A mind of her own.

Temptations

Deke saw to his dogs first, made sure they had food and clean water, and then checked Susan again. He ran a warmish bath for her, and undressed her while sitting with her on the floor of the bathroom, speaking to her the entire time to calm her subconscious mind, if hers was working, and if she was screaming within herself for him to stop before it got out of hand for her, but that time had gone almost a year earlier.

He peeled her dress up and off her head, throwing it to one side, and then unclipped her bra, easing it slowly off her breasts, feeling breathless at what he was doing for her. This was the first time he had seen her breasts without a bra covering them, and other clothing covering her there. He knew her breasts were substantial, but they were much more than that. She had a pronounced deep purple-red areola that actually arose as a secondary swelling from her breasts, and with that tertiary, more sharply pronounced peak of a n****e, a darker red, on top of that. Her breasts were more disturbing to him than he had been able to imagine, though he had always admired them whenever he could, but without being too obvious. He touched them gently, discovering more about them, their firmness, the hard n****e under his palm, and then realized he should not do any more than that.

Her breasts were magnificent! He wanted to touch, to caress, kiss, lick, and tease at her n*****s with his lips. But he resisted, somehow. She would expect better of him, and deserved better.

He hesitated often and tried to calm his turbulent feelings from everything he could clearly see about her. She had a beautiful body, with everything in proportion, but he knew that already. This was the first time he had seen her entirely without clothes, or her breasts fully revealed. She had the same black hair in both places, as he remembered, though there was not a lot of it covering her down there, and it hid nothing of her more delicate fleshy, swollen inner labia that were inevitably inviting to him to discover more about her, but everything was still off limits, dammit! His mouth was dry, doing this for her.

It was a good job she was not awake to know that he was doing this, or what he was thinking. He undid her sneakers, and took them off her, along with her socks, picked her up, calming his less respectable thoughts about her, and slowly slid her into the warm bath, easing her into it with one arm around her back, and the other between her legs and behind her. He put a rolled up towel under her neck to protect her head as the dog, inside the house with him now, a golden retriever and a good swimmer, watched everything he did. The other dog had gone back outside. He spoke as much for her benefit, and his own, as the dog’s.

“Well, Dog”—he called them both; mother and grown-pup, by that one name most of the time, though they did have names—“she’s a devastatingly attractive young goddess”—devastating to him, anyway—“you’ve got to admit that. She’s the one I told you about, but I never thought she’d ever wind up out here like this, and with me. She’s beautiful enough to drive a man insane, more beautiful and tempting than I thought I knew.” His hormones were speaking loudly to him.

The dog agreed with him.

“Tempting and tormenting to this man, anyway. But I already told you that enough times.” He sighed, as he ran more water, holding her from sliding beneath its surface with his hand holding her between her legs.

No, he’d better not get undressed and climb in with her as he was tempted to do to wash that makeup off her. That would be too dangerous for them both if he was naked too. He’d protected her from that other man, and he wasn’t about to give in so easily to those same feelings in himself, though she already knew that he felt that way about her.

She had gorgeous breasts that took his breath away, but all of her did that to him. She had not been used to places like that bar, and had screamed out to be rescued. He was lucky to have been there. She was lucky he had been there too. Upon such delicate knife-edges of fate, did the course of most human destiny depend. A road taken, or not taken. He shook his head. He was getting too philosophical for his own good.

Two lives could have been irrevocably changed, his and hers, because of five minutes; the time it would have taken him to pay his tab and leave, before she had come in with those other two girls. If he hadn’t been there, he might never have seen her again with term coming to an end. He might never have heard what had happened to her, and would wonder about her for the rest of his life. His mind went back to that place as his anger roiled up again.

Two other lives were being changed even now. He was sure of that. He didn’t care about them or what was happening to them. They were getting only what they deserved. He did care about this one, and she knew some of it. They had changed each others’ lives a year earlier, and had just been marking time until she left that school behind and they could do something about it, though they had never spoken openly about it. That time had now arrived.

He should have done more damage to that soldier. He should have castrated him for preying upon a helpless young woman who didn’t deserve what he, and those other two sluts had intended. He should at least have kicked him hard there. As it was, that soldier would wonder what in hell had hit him when he woke up. If he woke up. Deke didn’t care if he didn’t recover. They’d find his body in the morning. He wouldn’t be the first one to die after a fight there.

