WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
This book is for sale to ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It contains substantial sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.
All sexually active characters in this work are 18 years of age or older.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover Photo Credit: W. Paul Thomas
Used under a Creative Commons license.
Cover Design: Varian Krylov
Abduction © 2008 Varian Krylov
eXcessica publishing
All rights reserved
Abduction
By Varian Krylov
ONE: Little Girl Lost
She was just a girl then.
She ran.
As fast, as hard as she could. On and on. She didn’t know how long.
It hurt. Her heart pounded frighteningly fast and hard. Her lungs burned for air.
Her legs felt wobbly, like her bones were going soft. Roots and branches grabbed at her feet, clutched at her ankles. She stumbled, more and more often as exhaustion wore her down. As she slowed to a staggering walk, determined to continue, to get as far from that cabin as she possibly could, her face, her ears, her hands throbbed hot. She felt like throwing up.
But she plodded on. She didn't know the forest. Even if she did, in the dark of night, under the thick canopy of the trees, there was no moon, no constellations to guide her. She just focused on moving forward in as straight a line as possible, terrified of accidentally circling back to that place.
When the heat of exertion and the numbness of fear abandoned her, cold crept up her bare legs and caressed her under her thin blouse. Shivering convulsively she trudged forward as long as she could, stumbling in the dark as she tripped over uneven ground. After what seemed like hours she stopped, aching to rest and hoping that in the dark they couldn't track her.
Too worn out by other fears, her whole being focused on getting warm and evading capture, she thought nothing of insects or other nuisances as she gathered a huge mound of crisp brown and soft yellow leaves, concealing herself as she lay down for the night. The cold tormented her for a while, but it was defeated, eventually, by utter exhaustion.
When she awoke, stiff and aching from her forced march and uncomfortable bed, it was still the misty gray of early morning. A cacophony of birdsong swirled and enveloped her.
Standing, she panicked. Which direction had she come from? She circled around her bed of leaves in a widening spiral, desperate for signs of her own tracks from the night before, but on the forest floor, thickly littered with leaves, branches and pine cones, there was no sign of her footprints. Standing there, trying to decide what to do, every second she grew more terrified she'd hear a twig snap in the distance, or see some movement, then see the men emerge from the trees.
But then she thought she detected the faint sound of rushing water. She hadn't heard the sound the night before. Probably she'd been heading toward it all along. Her body sore and resentful, she set out in that direction.
For the first time she wondered if this was really happening. Her days with him had been too real to doubt. But now. Lost in the unfamiliar embrace of this forest. Her real life impossibly remote. Her tired legs and aching feet could not remember brief brisk walks across campus on smooth concrete and even brickwork; her hands, pained by the cold, did not seem the hands that tap danced over laptop letters, scurried pens over three-hole-punched pages in a desperate effort to keep pace with the sometimes inspired, sometimes inane ramblings of a lecturing professor. Her little apartment, warm and familiar. Was she still that girl? That girl did not have her memories. That girl was innocent.
What if they'd tracked her? Maybe they were just a few hundred yards behind. She forced herself, against stiffening cold and aching muscles, to move quickly.
She worked her way nearer and nearer to the sound of water, until a large river came into view. Not yet swollen with the heavy rains of winter, it ran low and narrow, wide strips of rocky riverbed exposed on either side of its flow.
If she could bear the cold, and walk in the river among the large stones, they wouldn't be able to tell which direction she had gone. With any luck, they would turn back, discouraged. If they did try to follow her, at least the odds were even that they would go in the wrong direction. With no sense for which direction the nearest road or town lay, she decided to head downstream. At least it would be easier than climbing uphill.
She slipped and scraped down the steep bank, over the sand to the stony ground just next to the river, then, determined, bracing herself for a shock, stepped into the frigid water. Eager to meet this visitor, the river pushed through the accommodating seams of her boots, seeping into the weave of her socks, sheathing her feet and ankles in its squishy iciness. She gasped a deep breath and turned downriver.
On and on she went, her legs growing numb with cold. Only the warm blood forced by her determined walking kept her limbs from paralyzing with stiffness. She stuck to the edge of the river, where it was slow and shallow, just far enough in to be sure that she would not leave imprints in sand untouched by the river’s flow. Now and then, though, she came to a fallen tree trunk, or a shrub growing thickly from the muddy bank, and she was forced to hoist herself up and over, or to move farther toward the center of the water, where the water flowed perilously fast.
And then something disastrous—or fortuitous—happened. As she carefully navigated her way around one of these bushes that seemed to have grown just to block her way to safety, the stones under her feet shifted. Her numb legs failed to restore her balance. She clawed desperately, trying to catch hold of the branches that had driven her to the precarious center of the river, but the current swept her feet from under her and carried her away.
No sensation. Only terror. Struggling to keep her head above the roiling water, to take a breath each time she found air, she was swept down with the ever more violent current. Hope that she would get a foothold, brake her speeding descent, evaporated. She was going to drown. But instinctively she continued to struggle, gulping air each time she managed to break the surface of the water.
The world dropped away. She was flying. No, falling.
She submerged, swimming, flailing, disoriented. Suffocating. Then surface. No longer immersed in a watery world, she thrashed between water and air. She gasped a desperate breath, hoping for air, not a fatal inhale of river water. Then, panting, she sucked in one grateful breath after another.
Now she was drifting with the sleepy current of the suddenly deep, fat river. Above her was the violent cascade of water that had spilled her into this placid basin. Trembling with cold, her body exhausted and heavy, she struggled toward shore. She dragged herself onto the dry, rocky riverbed, not noticing how the rough terrain was raking her skin.
