May 7
th
Sara Wood lived in darkest shadowlands, and she kept to her shadows -- lived to blend in, to disappear; if caught in light of day, she simply faded away into the pale warrens of the city. Sara Wood was an expert in the fine art of disappearance, of camouflage, of falling through cracks in the few systems left to deal with girls of her sort: homeless, nameless...faceless girls used to life in the darkness. There was 'no place like home' for Sara Wood, there never had been. No Auntie Em, no Toto, and never a Wizard of Oz waiting to carry her back to Kansas. No, there had been foster homes. Homes where spectacled, fat-thumbed men tried to introduce Sara Wood to the rituals of oral sex -- when she was nine years old, and finally, shelters. Where wild-eyed women pushed her down to her knees -- Bible in hand -- forcing her to repent for sins she had never committed. There had never been, in Sara Wood's life, a fridge in the kitchen to feed her empty belly, no television in the den to fill her empty time, nor were there chat rooms or the 'net late at night in a darkened bedroom were she could learn about the carefree, empty lives of teenagers spread over the American landscape -- like a thin coat of white paint.
So, Sara Wood kept to the shadows of the city, although there were times when it felt like the city did it's very best to keep her in the dark light of day. Out of sight, she knew, was out of mind. What little comfort in this world she could buy, she paid for in the currency of her soul; earned on her knees in alleys, or with her legs spread in back seats of suburban minivans. She was paid for taking short, smelly cocks in her mouth, or for taking a reedy, whiskey-soaked tongue up her vagina. She didn't use drugs; the thought had never occurred to her because she couldn't afford them. Dealers and pimps didn't hook her and sell her; the market was glutted with teenaged boys and girls who sold their cocks and cunts and mouths for almost nothing, just enough money to, perhaps, buy a burger and a coke. Sara Wood couldn't rock the boat -- because there was no boat to rock. She couldn't beat the system -- because the system was gone.
So, in Sara Wood's shadowlands, she knelt on the altar of poverty, and of justice for all. On any given day, like today perhaps, her face poised before urine tinged khaki trousers, she sucking the three inch dick of a fat, smelly man named
Bob
, whose plastic name tag identified him as an employee of the
New Life Christian Family Bookstore
. Bob had Sara Wood's hair grasped tightly in his hands, and he was pulling on it roughly, calling her a dirty little whore, telling her to suck his cock, to eat his cum. His half-hard dick, Sara Wood thought, was about the size of her little finger and she had been sucking on it for what felt like an hour. Bob would not -- or could not -- cum, and the more apparent this became to Bob the harder he pulled on Sara Wood's hair. Bob looked down at Sara Wood's face and noticed tears in her eyes when he pulled her hair especially hard, and Bob liked that. He liked that a lot.
Bob gave Sara Wood's hair a vicious tug, and she cried out, tried to pull away. Bob liked that even more, and could feel his dick get hard and twitch in response to her discomfort and attempt to flee, and he told her to hold still, that he was going to cum. He held her head forcefully to his groin and tried to pump away, but Sara Wood was now in a fair amount of pain, getting afraid, and was in fact trying to pull away from Bob with a fair amount of effort. Bob both liked and disliked her struggling. Bob liked the fact that he could frighten and hurt someone; this was something very rare in his experience. Bob disliked the fact that he was probably not going to be able to cum in this girls mouth, which, too was a very rare experience in Bob's life, one that he had paid good money -- five bucks -- for. Determined to prevent her spoiling the moment, Bob decided to shut her up, and with his fist he swung down with his not considerable strength -- and hit her smartly on the top of her head.
Bob's cock was, at just that moment, seated rather deeply -- and deeply for a three inch penis is of course a relative term -- in Sara Wood's mouth. At that moment, as well, Bob still had a hold of Sara Wood's hair and he was holding her tightly in place with his grasping fingers, pulling her tight against his right knee, which he had lifted to brace Sara Wood against, to keep her from pulling away. As Bob's hammer blow connected -- driving Sara Wood's head downward as a result -- her lower jaw, now supported against Bob's right knee, was in effect driven up. Unfortunately for Bob, Sara Wood still had all of her teeth, and they were in pretty good shape.
Bob screamed and reached for his groin as he fell back in agony, his groin now on fire. He fell in a thrashing heap, and as he tried to come to grips with what had happened he reached for his groin, felt the bloody stump of his cock, and brought his hands to his face. Bob's ensuing scream was reportedly heard five blocks away, and over city-traffic, at that. Bob tossed and twisted on the grimy asphalt; unfortunately Bob was losing a lot of blood just then, and his gyrations slowed to a fetal crawl as shock set in.
