Stirrups

by Torna McCutchins

  “Great house Flain Youngman. Conservative! Exactly what a simple man needs! Books up the wall and Rick James.”

  “We kept it tiny. Rita wasn’t much for display. Obviously I’m not either.”

  When he finally spun he wiped his hands on a towel and since he was facing me, threw his palms up and out to the side. This is exactly what he said: “mini-skirt. Really tight. Pretty tan legs. Red hair pulled north in a knot.” It was in a knot just in case he wanted me to immediately blow him. Which I was more than willing to do. My God, I’ve become a predator. “Concert tee. Let’s see. Counting Crows. Yep, I saw that one. Laney, you look gorgeous.”

  We met and embraced in the cool living room and he kissed me like a familiar. Like it was me that was coming home. Flain was warm and cheery and glad to have me there and by expression there was no reluctance. Rita had been his wife. I was the she “after” her. From inside his big hug he spoke to soothe me. Flain knew I was uncomfortable.

  “She would like you. Want me to be with you.”

  “Are you sure? I’m so damn young. You wouldn’t think she’d think…”

  “No Laney, none of that. Sweetheart you’re genuine. Of course the way that you’re dressed could cause me to stroke, so shortly I may join her.”

  “I guess I was trying too hard.”

  “You don’t have to try with me. And I’m glad you sexed it up. Staying separate from you for the last two weeks has been kind of difficult for me. Laney, I’ve missed you terribly.”

  We kissed. Flain turned off the noodles. He then asked “shall we go in the back?” I responded “I’d like that very much.”

  Flain led me to his bed and there was sunlight through the window. He didn’t darken the room. And Flain Youngman didn’t tear me to pieces. I thought he would, but it wasn’t like that. He sat me on the spread, pulled my tee-shirt off, reached around and unsnapped my bra. These items were gently distributed on a chair in the corner of the small room. They weren’t flung and maniacally scattered. Flain asked if I could leave my mini-skirt on so he could hold it while he was inside me. I responded that he could, then I unzipped his pants, and retrieved his enormous cock, eagerly filling my mouth. While he watched I sucked the head and swallowed to a depth that left both my hands around it. The thing was like the tail of a thresher shark. It seemed to rise against the forces of gravity.

  “Be careful dear. That pistol is loaded.”

  When I slid it from my mouth my eyes were streaming tears and the eye of his penis was staring. I swear the slit was an inch and a half.

  “Laney, I want to taste you. Tell me if the beard is too rough.”

  “I can already tell you it’s not.”

  I scooted back on my elbows as Flain did the work, rolling my skirt to my waist. My panties were removed by two delicate hands that I knew could break my bones. Somehow that made it even better. Yes, I’m still fucked up.

  “Flain. Hurry up. I want it.”

  “Soft and easy. Soft and easy.”

  He wouldn’t listen to me. Soothingly his tongue manipulated my pussy and where the flesh was most sensitive Flain went there and where it wasn’t he went there also, mixing both to satisfaction, some boiling me with orgasm, while still on others he simply felt good licking there. I didn’t see him undress, notice his nakedness, until Flain began climbing my body. Grabbing the top of my skirt he pulled me down to him and we were then in the missionary position. The one painted on the walls of caves and also branded on trucker’s mud flaps. His piston of a tool went inside me. In my ear he said with his breath leaking out “if it hurts you tell me so.”

  “Okay. Do what you do.”

  Flain Youngman made love to me. He gave enough of his sex to not break me open, but not so much that I wanted to be hit. And I ALWAYS wanted to be hit. It was patient and loving, kind and generous, slow in and slow back out, until I couldn’t come again. Then I felt him tense and rise.

  “Sweet Jesus,” I said. “Please do it.”

  And he did. Exploded inside me. Like his hydraulic hose had broken. In my ear he said “Laney, Laney McComb, I want this to drip from your body, until we have to replace it again.”

  That “again” was twenty minutes later. After that he fed me in bed.

  7.