So tired. But not safe, there, in the open. Sharp rocks and rough branches scraped and poked her palms, her bare shins and knees as she crawled into the woods and collapsed in a patch of tall grass where the afternoon sun distractedly considered warming her. For a while she struggled to stay awake, but finally succumbed to sleep, weak with hunger and fatigue.
In the early morning she rose from her grassy bed, shuddering with cold, slow with stiffness, pained by hunger. It didn't matter. The disturbing images that kept coming to her, seeping back into her consciousness a moment after she had forced them out, like dry sand stubbornly sliding back into a freshly dug hole, they didn't matter. She pushed on, downriver. Soon, not too far, she would find a town. Food. A phone. Help.
To distract herself from the insistent pangs of hunger that were tormenting her, in her effort to diligently keep the three days and nights she had spent with that man far from her mind, she recounted to herself the stories from favorite novels. The sad, impossible love of The Sun Also Rises. Jane Eyre’s rise from the cruelty of her wards and the orphanage, her employment with the dangerous, seductive, mysterious Rochester. Her wit, her will. Or the winged, Amazonian beauty of Nights of the Circus, her sword, the Siberian train wreck, elephants dying in the snow. Yes, Fevvers. Devan wanted those wings, that strength now. To fly away home. She felt so weak.
When thoughts of hunger penetrated the force field of imagination she was trying to sustain, she thought of what she might be able to find to eat. She had seen no berries or edible-looking plants growing in the woods. Probably there were fish in the river, but how would she start a fire? It wasn't like there'd been a long dry spell.. The October woods were pervasively and perpetually damp, and soggy leaves and twigs didn't make very promising kindling. And her hunger hadn't reached such a pitch that eating raw fish pulled from the water seemed reasonable. She smiled as she got an image of Gollum, soul destroyed and body transformed by perverted desire, tearing with teeth into the soft white bellies of flopping fish. Maybe that would be the next step in her transformation? She half laughed. Then her delirious mirth evaporated.
She pushed on, promising herself a glutinous meal of hot grilled cheese on sourdough, onion rings, salad, apple juice and ice cream that would be given to her by the sympathetic waitress—Alice in a bubblegum pink shirt dress with a starched white apron--who would call her ‘honey’ and look at her with eyes filled with maternal concern at the inevitable small town diner she would find, later today, tomorrow at the latest, in the town that had to be not too much farther down the river.
But before a town came into view darkness closed in on her, hiding everything before her in an ever-shrinking distance. When she could no longer see where she was walking she made another bed of leaves, convinced it had kept her a little warmer that first night. Promising herself that it had. She laid down and, in a short while, fell asleep.
But a sound woke her. Heart pounding, she listened. Again. The snap of a twig, the crunch of leaves. Maybe it was an animal. That thought gave her no fear. She would be relieved to see a bear lumber out from the woods. Just please. Not Conrad. She lay there, absolutely still, hoping it was not him, begging fate that if it were him, that she would be hidden by the leaves she had mounded up over herself for warmth.
Please, please, please, she mentally pleaded with nothing.
Footfalls—unmistakable now--padding nearer and nearer upon the thick detritus of the forest floor. But was it a person?
Be still. Be quiet. Breathing tiny, careful breaths so no person or animal could hear the air moving in and out of her, so an inhale or an exhale would not raise or lower her chest so much that it disturbed and rustled the leaves entombing her.
Closer and closer the steps came. A person. Another step. Another. The next step would fall upon her, giving her away. Her heart was hammering in her breast. Each tiny breath released with tremendous restraint threatened to get away from her and burst out in a powerful shriek of fear. The footfalls ceased. Silence. More silence. Had she imagined it? Adrenaline was pulling her chest apart.
“Get up, Devan.”
No. No, no, no. It can’t be. It can’t. If I stay perfectly still, he’ll go. He’ll think it’s just a pile of leaves and go.
“Come on, Devan. Get up.”
A hand plunged into the leaves, grasped her arm, and hoisted her to her feet. Then let go. As she stood wavering there in the darkness it seemed to her that the fear-fuelled adrenaline pounding though her might literally destroy her. She had never felt more hopeless or more lost. But she did not cry.
“Devan.”
His voice, as always, cool. Soft. Seductive. Tinged with a note of amused derision. She knew that moment, just hearing the sound of his voice vibrating with her name, that he had her.
He stepped near. She did not step back. As in her recurrent childhood nightmare, wherein she would find her feet bound inside giant concrete blocks as a terrifying monster approached, she could not move. He reached out. She did not recoil. He took her face in his hands, put his lips by her ear.
“You must know,” he whispered, his words coming slow, “how disappointed I am that you left before I’d fucked you. You were a naughty girl, Devan, running off before I’d had a go at that tender virgin pussy.”
He let her go and took a step back. The clouds above parted and the full moon’s light shone down upon the two of them. To her eyes his face had taken on the aspect of a demon, an angel cast from heaven who claims dominion of a dark underworld, thriving on the torture of flawed souls.
“Now, Devan. Take off your blouse.”
Not only was she incapable of running, but she felt unable to resist his command. As if he had some power over her, could control her movement through his will. Maybe it was her fatigue, the fact that she had not eaten in days. She pulled the blouse over her head, then, instinctively, covered her breasts with her arms.
With a restrained but powerful grip he took her wrists in his hands and forced her arms to her sides. He stared at her bare breasts with a look closer to cruelty than desire, forcing her to feel her nakedness. Then he undid his pants and took out his cock. As he began stroking it he said quietly, with malice,
“Take off your skirt.”
