Chapter 7

Loyalty can be carried too far and Dale was a very loyal friend.

Worried about Rene's standing with the agency, and wanting to help her friend, she went along willingly with the man in the old car.

Usually cautious and careful about such things, she was being driven by a stranger to a remote part of the desert at night. But she was more concerned about Rene's job than about her own safety. So she gave no thought to anything but trying to do a good job for a man whose name she didn't even know.

Glancing sideways at him as they drove along, she noted him as a harmless type, completely engrossed in the work ahead. He kept silent, he never looked at her, his attention all on the traffic, and she relaxed, determined to enjoy the drive and put in a good evening's work.

The silence, however, got to her after a while. She cleared her throat and said, "I don't think I've seen you before, have I? I know most of the photographers in this city."

"You don't know me," he replied, his eyes still fixed ahead. "I just got into town a couple of weeks ago."

If he was shy, she had given him enough of an opening to talk about himself, his home town, and his work. But he didn't pick up the conversation. So Dale tried again. She didn't like to keep quiet too long. Besides, this man excited her curiosity with his reticence and her woman's natural way of wanting to know things piqued her.

"Are you from the east?" she asked.

He nodded. "Mid-west."

Well, that was better. If he wasn't willing to volunteer conversation, he at least answered questions. Dale went on. It was becoming a game to pass the time of the drive.

"I've never been that far east," she said. "Fact is, I'm strictly west coast all the way. Rene, though, she's from Pennsylvania. You ever been there?"

"No."

"How did you do in the midwest with your work? All right?"

"Some. It'll be better here, though."

A street lamp lighted up his face as they drove past and she thought she caught the hint of a smile on his lips. But if it had been there, it was gone with the darkness.

"I guess there's a pretty good market for your kind of stuff." He only grunted at this. She went on: "Me, I can't see what men get out of seeing pictures like that-people tied up and helpless. Why, they're not even dirty pictures."

"No." the man said softly. "They're not dirty pictures."

"I know a couple of other fellows who shot the same stuff. They said they couldn't understand it, either. But, what the hell, they said-so long as there was a market, they took the shots. I guess that's how people like you and me have to look at it, hah? Just a job of work for money."

"Miss Anders," he said abruptly.

"Yes, sir," she replied.

"I've changed my mind about the location where I'm going to shoot the pictures."

"I don't understand." Dale sat up straight as he swung off the main street. She looked around. "Where are we going?"

"Don't worry about that. I've got a good place. Picked it out a while ago."

"But it's late," she said, beginning to feel alarm. "By the time we get to where I can pose outdoors, it'll be 'way past midnight."

He didn't answer her but kept his eyes straight into the glare of the headlights. His lips tightened and he began to hum softly. Dale looked at him, her eyes widening as she saw the small beads of sweat form on his face, the drops lighted up by the passing headlights.

Suddenly the man looked very evil to her, very cold and mean, and ... purposeful. It seemed that he had a goal to reach that night, a mission to perform, and it was a thing of loathsomeness.

Dale shivered. "I'm sorry. I won't be able to go with you. Please take me back."

There was no answer from the driver. He didn't even look at her, appearing to be lost in a delicious dream of his own as he kept humming tunelessly, softly, almost purringly.

"Did you hear me?" Dale was surprised at the alarm in her voice. "I want to go back."

He shook his head, not in reply, but in trying to shake himself out of the soft trance he was in so he could hear her. "What did you say?" he whispered. "I don't think it's a good idea at all. I want to go back. Please."

"Can you drive, Miss Anders?"

"Of course I can drive. What is the...."

"Get behind the wheel, please. Then we can go back."

But when they changed places the man said, very softly, "Miss Anders, keep right on going straight ahead. Drive as I tell you, as fast and as slowly as I tell you, and take the roads I tell you to take."

Dale's fingers tightened on the wheel. Her breathing was hard and heavy. But she decided she wasn't going to lose her head. This man, no matter how mad he was, could be handled.

"What do you want?" she asked. "Sex?"

"Just keep driving, please."

"If you want sex, I'll give it to you without any trouble. We could stop someplace, at a motel, and you could do anything. There's no need for you to force me."

"Please don't try to pass the light ahead."

"You don't have to go to all this trouble. All you have to do is ask. I'm not against the idea of a good lay myself."

