Scene of the Crime

One second is all it takes. Just a single tick of an analog watch, and life as you know it can end.

It was a beautiful summer Saturday. A picture perfect day. An exciting day. My gorgeous young wife, Cheri, and I were both horny as mink, slightly tipsy, and feeling uncharacteristically adventurous. While we had a wonderful life in general, and great sex, we'd never taken the latter outside the house.

That's what was making the day crazy-hot. After splitting most of a bottle of wine and making out on the couch like randy teenagers, we'd decided to do something we'd heard about - flashing on the big road.

Cheri dressed in a too small tank top, sans brassiere, and a pair of painted on short-shorts from the back of a bottom drawer. We hopped onto Interstate 44. I teased her into it; she slowly stripped, flashing her gorgeous little breasts to truckers, then her overheated little pussy. Her brown hair whipped in the wind from the open windows, and classic rock music on KXUS screamed from the Toyota's radio. It was by far the most outrageous and erotic thing we'd ever done.

One moment the world was exciting and beautiful, and the next our lives, as we knew them, were over. I felt a sudden impact in the steering wheel. The whole car was jolted. Because we had the windows and sunroof open, glass from the broken headlight ended up all over inside the car. I had just a glimpse of him. We killed him. We killed a nine year old boy.

I yelled and reflexively jerked the wheel, swerving across both lanes, heading for the shoulder. Cheri screamed and covered herself as she sat up in alarm. In the rear view mirror, I saw the semi we'd just passed swerve and smoke his tires as he braked.

"What happened, David!"

"A kid came out of nowhere. I hit him." I was nearly stopped, and starting to shake.

"We've got to get out of here! We can't get caught!" she yelled.

"That's crazy, hon! We -"

"- David, we're not insured, remember! We'll be ruined! You'll go to jail!"

"I'm going to be sick."

"Move over! Now! I'll drive."

The next three days were the worst either of us had ever known. I couldn't sleep, and when I did drowse off, the TV news video of the family and the accident site looped over and over through my inner eye. His name was Billy Robinson. Against his mother's orders, he was taking a shortcut across the highway to play baseball with a bunch of friends.

I called in sick Monday and Tuesday. Cheri looked just as haggard I did. We were both brittle, sullen, and depressed. I was guilty of careless and reckless driving, speeding, vehicular homicide, and leaving the scene of an accident, just for starters. I was ready to turn myself in, but her hysteria when I told her made me realize that she would be utterly destroyed. Then I'd be guilty of that, too.

Wednesday morning when I went out to get the newspaper, I almost stepped on an unmarked manila envelope on the welcome mat. I think part of me instantly knew what was inside. I forgot about the paper and went back into the kitchen. I sat and showed it to Cheri.

She looked puzzled, then her eyes widened. "Oh my God."

I numbly opened it. Inside was a DVD disc. The video was jerky, probably shot from a hand held cell phone, certainly from the cab of a semi. There was no soundtrack included. It clearly showed Cheri staring lustily up at the trucker, breasts bare and nipples hard, frantically masturbating. Then it followed our car as we accelerated away. The license plate was clearly visible, I saw the boy dart in front of us. I clamped my eyes shut, unwilling to watch what followed.

But I heard the voice blare from the speaker. "Well now, We've got us a little situation here, don't we Dave? Cheri, what do you think the cops would do with this? Think about it. I'll be in touch real soon."

We realized just how helpless we were. Cheri could remember nothing about the driver or the truck. Just some guy - who was either going to blackmail us, or give us up to the cops.

Over the next two days, our emotional state deteriorated even more. Cheri stayed in bed, spent hours crying. I had to go back to work, but got virtually nothing done. Friday morning, there was another envelope, this one bearing a typed note. "Be at the westbound Conway rest stop tonight at ten pm. Park in the northeast corner and wait."

The body shop had three other cars in the building who'd also a hit deer. They delivered it to us Friday afternoon and reclaimed their loaner. It was a silent trip to the rest stop. Driving past the spot where I'd killed the kid was just as bad as the moment of the deed. Both of us were too sick to speak. The mid-summer dusk still lurked dimly on the western horizon, but it was fully dark under the trees in the isolated area where we parked. Listening to the engine tick as it cooled was maddening. My palms were slick on the wheel. Cheri had her bare feet on the seat, knees up, and her face buried in her arms. Time stood still.

