Copyright (c) 2017,   madvlad.  ALL Rights Reserved

Date of first publication in Mr Double's Palisade :
Monday, March 13, 2017

This story may be downloaded by Palisade members uniquely for their private use, and 
may not be distributed for profit or posted to newsgroups or other websites.  Mr Double 
may be contacted by emailing mrdouble@mrdouble.com.


A Palisade Author story from MrDouble's archive, 
Filename: thepriso.txt
http://www.mrdouble.com

story_codes: M/g(11), first, cons

story_intro: A man on the run during the Great Depression escapes some of his past life. But new bonds and temptations both old and new await.

story_language: English




The Prisoner

Written by madvlad


	Cheating didn't pay for Ollie Cobb, but it did get him a lighter sentence. Grady on the other hand, got a longer one, and with harder time on account that he had hit first. After that, he had been able to pounce on the card shark, pounding his bottom-of-the deck dealing face in a rage fueled by indignation and cheap moonshine.

	Oh, Ollie had been slick and he had the round, cherubic face of an overgrown choirboy. But for whatever else that Grady may have lacked, he had an uncanny knack for sniffing bullshit a mile away. And when Ollie had pleaded innocence, Grady rendered judgement with his fists.

	The charge, which stuck, was attempted murder. It was ridiculous, of course, because if Grady had meant to kill Ollie, the man would be lying in a box now. Grady knew all about killing, having learned the craft over in France and honing it to a deadly razor edge thirteen years ago on Hill 142. It was during the Battle of Belleau Wood and he was part of the First Battalion of the 5th Marines assigned to take the hill. By afternoon, the objective was reached but at the cost of over three hundred officers and enlisted from the First.

	Returning home alive might have been an accomplishment, but Grady took tightly to the bottle in an attempt to avoid the images of the hell he had endured. When Prohibition was passed, it made little difference to him as booze was cheap and easy to get down in Georgia. After surviving the horrors of the trenches, he was a prisoner of the liquid that gave him the precious dullness he craved.

	He didn't care to march up to DC and live in some damned Hooverville, bemoaning the lack of jobs after those crazy New Yorkers began tossing themselves out of skyscrapers back in '29. Banks closed, businesses failed, but Grady always found a way to get by, doing odd jobs and occasionally making a few extra bucks at a poker table. It was during one of the latter ventures when he was joined at a table by one Oliver C. Cobb. The rest, as they say, was history as evidenced by the court docket.

	By Spring of the next year, Grady had settled to the mind-numbing existence of prison life. Work on the chain gangs was considered brutal by many, but he had seen much, much worse and was often reminded of that at night when he closed his eyes. At least he could still get some hooch and even learned to make it in his cell; one precious tin cupful at a time.

	He heard word of the Bonus Army, a group of thousands of veterans and their families camping out in Washington, DC and demanding their war bonus. Grady didn't think they were going to get much of a hearing from President Hoover, who was likely to find himself unemployed after the November election. People figured it would be another Roosevelt - not Teddy this time, which was a damned shame in Grady's opinion - moving into that nice white mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue. Grady didn't know much about this other guy except that he was also from New York but evidently had not done a twenty-story swan dive onto the pavement of Wall Street.

	But bonus armies and presidents meant little to the men who were housed and fed by the fine state of Georgia. There were other things, however, that did affect Grady and, namely, his luck. First was the snake-shit-on-the-brain of Billy Lee Sauder and the second was Sergeant Preston's green teeth. 
	
	Billy Lee was a slip of a man, maybe weighing ninety pounds when soaking wet. With the perpetual dark rings around his eyes, he looked more like a starving raccoon than a threat but men twice his size would have nothing to do with him. At his mildest, he was strange. But when he went off, he was like a pack of wild dogs stuffed into one short, scrawny frame. Some said he had drunk some bad moonshine that left his brain permanently pickled while others said it was a bunch of blows to the head when he was a kid. 

	When he was sent out on the chain gang, Billy Lee was always second to last. They would have preferred last but the guards knew that having someone shackled to each of Billy Lee's ankles would make it easier to physically control him went he lit himself up. No prisoner wanted to be next to him and many felt that was the worst part of the chain gang - not the labor or conditions - but waiting for the snake shit to bite into Billy Lee's brain again and set off the fireworks.

