6 comments/ 38610 views/ 17 favorites While the Whole Town Slept By: Barbara_Em Supper finished, Eleanor O'Neill excused herself from the table. She went up to her room, she had a front room that got morning sun in the summer and cooling breezes later in the day, and selected a magazine. Not that she planned on reading. Her magazine was her prop for going to sit on the porch. The rest of the boarders would retire to the sitting room to watch television. Eleanor couldn't abide television. Oh, maybe it would be all right if she had a set in her own room. Maybe then she could enjoy Sid Caesar or Jack Benny. It would be private enjoyment that way. To sit with the other boarders and feel compelled to laugh when they did, to gasp with shock when some television detective announced who the guilty party was or when some western desperado shot it out with the posse, well, that wasn't her idea of enjoyment. Better to sit on the front porch, feel the hot summer day fade away to a memory and let the soft evening and its promise of peaceful sleep envelop one's self. "Not going to join us, Eleanor?" asked Mrs. Pritchard. She owned the boarding house and, in Texas parlance, she was a widow woman. Eleanor bridled at the redundancy; there was nothing to be done about it, however, and years of usage had made the phrase harmless in her mind. Just as, often as not, she described herself as a spinster lady. The first noun signified the sex of the person and to add the second was a waste. Still, it was part of the land in which she'd grown up and lived. "M Squad is starting. Don't you just adore Lee Marvin? He's so rugged and handsome!" "No, Mrs. Pritchard," Eleanor replied. "I've got the new issue of The Atlantic Monthly and I haven't even had a chance to open it yet." That was a white lie. The magazine was seven months old and Eleanor had read the magazine from cover to cover. Twice. She passed the doorless entrance to the sitting room and saw that the other four boarders had already assumed their places and were waiting for the television set to warm up. Eleanor hurried outside. The broad porch of the rooming house offered several places to sit and catch the evening breezes. There was a porch swing for lovers - had it ever seen any use? -, a wicker love seat and a pair of matching chairs. Eleanor chose the chair farthest from the sitting room window so the noise of the program and the voices of its audience wouldn't penetrate the evening to distract her. Only the silver flicker on the curtains would betray the existence of the television and she could pretend that it was distant summer lightning of an approaching storm that would cool that night air, wash clean the streets and sidewalks, offer sustenance to the parched yards and fields that lay baking under the day's summer sun. The heat never bothered Eleanor. Even as a little girl, she could run and play in the hot sun and her mother didn't have to caution her against sun stroke. It was as if she had reptilian blood that grew stronger in the full heat of the afternoon. That was silly, of course. Eleanor was an O'Neill, through and through. Everybody said you could see the face of Colonel Jackson McGarrett O'Neill in her handsome face. And it was indeed a handsome face. High forehead under dark bangs, clear blue eyes that sometimes tinged with green, a short straight nose between high cheekbones, and a firm mouth that smiled easily. And her figure was good, too, if any man had ever chanced to see it. High busted, narrow waisted, and rounded at the hips with the fine legs of a young filly. In fact, some in the Williford wondered how she had remained single. With a fine name like O'Neill, an alluring body, a sharp mind and fine career, not to mention some money of her own, Eleanor O'Neill was a fine catch for any respectable suitor. None had ever come calling though and if Eleanor regretted the lost opportunities of youth, she kept the information resolutely to herself. And even now, when she had said good-by to her thirties, she was attractive and remained a good catch. Still, no one came calling and the people who knew her, for she had no friends, assumed that she had been born to spinsterhood and was accustomed to the fact. From the porch, Eleanor pulled the chain on the front porch light and let darkness swallow her up, magazine discarded. She watched the shadows lengthen as the sun settled behind her. She enjoyed this time of day best and watched with heightened expectations as the long Texas twilight lingered. Slowly lights came on in the large houses around her. The occasional automobile crawled past following its headlights and trailing the red glow of it's taillights. Children were all ushered inside. Dogs quit barking; cats, emboldened by the darkness, slipped among the shadows that were the second nature to the felines; doves had made their last love songs and had settled in pairs for the night; and an occasional night bird, once a large owl, called out its presence. Bats, mice with wings as she had thought them in her childhood, making shrill piercing to find their prey, swung around the streetlamps. Beyond the rooming house and it's neighbors, the soft glow of the town's compact business center spread over ancient oak, elms, and pecans. Eleanor sat in silence. She was a pale shadow in the darker shadow of the porch. She lifted the skirt of her light summer dress and fanned the hem across her knees. She stretched her legs out in front of her. In a quite unlady-like fashion, she left her skirt above her knees. No one, after all, was present to admire her display. Flowers had closed up for the night, but she could smell the mimosas around her, as sweet to her as to the honeybee. She breathed deeply. In her imagination, she sensed the distant seashore. Thirty years ago, her father, mother, Minetta, Barry, Edwin, and she had taken the train to Galveston Island and the trip was as real to her as if it were yesterday. Eyes closed, she could smell the tang of the Gulf Of Mexico. Feel the soft grittiness of the sand beneath her feet. Hear the strident calls of the gulls as they swooped about looking for bits of food left by picnicking beachgoers. Even taste the saltiness of the water on her lips after her father had carried her out past the breakers and she had squealed with mock fear as he pretended to toss her into the spume where crabs would nip her toes and fish nibble at her pale legs. That had been her one trip to the seashore and she could still smell the water although her home was two hundred miles inland. The trip had been so much fun and one of the last taken as a family. He father had died three years later. Heartbroken, her mother had been a changed woman. All the laughter had gone out of her mother's life. Minetta's death from tuberculosis in 1933 was the final straw for the widow and she died the same year. Barry, like his grandfather a colonel, was killed at Kasserine Pass, Edwin had died on Omaha Beach, and Eleanor was alone. The last O'Neill. That summer at the beach had been the best summer of her life, although she also remembered fondly the summer before her father's death. She had been sent to a girls' summer camp northwest of Austin. For two weeks she had sung and listened to ghost stories around campfires, hiked and learned to shoot a bow, learned