by Skye Warren
Pointedly avoiding looking at him, I slipped out the door and scurried along the broken concrete until I reached my room. I shut the door, twisting the heavy deadbolt to lock it.
Chapter Three
The first person to see and describe Niagara Falls in depth was a French priest who accompanied an expedition in 1678.
My skin still prickled as I huddled in my motel room—something about him had been off. The way the man had looked at me, unflinching, unnerving, had tripped off all sorts of animal instincts inside me that I couldn’t precisely interpret except to know to avoid him.
I latched the little hook on the door for good measure. Glancing sideways at the heavy drapes, I sent silent thanks for the metal burglar bars on the window.
In the diner, where even the waitress had seemed intimidated, I’d felt vulnerable. But now I was well and truly encased in the motel room, where I would stay until morning. It felt a little like failure, falling back on my old ways, but I considered it only a temporary retreat. Things would be different in Little Rock and even that was only until I’d saved enough money to continue north.
A shower was the next order of business, so I headed across the shadowed room and bumped directly into the round dinette table.
“Ouch,” I muttered.
Had that been directly aligned with the door before? I wasn’t even sure where the light switches were. It had been daylight when I’d first been in the room, with the sunlight streaming through the window…through the open drapes. Now they were closed. I had seen that clear enough even in the darkness, the vertical lines where the barred window had once been visible.
A shiver ran through me. Who had closed the curtains? Had someone been in my room while I’d eaten?
Housekeeping. It must have been the maid service. Please, God, let it have been them.
I stood frozen in fear and indecision for a moment before forcing myself forward. The cool vinyl wall met my outstretched palms, and I fumbled until I found the switch. It flicked up with a click, flooding the bathroom with a blinding yellow light.
My heart thumped wildly for one moment as all the things my terrified imagination had conjured didn’t happen. Nothing but an empty, dingy, slightly dirty motel bathroom. A shower with a questionably yellowed shower curtain, a sink, a toilet. No beasts or monsters in sight. No scary men with ill intent.
I spared a glance for the room, now lit faintly by the spill of light from the bathroom. The bed was made, my bag still sitting on top, gaping open from where I had pulled the dress out earlier. The table and chair sat in the empty space between the bed and the wall, obtrusive for the blind and clumsy like me.
I was freaking myself out with this. No, he had done that. The man at the diner with his too-knowing gaze. Well, he was pushy and inappropriate, and I was done being scared of strangers.
The tile was cool against my bare feet. I undressed quickly, finding relief in the warm water that rained on my skin. I even used the bitter-smelling soap wrapped up in paper, comforted by the intensity, feeling cleansed of the man’s presence and safe again. More importantly, I was free. Independent. Exactly what I had always longed to be—though I had little experience with it. Maybe that was what made me so jumpy. Maybe he was a normal man, a nice one, and I had jumped to conclusions.
I had always considered myself self-reliant. I’d had to be with my mother. I cooked for myself when my mom was on a binge. I got dressed for school and took the bus, otherwise a child-protective-services woman would come around and we’d all get in trouble. As soon as I was able, I took the part-time job at the photography studio.
All that self-sufficiency, but it wasn’t the same as being truly alone. My mom had always been around the house. Even when I’d desperately wished for privacy, for a brief respite from her clinging, cloying fear, I’d never gotten it. Now I was on my own and I’d have to get used to that, somehow. That was what I wanted…wasn’t it?
The thin motel towel turned soggy after a couple swipes at my skin. I examined myself in the mirror. Pale blonde hair that looked golden when wet. Light brown eyes that looked hazel in a certain light. I thought those were my best feature but my one boyfriend from high school had thought it was my lips. Kissable, he’d said.
Then the other man, later, had been less diplomatic, more succinct. Fuckable. I had flinched, instinctively knowing what he meant even though I shouldn’t have. My mother’s lists of abducted girls had never been specific about what had happened to them. Sex was a vague concept for someone who had only ever been kissed after homeroom. But then she had dated Allen, and he had said my lips were made for kissing a place other than his lips, lower down, and he’d taught me how to do it, again and again.
At first I had gone along with it, too afraid of setting my mother off with a confession. But then he’d gotten rougher, more forceful and scary and also tingly hot in ways I didn’t fully understand. One evening when he wasn’t there, I had tried to tell my mother what was happening.
I’d expected her to help me. After all, she’d always told me something like that could happen at any time. But she hadn’t believed me. She’d said I was making up stories, that I wanted the attention those girls on the news had gotten. That I was jealous of the time she spent with Allen and that must be why I had made up such lies.
I cried into my pillow and let Allen do his business that night. But the light had turned on, a flood of painful light, and my mother had seen. After that, she’d apologized for not believing me.
She’d been kind, understanding. Too understanding, and that had been the final straw. She’d quit her job, claiming she needed to stay home and watch me, that the world was too dangerous for either of us. Especially me.
She said I attracted them, the very worst kind of men. And maybe she was right to a point. There was something there, something large and scary lurking under the water. Every once in a while it would surface with a flip of my stomach, like when a man would speak to me with a certain authority, give me an order—or a certain look, like the one in the diner.
