icture postcard. Stand by Mother of God Church -- right across from the seven room middle school -- look down the long lazy stretch of Route One, snap a mental photograph, and that's exactly how anyone would describe Green Briar, Kentucky. America at its simplest. America as it should be. America as it could be. Develop it in sepia tones and it becomes America as it was. As it is. As it always has been. It's a quiet little town, nestled somewhere in between that hazy sunshine of idealism and the dusk of atrophy. Look closely and you'll see the signs.

The original Dairy Queen stands where it has since 1958 when trolley cars still traveled on rails that have been nearly swallowed whole by decades of pavement. Zoom in and you'll see the boredom of the old man behind the counter and perhaps only then you'll realize that no one stands before its sliding screen windows. Still, the old man opens at ten and closes at eight. Dedication Oak is not far from there. It was planted in 1940, when the small community still communed. Its branches reach wide and crooked, casting cool comfort during the day and vexing shadows by the light of the moon. Walk behind it and you'll find a comfortable nook. You can easily fit your entire body in its trunk, press your flesh against the disease and rot which have left only a shell to feed the bright green leaves above. Farther down the road, the General Grocery still stocks great giant sacks on its porch. Once they bore seed, or corn or cracked wheat and flour. Now their plastic skins proclaim "Organic" or "Natural" or "Non-Toxic".

The homes that populate Green Briar are mostly old, like their occupants, and are bejeweled by scars that you have to look close to see. Peeling paint of summers past, broken hearts of lovers lost, rusted gutters of neglect, and youthful dreams whiled away. On any given night, Lester Gieske was one that could be found waving from his porch to passersby who never ventured beyond the town limits, though they secretly longed to do so. At dusk Hester Bowles would tend her garden, coaxing blooms from common roses she planted each time another friend died.

Things were no better and no worse for the young. Malcom Wilson dribbled a basketball down Route One, certain his parents didn't understand him, and always ending up shooting hoops all alone at the school yard where only the stars saw his talent. Every night, somewhere close to ten or eleven and long after she had closed up the General Grocery, Emelia Bruber knelt before her tiny bed in her modest cabin and said her prayers. She remembered her Mama and Papa, asked God to care for them in heaven, but never thought to ask anything for herself. She'd never been taught to; so she never felt the need. And in the back of a rusted old pick-up truck, deep in the woods near Miller's Creek, Dwayne Lardner and Eric Stegman would sit close to one another every night, swapping spit that swilled in and out of a shared bottle of the cheapest liquor they could find. They seldom talked, just looked beyond the horizon, and searched for something they could do to end a boredom that always drove them towards trouble. They were comfortable together. They might have been lovers. Then again, they might not.

 

omewhere past midnight, Emelia Bruber realized she should have asked God for something other than this torture. She gagged every time he thrust his penis into her mouth. She couldn't breath; so she closed her eyes, found a strength she didn't know she had, and bit down hard. She spit the cock out; watched it disappear under her rough-hewn dresser, its urethra trailing from the severed end like a mouse's tail. Blood sprayed across her face and tasted of copper and garlic and salt as her tongue involuntarily dragged across bruised and battered lips. After a second she could finally find the courage to scream, though she knew no one would hear her this far into the woods or over his agonized cries.

"Jesus fucking Christ!" Her rapist shrieked, clutching his hands over what was left of his crotch. Blood gushed through his fingers, painting Grandmamma's dainty quilt with violence. "She bit my fucking cock off, man!"

The other one stopped fucking her only then, when his erection had lost its mind and could do no more damage to her ruined sex. "Fuck!" His sky blue eyes grew wide as he fumbled like a bad lover to pull up his pants. How could eyes so beautiful be so cruel, she wondered, as tears spilt from her own.

"You stupid fucking witch!" The first one said. "You bit off my cock!" There was more surprise than anger or pain. "Teach her a lesson, man."

The second one slapped her hard across the face. Her lip split open again and oddly she noticed that she could not taste the difference between her own blood and that of her rapist. "We gotta get out of here, Dwayne," the second one said, looking over his shoulder as if the police would break through the cabin door any minute.

The first one got on his hand and knees, slued around the room like a half lame mutt. "We gotta find my cock, Eric! I ain't leavin' here without my cock." He thought he spied it underneath the bed, reached for it and fell on his face before realizing it was a dust bunny staring back at him.

Eric pulled at Dwayne's shirt collar, tried to upright him. "Man, we have got to go!"

