The Orphanage Blues

by Lubrican

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Chapter Two

There were five women at Milleson House. They were the permanent staff members of the boarding-house-turned-orphanage. Three of them had served guests when it was a boarding house. The other two had been hired on when the children arrived, and had been there now for three years.

Mavis Milleson, the owner, was forty years old and a widow. They had only been married for four years when her husband was killed in a mining accident. They had been unable to have children and, before he died, he had taken her to an orphanage back east to try to find a child for her to rear. That trip had been an eye opener for Mavis. She had been disgusted at the conditions the poor children had to endure, and had wanted to adopt them all. Her husband talked some sense into her, but the process wasn't even yet started to adopt a pair of children when he was killed and it all fell apart. She knew how those children were treated in the state-run institutions, and when she found out she might be able to rescue some of them she jumped at the chance. The fact that the Government subsidized her rescue mission was just frosting on the cake. Now Mavis couldn't even contemplate any other life.

Mavis, had she taken the time to pay attention, was still a handsome woman. Though there were a few gray hairs slipping into her thick hank of dark brown hair, she didn't notice them because she usually wore her hair up, in a bun. And at bedtime, she was too tired to stare into the mirror. The fact that she'd never had children, and was engaged in an active lifestyle, had ensured that her body was still firm and slim. Her breasts weren’t overly large and she had no need to wear the stiff undergarments that were designed to support and control the sagging breasts of most women her age. Her waist was still thin and her hips swelled to make a perfect place for her skirts to hang from. There were men in town ... before the war anyway ... who had gazed longingly on those hips as she walked to and from the market. There were men who had stayed in her boarding house who were interested in her too. But she'd never taken the time to treat any of that interest seriously. She thought herself a sensible woman, and sensible women didn't dwell on dimly remembered pleasures. Just getting by was work enough that when she went to bed she was too tired to think of her unfulfilled physical needs.

Donna Pratt was one of the women who had worked at Milleson when it was a boarding house. She was now thirty-three. She married, at the tender age of sixteen, an older man, a farmer her father had done business with. Walter, her husband, had gotten her with child even though he was in his fifties at the time, and she had given birth to and raised a fine son. Life on the farm had been good, for the most part, even though her aging husband wasn't able to meet her sexual needs. She had only known one lover, and didn't really know what she was missing. She had found, long ago, that her fingers could bring her a very satisfying pleasure, though she'd never admit to anyone that she did that in the dark of night. She had also done something with her husband she couldn't bear to admit. When he was unable to achieve an erection any more, her love for him had led her to take him into her mouth. While he never got hard enough to service her starving pussy, she loved hearing his moans and gladly sucked the few drops of sexual nectar he could produce in those days. He had died peacefully in his sleep one night just before her son had decided to join the Army and go fight the Hun. She still lived on the farm, though she didn't work it. She rented out the land and took a share of the profit. Perhaps, when her son came back from the war he would work the land.

If he came back from the war.

Donna had grown into a lush figure, with large firm breasts and hips to match. She had never quite been able to get rid of the pad of flesh on her stomach that was left over after her son was born, but it didn't bother her any more. She, too, had been sought by men in the small community, but had rebuffed their attentions, choosing to enjoy her freedom to do what she wanted, when she wanted. Not that there was much to do. Still, it was nice to know she was under no man's thumb. The only real regret she had was that she had never had more children. When Mavis began taking waifs in, that urge abated somewhat. She was able to take care of babies, the thing she loved most, and even though they weren't hers, it was enough.

The other veteran of the boarding house phase of Mavis' life was Prudence Watson. Prudence was the only one of the women who had gone on to college after High School. She was ahead of her times in that society, being a confident woman who was willing to go up against a man to get what she wanted. The Depression had ruined that for her when her father, a successful merchant, lost everything and he could no longer afford her tuition. She had had to come back to Hamptstead, where she got a job working for Mavis.

