course; it was the body she had to live in… and with, until the day she died.
She reflected on her past life. Her real problems had begun the year her folks had moved from Michigan to California, settling in Redfern. It had been her senior year of high school, and she had become, almost immediately, the most popular girl in her class. She had dated several boys, but she fell in love, hopelessly, with a handsome young man who was a sophomore at Redfern College.
It had been her beautiful face and figure that had attracted him. She was flattered by the attentions of an older man, a college man. Sex had followed, naturally, it seemed… and also, quite naturally, pregnancy.
But, when she knew for sure, nature having taken its inexorable course, a period missed, she received the news that he had been killed by Chinese Communist troops in the bitter fighting around Chosin Reservoir in North Korea. He had enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps, but before he was airlifted off to the war he had left her a living memory.
Gabriel Scott, one of the boys in her senior class, she had dated, agreed to marry her… after she had seduced him, and then told him the child she was carrying was his.
If Scotty had ever suspected that Charity was not his own daughter, she did not know of it. He had said nothing, and she was sure that he accepted her explanation of premature birth when her beautiful auburn-haired daughter was born only seven and a half months after their hasty marriage. The secret of Charity's paternity was locked in her heart. She had vowed never to reveal to any one the name of the man who had fathered her love- child. She had kept that vow, made to herself, more than eighteen years ago.
She had to smile, ruefully, to herself, as she realized that her life's review sounded like an unlikely plot from a confession type magazine. But… damn it… that's the way it is! That's why I'm so concerned about Charity… she's a real young woman now… cursed with beauty, too… and she could go off the deep end over some boy… and repeat the same story! I shouldn't worry, I guess… or suspect her of doing something she shouldn't! If there was only some way… I–I could help her… tell her of the pitfalls without letting her know that I've already been down the road and got my lumps… fallen into all the traps! Oh, God! I want her to have a good life!
Donnie, her second child, had, of course, been fathered by Gabe, and she remembered how proud he was when their second born had been a boy. Just like most men!
She had never fully understood, though, how it was that her husband had lost their citrus acreage and the house. Certain aspects of business escaped her.
The one thing that had been very clear to her was that after they had moved into town, into the present ramshackle rented house, Scotty had not been able to keep a job for more than a few months. His drinking became chronic, and with his seeming deterioration, his inability to support them, she saw that it was up to her to be the provider.
Work in cocktail lounges had led her to part-time prostitution. Remembering, now, she would have gladly applied to the Welfare Department for assistance… rather than follow the course she had followed, but a false sense of pride kept her from asking for help; instead, she had fallen for the story of easy money that had been told her by another waitress with whom she worked. Yes… it was true. She did pick up some extra money that way… money that provided a few of the things the family really needed plus some extras.
… But I was able to keep the family going… and still, somehow, raise two fine children. Gabe and I don't have much left of our love… and our marriage… and now that he's probably found out what I've been doing, he'll probably leave me… want a divorce… maybe even want to take the children away from me! Dear God! I'd die if they found out… and I lost them, too!
Her morbid thoughts grew and multiplied. They seemed to be suffocating her, making it impossible for her to think clearly, and she could see no solutions, no compromises to work out. Damn! Everything's in such a mess! There's just no way out! I don't know what I can say to Gabe in the morning… when I bail him out of jail… and Charity? God… how I wish I knew… whether she heard or saw what that vile man did… what I allowed him to do to me…! But, oh God! There is some truth to what he said… a-a wh-whore's paid to do those things… however lewd or obscene they are! But, it's still hard for me to think of myself that way!
The thought about Charity prompted her to open the connecting door from the bathroom to her daughter's bedroom to take a quick peek at her loveliness as she slept. Pushing the door open a crack, she peered through. Charity was not in her bed!
Oh, God! She's not there! Where could she be? Where would she go? Could she have slipped out… t-to… to meet a boy… and.
