“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 29
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 31
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 32
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.
He slammed his gun down on the counter and ran after her. He would catch her before she could reach the woods. She, putting everything into running as fast as she possibly could, heard him behind her. Closer. Closer. She strained harder, pleading with fate, pleading with her body to run fast enough to stay beyond his reach. He gained, reached out, and caught the back of her shirt in his fist. Yanking back, he pulled her off her feet. Instinctively she swung backward, hoping to hit him in the face, hoping he 35
would lose his grip. He caught her arm in one strong hand, grabbed her other arm with his other hand Holding her from behind he pinned her forearms to her abdomen as he wrestled her down onto her knees.
This one’s not like him. No talk, no games. He’s going to do it right here, in the
mud and rain. Right now.
He was huge. She felt immaterial, weightless, formless. Her legs, bent beneath both their weight, pinned between his legs, her arms crushed to her beneath his arms.
He was on her, panting. She could feel him, hard, pressing into her backside. She did not cry. She did not scream. She was as frozen and immobilized inside as out.
He felt her, small, frozen, trembling beneath him. He realized that he could just fuck her, here in the mud and rain. Humiliate her. Hurt her.
That’s what she deserves.
He held her pinned as he imagined sliding her pants down, baring her ass, pictured her struggling as he unbuckled his belt and opened his fly so he could pull out the hard-on brought on by their struggle.
Disgusted by his impulse, he grabbed her by the elbows and, standing, pulled her up with him, wrenching her elbows behind her back. More violently than he had to he pushed her ahead of him, marching her back to the cabin.
As they went through the door he grabbed the gun he had left on the counter, then with his other hand shoved her away from him. He turned, locked the back door behind him, and turned back to her. He looked her over, top to bottom, his otherwise stoic face betrayed by a mouth turned down with condescending hatred, the hand with the gun shaking slightly.