Chapter 10

"OH, GOD," RITA HUSKED, HER VOICE WAVERING again between sorrow and awe, "King is dead."

"Good riddance to the big sonofabitch," Todd muttered. He waved the gun toward Rita. "You want it next, sweetheart...."

Rita stared wildly at him, her lips quivering and then I saw her eyes go hard, cunning. Her mouth jerked into a caricature of a smile. "No ... no, you got me all wrong, Todd. King didn't mean nothing to me. I proved that to you, didn't I? I mean we were going good when he woke up weren't we?" She licked her lips quickly, trying another smile, letting her breasts jut hopefully forward through the thin robe. "You got what I want, Todd. I knew that the minute you walked into this place. That's why I poured the drinks down King. Hell, I wanted you as much as you...."

"Who said I wanted you? You flea-bitten slut!" Todd hissed.

She grinned right through the insult, her eyes caressing him, teasing over his battered face. "Honey," she whispered, "I got lots to give you-you don't know what I can do with my body. I can drive you wild, satisfy you any way you want. I know ways, good ways...."

"Yeah, you're a real queen," Todd acknowledged, but the tone of his voice was a sensual slur. The gun dropped a little.

Rita took a step toward him and snuggled against his shoulder. She looked at me triumphantly, her narrowed green eyes full of hatred. "What about her?" she breathed. "Why don't you use that gun to...."

"Shut your damn mouth," Todd growled. "I got plans for her, too-once we get out of here."

Rita shrugged. "When Joe gets back...."

"We aren't waiting for Joe. To hell with him," Todd muttered.

"Don't you thing we oughta...."

"I said, to hell with him! Let him work his own way out of this. I'm not going to get caught with a goddamned body on my hands."

"But, Todd, we've got to stay here. We've got no place to go."

"We'll find a place. We'll head back west."

He glared at me with malevolent eyes. "Now do you intend to come peaceably, or do we have to drag you?"

I weighed everything very quickly in my mind, If I struggled now, I might lose possession of the knife. But, if I didn't struggle ...

"I don't have much choice," I said, quietly. "Do

I?"

"Smart girl."

Todd stared around the kitchen.

"Grab the whiskey and some of that food," he commanded. "Get it ready for the car, while I wash up. Hurry!"

I packed the food in a cardboard box found under the cabinet. Rita gathered up the stock of liquor she has set in. My mind raced frantically for some clue to leave Joe-and some opportunity to do it.

When we had everything packed, I started out of the kitchen. Todd had returned, wiping his face.

"Where the hell do you think...."

"To get my purse."

"Leave it."

I looked at Todd, trading him glare for glare. "It's got money in it," I said, calmly. "We might need money. But if you want to be stupid enough to...."

"Okay-get it." A sour smile eroded his face. "And take a look at King on your way through. It might remind you not to try any tricks with me."

Going past the living room, I deliberately avoided looking at King. I only knew that there was a corpse slumped over the smashed coffee table and that a pool of blood was forming darkly on the worn carpet. I didn't shudder. I had seen death before.

In the bedroom I closed the door behind me and snatched my purse off the little night table. I rummaged quickly in it for my lipstick, at the same time hiding the knife at the bottom under a wad of Kleenex. Going back to the door I uncapped the lipstick, and hurriedly scribbled: WEST-GAS.

It was all I had time for before the footsteps reached the door and kicked it open.

"What the hell is holding you up!" Todd demanded, looking at me suspiciously.

"I'm ready," I said, pushing the door back against the wall.

I knew that if he looked on the other side of that door and saw what I had done....

He brushed past me and stared blankly around the room. There was nothing out of the way there for him to see. He sighed and made a jabbing movement toward the kitchen with the gun.

"Move it, baby," he said.

When we had loaded the whiskey and food into the car, Todd made me lie down between the seats in the back. He slid up the garage door and then crawled in beside me, crouching down, the gun still clutched in his hand. Rita got into the driver's seat.

"Which way?" Rita gasped.

"West, I told you, dumb cunt!"

Rita turned the key, and the engine sputtered into life.

"We're lucky, Todd honey, that Joe didn't take the car," Rita trilled.

