Smoke & Mirrors

Dropping her new cotton panties around her ankles, Rachel Morrison perched on the edge of the toilet seat and took a deep drag off the filter of her Camel Light. She didn't need to go, she just needed a smoke. The mill didn't allow smoke breaks though; just two chances a day to take a pee, not counting lunch. Satisfied that she was in the third stall — the only one with a door that locked — she pinched her eyes closed, shifting to find a more comfortable position. Her butt still hurt from last night.

Dwight promised he'd go easy and that she'd like it; but he didn't and she didn't. She felt awkward and stupid, kneeling on the hard, tile floor of his bathroom, tail stuck in the air like a cat in heat. She tried to relax though and let him up her ass. Rocking on the cold porcelain seat, she remembered the way they clumsily bumped together in that ungainly position until Dwight got mad and pounded her across the back of the head, cursing. That's when he really tore into her. She thought she'd split clear in two before he finally shot his wad.

"I'll do better next time, Dwight, I swear. Honest. It's just that I couldn't concentrate. Please don't be mad. It weren't you. Really, it weren't," Rachel promised, her voice cracking with a pleading tone. Her eyes still teared and ears still buzzed from the stinging blows.

"You're damn fuckin' right it weren't me, you stupid cow. I'm givin' it to you ways other women in this town only dream about. And what do you fuckin' do? Piss and moan, 'Ow, Dwight, ow.' I ought to fuckin' lift you again, bitch. That'd fuckin' get your attention," Dwight hollered, drawing back his hand.

BAM! A slam against the stall door made Rachel jump, shocking her mind clear of bad memories. Two — three, open-handed slams rattled the latch in its catch. Huey Lambert's boisterous voice echoed off the dust-flocked gray and pink tiled walls and enamel-painted bathroom stalls, "Rachel Morrison, it don't smell to me like you takin' a shit."

Trapped like a rabbit, Rachel's heart pounded so fast she could scarcely think. She hardly ever did anything wrong; that meant when she got caught it was all the worse because she had no practice lying to get out of it. She didn't even wonder why the shift foreman was in the ladies room. She just held her breath, waiting for what Huey would say next. Maybe it would give her a hint what to do.

"What you doin' in there, Rachel? You ain't smokin' or nothin' are you? 'Cause you know the mill don't allow no smokin' on the premises," Huey pressed his eye up to the crack in the door, looking her up and down. All hunched over there on the hopper with her arms crossed in front of her, she chewed on a fingernail, a half-smoked butt forgotten in her hand. "It ain't healthy for you," he growled. "Stand up and open this door, Rachel."

She couldn't think what else to do so she did what Huey told her, slipping the latch back with a click. Huey pressed the pink door open and held it in place as he stared down at the thin, white panties still on the floor around her feet. Reaching out, he took the cigarette from her, sucking on it, drawing the glowing coal down to the filter. The tobacco snapped under the onslaught. Stepping into the stall, Huey peered over Rachel's shoulder as he flicked the exhausted cigarette into the bowl and blew smoke in her ear. "Nope. I wouldn't say you was in here for a shit."

Cheeks burning in humiliation, Rachel shifted away from Huey but her legs came up against porcelain so cold it felt wet. She staggered to a stop and tried to ignore the foreman's body odor as it slipped around her, cutting off what meager fresh air the rest room offered starting out. She stared at the spaghetti stain on the pocket of Huey's blue poly-blend shirt and tried not to think about how ugly his wide, green paisley tie was.

"Hey, Rachel. What's these?" The toe of Huey's scuffed black dress shoe lifted the panties between her feet. "They your panties, Rachel?"

Stiffly looking down, Rachel squeezed her eyes closed and nodded.

"You like talkin' to men when you ain't wearing panties, Rachel?" Huey pressed against her, rubbing his hand up her bare arm and poking thick, stubby fingers into the sleeveless opening of her dress to feel for a bra strap. "You like havin' men look at you when you ain't wearing panties?"

She shook her head in a quick, jerky motion and tried to shrink away from the groping fingers. "No. No, sir," she whispered.

"Oh, I think you do," he said, grabbing her by both arms with big, meaty paws, sweaty with excitement. Extending his thumbs, he rubbed the sides of her breasts. "I think you like it so much, you want me to take them panties there and hold 'em for the rest of the day so all the men here can look at you not wearing 'em. Ain't that right? Now, you bend down there and pick 'em up and hand 'em to me. Right now."