The crunch of boots on gravel alerted me. Two large men were approaching us from the direction of the rest rooms. I dropped one hand to the seat and saw Cheri straighten and stiffen.

"Dave. Cheri. How you guys doing this lovely night?" It was the voice from the DVD. It came from the smaller of the two men.

"Stop right there," I said. "Don't come any closer."

They slowed, but kept coming. "Oh, Davey, don't be that way. We're all friends here."

I showed them the handgun I brought with me. "I mean it. Stop. We're not your friends. You can tell us what you want from right there."

They stopped. Fifteen yards was too far to see their faces, but Voice sounded grim. "You sure you want to play it this way, Davey? Go all hardcore on us like that? All I have to do is walk away and dial 911."

"Just tell us what you want."

"A friendly little chat is all. We kind of know one another already. I mean, your wife showed me just how beautiful she is just the other day, didn't she? Seems like that should make us friends, doesn't it? Gives you and me something in common, right?"

I gritted my teeth, heard Cheri hiss her anger. "We don't have a lot of money. We can probably come up with -"

His laugh silenced me. "I probably know more about your finances than you do. It isn't about money, Dave. It's about justice."

"What the hell are you talking about!"

He laughed again. "Well, I got to thinking. You killed that kid. Nice boy from everything I heard. Probably happened because you were real distracted by the hot little show Cheri was putting on. Man oh man. I know I was sure as hell having a hard time keeping my rig between the ditches. That's one damn fine looking lady you've got there."

"Shut up," I screamed. I stuck my left arm through the open window. I wasn't really going to shoot them. Or maybe I was. I caught a faint flicker of movement from the back of the car at the same instant as the tire iron, swung with brute force, hit my forearm. I've never felt pain like that. The .38 spun out of my hand. I heard Cheri scream. I looked up just in time to see a huge fist approach my face, then everything went dark.

The dashboard clock said it was 11:47 when I woke up, sprawled across the seat. The pain in my arm made me gasp. The passenger side seat was empty. Cheri was gone. I woozily sat up. My gun was laying right where I dropped it. The act of picking it up told me I was in worse shape than I thought. Passing out again here was not a good idea. As I gasped for breath and let the cold sweat die, I fished my cell phone from my pocket to dial 911. I had voicemail.

"Honey. I'm so scared. I had to go with them or they were going to do something horrible to you. They want me to remind you just what getting the cops involved will do. They're right. Don't do anything crazy. I'll be okay. They promised I'll be home by Monday morning. They promised they won't hurt me."

Thanks to the pain killers the emergency room prescribed, everything until about four a.m. Monday morning is pretty much a blur. I was nodding on the sofa when headlights glaring through the windows brought me back toward consciousness. I heard muted male laughter, then a car door slamming. I wobbled my way to the door and fought it open. A big dark colored Ford pickup was backing down the drive without lights. Cheri was staggering toward me.

The closer she got, the worse she looked. Her hair was matted and tangled. Her blouse was unbuttoned, her braless breasts wobbling freely. She was obviously extremely drunk. Her eyes were puffy, her lips swollen. She blinked as I pulled her into an awkward one-armed hug. She reeked of booze and stale sweat and cigarettes. She muttered some slurred observation about the cast on my left arm.

We made it into the house somehow. She looked even worse in the light. Getting her into the bedroom was a heroic achievement. She collapsed on the bed before I could get her to undress. I couldn't wake her up. I rolled her like a rag doll, one-handedly tugging her blouse off. Her breasts bore countless hickeys and bruises and were crusted with what looked like dried semen. Her face and hair wore the same glaze. There were no panties under her baggy denim shorts, and her pussy was swollen, gaping, and leaking. I became dizzy, nauseous, and passed out on the floor.

I don't recall going to bed, but that's where I was when I woke up. I heard Cheri vomiting in the bathroom, then heard the shower start. She came out wet, pale, and bruised in places no one should be. She seemed to be in shock. When I asked her to tell me what happened, she just shook her head and turned away.

I had to go into work to pick up my check and prove that I did indeed have a broken arm. My supervisor at Bass Pro was pissed, but there wasn't a lot he could do about it. I requested three weeks off to recover. I suspected that I'd best spend some of that time looking for a new job. By the time I got home Cheri had scrubbed her body raw again and had a couple of drinks and one of my pain meds to ease her stupendous hangover. At least she was loosened up enough to tell me a little about what had happened.

