Innocence Lost

A visit to a cousin's horse farm leads to a defining moment in an adolescent's life.

Innocence Lost

This one was the hardest to write because it was a very painful time in my life. Specifically, it’s dealing with the question as to when do we lose the innocence of childhood and become an adult? What moves us to put away the toys and games of youth to take on the responsibilities of a grown up?

To some it comes gradually like the blown of a dogwood, which if nurtured properly grows to a magnificent tree. To others it is like the sudden storm that whips the green branches of a sapling with cold, hard wind. And to others, still, it is both; the storms of Spring, the flowers of Summer.

In my life I have seen nothing but foul weather.

I remember my cousin Emily. When we first settled in Michigan we had found out from the family back in Mexico that we had relatives in the Saginaw Latino community. After some further looking into, my parents discovered that not only did we have quite a few second and third cousins there but that we had my maternal grandmother’s sister living close by in Battle Creek. My mom got a hold of her and after some conversations back and forth on the phone we found ourselves invited to Aunt Elisha’s horse farm.

I was 11 years-old when we first visited Aunt Elisha’s place in the southern suburbs of Battle Creek. it was a nice two story house build on a modest farm that stretched out into some hills and a gravel pit by a creek where we kids used to play. The barn across the graveled area that served as parking place was a bit on the run down side and maybe could have used a bit of paint, but with no man around, it must not been easy. It was there that she kept the two horses they owned.

Aunt Elisha bought the property and  the horses a year or so back after Uncle John died due to complications with diabetes. For years he had been paying into several life insurances knowing that after he would be gone my aunt would not be able to support herself and their daughter. He was also an alcoholic and knew that with his diabetes it was eventually going to kill him. In 1969, he lost his leg to the disease and the drinking increased. By the end of the following year he was gone and Elisha cashed in the policies. I never found out how much she got but it was enough to buy the place and animals and still live modestly until she died of cancer in ‘81.

It was John’s idea that Emily should take riding lessons, and even though they didn’t own a horse at the time, he knew of plenty of farms that provided the animals along with the lessons. So Emily began riding when she was 8 and picked up on it like a pro right away. When John died, part of the hurt was relieved by the bond she developed with Sam, the horse Elisha got her.
It is not to be assumed that just because Emily learned how to ride meant that she was a disciplined child, oh no, far from it. As a matter of fact, “Em” was a wild, rebellious, hellion of a child. She had a fierce temper and a foul mouth of the likes I had ever encountered of any child our age (she was only months older then I was, but 12 when I met her). The school community knew of her, and my aunt, and she was no stranger to the principal. She would have soon start a fight with anyone then to take the teasing she got because her mom was a drunk. It was in the coming years, as we began to frequently visit them in the Summer, that I got to know this tomboy cousin of mine and began to like her.

In the Summer of ‘76, shortly after the 4th of July Bicentennial celebration, we went to visit the farm for the weekend and to what I believed was going to be the longest most boring part of my vacation. I was 14 and none too happy about how things were going in school at the time (this was not too long after the whole “Kimberly thing”) and was planning nothing more during the summer then to goof around with my friend Scott (I had also started experimenting with smoking my first “joint” and, as a matter of fact, was carrying one).  Going to visit my aunt and watching her drink herself into oblivion as she reminisced about how good of a man John was and tell of her problems with Em was not my idea of fun. The only possibility for salvaging it was looking for a chance to find an out of the way spot where no one could find me and smoke my joint. The way I saw it, even though Scott would be pissed off at me, it was a justifiable need in a fucked up situation. And on a farm, I knew I could find a place to get away. Atleast, that was the plan.

As soon as we got there we were in trouble. Apparently Emily was facing expulsion for skipping school again and my aunt had started drinking before we got there. My parents, embarrassed for our aunt, told my sisters not to watch what was going on and to run along and play. I had no such luck in that it fell unto me to unload the luggage from the car and take them inside. So, as my mom tried to bring some order into the kitchen so that she could fix dinner (apparently mother and child lived off take out most of the time) and my dad went out to pick up some groceries, I lugged the five suitcases upstairs. It was then that I found that Em was not only grounded and at home, but pissed as hell that we were there visiting.

I was struggling with three of the bags when I found her on her bed staring up at her bedroom ceiling. Looking up I noticed that recently there had been a poster pinned there for the three ripped corners (one with a bit more then a corner still attached to a pin) were still there. What was left of the poster was still in the waste basket all crumpled and torn. I didn’t asked Em what was on the poster, nor who had ripped it down, nor even what she was staring at on the now empty ceiling. At her door way, the bags were getting heavy and I didn’t feeling like dealing with any of this so I put one down and went in to ask her where I should put them.

“Up your a*s, for all I care. GET OUT AND LEAVE THE F**K ALONE!”

