by Gregory Kay
Dresses swirling, breasts bobbing, pale legs flashing, and bare feet whispering across the plank floor, their movements were so fast his eye couldn't quite follow them, but at the same time so deft and graceful as to be simply perfect, despite each of them having her own subtle but unique style that seemed to fit their personalities to a tee. Elizabeth was so sultry she seemed to glow like a barely-dampened fire, while Katie, the youngest, was mischievous, almost playful in a sexy cat-on-the-verge-of-heat way. Susie though...
Everything Susie did, at least as far as Jake was concerned, every move she made, every brush of her sole, every twitch of her hips, every flick of her hair or sparkle of her eye was meant for him and him alone; he knew it, deep inside, and a part of him was sure she was the one who'd called to him and brought him here, even if he didn't know how. It was all for him. He suspected he might have had just a little too much to drink, or more likely a lot too much, because the effect was hypnotic and a little overwhelming.
Suddenly she had him by both hands.
“Come on, Jake! Dance with me!”
Like most boys he knew, Jake hated to dance, but suddenly he was on his feet just the same. Susie released one hand but held onto the other, and they were clogging side by side before he realized what had happened.
“How about you, big boy?” he heard Elizabeth saying to Joe Bob, the challenge as plain in her eyes as in her voice, “You light on your feet?”
“Hell yeah!” he responded. Challenge accepted, he pushed himself off the bench with his hands before lurching toward her on his unsteady feet. He was drunker than he thought, and might have fallen on his face if she hadn't been there to take his hands.
Katie grinned broadly and reached out to Scott, but he blushed, looked down, and shook his head.
“Ah, I'd better not.”
“Come on, get your ass out here!” Joe Bob hollered, his voice loud from the liquor.
Jake followed with, “Yeah, Scott, don't be so doggoned rude! I don't reckon she's going to bite you!”
Katie's grin grew even broader.
“Oh, you never know!” Flicking the pointed tip of her tongue across her pearly-white teeth, she giggled and told him, “I just might!”
Joe Bob sneered at him.
“He's chicken-shit! He's afraid of Becky! Bwak-bwak-bwak!”
“Now you leave him be!” Katie snapped at the chicken noises, then turned back to Scott and took him by the hands. “You come on out here with me, Scotty, and I'll bet I can make you forget all about that mean ol' Becky!”
Scott shot a glance at Jake, looking for help or support, only to find him staring at him with...pity! By God, he feels sorry for me!
That brought to mind just what he had done with Becky recently, and just what she had done with him, and with who knew who else.
And the way she's treated me: like a damned dog! She made me her bitch! Then it hit him, and fired by the moonshine as he was, it hit him hard. She's the bitch, not me! Not anymore!
Suddenly bouncing to his feet like he had been goosed with a hot poker, he bumped the first jar, now empty, and it fell to the floor in front of the bench unnoticed, rocking back and forth on its side. Returning the girl's grin with a fierce intensity neither Jake nor Joe Bob could ever remember seeing, he staggered a little and shouted, “To hell with Becky! Let's party!”
Both his friends instantly went from jeering to cheering him, Mr. Jenkins laughed and shouted, “That's the ticket, boy!” and Katie squealed with delight and, with no warning, grabbed him by both sides of the face and kissed him hard on the mouth.
“There,” she said, “that wasn't so bad, was it?”
“No, that wasn't bad at all!” And it wasn't bad, he realized; suddenly everybody was proud of him, even Joe Bob who paused long enough to slap him on the shoulder in congratulations. Besides, Katie's lips were soft and warm, and her mouth was sweeter than anything he'd ever tasted.
Elizabeth whispered to Joe Bob, “I'm glad you're not like your friend there; I never took to shy boys.”
“Oh, I'm the shyest one of us.”
Giving his grin a knowing look full of meaning before letting her eyes move down his face and then his body, sliding over his shirt buttons like a trailing finger before coming to rest on the obviously growing bulge in his crotch, she observed, “I don't think you've got a shy bone in your body; at least there ain't nothing shy about that one down there.”