	Sergeant Linwood Preston was lecturing loudly (he did everything loudly, if you asked anyone who had been in earshot of him) about today's assignment. They were grading out the earth for a road to be built. Grady knew that - everyone here did. They had been working on the damn thing for three weeks.

	Now Sergeant Preston had a curious aversion to brushing his teeth. This left a constant yellow film on them and as the corrections officer bellowed today, Grady noticed that his upper two front teeth looked rather green near the gum line. Oh, not green like the grass of a mountain meadow in Springtime, but a kind of peculiar and unhealthy yellowish green.

	Normally, Grady would have had the sense not to stare but he was feeling a little hungover following a particularly robust elixir from his cell that he enjoyed before breakfast. With his reduced alcohol consumption in prison, the cup of strong stuff had left him a little addled in his responses.

	Suddenly those teeth were right in front of him.

	"Just what the Hell are you staring at, boy?" came Preston's none-too-gentle query as it rattled Grady's ears.

	"Your teeth," Grady answering truthfully. His brain was suddenly scrambling to waken and stop his mouth but the latter was moving far too quickly. "Did you know they're green?"

	There were laughs and then coughs around him as other prisoners heard the exchange and tried to cover their own outbursts. Preston, though, was not so restrained. Grabbing Grady by the arm, he pulled him out of the ranks.

	"Looks like we got ourselves a new Tail Man," he called out.

	After shoving Grady into place next to Billy Lee, Preston ordered the guards to shackle the gang. As Tail Man, Grady only had a chain and cuff on one foot. But it ran to Billy Lee Sauder who turned and gave Grady a snaggle-toothed grin. At least none of his teeth were green.

	They were digging out the dirt to widen the prospective road under the watch of Curtis, a nervous red-haired young man who had begun what would be a short career as a guard only two months earlier. While Curtis was clearly petrified of Billy Lee, Grady tried to keep his head down and concentrate on his labor in hope that it would be an uneventful day.

	Without warning - there never was - Billy Lee had a fit. He was screaming and flailing with his shovel whose blade whizzed in deadly arcs around him. His actions jerked on the chain that brought Grady closer to him but Grady didn't voice a complaint for fear that Billy Lee would turn on him.

	Curtis tried to yell for back-up but could only make nauseous gulping sounds. Grady cursed under his breath. At least "Over There", a numb nut like Curtis would have had the decency to get his head blown off by the time he took one step out of the trench. And with the insanity of The War, they would have likely made Billy Lee a general. 

	Curtis was holding his shotgun at Billy Lee defensively, too numb to pull the trigger. But when he stepped back, he stumbled and emptied both barrels into Billy Lee's midsection. Now Grady's leg was pulled backward as Billy Lee sailed away from the blast with a fair majority of his innards flying even farther. 

	Curtis also went to the ground and when he managed to look up again, Billy was lying on his back, staring sightlessly at the sky with his raccoon eyes and a big, smoking hole from waist to chest. Pieces of his viscera had fanned out far behind him. For such a little guy, Billy Lee had made quite a spread.

	Preston was quickly on the scene, loudly (what else?) demanding to know what happened. By now, Grady had the sense to keep his mouth shut while Curtis hysterically babbled about everything and nothing at the same time. 

	"Well, Jesus Christ!" barked Preston. "Nothing's getting done with him dead like that. Get him unshackled and bring him to the wagon. It's your gunning, Curtis, get it done!"

	Now Curtis was looking nearly as green in the face as Preston's teeth. No, a shade or two greener, perhaps. One guard unshackled the dead man's ankle from the prisoner in front of him while Curtis was to do the other one. Afraid to touch Billy Lee's corpse, he removed the shackle from Grady, instead, to free the chain. 

	When the stretcher arrived, Curtis tried to help move the corpse by tugging on the waist of his pants. But he lost his balance and fell forward, sending his hand into the black, oozing jelly that had once been Billy Lee's stomach. That was it. Curtis threw up his breakfast right onto - and into - Billy Lee and managed to partially fill the void his shotgun blasts had created. 

