Arla Likes Big and Black
(m+/ff, ir, size, ped-teen, preg?)

by Kysa Braswell
www.kysaonline.org

"It's nine o'clock; Arla!" Nora shouted from out back of the tumble down shack. Arla opened her pale-blue eyes, stretched her long tanned legs in the bed and turned over with a sleepy groan. Not far from her room she heard her stepmother rattling a pail on the way out to feed the chickens. Feeding the chickens was Arla's job, but she got out of it about half the time by lazing the morning away in bed.

"Stir yourself a little, cain't ya?" Nora pleaded.

Arla pushed herself up and swung both feet to the floor. She always slept naked, because it was hot in July in that part of Missouri and because lately she'd grown to like the way it felt. Sometimes in the night she liked to touch one of her pubescent breasts or let her fingertips mingle in the sparse, fine down that had begun to cover her pubic mound. She never did much more than that... just touch... but it always gave her a warm, tingly feeling to drift back to sleep with.

Her room was an old storage closet with a blanket hung across the doorway to separate it from the rest of the house. Up against one wall was her narrow cot and nearby an ancient dresser with a cracked and mottled mirror. Arla had collected pieces of broken glass from colored bottles she'd found, and arranged them in her single small window to catch the morning sun. This morning they looked especially pretty, she thought as she brushed her hand through her sleep-tousled hair and watched the greens of patent cough-syrup bottles and the Milk- of-Magnesia blues and the rich, red-brown of beer bottle bottoms crawl across her sheets.

Arla stretched again and her 12-year old, 4'11, 101-lb. body felt firmer than ever and quiveringly fresh. Each day it was getting more and more that way and Arla couldn't keep from exploring the ever-changing places... massaging the soreness of her large, swelling C-cup titties and letting her palms trace the inward curve of her waist and then down to flare out ever so slightly where her hips had grown just a tiny bit wider.

Somewhere in the house a screen door clapped shut and Arla knew that Nora would be calling her again if she didn't get dressed and at least make a pretense of doing something. But there was time at least for her to bend over and watch the outline of her breasts enlarge as the flesh filled them. A little thrill went through her as she saw her pink nipples push out into firm little stalks. Tenderly she cupped one and felt the friction of her palm. At the same instant a tiny jolt of pleasure tickled inside the closed lips of her vulva.

"Gee, that's kinda funny," she whispered, tilting her head in puzzlement. She repeated the rubbing, then took one of the enlarged little breast buttons between thumb and finger... rolling it softly back and forth. Almost immediately she felt her crack go runny and hot and the beginnings of an itchy goodness made her shift her hips on the bed.

Her stepmother banged her bucket against the side of the house. "Goddamn it, girl. If you don't get out here."

"Coming, Nora... Coming!"

Arla let go of her nipple and let her hands lie soft and tan and pretty in her lap. She wished that Nora had told her more about sex. Of course, she would never ask the grumpy old woman. The only thing Arla had picked up for sure was that sex was trouble from the beginning. Girls were supposed to stay as far away from it as they could... and that meant staying away from boys and men.

Arla sighed and shifted her hips. The dainty place between her legs felt oilier than ever and she knew she just had to take a look.

With both slim feet flat on the floor, she parted her knees and bent over until her hair hung like a tawny curtain almost to the floor. Then she carefully placed a fingertip on each one of her pouty little labia and pulled. With a wet, sexy sound, they parted and a shiver of anticipation shook Arla's thin shoulders. It always did that to her to look at the glistening, delicate flesh of her secret place with its small inner lips and partly hooded clit button. The pretty cleft looked just too velvety wet to keep her hands off of. Nora had always warned her about touching herself, but somehow the temptation this morning was far too great. Carefully holding herself open, she nudged one trembling fingertip into the mushy slickness. The heat of her juice felt nice, but there was nothing earthshaking about it. Exploring further, she rubbed the finger up into the underside opening of the little clitoral hood, and the bottoms of her feet burned with a glow she'd never experienced in her life. Panting with delight from her new find, she pushed again... and again. Wonderful shivers went through her back and made her skinny toes spread against the worn hardwood floor.

"Ohgod," she gasped, and kept rubbing, finding in a moment that the lighter touches made her thrill more than the rougher ones. No one had ever told her anything about this! Her girl parts had grown glossy with her juices now and every time she let her finger slip over the magic pinch of flesh she'd found, the luscious feeling grew more intense.

Arla tried to remember what her friend Loreen had told her about babies and fucking and how boys did it to girls, but it had been more than a year since she'd seen any of her old friends in town, and the information had never been very clear in the first place.

All she knew for sure was that stallions and bucks and bulls put their cocks inside mares and does and cows and left a little animal to grow. She guessed that men did the same thing to girls they caught out at night. That's what Nora had told her... that men hid out at night so they could drag young girls under a bush and hurt them with their cocks. Her clit lump seemed to be pulsing against her fingertip, and Arla's heart was thumping hard against her ribs. She was sure that this itchiness she'd caused with her finger had something to do with sex. Her long-lashed eyelids fluttered and closed and she breathed a deep, delicious sigh. The itch was getting too hard to take and her finger had started to jerk and twitch against her seeping parts. She felt like lying down and rubbing against something or crying out some word... a word like fuck!

"Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck!" she said softly. Arla knew it must be a magic word, because it always made her feel better to say it. And it made the itch burn like a diamond between her tan legs.

"If you don't get your butt outta bed and slop these hogs, I'm gonna take a stick to ya!" Nora screamed from outside.

Arla sighed and lay back on the bed as she closed her slender thighs. Then she pulled her hands up along her quavering tummy and felt the slick, damp streaks cool there against her skin.

"It's a good thing I quit," she said, pushing herself unsteadily to her feet. Arla swayed across the room to the old dresser and pulled a pair of clean nylon panties from amidst the clutter of paperback books, movie magazines and garish bottles of cheap perfume.

She pulled the skimpy things up over her coltish knees and smooth thighs. "That could give a person a heart attack." She knew, of course, that Nora would disapprove. When she'd been young enough to get bathed by her stepmother, the stern old woman had spanked Arla's wrists once when her curious child fingers strayed to that curious place between her thighs. Nora had told her that a girl just doesn't touch herself there, and had quickly dripped a few suds over the childish mound.

Arla turned in front of the mirror and let her long, light-brown hair flare out over her shoulders. It tickled her back deliciously and she raised both arms, feeling her thin shoulder blades move and stretch against the skin of her perfect little back. She wanted to touch her breasts again but put her hands on her hips instead and tried a pout or two until she was satisfied with the sensuality of the reflection.

"Darn old freckles," she said, rubbing a finger across her short turned-up nose. Then she pouted again and slowly let the half-frown fade into an enticing smile. Arla thumbed one of the movie magazines open and studied the photo of a blonde starlet to make sure she was doing it right. Then with her eyes on herself once more, she let her lips fall slightly apart and pushed her tongue out sexily over each one until they were glossy and full-looking.

The secret folds and knots of her cunt were still pulsing crazily, but Arla tried to ignore the electric sensations, and ruffled through a deep drawer for something to wear. She had precious few clothes, and almost always she settled for a pair of ragged, cut-off Levi's that fit low and snug on her hips and clearly separated and defined the firm little cheeks of her ass. Arla cinched them tight with a wide leather belt she'd made herself from some worn-out mule harnesses. Finally she pulled on an orange too-tight t-shirt, which didn't quite reach to the top of her shorts and clung beautifully to the soft-risen flesh of the undersides of each small breast.

A pair of sandals were the only shoes Arla owned. Her father had given them to her just before he'd disappeared. They'd been a little too large for her then, but Arla had oiled them carefully and kept them wrapped in an old pillowcase until her thin feet had lengthened enough to fit snugly within the intermesh of straps and buckles. She liked the way sandals made her feet feel naked and free. They were the only things she had left that her Daddy had left her... except for the large, bone-handled hunting knife hidden in the bottom of another drawer.

It was right after her Daddy had gone that Nora made Arla quit school. Not that she made it the twenty miles into town that often anyway. Lots of kids dropped out of school early in that part of the country. Some to help with farming, some because they flunked out and some like Arla, who lived so far away from passable roads that it was just too much of a hassle.

Nora had told her that they just couldn't afford the extra expense of sending her every day and though Arla went part-time for a while, she fell so far behind in her studies that one day she just never went back. She figured she wasn't missed much, because a truant officer had never knocked on the door their paintless, rust-streaked shack. But Arla had her paperback books and magazines to read. She traded them with old Willy Sudderland, the postman, and occasionally with a hired hand at another farm, Jed Judson. She didn't like Jed much at all, but he had a huge appetite for sexy detective stories and always gave Arla the ones he'd finished.

Arla had learned to read well since quitting school.

Since she hardly strayed more than a mile or two from the house and almost never went in to Dooberville, the nearest town, reading was the only way she could find out about... things. It was true they still had electricity, but the only radio in the house had been broken for months with no extra money to have it fixed and not enough saved to buy another. Her books were her life.

Arla finished fastening the buckles on her sandals and stood up. The cover of one of her paperbacks caught her eye and she picked it up. A woman in a sequined dress lay limp in the arms of a blond-headed detective as he shot his way out of a bedroom. It was one of Arla's favorite stories; she'd read it three times. Like the other books, this one was all about men after women or women after men, and Arla always searched every sentence carefully for some hint as to what happened after the hero and heroine relaxed in private somewhere. That was when the words got tricky and things started being left out.

She tossed the book back down on her dresser and sighed, remembering the sexy plot... especially the part where the muscled, tattooed man undressed the weak, innocent girl and dragged her into bed. Then the story had gotten mysterious and not very clear and Arla had guessed with a thrilling little flutter in her throat that the couple was doing more than just kissing. It was something like what Nora had warned her about... something like boys dragging young girls under bushes late at night and hurting them with their cocks. Whatever did happen in the books changed everything. Afterward the characters were either very, very happy or very, very sad.

"Arla, if you don't get out here this very minute I'll have some hide!"

Arla took a last look in the mirror, pushed her curtain-door quickly aside and saw her stepmother in the yard bending over the pail she was filling with feed. She could smell the acrid sharpness of chicken shit that the sun was heating up in the coop fifty yards away.

"Be there in a sec," she called, then slipped out into the cool hall and padded quickly through the house and down the front steps. She didn't have any intention of helping around the place today. It was the only time during the week that she could meet Jed Judson on his way to the farmers' co-op on the outskirts of Dooberville and pick up a few new books. She always had to walk three miles to the fork, but it was worth it, because Jed never let her down. Sometimes he even waited for her there if she was late. Besides the books, Arla enjoyed getting out of the hills - enjoyed the fifteen-mile drive and enjoyed sitting in the cab of the truck and watching the men laugh and spit and push each other around the dock of the co-op warehouse until it was time for them to load the heavy feed sacks and fertilizer into their own trucks and start back to their farms. It wasn't really much, but Arla thought she'd go crazy if she couldn't do that one thing every couple of weeks or so.

The house was almost out of sight behind her now, and as Arla crossed the dirt ruts and cut into a stand of large cottonwoods, she heard Nora's last call wavering faintly in the breeze. She went deeper into the woods and skirted behind the small parcel of land owned by the Allens, an old colored couple who'd lived in the hills ever since she could remember.

Old Allen made a fair living off of his few acres and it was talked around that his wife put up the best canned vegetables in the county. They'd even sent their son Hanson away to the colored college upstate, Arla remembered, and then he'd gone on east to a bigger school. Even the white folks from those parts rarely, if ever, managed something like that.

When she was close enough, Arla could see old Mrs. Allen stooping in her garden, her huge sunhat flopping whenever she jerked a weed free from the ground. Arla went on until she found the familiar path that hooked and meandered through the meadow behind the Allen farm and then dropped even deeper into the forest, passing Basset's Pond and coming out finally near the road again. It was the shortest way to the fork where she always met Jed, but most of all she liked being alone in the trees. The sun was always too hot for dirt roads that time of day and often she had time to stop at the pond and wade a little before hurrying on to the fork.

