Chapter Three – Penny Surrenders Her Soul
"So, how does our diner stack up against the one in Ft. Worth?" he asked her. He was eating fish and chips. Penny was sitting across from him in the booth eating a cobb salad.
"Oh, it's much nicer. The cook hasn't had to come out and threaten an unruly patron once since we've arrived." They ate in silence for awhile, then she leaned across the table, obviously wanting to tell him something in private. He leaned forward, too, their heads almost touching. "Do you think the night dispatcher knew what we were doing?" she whispered.
He kept his voice low, too. "Without a doubt. You were ... shall we say ... verbose?"
She looked down and blushed crimson. "I ... I couldn't help it. I wasn't thinking."
"We were both well beyond the 'thinking' stage. Ron, the deputy on duty ... well, his wife ranks about a nine-point-five on the 'Gossip Scale,' so my guess is that everybody in town already knows about it."
Penny gasped. "Do you think so?"
"Yes. And do you know what else?" He waited until she gave him a wide-eyed shake of her head. Their noses were practically touching. "Right now, we are confirming that rumor to everyone here."
She sat back and snapped her head around toward the dining room. At least half of the people were staring right at them. She closed her eyes. "Oh, no," she groaned.
They ate quietly from that point on. The sheriff rose when he was sure that she was through, carefully left exactly 20% of the tab on the table for a tip, then he helped her out of the booth. As he did so, he put his lips next to her ear and said, "I'm going to take you home with me, deputy. I want you in my bed tonight." She couldn't suppress a shiver. She stood meekly beside him as he paid at the register. People were still staring at her, whispering back and forth among themselves, and she couldn't stop blushing and averting her eyes downward. At last, he was through and she followed him out the door to his truck.
"I ... I need another blouse," she told him quietly. "This one is missing two buttons."
He nodded and drove the three blocks to her boarding house. June Freeland met them at the front door. "Good evening, June," the sheriff said cordially, taking off his hat. "I'm going to need Penny for ... um ... an assignment tonight. I wanted you to know that she wouldn't be coming home."
June nodded. "Assignment, Joe? Can't you come up with something better than that?"
He shuffled his feet. "Why, Ms. Freeland ... I don't know what you mean."
June set her mouth into knowing scowl and nodded. She took Penny by the hand. "Come along, dear. I'll help you pack your toothbrush."
Penny could do nothing but follow along. She was mortified. When they were in her room, she finally got up the courage to mutter: "My gosh. Everybody knows. It just happened, and everybody knows."
June threw back her head and laughed out loud. Then, seeing that she wasn't helping Penny's peace of mind any, she simply smiled and patted her on the arm. "Don't fret, honey. Everybody's happy for you. And they're especially happy for HIM. You're good for him. We can all see that. Now, how long do you think you'll be stayin' with him?" She tossed the smaller of the two suitcases on the bed and began folding Penny's clothes.
The sheriff lived about ten minutes away, north of town in the woods. Penny sat silently in the passenger seat of the pickup. "I want you to tell me why you said what you did, back in the office," he ordered. "You told me that you'd never been with a man, but that you weren't a virgin."
She glanced at him in the growing dusk and sighed. "I've never talked about this with anyone," she said quietly. She took another breath, trying to compose herself. "It was a year and a half ago. In fact, it was the first and last time I wore that dress I have ... before now. Bernardo ... the chef at the café ... he hired a lot of waitresses. It took two of us to handle the place. I was always there, but there were an awful lot of girls who came and went. One of them ... Sandra ... she was pretty wild, I guess. She kept trying to get me to go out with her. Shopping, to the movies, out on double-dates ... that sort of thing. Finally, I just gave up and said okay. We both had a Saturday night off because the café was closed. They'd found some sort of bugs, and the place had to be fumigated, or something. Anyway, we bought new dresses, and then she insisted on taking me to a party at some fraternity. But it wasn't at the college, it was somewhere else ... at someone's house down south of the city.
"It was a pretty wild affair. There were a lot of guys there, but I was used to dealing with guys that were hitting on me. It happened all the time in the restaurant. There were lots of drugs and alcohol, but I just refused everything. Sandra disappeared with a guy she obviously knew, and I never saw her again. One of the guys got me a bottle of water, and I drank that. It must have been already opened when he handed it to me, but I couldn't testify to that. The guys seemed nice. Really. I remember I started feeling sick ... dizzy, and I remember they all acted concerned and tried to help me. And ... that's all. That's all I remember. I don't remember individual faces. I don't remember what happened. I don't remember ANYTHING. The next memory I have, I was sitting at my kitchen table at home, and I was drinking orange juice. It was about ten in the morning, and Mom was still passed out in her bed. I felt really grimy and I just wanted to take a bath. I can remember feeling something dried and sticky all over me ... on my legs, on my arms, on my face. I felt ... contaminated. I lost track of everything again after that. Suddenly, I was in the bathtub, and the water was cold. I ran some hot to warm it up and I started taking stock of myself. I was really, really sore between my legs, and when I dried myself with a towel, I found out that I was bleeding a little. My panties were ripped, and absolutely soaked with slimy white stuff that was starting to dry along the waistband. That dress, though ... that dress was still perfect. Whoever did that to me ... and from the amount of ... stuff in my panties ... there must have been several of them ... they'd obviously taken the dress off first. My wallet was open in my purse, but nothing was missing. That must be how they knew my address."
"And, of course, you didn't file charges," he said bitterly.
"I didn't KNOW anything! Sandra never came to work again ... not even to pick up her pay for the week. She drove that night, and I don't know where that house was ... or even what it looked like. It was dark. I can't remember the name of the fraternity ... or even if it really WAS a fraternity. I had washed all the evidence off my body ... I think I must have spent more than an hour in that bathtub. I have no memories ... and even those that I can still put together are all fuzzy. It was the perfect crime." She wiped a tear from her cheek. "And I was the perfect victim. That's one of the reasons I wanted to go into law enforcement ... to help other girls who might have gone through that sort of thing."
By this time, they had turned off the main road and traveled down a long dirt driveway. Penny was grateful for the distraction, and she could just make out the long, single story ranch house as they broke into a clearing in the woods. "This is nice," she told him.
"I was raised here," he said. "Part of the house ... on the right, over there ... it's been rebuilt. There was a twister that tore it up ...."
"The one that killed your parents."
He sighed. "Yes. The storm shelter is over there, but they never made it. It left the main part of the structure intact, though. Even the furniture, and pictures on the walls. Tornados are freaky things. I've been working on rebuilding the place for a long time, now."
He parked in front of the main door and went around to help her out. Then, he grabbed her small suitcase and led the way inside, across a foyer and into a living room. She was glancing all around when he scooped her up in his arms and twirled her about like a doll. She shrieked with laughter, then put her arms around his neck and kissed him. "So ... you see ... that special memory that every woman has ... I never did. Not until now. You're my first, sir."
"And here's the first thing to remember, starting tonight," he said, smiling. "If you ever call me 'sir' again, I'm going to have to severely punish you."
She kissed him again. "Mmmm. That might be ... nice."
He laughed, shaking his head. He set her on her feet again, gently wrenched her arms free of his neck, and began unbuttoning her blouse. Apparently, he'd gotten the hang of it, because in no time at all, she was bare from the waist up. She stood meekly before him, letting him drink in the sight of her. She was shaking slightly. "Perfect," he said. "Absolutely perfect."
"They're too small," she told him, blushing.
"YOU are small, dear lady. THEY are perfect." He undid the skirt and held onto her as she stepped out of it. "No ... come to think of it, while you may be small, YOU are perfect, too. Repeat after me: I am perfect."