The Convent Rose (The Roses) (3 page)

“If Catholic girls never lost their virginity, there wouldn’t be so many Catholics in the world. It’s like your duty, Noreen. If you won’t do it tonight, you’re out of the club,” Renee bullied.

Noreen downed the contents of her Sprite can as fast as she could. “I’m almost ready. Bodey?”

“Not Bodey. It’s his birthday, and he doesn’t want some inexperienced little virgin ruining his fun. Let’s walk over to the barns, and I’ll give Bodey a present he won’t forget.”

They tried to stroll casually past the cadre of adults, but the drunkest of the girls kept giggling and drawing attention. Mrs. Barnum called out from a table where Mr. Burns showed her a glossy brochure of Jaguars from his newly acquired franchise. “Where you going, Bodey?”

“Ah, just takin’ the girls to see the foals out in the pasture. They’re real cute.”

“Don’t be long, you hear?”

Bodey nodded and kept walking. He’d heard about Rusty’s cousin. The group crossed the road and headed for the nearest of the barns where a few mares in season were being boarded. Plenty of empty stalls full of clean rice hull bedding stood ready for a romp. As soon as Bodey slid the door open wide enough to slip the two girls through, he found Rusty kicking at a hay bale.

“Hey, Russ. The girls want to give us a present,” Bodey announced happily. When he got closer to Rusty his voice dipped, and he whispered, “That Noreen is a virgin. Never had one of those myself.”

Russell Niles jerked his head up and appeared startled and suddenly shy. His Cousin Renee busily worked out logistics.

“Noreen, you go over and stand by my cousin. The rest of you girls get out and walk down the hill. Pretend to admire the horses. Bodey, you come along with me to the other end of the barn while we find ourselves a comfortable spot. Noreen Courville, you know what you have to do if you want to be part of the Sexy Seven.”

Renee led the way to a clean stall near the rear door of the barn. She checked to be sure the walls were high enough for privacy and saw Noreen and Rusty moving into a stall near the front door.

“Good. If anyone gets caught, it will be them. She crooked her finger at Bodey.

“You got condoms, cowboy?”

“Sure. Big Ben told me never to leave home without ’em. There’s two in my wallet.”

“Here’s how this is going to happen. I want my tits and down between my legs rubbed for a good long time before you stick it in, you hear. You may kiss me as much as you want. You put on your own condom, too.”

The ground rules laid, Renee unhooked her backless sundress and dropped it to her waist. Two firm young breasts sprang free, the pink nipples already jutting out in anticipation. Bodey clamped his hands down on the boobs and began to rub.

“Not so hard, Bodey!”

“I know what I’m doing! Big Ben took me to a real whorehouse in New Orleans when I turned sixteen, but I had two other girls before that after rodeos and some since.”

“Then shut up and do it.”

Bodey applied his mouth to Renee’s nipples to free up his hands. He let his fingers wander under her dress and strip off her pink bikini pants. He worked with his fingers until she was good and slick and gasping and bending back into the rice hulls. As he knelt between Renee’s legs, he unzipped and fumbled a condom from his wallet. Shoot, he should have given one to Rusty. Well, shoot, just shoot.

At the other end of the barn, Noreen sat huddled in a corner of the stall. Her eyes were wide, and her lips quivered. “I’ve never done this before. I had to get a little bit drunk to do it.” A gentle burp passed her lips.

“We haven’t done anything yet, Noreen, and you shouldn’t let Renee push you into it. She’s bossy and mean. Why, we don’t have to do anything. We can just say we did.”

“Really? No, Renee will want some kind of proof.”

Noreen’s dark eyes seemed to fill her face, they were so wide. Rusty bet she thought she was fat, but the girl had a nice round figure and a pretty pink and white complexion like the china figurines his mom collected. His dad had broken some with his clumsy attempts to use the vacuum. The rest sat covered with gray dust.

“Give me your panties. I’ll get you some proof.”

Self-consciously, Noreen removed a pair of pristine white cotton panties from beneath her plaid kilt, taking care that she showed nothing off in the process. Rusty listened for a moment. The moans and grunts from the far end of the barn were loud enough to cover his exit from the stall. He found one of the nervous mares there for breeding, raised her tail and rubbed the crotch of the panties against the horse. He crept back to where Renee watched, her dark eyes peeping over the stall. “Here,” he said, offering the panties.

“Oh, yuck! Gross! I can’t put these back on!”