"This car is probably hotter than a nickel firecracker," Todd muttered. "We stole it from the warden."

"Oh, my God," Rita wailed.

"Shut up and drive. We'll take our chances."

Crouched in the stifling position between the seats, I couldn't help but wonder if Rita was thinking the same as I was: that Todd was taking this desperate chance, not because he was afraid the police would find the house, and King's body; but because he was afraid of what Joe might do to him if he returned and found that King had been wantonly murdered.

"We've only got a little gas," Rita informed us as the car backed quickly out of the garage and into the street.

"How much?"

"It's down-I don't know-a fourth of a tank."

My heart sank as Todd chuckled. "That's more gas than I thought we had. We can go to the moon on a fourth of a tank, baby!"

Rita put the car into drive gear and we drove quickly away down the street, leaving behind a dead man and a hastily scribbled, cryptic clue.

But it was the only thing I had to pin my hopes on-if Joe or the police ever found it!

We drove for what seemed hours. The only time I could make sense out of where we were was when Rita would stop for a red light. I could hear other cars pulling up, the squeal of brakes, the varied sounds of cars and trucks chugging and pedestrians walking.

"Get out of the traffic, you damned fool!" Todd hissed over and over.

"I'm trying to," was Rita's only excuse.

At last we were free of the city and the car picked up speed.

"Okay," Rita sighed. "You can come up for air."

We both lifted our heads. My back ached. I think another thirty minutes doubled between those seats and I would have screamed.

Fields and countryside were rolling past our windows. The signboards signaling the boundaries of the city behind us were becoming fewer and fewer.

"Pull off on the first dirt road you see," Todd instructed Rita. "I don't give a damn where it leads. The sooner we get off this highway the better."

"All right, Todd."

In about ten minutes Rita slammed on the brakes and rubber hissed.

"Back there," she-wailed. "I just passed a dirt road."

"Back up and take it!"

The car careened backwards on the highway and shot off down a dirt road. Dust boiled behind us. Several times the car swerved dangerously. It was obvious that the last hour was beginning to crumble Rita's already frayed nerves. I began to realize with a kind of thawing morbidity that, after all, Rita had seen her boy friend shot down in cold blood. That little stunt she had pulled in the kitchen was merely instinctive reaction: she had saved her own life, possibly.

I wondered now what was racing through her head.

It was obvious that she hated me; that some deep, compulsive twist of ego had set her against me because I represented something she had lost a long time ago, some dangling thread of decency. Maybe she had even hoped to regain it with King, who, compared to Todd, at least,-was faintly normal, vaguely moral.

Todd-was all animal. And the only bond that still existed between Rita and me was the fact that we realized just how much of an animal and how desperately sick this young maniac was.

I only hoped that I could rely on Rita in the pinches. My only other hope was the knife that lay tucked under the Kleenex in my purse-and even now, that was out of my reach!

"Turn again here!" Todd barked.

A second dirt road-less used, narrower, rutted-twisted off from the one we were on, and ran zigzagging toward a distant clump of trees. I saw what I thought was the crumbling outline of a house hidden in the towering moss of leaves.

As we got closer it indeed turned out to be a farm house. It looked vacant, and long deserted.

"Pull around back," Todd directed.

Rita slowed down and maneuvered the car around the side of the old house and pulled up beside a cement-and-brick-covered cellar. She cut off the engine and the silence of the countryside settled in around us like a cloak.

"Perfect," Todd said, smiling thickly. "This ought to make a nice little nest until I think of-well, until we decide to move on."

There was something ominous in the tone of his voice, and I glanced at Rita to see if she had detected anything. But she was wiping her brow, and trembling under the light blouse she had thrown on at the last minute.

I knew her nerves were near the bursting point. And mine were not far behind her. We carried the food and the liquor into the house like slaves, with Todd standing guard over us, his gun hand following every movement we made.

As he herded us in front of him like cattle, we explored the house. It was abandoned, but the people who lived there had left a considerable amount of junk behind. It was as if they had despised the years of poverty that had ground them into the dirt on the land and had left everything behind that they could, spitting a scornful farewell as they slammed the door for the last time.

