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Cora turned back to look towards the bar just as she and Jonny started up the Broadway Steps. ‘Pops’ stood next to the door but gave no indication he saw her.
Jonny had taken her hand and was pulling her upward.
Cora said, “You’re not takin me up to that smelly woman’s are you?”
“Shhhh. C’mon.” was Jonny’s reply. When they got to the alleyway behind the school, he let go her hand. “No, I ain’t takin you to that stinky woman’s. But I had to make Elmo think I was. I figgered he’d watch us go up the steps. But he ain’t comin so we’re safe now. If you’re not goin up to that smelly woman’s, as you call her, where are you goin to?”
“I reckon I’ll go to that place you was talkin about. That number whatsis place. … If you’ll show me how to get there, that is.”
“Number 41?”
“Yeah, I guess. If that’s what you said down yonder just a little while ago.”
As Cora and Jonny were having this short conversation, she was slowly nudging him backwards into a large oleander bush that protruded into the alleyway behind the school, just to the left of the top step. Cora had an enticing smile on her face.
“I noticed you was lookin at me back yonder in the bar when I was dancin around. Have you ever felt what a woman’s body feels like? Had your hands on it like?”
As she said this, she pressed herself up against Jonny, pulling her dress up with one hand and thrusting his hand between her legs with the other. She held it there.
Jonny’s manhood stood to attention. Cora untied the knot in the rope holding up his pants and they fell around his ankles.
He thrust his stiff manhood between her legs, not quite knowing exactly where it should go. He moved himself back and forth between her legs until he felt the spasm of an orgasm, leaving a wad on the back of her dress.
He hung his head and reached down to pull his pants back up. “I’m sorry, Cora. I guess I didn’t know what I was a-doin.”
Cora, who had dropped her dress back down around her ankles, said. “You think I did, silly? Now where is this number what was it.”
“Come-on” Jonny said.
He once again took her by the hand and pulled her upward toward Opera Drive. He led her down Taylor and around onto the gulch, keeping close to the left side and hoping Elmo was busy getting ready to open and not looking down the street.
They walked up the gulch a ways before Jonny suddenly turned up a steep path that passed one house right on the road to another above it. A red light hung out front.
As they stepped up on the porch, Jonny turned to Cora and said, “Wait til I leave before you knock on the door. Ask to see Lil. Tell her your name and why you came to Bisbee and what happened yesterday and that you need a safe place to stay. She’ll take care of you, I promise. Bye, Cora.” He said as he turned and walked down the brick path.
Cora watched him until he got down to the road before turning and knocking on the door. A young, pretty brown-skinned girl opened the door. She was younger than Cora. “Yees! Can I heelp you.” she said in a shrill voice.
“I’m Cora. I want to see Lil.”
The brown girl looked Cora up and down before stepping back and saying, “Follow meee.” She walked past a set of stairs on the left leading upwards. Two other doors stood on the opposite side of the hall. Another was open at the very end. The girl stopped in front a door directly underneath the stairs and knocked. A woman, old enough to be Cora’s mama, opened the door. “What is it, Juanita?” she asked.
“Thees ees Cora, mee’sees. She say she need to talk to you. You want me to geet Jimbo throw her out?”
“No,” Lil said. “I’ll talk to her. You may go, Juanita.” Juanita disappeared through the open door at the end of the hall.
Lil stood looking Cora up and down. Somewhat below middle height and just a little plump, she was not really what Lil would call pretty but she saw potential.
“Juanita said your name was Cora. Cora who?”
“Cora Bush, ma’am.
“Well Cora Bush, set down over there and tell me about yourself. Why are you in Bisbee? And why do you need my help.”
“Well I come to Bisbee because this feller Faulkner that I had met last year in Arkansas, Lake City, where I lived with my Pa, sent me a letter last month tellin me he had a good job in a copper mine and for me to come to Bisbee and we would get married except then yesterday when Faulkner woke up and found me in his room he attacked me and I got scared and run down to the bar where I had been in when I first got here the day before … “
Lil held up her hand and said, “Stop!” as she began to laugh. “Slow down. I can’t keep up. When did you actually get to Bisbee?”
“I got here on the train from Douglas day-before-yesterday and … “
Lil held up her hand again, “And you obviously found Faulkner because you said he attacked you.”
“Yes’m, he … “
“So you came down to the bar where you had been the day before. What bar?”
“The one Pops runs.”
“Pops? Whose Pops?”
“My grandpa.”
“Wait! You’re grandpa runs a bar in Bisbee?”
“Well. Not exactly. He ain’t really my grandpa. He just told me to say that when he was helpin me this mornin’ after somebody killed Faulkner last night.”
“Wait! Wait! Wait!” Lil said, again holding up her hand. “Last night a man came running in here shouting that a man who nobody knew had just been killed in Elmo’s bar. Was that Faulkner?”
“Yes’m”
“So it was Elmo’s bar where you were, then.” Lil stated, continuing immediately, “So this man Faulkner wrote you and told you if you came to Bisbee he would marry you. Is that right?”
“Yes’m.”
“So you arrived in Bisbee on Friday morning.”
“Yeah, if’n Friday was the day-before-yesterday.”
“It was. What was the very next thing that happened?”
“Well, I asked some feller if he knew how to get to Opera Drive and he pointed to some steps across the street goin up a hill between two buildings and said, ‘Go up thattaway.’ And I did but at the top they was just a alleyway goin both ways and it didn’t look like no Opera Drive so I come back down and it just happened that Elmo’s bar was the first place I come to so I went in and asked a man there how to get to Opera Drive and he told me where to go. And …”
“Wait! Was the man Elmo?”
“I know that now but I didn’ then.”
“When did you find out?”
“The next day when I was runnin from Faulkner after he tried to rape me. I didn’t know no other place to go but back there. “
This time, Lil had to prod her to continue. “So then you met Elmo?”
“Well. I went runnin in never thinkin about nothin but stayin a few steps ahead of Faulkner and I run in yellin ‘Help!’ and Elmo … but I didn’t know his name then … and Jonny … didn’t know his name neither … got me hid in the dark at the back just as Faulkner come bustin in but Jonny tripped him with his broom and Elmo poked him in the stomach with a sawed off pool stick and kicked him out. And then Elmo took me up to a room above the bar where they’s a bed and told me to stay there until he could figure out what to do later.”
