Up and Down the Road

"Not much fight in you, huh, when it comes down to it?" He commented. It hurt a little, knowing that she was likely to freeze up in an unexpected situation like that.

"Maybe I didn't want to fight you," she bit back.

"Did you like that?" She felt her face flush and hoped that Dennis couldn't see it in the darkness of the cab.

"Yeah," she confirmed, nodding.

"Good," he sighed, tapping the wheel, "I guess I wanted to scare you a little, but not actually hurt you, you know."

She looked out of the window into the darkness. Still trying to teach her lessons, still worried about her. He just ate her pussy, made her come twice, and was still somehow acting like her big brother. How was this possible? How could he do that, make her feel this way and then tell her that he was just trying to scare her?! With oral sex?! She leaned her elbow on the door and lowered her head into her hand. She was tired and a good deal disappointed. After the initial shock of what Dennis was doing, she actually started thinking he might be interested in her, that there might be more than this random incident. But now it seemed unlikely.

"Are you ok?" He asked, shifting into park once he was at the top of her driveway.

"Yeah," Marcy unbuckled her seatbelt, reaching for the door handle.

"Please call me next time, ok?" He appealed to her again.

"Yeah, ok," she told him, getting out of the truck.

She had a streak of earlier shifts coming up, so she wouldn't need rides. The couple of times she got off late, a co-worker had given her a ride home and by the time she was stuck without a ride one night, it had been two weeks since she last talked to Dennis or seen him. To make things more awkward, the last time she saw him was the time that he gave her those two amazing orgasms and then acted like it was nothing. She felt weird about calling him. Sitting in the break room after she got off from work, she texted him instead, telling him that she didn't want to bother him, but that if he were free and wanted to give her a ride home, she could use one tonight. She waited as the message under her text turned to 'sent' and then 'delivered.' She stared at her phone. The status wasn't changing to 'read.' She took off her uniform and slung the strap of her crossbody purse over her head. She decided to give him ten minutes, as she stood outside the store, scrolling through her Facebook and Twitter. If he didn't reply within ten minutes, he must be busy with something and she'd just walk home. She felt like she did her part in keeping her word to him, she reached out.

Ten minutes passed and the message had remained unread. Marcy plugged in her headphones, queued up a RadioLab Podcast, and started walking. It was a really interesting story about a person who became known as the first female gondolier. Her gaze was usually at her feet, out ahead of her in the darkness, to see where she was going and not trip over any stray sticks or rocks. There was some light shed by the moon, but there were stretches of road where the trees obstructed the light almost entirely. She was marginally aware of a car passing her as the headlights drew closer and then receded up ahead. She stepped further into the brush and then back out towards the pavement. There were a lot of crickets, which she could hear above the sound in her headphones. The few houses that she could see through the trees up the driveways stood dark. It must have been half-past twelve now. She knew that her own house probably stood dark at this point too, her dad went to bed by eleven o'clock nightly. He didn't wait up for her and subscribed to the same opinion as hers, that nothing would happen to her walking up the road from the A&P along their quiet street.

It was a shock that knocked the wind right out of her when he grabbed her from behind. One strong arm circled her waist, pinning her arms down to her body, the other came up over her shoulder clamping down over her mouth. And then her feet left the ground. Her heart raced and a lump formed in her throat, but her brain tried to calm her, telling her that he wouldn't hurt her, that he was just trying to prove his point again about her walking home alone. She hadn't seen him drive up the street this time though and the way he had approached from behind definitely surprised her. He shifted her roughly to one side, as he started walking. The hand that tightly covered her mouth smelled of cigarettes. She didn't struggle, feeling more annoyed than scared, wondering where he was taking her. They appeared to have turned up Andersons' driveway, a gravel road surrounded by tall trees on both sides, that continued on for a good quarter-mile before it reached their house. The house wasn't even visible from the road in daylight. After a dozen or so of his large strides up the drive, a truck came into view, parked off the gravel, in the brush, with the lights and the engine off. He walked towards it.

"Not a fucking sound," he whispered into her ear and that was the moment when something felt off. She felt her pulse race in her neck when he let go of her mouth and lifted up the gate of the SUV. Her brain was trying to catch up with the instincts of her body as he set her down on the ground and roughly slammed her upper body down against the carpeted trunk of the truck, bending her at the waist. This wasn't Dennis's truck, the realization suddenly hit her. She had put her hands out, instinctively, when he shoved her down, and she turned her head over her shoulder to look at the man behind her. He had a baseball hat on that obscured the top portion of his face, but from the outline of his jaw alone, in the darkness, she could tell it wasn't Dennis. The reflex to run kicked in and she pushed up on her hands, trying to lift herself out of this position. His hand came down hard on her back, pushing her back down and holding her there. He pulled both of her hands behind her back, holding them in one of his.