It was even nicer than usual in the woods that day. Arla kicked aside overhanging weeds and daydreamed as she walked. She'd forgotten just how close she was to Basset's Pond and was only a few yards from the water's edge when she heard the splashing.

Choking back a yelp of surprise, Arla sank quickly to her knees behind the thick tangled growth that bordered the pool on almost every side. There in the middle of the pond, knee deep in water, was a tall, muscled black man... without a single stitch of clothing. He turned slowly then and Arla saw that his face was young. Though she hadn't seen him for quite a long time she was sure at once that it was the Allen boy. The one who'd been away at college for four or five years.

"Gosh," she breathed, finally releasing the air she'd been holding in her chest. The ripples radiated from the young man's legs as he moved slowly in the pond. Arla remembered his name was Hanson - Hanson Allen, but she wasn't studying his face any longer. Her eyes seemed uncontrollably drawn to the long, drooping brown snake that hung from his groin. It was the strangest-looking thing she'd ever seen and so ... big. A shudder of fear mixed with excitement made her heart pound. She tried to imagine what Hanson would do with that thing after he dragged a girl under a bush at night. It didn't really look dangerous, though, and once when he bent over, she saw that the cock was soft rather than hard... soft and flexible-looking.

At that instant, Arla became acutely aware of her position behind the bush... peeking at a naked male. She blushed red and clamped her eyes in shame. But she couldn't keep them shut. It was the first time in her life she'd ever been able to see what a boy was made like, and though Hanson was colored he was a male, too - a real live male.

Then the fearful thought of what he might do to her if he found her peeking filled Arla with a gut-rending terror. She saw the huge muscled shoulders and broad chocolate-brown chest, the powerful legs and narrow bottom. If Hanson pulled her under a bush, she'd die. Even though Arla wasn't sure exactly what would happen, she knew she'd die. Die of fright if nothing else. But realizing all that, she parted the bushes and looked again.

Hanson Allen cupped his brown hands into the water and raised them high, letting the cool droplets trickle onto his head and shoulders. Much as he was trying not to, he had started to think of a certain Miss Pamela Whittier back in Boston. And thinking of Pamela always gave him a huge hard-on.

"Dumb white cunt!" he said under his breath. But Pamela's ivory legs and graceful hips came filtering into his mind as if he were witched or maybe something worse. It had been two years since the party in the village, where a white buddy had wanted to lay a chick on him. A girl who wigged over black men, his friend had said.

Hanson looked down at the mud he was stirring up with his feet and noticed that his cock wasn't drooping any more, but starting to swing upward a little, thickening near the head. The foreskin had slipped back over his cockhead, too, as the heated blood surged with every beat of his heart.

Hanson flexed his arms and yawned, trying to fool his body into relaxing. But even though he wasn't going back to the city... wasn't going to involve himself with Pamela Whittier any more, he couldn't forget her that easily. With a curse he let his breath out and let Pamela in. He could never forget the very first time. Her tawny, shoulder-length hair and large, high breasts. There had always been a kind of sexy invitation in the way she walked... either coming at you or going away. Pamela was an exotic hybrid of a woman.

The party where they met had been going strong, but Pamela insisted on a change of scene. It was winter in New York and the night had been cold and damp. By the time they'd gotten a cab and made it to Pamela's apartment, the tall girl was shivering against him. Hanson could remember every detail and he was too far into the reverie now to stop. He took himself back, back four years, the smells, the tastes... all the way back.

"Aren't you going to warm me up?" Pamela cooed. Hanson took off his coat and came across the room. The rug was thick, the tables low and expensively stylish. Pamela had already kicked off her shoes and when he reached out for her fur wrap, she giggled teasingly and let it fall behind on the floor. Then, keeping her green eyes on his face, she pushed the thin straps of her white satin dress down off her shoulders. Hanson watched her body undulate gracefully, and the silky material fell lower, catching for a tantalizing instant on the erect nipples of her breasts and then puddling at her feet in one swishing rush. He stared amazed at the dark curls of her pubic hair... just over the place where her slit began, a bright red ribbon was tied.

"I never wear panties," she simpered; "they bind me." Pamela made the word sound obscene. "Do you like me?"

Hanson nodded in a daze. "Yeah, I like you."

"Would you mind, please, kissing my breasts? I'm simply crazy about the way it feels!"

Obediently he cupped one of the firm orbs in his palm and raised it to meet his descending mouth. At first Pamela stood, hands on hips, but as he tongued the nipple stiff, she touched the side of his face, then let her fingers mingle in the short, tight curls at the nape of his neck.

"That's heavenly," she breathed; "bite me a little." Hanson bit her and suddenly the thin fingers of her hand were digging at his fly, unleashing his bound cock and stretching it out sensuously. He felt his belt loosen and his pants fall and he stepped out of them. Pamela's succulent white breast with its dark nipple quivered between his teeth.

"Touch my cunt," she moaned, voice deeper than before, "put your fingers up in me!"

Again Hanson did what she wanted, hooking one arm around the small of Pamela's back, sliding his mouth up her neck. The girl trembled in his arms, then pushed back from his embrace, leaning precariously over the back of the couch they were standing by. He watched in heated fascination as she arched even further away from him, pressing her loins out teasingly. Pamela's hair splashed over the white cushions, and her full breasts flattened some and shifted higher on her chest as she bobbed crazily upside down. When he put his hands on her wide, curving hips, she opened her thighs in final invitation. Burning with wild lust, Hanson guided the head of his cock between the girl's silken, slick pubes and drove forward. Pamela's hands flopped loosely to the floor and she bucked viciously against the back of the couch, making her navel stretch into a tight oval. Then she hooked her legs around Hanson's to keep from falling to the floor. Loins aching with pleasure, he moved forward again, feeling the slippery membranes of her tube caress and heat his foreskin.

"That's simply... deviiiine!" Pamela gasped, starting to move her pelvis in quick, sharp circles as Hanson went into her full length. The long muscles of her belly strained and jerked as she flopped like a fish backward against the sofa cushions. "Ohhh... like that!"

Unbelievably, she was about to come. Hanson was always right about those things and he was certain that Pamela's throes were rushing upon her. Their organs made wet, slick, sucking sounds and the tall girl's movements became more savage and convulsive. Her rippling, squirming body was beginning to milk the come from his own balls. Pamela's heels dug into the crack of his ass and made an excruciating pressure on his prostate. He humped violently, giving her the full benefit of his length until suddenly she straightened... came up from her upside-down flop on the divan cushions and wrapped her arms around his neck. The momentum sent them both stumbling back. Pamela's legs squeezed his waist while her twisting, plunging ass sucked huge glops of jizzum from his cock and she sank white teeth into his arm.

The rustle of leaves at the pond's edge brought Hanson plummeting back to the present. He turned quickly toward the sound, and his erection slapped heavily against his hipbone. "Goddamn it to hell," he cursed, angry with himself for letting the dream of Pamela enrapture him, angry with whoever had been peeking... if in reality it was somebody. Hanson squinted and searched the weedy banks of the pool. He listened. The sound of footsteps thumped in the stillness of the woods... running footsteps disappearing into the thickets and trees.

Forcing himself up out of the muddy bottom, Hanson lurched toward the trees, where he'd draped his clothes, swearing silently. "You is a jive-ass peeping fuckah!" he hollered into the silent woods, then threw back his head and laughed. It made him feel right and good to talk the way he'd talked all his life, even though he could conjure up perfect East Coast English whenever he wished... English as good as Pamela Whittier's any day. Fuck Pamela Whittier and her high-tone friends and her fucking high-class apartment and the way she giggled when she called him the "noble savage." That's what had finally gotten to him. Pamela had started asking his closest friends over when he was there and then suggesting games in the bedroom... introducing every rich young jet-setter she knew to the wonders of being fucked by a... nigger. Hanson gritted his teeth and spat into the water as he pulled his shirt on. No, she'd never said the word, but that's the way it was. Whenever he had wanted to discuss a book with her or go to a play, Pamela had thought it quaint. She preferred her own kind of evening's entertainment. Hanson picked his jeans off the tree where he'd hung them and struggled his wet legs in. Somehow rehashing the whole thing had made him feel a little better. At least he'd had strength enough not to let Pamela's image suck him into jacking his meat. The idea of spraying the pond with his hot, stringy seed for some reason caused him to laugh again; then he started up the path toward his parents' house. "I ain't ever gonna think of Pamela Whittier again," he swore to the trees around him. "Ever."

Lucas Allen was sitting on the front porch of his house when he caught sight of his son coming out of the woods. Hanson crossed the stone walk he'd help lay himself ten years before and smiled up at his old man.

"Where's you been, Hanson?" Lucas asked. "It's almost eleven o'clock."

"I been in the woods screwing a pretty white girl." Hanson sat down in a chair and put his feet on the porch rail. "But I decided I didn't want to mess with her no more."

The old man's eyes widened at this; then he narrowed them at his son. "Will you just listen to that big-city talk!" He pulled a crooked cigar from his shirt pocket and slapped his thigh. "My-oh-my!"

Hanson grinned back. "It might be big-city talk, but I swear to God them white girls like it back there." He leaned toward his father and whispered the next words wickedly. "They just love that black cock."

Lucas Allen had his cigar going now and snapped the top of his lighter shut. "Way to stay out of trouble is to stay away from white girls. They's trouble from the tip of their pink little tits to the ends of their soft little toes."

Hanson smiled mightily at his father. "Sound like you's talking from experience, old man."

Lucas blew gray smoke across the still air of the porch. "Maybe. Maybe not. What I know, I know."

Hanson shook his head and sucked a tooth. "Man, you is about as bad as some of them college professors. Cain't get the motherfuckers to say nothin' for sure." He chuckled and spat. "They just tell ya that this depends on that and this over here might account for that thing over there, but only if it all works together under certain circumstances ." Hanson was off and laughing again.

"Well, boy, that's what you went to school for. To learn to talk people around until they's crooked from listening." Lucas Allen smiled and nodded, happy with the point he'd gotten across. "I figure that's the only way you can make a living nowadays less'n you farm." Lucas looked sideways at his son. "But you never took kindly to farming, Hanson, no need to tell you that."

For a while Hanson sat back and let the quiet settle between them. It was nice jawing with his old man again. During the time he'd been East it had been one of the things he'd missed. Finally Lucas leaned forward and winked at his son.

"Tell me the truth now, Hanson. You wasn't really fucking a little white girl down in them woods, was ya?"

Hanson fell back on the porch laughing till the tears came to his eyes. Finally he was able to look at his father with a straight face. "How 'bout lettin' me take the truck into town? I ain't even had time to see how it's changed since I been back."

"Sure, son, sure," Lucas said, handing the keys across. "Jest don't forget this ain't New Yawk."

Hanson started out to where the shiny old pickup was parked. "That's one thing you don't have to remind me of," he said. "But I'll sure keep it in mind."

The truck started immediately and Hanson headed it out of the drive and down the road. He marveled at how his father had time to keep something so old in such good shape. The old Ford hardly even rattled and the engine was smooth and quick to respond. But it was his father's nature ... everything orderly and productive and quietly efficient. Hanson knew that that was the only reason he'd been able to go back East to school.

A roadside weed slapped at the side mirror and Hanson edged the truck back into the middle of the road. He didn't want to stay around Dooberville, but he didn't want to go back East, either. He'd applied for a teaching job in Colorado, but even if it came through, he wasn't sure he wanted that.

"Don't want to do nothin' but mess around," he said aloud, "and maybe see the country."