Lil was getting more interested in this story the further it went. Especially now that Elmo was involved. “And then what?”
“Well. I stayed up there in that room until the shot came through the floor and …”
“What do you mean, ‘the shot came through the floor’?”
“The shot Faulkner fired through the ceiling when he come in threatening to kill Elmo come through the ceiling just a few feet from the bed I was on. I run to the back and hid behind all the junk. And I stayed back there till Elmo came up after the bar closed. That’s when I found out that Faulkner had been killed.”
“Do you know who killed him or anything about what happened?”
“Not really. Elmo wouldn’t tell me. He just said the sheriff come and couldn’t find who killed him and since nobody knew him anyway, he wasn’t goin to report it to the judge.”
“So you stayed in the bar all night?”
“Yes’m. I was real scared so Elmo stayed up there with me.”
“Did he sleep on the bed with you?”
“No! Of course not! It was too little to begin with but he never mentioned nothin like that. He slept sitting in the corner at the top of the stairs.”
“So then what happened this morning?”
“Him and went across the street to breakfast. That was when he told me to call him Pops, so people wouldn’t wonder about us bein together, and all. And then we went up to Opera Drive and got my suitcase from Faulkner’s and went on up to Gertrude’s where Pops has a room” … Cora reverted to calling him Pops … only she didn’t have no empty rooms so she said I could sleep with her but there warn’t no way I was gonna sleep with that stinky old cow.”
Having come face-to-face with Gertrude a few times, Lil understood.
“And Jonny brought you here.” Lil didn’t phrase this as a question but a statement of fact. Cora nodded her head. “Yes’m”
“Do you have any money?”
“No’m”
“And you expect me to take you in for nothin?”
“I can work ma’am. It looks like you got a big place here and I’m thinkin it might be a boardin house or somethin. I can clean and wash clothes and iron and cook a little. I’ll do just about anything you want me to to earn my keep and if I can save a little on the side I might be able to …”
“Okay, I get the point.” Lil said, opening the door and yelling down the hallway, “Juanita?”
“Yes mee’sees Lil?” Juanita answered as she ran out one of the doors into the hall. “What I can do for you, mee’sees?”
“Take Cora up to #12 and leave her there.” She turned to Cora. “The room’s small but it has a bed and other necessaries. Just rest until I get up there a little later. Right now I have somewhere I have to go.”
As Cora was walking out behind Juanita Lil noticed a dark, wet blotch on the back of her dress. She’d have to remember to ask her about it when she got back but at the moment she had more pressing business. She started back down the stairs.
Room 12 was on the third floor. Juanita opened the door and stepped aside. Cora peered in. The ceiling sloped downward from left-to-right. The door even had been angled down at the top to accommodate the lowering ceiling. Wedged into the angle was a narrow bed and then further along a wash-stand with a large pitcher of water and a basin. At the very back was a chamberpot next to a small triangular window looking out over the roof of the house down below. She could tell where the gulch ran but couldn’t actually see it.
Meanwhile, as soon as Juanita left to take Cora upstairs, Lil put on a bonnet that mostly hid her face and waltzed out the front door. There was spring in her step as she descended to the road and down the gulch toward Elmo’s, getting there just at opening time. Jonny saw her when she came in the door and wanted to run. He knew he was in trouble.
Lil marched by the bar, turning her face from under her bonnet towards Elmo as she continued to the small table at the very back. The same one Cora had been sitting at when Elmo ordered Jonny to take her up to Gertrude’s less than an hour ago. She knew Elmo would follow her because she was not supposed to be in there. At the table she sat with her back to the door and waited until Elmo was seated opposite her.
“What the hell. You can’t be in here, Lil. The sheriff’ll close me down.”
“Cool it, Elmo. I think you’ll want to hear what I’m going to tell you. Jonny brought Cora to my house.”
Elmo showed obvious surprise. “That can’t be. He took her to Gertrude’s. At least close to Gertrude’s, where she said she would rather go the rest of the way alone.” Elmo heard himself speak and the truth dawned on him. He stood up and yelled, “Jonny! Here! Now!!” but his command fell on deaf ears except for the few regulars at the bar who knew Jonny had slipped out the front door as soon as Elmo started towards the back.
“Aw, shit. That little asshole’s in trouble when I catch him. He told me he walked Cora up to Clawson when she said she insisted on going the rest of the way herself. And I believed the little shit. I’m gonna kill im! So he brought her to your house?”
“Yes, she’s there. She told me about you trying to help her. She said you hid her from some guy named Faulkner who was later killed in the bar here. Is that right?”
“Yeah. He come in shootin’ and causin a ruckus and somebody ended it for him. Hit im in the neck with something. Hit im hard enough to kill im. Sheriff said he would never be able to sort it out, so he’s not even goin to report it to the judge. He allowed as how nobody know’d the man Faulkner anyway and so nobody’d miss him. Just another miner who walked off the job one day and never come back.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be too hard on Jonny. Even in just one short interview I can tell that this Cora is a strong willed young woman. Were you really telling her she had to sleep with Gertrude?”
Elmo shook his head and chuckled. “That was kinda pushin it, I reckon. But what was I supposed to do. Give her a quilt and tell her to sleep on the floor in my room. What kinda reputation would she have after that? And what would people think of me?”
“What kinda reputation is she going to have after spending even any time at all in my house?” said Lil. “What’s this bull about her calling you Pops and saying you’re her grandfather? I almost laughed out loud.”
“Yeah, that. If I was gonna hav’ta be responsible for her for a few days I thought it would sound better if people, especially you ladies, thought I was her grandfather instead of just some randy old man who took in a eighteen year old.”
Lil laughed. “Yeah. But that would be closer to what you really are.”
“Aww. Shut-up!”
“So here’s the situation. I put her in the room I use when a new girl comes in and isn’t sure whether she wants to join the profession. I put her up there and give her a couple days to make up her mind. She must keep all the chamber-pots in the house picked-up and emptied if she wants to eat. Every one so far has either decided to start actually earning her keep or that she’ll find other accomodations where she doesn’t have to empty somebody else’s slops all day.” She paused and then continued. “So what I’m getting at is that Cora has become one of those girls?”
“Does she even know what kinda house you’re runnin?”
“Maybe. Don’t know. Don’t know what she might have asked Juanita.”
“Not sure why I even asked that. I don’t want nothin to do with that little wench. She can go to hell for all I care. Does that answer your question?”
