Chapter 5

Sometime toward morning, Jody was vaguely aware that the bus had stopped. She heard obscure voices and activity around the vehicle. Sleepily, she surmised Clemson had made a fuel stop. Somewhere.

When she finally awakened, it was full daylight. She licked at her dry lips with a rancid taste in her mouth and so thirsty she was on the brink of begging for water. Painfully, she slipped from the bed and tried the door, surprised it was unlocked. For a time, she debated going forward and doing whatever she had to for a drink. But it had been hours and hours since Clemson had taken her and she vowed to forestall another assault as long as she could.

She silently pushed the door to until the latch caught and returned to the bed. She tossed and turned impatiently for awhile, then sat up in the middle of the bed, Indian-fashion. She lay back down and tried to sleep, but there was no relief in that. Peevishly, she sat up and scooted into a back corner, knees drawn up under her chin, shins against the firm rubberiness of her breasts--and pouted.

Gradually, she began to realize that boredom was becoming a factor in her discontent. She was appalled by the turn of thought that it would be better to be up front with Clemson, having him ogle her nudity, than to be cooped up alone in the back of the bus.

"I don't need his company," she whispered defiantly. "All my life I've done without a lot of people around." She stared across her knees into the dimness. Then weeping came quickly, unbidden.

Great shudders shook her body and she sobbed convulsively. It was true, and the more she thought about it, it hurt more than it ever had. In school she was tolerated by others--up to a point. But her instincts to excel, to win always turned off others.

Once, when a group had gone far up the Spokane River on an outing, someone had suggested they all go shinny dipping. The air was charged with daring, excitement and boldness, but no one took the first step.

And she had blurted, "Heck, I will," and had stood up and begun to remove her blouse. There was an awkward silence and everyone sat around for several minutes, unmoving, not talking.

Finally, one of the boys had said he thought it would be a good idea to go back to Spokane, have a malt, a burger and some fries. So, they trouped back into the cars and headed for a drive-in.

Eventually, Jody found herself sitting at me at an outside picnic table when the others had drifted away, forming new groups. She had walked home and Uncle Fletcher had suggested a quickie fishing jaunt. When they passed the picnic area, she had seen a group of kids in the water, splashing and yelling, swimming naked. And she had cried softly for hours and she presumed her silent Uncle Fletcher had attributed her tears to her being a woman or it was her "time of the month".

Jody unwound her arms from her shins and stretched her legs out straight. She rubbed away the tears with fingertips and shuffled from the bed. She paused at the door for a minute, then opened it, tiptoeing timidly forward.

"Hey, my little split-tail woke up," Clemson greeted.

She stopped in the galley, a hand resting on the drainboard beside the sink, studying his pale eyes in the rearview mirror. "Clemson, I'm awfully thirsty. I want a drink of water."

"You know what I told you about water and food and being civil," he said sternly.

Jody swallowed against a lump of anger and frustration, hating herself for turning subservient. "I'm not yelling at you, Clemson. Let me have a drink? Please?"

"Hah, Baby, you are learning, I do believe," he chuckled, his eyes intent on her nude body, via the mirror. "Did you wake up when I stopped awhile back? I got us two-hundred gals of diesel and we can mobile for at least a thousand miles. I replenished our water supply so you can take another quickie shower tonight."

Jody vowed to drink the shower. She hadn't thought of it the first time, being intent on cleaning her body. "May I have a drink of water?"

"It's about ten o'clock," he said. "You can bring a pair of brews from the frig."

"I want water," she whimpered. "And where are we?"

"Go to hell!" Clemson snarled. "Get your ass back in yer cell, if you can't take what I offer you and be grateful."

Tears flooded her eyes and she turned slowly, slouched to the rear and shut the door behind her.

She nearly lost her balance as the vehicle stopped suddenly. She heard Clemson slam the refrigerator door hard and knew he had stopped only to get himself a bottle of beer.

She had no sense of direction, but from a brief glimpse of the sun, she calculated they were traveling in a northerly direction. And what she had seen of the landscape, they were still in desert country. She threw herself onto the bed, face down, and wept softly.

Then music was piped to the rear compartment and Clemson was dial-hopping. Probably looking for his lousy hillbilly music, Jody mused. But even that would have a consoling value, she admitted.

