Chapter 5
For that first silent hour Cindy fell into a fit of exhaustion, her strained muscles spasming in awakening stabs of pain. Whimpering defeatedly, she tagged at the thick ropes that tied her chafed wrists and rope-burned ankles. Even if miraculously she managed to free herself, where could she go? Back into the mountains to find Jed? Jed ... his optimistic smile seemed ephemeral as Halloween ghosts now.
She had to get away ... had to. To die was one thing, to die after being disgraced like this would make immigrant grandfather roll over in his grave.
Cindy's molding defenses were hastily splintering, lips.
"Stop it this instant, Cynthia Anne Weinstein. What happened to your orthodox code of ethics? Quit thinking like a naughty girl and get yourself out of this mess!"
Cindy blinked her chocolate eyes, terror tearing through her. God, I'm going berserk! These voices ... keep coming ... from Mama! Like a nightmare her mother and Zelda merged into one being, alternately licking her vagina and slapping her face, smiling and frowning, soothing and belittling at once. Oh God, leave me alone ... both of you, leave me alone!
"... they had to give me morphine... beg and I'll let you go... making love, huh, it's more like making war ... burst that sweet little cherry ..."
Gritting her teeth, she yanked violently at the ropes, the heavy hemp biting into her tender wrists, leaving painful red bracelets. A quick glance to either side revealed the real culprits. The lion claw leg of a mahogany end table to the right and a fat overstuffed chair leg to the left. The uneven firelight shadowed the ominously heavy shapes at her feet. Squinting her eyes to quell the voices within her, Cindy tried to recall every detective story and mystery book she'd read, but they were few. Mama didn't approve of her little girl pouring over cop stories and everything including Dick Tracy comic books had found its way to the trash can, and Louisa May Alcott's lavender and lace thrust into her hands. But back then who would have thought that mystery stories would teach her to rescue herself from a bunch of sexual perverts!
The fire ... if I could burn off the rope! Yes! Chance biodegrading like a rotting log on mossy ground. And she had said yes ... not to a man, but to a woman who'd worked her up to a hysterical pitch of delirium, using no weapons except Cindy's vulnerable anatomy, deliberately sparring her victim's body against her own mind and Cindy's body was winning this riposte, swords down!
Tears of shameful disgust gritted in her brown eyes as she watched the glowing embers in the fireplace crackle and spit. What in God's name would she have to do for these heinous perverts to end her sensual suffering? Damn you Zelda Comstock! Damn you to hell!
Wrenching her right wrist frantically, Cindy felt the rope slacken slightly beneath her constant tugging. At least when they were touching me there was hope. Heck, thought Cindy recklessly,-I'd rather finger fuck myself than untie these ropes! Given a choice, Cindy Weinstein, in her exhausted vulnerability, would have preferred quelling her roil-ing vagina to walking freely out of that door knowing
she would never have her precious orgasm. Anything to halt the maddening, infectious throb that tore out- ward from her tingling thighs to every goose-bumped inch of her seething flesh. Her swollen breasts strained and ached against the nubby hand knit afghan and her nipples were twin feelers of fire. With each ass wriggling gyration on the bear skin rug beneath her, the lingering lick of Zelda Comstock's lustful tongue flooded over her libido until she could feel her searing wet tip wriggling in her tingling anal hole bringing a soft groan to Cindy's cum-parched moving the furniture and more pain, or living through another teeth gnashing day of sexual torture ... She didn't have to flip a coin to choose.
Grunting, wincing, she squinted her eyelids shut, sweat popping up on her forehead as she counted to five and tried to pull her wrists downward. Sucking in her breath, tears squirting from her eyes from the biting pain of ropes eating her wrists, mauling them until they oozed with blood. No good. The chair had moved an inch at most. But the pain! Gawwwwwdd! Her wrist felt as if a bear had been chewing on it. Never . . . she could never tolerate another try.