She accepted the attentions of George Watson, primarily because he spent money on her that her parents couldn't. Love grew grudgingly. He wasn't an imaginative man, but he had a job and there wasn't really anybody else in town she was attracted to. And, while he didn't make her heart flutter, he made her loins ache and she was tempted on many occasions to give in to his repeated attempts to claim her maidenhead. He was twenty-three to her twenty-two years in age and when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and he decided to join up, she had, in a fit of emotion, married him before he left. After a thoroughly unsatisfying and somewhat brutal loss of her virginity, in succeeding sexual unions she had managed to get to the point where she had an orgasm while George lay on her gasping as he tried to get her pregnant before he left. But there had been just that one orgasm, at least with George. She too had figured out that her fingers were an acceptable replacement for what her husband was now using on some French slut who had stolen him away from her. She knew, at age 26, and with no children, she'd be a good catch for some man, but that was only if she somehow disencumbered herself from George. His letter saying he wasn't coming home might get her a divorce, but it would be horrifyingly embarrassing to go through that. All people would see was a young woman trying to divorce a GI, and would think her distastefully unpatriotic. More than once she'd wished he'd be killed in the war, which would make her situation quite secure. She also felt guilty about that on more than one occasion. Whenever that happened she just took his letter out and read it again. That solved that problem.

George's best attempts to impregnate her had failed. Prudence was torn between yearning to have her own babies, and being happy that he didn't leave her with child, considering what he'd now done.

Meg Johnson had come to work for Mavis after the war started, and after the boarding house had been transformed into an orphanage. She was eighteen on December the seventh, nineteen forty-one, and under extreme pressure from her wealthy parents to find a suitable man and settle down. Their idea of a suitable man and hers were widely diverse. Meg had a streak of wild woman in her, cultivated by stories her aunt Melvina told about the prohibition years, and the gin mills and dancing with men who pressed themselves against a girl in a way that made her want to do unseemly things with them. Aunt Melvina had an old box of photographs that she kept in her closet and one day Meg got into them. At the very bottom was a picture of her aunt at about age nineteen. She was standing in a forest, by a huge rock, with a large body of water in the background, and she was completely naked. She was obviously completely unembarrassed about her nakedness, based on the smile on her face, and the fact that she was obviously posing for the photograph. Aunt Melvina had caught her looking at the picture and had, at first, scolded her, telling her that a thirteen year old girl had no business seeing photographs like that. But eventually aunt Melvina had told her the story of the handsome man who had taken that picture, and what they'd done after it was taken.

Meg had wanted to experience what she had seen in her aunt's face, and heard in her aunt's voice ever since that day. But she didn't want to experience it with the men her parents thought were "suitable". They were stuffy, self-important men who expected her to blush and flutter around them. All she did was think they were boring. She wanted a wild man, a western man, perhaps. Someone who would sweep her off her feet and make her life glorious. Then, perhaps, when she had tasted that sweet forbidden pleasure, she might be willing to settle down with a boring man.

The war gave her a reprieve, since most of the "suitable men" went off to be officers in the service. And working for Mavis not only convinced her parents that she was trying to be responsible and support the war effort by taking care of the unfortunate. Meg had learned something else from her aunt, and that was what the little bump at the top of the slit between her legs was for. It was for making her feel good until she found the man who would sweep her off her feet. She kept that little bump in good working order by using it every single night. Part of her employment contract was that she was supplied with a room in the house, and meals, which got her out of under the thumb of her parents, at least most of the time.

And, Meg found that she had something to offer the children. She loved to read to them, and became expressive when she did, making up voices for the characters in the stories she read. It wasn't at all unusual for all the children in Milleson House, except for the babies, anyway, to be in a pile around her feet, like a litter of puppies cuddling together, while she read stories until it was bedtime. More often than not the only reason she stopped was because Mavis made her stop.

Last, among the women, not only in this story, but in real life as well, was Sally Winston, age twenty-three. Sally was, in a word, plain. She had always been plain, and would probably always be plain. Her nose looked a little off center, or maybe her eyes were too close set. Her hair was thin and a mousy brown color. She couldn't afford the special soaps that might have made it shine more, and it hung limp to her shoulder blades because she didn't know how to style it. Her father was a mill worker who made enough to feed his eleven children, of which Sally was the youngest, but couldn't save anything for his retirement. Her mother was a walking talking baby machine who was thin and worn from taking care of so many children. Now, with only Sally left, they could relax, but that was about all they did. They too were singularly uninteresting and uninterested. Sally had lived at home because no men came calling to see her. She helped her mother around the house, and took the job Mavis offered her at church one day because she didn't have anything else to do. She also took it because it came with a room and board.

