September 2006

MONDAY

He'd been only twelve when she'd won her first gold medal in Sydney. As he watched her standing in front of the crowd at the town pool almost exactly six years later he couldn't help but remember the elation that had swept through the town of Orange Beach, Florida that sultry fall day so long ago.

A local girl, a pretty, happy, perennially smiling girl everybody knew, his next door neighbor and ex baby sitter, she had exploded the last few meters of the Olympic pool and with one last desperate lunge had out touched a big shouldered swimmer from Germany and won gold for America. Gold for the people of Orange Beach!

A tall, bubbly blond from Florida, she somehow represented everything that makes America great. Looks yes. But it also was her openness, her ability to laugh, her kindness, all combined with hard work, perseverance and a willingness to learn, that made her the embodiment of the American ideal.

As he watched her talking he could see she was surprised at the size of the crowd who had appeared on what was her first day at her new job, her job as head coach of the Orange Beach High School Swimming Team as well as director of the Orange Beach Swimming Club. It had supposed to have been just an informal introductory meeting between the new boss and the staff and the swimmers.

But the mayor and full town council had appeared, Mayor Brown with speech in hand. The principal of the high school, the woman who had replaced his father just one year ago was also there. So was the publisher of the local paper. And about another thousand curious citizens of Orange Beach had turned up. They'd all greeted her with a standing ovation.

America's swimming darling had decided to come home. It had been heralded in the weekly Orange Sentinel — perhaps the biggest story in the town paper since the parade that had been held for her six years earlier. It had been almost four years since the boy had last seen her.

And every person in the town of seven thousand people knew what had brought her back. The story had been headline news on Fox and CNN and ESPN and the COURT channel for weeks. They'd all heard the 911 tape to the Las Angeles Police Department... the cry for help from a battered wife!

She'd married Kenny McGuire one year after returning from Sydney, a beautiful, double gold medal winning athlete who'd fallen in love with the star first baseman of our favorite team, the L.A. Dodgers. It was the perfect match — the gold medal winning swimmer and the baseball player with matinee idol good looks.

And of course, Kenny, being a Dodger made it even better. Just about every Orange Beacher was a Dodger fan. How could we not be with Vero Beach and Dodgertown, the spring home of the Los Angeles Dodgers just twenty-one miles away to the east. She'd met him the spring after she'd won the Olympic gold.

It had seemed like a fairy tale when they'd married. Now, Kenny McGuire wouldn't have lasted ten minutes if he walked down Main Street of Orange Beach today. And the tall teen knew he would have been at the head of the avenging pack! The boy was going to be captain of the high school swimming team that year. His name was Donald Graham. He thought she was the most desirable woman in the world!

JACQUELINE ANN MERRYWELL - Jam

"So, little Donny Graham is on the high school swim team," I teased, a big welcoming smile on my face as I looked up at the boy, then added, "Except he's not so little anymore."

"You remember me Miss Merrywell?" he asked shyly, a blush spreading on his cheeks.

"Miss Merrywell? Yeah, like I'm going to forget my favorite neighbor, the little monster who always gave me a hard time when I was babysitting him?" I answered, grinning, watching this cute boy who'd become such a handsome teen. The boy who now meant so much to me.

"I never did," he protested, grinning like an idiot, his face now beet red. It was a lovely contrast to his blond hair and blue eyes.

The crowds had finally left and now I was surrounded only by my two assistant coaches and the thirty some members of the high school swim team, the number one program in the state. And yours truly, battered wife or not, was determined to keep it there.

"Hey you, are you heading home?" I called out to Donny who was looking back at me as he talked to a beautiful, dark haired teen by the pool gate. Our meeting had just broken up.

I watched him as he gave a quick kiss to the girl and then turned and walked over to me.

"Yup... soon," he answered, his eyes flitting back and forth from mine to the girl by the gate. "Are you staying at your house tonight Miss Merrywell?"

"What happened to Jam? Isn't that what you and your crazy sister used to call me?"

"You weren't famous then," Donny responded with a grin.

