by S. J. Lewis
All the anger she’d felt earlier was gone. Now all she felt was a growing sadness. He was going to leave. She just knew it. And then the anger flared up again. He wouldn’t even tell her why! She rolled onto her side with her back to the doorway, curled up, and fought back tears.
Chapter Seven
“You really have to go? So soon?” Claudia reached out to put a hand on Sam’s thigh as he sat on the edge of her bed. She’d had angry words ready for him when he’d come back into the bedroom. Then she’d seen the look on his face and the words died, unspoken. Sam looked…different. There was a stark grimness in his expression.
“I do, Red.” He looked at the floor for a moment and then turned back to her. He smiled weakly. “I really wish I didn’t.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. But I gotta go.”
“When? How soon?” She edged closer to him. She had to know how much time they had left, no matter how badly it might hurt.
“Tomorrow morning,” he replied. “Early.”
She felt something very cold stab through her heart. “How early?”
“There’s a seven a.m. flight. I’ll have to leave before five to get there in time to go through the security checks and still catch the plane.”
Claudia chewed at her lower lip. She wanted to ask him if he couldn’t catch a later flight. But that would be pointless. “It’s that important that you have to leave so early?”
He reached out to stroke her hair gently. “It’s that important, Red.”
“Can’t you tell me what it’s all about?”
He leaned over to kiss her softly. For a moment she thought he was just going to do that instead of tell her. He leaned back again and sighed once. “A friend of mine may be in some trouble. I’m gonna go see what I can do.”
Well…that was something, at least. It was more than he’d been willing to share with her so far. It still didn’t feel like enough, but she wasn’t going to press him.
“They must be a pretty good friend,” she said. And then, some angry impulse compelled her to add, “Him or her?” She threw in a sneering emphasis on the last word.
The instant she said it she wished she hadn’t. Sam had seemed on the verge of opening up to her. Now she saw something like a wall come down behind his eyes. He frowned at her.
“Don’t do that, Red. It don’t suit you.”
“I’m sorry!” She was completely sincere, but that wall remained in place. “I shouldn’t have said that at all, Sam. I’m…just upset that you have to leave.”
“I ain’t too happy about it either,” he shrugged. “But I gotta go.”
“Will you be coming back?” She was already sure that she knew the answer.
“Soon as I can, but it might not be for a while. I got a business to run too, same as you.”
“Yeah, sure.” She’d been lying on her bed. Now she sat up, drawing away from him, tucking her knees up under her chin and wrapping her arms around her legs. “So I guess you’ll call me?” Her tone was bitter.
“Come on, Red. You think I wanna leave? We both knew I was gonna have to sooner or later.”
That was perfectly true, although neither of them had spoken about it. Now that moment was almost here and she felt somehow cheated. It wasn’t a rational feeling, but it was very real. And, rational or not, it was Sam who had caused it. He’d walked back into her life, relit the almost-forgotten fires and added a few new ones. Now he’d be leaving in less than twenty-four hours. Two years ago it had taken everything she had to walk away from him. It might not have been enough then, except that she’d had starting her own business to look forward to. Now he was walking away from her, and it didn’t seem to bother him at all.
No…that wasn’t fair either. He said he didn’t want to go and she believed him. But how much of that was just because he was here with her now? Back home or anywhere else in the world, he could find any number of other women to bed and bind. They would be there and she wouldn’t. He might say that every other woman was plain vanilla after her, but sooner or later he’d find one of a flavor that he liked, and ‘Red’ would become no more than a memory to him.
Dammit! Why was her mind doing this to her? Sam was still here. He hadn’t left yet and any possible replacement for her was miles and days away, yet she was ready to write an unhappy ending to the story.
“You okay, Red?” Sam hadn’t made a move to get closer to her after she’d pulled away, and he was regarding her with some concern. Yeah, sure, he was worried he wasn’t going to get any more today…STOP IT!
She took a deep breath to steady herself and let it out in a long sigh. “No, I’m not okay, Sam,” she replied, shaking her head slowly. “I’m missing you already and I hate it.”
