arms, casually touching her breasts. She learned evasive tactics; he grew more impossible. To Alice, her brother-in-law’s mauling demeaned Juanita and therefore was infinitely more painful than his casual blows had been. She dreaded the lunch hour.
“Feel what you do to me,” he said, grabbing her wrist.
“Cut it out, Henry!”
But Henry’s large, dirty hand was extremely strong. Inexorably he drew her small hand downward, forcing her fingers around the hardness beneath his jeans.
“Bet you’d like some of that.”
With a violent effort she yanked away.
“Your beans are on the stove!”
she shouted, slamming out the front door.
“Here, baby, isn’t this something?”
“Just button your fly, Henry. I’m warning you.”
“You want me to tell Juanita you been making eyes at me?”
“She wouldn’t believe it.”
He gripped her shoulders, pressing her until she was kneeling.
“Suck me off, you little cunt.”
Her early memory surfaced.
“I’ll bite you, Henry.”
“She’ll throw you out on that pretty can of yours. Baby, come on, a little blow job. Who’ll it hurt? You’ll still be cherry.” He pushed himself at her mouth.
For the second time in her life, she bit a penis. Not as hard as she could have, but sharply enough for him to sag back, whimpering, “Jesus!”
One July morning the thermometer sheltered by the nearby barn read’ ll3 Alice sprawled on the big bed in the front room, wearing white shorts and halter that were hand-me-downs from the youngest Taylor daughter, reading the same girl’s discarded Seventeen. Absorbed, she didn’t notice Henry watching her from the doorway until the sound of his breathing grew audible.
The instant she looked up, he was a blur. Before the screen door closed, he was on top of her, mashing her with his wet, odorous, squat, strongly muscled body.
“Mr. Taylor says it’s too damn hot to work,” he panted.
“The perfect day to have us a wonderful bang.”
She struggled to escape, panting and gasping, but his hard-muscled thighs and one of his arms held her down.
“You’re going to love it.” His free hand fumbled with her shorts.
“No!” she cried.
He reached under the waistband, popping the button, which spun onto the floor as his fingers wriggled downward on her flat, silken skinned stomach.
She attempted to squirm away.
“Get off me!”
“Been like a father to you,” he muttered.
“You owe me this.” He gave her halter a yank, tearing the strap in the back. Thrusting his face between her bared breasts, he dragged down her shorts and lore at the riveted buttons of his jeans. His engorged penis sprung out at her.
While she twisted violently, his fingers plunged inside her. Ragged nails cut the soft flesh. Parting her vulva, he thrust forward his erection. Alice thought frantically of gouging his eyes, then juanita long-ago advice presented itself. Her knee went up.
He grunted loudly, rolling off her, curling in a half circle as he clutched at himself.
“Puta,” he whimpered, continuing to clutch his groin.
His pain cut through Alice’s panic. Retreating to the curtain that separated the rooms, her top dangling between her breasts, her shorts around her thighs, she asked, “Can I help? Get you some aspirin?”
Henry hunched on the edge of the bed, his dark, narrow-jawed face assuming the same righteous cast as when he beat up on juanita
“You been begging for it ever since I known you,” he muttered.
“Only one thing worse than a puta and that’s a prick tease.”
As he lurched heavily down the uneven steps of the narrow porch, Alice began to shake uncontrollably.
She knew where he was going. To tell Juanita that she had made a pass at him. The thought that Juanila, who was everything to her, would believe this, increased her shakes. Sobbing, she changed her clothes.
At five Juanita came down the road, her flapping sandals raising puffs of dust around her bare brown ankles. She held one hand to the