Reasonable Doubts (14 page)
Authors: Evie Adams
CHAPTER 4 - ANNA
The plane to Carson City was long, but comfortable, the National party had splurged for first class tickets, so we drank champagne and had warm towels.
When we landed, I was struck by everything seeming the same, just a little different. It smelled more earthy, the breeze was warmer, and the sky was brighter, the sun seemed closer, but all in all, it was very familiar and not very different from home.
The $50,000 donation from Marcus had led to Tommy's promotion and this opportunity. I only packed for a month and the apartment back home was still in my name, a place to return to, but the freedom of packing all that you needed for a month in three bags was liberating. There wasn't anything I really needed to return home for, which was thrilling and exciting.
The apartment they rented for us actually turned out to be a house, which was a wonderful surprise. It was a little blue house in a neighborhood full of white houses and red doors and white picket fences. And it was fully furnished, if a little dusty. I didn't see much of the town on our ride, but it seemed the furthest place from the glitz and glamor and bright lights of Las Vegas as you could imagine. This town had cowboy boots and a western theme and silver mine theme for everything, from steak houses to bars all being ‘Silver something’, but overall it seemed like any place in America.
I cleaned and dusted the place, and tried to make it homey- it felt really strange for me, as a New Yorker to make a suburban home, but it was only a trial run anyways, if it didn't fit I could leave it. The freedom felt wonderful to me.
Tommy watched me clean, he seemed to enjoy it, “So they're flying me into Vegas tonight apparently, to set up for a fundraiser at one of the convention centers. Want to come?”
Vegas
, I said in my head. “Definitely, but I'm feeling pretty domestic right now, the house, the picket fences, the cleaning and dusting.”
“Are you really picking dusting over Las Vegas?”
“Yes, I think so.”
“I didn’t think you’d take to this at all, but fine. You can fly in or drive in tomorrow with the Governor if you want. I'll be working tonight anyways. Feel any lucky numbers? A special affinity for red or black? Anything like that?”
“Not really,”
“Ok, then I'll see you tomorrow.” He had his bag and was ready to go, I kissed him on the cheek at the door, and it felt like I was playing a role in a movie. I was content, not happy, not sad, not excited not bored. Content.
This was nice.
I cleaned and cleaned until I was ready to pass out. I finally managed to fall asleep, not easy in a strange new place, and the eerie quiet of the new neighborhood, but showering off the cleaning smells helped.
I dreamt of a man next to me in bed, so vividly that I could almost smell him. I woke in the middle of the night and could only see the blue black darkness. Then I could smell something, someone. I heard breathing and started to make out a figure standing over me, I tried to scream but a hand cupped my mouth, I tried to struggle and push him away but he was too strong for me.
Suddenly he kissed me, hard, painfully, and drew his hand down my body. My god, I thought, he's going to rape me. I tried to scratch him, my knee went up to hit him in the crotch, but he blocked it with his own knee.
I struggled more violently, but he tossed me against the bed and put a gag over my mouth and quickly bound my feet and hands, before wrapping me in my own bed sheets, like a mummy. He pulled me over his shoulder, like a sack of potatoes and bounced my stomach on his shoulder, knocking the wind out of me.
I panicked, thinking what might be happening. Kidnapped, murdered, would I be raped first? What was happening and why did I ever agree to come out here? I started kicking and squirming again, but he bounced me again on his shoulder. He almost tenderly patted me on the ass as I struggled to breath, but when I did breath steady, he started walking. Taking me out of the house and out to the street.
I tried to struggle again, squirming, yelling through the gag, but my voice was weak and muffled, and my body wrapped too tight for the struggle to do any good. I was unloaded, unceremoniously on my ass to a hard surface, and when I struggled again a hard slap on my backside was the result.
A motor started, and took me from my new home and new life, into the dark and unknown future.
After a time, I realized there was more than one captor, voices spoke to each other softly in the front seat, but laughed too. The fear of rape multiplied and I wondered what other horrors would be in store for me. The vehicle slowed and the road- if it was still a road- became bumpier and harder to transverse. I had no idea what the countryside would look like here. I listened for tells or landmarks, or something that could tell me where I was or where I was going, but because I didn’t know anything about this area, even if I heard something it wouldn’t be any use to me.
All I could think of in my head was that vast expanse of desert I had seen from the plane. Desolate and empty. Of course they were taking me into the desert, away from all civilization, where no one could come to help. Falling from a moving vehicle in my condition- bound, wrapped and gagged- seemed like a bad idea before, but now it seemed much better than being brought to nowhere.
I squirmed silently, inched my leg over the door panel of what must have been a jeep or something close to it and pulled myself with my legs toward the door. I wasn't at all sure I could do what I had pictured in my mind. To have my legs over the door and pull myself up and over with my legs, out of the moving vehicle. I lay there for I don't know how long imagining how I could do it, even if it seemed impossible. If I could only time it while the vehicle was slowed and rocking over the rough road, where the jeep rocked and dipped, to help me. But that was impossible without seeing. We passed a few more rough road areas and I believed there was a pattern, I just had to time it after the front of the jeep seemed to dip, then the back and side would come up, and it would help me over.
Just as I had felt I had mustered enough courage to try, we stopped abruptly. I heard more voices and was lifted out gently, and the sheets covering my legs were cut, freeing me to run, but I only made it a few steps before I was grabbed by another set of arms, and heard more laughter behind me and voices in a language I didn't understand.
So this was it. I tried to cry and scream, but barely anything came out. I was thrown into a boat, and a body settled in next to me, holding me. And we rode on the water, my chance to escape gone as quickly as it had come.