The furniture-what was left of it-was junk: a battered table with only three legs, a couple of crippled chairs, a yawning old trunk with fading wallpaper pasted inside. And upstairs the same miscellaneous collection of refuse-with one major exception.

In one of the rooms there was an old iron bedstead with a misshapen, dirty mattress stretched across its sagging springs.

We looked at it in silence and then Todd shoved us ahead of him back downstairs.

We settled in the rickety chairs like frightened birds.

"How about getting us a little drink," Todd husked, glancing at Rita. "Sure, honey."

She trotted obediently off to the kitchen. I could hear the clink of bottles.

"Not a glass on the place, sugar...." Rita piped, with a disgusting effort not to annoy him.

"Bring the damned bottle," Todd yelled. "We'll suck it out!" He looked at me and winked.

I turned away from him in disgust.

"You know, baby," he breathed, quietly leering at me, "You might as well learn to like me. I got a feeling you and me are going to get a lot better acquainted before we say good-bye."

I fingered the purse in my lap, and said nothing.

Rita came back with the bottle. She minced her hips as she walked, absurd in her make-believe act of sensuality.

Todd took the bottle and swigged down a mouthful of the warm whiskey. He made a face and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Have a drink," he said, holding it out to me.

"No, thanks."

"I said, have a drink! Take it to her, Rita."

Rita brought the bottle to me and thrust it into my face. "He said to take a drink, Miss Fink." She giggled throatily at her little joke. Todd laughed, too. They both laughed harshly and loudly and too long.

I took the bottle and touched it to my lips. The half-thimble's worth I got washed around in my mouth for a long time before swallowing it.

I had no intention-no intention in the world of allowing my senses to be dulled by alcohol.

After another drink or two, Rita was sitting on Todd's lap and his hands were playing with her breasts. She made little babyish yipping noises every time he touched her-and he touched her all over. She acted as if she loved it, and bit his ear, and kissed his bruised cheek, where King had landed a few murderous blows.

In a few moments my heart jumped gratefully as he handed Rita the gun.

"Keep an eye on Florence Nightingale," he said, calmly. "I'm going to look this place over. Make sure the car is well out of sight from that road."

Rita balanced the gun unsteadily in her hand. "Sure, honey," she gulped.

He looked at her for a long moment. "Remember, baby," he warned. "I'm giving you a big responsibility with that little gun. Don't foul up."

"I-won't, Todd."

"You'd better not. You know why? I took all the shells out except one. You let our prisoner get away, and I'm going to be kinda upset. Understand?"

"Sure, Todd-she won't get away. I promise."

"Okay...." He tossed me a grin and wink. "See you soon, baby. You girls have a nice little chat while I'm gone."

His footsteps died away in the kitchen and the back screen door slapped shut.

Rita and I sat in frozen silence for a moment looking at each other.

"You know what he plans to do,". I said, quietly.

"You shut up-just shut your mouth," Rita snapped, her breath ragged and thin.

"He plans to kill us."

"I said for you to...."

"He plans to rape both of us and then kill us."

She shook her head, but the gun trembled in her hand. "Rape you, maybe," she hissed, "but not me. He don't have to rape me!"

I winced at her utter stupidity. "You little fool," I whispered fiercely. "Don't you understand anything I'm saying? Don't you know what he is? He won't be satisfied just to., .to take you the way King did. He doesn't care anything at all for you. He's sick. A creature like that can only enjoy himself if he is forcing a woman into sex, hurting her...."

"No ... no, that ain't true!"

"Of course it is. If he can't make you resist him any other way, then he'll beat you with his fists until...."

"You're lying! You're just trying to make me give you this gun...."

"That's exactly what I'm trying to do, you idiot! If you haven't got the courage, then give me the gun and I'll do it."

Rita's lower lip trembled like a shaken leaf. "Do what?"

"Kill him, if I have to. Anything to get us out of this!"

"God," Rita murmured, sucking in her breath with fear. "You don't really think Todd would...."

"He's already killed King. He'll kill us, too-but not before he.. , "

The words died in my throat. A look of incredible terror had passed over Rita's face. Apparently she had caught sight of something behind me.