As the youngest, Sally had never had to take care of her brothers and sisters. She had always been on the low end of the totem pole and had learned, like Bobby, to be invisible as much as possible.

But working with the children had awakened something in her that had slowly bloomed over the years into a quiet pride that told her, if no one else did, that she was good with children. She also listened when Meg read stories, and put herself in those stories as deeply as the children did. She read the books on her own too. When she was in the fantasy world of a book her life had color and excitement.

Sally had a certain amount of scholarly knowledge about sex and how children were made but, to her own mind, she had never had a sexual feeling in her life. Her breasts were flat, mere swells on her bony chest. Her pubic hair was so sparse as to be almost invisible. She bled, more or less monthly, like other women, but her cycle was nowhere near regular or dependable. It was almost as if her body had suspended its glide toward maturity while she was right in the middle of puberty. And, with so many older brothers and sisters, who pursued their own agendas in the household, it was as if she were invisible as she grew up.

Not that she was sad, or unhappy, particularly. It was more like she was a child who had been kept in a small room all her life, exposed to nothing much, and so she had no concept of what life could be like. True, she had been exposed to more than most with all her reading, but to her that was a dream, a fantasy ... not real somehow.

The women watched in awe as Bobby kept eating. At some point it became a game, to urge him to eat more, just to see if he could. There were occasional surges of vocal emotion at seeing the boy eat like he had been starved for years.

"Lands sakes!"

"I can't believe it."

"The poor thing's starved half to death!"

"Take your time Bobby, nobody's going to take it away."

"Well, no leftovers tonight," said Mavis, standing up and picking up her plate.

"If you ask me there'll be no leftovers ever again," snorted Donna.

"That's fine," said Mavis evenly. "I always strain to think of ways to use leftovers anyway. But we'll have to go to town more often." Even though the merchant area of Hampstead was only a few blocks away, they all referred to that short trip as "going to town".

As for Bobby, he knew he would suffer for what he was doing. Once, when a truck had overturned near the orphanage he was staying in, he had picked up eight apples off the road while the driver screamed at him. He had run with the apples, eating one as he pounded away. Then he had hidden and eaten all the rest. He still remembered the sweet juicy taste of the fleshy fruit, and the agonizing pains in his suddenly overfilled stomach as he lay in the punishment room on a thin mattress that night.

But the food was so good he couldn't make himself stop eating it. That he was allowed to do so, and was even handed a knife to cut his meat with, caused a haze in his brain he couldn't quite see through and some part of him still expected to feel a blow as someone finally noticed that he was eating more than his share. He was almost glad when Meg tipped the bowl of green beans over his plate, scraping out the last eight or ten beans. There was no more food in sight, and he could sit back.

He was so stuffed that he didn't want to move, and gave a long sigh.

"Well" said Mavis. "You can't eat like that at every meal. You'll turn into a pig if you do. But we're glad to have you with us Bobby. I hope you'll feel at home here."

Bobby sat and wished he hadn't eaten so much. His stomach felt bloated and he was already uncomfortable. He watched as the children who were old enough all carried their plates into the kitchen, where the woman who hadn't spoken yet took them and stacked them in the sink. The cleanup was surprisingly quick and efficient.

"Bath night!" sang Prudence.

Bobby almost winced as the children erupted in shouts. "Bath time" in his memory consisted of being hosed down with cold water while you scrubbed with lye soap frantically, since the water wouldn't stop until the attendant thought you were clean.

But these children were jumping up and down, for the most part and he saw several of them dash into the parlor. They came back with books in their hands and clustered around Meg, holding the books up and crying "This one!" or "Read this!" among other things he couldn't quite make out.

Donna approached the group and began herding some of the children into a group as they complained. Bobby watched in amazement as he began to understand that one group would be taken to bathe while the other would be read to by Meg.

Since nobody seemed to be paying any attention to him, he just sat and watched.

