Well, in one little high school surrounded by mile after mile of golden wheat, one of the girls raised her hand.
One look at the thrusting bosom and Hank said, "Yes?"
"Uh, Captain Hastings, well, I mean, is a girl in any, you know, danger when she works as a hostess?"
This was not the first time that Hank had fielded the question. He had an answer ready: "Absolutely not."
No hostess was likely to be raped aboard a plane. What might happen to her on a date with a passenger, later, he presumed was not covered by the attractive little girl's blushing question.
Hank took note of the kid. Ash-blonde hair, perfect. Those breasts, more than perfect. He watched her walk and he murmured, "Wow."
He wished he could meet her again, and then he found himself face to face with her in the local department store. He had gone in to buy socks. He passed her where she was trying-on winter mittens.
"Hello, there! Aren't you the young lady who…?"
"Oh! Captain Hastings!"
"Guess you have an early winter up here in the Dakotas."
"Oh my, and does it ever get cold!"
"Well, you join us and I'll see what I can do to put you on our route to Hawaii."
"Oh, my!" She had a lovely laugh.
"Then we all can see how you look in a grass skirt."
"Oh, dear!"
But not too much embarrassed. And not at all trying to get away from him.
"Ice-cream soda? I was just going to get one for myself and wishing I had someone to talk to."
"Oh well sure"
As innocent as that. And didn't she love it when other high-school girls in the old-fashioned ice-cream parlor took notice of her date. Too bad he had to leave that evening because he was speaking tomorrow at a high school in Kansas City.
Well, they each had another soda and gradually he knew that this tender bud, this beautifully bosomed Helen Troy, wanted to tell him something. At last he got her talking.
"Look, Captain Hastings, I'd love to train for a Wanderlust hostess as soon as I get my high school diploma next year. But about being, you know, sexy like you said. Well. I don't know if it shows in me, but. I got an awful scare about sex last year. Only don't tell my parents."
"Won't breathe a word," said Hank, leaning forward to hear better.
"Because it was my Uncle Hiram, my father's brother."
It is often someone in the family.
"He was out of a job, the way he mostly is, and he'd been drinking, and his wife had left him, and he wasn't attractive to women, so I suppose he was – you know?"
"Horny?"
She flushed. "Horny. And there I was. I mean, Mom and Pa went to hear a lecture on bringing out the best in teenagers, for parents only, and there I was alone in the house with Uncle Hiram."
"Well, it was summer, long days, and I went jogging with some of the other kids, came in all sweaty. Waved to Uncle, who was sitting on the porch, and ran on upstairs and I guess he heard the shower going and I guess he heard when I turned it off. And even when I opened the glass door of the shower stall. Because by then he was listening at the bathroom door, you see."
"I see," said Hank Hastings grimly.
"And I hadn't been able to lock the bathroom door. That was because he had jammed the lock. He knew we'd be alone and I'd be taking a shower."
"He walked in me. I was naked. I made a little scream and grabbed a towel around my waist and put my arm across my, you know, my bosom. He laughed and just grabbed me and dragged me through the hall. I screamed louder and he hit me so hard I went half-fainting and I just about knew he had me in the spare room and had tossed me on the bed."
"Well, I managed to kick him in the, you know, where they tell girls, if a man ever attacks you, kick him there."
"In the crotch. Good advice."
"And hurt him and got away again but he tackled me out in the hall and slapped me half silly. He banged my legs apart and he took hold of my, uh, down there, and he had a hand on each side of it and he was like prying it apart and saying, 'Ooh, I want to look in, I want to see where the women hide their sin, I want to look in.'"
"It hurt terribly. I kicked him in the face but I was barefoot and couldn't hurt him much. I jumped up but he caught one ankle and tripped me and this time I fell on my face and he was on top of me in back and he was pushing his, his male member into my rectum. I think he had his member all greased beforehand."
"It hurt terribly but he got it in and he, you know, slid up there, in there, and then he pumped up and down and he didn't seem able to, you know, satisfy himself. And meanwhile biting me on the backs of the arms and pulling my hair and hurting me in any way he could."
"Well, I was almost unconscious with pain except that it began to let up and I thought I would let him continue and satisfy himself and let me go."
"But what he did, was, he got out of my rectum and went for my…" she said it this time, "… vagina. But he said he would first break my legs so I couldn't kick him. He had gone mad. Well, he really tried to break my leg but I pulled his hair so hard, he stopped."
"He raped me madly, and I've always been afraid someone would do it again. Then he found out I wasn't a virgin. I mean, I guess you know how it is, a girl gets fond of her finger and. Well, when he found I wasn't a virgin he beat me and kicked me and called me a, a slut and he knocked me down again and got into my vagina again and this time he, you know, satisfied himself and then he just lay there holding me down and gasping and groaning."
"Well, then we heard my parents car in the drive and he got up and ran, holding his pants up. Out the back door and he saw another girl and tried to rape her right out in the street but someone hit him with a rock. He ended in the insane asylum. Well, my parents had run out to see the noise was all about, so I dragged myself back to the bathroom and washed again and said I had taken a fall while jogging."
"But you see, after that I wanted nothing to do with men, ever. And I heard some of girl friends saying men are vile and women don't need them to, you know, get their rocks off. Meaning they were lesbians, and pretty soon they were breaking me in."
"Well, I stopped believing that all men are vile, and right now I don't know where I stand. But I know I'll try it with another woman sometime."
"Well, what I wanted to know," said the forlorn girl, twisting her hands together, "is whether you'll take a lesbian for a hostess on Wanderlust."
He evaded the truth. He wanted to see this girl again. Anyway, everyone knew that lesbians got into hostessing because they often found lesbian friends that way. But it was all under cover.
"It's your right not to state your sexual preference," Hank Hastings said. "And I hope to see you on my plane. I'll know you, Helen."
"Watch for me, Captain… Hank."
And so it had worked out.
And she had gone to bed with him from time to time and they had gotten along very well together. But he sensed her unsureness. She still didn't know if she was a man's woman or a woman's woman.
Now here stood Helen in great trouble. She had been enticed into lesbian cunnylapping by Cleo Prentice, who herself had been fired as a lesbian hostess. Then, out of inward hate or something, Cleo had become Wanderlust Security's undercover woman. And she knew how to do her job.
Hank wondered what Cleo was doing right then. Might be going to the short-wave phone to call Security in Chicago and tell what she had proved about Helen Troy.
Maybe he could stop her. Demand the phone. Pilot's priority.
He gave Carlotta a wink and he nodded toward Helen. Carlotta grinned.
Hank ran out and down two decks to the shortwave phone. But Cleo sat in the glass phone booth and she was just hanging up.
She saw him, noticed his upset condition and gave Hank a very knowing smile.