I swerved around in my chair.

Todd was standing at another doorway, watching us, a length of rope in his hands. The look on his face was the twisted leer of the satyr, demented, brutal cunning. He began walking toward me.

I whirled back to Rita. "Shoot him!" I yelled. "Shoot him, Rita!"

But she only stared at Todd, transfixed, motionless.

CHAPTER ll

RITA WAS LIKE A SMALL BIRD, HYPNOTIZED before the menacing coil of a python.

She couldn't move. The gun became a piece of wood in her hand. At last, instinctively, I lurched forward-but too late. Todd caught me by the shoulders with his iron grip and hurled me back into my chair. It overturned and I sprawled helplessly onto the floor. When I looked up again, Todd had the gun in his hand, leveling it at me. Rita's face was buried in her hands.

Todd sneered, "You said some awful nasty things about me just now, missy," he breathed. "Awful nasty things! You don't think I'd lay a hand on a woman that way, do you?"

"You perverted creep," I gasped. "You'd violate your own mother for kicks!"

His face went white. He took three quick strides toward me and slapped me hard. Pain seared through my cheekbones and lights flashed crazily behind my eyeballs. I whimpered, sobbing.

"You goddamned bitch," he hissed, saliva dribbling from the corner of his mouth. "If you ever say one word against my mama again...."

I knew then. I knew that he was insane-perverted, desperate, mad! Rita and I-both of us-had thrown away the best chance of surviving by not sending that one bullet crashing between his eyes.

Now it was too late.

At this point the only weapon I had left-the knife-seemed only a remote comfort. But I still had my purse, clutched in my hand.

"Get up," Todd barked. "You and me are going for another little trip." He turned and tossed the length of rope he had entered the room with into Rita's lap. "Bring that along, sweetheart," he smirked, "We're gonna need it."

Making threatening gestures with the gun, he forced me to stand up and walk to the stairs.

"Go on up-and don't try any tricks!"

I mounted the stairs slowly. Suddenly I remembered the old bed with its dirty mattress. His purpose flashed quickly-terrifyingly-through my brain. I wouldn't submit to that! Once he had me tied to that bed-no. I'd rather die! I'd rather be shot right here on the stairs!

Holding the purse in front of me I quickly opened it and dug stealthily for the knife. It was there, the cold steel of the blade in the tangle of Kleenex. I brought it out by the handle, clutching it in my sweaty hand.

I waited, biding my time as the steps began to run out and we approached the landing of the second floor.

Just at the top, at the last post of the sagging banister, I made my desperate bid for life and freedom.

I whirled and slashed at his gun hand.

I felt the knife tear into his flesh-biting into gristle and meat. He screamed a maddened curse and dropped the gun. I raised the knife again to strike.

His own anger and fear made him a tiger. His wounded hand lashed out and gripped my wrist and twisted my arm backwards, wrenching it painfully.

"Drop it or I'll break your goddamned arm!"

I didn't want to drop the knife-wouldn't have-but my arm went numb, my fingers insensible, and I heard the knife clatter to the floor.

Still holding my arm pinned behind my back, he pushed me forward toward the bedroom. I lunged against the door jamb but he kicked me on through it and shoved me down on the bed. His arms held me captive.

"Bring that rope over here," he yelled at Rita. "I'll show you how to tie her."

"Rita-" I pleaded, "Don't."

He jammed his fist over my mouth, cutting off my words.

With sinking heart, I saw Rita come forward, white and trembling, the rope held obediently in her hand.

. Move by move, he gave her directions how to make the loops and knots: first my feet-spread to either side of the bed and tied securely to the iron rods; then my hands, tied to either side of the top posts.

I was helpless now. When the knots were secure, Todd stepped back and looked at his self-directed handiwork.

"Let's see you squirm out of that, you flighty little bitch," he breathed.

Rita was watching me, breathing hard, her eyes glassy with both fear and relief. Riding over my own fury and despair was a kind of wild pity for Rita. It was obvious she thought she had been spared a similar fate-but I knew in my heart that he would not spare her. What heinous plan he had in mind for her I had no way of knowing, but I was sure that it would not be long in coming.

