Sabina Graves

Animal girl

CHAPTER ONE

Blackjack clung like a beachside fishing village to the ash gray desert that sprawled as far as the eye could see toward the craggy-hewn peaks of the Kingston Range, a motley collection of sun-parched ridges in the southern end of the California Sierras. To the north lay the natural furnace of Death Valley; less than a hundred miles beyond the mountains, Las Vegas nestled like a multicolored jewel in the parched wilderness of the Mojave. It was almost mid-day, and today, like every other day of the year, most activity had ground tediously to a standstill so that men and machines could be replenished. A dozen or so of the men huddled under the tin roof of the open-ended maintenance shed, talking quietly so as not to exert themselves in the scorching heat, waiting for the signal to shuffle back over the powdery wastes and return to their jobs on the oil derricks. Blackjack had a long, if not glorious, history as a mining town. First as a base camp for fruitless gold hunts in the killer mountains, later as a home for borax miners, and now, though mostly in ruin except for a few unpainted cabins that were still inhabitable, as the temporary hometown for nearly twenty "roughnecks" and whatever families they possessed. Blackjack had been invaded seven months ago by Benny Terrell and his ragged crew of fortune hunters, in search of an elusive reservoir of crude oil that might or might not exist, in hopes of a fortune that might or might not fall into their hands. And all of them, including Jamie Olsen, working for wages that seemed as elusive as this tricky oil field they were searching for.

Sarah Olsen, Jamie's twenty year old wife of three months, sat alone and sullen on the shaky front porch of their tiny two room shack, her rocking chair carefully positioned so that the runners did not cause any weight to be placed upon the dozen or so completely rotted planks in the porch's unpainted floor. She rocked slowly and gently in the midday heat so as not to use up too much precious strength – there was still dinner to cook, if you could call boiled potatoes and pork belly a dinner, and dishes to wash… and Jamie's one decent work-shirt to be hand scrubbed and hung on the line stretched across the porch to dry in less than a half hour in the desert's hot waterless breeze. Sometimes she felt that the desert's furnace-hot wind was drying her out much the same way, draining her whole young body of its very youthfulness just as it sucked the moisture from a dripping-wet shirt in twenty minutes or so.

Scanning the black on white type of the newspaper old Mr. Parker brought her from his supply run into the city, Sarah brushed her blonde hair from her eyes and wiped her forehead instinctively. "Instinctively" because out here in the desert there was really no need for that; perspiration evaporated as fast as it beaded up on your skin in this zero humidity heat. All morning long she had carefully gone down the long, finely-printed columns, x-ing them off one by one, narrowing her hopes for any escape from this perpetual furnace she was trapped in as surely as a sinner is trapped in purgatory. One by one, each tiny inked-in "X" snuffing a little more of the flicker of hope that ached in her breast, Sarah Marie Olsen had eliminated her methods of escape and her chances for another life outside this hell hole that only a money-maddened wildcatter with a cooked brain could call a town.

And now there was just one chance left. There could be no turning back if she managed to make it this once, Jamie was no man to be trifled with! She knew only too well that he would beat her until she wouldn't be able to run away again if he caught her or if she had to turn back. Mr. Parker was taking his life in his hands in agreeing to drive her into town, but maybe he figured at his age there wasn't really much to live for anyway. Sarah looked, eyes squinting in the blazing California desert sun, to see if the office shack was empty. It was! In that little clapboard hut was the camp's only telephone, her one link with the outside world… that magic place with flowers and cool showers and running water and people who could laugh and not talk only of elusive oil strikes that would never come and towns and cars and sounds and smells. Out there was everything that she had left behind when she somehow fell in love with Jamie Olsen, everything she had thrown away when she stupidly agreed to come with him on this fool's mission on the backside of nowhere.

She glanced down the rutted dirt street that connected all the crumbling shacks, the ones in use and the ones too far gone for even the likes of these people to live in. The men had piled onto the flatbed and gone back to the drilling site; and the women, the few that were still here, were all resting or napping inside out of the mind-numbing heat. This was it, now or never! Sarah got up and moved slowly toward the open door of the office shack, angling toward the tin-roofed food storage building first in case someone spotted her.

She rechecked the number she had scribbled on the inside of an empty cigarette package and waited for the operator to answer somewhere south toward the highway and the cities of the real world. This was the moment she had dreamed of, walked the floor over, for weeks on end. If the voice on the end of that line held out the slightest hope for her, she would be out of this hell on earth within twenty four hours… and she would never look back!