"Where is it?" Dwayne cried, working his way across the room as he hemorrhaged from his privates. "We gotta find it so they can put it back on!" Half way to the dresser, he vomited up the night's supply of Jalesco. He wished he hadn't used salt -- it burned his throat coming back up -- and the chunks of lime swimming in the brown soup made him wretch again.

Eric came down to his level, stared him straight in the eye. "Don't be a dickhead, man!"

"What?!"

"You know what I mean."

"Then help me find it!"

"No way! I am getting as far away as possible from this place." He bolted out the door, leaving his best friend, his Tequila-bud, lying on the floor in a pond of his own blood and puke.

And Emelia laughed. She laughed so hard it hurt her stomach.

"Fuck you!" Dwayne screeched, dragging himself towards the dresser.

"You can't!" She sat up, pointed a bony finger at him, and peals of laughter erupted from her gut. "You're getting warm," she cackled as his eyes darted under the highboy. Feebly his hands shot under it. "Hot. Hotter!

Dwayne felt woozy from the pain and alcohol, and his flesh grew cold as dirt. The stench of himself wriggled its way up his nose as he pressed his cheek to the floor and saw a lone eye staring back at him. It seemed to smirk. His mangled cock was laughing at him as he passed out.

 

melia Bruber recognized the faces that stared back at her from the jury box. The pastiche of hazel, green, and brown eyes, and the blue, bible-black and blonde heads were familiar, yet not fully known. Each one had passed her at one time or another at the little general store where she worked, but seldom did they speak to her. "Townies don't socialize with mountain folk," her Mama had told her once. She never quite understood why. She never understood that behind closed doors, after asking God's blessings for their evening's bounty, or in furtive afternoon coffee-klatsches they would use words like "odd" or "inbred" or "witch". She always wore a smile for each of them as Papa and Mama had taught her; and although her amiability was invariably met with up-turned noses or downcast eyes, she never thought badly of them for it. It was simply their way. They were acting as her own family might have had strangers moved into their little Blue Mountain enclave. But when Mama and Papa died, leaving her all alone in the small cabin they had built at the end of Narrows Road, she realized how singular her life was in this little town. Still she smiled for them, day in and day out. That's what good girls did.

When the trial began, she had no doubt they would do the right thing. Acquittal had been close, however. Small town prejudices flowed easily behind the simple oak doors with words like "consensual" and "loose" bandied back and forth like so much of a game. She would never know how close they had come to setting Dwayne Lardner free. All she knew was that they had done their job and she was grateful to them even if, for the first time, she didn't feel clean enough, good enough, to meet their pitiful gazes.

"Does the defendant wish to make a statement before the jury undertakes sentencing?" Judge Henderson asked from the bench.

Dwayne stood up, smoothed back his newly shorn hair and straightened his tie. Wincing a bit and leaning on a cane, he turned to the jury and one by one met each of them in the eye. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury. I know most of you nearly all my life. I got drunk and I did a bad thing." Emelia turned away as he looked at her. "And I'm sorry for what happened. I'm really, truly sorry. Every day, I'll live with the memory of that night. Everyday, I'll carry the physical scars. I'm a young man who did a terrible thing and I'll have to live the rest of my life as a Eunice."

"Eunuch," his lawyer corrected.

"Eunuch. I think most men would find that punishment enough. But here I stand before you, repentant and asking for more. But only that which is just and fair. I'm asking for mercy. Don't trade my life for a childish act."

Emelia looked up as those words echoed through the chamber. Childish. As if it had all been a prank. As if the scars he would bear would be grander than her own. As if the prison to which he would be sent would be deeper and darker than the one into which she had already been condemned. Her heart raced, bile fingered up her throat, and she came to know true hate at that moment. This simple little "mountain girl" who had never thought ill of even the most unkind, wished nothing but pain and suffering on this one man. And she was no longer afraid to meet his eyes.

"Miss Bruber," Dwayne stammered, his practiced speech betraying a bit more of his southern drawl. "If I could un-do everything, I would. I wish I could turn back time. I wish I could trade places with you, because I know the pain I've caused you is terrible. But I can't. No one can."

 

ake up!" The voice said.

A scream vaulted from deep within Emelia as a familiar voice roused her from the most peaceful, complete sleep she had had since the rapes. A hand clamped down over her mouth, calluses scoured wounded lips, and she knew he had come back. Sky Blue eyes had come back. She struggled to remember his name.

"What is with you?" Eric held her down, rapped her lightly across the face.