But he didn't respond except to give her directions. She began to ease up after a while. He didn't threaten her or act particularly dangerous, except for the fact that they were heading someplace other than his original plans, and he wouldn't go back when she asked him to.

Just a kook, she decided, and probably harmless as well as worthless. If I don't anger him or upset him and go along with him, I don't think there'll be any trouble.

If the guy had weird ways of getting his kicks, she'd go along with it. Anything was better than getting killed; Dale didn't hold the price of her body higher than her life....

She knew, after a while, that they were on their way into the deep desert. The man had kept silent, merely directing her as to turns and speeds. He was in no hurry and was careful about speed laws.

"We'll need some fuel," he said finally. "Stop at the next service station. Will I have any trouble from you?"

"No. Everything will be all right."

"That's good. Because I have a rod in my pocket. I don't like using it."

"You won't have to. There'll be no trouble."

Dale relaxed as much as she could. Yes, the man was dangerous but she figured she could, by playing along with his whims, whatever they were, survive. That was all that was important to her at this stage. She had rolled in the hay with a few men who repelled her, and this would be only one more.

Trying to show him that she would go along with him, she sang snatches of songs, talked lightly, even though he didn't reply, and generally acted like a girl on a date.

Besides, she had an ace in the hole in case the man did get dangerous. The note she had left for Rene. It had explained that she had taken Rene's place to model with the photographer the agency sent over.

If the man got violent, she would tell him about the note and he would know that he could be traced. No matter what he had in mind, he was so timid looking, so quiet, that the knowledge of the note and his being discovered would surely scare him off.

When they stopped at the service station and she said that she wanted to use the girl's room, he let her go without a qualm. This assured her that he wouldn't be trouble, so long as she played along with him. She didn't see the gun so didn't know whether he had one or was lying. Nevertheless, she would take no chances.

And she felt she didn't have to.

Dale was sterile so she didn't worry about getting knocked up. It would simply be another unpleasant jazz in the sand, perhaps, with the man crying and sobbing, as that type so often did.

And then it would be over. He would take her home, quieter even than now, ashamed, maybe subdued and unable to look at her, and she would take a good hot bath and a shower, douse herself with perfume, and after a day or so it would be forgotten.

Dale was only glad that this wasn't happening to Rene. The baby would have gotten frightened and hysterical and the man would have been forced to hurt her. Kill her, maybe. There was no telling what this type would do if he were scared and forced to use violence.

Yes, all in all, it was good that things had turned out the way they did. Dale, older, wiser, harder, more adaptable, could cope with the situation. Rene could not.

Look at how she had reacted to Oscar. The poor kid had come home disheveled, torn, crying, completely broken up.

How would she have reacted to this strange little man forcing her to drive to the desert late at night?

It was too awful to think about. Instead, Dale concentrated on keeping the man feeling calm and on trying to find something attractive in him so that she would enjoy the jabbing that was to come at least a little bit.

The desert night was bright and blue, the moon high and glowing, with a million stars dotting the skies. They passed fewer and fewer cars and after a while, they saw none at all. Dale remembered to look at the clock on the dashboard for the first time. It was just past midnight.

The man cleared his throat. "There's a turn off on the left just a little further up. Take it."

"Oh," Dale mused to herself. "An open-air session, is it? Last time I had one of those was on a beach. This time, no beach, but a hell of a lot of sand."

She found herself tingling with anticipation. After all, it had been a while since she'd wrapped her legs around a man. This fellow might be a brand new experience and something worthwhile. Whatever it was, it would be better than dying.

The turn off led into the emptiness of the desert away from the main road. The ruts were soft in the sand and the car seemed to melt into them as it made its slow way. They kept going without a word until, after fifteen minutes, the road vanished, lost in the endless and emptiness.

"What do I do now?" Dale asked.

"Stop here. Shut off the lights. Give me the keys."

She did as he said. They got out of the car.

"Take off your clothes, "he whispered. "Everything except your bra and panties."

"Here it comes," Dale thought. "There'll be nothing to it. I'll just close my eyes and pretend it's Rock Hudson or ... somebody I've always wanted."

She slipped off her slacks and sweater, watching him as he took things out of the trunk of the car. There was a blanket and he spread it out on the ground. Then the picnic basket which he placed next to the blanket.

