Cherry Crush

by Burke, Stephanie

  Hearing footsteps behind her, she darted down an unfamiliar street, only for it to turn into a dead-end alley blocked by a high chain-linked fence and several metal garbage cans.

  Seeing no way out, she grabbed a lid from a nearby can and braced herself.

  The three were hot on her tracks. She spun and knocked one out of her way with the lid. She almost made it through the breach she created when her target stumbled back, but the leader of this pack was too quick for her.

  “You almost broke my nose, bitch,” he roared, one hand covering his nose, his breath sounding harsh form between dry lips. “Now you’re going to pay.” He reached out and wrenched the lid form her hand, before grabbing her by the face. Snarling, his face twisted in anger, he shoved her back to his buddies.

  While the other two held her, the first one—Bryan as his friends called him—pulled out a knife and slashed at the straps to her backpack. All it contained was her near-empty wallet, her door keys, and her cook’s uniform, so he wouldn’t get much on that score.

  “Are we gonna run a ‘train’ on her, man?” the one on her left asked, and all the blood drained from Laney’s face.

  He dressed like the other two in high top tennis shoes and a black flannel sweatsuit.

  “After she pays,” Bryan’s eyes narrowed before he backhanded her in the face.

  “You bastard!” she screamed, enough adrenaline coursed through her body to deaden the pain in her face as she continued to fight, but she suddenly stopped struggling when Bryan pressed the blade to her throat.

  The others laughed, watching with hungry eyes when her arms wrenched upwards and they wrestled her to the ground. She kicked out, but only managed to knock one heel off. It flew up in the dank air of the dark alley, and the bastards laughed again when the lone shoe flew behind her and almost struck her on the head.

  “You think you too good for us?” Bryan asked, using the knife to slash through her long duster and the skirt she’d picked out to wear home, a skirt chosen especially to entice Chan into her way of thinking.

  Oh God! Chan!

  Her mind churned with a thousand questions. What would he do when he found out? What if they killed her? Would he be the one to find her torn, violated body?

  With renewed vigor, she started to fight them, ignoring the dangers of the knife, figuring a few small cuts were more actable than accepting a violation.

  “Hold still or I’ll cut you!” Bryan snapped. To make his point he sliced a thin line on her inner thigh, now exposed through the slashed skirt.

  A shrill cry escaped her as one of her hands, the right one, slipped free of her tormentor’s grasp and scrambled along the slimy wet concrete behind her head. Almost by chance, her fingers touched smooth leather and hard wood. The missing shoe! The other two were too involved in observing Bryan’s handiwork to notice. They sat back on their heels, holding her shoulders down, and watching Bryan slit her blouse from neck to waist.

  In that moment, when their guard was down, Laney jerked her shoulder, displacing the goon to her right, and slammed the heel into Bryan’s eye. He screamed in pain, and the other two looked on in horror as she wrenched herself free. Lurching to her feet, she darted back down the alley, panic-blinded by fear and pain.

  She turned back to catch a quick glance at the outraged trio and shrieked when she ran into a hard wall of muscle and flesh.

  Automatically, she let out a frightened scream and fought the arms that surrounded her, pushing against the grip that threatened to pull her in against another male chest.

  “Laney?”

  “Let me go!” she bellowed. Tears of frustration filled her eyes. She was so close to freedom only to be caught by another of Bryan’s ilk. She kicked and swung at the immovable force in fear and anger and tried to force him to let her go.

  “Laney!” the voice cried.

  She looked up, saw a violently still face, a familiar face, a face that meant safety from all harm.

  Chan stared down at her, and from the expression on his face, she could tell that he was not amused.

  A clatter and the sounds of cursing and swearing echoed from the alley. She had almost forgotten about the thug trio, and more importantly, their knife.

  “Run!” she screamed, doing her best to pull Chan away from the alley towards safety. “They have a knife!”

