Reckless: Shades of a Vampire (20 page)

She opens her crossed legs, wrapping them around Michael’s torso, and moves her hips into his groin. Her mouth waters.

“Michael,” she says in their embrace. “Michael.”

She moves her mouth toward his neck, licking her lips.

"I can't believe what you have told me," Michael says, as Emma grinds against him. "I don't know what to do."

"I have been a bad girl," Emma says, whispering in her ear. "A very bad girl."

"A very bad girl," Michael says.

"Do you want to punish me?"

"Yes I do," he says.

Emma's mouth waters.

Oh no, she thinks.

Emma stops grinding and twists her knee over Michael so that she rolls around. She props up on her hands and knees, facing away from him. Worth a try, she figures -- look the other way so Michael can take her without suffering her bite.

"Spank me," Emma says.

"What?" Michael says.

"Spank me. Punish me. I have been a bad girl."

Michael hikes up Emma's dress. Her slim buttocks shimmer in her lace panties. He wants to lick her. Instead, he stands behind her and begins to swat her with his right hand. 

Wap. Wap. Wap. His hand slaps against her flesh. 

"Ahhh," Emma moans. "Harder, Michael. Spank me harder."

Wap. Wap. Wap.

"Ohhh," Emma says. "Fuck me Michael."

He unzips his pants, and pulls them to the ground with his cotton briefs. His erection springs forward.

Michael bends down, and pulls Emma's panties slowly over her buttocks and to her ankles. Her moistened pussy shines back at him. 

"Fuck me Michael," she says.

Michael slowly slips his cock into Emma's pussy as she remains on all fours. 

"Ahhhhhhh," she moans. "Fuck me like I'm a bad girl."

Michael spreads his legs apart a bit farther and thrusts into her pussy with such force he feels her virginity give way. 

"Ahhhhhhhhh," she moans, pushing her hands into the barn floor so that she presses harder against Michael's cock.

He pounds her harder and harder, grunting with each push until he can take it no more, squirting deep into her pussy in raucous ejaculation.

Emma isn’t sure how much time has passed when Michael finally says something. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Five hours. But it doesn’t matter. She has told Michael everything. She has given Michael everything. She's not sure he will want anything more from her.

“What is it, Emma?” Michael says, rubbing the back of his head. “Can you tell me? Can you tell me how you got into this mess?”

“No,” Michael. “I want to. But I can’t. You would never believe me anyway. I’m just trapped. If I tell you, I will never see you again. And that’s all I ever wanted. It’s all I ever dreamed of.

“To meet a nice boy like you. Maybe he would think I looked nice. Maybe he might think me smart.

"He would pick pretty flowers for me. Knock on my door. Ask my father to see me. Court me properly. Ask me to marry him. Make babies with me. Read books to them with me. Sit as a family together in church on Sunday.

“But here we are,” she says. “I messed it all up. We met at the barn. I couldn’t control myself. You got scared and ran off. I was bitten by the snake. Bad things happened. You found out about them. Then you fucked me.

"But ow, you  are over there. I am over here. Josh’s truck is back there. David is dead…”

“What about Josh?” Michael says, interrupting. “Isn’t he dead, too?”

“Yes,” Emma says. "Josh is dead."

Michael rubs his eyes.

"And that deputy that went missing?"

"Can we talk about something else?" Emma says.

“Emma,” he says, “I…”

“I can’t tell you Michael.”

“Then you have to get out of here, now,” Michael says. “Josh is dead. David is dead. The deputy ... 

“Will you kill me, too?”

“I hope not,” Emma says. “That’s why I turned around.

"It was pretty hot, though, wasn't it?"

"Yes," Josh says. "Very hot. Very hot.

"But, Emma,” Michael says, changing the subject. “I don’t know if you are a serial killer or someone with a vivid imagination. But this is crazy."

“I’m neither, Michael,” Emma says. “Trust me. I am neither. Will you tell the sheriff?”

“I have to do something,” Michael says. “I can’t leave that truck back there. Somebody will find it eventually. They’ll think I had something to do with it. Once they figure out I didn’t, they’ll come over there looking for you. Either way, it’s not good, Emma.

“Get on home now,” he says. “Let me do whatever it is I have to do.”

“Okay,” Emma says. “If I lose you there is nothing left for me anyway.”

Emma stands up, pulls her panties up, drops her dress down, and brushes dust and hay from her dress and hair.

“Goodbye, Michael,” she says.

Emma turns and walks slowly toward the barn door, heading toward the parsonage grounds.

“Emma,” Michael shouts, standing up. “Wait.

"I have a question.”

Emma turns around, standing at the barn door. Michael walks a few steps closer.

“What does the snake bite have to do with it all?” he asks.

“Everything, Michael,” she says. “Everything.”

Emma turns back, and walks from the barn toward home.

