Chapter One

Meghan felt a mixture of disgust and excitement as she gazed at the scenery alongside the highway. The disgust was for being here in the first place, practically in the middle of nowhere. The excitement was what she couldn't help feeling at such change, at moving to a new state, new house, new job.

It hadn't been her idea to leave Los Angeles for Grandon, Arizona. She'd never heard of Grandon, and was willing to bet the vast majority of Americans hadn't either, nor ever wanted to. How her parents thought they could escape crime and drugs just by moving to somewhere without movies, theatres or malls was beyond her.

Unfortunately, supporting herself was also, at the moment, beyond her. She’d finished high school three years earlier, then took a year off to relax, not sure what she wanted to do in life. She’d gone to college then and taken a year of cooking school, thinking to make herself one of the world’s great chefs. Her enthusiasm for that had cooled, however, and she’d then tried her hand at hair dressing. That had lasted all of two months before she’d dumped it. She’d gotten a job at a shoe store, but lost it after too many absences. Then she’d worked as a checkout girl in a grocery store. But that was part time and paid little.

When her parents announced they were moving there wasn’t a lot she could do but go along or apply for welfare.

She'd put up a strenuous fight, of course, so that, as a bribe, and to settle one of her major complaints, she'd been awarded the Jeep she was now driving. It was shiny new, black, with a roll bar and fog lights, and she'd had to fight hard to keep her anger after finding it in her driveway. It was major cool.

The down side was that she was forced to accept her little sister's company on the drive, and would probably have to cart the brat around a lot once they got there. It wasn't that Amy was that bad, but the two of them were such polar opposites that they could never seem to get along.

She cocked her head to one side just then, grinning at her sister as she continued to try and read the magazine before her.

The wind was cutting through the open topped jeep with plenty of force, whipping Amy's long, thick blonde hair back behind her and making her blink her eyes beneath her round glasses. She was fighting to control the magazine as the wind tried to tear it from her fingers.

Meghan's own hair was a light reddish brown, cut simple, straight, and about shoulder length. Amy's was styled thick and wavy, and hung halfway down her back.

Meghan had a slender, athletic body, which had served her well in her athletic romp through high school. Then she’d been Captain of the school's soccer, baseball, track and field, and swim teams. Most people thought of her as a tomboy, an image she had done her best to cultivate for it hid the tendency others might have had to suspect where her sexual preferences lay.

The truth is that she was bisexual, leaning towards lesbianism. Her sexual experiences with boys and men had not been terribly pleasant, nor terribly pleasurable. But she had had the luck to have a number of delicious sexual liaisons with girls, including the coach of the girl’s volleyball team.

Her parents were very conservative, however, and Meghan had no intention of letting them know a single thing about her sex life. That was not going to make living in a small town comfortable, of course. She’d have to be very careful about what she did down there. In any event, her boyish attitudes were put down to her being a jock, and no one suspected, not even her sister.

Amy, by contrast, was the picture of feminine beauty, with a soft, willowy body, large round breasts and a fawning manner around boys. She had gotten straight as in school and wanted nothing to do with exercise.

Amy followed current fashions with the dedication of a broker following the market, while Meghan herself wore little other than jeans and t-shirts. When Amy had graduated from high school the year before she’d promptly gotten a job in a stylish lingerie shop. Of course, she hadn’t made much more than Meghan, but she’d gotten great discounts on the lacy underthings she’d brought home in enormous quantities.

She stepped on the gas a little, speeding up and increasing the force of the wind lashing against her sister's magazine. Amy didn't seem to notice, but obviously found it more difficult to keep the magazine straight and her long light skirt from flapping.

Meghan herself was wearing cut-offs and a tank top with no bra. Those who knew her and saw her dressed like that would think nothing of it, figuring that she simply didn't care how she looked. That wasn't exactly true. Though she preferred jeans and shorts, tank tops and t-shirts, Meghan was quite aware of what the effect would be on the males around her.

The cut-offs, for example, were faded, and quite tight, revealing her rounded buttocks and long, slim legs. The tank top was cropped below the breasts, showing her strong, flat belly, and pulled tight across her high, firm breasts.

Oh, she was aware, all right. Comfort wasn't the only reason she sometimes dressed like this.

People who knew her would probably be astonished at some of the fantasies she'd had, some of the thoughts which sometimes crept into her mind. She had never done anything about any of them, of course. Getting all naked with some guy and letting him – touch her – do things to her – was simply too embarrassing to contemplate seriously.

Anyway, guys were so immature that he'd probably blab to the whole school, the whole neighbourhood. She'd been waiting for some mature, hunky guy to experiment on, but now - .

Now she was going to some small town where everyone minded everyone else’s business and where she'd have to search hard and carefully for a discrete – friend. In the meantime she'd just remain celibate.

"Slow down," Amy whined.

"Should've ridden with Mom and Dad," Meghan yelled above the wind.

"Don't be such a bitch," Amy glared.

"It's too fuckin' hot to go slow."

"If you'd put the top on and turned on the air-conditioning you wouldn't have to worry about the heat."

"I wanted to ride without the top, okay? It's my car."

"How much longer?" Amy sighed.

"Probably not long now."

"Can't we stop somewhere?"

"Why? We're almost there."

"I'd like to get a drink."

"You always want a drink, then we have to stop again so you can piss it away."