"Don't hurt me!" She croaked, her voice low and resonant and unfamiliar.

"What the fuck have you been smokin', Dwayne?" Eric laughed, his tender blue eyes reflecting moonlight which cascaded through an open window. "Hurt you? How the fuck am I gonna hurt you?" He waved a bottle of Jalesco before her eyes. "Unless you mean Senor Ta-Keel-Ya."

Emelia sat up, drew an unfamiliar duvet over her shoulders, felt the whispers of fine soft hair which peppered her naked chest. Blue Eyes towered over her, waved an amber bottle in front of her bleary eyes, and then bounced down on the bed. "What do you want?" She asked, her body begging to be swallowed into the heavy wooden headboard.

"Bubba, it's Saturday night. I want to get drunk and get some."

Her hair felt coarse as she ran her fingers through it, and the stubble on her face tickled her palms as she brought them down over her chin. Her fingers were larger, powerful, with broad tips, splintered cuticles, and a smattering of dark hair just above the knuckles. She spread them wide, flexed them, felt the strength as they balled into a fist.

She must be dreaming, she thought, as she gazed at Blue Eyes and then peaked under the covers at her new body. The tiny breasts -- those Mama had always said were "just enough" -- were gone, and a firm, sturdy chest had taken its place. Goosebumps rose and fell, blood toasted her cheeks, and muscles twitched as fingers brushed over nipples that hardened into stone. A shiver possessed her body, invaded every cell as flesh wavered and tiny hairs stood on end. Lower a foreign piece of meat throbbed, kept time with the palpitations of her heart, and brushed against her leg leaving a viscous promise of experiences yet to be. A soft groan oozed from her soul, and her cock jumped upright, tenting the covers.

"Well, I guess you're ready. Get dressed." Eric laughed and yanked the bedspread away. Emelia instinctively tried to cover herself. Her hand grasped her cock and electricity shot through her spine. The feeling was so strange, so painful and so promising. Her cock jumped in her hand, fought not to be covered, and threatened explosion every time she made the slightest move.

"Wait outside!" She barked at Blue Eyes. Even the movement from her deep voice brought her cock alive, and she fought back the ecstasy, the power and helplessness she felt all at once. Eric just shook his head, got up and headed for the door. "Whatever, bub. Just hurry the fuck up."

Emelia swung her legs over the bed. Instantly she stopped, her body quaked, muscles tensed and a burning started in her groin. Short staccato breaths filled the room, and her dick bounced uncontrollably. It hurt so good, she thought, and she tried to choke the orgasm off, either strangle it into submission or sustain those virgin moments forever. She stood, her legs trembling and heart racing as white seed spurted out of her dick and fell into the braids of shag at her feet.

When the convulsions stopped, she marveled for a moment, caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror across the room. Her's was not the fragile body she remembered, but the powerful one. One that just the day before had repulsed her so strongly. One that had been sentenced to five years in prison for the brutal rape of her own true body.

"I wish I could change places with you," she said, her husky voice filling the room. She stared in the mirror, watched her new mouth say the words. "I wish I could turn back time." Her accent was thicker than he had sounded in court, and she was so mesmerized by the power of it that she didn't really hear the words. "I wish," she said, relishing every syllable, "I could turn back time."

The mirrored brown eyes grew wide, bushy eyebrows arched, and she bolted for the night stand. Next to the overflowing ashtray was a Walgreens digital watch and the right combination of pressed buttons flashed the date before her eyes: August 19, 1992. However it had happened, whomever's wish God had listened to, time had been turned back to that night, when Emelia's whole life had changed.

 

he night was as peaceful as any Emelia had ever experienced. Heady from the humid night air, thousands of cicadas came to their boiling point and filled the nearly empty streets outside the General Store with music as thick and sweet as syrup. Almost un-noticed, Miller's Creek played its own symphony of water and stone and of never-ending journeys. The man in the moon hung low in the sky, his cock-eyed gaze winking at the odd pair who sat in the back of Eric's neglected pick-up. Surrounded by shovels and ropes and bags of peat, they swilled cheap tequila from a half empty bottle, munched out lime, and licked salt from their fingers' crotches as the heat brought forth sterile flashes of lightning that promised neither rain nor fury.

"God's taking pictures," Emelia said with Dwayne's voice.