I guess I asked for that one. What I got next I was not expecting at all for as I was trying to clumsily turn around with the bags, she got off the bed, grabbed me by the back of the head, pulled me down on the floor and while she straddle me across the chest, pinned me to the floor. Even though I was heavier then her (okay, I was a fat, wimpy “nerd”) she was strong and held both of my wrist down easily as I struggled. We were both breathing hard, her long blonde hair framed the demonic expression she had on her face as she looked down at me. All I could remember was the last time she had done this. I was the first time we had visited and just before we were going to go to bed, Emily decided she wanted to wrestle me. Thinking it was going to be an easy win (“she’s a girl, she can’t wrestle”) I accepted the challenge. She pinned me in less then a minute. It was then I realized that she was naked under her long night shirt, for her bottom showed up bare in the air, and when my aunt walked in on us kids she took a belt to Emily’s butt. Here I was again, and all I could think about was that night and that’s when she knew what I was thinking about as well.

“You f****n little perv,” she said as she felt my hard on. Then, with the biggest smile on her face, she hocked deep in her throat for the biggest lugey she could muster and let it slowly dangle just inches from my face. She waited for the right moment and let it lose right into my mouth. I gagged and choked and coughed and tried not to puke. She let go and laughed as she got up and jumped back on her bed.

“Now, get that s**t out of here you little perv and don’t bother me,” she said as I quickly gather up the luggage and stumbled down the hallway into the spare bedroom.  Later after dinner, the grown ups commented on how wonderful we were getting along and how they heard the laughter coming out of Em’s room when I went up there.

At breakfast the next morning, my dad suggested that (for while Aunt Elisha slept it off) maybe Emily should take her cousins on horse rides. Both my sisters perked up while Em just stared at her bowl of fruit loops moping. As for myself, after yesterday’s little torture session, I wanted to stay as far away from my cousin as possible. But my dad firmly insisted (and when he insisted you did what you were told) that she give us all rides and I started to fall into the same gloom she was in, only for a different reason.

We all got washed up and dressed and followed Em out to the barn. There she got Sam ready and she gave the girls rides on him. The arrangement was that she would climb on first and who ever was to ride would climb on seated behind her on the saddle and hold on tight to her waist.  She would then have Sam take them both on a trot around the coral before bringing the passenger back to the start. Simple enough, until it became my turn. I had been trying to avoid the whole thing from the beginning, skipping my turn,  and had even almost succeeded in getting away when Marie, my youngest sister, noticed and called out, “Where are you going?” By then I had resolve to face my doom and surely after several rides around the coral my sisters got bored and that just left me and Emily.

“Well, you climbing on or am I goin to be waiting all day?” she said, “You know we ain’t got a choice and if I don’t do it I’m goin to get hell after your sisters narc on me. So, what’s it goin to be?”

“I guess,” and with that I climbed on.
 
I soon regretted it when she turned her head around and said, “You better hold on tight or else you goin to fall off cause we ain’t doin the coral s**t no mo’. Oh, and keep that dick of yours in your pants, perv”.

She rode Sam out of the fenced in area and picked up speed as she aimed for the open fields way in the back of the property in the direction of the creek and gravel pit. I held on to dear life praying that once we got there she wasn’t going to hit me with a rock, hold my head under water until I drown, or allow some other kind of “accident” to happen to me. And then it came to me that that was the least of my problems because just then, holding tightly on to her by the waist, smelling her hair, feeling the rhythm of the running horse, I was getting a hard on I knew she could feel rubbing on the seat of her denim pants. That I didn’t cum was a small miracle, but no consolation know that once we got to the pit I was going to be a dead man.

The pit was located behind a modest hill that sat south of the farm. To get there you had to skirt along the edge of the property and cross a grassy prairie until you reach the edge of a wooded area. The owners of the land didn’t mind if you crossed the fallow field just as long as you didn’t drive, or rode dirt bikes down the path that ran along it, or made too much of a “ruckus”. The gravel pit itself was not owned by anyone in particular (or at least it was thought so) and so it was free to explore. Not many outside the general area knew about it, so only the local kids hung out there. The shallow creek that ran through it was only a couple of feet at its deepest and about fifteen feet at its widest point, so there wasn’t much interest in swimming it. You could do some fishing in it for the modest perch that migrated from the nearby drainage ditches. Most of the time all you would really find were steely minnows. So, most of the time, unless there were kids hot-dogging it their bicycles down from the top of the hill, or an occasional group of teens looking for a place to hang out and get high, there usually wasn’t anyone around. Today was such a day as we rode down the hill.

