Chapter 33

I wasn't back in my suite at the Holiday Inn for more than an hour when Paula called and informed me that she was almost to Middlesboro, and that she would be in to see me within a half hour. This time she surprised me and came prepared to stay.

Our lovemaking was energetic, lively, hard, and fast. Paula liked to know she was being loved, and the harder she could provoke me into using her, the better she liked it. When we stopped to catch our breath, Paula said, "Noah you are a total surprise. I had you pegged for a straight and narrow kind of screw, who thought that doing it lying on your side was outrageous. I get you in bed and you give me far more than I can handle; then you look at me like you've just gotten started when we're done.

"Where did you learn all this stamina?" She smiled when she said it, but I didn't return it. I knew that Paula was used to men who thought of her as a receptacle, not a woman, and couldn't care less if she got anything out of their using her.

Still breathing heavily, Paula decided to talk to me about her brothers. "Tommy is a cad. He just is. There isn't a kind, thoughtful, decent, or unselfish thought in Tommy's head and never will be. He used to come to my bedroom and shove me down on the bed, screw my brains out, and get up and leave like we'd just had a conversation about the weather. It hurt so much, but the naughtiness of doing it with my brother just got me off, so I couldn't give it up.

"When he got to college down in Knoxville, he found out that having a little money and an expensive car got him all kinds of cheap, meaningless sex, and he took all he could. When he'd come home, he would still come to my room, but when he was inside me, he liked to tell me why the sluts at school were better than I was, and that he was only screwing me because he felt sorry for me." The look in her eyes was so sad when she described Tom's lousy behavior.

"Well I hope you got a BMOC boyfriend and rubbed his nose in it," I said, meaning every word.

"No, Tommy couldn't have handled that. He loved knowing I was home, not seeing anyone, not that there were many choices in Jonesville, mind you. He thrived on the knowledge that he could come home on a moment's notice on a weekend, and I would be home instead of out on a date. When he did come home he would get so excited, he would come almost before he was all the way inside me, and then we'd have to wait until he could get it up again, before we did it for real"

The faraway look in her eyes told me that she was back in college and high school, waiting for her big brother to come and use her, one more time. What I asked was, "When did you finally break it off with him?"

Paula looked hard at me, looking for condemnation, pity, or something in between, and not finding it, she said, "Tommy stopped coming to my room the year he and Joanne decided to become swingers." When she saw my surprise, she laughed. "Noah, Tommy and Joanne took separate cars to their swinger meetings, in case one or the other got tied-up' with someone and couldn't leave when the other wanted to go home. Joanne went home and was driving to the drug store when she had the accident. Angela was sleeping because it was so late, but Joanne just had to take her with her to keep Daddy from finding out she left her alone again. Daddy didn't like Joanne and Tommy's lifestyle and would have put a stop to it, if Joanne hadn't killed herself by being drunk and stupid."

She changed the subject, and got interested in my peculiar ability to rise to the occasion one more time, which led to sexual congress of the intense type. At least Paula didn't call out Tommy's name when she came, but she did silently cry when we were done and cuddling before we fell asleep.

When I woke up, Paula was gone. I suspected she'd dressed and slipped out to keep from having to face me in the morning light.

There was no plan to see the DeBusque clan on Saturday, so I called Roberta and gave her a quick thumbnail review and did some laundry. Well, I sent it out to be done. That counts, right? Shortly before lunchtime, Angela called and said if I didn't mind, her grandfather wanted me to drive over and spend a few minutes with him at his office. I was feeling energetic, so I told her I would leave as soon as I got a bite of lunch.

Lunch was a buffet at the Western Sizzler, and the ride to Jonesville was just that, a ride.

Angela met me in her father's reception area and told me that he would be back soon, and we sat down to visit. "Are you staying for a little while?" She asked with just a hint of longing in her tone. Angela needed a friend. No one knew how that felt better than I did.