The Hermit of Scarecrow Valley

by Robert Lubrican

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Chapter Four

A week later Jennifer had a dream. In it someone was rubbing the cream on her back. It felt fabulous, and made her back feel wonderful. She had been required to learn to sleep on her stomach when she stopped taking the pain pills. Her back had been too tender then to allow her to sleep like she usually did. And, since then, she had just gotten used to it.

But in her dream she did turn over, to find that it was The Hermit who had been rubbing her back. And now he rubbed her front too. It was one of those ridiculous dreams, because while he rubbed her breasts, it was in circles, and he said "Wax on ... wax off" over and over again until she writhed under his attentions. Then she experienced an orgasm in the dream that was so real, and so powerful, that she actually woke. She was shaken to find that she was actually having an orgasm, just as if she had rubbed herself, but her arms were firmly wrapped around her pillow. It was so disturbing that she actually got out of bed and walked around her room for a few minutes before going back to bed.

Then, to her utter amazement, as she drifted back to sleep, she wished she could have the dream again.

The next morning she spoke to her mother about it at breakfast.

"I had a strange dream last night," she said.

"What was it about?"

"It was a ... um ... it was a sort of sexy dream," she said, a little uncomfortable. She suddenly wished she hadn't said anything.

"I love those kinds of dreams," said her mother.

"Really?"

"You may have noticed there is no man in my life," said Mindy, her voice droll. "Those kinds of dreams are the only sex life I have."

"Mom!" Jennifer was astonished her mother would say something like that.

"What? You're growing up. And while I may not have a sex life any more, yours is out there somewhere, waiting for you to come along and find it. There are perils involved with that, but it can also be one of the most important things in your life."

Jennifer sat, stunned. She wasn't used to being taken seriously, or having conversations that involved adult things. Combined with the feelings she had been having recently, this was all kind of dizzying.

"So dreams like that are okay?"

"A dream is a dream. There's nothing okay or not okay about dreams. I know people say dreams have meaning, but there has been debate about that for thousands of years. If I were you, I wouldn't worry about the fact that you have them. Like I said, I love having mine."

"Wow," said Jennifer. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Her mother beamed. "Now ... what was your dream about? Give me all the details!" She leered at her daughter.

"I can't do that!" gasped Jennifer.

"Sure you can," laughed her mother. "When it comes to sexy dreams, we're sisters, not mother and daughter. All women have them, and all women love to share them. I'll tell you about one of mine if you tell me about yours."

"Really?"

"Cross my heart," said Mindy, making the required motions with her index finger. Then she took a bite of her food and let Jennifer think.

"You promise not to laugh?" Jennifer looked nervous.

"Absolutely," said her mother.

It was another full two minutes before the girl finally decided to go for it.

"It was about The Hermit," she said, tentatively.

"Really!" said her mother, smiling.

"Is that weird?"

Her mother crossed her heart again. "I swear this is true. I have had a dream or two about our mysterious hermit as well."

"Honest?" Jennifer was astonished.

"He's handsome. He's polite. He's a gentleman. He's hunky. He's mysterious. Did I mention he's gorgeous? What woman wouldn't have a hot dream about him?"

"Lots of women," said Jennifer. "They'd have nightmares, instead of dreams like mine."

"That's because they don't know him like we do. Their loss is our gain. Go on."

That part was hard. So she eased into it.

"Remember when you asked me about his shirt, and I told you he saw my breasts?"

Her mother nodded.

"There was more. Not a lot more, but more than I told you."

"I understand how difficult it might be to talk to your mother about something like that," said Mindy. "But right now we're sisters. And you said he didn't touch you. That's right ... isn't it?"

Jennifer nodded. "He didn't do anything wrong at all. At least I don't think so."

"Go on," urged Mindy.

"So anyway, while he was driving me to the hospital, I couldn't lean back, and I sort of put my arms on the dashboard and then lay my head on them, you know?" She got another nod and went on. "And I didn't realize it at first, but the shirt was hanging straight down and wasn't covering anything. And he kept looking over at me." She looked away nervously and then back. "And I sort of let him look."

