Jimmy (7 page)

     Watching the muted scene and then masturbating to it had stifled the craving that night, and then, after a long hot shower, he had been able to sleep.  The craving had returned that morning, however, and now, seeing Samantha hang from her wrists, her feet trying to touch the ground, her breathing shallow due to the pressure the position put on her lungs, was amazing.  It was so hot he wanted to masturbate while she hung there, but didn’t for fear that he would spend so much time in the shelter with her that he wouldn’t have time to shower before school and that people would smell the semen once he got to class. 

     Instead he just watched her, his mind savoring the intense position as her body slowly swayed back and forth, the single strand of rope making it impossible for the weight to find the proper balance to stay still.  It was incredible.    

*  *  *

     Samantha felt the ground beneath her feet and almost cried out with thankfulness.  But then Jimmy’s hand was upon her right breast and she once again felt anger and disgust.  Adding to this was the terrible pain that raced into her wrists now that the blood flow was no longer cut off.  Her hands screamed in agony. 

     At the same time there was a strange numbness to certain parts of her left hand, which had seemed to take most of her weight while hanging.  Pins and needles covered most of her flesh, with the exception of a small area near her thumb and another right below her pinky.  Due to the painful tingle, however, her mind wasn’t too concerned with the lifelessness that distorted her left hand.  She gritted her teeth, waiting for it all to pass.

     It wasn’t just her hands that were suffering.  Her elbows felt as if she had gone through a strenuous workout and wanted to stay straight.  She bent them a little and felt her muscles throughout her arms gasp.

     Jimmy’s hand continued to work her right breast, his fingers sending shivers of humiliation through her.

     Pretend it isn’t him.

     Her mind was unable to accomplish this.

     The pins and needles in her hands grew worse, almost as if someone were heating up the imaginary torment, which caused her to grind her teeth back and forth. 

     Jimmy stopped touching her and went over to tie off the rope.  Rather than pulling her up to the tips of her toes he gave her a considerable amount of slack.  It was almost enough for her to be able to reach down and touch her face, just a few inches short.

     Samantha took several deep breaths while he did this.

     Jimmy returned to her side. 

     Samantha stared at him.

     The pins and needles were fading and her breathing was returning to normal.  Her fear, however, wasn’t dissipating.  What was he planning to do now?

     Without warning, he reached out and began to unbutton her jeans.  

     “No,” she gasped
.  “Please don’t!
”
   

     Jimmy ignored her plea and struggled with the button.  His fingers were not experienced at undressing another person and it took him several seconds to break the connection.  He then pulled down her zipper exposing her panties.

     She hopelessly struggled, her mind unable to come to terms with the moment she had been dreading since the abduction.  She did not want him to rape her.  She did not want him to be the one who would take her virginity. 

     “Stop,” he said.

     She didn’t. 

    
“Stop.” 
He grabbed her legs while staying this and forced her to stay still.  Her struggles were no match for his strength, but this didn’t mean she was going to give up.  She continued to fight against his hands until he said, “I’ll hang you again and then whip you hard.”

     Her struggles ceased.

     In the end he would have won anyway.  Nothing she could do would stop him from raping her. 

     “Lift your legs,” he ordered while pushing her pants down to her ankles.  Her panties were now completely exposed. 

     The ropes tightened on her wrists as she lifted one leg.  He pulled her jeans from that one and then from the other. 

     Samantha felt completely vulnerable, even with her underwear still in place.  It was humiliating.

     Jimmy carefully folded the jeans and set them next to the stack of blankets.  He then returned and reached for her panties.

     A chill raced through her as his fingers went beneath the fabric and brushed up against her pubic region.  No guy had ever touched her there before.  There was no pleasure.  His hand felt dirty.

     Her panties came off quicker than her pants had.

     The vulnerability she had felt before multiplied itself several times. 

    
Why me?
she pleaded
.  Why did he take me?

     Tears began to well in her eyes again.  She didn’t want him to have her.  Not like this.  Not ever.  Panic erupted.

     Jimmy didn’t rape her.

     Instead, after looking at her nakedness for a few seconds, he went over and grabbed the bucket, which he then set next to her bare legs.

     “If you had listened to me earlier I wouldn’t have to leave you like this.”  He shook his head.  “You’ll have to go eventually and I don’t want to clean your clothes.”

     Samantha looked down at the bucket.  Disgust at having to use it should have filled her, but it didn’t.  Instead she was relieved that he wasn’t planning on raping her.  Unfortunately the thought that he probably would eventually didn’t go away.  There would come a point when he would want her and then there would be nothing she could do about it. 

     “I’ll be back tonight,” Jimmy said. 

*  *  *

     Alan was eating a bowl of cereal when Jimmy came back from his bike ride.  A second later the shower downstairs was on and Jimmy in it.

     Fifteen minutes went by before Jimmy was finished and came upstairs to eat something before school.

     “How was your ride?” Alan asked.

     “Pretty good.  You know, I never realized how nice it is in the morning like when it’s still dark out.  Everything is so peaceful and the air smells nice.”

     “Oh,” Alan said.  Jimmy was speaking quickly, which made Alan wonder if everything was okay.  Something didn’t seem right, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.  He had never before seen his older brother like this.  Could it all really be because of the prom or was something else worrying him?

     After a quick search of the kitchen Jimmy settled on a bowl of cereal just as Alan had.  He ate fast.  It was almost seven twenty, which meant the two had to leave soon. 

