The Bad Lady (Novel)

©
Copyright by John Meany

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No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author.

INTRODUCTION

This story deals with the taboo subject, child sexual abuse. Sadly, as much of most of us try to ignore this disturbing issue, or pretend that it does not exist, child sexual abuse does occur in the world.

Now meet young Billy Hall, who will be narrating the story.

“Take it away, Billy.”

“Thank you. I’m a little nervous.”

“It’s all right to cry. I understand that this is still very painful for you to talk about.”

“It is.”

“Just relax. No one is gonna judge you. Just tell everyone what happened.”

“That’s not true. People will always pass judgment. They will always have hateful opinions when it comes to child sexual abuse.”

“Yes my friend. But you‘re a victim, not a perpetrator. That‘s the difference.”

“Good point.”

“Before we get started would you like a cigarette?”

“Yes please. I seemed to have run out.”

“Here you go.”

A match lights. Tobacco smoke ascends toward the ceiling. “Thank you. I appreciate that.”

“A big part of the healing process, Billy, is about being honest. So are you ready to tell your story?”

“Okay. I‘ll try.”

PART ONE

The Ice Cream Truck Comes To Town

CHAPTER 1

Many people think only men abuse children; however, I am living proof that that is not always the case. This woman that I am about to tell you about had sexually abused me, and the shocking incident would soon tear my family apart.

What should I say about me?

Well, I guess I wasn’t the type of child you could easily talk with. I was shy and I did not really trust people, particularly adults. So when she first started coming around my street back in the year of 1998- I did not really trust her either.

Nevertheless, she began to win me over relatively fast with all of the free ice cream she would give me. You know how much kids like ice cream.

How old was I?

Back then, ten-years of age, that’s it. Almost eleven. I tell no lie.

In those days, I was your typical boy with short, cinnamon-brown hair and a face full of freckles who knew absolutely nothing about life, except for what my favorite cartoon was Pinky and the Brain. At the time, I thought that Good Humor truck she drove was more inviting than a candy store. You heard me correctly, this person who would turn out to be a pedophile, worked as an ice cream truck vendor.

The day I had taken my last ride with her, I remember it being one of the hottest days of the summer that year. Summers in Hampton, Ohio, a small quiet suburb just west of Cleveland, can be sweltering. And I vividly recall that, underneath her clothing, she had on a skimpy string bikini. I could see the distinctive purple outline through her see-through blouse. This woman had generously proportioned boobs, like a Baywatch beauty. She wore her raven-black hair long; the bangs were combed straight back, held in place with bobby pins.

“Would you like to sit on my lap while I drive?” she had asked me. Her name was Miss Sutcliffe, but on the day I had met her, she had informed me that it would be much more fitting if I called her Nancy. I agreed. At age thirty-eight, Nancy Sutcliffe had recently gone through a rocky divorce, or so she had claimed. Allegedly, she had been married to a dentist named Arthur, for five years. Five years of no fulfillment, she had stated on numerous occasions. No, you guessed it; Nancy never had anything respectful to say about her former husband. She ridiculed the man endlessly.

“Okay,” I declare, getting behind the wheel.

“That’s it,” she tells me, helping me onto her lap. “Hop on up.”

I did. “Does that hurt?”

“No. You‘re not that heavy,” she jokes.

Sitting on Nancy’s lap, I noticed right away that her long legs were warm and smooth. I could also feel her large breasts pressing up against my back.

Nancy let me steer the box-shaped vehicle, which, like every Good Humor truck in America, and in countries abroad, it jingled happily with carnival music. On practically every tree-lined block, there were smiling children waiting for us with handfuls of nickels, dimes, and quarters. And in some cases, hundreds of pennies spilled either from their piggybanks or maybe from the family’s glass change jar. Some of these kids, who would be waving their hands, I recognized from school. When summer vacation ended, in the first week of September, I would be starting junior High.

“So Billy, how do you like driving the ice cream truck?” Nancy asks, while directing my hands as I steered. I could smell her perfume. The fragrance emitted a delightful lilac aroma, which reminded me of the cosmetic’s department at the mall, where my mom sometimes took me when we would go shopping together.

“It’s fun,” I told her, and I wasn’t exaggerating. All the kids in the neighborhood thought I was cool because Nancy and I were friends.

That summer I had been driving around with her at least twice a week. My mom did not pay much attention to me. Therefore, she had not had much of a problem with Nancy and me spending time together. And well, my dad I never knew because he had run out on us shortly after I was born.

Looking back on all this now, I realize Nancy had probably been aware of how neglected a child I was. I think that might be why she had decided to take advantage of me.

“Billy would you like to take off your T-shirt?” she asks. “You’re pretty sweaty. I could put the shirt in the freezer for a little while, so that when you put it back on, it will be nice and cool.”

Naturally, as a young trusting child, I had not been suspicious of that at all. In fact, I had thought it made perfect sense. Why not take my shirt off and let it cool off in the freezer? It was ninety degrees out, with the mercury still rising.

Anyhow, so I let her take it off. That’s right; Nancy took my T-shirt off, not me. And when she took it off, it made my hair messy.

That’ when I became aware that this female vendor who would ultimately turn out to be a pedophile, was having me steer the Good Humor truck, with the carnival music now turned off, down a ‘Dead End’ street. Today this road leads to one of the main highways in town. However, back in 1998, it led to sandy hills and thick woods.

“Now doesn’t that feel much better?” Nancy asks sweetly, tilting the little fan above the steering wheel downward, so that the frigid air would blow directly on my face and bare chest.

