Chapter 11
Anna awoke after a night filled with phantoms of indefinite horror. She felt that she hadn't really slept, and yet at no time during the dark hours of uneasiness could she actually come fully awake. Groggily she pushed herself up to a sitting position. Gradually she put together thoughts and images, enough to realize where she was. She threw the serape off her legs and looked at the dark stains on her jeans.
"Filthy!" she rasped through a mouthful of rancid cotton. She got up, sure that she could hear the creaking of her joints as she came upright, then crept slowly into the kitchen. The half-empty bottle of soda water was on the sink, and she drank it down thirstily, ignoring the flatness of it. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that it had been a very long time since she had eaten.
Juan! Now she remembered. Where was Juan? He had promised to come back for her. She ran her fingers through her tousled hair, and grunted disgustedly. Her body began to tremble. "Oh no," she groaned, "not that again." She flexed her arms and legs, hoping to stave off the shakes, but the trembling continued, though not violently. 'Tve got to get out of here!"
She went to the door and looked out, blinking in the white-heat of the sun, already high overhead. The desert silence of the unfinished housing development pressed in on her until she felt compelled to clamp her hands over her ears, as if to shut out an unbearable sound. "I'm really flipping," she mumbled.
"Goddammit!" she shouted in disgust, but the cry hurt her throat. Hell, was everything about her sore? she wondered, torn between the conflicting desires to cuss and to cry. She did neither, but gritted her teeth, picked up a blanket, and headed down to the sandy spot where she and Maria had bathed before. She spread the blanket just inside the shade of the wide-branching willow tree, quickly stripped off her jeans and shirt, and waded out into the lake.
"Ahhhh!" she sighed, "that's better." Shoving out, she swam slowly toward the middle of the broad lake. Over there, she told herself, over there is San Tomas. But she knew she couldn't swim the ten miles or more to the other shore, and besides, she was naked. She turned about and swam back until she could let her legs down and stand in water that just touched the bottom curve of her tits.
Without soap, she scrubbed herself with her hands. She discovered that her asshole was slightly sensitive, but not really sore. As flashes of memory flickered over her mind's screen, she spread her legs and carefully checked her cunt, half-fearful that it might be permanently stretched but of shape. But the tight resiliency of the rubbery-lipped opening reassured her that it was all right, no matter what had gone on during the drugged happenings of the past nights.
Feeling considerably cleaner and more refreshed, she waded ashore and stretched out on the blanket in the warm dry shade. Her skin quickly dried, and she was half-asleep when the shakes returned.
"Oh no!" she moaned. "Dear God no!" She crammed her knuckles into her trembling mouth, but her whole body continued to shudder violently. She rolled over and up to a sitting position and clasped her hands to her tits. Even they weren't right. Instead of firmly moulded hemispheres, they felt flaccid and shapeless to her quivering hands.
"I've got to get out of here!" she whispered frantically over and over. "I've got to get out of here!"
Barely able to control her limbs enough to pull on her shirt and jeans and sandals, she hurried back to the house, leaving the blanket lying on the ground. In the kitchen she spotted the little bottle of pills still on the sink drain. She swallowed one, gulping it down with no water, and shook out two more in the palm of her hand and shoved them into her pocket
The effect hit her just as she came up to the narrow highway, after walking for several minutes away from the housing development. Like switching on an electric circuit, her whole system suddenly came to life, and she felt exhilaratingly normal. A carefree smile came to her lips and she swung out in a longlegged stride on the side of the highway.
Maybe a bus would come along, she thought, but shoving her hands in her pockets she realized that she had no money. No pesos, no ride. But the lift of the pill kept her from losing her high spirits, and she continued along her jaunty way. It was no more than twenty, maybe twenty-five miles around the western end of the immense lake to San Tomas. She glanced up at the sun; it was about twelve noon, she estimated. A good pace should cover four miles per hour, which meant that she could probably be home by dark.
The road was little traveled. A Morelia-to-Guad-alajara bus roared past one time, and faces peered down at her from the windows, then it was gone, trailing diesel smoke behind it After a half-hour or so she passed a slow-moving herd of goats browsing along the grassy slopes beside the road. An ancient goatherd with a face like a withered brown apple stared at her with dull curiosity. She waved and walked on.
Then she heard the roar of a truck far behind her around the curve in the road. It was still not in sight, but it was close. A sudden instinct impelled her to leap off the road and hurry down the slope, to hide behind a low, broad-leaved tree nestled in a nedgerow of cactus. She raked her forearm against some needles, and the blood seeped through the thin wound, but she didn't notice it. She was watching the track chug by, with half a dozen or more tough-looking young men standing in the back. One was handing a tequila bottle to another, and two more were singing uproariously. Anna shivered. There was no doubt in her mind about what would have happened to her if she had remained on the road.
