Grace Wilkinson - The minister_s family

"All right. The other night there was a little red-haired child of about twelve years of age over there. She was completely naked and lying on a bed and some man about sixty years of age climbed on top of this innocent girl, while about a dozen other men watched, and the first thing you know he spread the child's legs so wide she looked like she'd crack down the middle… and then he put his head down, right there between her legs, and uh… to put it delicately… began to lick her genital area."

The old man stared at him, not saying anything, his eyes boring through him once again. "Well…?"

"Well what?"

"What else? Did anything else take place over there or is that about it?"

"The caller said there was another youngster… couldn't have been any older than the little redhead and almost the same thing happened with her except that she was uh… sucking a penis, wrapping it around some old man's penis until it was hard as a rock. And then, God forgive her, she took the whole length of it into her mouth and almost choked on the thing."

The Dean shuffled the papers on his desk, cleared his throat and took out a cigarette. He stuck it in the corner of his mouth, fumbled for his lighter amidst the papers and took a deep drag. He blew a smoke ring out and watched it float off in little wisps of white, disappearing into stale air. "Seems to me that this could be a made up story. You have no names, nothing. Some guy calls up and tells you about a red-haired kid that may or may not be a student here at Craven… what kind of evidence is that… I can't summon every redheaded kid in the school to my office to ask her if she's been sucking cock over at the School Board offices, now can I, Reverend?"

Bradley Corman winced at the dean's crude question. "It's not really the girls I'm concerned about. I'm more concerned with the kind of man that would take a once innocent child and turn her into some kind of a wanton… hussy!"

Lowell raised a busy eyebrow and Brad saw the slightest sign of a condescending smirk on his jowly face. "It happens, you know, Reverend Corman. They don't retain virginity forever. Kids nowadays don't revere virginity like our generation did. It's only something to get rid of… an encumbrance like adenoids… I'm afraid if you're going to tell your little charges in the chapel that they have to save it for marriage you're not going to have too many takers…"

He tilted his chair back and looked at the minister in a bemused fashion.

"For heaven's sake, Dean. I'm not that naive. I know it happens all the time but not here at Craven, and it doesn't happen all the time in public this way with kids not even in their teens putting on exhibitions… yes, exhibitions! And there's a reason why it's happening here, now."

The minister paused, wiping his forehead, surprised that it was covered with cold sweat. He hadn't really realized before that this thing meant so much to him. But he did. He cared about these young girls at the school, cared what was happening to them. And why didn't the dean? What was the matter with him that he seemed so disinterested with something occurring right under his nose when he was the first citizen to take on almost any cause in the city.

The Dean of Craven was staring at him again, his mouth a tight, grim line. What was the matter with him?

As the minister stared back, the line softened a little, relaxed, as if by some great effort of will on the part of the older man. The steely eyes bored into him again, then they too, softened a little, then seemed to became almost shifty. What on earth was the matter with him? He was in charge of the welfare of the girls at his prestigious school and he was showing no interest whatsoever in investigating the charges some of which indicating that twelve year old girls were being sodomized in the School Board offices… merciful heavens! Suddenly, he said, "Perhaps the police should be alerted to this!"

A tiny shudder, almost imperceptible, seemed to run up Lowell's spine. In a split second he regained his composure and had shaken off whatever shock had hit him. "To what, Reverend?" he asked languidly, picking up a pencil, tapping it on the desk.

"Why to pick up the people involved… especially if it in any way involves school children."

"Why should they?"

"Because if School Board offices have been turned into a den of iniquity, a cesspool of vice and sins against nature…"

"Listen, Reverend, I think you're getting a little carried away. Some crank caller is having this much effect on you? Really, Corman I think until you have some facts or proof to back up your story you better forget it. You can't just go around making these allegations which could turn out to be completely groundless."

The two men stared at each other once again, for what seemed an eternity. Corman felt the tension rising, felt the atmosphere thicken with an uncomfortable tightness. Suddenly, he blurted out, "I'm not going to stand idly by and watch this happen. I intend to do something about the immortal souls of these young girls."

"How do you propose to do that?" Lowell queried.

"I'll make it my business to go out to the School Board offices to investigate for myself."

Lowell smirked and said sarcastically to the minister, "Do you think these degenerates will allow you into their vice den?"

"I'll find some way," the minister offered in what he hoped was a courageous sounding voice.

Suddenly, Lowell addressed the young minister in a very serious tone. "Frankly, Reverend Corman, I'm very surprised that you are getting so excited about an anonymous tip like this. How do you know that the caller didn't have some reason for spreading this malicious gossip? Well, you don't. It all makes for a better story when prominent people are accused of hanky-panky, right or wrong?" Lowell apparently didn't require an answer because the tirade continued. "I'll tell you another thing, too. All the people on the board are my friends. You've only been here a month. I've been here my whole life and these men are as fine a lot of men as you'll find anywhere." He shook his head dramatically, pushing his glasses up on his forehead now. "All you've got is a lot of allegations from someone who didn't even have the courage to identify himself and I think you should just let this matter drop."

He shook his head vigorously and dropped his eyes, letting the minister know that he could leave, that he had nothing more to say and no intention of listening, either.

Bradley sat at the kitchen table now with a drink. It was something he rarely did except on social occasions but he felt he deserved something after the day he had had and after that erotic dream. Good grief, had the phone call prompted him to dream in such an incredibly lewd manner? It was totally sinful to even entertain such thoughts about his wife.

He let his thoughts wander back to the allegations and the men involved. Why did they get involved in something like this that could ruin them? Were these older men so crazy for sex? He thought of his own little daughter being involved. For a brief moment he wondered what it would be like to copulate with a child of twelve… with your own daughter. What would it be like? But then the minister pushed the obscenely vile imagining from his mind.

He sipped his drink again, felt the soothing oblivion it brought slipping over him, closed his eyes. When he opened them Julie was standing in front of him, with a bottle of brandy in her hand.

Wordlessly, he handed the glass to her. He shook his head. Dear God, he was a minister and he was just as filled with sinful thoughts as the men he was trying to expose. Here he had the greatest little wife in the world, and he was sitting around fantasizing about screwing a baby no older than his own daughter. It was perverted, sinful!