The Ultimate Thrill

I must have looked terrifying, laughing with a knife in my hand. Hazel stammered, "I . . . I'm really sorry. This was a big mistake." She glanced at Cindy and around the clearing, puzzled. She'd probably expected to see something extraordinary here, but it was just a campsite, with two people drinking coffee. The only unusual part of it was that Cindy and I were both naked.

The ordinariness of it was likely to change in an instant.

But Cindy said, "I'm sorry you came all this way for so little. You see there's nothing going on here but a camping trip and a little romance." She snuggled against me and squeezed my arm.

Amazed, I said, "Um, right," and put my arm around her.

Our act wasn't very good, and I suppose Cindy's red cheek didn't contribute to our credibility. Hazel looked dubious, but what could she do? "I'm really sorry," she said. "I'm parked just a few feet down. I'll . . . I'll go now." She turned away.

"Hazel?" I said.

She turned her head.

"It would be a very bad idea ever to tell anyone you came here."

She half stumbled, half ran down the path and out of sight.

I said, "I expected you to tell her what was going on, or make a run for it. Why didn't you?"

"You would have killed her if I had. It's true: admit it."

"That was my plan, yes."

"So she'd have been dead, and I'd have been in the same position I was in before. What would have been the point?"

"You had a small chance."

"Tiny. You know, I'm like Mae. I already count myself as dead; I have since a few seconds after I woke up in this place. When you cut my throat, that'll just be my body catching up."

I turned to look at her. Her eyes were clear and earnest. Her beauty was a knife in my heart. All at once I knew that I couldn't do what I'd come here to do. Cindy had to live.

"I don't want to kill you," I said, and kissed her, dropping the knife into the dirt by the porch.

She hadn't brushed her teeth for two days, and her breath was bad. She hadn't bathed either, and her body was ripe. I'd come in her mouth, and she hadn't had anything but wine to wash it out with.

I didn't care about any of that. Everything about her was perfect: she might as well have smelled like a summer meadow. She kissed me, and her lips were soft and warm with life; she caught the back of my neck, and there was desire in her touch. Small and lithe, she climbed into my lap: her nipples were already hard, and they brushed my chest. She wrapped her legs around me. Oh, how could I ever have wished this miraculous creature cold and still?

My cock stood between us: she grasped and stroked it as we kissed, and I cupped her ass cheeks to hold her close, not quite believing she was alive and needing to feel her heat.

I delighted in her unbound body, feeling the taut skin of her back, warmed by the July sun. I had to touch every part of her, taste her, see the golden glow of her skin.

I lifted her off my lap, lay beside her on the hard wooden boards, and explored her body. She moved as my hands moved, every inch of her saying yes and yielding to my touch. And wherever I kissed, bit, or sucked, she shifted ever so slightly towards me, saying yes to my mouth. I kissed her neck where I had held the razor the night before, her lovely collarbone, the swell of her breasts. Her erect nipples said yes to me as I sucked them.

Her armpits stank, and I licked the sweat out of them. The skin of her smooth belly was dusty: my tongue left wet tracks across it. Even as I lapped the sweat from her navel I could smell her unwashed sex. Still my mouth watered as I kissed my way past her stubbly mound.

I parted her slit with my fingers, and the stench of stale piss and cunt assailed me. As I dipped my tongue into her slick wetness she writhed, and my saliva mixed with her secretions to drench her and wash her clean. I lingered there till she pleaded with me to fuck her.

I took her where she lay in the hot sun on the rough wooden porch, our bodies steaming and stinking together, and it was such a fuck as I'd never had, never dreamed of or dared to hope for, a sensuous nirvana magnified by her strength, her wit, and her brave soul.

How could I ever have imagined that sex had anything to do with death? The ultimate thrill was holding this magic girl, hearing her heartbeat in counterpoint with mine, sensing the blood rushing through her arteries, feeling her breath on my neck, knowing she was alive. We sweated together under the brutal desert sun and licked the salty sheen off each other as we fucked.

She came screaming, nails tearing at my back, and pushed me onto my bottom and went down on me, sucking the sex off me. She'd looked at me with hatred before, when I'd wanted to hurt her with my cock, but now there was amused mischief in her eyes as I watched my shaft disappear between her pink lips, felt the head of me squeeze into the narrow space at the back of her mouth, into her throat, farther and deeper till her chin pressed into my balls.

She teased me and edged me, exquisitely tuned to my body as if my nerves were wired to hers. Whenever I was near coming she would take me out of her and graze my pubic hair or lick my balls till I was groaning with frustration.

Finally she sat up, looked at me with happy, excited eyes, and said, "Now fuck my ass."

"Just a second," I said, and hurried inside to fetch some lubricant. I found it in a pocket of the pants I'd left in a heap on the floor by the chair.

12.

When I got back outside she was lying on her stomach, smiling over her shoulder and wiggling her ass at me. I squeezed some lubricant over the fingers of one hand, hoisted her by the waist, and plunged my fingers into her. Her ass was cute and tight, and she flexed her muscles to squeeze my fingers.