When he got to the fork, Hanson had to pull around another pickup, and out of the corner of his eye he noticed that a small white girl was just getting in the passenger side. But he was too caught up in his own thoughts to take much notice. He got onto the road to town and let the old Ford out a little, trying not to let Pamela Whittier's face slip into his daydreams.

"What nigger is that?" Jed Judson asked, squinting his eyes at the shiny red pickup disappearing ahead of them up the dusty road. "Looked to be Lucas Allen's truck, but it shore warn't him driving."

Arla tried to keep her voice relaxed and casual-sounding. "Probably it's Hanson. That's the Allen boy." As she said it, she thought how funny it was to call Hanson a boy. Standing in that pond he hadn't looked like any boy she'd ever seen.

Jed spat out the window and got the truck into first gear. "Shit, that's that uppity kid they sent to college a long time ago, ain't it?"

Arla nodded, remembering how scared she'd been alone by the edge of that pond - especially when Hanson's cock had started growing right before her eyes. That's when she'd thought he was going to find her for sure... and drag her under the nearest bush. That's when she'd run and never stopped till she was halfway to the fork.

"How come you know so much about him anyway?" Jed nagged, shifting into second.

"Chrissake, Jed," she said sharply, "you asked me who he was, didn't ya?" If there was one person Arla wasn't afraid of it was Jed Judson. Him, always dressed in bib overalls and wearing that silly straw hat. Jed was as big as a bull and about as strong but there was something weak and easy about him too. Young as Arla was, Jed had never been able to get her goat and she enjoyed reminding him of that fact.

"You don't have to go gettin' sassy," he snarled. The truck rattled and lurched over a rough spot in the road.

Arla let him cool down awhile, then turned toward him with the pouty smile she'd practiced just that morning in the mirror. "Got any new books, Jed?"

"There's a good one in the glove compartment," he said, grinning, happy that he owned something Arla wanted.

Arla dug the book out and saw that it was a science-fiction novel. That was fine with her, especially if it had some sexy parts in it, and most of them did these days.

"You through reading it?" she asked.

Jed nodded. "Sho, it's all yours."

Arla riffled the pages of the book, and a packet of photographs held with a rubber band fell out in her lap. Jed Judson chuckled like a moron and licked his lips.

"What're these?" she asked, holding them up. There was a piece of cardboard over the first picture, so she couldn't see it.

Jed snuffed his nose and rubbed a big hand over the crotch of his overalls. "Go ahead; jest take a look!"

At times like this there was something dumb about his eyes that always bothered Arla. Not just because of their washed-out color or shallow depth, but because sometimes she caught Jed staring at her in a way that made him seem not really human at all. She wondered lots of times what thoughts Jed had in his mind that could make him look like that.

Innocently, she snapped the rubber band off and slipped the first photo out from under the piece of cardboard.

"Oh, God!" she gasped and quickly covered the picture again. She felt the red rushing to her cheeks and didn't know whether to slap Jed Judson's giggling mouth, or what. Maybe it was Jed's laughing that had her so mad anyway. The picture had been pretty bad all right, but his stupid guffaws made it seem filthy. If only he'd stop leering at her like a slobbering dog she might even take another look. Arla knew she really wanted to, because the picture had showed a man and a woman doing the very thing she was dying to find out more about. She was getting lots closer to the truth about so many things. It was exciting and scary all at the same time, but she had to go ahead had to find out more about sex one way or the other.

"Can I have these pictures, Jed?" she asked, surprised at how quickly she'd come to a decision with herself.

Jed's laughter choked short when he saw that Arla meant exactly what she'd said. "Well, hell, you ain't even looked at but one of 'em." He pushed his mouth up in an ugly knot and stared sullenly at the road. "Naw, them's mine," he said finally.

"Can I borrow 'em then?" Arla pleaded.

"I don't know. They cost me plenty."

Arla knew his weakness and knew how to play on it. Twice in the past year he'd tried to kiss her and she had strongly refused. She didn't plan to give in to him now, but there were ways.

"Please, Jed," she said, scooting over until her bare thigh was nestled tight against his overalls. Then she slunk her slender body against his side and wrapped a small hand over his bare, sunburned arm.

Jed glanced from Arla to the road and back to her again. "Maybe if... Uh."

Arla figured that Jed was about to ask for a kiss, and though she didn't like the thought of it she'd made up her mind to allow him just one if it meant getting the pictures for a while.

"Well?" she asked, shrugging. "Can I borrow 'em or not?"

"If you let me have your panties!" Jed blurted. Arla stared up at Jed's reddening face, but he kept his eyes on the road, lips clamped tightly together.

"You mean... the ones I've got on?"

He swallowed and twisted his hands on the steering wheel. "Yeah."

It dawned on Arla that she'd known Jed a long time and had never felt threatened much in his company. Maybe the reason had been because he was kinda... strange. But she hadn't been ready for this.

"Now just where in heck do you think I'm gonna pull 'em off, Jed!" The whole thing seemed pretty ridiculous, but Arla was a bit curious as to Jed's reasons for wanting her sweaty underwear.

"I can stop by the woods on old Mister Thompson's land," he said, still not looking at her. "You can go behind the trees and I won't look... promise."

There was an eager, almost frantic, look on Jed Judson's face. It didn't frighten Arla, just set her to wondering all the harder.

"And if I give them to you, I can have the pictures to keep?"

Jed thought a little on that one but finally gave a nod. "Okay, I'll let you keep 'em if I get the panties."

It seemed crazy, but Arla couldn't figure how it would hurt anything. Not just to give Jed Judson her panties. And besides, she'd have the pictures to look at in private as long as she wanted. Arla smiled to herself. In a way it was better than having to kiss him.

When the thick, close-spaced trees of Mr. Thompson's woods came into view up the road, Arla felt a tiny tug in her guts. Jed pulled off the road, stopped the truck behind a huge thicket of scrub oak and turned off the key.

"Now don't you get out of the truck," Arla warned him, opening her door. "If I hear you coming, you can forget the whole thing."

"I'll wait," he said, nodding as if he meant it.

Quickly Arla slipped into the trees and when she'd found a shady place hidden from the road, undid her leather belt and tugged off her Levi's shorts. Then listening again to make sure Jed was still in the truck, she hooked her thumbs over the elastic band of her nylon panties and skinned them down. The crotchband clung for a moment to her juice- damp little cunny and then came away with a sticky-wet sound. Arla knew she was moist because of what she'd seen at Basset's Pond an hour before Jed had met her at the fork; and the run through the woods had just made her that much more soppy. Well, it couldn't be helped. Jed would just have to be satisfied with her panties the way they were. She slipped her thin ankles out of the filmy things and hung them on a branch. For an instant she felt a wicked little thrill. Standing there in the woods with only her t-shirt and sandals on was naughty. Almost as naughty as peeking at Hanson Allen naked in Basset's pond. Thinking of his lean, muscled body and the big brown cock that had risen from his groin like an awakening cobra made Arla want to touch her own body. Slowly she ran her hands up the long, graceful lines of her thighs and then over her flat tummy. "Ohhh, that's nice," she said to no one but the trees. Arla wondered for a moment what it would make Hanson feel like if he happened to come upon her naked. Then she remembered that Jed was only a few yards off and the public road was up there, too. Quickly she pulled her shorts back on, buttoned them up and cinched her belt. Then she picked her sheer underwear off the branch she'd hung them on and started out of the thicket. Jed watched her as she came in sight of the truck.

"I really don't know what you want them for," she said, sliding into the seat, "but here you go." Arla dropped the satiny things into Jed's callused hands. Without so much as a glance her way, he jerked his door open and got out.

"You wait here."

"But where are you going?" she asked.

"Never you mind. Just stay in the truck."

His eyes shot her a veiled threat and Arla nodded back and shrugged. She didn't know what craziness Jed was up to now, but she was really more interested in taking another quick look at her new pictures. When Jed's back disappeared behind the overhanging leaves, Arla picked up the packet of pictures from the seat and undid the rubber band. The picture on top shocked her almost as much as it had the first time she'd seen it. The red-haired woman was spread backward over a low bed, her breasts flattened out a little and her legs thrown wide apart. The man was on his knees on the floor and twisted so that almost the whole length of his cock could be seen. Arla gulped. Almost the whole length... because some of it had been shoved into the pretty redhead's body. Arla held the picture closer and squinted. There seemed to be a hole right in the middle of the woman's slit and that's where the man's cock had pushed inside.

With a tight little gulp of air, Arla slipped that photo to the back of the pile and stared shivering at the next one. It was of the same two people, but this time the man was on his back and the woman had wrapped her fingers around his long shaft to hold it steady. Arla felt her cunt go slushy, feeling half-naked without her soft panties to absorb some of the steamy juice. The redhead was actually licking the man's cock with her long pink tongue.

Another truck went by on the road nearby and Arla held her breath until she heard it rattle away. She was just about to look at the third picture when a strange sound came from the trees where Jed had disappeared. It was a kind of moaning sound... more like an animal of some kind than a person. Arla tried to imagine what it could be, and the more she wondered, the harder it was to sit still.

The moan came again and she hid her pictures back in the book and quietly pushed her door open. It was easy to tiptoe through the weeds, but she had to be careful not to step on any dry twigs. A bird flew up in front of her once and she stopped, but the strange sound from the trees came again to her ears and she pushed on. Carefully she slid under the thick branches of a bush and peeked into the dark little grove under the trees where the noises were coming from. Arla found herself behind and a little to one side of Jed as he sat leaning against a tree trunk. The sight of what he was doing sent an odd twinge of itchiness through the nipples of Arla's titties where they rubbed on her orange shirt, and she held her breath until she was sure Jed didn't know she was there.

Jed was rubbing her panties against his face, snuffling and kissing them like crazy. But it was what he was doing with his other hand that made Arla's legs go all shaky and weak. The fly of his overalls was open and his naked cock stuck out of his clothes. With his free hand he was pumping the skin of it up and down in a steady thumping rhythm. While Arla watched, Jed made a moaning sound like she'd heard from the truck.

Ever so quietly she shifted to one side to see better. It didn't take her any time to guess that what Jed was doing to himself gave him a good feeling... maybe like the strange feeling Arla'd felt in her bedroom that very same morning when she'd touched her clit.

She was close enough now to see the purple mushroom head of his cock and the way it seemed to surge bigger every time he brought his hand sharply up against the underside of the swollen ridge. Arla's crotch was wetter than ever and she could feel some of her gushing juice dampening her tight jean shorts. It was hard to keep from panting. The look on Jed's face and the way he was jerking and twitching seemed awfully naughty.

"Jesus!" he groaned, and his back slipped further down the tree. Arla could see that he had begun to lick the narrow crotchband of the panties he still clutched. Her panties.

Arla's feet tingled. Her bare bottom tingled, too, and the throbbing little parts between her tightly clamped thighs were begging to be scratched, but she gnawed her lower lip instead and stayed quiet.

With another crazed groan, Jed shoved the blue nylon underwear down and wrapped them frantically around his shaft. Using both hands, he rubbed the silky things back and forth over the taut skin of his cockhead, and Arla saw a tiny jewel-like droplet form at the very tip of the bursting organ. It hung there for an instant, then disappeared in a gushing fountain of thick white juice that spewed in a long string up over the front of Jed's overalls. His hand slowed a little, and for a second or two nothing happened. Then another spurting jet burst from the head, larger than the first. Amazed, Arla watched with wide eyes as a puddle of the milky-looking fluid formed on the front of Jed Judson's pants and dribbled off onto the ground. The panties she'd given him were still wadded in his hands, soaked through with the stuff that kept oozing out of the tiny slit at the end of his cock.

Arla slipped silently out of the trees and stumbled back to Jed's pickup. She wasn't sure she wanted to be with him any more that day. It would be hard to know what to say after watching him do... that. And with her very own panties, too.