Unable to take her eyes off what he was doing to himself, unable to stop thinking what he was going to do to her, in a very few moments, with that, she unzipped her skirt, letting it fall by her feet. His cock stiffening in his hand, he said,
“And now, pull down your knickers. All the way off.”
She pulled them down to her ankles, stepping out of them and the skirt.
“Stand up so I can look at you.”
She stood.
Tending his erection he looked at her. Her face, full of fear and violated modesty. Her tits, a surreal blue-white in the moonlight, dark nipples erect in the cold night air. Her stomach, swelling and caving with her panicked, rapid breaths. Her hairless pubis, the beginning of her slit vulnerably naked, invitingly visible. Legs held defensively close together. His hand abandoned his carefully cultivated erection long enough to pull off his shirt. She was surprised by how muscular he looked undressed. In his clothes he'd always seemed thinner. The realization that he was strong, physically, redoubled her fear.
“Are you wet?” he asked.
“Wet?”
She pretended not to understand.
“Yes, love. Is your pussy wet?”
Unbearable humiliation twining endlessly with her fear.
“No.” A bare whisper.
“Check for me, and see.”
“What?”
“Put your finger in your pussy, darling, and tell me if you’re wet.”
His voice worked on her as if it were her own will. She reached down to do as he asked, her legs clenched tightly together.
“You’re not going to be able to do it like that, are you? You’re going to have to open your legs, just a little. Go on.”
She stepped her feet a couple of inches apart, reached down, curved a hand underneath herself, and feeling like she was under some kind of mind control, put a finger inside herself.
“Show me.”
She reached her hand vaguely toward him, but to him it appeared to have come to rest by her side, mirroring the position of her other hand. He leaned forward to take her wrist in his strong grip, lifting her hand up before his face. He ran his index finger along hers, feeling the slippery wetness that had coated it. With the tip of his tongue he licked the pad of his finger, tasting her. Then, still gripping her wrist in one hand, with his other he folded down all her fingers save the one she had put inside herself. That finger he took all the way into his mouth, sucking off all her juice as he pulled it smoothly from his lips.
“You’re absolutely delicious. I’ll have to take the time to really taste you. Later.”
He looked at her, savoring her terror. Watching for her reaction to his next words.
“Get your back up against that tree.”
“Conrad. Please. I don’t want this.”
He smiled derisively.
“Please, Conrad—”
“Shhhh. That’s what you always say, love, but it isn’t true. And you know, as I do, that it’s only by insisting that it isn’t what you want that it becomes what you want.”
“No Conrad, please, you’re frightening me.”
A solitary tear slid down her cheek.
“Back against the tree.”
His mirth had evaporated. His words were staggered, broken up by gaps of impatience.
She backed up until she felt a hard roughness scratch at her skin. He walked toward her, slowly, until he pressed his naked body right up against hers, crushing her brutally against the tree. She felt that the skin on her back was molding to the patterns in the bark, that the front of her was molding to the contours of his body.
Then sudden shock. New fear. Her thighs were slung over his hands and he stood now between her parted legs, her naked sex exposed, vulnerable, pressed against him. She had hardly felt him move.
He writhed against her and she felt the hard length of his shaft snaking along the damp valley of her sex. His lips came to her ear once more.
“I’ve been…”
Up and down his rigid prick glided, parting her lips, grazing her clit, thrilling her with fear. And familiar, nauseating pleasure.
“…aching for so long…”
Down, down, down, the root, the shaft, the head, grinding against her clit, nestling between her sensitive folds, down, then, striking her rigid with panic it ducked beneath her and rose up, nuzzling eagerly at her entrance.
“…to fuck you.”
She felt a sudden, searing pain as he forced himself inside her, plunging deep and hard on the first thrust. She pushed at his chest, trying to hold him away from her, but she remained impaled on his fierce erection as it stabbed her again and again.
“Please, Conrad!” she sobbed. “Please stop.”
Then he did.
The pain that had been overwhelming ebbed suddenly away, and as he started moving again, she felt like a little glowing light had been lit inside of her, like its warmth was radiating from that place at the center of her where he was, sliding in and out, that it was healing her—healing the pain he had given her, healing her fear, her hunger. Restoring her to the girl she had been a few days before, restoring her beyond even the best and happiest self she had ever been. As he moved against her, the arms she had braced straight and locked against his chest to keep him away folded, encircling his neck. His motions were gentle, tender. As his hips hinged rhythmically beneath her, she felt her body surrendering to him, and the warm pulsing wave of pleasure rippled through her sex, her tummy, her thighs.
He pulled back to look at her. She watched his face transform before her eyes, under the periwinkle beams sifting through the leafy canopy above, from gentle angel with a face almost like a woman’s, to cruel demon.
Suddenly his penis felt like a hot iron inside of her, searing her flesh with every thrust. It seemed to be tearing her apart, battering her organs. She sobbed in agony.
“Stop! Conrad, please!” she screamed. “Stop!”
The more she cried and begged the harder he seemed to fuck her, ramming himself into her again and again. She let out a terrible, screeching scream of pain and fear that mingled with his roaring moan of pleasure as he came inside her.
She was bathed in sweat, writhing and sobbing when she awoke, the memory of her own scream a fading echo. Sobbing, laughing, she fought an urge to scream a feral shriek that would drive every bird and insect, every last animal from the woods.
Laughing. It was funny. She felt betrayed. By him.
Still sobbing, though. In her hunger- and trauma-weakened state, she felt that he had preternaturally visited her in her dream, done that to her through an act of will. Her dream had felt so real, so immediate, the pangs of hunger racking her stomach seemed to be his wounds, his piercing and searing of her organs.