Chewing ... teeth ... her mind jumped from one plausibility to the next. Craning her neck until the tendons strained out with telephone cords severity, she struggled to flip over on one side and gnaw at the slackened rope. Again no good. She couldn't reach, and in desperation the captive gave a maddened tug at the rope, its slackened length flinging tautly and ... ouch ... ouccccchhhh! Damn it was caught on something. Now what? She craned until her neck ached, squinting above her, making out the brown fuzzy lump of the bear's head. The rope had caught in the bear's mouth. The powerful jaws held the rope secure, eating up the slack, yanking the right half of her body upwards until her shoulder muscles started a passionate throb of its own, biting enough to distract from the Godawful thump in her loins.
Mouth ... teeth ... Her last hope. Flickering im-ages of a heavily bearded man with coca cola bottle bottom glasses and a program on educational TV about self-hypnosis ... quelling pain ... "For people who have trouble falling asleep at night or suffer from migraine headaches ... and you can do it right there in your bed"... or on bear skin rug with your ankles and wrists bound, added Cindy bitterly. "Concentrate on a very pleasant experience, something from childhood maybe. Close your eyes now and concentrate ... hard ... that's right ... feel the sun on your back, the grass under your feet ..."
While beads of perspiration ran together to salt Cindy's cheeks, her memory bank opened the vault on her ninth birthday party, her 'lucky' birthday as Uncle Art called it. The balloons her father couldn't blow up ... the bunny birthday cake (why was Mama pos-sessed with rabbits, anyway?) Gently at first, her arm sawed up and down, back and forth, her elbow coming down a fraction of an inch closer to her shoulder until ... she gave one violent tug and the red birthday balloons popped in her mind and her elbow jabbed down so hard it bruised her right breast!
For a long breathless moment she lay whimpering with self pity, staring dumbly at her bloody wrist. The sight of her own blood made her queasy. Her hysteria grew until rage and fear joined hands and she tore at the rope binding her left arm, ripping her fingernails but feeling no pain. Prisms of light flickered before her eyes and rising up on jellied knees; she fumbled over the marble end table top, her fingers recognizing the cool rectangular shape of a metal cigarette lighter.
With a gasp of joy, she flicked it, smiling as the flame burned the dry hemp. But the emotional rush of freedom was too much; it was easier when someone else was in charge, telling you what to do and how to do it. Jed ... that's why she needed Jed. God, would she ever see him again, feel his strong body next to hers, cuddling her protectively? A big, strong football player like him made her feel the weaker sex, but right now she would gladly have turned the situation over to his command. She would climb any mountain, carry a seventy pound backpack ... do anything he asked if only he were here to save her from this mesa! Damn ... why did she have to be born a girl, anyway!
Come on, you can do it ... an inner voice encouraged. Quit being everyone else's pawn. "I can and I will get out of here," she vowed with a stiff upper lip and wrapped the afghan about her nakedness and sprinted for the door. Abruptly she froze, petrified. Upstairs creaking footsteps grew louder, and then stopped. Silence ... the violent rush of flushing water ... more footsteps ... more silence. Cindy's button chin quivered and fear of discovery choked her throat; she could have counted on one hand the number of breaths in that next minute and a half. Her clawing fingers struggled with the latch until it opened onto the chilly night.
To the East where the sun would rise, a hazy mist veiled the craggy peaks and the quarter moon lolled lazily in mid-sky as if deciding which way to go. The stinging cold dampness felt splashed like ice water on her burning cheeks, revitalizing, then numbing. Cindy shriveled, staring with renewed horror at the bleak mountains. No way would she go up there with the bears! A strange burst of emotion warmed her chest. She shared in ironic kinship with that furry beast. One had trapped her and one had freed her. But this was no time for a Thoreauian discourse on nature.
Scanning the horizon, the wrinkles smoothed from her satin forehead as she squinted at a dark lopsided silhouette past the driveway. Wadding the afghan up in her hands, toes curled against the sharp pebbles of the gravel driveway, Cindy darted over the knell, her lush breasts bouncing. She would hide in the shed and leave in the morning. Maybe she would find some old clothes, a bicycle or car in there.
