Chapter 12

"Is Peggy home?" I asked when Mrs. Hughes came to the door, trying to assess the situation.

She didn't look good. She looked tired -- an older, slightly plumper version of Peggy. There were dark circles under her eyes, and she had a vaguely rumpled look that was totally unlike the woman I remembered. It'd been a while since I'd actually visited at Peggy's house, but her mom shouldn't have aged that much.

God only knew what she'd been going through since last Friday, what she knew. Maybe she didn't know any more than I did. Peggy tended to bottle things up. What the hell was I going to say? What could I possibly do? What did I think I was doing here?

But here I was, and it was too late to back out now.

"We've missed her at school."

"Come in, Dee. She's upstairs, in the bathtub." She gestured wearily up a short flight of stairs that led to the bedrooms. "She's been spending a lot of time there. She won't talk to me. Maybe she'll talk to you."

That was scary. As far as I knew they'd always had a pretty good relationship. Peggy had never complained about her mom -- well, not much, anyway. Since Peggy had been the first girl in our class into The Program I'd assumed her mom had volunteered her. Though, come to think of it, from the way Peggy had talked about being naked in school the week before it started, it didn't sound like she'd been consulted.

Shit! Sometimes parents do the dumbest things. Maybe that was the problem -- suddenly finding herself naked in school had been a shock.

But that didn't make sense. Even before that tangle with the Tweedles and Worthington she'd appeared to handle being naked pretty well. Even after that screw up she'd posed willingly, letting some lucky boys touch her lovely young breasts, even her shy, virginal pussy, and she'd seemed to enjoy it -- a lot. She'd come at least once, I know, and she'd seemed fine right up through lunch the last day.

No. Something bad had happened to her Friday afternoon.

"May I leave my pack here?" I asked.

"Of course."

"Thank you."

Setting it beside the front door, I drew a deep breath, squared my shoulders and headed upstairs, where I knocked gently on the bathroom door, then a little louder when there was no answer. "It's me, Dee. May I come in?"

When there still wasn't an answer, I cracked the door, relieved she hadn't locked it, expecting I'd find her floating on her back, her ears underwater so she hadn't heard me. But what if I found her floating face down? That thought stopped my heart.

Stop it! The Stick gave me a defib kick, sounding as scared as I was.

The scent of bubble bath engulfed me -- Mr. Bubble was her brand of choice, same as mine -- and I relaxed. Who'd drown themselves in Mr. Bubble, after all? That'd be positively un-American, or something. I peeked around the door.

She wasn't on face or on her back. She was sitting in the tub, facing away from me, her head down on her knees, curled up, hugging her legs, scrunched up in less than half the tub at the spout and drain end.

"Hi, can I come in?" I asked softly.

Her only response was a faint shrug, barely a lift of her shoulders, so I took that as a "yes" and pushed the door closed behind me before I sat on the toilet seat. "'S'up?" I asked.

<<shrug>>

Okay, where to I go from here? "Missed you at school."

<<shrug>>

I couldn't see her face. Her skin was lightly tanned, the line of her swimsuit bra across her back a fainter, lighter stripe. She'd never been one much for sunbathing, wore a modest two-piece suit, a good swimmer, but mostly just enjoyed splashing round in the pool.

Now, here, every line of her body said something, and I tried to figure out what it was.

Depression?

Yeah, seemed maybe like that.

A few inches in front of her the bathtub spigot dripped, the "bloop" of the drop landing in the tub loud in the room. She'd been in there long enough the bubbles were patchy islands bobbing on the ripples. Her fingers probably looked like prunes, but I couldn't tell.

Tension?

Oh yeah. She was clutching her arms around her legs. I could see the strain in her shoulders and arms.

Fear?

"Would you like me to wash your back?"

<<shrug>> Again, an almost invisible one, barely a twitch of the shoulders.

Taking that as a yes, I knelt by the tub and picked up the bar of soap. Lathering up my hands, I slithered them around the back of her neck, across her shoulders, but it was awkward to reach her. One thing I could tell was that she was really, really, really tense.