  “Go get help,” he replied and released her, looking over her head. A small feral smile graced his features as he shoved Laney behind him.

  The terrible trio had arrived.

  “You tried to take my eye, bitch.” Bryan clutched the bleeding area directly below his eye. “And I’m gonna take your fuckin’ life.”

  Bryan cried in anger and pain racing towards Laney and Chan, face twisted in rage.

  “Go!” Chan urged her, and she took off.

  As Laney rounded the corner, she screamed for help.

  Spying a parked patrol car in the distance, she ran to it and banged on the windows. Within seconds, the two patrol officers had called in the assault and sprinted with her back to the alley.

  As soon as Marlana turned the corner, Chan exploded into action.

  In a series of controlled motions, he neatly kicked one man in the jaw, rendering him unconscious instantly. His left elbow slammed into the other man’s throat, dropping him to writhe on the ground, fighting for each breath. In a roundhouse, he kicked the knife from Bryan’s hand.

  Bryan backed up and fumbled in his pocket, presumably for some other weapon, but in front of him, Chan didn’t move, and Bryan sprinted back down the alley and over the fence that had trapped her.

  When Chan started after him, the cops rounded the corner, and a frantic Laney flew into Chan’s arms.

  “Are you hurt?” she demanded, running her fingers over his face, her hands patting down his chest and arms. “Did those animals hurt you?”

  Chan removed his lightweight jacket and wrapped it around her shivering body very much exposed by the long rents in her dress.

  “It was you who was hurt.”

  Blood dripped down her leg, and bruises had begun to form on her face.

  “I will never forgive myself for this,” he growled, his whole body shaking with anger.

  Knowing he had to be gentle with her, Chan took a deep, cleansing breath and did his best to call on his Reiki teachings. Slowly, he began releasing his anger.

  The cops now had the two men in custody and asked about the third that had got away. Back-up arrived. They provided a blanket to cover her torn clothes, and a shaky Laney and a coldly quiet Chan left in a patrol car.

  After filling out mountains of paperwork and declining a trip to the emergency room, they left the authorities with assurances that the two would be charged and the third would probably show up in a hospital trying to get treatment for his wounds. Chan was certain he’d broken the guy’s wrist with his kick. When the police caught up with him, they would have him on aggravated assault, assault with a deadly weapon, assault with intent to do bodily harm, and a slew of other charges. The police stressed that even though her bag was missing and presumed taken by her assailant, along with her ID and house keys, most likely Bryan would fly the coop. But the cops stressed that she change her locks as soon as possible. Just in case.

  The clock read almost three in the morning when Chan half dragged an exhausted Laney into his apartment over both the dojo and her own abode.

  “You shouldn’t be alone tonight,” he informed her, removing both of their shoes and carrying her through the scant-furnished rooms to his bedroom.

  Laney looked to be beyond caring as he covered her with a thick down comforter before retrieving a warm wet flannel to wash her face and hands.

  “Thank you, Chan,” she got out before closing her eyes and giving in to the sweet oblivion of sleep, his presence seeming to offer her some security.

  Chan gave a terse nod before exiting on silent feet.

  Chan’s apartment was comfortable in appearance, with a low table used for eating i
n the dining room and a breakfast bar in the kitchen. The black leather couches in his living room piled high with large fluffy pillows in muted shads of red — lucky colors. In fact, more pillows than anything lay strewn throughout his place. The only exception in scarcity was in the master bath.

  His bathroom contained a whirlpool bath on one side and a double-headed shower on the other. The tile was black stone marbleized in gold, and hothouse plants thrived everywhere. The black toilet and sink gleamed with cleanliness, and the brass fixtures glinted in the light from the elaborate fixture overhead.

  Instead of hardwood floor, the bedroom possessed a carpet so thick that your feet massaged with luxury with every step. The gold dragons cavorting across a midnight sky appeared almost too beautiful to step on. The bed itself was one huge marble pedestal topped by a super-king-sized mattress. Mountains of pillows in black, gold, red, and white topped the bed, while mounds of pillows faced the fireplace built into one corner of the room.

