Me and My Uncle Ch. 11

I was swaying, trying not to fall over, when I suddenly felt a terrific blow as he punched me hard in my right eye. I screamed and cried out as I fell hard to the floor. I tried to curl up into a fetal ball, but as I did, I felt something like a large knife being stuck in my side, which was a heavy boot kicking me hard. I gasped in shocked pain as the wind left me momentarily. Then I was picked up again and someone backhanded me across the mouth.

I tasted blood and I gasped for breath as I was hauled back onto the table, where a very big cock was rammed into my pussy. As I lay on my back, I felt beer being poured all over my body, while I was forced to guzzle another one.

I felt my face swelling from where I'd been punched, and I knew I had a black eye, and I could feel my lips puffing from where I'd been slapped. I lay back on that table in a painful stupor while a succession of men fucked my pussy or my ass, and I finally felt myself losing consciousness.

One of my last memories of that night is thinking that this was my death, that I was going die that night. On one hand, I welcomed death as a release from my torment, but on the other hand, I was bitterly disappointed that I was going to die when I was so close to getting away, and that I would never know happiness.

As far as I know, the orgy went on all night, and when it was over someone apparently carried me upstairs to my little room. At least, that's where I found myself when I finally began to regain consciousness.

My first conscious thought was of pain: sharp, searing pain in my side; dull, throbbing pain in my head. I could tell that my right eye was swollen shut, that I had cuts all over my face and body.

As I gradually awoke, I realized that I had been cleaned up and that I was in my little bed, the bed I had abandoned four years earlier when it became my workplace.

I was soon to learn that it was Bertie who had found me, lying naked and battered a little ways up the stairs that led to the apartment. I guess I had somehow managed to crawl that far after the orgy was over.

She had gathered me up, cleaned me up and put a gown on me. Then she had found Uncle Bill, read him the riot act and quit on the spot. I never saw her again, but I owe her a debt of gratitude.

As it turned out, it was around noon on Wednesday. I had been out for a little over a full day, and to this day, I really don't know how close I came to actually dying.

I tried to sit up, and the room started spinning, so I fell back down and cried out. I got no response, so I cried out again, and when I did, I felt the stabbing pain shoot up my side, and I found myself gasping for breath. I knew in a heartbeat that I needed to see a doctor, right then, or I was in trouble.

I managed to pull myself out of bed, painfully. I ignored the waves of nausea and dizziness that threatened to overwhelm me, and crawled to the dresser and somehow got some shorts and a T-shirt on. By then, my breathing was labored and I could taste blood.

With great effort, I was able to get to the bathroom, where I tried to brush my teeth, which I did, again, with a painful effort. I happened to look up and saw my reflection in the mirror and I broke down then. I looked like hell, and I felt like it, too.

Finally, Uncle Bill came up the steps and came in the door. His look was pitiless as he stared down at me kneeling on the floor in agony.

"Where do you think you're going?" he said.

"I've... got to get... to the doctor," I gasped. "Please."

"And how do you plan to get there?" he said.

"I'll drive," I said, standing up slowly and swaying on rubbery legs.

"In what?" he said with a sneer.

"My car?" I said, as I gripped the doorway, trying I keep my balance.

"You wrecked your car, remember?" he said.

"I most certainly did not," I cried angrily, then bent over in pain. "Your friends beat me up."

"You wrecked your car," he said forcefully. "And if you tell anyone anything different, what you just experienced will seem like a picnic compared to what I'll do to you. Come on, I'll take you to the clinic. But I warn you. If you try anything stupid, like telling the doctor anything other than what I tell you to say, you'll live to regret it."

At that point, I didn't care. I just knew I needed to be seen, immediately. On the way into town, Bill told me that he'd deliberately run my car into a tree and that it was totaled.

"That'll teach you not to run away from me again," he said in an angry tone. I stayed silent, largely because talking hurt.

The doctor at the walk-in clinic where we went was immediately suspicious. He was a fairly young guy who hadn't been there long, apparently not long enough to learn who and what I was.

"Tell me again, how did this happen?" he asked me, when he had ushered Bill out so he could examine my side and talk to me privately. Bill had been none too happy about it, but he'd left, however, not before glaring at me just before he shut the door to the examination room.

