Saving Savannah

The people in the audience all let out a collective, "Awww." Greg doesn't say a word. I stopped the video.

"I want everyone here to notice what my daughter just called Greg...uhm Mr. Gates," I said. "I also want it noted that he didn't say a thing when she called him that. They were both smiling."

Greg on the screen picks up my daughter Gigi. "Vannah, Gigi needs to be changed," he yelled.

The people in the audience laughed and Ally was nervous.

"Well change her," I yelled from off screen.

"Why do I have to change her?" Greg whined.

"Because you're the one who picked her up, Dada," I yelled.

Greg went over to the changing table and started to change Gigi. Everything was going well. My daughter was giggling and Greg was trying to hold his nose at the same time. He was breathing through his mouth as if that would make the smell less bad. Suddenly Gigi stopped giggling and got quiet. The women in the audience started shaking their heads. They knew what was coming. Gigi was so comfortable that she just let go.

Greg made the worse mistake he could. Everyone watching the video could see that he loved my daughter. Like the typical first time father, he tried to lift her out of the poop she'd started making because he didn't want poop on the baby. He forgot that the baby was the one making the poop in the first place. "Vannah," he yelled. On the screen the camera settled down sideways as I put it down and rushed to help Greg.

"That proves absolutely nothing," snapped Ally.

"I disagree," I said. "Greg had the chances to deny that he was her father and to deny any responsibility for her care and upbringing and he did neither. Remember when he asked why he had to change her? And I said because you're the one who picked her up. That implied that we both were responsible for her care and well-being. So, in fact, he accepted responsibility."

"That sounds very thin to me, Miss Hill," snapped Ally.

"Your legs are pretty thin too, but they still hold you up somehow," I said.

"Perhaps Mr. Gates has in some way accepted a moral obligation to take care of any child in his house, but that in no way makes him responsible for your daughter," said Ally.

"Oh yeah he is," I said. "He is directly responsible for my daughter one way or another that's why he's her father."

She just shook her head. "Miss Hill, have you ever had sexual relations with Mr. Gates?" she asked.

"Yes, I have," I said. "Not as often as I'd have liked and it didn't start as soon as I'd have liked either but now that it has started..."

"When did you start having relations with Mr. Gates?" she asked. "And be specific, please."

"About sixteen months ago," I said. The audience gasped and I looked down.

"According to what you've told us," said Ally. "That would mean that you were already four months pregnant when the two of you started." Everyone in the audience really started talking then.

"Yeah, but it was still his fault," I snapped. The judge was trying to calm everyone down and bring the court back to order. It took a while.

"Savannah," said the judge. "I'm really having problems with this now. If the defendant never had sex with you until you were already pregnant, you're going to need to give me some kind of reason why I shouldn't dismiss the case. I'll call a recess for lunch. But after that you're going to have to give me some kind of explanation."

Ben was looking down. "We're probably going to lose this one," he said.

"Won't matter," I said. "You get paid either way." Ben and I went downstairs to the courthouse cafeteria. Greg and the stick figure followed us at a distance. I went over to their table and sat down.

"You really shouldn't be here, Miss Hill," she said.

"Relax Ally," I said. "I just came to give Greg a web address." I took Greg's phone and typed in a web address. He used his phone and viewed Gigi at home over our baby monitor.

"Greg, when we go back to court, I'm going to tell them everything," I said. "Maybe I'm crazy, maybe I'm wrong. The people in this town see you for what you are, most of them anyway. They see me for what I am. I'm not going to say it, because it'll only get Ally's panties in a bunch. But you know how I feel about you and how YOUR daughter feels about her Dada, but you aren't seeing this the right way. I'm supposed to be a gold digger or some kind of slut. But you have to make a decision. In your mind you're thinking that if I lose the case I'll just move out of our house and into another one somewhere near you. You think that that way you could watch Gigi and me from a distance and over time just slowly get over us."

"Greg, if I lose this case it won't be like that. If I did that I'd die. I'd die first because I love being with you. You and our daughter are everything to me. And secondly because I'd be as bad as they think I am. I don't want your money, Honey. I want your heart. So If I lose, I won't take a dime from you, I'll just disappear. Enjoy your lunch."