She wanted to get up, to move on, to cover more ground between that cabin and the place of safety she was trying to believe she would find. But in the pitch dark she feared straying in a wrong direction, injuring herself. For a long time she lay there, crying until her tears dried up. She feared falling back to sleep, falling back into his realm, but she could not combat the exhaustion that sapped her will to remain awake. Eventually she slipped into deep, dreamless slumber.
When she awoke it was morning. Or it was afternoon. She didn't know. It didn't matter. She got up, dizzy with hunger and fatigue, and went unsteadily on her way.
Hours later, as she stumbled through the woods the trees began to thin out before her. She slowed. A little way ahead, beyond the edge of the forest that was keeping her hidden in its shadows, was a clearing. Cloud shadows slinked over tall yellow grass, a few great gray-white boulders, and a fence. And beyond these, a building. A cabin.
Panic. She ducked behind the girth of a great tree trunk. Breathing hard, she peered past the edge of her sheltering trunk. A different cabin. Not that one. Of course not. That was miles upstream.
Watching, all seemed still. Quiet. No lights were on It was cold outside, but no fire was lit.
But it was still afternoon, the sun was out. No lights and no fire did not mean no one was inside. She stayed still, even as stiffness crept into the muscles in her neck, her shoulders, her legs. Frozen still, holding her tree, just a sliver of her face visible behind the veil of the forest shadows, she watched. As clouds turned the bright sky gray, she watched. As the sun melted through the clouds and blurred away beyond the horizon leaving her in dusky twilight, she watched. No lights came on. No flicker of firelight trembled in the windows. No scent of smoke signaled her from the chimney.
At last she decided to go, to peer into the windows to be sure. Heart pounding fiercely she left the safety of the screening trees and approached the cabin. She crept forward as softly as she could, braced at every moment to flee back into the woods should a door creak, a window scrape in its casing, a voice cry out, “Who’s there!”
No sound turned her back, and she reached the cabin wall.
Creeping to the back porch, she lifted a foot onto the bottom step, then gingerly began putting her weight on that foot, mentally begging the wood to stay silent. The thick plank made no complaint as she raised herself and set her second foot upon it. Just as carefully she tried the next step, and the next. Shivering with fear and cold she stood on the porch. There was a door, with windows on either side. She stealthily peered into the first window, comforting herself that the night, with a moon cloaked in a thick mist of cloud, would not give her away, and cursing the fact that it gave nothing inside away, either. Desperate, she put the possibility of someone being inside out of her mind, and tried the window. Shut tight. It did not even make a sound to encourage her that there might be hope. The door, which gave the impression of being incredibly thick and solid, was dead bolted. The second window was equally unwelcoming.
She circled around the cabin, trying every possible aperture. Nothing would yield. Weary, cold and hungry, and convinced at last that no one could be inside she finally gave up her cautious ways. She remembered a wood pile against the side of the house. She scampered back around the porch to the stack of cut logs and was about to seize one when she spied an ax leaning against the wall. Clutching it in her hand, trembling with adrenaline and fatigue, she returned to the low window and smashed in the glass. Still grasping the ax she hammered out the toothy shards growling at her from the broken maw of the cabin.
She climbed through.
Inside. Walking on a level floor, surrounded by walls, a ceiling overhead. Just as cold as outside. But still. The clouds had opened enough to let a little moonlight shine through. She looked around the dimness. Too frightened to turn on a light or start a fire she snatched a blanket she saw on a sofa and wrapped it around her shoulders. Her hunger was unbearable, but she could not think of food until she had walked all through the cabin, checking every room and closet to be sure there really was no one there. The cabin was small. Aside from the kitchen and living room there were just two bedrooms, a bathroom and a storage closet. Having made her rounds she went to the kitchen.
The refrigerator was empty except for beer and soda. Seeking to satisfy hunger rather than thirst she took a can of orange pop and gulped past the sting of the carbonation. Eyes watering, she began opening cupboards. Canned vegetables, canned fruit, canned chili, canned beans, raw black beans, white beans, kidney beans.
She clutched a can of refried beans and began searching the drawers for a can opener. Seeing and seizing one she clamped the toothy gears down on the rim of the can, cranked it open, and dove in with two fingers. On her fourth or fifth mouthful she remembered that quaint convention, silverware. She found a spoon and returned to the beans with her utensil.
When she had scraped the can and licked the spoon clean she was still hungry, but fearing the consequences of too much food after her long fast she forced herself to stop eating. She pulled the blanket tighter around her and walked back toward the bedrooms. She wanted to bathe, to put on clean dry clothes. The thought of a shower sounded amazing until she considered not being able to hear if someone showed up at the cabin. She decided on a bath instead. Walking into the bathroom she wondered if there would be hot water. She let the tap run for a few minutes, and the icy water gushing out slowly warmed, then she felt steam rising and clinging to her face. Finding a stopper on the edge of the tub she plugged the drain, then closed the door so she could hear better over the sound of the filling bath.
Going into one of the bedrooms she began opening dresser drawers, searching for something to wear. All the drawers were empty. The closet was empty too, and the emptiness gave her a bad feeling. The second bedroom seemed more lived in, and she found a t-shirt and some sweats. And boxers. Men’s clothes. She returned to the bathroom and stopped the faucet. She tested the water with her hand—nice and hot. Stripping off her soiled rags, she wound them into a ball and stuffed them into the waste can next to the toilet.
