“Come on baby, we have some catching up to do.”
I just could not believe the sexual appetite of that woman. She was always ready, always after me to do it, “just one more time baby, please?” I got to thinking I’d like to see her with the two guys who had watched us and maybe even a half dozen more just to see if she had a limit. I was in hog heaven; a great looking woman was fucking my brains out and giving me all the sex I could handle and I didn’t even have to leave the house to get it.
But something was missing and that something was Helen.
I missed her smile, I missed sitting and holding here and being held by her and I missed all of those little things that you never seem to notice at the time. The way she would reach over and move a stray lock of hair on my forehead, smile, look into my eyes and tell me she loved me. I missed the way she would rub her foot on my ankle when we were sitting and watching TV or talking; the way she would lay her head on my chest and trace little patterns on my stomach with her fingernails after we’d made love. I missed the way that she could never seem to be in a room with me without having to touch me in some way. I just flat assed missed her.
It was the day after my dad left on his trip and it was mom’s week to open the restaurant in the morning. She woke me with a blow job, we had a spirited session on my bed and then she had showered, dressed and gone to work. I didn’t need to be to work until two so I was lying in bed relaxing in that warm after glow you get after good sex. The doorbell rang and I looked over at the clock and saw it was ten after nine in the morning. I put on a robe and went to answer the door. It was Helen’s aunt. As soon as the door was opened she pushed her way past me saying, “I need to talk to you boy.” I debated just going on outside and getting in my car and going for a drive until she got tired of waiting and left, but curiosity finally got the best of me and I closed the door and followed her into the living room. She cut right to the chase.
“Why did you break that poor girls heart? She hasn’t slept and barely eats a bite and her eyes are staying red from crying all the time. How in the name of our Lord could you do that to her?”
“Apparently she has told you what I did, but did she tell you why?”
“She did and it don’t matter none. You were the first good thing to ever happen to that poor child and she gave you her heart and you stomped on it. I just wanted to come over here, look you in the eye and tell you what a rotten bastard you are and that I hope that you rot in hell.”
And with that she stomped out of the house, got in her car and drove away. What a nice way to start the day I thought, but it wasn’t over yet. I was just leaving for work when the phone rang and it was Helen’s cousin Rocs.
“Any chance we can get together for a talk?”
“If it is going to be more fire and brimstone like I just got from your mother no thanks.’
“Mom can get a little excited at times, but no, I just need to talk.”
I made arrangements to meet her after work at a bar not too far from where I work.
She was sitting in a booth when I got there. We exchanged pleasantries and then I said, “What’s this about Rocs?”
“You’re not stupid, you know it is about Helen.”
“Thank you, but I’ve already gotten the “You are a rotten bastard” speech from your mother.”
“Yeah, well like I said, mom does get a little carried away sometimes. I’m not here to call you names. I just wanted to know why you did what you did to Helen. There has to be more to it than what she is saying.”
“What is she saying?”
“That you got upset because she was kissing some guy.”
“That’s it?”
“She said a guy drove her home from work one night and you saw here kissing him and the next day you broke up with her.”
“Well, you are right, there is a little bit more to the story than that” and I proceeded to lay it all out for her. “So, there you have it. Putting the hotel history together with the steamy make out session I watched for over half an hour gave me the picture of a girl that I decided wasn’t right for me.”
She looked at me silently for a bit and then, “Has Helen ever told you about what life was like in the hollows of West Virginia and what she had to look forward to there?”
I shook my head no.
“First, there is the abject poverty, a poverty so pervasive that it makes the slums of Detroit look like the Promised Land. Next is the culture. Most girls that live back in those hollows have lost their virginity before they even reach puberty and it has normally been taken by a family member – father, brother, uncle or cousin – and most of them end up pregnant because of it. It is a world where first cousins marry and families inter-breed and it isn’t uncommon for a girl to reach her eighteenth birthday with four or five kids clutching at the hem of her skirt. Helen was lucky. Her father is a God fearing man who also happens to be big and mean and he put out the word that he would kill any man who touched her and everyone who heard him knew that he meant it. But even with an over protective father to keep her from harm it was a place she knew she had to get away from.
“I’m going to give you the worst. She got out by sneaking out behind her father’s back and giving herslf to men for money. As soon as she had enough for a bus ticket she ran. I’m not surprised to hear about the Lafayette. She sold her body to save herself so what was one more time? She is a survivor and she will do whatever she has to do keep herself going. I do know that she hasn’t been with any man other than you since the day she came to live with mom and me. As for the guy she necked with? I don’t know, but I can make a pretty good guess. No girl wants to be standing alone at a bus stop in Detroit at one in the morning if she can help it. If this guy kept giving her a ride home and wanted to keep doing it she was certainly going to let him.