DOMINION Bentley Little (accelerated reader books .TXT) 📖

the lights were out. Only the pulsing blue glow of a television shone from one of the windows.

Paul crept up to the window, peeked in. He crouched immediately back down, giggling. “Check it out!” he whispered. “He’s in there boffing some babe!”

The rest of them moved closer and peered into the bedroom.

Dion’s stomach dropped. One of Penelope’s mothers, Mother Margaret, was on all fours on the floor next to the bed, the preacher kneeling behind her, grasping his hardened organ, positioning himself. Dress and underwear, pants and panties, were strewn across the rug. An empty bottle of wine lay tipped over on the nightstand next to the bed.

Penelope’s mother cried out, and her large breasts jiggled as the preacher entered her from behind. “Yes!” she moaned. “Yes! Yes!”

Dion turned away, sickened, slumping against the wall of the house.

“Get ready to run,” Paul said. He stood, held up the camera he’d brought, and began snapping pictures. Dion could see in his mind the shifting tableaux as the dark was illuminated by a series of quick flashes. He saw the preacher’s shock and rage and fear, saw Mother Margaret’s confusion as she became aware of the crowd at the window.

“Run!” Paul screamed.

And then Dion was following the rest of them through the brush, crashing through branches, slipping in mud, tripping over roots until they reached the van.

They took off, laughing excitedly. “Who was that?” someone asked.

Kevin shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“Nice titties, though.” Paul grinned. “No wonder my old man coveted her ass.”

Dion closed his eyes as the other boys laughed, and they sped through the night toward the burger stand.

He avoided Penelope the next morning at school, afraid to face her, feeling guilty, almost as though her mother’s actions were his fault, as though he was the one who had done something wrong.

He met Kevin next to the lockers before class, but the usual joking insults were nowhere in evidence. His friend’s face was grim, his manner subdued. “You heard the news, didn’t you?”

Dion shook his head.

“Father Ralph’s dead.”

Dion stared at his friend, not knowing what to say.

“Heart attack, they think. Paul’s really taking it hard.”

“What about the woman? Did they—”

“Haven’t heard anything about her. I bet she split after it happened.”

“Maybe it happened after she left.”

“I don’t think so. I think she probably brought it on.”

Dion closed his locker. “Does—does Penelope know?”

“I have no idea.” Kevin frowned. “Why?”

“Nothing,” Dion said. “No reason.”

Kevin looked at him suspiciously. “No reason?”

“No reason.” He swallowed, looked away. “Come on. It’s getting late.”

Kevin nodded slowly. “Yeah. All right.”

The two of them walked together to class.

He talked to Penelope on the phone that night.

She called him, worried, wondering why he had avoided her all day, and he wanted to tell her what he’d seen, what had happened, but instead he lied, told her that Kevin was having some family problems and that he’d felt obligated to be there for his friend, to give him some moral support.

Penelope was silent for a moment. “I thought maybe it was because you’d changed your mind.”

“Changed my mind?”

“About us.”

Now Dion was silent. His heart was pounding, and his hand holding the receiver was shaking. He swallowed, forced himself to speak. “I haven’t,” he said.

Penelope, when she spoke, sounded as nervous as he felt. “How do you feel about me?” she asked.

He knew what she wanted him to say, but he wasn’t sure if he could say it. Or if he should say it.

He said it anyway: “I love you.”

And it was true. He didn’t know if he’d felt that way before, if he’d felt it all along, but he felt it now, and his pulse raced as he heard her say softly, “I love you too.”

A painful erection was pressing against his jeans. He was in his bedroom, with the door closed, and he unbuttoned his pants with his left hand, releasing his hardened penis. He touched himself gently, and he pretended that she was the one who was touching him.

Neither of them had spoken yet, and Dion was aware that the silence was becoming awkward. “Do you—” he began.

“Are we—” Penelope said at the same time.

They laughed. “You go first,” Dion said.

“Are we going to see each other this weekend?”

“Yes,” Dion said. He was stroking himself, and he closed his eyes as he pressed the receiver to his ear, wondering if Penelope would be stroking him this weekend.

“They’re having a fair tomorrow and Sunday,” she suggested. “I read about it in the paper.”

“That sounds good.”

“I can drive if you want.”

“No, I can drive,” Dion said. He suddenly thought of Penelope’s mother, naked on her hands and knees in front of Father Ralph.

And he came. Semen shot all over his jeans, all over the bedspread. He released his softening organ and looked at the mess, disgusted. “I have to go,” he said quickly. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Okay?”

“Okay. What time are you going to come by?”

“Is ten o’clock okay?”

“That’s fine.”

“Ten o’clock, then.”

“Okay.” There was a pause. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“Good night,” Penelope said.

“Good”—he had been about to say “bye,” but somehow “night” seemed nicer, more intimate, more appropriate—“night.”

He hung up the phone, looked around for Kleenexes or a towel or a napkin, something to clean up the bedspread. He grimaced as he wiped his sticky left hand on the cuff of his pants. What the hell was the matter with him?

He didn’t know, but he thought again of Penelope’s mother, on her hands and knees, and for some reason he remembered the wine he’d had at Penelope’s house, how it had tasted, and his penis began to stiffen.

Before he knew what he was doing, before he could think about it, he had pulled his pants down around his ankles and was once again furiously stroking himself.

He climaxed almost immediately.

30

“Fifteen cents is your change. Thanks.” Nick Nicholson dropped the coins into the young woman’s open palm and watched admiringly as she walked out of his store to the red Corvette in the parking