He held out his hand to her. “We still got some time. Not enough to waste, but some. What do you want to do with it, Red?”
She looked at his hand, then up at his face. He was smiling, but it was a small and bittersweet smile. The next thing she knew she’d thrown herself into his arms, wrapped her arms around his neck and was kissing him so hard she was bruising her mouth. It didn’t matter. She pulled him closer, held him tighter. It felt as if she was trying to merge with him so he could never leave her at all. She felt his arms go around her, first hesitantly, then tighter, stronger. She moaned into his mouth before she finally had to break the kiss to breathe. Sam’s face was flushed. She knew that hers was too.
“Listen, Sam,” she said, panting a little. “I want to tell you another…fantasy of mine.”
“One of the ones you don’t wanna act out?”
“Yes and no…” she began. “No, that’s not quite what I mean.” She tried to think about what she did really mean, but nothing came clearly to mind. “No…” she shook her head. “This will be hard to explain no matter what…and I’m not sure I can tell you anyway.”
“Well,” Sam gave her a little hug and smiled. “I’m willin’ to wait. Those fantasies of yours are always pretty interestin’.”
She put her hands to either side of his face. He had a little stubble, and it felt like fine sandpaper under her palms. She kissed him once, softly. “Maybe you can make it a little easier for me to…talk about it.”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “Just tell me what to do.”
“You still have some duct tape?”
“Uh…yeah. But you said it was a bit too painful comin’ off.”
“We’ll need it for this,” she replied. “Could you go and get it?”
“Okay.” Sam returned to the bedroom with a heavy roll of duct tape. It was silvery, two inches wide, and, as Claudia knew from experience, very, very sticky. “Here it is. Now what?”
She put herself face-down on her bed and crossed her wrists behind her. “Do it rough, Sam,” she urged him. “Do it like you’ve broken in here to use me all night.”
Sam jumped onto the bed and straddled her. She heard the ripping sound of the tape coming off of the roll and then felt him wrapping it tightly around and around her wrists. She whimpered for his benefit, but didn’t struggle. There was a final tug.
“Now blindfold me,” she said. “Use the tape.”
“You sure, Red?”
“Do it, Sam,” she gritted. “Please.”
Another ripping sound. Sam placed the tape carefully over her eyes, smoothing it down. It was going to hurt when it came off, but now she thought she was finally ready…well, as ready as she was ever likely to be. She rolled over onto her back, shifting around until she found a not-too-uncomfortable position for her taped wrists. She kept her legs primly together. A real captive would probably do that so that her captor would have to part her legs himself.
She licked her lips. They felt oddly dry. Well, she was about to strip her inner self as naked to him as her outer self already was. “Before I tell you…” she began.
“I can guess.” Sam’s voice sounded very close. “This is another one of those fantasies you never want to act out for real.”
How did he know? Probably because o
f the big production she was making of all this. “That’s right,” she answered. “Sam, please touch me while I tell you this. I won’t feel so…alone, then.”
He didn’t say anything, but a moment later she felt the warmth of his palm resting lightly on her belly. She shivered delicately.
“It goes back to when Dianne and I were still on the police force,” she began. “We were pretty good at what we did, and we ticked off quite a few criminals. I used to wonder what would happen if any of them decided to get some revenge on a couple of nosy female cops…”
Sam’s fingers pressed ever-so-gently against the soft, silky skin of her belly for just a moment. She shivered again, even though she knew he’d done it just to let her know he was listening.
“Anyway…” she went on. What I imagined…more than once…was that somehow a gang of them had captured Dianne. They let me know that they had her, and unless I came to a certain place by a certain time, they would hurt her.” She took a deep breath and continued. “Sometimes the place was an old warehouse, sometimes an abandoned tenement…but usually it was this big, dirty junkyard just inside the city limits, near the river. It was a real place. All of them were.” She laughed weakly. “Dianne and I poked through a lot of places in our time. I remember once I came across an old metal bedstead in an abandoned apartment building. It had this old, beat-up mattress on it, and I suddenly had a picture of myself spread-eagled on it, naked and bruised, ropes so tight that my feet and hands had gone numb…anyway…” she shook her head and got back on topic.
