Here's another story I've been working on. Hope y'all like it...

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Barefoot Black Sheep

“Our sun is one of 100 billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe. It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things in that enormous immensity.”
-Werner von Braun

“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.”
-Albert Camus

“Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.”
-Dr. Seuss

Part 1 * CHAPTER 1
By: Dennis Crabapple McClain
& Lou Gojira

Somewhere in America…1984…

Her bare foot came down hard in the puddle. It wasn’t the puddle itself that worried her—cold as it was. It was what unseen treacheries might be hidden inside the puddle that worried her. Glass, sharp rocks, bits of debris, anything at all could be lying on the ground in this mucky puddle. Wicked things, laying like snakes in wait of a pair of bare feet. These were city streets. Maybe her parents were right.

God it was cold, and she winced a little as the bracingly icy street water splashed up her ankles and doused the hem of her black jeans; jeans tattered by her constant barefooting. Barefoot season was way past over, by months, at least that was what her parents and everyone else told her. And she knew full well that she was not allowed to go outside barefoot this late in the year. Even in mid-summer her parents scolded her for it… endlessly. But now it was not only forbidden, but also cold, and people were looking at her funny. That was why she ran, for what good it would do. Her nosey, never-missed-anything parents were home already, and running wouldn’t change that, nor help to diminish her panic about their being home...but she ran on just the same.

A quick glance over her shoulders and she bolted right past the Dairy Queen. It was way past Dairy Queen season also, but that didn’t stop the locals from coming. The locals that looked at her sneered and gawked as if she were out of her mind as she scurried past them, all nervous and barefooted. Locals that looked used by life like everyone else in her neighborhood. Used up by life, a little dried out, overworked and underpaid, used up by having to live here. On sunny days, all summer long, she could see the fragments, shards, and slivers of glass glinting all over these streets and sidewalks. Just because she couldn’t see them in the gloom didn’t mean they weren’t there. She felt miserably stupid, cold and stupid, her feet so tender, so cold-pinked and vulnerable, but she just knew that no matter how worried she was, no matter how terrified she was about what her parents were going to say, that she would have done the same thing all over again. Truth be told, the truth she was now old enough to understand and almost ready to accept: being barefoot made her feel more than a little funny. Especially being barefoot in out of the ordinary situations like this. This feeling resonated in her with more intensity than anything she ever felt for any of the boys. A new feeling, fresh and worth further exploration.

More than all that, being barefoot—especially here and now—made her feel fully alive. She didn’t understand that and figured that she never would...she simply knew it, or rather she felt it to the bones and through the blood. Some days, many days lately, she just couldn’t wait to peel her shoes and socks off and run around in her bare feet. It didn’t so much numb her to her many frustrations as it buried them under the screaming sensation of being alive NOW.

The very worst of it, worse than the glass, worse than the cold, worse than being stared at, was that she was very late getting home…punishably late. She’d had her fun, her sneaky barefoot time, but halfway home the rain started and she spent a good half hour huddled in the alcove, pressed back against the door, shivering.

It was early in November, no sign of Indian summer, just gray chilliness. Apart from her bare feet she was dressed for the weather: long jeans, a baggy gray sweatshirt that somehow managed to be comfortable and unconventionally sexy, the old army jacket she customized with her own buttons. The jacket itself once belonged to her dad, way back when. Her dad who hated how she wore it—with buttons that said “Reality Sucks,” a button with an Ohm symbol, and her Beatles Butcher Cover button with all the dead babies and meat on it. Stephanie had a head full of ideas all her own, or if not all her own they were at least wildly different than those of her parents, and neither one of her folks could stand that. Her mother wanted her to fall in line and be like her younger sister—who played girl’s basketball and field hockey—and her dad, well, his only contribution to her life lately was the way he glowered at her. Stephanie often heard her mother speaking for both of them, or for her father anyway, as Stephanie doubted very much that her mother permitted herself any thoughts that weren’t his.

“Oh God,” she whined to herself, noticing a man in a pick-up truck who showed no remorse about ogling her and her naked feet on the wet streets. It sickened her to think how her naked, cold and naked, feet might be thrilling him as much as they thrilled her.

* * *

Stephanie was more than pretty, as the picture on the wall attested, the picture her father looked at, shaking his head, and saying nothing, as was his way. He took the picture himself last summer during one of their family fishing trips. He often took the whole family out fishing, and could not at all understand why she sat on the shore and read. The idea that she might not like fishing never occurred to him, let alone the idea that she might not like him. He grunted to himself just thinking about what was not in the picture, her bare feet. Her Goddamn bare feet!

She hadn’t even brought any shoes with her that day, which he hadn’t noticed until it was too late. But she was smiling in the picture, and in nearly every other way she was the daughter he could pretend he wanted her to be: smiling, big brown eyes, a heart-shaped face, and her long brown hair was blown by the wind. It worried him, how pretty she turned out to be, how her lips looked when she pouted, and noticing the way the boys looked at her as she passed nearly drove him to fits. That day, even in the picture, she was dressed for summer in a pair of denim shorts and a bikini top, which seemed appropriate to the weather and a day at the lake—at that time--but he would never allow her out in that again, not the way the boys all looked at her...grinning at her with what he saw as evil in their eyes. But the picture was, in his mind, sullied, not just by her unseen bare feet, her dirty bare feet, but by her make-up. The child-like innocence of her face was marred by the heavy make-up she wore around her eyes, all the eyeliner and mascara. The make-up made her look like a tramp, like one of the burn-out girls, like Tina, the daughter of the alcoholic mechanic out on Geauga Falls Avenue; at least that was how he saw it. Then there were her clothes, all summer her clothes had become more and more skimpy and showy. And now there was this new friend of Stephanie’s, this Ruthy to worry about. He glowered at the picture then turned his attentions back to the football game. Yes, his Stephanie was more than pretty. He shot a cross look at his wife, who wasn’t so pretty anymore.

The mother, sitting at the table, caught the glower and shook her head, returning her attentions to her recent copy of Reader’s Digest. Nothing had to be said, they both knew what the other was thinking. Stephanie was running around barefooted again. One of their neighbors said she saw her walking past the gas station with a friend earlier today, out in the cold even!

Though the neighbor, Mrs. Thompson, had asked about it with a certain good humor—Mrs. Thompson thought the world of Stephanie—she had spilled the beans. Even the idealistic and aging old hippie she was, she realized she had not taken into account just how uptight Stephanie’s parents were.

* * *

Stephanie figured that if she just slinked in through the front door, across the landing, then back down to her room, that her parents might not notice her bare feet. Sometimes the split-level of the house worked to her advantage, as her parents couldn’t see her feet down the stairs, not from the living room. As it was they sometimes failed to notice much, even her comings and goings over the shouting and droning of the television. It was her only hope. But lately their nosiness had even outweighed their obsessive television viewing. Unfortunately, even Stephanie’s silent bare feet weren’t enough to insure a sneaky passage through the door, not with her noisy tastes in jewelry; all the wrist bangles and bracelets she wore in layers. They jangled like a pocket full of silver coins.

The nearer she got to home, and she was still quite a ways away, the more she felt so foolish for running off in her bare feet after all, the more she felt the sting of her disobedience. The glass all around, seen and unseen, scared the hell out of her, more than normal, and all she could think of was what a rotten day this would be to cut herself. Her heart felt like it was sputtering in her hollow chest. Even now as she was being so bad, so disobedient, it annoyed her how they always managed to get nosey at the worst possible times. It was like they had some sort of sixth sense. This now, all this dread and caught-in-the-act anxiety seemed to her to be the penalty, the flip-side to all the wild delight and freedom she felt when she had run outside without her shoes earlier this chilly afternoon.

*Spip* *spap* and *splash* went her feet in the wetness of the streets and sidewalks, on past the day-care, only to take a short cut through the back streets.

Sometimes she would leave the house in flip-flops, then, when around the corner and out of eyeshot of her house, she would kick them off, hiding them under a shrub. Many times this bit of playful deception allowed her to enjoy the whole day barefoot with no one being the wiser—living in some fear that her days were numbered; surely she was doomed to cut her foot and then would have to explain it to her parents as they rushed her to the hospital. But lately she had been being a little cavalier, not bothering with that bit of deception. To her, in her growing commitment to being barefoot, even doing that seemed like cheating. Somehow having the back-up flip flops also took the shine off the thrill of going barefoot, and that was something she was finding more and more frustrating. She just wanted to be left alone to go totally barefoot. Besides, it was her life—as she often shouted—and it was none of her parents’ business whether or not she wore her shoes. All the same, knowing they did not approve always managed to add extra spice to the thrill of going barefoot. It made it dangerous. Better than dangerous… wild!

She turned the corner and dashed down the side street. “Oh no,” she whimpered to herself, noticing that same truck coming down this side street from a different direction, obviously stalking her. She had to stop before crossing the street to let it pass, the creepy guy inside trying to pretend he wasn’t staring at her. “Go on, just keep on going, pervert!” she whispered under her breath, darting across the street. She had to laugh, a sick little laugh, and wondered if she might not be better off being grabbed off the street by him and kidnapped rather than having to deal with her parents back home.

Even Stephanie wondered if the many thrills of going barefoot were really worth it, or if she wasn’t as crazy as everyone who noticed her bare feet thought she was. It was, after all, pretty odd to be running around barefooted in this neighborhood and at this time of year. Just the same it was a thrill, hard, upsetting, but a thrill she could not deny. It just felt so good, however much self-conscious sourness it stirred up inside her.

It was the same sourness she felt even earlier today when she slipped out of the house barefoot, knowingly disobedient. She knew what she was doing as she did it. She knew that at least conceding to slip out in flip flops and hide her shoes would save her a world of trouble, but she couldn’t help herself, she had to feel the total freedom of forbidden barefooting. But now she wished she hadn’t done it, wished she had a pair of secretly stashed flip-flops to slip on before going in. Right now she thought back on it and wondered if it was worth all this.

* * *

“Stephanie, its Ruthy,” her mother said, a disapproving look on her face, a look that promised a predictable lecture. Her mother was just headed out; her purse slung half over her shoulder. Even as Stephanie’s mom leaned in to kiss Stephanie goodbye she noticed her mother struggling with whether or not to kiss her or to lecture her.

Stephanie had just managed to get her boots and thick warm socks off after school, and was sitting on the couch to watch TV, her bare feet still warm and shoe-moist from a day at school.

First the peck on the cheek, then—just as Stephanie expected—her mother couldn’t help it. She glanced out the window just as Ruthy knocked on the door. “You know, dear, I really don’t think that I like you spending so much time with Ruthy. I hear she smokes.”

“Mom,” Stephanie rolled her eyes in disgust and wiggled out from under the annoyingly clinging stare of her mother just as Ruthy rang the doorbell, not once, but in an aggressive repetition that left Stephanie shuddering as she knew that even the crass and disrespectful way Ruthy rang the doorbell confirmed everything her mother thought about this “bad influence.” Even Stephanie had to secretly admit that Ruthy’s ring was aggressive, pushy, rude, and even trashy.

“Where are you going?” her mother asked as Stephanie padded across the carpet towards the stairs to the landing so she could let Ruthy in.

“Nowhere, probably. We might just stay in.”

“Don’t be out late. I know you say you don’t have any homework, but it is a school night.”

“I know.”

“Your dad will be home in a few hours. I do wish you’d have dinner with the family sometimes.”

Outside, a petulant Ruthy kept at the doorbell, attacking with more impatience than before.

Stephanie’s mother sighed.

Stephanie virtually jumped over all the stairs not only to stop the ringing, but also to get away from her mother. The jump put a little distance between her and the nagging, and the way the hard landing rung through her delicate-boned feet helped block out the noise of her mother in her head.

“If you go out, I don’t have to tell you it’s too cold for bare...”

“...Mom!” Stephanie barked back, a God-what’s-wrong-with-you expression on her face.

Stephanie flung the door open. It was cold, already, even at three-thirty. Even the day at its highest only managed to hit forty-six. Ruthy stood there, an indignant look on her face. As if to prove her mother’s point, Ruthy smelled acrid, like cigarettes, and stale from the unwashed dog in her apartment, but Ruthy was hardly dirty. Ruthy and Stephanie looked to many at school like sisters, both oft-times sharing the same wardrobe and being together so much, and though both knew it, Stephanie was the good-looking one. It’s not that Ruthy wasn’t pretty. She was just boyish, or “Puckish,” with her short cropped dark hair and freckled face. As with everyone else, it came as quite a surprise to Stephanie what Ruthy was really like. From a distance she didn’t seem to fit in with the freak kids—apart from her freak clothes—Ruthy was too “cute.” After meeting her and speedily getting acquainted it came as quite a shock to Stephanie just how foul-mouthed Ruthy was, and how she liked to talk trash.

“God damn, Steph, it’s freakin’ cold out here! What was the big hold-up?”

Hearing the back door shut across the house, Stephanie felt safe to say, “My mom, she was nagging.”

“Yeah,” chuckled Ruthy, stepping in, “your folk’sre a trip. Well, at least they aren’t drunk off their ass’s all the time like my mom.” The contempt in which she held her mother seemed unfair to Stephanie, as Ruthy’s mom was never anything but nice, and had a load on her hands raising Ruthy all on her own. Stephanie, aware of her own naiveté, never even realized Ruthy’s mom was a drunk. Ruthy stepped in, underdressed for the weather as usual, wearing jeans and a sweater with no coat, and apart from bitching about it, she showed no sign of being cold. None of the freak kids ever did. “Christ, I don’t know how you stand it.”

“I know, tell me about it. I really gotta get outta here for a while.”

“Well,” Ruthy snorted, “we can’t go to my house, my mom’s totally fucking nuts today.”

Stephanie bristled, even though neither of her parents were home, hearing the word “fuck” in her house unnerved her, as if her parents might be bugging the house, might hear it and have all their lectures about Ruthy confirmed.

“So, you letting me in, or are we gonna stand in the door all day?”

“Sorry,” laughed Stephanie, leading Ruthy upstairs. Not terribly interested in whether or not her mother saw her, she glanced out the window and waved as her mother pulled out of the driveway. “Let’s go do something,” Stephanie said with an impatient gesture, looking as if she had just drunk a pot of coffee all by herself.

“Yeah, like what?” Ruthy snorted. “Like there’s anything to do in this lame-ass town.”

Stephanie flopped down into the worn-out and over-stuffed sofa, her bare feet flat on the old and flattened out, threadbare and faded green carpet. She caught sight of her toes and noticed that her nail polish, cherry red, was way past needing removed and repainted. Her feet, she always thought, were especially cute: soft topsides, slender smooth and adorably tiny toes that had a flexible look to them, her ankles perfectly tapered, not too thin, not too thick. But her nails, perfectly proportioned on her toes as they were, they were a mess. The polish was all chipped and grown-out around the cuticles, a little dirt gunked into the corners of her nails. She didn’t like that, the dirt under the nails, and always tried to clean that out, but somehow hadn’t been as attentive as usual.

Apart from her discarded shoes and socks, Stephanie still wore the clothes she’d worn to school, the jeans, the sweatshirt, which, though baggy, was rather short. When she moved or lifted her arms the sweatshirt offered a peek at her sleek belly and navel. Underneath she wore no bra, her breasts so small, firm, and barely ripe, she didn’t need one very often. Sometimes, when she got up in time, she wore a bra for church. Her jacket still hung over one of the mismatched dining room chairs. The family rarely ate at the table, as it was a little sticky in places and usually covered in mail, old newspapers, and the this-and-that that collected there.

Never feeling especially welcome in Stephanie’s house, Ruthy wouldn’t commit to sitting down. She stood close to the stairs, her freckled hands on the railing, the rings on her slender fingers rattling as she nervously fidgeted with the railing. “Hey, the guys’re all hanging out down around the river,” offered Ruthy.

Surprise! Stephanie’s feet tingled at the promise of such a daring little outing. Not just an outing, but what felt like a little adventure. The very idea of going out shoeless on such a chilly autumn day had never crossed her mind as more than a ticklish little fantasy before. All through the summer Stephanie had been growing more and more daring by degrees, and this opportunity to run a little wild felt all too rich to deny; rich as a cheap caramel sundae. She curled her toes under a little. There was always glass down around there, and the last time she was there she happened to have had shoes on. Just the same, that was then, and she had no intention of putting her shoes on today. Needless to say, it came as a shock, the juicy panic she felt inside, the weird heat that crawled up her neck as she felt herself about to do something that probably wasn’t particularly smart; something that would piss off her parents, something that could even get her hurt. This feeling felt a lot like the feeling she enjoyed whenever she toyed with the idea of actually going to school without her shoes on, only this weird hot tingle felt not only more compelling but far more dry and ticklish. She shrugged it off and tried not to think about the many possible consequences of giving in and indulging this temptation, deciding she would just have to be careful. Shooting up off the couch, she made for the door—grabbing her jacket as she went—as casual as could be, checking the driveway as if her mother might still be sitting there after all this time, waiting to bust her. All this she did in one continuous motion. She feared that if she slowed or stopped she might chicken out, give in to a sensible impulse, and stop to pull on her shoes and socks. Perhaps if she just kept her body moving her brain wouldn’t have time to chime in and talk sense into her.

They were out the door and halfway across the yard before Ruthy caught up. “Hey, y’know I really don’t give a shit, but shouldn’t you put on some shoes? There’s tons of glass and shit all around there.”

“God, Ruthy, don’t you start, too. You sound like my fucking parents.” Somehow the word “fucking” didn’t come out of her mouth with the ease it came out of Ruthy’s mouth, it came out as if she had a mouthful of raw mushrooms. She skipped across the ditch and onto the roadside, pointy bits of gravel digging into her soles.

Ruthy lit a cigarette. “Whatever, it’s not my problem, I was just saying. Don’t bitch at me.”

“I wasn’t bitching!” Stephanie said defensively.

“Neither was I. Its just common sense, I mean, sometimes maybe your folks’re right.”

“Whatever, just shut up.” Normally Ruthy didn’t even bother about her bare feet; in fact Stephanie wondered if Ruthy—somewhat self-obsessed—had even noticed how often she went barefoot.

“Don’t tell me to shut up!” Ruthy laughed, playfully shoving Stephanie into an ankle turning stumble. Stephanie laughed and caught her footing. “Besides, it’s cold, you freak!”

“Yeah, you’re one to talk!” Stephanie shot back, pinching at the single layer of sweater between Ruthy and the cold.

“Hey, I wasn’t saying I’m any smarter than you, it’s just that you’re the one that gets all the good grades and is such a Brain.”

“Oh, here we go on the whole ‘Brain’ thing again,” Stephanie laughed, enjoying the feel of the cold street under her feet, and the fluid thrill of actually dong this, of actually going through with running all over town barefoot on a forty-five degree day for the very first time in her whole life. All around autumn leaves lay sprinkled on suburban lawns. It was still sunny -chilly- but sunny, but even now she could feel a wetness coming and saw the grayness rolling in. It was bound to get colder. But none of this, not even the many consequences from glass to getting grounded took any edge off the thrill of this outing. Her warm bare feet, having just been in shoes all day, were very sensitive to the cold and softened up so much that they were all the more sensitive to the textures of the street. Her feet actually tingled all over at the promise of this forbidden outing. “And I get a few A’s, B’s and C’s, Ruthy, that hardly makes me a ‘Brain.’”

“Ok, whatever, and DON”T ever compare me to your parents again!” Ruthy said, finally feeling the sting of that crack, nudging Stephanie into a little stumble. Feeling more light-footed and agile than ever, Stephanie flowed with the stumble, practically dancing with it as she regained her footing and actually bounced in her step in the reckless glow of going barefoot to the glassy hangout down by the river, where she would be hanging out with kids she knew her parents would not approve of at all. When Stephanie was twelve she used to see a couple of the neighborhood girls hanging out in parking lots with boys. These girls, who she never knew by name, were always barefoot. What's more was that they appeared to be so fearless or impervious to all the dirt and glass. At the time it seemed impossible to her, especially in light of all her parents said about the dangers of going barefoot. But these were dangerous girls, and even though Stephanie’s mother lectured her about “those trashy girls,” Stephanie secretly thought about them a lot. Admired them. And now, as it tickled her from tip to toes, Stephanie was finally brave and wild like they were. She would even get to feel what they did. Perhaps Stephanie was even braver and wilder, she thought, since it wasn’t even summer anymore. She wondered if they felt all the things she now felt. She doubted it, as those girls were a little older, and they seemed too cool to feel this rush of sensations and emotions. She doubted that they second-guessed their bare feet, doubted they felt any sickness in their stomachs, and doubted even more that those girls cared what their parents thought.

It was a long walk to the river, but Stephanie didn’t mind, not most of it. The delicious pleasure of walking over long stretches of freshly fallen leaves filled Stephanie with an ecstatic joy. She could almost taste the colorful leaves with her soles and toes. A lot of the walk took them along winding streets and even down a long dirt road to the bike paths. Paths made up of tiny white gravel, gravel that felt abrasive under Stephanie’s soles. The girls stopped once along the way to buy a couple cans of pop, long enough for Stephanie to notice that her soles were already getting a little brown from all the dirt, and her toes a little dust-stained. Already she felt in her feet a wonderful soreness that meant she had really been somewhere barefoot. And all around the edges a pink swell from the cold plumped her feet and toes a little. Even when they got to the parts Stephanie did mind and had worried about, she didn’t dare complain. There were shortcuts, and Ruthy in her sneakers didn’t think twice about crossing behind the old and mostly abandoned shopping center, carelessly walking over the broken concrete and debris. Debris that slowed Stephanie down as much as she dared without getting Ruthy going again about her bare feet. Stephanie’s heart raced, as she felt overwhelmed by the threat to her very bare feet.

A sudden ploy came to Stephanie as she picked her way as quickly as she could over the debris, over a particularly bad pile of tires, lumber, and rubbish that looked as if it had been dumped on this spot by a flood. As a shudder overcame her, she realized it wasn’t all a ploy. She stopped to square up her footing on a board, rusty nails all too close to her heels and flexible toes. “Hey!” she called out to Ruthy, who was well ahead of her already. “Isn’t this where the old K-mart was, y’know, where Anita was stabbed?”

Even though Stephanie knew full well this was the place, the story never seemed resolved in her mind. Which was odd, as Stephanie used to sit right next to Anita in Spanish class, and now Anita wasn’t there anymore. She understood that she was dead, knew that, but the rest of it was like a puzzle with only the border finished and all the other pieces hopelessly lost.

Ruthy stopped and sighed.

While Ruthy collected herself, Stephanie picked her cautious way over the worst of the rusty and splintery debris, skipping on her now very dirty and increasingly sore feet and caught up to Ruthy. She picked one foot up behind her, feeling a nagging little pain in her foot, but under all the dust and oil of the long walk, she couldn’t see much more than a tiny bump a little blacker than the rest of her sole. She ran her finger over it, and decided it was nothing. Just as she set her foot back down, Ruthy turned and seemed drained, not so much of color, but of attitude. “Wow. Ruth, I’m really sorry I brought it up. You guys were pretty good friends, weren’t you?”

“Don’t be sorry, I can’t help but think about it whenever I’m around here.”

Sorry as she was that she brought it up, Stephanie couldn’t help but be more curious than sorry. Stephanie looked at Ruthy, who appeared far more vulnerable than normal, and strangely, far less guarded. Quick as that, Stephanie watched the attitude rush back to Ruthy’s face like a blush of embarrassment.

“I know who did it.”

“Who did it?” Stephanie asked with a wide-eyed and morbid curiosity, though to be honest she very much doubted that Ruthy knew anymore about it than she did, and just said she did to be cool or shocking.

“Yeah, like I’m gonna tell!” Ruthy snorted. “And get my ass stabbed.”

“God, it’s creepy here,” Stephanie said, her nose crinkled up, rubbing her arms. She stood with her feet turned in, sweetly pigeon-toed, toes rolled up and out. “C’mon, let’s get down to the river.”

“I know where they found the body.”

That stopped Stephanie dead. She let go of her arms and stood flat-footed. “No way!” But this she believed. “Where?”

“God you’re sick! You really want to know exactly where she was found, all bloated and fucked up?”

Stephanie did. She was ashamed of it, thought there might be something wrong with her, but she wanted to know.

Ruthy grinned. “Come on.” She led Stephanie along the expansive back wall and around the loading docks to a nook and cranny where the Dumpsters were.

With some hesitation, Stephanie, feeling almost sick to her stomach with anticipation, followed Ruthy over the greasy black concrete around the empty Dumpster. Empty or not, it still stunk like a Dumpster. The concrete felt thick and rubbery under her feet, and she could not help but walk prissy and on tiptoe over it. “Gross,” whined Stephanie, finally finding herself standing on the nastiest surface her bare feet had ever tread upon.

“Right there.” Ruthy pointed to a spot, a miserable dirty patch of concrete that butted right up against the back wall of the building.

It was the most awful thing Stephanie had ever seen, and a lump like cold oatmeal caught in her throat. Though there was no blood or sign of violence, it just seemed to her the most horrible and degrading place in the world to die. In fact the lack of any sign of blood or violence and the super-real coldness of the scene only resulted in chilling Stephanie to the bone. All at once a shudder overtook her as she felt something of the full horror of what must have happened that night, a fraction of what Anita must have felt, and it hit her like a blinding flash of light. Stephanie crept back from it all. She didn’t want to look at it anymore, or even be near it, but the spot held a morbid and magnetic draw for her.

Just over the hill, across the meadow of high brown weeds and rubbish she could hear it, the river…the very spot where everyone hung out.

“You were with her, y’know, the last night, right?” Stephanie asked, pointing limply back towards the river.

“Yeah, we were pretty stoned!” laughed Ruthy. “She just sorta’ wandered off, and that was that. I found out about it at school the next day.”

The chill, the choking sensation in her throat, clung to Stephanie as she realized what all this meant. She hadn’t been here since before Anita died, that day when she actually had shoes on. The only word she could think of to describe what she felt was “surreal.” She knew all these people, had been to the same places they hung out at. Stephanie even knew Anita, might even know her killer, and might even be hanging out with him this afternoon. If not all that, at the very least she had a feeling that if Ruthy didn’t actually know what happened and who did it, then surely one of the kids at the river did. What stuck foremost in Stephanie’s mind was her own not knowing. Not just not knowing who did it, but not knowing all the sordid details of what had happened, as her imagination presented pictures far worse or not at all sufficient enough to really come to grips with the horror of it all; surreal…super-real…and also unreal.

“They never caught the guy, did they?”

“Who said it was a guy?” Ruthy grinned. “You know, she was running around barefoot that night… like you!”

“Don’t say that!” Stephanie cried. Stephanie didn’t like that comparison one bit, and it lodged in her mind, feeling now the same places with her bare feet that Anita felt that last night of her life. But knowing this filled her with other questions. She wondered if Anita’s parents bitched at her for going barefoot, wondered if Anita cared, if Anita was ever nervous about going barefoot, or even if she ever got cut down by the river. And for all the time they spent sitting together it dawned on her just how little she knew about Anita, and she wished she’d have known Anita liked to go barefoot too.

Ruthy started off towards the patch of scrub between the river and the crime scene.

Stephanie followed tight on her heels, feeling pinpricks all up her back, shooting glances back over her shoulder as she began picking and climbing up over the hill, the ground hard and cold under her feet, threatening rusty objects jutted out of the ground like arms coming out of graves in the zombie movies she watched on late night cable at Ruthy’s house. This patch of ground she knew to be the most dangerous she had ever had to cover with no shoes on her feet. Looking at her own feet she wondered if someone were after her—a madman, a killer—would she run faster thanks to her bare feet, or would her bare feet slow her down? Would she find herself in trouble, stopped dead or thrown into a limp and hobble if she stepped on glass or something worse in her blind run? Had Anita's bare feet gotten her killed? Stephanie shook it off. She took one last glance over her shoulder and decided to pay close attention to every footstep while trying her level best to keep up with Ruthy and put some distance between herself and that greasy patch of haunted concrete. But some of the greasy horror clung like spiders to her cold and dirty bare feet.

