Chapter 9

The next morning, while AJ slept, Frank Jr. rode out and found two more steers. He was pretty sure one of them was one of the ones they'd already had, because it walked right towards him when he saw it, and followed him back to the wagon, instead of having to be driven.

Bella and Becky did mending, sitting in the shade of the trees. They were quiet for a while, and then Becky said "Can we have that talk now?"

Bella nodded.

Becky waited a long time and then said "Well?"

"I thought you had questions," said her mother.

"Oh," she said. She did have questions, but it seemed so odd to be asking them of her mother. She started with a small one.

"Last night, when you said it was bedtime." She looked a little flustered, but went on. "When Pappa was still with us, you used to make me and Frank Jr. sleep under the wagon."

"Mm hmm. Husbands and wives sleep together," she said.

"So that's why you didn't make us sleep under the wagon, so you and AJ could have the bed ... because you're not married."

"No," said Bella. "I knew that it would upset you if AJ and I slept in the wagon."

"It does upset me," said Becky. "But I don't know why!"

"I'm your mother. Your father is dead. Of course it would upset you that I was with another man."

"It's not that," said Becky, though she didn't sound too sure. "I hated Pappa, and I know he hurt you. But AJ wasn't hurting you. I knew that before you said so yourself."

"It's true," said Bella. "There was no pain at all with AJ. He was very sweet to me."

"So why did you do it with Pappa, if he hurt you so much?"

"Your father didn't give me a choice," said Bella. She wished she didn't have to speak ill of the dead, but the fact was that Frank had been a beast. She had known that on one level, for years and years, but had thought that was just how men were ... all men. She had only recently learned how wrong she had been. She had learned it from AJ, a man almost young enough to be her son. What seemed even more bizarre to her was that in the past, AJ would have been the last kind of man she would think she'd be interested in. She was quite sure she'd never have thought of having any kind of relationship with a cowboy, and particularly not one who was ten or twelve years younger than she was.

Becky was silent for a few minutes, while she worked up the nerve to ask another question.

"So ... what's it like?"

"What's what like?" asked Bella.

"Doing that ... with AJ?"

It was a simple question, and a logical one, considering that Becky had never been with a man. But the answer was quite complicated, and Bella didn't know where to start. It still seemed insane that she was having this conversation in the first place. People just didn't talk about this kind of thing!

"Well ... it feels good," said Bella helplessly.

"That's it? It just feels good?"

"It feels better than most things," Bella tried.

"Like the sun on your arms when it's chilly?"

"Better than that," said Bella.

"Like when I'd get hurt and you'd hug me?"

"Even better than that."

Becky frowned. "But it wasn't like that with Pappa."

"That's right," said Bella.

"Then I still don't understand why you wanted to do it with AJ, if it had never been like that with Pappa."

Bella had wondered the same thing, to be honest. Even while she was feeling the urge to kiss AJ, that first time, in the dark of the night, she'd been confused as to why she wanted to. And when his fingers found her sexual center, and she'd raised her leg to give them more room, she hadn't understood why she was letting this man do that, or why she wanted him to so badly. She knew that at some point she'd just stopped thinking about it, because it had been so new and so wonderfully satisfying. The next day, in the back of the wagon, she'd submitted to her overwhelming desire to feel that again, only to find out that there was so much more that was delicious and wonderfully satisfying.

"It's hard for me to explain, because I'm not sure I know myself," Bella admitted. "I think that nature plays some role in it. I felt things, which made me do things ... or let him do things ... and then that made me feel more things, which made me do more things."

"What kind of things?" asked Becky.

"This is a very personal thing to ask!" complained Bella.

"How am I supposed to learn if you won't tell me?" Becky complained right back.

Bella sighed. Then her fact got hot as she thought about the "things" Becky was asking about. She decided to start small.

"Well ... kisses are first."

"Yes, I saw you kissing him in the middle of the night," said Becky. "It sounded all slurpy and wet. When you kiss me or Frank Jr. it doesn't sound like that, though."

"Well, it's a different kind of kiss, I suppose," said Bella. "At least it feels different."

"Okay," said Becky, who wasn't really interested in kisses. She knew people kissed. She wanted to get to the other parts. "So what comes after kissing?"

It was easier for Bella to just remember what happened than try to think intentionally about how this should be done. Of course the next thing they'd done involved his hand on her breast. She felt a thrill go through her as she remembered his fingers gently squeezing her nipple. It had been so lovely, especially compared to the way Frank had always mauled her sensitive flesh.

Then she remembered seeing Becky squeeze her own nipples in the creek.

"Remember earlier, in the creek, when we were bathing?"

"How could I forget," sighed Becky. "Frank Jr. and AJ saw me naked!"

Bella was distracted by this comment, because there was the potential there for enlightenment on Becky's part.

"How did that make you feel?"

"Embarrassed."

"Why? Did anybody say you were ugly?"

"Of course not, but they looked at me naked!"

