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Stolen Virgin

Page 8

by Viv Phoenix


  My hand stole to my belly and rested there. Thanks to Callum, I had a new life. Dad would be so sorry he took away my car keys.

  Callum pulled back. His smile stretched across his face. “It’s time we got hitched. You’re going to put on that pretty dress I got you, and I’ll get the preacher to come out here.” He hugged me and kissed my neck, giving me chills. “Sorry it won’t be a church wedding, but you aren’t pure any more any way. That’s my fault. I couldn’t wait.” He kissed my shoulder. His fingers slid up my sides, making me feel like my body was swaying on a cruise ship. The man touched me and I went out of my mind. What was I thinking about having defenses? I had nothing when I came to Callum. He was my world.

  “That’s alright, Callum. You, me and the preacher is enough wedding for me.”

  “Good, sweetheart, that’s good. We’ll be married right here on the Blake spread like my mama and papa were.” A shadow took his face. “I’ve been trying so hard to be like Pa. I saw you, and I knew it was time to have a bride, and you were the one for me, same as my ma was the only one for Pa. He did some diddling around, but only after she was long gone. I’m a faithful man, Sy. You don’t have to worry me straying. My eyes, my body, my everything are all for you. I can hardly wait for us to be married.”

  I swallowed and pushed back my hair. Callum nuzzled my throat, sending sensations all through me. My nipples got so hard they hurt.

  My heart sank at the loss of the massive destination wedding I would have had if I pleased Dad. would have arranged. Marriage to a cologne man from the country club wasn’t for me, though. No white sand beach wedding, not even close. Still, I felt elated at the prospect of marrying Callum. His disappointment that I tried to escape instead of putting on the dress made sense now. He picked me for his bride. It wasn’t so creepy when I thought of him as being from a different culture with different customs. In the hollow, what he did was courtship. The dress lay on the hope chest. I’d wear it for our wedding and get to see the way his face glowed when I made him happy. I smiled. This would be alright.

  “Okay, Callum.”

  “I don’t mean to be selfish. Is there anyone you want at our wedding? We could take a few days to do it how you want. I’m only in a hurry to make our baby legitimate and make you my bride forever.” He squeezed me so hard something popped, and I squeaked. “Oh, Sy, I’m sorry. I’ll be more careful.” He searched my eyes. His big hand traveled over my breasts and came to rest on my belly. His face was the most tender man’s face. My whole heart rose to meet him.

  I had no more doubts. Callum was the love of my life.

  I felt a twinge in my shoulder from throwing the rock. I remembered the splash. I couldn’t take it back. I’d been lonely my whole life. Wasn’t this how the gigantic wheel of life and the whole food chain worked? There were always consequences. My giving back my happiness wouldn’t bring back that unknown woman and her man.

  “I’m not that fragile, you big hunk!” I gave him a gentle punch on the shoulder and grinned at his contrite face.

  He was a good man. It must have been a thing like animals in a pack, men in a pack losing control, he’d never harm anyone again. I’d bet my life on it.

  He let me go.

  I put my arms around myself and sighed. That’s what I was doing, betting my life.

  Sy

  Out in the backyard, a lady bug landed on my arm. I’d gotten more freckles since Callum brought me to his house. I’d lost track of the days. I hoped Trish was still covering for me. The lady bug spread her red wings. She had six polka dots and looked like she belonged on my speckled skin. It wasn’t so bad here.

  “Lady bug, lady bug, fly away home.” She flew.

  What was home, anyway? It wasn’t my parents’ mansion on the hill. How could I imagine this big old rambling shack with its crazy bondage basement as home? What the hell was I doing? I had no idea how far Callum would go. His idea was to train me so I’d want to always obey. He was hot, so hot. The idea was something right out of my favorite books. I hadn’t been dry since he first stopped his big red Chevy truck for me.

  I bent to the laundry basket and picked up one of his shirts. I washed it to snowy white by hand, the way I had to do everything here. It seemed unlikely Callum would let me buy a washer with my own money, and I couldn’t use my credit cards anyway. Dad monitored everything. If my long stay at Trish’s didn’t make him suspicious, buying a household appliance would be sure to set off an alarm. The joys of being a billionaire’s daughter. It was almost funny that I had to do laundry by hand because I had no freedom or privacy from my father.

