Chapter 3

Laurel Payne turned her horse over to a groom at four-thirty that afternoon. They were a pair of thoroughbreds indeed, the high-spirited, alert mare, and the slim, classically beautiful, blonde woman.

"Enjoy your ride, ma'am?" The groom asked respectfully.

"It was wonderful," Laurel said. "She's a marvelous animal. See that he gets an extra bagful of oats tonight."

"I'll do that " he smiled.

Laurel turned from the stable and went directly to the parking lot where she'd left the breezy little compact convertible Jim had given her for her last birthday; for her birthday and for not objecting to his nights away from home with the cuddly' little brunette secretary he was working out with.

Jim's extramarital affairs didn't bother Laurel greatly They left her open for outside interests of her own if she cared to indulge herself. Also, she knew that Jim loved her after his fashion and that he thought too much of his public image and what she contributed to it to ever ask for a divorce.

Laurel herself had :;ot had a serious affair with another man since her marriage. Not that she was held back by any moral scruples. She just hadn't found any who interested her. Jim was a good lover and was available when she needed him, so she say' no reason why she should Clutter her life up with other men.

There were too many other interesting things in life, Laurel had always felt. She liked outdoor sports both as a participant and a spectator. She painted well, and had a talent for sculpting, and she gave both endeavors as much time as possible. So her days were quite satisfactorily full.

She was aware that men were drawn to her cool beauty; that most of them yearned for an opportunity to thaw her. This knowledge, the sight of men longing to enjoy her ample bosom and lithe, competent hips, afforded her amusement, but little more.

Just now, backing her car out of the line, she looked forward to the pleasant, four-mile drive from the riding stables back to the highway It would be over a private road that wound through lush forest lands that had thus far escaped urban encroachment. It was lonely drive but Laurel was not the timid type. Solitude held no fears for her.

She was not even alarmed when she rounded a curve about a mile from the riding stable and found the way blocked by a log laid across the road. A man stood behind the log. He rounded it and approached the car.

"Did you put that timber across the road?" Laurel asked coolly.

"I'm afraid I did." He pointed to the left. "There is a way through those bushes. I want you to turn off the road and drive in there."

"I'll do no such thing. Move that log out of my way."

The man was not handsome, in fact there was something not quite pleasant about his face, but he had a masculine virility about him that amply compensated.

"I have no time to persuade you politely," he said, "so I'll ask you but once more."

"You're out of your mind "

He opened the car door of the car, hooked a hand around the back of Laurel's neck, and jerked sharply.

Laurel rocketed out of the seat. She stumbled, went forward onto her hands and knees.

"I'm sorry you made that necessary," the man said. "Now will you get behind that wheel and do as I tell you?"

Laurel got up and dusted off the knees of her jodhpurs. "If robbery is your motive, you're wasting your time. There's a five-dollar bill in my purse nothing more."

"Robbery isn't my motive "

"I really didn't think it was. I gather that you've got something more personal on your mind."

"A great deal more personal."

"Do you think you're man enough to."

"What do you think."

"That depends on how far you'd go."

"I'll go as far as necessary."

Laurel still was not frightened. But she was truly amazed. This had to be the same man who'd taken Caron in Blueside Park There couldn't be two such polite rapists working the same general area.

"I imagine you could beat me into submission and take me," she said, "and I'm almost tempted to let you try."

"I wouldn't advise that. What would you gain by getting yourself beaten?"

"Nothing, I guess, if there's nothing to be gained in the end. I could scream of course."

"It wouldn't do you much good out here."

"You've thought of everything, haven't you?"

"I've been very thorough. Now will you get that car off the road and into hiding?"

Laurel got in behind the wheel. She estimated her chances of escaping and judged them as nil. She couldn't go over the log with the small car. And long before she could have gotten it turned around he would have her out of the driver's seat.

He stood close while she made the half-turn necessary to enter at the spot he'd indicated. She did not hurry, taking her time and wondering if perhaps after she got beyond the bushes, she could keep right on going.

When the car was no longer pointed toward the highway, he went to the log and demonstrated his remarkable strength by rolling it to the side.