to canoe on the lake (a pale substitute for the wider sea), and met a boy. Eleanor could see him now in the gathered darkness just as she smelled the seaside. She no longer remembered the boy's name; in her mind she called him Byron, after the poet. Taller than she and slender. Red hair and a dusting of freckles, an easy grin, and a friendly confident manner. She was 14, he perhaps two years older. She could run almost as fast as he could, swim almost as far. And he could kiss. Eleanor had never been kissed. Not like Byron kissed. Full on the lips, forceful yet oddly gentle. Insistent. Leaving her hungry for his lips when she would slip away from the giggling gaggle of girls who knew nothing of such kisses (she thought in her ignorance) to wait impatiently in a leafy glade where mockingbirds, blue jays, and doves watched the teens press their lips together. And not just their lips. Byron held her tightly and she felt the strength of his embrace as if he threatened to break her trembling body. And the questing touch of his tongue. Byron even bestowed upon Eleanor her only nickname. He called her Nell. Byron actually made a game of that name, calling her Nell. Or in full, Nell-O-Neill. He made a song, too, "Nell-O-Neill - Banana peel/Nell-o-Neill - Yellow peel." The kisses and embraces continued for three days and would have continued forever if Byron hadn't tried to put his hand inside Eleanor's khaki shorts. She had reacted as the shocked, sheltered girl she was. She screamed. Terrified the birds into flight. Fought her way free of the boy and fled, certain that the Devil himself pursued her, breath full of the scent of brimstone, his talons unsheathed to claw her and drag her to Hell. For the next three nights, she couldn't sleep and for three afternoons she fought the impulse to seek Byron out in their secret glade and let him know that she forgave him for his impertinent groping, to let him know that she welcomed his lips if not his hands. Or was she lying to herself? Would Eleanor have welcomed his eager hands? Responded? She never knew or banished the questions from her mind when she saw Byron on the fourth day with one of the girls' camp counselors and he had his hand where it wasn't supposed to be and the older girl was reciprocating by rubbing Byron's crotch as they kissed with a heat that Eleanor could only estimate. She fled in silence and tried to force the memory of the sight from her mind. And now, almost thirty years later, the spinster remembered only the feel of the boys lips and not even the butterfly caress of his tongue. A jalopy drove loudly down the quiet street, three loud teenaged boys laughing, scattering the silence in fear. Then the beat up car was gone and silence, peering from its hiding places, crept back to occupy the night. Abruptly, Eleanor stood. She was suddenly tired of the silence, of the night. Unusually for her, she no longer wanted them. The boys in the jalopy and their joyous noise wanted her to find some gaiety, some pleasant sounds. She didn't know why. Maybe it was because those happy teens may have once sat in her classroom and thus had a link to her. Eleanor dropped her magazine and strode purposefully from the rooming house porch. She turned toward the short length of the block. Her long legs covered the distance quickly. At the corner, she turned towards the lights of the business district. Settlers' Park with its large bandstand loomed up on her left, flanked by the statue of her grandfather astride a prancing stallion. He was in full uniform, a dashing man of 33 in his confederate uniform when he commanded the 20th Texas Volunteers during the War of Southern Secession. Eleanor remembered him that way sometimes and sometimes as a kindly old man well into his nineties with a flowing white beard and a stoop. He had buried three wives (being survived by his last bride, a local girl of some twenty years) and seven children. In some European locales, he would have been considered the patron saint of the town. In Texas, he rated a statue three time life sized. As the park fell behind her, she thought of the whispers from some of her students that the park was the site of many a trysting couple. Maybe teens, maybe older couples, Eleanor had no idea. But she wondered if clasping, gasping lovers huddled among the rhododendrons, azaleas, hibiscuses, and oleanders. Shocked, Eleanor shook her head. Whence came that thought? Sternly she forced the idea from her mind. She walked on, her pace relaxed. The town square was dominated by the dark tower of the town hall, the four faced clock unlit since the hands were motionless and the practical city fathers thought that since there was no money to fix the clock, it was a waste of hard earned dollars to light the tower. Since the hall itself was an embarrassing mixture of Greek Revival and Old Southern Plantation architecture, there was all the more reason to leave the place shrouded in impressive darkness. The north side of the square which was blocked from her view by the massive town hall, was also dark, the stores closed for the night. The west side was dominated by Williford Café, the Greyhound bus station, both lit and alive, and the quiet and shuttered train depot. Just ahead of her was the brightly lit Texas Movie Palace. The first showing must have just ended as people were streaming from the air conditioned coolness to the steamy warmth of the sidewalk and street. Not wanting to be around anyone, Eleanor turned abruptly east. There were lights here, too, but not as bright as the café's or movie theatre's. A dark feed store was on the corner, but then in quick succession came the Pasttime Club, McReady's Pool Hall, a nameless saloon, at least it had no sign out front and Eleanor had never heard it called anything but "the bar," a barber shop, and at the end of the block, the Recreation Room. There were plenty of cars here, nosed in to the curb, faced by the parking meters like so many mute sentinels. The cars testified to the Friday night popularity of the businesses. The walking woman kept her eyes directly in front of her, not wanting to see inside the bastions of male pleasure. Juke box music filtered from them and intruded on the silent sidewalk. Silent but for her steady footsteps. Unreasonably, she wished the town government would find a way to close down these places. That was as unlikely as finding money to fix the tower clock. Besides, if these places vanished tomorrow, these sorts of men would find other, worse ways to squander their idle hours. She had almost reached the end of the block and was preparing to make the make the square when a sudden spill of brightness lit the sidewalk directly behind her. She heard gay male voices. And a low whistle. "Hey, pretty lady!" called a drunken male voice. "Come back 'ere. I wanna buy you a beer." Eleanor continued her pace. "I'm talkin' to you, baby." Another voice said in surprise, "Don't you recognize her, Jack? That's Old Lady O'Neill. The school teacher." "I don't care if she's old or a teacher, Buzz. She's got nice legs." The second voice she recognized. George Burke who his friends called Buzz. He had graduated last year. Certainly he was barely nineteen and the legal drinking age was 21, yet here he was coming out of the Recreation Room. "Damn nice, if you