“Guess so.” Lil said as she stood up and turned toward the front. She looked back, “Oh, by the way, don’t be hard on Jonny. From my five minute interview with her it’s obvious she was not going to let him deliver her to Gertrude’s or, if she did, as soon as he left she would have slipped out. Jonny’s not to blame. He may have even done her a favor. At least she’s got a roof over her head and isn’t laying dead on the side of the gulch somewhere.”
At the conclusion of her speech, Lil walked rapidly out of the bar with her head down although everyone sitting at the bar knew who she was. When she got back to #41 she called Juanita from the kitchen and sent her up to #12 with instructions to bring Cora down. Cora arrived a couple minutes later. “Ma’am, you wanted to see me?”
As she said this she started to sit in the chair she’d sat in earlier but Lil said, “Wait, don’t sit. Turn around slowly.” Cora turned all the way around so that she came back face-to-face with Lil. The dark stain was still present on the back of her dress. “Step over here to me, girl.”
Cora obeyed.
“Turn around.”
Cora made another complete turn.
“No, I mean turn with your back to me.”
Lil reached down and took the hem of Cora’s dress, raising the fabric to get a closer look at, and a sniff of, the stain. She dropped the dress and said, “Okay, turn around and face me. I know now that Jonny brought you here. Did you come straight from the bar?”
“No. We went up those steps next to the bar called Broadway.”
“Did you go all the way to the top before you stopped to screw or did you at least make it to the alleyway at the top?”
Slowly Cora’s face turned crimson, deepening color ascending upwards across her face. She hung her head and said nothing.
“You can tell me, Cora. I promise not to judge you or Jonny. You’re an eighteen year old girl who expected to become a wife when you got to Bisbee and Jonny’s a sixteen year old boy with raging hormones. Looking at the back of your dress I can pretty much guess what happened. Was it him that pushed himself on you or did you help him? Entice him?”
The crimson color ebbed from Cora’s face but re-arose as Cora spoke. “I sort of helped him, I … I guess.”
“Did he pull it out before he squirted?”
“Pull it out? What’a ya mean?”
“Pull it out of you.”
“Oh!” Cora exclaimed. “No. He never put it inside me in the first place. I don’t think he really know’d what he was supposed to do and I only sorta did but didn’t have time to help him before it was all over for him. It left me with a empty feelin inside.”
Lil made no comment. But she began asking more questions. “You came here with no suitcase. Do you have one?”
“Yes’m. It’s up yonder…” Cora looked around and realized she had no idea where Gertrude’s was, so she just said, “up yonder wherever that Gertrude woman’s house is.”
“As soon as Jonny surfaces I’ll send him up after it. I assume you have some clean panties and other underthings. And dresses of some kind?”
“No’m. No panties or nothin. Daddy wouldn’t never let me wear ‘em when I’us back there in Lake City. I got another o’ these floursack dresses though.
“Holy mother of god!” Lil said, realizing what a hick this girl was. “When was the last time you had a bath, girl?”
“Before I left Arkansas. Some time before, I reckon.”
Lil just shook her head and said. “Go get Juanita for me. She’ll be in the kitchen. Door at the very end of the hall.”
“Yes’m.” Cora said, slipping out.
A few minutes later Cora and Juanita came walking back in. Lil said, “Juanita, take Cora up to the bathroom and help her with a bath. If there’s someone waiting, tell them to go to hell. Cora’s first.”
As soon as Cora and Juanita left, Lil went to see Lizzie in #6. Lizzie was about the same size as Cora. Lil left with a pair of drawers, a short chemise, a plain dress, and a peignoir.
She took the items to the bath where Cora was just getting into a hot tub of water. Lil stood by while Juanita used a brush to wash Cora, including her hair,. When Juanita had finished Lil handed her the peignoir and instructed her to take it up and leave it on Cora’s bed.
As Cora stepped out of the tub Lil handed her a towel. When Cora had dried herself, she handed her a pair of panties. “Put these on.” she said.
Cora stepped into the panties rather awkwardly. Lil handed her the chemise and she slipped it over her head. It came down over her hips. Next the dress, much more attractive than the floursack she had had on.
“Follow me.” Lil said, kicking Cora’s old dress over into a dark corner behind the tub and leading the way back to her room.
Back in Lil’s room, Lil looked her over. She looked good in the new dress. Her hair was still damp from the scrubbing but dry enough to show a bright reddish shine coming through the brown.
“Take your dress off.” Lil ordered.
Cora blushed again.
“Oh come on, girl. You’ve spent your entire life being naked around your father and you’re embarrassed to take your dress off in front of me? Now, drop it.”
Cora reached behind her neck and unfastened the one large button there. The back of the dress was split down almost to her waist. When the button was undone, she shrugged her shoulders and the dress fell to the floor.
Lil thought, “She’s not going to be the most popular filly in the stable but she may have potential.”
She said, “Cora, what can you tell me about yourself? You came here from Lake Village, Arkansas. You mentioned your daddy didn’t like you to wear panties or other underthings. Why was that?”
“My daddy liked to watch me with no clothes on. He especially liked to watch me when I was squatted over the chamber-pot. I think he might have made me go naked all the time if there was no chance someone would see me. So he made me wear dresses that he could look up under when he wanted to.”
“Cora, did your daddy ever … “
“Fuck me?”
“Yes. I might have used a different word, but yes, it’s what I meant. Did he ever fuck you?”
“No, not exactly.”
“Not exactly? What exactly did he do?” She put exactly in air quotes.
“Well, when I was little my mama run off and daddy begun to take care of me. He would give me warm baths when it was cold and dry me off and put me in bed with him. And then when I started getting older he did other things. But he didn’t fuck me.”
“Did he still have you sleep with him in his bed?”
“Yeah. I never had no bed of my own.”
“But you never? …”
“No’m. He said that was a sin but as long as we didn’t actually do it, anything was okay. So all he ever done during all those years was play with me down there a little and pretty soon I’d feel something thick and gooey shoot out all over my back and then daddy would get a rag and wipe it off and we’d go to sleep.”
“My, god!” Lil exclaimed. “Cora, do you know what the word virgin means?”
“Oh, yes’m. Jesus’ mama Mary was a virgin. We learned that in Sunday school and what it meant.”
This girl’s story became more incredulous with every sentence. She had been abused by her father virtually all her life without every having lost her virginity.