CHAPTER TWO

It wasn't so long ago really, but all that seemed to have been in another world to Sarah now, another life somewhere that she had lived through and was now ended, no more a part of her life now than night was a part of day, or one day a part of the one before. That was over, gone, past, and nothing counted any longer save the present. And each day that she lived now was one more to make up for the miserable ones that came before.

Sarah was truly happy now, she was finally doing something wild and exciting, just like all her girlish daydreams when she was in high school back in Utah, dreaming of a life somewhere filled with reckless deeds and adventure, instead of endless piles of dirty dishes and a smelly man's socks draped over the shower curtain. Ever since her first trip to the zoo as a kid, she had always had a special spot in her heart for animals, all kinds of animals, so when she spotted that ad in the classified section that blistering hot afternoon a month ago, it was only natural that she give it a try at least. Mr. Hawkins her boss now, said that it was her girlish enthusiasm and sincerity that landed it for her, but whatever it was, she was grateful. It had called for, simply, an "attractive young girl who loves animals for assistant's job with traveling zoo and animal show. See the American and Canadian west and get paid for it!" And now the job was hers, special assistant to Mr. Henry Hawkins at a hundred and fifty a week, all expenses paid. It was like a dream come true; Sarah was fearful of waking up and finding herself back in Blackjack with all those coarse, uninteresting people, listening to them talk of bits and derricks and barrels of oil until she died of old age, penniless and still stuck in that God-forsaken hole in the Mojave Desert.

But it was indeed all real, not something she had fantasized out of sheer desperation. She had gone to see Mr. Hawkins, riding into town with Mr. Parker when he went to get the mail and supplies, and she never went back, not even to get her clothes. Mr. Hawkins hired her on the spot, and she swore old Mr. Parker to secrecy, as no one had seen them leave together. Her new boss seemed quite concerned about her marriage difficulties, and he even offered her an advance on her first week's salary so that she could buy a few new clothes and not have to spend another second with that coarse slug of a husband back in Blackjack.

She did take the time to write her husband a letter, though, which was probably more than he deserved. Mr. Hawkins mailed it for her in Las Vegas when he had to drive up there on business. She could just imagine Jamie, red-faced and blustering, clad most likely in work jeans and steel-toed boots, storming into Las Vegas and demanding of someone, probably the first policeman he spotted, that they return his wife before he got really mad and wrecked the whole place. Jamie was like that, though he certainly had contained it well enough when he was courting her; he thought a wife was just another piece of property, like a monkey-wrench or an old comfortable pair of shoes, so he treated her accordingly. As near as he could figure it, being the wife of Jamie Olsen was a distinct privilege, something to be thankful for, and that should be enough to satisfy any woman. Nice clothes? Tenderness? A good life? Hell, that was for dudes and rich folks, not for Jamie. Hard dirty work and chasing the rainbow was all he knew, all his father and his father before him ever knew… and Sarah hoped he would be happy with it now that he had it all to himself.

***

They were on the road now, somewhere north of the Canadian-U.S. border and rolling further toward the oil field and construction camps of the Northwest Territories. It was ironic, in a way, that Sarah had escaped from one oilworkers' town and was heading for another, but it wasn't the same this time. She was on the move; the show's schedule called for not more than two days in any location, so she would see lots and lots of scenery between stops. And besides, there would be dozens of interesting people to meet along their full season's schedule that brought them back, by the coming on of winter, to California, not just the few boring souls back in Blackjack who were always the same – dull and uninteresting – day in and day out.

Sarah rode in the pickup with Mr. Hawkins and one of the animal trainers, a young kid named Sammy who was working his first season also with the show. There was a large camper body attached to the truck, with a tiny crawlway between the cab and the camper, so she could squirm through and get Cokes or beer for them whenever the guys asked for it or sneak a few winks on the double bed that stretched over the roof of the pickup cab and gave her a panoramic view of the majestic Canadian Rockies as they passed on her right. Behind them, but not traveling in convoy because it was too dangerous in the event of an accident, were two other employees, Hawkins' right hand man, Al Badger, and the other woman who worked with the show, someone Sarah knew only as Gloria. They rode in an old station wagon that towed the trailer they seemed to share.