Her goose-bumped buttocks shivering beneath the afghan, Cindy ran until her lungs burned, the blanket fluttering like butterfly wings around the tan cocoon of her naked body. Ouch ... damn! She stubbed her toe! Gasping, she limped the last few yards, studying with grim consternation the weathered barn whose in-viting silhouette suddenly turned dusty and forbidden n the filtered moonlight. Who knew what might be liming in there! Snakes ... rats ...
At the barn door she drew a deep, steeling breath, lifted her aching arms up to remove the wooden bar on the barn door and hoped for the best. The weathered wood's joints creaked and the door yawned open with a haunted-house gasp. Shivering with fear, Cindy step-ped cautiously inside, the sting of dust mixing with a heady animal smell flared in her smog-insulated nostrils. She sneezed. Like walking into a warm dark womb, the space closed around her, until all she could hear was her own heart beat fluttering in her bosomy chest.
"Oh?" she bolted in fright, clamping her hand over her mouth as the night winds banged the door shut her behind her. She felt blindly in the dark, taking baby steps until her cold numbed toes touched something twiggy, grassy. Down on her knees now, she rum-maged through a handful of it, lifting it to her nose and sniffing. Years back her family had spent a week at a dude ranch and she recognized this feel, this smell ... Hay.
Exhaustion nibbling away at her tired flesh and breathing in the dusty warm clover, she collapsed in the hay, stretching her legs out isometrically, her arms, too. The burning hole in the center would not stop pounding and Cindy's hand shot down to that sizzling playground between her thighs, and drew away. No ... to finger herself to orgasm was a victory for Zelda. Darn it, after working this hard to save her pride, she could wait until marriage! Gone was the provoking sight of naked sex crazed bodies and with its evil, dark vibrations of carnality. The ghoulish image of Zelda Comstock's widow-peeked face faded into a nightmare and convulsively, Cindy slept, curled kit-tenishly in the hay.
Icicles of morning light seeped through the warped walls when Cindy opened one puzzled eye that swept over the raw wood rafters overhead dotted with swal-lows' mud nests. Yawning, she stretched her shoulders and back muscles, the tendons tight and sore. She rub-bed her wrists, wincing at the bruises braceletting them. Teeth chattering, Cindy sat up, twigs of hay stuck in her blue-black ringlets, her soft, melonous breasts prickled with imprints of hay while her strawberry nipples puckered against the chill.
She looked warily around. An old tractor frosted with swallow droppings sat next to an anachronistic wagon with rusted metal wheels caked with mud. So much for the transportation dilemma ... she thought discouragedly. But that stairway ... where did that lead?
On her feet, clutching the afghan around her, goose-bumped flesh, Cindy approached the steps and craned her neck. She had to make her break before that nymphomaniac psychopath woke up for her morning feeding of virgin cunt. Maybe up there, she hoped, her brown eyes wide, she would find something. Even a gunny sack to wear!
Step by step, soundless naked feet glided up the steps, the hay strewn afghan trailing after her.
Jack rolled restlessly in his sleep, kicked the blankets down to the foot of the bed and punched his pillow fluffy, fighting to stay asleep. One robin's egg eye popped open, squinting against the sunlight. On his back now, he rubbed his wrinkled forehead, his eyes gritty with sleep. Damn, he hadn't slept past dawn for years! Ah, but it felt good to play lazy ... the Palomino could wait another half hour. Dozing, he lay on his back, hands clamped over his chest, the linger-ing vision of the naked girl in the hay stack goading his groin into a morning erection.
Don't be a fool, old man ... fantasies don't belong to the decency of daylight!
Wait ... somebody was coming up the steps, he could see the shadow! He had defended his bachelor nest against mice, swallows, and vermin. This was his territory! The hackles raised on the back of his sun-burned neck.
To a city girl like Cindy, a barn was meant for horses and cows and expecting to find the loft empty, the girl brazenly sprinted up the steps, pushed open the door, her afghan bunched up in front, gaping open to make climbing easier.
"Eiiiiiik!" the brunette screamed, clasped her hand to her mouth and squinted incredulously at a spread eagled man on his bed wearing nothing but Gabby Haise underwear ... missing buttons in vital places.
