Let's Go Play at the Adams'

to lift her, she squirmed free, rolled over and shot out her hobbled ankles, hitting John and

nearly knocking him down. Blindfolded, she continued to kick out in all directions until they

finally caught her bare legs and pinned her down. In the end, it took all five of them to drag

her up onto the bed and tie her wrists and ankles to its four corners again. Bobby and Paul

got knocked back several times; Dianne got scratched; and John nearly lost his hold on her

once or twice. When it was over and the other kids had left, he sat down to catch his

breath and think a moment. The fact was that he was still afraid of what he had dared

himself to do.

There were so many Barbaras in his mind. The first one, the one he had met when she first

came to sit for the Adams kids, was busy, athletic, and bright. She ticked him off the way

she whipped the Adams kids around in the station wagon as if she owned it. She wasn't

anywhere near a grown-up, and yet she acted more like a mother than Mrs. Adams did. She

ticked him off the way she let the old ladies at the church make over her and take her in.

Barbara could swim better, run as fast, manage twice as well, talk better she knew

everything-and all the time that she was

114

being so smart-ass and bossy, she knew that she was pretty and that all the guys were

watching her out of the corner of their eyes. Even the old men. She had that look-and-eat-

your-heart-out manner. It made it easy to want to take her down a couple of notches-as,

indeed, they had-but remembering that girl did not make it any more easy to approach her.

Then there was Barbara the first day after they captured her, not stuck-up and busy

anymore, but finally silent, gagged, helpless, and bewildered. She was still recognizable,

but it was an improvement.

Yesterday there had been a friendlier Barbara. He now realized that she had been putting

him on with all that talk about his school and his girl and all-what did she care anyway?

That was all kid stuff to herbut, in fact, he had enjoyed it. He wished now that he had

kissed her when she gave up: he wished now that he dared ungag her and talk to her some

more, but her kicking around said enough for her mood.

So that he got down to Barbara today, naked for him to do anything with that he wished,

and he was still scared, actually scared. John Randall was also disgusted with himself.

When Dianne had cut off Barbara's nightgown this morning-I ohn, of course, consenting-he

had thought he would go blind. She was so pretty. A kind of blankness came over his mind;

he hardly seemed able to look. His legs were all sort of weak on the insides: he thought he

was going to do it again, right then and there. Did just looking at a girl do that to you?

Nobody had ever told him about that before, and he felt a little betrayed. It was unfair that

women had that advantage over you. It had dismanned him the rest of the day, right up

until now.

Now.

He swallowed with some noise.

Just now, as a matter of fact, he would have liked to get up and go out of the room, but he

couldn't. He was trapped. On the one hand were the rest of the kids who would laugh at

him: on the other there was the reason for it all-Barbara. OK, he managed to look at her

long and steadily from where he sat, and while he

115

still felt a little bit of that heady, half-blindedness, he found that he had some self-control.

He even found, at length, that he could stand-a better view-and that he could walk as if in

a dream, half stuck to the floor, half gliding. He found that he was able to move to the side

of the bed and sit down on it beside her and endure that, too.

At such close range, he felt he was in the path of some kind of death ray. Something was

happening inside him. He was irresolute: it was difficult to breathe. Very hesitatingly, he

touched the inside of her calf and moved his fingers up her leg-John Randall enormously

avoided what he considered Barbara's "private parts" (despite the fact that on the team,

the word "cunt" was used standardly)-across her fiat stomach and down again.

Of course, the stroke was lustful. To the extent that he felt or understood lust per se, he

wanted the girl. But there was much more in his hand: his fingers traveled with a truly

admiring caress and one of understandable wonderment. Barbara was so different from him

and from his experience. The obvious but suddenly made discovery filled him with awe. By

revelation, he came to understand something about love. I mean, John said, if it wasn't this

way and we were really friendly and she didn't mind me touching her this way, then it

would really be great. In fact, given that possibility, he would have freed her on the instant

and knelt before her upright body. His mind could barely hold the many possibilities that

followed. But it wasn't like that.

Instead she was in there, inside her own skin, inside of her own mind, inside of the gag, the