And behind them, further still scattered back along their route, were the trucks, three of them, that carried the animals from the show. They had left the wintering site pretty soon after Sarah took the job, so she really hadn't spent much time with any of them, but they all appeared to be quite healthy and well-cared for and she was glad of that. She had had it in the back of her mind that some of these traveling menagerie shows did not take care of their caged animals, and Sarah wanted no part of any kind of abuse like that. She could not bear the thought of anyone mistreating a captive animal, or a wild one, for that matter. To her, that was as alien as beating an infant or whipping a child with a heavy leather belt. Maybe it was because of the way she had been so badly treated by her mother's second husband before she finally ran away and got married to the first jerk who offered a time-payment ring and had enough for the marriage license. Of course, she had not seen it in quite that light then, but it was becoming clearer now all the time as she sat quietly while Sammy and Mr. Hawkins took turns with the pickup, coming into focus like a television tube warming up. And it wasn't a picture she liked… nor one she ever wanted to relive. This was all so exciting, a whole new world out there, and Sarah planned to see every inch of it.

CHAPTER THREE

Hawkins had made arrangements ahead to have space available at a privately-owned campground outside Soda Creek, British Columbia for the show's vehicles, as the drive necessitated a stop halfway from the Canadian border to the first show stop across the territorial line into the Yukon. This would be their only overnight rest before the show arrived, as from here on, they would simply stop individually to change drivers, sleeping in their vehicles until they reached Line Creek, where they would set up for the resident families and transient workers engaged there in building a highway through to the coast.

Hawkins was driving when they arrived, and after stopping for a back-slapping welcome from the campground's manager, a one-legged retired lumberjack named "Stump" Moran, he personally guided the vehicles into place for the night as they arrived. Sleeping arrangements were something her new employer had failed to really explain to Sarah, but she wasn't actually concerned, for Mr. Hawkins was obviously a harmless enough old eccentric, all wound up in his animals, busying himself like a leathery white-haired elf as he scurried from trailer to trailer and bedded everyone down for the night. Sarah offered her help, but Hawkins insisted that she remain in the camper. "Plenty of weak minds and strong backs for this kind of work," he had explained. When she suggested mat this might indeed be a perfect time for getting to know some of the others, Gloria particularly, as she was the only other woman along, Hawkins rebuffed her icily. It was strangely out of character for him, and Sarah was somewhat hurt when he "suggested" quite firmly that she find something to keep her occupied inside the trailer.

Sarah was surprised at this sudden chill, but she took it calmly enough; after all, this had been a long tiring day and anyone, even nice old Henry Hawkins, was entitled to be a bit frayed around the edges. She was there in the pickup camper alone when he returned over an hour later. Only by finding a distant American radio station on the camper's receiver had she managed to stave off the worrying restlessness of boredom, but she was quite relaxed and contented now when he came back, and the warm smile on the middle-aged man's face put her even more at ease.

"Sorry to have to leave you so long like this, Miss Olsen… oh, excuse me, Mrs. Olsen, I forget you're still really married," apologized the middle-aged graying man quite sheepishly. Sarah found herself embarrassed by his shyness, his self-effacing manner.

"Oh, don't give it another thought. I was quite happy, really. It's nice to be able to relax and enjoy the quiet of this beautiful countryside. And you ought to call me Sarah, then there wouldn't be any problem remembering that silly ol' Miss or Mrs.," said Sarah smiling in relief at being back in his good graces again. Hawkins smiled at her suggestion and nodded, then opened the camper's refrigerator and pulled out a cold beer.

"Want one?" he asked. "Nothing better'n beer to cut the dirt from a hard day's driving."

Sarah shook her head. "I know it sounds silly in this day and age, but I don't drink. Guess it was 'cause my pappa… stepfather, actually… drank so much and I grew up seeing the ugly side of liquor. Never really cared for it since I can remember."

The wrinkle-faced, sun-toughened old man grinned. "Yep, you're probably wise. Liquor never did anybody any real good, even the weak stuff like beer and wine. Still though, I guess I'm too old to change my evil ways now." Sarah's lips eased into a smile at the thought of nice ol' Mr. Hawkins being evil. Christ, after some of the people she had known – or the one she'd married – he was like a man of the cloth. "You don't mind if I have this beer, do ya'?" he asked.

"Of course not! I didn't mean for you to think I was some kind of do-gooder or something," she explained hurriedly, not wanting to risk offending her new boss. "I haven't got anything against drinking. I just don't like it for myself, that's all. Don't go getting any notions that I'm that kind of person!"

