BEA`s PONY Part 4

“So the three of you were in bed together,” I said. Helen and I were sitting at the kitchen table having a second cup of coffee after Jack left for work.
“Yes,” she replied, “And your Mr. Young is one of the gentlest men in bed I’ve ever known.”
I felt a twinge of jealousy which I put down right away. So that’s where he disappeared! In fact, I hadn’t seen him again. Somers and I went downstairs for a drink, after he had given me back my clothes, of course. Somers had mellowed after our encounter. Later, Jack and Helen came down, and we left.
“What did Jack have to say about all this?” I asked. “I thought he was pretty square.”
“He wants to please me, Bea. I think he would agree to anything as long as he wasn’t left out of it,” she said.
“Well, what did you do?” I asked.
“When you and Jack went upstairs, Jack started telling me jokes, dirty jokes. He knows a million of them, as you know. He went through four of them, and then Mr. Somers told a really filthy one. That man has a low opinion of women, Bea. You should have heard that story. Disgusting!” she averred.
“I did an operation head-start on him,” I said. “Maybe he has a higher opinion of us now. I remembered how Somers had almost cracked me too. What happened after the filthy joke?”
“Jack told a few more of his traveling salesman ones, and then Mr. Somers said he was tired and wanted to go lie down. He said if we were very tired, he would show us a spare bed upstairs. Jack and I said fine and up we went.
“Well, we both got undressed in the bedroom Mr. Somers had pointed out to us and we were just about ready to get down to business, when in walks Mr. Young, stark naked and carrying his clothes with him.
“He said he was sorry and would be glad to turn the lights out when he left. He said he had been using the bedroom temporarily until he got married.
“I rolled over onto my elbows and told him it was all right. I didn’t mind that he had come in, and I told him that Jack didn’t mind, and why didn’t he just stay.” She giggled.
“Why you little devil,” I said. “What did he say to that?”
“He looked at me, I mean at what I’ve got here. You know.” She pointed at her breasts. “He said I was a beautiful creature, and that Jack was lucky to have me for a wife.”
“Next thing I know, his thing starts swelling, and if he had any ideas about leaving the room, he soon forgot them. He dropped his clothes on the floor and came over to the bed.
“Jack started fussing then, and I kept telling him to shush. Jack was really embarrassed. But Mr. Young started talking to him and pretty soon Jack was all for it.
“Well, Mr. Young lay down on the bed first, on his back. That thing of his was just a rootin’ tootin’ to go. I wanted it bad too. He told me to get on top of him, which I did, and he put it in. ‘Boy,’ he said, ‘that’s wide open country!! On account of the pony, you know.’” She glanced at me shyly.
“Next thing he told Jack to get on his knees behind me and stick his thing up my rear end. Did you ever? Jack really was hot for the idea, too, and he never has suggested anything like that at home. I couldn’t believe it.
“He told Jack where to find some cream to use, and Jack went and got it. He put it all over his thing and then rammed it up me. It felt like fire at first, but then all three of us going to town like that together like that, it started to feel good with two things like that in me at once. Have you ever done that?
“We all three came at about the same time and toppled over. Jack had had a lot to drink and went off into dreamland almost at once. I mean he went out. Talk about sawing wood!” she exclaimed.
“Mr. Young said to follow him, and he went into another bedroom where he made love to me extra special. I asked him where you were, and he said you were sleeping. I asked him if you would mind if you knew what he were doing, and he said ‘No, you didn’t have any strings on him and vice-versa.’”
“Was that it then?” I asked, irritated beyond compare. I was seething inside. I wanted to get into the car and drive over there and break something over his head. I looked down at the floor and began mentally counting the tiles in an effort to take my mind off the whole thing.
“That was it,” she said. “What a night!”
I sat, staring at the floor and drumming my fingers on the table.
“Helen,” I began, “what do you think happened to Clyde?” I got up from the table and walked slowly over to the door leading to the back yard. The pony was eating the lawn with singular dedication.
“I don’t know, Bea,” she responded, apparently puzzled by my question.
“I mean,” I said without turning, “what do you, Helen Smallwood, personally think happened that day? You must have some notion or theory. Your mind can’t be a blank.”
“I’m afraid it is though,” she replied. “I haven’t the faintest notion where he can be.”
“Suppose we forget for the moment where he might be right now,” I argued. “How do you think he got out of the house?” I turned around and faced her.
“I don’t know that either, Bea. There didn’t seem to be any explanation. There was no way he could have possibly gotten out.”
“Exactly!” I said. “There was no way he could have gotten out by himself.”
“Are you suggesting someone took him out?” Helen asked. “How did they get in? There was no sign of forced entry anywhere.”
I saw the realization of what I had planned for her to think spread across her face. “J-Jack?” She looked up at me in amazement. “You think Jack took Clyde? But he didn’t get home until evening,” she protested. Her face reddened suddenly. “Besides, for what reason would he do a sneaky thing like that?”
“I’m not sure that he did, Helen,” I confessed, walking back and sitting down. She was on the verge of resentment at my accusation. It was the reaction I had expected and wanted somehow. I picked up a nail file and fussed at my fingernails.
“No? You sure seem secretly pleased at the idea if you’re not,” she perceived. The thought I had planted in her mind was cankering there. “Well?” she asked suddenly. “Is that all you have to say, that you’re not sure?”
“I’m not sure,” I repeated, looking down at my nails. “There are just some things that make me think of the possibility.”
“What things?” she asked.
“Somebody that had a key would have had to let him out of the house,” I stated. “I heard Jack say last night at John’s that he got back early on Tuesday, not Tuesday night as we assumed.”
“He probably meant he got back to the office early in the day,” Helen countered. “He doesn’t always come directly home after a business trip.”
“Then there’s that telephone number,” I brought out. “The number of a man who keeps a lot of animals at his place. Why would Jack have had just that number on a slip of paper?”
“Didn’t we already discuss that?” Helen reminded. “It’s undoubtedly a business contact. You said that man owned a garage.”
“Yes,” I agreed, “But wouldn’t it have been more likely Jack would carry the telephone number of the garage? The number on the slip is a home phone,” I informed her.
“Oh, Bea,” Helen said impatiently, “he knows dozens of those guys personally. Goes on hunting and fishing trips all the time. I even know some of the wives.”
“The telephone number of a friend like that would be in some kind of address book, wouldn’t it?” I asked. “Jack must keep account books, too. This was a fresh piece of paper, and you said yourself you never heard him mention the name before.”