"I... had a wreck," I said dully.

"Don't lie to me," the doctor said with a little more force. "What really happened to you?"

"I told you, I had a wreck," I said.

"Look, Sophie, if your uncle's been beating on you, I can help," he said, a little more kindly. "There are places you can go, domestic-abuse shelters."

"Here?" I said, incredulously. "I'm sorry, but you don't know me, and you don't know Uncle Bill. There is no place in this town where I'd be safe from him or his friends."

"Sophie..." he began, but I cut him off. I already had my own plan of action that I was working over in my mind, and staying there wasn't part of it.

"Doctor, just finish the exam, and let me go home," I said bitterly.

He sent me for x-rays, and it was discovered that I had two cracked ribs and a punctured lung. I went for outpatient surgery to have my ribs set and my lung reinflated. I also had a black eye, facial contusions and a sprained ankle.

After I got out of surgery, the doctor wrapped the ankle, then gave me a prescription for a powerful painkiller. I was still groggy as I limped into the drug store on crutches, with Uncle Bill watching me every step of the way.

Nevertheless, that was the critical moment. I was silent as the pharmacist gave me a bottle with 12 capsules. When I got home, Bill made me take one of the pills.

"We need to get you well, so you can go back to work on Monday," he said.

I did a quick calculation. It was Wednesday, so I had five days before he would expect me to be well enough to take on clients again. I was bound and determined that wouldn't happen. I decided to make one final appeal, in hopes that maybe he'd relent, and let me go, the way he'd promised he would four years earlier.

"Uncle Bill, please," I said. "Please let me go. I'm tired of this. I'm tired of being the county whore, tired of people using me for their filthy pleasure, tired of being told what to do and when to do it. I have a life, and I'm entitled to live it the way I want, not the way you want."

"Will you shut the fuck up?" he exclaimed. "I'm not about to let a cash cow like you just walk away. You're too valuable for that."

"But you promised!" I cried. "You promised me that if I served you, did anything you told me to do for four years, that you'd let me go when I graduated. I've graduated, and I've done everything just like you told me to. Please! This life is going to kill me if I don't stop."

"And I'm gonna kill you if you try to leave again," he growled. "You seem to forget that you blew off your last assignment to see Curtis Miller. You broke our agreement when you decided to stand him up. Him, of all people. When you did that, you voided our deal. I own you now and forever, and you're going to go back to Miller and submit to anything he wants. Do you understand?"

"I'll NEVER go back to that animal again," I spat, ignoring the pain in my side. "YOU broke our deal when you didn't protect me from that... that freak. Shoot me now if you must, but I'm not letting him touch me again."

"We'll see about that," Bill said, as he spun on his heels, marched out the door and stomped down the steps. By then the painkiller was working and I was feeling sleepy. My last waking thought was, yeah, we will see about that.

I was supposed to take two capsules a day, but after the first day, I hid them instead of taking them. It was excruciating, but I couldn't waste them on myself. And besides, I needed to be as mentally alert as possible. Bill did, in fact, check the bottle to make sure I was taking them, and I spent the next few days in bed, resting and gathering my strength.

As the weekend arrived, I was feeling a little better, so I got up and moved around a little bit. The swelling around my eye had gone down some and I was able to see again, and my ankle wasn't throbbing quite like it had been.

The whole time, I pretended to be the docile pet I'd always been around my uncle, and he seemed satisfied with my response. While he worked that Saturday, I quietly began to go through my things, setting aside what I would need and what I would have to leave behind.

On Sunday, I tried to walk around the apartment without my crutches as much as possible, trying to get my strength back, and slowly I did. I took the capsules I had stashed away and put them in the kitchen where I could get to them quickly.

As I did most Sundays, I fixed a big meal that would be ready when Bill closed the store. I knew I had to do whatever I was going to do on Sunday, because the bar would be closed and no one else would be around.

My heart was in my throat as he came in about 7 o'clock that night. I had fixed a pot of spaghetti sauce with a mess of greens, so that I could more easily mix the drug's powder in with his food, and it wouldn't be as easily detected. I prayed that he wouldn't taste the drug in his food and in his beer.

