Even so, a gag was stuffed into my mouth, effectively silencing all but the guttural noises that managed to rise up from beyond the thick rubber ball he shoved between my teeth.
“I could order you to keep quiet,” he explained, “but then I can’t afford you getting crazy and starting to scream should you try to fight.”
I squirmed, even though my effort was useless against the man’s strength. Though by then I knew that Ryder had not sent a posse of men to abuse me, but had come himself. He revealed that as soon as my body finally succumbed to the strength of his brutish arms and he turned me around, setting me against the cement wall with his hand pressed firmly against my chest.
A distant streetlight cast just enough light into the murky alley for me to see the distinct features of Ryder’s face: the square jaw line, the smoldering eyes, then the thin line of his lips.
I could think of a thousand things I wanted to say to him, though it was probably better that I’d been silenced. Better that I didn’t blurt out something stupid like, ‘I’m sorry that I left you…please take me back!’
No, I did not want to be back in his life, but you couldn’t tell that by the furious excitement that was pounding through my lower body. Everything repressed in me over the previous eighteen months suddenly exploded, moving through every vein, invading my bones and blood, infused in every breath. In my eyes he surely saw the fire he’d always managed to raise in me.
His eyes bore into me like daggers; his grim expression did the same. To the turmoil of sensation that had already made a juicy mess inside my panties, he added the dominance and power of his feral masculine energy.
“Raise your hands against the wall!” he snapped.
I was too scared to respond.
“I said, raise your hands—”
My hands suddenly flew up, then I watched – one of those slow motion moments – as he reached out, snatched the top of my coat and ripped it apart. He did the same with my blouse, then with a knife that miraculously appeared from his pocket, he cut away my bra so that my breasts were bare to the elements of this stormy night.
Rain came down in a misty shower; rivulets of water moving from the tops of our heads to our shoulders, then down our backs and arms. My bare breasts stood out from my chest, a pearly white that almost glowed inside the dark gloom of the alley. Water dripped from my nipples to my soaked tennis shoes.
Ryder scowled as he appraised me. Judgment reeking from his eyes. I almost thought that the incident would end there. For maybe sixty seconds we remained silent and unmoving, staring into each other’s eyes. I prayed that he would just stalk off and forget that he ever wanted anything to do with me, as a wife or the target of his revenge. But I was not that lucky.
From his coat pocket, he pulled out a thin baton, the kind that conductors use to direct a choir. His baton, however, was for other matters – like punishing my pearly breasts. A forceful beating followed with blow after blow coming down on the pristine skin. I stared down, seeing the lines cutting into my flesh. The pain came on fast and I began to breathe deeply in order to survive the bruising assault.
And yet, when I breathed deeply, some bizarre transformation took place. Not that I wasn’t hurt, but the pleasure centers of my body were becoming more heated with each sharp strike. Suddenly the baton folded into three collapsible segments, and Ryder returned it to his coat pocket. He used his hand next, slapping the same flesh that was already so painfully wounded. Then when he’d had enough of that, he stripped away my clothes: the raincoat, my tattered blouse, finally the blue jeans were yanked off my hips and down to my knees. Again the silent baton became the instrument of torture as he worked my wet flesh from my shoulders to my bare bottom. Despite the way he seemed to tear into me, he worked my sex into a frenzy of raw desire that put me squarely under his control.
Had he known this would happen? Had he known I was such a masochist? I certainly didn’t know the extent of my salacious kink until that hour.
I began to grind my hips into the wall. It might have looked to him as if I were trying to get away from the blows, but getting away was not in my thoughts at all. Capturing the sensations that ripped through my tortured body and making them into something sensuous seemed perfectly doable. In time, I might have actually come from the beating.
But suddenly he stopped and I never knew what might have been possible.
Naturally, he wanted my ass.
“Take off the jeans,” he said in a low and gravelly voice while pressing his hard body against me and pushing my chest into the cold wall. Then he stood back while I struggled to remove my pants as fast as I could. I took my shoes and socks with them in the damp heap. I was completely naked when he shoved me back against the wall face forward, when he grabbed my hips and opened wide my anal cleft.
Gathering a little sex juice from my pussy, he inserted two fingers into my rectum to loosen the path, then when he lunged forward, the entire length of his erection speared me in one swift move.
Although he hammered me hard, it was not long before I heard the familiar groan behind his orgasm, and felt his muscled cock ejaculate its seed.
By the time he pulled out, the rain had let up some, becoming just a thin mist that looked like steam rising from our heated bodies.
“Get dressed!” he snapped the order before I had a chance to recover. He reached out and unfastened the gag.
The body heat that kept me warm on that miserable night vanished with the cold tenor of his demand.
Sometimes I think the worst part of the incident was having him watch me get dressed and how I blundered nervously with my wet clothes, fumbling with buttons and my trembling hands, while he stood over me, aloof and dismissive.