ask me," said a third male. Eleanor stopped at the curb to cross the street when she recognized the old car. Not half an hour ago she had seen it pass in front of Mrs. Pritchard's. A hand caught her elbow and pulled. "Let me buy you a beer, baby. No cause to rush off is there? School's out for the summer. Maybe I can teach you sumpthin'." "Let me go!" Eleanor yelped and pulled away. The boy accosting her grabbed her again. She felt a surge of panic as she smelled the alcohol on his breath. "Is there a problem here?" demanded a strident new voice. Her arm released, Eleanor turned to see Officer Pfeiffer leaning out the window of his police car. "These boys bothering you, Miz O'Neill?" "Not at all," Eleanor lied without realizing why. "My heel turned underneath me and I almost fell. This, this young man was just helping me back up." "Oh, really?" The policeman was getting out of his car, settling his patrol cap more squarely on his head, hitching his shiny leather gun belt more securely around his paunch. "That's right," said the third young man who she recognized as Bill Taylor. Eleanor had gone to school with his mother and knew she was bitterly disappointed in how her son had turned out, with his friends who were no doubt shiftless ne'er-do-wells. "I'm not accustomed to having my word doubted." "No insult intended in that question, Miz O'Neill." Pfeiffer touched the bill of his cap. "Getting some night air?" "That's right," she answered with less frost than her previous statement. He addressed the trio. "Where are you boys going?" "Just headed home," responded George. "Been drinking?" "Just a couple." "Buy it here?" Bill Taylor said, "You know we're underage and they won't sell to us. We just stopped in to get a pack of smokes." The nameless boy held out an unopened pack of Chesterfields as evidence. "My old man got us the beer," added George. "We were drinking at my place." "Who's heap is this?" The policeman gave the jalopy a kick, making the front bumper vibrate. "Mine," said Bill. "OK." Pfeiffer held out his left hand and for the first time, Eleanor realized his right had never left the butt of his .44. "Gimme." The Taylor youth produced his driver's license. The cop scanned it quickly. He got a flashlight and inspected the jalopy's safety sticker and the rear license plate to make sure it had a current tag. "OK, boys, Drift. I don't want to see this heap of rusty bolts and bald tires on the street tonight." Bill Taylor snapped up his license and the three climbed into the hotrod. He fired the engine to life, switched on the lights, and carefully backed away from the curb after looking for oncoming traffic. The car made the block, passed out of sight. "I apologize for my tone, Officer Pfeiffer." "No problem, Miz O'Neill." He touched his cap again. "Can I give you a lift home?" "No, thank you. It's still a nice night for a walk." She smiled at the policeman. "A word of advice? Next time, don't alibi a worthless piece of debris like that Walters boy. He's trouble. He's gonna wind up in Huntsville some day." "Maybe you're right. Goodnight, Sam." "Goodnight, Eleanor." As he drove away, he wondered why she never married. She was still a good looking woman, not yet dried up by spinsterhood. As she walked away, she wondered how Sam Pfeiffer was taking the loss of his wife. Gladys had been killed in January, hit by a freight train at an unguarded crossing. By the time Eleanor had walked the square, she had forgotten the incident. She paused to look at the lobby cards for the Texas Movie Palace and made a mental note that a musical was playing next week. Maybe Dinah Hamilton from school would like to go. That sort of movie was always more fun with a friend. She was still thinking about the movie when she reached the park. She was less than fifteen minutes from her bed when hands grabbed her arms. A third hand held her mouth to prevent her cry of surprise. Two more hands grabbed her flailing feet. She was lifted and carried across the park to the shrubbery that formed it's western boundary. One of her abductors stumbled once and she almost got free, but the other hands held her tightly. She knew who they were, of course. She recognized their voices as they cursed, carrying her kicking, struggling form. The trio from the Recreation Room. If only she'd accepted the policeman's offer she'd be safe at home. And Eleanor had no doubt what the teens intended as they reached the blackest of the darkness among the bushes and the overreaching trees, so dark that there was nothing but a pool of oblivion when they dropped her on the soft grass. The thump of her head against the ground knocked her senseless for a few precious seconds; when she should have screamed, she didn't take the opportunity "I want her first...I saw her first." It was the one named Walters who had whistled at her, grabbed her in front of the beer joint. "Go ahead, Lester. Get her warmed up for me an' Buzz." The hands were back on her. One boy pinned a shoulder to the ground and kept her mouth covered. Another held one leg. Lester Walters held the other leg while his free hand bunched her white summer dress up around her hips. His rough fingers rubbed her smooth thigh. While the Whole Town Slept Eleanor tried to fight. Her free hand tried to find the face, the eyes of the boy above her. She didn't even get close to scratching him when he let go of her leg and he slapped her.. One leg free, she tried to twist out from underneath her main attacker. His hip pinned her to the ground. The hand on her shoulder tightened. Helpless against the three strong males and with no way to find any leverage she had no chance of escape. Lester Walters reached down to her. He grabbed the waistband of her cotton panties and tore them free. He ripped them from under her and gave them to one of the other boys. "Put these in the bitch's mouth." The hand came away from her lips, replaced by the wadded up garment. Now two hands held her shoulders. Between her naked and splayed thighs, Walters was fumbling at his waist. Swearing under his breath as he tried to hurry. Finally his pants came loose. She felt his naked hairy thighs against her smoothness. Then the hard tip of his member at her most sacred place. Inside it, just a little. He was pushing frantically at her loins, propped up with one hand, the other holding his maleness. The tip nudged an inch inside her unwilling opening and he sensed the inevitable yielding of her untouched flesh. Eleanor bucked as he entered her, the tearing pain making her see stars. The jerk of her hips only served to seat him deeper inside and the pain made her twist in an escape attempt. The movement forced him deeper. He shoved his hips down. As the veins and cords on her neck stood out, as her belly tensed in a vain attempt to repulse the invader, as her thighs pulled together to bar his advance, Lester Walter entered fully the terrified teacher. She was dry except for the blood. A larger penis would have torn her deeply as it abraded the inside of her womb. As it was, she was fortunate that her rapist was no bigger. Or that he was inexperienced and had little stamina. In seconds, her rape, her first rape, was complete. His seed flooded her womb. The second teen, she wasn't sure who he was at the time, was between her legs, his pants already