"All right," he said. "Drive on in."

There was no chance to escape in that direction. The little car nosed into a snug pocket walled in by trees on all sides.

Laurel surveyed it. "You must have hunted a long time before you found this place."

"I searched for quite a while."

He was one of the strangest men Laurel had ever met. She realized this was her last chance and poised herself to spring out of the car and run. But she didn't. He'd no doubt taken that into consideration, too. He would have caught her easily.

But that was no reason for not trying and Laurel wondered why she'd accepted the rationalization so easily-

Then she knew why. She did not want to run. She was not afraid of the man, not in the least, and the situation excited her. She thought of Alice Weathers' words:

II I could be sure of not being injured, I might enjoy rape as an experience.

Is that the case with me, also?

Laurel asked herself the question and honestly felt the negative answer was true. The physical aspects of this adventure were only a part of it. It was the man himself who interested and excited her.

"Get out of the car," he said.

Laurel obeyed. He was wearing outdoorsman's pants and a rough red shirt and as he stood before Laurel he could have been directing a logging operation or superintending some other forest activity.

"What now?" Laurel asked airily.

"You aren't frightened, are you?" he asked.

"Not in the least."

"Because you think I'm fooling?"

"I think you're out of your mind."

It was the wrong thing to say. His face, already oddly taut, stiffened further into a painful grimace. His hand lashed out, ripping cruelly across Laurel's cheek.

She cried out instinctively as she staggered back against the car. She crouched there like a beautiful animal at bay.

"I was beginning to think you had at least some of a gentleman's qualifications. But I was wrong."

"You were," he said grimly. "Now take off those breeches."

Laurel straightened "Absolutely not."

"You heard my order."

"And you can go to hell. I've got sense enough not to fight impossible odds, but I'm not going to stand here and strip for you. If you want these breeches off, you'll take them off yourself. And that won't be easy."

He threw her to the ground and bent over her for and she began to fight.

Laurel was no weakling herself, and she demonstrated her strength by tearing away from him and starting off into the trees. But he caught her easily, wrapped an arm around her waist and brought her back, kicking and struggling.

He threw her to the ground and bent over her for a few moments, holding her arms outspread and helpless, and looking into her face.

"Let me up!" Laurel raged.

He was neither amused nor angered. Still holding her, he reversed himself and sat down backward on her chest.

She flailed at his back with her fists and clawed at the red shirt. "If I'm going to be raped, I'm going, to be raped!" she screamed. "But I'm damned if I'll be a docile cow and crawl for you. I'm no Caron Lovell!"

He stiffened She thought for a moment that she had again said the wrong thing, but he did not turn. He sat frozen for a few moments and then found the zipper on the side of her breeches.

She kicked her H's furiously, hammering her heels against the ground. When he'd unfastened the breeches, at the top, she pressed her hips against the ground, gritting her teeth with the effort

He callously grabbed where she was most vulnerable. Laurel's eyes bulged open with surprise and indignation at the outrage. Her hips arced upward in pain and the breeches slid down

He stripped them from her legs, pulling her boots before she recovered to the point of resisting again. He then finished taking off her pants and threw them aside.

There was one skimpy garment underneath. She realized he was contemplating.

"No! Please!" Laurel begged even while she wondered why. They would have to come off eventually.

"I'm sorry," he said, and hooked his fingers under the elastic.

There was just what Caron had described to her this rapist apologized to women while he stripped them.

Then the panties came off and he got to his feet. "You can get up now."

Laurel stood, holding her head and shoulders proudly while she faced him. "AH right. You've abused a defenseless woman. What next?"

"Put on your boot?. "

"This is ridiculous. Do what you're going to do right here. Why waste time?" "Put on your boots."

"I'm damned if I will."

He shrugged. "All right." He pointed. "Walk in that direction."

"I won't. I'm not moving a step."

He still held the white panties and now he stuck them into his pocket and bent over to snap off a wand-, like branch from a bush beside him. Grasping it at the large ended, he was in possession of a thin, formidable-looking whip. He made it sing through the air.

"Walk."

She stared at him.