"Why?" asked her mother. To Jennifer, she actually sounded curious.

"I don't know," said Jennifer. "Actually, I told him not to look and he apologized. And he tried not to look. I could tell he was trying. But sometimes he looked anyway. And he apologized again. That's when he said I was pretty. So I sort of let him look after that."

"And how did that make you feel?"

"It didn't bother me," said Jennifer, sounding a little confused. "I mean I didn't mind. And the other day, when I took him the cookies, I didn't have on a bra, and while I was talking to him my ... um ... nipples ... um ..." She looked away.

"They got erect," said the woman who claimed to be her sister, but still looked a lot like her mother. But she didn't sound judgmental. If anything, it was like she was trying to be helpful.

"Yes," said Jennifer.

"And he saw that," said Mindy.

"Yes," said Jennifer. "He stared at them."

"And how did that make you feel?"

"I told him to stop again. And he apologized again, and I'm sure he meant it. But then we talked and somehow it ended up with me telling him it was okay for him to look!"

"I see," said Mindy.

"Do you really? Because I don't. And then I had this dream where he was putting the cream on my back and I turned over and this time he did touch me." She closed her eyes, unable to watch her mother's face. "It was pretty intense."

"I can imagine," said Mindy, softly. She wasn't sure how to feel ... for a number of reasons.

"Your turn," said Jennifer, wanting to hurry things along and get past her own confession. She wasn't sure it had been such a great idea to be that open with her mother.

"Not so fast," said Mindy. "Did he say anything to you in this dream?"

Jennifer blinked. "Well ... sort of. But it was really silly."

"What was it?"

"He said, 'Wax on ... wax off' over and over again."

Mindy couldn't help it. She laughed.

"You promised!" moaned Jennifer.

"I know. And I'm sorry. I'm not laughing at you. I can just picture it in my mind and it's ... funny." She grinned. "Did he say anything else?"

Jennifer's voice was a bit surly when she answered. "No."

"Did he touch you ... um ... everywhere in this dream?"

Jennifer looked confused at first, and then her eyes widened.

"No! Only up here!" Her hands came to cup her breasts ... cover them, actually. When she realized she was squeezing them, she put her hands down hurriedly.

"I won't ask you if anybody has touched you there ... or anywhere," said Mindy. Actually she wanted to know ... except she didn't.

"They haven't," said Jennifer, oblivious of what her mother had said.

"How about kisses?" asked Mindy. "You had any good kisses yet?"

Jennifer felt her face heat up. "Not really."

"What do you mean not really?"

"A guy named Henry asked me to dance at the Freshman Mixer. And when the dance was over he kissed me. I didn't know he was going to, and he did it so fast I didn't even realize what he was doing until it was over."

"So sad," sighed Mindy. "Kids these days have no idea how to ..." She didn't finish. She didn't want to get into details about what she'd been doing at Jennifer's age. All the girl had to do was some math to figure out her mother got pregnant with her at seventeen. After she had the baby she finished high school, but college had passed her by long before she was left alone with her little girl by a cowardly and selfish husband.

"Never mind," she said. "What kind of dream do you want to hear about?"

"What kind? There's more than one kind?"

"Oh, trust me, honey, they come in all flavors. Some of them will make you have to wash the sheets." Her hand slapped over her mouth and her eyes got huge as she realized what had just popped. "I'm sorry," she said through her fingers. "That was indelicate of me."

"I wanna hear one of those kind!" said Jennifer, perking up visibly. Then she frowned. "Or do I? Will it gross me out? I mean you are my mom and all."

"I'll take it easy on you. How bad is your crush on our mysterious Mr. Higginbotham?"

"I don't have a crush on him," said Jennifer.

"Oh," said Mindy, smiling. "So that's why you let him look at you topless, and later say you're going to marry him, and then dream about him giving your boobies a nice rub?"

Jennifer just blinked at her mother, trying to process the rush of feelings that had suddenly deluged her.