I had always liked little Donny and his sister Gail. But who was this cute boy/man? This boy who could blush so easily while turning teenage girls knees to jelly? "My furniture doesn't arrive til Sunday. I want to check the house though," I added. "Gosh I've got so much I want to do before it arrives."

"I'll help," Donny promised.

"I'm going out now to see what work I have to get done. Want a ride?"

"Yeah, sure... please. Let me talk to Kim first for a second," he said as he looked back at the cute teen waiting thirty feet away. Lucky little girl I thought, a wave of nostalgia for my teenage years sweeping over me.

"Is your daddy home?" I tried to ask nonchalantly ten minutes later as I turned my Audi into the short, tree lined private cul-de-sac that held the Graham and Merrywell houses. But as I asked Donny a shiver of fear coursed through my body.

"You haven't heard?" he demanded looking over at me in surprise.

"What?" I asked as Donny started laughing.

"I thought you knew. He got married. Just last Saturday. I was his best man."

"What? Your father? To who?"

"You won't believe it," he promised with a huge grin.

"But he's too old," I stammered, completely rocked by the news. But I also knew Robert Graham would never think he was too old for any woman.

"She's hardly older than me," Donny added.

"Who is?"

"Do you remember the Collins family... they lived over on Poinsettia Road?" the boy asked.

"Yeah sure, I went to school with Glen," I answered, completely mystified. Did he marry Glen's mother I wondered.

"Do you remember his sister Marjorie?"

"The younger sister?"

"Yup," Donny agreed, "she's twenty-two now. Just graduated nursing school. She married dad on Saturday."

"But... gosh, your daddy's got to be sixty now."

"Sixty-three. He's taken her on a six week tour of Europe for their honeymoon." I could see he was amused at my surprise.

"But why would she marry him? I mean, she was such a pretty little girl." But as I spoke I remembered the feel of him when he was inside me. Remembered how he had made my body thrash in ecstasy. For a second I felt a tinge of jealousy towards little Marjorie.

"You should see her now," Donny said, then gave a wolf whistle.

Thoughts and emotions flooded through my mind. Relief surely was the strongest but surprisingly I also felt jealousy and regret. "Who's taking care of you then?" I asked, offhandedly, completely lost in thought.

"Isn't that why you came home Miss Merrywell?" he asked me daringly, a grin on his face, "to baby-sit little Donny?"

"If you call me Miss Merrywell again I may put you across my knee young man," I joked back even while knowing that the only reason I'd come back to Orange Grove was the Grahams — father and son and daughter. "How's Gail anyway?" I asked as I thought of Donny's sister, stalling, still trying to catch up to my whirling mind.

"She left for Gainesville right after dad's wedding. First year... wants to study engineering," Donny answered, a certain disdain for the university choice of his sister clear in his voice.

"U.F.? Yuck," I groaned, my Florida State background and dislike of everything Gator showing.

"I know," the boy agreed, "She's turning into a loser." But watching him and remembering the two children from my babysitting days I knew how much they loved each other.

I actually laughed when I saw the two houses; delighted they looked exactly as I remembered them. They stood side by side, two-story houses that stood framed by the palm trees and lush Florida vegetation that surrounded them. They were sentinels for the vast orange groves that marched outwards behind them.

I hadn't been back since I'd convinced my mom to rent the house and move to California to live with me and my baseball playing husband four years ago. God, don't think about mom, I admonished myself even as the wave of sadness started to flow through my body. Mom, already dead six months.

"You okay," Donny asked, somehow sensing my pain.

"I was thinking of mom," I whispered, then wiped the tear from the corner of my eye.

"We wrote you... Gail and I... when we heard... your mom was always nice to us," Donny replied sadly. "She used to sneak us ice cream when dad wasn't looking."

"She liked you guys," I agreed and then ruffled Donny's blond curls.

Donny followed me as we toured from room to room in the large, two-story, deserted house. "I had cleaners in last week," I said offhandedly to Donny, my mind still trying to digest the news of his father.

"Yeah, we saw them. Gail was hoping you'd get here before she left."

"I was hoping to get some painting done this week, my bedroom, kitchen, living room, dining room, bathroom," I added as we walked. "I'll never get it done now."

