In Tall Cotton

by Charles G. Hulse

  His jaw was set in such a hard line that it would have gone through a thick plank of wood or a brick wall like cartoon characters in the movies could do. The muscles in his cheeks were working so visibly that I expected to hear his rear teeth crack and crumble.

  “Uh …” I cleared my throat. “Ah, Roy …”

  The back of a fist, faster than lightning caught me in the solar plexus, knocking the breath out of me and doubling me over. The blow accented the first word he’d said since he’d driven off at this breakneck speed, “Uncle Roy, sonny boy, and don’t you forget it.”

  I stayed doubled over. I felt safer that way. I didn’t want to watch the road at this speed. All the stories I’d ever heard about Roy raced through my mind: He’d been an orphan, had joined the army when he was barely fifteen, had killed a man when he was a cowboy back in the twenties. He was tough, feared, physically fearless and capable of almost anything when riled. He was riled. And I was terrified. What in God’s name was the matter with him? Could Sister have told him what I’d said? Did she have some suspicions of her own? About me? About Roy? Had she repeated my blunder to Aunt Dell? And then she … ? Oh, surely not. Sister wouldn’t. Couldn’t. But she’d looked so stunned, so … what was it I’d thought at the time? Scandalized. Scandal. Had I inadvertently caused a scandal? Something pretty serious had happened to turn Roy into this seething monster.

  I felt the car take another heart-stopping turn to the right, hit some rough road, slow down a bit, but continue to move too fast over uneven ground—I could almost feel the rims of the wheels being jabbed at by rough rocks through the tires. Then another skidding turn and a halt. The handbrake scrunched into place and the key turned off. The car was filled with dust. I stayed bent over.

  I felt an arm move across my back and open my door. Then the door on the driver’s side opened and I heard footsteps going behind the car, opening first one back door and then the other one, just behind me. I could feel his presence standing beside me, but I couldn’t hear him breathing. I waited.

  “Git in the back,” he ordered. I didn’t move. “I said git in the back, goddamnit and I mean it.” He grabbed me by both shoulders and lifted me out of the front seat, still doubled over and tossed me into the back seat as though I were a bundle of dirty laundry. “You and me’s goin’ to have a little talk.” I huddled in the corner where I’d landed, a heap, now hugging my knees and burying my head in them to keep from facing whatever was going to happen. I hadn’t a clue where we were, but we couldn’t be far out of town. The trip had not only been fast, it had been short.

  I still couldn’t hear him, I could only feel him standing there, close, as clearly as if I’d been looking at him. I could feel, literally feel him. Him and his power. Pure physical power that seemed to be electrified, plugged into some greater power source to allow the giving off of a buzzing sound. His fury was palpable, alive and directed at me. I still wasn’t sure why. I felt as though I were being burned, blistered by the effort he was making not to … to … what?Beat me? I had the feeling that if he touched me he’d lose control and rip me limb from limb. I was numbed by an overwhelming sensation of murderous intent. The electrical buzzing of power and strength deafened me and I wasn’t aware that he was speaking—speaking barely audibly above the awesome sounds his body seemed to be giving off or was it only the sound of my own terror?

  His voice was finally breaking through my fear. “… for the first time in my life. I’m goin’ on forty-six and my life is just beginning … was just beginnin’. And I ain’t about to let no cock-teasin’ little nance ruin it for me.” He paused and I slowly started to uncoil and risked peeking out the corner of my eye at him. I didn’t understand all the words he used, but he was talking about me. There was no mistake about that.

  “Yeah, I think you’d better set up and take notice. You got a ear full comin’ and I don’t want you to miss a word of it.” He put his foot up on the running board and leaned down closer to me, his head inside the car with his arms crossed and resting on his raised knee. He stared deep into my eyes as I slowly raised my head, but at the same time, I inched myself further into the corner away from him. “Just what the fuck did you say to Sister?” That was it. “I think that’s the logical place to start. Just what was goin’ on in that … that … well, I can’t call it a brain, an idiot’s got more thinkin’ power than you seem to have.” He held my eyes with his burning blue ones and didn’t move a muscle although he was still poised like a snake, every sinew alert and stretched ready to spring. I held his look as long as I could before my eyes dropped. What could I say? Say, OK, I blundered? I mis-read the degree of intimacy Sister and I had created which led me to indiscretion. I had in fact been an idiot but I was only now beginning to know to what extent.

