Jon Reskind - The abducted wife

Buck stood up abruptly and grasped Jane by the hand. "Let's you and me take a little walk," he said and smiled strongly. "You like these here woods. Let me show ya some of our property, as ya might call it."

Then they were walking across the muddied turf of the backyard, moving on past the stone house and the clump of trees. The alcohol had had some effect on her balance and once her hips swayed toward him and nudged him in the side, and she cringed as he came closer to her, slinging his arm around her back. The trees seemed to close over their heads in a slowly darkening archway and above the green ceiling of leaves she could almost feel the sky darken and a wedge of clouds press down on the hills.

Then they were in a clearing, and Buck released his hand and dropped softly on the grass. He smiled at her. He still had the whisky with him and she watched as he sucked from the bottle as though he were a child at his mother's breast. Then he gestured for her to sit down beside him. "C'mon," he said in an almost high-pitched voice. "I ain't gonna eat ya up."

Jane straightened in front of him and pressed her hands down flat on her stomach. Yes, she really liked this man even though she had watched him perform dreadful perverted acts only hours before. She felt his eyes glisten up at her and she was suddenly aware of the beauty of her own body. The way Bob had treated her, she had never sensed her own loveliness as she did now. Yes, Bob had been courtly and had tried to make her feel like a woman; but this was very much different: now she was confronted with someone who was willing to risk his own safety, as Buck had done when he fed her, just to touch her, just to show that he understood and cared.

"I said come on and sit down here. I ain't gonna bite ya," Buck laughed and turned, propping his elbow on the grass.

"I'd rather stand, thank you," Jane answered. "It looks awfully damp on the ground."

Buck stretched and smiled at her again. He began undoing the buttons to his shirt until the entire breadth of his chest and muscular belly were exposed. He pulled his shirttails from beneath his trousers and took the shirt off, placing it beside him on the ground. Then he lay his hand on the blue denim material, gesturing again for her to sit down beside him.

"No," she said, more positive in her assertion. "I just can't. Look, you're getting your shirt dirty leaving it there on the grass."

She reached down and handed Buck his shirt. He took it in his hands, rolled it into a ball and threw it behind Jane, glaring angrily up at the girl as though he had been deeply hurt.

Jane watched him shift his eyes from the long smoothly curving length of her legs into the arc of trees behind. He reminded her a little of Bob, with his boyish grin and the self-conscious way he pushed a lock of sandy hair from his forehead. Even Buck's anger was reminiscent of the way Bob had acted when he grew angry with her: there was the childish pout, and the slight tilt of the head away from her indicating disapproval; and there were the squinting eyes that tried to appear unconcerned by focussing on a distant object, although they flicked from time to time to her face to see if that consciously posed anger were registering on her. Yes, they were very much alike, she thought, and she suddenly yearned to be close to Bob, even though she knew he was miles from her at this moment.

Buck sat up and set the half-empty bottle between his legs. "I know what you're thinking. You're wonderin' if that husband of yours'll show up," he said. "This place ain't the easiest to get to, and I guess it'd be best if he didn't find ya. Josh bein' a little trigger-crazy with that shotgun of his."

He sipped from the bottle for a long time, and Jane took this moment to appraise her chances for escape. It began to look less and less likely that he would get stumbling drunk; but the closeness of the trees afforded her access to the woods more readily than when she was at the house. They were about two-hundred yards into the pine-forest, and she could see a sharp abutment of rock a short distance from the clearing. She had spent enough time in the North Carolina foothills to know that most large out-croppings of rock hid limestone caves – and it was there, she knew, that she might hide herself. But all of this was a matter of chance. Buck was seated in front of her with his eyes riveted lewdly upon her young body, and aside from an obscene curl at the lips and a kind of dazed leer, he seemed perfectly sober.

"And like I said," he spoke harshly, and dragged from his cigarette. "There ain't no way your old man is gonna find ya here. So ya might as well make yourself comfortable. Don't that seem right? Just look at yourself getting all edgy, when ya could be havin' a real nice time…"

Jane shifted her weight and stared down hard at him. A gust of wind rippled through her long hair and pressed the material of her cotton dress against the smoothly curving outline of her breasts. She stood up to her full height, running her hands down her tensed ribcage; yes, there was no doubt what he had been planning to do to her all afternoon. Now it was a matter of a struggle between their opposing wills as he bargained for her body with the promise that he would help her to escape, and she waited for the approaching moment when he was drunk enough to run away from him… if that moment ever came.

"Here, drink this," he slurred, "It'll warm ya up. Getting a might chilly, wouldn't ya say?"

She drank again. The liquor tasted mellow and warm going down, and she felt more than just lighthearted now; yes, she was becoming quite drunk, and that was good, she thought, since she was still shaking at what lay ahead.

Another sharp gust of wind ruffled the trees. She handed the bottle to him, then started back when she realized that the front of her dress had come undone – probably from her struggle through the woods last night – exposing the large naked orbs of her breasts all the way down to their barely-clad nipples. Slowly, Buck closed and opened his eyes, his pupils clouding over in obvious lust. He set the bottle down beside him, then ran his hand down his bared chest, thrusting a thumb below his belt toward his crotch.

"Ya know, you look better and better all the time," he said softly.

She stumbled back shaking as he coursed his eyes down the entire length of her sensuously opulent body. Her dress had blown partially open and she was conscious of one white dove-like breast splayed part-way out the gape in the material. She tried to button her dress and still keep an eye on Buck who had placed one hand on his thigh and was moving his fingers suggestively toward his crotch.

"Now, honey, there ain't no need to button it," he said, breathing deeply. "We's all friends here."

"I-I want to go back to the house," she cried out. "Please, don't act like that."

Buck laughed and raised himself slowly. Jane couldn't help but see the long bulge of his passion protruding from beneath his pants. She turned her head from the lewd display and looked him angrily in the face. But the directness of her gaze seemed to have no effect on him; his breathing grew more heavy and his face gloated with an obscene excitement.

"Please," Jane cried out, still clutching the exposed whiteness of her breast. "Please don't do anything to me."

"There ain't nothin' that I'll do that you won't like," he said hoarsely. "I just wanta touch that sweet little tit of yours."

Then he was up on two feet and staggering across the grass toward her.

"Stop," she screamed. "Let's talk a minute."

He stood only an arm's length away from her, his eyes running from the softly downed smoothness of her breast to the lush vee of her groin clad seductively in the clinging material of her summer dress.

"There ain't nothing to talk about. You know that," he shrugged. "I thought you and me might work out a deal. Like I said, I'm just a man and I gotta be satisfied. I know you like me, I can tell by the way you was acting."