The Sopaths by Piers Anthony Read Free Book Online

Abner asked.
    “Seven.”
    It was possibly normal curiosity. Boys did wonder what was supposed to be special about girls. Maybe the boy had seen a sex video, and tried to emulate it. When he had his erection, and opportunity. “How far did he get?” Abner asked carefully.
    “It wouldn’t go in. It was too big. He pushed harder. It hurt. I screamed, but he didn’t care. He dropped the knife and used his hand to push his thing in. Then it really hurt. I screamed and screamed, but he wouldn’t stop. So I grabbed the knife and jammed it into his neck. Then he stopped. There was blood all over. I got away. He died. I killed him.”
    “That is called self-defense,” Abner said.
    “But he wasn’t trying to kill me. Just to get his thing into me. If I’d let him, he would have gone away. Like when he wanted my candy. If I gave it to him, he went away. He said it was because he liked me. I should have let him put his thing in. But it hurt too bad.”
    “He tried to rape you,” Abner said. “You defended yourself. You were right to do that.”
    “But if he liked me--”
    Abner spoke very carefully. “Sopaths don’t like anybody. They only use them. He liked the idea of raping you. Most little boys don’t care about sex, but some do. It makes them feel good. Even if it makes the girls feel bad. He was wrong to try. You were right to stop him. Even if he died.”
    “I was?”
    “You were,” Bunty agreed. “He said he liked you so you wouldn’t fight him. So he could do what he wanted. Because it’s hard to do when a girl is fighting it. He was using you.”
    “He just wanted the candy,” Abner said. “Your body was like a kind of candy.”
    “Little girls are like candy!” Dreda exclaimed.
    “In some respects,” Bunty agreed, smiling. “And little boys can be like snakes.”
    Dreda smiled back. The crisis had passed, for now.
    Then they remembered Clark. He had heard the whole sequence. That could be mischief.
    “You never tried that with a girl, did you?” Abner asked him.
    “No,” Clark said, horrified. “I knew it was wrong.”
    “It is wrong for children,” Bunty said. “When they grow up, and know what they are doing, and the woman agrees, then it is all right. Then it doesn’t hurt.”
    “So you don’t hate me,” Dreda said.
    “We don’t hate you,” Abner said. “You did what we all did. You killed a sopath. That’s the end of it.”
    Both children looked relieved.
    “Now let me show you your rooms,” Bunty said.
    “But I don’t want to be alone,” Dreda protested.
    Oops. It was understandable, but could they afford to let the children spend nights with the adults?
    Bunty handled it. “Did your folks let you sleep with your parents?”
    “No,” Dreda said uncomfortably.
    “Because they had adult things to do at night, and you needed to learn to sleep by yourself.”
    “Yes. But then my brother came.”
    There was the crux. “The sopath.”
    “Yes. Because he knew I was alone.”
    There was a potent argument. She had excellent reason not to like being alone. Bunty looked pleadingly at Abner.
    “There are no sopaths here,” he said. “It is sopaths you fear, not boys.”
    “Yes.”
    “Would you share a room with Clark?”
    She looked at the boy assessingly. She knew his history was similar to hers. “Yes.”
    Half there. Abner turned to the boy. “Would you share a room with Dreda? So the two of you are not alone?”
    “Yes. I shared with my sister.” He squirmed. “I wasn’t supposed to peek when she washed. But I did.”
    Abner smiled. “So did I, when I was small. It’s a boy thing.”
    “A man thing,” Bunty said with half a smile.
    “Boys peek at girls,” Abner said. “Men peek at women. They’re interesting. But you can’t touch.”
    “Yes.”
    “And you pretend not to notice,” Bunty said. “And she’ll pretend not to peek at you.”
    Clark was surprised. “Girls peek?”
    “We do. But not as much.”
    “You told!” Dreda reproved