Poor little butterball fat as can be
If she tried to swim she would drown in the sea
But I’d better watch out because she might eat me
Butterball, butterball fat as can be
Their teasing cut deep, but Ilsa refused to let them see her cry. Instead, she waited until she was alone, and then she wept hard and long. She had never been a popular girl, but at least when her mother was alive she had a friend. Now she was alone in the world and very depressed. Sadness began to turn to anger and hatred. Ilsa blamed her stepmother for her hideous nickname. And although she had no idea how she would do it, she swore to herself that someday she would punish her stepmother.
When Falk, Ilsa’s stepbrother was born, Ilsa’s father demanded that she help her stepmother with the baby. Her father adored his young wife, and now that she’d given him a son, his affection toward her was even greater now than before. Ilsa did as she was told, but she was only waiting.
CHAPTER 41
June 1934
Ilsa would always remember the year 1934 as the most significant year in her young life. In June, she started menstruating, and with the onslaught of puberty her body began to change. Instead of looking like a giant ball with spindly legs and arms, she began to see hourglass curves forming. Her breasts and hips became full, and her waist slimmed down. She was short, but her legs were shapely. At the same time, the school she attended implemented a new program called the Jungmädels. Ilsa joined. She’d never been a part of anything before, but her group leader was firm in her insistence that the girls bond together. Teasing was not tolerated. Even though there was no trace left of the butterball Ilsa had been as a child, she was still very insecure, and whenever people whispered to each other, she was sure they were making fun of her.
The boys, whom she’d known since she was very young, who had once called her names and laughed at her, were now paying attention when she walked into a room. She saw the admiration in their eyes. They tried to walk home from school with her. One boy left a piece of candy and a note on her desk telling her how pretty she was. This was new for her. When no one was looking, she winked at the boys in church. They smiled as their faces grew red with embarrassment. Ilsa had never felt pretty before, and she was having a lot of fun with all this.
As she walked home after school one day, Klaus, the boy whose family owned the farm directly west of hers, caught up with her.
“May I walk you home?” he asked.
Ilsa nodded. “Sure.” She was still a little socially awkward, so she walked alongside him quietly. It was easy to smile and wink across a crowded room. It was much harder to make conversation one on one.
“I have a deal of sorts to make with you,” he said, confident in his proposition.
She looked up at him.
“I’ll give you my mother’s quill pen if you show me what’s under your dress.”
Ilsa blushed and turned away. “Never,” she said, shocked.
Klaus pulled the pen out of his breast pocket. It was made of ivory and had a black plume. Ilsa thought it was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. “Here, why don’t you take a look at it?” he said, handing her the pen.
It felt cool in her fingers.
“It’s nice, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“It’s been in my family for generations.”
“Wouldn’t you get in trouble if it was gone?”
“No.” He laughed. “My mother would think she had misplaced it.”
Ilsa held the pen up to the sun and looked at it more closely. Even though her father had a fairly successful farm, she’d never owned much of anything. Her clothes were secondhand, and the only doll she’d ever had as a child was the one her mother made for her from rags.
“All right.” She wanted that pen. She wanted it badly, so she nodded. Her voice was trembling as she said, “All right.”
“Come with me. There’s a little private area down by the creek.”
Ilsa followed Klaus. She held the pen in her hand and thought about running away with it, but she was not very athletic, and she was afraid he would catch her and hurt her. She thought about giving the pen back to him, but she wanted it so badly.
When they got to the creek, Klaus turned to her and smiled. “Take off your dress,” he said.
Suddenly Ilsa was terrified. She threw the pen at him and began to run, but he caught her arm and pulled her dress up over her head. Then he tore her slip. She kicked and screamed, but he covered her mouth. He was driven by passion; his eyes were glazed over with hunger, not only for sex, but also for power. Before she knew it, she was naked. Trying to hide her private parts with her hands, she could not look at him. Her face burned red with shame. “Please, don’t.” Ilsa begged him not to do it, but he forced himself inside her. Pain shot through her. He began to thrust himself inside her. She scrunched her eyes shut to block out his face.
And then it was done.
Ilsa was trembling as she sat up and hugged her dress to her naked body.
“You’d better not tell anyone what happened. If you do I’ll tell everyone that you stole my mother’s pen and that you made up this story to cover your own tracks. You’ll get in trouble, not me.”
“I don’t want the pen,” she said.
“But it’s yours. You earned it.” He’d calmed down now. The passion of the previous moment was gone, and although he was trying to seem in control, she saw the fear in his eyes.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Ilsa,” he said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
She studied him for a moment. Looked him up and down. For the first time, she understood the power her sex had over men. And she let out a laugh. A long, high-pitched, wild shriek, like the laugh of a hyena.
CHAPTER 42
Ilsa went home that day with the pen in the pocket of her skirt. She’d endured his advances in exchange for something she wanted. A small smile came over her face. I can get anything I want using sex. It was ugly, but it was easy. And it certainly is powerful.