When the track was out of sight around another curve in the winding road, she came out of her hiding place, still trembling. She walked on, more cautiously now. The sun bore down like a blowtorch, and perspiration began to trickle down her temples and seep from her armpits, and soon her shirt was wet. Her scratched arm hurt And her stomach was rumbling again. She licked her dry lips and glanced down at the lake, some seventy-five yards or more from the road.
"Another hour," she told herself. 'Then I'll drink from the lake, even if it is polluted."
By midafternoon the sun had dropped noticeably into the western sky. Unfortunately, that was the direction Anna was traveling in, and the glare tortured her red-rimmed eyes. The high of the pill was rapidly evaporating, leaving her with a strung-out feeling that got worse with each step. And her steps were slower, too, and a dull ache was forming in her thighs and calves.
"Shit!" she muttered, and turned off the road to head down through a scraggly cornfield to the lake.
The water was good, but when she started to get up off her knees, Anna felt immensely weary. How nice it would be to just lie down and rest awhile, she thought. Oh no, she cautioned herself. No way, baby. She fumbled in her pocket and retrieved one of the pills. Swallowing it, she stooped and drank from the lake again.
Even with the souped-up energy from the second pill, Anna saw that she still had a very long way to go. She trudged on. The first lights of evening were beginning to flicker in the next village, some few miles ahead. When the road curved toward the lake she could make out the buildings and lights, but the road was snaky, with dips and curves, and most of the time the village was out of sight. Was it the only one between her and San TomSs? she wondered. She couldn't remember how many Cholo had passed through when he brought her out.
She heard the car coming behind her, but she just didn't give a damn anymore. She had dodged vehicles since noon; she had taken two pills; and now she just wanted to drop somewhere and quietly die.
The car slowed and came to a halt beside her, the engine idling noisily while the driver leaned over to stare at her through the passenger's side.
"You want a ride, senorita?"
She looked at him indifferently. His face was like that of a million other Mexican males: swarthy, black-eyed, moustached, and with the cocky leer they always wore when they looked at a woman. She hated him instantly, but this was no time for niceties of opinion. He was offering her a ride.
Wearily she opened the door and slid into the torn seat. She closed the door and immediately slumped back against the seatback.
"Tired?" The dark eyes swept quickly over her smooth young features, and the projecting tips of full breasts, naked under the thin shirt. And the bare flesh between her knotted shirt bottom and the waistband of her jeans.
"Very. I must get to San Tomas."
"Certainly." He clutched into gear and drove off.
Anna closed her eyes, the better to enjoy the refreshing caress of the evening breeze across her sunburned face. She was hardly aware of the car slowing down while they went through the tiny village divided right on the highway, then speeding up on the other side. She could tell that it was getting dark, but her main concern now was suppressing the shakes that she felt coming on again. She didn't want to pop the last pill in her jeans pocket. For some obscure reason she felt embarrassed to take it in front of the driver.
The car slowed again, and she wondered if they were approaching another village. She didn't bother to open her eyes. She felt the car bumping over some ruts, and then it stopped. She opened her eyes.
"Where are we?" she started to ask, but his hands were on her, one going around her neck to drag her toward him and the other plunging roughly inside her unbuttoned shirt, to grab one of her tits.
"Please!" she exclaimed, but instantly she realized that no matter what she said or did, he was going to fuck her. Goddammit, she was tired of getting banged around and raped.
"Wait a minute," she said, changing her tone to one of seductive persuasion. "I want you, too. Let me make it good for us."
The rough grip relaxed while he shoved his face close to hers, peering at her suspiciously in the gloom. She forced her sexiest smile and putting a hand behind bis shaggy neck she drew him to her and opened her lips against his, tipping her tongue across his mouth.
"Better?" she demanded coquettishly, pulling back.
A wide grin split his dark face. "Much better."
"Where?" She looked about the inside of the car even as her hands deftly unfastened her shirt, letting it drop open to expose her breasts.
His eyes stared through the gathering darkness at the vermilion nipples thrusting out from the centers of twin hills of lush woman-flesh. "In the back," he said tersely, still eyeing her nipples.
Back to high-school days, Anna thought wryly, clambering over the seatback into the rear. Instead of being brutally fucked, by God, she would partly control the situation this time. Unzipping her jeans, she peeled them down and off, then lay back as comfortably as she could to wait for the cunt-dizzy driver. The sun goes down, their cocks come up, she reflected.
He knelt between her legs, thick-shouldered like Cholo, but short enough that he could fit comfortably in the car. His trousers and shorts were far down on his thighs, and his purple-headed cock reared menacingly toward Anna's pale belly. But before he could jam it into her dry pussy, she reached out and seized it behind the head, gripping it like a broom handle.
"Let me," she said coaxingly, and the man relaxed a bit.