Two weeks have passed since Emma met Michael in the barn, and she’s done little more than breathe only the necessary breaths she can’t help but take in and eat the slightest of morsels to keep her mother from nagging about eating more. She had come home late that morning June 8 after being with Michael in the barn and said she had a ferocious stomachache and gone to bed.

It certainly wasn’t a lie. Her stomach was certainly doubled up in agony. And she hadn't been the same sense. She was just waiting for that knock at the door.

After Michael disappeared the first time Emma managed to survive in his absence by dreaming of his return. Now, she had nothing left to dream. Michael had not returned to the Denton farm after that day two weeks before, not that she had seen anyway.

Sure, she had remained in the bed for nearly three days ill. And no, she had not looked out the window. But in the days since, she had been on the parsonage grounds for at least an hour or two doing chores and tending to the garden. And not once did she see Michael, or any sign that he had been there.

He was gone for good, she figured. 

Emma is setting the table for lunch as her mother scoops fresh peas that have finished boiling to a serving bowl. Emma’s father walks into the kitchen and takes a seat at the table, ready for his lunch.

“You won’t believe what I heard at the church today,” Emma’s father says.

“What, Jeremiah?” Emma’s mother says.

“I got a call, from the sheriff.”

Emma freezes. Of course.

“Sheriff said someone found Josh’s truck some 45 miles from here. Near Chattanooga, he said. Found it abandoned in a parking lot. Wal-Mart I think. No sign of Josh. But his truck was there. Had been there all along, I guess. Nobody must have noticed.”

“Well, I’ll be,” Emma’s mother says.

“Do they know how it got there?” Emma says.

“Nope. And they don’t know if Josh is dead or alive. Probably dead, the sheriff said. But nobody knows for sure. They can’t rule a man dead just because his truck is gone and he is gone.

“Just another Sand Mountain mystery. Like that deputy, Cagle, that went missing. Strangest thing. They haven’t found him, either. Only his car. Now, they have Josh's car, too. But that's all they have.

“Well,” Emma’s father says. “I’m hungry. Let’s eat.”

Later that day, the sun is setting as Emma folds the last pieces of a laundry load in the wash room. Her father is back from the church, finished with work for the day and reading in the parlor. Her mother is kneading dough in the kitchen for dinner rolls.

There is a knock at the door.

Emma’s heart pounds. She folds the remaining laundry faster.

“Jeremiah,” Emma’s mother says. “Can you get that? I’ve got flour on my hands.”

“I got it,” Jeremiah shouts back.

He opens the door.

Michael is standing there.

He’s wearing dress shoes, khaki pants, and a collared blue shirt. He’s holding a clump of yellow roses in his hands.

“Hello, sir,” Michael says. “I’m Michael Mooney, and I’m here to see your daughter, Emma.”

“I know who you are,” Emma’s father says.

“Oh, okay. Well, might I ask your permission to see your daughter, sir?”

Emma’s father pauses.

“I’m not sure what to say,” he says.

Emma's father knows he doesn't want Michael for his daughter, but after David's departure, there aren't many options. But there’s another problem keeping him from letting Michael through the door.

“I can't let a man court my daughter who doesn’t go to church,” Emma’s father says.

“Doesn’t go to church?” Michael says.

“That’s right. Everybody knows your family is heathen. Never in church on Sunday.”

“I respectfully disagree, sir,” Michael says. “Not with the 'never in church on Sunday' part. That’s right. My family doesn’t go to church on Sunday, not the kind you preach in anyway.

“But we believe. Very much so. We just hold our church service at home, among ourselves, or in the woods alone, in the case of my father. It’s like Emma.”

“I don’t understand,” her father says. "Emma goes to church."

“No," Michael says. "It's like Emma. You know. She went to high school, but she was home schooled.”

“I studied the Bible, but I was home schooled for church.”

“Huh,” her father grunts. “Is that so? I never thought of it that way.

“Well, I guess you can come on in. I’ll fetch Emma.

“Emma,” her father shouts toward the back of the house. “Emma, come on up honey. Someone is here to see you.”

Emma finishes folding a towel, the last from the basket of clean, and puts it neatly on top of a stack she’s made. She clears her throat, smoothes her dress with her hands, and walks to the parlor.

She turns into the room and sees not the sheriff but Michael standing in front of the couch.

He is holding the yellow roses.

“Hello, Emma,” Michael says.

She drops her face into her hands, and cries.

He pauses.

She looks back up.

“Michael,” she says.

“I’ve come calling on you,” Michael says. “I was hoping we could spend some time in the parlor. Get to know one another. See where it goes from there.”

Emma looks at her father, standing beside Michael.

“I’ve asked his permission,” Michael says, nodding toward her father. “He said it is okay, more or less.”

“I’ll leave you two alone,” Emma’s father says, turning and walking out of the room.

Emma walks to Michael. He extends a hand with the flowers.

“For you,” he says.

She dips her head to them, and inhales deeply, and slowly.

“Ahhhh,” Emma says. “I love them Michael.”