  Great night with Flain. My vagina is sore. Even when he’s gentle having sex with the man is like being in a five car pile-up. It’s so big the thing challenges your limits. And my limits have been known to be extensive. I had to leave around daylight to go remove my tarps from the graves I excavated yesterday. I don’t like to be around when the family is there so I always come back afterwards. When they’ve gotten in their cars, gone to eat at their churches, or slowly driven home to weep. A lot of people in my business hang around on the periphery to prepare to lower and bury. Since I’m a one-woman business I park my truck, take my time, and respect the deceased and their families, by hiding until the graveside is over.

  As it so happens the last hole that I dug was twenty feet from Toby’s grave. The job was random, from the cellphone, not connected to a funeral home service. They left cash in the slot at my business. When I jumped from my truck to go roll up my cover I nodded at Toby’s grave.

  “Hey sugar. Sweetheart, I miss you.”

  As soon as my voice broke the silence of the place the wail rose to deafening proportions. A baby’s cry. A breathtaking scream. I pirouetted and searched the tombstones. Here I have to be honest. These places aren’t creepy to me. Not coming from a family that has owned a business where we dig inside them daily. I checked my sanity then looked at my phone. The scream grew louder and louder. I say “hello, hello, little baby,” before searching around me for people. Not a soul. Not a breeze blowing. “Little baby! Hey little baby!” The sound stops. I have to go to counseling. If there are voices in my head I need to work through that. Maybe I’ve been drinking too much?

  “Lord. I need some self-help. Maybe get Flain to suggest a psychiatrist…”

  The scream starts again, louder this time, and I mean the child is upset. I call Flain and when he answers he says “hello. Can we talk quick? I’ve got an emergency…Laney, did you purchase an infant?”

  “You hear that?”

  “Of course. Who wouldn’t? You couldn’t have already birthed our first child. I inseminated you just last night and that’s less than thirteen hours.”

  “I’m at the graveyard. Toby’s graveyard. It’s the thing with the weird cash deposit. Apparently it includes an infant.”

  “Let me stop by the clinic, check this mom’s blood pressure, and then I’ll be on my way.”

  “Okay, I’ll search for the baby.”

  Maybe Flain’s fucking nuts and I’m fucking nuts and when he arrives we’ll be nuts together? Again I yell “little baby! Hey little baby!” and in return I get a bloody scream. You know the kind. When they’re so upset they lose their wind and turn really red and glow. “Hey child! Lead me to you!” I walk around Toby’s grave, search into the woods then reverse and say “oh shit!”

  When I rip the tarp off the child is looking at me from a basket in the bottom of the grave. I don’t know what to feel? Anguish? Fear? Anger? Sorrow? There’s a myriad of fucking emotions. I jump in and squat, lift the child up, and place the infant on the side of the grave. This, I have never experienced.

  “I don’t know what to say?”

  The baby looks at me and me at the baby and then it giggles and smiles and coos. It seems to be alright now that it can see me and since I’ve heard too many horror stories, I wonder if I should touch it. The police might need DNA to pinpoint the person who has left it.

  “Let’s get you into the shade.”

  I take the baby in the basket to the front of the church and we sit on the steps and stare. There’s a bottle of formula marked “ten ounces” in the basket right beside it. The child is wrapped in a light blue blanket and its feet are sticking out the front. It has green eyes and dark black hair and I guess, suppose, it’s a girl.
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  “Flain or the police? Who to call? Why the hell am I so fucking calm?” The baby is grinning at me. “I hear you making rooty-toot-toots. Someone must’ve fed you and left. Listen, I don’t want you to have to sit there in your poop. But if I decide to call the police and not wait on good Dr. Youngman, they’ll be all kinds of swabs and tests…” and then I notice the depth of the basket. There’s supplies under there in abundance.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit.”