around his knees. He was larger than the first but Lester Walters' semen eased his entry. The lubricity of his violation saved Eleanor from further pain. `1 "Aw, fuck," he gasped and she recognized it was Bill Taylor who was mounting her. "The bitch is tight. Fucking tight!" "Hell, I know that," insisted Lester Walters, disappointed in his performance. He thought his first fuck should last longer and was determined to do better next time. "Let me show you how it's done," boasted the Taylor boy as he set a steady pace in and out of the violated teacher. The teacher tried not to think about his mother with whom she'd attended school, who was disappointed with her son and the boys with whom he associated. She tried not to think about the boy rutting effortlessly inside her. Tried not to think her own body. What was being done to it. Dear God, please let it end. Let me die now before anything else happens. "You ready to go to town, you stuck up bitch? You nose in the air fucking teacher! Always actin' like you was the queen of the hop, like you was better than any of us. Like being a teacher was special, especially a teacher named O'Neill." He spit in her face. Some of the saliva landed on her staring eye and burned there. Her tears slowly washed away the sputum and eased the burning sensation. What had she ever done to earn such animosity? Eleanor thought she was just doing her job, what she loved doing, teaching, the best way she could. She wasn't stuck up, was never better than anyone else. Nor could she help it that she was an O'Neill, the last of them, a family that people looked up to in the town. That wasn't her fault. That was no reason to punish her this way. As the pain eased in her middle and her eye, she found that she was becoming more and more aware of what was happening. The shame overwhelmed. Yet there was the feel of the soft grass against her bottom and when her second rapist lifted his body off of her with each stroke, there was a welcome coolness as the breeze found her exposed skin. She thought of Tennyson floating lovely as a cloud and tried to focus her mind on that image. Not the sweating cursing male above her. "She ain't fightin' no more." "You're fuckin' right, Buzz! I can feel her cunt loose now, fellas. She's starting to get with it." Young Taylor had fucked one of his little sister's friends and had once paid for a whore in Rawlings at the county fair. His experience, while not large, told him the teacher was changing. As Buzz had said, she wasn't fighting him. She wasn't helping him any, but the fight had gone out of here totally. The realization made him think he could please her, make her forget this was anything but a brutal rape. A typical teen male, he pumped harder and faster into her body when a more knowing man, a man who cared about a woman's pleasure, would have slowed. Teased. Created desire. Instead, his impulse had the opposite effect. She stiffened beneath him. At that point, he was beyond awareness. He continued to fuck her hard and fast and when he came, the teacher was numb to it. Bill Taylor pulled from her yielding body and grinned as he saw despite the darkness, that a heavy rope of his semen kept them connected. He grabbed her skirt and wiped himself dry. "Let me get in the saddle," said Buzz Burke. "Let me show you how to ride a filly." "Fuckin' cowboy shit," whispered Lester Walters. The darkness hurt her eyes like the sun. Eleanor shut them against the glare of the night.. Buzz knelt between her open thighs but was careful not to let his skin touch her. Instead he reached up and lightly stroked her cheek. Eleanor jerked her head away as if it were the touch of a snake's tongue. He didn't take that as rejection. Buzz repeated the contact. Left cheek. Right cheek. Left again. Finally, she didn't pull away, let him continue. It didn't matter any more. She was dying or already dead. His lips replaced his fingers on her cheek. She reacted at that bit of touching, a twitch rather than a flinch. He kissed her four or five times, alternating cheek to cheek, barely lingering touches. "C'mon man. I wanna see ya fuck the bitch so I can go again. I swear I'll last longer this time and rip her a new cunt, I'll fuck her so hard." "Shut the fuck up. You had your chance!" His tone changed as he told the teacher, "I ain't gonna hurt ya." He kissed the teacher again. This time it was longer and she felt the teen's exhalation. It felt cool to her fevered skin. He plucked her wadded up panties from her mouth. Freed of the blockage, she gulped air into her lungs. She continued to feel his breath as his lips touched her ear. The angle of her jaw. Hollow of her neck. She wasn't prepared for the passage of his lips against hers, though and when his lips trailed away, her head shifted slightly as if following him. Buzz returned his lips to her neck. Lips and tongue. Kiss and lick. Ear. Neck. Lips. Ear once more. Back to her lips. Touch of his tongue. Kiss. Kiss. Press of tongue. Kiss the ear. Lips. Another swipe of the tongue. Kiss. The lips lingered brief seconds. Returned. Flitted away, a teasing butterfly. Came back. Lingered. Felt her response. He had been sitting forward on his knees, bent over Eleanor. Now Buzz sat back, resting on the balls of his feet. The teacher opened her eyes. During her first two rapes, the moon had risen above the eastern horizon and climbed high enough to sprinkle bits of light among the shadows. She saw her tormenters above her. The two were naked from their waists down. Darkest shadows held the sight of their male members from her sight. The third teen - Buzz? - was between her bruised thighs wearing all his clothes and he didn't seem to threaten her at all. When her felt her gaze, he smiled at her. "I'm not going to hurt you." "Man, she deserves some hurt!" "I told you before, you had your chance." He leaned forward and repeated, "I'm not going to hurt you. I won't let them hurt you either." Had she the energy, Eleanor would have laughed. She should believe one of her rapists, one of the hateful trio who had taken her maidenhead, spoiled her, violated her? "Fuck you, Buzz." "Yeah go to hell." The teen between her thighs looked at the two of them. "You shitheads have a lot to learn." When he bent his lips towards her, Eleanor twisted away from his contact. He didn't let that deter him, however; he simply bent over more and followed her head till she could go no farther. His lips brushed her cheek. For a second, the teacher thought of her dead father. Buzz next sought her lips. Although she didn't receive him, she didn't shy away either. His lips withdrew. Returned. This time to linger. Eleanor felt the touch of his tongue. Her mind, if not her body recoiled. Then her lips parted as if he had worn down her resistance. She accepted his tongue. Received him. Without realizing it, caressed him with her own. She was tired. If God wouldn't let her die, couldn't He at least let her sleep so that when she awoke this night would be naught but a dream. A dream could not offend, after all. The teen let his tongue slip fractionally away. He felt hers follow. He advanced, teased, withdrew again, this time fully from her mouth and the teacher's tongue touched his lips. "Goddamn," whispered one of the others as in the freshening moonlight they saw the