They'd made her drink whiskey pretty much non-stop after her abduction. Since we seldom drank, she'd been totally wasted since Friday night. They raped her pretty much non-stop as well, slapped her around until she quit fighting them. There'd been three of them.

The trucker's name was Larry. The other two were Bill and Paul. She called them the three stooges. They'd done most of the job in a dingy, dirty house somewhere in the north side of town, but she couldn't be more precise. There'd also been a sleazy motel room, on the dirty end of Battlefield, Saturday, she thought, but maybe Sunday. There was one more critical fact: they reminded her, over and over, that she had to meet them again next Friday night. This time at some run-down country bar down by Lake Springfield. I was to drop her off and drive straight home.

"You can't go," I yelled.

Her dark hair, limp, tangled, and still wet from the long scalding shower, almost covered her face. She was huddled on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, staring at the floor. Her murmur was dull, barely audible, and raspy from her raped throat. "I have to."

"No. I'll go to the cops, turn myself in like I should have when it happened."

She shook her head, refused to look up. "You wanted to do the right thing, but now it's too late. It's my fault, Dave, not yours."

"No! I'm going to -"

She speared me with dead eyes. "Shut up, Dave. Just shut the fuck up. I'm going."

The tension was almost unendurable. We barely talked. We were like two strangers sharing a house and a bed. Neither of us had the slightest interest in sex. Wednesday morning there was a gaily wrapped box on the porch. Inside was a tiny denim skirt, a too-small red-sequined blouse, a pair of cheap black pumps with a six-inch heel, and another DVD with a note demanding that we watch it. With dread, we loaded it into the laptop.

It'd been shot in a cheap motel room with what was probably the same phone as the first video. It showed a very drunk Cheri on hands and knees on a filthy bed. She had a miniskirt pushed up to her waist and a tube top pulled down to expose her tits. It was the clothing from the box. She was being fucked in the face and pussy by two men whose faces were never shown.

There was a porn-like soundtrack this time, the men both telling her what a hot little whore she was. She moaned drunkenly around the cock in her mouth. A pile of small bills on the bedside table implied she was a hooker. The video ended with her spitting out the cock in her mouth and screaming hoarsely as she orgasmed. She'd almost never allowed my dick in her mouth, yet she was deep throating some other man and cumming wildly. Then Larry's voice, instructing Cheri to wear the enclosed outfit - and nothing else - Friday night, with makeup appropriate for a cheap whore. She was to be there - alone - by nine pm. Or else . . .

My wife sobbed as she ran for the bathroom.

Friday was unendurable. I was nearly comatose with depression. Cheri couldn't sit still, yet was desperately trying to pretend everything was perfectly normal. She anxiously cleaned house. She chattered endlessly, her voice shrill, brittle, and saying nothing of consequence. Her breath smelled like she'd been nipping whiskey. When I went in to take my afternoon meds, it looked like there were fewer caps than there should have been. I didn't have the energy to remind her how dangerous it was to combine them with booze.

She offered to fix me something for dinner. I had no appetite. At seven, she came into the living room, where I was parked on the sofa. She was wringing her hands. "I better start getting ready." I just stared at the TV. "Will you drive me, or should I call -"

"- No. I'll drive you. They said I had to, didn't they?" I couldn't keep the bitterness from my voice.

She looked like I'd slapped her before turning and walking woodenly into the bedroom. She didn't come out until a little after eight. She wobbled on the stiletto heels. The denim skirt didn't come halfway down her pale thighs. The scarlet sequined top swept low, ended high, displaying most of her breasts, leaving her bare to her hip bone.

Her voice was slightly slurred. It looked like her fat, slick lips were moving in slow motion. "I look like a Kansas City streetwalker."

I think it was supposed to be a sick joke, but I couldn't disagree. Her eyes, red and swollen from recent tears, were heavily outlined and shadowed. Her lips, while trembling, were dark red. Since she seldom wore any makeup at all, it was a jarring sight. Her nipples, though not distended, were visible through the thin fabric. Her instructions demanded she wear nothing under the skirt. Another day, the sight would have made me rock hard, and I'd have fucked her raw right then and there. But this wasn't another day.