“Could say the same about you, I reckon; ain't nothing shy here.”
“Does that bother you?”
“No,” he told her with a shake of his head, even as their feet kept the rhythm, “I like that; it's honest. It makes life simple; no games.”
“I don't know about that, Joe Bob; games can be fun...if they're the right kind of games.” If there was any chance at all of mistaking the meaning in her voice, the way her tongue licked out and moistened her lips left no room for doubt, and Joe Bob's pants suddenly felt a good bit tighter.
“Now that you young'uns know each other a little better,” Jenkins suddenly called out, accompanying his words with a broad wink, “let's try something a little slower.”
Seamlessly, he switched from the reel to a waltz, and no further encouragement was needed for the three pairs to draw together, holding each other close as they slowed their movements.
Susie looked up at Jake, both her arms around his neck while his hands held her slender, supple waist.
“I hope you don't get mad at me for saying this, but I'm really glad you got lost in the storm and ended up here.”
“I am too,” he told her sincerely, “It's weird; I felt drawn here, almost like...” His voice trailed off; if he told her he'd heard her voice calling him, she'd think he was an idiot. “Well, anyway, I never expected to find anybody over here...especially somebody like you.”
Her smile grew and her blue eyes sparkled merrily.
“Why Jake Estep! Are you complimenting me?”
“Yeah, I reckon I am. Its funny; it almost seems like I know you. I know I've never met you before, but...”
“Are you sure about that?”
“What? Do I know you?”
She shrugged and her lips quirked mischievously.
“Maybe.”
“Come on, tell me!”
“That's for me to know,” Susie told him, shaking her head before suddenly dropping it and sharply but playfully biting Jake's left nipple through his shirt, making him jump, then laugh.
“Ouch! Hey!”
“...and for you to find out!”
“Now, isn't this more fun that sitting on that splintery old bench?”
Looking down at Katie as she subtly ground her body against his, Scott had to agree. It was fun, more fun than he'd had since he could remember.
“Yeah. Yes, it is.”
Slender fingers digging into his neck, massaging him, she asked, “Ain't I more fun than that Becky of yours?”
He felt guilty at first, but when he thought about what she had done with Jake, and how she treated him, a vein in his temple stood out for just a minute, until Katie stroked his back while they danced, and her ministrations forced him to relax.
“Yes,” he said, surprised at his own honesty in doing so, “You're a hell of a lot more fun than that...that...” He was suddenly afraid of offending her with the word he wanted to say, so she said it for him.
“That bitch!” The second word came out as a hiss, but the hand that reached up to brush through his short hair carried a gentleness that belied the anger in her words. “That no-good whore bitch! That's all she is. That's what anybody is who'd treat a man like you the way she does. I can tell; I can see it in your eyes how she done you. If you were mine, I'd never treat you bad.”
Scott smiled.
“You know, I don't believe you would.”
“Do you like me, Scotty?”
“Yes I do.”
“Then why don't you bend down here and kiss me; you're so tall I can't reach you all the way up
there.”
Scott did, and felt no guilt at all, even when Katie's tongue slipped into his mouth and began playing tag with his. He was really getting into it when he felt her hand close on the crotch of his pants, wrapping her fingers around his erection.
His eyes widened in fear and he instantly broke oral contact even as he tried to shift his groin away from her attentions.
“Katie!” he hissed, “Your dad!” He cast a fearful glance at the older man, only to see him smiling broadly back.
“Ah, he don't mind! Do you, Papa?”
“Nary a bit!” Jenkins reassured him, “My daughters get awful lonesome up here, so you boys go ahead and have fun. You just do anything they want to do...and I do mean anything!” His grin grew even bigger as he added, “They're all yours!”
Even as Joe Bob was reminded of an old joke about a farmer and his daughters, he was ecstatic over his good fortune. Son of a bitch, I've done died and gone to Heaven! Wasting no time, he slid both hands down to take a double grip on Elizabeth's tight, rounded bottom.
“Umm...” she purred, grinding her pelvis against his while his fingers squeezed, kneaded and caressed, “I like that!” which made Joe Bob redouble his efforts.