Huey stood so close, Rachel had to kneel more than bend. Her finger tips touched the white cotton just as her mouth reached the level of Huey's bronze, Peterbilt belt buckle. He shifted his slacks so she could see he was starting to stiffen up. Stepping out of the underwear with barely perceptible movements, she pinched the cloth between her index and middle finger and stood up, panties dangling by her side.

"Now you hand 'em to me, like a good girl."

Rachel held out the panties, feeling Huey's moist, beefy fingers close over her hand in a clumsy caress as he took the garment from her. With the same hand, he lifted the skirt of her dress and ran the panties up her bare leg. His breath hissed between his teeth as he pressed the back of his fingers against her pubic hair. Rachel suppressed her shudder of repulsion.

"I'm gonna to be watching you all afternoon, knowin' you ain't wearing no panties. Is that gonna make you wet, Rachel? You gonna need your panties back to keep from drippin' all over the floor?"

Rachel swallowed tightly, waiting for him to finger her. Instead, Huey stepped out of the stall. Balling her panties into his pants pocket, he ordered her to walk in front of him, back to the mill floor and back to her machine.

Her bench mate, Florence looked up as the two of them came out of the hall leading to the lavatories, Huey trailing Rachel like a dog sniffing sex. Florence watched as Rachel crossed the floor and Huey stopped to stand on the perimeter, watching until Rachel slipped onto her stool. Leaning over, Florence stopped Rachel's hand before she could push her ear plugs into place. "What's that asshole up to?" Florence yelled over the clatter of machinery.

Rachel shook her head, stuffed the ear plugs in place and began stitching. The rest of the afternoon, she crouched over her machine, forgetting how the metal stool hurt her ass where Dwight whooped her. She didn't dare look up too often because when she did Huey was there watching her, his hand moving in his pocket. Rachel shook Florence off again when the second scheduled pee-break of the day rolled around at three o'clock. This time, she had to go but the protection provided by three dozen women, all vying for four bathroom stalls, didn't make up for her sudden craving for privacy. Twisting a stray thread around her finger until the nail turned blue, Rachel decided to wait until she got home.

At five, the shift ended. Cleaning off her machine, Rachel wiped up the last few threads and dropped them in the scrap bin at the end of the bench before heading to the time clock to punch out. Quickly, she scanned the lobby for Huey, holding her coat tight in front of her and sticking close to Florence. The clock stamped her card with a familiar mechanical stump and still no sign of Huey. Thinking about home and a nice warm, private bathroom, Rachel slipped her arms into her quilted down jacket. When the doors to the parking lot opened, a chill wind drafted up her skirt like an icy chimney. Twelve more feet. Eight more feet. Six more.

As the throng of workers hit the double-glass entry doors, they surged to embrace freedom. Grown men broke from the crowd, running like children from the last day of school toward their rusty pick-up trucks and second-hand cars. There was an occasional whoop and holler as workers exchanged their last social jibes of the day but mostly the men were intent on their evening migration to cold beer and comfortable recliners. The women lagged behind in tired conversation, resigned to the messy houses, evening meals and notes from school that awaited their homecomings.

"Rachel Morrison." Huey Lambert's fog-horn voice cut through the after-hours chatter. A few heads turned from the flight but most ignored him, figuring they'd done their time for the day. It wasn't their names the bastard was shouting so why look back. "Did you forget something, Rachel Morrison?"

Rachel's heart stopped. For the second time that day she held her breath. Was Huey going to pull her panties out and wave them like a flag for everyone to see? Her skin went cold and prickly as Florence turned and touched her arm. From somewhere deep inside her, momentary inspiration was born . "My cigarettes," she murmured to Florence. "He caught me in the bathroom and took my smokes."

"Like a fucking school principal? Oh, shit. Forget 'em and buy more."

"Rachel Morrison, I want to talk to you." Huey's voice was laden with self-importance and warning as he stood waiting outside the double-glass doors, beefy arms crossed in front of his chest. Staring her down, Huey bet Rachel's ass was all goose flesh hanging out there in the cold. He flexed his fingers, yearning to run his hands over the tiny bumps.

Looking longingly toward her powder blue Escort trimmed in a coat of primer, Rachel drew a deep breath. "I'll talk to you later, Florence."

As a chorus of car engines started in the lot to carry away departing workers, Rachel shuffled back to stand before Huey, eyes cast down at the snow that had turned to brown slush during the day and was now freezing in hard ridges and hollows.