	Shaking their heads, two other guards lifted the body onto the stretcher, leaving a neat puddle of Curtis' vomit on the ground where it had fallen all the way through the gunshot hole. In his shame and sickness, Curtis completely forgot about Grady, who was now completely untethered. 

	When Preston screamed for the prisoners to get back to work, Grady did just that. Preston scanned the line of prisoners and saw everyone was back to shoveling before he stomped off for some other correctional yelling elsewhere. Other guards stood and watched, barely paying attention now that the morning's excitement was done. 

	Moving as if he was casually looking for more red clay to turn with his spade, Grady eased toward the nearby trees. Sudden movement would be noticed so he calmly walked further until he was out of sight. Like that, he was free.

	So now what? It hadn't been a planned escape but here he was. For the moment, Grady knew he had to move. West would take him to Athens and then on to Atlanta. There would be plenty of trains to take from there. Or he could go east to Augusta or even farther south to Macon if he wanted to be adventurous. The problem was that these were logical choices and that's where they would be hunting him. 

	North made the most sense as he could make the state line and be in South Carolina even more quickly than the bigger cities. While he'd still have to lay low, there, the state authorities wouldn't be as eager to use their men and resources to catch an out-of-state nobody like him. Grady wasn't a killer or a bank robber and for the first time in his adult life he was struck by how little he really mattered. Hell, he probably wasn't even worth the cost of a bloodhound for more than a day.

	South Carolina also rang a bell in his head for another reason - a tale from an old timer doing life named Roy. But that would have to wait until Grady was in the state.

	Making quick time, Grady sped his way through the woods, walking through several streams to kill his scent. Once or twice, he thought he heard shouting and barking (of dogs, that is - had it been Preston barking, Grady was sure he would have heard that clearly). Eventually, he arrived at a huge body he was able to identify as Lake Russell from a sign. On the other side was South Carolina and an improved measure of freedom. 

	Crossing required some thought. He would be in the open and his striped prison uniform would be a dead giveaway of his status. Stealing a boat might also alert authorities although he couldn't be sure. Spying a pine-covered peninsula across the lake, he decided that would make the best place for him to cross. On his side, he also located some lumber at a decrepit fishing shack he could use as a makeshift raft - not much to sit on but he could kick his way across and rest his upper body on it. 

	That night, he liberated some old boards from the side of the shack and used a rock to pound the rusty nails until he had enough pieces to make a minimal platform. By the time a grayness of a false done was creeping up in the east, he had landed in South Carolina and tucked himself deep into the forest to wait out the day and plan his next move.

	Now he thought of Roy, the old prisoner. Roy had been part of a gang that had robbed a few trains and was one of the few who had survived after being tracked by the law. Parts of the gang's loot had been stashed in various places and he liked  to tell the tales of where they were since there was no way he was ever going to see any of it again.

	Of course, his stories were dismissed as fiction but Grady's senses told him the old coot was being truthful. And there was one location not more than thirty miles from the state line he wanted to try since that location had been so clearly described. If he could find Clancy Creek and follow it up a mountain where two feeder streams fed into it, he would be close. There was a boulder near the fork of the two streams that was shaped, according to Roy, like the chest of a three-titted woman. 

	"One in the middle to suck on and one on each side to play with," Roy had cackled every time he told the story.

	Continuing to move by night, Grady's progress was slow. But when he finally reached the creek, he started up a mountain just as a vicious storm broke. Determined to move on as he was getting close, he realized his mistake within the first hour. After so much careful traveling, he was now cursing himself for getting greedy so close to the prize. He lost the creek and lost his way as he staggered through the wind-blown rains.

	He nearly ran into the low building before he saw it. A prolonged flash of lightning revealed it more detail, showing it to be long and narrow. Finding the door, Grady stumbled inside and recognized its purpose. Rows of straw-lined crates ran along each side - he had found a hen house. Water dripped through the roof in various places but Grady found a dry corner on the dirt floor and settled in for the night. 

	With his nocturnal schedule, he figured he would be up all night but sleep found him while the storm still raged. It abated by morning when he awoke, which would have been welcome for him if it hadn't been for the shotgun in his face.