Still shaking from what she'd seen and felt inside, Arla snatched the book Jed had given her, and making sure the pack of photographs was back inside it, she ran into the woods on the other side of the road. It would be easy to stay out of sight until Jed had driven off, then walk back to the fork. Maybe someone would give her a lift up into the hills if she was lucky. But even walking all the way home was better than having to talk to Jed any more that day. In a way, Arla knew she was hurt that the awkward, unhandsome fellow had chosen to... to handle himself rather than kiss her. Not that she especially wanted to kiss him, but more that she wanted someone to think her pretty enough to kiss. Down deep Arla was disappointed that her nylon panties seemed to be the only thing Jed was interested in.

After a while, she heard him calling for her from the truck, but she stayed well out of sight. Then the pickup started and rattled away down the road toward Dooberville. Arla came out onto the gravel at the side of the road and started walking home, her bare bottom rubbing in a nice kind of way against her tight jean shorts.

"I hope Jed doesn't show anybody my panties," she said aloud. "I'd just plain die if he did."

In a half-hour Arla was almost back to the fork where she could take the shortcut home through the woods. But before she got to the place where the path began, she heard the sound of an engine somewhere behind her. The thought that it might be Jed coming after her made Arla lunge for the trees on the roadside. But there wasn't time. A pickup truck cleared the top of the hill and started down. Arla was relieved when she saw that it wasn't Jed Judson after all, but the next moment her heart jumped and she still wished she could disappear from sight, because Hanson Allen was behind the wheel and it looked as if he were stopping.

"You want a lift?" he called, pulling up next to her in a cloud of dust.

Not knowing whether to ignore him or run in the opposite direction, Arla stood staring up into the handsome brown face, wondering if Hanson had lost his mind. Young white girls just didn't get into cars alone with young black men and he surely knew this. She was angry and scared at the same time.

Hanson was still watching her, laughing quietly. "God almighty Arla, I didn't remember that you were deaf and dumb from when I was home last time."

He knew her name! Arla would never've thought that Hanson remembered her at all. She'd just been nine... maybe a little more when he'd gone away to school.

"Guess I'd better just go on walking," she managed to say. Glancing down at her skintight shorts and clinging t-shirt, Arla suddenly felt awfully naked, especially with her panties missing underneath. Of course Hanson couldn't know that, but...

"You got a long walk ahead," Hanson said. He had his arms folded on the edge of the window and an unlit match twitched in the corner of his mouth. "Won't take me fifteen minutes to drop you off."

Arla wished she could hide the book with the pack of pictures inside, but there was nothing to do except press it tighter against her tummy and hope that Hanson wouldn't find out what she had. "Really, I... I just as soon walk," she said, smiling for the first time.

Hanson gave a knowing laugh. "Shit, Arla," he said. "You act 'bout as bad as them struttin' small-town snobs down there in Dooberville. I can hear their mamas tellin' 'em now." Hanson wagged his head back and forth and put on a silky-sweet white woman's way of speaking. "Now, honey, don't you ever get in a car with no niggah... you heah? Why, he might just rub black all over you."

Arla wasn't sure what Hanson'd said that made her laugh, but suddenly there she was, laughing fit to kill. It made her remember him from before when he'd worked for her Dad sometimes. He'd always been kind of funny to listen to then.

"I didn't mean it like that," she said. "I just."

Hanson interrupted. "You just wanted to walk eight miles in the blazing sun in the middle of a dirt road with them silly little sandals on. Is that it?"

Arla knew that her argument was gone. She really didn't have much of one anyway, and hearing Hanson kid around reminded her that it wasn't like they were complete strangers. Their families had lived up in the hills for years and not more than a middlin' walk between them.

Hanson pushed the door open then as if he knew she was going to get in and she did, clambering up beside him and pulling it shut behind her. He started the old truck smoothly and let it grind along in second gear so the bumps wouldn't jolt them around too much.

"You like to read?" he asked, shooting a quick look at the paperback.

Arla gave a short nod and kept staring straight ahead. She was afraid to talk much now that they were sitting only a foot or two apart. All she could think of was that morning when Hanson'd been stripped down and shiny with water and she'd been hypnotized by the way his cock had looked.

"I got some books you might dig," he went on. "Maybe we can trade off some."

"Oh, I ain't got all that many," Arla said. She was just dying to look at the crotch of Hanson's jeans. Would his cock be pushing the material up in a great big swollen lump?

The truck swerved in some sand at the shoulder and Hanson brought it back to the middle of the road. It was right then that Arla let her eyes dart down to the place under Hanson's wide black belt. No, his crotch seemed normal... except maybe for the swell that pushed down a little ways into one leg of his blue jeans. That's where it was, she thought. Just resting down there like a big old bull snake. Arla bit her lip hard and felt her face go crimson. Sure as hell, Hanson had caught her looking! Oh, God, she felt like... like just disappearing down through the floorboard or jumping out the window. And now he was probably smiling. Or getting ready to laugh at such a silly little white girl who couldn't keep her eyes off a black man's cock.

"Hey, you know you sure have got pretty since I been away," Hanson said.

The words shocked her out of her embarrassment... shocked her so much that she stared up at Hanson, hardly believing what she'd heard. Colored boys just weren't supposed to talk to white girls like that... or at least she'd never known of it before.

"I know you're thinking it ain't my business to tell you that," he said quickly, the faint smile still playing around his lips. "But it seems crazy for me not to say true things just because we's different colors, doesn't it now?" He gave a short laugh and twitched the match in his teeth. "What do you want me to tell you... that you're ugly or something?"

Once again, Hanson had jabbed right through Arla's indignation. She tried to hold on to her defenses for another moment or two, but they dissolved and she found herself smiling. "Thanks for saying so," she said. "For saying that I'm pretty." The words had popped out before she'd had a chance to stop them.

"Look here," Hanson said after a while. "Any time you need a ride into town, I won't mind taking you."

"Oh, I couldn't," Arla said quickly. "I just."

Hanson waved his hand, nodding. "I know, I know. You don't want to be seen riding with a black buck. But I could let you out just before we got to the highway. Nobody'd know the difference and you could thumb from there."

Arla felt immediately ashamed. Something about Hanson's open, honest way of talking made her feel wicked and cheap and ugly inside. All he wanted to do was he friendly.

"I didn't mean it... quite like that," she said.

"Sure, you did, but that don't bother me none." He gave another easy laugh. "I've driven white chicks all up and down the East Coast, so just 'cause you might be a little funny in the head from living back here in the hills I ain't gonna hold it against you."

Arla was trying to imagine the white girls Hanson was talking about. What kind of girls were they anyhow? And where would Hanson be driving them?

Arla was almost getting up enough courage to ask Hanson about the women he knew back East, but her house was already in sight and Hanson was slowing down. She got out of the truck on her side, but an emotion she wasn't used to made her stop. She felt... as if there were more to say.

"Thanks for the ride and all," she said, smiling at him through her long lashes. "If I sounded... mean or anything."

Hanson grinned and moved the match he was chewing to the other side of his mouth. "Don't bother your head about it." Leisurely, he took in the graceful lines of her childlike body, and Arla could almost feel his eyes touching her every curve and bump. "If you feel like trading some books sometime, I could meet you down at Basset's Pond. You know where that is?"

Arla felt herself go red again and lowered her eyes. "Yeah, I know." Then she walked quickly away from the truck and up the rock walk that led to the front porch of the house.

In the front room, she slumped into a chair, still clutching the paperback and feeling breathless for some reason. Her stepmother's footsteps coming down the hall made her stiffen.

"What you been doin' out there with that nigger?" Nora asked.

"He gave me a ride home; that's all."

"And what happened to Jed?" Nora was standing in front of her, gnarled hands on her heavy hips. "Ain't he supposed to be your ride to the co- op and back on Saturdays?"

"Got tired of waiting for him," Arla lied. "I was walking back and Hanson."

"Oh, it's Hanson now, is it?" Her stepmother reached out and grabbed her thin arm, fingers digging into the soft flesh until Arla made a face from the pain. "This morning you leave without doing nary a chore and now you come home sittin' up there in a pickup cab with some uppity nigger boy."

"Nora, you're hurting my arm."

"I'll hurt more than that if I catch you messin' 'round like that again." Nora shoved Arla back, making her fall half-across the sofa. "We got troubles enough without the whole county talkin' about how trashy you are. Now, get outta my sight. I don't want to see you again till supper."

As soon as Hanson Allen had watched Arla's slim little bottom disappear through the door and into her house, he wheeled the old pickup around and drove like crazy, cursing himself the whole time. He went on past his father's house and took the turnoff which wound five miles away from town toward the rich delta land of the river.

"Damned white chick," he swore aloud, letting the truck go fast enough to kick up a long rooster tail of dust behind him. He knew how crazy it was to be talking to a white girl around these parts the way he'd talked to Arla Dokitz. Giving her a ride was bad enough, but then he had to go shooting off his mouth, telling her how pretty she looked and asking her to meet him down by Basset's Pond.

Hanson rubbed his hand over his forehead and wiped the sweat on the leg of his jeans. He didn't really give all that much of a damn about white chicks; it was just that this one seemed to remind him again of... No, that couldn't be his excuse any more. Arla Dokitz didn't look or talk anything like Pamela Whittier from Boston, Mass. Arla was prettier in her own innocent kind of way.

"Damn it to hell," Hanson growled, remembering her tan, coltish legs, sun-browned almost as dark as Hanson's own skin. He smiled. At least he preferred his white girls tanned.

He looked out the window at a low-flying crop duster, but Arla's pert profile drifted into his thoughts again: her cute upturned nose, almost Negroid in its shortness. And the freckles on her sunburned forehead. That wispy brown hair... Christ! how he wanted to run his fingers through it.

"And damn my black hide if she wasn't peeking at my cock!" He laughed to hear the words echo in the truck cab. Hanson knew he was good- looking. Many other girls, white and black, had chased him even begged to share his bed.

"Charisma," Hanson said, pronouncing each syllable carefully. Then he was off and laughing again. Before he'd gone another mile, though, Arla's image was back to taunt him and he decided it would be nice to undress her in his mind. He imagined her with a hip cocked and a pretty leg extended while slowly he undid her blouse and pulled it back over her thin shoulders. Hanson wasn't sure what Arla's breasts really looked like, but he thought they must be lovely. Probably about one- fourth the size of Pamela's... hardly bigger than a mouthful. He daydreamed his mouth down to one of Arla's titties and sucked the luscious-looking little nipple between his teeth. Arla clutched his head in both hands and pressed her face against the million tight curls of his hair. He licked his way down her body and kissed her navel, marveling at the shallowness of it on her flat tummy. Hanson knew he was right about that, because Arla's t-shirt had hiked up once while she was in the truck and he'd had a good look. Now he was magically skimming her jean shorts down over narrow adolescent hips. Her mound would be almost hairless, he thought. Just two pretty little plump lips protecting the moistness inside. Hanson pushed the fantasies away, too excited by them to stretch the vision out any longer.

A stumbling cow, udder almost dragging the ground, stepped in front of the truck some twenty yards away and Hanson hit the brakes and pulled the wheel hard. The skidding sound of the pickup shocked the dumb animal out of her cud-chewing trance and she bolted back toward the ditch. The truck kicked gravel and slid to a stop, missing the cow by only a foot or two.

Hanson sat there for a while as the insects clicked and buzzed in the weeds near the roadside. He felt foolish for letting himself get so carried away over a white girl who was really no more than a child. The chances were small that he'd ever get close enough to so much as even kiss Arla Dokitz, much less take her clothes off. Arla was only thirteen. A child. And a not very knowledgeable one at that. No telling what she'd talk around if Hanson so much as patted her pretty little bottom with his hand. And like his Daddy had said, that added up to trouble. Besides, there would be the problem of her boyishly narrow hips. If by some chance he did seduce her, his cock would probably split her in two like a ripe melon. Yeah, he had to forget about something so silly as having Arla's body to enjoy. He had to concentrate on more realistic possibilities. Hanson crammed the truck into gear and started out again, heading toward Sidney Shelton's, where he'd been going before the cow had stopped him short.

