The Milkmaid Pt. 02

"Specialty hostess? He expected you to do 'special' favors fucking them, didn't they?"

Her face was grim as she slowly nodded. "I figured that I'd be having sex with Owen from time to time; he was a really good looking guy, he seemed nice, and I wasn't dating anyone, so I initially even looked forward to it—I'm sorry, Nick. I'm being perfectly honest here—"

I tried to ease my look of disgust and waved a hand for her to continue.

"Anyway, over the next few weeks, he and the manager started asking for me to do more and more. The short skirt wasn' so bad, and the extra loose buttons at the top didn't bother me too much since I wasn't big enough to fall out like a couple of the girls, but before long, Owen quit having sex with me and started wanting me to have sex with certain clients."

I looked away again, shaking my head despite having known that it was coming. I didn't want to hear more. I started to rise to leave, but she reached out and held me.

"There's more. He wanted me to give some of them drugs, too, Nick, but I didn't want to do either, the sex or the drugs, so I refused."

She'd surprised me. "You did?"

She nodded. "I've had my share of guys, Nick—it's true and I won't apologize for it so don't ask me to—but I'd always done it with guys because I wanted to, because I liked them—or, at least, something about them. You were like that, Nick; it was because I wanted to and because you were a nice guy, not because I felt obligated or that I felt I owed you anything. Anyway, maybe you think I'm a whore for being like that, but I don't see it that way and I'm sure as hell not a whore for money and I wasn't about to start being one."

She had a history, but so, too, did I. Hers seemed dark, but in the context of how I'd taken advantage of some of the girls after Mom's death, mine wasn't exactly pristine either. I shook my head and replied with what I believed.

"No, you're not a whore, Jessi." Saying the rest, though, was harder but I added the words she needed to hear, the words I needed to believe. "And the past doesn't matter, Jessi. Only what lies ahead...for us. What did your boss, this Owen-asshole say?"

"Surprisingly, Owen understood...at first, anyway. I think that was just to get me to lower my guard; soon, he was demanding more and more, and he and the manager were withholding my paychecks. I still refused, so one day when I refused again, Owen showed his true colors. He grabbed me around the neck in front of a couple of the other girls and pulled me to the back room. He...uh...he gave me a lesson so I and the others would learn from it."

"God, Jessi! I'm so sorry. You don't have to go into too much detail."

"Nick, shut up. You have to...to understand him. He bent me over a worktable, tied my hands on the other side and then beat my ass with a broomstick until my legs collapsed from under me. Then...then..."

She closed her eyes as her tears flowed and shook her head, furiously. Now she couldn't say more.

Her body shook as she breathed to calm herself. Opening her eyes, she looked at me, this time with anger and determination. "He thought that would teach me, but I still refused, so he did it again. This time, after he was done with me, he had one of the bouncers come in. He was huge, he was rough, and he didn't care exactly where he stuck it..."

"Jessi? They raped you?"

She didn't answer but her eyes told the tale.

"By then, since I wasn't getting paid, I'd lost my apartment and was having to live with some of the other girls from the club. Some of them were in a similar position as me, so it was a cheap, dirty place, but it was all we could afford. I complained one night and Owen hit me." She pointed to her discolored eye, which was still healing.

"When it bruised so badly, he realized what he'd done, so he said I couldn't be seen like that in the club, but since I couldn't do as I was told at the club, it wasn't much of a loss. I was demoted to outside work, to being a drug courier, delivering and picking up packages, but I refused, so he hit me again, over and over this time."

"God, I'm so sorry, Jessi. I didn't dream of this, but I knew the bruise on your eye didn't happen in the wreck. That was the first thing that made me think something was wrong."

She laughed. "Serves the asshole right! After he hit me so much, he told me to go home and think about it for a few days and then come back if I didn't want to die. Nick, I turned 25 less than a month ago. I'm too young to die, but I'm scared to death and didn't have anyone to turn to for help either; my mother went away with someone a few years ago and I haven't seen my dad since I was 14. That's why I showed up when he told me and promised to be a good little girl and do as he said if he wouldn't hit me again...or worse."

I was fuming with anger at what he'd done to her and how he'd broken her spirit, but she wasn't done.