A vision… a memory of what she, herself, had done, so many years before, flashed across her mind. She was stunned. Was it possible? Charity… her own lovely daughter… lying with a boy, somewhere… making love… copulating, a male cock in her virginal young cunt, because she believed in the same romantic notions of undying love… and all the other crap that went along with it? Dear God! Don't! Oh, don't let it be that way for her!
Quickly, she wrapped her towel about her naked body and padded into her daughter's room. The other door, leading into the dining room was open, slightly, and she went through it into the dining room. Then, on impulse, she glided on through the darkened kitchen to the back door that gave on to the back porch and Donnie's bedroom. She had heard him arrive on his motorcycle, but something in her made her want to check on him, make certain that he was safely in his bed.
A dim crack of light shone through, at the bottom of his door making a small beacon to guide her footsteps. She stopped, ready to turn back, convinced that he was, indeed in his room, but a sound behind the closed door arrested her attention. It was the voice of a girl… a girl experiencing the passion of sex. It was Charity's voice. Oh, no… God! No! No! Noooooooooo! She screamed in silence to herself at the possibility of the monstrous thing that could be happening in her own son's bedroom. Donnie… and Ch-Charity… Together? In bed? Oh, God, no!
Dottie was stricken, rooted to the spot, and almost as if to prove her wrong, she heard her daughter's voice, clearly, 'Don… oh, Don… it's starting to feel… so g-good! I–I don't want you to stop!'
A flashing mind-picture of the forbidden sex act taking place in Donnie's room further stunned her. All she could think of, at that moment, was that they had to be stopped… if it were not too late!
She raised both fists to knock on the door, her mouth opening to shout out her objections, but she stopped short. Her impetuous action, her searing words were halted, as yet another lightning thought came to her, the memory of her own depraved actions of but a little while before, an act that could have been heard and seen by her daughter, burned into her, reminding her that she, of all people, had no earthly right to condemn… to sit in judgment or hang a label. Slowly, her arms dropped down to her sides and she stood there in abject shame, while inside, she heard the rustle of the bed as her son and daughter writhed upon it in uncontrollable sexual ecstasy.
Tears formed in her eyes and ran in unnoticed rivulets down her cheeks. Donnie's voice, now: 'Damn, Sis… you've got the sweetest, tightest little cunt I've ever seen!'
Dear God! This isn't the first time for Donnie! He's so young! It doesn't seem possible that he could have had sex relations already!
'Oooooh! Don! Don! Donnie!'
Charity's voice was so full of rapturous passion, a passion that Dottie, herself, knew well… and she couldn't bear to hear any more. She fled. Blinded by her tears and hampered by the darkness, she made her stumbling way back to her own bedroom and sat down, heavily, on the edge of her bed.
Suddenly, she felt old… drained. All of the cares of the world, of mankind, it seemed, rested square on her shoulders. She didn't know how she could bear that heavy burden. The one overriding thought in her mind was that she had failed… failed as a wife, a mother… perhaps even, as a human being. It was too complicated to sort out all of the reasons why she felt that way. Life itself was too much. She couldn't cope with it. Life had defeated her!
Disconsolately, she looked around the shabby room with its faded, peeling wallpaper and flaking paint, contrasting it, in her mind, with the home she and Gabe had lived in, when they were first married and, by extension, comparing it, again, to her parents' home. There was, of course, no comparison, and she hated what she saw; hated it with a passion, for the tumble-down old house only served to re-enforce her own feelings of spiritual and moral decay, not to mention those of her husband… and now… of her children.
Her eyes came to rest on Gabe's pistol that she had placed on the dresser, for protection, in the event the salesman came back, again. Suddenly, she saw the gun in a different light. She saw it as a solution! That was it! Of course, it would be so easy!
Falteringly, she reached out and picked up the weapon. She ran her hand over its cold, blue length. Strange! she thought, It's like a cock… a man's hard cock… loaded with death… instead of life! All these years… it's been my