Todd came around the side of the bed again and took something out of his pocket. A handkerchief. He tied it carefully over my mouth. When that was completed, he stood up and stared down at me, a cold, chilling stare.

"What now, honey...." Rita husked behind him, nervously.

A cunning change came over Todd's young face.

He turned and grinned at her. "Nothing, baby. What did you think I was going to do, cut her damned throat?"

Rita blinked and swallowed hard. Todd laughed. "You girls got me all wrong. Hell, I'm just a boy who--likes a little fun." He gestured abruptly toward me for Rita's benefit. "This is a first-class bitch, honey, who won't let us enjoy ourselves. That's why I tied her up. She'll keep out of our way like this-okay?"

"Sure, honey ... sure," Rita breathed.

Todd walked over to Rita and held out his bloodied hand. "Let's you and me go back downstairs, doll," he whispered hoarsely. "I gotta pour a little whiskey on this cut-and maybe have a little piece of your slip to wrap it in. After that ... well, after that we'll have a little supper, and maybe a drink."

"What about her?" Rita wondered aloud.

"Hell, she won't starve. Let her calm down a little. If she behaves herself, I'll untie her. Understand?"

"Yes, Todd-yes, I understand."

Together they left the room. I could hear them going heavily back down the stairs.

When I was sure they were both well out of hearing, I pulled desperately on the ropes. They sliced painfully into my wrists. And they held like steel. I hoped that Rita might have cleverly put slipknots in the place of the ones Todd directed her to tie. I hoped she might have had sense enough to provide me a way out.

But that was wishful thinking, I realized now.

Wishful thinking that could prove fatal for both of us!

It seemed that hours passed ... long, crawling, ugly hours that had no beginning and no end, but merely a continuum that drove me mad with fear and helplessness.

Darkness came, filtering blue and purple shadows through the dirty windows, of the shabby room. With the shadows, new fears stalked me, spiking my imagination with the demon-dancing of terror. The possibility was very real that Todd might comeback up those stairs on tiptoe, in the darkness, his sick mind reeling with the sadistic impulse to attack me by surprise.

At every creak of the house I held my breath, waiting, listening, praying that the sounds I heard were not the sounds of footsteps.

There was nothing but silence from below.

Were they drinking, talking in whispers, making love?'

Then another thought came like a knife between my ribs: had Todd already killed her? Was he, at this moment, raping her corpse.

My brain continued to race with the most savage fears.

But nothing happened.

Not a sound from them, and nothing all around me but darkness and silence, and the occasional creak of the vacant house ...

When dawn filtered thin fingers through the window, I was still awake, my body tense, my mind more active than it could have been made with a pound of Benzedrine.

Suddenly I heard the sound of steps on the stairs. I tensed, waiting, straining at my bonds. The steps were not hurried, but measured and sure. They reached the top of the stairs and came down the short passageway to the room I was in. I cut my eyes around and stared at the door.

Todd entered.

He looked calm, refreshed. He grinned at me. "Have a good night, baby?" he husked.

I looked away from him. It was the only way I could show my loathing.

He came over to the bed and sat down. I saw that his hand had been neatly bound with a fragment of Rita's silk slip. But where was she? Where was Rita herself?

Todd's good hand snaked out slowly and touched my breasts. He pinched along the juts of my bra, slowly, carefully, savoring every inch of what he found so helplessly exposed to his whims. I struggled, yanking one final time at the hateful ropes that bound me.

He laughed, deep in his throat.

"Yeah," he whispered, pitilessly. "Fight with me, baby-I like it like that. I like it like that. I like it better when you fight me back...."

To thwart him, I stopped struggling and lay very still, breathing hard.

"You sanctimonious little cunt," he hissed. "Before I'm done with you, you're gonna wish you'd been nicer to me while you had the chance!"

He brought a knife out of his belt. I shuddered. It was the same knife I had tried to kill him with!

