Cutting Loose Ch. 01

His hands settled on the top of her head, and she waited, cringing, for what was to happen next. The pain as he pulled her hair, then the savage pounding as he thrust her up and down on his length, until her lips were raw and her throat was bruised.

But instead, a tender miracle. His hands, light as butterfly wings on her hair, only rested there, seeming only to serve as proof that this was actually happening. Emboldened, she bobbed on his rod, for the first time in years taking actual pleasure in the act of arousing a man.

Good Lord, is this what it can be like? This sense of power, of control? Pleasing him without being a simple receptacle? One hand came up to cradle Roy Lee's balls. The other joined her mouth on his phallus, stroking in time as her head rose and sank. Above her, she heard her nephew hiss in pleasure, and her efforts redoubled.

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Roy Lee's head whipped around as the knocks sounded on the front door of the salon. In the dim light, he saw a shadowy shape, peering in through the window.

"Aunt Eileen, you're not gonna believe this, but the mailman's here."

Swearing softly to herself, she rose to her feet, fiddling at one ear. "Turn around, but stay behind the counter," she said quietly. She walked to the front door, opening it to the figure of Melvin Pettini, the mailman.

He smiled broadly as she answered the door, then faltered at her grim gaze. He cleared his throat. "Hello, Eileen. Have your mail here."

"You're late enough," she said sourly, taking the stack of bills and junk mail from his hands. "Louisa Preston keep you longer than usual today?"

"Don't be smart, Eileen. What were you doing behind the counter? All I could see was this boy here. You're lucky I didn't call your husband."

"You shut your dirty mouth, Melvin. That boy," she snarled furiously, "is my nephew. And I was looking for an earring," she said, opening her hand to display a golden loop in her palm. "So unless you've got something else to say, get lost."

She shut the door in his face, fuming as he slowly got back into the mail truck and trundled up the street.

"Nice save," came a voice from behind her. Eileen turned, ready to bite Roy Lee's head off from simple frustration and anger, then caught herself, reading the honest admiration in his eyes. He pulled his pants up, buckling his belt, looking everywhere but at her.

"He really beats you?" he asked.

She sighed. "Yes. Remember that broken arm at Thanksgiving three years back? That didn't come from no fall down the stairs, I can tell you that."

"How long will it take you to pack?"

"Ten minutes."

"Let's go."

*****

She looted the cash register on her way out the door, leaving it unlocked behind her.

"Let whoever wants it take whatever they want," she said on their way to her house, voice spitefully gleeful. "It'll make it all the harder for Bobby Ray to figure out where the hell I went. Maybe he'll think there was some sort of botched robbery and I've been kidnapped."

"Any money in the bank for the shop?" Roy Lee asked. "If you're starting over, you're going to need all you can get."

She shook her head. "I had to beg for an extension on the rent last month. I paid it three days ago." She handed him back the hundred bucks he had paid for his haircut. "Take this back. Let's make the last one on the house."

"So how much have you got?"

Eileen held up her purse. "I've still got the ATM card for the shop. But there's less than a thousand dollars in the account. I made a couple hundred today. I can draw on Bobby's accounts, but that'll leave a trail. I'd rather leave them alone for the time being."

Roy Lee nodded. "So maybe a thousand dollars. Well, I can cover for you for a while, but the money will run out sooner or later."

"Don't worry, kid," she said, kissing his cheek, then his ear, her hot breath sending shudders down his spine. "A good hairdresser can always find work."

He pulled into her driveway, sighing in relief as he noted the dark windows in the houses on either side. "Well, let's do this."

*****

Roy Lee watched in awe as his aunt rampaged through the house. If he had thought his escape had been well-planned, watching Eileen was like watching the Normandy invasion.

The first thing she did was haul two packed suitcases out of the closet in the guest bedroom and dump them at his feet. "Take these. I've re-packed every week for the past seven years, waiting for this chance."

No sooner had he stowed those into the rear of the car then she was ready with three filled duffel bags, packed to the brim with more clothes, shoes, and scarily, a gun and ammunition. She tore through the house like a tornado, steely eyes examining and discarding in moments. A rack of DVDs was swept into yet another carry-all, then she charged into the bedroom. "Come on," she said, voice throbbing with some unnamable emotion. Once inside, she closed the door with a bang and began to strip.