  That life was over. I took two clothespins from the line. They were gray as kittens. I was damned near off grid, now. For once, my parents had no way of keeping track of me. Down here in the hollow, there weren’t any security cameras or chip-reading devices.

  Seven crows landed on the great oak out by the pond. I kind of liked it here.

  An arm grabbed me from behind. I dropped Callum’s shirt in the dirt. I was so shocked, all I wanted was to pick up that wet shirt, hoping I wouldn’t have to wash it again on the rickety washboard.

  “Damn it, Callum.”

  A big hand covered my face. I smelled cologne. It wasn’t Callum. I donkey kicked.

  “Sylvia, Sy. Stop it. It’s me, Salvador. You Dad’s having a fit and your mom’s on tranquilizers. I’ve got to get you home.”

  I couldn’t talk with his ham hand blocking my face. I stomped his foot and bit his hand. He let go.

  “Get out of here right now and don’t tell anyone where I am.” I shook all over. My shoes were dirty. Weird to have someone from my other life see me like this. My face went red.

  He edged closer.

  I backed away. If he didn’t get out of there, something bad would happen. But I couldn’t trust him not to tell.

  He grabbed my arm. I pushed his chest. It was like pushing a refrigerator.

  Nothing but a blur. A roar like nothing I ever heard from a human. Callum whacked the bodyguard’s arm, making him let me go, punching him hard, driving him to the ground.

  He landed right on the beefy bodyguard, straddling him, whaling on him with both fists. Blood ran down Salvador’s face.

  “Callum, stop. Callum, please stop. I know him. He works for my father.” In that crazed moment, I knew I had to be clear I didn’t care about the man personally. “Please. For me, please, please stop!”

  I didn’t ever want to see my man in a jealous rage. He could kill in an instant.

  The blur of his fists slowed, ended. His hands hung at his sides, knuckles torn, blood-smeared.

  The man’s eyes rolled back in his head, but he was still breathing. I let out my breath. He’d be alright. He had to be alright. I couldn’t have just found Callum to lose him to prison.

  “Calm down. I’m not going to kill him. He’s sure not going to remember anything, though.” He glared at the bodyguard. “He put his hand on you.”

  “He was trying to convince me to go back up the hill. I said no.”

  That slow, hot smile changed Callum’s face.

  “My Sy. My good Sy. Sylvia. He called you by your feminine name.”

  “My parents never gave up on making me the daughter they wanted, the good heiress.” I wrinkled my nose. Sylvia didn’t sound so bad when Callum said it. I sagged against the wash line post. The risk of murder seemed to be past.

  “Go on in the house and get the little brown bottle at the back of the silverware drawer and a glass of water. Bring them to me.”

  I nodded and obeyed.

  The kitchen looked so ordinary. My heart kicked in my chest. I fumbled with the drawer. It almost came all the way out. I caught it and groped to the back of it. My hand slipped on the bottle.

  Inside the house, out of his sight, I could change things. I could run out the front and out to the road, or cut up the hill as fast as my legs would carry me. I could get help for Salvador. Otherwise, whatever happened next, I was an accessory. Callum wasn�
��t the only one in this house who watched crime shows and read true crime books.

  I took in my breath and let it out real slow.

  Through the window where I watched birds while I washed the dishes, I saw my man straddling Salvador. From his perspective, he protected me. He saw a man put his hands on me, and he ran out there to keep me safe.

  I gripped the bottle. I filled the glass of water. With slow steps, I took them to Callum. Somehow, I’d keep him from doing something bad.

  “Good girl. Thank you, Sy.” He opened the bottle, shook some powder into the water and swirled it around.

  “What is that? What are you doing?” I focused on the rose on his shoulder, the two shades of red making it breathe. I had to stay calm.

  “Earl’s knock-out pills will make sure he don’t remember. Earl’s a thinker. He kept some ground to powder, ready to go.” He stuck the bottle in his pocket. A blue jay’s caws made me jump.