  On the walls hung several ancient-looking katanas and blades. Directly on the wall behind the bed resided a fan made with five of the most unusual and beautiful feathers of black, red, and gold.

  Even an ornithologist would be hard-pressed to identify the creature the feathers came from, and then, not too many people would even recognize them as being natural.

  Chan left her in this room and headed for the kitchen for some tea and contemplation.

  If only he hadn’t stopped to counsel one of the women in his class. If only he had called instead of thinking he could catch her before she left the restaurant. If only those punks had left her alone. If only, if only, if only.

  He went through the motions and prepared his tea in the style of his father’s people, steeped in a cast-iron pot with just a little lemongrass, and stalked to his living room.

  Guilt was tearing him up inside. His Shinto philosophy preached that all things must be accepted as they came, but his heart whispered he could have arrived sooner and done…something. He fell asleep on his couch, his tea long forgotten, with the “if onlys” bouncing around in his brain.

  The sound of low sobbing overlaid by the soft roar of falling water awoke him much later.

  Chapter Two

  Laney floated in a deep sleep when she suddenly felt cold metal and the sharp edge of honed metal. The knife! It was at her throat. Before she could do no more than react, a sinister voice whispered, “I’m gonna kill you, bitch.”

  Screaming, she lurched up and out of bed before she realized that she had been dreaming. With the memory the filthy hands and the feel of the knife blade biting into her skin, Laney fled to the only open doorway in the room, the bathroom, to get violently ill over Chan’s shiny black toilet.

  After losing her earlier dinner, Laney hung over the toilet. The heaving sounds of her retching echoed in her mind. She shuddered, wiped away the tears that ran down her face, spat one last time, and rose to flush the toilet.

  She took a few steps to the sink and glared at the mirror that hung above it.

  She looked like hell.

  A huge green-blue bruise marred her face and various cuts on her arms and back stung. Butterfly sutures held together a shallow cut on her upper thigh, and it burned like mad now that the painkillers the hospital staff had given her were wearing off.

  She smelled of the antiseptic the paramedics had slathered onto her…and garbage juice. She needed a shower.

  Gingerly, she stripped off the remainder of her clothing, wincing at the thought of the condition of Chan’s sheets. She tossed her ruined garments over by the garbage can. She never wanted to set eyes on any of the clothing again—all dumpster bound as far as she was concerned.

  She hoped that Chan wouldn’t mind her using his shower, but right now she had a need to get very clean in the worst way possible.

  There were already several types of soft soap in the shower, and an odd showerhead attached to a pole ran from the floor to the ceiling in the large stall. The shower also contained a small padded stool that sat over against the far wall along with a wild array of small stoppered bottles.

  She lifted one and opened it, sniffing the oily substance inside.

  Instantly, she was surrounded by the scents of wind and rain, good cleansing things that reminded her of Chan’s hair. She had gotten very up close and personal with his scent, as he spent several hours tossing her around in his dojo. The smell also permeated the gee he wore while practicing his specialty, Kendo.

  Chan didn’t allow Laney to participate in these classes, not that she held any interest in swordsmanship other than an observational capacity. She loved watching the fluid movements of Chan and his advanced classes; they seemed to dance on air, chopping at each other with deadly skill and accuracy.

  After these classes, she often assisted Chan with clean up, gathering bits and pieces of his own personal equipment while he saw to the repair and cleaning of his students. This rain-washed smell infused into the martial of his headgear. So logically she deduced that the substance was some type of shampoo or soap.

  Why else would these bottles be in a shower?

  The stool she figured was for washing when too tired to stand, and it looked comfortable despite its height. She pulled it over, positioned it before the showerhead, and discovered that the head was adjustable. It slid smoothly down the pole until bathing-stool height.