“So…I have to go, alone, to this junkyard. It’s a big place with rusting old cars stacked up all over the place. It stinks of oil, gasoline, dirt and sweat, and inside it’s a lot like a maze. It’s surrounded by this tall chain-link fence and there are big gates at either end. I drive there in my car. The gate I was told to go to is open, so I drive through it. I’m going very slowly. I really don’t want to be there at all, but I can’t just let them hurt Dianne. When I look in my rear-view mirror I see two men closing the gate behind me.” She took another breath. “I know, it sounds like a bad cop movie. Now they have both of us instead of just one of us. It just wouldn’t happen in real life, but this is a fantasy.”
Again she felt Sam briefly press his fingertips lightly into her flesh. She was glad he was just listening and not interrupting with questions. If he had any questions, she wasn’t sure she could answer them coherently. This fantasy was something she indulged in late at night in her bed all by herself. She’d never expected to be telling it to anyone else, so a lot of it didn’t really have words to it.
“Anyway…I go a little ways and two more men make me stop my car and get out. They both look like they work here, big, burly men in grimy overalls and beat-up work boots. They both need a shave. One of them has a sawed-off shotgun. I’m in my police uniform. They take my belt, hat, gun…and my car keys. They take me to a place that’s almost right in the middle of the junkyard, surrounded by these tall columns of crushed cars. There’s a little building there, some kind of an office. It has a dirty window. I can see Dianne through the window. She’s also in uniform. She has her arms behind her, so they’ve either tied or cuffed her. There are two more burly men with her. She looks scared but not hurt. I can’t let them hurt her, so I’ll have to do what they say.” She paused. Sam gently pressed her belly again. This time, it made her shiver. She was getting aroused.
“They take me away from there, around a corner to another building. It’s bigger, made out of wood with all the paint covered by grime and dirt. There’s a big door, wide enough to drive a pickup through. They bring me in there and close the door. It’s dark, there are lights but they’re very weak. There are two more men in there besides the two who brought me in. One wears a suit. The other is dressed like every other guy there, but his clothes aren’t as grimy. They make me strip, right there on the dirty concrete floor. Once I’m naked, they cuff me with my own handcuffs. The less-grimy one holds me while the man in the suit slaps me around a little and fondles me. I hate it, but I have to put up with it or they’ll hurt Dianne. Then they take me through the building. There’s a door at the other end, regular-sized this time. They lead me through it. I can feel my breasts jiggling a little as they hustle me through the door. Sometimes it’s a little chilly outside. Sometimes it’s cold. Sometimes it’s very hot and muggy. But always, on the other side of the door there’s this open area, surrounded by more piles of crushed cars. There are more men there, waiting. And right in the middle of the space is this metal stake driven into the ground. There’s a chain attached to it and a greasy old dog collar attached to the chain. It looks like there used to be a junkyard dog tied up there. They must have moved it. I know what they’re planning to do, but I can’t fight them or they will hurt Dianne. So I let them make me kneel and put the dog collar around my neck.”
This time, Sam’s touch was more of a light caress. It was all she could do to keep from shivering violently, and it took an effort to remember keep her legs together. She could feel her nipples swelling as she told her story. She hoped Sam would think it was his gentle touch causing it.
“The man in the suit is first. He slaps me around a little more, and I have to take it. What could I do now anyway? Then he unzips his pants and grabs me by my hair with one hand. He pulls his cock out with his other hand and presses the head of it against my lips. I don’t want to do it, especially not with all those men watching and waiting for their turns, but if I don’t, they’ll hurt Dianne. So finally, I open my mouth and he shoves his cock in…all the way in, so it blocks my throat. He holds it there and slaps me hard. I start to squirm and whine because I can’t breathe. He slaps me again, even harder, before he lets me pull back a little and get some air. I start to suck him. I can hear the other men making comments on my technique. I try to ignore them. The sooner I can get this guy off, the quicker he’ll be out of my mouth. But there are all those other men…”
She had to pause. After that first imaginary man, the fantasy tended to split into many different trails. She took a deep breath, and went on.