"Aunt Eileen," he said, hesitantly. "You're very pretty, but we have to go!"

"Oh, shut up," she said, breasts bouncing as she opened the closet door. "I'm not going to fuck you in my own house. Not when I'm running away from home." She pulled a last pair of jeans out of the closet, a final t-shirt out of the bureau. She left her work clothes in a pile on the floor. "Let the fat, stupid bastard pick up my things for once."

"Now," she said, eyes glittering with hate. "I want you to jack off on the bed."

"Huh?"

Eileen smiled like a rosebush in the summer breeze; sweet, lovely, and full of thorns. "That fat fuck is going to come home tonight. When he goes to sleep, I want him to lay in your cum."

Roy Lee felt vaguely disgusted, but also aroused. His aunt's beautiful, swaying breasts entranced him, and he couldn't keep his eyes off the shaved flesh of her pussy, the moisture on her swollen lips glinting at him like dewdrops on new-mown grass at dawn. He pulled down his pants, his eager cock already hard. As Eileen pulled down the sheets and the thin blanket, he grasped his dick in his hand and stroked swiftly, pointing it at the mattress.

And nothing happened.

After a while, nothing continued to happen.

He closed his eyes, willing his climax, but it stayed aggravatingly distant. He looked at his aunt as she raised her eyebrows.

"Something wrong?"

"Not the best way to encourage a guy, Aunt Eileen," he said, teeth gritted. She gave a soft laugh and walked around behind him. He gave a soft hiss as he felt the warm flesh of her breasts press into his back. He imagined he could feel the dimples of her nipples on his skin, hot and eager.

"Let me," she breathed, and pulled his hand gently away from his cock. One hand softly stroking the skin of his waist and side, she took up his throbbing shaft with the other, slowly fisting it in her hand.

The sensation of her hand on his phallus was overwhelming. In a matter of moments, Roy Lee could feel cum flowing up his rod. His thighs began to tremble and his hips to twitch, pushing against a non-existent partner.

With a gasp, he spurted his cum high into the air. In white, ropy bursts, it splattered on the bed, staining the bedsheet with his seed. Murmuring her approval, Eileen stroked his shaft harder, urging more and more of his jizz out of his pulsing cock.

"Good boy. Good boy," she said softly, kissing the point of his shoulder, as another globule of semen shot out of his manhood. "Such a good boy," she continued, rubbing her chest against his side.

He closed his eyes, panting harshly, as the last shudders of his orgasm rippled through his body. Eileen let him go and stepped out of the bedroom. She returned in seconds, wiping her hands clean on a towel.

"Here," she grinned, handing it to him. "Clean up." While he gingerly dabbed at his sensitive shaft, she pulled the bedsheet and blanket back up, hiding evidence of their mischief. They quickly dressed. As they left the room, she hung the towel back up in the bathroom.

"Maybe he'll be wiping his face with your jizz on his face tomorrow morning," she said with a mirthless smile. She stopped and looked around the front room. Recognizing the same mood which had affected him earlier in the evening, he kept quiet while she made her goodbyes. Finally, she nodded to herself, pulled two autograph albums from the entertainment center and cradled them in her arms as Roy Lee lifted the duffel bags.

"Is there anything else?"

"Just unhappy memories. And they can stay here."

Just before they drove off, she threw her keys onto the roof of the house.

*****

This is crazy.

Roy Lee had always cared for his aunt, and in the back of his mind knew she was a very attractive woman. In fact, if pressed, he would admit to harboring some not-very-nephewlike feelings for her.

But to throw all his plans out the window and to take Eileen along with him?

Crazy.

But what else could he do? Once she told him how she was being abused by Bobby Ray (and he had heard more than enough stories about his uncle to believe her), he didn't see as how he had any choice but to help.

And don't lie to yourself. When you saw her walking around with her clothes off, you wanted to reach up and clamp onto her breasts and not let go until the second coming.

Second coming. Well, I already had my first coming.

He snickered sourly as he pulled up to the crossroads north of town. At his side, Eileen looked at him worriedly.

"Are you okay, baby?"

"Sure," he said. "Just talking to myself." He looked up and down the highway, the enormity of what he was embarking on finally beginning to register. His hands clenched on the steering wheel and he began to shake. Shuddering, he bent his head, blindly putting the car in park and hitting the hazards.

