Barely aware of the coming storm, Maybelle sat on the front porch, staring at nothing. She had never imagined anyone could be so alone. Living by herself, way out here, only added to the feeling she was completely cut off from the rest of the world. Although she stared at the muddy yellow clay road running off her property to another muddy yellow clay road, all her thoughts were on escaping.

A stubborn, unrelenting all-day drizzle had replaced the thick fog that had persisted for the previous week. Now, churning blue-black clouds piled high and collided all across the sky, unwelcome messengers of much worse weather to come. Yellow clay dust, churned up by the swirling breeze before the drizzle began, had settled in a thick layer on the freshly swept porch and lent its own distinctive odor to the smells of damp, rotten wood, rain and pines. When Maybelle was brought back to reality by the low rumble tumbling across the pine forest, she walked slowly to the end of the porch and looked around the woods, hoping to see at least one friend. But, even the chickadees and meadowlarks, normally darting about the meadow in search of last year’s seeds, sat on the lower limbs of the trees, their feathers ruffled and heads pulled back against their breasts. It seemed all the wildlife usually making Maybelle’s little piece of Tennessee their home had gone into hiding. She couldn’t blame them. Not only was it an immeasurably dismal day, the sky had become dark and scary. And, Maybelle was afraid of the dark. She was smart enough, and had taken enough psychology classes to know she was suffering from depression, but what the heck, she had a right to be depressed.

One more month and she’d be off to Raleigh, but she wished she could leave sooner, like today. With daddy buried years earlier, since mama died, there was nothing to stay here for. Not a lot mattered, now, except escape. A tear slid down Maybelle’s cheek and dropped to the weathered gray boards of the porch floor, making its own miniature mud puddle in the dust. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand and turned to open the ragged old screen door, its squeaky, rusted hinges like the rest of the place, slowly falling apart.

Stopping just inside the door, the same terrible loneliness and hurt enveloped her, as it had at mama’s funeral. She looked around at the broken-down, worn out furniture and wished mama still sat there in the rocker, reading her beloved bible. The steady splat-splat-splat of water dripping into pots, pans and buckets provided a haunting serenade of accompaniment to her feeling of aloneness.

Maybelle was struck by guilt for the way she felt about the tiny four-room shack. At least, she considered it a shack. Before mama died, it would have hurt her deeply if Maybelle had expressed her true feelings about their home. But, it had no sink, no bathroom, no air conditioning or central heat, no telephone, no nothing. It was, plain and simply, a shack. What else could she call it? The only heat in the winter came from the wood cook stove in what could jokingly be called a kitchen. That same cook stove made the place unbearably hot in the summer, so many summer meals were cooked outside over the stone fire pit daddy built.

Over the years, too many bricks had fallen from the top of the chimney and lay in a haphazard heap, oblivious to the danger their departure from the chimney had caused. The coldest winter nights, when the stove glowed cherry red, flames climbed up the soot-filled chimney and beyond its shortened top. Often, the winter wind whipped the flames dangerously close to the dried out wooden shingle roof. These same unaware, uncaring winds blew snow through the cracks in the walls, when the weather turned nasty. Then, Maybelle piled everything available atop her bed, including her one coat. Still, by morning, the fire in the stove would have burned itself out, and she awakened, shivering from the cold eating its way through all her protective efforts.

Summer and winter, hot or cold, dry or wet, they had to travel a hundred yards to the outside toilet. Mama said daddy set it that far away to keep the flies away from the house. In the summer, when it got sticky and hot, they couldn’t buy enough fly spray to keep the pesky little devils away from the little wooden single seater. Maybelle supposed her mama had been right. With all its faults, and as much as Maybelle dreamed of living in a fine home like her friend, Suzy, the airy little house had been home for as long as she had lived. The one kind thing she could say for it was its beautiful location in the middle of ten pine-covered acres. In the spring, when the wildflowers bloomed and the meadow once more turned green, she couldn’t imagine a more beautiful spot anywhere on the earth. She was sure God had made it perfect, but had done so in the summer, then forgot all about it the other six months of the year.