"Nick, the SOB was so arrogant about defeating me that he told me the plan: I was going to drive to Pensacola to swap two suitcases full of money for drugs; that's interstate trafficking, so he'd be able to hold it over me and I'd never get out from under his thumb. I'd be watched the whole time and if I did anything out of line, they'd kill me. I had to buy time, so I told him that I was exhausted from not sleeping and that my Bronco wouldn't make it that far. 'That's fine,' he said. We'd get a rental car the following morning, but that I'd have to drive straight through, there and back and that I'd better get a good night's sleep. If anything went wrong, anything at all, he'd fix it so I'd never wake up again."

"Jessi, what did you do?"

"I knew I had to get away, so I remembered one of the girls telling me Brittany, one of our other roommates, kept a gun tucked under her mattress. I borrowed it—"

My look made her backtrack.

"Okay, I stole it, okay? But I'm going to take it back when this is over—and then stashed my Bronco with the one suitcase of clothes and a few mementos. I left everything else behind in the apartment so my roommates and Owen wouldn't suspect I was skipping out for good. The next morning, the guys picked me up and we went to the car rental place. I wore a hat, a scarf, and dark glasses, and we rented a car with a stolen driver's license of a lady that sorta-kinda resembles me. Nick, that's the way they are, they can get anything, do anything, and kill anyone. That's why I didn't want you involved."

"I am involved, Jessi, Mount St. Helens speed bumps or not. I like you a lot and want you to be okay, even if you tell me you hate me and are walking out first thing tomorrow. That wouldn't change how I feel." I reached out to take her hand, but she shook her head and patted mine instead.

"Oh, Nick. Grow up. Say, how old are you anyway?"

My brows furrowed at the insult, and I frowned at the question. "Old enough."

She nodded, apparently accepting my response, before she continued.

"We jumped on the interstate, but a few miles out of town, there was a wreck. I couldn't have planned it better if I'd paid the drivers, so I lost the guys in the car behind me in merging traffic and then doubled back into the city. I ditched the car, took the money they owed me from one of the bags along with some for pain and suffering, and left the rest after wiping everything down so there weren't any fingerprints to connect me to any of it. Then I made an anonymous call to the police, reporting the club, the rental car with the money inside, and the license plate number of the rental that was chasing me. I got in my Bronco and went west—you know, like Horacia Greeley, "Go west, young woman—"

I frowned at her misquote and started to shake my head, leading her to give a little grin for the first time in her tale before she concluded. "—to start a new life under a new name. It didn't end quite like I hoped, with my own cosmetology shop, a good husband, and maybe even a couple of kids someday; instead, I ended up hanging upside down in my Bronco in a muddy cornfield in Bumpkinville with my life in shambles and facing the prospect of running forever. You know the rest."

When she concluded, she bit on the left side of her bottom lip and looked at me, awaiting my reaction.

Relief flooded through me as I realized she wasn't part—a least a willing part—of the drug operation. Of course, there was always a chance she was lying to me, but I liked her a lot and was giving her more benefit of the doubt than I probably should have, so I forced myself to ask, "Jessi, I'm sorry you've been through so much. And...I really, really want to believe every word you said...but I'm not really sure if I can. See? You're tied in with bad people, and bad people lie all the time. How can I know you're not one of them, that you're actually telling me the truth?"

Jessi looked hurt at my doubt, but maybe she saw, at least to some degree, how hard it was to believe, so he looked at me with tears glistening in her eyes and gave a slow nod. She got up off the bed, turned away from me, and bent forward a little, putting her backside pointed toward me.

She slowly pulled up the hem of the long nightgown, unsure if she should do it or not. The bunching of her creeping hem revealed her perfect legs little by little, her tease giving me an unexpected rise in the process despite my good intentions. She stopped with the hem just inches below her buttocks before she breathed the sigh of defeat, giving a quick jerk up of the nightgown hem and a thumb in the waistline of her panties pushing them down, almost as if she was mooning me.

It was probably because of our position, but I hadn't noticed it when we had sex a couple of nights earlier. Numerous, long, straight bruises, some dark and relatively new with others faded or even yellow with age, tracked across her ass from one cheek to the other.

