Coconut Grove, near some hammock. He explained a hammock was a little island or a bunch of trees, or something. It was a small white fishing boat with two big black motors on the back. In the front, there was a neat little cabin you could crawl down into with two V-shaped bunks. Between them was a porta-potty thing.
“George motored way back into the mangroves. The fishing would be better where it was private with no other boats to disturb the fish, that’s what he said. I was lost from the start. I’d no idea where we were and didn’t care. Big George was responsible for me. He’d take care of me. The day started off great. We had a little cove all to ourselves. I’ll never forget jumping off that boat into the water. I swam a little and mainly worked on my tan. He tried to fish but didn’t seem much interested in it. When it started to get dark, we were going to come back. Then the engines wouldn’t start.
“George said not to worry. If he couldn’t get them running, we could sleep on the boat and he’d find help in the morning. Fantastic, I thought, sleeping out there overnight would be totally cool.”
I frowned at Betty Jo. I didn’t like how the George story was progressing. Of course, he’d been watching and drooling over her all day. I didn’t want to hear about him getting his beefy hands on trapped little Betty Jo. As if I was saving her for myself, but I knew that was crazy. But if I were George, I wouldn’t have touched her. “So, you’re alone with George out in the middle of nowhere. It’s getting dark. He pulls the old run out of gas trick, huh?”
“He never said out of gas, just something or other wrong. The engines or the motors whatever they call them. I was secretly hoping he couldn’t fix it and we’d have to stay out there another day. But it was simply a loose wire or something. He fiddled around and after awhile he got them running.
“George drove so fast coming back home I thought he’d get a ticket. It was late and Momma was furious. She took me into the kitchen and started grilling me about everything that happened that day. I kept telling her everything was cool. I had behaved and he never had to yell at me. She still looked plenty nervous.
“Momma started in on him. As far as she was concerned, everything went wrong that day. For starters, he knew damn well she had to work and couldn’t go with him. Plus, she thought he was taking me to the beach, or for a boat ride or something. She didn’t like him taking me down to some distant county and bringing me back after dark. He said he was sorry. I knew he was eager to go in the bedroom. That’s why he had raced back. No way, George. She sent me to my room and I could hear her yelling at him. She was telling him no, for the first time. Momma told him to get out. I’d never seen her so upset. Eventually though, all was forgiven and it was back to normal.”
“George sounds like a taker to me, Betty Jo.”
“I talked about him with Momma once. I pointed out he never took her anywhere, never gave her anything, never even did any favors for her. He’s a contractor, for chrissake. Let him fix up this place. He’s getting plenty of you-know-what. She said she wasn’t going to trade sex for anything. ‘I’m not an attractive woman.’ I said, Yes you are Momma! She said, ‘Well, I’m not spectacular like you are, Betty Jo, and that man keeps coming back.’ Didn’t sound very assertive. Maybe she was just being realistic. Bottom line, Momma loved the arrangement.
“She was using him, she told me. It’s companionship, someone to drink and laugh with, someone to look nice for, and something to look forward to. Someday I’d understand what was going on. It was perfect, he didn’t ask for anything else from her. Lets himself out in the middle of night. She didn’t have to look at him in the morning, or have him see her. No washing his clothes or cleaning up after him. He’s kind to her and they have nothing to argue about.
“I said he’s rich and we’re poor. Have him come across with a little help sometimes. You can bet he’d come up with something to keep the deal humming. I was already fourteen and thought she was stupid.
“Watching those two during those years, I learned a lot about sex. No, not about doing it, but the effect it had on people. The contortions they put themselves through to find it and keep it. At school, I could just
“That’s quite a story.” I hoped that was the end of hearing about George. “So you just went your merry way, grew up, and eventually left home?”
