by David Wiltse
Finally there was nothing for her but to have him and she demanded it, whispering at first that she wanted him, then calling out and pulling him onto her and into her and wrapping her legs to lock him in place.
Every thrust made her cry out and seemed to reverberate from her loins to her heart and she heard herself bellowing at him to continue, to do more and more and more and she said he was driving her crazy and she swore at him and cursed him with language of the gutter that astounded her as she heard it, but it was as if someone else were yelling, someone else were writhing on the bed and tearing at his back, someone who had lost her mind completely.
He seemed never to stop, never to tire, and Pegeen thought her body was on fire with sensation and wave after thrilling wave struck her and lifted her and bucketed her and she thought she would surely die and didn't care and finally, finally, with a growl growing low in his throat then building to a final burst that was a gasp as if his heart had ruptured, he shuddered to an end and at that very moment Pegeen was certain she felt everything he was feeling, doubling her own incredible sensation until it was simply too much to bear and she died.
Pegeen came to her senses astounded at herself, but far, far past embarrassment. She had never fainted in her life, but then she had never experienced anything like that in her life either. She did not know how long she had been passed out, or if he had noticed. In fact, she was still not convinced that he knew who she was; his need had seemed so great it was elemental rather than personal, but she had known who he was and even as she lay there, hoping he wouldn't speak for fear he might say the wrong thing, she knew she was in love with him.
His body was heavy upon her, his head still facedown next to her neck, where he had collapsed. Pegeen lay quietly, trying to distinguish his heartbeat from her own, his breathing from hers. She realized that all the lights were, on in the room and it surprised her because it had seemed that their lovemaking had taken place in the dark, all sensation and with nothing visual at all.
What happens now? she wondered, but before she could think any further she forced herself to stop. Whatever would happen, it would be no good, she knew that much without examining the problem, and there was no point in tormenting herself with it yet. There would be plenty and plenty of time for recrimination and sorrow.
When she touched him he moved, startled, as if she had awakened him, although she knew from his breath that he wasn't asleep. He jumped when touched without warning, she had noticed, even in the most casual of circumstances.
It seemed a puzzling trait in a man who was so aware of his surroundings and circumstances. Could a human touch be such a surprise to a man who seemed surprised by nothing?
When she ran her palm down his back she felt the enormous welts she had put there with her fingernails. She had never done that before, either, never been so heedless of her partner that she inflicted pain or damage.
All of her previous sexual encounters had been polite, she realized.
Which was one of the ways in which they had been inadequate. One of many. After three years with her last boyfriend, it had become so polite as to be downright formal.
Taking her touch for a signal, Becker withdrew and Pegeen realized with amazement that he was still hard.
"Are you all right?" she asked, finding it impossible to think that he wasn't satisfied.
Becker was amused. "It stays that way sometimes," he said, holding himself over her on his hands and knees.
"How long?"
He laughed. "I've never timed it."
He fell back onto the bed on his back, close to Pegeen but no longer touching her. To maintain contact, she put her arm across him, placed her cheek on his chest.
They lay in silence while all the things she might say raced through Pegeen's mind and she edited them and rejected them one after the other.
What she wanted to say was simple enough, she wanted to tell him that she loved him and she knew he didn't love her but that was all right, at least for the moment, because she was swamped with what she was feeling and didn't need to know how he felt, not for this second, at least, maybe longer, maybe for hours, maybe a day. She doubted it could be a day. But for just right now she loved him completely and that was more than enough and she yearned to tell him, just that, she was bursting with the need to tell him that. I don't want to frighten you, she rehearsed silently, and you don't need to respond, but I just want to say that I love you.
You don't have to answer, just know it and accept it, it's a gift I want to give you with no strings attached. And that wasn't entirely true, either, she realized, so she rejected that version because there were strings, there were hundreds of strings attached. Besides, she already realized that if he didn't say he loved her, too, it would break her heart. So much for the selfless part, she thought. It hadn't lasted very long. She amended what she wanted to say: I love you and want desperately for you to love me, too, but if you don't, I still love you anyway. But that sounded hopelessly wimpy, as if she were just asking to be taken advantage of, so she rejected that, too. Just say I love you, she thought, and the hell with the qualifiers, and let him respond how he will. But she didn't want to lose control over his response completely, so she didn't say anything even though her tongue was on fire with the need to say it.
Becker spoke first, finally breaking the silence.
"Did you know that chimpanzees eat flesh?" Becker said.
Pegeen couldn't believe the question.
"When they get the chance, chimpanzees in the wild will catch monkeys and tear them apart and eat them," he said. "We think of them as peaceful vegetarians, living off fruit, but they're carnivores if they have the opportunity."
"Why are you telling me this?"
"I was just thinking about it," he said.
"Oh."