	Grady blinked at the double barrels staring back at him. Slowly, he let his eyes run up the weapon and found it in the hands of a scowling young girl. He couldn't quite tell her age but she was small enough so that she would have had to look up at Billy Lee Sauder - had Billy Lee been in any condition to stand these days.

	Standing on one side of the girl was another one; shorter and wearing a worried look instead of wielding a gun. On the other side was even a smaller girl who was maybe four or five whose dark blonde hair contrasted with brown of the older ones. Her eyes were also a bit darker than the light brown of the other two but there was enough resemblance for Grady to peg them all as sisters. 

	The smallest girl, unlike her sisters, was smiling and she gave him a little wave. By her feet was a handled basket with eggs that she must have been collecting.

	"Hi," the little one said. "I found you."

	"Hush, Darla," said the one with the gun. "Vera, take her back to the house and both of you stay put there."

	The worried girl grabbed Darla's hand and pulled her sister from the henhouse. The girl with the gun tried to strengthen her scowl but Grady could tell she was frightened even though his face was on the business end of the shotgun. That was a bit of comfort but also unnerving with a jittery finger on the trigger. 

	An image flashed through Grady's mind of him sitting next to Billy Lee Sauder on a train to the Afterlife - Billy Lee with no guts and Grady with no head. Yep, they'd make quite a pair, especially since Billy Lee would have to do the thinking for both of them.

	"Don't try anything or my Pa will whip your butt."

	As mean as she tried to sound, Grady sensed the lie immediately. It gave him an angle but he wasn't about to get to aggressive with his head a finger's pull away from oblivion.

	"So where is your Pa, anyway?" he asked.

	"In the house, sleeping," the girl answered, too quickly. "I didn't want to wake him when Darla came running in 'cause he'd get real mean. So you do as I say."

	"Then maybe I should talk to your mother, if she's the reasonable one," Grady suggested, fishing for clues.

	The girl's face softened a little. 

	"Ma passed two years ago," she said quietly.

	"I'm sorry. By the way, my name's Grady. I've already met Vera and Darla and your name is...?

	"Alice."

	"Alice," Grady repeated with a nod. "Well, I'm pleased to meet you, Alice. Now, let's have you point the gun somewhere else - you don't have to put it down, but it's not polite to have it in my face."

	Alice blushed and lowered the weapon. Her hands were shaking and her finger was no longer on the trigger. Grady could have easily snatched it from her but he was already working on a longer range plan.

	"Now, Alice, I'm going to tell you something about me. Do you see these clothes? What does that tell you?"

	"You're a bad man and you broke out of jail. Maybe from Greenwood or Andersonville."

	"You're right about the jail part, but got the place wrong. I broke out of a state prison in Georgia."

	Alice looked impressed.

	"That's a long way."

	Then she recovered herself and looked scared and fingered the trigger guard of the shotgun.

	"What did you do?"

	"Got into a fight and hurt a man pretty bad. But I'm not a killer or a vicious outlaw. Just a man who was really stupid."

	Alice nodded, relaxing again. Sensing he was getting close to having the upper hand, he went on.

	"But now let's talk about your Pa. I'm guessing he's not asleep or even in the house, right?"

	Alice's lower lip quivered and her eyes shimmered with wetness.

	"It's all right," Grady said in an easy way. "Is he around these parts at all?"

	Alice shook her head and the tears began to roll. Grady waited a moment and then continued.

	"So if you turn me in to the sheriff, they'll want to talk to your Pa. And if he's not around, they'll wonder why you three are all alone."

	"They'll take us away," Alice sobbed. "And split us up. I won't see my sisters anymore. Darla is so sweet and cute and she's hardly more than a baby. Some folks will adopt her quick. Maybe even Vera 'cause she's only eight. But I'll be in an orphanage or some place that just wants me for doing work and I'll never see them again."

	"And how old are you?" Grady asked, trying to calm the girl before she got completely hysterical.

	"Eleven," she sniffled. "I turned eleven two months ago."

	"And you've been taking care of your sisters for how long? I'll bet you've done a fine job of it."

	Alice straightened up at the compliment. 