"Okay, but I want you to try to get beyond the social convention that says you're not supposed to appear in front of a man naked. How did it make you feel ... as a woman ... when they looked at you?"

"I don't know ... nervous, I guess."

"Why?" Bella bored in. "Were you afraid of them?"

"No."

"Then why did they make you feel nervous?"

Becky thought about that. Frank Jr. had simply stared at her. There hadn't been anything on his face except interest. And lower down ... was that interest too? She'd been too embarrassed to look at AJ's face when he saw her. She'd felt weak when that happened.

"I don't know," she finally answered.

Bella sighed. Obviously being seen naked hadn't excited the girl. She remembered how AJ had looked at her, there in the wagon. The look in his eye hadn't been anything like what Frank displayed. The way AJ looked at her made her feel beautiful. It had made her want him to do more. She went back to her original thought.

"Do you remember when you splashed water on your breasts in the creek?" Her blush had faded, but it came back as she formed her next question. "Do you remember how you squeezed your nipples?"

Now it was Becky whose face turned pink. "Yes."

"Why did you do that?"

"I don't know. They tingled, or something. I just knew it would feel good to squeeze them."

"That's the same kind of thing that happens with a man," said Bella, relieved that she'd found some common ground. "Sometimes you just know that if a man does something, it will feel good."

"Oh."

"But it has to be the right man," said Bella, thinking about Frank again.

"How do you know he's the right man?"

"That's the complicated part," said her mother. "Feeling things comes naturally. I felt those things with your father too ... at first. But then I found out he didn't care about how I felt. He only cared about the things that excited him."

"And hurting you excited him?" Becky sounded incredulous.

"Yes," admitted Bella. "I didn't know that until it was too late, when we were already married."

"Well how is a woman supposed to know that before then?" asked Becky, clearly frustrated.

"I don't know," admitted Bella.

"You know that about AJ ... right?"

Bella wasn't sure how to respond. Society would say that what she'd done with AJ was a terrible thing, a sinful thing. But she had learned something very valuable from it. She had learned that he was a gentle, caring man, who made her feelings at least as important as his.

"Yes, but in this world you're not supposed to do what I did. Not just to find out if he treats you well, anyway."

"That doesn't make any sense at all," sighed Becky. "None of this makes any sense. Nature makes you want to do things, but you're not supposed to do them until you're married, except that then you have no choice in the matter. That just seems stupid."

"I agree," said Bella, surprised to find that she did agree that the system, as it was currently set up, wasn't very efficient ... at least not in terms of producing happiness."

"Okay, so why did you let AJ do that again?"

Bella didn't feel like they were making any progress, but she didn't know what else to do. Finally she retreated to a simple description.

"I woke up and AJ was right there, of course. I was feeling lonely, I guess, and AJ ... I know this sounds terrible, but because of him, the man who hurt me all those years was gone, I was thankful for that." She stopped, feeling awful that she was glad Frank was dead. Her daughter surprised her.

"I understand, Mamma. "I'm glad he's gone too. I don't feel bad about that. He did terrible things to you, and I know he would have done them to me too. He told me he was going to do them. He didn't say exactly what they were, but I knew it hurt you, and that it would hurt me too."

Anger burst forth in Bella, and it actually made her want to tell her daughter how good it could be.

"Yes, well, I felt like I wanted to kiss the man who had done this. So I did, and he woke up, and he kissed me back, and it was a sweet, wonderful kiss, and it made me want to kiss him some more."

"Yes." Becky sensed that the kind of details she was interested in might be forthcoming. She leaned towards her mother unconsciously.

"And the kisses made me want to feel his hands on my ... um ... body, so I put his hand ... um here." She cupped one breast briefly and then dropped her hand hastily. "And that felt so wonderful, because he was so gentle. Nature made me want to let him do so much more, but you children were right there, and there wasn't room. He wanted to touch me other places, though, and I let him do that." She paused and swallowed.

"Where?" Becky's eyes sparkled. This was what she'd wanted to know.

Bella's courage began to fail. She thought intentionally of Frank, mauling his own daughter, and the anger came back, letting her go on.

"There is a place ... a spot between a woman's legs ... that can be touched in a way that is ... um ... delightful. If touched enough, and in the right way, it can bring a kind of relief that is astonishing."

Becky's eyes had gone wide open and her face paled.

"What's wrong?" asked Bella.

"I know that place," whispered Becky. Her pale face suddenly turned bright pink.

"You've touched yourself there." Bella felt an astounding relief flood through her. She'd learned how to touch herself that way accidentally, while bathing one time. She'd somehow known not to mention that to anyone, and had thought for years that she was the only woman who did such things. To find out that another woman, even if it was her own daughter, had discovered it too made her feel much better.

To read this story you need a Registration + Premier Membership
If you have an account, then please Log In or Register (Why register?)

Support the author's future writing by purchasing this book from Bookapy

The Bad Bet

Lubrican

$5.50