"Don't be crude."

"Sorry, Princess."

"And stop calling me Princess," Amy snapped, trying to stomp her foot even while sitting down.

Stomping her foot was something she did a lot, but with the wind whipping past her all she succeeded in doing when she raised her leg was to let her skirt, which she'd been holding under it, fly loose again. With the increased wind the skirt flew up around her face, exposing her legs all the way to the crotch.

She batted it down in exasperation, folding it under her leg and sitting on it again.

"Purple panties?" Meghan laughed. "Where'd you get them?"

"What's wrong with purple?" Amy scowled, reddening a bit.

"I dunno, Amy, looks kind of slutty to me. Purple lace string panties, hmmmm? Now who would you be wearing those for?"

"Don't be ridiculous. I just wear them because... because, that's all. Real women wear things like this, not those stupid jockey things you go for."

"What would you know about real women, you punk?"

"I know they like wearing sexy lingerie. Don't you ever read Cosmo?"

"No."

"No. Of course not. All you read is Sports Illustrated. All you wear are those dumb cotton jockey things. Christ, you hardly ever even wear a bra, and you're too big to go without."

"I wear a bra."

"You do not. You wear those halter things."

"My tits don't get so sweaty in them. Anyway, I wear bras during sports. That's enough."

"That's only because the coach made you.”

Meghan snorted and tried again to get something decent on the radio.

She was distracted by the siren that blared behind her. She looked into the rear view mirror and cursed as she saw the flashing lights of a police car.

"Ha, ha," Amy grinned.

"Fuck," Meghan cursed.

She pulled over to the side of the long, empty road, and the police car pulled in behind them and stopped.

"Now you're gonna get it," Amy smirked.

"Just shut your mouth, brat," Meghan snapped.

A fat cop got out of the car and sauntered up towards them, then put his beefy hands on the door and leaned in, face red and sweaty.

"Your pants on fire or somethin', baby?" he sneered.

"No," Meghan said sulkily.

"Lemmie see your drivers licence and registration."

She handed it up to him and he peered at it closely.

"Know how fast you was goin?"

"Fifty five?" she asked.

"Not hardly," he glared.

She shrugged.

"You was goin purty near seventy-five."

"I was not! I was maybe going sixty-five."

"Seventy-five," he said, grinning nastily. "Round here the fine fer speedin' is ten dollars a mile."

"Two hundred dollars!?" Meghan gasped. "I don't have two hundred dollars!"

"You drive a nice new car like this an' you ain't got a lousy two hundred dollars?"

"It was a present from my parents," Meghan snapped.

"AHhh, ain't that nice. Well, maybe daddy'll cough up another couple hundred to keep his little precious out of jail, huh?"

She glared at him and folded her arms angrily across her chest.

"You're from Los Angeles, huh?"

"Obviously," she said cuttingly.

He leaned in again, his eyes flicking from her to Amy, then back. "It true about all you California girls, that you're all sluts?"

"Fuck off," she said resentfully.

He snickered and straightened up.

"Out of the car, baby," he said.

"Why?"

"Why? This ain't Los Angeles, baby. We ain't gonna give you a ticket and then have you tear it up an' drive outa state again."

"But I'm not. We're going to live here, in some place called, uhm Grandon."

"You say. Far as I know you're outa state. That means you gotta come back to the station until you cough up the two hundred dollar fine."

"I wasn't going eighty-five!" she protested.

"You say," he grinned. "Out."

She cursed under her breath and opened the door, then got out of the car. He gripped her arm and turned her around, then pulled her arms behind her.

"Hey!" she cried.

"Gotta handcuff all prisoners," he said. "Thems the rules."

"But she was only speeding," Amy protested, on her knees on the seat now, looking out the side.

"You shut yer yap, girl," the man growled, pointing his fingers at her. "Don't you go interferin' with an officer in the performance of his duties."

"Why can't I just drive there behind you?" Meghan demanded.

"Cause I say so."

"Well what am I supposed to do?" Amy demanded.

"Grandon's not far," Meghan said.” Go and find Mom and Dad and get some money."

"But I only have a learners permit," Amy protested.

The fat officer jerked Meghan around and marched her back to a beat up Chevy with bars on the rear windows. He jerked open the door and roughly shoved her inside, then got in the front.

He stomped on the gas and the car screeched out onto the road, then did a U turn and headed back the way he'd come. Meghan looked out the rear window until Amy and the jeep disappeared from sight.

She sat there glowering at the back of the cop, through the bars between the seats

"Hey," she said. "These things are too tight."

He spit out the open window. "Tough," he said.

"They're hurting me."

"You don't shut yer yap I'll hurt you worse."

She muttered angrily but shut up.

They turned off onto another road, then made another turn, then another.

"How much further is this stupid police station?" she demanded.

"It's a big county," the guy shrugged.

She rolled her eyes unhappily and tried to rub some feeling into her hands.

"These fucking cuffs are too tight," she complained again.

He pulled over to the side of the road and stopped, then heaved his bulk out of the car and opened the rear door. A big hand came in and shoved her roughly down on her side, then he gripped her bare leg and jerked her onto her belly.

His hands felt around her cuffs, then a key went into one and she felt them loosening a little.

"Thanks," she said sullenly.

"Well, now, if'n you's feeling grateful, I kin think of a few better ways fer you to show it," he drawled.