Hawkins slowly turned his head from side to side, his eyes never leaving her for a second. "That's good, Sarah. 'Cause life gets a little bit tarnished sometimes traveling around the country like this. You don't have to become hardened to it, though, just be able to bend enough when the times comes, and you'll do nicely… really nicely."

Sarah felt an unexpected chill run through her veins… that quickening that tells you something isn't quite the way it should be. But that was outrageous, everything was better than it had been for her in years! She quickly shrugged it off and made herself another cup of coffee and sat down opposite Hawkins at the fold-down dining table opposite the galley-style kitchen. He reached up and turned on the gas mantle of the built-in lamp that hung on the wall beside them and held a paper match to the mantle until it burst into flame and settled into a white-hot glow that illuminated the cabin like an electric light bulb.

They sat there in silence for an uncomfortably long time, Sarah curious and restless from the excitement of this new life unfolding for her so quickly, Hawkins quiet and pensive, his mind somewhere else as he gazed out the curtained window through the trees to the opposite clearing where his crew was busily making preparations for settling down for the night. There were voices carrying through the fifty yards or so that separated them from the others, mixed with the muffled sounds of stirring animals caged in their trailers as the trainer and Sammy moved from cage to cage, dispensing the night's ration of food and water, plus an occasional dose of vitamins or veterinary prescription to one or the other mildly ailing beasts.

"Uh, I guess you're sort of used to all this traveling by now… I mean, you've been to all these places before so many times probably," she said, feebly making some kind of conversation.

Hawkins looked as if he had been very far away. "What? Oh, yes, you're absolutely right. But I never get tired of it all. This is the kind of life I was born for, and I don't ever aim to change. I guess I'll die one day up here on the road somewhere. Won't be nobody around to mourn over me 'cept Lobo."

"Lobo? That means wolf, doesn't it?"

"Not only means it, he is a wolf."

"You've got a wolf? I didn't see him with the other animals." Hawkins shook his head. "No, I don't keep him down in California. He stays up here with 'Stump' during the winter, and I just take him with me when I come through. He's out by those trees there. Take a look, I think you can probably still see him."

Sarah peered out the fogged-over window, first wiping a spot clear with her fist. "Oh, you weren't teasing! There he is… and he's not tied or anything!"

"Tied! Lobo? He wouldn't stand for it. 'Sides I've raised him ever since he was a pup. One of our trucks accidentally killed his mother and I took him in. Had to feed him just like a natural baby for months. He and I are pretty good pals now, like I was his real pappa or something."

Sarah started to giggle at the thought of Mr. Hawkins fathering a timber wolf, but the look of misty-eyed seriousness on the old man's face cut her short. By God, he was serious, all right! That mean-looking animal out there running around loose was like a son to him! Well, anybody his age was due a few eccentricities, she supposed. If that was all she had to contend with, it wouldn't be hard at all. "When do I start work, Mr. Hawkins? I mean, when do I really start to do something? It's nice and all just sitting around, but I get sort of bored. You know what I mean?" she asked, her soft blue eyes twinkling.

A slowly spreading grin worked its way through the sun-parched wrinkles around Hawkins' face. "Don't worry, honey. We'll have plenty for you to do soon enough. Hey, you sure you don't want a drink? I know one special I bet you'd like."

"Well, maybe just one. But I can't drink anything real strong. You'll have to make it kinda' weak for me or I'll get sick."

Henry Hawkins guffawed, reminding Sarah of some grizzled miner she'd once seen in an old Bogart movie, but she couldn't remember the name. "You break me up, girl! You're kinda' refreshing, like a breath of spring air around this bunch of drunks and dee-gen-erates. Don't worry, I'll fix you a special…"

CHAPTER FOUR

Sarah knew even before that first mouthful had started a gentle glow in her belly that taking a drink at all was a terrible mistake. Jamie had told her once when they were going to a party that she should be doubly careful since she wasn't used to drinking and, unlike the more experienced, could not tell when she had had enough until it was too late.

This stuff tasted good enough – a "Cuba Libre" he called it, whatever that meant – in fact, it was hard to taste anything other than the Coke he made it with. She didn't know what else was in it, except for the slice of lemon she could see floating on top, because he had gone over to Gloria's trailer. "Don't have the mixin's here," he had explained.