And now Lil was about to turn her into a whore.
“When you told me about you and Jonny earlier, you said you thought he didn’t know what to do and you only sorta knew but didn’t know how to help him. What did you mean you only sorta knew? And if you only sorta know, how do you know the word fuck?”
“Well, in Arkansas, just like ever’where, they’s farm animals around and me and some others used to watch ‘em in the barnyard you know when they was doin it and some boys told me one day that what they was doin was called fuckin. And then when I got older and I learned about Jesus and how his mama was a virgin and learned from my sunday school teacher what a virgin was, I knew then exactly what fuck meant. I might be ignorant of school larnin and talk like a hick, but I ain’t dumb.”
“No.” Lil chuckled, “you’re not dumb.”
Lil looked up at a clock. Quarter to four. Supper was served from four to five in order that the girls could be ready to entertain customes beginning at five. Lil just had a few more questions and instructions for Cora.
“Do you know what kind of house this is, Cora.”
“Ain’t it just a boardin house?”
“Well, somethin’ like that but all ten of the rooms are rented to women who entertain men there.”
“Oh, you mean they’re whores.”
Again Lil couldn’t repress a smile. “That’s exactly what I mean.” She didn’t dare ask how she knew that word. “Are you hungry?” she said.
“Yeah, I reckon I am. Ain’t et since breakfast and that was the first I’d et in two days.”
“Go back to the kitchen and tell cook I said to feed you. After you’ve eaten, go up to your room and stay there til morning. In the morning we’ll show you what your job is for the day.” Lil said.
“Yes’m.” Cora replied.
In the kitchen, cook was busy getting ready for dinner. This was the only meal of the day served in the dining room and all ten working girls usually ate.
When Cora told cook that Lil had said to feed her, cook was not pleased but she did respond. “They’s some cold ham there under that cloth on the table, bread over there in the box. Other stuff in the icebox over there. Eat whatever you want.” She resumed frying a chicken for dinner.
Cora made herself two ham sandwiches which she quickly ate standing at the table. As soon as she had finished, she washed it down with a large glass of milk that she found in the icebox. Then she made her way back up to #12.
As soon as Cora stepped inside the low, sloping room, she spied the peignoir Lil had left on her bed. She held it up, admiring it. She had never seen anything so pretty.
She slipped out of her new dress, carefully hanging it on one of the three nails at the back of the room, and slippped the peignoir on.
A small mirror was hung on the wall opposite the bed. She backed up as far as she could from the mirror and opened the peignoir. She liked the way she looked in her new lingerie. She slid her hands down the front of her body, over the chemise that encased her breasts and on down to her hips. Her chemise and and panties were both a pale shade of pink.
She lay down on the bed in her new finery and cried herself to sleep.
Sometime later, Cora didn’t know what time it was but it was dark, she was awakened by someone tapping her on the shoulder, at the same time clamping a hand over her mouth and whispering in her ear. “Shhh! It’s Jonny. Don’t scream!” He slowly removed his hand from her mouth.
Cora sat up in bed, not thinking at all about the skimpiness of her dress as she pulled him down onto the bed beside her and folded her arms about him. She buried her face in his neck and cried softly.
“What’s the matter, Cora?” whispered Jonny.
Cora wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of a hand and said, “I don’t know. I just started thinkin about all of what’s happened to me since I got here just day-before-yesterday and how I’ve already got friends who are trying to help me.”
Cora had released Jonny and the two were now sitting side-by-side on the bed. When Cora started to talk again it was in a normal voice. Jonny quickly shushed her.
“Shhh! If Lil finds me here she’ll skin me. What were you going to say?”
“Just how you knew I was in this room and how you knew how to get up here.”
“I’ve been around this house practically since I can remember. Lil is my mama ceptin she don’t claim me or want nothin to do with me except that she has always let me come to the kitchen and eat. That’s where I learned she had put you in #12 and I’ve sometimes liked lookin in that winda. Did you know Lil went to see Elmo?”
“Went to see Elmo. What for?”
“I wasn’t there because as soon as I saw her come into the bar a little after one, I knew she would tell Elmo that you was at her house and I had already tole him that I took you as far as Clawson and you insisted you could get on up to Gertrude’s by yourself. I knew when he talked to Lil he would put things together and know I brought you here.”
“Oh, Jonny. I’m so sorry for causing you all this trouble.”
“Don’t worry, darlin. I’ll wait to tomorra and talk to Lil and get everthin straightened out.”
Cora leaned closer to him, thrusting his hand between her legs and saying, “Jonny. Remember how we tried to do it this morning in the bushes and all that happened was you squirtin all over my dress? We can take our time and do it right this time. Take yore pants off.” she ordered him.
Taking their time was not to be. Getting it right was.
Jonny stood and dropped his pants to his ankles before turning to see Cora, naked but for the peignoir, laying there before him, welcoming him in. There was no foreplay. He had just penetrated her, when an almost silent scream began to form on her lips. He was almost able to get a hand over her mouth and squelch it before it got out. Almost!
They lay there holding their breaths, neither moving except for the slow, steady slippage of Jonny’s stiff member deeper inside her. It was but a moment or two before they had indeed been successful in doing ‘it’ this time.
Almost immediately after their mutual orgasm, the was a tapping at the door. A squeaky voice said. “Is everythin hunky-dory in there, girl? This is Esmeralda from next door. Is it okay for me to come in?”
In the time it took Esmeralda to say this, Jonny had jerked his pants back up, holding them without bothering with the rope, crossing to the window and disappearing through it just as the door opened.
A young woman was standing in the doorway, dimly lit from behind but Cora could see that she had on a long duster and nothing else except a pair of high heeled shoes. Her hair was in a tangle about her head. Cora had pulled her own peignoir tightly about herself.
“Oh, hi, hon. I’m Esmeralda from next door. I thought I heard you scream.”
“Yes. I must have dozed off and had a dream but it’s okay now.”
“Alright, hon. If I can do anything, anything at all, I’m right next door except when I’m down in the lounge.”
“I don’t think anything could keep me from sleeping tonight. Bye.” Cora lay her head back down on the bed and pulled the peignoir up around her.
“Bye.” Esmeralda said as she closed the door.
Cora could feel Jonny’s warm stickiness between her legs. She wondered where he was right then and when she would see him again.
But Cora was never to see Jonny again.