The Sheltons lived in a one-time squatter's shack on twenty acres of land bordering the river. Ever since Hanson could remember, a black man could go to that place whenever he needed a little something he couldn't get somewhere else. Sidney Shelton was the mother of the brood and kept track of how much beer to buy before a big weekend and how long the boys could stay alone in a back room with any particular daughter. Daughters were all Sidney Shelton had... seven of them to be exact, and nobody could remember that there'd ever been a man around the place.

When he bounced into the front yard, Hanson saw Sidney herself leaning her bulk in the shady doorway of the paintless frame house. A rubber- tire swing swayed on its rope under a big cottonwood, but there didn't seem to be anyone else around.

"Why, Hanson," Sidney said, slapping her big hands together as if she were singing at church. "I knew you the minute I saw that truck... God, ain't you growed!"

"Howya doin' Sidney?" Hanson put his arm around her fat shoulders and gave her a hug. He'd had lots of crazy times at the Shelton place. More good ones than bad.

"You get your sweet brown ass inside here where its cool, and have a bottle of beer. It's on the house.

They walked together into the big front room. Hanson noticed that Sidney had moved a table or two around and painted the walls, but other than that, nothing had changed much. While she was fishing a couple of beers out of the cooler, she pushed her cotton dress up with the other hand and scratched a massive thigh.

"I been wonderin' what happened with you," Sidney went on. "Thought maybe New York went and swollered you up." She turned, grinning her big teeth at him while she popped the caps off with a rusty opener and shoved a bottle across to him. Then she collapsed heavily into a chair and put her elbows on the table. "Now what I want to know... is you smarter than when you left?"

Hanson laughed and slugged some of the beer. "A little maybe," he said. "At least I know what a smart person's supposed to act like."

Both of them laughed.

Sidney rocked back and forth, shaking her big head slowly from side to side. A little droplet of sweat hung on her nose for a minute, then fell onto her bosom. "I swear, Hanson, it's good to see ya again."

"How's Janice?" he asked, surprised at his own eagerness.

Sidney Shelton rocked back and forth again, her eyes narrowing down mischievously. "Always did take a likin' to Janice, didn't ya?" Her face grew serious. "I hate to say it, Hanson, but Janice is gone. She up and left for Memphis over a year ago." Sidney slugged her beer hard. When she put it back on the table only some foam was left. "I tried to get her to stay on, but she had big-city ideas... wanted to meet some fella up there." Sidney put her palms down on the table and looked ceilingward. "Shitfire, I know what happened! She's out on the streets with one pair of rundown shoes and two pair of underwear while that fella is shootin' pool and playin' the horses."

Hanson saw that talking about Janice was depressing Mrs. Shelton, so he changed the subject. "Well, thank Jesus you got more than one daughter, Sidney."

The big woman's face lit up with a smile again. She laid a heavy hand on Hanson's knee and leaned close to whisper. "Lord, you oughta see Alicia now, Hanson... you wouldn't even know her; that's a fact."

Hanson wrinkled his brow and tried to remember. "You mean the little one? Hell, she was only nine or ten when I left to go to college. That couldn't make her more than."

Sidney nodded. "She's fifteen come next Saturday. 'Member how you used to give her piggyback rides all the way to the river and back? God, she just worshipped you."

Hanson swallowed the rest of his beer and set the bottle on the table. "You me... you mean she's... around today?"

Sidney Shelton smiled. "Sure... if you want her, I can go fetch her from the garden. I put her out there in my bonnet to get them potato bugs all pulled off the plants."

"Fifteen years old," Hanson said under his breath. "Say, Sidney, I think I could go another beer."

"Why, bless your soul. Sure you need another beer after comin' all this way." Sidney fetched another cold bottle and shoved it into his hand before turning toward the back door. "You just rest here and drink that beer and I'll go fetch Alicia."

Hanson tried, but he couldn't possibly imagine how Alicia had turned out after five years. She'd been so skinny and childlike when he'd seen her last, always wearing a little print swimsuit - usually without the top.

Alicia had always begged him to be her boyfriend, even when the girl knew that he was coming all the way out there to the Shelton place to visit her older sisters. Hanson had kidded and tickled her but never really entertained the thought - much anyway - that anything of a serious sexual nature could come about between himself and a ten-year old girl.

"Hi'ya, Hanson."

He turned to see Alicia standing behind him... still skinny but taller and... different for sure. Her full lips had a more mature and sensual curve to them now and her short nose had lengthened some. Her breasts were two amazing curving swells on her narrow chest... especially for a 10-year old, and slightly bigger than the ones Arla Dokitz sported. But it was Alicia's ass that really made him catch his breath. She had on a pair of skimpy short shorts and a bikini top. He could see the beautiful outward curve from her waist... the perfect unbroken line of her hips... not chunky or square at all. Then below, where her crotch filled out the skimpy material of the shorts... an ass built for fucking, even at her young age.

Hanson swallowed and smiled and couldn't help staring at her maturing thighs and plump mound again. She was a high school wet dream for sure. And the pigtails she was wearing seemed to add to the image rather than take away.

"You still wearing pigtails?" he laughed. "It'd be hard to remember you without 'em."

Alicia pouted just a little and reached a hand toward her hair. "You want I should undo 'em?"

"God, no!" Hanson said, putting out a hand. "Leave 'em just like that."

Alicia folded her arms and tilted her face at him. It looked sophisticated and little-girlish both at the same time. "Come on," she said, voice almost a whisper, hand stretched out to take his.

Hanson drained the rest of his beer and let her lead him into a darker, cooler part of the house. Alicia's hand was dry and tough from pulling weeds and he liked the way it rubbed against his own skin.

"Been a long time, Hanson," she cooed in her soft, crooning way. "Member when you used to play with me like I'd never grow up?"

"I remember. Just never thought."

Alicia closed a door behind them and made Hanson sit on the narrow bed next to her. The burlap curtain on the window made the small room seem like a cave.

"Well I thought about it," she whispered, looking hard into Hanson's eyes. Alicia's thin hand was suddenly kneading his thigh... slowly and professionally. Hanson wanted to ask her how many men had...

"Lay back now," she whispered.

Hanson did as Alicia said and immediately the thin, curvaceous little angel was moving onto his chest, pushing her legs between his and covering his chin and neck with hot, eager kisses.

"God... Alicia, you really have done some growing up."

Her lips slipped wetly over his then and Hanson sucked her pink little tongue deep the way she seemed to want him to do. The hard bone under her mound was pressed tight against the growing lump of his own trapped cock as Alicia rocked back and forth against it... massaging it full of blood.

"Hanson," Alicia sighed, "Oh, baby, you feel awful big down there." Her hands clutched and tickled and dove under his shirt, rubbing his tiny male nipples... touching the nape of his neck.

"How long you been doing this, Alicia?" Hanson asked her.

"You're the third guy," she said without breaking the rhythm of her lovely attack. "Mama only started me last month."

Hanson felt strangely misplaced. Coming from the East had been too sudden a change in life style to get used to so quickly. Back there it'd been Cadillacs and late-night neons and beaches and boats and high-fashion chicks. But outside the room he was in, Hanson could hear chickens clucking and scratching in the backyard. His nose was full of the heavy odor of magnolia blossoms... the salty country sweat of an adolescent black girl as she fumbled at the buttons of his Levi's, giggling and winking at him all the while.

"What's it like back East, honey?" Alicia cooed, as if she'd been reading his mind.

"It's... different."

He was on his back and Alicia had finally pulled all his clothes off, making a big 'ohmygod' with her mouth as his fat 10-inch shaft slipped free. Then Hanson watched the lithe girl gracefully get rid of her own things. When she stood in front of him wearing only the bright ribbons at the ends of her braids, he knew he wanted her even more than he'd first thought he would. He knew his cock was far too big for the little girl, but figured he'd was willing to bust her little cherry if she was game. Alicia hovered over him on hands and knees, looking skinny and desirable, her ass curving around behind her. It was so beautifully shaped that Hanson wondered if maybe that wonderful bottom was to serve no other purpose except love. Alicia slid cool palms down his chest and finally grasped his hips. There was just the trace of a mischievous smile on her young face, but Hanson thought he could also see uncertainty behind it.

"You the real first grown man," she said in a low voice. "I didn't know it would be so big!"

Alicia let both her hands trace the incredible thickness and length of his 10-incher, and Hanson enjoyed the expression on her face as she felt the heft of the heavy prickmeat.

"Who've you had before?" he asked.

She opened her eyes wide and looked up at the ceiling, remembering. "Couple of kids. Junior high boys. One was white." A smile spread over Alicia's brown face. "He darn near cried when I sucked him a little."

Hanson laughed with her, marveling at her new sophistication.

"He was a nice kind of white boy," Alicia went on. Then she looked again at Hanson's gently throbbing penis. "But nowhere near as big as that!"

He was growing more and more excited from watching Alicia pout and tease above him. His cock was fully engorged with blood, the cockhead tight and shiny brown and Hanson wanted very much to hide it out of sight in sweet Alicia's warm, wet flesh.

"What if you won't fit in me?" she whispered, bending close enough to let the puffy nipples of her plump breasts rake across his chest.

"It'll fit, baby; I'll make it fit one way or another," he said back. "That sweet little ass of yours is ripe for some real meat." Hanson felt strange talking to Alicia like that when only a few years before he'd played with her like a kid sister. But nobody stayed the same, he told himself. Alicia sure hadn't. Circling his strong arms around her back, Hanson forced her elbows to bend and she crumpled and collapsed against his chest. He felt the soft concave of her belly and the way her titties flattened out over his skin. His cockhead bobbed eagerly in the tight curly bush between her thighs, as if hunting for an entrance. "I sure do want you, Alicia," he breathed into the tiny sworls of her brown ear. She was trembling against him ever so slightly, and the feeling of it made Hanson's blood boil even hotter with desire. He caught her face between his hands and forced her lips down again and again, sucking in the lovely young spit as if he were dying of thirst.

"Goddamn, Hanson," Alicia finally got breath enough to say, "you sure do kiss fine." She took a catchy little gasp of air. "Mama tells me not to get too excited, 'cause I forget my business, but it's hard to keep from it when you kiss me like that."

Her pelvis was moving against him now and she arched her back and rode down on the whole length of his cock. As her steamy little slit parted with the pressure, Hanson felt his organ bathed with Alicia's hot juices. Rolling her bottom steadily, she worked all the way down to his ball sac, massaging the nymphescent oils into his skin. It was a fantastic way to get greased up, he thought, and when Alicia's firm little clitoris came in contact with his cockhead again, he felt his back go tight with desire.

"I want you good and wet," Alicia sighed, "before you try to get that big old thing up in me." She was breathing so raggedly that Hanson could hardly make out the words.

Her pretty lips opened wide and she kissed him again, still working more of her wetness into the thing she'd have to take completely inside her before they were through. Hanson loved what Alicia was doing, but he wanted more... now. Cupping both hands under the prancing little asscheeks, he forced her higher, then pushed the knob of his cock up, dividing the sweet, seeping delta of her loins. The tip slid over the finger of her clit, then gave a wet thump as the ridged crown popped into the beginnings of her still-immature vagina and stopped there... too big to go further.

Alicia groaned and tossed her head on Hanson's broad shoulder. "Ohhh, God, Daddy!"

"You like it big, don't ya?"

Alicia didn't say anything. She just bumped and tossed her pretty round bottom... afraid to press back but enjoying it too much to stop.