"Well, how do you like it?" he asked, her, his head cocked sort of apprehensively.

"Okay… it's sort of like a Coca-Cola with something warm in it, but the Coke's all I can really taste."

"Well, just take your time with it. You'll get used to it soon enough. Not that I'm trying to turn you into some sort of lush or something, mind you. But you'll probably need a drink once in a while when we really get rolling. It's pretty hectic around this show sometimes."

Sarah nodded. She wanted to ask him once again just exactly what her duties would be, but she thought better of it. He did not seem to be disposed to tell her very much right now, and Sarah figured it best to just let things ride as they were. After all, she was getting paid good money for doing nothing, so far, so who was she to complain?

They talked for a while longer, Sarah mindful of the fact that her words were beginning to slur a bit around the edges and that some of her thoughts seemed to ramble a bit more than usual. But she wasn't drunk, she was certain of that. Maybe she was no experienced drinker, but she surely knew enough to know when to stop. Hawkins fixed her another and she reluctantly accepted it, and she thought for a moment it was a bit strange that he seemed to have everything he needed right here in the camper this time. But why worry? The night was cool and quiet, save for an occasional growl from one of the big cats or a roar from the show's big star, Jomo, the African gorilla, safely locked behind the double steel bars of his cage where she'd seen him – just once – before they left California.

Hawkins rambled on a bit, relating how he had picked up the traveling show for a song from a Mexican couple who needed the money. He conveniently left out the rest of the story – how they were desperate for money for their son's much-needed operation and he loaned it to them, taking the show as collateral. Hawkins was in the used furniture business then, as he called it, though his real trade was in taking over delinquent furniture store accounts and foreclosing for the goods and reselling it to Chicanos in Los Angeles. It had been a quite lucrative business, sometimes bringing the same goods back two or three times before he mistakenly sold them to someone who could actually hope to make the payments.

That was a part of his life he didn't talk much about, particularly with new employees. People sometimes got the wrong idea. Just like when they called him heartless for taking the old couple's livelihood just because their only son died on the operating table, and they lacked the money to make their note payment on time. Hell, business is business, he always said, and if you can't take it, you shouldn't be in it. At least that was the way Henry Hawkins saw things – he never believed in giving any quarter, just as he expected none if the chips happened to be on the opposite side.

But it wasn't good to dwell too much on thoughts like that now… there was something much more important at hand. Yes, this cute little thing was in for a real surprise. Just about another hour oughta' do it, he though. He nearly chuckled out loud as he thought of the look on Gloria's face as he dumped the powdery Spanish Fly into Sarah's syrupy rum and Coke. There was always plenty of it in the veterinary cupboard for when they breeded the animals… and for other little surprises like this one. Gloria had been the first, and she was getting close to the end of her prime now, though God knows she certainly didn't need any drugs to help her out now. Christ, she could fuck the balls off a dozen men before she got her second wind. But this one… this one was sweet and still innocent. Marriage may have cost her her cherry, but she was just as pure as the day she turned sixteen, and that was just what the show needed. Oh yeah, little lady, you're in for a big surprise… you'll probably wet those sweet white panties when you find out what's really in store for you, but you'll come around, they all do. And I'm gonna' have some real fun with you while you're making up your mind. Yes sir, some real fun!

CHAPTER FIVE

Gloria was waiting impatiently at the door of her silver-colored trailer when Hawkins returned from his camper. She was wearing a man's shirt tied to make a kind of halter and a pair of ragged jeans and boots, her usual around-camp wear. "Well, how'd it go, Henry? Hurry up, tell me!" she urged eagerly. Nearly an hour had passed since he came over here through the wooded thicket to dump that powerful aphrodisiac into the new blonde's drink, and she was beside herself with expectant curiosity.

"She took it like mother's milk," he grinned in the macabre yellow glare of the trailer's outside bulb. "Shouldn't be long now."

"Ooo, I can hardly wait," the mid-thirtyish woman squealed. "Al, hey Al, Henry's back!" she yelled in that sort of hoarse whisper-shout of someone wishing to yell without being heard too far away. A pot-bellied slight balding man in his mid-forties shuffled groggily into view from the battered trailer's tiny bedroom. He was holding an open half-quart can of beer and an unlit cigarette was dangling from his lower lip. It stayed there as he spoke, held in place by the wetness of the beer he'd obviously just finished. "Went like clockwork, huh, Henry?" he inquired, dropping the emptied beer can into a plastic trash can lined with newspaper that was positioned by the bedroom door. "When you think she'll be ready? I wouldn't mind a piece o' her ass myself. Did you see those legs? And tits! Man, she's got a pair like one o' them fold-out girlies."