But somebody WAS paying attention to him. One small pale girl stood between the group that was settling to the floor, or had climbed up to sit beside Meg on the settee where she sat, smoothing her skirts as books were piled on her lap. The girl looked uncertainly at the chattering children, and then at Bobby, who sat, leaning back in his chair, still at the table.

Slowly, almost like she was trying to sneak, she came to Bobby and took his hand, from where it lay in his lap. She pulled, looking somberly up at him with big brown eyes. He stood and she pulled him toward the group, which had now quieted as Meg sifted through the books on her lap. She looked up and saw Bobby standing, his hand in the little girl's.

She smiled. "Sit down, Bobby. I read to the children on bath night, and you're welcome to join us." She looked at the little girl. "Thank you June Bug. It was nice of you to invite Bobby." She pointed to a chair that was just far enough away from the crowd of children that none of them wanted to sit there.

Bobby sat down and was astonished to find that June Bug immediately crawled up on his lap. She sat, her legs straight out, and leaned back against his chest.

Meg was staring at Bobby and the girl with a strange look on her face. She saw the astonishment in Bobby's face and the placid look of something close to contentment on the little girl's face too.

"Bobby," she said quietly. "June Bug doesn't talk either. I think you've made a friend."

Bobby didn't know what to think. This place was so strange that he had no frame of reference on which to draw to decide how to act. He found it strange that a little girl would want to be his friend when they'd only just met. Always before he'd had to jump through all kinds of social hoops to establish his place in the hierarchy of whatever place he was living in. Sometimes that involved doing things for people. Sometimes that involved fighting. Sometimes it involved comparing stories and the intricate social dance that was casual conversation between people who are forced into close contact with each other.

But here, in this place where he had done nothing other than eat until his stomach ached, where he had said not one word, somebody had drawn near to him simply because he couldn't talk. It was an amazing social experiment that he'd never have thought of getting involved in, but which was suddenly fascinating. Not knowing what else to do, he decided to just sit. The little girl wasn't hurting anything. As long as she didn't pee on him or something he decided to just let her sit there.

While Donna and Prudence herded the unlucky children chosen to be hosed down first into another part of the house, Bobby sat and listened as Meg chose a book, opened it, and began to read.

He was entranced immediately. No one had ever read to Bobby in his life. Bobby knew what books were, of course. They had been used at one time or another in his education, which was based on the "Three Rs", Reading, Riting and Rythmatic. And, truth be known, Bobby was quite proficient at all three of the basics. That was primarily because, if one did well in school, one received less abuse, but the result was the same as if he had wanted to learn.

He had once found most of a book in a trash heap. It turned out to be about four fifths of "Treasure Island". It had been involved in a fire, so both the front and back pages were missing. Still, Bobby had been able to figure out the basic idea of the book and he had been enthralled instantly, comparing himself to Jim Hawkins. There were a multitude of adults in his life who fit the personalities of Long John Silver and his crew of pirates, but the characters of people like Dr. Livesey and Captain Smollet remained a fantasy to him.

The tattered book was taken from him and thrown out as punishment for some forgotten misdeed. Bobby had always wondered how it ended.

Now, as Meg read a simple children's story, her lilting voice rising and falling, changing as the characters in the story changed, Bobby found himself transported in his mind, like reading Treasure Island had transported him to a hot, wet, dangerous, jungle island in some far away place when he read his book.

It seemed like she had only been reading for a few minutes when six naked and screaming children, wrapped in towels, came running into the room. It was time to change over, and there were groans of dismay from the children who had been listening, eyes wide and mouths hanging open, as Meg read to them.

June bug hopped down off Bobby's lap and again took his hand, pulling at him.

Meg spoke to Prudence, who was herding the six unwashed children in the direction the naked ones had come from. "June Bug has adopted Bobby," she said. Then her mouth froze in a look of almost agony as she realized what she had said. "Adoption" was a very special word in this house, and not to be used flippantly.

Oddly, though, neither June Bug nor Bobby seemed to have taken what she said as she feared they might have.

Prudence pulled at June Bug. "Well, Bobby can't take a bath with you little ones. You'll just have to leave him here for now. Don't worry, he's not going anywhere."