"Please let me go, please," she pleaded with him.

"Shut the fuck up," he growled.

She tried to pull her hands out of his, remembering what Dennis had said that she hadn't even put up a fight with him. Her current struggle didn't seem to yield any results though as the man just tightened his grip on her. She tried to use her feet to kick at his shins, but he kicked her feet apart and stood between them, out of her reach.

"Let me go!" She demanded more sternly. "I had called a friend before I started walking," she bent the truth, "He's going to be looking for me." He smacked her on the back of the head, driving her face down into the rough carpet.

Instead of telling her to shut up again, he slapped a strip of duct tape over her mouth, then used another to wrap around her wrists behind her back. Large, hot tears sprang from Marcy's eyes. Her mind raced with what else she could do, but nothing was coming to mind. The man behind her reached underneath her and undid her jeans, roughly yanking them down her legs along with her panties. A feeble sound of protest escaped her, but he ignored it. She tried to push away from the trunk floor again and lift up, just to get slammed down again, his hand on her neck. His fingers squeezed painfully, pushing her down.

"Stay down," he hissed. His hand left her neck and she felt him spreading apart her ass cheeks and then moving a hand down between her legs. A rough finger moved through her folds and shoved into her opening. She may have gotten slightly wet at the very beginning when she assumed that it was Dennis who had grabbed her. Another finger slipped in, working her pussy, and more tears fell from her eyes, rolling down and soaking into the trunk carpet.

He pulled away from her and she listened as he unbuckled his belt, undoing his zipper, and then the distinct crinkle of a foil wrapper. Marcy felt a certain amount of relief at that sound, at knowing that he wasn't going to fuck her bare and come inside her. But she also quickly realized that he wasn't doing it for her benefit but in order to not leave evidence behind. She couldn't tell who he was, she hadn't seen enough of his face or recognized his voice or had a chance to look at his car or license plate. And he wasn't going to leave her with a pussy full of his DNA, just to be tracked down in that manner.

His sheathed cock sharply entered her without warning, but her scream hardly made any sound past the duct tape, sounding barely like a whine or a whimper. He held onto her hips tightly as he savagely drove himself into her, again and again, while her upper body jostled, her face rubbing against the abrasive fabric. His cock felt huge inside her, stretching her, pounding her with force. There was some fraction of pleasure that she felt from this, from being fucked hard and fast. But her bound hands and the friction against her face reminded her of the frightening, forced nature of this situation and the fear of what would happen when he was done with her overwhelmed any pleasure there might have been. An arm reached out to grab onto her breast, kneading it roughly in his hand. She didn't have a whole lot to grab onto, but his fingers pulled at her nipple and he groaned in apparent enjoyment of it.

The nearly silent scene, underscored only by the crickets and the sharp slapping of skin against skin, was punctured by the sound of Marcy's phone ringing, in the pocket of her jeans, down at her ankles. The man behind her seemed to ignore it, speeding up his thrusts, his fingers digging painfully into her hips. He finished a moment after the ringing had stopped, grunting and pushing himself, heavily leaning over her back. A moment later he was yanking her pants back up, pulling her away from his trunk, and flinging her aside into the brush. She landed in the soft grass on her side, trying to roll herself over. Her hands were still bound and it wasn't easy to maneuver.

By the time she had righted herself into a sitting position, he was in his truck, backing out down the driveway. She breathed a sigh of relief at the fact that he was done with her quickly while she sat in the damp grass. She tried pulling at the tape around her wrists, trying to figure out a way to get it off, but just ended up hurting herself against the edges. Her phone still sat in the back pocket of her jeans, the headphones now yanked out of it, and she couldn't quite reach it to pull it out. But what would she do if she had it, in her hand, behind her back, unable to even unlock it or see the screen? It rang again and she tried desperately to get it out of her pocket, maybe if she could just get it out and swipe to answer this call. Her fingernails scraped against the edge of the phone case, but she couldn't grasp it to pull it out. A fresh set of tears rolled down her face as her shoulders ached with the struggle and she gave up..

****

Dennis felt bad about missing her texts when they came. He was out at a bar with a couple of buddies and couldn't hear his phone with the music and the conversation around him. He called her back as soon as he saw the message when he looked down at his phone to check the time. She didn't answer and something about that nagged him. He didn't imagine that in the time between her text and his call she could have gotten home and gone to bed.

"I gotta head out," he told his friends, getting up. They exchanged some handshakes over the table and he was back in his truck, turning on the engine and sticking his phone in the holder on the AC vent.