  He held Salvador’s head and poured the drink into him. He pinched his nose shut. The drink went down. Callum patted his chest like he was a puppy. My man didn’t look like he had any harm in him. Dad’s bodyguard was so far out, I stopped worrying he’d come to and get himself killed. I swallowed something scratchy in my throat.

  “You stay put, Sy. I’ll go put him somewhere safe where someone will find him. Don’t you worry. Every thing’s going to be fine.” He rose up, tall and fine, scuffed the ground with his boot. “I’m not so bad as you think.”

  Dad’s bodyguard lay between us. He had the heavy beard shadow that always showed on his tan face. He looked asleep, peaceful.

  “Alright, Callum.”

  His eyes narrowed and his lips tightened. “I’ve got my hands full here. Tell me I don’t have to chain you up.”

  “You don’t have to chain me, Callum. I’m not going to leave you.” My voice failed.

  It had all changed. I wasn’t a victim. I wasn’t lost. It was me and Callum against everyone.

  I put my hand on his shoulder, rose on my tiptoes, and touched his face with mine. I closed my eyes, willing away the image of the unconscious form. The man wasn’t a rescuer, he was a trespasser on the Blake place. I pushed away the trespassing tourist couple and their fatal corkscrew request. Everything’s going to be fine. I had to believe him.

  “I’m with you,” I whispered. “Get out of here before he comes out of it.”

  Callum nodded. His snakes, crucifix, and roses writhed as he hefted Salvador’s bulk off the ground. He got flung him over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry. Help me, he looked hot as hell doing that. I knew he was strong and powerful, but damn.

  He wasn’t going to kill Salvador. The man wouldn’t remember what happened. Everything was going to be all right. So much could still go wrong, but Callum told me not to worry.

  I stood there, numb, wrapping my hands in his mama’s apron like a farm wife circa 1930. My man carried the intruder to the truck, yanked open Betsy’s cranky passenger door and stuck him inside. Salvador slumped where I sat with Callum when he lured me from the side of the road only days ago.

  He swung his long, muscular body behind the wheel and took off. He’d be fine. People out here minded their own business.

  He wasn’t going to get caught and go to prison.

  If he did, I knew where I’d be on visiting days. I closed my eyes tight against the sight of him leaving, the witches broom brushing Betsy’s sides.

  I pulled a real long breath, opened my eyes and picked up Callum’s shirt. I shook it hard.

  I held it up to the sun. The oak leaf debris left spots on it. I’d have to wash it again. I flung it over the end of the line and bent for his jeans. I hung them on the line with the wooden clothespins. I imagined clothespins all over my body, Callum beating them off of me with his belt. A jolt went through me. I didn’t recognize myself here. All those secret longings I’d known only in books were real here. He knew everything about me, all my deepest fantasies and longings. His wheedling me into his truck and bringing me to this hidden place would be creepy as hell—if he wasn’t crazy-hot. That man’s big hands, his big everything, pinned me here.

  I felt his cock inside me still. He was so huge, I’d feel him forever.

  Crows landed in the oldest oak and scolded me. I shaded my eyes. They shined iridescent green like wood beetle wings as the sun rose higher. In the distance between drought-blasted trees, gravestones leaned. How many Blakes were buried out there, having lived their whole lives on this land?

  I had to finish with the wash and make Callum’s lunch before he got back. The front room needed cleaning, too.

  The rhythm of bending to the basket, taking a step, and pinning the clothes to the line took me out of myself. The chores were how the day went here, how the days had always gone, one generation of Blakes after another. Callum’s mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother hung wash. Women’s work here went back to long before the tree sprouted.

  It wasn’t a life I ever imagined for myself. I needed way Callum held me in his arms. He smiled at me like I was the most beautiful woman alive, and healed the hurt far inside me. I wouldn’t be happy anywhere else.

  A pair of squirrels chased through the oak’s bare branches. I hung the last undershirt, the kind with the big armholes that showed off so much of his ink.

  Stretching my back, I rested my hand on my belly.

  I wanted to stay in that tranquility, but something big weighed on my mind. It grew heavier as I sensed the new life in my body.