I made her a strong drink before we got in the car. The way she sat, dejected and boneless, I could almost see her pussy. She stared through the windshield, seemingly at nothing. As if just noticing it, she gulped from her go cup. Several times, her mouth worked like she wanted to say something, but nothing escaped.

Finally, the words leapt out. "I don't remember it. Cumming on that video. It's like that woman was someone else. Cherry. That's what they called her. Cherry the whore."

I said nothing.

The bar parking lot was three-quarters filled with pickup trucks, few of them even close to new. It was a concrete block dive with few windows. The car vibrated with the heavy bass of deafening country music.

"They're going to fuck me all weekend again, aren't they?" It was the first time she'd looked at me since we left home. There was a hopelessness in the center of her slutty eye makeup.

"We'll make it through this, honey," I said, sounding unconvincing even to myself.

She stared at me for a moment, nodded, swilled the last of her drink and fumbled for the door latch. "Guess I better go. God knows what they'll do if I'm late."

She looked sick. "I'm so sorry, David."

Nausea choked me as I watched her climb from the car, clumsily try to pull the tiny skirt down, and carefully pick her way across the gravel lot in the perilous heels. I wanted to call out to her, tell her how much I loved her. I wanted to go in the bar and confront Larry. But I did neither. I watched as she skirted widely around the wanna be cowboys smoking outside the door, listening to their vulgar catcalls and whistles as she passed. One of them opened the door with mock gallantry and squeezed her ass as she vanished from sight.

I really can't tell you what I did that weekend. From the time I left that parking lot until three a.m. Monday is a total blank. I was awakened by the pain of Cheri violently shaking me by my broken arm.

"Hey. You gotta wake up, baby. They made me promise to wake you up."

My eyes swam into focus. Cheri stood, weaving, beside the bed. She was chewing gum, something I never remembered her doing. Her dark hair was teased out. Her heavy makeup looked freshly layered on. She now sported long false eyelashes and dark blue eyeshadow. Her lips were bright purple, outlined in black, and matched an obscene mini-dress that must have come from some porn store. Her towering shoes were thick lucite platforms with at least a seven inch heel.

"I'm 'sposed to show you this," she muttered, awkwardly tugging her skirt up with new, long french nails. Her pussy came into view. She'd been shaved, her trimmed brown bush a thing of the past, her distended lower lips pouting redly between her thighs. Next came her flat belly, now sporting a pierced navel and a dangling silver silhouette of a naked woman dancing.

"Cool, huh?" Her eyes were glassy, her pupils widely dilated. She wasn't just drunk. She spread her legs wider. Her labia parted like a beckoning flower. "So I looked pretty fucking hot, don't I? Like some kinda fucking walking wet dream, right? A porn star or something."

She jerked the sheet off my body, staggering and almost falling. "Are you hard yet, honey? They said the way I looked would make you hard as steel. That you'd fuck me raw." She giggled, something else I'd never heard. "Like I'm not already fucked raw."

She collapsed like a deflating balloon before I could even sit up. She returned to partial consciousness and helped a little as I levered her into bed. She pasted her lips sloppily against mine and moaned, trying to stick her tongue down my throat. "Let's fuck, baby. My slut cunt needs more cock." Her breath was as rank as her makeup was fresh, reeking of whiskey, cigarettes, bubblegum, and what might have been cum. Then she went slack, falling limply onto the mattress.

After I recovered from her assault, I manged to roll her around enough to get her clothes off. Beneath the relatively fresh clothing, she was filthy. She remained totally unresponsive. I wiped her body with damp towels, but her distended, gaping cunt continued to drool spent sperm. Unwilling to share the bed with her, I abandoned her there. I heard her vomit twice during the day, and I slept that night on the couch.

I'd gone through the purse she brought home. It, too, I'd never seen before. It held nearly a hundred dollars in wrinkled bills, an array of cosmetics, a half dozen condoms, a half empty pack of cigarettes, a cheap lighter, and a money order made out to the parents of the dead kid in the amount of eight hundred dollars.

It wasn't until dusk the next day that she emerged from the bedroom. I barely recognized her. She looked more dead than alive. Pale, her skin drawn tightly over her skull, she blindly shambled past me into the kitchen. She gulped three glasses of water, then opened the refrigerator and just stood there like a statue. Her shoulder felt feverishly hot as I guided her into a kitchen chair.