I wondered if I should risk it. "Mind if I join you in the tub?" I asked softly.

Bloop!

<<shrug>>

Moving slowly and softly, I stripped, and stepped carefully into the tub behind her. The water was lukewarm. She generally liked real hot baths, so it confirmed she'd been in there a while. I managed to awkwardly fold my long legs. Scrunching myself behind her so I didn't touch her with anything but my hands, I began soaping her shoulders and back, working my way down to water level. I felt somewhat akin to a grasshopper, my knees sticking way up on the sides so I was working between them.

Her skin was soft and slick, warm, but I could feel the rigid muscles in her shoulders and neck. I let my hands slide down her arms, back up to the sides of her neck where I gently massaged her knotted muscles with my fingertips, slipped my fingers forward, sensed the tension in her jaw muscles before gently tracing the curl of her ears. She'd pinned her hair up, but a few stray, sodden tendrils had escaped to trail around my fingers.

I returned to her shoulders and back, sliding my fingers along the sides of her spine, tracing the outlines of her angel-bones before slipping more out to the her sides, back up again to her shoulders, putting more pressure on her poor, strained muscles.

She was so miserable I felt like crying.

After a few minutes my legs were cramping up, so I shifted my feet, slipping them cautiously on either side of her butt. When they brushed her hips she didn't react, so I slid them further along beside her, straightening them, sighing softly with relief as I resumed gently washing her back. I could sense her ever so hesitantly relaxing, and got a little bolder, letting my fingers stroke her ribs along her sides.

One time, in day care, we'd gone to a petting zoo. While other kids were fascinated by lambs or bunnies, I'd been taken by an armadillo, of all things, which had, for some reason, roused from its usual daytime sleep. Probably the din we were raising right outside his door had something to do with it.

He had reacted to my boisterousness in the way of armadillos and I, being a kid, rolled him around like a ball, laughing. One of the keepers gently stopped me, showed me how to treat it more gently. Explaining what it was, explaining what "nocturnal" meant she said it probably needed a nap. As I held it quietly in my lap it slowly relaxed and unrolled, its sharp claws scratching my bare legs, his long, sticky tongue tasting me before the keeper convinced me to let it slip into its deep burrow so it could go back to sleep.

Peggy was like that armadillo, slowly accepting my touch, the tensions slipping away. Finally I was able to take her shoulders, uncoil her and draw her back against me, her back against my chest as I leaned back against the end of the tub, extending my legs full length, her hips between my thighs, her legs almost straight out in front of her. I gently cuddled her, my cheek on the side of her head, and she began to cry. I put my arms around her and just held her and held her and held her, my hands resting on her soft, silky tummy over her innie belly button, on the little cushion of her little bit of remaining baby fat, while she cried and cried and cried, until my heart was breaking, until she ran down.

Once she'd cried it out she let me use my toes to turn on the spigot to add hot water to the tub until it had warmed up some, and then we talked -- well, she talked, barely a whisper. I listened. It was really, really hard for me, but I managed to stay relaxed and calm as she told me what had happened.

But if Worthington had been within reach I would have been at his throat. I would have flushed his head down the toilet -- after I'd crapped in it -- the toilet, not his head, I mean, though that's not a bad idea either.

She made me promise never to tell anyone about what happened in his office Friday afternoon, and the details don't matter. It was easy for him to get her down there. He'd sent a note that she'd been accused of a program violation. It was the last school day of her week in The Program, and I wasn't there to go with her. Why hadn't I been there? Why? I felt like shit.

I don't know how long Peggy and I were in the tub, but the water was getting cool again, so it must have been a while. Finally, Peggy's mom knocked gently on the door and asked how we were.

Peggy flinched.

"We're okay," I assured her mom, "but could you call my mom and tell her I may be a little late getting home?" I was probably already late, but I'd taken my watch off.

"Would you like to stay for supper?"

"I really can't, I do have to get home, but thank you. Just call my mom, please?"

"Will you be out soon?"

"It'll be a while. Tell Mom I'll be home in about an hour, but not to worry if it's longer."

