"Perfect Match" by Ray Gregory

www.RayGregory.com

Perfect Match

by Ray Gregory

Every night she takes the same route — every night! — past the same secluded stretch? Habit? Ritual? The pious ho! And what a stickler for the family values. So how come the hubby’s never trudging along with her, keeping a tight eye on the soft, round goodies? You’d think she, the all-mighty founder of the Christian Anti-Rape League, would even have some burly bodyguard watching her ass, her with all that one-answer-fits-all certainty.

Castration, the Big C. What a choice! What a diabolical, all-or-nothing choice! Caged forever with or free someday without? And no dickering? Both balls or nothing? A guy with imagination always has to come down on the side of possibility and improvisation. So here he is now, a shabby little ball-less wonder. A nobody, right? — well, maybe by most people’s short-sighted reckoning.

But things could have been worse. If the stupid cops had stumbled on him five minutes later, they would have nabbed him for more than just a brisk reaming. The pigs, the prosecutors, the judge, not one of those idiots had a clue about how creative he’d been prior, about how many others he’d helped appreciate the rape-acious ways of the world. Oh sure, they had their suspicions — the cynical pricks! — but nothing tangible to drive the nails in. They certainly had no imagination. Just one, puny, little aggravated rape? Ooh, bad boy!

Still, he would have got real time — way more than he’d had left in this incarnation — if he hadn’t agreed to the Big C, then sealed the deal by thanking Jesus all groveling and teary eyed. Thanks to all the Bible thumping his parents did on him, he can pitch a born-again fit like a pro now. Christian castration, what a concept! Funny — downright hilarious! — how the Jesus freaks think a guy’s whole, sex-reeking self just withers to nothing after they nip his naughty nads. Like a guy without his globes gets all limp dick and calm, just slithers down a dark hole never to be heard from again. A dark hole — very punny.

Maybe what’s even funnier was him ever thinking she was more than what she is now, a trussed-up, quivering hausfrau stashed in the back of his van. Talk about the banality evil: What a pair, him and her! Good versus evil? More like good, honest evil versus — yuck!

And rape about power, not sex? Well, tell that to the animal kingdom — and watch out for the foreplay. Even bedbugs get it more real than humans these days. They don’t even have pussies. The male just punctures a female’s belly, humps the gaping wound. Talk about pounding a gash. Sex, power? Sex is power, for Christ’s sake!

But humans? Civilization? The modern pussy-welfare state? What a degrading spectacle! — mental castration, rape in reverse. “Gentle sex” is the most perverted power play of all. Prissy-pussy cunts making men prove they’re the bigger pussies? It’s a wonder there’s enough jism left on the planet to keep the population up. The ball-crunching bitches, such prized commodities, so hoarded and husbanded, preening on their pedestals. A little plundering and pillaging just come with the territory.

Listen to her whimpering back there. Where’s all that righteous fury now? So caring and concerned about the whiny little victims, yet such a hard ass when it comes to the enterprising other half of the equation, the half that makes it all happen. Her, on TV even, with those cold, squinty eyes set on eternal vengeance. So what if some guy with the get-up-and-go gave her little nothing of a niece the porking of her life? — her last porking anyway. Boo frigging hoo! And that less than earth-shattering event was what started all the scrotum trimming?

Well, what about the forgiveness angle, bitch? Turn the other cheek — or cheeks? If you can love your frigging enemy, for Christ’s sake, why not your friendly rapist? Real rump-humping love too, not any skinny-Jesus, locked-snatch lip service. If a Good Samaritan in a skirt really wanted to be good, she could spread ‘em — and wide too. No, he can spot a kindred savage soul when he sees one, even in sheep’s clothing, even with a shiny gold cross swinging between her tits.

Oh, and here’s a flash, all ye shearers for the Lord: Maybe you’re too goddamned busy sharpening your gleaming testes snips to think about it, but guess what. When a guy can’t get it up, getting it up — and everything he could do with it up — are all he ever thinks about. And what, you think he can’t still get off on some vicarious poking? Hell, anything long, hard, and handy will suffice.