To Be Continued...

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Comments? Criticisms? Should I post chapter 2?

B E A U T I F U L ! ! !

Guess Stephanie could be any of the beautiful girls here in City Feet

Please, go on with Chapter 2, great work!!!

Regards

DG

Wow, mystery and barefeet. I would love to read chapter 2!

Thanks for the nice words Gentlemen!

Hope you enjoy chapter 2. Please let me know what you think.

_____

Barefoot Black Sheep
Part 1 * CHAPTER 2
By: Dennis Crabapple McClain
& Lou Gojira

Stephanie's father had barely cast a glance her way as she bounded into the house about an hour earlier, arriving home way past dinnertime, of course. He had this "I'm about to give up" resignation in his half-closed eyes, immersed in some show that just droned away on the television. He said hello to her, and she returned the gesture, but her mother immediately motioned for her to come into the kitchen. Her mother wasn't ready to let her have it with both barrels, not this late at night anyway, and Stephanie was thankful for that. Her mom just said, in a hushed tone, casting occasional glances into the living room: "You, your father and I are going to have a talk tomorrow, so no going out after school."

"But-" Stephanie had said, more out of instinct than actually wanting to tempt an argument.

Her mother shook her head, closing her eyes when she did so, and cutting Stephanie's rebuttal short with the motion. Stephanie realized then that she was in hot water, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. "No going out," her mother repeated. "Tell Ruthy to stay home tomorrow."

Her mother pointed her to a plate covered with aluminum foil that rested on the stove, obviously the leftovers her parents were still nice enough to set aside for her, even though she wasn't in the best of their graces at the moment. She just nibbled around on the food therein, then re-wrapped the plate and slid it into the fridge once her mother left her alone in the kitchen. Her stomach was burning more out of worry over the bomb that was sure to drop tomorrow rather than hunger, so eating wasn't high up on her 'to-do' list. A planned, premeditated 'talking to' meant, if history was any indication, that some new rule or new set of rules were going to get enacted around the house, and naturally it'd be nothing but bad news for her. Add to that her father's nonchalant withdrawal, and Stephanie knew that the old man was really, REALLY storing up for the big day, the D-Day, the great and terrible, inevitable, tomorrow...

Stephanie now sat on the side of her bed, dressed down in just a long and very baggy night-shirt and panties, her skin extra soft and smelling fresh from a warm bath, reflecting on the heads-up her mother gave her and working a cotton ball filled with polish-remover over her toe-nails. She pressed her cheek into the side of her bent knee as she observed that smelly cotton ball magically erase the color from the slender, spread toes on her right foot, the left one already finished and poised in a relaxed arch on the floor, Stephanie feeling the cold of the bed-rail touching her Achilles’ tendon. She contemplated throwing on the album Ruthy returned from borrowing to her a few days ago (sure to make plenty of fun of it as she did so, just being good ol' cynical Ruthy), but figured she'd better not press her luck too much more that night. Her parents made a fuss about her music no matter the volume once it got past nine o'clock, and considering the crap she was looking to face tomorrow, she didn't want to spray anymore napalm on the forest fire.

'It wasn't worth it...' Stephanie thought, now bending forward and going through her shoe box of polish bottles she kept behind the row of her paperbacks by the bed, a hint of the polish remover still lingering in the air. She wasn't regretting going out barefoot, not at all. That was the most rewarding thing she did for herself all day, all week if she thought about it enough. So rewarding in fact that she paused from going through the polishes and started examining her feet, holding one foot to face her at a time as she scanned it over with her hands and eyes. She noted how her feet didn't really 'look' rough, not yet anyway, but she did notice to the touch the soft-leathery feel the edges of her heels and the sides of her big toes were getting. She'd squeeze the fore pad of each foot, squirming her toes as she did so, and enjoyed the little burn her sole would produce from the subtle wrinkles rubbing together. Simple pleasures were usually the best kind to have...

The time down at the river was, in a word, "alright", but after a while of it she should've made her way on home, not felt obligated to hang with Ruthy as Ruthy talked trash with some of the local "bad boys". Ruthy was a cool person, and Stephanie never really regretted making her acquaintance (aside from the two major fights they had at different points a long time ago), but she found herself losing respect for her whenever the "bad boys" were around. As unique and rebellious, and undoubtedly interesting as Ruthy could be most of the time, all of that tended to get shot down when the "dangerous" members of the opposite sex got within speaking distance.

She held up the polish bottle of hot pink, thinking it may be a nice diversion from cherry red for a few days, and turned it some between her index finger and thumb. Yeap, the color was the same no matter what side of the bottle she saw it from. She smirked at her own behavior and started twisting off the top.

* * *

Ruthy's I.Q. seemed to dip into the single digits around these "bad boys", Stephanie recounted from then and other times before, and especially around that Tommy Dawson character. What she saw in that guy Stephanie had no clue, but Tommy and some of his buds were down at the river earlier that night slap-assing and joking around, just doing things groups of guys without much going on tend to do. Robbie obviously drove all four of the guys down there in his big black and silver pick-up truck, and Tommy was sitting on the dropped tailgate when she and Ruthy spotted them from over the hilltop. Stephanie especially remembered how her stomach began to knot once she saw the beers in their hands, knowing that Ruthy would feel the need to join in with any kind of drinking, and the pressure for Stephanie to join in was always sure to follow.

Stephanie cut her eyes over to Ruthy. "You know, we could just go to-"

"What's up guys?!" Ruthy belted out almost immediately, and picked up her pace to go down to them.

Robbie was sitting sideways in the cab of the truck, dangling his legs out with the door hanging open. "Heeeeeeyyyy Water! What's up?!" he yelled. Stephanie already knew that little nickname was for Ruthy, she'd heard some of the kids around school murmur it plenty of times in reference to her, but she never bothered to find out the reason her friend got saddled with it.

Ruthy eyed the four guys present from her distance, and then hollered “So where the hell’s John?” as she got nearer the boys.

“Too good for us, y’know,” Robbie sneered

Greg was standing and facing Tommy, telling him about something she couldn't hear very well from the distance, and Allen was on the other side of the truck, leaning in on the bed and only half paying attention to the conversation himself. Robbie had something unfamiliar blaring good and loud from the speakers inside the cab, but Stephanie dared not let on that she didn't know who or what band it was, and for that matter Ruthy wouldn't either. She also spotted a cooler with its top ajar sitting in the bed and resting against the cab, and deep down she started hoping it was already empty.

* * *

Stephanie ran her hand through her wet hair and had both bare feet in her eyesight, propping both heels on the side of the bed, gently blowing a tiny stream of her cool breath across the first fresh layer of hot pink. She gave her toes a stretch and a bit of a wiggle, liking the shine of the polish and the way the veins and tendons in the tops of her feet would get more pronounced when she did this.

* * *

A few minutes of idle bantering back and forth interspersed with jokes and various other forms of chit-chat followed the introductions as she and Ruthy got within the guys' parking space down at the river. While the initial bantering commenced, Stephanie started thinking back on where Ruthy pointed out that Anita was supposedly stabbed to death. Ruthy apparently made her way to the cooler and helped herself to a can of suds while Stephanie was thinking about all this, and had her thoughts jarred back to the moment when she saw Ruthy slurping some brew and holding up an unopened can for her. Stephanie just shook her head and let her focus go to the river, unconscious of how she was still walking to keep within Ruthy's space, getting lost in her thoughts again. Stephanie had wanted to scold her friend, reminding her that it was a school night, beside the fact that she was still under-age for alcohol, but of course didn't. She didn't know if it was the social setting that tightened her lips, her own day-dreaming preoccupying her, or fear of sounding like her own mother that made her remain silent. Or perhaps part of her wanted to join in and have a beer herself. But she couldn’t.

Before she knew it, both she and Ruthy were seated on the tailgate, Ruthy beside Tommy of course, with Stephanie on the end and pretty much feeling like a third tit, still watching the river and letting her mind drift. Most of the conversing that went on was between Ruthy and the boys, while Stephanie mindlessly watched an old white-headed man walk along the side of the riverbank. She reflected on her delicious barefoot trip out there as the old man bent down to grab a rock, flinging it into the water. His head turned suddenly to make eye contact with her when Greg suddenly got extra loud.

"Your parents could go to jail for that!" he said, pointing to her bare feet and taking a slight stumble, already being a few good sheets to the wind.

Stephanie cocked her mouth side-ways, rudely being brought back to reality. "Huh? What about my parents?" She looked away from the old man to meet Greg's glazed, goofy-eyed gaze, all the while her feet softly kicked and scuffed one another has she dangled her legs off the tailgate.

"Don't they buy you shoes?" Allen asked, still leaning into the bed of the truck and smelling of brew. She turned and saw that stupid grin which seemingly never left his face. For some reason, she was reminded of every time she saw Allen... either in a setting like this or in passing at school, and that guy just always seemed to grin. She wondered if he even kept that silly grin in his sleep.

"Yeah, that's uh...uh..." Greg stammered, gathering his numbed thoughts. "That's neglect...burglar neglect...!"

"Criminal neglect dumbass!" Robbie shot from the cab with a laugh, apparently only slightly drunk, compared with these other two anyway. Tommy hadn't spoken much since the introductions, so it was hard to guess his sobriety level.

"Leave her alone..."Ruthy giggled, and then looked to Tommy seeming to want his attention, which she only halfway got at best.

Stephanie just shook her head, and looked down at her naked, cold feet, all pink and a little puffy from the walk and the chilly November air. Her toes, perfect and elegant yet naturally chubby enough in the right places to maintain a surprisingly child-like cuteness, were plumper than usual from the cold. She spread her toes some and looked back for the lone old man she was starting to envy. 'At least that guy's not stuck with a bunch of drunks.' she thought, and suddenly noticed he was gone.

* * *

'Maybe he jumped in for a swim.' she amused herself with a smile as she lay back on her bed, keeping her lovely bare feet in sight, now with two coats of pretty hot pink applied to the nails. She stretched her legs and pushed her heels into the footboard, liking the way the edge of the wood pressed into their fleshy undersides. Simple pleasures tended to rock...

* * *

More time had passed and Robbie was now standing and crunching a shard of glass under the tip of his boot as he faced Stephanie. She imagined how her bare feet could pull that off without cutting her toes to shreds when he spoke: "Are you always this quiet when you forget your shoes?"

Stephanie felt her cheeks warm up, but was glad to hear Tommy, Greg, Allen, and Ruthy caught up in another conversation and not paying what he said any mind. "Well-" she smiled some "-it's not like I 'forgot' my shoes." She straightened her legs out and looked at her feet, then let them drop again to a dangle. Her butt and her legs were starting to get numb from sitting in that one cold and not very comfortable spot for so long. Exactly how long she didn't know. Maybe it was time to invest in a watch, she mused. Greg was standing at a lean against the side of the truck while Allen, Tommy, and Ruthy hadn't moved much either. Tommy was the only one still drinking by this point, while Ruthy was nowhere near as drunk as she pretended to be.

"Tell you what..." Robbie said, fishing in his pants for his wallet. "I'll give you a brand new one dollar bill if you tell me why you're so quiet." He grinned as he held his closed wallet in his hand, Stephanie doubting he even had a dollar in it.

"No reason..." she smiled. She was a little intimidated by Robbie. Not so much that she thought he was cute or anything as he certainly wasn't much to look at, not by Stephanie's personal standards. She just never talked a whole lot with him before. He was always "that guy hanging with Tommy" or "that guy with the truck" when she saw him. She'd never really conversed with him, no reason to before, and really not much of a reason to now.

"You're just one of those quiet-types ain'tcha." he jokingly observed, "Quiet girls makes the good grades."

Stephanie knew it was coming, but her stomach still tightened when she heard Ruthy suddenly pipe up, apparently having a listening ear still aimed her way regardless of what conversation she was involved in herself. "She's a big ol' fuckin' Brain!" then she laughed, leaning into Tommy and giving Stephanie's shoulder a shove. This little 'drunk act' of Ruthy's had a way of really driving under Stephanie's skin already. Involving her in a joke was the salt in the wound.

"I'm not a Brain..." Stephanie said back to her, allowing the annoyance to show in her voice. She folded her arms and stared down at the ground.

"Nothin' wrong with bein' a Brain." Robbie said, bending over to catch her gaze.

"Shit, I wish I was a Brain. I'm failin' everything..." Greg said more to Robbie than anybody else.

"Motherfucker yer' head's too fried for you to be a Brain!" Allen giggled.

"Yer' mother's head's too fried..." Greg said in a retort. "You and yer' straight D's and F's...look who's talkin' bitch!"

"Yeah, but I choose to make those grades..."Allen kept egging it on, laughing as he went "Motherfucker you don't have a choice." Robbie laughed at that line, and Stephanie found herself grinning over it too. She looked over to see if Ruthy was getting it, but Ruthy had her mouth in Tommy's ear whispering something.

"Yer' mother don't have a choice when I stick my dick in 'er mouth!" Greg came back, and Stephanie wondered if the alcohol made his comebacks so lame or if he was just that way naturally.

"You couldn't afford my mom, motherfucker!" Allen was really laughing at his own jokes now, and Stephanie surmised it must've been his silly giggling that made her smile at his comebacks over Greg's. "Don't feel bad, everybody can afford your mom. She's like the bus downtown, all the niggers c’n ride for thirty-five cents!"

Greg was laughing as he ran around the truck to chase Allen; Allen laughing as he ran and started dodging Greg's swinging arms.

Robbie laughed as he watched the two, then he turned his gaze back to Stephanie. "What's on your mind for real?"

"Damn you're a nosey-ass..." Stephanie answered smiling, still a bit annoyed at his prodding.

"I promise that if you tell me, I'll never ask you again," he said, holding his hands up.

* * *

'Why did I have to answer the way I did?!' Stephanie regretfully thought as she had her purse open, sitting Indian-style in the middle of the bed searching for something. The night's chilly wind could be heard outside.

* * *

He wasn't going to leave her alone, Stephanie realized, but how was she going to answer him? 'I'm quiet because I'm a prude and too good to speak to al-cee's!' she mused, or 'I'm just thinking about running barefoot through dangerous places because I'm a weirdo!' No way she could explain her fascination of going barefoot to a guy she hardly knew, especially when she hadn't really understood it or had come to grips with it herself. She blurted out the only other thought she was having: "I'm just thinking about Anita."

Robbie's smile dropped. Tommy leaned forward to look at Stephanie, away from Ruthy's mouth, while Ruthy had this 'what the hell?!' expression on her face as she watched Tommy.

* * *

Stephanie had the contents of her purse laying out on the bed as she found what she was looking for, some of the smaller items rolling into the crevasses her weight was forming on the sheets as she sat there. She was too engrossed in her thoughts to fully register the item she now held in her hand, she just knew she had what she was looking for as she went back to brooding over the evening...

* * *

She had walked with Ruthy all the way back to Ruthy and her mother’s little apartment first, more for a chance to explain her actions at the river than to see to the well-being of her 'drunk' friend. She took a wistful look around. Stephanie and Ruthy had spent many summer days and nights hanging around this apartment building, sitting on the stairs, even climbing up behind the garage to sunbathe on the roof. "You didn't say anything wrong girl, quit worrying so much!" Ruthy reassured her.

Stephanie twisted the ball of her foot on the asphalt of the apartment parking lot, savoring the texture of the grain. "If you say so," she said back, wondering what it could be about mentioning a girl's name that shifted the mood so quick among those guys.

"I know so. They're just drunk. You should've seen all the beer they had in that cooler." Ruthy told her as she skipped up the stairs to open the door. Stephanie couldn't help but be amazed at Ruthy talking about liquor so close to her mother’s earshot. She wouldn't dare try something that risky around her own mother, but then, Ruthy's mom was probably too drunk herself to even notice if she did hear.

"I'll see ya' tomorrow, Water." Stephanie said with a laugh, her mood being lifted with Ruthy's reassurance as she started walking toward her own home. She didn't stop to think that Ruthy might not have actually liked the name.

"Go home and hit the books Brain!" Ruthy laughed back at her as she slipped inside.

Okay, fair enough, Stephanie thought as she checked herself from taking the Brain comment too seriously. Once Ruthy's door closed, she turned and darted, knowing she was too late for dinner already.

* * *

Stephanie’s thoughts were becoming more and more jumbled the heavier her eyelids would get...
All those people stared at me running barefoot.
The creepy guy in the truck passed me twice.
Mom and dad are going to tear into me tomorrow.
None of those guys were worth the time of day.
That old man vanished into thin air.
That had to suck, dying in a parking lot.
My feet felt so good!
Ruthy's cool when it's just her and me.
I'll reheat that plate of food tomorrow.
I sure had to scrub my feet tonight.
I wonder what those people thought when they saw me?
My toes sure got numb by the time I was home.
I wonder what the white-headed old creepy guy thought when he passed me in the truck.

Stephanie paused from what she was doing and stared at the wall. She wondered if the old man she saw down at the river was the same man that passed by her in that pick-up truck. Now that she thought about it, they did look pretty similar...they both had white hair anyway. Granted the old man down at the river was further away, a lot harder to see, but she was almost ready to swear it was he who passed her in the truck.

She looked back down, and had to put a hand over her mouth to keep from yelling out of shock.

Unbeknownst to her as she did it, Stephanie had taken her little eye-shadow kit from her purse, and smudged, with her fingertips no less, a shade of blue ALL OVER HER FEET! She just leaned back on her elbows, more stunned than anything and looked at her feet. Hot pink nails surrounded by light-blue skin, all the way up her ankles. The color was uneven in spots, naturally, but for the most part she was looking at her now blue feet and wondering how in the hell, why in the hell, she did that. She pulled her legs up and admired the work for a bit...her feet did look pretty that way, as weird as that sounded to her to acknowledge it. She worked her ankles and toes, watching the tendons and veins form in the blue tint, the lines across the tops of her toes deepening and catching the eye-shadow in them...her feet were beautiful...captivating...

'The hell they are!' she argued with herself, as she angrily threw herself off the bed and disgustedly stomped her way back to the bathroom to wash that color off, knowing her parents wouldn't hear her foot-falls on the concrete floor as they were already in bed by then anyway. To top things off she totally used up that one little square of blue and figured she had to replace the whole kit now

On her way to the bathroom, strangely enough, mad and confused as she was at her own questionable behavior, she found herself still wondering if it was in fact the old man from the river that was driving that truck...

To Be Continued...

We need to find a way to make this into a movie. Loved the dumpster scene.

"...followed Ruthy over the greasy black concrete around the empty Dumpster. Empty or not, it still stunk like a Dumpster. The concrete felt thick and rubbery under her feet, and she could not help but walk prissy and on tiptoe over it. “Gross,” whined Stephanie, finally finding herself standing on the nastiest surface her bare feet had ever tread upon."

Thanks for the nice words lv2drtyft!

If we ever had a movie made of this story, who would you like to see playing the part of Stephanie?

Hope you like chapter 3.

_____

Barefoot Black Sheep
Part 1 * CHAPTER 3
By: Dennis Crabapple McClain
& Lou Gojira

This was not going to be good. All day at school Stephanie dreaded coming home. Not that school was ever much of a treat. Cute as she was, Stephanie was anything but popular, as she was considered “weird” by most of her fellow students. Right after school--her shoes and socks neatly removed at the door--she voluntarily exiled herself to her room where she stayed from shortly after three until her father got home at five, and since then her parents had left her in there twisting, she had a nerve-induced greasy lump form in her throat that dripped acrid dread into her gut. Needless to say, "Brain" or not, she hadn’t learned much at school thanks to the cloud of doom hanging over her, and now with school over the cloud didn't show any signs of dispersing.

This waiting was the worst, worst by far than having to pick her barefoot way over that patch of scrub and litter between the old K-mart and the river’s edge. Lately her parents have been on her case nonstop about her running all over with no shoes on.

No, this wasn’t going to be good at all. Undoubtedly last night was going to be some sort of “last straw.”

It was already seven o'clock and for an hour and a half now she had been overhearing the muffled sound of her parents upstairs in the dining room discussing her fate. For a while Stephanie had tried to listen to music, but not being able to hear her parents at all only made her so sick to the stomach she had to go to the bathroom three times. Besides, she wanted to hear the footsteps of her mother—undoubtedly her mother, as her father always made her do the dirty work—coming down the stairs to deliver her sentence. And the music wasn’t helping at all, as it just kept bringing to memory the ribbing she got from Ruthy for it. She had loaned her favorite album to Ruthy, and still didn’t know what she could have been thinking, as she knew Ruthy would never be open minded enough to really listen to it. The funny thing was that she and Ruthy actually shared similar tastes and endured a lot of ribbing at school for liking "all that old shit."

But even THAT similarity with Ruthy spoke more to their differences than to their similarities. Simply put, Stephanie liked the Beatles and Ruthy liked The Rolling Stones. Of course, from there their differences only branched out, Stephanie, Bob Dylan; Ruthy Neil Young. Even when it came to the newer stuff they didn’t much agree. They both liked the popular stuff, Ruthy more than Stephanie, but even that stuff they disagreed about. The guys, well, they liked what Stephanie considered to be trailer-trash soundtrack music: Lynyrd Skynyrd, Led Zeppelin, and of course Pink Floyd, who didn't fit the trailer-trash bill, but Stephanie found entirely too depressing and pretentious. New Wave, well, they mostly agreed that that stuff was pretty silly, and Punk, well, that was out of the question. "All Things Must Pass," was one of Stephanie’s favorites, and Ruthy said she couldn’t even “listen to a whole side of that boring shit” before shutting it off. So much for reaching out…

Knowing what was coming, hoping to gain a little favor, she had removed all her make-up--as her father hated how she wore it. Stephanie had even pulled on what she considered to be her "church clothes.” Even now she was almost considering putting on some socks. Knowing what was coming, knowing that her bare feet were going to be the center of her scolding, the feeling of bareness radiating from them now was not at all pleasant. It was creeping and hot/cold, and the whole sensation left her feeling vulnerable and ashamed.

"Stephanie," came her mother’s voice through the door, immediately followed by one quick sharp knock. Somehow Stephanie had missed the cow-like approach of her mother’s heavy walk down the stairs.

Swallow. Lump in the throat. Stephanie lunged up from her bed, had to go to the bathroom again, but was glad that at the very least this was almost over; the waiting anyway. There would of course be the inevitable suffering through whatever punishment they would dole out to her.

"Your father and I want you to come up now."

"Ok, be right out." Stephanie checked herself in the mirror, and then waited a short spell because she didn’t want to have to endure the discomfort of walking up the stairs with her mother so close. Not now.

She crept out her door and took each step on weak-feeling ankles, feeling every fiber of the old matted carpet under her soles.

Her mom and dad sat in the living room like immovable megaliths. The smell of an eaten dinner hung in the air. She had smelled it from her room, it hadn’t smelled good then, and it smelled even worse now. How her toes tingled, she wanted to stomp on her own toes just to dull the acute sensation which felt like the physical equivalent of listening to someone rake their fingernails down a blackboard.

The Lazy Boy always sat right at the edge of the stairs, and Stephanie stood behind it, using the chair as a shield to partly hide her scandalous bare feet, but mostly to keep some distance between her and her disapproving parents. The room felt miserable to her, heavy and sticky as beef gravy, gloomy in the sickening yellow light of the old lamps on the coffee tables. Her hands sweated and shook and she felt a hellish kind of warmth in her wrists, a warmth that crawled up her neck. This was the self-same feeling she got as a kid when she had to stay after school.

"Don’t leave this house barefoot anymore," said her father.

And that was that.

That hot spot crawling up her neck rooted itself to the base of her skull.

"It’s too cold," her mother added.

Her father, a man of few words and an obvious addiction to television, had nothing else to say.

But, if things held true to form, her mother would have to chew over every minute detail of this for at least twenty minutes. "And I don’t want you spending anymore time with that Ruthy friend of yours. She’s a bad influence."

Stephanie groaned and rolled her eyes.

"Don’t you roll your eyes at your mother," her father said sternly, surprising Stephanie that he was able to even catch the gesture in the midst of an episode of 'Barney Miller' coming to an end.

"We have told you about this over and over again," her mother went on, elaborating right on cue. "You’ll get hurt, or catch cold."

How lame that was, Stephanie thought.

"Honestly, Stephanie, I don’t know what is the matter with you," her mother continued.

They did not get it, could not get it, not at all. To Stephanie, it was the most natural thing in the world to go barefoot, not just an extension of herself, but an essential part of herself. Her parents just couldn’t get it. After all, how could she explain all the luscious tingles, the freedom, the exhilaration, to her stuffy closed-minded parents. Though even now she found the things she felt when she went barefoot to be “sinful” at times.

Done. Her father got up and walked past Stephanie, a heat like sulfur came off him and chilled Stephanie as he passed her and went slow and deliberately to his half-finished side of the basement. Stephanie stood frozen. She had dreaded this, the final "NO" that would put an end to her barefoot fun. She wanted to cry. It didn’t make sense why this meant so much to her. What made less sense was how rigid her parents were about it. It just felt like such a mess in her head, like an impossibly knotted tangle of fishing line.

After a moment Stephanie heard the melancholy sounds of Willie Nelson coming from the basement, followed by the sound of her father working out. She didn’t mind Willie Nelson, even rather liked him, but not now. The music was too loaded, too dark; too much her father. Once she got back down to her room she would have to put on her headphones to block it out should she be down there very long.

“What about summer?” Stephanie asked in desperation.

“I don’t think so. We can’t trust you to use good judgment.” Her mother shook her head, her expression changing to one of disgust. “Your father hated hippies when he was in Vietnam."

"I’m not a hippie, mom!" Stephanie whined defensively. "God! ‘Hippie?’" It was such an outdated term. No one used it anymore, and her mother’s steadfast square-ness really grated on Stephanie, especially now.

"I know you think you‘re 'cool’ or whatever, ‘grooving’ with your friends."

Grooving. Now the heat in Stephanie’s head was simple embarrassment for her mother. Grooving. The word, whatever it meant—as no one used it anymore, and no one ever used it in this context so far as she knew—just plain annoyed Stephanie. To Stephanie it was obvious that her mother’s choice of words was an intentional scoff at Stephanie and her friends, but it simply came off as slightly pathetic.

"And your father hates the way you wear his army jacket. You know hippies spit on him when he came home from Vietnam?"

"I’m not spitting on dad!"

"We just don’t understand you anymore.” Her mother retreated to the kitchen where she would most likely stuff a handful of chocolate chips in her face.

Filled with dread, Stephanie went to her room. They had taken from her what was the greatest pleasure in her life at this point. She didn’t know what to think. What was wrong with her? Why was this so important to her? It did seem crazy at times, even to Stephanie, but no amount of logic and scolding changed how she felt about being barefooted. Of course, in her parents’ mind, this punishment didn’t seem particularly harsh, but to Stephanie it may as well have been a jail sentence. This caged bird wasn't ready to get her wings clipped off entirely though, so she at least went to work re-doing her 'preferred' look rather than stay with her 'this-should-impress-my-parents' look, which she was already feeling silly for having at the moment. The whole act of making herself up was therapeutic to a good degree, even if she was seeing the wire bars and seed-dish slowly beginning to materialize around her home life...