To mama, the little hovel had been home. To Maybelle, it was a prison - a poor, miserably depressing, dilapidated pauper’s shack of a prison. It hadn’t seemed quite so bad before mama died, but now, it seemed the house died a little more each day, its ultimate goal, to be reunited with its dead mistress. The cracks between the loosely nailed board siding had gotten wider, the breeze more easily rattled the windows in their frames, several new leaks had appeared in the roof, requiring an ever greater number of pots, pans and buckets during a rain, and the front porch was in real danger of collapsing and sliding down the hill toward Nashville, atop the sticky yellow clay.

Maybelle knew there had to be a better way of life out there, somewhere. After daddy died from the black lung disease, as so many of the coal miners did, mama got a small pension from the miners’ union and a little money from social security, but together, it wasn’t enough to improve their lives. And, God knows, mama worked herself into the grave trying. But, having only a third grade education, about all mama knew how to do was hoe and pick cotton, tend a garden and cook. She never owned even a treadle type sewing machine, mending all their clothes by hand and trying to make a few extra things for her only child when money allowed. Mostly, she bought flour in big cloth bags with some sort of flowered print on the bag. When the bag was empty, mama turned it into clothes. Laundry was done on a washboard in a big galvanized tub and hung on a clothesline to dry, where in the winter, they froze solid into grotesque creatures of all sorts in the moonlight. As a young child, the frozen ghosts had frightened Maybelle out of her wits on many an occasion. Poor mama had it hard all her life, and Maybelle lived in stark fear she might be stuck in the same pathetic, destitute situation, if she didn’t get away from this place.

As she stared at the rocker, Maybelle thought about mama coming home after a hard day in someone’s cotton field or garden, so tired she collapsed into the rocker and fell immediately to sleep, the worn old bible in her lap. It was as if mama prayed every night that she wouldn’t have to return to the struggle the following morning. Maybelle got tears in her eyes every time she thought about mama becoming more and more stooped as the years passed. Mama was a small woman, and her desperately fragile spine eventually was unable to recover from being bent over all day in someone’s field.

After standing almost in a trance, thinking about her dead mama, Maybelle suddenly realized she had little time to get ready for the awards ceremony. She agonized over going at all, with nothing to wear, and knowing all the other seniors would be well dressed. As she removed the bib overalls and flour sack blouse and put on the only decent dress she had, it pained her deeply to have to wear such an ugly thing. Sure, it was the dress mama got married in, but who else would wear an ankle length dress decorated with what seemed like thousands of tiny pink carnations on a mauve background? If that wasn’t bad enough, pink buttons, the size of half-dollars ran the length of the front.

Maybelle stood before the peeling, framed mirror procured from K-Mart ages ago, and which her mama so happily hung on the back of the bedroom door. She again wiped away tears, remembering how proud mama was of the five-dollar purchase. But now, the mirror, like the rest of the house, seemed to mourn its mistress’ passing. The mirror had, long before, turned a scratchy yellow and distorted everything. As she looked at the chubby, poorly dressed girl in the mirror, tears continued down her too-fat cheeks. Maybelle covered her face and sobbed softly, silently asking God why he took her mama away and why he made her so ugly. Why didn’t you make me pretty… like Suzy?

She had hoped she could dry her tears and lose the redness in her only pretty attribute before Suzy arrived. Despite her homely exterior, Maybelle had absolutely beautiful eyes. Were they but some joke God played on her? They were the color of new sprigs of pine needles; not a definite green, but a soft yellow-green. Everyone who wanted to say something kind about her commented on her pretty eyes and beautiful long lashes. It always embarrassed her, because she knew she was anything but pretty, and they were only trying to say something kind. Yes, she had beautiful eyes, but nothing else worked with them. Her chin was too wide, her nose too big and her face too fat. Sometimes, she stared into her eyes in the mirror and pretended everything else about her matched their beauty.

***

As usual, Suzy showed up early - a half-hour early. Darn her. Now, Suzy would know she’d been crying again, and she’d have to listen to her lecture all over - the same lecture she’d heard a hundred times.

Of course, the first remark out of Suzy’s mouth was, "Good God, Maybelle, girl, you’re not wearing that damned thing, are you?"

Maybelle didn’t know whether to slap her face and run Suzy off, or ignore her unintentionally hurtful remarks. Sometimes, her only friend really got under her skin. Suzy had absolutely everything Maybelle lacked. Beauty, money, a daddy, everything. Finally, Maybelle stared out the dirty kitchen window to avoid looking at Suzy and said quietly, "You know it’s the only dress I have."