"Why not? We could do it. It's only Monday... school doesn't start for a week."

"You have better things to do than that."

"No I don't. And I'll call up the team... we can have ten people here painting tomorrow morning."

"I don't have any paint, any brushes... anything," I protested, waving my arms helplessly.

Thirty minutes later we were on our way to Vero Beach and the brand new Loews that had just opened, a list of room measurements and preferred colors in hand. Donny had simply run roughshod over all my objections. Why not, he'd asked.

Then he used his cell non stop as we drove and had six commitments from teammates to be at the house at nine the next morning even before we'd pulled into the two acre Loews parking lot that was less than five minutes away from the Dodger complex I knew so well.

An hour and a half later my trunk was brimming with supplies and I led Donny to a local eatery for dinner.

"Maybe we shouldn't have come here," Donny mumbled through a hamburger.

"How come?" I asked as we ate.

"I don't know... your husband and all," he said, shy again now, "you guys probably ate here all the time... when you were going out I mean," he added hesitantly.

"Guess I'm pretty famous around here eh? Everyone feels sorry for poor little me... ," I started, still mad that my problems and the awful tape had been played all over America.

"He should be shot... horsewhipped... if he ever shows his face," the boy interrupted.

"It wasn't all his fault Donny."

"You don't hit a woman," the boy replied with a force that surprised me.

"No, you don't," I agreed, remembering the hurt my husbands fists had rained down on me. The bastard, I thought to myself as I tried to keep the tears from flowing.

We were quiet, both of us lost in our own thoughts the rest of dinner, but as we drove back towards home I finally roused myself and asked, "So, tell me about this Kim."

"What?" he asked and then immediately reddened.

"C'mon Donny. The dark haired girl. The one you kissed, your girlfriend?" I asked with a grin.

"She's just a friend. In my class. On the swim team..." he said, a boys embarrassment clear in his tone. "We're not serious or anything."

"Does she know that?" I teased. Boys didn't have a clue.

We unloaded the car quickly when we got back to my house. I was surprised at how excited I was at the prospect of actually getting the painting done.

"Thanks Donny... for everything... I really," I started as we stood on my front porch, me ready to jump in my car and head for town. Gosh, I realized, I'd almost leaned over and given him a kiss.

"Where are you going to stay anyway?" Donny asked.

"I'll get a room at the Comfort Inn for a couple of days."

"Crikey, don't be crazy, you can stay in Gail's room," he insisted, "Why waste the money?"

"But... I can't... I mean you're all alone," I stammered, the thought of entering the Graham house daunting.

"C'mon Miss Merrywell... Jam," he said with a cocky smirk. "Besides with all the money you save you can hold a big bar-b-q for the team when we've finished painting. You'll owe us."

"Oh can I?" I asked but smiled saying it, then finally agreed, my desire to enter the Graham house again outlasting my fear. Besides, Mr. Graham was in Europe. But then, later, for hours I lay trembling between the sheets of Gail Graham's bed. Remembering other nights, other days, other beds.

I dreamt. Of an evil man. But as I lay writhing on the bed, groaning in my sleep as I was despoiled, as I was torn in two, the devils face slowly morphed into his sons. You can't have him Jacqui, part of me tried to warn.

TUESDAY

Donny and I had eaten breakfast and were setting up the supplies by the time the teens starting arriving around nine the next morning. No one even bothered to ask where I'd spent the night as I handed out assignments. Fifteen teens eventually arrived, and although the atmosphere was more party-like than business-like, by two in the afternoon a first coat of paint was put on every room in the house.

The boys had also carried down the furniture that had been stored in the attic for the last four years; a dining room table, a couple of sofas that would be okay in the den or on the porch, my parents old bedroom furniture, and finally some bookcases and other odds and ends I thought I could use. It was starting to feel like a home.

Then I herded them grumbling to the town pool for a late afternoon practice. If you guys want to be number one...

Swimming is serious work! I mean it. Oh it can be fun too but to be a top swimmer takes dedication and long hours. Hour after hour of laps. Weight lifting. But you know, kids like it. Unlike football or baseball its coed so the hard work is tempered by the chance to socialize. Then there's the bathing suits!