"But he's your age!" she objected. She also sounded a bit horrified.

"Does that mean I can have him?" Her mother looked at her interestedly. "Because, if you recall, I said some of my dreams have been about him too."

Something swelled up inside Jennifer, something unhappy, but also confused. Her initial impulse was to yell "No!" But she didn't, and thought about that instead. It was during those thoughts that she identified her previous gut reaction as jealousy, and that astonished her.

"This is too weird," she said.

"So I can't have him," said Mindy, grinning.

"What kind of dreams?" asked Jennifer. "About him, I mean?"

"You sure you want to hear them?"

"Yes." She blinked. "How um ... dirty are they?"

Her mother sobered. "First off, nothing you dream is dirty. Sex isn't dirty. I know there are people out there who think it is, but they have a mental illness. They wouldn't call it that, but I do. So don't ever think that sex is dirty, or that thinking about it is dirty, or dreaming about it is wrong. It's not. You can have stupid sex, but it's not dirty. Got that?"

Jennifer nodded.

"No you don't," said Mindy. "But stick with me and you will some day. It took me years to figure it out. Just understand that it doesn't matter how strange or weird a dream is ... it's only a dream. And dreaming about sex is neither dirty nor wrong. It's normal."

"Okay," said Jennifer.

"Now, that said, and despite what you say, it's obvious you have some kind of feelings for our lovable hermit. I understand that. I like him too. He's a very attractive guy on many levels. But I don't want there to be tension between us, so how about I tell you about one of my other dreams instead?"

"Why would there be tension between us?" asked Jennifer.

Mindy sighed. "I'm going to put this in your language, okay? Just remember what I said earlier. The reason there might be a little tension between us is that the dreams I've had about Mr. Higginbotham are reaaaally dirty." She winked, and smiled, hoping that her daughter would respond in the same way.

But Jennifer wasn't plugged into the humor of that situation. Instead, she was curious.

"Dirty like how?" she asked.

"Wow," whispered Jennifer, when her mother had finished.

Mindy looked at her daughter closely. She had decided not to hold anything back. Jennifer was, after all, seventeen, and only a year from emancipation. She was fully formed, and fully capable of entering into a physical sexual relationship. And despite what she thought, there were plenty of men out there who would happily bed her. So Mindy had told the dream just as it had happened.

"You okay?" she asked.

Jennifer nodded slowly. "I wonder what the telephone that turned into a chicken meant?"

"That's all that has you worried?" Her mother almost laughed. She had just delivered a tutorial, for all intents and purposes, on how to give a man oral sex that would blow his mind. She had always loved sucking a man's penis ... well, the one penis she'd ever sucked, anyway. And, of course, Mark had loved having her do it. It was all about him, after all. But in the dream she'd told Jennifer about, it hadn't been Mark's prick she sucked. And it hadn't looked like Mark's prick in her dream either. Mark had a garden variety, pretty ordinary circumcised penis. It was maybe five inches long at his best hardon, but that fit nicely into her mouth. And he had known how to get her off while he fucked her.

She hadn't mentioned all that to Jennifer, of course. But she had drawn a distinction between sucking Mark's cock, which is what she had always done back then, and making love to The Hermit's penis. She actually used those words to describe how the dream was so different than her real experiences. And she wanted Jennifer to know the difference between cocksucking and oral lovemaking. Mindy hadn't known the difference, back then. And even now, she only thought about the differences in a philosophical sense. She'd never made love to a man's penis before. She'd sucked Marks cock lots of times, but she was convinced it could be so much better than that.

So she had described how she had gone, in her dream, to check on The Hermit, only to find him asleep on his bed in his little A-frame cabin. He had been naked, and Mindy had described in detail what muscles bulged, and how delicious he looked.

She had only looked at first, but then she touched his skin with a fingertip. And while she watched, his penis grew and thickened, until it was so long she started thinking of hand spans instead of inches. It was impossibly long, and the tip was covered by his foreskin. She knew what that looked like because she had a brother, and when they were young, before they reached puberty, she saw his uncut penis all the time.