Soggy, chilled, but finally dressed, I suffered the humiliation of being pushed back toward the sidewalk where all this began. He didn’t have to tell me what to do, I took off walking, not a word exchanged between us. From the spot where he first grabbed me, he stood watching as I made my way toward my apartment two blocks away. Mine was a small neighborhood, the kind where children are free to play and women walk around without fearing for their lives. I’m sure that after that night the neighborhood would remain as safe as it had always been for everyone who lived inside those five square blocks. Though it would no longer be safe for me.
I did not get off in the alley to my vengeful lover’s cruel treatment, but that was not because it didn’t have a sexual effect on me. By the time I was warm and dry and curled up on my couch with a glass of wine – all my blinds securely closed and the final deadbolt set – I could feel the sweep of his energy take me into a crass place of sexual desire. Much as I wished I could just fall asleep and forget, my mind kept returning to my naked reflection in the mirror. I’d stripped off my clothes in the bathroom, dried myself with a terrycloth towel, then smoothed cream over the wounds Ryder left on my body. There must have been a hundred red stripes marking my skin where the baton had struck. An especially painful rash of them appeared on either side of my breasts; and on my ass the same kind of angry welts marred what was once smooth and lily white. The sight was jarring. To touch the wounds was almost electrifying. Soothing the skin with cream only served to bring back the intensity of the beating, and a lewd sort of tingling sensation followed.
When on my couch I found the images impossible to ignore, I knew not to fight the feelings. Better they be burned away in the hot flames of a frenzied orgasm.
I pressed my hand between my thighs, my fingers moving into all the familiar places, rubbing against my clitoris and bringing myself to that exhilarating peak of desire. I backed off as soon as I was at the edge avoiding the easy come. This one could not explode so quickly. Three times, my body reached that brilliant crest until I could stand no more, and I rocked back and forth on the sofa, stuffing my fingers in my pussy, while wondering why I hadn’t bothered to retrieve my dildo. After a time, the spasms died away and my labored breathing returned to normal. At least my body was quiet for the night.
With the clarity of mind that comes after a good masturbation, I faced the blunt truth.
Ryder knew where I lived. He knew where I worked. Where I went to school, where I studied for my law exams, and maybe every eatery and shop that I patronized. No longer was his revenge a single incident of spite; it had become a passion. I could tell from his eyes and the way he watched me until I was walking into my apartment building that he intended to remain a fixture in my life. If I had any doubt about that fact, the black and white photograph that lay on my dining room table – which I found inside my locked apartment – was proof enough that the man was disturbingly dangerous. He had the money, the resources and the liberty to torment me for the rest of my life.
I may have ripped that photograph to shreds and burned it in my fireplace – same thing I did with the photo he left me in the cabin – but that did nothing to stop the man’s revenge.
If I think about it, the assaults were easy to handle. Well, easy enough. Not knowing when I’d next be his victim, that was a nightmare.
Chapter Four
A bizarre but titillating chill gripped me as I walked up two flights of stairs to the third floor of the ancient office building. The brick structure was an old Craftsman style building that was likely very fashionable when it was new. The beveled glass, the rich dark hues of the woodwork and geometric tiles on the lobby floors were once the height of chic. However, a reemergence of their popularity in 21st century design did nothing to make the old building look updated. It was merely shabby, though in a pleasant sort of way; a way that made me think that at any moment I’d be knocking on Sam Spade’s office door, to which he’d answer with a smirking, “Nice to see you, doll face.”
I’m afraid there was no Sam Spade at 216 First Street, Suite 201, just Tom Quinn, Private Detective.
Where else was I to turn for answers?
“You say you left the man at the alter? That’s a pretty big slap in the face,” Quinn’s eyes narrowed on me as if he could feel Jon Ryder’s pain as his own.
“I know. I feel terrible about it now. I mean if I’d had any idea that he’d react this way, I certainly could have—”
Tom Quinn thoughtfully peered over the top rim of his glasses, surveying me carefully. He was a lot younger than the retired police detective I expected him to be. In fact, he said he’d never been on the force. He had been a Marine, although I imagined that the straight-edges of a Marine persona must have smoothed out some since he was discharged five years before. I figured him to be nearing forty, but age is tough to tell with men who are as robust and energetic as Tom Quinn. Except for the bit of grey at the temples and a few worry lines on his rugged face, he was a decent looking man. Short dark hair, which was a little ruffled when he used his hand to comb it back, bright blue eyes that crackled with life and a day’s growth of beard, what was fashionable for the time. No, he certainly didn’t fit the image of the proud Marine, which was probably why he was on his own as a PI. He was a modern man, I thought, nothing like Sam Spade in the slightest.
I liked him at once, even though he made me nervous – obviously that thing I have about older men.
“You say he came after you? What exactly does that mean?” he queried me further.
I guess I’d been too scanty with the details. In my anxiety, I’d rattled off my basic problem in such haphazard fashion that I’m sure he had no idea what I was talking about. Even I was a little flustered.
“He…um…” I had to think this over again.
Meanwhile, Tom Quinn cocked his head waiting patiently.