FINIS
Cora turned back to look towards the bar just as she and Jonny started up the Broadway Steps. ‘Pops’ stood next to the door but gave no indication he saw her.
Jonny had taken her hand and was pulling her upward.
Cora said, “You’re not takin me up to that smelly woman’s are you?”
“Shhhh. C’mon.” was Jonny’s reply. When they got to the alleyway behind the school, he let go her hand. “No, I ain’t takin you to that stinky woman’s. But I had to make Elmo think I was. I figgered he’d watch us go up the steps. But he ain’t comin so we’re safe now. If you’re not goin up to that smelly woman’s, as you call her, where are you goin to?”
“I reckon I’ll go to that place you was talkin about. That number whatsis place. … If you’ll show me how to get there, that is.”
“Number 41?”
“Yeah, I guess. If that’s what you said down yonder just a little while ago.”
As Cora and Jonny were having this short conversation, she was slowly nudging him backwards into a large oleander bush that protruded into the alleyway behind the school, just to the left of the top step. Cora had an enticing smile on her face.
“I noticed you was lookin at me back yonder in the bar when I was dancin around. Have you ever felt what a woman’s body feels like? Had your hands on it like?”
As she said this, she pressed herself up against Jonny, pulling her dress up with one hand and thrusting his hand between her legs with the other. She held it there.
Jonny’s manhood stood to attention. Cora untied the knot in the rope holding up his pants and they fell around his ankles.
He thrust his stiff manhood between her legs, not quite knowing exactly where it should go. He moved himself back and forth between her legs until he felt the spasm of an orgasm, leaving a wad on the back of her dress.
He hung his head and reached down to pull his pants back up. “I’m sorry, Cora. I guess I didn’t know what I was a-doin.”
Cora, who had dropped her dress back down around her ankles, said. “You think I did, silly? Now where is this number what was it.”
“Come-on” Jonny said.
He once again took her by the hand and pulled her upward toward Opera Drive. He led her down Taylor and around onto the gulch, keeping close to the left side and hoping Elmo was busy getting ready to open and not looking down the street.
They walked up the gulch a ways before Jonny suddenly turned up a steep path that passed one house right on the road to another above it. A red light hung out front.
As they stepped up on the porch, Jonny turned to Cora and said, “Wait til I leave before you knock on the door. Ask to see Lil. Tell her your name and why you came to Bisbee and what happened yesterday and that you need a safe place to stay. She’ll take care of you, I promise. Bye, Cora.” He said as he turned and walked down the brick path.
Cora watched him until he got down to the road before turning and knocking on the door. A young, pretty brown-skinned girl opened the door. She was younger than Cora. “Yees! Can I heelp you.” she said in a shrill voice.
“I’m Cora. I want to see Lil.”
The brown girl looked Cora up and down before stepping back and saying, “Follow meee.” She walked past a set of stairs on the left leading upwards. Two other doors stood on the opposite side of the hall. Another was open at the very end. The girl stopped in front a door directly underneath the stairs and knocked. A woman, old enough to be Cora’s mama, opened the door. “What is it, Juanita?” she asked.
“Thees ees Cora, mee’sees. She say she need to talk to you. You want me to geet Jimbo throw her out?”
“No,” Lil said. “I’ll talk to her. You may go, Juanita.” Juanita disappeared through the open door at the end of the hall.
Lil stood looking Cora up and down. Somewhat below middle height and just a little plump, she was not really what Lil would call pretty but she saw potential.
“Juanita said your name was Cora. Cora who?”
“Cora Bush, ma’am.
“Well Cora Bush, set down over there and tell me about yourself. Why are you in Bisbee? And why do you need my help.”
“Well I come to Bisbee because this feller Faulkner that I had met last year in Arkansas, Lake City, where I lived with my Pa, sent me a letter last month tellin me he had a good job in a copper mine and for me to come to Bisbee and we would get married except then yesterday when Faulkner woke up and found me in his room he attacked me and I got scared and run down to the bar where I had been in when I first got here the day before … “
Lil held up her hand and said, “Stop!” as she began to laugh. “Slow down. I can’t keep up. When did you actually get to Bisbee?”
“I got here on the train from Douglas day-before-yesterday and … “
Lil held up her hand again, “And you obviously found Faulkner because you said he attacked you.”
“Yes’m, he … “
“So you came down to the bar where you had been the day before. What bar?”
“The one Pops runs.”
“Pops? Whose Pops?”
“My grandpa.”
“Wait! You’re grandpa runs a bar in Bisbee?”
“Well. Not exactly. He ain’t really my grandpa. He just told me to say that when he was helpin me this mornin’ after somebody killed Faulkner last night.”
“Wait! Wait! Wait!” Lil said, again holding up her hand. “Last night a man came running in here shouting that a man who nobody knew had just been killed in Elmo’s bar. Was that Faulkner?”
“Yes’m”
“So it was Elmo’s bar where you were, then.” Lil stated, continuing immediately, “So this man Faulkner wrote you and told you if you came to Bisbee he would marry you. Is that right?”
“Yes’m.”
“So you arrived in Bisbee on Friday morning.”
“Yeah, if’n Friday was the day-before-yesterday.”
“It was. What was the very next thing that happened?”
“Well, I asked some feller if he knew how to get to Opera Drive and he pointed to some steps across the street goin up a hill between two buildings and said, ‘Go up thattaway.’ And I did but at the top they was just a alleyway goin both ways and it didn’t look like no Opera Drive so I come back down and it just happened that Elmo’s bar was the first place I come to so I went in and asked a man there how to get to Opera Drive and he told me where to go. And …”
“Wait! Was the man Elmo?”
“I know that now but I didn’ then.”
“When did you find out?”
“The next day when I was runnin from Faulkner after he tried to rape me. I didn’t know no other place to go but back there. “
This time, Lil had to prod her to continue. “So then you met Elmo?”
“Well. I went runnin in never thinkin about nothin but stayin a few steps ahead of Faulkner and I run in yellin ‘Help!’ and Elmo … but I didn’t know his name then … and Jonny … didn’t know his name neither … got me hid in the dark at the back just as Faulkner come bustin in but Jonny tripped him with his broom and Elmo poked him in the stomach with a sawed off pool stick and kicked him out. And then Elmo took me up to a room above the bar where they’s a bed and told me to stay there until he could figure out what to do later.”
Lil was getting more interested in this story the further it went. Especially now that Elmo was involved. “And then what?”