The little girl reluctantly let go of Bobby's hand and he sat back, glad that he got to stay and listen to Meg read some more.

Even though she started all over again, at the beginning of the story, Bobby didn't mind.

By now, Sally and Mavis had finished washing and drying the dishes, and emerged from the kitchen with armfuls of clothing, which they dropped in a heap on the floor. The five children who had just come from their bath unashamedly dropped their towels and dove into the pile, pulling out clothes to wear. They did so quietly, though, as Meg kept reading.

Astonishment was the mood of the day for Bobby. He watched as each child picked something to wear and, when that was done, Mavis and Sally picked up the rest and sat at the dining room table, folding those clothes into neat stacks and listening themselves as Meg read. Bobby estimated that there must be three or four sets of clothing for each child present. Only two children had tried to choose the same shirt to wear during the dressing process, but their struggle was silently cut short as Sally took the garment from them both, suggesting that if they fought over it, neither could wear it. Most of the clothing was too big for the children, and hung off their small frames, but none of them seemed to care. They were much more interested in settling in to listen.

Then, not long afterward, the whole hustle and bustle happened all over again as the remaining children, also naked, ran into the room, chose things to wear from the table and sat back down. The two babies were taken to the bath next, and it was then that Bobby realized he hadn't heard screams coming from the part of the house where bathing apparently took place. Most kids yelled at the cold water splashing on them. As Meg read on, part of his attention listened to hear the babies crying as they were bathed.

But they didn't.

When the babies were brought back, wrapped up in towels, carried by Prudence and Donna, Meg closed the book to moans of dismay and pleas for just one more page. Mavis and Sally went into action, though, saying "Bedtime" and "Early to bed ... early to rise" and herding the children toward the big wooden staircase that led to the upper reaches of the big house.

Meg looked uncertainly at Bobby. "I suppose we should get you bathed too," she said. "I don't know how much you understand, but we'll manage. OK Bobby?"

Perhaps because he was so impressed with her reading, or for some other reason Bobby couldn't have articulated even if he had admitted being able to speak, he stood and followed the young woman as she went in the same direction as the other children had been led. He found himself taken to a large room, with a large white enameled bathtub that sat on clawed feet. It was hot in the room, and Bobby saw immediately that the heat came from a contraption that stood in one corner. It looked a little like a wood stove, also standing on clawed feet, with a fire box at the bottom and a tall round tank above that. There were pipes that went into the tank at the top and out of the tank at the bottom. The bottom pipe ran over above the tub and ended in a spigot there.

Meg opened the fire box and put in several pieces of coal from a bucket nearby and then turned to the tub. There was a small wet rag lying in the bottom of the tub near the drain and she stuffed that into the drain hole before turning on the tap. Steaming water began pouring into the tub from the tap.

Meg stood up and let the water run as she faced Bobby. "We have plenty of hot water, so that's no problem." She pointed to a cake of white looking soap on a windowsill above the tub. "That's the soap, and there are towels in the cupboard up here." She laid her hand on the cupboard. Will you be OK?" she asked.

Bobby just stood there. He had a very dim memory from long ago of his mother, and a tub like this, with warm water. He hadn't had a bath in a tub like this since that memory. He felt a clutching sensation in his stomach, but it wasn't from being overstuffed. That one little memory caused emotions to flow through him that were unwelcome. He didn't want to cry, certainly not in front of this woman, and he was perilously close to crying. That confused him and the safest thing to do was just stand still.

Meg looked concerned. "Bobby? Do you need help sweetheart?"

It was worse and worse, as far as Bobby was concerned. Nobody called him "sweetheart". The warmth of the house ... the food ... the acceptance of him by everyone without asking for anything from him ... June Bug's hand in his ... it all flushed through him like a tidal wave and he couldn't stop the tears that ran down his face. He rubbed at them furiously with his fists.

Meg reacted like she'd have wanted someone to react. She went to the young man and hugged him, murmuring that it would be OK, and that she understood, and that she knew this was all strange, but that everything would be all right."

Then, thinking that this poor boy was much more simple of mind than he actually was, she began helping him disrobe for his bath.