	"Pa left a month ago. Said he was looking for work but I know he wanted to get out. It's my fault 'cause I emptied all of his jugs."

	"Huh?"

	"His jugs. You know, moonshine."

	"Oh, right."

	Grady stayed silent for a minute, rolling his plan in his head.

	"Was you Ma from around these parts?"

	"Yes."

	"Your Pa, too?"

	"Nope. He came from somewhere just past Charlotte. Don't know where, exactly 'cause he never had relations come to visit."

	"That's perfect," Grady said, earning a look of confusion from Alice. "Then I can be your father's brother."

	"But I don't know if he had a brother."

	"Neither does anyone else around here. But I need a place to stay for a while and you need an adult here so you can stay together. So how about it?"

	Alice stared at him and was about to nod before she stopped. Instead, she tightened her grip on the shotgun.

	"I got rid of Pa's liquor 'cause it did bad things to him. You aint staying here if you're gonna drink, you hear?"

	"Alice, if I hadn't been drinking in the first place, I'd never be sitting here in a hen house wearing a striped suit."

	Now Alice nodded. The iron seemed to go out of her and she slumped against the wall while the end shotgun gun barrel thumped into the dirt.

	"Hey, be careful with that," Grady warned.

	"It don't matter," Alice admitted sheepishly. "I forgot to load it."

	As they walked toward the house, a wooden structure in need of whitewash and numerous repairs, Alice told him his name had slipped her mind and asked what it was.

	"Grady," he said. "But you can call me Uncle Roy."

	As far as Vera and Darla knew, Grady really was their uncle. His real identity remained a secret between him and Alice. The girls' father had left some clothing behind and Grady found them to be a little loose fitting but perfectly serviceable. Not to mention being less conspicuous that his prison attire. 

	After being on the run, Grady looked forward to a more peaceful existence for the next month or so before resuming his pursuit of Roy's treasure. In the meantime, his past history of odd jobs paid off in that he was able to make reasonably decent repairs to the house and hen house. Vera had warmed to him and more often than not, he found he had a four year-old shadow in little Darla who was fascinated by this newcomer. 

	From what Alice confided to him, their father was usually not sober enough to do any work around the home and when he was sober, had little interest in it. He hadn't always been that way but had turned to the bottle after their mother died giving birth to a stillborn boy. Grady could sympathize with the man's need to escape and wondered if he would have shown greater fortitude himself had he been responsible for three children.

	As it was, finding a sense of purpose here had lessened Grady's thirst for liquor although it certainly lingered. Helping fight that need was that his nocturnal visitors, the dreams about the war, had become infrequent. 

	The only thing missing in his life was a woman. In the French brothels and the places he frequented before prison, Grady had become rather adept a pleasing them. He found that if he made them feel good, he could get them more cheaply. Hell, there was even one gal in Savannah who had given him a tumble for free. 

	Alone at night in the small bedroom that had once belonged to the girls' parents, he used his hand to satisfy his urges, replaying sweaty encounters with different women in his head as he busied himself. More than once, he had caught himself eyeing Alice. She was still a child, he chided himself, but he found himself drawn to the slight puffs in the fabric of her dress - she was outgrowing it - when it fell the right way across her narrow chest.

	He recalled the hooker in Savannah who told him she had started in her line of work when she was eleven. That night, it was Alice who appeared in his visions in a bizarre mix of her childish face and the chest of a petite teenage whore he had been with his France. Alice would be even smaller. Recalling the French girl's modest growth between her legs, he wondered if Alice had even one hair down there. The idea of a bare vagina with an unobstructed view became very appealing. But he dared not act upon his increasing curiosity.

	"You should be in bed," he told Alice. "You'll only get sicker if you go to town."

	"But I got to sell the eggs to Mason's while they're fresh."

	The sole source revenue at the house had been the sale of their eggs. Before Grady arrived, Vera would look after Darla while Alice made the hour and half-long trek into town to sell them to the owner of the general store there. But she had woken up with a mild fever and Grady didn't want it getting worse if she taxed herself.

	"I'll go," he offered.

	He and Alice shared a look, testing the lengths of their trust. Would Grady run off with the meager but vital money from the eggs? Had Alice stopped at the sheriff's office on her last trip to tip them off about him?