“What’s that?” He sniffed the air, then glared over his shoulder. “Jesus, bitch, you peed yourself?” He rolled his eyes, then grinned in the rearview mirror. “Sorry, no pit stops tonight — unless, of course, you wanna count the pit, cuz that’s where you’re headed — but only after some hell on Earth first. Gotta get my reward too, you know.” He snorted. It was too perfect!

Headlights flashed in the windshield. Another car whizzed by. He heard her in the back, choking, gnawing on the gag, squirming.

“Like what, they’ll hear you? Shut up, you stupid cow. Whatcha so worried about anyway? You already got your free pass to heaven, right? Wham bam, thank you, Jesus! Isn’t this whole earthly existence just the peepshow before your eternal orgasm anyway?”

He saw the turnoff coming up, an old fire road, no sign, just a dark lapse in the trees. He slowed the van, then veered off the blacktop into the worn, dirt furrows. The tires splashed in puddles left from the rain two days ago as the van crept farther down the fire road into the dense woods. No one would hear or see a thing.

A half mile in he stopped. The sky over the canyon of looming trees was overcast, not one star peeking through. Except for the faint glow of the dome light, everything was black. He swung open the back doors, grabbed her kicking ankles. When he dragged her to the rear, her skirt rode up past her soaked panties.

“All right now, the girlie stuff!” He grabbed her blouse, ripping it open. “Yum de dum, double Ds!” He plucked her bra between the cups, then snapped it back against her chest.

She flinched, wide-eyed. When he loosened the gag and stretched it under her chin, she screamed, “Help! Help!”

“Yeah, go ahead, bitch. Yell your lungs out. Even God can’t hear you out here.”

“Please!” she gasped. “I know who you are. I saw you on TV. I know what you…. You can’t do this. You — you’re from a religious home. I know that. You can’t turn your back on God like this. You….”

“Oh, I get it, you’re concerned about my — soul.” He huffed. “Don’t worry. When I’m finished, I’ll accept Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior — again. Maybe even for real this time. Isn’t that how it works, everything forgiven, no matter what, my very own personal get-out-of-hell-free card? In my father’s house there are many mansions — room for the thumpers and the humpers.”

“God can help you if you let him. He knows you’re suffering. He still loves you. He can….”

“Shut the fuck up, you mindless sow.” He raised his fist as she gasped. “Better,” he huffed. “He already knows what I’m gonna do with you. He knows everything, right? And I’m not hearing a peep from him now. Are you?”

Her eyes got even wider when he reached past her into the van and yanked out a shovel, then held it up to run his other hand along the long wooden handle to its rounded end.

“What a multipurpose implement,” he gushed. “Perfect for bashing and burying and oh, so much more.”

There was a sudden rustling behind him. He tensed, half turned.

Whack!

Hours? Days? he wondered. Christ, his head! The pain!

The woods, he remembered. He’d been in the woods with — with that Perkins bitch. Everything was dark now, black. Was it still night? He was gazing through some dusty nebula, like in that weird astronomy documentary he’d seen on TV. When? Last month? Last year? Whirling stars, a whole wobbly, spinning galaxy of them, supernovas exploding behind his eyeballs. It was like he’d just awakened from a nightmare, disoriented, but what should have taken an instant to sort out was taking some real doing now. He could almost…. Wait, he couldn’t move his hands and feet. He was lying on his belly, tied, gagged!

His eyes flickered open. A basement, that was it, where he was lying. His cheek — yes, his left cheek — was squashed against the cold concrete floor. His whole head throbbed now as his eyes lit on things. A lone, bare bulb glared overhead. Right before him, choking out of the concrete, was a rusty drainpipe garlanded with dusty spider webs. Jesus! Right next to it sat a huge rat trap, set and baited with a rock-hard lump of dried, cracked cheese.

“Mrs. Perkins, he’s waking up. Want me to hit him again?”

It was the voice of a teenage boy, eager and wild. Things were clearing now, the stars dimming. He strained upward, his eyes wide. The kid was a teenager all right, sixteen or seventeen, though he sounded younger. Good size too, strong looking, athletic — bobbing a baseball bat in his hand!

“Tommy goes to the same school my son went to. Smart of him to follow us, wouldn’t you say?” It was her voice, haughty as ever too, just like on TV. Her! He realized now he was tied and gagged with the same rope and scarf he’d used on her.