The roil of emotions in Bobby was cut sharply by the feel if Meg's fingers undoing the buttons of his shirt. Already in unfamiliar and startling conditions, this added surprise was enough to keep him immobile as her soft hands slid the shirt off his shoulders and arms, where it dropped to the floor. Her hands went to the frayed hemp rope that held up his trousers and she worried the knot until it came loose. then he felt her fingers brushing the front off his loins as she undid the buttons of his fly. The pants, held up by nothing now, dropped, leaving him in his ragged drawers. Meg knelt and prodded him to lift one leg, talking soothingly to him, words he didn't even listen to in his state of shock. But her soothing tone did what it was intended to do and he stood docile as she pulled his drawers down and off, to leave him standing naked in the bathroom.

Meg felt her own measure of unusual and somewhat uncomfortable emotions as she made the mute boy naked in front of her. He was wiry, with a thin cover of skin over muscles that, while not large, felt firm to her fingers. He stank, as of stale sweat with a trace of dried urine. It was quite clear he had not bathed in a long while. This supported her conclusion that Bobby must have limited mental capabilities, something most people assumed about a person who could not speak. She was mildly curious about his penis, having seen only those of boys ten years old and younger. She stared curiously at the thatch of kinky brown hair that made a bed for his shriveled organ, and thought it looked a lot like her own pubic hair, except for the color. Meg was a natural blond and all her hair was the same color.

She stood to add cold water to the tub from another spigot that came from the wall and tested it repeatedly until the temperature of the water in the tub suited her. Bobby stood, uncertainly, watching. The hot water amazed him. There was no hose in sight, and that's what people used during baths, so even though he knew what a bathtub was, he still wasn't sure that this hot water and this tub were actually for him. That question was answered once and for all as Meg urged him to get into the tub. The warm water felt wonderful on his ankles, but that was nothing compared to the feeling he felt as she convinced him to sit and the water rose up above his legs, submerging them in welcome heat. He was enjoying that so much that he did nothing else but concentrate on the feeling. She pressed something into his hand and he saw it was the soap she'd pointed to earlier. It wasn't coarse and gray like the soap he was used to. He lifted it to look at it more closely and it felt slippery in his hand. It smelled good too, and he lifted it closer to his nose, breathing in. It was amazing.

Meg watched the boy - she no longer thought of him as a young man - smelled the soap like it was the first time he'd ever done that. She stood back up and hissed as she saw the old, healed stripes on his back, remnants of a whipping with a strap that he'd gotten when he was only ten and had stolen bread from the kitchen in the institution he was housed in at that time. She felt a rush of mingled sympathy and red-hot anger as the wide-eyed boy looked up at her in response to her disgusted response to the scars.

"Here," she said, reaching for the soap. "Let me help."

Bobby was sixteen, though he looked closer to fourteen or fifteen. But his body was that of a boy well into puberty. While he had never had a girlfriend, and his exposure to females had been severely restricted, his body knew what to do when it felt a woman's soft hands sliding over it. Meg, while she thought of him as a poor simple minded boy, still realized on some level that the body she was stroking was not only male, but well grown. HER exposure to men had also been limited, and while she had seen the instinctive erections that all males have, they had always been on boys who were so young that those erections, for the most part, more nearly resembled one of her own fingers than what she would have thought of as "an erect male organ."

And so, when she had finished washing his smooth chest, and scarred back, and told him to stand so she could do his legs, she was completely unprepared for the change that had taken place in that shriveled penis she had seen only moments before.

Bobby had the sexual equipment of a full grown man.

Meg stared in awe at the dripping erection that bobbed in front of her eyes. It looked huge to her, even though it was quite normal by comparison to most men. The tip was sheathed in a thin covering that Meg knew was his foreskin. She had seen plenty of those on the babies whose diapers she changed. Most of those had been wrinkled pointy things on the end of the baby's penis that had to be skinned back and cleaned under during a diaper change.

But the one on Bobby's penis was stretched tightly over something that bulged under it. Meg's soapy hands reached for it before she thought about what she was doing, and she grasped the penis firmly, sliding her hand toward the base, to see what was under that tightly stretched skin.