  “I thought I was dealing with a reasonable human bein’, but I was wrong. My mistake. I admit it.” Roy’s voice had changed, softened. “I just had give you credit for more sense than you got.” He shook his head slightly. “I had the idea that I was dealin’ with a man—somebody growed up enough to know how to take a good blow-job for what it was worth and not shoot his mouth off.” Another expression for it. Was there no end? “But, no, like some silly dumb-assed girl, you got to run and tell Sister.” A hand shot out and the front of my shirt was in a grip of steel and I was being eased up closer to Roy’s face until it melted out of focus. He shook me slightly and spat the words in my face, “Why did you tell Sister I was queer?”

  I was paralyzed with terror. I tried to answer but no sound came from my throat. The sounds I heard next came from two sharp slaps across my face, leaving my cheeks stinging. “What do you think a queer is, anyway?” Tears were running down my cheeks, hot and burning when they reached where I could still feel the imprint of his hand. “Am I queer just because I sucked your cock? Is that what you think?” He shook me roughly. “What is a queer?” Speech was beyond me. “Answer me, goddamnit,” he raised his voice for the first time. He was losing control now and when he slapped me this time my ears rang and one of my teeth cut my lip. This is what I feared the most. I felt that once he let his anger off the tight rein he’d be capable of anything.

  “I don’t—know—what—it—means …” I finally blurted out.

  “Then why did you tell Sister? What kind of a shit-stirring little prick are you anyway?”

  “I didn’t mean to tell.”

  “But you did.” He still held my shirt in the iron grip. I could hear him breathing now. “WHY?” He slapped me again. I reeled with the blow. “What in God’s name were you thinking of? If you’d a stopped and thought you’d see what you done.” He pulled my face in closer to his and he hissed, “You—have— placed—you have planted a seed. (Iplant a seed? It’s God who plants seeds … and … Oh God, where are You now?) A—seed— of—doubt in Sister’s mind. Now, she’ll be watchin’ me—watchin’ us both—like a hawk. Don’t you see? Couldn’t you have figured that out on your own?” I could barely shake my head. I was too petrified to figure anything out, not the least of which was how I was going to get out of this nightmare. “Now, I’m goin’ to tell you what you are going to do. What you are going to do is this. You— are—goin’—to have ’ta UNplant—that seed.” He shook me slightly. “Do—you—understand?” He was speaking to me as though I were deaf, blind and dumb. I was mute. But I managed an idiotic nod. I hadn’t a clue what he was talking about.

  “I don’t have no idea how you’re goin’ to unplant that seed—you know what you said to her, I don’t. I mean, exactly what you said. And how. I just know she was trying to make it sound like a joke when she come by the office, but she wasn’t jokin’. She was smilin’ that beautiful smile, but she was already watchin’ my every move—watchin’ how I acted, how I looked, surprised or whatever … You’ve put an idea in her head and you are goin’ta have to git itout.” He paused a minute and his jaw worked and his eyes got blue, that blue on a gas burner, that hot blue, so hot that I could almost feel the heat from them. When he s
poke again, his voice was quiet and as blue hot as his eyes. “You got enough imagination to see what can happen. Sister gets sore at me about … oh, hell, it don’t matter what. She’d go to her momma and tell her what you said. Just to get even with me. You see? Then Dell would have the seed planted. And my life wouldn’t be worth a damn. You can’t live with suspicion. I’ve waited for over forty years to have a home and family—you were … well, are part of that family. And I ain’t about to let some snotty-nosed kid fuck it up for me. Family member or not.” He glanced out the windshield and took a deep breath and turned his rock-hard face back to mine. “If you don’t get this straightened out with Sister … today . . .” He paused and his jaw and neck muscles tightened. “I don’t know what you’ll have to say, call yourself a silly little prick for a start, because that’s the way you been behavin’, anything, but if this gets back to Dell…” He swallowed hard. “If this gets back to Dell…” his head moved ever so slightly from side to side, loose and easy on his tightly wound-up body, “and anything happens to our life together … I’ll kill you, you little son-of-a-bitch.” I never believed anything so completely in my life. His eyes held mine—I was as immobilized as if he were pointing a gun at me right then and there. “Let’s get back to the question. Why? Why were you two talking about queers in the first place?”