After putting on her make-up, Stephanie changed into clothes she liked: a tight sweater; old worn and tight jeans with holes in the knees, ink drawings and band logos scrawled on them by her friends, and the zipper that tightened the hem above her ankles, showing off her exquisite sculpted ankles. She pulled on her coat—not the old army jacket—her sleeveless ski jacket, and almost tearfully, a pair of socks and sneakers. Last but not least, she snatched a little silver ring off of her dresser as she left the room and shoved it into her front pocket as she started up the stairs. Walking up to the living room, she made sure her mother saw her shoes, "Can I go for a walk?" Stephanie ventured, not exactly ready to tie herself down to a pair of headphones for the night, as the old man was only now finishing his arm-curls and still had an untold number of rep's to do.

Her mother glanced at her feet, approved, but held a red forlorn look on her face.

"What? I’m not grounded?"

Her mother sighed. "It’s a school night."

"I did all my homework."

"You aren’t going to Ruthy’s, are you?"

"No!" cried Stephanie. "I just need some air."

"You haven’t eaten dinner."

"I’m not hungry." Stephanie always lost her appetite when she was upset.

"Don’t be out all night."

"OK,” her tone more defeated than haughty.

Finally free of the stuffy darkness of the house, the chill of the evening startled Stephanie at first, but the freshness of the air soothed a few degrees of the nagging fever-burn in her head. As she walked through the yard she felt her mother watching her go, but didn’t bother to turn over her shoulder to see. She resented being numb to the wonderful feel the fall leaves that crunched crisply under her shoes, wanting so much to feel them under her bare soles.

Up the road she went, in the opposite direction of her usual shoe-stashing hiding place. Her feet felt wrong in the shoes, unnatural. “God, I really need to talk to an adult that isn’t crazy,” she fumed.

In this neighborhood Stephanie knew of only one place to go to find just that, and she was at Mrs. Thompson’s door before she knew it. Even her doorbell was cooler than most. It played the first few notes of Beethoven’s fifth.

Leah Thompson’s husband had left her years ago, so it was she who answered the door, the sound of her television squawked noisily in the background. Even though the TV bathed her living room in cool blue light, here and there scented candle-light flickered warmly, nothing like the sickly light that seemed to ooze and leak all over Stephanie’s parents’ house. "Stephanie, come on in," she smiled. "Hey, you’ve got shoes on!" she teased.

As much as Stephanie loved Mrs. Thompson she wasn’t enjoying the teasing, but she got to work slipping the shoes and socks off before the screen door had even swung shut. She was quite happy to feel the old bluish carpet under her feet. Stephanie inhaled, always liking the smell of Mrs. Thompson’s house. Mrs. Thompson’s house smelled like plants and old books, and always faintly sweet from tea, and all the incense and candles she had lit over the years.

Watching Stephanie shed her shoes and socks with such immediacy took Mrs. Thompson back. "I think I owe you an apology," Mrs. Thompson said, expecting the worst from Stephanie. "I’m really sorry, but, I think I got you into trouble."

Stephanie looked at her funny. Worried for a second that even Mrs. Thompson may have turned into a real grown-up on her.

Mrs. Thompson ushered her in towards the kitchen table, which was cluttered, but not like the table at her own house. This table was cluttered with books, and was clean under all the clutter. "Tea?"

Stephanie nodded. It would be herbal of course, picked right from Mrs. Thompson’s herb garden. Even now a few bundles of herbs hung in the kitchen, waiting to be turned into tea or used in recipes.

"You see," started Mrs. Thompson as Stephanie sat at the table and watched her busily making the tea. Mrs. Thompson was also barefoot, and wore jeans and a billowy shirt that Stephanie knew had to be a leftover from her hippie days. "I bumped into your parents yesterday, and I think I may have spilled the beans."

"Oh," Stephanie said lowly.

"I sometimes forget that your parents are..." Mrs. Thompson searched for just the right political words. She knew how delicate a position she was in, wanting to offer full support to Stephanie without entirely contradicting what her parents may have said.

"Uptight, I think you mean uptight."

Mrs. Thompson gave a noncommittal shrug. Lately Stephanie had been coming over more and more often, wishing so much that Mrs. Thompson were her mother.

Mrs. Thompson saw in Stephanie a little of herself as a young girl; defiance, intelligence, a dreamer, and a lot of trouble with her parents.

"What’d you say?"

"I let slip that I saw you out barefoot yesterday. I’m sorry."

"Oh, eh..." Stephanie waved. "It’s not your fault. They were going to notice when I came in anyways. They’re like the KGB, they keep track of everything I do."

"Stephy... it was cold yesterday!" Mrs. Thompson laughed in a what-were-you-thinking-but-wasn’t-it-cute sort of way.

"I know!" Stephanie moaned defensively.

"Look at me calling the kettle black." Already the kitchen filled with the building whistle of the teapot.

"What do you mean?"

"I’ve never shown you any of my old pictures, have I?"

"No." Stephanie smiled. "You mean, like from the sixties?" Looking around, Stephanie could see evidence of that all around her. Mrs. Thompson’s house looked a lot like an adult version of her own room. Instead of posters hanging on the wall Mrs. Thompson hung framed prints of Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and the Grateful Dead--who Stephanie secretly found to be the most boring band in the world. It suddenly dawned on Stephanie that her recent friendship with Mrs. Thompson involved a lot of her talking about her problems and very little listening, which suddenly felt embarrassing. "I’d love to see them." And she meant it. There were so many things she wanted to know about Mrs. Thompson, and she was sure she had stories to tell and points of view much more exciting than those of her own parents.

"I’m not so sure I should show them to you."

"Why not?"

"There are things in some of them that... people nowadays... well, let’s just say I don’t think you should follow my example. God, but it was fun!" Mrs. Thompson rolled her eyes back and looked to the ceiling, smiling.

She brought the freshly whistling teapot to Stephanie who was already basking in the glow of her favorite adult. Though Mrs. Thompson never treated Stephanie like a teenager. She poured the tea over the tea ball full of chocolate mint, and right away Stephanie could smell the fragrant steam.

"So, what exactly is so awful now?" she asked Stephanie.

"I’d rather see your old pictures."

"We can do both." Mrs. Thompson motioned for Stephanie to follow her, and was down the hall before Stephanie had even finished preparing or taken a sip of her tea. So frequently did Stephanie visit, especially lately, that Mrs. Thompson expected her to dig through the cupboard and get her own honey or sugar, which she did quickly now, eager to join her mentor down the hall.

As Stephanie stirred honey into her tea, a bright light caught her attention. The ordinary headlights felt to Stephanie like the searching eyes of a demon. She set her tea down and crept to the front window and pulled the curtain aside.

Her heart stopped and her mouth fell open. It couldn’t be!

But it looked for all the world like that same creepy truck she saw on the road yesterday. Just like yesterday, the truck rolled slowly and deliberately down the road, practically stopping before Mrs. Thompson’s house. Stephanie froze in terror, feeling a chill even worse and hotter and colder in turns than the chills she felt in her own living room as her parents were scolding her. Petrified, she watched as the truck sped up, then returned to its original stalking speed and then slowed almost to a stop as it rolled by her own house. Then, just like that, it rolled along its way, stopped at the stop sign, and turned and sped along just like any other car on the road.

She shook her head, dismissing it as her just being overly dramatic. She and Ruthy loved to swap creepy stories about things that may or may never have happened to them or people they knew, but it always made for good late night talk.

Stephanie returned for her tea and followed the light in the backroom. There she found Mrs. Thompson in her bedroom digging through a closet. "So, what’s troubling you?" she asked.

"It’s so queer," Stephanie tried to laugh it off.

"Whatever it is, I can see it’s preying on you." She stopped her stretching and reaching in the closet and shot Stephanie a knowing look. "Hey, it’s me, you don’t have to apologize for it. If it’s bugging you, you can tell me. I’m not here to pass any judgment."

"It’s..." Stephanie sighed and felt herself tearing up. "I don’t know why this is so important to me, but my parents are freaking out about my not wearing shoes. They told me I’m not to leave the house barefoot anymore. God, it’s so embarrassing. I don’t know why it’s so damn important to me, but I just hate shoes."

"Stephy," Mrs. Thompson dug for just a second more and tossed a box on her bed. "Come here, I want to show you something." She led Stephanie out the side door and around back. The concrete of her driveway felt deliciously chilly under Stephanie’s hot feet, and she felt vividly alive as the sensation washed over her whole body. She took a deep breath to fill her insides with all the chilly freshness and freedom she felt under her feet. Mrs. Thompson pointed to an old metal box that sat just to the right of her sliding doors. "I don’t even know why I kept this box all this time--no one delivers milk anymore, but there it is. I never look in it, so, if you were passing by my yard on your way out, and you stopped by and dropped something off, no one would ever be any the wiser."

"Thanks, that’s so cool!"

Mrs. Thompson hushed Stephanie. "I never said a word about this...understand?"

Stephanie nodded.

"I’m just saying that I don’t mind your cutting through my yard, and I never look in that box."

Stephanie nodded, and could not believe how cool Mrs. Thompson was.

"Now, isn’t our tea getting cold?” She headed back for the door, and then turned to add, “You might want to check for spiders before you go stuffing your shoes in it, though.”

Once inside, Mrs. Thompson brought her box out into the living room, where they both sat on the floor as she opened it, the TV turned off and the radio quietly playing some innocuous jazz in the background.

"Oh," laughed Mrs. Thompson. "Pretend you didn’t see that." she palmed a ceramic pipe and tucked it under her chair. Stephanie chuckled to herself. Mrs. Thompson pulled out a small handful of photographs and spread them loosely out on the floor.

"Wow! Look at you!" Stephanie effused. Right there, before her was a smiling, young and more blonde Mrs. Thompson, her eyes so dreamy and young she appeared a little dippy. The pictures were black and white, but Stephanie saw clearly all the green and yellow of the clothes and the dripping sixties sunshine. She looked at Mrs. Thompson smiling. She always thought Mrs. Thompson to be cool, but hadn’t quite entirely accepted that she may have been not just young and beautiful, but such a, well, such a hippie chick. Not that it was much of a surprise.

Mrs. Thompson grinned ear-to-ear, proud that she was obviously scoring so many coolness points with her young protégé. "I know you can’t see it in most of these pictures..." she sorted through them, trying to more or less hide the ones that had big psychedelic pot leaf posters in the background. Then, of course there were the naked pictures that Stephanie was aware enough to pretend she hadn’t noticed. Mrs. Thompson snorted. "They were cut off in most of these pictures... but, I ran away to Greenwich Village for a while–and don’t you ever do that! –And I lived a few years without any shoes."

"Really!" Stephanie’s eyes were wide and bright, all the fever and misery of the day washed away as surely as if Mrs. Thompson had snapped her fingers and made the whole day up to now disappear.

"Yeah, that was me. Ah! There you go." She handed Stephanie one of the few color pictures showing a dirty footed Mrs. Thompson standing outside a shop in the Village, smiling, love beads, bell bottoms, and all. "It was crazy then, good, but crazy." She laughed. "I hadn’t counted on how cold it was in New York all winter when I did it. But I got by."

All Stephanie could do was sit there with her mouth agape in a big smile as she looked back and forth between the picture and the real Mrs. Thompson, who she now saw in an entirely different light. Stephanie no longer saw Mrs. Thompson as merely a cool old lady, in her eyes now she would be forever young. "So, how was it? I mean--I don’t know what to ask first. Even in the snow?"

"Brrr... Oh yeah, I told you, I lived without shoes for a few years."

“No way! I mean…that’s not even possible. You can’t go barefoot in the snow!”

“Well, I did,” laughed Mrs. Thompson. “It wasn’t’ easy, and it wasn’t always comfortable, but, I don’t know, it was pretty cool.”

"So... but... I see you in shoes all the time now."

"Why did I change?"

Stephanie nodded, still holding the picture, as if it obviously were now hers to keep, and she dug through the rest.

"I don’t know." she shook her head, almost sadly. "I guess I just got older and it became too much of a hassle."

"Well, not for me," Stephanie kept pouring over the pictures.

"Keep the faith," Mrs. Thompson said just as the phone rang. She answered it and Stephanie looked up at her knowingly. "Your mom," she mouthed quietly to Stephanie, who rolled her eyes. "Yes, Mrs. Goddard... Mm Hm... She’s right here... What?... No... No... She’s no trouble at all. She’s a great kid... Shoes? I don’t know, I hadn’t really checked..." Mrs. Thompson pantomimed a heavy impatient sigh just to get Stephanie laughing, and it worked. "Yes, she has shoes on... OK... Yes... I’ll call you if she stays too late... OK... Goodbye.... No, it’s no trouble."

She hung up the phone and Stephanie stood up, her foot having started to fall asleep, the picture still in her hand.

“Your mother said she didn’t want you out past ten-thirty."

Stephanie checked the clock, it was only a little after eight now. "Can I call Ruthy?"

"Feel free." At that Mrs. Thompson handed her the phone. "Oh, you can hold on to that picture if you want it."

"Wow! Really? How cool... thanks!" This new treasure Stephanie tucked into her safest pocket and dialed up Ruthy.

To Be Continued...

Can you imagine a young Lyv Tyler as Stephanie??? How about Sandra Bullock? Of course, young versions of those actresses!!! :-)

Regards

DG

Interesting choices DG! I hadn't considered those ladies!

Hope y'all like chapter 4.

_____

Barefoot Black Sheep
Part 1 * CHAPTER 4
By: Dennis Crabapple McClain
& Lou Gojira

Stephanie still needed her walk. With Mrs. Thompson’s blessing she headed out to meet up with Ruthy in the parking lot of the Middle School, which was within walking distance of her neighborhood and Ruthy's apartment complex. Ironically enough, it was also the same school Stephanie was thankful she didn't have to attend any longer as those years even more hellish than High School thus far. Mrs. Thompson had promised to cover for Stephanie, but not past ten-thirty. Stephanie had every intention of honoring Mrs. Thompson’s curfew. Mrs. Thompson chose to remain inside--and in denial--as Stephanie slipped out the back door and dropped her shoes and socks in the old milk box.

This act of outright disobedience tickled Stephanie instantly, biting to the bone the very second the lid shut on the box. She was now barefoot, wholly barefoot, and it felt great, naughty as could be, dangerous, and even more exhilarating than yesterday afternoon’s outing, because now it was officially forbidden. As she walked through the crisp cold grass every nerve in her feet felt the delightful shock of it with keen awareness. Her toes were still painted hot pink, but now she wore on her right index toe that small silver ring meant for fingers—toe rings were a thing she had read bout in stories, and a thing found shocking to most everybody she knew. Her ankles were bare, though sometimes she tied ribbons or wrapped beads of pearls around them, among a few other treasured and rare anklets. The blue of the sky was already dark enough that she could see a few stars. In the distance she could see the streetlights already coming on.

In the glow of spending time with Mrs. Thompson, of getting to keep the photograph, and of having a safe place to hide her shoes, she had entirely forgotten about the truck until a pair of headlights approached her.

Stephanie froze on the sidewalk, her heart in her throat. Being insubordinately barefoot quickly became the least of her worries.

The lights slowed to a near stop, turning to pull into the driveway a mere few feet before her.

The car turned, a big old Buick, and pulled into the driveway right ahead of her with all the grace of a fat lady with a walker. The kid in the backseat rolled his eyes at her and stuck his tongue out. Stephanie breathed a sigh of relief and held her hand on her chest, her heart threatening to beat right through her ski jacket.

She could see her breath as she walked, and felt a slight sting in her toes as the cold air began to numb them, causing a queer little itch to ring under her skin. It was colder than her run home yesterday, forty-one or forty-two at best so far as she could guess.

But the close call with the Buick had unnerved her, and she was desperate to meet up with Ruthy–whatever good Ruthy would do if some goon in a truck came after her.

It had to be nothing, a product of her playful imagination. She loved to be scared, her and Ruthy both. They had hit every haunted house this last Halloween, and secretly Stephanie fantasized about going through one barefooted, but even she realized the danger in that, what with all the frightened teens in their heavy boots and shoes, pushing back and shuffling along like a panicky tethered herd. This thing with the Buick and the truck was just another story to tell Ruthy, something to giggle about late at night. Nothing more. She was far more worried about the real Boogey Men, whoever had killed Anita. Worse yet, there was Robbie, Tommy, Greg, and Allen. Drunken burnouts she knew to be far worse than phantoms in trucks.

Just the same, it made sense, sort of, to wiggle through the back way to the schoolyard. The school sat butted right up against a patch of scrappy woods, a berry field, and the dirt path a lot of the kids raced their bikes around. Sizeable patches of woods not yet raped by urban sprawl. But even these little oases were fraught with dangers. Even in summer in broad daylight Stephanie thought of this stretch of woods as a “stupid place to go barefoot.” Under the big oak between the bike paths and the berry fields everyone knew to be a party spot, a hangout for burnouts. Granted, it was second-rate, as all the older cooler kids went to the river, and at least half the broken glass there was made up of pop bottles rather than beer bottles--as the "bad kids" who hung out there tended to be the younger brothers of the freak kids.

Stephanie laughed, wondering if Ruthy was full of shit or not, but Ruthy claimed to have lost her virginity at age thirteen to an eighteen-year-old boy under that tree. Stephanie doubted the story. As much as she thought about it, she just couldn’t figure Ruthy out, couldn’t tell if she was more bark than bite. It seemed that she just said shit like that to shock people. That trait of Ruthy’s, more than any other, irritated Stephanie.

Stephanie found herself at the final patch of concrete that disappeared into the woods before she could rethink it and take the less glassy and more public route to the schoolyard. Unfortunately now the sky was a heavy deep blue, and she couldn’t see a thing in the woods. Whatever light shone in the streets shone too feebly to hit the ground in the woods. And what little light shone in this corner revealed sparkles of glass on this final stretch of sidewalk.

As she stood hesitantly at the end of the path, worried sick about her feet, she wondered if the wild girls she saw when she was younger would have worried. Wouldn’t they have been cool and confident enough to just march on through? Or at the very least, wouldn’t they have faked it? People like that amazed Stephanie. People who just didn’t care, or worry, people who seemed blessed. Or, perhaps that was just how they acted. Stephanie had no way of knowing, because she thought about things, a lot, and thinking always led to worry.

Stephanie’s feet tingled all over again just recalling all the colored glass that she knew for a fact was sprinkled all over the stretch of sidewalk that disappeared under the growth, then she caught a chill thinking on all the glass strewn all over the dirt path ahead, some of it jutting right up out of the dirt. Glass that, all summer, she found hard to dodge even in daylight.

Something came rushing out from the underbrush, screaming and flailing like a Banshee.

Stephanie froze at first, then let out a hysterical scream and backed away, stumbling as whatever or whoever it was charged at her. She turned to run when whoever it was came down, crashing before Stephanie’s bare feet with a sick, heavy, and clumsy thud.

Stephanie skipped back.

"God fucking damn!" the ball of horror on the ground cried, and then laughed. "You should have seen your face! Fuck, Ow!"

"Oh, fuck you!" cried Stephanie, kicking Ruthy where she lay. But this time when Stephanie shouted ‘fuck’ it came out natural as could be.

"Hey bitch! Watch it," Ruthy said indignantly, pulling her self to her feet. "Oh, fuck. God damn, I think I sprained my wrist and fucked up my jeans."

"Well it serves you right! You practically gave me a heart attack."

"God, you should have seen your face!" Ruthy huffed, smiling, red-faced and bent over, resting her hands on her knees.

"Yeah, real funny," Stephanie sneered, though her voice was slowly cracking, giving in to the unwelcome urge to laugh as well. "How did you know I’d come this way?"

"I didn’t. I just hoped you would." Ruthy dusted herself off and stared at Stephanie’s feet. "God damn, girl, what’s wrong with you? There’s glass all over in those woods."

"Whatever."

"I thought you told me on the phone that you were like grounded from going barefoot or some shit."

"My folks don’t know."

"At least if we’re goin’ through that way let’s head back to my place for a flashlight or something for you."

"Nah, I’m OK," Stephanie shrugged confidently, like she imagined one of the wild girls might have done. Still, she was touched by the surprisingly thoughtful gesture from the usually oblivious to anything-not-her Ruthy. Unfortunately, now that she had opened her big mouth and acted so casual she felt herself committed to going through there barefoot and in the dark. She stretched and curled her toes, wishing some of the unnerving tingling would die down a little.

But this was strong, stronger even than her increasing awareness of her own peculiar foot fetishism. This was EXACTLY what her parents did not want her doing, and that made it seem all the more important that she do it. And that she do it now. And that rebelliousness may have been the very reason she felt an undeniable warm syrup surging in her loins. Ruthy turned and started through the branches and brush at the end of the sidewalk. The crunch and scrape of glass grinding, caught between shoes and concrete, caused a shiver to dribble like ice water down Stephanie’s spine.

Firmly committed to go through this barefoot and in the dark, Stephanie followed, catching glints of glass in the last of the light. She could feel it under her sensitive soles, sharp bits of glass. Determined to follow Ruthy, she went on, feeling the last of the concrete give to a dirt path after a few more steps. Stephanie smiled, proud that she had somehow gone at least that far without getting herself cut. Then there were the patches of fallen leaves, which Stephanie did not know whether to be glad for or worried about. Were the leaves going to protect her feet from glass, or hide the glass from her all the more? Regardless, this long stretch of wooded path was so often used that most of the leaves were now off to the sides.

In such low light even bothering to look for safe footing proved to be pointless. She walked blindly on, simply trying to take it one step at a time without setting Ruthy off about her being barefoot again. Each step she felt as she went, twice already just missing pointy bits of half buried glass in the dirt. Ruthy lit up a cigarette and rambled on and on about something, and Stephanie only nodded, all her attentions on her barefoot feel through this dangerous patch.

Ruthy stopped talking, and turned to notice Stephanie straggling a little. "Hey, Steph, I been talking. You gonna catch up or what?"

Stephanie stopped, hardly thirty feet in the woods. "I am barefoot you know!" she snapped. All of a sudden this wasn’t the fun she had thought it would be. But she couldn’t back out, not now. She hoped Ruthy might offer to go the long way around. But she knew that if Ruthy didn’t, she would have to go on.

Ruthy stopped and sighed heavily, making her impatience known. "God you’re weird." She stood in place.

Stephanie swallowed hard and shook her head. She walked up to Ruthy, so far unscathed, but there was still so much more path ahead of her. Of course, she realized it wasn’t all covered in glass, but the nastiest stretch of it lay yet ahead. The bad patch that spilled out under the enormous old oak was a serious spot of barefoot danger just waiting to get crossed.

There it was again, loud and clear as the sense of dread she was feeling…another surge of undeniable arousal.

"OK, you know what, fuck it, let’s just go the long way," said Ruthy, storming towards her. That was all well and good, but that meant Stephanie had to double-back that same patch of dirt, glass, and concrete. "Christ, Stephy, I hope this is making your pussy all wet or something, because this fucking barefoot thing is a huge pain in the ass."

Thank God for the dark, because Stephanie went white as Ruthy said this. Did she know? Could she possibly know all the feelings being barefoot had been stirring up inside her? Her secret?

"Well?!" Ruthy stood toe to toe with Stephanie.

"God, Ruth, you don’t have to be such a big bitch! I just can’t run is all," and with that Stephanie headed off, straight through the woods, bare feet, fears, attitude and all. But at the very least she was no longer suffering over whether or not to go through with it. What was more, she was suddenly keeping up enough of a pace that safely shod Ruthy had to run to catch up.

Ruthy ran up laughing.

Then it happened.

A sharp pain! Stephanie lifted her foot, feeling a terrible slicing sensation as she did it. She yelped and limped to lean against the big tree, forgetting all the glass around it in her need to fix this now.

"God, you OK?" Ruthy darted right over, no more impatience, and no more making fun. In the moonlight, on her face, Stephanie saw nothing but the look of a friend worried about another friend. "Is it bad? You alright?"

Stephanie picked her foot up and held it upturned on her thigh as she leaned her backside against the tree and leaned over her foot to study it. Ruthy pulled Stephanie’s long brown hair aside so both could see it.

Her foot bled from the instep.

"Oh man, that’s gotta hurt! We should get you to a doctor." Ruthy said

Stephanie shrugged. Up close it wasn’t so bad. It bled, but it wasn’t gushing, and it wasn’t a gash, just a slit of a puncture, a warning more than a wound. Stephanie breathed a sigh of relief. "God," She sighed, then giggled, her hand to her chest. "I thought I was screwed."

“Is it out? Is there glass in your foot?”

“I don’t think so,” Stephanie sighed, checking again, feeling carefully over the cut with her finger.

"You cool? You want to go home?"

"Please?! Hardly." This was her chance. Stephanie shrugged casually. It came off just right, cool as she had hoped she could be. Just like those girls she saw would have handled it. Most impressively, it didn’t feel like bravado, it felt sincere. Stephanie wasn’t going to let a tiny little nick stop her, even here amid all this glass. A little slower now, hardly bothering to limp, she picked her way out of the worst of it and they began crossing the berry field. The cut hurt, and dirt ground into it, but she didn’t mind. Surprisingly Stephanie felt a wash of cheerfulness and a warm feeling inside that, at least for now, everything in her life was just as it ought to be.

"So, your folks totally freaked out about your going out barefoot last night, huh?" Ruthy asked. Of course, they had covered all this on the phone, and stiff as it felt, it was Ruthy’s way of being supportive, and Stephanie appreciated it.

"You have no idea," Stephanie cried, her pace more casual through the berry field path, which rarely had any glass on it. She walked with a playful careless ease as she complained bout her parents. "It’s my life, right?"

"They didn’t ground you or anything?"

"They will if they find out about tonight," she said heavily. Occasionally a twinge of pain would bring her back to the cut on her foot, but mostly she found it ignorable. Not entirely ignorable, it was becoming to her a small badge of honor, more a prize than anything to worry about. Not only had she actually braved that patch of dangerous woods in her bare feet and in the dark, she had suffered a small cut and found the courage to ignore it and go on her way. Best of all, being cut didn’t ruin being barefoot; in some inexplicable and unexpected way it just heightened the sensation of this little act of nudism.

Occasionally as they walked and talked, in her animated talking and ever-playful shoving, Stephanie would stray or stumble from the path and feel a foot-full of sharp dry weeds and thorny leaves, but on she went, happy as ever that she had no shoes on.

The last stretch of woods Stephanie always thought of as the thorny tangle around Sleeping Beauty’s castle, but the path was wide, and rarely glassy. Tonight it would prove more eerie than dangerous, even to her naked feet. As a "much younger" girl this path was part of her shortcut to school, and her favorite part of the walk home, as this particular patch of woods always fired her imagination. Even now she felt warmth for her mother, because she always read fairy tales to Stephanie when she was little, and those tales still inspired her. Those tales filled this patch of weird woods with wonder.

Unfortunately, as the sun had gone down, it had grown colder yet, and Stephanie wasn’t as capable of controlling her shivers as Ruthy and the boys were. It was cold, and she wished she had worn her heavier coat.

"God, I hate this bit of woods," Ruthy said, leaning in closer to Stephanie as they entered the patch of skinny black thorny trees. On they went.

Stephanie smiled, her heart raced, and she felt herself and Ruthy falling deep into one of their scare-sessions. She stopped and picked her foot up behind her. With her thumb she felt over the spot and found a bit of dirt caked where it had been bleeding.

"Is that OK?" asked Ruthy.

"Yeah," shrugged Stephanie. "It stopped bleeding already. I got lucky I guess. I just freaked out."

"I can’t blame you. Hey, I called the guys. They’re gonna meet us at the school."

Though Ruthy delivered it as good news, Stephanie was not at all in the mood. She stopped and tried not to sigh, watching Ruthy step through the hole in the schoolyard fence that separated the final strip of woods from the vast open field and playground. Stephanie had gone to school here, a long time ago, Ruthy was still living East then.