two, their friend and the teacher, kiss. The kiss lasted for what seemed like hours. In reality, it was many seconds, perhaps a minute. And when it ended, it was with reluctance on Eleanor's part. An unexpected reluctance. A shameful reluctance. To kiss one of her rapists. Yet he wasn't a rapist, was he? The other two, yes, but the third? She trembled as his lips trailed down her throat. She trembled more when his fingers traced the line taken by his lips. His hands parted, moved down her shoulders. His thumbs caught the straps of her light cotton summer dress. Slid the straps down. Off her shoulders, down her smoothly muscled upper arms. Lower. Pulled the bodice from her. Left her bare except for her brassiere. Then those straps too were pulled away. Bared her for the first time to male eyes. Skin like alabaster in the growing moonlight. Nipples so pale as to be nearly without any color at all. Small nipples like those of an older boy. Breasts soft yet no doubt firm. Round and set far apart on her chest. Eleanor lay there, her mind in a quandary as the teenaged boy looked at her; She should have felt some shame. She didn't, though. The rapists were forgotten, had ceased to exist. Until one of them laughed. Her hands came up over her breasts. She didn't see Buzz shake his head and the pair fade into the shadows and disappear. When the woman looked for them, the were gone. "Let me see," Buzz said, lifting her hands away, laying them at her side. He looked at the swell of her breasts. The young man touched her. He put his hands on her abdomen, slid them up to touch the base of her globes, and raised his hands to cup her. He massaged her gently. Let her firmness fill his hands. Felt the fullness of her previously untouched roundness. He lowered his head, Swiped his tongue over one of her pale nipple. Felt it stiffen. He hardened it. He made it erect till it seemed to fill his mouth although it was hardly that big. Then he turned his attention to its twin. He sucked it, slavered it with his saliva, kissed it, actually nibbled at her nipple, and felt it grow like the other had. Buzz sat back. He admired his handiwork, looking with lust at the taut caps of her breasts. He whispered, "You have beautiful tits. Wonderful tits. They're so sexy...Nell." Eleanor's breath caught in her chest. What? Had she heard him? Heard him correctly? Or was her mind playing tricks? "What did you say?" "I said your tits are sexy." "Did you call me...Nell? I - I didn't know you knew my name." She gazed intensely at his face. Only Byron had ever called her Nell. And he was older than her, would be in his middle forties almost. Certainly he wasn't this boy who had once sat in her classroom, bored no doubt by her lecture, wanting nothing more than for the bell to ring, to get out on the football field or the baseball diamond, probably waiting to meet some slattern his own age and find some dark corner where they could amuse themselves in wickedness and sinfulness. Had she really heard him call her Nell or was that a trick of her mind, driven to madness by her body's pain? And yet, he'd kissed her as Byron had kissed her. And she'd responded just a little in the same manner as she had with that boy thirty years in their sunlit hidden glade. "You have long legs, too." He reached behind his body and ran his fingers from the base of her calf up to her knee and the soft sensitive flesh behind it before touching her upper leg and the flare of her hip almost to her waist but avoiding the inner thigh. "Long and pretty legs, legs made for dancing in starlight." Nell had never danced a step in her life, although as a girl she sometimes dreamed of dancing, being the belle of the ball, Cinderella finding her Prince Charming and being carried off to the handsome vast palace on the mountain top above the squalid village. "What else?" He touched her other leg the same way as the first, only this time he danced his fingers inside her thigh. Grateful she was that he stopped before he reached her bruised and swollen sex. "They're long fucking" [She winced at the word.] "legs that make me go crazy. Shit, they make any man crazy. You oughtta show 'em off." "If that's all you know about me, then you know nothing at all." The young man touching her legs ignored her comment. The bitch was wrong. He knew everything about her he needed to know. "And these boobs? They make my mouth water." And Buzz proved that by pressing his drooling mouth to one of her nipples. He sucked gently at it. He sucked harder and slid his tongue around and over the hardened bud of her growing desire. "You like them?" "Any man would." Kisses and nibbles for her other nipple. "Soft, big firm, ready to fill the mouth of your lover." "I never thought about my breasts - my boobs that way." She'd never said the word before and her face flashed red in her shame. "You should. Any other woman would be proud of them. You should be proud of them too, Nell." "I'm just an old woman. Nobody cares about my bre-. Nobody cares about my boobs." "You're not old and you're wrong about your boobs. Absolutely one hundred percent wrong. I tell you, these are great tits." "Tits?" Nell whispered as he sucked her again. What was happening to her? What was Byron doing to her? He was drawing her tits inside himself, plying her with pleasure, making her forget the pain in her loins. Her ... tits felt so good. She'd never felt this good, never experienced these sensations. She felt like her ... her boobs were swelling to fill his mouth so he could feast on her flesh and give her even greater pleasure. She lifted her hands and held him to her breast. Pressed him closer. Let him feed on her tit. Let him send pleasure through her. Pleasure like she had never known. Pleasure that made her moan. Made her arch her back. Forcing her tit into his hungry mouth. Wanting to fill his mouth. "Oh, yes," gasped the panting woman. The teen recognized her reaction. She was ready for whatever he wanted. She would want it as badly as he. He sucked just hard enough to heighten her response and smiled to himself when she gasped again. He released her. "Please don't stop," Nell whispered. "I'm not going to stop. You can't believe what's waiting for you." The skin of her abdomen fluttered when he kissed her belly and she moaned loudly when his tongue found her navel, toyed with her oval indentation, sucked gently. Made her moan again. Then start with shock as his lips traveled lower. His tongue parted her tuft of unruly and wiry pubic hair. "Oh, please no, Byron!" What the hell? Buzz thought as he sought out her pussy. His question disappeared though when he caught the scent of her cum filled cunt. He found the spread lips of her slit and wanted to swipe his tongue over it. He fought back the impulse. Instinct told him she would be sore from the previous penetration so he didn't lick her. He blew his breath over her cunt instead. "Don't! It's nasty." "No it's beautiful. Sexy." She'd never considered her privates that way although she knew that some men, the baser sort of men, would find an attraction to that part of a certain sort of woman. Nell had never thought that anyone would speak that way about her, never imagined that any man would ever see her this way, never considered the pleasure a man could find in her, or the pleasure she