“Suit yourself. Here.” He wrapped them in a ball and stuffed the wad into the pocket of her blue, parochial girl sweater.

“I can’t go back to the party naked down there, Rusty.”

“Okay. Let me think. Turn around. Don’t look.”

Noreen heard the sound of his zipper going down, his pants dropping. She worried that he might have changed his mind completely. A few seconds later, the sounds reversed. The cloth swished upwards. The zipper zinged to the top of a pair of pants.

“Here, wear mine. I put them on clean before I went to the party.” He dangled his tighty-whities on one finger.

Noreen took them gratefully, stepped into the leg holes, and pulled the underwear up. The cotton was still warm from his body.

“Rusty Niles, I believe I want to kiss you.”

She did. Her lips were plump and tasted of the salt and lime of margaritas taken on the sly. Rusty put his arms around her and prolonged the kiss. Noreen opened her mouth to breathe, and he slipped in just a little tongue. He found his hands moving to the soft breasts under the simple white blouse.

A shout came from the far end of the barn, then an order. “You just keep moving, Bodey Landrum.”

Sounding a little out of air, Bodey called, “You need a condom, Rusty?”

“Got my own, thanks!” Russ tried to answer in the same gasping voice. He whispered to Noreen. “Lie down and sort of swirl your head in the rice hulls.”

Rusty lowered himself carefully on top of Noreen. If he wasn’t careful, he’d embarrass himself. They kissed some more until they heard a shriek from Renee. Russ rolled off of the girl and instructed, “Try to look satiated, will you?”

They lay side by side waiting for Bodey and Renee to put themselves back together. Noreen closed her eyes and breathed through half-open lips. She put a hand behind her head making her rumpled white blouse gap. Rusty could see the swell of one flushed breast. He closed his eyes and tried to relax. Finally, the other couple came clumping toward their stall. He helped Noreen up and was brushing rice hulls from her hair and skirt when Renee looked in.

“Well, how did it go, Noreen?”

“Great, really great. It didn’t hurt at all. I think Rusty Niles is the most wonderful boy I’ve ever known.”

Bodey raised his dark eyebrows at Renee. Renee looked at her cousin as if she’d never seen him before. She sniffed. “Coming from a member of the Courville family, I guess that is a compliment for all of us lowly Niles.”

Then, Renee said smugly, “Well, I guess Bodey Landrum is the best lover I’ve ever had, and he’s going to be the best bull rider in the whole world.”

“Bodey, Bodey Landrum! Some of the guests are leaving. You come out here and say good-bye.” Mrs. Barnum’s voice came closer and closer to the barn.

Frantically, Rusty Niles brushed Noreen’s backside. She tossed her hair trying to remove all the rice hulls. Bodey, though, he just sauntered out meet his mother in the spring twilight as if nothing had happened. He did keep a hand over the place where his championship belt buckle had gone missing—down the front of Renee’s dress. Oh well, he could win another one. Renee followed him, her frock looking as if she had slept in it, her hair as full of rice hulls as if she had been showered with confetti.

Bets gave her son a once-over stare along with Renee and the sheepish couple behind them. “I think it’s time for your little friends to go home, too.”

The boys walked the Mount Carmel girls back to their convertible. Despite Mrs. Barnum watching from a distance, Renee gave Bodey a sizzling good-bye French kiss of some duration. “Happy birthday, cowboy. I hope you enjoyed your present.”

“Yes, ma’am, I sure did. We got to get together again some time.”

Noreen pecked Rusty’s cheek and even that caused him to blush, the curse of the redheaded. “I hope I’ll see you again.”

“Me, too.” Russ ground his boot toe into the grass and concentrated on his action to avoid looking in those beautiful brown eyes.

The convertible packed solid with passengers again, Renee drove away with her clique, the Sexy Seven. Bodey turned to his best friend. “How was she? Nice and tight, I’ll bet. Did she cry or did she like it? Man, I should have told you more about pleasing a woman, but I didn’t expect us to get lucky tonight, not with all the old folks around.”

“I think I’m the lucky one. Noreen is fine. I wish I could see her again, but she’s a Courville and I’m a Niles. Romeo and Juliet’s families couldn’t hate each other more. Still, I think I could fall in love with her. Maybe I’m in love already, it feels so right.”