Bobby saw Meg's hand move to his penis, which he knew was hard. It got that way sometimes, and it felt different when it did that, but he hadn't given it a lot of thought. Even though his penis had taken on adult features, living in orphanages, where there was no privacy at any time, prevented him from finding out what most boys found out about their stiff sexual organs. Bobby had never played with his penis while it was hard.

The feelings that resulted from Meg's soapy hand sliding along his penis shocked Bobby to his core. He had never felt anything that was like that. A small sound forced itself out of his throat as her hand slid back toward the tip.

Meg was surprised to find that what was under the thin skin looked pretty much like what was under a baby's foreskin. It was MUCH larger, of course, but the shape was about the same. And, of course if felt different in her hand. It filled her hand, for one thing, something no younger child's penis had ever done, and that made it feel completely new and unique. It was strangely hard and soft at the same time too, and that made it very different than anything else she had ever felt. She thought back to what Prudence and Donna had laughed about at supper. THIS was what neither of them had had ... in them ... for so long.

She realized suddenly what she was doing and opened her hand. Then her curiosity gripped her again and she slid her hand under the stiff organ to cup Bobby's testicles. While before she hadn't even noticed them, now she felt them full and round under his penis.

They were much softer than they initially felt and she squeezed them gently, feeling the harder, smaller things inside. Bobby's hips jerked as she squeezed too tightly and he pulled away.

She looked up to see him staring down at her, his mouth open.

She felt her face get hot as she blushed. "Sorry," she murmured. "I'll be more gentle, OK?"

He made no response and Meg shook her head to clear it. She became more businesslike and washed his legs. Her soapy hand slid up the inside of his thigh in the back and she just naturally forced it between tightly clenched buttocks to clean him there too. He made another sound and bent forward slightly, then stood back up, his butt cheeks clenching even more tightly.

But she was done there and told him to sit back down. The water was grayish, so she turned on the hot water tap again and held a pitcher under it, moving it to the cold tap to finish filling it. She poured half of it over his head as he sputtered and wiped his eyes and giggled at that as she attacked his hair with the soap.

"Keep your eyes closed tight," she warned as she kneaded his scalp with her fingers. Then when she was satisfied she began to pour the rest of the water on his hair to rinse it, reminding him again to keep his eyes closed tight. He didn't sputter and spit this time. She told him to keep his eyes closed as she got another pitcher of rinse water and got all the suds out of his hair.

"OK, up and out," she ordered.

Bobby, by now, was immensely happy about this bath, and didn't want it to end at all. His belly was full, and he was warm and her hands felt wonderful sliding over his skin. He looked for the soap, which she had put back on the windowsill, and reached for it, trying to get her to wash him again.

Meg laughed. "You're clean enough. Now, out of there and let's get you dried off."

Reluctantly he stood and stepped out of the tub. Meg ran the rough towel all over his body, paying perhaps a little more attention to his still stiff penis than was needed, and then threw the towel on top of a pile of others in one corner of the room. It suddenly occurred to her that he had nothing to put on. She looked at the clothing on the floor and said "You can't wear that. It will have to be washed."

She was startled as he darted to the pants and picked them up, his hand digging in the pocket. It came out with a grimy and mangled toothbrush that he held tightly in his hand as he dropped the pants back to the floor. Then he just stood there again. Simple though he may be, she couldn't let him run out into the house like the other children did, especially since there was nothing in the pile of clothes out there that would fit him. She remembered his burlap bag, and correctly assumed he had more clothing in that.

"You stay right here and I'll get you something to wear," she said.

She left, closing the door at the feel of the much cooler air outside the bathroom and went into the dining room, where his bag had been left. Only Mavis was there, the others having taken the children to their beds.

"Where have you been?" asked Mavis.

"I was giving Bobby his bath," said Meg, her mind on the burlap bag.

"What!?" gasped Mavis. "He's a grown man!"

Meg stopped, her mind realizing what Mavis was thinking.

"He may be grown, but he's a poor simple-minded boy inside," she said. "He couldn't even undress himself. He acted like he'd never had a bath in his whole life! I had to do something," she said. "And now he's standing in there naked with nothing to put on. Where are the clothes he brought with him?"

