Chapter 8

I was half-ashamed to be in bed so early; surely nobody else in the house had gone to bed yet. I'd gotten ready before nine o'clock, and I'd stood in my darkened window, my skin still moist from the shower, and let the feebly stirring desert air dry me while I'd watched the ghostly gray of the skyline disappear in the east as the quarter moon set in the west, where I couldn't see it. Stars had blazed brilliantly, their rays casting a deceptive, silvery radiance over the still landscape without illuminating it. And I'd turned to throw myself on my bed, knowing the desert creatures were abroad risking their lives to go on living.

Rodents and lizards and monster-eyed insects were prowling and, perhaps, cavorting. And here and there an owl was whisking silently above with deadly watchfulness. As the temperature slowly fell in the upper layers of sand and among the rocks, the sluggish rattlers, guided by their heat sensors, would glide restlessly toward the slowest cooling crevices for warmth, but they wouldn't sleep; they'd sense the approach of any creature suitable for food.

I felt a sudden gush of self-contempt. Here I lay, hoping to sleep for a few hours before the "haunting" began again. I was meekly allowing myself to be driven into a state of panic without doing anything to help myself. And that was totally out of character. I took pride in the fact I knew the woman, Anne Kelig. I might not admire every last thing I knew, but I did know. And one of the features I took the-fiercest pride in was independence. Nobody looked out for a woman who didn't look out for herself, I believed. And I'd spent years doing that.

So lying there trying to get a little sleep before the "ghost" woke me was plain damn weakness; what else could I do? I couldn't rally people to help me; they didn't believe I was seeing and hearing what I was. The owl incident had ruined any chance of making John believe. So I was on my own.

Looking at the "haunting" with a hard-boiled attitude did one thing immediately. It rid me of the nagging fear there might be something supernatural about what was happening. A real ghost would have carried a ghost lantern, for example. And "it" wouldn't have needed an open window. Maria had to be at the bottom of everything. Maybe she had help, but she was surely the key to the mystery. And if I meant to do anything besides wait for her in my room, I'd have to base my actions on what I knew about her.

The missing lantern convinced me she'd do the "ghost" walk in the garden again. She'd reenact that part of Lolita's legend where Lolita's ghost walked from the crypt to the house. To catch her in the act so she couldn't shrug me off with some innocent story, I'd probably have the strongest case if I confronted her at the crypt. The idea seemed the only natural thing to do. It felt so right the tension drained away and I barely got the alarm set before I fell asleep. At midnight I turned off the alarm and stumbled about the room trying groggily to remember why I'd set it. Pulling a thick blanket around me the way I'd seen Maria do, I slipped my feet into a pair of sandals and crept out of the house.

The garden-stocked with every species of cactus that grew in the surrounding desert-extended east from the house to the first low ridge. The de Vasca crypt was built halfway down the far slope of that ridge, where it received the first rays of the rising sun. Although a long, narrow, barred window admitted those first rays to the interior of the little building, the entrance faced up the ridge toward the house. And in the impenetrable shadow of the entrance, the grating that sealed the crypt at my back, I could wait unseen while Maria approached.

The silence was absolute for the first few minutes. But as I remained motionless, hugging the blanket tightly and suddenly aware of its scratchiness on my bare skin (wondering why I couldn't have awakened sufficiently to remember to put some kind of clothes on) sounds of the creatures I'd thought about began to reach me. Scurryings between the scraggly, wild shrubs, a startled flutter of wings from a rudely awakened bird, the soft rustle of air through the feathers of a gliding owl, a coyote's yapping wail. And a momentary gust of breeze came out of nowhere to stir the brush and turn the arms of an ancient windmill down the slope, the squeaking yanking my throat taut before I realized what it was.

Time seemed to drag and I grew accustomed to the natural noises. I couldn't adjust as readily to the windmill, the gusts being too unpredictable and each producing a slightly different combination of squeaks and groans from the discouraged metal. Most unnerving of all, the windmill was situated in such a way that the sounds came half the time through the window and the grating of the crypt instead of around it. Time after time I had to scold myself for the wild fear something was being opened on creaking hinges inside the black vault.

