Abduction (16 page)

Leaning over, he snatched up the two pillows. A gun. Under the pillow like a tragic news story. He picked it up and examined it. He recognized it. His gun. He placed the pillows back, and slid the gun under the waistband of his jeans, the cold metal irritating the hot skin at the small of his back. He bent, jerked the edge of the mattress up. His heart 136

slammed. The journal. He snatched it off the box spring, let the mattress flop down with a thump, then stomped back to his room, his pilfered journal clutched in his clenched fist.

Bitch! That goddamned, fucking bitch!

He'd been an idiot, a complete asshole, falling for her pathetic act. Falling for her.

She had read it. She knew those things about him. Yet she seemed so different from those others, those predators. Pacing in his room, he went over in his mind every moment he had spent with the strange girl.

The thought of their kiss the night before aroused him again. In his raging anger he could not believe the power of his longing for her. He wanted to purge himself of her, get her out of his system. Bitterly, suddenly he yanked his belt open, unzipped his fly and took out his cock. Seething with rage and unfulfilled desire he sat on the edge of his bed and furiously began jerking off. He was picturing her, her mouth, her full, eager breasts that were never in a bra. He thought of how she had tasted the night before when he had been on top of her, hard and pressed up against her, and how he had thought then that they were about to fuck. He imagined pulling her sweats down, over her hip bones, exposing the smooth flesh of her thighs, then off completely. He imagined what her cunt might look like, how she would smell and taste, and how it would feel to push himself inside her, to hear that tiny moan again.

Something broke his reverie. He looked up, his attention drawn instinctively to the door that he had slammed shut, but which must have drifted back open. She was standing there. Looking at him. She had been watching him. He stood, rage pounding through every vein and capillary. She made a little noise, a gasp, turned, and ran. He 137

felt suddenly cold, self-possessed. He put himself away, zipped up his fly, buckled his belt.

Then he charged after her. She had left the front door open. He ran outside and scanned the clearing. She was just about a third of the way across, running for the woods. He took off after her. He knew he could catch her. He just ran as hard as he could, knowing he was faster, knowing he would have her in just a few moments. When she reached the edge of the woods and charged into the shadows, he did not lose faith.

When he reached the place where she had entered the woods he stopped. Over the sound of his own hard breathing he could hear the leaves bursting apart under her feet, the twigs snapping in her path. He turned to track her, running full speed, slaloming between the trees. He was gaining. He could see her. Within seconds he had her. He caught her by the arm, spun her around, pressed her up against a tree. Silently he stared at her, roiling with hatred.

"I didn’t mean to…" she gasped.

They were both panting.

"Shut up."

"Vaughn, listen. I’m sorry, it was an accident, I was just passing by, going to my room, and—"

"Shut up!" he shouted. Then more quietly, in a voice straining to be restrained,

"I’m tired of your lies. I don’t want to hear you anymore. Come on."

He jerked her by the arm, pulling her from the tree, dragging her stumblingly along behind him.

"Vaughn!" she pleaded.

He said nothing, but quickened his pace, tightened his grip.

"Vaughn!" she shrieked.

He dragged her back to the cabin, up the steps to the front door, down the hall and into her room. He threw her down on her bed. She sat up, wide-eyed, panting.

Standing in front of her, he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his pants. Anything he wanted. Nothing she could do. Her mouth. Her tits. Her cunt. Her ass. Every hot, tight, soft, wet place his for the taking.

Mounting the bed he straddled her hips. Sobbing, she tried to hit him in the face, in the stomach. He grabbed her wrists and pushed her arms up over her head.

"Grab the bars on the headboard."

She just stared at him.

"Grab them, and hold on to them, or I’ll fucking tie you up."

All the color drained from her tear-streaked face as she gripped the cold iron bars.

"If you fucking let go of those bars for one fucking second, I’ll tie you up, and I may never untie you. You hear me?"

He leaned over, putting his lips against her ear.

"You come here. You break into my house. You read my letters—"

"No—Vaughn—"

"Shut up! If you say one more word, I’m going to stuff a sock in that mouth and tape it shut! You read my letters. You steal my diary. You seduce me."

He laughed a tight, bitter laugh.

