Page 61 of His Keepsake

I slumped, shoulders down, hands cradling the cell phone in my lap.

Why I wanted his unique brand of unscrupulous and immoral mindfucks? Yes, that.

No one could understand, but perhaps being yelled at could cure me. I sent the text.

Half an hour later while I was frying some kebabs, Charity’s reply came in.

How about we meet this weekend at the shooting range on Koft Street? Sunday at ten AM?

I sent her, yes, slid the phone away, and flipped the kebabs.

I’d been to that shooting range before. Dad had taught me how to go blam blam at paper targets, and I had introduced Charity to it. Her competitive nature, or maybe her killer instincts had kept her interest in the hobby going for this past year.

Nothing more came from the stranger.

But because I was obstinate and dumb and hopeful, I wore red on Tuesday. Subtle red in the form of a pendant with a small cloisonné heart.

By the afternoon, my jitteriness was in full force, and I scanned everyone who took the bus. Or rather, I checked out all the men. Nothing. None of them even vaguely resembled my villainous lover if one could call him that.

Lover.I rolled the word around in my head. While ascending the apartment block stairs, I was still pondering my weirdness and had resigned myself to a boring night marking assignments. No one grabbed me before I opened the door.

Wednesday, I wore the same red pendant but was sure nothing would happen. Almost sure. Though, of course, even going up the stairwell seemed fraught with deadly possibilities.

Thursday, I hesitated then went to work at the school with nothing red on me. Friday, while scolding myself, I made a detour through an alley to the bus stop. It was one I never ever took because it felt unsafe and isolated for a lone woman, even if it was barely fifty yards through a concealed alley between thick concrete walls. Red graffiti sprawled overhead. I dodged the crushed drink cans and paper litter. No one could hear you scream, from the middle. Except for the pigeons.

I was definitely crazy and hurried through. It wasn’t self-destruction I sought.

Saturday afternoon, disgruntled and lonely, I went to feed the ducks at the lake at the local park that nestled beside a highway and road intersection. The traffic sounds filtered over the embankments and the trees planted to shield the place. It was large enough to feel like a piece of nature and small enough to fit into suburbia. There was no playground, but swans and ducks seemed to treat it as home. Feeling disconnected from everything around me, I found a bench and sat, eyeing the stretch of lake, a central island, and the reeds.

Six ducks swarmed in a feathery flotilla to the water’s edge, and a few waddled closer to quack at me. I drew the packet of food from the pocket in my long skirt and leaned in to scatter it before the eager birds. When the last of the food had been thrown, I looked about, only to realize I was the last person here. I wondered about S then dismissed my fantasies. I needed to move on.

I stood to dust the crumbs off my skirt, and someone seized me from behind then hauled me backward. We were submerged in the bushes within seconds. Darkness and leaves swished in above, twigs scratched my arms and legs. It had to be him, I thought, even as I wheezed and spluttered against a chokehold and tried to claw his hand off me, only to have both my wrists trapped at my back.

I couldn’t see them, whoever they were.

Only a man would have this strength.

Something thin pressed in on my wrists.

Leaves crunched and scattered underfoot. I lost a shoe but tried to kick him. There was sky then dirt as I was twisted to the ground, face first, my wrists already caught by a hard plastic tie.

The arm had left my throat, and I wheezed.

If I screamed, I might be rescued. Unsure who this was or what was happening, I opened my mouth. As I sucked in a breath, a wad of something was stuffed at and past my teeth, muffling me. I choked as he kneeled on my arm. When spit dribbled from my mouth, it made him chuckle. He plastered a piece of sticky tape over my mouth, sealing in the cloth.

He rolled me and pinned me face up, brushing leaves from my face when I tried to shake them off. A balaclava made his identity almost impossible to decipher. Those eyes… He leaned in to whisper even as he wormed his hand under my head. His hand closed on my hair, and he wrenched my head back, tilting my neck.

He made my head move from side to side as he spoke, punctuating the words. “I have to punish you because you forgot. And it’s almost sunset. No one will know there is a woman in here being fucked to death.”

I forgot?

I whimpered, clawed the ground with my bound hands. His hard thighs straddled me, and he began to efficiently trace my curves with his hands, as if checking what creature lay caught beneath him. My shoulders, my breasts, my hips, were felt, then a finger circled on my shirt, pushing the fabric into my navel. His thumbs and fingers pressed in on me, holding me at the hips.

He rose off me to inch my skirt up my legs, baring me to panties level.

My clit throbbed disobediently, but I squeaked a protest past the wad of cloth and the tape.

This shouldn’t be turning me on, but that was Mr. Scott’s voice, wasn’t it? Or was I wrong?

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