I fixed his plate, then nervously opened two of the caps and poured the contents onto his spaghetti. I poured one over his greens, stirred them around a little, opened another one and poured it in his beer.

I fixed myself a small plate and forced myself to eat, even though I had no appetite. As we ate, I engaged him in small talk, about the store and other things. Finally, Uncle Bill started talking about my going back to work.

"I don't know if I'm ready to go back tomorrow," I said. "I'm still awfully sore."

"Tough," he said. "I've been losing income with you being down like you have been. I've got a lot of people asking when you're going to be well and ready to go again. Can't keep the customers waiting."

I watched him closely, to see if the pills were having any effect. He didn't notice anything about the taste; in fact, he wolfed everything down and asked for seconds, plus another beer. I fixed his plate again, and dumped another capsule onto his pile of sauce, mixed it up good and opened up another one into his beer. He scarfed that down, just like he had the first plate. I had to figure that six of those capsules would be enough to knock out a horse, but it seemed to not affect him.

I was starting to panic a little bit, so when I got him another beer, I opened two of the caps, poured them in and swirled the beer around in the bottle just a little bit to let them dissolve.

This time, he noticed a funny taste, because he kind of wrinkled his nose and looked at me funny. He was sitting on the sofa with a ball game on, and as he drained the beer, I noticed he was having trouble focusing and that his head was kind of lolling a little bit.

"Man, ah don' feel so good," he slurred. "Can' unnerstan..."

Then, apparently, it dawned on him what I had done.

"Whud you put in here," he said. "You... sorry whore. You... drugged... me. You're... gonna pay..."

I screamed as he struggled to his feet and started to come at me, murder in his eyes. But after two steps, he tripped over his benumbed feet and tumbled to the floor. And try as he might, he couldn't get up.

"Fuggin' bitch," he mumbled. "Ah'll... kill... you."

Then his head dropped to the floor and I realized that he was out cold.

"You're going to have to catch me first," I snarled in his ear. Just to be safe, I picked up his arm, let it go, and it dropped straight to the floor. He was out of it.

A wave of panic flooded me, as I realized that I needed to move quickly. I didn't know how long the drug would keep him down, so I did my work quickly.

The first thing I did was pick up the phone and call Janelle to come pick me up. She was supposed to have gotten back from D.C. the day before, but I hadn't had a chance to contact her.

I thought about just taking Uncle Bill's truck, but decided that wasn't a good idea, because then he could accuse me of auto theft. I didn't want him to have any real reason to set the law on my tail, unless, of course, the drugs I'd given him killed him. And that was a chance I had to take.

I could feel the bile rise in my throat as the phone rang once, twice, three times, four. I prayed hard for her to please pick up the phone, and after the fifth ring, my prayers were answered.

"Hello?" her voice was music to my ears.

"Oh, thank God!" I blurted out, and I couldn't keep from bursting into tears.

"Lyn?" she asked. "Lyn, what's wrong?"

"Please, Janelle, you've got to help me," I exclaimed, my words tumbling together in a rush. "He's going to kill me if I stay. You've got to come pick me up. They beat me up, he wrecked my car, he's gonna kill me if I don't get away. Please, God, help me!"

"What?" she said with an incredulous voice. "Who's going to kill you? Lyn, what's going on?"

"My uncle!" I practically screamed into the phone. "I tried to run away and he caught me and they beat me up, and please, baby, you've got to help me!"

I was hysterical in my fear. I had to get away now. If I didn't, he surely would kill me. I'd seen it in his eyes, right before he fell in a drugged stupor. Cash cow or no, I knew that his fury would lead him to murder if I didn't get away now.

"Calm down, sweetheart," Janelle said. "I'll be there, just tell me where I'm going, and I'll be there as quickly as I can."

I gave her directions, told her I would be walking along the highway, and that I'd be wearing a white T-shirt and white baseball cap, with jeans. I'd have my backpack and I said I'd clip the little Missouri Tiger stuffed doll she'd given me for Christmas the previous year on the outside, so she'd know it was me.

After I hung up, I got a grip on my emotions, so I could do what I had to do. I dressed quickly; packed my backpack with the stuff I'd determined I'd need, including my little jewelry box and my diploma. I was leaving behind a lot of my stuff, but I couldn't help it. I needed to travel light.

