"Enjoy the movie?" Kenny asked, pleasantly.
"Yeah, kinda," Melody answered nervously fidgeting with her jacket. "But I gotta go." Having all she cared to of Kenny and Emily, she returned to Tommy Bosier, and Buck, and went laughing down the street at some sarcastic joke, while Kenny watched her curiously.
At two a.m. the phone rang in Kenny's room at the boarding house. He picked it up, answering groggily.
"Hey, Ken, we have the Blue kid down here, drunk on her ass. You want to pick her up, or shall I call her dad?" the officer asked.
"Ah, good lord, no," Kenny groaned. "She in to anything else?"
"Not really, but she could use a long night's sleep. Ya, gonna get her or not?"
"I'll get her, I'll get her," Kenny said, and he began to pull himself from bed.
It took just five minutes for Kenny to put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt, and get down the station. His hair was tousled, he had a days growth of beard on his cheeks, and an unfriendly grimace on his face; though to Melody's bleary eyes, he looked pretty good.
She wanted just to fall into his arms, but hauling her from the holding cell, he was in no mood to be kind.
"Gosh, I think I'm gonna be sick," she said.
"Don't you dare barf on me," Kenny warned. "Or in my car. You going to be okay?"
"Yeah, I think so. But you're hurting me," Melody complained about her tightly grasped arm.
"Well that's not all that's going to hurt," Kenny seethed, as he led her to his car and pushed her inside. "You must have drank a fifth by yourself." He winced at the strong smell of liquor on her breath.
"You ain't gonna whip me again!" Melody assured him, slurring her words.
"That's what you think," he said.
Melody fought with him the whole ride home, swearing that she was going to run off and never see him again. But she was so drunk that she passed out as soon as Kenny dumped her in her bed.
"Can you lock her door from the outside?" Kenny asked Mrs. Buford, who'd awakened from her sleep.
"I can, but I don't do that with my boarders," she told Kenny, shaking her head.
"But you will tonight," he said. "She's not going anywhere."
"No, I don't think she will, the condition she's in," Mrs. Buford remarked.
"Well, just to be sure," Kenny said, taking the keys from the woman's hand. He turned the lock on the door, hoping that Melody Blue was safe for the rest of the night.
***
At seven in the morning, there was sunshine and birds singing prettily in the trees outside the boarding house. At seven in the morning, however, Kenny was in no sweet summery mood. Unlocking Melody's door, he was in her room, hauling the girl out of bed before she could open her sleepy eyes.
"What the fuck are you doing!" she blared, as she came to.
"Giving you what you were too drunk to get last night," Kenny snapped. He sat on the bed, and pulled the young woman over his lap.
"Oh, no you don't!" Melody cried, getting hold of her senses.
But Kenny was too far along. The jeans that had remained on her all night, were quickly pulled down to her knees. Though she was kicking madly, Kenny's strong arms held her fast, as he reached for the dresser and the hairbrush Mrs. Buford lent him.
"You . . . you . . . you . . " she stammered.
Smack!
The back of the hairbrush hit her jiggling white rear cheek with a decided jolt.
"Ouch!
Smack!
Kenny let her have it on the other rear cheek.
"Ouch! That hurts!" she wailed, realizing that bare bottomed was a whole lot more painful that the whipping he gave her over top of her jeans—especially first thing in the morning! She didn't even think of the humiliation of having been stripped by a man she half-despised, half loved.
"Ouch! You bastard!" she blared.
Her protest only made Kenny strike her harder as he pelted her rear furiously. A bright red blush started to rise on her once pale cheeks.
"Ouch! Stop! Ouch! OOoo! Ouch!" Each smack warranted another objection, but Kenny wasn't hearing any of it. Another and another, he kept up the spanking, covering every square inch of soft womanly behind that he could find—and then some. He aimed the hairbrush several times at the base of her bottom and her thighs where it was especially painful to take a swat.