“Well. I stayed up there in that room until the shot came through the floor and …”
“What do you mean, ‘the shot came through the floor’?”
“The shot Faulkner fired through the ceiling when he come in threatening to kill Elmo come through the ceiling just a few feet from the bed I was on. I run to the back and hid behind all the junk. And I stayed back there till Elmo came up after the bar closed. That’s when I found out that Faulkner had been killed.”
“Do you know who killed him or anything about what happened?”
“Not really. Elmo wouldn’t tell me. He just said the sheriff come and couldn’t find who killed him and since nobody knew him anyway, he wasn’t goin to report it to the judge.”
“So you stayed in the bar all night?”
“Yes’m. I was real scared so Elmo stayed up there with me.”
“Did he sleep on the bed with you?”
“No! Of course not! It was too little to begin with but he never mentioned nothin like that. He slept sitting in the corner at the top of the stairs.”
“So then what happened this morning?”
“Him and went across the street to breakfast. That was when he told me to call him Pops, so people wouldn’t wonder about us bein together, and all. And then we went up to Opera Drive and got my suitcase from Faulkner’s and went on up to Gertrude’s where Pops has a room” … Cora reverted to calling him Pops … only she didn’t have no empty rooms so she said I could sleep with her but there warn’t no way I was gonna sleep with that stinky old cow.”
Having come face-to-face with Gertrude a few times, Lil understood.
“And Jonny brought you here.” Lil didn’t phrase this as a question but a statement of fact. Cora nodded her head. “Yes’m”
“Do you have any money?”
“No’m”
“And you expect me to take you in for nothin?”
“I can work ma’am. It looks like you got a big place here and I’m thinkin it might be a boardin house or somethin. I can clean and wash clothes and iron and cook a little. I’ll do just about anything you want me to to earn my keep and if I can save a little on the side I might be able to …”
“Okay, I get the point.” Lil said, opening the door and yelling down the hallway, “Juanita?”
“Yes mee’sees Lil?” Juanita answered as she ran out one of the doors into the hall. “What I can do for you, mee’sees?”
“Take Cora up to #12 and leave her there.” She turned to Cora. “The room’s small but it has a bed and other necessaries. Just rest until I get up there a little later. Right now I have somewhere I have to go.”
As Cora was walking out behind Juanita Lil noticed a dark, wet blotch on the back of her dress. She’d have to remember to ask her about it when she got back but at the moment she had more pressing business. She started back down the stairs.
Room 12 was on the third floor. Juanita opened the door and stepped aside. Cora peered in. The ceiling sloped downward from left-to-right. The door even had been angled down at the top to accommodate the lowering ceiling. Wedged into the angle was a narrow bed and then further along a wash-stand with a large pitcher of water and a basin. At the very back was a chamberpot next to a small triangular window looking out over the roof of the house down below. She could tell where the gulch ran but couldn’t actually see it.
Meanwhile, as soon as Juanita left to take Cora upstairs, Lil put on a bonnet that mostly hid her face and waltzed out the front door. There was spring in her step as she descended to the road and down the gulch toward Elmo’s, getting there just at opening time. Jonny saw her when she came in the door and wanted to run. He knew he was in trouble.
Lil marched by the bar, turning her face from under her bonnet towards Elmo as she continued to the small table at the very back. The same one Cora had been sitting at when Elmo ordered Jonny to take her up to Gertrude’s less than an hour ago. She knew Elmo would follow her because she was not supposed to be in there. At the table she sat with her back to the door and waited until Elmo was seated opposite her.
“What the hell. You can’t be in here, Lil. The sheriff’ll close me down.”
“Cool it, Elmo. I think you’ll want to hear what I’m going to tell you. Jonny brought Cora to my house.”
Elmo showed obvious surprise. “That can’t be. He took her to Gertrude’s. At least close to Gertrude’s, where she said she would rather go the rest of the way alone.” Elmo heard himself speak and the truth dawned on him. He stood up and yelled, “Jonny! Here! Now!!” but his command fell on deaf ears except for the few regulars at the bar who knew Jonny had slipped out the front door as soon as Elmo started towards the back.
“Aw, shit. That little asshole’s in trouble when I catch him. He told me he walked Cora up to Clawson when she said she insisted on going the rest of the way herself. And I believed the little shit. I’m gonna kill im! So he brought her to your house?”
“Yes, she’s there. She told me about you trying to help her. She said you hid her from some guy named Faulkner who was later killed in the bar here. Is that right?”
“Yeah. He come in shootin’ and causin a ruckus and somebody ended it for him. Hit im in the neck with something. Hit im hard enough to kill im. Sheriff said he would never be able to sort it out, so he’s not even goin to report it to the judge. He allowed as how nobody know’d the man Faulkner anyway and so nobody’d miss him. Just another miner who walked off the job one day and never come back.”
“Well, I wouldn’t be too hard on Jonny. Even in just one short interview I can tell that this Cora is a strong willed young woman. Were you really telling her she had to sleep with Gertrude?”
Elmo shook his head and chuckled. “That was kinda pushin it, I reckon. But what was I supposed to do. Give her a quilt and tell her to sleep on the floor in my room. What kinda reputation would she have after that? And what would people think of me?”
“What kinda reputation is she going to have after spending even any time at all in my house?” said Lil. “What’s this bull about her calling you Pops and saying you’re her grandfather? I almost laughed out loud.”
“Yeah, that. If I was gonna hav’ta be responsible for her for a few days I thought it would sound better if people, especially you ladies, thought I was her grandfather instead of just some randy old man who took in a eighteen year old.”
Lil laughed. “Yeah. But that would be closer to what you really are.”
“Aww. Shut-up!”
“So here’s the situation. I put her in the room I use when a new girl comes in and isn’t sure whether she wants to join the profession. I put her up there and give her a couple days to make up her mind. She must keep all the chamber-pots in the house picked-up and emptied if she wants to eat. Every one so far has either decided to start actually earning her keep or that she’ll find other accomodations where she doesn’t have to empty somebody else’s slops all day.” She paused and then continued. “So what I’m getting at is that Cora has become one of those girls?”
“Does she even know what kinda house you’re runnin?”
“Maybe. Don’t know. Don’t know what she might have asked Juanita.”
“Not sure why I even asked that. I don’t want nothin to do with that little wench. She can go to hell for all I care. Does that answer your question?”