Bite your tongue, she said to herself. Bite it off and swallow it before you say anything stupid. She stiffened and rolled away from him, but to her surprise he rolled with her so that he was on top of her again.
She wanted to push him off but he held her arms pinned against the bed with his weight pushing down.
"I had to stop thinking about you," he said. "It was driving me crazy."
He kissed her and this time where he had been rough and frantic before he was now gentle and tender. His lips seemed to melt against hers, and then to softly meld into them. When his fingers touched her body they were as soft as his lips, but no longer rudely exploring, now they moved with practiced care, bringing her to him this time with infinite patience.
Pegeen was amazed that she could respond so fully again; she had thought she had given everything she had to give before; but he found new reserves within her and new recesses where she had not known that so much of her lived. She knew'from the softness of his touch, the tender patience with which he wooed her that he loved her, too. When he wanted her to, she exploded, and then again and again until she made him stop because it was all too exquisite to bear anymore.
When she had rested he brought her to a soaring peak again. He has but to think of me, she said to herself. He doesn't even need to touch me an more, just will it to be y so and I am helpless.
He held her the whole night through, never letting her out of his arms-not that she ever wanted to leave them clinging to her even when she was out of control and heaving insensibly. In the middle of the night she realized that he could not be sated. The fault did not lie with her, because she exhausted him as thoroughly he did her; he could not be satisfied by sex, because sex was not what he craved. He had an appetite for something else and sex was just an available substitute.
An hour before sunrise he released her at last and they rose and dressed and walked to the car in the crepuscular light of the foredawn. Pegeen felt so weak and tired she was surprised that she could even walk, but Becker was as tense as he had been the night before, every muscle seeming to quiver in anticipation. When they reached the spot on the map, he fairly leaped from the car and started off cross-country. Pegeen kn
ew at last what his real appetite was for.
Aural had begun to believe she was going to die. She had fought him every moment since her abduction, battling him with her will, refusing to give in to her fear or to submit to his power, but she had not slept for two days now, the pain was constant, and worse than the pain was her loss of spirit. It was not total, it came in bouts of despair that would leave her wrung-out and hopeless, making it all the more difficult to rouse herself to withstand Swann's next ordeal. She could still rise up to defy him with her wit and courage, but the episodes of despondency were growing more frequent, lasting longer, and when she rose out of them, she did not rise as high.
She was losing her battle; it was no comfort that Swann' seemed to be losing his as well. He seldom went more than an hour or two before succumbing to the torment in his head and eye, clasping his hands over his face and keening. Aural knew it was ironic that the damage had been done to her torturer by the unlamented Harold Kershaw, but she was beyond being buoyed by irony. She hoped that Swann would drop dead, that his head would burst and his brains spill out on the cavern floor, but until he did, his bouts of suffering did nothing for her save offer her a brief respite from his tortures. The rests were never long enough for her to recover, and after each session more of her legs were covered with burns. He would soon start on her trunk, and Aural did not see how she could survive it when he got to her breasts.
She lay awake now, unable to find a position that offered her any relief from the pain. The bravura that had prompted her to rouse him from his sleep and rush back to the torture was gone now. When he moaned in his slumber, she wished him nightmares that would torment him as much as he tormented her, but she let him sleep.
Her resistance would be the strongest when he woke up. She could still taunt and defy him through breakfast, still make him believe that he had not broken her-but the mask would slip now when the day's activities began.
Only seldom could she rouse herself to defiance when he worked on her now; it took all of her concentration just to keep from pleading with him. She sensed that would be the end of her, when her spirit broke so completely that she begged him to stop would be the moment when he would triumph. She was still strong enough to deny him that, but she didn't know for how much longer. And in the end, would it make any difference if she went out cursing him or thanking him as he had predicted? It still made a difference to her now, but would it by the end?
She was beginning to doubt it.
She felt his eyes on her before he stirred and lit the candle. He would do that, lie there for a time, listening to her breathe, trying to gauge something about her, she did not know what. Or maybe he was just working himself up, savoring the pleasures of the day before they began.
This morning he was bright and cheerful. It ' was the fifth day. The fuel for the lantern was gone; they burned only candles now.
"I slept really well," he said. He was opening.a can of beans.
"Me, too," said Aural. "Slept like a log."
"Did you really? They usually have trouble sleeping."
It always troubled her when he talked about the others.
There was no comfort in thinking that she was one of many. He had told her that they usually lasted six or seven days; she was on her fifth.
Judging by his cigarette supply, which Aural kept close track of, he didn't expect to be down here much beyond that. One way or another, he'll be gone before long, she thought. He certainly wasn't rationing the food or water; he planned to be out of here.
Swann was feeling chatty. "I'm glad you're well rested," he said. "Today is normally a Very tough day, they usually start running out of strength about now, but if you're feeling good, that's wonderful news. We'll be able to work even harder that way."
