Sadie's Mountain (2 page)

How could I say no? I wanted to be alone with him.

Things were changing between Dillon and me. We’d always been best friends, but for a while now, deep down in my body I felt a warmness that I’d never experienced before—like I was blushing from the inside out when he looked at me. Sometimes I tingled where he touched my skin in passing, or I’d find myself watching the intricacies of his mouth when he said things in a certain way. I started noticing new things about him that I’d never noticed before, like the color of his eyes when he looked into mine, or the ropey bend of his muscles when he worked, or the way he smiled different smiles for different feelings.

 I glanced up at my house and the two little ones were looking at me from the front porch. I turned back to him and excitedly nodded my head yes.

 He grabbed my hand and we ran into the woods and down the hill toward Rich Creek behind my family’s place. He stopped me abruptly when we made it to the giant rock some said bore the image of a woman’s face embedded into its façade.

Many times I had stopped on my way to fish for red tinged trout in those waters and gazed at that rock until I went cross-eyed and couldn’t tell my right from my left. I’d get so lost.

He held my hand so tightly now that it throbbed. It was getting darker out, but the crin and lavender sky behind his head made me think I had insight into his mood. At that moment I would have done anything for him if he’d asked—I knew it. So did he. Not because I was reckless. No, not at all. I knew that he wouldn’t take me too far, that he would take care of me. I trusted him implicitly.

“Sadie, I know we’re not ready for marriage,” he said, clasping both of my hands up to his chest, “but, you know I’m going to college after this summer and I don’t wanna lose you. I need to know if you’re my girl?”

His
girl! I didn’t even have to think about it “Yes!” I exclaimed.

There was relief in his eyes. He smiled at me with a new smile. One that meant I was his and he was mine.  His face got serious again. “Well, then, I’d like to ask you if,” he cleared his throat, “if you’ll do me the honor of being able to give you your first real kiss.” It was a practiced speech and he was anxious when he said the words; his eyes were darting back and forth searching mine for consent. His lips were pursed together, his eyebrows arched in anticipation.

I felt shy all of a sudden, although I’d already imagined this moment so many times. He had kissed me before but they were chaste kisses with our eyes wide open. The first time he’d done that I was only twelve years old and he was almost sixteen. We giggled after, each time. Sometimes he tickled me, or he’d hold my hand once in a while. I’d wrapped my arms around his waist and pressed the side of my face into his back when I rode on the back of his bike or went tandem on the horse. But those were the only kinds of touches before that day.

I said nothing as I thought.
A real kiss. Can I do this? What would Momma say?
I’m sure I looked wide-eyed and innocent as he pulled me into his chest. My heart was beating like the sound of the train near the railway.

We are going to get married. It’s just a kiss.

His face looked long with worry. His muscles under my shaky fingers were taut, his body charged with emotions. His eyes never left mine. They seemed to be staring through me into my private thoughts. It seemed like we stood there for ages like that on a precipice.

Yes!

I nodded so slightly that if he’d blinked he would have missed me giving him my consent. His lids closed and when they opened again I saw something like devotion in his ocean blue eyes. It made my stomach flip.

With one arm wrapped around my back he tilted my chin up with his other hand. “Close your eyes,” he said, evenly but resolute and I did as he asked.

When his lips met mine I found them to be so, so soft and his breath to be as warm as a blanket on the line in the hot sun.

He started with a few of those meandering, slow kisses that shot electricity through my mouth, into my tummy, and out my limbs. Then he tilted his head to the side and pulled me toward him until I felt his heart beating against me. We fit together perfectly. I remember that. It was as if our bodies were made by the Creator just to be together.

He opened his mouth and tenderly took my top lip between his causing my mouth to open too. Then he did the same to my bottom lip and I to his top one. Again, he was teaching me. His tongue found mine and we began to deepen the kiss. I whimpered, and it surprised me.

I didn’t think I would know what to do, but I just let go and felt everything about this cherishable moment. In my mind I saw a tiny rose with its petals growing pink and steady deep in my belly. It felt like I was on my way to becoming a woman in that moment. I almost didn’t even notice that there were mosquitoes biting into my sweet-scented legs.

