Day One by Bill Cameron Page B

dropped his pants. The worm looked up at her. “If you were, you could make sure it was a boy. Cast a little spell.” He giggled, amused with himself. She hiked up her skirt and pulled off her underwear. He spit on his fingers and rubbed her, cursory circles against her pelvic bone, then without warning thrust into her. She held her breath, but almost immediately she felt him shudder and ejaculate, hardly enough time for her to wonder would it be like to have the kind of lover—attentive, even playful—Luellen sometimes described. Stuart collapsed, lay panting into the depression where her shoulder met her neck. She turned her head, but couldn’t escape the smell of sweat and machine oil. “You like this?” She couldn’t tell if he was murmuring to her, or to himself. “It’sthe sweet stuff, isn’t it?” After a while he rolled to the side. She tried to creep from the bed but he grabbed her. “Stay here.” He pawed her breasts through the fabric of her blouse. “Give your witchy spell a chance to work.” After a while, he entered her again. She’d loosened up from the first time, was still moist from his semen, so she barely felt it. He fell asleep with his thumb inside her, a cork in a bottle.
    When early morning came she eluded his grasp. Maybe he’d remember his joke and tell himself she cast a spell to escape, but she knew she’d simply slipped away as he slept. She had no influence over Stuart or his hand, even less over the fluid processes deep within herself. Still, Stuart might be right—his seed might take. With that thought arose a fear long quiet. “Witches,” someone had once said, “can only bear more witches.” She left the house and escaped into the countryside.
    The cool stream lapped her sore vulva. Behind her, Jack began to make a fuss, eager for another run after his drink. She couldsense his brisk energy, his desire to gallop again. “Witches like to do it with animals,” was one of Myra’s favorite pronouncements to the younger girls at church. Ellie eyed Jack’s hanging penis with a clinical eye. She thought it looked more wholesome than Stuart’s straining member. She shook out her shoulders, remembering the days when her hair had been long enough to hide them.
    “Jack!” She clapped her hands over her head. “Go! Go home!” She wanted to be alone. The horse rolled one great eye and shook his head. “Go!” After a moment’s further hesitation, Jack stepped across the brook and trotted back toward the house. She watched him with a satisfied gaze. A tickle ran through her stomach and she wondered if she’d tapped into some primal power. The notion was ridiculous, yet strangely pleasing. She smiled into the breeze, alone and content. The last warm day, perhaps, before winter.
    Jack left a muddy trail in the water as he crossed. The murk made its way down the stream bed and roiled around her. She lost sight of her legs under the floating silt. The water was cool and soothing. Thin strands of mist rose from the stream. She sat, eyes half closed, sun warm on her face and breasts. After a while, she heard the crackle of brush and looked up the gully toward the house, gasped when she saw it wasn’t the horse returning.
    “Stuart—”
    “What the hell are you doing?” He hurtled toward her down the slope. “You’re washing me out of you, aren’t you?” He looked terrified.
    She recoiled at his approach. “I was just resting—”
    “You’re lying!” She tried to scramble away, but her bare feet slipped on the slick rocks in the stream bed. “Trying to kill my son! I know it!” He caught her by the hair with one hand, wrenched her neck around. She fell onto her hands and knees in the water. Stunned. He slammed his balled fist into her cheek, then into back of her head, and she dropped onto her elbows, breasts contracting against the touch of frigid water. As she hung there, gasping, hetook her from behind. “You never,” he grunted, “wanted me ... never