“Yes,” I said. “That cool air feels great” Then I added warily, “Nancy why are we driving down here? I don’t think there will be much business on this road. It’s mostly woods.”

“The Good Humor man,” she replies, “or in my case, the Good Humor woman, has to drive down every street, Billy, even the lonely back roads. You never know who might be down this way craving ice cream.” With hands that had long polished red fingernails, she began to massage my shoulders, eagerly.

As we kept driving, it soon became apparent that no one down this way wanted to purchase a cold treat. Some of the houses in this part of town were ugly, rust-stained trailers. The last one we had passed, before reaching the ‘Dead End’ sign, had, in the front yard, a mangled car tire hanging from a tree. An old man with a grubby beard and a corncob pipe in his mouth sat in a lawn chair, next to a large, scattered pile of loose engine parts.

We’re in the hillbilly section, I remember thinking.

Nancy had me park the ice cream truck in the dirt clearing. The dense pine forest lay just beyond the golden rolling hills. This secluded spot in town was where people sometimes rode dirt bikes.

“What are we stopping here for?” I asked, perplexed. Nancy continued to knead my shoulders.

“I decided to stop and have lunch,” she answers, shutting off the engine. She lifted me off her lap and stood up. “Did your mother feed you today? I have two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. You can have one if you want.”

I told her that I wasn’t hungry, that, at noon, before she had picked me up on the corner near my house, I had eaten a monster-sized bowl of spaghettios.

“Then you must be in the mood for a tasty Italian ice,” she says. She dug one out of the icebox. “How’s lemon sound?”

“Sounds delicious,” I told her. Then I quickly started to spoon some of the flavorful ice into my mouth.

That’s when Nancy all of a sudden opened her trendy knapsack and produced a pile of Polaroid snapshots. I had no idea what sort of images the photos contained. While giggling, she flipped through the pictures, making preposterous facial expressions. As you could imagine, this sparked my curiosity something fierce.

I asked if I could have a look.

“Billy,” she declares, “if I let you look at these Polaroid‘s, you have to promise me that you won’t tell anyone that I showed them to you.”

“What kind of pictures are they?” I inquired.

“Very private pictures, very personal. Now I want you to put your hand over your heart and repeat after me, ‘I Billy Hall promise that whatever Nancy is about to show me will remain our secret.’”

After I had pledged that I would not tell anyone, one by one she began to pass me the Polaroid’s. They turned out to be naked pictures of herself. Startled, I did an instantaneous double take.

“Nancy, how come you’re not wearing any clothes?” I asked, studying a photograph that showed her lying in a hammock. The photo must have been snapped in the tropics, because, in the background, I observed a white beach, palm trees, a jungle, mountains, and the bluest aquamarine ocean I had ever seen. Nancy wore a straw hat, sunglasses, and, in her hand, she held an umbrella drink that came in a coconut.

“When those pictures were taken,” she explains, “it was a hot day, Billy, almost as hot as it is today. So to combat the heat, I elected to strip down to my birthday suit.”

“Who took these pictures, your husband?” In the photos, Nancy smiled for the camera proudly, like a model in Playboy, as if it was no big deal that she laid there buck-naked.

“My husband. No. Are you kidding? The cabana boy took these. These photos are from last year, from my vacation to Waikiki Beach.”

“Where’s that?”

“Hawaii.”

“Oh. Okay,” I say. “That’s what I figured when I saw the palm trees and mountains.”

“My man didn’t want to go,” she adds, handing me another provocative Polaroid, one where she is making a strange face and sticking her tongue out at the camera. “While I was seeking sun and fun, going to swinging nightclubs and rockin’ parties, my hubby stayed at the office to check for cavities, clean people’s teeth, and perform root canals. How dull.”

“Isn’t that what dentists do?”

“Yeah.” With an unclenched fist, she bopped me naughtily on the arm. “It was a joke.”

“Oh. Sure. Right. I get it.”

She laughed. “No you don’t. You‘re so hilarious.”

She passed me another photo. In this particular one, Nancy was stepping into the peaceful Pacific Ocean, showing the camera her bare behind. Her entire body, shaped like an hourglass, was bronze from the sun; and there were hardly any tan lines. I did not know what to say. Yet could not stop staring intently at these colorful, seductive images, they fascinated me.

“Don’t I have a perfect tush?” she asks.

“Tush?”

“Yeah. Can. Crack. Booty . . . Here. Give me that.” She snatched the picture from my grasp and then, with her finger, pointed. “That, right there, my fanny. Isn‘t it marvelously sculpted?”

I nodded. “Uh huh.”

“You could bounce a quarter off my caboose.” She used her hand to slap her butt. Smack! “See that? No fat whatsoever. And do you know how I keep my booty looking like this, in prime condition?”

“No. How?”

“Yoga baby.” She grinned. “And jogging. Yup. Sometimes I run ten miles a week.”

Again, I did not know how to react. I had never had a grown woman talk to me this way. Or for that matter, even a female my own age. This was all new territory for me.

That’s when Nancy unbuttoned her see-through blouse. Her enormous boobs practically bounced out of her purple string bikini. Almost immediately, I felt my body start to tingle with arousal, not only from her shirt being open, but also from staring at the naked Polaroid’s. I had once experienced a similar sensation back in the fourth grade, when Bianca Flowers, a pretty girl who had sat behind me in class, had kissed me on the cheek. Bianca had kissed me because I had given her a compliment regarding the yellow ribbons in her hair.

“Billy, what time do you have to be home today?” Nancy asks, now withdrawing a bottle of Miller Lite from the freezer. She had a bunch of beers in there, about six or seven of them, tucked behind boxes of strawberry shortcake bars.