Expertly, coldly, he slipped the point of it into the collar of my uniform and ripped downward. The sound of tearing cloth filled the room. He cut methodically, quickly now, stripping down the side and yanking hard until I was naked from the waist up, except for my bra and slip. He stood up and worked on the rest of the uniform. He slit along the hips and down to the hem and then pulled the ruined rags away and tossed them in a corner.

His eyes were beginning to harden, to glaze with the excitement of anticipation.

The slip was easy for him. He cut the straps with two clean snips, and tore it the rest of the way off of me with his hands. The crumple of silk joined the uniform in the corner.

Panties, bra and hose-those were the only things that covered me now-the only garments that guarded my trembling, naked flesh from his monstrous desires!

He took his time getting my hose off. The nylon crackled as he ran his hand over the calves of my legs, and toyed with the garters. He unsnapped them, and rolled them, inch by inch, down each leg, until they hugged my ankles like coiled snakes. He stood back, looking at me, admiring his handiwork, trying to decide whether the panties or the bra would be the more fascinating garment to remove next!

He settled in favor of the bra.

Oh, God-how I hated the feel of his hands on me!

If only Joe were here to save me, to snatch his filthy, perverted fingers away from my flesh!

He teased the spongy cups of my bra. He slid his fingers under the edges of them and played with the mounds of flesh that naturally swelled there. At last he grew impatient of such coy maneuvers; and, digging his hands under my twisting back, he found the bra snap, and yanked it loose.

He lifted the bra from my body with trembling, sex-crazed excitement. He stared down at my naked breasts, and licked his lips over a lecherous grin.

"Nice," he whispered. "Real nice, baby-I'll bet your boyfriends get their jollies every time they suck those big, hot tits."

His thumb and index finger found each nipple in turn and played with them, gently rubbing them, defying the flesh not to harden.

I shut my eyes, fighting off the hatred of what he was doing to me-the frightful indignity he was forcing me to submit to!

But slowly-horribly-something began to happen.

He had kneaded and massaged my breasts until nature's ironic will forced me to a kind of brutal response. I felt the peaks begin to swell and harden under his relentless teasing.

He laughed softly and bent his mouth down to the quivering tips. His tongue flicker out, covering one fiercely jutting nipple. I jerked with the pleasure-agony for what his life had obviously been devoted to just such moments as this, to callously forcing women to respond to his carnal techniques. His tongue roiled and teased the straining nipples until they were stone hard. He didn't stop there. He drew up high into his greedy mouth all he could get of the awakened flesh and sucked hard, pulling the focus of pleasure right up into the peaks.

I don't know how long he played with my breasts, but when his mouth finally pulled away for the last time, I knew that he had won a kind of sensual victory. My breasts were swollen and hot; the nipples stretched up into thick plums of response, teased into the basest kind of lustfulness. His saliva glistened on the lips of them.

And then he slipped his fingers into the elastic of my panties and peeled them down over my hips.

I was panting now-half with hatred for him and half with the hard riding storm of lust that he had unleashed in me. I thought of those medieval pictures of innocent women being tormented in their beds by the succubae and incubi of the devil-creatures that stole into the beds of women at night and teased them into uncontrollable passion, and then slaked their own lust with orgies of fornication that bordered on madness!

Was this that kind of nightmare? my mind cried, as I felt the panties slipping down my trembling upper thigh, edging swiftly down to join the hose around my ankles.

And then his wanton fingers touched my nakedness.

It wasn't a fumbling touch. Nothing discreet, it was the deliberate, probing grope of a satyr; the fondle of a sex fiend who knows the exact spot to goad a female into frenzy.

His finger triggered my deepest lust.

I moaned, despite myself, and rolled on the bed. His hand cupped me over and over between the legs, and his middle finger slid again and again easily to its mark. He began to play deep inside me now, rubbing that secret erectile tissue that, once stimulated, can bring a woman to tears of joy.

I bit the gag in my mouth, tossing my head in a delirium of base pleasure.

Phantoms of my sexual instinct were suddenly unlocked-fluttering out on dark, evil wings.

My whole being became erotic, abandoned.

Words I had never allowed myself to use-to even acknowledge-came blindly into my brain, demanding to be spoken; words that I had seen scribbled on restroom walls all my life; words that I had overheard friends of mine use, the smutty vocabulary that passes between both sexes like contraband.