Jake was lost in Susie's arms; he was dimly aware of Joe Bob winking at him over Elizabeth's shoulder and of Katie leading a drunkenly-stumbling Scott to a corner near the fire where she knelt on the floor before pulling him down with her.
Jake knew their father was watching, grinning and fiddling all the while, but he didn't care, not anymore. His mouth moved from hers to her chin, tracing a line of kisses to the delicate corner of her jaw, making her moan at the feel of his hot breath on her ear as his lips continued down her neck, feeling her pulse beating against his tongue. She took hold of her dress front with one hand and yanked, sending buttons flying, and exposing a pink, tight-nippled breast. Gently taking Jake's left hand, she moved his palm to it.
“There!” she gasped, taking a handful of his hair and pulling his head down, “Oh Jake, kiss me there!”
He did, and it wasn't until he raised his head once more that he realized Mr. Jenkins had gradually upped the tempo, playing faster and faster. He swore the air itself seemed to be full of sparks, like fourth of July fireworks, and he and Susie began spinning with the rhythm. They turned, and Jake only absently noted that Joe Bob was now only halfway trying to dance with his pants down around his knees, while Elizabeth's dress was gathered all the way to her waist and only one bare foot on the floor; the other was at the small of his back, holding him in place with the curve of her flexible leg as they ground against each other. Jake felt Susie's hand tugging at his zipper, and they turned again, and he saw Scott on top of Katie, pounding away like he was trying to knock the cabin off its foundation while she held him tightly with both legs around his waist, her ankles locked behind his back.
A tiny voice inside his head kept insisting something was wrong, way wrong, bad wrong but when Susie's bare bottom filled his hands with the weight of her body while both her legs clamped around his middle like a vice, he had no time to listen. He was inside her, and, when he looked into her eyes as both hands pulled him into a kiss, he knew she was inside him, in a way; he had heard the old people say the eyes were the windows of the soul, and he knew she had just climbed in through his.
Jake's feet seemed to be on automatic pilot, with a mind of their own, and that mind only for the dance. Supporting her as if she weighed nothing while she thrust and ground hungrily against him, he turned with the music in time to see Elizabeth's eyes glowing like a wolf's in the firelight over Joe Bob's shoulder, and two impossibly long fangs in her mouth, where none had been before. With a triumphant expression, she opened impossibly wide, lowered her head, and gently slipped them into Joe Bob's throat. Jake heard his friend moan; if it was pleasure or pain, he couldn't tell, but Joe Bob didn't try to pull away; if anything, it only made his efforts increase.
They turned, and Katie's eyes burned like two fire-coals beside Scott's left ear; her mouth was buried against his neck and her cheeks were working rhythmically as she sucked.
They turned, and Jake saw Mr. Jenkins, his eyes twin flames like those of his daughters, and his teeth bared in a smile that left a set of fangs protruding halfway to his bearded chin.
Jake looked down at Susie in his arms, and her face bore the same expression, the same fangs.
“I love you, Jake,” she whispered and lowered her head, and then he felt the delicious pain in his throat that seemed to bring on the explosion in his groin. He had never experienced anything even remotely that intense, and he staggered back, set his foot on the unseen mason jar Scott had knocked off earlier, lost his balance, and went crashing to the floor in the corner, upsetting their rifles with a clatter and knocking Susie loose.
As if a bucket of cold water had suddenly been thrown over him, the spell was broken and he saw!
Scott was limp and white and dead on top of Katie, his jaw hanging slack and his eyes wide and set, and still she clung and pumped her hips as she worried his neck like a dog on a bone. She sucked so desperately she choked once, his blood briefly squirting out of her nose, but never interrupted her feeding.
The only thing holding Joe Bob up now was Elizabeth’s unnaturally strong arms. Her cheeks worked in and out like a bellows and her throat moved in rhythm to the music as she sucked and swallowed while a thin scarlet thread trickled unheeded down her chin. Joe Bob’s hands still clutched at her, squeezing and caressing feebly.
