Judd Michaels

The virgin captives

CHAPTER ONE

Penny Tucker finished hanging the last of the wet laundry on the line and picked up the empty wicker basket on her way back to the house. She paused on the screened back porch, wiping beads of perspiration from her fair face with the back of one slender arm. Almost hopelessly, she glanced at the thermometer which hung from a rusty nail beside the back door. It was 85 in the shade, and climbing.

Tired and more than a little fed up with her workday routine, Penny let the wicker basket slide from her fingers to the floor as she padded slowly through the kitchen. She noticed that dishes remained in the sink, still unwashed from last night's supper, but she turned away from the sight, unable to feign interest in a new job at that point.

With a low sigh of virtual exhaustion, Penny let herself slump into one of the living room's two threadbare armchairs, carefully choosing the one with the least exposed stuffing. She half-sat, half-lay in the padded chair, with one shapely leg thrown up and over the mounded arm, her foot swinging casually in mid-air.

The heat wave had been going on now, sapping strength and grating nerves, for almost six weeks. There was no end to the steamy weather in sight, if one were to believe the predictions of the meteorologists on radio and television. It was, in fact, the worst heat wave of any spring which Penny could recall, unusual even for the humid region of Georgia in which she lived.

The surrounding woods and hills, they said, would help to deflect and dissipate the summer heat, but Penny had found the exact opposite to be true. The mountains and valleys of her rural home county seemed only to act as a trap for the heat, holding the sun's scorching rays prisoner there even after dusk had descended to bring theoretical relief. Penny idly wished that she had the money necessary to move north, into cooler weather, or even south, to New Orleans on the Gulf.

The thought made Penny Tucker laugh out loud in the dingy little living room. It was not bad enough that her mother's hospital bills and funeral expenses had eaten up every last cent of their already tiny life savings, but she had to care for her younger sister as well. If anyone moved away from the hard-scratch Georgia farm, both would have to go, and that was clearly out of the question. Besides, Melanie, Penny's sister, was barely fifteen, and if they moved north she would have to go back to school, cutting their potential earnings in half.

Penny Tucker had to admit to herself that it was not the unseasonable heat alone which left her on the brink of total exhaustion that spring morning. She had hardly gotten a single wink of sleep the entire night before, and that was not because of the weather. That was Luke's fault.

Luke Hollowell was the oldest son of their nearest neighbors, Old Man and Mrs. Hollowell, who farmed an almost identical plot of tired ground eight miles away to the east. At twenty-one, Luke was two years older than Penny, and, she had to admit it, quite possibly the best looking young man in all of Cowden County. She was quite flattered that he seemed to take such an interest in her, but at the same time, there were things about their budding relationship which deeply disturbed her as well.

Penny felt the old stirring inside her at the mere thought of Luke, and shook the feelings away, rising gracefully from the easy chair and padding softly through the house to the bathroom. She suddenly felt the need for a cool shower, and with Melanie still away at her part-time job in town, there was nothing to prevent her from taking one immediately.

Penny Tucker stood in the middle of the tiny bathroom, one of only two dozen or so in that part of the county which had both a working shower and a toilet. Slowly, almost dreamily, she began to undress for her shower, unable to keep her mind from wandering back to Luke Hollowell and the problem which had kept her awake all night.