“They keep me there all day. Sometimes they make me suck them. Sometimes they shove me over onto my face and fuck me from behind…” She shivered, and decided not to tell Sam that sometimes they also fucked her up her ass, clamping big, hard hands over her mouth to muffle her screams. “If I get too dirty after a while, they dump a bucket of water over me. Cold water. And it goes on and on, all day…”
She stopped. Her heart was pounding now. Telling this darkest-of-all-fantasies to Sam had her more aroused than it ever had when she visited it by herself. There was more she could tell him, but it was disjointed and fragmented. “Sam?” she said weakly.
“I’m still listening, Red.”
“I…don’t think I have any more to say. Do you?”
“I think I’m always gonna be surprised by your imagination, Red,” he replied. “But now I’m wonderin’ why you told me all this.”
She took another deep breath and tried not to think about how short their remaining time together was. “Treat me rough, Sam,” she told him. “Slap me, spank me, fuck me however you want. Just keep me your prisoner all night. Make me your sex slave until you have to go.”
“You’re sure about this, Red?” He sounded doubtful, but his hand had moved off of her belly and she heard the sound of duct tape being torn off of the roll.
“Yes,” she responded. “I’m su…” Her last word was blotted out as he sealed her mouth with duct tape. For just a moment she hesitated, surprised by how quickly he had acted. Then she tried to kick him. A woman could be expected to resist, at least at first, couldn’t she? Her kick missed. His hand grabbed her ankle, and she tried to kick him with her other leg. This one connected. She didn’t know where she’d hit him, but she heard him grunt at the impact. Then his other hand grabbed her other ankle. She struggled wildly with him, but he kept his grip. Soon she had to quit struggling because the tape over her mouth was keeping her fr
om getting all the air she needed to keep it up. Once she did that, he twisted her legs, forcing her to turn over, face-down. He let go of one ankle to land a tremendous, stinging slap on her rump. She yelped and jerked. He gave her another hard swat. She felt him bending her leg double until her calf was touching her thigh. She heard him ripping more tape off of the roll.
She tried to fight. She really, really tried, but he was too strong and she was short of breath again far too soon. She felt him wrapping tape around her doubled leg, pinning it in that position. Then he repeated his actions with her other leg. In a few moments, she was as completely helpless as he could make her, and she was as fully aroused as she could be. With her legs secured the way they were, all he had to do was flip her over onto her back and she would be open and vulnerable, her knees raised and parted for him. But instead of doing that, he dragged her off of the bed and dumped her onto the floor. She landed heavily, still face-down. Then he rolled her roughly onto her back and slapped her. He slapped her again, and then she felt his weight land on top of her. She grunted at the impact. She could feel his legs forcing hers apart as he fumbled one-handed with his pants. Then he was in her, with one powerful, merciless thrust that pinned her down. She squealed as best she could, shaking her head back and forth as he began to plow her. He was hard and fast and relentless, intent only on fucking her, using her, dominating her. She loved it! Before long, she was squirming and moaning under him, lost in the sensations.
Usually, no matter how strenuous the game they were playing, Sam was careful to ensure that he made her come. She’d tried to explain to him that he didn’t have to do that. In fact, if she felt him really letting himself go, that was often enough to give her the pleasure she needed. He’d said he understood, but it didn’t seem as if he really believed it. Not so now. She could feel him grinding and thrusting, she could hear him grunting and panting, paying no attention to her reactions. In her mind’s eye, she could see herself, naked, bound, gagged and blindfolded with tape, writhing on the floor under him. She could see him also, on top of her, still clothed, pinning her down and ramming himself into her again and again and again.