"Well, I’m gonna tell you somethin’ for your own good, Maybelle, girl. Someone five feet four and a hundred fifty pounds shouldn’t wear a dress that makes them look fatter. And, that’s exactly what that dress does." As she usually did, when lecturing Maybelle about something or another, Suzy stood with her feet apart and her hands on her hips. When her gaze moved to Maybelle’s feet, she shook her head. "You’re not really gonna wear those ugly red shoes? My gosh, Maybelle, girl, I know you have better looking shoes than that." There was the usual, "Oh, man, you look awful" whine in Suzy’s voice.

Maybelle’s entire body stiffened, and she tried to be angry instead of hurt. She blurted out rapidly, "Dammit, Suzy, they match the red in the dress. I’m not exactly rich, you know." The look she gave Suzy said, "Shut up about the way I’m dressed."

Suzy turned toward the door and, in a still disgusted tone said, "Well, to hell with it. C’mon, we’re gonna be late."

Maybelle hung her head down and stared at the floor, not knowing whether to cuss or cry. Again, she wished her mama were there. Why’d you have to go and die, mama? It just isn’t fair! "I don’t want to go, Suzy."

"Hell, you gotta go, Maybelle, girl. You don’t show up, they might give your scholarship to some dumb-ass like me."

As mad as Maybelle got at Suzy, she could never stay mad. Suzy always had something to say that made her laugh. Of course, she knew better. The scholarship was hers whether she went to the awards ceremony or not. Her friend sure couldn’t qualify for a scholarship with her C’s and D’s. "Okay, okay, I’ll go. But, you have to promise, you’ll bring me straight home immediately after the ceremonies."

"Fer cryin’ out loud, Maybelle, I was planning on sneakin’ out to Cemetery Hill with Bobby to git a little."

Maybelle felt her face flush, but managed to get out, "Let’s go, but you forget about Bobby until you bring me home, or I’ll just walk home."

As Maybelle wound the piece of rusty wire around the glass doorknob to hold the front door shut, Suzy opened her umbrella and said, "You’d have to be crazy to walk home in this rain. It’s six miles."

Maybelle knew she might be laughed at for the way she was dressed, but she didn’t care. It was she who had the full four year scholarship, because she paid attention and learned all she could in high school, while most of the kids worried mainly about going out to Cemetery Hill to party. As the Baptist preacher said one Sunday during his hell and damnation sermon, "You can walk from one end of Cemetery Hill Road to the other without stepping on the ground for all the beer cans and used condoms.

Wesco was a small town some thirty-five miles outside Nashville, and a number of small communities in the area used the same high school, so the gym was filled to capacity when they walked in. And, just as Maybelle was sure they would, little chuckles followed her all the way to the stage to receive her awards. As soon as the stack of awards she’d earned and the letter of commitment for the scholarship were placed in her hand, she headed directly for the side door of the gym. To heck with waiting for Suzy to finish talking to the half dozen boys in the foyer. She’d walk home.

The rain came down heavier, and Maybelle hugged the large brown envelope to her chest to protect it. She was getting drenched, but her scholarship papers were more important. She was nearly out of the parking lot when Tommy Fairfield stepped out in front of her and startled her half to death. "What do you want, Tommy?"

"Hey, I didn’t mean to scare you, Maybelle. I just wanted to apologize for that bunch of morons laughing at you. I’m really sorry. Where you going?"

"Home."

"How you gonna get home? You’re not walking, are you?"

Maybelle started around him, as she answered, "Yes."

Tommy moved over to block her way and said, "Aw, dammit, Maybelle, you can’t walk all the way out there with all this rain and lightning. Like I said, I’m really sorry about all them fools in there. Let me drive you home. Be some sort of apology, anyway."

"No, I can walk, thank you."

"Maybelle, you don’t have to be afraid of me. My, gosh, I’m just trying to make up for all the crap you’ve put up with here. I promise, I’ll take you right straight to your front porch." He crossed his heart as he said it.

It was an awful long way to walk in the rain, and Maybelle was deathly afraid of the dark. "You promise you’ll go right to my house?"

"Absolutely. C’mon, I got my dad’s new truck. Got a kick ass stereo in it."

When they reached the long drive to Maybelle’s house, Tommy was still going far faster than he should have driven on that slick road, and he went right on past the drive.