Jack bolted up in bed and cupped the wiry patch of hair sprinkling from his unbuttoned crotch, his cheeks flushed. A dream ... a fantasy? The old man blinked his eyes and stared dumbstruck at the startled black headed beauty with bits of straw strewn through her ringlets haloing her reddened cheeks. A colorful blanket was thrown recklessly over her tawny satin nakedness as she stared down at him with big innocent chocolate eyes, and she didn't flinch when the blanket drooped down to expose one winking nipple.
Jack didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
Christ, I'm loosing my marbles . "Holy shit," he mumbled aloud. "It's the hiker."
"I ... I'm sorry..." Cindy shrunk away, too startled by his indecent underwear to remember her own nakedness. "I ... didn't know anybody was ..." She gulped dryly, backing up a few paces, ready to run back down the steps.
Jack fought to regain his senses. "Wait! Don't go!" -After this many lonely years he wasn't about to shoo away even fantasies. His blue eyes squinted below bushy brows, pulling together in one hairy line across his wrinkled forehead. Something pleasantly comical about him quelled Cindy's fears. "Are you for real?" he barked, fighting senility. Hallucinations didn't talk, but Cindy did.
"Yes ... I believe so." She managed a lopsided smile.
Jumping to his feet, he turned his back to her and stumbled into his Levi's. "I thought you was up at the Comstock's getting well," he said brokenly, mortified at being found in his underwear by this magnificent creature ... this reincarnation of Mamie.
Cindy shrugged. "No ... I mean ... yes, I was ... but they're crazy! They tried ... to ... to do awful. .." In mid-sentence Cindy's dark eyes pooled in fear, her jaw gaping down. Below the window Zelda's throaty voice wafted up through the rafters, icing Cindy's veins. "They're coming after me ... help me ... Oh God, you've got to help me!"
Jack spun around on his heel. To ask questions would be ridiculous. He'd known all along the Comstocks were crazy as a horse eating loco weed. Despite his penis squirming half-heartedly in his underwear, he ripped off his Levi's, jumped back into bed and yanked the covers up. "Come on ... get under the covers!"
Cindy balked, looking first at the old man's bagging underwear with the gaping crotch, then down at her own bare breasts. "I ... I don't have ... anything on under this," she wailed.
The voices grew louder and they didn't sound friendly "Cindy! Come on darling, we know you're in there!"
"Oh, hell," mumbled Cindy, letting the afghan flut-ter from her lush nakedness and jumping in between the covers while the voice grew louder along with the weathered creak of the barn door's rusted hinges. "My blanket! They'll see it!"
Cindy looked and Jack looked at Cindy, both faces tight with embarrassment and forthcoming explanations.
Jack leaned down and threw the afghan under the bed to join the dirty socks, then squirmed back into place, wondering what the hell he was defending and why. But the soft warm touch of female flesh in his bed was reason enough to defend anything!
"Come on, snuggle up between my legs so they can't see your curves," he said with a twinkle in his eye.
Cindy gulped. She glanced questioningly up at the old cowboy's face, then down to the vee of his crotch. "Well ... okay ..."After what I've been through what can an old man possibly do to me? She clambered be-tween his cotton clad legs, while Jack cursed his under-wear and yanked the horse blankets on top of him, lumping them up so that no tell tale bumps and curves showed on top.
Beneath the suffocating layers, Cindy struggled for breath, her nostrils filled with the virile scent of man setting off the thump in her belly again. Oh God, it's starting to tickle down there again! Her chin rested on his belly, the sac of his testicles spongy against her cheek while her nose tickled from his pubic curls.
The footsteps on the stairway were not soft, nor were they singular.
Zelda burst into the room, banging the door open wide. She wore a terry bath robe and a haughty grin hidden behind a soft facade of concern.
Under the stifling layer of blankets, Cindy shivered, taking long deep breaths. Paul was talking:
"Morning, cowboy. Aren't you sleeping late?" Heavy footsteps stomped toward the bed, and then stopped.
"Huh?" she heard Jack say. "Good morning, Mr. Comstock. By golly gees, you're right." Cindy could pluck the nervousness from his tone like straw from her hair. "I musta overslept."