It's hard to be modest about your body if you're a serious swimmer. Let's face it, there's just nowhere to hide when you have a racing suit on. Breast size, the exact outline of your nipples, gosh, you can even tell if a girl shaves down below when she gets out of the water and her wet suit is sticking to her like a second skin. Sticking up the crack of your butt.

And the boys! Through the thin, red, nylon suits you could follow every vein that ran up the young cocks, you could see the ridge as each shaft thickened into circumcised bulbs. There was no reason to guess about penis size, every girl on the pool deck could give you a rundown on every boy.

You just got used to it. Lived with it. Or you got out. Male swimmers always claimed that the most 'endowed' athletes came from their sport, a claim that could be easily verified at one glance at any meet. Small cocked boys invariably quit.

And of course Donny lived up to that reputation. And more. I'd been watching my first practice from the tower at one end of the pool, just trying to get a first impression of the styles and strengths of the some thirty people doing lap after lap under me.

He was the last out of the water, and stood stretching languidly for seconds as the water streamed off his muscled body. Tall, with broad shoulders, he shook his head once and then bent over and touched his ankles. His stretched hamstrings led up to a tight, round butt that pointed directly up at me.

As he stretched back up and turned to answer one of is buddies my eyes momentarily caught Kim and another girl across the deck. Oh, oh, I thought, recognizing the hungry stares both were directing at this young god. Then I turned back to Donny.

I almost fell out of my chair and tumbled off the tower into the water below. Christ, I'd known he'd be big, shit, the genetics had promised it. Still, anyone watching me would have seen the surprise etched on my face, would have seen how my eyes hungrily devoured him. I watched transfixed as one of his hands moved to his groin and adjusted himself. "Jeeesus," I mumbled half aloud, "like father, like son."

"I'll sleep at my place tonight," I insisted as we ate the steaks Donny had just grilled. It was just past nine-thirty but the heat of the Florida day still lingered oppressively around us. Without the screens of the Florida porch on the Graham house, the humming insects that seemed everywhere would have dined on us.

"Don't be silly. You won't be able to breathe with the fumes." For a second I heard the steely authority of his father's voice in his son's tone. Still, I didn't argue. I liked the thought of sleeping in the same house as this young man.

We were sipping wine with our meal. A hearty red which went perfectly with the thick sirloins we were eating. I had tried to refuse him when he suggested that he also should partake of the wine.

"You're too young... what would people think if they knew the swimming coach was offering her charges the demon drink?" I asked.

"I'm eighteen. Besides, Daddy serves us wine. Me and Gail," he argued.

"He does not. Does he?"

"Yes," Donny insisted as he reached for the bottle.

"Before or after he seduces and marries twenty-two year old girls?" I asked, curious to know more about his father's marriage.

"She says she loves him," Donny said as I let him pour himself a glass, "that he's everything she wants."

"What did her family think?"

"Daddy can make people do what he wants," he suddenly spat out, an unsuspected venom for his father clear in his words.

"I know," I whispered back but I don't think Donny heard.

I slept fitfully again that night, endless dreams, dreams of two men, of two men fighting to possess me. Of two cocks, large, thick cocks, cocks that became sabers that dueled to own me.

WEDNESDAY

"So which one is it?" I asked Donny the next night around ten. We had started painting a little later that morning but still, by four in the afternoon the second coat was finished and the job was done. It was party time. On me.

And so I found myself as chaperone for a group of sixteen, seventeen and eighteen year old teenagers. I'd bought soda, burgers and hot dogs and bags of chips which we ate around the backyard pool. For the next five hours, until they finally had started to wander off, I'd acted the adult, supervising them. I knew if I hadn't been there they'd have been drinking beer. Smoking dope?

And the whole time I'd wanted to be one of them. To be young again. To not have a care in the world. I was too young to be the adult.

"Which one is what?" Donny asked in answer to my question.

"Kim or Mandy?" I asked. Amanda was the name of the other team member who'd showed more than a little bit of interest in my young neighbor. I'd cracked open another bottle of wine after the rest of the kids had left. Both of us were sipping as we dangled our feet in the water.