She practically glared at me. “Is that where you’re going this morning?” she wanted to know.
I nodded.
“Well, I’m going too,” she announced, getting up out of her seat. “Excuse me,” she said. “I’m going to get dressed.” Her tone was short and curt.
I watched her as she trailed out of the kitchen in the robe. If we found Clyde out there, she was going to be madder than hell at Jack. Either way, she would be angry with me for some time.
I had played with my nails long enough. They hadn’t really needed any manicuring. It was just a nervous habit, and I had been nervous talking to my sister. I hadn’t intended mentioning the, possibility of Jack taking Clyde until I was absolutely sure, and even then if I could have arranged it with Jack, I might have kept it from her.
Was I really so upset about John with Helen that I had wanted to get even? I had always loved my sister above all others, and now I had deliberately made her uncomfortable.
I stood up and stretched. A warm, pleasureful sensation ran down through my vulva. I squeezed my breasts lightly and walked back to the bedroom to get dressed.
We were out on the highway to Fort Worth when Helen spoke to me.
“If we find Clyde out there, what shall I do?” she asked.
“About Jack?”
“Yes,” she replied.
“He’ll have to have an explanation,” I said. “Helen,” I said in all seriousness, “is there any possibility he might have come home early one day and caught you with Clyde without you seeing him?”
“We always did it downstairs,” she said. “Clyde doesn’t like to go up and down that staircase,” she mentioned. “I suppose,” she went on, “if Jack had looked in a window.”
“What would he have done?” I asked. “Gone out and gotten drunk and sworn to get rid of the dog, right?”
She puckered up her mouth and nodded.
“He’s just going to have to live with both you and Clyde, Helen,” I insisted. “Compromise. Tell him you only play with Clyde when he’s away on trips because you get so lonely for him. Tell him about all your girl friends who play with men when their husbands are away. Ask him if he’d like that better?”
“You know how he can get, Bea,” Helen demurred. “You know how it has been with that pony. I don’t think it would work.”
“If you would just take a stand. I know he loves you,” I argued. “You said he would put up with almost anything. Put it to the test.”
“He wants to be a part of it,” Helen said.
“Figure out a way,” I urged her.
We were silent for a long time then. We passed through Fort Worth easily. Helen knew a way to get around to the other side without running into a lot of traffic. She was still sulky to an extent. I knew finding Clyde would be a tonic to her whatever the circumstances.
We had been driving along a back road to the northwest for some time when Helen announced she had to go to the bathroom real bad. After about another mile we saw a service station up ahead on the left. It turned out to be a small rural station offering a cut rate brand of gasoline.
Helen parked the car away from the pumps so as not to give the impression we wanted gas, and we got out.
A beefy kid of about twenty-one or two came pounding out of the little station house grinning from ear to ear.
“Ma’am!” he greeted us. “Got troubles?”
“Bathroom troubles,” I said. “Where’s the rest room?” I looked around the back of the house for a doorway but could find none.
An older man came running out of the house. “What is it, Homer?” He asked the fat boy. “What do them ladies want? You ladies lost?” he addressed us.
“Stopped by just to use the rest rooms, Pa,” he told the older man. “I’ll go on down and tidy up,” he said, padding off behind the house.
“That boy’s a real worker,” the man informed us. “Real clever with his hands. Should have been a carpenter.”
“Amazing,” I noted, thinking about the enormous hams I had observed at the end of each of the boy’s arms.
“Are the rest rooms messy?” Helen asked him, appearing somewhat leery of having to use them at all.
“Ain’t that,” he told us. “Just kids get in there sometimes leaving a lot of paper laying around. Can’t always watch it. Homer’ll set it in order. No point in waiting here,” he said. “Go on down.”
We walked down and around the house and observed a path running slightly downhill leading to a wooden outdoor privy. There were two doors marked crudely with chalk designating which was for men and which for women.
“Don’t pay no attention to them signs,” the old man shouted after us. “One’s the same as the other.”
I looked at Helen and she laughed for the first time that afternoon. We both laughed.
“Do you suppose Homer is still in there?” I asked Helen when we reached the step leading to the doors.
“I don’t know,” she said, “but I can’t wait or I’ll pee in my pants. Keep an eye out, Sis,” she requested, stepping up onto the platform and walking to the door marked for women. After she had gone inside and closed the door, I debated whether or not to use the other side. I didn’t have to go so bad as Helen, but the power of suggestion was working on me.
I decided to wait until Helen came out and use the one properly marked for my own sex. I half expected to find Homer waiting inside the other one anyway, grinning and blushing sweatily, expectantly hoping I would show a bit of pussy.
It seemed Helen was taking an awfully long time in there. Maybe she had cramps as well as a full bladder. The dear girl had a constipation problem since marrying Jack. Too few orgasms will do it to a woman, I thought.
In a moment there came a shriek from inside followed by gasping moans that seemed to die in intensity. I raced up to the door and pushing it open and saw Helen seated on the commode, her head thrown back, and her body racked with what appeared to be the throes of sexual passion.
Looking down at the round opening I could see her pussy clearly. To my amazement huge strings of jism were cascading down out of it into the pit below. What looked like an entire load came out before it ceased dripping.
“Good Lord!” I exclaimed. “What’s happening in here, Helen?” Looking around, I saw no one else was inside. It seemed incredible. I started shaking her. “Helen,” I insisted, “what happened?”
“Oh, Bea,” she puffed, grabbing my arm for support. “Believe it or not, I just got screwed.” She was trying to catch her breath. “And cripes, did it feel good. Phew!”
“But how?” I begged her, “there was no one in here.”
“Hand me that paper,” she requested, pointing to a small pile of cheap toilet tissues stacked on a shelf.
I handed several to her.
“Thanks,” she said, wiping what was left of the load from her cunt. She dropped the papers through the opening and stood up, pulling up her underpants. “Wait until we get back in the car,” she whispered.
We walked up the slight incline together and back to the front of the station. Homer was standing there red as a beet and grinning. I noticed his sweat had soaked through his shirt in several places. He reeked of body odor.
The old man came out of the house as we got into the car. “Hope you ladies found things to your liking,” he called out to us. Helen waved at him as we pulled out.
“Now tell me, I’m dying of curiosity.”
“When I went in there, it looked like an ordinary outhouse,” she began. “I went over to the place where you sit and pulled my pants down. I sat up over the hole and began urinating.”