Blue Eyes erupted into drunken laughter; spit his mouthful of liquor across the flatbed. "You are so fucking weird tonight, man." He coughed. "And that was a waste of some damn fine tequila." He brought his lips back to the bottle, took a swig, and then grabbed a piece of lime from the Kroger bag nestled between them. Emelia watched his beautiful eyes sprout crows-feet at the tartness of the fruit.

"That's what my Papa used to tell me when I was little, that's all." Eric laughed some more. "What's so funny?" Emelia asked, taking the bottle from his hands.

"I just didn't know your Dad was such a big old faggot, that's all."

"Don't you talk about my Papa that way!" She swallowed more of the amber fluid, tamped down her anger with a salty, burning solution she was beginning to enjoy. It warmed her in a way so different than Grandmamma's quilt or memories of her family in better times. She could feel it coursing through her veins, every drop making her stronger, more confident, more like the man she had become.

Eric raised his hands in deference, sighed and looked into the stars. "It doesn't get better than this, Dwayne."

Emelia shrugged, reached for a lime and the paper tub of Morton's, and prepared for her next shot. "Eric, ya ever think things could be better?"

"Whadda mean?"

"Have you ever thought about everything you can do?"

"Like what?"

Emelia shook her head, looked out at the expanse of stars laid out before her. One after one they lined up. From whatever star you chose you could go to the left or the right, or straight ahead if you wanted. But never back, though you could. Never back. Tonight she needn't make any wishes on those lights. She could reach out and touch them if she wanted. "Like everything. We could do anything."

"Us? Dude, we can't even get a fucking landscaping company off the ground." Resignation escaped from his lips. "I was mowing lawns when I was ten I'll be mowing lawns when I'm eighty."

"You don't ever wanna get out of here? This town?"

"What for? What's out there that ain't already here?" He pointed his fingers west. "Fresh pussy. Ya see it; ya stab it and all that's left is old pussy."

"But haven't you ever wondered what you could be if you just left."

"Why would I wonder that?"

Emelia caught his dreamless eyes; saw the sparkle drain into gray. It was familiar, something she had felt all her life. Mama and Papa had brought her up right, with a healthy respect for people and a fear of God, and a desire to be nothing more than they told her a girl could be. Here and now, with an incandescence in her belly and sparks detonating through her new flesh, she felt unlimited, free, powerful. She could do things she couldn't before and she didn't understand why Eric couldn't feel it too. She could do things she couldn't before. She could.

"Eric," she whispered, smelling the stale alcohol drift from her lips as she brought the bottle up. "I'm fucking horny."

 

ric lay dazed on the ground. He didn't know where he was. He heard water nearby, soft and trickling, though the sound of it made his head hurt. Through blurry vision, he saw a leaf, its veins stretching out in every direction, and he focused on it, tried to reach out for it, but every movement made his body ache.

"Good, you're awake."

He heard Dwayne's voice and suddenly found himself looking up at the stars and his buddy's face. "Dwayne, what the fuck happened?" Blood poured into his eyes from a gash in his forehead he would never know he had, and the dark of night kept threatening to swallow his friend up whole.

"Nothing compared to what's going to," Emelia said, watching Eric's eyes roll back into his head. "Wake up Blue Eyes!" She bellowed, feeling invincible. Eric's eyes snapped open, drifted a little, tried to focus. Emelia reached down, unbuckled the Levi's Strauss monstrosity around Eric's waist, and ripped open his jeans. It wasn't easy to get them off. It took all of her strength to do it.

"What're you doing, man?" Eric's words were slurred, his beautiful blue eyes marred crimson.

"What I can." She pulled off her tan cowboy boots, threw them aside, and dropped her own jeans to the ground. Her cock needed no preparation, it was as hard as steel. She knelt, bent his legs up to his chest and ran her rough fingers up the crack of his ass until she found the hole. She stabbed him with her cock.

"Shut up!' She clamped her hand over his mouth when he screamed with the first thrust. Her cock wounded him somewhere inside, she felt the tissue split, and she saw the blood decorating her dick as she slammed it into him over and over again. "Do you like that, baby?" She echoed the words he had once spoken to her.

He was warm and tight inside, and Emelia just wanted to leave her cock there; let it bathe in the heat of his ass. She liked it most, though, when she pulled nearly all the way out and his asshole grabbed the tip of her cock, tried to expel it like a tough shit. She'd wait a second, make him think she would stop, and then she shoved it in again, more ferociously. "Tell me to stop," she commanded as she pulled out.

"Please...stop." Eric cried, and she fucked him harder and harder, nearly moving his entire body across the ground. Each thrust made her proud of this gift of manhood, and she laughed as she came.