Skillfully she squeezed and pumped his peter, hoping that the juice would flow inside her canal so it wouldn't be painful. Not that his thing was very big. Cholo's hadn't been, either. Nor Juan's. These Latin studs were heavy on rape, but light on equipment. For a second she thought lovingly of Jeffs formidable tool, but she quickly forced him out of her mind. This was no time for sentimental memories; she was fucking now because she had to.
Reaching her other hand down, she caught his dangling balls gently in her hand and fondled them. He gasped at the unexpected delight.
Her cunning fingers worked along the underside of his shaft, clear down into the base and along it until she practically tickled his asshole.
"Ahhhhh!" he wheezed rapturously. "You are very good."
"You'd better believe it," she murmured in English, giving his pillar an extra squeeze that made him twitch all over. Careful, she warned herself, or the stupid bastard will come all over the-place before he ever gets in.
Cautiously she tested his knobby cockhead along the slit of her cunt. She relaxed a bit as she felt the easy glide of the tight-skinned bulb inside her puffy outer lips. Thank God, she was getting juicy. This wouldn't be so bad after all. At least, it would be quick, judging by his heavy, uneven breathing.
"Now," she breathed in his ear, making her voice sound as sultry as she could. "Let me have your big thing." She directed the head into her wet cunt-hole and he gave a lunge like a bull driving into a heifer. She grunted from the impact. It hurt a little, too, for she wasn't that well lubricated yet. But it was in; the goddamned thing was in as far as he could push it. She moaned and groaned, faking an ecstasy she was far from feeling. What a whore I am, she thought, hamming up a fuck like this. She was getting a perverse sort of enjoyment out of the deal. It wasn't really all that bad, she kept telling herself as she worked her hips and buttocks between the car seat and the man's furious lunges. In a few minutes she could tell he was about to come, by the break in his heavy breathing and the jerking of his cock snugly encased in her grasping pussy. She speeded up a little; the whole business was making her feel more exhausted than she had been already.
He snarled savagely as he began to come, and she squealed at the sudden sharp bite of his teeth in her neck, but she rammed her groin up at him faster, clasping his throbbing piston and milking it as hard as she could tighten her love-muscles.
"Oh, you killer!" she screeched in fake joy, and bounced her ass up and down frantically. "I'm coming, I'm coming, I'm coming! Ohhnhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"
She relaxed limply as she felt his cock make one last feeble throb. He went down quickly, shrinking to a slippery little finger-like dong that backed out of her flooded tunnel. "Bueno!" he grunted after a minute, "Now we will go to San TomaV'
The yellow beams of his headlights bored twin holes through the pitch-blackness as the car finally slowed on the outskirts of little San Tomas.
"Let me out here, please," Anna said.
"I will come here soon to see you again," he smirked as she opened the door and staggered out
"You do that," she answered, and hurried off into the concealing darkness.
Hardly able to keep on her feet, she reeled down a slanting cobblestoned street, past El Jacal. The first person she encountered in the deserted street was an old crone of a senora who gave her a suspicious stare as she went by. The second person she met was Cal.
"Cal!" she called weakly, and collapsed in his arms.
The stoic, black-bearded man opened his eyes a bit wider than usual, but that was Ins only display of emotion. "I'll take you home," he said, supporting her with a strong arm under her shoulders.
"No!" she protested weakly but insistently. "Jeff mustn't see me like this. Find me a place to crash and just let me sleep it off."
Cal had seen at once that she was terribly spaced-out Her eyes looked like the proverbial two piss-holes in the snow, and her clothes were filthy and hinging in rags. "Til take you to my friend's pad," he said. "It's just off the plaza."
Anna hardly remembered being more or less dragged into the dirt-floored hovel. But the bed was comfortable. A rockpile would have felt comfortable to her at that moment. She passed into oblivion.
"Watch her!" Cal snapped at Ada, who nodded and settled back on the other bed against the opposite wall. Then he went out and through the dark empty streets to the lakefront casa where Jeff was trying to read himself to sleep in bed.
When Jeff opened the door in response to the ring, Cal stalked in as calmly as if he were merely dropping in for a chat. "I just put Anna to bed at my buddy's pad. She's really strung-out. Drugs, I don't know what kind or how much. Nada. But she didn't want you to see her." He paused, looking intently at Jeff who stood dumfounded. "I told you to get her out of Mexico. A different climate, a different environment, a different culture gets to some people more than others. It got to her and she flipped out. Tomorrow morning I'll bring her around here-to say goodbye. Ada and I will take her to Guadalajara on the bus, then put her on a plane for the States." At no time in his terse statement had Cal indicated that Jeff had anything to say about the deal.
Which was just as well. Jeffs mind was whirling, but he could think of nothing to say.
"So I'll see you sometime in the morning." And Cal turned and stalked calmly out into the night.