Hanson could tell that Alicia was ready for more, because the jumping, bunching spasms of her little body hadn't paused once and she steadily increased the pressure back against his shaft. He could feel the ring of muscles spread, almost open, then tighten down again. It would take only a quick lunge on his part to skewer Alicia for keeps.

"I might split you like a grape, sweetheart," Hanson said, patting a lovely soft shoulder.

"Oh, just' split me then! Do it, Hanson... get it in... make me a woman; I want to be a woman instead of a girl now!" Her voice had a fatalistic sound.

"There's gonna be some stretching," he whispered, "so bite your lip and hold on."

Lovely Alicia steadied herself and nodded quietly against his cheek. Moving slowly so as not to frighten her, Hanson slipped his hands up and got a good grip on the tops of her sharp hipbones. Then, holding her down against the head of his cock, he pulled his ass back and drove upward sharply.

A choked gasp rushed from Alicia's throat as four inches of his thick penis rammed suddenly into her squirming, chocolate-brown body, but after a moment or two Hanson felt her kiss him and he knew it was going to be all right.

"Just rest a bit, little girl, till you get used to it."

"I don't want to get used to it, Hanson." Alicia rubbed the bottom of a long foot up and down the side of his thigh. Then she let both legs out long against his and hugged him around the waist. Hanson liked the feel of her weight on him, and he felt his cock slipping deeper every time she wiggled or moved.

"Let's see how much more you can take," he said.

"Hanson, I'll never be the same after this. I just know I won't."

Alicia's mouth was wet against his neck and she'd tucked her knees up next to his sides again. He felt her trembling but knew she wasn't frightened enough to quit.

"Rock that pretty little ass of yours now," he told her, "and I'll get deeper."

Obediently, Alicia started an excruciating motion with her pelvis, and each time she lined up with him, Hanson was able to gain another heavenly inch of her tunnel. Almost the entire length of his cock was surrounded by warm, wet cunt flesh now, and he could feel her loosening up further inside.

"Oh... Ohhh, Hanson... Ouch!"

"You're gonna make it just fine, baby."

"Jeeeesus... OHGODOHGODOHGODOHGODOHGOD it hurts!! Stop! Stop! Stop! Don't go any further. Stop right there," she panted loudly, as if the breath had been painfully knocked out of her. "Stop... ohgod, jesus, you're HUGE!" she cried gasping.

The pretty girl's braids flopped against his neck and she tried to bite his chest, but only drooled instead. The deeper he pushed into her the more Alicia seemed to wiggle, and her words had turned to unintelligible mumbles and sighs. Most of the time she just panted her dewy breath against his shoulder like a trapped rabbit. Whenever Hanson strained up from the mattress, filling her with even more of his cock, Alicia didn't breathe at all but closed her eyes tight and stretched her head back until he could see all the veins and sinews in her long, thin neck. Finally he was sure that it was all the way in, and Alicia's lovely hips began to grind his. Whenever she tucked her bottom under and rocked her hips the soaked velvet membranes deep inside shifted caressingly over the sensitive head of Hanson's cock. He was glad he was on his back, because it made it a little easier to hold back the scalding juices that kept threatening to spew right up into Alicia's eager cunt. He thought maybe they'd better slow down some... enough to drag it out.

But Alicia was getting her second wind. She started a movement that pulled her mound almost completely away from Hanson's hot shaft and then plunged down on it again. Each time his blood-filled cockhead hung glistening at the opening of her vagina and the brown girl's ass tremblingly descended, a strange look flashed in her eyes as the huge organ divided the softness and pushed to the mouth of her womb.

The tight, wet walls of her love channel forced his long foreskin back, rubbing it hot and glowy with the friction. Hanson gritted his teeth and held on.

"You like me to do that?" she asked.

"I can say I like that. Yes, I can say I do."

Alicia slipped her tongue between his lips. A faint tang of cinnamon made him kiss her deeper and taste more. Then he bent lower and sucked one of the brown little nipples between his teeth, biting and licking it until the stalk grew even thicker.

"Hannnson... Ohhh, that just tears me up; you're killing me with that thing!"

He knew it was time. Time to turn this sweet little kid over and give her the best fucking she'd ever get. Because if he didn't get to it soon, she'd have a bellyful of seed anyway.

Pinning her arms close to him, Hanson rolled her sideways on the mattress and squirmed onto her firm young body. Alicia gave a little cry of surprise, but he covered her mouth with his again and choked it off... biting her full brown lips until she whimpered madly.

At first he fucked her with short little jabs... digging to the very end of her vagina. When this seemed to make Alicia go crazy with wiggling, he teased her - pulling all the way out and riding his burning tip up over her clitoris until the poor little thing begged for him to shove her full once more.

It was obvious to Hanson that he couldn't last much longer, but Alicia's symptoms were quickening, too. One long brown leg folded gracefully behind his back and it was soon joined by the other as she squirmed her ass frantically against the sheets. It was as if Alicia were trying to get away and at the same time didn't want to escape at all.

Hanson's cock filled and lengthened to the final limit of its size while the girl under him frolicked and cried, thrusting her mound up against him. Alicia's vagina seemed to undulate and pulse around his tip... nursing at the seed that was about to boil over from its reservoirs. He'd held it long enough. It was torture to put it off any longer. With a sigh of relief, Hanson fucked Alicia's body with all the energy he had left. He fucked her with loving violence and felt the goodness as his tubes filled with cream. Then just as the barbed end of his cock was at its deepest, the hot, milky flood spewed from the tip and Hanson stabbed seed into Alicia's buttery cunt.

"Hanson... h-h-honey!" the girl choked, and he felt the tight female convulsions rock her. Her arms shook and the long, graceful muscles stood out in cords as she clung to him and tried to crush out the fire that was ravaging her love flower. Hanson could feel some of his jizz froth back along Alicia's vagina and dribble onto the rumpled sheet beneath them. But just when the pretty young nymph felt about to relax and loosen under his weight, she sucked another lungful of air and dug her nails into the flesh of his back.

"I think... I can... do it again!" she managed to say. "Oh, please, Hanson... do something... or I'll die sure!"

Since he was quickly losing the ability to help, Hanson reached his hand down to the joining of their bodies and thrust a finger into the mushy love mess. The rubbery little finger of sex flesh stood out from the depths of her slit, pulsing with trapped blood.

Tenderly, Hanson rubbed and tickled her hard, throbbing clit until once more Alicia was whining and pumping her cum-steaked loins softly against his hand. He'd pulled back off of her a little and as she squirmed to gain another ecstasy, Hanson marveled at the wondrous way she moved. Yes, she was the same little girl he'd once carried on his back. The same child who'd clung to him giggling in glee and now clung to him in the throes of sexual frenzy. But rather than feel guilty about what he was doing, Hanson felt fortunate that he'd been given a chance to enjoy such a delicious young berry... right when she was ready for plucking.

"You're gonna kill me!" Alicia breathed.

Gently, Hanson freed his wilting cock and slid down on the bed, making sure to keep his fingers working in the girl's blooming crevice. He wanted to watch her come.

Alicia's bottom was moving slower than it had when he'd had his cock deep in her belly, and each time she rolled her hips, the flower of her vulva blossomed even fuller, gushing more girl honey over his fingers. Her back was pushed well down into the mattress so she could thrust her mound up, but as she started to come, Alicia clamped her firm thighs around Hanson's fist, pulled her legs up tight and pressed her heels against the back of his hand. At the same time she brought her shoulders off the mattress and curved her body down around the center of exploding pleasure that jolted through her spine and breasts and thighs.

It seemed to Hanson that she was caving in around his tickling, scratching hand... pressing it tighter against her delicate parts. And in the sweet heat of her dripping little nest he could feel each sharp, hot throb as Alicia came. Her eyes were closed and her pink tongue lolled halfway out of her spit-damp mouth. With each crest of pleasure, she twined warm fingers around his hand and cooed the whimpering sounds of complete surrender. Her body jerked then and with one final shudder of her frail shoulders, Alicia fell backward on the bed and Hanson carefully pulled his fingers from her wet slit.

It was cool at the bar. Hanson had just poured his glass full of beer and set the bottle down in front of him when Alicia stumbled into the doorway, an enraptured look on her face. He turned then and saw the slender brown legs... the soft dark eyes still bedroomy with promise.

Sidney was behind the bar washing glasses, and when she noticed her daughter's face she chuckled softly and fished another heavy mug from the suds.

"I bet you ain't even collected so much as fifty cents yet, have you?" Sidney scolded.

Alicia lowered her face a little, still smiling. "Naw, ma'am. I kinda fell asleep."

Sidney winked at Hanson, then poked her mouth out at her daughter. "He mighta just walked outta here if he'd a mind to. You lucky it's Hanson and not some hot-dog dude from Dooberville."

Again, Alicia looked down, nodding solemnly. "Yes'm." Then she beamed a radiant look at Hanson and rubbed a palm over her tingling breasts.

"But golly damn, he's the best-lookin', best-lovin' man I ever saw and ."

Sidney interrupted, "... and you just couldn't keep from enjoying yourself. That right, girl?"

Alicia fumbled at the ribbon on one of her braids. It had come untied, and some of her shiny black hair was escaping. "Yes, ma'am, that's right."

Hanson gulped some beer and held out his hand to Alicia. "She's a mighty fine girl, Sidney. Don't be too hard."

Alicia swayed shyly over to him and he tied the ribbon back. It tickled Hanson the way she'd suddenly lost the sophistication that she had tried to use on him in the bedroom. Now she was just a little girl again... a little girl who'd been reminded that a fuck is first and always a fun thing to do. He looked up into her dark eyes and found nothing but adoration.

"Seems as though your daughter has taken a liking to me, Sidney," Hanson said.

"She could do worse." Sidney clinked the glasses together and dried her hands on her apron. "Lots worse."

While Hanson sipped his beer, he felt the little lynx next to him move her sinewy body closer. After a snuggle or two, Alicia stretched her head up and kissed him longingly on the side of his neck. Across the room Sidney looked up from the beer she was drawing herself, and frowned.

"Now, listen here, Alicia. This man come all the way out here lookin' fer a little relaxation." She shifted a heavy hip and shook her finger at her young daughter. "You about to make him think he done caught a wife."

"Ohhh, Mama," Alicia pouted, "I just want him to know... I like him."

"Sure," Sidney grumped, "but just don't go hangin' on him all the time. Lotsa men don't like that after a tumble."

"It's okay, Sidney," Hanson said, grinning. He pulled some change from his pocket and laid it on the table for the beer. Then he pulled a flat-folded ten from his watch pocket and pushed it secretively into Alicia's hand, gently folding her thin fingers around it as he leaned close to whisper.

"I'll be out again sometime."

Alicia went suddenly gloomy. "When?"

Hanson framed her soft face with his hands and pressed a wet, lingering kiss against her mouth. Then he stood up.

"Sometime soon."

While Hanson drove back along the narrow tree-lined road, He patted out the rhythm of a Charlie Mingus tune he'd heard in a New York club and tried to hum what he could remember of the bass line. Sidney had made him take a cold six-pack when he left her place and now he had a freshly opened bottle cradled between his thighs. It felt cool and good there sweating against his jeans.

Hanson had been hoping that he could forget about pussy for a day or two after balling so beautifully with Alicia. But already he knew it was useless to try. It gave him a bitter kind of amusement to realize that the problem wasn't with Pamela Whittier any longer. Just in the short time he'd spent back in the hills, Pamela's face had faded some in his mind and he was certain that as the weeks rolled by, his Boston dilettante would become only a dim flower in the jungle of his life. There was someone else now... and unfortunately it wasn't Alicia Shelton. Hanson slugged at the beer bottle and let the bubbles sting his throat. Arla Dokitz had already wedged herself deep into his soul, and the troubles he faced were innumerable if he wanted to do anything about his desire for the girl. Already he'd recognized the improbability of her being able to make it with him sexually. Though her twitching little ass was gloriously wonderful to look at, Hanson seriously doubted he could get so much as the head of his cock into her cunt. And he still hadn't taken into account the fact that Arla had grown up amidst the worst kind of bigotry and ignorance.