"You actually made me pity you. Then you spy on me—you spy on me while I’m fucking jacking off."

Then, calculating his words to frighten,

"Know what I was thinking about while I was jerking off? Hmmm? I was thinking about fucking you."

His voice was a growl. Not human. He felt ready to kill. Ready to cry. In his seething fury he was almost capable of raping her. But her pale tear-streaked face, all the moments she had seemed to fear him, stopped him, in spite of his doubts that it had all been an act.

But he would punish her.

Wanting to terrify her, knowing what would go through her mind, he stripped off his heavy flannel shirt. Then the white t-shirt he had on underneath. His largeness, vague under the thick clothes he always wore, was revealed as hard, defined muscle.

He spread open the fly of his jeans, revealing the thick bulge that strained the white ribbed fabric of his underwear. He massaged himself, pushing his hand down into his jeans and bringing it back to cuff the uppermost part of his erection. Her eyes closed, her fists went white around the bars of the bedstead.

"You wanted to see this. Open your eyes and watch."

She opened her eyes. She watched as he pushed his jeans and underwear down, taking hold of the waist band, uncovering his erection. Frightened, embarrassed, she instinctively closed her eyes again.

"If you don’t watch this, I’ll find another way to get off. Open your fucking eyes."

When she obeyed him, looked at him, he began stroking himself. Rage, anguish and excitement tornadoed inside of him. Frustrated lust had built up to the bursting point. Violently he beat off. The sight of her watching him tweaked his arousal to a higher pitch. As his excitement rose his hatred ebbed. He forgot, almost, that he was forcing her to watch.

She, terrified at first that he was about to rape her, then mortified to be seen looking at his nakedness, watching him touch himself, felt the darkest, sharpest part of her fear go gray and smooth. The sight of him before her, on top of her, his cock in his hand, his firm belly and broad chest, shoulder muscles flexing, his face reflecting his excitement, his eyes locked on hers, roused her. Her breathing quickened, not with anxiety but with anticipation, awaiting his moment of release.

He clutched the hem of her t-shirt in his fist. She almost let go of the bars, desperate not to let him bare her breasts. He pushed her shirt up, baring her belly, her ribs, just up to the first hint of the soft swellings. She watched his frenzied stroking, then he stopped. Then he drew his hand slowly up the length of his hardness, groaned, and released his milky warm orgasm in surprising spurts onto her stomach.

Inexperienced as she was, she knew perfectly well how these things worked.

How men came. Yet she was somehow astonished to have his come, this stuff that came from inside of him, warm and wet on her skin. Still holding the headboard she lifted her head to look at the pattern of splatter on her belly.

"Don’t move," he said, getting off of her, off the bed, disappearing into the bathroom.

He came back, tucked away and zipped up, his belt open and hanging at his hips. Bowed, contrite, he sat on the side of the bed. She still held the iron bars. He had not meant for her to stay like that, when he had told her not to move—he had only worried about the mess. Already succumbing to agonies of remorse he took hold of one wrist, guiding her arm down to her side, then the other. He washed her stomach clean with a towel he had wet with warm water, then pulled the hem of her shirt down, covering her up. He couldn't look at her. He started to stand. She grabbed his wrist.

"Vaughn." Her voice was soft and sad.

"Don’t." His voice was tight.

He was on the verge of crying. Yanking his wrist from her grasp, he stood, collected the shirts he had thrown to the floor, and left, closing her door as he went.

Every vein, every muscle, every cell seemed to be collapsing. Imploding. Slow.

Excruciating. Inevitable. Even his will. With the last, sad remnant of volition he forced his cumbersome, sagging body into his room, and shut the door.

What had he done? God. God!

How could he have done that? To her! He'd terrorized her. Made her cry. Made her cringe and tremble. This girl who'd kissed him so sweetly the night before, who'd held him and let him hold her. And today, as she'd trembled and cried, he'd gotten off.

The most revolting insult he could have imagined.

Could anyone live, hating themselves this way? He'd thought he hated her, but his darkest feelings for Devan were nothing beside the violent, revolting disgust he felt for himself now that he'd 'punished' her.