Mavis found it easy to believe that Bobby was simple minded, and that put him in the same category as a child in her mind. She relaxed.

"He didn't bring much. No coat even. That bag was all he had when he got off the train," she said.

Together they dumped the bag's contents on the table and then stared at it in horror. The shirt and pants were soiled, and the undergarments were tattered.

"What in the world is this?" asked Mavis, holding up what was obviously a pair of women's underwear.

"I have no idea," said Meg wonderingly. "Do you suppose he stole them?"

Mavis snorted. "Where in the world would a boy like him find a pair of those to steal?" she picked up his shirt and set it to one side. His pants followed. "Though to be honest, if this is all he has I could understand why he'd steal anything he could get his hands on."

Meg picked up a wrinkled and bent tube of white. "Why this is a cigarette of all things!" she said.

All that was left was the chocolate bar, bent now, and the lump of wood that lay on the table. Meg picked it up and turned it in her hands. She gasped as the dog's face was revealed.

"What?" asked Mavis, peering at the thing in Meg's hand.

"It's beautiful!" sighed Meg. "Look, it's been carved. It's exquisite!"

Mavis took it and admired the fine lines and realistic nature of the carving. "It IS beautiful" she agreed. "But only part done. Do you suppose HE did this?"

Together they pawed through the wretched pile of clothes on the table, but found no knife. It was a mystery they'd have to solve later.

"We can't put him in these," said Meg distastefully as she poked at the shirt and pants.

Mavis put her hand to one breast. "You know, I saved some of Randolph's nicest things. I couldn't bear to throw them out when he died. His Sunday shirts and such. Now where did I put them?" She suddenly moved toward the single bedroom that was on the ground floor. Mavis retained that one for herself. Meg followed and saw Mavis get to her hands and knees and peer under the bed. She reached under, stretching, and pulled out a bundle, wrapped in cloth. Picking it up she laid it on the bed and undid the strings tied around it.

"This is them. I kept them under my bed because it made me feel closer to him when ..." She didn't finish. It was too personal and she felt foolish. But now she was glad she'd saved these few things. She lifted a white shirt, and another that was dark blue with a white collar. Under them were two pairs of trousers, one wool and the other finely woven cotton. Both were black. There was a pair of suspenders folded neatly between them.

"He's smaller than Randolph, of course," said Mavis, "but we can alter them to fit. They'll have to do for now."

Together they left the room, carrying the clothing with them. Mavis selected the white shirt and the cotton trousers to take to Bobby and, together they went to the bathroom. They opened the door to a cloud of steam. Bobby had re-filled the tub with hot water and was lying in it, his head back, and his eyes closed, a wide smile on his face.

It took them a while to coax him out of the tub. The impressive erection he had sported before had wilted again, from lack of continued stimulation and the heat of the water. When they got the shirt on him it hung low enough to cover his penis and, since it was bedtime anyway, they decided he didn't need the pants until morning.

While Meg had bathed Bobby, Mavis had made some changes in the sleeping arrangements. She didn't want Bobby sleeping in a room with smaller children. He was too big, and she still didn't know his temperament. So she had put a third child in two more rooms, to make an empty bed for Bobby. The children who were moved didn't mind. It was an adventure to them. And quite often all the children cuddled together in one bed anyway, like puppies, when they slept. So one more just added a little body heat.

Bobby, exposed to yet another astonishment as he was led to his own bed, which was soft and had three quilts on it, and even a real pillow. He was alone, which made it seem a little like a punishment room, but it wasn't anything like a punishment room in any other way. He let himself be put into bed. He was so relaxed from the hot soak and everything else that had happened that day, that his defenses were abated. When the two women kissed him on the forehead and wished him good night it was more than he could take. Tears leaked from his eyes as he rubbed them with his fists. He wanted to say something, but knew that would ruin everything good that had happened to him on this amazing day. Instead he lay in the bed as the women left the room and turned off the light.

Mavis had tears running down her face too. She had seen the scars on his back while they clothed him, and his tears when he was in bed.

"He breaks my heart," she said, her voice catching.

"I know," said Meg. "I know."

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