He flicked his wrist. The branch lashed out and encircled her hips. She shrieked and turned away from him.

"You depraved, rotten beast!"

The whip sang again. The tip flicked against her bare behind and her body arced forward, her dignity gone as she clawed back at her unprotected posterior.

"Walk."

Laurel moved forward. The rough ground began to punish her feet. "My boots." she moaned. "It's too late. Walk." '

This was no longer a dangerous kind of fun. It had turned into a nightmare. She was being whipped naked through the forest in her bare feet. A madman was driving her on toward what was no longer something to be thrillingly anticipated.

"Please."

The whip sang. Laurel lunged forward. "Walk."

She did as he ordered, sobbing now, cursing him as she moved gingerly along trying to find the easiest place to step.

After a while, he pointed. "Climb over those rocks."

"But they're sharp. They'll cut me."

"Climb."

Not waiting for the command of the whip, Laurel struggled up over a heap of boulders. Seeking only the safest way to go. she spraddled and crawled, whimpered and clung, aware that he was behind her, observing her degradation and humiliation.

like a naked, scared animal as unconcerned about tier nudity as had been the mare she'd lately ridden. But the mare was not human Her nudity had been natural.

Laurel's nakedness was a dirty, defiling thing.

Beyond the rocks, she found a tiny, sodded park, an idyllic, beautiful spot with a creek-bubbling nearby. It would have been a perfect spot for love under other conditions.

She turned to face him as he climbed over the rocks. "Is this where?"

"This is where," he said gravely.

He advanced to her. She waited.

"Take off the rest of your clothes."

She obeyed without fight or argument this time. Then she dropped exhausted to the soft bed. She stared at him as he went about getting ready for what was to take place. Then hysteria welled to her. She was still not frightened, but she felt she was entitled to some kind of a reaction after what she'd just gone through. He pushed her down and loomed beside her, braced on wide-spread feet. He moved closer and she laughed a keening, irregular sound.

"Don't I even get kissed first?"

The strange face was close now, and she searched her mind. There was something familiar about him. Somewhere back in her consciousness, a muffled bell was trying to ring.

A strange, alien face Yet so very familiar.

But her basic preoccupations were with her own emotions. They, too, were strange; a strange part of this experience on a strange, strange, day.

The fight had gone out of her. There was no resistance left. Not even any hostility, as though she were grateful to this beast for having stopped abusing her. This was an alarming surrender on her part that should have frightened her but did not.

When his weight pressed her, her arms went automatically around him and she did not turn her face away.

His mouth found hers. And now, for the first time, she knew that his morbid, frightening, self-control had broken. She knew from the way his lips moved and the manner in which he seized her, that this was no longer a rite, a compulsive process he was working out.

And a sense of triumph swept her. She held his mouth tightly against hers. She moved her lips shamelessly and began serving him as a beaten love slave serves a master in order to avoid further punishment

A rich, sensuous excitement whined along her nerves. Never had love been like this. Never had there been for her this voluptuous feeling for the arms of a man.

With her eager mouth still open, she pulled away from him and slid her lips across his cheek. She found his ear and pressed her teeth. Now, in the rising anticipation of delight, she whispered fiercely:

"Oh, darling, love me, love me!"

A fierceness within him answered, not in words, but . in a sudden need he'd only at that moment become aware of. Reaching to her, he jerked her to a position more to his liking, the age-old position of love. His breath began to sound harsh.

Delight coursed over her.

"Hold me, lover! Punish me!"

He moved.

She cried out. Her teeth carne together at his ear. She gnawed at him like a ravenous animal, but if there was pain, he did not seem to notice.

As his body raced, she got a flash of the look in his eyes and she knew he had found a new world and she glorified in that knowledge The slave had defeated the master by serving him!

"Lover! Destroy me!"

Now her imagination went wild with the delight she had been given. She saw not a man, but a wild, raging beast. She saw not a woman but another animal in need of what the male beast had to give.

She saw not a degrading flight across the woods with a whip flicking at her naked buttocks, but an animal fleeing in terror from what she knew would overtake her; what, in the end she would submit to because that was the eternal law.