She really had hoped for a long cool-down walk with her friend. The thought of the boys getting in between them, beery and acting like idiots, blaring Lynyrd Skynyrd or some other loud shit, did not appeal to Stephanie at all. In fact, given the choice, she would rather have to go back and step harder on the very piece of glass that got her. Stephanie shook her head as she watched Ruthy pass through the last of the trees and out onto the field.

"This isn’t gonna be good," she complained, making her own way through the fence, Ruthy already halfway through the field. She had pictures in her head of lots of inane talk, some shouting, probably a fight, and then--and this was not at all unlikely--the police would show up and everyone would have to scatter into the woods, her stuck running reckless in her bare feet.

Then again, Stephanie grinned; she was feeling up for a little trouble.

"Wait up!" she yelled, running off across the frosty field.

To Be Continued...

Anybody want to see chapter 5? Let me know!

Barefoot Black Sheep
Part 1 * CHAPTER 5
By: Dennis Crabapple McClain
& Lou Gojira

The rattling of the old pick-up truck would normally be unnerving to anybody stuck driving it, but not Ernie. He was so accustomed to the rattles of the dashboard, all the thumps and grinds that issued from the worn out engine, that he was totally oblivious to the noise for the most part. It was a means of getting him around, and he wasn't one to complain about that, especially since it sure beat walking, and he wasn't in the best of shape for that. Only now, as he was hoping for a little stealth, a little cover, he was starting to take notice of the old truck's groaning, and sitting while the engine idled away only seemed to make it rattle all the more. He turned the key and the reliable yet noisy and old vehicle puttered into a silence. He figured he was over-doing it some, thinking surely they would be out of earshot of his being there, but that didn't make much of a difference at this point. He wanted her to know about him, at least know he was around, and he'd accomplished that earlier, and at least a few times. If she caught wind of him again, this soon anyway, it would be overkill, and with overkill can easily come complications.

He watched as the two silhouettes of the girls made their way across the playground of the school, looking about as big as raisins from the distance he was sitting, which was on a small hill that sat to the side and far away from the school. Most people would probably doubt their guesses on what looked like little drops of black ink drifting by in a field, wondering if said droplets were who they thought they were, but not Ernie. He was as certain about these girls, one of them anyway, as he was about the cold air that buffered him from both sides of the cab, having kept his windows rolled down all day. Even though he had a thick enough coat on, his old bones still managed to register the chill, and naturally with the night the chills just got worse.

The woods...

Ernie turned his head toward the patches of now pitch-black trees that were at the back of this school yard and behind the unfinished houses with that sudden thought. What about the woods? He saw who he was here for already, and she was getting all the more closer to the school building. What's so special about the woods? He wasn't sure, but he sensed something in there...something that he very obviously needed to go check out, or he knew his thoughts wouldn't leave him alone over it.

He rolled up the windows and locked his door when he stepped out mainly out of habit more than anything else, because he knew nobody in their right mind would want anything in that truck, let alone the old clunker itself. He shot glances all around him at the little cul-de-sac he was parked within, and nobody was stirring. Sure, most of the houses lining the road were still being built, but there were the houses further back in the suburb he passed through to get where he was now that were finished and occupied, but thankfully everybody seemed to be in for this cold night. He put his hands to his lower back and gave his whole body a stretch, grimacing at the pain of what sitting while cruising for long periods of time tended to cause. He pushed a few strings of thin white hair away from his forehead and began his determined walk into the dark forest. He kept looking back at that special little black dot who was now around the side of the school building, frustrated, knowing this trek amongst the trees moved him further away from her. He just clenched his jaw, balled his fists, and kept walking. He had to find it, he knew something was waiting for him there. Hopefully she would stay where she was until he got her back in sight again, but for now he just followed his nose into the darkness.

* * *
Stephanie couldn’t help but feel relieved that the boys weren't there just yet, but she felt a little bit guilty over it all of a sudden. Here she was running wild with Ruthy and yet so annoyed or afraid of these boys. After all, weren’t they part of who she was becoming? Or was she just a poser? She knew things were changing for her, and fast, so perhaps the boys were just too much too soon for her now. Was she coming off as some prissy prima donna, too good to associate with these guys? Okay, none of them were all that appealing to her—except maybe John, who she had never spoken to and who seemed to have enough sense to avoid these boys himself--no big deal there, not every boy could appeal to her. She was allowed to have standards. But was she so "good" that these dull-witted yet seemingly good-natured young men actually repelled her? She had a memory of Jimbo flood into her head with the question...

Jimbo, aside from being a guy in some of her classes, was a total enigma to her because he kept to himself, either being too shy to associate with her, or too wrapped up in his studies to have time for it, she didn't know. Naturally she wasn't going to cut a path to his door either, she was already enough of a wallflower and she had her own friends and things to contend with. Jimbo didn't seem to have a lot of friends, not that she had a flock of friends everywhere she went either, but he seemed quite a bit more "socially challenged" than she was, though she never ruled out the possibility of him maybe having a social life outside of the school. It's not like she sat and pondered the boy, he just had a way of seeming "alright" to her. He wasn't an asshole, and he sure wasn't going to win any male modeling contests anytime soon either, he just "was", and that was fine with Stephanie. Jimbo, like John, interested her, but she didn’t know what to make of either of them.

She would see or hear a few of the other teens pick on Jimbo at times. Nothing really terrible, nothing most kids in high school don't have to contend with from time to time, but she was aware of his being the butt of jokes, usually more often than not. She never found her heart going out to his plight until the day Jimbo over-stepped his boundary.

The incidents leading up to it would probably always remain a mystery to Stephanie, but she remembered the time she passed Jimbo getting the worst ribbing she could imagine a guy getting. She was just coming back from lunch, Ruthy flanking her on the left, and a girl named Beth beside Ruthy--whom Ruthy knew pretty well, compared to her own knowledge of her anyway--having spent their break out in the smoking area so Ruthy could light up and try, as usual, to gain some attention from Tommy. There huddled about ten feet from the cola machines were the preppy girls. Beth and Ruthy started feeding coins into the machines, and Stephanie turned her attention to these preps, wondering why they were giggling their pretentious little laughs so loudly.

"Oh my God, he is such a geek..." one of the prep girls could be heard saying amongst the laughter.

"Like I would go out with him..." Melissa Clowes, one of the higher-ups of the "preppy class" had said, Stephanie recalled quite plainly. "He can go jack off!" More laughter followed from the crowd. She remembered Melissa and the rest of the huddle turning and eyeballing Jimbo, who sat up against the wall further down the hall, his nose stuck in a book. Ruthy and Beth had their soda's in hand and they all three resumed the walk to each of their respective after-lunch classes. She cast a glance toward Jimbo as they passed him, still hearing the preppy bitches behind her. "Duhhhh.... let’s go to a movie!" she heard Melissa mocking, accompanied by the incessant giggling from the other girls.

The image of the top of Jimbo's head as he very obviously tried to hide in whatever book he was reading burned into Stephanie's brain. Sure, it was just a glance she took, but she could almost feel the pain, the shame, the humiliation and total rejection poor red-as-a-beet embarrassed Jimbo got. All the pitiful, ignorant bastard tried to do, it seemed, was ask that snobby bitch Melissa out to a movie, hardly the worst thing in the world a guy could do. The construction of the social ladder at school was obvious to her, so how could Jimbo be in the dark about it? But what determined the ladder? Stephanie often wondered. Who built it? What made that Melissa bitch “too good” for a guy like Jimbo? A simple 'no' would've sufficed if she weren’t interested, so why did she have to keep stamping on him?

That incident haunted Stephanie for days, even though she had no part of it. She never breathed a word of it to Ruthy, who remained oblivious to it when it happened, or anybody else for that matter. They wouldn't understand, not like she did, she figured, and she didn't want to get accused of having a thing for Jimbo by mentioning him. She just stewed in this little soup of hatred for Melissa, whom she never cared much for in the first place, just feeling sorry for dumbass Jimbo. Jimbo was ugly, she admitted to herself, but that Melissa bitch was beyond ugly, she was downright hideous. No matter all her expensive clothes or glamorous make-up jobs or stylish hair-do's, how many of the popular guys that wanted her, how many jocks she'd probably gave it up to, or the throngs of equally popular and attractive friends that seemed to never leave her sides, Melissa's own attitude made her more repulsive than a pile of maggot-ridden road-kill. And it was clear, to Stephanie at least, that Melissa was so mean, so cocky, and so well dressed all in an effort to hide, compensate for, or make up for her horse face.

Stephanie felt a surge of fire run through her body at the thought that she may be unconsciously acting like the very thing she hated so much toward these guys, these "bad boys" Ruthy seemed so fond of. While Ruthy was telling some story about her dog shitting beside some neighbor-she-didn't-like's car in the apartment parking lot and giggling about it, Stephanie stared down at her own bare feet. She was standing on the concrete embankment of a streetlight that lined the bus ramp at the side of the school, holding onto the metal post. She had nothing but her toes on the concrete, arching her feet as much as they could arch, and took notice of how her toes spread and wrinkled, reddening up by supporting all the weight of her body, the concrete edge pushed firmly into the tips of her toes. Melissa would never go out barefoot, not like Stephanie did, she surmised. That bitch would probably shriek at the thought of her delicate little tootsies even getting *gasp* dirty, the horror of it all...Stephanie felt a smile make its way to her mouth. She was different from Melissa in that respect, most assuredly. Then again, in a fit of self-conscious and private blushing, Stephanie realized she was different than most girls in that regard. But she wanted to be different from Melissa in other ways, more important ways. Maybe she shouldn't clam up so much when the boys eventually showed up, she pondered.

She looked up just in time to see Ruthy uncapping a shiny, metal flat bottle. "What the hell?"

"Pretty cool huh?" Ruthy smiled. "Bacardi, ninety proof I think." she took a sip and almost coughed, her throat convulsing to hold the alcohol down.

Stephanie shook her head disapprovingly as she looked back down at her feet, still grinning from her earlier thoughts. She knew how Ruthy hated her mother, her alcoholic ways being the bulk of the foundation for it, and she thought of the irony of it all. Here Stephanie feared that she seemed as snooty as Melissa, whom she secretly hated, and Ruthy was apparently on the fast track to becoming like her mom, whom she knew Ruthy hated. Too messed up, too many thoughts. She just wanted to go barefoot more and think a lot less. She got the idea to tread the blacker than usual asphalt suddenly, to savor the cool, yet subtly bumpy feeling of it through her soles, and maybe, if she could manage it, "accidentally" stepping down just right and striking that little gash in such a way to feel it sting all over again. 'Talk about messed up...' Stephanie thought about herself, but felt the urge to do it get stronger the more she contemplated it.

* * *

As his legs gave him grief, shooting spurts of pain that started in his knee caps and went clear through his hips, collecting into that achy old back, Ernie became more determined to find what it was that brought him here. Maneuvering among the trees with little to no light to go by wasn't any kind of problem, it was his old, decrepit body that he whispered curses about in between his deep inhalations of air.

He stopped his flustered walk suddenly. It was close; he could feel it in his gut. He eventually leveled his tired breathing out as he stood there, all alone, and couldn't help but take in the eerie stillness of the forest at night. He turned his head up a bit and took a deep whiff through his nose. It hit him. If you were to ask him what it smelled like, he wouldn't be able to put it into words, but he recognized it, and it was coming from a very certain direction. He picked up his pace as best as he could, knowing it wouldn't be long now...

* * *

"I don't see the fascination..." Stephanie told Ruthy, continuing their conversation and in reference to Tommy as they sat side-by-side on the concrete edge of the bus ramp. She'd pranced some on the asphalt already and talked, but eventually joined Ruthy when she saw her plop down, and she was now mindlessly playing with her dirty toes as she sat there. She figured she probably fondled her exposed toes a lot during the times she sat barefoot and her mind was idle. The cold her fingers felt in her toes gratified her somehow, in some new and fascinating way. The newness of going barefoot in the cold exhilarated her in ways she had never imagined. She felt funny about the way she had cleared her mind, taking that quick barefoot scuttle on the asphalt...was she actually addicted to bare footing and needed a fix to relax? Stephanie wished so badly she could talk about these things, but she knew no one would ever understand. Hell, she didn’t understand, she just felt.

Ruthy just shook her head, uncapping and recapping the flask, giving her hands something to do. "Fascination..." she mocked. "Brain bitch is over-analyzing, as usual," she laughed, trailing it with an eye-roll.

"I'm not over-analyzing." Stephanie defended. "I'm just trying to see what it is you think you see in Tommy. I mean, it's not like I have anything against him, but do you need to be reminded of his trips to 'juvie'?"

"I'm not worried about that..." Ruthy stared off, and then took a sudden sip of the bacardi. She didn't shudder over it that much this time, Stephanie observed. "Everybody fucks up, he just got caught."

"Four times?" Actually, Stephanie wasn't positive about Tommy's supposed four trips to juvenile delinquency centers, those jails for the younger teens…that just happened to be the word that lingered around the campfire. Tommy was 18 now, if he screwed up again it'd be the big house this time, she realized.

"Awwww!" Ruthy gave a dismissive wave with her hand. "He's a good guy Steph, he just needs somebody to love him, to understand him..." Stephanie could hear a little *tink* when Ruthy set the flask to her side on the sidewalk.

"And you think you're the one..."Stephanie asserted with a smile, pointing her feet at each other and fisting her toes.

"You sayin' I'm not?" she cocked her head on her shoulder.

"Not what?" Stephanie asked, relaxing her toes and then spreading them, tracing the tendons of her toes along the top of her foot with her fingertip.

"Not able to love him or understand him." Ruthy's eyes were fixed on Stephanie now, and Stephanie realized she may have hit a nerve.

"No doubt you like him..." she grinned, a little nervous that she may have actually offended her friend. She lifted her hand from her foot and locked her fingers together, resting her elbows on her knees. "But do you think you could figure him out? I'm not trying to be mean...But four trips to juvie? He does have issues."

Ruthy squeezed her eyes shut and belted out a loud string of cackles. Stephanie just grinned as she watched her friend laugh, at ease over worrying if she offended her or not. Ruthy slowed to a chuckle, leaned forward, resting her head in her hand, then with her free hand pointed at Stephanie's bare feet. "Pot-kettle-black..."

"Oh fuck you!" Stephanie said, about half serious, giving Ruthy a shove in the shoulder. "I haven't been to juvie for it..."

Ruthy straightened herself upright from the shove, re-situating her elbow on her knee while her hand still cupped the side of her face. "You actually got grounded for going barefoot though."

"I got grounded FROM going barefoot." She leaned her bare feet back on their heels and spread her toes, the pink polish all shiny, reflecting the street lamp. "I got grounded FOR staying out too late with you and Tommy and everybody."

"Well, if it makes you feel any better, I think Greg and Allen won't be coming tonight."

Stephanie shrugged, and then looked away.

"Two less drunks to worry about."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I mean it can't be much fun for you when we're all drinking and you're not."

"I'm alright."

"Take a gulp..."Ruthy said, suddenly shoving the flask into Stephanie's face.

Stephanie felt her head instinctively recoil away from it. "I don't think so..."

"Brain's not afraid of a little alcohol is she?"

"You know better than that WATER." Stephanie emphasized, getting annoyed with Ruthy's apparent falling back on the Brain nickname she was really getting tired of hearing, hoping the Water reference would bother her right back. "I can't go home smelling of that shit, I'm already in trouble."

"So what's the big deal?" Ruthy asked, not phased in the slightest by the Water comment. "You're still out with me, the bad influence that I am, and you've got those feet bare—even though mommy and daddy said you aren’t allowed to, bad girl. And now you're gonna wimp out at drinking a little? Loosen up already. I swear, if you weren't so repressed..."

"I'm not repressed." Stephanie said, leaning back on her hands and straightening her legs out, crossing her ankles. But she did feel “called” on being the poser she feared she was.

Ruthy looked at Stephanie's decidedly bare feet. "No, you're just gunnin' for a case of frost bite, which is why you oughta' take a drink." She shook the flask a little. "It does warm you up."

"Fine!" Stephanie snatched the flask away, uncapped it, and in her aggravation took a bigger gulp than she planned. She coughed as the fiery liquid lit her throat and chest up.

Ruthy just laughed. "That's the spirit. If you're gonna say 'fuck the rules', go all out!"

Stephanie re-capped the flask and handed it back. "Pushy bitch..." she wheezed, a hand to her chest.

"Whatever. Tell me you don't feel better already." Ruthy un-capped it and poised the bottle by her mouth, ready to take another sip herself.

"I don't feel better." Stephanie was telling the truth as she felt the burn in her chest try to subside. In fact, now her stomach felt like a ball of fire, and the reason why hit her; aside from not being used to the harder stuff, she suddenly remembered that she hadn't eaten a full meal in almost two days. Granted she had a lot on her mind and a lot going on, but skipping out on eating for the most part was pretty out of character for her.

"Give it a minute and it'll kick in." Ruthy turned the bottle up to her mouth.

Stephanie felt her eyes go wide...what if drinking on an empty stomach really did mess a person up a lot quicker? She never knew this to be true or not, as she's only been mildly drunk at best before, being able to count the number of times on one hand, with fingers to spare, and on a full stomach during those times. She regained her cool, or at least tried to, finding herself angry at her own giving in, nervous about possibly going home tipsy and smelling of liquor...and no doubt her parents noticing. "Give it a minute and I'll kick your ass. Don't pressure me into doing shit anymore Ruthy."

"You wanna kick my ass? Go ahead..." Ruthy laughed, leaning over to sit on one butt cheek, showing the other to Stephanie. "You're gonna break your toes if you do. I got the hardest, tightest ass in town!"

Stephanie giggled after a few seconds. "It's an easy target, big enough anyway."

"You wouldn't dare..." Ruthy sat back up. "Kick my ass without shoes and break those pretty painted toes you're so obsessed with? Your foot'd be all black and blue for weeks. You couldn't stand that, not being able to show your feet around. You'd look like you just stepped on a Smurf."

Stephanie laughed about that, and then felt her chest tighten suddenly remembering how she COLORED her own feet blue the night before. Her head started swimming at that thought…still not sure why she did it and amazed that it slipped her mind so easily afterward. Being reminded of it suddenly, the shock made her thoughts all clump up, and the fire in her stomach get a few degrees hotter. Damn, she really needed to take a walk...a good, rough, tantalizing, satisfyingly barefoot walk...

* * *

Robbie hadn't said a whole lot that night as he drove himself and Tommy to the school where they were going to meet up with Water and probably her quiet and strangely barefoot friend Stephanie too. He'd shoot an occasional glance over to Tommy, but every time he did he noticed Tommy's fixed gaze stare straight ahead at the road. He knew something big was on Tommy's mind, and though he wasn't quite sure what it was exactly, he felt his own nervousness grow bigger and more consuming the closer they got to the school. He also knew that whatever it was Tommy was thinking about, he was going to be as good as in on it. They went back a ways, Tommy and Robbie, and Robbie found himself loyal to his friend despite his personal scruples in almost too many things.

It was around 30 or 40 minutes ago that Tommy called his house and told him they were invited to go and hang out with Water. Robbie didn't have a lot going on, so he was happy to oblige, plus Tommy sounded pretty eager for it. He'd asked Tommy if he should give Allen or Greg a heads-up, but Tommy told him that he already told Water those two couldn't come. That was Robbie's first indication of something being up that night. He knew that Greg had a part-time job flipping burgers for McDonald's, and Allen was known to lend a hand around his uncle's scrap yard from time to time, but he knew that both of those guys would drop whatever they were doing if it meant hangout time and beer. Tommy obviously didn't want them along for a reason, Water wouldn't have been none the wiser as to why, so he didn't question it either. Once he picked Tommy up, he offered to go back and snag a case of beer out of his father's fridge in the basement, but Tommy said not to worry about it. They both knew that there were less than six beers left in the cooler from the night before, so why didn't Tommy want to re-stock? He didn't ask, but he had a feeling about it...

Good ol' beer, Robbie had shared many beer-drinking sessions with Tommy, to be sure he was always a fun guy to get drunk with. But aside from beer drinking, Tommy was into other things, and Robbie found himself introduced to these other things on occasion. Tommy had connections, and Robbie never really wondered how he got them, he just knew he had them and said connections got both of them around. Just over a week ago Tommy had the both of them at somebody's house, somebody Robbie had never met before that evening, but before the evening was over and everybody had left the party, being a huge turn-out of total strangers (to Robbie anyway), they were both screwing a couple of brunettes in their late 20's. That was a cool night, Robbie reflected, knowing he wouldn't have met girls like that on his own.

Then there were the drugs...about any kind of drug a person could imagine, and Tommy always seemed to know a guy here or a guy there who had whatever you wanted. There was one particularly fun time when they gave this girl a quarter bag Tommy had scored, Allen and Greg being along for that trip and originally intending to help smoke it. She polished all four of their knobs right there in her living room as they stood in a circle around her. Those guys weren't complaining about lack of pot when they left that apartment, and Greg's stupid ass didn't shut up about it for almost a week afterward, tending to talk about it even in all the wrong places. That got Greg excluded from the next few outings with them...

But then there were the not so pleasant times with Tommy, times that Robbie made himself forget, but would occasionally come back and haunt his thoughts anyway. Aside from the petty shoplifting and thievery, which Robbie never could get accustomed to though Allen and Greg never seemed to have much problem with it, there came the sporadic vandalism and occasional violence. The most recent being a month ago when they all four met with some guys from the other side of town, and wound up fist-fighting with other people he'd never met before. As unnerving as all that was, though it was fun while it happened in an abstract sort of way, that was peanuts compared to what he and Tommy got into about a year ago. Robbie couldn't remember the details of all of that, and he wouldn't allow himself to. He just remembered being glad that Greg's bigmouth wasn't around and Allen was absent too... the rest was just a haze now...

It wasn't long after he'd picked Tommy up that Tommy insisted they stop for a minute at this lady's house. Robbie had never met or even heard of the woman before, and Tommy had to show him how to find her house, but he could see her through the front window while he waited alone in the driveway. He couldn't swear to it, but he thought he saw Tommy and this woman eventually kissing for a bit before he came back out the door. He was perplexed some, wondering why they'd even finish going up to the school to hang with Water when some potential action was right here. The woman came to stand in the door as Tommy got back in the truck, and though she was an older girl than he'd imagine Tommy or himself messing with in the first place, she still looked pretty hot. Tommy just patted his coat pocket and told him to hit the road, so as always he didn't question it. Maybe the old girl gave him some condoms and he was going to stick it to Water that night? She was whispering a bunch of stuff in his ear the night before at the river, and she wasn't the most hard to get girl at school, or so he understood, so there was no telling what she claimed she could do for him. If he was lucky, her friend Stephanie would be there and maybe he could lay some game down on her and get a little action himself while Tommy was busy porking Water. She was quiet and a little weird with those dirty bare feet in this cold weather, but she had a pretty face and a sweet enough bod...hopefully the old girl gave him more than one condom...

Tommy's expression remained rigid through the rest of the trip. Even as they were pulling in the lot and could spot the girls from where Robbie chose to park, Robbie being secretly happy that Stephanie was present and barefoot, Tommy didn't say much at all. He must've been psyching himself up for something. Was maybe getting a shot of Water's, as he heard, "huge wet pussy" something to mentally prepare for? Probably not...and that's when Robbie's nervousness really hit. What was Tommy going to get them into?

* * *

Ernie crouched and mumbled yet another curse with the movement. However, the aggravation caused by the persistent, and now throbbing ache in the lower region of his spine was quickly replaced with the feelings of accomplishment that filled his head when he picked up that tiny shard of broken glass. He just eyed it for a minute, with the same rewarding feeling one would get from spotting and then snatching up a twenty blowing across a parking lot, and then stuck it up to his nose. He closed his eyes and savored the scent of her on it, drawing in as much as his nostrils could hold. Granted it was only a minimal spot of blood that was already dried on the sharp end of it, but it was undeniably her's. He knew there was only one more thing left to do, just a final precaution, and he did it without even thinking about it.

He jerked his head around and almost cursed pretty loud, the cut on his tongue smarting like all get out. He just meant to taste her blood, not jab the glass into his own tongue. He held his fingers to his mouth for a minute, swishing around his saliva mixed with blood, wanting to curse his own tongue for the misjudged lick. No, no cursing this time...even though he tasted his own blood a little too plainly for his own good, he got what he wanted. It all fell into place, and any doubts that Ernie may have had in his old head before now vanished. She was it. She was the one. That other girl, the one from before, the one in the parking lot behind the shopping center was a mistake. There would be no mistakes this time.

His eyes shot to the night sky suddenly, and every muscle fiber in his body tensed up tighter than banjo strings. He had to go! He didn't know in what way, but he knew he had to run, and right at this moment. He ran faster than even he thought he could, following his instincts...

* * *

Introductions had hardly been made between the girls and Tommy and Robbie when Stephanie spotted him. She thought she heard some booted foot falls, but when she turned to look where the noise was coming from she felt her heart stop. The old man, the creepy old man, the one who had watched her and stared at her pretty bare feet from his pick-up truck came stomping up in a clumsy run. She squeezed her eyes shut and gave her head a shake of disbelief, thinking maybe the hard stuff had gotten to her on her empty stomach and she was imagining him. No such luck. The old man was real; he was coming out of the woods and getting closer, wild-eyed and bloodied around his mouth. She screamed.

Before Stephanie could even think about it, she was tugging Ruthy's arm as hard as she could and running for home. Ruthy stumbled a few steps with her before she got her arm back. She wanted to ask Steph who the man that freaked her out so bad was, but figured Stephanie obviously knew that running was a good idea at that moment, because she was making some serious tracks. She cut a look to Tommy and Robbie, a look mixed in apology, fear, and loyalty to her friend, and decided to run after her, already planning how she'd explain this to the boys later. Why was Stephanie so scared of this goofy looking old man? Ruthy hadn't seen the wild eyes, or the blood around the mouth, so naturally she was more than a little confused.

"What the fuck's your deal old man?!" Robbie yelled at Ernie as he stood there panting, gasping for breath, with traces of blood crusting up at the corners of his mouth.

"Yeah, you got a fuckin' problem?!" Tommy said as he balled his fists, stepping towards the old man, and then turning to see the girls as they disappeared into the night.

Ernie's mouth trembled at first, but his words came out crystal clear: "Ya’ both stay away from her..."

"Wha-?!" Robbie said, stepping in along with Tommy, his words cut short more out of surprise than anything else.

Ernie cast a glance at Tommy's coat pocket, and then looked up to make eye contact with him. "Yer’ a pawn."

Tommy grinned an unbelieving smile through his aggravated expression toward Robbie, then back at Ernie.

"Yer’ a pawn.” The old man repeated. "Don't play innocent with me."

"I'm gonna play upside your fuckin' head here in a min-"Robbie started, and then his throat choked his own words short with the sight he beheld. For a minute he was so dumbstruck with fear that he forgot that Tommy was even standing beside him or there were two girls that just took off running.

The sight was Ernie's eyes glowing a very bright white, illuminating both of the young men's frightened faces, so bright you couldn't see the old man's pupils. "Yer’ bein’ used, an’ too stupid t’ see it."

Tommy gripped the handle of the butcher knife in his pocket and eyed the old man's throat.

"Do it an’ die." Ernie told him, as if reading his thoughts. He wasn't aware of it at the time, but Ernie would realize later that he had a beaming smile at the prospect of maybe getting to turn this belligerent young bastard inside out with his bare hands. Ernie could imagine the blood that was probably on this asshole's hands...

Robbie was already climbing into the big black and silver truck, trailing a stream of his own piss and hitting the seat with a soaked pants *splat* when Tommy finally turned and ran, his fear and survival instinct eventually quashing out his violent urges. The truck peeled out on the asphalt, leaving skid marks and fish-tailing a bit as Tommy hit the floor of the truck bed in a gasping thump, having jumped the closed and quickly escaping tail-gate.