"Kenny please!" Melody tried changing the nature of her protest, hoping that a genuine appeal for mercy might make him stop. "Please, I can't stand it. I'm sorry. I won't do it again. I promise." She rattled off her promises as Kenny rattled off another dozen smacks.
"Dammit, Kenny! This is all your fault!" she finally blared, when she could think of nothing else to say.
"My fault?" Kenny answered back. Though he slowed his pace, he didn't stop.
"Yes, your fault. I saw you with Emily and I got all . . . all," she really didn't want to admit it, but she had to, "jealous!"
"You're jealous?" Kenny wondered aloud. Then the hairbrush did stop, and the curious Kenny let his crying brat get up from his lap.
Melody stood in front of him, quickly retrieving her jeans, as she struggled painfully to pull them over her hips.
"Yes, I was jealous," she said again.
"Of Emily?" Kenny asked.
"What, are you dense?" Melody snapped.
"You want me to start again?" he asked her in a warning tone.
"No, but I just kinda flipped and the guys were drinking, so I started drinking, and well..."
"You got rip roaring drunk."
"Yeah, and I'm kinda feeling sick right now." She looked a little woozy, her face pale.
"You better head for the john," Kenny said, shaking his head. "We'll talk later."
***
After Kenny returned from work that evening, he found Melody walking toward town and stopped to offer her a ride.
"Looks like you were going home?" she said.
"I can change my mind. Hop in," he offered. "Besides we need to talk."
Reluctantly Melody agreed, and the two sat side by side in Kenny's Jeep as they headed back downtown.
"So, how's your bottom?" Kenny asked after a long quiet.
"You would ask that," Melody replied.
"Seems like a pretty important topic," he said. "We need to get a few things straight."
"What's that?" Melody asked.
Kenny hedged, he wasn't sure what to say. To this point he hadn't really thought about Melody as anything other than a project. Though at the moment, he was realizing that there was more than just a fatherly feeling toward the girl. Her sass and fire may be completely out of control, but there was part of Melody Blue that he'd come to like over the last couple of weeks. It was hard to imagine a more attractive young woman. But it was more than that. When she wasn't in a stew about something, she was energetic, full of fun, and pretty spunky. He liked all of that.
"You really threw me on that jealousy thing this morning," Kenny said.
"Good," Melody replied with a saucy turn of her head.
"But that still gives you no reason to get yourself drunk out of your mind," he said sternly.
"Maybe not, but it sure felt good."
"Even this morning?" he asked, reminding her of her hangover.
"Well . . ."
"So what's the jealousy about?" Kenny changed the subject.
Melody turned her back away and said nothing.
"Hey, how about an answer?" Kenny said, putting his hand gently on her shoulder.
She wiggled him off, but turned back toward him. "You know you are some fine piece of work," she said. "I admit to you I'm jealous of another woman, and you have to throw it in my face. I am jealous. I guess, I have feelings for you, and I kinda thought . . . "
"Feelings?" Kenny interrupted.
"Yeah, lots of times I don't like you at all. But then sometimes, you treat me so nice I think maybe I'd like to have a guy like you. Of course, I'm not feeling that way right now. You're really pissing me off."
"You like me
making you behave yourself?"
"That's a stupid question."
"Not really."
"I like having someone care about me," she admitted. "And I guess maybe you do."
"I do," Kenny admitted. "I care a lot, more than I really wanted to. But maybe, if you could keep lid on your language, and acted more like a responsible young woman, well, maybe I would be interested."
"You mean that?"
"I do. But any guy worth having isn't going to want you if you're always running around being a brat."
"Sometimes, I can't help it," she said.
"Yes, you can. You do it all the time. Up until last night, you were behaving yourself pretty well."
"Yeah, well, so I made a mistake."
"Yeah, so you made a mistake," Kenny agreed. "We'll put it in the past. Just take some advice. Stay away from Tommy and Buck. They're nothing but trouble."
"I think they're fun," Melody retorted.
"But not the kind of fun you need, Miss Melody Blue," Kenny said sternly.