"Tommy, you passed my house."

"Yeah, I know. Girls tell me you’re a virgin, Maybelle. A girl eighteen shouldn’t be a virgin. I’m gonna take you out here a ways and show you what it’s like not to be a virgin. You’re gonna like it."

"Tommy! You Promised! Stop and let me out!"

He only grinned at her, as he reached over and grabbed her breast.

When Maybelle hit him with her fists and kicked at his leg, Tommy ran off the road, bounced through a barbed wire fence, then slammed sideways into a large tree. Maybelle’s door flew open, and the collision with the tree threw her about ten feet to the muddy ground. After rolling over a half dozen times, she fell down the side of a normally dry creek, which was now half filled from the heavy rain. Screaming and clawing her way out of the creek on the other side, she ran perhaps fifty feet before collapsing, a terrible pain in her side, and her head hurt so bad she thought she would pass out. But Tommy screaming all sorts of profanities at her spurred her to crawl through the short brush, back toward her house.

Maybelle didn’t know how far they had come, and she remembered Tommy had turned from her road onto another, an area with which she was unfamiliar. Every time she tried to stand, the pain in her side was so horrific, she continued to crawl on the muddy, rock strewn ground. Finally, she could no longer hear Tommy’s screams and lay under a tree in the brush, hoping he’d given up the chase. How could he have done such a thing? What kind of an animal was he?

She had no idea how long she lay listening for any clue that Tommy was close-by before she finally began crawling once more, hoping she was going in the right direction. The first lightening of the sky found her still crawling ten minutes or so, then resting five or ten minutes. As she sat back against a tree to rest once more, Maybelle saw lights in the distance, at the top of a hill. She knew it would take her forever to reach the lights, if she couldn’t get on her feet and walk. Turning around to face the tree, she grabbed the trunk and forced herself to stand. A harsh pain shot through her side and made her shiver, but she managed to stay on her feet. The trees were close enough together, Maybelle thought she’d have to take but ten or twelve steps at a time to grab the next tree and rest.

At least the rain had nearly passed, with but a slight drizzle remaining, and as Maybelle finally reached the front porch of the farmhouse, the thought struck her that she must look absolutely horrible. But, she had no choice. She knew she needed help.

The middle aged woman got a look of fright on her face and asked, "My God, child. What happened to you?"

Maybelle could no longer hold back the tears, and cried loudly as she slumped to the porch floor. "Tommy hurt me." That was the last she remembered until she woke up in the hospital in Nashville, Suzy and her dad at her bedside.

"You awake, Maybelle?"

All she could do was nod.

"What the hell happened to you? Where’d you go?"

Her daddy grabbed Suzy’s arm and hushed her. "Do you feel like talking, Maybelle?"

Her throat was sore and her voice was more of a whisper than normal. "Where am I?"

"Rhodes Hospital in Nashville. The woman who called the ambulance told me you said something about Tommy hurting you. Did you mean Tommy Fairfield? What did he do to you?"

Tears eased their way out of her eyes, and Suzy took her hand and said, "Don’t talk now if you don’t feel like it, Maybelle. We’ll be right here when you feel better."

Maybelle found the doctors had kept her asleep for two days to keep her from moving around. The wreck had broken four ribs and scarred a lung. She later learned that if the rib had moved but a small bit farther into her lung, she would have bled to death before she got to help. When she told Suzy what Tommy tried to do, and how she got hurt, Suzy promised to kill that low life SOB. Of course, when Suzy’s dad confronted Tommy, he said he’d never seen Maybelle that night.

After ten days in the hospital, Suzy’s dad insisted Maybelle stay with them the next two weeks until graduation, then for the summer until she went off to North Carolina State. He didn’t think she should stay alone out in the country. Maybelle reluctantly agreed, and they went to her house to get what few things she wanted to take with her. As she turned to leave, knowing she might never see her shack of a home again, Maybelle hurried back into the bedroom and wrenched the old stained, distorted mirror off the back of mama’s bedroom door.

When she placed it in the back of the pickup alongside mama’s rocker, Suzy asked, "What do you want that old thing for?"

Suzy had been on extremely good behavior with Maybelle since she was hurt, and Maybelle knew she wasn’t making fun of her, but only curious. "It was mama’s. I don’t have much to remember her by."