I didn’t like it, or maybe I liked it too much, but I couldn’t stand being like my mother. I wouldn’t end up like her, broken and lonely and so desperate for any man that I’d put up with someone like Allen. That was why I’d had to leave home, why I insisted on getting a college education. This was my ticket away from a life of subservience and fear.
Well then, why did I feel so afraid? But the wide-eyed girl in the mirror didn’t have an answer.
With the towel still wrapped around my body, I stepped out of the bathroom onto the coarse carpet of the motel room. Immediately I knew something was horribly wrong. The air felt… shared.
“Nice to meet you, Evie,” said a deep voice.
My whole body strung up tight. He was sitting in the chair, the one that had been empty when I’d gone into the bathroom. It was him, the man from the diner. Though I hadn’t heard his voice before and I couldn’t quite make out his features now, I was sure of it. He had the same blithe arrogance, the same element of command—sure his word would be followed. Besides, how many psycho assholes could there be in a remote truck stop?
His silhouette was long and reclined, as if he were having a relaxing chat instead of breaking and entering. My gaze flicked to the door, but the deadbolt was sideways, unlocked, when I was sure I’d locked it.
Always lock the door, my mother said. I had scoffed. Who would come in?
Here was my answer.
Nausea roiled through me. “How did you get inside?”
It wasn’t the most important question, and we both knew it. What was he going to do to me? That was the bottom line, but I couldn’t let my mind go there just yet.
His broad shoulders shrugged. “I’ve been coming around here for years. The owner is a personal friend. I explained I had some unfinished business in this room, and he gave me a key.”
So easy, that was all I could think. My safety, my life had been compromised with a shrug.
How could I
get out of this? I couldn’t. I knew that with the same certainty that I knew my mother would die in that house. But I had to try. I knew what he meant by unfinished business. He was offended by my refusal earlier. It wouldn’t help to pretend I didn’t know.
“I’m sorry I didn’t accept your offer,” I said, hating the note of pleading in my voice, the tremble that betrayed me. “I should have. It was rude of me.”
“Very pretty,” he said. “And you got there so quickly. I’m impressed.”
I tried to pretend that was promising. “Please. I wouldn’t… I won’t do it again. Maybe tomorrow we could try again. We could go on a date, you and I.”
“Tomorrow you’ll be gone from here and so will I. But you can stop talking about the bill. I would be in this room either way. I knew it as soon as I saw you there.”
Any hope of talking my way out of this deflated. He was sitting between me and the door, but even if I got past him, it would take several precious seconds to open the door. Then outside, there was no one around. My room was in the back. All the windows around me had been dark. My car sat alone in the lot.
No one would see me run. No one would hear me scream.
He waited with a smug patience, as if he waited for me to catch up to the forgone conclusion.
“Are you ready to cooperate?” he asked.
Hell no. My lips firmed.
He smiled, white teeth glistening from the shadows. He looked the Cheshire cat, that incorporeal grin, the unapologetic wickedness.
Except he hadn’t done anything to me.
So far he’d just sat in my room. Disturbing but not harmful. He’d done nothing illegal, if I didn’t count trespassing. All I had to do was walk out the door and leave. March straight to the office and demand a refund. A laugh wanted to bubble out of me, but I forced it down, knowing it would border on hysterical. This was only the rambling of a terrified mind trying to make sense of things that didn’t make sense, desperate to feel safe while so obviously in abject danger.
He hadn’t threatened me explicitly, but it was there. In his presence, in his casually arrogant words. If I tried to leave, he would restrain me. He would hurt me tonight, violate me tonight, the only question left up to me was how much. If I cooperated, would he be gentle with me? But it was too soon. I couldn’t bring myself to submit to this yet even if it might make my life easier.
I edged toward the phone on the nightstand.
He leaned forward. “What are you doing?”
“Just…just calling the front desk.” I forced a challenge in my voice. “If he gave you the key, then it shouldn’t be a surprise to him.”
It was a long shot, of course. If the manager had given him the key, he was an accomplice to whatever this was. But maybe if he heard my voice…if I seemed more human reaching out over the phone line, more scared, he might do something to help me.
I gingerly lifted the bulky plastic receiver as if it might bite. As if he might spring into action, finally revealing the violence that must be his intent. Instead he watched, eyes glittering while I listened to dead air. The line had been cut. Or maybe it had never worked. He seemed to expect that.
My hand trembled so hard that the phone clattered on the cradle before sliding to the side, useless, broken.
My voice cracked. “Please. I don’t know what you want from me.”
“Don’t you?”
I drew myself up. “You need to leave. I’m not going to…have sex with you.”
My words hung in the air, somehow worse now that I’d voiced them, as if I were the one suggesting it instead of him. He was as still as a deep pool, a limitless source of patience, allowing me to work myself up into panic while he watched in amusement.
“Enough,” I said, more firmly. “You want to sit there? Fine. I’m leaving.”