I went back over to my table where Ben waited. "Are you sure we're going to lose?" I asked Ben.

He nodded his head. "The case was ridiculous from the beginning," he said.

"Then why'd you take it?" I asked.

"Because I'm a lawyer in a small town," he said. "I have to take all the business I can. Crazy people's money works just as well."

"You never know though," he said. "He may give in. He hasn't eaten anything. He's just sitting there staring at you."

A short time later, I started my testimony. While we were away the judge decided to conduct my testimony in his chambers. I guess the decision and the case in general were weighing relatively heavily on him. Judge Wapner, the two lawyers, Greg and I were sitting around a small conference table in the judge's office.

"Alright Savannah," he said. "I didn't want to have this in a place where the decision could cause a big stir like this morning but..."

"Wait, what decision?" I asked. "You haven't really heard all of it. How can you make a decision based on a few facts and some questions?"

"What do you want Savannah?" he asked.

"I want to tell you the whole story," I said. "The honest to goodness, unabashed, but naked truth with nothing held back."

"Mr. Gates do you have any objection to this?" he asked.

"No your honor," he said. "Savannah has an interesting way of looking at things sometimes. I'd love to hear it."

"Okay," I began. "This all started about three years ago and I need to warn you all that this is not a very nice story. There are, however, some very nice people in it but there are some genuine sons of bitches in it too. When this story is over you'll understand what I went through and how hard it was for me to survive and maybe you'll see why I need to hold onto what little happiness I can get."

"Three years ago, I was nineteen years old and I'd finally started out on the path towards making my life right. I'd been out of high school for over a year and was driving towards Texas. It had taken me a year of saving and scraping up all the money I could to buy the cheapest car I could find, but I had to get out of the house.

Living in that small, dirty shack in Mississippi was all I knew. There's nothing wrong with being poor and nothing wrong with Mississippi, the problem was my family. My family consisted of my dad, my brother and me. My mom had died during childbirth. That's how I got my name. My mom was from Georgia. The story goes she took one look at me, smiled and said, "Savannah." It was the last thing she ever said.

At certain critical points in my life, I've often felt that she was still here with me or looking down and guiding me from afar. But she must not always have been watching because some purely awful shit has happened to me from time to time.

Growing up, I was never very close to my dad. A lot of people told me that he loved my mom something awful and he blamed me for her death in a lot of ways. She gave birth to my brother Justin just fine and he was bigger than I was at birth. In fact, I heard him arguing with my grandma before she passed that there had to be something evil in me to take her away from him.

So he pretty much left me alone. There was food on the table, but not much more. By the time I was ten, cooking, cleaning and keeping the house was my job. Fishing, drinking, gambling and spending the Government assistance check was Dad's.

I was always pretty small and boyish until I got to be about fourteen. Even then none of the boys in the neighborhood really ever looked at me because I didn't have any tits. I remember one Christmas just before my Granny passed, she bought me the prettiest white dress. I was supposed to wear it to church, but hey I was a teenaged girl, I was full of hormones and I was starting to think some of the boys in my school were interesting. So I cleaned myself up and put on the dress and marched around the neighborhood.

Then I sat out on our porch for a while posing and trying to look seductive like those models in the magazines.

Later on my brother came home with his best friend Billy. Billy was one of the boys I was interested in. Billy had dirty blond hair and blue eyes. I thought he was the most wonderful thing on the planet.

Billy started telling my brother about some boy who'd been walking around the neighborhood wearing a dress, like a girl.

My brother said that maybe it was a girl. Billy said from what he heard everyone was sure it was a boy because he didn't have any tits and it walked like a boy too. They thought it was probably one of them out of town he-she's.

I threw the dress in the back of my closet and never wore it again.

School for me was hit or miss. Sometimes I went, more often I didn't. I had friends there and some of them used to come by and visit me, but not having a lot of clothes or things like that kind of made me feel weird about going.