Ernie realized as he watched the truck disappear into the night, the opposite direction the girls had taken, what a mistake he'd made, running out there all of a sudden and scaring her off like that. His eventual making contact with Stephanie took a major setback that night, if he'd ever make contact at all now he gloomily lamented. Frustrated, wanting to fully unleash the fury, but thinking better of it, Ernie simply stuffed his hands back into his coat pockets and resigned himself to making his way back to his pick-up truck. He hated having scared her off, but at the moment he didn't seem to have much of a choice. He figured he probably wouldn't have been so frightening if he didn't have the blood oozing out of his mouth, but then, who's to say? Things would get better, he reassured himself, it'd just take some time. Unfortunately, time wasn't something he felt he had a lot of now.

To Be Continued...

Barefoot Black Sheep
Part 1 * CHAPTER 6
By: Dennis Crabapple McClain
& Lou Gojira

The knock at the door puzzled them both. “Stephanie doesn’t knock…” Stephanie’s mother Barbera said, her gaze going from the door, to her husband, then to the clock.

Stephanie was late. Not just any ordinary late, but grounded-for-life late.

The second round of knocks, more authoritative, went straight to Stephanie’s mother’s heart, a stab right into her motherly intuition. But these knocks knocked the anger right out of her. “Oh no!” she said, her voice cracking with worry. “You don’t think…”

David, Stephanie's father, pulled himself up from his chair, his chest puffed up and filling with a quiet indignation. He gestured for his wife to stay put. Unlike Stephanie’s mother, he was not worried, not at all, just redder and redder in his motionless rage. With the same controlled deliberateness that he did everything, he walked down the stairs. Turned the knob. Opened the door. Stared straight ahead. Said nothing.

“Mr. Goddard?”

His chest tightened. Standing there on his doorstep was a policeman. Immediately his head filled with pictures of what stupid thing his daughter must have done, obviously put up to no good by that Ruthy. “Yes,” he grunted at last, shooting a knowing look at his wife, a look that chilled and darkened the whole room. Mrs. Goddard stood at the top of the stairs, her hand over her mouth.

“It’s about your daughter, Stephanie.”

Mr. Goddard bit his tongue and nodded. So intimidating a father that the officer himself felt somehow to blame.

“Oh God!” cried Mrs. Goddard, clutching the railing, feeling her way down the stairs as if someone had turned out all the lights on her. On the landing she clutched her husband.

Mr. Goddard gestured with his head for the officer to come in.

“Is she alright?” cried Mrs. Goddard.

The officer sighed, his cheeks puffing out as he stepped in and weighed what to say, and how much to say. “Earlier this evening we found your daughter and a friend up by Route Forty-three. She was pretty upset.”

Mr. Goddard grunted and pulled himself up to his full height, shooting his wife another of his steely looks.

“It was that awful Ruthy-girl, wasn’t it?” Mrs. Goddard said, her voice cracking. “Is my daughter OK?”

“She seemed well, just a little… unnerved. We were hoping she made her way home safe and sound.”

“You let her go!?” Mrs. Goddard cried out, incredulous. “Some police department we have! You didn’t bring her home yourselves?”

As he feared, this was not going to be as neat and clean as he hoped, but as messy as he had feared, and he realized that somebody might get into trouble if he didn’t handle this just right. “Ma’am, please, calm down. We were in the process of bringing her home when and incident occurred, and she ran off.”

“My daughter! You lost my daughter!?”

* * *

Still in her mind Stephanie could see the old man, his wild eyes and bloody mouth, his whole face seemingly lit up with a strange rabid smile. Her sole thought had been to beat feet and put as much distance between herself, the schoolyard, and the creepy old man as possible. Hard she ran, fast and reckless in her bare feet, even winding through backyards and scrambling over fences. Now, with some distance between her and him, she became aware of just how much her feet hurt, and she felt a stitch in her side. But that wasn’t even what stopped her, it was Ruthy, screaming at her to stop for just a second.

Out of breath, Stephanie fell down in the grass of someone’s backyard, only a block from home. Her whole body shook and she felt a shattering crying spell welling up inside her. Her free hand, as if to ground her, reached around behind her and rested on her chilled foot, she caught her breath as she sat propped up on one arm in the frosty grass. Her sensitive bare feet smarted from the sting of the cold and the hard smacking of all her heedless running. Her head swam more than ever from the gulp of alcohol Ruthy had pressured her into drinking. The place on her foot where she had cut herself ached with a dry solid pain.

“What the fuck?” Ruthy said, catching up. She slowed to a stop, leaning over with her palms on her knees as she caught her breath. “What was that all about?”

“It was that guy!” Stephanie gasped, feeling comforted by the quiet of the night but unnerved by the dark. As sure as she was of anything, she was grateful that she wasn’t alone right now. “That creepy guy.”

“What guy?”

“This creepy old man’s been following me.” Stephanie pulled herself together enough to get up and hobble into the shadows under the eaves of the nearby garage. Wood chips crunched underfoot but she barely felt them over all the other sensations raging through her over-stimulated feet: Little scrapes, bruises, dents and dings, the nip of the cold. Bending over, her backside pressed against the garage, she reached down and felt over her icy toes, curled them, and felt a warm shudder of appreciation as she secretly pleasured in being barefoot, even now after all this. Though even her bare feet weren’t enough to pull her out of her panic. “God, I think I’m gonna be sick.” One hand she draped across the other, the other hand she held out before her face just to gauge how badly it was shaking. Badly.

“You OK?”

“I don’t know,” Stephanie sighed.

“OK, Steph, well, yeah, he was pretty fucked up, but he was just an old man. I mean, Christ, I could kick his ass!”

Stephanie giggled nervously. It was true, but he seemed, even now, more monstrous than that. As the blood rushed into her feet and toes, they began to tingle, causing the wood chips to feel itchy underfoot. She scrunched her toes in them and felt them sticking to her frosty-wet toes, soles, and instep. “He’s been following me for a couple days now. I saw him by the river,” she gestured in the general direction of the river. “And then on the road in his truck, and outside my house even. I think he’s crazy or obsessed with me or something. God, gross!” Stephanie shook her whole body distastefully. “You didn’t see his face, he was crazy. I’ve never seen eyes like that, and his mouth was all bloody!” cried Stephanie. She picked her foot up and brushed off the wood chips with her hand before stepping cautiously back out onto the lawn. She did the same thing to the other foot, and stood full in the white frosted grass. “I just… God… I just don’t wanna end up stabbed to death behind some Dumpster like Anita or something.”

“You won’t! You won’t,” Ruthy said as calmly as possible, resting her hand on Stephanie’s shoulder. “And besides, maybe it wasn’t blood on his mouth. You know, he was pretty old, maybe it was just chocolate or something.”

Stephanie laughed, though remained shaking. “I don’t think it was chocolate.”

“Come on, it’s alright. Really, we’ll tell the guys, they’ll kick his ass.”

“If he did it, y’know, if he killed Anita, you gotta tell me. If you know who did it, you gotta tell me,” Stephanie pleaded in desperation.

Ruthy sighed, wishing she didn’t have to blow her cover. “I was just messing with you, I don’t know who killed Anita. Tommy told me he did it, but I never believed him. Tommy always talks shit like that when he gets 'shit-faced' drunk..." she paused. "Oh no! God, Stephanie!” Ruthy looked at Stephanie, her eyes and mouth wide open. “No way! No way, you don’t think the old man did it? No way, that’s not possible,” she shook her head.

“I need to get home,” Stephanie started through the yard. In a hot flash she suddenly realized that he knew where she lived. The very thought soured in her stomach and her whole insides felt like they were made up of sour milk.

More carefully this time, Stephanie wedged her toes into the mesh of the chain-link fence and she started a shaky climb over into the adjoining backyard. It felt good to hop over the fence and into the lush frosty grass. She wiggled her toes and concentrated on feeling the grass as it tickled her soles and teased around her toes, hoping all these barefoot sensations might distract her from her panic. Though both girls kept their eyes peeled, the starry skies of this working-class suburb and the soothing walk slowly began to bring Stephanie down from her hysteria. Even the soreness of her feet gave her something to focus on besides the old man. Having Ruthy so close, cocky Ruthy and her promise of protection at the hands of her friends…also comforted Stephanie. A little. Comforted or not, Stephanie felt drained from head to toe. They cut through one last yard to cross into Mrs. Thompson’s yard so she could get her shoes and socks on and go home, though she couldn’t imagine sleeping, not with her basement bedroom window facing the street like it did. The same street where earlier tonight he drove by so slowly, staring at her house? No way in hell…

“Oh… my… God!” Ruthy gasped. “I don’t want to freak you out, but I think that’s him.” With a tug that yanked Stephanie off her feet, Ruthy pulled her behind the shed.

All the blood drained from Stephanie’s face. She peeked around the shed and saw him clear as day in the security light that hung off Mrs. Thompson’s garage. Paralyzed with fear, heart pounding, she hid herself behind the shed in the yard of Mrs. Thompson’s rear neighbor.

Ruthy peeked out. “What the fuck?” she said louder than Stephanie was comfortable with.

“Don’t! Be quiet, please.”

“Fuck him. Quiet my ass, I’ll fuck him up.”

“Don’t!” Stephanie reined Ruthy in, keeping her behind the shed with her. “Oh God, what’s he doing?” Hesitating, Stephanie finally peered around the corner with Ruthy and watched.

For the first time, Stephanie saw him clearly in the still and light of Mrs. Thompson’s backyard; no longer the phantom stalker in his truck, or the gray old man in the distance, or even as the blood-mouthed madman. In this light and stillness he was far too scrawny, gray and hunched in his tatty work clothes, looking like any old grandfather as he lurked suspiciously around the concrete patio, to be the monster she saw in her head. Just watching him caused Stephanie’s naked feet to crawl with a pinprick feeling like change jingling and grinding together in her pocket.

“Oh no!” Stephanie gasped, both hands over her mouth as what he did next chilled her to the bone. He lifted the lid of the old milk box. Her heart leapt in her chest as he reached in and pulled out the shoes and socks, her shoes and socks, and just seeing this act caused a creeping itch to radiate out form her ten little frosty toes; an itch that turned to an icy ache in her ankles. Her determinedly bare feet now felt hopelessly exposed, and she suddenly knew what it must feel like to be topless in public.

As if he had found a wine of rare vintage, he brought her shoes and socks up to his face, sniffed and savored them, smiling like a junkie getting a fix.

“Gross!” Stephanie whined, clutching her arms across her belly, feeling violated.

“What the hell?” gasped Ruthy. “Aren’t those your shoes? He’s, like obsessed with your feet or something.”

“Sh!” scolded Stephanie, slapping Ruthy’s leg. The slap turned to a clutch. How good it felt--something warm and real as her head spun--the contact of a friend.

The old man rubbed his face into the cotton socks and canvas shoes.

“This is some sick shit, Steph!”

A stoned grin on his face, he looked around, then tossed the shoes and socks on the corner of pavement farther from the house. With his lighter, he carefully lit one of her socks on fire. Vigilantly he tended the flickering flame, catching her other sock and both shoes on fire. Standing back, he watched them burn, a satisfied look on his face. Once they were reduced to ashes and bubbling rubber, he stomped on them with his work boots. The old nutcase didn't leave until he was obviously satisfied that the fire was safely out. All knees and hips, he headed down the driveway as if he’d just finished a job.

Both girls remained frozen behind the neighboring shed while the old man played pyrotechnics with Stephanie's socks and shoes, and unconsciously stayed that way a few minutes after he was gone. A faint whiff of burning rubber eventually brought them back to whatever reality was left them. Just enough reality that they looked at each other, mouths and eyes wide open, registering the disbelief in the each other’s faces.

“I can’t go home,” Stephanie said, shaking her head as she stood. She scrunched her uncomfortably naked toes under. Her bare feet screamed with pinprick tingles that reminded her of the time she shocked herself on the electric cord of the old cheesy organ at her grandmother’s house. Her parents had told her not to touch it.

She shook her head and shuffled her feet around nervously on the gravel behind the shed. “My folks’ll kill me if I go in barefoot.” Creepy as what she had just witnessed was, the fever she felt now was far more ordinary, as she knew how much trouble she was in. Real trouble, not like whatever the hell this madness was. Worst of all, she had actually meant to save herself the trouble and wear the shoes in, but she couldn’t now, and she knew that her parents would not believe that some old man had burned her shoes. She might as well have a teacher believe that a dog ate her homework while she was at it. And at that, what good would it do? After all, if she told that story and they did believe it, it would turn out as nothing more than a confession that she had been running around barefoot again, and her parents would freak out, taking all this as proof that she should not be allowed to go barefoot for fear of attracting perverts. “I’m serious,” she said numbly, “I’m, like totally screwed.” At just that moment, like a light going on, it came to her again, but harder this time, she looked at Ruthy wild-eyed. “I can’t go home!” she shook her head. “He knows where I live.” Stephanie shot up to her feet and started pacing frantically. “God, I’m fucked! I’m so fucked!”

“Does he know where I live?”

“I don’t know. Probably. I don’t know.” Just thinking about it began winding Stephanie up more and more. “He knows everything about me. He knew about the river, about Mrs. Thompson’s place, about my house…”

“Come on,” Ruthy took Stephanie by the arm and pulled her in the opposite direction of her molten puddle of shoes and socks, far from the old man.

“Where are we going?”

“Let’s go. We’ll find the police, or the guys, or something.” Ruthy didn’t know, but she knew Stephanie was in no condition to be thinking for herself.

At a frenzied and paranoid pace Ruthy led them both back towards the schoolyard. They took hardly a step without one or both of them shooting glances back over their shoulders. Stephanie could see her breath and could barely feel her feet as the night grew chillier and chillier. What she felt under the cold was the drone of soreness. Ruthy decided to take the long way around, wanting to spend as much time along busy Route Forty-three as possible. Every pair of headlights caused Stephanie’s heart to catch in her throat, and she spent so much time fretting over the traffic that she forgot to watch her feet on the glassy sidewalk. Through dumb luck alone her feet fell safely on the concrete.

Stephanie froze as a pair of bright headlights slowed in their approach. Then, like a flash of lightning that wouldn’t diminish, the approaching car illuminated the panicky girls in a searchlight. Stephanie screamed.

“Stephanie Goddard, Ruthy Babcock,” came a voice over a megaphone. “It’s the police.”

“Oh, fuck, the cops!” Ruthy hissed. “And we’re both drunk.”

The tires crunched loudly over the gravel as the boxy Buick cruiser slowed to a stop on the roadside just ahead, filling the night air with the loud authoritative rumble of the engine. Without a second thought Stephanie skipped over the ditch onto the littered dirt and gravel roadside to lean with both hands into the open window, the gravel sharp underfoot. Safe as she felt now, even the presence of the police did little to dull her panic. Safe from him or not, she still had her parents to worry about now that her shoes were burned to goo. “How did you know who I was?” she asked, her voice creaking desperately.

“A couple of friends of yours...Robbie and Tommy I believe...” said the officer, fumbling around for his pad and paper while his partner placed the car in park.

A frantic fit came up out of her like a frog leaping up from her gut. “God,” Stephanie cried. “There’s this guy, this creepy old guy, and he’s following me everywhere!” What little calm the walk had inspired in her washed away as she spilled her worries into the police cruiser. “He’s crazy, and he’s in this pickup, and he’s after me,” she said breathlessly, bare feet kicking and scrunching over the dirt and gravel in time to her panic.

“The guy with the glowing eyes,” the officer nodded suspiciously, though calmly.

“And a bloody mouth,” added Stephanie realizing all of a sudden just how crazy it all sounded. “It’s true!” She hoped her exclamation might sound reassuring, but it came out desperate.

He leaned in close and sniffed her breath, then checked the dilation of her pupils.

“You don’t believe me,” Stephanie whined, shuffling back over the gravel, stumbling back into the ditch.

“Whoah, be careful,” he said, opening his door slowly. “We just need to get you home,” the officer said calmly.

“No!” Stephanie barked. ‘Anywhere but home, especially now.’ Her mind kept telling her.

“It’s OK,” he said, one hand out, the other on his flashlight. He approached her as if she were precariously poised to jump off a bridge. The beam of his flashlight fell on her feet as she stood down in the ditch. “Watch the glass.” He shone the light all around the ground. Ruthy didn’t move from where she had been on the sidewalk. “Where are your shoes, Stephanie?”

“Shoes? He burned ‘em.”

The other officer climbed out of the driver side and stepped around to talk to Ruthy.

The officer attending to Stephanie opened the back door. “Sit down, take it easy.” He aimed his light at the ground so she could see where she was stepping. Oddly, even now, Stephanie was aware of a quick surge of exhilaration at the idea of getting into a police car with no shoes on. It was an unexpected and passing pleasure. She sat on the seat, one foot pulled into the safety of the car, the other hanging out, her toes crimped over the rocks along the roadside. She tightened her toes, gripping the gravel, then released, relaxing her toes. “I can’t go home!” Stephanie cried. Her toes worked anxiously over the rough ground, hopelessly attempting to clutch a little earthy reality.

“We have to get you girls home,” the officer argued. Stephanie felt her heart sink. The last thing in the world she wanted was to be escorted home barefoot by the police.

“Oh, God,” she cried, feeling herself sunk. “I am so screwed.”

“Shit!” shouted the second officer, scrambling away from Ruthy and drawing his gun as a blinding flash of high beam light rushed up over the hill, aimed right at the cruiser. The first officer reached in and yanked Stephanie from the car. She scrambled up the ditch safely towards Ruthy just as the truck screeched and swerved maniacally. The grinding roaring truck missed the cruiser by inches in what had to be the most reckless case of good luck or the most amazing case of skillful driving any of them had ever seen. Horn blaring all the way, the truck cut sharply from lane to lane, swerving around the cruiser and into the ditch, spitting up dirt and gravel, the engine winding and grinding, right at a four-way crossroads. Wincing at the noise of it, Stephanie expected metal rods and chunks of engine to explode from the truck like a dragon breathing fire.

Both officers, hands on their pistols, stood back as the mad-dog barking of the stopped truck’s still racing motor tore into the night. The roar of the engine wound down to a cranky whine just as the door flew open and out fell the creepy old man, clutching his chest, his face twisted into a mask that looked just as awful as his truck sounded. He gasped desperately, his knotted fingers still clutching his chest.

Without hesitation both officers —forgetting the girls for the time being— still cautiously clutching their pistols, rushed to assist the old man. The first officer went straight for him, the second reached for the cruiser’s radio.

Standing knock kneed, Stephanie clutched at Ruthy. Like a storm, the panic whipped up inside her anew. She went to open her mouth, to shout that this was the very same old man.

In the second it took for the approaching officer to glance back to check on Stephanie, Ruthy, and his partner, the old man glanced at Stephanie and winked. Before she could even process the wink in her mind, he grinned and gestured for her to run, wiggling two fingers urgently in the direction of the scrappy patch of woods across the street. He poured himself back into the heart attack act just as the officer returned his attention to him.

The last thing Stephanie wanted was to be brought home by the police. She nodded at the old man and grabbed Ruthy by the wrist, tugging on her.

“What?!” cried an indignant Ruthy.

“Shut up!” cried Stephanie in an urgent whisper, pulling on her. Shooting paranoid glances at both officers, convinced they were preoccupied, Stephanie leapt across the ditch. Landing hard on the rubble of the roadside, tearing off across the busy road, her bare feet smacked the blacktop of the street as she ran. Her heart beat like a jackhammer in her chest, her mind raced to make sense out of any of the chaos of the last few moments.

Dashing across the street, the girls leapt like deer into the brush. “Damn it! The girls!” Shouted the officer on the radio. Behind her, Stephanie heard the pounding of his boots on the road as he charged into the patch of scrub. In a total and reckless panic, Stephanie ran hard in a blind flight. Her bare feet flew through the patch of scrub, scraped and poked, but she didn’t slow, not a bit. In the distance she heard the chaos of the mess she left in her wake. The officer called out urgently for them to stop running. Though his voice sounded far more frantic with concern than anger, Stephanie never stopped, just pushed on, keeping pace with Ruthy who had the advantage of protective sneakers on her feet.

Once the girls and other officer were gone, Ernie fumbled around in his glove box. “My pills,” he stammered. “I just need my pills.” Pulling out a small vial of baby aspirin, he popped them in his mouth and tossed the bottle in the truck, then wiped his brow and leaned against his truck, catching his breath.

“You alright, pops? You know those girls?”

He shook his head. “Never seen ‘em.”

“You need me to call for an ambulance?”

Ernie nodded. As the officer headed back to his car and leaned into the cruiser to make the call, as quick as he could manage, Ernie slid into his still running truck and rolled away as quietly as the old truck allowed. While the officer stared into the woods after his partner, talking on the radio, he turned his attentions back to where Ernie was supposed to be, only to see his taillights getting smaller down the road.

“What the hell?” the policeman sighed, flapping his arms. “Where the hell you goin’?” Exhausted with the whole thing already, he stared down the road and shook his head; not even sure chasing the old man down would be worth the effort. “I probably should’ve written down that license number.” He sat in the driver side seat, the radio receiver limp in his hand. “I’m never gonna live down this rookie mistake.” Worst of all, he couldn’t even figure out exactly where it was he went wrong. And then it dawned on him the worst of possibilities, what if the girls were telling the truth? What if he just let a child molester get away? After taking one last look after the truck he groaned heavily, resigned. “Damn, it’s going to be a long night.”

* * *

At last, in the quiet of Ruthy’s room, Stephanie fell to the floor, huddled behind her knees as she caught her breath. Her poor sore feet were humming as they warmed back up and the many little dings and scrapes took to life. Ruthy locked her bedroom door behind her and ran to the window of her and her mother’s small fourth floor apartment. Ruthy’s German shepherd named "Sarge" nuzzled right up against Stephanie, sensing her panic, and she took comfort in the strength and warmth of the big dog.

As Ruthy paced anxiously, as if she could find some way to fortify her room, Stephanie petted the dog and inspected the countless dings and scrapes on her bare feet. Her toes looked far more puffy and pink than usual. She ran her fingers over them. Clearly it could have been worse, the cuts deeper, the soreness more debilitating. This lack of real pain and damage Stephanie credited to the fact that she still had her hard summer soles. She shook her head and returned her attentions to Sarge, unable to believe all the things that she had been through over the past couple days. Positively drained, she rubbed her temples. “I need to take a bath.” Sarge seemed to agree with the statement when he took a lap at one of her feet, then looked back up at her, still licking his chops.

* * *

All seemed right with the world once she submerged herself in the hot water. In the light of the bathroom —a room she knew and felt at home in— her and Ruthy’s favorite radio station playing quietly in the background, Stephanie felt a little like her old self. The madness seemed so distant already. Like a nightmare she couldn’t quite shake off.

She sighed; relieved that Ruthy’s mom was in the next room, asleep, but an adult presence just the same. “My feet’re killing me,” moaned Stephanie. The thawing from the cold followed by the hot water intensified the many little pains she had been enduring since coming in. She figured her feet must be loaded with little thorns, slivers, and splinters. The soaking would do her worn feet a world of good.

Last thing Stephanie did before leaving the bathroom was to painstakingly clean and care for her feet. She smiled; proud that she had bravely endured a night full of bizarre ordeals barefooted. And she had reason to be proud; her bare feet never slowed her down. Not to mention that her sweet feet proved to be far tougher than she ever thought possible. Most girls couldn’t have done it. Best of all, maybe, just maybe, everyone was wrong about bare feet: she wasn’t catching any colds, and as wild and harrowing as her night turned out to be, she did not have to be rushed to the hospital with bleeding feet after all. Her dings and scrapes were minor: a thorn pulled out here, a sliver of glass there, and all was well. With a justly pleased smile it occurred to her that if she could go through this night without her shoes and socks, she could probably do almost anything in her bare feet. Though to be honest, she felt that tonight ended up being more than enough adventure for her, at least for a while.

With great care, her many little wounds she dabbed with Neosporin. Her nails, however, proved to be a mess of scuffs and chips where she had repeatedly stubbed her toes, but even that she fixed by cleaning off the polish and taking the time to do a little clipping. This time she could not deny the very sexual pleasure she enjoyed in tending to her dainty bare feet, especially in the pulsing afterglow of the many adventures of the evening. At the very least, for a few moments she enjoyed the rewards of having gone barefoot through so much, and forgot, at least for a few warm and fuzzy minutes, all about old perverts, cops, and her parents. What was more, in these moments of clarity she decided she was going to fight to stay barefoot. Her parents would not win this one. The thrill of being barefoot was far too juicy to give up on, no matter what.

To Be Continued...

Barefoot Black Sheep
Part 1 * CHAPTER 7
By: Dennis Crabapple McClain
& Lou Gojira

Finished with her bath and pedicure at last, Stephanie pulled on one of Ruthy’s T-shirts as well as a borrowed pair of pajama pants. She left the bathroom steamy and smelling like shampoo, stepped over Sarge as he lay right outside the bathroom door, and headed towards Ruthy’s tiny bedroom.

Far antsier than Stephanie, Ruthy sat perched on the edge of her bed, keeping a lookout through her bedroom window. “Well, that was seriously fucked up,” she said, taking a break from her vigilant lookout. “What was that all about? I mean…was he trying to help us or what?”

Stephanie rolled her eyes and gave an I-have-no-idea shrug.

Ruthy glanced at Stephanie’s feet. “You OK, I mean, all that running and everything?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.” And she meant it. Stephanie plopped down on the bed, her head and shoulders bent against the wall, legs out, feet hanging out over the edge of the bed, toes pointed. A sudden rush of paranoid tingles washed over her feet —imagining that the old blood-mouthed man might be the monster under the bed and he might get her feet— she pulled her feet up and enjoyed the feel of the comforter under her sore and lotion-moist feet. For a moment they sat quietly, Stephanie singing along with Ringo Starr’s “It Don’t Come Easy” as it played on the radio. Sarge trotted into the bedroom and took a seat right in the doorway; ears raised and head cocking as he watched Stephanie sing.

Ruthy smirked over the dog's slightly strange behavior, wanting to say something about her singing probably bothering him. “This song isn’t so bad,” Ruthy instead conceded in an effort to throw Stephanie a bone after all she had been through.

Stephanie rolled her eyes and sang along, enjoying the unexpected treat of hearing such an unlikely song on the radio. Under it all there burned a little anxiety at knowing she would have to face her parents, and of knowing that this whole thing with the weird old man was, more likely than not, far from over. The next song she liked, too, but it was newer, and not good enough to keep her from talking. She sighed and sat up, fingering her toes, noticing how thin and silky the skin was. “This is all just way too weird.”

“No shit.” Ruthy pulled her curtains shut and turned to Stephanie.

“Hey, you got any nail polish that isn’t black?”

Ruthy jumped up off the bed and sorted through her drawer full of make-up and jewelry. She tossed three bottles —one after the other— onto the bed beside Stephanie. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

“Me too,” Stephanie nodded.

Not even bothering to close her make-up drawer, Ruthy headed for the kitchen.

School night or not, both girls felt far too keyed up to sleep, and they sat in front of the little TV the Babcock’s owned and watched bits and pieces of the horror movies on the cable channels Ruthy was flicking back and forth between —an exotic treat for Stephanie, her much better-off parents being too cheap to get cable— eating their ice cream. Two bowls of ice cream for Ruthy and one for Stephanie, even though they had enough 'cold' just being outdoors that evening. After two coats of purple nail polish, a game and a half of "Life", and lots of rehashing the events of the night, the girls retreated to Ruthy’s room and fell asleep, cramped together in Ruthy's twin bed, talking, then eventually giggling as they turned all the wild events of their evening into a big joke. Though they slept a little too close and with their backs together, Stephanie fell asleep being very thankful to have such a warm and friendly, sisterly kind of presence so near to her for the night.