  Laney started the water, adjusted the temperature until stinging hot, plopped her butt on the stool, and drenched herself with the water.

  Blindly, she reached for a bottle, not caring which scent it was, opened it, and doused her body in the slick substance.

  The thought of getting clean was worth more than anything she could immediately name.

  As she sat there, her mind recalled those hands on her body, those leering voices, and the feel of that knife.

  She had never felt so helpless in her life!

  She fought back the overwhelming need to scream to the heavens as helplessness and frustration threatened to choke her.

  Instead, she reached out for a small rough sponge and scrubbed away the hands, the taint of their liquor-scented breaths, and the press of the wet concrete against her back.

  After four soapings, she still felt those hands holding her in their rough grip. A low sob escaped her, and she slid down off the shower stool, the sponge and the oil soap falling beside her on the slippery tiles.

  Those men had intended to steal the most precious thing that she possessed. Those men intended to hurt her, to rape her, take away her humanity, leaving her nothing more than an object to be used, abused, and discarded.

  If they had managed to succeed…if they had violated her, she would be little more than the trash they’d laid her in.

  The feeling that it had somehow been her fault filled her, and she dropped her head to her knees and began to cry.

  She was the one walking out at night instead of waiting for Chan. She was the one in the provocative clothing, never mind the fact that they couldn’t see through her overcoat. She was the one lost in her fantasies of Chan, not paying attention to what was going on, of where to run, or of how loud to scream.

  She bet she even smelled of lust and want; that she had sent out a ready and horny signal that they could pick up on.

  And that knowledge made her sob even more.

  That was how Chan found her.

  “Laney,” he quietly called to her.

  His voice socked her out of the depths of her shame and guilt in which her mind had been descending. Choking back a sob, she lifted her head enough to spy his concerned face, then turned hers away.

  “You…,” she stuttered, her chest heaving, struggling to control the tears that ran down her face that blended with the hot water that remained pouring over her. “Y-you must…m-must thi-nk th-that I’m a…a…a fool.” She needed to get rid of the pity she just knew was reflected in his eyes.

  “Laney….” His voice sounded lower pitched than normal.

  “I-I know….” S
he sniffed, forced her shudders to cease, and lifted her head to stare at him. “I should h-have p-paid attention. I-I s-should have—”

  “Nothing you could have done would have stopped them from acting the animal.”

  “I should have waited.” She had to make him see that she was going to take responsibility for her actions. Didn’t he see that she was trying to cope with her mistakes?

  “Then the fault lies with me,” he growled. His hands gripped her upper arms, regardless of the water that soaked him to the skin. “The fault lies with me, the one who should have been there waiting for you!”

  “No!”

  “And the fault lies with your boss for going home to his pregnant wife instead of offering you a ride.”

  “I-it’s not— He offered….”

  “So he should have forced you to accept. And the fault lies with the officers who did not hear your screams.”

  She shook her head, her eyes wide as she tried to deny the truths he forced her to listen to.

  “Then the fault lies with the ruffians that decided to take by force that which you have offered to me in affection.”

  She looked up and into the quiet strength of Chan’s face, read the sincerity in his eyes, and her thought processes realigned.

  His eyes…they…they swirled.

  Odd things lingered in his eyes, one of them the way the colors melded and combined, creating a rainbow that reflected peace and contentment. So many things in those eyes, those beautiful glowing orbs. Her panic receded, and her thoughts righted themselves with her previous train of thought…the way she thought before the attack.

  “It was not my fault.” She sighed, leaned into his grip, dropped her forehead to his collarbone, and tucked her head neatly under his chin. “Not my fault.”

  “Never,” he breathed and pulled her tight against his chest, enfolding her in his arms. “Never your fault, my koi.” My love.

  She was wet and shivering in his arms.

  She was wet, naked, and shivering in his arms.

  She was wet and naked and shivering and lying oh so trustingly in his arms.