"Shit!" he laughed, tipping his beer bottle up again. "Just listen to me dream." Arla was bright enough... but skittish. Living in the hills of Missouri gave her a right to be, he guessed. To even consider the possibility of getting close to her supple body was the stupidest kind of dreaming. But then Hanson knew he'd always been a little crazy about pussy.

"Yass, yass!" he roared against the wind that poured through the vent window. "I'm a pussy fool and proud of it!"

At the fork he swung the truck right and started up the road towards his folks' place. The relief he'd felt after leaving Sidney's was long gone and the crotch of his blue jeans was tightening steadily. What if Arla did come down to Basset's Pond like he'd asked her to? He knew he was good when it came to talking girls into bed. In his whole life Hanson hadn't met a girl he couldn't finally soften up.

He rubbed his aching groin and finished his beer quickly before he dared let his mind wander further. The only thing he could do was play it all by ear. There was only a slim chance anyway that Arla would actually consider meeting him alone in the woods.

"I hope she doesn't," Hanson said aloud, only half meaning it. "Keep me out of trouble that way."

For a long time after her stepmother had bawled her out for riding home with Hanson, Arla just sat on her bed, too angry even to look at the dirty pictures she'd sneaked in. Arla had never liked her stepmother much anyway and now she decided that the haggy old woman was out to get her.

Of course she shouldn't have been with Hanson like that, but he'd been nice enough and no harm had come of it. Nora's anger made her want to rebel against the old woman's prejudices. Their family had lived near Hanson's folks for years. It seemed wrong somehow, Arla thought, for Nora to blame her for something as innocent as getting a lift home.

And there was something else that made Arla feel that her step-mother had been unfair to Hanson. Hanson Allen had actually told her she was pretty! Oh, he was colored and all that, but he did say it and nobody had told Arla anything so nice since her Daddy had left a long time before. She blushed from thinking about it and only wished that Hanson hadn't caught her peeking at the crotch of his jeans.

After a while, Arla felt better and went over to stand in front of the cracked mirror on her dresser. She fluffed her long hair out, then hooked it behind her ears, turning first one way and then the other... pleased with the way it looked. Is that what Hanson had seen in her? The short turned-up nose and gay blue eyes? The freckles and wide, full mouth all curvy at the corners? Arla smiled into the mirror and her cheeks dimpled cutely. Then she blushed red at how she was thinking about Hanson, and quickly turned away.

When she saw the paperback Jed had loaned her she suddenly remembered the colored photographs inside. With everything happening the way it had that morning, she'd almost forgotten how badly she'd wanted them. And they were hers to keep now. A thrill rose in her chest as she sat on the edge of the mattress and snapped the rubber band off.

The first photo caught her attention again; then she studied the second, amazed at how brave the woman was to actually put her mouth over a man's penis. The third one was new to her, though, and when she took a look her head went all dizzy and light feeling. The red-headed woman was lying backward across the bed the way she'd been while the man had his thing in her, but this time the man was on his knees between her legs.

Arla stared again, swallowing rapidly. He was holding the lips of the woman's cunt apart and licking the shiny wet parts with his tongue. A lot of strange things went through Arla's mind, but there was one she kept coming back to. How did it feel to the woman to have her cunt licked like that? This was only one photo. Maybe the man was doing other things with his tongue, too. Trembling a little, she looked at the two remaining pictures. One showed the man standing up with his hands cupped under the redhead's ass to hold her up. It looked as if his cock were deep inside the woman, and her legs were wrapped behind the small of his back.

Arla sighed and looked at the last photo. Another wave of excitement coursed through her chest. The couple was hunkered over each other, ass to head, the man with his face buried in the redhead's crevice and his cock completely out of sight in her mouth.

"Gosh!" she breathed flipping back to the picture showing the girl getting her cunt licked. All of them were good, but that one seemed to thrill her the most. Maybe because never in her life had she imagined that a man might want to put his mouth down there where a girl was so... messy.

Arla hid the pictures safely away, then stretched out on her bed. She knew that as soon as Nora wasn't lurking around, she'd have to find some panties and put them on. It was lucky her stepmother didn't know she'd given a pair away to Jed for the pictures, or she'd have been tanned alive. It felt nice having her shorts on without panties, though... and kind of sexy, too.

The front screen door slammed and Arla went to her window to peek out. Nora was striding out toward the woods with a couple of buckets swinging at her sides. She'd be going to pick berries, Arla knew, and it would be an hour before she got back.

Yawning lazily, she skinned out of her shorts and crossed to the dresser to find a fresh pair of undies, but the reflection of her nakedness stopped her. The hair on her mound wasn't anywhere near as thick as the red curls of the woman in the pictures. In fact, Arla could easily see the little crevice of her cunt through the fine, light-colored fluff. Would a man really want to kiss a girl there? she wondered. Maybe he had just done it for the picture... maybe no one acted like that in real life. But the idea still tantalized and puzzled her.

Giving a little sigh Arla tossed a hip out at herself in the mirror, then walked back to the bed twirling the fresh pair of panties on one finger. Every added minute she was undressed it became harder to pull the silken covering up over her pubes, until finally she tossed the panties down on her bed and stretched out bare-assed against the itchy wool of the blanket.

"Please, Jesus," she prayed, "I shouldn't do this." But it was like stopping a broken dam with a cork. Already she could feel the oily mess just inside the puffed little lips of her cunt, and when finally she could bear the excitement of being nude no longer, Arla plunged the fingers of one hand knuckle-deep in her juice. In an instant she found the nubbin of her clit, and her fingers filled it with new life. The hot little piece of flesh rose from the gushiness and stiffened a little while Arla petted herself and writhed. Her thoughts were on the red-haired woman, thighs spread so the man could lick her.

With another breathy gasp, Arla skinned her t-shirt off and reveled in the sensuous freedom of her skin. All her life, nakedness had been its own kind of naughtiness, but she wondered how something that Nora called naughty could feel so good. It was wonderful not to have one single stitch of clothing on her body to hide it. She could touch herself almost anywhere. She could feel the bed against her naked back and asscheeks... and it felt nice!

Arla let her thighs fall further apart and worked up and down the full length of her slit, searching for the hole like the one the redhead had. It felt good to touch herself all along the hot little divide, but the best was when she rubbed her clit button. Last time she'd been afraid to go on... especially after the feeling had gotten so terribly intense. This time, though, she made up her mind not to stop for anything.

"I don't care if I do die," she mumbled, "I'm gonna rub myself until I cain't rub no more."

As she tickled herself, Arla found that it felt better if she strained her legs... tightening the muscles, then letting them relax. Every time she did it a new wave of buzzy warmness surged through her cunt and tummy. Sometimes her nipples tingled without her even touching them at all. Already she'd gone further than she ever had before and still the feelings just grew more excruciatingly wonderful all the time. She made her fingers dance faster yet and the sound of them slopping and slipping in the wetness of her slit made Arla even more excited. A wave of some new sensation was building through the muscles in her tummy... sending tiny ecstatic shocks through the backs of her legs.

"What is it?" she panted, stretching with the delicious itchiness that was engulfing her. "What's happening to me?" And with a suddenness that took her breath away, the beginning spasms of Arla's very first orgasm cut through her body like a sweet knife.

"Oh, gosh! I'm gonna die for sure this time!"

But after a few moments Arla knew she wasn't going to die, and the lovely shoots of pleasure pounded one behind the other. Her fingers kneaded frantically at the delicate parts between her firm little labia while her quivering bottom tossed and bumped against the sagging mattress. Then the throes began to dwindle and eddy away into the secret places of her body as quickly as they'd come. Finally Arla found that it even hurt to keep rubbing herself, and she stopped.

A long time she just lay on the bed panting while she tried to understand what had happened. The closest thing she could think of was how Jed had pulled on himself until the stuff had come out of his cock. But when Arla looked at her own slit, there was only the warm, slick juice she always seeped when excited... just more of it this time. It felt nice just to bask in the mellow after-feeling that seemed to well through her every pore, but whenever she thought of Nora coming back to the house, a tiny thorn of guilt began to prick her until at last Arla got up from the bed and frowned. Without thinking about it one way or the other, she put her fingers to her nose. The smell was kind of good in a way, but it only reminded her of what she'd just done, so she quickly poured a basin of water and washed her hands carefully. Then she stretched back down on the bed to rest a minute before dressing. In an instant she was asleep.

While she slept, Arla dreamed about the dark-haired man in the photos she'd been looking at. She dreamed that he'd come into her room one night and wanted to lick her cunt. In the dream, Arla'd been too shy to refuse and when he pushed her down on the bed and spread her legs she let him. The sensation was lovely and she bucked and writhed under his wet, sucking caresses until the sharpness of it woke her with a start. Arla felt worn-out and the lips of her cunt were aching. At once she was terrified that Nora might have come back, but the old alarm clock on her dresser showed that only fifteen minutes had passed since she'd nodded off. In the dream she'd enjoyed what the man had done to her, but now that she was awake, Arla felt embarrassed and a little ashamed to even think about it. But wouldn't it be just about as strange to have a man put his stiff cock up inside her and make all that thick, slippery stuff spurt out? She shivered with the oddest kind of feeling. As naughty as it sounded, she couldn't help being curious about how it might feel.

Thinking about it made Arla jump up from the bed and dig under the mattress until she had her precious photos in her hand again. Then she got her hand mirror from a dresser drawer and put it on the bed beside her. After a few minutes of carefully studying the photos that showed the couple fucking, Arla put the picture down, spread her thighs and positioned the mirror so she could see her own soft vulva. Glancing from the photo to herself, she touched each part lightly until she'd found the spot on herself that seemed to match the place where the man's cock was going inside the redhead. Arla probed and poked. There was a little place where the flesh seemed bunched and sunken. It was below her clitoris and there didn't seem to be any other place quite like it. But it really wasn't a hole... just the beginnings of one. Again she studied the photo, then looked back at the reflection of her cunt in the mirror. Arla was troubled by the seeming shallowness of her own body. Maybe the hole was just awfully small, she told herself ... maybe a man had to stretch a girl when he went inside. The idea gave her the shivers. It would really have to hurt to be stretched that much bigger than she was right now. Arla considered this for a moment or two, shrugged and put the mirror up. Then she hid her pictures and dressed hurriedly. Nora just wouldn't understand if she came back and found her undressed like that, and Arla had experienced enough of her stepmother's wrath for one day. Sleeping nude at night was okay, but if the cranky old woman found her naked in the middle of the day, there'd be hell to pay.

Arla woke up the next morning feeling strangely excited and full of new energy. She jumped naked from the bed and splashed cold water from the old porcelain basin onto her face. A few droplets fell onto her breasts and when she wiped them off with a towel, she realized that her tits were sore to the touch. Just walking across the room made enough friction between her legs to feel awfully good. Even something so ordinary as dressing made her sigh: the way her dress felt going over her shoulders and nipples and back, the way her panties snugged up against her hot mound and clasped her trim little cheeks in tight nylon. Even the way the elastic band cut into the flesh of her hips gave her a rush.

"This is something!" she whispered to her image in the mirror, "really something."

Then Arla remembered that it was a special morning. It was her birthday and she was fourteen! Hurrying, Arla brushed her hair down and finished dressing. Nora had breakfast ready when she came bouncing into the kitchen and when she sat down she found an envelope beside her plate. Inside was a soiled and crumpled one-dollar bill.

"Thanks, Nora," Arla said, a little surprised that her stepmother had even remembered the date.