My daddy didn't care whether I went or not. I especially missed a lot of time in the spring. Once the weather got hot I just didn't feel like going. My best friend from the time I turned fifteen on was a girl named Jaime Sommers. Jaime gave me a lot of her old clothes. They were mostly things she'd outgrown because Jaime was a bigger girl.

I remember the year I turned sixteen. Jaime was making me go to school regularly because she said if we were ever going to get out of Mississippi, we'd have to go to college. She told me we had to go to school every day and get good grades. I could read and I was decent in math but to tell the truth I'd never really put forth any effort. Everything changed my sophomore year and not just with our grades.

The first day of school Jaime and I walked into the room and it was like everything just stopped. I realized that most of the boys in the class were staring at me. Charlie Wilkins, that bastard, ran over to talk to me.

"Hey Savannah," he said. He was smiling and I thought there was something wrong with his voice. I thought he was planning on playing one of their stupid pranks on me. I looked myself over. I'd taken a bath and I didn't smell, so it wasn't going to be one of their skunk-girl jokes. I was wearing a new outfit, well new for me. I was wearing a pair of high tight shorts and tennis shoes. Then I thought I'd seen the problem. It was hot out and I was wearing my blouse tied up under where my tits would be if I had any. Even at sixteen my breasts were barely swellings. One of my cousins was only twelve and she had bigger tits than I did.

"Okay Charlie, I'm not in the mood for any of your jokes about me not having any tits," I snapped.

"Who cares," he asked. "Can I sit next to you?" I was sure he was joking. By the end of the day Jaime had filled me in on what everyone was talking about. It seemed there was an argument going on about what was better, my legs or my ass. I was shocked. It took me until I was sixteen years old but I was popular in a way.

Our state was firmly in the bible belt so most of us were fairly innocent. There were some of both genders that were really wild. Being a nice girl I stayed away from the wild boys and the wild girls too.

My junior year at seventeen, I made the national honor society and there were pictures of me in a lot of the lockers around school. At seventeen, I'd never had a boyfriend and had never kissed anyone. I seriously mean anyone. My father still hadn't noticed me yet. My brother, who was older, had dropped out of school at sixteen. My brother came home one night asking me why all of his friend's little brothers had pictures of me. I just shrugged my shoulders. "They say you're a tease," he said.

Later that evening he, "accidentally," came into the bathroom just as I was stepping out of the shower. I shrieked and tried to grab a towel. He was faster and grabbed the only towel off the rack. I put my arm across my chest and tried to cover my pussy with my hand while screaming for him to get out. I turned and tried to pull the shower curtain around me and my brother went stiff in more ways than one.

"Oh my God," he said. Modesty be damned I just reached out and pushed him out of the bathroom and locked the door behind him.

Later on, after I made dinner, he spoke to me. "Savannah, when did you get like that?" he asked.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"You know?" he said making gestures with his hands.

"God damn it, if you weren't my sister..." he shook his head. "Savannah, what I did earlier was wrong. But I really can't say that I'm sorry I did it. I drink a lot little sister, so if you ever see me drinking make sure you lock your door." His warning was prophetic but slightly off target.

It must have been about a month later that my life got really interesting. My brother had driven up to Tennessee with some friends of his. My dad had gotten thrown out of the bar he was gambling in for fighting. He and a couple of his drunken friends had come to our house. I'd taken to always wearing pants or long skirts when my brother was home but since dad never noticed me and barely ever spoke to me unless there was no food ready when he came in, I had on a pair of shorts because it was hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk.

When they came in I made myself scarce until my dad called me and asked me where his damned dinner was. I went out and made him a plate. He didn't say anything about feeding his friends so I only made the one plate. As I sat it in front of him the entire room went quiet. The rest of the evening all I heard was them mumbling in low tones. Once later on I did hear my dad saying I owed him for taking his wife away from him.

After they left he came into my room while I was half asleep. He turned on the light and pulled the covers off of me.

"What did you do to get them legs like that?" he asked. "You ain't got no tits but for a skinny little girl you got a really nice booty."

