It's amazing how social anxiety can vanish when you have nothing at all to lose anymore, and that is what happened to me. My heart had already been as broken as it could possibly be, and my stepfather was close to forcing himself on me as it was. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing any man could do that could hurt me. I didn't care what anyone thought of me; Daniel had been torn from me and I couldn't possibly experience any more pain than I already had.

And so it was that I threw all caution, all reserve, all fear of rejection to the wind. I flirted shamelessly with any and all men. One was the same as another, because none of them were Daniel. They might as well have been livestock for all I cared. I knew what men were about; they wanted my body, my virginity, and someone was going to get it. As long as it wasn't Dad, and since it couldn't be Daniel, it didn't much matter to me who it was, but he had to get me out of that place in exchange. Old men, young men, married men....they were all the same, and I teased them all without a fraction of shame.

Larry Bennet was one of these. If I remember correctly, he was a Vietnam veteran; he must have been at least 25 years older than me. He was balding with gray hair and a leering eye and smile. A devout Christian who had frequent conversations with Jesus, who relied on the turn of pennies to reveal God's will, and who did nothing at all without consulting those pennies to determine God's will, his sanity was a little questionable. Still, he was kind. He worked with us almost daily in the woods, and when Larry was there, we were certain to have gloves, to get more frequent breaks and better treatment. If Dad had brought no lunch for us to eat, Larry had, and he would give it to us. He appreciated how hard I worked. The only thing was, I wasn't ladylike enough. He'd received a prophecy that the woman of his dreams was to be named Sarah. I pined after a Daniel, and Larry wanted a Sarah. What an odd situation we were in! Naturally, he began to pursue my sister Sarah, who was thoroughly repulsed by the old man. She was terrified that Mom and Eliyah would marry her off to him, because Larry had quite a lot of money to pay for her. You would never have known it by how he lived simply in a log cabin of his own making, but he could have paid well for her, and he probably would have, too. I was sick and tired of being compared to my sister. I flung Larry out of the question and turned to other interests. It was amazing, really, how many men came through our household to deal with Dad and his timber cruising and buying! Loggers, old hippies, young guys delivering our bulk food orders....the world was simply busting at the seams with men I didn't much want, and I smiled at them all with total abandon and wantoness.