Chapter 1

I'd known even before I moved in that Betty's step-dad was a good man. I didn't find out just how good he really was until my eighteenth birthday. That was the night he gave me my best birthday present ever, even though he didn't know at first just what his gift really was.

I met Betty through the youth group at church. She was the sweetest of all the group members. She was always nice and never had a bad word about anyone. Even though she was two years younger than me, there was a lot we had in common, not the least of which was our bodies. We were both "big girls" with fuller bosoms and hips than most of the girls, and we both hated the way guys would fall all over themselves staring and drooling like pigs and how girls would snub us because, Betty said, they were jealous. We quickly became close friends.

I saw a lot of Betty, her little brother, Jimmy and her mom and step-dad. They were like this family off TV or something. Betty talked about her step-dad like he was a god. According to her, he was the perfect father. I guess she was right. He let her do almost whatever she wanted and always gave her enough money. Except when he was taking care of her sick mom, he was at her beck and call. He was always driving us around to different places whenever Betty asked him.

He seemed like the perfect dad to me, too, especially when compared to the guys my mom hooked up with. The one she was with now didn't even work. He just sat around the house and drank all day. I didn't like him from the first time I met him.

One night I got woken up by all the grunting and moaning coming from my mom's bedroom. The walls of the little apartment we lived in were paper-thin, so it was something I was used to. Mom went out that night and I expected it, but this time she was really loud. So was he. There was a lot of shouting and cursing and I couldn't get back to sleep, so I tip-toed into the living room to get the book I'd left there.

I should have known that the noise would stop the moment I got into the other room. I grabbed the book and tried to get back to my room as quickly and as quietly as I could. I wasn't fast enough, though. Just before I reached the door to my room, a short, skinny man came out of my mom's room -- totally naked.

He stood in front of me in the narrow hallway. He reminded me of a plucked chicken. Even though I was wearing a long flannel nightgown, he leered at my breasts. I stared at his cock, the first one I'd ever seen, sticking out of the thick hair that covered his belly. In the second we stood facing each other, it started to puff up.

He said, "Mm, it's the daughter. Like what you see? I sure like what I'm seeing."

I quickly looked down at the floor. "H'lo," I mumbled and tried to slip past him to get to my room. As I turned sideways, facing the wall to squeeze by, he turned and leaned toward me. I felt his member brush up against my rear and poke in between my buttocks. I let out a little gasp and my hips shuddered, more from disgust than anything else, and he said, "Oh, you like that, do you? Maybe some day, sugar. Maybe soon."

I rushed into my room and slammed the door. Ugly, horrid little man! He didn't scare me too very much because he really wasn't very big and didn't seem too strong, but he made me so angry! How dare that repulsive jerk poke that filthy thing at me! And my own mother let him do that to her. The thought made me sick!

My mom spent more and more time with that gross little chicken-man, and eventually he moved in. I spent less and less time at home. I'd either be at the church or staying over at a friend's house. I'd stay over at Betty's a lot. Her parents were fun to be with. They were always joking with us, especially Betty's step-dad, Tom. Sometimes her mom, Margaret, would get a bit cranky, but Betty said that was because of her illness. The thing I liked the most was that they always had dinner at the same time every night, and they all sat together at the dining room table with the TV off. They were the only people I knew that did that.

Still, I had to go home sometime. Usually when I got home the chicken-man was either passed out on the sofa or already in bed with Mom, so I didn't have to put up with his filthy mouth and lewd staring. Sometimes, tho, he was still awake and drunk. Then I'd just go to my room and lock the door, but if I had to go to the kitchen or to the bathroom, he'd always make some kind of crude remark about my tits. My mom thought it was funny.

When it happened, I thought it was the worst night of my life, but it really turned out to be one of the best. I was asleep in my room and I was having a real weird dream. I was lying on the sofa in Betty's living room and Tom was over me, tickling my breasts and thighs with chicken feathers. I was laughing and squirming underneath him, trying to get away, but not real hard because it felt really good, especially when he rubbed a stiff feather along the lips of my pussy. My hips were rocking up and down and I got real wet down there, which made the chicken feathers smell nasty.

Then I felt something poking into me. I awoke with a start and there was the chicken-man kneeling between my legs! He'd slid my nightgown up above my breasts, pushed my panties aside and was trying to stick his finger up into my pussy! I pulled my leg up and, screaming, I kicked him off the bed and across the room. With a grunt he hit the full-length mirror on the wall, cracking it, and collapsed in a heap on the floor.

Groaning, he crawled toward the door. My mom appeared and without a word pulled him up and dragged him out. When they were gone, I quickly got up and locked the door just as the yelling began. It went on and on. I knew I wasn't going to get any sleep that night, so I called Betty and begged her to let me come over. Of course I'd woken her and she groggily asked what was wrong. I said I couldn't say over the phone. She said she was pretty sure that if it was important her parents wouldn't mind too much.

