I flopped over on my back. "You mean it took you two hours to walk home?"
"No. Well, yes – in a way. I want to tell you something. I was coming up State Street and I passed this house on the corner, you know, the old Hillier place. Well, this guy that came to the door, the guy with the black beard, was standing on the sidewalk. He said hello to me and asked me where I was going. I told him I was going home. He told me I was cute and asked me inside the house on the corner. He gave me three beers, Tommy."
I felt my spine doing strange things. I sat up in the bed and reached for the light chain and gave it a yank. The light came on and I looked at Elly angrily. "Don't you know enough not to go into a house when some guy asks you?"
She giggled. "Oh, he didn't hurt me none, Tommy. Besides, what are you yelling about? You've been inside that house."
I felt a bit cold now. "Elly," I said, "how in hell did you know that?"
"I saw you. I saw that woman putting her arms around you, too."
"Okay, okay. So you know about her. Tell me something. When you went inside with the bearded guy, was – she there? I mean, was she in the house?"
"Didn't see her. Tommy, how'd you ever get – next to her?"
I shrugged. "My handsome appearance flatters all women, my girl."
"Stop kidding. How did you really get next to her?"
"I don't know. She saw me on the street in front of her place and asked me if I'd carry out her garbage."
Elly giggled. "She just wanted to get a young boy inside the house, didn't she? What did she do to pay you for carrying out the garbage? Did she let you get on top of her? I'm curious."
"Y-Yes, she did. Sort of. I mean she – oh the hell with talking about it, Elly. Skip it, can't you?"
"Mr. Basil makes movies. He'd like me to be in one of them. He told me. Wouldn't that be something? I kind of liked him. He was nice."
"Nuts. He's old enough to be your father and then some. You better knock off that kind of talk. He had a hell of a nerve coming out on the street and enticing a thirteen-year-old into the house. I ought to tell Dad about that guy."
She clutched my arm fiercely. "Tommy, no. Please don't tell Dad. He'd knock my head off."
"He wouldn't knock your head off, you know he wouldn't. He'd keep a watchful eye on you from here on in, though. You must have been nuts to go inside that house with that guy. Weren't you afraid he'd – rape you?"
She giggled. "I was kind of hoping he would."
I knocked her hand away from my arm, the hand that was clutching me. "You're absolutely nuts, kid. You've flipped – completely flipped."
"I was just joking, Tommy. Just the same – he was an awful good-looking man, very kind to me."
I snorted. "Kind, my ass. He wag just throwing you a line so he could get into your pants sometime. Don't you know that?"
"He didn't throw me any line. He just talked to me."
"Same thing. I'll bet he didn't even let his eyes scoot up and down your body, right?" I was sounding a bit sarcastic now.
"Sure he did that, Tommy. Why wouldn't he? I'm pretty. You said so yourself."
"You know something? I think you wanted that old guy to do it to you."
She giggled. "Maybe I did. So what?"
"And you're the girl who calls me stupid all the time. Brother!"
"Well, anyway," she said, "he didn't do nothing to me, but he sure made me hot."
"How did he make you hot."
"I don't know, the way he looked into my eyes, I guess."
"The three beers didn't hurt any, did they?" She giggled. "Guess not. Beer always makes me hot, Tommy." She reached down and took one immediately. She sucked in her breath and bent over it, and started to play with it. It, quite naturally, got hard immediately. She sucked in her breath and bent over it, her lips poised just a few inches from the head of it.
"Can I, Tommy?" she asked softly.
I felt like telling her to forget it, to get out of my bed, but I didn't. The look on her pretty young face made me hot. "Guess you can if you want to, Elly, but I think you…"
"Thanks, Tommy," she said unsteadily. "Seeing your… thing makes me want to… eat it up."
"Guess those three beers are working pretty good, eh?"
She giggled but strangely. "Maybe. What makes it get hard like this, Tommy?" She ran her fingers up and down on my dingus.
"Search me. What you wanna know that dumb thing for?"
She lifted my balls and let them drop gently. "Awful funny thing, a dingus. Wish I had one, Tommy."
I grinned. "You'd be some girl with one of them!"
She giggled again. "Yeah, guess you're right. I wouldn't really want one. If I had one of those I wouldn't have a…"
"Have a what, Elly?" I asked, wanting to hear her say it.
"A hole in me, silly. What did you think?"
"That's not the word for it. What's the real word?"
She lifted her head and looked up at me and smiled. "Cunt, you stupid thing. You know that."
I was getting very excited now. "Do you like having a cunt, Elly?"
She laughed. "Course I do, stupid. Think I'm crazy or something?"
"I don't know," I replied. "Going into a guy's house at night and letting him feed you beer is pretty crazy."
"How about you? You went in the same house and got on top of that woman."
"That's different."
She let go of my prick and looked at me angrily. "How is it different?"
"I'm a guy. It's… different with a guy. You should know that."
"Why is it different?"
"Well…" I waved my hand. "If you don't see it, you don't see it. Forget it. Say… how come you let go of me?"
She wrapped her fingers around my thing again and bent her head and ran her tongue over the head of it. "Boy, that… tastes good, Tommy. How come it tastes so good?"
I grinned. "I don't know, silly. I'm not a popper."
She looked at me again. "A what?"
"A popper. A guy who… does things like that to another guy."
Her blue eyes looked strange. "Honestly? You mean guys do things like this?"
"Naw. Not guys. Not real guys. Just poppers."
"Oh… I see… Tommy… Are there girl poppers, too?"
"You mean girls that like other girls?"
"Yes, I've heard there are. They call 'em something else."
"What do they call 'em?"
"Thespians, or something like that."
"A thespian is an actor, stupid."
"Well, how in hell would I know about stuff like that?"
She bent her head and ran her tongue over it again. I shivered and held her head there. She didn't care for this, apparently, for she jerked her head free.
"Wish you wouldn't do that, Tommy. Anything I hate is for a boy to hold me, force me."
My ears picked up, "you mean some guy has tried to force you?"
"Of course, stupid. Lots of times. Those dumb guys. They don't know the first things about how to treat a girl."
"What guys are you talking about?" She shrugged. "Just guys."
"Did that… Basil guy try to force you, Elly?"
She was silent.
"I see. Then he did try. Well, real crazy stuff. Boy, are you ever dumb?"
"He didn't do nothing to me, Tommy."
"But he tried to. Right?"
She squirmed on the bed a bit. "Well… he did run his hand up in under my skirt and pinch my leg a few times."
"Did you… like it?"
"Sure I liked it. Think I'm dead?"
"Did he try to stick his finger in your cunt?"
She was silent. "Well, did he?"
"Y – Yes. Several times."
"Did you… let him do it?"
Again she was silent. "Are you gonna tell me or not?"
"Yes, he did."
"You let him put his finger in your snatch. Man, are you ever nuts."
"It didn't hurt nothing," she said, sulking a bit.
"What if he'd knocked you over the head and maybe killed you just so he could…"