She sauntered down the steps, freshly showered and powdered, in a bathrobe and slippers, her hair turbaned in a towel.

“I prayed, Tommy, and the Lord has given me my strength back. Praise the Lord!” Then she thrust out her chest, scowled at the bound man, her eyes as stern as when she was on TV. “Tommy’s my champion, just like David when he slew Goliath. The Lord led him just as he led David to victory over the Philistines.”

Tommy giggled and blushed.

“Tommy saw you putting me in your van, so he got in his car and followed with his lights off. Pretty smart, huh? Tommy’s a good athlete too, just like David. He’s on our church softball team.”

Tommy the slugger was an onward Christian soldier, all right. He was humming the strident old battle hymn now as he whacked the bat in his palm.

“Can I, Mrs. Perkins? Can I?”

“No, Tommy, not yet. Mr. Perkins will be calling soon. He’ll decide what to do with this monster. Obviously we can’t trust the secular/liberal authorities to deal with his kind. They’re the ones who let him go already.”

The man passed out again.

“Look, he went back to sleep. You think he’s got a demon in him, Mrs. Perkins? Can I beat it out of him?” Tommy shifted his head, studying the man from different angles, looking for any sign of demonic possession. He wondered if he’d get to see the man’s head swivel all the way around like in the movies, or if he’d vomit up green slime full of severed fingers and toes.

The phone in the kitchen rang.

“Oh, that’s Mr. Perkins,” Mrs. Perkins said. She headed back up the stairs, but she stopped midway and turned. “I want you to watch him, Tommy. And don’t hit him in the head again. We might have to make him confess his sins. Mr. Perkins will decide.”

“Okay,” Tommy said, staring at her slippered foot resting on the next step up. Practically a whole bare leg sprouted from the opening in her bathrobe. Tommy could see her flexed calf and even halfway up her inner thigh! It was nothing like the scant thighs of the girls in their gym shorts at school. He saw bruises too, on her ankle where the man had grabbed her, and a fiery scrape on her knee. The thought of that man — of anyone — touching her….

As she continued up the stairs, Tommy realized he’d never seen her dressed so — so loose before. He wondered if that bathrobe was even all there was! Maybe if God suddenly did a miracle, like when he’d stopped the sun for Joshua, and there’d been no gravity, and that bathrobe suddenly flew skyward….

He’d noticed Mrs. Perkins’ shape before, but before now she’d always been in those proper pants suits she wore to work, or a blouse and skirt at home, or a dress at church. He’d thought of maybe sneaking a peek at her big, naked breasts — while trimming her hedges he’d noticed the tiny gap at the bottom of her first-floor bathroom window curtains — but he’d never dared to actually imagine Mrs. Perkins completely naked. But now, seeing her in just that bathrobe, how could he not? Forget that gravity-defying miracle. It would just be a matter of that belt slipping loose.

Mrs. Perkins was a woman, all right, with a real woman’s body. And her womanly parts, her breasts and hips and bottom, were all so round and bulging. She was even a woman of biblical proportions, a woman like Bathsheba, the woman King David lusted after with his Bible-size lust — and even killed her husband for. Mrs. Perkins, Bath-she-ba — in a bathrobe? Tommy’s best erotic fantasy yet suddenly unfolded in his head: Mrs. Perkins and her big, bare boobies, bobbing in a bathtub full of bubble bath!

But as she reached the top of the stairs and closed the kitchen door behind her, the thought of Mister Perkins smacked Tommy back to reality. Even King David would have thought twice about messing with Mr. Perkins. The time Tommy had run over Mr. Perkins’ young tomato plants with the lawnmower! The look on Mr. Perkins’ face, the way his eyes had narrowed to slits and those big veins had popped out over his ears and his whole head had turned red! Tommy had never seen such righteous wrath before. He cringed just remembering it.

What was he even thinking though? he realized. Mrs. Perkins?! That was just something else he’d have to ask God to forgive him for when he said his bedtime prayers tonight.

“Ah!” the man groaned, coming to again. His eyes cracked open.