"Don't wait," she said. "Do it now! Fuck me now!" She rested her head on her crossed arms and raised her ass. I stood above her, parted her cheeks, and eased in slowly, savoring the way her anus resisted me, then gave way, contracting around me as I pressed through the muscular defenses inside her, past the curves and turnings. I loved the look on her face as she concentrated on the sensations, absorbed in the intensity of it as her sphincter stretched and yielded.

Her ass closed around me, warm and tight, till I was in her all the way, thrusting slowly. She breathed in time to my thrusts, managing the pain and pleasure of it. I increased my tempo and force when I felt her relax, trying to keep up the intensity. "Oh, fuck!" she screamed, and reached between her legs with one hand to stimulate herself, still resting her head on the other.

"Louder!" I said, pumping harder, trying to get deeper. "No one can hear you!" She let herself go and screamed with every thrust, eyes and mouth wide. I reached under her and grabbed her tits, pinched and twisted her nipples, and she screamed louder till she came with rhythmic, piercing shrieks that echoed from the rocks and the slopes rising behind the cabin. Hearing her, I came too, howling as I pumped her ass full of my cum.

I collapsed beside her and said, "Cindy, you are so fucking fine."

She propped herself up on an elbow, kissed me, and said, "So are you, Samuel Bateman. But we have to have a serious talk."

Something cold and hard touched my neck. "Hold very still," she said, and sat up slowly and warily, holding the hunting knife against my skin, just over the carotid artery.

"I'm such a fool," I said.

"Don't feel bad," she said soothingly. "Everybody fucks up now and then. But like I said, we have to talk. You say you love me and don't want to kill me."

"That's true," I said.

"And I totally believe you, really I do. But I don't see how you have any choice. About killing me, I mean. How many felonies have you committed in the last twenty-four hours? Kidnapping? False imprisonment? Battery? Rape? Any more? How many years do you think you'd get if I went to the cops?"

"Not to insult the woman I love, but are you sure the cops would take your story seriously?"

"No offense taken. But how much are you willing to gamble on them ignoring me because I'm a whore? If I go to them, there's going to be inconvenience and publicity at the very least, and the worst case is the rest of your life in prison. And you totally can't trust me not to go to them ."

"I do trust you," I said.

"Believe me, trusting me is a dumb thing to do. I'm the most unreliable person you've ever met in your life. The only thing you can do to keep yourself safe is kill me. So it seems to me what I've got to do is cut your throat." She smiled sweetly and exerted a little pressure on the knife blade by way of emphasis. I held my breath. She said, "I don't want to kill you either, but what choice do I have?"

I was terrified but made myself smile back at her. "You haven't thought this through, Cindy. Killing me is the dumbest thing you could do."

"Explain it to me, baby, and make it convincing. I'm not in the mood for bullshit."

"We never did settle how they grabbed you. How did that happen?"

"I got a call to go to this house in Alameda for a date, and they took me there."

"So they didn't spot you on the street and grab you randomly: they researched you, because I asked for a Filipino girl. They know who you are - your name and address. And I don't think they're going to take kindly to you killing one of their clients. You'll be dead within a week if you go home. Maybe you've got a month if you run. Your smartest move is to come back east and live with me."

"Live with the guy that had me kidnapped and wanted to cut my throat? Why would I do that? What if you change your mind?"

"I love you, and I wouldn't hurt you for the world. But if that isn't good enough, look at it this way: if we both want to stay alive, the best thing we can do is keep an eye on each other."

She looked skeptical but interested. "Go on."

"When we leave this place, I'll no longer be a physical threat to you - not a serious one anyway. I'd be in a world of trouble if I killed you anywhere but here. But if I hint to these people that you're becoming a problem, they'll kill you in a heartbeat. You need to keep an eye on me to make sure I don't do that.

"Next, they as good as told me that if I let you go to the cops they'll kill us both. So, to make sure you don't tell on me, I need to keep an eye on you. Which I'm more than happy to do, because you're the most beautiful woman in the world." I looked into her warm brown eyes appreciatively.

I made myself breathe steadily while she studied me and weighed what I'd said. Finally she took the knife away from my neck and kissed me. "You're ruthless, violent, and dishonest, Samuel Bateman, and I'm falling in love with you. I think I'm going to hang onto the knife till we're safely away from here."

I grinned. "You're as bad as I am, Concepción Ocampo, and I've been looking for you all my life. Neither of us is safe here, so let's leave now. We'll shower at the resort and jump on a plane back east. I think we're going to have a beautiful future together."

* * *

It's three in the morning, and I'm watching Cindy sleep by the moonlight pouring in through the big bedroom window. Her face is angelic; the shape of her body under the covers fills me with happiness and longing. Outside, snow has drifted over the spacious lawn.

I'm madly in love with her. She says she loves me, and I have no reason to think she doesn't, but who truly knows another's heart?

Our life together is a loving standoff. I'm waiting for the right moment to ask her to marry me, but I can't be sure that that moment will come before one of us decides that the existence of the other poses too great a risk, or Raymond's people decide the same about us.

Life at its best is full of uncertainties. If you've found happiness, it's better not to worry too much about the future.

And I am very happy.