  To the infant I am hilarious. We do a little back and forth. I make weird ass faces and the child sours up, making a face of its own. After that I do a dance and since the child seems entertained I continue my presentation. Eventually Flain arrives. He remains in his seat, watching me dance for a basket, before he debouches from his truck. Striding over he makes no remark. I’m guessing he’s seen this before. He told me in bed last night that “most motherfuckers, the overwhelming majority, need an IQ test to have a baby. It should be mandatory.” I responded that there were “certain civil liberties” and that might be “dangerous territory.” He said “smart. You’re a sharp lady. You need to stay in school. Maybe go in that direction. Protecting people from themselves. Often, in time, they learn.”

  Now look what the fuck has happened? Dr. Flain Youngman explains it.

  “You found this baby in the grave you dug. It was fed and bundled and has just been left because they knew you were coming to the site.”

  The man is emotionless, knows the routine, like it’s a daily occurrence for him. Not necessarily in this exact form, but in some twisted way.

  “Can we touch it?”

  “Let me do it. If there’s a problem, they won’t fuck with me. Although, there’s already a problem.”

  He lifted the child and with a cursory glance said “female, approximately six months. Twenty-two pounds and healthy. I don’t know, maybe thirty inches.”

  “All that from holding the child like a dumbbell?”

  “All that from being there when they arrive with me standing between their mother’s legs. Or extracting their bodies from a cesarean. Toss the basket. See what’s in there. We have to decide what to do.”

  I reach into the basket, pull the wad out, and amongst the formula and infant wares is a note safety pinned to the bottom. The envelope reads Laney McComb. If found give to Laney McComb.

  Turning back to Flain he’s feeding the child like a midwife who’s birthed a thousand. I look at him and he looks at me, saying “I’m surmising from the photos you’ve showed me and the child I’m currently feeding, that there’s a phenotype and also a genotype here, and then I’m going to stop with that type of language and let you read her note.”

  “How do you know the note’s from a woman?”

  “Read it dear. I’ve got the infant.”

  Dear Laney,

  I know who you are because he talked about you. I guess you’d say I’m the other woman. When my husband discovered I was pregnant again even after his vasectomy, he was suspicious and then this one was born. She is her daddy’s twin. Toby Fume helped me change a tire on the road when my husband wouldn’t answer his cell phone. I know for sure that he fucks around so I thought I would try it myself. The first time I did it we weren’t really cautious and the result is in this basket. After that I met Toby in a hotel room one other time for sex. He felt guilty, spoke often of you, though I couldn’t really say much about my husband. There’s been so many women on the side for him that I have nothing to say. He’s a bastard. A first rate prick. He said if I didn’t do something with this baby that he’d file a suit against me and take my other three kids. I don’t know if he can even do that. But I do know she’s perfectly healthy. I’m having an acquaintance of mine deliver the child to your business. I told him to find where you were and leave it in a really safe spot. I hope he did right by me. He’s a man, and not that sharp. Her name is Ney and she’s completely off the grid. I birthed her in an Econo Lodge. All by myself and I can tell you now, I do not recommend that. I haven’t been right since. You can do with her whatever you want, though I know for sure from Toby’s talk, that you will take care of her. I’m sorry for being like I was. Both times Toby was uncomfortable. I brought it to him and he took it. For that we’re both guilty. My name is of no importance.

  Sincerely, no one special

  Devastated. Shock doesn’t do it. Won’t suffice. No, not here. I look to Toby’s grave around the corner of the church and the sadness and deceit weighs like lead in my veins and Flain is there to listen. What he says is what I just read.

  “This is Toby’s baby from some woman you don’t know and she wasn’t born in a hospital. They kept her for a while until some outside source, most likely a really shitty husband, or the father of the mother of the child, demanded she dump the child off. She then hired a fucking idiot to find where you’d be and he, definitely not she, completely fucked that up. Though thankfully you came here. I guess God doesn’t hate her. And he must be fond of you.”

  “I am crushed and suddenly exhausted. It was her husband that threw the baby out. Everything else you said is correct. Down to the very last word.”

  “I’ve seen this a dozen times. Could be more. Don’t really know. I was happy. Now I’m really tired.”

  “What do we do?”