could be given. Buzz retreated from her cunt and returned to her boobs. Nell felt a moment of regret as Byron left her privates, but was glad when he sucked her tits some more. "Um," she moaned as she guided him from one tit to the other. As her hips began to rise and fall. Nell felt an unwelcome emptiness in her loins. Unwelcome and unexpected. What was Byron doing to her? She had never, not ever felt this way before. Never wanted what she now desired. "Please..." "What, Nell?" "What you were, were doing before... Please?" "What? Kissing down...here?" Buzz trailed his fingers ever so lightly down her belly, stopping at the upper fringe of pubic hair. He pulled gently at the hair, felt her hips lift, and let her go. Her hips fell. When he tugged again, Nell lifted her hips higher. "Yes. Please?" "I will, but you need to ask me. I'm not going to do anything unless you ask me." "Kiss me... down there." "Where, Nell?" Teased the horny teenager. He wanted her to beg. It would be better for them both if she begged. "Between my thighs?" "You want me to kiss you between your thighs? Do you want me to kiss your cunt?" Aroused and ashamed at the same time, Nell did nothing more than nod. "You have to ask me, darling." "Kiss my, my c-cunt," she whispered. She repeated louder this time, "I want you to kiss my cunt." That's just what he did, to Nell's shame. The shame added fire to her excitement because it was so dirty. And her having to ask for it stoked the fire. Buzz licked her pussy. He started with the outer lips that had taken the first brutality of Lester's cock, soothing the abraded folds of flesh with his saliva. Occasionally, he felt the horny woman shudder as he hit her clit. He didn't do it often, wanting to let the excitement, then yearning build slowly. He was a patient young man and could wait before taking what he wanted. Candy was sweeter when a person had time to wait for it, imagine it's flavor, taste it in his mind before that first cautious sampling and then lingered over each bite, making it last, savoring it. Patience in a youth was unusual, not that Nell knew that. Buzz had years of experience working in his favor. He knew he could drive this middle aged woman crazy with desire. His tongue worked its insidious way into the inner folds of Nell's cunt, where she'd never been touched before tonight and she felt - she felt like the world was on f-fire and all the heat of the s-s-sun was burning in her loins, in her cunt and it was consuming her and she was going to die in the inferno unless she had some, some sort of release and her mind screamed out and her body shook and her thighs tightened around Byron's head, her hips pulsed up and down in rapid jerking movements. The moon swelled in her eyes and the sun in her cunt replaced it, burned her flesh, burned the whole world like an atomic blast that left nothing in its wake standing and her hands pulled at her boobs, pulled at her nipples and twisted them and her cunt overflowed with the heat that nestled inside and her mind screamed and screamed so that when she tried to stop screaming she couldn't and her hand pulled Byron's face to her c-cunt and she called out his name and pulled Byron tighter and her cunt exploded and she was silent at last and the fire died and the world and her body died with them... While the Whole Town Slept She was reborn with his lips on hers. She tasted for the first time her own sexual excitement and the disgusting filth left inside her by her two rapists and she wondered what the odd tastes and scents were. And tasted a drop of salty sweat as it ram down the tip of Byron's nose to meet his lips and her searching tongue. It reminded her of the seawater. She savored it. But Byron hadn't been there that time and her mind grew confused. Where was she? The confusion was replaced with a wave of pleasure as Byron teased her boobs and settled himself between her thighs. She felt his maleness at the entrance to her cunt. Nell realized what she wanted and knew exactly how to get it. She pulled her lips from her lover's mouth. "Fuck me." She felt no shame as she made her demand, didn't blush when she spoke the word she'd never said aloud or in secret silence. "Fuck my cunt with your cock." "I'll fuck you," Buzz laughed as he shifted his loins and held his cock at the entrance to her womb. "I'll fuck your cunt with my cock after you put my prick inside your pussy." Nell never hesitated. She took the hot pulsating shaft in her long cool fingers. Guided it to her cunt and let the head of his cock bathe in her flowing juices that washed away her virgin blood and the semen of the rapists. Pulled him forward and felt the flash of another orgasm as the head lodged between her cunt lips and her free hand grabbed his buttock and pulled him forward and her lungs emptied as her pussy filled with his cock and he was inside her, his entire length settled in her heated tunnel and they laid there, Buzz on top of her, Byron inside Nell's cunt. He started a slow easy fuck. Slowly so that she could feel every stroke and match his thrusts with the rise and dip of her hips and as their movements synchronized he increased the pace and she followed as if they were two racers, stride for stride, matching each other, giving at the same rate they received, fucking and getting fucked and Buzz felt himself caught up in her tightness and humidity and the strength of her pussy as it gripped him and although he tried to hold himself back, for all his effort he failed and he knew he was there and he couldn't stop and he surged inside her waiting, her wanting womb and his nuts spewed forth their elixir of life and his world went dark while hers exploded in a fireball that made the sun puny by comparison and she knew that though she was dying, she would live forever in this moment and her world, forever changed, would never be the same... Nell let him pull away from her at last. She didn't want Byron to leave her but instinct told her he needed to free himself from her embrace, if for no other reason than to breathe. So she let him go. And if he never returned to her, that would be OK, she thought as she dozed. She awoke with his hand on her belly, rubbing gently before teasing her cunt. "Darling, I can't take any more." She was altogether one crazy bitch, Buzz realized. So he said nothing. Nell turned on her hip so she could face him, bare breasted, bare belly, loins and legs and she was amazed how her long summer dress could occupy so little of her body, covering only just below her boobs (she savored the sound of the word as it silently rolled off her tongue; what a wonderfully descriptive word: B-O-O-O-O-B-S!) to several inches above her navel. All the rest of her was exposed to Byron and the moon and stars and the cool night breeze. Her fingers felt for him, found his cock. She was amazed at the stickiness that coated his cock. "You're such a mess." "Clean me, then." Nell pulled at the hem of her white cotton dress and started to wipe his cock clean. "Not that way." Buzz stopped her. He touched her cheek and slid his hand around her neck. He pulled slowly, using no more force than was necessary to situate her unresisting head close to his cock. "Like this." Nell felt his cock brush her lips. She opened her mouth, accepting his prick. She kissed it. She