Tommy squinted. He bit his lip, raised the bat. Then he wondered if the man’s voice would be as deep and ominous as the demon voices in video games. He wondered if the demon would thunder out of the man’s throat, if maybe it would say something lewd and shocking, maybe even about Mrs. Perkins, something to test him and make him want to bash the man again. But what would Mrs. Perkins say? She’d told him to tie that gag tight to keep the man from “spewing his filth.” But now, with Mrs. Perkins gone, with the demon groaning…. Tommy walked over and untied the gag.

“Don’t hit me again, kid,” the man said as soon as his lips were free. He sounded like just a regular man, anxious, maybe scared judging from the way his eyes darted and his voice trembled, but nothing really weird. He looked tired and whipped, even more whipped than Tommy’s Uncle Boyd had looked after his mean wife divorced him and took his house and kids and all his money.

Tommy sighed. This was lame. The demons in movies always asked for a good bashing. They deserved it too.

“Where’d she go?” the man said, straining to glance around.

“Mrs. Perkins? She had to get the phone.” Tommy pursed his lips. Some demon!

“What’s with you, kid? Are you 'challenged'? You some kinda retard? ” the man growled, lifting his cheek from the concrete. Now he seemed wide awake, suddenly full of himself too.

“Whadaya mean?” Tommy said, squinting hard. The man sounded more like one of the smart kids at school now, like maybe he still might need a bashing.

“Why you let that woman talk to you like that, kid?”

“Whadaya mean?”

“You don’t get it, do you, kid? She said you’re like David. Frigging David! Are you stupid or what?” He paused, waiting, but Tommy just stared back, his mouth agape. “Christ sake, kid! David was a fag, the biggest fag in the Bible.”

“What?!”

“Don’t you remember? David and Jonathan? It’s right there in the Bible, in black and white. David and Jonathan were the biggest butt buddies ever. Maybe it isn’t in the kiddie Bible they teach you in Sunday school, but it’s right there in the real one the grown-ups read. Brotherly love, my ass! Those two loved each other more than women. King Saul, Jonathan’s dad, had ‘em pegged, all right. He said they couldn’t tell each other’s nakedness from the nakedness of women. Now that isn’t too hard to figure out even in the stuffy, old King James Version, is it, kid?” The man snorted. “Why you think that fag artist Michelangelo did that naked statue of David? Because David was his fag hero. Hell, David was so queer he went around hacking off other guy’s foreskins to prove his own manhood. It’s called overcompensating, trying real hard to be what you’re not. Remind you of anyone, kid? That bitch sure as hell figures she has you pegged.”

“Don’t you talk about Mrs. Perkins like that. She — she’s….”

“She what? Hah! Look at her, kid. Think. She comes down here all naked like that, in just that bathrobe. Naked, kid! You really think she’d do that if she thought you had it in you? She knows I’m tied up, but what about you?”

“You’re sick!”

“Sick? Me?” The man huffed. “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you, kid? Hips, thighs, breasts, all that tender, white meat. And oh my God, the pink stuff, the innards! Ever had you any pussy, kid, any hot, juicy snatch? Know what it’s like when your dick…? Hell, kid, you even seen a woman naked? Well, that’s what she’s got there, right there under that bathrobe, and all so moist and tender, just waiting, just begging for it. God, it’s enough to make a normal guy wanna do something, and do it quick. Hell, kid, you really are a fag.”

“I’m gonna bash you good,” Tommy said. He gripped the bat till it quivered in his fists, then he reared back with it.

“Yeah, go ahead, kid — see what happens. She told you not to touch me, remember? Just wait till she bites your balls off. That’s what she does, kid. You know who she is, right?”

Tommy stopped, remembering Mrs. Perkins on TV talking about sex criminals — about castration!