Clutching the towel to me, I strode to the door. I flipped the lock but before I reached the latch, his heavy palm came up against the door. He didn’t block the latch or the knob. He simply leaned his weight, his thickly muscled bulk against the door and waited. This close, I could smell the faint scent of aftershave, of musk at the end of the day. His heat seeped into my back, electrifying and strangely comforting after the cold chills of fear.
“Let me go.” The command came out soft, a plea.
“I’m not doing anything to you,” he said. “Yet.”
I was confined by the unopenable door to my front, penned in by his broad body from behind. Well and truly trapped, and he hadn’t even touched me yet. I wondered if that was the game. Maybe he was waiting for me to push him, to strike him. Then he could say his actions were self-defense, in whatever twisted mental world he lived in.
My throat felt tight. “I don’t want to fight you.”
“Then don’t. I think you know what I want. Do I need to spell it out for you? Ask me to.”
I swallowed. “What do I have to do for you to leave?”
“I’m going to spend the night here and we’re both going to have a good time. In the morning, I’m leaving.”
He spoke with authority, but there was a question inherent. Only one unknown. This was happening, but would I fight him?
God, I didn’t know.
I didn’t know if I could let this happen without a fight. I didn’t know if I could fight him, knowing I would lose, that I would only end up hurt. I saw my mother’s face, drawn and worried and accusing. Had this been her choice to make too?
Maybe he knew I was close because he continued, the low timbre of his voice rough and thick.
“I don’t get off on hurting women. Not too bad anyway. If you have any bruises they’ll be small and covered up by your clothes. No one needs to know what happened here. It’s nobody’s business but ours.”
He made it sound consensual. But that was what he was describing, wasn’t it? That I go along with this, that I would consent.
Or else.
And I was too scared to ask about what “or else” would mean.
“Oh God,” I sobbed against the peeling paint of the door. “I didn’t bother you. You’re a good-looking guy. You could get a regular date. Why are you doing this?”
“Thank you for the compliment. You’re a pretty girl too. We’ll be good together. This is a date, you and I. You wanted to skip the dinner part, and I allowed it. I’m not going to miss dessert.”
Chapter Four
The three waterfalls combine to produce the highest flow rate of any waterfall on earth.
A sick sense of inevitability slid down my throat.
Maybe this was a regular date—what did I really know of courtship? He seemed very certain. And maybe it was a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I agreed to this crazy proposition, if I didn’t fight him, it would be just a man and a woman having sex. Wouldn’t that be better than the alternative? Even without an explicit threat, plain old mildly-bruising sex had to be better than what he might do in anger.
Unable to submit, I searched desperately, trying to think of something that could help. But I was in the far corner of a deserted motel in a truck stop well off the highway. I had no practical experience to guide me, only empty words on musty pages. Like Alice, I had stepped through the looking glass into a whole new world, foreign and sinister.
The old rules didn’t apply to this musky hotel room. There was only this man, strong and confident. There was only his mercy, to be gained through pleasing him, not angering him.
“You’re thinking too much,” he said, and I heard the first rise of frustration in his voice. His patience had a limit after all, and it was approaching on the horizon.
“Please, please,” I whispered. “Is there something else I could…anything else…?”
He scoffed. “What else could I want from you?”
Nothing. There was nothing at all, no pride, no hope.
“There now.” His voice softened. Something stirred my hair. His hand stroked down, then toyed with a damp lock. “You’re making this a bigger deal than it needs to be. It doesn’t mean any
thing, you and I. Just casual sex. Have you had casual sex before?”
No, never. I shook my head.
He seemed amused, a little pleased. “So this will be your first time, in a way. I like that. It’s a turn-on.”
His fingertips drifted over my bare shoulders, leaving a trail of goose bumps in languid circles. I hugged the door, suddenly wishing that I were the kind of woman who had casual sex. That I could turn around and let the towel drop and pretend I wanted this too. It would make this easier. Instead I could only shiver against the door, shudder under his touch.
“Lock the door,” he murmured against my ear. “I don’t want to be interrupted.”
I took a deep breath and tried to calm myself.
There are some men you just don’t say no to. That was what the waitress had said to me, and I understood it now. I wouldn’t say no, and he wouldn’t force me. I would go along with it, and everything would be consensual.
Just like a date. Casual sex.
My hand shook violently as I reached up and turned the lock sideways. It didn’t change our situation at all. I couldn’t leave before it was locked, and I still couldn’t. But it felt different, as if I had exercised my choice. As if I’d consented, and I had. He had my permission, even though he’d proven he didn’t need it.
He trailed his hand down my arm, wrapping his fingers around my wrist. Even though he only touched me in one place, it felt intimate. Though he didn’t squeeze, I felt fragile. Breakable.
Leading me to the bed, he pushed me gently to sit. I tightened the towel around myself, and he let me. I’d expected him to push me down, to tear the towel off and have sex with me. But I always seemed to overestimate his penchant for force. It was something about his presence, brute strength combined with the cunning to use it well. He wasn’t afraid of violence but neither was he overly fond of it. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.
He sat down beside me, his light caresses still restricted to my arms, my shoulders. Safe places, as if we were still getting acquainted. As if my comfort mattered at all.