"Baby?"

"Which way?" he said softly.

"What?"

"Which way do you want to go? I didn't have any plans. Not really. Just to get the hell out of Deer Creek." He made a vague gesture at the road. "Now I've got an entire fucking country to choose from. And I've got to keep you safe.

"So, which way do you want to go?"

"Well," Eileen asked, smiling, "where do the roads go?"

There is only one road, he was tempted to quote. It is like a great river: Its springs are at every doorstep, and every path is its tributary. He pointed to his left. "US seventy-two. Barton, the Mississippi state line, eventually Corinth." To the right. "US seventy-two combines with state highway one fifty-seven. They split a few miles down the road. Seventy-two will take you to Decatur and Huntsville. One fifty-seven to Moulton." He jerked his head behind, towards Deer Creek. "Going south will take us to Russellville, Hamilton, then a whole lot of nothin' until we get to Tuscaloosa."

He nodded his head forward, eyes warily watching for cars from behind in the rear-view mirror. "North, we hit Muscle Shoals and Florence, then cross into Tennessee."

Eileen bit her lip. "I want to get out of Alabama as soon as I can. Which way is the nearest interstate?"

He nodded to the right. "Interstate sixty-five is just east of Decatur. We can be there in an hour, and into Tennessee in less than two."

She nodded, eyes bright. "Any objections to getting out of the confederacy? Seeing how those damn Yankees do things?"

He switched on his right-turn blinker and put the car back in gear.

"None at all."

*****

An hour later, he topped off the gas tank in Decatur. Eileen cocked an eyebrow as he pulled the bank envelope with its stack of hundred-dollar bills from the storage compartment between the front seats.

"You must have been sweating, having that in the car all day."

"God, you can't even imagine," he agreed. "I went out to the parking lot so many times to check on the car Mr. Stebbin thought I had some sort of drug deal going down. Do you need anything from inside?"

"Just a bottle of water, baby." She frowned and turned to the back seat, rummaging in one of the duffels. He blinked, admiring the way her breasts pressed against the cloth of her shirt, then turned and went back to the pumps.

You're not going to take advantage of her. She offered, but she was scared and desperate. The blow job was just to get you to agree to take her.

Oh? What about that crazy thing at her house, then? Seems to me that helping you jack it is a pretty strong signal that she finds you attractive.

Right. The sarcasm in his inner voice was thick enough to cut. All she wanted to do was to take some revenge on Uncle Bobby. A little gross...OK, a lot gross, but understandable.

The pump clicked off. He squeezed off an extra fifty cents, then hung it up. He quickly walked into the station, trying not to draw attention. He visited the restroom, picked up a bottle of water for his aunt, and a soda and some trail mix for himself. You're not going to do anything. You're not going to suggest anything. If she makes an offer, you make clear it isn't necessary. You find a decent-sized town where you can blend in, find a good job, and start living your life. End of story.

His newly formed sense of virtue lasted all the way until he got back in the car. Eileen had bound her hair up in a pony-tail and put on a University of Alabama baseball hat. With the t-shirt and her blue jeans accentuating the slim curves of her hips and legs and her lush breasts, she looked like a sorority girl out on a road trip, rather than a woman running away from a violent husband.

She smiled at him as he handed her the water. "You look good," he said as he pulled out of the service station and back onto the highway.

She rested a warm hand on his thigh, ignoring his nervous twitch. "Thank you, baby. You look good, too." She leaned over and gave him a soft kiss on his cheek. "I think you got the best of both worlds. Your daddy's looks and your momma's brains."

He crossed the Tennessee River on the Bee Line Highway, then navigated onto the on-ramp for I-65. They both sighed in relief as the nose of the car finally pointed north.

"How far to the state line?" Eileen asked nervously.

"Thirty-five miles," he replied. He slowly increased his speed until they had reached a cop-safe seventy-two miles an hour.

"So. Is this rustbucket of yours in good shape?"

"It better be," he said with a lopsided smile. "I had Dante down at the body shop give it a full tune-up last weekend. So. Tell me about them."

"Who?"

"Daddy. Momma. You, even. What happened?"

She took a deep breath, then let it out. "Hell, why not? Tell the truth and shame the devil.

"Your momma wasn't a bad person, Roy Lee. She just couldn't live with your daddy no more."