As they drove away, Maybelle looked back at the place one final time. Her daddy had bought the ten acres, thinking he’d later add to it and eventually be a rich farmer. But, daddy’s dreams all died at the entrance to the coal mine.

***

Suzy had three beautiful Arabian horses, and even though Maybelle was still sore from the broken ribs, she made Suzy teach her to ride. Suzy also taught her to drive her prized nineteen sixty-four Mustang convertible. They also made a trip to Nashville, where despite Maybelle’s objections, Suzy charged an ungodly number of clothes for Maybelle on her daddy’s credit cards. "You have to have nice clothes to go to North Carolina State." Maybelle couldn’t help but think that some day she would have all of this; the nice house, nice cars, horses, all the things she so envied her friend for.

Suzy was one to party now and then, and graduation night, she sat in the kitchen with Maybelle, celebrating graduation and no more high school until she got blotto drunk. Maybelle had to practically carry Suzy to her bedroom. Then, after she had taken a shower and dressed for bed, Maybelle couldn’t sleep. Thoughts of that night when Tommy tried to make her "do it" haunted her and awakened her in the middle of the night. She also thought about what it would be like in Raleigh, and where she might go after college. Maybelle hadn’t eaten since lunch, and though it was two in the morning, she went to the kitchen, made a sandwich, went to the back porch and sat on the steps to eat it. The sky was clear and filled with stars. As Maybelle stared up at the night, she wondered how there could be such mean people as Tommy in such a beautiful world.

She was lost in thought after finishing her sandwich, when she heard a car pull into the front drive. Suzy’s daddy had left right after graduation to take a plane to Florida. Maybe he hadn’t caught the plane after all. Maybelle wondered if she should make a dash to get to her bedroom before he saw her in her nightgown, or wait outside until he went to bed. She opted to rush inside, but as she stood and turned to go up the steps, an arm grabbed her around the waist and a hand clamped over her mouth.

Her arms were pulled behind her and she heard a low whisper, "Let’s take her to the barn." Maybelle struggled to get free, kicking at the legs behind her. Then, a cloth bag slipped over her head and another voice said, "No, man, let’s take her out in the country, just like we planned."

Oh, no! It was Tommy’s voice! She was going to die! Tommy was going to get back at her for telling on him. They were going to kill her! Tears poured from her eyes. She kicked and squirmed and tried to scream. There were at least three of them. How could she escape? Tommy kept his hand over her mouth, with his other arm around her neck, nearly choking her. They carried her to the car, shoved her into the floor and drove off. There was enough moonlight, when the bag they’d shoved over her head slipped off, she could see it was Jason Kendrick putting the duct tape around her mouth, then wrapping it around her ankles and wrists, while Bobby McNeil held her down. They were going to kill her, and there was nothing she could do!

Tommy drove, and when they had stripped her naked and had her trussed up so she couldn’t move, Jason and Bobby picked her up and put her in the seat between them. Jason said, "Well, who goes first, Tommy?"

"I do. I owe the bitch. Then, I don’t give a damned. You guys can play odd man out for all I care."

Maybelle was half out of her mind with fear, but she wondered how one could play odd man out with two people. Then, the lights came on behind them and she thought perhaps she would be rescued. But Tommy complained that he told them assholes to leave their lights off.

They traveled but a few minutes and turned up a dead end road not far from Suzy’s. When Tommy pulled to the side of the dirt road, he said, "Throw her over the fence."

As Bobby and Jason carried her from the car to the fence, Harold Tozeman, Carl Croden and Homer Skaggs came from the other car and climbed over the fence.

They threw her on the ground, then Maybelle suffered the worst fate she could ever have imagined. Each of the six boys took turns raping her. Finally, Tommy held a large knife at her throat and said, "You ain’t never gonna tell on anyone again, bitch."

Jason yelled, "Dammit, Tommy, stop it. You didn’t say anything about hurting her, man."

"Just scarin’ her a little, you idiot." He moved from behind her to her side, squatted down and said in a low voice so the others couldn’t hear, "Hey, Maybelle, come sunup, old man Clary’ll turn his hogs inta this field to eat. They’ll eat you up while you’re alive. Think about that." Then, he stood and said, "C’mon, let’s go get drunk."