Then the door to the kitchen creaked open. Mrs. Perkins started back down the stairs. Tommy lowered the bat behind his back. He straightened up like nothing had happened as Mrs. Perkins descended, step by step, one bare ankle stretching forth after the other. Her hips swayed rhythmically, enough to snare Tommy’s dumbfounded stare, to make him forget the man completely now. Maybe she really was naked under that bathrobe! Tommy glimpsed white thigh with every step, with every wink of her robe. He saw the telltale bulges of her big, lady-sized nipples in the fabric stretched taut over her breasts. He knew all about grown-up women’s nipples, all right — he’d heard about them anyway. He knew they were the magic buttons that turned women on, that made them all grown-up horny and hot. It was all so deliciously forbidden — and now so real! Him and Mrs. Perkins?! He wondered if what he felt was lust, real, adult Bible lust like King David’s. Whatever it was, he felt the tingle, the rising thrill. Mrs. Perkins wasn’t just another porno picture on his computer screen — or even herself on his TV screen representing the Christian Anti-Rape League. She was real now, the real thing!

Procreation Class was where it had all started — Tommy couldn’t help but remember now — where the seeds of his sexual curiosity had taken root and sprouted and bloomed — even boomed! Coach at Final Victory Christian Academy had gathered all the seventh-grade boys together in the gym. He’d pointed at charts on an easel — sterile, scientific-looking illustrations of male and female anatomy, all of it sliced and splayed. It’d both shocked and fascinated Tommy’s thirteen-year-old mind.

But only two things had made a practical and lasting impression: The first had been the word turgid, which Coach had seemed fond of saying. Tommy and the rest of the adolescent boys had never heard that strange word before. It’d immediately become their all-purpose slur: Get turgid already, that’s turgid, you turgid head! To the thirteen-year-old ear, turgid had it all: the comic, insulting ring of turd, plus the mystique of an exotic, new adult word, one that magically spanned the hush-hush spectrum from boys’ erect penises to girls’ chilled nipples.

The other memorable thing Tommy had learned about in Procreation Class — well, as it’d turned out, that he’d learned — had been masturbation. Now Coach had been vaguely against the practice — particularly before any kind of competitive athletics, since every coach knew sex, including masturbation, was the worst, most debilitating thing a guy could possibly do before a game. But Coach was an earthy, practical kind of guy too. That was obvious from his tattoos and many cautionary tales from his drunken exploits in the Navy, things Tommy and the other boys had always found awesomely impressive.

Coach had been a real worldly-wise sinner before he’d been born again, which made him even more impressive now as a Christian. When he’d grinned and winked as he’d talked about masturbation, several of the other boys in the class had nodded and smirked along with him. Sure, Tommy’d had erections before, but he’d never known what to do with them. He’d wondered now if he, earnest, plodding, unimaginative Tommy, had been the only kid in the class who’d never done this thing called masturbation before, if he’d been the only one who’d actually been stupid enough to believe people when they said you should never touch yourself there.

According to Coach, masturbation wasn’t really so bad as long as there was no lust involved. As long as a guy just fantasized about “female bodies in general” when he masturbated and didn’t think about a particular female, especially one he actually knew, then there was really no lust according to Coach.

“It helps to think about a girl’s body without a face,” Coach had advised the class with an encouraging thumbs up. “If you need to, just imagine a bag over her head, you know, like one of those big, brown-paper grocery-store bags,” he’d said with a grin. “An even better trick is to just think about only part of her body, you know, like the breasts.” That works like a charm, he’d assured them.

Tommy and all the other boys in the class had been awestruck by Coach’s logic and wisdom. Of course later, when some irate evangelical parents had complained about Coach’s pragmatic approach to masturbation, the school’s stern principal had taken over teaching Procreation Class himself. Self-abuse, what he preferred to call masturbation, had returned resoundingly to the realm of pure sin. But by then it was way too late for Tommy to return to his hands-off ways.

Tommy had taken Coach’s advice to heart as soon as he’d heard it. He’d gone home after Procreation Class, then straight to his room, determined to discover the pleasures of “female bodies in general.” He’d planted himself at the foot of his bed, then stroked himself repeatedly with his eyes squeezed shut, all the while imagining the body of a naked, faceless girl. He’d concentrated especially on her most squeezable parts. And boy, had his excitement grown — to the popping point! In no time at all, there’d been a blinding flash. The sheer explosiveness of it had startled him. For that instant, it’d made him feel better than he ever had! The pulsing rush of pure electric pleasure had seemed supernatural, the closest thing he’d ever known to a miracle, to a real spiritual experience. And when he’d opened his eyes, a stream of pearly white jism had stretched all the way across his bed. It’d even run down the headboard. That had come from him?! “Jeez!” he’d shouted, then immediately corrected himself, because he’d learned at school that jeez was just short for Jesus, and still taking the Lord’s name in vain. But ejaculate — ee-jack-you-late? What a word that was, what an idea, what a feeling! It’d been like his whole insides exploding out of him, filling the world with its power.