When I got there, I told Betty what had happened and asked her not to tell her parents. She wasn't sure they'd be okay with that, but they were, though I think Tom had an pretty good idea what had happened because he kept on asking me if I was all right and did I want to go to a hospital and if I needed anything to just say so and he'd make sure I got it. "Except a new CD player," he said, "you can't have that." That made me laugh, and I was able to relax again. I fell asleep in Betty's room. I felt so safe there.

The next day I called home to make sure Mom was home. We had to talk about what had happened. She answered the phone and before I could say two words, she told me that she and chicken-man had decided that I was old enough to take care of myself and it was best for all of us if I was out on my own. I was just eighteen years old and not even out of high school and she was kicking me out! I cried, but she said her mind was made up and she hung up the phone.

I ran into Betty's room and just laid down and cried. A little while later, Betty came in and she said her family had talked it over and decided that if I wanted to I could stay with them! I was still real hurt by what my mom had done, but Betty telling me that made me feel a lot better.

So I moved in with Betty and her family. Nobody made a real big deal about it. The only real hassle was when Tom took me to get my stuff and to have Mom sign a paper so if I got hurt or sick, he could take me to the hospital. Tom kept on staring at chicken-man like he wanted to hit him. It would have been cool if he did, but he didn't.

It may sound kind of strange, but from the first day I never felt like I was a guest or I was imposing or anything. I just felt like one of the family. Betty and I started acting more like sisters than friends. Sometimes we'd get mad at each other and fight, but we always agreed that Jimmy was really annoying most of the time. Margaret could be strict, but she was always fair, even when she was feeling bad. Besides, if Margaret said no, you could always ask Tom. He usually never overruled her, but at least he'd always explain why.

They certainly didn't change the way they lived because of me. After dinner, if nobody was expecting company, everybody usually put on pajamas or nightgowns and sat around in the living room to watch TV. At first, I guess for my benefit, Tom used to put on a robe as well, but he stopped doing that after a while. There wasn't anything sexual about it, either. It was just a family being comfortable with each other, and I was one of the family.

I learned a lot. I guess it's not good to say so, but the stuff Tom and Margaret taught me made a lot more sense than some of the stuff I learned at church. Tom didn't go to church, but he was real religious in his own way. Once we came home from church, talking about something or other, and he said, "Don't do stuff just because somebody told you it's 'right'. Everybody's smart enough to know what's right and what's wrong. Don't hurt other people and don't hurt yourself -- in that order." That made sense to me.

It also made sense to me what he said about homosexuality. Tom and Margaret had a lot of gay friends, but I didn't know that at first. Once a couple of guys named Ron and Kerry came over to see how Margaret was doing. I didn't think much about it until Betty started talking about how much fun she'd had at their 20th anniversary party.

"Anniversary of what?", I asked.

"Of their wedding," Betty replied.

"They both got married on the same day?"

Betty giggled. "Of course, silly! What do you think, that they'd get married to each other on different days?"

"They're married to each other?! Eeuwh, that's gross!"

Betty looked at me as if I was from Mars. "Why is it gross?"

"Because-- Well, because-- Well, it just is."

She just frowned and said, "I don't think it's gross; I think it's really sweet that two people care about each other so much that they'll stay together for twenty years even though some people think it's 'gross' that they care about each other." Then she got up and walked out of the room.

I was confused. Homosexuality was wrong, wasn't it?

Tom had overheard the conversation, and he saw the confusion in my face. He said, "Remember what I said? Just because someone tells you something's wrong, it doesn't mean it's wrong."

"But everybody says homosexuality is wrong," I said.

"No, dear," he replied. "Only the people who don't understand it. They love each other. What's wrong with that? Are they hurting each other? Are they hurting themselves?"

"It's unnatural."

"It's unnatural for someone to love someone else? It's not 'unnatural' for me to love Margaret or for Margaret to love me, is it? Why should it be okay for us but not them?"

"I don't' know. It's just gross is all."

"Let me ask you a personal question," Tom said. "Are you attracted to girls or to guys?"

I almost blushed. "Guys, of course."

"And it'd be 'gross'," Tom continued, "if you were attracted to girls, right?"

"I guess," I replied.

"And there's nothing 'unnatural' about being attracted just to guys, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Kerry feels exactly the same way you do. If it's not okay for him, why should it be okay for you? And what difference should it make to anyone who you or he are attracted to? Don't answer now. Just think about it and remember that it really doesn't matter who you love as long as you love, right?"

I thought about it, and I decided he was right. Why should it make any difference who anyone was with? Ron and Kerry, once I got to know them, were really nice guys, and were just as devoted to each other as Tom and Margaret were. I learned something else about gay people, too. I was told that they used to watch Betty and Jimmy a lot when the kids were little, and if they ever tried to "enlist" Jimmy into the gay lifestyle (which I'd been told homosexuals tried to do), it sure didn't work. Not with those magazines I found in his room.