  “She was saying …” I could finally choke out some words. “That man in Phoenix. Something about Vice Squad … she said they were queer … and everybody says queers suck …”

  He threw me away from him as though the dirty laundry had become a bag of garbage. “Hah! I thought so.” I fell back in the corner of the seat and let the tears flow. “Everybody says cock-suckers are queers,” he was muttering to himself. “That’s what they all say. What shit. Some of the biggest queers I’ve ever knowed ain’t cocksuckers. They’d do things that ain’t even in the book, but they wouldn’t suck a cock. If everybody who sucked a cock was a real queer, this old world would really be in a sorry state.” He was inside the car now busy moving about on the seat beside me, ripping and tearing at his clothing. “Sucking cock don’t mean queer—queer is mostly in the mind anyway.” Fortunately tears blinded me. I didn’t want to see what he was doing. “I was just giving you a little pleasure—if you were just pretendin’ you liked it, you’re one hell of a actor—and got pleasure myself. I’ll admit that. When you get old enough to be able to admit things that might be painful—or even shameful, that’s when you start growin’ up. That’s when you get to be a man. Manly. It ain’t unmanly to show somebody you care for them. And that’s one way. Just one of many, but … in my experience—in that fuckin’ orphanage, in them stinkin’ trenches, or out on a lonely prairie— that little sign of, well, caring, that warmth really means something. Something important. Its the same as sayin’ I love you.” I could see that he had his pants down around his ankles and I pulled back and started to let myself slide out the side of the car—I’d looked around us and we were in sight of town. I could make a run for it… Just the split second before I could make my move, his huge hands had me by the shoulders, lifting me up again as if I weighed nothing and plunked me down on the floorboards on my knees between his legs. His cock and balls were resting on the edge of the seat, looking exaggeratedly big as though enlarged like a filthy drawing or swollen by some hideous disease. My face was only inches from the distended horror. I clenched my eyes shut and snapped my head away to the side, tucking my chin into my shoulder. “Don’t … please, dear God. Don’t … make …”

  “It ain’t goin’ to hurt you none.” He reached over and took my face in both his big hands and turned my head to face him, handling me with a surprising gentleness. “This is just a necessary little lesson. If I’m queer, then you’ll just have to be queer with me.” He eased my head closer to his crotch. I could smell an unfamiliar odor—musky and foreign. My eyes were still tightly shut. He was talking quietly, like a doctor who’s about to give you a shot that he knows is going to be unpleasant, but necessary. My mouth and teeth were as firmly closed as my eyes. He took one hand from my cheek and slid the other around to the back of my neck and pulled my head forward until my lips were touching flesh. He kept pulling my head forward rubbing my lips against the flesh until it started getting firm. He made encouraging soft sounds, “Come on, now. Open up.” From a doctor to a dentist. The flesh being rubbed back and forth along my lips was not quite hard. I’d seen it once in the bathroom and I knew what it looked like and became more resolute. “You might as well get it over with, Tots,” his voice was even and reasonable. “It won’t take hardly a minute. You’re goin’ to do this because you have to do it, whether you like it or not. It’ll make you stop and think twice before you go around calling people queers.” His hand went up the back of my neck and grabbed a handful of hair. He pulled my head back sharply which caused my eyes to snap open and my chin to drop slightly. With a slight but coordinated move, he brought my head back down on his cock, easing it in my mouth, it’s powerful hardness like a crowbar. It filled my mouth, muffling my scream. I was helpless, totally invaded.

  “There. Relax. Don’t do nothing. Just let it rest there a bit so’s you get used to it.” Used to it! I gagged, I choked, my nose began to run or it might have been tears pouring down my cheeks that I sucked up into my nose trying to breathe. I was being suffocated. “Just breathe natural. Relax. Take a deep breath and swallow.” Doctor, dentist and now an anesthetist. If only I could be knocked out and have this horror over with.