"What do you mean?" he stalled, reddening.

I swear, I meant only to ask him which one he liked, which one was his girlfriend. They'd both been hovering around him all day. Pushing their bikini clad bodies against him. But I asked instead, "Which one have you slept with?" And then added, "Or are you sleeping with both?"

He didn't answer, instead simply pushed gently on my back and propelled me into the pool.

"Donny!" I chided with a laugh when I finally surfaced.

Later, both of us now moderately high, I raised the subject of Donny's mom and her death some two years earlier.

"I hate him," Donny suddenly hissed.

"Who honey?" I asked, having no idea what he meant.

"Daddy... god he can be a bastard."

Did he know about us I wondered? Did Robert Graham's son know what his father had done to me so many years ago? How?

"He hit her. Hit mommy," was suddenly ejaculated from his angry young lips.

"Your father? He hit your mom?" I asked, astounded.

"I didn't do anything... for years... not until it was too late, ' he spat out, the tears now flowing down his cheeks. "He hit Gail... me too... I should have protected them," he cried.

"You were just a boy. You couldn't have done anything," I tried to comfort even as I realized I should have guessed. "He was so big, so strong Donny," I said as I remembered how his father had so easily manhandled me.

"I finally fought him... I was scared Jam... so scared... but I couldn't do anything. He'd been hurting her for so long."

"What happened?" I asked, trying to imagine this boy facing his father.

"It was when I was fifteen. Three years ago," the now strong eighteen year old started. "He hit mom... slapped her right in front of Gail and I... I had to Miss Merrywell... I had to stop him."

As I listened, wondering how a thin fifteen year old could ever have hoped to match up with his father, I couldn't help wishing that I'd had someone to protect me the many times I'd been mauled, been forced to accept his ugly body.

"He broke my nose, messed up my knee some," Donny added, but with just a touch of pride in his voice now.

"Oh my gawd, the evil bastard," I hissed, irate, forgetting for a second the boy as I remembered the father.

"I gave him a black eye."

"What?"

"And two broken ribs... it sorta ended up even." There was a man's pride now in the Donny's eyes.

"You beat your daddy? Oh my gawd Donny, you were so brave," I said as I pulled his head to my chest.

"I waited so long," he answered, the tears still streaming down his cheeks.

"You were just a boy," I said, trying to console this boy/man. I gently ran my hands through his blond mane.

"It was my mother. My sister. I should have protected them... I was scared," he admitted.

"Of course you were... but you still faced him. Like a real man. You were brave Donny, so brave."

"He can be so bad," Donny wailed.

"Can I tell you a story," I suddenly asked, knowing I was about to tell this boy the story I'd never told anyone.

"About what?"

"About me... about your dad."

"But," he said, confusion in his eyes.

"When I came back from Atlanta, my first Olympics," I started. "Oh I thought I was pretty good, seventeen years old, had won a bronze medal in the 200 butterfly, we'd won a silver in the medley relay... my picture had been in Sports Illustrated."

"I remember how excited the town was," Donny interjectied, watching me intently, his tears forgotten.

"I was pretty full of myself those first few weeks back at school... I was a bit of a bitch," I admitted.

"You?"

"Uh huh. Then one day I was sent to your daddy's office. He hurt me."

"What?"

"When he started to talk to me I sassed him back, let him know how important I thought I was."

"You sassed daddy?" he asked, knowing from long experience how dangerous that was.

"He just grabbed me and bent me over his desk and started to spank me. With a thick wooden paddle. It hurt... so much."

"I know," Donny agreed and I knew he too had felt his father's hand.

"I fought him... screamed... tried to get away," I told the son. "Then I told him I'd go to the police... tell everyone." The memories of the day were still so fresh in my mind as I panted out my confession. "He just laughed and told me I was suspended for two weeks. That I should transfer somewhere else if I didn't like his discipline, that he didn't want me back, not with my attitude."

"What did you do," Donny whispered.

"I begged him... told him I was sorry... that I'd never be bad again."

"He let you go?"

"Bend over, he ordered me. And don't say another word he added. I was scared Donny," I told the teen, "So scared."