Ilsa didn’t bother being angry at Klaus for what happened. She didn’t even hate him. It was an important lesson, and she learned from it. Klaus taught her that men were easily manipulated with sex, and from now on she planned to get everything she wanted from them by using her body.
From that day on, Ilsa used her sexuality to get anything she wanted. She showed one boy her thigh, and he took her to the movies. She let him kiss her and caress her breast, and he gave her the money he earned that week working on one of the potato farms. It was easy, and she liked the fact that she had control. It excited her. She found that if she thought of sex as nothing but an exchange, she was able to turn off all her emotions when the boys touched her body. They sometimes felt guilty. She never did. Ilsa felt nothing.
The little farming village where Ilsa grew up was a close-knit community of families that had lived in the same area for decades. In the autumn of 1934, old man Echert, the owner of one of the farms, died of a sudden heart attack. He had two sons, Alexander, who lived on the farm, and the other, Peter, who lived in Nuremberg where he had gone to school and now practiced law. Peter Echert returned to the farm to attend his father’s funeral. He was a tall, blond, and handsome man. His education gave him a sophisticated air that was uncommon among the farmers. He brought with him his young wife, who was plain and quiet, and their 2 three-year-old twin boys.
The day of the funeral, Adelle and Ilsa, like all the women in the community, brought food to the house of the mourners. Ilsa placed the pies she and her stepmother had baked, on the long wooden table that had been set up in the living room. Since Ilsa had slimmed down, her stepmother could no longer call her Butterball. However, now, instead of taunting Ilsa, Adelle watched her stepdaughter with envy in her eyes. Ilsa had grown into a natural beauty, something that Adelle never was. Adelle’s only attribute had been her slender figure, which had softened and filled out since she’d gi
ven birth to her son, Falk. The hatred between Ilsa and Adelle still burned. But Adelle found she often needed Ilsa’s help with Falk as she did today at the home of the mourners. “Can you keep an eye on Falk for a minute?” Adelle asked Ilsa.
Ilsa nodded. No one knew it, but Ilsa hated her stepbrother because, unlike Ilsa, Falk was given plenty of love and attention by both of his parents. Sometimes, when no one was looking, she pinched him until he cried.
Ilsa sat down on the floor and made a half-hearted attempt to keep Falk amused. As she played with her brother, she happened to catch a glimpse of Adelle ogling Peter. The look she saw in Adelle’s eyes was familiar to her. She’d seen it in the eyes of the boys who tried to kiss her or touch her. It was the look of desire, the look of longing. In a single instant, she knew that her stepmother had grown discontented with her father, who was little more than an ignorant farmer. Adelle was yearning for a different life, a better life. And she was wildly attracted to this handsome, young man in his fine suit.
A smile washed over Ilsa’s face. This was what she’d been waiting for since the day Adelle first called her Butterball.
CHAPTER 43
Ilsa had a plan.
She began by walking over to Peter and making casual conversation. “I’m sorry about your father,” she said to him, making her big blue eyes wide.
“Thank you,” he said.
At first, he seemed disinterested, and she was afraid her plan might fail, but she continued to chat with him. She asked him general questions about his children, about his law practice, but the conversation kept stalling. Then she began to talk to him about the Nazi Party.
“I’m a member,” he told her proudly. “I am very excited about Adolf Hitler and what he plans to do to improve our fatherland.”
“Yes, so am I. In fact, I belong to a group called the Bund Deutscher Mädels. Are you familiar with it?”
“I have heard of it, but I am not really familiar with it,” he said.
Then she began to tell him all about the organization. “It’s the girls division of the Hitler Youth. We spend time doing wonderful things like sports and cookouts. But we also learn about our fatherland. We study the words of our great führer and learn what it means to be a part of the superior Aryan race. Being an Aryan woman is a big responsibility. We must know what will be expected of us when we grow up and how to be good German women.” She was alight with passion as she declared her love for the party and for the fatherland. And in between her patriotic declarations she made sure to cross her legs and show him just enough of her thigh to spark his interest. They spoke on and off throughout the remainder of the evening.
Peter and his wife stayed on at Peter’s father’s farm for a week to help his brother get settled. During that week, Ilsa found reasons to see him but so did her stepmother. They dropped by often bringing food for the grieving family.
On the night before Peter was to leave to return home, Ilsa and her mother brought over a noodle casserole. The family was about to sit down to eat when Ilsa passed by Peter and gently brushed against his arm. Then careful to make sure no one saw her, she slipped him a note.
“Meet me in the barn at nine p.m.,” the note read.
He read the note and quickly tucked it back into the breast pocket of his suit jacket. He stared at her, and she could see in his eyes that a spark of desire had been ignited. Ilsa smiled.
CHAPTER 44
From the moment he first saw Ilsa, Peter was intrigued by her beauty, but he tried to fight his fascination. This was not the first time he’d found himself attracted to a girl who was too young for him. To make matters worse, after their children were born, his wife became less exciting to him. She smelled of breast milk and was always busy caring for their babies. It wasn’t that he didn’t love her, but the passion had gone out of their lovemaking. She didn’t approach their coupling with the same passion she’d had when they were young. Now it seemed to have become a chore to her, an obligation.