* * *

Stephanie woke up to the smell of bacon and coffee. Her feet tingled as she realized something: she had no shoes.

This was no ordinary sensation of being barefoot. This was a feeling of being barefoot, but magnified by not even having access to shoes! None...nada…zip… Ruthy was a shade taller than Stephanie, and Ruthy’s feet were not just longer, but thinner. Though they were able to share some clothes, shoes were out of the question. To further intensify the sensation, making it rich as double chocolate brownies, it was Friday, a school day.

Grossly early or not, there would be no falling back to sleep in the swelling and throbbing anticipation of this new day of deliciously wild barefoot experiences. If Stephanie weren’t at Ruthy’s house, in Ruthy’s bed, she may have even accepted her arousal enough to slip her fingers down her pajamas and finger away some of the need she could not help but admit to feeling. As it was, the thoughts and feelings coursing through her left her feeling deliciously anxious, even panicky. But this panic was nothing like the panic she felt last night; this panic was glazed with sugar. She smiled to herself and rubbed her feet together under the sheets, thrilling to the contact of bare skin to bare skin. This was it. Long had she quietly fantasized about one day having the balls to go to school barefoot. And it had come. Finally, the day was here, right before her.

Try as she might, she could not still or deny the tautness of her nipples or the crawling wet tickle in her sex, let alone sleep through such rich rushing sensations. Looking at the clock, groaning at being awake at this hour, she accepted it. She would have to just get out of bed and face the day after her all-too short five or six hours of sleep. “Not that another half hour or so would make much difference,” she mumbled, rolling resignedly out of Ruthy’s bed, trying not to wake a still snoozing Ruthy and stepping over Sarge, as he lay right at the foot.

The crumpled clothes she wore last night lay in a pile on the floor. Kicking at them with her toes, she noticed they smelled a little stale and a lot like Ruthy’s dog. Putting them on held no appeal for her. At least she more or less knew which of Ruthy’s clothes would fit her. The tempting smell of Mrs. Babcock’s cooking convinced her to hurry up and get dressed in the hopes of mooching a free breakfast.

In deciding to get dressed, a little problem made her blush. Her panties were dirty, and borrowing a pair from Ruthy was just a little too weird and personal for her to deal with this morning. Resigned to having to go without, she found a pair of white jeans Ruthy used to wear all the time, jeans that were now a little too short for Ruthy’s legs, but they fit Stephanie just fine. More importantly, though Stephanie had to sit on the floor and struggle her hips into them, she liked the way Ruthy had shredded them, ripping stripes of tattered holes all up the thighs, enormous holes in the knees. Into the jeans she tucked one of Ruthy’s —now that she got a good look at it she realized it was her shirt after all— concert jerseys into the jeans, which she topped with one of Ruthy’s black studded belts. A pair of leg warmers caught her eye, Stephanie sighed and rolled her eyes, shooting a dirty look at Ruthy as she realized why her wardrobe had gotten so sparse… Ruthy never returned anything. She pulled on her own black legwarmers, which she loved over the white jeans, as the whole outfit just seemed designed to taper down to her ankles to show off her sexy bare feet. Of course, she pulled on her usual accessories and make-up: loads of jangling wrist bangles, a ring on her toe, her nails still painted purple, and her red lipstick and black mascara and eyeliner. Lastly she wrapped one of Ruthy’s cheap imitation black pearl necklaces around her left ankle. The makeshift anklet hung sloppy and low, but she liked it. This, she knew, was an outfit her parents would not like. Not at all, but more and more these were the clothes she liked. She was turning out to be different than her parents, and they did not like it. Stephanie knew she had to be herself. She could not help feeling what she felt, feeling the need to be different from them, wilder, brassier… but confused. Inside, all her parents wanted her to be sometimes held her back. Even now she felt a warm fever creeping up the base of her skull. Last night, she could not deny it, she liked the way Ruthy’s booze made her feel. She liked the way her whole body whispered with secret tremors when she went barefoot.

She liked the way boys looked at her. Hard as it was to admit, she might even be getting to like some of Ruthy’s wild, trashy, freaky burnout friends. Yes, even the boys.

Looking herself over in the mirror, she liked how she looked, but still couldn’t remember what the hell she had been thinking lending Ruthy her Journey concert jersey. They weren’t her favorite band, but it was the first concert she had ever been to, and she had even, and through an honest mistake, ended up enjoying the concert and long night barefoot. Stephanie giggled. She was so freaked out about going barefoot into the gross toilets in the concert hall that she ended up holding it in all night. But that, too, was worth it. All that had happened just this last spring, and it was her first real challenging outing barefoot. Everyone said they would bust her at the door, so she should take shoes, and after the long walk through the parking lot no one would be in the mood to walk back for her shoes. As it turned out, she ended up stuck shoeless, and best of all she somehow managed to get in without much trouble. She suspected, even then, that the guy working the gate had a thing for barefoot girls, as he stared right at them, froze up and stuttered a little, let her go, and kept glancing over his shoulder while she walked off, taking other tickets as he stared. The concert hall turned her sweet feet positively filthy that night, and her parents were none the wiser. Stephanie grinned.

* * *

“Stephy,” Ruthy’s mother said, her voice still morning-gravely. Though Joyce Babcock looked tired, haggard, and was smoking like a chimney, an ashtray filled with butts beside her, she smiled. She always had a smile for Stephanie. This smile came across a little funny, and it made Stephanie self-conscious, being a suspicious but playful and knowing smile.

“I didn’t know you got up before farmers,” Stephanie laughed. Mrs. Babcock was one of the few adults she felt at ease enough around to tease a little; like a friend.

“I didn’t know you did, either,” she smirked. Strangely, Stephanie realized that she not only valued her rare moments alone with Mrs. Babcock, but also might even prefer her company to Ruthy’s.

“And I see you’re still barefoot. It’s getting a little cold for that, isn’t it?” she asked, but Stephanie knew that Mrs. Babcock wasn’t scolding so much as she was making conversation.

“It is getting a little cold,” she curled her toes up, still standing in the entrance between the living room and kitchen, her heels on the carpet, her toes on the aluminum strip that separated the carpet from the kitchen tile. “You know me, I’m just trying to take advantage of the last decent days.”

“I swear, one day you’re going to show up here barefoot in the snow.”

“Who knows, I just might,” she giggled.

“Have a seat.”

Stephanie pulled out a chair. As she wiggled into her seat at the cheap aluminum legged table she wasn’t sure what else to say, not sure how much of what happened last night she could talk about, even to Ruthy’s cool mom. But every time she looked at Stephanie she held onto that peculiar smile, and Stephanie suspected that Mrs. Babcock knew something. Her soles and toes tickled over the dry stickiness and grittiness of the kitchen floor. Especially under the table where she could feel even the minutest of dried up old crumbs as keenly as if they were gravel. And without even looking, rolling her toes over it, she could tell that one of the bits of crud was a very old and very dried up raisin. Even this did not gross her out, as Stephanie realized more and more how much she loved feeling different textures under her bare feet, even slightly nasty ones. For all the pounding and punishment her feet had suffered last night, they felt pretty good. In fact, even earlier as she was getting dressed she realized they looked pretty good too, apart from a few faint pinkish marks. Marks she now wore as badges of honor.

“Breakfast?” Mrs. Babcock held out her spatula and prepared to toss in more bacon and eggs.

“Yes, please, I’m starving.” Stephanie watched her take a couple of eggs out of the carton before she asked: "Need some help?"

"I got it..." Mrs. Babcock replied, taking a draw off of her smoke before cracking the eggs over the side of the skillet. “Long night, huh?” Mrs. Babcock asked with an appreciative but still suspicious look in her eyes.

“Just kinda’ weird.” Looking at Ruthy’s mom, she could see how tired she was, how much the alcohol had affected her, more likely how much so many years of crappy work had affected her. Unlike Ruthy, who resented her mom, Stephanie felt sorry for her, even admired her. That said, she in no way wanted to end up like her, working so hard for next to nothing. But in her eyes she always saw an appreciation for whatever she and Ruthy got up to, as if Mrs. Babcock missed her own young and wild ways. Somehow that inspired Stephanie to loosen up more, to enjoy being young despite her parents.

In the background, as always, Ruthy’s mom softly played old country music on the radio, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard, Web Pierce, all the same sort of stuff Stephanie grew up hearing around her house. Music she never chose to listen to, but music that felt warm and familiar to her. Music she liked a lot more here than she did at home.

Joyce had turned to look at Stephanie from over her shoulder, and looked for the entire world like she was fighting the urge to start grinning. Giving the eggs a flip, she asked: "You like 'em over medium, right?"

"Mmm hmmm!" Stephanie smiled closed-lipped and nodded, imagining how tasty all the yoke was going to be sopped up with some toast and bacon, all the while rolling the pebble-like raisin on the floor around under her big toe. Their eyes strangely met again after the question was asked and answered, then Joyce turned back to the frying pan.

"Ruthy have you two go around that Dawson boy again last night?" she peeled off a couple strips of bacon.

Stephanie cocked her mouth. "What do you think?"

Mrs. Babcock turned back to Stephanie. "I don't know why she likes those bad boys...been that way ever since she was little."

Stephanie shrugged and rubbed her hands on her thighs.

"That boy ain't nothin' but trouble." she paused as she stared blankly at Stephanie.

"He's not much of anything..." Stephanie grinned, shooting a glance toward Ruthy's bedroom as if Ruthy might hear her.

"So you're not one for trouble...normally...right?" Joyce smiled.

"No." Their eyes met again.

"You usually stay out of trouble…usually…right?" Joyce smiled again.

“Ok, what gives?” Stephanie asked, unable to take all the peculiar looks and suspicious questions.

“You have a little trouble with the police last night?” Mrs. Babcock asked, but she asked not at all as her own parents might ask. Mrs. Babcock asked like she wanted to be in on it, not like she wanted to scold her.

Stephanie’s heart sunk just the same. “How do you know that?” Bacon now sizzled in the background.

“I got a little visit in the wee hours of the morning.”

“No way! Shut up!” Stephanie said brightly, blushing.

“What did Ruthy get you into? It had to have been her doing...”

“Nothing,” Stephanie laughed. “It was more my fault than hers.”

“Oh, I’ll bet,” Mrs. Babcock smirked. “You know I love my Ruthy, but she can be a handful.”

“We didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I know,” and by her tone, Stephanie knew Mrs. Babcock believed her.

“What did the police tell you?”

“Not much. They mostly wanted to check up on you. Oh, I’ve already fielded three calls from your mother.”

Stephanie rolled her eyes. “What did you tell her?”

“Not much. You want to call her now?”

“No! God no. Please, if they call again just tell them I’m asleep or something, that I’m OK, and all.”

“Your parents on your case again?”

“Sorta’.” Stephanie sighed and shook her head. “All the time, actually.”

Ruthy’s mom soon sat and began divvying up the eggs, bacon, and even pouring coffee for both of them. Stephanie was not allowed coffee at home, and was not about to tell Mrs. Babcock that. “I don’t get your parents,” she huffed, sitting down and snuffing out her cigarette.

“Me neither,” said Stephanie in an exhausted tone. She pulled her feet under her chair and wedged the cold aluminum chair legs between the big toes and index toes of both feet, reveling in the feeling of the smooth metal tight against the tender insides of her toes.

“You’re a good girl, polite, you get good grades, but they hound you like you were my daughter.”

“Tell me about it,” snorted Stephanie, watching Ruthy’s mom fix her coffee, taking cues and fixing hers the same way. “I know, they treat me like the black sheep of the family or something.”

“I bet they just hate Ruthy,” laughed Mrs. Babcock.

Stephanie blushed.

“Well, I’m glad you’re friends with her. She needs a friend like you.”

“Thanks.”

“So, Ruthy tells me you’re planning on joining the Peace Corps after school?”

“I’d like to, but I'm not really sure. I’m thinking about Marine Biology. I love dolphins. But there’s too much math in science,” Stephanie laughed “That, and I’m not exactly the biggest fan of my math teacher right now…”

“They’re so smart. At least that’s what everybody says. Dolphins, not math teachers, I mean.” Joyce smiled, chopping her eggs with her fork.

“I got to pet one last summer. They feel like rubber.” Stephanie chewed on the bacon. It was cooked crispy, just the way she liked it. She laughed. “Dolphins, I mean… I never petted a math teacher.”

Mrs. Babcock laughed. “I just can’t see why your parents can’t see how...I don't know...how good you are.”

Stephanie blushed, not at all used to such kind words. “I guess I just didn’t turn out like they hoped,” she said, suddenly feeling warmth in her face, the same warmth she felt everyday when showing up to breakfast in the make-up her dad hates so much. “I don’t know, I guess they wanted me to turn out like my sister.”

“Your sister’s a dip-shit,” groaned Mrs. Babcock. “Pardon my French…” she ate a bite of her eggs.

Stephanie snorted and tried not to choke on her bacon.

“No, really, I mean it.” Joyce added, wiping the edge of her mouth with her napkin.

Stephanie took a drink of her coffee. “My parents hate that I go barefoot all over the place.”

“Is that all?” she asked, horrified, biting her tongue against revealing what she really thought of Stephanie’s parents.

“They think that everything I do, I do to just to bug them. It’s ridiculous.”

Again, Mrs. Babcock bit her tongue, trying not to badmouth Stephanie’s parents too badly, David Goddard in particular. “You know I’d let you stay here all you wanted if we had the room?”

“Thanks, I know,” nodded Stephanie, peppering her eggs. “Believe me, I wish you had the room,” she laughed.

“If you ever need it, the couch is all yours.”

“Thanks,” Stephanie dug back into her eggs. Stephanie, now more than ever, wanted to tell Ruthy’s mom everything. She needed to tell someone everything, but it was all too crazy, and in the safe light of morning it all seemed not just crazier, but somehow distant. Then there would be having to explain about the booze and the crazy old stalker that she hadn’t even managed to turn in when she had the chance; the creepy old man who rescued her from being taken home in a police cruiser. Still, even in the light of day, it seemed insane that she hadn’t told the police they were standing right next to him when she had the chance. She thought it was sick that she feared her parents more than him, which was why she ran when she had the chance. None of it made sense to her, not even after a night’s sleep. And since none of it made sense in Stephanie's mind she wondered how she could possibly begin to explain it anyhow. So, she contented herself with merely eating her breakfast, conversing about other things with Joyce, and drinking her coffee. Over the radio she heard the weather and the promise of a sunny and warm day. Stephanie grinned to herself, pleased. After all, this would prove to be the perfect day to go barefoot to school. Not that she had much choice. It seemed that if nothing else, the creepy old man had seen to it that she was stuck shoeless.

The phone rang, ripping Stephanie from her thoughts. “Oh no,” she whined, defeated.

“That’d be Barbera.”

“God, please, please, tell her I’m in bed, I’m OK, and I’ll be going right to school, please!”

Mrs. Babcock picked up the phone and Stephanie held her coffee cup with both hands, every muscle tight.

“Hello.” Mrs. Babcock listened. “Yes… yes.” She nodded and lulled her head, rolling her eyes. “They’re fine.” She looked at Stephanie. “No, no trouble at all. Stephanie’s never any trouble.”

Without even being able to hear a word her mother said, Stephanie felt herself drained just the same.

“Oh no, no, I doubt that. You should give Stephy the benefit of the doubt. The police were more worried than angry. The girls are fine and still asleep.” After a final nod, Mrs. Babcock said goodbye and hung up the phone.

“So, am I in trouble, or what?”

“That couch must be starting to look pretty good about now, huh?”

Stephanie rolled her eyes and dug back into her breakfast. 'Too good...' she hated to admit to herself.

* * *

By far, of all Stephanie’s barefoot outings so far, standing at the bus stop to go to school felt like the strangest. Ruthy was still laughing about it…had been the whole walk to the stop, not even having to say a word about it. Even this fit of laughing wasn’t teasing so much as admiration for Stephanie’s wild abandon. However self-conscious Stephanie felt about it, she never let on, all the way a playful and seductive bounce and wiggle in her step. More excited than usual, and it could have been the coffee as much as her bare feet, Stephanie and Ruthy engaged in more horseplay than usual, Stephanie even managing to shove Ruthy into the —fortunately dry— ditch, Ruthy chasing after her, threatening to kill her, laughing all the while. Stephanie felt lighter than air on her bare feet, and thrilled to each and every barefooted step over the coarse road, gravely roadside, and uneven sidewalks.

“You look hot in those pants, Steph,” Ruthy said as she stood a little apart from her friend, staring up the road impatiently, as if she couldn’t wait to get to school. “You should keep them.”

“Thanks, and my shirt too… which you freakin’ swiped!” Stephanie reached out and kicked Ruthy with the fleshy undersides of her bare toes.

“Thanks a lot, bitch!” Ruthy barked. Quick as that she lashed out, attempting to stomp on Stephanie’s toes. Stephanie skipped back. “God! Now I have to go all day with your dirty footprint on my jeans.”

“Oh, big deal,” Stephanie laughed, reaching out and smacking away the dusty toe prints with her own hand. Ruthy’s bus stop sat at the end of a little dirt side street, a street that provided plenty of big rocks to stimulate and dig into Stephanie’s soles. She thought this morning that her delicate boned pale-pink feet looked especially sexy, particularly on the rocks and dirt. The black of the legwarmers showed off her slender, creamy, and white-skinned feet oh so nicely.

The promise of good weather showed in the blue of the sky and in the warmth of the sun, but now it was still quite chilly. Stephanie could see her breath; glad she thought to pull on Ruthy’s fake fur half-length jacket before leaving the apartment.

All at once, Stephanie felt the hot shiver of realizing she still had a lot of shit to go through. She just knew her parents were going to kill her, and especially after not coming home last night, or even bothering to call. Like the snap of her fingers, she refused to think too much about that, not now. Besides, she couldn’t, not in the glow of the day ahead. Just the same, she could not help but chuckle to herself just imagining their reactions when she showed up at home after going to school without any shoes. ‘They’ll just have to deal with it,’ she thought.

The bus slowly rumbled down the street, bulky and graceful as an old cow. During the whole wait for the bus Stephanie’s bare feet tingled wildly, and it felt as if her whole consciousness started from her bare feet and radiated up. As if her brain was located in her feet. Climbing aboard the school bus did nothing but intensify the vivid sensations. Thrilling as finally getting to go to school with no shoes felt, she felt just as glaringly self-conscious about her pale little naked peds. Boarding the bus, she noticed and appreciated the ribbed texture of the rubbery floor and could not help but flinch as more than one pair of eyes shot puzzled looks at her extravagantly naked feet. Right behind Ruthy to the back of the bus she went, to sit with Ruthy’s burnout friends.

Simply put, Stephanie could not believe she was doing this, and wanted in the worst way to back out of it now. The rush and worry was too great. She wondered if she could possibly get away with it. Wondered if she could endure all this over-rich tingling all day long. Wondered what everyone would say. Wondered if she would ever forgive herself if she chickened out. Wished everybody would stop looking at her. Looking at her pretty feet.

No. She shook it off and smiled. All the self-doubt, all the shame she felt, that was her parents talking, taking over her head. They may well ruin her life after today, probably grounding her for life, but she set her heart on at least enjoying the hell out of this day, no matter how much teasing she endured or how much trouble she got into with the teachers and principal. Then again, who knows, she wondered if her teachers and principal would even bother to make a fuss over it.

She didn’t know anything, but she knew this much: so far Ruthy hadn’t said a thing about her going to school barefoot, had only laughed and looked. Stephanie knew that was all about to change. The nearer she got to Ruthy’s gang, the more she knew which Ruthy would come out. Brash, teasing Ruthy would sadly replace cool, interesting Ruthy. Stephanie dreaded what she knew she had coming. And she would probably have it coming all day long.

To Be Continued...

Barefoot Black Sheep
Part 1 * Chapter 8
By: Dennis Crabapple McClain
& Lou Gojira

~Interlude~
Tommy braced himself up against the back of the cab, half holding onto the cooler that sat next to him, and tried to organize his thoughts. He felt his adrenaline rush slowly ebbing away, and now he started to realize just how much he was shivering, more scared than freezing from the night's wind as Robbie sat up front and drove like a maniac through the streets, though he hated to admit to himself that he was afraid in any way. 'Who the hell was that old man?' he'd constantly come back to wondering, in between other kinds of thoughts. Thoughts consisting of:
'Did the old man know something?'
'Why did he eye my pocket and threaten the way he did?'
'What was that ‘pawn’ shit all about?'

And those eyes...those eerie, white-light, glowing eyes... which led into other kinds of thoughts, like:
'Was the old man possessed by a demon?'
'Was he Satan himself?'
'Am I goin' to hell for what I did?!'
'Was he after my soul?!'
Tommy looked down and found that he was clutching his heart, so he began to stiffen every muscle he had, trying to force his self to stop shaking and shivering. Needless to say, it didn't work. He'd resent the fact that he was so rattled, rattled by a feeble old man no less, but then get caught up in his troubled thoughts all over again. To make matters worse, his mind really started doing a number on him by flashing every unnerving scene he'd ever saw in a horror movie, every unsettling album cover he'd looked at, even certain lines from every hellfire and damnation sermon he was forced to sit through as a kid played in his head. He got so wrapped up in his thoughts and masochistic mind torture that he wound up in a numbed over stupor. So blank-eyed and indifferent was Tommy in all of this that he didn't notice Robbie swinging the truck into a gas station and screeching to a halt.

Robbie was no doubt struggling with his own imaginative ideas and mental terrors, but at the moment had his act a whole lot more together than Tommy. He leapt out of the cab of the truck and into the phone booth he'd parked in front of, thankful that the station itself was closed and nobody was around to see the big piss stain that darkened the front of his pants. His hands were shaking pretty badly, but he'd managed to steady them long enough to dial 911, and calm his nerves down just enough to know what to say when they answered. Regardless, when the operator picked up, his voice still came out loud and excited. "Police department!"

That brought Tommy down from his thoughts like a gun going off, and he instantly jumped over the side of the truck and shot his way into the phone booth. "Stupid motherfucker!" he yelled, shoving Robbie into the corner with the palm of his fist while landing his other hand down on the button in the cradle. "What're you callin' the cops for?!"

"You outta’ your fuckin' head?! You saw it too!" Robbie screamed back, trying to manage a defensive tone but only getting a girlish-shrill out of his voice. Maybe Tommy was going to pound him now that they were back on solid ground for his almost taking off and leaving him, Robbie began to fear, finally realizing he was guilty of just that, being too scared to notice earlier.

Tommy on the other hand had another train of thought. It just started to dawn on him that he hadn't clued Robbie in what he had in mind that night, and to get all nutso over the cops being called would most likely blow his cover. Not that he ever worried about Robbie being some kind of rat, but he figured that the less others knew, even though nothing wound up happening, the better. Unlike a year ago, when he involved Robbie in a plan like he had tonight, when he talked it out in the beginning and followed through most efficiently, he was keeping this most recent plan to himself, and thinking he'd spring it at the last minute when he actually needed Robbie's help. He held his hands up, palms out: "Call 'em if you got to. Just don't give up our names."

If he had thought about it, Tommy would've realized that what he was about to do was an unnecessary step to take. However, Tommy wasn't the type of guy to really be guided by better judgment before, and he wasn't necessarily going to start now. Rather, he had a basic idea, and he was letting his instinctual whims take hold for the time being. He turned and left the phone booth as Robbie started re-dialing, and getting caught up in his paranoid and clustered, convoluted thoughts all over again, started heading back behind the station where he figured the Dumpster would be. Spotting that big fat Dumpster, he gripped the handle of the little door on the side, gave it a tug, and eased it on open, grinding it on the rusty track. As expected, the thing was stuffed with tied garbage bags and stank to high heaven, but that wasn't about to bother him. He cast a concentrated look all around him, and when he knew he was safe from leering eyes, he commenced to pull the knife out of his coat pocket. He held that long, sharp butcher knife with his finger tips and eyed it differently now, way more different than he'd viewed it earlier. When he took the knife from the woman's house, he saw it as a means to an end. Now, he saw it as a one-way ticket to hell had he used it. His whole body convulsed with a head to toe shiver when he remembered how the old man seemed to know it was on him, and cast those frightening, demonic eyes at his pocket. Tommy stretched the front of his shirt out and wiped the handle and blade as clean of his fingerprints as he thought possible, and using a hand gloved with a coat pocket he let the knife drop with a muffled thump into the Dumpster. It would be hours later when he'd see what a futile and useless precaution that was, but for the moment it really helped him to get a grip on his nerves. He almost wished the old man saw him getting rid of the knife, like the old guy's nod of approval would've been as good as getting laid...getting laid by HER. He imagined that sexy older woman being there and whispered: "Find somebody else, I'm through..."

Robbie was trying his best to convince the person on the other end of the line that he wasn't on drugs or crazy when Tommy went strolling back up to see him. "I'm not makin' this up Goddamn it!" Robbie shrieked, then a paused for a second "His eyes DID glow!" another pause "He could be chasin' those girls down right now!" the operator must've said something else, and then "No this ain't a joke Goddamnit!" Robbie's eyes grew wider "Huh? Yeah?" and then he was furious "Really? Well I think there IS a Goddamn reason for the Goddamn language!" Tommy could almost hear the click on the other end from where he was standing "Hello?! HELLO!" Robbie slammed the phone down, a reverberating ring softly droned from the impact. "Fuckin' stupid pig bitch!" he huffed as he turned back around.

"You feel better now?" Tommy asked, almost high in his sudden relief and wanting to joke around to nurse the feeling along. "You bein' a good citizen Piss-pants?"

"Man-!" Robbie tried hopelessly to pull his jacket down to cover the front of his pants. "Man, fuck you! Who was that guy anyway?! What'd he want?!" Robbie's nerves seemed to be worse since his call to the police.

"How the fuck should I know?" Tommy answered a little irritated with Robbie's frazzled state, not remembering how he himself was worse off nerve-wise just a minute ago. "You didn't give my last name, right?"

"Tommy...Goddamn it..." Robbie sputtered, wide-eyed. "That guy could still be after the girls! Why're you worried about the fuckin' cops?! We didn't do nothin'!"

Tommy almost envied Robbie in how easily he forgot about things. The incident a year ago was still fresh in Tommy's head, unlike Robbie's, who seemed to phase it out and completely forget about it. Tommy still had a huge well of paranoia over that, not to mention the jail time he was looking at if he flubbed up even once, already being in trouble so much down through the years. "Me and the police don't get along, okay?! Now, did you give my last name?!"

"I gave the girls' full names. I just told our first names..."

Tommy closed his eyes and shook his head slowly, disgusted at Robbie's ignorance or even his deathly "need" to call the police to begin with, but thankful that neither one should be getting a visit from the police at their homes anytime soon for further questioning. "Good." he said bluntly, then wondered if the girls would be willing to volunteer names if they got questioned.

"Who the hell was that guy?!" Robbie asked, looking around as if the old man was going to run up on them there in the gas station parking lot. He was very obviously still tensed, with no signs of calm or serenity in sight.

"What guy?" Tommy folded his arms.

"The guy who-"Robbie started in disbelief over Tommy's question.

Tommy interrupted and repeated: "What guy?" He kept his arms folded and hoped Robbie would take the hint.

Robbie's face flushed with anger. "Fuck man, why you wanna do this?!" He stomped away a few steps, then came right back. "He's after those girls! He's prob'ly after us now!"

"Who?" Tommy asked, knowing it would get Robbie's goat and not really caring.

"Don't do me like this!" Robbie gave Tommy a shove.