“Guess so.” Lil said as she stood up and turned toward the front. She looked back, “Oh, by the way, don’t be hard on Jonny. From my five minute interview with her it’s obvious she was not going to let him deliver her to Gertrude’s or, if she did, as soon as he left she would have slipped out. Jonny’s not to blame. He may have even done her a favor. At least she’s got a roof over her head and isn’t laying dead on the side of the gulch somewhere.”
At the conclusion of her speech, Lil walked rapidly out of the bar with her head down although everyone sitting at the bar knew who she was. When she got back to #41 she called Juanita from the kitchen and sent her up to #12 with instructions to bring Cora down. Cora arrived a couple minutes later. “Ma’am, you wanted to see me?”
As she said this she started to sit in the chair she’d sat in earlier but Lil said, “Wait, don’t sit. Turn around slowly.” Cora turned all the way around so that she came back face-to-face with Lil. The dark stain was still present on the back of her dress. “Step over here to me, girl.”
Cora obeyed.
“Turn around.”
Cora made another complete turn.
“No, I mean turn with your back to me.”
Lil reached down and took the hem of Cora’s dress, raising the fabric to get a closer look at, and a sniff of, the stain. She dropped the dress and said, “Okay, turn around and face me. I know now that Jonny brought you here. Did you come straight from the bar?”
“No. We went up those steps next to the bar called Broadway.”
“Did you go all the way to the top before you stopped to screw or did you at least make it to the alleyway at the top?”
Slowly Cora’s face turned crimson, deepening color ascending upwards across her face. She hung her head and said nothing.
“You can tell me, Cora. I promise not to judge you or Jonny. You’re an eighteen year old girl who expected to become a wife when you got to Bisbee and Jonny’s a sixteen year old boy with raging hormones. Looking at the back of your dress I can pretty much guess what happened. Was it him that pushed himself on you or did you help him? Entice him?”
The crimson color ebbed from Cora’s face but re-arose as Cora spoke. “I sort of helped him, I … I guess.”
“Did he pull it out before he squirted?”
“Pull it out? What’a ya mean?”
“Pull it out of you.”
“Oh!” Cora exclaimed. “No. He never put it inside me in the first place. I don’t think he really know’d what he was supposed to do and I only sorta did but didn’t have time to help him before it was all over for him. It left me with a empty feelin inside.”
Lil made no comment. But she began asking more questions. “You came here with no suitcase. Do you have one?”
“Yes’m. It’s up yonder…” Cora looked around and realized she had no idea where Gertrude’s was, so she just said, “up yonder wherever that Gertrude woman’s house is.”
“As soon as Jonny surfaces I’ll send him up after it. I assume you have some clean panties and other underthings. And dresses of some kind?”
“No’m. No panties or nothin. Daddy wouldn’t never let me wear ‘em when I’us back there in Lake City. I got another o’ these floursack dresses though.
“Holy mother of god!” Lil said, realizing what a hick this girl was. “When was the last time you had a bath, girl?”
“Before I left Arkansas. Some time before, I reckon.”
Lil just shook her head and said. “Go get Juanita for me. She’ll be in the kitchen. Door at the very end of the hall.”
“Yes’m.” Cora said, slipping out.
A few minutes later Cora and Juanita came walking back in. Lil said, “Juanita, take Cora up to the bathroom and help her with a bath. If there’s someone waiting, tell them to go to hell. Cora’s first.”
As soon as Cora and Juanita left, Lil went to see Lizzie in #6. Lizzie was about the same size as Cora. Lil left with a pair of drawers, a short chemise, a plain dress, and a peignoir.
She took the items to the bath where Cora was just getting into a hot tub of water. Lil stood by while Juanita used a brush to wash Cora, including her hair,. When Juanita had finished Lil handed her the peignoir and instructed her to take it up and leave it on Cora’s bed.
As Cora stepped out of the tub Lil handed her a towel. When Cora had dried herself, she handed her a pair of panties. “Put these on.” she said.
Cora stepped into the panties rather awkwardly. Lil handed her the chemise and she slipped it over her head. It came down over her hips. Next the dress, much more attractive than the floursack she had had on.
“Follow me.” Lil said, kicking Cora’s old dress over into a dark corner behind the tub and leading the way back to her room.
Back in Lil’s room, Lil looked her over. She looked good in the new dress. Her hair was still damp from the scrubbing but dry enough to show a bright reddish shine coming through the brown.
“Take your dress off.” Lil ordered.
Cora blushed again.
“Oh come on, girl. You’ve spent your entire life being naked around your father and you’re embarrassed to take your dress off in front of me? Now, drop it.”
Cora reached behind her neck and unfastened the one large button there. The back of the dress was split down almost to her waist. When the button was undone, she shrugged her shoulders and the dress fell to the floor.
Lil thought, “She’s not going to be the most popular filly in the stable but she may have potential.”
She said, “Cora, what can you tell me about yourself? You came here from Lake Village, Arkansas. You mentioned your daddy didn’t like you to wear panties or other underthings. Why was that?”
“My daddy liked to watch me with no clothes on. He especially liked to watch me when I was squatted over the chamber-pot. I think he might have made me go naked all the time if there was no chance someone would see me. So he made me wear dresses that he could look up under when he wanted to.”
“Cora, did your daddy ever … “
“Fuck me?”
“Yes. I might have used a different word, but yes, it’s what I meant. Did he ever fuck you?”
“No, not exactly.”
“Not exactly? What exactly did he do?” She put exactly in air quotes.
“Well, when I was little my mama run off and daddy begun to take care of me. He would give me warm baths when it was cold and dry me off and put me in bed with him. And then when I started getting older he did other things. But he didn’t fuck me.”
“Did he still have you sleep with him in his bed?”
“Yeah. I never had no bed of my own.”
“But you never? …”
“No’m. He said that was a sin but as long as we didn’t actually do it, anything was okay. So all he ever done during all those years was play with me down there a little and pretty soon I’d feel something thick and gooey shoot out all over my back and then daddy would get a rag and wipe it off and we’d go to sleep.”
“My, god!” Lil exclaimed. “Cora, do you know what the word virgin means?”
“Oh, yes’m. Jesus’ mama Mary was a virgin. We learned that in Sunday school and what it meant.”
This girl’s story became more incredulous with every sentence. She had been abused by her father virtually all her life without every having lost her virginity.