 

re you in there?" Emelia asked herself, making sure to keep her strong hand clamped over her former mouth. Dwayne woke with a start, his eyes darted across the unfamiliar room, and he found himself gazing upon his own face.

"You are, aren't you?" Emelia asked, smiling an oily smile that wasn't her own. She took her hand away, and Dwayne's feminine mouth trembled but remained silent. "Answer me, Dwayne!" Emelia slapped her body's face hard. "Are you in there, Dwayne?"

"Yes...yes...yes..." Dwayne cried his own tears, felt them run down over his temple, make the long hair around his ears damp and uncomfortable.

"Do you remember what happened that night?"

Dwayne nodded her head

"Are you scared, Dwayne?"

"Yes."

"Good." Emelia ripped the cotton nightgown away and stared at her own naked body. The breasts, indeed were just enough, and she licked them as Dwayne had done that night. They didn't get hard, but that didn't matter to her. Down below she saw the dark mass of delicate hair that protected her sex, and she ran her fingers through it, put them inside, just as Dwayne had done.

When the curio box hit her head, Emelia was surprised, dazed, and infuriated. Dwayne clamored from the bed, landed face first onto the floor, and Emelia instinctively brought her foot down hard on her back. She bent down, pressed her broad chest against her naked back, and hissed into her ear. "Now, that's not being a very good girl."

Emelia flipped Dwayne over, sat on his pelvis, pinned his arms to his side with strong knees, and felt tiny bones grind into the floor. Her thick fingers fumbled with buttons and zippers; hips wrangled out of denim, and Emelia's flaccid cock flopped out onto the swell of Dwayne's precious tummy. She leaned down, and through foreign eyes she saw him and found herself: beautiful, young, tender, naive, weak, helpless, brittle, breakable, good, kind. Her eyes narrowed as she stared down upon herself -- no, at Dwayne -- and her body quaked; a burning snaked from her belly and brine and fire coated her throat. The vomit burst forth uncontrollably, barely missing Dwayne's face as it retched forth, and he laughed at her. Emelia's ears caught her own familiar sound and she struck Dwayne hard across the face. "Fuck you!"

Dwayne pointed his delicate finger at her and cackled. "You can't! You can't do it you stupid fucking bitch!"

Emelia looked at her strong hands, curled them into a ball, brought her right fist down hard on Dwayne's face, and her cock came to life. She punched again, splitting the image of Mama's lips wide open, and she was hard. The third blow made her ooze precum onto Dwayne's tender belly as Papa's delicate nose crunched under the beating.

"Dwayne?"

"What?"

"Get ready."

Emelia stabbed it and it felt beautiful, tight and hot. She stabbed it again and it felt right. Faster and faster, and she knew an ecstasy that had escaped her all her life.

 

melia raped Dwayne until their vagina grew dry and brittle. She felt no guilt, no remorse, no self-hatred. Those things she knew were reserved for Dwayne, captive in his new body, his powerless body, and her self-hatred withered into self-possession. She smiled as she walked the mile back to Eric's old pick up, laughed when she thought of him where she had left him...face-down in Miller's creek. Alive but damaged. She spread her arms wide, hugged her male body. She was alive. She was undamaged.

By noon the next day, Emelia had managed to put nearly seven hundred miles between her and her old self. Eric had kept a tiny stash of cash in an old shoe box under the front seat, and when she ran out of money, she had no fear of ripping off soda machines or little corner markets that were closed up tight for the night. She was impregnable to fear.

The new flesh between her legs became unruly at times, constantly begging for attention, and she stopped her journey on occasion to release the pressure. But she never stopped for long. Until sleep gave her no choice. Somewhere just outside Tulsa, she pulled into a rest stop off the freeway, parked the truck under what little shade she could find, and grinned as she drifted away.

 

er body had never hurt so much as she stretched out. Her legs cramped, her crotch burned, and her face seemed to crack as she yawned wide. Shards of sunlight leaked into her swollen eyes, and as she tried to open them, she saw the well-known pattern in the wood of the ceiling and the stale knick-knacks strewn around the room. Tears seared her scars as fingers crept out, felt for a Grandmamma's quilt, and pulled it up over naked, bruised, and bloodied shoulders. And she knew that somewhere, just outside of Tulsa, Dwayne was starting the engine of a rusted out pick-up truck, slipping it into gear, and getting as far from home as a man could get.

 

[END]

© Paul G. Bens, Jr. 2002