Pussy ... horny ... cunt ... screw!

I reveled in the new words! I drank in the sounds of them like hot nectar!

It didn't matter that the man who was bending over me was a criminal and possibly a murderer. Nothing mattered except the pleasure he was generating in me, the peaking lust that was grinding through my body as his fingers dug between the lips of my cunt and his mouth slavered again over my burning nipples.

Suck me ... yes suck me like that ... I love that!

I writhed on the bed, responding in a way that I had never responded to the touch of any man. I moaned, and sweat began to lick over my body. That only made the pleasure sweeter! I wanted him to do everything to me-to make me feel, once and for all, the ultimate shameless abandonment of a whore!

Treat me like a whore-a whore! My mind roared.

Suddenly he was off the bed, ripping off his clothes. My eyes glazed with passion, raked over his naked body, wallowing in his maleness, the size of his throbbing young prick.

If only he knew, I cried inwardly ... if only he knew how much I wanted him now, he could tear off these ropes and I'd join him in this carnival of lust!

He was blind to that, though. He was thinking only of his own aroused passion. He had planned to rape me, and now he was going to do it!

But it wasn't rape-didn't he know that?

I shuddered with ecstasy as his body enveloped mine. I arched my thighs, hungering for him to enter me. His stiffened rod touched the pouting lips of my eager cunt and rubbed back and forth, teasing me into a frenzy. And then he thrust forward and I took him into place. We worked our hips together, rutting like animals too greedy to care what the other thought.

His mouth found my tits again and sucked with biting force on the exploding nipples that begged for just such use.

Screw me, darling-screw me into hell!

The bed creaked and groaned as we built up to a frothing climax and came together, our spewing juices mixing with scalding lust!

Again! I groaned, my words muffled and senseless against the tightly stretched gag in my mouth, do it to me again!

Tears of joy rolled down my face. We were still coupled in lust.

He slumped in exhaustion over my body, his breath pounding in my ear.

I worked my hips angrily against the dead weight of his pleasure-giving body.

"Again!" I hissed. "Do it to me again, damn you!"

He struggled up on his elbows and stared into my face. "And damn you," he rasped. "What the hell do you think I am...."

"I know what you are-and what I am. I know now!"

He grinned loosely. "I told you, baby doll. I told you that once you'd had it the way I can give it, you'd beg for more...."

"Yes, yes-I do."

He pulled himself over my body and straddled my breasts. His upper legs bruised my swollen tits, his knees dug into the hollow of my armpits. He grinned down at me from his position of power, his eyes glazed with a consuming lust.

"Show me, lover," he breathed, cruelly. "Show me how much you like that big thing!"

I twisted my head up to take what he was forcing down to my mouth. A wanton madness intoxicated my mind. My tongue flicked out. I licked his stiffening flesh.

He laughed harshly, deliberately, at my uncapped passion.

"That's good, baby," he whispered. "Take all of it-show me how hungry you are!"

He arched his hips so that I could take more of him. He drove his throbbing penis into my throat, sending the most violent shudders of pleasure grinding through me. I sucked harder and faster to please him, to arouse him again to that peak of frenzy that I knew would end by his taking me again the way I wanted.

My strategy worked.

In a few seconds he pulled himself away from my moving mouth and flung himself between my legs. I yelped with joy as he plunged it into me.

It was even better than before. We were two hurricanes of lust colliding with each other, forcing our bodies to do the impossible. His thrusts were longer, fiercer, harder. I strained and bucked against the imprisoning bonds of the ropes. Strangely enough, the helplessness of my body sharpened my pleasure.

When the needles of joy began to drive me once again to the summit of satisfaction, I clenched my teeth and rode my thighs hard to meet him. Rainbows of ecstasy ribboned through my body as I plunged deep into the lewdness of a thrilling orgasm.

I was still meaning when I heard the pounding of feet on the stairs, and Joe's frantic voice yelling my name over and over.

The sound echoed in my brain like a voice lost in a dark cavern.

My swollen lips twisted into a frowning laugh. They had come to save me, I thought.

To save me.

Damn them!