"Inside," Huey ushered her in, making her walk in front of him again. The mill floor was ghostly quiet since the third shift got laid off last month. The maintenance crew didn't come on until six, so he'd have a good hour alone with her.

"Bathroom," he commanded.

Shaking, Rachel pushed open the door and heard her own foot steps echo in the cool, tiled room. When the machines were running there were no echoes in the mill. There wasn't room for them. She pulled her coat tighter around her as she stopped half-way down the length of stalls, past the third stall. Huey watched her in the row of smoky mirrors along the wall behind the sinks. She turned around to face him because she knew he was going to tell her to anyway.

"Ain't you hot in that coat?" he asked.

She shook her head.

"Well, if you ain't, I think you're gonna be, 'cause we may be in here a while. Better take it off."

Reluctantly, Rachel slid the nylon garment off her shoulders.

"How come you don't wear no sleeves on your dress in the middle of January?" Huey's eyes dropped to the shoulder he groped that morning.

"Cause it's so hot out on the floor. When you're out there workin', it might be January, it might be June. There ain't no windows to tell the difference," Rachel's self-conscious voice trailed off as she let her coat sag to the floor in front of her.

Huey stepped toward her bringing with him a new stink, more awful than before. He'd put on cologne and a generous amount. Reaching in his pocket Huey shook out her panties, wrinkled and damp from being wadded in his sweaty fist all afternoon. He put them up to his nose and sniffed as her eyes grew wide, watching. He rubbed the polyester lace trim on his cheek and sniffed the crotch, licking the cotton and catching the elastic waist band between his teeth.

"I been watching you without your panties on," Huey told her. "Did it make you wet, knowing I knowed you was naked under your dress?"

"No."

"You don't like your job here, Rachel. Don't nobody like what they do here, but they gotta do it or go hungry, don't they? You don't want to go hungry, do you Rachel? What would you do to keep from going hungry?" Huey patted his bulging crotch.

Rachel went pale. Blood drained out of her entire body. She needed her job. The mill was the only work Overton had to offer. She still lived at home, taking care of her Pa. His military pension paid for his medicine and beer but there were groceries to buy and insurance, heating oil and utilities. She had to pay off her car, too, and the bill to Haley's Funeral Home for her mama's service last fall.

"You hungry now, Rachel? You want somethin' to eat?" Huey reached for his belt, undoing the buckle and opening the fly. " 'Cause I got somethin' that'll fill you right up. And you gonna like it, too. You gonna love it. You gonna lick your lips and beg for more." His pants bagged open as he scooped his short, fat, swollen penis out of his briefs. "You want this, don't you, Rachel?"

Rachel stared, round-eyed remembering the day under the high school gymnasium bleachers that Huey exposed himself to Hattie McInnis and her. Hattie touched him and pronounced him hot and hard. Rachel got scared and left to hide in the girls' room. The next day, Hattie and Huey were expelled from school for a week because Ms. Barnes heard Hattie's panting screams bouncing off the steel beam rafters. Huey said Ms. Barnes was jealous because he wouldn't give it to her, too.

Just like that day, scared down to the souls of her feet, Rachel had to go pee. "I — I got to go to the bathroom," she stammered. "I've been — been waiting since — three o'clock, Huey. I really just want to leave."

"You got to go to the bathroom? Well, ain't you in luck. If this ain't just the place to be, then?" Huey swept his arm wide, indicating the selection of cubicles. "Take your pick."

"I — I got to go in private."

"Private? Hell, that's no fun. Go now, or don't go at all, baby, 'cause I ain't done with you."

Desperate to escape and desperate to relieve herself, Rachel looked at the exit and back to stall three, the only one that locked. If she didn't go now, she was going to wet herself. Shyly, she slid to the row of doors and picked her way cautiously to the locking stall, trying to stay out of Huey's reach.

"Oh, you're usin' our stall. Sentimental, ain't you?" Huey's lurid laugh filled the room.

Stepping inside, Rachel attempted to swing the door closed but Huey held it open, as he had that morning. She hesitated, staring at his huge hand. It was twice the size of Dwight's. Twice the size might mean twice the damage, if that's the way he decided to go.

"I want to watch."

"But . . . "

Huey stepped inside, gingerly pulling Rachel's dress up to her waist and commanding her to sit. She did, in slow motion. Dropping her skirt around her, Huey stepped back into the open cubical door, watching and listening. She had to go, but under scrutiny of an audience, her bladder shut down.

"Go ahead. Piss. I want to hear it pouring out of you." He stroked the head of his bobbing penis.