In no time at all, Tommy had become a seasoned masturbator, a real jerk-off artist. He’d done it again and again, getting better and better at it too. He’d become even more accomplished when he’d learned from his friends how to beat the parental controls on his computer. Forget that dull, faceless girl just lying there in his mind. All that Internet porn right before his eyes now — real grown-up women too with all their full, bursting parts! — had supercharged his imagination to the max.

“What’s that gag doing off?” Mrs. Perkins demanded now, midway down the stairs, jolting Tommy back to the present. She stared at Tommy, then back at the man.

“Well, uh, I — I thought he, uh — he couldn’t breathe so good,” Tommy said. “That’s all.” He looked everywhere but at Mrs. Perkins’ eyes, his mind racing, anything to change the subject. “So, ah — you gonna preach to him now, Mrs. Perkins? I think he already knows some stuff about the Bible.”

Mrs. Perkins said nothing as she continued slowly down the steps, staring at Tommy’s furtive little eyes. He was transparently unsophisticated, even slow, but just as she’d just told her husband, she knew how much Tommy liked to please. He was still very young in the Lord though, still weak and easily swayed by Satan. He needed constant guidance.

Tommy’s young mother, Shelley, had gone through some rough times: multiple boyfriends, drinking, drugs. Who even knew for sure who Tommy’s father was? Even though Shelley had tried hard since she’d found the Lord, single-parent households were not God’s will. She and Tommy lived in a squalid little apartment. Shelley worked the night shift at a local distribution center and hardly even saw Tommy, except on weekends and in the mornings before he went to school.

Mrs. Perkins had tried to help, of course. She let Tommy do her gardening and yard work instead of hiring the Mexicans like everyone else. It kept him from falling prey to idle thoughts. She even taught him things about the Bible when he took a break from pulling weeds or mowing her lawn or trimming the hedges. She and her husband had even given Tommy their son’s old car when he’d gone off to college — in return for the yard work.

She knew how much her attentions meant to Tommy, and how in awe of her he was. Of course he’d seen her on TV representing the Christian Anti-Rape League. He’d even told her she was the smartest woman he’d ever known, even the prettiest, he’d said with a timid blush. Naturally he had a childish crush on her. She figured she was the closest thing to a real mother Tommy had ever known. But she wondered if he truly appreciated her commitment to him, if Tommy was even capable of true loyalty, the loyalty of a son. But what did Tommy even know about being part of a real family.

She was so blessed herself, especially with her strong, righteous husband, the God-given head of her family. His anger, his wrath, when she’d described her bruises, when she’d told him what the man had said! The thrill too when her husband had said he would take charge, he’d cut his business trip short, come home immediately. He’d always trusted the Lord to protect his family while he was away, and sure enough, the Lord had. She’d done the right thing too in his absence, he’d said, honoring the will of God. For he had delivered that monster into their hands. His plan! The secular authorities could never be trusted again.

Good thinking too, he’d said, Tommy stuffing that “thing” into his trunk, leaving Tommy’s car on the hill road behind the house — the same road the monster had snatched her from — having Tommy carry the monster through the park in the dark, then across the backyard to their basement. At least the Lord could count on Tommy’s strong back. But she shouldn’t let Tommy leave till Mr. Perkins got back and impressed on him his full commitment to God’s will.

“Mr. Perkins is coming back tonight,” she said when she reached the bottom of the stairs.

Darn, Tommy thought. He really didn’t want to be around when Mr. Perkins showed up.

“He said we did the right thing bringing that — that monster here.” She nodded brusquely at the tied man squirming at Tommy’s feet.

“Oh, uh, so I guess then you won’t be needing me anymore,” Tommy said, eying the kitchen door at the top of the stairs.