“You really got into this, didn’t you Freddy? Kind of fun telling it to you and watching you. Actually, there is a big punch line. Eventually, we saw George less and less, every month or so at most. I think Momma was beginning to like not having him there so much. By that time, I was seventeen. I’d graduated and was Assistant Manager at the Dollar Store. Still lived at home. Still going steady with Jimmie. He was taller by then and was a way cool guy.
“Momma saw George maybe once that year. At that time, he reminded me he was going to take me out on my eighteenth birthday and we’d have some fun. I already had that planted in my mind, but figured he had forgotten about it. I had some money then and as my birthday got closer I bought my first suit, you know a skirt and short jacket. The woman at Penney’s said it was the very latest. Cost me two weeks pay. Everyone said I appeared older anyway I was so tall. I tell you, that suit turned me into an adult. I paid to have my hair styled and put up, which I had never done before. Looking like that, I could have gone into any bar in Lauderdale and not been carded. I hoped George would like it.
“The morning of my birthday, I waited. Hadn’t slept much. I crossed my fingers and hoped George would remember. At that moment, the heavens opened and the phone rang. I was too nervous to answer. Momma handed me the phone. George would pick me up at noon. Awesome! When he saw me, I’d knock his eyes out.
“He picked me up but was kind of quiet. Not one word about my suit or hair. I was excited and dying to know what he had in store for me. He wouldn’t say. We drove right up to that huge front entrance to the Beachside Plaza Hotel. You know the place? I’ll never forget it. A boy my age in a cute little orange jacket opened the car door for me, which was cool except I didn’t know what he wanted at first. George and I just walked off and left the car sitting there in the driveway.
“Another guy in an orange jacket opened the tall front door for us and we went in this large round lobby. So large you could have played football in there. Huge columns that went up high to something like a dome. The floor was like polished black stone. I thought, don’t slip, Betty Jo. But heels were no problem for me. And I knew how to put on a slight strut. We walked across to the elevators. George told me the place was famous for their dining room. I could picture myself looking good in that dining room with my new suit. I’d be nervous ordering off a menu. George would make it all go smooth...wait a minute. An elevator? ‘George, why are we coming up here?’
“He unlocked the door to the room. Was the surprise in there? I glanced around. Pretty classy. Had its own microwave, a bar, and everything.
“As soon as George closed the door, he told me to take off all my clothes.
“Just like that. George! What are you doing? I looked down at my new suit and up at him. I didn’t understand. Was he going to surprise me with a bunch of new clothes? Did he want me to change here in the room so we could go out?
“He wasn’t exactly demanding. He just stood there and in a normal voice told me to get undressed. He was a big man. But he wasn’t blocking the door. He wasn’t threatening me. I was confused. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This didn’t make any sense. He wasn’t supposed to do this. Adult men weren’t supposed to tell girls to take off all their clothes. Why weren’t alarms going off in his head saying he shouldn’t do this?
“Again, he said take everything off. For chrissake, George! We stared at each other for a minute. I could see he was nervous. I’d never seen him like that and that made me even more nervous. I went ahead and took off my new suit. I stopped. He flipped his hand meaning everything. I took it all off. He smiled slightly and gawked for a long moment checking me out. I folded my arms across my chest and stood there feeling silly. I certainly didn’t want him looking at me. He kicked my suit over into a corner. My new suit!
“I told him I didn’t want to do anything. Is that the same as saying no? I told him I wanted out of there. He said the door was unlocked. I could leave if I wanted. I thought I was acting grownup by not yelling and screaming.
“I was eighteen that day for chrissake, so I had fooled around some, but the serious stuff I’d done just with Jimmie. We’d watched porn flicks together and tried some stuff. So I wasn’t some naive maiden about to be initiated into dark unspeakable sexual rites. I knew what was going to happen if I stayed.
“What I didn’t realize was the rules for men had changed last night while I was sleeping. Like most teens, there were certain passages I looked forward to. The age I could get my driver’s license. The age when I could legally drink. I never thought much about the age when the sex rules change. In Florida, the age of consent is eighteen.