She looked back at me as if ashamed. "See what they did to me? This is just the outside, Nick. You can't see the other parts, how they violated me, but it hurt me inside and, in my soul, it was even worse."

Getting up and stepping up behind her, I pulled her panties up before pushing the nightgown down before reaching in the back of my waistband and pulling out her revolver. I put it and the shells I'd placed in my pocket on her nightstand.

She turned around on hearing the sound, looking first at the nightstand and then looking at me with tears clouding her eyes.

"Jessi, I'm sorry I didn't trust you and I'm sorry I took that from you."

I wrapped my arms around her as she stepped into them and she put her head on my shoulder. I just held her, angry at what had been done to her, but even more, determined. I whispered to her, "Jessi, as God is my witness, if I have anything to say about it, no one will ever hurt you like that again."

She looked up and lifted her lips to mine as she slipped her arms around me, too. We lay down on the bed together and I held her until she finally fell asleep.

***

Chapter 4

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we spent the whole day together, talking and getting to know each other. I made it a point to be gentle with her, not wanting to hurt her, even though she told me most of the pain associated with the bruising was already past. Still, the memory of that and being taken forcibly against her will had to have damaged her psyche and her self esteem.

"Nick, please don't push me away in trying to protect me," she said while I was making sure she knew how to reload her revolver. "I've had a lot of trouble in the past few months, but I've also been lucky. I couldn't have been rescued by a nicer, sweeter, sexier guy. So, how old are you? Twenty-two? Twenty-three?"

Our agreement to be honest with each other forced me to tell the truth. "Jessi, I'll be twenty-one in a couple of weeks."

"Oh my God! A baby!" she exclaimed, but burst out laughing when I turned bright red. "Nick, I'm teasing. Your Dad told me and I don't care. You're that sweet, sexy guy, remember, and that's what counts."

Our age difference didn't come up again and we continued our time together, all the while knowing that she planned for it to end sooner or later.

Dad saw the change between us, from the frosty interaction of the previous couple of days to what was now a warm, close relationship where we tried to spend as much time together as possible. Early Wednesday afternoon, he approached me while Jessi was upstairs.

"Nick, things are good between you two again?"

We were in the kitchen, but I'd have said the same thing in the dining room. "Better, Dad. I don't know if it's enough, and probably won't for a long time, but we're working on it."

"Good. She's a sweet girl, Nick, so think long and hard before you push her away, okay?"

I nodded, knowing that was what I already planned to do.

"Okay, I hope you don't mind but I invited Kate to come over for Thanksgiving dinner with us tomorrow at noon. Things are going well between us so I'd like for you two to meet on more than the "Hi! Bye!"-standing from after church."

"That's fine, Dad, but I hope you're not expecting me to cook a turkey or anything."

He chuckled. "Ahem, no," he said firmly. "I ordered a complete, prepared meal for Thanksgiving at the grocery store and was wondering if you—and Jessi?—can pick it up this afternoon?"

"Sure," I agreed, and he gave me a list of a few more items that we needed.

"Kate's bringing dessert and a few other things. Pick up anything else that you two think of that you might want or that you might want to make. Your mom and I used to enjoy a little cooking project together on the night before Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve and such, and then cooking later in bed—"

"Dad!"

He grinned. "Just trying to offer creative suggestions in case you need them."

Jessi and I drove to the grocery store and got everything on the list plus a few extra items. On the way home, we drove past Hadley's Garage and saw Jessi's Bronco parked in front of one of the service bay doors, its rear end pointed toward the road.

"From that angle, you can't really see that anything's wrong with it, can you?" she asked.

"Not really. Want to swing back by and check on the progress?"

Sitting next to me in the seat, she took my arm. "No. I guess I'm not really in a hurry for it right now." She leaned up and kissed my cheek just as I pulled up to the light to turn toward home.

Dad went to see Mrs. Nelson again that evening, leaving Jessi, wearing a long nightgown, with a grin as we made a batch of chocolate chip cookies together. This gown was different than the flannel ones she'd been wearing. It was satiny, thinner, and had a lace-up placket that extended down to her breast line. The way it fit so perfectly, I knew this was hers rather than one of my late mother's.

"What's wrong?" I asked, staring at the unlaced neckline, a hint of cleavage, and her incredible nipples showing through the gown. I was sure the placket had been laced all the way up before Dad left and her cute little tips had been nowhere to be seen then.

