Believe me, there was nothing sexual about this police girl, not at that point. Dressed like a bum, filthy and smelly to heaven, and apparently springing a leak, she was basically just a mess. I sighed, and my mothering instinct went into high gear. I quickly pulled her panties down in front, saw that it WAS just her period not shot, or knifed, or anything, then I pulled her panties back up, and began undressing her top. The men's flannel shirt she was wearing was filthy, as though she'd crawled through a sewer, and I could at least try to prevent infection, and improve her smell. I unbuttoned her shirt, pulled it off not easy with a dead weight, then reached behind her and unsnapped her bra a very lovely lace pattern again, and a match for the panties, go figure, and gently took it off her, revealing her breasts and her pretty nipples and areolas. She stunk really bad, so I set to work. I covered her with a blanket, to keep her warm, then drew some fresh water from the tap a tank on the boat holds a couple of hundred gallons and set it on the camp stove in a large pot to take the chill off it. After the water was heated, I took a roll of paper towels and some liquid body soap and started giving her a sponge bath, starting at the top of her head, doing what I could with her hair, then soaping and wiping down her face, neck, upper chest, as much of her as I could reasonably reach, then dried her and covered her upper body with the blanket again. I finished up her stomach and as much of her lower back as I could without flinging her all around then pulled her panties down off her hips, and down her legs to the floor. To my surprise, there was a long wadded mass of cheap toilet paper, serving as a makeshift sanitary napkin, half of it stuck in the crotch of her panties, and half still adhering to her vagina, where it had been pressed in. What kind of desperate circumstances can a woman be in, where she can't get her hands on some kind of pad or tampon or at least attend to herself to some extent? She smelled pretty bad there, as can happen. I gently stripped off the blood-soaked residue of the toilet paper from below her bush, which was full and abundant, though neatly trimmed, and apparently shaved around her labia. I gently wiped around her vulva, removing the dirt, and residue from her flow, and for some reason began crying. I sat there helplessly for maybe 5 minutes, sobbing, tears running down my cheeks, and not knowing why. I guess in retrospect it was sadness at seeing this young girl's desperation under the dirt, she looked like she was 17, though obviously older, so severe that she couldn't take time to reach a minimum level of human semblance. From her ID photo, though, it was obvious that she'd been happy and composed once upon a time. I forced myself to just stop crying and finished cleaning her, so that by the time I finished, all the way down to her feet, she didn't smell quite so bad and looked a lot more human, and feminine. I didn't have any panties for her to replace her dirty ones, but I did have an old, but clean, bikini bottom that would fit her and keep the breeze off her ass, which, honestly, looked nice. I could remember when my bottom was that trim, though I was heavier now. I thought she must have all the boys admiring her as she went by. I put one of the spare pads inside the bottoms, between her legs, where it would do some good. Okay, She'd need medical attention soon, and I thought about where I could take her in. I decided not to go back, but to go forward, through one of the inlets of the North Carolina Outer Banks. There was something extremely odd about this affair, and I wasn't quite ready to take her to the police until I'd had a chance to learn a little more from her if she awakened any time soon. I sat watch over her for an hour or two in a deck chair, then dozed off, waking when I sensed movement. She was sitting up in the bunk, holding her head, and in a soft voice said, dazedly,
Janet: Where am I?
I said,
Toni: You're on my ship, where you kidnaped me.
She looked at me blankly.
Janet: Oh, God, I'm SO sorry,
she said.