"You know what would make it even more fun?" Aural asked. He unsnapped her cuffs, repositioning her hands in front of her so that she could eat. "How about if we switch places for a while? This is getting kind of boring this way. I think I'll set you on fire today, and then when it's your turn again, you'll be even better at it because you'll know more about it."
He looked at her for a moment as if considering her proposal.
"You're not as pretty as you were," he said at last.
"How unkind." Some beans dribbled off her chin. She had no appetite and no taste for the food, but she forced herself to eat. It would keep her strength up and she knew it would delight him to see her falling. "This is not my best light. You, on the other hand, get more handsome every day."
"Thank you. My eye didn't bother me at all last night."
"There's good news."
"I think it's healed. Praise be to Jesus."
"Jesus loves a sinner," she said.
"Amen."
More beans dribbled off her chin and fell onto her legs, which made her wince in pain. She did not seem to be able to control the plastic fork enough to make it all the way from plate to mouth.
"I don't want to see that," he said, annoyed. "Why do you think I leave your face to last? I want you to look good "
He leaned towards her to wipe at her chin, and Aural stabbed at him with her fork, aiming for his eye. The fork missed and struck him harmlessly in the cheek, but the steel of the handcuffs hit the target. It was a reflex action, totally unpremeditated, and she was unable to follow up her advantage because she was as shocked as he was.
Swann recoiled, clutching his eye, holding up his other hand to fend off further blows. By the time Aural thought to strike again he had already scrambled out of her reach and was on his feet.
"You dirty bitch," he moaned.
Aural looked at the remnant of the plastic fork, which had snapped off in her hand. A tiny trail of blood was seeping down his cheek from where the fork had penetrated the skin, and Aural thought that was the wound which had hurt him. She thought of hitting him again while he was disoriented, but she realized there was no chance as long as he was on his feet and she was shackled.
She would have had to hop after him; he could knock her over with the slightest shove.
"You son of a bitch, you dirty fucker," Swann was saying. "You hurt me."
"Oh, I hope so."
"You really hurt me," he said. He kept backing away from her as if he expected her to leap up and renew the attack.
"It was only a fork," she said. "Don't be such a whiner."
"Oh, Jesus," he said, and he rocked back and forth, holding his head.
"JESUS." He screamed in pain, lashing his head from side to side, then collapsed abruptly onto the cavern floor.
Aural started to drag herself towards him, moving backwards with her weight on her heels and hands to keep her blistered legs off the ground.
If she could only get to him while he was passed out, if she could get the key to her chains, she didn't need much of a head start, just give her a minute and he'd never catch her…
Swann groaned and rose to his knees. Aural froze, hoping he would be too distracted by his pain to notice how close she was but he looked at her, snarling.
"Stay away. Stay away."
He lurched to his feet, swaying, and backed away from her again. To her astonishment he held a large chef's knife in his hand. He must have had it concealed on him all the time, she realized, or else it was tucked away in the golf sack and she had not seen it. Whatever the source, he had it now. The long blade glinted brightly in the light.
Aural moved slowly back the way she came, heading toward her boots.
Swann positioned himself with his back against the fat cone base of a stalagmite and sat down, facing Aural across twenty yards of space. He had already shifted his focus away from her, thinking now only of his own pain. elp me, Jesus," he said, clasping both hands to his head and rocking slightly. "Help me, sweet Jesus." The knife lay in his lap.
Aural reached her boots and settled back so that her feet were just touching them. She knew her own knife was still in its crevice but had to resist the urge to touch it to reassure herself. It was vital not
to do anything too soon. She had to do it absolutely right this time, she told herself She would not get another chance. The existence of his weapon changed it all.
As Swann moaned and cried out in his pain, Aural leaned her back against the stone and rested. And thought.
Sunrise was still minutes away when Becker led them by flashlight to a ridge that folded back on itself, forming a crease in the landscape.
They were on a steep hillside among the foothills of the Cumberland Mountains, less than twenty miles from where the Cumberland gap pierced the Appalachian massif, tucked into the corner where Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee met. Two hundred and fifty miles to the east the underground skein of holes and tubes and tunnels that leached its way under the mountains erupted into one of its more spectacular orifices, the Great Mammoth Cave. Less than fifty yards from where they stood was another opening to the subteranean honeycomb, but Becker knew he had no real hope of finding it in the dark. He was as close as Browne's map could take him.
The land surrounding them was scruffy second-growth forest that had reasserted itself among the rocks-without great enthusiasm-after the original stand had been cut and carted and dragged down the mountain to form the fledgling 19th century settlements in the valley below.
The hillside was too steep and stony to farm, the area not yet sufficiently upscale to serve as building sites for overpriced chalets.
It was a form of wasteland, belonging to an absentee owner, used occasionally by boys hunting for squirrels. If the entrance to the cave had ever been marked, the marker was too obscure to find in the dark.