"What would you like for supper, sweetie?"

"I'm not hungry," Peggy answered, her voice rusty from crying.

"Maybe some soup?" I suggested softly.

"Alphabet?" Peggy asked in a whisper. "I'd like alphabet soup."

The ultimate comfort food. I relayed the message.

"What am I going to do?" Peggy moaned. "I feel so filthy, the things he said to me, the things I did..."

"You didn't do them,"' I answered firmly. "He did them to you."

"But I let him..."

"It was not your fault," I informed her firmly, trying not to let my anger show. Anger? I was furious to the point of homicide. "He did it..."

"But I let..."

"Repeat after me, 'It is not my fault.'"

"But..."

"Say it, please, for me, for yourself."

"It's not my fault," she whispered.

"Say it like you mean it, again, and again, and again."

She did, over and over, until it became a mantra as I repeated it with her, changing the "my" to "your."

With every repetition I could feel her relaxing a little bit more, sounding a little bit more confident, stronger, angrier. I took her hands and slapped the water with them with every "not," with every "fault," over, and over, and over, harder and harder and harder as we chanted it, until we were splashing water all over the place and she was doing the swinging, not me. I could only hope her mom was downstairs and couldn't hear us, or she'd think we were both nuts.

I don't know why I did what I did, but it seemed to help. She began to slow down, finally stopped, probably exhausted, and I was cradling her, enjoying the feel of her body against mine until at last I managed to help her up and opened the drain, her misery draining away with the bath-water. After we got out she stood there while I tenderly dried her off, and wrapped her in a robe that was hanging there, her mom's robe, I guess, it was so big.

She looked so tired, drained, that I just had to hug her again, before I dried myself and dressed.

"Now, will you come to school tomorrow?"

She looked scared.

"I'll protect you. We'll protect you," I assured her. "Our whole lunch bunch will."

"But everyone will know..."

"Nobody will know anything," I insisted. "I'm sure not going to tell anyone, and he doesn't dare tell anyone. They'll just think you've been sick."

"But he'll be there." She was near tears again, and I held her close, her hair cool and wet against my cheek. She barely came above my shoulder.

"He's been hiding in his office ever since he got stuck in The Program for the week."

Neither of us used his name.

"He's in The Program?" It actually seemed to cheer her up a little.

I nodded, still holding her. "New policy. Faculty and staff, one at a time, have to be in The Program for a week, and he got the short straw this week. The only time I've seen him was Monday morning, when he first came out of the school office, naked, and he scurried off to hide under his rock. I guess since then he's sneaked in early, and slipped out late. As far as I know, no one has seen him."

I risked kissing her head. "You're not in the program anymore. He doesn't have any power over you, you won't have to go near his office. I promise you, you won't see him, and no one will know what happened. No one. Please come back, we miss you. I miss you so much!"

"But eventually..."

"There's no 'eventually' about it when it comes to him," I promised ominously. "I'll make sure he's history."

"But what'll you do? He warned me it'd be my word against his, and who'd believe a <<choke>> slut!"

I gave her a squeeze. "You are not a slut!"

"But what... ?"

"I don't know yet, but I'll think of something. It may take a while."

"How long?"

"A week? Maybe two. Give me two weeks." I was thinking of the committee. That would meet formally next week, but it wouldn't be much help, probably. "Two weeks, I promise."

I wanted to stamp that worm into the pavement. He was going to regret he'd ever messed with one of my friends, that he'd ever heard of me.

"Welll..."

"Two weeks he'll be gone," I vowed, "sooner, if possible, and we'll watch your back every minute until he's gone, and even after. I promise you."

"Welllll..."

"Please?" I pleaded. I had the feeling if she didn't come back now she never would, and where could she go? "How about I come by here tomorrow and I'll walk with you to school, and one of us will be with you, every moment. Please? We need you. Lunch is just not the same without you."

"I'll try," she agreed reluctantly.

"I'll be here tomorrow, bright and early. Now come on, let's get some of that soup into you."

"But what's going to happen to ... well, later?"