  Callum got back at twilight, his heavy boots thudding on the back porch. He took the bowl of peas I was shelling away from me and ran his hands along my hips good and slow.

  The oaks’ gnarled arms cast shadows into the kitchen. His white shirt glowed on the line. I washed it again, but didn’t get the wash in before dark. The day went by fast. For a change, I didn’t miss appliances and hired help. I’d scoured the sinks and mopped the floor to keep my mind off Salvador’s fate.

  I stepped back. Callum’s hair hung in one eye. His T-shirt clung to his chest. No blood on him, except a couple spots from the fight, and no dirt either. I sighed. Whatever took him so long, he hadn’t dug a grave.

  “It’s alright, Sy. Your dad’s man is fine.” He smoothed my hair back from my face with his big, gentle hand. “I left him on a bench in the park. There’s a ticket taker there for the carnival. He won’t get robbed or nothing—Anything. He didn’t need a hospital. He’ll sleep it off, be fuzzy-headed, and not remember what happened. It’s a special drug that does that. Earl called it hypno-something. It won’t harm him. I swear it to you, beautiful. Don’t you worry about a thing.”

  My smile felt sideways.What he did sounded okay. Salvador would be okay. Callum corrected himself for me. He wanted to be better, and he showed me that. He kissed me, so soft and slow I sank into him, floating as though I was in an underwater ballet. He walked his fingers up my back, caressed my wings. I wanted—I wanted everything with him.

  He pressed my lips harder, and his hands gripped me close.

  I sank, lost in his kiss and the deep scent of him.

  I clung to him, my knees giving out. In the mud deep in the center of the pond, the silver necklace glimmered. I landed in my body with a start.

  His heartbeat matched mine, rabbiting like we were being chased.

  “Don’t fret, Sy. I’m here. Don’t fret.”

  After dinner, I cornered Callum. I cut him off before he could leave the kitchen the way he did when there were dishes to do. I pressed my back to the porch door and crossed my arms.

  “Tell me what all you did, what you Blakes did to the tourist couple. You said they made you angry for trespassing and asking for a corkscrew.” I needed to know the story of the woman whose necklace I found.

  My mind wouldn’t let it go, her lost life, the people who wondered if there was any hope she’d come home. I imagined her as loved and missed. To my parents, I was an extension of their egos who only mattered in how my behavior reflected on them.
That didn’t matter now. I shook my hair out, and dried my hands on a kitchen towel I washed by hand and dried in the sun. By the time they found me again, I’d be married.

  “I mean it, Callum. I want you to tell me. What did you do?”

  He ducked his head like a boy who got caught taking cookies.

  Callum

  I reached for Sy, but she took a step back, her face all tight. I didn’t like to think back on that tourist couple. That was from the bad times, after Ma died. Remembering Pa alive hurt, too.

  “I didn’t mean nothing by it, Sy. I want you to understand that.”

  “Anything.”

  “What?”

  “Please, Callum. I want our children to sound educated, don’t you?”

  “Oh. Alright.”

  “Thank you. It’s ‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’ Remember? You get one ‘no’ word per sentence.””

  She walked her fingers up my arm, and I couldn’t be mad.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it. I didn’t mean to do anything bad. He burned me up, that outsider coming onto our land and treating me like I was here to serve him. He wanted me to fetch him a corkscrew like I was his servant. He was on our front porch trespassing, bold as a hog with three balls. He walked right by the signs staying stay out.”

  “Yes, they were trespassing.” She made her words slow and careful, like she didn’t know what to say.

  “The woman with him, she would have been pretty if she didn’t have a ‘I smell doo doo look on her face. She stared at us like she was at the zoo. She was a little older than you, but not beautiful. Not like you. I look at you and my heart about stops every time.”

  Her smile looked like it cost her, and it didn’t last long.

  “Callum, I want to understand what happened.”

  “Tourists come here and ruin everything. They buy up more and more of the land and drive all the prices up, and they treat us like dirt. They show off their fancy cars, new clothes and pricey gadgets while we scrimp to buy shoes. They talk to me like I’m retarded, like I don’t see their contempt and superiority all over their privileged faces.”

 

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