I bit my lip, closed my eyes and drew in a breath, only then deciding exactly how much I should tell him. The visit certainly warranted a brief explanation of my capture and confinement so I plunged in, realizing only then how horrible the whole thing must have sounded. “I was camping on my own, maybe not a smart thing to do, but I’ve done it before enough times to feel comfortable in the woods alone. I certainly didn’t expect that Jon would have me followed. Maybe it was Jon himself who captured me, although I’ll never know that for sure. One minute I was cooking hotdogs over the fire, the next I was hogtied in a cabin in the woods, a sex toy for several not so very nice men.”
Quinn looked at me stunned. “What! You were raped? And you didn’t go to the police?”
“No, no, no police,” I shook my head emphatically.
“And why the hell not, Miss Davies?”
“Because it wouldn’t have done a damn bit of good. There is no evidence of a crime, at least not now.”
“Now? How long ago did this happen?”
“Eighteen months, about six months after I broke off our engagement.”
He looked at me strangely, maybe wondering if I was even sane. Then with the silence so intensely nerve-wracking, I started in on a further explanation. “You have to understand, my ex-fiancé is very wealthy. If I were to go to the police and create a commotion, he’d have the family lawyers locking arms to be sure that I was the one who was tainted, not him.”
“So, your fiancé wasn’t at the cabin?”
“I have no idea, I was blindfolded the whole time.”
“And you saw no one?”
“No.”
“Then why assume that he was responsible?”
“Because—” I breathed a huge sigh, “when I woke up on the third day I was alone. The ropes and cuffs were gone, in fact there was nothing in the cabin to suggest that anyone had been there but me. I was pretty anxious to get out of there in case they might come back so I dressed quick. But heading for the door, I had to stop. Tacked to the door was a photograph of me that he wanted me to see.”
“Do you have the photograph with you?”
“No. I tore it up and burned it.”
“Not a very smart move, Miss Davies.”
“I was scared…”
“So, describe it for me.”
Although I was sure that Quinn would ask the question, I couldn’t stop myself from blushing. My face was hot, my hands nervously working their way around a torn Kleenex until I turned it into shreds. “Well, you see…it was compromising to say the least,” I started tentatively. “I was naked, there were two men and Jon, very pornographic, if you get my drift.” I sounded so flippant, but that was hardly what I was really feeling. I had no idea there was such a tightness inside me, something vicious centering at my chest. It was true that I’d never revealed anything about my relationship with Jon to anyone, not the kinky intimate details. I certainly hadn’t mentioned my capture to a soul. Suddenly, I was telling my story to a complete stranger. The words spilled out, reluctantly at first, though the more I spoke, the more I felt the tightness in my chest unravel. “The afternoon the picture was taken – and I’m sure it was not the only one – we were in his downtown office. A really plush high rise. It wasn’t all that unusual for us to have sex there – the thrill, you know,” I weakly smiled, then bowed my head again, peering up at him through a tangle of red hair. “Jon liked to dominate me sexually. And I, well, I liked it too. I just never imagined that he’d use the pictures against me.” Quinn was staring at me with those pools of intense blue, the effect on me unnerving. “I never saw them myself. I assumed he destroyed them, although I have no idea why I’d think that. I can’t imagine that blackmail was in his mind when he was taking them; it was all about the sexual turn on. But then I don’t suppose that either of us expected that I’d so ungraciously back out of being his bride.”
“So, at the cabin, he left a photograph so you’d know who was responsible?”
“Exactly. Frankly, it’s not at all out of character…I just never imagined—”
“And this was the only incident?”
“No.” I bowed my head a moment before I continued. “That’s why I’m here now. A week ago…eighteen months after I was captured in the woods, just when I was beginning to think that I wouldn’t hear from Jon again, he attacked me as I was walking home from the library…just Jon this time, he didn’t even try to
disguise himself.”
“And you were raped again?”
“In a manner of speaking.” I thought a moment. “But is it rape if you’ve already had sex with someone and you’re still attracted to him – dangerously attracted?”
“It’s rape if you did not consent.”
“Well, I didn’t consent. He grabbed me from behind, dragged me into an alley and stuffed a ballgag in my mouth. Before it was over, I was standing naked in the pouring rain while he pinned me to a wall and came at me from behind. There wasn’t any point in resisting, Jon is much too strong. At least it was swift. I was free to walk home as soon as he was done. What was even more chilling was that I found another photograph lying on my kitchen table. It wasn’t enough to sexually abuse me, he had to rub it in my face.”
I looked down, for a while staring at the soggy Kleenex, then finally used it to wipe my tears away.
“And you have no plans to press charges?”
“How can I?”
“We hire you a good lawyer, I do some detective work and see if we have a case – which we might not since much of the evidence has been destroyed. But it’s certainly worth a shot.”
I shook my head again. “No, please no, you won’t get anywhere with that. His money reaches as far as his imagination will take him.”
“Then why come to me, Miss Davies?” Tom Quinn looked almost as exasperated as I felt worn out.
“I want to know how I stop it from happening. I can reconcile with what he’s done so far, but I don’t want it to happen again. I don’t want to live with the threat of him hanging over me, which is exactly what I feel every moment of the day. If I only knew he’d leave me be—”
Nightmare of Vengeance Page 5