To my relief, for it made it unnecessary for me to hold on to her tightly, we slowed down as we crossed the field. Emily gently prodded Sam so he wouldn’t lose his footing down the sandy slope that led to the creek. The path ended into the side of a 30 foot incline that was the rim of the quarry and into an open area of grassless, gray-brown loam. You could see the stream to the left and the lone oak that grew by its edge. Nothing more present until you reached the forest some 50 yards away. It had clouded up since the morning and had cool some as  the south-west breeze blew through between the forest and the rise. I guessed  that the plan was not to wade in the water. Of course, as I thought further, there was always “the idiot fell off the horse bang his head on the rocks and drown” scenario.

But that didn’t happen either because at the foot of the path we stopped and we dismounted. Emily got off first, swinging her leg back far enough to nearly knocking me over, and walked away towards the tree. I took that as my cue and tried to get off Sam by swinging my leg forward and over the saddle. For a moment it looked like I was going fall off face first as my leg caught the saddle but I managed to recover enough so that I slid down the side of the horse. Sam must have sense my struggles and may have lost patience with me for at the last minute he moved to his right and I came tumbling down to the ground on my hands and knees. Small rocks embedded themselves into my palms and I could painfully feel the scrapes on my knees underneath my brown dungarees. So much for avoiding embarrassment, I thought. Fortunately, she didn’t look back and continued walking towards the oak.

When Em got to the tree she lean against it, bent over to pull up her pant leg. There she had hidden a soft pack of Salems and a cheap green Bic lighter. She lit one of the cigarettes and started smoking it. Em took a long drag from it before she replace everything back in her sock. She straightened and then reached deep into her jeans into the crotch area from which she pulled out  a small sample bottle of Seagrams. Cracking it open, she took a swig, and another puff from her cigerette. In all the while she was doing this she stared at nothing in particular in the forest not showing any awareness, nor caring, that I was still standing there. A bird sounded in the distance and a motorbike off on the road both which for a moment caught her attention. But when the wind blown silence returned, so did the stare into the nothingness. She took another drink and another drag from the cigarette. Not really knowing what to do, or whether it would have been a good idea, I walked up and sat down next to her leaning back on the tree . She briefly looked down, but not really acknowledging me, before continuing her far off look into the forest. She took another quick nip from the bottle.
Thinking about how much it was probably going to be a mistake and asking anyway I said, “So, what’s up?”

“The sky,” was her quick answer.

The next moment hung in an uncomfortable silence as she took another deep drag from her cigarette and the ash tumbled into the wind as she lifted it up to her mouth.

I then decided to take my chances and reached down to my own pant leg where I had hidden the joint in my sock. It was slightly bent and flattened, but after working it back into shape I held it up and with a broad grin I asked, “Do you have a light?”

With a sigh, she slid down to my level and reached into her sock again for her lighter. She still didn’t look at me as she passed it and I lit the joint. I took a couple of puffs to get it going and took a hit before passing it over to her. Em flicked her cigarette away into the sand before taking the joint. She took a long drag, and while holding the smoke in her lungs, she passed it back to me. I picked it from finger tips, carefully trying to avoid contact, and held it up to my own lips. I took a larger hit this time and in trying to hold it in I felt my lungs tighten up. I coughed and let out a small puff of smoke.

“That was a waste of a buzz, dork.” This was the first time she actually looked at me since we had gotten there.

“Sorry,” was all I could say as I handed the joint back to her.

“Stop saying you’re sorry.”

“Sorry.”

She let out another big sigh, shook her head and took the joint. By now it was almost down to a roach when Em hand it back to me. She then did something I wasn’t expecting, she passed over the tiny bottle she had been holding in her other hand and offered me the last drink out of it. After I took it in my empty hand she still held her palm open in my direction; she wanted her lighter back.

“Sorry.”

“Stop saying that!”

“Sor-...okay, here,” I said as I handed the green bic it to her, “Is that better?”

“No, it ain’t!”

She slid her way up to stand not once losing contact with the tree.

I looked at the butt of the joint and being careful not to burn my fingers, or lips, I took another hit. Then as I wondered whether to pass it back to her, I heard Emily say, “Nah, I’m good.”

I pitched what was left into the wind and took the last hit from the bottle. The liquid burned as it went down but I didn’t care because I was feeling pretty good by then. I could feel the effects of the narcotics as I felt the moment of the scenery closing in on me. A fuzziness to reality intermittingly attenuated in sight and sound and touch, a comforting numb. I didn’t care about anything and I  especially didn’t care about her. I didn’t even care that I was stuck out there with a moody lunatic. More silence followed as once again Emily continued her silent vigilance into the void. I just stared down at the ground between my legs and enjoyed my high.

Then I made a mistake by breaking the silence. I said, “That was some good weed, eh?”

“How the f**k would you know!”

Stunned by the buzz-kill retort, I said, “What’s your problem, anyway?”