licked it. Nell was amazed that the taste didn't repulse her. She felt Byron's cock quiver under her lips and she knew she was giving him pleasure so she opened her mouth fully and sucked him inside as earlier she had sucked his tongue. Buzz let go of her head and let her suck. She wasn't very good at it, but for him, even a shitty blowjob was better than none. She was a lot better fuck. That was probably an instinctive thing. Even dogs knew how to fuck, but he'd never seen a canine bitch suck off a male dog. Despite her inexperience, Nell stiffened Byron's cock. As it grew in her mouth, for awhile, her efforts came easier. Soon, however, the cock was too big to fit comfortably in her mouth. She gagged. She drew away. She felt her lover's hands on the back of her head, holding her in place. She tried to twist away. His strength was too much and Nell failed to withdraw. She tried to gag again when he lifted his hips to force his cock deeply inside her mouth. Her struggles to reject his cock ended when she realized that she could do this. She relaxed and the gagging impulse eased. Nell let his cock enter her throat. Huffing air in and out through her nose became a matter of survival. Once she conquered that task, she found that she could still use her tongue on Byron's cock. She worked around the shaft. It grew in length and girth. She felt solidly plugged and the sensation was somewhat like a bad bout of constipation. She kept after it, though, and found she could relax her jaws a miniscule amount more. Eased the pressure. She took him deeper. Let him guide her head up and down. Her fingers massaged his muscular thighs. She felt his hands leave her head and Nell decided that she must be doing better. She was correct. As her mouth gained confidence, Buzz let her find her own way around his cock. Not that his hips quit moving. They still came up and down; he let her adjust to his movement, though. And with his hands free from the back of her head, he could tease her tits, ass, and cunt. He kept his hands moving, never lingering in any one location very long. He wanted to stimulate as much of her body as possible. Only once did his hands stop. When a finger probed her anus, the sucking woman had shied away and her mouth stopping playing with his cock. His finger persisted, easing inside the humid hole of her ass and she had to either accept it or move her body from her task. Nell stayed where she was. She tried to ignore the intrusion. As the digit move inside her, the pain became discomfort. That changed to pleasure. It was different than the pleasure his cock had given her cunt or was now giving her mouth. She accepted it gratefully. Slowly the idea came to her that if she liked a finger in her ass, maybe Byron would, too. One hand holding the base of his prick, she let her other hand go lower. She found the spot she wanted. She teased his ass first before slowly rotating her finger in a corkscrew motion. Buzz was startled by the intrusion. He never expected the middle aged woman would be so bold, would take the initiative this way. He was thinking about what else she would learn when a second finger joined her first one and he came in her mouth, a spurt that caught them both by surprise. Nell swallowed hungrily as the cock pulsed in her mouth. She knew she wasn't getting it all, that some of his semen was leaking past her tightened lips and matting his pubic hair. She had the happy thought she was making nearly as much of a mess as she had cleaned up and might have to repeat the process... Nell was considering that possibility as she rolled away from her lover. The pleasant idea disappeared though as she saw her two rapists standing just a few feet away. She yelped. She tried to cover her nudity as best she could until Byron told her it was OK. The pair meant her no harm. They forgave her for tempting them and they would prove that by letting her suck their cocks. She didn't understand, but if that's what Byron wanted, it must be OK. Nell went to her knees. The second rapist, she remembered the size of his cock if not his name, stepped forward. His cock, a jutting spear, pointed at her face. She took the cock in one long swallow. As she sucked the cock, her lover came up behind her. He toyed with her boobs. She felt his cock nudge at her back. She spread her knees and the cock slipped into her from behind. Byron fucked her as first one rapist and then the other splashed their maleness down her throat. Then her cunt was filled a fourth time. The once hard cocks pulled away from her and she fell forward. Eleanor didn't hear them leave. When she woke up, she was alone and the moon was directly over head. She got up on her feet unsteadily. She found her panties. They were torn, unbearable. She let the skirt of her dress fall over her naked hips. She looked for and failed to find her brassiere. She didn't know that one of the boys had taken it as a souvenir. The teacher pulled up the straps of her dress, realizing that was as far as she could go towards modesty. It took her many minutes to find her sandals. One wasn't far from the sidewalk she'd long ago walked. She had no idea of the time. The elevation of the moon told her it was after midnight. She walked slowly, because her loins were sore as was her jaw, her lips bruised. Eleanor was glad for the lateness of the hour, because the streets were empty. The houses were dark. Except for herself, it seemed as if the entire town was sleeping. Even Sam Pfeiffer was probably napping, parked in his patrol car behind city hall. At least Eleanor hoped he was. She walked in mortal fear that he would drive by and she would be seen by the officer. There was no way she could answer her questions without obvious lies. Her best story, she decided that she'd been unable to sleep and had decided a late night stroll would calm her nerves. How to explain her attire? It was obvious to anyone with eyes that she was naked under the cotton sundress and that it was dirty and grass stained. She felt thick liquid leaking from between her legs. With every step, the abrasion of her bare thighs made her aware of her, her cunt. Eleanor accepted the noun as easily as Nell had. And her nipples were pleasantly aroused by the cotton fabric as her tits jiggled. As her unconfined b-o-o-o-bs b-o-o-o-ounced under the bo-o-o-dice of her dress. Idly, she wondered if she would ever wear brassiere or panties again. A girdle was definitely impossible. There was a faint flicker of silver from the sitting room window when she reached the Widow Woman Prichard's rooming house. The once spinster lady felt under the second flower pot to the left of the door, found the brass key, let herself in quietly, and returned the key to its hiding place. Old Mrs. Abernathy, another widow woman, sat sleeping in an arm chair. The television set, sound turned down, showed a test pattern. It didn't matter if there was no sound or picture. The addled woman, who'd taught Eleanor in third grade and inspired her to be a teacher, couldn't hear, could barely see, and remembered little of what happened around her. And yet, Eleanor remembered, her mother often said that fifty years ago Judith Cromwell had been one of the prettiest women in Williford. Or in the county, for that matter. When she married Josiah Abernathy, son of the