Melody smiled. She did like being cared for, the way Kenny showed so much concern. Even if he was a little over-bearing at times, and even if he spanked her. He always smiled, and talked to her, and treated her like she really mattered. She'd never had that before, and she was beginning to like it a lot.
"So, you really like Emily Osgood?" Melody asked him, her nose scrunching up as if the thought was really retched.
"She's okay," Kenny answered.
"You're not going with her, are you?"
"No, I'm not going with her. I still have my options open."
"Hummm." There was a thoughtful and somewhat devious expression on redhead's face. "You don't suppose we could go out? I mean, you and me have a real date?"
Kenny chuckled. "You know, one thing I like about you, you're not shy, and you say what you feel."
"You like that?" she asked, "I never thought that was a good trait."
"It can be," Kenny answered. "I like it in you."
"Really? So, can we go out then?"
"Sure. How about Saturday? I'll take you to dinner. Some place really nice."
"Ooo, I'd like that," she smiled, and all the troubles, and worry lines, and bratty pouts fled from her face. She looked at Kenny with the expression of a real woman, and a beautiful one at that.
Kenny and Melody went out three Saturdays in a row. The first was like a real date, dressing up and going to a nice restaurant that served Cajun food and had a dance band. The next two Saturday's were more informal, Kenny hauling her off Mrs. Buford's front step and taking her to the diner one Saturday night, and then a coffee shop on the highway the next. Melody liked the casual times best, the conversation was more relaxed. It was hard to believe that a guy could be so kind to her, and so demanding at the same time. Maybe she never had liked getting away with things with her father, but she always did. He just ignored her, and she just felt unloved. Hearing Kenny's opinions on everything from how great she looked, to how he wasn't going to let her smoke while they were together, to how pleased he was that she was deciding to go back to school, made her like him more and more.
"Don't you ever do anything even the tiniest bit wrong?" Melody asked him on their third Saturday night together as they were walking home from the ice cream store in town.
"Wrong?"
"Yeah, like naughty, like just a little over the edge."
"What do you mean?"
"You know, get drunk, smoke a little grass, ride around all night, screw a girl in the back of the Jeep."
"The Jeep's a little small for screwing," Kenny chuckled.
"You're avoiding my question," she said.
"Yeah, I've done some stupid stuff."
"But never with me?"
"I'm trying to keep you sane and sober," Kenny reminded her.
"But maybe we're being too sane."
"You think so?" he asked.
"Yeah, I do."
They were on the front porch steps at ten o'clock. The sun had gone down but there were lots of bright lights on the street so the whole neighborhood could see them if they wanted to. Melody finished her queries, not getting the answers she wanted. Suddenly pulled up close to Kenny's chest, she reached up to bring his head down her lips and kissed him long and hard.
"Woah!" Kenny said coming up for air.
But before Melody could rattle off some sassy retort, Kenny put his arms around her and they began one long, wet, passionate, open-mouthed kiss.
"Is that what you wanted?" Kenny asked, when they finally broke apart.
"Yeah," Melody replied, her body and mind in dream land.
Moving up on the porch there was another kiss, and a longer embrace, and the two had a difficult time letting go of each other and returning to their own rooms alone.
***
The relative bliss of the budding relationship hit a snag the next few weeks. A rash of unexplained burglaries, a policeman out with a broken leg, another with the flu, and the healthy officers in the department were working overtime. Kenny pulled double shifts some days. Other days he was too tired to do anything but sleep when he was off work.
A few passing conversations, and some empty promises for time together was all that Melody got from him, while the thoughts of more kisses and fondling embraces was making her moments alone sometimes bittersweet, and often desperate.
When Kenny's old girlfriend returned to town, even their brief conversations were on hold. Kenny spent what free time he had with the sensuous blonde, Sally Davies.
"You know, I really thought we had something going?" Melody snapped at him, when she saw Kenny in the kitchen one morning. He had just come off his shift and was about to go to bed.
"We do. It's just been a really bad time."