She stepped into the tub. The water that had felt fine to her hand was too hot. It hurt and felt comforting—sterilizing—at the same time. Slowly she eased herself down, submerging herself. The cuts and scratches on her body—her legs and arms, her back, her hands, stung as she immersed her body in the steaming water.
Her poor, tired body had been tense for days, endlessly struggling to detect, perpetually ready to spring, to run. Now she was in the warm, silent womb of the tub—just the tub—the bathroom, the cabin, the woods were no longer part of her consciousness. Her muscles went slack. There was no sensation but the heat, no sound but the expanding throbbing of her warming blood, and the darkness of eyes closed against darkness. She lay there for a while, fell asleep, and woke again when the water had turned cold. She pulled the stopper from the drain, stood, and toweled off.
She caught sight of herself in the full-length mirror on the wall opposite the door. Entranced she approached that strange girl. Her reflection. The moonlight drifting in through the small high window above gave her a ghostly appearance, her pale body glowing dimly.
It seemed a stranger’s body. The body of a woman. Corporeal. Material. Of real, feeling flesh.
Her breasts.
She had looked at her breasts many times since puberty, first watching them swell and grow, watching monthly to see what their shape would be, and when they had seemed finished, noting with a kind of indifferent detachment that they were plump and round, that her aureole and nipples were rather dark, and that this darker, different flesh stood out raised in delicate cones, making her breasts look a little pointed, making them appear always aroused.
Now that they had been touched, excited, her nipples made stiff and tingly, now that she had felt the connection between them and her sex, she no longer felt indifferent to them. They were hers in a new way—not merely features of her physical appearance, but intimately hers—part of her experiential self. But she could not look at them, now, without thinking of him.
Her sex.
He had changed that, too. She looked at that V at the center of her, her soft pale sex. As with her breasts, Devan had felt an objective sort of curiosity about her little difference, but it had neither disturbed nor pleased her. It seemed to have no relevance to her life.
But now it was hers. It was her. She had felt it throb and ache and yearn and convulse with terrible pleasure and had felt how this very small part of her had played a part in who she had become. It had been soft and wet and yielding for him when her mind had been hard and closed to him. When she had said no, it had said yes. It had betrayed her. And yet she now loved this part of her that had been a stranger, as she loved her mind and her heart—as herself.
Her hands. Hands that touched and gave pleasure.
Her legs, legs that spread and revealed.
Her belly that clenched with fear and was filled with bubbles waiting to burst in a thousand tremors of pleasure.
Her feet that had saved her from him and brought her here.
She could not see her body’s reflection in the mirror without imagining his hands on it—his hands curved over her breasts, his fingers teasing, tugging, pinching her nipples, his hands' small movements between her parted thighs. She wondered if that would always be.
Her eyes moved up.
Her wet black hair clung close like a shroud around her pale face. Her alien face. She did not recognize it. Drawn to her own strange visage she stepped closer to the mirror until she was nearly nose to nose with her estranged twin. Each feature was recognizably hers. Her fine arching eyebrows. Her gray eyes, like a child’s in their proportion to her face, slightly too large. Her nose. Straight. Unremarkable. Her mouth, almost round in its narrow fullness. All hers. Yet as she regarded herself she seemed somehow shockingly changed. Or perhaps she had never really seen herself before.
Exhausted she abandoned the girl in the mirror and put on the stranger’s clothes. She rolled up the cuffs of the sweat pants that were too long for her, but let the sleeves of the enormous sweatshirt hang past her hands, keeping them warm. Stumbling with the fatigue that was now permitted she found her way to the bedroom with the empty dresser and the empty closet, climbed into bed, and fell asleep.
When she awoke the next day it was late afternoon. As she got out of bed her stiffened muscles pained her with every movement. Sore in every limb, in her back and shoulders, she shuffled to the bathroom and gratefully, after days in the woods, used the toilet.
Later, clean, rested, and fed, she began to think beyond instinct. Was there a phone? She set the bowl aside, pulled her blanket shawl around her again, and began to look around the cabin. No phone. Electricity. But no phone. And no idea where she was. Downriver from there. But no idea where there was, either. Three days in the woods, and this cabin was the first building or sign of human beings she had seen. She had heard no traffic sounds, seen no road. Not even any litter.
Maybe there was a map, somewhere in the cabin, that might tell her where she was. She scanned the shelves of the large bookshelf by the fireplace, but saw nothing entitled “Hiking in the obscure backwoods of the Pacific Northwest” or other books about the region, no trail guides or atlases. She began searching through drawers, hoping to find a road map. No luck. But there were stacks of opened letters. She seized one. Maybe an address might give away the name of a county she might recognize. Filing through them, though, they all either had Seattle addresses or the name of some town in Spain. She tossed them back into the drawer.
Something caught her eye. Not a map. But on the desk was a notebook, bound by a spiral wire between cardboard covers. She touched it contemplatively with an index finger. Not picking it up she used that same, single finger to tentatively lift the front cover, then to turn the imprinted facing page. The first lined page was blank. She lifted the notebook and flipped a few more pages in. Blank. Empty. She took it, and a pen. Forgetting her search for the map she plunked down at the dining table and, almost as if in a trance, began to write. She wrote for over an hour, and when she had finished her hand was cramping painfully, her heart was racing with renewed fear, and her cunt, her treacherous, defiant cunt, was wet and aching. Familiar self-loathing mingled with her anxiety and prodded her back to her task of getting herself out of these woods and back to safety. Reality.
She returned to the sofa, curling up under her blanket, to think. She should stay at the cabin a couple more days to rest and recover from her days of privation in the woods. She would put together a pack with food and other supplies, and when she was ready she would head back to the river and follow it downstream until she found a town. It couldn’t go on forever, after all, this unpopulated wilderness.