Tommy stumbled back a step, but came back with a punch, connecting it with Robbie's mouth, then followed through, using the same arm, and put an elbow to his jaw. Robbie twirled and hit the ground side-ways, cupping his mouth, but before he could get his footing and stand back up, Tommy was on top of him, pinning him by his shirt and jacket. "Look chicken-shit, you wanna get thrown into Our Lady of fuckin' Peace?! That's where you're goin' if you keep talkin' crazy shit! Calm down you fuckin' faggot!"

"But the girls..." Robbie whined, a string of blood oozing out of the corner of his mouth, his anger suddenly cooling and turning back into fear.

"The girls didn't see his eyes, alright?!" Tommy gave him a final shove against the ground as he let him go, as if to enforce his point. He stood and straightened his jacket out, then ran a hand through his hair. "Far as I'm concerned, fuck the girls! Let them worry about it, it's not our shit to worry about!"

"But he said..." Robbie whined again, pushing himself up and looking at the asphalt between his hands.

"Yeah, I heard him. 'Stay away from her.' Good enough for me!" Tommy started back to the truck.

"But who? Water or Stephanie?" Robbie asked, standing and brushing himself off.

"Who cares?" Tommy shrugged. "We drop 'em both. That a problem for you?" he fished his cigarettes out and put one in his mouth.

"Not really..." Robbie answered as he spit and wiped his mouth while both of them climbed into the truck. Tommy patted his jacket for his lighter, then reached over and pushed in the truck's lighter when he gave up searching. "Stephanie's kinda' cool..." Robbie said as he turned the key.

Tommy gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "Bitch is weird."

Robbie looked at Tommy for a second, and then put the truck into gear. "Got a nice body though." He pulled the truck around and back into the road, driving a lot less reckless this time. "I don't know what's up with her not wearin' shoes." He dabbed at his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Who cares?" Tommy said, his face glowing orange as he lit his cigarette. He popped the lighter back into the dash. "Just leave her alone. Plenty more pussy to be had... I'll hook you up."

Robbie grinned as he kept his eyes on the road. Tommy has hooked him up before, he reflected all over again, suddenly filled with shame that this was the same Tommy he had the nerve to shove in the parking lot.

"So you forget about 'em?" Tommy asked, his hand poised up in the air.

"Forget about who?" Robbie beamed, and then clapped a hand into Tommy's. Things were going to be alright, he figured. Tommy was a friend with connections, no denying that, and he had a way of smoothing things over. Tommy always smoothed things over. Robbie would never question Tommy again. The fear he had of Tommy a little earlier was turning back into idolization, and the cut in his mouth would heal soon enough. They rode in silence for a few minutes, then Robbie asked: "Speakin' of pussy, when are you gonna hook me up with that older chick?"

Tommy seemed to freeze for a second in the darkness. "Glad you mentioned her. Think you could drop me off over there?"

"For the night?" Robbie shot a glance at him, then licked the taste of blood from his bottom lip.

"Like my slut of a mom is gonna miss me." Tommy sniggered. "Yeah, for the night."

"Skippin' out on school since tomorrow's Friday huh?" Robbie smiled. "You are the fuckin' man!" He then laughed, thinking he'd pull a no-show himself now that Tommy was going to do it. "I heard them older women can really fuck." He waited for Tommy to verify that, but all he got was silence. "She easy enough? You gotta introduce me to her."

"I think you should change pants 'fore I do." Tommy laughed.

Robbie's face burned with embarrassment, but he knew Tommy wasn't going to tell anybody about his little urinary mishap. That'd involve bringing up the situation Tommy and he both were going to forget. Oh yeah...things were going to be alright...Robbie knew he may get teased in private by Tommy over his accident, his nerves shot all to hell causing it in the first place, but it would go no further. Tommy seemed to know what he was doing...forget it and it never happened. Simple enough. Robbie had a deep longing for a nice cold beer right about then...

* * *

"Yes, that's fine..." Mrs. Thompson said into the phone to Stephanie's worried mother. "No problem at all..." she added, not able to help but give an eye-roll at listening to the woman's worrisome and over-protective prattling over her daughter. "Like I say, she just left out of here a few minutes ago, and those shoes were on her feet..." she lied, on both accounts. Mrs. Thompson was wearing her bath robe, completely naked underneath, sitting with her leg in the chair and idly fingering in-between her own bare toes. "She should be home any minute now-" she said, way past impatient with the conversation and letting her foot drop back to the floor with a thump"-so I'm gonna call it a night myself." She hoped Stephanie's mother would take that as a hint to not call her back. No matter, either way she planned to unplug the phone after she hung up anyway. "Okay...alright...yes...okay..." she pressed the balls of her feet into the floor and gripped the phone tighter, trying not to let her annoyance show in her voice as Barbera Goddard got a few more sentences in. Eventually, Mrs. Thompson was able to say: "You have a good night too...okay...b'bye." She waited until she heard Stephanie's mom hang up first before she smacked the receiver down, then pulled the wire out of the wall with an angry huff.

Mrs. Thompson's heart picked up pace as her thoughts came back into focus and she got back to what she was doing. She left the room in a hurry and stopped by the bathroom mirror one more time, having already bathed, perfumed her whole body, and applied a most impressive make-up job to her already attractive face. She'd turn her head slowly to the left and then to the right, making sure all the eye-liner, eye-shadow, blush, and lip-stick was right where she wanted it to be, half-way marveling in her work. 'Old girl's still got it...' she thought with a grin.

She padded her lovely bare feet; freshly applied fiery-red polish quickly drying on her nails, back through the house and to the kitchen sink. She looked down and eyed the now cold cup of tea that Stephanie so meticulously doctored and didn't even get around to sipping that first drink. Mrs. Thompson gave it a snort and thought 'Little airhead doesn't even know what she wants...' then poured it out, listening to the trickle softly echo on down the drain. 'She could've at least got her last drink in.' Leah thought, but no great loss she figured, things would most likely get taken care of tonight, and hopefully sooner than later.

When everything was complete, he would drop by, she knew, and that's why she made herself up the way she did. That boy may be a cold-blooded killer, a real psychopath in training, but Mrs. Thompson knew how to channel all that rage he was perpetually brimming over with. Very simple really; just inflate what little self-esteem he had by saying all the right things, being a sort of mother to him, then giving him what all young and sexually frustrated men constantly craved, being a temporary lover; a formula for control that she figured out all too easily, and had no qualms with carrying out. The result? One young, dumb, and full of cum tool more than ready and more than willing to meet the goal, practically guaranteeing her safety if anything should go wrong. He was already a "troubled youth" the authorities would figure, and he had the track record to back it up and then some. She would just stick to her story, not that she would have much to worry about either way.

That other girl, whose name Mrs. Thompson couldn't quite remember, the one she had taken care of a year ago, using the same means no less, was a mistake. She acknowledged that now, and it was a most unfortunate thing to have happened, to a degree anyway, though nothing that really bothered her very deeply. She wasn't absolutely certain that this latest target, one she'd already befriended and gotten to know relatively well, this Stephanie girl, was it either, but there was one glaring indication too blatant to ignore... the constant and obsessive barefooting, even in this cold weather. Mrs. Thompson failed to do all the homework she should've done before where the other girl was concerned, but she watched this Stephanie for a while and calculated the odds. She had to be it, she figured, wishing she could get a completely solid indication just to be totally sure.

She slipped out the sliding doors, onto her patio, savoring the November chill of the concrete on her bare soles and the coolness of the night wind that seeped in through her robe and onto her bare, lovely body, and made her way right to the milk box. Before she could even begin to lift the lid, those all too familiar notes of Beethoven's Fifth issued forth and she jumped with a startle. ‘Damn, that was quick,’ she thought as she went back inside, resigning herself to be content with the little bits of saliva she was able to obtain from the tea cup Stephanie usually drank from, or any of the other items she managed to snag from and by Stephanie, drawing all sorts of half-conclusions from them.

Mrs. Thompson saw the taillights of Robbie's truck disappearing down the road as she opened the door for Tommy to come inside. She had to admit it to herself, he was an attractive enough young man, scruffy and unkempt as he was, and she started getting eager for the "reward ceremony" she was about to bestow on him.

"It's over..." Tommy began, trying to get his words lined up before he continued speaking.

Mrs. Thompson shushed him, placing an index finger on his lips as she guided him by his shoulder completely inside to close both doors. "Don't talk about it. I know it's never easy." She took him by his hands and walked backward, leading him to her couch. She sat down, folding a leg up under her as she sat, and gave his arms a tug. He sat down beside her and she was already rubbing his cheek and chest, leaning into him. "You didn't have any notice really..." she cooed, gripping at the carpet with her toes, her bare leg poised, bent and flexed at a very seductive angle. "But I'm glad you called and told me..." she kissed his ear. "Things fell in place and we had to move..." she worked her kisses around his cheek and down to his lips.

Tommy pulled away. "No. I'm finished with-"

She cut him off by pulling his face to meet hers, locking her lips over his mouth. She pushed her tongue against his lips, working it inside. He seemed distant at first, but reciprocated the kiss eventually. She leaned back with a smile, her lips making a light smacking sound as she pulled them off. "I love the way your mouth tastes after you smoke."

Tommy fidgeted and adjusted his excited manhood that painfully pressed against his jeans. "See, I--"

"I do see,” she giggled. "You are very happy to see me."

"No, see, I'm finished with--" he sputtered, finding it harder to think the more excited he got.

"I trust your judgment Baby,” she said as she lifted her leg and put it across his waist, drawing it back to where her foot grazed his cock through his jeans. "I know you're finished or you wouldn't be here. Now let's not talk about it." She laid completely back now and placed both feet on him as he sat there, one still on his crotch, the other now on his face, and exposing her beauteously trimmed bush.

All prior thought and intention vanished from Tommy's head. He was taking his jacket and shirt off without realizing it, and flinging both across the room as he went to undo his belt. Jimi got hit with the shirt, Janis got hit with the jacket, and ol' Mr. Garcia and the boys were probably going to get brunt of the rest of Tommy's discarded clothes. Now naked and trembling with joy, every drop of blood draining into his already red and swollen member, he bent forward onto Mrs. Thompson as she laid there, placing his hands on the inner parts of her thighs, moving them up to her belly to catch the belt of the robe from underneath. He separated his hands and in so doing untied her robe, letting it fall wide open to see Mrs. Thompson's older, yet very tongue-wagging hot and sexy body. She was so beautiful, he marveled as his animalistic lust took control of him, savoring the softness of her skin and the warmth she exhumed as she got more worked up her own self. She smelled great, she looked even better...he wanted to devour her...and he promptly did. She pressed and dug her nails into his scalp, catching long strands of his hair between her fingers as she kept his face planted in her sopping wet quim, boiling hotter than a fever as his tongue lapped her juice like a dehydrated dog laps from a water dish.

He had gotten better at using his tongue, and she took notice, getting lost in her abandon. He had probably gotten better at a lot of things, and he was welcome to illustrate all those fruits of her "coaching" to her most thoroughly after she coaxed him off of her and they made their way to her bed. He carried her, most romantically, to that bed, her wrapping her arms around his neck and eating his face along the way. Mrs. Thompson was almost wishing her body were younger, more full of energy than it seemed to have, just to keep up with Tommy once they were situated on top of the sheets. And once they were both on the bed, he couldn't stop! After going through several motions that even she was surprised and impressed by, he then seemed determined to throw the tail of his spine right through his pelvis as he solidly and ruthlessly pounded her. Having her legs bent up in a missionary position, she pressed her reddening soles against his sweaty chest as her head bounced and thumped against the headboard. Her breasts swirled like water balloons as she reached up to grab the pillow under her head, clawing and clutching at it, squeezing her eyes shut and sticking her erect tongue straight out of her moaning mouth.

Tommy's eyes stayed fixed on Mrs. Thompson's tits. They were a little saggy, but full and shaped oh so fine, and her stiff nipples poked out sharp like darts, cutting the air in circular patterns as he jack-hammered her strong, wet cunt. He bit into his bottom lip as he looked up to see her mouth, all glossy and lusciously full with lipstick; how her tongue snaked in and out and how her lips seemed to swell when she'd moan a certain way, making a nice and attractive "O" shape. He was starting to get an idea...of maybe putting “himself” in that mouth and humping that pretty made-up face. He wanted those lips on him so bad. Those luscious, red, shiny...who the hell is that?!

Out the window over the top of the bed, through the tiny area where the shade wasn't drawn, looked to be somebody passing by in her backyard. As soon as Tommy tried to take a second look they were gone. That build... the dark figure looked strangely familiar. He looked back at Mrs. Thompson and forgot about what was happening in the backyard, pounded away for a little bit more, then a yellow and orange kind of glow caught his eye. He slowed up in what he was doing and looked out on her lawn again. Something was glowing from the back porch...

Just then Mrs. Thompson bent forward and gripped both cheeks of his ass, clawing right into the flesh. "Oh don't stop!" she screamed.

He obliged, most happily, writing the glow off as some weird porch light she must've had on the patio.

* * *

Tommy was sitting in the middle of Mrs. Thompson's living room floor the next morning, in front of her television set, wearing nothing but his jeans and socks, a huge bowl of Grape Nuts resting in his lap, and seeing what he could of "The Little Rascals" through half-crusted and sleep-watery eyes. He sat close to the television so he wouldn't have to turn it up too loud to hear it, almost out of character courteous for him as he tried not to wake Mrs. Thompson up, as she was still snoozing away back in the bedroom. He thought he'd be snoozing along with her, but hunger had woke him up a lot earlier than he intended, and he hated that since he was skipping out on school that day anyway and rather wanted to sleep in, still wrapped in her arms. He only half paid attention to the show because he was caught up in his reflections of the night before, particularly the "reward" Mrs. Thompson gave him even though he did nothing to earn it. He burned that old girl up, he thought with a grin, a little bit sore himself from all she did for his pleasure as well. He figured he'd only gotten a couple of hours of sleep tops, because they went for it all night long, him having stopped counting the number of times he'd cum after the third time. Even though Mrs. Thompson was twice his age, old enough to be his mother (which wasn't exactly a pleasant thought for Tommy, so he ignored that aspect), there was no denying that she was one major missile-twister, practically destroying and putting to shame any and every other girl, most of them being much closer to his own age, he'd ever taken a roll in the sheets with. Robbie could rub his little want spot when it came to this one, Tommy thought, no way in hell was he sharing her.

"Enjoying the TV Baby?" Tommy jumped at Mrs. Thompson's voice popping out of nowhere. He turned and saw her sauntering up to him smiling, naked, hair messy, make-up smeared like mad, yet having an early morning effervescence that made his heart pound as he looked at her. She crouched down next to him, her knees popping as she bent. "I see you found the cereal."

"All you got is health food around here." he smiled, and then leaned side-ways to peck her on the lips.

"Why don't you come back to bed...?” she softly said to him, playing with the back of his hair.

He pulled his head away, her fingers sending an unwelcome tingle down his back. "I dunno..."

"Everything's going to be okay Sweetie." she rubbed her hand up and down his bare, arched back. "You took care of everything, right? I noticed that you didn't even bring my good knife back."

Tommy remained tight-lipped, figuring that knife to be on its way to the city dump along with the rest of the trash in that Dumpster right about then.

"Baby, don't feel bad about anything, okay? I had my reasons for wanting her gone, and I'll explain it all to you in good time..."she planted a kiss on his shoulder. "...When you'll be able to understand."

Tommy's stomach knotted as he let his arms go limp, staring down at the bowl of cereal and knowing he had to tell the truth all too soon.

Mrs. Thompson stood back up and stretched her arms over her head behind him, feeling her back relieved with the motion. "Come take a shower with me..." She lifted a leg and teased his side with her bare toes, wiggling them and tickling him just below his ribs.

His nervousness was beginning to rise as he uncomfortably laughed. "That's okay,” he said, lightly smacking her foot off of him, then turning his attention back to the TV.

"Are you regretting anything?" she stared at the back of his head, starting to get annoyed as she was feeling the tiny stings of his not-so-subtle rejections.

"Nope." he blankly answered.

She kept staring for a minute, trying to figure out the best thing to say next. "She really liked me...I'm going to miss her too. Is that what's bothering you?"

"Naw." he turned and said, then went back to the show.

"Are you lying to me?" she put her hands on her curved hips, turning a bare foot to the side.

"No. You say you actually know Stephanie?" he turned in his seating to look up at her.

Mrs. Thompson closed her eyes, annoyed that he used the target's name, preferring him to avoid that, not using her name and acknowledging Stephanie as a person. "I did. Why?"

Tommy stood and set the cereal bowl on the coffee table. "Then keep on knowin' her."

"What are you..." she froze as the realization hit. She tried to say something, but all her mouth did was sputter.

"I'm through with that shit." he said, and reached down for his shirt. Pulling it on over his head, he added: "I have my reasons..." then he said with a sarcastic smirk working onto his mouth "...and I'll explain them when you'll be able to understand."

Her face twisted and flushed with rage. "You little cock sucking shit! You lying little bastard! Oh-!"

"Hey, don't be mad." he grabbed his shoes and flopped down on her couch. "We can still see each other..." he started pulling on one of his high tops. "Just get somebody else to do her." He tied the laces and started pulling his other shoe on. "Do her yourself for all I care, but I'm through."

Mrs. Thompson turned away, her breathing flustered and heavy, louder than she intended.

Tommy was still very nervous, but he found his jacket on the floor and started putting his arm through one of the sleeves, figuring he'd better fly before she really exploded on him. He was in no mood to get bitched out this early in the morning. "See ya,” he said, putting his other arm through and walking toward the door.

She put a hand out and grabbed his shoulder, and Tommy rolled his eyes, not facing her, thinking she was going to start crying or pull some kind of needy girlie shit on him, begging him not to go or whatever. Her grip tightened so strong and so fast though that he felt his arm being lifted with his jacket. When he turned to look at her, his heart stopped.

She was already illuminated a bluish tint from the television's glow in the dark living room, but her eyes radiated a very bright white light, shining through the locks of blonde and white hair that hung before them and even casting his shadow on the wall.

Down the street old widow Miss Conners was just finishing pouring her cats' pie-pan sized dish full of little fish-shaped kitty kibbles, and then grabbed their water dish to take back inside for a refill. Mr. Whiskers and Patches snaked around her legs and butted their heads up against them, meowing their thanks and approval before making their way to the food dish. She contemplated whether or not it was cold enough to start letting them come inside during the day when she heard something...somewhere around the old hippie woman's house a ways up the street, maybe even behind it, she heard what sounded like a scream. She just shook her head and went back inside, mumbling to herself: "They'd party all night long if you let 'em, them damn hippies..."

~End of Interlude~

To Be Continued...

Barefoot Black Sheep
Part 1 * CHAPTER 9
By: Dennis Crabapple McClain
& Lou Gojira

After suffering over which seat to sit in, claiming a seat second from the back, Stephanie felt a sensation like stepping into an air conditioned shop after a long hot walk in the sun. Smiling, she welcomed this sudden sense of clarity. Her head, at least for these few fleeting moments, was strangely clear of the sensible, plodding, dull voice of her parents. And all at once she knew what it felt like to be free to feel what she wanted to feel. Free to be free long enough to finally be herself. Free to enjoy the breezy bliss of being barefoot in the most unlikely place of all… the school bus. Not just free either, but brave. She felt brave for finally doing something she never thought possible. But here she was, going barefoot to school, and right now her pink-faced grin showed that to Stephanie anything seemed possible. Maybe even, if she dared stick to her guns, maybe even happiness was possible.

Of course, in the wake of her silent and feeling footsteps she left a ripple of giggling, sniggering, and snideness all inspired by and aimed at her brazenly bared feet. Self-conscious as a girl could be, she nonetheless enjoyed a private and puzzling reverie in attracting so much attention for simply being herself.

The freak-chick wannabe sitting on the window side looked nervously away when Stephanie caught her staring at her feet. Stephanie flashed the girl a smile, then turned back to Ruthy, sitting right in the back with three scruffy-haired freak boys, all of them smelling stale as two-day dirty ashtrays; Ruthy included.

This was not Stephanie’s usual bus and she felt as if she had been dropped into another planet. She was thankful for the familiar cackle of Ruthy’s showy laugh.

“So that’s the barefoot chick,” said one of the boys Ruthy busily worked so hard to impress, “Robbie mentioned you.”

“Yeah, I’m her,” Stephanie grinned, pleased that she found herself feeling far more proud than embarrassed of her bare feet. She felt like she might finally be shaking off most of the bullshit her parents were instilling in her.

“What’s up, you pregnant or something?” he looked around and laughed in a way that obviously craved approval. His crooked and jagged teeth showed under his bad teenage-mustached lip.

“Yeah, and she’s in the kitchen too, asshole!” Ruthy snapped back as the bus rolled along. Stephanie smiled; surprised that Ruthy would actually leap to her defense, especially in reference to her problematic bare feet.

“Yeah, shut up, asshole,” said one of the other boys, the much cuter one, a certain boy Stephanie had seen around and secretly hoped on occasion would come around the gang more often. A tallish young buck; with longish and unkempt dark hair, he leaned in towards Stephanie’s seat. “Don’t mind him, he’s like some retard we hang out with just to be nice.”

“Hey! Screw you!” the boy sneered back; his teeth looking like the rusted edge of a broken chainsaw. “Fuck you, man, I don’t need you,” he said towards the window.

The dark-haired boy rolled his eyes and shot a chuckle at Stephanie, looking into her eyes. “Hey, don’t listen to them, bare feet are the coolest. I’m John.”

John. She already knew his name, but didn’t let on. “I’m Stephanie. Thanks.” Turning around in her seat, leaning suggestively close to him as the back of the seat between them would allow, Stephanie smiled, stunned to a simple warm contentment at these little shows of support. Hoping he noticed, she reached around behind her and let her fingers rest across her foot.

“Are you poor or something?” asked the girl next to her, the seemingly stupid comment distracting Stephanie from her flirtation.

“Huh?” Stephanie shook her head. “No, no, I’m not ‘poor.’” Stephanie chuckled. She shifted in her seat, keeping one foot pulled up within reach, her fingers resting on the underside of her dusty toes, the toes of her other foot she planted on the vinyl floor, feeling the grind of the bus through every delicate bone.

“It’s gettin’ kinda cold, isn’t it?” the girl asked.

"It’s no big deal." Stephanie shrugged, growing irritated with this girl already. Her mood hovered, not sure what to make of this girl and her questions, not sure if she was being made fun of or not. In the hopes of a rescue from this annoying game of twenty questions, Stephanie turned to Ruthy, but found her too busy in her usual roughhouse style of flirtation to rescue her.

“I’m Jessie,” the girl said.

Realizing that Ruthy was not about to interrupt her awkward mating ritual, and once Stephanie got a good look at Jessie, she saw a lost innocence in her eyes that set Stephanie at ease. Turning back around in her seat, “I’m Stephanie,” she said. Everything about Jessie emanated a nervous kind of need to be liked, and Stephanie now realized this girl in no way meant to make fun of her. The lost look in Jessie’s eyes made her look at least a year or class younger, though Stephanie didn’t know for sure. But Jessie wasn’t unattractive, even cute in a strange and distant sort of way. She had dirty-coppery red hair that Stephanie suspected came from too many hair color changes, and a slight overbite that pursed her lips out into a perpetual pout...not to mention round little ears that poked out at an angle from under her long hair, giving her a sort of "Bambi" or "elfish" kind of look that even Stephanie thought cute in a child-like way.

“You have shoes, right?” Jessie asked.

“Oh yeah, I have ‘em, I just don’t like ‘em.”

“Me too,” the girl named Jessie said. Stephanie noticed the poor girl’s trapped toes wiggling around inside the canvas shoes. “I went barefoot all summer around the house.”

“Cool.” Stephanie kept her impending eye-roll in check. 'Around the house...what do you want, a blue ribbon?' she thought sarcastically, though she found herself already warming up to this nice little girl.

“Hey!” called out a kid from four rows up. “Are you so stoned—burnout—that you forgot your shoes?” Every kid who heard laughed, even Ruthy, and those that hadn’t heard were turning around in their seats to find out what was going on and who had said what to whom. The bus filled with breezy and nosey whispering.

“Yeah, that’s exactly it,” Stephanie sneered. “Wanna see the track-marks between my toes?” Clutching her big toe, she held her foot out and up, all her toes spread wide.

“Are you a hippie? Peace, man!” another kid shouted to a riot of laughter that even drowned out the screeching of the brakes. So much so that the bus driver shouted for everyone to settle down. All the laughing chinked the eggshell armor of Stephanie’s pride and good mood. If this was going to be the tone of the day, she doubted she was up to it. She doubted how much fun this would be after all.

After a few last stops the bus groaned and lurched up the long inclined drive leading to the front of the school. “Oh fuck!” Ruthy chuckled. “Stephanie, what the fuck is that?” Ruthy leaned in towards Stephanie from one seat back and across the aisle.

“What? What?” Stephanie asked, caught up in a sudden panic.

“Oh shit, you are so fucked!”

“What?” barked Stephanie, amused panic showing in her face.

“It’s your mom!” Ruthy pointed.

“Shut up! It is not!” Stephanie cried in disbelief, about to pray that this was some sort of bad joke, but as the blood drained from her face, she feared it was extremely likely. Turning, looking out the window, there she was, Mom Goddard herself, like some bloated and wicked poltergeist, standing ten feet from the door of the school, her hawk-eyes scanning every kid that left every bus. “Oh fuck,” Stephanie whined, sinking in her seat and feeling a hotter than hell panic swelling up inside her, a hot panic punctuated by lightning flashes of icy cold. Not just her mother, but her mother clutching a change of clothes and Stephanie’s only other pair of sneakers, and worst yet, Stephanie’s "Little Miss Perfect" middle-school jock of a sister Angela.

“Oh…oh ho,” Ruthy groaned, shaking her head. “God, Steph, I would NOT want to be you right now.”

Stephanie pulled herself into a ball, the backsides of her curled toes pressed into the cheap vinyl of the seat back in front of her. Shaking her head in disbelief, Stephanie felt again that fingernails-on-the-blackboard sensation in her naughty little naked feet. “Oh God, I’m gonna be sick,” she muttered while Ruthy groaned and chuckled behind her. “Shut up, this isn’t funny. I am so screwed.”

“I’m not sure ‘screwed’ covers it.”

Outside the bus kids scuttled around —kids who weren’t doomed like Stephanie— like a swarm of ants blissfully undisturbed by the monolithic and unmoving doom radiating off Stephanie’s mother. Its not that Stephanie didn’t know this was coming; her bowels still tightened, and yet part of her felt relieved that at the very least this inevitable confrontation would soon be over.

When her conspicuously and scandalously bared feet hit the pavement as she stepped off the bus, Stephanie could almost taste the concrete through her soles. The chill dew in the grass just beyond the pavement only heightened the sensation of having inappropriately naked feet.

Her mother’s eyes fixed on Stephanie instantly, boring and scraping into her like screws being driven into petrified wood. A grim look sat twisted on her mother’s red face, twisting her face into a wrinkled mask. Stephanie’s mortified little sister rolled her eyes, appalled that her sister was so weird and trashy. “What did we tell you about this?” her mother asked through clenched teeth.

“Mom!” Stephanie hissed past her clenched teeth, noticing every kid around her giving wide berth to the scene but staring and pointing as they passed the spectacle that it was. Some of the kids weren’t content to point and pass, but just had to stand around grinning, in particular a group of jocks that stood back all puffed up, laughing, smug in their “normalcy”.

“What did we tell you?” her mother repeated, as usual, her teeth sunk and locked into this like a bulldog with a bone.

“Not here!” Stephanie cried, feeling herself crumpling up from the inside out.

“Yes, here.”