He woke up, and lay there, not making a sound, but just looking at her. He didn't yell, or tell her to go away. So she reached for his penis.

It was at that point that Mindy's courage began to fail her. She felt like she was being pornographic, somehow. And her description of where she had touched his penis, and how and with what, had gotten her own pussy wet, just remembering that dream. Finally she couldn't go on any longer. So she ended by simply saying "So ... I kept sucking it until he was happy, and I was too."

She had looked away, unable to meet her daughter's eyes. That's when Jennifer had whispered: "Wow." She gave a heavy sigh and spoke again. "That sounded so beautiful," said the girl softly. "Are the others like that? About him, I mean?"

Mindy felt immense relief that her daughter hadn't collapsed in the throes of mental illness at hearing her mother's dream.

"Some. In others we do ... other things."

"Like have sex?"

"Yes."

"Some day I want to hear about one of those," said the girl.

"Really?"

"Yes, but not now. I think I've had all I can take for now."

"I hope I didn't do something stupid today by telling you this," said her mother.

"It's okay," said Jennifer. "I was jealous of you at first. But it sounds so beautiful, I can't possibly hold it against you to want to do that with him. And he is your age. And you do deserve to be happy and have a good man in your life."

"Whoa, girl," laughed Mindy. "Dreaming is one thing. Doing is something altogether different. I don't think there's a hermit in my future."

"Oh," said Jennifer. Her brow creased. Then her face relaxed.

"So does that mean I can have him?"

There had been further discussion.

Mindy had tried to impress on her daughter that, while she was on the cusp of womanhood, she still had a year to go in high school, and that she should probably experiment with boys her own age, rather than a full grown man who (though she didn't say this to Jennifer) she suspected was well-versed in things sexual. He was a veteran, after all, and everybody had heard stories about randy soldiers.

Jennifer had nodded, and said "Uh huh," several times. But she got the distinct impression her daughter was thinking about other things ... quite possibly the things her mother had just described to her ... which might not have been the best idea she'd dreamed up recently.

So, just to make sure she stayed in the loop, she dreamed up another crazy idea.

"Maybe I'm interested in him after all," she said.

Jennifer stared at her. Her face was flat and emotionless. "You just don't want me to have him," she said.

"I don't think you're ready to have that kind of relationship," her mother corrected. "You need to take things a little slower than he would probably want to go."

"So you're going to hog him, because you've done all this stuff before, and if you flirt with him he won't pay any attention to me."

"I wouldn't put it that way," said Mindy. Actually, that was exactly what she had in mind, but she didn't want to admit it to her daughter.

"Oh come on," snorted Jennifer. "You're beautiful, and you have big boobs. Once he gets his hands on you he won't even look at me."

"That's not true," said the mother part of Mindy. "There's nothing wrong with you. Lots of men would love to be with you. You just haven't met them yet."

"I can't compete with you," complained Jennifer.

"Then let's not compete," she said. "We'll both be friends with him."

"What does that mean?" asked Jennifer.

"It means we both be nice to him and spend time with him, but neither one of us goes whole hog."

"You want to share a boyfriend?" Jennifer's face showed her incredulity.

"Boyfriend is probably the wrong word," said Mindy, weakly. This wasn't going at all like she wanted it to. "Remember. He has a say in this too. He may not be interested in either of us claiming him for a boyfriend. He may not want a girlfriend at all! He's a hermit, for Pete's sake! Let's not count our chickens before they hatch."

Jennifer stared at her mother for a long half minute.

"Well, we are both dreaming about him," she said.

"Yes ... but remember they're just dreams, sweetheart."

"Yes, but he said I was pretty ... and he's seen my breasts."

"Does that mean I get to show him mine?" asked her mother, trying to show how silly that would be.

But Jennifer was on another plane of existence.

"No," she said. "Yours are bigger and prettier than mine. Everybody knows guys like big boobs. That wouldn't be fair."