When I was packed and ready to go, I turned out all the lights, then went downstairs as quickly as I could and headed off in the direction of the interstate, toward safety.

It was slow going, because I was trying to walk on my ankle without my crutches, and because of the weight of my backpack. Even though I had packed light, I had still packed enough clothes and things to get me through the next few days, and I was still fairly weak from being beaten up.

As I reached the curve in the road north of the store, I turned around and took one last look at the place that I had called home for the previous eight years. I also checked to make sure the upstairs apartment was still dark. It was, so with a sigh and brimming eyes, I turned my back on the past and headed toward the future.

I'll tell you, I was scared to death as I trudged along the highway. Every vehicle that passed, I feared it was Bill or one of his friends who would see me with my cap and pack, figure out what I was up to, pick me up and take me back.

I also worried about a sheriff's patrol car passing me, hauling me in, taking me back, finding Bill out cold on the floor and arresting me for attempted murder. And being in the clutches of the sheriff was almost a worse fate than staying with Bill. I knew that if I went to the jail, that not only would the sheriff, the deputies and the jailers all rape me, but they'd throw me to the prisoners, as well.

Suddenly, a car passed that appeared to be Janelle's, and, sure enough, the car turned around and her little Mazda pulled up in front of me.

In all the years since, there have only been three moments in my life more joyful than the sight of my girlfriend pulling up to rescue me: my wedding day and the days that I gave birth to my daughters. I knew as I threw my pack in the back seat and climbed in her car, that I was all but safe, that I was minutes away from being out of the county for good.

"OK, baby, what's so..." Janelle started, then she stopped when she saw my face. "My God! What happened to you?"

"I told you, they beat me up," I said. "I..."

And that was as far as I got. As she put the car in gear and drove off, I dissolved in huge, gasping sobs. I cried like I hadn't cried in years, not even after that first night at the adult video store, when I first fully realized the consequences of what I was getting myself into, and not even after Caleb died.

I cried long and hard until we got to the interstate and headed toward Columbia. Then I just sat silently and stared out the window. Finally, we got to Janelle's apartment and she helped me in. She fixed me a cup of hot tea, brought it to me where I was sitting, sat down and looked over at me. Her look was one of concern, but also consternation.

"OK, out with it," she said. "I've known all along that there was something about what you're doing back there that doesn't add up, something you haven't told me about. You're in trouble, and I can't help you if I don't know what I'm dealing with."

So I told her everything, how my Uncle Bill was a filthy bastard who had manipulated me into becoming his whore, how I did everything she could imagine and worse, how I had lived a double life.

"When I'm here, attending class, going to the library to study, I'm Lyn Gibson, university student," I said. "When I'm back home, living with my uncle, I'm Sophie Trotter, whore. But not any more. Sophie's dead, and I left her back there. I sacrificed my self-respect to get here, and I'll be damned if he's going to keep using me."

I told her what had happened to me, and how I had drugged my uncle to make my getaway.

"What if he's dead?" Janelle said. "Won't the cops come looking for you?"

"They'll be looking for Sophie Trotter, not Lyn Gibson," I said. "And by the time they figure it out, if they figure it out, I'll be long gone. I'm leaving Missouri for some place far away, and I'm never coming back."

By then, my head was hurting and my ankle was throbbing. I still had three of my painkillers left, so I took one and crawled into Janelle's bed, the bed we'd shared so many times, and fell asleep.

I didn't sleep well, however. I had nightmares of Bill finding me and turning me over to the sheriff or worse, and I guess I cried out, because I felt Janelle's arms wrap around me from behind. My friend, my savior, softly calmed me down, and held me close until I was able to sleep.

The next morning, I awoke somewhat refreshed. It was a new day, and I had a new future ahead of me. I dropped Janelle off at her campus job, and walked over to Mrs. Lasko's office. The placement director took one look at me, came over to close her office door, then looked me in the eye and asked about it.

I told her what had happened; I didn't tell her why it had happened, but I think she got the gist of the fact that I'd been involved in something that had gotten to be too much for me. I got a letter of recommendation from her, since I was going to be leaving the state, then I warned her that if anyone came by looking for me, that she hadn't seen me since graduation.