“Well,” she said, “I had just finished peeing when the fattest, warmest thing you could imagine pushed its way up into me. I didn’t know what it was at first, but it sure felt like you know what.
“I looked down through the opening and saw the thing up in me was definitely no imitation. There was a man lying on his back underneath.”
“Was it Homer?” I asked.
“I couldn’t see his face,” she said. “I could just see that part of him that showed through the opening. It was a fat man,” she added.
“Then if must have been,” I concluded. “That slob. What a way to get a piece of ass!”
“I had no idea how long the thing was he had stuck in me,” she continued. “When I looked down, all I could see was like a tree stump stuffed up between the lips. I had the feeling that plenty was in there, though. It was grand. It didn’t seem as if he were going to get around to pushing it in and out,” she continued.
“He probably couldn’t,” I suggested. “Not in that awkward position. Undoubtedly it took all his strength just to hold on.”
“I couldn’t take it,” Helen went on, “not just sitting there stuffed like that with nothing happening. I started rotating my bottom, you know. Around the circle, then up, down. Around the circle, then up, down. I didn’t know about him, but it was sure working on me.”
“I started working that routine harder and faster, and pretty soon I came. I could feel it running down out of me. I noticed then that he was still working up into it as best he could. He hadn’t come yet. Before I knew it, I felt a second orgasm building inside me. How many times does that ever happen? You know how the second one can really zap you, so I grit my teeth and hung on.”
“When the warm flow of all his come gushed up into me, there was a wrenching spasm in my pelvis. I felt my back arching and my legs go straight. It felt so good I cried out. It must have frightened him because he pulled out suddenly before I had had a chance to come all the way down.”
“That must have been when I arrived,” I said. “You were still way up there. Too bad,” I sympathized with her.
“Yes,” she agreed. “Why do some men do that? Jack does that, Bea. You know it? Drop that load and get out fast. That’s his motto.”
“I wonder how often Homer pulls off that little trick,” I chuckled.
We had reached the county road leading to Felt’s place. Turning onto it we soon saw it was badly in need of repair. Whatever county funds were earmarked for paving roads must have always found priorities somewhere else. It didn’t appear to have been patched in years.
Helen’s car was fairly new, and each time a wheel ran into a chuck hole in the road I felt a twinge of guilt for having brought her car there.
“By day’s end, you’re going to have an old rattletrap for a car,” I said rather apologetically.
“If it means finding my pooch, I don’t care,” she declared.
When it appeared we were close to the general area, I told Helen to slow down in order to read the numbers on the mailboxes. Some boxes carried the names of the tenants as well as the number. Perhaps we would be lucky and see Felt’s name on one, I hoped.
Numbers had been placed on the mailboxes in many different ways. No two boxes seemed to use the same decals, paint or reflectors in posting the numbers.
To my delight, I saw Felt’s name on a box up ahead. I told Helen to drive alongside the box to check the number just in case there was more than one Felt in the neighborhood. The number checked.
Felt’s farm was evidently not close to the county road.
A long, dirt road went off across the fields at a right angle to the county road and must have continued for quite a distance for no buildings were visible on the immediate horizon.
Helen and I turned into the dirt road and bounced along for what seemed like miles before a clump of buildings came into view. As we pulled into the compound, we were surprised at the number of animals to be seen around us.
There were the usual barnyard animals running loose; chickens, ducks, geese, even pigs seemed to be roaming at will. Other animals, mostly dogs it appeared, were cooped up in cages placed in no visible pattern around the area. Several dogs were tied to stakes sunk into the ground. The din was terrible.
The main house was in a decrepit state. Shutters hung by one hinge where there were any left. Practically all the paint had peeled from the clapboard sides, and the roof showed many barren patches were shingles had been lost and never replaced. Shades were drawn over all the windows.
“You go see your friend,” Helen proposed, jumping out of the car. “I’m going to look around.”
We had parked next to several vehicles already there. One, a battered pickup, bore the name of a garage in Fort Worth. I stepped out of the car and watched Helen trudge up past some of the cages, then went up the steps to the porch and rang the doorbell.
When I had not had any response for some minutes, I knocked on the door thinking that the doorbell probably did not work.
The door opened quickly, and I beheld a man in the dimly lighted hallway inside. He was dressed in a crumpled suit and asked me to please come inside.
He led me into what must have been the parlor where he offered me a seat and a cup of coffee. I accepted both. He poured the coffee from a silver pot and asked me if I would like it braced with some cognac.
I declined the brandy but complimented him on his service.
“Thank you, Miss Starr,” he returned. “I presume?”
I smiled acknowledgment and looked my host over. He was a slight man, graying, and probably in his late fifties. He evinced a delicacy that didn’t seem to fit his surroundings.
“There are a million and one stories here for your magazine,” he revealed. “Every animal has a story to tell, don’t you agree?” he asked.
“Perhaps we mightn’t keep them around if they could tell it,” I suggested.
He glanced at my face oddly. “What a strange thought! Ah, but you’re thinking about the ponies,” it occurred to him quickly.
“Mr. Felt,” I said, leaning forward in my chair, “Joe Cunningham has sworn to me he sold you four ponies over the past two years. If, as you say, you have only one pony now, I am curious about what happened to the others.”
“My dear,” he began, “curiosity in you is a virtue I admire. I do not have to tell you, you realize, what you want to know, but I can say at least that they have died.”
“Died?” I asked. “All of them? How?”
“What does it matter how?” He inquired. “Death comes to everything sooner or later.”
“It doesn’t always have to come sooner,” I commented.
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Mr. Felt,” I began a new tack, “You strike me somehow as out of place here. I understand you own a garage in the city, too. None of it fits as far as I can see.”
“It’s true,” he admitted, “I’m no farmer. You can see that outside. The fields are rented out to those who like that sort of thing. As to the garage, it is operated on a lease basis by someone else. All of these things,” he opened his palms, “are just an inheritance I haven’t had the heart to sell.”
“Then how do you explain that truck outside?” I inquired.
“A private matter, Miss Starr, a private matter,” he asserted. “Nothing to do with the business of the garage, I assure you. But why should that be of concern to you?”
“Mr. Felt,” I said, “do you know a Jack Smallwood?”
“Why, yes,” he replied, becoming more and more disconcerted by my interrogation. “Only casually.”
“I have reason to believe Mr. Smallwood stole a valuable dog recently and that you have possession of that dog right at this moment.” I had not minced my words.
His hands twisted in his lap. He appeared to become more agitated.