	"I wanna go with Uncle Roy!"

	Darla ran into Grady at full speed and threw her arms around her leg. Grady shot Alice a look.

	"I guess two of us will go," he announced. "And we promise not to run away and join the circus."

	Alice nodded, still unsure but too weak to protest.

	"Uncle Roy, I wanna go to the circus," an inspired Darla told him as they left.

	With the egg money safely tucked into his pocket, Grady left the store with Darla in tow. As they passed a wide alley next to the building, he noticed a pick-up truck parked a little way back so as not to be seen so easily from the street. Two men were standing idly by, relaxed but ready for trouble. 

	Grady recognized the look and knew what the contents for sale in the truck would be. His mouth was suddenly dry and he could nearly feel the burn of whiskey on the back of his throat. It was there, so close and the weight in his pocket would be enough for a bottle, maybe two.

	One of the men nodded to him and Grady reached for Darla's hand. The touch of her little fingers against his palm felt like a lifeline, keeping him from going under. He nodded back as if to say, "Yeah, but I'll just mind my own business" and continued his journey back to the house. By the time they reached the end of Main Street, it seemed that the leg irons had come off again; a different kind of shackle this time. Grady had no doubts that the chains would always be rattling behind him, to catch him if he stumbled. But he promised himself to remain free. 

	Alice was back to full strength in two days but Grady was in a bit of a funk when he got out of bed. She had been in his dreams last night, naked and needing him. But her body seemed fuzzy, out of focus as even in his visions he could not reconcile what she might be after all of the coarse women he had known.

	He did his best not to stare at her at breakfast and then remembered he wanted to fix the hinges on the henhouse door. Relieved to have something else to focus on, he contentedly left the house. And five minutes later, the police car pulled up in front.

	Sheriff Rufus Blanchard rubbed his mustache after killing the engine on his Ford Model A. In nearly thirty years of law enforcement, he had dealt with plenty of unpleasantness but things like what he was about to do still ate at him.

	Alice was sweeping the porch as he approached her, and he was thankful the two younger ones weren't around. She paused as he walked up, looking curious and a little troubled. Blanchard sighed - best to get on with it.

	"Haven't seen your Pa around," he said, working a yellow sheet of paper in his hand.

	"No, he left to find work," Alice answered automatically. "But he'll be back."

	Blanchard paused and then looked at the Western Union message in his hand as if hoping the wording on the paper would have somehow changed. 

	"Alice, they found him in Atlanta. And..." Blanchard stopped, skipping the exact details. "And I'm afraid he's gone. Passed away."

	There was never a good way to break news like this, but the girl certainly didn't need to know the particulars. 

	"Anyway," he continued. "Since it's just you girls here, I need to-."

	"But Uncle Roy is here," she said. "He's Pa's brother. Here he comes now."

	 Grady played it smooth as he approached the lawman but his chest was feeling tight. If he was being taken in, he would go quietly so as not to make a scene in front of the girls. 

	Alice turned to him and said, "Uncle Roy, this is Sheriff Blanchard. He said Pa is dead."

	Blanchard turned to the man, seeing the stunned look on his face. He never imagined the look was from relief instead learning that his "brother" had died.

	"I'm sorry for your loss," he said to Grady.

	"Thank you," Grady choked out. 

	His head was spinning - some stranger was dead? That was it?

	"So you're looking after the children?" Blanchard asked. "For how long?"

	"For good, I guess," Grady answered, quickly getting back into the game. "My brother hadn't been quite right since his wife passed, but I suppose you knew that."

	Blanchard nodded.

	"So I came down from Charlotte to keep an eye on the girls. They're the only family I've got, now."

	Alice hugged him, burying her face against his front.

	Touched by his impression of the scene, Blanchard bowed his head for a moment. There were enough orphans in the county as it was. At least there were three here that he wouldn't have on his hands. Awkwardly, he started back toward his car and motioned for Grady to follow him.

	"Not to be a gossip, but it was not natural causes," the sheriff said to Grady in a low voice.

	"I understand," the other man replied, sparing the sheriff from having to explain more.

	As Blanchard opened his car door, he stopped to make a casual observation.