Mindy just stared, unable to comprehend how her daughter could have taken that comment seriously. It got worse when Jennifer kept speaking.

"You have the advantage in bigger boobs, and you're prettier than me. So you don't get to show him anything until I've kissed him. And you don't get to kiss him first. I deserve a fair shot at this."

Mindy was astonished that her seventeen-year-old daughter was wheeling and dealing with a man's affections ... a man who didn't even know he was being parceled out. It would have been laughable, except that Jennifer was so serious about it all. The problem was that she couldn't just shut her daughter down. Not after getting her to open up about the dream, and how she felt. She could ruin everything if she went into "Because I'm the mother! That's why!" mode.

Besides, her little girl was simply dreaming, that's all. The Hermit probably wasn't interested in either of them. He was just a nice guy who helped a hurt girl, and then spent an hour having a good meal. Let her dream. The truth would come out soon enough. It wouldn't break her adolescent heart. It might bruise it a bit, but then again, that was a normal part of growing up, too. She took a deep breath.

She would let things play out.

"All right. You keep me posted on how you're doing. I won't do anything until I have your permission. I still think this is a crazy idea, but I'm curious about him too. We can both explore a little, and get to know him better. Then, eventually, one of us may lose interest, or he may choose one of us. Just be ready for him to reject us both, okay? Like I said, he has chosen to be a hermit, and while he may be gorgeous, and sweet, and a nice guy ... he doesn't have a girlfriend already. That says something."

Truth be told, her mother was right. Jennifer was, in fact, having a school girl crush, which resulted in the usual school girl dreams. They were dreams that were delightful to contemplate while she rubbed a circle around her distended and inflamed clit in the dark of night, in bed.

But more truth be told, Mindy remembered those days quite clearly. Her dreams had been just as vivid, and she'd thought they were coming true when Mark acted like she was the only girl in the world. And his initial treatment of her, both emotionally and physically was wonderful. Only later, when circumstances demanded he be responsible, were the flaws in his personality revealed in lurid detail.

So while Mindy lay in bed, her mind drifted back to those heady days when she, too, dreamed of what it might be like. Except this time, the man she fantasized about had a beard, and long hair. And muscles on his muscles, she expected. As she wondered about one particular "muscle" her own finger slid between her legs and, unknown to either of them, she did exactly what her daughter was doing thirty feet away.

Perhaps most important of all, though neither woman could know it at this point in events, was that Robert Francis Higginbotham, better known as The Hermit of Scarecrow Valley, was also lying in his bed, remembering the soft/firm look of the first naked breast he'd seen in over a decade. The pink nipple had been shaped perfectly for sucking. Most important ... she had let him look. True, she'd been in horrible pain, and it was quite possible that skewed her behavior. But she hadn't yelled at him. And since then she'd more or less let him stare at her chest a couple of times.

And the feel of her mother in his arms at the hospital. It had felt so good to share a bit of himself with a woman. She hadn't judged him, or pitied him. It had been like taking that first sip of good whiskey, and feeling the warmth explode in the gut and then spread through one's body.

Of course he had no designs on the girl. Or, for that matter on, her mother, who was even more beautiful, at least in his eyes. She had said at dinner that she was old and wrinkled. He had recognized that as her wanting someone to say she wasn't, so he had, instinctively. But he also meant it. Her skin looked smooth and soft too. And she had said they wanted to be his friends.

He had shied away from women ever since his last surgery. A nurse had broken down while she was changing his dressings, crying and unable to touch him. She had apologized, but he knew what he looked like, under his clothing. He felt lucky that the IED hadn't maimed his visible features. But there was no way a woman would ever find him desirable ... not once she'd seen the scars. They made his skin look alien. When he looked at them in the mirror, he saw reptilian scales in his mind's eye.

So all he could do was take that brief glimpse of soft perfection and hold it close in his mind, imagining what it might be like to be allowed to touch it ... to suck it ... to love it. He couldn't have either of them. Not that way.

But he could dream.