town banker, they were feted as the handsomest newlyweds in the state. Taking off her sandals, Eleanor crept upstairs. The clock beside her bed said the time was 1:17. She had been gone over four hours. Her room had an adjoining bath. She filled it with hot water and bubble bath. When she was finished soaking, it was going on two A.M. Naked, she slipped between the clean fresh sheets that smelled of sunshine and new mown hay. Her sleep was peopled with pleasant people who danced at her wedding and toasted the bride and groom, the handsomest couple in the state. And she dreamed of her honeymoon. The Monday afternoon paper had a front page story that caught her eye. THREE COUNTY YOUTHS DIE IN HOLD-UP ATTEMPT Paula MCComber Three Williford teens died after a botched hold-up attempt in Rawlings late Saturday afternoon. The robbery occurred at the County Line Package Store. The trio threatened the owner with a short barreled shotgun. The proprietor, James Snelling, told the county sheriff's office that after a previous robbery attempt last fall, he had kept himself armed. Before handing over the cash from his register, Mr. Snelling drew his .45 Colt automatic pistol and fired a single shot, striking the armed teen in the chest. The other two fled the store. Motorcycle Officer Jimmy Earl Damon heard the shot and sighted the fleeing pair of would-be robbers. He began pursuit while using his radio to alert other officers. Pursuit was rapid in developing as the felons' car proceeded down Farm to Market Road 701. At the intersection with County Road 51D, the driver lost control and crashed into a tree. Dead at the scene were the driver, William Taylor, 19 years old, and passenger, George "Buzz" Burke.18. Killed at the scene of the attempted robbery was Lester Walters, also 18. All three teens were described by Williford Chief of Police Thomas J. Doniphan as "juvenile delinquents" and had various run-ins with the law. They were suspected in the burglary of habitat in Williford im March of this year and also in the attack of an un-named minor female last April. James Snelling is expected to be no-billed for his shooting by a county grand jury, said county prosecutor Andrew Pickering, * * * Eleanor O'Neill recognized the name of George Burke as having been one of her students and William Taylor because of his mother. The other name meant nothing to her. * * * School started the Wednesday after Labor Day. Some of the other faculty members were surprised by the attitude presented by Eleanor. The teacher they had known for years seemed different. So did her mode of dress. Most of her co-workers thought the changes were an improvement. She seemed happier than in previous years and dressed more gaily. * * * A week after the start of school, Eleanor made an appointment to see Dr. Mallory. His father had delivered all the O'Neill children, seen to their colds and 'flu, broken bones and minor emergencies. The younger Malone was probably as good a doctor as any in the county and Eleanor knew he could be trusted. She took Judith Abernathy with her to the doctor's office for reasons that were totally unclear to the elderly woman. A nurse showed the two teachers, one retired, one still working, to an examination room and asked Eleanor to please undress. She left a gown for her to don. While the elderly woman dozed in a chair, Eleanor, fully clothed, perched up on the examination table. Dr. Malone entered with the same nurse and was surprised to see that his patient was still dressed. "The nurse may leave, doctor," Eleanor said. "My friend will safeguard medical propriety." He looked at the elderly woman still sleeping quietly in the straight backed chair. It was out of the ordinary, but Malone nodded to her nurse who left. Interest and curiosity were plain on his face. He was really quite handsome, Eleanor realized. He had his mother's Italian coloring, the dark hair and complexion, the bottomless eyes that revealed nothing. Eleanor O'Neill unbuttoned the back of her long dress, pulling it carefully over her head so as not to muss her hair, and hung it on the clothes tree by the door. She wore a cream colored slip. She took off this, too, and hung it with her dress. Naked save for her shoes, she hopped up on the table. "I think I'm going to have a baby..." And the examination confirmed her suspicion. Dr. Malone, knowing his patient's status in the community, as well as her marital status, asked if there was anyone she wanted him to speak with. Was there more anything he could do? Smiling Eleanor told him that there was nothing more. He recommended a OB/GYN and suggested an appointment as soon as possible. As she and Mrs. Abernathy rode away in a taxi cab, Eleanor decided that if it were a son, she would name him Byron Del O'Neill. A daughter, Shelley Nell O'Neill., after Lord Byron's friend. And as her riding companion slept beside her, she saw the cab driver glance in the mirror at her. Although she didn't remember his name, she had seen him march in the town's annual Veterans' Day parade and periodically at church, along with his homely wife and three red-headed and freckled children. He was, she reckoned, a good provider to his family, one of those staid citizens who were the backbone of Williford. Eleanor leaned forward and asked him if he would mind stopping at the Recreation Club. She handed him two dollars and would he mind going inside and buying her a six pack of beer? She was suddenly thirsty, Eleanor explained. What brand of beer, he asked. It didn't matter, whatever he preferred. After he returned to the taxi cab with his package, his passenger asked him to drive through Settlers' Park and that they were in no hurry. The driver nodded and glanced back at his passenger. She reached up and tweaked one of her nipples to prominence. His eyes got wide. He grinned and started to whistle tunelessly. Author's Note: When I was a girl growing up, my older brother (by five years), was reading a lot of science fiction. He got me interested in Ray Bradbury. Quite a change from Nancy Drew, of whom my mother approved as suitable for a young girl. Recently, while rummaging through an old bookstore, I ran across a copy of Stories for Late at Night. (ed: Alfred Hitchcock. Random House, 1961) It was the exact same book my brother had once checked out from the local library and it has a gem of a Bradbury story, "The Whole Town's Sleeping." It takes place in a dusty, ageless Illinois town and involves a serial killer of women and a "spinster lady." I decided that I could perhaps write a "Bradbury" story. I took the setting, moved it to Texas. My tale was originally going to be a ghost story. My female character was going to meet the spirit of her admired and long dead grandfather; he would fuck and impregnate her. The story took a wild detour, however, when I had my female lead sitting on the front porch as twilight deepened around her. Originally, I was going to describe a Packard or perhaps a DeSoto driving by, to deepen the atmosphere of small town Texas in the 1950s. For some reason, though, I decided to make the car a jalopy with three passengers. Gone was the idea of spiritual possession replaced by my trio of predators. Although I wonder how my original story would have turned out, I hope that this version has been worth reading.