She heard a number of station call letters: KSL, KFI, KGEM. But none of them gave her any hint of their location. In about half an hour, Clemson stopped again. And Jody guessed he was after another beer.

The record ended and an announcer came on with a fragment of news and sports. "There is some doubt about the tennis tournament scheduled at Las Vegas," he said. "Word has been leaked about the investigation of a gambling clique and the matches may be called off. This shouldn't perturb the latest sensation in the women's field, though. Miss Jody Freeman indicated in Los Angeles she may pass up the meet. She is believed to be on an extended vacation. Somewhere. No one has heard from her and her uncle is still in Eu--" And Clemson shut off the radio.

Jody lay listening, disappointed that he had doused her only sense of companionship. Suddenly, she grew frightened as Clemson began cursing wildly. "What the hell is going on?" he yelled. "If anything gets fucked up and those guys don't pay me the rest of my dough--what the hell'll I do? I can't hang onto this little cunt forever."

She writhed disconsolately on the hard bed. Somewhere. The announcer had said she was on vacation somewhere. He knew as much about the "somewhere" as she did. And not even the devil would classify this as a vacation.

And his remark about her had an ominous, frightening sound. Would he kill her? Jody shivered, aware of goose bumps all over her bare body. Her thoughts were sober and honest. In spite of everything--the situation with Clemson and his attacks--she wanted to live.

And she thought desperately that she must escape--even if she didn't get a chance to kill her kidnaper. Somberly, she began to wonder just where the gun was he had mentioned. And if she would get a chance to look for it. Where would he keep it? Under his pillow? Probably not. And there were so many places on the Winnebago where he could store it. But if she had it, she reasoned, she could make him give her her clothes and she could get away.

She thought again about the splash of news on the radio, but just couldn't fathom its implications. But one thing was clear: From Clemson's reaction to it, she knew she would have to be very careful with him. Violence seethed within him.

Wilted with depression, Jody left the bed and stepped into the bathroom. Gloomily, she lifted the lid and sat down. Shudders of humiliation rippled through her and she cursed him mentally. She couldn't even wash her hands. She braced herself against the tiny washbasin and peered at her haggard face in the small mirror, appalled by the sunken eyes, tangled hair and the sandy, dry texture of the skin on the crowns of her breasts. She knew that, soon, she would have to venture forward and face the scorn of triumph of Bert Clemson.

She turned from the mirror and stared at the rumpled towel he had used. She picked it up distastefully and shook it out. As best she could, she draped it around her nakedness and stepped out of the bathroom. Slowly, she opened the door and eased her way forward.

His eyes danced to the rear view mirror, but he didn't speak until she slipped into the off-driver's seat. "Feel like apologizin'?"

"I'm sorry, Clemson," Jody said grudgingly. "But I'm really thirsty. And if you won't let me have some water, I'd appreciate the beer."

She lowered her head and stared at her naked thighs, tugged the end of the towel more securely across her lap, blocking his gaze from her genital area.

"Get a couple of bottles," he said tersely.

She popped the tops at the drainboard and weaved back to her seat. He took the bottle she offered and said sharply, "Sit on the floor."

"Why?"

"Sit, you little sex-slut!" he screamed. And she quickly dropped to the floor in the narrow runway. Then she knew why. He didn't want her to see a highway sign or mileage marker and know where they were. Because, in seconds, he said, "Okay, now, you can climb back in the seat."

She held the towel in place with an arm folded under her breasts and gulped the beer greedily. "Was that woman who brought me that drink in the locker room in Los Angeles in this with you?

Did she help you drug the drink?"

She watched him shake his head. "Just me. She just got the order from the bar and took it back to you. Hey, there's some antelope!"

She followed the pointing of his arm. There were lots of antelope in Wyoming. But they hadn't traveled that far. But Oregon and part of Idaho had antelope. This, she reasoned, must be Oregon.

She stared straight ahead, aware of Clemson's eyes darting to the crossed clench of her thighs. Far in the distance, heat devils dancing above the asphalt, she saw a rectangular sign on a roadside post.

"On the floor again," Clemson said flatly. And she complied quickly. She calculated how long it would take to reach and pass the sign. And a second or two afterwards, Clemson motioned for her to get back in the seat.

