“I see,” Alexa said. They seemed to be very well organized here. She wondered how long this peculiar resort town had been involved in this strange business, and how Martina had ever heard of it.
“Now, if you’re taken and things become just too much for you, all you have to do is use your escape word, and it will all stop immediately. Of course, that will also mean that you’re bailing out of the competition.”
“Yes. I understand that,” Alexa said. “But, uh, just how bad might things actually get?”
“You must understand that we have a very, very selective screening process here,” Lydia replied. “The men have some very strict rules that they must follow. If they don’t, they’re banned for life.”
“Has that ever happened?”
“Once or twice,” Lydia admitted. “It’s very rare. If you were a man who’d gone through the long process of being approved to come here, wouldn’t you be very, very careful not to do anything to get yourself thrown out?”
“I suppose,” Alexa shrugged. “But about what could happen?”
“Oh,” Lydia smiled. “Well, obviously, if you’re captured by a group of men all of them will want to make use of you.”
“In what ways?” Alexa pressed.
“Straight, oral and anal,” Lydia replied clinically. “You’re free to try to resist, of course, but many women find that once they’ve been taken captive that submitting comes fairly easily. Some of them resist anyway, chiefly so that the men have to ‘force’ them. There are all sorts of sexual fantasies.”
“Um…yeah, sure,” Alexa said. “But wouldn’t some of that hurt?”
“Some women also enjoy the pain,” Lydia answered. “And the men have all been given extensive training to avoid doing any serious damage.”
“And you just…act as a referee for all of this?”
“Not just,” Lydia said. “Look.” She began unbuttoning the high collar of her dress. She pulled the material away so that Alexa could see that under it she wore a thin black leather collar with a big, silvery metal ring dangling from it.
“What’s that for?” Alexa asked.
“Another part of the uniform,” Lydia smiled as she buttoned back up. “It never shows, but anyone who’s been here before knows it’s there, under the dress.”
“Why?” Now Alexa felt confused.
Lydia’s smile widened. “Because sometimes I get to play too,” she said. “And some men really, really like the idea of bagging a proctor. Here’s this woman with absolute authority over them, and if they can just find a way to get her out of her dress she’s theirs to play with however they want…for a while, anyway. As I said, there are all sorts of sexual fantasies.” She buttoned back up. “This is a unique place where many of them can be acted out.” She tilted her head and looked at Alexa. “Do you have any that you’d like to act out?”
“Not really,” Alexa replied.
“Then why are you here?”
“For the competition,” Alexa said. “I don’t want to talk about my fantasies, or lack of them, any more.”
“All right.” Lydia seemed disappointed. “Usually the women who come here are looking for adventure. But if you made it past all the psych evaluations they must have figured that you could hack it here. I won’t pry any further.”
Alexa had been thinking about asking Lydia for more details about what had been done to her in the past, but realized that if she wasn’t going to share anything with the woman there was no reason for Lydia to be forthcoming herself. And even if Lydia chose to speak freely, that just opened up opportunities for her to ask questions of her own, and Alexa didn’t want to answer any of them. She was still a bit queasy over the possibility of anal sex. It was something she’d never even considered in the past.
“Uh…I have a question,” she said to Lydia.
“Of course,” Lydia responded. “What is it?”
“Is there any way…any way I could get a man to stop doing something without having to use that word and bail out of it all entirely?”
Lydia chuckled. “I suppose you could always say ‘please’,” she said. “But I rather doubt that it will work. What were you thinking of?”
“Uh…anal sex,” Alexa replied. “I’ve never done it, I’ve never wanted to do it, and just the thought of it makes me feel filthy.” She shivered.
“Oh.” Lydia nodded. “That’s a fairly common reaction among first-timers, which is why we don’t usually let them in here. But really, Alexa, if you get taken and a man wants your ass, there’s not a lot you can do to stop him, especially if he has friends along. Are you at all sure that you even belong out here?”
“I’m not as certain as I was yesterday,” Alexa shrugged. “But I’m here now, so I guess I’ll stick it out.”
“Well, that’s not the most positive thing I’ve ever heard a woman in your position say,” Lydia commented.