A sudden clattering noise, as if a small stone had been dislodged to roll across the ground, brought me erect. Somewhere in the low brush of the slope something besides mice and lizards was moving. At a repetition of the sound a few feet away from where I thought I'd heard it the first time, I shrank deeper into the shadows and pressed my shoulders against the grating. I had enough presence of mind to be sure my hands didn't show at the edges of the blanket, and I held my breath while I tried to pierce the uncertain starlight to see.

Something brushed the blanket at waist level. I gasped and stiffened, but even as I did, something had been passed across my front and was jerked back to pin me to the grating. I had no idea what kind of strap it was, but it held me just below my breasts, clamping my arms to my body inside the blanket. And while I was still fighting the paralysis that had settled on me, a thick, rough hood descended over my head and was drawn snug around my neck.

I screamed once, then, but the hood seemed to confine every quaver of my voice. Flinging myself against the strap didn't do anything for me; I was helpless. When the grating started to move, swinging ponderously outward, I could only move in its arc with it. And when the strap was momentarily loosened from the ironwork, it was drawn tightly around me and fastened again before I was aware of what had happened.

"NO! NO!" I cried out against the baffling hood. "Who are you? Let me go! Let me go!"

I heard no reply. I heard nothing! But I felt my upper arms seized through the blanket and yielded to the thrust of my captor's hands. I walked hesitantly and reluctantly, feeling the ground ahead of me at each step and pressing back feebly, but I knew I had no hope of spoiling whatever plan the silent kidnaper had.

I was confident it was Maria. I couldn't imagine how she'd gotten to the crypt-and inside it-without my seeing or hearing her, but it could be nobody else. And I'd played into her hands as if she'd written the instructions for me! But as we continued to walk I couldn't guess where we were going. Our path twisted frequently, the ground sloping up now on our left, then on our right until my sense of direction was hopelessly confused.

At last we stopped. Gloved hands caught my wrists and, jerking the blanket out of the way, crossed my wrists behind me. In a moment, the night air playing over my exposed belly and legs, my hands were securely lashed together between my back and the blanket. My captor wrapped the blanket around me again and forced me to my knees. I shuddered as I knelt; my back touched a low stake that the blanket had settled outside of. And it was no surprise when my captor reached under the edge of the blanket and lifted it long enough to fasten my wrist lashings to the stake. The drawstring at the bottom of the hood was loosened and I felt no further touch from whoever had made me prisoner.

I don't know now what I anticipated. I know I let my buttocks settle on my heels and cringed, waiting. But nothing happened. And at last I knew I was alone. My first tug at my wrists made the blanket slip at my shoulders. If I lost that protection, I thought with cold horror, I'd be kneeling there naked until I could get loose or somebody rescued me. And the night was too cold for that. But I found in time that I could crouch, bending forward and turning enough to keep my arms from being dislocated, in such a way as to let the blanket lie on me like a loose cover. In that position I was able to shake the hood from my head.

I'd been right. I was alone. The hood that lay beneath my face was one of the heavy bags Blaine used to carry newly captured snakes in. It was no wonder it had seemed so invulnerable to noise penetration! And as I turned my head slowly from side to side I made the discovery that I was in the snake compound.

I groaned miserably. Thanks to Rolf and his introduction of the afternoon I wasn't terribly frightened; I knew I wouldn't get hurt if I relaxed. But I was doubtful I could stay where I was for long without some of the more restless rattlers detecting my body heat. The likelihood seemed to me to increase as the tightly woven blanket trapped the warming air and created a cozy shelter for me. Only at my front, where the edges gaped, did I feel cool air settling in to displace that I was heating.

I didn't have long to wait. Several long, fat shapes appeared, gliding slowly across the sand to me. And one of them I recognized with sharp apprehension. Don Juan was homing in on the warmth I represented!

I screamed. The giant rattler reared and his tail buzzed. Scared, I screamed again. But awareness penetrated my swelling panic and I realized the noise was either frightening or irritating him; his advance had become menacing and I was in obvious danger from his teeth if I persisted in my attempts to alert people in the distant house. I bit my lip and sagged into a tight, huddled crouch.

Don Juan quieted gradually. The lesser rattlers acted as if he had some kind of prior right. They continued to approach, but none showed any inclination to reach me before him. He made for the gap in the blanket as if guided by the escaping warm air. I had to clench my teeth to keep from screaming again when his head passed under my face, bare inches below it, and my muscles tensed viciously when he raised the huge, blunt-nosed triangle to flick his tongue over my breasts and belly. When he lowered it, his head settled between my knees. I flinched and uttered a soft moan of terror, but again I mustered the self-control to avoid a disastrous clamping together.