"And your little love, Sally. What about her?"
"Just a friend, that's all. Don't go being jealous."
"I can't help it. The little shit climbs all over you."
"Watch your tongue, Miss Blue," Kenny warned. He hoped she wasn't going to make a big deal of this, because he was much too tired to have to deal with her jealousy again.
"Maybe I will, and maybe I won't," Melody snapped, and she grabbed her knapsack and moved to the back door.
"Hey, come back here!" Kenny called to her.
"I have to go to work," she called back.
And the sassy redhead was down the back steps, her bouncing ass disappearing down the street.
For the next two days Kenny didn't see Melody at all, except for one time in the upstairs hallway, when the preoccupied young woman, didn't even bother to say hi. Was she still mad at him? He couldn't be sure, though he really didn't have the time to think about it. He was on his way to a brush fire in the woods behind the old granary.
***
It was quiet in the station, for the first time in weeks. With the regular desk officer out with the flu, Kenny was taking the night desk, thankful for the relative calm. Catching up on some paper work, he was in the middle of a long overdue report when he heard some scuffling and noises from the back entrance of the station. A few minutes later, he heard the sergeant calling to him.
"Hey, Kenny, that little tramp you've been nurse-maiding is in the holding cell. Caught her with Tommy and Buck smoking joints up at the lake."
Fifteen minutes later, the first wind of his anger having receded, at least for the moment, Kenny was in the holding cell, looking down at Melody with his clear blue eyes practically boring holes through the young woman.
"You want to tell me what this was about?" Kenny asked her.
"It was nothing, really," she replied.
"Nothing, Mel. You just got arrested for possession of drugs. You call that nothing?"
"It was just a little."
"It was enough to get you arrested."
"You're really pissed, aren't you?"
"Oh, that doesn't begin to describe how I feel," Kenny replied. "I told you to stay away from Tommy and Buck."
"Well, if you'd paid me more
attention."
"You selfish brat. When have I had time to go on dates?"
"You've managed with Sally," Melody sassed.
"That's not the point. The point is, you're in jail and you're staying here, because you're in one hell of a mess of trouble."
"You getting me out, aren't you?" Melody whined.
"I can't," Kenny replied.
"You can't? Why the hell not!" Her eyes suddenly flared.
"You just hold it right there with that tongue, or I'll leave," Kenny warned.
"I'm sorry," she replied.
"You damn well better be sorry. This time, you're in real trouble and if you don't hold your tongue and be real nice you're going to find yourself doing time. You might anyway, no matter how sweet you are."
She looked up Kenny, surprised.
"Yeah! That's right."
"But . . ."
"Don't but me. You're treading on thin ice. I'd like to take you out and blister your butt every which way. I warned you about those guys, and what do you do? This is the stupidest thing you could have done."
"Maybe you should blister my butt," Melody mused aloud.
"Well, don't worry. If you're lucky, and they let you off with probation, you won't be sitting down for a month as much as I'm going to paddle your behind."
Melody spent two nights in the holding cell and managed to get through two more stern lectures from Kenny before her case went before Judge Crockett.
Kenny was kind enough to be in the courtroom, sitting right behind her as she sat next to her court appointed lawyer. Her father hadn't shown up when he was called, but Kenny was there. And this time he didn't even look angry, just concerned. That only made her feel worse, realizing how much she'd let him down.
"Miss Blue," the Judge addressed her sharply. "I don't make it a habit of sending first offenders up because I don't want the punishment to turn you into a hardened criminal." She'd pleaded guilty, Judge Crockett's next words were what she'd been waiting for the past two days. "I'm giving you a two year suspended sentence, two years probation," he announced.
Melody breathed a sigh of relief, and so did Kenny behind her.
"But mind you," the Judge went on, "and you'd better listen to me, young lady. You end up in my court again, it's two years in jail, you understand!"
"Yessir."
"You miss even one probation appointment, they're gonna haul you in, you hear?"
A Wild Night On the Island & Other Stories Page 4