And now Lil was about to turn her into a whore.
“When you told me about you and Jonny earlier, you said you thought he didn’t know what to do and you only sorta knew but didn’t know how to help him. What did you mean you only sorta knew? And if you only sorta know, how do you know the word fuck?”
“Well, in Arkansas, just like ever’where, they’s farm animals around and me and some others used to watch ‘em in the barnyard you know when they was doin it and some boys told me one day that what they was doin was called fuckin. And then when I got older and I learned about Jesus and how his mama was a virgin and learned from my sunday school teacher what a virgin was, I knew then exactly what fuck meant. I might be ignorant of school larnin and talk like a hick, but I ain’t dumb.”
“No.” Lil chuckled, “you’re not dumb.”
Lil looked up at a clock. Quarter to four. Supper was served from four to five in order that the girls could be ready to entertain customes beginning at five. Lil just had a few more questions and instructions for Cora.
“Do you know what kind of house this is, Cora.”
“Ain’t it just a boardin house?”
“Well, somethin’ like that but all ten of the rooms are rented to women who entertain men there.”
“Oh, you mean they’re whores.”
Again Lil couldn’t repress a smile. “That’s exactly what I mean.” She didn’t dare ask how she knew that word. “Are you hungry?” she said.
“Yeah, I reckon I am. Ain’t et since breakfast and that was the first I’d et in two days.”
“Go back to the kitchen and tell cook I said to feed you. After you’ve eaten, go up to your room and stay there til morning. In the morning we’ll show you what your job is for the day.” Lil said.
“Yes’m.” Cora replied.
In the kitchen, cook was busy getting ready for dinner. This was the only meal of the day served in the dining room and all ten working girls usually ate.
When Cora told cook that Lil had said to feed her, cook was not pleased but she did respond. “They’s some cold ham there under that cloth on the table, bread over there in the box. Other stuff in the icebox over there. Eat whatever you want.” She resumed frying a chicken for dinner.
Cora made herself two ham sandwiches which she quickly ate standing at the table. As soon as she had finished, she washed it down with a large glass of milk that she found in the icebox. Then she made her way back up to #12.
As soon as Cora stepped inside the low, sloping room, she spied the peignoir Lil had left on her bed. She held it up, admiring it. She had never seen anything so pretty.
She slipped out of her new dress, carefully hanging it on one of the three nails at the back of the room, and slippped the peignoir on.
A small mirror was hung on the wall opposite the bed. She backed up as far as she could from the mirror and opened the peignoir. She liked the way she looked in her new lingerie. She slid her hands down the front of her body, over the chemise that encased her breasts and on down to her hips. Her chemise and and panties were both a pale shade of pink.
She lay down on the bed in her new finery and cried herself to sleep.
Sometime later, Cora didn’t know what time it was but it was dark, she was awakened by someone tapping her on the shoulder, at the same time clamping a hand over her mouth and whispering in her ear. “Shhh! It’s Jonny. Don’t scream!” He slowly removed his hand from her mouth.
Cora sat up in bed, not thinking at all about the skimpiness of her dress as she pulled him down onto the bed beside her and folded her arms about him. She buried her face in his neck and cried softly.
“What’s the matter, Cora?” whispered Jonny.
Cora wiped the tears from her eyes with the back of a hand and said, “I don’t know. I just started thinkin about all of what’s happened to me since I got here just day-before-yesterday and how I’ve already got friends who are trying to help me.”
Cora had released Jonny and the two were now sitting side-by-side on the bed. When Cora started to talk again it was in a normal voice. Jonny quickly shushed her.
“Shhh! If Lil finds me here she’ll skin me. What were you going to say?”
“Just how you knew I was in this room and how you knew how to get up here.”
“I’ve been around this house practically since I can remember. Lil is my mama ceptin she don’t claim me or want nothin to do with me except that she has always let me come to the kitchen and eat. That’s where I learned she had put you in #12 and I’ve sometimes liked lookin in that winda. Did you know Lil went to see Elmo?”
“Went to see Elmo. What for?”
“I wasn’t there because as soon as I saw her come into the bar a little after one, I knew she would tell Elmo that you was at her house and I had already tole him that I took you as far as Clawson and you insisted you could get on up to Gertrude’s by yourself. I knew when he talked to Lil he would put things together and know I brought you here.”
“Oh, Jonny. I’m so sorry for causing you all this trouble.”
“Don’t worry, darlin. I’ll wait to tomorra and talk to Lil and get everthin straightened out.”
Cora leaned closer to him, thrusting his hand between her legs and saying, “Jonny. Remember how we tried to do it this morning in the bushes and all that happened was you squirtin all over my dress? We can take our time and do it right this time. Take yore pants off.” she ordered him.
Taking their time was not to be. Getting it right was.
Jonny stood and dropped his pants to his ankles before turning to see Cora, naked but for the peignoir, laying there before him, welcoming him in. There was no foreplay. He had just penetrated her, when an almost silent scream began to form on her lips. He was almost able to get a hand over her mouth and squelch it before it got out. Almost!
They lay there holding their breaths, neither moving except for the slow, steady slippage of Jonny’s stiff member deeper inside her. It was but a moment or two before they had indeed been successful in doing ‘it’ this time.
Almost immediately after their mutual orgasm, the was a tapping at the door. A squeaky voice said. “Is everythin hunky-dory in there, girl? This is Esmeralda from next door. Is it okay for me to come in?”
In the time it took Esmeralda to say this, Jonny had jerked his pants back up, holding them without bothering with the rope, crossing to the window and disappearing through it just as the door opened.
A young woman was standing in the doorway, dimly lit from behind but Cora could see that she had on a long duster and nothing else except a pair of high heeled shoes. Her hair was in a tangle about her head. Cora had pulled her own peignoir tightly about herself.
“Oh, hi, hon. I’m Esmeralda from next door. I thought I heard you scream.”
“Yes. I must have dozed off and had a dream but it’s okay now.”
“Alright, hon. If I can do anything, anything at all, I’m right next door except when I’m down in the lounge.”
“I don’t think anything could keep me from sleeping tonight. Bye.” Cora lay her head back down on the bed and pulled the peignoir up around her.
“Bye.” Esmeralda said as she closed the door.
Cora could feel Jonny’s warm stickiness between her legs. She wondered where he was right then and when she would see him again.
But Cora was never to see Jonny again.
Forever Bisbee 