	"Funny, you don't look anything like your brother."

	"I know. We used to argue over who got the better end of that stick," Grady smoothly replied.

	Blanchard laughed.

	"That's a good one. I'll have to remember that the next time we go to my brother's house for Sunday dinner."

	Alice was worried. Although grateful that Grady had been there for the sheriff, she was worried he might leave them eventually. A week before her father had left, he had approached her and told her in his sour whiskey breath that he was thinking of making her a woman. She wasn't sure what that meant but something in his manner had frightened her and she scooted away. After he left, she wondered if she was somehow responsible between tossing his liquor and being afraid of becoming a woman (whatever that was).

	But having had time to reflect and study on this matter, she had a plan. After Vera and Darla were fast asleep, she went to Grady's room and knocked on the door.

	Grady let go of his penis and pulled the blanket up over his waist.

	"Yes?"

	The door opened and Alice slipped in, closing it behind her. She was dressed in a shapeless and worn cotton nightgown that made her look strangely alluring to him.

	"I don't want you to leave," she said.

	"Okay."

	"That means I've got to be a woman, now," she announced. 

	Grady was speechless as she walked to the other side of the bed and lay down stiffly with her arms at her sides. While she stared straight up at the ceiling, he looked at her, eager but unsure. Finally, Alice risked a look in his direction.

	"Do I just stay here until I fall asleep or am I supposed to leave after some time?" she asked.

	"What?"

	Alice looked pained at his question.

	"Aint I doing this right?" she queried.

	"Doing what right?"

	"Doing this," she explained. "I've read the Bible lots of times and it talks about how a woman lies with a man. If I got to be  a woman, how long do I lie here?"

	Had Alice not been so earnest, Grady would have laughed. 

	"It's not like that, exactly," he explained. "First, you take your nightgown off."

	"I gotta lie here naked?"

	"You won't just be lying here, I promise."

	"Alright," said Alice, nervously. "But you gotta tell me what to do 'cause I'm not a woman yet."

	She got up and stood, her eyes widening as Grady pushed the blanket from him. He swung his legs out of bed, sitting upright and facing her. She'd seen her father taking a bath but the thing he peed with never stuck out like that. Somehow, she figured its odd state had something to do with making her a woman although she had no idea how that process worked.

	But he was waiting and obviously didn't mind her seeing him naked. So she swallowed hard and removed her nightgown, removing the first mysteries that had been plaguing him.

	The girl had no hips to speak of - Vera's may have looked the same, only slightly smaller. On her chest were two gentle swells, each topped with a pink nipple that had not yet expanded. The place between her legs was as lacking in hair as any other place on her slight body except for what she had on her head. Her sex was beautifully revealed with the softness of her labia and the enticing crevice that formed where they pressed primly together. 

	Reaching out, he took her by the wrist and pulled her to him, opening his legs to bring her closer. Alice kept risking glances at his member as it grew perilously close to her nakedness. The head touched her belly and then she felt the hard shaft graze her vulva before she pulled her hips back an inch. Her chest was in his face and he kissed her in the middle between those two tiny slopes. 

	One hand reached behind her back, sliding gently over the firmness of her rump. Clutching her ripe young buttocks, Grady drew her against him, pressing her virgin mound against his hardness. Alice opened her mouth to speak but could only manage a weak peep. Then Grady's mouth was on her, his tongue feeling her lips and then her teeth. Unsure of what to do, she remained immobile while his tongue found hers. 

	Alice closed her eyes, leaving her only the sensations of the blood pounding in her ears and the places of contact between the two of them. She was being lifted, held in his arms. And then she felt the bed beneath her. A hand pressed against her breast, the fingers showing her how sensitive she was becoming there as her nipple stiffened against him. More fingers - these lower, between her legs, exploring her there and she could find no reason to resist.

	She didn't know if her fever was back. She felt very warm and aching. But the aches were localized, centering in those places he was touching. Now to her other breast... 

	Her mouth was free of him, allowing her to breathe deeply and quickly. Now his mouth was back; this time on her chest, sucking her where his fingers had been before while he continued to toy with the other budding mammary with his hand. More heat in her loins, sweating...no boiling...inside...she was draining there...responding to his touches.