My thighs were hot enough where they touched each other near the top to feel sweaty. There, where the body heat was highest, the great snake wedged his dry, rough nose. With a sob of despair I thrust against the sand with my knees, inching them apart to avoid angering the intruder. His tongue flicked continuously, the darting touch arousing a sharp, insistent tingle in my crotch. He worked his head steadily closer to my pussy while horrible, unwanted surges of perverse excitement twitched my membranes. His body thickened immediately behind his head, bigger around than a man's arm and just as hard. It pressed between my thighs and drove thrills through me and made me slide my knees still further apart.

Don Juan showed none of the haste Joe or Pedro had to curl himself into a heap and go to sleep. His tongue explored the thickening wetness in the slit of my pussy while his head worked steadily back and forth between the quivering flesh of my thighs. His heavy body rustled as it slid past my face into the space under my body. And it slipped sideward over the front of one thigh and around it to the other. Horror and fascination blended within my growing agitation. The massive, powerful snake wrapped himself around both of my thighs in a figure eight that encircled each leg twice. And by drawing the coils tightly upward to my crotch he forced my legs apart as far as I could have separated them myself. His nose kept bumping the swelling tissues of my pussy lips and his tongue played maddeningly over the inner slopes as they unfolded.

"Oh, God!" I groaned in a choked voice. "Somebody's been training him! That goddamn Blaine's been using somebody to teach him tricks!"

One day made the difference between responsiveness and screaming insanity. I knew my predicament would have driven me out of my mind if it had happened before my son had brought me to the compound. Fear and revulsion would have burned out my mental fuses. But I'd learned snakes weren't as repulsive as I'd imagined, and I could adjust to this one.

The fact it was dark helped, though. Without visual evidence of the powerful body's constant movement I could lose myself in the physical stimulation of dry friction and continually active squeezing. The heavy coils compressed my thighs and relaxed and compressed without an instant's pause. The effect was that of a fantastic massage, and it generated a deep, fierce pleasure that melted my last shred of resistance.

In its continuing back-and-forth movement, his head repeatedly carried his probing tongue over my clitoris. And its delicate, incredibly rapid thrust inflamed the sensitive organ to an agonizing pitch of excitement. My breathing became a gasping struggle for air and my hips undulated with increasing force. I felt my cunt opening and closing like the hungry mouth of a fish and my muscles jerked uncontrollably at the too-frequent jabs of the bony nose into my slit.

I was conscious of the invasion by the other snakes only as a hazy activity on the edge of my excitement. They crawled up my thighs and over Don Juan's bulky coils and wound their own thick bodies around mine. My boobies were trapped between adjacent snakes and squeezed and twisted and my torso was soon enveloped within a living shroud. Their weight bowed me deeper, until my forehead pressed the sand and my shoulders ached from the strain on my arms. But all sensations were subordinate to those Don Juan produced. His nose burrowed into my slit and his powerful neck continued to weave back and forth. The blunt snout was dragged from end to end in the slippery trough while I cried out with ecstasy. I had no time to think, but a flash of recollection crossed the surface of my mind; snakes could close their nostrils and go without air for incredible periods of time while burrowing.

And Don Juan demonstrated. His snout settled at my cunt and pushed. I drew a sobbing lungful of air and shuddered violently. The busy tongue flicked at the throat of my vagina and the great, triangular head wedged my cuntmouth open and burrowed in. I choked at the immensity of the entering head. I felt as if my bony structure were being sprung. But the broad jaws plunged through the tortured ring and the powerful neck drove after the head, filling my vagina and jostling my internal organs aside. Using his purchase on my widespread thighs for leverage, the monstrous snake drove his head to the inner end of my vagina and filled my passage with his swelling neck.

I uttered a half-grunt, half-groan and thrust backward with my ass, as if I could plunge myself further onto his body. His coils worked upward still further, engulfing my hips and smothering my belly. But they didn't release their grip on the tops of my thighs. One hard ridge of his body rode over my clitoris and his constant flexing massaged the overwrought lump unmercifully.