And he could slide his hand along the shaft of his stiff prick while he dreamed ... until he finally got some relief.

Things might have gone on like that, with all of them merely dreaming of what they wished could be. In truth, Jennifer was intelligent enough to realize that what she was feeling was more a result of extreme emotional trauma that had been shared with this strange man, than any rational attraction. She knew there was virtually no chance that a man twice her age would ever be her boyfriend. She was pretty sure there would never be a boyfriend for her. But after a bone-wrenching orgasm as she plundered her own pussy, things seemed a lot rosier. Her fingers never let her down, never had a headache, and never cheated on her with another girl.

She did, however, fully intend to keep her "friendship" with The Hermit going. To that end, when she could bend over and twist her upper body sideways in both directions without the pain being too bad, she set off on a hike to go see him.

Perhaps it was fate that she chose this particular day. Maybe it was pure coincidence. But the fact is, Jennifer chose to go on a day when Bobby decided to bathe in what he called his swimming pool.

When one is a hermit, one has a lot of time on his or her hands. If one lives in the woods, far from the amenities of city life, one might be tempted to emulate the Disney version of Swiss Family Robinson. Bobby didn't build tree houses, but he did go to great lengths to divert part of the flow of a creek on his uncle's property, and bring it to his house. He dug a pit by hand, that process taking him more than a year to complete, since it was almost twenty feet in diameter. Then, using thick, plastic sheeting, held in place with a foot deep layer of gravel and clay mix, he created a pond that, when the creek eventually filled, could be swum in. True, it wasn't for doing laps or anything like that, but it was very refreshing on a warm summer day, and the water was constantly replenished, so bathing in it was no problem.

And so it was that his splashing covered the few quiet sounds of her approach that day, and she came upon him as he stood, soaping up his body. He had earlier been working on moving the tree that had caused all the trouble back to his house. That meant loading it on a little cart he had built that employed two mountain bike wheels. It looked a little like a sulky cart, the kind used in a horse race, except it had a box on top, instead of a seat. The box could be piled high with logs or split wood, and Bobby became the horse that pulled it.

It was hot work, and a leisurely bath in the pool always felt delightful.

So did masturbating with the slippery, scented soap that was one of the few luxuries Bobby allowed himself.

Naturally, when Jennifer got her first view of him standing in the pool, naked, she was transfixed. She'd known he was serious when he said he took baths in that pool, but seeing it was different than believing it. She'd never seen a naked man at all, much less one masturbating.

It was at this point that cultural differences caused a problem. I used the word "cultural" for lack of anything better. Some people might try to argue that it was a gender based issue, but that doesn't hold water - no pun intended, considering the situation in play.

Rather, it was the complete difference between the culture Bobby belonged to - male, wounded warriors with body image issues - and the culture that Jennifer was part of. Hers was the culture of young girls who have a crush on a man who has seen them naked. Granted, it was only semi naked, but that didn't matter to a girl from this culture. Such girls believe there is already an intimacy that has hurdled the barrier of modesty. At least between the girl and the man she has a crush on.

What all this means is that Jennifer assumed, based on her own cultural identity, that Bobby wouldn't mind if she approached while he was naked. True, he might be shy, but she could overcome that. After all ... he'd gotten a look at her. It was only fair if she got a peek at him in return ... right?

So when she burst from the bushes she'd been spying from behind - and this time she was spying - and gleefully yelled "Gotcha!" as loudly as she could, she was not prepared for The Hermit to stiffen, groan, and then fall into the water and commence to drown.

What happened was what Bobby's family members called "an episode." It was a combination of things that the psychiatrists couldn't explain, except to say it was part of his PTSD. When he had "an episode," he lost control of his muscle systems, except for the autonomic ones. He basically froze, physically. That was bad enough, but his mind retreated as well. Basically, he became catatonic.

That might not be a horrible problem, unless he was crossing a street when it happened ... or was bathing in a 20 foot pool of water that was almost three feet deep in the middle. To add to the problem, there wasn't a lot of fat on his body, and muscle is heavier than water.