Alexa had no answer to that, so for a while the two of them were silent. Then, after a while, Alexa heard that buzzing sound again.
“It’s begun,” Lydia announced. “I have to go now. Best of luck to you.”
“Thanks,” Alexa replied as she made a beeline to her stacked gear. She didn’t know how much time she might have before hunters began sweeping through this area, but she didn’t want to waste any of it. The first thing she checked was her backpack, making sure that it held everything she’d stored away in it last night. It did, so she shrugged it on. When she straightened up to ask Lydia one last question the other woman was nowhere to be seen. For a moment she just stood there, feeling a bit overwhelmed at the knowledge that she was completely on her own now. Then she went back to work.
Her extra supplies were all food and water, packed in three waterproof bags made of heavy, camouflaged cloth. She hefted one of them by its thick handle of webbing. It seemed heavier than she remembered. There was no chance she’d be able to lug it very far, but if she could find a good hiding spot for it she wouldn’t have to. She began to search around. In a very short while she found a big, hollowed-out log that might suit her purposes. The bag proved to be a very tight fit, but she managed to stuff it far enough back in the log that no one would see it unless they got down on their knees to look in. That done, she went back and got one of the two remaining bags. A hasty sweep of the area turned up no ideal hiding places, so she resorted to stashing it inside a blackberry thicket and throwing some leaves over it until she thought it was as concealed as it was ever going to get.
She wasn’t sure how much time had passed since the competition had started. It would have been nice to have her watch, or even her cell phone, since it had a time function. There was so
much
she didn’t know. She’d seen maps of the area ‘north of the main road’, but hadn’t been allowed to carry one. She’d tried very hard to memorize it, but even if she had a photographic memory it wouldn’t have done her any good at the moment since she had no idea where she was. For a moment she simply stood still, feeling very much alone and very much on her own. She shrugged the feeling off and picked up her last bag. It was just as heavy as the others had been, but she decided to carry it with her until she found some landmark she could recognize easily and stash it somewhere near there. She hoped she’d be able to find the other two later. The hollow log and the blackberry thicket would be easy enough to spot once she got near them, but she thought that she might have a little trouble getting near them. The forest here looked entirely unremarkable. She shrugged and kept walking. There wasn’t anything she could do about that now.
The bag was heavy enough that she had to make frequent stops and put it down on the ground for a while. She was moving slowly anyway, trying to stay in cover and not make any unnecessary noise while at the same time straining her ears for any hint that other people were nearby. She saw no one, she heard no one, and later in the day she came to a small stream that trickled its way through the woods. She laid the bag aside and sat down on a mossy rock to rest.
She was feeling pretty good right now. The weather was warm and mild, and she’d had just enough exercise to feel pleasantly pumped, as if she’d just completed her warming-up exercises. She looked up to see where the sun was, and noticed that it was to her left, and lower than it had been when Lydia had taken the bag off of her head. Okay, that meant that she was heading north. Good. That was the way she wanted to be going. It was away from the main road, and so, probably, away from the men who would be hunting for her and her friends. She wondered where those friends were now, and if she would run into any of them. She hoped not. Until this contest was over she hoped that she wouldn’t run into anybody at all.
As long as she was moving, she didn’t have to think. But she had to rest from time to time, and when she did she couldn’t help thinking. Thinking made her uneasy. There was more than just her shapely white ass riding on this competition. Martina had talked everyone into putting up money on a bet. Whoever won the competition would get the money. It was a considerable sum, and coming up with her share of it had strained Alexa’s resources to their limits. If she didn’t win, it would take her a long time to pay off the debt she had run up. The thought only reinforced her grim determination to win. She
had
to win. She wanted the money, to be sure, but even more than that she wanted to finally beat those arrogant, beautiful, well-toned bitches at something.