"Nothing at all," she replied, pulling her bra out of her sleeve and tossing it to me. I looked at it grinning, dumbfounded. I hadn't noticed her removing it. She, however, noticed the change in my pants and smiled, before looking away.

"You know what, Nick? We're young and it's easy now, but I really think you'll still be a lot like your dad when we're his age."

My mouth fell open. "What?"

She smiled at me before it turned into a mischievous grin. "You're ready at the drop of a hat now. Or at least a flash of a tit, anyway. Seeing how your dad's working with his lady friend, it's so sweet, getting all dressed up and trying his best to please her. I hope you'll still be like that when you're his age, for whomever you're with."

"For you, Jessi? If you'll only stay, we could be together. That forever you're talking about could be with you and all that affection could yours, if you'll let it."

"Well, theoretically," she deadpanned. "Of course, I may need a few more samples of what you've got before I completely make up my mind."

She reached out with her hand and undid my belt buckle, but I was hesitant, putting my hand over hers, not sure about what she'd told me and how it affected her.

She read my expression, or maybe my thoughts, beautifully. "It's okay, Nick. I don't dwell on it, but when I think about it, I focus on how they didn't break me and how I'm enjoying life and the moment in spite of them. I still want life, love, kids, and even my own shop someday. I can't do much about most of that now, but when I make love to you, I'm beating them; every time we come together, every stroke and thrust, every bump, and every backstroke for another round...every single step of every single time, it will be another time that they can't stop us from doing what we wish despite what they want."

"Jessi, I just didn't want to hurt you, Honey."

"If it ever hurts me or bothers me enough, I'll let you know, okay? And you called me 'Honey.' That's so sweet!'"

I nodded, and, grinning like a Cheshire Cat, she undid my buckle, worked the button, and then undid the zipper on my jeans. She pulled my pants and underwear down together, freeing me to almost spring forth before she took me in hand and her mouth. Jessi worked her tongue over the front of my cock over and over before tipping it down and taking the head into her mouth.

As I moaned at the incredible feeling, the timer went off; Jessi laughed as my dick, so stiff, popped out of her mouth and sprung up to hit my stomach.

"We've worked too hard on these to burn them," she said with a giggle. "I'll get them out while you strip."

I was stepping out of my pants and taking off my shirt while she used the glove to take the cookies out of the oven, throw another batch in, and reset the timer. Completely naked and giving her a mighty salute, I was about to take her in my arms before she shucked off her nightgown to reveal she wasn't wearing panties.

My hands grasped her waist and I picked her up bodily as she gave a little squeal before I sat her on the edge of the counter. Diving down, I saw her triangle of soft brownish hair on her mound and the top of her slit as I spread her legs to reveal her puffy lips and then more to see the delicate treasures inside. A kiss, a lick, and then more as I swept the sides and then honed in on her clit, little by little at first before drawing her little hood back to reveal her tiny dot. When my tongue gave it the first little brush, her feet kicked around me and her thighs snapped closed around my head.

Using my hands, I gently opened her back up, and started working her, leading to more and more moans and an intense look on her face as her eyes squinched closed and she fought the feeling, prolonging it with rapid, shallow breathing before finally giving a long "Aaaaah!"

She closed her legs on my head again, but this time, I let her have her moment as she caught her breath.

"Oh, Nick. Thank you, my love. Now get inside me."

With her hanging on the edge of the countertop, I sucked in one nipple and then the other, giving a little stretch before letting each pop free in turn. She was gripping the edge of the countertop with both hands as I slid into her, working my way in within a few gentle strokes. Once inside, I massaged her breast with my left hand while helping hold my position with my right before picking up the pace, driving in and out of her. She closed her eyes again so I trailed my hand away from her breast, down her stomach, and slid it in on her mound to begin circling her clitoris. She moaned as I did and started rocking herself against me, squeezing me on each.

The precariousness of our situation became evident to us a few seconds later as she continued her little dance against my more powerful thrusts. Her buttocks, nestled on the edge, slipped slightly, and down she came, burying me completely within her. She gulped, I grinned, holding her, and then we both laughed as I continued my efforts with barely a pause.