Author's note: The sexual content of this story is between two sisters. If you don't enjoy F/F erotica this one probably isn't for you. This is my first story involving incest and I cannot tell you why I wrote it except to say I followed my muse and this is where she took me. My apologies to any of my regular readers who this work offends.
CET
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The steady clicking of the wheels on the rails told her that the train had come down the long grade from the Rockies and was finally on the plains. It was evening and the sun was setting, but she didn't move from her end of the dusty, empty boxcar to enjoy the view. At the other end of the car an old man sat, either sleeping or deep in thought. He had a full pack, boots and wore a black bandana over his head. She knew what that meant; he was a lifer and enforcer for the FTRA. That should scare her, but after all she had been through it really seemed pretty inconsequential. The FRTA or Freight Train Riders of America was a particularly vicious gang who preyed on unsuspecting riders.
Her name was Jenny, but it had been so long since she went by the name she barely remembered it. She was a small girl; short and rail thin with the look of the perpetually hungry on her gaunt face. She was eighteen going on forty and at times she almost hoped she never saw nineteen. She wore an oversized gray sweatshirt that swallowed her, but too some degree it hid her full breasts and that was the important part. Her hips were slim and boyish, covered in dirty jeans that might have been blue at some point in years past. There were holes in the soles of her sneakers and one in the canvas over her toe that showed she was sockless. When the old man rose and stretched Jenny became instantly wary. Like a wild thing she watched as he picked up his pack and approached her.
"Mind a little comp'ny," he asked when he was still five feet away from her. He was thin too, but where she looked fragile, he looked as tough as whipcord. The lines in his face were partially hidden by a scraggly white beard that was tobacco stained and his gnarled fingers showed the scars of many a fight.
"Your car," she replied deferentially. He had been in this car when she hoped it in the Sacramento switching yard and by the rules that made it his. Also, as a member of the FTRA he would be armed and most likely very dangerous. Too many "yuppie" riders made the mistake of thinking it was a free country, but that wasn't the case on the trains.
"Rekon it is at that," he said as he sat across from her and gave her the once over. His wise-old eyes took her in at a glance and Jenny waited for the inevitable come on. She didn't have much choice, she could either give him what he wanted and hope he would be kind or she could fight and possibly be dead. She didn't have much to live for, but she wasn't about to die protecting a virtue that had been dead for years.
"I've seen that look before," he said in his southern drawl.
"What look?"
"You're wandrin if I'ma goin ta hit on ya or try to rape ya, but the answer is tain't neither," he said as he opened his pack and pulled out a small lantern. When it was lit he sat back and shook a cigarette from a crumpled pack then offered her one, which she took gratefully.
"Relax girl," he said as he lit his cigarette and passed her an old Zippo. It had the emblem of the globe and anchor, which she knew meant he was ex Marine Corps. She passed it back and he dug into his pack again and tossed her an MRE. He took one of the military ration packs out for himself and tore into it.
"Why you being so nice to me?" she asked suspiciously.
"I got me a daughter somewhere, about your age, mebbe a tad older. Never got the chance to know her, her momma runnin away with that faggoty SOB she took up with an all, so now an again I try to hep out when I see a girl alone, I'd want someone to help mine out if she was in a bad way,"
"Thank you," Jenny said as she tore into the meal. It was far from good, but when you ate as sporadically as she did it was a feast. They ate in silence, the old man passing her a second cigarette when they were both done and a flask with a strong liquor that tore up her throat, but left her limbs and tummy feeling warm.
"Tell me bout yoself girl, how'd you end up ridin the rails?"
"Long story," she said, trying to avoid the memories.
"We got time, be fifteen, sixteen hours till we make the next switch yard," he said reasonably. Jenny thought for a moment then decided, what the hell. If he wanted to hear a girl talk she would talk to him. He had fed her and that deserved some kind of return, especially if he wasn't going to try to fuck her or get a blowjob for his trouble.
"I'm going home. My daddy raped me the first time when I was real young. It happened a couple more times before he went out, got liquored up and got hisself shot dead over at Wellman's Hole. Momma wasn't no good and took up with a miner named Melvin Scoats afore pa was even in the ground good. For a while he was good to us, Mom, my sister Nan and me, but he took to drinking after he got laid off. I was always shy and quiet, so it weren't no surprise when he tried it too. But Nan was neigh on eighteen by then and already a hellion, she burst in on us an stomped a lake in his ass. She probably woulda kilt him, but ma got between em. Nan, she stormed out of the house and that left me with Melvin throwing me dirty glances while ma was tending to his cuts. I headed out the door the next morning, right past school, hopped a west bound and didn't get off til I was in Los Angeles,"
"How old were ya?"