Poor Devan. What must she be thinking? What must she be feeling? She must be terrified, frightened he could come back any time, hurt her again. Do something even more violent, even uglier. And, god, she must be so hurt. Everything that had enraged Vaughn—the certainty of her duplicity, the belief she'd read his letters and journals, that she'd deliberately spied on him jerking off—paled and receded to irrelevance. Now, now that he'd hurt her, all he could see was her face as it had been the night before, so soft and close, the look in her eyes so warm and eager, her kisses, her movement shy and hot at once. It seemed impossible now that just last night he'd held her. So warm, so soft, so nervous in his arms. It hurt now, so badly, to remember how happy and hopeful he'd briefly felt with her. He'd crushed it all. His hope, what little trust she'd come to feel, with the ugly thing he'd done.

He remembered her sudden fear as he'd kissed her the night before. How could he have imagined it had been pretended? Remembering it now, he knew. It was real.

She had really wanted him, but something…for some reason, she'd been afraid. Only now that it was done did he sense the truth of it. It didn't matter why she'd come or what she'd done. Even if he were right about the letters and the journal, Devan—this tender girl who had trembled under his hand when he'd been his most gentle—did not deserve his cruelty.

It hurt. God, it hurt so, so much, this need to go back, to undo what he'd done.

Take it back, the cruel words, the way he'd grabbed her, dragged her, forced her down, and…god. He couldn't even face the memory.

The image of her hiding in her room, dreading his return, wounded by the cruelty of someone she'd shown such tenderness, who'd been tender with her, pained him. He 143

wished he could make himself disappear. Give her peace. He eyed the gun he'd found under her pillow, wished he'd left it there. Wished, with his whole being, she'd shot him.

He went on gazing at that gun a long time.

There was nothing, really, he could do, since there was no undoing what he'd done. But he couldn't stand leaving her there, in her room, imagining he still thought, felt whatever had made him capable of hurting her. It was pathetic, far too little after far too much, but he could at least go to her, tell her how sorry he was, promise he'd leave her alone, that she was safe.

Immediately he imagined her shrinking away and trembling with fear at the sound of his footsteps approaching, at the sound of his knock on her door. Argh! Unbearable!

Christ, he wanted a drink. Wanted to numb his feelings, blur the memories. No.

He would do nothing that would loosen his already frail grip on himself.

He opened his door, went to the little desk, got a pen and paper, and returned to his room. He did not think and plan, but poured out onto the sheet his sorrow and regret, careful not to seek her pity or to write a single word in reference to any tender feeling, any intimacy they had shared, feeling painfully, intuitively that it would be profane to do so. Then he went and slipped the note, folded in two, under her door.

She heard his steps in the hall, then his door being closed. The sympathy she had somehow felt as she saw his shamed posture, his hurt eyes, heard the misery in his voice evaporated once he was out of her sight and she was left in silence.

She wanted it gone. Obliterated. What was it, anyway? An albatross. A terrible weight. If she hadn't been a virgin, would Conrad have even bothered with her? Not likely. But if he had, how much smaller his power over her would have been.

And Vaughn? She couldn't guess what had happened between their interlude by the fire the night before and his violent rage today, but she knew, with an absolute if intuited certainty, that if she hadn't been a virgin, she'd have slept with him last night, and if she'd done that, the rest would never have happened. Probably they'd be traipsing about in the woods right now, holding hands, or maybe laying together by the fire, reading or talking softly to one another.

Instead, the albatross had put her in fresh peril, made her the victim of more violence. And here she was, again—fuck, would it ever be any different?—terrified that it was soon to be violently, painfully torn from her. It—her unasked for, unwanted, useless virginity—made her a target, made her vulnerable, kept her afraid. She wanted it gone.

It was good, maybe, that Vaughn was probably going to come back soon, that he'd shove her down onto the bed again. But this time, he'd do more than force her to watch while he masturbated and ejaculated on her belly. The image drove a hot little quiver through her. The next time, very soon, he'd put his hands on her. He'd strip her bare. Or pull and tear at her clothes just enough so he could get what he wanted. Then he'd tear into her. He'd grind her up under his huge, hard body, forcing his hardness into her again and again until he was done.