So Bobby toppled, slowly, and then sank out of sight after he froze.

Jennifer thought he was just being shy.

Then too much time went by, and too many bubbles came to the surface, and she got a very bad feeling in her gut. By the time she waded in and dragged him to the edge of the pond, he wasn't breathing.

Mindy had enrolled them both in Red Cross First Aid courses. They lived out in the woods, far from help, so it made sense. And part of that course was what to do to a drowning victim to try to bring him back. They had dutifully completed the tasks and tests to standard, but neither of them ever expected to treat more than a bad cut.

Jennifer's mind supplied the information on what to do, though, and she went through the steps. He felt so limp that it scared her. The dummy had been stiff and hard to manipulate. But cocking his head back was so easy she was afraid she cocked it too far. Then, blowing into him was harder than she thought it should be. She didn't hear any air escaping around her mouth, or between her fingers, pinching his nose closed. When she did the first set of chest compressions, the answer came, as water gushed out of his mouth. There was so much of it she was sure he was dead, but she tried again. This time she got more air in. She realized she was panting "Don't die ... don't die ... don't die" in time with her chest compressions, instead of counting, but before she could change, his body lurched, coughed and he threw up all over the place. It got on him, and on her and in the water. He took great, wracking breaths in, and coughed so hard she expected to see his lungs shoot out through his mouth. His eyes opened and stared at her for a few heartbeats, and then he relaxed, flopping onto his back, just breathing between more coughing jags.

One of the things they had been most insistent on was that anyone who had gotten water in their lungs had to be seen by competent medical authorities.

"We have to get you to a doctor!" she gasped. She was soaking wet, but it was warm out, so that didn't bother her. The puke was a bigger deal, but it was easy to slide back into the pool and wash it off. She scooped water in her hands and washed him off too. His hands batted at her.

"No," he said.

"Yes!" she insisted. "You have to go to the hospital."

"No," he groaned.

She didn't know what to say. She was absolutely sure he had to go to the hospital, but he was an adult, and she was just a teenager. What came out of her mouth was completely unplanned, because she had no experience with this kind of situation. "Don't make me spank you!" she yelled.

He coughed, and then laughed, only to go into another coughing spree that she was afraid would kill him. She jumped up and ran to the garage, pulling the door open. The truck was nose out, like it had been the last time, and they key was still in the ignition. It was a stick shift, but they had made her practice that in driver's ed, so she tried a gear. The truck lurched, almost died, and then bumped out of the garage. She turned frantically to guide it around the house to the side where the pool was. He was on his hands and knees, crawling toward the house.

She stopped and screamed at him to get in the truck.

"Naked!" he gasped.

She was desperate. "If I get you some clothes will you go with me?" she begged.

His arms failed, and his upper body went down. He landed on his forehead, his butt sticking up in the air.

"Okay," he panted, and coughed some more.

She ran into the house, looking frantically for a dresser, or closet. What she saw first was a pile of what were actually dirty clothes, waiting to be washed. But she found pants and a shirt and ran back out.

It was while she was helping him dress that she saw the scars.

The IED that had resulted in Sergeant Higginbotham's medical retirement from the United States Marine Corps had been constructed from a mixture of fertilizer, diesel fuel and the propellant from disassembled artillery shells. It had been packed into what amounted to a big pipe bomb. The propellant was the ignition source, and the rest of it amplified the blast because the whole thing was under pressure. Ten rolls of electrical tape, stolen from a school building project, were used to tape layer after layer of nails around the pipe, until the whole thing was almost a foot in diameter. When it went off, 373 of those nails were part of a sheet that went toward Bobby and embedded in his body. It hit him from behind, and to his right, but his whole back was shredded. Three of the nails penetrated his skull, but the fact that they still had heads on them saved his life, because that stopped them from going all the way through and deep into the brain.

Nobody thought anyone could survive what happened to him. They assumed he was dead until somebody noticed that the blood coming from his nose was bubbling as he breathed.