	A soft moan rattled from Alice's lips as Grady made the girl ready for him. While on her back, her little breasts had flattened against her body as if she were a few months younger again. But he could feel the developing tissue beneath her skin, the blossoming of her still-childlike body. 

	His fingers were dewy with her arousal yet she seemed so small as he explored between her labia. But there was no turning back and he moved on top of her. 

	She inhaled suddenly when she felt him against her, pressing. The smooth, fleshy curtains of her tiny sex opened and she felt the head of his member between them. 

	So this was what it was like between a man and a woman. But it wasn't stopping there. No, he was moving in further still, making her expand as if he was homing in on where she was throbbing. But that was so much deeper. How could...?

	A first for Grady.

	All the women and girls he had were practiced. Many were jaded, using a faade just as he had; them for profit and him for fantasy. 

	But Alice was a virgin. His first in both body and mind.

	Her innocence resisted him but was failing. Grunting in discomfort, the girl twisted beneath him, wanting but fearful. To prolong this was torture for both of them and he pushed forward. Her maidenhead held for one last fleeting moment of girlhood and surrendered.

	Alice cried as her membrane broke, digging her fingers into his shoulders. More hot wetness and her virginal blood became diluted as he spread it among her other juices. Like a rolling storm front, the penetration was full and inexorable. Her little sheath stretched, hugging the man as he entered her until she was fully taken.

	Movement...movement inside of her...friction and fire...in the core of her young body and making her a woman there. 

	Like steel on wet silk he stroked inside, filling her clasping tightness again and again. She was feverish beneath him and around him on the inside. But now shivering....and then shuddering, dying for but a few moments of bliss before the climax subsided. 

	Still he kept moving, her loud breaths keeping time with each thrust. His own need was building but he fought it, making the pain gather there in retribution for her defloration. Then forgiveness and release, every surge was ecstasy as he emptied himself into her. 

	Another soft cry arose from the girl as she was taken again and she accepted the gift. Now with the rush of potent seed washing over her prepubescence, she was carried her further along in her blossoming.

	In the darkness of the timeless night, she wakened to his stirring. Her hand was still at her crotch and again she smiled at the stickiness there; the sign of her passing from childhood. As she extended one finger to feel inside, her smile turned impish.

	Then it was his hand on her belly, resting for a moment above the place where his earlier offering still resided. When his hand moved again, she understood and opened her legs for him.

	"Are you sure you can't come with us?" Vera asked.

	Grady lifted Darla and set her in the truck bed with her sisters and the other children there.

	"Nope, I have work to do here. But you have a good time and mind your manners."

	They promised they would and waved goodbye as the truck pulled away, taking them to a church festival. He waved back, his smile warm but then feeling awkward as they were out of sight. Stowing the grin and taking a shovel, he walked toward the creek that would take him to Roy's treasure.

	Grady sat in the mud, glancing up at the boulder.

	"So what do you think, Miss Triple Tits?"

	The rocky formation was just as Roy described. And by the east base of it, he found the rotting wood and canvas of the stash. Roy hadn't been lying but time had made the treasure in his story grow more than it really was. Roy looked down again at the pile of gold twenty dollar pieces.

	It was certainly enough to take him west or maybe down to Mexico. And then it would put a man up in style for a few years at least. Maybe it would stretch more south of the border, giving him more years of free-flowing whiskey with the little worms in the bottles. And he could learn Spanish and other things from the "seen-yore-ee-tahs".

	Or it could provide a measure of modest comfort for a family of four for some years beyond that. Grady considered the dreams that helped through prison again. And of Vera leaning her head against his shoulder as he helped her read. And of little Darla curling up on his lap like a kitten. And of Alice's embraces in the dark.

	He pushed the coins into the old seed sack he had brought, feeling the weight straining on the thin cloth. According to the maps, train could be caught about ten miles east of here. Turning southwest, he walked toward the house, toward home. The things that kept him bound now did not feel heavy at all.
	

madvlad@mrdouble.com
http://www.mrdouble.bz/htm/authors/madvlad.htm
























This story is a work of fiction.  Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.  Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.


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