Nora shot her a sharp glance that had just the trace of a smile in it. "In my day we didn't get nothin' for a fourteenth birthday, but nowadays kids expect so much."

Arla didn't think that a dollar was really much at all, but she stuck it in the single pocket on the front of her smock-like dress and started eating. It would have been nicer, she thought, if Nora had kissed her instead. But lots of her birthdays had passed without anyone remembering whether she was alive or dead.

Without being asked to, Arla gathered the eggs and slopped the hogs. She was hoping that if she worked hard enough that morning, Nora might stay off her back for a while... or at least long enough for Arla to wander alone in the woods. She was starting to grow up and she wanted to be alone and think about so many things that had to be thought about.

While she was feeding the chickens, Nora came up and stood behind her, watching. "We might make something of this place," her stepmother said, "if you keep putting your heart in it like that."

"I've already told Miz Strauss that we can use her son Lonnie for a few weeks." Nora nodded toward the overgrown garden patch behind the chicken coop. "I'm gonna have him clean up them weeds and put in some vegetables. It still ain't too late to have enough for canning."

Arla knew Lonnie Strauss from the time when she'd gone in to town to school. He was ten or eleven by now and not a bad kid that she could remember. "But the Strauss live ten miles away," she said. "How will Lonnie get home at night?"

"He'll be staying here during the week," her stepmother told her. "I promised Miz Strauss his room and board and a dollar a day. We can make him a pallet on the floor in your room."

"Aw, but Nora," Arla protested, "I don't have enough room as it is and...."

"Just hush now. He'll be staying in there on a pallet and that's all there is to it. I won't have him in my room waking me up all night." She picked up a pail and rattled it as if to end the argument.

Arla finished the rest of the chores in sullen silence, and when Nora had stretched out on the couch in the front room for her midday nap, she skipped down the front steps and crossed the road into the cool blue shadows of the woods. For the first time in months, Arla felt really lonely. She never thought much about not having any real friends her own age, but turning fourteen was kind of special and with no one to share it with... sad. What made it even worse was Nora moving Lonnie Strauss right into her very own room. Arla bit her lower lip and kicked at a mushroom. The domed white cap split into a dozen fragments and scattered over the crushed leaves and twigs ahead of her.

Arla walked in no particular direction and she was only partially aware that her footsteps were taking her in a roundabout way toward Basset's Pond. Then, when she was near enough to make out the shimmering reflection of the water, she realized at once she'd come that way on purpose... hoping to find Hanson there again. The shock of comprehending this made her skin jump, and she stopped. What business did a white girl have alone in the woods with a colored boy? And Hanson was much older than she was.

The quiet rustle of leaves filled the air above her. Arla scanned the banks of the pond and saw no one. In spite of her shame for coming down to that spot, she felt a little twinge of disappointment, and the loneliness she'd been fighting filled her again.

"Kinda hot today, ain't it?" said someone behind her.

Arla whirled so fast that her long hair flung halfway across her face. It was Hanson, sitting with his back against a tree. A thicket had kept her from seeing him when she'd walked by. Beside him was a stack of paperback books... one was open in his lap.

"I... I." Arla stopped trying to speak and gulped instead. Her mouth was dry and those peculiar little flutters were in the top of her belly again.

Hanson smiled at her as if he'd guessed what was happening. Then he waved a hand at the books beside him. "See here what I brought ya?"

Arla knelt down beside him and looked at each book in the stack. There were a couple of mysteries and a science fiction or two and something real thick that looked like a novel about a man with a lot of women. It was enough reading to last her quite a while and the nicest birthday present she'd gotten all day... the nicest birthday present she'd gotten ever. Except maybe when her Dad had bought her the sandals.

"Thanks," Arla said. "They all look real good. I cain't wait to start one."

"You really do like to read, don't you?" Hanson asked, studying her.

Arla dropped her lashes and smiled. "It's... all I have to do, I guess." For an uncomfortable moment or two both of them were silent. Arla knew that she should probably take the books and go, but she couldn't bring herself to. She wanted to stay. She couldn't stand for that lonely feeling to come back again to haunt her... not on her birthday. Maybe a few minutes longer would be all right. "I'm fourteen today!" she said brightly, trying to make conversation.

Hanson gave her another long, warm look. "Well then, I'm glad I brought you somethin'. You can call those books your present from me."

Arla nodded, smiling. "That's what I was thinking." She hugged the books and looked around nervously. When she glanced back at Hanson he was looking at her bare legs below the hem of the short dress she had on. At the same time Arla studied his smooth features and muscled shoulders. What was the danger Nora always nagged about? What was the real reason a white girl wasn't supposed to ride with a black boy? When Arla rode with Jed, her stepmother never said a thing about it. Arla compared the two men in her thoughts. Seeing Jed's cock had given her an excited feeling all right, but it hadn't been anything like when she'd stumbled upon Hanson naked in the pond. Maybe that was it. Maybe black men had a way about them that made girls more sexy, Arla thought. She looked at him again while he drew circles in the dirt with a stick, and decided that there was something about Hanson that made her feel light and fluttery in her chest. But whatever might scare her about him took second place today. Alone in the woods the two of them were cut off from the hates and troubles of life outside and at least for a short time she could enjoy another person's company.

"You're so quiet," Hanson said, breaking the silence.

"Just thinking."

"Let me guess." He puckered his mouth, then tilted his head at her. "You're thinking here I am alone with this niggah in the woods... I wonder how long it'll be before he grabs me and."

Arla blushed and gave a shy little laugh. "I really wasn't thinking that at all."

Hanson was laughing, too, but kept on. "... and then you're thinking, boy, I sure am glad nobody can see us."

"I... I don't think I care if anybody does," Arla said, even though she knew that was only partly true.

"Well if you don't care, I sho do!" Hanson said, looking down his nose at her. "I mean just what do you think all them niggahs in Dooberville would say if they saw me with a white girl?"

Arla tried to hold it back, but then burst out in shrieking giggles and it was plain that Hanson was enjoying her amusement. "I don't know," she finally was able to say. "What would they say if they saw us together?"

"Here's what they'd say." Hanson grinned mightily and shouted, "Look out, boy, the sheriff's comin'!"

That set Arla off laughing again. It wasn't at all like she might hurt Hanson's feelings - he seemed to want her to laugh, and she understood how the way he poked fun at the ugly way some things were made them seem silly and ridiculous. Arla looked at Hanson like she'd never really seen him before.

"I never met a colored." She mumbled to a stop but then went on, sure that he would forgive whatever she might say. "I never met a colored person like you before."

Hanson slapped his thigh and looked slyly at her. "That's what an education'll do for a black man."

"Gosh!" Arla felt almost as if Hanson were working a spell on her or something. It was mostly the warm way she felt talking with him. "I bet college is tough."

"Nothin' to it." He leaned back against the tree again and gazed up into the thick leaves. "All you need is a little natural rhythm and a good ear."

While Hanson chuckled quietly, Arla considered what he had said. She was still wondering if she might have natural rhythm when he put his book down and stood up.

"Let's take a swim and cool off... what do you say?"

Arla felt herself stiffen. Already Hanson had grabbed the bottom of his jersey with both hands and was skinning it up over his head.

"Maybe I'd b-b-better not," she said. "I don't have anything to wear."

Hanson hung the jersey on a tree branch and reached for the buckle of his blue jeans. "Okay, but it's mighty hot to sit out on the bank."

Arla's heart was in her throat. She didn't know whether to run or turn her back or what. If Hanson let her see his big brown cock close- up she might faint. But then she knew she was letting her imagination run away with her. Of course, Hanson wouldn't just strip down to the buff right in front of her... it was silly to think he would. Just like she'd figured, he left his underwear on, though there didn't seem to be much to them. They were made of some blue satin mesh and hung low on Hanson's hips. The holes in the loose-woven material were just big enough for her to spy some brown skin underneath. Hanson stretched, and the shelves of muscles in his chest and flat stomach moved, completely capturing Arla's attention. He was really built, she kept thinking. In fact, he was so powerful-looking it made her feel helpless and she hugged her books tighter against the front of her flimsy little dress. It would be better if she went home... right away. Before Hanson got the wrong idea. It was then that Arla realized Hanson had been watching her again, and she gave him a weak smile. His hip jutted out and he was rubbing a hand slowly back and forth across his broad chest.

"I been thinking about you and I got a theory."

Arla shrugged. "Oh?"

"The trouble with you is all your life people been telling you never let a niggah boy touch you." He put his hands on his hips and scratched one leg with the sole of his foot. "So now you're just shivering and a- shaking, scared to death that we might bump up against each other or that I might grab you real good and give you a heart attack or something."

Arla tried hard to meet his eyes. "Maybe." She knew he was right. Hanson always was.

"So why not let's get it over with?" He put out his hand, palm up. "Here, give me your hand."

Arla stepped back another foot, eyes wide and mouth set tight. "Cain't w-we wait?"

"Come on! Put your hand on mine. Ain't nothin' gonna rub off."

Not to do it would have made her feel like a complete idiot, so Arla extended her arm and laid a trembling hand in Hanson's. He closed his fingers warmly over it but didn't try to pull her closer.

"Relax, for Chrissake!" he ordered. "I ain't breakin' any bones, am I?"

A laugh caught her unaware and she shook her head. "No. 'Course not." But her knee joints felt weak and loose.

"So see there," Hanson chuckled, releasing her fingers, "we got it over with now, and you look as well off to me as you did a minute or two ago." He put a finger to his chin and took in the full length of her body. "Fact is, you might even look a little healthier."

"You must think I'm awful stupid," Arla mumbled, looking down at her feet.

"Naw." He put his hand out again and this time Arla gave him hers without hesitation. "It's them old folks that are stupid. My parents ain't no better'n yours. If my mother knew I was down here alone in the woods with a white girl, she'd run me out of the house with a shotgun."

Arla had just decided that she liked the way her hand felt inside Hanson's... liked the way his fingers wrapped clear over hers, hiding them. This time when he released her, she let her palm linger for a moment against his and then quickly took it back.

"Well," he said, shrugging, "I'm gonna get wet. Why don't you stick around for a while and we can talk some more?"

Arla watched him wade out until he was chest deep. Then he pushed forward and swam a few strokes to an old overhanging tree.

"Boy, that sure feels fine," he laughed, blowing water from his mouth.

The water did look inviting. Maybe she could wade a little anyway and cool off some. Quickly she kicked off her sandals and gingerly stepped through the broken branches and rocks until she felt the mossy bottom under her feet. The water lapped around her ankles and she made her way out from the bank carefully until it was up to her knees. Hanson hung from his elbow on the old waterlogged tree, watching her and making little splashes with his feet. Arla walked in circles, feeling the fine silt at the bottom squish between her toes. She was glad she'd decided to get a little wet. She was trying to stay away from what looked like the deepest part of the pond when her foot touched a big flat rock. Arla put her weight on it but immediately felt the rock shift forward and then she was slipping down into the drop-off.

"Hey! Watch out!" Hanson yelled, but Arla barely heard his words as the cold water closed over her head. The thin little dress she was wearing ballooned out with trapped air and she felt her bottom smack into the soft mud. Then she was paddling with both arms for the surface. Two strong hands closed around her tiny waist and her head broke water.

"Gosh!" she gasped, slinging her water-soaked hair from her eyes.

"I didn't know whether you could swim or not," Hanson said. He was standing very close.

"I can't," she said, smiling, "but I think I was just 'bout to learn." Arla was glad Hanson was so tall. She still couldn't touch bottom with her toes.

"There's a big old hole here. I didn't know it came this far back or I would've warned you." His hands clasped her middle just a little bit harder. "You better just hold around my neck and I'll walk you out to the far bank. Mud's too slick to climb back the way you came."

The lapping water tickled Arla's neck and she circled her arms around Hanson's nec