He stood up at once. “My dear girl, what are you saying?” He appeared flustered. “Come with me at once,” he requested.
I followed him out of the room. He unlocked a door and led down a flight of stairs to another door at the bottom which he unlocked also. After that we entered a damp enclosure that was evidently a little used portion of the basement.
At one end of the damp area we entered what appeared to be a small arena or theater in the round. The seats were arranged around a small platform on which was a bed and an few straight-backed wooden chairs.
We passed through the theater area to another door that led to dressing rooms and a lounge. A man and two women were sitting around drinking and talking. The man stood up when he saw us come in.
“Elbie,” Felt addressed the man. “Bring the collie out here.”
The man put his drink down and walked back to a rear door. The two girls, who looked suspiciously like prostitutes, ogled me curiously. Moments later the man returned with a collie held by a leash. I recognized Clyde at once.
“Clyde!” I called.
His ears perked up and seeing me broke away from his holder and bounded in my direction.
“Clyde, you old rascal,” I blurted out, hugging at him.
He licked at my face and started humping at my leg in the excitement. The man and the two women laughed abruptly.
“Maybe we can use her in the show, Felt?” the man suggested.
“I had no idea this dog was taken from anybody,” Felt confessed to me. “Believe me.” He seemed sincere. “I have private shows here in the evenings,” he went on, “shows in which we use animals in, let us say, erotic situations with our actors.”
The others seemed amused by Felt’s choice of words.
“This collie was brought to me by Mr. Smallwood, who had heard about the entertainment I provide and thought I might be interested. He took no money for him. He told me he was his dog and that he could not take care of him anymore.” He paused.
“What else did he tell you about him?” I asked.
“Else? Why he said the dog was a natural born actor,” Felt hedged.
“What kind of an actor?” I insisted. “I want to know exactly what he said.”
Felt looked embarrassed. “He said the dog liked to, uh, do it to girls.”
“He does, too, lady,” Elbie piped up. “He don’t need drugs, either.”
“Drugs?” I asked.
“Yes, does that surprise you?” Felt wanted to know.
“Do you drug the animals in your shows?” I wondered.
“Most of them will not perform unless they are drugged,” Felt revealed. “This collie is a grand exception. One in a million.”
As well I knew. I patted Clyde on his shoulder and thought about Helen.
“Drugs ain’t good for them. He’s lucky,” Elbie chimed in again.
“Is that what happened to the ponies?” I asked Felt.
“It’s a tough life for all of us, Miss Starr,” he volunteered rather gratuitously.
“But what a way to go!” Elbie exclaimed.
The two girls giggled. One of them, who had been eyeing me during the conversation, winked. I had no explanation for it but the wink sent a hot flash through my body. Furious, I glared back at her.
“I must get my sister,” I said. “She’s outside waiting for me. I assume you are going to let me take the dog,” I asked Felt.
“What can I say?” He smiled, throwing up his hands. “Come by some night and see the show, and bring your Clyde,” he urged. “We invite audience participation at all times.”
I left them laughing. Felt insisted on accompanying me back up through the house.
“Remember what I said,” he reminded me at the door. “And no hard feelings?” he wanted to know.
My feelings are my own so I said: “Am I going to report the theft to the police? Is that what you want to know? The dog belongs to my sister. It was her husband who took it. Need I say more?”
He seemed astonished, and I left him in that condition.
I found Helen, or rather Clyde found Helen poking around inside a hen house looking for fresh eggs. She forgot about eggs when she saw Clyde and fell into him with joy.
“Oh, Clyde, honey,” she cried deliriously, her eyes filled with tears. The dog was humping at her legs, but Helen paid no attention. “I’m so glad, so glad,” she repeated burying her face in his fur. “My baby’s back, my Clyde baby’s back!”
Clyde kept humping at her excitedly, his pink organ inching its way out slowly. He licked at her face and began to whine.
“Oh, Bea,” she pleaded. “I can’t wait I’m so hot for him. Stand at the door, will you, honey?” Her eyes were all soft and moist. I could see the longing in them.
She stepped back into the chicken coop and put her purse on the floor. She pulled her pants down as best she could with Clyde clambering all over her and got down on her hands and knees in the straw.
Clyde mounted her insanely, humping at her rear end like a frenzied creature. The wet looking penis was way out and jabbed forward missing the right spot on every thrust. It poked, it slid off to the side, it almost bent in a right angle to itself when it struck one of her buttocks.
Suddenly it slapped into the right spot and dug in deep. Clyde changed his frenzied humping to a kind of close in ramming. He was humped up with his haunches as close as he could maneuver and in an effort to dig deeper lifted one rear leg off the floor, set it down, then lifted the other, rocking from side to side.
He was panting madly, the pants coming in short, tight huffs. They began to lower in register until they became almost inaudible. He was just about to come, I thought.
I heard a groan escape Helen’s lips, and she pitched forward, the dog falling with her.
Clyde got up right away and stood alongside her, panting as though it were the hottest day of the year. I could see his meat bent clear around still anchored into her hole. It resembled an umbilical cord twisting out in that strange way.
The dog was too interested in getting its wind back to try breaking the union at once. Helen, too, was down in the hay, out of this world and into some seventh heaven. She relaxed abruptly, and I saw the twisted dong come grooving out.
Immediately behind it a big blob of white come welled up and blocked the entrance to her vagina. Helen shifted slightly, and the come slowly oozed back inside the hole. She turned and sat up.
“Where are my panties?” she inquired, the picture of contentment.
Clyde was over in a corner licking carefully at his member. I handed Helen’s panties to her, and she stood up to put them back on.
“Got a Kleenex or something?” she asked me.
I searched through my bag and handed her a couple. She took them and folded them, then placed them down inside her underpants covering the vulva.
“If I don’t do that, I’ll drip all over the place,” she averred.
She reached down for her purse and we walked out to the car, Clyde trotting after us.
“You drive, Bea,” she said. “I’m just too up to think about driving. Do you mind?” she asked me.
I didn’t mind at all and told her so. We were soon barreling down the dirt road homeward bound. Clyde kept poking his head forward over the front seat between us and demanding little pats of attention from Helen. She was only too willing to oblige him.
“We’ll have to have it out with Jack tonight,” Helen remarked. “I take it you found out he knows.”
I told her about Felt’s little theater group and Clyde’s natural acting ability.
