Chapter 8

The house was dark when they went in.

“Where is everybody?” she asked. Mirriam and the twins had left before she and Bobby had, and she’d assumed they’d be home by now.

“They’re probably over at Prudence’s,” he said. “They play cards on Friday night, as a rule.”

“Oh,” she said, sounding disappointed. “I was looking forward to that massage you were talking about.”

“Well, then, go lie down and we’ll get right to it.”

“What?” She looked at him as he turned on a light. “Who’s going to do it?”

“Me, of course,” he said.

“You?!” She blinked. “But you’re a man!”

He grinned. “I am indeed. What does that have to do with anything?”

“But I’m a girl!”

“You are indeed,” he said, still grinning. “I noticed that right away.”

“But I hardly know you!” she yipped.

“True,” he said. “You can stay sore if you like. I’m just offering, that’s all.”

“But how do I know I can trust you?” It was hardly out of her mouth before she regretted it.

“Let’s not start this all over again,” he said, no longer smiling. “All I’m offering is a massage, to loosen you up so you can sleep. I’m not going to molest you. How would that look in the papers when you screamed your head off?”

“That’s not what I meant,” she said weakly.

“What did you mean?”

She felt so tired she didn’t want to argue. “I don’t know. Just promise me there won’t be any funny business.”

“I won’t laugh once,” he said, his face straight.

They were in the kitchen, so she pulled a chair out from the kitchen table and sat down on it, straddling the seat and facing the back of the chair.

“Don’t you want to do this on your bed?” he asked. “So you can just fall asleep?”

“If you think I’m going to let you put your hands on me in my nightgown, you have another think coming, buster!” she snorted.

“I wasn’t thinking of your nightgown,” he said. “But that’s not a bad idea, I guess.” He paused. “Actually, what you have on right now will work as well as anything.”

She was trying to figure out what he meant by, “not thinking of her nightgown.” The only thing she could think of was that he wanted her naked, and that wasn’t possible, but she couldn’t think of anything else that made sense. Her brain was shutting down. She was exhausted and just wanted the pain to go away so she could sleep. Later, when she thought about that night, she would change her mind about how things happened several times. By that time, though, it would only be an academic exercise, because it would be something in her past ... something that involved Bobby Dalton ... and something that would not bring either tenseness or unhappiness to her mind.

But that would be later.

Somehow she ended up lying on her bed, dressed in the doeskin shirt, and burgundy skirt, under which she wore a pair of one of Bobby’s sister’s panties, plain, white cotton ones. She didn’t remember kicking the purple boots off but, when his hands touched her, she wasn’t wearing them.

Almost instantly, when his fingers started prodding and poking and rubbing, she felt the exquisite pain of release, and her muscles gave up the fight to stay tense.

She only vaguely felt his fingers flicking at the straps that crisscrossed her back, and the cool of the air as it caressed the sides of her breasts. Her mind rallied when she felt the skirt being raised, and his hands on those panties, kneading her buttocks. He said something soothing and, somehow, the objection her mind insisted she make never quite made it to her throat, which was too busy moaning and groaning with the pleasure of what his fingers were doing to her sore muscles. When his fingers left her buttocks, without wandering between her legs, her mind relaxed too.

She was dimly aware that he lifted each foot, and worked over each aching leg. She was a little more aware when his hands reached her inner thighs, but they didn’t go too far. He had worked his way back up her body and was doing the back of her scalp when she drifted off to sleep, too exhausted to stay awake any longer.

Misty Compton awoke to impossibly bright light streaming through the bedroom windows. She stretched, and remembered the pain in her muscles the night before. It was gone. She felt wonderful.

That lasted until she sat up, and the covers fell to reveal that all she was wearing were her borrowed panties. She looked around. The doeskin shirt and the burgundy skirt were folded neatly and draped over the back of a chair at the desk in the room. Her suitcase was sitting on the seat of that chair. The purple boots were standing beside it on the floor.

Bobby Dalton had obviously undressed her the night before.

Her mind flashed to the part of her body that she assumed had been violated. She felt nothing there. Unbelieving, her hand went between her legs, to feel and press.

Nothing.

She’d been sore the morning after giving up her virginity. She hadn’t had sex since then, but she was sure, somehow, that if that had happened, she’d know. Now, feeling nothing, she wasn’t so sure any more.

She got up and opened her suitcase. Everything was just as she’d packed it. She pulled out clothes and pulled them on, happier to be in her own panties and bra, and her own shirt and jeans. She put on tennis shoes and left the room.