“You told me not to go out barefoot,” Stephanie mumbled towards the grass, choking back tears. She turned back for Ruthy’s support, but found her conspicuous in her absence. Turning back towards her mother, Stephanie noticed Ruthy as she slipped in through the front doors, stealing a passing glance back at Stephanie as she went in, as obviously embarrassed by this scene as Stephanie herself.

“God, you’re so weird!” her sister hissed, beet red, her eyes averted from every stare of all the older high school kids. It humiliated her to even be seen in this scenario.

“Shut up, squirt!” Stephanie hissed.

“Don’t talk to your sister like that!” her mother spat.

Stephanie’s jaw dropped at the usual and obvious favoritism, which she never could get used to despite all the times it ever happened. “But, she started—“

“—I said no,” her mother said with blind and stubborn certainty. “Young lady, you have never been in so much trouble.”

“Young lady…’” smirked the jocks.

"Cuppa' tea m' young lady?" one of the jocks elaborated in a shrill voice as he mocked, more laughter issuing forth from the crowd.

Unhindered by anyone outside of her tunnel vision, Mrs. Goddard stared right at Stephanie, looking her over, horrified by everything she saw: the make-up, the torn and skin-tight jeans and equally snug T-shirt, and of course, the bare feet and strangely purple nail polish on her toes. “You are not going in there like that. You look like a… a… prostitute!”

“Prostitute!” sniggered another jock, to gales of laughter.

"I wouldn't fuck that shit for free..." another one groused in a lower voice as the laughter ebbed out.

It felt like a swarm of black hornets suddenly filled Stephanie’s head. Each hornet a thought or feeling so fast and sharp with stingers that Stephanie couldn’t clutch onto one of them long enough to turn them into words. The single thing she felt truer than the dew on her toes was how desperately she wanted this to end.

But it wouldn’t.

She would be living in this hell all day long, probably to the end of her career at school. She felt trapped in this moment; a moment that she just knew would stretch out all around her forever. Of course, once she got home, things would only go from bad to worse.

Her mother shook her shoes and the change of clothes at Stephanie. She could not believe her daughter, her first child. She shook the clothes and shoes again.

“God damn!” Stephanie barked.

“Don’t talk like that, young lady.”

"Slut!" she heard shouted from somewhere in the crowd.

"Smack her mouth!" a nasty teenage voice goaded her mother from among the throngs of spectators.

"Take a bath!" came another hateful voice, probably aimed at Stephanie, all the while the laughing never completely stopped around her.

“I won’t have you running around dressed like one of your burnout friends.”

“Burnout!” barked one of the jocks with all the clique-inspired hate in him.

“Freak!” called out several laughing kids.

“Oh God!” Stephanie cried, looking all around her, knowing with every fiber in her body that she was the eye of this hurricane. “Leave me alone!” She grabbed the simple sneakers —her old Vans— and slipped them on. “I’m not changing clothes!” she barked, walking backwards towards the school. “Just go to hell!” she shouted in an effort to save a little face by showing a little attitude, but it only left her feeling more desperately sunk, as she knew this outburst, too, she would pay dearly for. The round of oooohs the other kids shouted, laughing, she knew she would also have to pay dearly for.

Head held defiantly high, tears that she would fight from crying welling in her eyes; Stephanie marched through the gawkers then through the doors. Her efforts to pretend it wasn’t happening did nothing to dull her awareness of the sniggering and staring. She heard and felt every jibe.

Hard as she looked, Ruthy was nowhere to be found. Right at this moment she hated Ruthy almost as much as she hated her own mother, who she wished were dead over and over again in her head. ‘Some friend,’ Stephanie thought, still looking for Ruthy and only seeing the half-witted smirks and abhorrently smiling faces of what felt like a sea of 'normal' kids she was now drowning in through the halls.

All through homeroom she cried and kept stubbornly to herself. She noticed for the first time just how much these shoes hurt her feet...hurt them and suffocated them, torturing them like sadistic jailers molesting innocent prisoners.

First period was no better. Misery dug into her, clutched her like talons. So hot was she in her stew of misery that she missed every word of the lecture. Her feet hurt. Everyone looked at her, talked about her, and none of it sounded pleasant by any means. She hated her mother and her stupid little conformist sister as much as she was capable of hating anybody at this point in her life.

The thin canvas shoes felt like shackles, not just shackles on her feet, but on her individuality. She felt like a sell-out. Wasn’t it just last night that she vowed to stand her ground? That she would do whatever the hell she wanted? It was her life. They were her feet. She clutched her temples, her head so hot she began to feel dizzy.

‘God, what is wrong with me? Why is this so important to me?’ It made no sense. And if it made no sense to her, how could she expect anyone else to understand it?

Sensible or not, she could not even pretend that being barefoot wasn’t important to her. No amount of second-guessing and self-doubt dulled in her mind her desire to be barefoot.

‘Fuck ‘em,’ they didn’t have to understand. They just had to leave her alone, get their own lives, and mind their own business.

Her thoughts went back and forth.

‘But it’s so weird?’ she had to admit. All alone, surrounded by classmates, she wondered if they knew. Expected that they knew. ‘They have to know,’ had to know all the tingling she felt when she was barefoot.

Sex.

It was all about sex, and she worried that they knew it. It was all about sensual pleasure, and simple exhilaration. It was about the rush she felt in doing something wild. Like a stoner, always looking for a high.

No. No, it wasn’t about sex. That would be too weird, too perverted. She just liked being barefoot, that was all. She would never think this again. Never. It was too weird, way too weird, and she felt a miserable fever burning up the back of her neck, the sort of fever that left her feeling like she was going to hell for this and nothing she could do would take it back or change it.

The anguish not fading in the least, friendless and alone as she felt, she shut herself off from everyone and went through the motions after the bell rang. In her numb-hot way to her locker she caught a wicked chill. There he was! She stopped dead in her tracks. The old man, her stalker, he was here, heading down the stairs. She wasn’t even safe at school.

Her heart stopped, then stuttered in her chest, starting up in the relief of recognizing him as just being the old shop teacher. But the mistake wasn’t funny to Stephanie, just unsettling.

Second period, and the worst of her misery shook away, revealing a clear boiling anger. She sat with her teeth clenched together, not just angry at her mother for ruining her life, not just mad as hell at Ruthy for not sticking up for her, but mostly just disappointed and disgusted at herself. She had broken her vow to herself. “Fuck ‘em,” she muttered under her breath, slipping her shoes off under her desk. The cool sensation of the gritty tile soothed her soles and her angry pinched-red toes. The heat in her temples remained steady, but now that she was barefoot, she saw more and more clearly that she was mostly just pissed off, not even worried about all the trouble she was in, or ashamed of the scene that happened outside. Somehow she managed to hear most of the lecture and even managed to take part, if minimally.

Come the end of class, sadly, she gave in to the nosey sniggering pressure of her peers and wiggled her feet into the shoes before crossing the classroom to leave.

By third period she found enough spirit and clear-headedness —her shoes under her seat again— that she knew exactly what she was going to say to her fair-weather friend Ruthy.

After enduring a “barefoot hillbilly” crack in the hall —from Melissa Clowes of all people-- Stephanie could not manage to kick her shoes off during fourth period. Inside, clearer and clearer, she felt as if she was denying herself. Not just denying herself pleasure, but denying herself. Her feet felt numbed and cut off, as dead to her as her ears if she had chosen to go through the day wearing earplugs.

Lunch found Ruthy sitting by herself. Ostracized by association, at least so far as Greg and Allen were concerned. So she thought, and she hadn’t been in any mood to approach their table. Greg and Allen sat two tables over, laughing with a gang of friends. Laughing at Stephanie, and at Ruthy, no doubt, or so she thought, stirring at her peas, poking at them, watching a few of them roll onto the table, doing everything to her peas except eat them. Robbie and Tommy both were conspicuous in their absence, not at another table, nor at another lunch period. They just weren’t at school. Stephanie’s fault no doubt. Ruthy didn’t know what Stephanie’s problem was, but she knew herself, and knew she didn’t like being stared at. And Beth, too, she sat with Greg and Allen, and Ruthy could not believe she lost Beth over Stephanie. Beth hated Stephanie, and made that clear to Ruthy more than once.

From across the room Stephanie spotted Ruthy sitting by herself and pouting. In a fury, bypassing the lunch line entirely, Stephanie made a beeline towards Ruthy. “Thanks a fucking lot!” Stephanie barked, realizing she had never said ‘fuck’ at school before, but it came out natural as could be. She stood with her hands on her hips, directly across the table from Ruthy. Every kid within earshot stopped to listen, but Stephanie no longer cared. “Thanks, you know, for being there and backing me up against my mom!”

“Oh fuck you, Barefoot Contessa! You God damn freak!”

Stung. Stephanie stood red in the face.

“You know, maybe I didn’t back you up because maybe your mom and sister are right. Maybe you’re a Goddamn mental case.”

Stephanie’s heart caught in her throat, cut to the quick by Ruthy telling her that her mom may be right, cutting right to the core of the insecurities she had been rolling over in her mind all morning. “What do you know about it? Screw that! I thought we were friends.”

“Yeah, well, thanks to you and your God damn FOOT FETISH—“

“—I don’t have a foot fetish!” Stephanie barked defensively, mortified at the way Ruthy just shouted it loud enough for the whole lunchroom to hear. That same wicked hot burn ran up her neck and settled in at the base of her skull.

“My ass you don’t,” Ruthy rolled her eyes and slammed her fork down, peas flying. “Well, whatever, thanks to your bullshit, you may be the only ‘friend’ I have left.” Ruthy accented her point, waving around the empty table. “No one will talk to me, ‘cause of you. And Tommy and Robbie are so embarrassed about your stupid bare feet, and so freaked out about the old pervert following you around that they won’t even come to school.”

“Bullshit! Tommy and Robbie hardly ever come to school, and you know that.”

“Yeah, well…” Ruthy stammered, unable to keep pace with Stephanie’s solid argument about Tommy and Robbie. “… Well, Tommy at least answers my calls when I call from school.”

Stephanie didn’t know what to say next.

“Yeah, that’s right. Tommy won’t even answer his phone, so you can just go to hell.” Ruthy stood up and huffed off.

As discreetly as being the center of attention would allow, Stephanie slipped out of the lunchroom, refusing to cry. But again, clear as a bell she felt more pissed than anything, her anger burning even hotter than the fever at the base of her skull.

Adding insult to injury, Stephanie caught a glimpse of the old man lurking in the halls again. She ducked behind a corner, peering fearfully. She had to laugh, if only a little, as she realized it was only Mrs. Smuck from Home Ec. class. Was the old-bastard-stalker-man that traumatizing that she couldn't get him out of her head even with all of this going on? As if this day wasn't completely fucked up enough...

Stephanie fell against her locker with her forehead, and groaning, she pounded on it with the flat of her hand. “Fuck ‘em! Fuck ‘em, I give up!” Three times she fumbled with the combination lock, cussing each time. At last, unlocked, door swung open, she peeled her shoes off her crimped and sweating feet. Tossed them in the locker in a rage.

One fell out, smacking the floor with a cold thud near her feet. Furious, she picked it up and threw it in, knocking out the other one along with a book. Screaming, she kicked the book down the hall with one shoe-sweaty bare foot. Grabbing both shoes, she stomped across the chilly and dusty tiles of the hall and thrust them both in the garbage.

Gone.

Barefoot, enjoying something for the first time since seeing her mother this morning, Stephanie wallowed in the feel of cool tile under her bare soles and toes, her feet free at last.

“Steph.”

Stephanie glanced up from her feet and the garbage can.

Ruthy picked up her book.

“Leave me alone!”

“Hold on,” Ruthy said impatiently.

“Screw you!” Huffing off, in passing, Stephanie slammed her locker door shut, a rattling clang reverberating through the empty halls.

“Ladies!” barked a teacher, leaning out past his half-open door. “Could this wait until after school? I have a class going on in here.”

“Oh, fuck you!” Ruthy barked, huffing off.

“You’re in deep water Ruthy Babcock.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

By the time the little back and forth between the girls had ended, Stephanie was well away, but before she even managed to sit herself on the stairs she broke into tears. In a moment she felt Ruthy behind her. “I said go away.” Stephanie sobbed, wiping her tears with the tops of her hands.

Ruthy sat Stephanie’s book on the windowsill and walked away, as instructed.

She cried for twenty minutes, quietly as possible, all the while cussing under her breath, hoping her anger would keep her from bawling. Her feet together, overlapped, feeling cold and naked, she wondered herself what was wrong with her. No. She was mad. She was right. It was no one’s business. It was her life and they were her feet. That was it; with a scowl she cut off her tears and headed for the restroom. Fists clenched at her sides, she refused to cry anymore. No matter what anyone said to or about her, it felt great to have her feet bare on the cool soothing floor. She could not deny that anymore. Whatever anyone said, it just felt so good, like it was the purest thing there was about her.

In the relief of splashing her face with cold water, she caught her breath. Now she would fix her make-up, go to class, and not care what anyone else said. She rolled her eyes, realizing the impossible task she was setting for herself. How could she not care? “I don’t care,” she said into the mirror, combing out her hair. Taking in a few deep breaths, she dug through her purse for her make-up. Determined or not, done crying or not, apart from being barefoot, she felt no less miserable or wound up. At least she was finally doing what she wanted to do.

Fifth period found her at least reduced to a simple simmer. The feel of her bare soles on the ground centered her more on who she knew herself to be rather than on what everyone else wanted her to be or thought she was. One thing played over and over in her head, Ruthy’s accusation that she had some sort of fetish. She felt dirty at the very idea, perverted, and exposed, as it —true or not— had been shouted in the lunchroom. Horrified that Ruthy had cut her to the quick, horrified that Ruthy somehow managed to hit her at her most vulnerable. Sadly, the wild giggly pleasure she hoped her first barefoot day at school would be still escaped her. Inside she felt herself still tight with anger and frustration. And some worry haunted her for what she had coming at home tonight, and then there was an increasing and unshakable self-consciousness about her naked feet. Every kid in class had taken turns staring at them.

As her feet cooled on the tiles, she found her center more and more; spinning as it was, it was there. Closing her eyes, she drank up the sole simple pleasure of having her bare feet on the cool soothing floor.

“Stephanie,” came a whisper from the teacher. Stephanie opened her eyes to find Mrs. Jenkins, her math teacher, and a far cry from being her favorite teacher already, looming over her while the rest of the class worked out their word problems. Knowing full well what this was about, Stephanie stared blankly in a desperate attempt to look innocent or at least unaware, waiting.

“I am going to have to ask you to put on your shoes.”

Stephanie’s mouth went dry. She glanced about the room, noticing all eyes sneaky upon her. The lump in her throat brought to the surface a pressing need to cry again. “I don’t care,” she shrugged. “Ask all you want,” she said with a grim face and a trembly voice.

Every kid in the class hooted under their breath. The need to cry subsided in Stephanie, and she suddenly felt a comfort and strength in her show of spunk having been so well received.

The teacher pulled herself up to her full height. Stephanie noticed her classmates all watching expectantly, even grinning in awe of her. Stephanie’s face remained expressionless, and she stifled a self-satisfied grin that she knew would land her in even more trouble than her mouthing-off.

“You can’t come to class in your bare feet.”

“Well, I kinda did,” Stephanie shrugged, cocking her head and looking at Mrs. Jenkins through half-closed eyes. She looked down at her paper. “This word problem isn’t gonna solve itself, so unless you wanna help me, leave me alone.”

A unified gasp rippled through the room.

“Stephanie Goddard, just go get your shoes and socks on,” Mrs. Jenkins said in one last effort to be reasonable to a student who never caused her any trouble before.

“See,” Stephanie started, setting her pencil down, feeling a sudden rush of commitment to her attitude —an attitude that felt better by far than all the crying, shame, and self-doubt, an attitude she knew she would soon regret— “I’m doing an experiment for science class. I read that people think better barefoot, so I’m trying it out as an experiment. But so far it isn’t really working, ‘cause I can’t think at all with you standing there nagging me.” As if that hadn’t sealed it, Stephanie made a shoo-go-away gesture with her hand.

No more quiet gasping, the classroom erupted into hissing whispers and giggles in reaction to Stephanie’s gall. Barefoot Stephanie suddenly became more a celebrity than an oddity.

“Alright, that’s enough!” Mrs. Jenkins barked at the room. “You, Miss Goddard, can go to the Principal’s office. Explain this little ‘experiment’ to him.”

Stephanie shrugged. “It was his idea.” She got up in the midst of laughter and chaos, and waited for Mrs. Jenkins to finish jotting a note for the Principal.

Traipsing down the hall, Stephanie felt drained for the whole duration; worried as hell, but pleased with herself. Even in her moment of pride she felt dried up as a raisin inside. The flood of emotions, one after another, crashing and conflicting, took their toll. Her mind and body could not deal with it all. She felt a little dizzy and light-headed in the after burn of it all, and in her hunger from skipping lunch. Surprisingly the tingling sensation she hoped this day would bring her finally started as a faint warm drone in her toes. Tingling lightly or not, riding the high of impressing her classmates as she was, grinning under it all, she felt the curious burn of being in so much trouble at this point that she had nothing else to lose. Nothing she could do now would undo or dig her out of the deepest of deep shit she was in. So, she did her best to accept that there was nothing left to do but enjoy the ride.

Even the long interim in the waiting room of the Principal's office bored her more than panicked her. She found a pen cap on the floor to occupy her time and toes. With her flexible toes she gripped it, fumbling with the chewed up cap as she tried to work it between them. After a heavy sigh a curious kind of warmth overcame her, and a feeling of being almost at peace with all the trouble and bullshit of the day so far. She grinned, thinking, ‘And the day’s still young.’

“Stephanie Goddard,” came the voice of the Principal as he leaned out the door. Before even entering his office she handed him the note Mrs. Jenkins sent along to explain this visit. He sat behind his desk and read while Stephanie did her best to feel at ease in the hard plastic chair. Suddenly gripped with a throbbing self-conscious awareness of her inappropriately bared feet, she tucked the tingling things under her chair.

He sighed and smiled. “Stephanie… what do you think you’re doing?” Surprisingly, his tone sounded more concerned than hostile.

Stephanie shrugged, fisting her toes under the chair.

“You’re a good student, never causes any trouble… is everything OK at home?”

“It’s OK,” she shrugged, wishing now that she had some shoes to hide her feet in.

“Barefoot?”

She blushed; her feet crept over with an icy chill.

“You can’t come to school barefoot. Just finish out the day, and wear your shoes on Monday. Go on, get back to class.”

That was it? “What if I don’t?”

“Don’t what?” he looked back up furrowing his brow, thinking the conversation should've been over already.

“You know…wear shoes on Monday. What’s the big deal?”

“You can’t just run around barefoot.” he tried to grin.

“Why not?” Stephanie had heard in history class of soldiers held at gunpoint and forced to dig their own graves before being executed. There was no gun aimed her way, figurative or otherwise, yet she had this sneaking feeling that she was digging her own grave all the same by further prodding the man.

He looked at her like the question was absurd. Of course, to her it was absurd why it was anyone’s business whether or not she wore her shoes. “Stephanie, I am trying to be reasonable here. Don’t push me.”

“Thanks, I mean, I know you’re being cool and all,” and she felt herself shaking all over. “But I really would like to know why it’s a big deal.”

“You might cut yourself or catch cold.”

Stephanie sighed. She’d been through this dead-end argument before. To stuff-shirts who never left their beds barefoot, this was an ironclad argument. With this argument he had shut her out and off. She knew that, and got up to head for the door. “What’ll you do if I come to school without shoes?” The proverbial pile by her imaginary grave just had a heaping whole shovel's worth of dirt thrown onto it.

“If you want to spend every afternoon after school in detention, you just go right ahead.”

To Stephanie that simple prospect seemed more than worth it. Best of all, she hadn’t given in. Two steps into the hall, a quick look at the clock, and she didn’t feel like returning to class to be stared at and harassed. On silent bare feet she wandered the halls, trying to ignore the shatter-scatter thoughts humming in her mind, focusing not just on how the floor felt underfoot —cool, smooth, yet gritty— but more importantly, how it felt to be barefoot here and now. It felt good. Exhilarating, yet somehow calming. The chilly tiles, the grit, the tingling, the shocking feeling that she was missing an important article of clothing, this overall sensation of being more physically alert all brought her nearer to feeling like her recently discovered self. None of it made any real sense to her, it was all too new, too freshly stirred up to truly feel and absolutely know. None of it felt solid, her slippery self, not near so solid as the floor underfoot.

A sudden hot crumpling sensation, like breathing hot air in and out of a paper bag, forced her to realize at least this much: this wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. At the very least it wasn’t the way she dreamed it would be. Her first barefoot day at school she always imagined would be more ticklish, giggly, naughty, and rebellious. Not like this, full of tears, fights, rage, and worse. Not that she thought there wouldn’t be trouble, some teasing —lots of teasing— but not all this sickness in the gut and this painful loneliness.

Stopping, she picked up her right foot behind her and admired her sole, finding it to be pleasantly dusty but still very pink. She grinned, proud to think that no one else would ever dare go barefoot here, not at this school. She wondered if she was the first.

Passing one of the gyms, she noticed no one was inside, and the huge hollow cube of a space felt eerily calm, lonely like her. On her toes she crept in, almost superstitiously afraid to disrupt the quiet. She liked the quiet, and the polished wood floor felt great under her soles. Her head cleared a little, as if the chaotic swarm of thoughts flew out of her head to buzz up into the overhead rafters.

A strange clanking echo disturbed the silence of the room as she climbed the noisy bleachers to sit up top and wait out the rest of fifth period; fifth period at the least.

She enjoyed, not so much the clanking, but the way her dainty soft feet sounded so loud and solid in the bass-like echo of the room.

After a sigh, sitting down, she felt the deep relief of being too drained to cry another tear. She’d spent all summer with Ruthy, who she now considered her best friend, and Ruthy hadn’t been there for her when she needed her most. Stephanie had other friends, or acquaintances rather, a few, but none on par with Ruthy. Perhaps all wasn’t lost; after all, Ruthy had tried to talk to her in the hall after their fight. This at least offered her hope that they just might be able to patch things up. Sure, patched up, but would Stephanie have to forever feel ashamed of her bare feet around Ruthy after all this? One thing she knew for sure, however all this turned out, it was sticky as tar, and knew the events of this day would cling to her for a very long time.

Stephanie sighed, shifting, gripping her toes over the edge of the plank-like seat in front of her.

The bell. The echoes of doors opening and kids filling the halls flooded the gymnasium, sounding less chaotic even than all the thoughts that had been pent up swarming around in her troubled mind. Stephanie simply did not want to go to her next class, not barefoot, not now.

Not that she regretted throwing her shoes away, but she regretted —or at least resented— everything else about this day so far. Worst by far was how this day had so sullied going barefoot to school for her. She had half a mind to cut classes. The day was unsalvageable and she wanted a do-over. Her parents and detention be damned, she decided right there and then that come Monday she would try this again.

“Stephanie?” came a hesitant voice from the door of the gym. It was John from the bus, Jessie in tow. Behind them rushed the familiar clamor of a hall full of students having a day like any other; a day very unlike Stephanie’s day so far. Outside went on a normalcy and routine Stephanie felt wholly apart from. It felt now like she feared she might never make it back to anything resembling normalcy, routine, or even comfortable.

“Hey,” Stephanie finally responded, her tone heavy, John and Jessie already halfway up the bleachers. Beyond, Stephanie saw that her oasis was about to be laid to waste as boys flooded into the locker room for gym class.

“Man, I heard you gave Mrs. Jenkins hell!” John effused.

Not wanting to allow herself the pleasure at first, but unable to help it, Stephanie grinned, “Really?”

“Hell yeah, I didn’t know you had it in you. I mean, at first I couldn’t figure out why Ruthy was hanging out with you, but now…”

“It was really cool,” Jessie parroted.

“How’d you find out about it?” Stephanie asked.

“It’s all over school,” he laughed like the very question was ridiculous.

“Really?” Stephanie asked, impressed that even an upper classman like John had heard already.

“What’s up? You look bummed,” John said.

“I really don’t wanna talk about it. I am in so much trouble, and Ruthy and I had this huge fight.”

“She’ll get over it,” John shrugged. “You ain’t planning on sitting there all day are you?”

Stephanie sighed, shrugged, not really knowing what she wanted to do. She didn’t want to go to class, and the idea of going home ever again filled her with dread.

John looked at Stephanie’s feet. To the bone, every delicate bone in her feet, she felt it, and wanted to hide their extravagant bareness. Then he touched her, gave her right foot a tender squeeze. “Man, barefoot girls are the coolest. My sister, she never wore shoes.”

“Did something happen to her?” Stephanie asked, hoping to shoot down the 'you'll catch cold-you'll get cut' argument if John said his obviously-more-experienced-at-barefooting sister had gone unscathed.

John looked away. “She was a lot older than me,” he paused, but said, “She overdosed.”

“That sucks,” Jessie said, putting her hand on John's back, apparently having already known about it.

Stephanie’s head went blank, and she couldn’t think of anything to say. Besides, Jessie’s "that sucks" about covered it. She didn't mean the question to be taken in that way at all...tragic as it was to hear about his sister.

“God, I hate history,” he groaned, and then grinned, forcing a change of subject within him. “I’m gonna cut an' have a smoke. You wanna join me?”

Without thinking about it, Stephanie nodded and grinned. “Yeah, what the hell.” She stood up. Never had she seriously considered leaving school mid-day, but she wanted out, and maintained that she was, without question, in so much trouble that it just didn’t matter anymore. “Yeah, let’s go,” she said, skipping down the bleachers before John and Jessie had even stood up.

“We can’t cut classes!” Jessie cried, horrified, but unable to stifle a grin at the promise of being so bad.

“You don’t have to,” John shrugged, starting up to descend the bleachers. “Me and Stephanie will though.”

“No, I want to,” Jessie said, knock-kneed in the excitement of the very idea.

“Whoa, wait a minute,” John said, stopping them all. “We can’t just all run out together like a herd of cows. They’ll bust us for sure.”

“Cows?’” Stephanie sneered at the unflattering comparison.

John laughed. “Just go to your lockers like normal, then slip out and join me under the bleachers. You know,” he said, turning to Jessie, “over on the far side where no one will see us.”

Under the bleachers…Stephanie knew what that meant; it was the sacred space...the hallowed ground...the secret and holy sanctum of the burnouts.

“Hey, want me to bring Ruthy?” he asked Stephanie.

“I don’t know if she wants to see me now,” Stephanie pouted.

“Whatever,” he turned and headed off.

In heading for her locker, as John recommended, Stephanie found that she couldn’t shake Jessie. Not that she disliked her, she simply wanted to play this safe, by John’s rules, and split up.

“Way to go! Jenkins was pissed!” Jimbo called across the hall, giving Stephanie a thumbs-up. Stephanie blushed but smiled, noticing that this was the first time Jimbo had ever spoken to her. She almost laughed when she saw how much more red in the face he was than she when he turned away and continued walking.

At her locker she got a taste of what she figured she had coming. “What are you, a freaking hippie or some shit?” some football jock called out to Stephanie, a look of disdain curling his square, vacant face, surrounded by his friends who snickered over the taunting question.

“Screw you lard-ass!” Jessie bravely and daringly barked back, though it would've taken at least 15 of her to make just one of this guy. The jock's friends seemed to get an even heartier chuckle out of this as he shook his head and turned away.

Stephanie just rolled her eyes, but smiled inside. Apart from the jocks, things were turning out more in her favor than she had expected. Fortunately, she hadn’t yet run further afoul of Melissa and her cackling gaggle of preppy hangers-on. But they didn’t matter, not now, not as she was about to step into the last place her parents would want her to go. The last place in the world they would approve of. What else didn’t matter was what her parents would think. Stephanie was just happy to finally be invited under the bleachers.

To Be Continued...