Shivering, she contemplated the dormant fireplace. Could she risk a fire? Maybe after dark it would be okay; smoke rising into the air, which might be detected from far off, would be nearly invisible in the overcast night sky. Later, when darkness had swallowed up the little cabin and the woods around it, with the help of the matches and the newspaper left by the fireplace for the purpose, she started a fire. When the blaze got going she sat cross-legged on the floor before the fire, reaching out to feel the warmth with her hands, feeling the heat on her face, comforted by the dancing light. She wished there were curtains to pull over the windows, but she tried to push the feeling of being watched, of being so lit while someone could be just outside, cloaked in darkness, out of her mind.
Huddled there in her blanket, as the flaring and waning flame moved before her eyes, in her mind different images consumed her. Images and sensations from her time with him interspersed and merged with those from her dream in the woods. His hands on her. His mouth on her. Her terror. Her longing. His tenderness and his cruelty. The gentleness of his caress as he had taken the tears from her cheeks with his fingertips, the teasing lightness of those same fingertips as they had glided between her parted thighs, the heart-rending, aching closeness she had felt as his mouth, his body pressed to hers, the irrefutable fear of being in his power, the pain of his violation.
Shaking, she longed to cease this stoking of her fear. She needed something to think about, something other than this wearing anxiety, other than him.
She went to the bookshelf. In the dim firelight she could just make out the titles on the spines. Crime and Punishment. She had read it before; somewhere below conscious thought, the idea of being in the mind of the criminal appealed to her. She took her novel back to her spot in front of the fire, and read for hours, occasionally adding a piece of wood to the fire. Eventually she grew sleepy. She started a little fire in the wood burning stove and went to sleep, thinking of Raskolnikov, of the old pawnbroker woman, and of him.
When she awoke it was still dark outside. She felt instantly, intuitively, that someone was there with her. Heart pounding, breath rushing, she sat up, searching anxiously among the shadows of the vaguely moonlit room. A soft voice spoke from the darkness and her eyes tracked the sound to find a dim form by the window. She froze. The shadowy man shape came nearer with a slow, softly thudding tread.
“It’s all right, Devan. Don’t be frightened.”
Conrad. Or was this another dream?
“I didn’t mean to wake you. I just had to see you. See that you were all right.”
Conrad’s voice was gentle, like a father’s voice at the bedside of a sick child. He sat on the edge of the bed, with simple calm, as if she could have no objection. She watched him without moving, feeling the tilt of the mattress as it took his weight, her heart still banging fiercely, her lungs still puffing with terror, but a terror she felt was already, somehow, waning.
“Devan.”
In the moonlight he seemed to smile as he gently put her hair back from her face, taking in the sight of her. She was surprised to find that the touch of his warm hand stirred no fear. It was strangely comforting.
“You’re not hurt?”
“No.”
His look, his body seemed to go soft with relief. Then his eyes narrowed in a sudden look of utter caddishness. Her heart gave a heavy thump.
It wasn't fear. She felt a little pulse in her sex, a throb soft and small that gathered strength moment by moment, swelling and rising into her whole body. Oh, that devious grin of his. She was stirred to see it, and through her astonishment she felt she wanted to reward it. She wanted to do what he wanted her to do and she wanted, for once, to do it unbidden. To give it to him.
She pushed the covers down, off her body, and rose up onto her knees, settling back on her heels. Conrad watched, showing no sign of surprise as she slipped the hem of her tank top up, bearing the smooth softness of her belly, her navel a little pool of shadow in the dimness, up, ribs showing in bands of light and shade like ripples of sand in the desert, up until he could see the pale swells, heavy, full and firm, up, until her nipples peeked out from under the veil of rising cloth and up, over her head, then down, down, down onto the floor somewhere to her right.
He had asked her before. He had made her. But never had she shown herself to him freely. His eyes on her made that throbbing, swelling ache roll through her over and over, surging to a thrilling pressure at the moment she felt her breasts bare to his gaze. He raised his eyes to hers now with, she thought, a look of approbation. Then fierce desire under cold restraint. She wanted him to touch her, thrill her now the way he had before when she had resisted, been afraid. She was not afraid now. She ached for him to put his hands on her. He sat still, silent, waiting to see what she would do. Testing her.
She could not just sit there, under his scrutinizing gaze, her breasts bare. Her nudity still embarrassed her, and it embarrassed her that her excitement and the chill air of the room had her nipples so taut and eager. Her hands trembled as she lifted them, watching his eyes follow as they came to the soft under-curves of her breasts. He seemed pleased. She ran her palms lightly up, over her breasts, feeling her palms and fingers brush over the smooth soft skin, and felt painfully self-conscious when that hot thrilling bolt shot into her sex when she grazed her nipples. She went on with her gentle caress, bringing her hands up, then out and down. Oh, she so wanted him to put his hands where hers were, to take over this caress. She wanted to feel his mouth on her, wanted him to kiss, lick, and suck. She felt shy, touching herself as he watched, but she wanted desperately not to let that look of arousal fade from his eyes. She felt her face flush as she gently squeezed her tits, making her soft flesh swell out from her hands, her nipples thrusting forward toward him, hard and jutting. Then she relaxed her hands to a gentle cradle and her breasts went round and soft once more.
Her sex. Her cunt. Aching terribly. Wonderfully. Just sitting there, still, she knew she was drenched. This embarrassment always excited her.