CHAPTER 5 -ANNA
I couldn't have been brought to the ocean could I have?
We were further away than that I thought. Nevada was a desert, I couldn’t comprehend how we were on a boat. But one sure thing a boat did mean, my chances for escape had just vanished. If I somehow got overboard, there was no way I could swim wrapped in a sheet and bound and gagged, and although death may have been a better choice than the unknown fate awaiting me, drowning was too frightening a way to go. I sat quietly, beaten for the moment, and felt the cool breeze through the sheet and the vibrations of the engine coming up through the floor of the boat.
After maybe an hour, the boat slowed down, and we rode slowly for another twenty minutes, I could feel the sunlight peering through the horizon, and coming through the sheet very slowly, like a candle lit in the next room.
Finally the boat stopped, and I was pulled up, and set on a dock, with hands still on me, guiding me. I could hear the small waves lapping at a shoreline, and the side of the boat, and finally I was pushed forward, I froze when I felt no hands guiding me, I didn’t want to fall in the water, but an arm wrapped around my waist and made me walk forward, slowly as my legs felt for the dock and the land.
We walked this way for another few minutes, on what seemed to be a nice well-worn gravel path, then a door opened and I was pushed inside and my hands untied, then the door shut again on me. I pulled the sheet off and untied the gag and blindfold to see what horrors awaited me now.
I was surprised to see a normal, if sparse, lake cottage. It was one square room, with two blocked off bedrooms, with only sheets for doors, a wood stove, and a table, set right before two windows overlooking a great big lake, with mountains in the distance. My eyes took it all in, and were delighted at a sumptuous breakfast spread of fresh oranges, cantaloupe, strawberries, blueberries, grapefruit, waffles, pancakes, flan, and gallons of coffee and juices. I quit being scared for a moment and ate as much as I could, as fast as I could. I had no idea I was so hungry, I was too busy being terrified, and even though the thought that the food or drink was drugged entered my head, I didn't care, I was starving.
“That's not very lady like of you,” A voice spoke through one of the curtains behind me.
I froze, my mouth was too full to talk.
“I can see you're going to be difficult, Anna. But now that you're here and know you belong to me, maybe you won't run away anymore?” He laughed out loud.
I couldn't believe what he said. He faced me and I couldn't speak, could barely stand, the dark eyes, handsome face, and cruel laugh staring at me.
“You have no idea how long I've waited to see that look on your face.” He came closer. “Ever since that night you kneed me and left.”
“You!” I screamed at him. “What are you doing here? And how dare you kidnap and bring me here?”
“I knew you wouldn't be begging and pleading for your release, but I figured you'd understand a little quicker.”
“I'd never beg anything from you.”
“We’ll see about that.”
“What the hell am I doing here and what the hell are you doing here?”
“I guess I'll have to explain. Disappointing really.” He sat down and paused before starting, staring at me. “I hate explaining myself. I get rid of people who make me do it, but your case is different I guess. The first time I saw you I knew I wanted you. I tried to win you in the civilized way, I offered all that I had, I was polite, I pretended I cared, and you rejected me. So, I made a new plan. I made a donation that I knew would change the arc of that boy Tommy's career and arranged an opportunity here. If you hadn't followed, I would have arranged something similar for you. But here you were, falling into my lap.”
“You did all this?” I couldn’t believe it.
He paused again and smoldered as he looked at me. “You will not interrupt me again until I'm finished. Is that understood?”
I nodded.
“So, here you are. You belong to me. You can run, but it's dangerous out there for you, a city girl and all.”
“You've kidnapped me, for what? Look, just send me back, and I won’t tell anyone. I think you’ve made a real big mistake if you think I’ll stay here against my will.” I told him in my best steely voice.
“I don’t make mistakes, and that is exactly what you’ll do. But I think you’ll come to like it.”
“Like it?” The lake and the mountains and food were all beautiful,- and so was he- but this wasn’t the way things happened. This was criminal. “I’ll kill you or myself before I stay here willingly.”
“First, I'd never allow you to kill yourself. Not with all it took to get you here. Second, you could try, but I don’t think you’ll succeed and I don’t think you want to anyways.”
“If this is some sort of plan to date me or marry me, you’re going about it the wrong way,” I tried to joke, this was all so crazy.
“Let’s be clear, I don’t date and you will not be my wife. It's clear to me that you don't want a meek little man to be your lap-dog. And it's very clear to me that I don't want to be that man. I tried that already, you said no. So, we'll have this, until I get bored with you and send you home. You are my captive, that's all.”
I went to slap him or scratch him, he grabbed me and held me, I moved my knee up and he pushed it away. “No more of that.” He said and leaned in, and kissed me hard again, penetrating my mouth with his tongue. I bit his lip, but he seemed to almost like it, he smiled and swooped me up and carried me over to the bed.
He held both my wrists together in one hand as he leaned over me. I struggled, but his grip was too tight. “I've been dying to see how the rest of you looks, even when you're not wrapped up in bed sheets you're wrapped too tight.” He untied the clothes I had on, my sleeping clothes, and ripped them open.
I screamed and tried to struggle, but it was no use. He bent down and kissed my neck and on down, down, until I was on fire. “I want you,” He said softly.
But if strength couldn't stop him, something else had to. “You'll have to rape me against my will. I hate you.”
He let go and the desire left his face and eyes and voice. “I won't rape you. When I fuck you it will be because you want it, because you want me as much as I want you. I promise you that.”
“That will never happen, believe me.” I told him.
“We'll see.” Is all he said and walked out.
So, I was safe from rape anyways and all the things I had imagined, but I was still a captive.