at all,” she breathed.
Inside, over cookies and lemonade, Barbara found the girl to be, well, charming, and her earlier steeliness began to soften.
“These cookies are really, really good, Mrs. Payne.”
“Thank you. I baked them myself.”
“Really?”
“Yep. Doesn’t your mom bake?”
Melinda shook her head no. “Sara does all of the cooking and baking in our house.”
“Sara?”
“Our maid.”
“Oh.” Barbara refilled Melinda’s glass. “So, do you know how to bake?”
Again, Melinda shook her head no.
Even as she made the offer, Barbara couldn’t quite understand why she was doing it. “If you’d like, one day we can bake some cookies together. I’ll show you how.”
Melinda lit up like a glowworm. “Really?”
“Sure.”
There were other things the girl didn’t know how to do: iron, wash clothes, clean house. Barbara pitied her.
The back door soon opened and the Payne men spilled in for their afternoon meal.
“Oh Lawd,” Barbara exclaimed. “I haven’t even made lunch.”
They filed into the kitchen and their mouths dropped open when they saw Melinda sitting at the table.
The youngest boy said, “What she doing here?”
“Mind your manners,” Barbara chastised. “Melinda has come for a visit.”
John uttered a low “Hello.”
Cole said, “Hey, girl, how ya been?”
If Melinda were a balloon she would have floated straight up to the ceiling and popped. “Fine. You?”
“Great! So what’s for lunch?”
Melinda helped Barbara prepare sandwiches and she alone stirred the sugar and lemon into the iced tea, poured it into the mason jars, and set them before each of the Payne men.
After lunch, she followed Cole to the back door and stood watching him slip his feet into his work boots.
“You gonna be around when I get back?” he asked.
Melinda looked at the sky. The sun was heading west. The library closed at four and she needed to be home soon after that. “What time will that be?”
“’Bout seven or so.”
“No, I have to get home, but I can come back on Sunday.”
Cole clucked his tongue. “That’s tomorrow, ain’t it?”
Sunday morning, the house was filled with the aroma of fried fish and grits.
Sara knocked softly on Melinda’s door. “Miss, you up? Breakfast ready. Church today.”
Melinda groaned.
The door eased open and Sara’s round, brown face peeked in. “Miss?”
“I don’t feel so good.”
“You sick?”
“My stomach hurts.”
Sara’s eyes swam with sympathy. “Poor thing. I’ll get you some Bromo-Seltzer.”
After the rest of the family headed off to church, Sara began chopping up the boiled potatoes and eggs for tater salad. Upstairs, Melinda slipped on a pair of shorts and a white blouse and brushed her hair into a tail, which she piled high atop her head and secured with a barrette.
Carrying her tennis shoes, she slipped quietly down the stairs and out the front door. The loud click of the lock brought Sara into the foyer calling, “Is someone there?”
* * *
Under an overcast sky, Cole Payne took Melinda Thompson by the hand and guided her through the field of flowers to the place where he had passionately taken Sissy Johnson and then, later, other women.
“This my most favorite place in the world,” he said as he removed his shoes and shrugged off his shirt.
Melinda was unsure what it was she was supposed to do at that juncture, so she just watched.
When Cole reached for the zipper of his pants, Melinda turned her head away. “What are you doing?”
“Freeing myself,” Cole laughed. “You should try it.”
Melinda trembled with excitement. “I-I can’t,” she whispered.
“Sure you can. It’s easy.”
She kept her back to him. “No, no, I can’t”
“Why, you on your period or something?”
Melinda’s entire face turned red with shame. What did Cole Payne know about periods? “No!”
Cole chuckled. “Turn around.”
Melinda turned slowly around to find a completely naked Cole, stretched out on his back with one leg folded over the other. She was relieved to see that his genitals were hidden behind his thighs.
“Come here,” he said.
Her heart raced as she inched timidly toward him. Cole patted the earth. “Here. Lay here next to me.”
She positioned herself alongside his body. Melinda felt dizzy being so close to him, so close to his nakedness.
“Why don’t you take your blouse off?”
The idea was mind-numbing, and everything she had been taught told her that she should not do what Cole Payne was asking her to do. But it was too late; she was lost the moment she laid eyes on him.
Melinda sat up, quickly unbuttoned her blouse, pulled it off, and tossed it aside. She lay back down next to him and used her hands to cover her brassiere-clad breasts.
“No, don’t do that,” Cole whispered as he gently removed her hands. He reached over and freed first the right breast and then the left. Melinda closed her eyes and began to pant.
Cole rolled her hard nipples between his fingers until Melinda went limp.
The entry was slow, painful, and sweet. As he rode her, he conjured a picture of Sissy in his mind. When his seed burst from his shaft, scalding and thick, it was Sissy’s name that Cole screamed, not Melinda’s.