“You, okay, you’re my problem. Everybody‘s my problem, okay? You happy now?”

She stomped away from the tree towards the creek as I stood up watching her go. I was angry and tired of Em’s bitchiness so I started to shout back at her.

“Is that it? Is that what’s bugging you? Okay, well, I heard tomorrow we’re leaving tomorrow so you don’t have to put up with us much longer. So, you can just go ahead and lock yourself up in your room and b***h and moan like a little crybaby, okay, cause no one gives a s**t!”

She stopped dead in her tracks and, almost as quickly, I regretted what I had said. Emily turned around towards me with the most menacingly face of hatred I had ever seen humanly possible.  From just the ten feet that separated us I could see those anger filled eyes over her tightly lipped mouth that hid grinding teeth, her hands clenched into tight balls of fist. I panicked. I couldn’t move. I felt like wanting to piss in my pants. Then, with an animalistic growl, she lounged at me in rage. All I could do was to lean back against the tree and close my eyes. I waited for the punch I knew was about to come. I waited, but it never came.

Emily stopped in front of me and stood very close. I still had my eyes closed but I could feel her lightly brushing up against me, the softness of the red flannel shirt she had picked earlier that cool morning, her breast under the shoulder-less tee. I could feel the tickle from strands of  her hair as they blew in the gentle breeze and her breath on my neck. I smelled her too, sweet and musky like lilacs and warm puppies. She also smelled of stale nicotine and whiskey. As we stood there, me with my eyes closed, I still waited for the hit. Instead, she nuzzled in that sensitive spot between my neck and shoulder and started kissing me.

Em shifted slowly, getting closer, more comfortable and I felt her left hand drift under my gray sweat shirt. She stroked my chest and softly pinch my n*****s. My heart pounded hard and fast not of fear but of the growing excitement inside of me. I had never had a girl touch like this before and it made me light-headed and weak. I opened my eyes slightly looking at her through a whirlwind of emotions. Emily appeared small and vulnerable, helpless and needy. If I could have moved I would have wanted to cradle her in my arms. As it was, I could barely stand while being overwhelm by these new sensations. She repositioned her leg so that now it was in between mine and pressed her crotch into my thigh. In so doing, she help but feel the growing bulge in my pants as she continued to softly kiss my neck. My entire body shuddered. She removed her hand only momentarily to position a stray lock of her hair behind her ear. I dreamily half opened my eyes I saw the rising crimsoning of her pale cheek. When her hand returned, instead of continuing where it had left off, she reached down and unzipped the front of my pants. I felt her dig into the folds of my underwear and pull out my full erection. She started stroking it and I opened my eyes in wild ecstasy.

My mind was racing with consuming pleasure. My heart pounded harder with every stroke from her hand. My breathing became rapid and husky. I felt sweat pooling in my lower back as my excitement grew. Every tender touch, on my neck, on my nakedness, I felt in heightened awareness. My mouth dried, my muscles tensed as the inner inundating rapture began to rise within my loins to its inevitable climax. She felt it too. She quickened her stride, kneading the shaft and teasing the bulbous head without mercy. In the back of my mind all I could think about was wanting this not to end. And just as I was about to orgasm, right at the moment of greatest intensity- she drove her knee hard into my groin.

In an instant, my brain was a universe of agony and pain. I felt like had I blacked out as I doubled over and fell to the ground. I laid curled on the dry ground sobbing tears of affliction as she drew back and watched me wretch and cough.

“You f*****g, dirty, little dork! You f****n fat f**k! Did you honestly think I’d let you do me? Eh? Did you? Who‘s the crybaby now!”
I really couldn’t see her through my watery eyes, only sensed at Emily’s general direction as she continued.

“You’re a sick pervert, you know that? You’re all nothin but sick perverts! Now, quit your blubberin and get your sorry a*s up, we‘re out of here!”

I rubbed my eyes with my dirty hands and slapped most of the dirt off as I got up slowly. I looked over to Emily just in time to see her mount Sam and sit waiting impatiently. Nothing was said on the return, I held my head down in shame and hurt. Not once did I look at her, not even with her back to me. Not once did she look back towards me. I couldn’t even bring myself to touch her. She knew that so we plodded slowly on a long ride back to the house and stable.

When we arrived, the silenced continued and although the grown-ups sensed that something had happened. They made light of it and teased. My dad even joked that we were having “a lovers quarrel”. Emily locked herself up in her room and never came down for dinner that night. Her mom insisted that we leave her alone and that “she’ll come around eventually.” But, she never came down that night, nor did she the following morning. She didn’t even come out when we left later in the afternoon.

A few months later we got a call from Aunt Elisha. In tears she told my mom of how Emily had ran away from home. To this day we still don’t know what ever happened to her.