She followed her nose to the kitchen, to see Bobby standing at the stove, pancakes on a big cast iron skillet. He looked over his shoulder.

“Good. Right on time. Breakfast is almost ready.”

“I was naked!” she almost yelled.

“No you weren’t,” he said calmly. “I left your panties on.”

“But you took everything else off!” she complained.

“It wouldn’t have been comfortable sleeping in clothing,” he said. “Anyway, the shirt was already mostly off when I got done with you, and it seemed silly to leave the skirt on. How do you feel?”

He was so calm about it that she was taken aback. He was acting like it was completely normal for him to undress a woman and leave her in her bed after running his hands all over her. It was so odd that her breath caught in her throat.

“What did you do to me?” she finally asked.

“I gave you a massage. How do you feel?”

She thought about that for a few seconds. She felt great. There was no doubt about that.

“Better.” It was all she could let him hear.

“Good. Hungry?”

She thought about that too. She was hungry. In fact, she was starving.

“I could eat something.” It was all she could admit to him.

“You want syrup or jam? We have some peanut butter too.”

“Peanut butter on pancakes?” She was astonished.

“Several of my sisters won’t eat pancakes without it,” he said. “There’s no accounting for taste.”

“Syrup is fine,” she said. It occurred to her that she was having trouble staying outraged.

He went through the “Milk or juice or both” question, and put butter on the table and then sat a plate of steaming pancakes in front of a chair. She was still standing in the open doorway of the kitchen.

“Eat ‘em while they’re hot,” he said. “Looks like Mamma and the girls stayed over at Prudence’s.”

She sat, thinking about how she’d been there all night ... alone ... with him in the house. He’d obviously seen her naked. Almost naked, she admitted to herself grudgingly. Apparently nothing else had happened. She couldn’t get her brain to process that. He hadn’t molested her. She didn’t think he had molested her. She remembered what he looked like naked, standing there in that window. Then, for some reason, Christy’s picture came to her mind. He’d seen Christy naked too ... when he took that picture.

Her stomach growled. She gave up trying to figure Bobby Dalton out and went to sit down. The pancakes were delicious. Eggs appeared and she ate them too. Finally, realizing she had eaten too much, she pushed the plate away from her. Bobby was sitting across the table, eating one pancake, and drinking a cup of coffee.

“Can I get a cup of that?” she asked.

He waved at the counter and she saw the coffee pot on the stove.

Now that she was full she could think again. As she got coffee she tried to remember how he’d looked at her when she came into the kitchen. As far as she could tell, it wasn’t any differently than any other time he’d looked at her. She sat back down with the coffee and stared at him.

He glanced up.

“What?”

“Nothing,” she said. He wasn’t looking at her breasts. He’d seen them naked last night, but he wasn’t looking at them now. She didn’t understand that.

“Whatever it is, just get it off your chest,” he said.

She suddenly wanted to giggle. Here she was thinking about him looking at her chest, and he said that. He hadn’t looked at her chest when he’d used the word, either.

“You’re very strange,” she said suddenly.

“Really? How so?”

“You saw me naked.”

“Okay. I’ve seen a lot of women naked. How does that make me strange?”

He sounded so matter-of-fact about it. It made her think that he had, in fact, seen a lot of women naked. With any other man she’d have thought he was bragging, but it wasn’t that way with this one.

“Only one other man has ever seen me like that,” she said.

“Oh.”

Oh? Just “Oh”? She felt irked that all she rated was an “Oh.”

“Sorry,” he added. “If I’d have known it would bother you so much, I wouldn’t have done it.” He took another bite, chewed and swallowed. “Like I said, the shirt was already falling off of you, and you looked kind of silly in just the skirt. I didn’t think it would bother you, what with men looking at you all the time when you perform.”

“I don’t perform naked,” she said, her voice measured.

“Well you were close last night.” He grinned. “I knew you were wearing Betty’s panties after the second song.”

Oddly, instead of feeling upset that he had seen them, what took priority in Misty’s mind was how he had known they were Betty’s panties. She hadn’t known whose they were when she put them on. How did he?

“You promised not to molest me,” she complained.

“I didn’t molest you,” he said with a sigh. “I was only trying to make you more comfortable.”

“I suppose now you’ll tell me you closed your eyes while you did it,” she snorted.

“Not at all,” he said. “You’re a good looking woman. And,” he grinned again, “I am, after all, a man.”

His picture popped into her mind again ... with all those muscles ... and that long, thick penis. She closed her eyes, trying to will that out of her mind. It didn’t work.