by Eric Filler
The room was all blurry, so that she couldn’t see more than a foot in front of her clearly. She flailed around like a blind person until her right hand found a pair of glasses beside the bed. Joey slipped the tortoiseshell-framed glasses on and blinked a few times.
Her body didn’t feel warm or clammy anymore, but her head still felt fuzzy. Maybe because of the fever she had had really weird dreams. It was hard to remember more than fragments of them. She remembered being a little girl, only seven or eight and seeing...something. Or someone? She shook her head; the dreams were getting hazier now that she was awake.
How long had she been asleep? It was still bright outside, meaning it had to be before dinner. Just a few hours then. She threw back the old comforter to get out of bed. Her legs wobbled as she stood up; she nearly toppled over before she could catch herself. Maybe she had been asleep more than a few hours; it could have been a day or two. Her stomach rumbled to indicate she hadn’t eaten anything since at least breakfast.
But first she needed to use the bathroom. She hurried across the hallway to do her business. She stopped at the mirror, frowning to see herself in the mirror. The glasses, the medium-brown hair parted down the center, the round face, the pimples on her cheeks, and the underdeveloped breasts all taunted her. She was plain. Plain and chubby. No wonder no boys had any interest in her.
She forced herself to turn away and pull up the hem of her nightshirt and pull down the cotton panties she wore around the farm so she could use the toilet. Maybe those dreams about being a little girl had been to remind her of how much happier she had been then. Back in those days things had been a lot easier; she didn’t have any worries about being poor or plain. Everything had been so much simpler.
“Joey? Where are you?” Mama called out.
“I’m in the bathroom!” Joey shouted.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes. I’ll be out in a minute.”
She finished and then washed her hands, taking care to not look at the mirror. Mama waited for her outside the door. She took Joey’s arm, her fingers digging into Joey’s flesh. “We got work to do. Matilda’s having her calf.”
“Oh. OK.”
“You best get some clothes on you don’t care much about. This ain’t going to be pretty.”
“Yes, Mama,” Joey mumbled. She hurried back into her room to find an old pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a sweatshirt stained with paint. She tied her hair into a ponytail to hopefully keep it from getting too bloody.
“Let’s go,” Mama said when Joey emerged from the bedroom. Again Mama’s hand dug into her arm to practically drag her down the hallway.
“What’s the hurry?” Joey whined. It usually took the cows hours to give birth.
“The calf is coming out the wrong way. We got to pull it out.”
“Gross,” Joey muttered. She hadn’t done that herself, but she had seen Mama do it once before. Mama had to reach into the mother to try to pull the calf out without shredding the mother’s insides. That was why Mama had told her to put on clothes she didn’t care about.
As soon as they were outside, Joey heard the cow bellowing. The poor girl was in a lot of pain. The calf probably wasn’t having a good time at the moment either. Joey broke into a run towards the barn.
Matilda had been her favorite of the half-dozen cows they owned. Joey had helped Mama when Matilda had been born. She had fed, groomed, and eventually milked the cow. She had even taken Matilda to a 4H show in Memphis, where Matilda had won third prize. Joey felt like she had been punched in the stomach every time Matilda cried out.
Joey hurried into the stall to kneel beside the brown-and-white cow. She hugged Matilda around the neck. “It’s going to be OK. We’re going to get that baby out of you. Mama knows what she’s doing.”
The cow seemed to understand; it nuzzled Joey’s hand. “You try to keep her calm,” Mama said. “I’ll see about pulling this calf out.”
Joey stroked Matilda’s head and whispered to her and Mama reached inside the cow. Matilda lowed and groaned, but Joey’s presence helped to keep her from thrashing or kicking Mama. “This ain’t good,” Mama said.
“What is it?”
“I think it’s already cut her up inside.”
“Can’t you do something, Mama?”
“I can get the calf out. That’s about it.”
“But—”
“Just stay with her. It’ll be over soon.”