Gloria glared at him half seriously. "You just shut your mouth, Al Badger. You can't even satisfy the woman you've got, much less go spreading it around."

Henry laughed out loud and his employee's face momentarily flushed. "Shit, Gloria," said the heavier one with the tee-shirt that failed to cover his protruding belly. "It'd take half the men in Canada to satisfy you and you know it."

"Goddamn right, if they all had cocks like that scrawny one of yours!" she taunted.

"Scrawny! You can go to hell, you ol' whore, I ain't never had any complaints before!"

"Now, now, you two, save all that energy for later. And anyway, Gloria, you're gonna' be gettin' all the cock you can handle when we give that first show."

Gloria felt a shiver of anticipation run up her spine at just the thought. She'd done some pretty far-out things since signing up with Henry Hawkins, at least since he found out there wasn't any money in menagerie shows for kiddies and bored grownups. That was when he decided to add something new, something special just for the men-folks and an occasional thrill-seeking woman or two. That was where she came in – the special show, the one that cost five dollars a head and was well worth it. She put one on, all right, left them with their tongues hanging out when she'd polished off that wolf of Henry's… and sometimes a donkey if the crowd was right and she felt up to it. Not to mention the one or two she always took out of the audience, just to give the locals something to talk about after they'd pulled up and left. But sometime on this tour, they would try something new and different… and even Gloria was nervous about how it would work out.

"Gimme' a beer, Al, and I'll go back and see how our new little girl is doing with the something special I gave her. She oughta' be about to come in her pants about right now."

"How about it, Henry? You gonna' share this one now, or have I got to stand in line?"

"Oh no, not tonight, it's too soon for that. But I tell you what – you two come on over in a little while and take a look-see through that window over the sink. Maybe you'll get a little show, who knows!"

***

Sarah had already slipped out of her clothes and into a pale green nightie before Henry Hawkins walked the distance over to Al and Gloria's trailer. She was tired and sleepy and the couple of drinks her new boss fixed her made it even worse, so all she wanted was to get under those covers and close her eyes.

But then it happened… not all at once, but in little short spurts, brief quivering spasms of intense feeling and stimulation that coursed through her scantily-clad young body in surge after surge of frightening strangeness. It didn't worry her much at first; after all, it could have been anything – the onset of some virus from all the travel and excitement, or maybe just her insides knotting up from the newness of all this or… but there was soon no way of kidding herself. Something, indeed, had happened to her, just as surely as if a hidden switch inside her brain had been triggered open. First the feeling of blood rushing heatedly to her belly, then the tingling spreading upward through her thighs, then to her lushly quivering breasts where they reddened slightly and began to swell with an excitement all their own. And then her tiny young nipples began to throb as if in wicked perverse accompaniment to the unknown song of quickening desire that was somehow welling inside her at this very moment.

Her mind reeled for a moment and then her confused thoughts, blurred by the effects of the unaccustomed liquor, began to come together in one frightening melange of apprehension and suspicious fear. What is happening to me? Something's wrong… maybe I've been poisoned. Yes, that's it, poisoned! No, that can't be right, who would poison me? Maybe it's the liquor, maybe I'm allergic to something in those drinks.

"You sick or somethin', Sarah?" She jumped half a foot off the camper floor at the sudden intrusion; turning, startled, she saw that Mr. Hawkins had let himself in through the unlocked door and was standing there in the doorway only a few feet away. Only she couldn't see him, at least not clearly. He was more a smeared, shapeless mass to her blurry eyes than the man she remembered from just a short while ago.

"You scared me. I didn't know you were coming back," she said slowly and deliberately, wondering if the words sounded the same on the other side of her lips as they did to her. She was shaking her head from side to side, as if that might clear the murkiness from her mind and enable her to think clearly once again…

"Sorry, honey," he smiled. "I guess I should have knocked. Didn't know you were getting ready for bed." He glanced down along the scarcely concealed smooth curves of her voluptuous young body, her high jutting breasts and long shapely legs clearly visible to his obviously appraising stare. She crossed her arms over her firmly ripened breasts and stirred uncomfortably, uneasy under the suddenly coldness of his gaze.