I pulled the covers back and told him I needed to get to sleep.

"You don't even know what you got, or what to do with it," he sneered. He was so drunk he could barely stand up let alone get anything up. "You will soon," he said.

At seventeen I was a virgin but I wasn't stupid. I knew all about sex and what was supposed to happen. I also masturbated occasionally. I had kissed a couple of boys including Charlie Wilkins once or twice, but that was it.

Soon was two days later. He was slightly drunk and he burst into my room. "I need you tonight, baby," he said. "I lost a lot of our money so I don't have enough to pay for a whore and buy food."

He started taking off his pants right in front of me. I stood up and kneed him where it would do the most good and he glared at me and dragged himself out of my room. I couldn't wait for my brother to get home and tell me what to do.

For the next few days dad and I avoided each other. After a few days, things began to thaw and he apologized. He blamed it on the liquor but from the way he was looking at me, I wasn't sure. I did notice thought that for the first time in my life my father began to take an interest in me. He started spending more time around home and less of it drunk. I did like that but, unfortunately, he also spent a lot of time staring at me which made me feel creepy.

I tried to make sure that whenever he and his friends were around, I wasn't. I'd often walk in, politely say my hellos and retreat to my locked bedroom. Around that time I also found out that my brother wouldn't be returning home. His trip to Tennessee had been to try to buy and bring back moonshine to sell in Mississippi. I just didn't understand it. They had enough guys in our own neighborhood making moonshine. Why go all the way to Tennessee? Anyway they'd gotten caught and were now in jail for who knows how long.

My need to be out of the house was what led to me going to Charlie's party with Jaime and Earl. Jaime and Earl had been going steady for about a year by then. They'd made plans to go to college together and never return to Mississippi. I envied them that they'd found each other. They were perfect for each other.

Jaime was really pretty, prettier than I am in fact, but she's a bigger girl. She's not fat, just big boned, with a lot of big meat wrapped around it. Earl on the other hand doesn't mind a big girl in general, but is an absolute fool for titties and each of Jaime's tits were bigger than my head.

When we got to the party, Jaime and Earl found themselves a couch to make out on. I was very glad that there were people all over Charlie's basement. I'd walked in on Earl and Jaime fucking too often as it was. I still couldn't get over it. The change in Jaime from one year to the next was amazing. At seventeen years old she and I were two young virgins united. By eighteen, all I heard from her was how much she craved sex.

As soon as I walked away from Jaime and Earl, Charlie started sniffing around me as usual. Charlie and I had kissed a few times more out of curiosity than anything else on my part, but I was sure he saw it different. He was always trying to tell me about what he wanted to do when we graduated. He had plans of going into the fishing business in Louisiana like his uncle did and living on a houseboat.

Charlie and I danced a couple of dances together and I had to stop because his hands kept getting lower and lower. He'd start a dance with his hands on my waist and by the time it was over they'd be practically cupping my ass and he'd be smiling at every guy in the place and nodding his head.

I think he was trying to make them think that he was getting something. And this probably sounds bad but I didn't mind them thinking it because it meant that the rest of them would leave me alone.

That was pretty much the way my life went that year. Things changed drastically after that summer though. We'd graduated from high school and a lot of us got jobs during the summer. I couldn't find anything steady but I had begun to save money. The funny thing about it was that I didn't know what I was saving it for. I had some thoughts about going to the community college in the next town over. But not about what I'd study, how I'd get there, or where I'd stay while I was there.

I guess maybe that was in my mind because Jaime was there, so I thought I should be too. To tell you the truth I didn't have any idea of what I wanted in life. I was only existing from day to day. Charlie was leaving soon for Louisiana. I went to his farewell party more to spend some time with Earl and Jaime, who'd come back for it than to say goodbye to Charlie.

Charlie and I got to dancing as usual, but this time was different. Charlie was grabbing my ass big time and grinding himself into me at the same time. For some strange reason I just didn't care. I knew what he was doing but it didn't seem to matter. He kept telling me that he'd be back for me as soon as he made enough money to support us. I just looked at him like he was crazy.