He moved away from me and swatted at one with his hand. I closed my eyes again as he cradled my face in both hands and gently placed soft, wet kisses first on my eyelids, then my cheeks, my chin, down to my neck and then over to my ear. “Is this okay?” he asked.

I was lost in him. I nodded my head yes. I could feel his grin just there on my neck before he took my earlobe into his mouth and nipped it gently with his lips. I felt that in a part of my body Momma told me was off-limits. It stunned me but I didn’t pull away. I was stuck to him and to the ground.

He pulled back as my body responded to his touch. My eyes opened and it was like he could see right through me into my core. I felt so exposed, so raw. My lips twitched because I wanted to laugh with joy and cry at the same time. He grabbed me tightly around my waist and kissed me again. This time he wasn’t as tender as he moved his hands up into my hair getting tangled in it. We were just sensation, just experience. 

His enthusiasm was unyielding, but I didn’t want to stop. I was keeping up with him. He turned me and pressed my back into the rock, pinning me to it with his hips. Still, I wasn’t scared. I was emotional, giddy.

Suddenly, he let go of me and pushed away swiftly as if he was moving heaven and earth to part from me. Confused, I left my arms wrapped around his waist. His eyes were hooded, his wet lips in a relaxed, shy grin. Both of our breaths were ragged like we’d been chopping wood or carrying water up a steep hill. His eyes never left mine.

He put his arms on the rock on either side of my face and smiled that new smile—the one where I’m his and he’s mine. His face just inches from mine. His proximity was heady, his body radiating warmth as the air seemed to chill all around us. He smelled so good, like his momma’s homemade soap and freshly laundered clothes—distinctly like him.

“I love you, Sadie,” he whispered.

I smiled back, mirroring his admiration. “And I love you, Dillon,” I responded.

He looked like he’d conquered the world. He was so amorous. So young. So perfect. The picture of him right then will never leave me. It’s as if I’ve painted it there in my mind with soft wet brushes.

I must have been wiggling during our first real kiss because it was then that I noticed the hem of my dress was hitched up above my hips still up against the rock. He looked down at my pale pink panties. I blushed but left the hem up—for him to look.

“You’re getting bit,” he said, as he innocently reached down to my back side to swat the offending pests assaulting my hips and thighs. His hand there, those long deft fingers traipsing in the forbidden zone sent a shiver up my spine. I knew right then that we’d gone too far.

Like Daddy said, “
God writes your sins on the cross... He clothes you in His righteousness...Writes your name in His blessed book of life...you must keep yourself pure for God’s will to be done...”
I know the look on my face changed. I was no longer smiling or giddy. I bit my thumbnail and I flinched away from him.

“I’m sorry,” he pleaded. His eyes were pained with remorse. He pulled my dress down and lifted his left arm to cover his guilty eyes. I wish I hadn’t, believe me I do—but right then I ducked away from him and ran from the safety of his hold.

 I was so angry with him for making me feel all of this.
That was...WOW! But what we did is wrong. It’s against God’s will. We have to be married before he can touch me, especially touch me there. But his hands felt so right, so perfect I can still feel him; everywhere he touched is tingling
. I ran and he followed calling my name but I was faster or just too far away from him already.

I ducked under a low tree, and ran between two bushes. As I did so, I bumped into the shed at the edge of his property. I knew they didn’t lock it so I opened the door and ran inside shutting the door behind me. The last bit of evening sun was shining through the cracks between the wood slabs making slivers of dust particles in the air.

In that moment I was so glad I was alone. I leaned up against the bags of chicken feed stacked against the back wall to catch my breath.  How did I feel? Was I really angry with Dillon? No. I wasn’t. I wasn’t angry at all. I was only scared because I’d felt emotions I didn’t know existed. Deep down I knew I wanted to kiss him like that. A smile beamed across my face making my cheeks hurt. I bit my thumbnail. I liked it—a lot.