Susie was reaching for him, her eyes blazing and her mouth stretched inhumanly wide, showing the glistening, red-stained ivory spears inside while Jenkins shouted encouragement, urging her on.
Jake’s hand closed around one of the guns – Scott's .30-30 – and he jerked it up and squeezed the trigger. He fired from the hip and kept firing, working the lever action like a mad man. Susie’s dress fluttered under the impact of the flat-nosed, copper-jacketed slugs, and she shrieked with desperate hunger, and flung herself at him. By raw instinct, he hit her hard across the face with the stock, shattering the wood and knocking her to one side, sending her sprawling halfway across the room. Lurching to his feet, he saw his way clear to the door, and was almost to it when her weight, launched by her slim but powerful legs, slammed hard onto his back.
The impact carried them both headlong into the door, and they shattered the panels, slammed down on the porch, and rolled out into the ice-covered yard in a shower of splinters. Susie’s fangs scored his neck once again before the two of them slammed into a white oak trunk and the impact knocked her loose. Sobered by cold air and sheer terror, Jake leaped to his stocking feet and ran for his life as the sleet pelted down on him, stinging him through his shirt.
Behind him he heard Mr. Jenkins shouting in anger at Susie, then two sets of feet pounding after him, crunching on the crust of snow and ice.
By now he was running without reason, in a blind panic over being the victim of the impossible, wanting only to get away. As the sounds of pursuit grew louder and closer, he ignored the cold, ignored the snags and briers that tore his feet, ignored the burning in his lungs and his heart feeling like it was about to explode, ignored everything except his own fear.
He heard Mr. Jenkins' shout of almost in his ear and something ripped his back as he stumbled into the shallow creek, his feet crashing through the still forming scum of ice and tripping him. For the first time, he found voice enough to scream as he felt himself falling helplessly onto his hands and knees into the shallow water. Scrambling onto the far bank and rolling onto his back, he desperately flung his arms out in a futile attempt to ward them off, only to encounter nothing.
They stood on the opposite shore, Susie and her father, watching him. The old man dropped a piece of bloody cloth he had ripped from the back of Jake’s shirt with his hard nails, and the girl’s eyes were desperate and tear-filled.
“Come back, Jake. Please come back to me.”
Mr. Jenkins looked equally desperat
e, but his voice was calm.
“Come on back, boy; you’ll freeze to death out here. You know you’ll never make it over the mountain in this cold, soaked and wet with no coat or shoes, miles from nowhere, not in this storm. Come on back, now; I’ve got some more shine. We can sit down in the cabin where it’s warm and talk it over.”
“Please, Jake!” Susie begged as she unconsciously inched a bare foot towards the running water, only to quickly jerk it back again as if the liquid were scalding hot. She suddenly ripped her dress off and stood naked, a pale white flame glimmering in the night like a beacon through the falling snow. Her nipples hardened in the cold and he felt drawn to her like a moth to a light. “You can have me again if you just come back. It’ll be good; I promise I’ll make it good for you, Jake. I’ll love you! Please!”
Their eyes glowed and their voices seemed to tug at him, weakening his will. He slowly rose to his feet, his lips quivering with cold, fear, and a level of desire he had never imagined possible.
“Come on, Jake. It’s only a couple of steps, and you can be warm again. We can be together forever if you want. I love you, Jake. I love you!”
She moved again and held out her arms, and the dress hanging from her grasp passed across a patch of ice-covered ground. He could see the white through the bullet holes he had put in the cloth.
There were no corresponding marks on her body.
The compulsion broken, Jake turned and ran, her voice ringing in his ears as the sound echoed through the holler and followed him up the mountain.
“Please Jake! Oh please Jake! Come back! Pleasepleaseplease!”
Chapter 14
Frank Estep stood beside his son’s truck and fired a quick three shots in the air for the third time in fifteen minutes. Like before, he listened closely, but there was no answering report. He was beginning to worry; the boys’ truck was here, so they couldn’t be out of hearing range of a .30-’06 on foot, surely and they knew the universal hunter’s distress signal and, since they had their guns with them, would have responded.