These were the wild images that raced through Laurel's mind as the first true delight of physical love raced through her body.

But there was more. Her own eagerness was, in a way, her undoing. She found that high, unspeakably exquisite peak first and was hurtled down the far side ahead of him. Immediately, her nerves protested. They could take no more. His maddened passion was unbearable.

"No! Stop! I can't take any more!"

If he heard her, he paid no attention, his savage attack heightening as he raced on toward the finish.

"No! No!"

She struggled uselessly. She screamed from that which had been ecstasy but was now unbearable torture.

Then, after a last, supreme arcing effort to tear her in two, he collapsed and lay still. Only his lungs, like desperate bellows, heaved frantically. She held him close. Slowly, his agony subsided. He became suddenly motionless.

She waited. Then she knew he had passed out.

It did not occur to her to take advantage of a situation that put her in command, because even now there was no fear in her. Nor was there any hostility.

But there was an overpowering curiosity and she reached out, groping for the place he had dropped his trousers. Working quickly, she found his wallet, held it over her head, and opened it. He did not move. She found what she wanted, read it, and slipped the wallet back into his pocket.

He stirred a couple of minutes later. After opening his eyes he stared at her dully as though trying to remember where he was.

"Are you all right?"

"Yes."

It was ridiculous. The raped inquiring after the rapist's health. Grounds for vast laughter. But Laurel did not even smile. .

"Why did you do this?'

He was halfway to his feet and when she spoke, he paused where he was, looking like a sprinter set upon his mark, awaiting the sound of the starting gun.

"To keep from committing murder."

"That's a strange answer "

"It's the true answer"

He straightened and began dressing and again things made no sense. She lay where she was, watching him, a woman replete, satisfied, but with curiosity instead of love highlighting her face.

"Who are you?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It does to me."

"So you can go to the police?'

"No. Caron didn't go to the police."

"What do you know about Caron?"

"She's my best friend."

This did not surprise him. He silently went on dressing

"You aren't going to tell me your name."

"No."

"But I have a right to know who rapes me."

Her voice was faintly taunting. He looked at her.

"You don't resent what i did?"

"Oh, my, no. Men drag me into the woods and strip me and have their way with me every day."

"I won't bother you again."

"It wasn't by chance that you took both Caron and me, was it?"

"No, not by chance."

Now she smiled, the taunt in her expression deepening. "Was I better than she was?" When he didn't answer, she asked the second question. "Did you enjoy me more?"

He was pulling on his shirt. "I never really had a woman, until now."

"I suppose I ought to feel complimented."

"Feel as you please."

"I feel complimented."

"You weren't frightened?"

"Caron told me how you treated her. I didn't think I had any cause to be scared."

"Did she tell her husband."

"Yes."

"You must tell your husband, too."

"He would find you and kill you."

"I want him to know "

"I won't tell him. I don't want him to get involved in a murder."

"Then I'll tell him. I'll see that he finds out."

"Why do you want that?"

He was dressed now. Ignoring her question, he said, "I'm sorry I can't help you."

"You mean I've got to find my way back to my car alone?"

"It won't be difficult"

"But, my feet! I'll cut them to pieces."

"Walk carefully.'

He was moving away. Laurel sprang to her feet. "Let me go with you. I'm afraid alone."

"No one will find you out here." He took her panties from his pocket and tossed them to her. "You can find the rest of your clothes."

She looked at the panties ruefully. "These are certainly a big help."

"Tell your husband," he said, "or I will."

He was moving out of the little park. "Whom shall I tell him raped me?" she called after him.

"I think he'll know. Be sure and tell him about my driving you with a whip. It's very important...."

Laurel put on her panties and picked her way carefully back toward the car. She was really frightened now. What if a stray hunter found her in this condition? Good lord, she thought. I might be raped.

Now everything did seem funny, and she laughed.

The effect was spectacular; a beautiful golden blonde clad only in transparent panties picking her way gingerly over the rough forest floor giggling to herself.

But no one benefited from the drama because that part of the forest was deserted and it remained so until Laurel got back to her car.

Then she backed her car out of its secluded niche and drove home.