Tears started to cloud Joey’s vision. She squeezed Matilda around the neck, thinking of all the time they had spent together. Soon it would be over. Just because the stupid calf was coming out the wrong way. It wasn’t fair!
Joey heard Mama groan, followed by Matilda screeching in pain. After a few seconds, Joey heard a softer bleating sound. She opened her eyes to see the new calf, still smeared with blood and gore, struggling to stay on its feet. Matilda moaned, the sound of it so sad that Joey sobbed into the cow’s fur. “Don’t die,” she whispered. “Don’t die. Stay with me. Please?” She had lost Daddy when she was a baby; she didn’t want to lose someone else close to her.
She felt Mama’s hand on her shoulder. “Leave her be, Joey. It’s her time.”
“No! It’s not! It’s not her time!” Joey shouted. For a moment her entire body tingled as if it had fallen asleep. Then Matilda let out a hearty moo. She rose to her feet, carrying Joey with her. Joey opened her eyes, stepping back to see the mother cow on her feet, tail swishing. The cow nuzzled Joey and then turned to nuzzle the calf.
“Mama?” Joey said, stumbling back to the wall of the stall. “Is she...is she all right?”
“Looks like it,” Mama said. “At least for now.”
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure,” Mama said. “Maybe it was a miracle.”
“A miracle,” Joey mumbled.
Mama put an arm around her shoulders. “I think you ought to get back inside and rest for a bit.”
“OK, Mama,” Joey said.
“You did a real good job keeping Matilda calm.”
“Thanks.”
She leaned against Mama as they went inside, slowly ascending the stairs to go up to Joey’s room. Joey took off her old sweatshirt and jeans before she dropped onto the bed, suddenly exhausted as if she had been the one who’d given birth.
Mama tucked her in as if she were a little girl still. “You get some rest, sweetie. I’ll call you when dinner is ready.”
“OK,” Joey mumbled. Then she fell asleep.
***
She heard something tap against the window. She figured it was just a branch or something like that—until it happened again three times in quick succession. Then she knew someone was trying to signal her.
Joey’s head felt fuzzy as she threw back the covers. She was wearing only an oversized T-shirt and panties; she shivered as she levered herself to her bare feet. Mama must have turned the heat down when she turned in for the night. Joey had complained about that once, to which Mama had said the blankets would provide enough warmth until morning. “No reason for you to be out and about until sunrise anyway.”
The cold turned Joey’s nipples hard enough to stand against the fabric of her shirt. That came as a surprise to her. She couldn’t remember her dreams exactly, but in them she had still been a chubby, awkward kid. It had taken until last summer for her body to shed the baby fat and her breasts to grow to an average size. Mama had often said she would be a late bloomer and that had turned out to be true.
Something tapped the window again. Joey resisted the urge to shout for whoever was doing that to stop. She opened the curtains and then lifted the window just in time for a pebble to hit her in the forehead. “Hey! Stop that!” she hissed into the dark.
“Sorry,” a voice hissed back.
She had forgotten her glasses on the nightstand; even squinting it was hard to make out the shape standing below her window. “Brad? Is that you?”
“Yeah. Can I come up?”
“Mama’s aslee
p. She’d kill me if I let you in.”
“She don’t have to know, does she?”
Joey smiled a little at that. When she had been a kid she hadn’t kept secrets from Mama, but since she had turned eighteen, she saw no reason to tell Mama everything. Joey was a grown up now; she had the right to live her own life. “Just a second,” she called down to Brad.
In the closet she kept a rope ladder. The stated reason for it was to allow her to escape if there were a fire and she needed to get out quickly. In reality it was there so she could get out at night—or in this case let a boy up to her room. She snickered to herself as she tied the rope down and then tossed the remainder outside.
Brad caught the rope ladder to smooth it down before he started up. She watched how effortlessly he climbed with those muscles honed from working his daddy’s farm and playing football in fall and baseball in spring. He was tall, blond, and blue-eyed, a golden god at Andrew Jackson High School. And for some reason he had taken an interest in shy, plain, poor Joey.