She hugged the dog’s head affectionately. “I wonder how many times he performed in the last few days.” She stared straight ahead out the windshield. “It’s like Jack to have taken Clyde there. Don’t you see the humor in it? He could have disposed of the dog anywhere, but he didn’t.”
She was milking something out of the situation that was flattering to her husband.
“He’s going to wonder how in the hell we ever found that place,” Helen said, laughing at the series of events that had found him out.
“Put the blame on me, if you want,” I told her. “He will be only too glad to jump on me. We haven’t had our usual blowoff this visit yet, anyway,” I said.
She reached over and put her hand on my thigh. “Bea, I know how upset you were this morning. You wouldn’t have said anything about Jack otherwise. I’m glad that you told me, though. I want you to know that. I want you to know, too, that I still love you better than anybody.”
I took my right hand off the wheel and placed it on top of hers.
Jack had been furious.
He had stormed out of the house swearing never to come back. Before that he had threatened to shoot the dog, shoot the pony, carve me up into strips of bacon. His ultimatum before leaving was, no dog, no pony, and no sister. Until then, goodbye!
Out he went into the night.
Helen was speechless. She had not been able to get a word in edgewise while Jack was there and after he had gone could not find the words. I was at a loss as to how to console her.
There was no doubt that I was going to leave on Sunday. I had planned to be back on the job Monday morning. There was no doubt we were going to return the pony that morning. There remained the presence of Clyde.
“Has he ever done this before?” I had asked Helen.
“Yes,” she had admitted. “When he does, he usually means it and stays away for one night, anyway. I try to think of it as just another business trip.”
“Where does he go?”
“He has friends all over, drinking buddies, who knows?” She had thrown up her hands. “I guess I will have to give Clyde up, after all,” she had said in resignation.
We had sat through dinner quietly, feeling the consciousness of Jack’s absence. Helen had shut Clyde in the basement not to please an absent husband, but to remove from her sight the tangible evidence of their conflict.
After dinner I had begun to expect that John might telephone. Not that I had been anxious for him to call. It had just seemed a likely expectation. When the dishes had been done and the kitchen cleaned up, I had begun to feel it a certainty.
When the hour had reached eight-thirty or so and he had not called, my ego had been severely bruised. I had thought then of telephoning him, but wouldn’t that have been playing his game? I had decided against it.
Helen had tried to escape her problem by watching television. That had never worked for me, and soon she had come back into the living room herself.
“I can’t enjoy the thing unless I’m completely relaxed,” she had said. She had sat down, and observed my own tension, thinking, probably guessing the truth, that I had had John on my mind, but guessing wrong what it was about John that had been bothering me.
“A girl like Pat, now, whom I’ll probably never get to meet, what’s the big difference between us?” I had asked Helen. “She paints, she willingly puts off her marriage to care for a sick mother, she leaves John on his own for six months. That’s about all I know about her,” I had said.
“It adds up to an unusual girl these days,” Helen had remarked.
“I wish I had some time to look at those paintings. Some were his and some were hers, you know. You can tell from a painting how the artist sees things. The better his technique, the easier it is to see what he’s left out. If John were to do a portrait of me, I could tell how he sees me by what he’s discarded.”
Helen had looked at me and smiled.
“It’s true, Sis,” I had insisted. “When you look at yourself in the mirror, you see an awful lot of junk. You think it’s all important, down to the last hair out of place. You can’t be selective about yourself, so you never really know how you see yourself.”
The doorbell had rung then. Helen had jumped up, her lips forming the name Jack questioningly. She had gone to the door and I had heard the voice of a woman.
It had turned out to be a local friend of Helen’s a Mary Parker.
Soon we had mixed some highballs and were gradually relaxing as the liquor began numbing our brains, pushing aside the problems of the day.
Mary, a divorcee, had just returned from a trip to Acapulco, and had been anxious to tell all to my sister concerning her vacation.
“It’s not the romantic place I used to think it was,” she had said. “Every accountant from New York must have been there with his secretary, and the college bums, yi! Who needs it?”
I had argued that the water and the climate must still be unspoiled, and she had agreed.
“How’s Clyde?” she had asked suddenly.
Helen had stolen a quick look at me. “My sister knows about Clyde, Mary,” she had said.
“Really!” She had exclaimed, her face lighting up. “How groovy!” She had quivered her rear end in a jello-like shake on the seat, a little movement she was to repeat throughout her visit. “Let me tell you about this place in Mexico, then.”
She had begun then to tell of a visit to a place outside Cuernavaca where she and the girl accompanying her on the trip had stayed overnight.
“We had reservations in Taxco, but couldn’t make it because we had stayed too late in Cuernavaca. We decided to take the first thing that came alone, so,” she had said, “we kept our eyes open for a likely looking hacienda or something.”
“It started to get dark all of a sudden, and we sort of got that panicky feeling.” She had giggled. “We didn’t know what was going to happen if we had to sleep in the car. Finally we spotted something, a plain old two-storey adobe house, nothing more. I said to Jane, let’s ask anyway, and she agreed. It turned out to be a private house, but they offered us a room downstairs in the back if we wanted it.”
“Well, we took one look and guess what? It’s like a combination stable and sleeping porch. Two cots along one wall separated by a short rail from a manger for burros. And there were burros in there, let me tell you, in spades. You know how everywhere you go outside the cities smells like tortilla flour. You get kind of used to it after a while. Well, this was different. We didn’t know if we were going to be able to take it. All night, no less!”
“We finally said, screw it, and flopped down on those cots, smelly donkeys and all. We hadn’t been in bed long when the old guy in the place, the grandfather I guess, comes padding in with a bottle of tequila and some limes.”
”’Ola,’ he says, ‘Chiquitas, Mira, Mira!’ He gets out some glasses and pulls up a little table by the beds. He pours a little in each glass, cuts the limes, and passes the salt around. Well, you know me, Helen. I always think the guy wants to end up in bed with me, but I wasn’t sure with this old abuelo. He sits there rattling off in Spanish, sipping his joy juice and sucking at his wrist. Jane keeps looking at me for cues like, what do you say to that, or what do I do now?
“We relaxed after a while. The tequila we were drinking helped. I get to the point where I start glowing and I think well maybe the old guy in bed would be a novelty if he has any meat between his legs. But that’s not what the old man is thinking. Turns out he just wanted somebody to drink with. Pretty soon he says Buenos notches and picks up his marbles.
“Well, there we were, in bed with a tequila glow and no companeros. I’m pretty sure Jane feels the same way I do. What do we do now, she says to me. We just sat there, Helen, looking at all those burros, hotter than hell.