Even through the covers Cindy could smell Zelda's cigarette smoke and feel her bristling anger. "That girl you found out in the fields ran away. She's not well. Do you know where we could find her?" Accusation gilded her voice.
'That ... young thing? Huh, sure as hell don't," said Jack scratching his head and yawning. The cowboy's cheeks grew red but not from being caught at napping. Under all that weight the hiker's warm breath on his penis piqued its curiosity and the withered tube pricked up its head, the single eye rising -to stare Cindy in the face. Jack's fingers spread the blanket, wadding it up in the palm of his hand while he gnashed his teeth in delicious agony. The Comstocks stood glaring at him, disdain written over their faces; they could stand there for eternity, thought Jack, squirming to worm his penis between s succulent lips.
"Tell ya what, folks ... When I take the Palomino out for her run, I'll keep an eye out for her." He paused. "Any problem?"
"No, we're just concerned."
Zelda's beacon eyes scanned the room and she cocked an eyebrow at Paul, then threw down her smoldering cigarette and stalked out with Paul on her heels.
The minute the cowboy heard the barn door slam, he spread his legs wide, meeting Cindy in mid-squirm. His big toe nail jabbed into something kittenishly soft and Cindy let out a pleasurable yelp as it scraped over her swollen clitoris, making her belly ache with hunger. After a minute she poked her brunette curls out of the covers, her brown eyes wide with alarm. The cowboy and the hiker looked each other in the eyes and embarrassed, they both looked away.
"Stay here," Jack said at length. "You'll be safe." He scampered out of bed and into his Levi's and shirt be-fore she could get a look at his baggy drawers. "I don't know what the hell them folks did to scare you like this, but I don't like 'em anymore'n you do." To hide his embarrassment, he kept up a running monologue; pulling on his socks, keeping his back to her. When he turned his head, his eyes nearly bugged out of his head. Cindy was sitting upright in back of him, her na-ked breasts two wonderful handfuls, the strawberry nipples all puffy and sweet.
"Oh, help me," she whimpered, her chocolate eyes melting with fear. "They're awful people, why they ... they!" She flung her arms around his chest, hugging him, her nipples burning two holes in his shirt. He wasn't Jed but he was strong and male and he could see her plight.
Jack sucked in his breath and his voice was broken when he said, "After I take the horse out, I'll drive you into Moose ... gotta get some ... hay." His words fell far between, his concentration stiffening between his legs.
"Oh, please, don't go away ..." Salty tears trickled down her cheeks and after kicking his way into his boots, his weathered hand reached up and touched her soft one.
"That's okay, little one. Don' you worry none. Them's crazy city folks. Jack'll take care of ya." He sprang from the bed, she with him. Turning, his famished eyes ran over her naked loveliness, settling on the black patch of curls at the soft vee of her slender thighs, the round bowl of her smooth belly, the proud breasts, high and firm ... like Mamie's were.
His throbbing hangover seemed to have migrated south down to the hairy pasture of his loins. Embarrassed, he looked away and headed for the dresser where he dug through the drawers.
An old pair of Levi's, a flannel shirt and a pair of socks came flying her way and Cindy caught them, gathering them in her naked lap. At last she would get out of this horrid place and get back to Chicago where people were civilized!
"Can we go now, please? If they come back ..." Cindy's pathetic eyes nearly melted the old man's will, but he stuck to his guns. One woman had caused him grief enough, and now this girl, this naked little girl was trying to tell him how to handle his affairs.
"I'll take the horse out for a run and then I'll be back," he said firmly. His hand reached out to touch her shoulder reassuringly but drew back in shriveling intent, afraid that in touching her tawny marbly flesh; he would turn her into an immortal statue on a pedestal, making a mockery of his useless emotions. "Get ... get dressed."
Jack grabbed his straw hat and pranced coltishly out of the room, leaving the naked brunette to sit pouting on his bed, her spider-leg eyelashes fluttering over her rosy cheeks, looking pathetic. No coffee and cig-arettes for him this morning!
Ah ... he hadn't felt this alive in years!