She had always been the ‘also-ran’ in their loose-knit group, never placing higher than third in any athletic competition she entered and usually coming in lower than that. She was in superb shape, and she worked very hard to keep herself that way, but it seemed that no matter how hard she tried there was always some woman faster, stronger, more skilled or more ruthless than she was who came in first. Well, in getting as far as she had she’d beaten four of the bunch already. That left just three to go: Martina, Lynette, and Naomi. Since she wasn’t competing with any of them directly, she thought that she had a pretty good chance. In any case, none of them, herself included, had any experience in this kind of contest, so they should all be starting out more or less even. Actually, she might even have the edge now. She’d spent a lot of time learning all she could about hiking, camping and wilderness survival, keeping her efforts secret from the others. Nothing had quite prepared her, though, for how very alone and vulnerable she felt right now.
Resting was necessary, but resting meant thinking, and thinking led to doubts and fears. Alexa stood and picked up the bag again. There was a pile of rocks on the other side of the stream that might be a good hiding place for it. Once she had stashed it away she could keep moving without having to stop so often. The next thing she’d have to do would be find some safe place to sleep tonight. Would the hunters be active at night? They weren’t supposed to have any special equipment, so maybe not.
Once she’d picked out a concealed spot for her sleeping bag, Alexa munched on a trail mix bar and considered what to do next. It was very quiet and peaceful out here in the woods. Actually, it was a little too quiet and peaceful for her. She was used to having other people around, and this solitude made her feel strangely uneasy. She wondered how the apparently legendary Elf-Girl had dealt with it. But from what she’d heard, that woman had been very active the whole time she was out in the wilderness, so maybe she didn’t have time to get bored.
There was still a lot of daylight left, and she didn’t feel like just hanging around her intended campsite until it got dark. For all of the supplies she’d picked up, she hadn’t thought to bring along anything to read, and she regretted that now. Maybe she could pick up something at one of those trading posts Lydia had mentioned? She’d have to find out, but not today. She might as well do a little exploring and familiarize herself with the area. She could follow the little stream and see where it went without worrying about getting lost and not being able to find this spot again. She’d travel light for this first exploration, bringing along only her canteen, some snacks to munch on, and a few other things. After hiding everything she wasn’t going to be carrying under some fallen leaves, she set out. There was a temptation to walk briskly, but she resisted it. It seemed better to go slowly and carefully, keeping a watch out for any intruders.
During her walk, she began to realize all of the things she was missing out here. There were no other people which was actually a good thing, but she didn’t have a watch, a map, or any way of telling how far she’d walked. How many steps to a mile, anyway? And how many miles was it from one end of this place to the other? The sun was slowly settling in the direction she was walking, so at least she knew that she was heading west. She really didn’t know much more than that, though.
She was just making her way around a big thicket when she heard voices coming from somewhere up ahead, too far off to make out words, but near enough to know that at least one of the speakers was a man. She hunkered down behind the thicket and slowly moved to a spot where she could peer around her cover. One of the things she’d picked up from all the books she’d read was that if you were trying to not be noticed you didn’t break a skyline when you wanted to have a look.
She saw two men, dressed in rough clothes; talking to a woman clad in an identical long black dress to the one Lydia had worn. A moment later, she realized that it was Lydia herself. A little ways past the trio, Alexa could see a two-story wooden building, partly obscured from view by the trees and shrubs. It looked like an old farmhouse, worn dark gray by wind and weather. Was that one of the trading posts Lydia had mentioned? If it was, finding it so early was a stroke of luck.
One of the men said something, and Lydia laughed. Alexa still couldn’t make out any words. She did notice that the men’s attention was focused solely and intently on Lydia, and that made her feel a bit safer where she was. That thought prompted her to look around behind her to see if anyone was sneaking up on her from that direction. She saw nothing. While that was a relief, she wondered just how paranoid she’d be by the time all this was over. She turned back. They were still talking. Finally, Lydia simply nodded, and then the three of them walked off towards the building, the men following closely behind her. Well, there was no way of telling what was happening there, but it didn’t seem like a good idea to go and check it out in person. Alexa slowly straightened up and had another look around. Satisfied that she was alone, she made her way back to where she’d left her sleeping bag. It should be safe to spend the night there, but it would probably be a good idea to relocate tomorrow. If she could go downstream to the trading post, if that’s what it was, someone could come upstream from there and maybe find her. She didn’t intend for that to happen.