Visiting the Neighbors

When I asked him about a key for my room later that day Mr. Andrews proved very understanding – he attributed my desire for a key to the "natural needs of a god-fearing young lady to feel her virtue was safe in strange surroundings." (What I think he really meant was that he had an extra key and it wouldn't make much difference if I had one too.) So when I returned to my room late that night, I locked the door, but I also wedged a chair tightly under the knob just in case.

There had been nothing at dinner that I could eat since Mama and I have such unique dietary habits, but I picked at my food to avoid controversy. Then I slipped out of the house while they slept and went foraging up the road in Twin Springs. I came upon one of those isolated gas stations with the owner's home behind it that dot the rural highways. From the snowmobile tracks, frozen over and partially filled in, I saw that someone had left and not yet returned. I persuaded the lock to open and entered through the front door and up the stairs. I peeked into each room: three little girls slept in one and two young boys in another. The main bedroom beckoned to me and I entered. A young woman, not yet thirty, with a fine-boned, almost beautiful face woke suddenly as I entered. She sat up, dragging a big, gleaming gun from under her pillow.

Our eyes met and she hesitated. She raised the gun sluggishly, trying to hold it steady. "I'm a dream, my sweet one," I murmured persuasively, compelling her to look deeper into my eyes.

The woman made a last small effort to resist me, but all that she could manage was to twitch her shoulders as if to pull back. My gaze imprisoned her mind and soul as securely as if they were chains. The hand which held the gun slid down the side of the bed and hung strengthlessly. It was only a matter of moments before the weapon's weight would force it to fall from her grip to the floor. But I felt impatient. So I sat down beside her, pulled the gun from nerveless fingers and tossed it aside.

The woman whimpered low as I stroked her dark hair, kissed the pulse points in her throat and opened her nightgown. I slid my hand around her round ample breasts. Her nipples grew hard beneath my touch as I lifted her left breast to my lips. Then her whimpers became moaning as my fangs broke the full, ripe skin and I drank the sweet, tingling nectar within.

The next morning Emily arrived early with a book under her arm. She was enveloped in an ankle length wool skirt and a loose, almost shapeless, sweater as protection against the frigid Montana winter. She came and stood behind me as I sat at the dressing table, brushing my long reddish chestnut hair. Emily reached out and covered my hand, stopping the brush.

"Let me do that," she said softly. "And I'll help you pin it up. Father thinks women who wear their hair down are wanton. He believes the sight of a woman's hair hanging down incited men to lust."

"That's crazy, Emily!"

She stroked my hair as she brushed it, smoothing the tangles into a flawless, burnished sheen. I could see the thoughtful frown on her face reflected in the dressing table mirror.

"I think so too." She said with a firmness that bordered on defiance.

"I suppose that's why I've seen you wearing skirts in the snow. Most girls I know, you couldn't pry them out of their jeans once the weather got cold. Or any other time for that matter."

"Wearing pants usurps the authority that God granted to men." I could tell she was quoting her father by the stiffness of her words and the way she said them.

"Oh shit!" I rolled my eyes to the ceiling. "Well, I guess I'll have to find a way into town for a new wardrobe. I've got more jeans than dresses! Can't have the household in an uproar."

Then Emily did something that, considering all the care she had lavished on my hair, I never expected: She pulled and twisted it into a tight unattractive knot like her own and Mrs. Lafontaine's. However, I said nothing, figuring it was another one of those interminable "don'ts" that dominated life here.

Emily smiled. "Come on, get dressed and let's go outside. Mrs. Lafontaine has fixed us a basket lunch."

"We're going to have a picnic – out in the snow?!"

"No, silly!" Emily laughed. It suddenly occurred to me that in the day and a half since I arrived I had never heard her laugh. All the other girls I have known her age laughed frequently. Some were even – Goddess forefend! – giggle-maniacs! But Emily was so serious she was almost somber. This was such a pleasant change.

"A picnic, yes. But not in the snow!" she said, moving to stand impatiently at the door, arms folded, an expression of deliberate mysteriousness on her face.

I put on a long wool skirt borrowed from Emily and, partly out of defiance wore my jeans underneath. While subzero temperatures didn't, as a rule, do me any harm, I much preferred to be warm. I carried the basket and Emily carried her book as we crossed the wide yard toward the barns. A thin layer of ice-crusted snow crunched under our boots. I wasn't enthused about a picnic in a barn – I love horses and critters as much as any expatriate city girl can learn to, but don't want to eat with them.

To my relief Emily rounded the barn and I saw for the first time a wondrous sight: a magnificent greenhouse! My midnight expedition had carried me away from the barn, not toward it. Otherwise I would have seen this the night before.

It was like walking into permanent summer. It was warm and humid, but not unpleasantly so. Here everything was hydroponics and grow-lights. The outer rooms along the Glassite panels were filled with fruit trees set in tremendous pots that bore year round: apples, oranges, lemons and limes, and, most wondrously, cherries. There were tomato vines heavy with fruit and bell pepper stalks so lush with green, red and yellow peppers they looked like wax fruit. And there were isles of potatoes and other root crops in deep beds. No wonder Mr. Andrews went into town so seldom! The ranch was practically self-sufficient.

There was a middle hall that ran the length of the greenhouse through a series of doors and chambers. Emily led me to a small door at the back of the greenhouse. Carefully stenciled on the door were the words: "EMILY'S ROOM."

"My fourteenth birthday present," she said with sudden blushing embarrassment. "Father isn't as harsh as he seems."

She opened the door and led me into a virtual fantasy land of lush ferns. I fell in love with it instantly.

"Sit down," she said, indicating a delicate French Provincial tea table and chairs.

"It's so beautiful, Emily!" I said settling the basket on the table. I turned and hugged her impulsively. But she winced and moved away. Then I saw the tears running down her cheeks, she bit her lip, trying not to cry.

I put my hand out helplessly, "Emily, dear Emily, I am sorry. I didn't mean to upset you."

I reached out to touch her again and she flinched away. "Please don't."

A terrible suspicion hit me. Before she could move I had both her hands imprisoned in mine and I had pulled up her sweater and blouse. Long wide angry welts – the kind that a belt or an old-fashioned razor strap leaves – ran across her flawless white skin. The edges were crusted with blood.

GODWAR CENTRAL

Visiting the Neighbors