I don’t think either of us expected to get so carried away. After all, when he’d touched my behind he was just swatting the mosquito, that’s all. He had already stopped himself from going too far. He’d pushed away from me by that point. Of course, I knew I could still trust him.

In the distance I could hear him calling me. “Sadie! Sadie! I’m sorry. Please. Come on, darlin’!”

His voice wasn’t so far away. If I’d walked out of the shed right then he might have even been within eyesight. I pushed away from the chicken feed and was within inches of grabbing the door handle when it creaked opened on its own. It was dim outside the shed but the silhouette standing in the doorway was not that of my beloved. This man was bigger, more threatening in his stance.

It was Donnie.

I could tell by his scent wafting through the gap between us it was him.

I bristled.

“Well, now, Sadie,” he said, his voice husky and determined.

He speaks.

He stepped forward and because there was nothing I could do to protect myself, it felt like years passed in the time it took for him to close the door behind him. He pulled a board across the door locking it and turned to face me, his eyes like a wild dog before a planned attack.

Chapter Two—The Shed

“Donnie, what are you doing?” I said in a thin, wobbly voice.

“I wanna talk,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper, his eyes twitchy, his mouth in a thin line. “I need to...,” he said, almost confused.

“Well, let’s just go outside and talk,” I tried.

“You’re just gonna run back ta’ him.”

“What do you want?” My voice became tougher than normal, like a little dog trying to bark deep.

“You...you’re,” he said, stumbling over his words, “supposed ta be with me,” he said, his voice cracking as he slapped his chest and started to walk toward me. “I don’t wanna hurt you. But I will if you don’t let me,” he said, in a soothing voice as if he was trying coax me.

“Let you what?” I said. But I knew what.

“You’ll be mine. You won’t never want him no more once I been with you like this,” he said, as he reached out to grab my arm.

“No,” I screamed as I jumped back. “Please, don’t do this...,” but before I could finish my plea for mercy, he leapt forward, his hand was covering my mouth and he had twisted my right arm around my back. He smelled like the fish he’d just been cleaning down by the river, so I held my breath.

I tried to push him away but it was like trying to move a boulder with a feather. It was then that I realized he had moved a sharp blade up to my neck. He pushed it in but not enough to cut me—just to scare me.

It worked.

“You ain’t gonna make me use this,” he cautioned.

I put my left arm down to my side and shook my head no so that he knew I’d be quiet. I felt like I was going to throw up but my fear kept everything down. I was so still.

He pushed me, slowly, until my back was against the bags of feed stacked near the wall.

“I saw you,” he said through gritted teeth. “My little brother prolly cain’t get it up. That why you ran, you little tease? What’chou need is a real man,” he said, as he stabbed my stomach with the sick arousal he had growing between his hips.

I shook my head no, violently, mindful to keep my neck still. My eyes were so wide, shocked tears sprang from them like drops of wax. Smiling, he grabbed my face with his hand, held it stationary.

“Shhhhh,” he whispered before he assaulted my mouth with his hard tongue. At the same time, his hand moved from where he was squeezing my face, over my right breast, and down the front of my stomach.

I tried to move my mouth away from him as I whimpered in disgust and squirmed so he stopped and pushed the blade in more. It pinched, I halted, and something trickled down my throat.

Is it sweat? Please, just be sweat!

“Look what you made me do,” he chastised before kissing me again even harder. This time I let him.

“Sadie! Darlin’, please come out!” I heard Dillon yell right next to me on the other side of the shed’s wood slabs. Donnie stopped his tongue assault by biting my bottom lip in warning, putting his fishy hand over my mouth. He pushed the knife. “I’ll do it,” he promised in a portentous whisper with his mouth right up to my ear.

We both listened. I wanted to cry out but there was no hope.

How would Dillon get to me with the wood across the door? Donnie would probably kill me first and then, as the bigger of the two and the only one armed, he would kill Dillon, too.

In half a second, the handle of the shed shook. I tensed and Donnie pushed the knife in even harder, my neck warm with
my own blood.

“I’ll kill him
too
, I swear to God.” His mouth came up to my ear, his voice still a low whisper. I held my breath.