Sara Wood had, at the time Bob dropped, fallen to the ground under the impact of his clutched fist, fallen in a completely unconscious pile of ragged disarray. There was now, in fact, a large raw patch on the side of her head where a substantial handful of hair had been pulled out -- when Bob's penis had come into full contact with Sara Wood's teeth. Bob's penis was, by the way, lodged under Sara Wood's tongue. The only visible evidence of this was the small trickle of blood that leaked out of the corner of her mouth down onto the grimy asphalt of the potholed alley.
In due course an ambulance arrived, and a squad car from the police department was not far behind. Bob was stabilized by the fire department's paramedics; firemen who responded with the paramedics searched they alley and the nearby garbage cans and potholes for the remnants of Bob's penis. The street-waif had been ignored by the medics as just another piece of garbage; they had concentrated their attentions on the man who was bleeding profusely, and who was now, in fact, in very serious condition.
The first police officer on the scene was Paul Edward McCarley, a twenty one year veteran of the department. McCarley's glacial demeanor stood in stark contradiction to his open, friendly face; his slow movements and quick eyes belied careful observations, endlessly analytical observations. He was the first official to move to Sara Wood's side, to see the blood and the raw patch on the side of her head. He looked across at the man on the ground and saw hair twisted in his hands. He felt inside her pockets, found a grimy, sweat-soaked five dollar bill inside, and shook his head knowingly. He felt a twisting churn in his stomach as he took a silver Cross pen out of his shirt pocket, and pried open her mouth.
"Get me some saline and a baggie...I got the penis right here," McCarley said quietly. A couple of firemen came over, and of course these firemen all had something quick and clever to say about the penis in the young girl's mouth. McCarley just grimaced as he put on his latex crime scene gloves, pried open the little mouth, and swept the penis clear of the girls mouth with his gloved finger.
An ammonia stick was produced and cracked open, waved under the girls nose. She stirred, her eyes fluttered, and she sat up in startled confusion. She looked around -- wildly, then coughed and wretched when she recognized the taste of blood in her mouth. She sat holding her knees to her chest, breathing in shallow fear -- because she wasn't in the shadows just then. Then, as Sara Wood regained awareness of her surroundings, the first thing she noticed was, and this was a very dangerous thing in Sara Wood's world, a police officer kneeling beside her. It didn't matter that this man was speaking gently to her, holding her shoulder with kind, steadying hands. What Sara Wood saw was a navy blue uniform, a badge, a black leather belt, a holster, a gun, a nightstick and radio, and most dangerous of all, handcuffs. She saw a system that could hurt her, had ignored her, and here was a man in uniform that represented a system. A system that had always been manifestly unjust to her, even as it's adherents swore to uphold justice.
The policeman asked what her name was, where she lived. He wanted to know what had happened. She was non-responsive, a deaf-mute, a shadow-girl. She didn't exist; she knew that this man would know that one simple fact of her life better than anyone else in this alley. He told her he didn't want to take her to jail, that he thought he knew what had happened. If he guessed right, would she tell him he was right, he asked gently. He talked to her, told her what he thought had happened, told her about her missing hair, why her head hurt, what the taste in her mouth was -- where that bloody taste had come from.
Sara Wood turned away from the man in the uniform and wretched, would have vomited all her stomach held but for the simple fact her stomach was empty. She didn't even have what little nourishment there would have been in Bob's cum. She lay on the earth and felt the world spinning beyond reach. She lay on her side and drew her knees up to her chest and cried like a baby, cried like the baby she had never had the chance to be.
+++++
June 14
th
Ed McCarley sat in his squad car writing a police report on his battered aluminum clipboard, listened to calls on the car's radio -- to respond if anyone needed back-up -- and checked his watch. Ten minutes until he could check out for lunch, so he turned his attention to the report, wanting to finish it now in case calls backed up later in the afternoon.
"Hey there!" A girl's voice, out of the blue.
Lost in paperwork -- a rookie's mistake -- Ed McCarley jumped in his seat. His head jerked to the left, quickly assessing his surroundings, analyzing threats as he reached for his holster. What he saw was a girl, one that looked like a ghost from one of those concentration camp survivor photos. He looked in her eyes and it took a moment or two -- but he recognized her. Her eyes.
"Sara Wood, right?" he said