     “I wish I could just go out and ride all morning, from like three to seven, without anyone else out there,” Jimmy said while finishing his cereal.  “It’s just so peaceful.  I love it.”

     “You just ride around, nothing else?”  Alan couldn’t understand why this was something so
great.
  It seemed boring.  Though, he would admit, a nice stroll through the woods was cool every now and then, but
every morning
.  Nah, that would get old quick.

     “Yep.  I go down the trails through the woods and out onto the edge of the soybean fields.  Watching the sun come up over those fields is one of the most beautiful things you could ever imagine.  I wish I could go back in time to when the country was all woods and prairie and just walk for miles.  Ever wonder what that would be like?”

     “I guess,” Alan said.  In his mind he thought,
Jimmy, you’re getting weird.
 

*  *  *

    
Actually,
Jimmy thought to himself while talking with Alan,
I wish I could go back in time and build a house way out in the woods far away from any civilization that anyone knew about with a secret dungeon in the basement that no one could find and bring dozens of girls that I kidnapped from farms there.
 

     It was a fantasy he had had for a long time, one which would never become a reality even if he was able to find such a place in this day and age because in his fantasy he left girls tied up in the woods hanging from their wrists, their bodies subject to whatever nature forced upon them.  In his fantasy no one would ever be able to find them, but in real life there was a chance someone would stumble upon them, even if he was hundreds of miles from civilization.  It was just too risky.

Chapter Five

     Megan went to school with the need to find out what people knew about Samantha’s disappearance and almost immediately began asking classmates if Samantha had said anything to anyone about running away or going out of town for a while.  Every answer was no and by noon several students of the school were speculating about the Samantha King disappearance.  Unfortunately, due to the small town mentality that nothing terrible could happen, only a few people were actually worried.  Megan was one of them.

     “But she wouldn’t just leave,” Megan said to Alison Ellis.

     “You don’t know that,” Alison replied.  “Maybe she got in a fight with her parents?”

     “No.  I could hear it on the phone.  Nothing happened.  Samantha just disappeared.”

     “Megan, come on, she wasn’t kidnapped.  This is Ashland.  Okay.  That just wouldn’t happen here.”

     “Why?”

     “I don’t know.  I gotta go.”  The bell signaling the start of class was about to ring and Alison wanted to get to the bathroom before going to Biology.

    
Grrrr,
Megan moaned to herself.  It was so frustrating.  No one was taking this seriously.  They were acting as if people just left all the time.

     Her next class was World Literature; a class she had regretted signing up for the moment she stepped foot into the room last winter when second semester began.  It wasn’t that she disliked reading, but the teacher was an old bitch and for some strange reasons didn’t like guys, or any girl who participated in sports - especially cheerleading.  She was also vocal in her support of the Republican party and hated Obama because she felt he was a socialist Muslim who wanted to ruin the nation, one who was even responsible for the terrible oil spill in the gulf even though there was nothing he could really do about it.

     Megan knew that her teacher was not alone in her opinions and wouldn’t care about them if she kept them to herself.  The teacher didn’t, though, and seemed to find ways of comparing every negative aspect of Obama and the Democratic party - both real and fabricated - to the literature they were reading and then would go on a rant.  Making the situation worse was that most people in town felt the same way, including her father and the school board, so no one cared when she complained.  Plus the teacher had been working there since her parent’s were students and no one had the guts to get rid of her.  Still, it made Megan sick every time she went on a rant, especially when it was fueled by something like a passage within the novel
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, which she would use to show what life would be like once Obama turned the nation into a socialist country.

     Most students brushed that away and wouldn’t have despised her if that were her only flaw.  The one that pissed off her fellow students was her thought that kids their age couldn’t help but get in trouble and be destructive during their free time and needed to be shackled down by the burden of homework and reading assignments in order to prevent such unacceptable behavior.  It was really bad.      

     Even Jimmy Hawthorn, the guy who sat behind her and never really said a word to anyone unless spoken to, had voiced his opinion of her on several different occasions.  She was awful, yet there was nothing Megan, or any other student in class, could do about it.

     “Hey Jimmy,” Megan said a minute before the bell was going to ring.  She twisted in her seat so she could see him.

     “Yeah?” Jimmy asked, his eyes drifting away from hers.

     “Did you hear about Samantha King?”

     “What about her?” he asked quickly, his eyes back and staring into hers. 

     “She disappeared yesterday after school.”  It surprised her that he hadn’t heard about it, even if he rarely ever talked to anyone.  By now it was common news. 

     “Oh yeah, I think I did hear something about that.  She ran away or something, didn’t she?”

     “No,” Megan snapped.  “Samantha wouldn’t run away.  Something happened to her.”

     “Like what?”

     “Like she was kidnapped by someone.  My dad doesn’t think so but - ”

     “Whoa,” Jimmy interrupted.  “Your dad doesn’t think she was kidnapped?”

     “No, but I know she was.  Samantha had no reason to run away.  Something happened to her.”

     Ms. Gliek walked in just as the bell rang.  Anyone who wasn’t in their seats, even if they were just standing next to them, was marked tardy.  It made Megan so angry.  Teachers, even ones she liked, focused too much on stupid disciplinary rules, tardiness being one of them.  If a student walked in twenty minutes late that was one thing.  Marking them tardy because they weren’t sitting in their seat properly when the bell rang, that was something else.