He gave her another call as he drove past the A&P and out onto Ludlow Road, slowing down and watching out for her as he drove. The uneasy feeling increased when she didn't answer again, the phone ringing and ringing until it went to voicemail. He rolled down his windows, driving even more slowly now, wondering if maybe she dropped her phone somewhere. He called it again and heard it ring this time. He shifted his foot to the break and listened. He shifted into reverse and moved backwards a few yards until he was at the entrance to the Andersons' driveway. He pulled over and got out of the truck, leaving the engine running. Dennis switched on the flashlight on his phone, then called hers again, walking up the gravel driveway. He heard it ringing, off to his left, confused about why it would be up someone's driveway, and then his eyes found her.

She sat in the grass on the side of the driveway, staring up at him, her eyes wide and pleading. Her hands appeared to be bound behind her back and a strip of duct tape covered her mouth. He immediately glanced down to see that her jeans were undone, a glimpse of panties showing through the open fly.

"Oh, fucking hell!" He muttered, reaching down to her immediately and scooping her up. "Shit, Marcy, what the hell did you get yourself into?!" He walked quickly, carrying her out to his truck. He opened the passenger door and set her down on the seat. She had fresh tears streaming out of her eyes before he even began to peel the duct tape off her face. One side of her face appeared red and the anger he felt rolling through him increased at the thought that someone hit her.

"Thank you," her voice was barely audible once the tape was off her mouth. He pulled out his pocket knife, flipping out the blade, and turned her in the seat to release her hands. The duct tape left red irritation on her skin and there were some cuts around the edges, where she must have struggled against the tape.

"I should take you to the hospital to get checked out," he told her, trying to visually assess her condition.

"No, no, please don't," she put out her hands in protest. "I don't want to go." His eyes came back to her open jeans.

"Marcy," he spoke softly to her.

"No," her hands moved to button and zip her jeans. "I'm fine. I don't want to go to the hospital."

"Someone raped you," he put the words out there. She shook her head, more tears escaping with a sob.

"I'm ok. I can't... umm... just the humiliation of having to explain to someone what happened... I can't, Dennis." She looked down into her hands, her body shaking. "I don't want to hear admonishing from cops and nurses about how I shouldn't be walking up my own street alone at night, in the dark, how I brought this all on myself and what the hell was I thinking. I don't want to explain that I didn't even resist when he grabbed me because I thought it was you." Dennis felt his eyebrows rise in surprise. "I was so dumb," she shook her head, not looking up at him, "And I just don't need anyone else to reiterate it to me right now. I'm ok. It was over quickly and he used a condom, and I..." she sobbed, wiping a finger under her nose, "I don't want to rehash any of this, with anyone."

"Marcy, you can't let this guy..."

"No!" She interrupted him, shaking her head. "I didn't see his face, I can't describe anything about him, aside from the fact that he was bigger than me, wore a baseball cap, and drove an SUV. I was stupid and reckless and it's my own fault and I don't want to tell anyone about this, Dennis, I really don't want to."

He came closer and wrapped her up in his arms. He felt a huge weight of responsibility and guilt for this. She had reached out to him and he wasn't there in time to pick her up. He had nagged her so many times to let him help and when she needed it, he wasn't there. She leaned her face into his body as she sobbed and he just held her, rubbing her back.

"I'm so sorry I wasn't there," he spoke quietly over her. "I feel terrible that this happened to you." She didn't reply, but her arms reached out around him and she embraced him in return. "Can I take you back to my house and check out your cuts and help you clean up a bit?" She nodded her head against his chest.

He buckled her in and they drove up the road in silence. He didn't know what to say. In the bright light of his kitchen, she looked rough. There was grass tangled in her hair, friction burns on one side of her face, a couple of nasty cuts on her wrists with blood already dried over them, and that was just what he could see with her clothes on. He gave her an ice pack for her face and cleaned up the cuts on her wrists.

"Do you want to take a shower?" He offered, picking debris out of her hair. She nodded.

He paced his house, running his fingers through his hair, feeling entirely useless. He hated being right, he hated that this happened and that he wasn't there to stop it. She came out of the shower, wrapped in one of his large towels, her wet hair slicked back, she held onto her clothes, dirty from rolling in the damp grass. They just stared at each other.

"Let me get you something to wear." Of course, he had nothing that would even remotely fit her, but he gave her a clean t-shirt and a pair of shorts with a drawstring that she could pull tight. He formed a plan in his mind while she went into his bedroom to change. "I think you should call out sick tomorrow, if you're working, and we'll take your car to my mechanic and get done whatever needs to be done. I'll pay," he put up a finger, stopping whatever she was going to say. "No, you're not arguing with me about this. You need your car. You don't want to call me. I might not be able to always be there. I feel guilty, Marcy, that this happened, I feel awful. This way, you'll have a working car and you'll drive yourself to and from work and you won't need me."

"I need you," her eyes filled with tears, looking up at him. Dennis didn't understand. She came closer and wrapped her arms around him, pressing her face into his chest. He wrapped his arms around her in turn and held her close.

"I'm here," he kissed the top of her head.