"I'm really lucky, Jody," Clemson said, an unfamiliar hint of humility in his tone. "You're a beautiful gal--kind of a goddess with your honey-gold hair and young body. Tightest little pecker tunnel I ever excavated. And you could be a terrific fuck, if you'd just let yourself go and enjoy pecker in your pussy."

She knew she should have bitten her tongue and remained silent, but hatred and contempt for him choked at her heart, "I guess I'm supposed to thank you for that?"

"You snotty little bitch," he yelled at her.

"What the hell," she shrieked back. "The worst you can do to me is kill me."

His laughter, bitter and frightening, chilled her. "I can show you how wrong you are. I will--when I see the chance."

Feeling desperate and panicky--, she slumped in the seat, not caring the towel was falling away and her breasts sloped free for his gloating gaze, that he could explore the proud little Venus mound pooched upward from the taut Vee of her crossed thighs. Yes, she thought drearily, he could probably contrive a thousand degradations for her--before he killed her--if that was what he had planned.

"Get some more beer," he said harshly.

"And I'm hungry," Jody tried a placating tone as she handed him the fresh bottle.

"Good," he nodded, swilling the beer, "I got a hotdog for you to chaw on." And he rubbed a long palm through his crotch to assure she didn't miss his meaning.

And she felt a quick, roiling sickness in her belly and guts.. She had heard talk about such things and once had seen a magazine with pictures. She fought to keep from vomiting the beer that seemed to gurgle in her empty stomach.

"Let me know when you get hungry enough," Clemson gloated, again rubbing his twitching genitals.

"Never," Jody choked.

"We'll see," Clemson challenged.

"You know darned well," she hurled at him, "a woman isn't any good for anything, even sex, if she's being starved."

"You're nuts," he chuckled. "Sometimes a gal puts out the best when she knows it will get her something she wants or needs really bad."

Jody studied his lean face in the mirror and she wondered that what he said wasn't true. Was the instinct to survive so strong that women would do such depraved and disgusting things. Would she debase herself to that extent when she got hungry enough? Fleetingly, she thought that if he offered to stop the bus and fix breakfast or something she wouldn't pose any objection to his screwing her again. She couldn't stop him--so, she wouldn't fight him. Not for a good meal. But? Would she--what was the vulgar term?--go down on him?

She struggled to swallow a mouthful of beer against the involuntary urge to regurgitate. Realizing her eyes brimmed with a pitiful appeal, she croaked, "Clemson, please stop somewhere and let me out. I think I'm gonna throw up."

"Just hold onto your guts," he said solemnly. "It ain't all that bad. Really. Just kind of block the idea from your mind at the start. Really. Sucking off a guy's cock ain't so terrible. All the women I ever knew get around to enjoying blowing a man's meat flute. And I might eat out your pussy--if we can ever get down to mutual cooperation."

She was about to taunt him with her loathing about not understanding how any woman could willingly let him do it to her, let alone take his hideous penis in her mouth. But she could see violence tormenting him and kept silent.

Maybe an hour later, Clemson wheeled the motorhome into a turnout. Awed, Jody let the towel fall from her nudity to the floor as she left the seat to stand at the huge windshield to stare at the great, broad valley that stretched to the haze of distance and a range of mountains that reared dream-like perhaps two-hundred miles to what to her was the northeast.

"Oh, God, that's beautiful," she breathed, her eyes devouring the splendor of pale purples and greens and yellows that seemed framed by the pale, unmarred summer sky.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Clemson agreed and she glanced over her left shoulder at him studying a map. "Like fish? I think we'll take a little detour to an isolated stretch of river I learned about when I worked on a ranch up in this country a few years ago."

Jody didn't answer, but continued admiring the far-away scene and digesting the first intimate knowledge about Bert Clemson. She heard him refolding the map, then tensed as she felt a huge palm caressing the sleek roundness of her butt. She didn't recoil, but flinched inwardly, letting him run his hand up between her legs to finger at her puffy labia and nudging at her anus.

"Please don't," she said plaintively. And was grateful when he took his hand away after spanking her ass cheeks gently.

"You can watch for a few more miles," Clemson said, "then you'll have to crawl back in yer hole."

"All right," she said obediently. And a short time later, she headed to the rear., "Take a couple of beers, if you want," Clemson called cheerily.