Deke knew Susan well enough to know how he felt about her after one memorable occasion in which they had found out so much about each other, and about each other’s bodies. He had never dared say anything directly to her since then to let her know how he felt about her. He knew what his own feeling were for her, but was not sure that his feelings were returned in the same intense way, though all the gradually unfolding indications were that she did feel that way about him. It was difficult to discuss anything, or be more open with each other while they were both in the school, and with all of those attentive students watching them.

The college, where they both were during the day, was not an easy place to get anything going in a romantic way—it was too dangerous for that, and the environment discouraged anything like that—or to be able to socialize as one needed to, to get to know someone of the opposite s*x. There were too many others looking on, and looking in, seeing what was going on, judging, disapproving, jealous, and he was a private kind of person who didn’t like to advertise his feelings to such a large and curious audience of young women. His personal inner feelings had no place in this vulnerable environment, and needed to be ‘checked at the door’ for his own survival and sanity, considering the temptations and lures, constantly thrown at him by a few tens of nubile and horny females.

If she felt the same way about him, and he was sure that she did, she would be able to show it in a few more days without fear of jeopardizing both of their places in the school when the year, and school, finished for the oldest girls.

Susan had been soft spoken whenever they had conversed openly at the college as he did his work, or they spoke over lunch in the crowded cafeteria, which they did almost every day now, after a very slow start between them during her first year at the school when they had begun to notice each other, soon after she had first arrived. They had been attracted to each other even then. She was quite a bit younger than him, although nineteen, almost twenty now, was an age where she should know her own feelings.

Rarely they spoke at breakfast, or over dinner in the school when he was in the cafeteria at those times after working very early or very late. The prices were reasonable, and his meals were covered by his contract with the school. There were always tens if not hundreds of girls around at those times too.

She set his heart racing every time he saw her at lunchtime as he walked over to join her, or she came over to join him. They were always pleased to see each other. Sometimes they walked over together from wherever he had been working in the school, and always with a retinue of curious girls overseeing everything, and also heading for lunch.

She had a laugh that haunted him, like a delicate wind chime echoing in the inner recesses of his mind as he dreamed of an evening, when he was able to relax.

He could smell her, and see her every time he closed his eyes. She was not like any of the other girls in that school. He loved to watch her lips as she talked, admire her unblemished skin and perfect teeth, the gentle curvature of her neck; how her face was perfectly framed by her long hair; her delicate ears; her open, artless eyes, hiding nothing from him. Did she know she was in love with him, or was that his own fevered imagination? Did she know he was in love with her? She should. Others watched them all of the time. A very few knew what they were seeing, or suspected it; a developing love, and envied them. Most didn’t have a clue.

He was a good listener, but she had also taken an interest in him, and had sought to learn about him, about his background.

She had learned that he not only had a science degree (which no one but Miss Childers, the headmistress, might know) but had also served in the army until he had been wounded, and had been declared unfit for continued duty. He didn’t speak about that at all, and she knew enough not to ask, but she had opened his file one day when she had been left alone in the office, and learned what she could. He would not have been out of place teaching at university, but he chose to do manual work at this school. It had something to do with his physical and mental health, after he had come out of the hospital, though there had been nothing wrong with either of them that she could detect.

He was also called to work on the army base from time to time, as well as to hunt alligators that were being a pest, so he had numerous irons in the fire. He was also licensed as an electrician, and a plumber. Employing him, saved the school tens of thousands of dollars each year if not more.

He was also an electronics wizard, which was why he was allowed to keep the computer lab. running as smoothly as it did, but he did that on the weekend or evenings, unless it was an emergency. There was more than enough in that one school to keep him fully employed for the rest of his life, and it suited him to be doing it.

Susan knew about Deke, and knew that Miss Childers trusted his judgment too, and his restraint with the girls, and that he would never let anything interfere with him being kept on there indefinitely. Except when Susan had come into the school.

Miss Childers always seemed to know more about what was going on in that school, than anyone ever gave her credit for. She had also found out about Susan’s and Deke’s attachment to each other, somehow, and more than about them having lunch together almost every day or how they looked at each other, but had said nothing about it to either Susan or Deke.

There was more to Deke, than any other girl in the school, knew, but it had taken a long time for him to let his guard down with her. It had been almost a year after she had arrived at the school. But she had been the same. They were both very private and reserved persons, and cautious about revealing how they felt.