She offered a hand to help him inside, but he didn’t need it. She stepped back as he swung himself through the window and then straightened to his full height. “Hey, babe,” he whispered. He had to bend to kiss her on the lips. It was just a dry kiss, a teaser.
“What are you doing here? We could get in a lot of trouble if Mama finds out.”
“I wanted to see you,” he said with a shrug. Brad was the sort of boy who always got what he wanted and rarely had to consider the consequences.
“I’m glad to see you,” she said. She leaned forward, resting her head on his rock-hard chest. “I was having some weird dreams until you woke me up.”
“So you ought to be glad I’m here.”
“I’m always glad to be with you.” She sighed happily as he hugged her tight to him. Living on the farm with Mama, she had learned to take care of herself, but sometimes it was nice to let someone take care of her.
He picked her up as if she weighed as much as Annie, the old doll she kept by her bed still. She giggled perhaps too loud as he tossed her onto the bed, where she landed on her back, bouncing a couple of times. He didn’t throw himself on the bed; he sat by her chest so he could lean down and kiss her much deeper and more passionately than the first time.
He ran a hand through her hair and smiled. “I missed you, babe.”
“You did?”
“Course I did. You’re my girl.”
She felt her face turn warm not so much with embarrassment as pleasure that he considered her “his girl.” Until her body had started blooming, boys had generally ignored her. The only interest she’d gotten was from a couple of misguided girls who thought she was a lesbian. A boy—especially a boy like Brad—taking interest in her was still a new and strange concept.
He kissed her again, this time one hand going to Joey’s breasts. She moaned into his mouth as he squeezed one of her hard nipples. His mouth moved down to kiss her neck; she squeaked as his teeth bit down on her flesh. “What are you doing?”
“Sorry. It’s just a little love bite,” he said.
“If Mama sees that she’ll know.”
“You worry too much about your mom. In a few weeks we’ll be out of school. We’ll be in Knoxville together. Just the two of us. No parents.”
“That sounds real nice,” she said.
“I thought before we went, I could give you a present.”
“A present?”
He got off the bed to unbuckle his belt. His pants and boxer shorts dropped to the floor. Joey’s eyes widened to see his penis seeming to stare at her like a one-eyed snake. It had to be six inches already and she doubted it was fully erect yet. “How’s this for a present?”
“We...we shouldn’t. Mama—”
“Forget your mama. You’re not a little kid anymore.”
“I don’t know—”
“It’s all right,” he said, leaning over the bed to kiss her hard on the mouth. “I’ll think for both of us.”
She had heard other girls talk about sex in the cafeteria and hallways of school, but she only had a vague idea of what it entailed. It was probably for the best that he take the initiative to mount her and pull her panties down. “Take that shirt off, babe. Let me see those nice titties of yours.”
He hadn’t talked to her that coarsely before; she didn’t really like it, but she didn’t want to make an issue of it either. She sat up enough that she could pull the T-shirt off. She hadn’t worn a bra underneath it, so that her breasts could bounce free as the shirt was lifted away. Brad took one in each hand, squeezing them the way Mama did to melons in the garden to test their ripeness. Only Joey liked the squeezing a lot more than a melon did.
“It’s going to hurt a little when I stick it in you, but then it’s going to feel real, real good,” he said. One of his huge hands enveloped hers, giving it a squeeze as he shoved his penis inside her. She whimpered from the pain he had promised. If it hurt this much, why did people do it? Why would Mama do it—?
Brad thrust inside of her, sending an electric thrill through her entire body. His hands groped her breasts, kneading them the way Mama kneaded dough for biscuits. While it should hurt, it felt so good that Joey hoped he would never stop.
He let out a groan and she could feel his penis throb for a few moments. He started to pull it back, some sticky fluid dripping onto her thighs. “Where’s the bathroom?”
“Across the hall,” she said. “Was that...was that it?”
“Yeah, babe. We can do it again in a little bit.” Brad kissed her on the cheek before he slid off the bed to go to the bathroom.
