"Why? What's frightened you like this?" It was obvious to her now that the girl was terrified of something and it didn't require much detective work to figure out who else was involved in whatever the trouble was. "It has something to do with Roxanne, doesn't it?" she asked.
Mimsy's head shot up like a bolt and the terror was dancing openly in her eyes. "How -? No! No, it has nothing to do with her!"
"What did she do to you, Mimsy?"
"Nothing!" the girl insisted, but with such fear in her voice that it belied the assertion.
"Why are you so afraid to tell me what's wrong?" June pressed. "I've seen the way Roxanne was looking at you all during class and how you didn't want to look back at her. Just now, before she left, she said something to you. What was it?"
"N-nothing"
"What was it, Mimsy?" June demanded, making her voice more counselor than helpful friend. Sometimes, she knew, it was necessary to use her authority with the girls in order to help them, even though she preferred keeping the relationships on a more equal basis. "I want to know. If you don't tell me what's going on between you and Roxanne, I'll have to take both of you to Mrs. Marchant and…"
"No!" Mimsy suddenly cried, clinging more tightly to June's body. "Please don't do that!"
"Then tell me what Roxanne said to you before I came over and why you're so frightened of her. Is she bullying you and the other girls in your cabin?"
"No…"
"What did she just say to you?"
Mimsy gulped hard before answering in a soft, tearful whisper. "She said that if I told you anything she'd hurt me. Bad. She said she'd hurt me bad."
"Told me what?" June persisted.
"About – about last night."
"What happened last night?"
"Oh, please don't make me tell!"
"What happened, Mimsy?"
"She – she took me outside – I mean – I asked her to take me outside because I had to go to the toilet and I was afraid because I didn't know the way and it was dark – but not like she says!"
June's head was spinning in confusion. "I don't understand. What are you trying to tell me? What happened when you and Roxanne went outside last night?"
"She – she – oh, June, I can't tell you!"
As the young girl clung frantically to her body, sobbing out her heart, a sudden notion shot through June's mind hat almost sickened her. At first she wanted to reject the very idea as preposterous, even repellent, but the more she thought it over as Mimsy continued to sob against her, the more realistic and accurate it seemed.
"Mimsy," she said firmly, drawing the girl slightly away from her so she could look into her eyes as she asked the question, "did what happened with Roxanne last night have anything to do with – sex?" She almost whispered the final word, knowing full well that if she was mistaken about her hunch she might be stirring up more trouble than was already brewing.
"Sex…?"
"Did she – do anything to you? Anything she shouldn't have, I mean?"
Slowly, fearfully, glancing around her first as though to see if Roxanne were anywhere close by watching her, Mimsy nodded her head up and down.
June didn't know how to react to the admission. It was a relief to know what the problem was, but it didn't make it any easier to deal with. Especially not after what she and Pat had done themselves the previous night. She found herself being torn in two directions. On the one hand, she felt indignation and anger as a counselor, knowing that such affairs between the girls under her charge had to be stopped at all cost; but on the other hand, as a lesbian herself, she felt a strange thrill running through her to be holding Mimsy so closely in her arms and knowing that she, too, had known lovemaking with another girl.
"What did she do to you?" she asked, then bit her tongue in shame with herself for having asked. The question had not come from June the counselor, interested in the girl's welfare, but from June the lesbian, titillated by the idea of Mimsy and Roxanne together and wanting to know more details.
"Do I have to tell you?" Mimsy sobbed.
"No, of course not." June tightened the hold of her arms around the girl and rocked her slowly, comfortingly, back and forth. "Not if you don't want to, Mimsy."
"I'm – so ashamed…"
"Then it's all right; you don't have to tell me any more. I'll take care of everything."
"You're not going to tell Mrs. Marchant, are you?" Mimsy asked, her eyes springing wide with fear.
June considered it for a moment. She knew it was her duty as a counselor to report any such incidents that became her knowledge, but as a girl who had known sex with other girls herself, she couldn't report what she knew to the camp's owner.
"No, I won't tell her. Not unless Roxanne bothers you again and you want me to tell Mrs. Marchant about her so it will stop."
"Couldn't I move into another cabin?" Mimsy suggested. "Away from her, I mean? Maybe if I moved in somewhere else…"
"Of course," June said without hesitation. "That's just what I was thinking of doing. I'll arrange everything with my friend Pat. We'll put one of my girls in your place and you can move into the cabin with my girls." It was still so early into the summer that nothing much would be thought of a transfer like that. If any questions were raised by Mrs. Marchant or the other owners, June knew all she'd have to say was there had been a personality clash.
"Oh, that would be so wonderful!" Mimsy enthused, clinging tightly to June once again. "I know I'll be so much happier with you, June. It'll be a wonderful summer being one of your girls, instead of…"
"Instead of what?"
The sudden sound of another voice made them both look up in surprise.
"Instead of one of my girls, you mean?" Pat growled angrily. Her eyes darted jealousy from Mimsy's face to June's, taking in the way they were holding onto one another.
"Oh, no! I didn't mean that!" Mimsy insisted.
"Then what?"
"Pat, I'll explain in a minute," June cut in. "Mimsy, why don't you go back to your cabin and pack up your things so you'll be ready to move when everything's been arranged?"
"Okay," she said, smiling as brightly as she could manage.
"And wash your face," June called after her. "Your eyes are all red and they're such pretty eyes."
"Okay!" Mimsy laughed, turning to wave goodbye as she hurried toward the girls' cabin.
As soon as she was out of earshot. Pat stepped forward with an angry glower on her face. "And just what was all that about, if I may be allowed to ask?"
"We've got a problem," June sighed.
"So I noticed," she cracked. "A problem with big, beautiful blue eyes and a hot little body!"
"What…?"
"You're picking them kind of young this year, aren't you, darling?" Pat hissed. "I can understand that you're tired of me because I'm pushing twenty-one, but isn't sixteen just a bit young?"
As the realization of what Pat was accusing her of took hold, June's face tightened in anger. "Do you think -? You do! Oh, what a filthy mind you have, Pat! Honestly!"
"Are you telling me what I saw with my own eyes isn't true?"
"What did you see?"
"I walked over here to find out what was keeping you after your class and I find you wrapped in the arms of a hot little piece of ass. Then I hear her saying how much happier she's going to be as one of your girls instead of mine! What as I supposed to think?"
"With a mind like yours," June snapped sarcastically, "I guess there's only one thing you could think. But you're wrong. What you're thinking never even entered my mind."
"I'll bet!" Pat snorted.
June had to lower her eyes to keep from showing how much the very idea she was denying had been in her mind. Holding Mimsy as she had, she'd felt very definite stirrings inside her that had nothing at all to do with her feelings toward the girl as counselor to camper. Those feelings shamed her, and hearing Pat accuse her of them aloud made it even worse.