Bodey slapped Rusty on the back a little disappointed that his buddy wasn’t more of a kiss-and-tell kind of guy. “Forget about old plays. Come on, a man doesn’t fall in love at first fuck. We got years ahead of us, just you and me having a good time on the rodeo circuit. We’ll drink hard and screw plenty of women before we settle down. When we do, I’d want a wife like Eve Burns. You know kind of fancy and refined, not easy like Renee. Sorry, I know she’s your cousin and a mighty good lay, but you don’t marry a girl like that, now do you?”

“I’d marry someone exactly like Noreen as soon as she’d have me.”

“Sucker,” Bodey said and meant it.

Chapter One

Rainbow, Louisiana

Fifteen Years Later

Who would have thought the great Bodey Landrum would be spending his thirty-third birthday alone? Rich and famous with that segment of the population who followed rodeo, here he sat in a mansion smelling of mildew looking out over an empty swimming pool with cracks in the bottom. Compared to last year’s blowout when he treated his friends to thick steaks, all they could drink, and the cowgirl of their choice, this was pretty damn pitiful.

He found retirement hard to take—even if his bum knee and his bad back had been begging him to quit for the last several years. On this damp Louisiana day, all the bones he had broken during his bull riding career ached. A storm was coming for sure. Since his first action upon arriving back at the old Three B’s had been to stock the bar from Plato’s Liquor and Food Store in Rainbow, a remedy stood ready and available, but a man who drank alone was a sad case, a very sad case.

The avocado green refrigerator in the kitchen still worked. He had stuffed it with milk, bread, butter, beer, cold cuts, eggs, a couple of pounds of hamburger, and an entire flat of Ponchatoula strawberries that looked so red and ripe at the roadside stand, he’d bought too many. Thinking back on his grocery purchases, Bodey decided to eat out.

He hadn’t noticed much action in Rainbow on his first trip into town. The convent school still dominated Main Street from behind its iron gates. The mellow brick buildings, lawns, and oaks had the same air of serenity they had always possessed. The female students still wore the ugly blue plaid skirts and white blouses of which he had some fond memories. The graveyard remained as quiet as ever.

Rainbow itself had changed. Peeling white frame cottages were overlaid with pastel siding, pink, pale yellow, and blue. The small front yards running almost to the blacktop blossomed with mixed spring bulbs set in front of new picket fences. Screening had been ripped from the old porches that now held rockers painted to match the siding instead of old car seats and moldy sofas with the stuffing coming out.

Bodey heard the town council had voted to change the spelling of the name to Rainbeaux in order to cash in on the Cajun culture craze. Mayor Plato vetoed the plan and won support by telling the old story about the miraculous founding of the place under the sign of a real rainbow. So instead, the Chamber of Commerce backed writing grants to paint all the houses in a rainbow of colors and clean up the front yards. Evidently, they had gotten the money. Sometimes, being a dirt-poor place helped. Rainbow had weathered the oil bust with hardly a notice and now prospered in a new way.

The ancient Rainbow Café, once a shanty with a crudely painted rainbow on the side and not a place you’d take your mother out to dinner, had been increased in size and yuppified. They’d added a new porch where large parties waiting for tables could sit on cypress benches among the planters of asparagus fern and purple petunias and smoke if they must. Smoking was now banned where once the people not only lit up, but chewed and spit as well. Ja’nae Plato had threatened to fix the place up years ago, and now she’d done it. Bodey just prayed to God the café still served great ribs.

As a single, almost immediately he got an odd-shaped table with only three chairs wedged into a corner. Ja’nae Plato, serving as hostess, had a paler complexion than many of the Cajuns eating in the place. Only in Rainbow would she still be considered black. Bodey wondered why she didn’t leave. She had been cordial enough, remembering him not as a rodeo star, but as a friend of her brother’s and fellow graduate from the high school in Opelousas, which was nice, he guessed.

That the Rainbow Café even had a hostess he counted as a bad sign. Hope returned when he caught a glimpse of Ja'nae’s mama, Leontyne, in the kitchen still supervising the deep fat fryers. He had to say the Platos were equal opportunity employers. Several white waitresses scurried around the place and some dark-skinned people worked in the kitchen and behind the bar. His server brought ice water and a menu. He waved away the specials of the day.

“Tell me if they still have the best pork ribs in Louisiana.”

The waitress, a tall blonde with nice, but not enormous tits and a classic, but not knock-me-down beautiful face, gave Bodey the smallest of smiles.