“Oh! Ouch!” Mrs. Perkins suddenly winced, then leaned against the stair post. She lifted her left foot out of her slipper and groaned, caressing the heel, wincing again. “Look at what he did, Tommy,” she pleaded, fighting back her tears. Her whole heel was purple — Tommy remembered how the man had wrestled her to the ground and tied her and shoved her into his van.

Then she straightened up. Her voice became somber and authoritative, as it always did when she quoted Scripture: “As the Lord said unto the serpent, ‘I put enmity between thee and the woman, between thy seed and her seed. Hers — shall crush thy head, and thou shalt bruise — her heel.’”

Tommy marveled, as always, at her command of Scripture, at all the verses she knew by heart.

“Do you know what else that — that snake would have done, Tommy, if the Lord hadn’t led you to stop him?”

“Rape?!” Tommy blurted. He was talking to a grown woman now, about — sex!

“Uh, yes, Tommy — that too, but even worse. That — that man is definitely a wicked pervert, all right. He’s already been — punished, yet he still....” She shook her head, scowling. “He would have murdered me, Tommy. Murder! He told me so himself.”

“Y — yeah,” Tommy said, still glancing at her supple ankle as she carefully toed her foot back into her slipper.

“Yeah, kid!” the man barked suddenly. “Look at her. That’s what bitches do when they want it. They take their frigging clothes off, leave on just enough to give you the fever, make you want it even more.”

“You’ll burn in hell, you — monster!” Mrs. Perkins growled, glaring at the man, clenching her fists.

But he only huffed at her, then turned back to Tommy. Then the man paused, squinting. “Hey, what’s that in your pants, kid?” He snorted. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

Tommy saw even Mrs. Perkins staring now — at his crotch!

“She knows you want it now, kid,” the man shouted. “Forget the bat. Now there’s a woody!”

Tommy’s hands few to his groin, cupping his straining erection as the bat clunked to the concrete floor. His face, his whole head, burned with shame. He heard Mrs. Perkins choke back a gasp — or was it a snigger?! A grown woman laughing at him? Him, an awkward, guilty child?!

The binding in his underpants was unbearable now. He spun, hunching, away from Mrs. Perkins. His whole body shook violently. His ears buzzed. It was like the gruff, crew-cut shop teacher was using his head now to demonstrate mashing something in a vise.

“The Lord led you to save her, my ass! Fess up, kid. You were following her too. And not the first time either, I’ll bet. That’s how you spotted me snatching her, right? Jacking off in the bushes, were you?” The man laughed again. “You didn’t have the balls to pluck her yourself. Hell, even an empty sack couldn’t stop me.”

“Tommy?” Mrs. Perkins said. “It’s — all right. It’s just — natural.”

“Dammit, kid!” the man screamed. “You got it up. Be a man. Use it. Take her, goddammit!”

“Shut up, you monster,” Mrs. Perkins screamed. She snatched up the bat, shook it in the man’s face. “The Lord tells us how to deal with fiends like you.”

“Shut up yourself, bitch.” Then his voice softened. “Kid, she’s yours. Can’t you see it? I’ll even show you how. It’s God’s will. Where you think hard-ons come from? They’re like his greatest gift, his biggest miracle.”

“You snake!” Mrs. Perkins yelled. She raised the bat high. “The Lord commands stoning for your kind.”

“Remember, kid,” the man pleaded, squinting, wincing, “a man takes what he wants.”

Tommy’s jaw dropped when he glanced up, when Mrs. Perkins shrieked, when her bathrobe flashed as the bat flew. There was a hollow pop, like kids smashing a Halloween pumpkin on a driveway, then nothing but gurgling from the man’s throat, then the scuffling of his twitching feet.

Mrs. Perkins collapsed to her knees, panting, the bat drooping before her.

Tommy crumpled to his knees too, then retched. He stared hard at the concrete floor, anywhere but at the man and the creeping pool of blood. His voice had been like a father’s at the end, a real father. It’d almost been like…. Who knows? He could have even been Tommy’s real dad. I’ll even show you how? That’s what he’d said, what somebody had finally said. Remember, kid…? He’d known things, secret grown-up things, things.… Tommy sighed heavily, shaking his head. That woman! Things he would never know now.

Tommy lifted his eyes, scowling. But Mrs. Perkins had already thought things through. She was already on her feet.

Whack!