He took out his camera and set it up on a tripod. She saw it was a good one, a Linhoff. At least the man seemed to know his business.

And then he took out a length of rope and a chain.

"Get on your belly," he told her.

Dale obeyed. He straddled her and tied her wrists at her back, humming a tuneless melody, hummed it softly and dreamily. She closed her eyes and let him do as he wanted. This was not the worst situation in the world. She had had more trouble with hot pants wolves while dancing with them in night clubs.

She winced, however, as he pulled the knot tightly. Then he tied her ankles together the same way, the humming going on and on. Maybe she thought, he is on the level and does want to take pictures of me like this and nothing else. Maybe he has a strobe outfit to shoot in the dark.

She thought like this while he finished tying her. Her ankles were pulled back and tied to her wrists. Suddenly he grabbed her shoulder and pushed her onto her side. She could see him now, kneeling beside her. He wasn't looking at her face, but at the ropes he had tied. His eyes, black and round, ran over her thighs, her taut muscles, her stomach as it stretched against the strain.

And he continued humming, softer than ever, almost like a love ballad. If she closed her eyes, she thought, she could go to sleep ... if it weren't for the pain in her taut body....

Looking around, she could see for miles in the bright desert night. And it seemed as if she and the man were the only two people in the world. There was a sort of evil beauty to it, too, a sense of suspended animation from the everyday, the ordinary.

It was too bad that she had to share it with such a jerk ... this man who was now tying a length of chain around her body.

The metal cut into her flesh as he wrapped it around her boobs, her torso and her thighs. The man did it with some ceremony, making sure that it was placed in such a way that it would not slip and humming along as if in a religious ferver.

He was done at last. She was bound with a rope and chain so securely that she could barely move. Now he stepped back and studied her, his eyes noting her expression carefully.

"Are you uncomfortable?" he asked. "Tell me the truth. I want to know the truth."

"Yes, I'm uncomfortable," Dale replied, trying not to sound strained.

"That's good. As the hours pass, you're going to be still more so. In fact, it will be agony for you. Then, in the daytime....

"You're going to leave me like this all night?" she gasped.

"... In the daytime," he went on as though she hadn't said a word and talking more to himself, it will blister and burn you. You won't be able to move a muscle. The torture will be unbearable for you. And it will get worse and worse."

Her heart suddenly began to pump in her breast and the ropes seemed more constricting and unbearable. Looking at him, she saw that his face, which had appeared meek and harmless, had taken on the aspect of insanity, even though his expression was still the same.

The change seemed to come from within him, coloring him, tensing the muscles of his features, giving him an evilness that was something Dale had never imagined could exist.

She reached into the reservoir of her feminine intuition to try to offset the nightmare that faced her. "Untie me and let's screw," she said. Her breath seemed choked up within her but she went on. "I can wiggle for you like you never dreamed of. I can make you very happy."

"I'm happy now," he said softly. "You couldn't make me any happier. No one could. This is the only way."

"Let me try!" she persisted, feeling the rope and chain more now.

"I'm very tight," she continued desperately. "All the fellows say I'm the tightest piece of tail they ever had ... and my mouth ... I know how to use that, too."

She tried to think of some other tricks that she had heard about or read in illicit books that might tempt this nut.

But he only hummed and shook his head.

"I have food and water," he said. "I can stay here a long time while you suffer."

Dale faced the truth. "I'll die!" she exclaimed.

He settled himself, sitting with his back to a wheel of the car, facing her, his eyes fixed on her.

"You'll die."

"But why? Why do you want this to happen to me?"

"It's a long, involved reason and you're a woman so you'll never understand it. You have to die, mat's all."

"Then why not kill me and get it over with?"

"No. I have to watch you die."

"You ... you ... have ... to watch me die?"

Dale couldn't even believe her own words as they came out of her throat.

"Yes. And tomorrow, when the sun comes up and you're really suffering, I'll take pictures of you. Then, when I'm through with you, I'm going back for your little blonde friend. Now please, no more talk. I'm tired of talk. I want to watch."

And the desert night was still except for Dale's choked sobbing and the tuneless humming of the little man. He didn't have to get his jollies looking at pictures anymore ... He had the real thing now.