better, and removing his suspenders no longer made them drop as if they had stones in them. When he pushed them down and stepped out of his drawers, his penis was half hard and stuck out. It was much larger than when she'd seen it limp and satisfied before.

"Oh my," she said, her breathing increasing. "Has it ever done that when Meg or Sally was in here?" she asked.

Bobby nodded and stepped into the tub. He stepped back out quickly. The water was too hot.

"Oh dear me," she said, turning to mix some cold water in. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I was thinking." What she had been thinking was that if it looked like that half hard, she was going to do her best to see what it looked like fully erect. Prudence had her own suspicions about what went on at bath time. She too had seen Sally's glow when she finished bathing Bobby.

Bobby stepped back in, took the soap from the window sill and handed it to Prudence before sitting down.

"So they wash you?" she asked.

He nodded and splashed water all over himself, trying surreptitiously to get some on Prudence too. She was too far away though. She came closer and bent over to dip the soap in the water, and then placed it on his chest and moved it around. She worked on his arms, then, feeling his muscles moving under the skin. Whenever she looked at his face, he was staring back at her with his big, brown eyes. The water turned dark with washed off coal dust and she told him to close his eyes so she could do his face. Then she put the soap in his hand and cupped water in both of hers to pour over his face, rubbing it clean. Now was the part she had been waiting for.

"Stand up now Bobby," she said.

When he did she wasted no time soaping her hands and going straight for his penis. It lengthened in her hands and became rigid.

"On dear me," she said softly, feeling her gut clench. "Do the others wash you like this?"

Bobby smiled and nodded.

"And do you like this?" she asked.

He smiled wider and nodded with more enthusiasm.

She moaned, and her pace increased.

"Does anything ever ... come out ... of it?" she asked, blushing.

Bobby's smile got even wider as he nodded.

"Ohhhhhhhh" she moaned.

Prudence was on fire. Her husband had been gone for two years, before which she was, unknown to her, a highly sexed woman. She had reveled in the things they did in the bedroom, feeling like she had been set free from the strictures of society's denial that she should have sexual feelings. And the sudden withdrawl of those pleasures had hit her hard. Then, after struggling through all that time of going without pleasure she loved, he told her he wasn't going without, but that she'd have to go without forever. In all the time he'd been gone, even after getting the letter in which he said he'd found another woman and wasn't coming back to her, she'd never considered cheating on him.

Until now.

But Prudence was older than Meg and Sally, if only by a few years. Her level of control, while strained, was based on the fact that Mavis was out on the other side of that door. Her mind whirled as, with a strong, young penis in her soapy hands, Prudence thought wildly about what she wanted to do with it. Perhaps, depending on how you, the reader, will evaluate things in the end, it was fortunate that while she thought, her hand assumed what, for her, was a natural stroking motion. Her mental state was intruded upon when Bobby's penis suddenly swelled in her hand. Prudence, knowing what to expect, aimed it down, into the water.

They both let out a long sigh as thick streams of milky white spunk splashed into the water and Bobby bent his knees a little. Prudence watched in fascination as three and then four healthy spurts followed the first two. Her own knees sagged a little and the heat between her legs flared.

She let go of him and looked at her hand, as if it were someone else's and she couldn't believe it was somehow attached to her arm. she was just as surprised when that hand went back to the wilting phallus of her charge and milked the shrinking organ to ensure that all his sperm was out of it.

Then she, in a very businesslike voice, said "All right. Now that that's taken care of, out of the tub and let's get you dried off."

Bobby, partly disappointed that things hadn't been as intense as they were with Meg and Sally, was non-the-less happy that she had made him feel good, and he obeyed, standing quietly as she ran the towel all over him. Then, as the other two had, Prudence led him out of the bathroom naked. Since his clean clothes weren't lying in a pile of washing on the floor, she simply told him to go up to his room and get dressed.

Mavis had watched as the door to the bathroom opened and the two came out. Her eyes went immediately to Bobby's penis, which was flaccid and completely normal looking, though dark again. Then she examined Prudence, who looked normal as well.

"Everything go all right?" she asked innocently.

"Yes," said Prudence, distracted by what was going on under her calm outward appearance. "He does splash a lot, though," she said, just for something else to say. She looked around, like she wasn't quite sure where she was. "How long until supper?" she asked.

Mavis, who detected Prudence's scatterbrained undercurrent, and was intrigued by that, said "Oh, I don't know. Several hours I suppose. Why?"

Prudence, her speech just a little too fast to be normal, said "Oh, I was just thinking that I forgot all about the fact that the coal truck is coming to my house today. I guess all that coal dust I just washed off of him reminded me. I've let the bin get in a terrible state and need to clean it up."

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