Maybelle tried to scream to beg them not to leave her there, but nothing came out - only a loud humming sound. She lay facing away from the fence, listening to their receding footsteps on the dried grass and twigs. Her eyes filled with tears not only from her fear of dying and the physical pain they’d inflicted on her, but from the hurt in her heart, as well. When she heard the engines start and the cars drive away, she wriggled every way she could, but it was hopeless. She couldn’t loosen her bonds.

She had to somehow get out of this field! Maybelle could hear Suzy saying, "Don’t just lay there, Maybelle, girl. Do something, dammit! Get out of this and make them pay! You gotta do something, girl!"

The pain in her stomach was so bad, she felt like she was going to throw up. She mustn’t! With the duct tape over her mouth, she’d choke to death. Please, Maybelle. Please calm down. Don’t kill yourself. Slowly, the feeling of being on the edge of vomiting passed, as she lay quietly thinking about riding her favorite horse at Suzy’s.

She wondered how far into the field they had carried her. If she could get to the fence, perhaps she could cut the duct tape on the barbed wire. At least, now, she had some sort of plan and began rolling one turn at a time, then resting a minute. She thought it was about an hour and a half before she rolled into the wire. Now, she began rubbing the tape on her wrists against a barb and could feel the blood running down her arms. But, she finally freed her hands.

Ten minutes later, she had all the duct tape off and could cry for real, as she sat on the ground just outside the fence, stark naked. Then, she did vomit. She had to get back to Suzy’s before daylight. As she walked shakily down the road, she spotted something in the ditch, picked it up and slipped her torn nightgown back on, as she thought, They wanted to get rid of the evidence.

It was a tortuous trip, the second such trip Tommy Fairfield had caused her to endure, but she finally arrived back at Suzy’s and tried for twenty minutes to wake her friend. But Suzy was in an alcohol-induced sleep and refused to awaken. Maybelle knew she had to get away from here, and on the walk home had decided she’d go immediately to Raleigh. She had the option of starting school with summer classes, and though it wasn’t what she had intended to do, now, it seemed like a good option.

Although she hated to do it, she wrote Suzy a note and told her she would leave her Mustang in the parking lot at the Nashville airport. After a shower and packing her bags, she tried one more time unsuccessfully to awaken Suzy, then drove toward Nashville and a new life. She would never tell anyone what had happened to her, but on the drive to Nashville, Maybelle made herself a promise. One day, somehow, she would wreak vengeance on all six of them. She wanted to kill them, but knew she could never do that. But… somehow…

***

Although not a day passed that Maybelle didn’t think about that horrible night and reaffirm her vow of revenge, she concentrated on her studies, going to school year round, and finished with a bachelor of arts degree in three years and with an almost perfect grade average. The scholarship committee was so impressed with her performance, they extended the all expenses paid scholarship for her to get her master’s in biology. Then, they offered her a teaching position to pursue her doctorate. By the time she received her degree, a half dozen major companies were vying for her services. When the recruiter from a fairly small biological research lab in West Virginia approached her, she knew that was the job she wanted. Maybelle would be doing research in cancer drugs. Plus, she was offered a good bonus, a new car and the use of a restored mansion to live in, complete with a horse barn. The horse barn convinced her this would be a good place to work.

Maybelle immersed herself in her research, not easily making friends. Most of the people working at the facility in the beautiful hills of West Virginia were men, and Maybelle was anything but enthused about the possibility of ever having much of a relationship with men. There was one young man who seemed really nice that she took a liking to, as a friend, once she got to know him and found he loved horses, also. She had invested in three beautiful Arabians and had become a quite good rider, often riding to the river for a picnic lunch with Larry.

On their eighth or ninth ride to the river, as they returned to the barn, Larry asked, "Maybelle, would you consider letting me take you out to dinner some evening?"

It took her completely by surprise, and though she didn’t want to offend him, or make it seem she didn’t like him, how could she possibly go out on a date with a man? "Uh… Larry, I like you as a friend. You’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever known. I’m just not into dating."

He smiled at her and said, "Well, the offer stands, if you change your mind."

They remained silent as they rode through the woods, but as they approached the barn, Maybelle said, "Larry, you’re a good looking guy. You could charm most any woman into your arms. Why would you want to take someone who looks like me to dinner?"