“All of a sudden one of those animals starts getting a hard-on. Have you ever seen a burro hard? The damn thing must be as long as from my elbow to my fingertips. And thick! Like a firehose! Jane and I just sat up on those cots and stared. There must have been three or four coming out in that herd anytime you cared to look. They would come out, wave around a bit, then—whap!—bang up against the belly and start shriveling up.
“Jane says, ‘Do you think you could get one of them to go inside of you?’ I said I’d had a lot of meat shoved into me in my time, but that’s stretching it a bit. She says, ‘Let’s try it, anyway.’ We got out of bed and went over to the gate in the fence. Jane says, ‘There’s a good one,’ and sure enough I see the little guy beginning to come out in a big way. We coax him through the gate and pretty soon we have him all to ourselves.
”’How shall we do this?’ I ask Jane, and she says ‘Try it doggy style.’ I said, ‘Here goes,’ and lifted up my nightie. I got down on the floor, and Jane walks the donkey over to me until I felt that thing popping at my pussy. You ever have a real big one go pom-pom at it?
“I spread myself as wide as I could because I figured a boxing glove like that is going to want punching room. I said to Jane, you coax him forward while I move backward at the same time. She does and I did. Wow! I thought I was being split wide open. The head on that thing just about tore me up. After it cleared, though, the rest of it ran up in pretty fast without much strain. I thought it would never stop, as a matter of fact. I had been filled with a longie, I knew, but I couldn’t see just how much of it I really had.
“Jane said, ‘You’ll have to raise your ass up and put your head down on the floor.’ She said, because of the angle, his meat was bending, and it didn’t look like the rest of it could go in. I did what she suggested and felt the rest of it slip into me. Something heavy bumped my legs, almost pushing me forward. I asked Jane what it was and she says the donkey’s balls just slammed against you. I knew then there couldn’t possibly be any more left that hadn’t gone in.
”’What do we do now?’ Jane says. ‘Get him to pump,’ I said. ‘How?’ she asks. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘Give him a whiff of your pussy.’ ‘All right,’ she says, and bends down in front of him, raising up her nightie.
“I could see it all. The burro goes after it like a carrot. He lifts his front legs and tries to climb up Jane’s back. In the meantime, I could feel him stretching out inside a little bit.
”’Turn around,’ I yelled to Jane. ‘Turn around and try to hold his front hooves off the ground.’ She does and the angle of the thing feels perfect inside me. He starts pumping then and I could feel the juices working in there. If Jane could hold him, he would do just fine. As for me, I was finally getting the big F. He dug down into me, jamming away at it. I could feel it swelling and stretching. That big head was deep in there reaming out those neglected, far away places. I knew it.
“All I could think of was a big sign they used to have on a water truck in my home town that said ‘Filled to Capacity’. That was me, Helen. For the first time in my life I really felt packed solid. Those testicles kept bumping my thighs like flour sacks. I figured on bruises there by next morning. I wasn’t going to worry about it then, however. The burro began to bray compulsively and I thought, now, he’s going to let go. I yelled to Jane to hold on, and waited for it to come. The animal shuddered violently and drove down into me hard, and then slowly tapered off.
“I felt that warm glow inside suddenly and the pressure building up. The load these animals expend must be prodigious. It had no place to go but out. It burst out around the sides in big, bubbly farting sounds, splattering all across my rear and running down my legs. I could feel the stuff forming pools in the little depressions behind my kneecaps.
“I came then myself, grabbing Jane’s legs for support. It came over me in wrenching waves that convulsed me forward toward her. I moaned uncontrollably, unable to stem the tide of pleasure that was almost unbearable. I finally collapsed on the floor, limply. The last thing I felt was that organ slithering out of me.
“Gosh,” Helen had said. “It sounds better than with the pony.”
“Pony? You have a pony?” She had wanted to know.
Helen, of course, had told her everything then. She had been eager to know if we still had it, and where she might be able to get one for herself.
Before long they had brought the pony in from the yard and were getting undressed. Mary had been dying to try it since being told. Mary’s story had left me exhausted and I had begged leave to retire early. Since the two of them had been good friends, I hadn’t felt I was deserting.
I had gone back to my bedroom. I had felt very, very tired, and had fallen asleep very quickly.
I awoke with a feeling of disappointment inside me. I was aware of my surroundings as wrong, in error, and felt that if I waited a second or two, they would turn into the correct ones.
They remained the same.
I lay in bed thinking what had started out as a good prospect of companionship had been demolished by my own fear of commitment. I had to be myself, fears and all, in spite of what happened. That was the way it had always been with me.
I got up out of bed and walked over to the clothes closet. I took my robe off and stared at myself in the full length mirror. It isn’t worth it, I thought. It isn’t worth the hassle. Every time I had let myself fall, it was the same old story.
I decided I was not going to eat my heart out over anybody. Let somebody eat his heart out over me, if that’s the way it had to be.
There were plenty of Hack Raver’s around, and if I did not want it that way particularly, there was always Joe Cunningham, or maybe the answer was a good old comfortable collie like Clyde. Was I leaving something out?
I was still young, only twenty-eight, and what’s more, I looked good. There was nothing to criticize about the reflection I saw in the mirror.
It wasn’t the reflection that counted. It was what was inside my brain. What was in there that I could not see? What memories of dreams were stored in those cells that I had never been permitted to remember?
Once in New York City I had gone to see the ballet. A particular prima ballerina had done a dance so exquisitely well it had sent chills up and down my spine. I had turned my head at that moment and had noticed the person seated on my right, a young girl of about sixteen, had been similarly affected.
Our eyes had met at the same instant, and she had gasped. Her hand had suddenly hesitatingly reached over and touched mine for a few seconds.
We hadn’t spoken then or later. In fact, our eyes had not met again, and after the performance, I never saw her again.
The color of her eyes had never been erased from my memory. A recurring dream I was to recall upon awakening had had to do with it.
I am standing on a diving board about to dive into a swimming pool. Around the pool are many people, some of whom I recognize, some whom I do not. They are both men and women. Some of the men stare at me with sober faces, other men are jeering at me.
Still other men, naked, are holding their penises and wagging them at me. All of the women are smiling at me warmly. I dive, finally. Suddenly the water changes to the color of the young girl’s eyes, and I actually fall into one of her eyes.
I keep falling. The color is all around me. I begin to fear I am drowning and wake up.