In the flood of lust that overwhelmed me I knew without thinking about it that every inch of my body except my head was being caressed by the constricting coils of Blaine's snakes. A dry, writhing body even had a firm ridge wedged into the crack between my asscheeks. And my breasts were being kneaded in a powerful, slow-churning grip. I had no way to cope with the insane jumble of sensations and knew I was already at the beginning of my orgasm.

I looked back under myself past coil after gray coil to the fabulous bulk of Don Juan. And when I saw his huge rattle dangling next to one of my knees it came to me there was light. With dazed curiosity, I twisted and looked for the source.

"Jesus Christ!" said Blaine softly, setting an electric lantern down and kneeling a body's length from me. "Jesus, Anne! You're taking it!"

"Blaine! Oh, you son of a bitch, Blain Gamiski! Go away! You've done enough!"

"Huh! What do you mean?"

"UNNHHH-I can't-talk-now! I-I'm-coming! AHHH! AGGHHH!"

I felt the violent contractions of my vaginal walls as they bore down on the burrowing snake. My body heaved helplessly under the burden of all the other heavy brutes and I went rigid. It felt as if my guts were turning inside out. Delight burst in me and radiated through me. I sobbed, half-delirious with the intensity of my climax. And I was afraid for a time I'd never stop coming. But the thrust of Don Juan's neck diminished and my spasms weakened. I collapsed, held in place only by the bonds on my wrists. And my cunt distended as the huge neck began to withdraw.

I cried out in alarm when the snake pulled his head free; I couldn't believe he'd get it out without pulling my guts out with it. But he did. And he made no further effort to relieve me of his presence. He snuggled the wet, slippery lumps of the wedge into the nest of my slit and remained tightly coiled around me. And the excitement that had burst into orgasm merely slipped to a barely lower level.

I blazed at Blaine. "Had your fun, you bastard? And all the time I thought I knew who'd brought me here!"

"Anne! For Christ's sake! You don't think I-"

"Of course I do!" Bitterness welled in my throat. "Big deal! Bet you got a whole truckload of kicks out of watching your goddamn snake fuck the widow secretary! What's next; one of the hogs?"

"Oh, shit, Anne! You've got it all wrong!"

"Yeah, sure!" And then, in hope as much as alarm, "Oh, Jesus! The son of a bitch is going to fuck me again!"

But Blaine threw himself down at my side as Don Juan butted at my cunt again. He slid the blanket off and spread it on the sand a dozen feet away, then seized the enormous neck with both hands.

"That blanket's going to stay warm for a while." He grunted, straining as he pulled the great head away from my pussy. "It's going to take a few minutes to get these fellows off you. Just don't make any sudden moves."

"I-I can't-move-at all! They're too-heavy!"

I gasped at the force the huge snake exerted as he resisted Blaine's efforts. He squeezed my thighs so powerfully I thought the pressure alone would make me come again. But the coils yielded an inch at a time and Blaine finally lifted the massive body clear of my legs and deposited it on the blanket.

"This is the touchy time!" he exclaimed, coming quickly back to me. "Gotta get one or two more over there with him before he tries to come back!"

He worked a second of the brutes loose from my left thigh and moved it to the blanket, then a third from my right leg. One by one, then, working calmly and talking constantly, he peeled the clinging rattlers from my body and piled them on the blanket. When the last was off, he jerked the lashings off my wrists and helped me to my feet. I let him clasp me in his arms, my flesh pressing tightly to him and squirming on his hardness.

"Christ, Blaine! Thanks! I don't know if you put me here in the first place, but thanks for getting me loose!"

"You don't like me, Anne."

"No! I don't trust you! Any further than a wild rattler!" I remembered John's quiet insistence I become part of the swap circle and realized I'd seldom be much more aroused than I was right now. "That doesn't matter! I'm on fire! Blaine, fuck me!"

His arms tightened with a jerk, then he held me away from him and devoured my nude body with a stare. "You mean that, Anne?" His voice sounded harsh.

"John says I'm wrong about you," I replied simply. "He said I ought to give you a chance to prove it-on your own terms."

"Hmph."

"Blaine-Blaine, things are so distorted tonight it's like being somebody else in some other world! I've got to get fucked by a man! I'll go crazy if I don't! I know I will! All those snakes!"

He grabbed me. "You're right!" The exultant note in his voice couldn't have been masked. "Come on! You don't want it in the snake compound!"

"God, no! Take me wherever you want, but get me the hell out of here!"