He reined his horse to a stop and admonished her, "Do you think that’s all there is to liking someone? I don’t know you as well as I thought. Don’t you know it’s what’s inside that makes a person attractive?"

She stared at him a moment, then clicked her teeth to start her horse for the barn again without speaking.

Their very next trip to the river for lunch, Larry brought along a paper bag, which he cradled in his arm as if it were breakable. When they reached the river, he reached in the bag and handed her a bouquet of a dozen roses. "No strings. I just saw them in a florist window yesterday and thought you’d like them."

The storm came from nowhere. The spot at the river was a twenty-minute walking pace from the barn, and when the first bolt of lightning came from the edge of the clouds, they picked up their blanket and picnic basket and rode unhurriedly toward safety from the coming rain. But, the clouds opened up, and not only was the wind blowing heavy rain sideways, lightning struck all about them. The horses broke into a run without being urged, and Maybelle had to think fast to guide her mount among the trees.

Then, her horse tripped over a log, and that was the last she remembered until she awakened in the hospital. Larry was there, holding her hand, as she groggily tried to focus her eyes. She couldn’t see! Everything was pitch black. "Where am I?" She struggled to move, but seemed to be confined by something holding her down, and she heard the voice yelling, "Doctor! Come quick!"

Another voice told her she wasn’t blind, but her face had been badly injured when she hit the tree face first. Her entire head was wrapped in bandages. Then, the voice welcomed her back. What did that mean? She would later learn she had been in a coma for two weeks, and Larry hadn’t left her side except to grab a sandwich and go to the bathroom. He’d slept in a chair in her room every night, and held her hand all day, talking her out of the coma.

When she’d recovered somewhat, the doctor attending to her physical damage told her she was a very lucky lady. He said he wouldn’t have made a bet on her recovery, one way or the other, and he thought Larry being there talking to her had a great deal to do with her subconscious mind fighting for her own life. The doctor also told her she was going to need extensive cosmetic surgery. It was a time of great joy at being alive, and a time of great fright at what the outcome of the surgery would be. Would she be horribly scarred? Would she be uglier than she already was? To say she had a case of anxiety would be too simple.

The company she worked for was wonderful, paying her salary, all her medical expenses and even all the costs of cosmetic surgery. After nine operations over a period of eight months, the last surgery had been done and Maybelle was nervous about the results. She had literally lived at the hospital the past nine months, and she was not allowed a mirror in her room or bathroom. She just knew they didn’t want her to see how horribly scarred she was. Then, the final unveiling was to take place, and just as she’d seen in the movies, a nurse unwound the bandages covering her lower face, as the surgeon stood in front of her, a look of apprehension on his face.

Then, his apprehensive look turned to a huge smile and he said, "Well, well, well. Doctor, you are truly a great physician."

The nurse laughed and asked Maybelle, "Are you ready?"

"God, I’ve been ready forever."

When the nurse held a fairly large mirror in front of her, tears poured from Maybelle’s eyes. She was beautiful! Oh… God, she was beautiful!

Doctor Blake asked, "Do you look anything like you looked before? Are you aware there was no picture of you anywhere that we could use to reconstruct things?"

All Maybelle could do was cry. She sat in the chair sobbing, when Larry walked in. "Maybelle? Is that you?"

When she nodded her head, he rushed to her side, knelt down and wrapped his arms around her. She turned and held him as tightly as she could, knowing this was a dream and she’d wake up, still ugly. She didn’t want to awaken. She wanted the dream to last. It did.

Maybelle went back to work after nearly a year and, her first day back, she was surprised by a breakfast in her honor, sponsored by all her co-workers. As she went back to what she was being paid to do, research in how various drugs affected the genetic makeup of cancer cells, Maybelle was as happy as she’d ever been, but still could not have any sort of real relationship with Larry. She wanted to, but every time she thought about it, her thoughts turned to that ugly night outside Wesco.

Another lab at the small complex had a number of monkeys, and Maybelle loved them. One day, when she went to visit them after not seeing them for several weeks, she noticed although the females were their friendly selves, the males were all hunched in a corner, their arms folded across their chests, as if they were pouting. She asked the scientist in charge, "Doctor Brown, why do all the males seem to be brooding?"

He had the slightest of smiles on his lips, but shook his head and said, "They have every right to be brooding and mad at me. I did a terrible thing to them."

"What?"