He went on watching her, a challenge in his look. She would have to push herself, really entice him, before he would release her from her shame, give her his caress, his kiss. But she felt at a loss, too embarrassed to choose how to touch herself. He had always told her what to do. But she could see that he was enjoying her embarrassment as much as the sight of her touching her tits for him, and he would not diminish his pleasure by making it easier for her, telling her what he wanted. Much more delicious to make her reveal what she wanted.
Her face and her pussy burning she began teasing her nipples, the first gentle pinch making them stiffen and driving a hot throb between her thighs. Conrad’s breath came a little louder, a little faster, and his arousal goaded her on. She rubbed over the darker, textured flesh around her nipples, feeling that flesh constrict in a pleasurable little tug under her fingers. Oh, she wanted his touch so badly, she wanted to squeeze her breast in her hand and press it to his mouth, beg him to suck it, to rub his tongue over her hard nipple. A little twitch at the raised corner of his smug grin made her wonder if he had read her mind. Finally he spoke.
“Take off your knickers, Devan.”
What a relief, to hear his voice, to know his want, to have the burden off her. She lifted herself from her heels and slid her panties down to her knees, then worked them down her calves and over her feet. She waited, then, for his instruction. He sat, silent, watching her. That was all he would give her. Now it was her again. Her doing it all.
She went back down on her heels and, watching him watch, her heart fluttering, her insides quivering, she spread her legs. He looked pleased. Her cunt throbbed. She let her hand wander down and was about to let her finger slip over her slit, but instead she let two fingers part in a v, spreading her lips open, showing him her rosy wet creases. With a single finger then she traced for him the contours of the pale lips of her sex, the deep pink folds between, everything wet and shiny. She rubbed the delicate little nub, her clit, and sighed out loud, loving the sensation, loving the feeling of showing her pleasure. Her finger flitted again and again over that sensitive spot, and again and again she sighed, starting to writhe now against her own hand. With her eyes she begged him to fuck her. Please, oh please. She wanted him against her, inside her, so badly. Still he sat back, aloof, waiting for her to show him her desire.
She wanted his cock, wanted to feel his hard thickness rising up in her, spreading her, filling her. Her fingers could not satisfy. She went on rubbing her hand between her thighs, parted wide so he could see her, how wet she was for him, how eager, how open. Her eyes pleaded with him. She watched him glance, coolly, almost indifferently, between her pleading eyes and her cunt, seeking and slicking her fingers but aching, really, for him. She tried, with her eyes, to draw him to her, but he stayed still, distant, only watching.
Her need was unbearable, insatiable. Still hoping to win him to her, thinking of what she must do to earn his touch, she caught sight of something at the edge of her vision. Two candles on the night stand. She looked at them, looked back at Conrad, saw him smile. Oh, if it would please him, if he could be enticed, watching that, maybe he would give her, then, what she wanted. Her face burned hot as she reached over and took hold of one of the candles, long and thick and waxy white, its white cord wick, never lit, emerging from the center of a graduated dome. She put it to her opening, looking down, seeing that cream colored dome nestle into her hot flesh, then looking up, watching Conrad’s look of debauched delight at she pushed the smooth girth of the candle into her cunt.
It was not him, his flesh, his cock. It was cool and smooth and lifeless, but oh fuck, it felt so good to have that thick cylindrical girth rising up inside of her, filling that aching void, and, yes, to see his eyes on her as inch after inch of the candle disappeared from his sight. Her hips were moving now, as one hand worked that candle slowly in and out like a dildo, the other teased her lips, gliding over her slit, around the girth of her makeshift phallus, petting the sleek inner folds, rubbing her throbbing clit. She looked down. Her tits, neglected now that she was tending her aching pussy, still bare to him, her nipples standing out in vivid relief, pleading to be touched and kissed. When she raised her eyes he was watching her face. He had been studying her as she gazed down upon herself, watching as she masturbated before him with the candle.
He moved toward her at last. A thrill rippled through her body, from her impaled sex up, into her belly, out through arms and legs. Finally, finally. He would kiss her. He would touch her. Fuck her. Oh, yes.
But no. He moved in just near enough to still her hand, to set it gently aside, and to grip the candle. He did not pump it into her, but held it still, and looked at her, his smug grin just daring her.
Why was he tormenting her like this? Denying her?
She began to move. Pulsing her hips in hungry little motions, up, down, letting the candle slide out, then moving down to drive it back in, as Conrad held it, watching her. She pulled her gaze from his to look down, to see his hand gripping that candle, his fingers out of sight, underneath her, but his thumb just below her clit, just out of reach, down low on the candle she was fucking.
She rode the candle, desperately seeking his thumb with her clit. Oh, fuck, so fucking close, if she could just rub against that knuckle, rub it against her clit she would come. She pushed down, feeling the candle sinking deeper and deeper with each descent, spreading her cunt lips open, stretching her pussy so much it was almost painful. Up a little, then down, down a bit farther, not sure if she could take it, wanting, wanting, whimpering, almost sobbing with wanting to rub against him. She ground down, driving the candle hard and deep into her hole and oh fuck found his thumb at last, and whining softly began feverishly humping against it, fucking the candle, her movements small and wild and desperate. That sweet rubbing of her clit as she fucked, that wax cock sliding up and down inside her, she was right there, right on the edge, and she played with her nipple, right by his face, silently begging him to take it in his mouth, to suck it while she got off against his hand, riding the candle he was holding under her, but his lips did not come to her breast, his tongue did not stroke over her nipple. Thrusting in tiny thrusts against him still, moaning shamelessly now as she sought her pleasure, she squeezed her breast and rubbed her jutting nipple against his jaw, feeling the roughness there graze that super sensitive flesh and in a fitful frenzy humped against his hand and the candle and screamed out an agonized moan as she came, cunt quivering and spasming around the waxy hardness inside her, against the hard bump of his bent thumb.