"Hell, I couldn't live with my daddy either," he said. "Don't think I blame her for that."

Eileen nodded. "Well, the first thing that happened is that he lost his job down at the mill. You must have been about, what, thirteen?" Roy Lee nodded. "And then he couldn't find another one. It takes a lot out of a man, when he can't provide for his family.

"He'd always been bad with money, from what Jillian told me. Living from paycheck to paycheck. Opening up credit card accounts he couldn't afford. Taking you guys on vacations he couldn't pay for. Living for today and forgetting about tomorrow.

"He was always that way. Even when they were teenagers, just starting to get to know each other. He always acted first, without thinking.

"Now, part of that is just growing up in the south. It's part of that good-old-boy culture. But by the time most men are thirty or so they grow out of it. Your daddy never did. The debts got worse and worse. The money ran out, the house was falling apart around them, and he just didn't seem to care.

"Then he commenced to drinking, and that was the last straw. Jilly loved your daddy. But she couldn't live with him no more.

"She showed up on my doorstep one night in May. She had a suitcase packed and she was crying. She told me that she couldn't deal with it any longer. It was hurting her too bad."

Roy Lee sat up straight, eyes on fire. "Did he?"

Eileen shook her head. "No, he never raised a hand to her, as far as I know. But there are other ways of breaking a person, Roy Lee. Your daddy broke your momma through sheer neglect."

Silence filled the car as it sped through the dark, tires humming. To the right, they passed a sign welcoming them to Tennessee. Eileen leaned back, a hidden tenseness easing out of her body.

"She begged some money from me, and she bought a bus ticket out of town. She wanted to take you with her," she continued, eyes soft. "But with your daddy you at least had a roof over your head. She was jumping out into the unknown. She didn't want to risk your safety."

"Where is she, Eileen?"

For a moment he thought she was going to refuse to answer. Or tell a lie.

"The bus ticket got her to Des Moines..."

"Iowa?"

Eileen nodded. "But she didn't much like it there. Too big. So one day, she took out a map of the United States and just stabbed her finger down. It landed on a little town in Montana. That's where your momma is, honey. Promise, Montana"

Roy Lee shook his head. "Montana. Good God. I never would have guessed that. Never in a thousand years. I would have guessed North Carolina, maybe. Charlotte. Well, I suppose it's as good a place to start a new life as any." He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed the phone at home.

"What are you doing?" Eileen asked, her eyes alarmed. Was this all a trick? Is he going to tell Dale? Oh, God, Jilly, forgive me...

"Well, since you decided to run off with me, I've got to tell Daddy that I've left. Shhh," he warned her as the voice mail picked up.

"Hello, Daddy," he said. He swallowed, trying to find the right words. "This is really hard. I didn't drive up to Lexington to meet some friends. I'm leaving home. Leaving Deer Creek. I'm not coming back.

"I'm sorry. I love you, but I can't take care of you anymore. You're gonna have to look after yourself now.

"You're sick, Daddy. You need to get some help and sober up. Don't call this number. I'm going to change it in a few minutes.

"I love you, Daddy. God bless.

"Goodbye."

When he hung up, his face was streaked with tears. Eileen touched his cheek softly with her palm.

"That might be the bravest thing I've ever seen anyone do, Roy Lee."

He nodded his thanks and handed her the phone. "Here. There's a toll-free number programmed into my contacts. Can you put the phone on speaker so I don't wreck the dang car? I need to call my cell phone company and change the number so no one back home can call me." He cocked an eye at her. "You should do the same thing."

Eileen nodded absently as she dialed the number. In a few minutes, Roy Lee had changed his number to a 406 area code. As he leaned back in his seat, he seemed to finally relax. The last tie that bound him to Alabama was cut.

All that was left was the future.

He looked over at Eileen, staring at her phone. "Are you going to change your number, too?"

She swore softly, then turned to face him. "I can't. Bobby Ray owns the account. He is the only one who can change the number. I'll have to ditch this phone and buy a new one tomorrow." She stared out the window at the darkness as Roy Lee passed a semi. "How long do you think it will take to get there?"

"God only knows," he replied. "I'll have to look at a map, but I bet it's close to two thousand miles. That'll take us three or four days at least."

He yawned and looked at the clock on the dash. "And we're not going much farther tonight. I haven't had supper, and I know you haven't either.