  Anyone, not Flain Youngman, would’ve led me through the chain of custody. Taken an innocent just like myself on a verbal trip through the system. Pointed out its positives, its abundance of negatives, and explained the cracks and fissures, of how and when children slip through. But not Flain. He’s fucking crazy. Something dark weighs the man down. Could be what attracts me to him. But there’s just as much light there to see.

  “Look Laney. I’ve got an edge here. I’m going to respond inappropriately. I often do that in exam rooms. I’ve been written up fifty-two times. My bluntness keeps me in trouble. Part of the reason I have to work the clinics.”

  “Speak openly. You have my attention.”

  “We have a free baby here.”

  “What? What about registration? Shots? Doctor’s visits? School?”

  “There are ways to ease onto the grid. You don’t have to jump right on. Be part of the system right away. Hundred dollar bills fucking speak.”

  He was burping the baby, then asked “is there cereal?” and I responded “like, Raisin Bran?”

  “You’re perfect. You don’t know shit. Come to the truck. We got diaper duty.”

  I looked at Toby’s grave again. The man’s not coming back. There he lies with his secret intact.

  8.

  “Flain, are you sure you want to leave this child with the Dorman’s?”

  “Yes, they live close to me. I can walk to their house in the holler. I know they’re inbred and toothless and have sex with each other, but for money they’ll keep their mouths shut. Not a one has a cell phone or gives a shit about the internet and they are, except for welfare checks and the making of booze, definitely off the grid.”

  “Those are positives?”

  “For a thousand bucks they’ll watch this child as if it were a holy relic. Trust me. They’re simple people. Mama Dorman doesn’t permit her kids to go to school but she doesn’t let them lay around. Her house is run in an orderly manner. Yes, poor, yes, strange, and without any available niceties, but I can tell you this for certain. No one is coming to visit. They’ll be no rumor of Ney drifting from there. I know for a fact that the last poor bastard that went into that holler to arrest one, started a blood feud, that to this day, has never been settled or decided. Her fourth or fifth child, hell I don’t know, was putting a roof on the house of a lady in Remount and her husband came home drunk. Started beating her for hiring Tommy. Tommy Dorman jumped off the roof and threw him through a window by his neck. He then asked the woman if he could finish or was he fired when her husband woke up. He finished, was tipped and left.”

  “This is supposed to make me feel better?”

  “The Dorman’s are our best option. We have to make a
decision. It will only be temporary.”

  “Ok. The Dorman’s it is.”

  We drove in his truck down into the holler to the ramshackle old house of the Dorman’s. Children flooded into the yard. Flain had sutured and dosed and defevered and soothed about ninety percent of the family. Ney was between us cooing in the basket. When she heard the children screaming she gurgled and laughed, before one, then another, eventually all, leapt into the back of his truck for a ride of about forty feet.

  “Eet’s the doctor! Dr. Young-man is here!”

  In the yard an older male was wringing a chicken’s neck. His arms were muscled and his hands so butchered they appeared to be paws like a lion. I knew most of these people, though I’d never worked for them, because they tended to bury their own. They reminded me of the family in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying multiplied by three or four. There were bedrolls on the roof and plastic tents in the yard and an old hand cranked well. Several cords of wood sat neatly stacked by the house and their chimney was puffing smoke. Astonishingly the place was spotless. Rustic, poor, impoverished, yes, but weirdly sterile like a Reynolds’ painting. The kids were dirty but it wouldn’t last long. There was a huge pile of pig soap stacked in a tub and I knew that it removed skin. Bathed daily they were, whether they liked it or not, which made me feel better for the moment.

  “There’s Mama Dorman,” I said.

  The matriarch. The queen. Mama Dorman of legend. Born sometime back in the 30’s. She’d survived eight husbands, all of them killed, some by accident, while others were not. She had a sister in Remount and her mother was still alive, but she refused to visit her children. The woman was a hundred, retired in Florida, and chain smoked three packs every day. You could not kill the Dorman’s. “Natural causes” couldn’t. They were essentially pieces of granite.