"Fifteen,"
"Tain't right,"
"No sir, it ain't. In LA, I got by the only way a girl with no schoolin can for a while. I was headed down the road to perdition when I was saved by a right good Christian man named Mr. Dees. He took me in and found me a place in St. Catherine's School for Wayward Girls. I stayed there two years or more, learning how to be a good Christian and all. One evening Deacon Conway came to my room and tried to have his way with me. I was still shy, but I was eighteen then and a full growed woman so I fought back. Of course he blamed me and the church elders backed him up and I was out on the streets again the next day. Before I left the secretary give me a letter, it was from Nan, lord knows how she found me. Seems ma is passin and she wants to see her children again before she goes. Melvin got hisself cut to death in a card game last year. I been hitchin and ridin for three weeks now, trying to get home,"
"You talk strange girl, half the time it's pure West Virginia hill folk, the other half it's right proper English,"
"I learned a lot in the church school," Jenny said, dropping her accent like a stripper would her feathers.
"I rekon it's safer to sound homey than high falutin," he said with his eyes twinkling in the uncertain light.
"Yes sir, I learned that on the way out, keep quiet and sound dumb. The girls who have big mouths and use big words end up pulling their own trains,"
"That's the way of it. Something about riding a stuck up bitch that most of the boys can't get a nuff of. You're right canny, but I can see you're tuckered out. Get some rest girl. They call me Hard Corps and no one will mess with you while I'm about,"
Her rule of thumb had always been never sleep unless she was alone, but she curled up and drifted off, lulled by the rhythm of the rails. If this old man meant her any harm being awake or asleep wouldn't make much difference one way or the other.
-----
Durning was a typical West Virginia coal-mining town. Jenny felt the welling horror of being back as she stood on the old state highway that was still the only paved road in town. The mournful whistle of the eastbound freight as it crossed Dryer's creek was the only sound. Rows of clapboard houses, all in bad need of a paint job and an overall feeling of hopelessness that nothing seemed to penetrate added to her growing dread. She stuffed her hand in her pocket and felt the cool metal of a lighter.
She and the old man had parted before they crossed the Mississippi. He was headed towards warmer weather on the southern routes. She had made the rest of her trip alone, but carrying a Zippo with the Marine Corps emblem on it that he had given her. Twice she had pulled it out and showed it to groups of men who were getting too handsy. All she had to say was what the old man told her, "Hard Corps says leave me be". Both times the men had backed off like she had AIDS, the clap and Lorena Bobbit's sunny disposition. For an old man Hard Corps seemed to inspire a lot of fear, but you didn't make it to being an enforcer by turning the other cheek.
She found the house as she remembered it. A two-story box that looked exactly like the one on either side of it and every other house this side of the tracks. Company store houses. Theirs had been white at one time, but it was now dull gray with a sagging stoop and missing a few shingles. Jen slowly walked up the old steps and gingerly tested the boards of the dilapidated porch before putting her full weight on them. Every instinct told her to turn and run, run as fast as she could, until she couldn't run anymore. She hesitated, but finally knocked on the door and after a minute it swung open and a woman stepped out.
"Whaddaya want?" she asked suspiciously. She was head and shoulders above Jenny's five two and had a barrel chest with heavy breasts. She was obviously braless behind the black Harley Davidson t-shirt she wore and her arms were bulky for a woman. Her slim hips and muscular legs were barely contained by ripped jeans that looked to be painted on. Heavy biker boots with a blue bandanna tied around one ankle completed her outfit. She had a face that might have been pretty once, but her nose had been broken at least twice and a knife scar ran from just above her left eye all the way to her chin. She wore her black hair close cropped. A tattoo depicting a black widow spider crawling out of the eye socket of a skull was displayed prominently on her left shoulder. She had several scars on her arms and hands and looked very intimidating. There was something about her though, something in her pale green eyes, some faint recollection stirred in Jen's brain then.
"Nan?" Jenny asked disbelievingly.
"Jen?" the woman responded, cocking her head to one side and looking at her closely. Jen could only nod.
"Jenny!" the big girl shouted as she wrapped Jen up in her arms. She lifted the smaller girl from the old wooden porch and twirled her around while hugging her fiercely. Jenny hugged back and felt the tears start to flow. Nan had always been her best friend, her protector and the only person in her youth who had ever treated her kindly. When Nan finally put her down her ribs ached, but she was happy nonetheless. Nan looked as if she was about to cry and was embarrassed by her outburst.
"Come on in Sis, I was afraid you wouldn't come," she said as she turned her back and walked her into the house. Inside the house was dusty and looked unlived in.
