Jon Reskind - The abducted wife

Josh slapped his thighs, and leaned down in a long obscene belly-burst of laughter. "Did ya hear that, Buck? Silas wants t'fuck this little city gal."

Buck set his plate down on the table and folded his hands imperviously in front of him.

"What ya lookin so shy about, Buck," Josh grimaced across the table. "What was ya doin' out behind the shack with 'er this afternoon, pickin' flowers?"

Jane moved to the table, gathering up the empty plates in an effort to appear occupied while Josh continued his accusations against Buck. She knew that this was only a prelude to what would happen after dinner when the men began drinking again, and she thought she might divert Josh, at least temporarily, by bringing them more food.

"Now ya see that," Josh said, and pointed to Jane as she moved into the back with the dishes. "I done showed her her place and she's actin' right proper."

She breathed a deep sigh as she entered the kitchen and set the dishes onto the counter, filling them with remaining ham and vegetables left on the stove. Then she sliced a piece of the ham for herself and devoured it ravenously. The small amount of food she was able to scavenge would at least keep her alert for the evening's ordeal, she thought, then she turned towards the front room.

"Buck's been telling us all about ya whilst ya was bringin' in more chow," Josh said as she entered the front of the shack again.

Jane lowered her eyes and set the plates in front of the four men, feeling a rush of shame and self-pity as the heavy set red-haired man ran his eyes salaciously across the ripped front of her dress that barely hid her large full rounded breasts. She couldn't stand the way the huge man was practically undressing her with his lewd stare, and she moved back and sat down on the bed, twisting her tanned legs away from the table as much as was possible. She knew that Buck hadn't said anything about what they had done that afternoon, and she wanted to assure him that she understood and knew what Josh was up to, but she couldn't. It was clear that Josh was using Buck and trying to humiliate him in order to break the young man down to the point where he had no choice but to support Josh in whatever he wanted to do to her naked body later; it was now a matter of time until Buck gave in, but she still held out an irrational flicker of hope that he wouldn't.

"Lord-a-mighty girl," Josh slammed down his fist on the table. "D'ya hear what I'm sayin? Buck says y'all gave him a little of that pussy this afternoon."

"Goddamit Josh," Buck shouted, standing up from behind the table.

Josh slumped down in his chair and looked slyly across at Buck. "Now don't tell me ya got t'likin' her a little bit? That wouldn't be it, would it?"

Buck adjusted his weight. "It ain't that. I just don't like this kinda talk amongst women-folk."

Josh guffawed loudly and reached behind Silas sitting to the right of him toward the door and pulled down a full bottle of liquor from the ledge on the wall. "Yeah, you're right, my friend," he slurred in a sarcastic tone. "Let's keep the talk clean and drink some of this here corn-likker in appreciation of the fe-male company."

Jane shrank back on the bed as Josh turned and faced her again. Silas stretched out next to him tensely, and looked across the table past the bottle, running his eyes from her shapely curving legs to the full swell of her young thighs pressed against the light tightly covering sheerness of her summer dress. God, he was repulsive, Jane thought, feeling more afraid of Silas after his attempted rape this afternoon than she was of Josh, who was certainly more dangerous in his position of gang leader. She remembered the lewd press of the idiot's enormous hotly swelling cock against her barely clothed groin and a shiver of cold repugnance raced down the length of her spine. She could understand and despite herself even delight in the memory of Buck skewering with warm passionate strokes into her, but the thought of the animal-like Silas even touching her was almost too much to bear.

"Ya look like something bit ya," Josh snorted, raising the bottle from the table and sucking on it. "Don't get scared a' Silas here, he's just a backwoods kid and he don't know what he's doin'. Here, have a bit a' this likker. It'll loose ya up."

Jane's eyes shot over to the bottle of whisky wavering in Josh's hand. She was struck immediately by the amount he had already consumed, without her even noticing it, in the short space of about five minutes since he had lifted the first bottle from the shelf. A good third of the clear liquid had disappeared and she remembered Buck's earlier statement about Josh being a big drinker. That certainly was no exaggeration! Her stomach knotted uneasily as he tilted the bottle once again and leveled the liquid to the half-way mark. Yes, he was really putting it down, even for a man of his enormous size, and she recalled anxiously how Buck said it put Josh in a fighting mood. But he didn't look angry now; on the contrary, his usual gruff demeanor had given way to one of joviality.

"She don't want none a' that," Buck answered for her. "It'll tear up her insides."

Jane flicked her eyes from Buck, repressing an inward smile at his show of puritanical concern following the afternoon that he had spent plying her with liquor. God, one thing her empty stomach didn't need was more of that! She still felt lightheaded and flushed from the half-bottle she had already consumed. Yes, even though it was hours later, she recognized that she was still affected by the whisky and the mere thought of drinking one drop more made her stomach turn over in nausea.

"What ya worried about her for?" Josh responded good-naturedly, and, chuckling evilly, pulled himself up from the table with surprising grace for the amount he had drunk. "We's finally got some company! We's got a lady and I'm gonna get the little lady a glass."

Jane's eyes widened as he walked laughing to the shelf and reached for the second bottle. God! The man was a living sponge!

"You're gettin' boiled again," Buck's bitter comment interrupted her thoughts. "Else-whiles you'd knowed we ain't got no glass."

"I know's enuf to count bottles and I knows there's one missin'," Josh retorted angrily, but when he spun around with the bottle he seemed as good-natured as before. For the first time, he staggered as he walked across the room. "I know somebody drank my bottle this afternoon and it weren't Silas. I bet this young lady's already tipped a few."

"She ain't had nothing," Buck lied. "And she ain't gonna drink none of that white mule cause it's too strong for her."

Jane cringed when Josh dragged a straight-backed chair from the table and, carrying the bottle in his other hand, set it down directly across from her in front of the cot. Then he swung one leg over the seat and plopped down on the chair so that he sat less than two feet in front of her. At such close distance she could see the effect the moonshine had taken on him: the features on his face had swollen and his narrowing eyes had a bleary look. He looked coarse and gross and she shuddered in repugnance at the strong smell of his breath, then backed abruptly down the couch when one of his huge warm lumbering hands settled on her knee. The response had come instantly and instinctively and right away she wished she hadn't done it, but he grinned at her as though he hadn't noticed.

"Buck here's tryin' to ruin our little party. He don't want us to have no fun. You ask me, he's a little taken with ya, y'know?" he said and winked at her before raising the bottle to his lips again.

Buck snorted in indignation from the other side of the room and Jane's discomfort increased as she sensed herself becoming a source of conflict between the two men. She watched Buck get up and take down a bottle for himself, then sit back down at the table drawing heavily on it. "You're drunk and you're talking drunken nonsense," he muttered, "I ain't taken with no gal, but I don't enjoy seein' anyone drunk as an owl, and especially you."