While she lay on the bed, unsure how she was supposed to feel about what had happened, she heard a buzzing from the floor. She leaned over to see Brad’s pants vibrating. Someone was calling. Probably his parents. If they were like Mama they would be really mad about their son being out late at night. If they found out he was here, then they might call Mama and she’d thrash Joey; it wouldn’t matter that Joey was eighteen and a grown woman according to the law.
She reached into Brad’s pants to dig out the phone. It was no longer buzzing. Whoever had called must have hung up. Joey stared at the phone, not sure what to do with it; Mama hadn’t ever seen the need for either of them to have a cellular phone. Studying the device, she flipped it open and the screen came to life. At the top was a picture of an envelope and a number twenty.
It wasn’t right to snoop on Brad’s phone; she should put it back and tell him it had buzzed while he was gone—
The phone buzzed again. On the screen, a message popped up: R U With HER? It was from someone named Denise. Denise Cranston, the student council president and head cheerleader? Unless he had an aunt named Denise. Or maybe a cousin—
Joey fiddled with the buttons until the screen changed to a list of other messages. Of the twenty listed, sixteen were from this Denise. Joey opened one and gasped. It read, “Im Horny. Get Over Here!” That message had been from last night. Joey opened another that read, “Mom bought 2 tix 2 LA. CU.” Joey needed a minute to decode the message. Two tickets to LA. Los Angeles? Why would Brad go there?
“Hey, babe, whatcha doing?” Brad asked.
“Who’s Denise?”
“What?”
“Denise. She sent you a message. She wanted to know if you were with me. You should probably answer her before she gets mad.” Joey shut the phone before she cocked her arm and threw it as hard as she could at Brad. Being a gifted athlete, of course he caught it.
He swaggered over to the bed to sit beside her. He ran a hand along her thigh. “Denise is just a friend.”
Joey snorted at that. “Do all your friends tell you when they’re horny?”
“Babe—”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped. “When are you going to LA?”
“What?”
“Stop playing dumb. I saw the message. Denise said her mom bought two tickets to LA. Why are you going there?”
“I’m not—”
“Stop lying!” Joey shrieked, no longer caring if she woke Mama or not. A thrashing would feel good compared to this betrayal. “It’s Denise Cranston, right? She’s a lot prettier and more popular.”
“Joey, come on. I like you.”
“Why?”
“You’re cute. And you’re smart—”
“I see. It’s because I helped you with your homework so you didn’t fail. Now that that’s done, you and Denise are going off to LA. You were never going to Tennessee, were you?”
“You’ve got it all wrong, Joey—”
“You weren’t, were you? Were you?” she shouted, glaring at him.
He finally shrugged. “You brought up Tennessee. I never said I was going there. I mean, it was a safety school, but then I got a lot better deal from USC. Full scholarship. I’ll be competing for the starting job. And it’s in LA. You think I’m going to pass that up for you?”
Raw hatred pumped through Joey at Brad’s confession. He had used her! Used her to help with his homework and then used her body. Her hands balled into fists. She screamed, “You...you...you pig!”
She gasped to see where Brad had been was an adorable pink piglet with a blue ribbon around its neck. The pig screeched at her and then stumbled around as if it weren’t used to walking yet. “Oh my God! Brad?”
The piglet screeched again. Joey put a hand to her mouth and laughed. She knew it wasn’t really funny, but then he had certainly deserved it for what he’d done to her. As she’d done before in the pigsty, she picked Brad up to stroke the white down on his back. “There, there,” she cooed. “It’s all right. Just take it easy.”
Brad snorted in reply, but he at least stopped thrashing around. “You’re such a little cutie. Yes you are. Yes you are.”
“What the hell is going on in here?” Mama shouted from the doorway. Brad screeched and thrashed in Joey’s arms, but she managed to keep hold of him. “Where’d you get that?”
“I don’t know what happened. Brad was in here—”
“Brad? That boy from school?”