Standing there in front of the mirror, I thought about the dream and its meaning. It occurred to me that the sadness that gripped at me periodically I had first felt at that performance. It occurred just as the young girl had finally passed from my view forever, during my last impression of her, from the rear, of the ponytail, the camel’s hair coat, the lithe calves, the loafers.
What was the meaning of the experience?
I dressed slowly, sadly, putting on a blouse and skirt. Definitely I decided on flats. The weather had turned cooler, and I took the short length light brown suede leather coat I had brought along out of the closet.
The coat fit snugly and tied with a belt. It flattered my figure and I looked expensive. It was one of the few articles of clothing I owned which I considered a prized possession.
Helen was waiting for me in the living room. She was petting the pony lovingly.
“I guess we can safely say we enjoyed your visit, pony,” she said to him, patting him on both sides of his head. “I’m going to miss you, you know.”
“That’s nothing compared to what he is going to be missing,” I said.
“That’s right,” she giggled. “What about that? What do you suppose he will act like when he gets to someone else’s house?”
“I can see the headlines. Woman Raped in Backyard by Pet Pony. Wild, huh?”
“Then you’d have to write it up in Pet World.”
“Actually what will happen is Cunningham will keep him there for stud,” I said, “or have him gelded.”
“You mean he will actually cut those big things off?” she asked. “Does the pony ever want to do it afterward?” she wondered.
“If they are cut proud, in other words, castrated after they have reached maturity, I understand they still want to do it, but whether they actually can or not, I don’t know.”
“This pony is certainly mature, wouldn’t you say?”
I laughed. “No question. Maybe a little too much so. Remember what Cunningham said?”
“The pony would get all excited when we had our periods,” she recalled.
“He certainly didn’t wait for that,” I asserted.
“It was because we gave him a little help, wasn’t it?” she chortled. “Shall we have one last one?” she proposed.
“Come on, Sis,” I said, leading the pony toward the front door. “We’re going to need all the energy we can save.”
We got the pony in on the back seat and drove away. The way to Denton looked familiar this time and didn’t seem quite as long a trip as it had the first time. Some first touches of fall appeared here and there in the north Texas countryside, reminders to me that fall was already cold up north.
The Ho-Ho-Pony Farm looked just as deserted as it had on our first visit. Even more so. There was no Hack Raver standing in the compound to greet us.
“Why, where’s Mr. Raver?” Helen wondered after we had gotten out of the car.
“Try the hayloft,” I suggested.
Helen looked at me oddly. “Now, why there, for heaven’s sake?” I could see the puzzlement still on her face. “Does he, pitch a lot of hay?” she asked.
“No,” I answered, “but he pitches a lot of woo.”
She threw up her hands. “You’re impossible today. What’s eating you? It’s about John Young, isn’t it? You’re still mad because he made love to me.” She softened her tone came close to me. “Sweets, if you had only said something. You know it would have been strictly hands off if I had known.”
“It’s not just that, Sis,” I said, patting her hand. “It’s mostly a lot of other junk. I’ve really gotten over that night, really,” I said. “Just bear with me. I’ll be all right.”
We strolled around the compound together poking our noses into sheds and barns here and there as curiosity dictated. As on our previous visit, a strange quiet prevailed throughout most of the area, as if the regular work of the farm was taking place somewhere else miles away.
Far down at the south end of the compound we came upon what looked like a sheep shed. The ramps and pens were set up for running sheep through a water system and prepping them for shearing. A few sick-looking sheep were penned up. The others, we concluded, were probably out to pasture.
As we walked down around one side of the sheep shed, we heard what sounded like human voices coming from an enclosed area. Occasionally the human sounds were overlaid with the obvious bleating of sheep.
We stepped up close to the side of the building and the voices grew louder. There was an argument of some kind going on inside, but the voices were still too indistinct to make out too many words.
I looked around for a door but seemed to find only windows on the structure. I was standing there puzzled when Helen motioned me over to her. She was standing by a sheep pen at the end of the shack.
She pointed to a flight of concrete steps leading down into the basement of the building. To get to the steps required walking inside the building where the shearing was done, but that did not seem to pose a real problem. The worst that could happen was getting our shoes dirty.
We picked our way through the shearing area. Sheep dip was everywhere but most of it had dried. It was hard to believe that better sanitary conditions could not have prevailed. Since slaughtering was not involved there, it was probable no strict sanitary code affected the operation.
We reached the top of the steps without mishap. Helen had reached out to grab a board at one point and had picked up what looked like birdshit on her hand. She wiped it on a clean patch of concrete.
Carefully, we stepped down into the basement well. The door at the bottom opened easily, and we found ourselves in a storage area.
Shushing one another in an effort to be very quiet, we walked back into the basement. The voices were above us now, and we could hear the tramp of boots across the floor along with the other sounds.
We reached another staircase, this one leading to the upper floor, and carefully ascended. A door at the top opened easily and we found ourselves in a corridor hemmed in on both sides by a heavy wire mesh partition.
The voices came from behind the partition on the right side. We tiptoed along the corridor to a point where we could see clearly through the wire mesh the scene that had been our ultimate destination since first hearing the voices.
Four boys, in their middle teens, obviously farmhands, were in the room along with several sheep. One tall boy wore a Montana cowboy’s hat and western riding boots. The other three were hatless and wore conventional workboots. All wore levis and denim jackets.
I noticed another pair of boots out in the middle of the floor, side by side. It seemed strange to see them there so obviously in the center of the room and in the way, yet judging from the attention of the boys, somehow important to what was going on.
The tall boy’s name we picked up as Montie, and he was doing most of the talking.
“Shit, now,” he said. “We ruined a good pair of fuckin’ boots for this, and you gotta change your mind.”
“Aw, Montie, his old man told him sheep is where VD comes from,” one of the other boys said.
“You mean you told your old man you was gonna fuck some sheep?” Montie asked the boy, “Billy, you actually told him you was gonna do it?”
“Naw, Montie,” the other boy came in. “He told his old man he knew of some kid in Denison who did it. He made like it wasn’t gonna be him at all.”
“Tex is right, Montie,” Billy piped up. “I put it to him like that. I ain’t never fucked nothin’ before, and I got like uptight.”
“Well, if you’re that uptight, put on a rubber. Course I figure a man’s uptight about a little ol’ sheep, he ain’t never gonna get up nerve to fuck a woman, right Glenbo?”
Billy was squirming. They were reaching him, and he did not seem to know where to turn.