When Peter looked at Ilsa, he saw a young, vibrant, and tender peach. And since they met, Peter couldn’t stop thinking about her. Whenever they spoke, she either bent down to expose just enough cleavage for his imagination to run wild, or she crossed her legs and allowed her skirt to travel up her thigh sending his fantasies soaring. Even though he knew he would hurt his wife if she ever found out, Peter wanted Ilsa. He’d hoped that he would find a way to keep his desire in check, so when Ilsa gave him the note asking to him to meet her, he was both excited and terrified of his own emotions. He knew he should tear that note to shreds and not go to meet Ilsa alone in the barn that night. The right thing to do was to spend the evening packing and getting ready to return home with his family. He should put the little vixen out of his mind. But Peter Echert knew that he wasn’t going to do any of those things. He was going to get dressed, make an excuse to his family, and race out of the house to meet Ilsa at the barn. It was already seven o’clock. Two more hours. And . . . he could hardly wait.
CHAPTER 45
Ilsa knew her family would be asleep when she snuck out of the house to meet Peter. It had rained earlier that afternoon, and the grass was still wet. She loved the darkness of night. It was mysterious and full of danger, but sometimes it scared her too. Occasionally, she saw monsters in the shadows as she did tonight. She ran faster.
There was no light in the barn at all, and she didn’t have a candle. The sounds of wild animals outside made her jump. And for an instant she thought about running back home, but then the door creaked open, and she heard his voice.
“Ilsa . . .”
“I’m here,” she whispered.
The door creaked shut.
She pulled him down into a pile of soft hay and began kissing him. She let him put his hands all over her. But when he tried to take off his pants to have intercourse she refused.
“You’re leaving tomorrow,” she said.
“Yes, I have to.”
“And you’re married.”
“Yes.”
“So, what do you want with me?” she purred.
“You asked me to meet you here.”
“And you came,” she said, smiling in the dark.
“I’m mad about you.”
She let out a small laugh. “Are you?”
He didn’t answer her. He was breathing heavy, and his hand was caressing her breast. She removed it. “You want something from me? I want something from you.”
“What is it? What do you want? Money? A pretty dress?”
She laughed again. This time it was that same high-pitched hyena shriek. “No, silly, nothing like that,” she said, then she touched his cheek and continued, “I want you to seduce my stepmother.”
“What?” he asked, shocked.
“You heard me.”
“Why?”
“I want her to fall in love with you and leave my father, for you.”
“I can’t do that. What am I going to do with her once I’ve done that? I certainly don’t want my wife to find out about this.”
“She would never tell your wife. And once you’ve seduced her you can be done with her. She won’t be able to tolerate living with my father anymore. And Adelle would be too ashamed to ever tell anyone. So she would be very discreet. Believe me, I know she wouldn’t want everyone in town to find out. So she will keep her mouth shut. Besides, she’s attractive for her age. Don’t you think?”
He nodded. “I suppose. But not as pretty as you.”
She laughed. “And you want me, yes? You are obsessed with the wanting of me. You want to feel my naked, young body under you, now, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he admitted.
“Then . . .”
“Ilsa? How can I do this? You ask for the impossible.”
“Very well, if it’s impossible, then I will leave here, and we will never meet again.”
He grabbed her arm, squeezing a little too tight. She wiggled away.
“But I thought you liked me. I thought that perhaps I woul
d come and visit you every few months . . .” he said. “I would bring you pretty dresses, ribbons for your hair. Jewelry, even.”
“Don’t be a fool. I know you’re married. And I know that once you have had me you’ll never come back. Let’s face the facts, Peter. You are never going to leave your wife. I am nothing but a toy to you.”
“That’s not true . . .”
“I may be young, but I know what is going on. And I know you want to make love to me. You want it very much, no?”
He nodded. “Yes,” he whispered, defeated. He did want her. He wanted her so badly that his manhood ached.
“You want to have your fun? I understand. And I am willing to give you what you want. But nothing comes without a cost. If you want me to spread my legs for you, then you must do as I ask.”
She stood up and buttoned her dress. Shaking the hay from her clothes and legs, Ilsa sighed. Then she began to walk toward the door.
“Wait,” he said. She’d conquered him. Then he added, “I’ll do it.”
“I thought you would.” She smiled in the darkness.
“So, come back here?” He beckoned and pointed to the bed of hay beside him.
“No. Not yet. First you must do as I ask. Then you get your reward.” She walked out and ran back home through the darkness.
CHAPTER 46
Peter brushed off his clothes and went back to the house. He needed to leave the farm and return to work, but he couldn’t. This wild, young girl was all he could think about. He smelled her cheap perfume when he tried to sleep. He remembered her soft white skin illuminated in the moonlight. How he wished he’d never met her.
This was not the first time Peter had found himself obsessed with a girl under sixteen. It had happened twice before. There was something sweet, forbidden, and exciting about a girl who had never given birth to a child.
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