  I sagged limply hoping the pain in my jaws and mouth would be relieved. He slowly moved his hips so that the huge thing rolled around in my mouth like an outsized all-day sucker. I tried to imagine that was what it was. My mind had stopped working. It had gone as limp and numb as the rest of me. My mouth was stretched to the breaking point. I was thankful for the numbness. Perhaps I was anesthetized. I was sure the corners of my lips must be splitting but they didn’t hurt. Time was suspended. My mind was a blank, refusing to accept what was taking place. After an eternity, Roy’s movements became more agitated. He worked my head by pulling my head back and forth with the grip he had on my hair. I don’t know how long it’d been since I breathed. My chest ached with need of air. I was going to pass out—I was dizzy and blinded—but a final jerking plunge from Roy deep into my throat brought me back. There was a dangerous churning in my stomach as a sickening fluid filled what little space was left around the hard object lodged in my mouth. I choked and gagged. The fluid oozed stingingly from my nostrils, making room for more to pour in endlessly. I choked on an intake of air and threw up with a gush so powerful that the hard cock was forced out, flushed out like a bung in the bottom of a full barrel. Roy pulled back instinctively, letting go of my hair and I averted my eyes from the messy crotch and leaned over his right knee and got my head out the door as far as I could and retched and vomited until I thought my insides were coming up with the unmentionable fluid Roy had filled my body with. I vomited until I was dry, but it still went on, my heaving body, contracting, pushing, forcing everything inside me up and out. I was aware that a hand was holding my forehead and another was stroking my hair back from my forehead. A deep voice, full of shocked contrition, was murmuring, “Oh, oh, oh. Oh Tots … I was only tryin’ … Sorry …”

  We washed as best we could with the water from the car’s canvas bag. We didn’t speak until he dropped me in front of the store where he’d picked me up. The two packs of Wings in my pocket looked a bit the worse for wear. I opened the door and started to get out. “Tots,” he said softly. I stopped moving but didn’t turn to look at him. I never wanted to see him again as long as I lived. “I meant what I said.” I felt the intent in his voice. The murderous intent. It stopped my heart beating. He would kill me. That’s what he meant. Means. I got out of the car and ran up the street to the house.

  Mom and Dad were walking down the walkway to the car, each in his separate cocoon of withdrawal and preoccupation. “There you are,” Mom called. “I’ve b
een worried sick. We’ll probably be a bit later than usual—Saturday hours are different. I didn’t want to leave Becky with Dell—so much trouble, even though she’s still asleep and Sister’s in there napping with her.”

  I held the cigarettes out to Dad. “Sorry. Got caught up in a game of touch football in the square …” Lying came awfully easily, particularly without Junior’s honest brown eyes on hand full of gentle reproof. But even if they had been, I had some awfully good reasons for lying.

  Dad took the cigarettes and held his hand out for the change. “Well, you look like you got roughed up a bit.” There was a note of satisfaction in his voice. He nodded when I’d handed the change to him and they went to the car for their afternoon vigil with Junior.

  As they started to pull away Mom looked at me distractedly and called, “You look a bit peaked. You oughtn’t to play so rough in this heat.” Her fingers trailed a weak farewell out the window as they drove off.

  There was a note on the kitchen table from Aunt Dell:

  Roy—

  Gone to office. If you come here, go there. Shopping. D.

  I suppose it made sense. I peeked carefully into the sitting room. Sister was dead asleep on the couch near Becky. I flew up the stairs to the bathroom. I’d have it to myself. I needed it, I needed the privacy of the confined space to check what had happened to me—not only what might show physically (I could feel my swollen lip) but what I finally looked like now. There were bound to be visible changes—Dr. Jekyll and Hyde sort of changes. I’d been truly defiled, my body beaten, shaken, and used in the vilest way. If I understood the word correctly, I’d been raped. Ravaged. I’d probably grown fangs where Roy’s cock had been. If I’d only had them at the time!