“Well, why do I have to be the only one?” Billy protested. “If it’s all that good, why don’t one of you guys want to do it too?”
“Cause we already fucked one, man. Me, Tex, and Glenbo already been initiated, right, guys?” Montie asked around.
“Seems dumb, if it’s all that good, just to fuck it once,” Billy allowed.
“Man, you think anyone wants to be a sheepfucker all his life?” Montie asked him. “You want to spend your whole life fuckin’ sheep?”
“Come on, Billy,” Glenbo urged him. “It ain’t so bad.”
“Yeah, Bill,” Tex agreed. “Get it over with. You gotta do it. Them’s the rules. You knowed that when you joined up.”
“Well,” Billy faltered, “you sure Raver ain’t gonna come poking his nose back here?”
“Bill,” Tex said, “I told you Raver’s in Dallas, and Uncle Joe don’t care about nothin’ but them ponies.”
“And eatin’ pussy,” Glenbo chimed in.
“Fetch me one of them sheep,” Montie told Glenbo.
The boy chased one of the roly-poly animals back into another room and came out moments later dragging the reluctant animal by the front legs.
“Give it here,” Montie ordered.
He took the animal and placed its hind legs inside the boots on the floor. The animal tried to move forward but could not move its hind legs. I realized then the boots must be nailed to the floor. The animal bleated in fear.
The boy called Tex dropped a cushion on the floor behind the boots. “Okay, Billy boy,” he said.
“Your move,” Montie said to Billy.
Billy knelt there for several moments, apparently unsure of his next move.
“Nice day,” said Montie, feigning a patient air.
“C’mon, Bill,” Tex urged.
“What do you do first?” Billy asked, as if stalling for time to think.
“Man, you take your cock and stick it in that little ol’ hole right there,” Montie said, pointing to the sheep’s pulsating vagina.
“Look at that,” Helen whispered to me. “It almost looks like a girl’s.”
“Shh!” I cautioned her.
Billy bent over and unbuttoned his fly.
“Naw, Bill,” Tex interrupted. “Take the whole fuckin’ thing off. Otherwise you’re liable to get sheepshit and whatever on your levis. No telling what these sheep’ll do while you’re fuckin’ them.”
“Montie knows a guy in Oklahoma got a wet sheepfart right in the face once, don’t you, Montie?” Glenbo asked him.
“That ol’ sheep got so excited he didn’t know if it was fuckin’ time or shittin’ time,” Montie averred.
Billy had pulled his levis and underwear down below his knees. His meat hung limply in a flaccid state. “Don’t see how I’m gonna do it. I ain’t hard,” he said.
“You can get it up,” Tex assured him.
“Jack it a couple of times,” Glenbo suggested.
Billy spit on his palm and started whacking at the dead organ. It swelled out a little bit and got red, but didn’t harden.
“Keep it up, man,” Montie urged.
“Maybe he needs a cunt to look at,” Glenbo said.
“What the hell do you think that is?” Montie snorted.
“He means a real pussy, Montie,” said Tex.
“Come on, Billy, jerk that thing harder,” Montie insisted. “Ain’t you never jerked oft?”
Billy worked hard at the organ. It finally reached some semblance of an erection, but was far from completely rigid. It would have been a good-sized organ fully hard, but lacking those last few inches, it seemed a pale imitation of its full potential.
He leaned forward on the cushion and pushed his raw penis into the dripping gash. It oozed inside in spite of its flexibility. The sheep responded by bleating excitedly and pushing outward with the sphincter muscles controlling its opening.
“Feels good,” Billy announced, surprised with delight.
The others laughed out loud.
“Well, move it in and out, Billy boy,” Montie urged.
Billy began to pump back and forth at the sheep’s rear end. “Oh, man!” he exclaimed. “That’s good. Does a woman feel that good?” he asked no one in particular.
“Better,” Tex assured him.
He was driving furiously into the animal now. His full erection must have finally developed inside the vagina. I could see that the shaft, when I was able to get a glimpse of it, was much fatter than before.
He let out two short cries of pleasure suddenly and fell across the animal’s back. The others applauded his performance.
“Well done, Bill,” Tex cried.
“Hey,” I whispered to Helen, “Let’s get out of here before they discover us. They’re all through now.”
For a moment she didn’t respond.
She nodded her head in agreement, and we tiptoed back along the corridor to the stairway.
Outside in the sun again Helen was asking me questions.
“Do all young boys experiment with animals that way?” she asked me.
“I suppose the ones that grow up on farms do,” I told her. “Farms where there are sheep.”
“What’s so special about sheep?”
“Well, you saw,” I reminded her. “I think the body oils and fluids are similar to a human’s.”
“I wonder what the sheep thought about it,” she said.
We walked down to the farmhouse hoping to find Cunningham now that we knew Raver was out of town. We rang the bell several times before he finally emerged. He seemed pleased as could be when he saw us.
“Did you come to return the pony or did you have something else in mind?” he asked.
“What else is there?” Helen asked him.
He glanced at me and seemed disappointed Helen did not understand his remark. I had put off telling her about his famous room. I had meant to tell her the night we brought the pony home, but Clyde’s disappearance had become the major topic of discussion that evening, and I subsequently lost immediate interest in talking about the strange incident.
We walked to the car and let the pony out. Cunningham remarked that he was still a stunning animal. Helen wanted to know if he was going to geld the animal.
“Don’t think so,” he said. “If he proves a good stud, throws true, I’d be foolish.”
“I’m so glad,” Helen said, “I hope he throws true, as you say.”
Cunningham looked puzzled. “First time I ever heard a lady choke up over cutting a pony. It don’t hurt them more than a scratch might,” he assured Helen.
“I wasn’t thinking about that,” she told him. “I was thinking about all the fun he would miss.”
Cunningham looked her up and down. “How about that, Miss Starr,” he said to me. “Your sister’s a real winner.”
He had a habit of fixing his stare on a person, and not letting any change in the conversation sway him from the object of his gaze. He was wrapped up now in Helen’s pelvic region. She had not worn hot pants this time, but the skirt she had chosen did an even better job.
I knew what Cunningham hoped for more than anything else in the world, and I had a feeling with Raver out of the way, he might just realize it.
We walked the pony back into one of the stalls in the barn where Cunningham tied the animal in place and filled the feed bucket. Helen had wandered a few stalls down and Cunningham sidled up to me.
“You haven’t told your sister about the Victorian Room, have you?” he asked.