There was some debate as to whether it was the nails that penetrated his skull, or the scars themselves that were responsible for his "episodes." Nobody knew, when he was sent out to pasture. In fact, though, it was the scars that were the problem. It wasn't that the scars themselves did anything. It was his pathological unwillingness for anyone to see them that traumatized him so much that he lost function, when someone did.

It wasn't so bad if it was a medical person. He knew they were used to it. But when his Aunt Vicky stumbled into the bathroom because he had forgotten to lock the door, and she saw them and screamed ... he had an episode. It just happened. Other people had seen them when he wasn't prepared for it ... and he had episodes. Twice he was afraid someone was going to see them, and had an episode. And when Jennifer had burst from the bushes while he was naked and exposed ... he had an episode.

But this was the first time there hadn't been anybody around to dither and call 911 and rush him off to get psychiatric care. This was the first time that someone who saw the scars didn't react to them at all. He'd been unconscious. He didn't know he'd drowned, or that she'd revived him, until his brain interpreted the coughing, and that both of them were soaked, and that he'd awakened with her face hovering over his.

In reality, she had been too busy trying to get him to go to the hospital to worry about his scars. And when she did see them, she had no frame of reference to figure out what had caused them. It was too foreign a thing for her to evaluate, or react to. They were just scars. True, there were lots of them ... scads of them, in fact ... but they did not cause revulsion. Curiosity ... yes ... but not revulsion.

It was the very first time someone had seen his scars ... and not been repulsed.

"What happened to you?" she asked. Then, almost immediately, she said, "It doesn't matter. We have to get you to the hospital fast. You inhaled water and that's dangerous!"

He tried to shrug his arms into the sleeves she had started for him, but his wet skin made the fabric drag. She tugged and moved, sliding her hands under the shirt and across his back and into the sleeves to get them loose.

She touched his scars ... and didn't cry out or moan, or complain, or break into tears. She simply touched him.

"Help me!" she demanded as he sat, mute and still, amazed onto inaction. He shook that off and lifted his arms, letting her move the cloth until it draped over his form.

Then she started with the jeans, and he helped. Together their hands got them to his upper thighs and suddenly she stopped, staring at his penis. It was flaccid, limp, pale, almost pasty looking, made even whiter by the dark nest of hair it seemed to grow out of.

"I've got it," he growled. He coughed again, an uncontrollable spasm that left him weak.

She said, "Suck in your gut!" and when he did she buttoned the jeans.

Then she was dragging him to the truck, which was still running. He let her stuff him into the passenger's seat and then leaned against the door as she ground the gears and jerked the truck into motion.

"Can you drive this thing?" he panted, trying not to breathe too deeply.

"Probably not," she said, but she steered it along the driveway well. When they got to the paved road she stopped, and killed it when she tried to get them going again. He reached over to guide her hand to get it in first, and she jerked the vehicle out onto the road. Once they got going again, she did better.

"You scared the shit out of me!" she blurted, suddenly.

"Sorry." He was used to apologizing for his fits and episodes. "When people see my ... when they see me naked, it does something to me and I sort of pass out."

"Because of those scars?" She said the word he hadn't been able to. There was no disgust in her voice.

"Yeah," he said.

"There are a lot of them," she said.

"Yeah," he said again.

"Do they hurt?" she asked, artlessly. "I mean now. I know they hurt when you got them, but do they hurt now?"

"No," he said.

"Mine still hurts a little," she said. "I'm worried it will always hurt."

"After a while you won't even notice it," he said.

"So why does it bother you so much when people see them?"

"I don't know. It just does."

"Oh. Okay," she said. He coughed again, his body wracked. She drove on, hunched forward, peering through the glass in front of her.

Again he was amazed. That appeared to be it for her. It was as if she no longer cared about his deformity. He glanced at her. The last time she'd been in this truck, their positions had been reversed. He was taking her to the hospital. She had saved his life ... twice now! There had to be some kind of kismet in that.

He started coughing again, and it lasted so long he ran out of breath and passed out.

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