"I can't. Not with you watchin' me like that."

"Don't say I ain't no gentleman," Huey stepped out and swung the door closed, his eye pressed to the crack.

'You ain't no gentleman,' Rachel thought. Closing her eyes, she told herself to concentrate. She tightened her insides, thinking about squeezing a sponge. Then the first wet drops dripped into the bowl, followed by a light, trickling stream. Encouraged by her own sounds and the easing tension in her body, Rachel emptied herself in great gushing splashes. As she finished, she opened her eyes to see Huey had swung the door open again and was staring past her at the toilet bowl. She reached for paper to clean herself but he brushed her hand away, tearing off a long strip and wadding it himself. Ordering her to stand, he moved around her, breathing in her scents while wiping her clean. He watched the urine and tissue spin away with the cleansing flush.

Her heart pounded dangerously when he gently wiped between her legs, as if she were a child just starting to potty train. She wanted to run but knew she'd never make it past the door. She imagined him tangling his hands in her hair, pounding her head against the heavy metal door, yelling in her face. If she did what he said, just this once, maybe he'd leave her alone from now on. She stared at his penis. It was bigger than Dwight's. For a flash, she imagined herself on all fours with him pushing in from behind.

Huey turned from the toilet bowl to find Rachel watching him stroke himself. "You remember that day under the bleachers, don't you, Rachel Morrison? It was you I wanted to fuck that day, not Hattie. But you went runnin' off to take a leak and me, I got stuck with Hattie and a hard-on."

Huey took her reluctant hand and closed her cold fingers over his swollen, purple rod. "Touch it, Rachel."

He was hot and hard. And a lot bigger round than Dwight. Tightening his grip over hers, he rubbed her hand toward the base of his cock and back to the tip. "Do it, Rachel. Rub hard. Go ahead. Grab it. Yeah, like that," he encouraged her.

Puffing heavily with his excitement, Huey guided Rachel's finger tips to the head of his penis. Timidly she stroked the outline of his glans and the small crease on its crown. "Oh, fuck, yes," Huey moaned. "That feels so good. Oh, yes. Use both hands. Harder. Good."

She listened to him mutter approval and praise. At least she was doing it right. If she could make him come, he'd be happy. He'd let her go. Dwight always said, the harder the better. With him, it always worked out the harder, the faster. In this case, the faster, the better.

Enjoying her sudden enthusiasm, Huey grabbed at Rachel's breasts with both hands, rubbing them through her dress. "I want to see your titties. I bet you got nice little titties, don't you?" He pulled away from her, unbuttoning her dress and pushing it over her shoulders so it fell to the floor.

"Ah, there's the bunny," Huey said, looking down at her pubic nest, exposed to the air since before lunch. Unsnapping her bra, he dropped it to the sad pile of clothing at their feet. Pinching her nipples until they peaked, he stared at Rachel's crotch and started to sing in a tuneless, croaky-like voice, "Little baby buntin', daddy's done a huntin', to catch a little rabbit skin, to put his baby buntin' in."

Huey lowered his head to take a nipple in his mouth. He sucked hard, biting then letting go to run a flat tongue around and around the nipple before sucking hard again. He muttered about her tits as Rachel stared at the hydraulic hinge on the top of the bathroom door. Huey ran his tongue down her side and back up her arm. He sniffed under her arm the way he sniffed her panties earlier, taking little licks and nips of skin and groaning low in his throat. He reached down to rub his sweaty palms over her buttocks, tracing the crack between the mounds before cupping them and squeezing hard. He traced the line back up again, splitting the halves and rubbing each side of her anus with his forefingers.

Instinctively, protectively, her muscles contracted causing her to jerk way from his fingers but toward his hard-on. He muttered approval and traced down, toward her vagina. He slid his fingers between the lips but found her skin pasty dry instead of satiny slick and ready for him.

"You ain't frigid, are you? Don't you like this? Don't you like me stickin' my fingers into you like this?" Huey pulled his hand back and licked his fingers, using the wet tips to tease her clit. She jolted at the first contact. "Oh, you do like this," he smiled.

Rachel's reaction shocked and shamed her. She did like the way his fingers ran over the sensitive nub. She leaned slightly toward the feeling, then stopped herself as he began telling her how he was going to make her come. Confused and humiliated by the feelings washing over her, Rachel tried to pull away. Dwight did this to her once in a while; played with her between her legs but he never seemed to do it long enough. What would it be like, she wondered. How long was long enough?