"We’ve been working to develop a male contraceptive. Thought we finally had it. I gave it to those four males, but it totally killed their sexual drive. Bad part is, it’ll never come back."

"Oh, really? Why?"

"We ran a catscan and couldn’t find their prostate gland. When we did surgery, we found the Prostate had completely disappeared. Just shriveled up and went away."

Maybelle was sure the doctor was puzzled by the smile on her face, as she said, "That would be a horrible fate, wouldn’t it?"

"Yes. I feel terrible about the guys."

Maybelle stayed in her lab late that evening. All the computers were accessible from any terminal, and she did a little research of her own. She copied the study of the latest male contraceptive from Doctor Brown’s computer, knowing she had finally, after nearly ten years, found the perfect pay back. It took her but a few evenings to put the necessary chemicals together, then she asked the manager of the complex if she could take a week’s vacation.

Larry was surprised by her sudden departure, but drove to town with her and bought her breakfast, as she headed for Tennessee. Over coffee he asked, "You have family down there?"

"No, not really, just some old high school chums I’m dying to see."

Maybelle had used equipment at the complex to establish an entire set of phony paperwork, which identified her as Carol Sharp, writer for American Home Magazine. She was in the Nashville area to do some stories on Small Town America for her magazine and was interested especially in small town business owners and small town people from her generation.

Tommy Fairfield was the first business owner to be invited to have dinner with and be interviewed by the slim, beautiful, sexily dressed Carol Sharp. After dinner, she invited him to go dancing at a local club. One tiny tablet. That’s all it took in his drink to destroy him as a man forever. Funny thing was, as he finished the tainted drink, he said, "You know, somehow, you remind me of someone I used to know. It’s the eyes. You have such beautiful eyes. Knew a girl once with eyes that color."

Every evening, she entertained one more of the six, including Jason Kendricks, who had married her best friend, Suzy. When all six had been administered the triple dose she concocted from the doctor’s formula, Maybelle stopped by to see Suzy.

When Suzy answered the door, a crying baby in her arms, she asked, "Yes, can I help you?"

"Hi, Suzy."

Suzy squinted her eyes and said, "My God, it can’t be! Maybelle? What happened to you? My God, come in here! You… "

"Look different? I had a little accident that required a lot of cosmetic surgery. You’re as pretty as ever."

"My God, Maybelle, you’re beautiful! And, you sound so different. Oh, man. I wish you’d gotten here a few minutes sooner. I married Jason. He and daddy just left on a business trip. Hey, why did you leave the way you did?"

"Six boys raped me that night. Listen, do you by any chance still have that mirror and rocking chair in the barn?"

"Yes. I’ve saved it all these years. I knew one day you’d be back for them. What are you doing? I mean, where you living and all that?"

"Canada. Work for a public relations firm up there." She hated lying to her friend, but she was going to let those six perverts know what and who destroyed their lives. She didn’t want them to know where she was.

With the rocking chair and mirror in the back seat, Maybelle cut her visit with Suzy short. Her last remark to Suzy, as she drove away was, "Jason was one of the six who raped me."

As she drove through Nashville, she dropped the letters, which explained to each of the bastards why their days of enjoying sex were over, in a mailbox. Then, she drove leisurely back to the research complex, smiling, singing and humming all the way. Never, had she dreamed she could be so happy.

Larry was feeding the animals, as she pulled in front of the barn, anxious to see her horses. He came out with a big smile on his face and said, "I missed you. Did you have a nice vacation?"

"Absolutely wonderful. You couldn’t believe how wonderful. Listen, Larry, I have to get unpacked, but is that invitation to dinner still open?"

***

Larry stood in the bedroom, staring at the old scratched up obviously three dollar mirror on the wall and the old beat up rocker. They were both out of place, and he wondered why his new wife would have such things in an otherwise beautiful bedroom. When he turned to look at her, he found Maybelle watching him and was a bit embarrassed.

"I know what you’re wondering. They belonged to my mama. Those and the old bible on the dresser are about all that’s left of the old Maybelle and her family."

Larry sat down, leaned over and kissed her. "Happy?"

"Sweetheart, it took me a lot of years to figure out how to be happy, but yes, I am far, far happier than you could ever guess."

Larry smiled broadly at Maybelle, as she lay back on the bed, stretched and laughed loudly.