"You let him?" Donny demanded.

"I had no one to protect me. I was so scared. It was just mom and me then. What could I do?" Donny held me as I told him how his father had lifted my short plaid skirt and delivered blow after blow atop my thin, white, cotton panties. He held me when I told him how I'd finally fled from his father's office, red blotches of blood staining them.

"He's a bastard," Donny growled. "Did he ever do it again?"

"Not for the rest of that year," I hedged, still unwilling to tell the whole story. "But I was so scared of him... scared that he'd call me back to his office. Or that some night when I was baby sitting you he'd come home early and do it again."

For minutes afterward Donny cradled me in his strong arms as I cried softly. But I couldn't help but notice the hard-on that was straining against its confinement in his shorts.

It was Donny I dreamed of that night. Tossing and turning in his sister's bed I dreamed of his long, hard cock filling me in that most forbidden of couplings.

THURSDAY

Donny was off to Palm Beach Thursday with his summer league baseball team, their last regular game before the playoffs. "I'll be home for dinner," he promised, "Wait for me, I'll bar-b-q some chicken."

"Don't worry about me. What about Kim and Mandy? You've been ignoring the poor girls," I teased with a smile, flirting shamelessly with a boy I could never have.

"Don't eat without me," he threatened back, grinning madly, in love.

I spent the day doing the hundred little chores that always need to be done when you move. Electricity and phone and mail and internet and cable and...

I positioned my parents old bedroom furniture in the large back bedroom, the bedroom that overlooked the backyard and pool and gave a view of the orange groves that started at the edge of our yard and wound for miles towards the west. There was also a large side window that faced the Graham house. That in fact faced Donny's room just thirty feet away. I made the bed; I'd decided to finally take up residence in my home.

Then I went out and bought some groceries... some more wine. Later, I had just hopped out of the shower when I saw one of his friends drop Donny off in front of his door. Quickly pulling on a cream colored silk cami and rather tight yellow shorts I realized how badly I wanted this boy to find me attractive.

I quickly brushed my still wet hair. Dabbed perfume onto my body. Then rushing I reached my back door and opened it just as he was about to knock.

"How'd you guys do?" I asked the startled teen.

"Great, we won. You haven't eaten yet have you?" he blurted out.

"I'm baby sitting you," I teased. "I'm not allowed to eat before you."

We talked and drank as the chicken cooked. I drank more than I had the night before. I knew if I didn't I'd never have the courage to tell him part two of my story.

"He spanked me again," I started three hours later. We'd eaten and drunk our fill in the preceding hours. Replete and sitting with my legs tucked comfortably under me the urge to confess drove me on. Donny was sitting watching me from the other end of the couch. The only light came from a few stars twinkling in the southern sky. It was easier to talk not seeing his face.

"Daddy?" he asked.

"Un huh. The next September... I'd just turned eighteen the month before... had spent the summer with the national team... it was just the second week of school. I hadn't done anything wrong Donny... it wasn't fair."

"What did he say?" his son asked me.

"He called me to his office. After last period. I was scared Donny. He was nice at first... asked me how my summer had been. How I'd liked traveling to South America for the Pan Am games. I thought everything was okay." The wine and my memories suddenly made me weepy.

"Are you alright Jacqui?" Donny suddenly asked out of the darkness and then I felt his arm slip around me. It was the first time he'd called me by my name. I loved the sound of it on his lips.

I nestled my head against his chest as I started to speak again. "I have to spank you again little girl, he said to me when I finished telling him about my summer. I asked him why... told him I'd been good... that it just wasn't fair."

Donny knew from long experience that reasoning with his father never did any good and so simply held me tighter and let me talk.

"C'mon here, he finally ordered me, his anger and impatience obvious. I thought... oh Donny, I thought okay, it'll hurt but it's just once, then it'll be all over. It was my last year there. I just went to his desk, bent over, I was crying."

Donny saw the tears on my cheek as I recounted my tale, lightly brushed one off and then, both afraid and excited about what I was going to say, tried to give me a way out, "You don't have to tell me Jacqui, its okay."