The sound of her own crying moan woke her and, as the throbbing of her sex slowly subsided, she fought of the humiliating images and feelings of her dream. What a fucking traitor her mind was. Conjuring up that monster then… Shit! Why in her dream had she wanted him? Wanted to please him? Stripped naked and writhed around for him like that, touching herself, masturbating with—the image of her fucking herself with the candle washed over her like ice water. She shuddered so hard she thought, for a moment, she might be about to vomit. And there was that dying throb between her legs, forcing her to recall how arousing it had all been, how exciting it had felt to rub her nipples for him, to finger her sex, to hump the candle as he held it, fucking it desperately as she sought to make herself come. She gave out a little sob to the darkness as she realized that in her dream he had not even asked her to do any of it. She had done it all because she wanted to. What the hell was wrong with her?
She wanted to leave. Right then. Fuck it. But the moon of her dream was gone, hidden away above invisible clouds. It was pitch black out. No sign, yet, of the coming dawn. She would have to wait for morning. But at first light she would go, and get the hell out of the woods and back to civilization. A town, somewhere downstream. Then back to Seattle somehow, and from there, back to reality.
But fate, or chance, or perhaps just her own body, had decided to work against her. Devan was tormented by her disturbing dream, unable to shake those vivid, lingering images. She was nauseated by the desire she had felt for him and the pleasure she had felt as she tried to please him by pleasing herself for him, sensations which seemed to cling to her even now like a cloying odor. Over and over she shuddered in disgust, as if recalling having had something putrid in her mouth.
It was nearly dawn when, several hours later she finally fell back into uneasy sleep, and when she at last woke again, half the day had passed. She might not have slept so late, but the sun was obscured by dark heavy clouds, and a ponderous rain was falling. She was almost determined to leave, in spite of the miserable heavy rain, and despite the few hours of dim daylight remaining, but at last she decided it would be foolish to squander her strength in the wet and cold, slogging through the streaming mud, when she would have to give up and stop for the night in just a few short hours.
As a distraction from her miserable confinement there in that cabin, in those woods, she set herself a task. Find a gun. A man with a cabin in the woods, in the middle of nowhere like this was bound to have some kind of firearm. Motivated by the idea of the comforting feeling of security possessing a gun would give her, she began her search in the large storage closet. The first thing she noticed was a big hiker’s pack, and behind that a sleeping bag. She hadn’t even thought of that. She tossed them on the floor behind her. She pulled a wooden chair over and began searching the high shelf of the closet, riffling through sundry shoeboxes filled with assorted junk. There was a box of ammo, but no gun. She climbed off the chair to resume her search elsewhere.
After looking through the closet and all the dresser drawers in the stranger’s bedroom she found a handgun—a heavy, silvery beast of a thing—in a drawer of the nightstand. She had never liked guns and had never handled one. She knew those rules that people always mention when the subject of guns come up. Never point a gun at anything you don’t want to shoot, even if you’re certain it isn’t loaded. Safety on. Don’t look down the barrel while loading. She sat on the couch and looked down at the pistol, barrel safely pointed at nothing. She managed to get the clip out. It was full. The same bullets from the box.
She wanted to practice firing it. But the sound of gunshots might give her away. Instead she set out to gather the supplies she thought she would need. Cans of fruit, cans of beans, and a pile of protein bars she had discovered. The can opener, a spoon, and two knives—a small one and a large butcher knife. She found a plastic baggie, and in that she put a few packs of matches, and she took two more novels from the bookshelf and set them by the other provisions. Then she loaded up the backpack with supplies and strapped the sleeping bag on the top. She left the gun out so she could keep it on her, ready to use. She put the pack and the gun in a corner of the little bedroom. Somehow the sight of the gun just laying there on the floor, next to the pack, made her uneasy. She stooped to pick it up and, after holding it in her hand and moment, considering its cool weight, she pushed it into the center of the rolled sleeping bag. She spent the rest of the afternoon with Crime and Punishment, soothed by the sound of heavy rain outside. When it got dark she lit the fire.
Roskolnikov was just about to commit his brutal crime when she realized she was terribly thirsty. Emerging from her blanket cocoon she carried her empty water glass into the kitchen and turned on the tap. A sudden chill breeze startled her.
She turned. The glass slipped from her hands, crashed and cracked in the sink.
He was there. In the open doorway, pointing a gun at her.
“Hands up!” he said, loudly but without shouting.
He’s caught me. But a vague realization that this was not him.
“Put your fucking hands up.”
His voice was all disgust and loathing.
He was still in the doorway off the back porch. Looking at him she could see the front door to her right. Maybe she could make it to the door, open it, and get away before he could catch her. It did not occur to her that he might shoot her. She lunged toward the front door, clutching frantically at the deadbolt as it came within reach. It was in her hand, turning, but before she could open the door even a single, hopeful inch she felt him cage her with his arms. She was trapped between his body and the door. She froze there as he leaned into her, shrinking the cage, not touching her, but enveloping her in his heat and his smell. He whispered, his mouth so near her ear she felt his warm breath,
”Just what makes you think you can come and go like that, as you please?”
She turned her head to look over her shoulder at the man with the hot, moist, loathing voice. Someone else. Not him. She ducked under his arm and ran for the back door he’d left open. She was through. She ran straight, jumped off the porch, hit the ground, still running, socks soaking up the mud and rain.