Abduction (36 page)

that whatever torment Conrad inflicted, she would ultimately succumb to everything with the intense pleasure he always got from her. He let her slip from his arms.

“Sit down,” he said, indicating the edge of Vaughn’s bed.

When she complied Conrad seated himself in the large leather armchair he moved from its spot by the window until it was just a foot from where Devan sat.

“Tell me, Devan, about this little romance of yours.”

Her eyes welled with tears of indignation. She was miserable that she had led Conrad here, to Vaughn—another humiliating sexual episode, here, in the very place he had built as an escape from the world where those things had happened to him. After everything they had shared in their few short days together she felt protective of him.

And she could not bear the thought of sullying their intimacy by discussing it with Conrad. But she knew, too, that she dare not evade or lie. He had a plan, she was sure, for discovering everything he wanted to know, and any transgressions against his wishes would be punished. She feared nothing of her own safety. All her fear was for Vaughn.

“What do you want to know?”

“Let’s start with the easy questions, shall we? You haven’t fucked?”

“No.”

“You’ve kissed.”

She hated this. It was like turning herself inside out, giving Conrad even a superficial glance at what she had with Vaughn.

“Don’t waste your effort on this of all questions, Devan. I saw you two, when you hadn’t yet seen me. Just say the words.”

“We’ve kissed.”

“When did you share your first kiss?”

“Two nights ago.”

“And did you do more than kiss?”

Had they? She did not know what to say.

“Well?”

“No, we only kissed.”

“And why was that?”

The images played for her, she remembered the sensations, the excitement, the fear. Vaughn’s incredible kiss, how the mere proximity of his body, his most innocent caresses, his mouth had aroused her a way she had never felt before, how she had been overwhelmed with feelings both physical and emotional, how she had come without even being really touched.

“Come along, Devan, let’s have it. I’ve had a good look at this lad of yours.” Conrad gave a little good-humored laugh.

“Though, I should hardly call him a lad, as I’d guess he’s five years my senior.

How old is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“It’s not important. In any case, he’s a very handsome man, in his way. A bit brutish, perhaps, with that hard face and all those muscles, but good-looking nonetheless. And in the brief few moments I’ve spent with him he seems an intelligent fellow, and clearly cares for you. So why, on that night you first kissed, did it go no further? I know it’s not a matter of morals, for you anyway. Is he the saintly type, then?”

“No.”

“Did you not want him?”

She recalled how she had ached for him, how she had thought that she would give herself to him that night and how she wanted it, and she remembered her sudden surge of fear.

“Is he, perhaps, not very skilled in the seductive arts?” Her deep blush gave her away. He knew she would not have blushed at boredom, but her excitement always shamed her.

“Ah, so you were aroused then, were you? Hmmm?”

“Yes.”

Her voice was flat. He'd make her tell what happened. Fine. But fuck if she'd ice the cake by letting him sense her every feeling.

“Very aroused?”

“Yes.”

“He made you come?”

Her blush deepened.

“I want to hear you, darling.”

“Yes.”

“With his hand?”

“No.”

“His mouth?”

“No,” she blurted, blushing hotter still.

“With his body?”

“Yes.”

“Pressed against you.”

“Yes.”

“You were dressed?”

“Yes.”

Conrad was smiling introspectively, considering it all, savoring the images her revelations were conjuring.

“So, my sweet Devan, you were just kissing, ever so innocently, and the excitement of that kiss alone, and the feeling of his body pressed to yours was so intense that you came?”

“Yes.”

“That’s rather encouraging, for a girl with your history, isn’t it?” She treated that question as rhetorical.

“Still, I must know why you didn’t let him bed you that night.” She finally gave it up.

“I got scared.”

“Of him?”

“No.”

“At the thought of losing your virginity?”

“Obliquely, yes.”

Conrad was pleased to hear it. Not out of cruelty, but because it meant that she was still ripe to experience his intervention to the fullest. She would experience an intensity of sensation wrought to delicious perfection by intensity of emotion.

“And, in the days since, you’ve done nothing more than kiss?”

“No.”

“He’s not seen your body?”

“No.”

“And you’ve not seen his?”

She faltered, and there was no way to recover.

“You’ve seen him? How?”

God, this, of all things, she could not bear to tell. Vaughn was so ashamed. This incident between them, she felt, had jeopardized everything already. Not for her, but for him. He could not forgive himself. To tell Conrad felt like a terrible betrayal. But to hide it from him was to risk Vaughn’s safety.

“So, he’s a brute, after all,” Conrad said with an ironic grin when Devan had told him, softening the scene as much as she could.

“Please, Conrad,” she begged, reaching forward to touch his knee in supplication, her moist eyes finally shedding tears, “please don’t torment him with that.” She was so earnest and desperate that Conrad relented from his taunting manner for a moment and gently touched the hand she had laid on his knee.

“Don’t fret, Devan. I won’t be cruel with him, any more than I would be cruel with you. Our time together won’t be easy for him, but like you, I’m sure he’ll be the better for it in the end.”

He sat there, gazing at her for long moments. Playing her words and their implications through his mind, thinking over what was missing and his best approach to retrieving it. She, meanwhile, stared blankly off into space, trying to anticipate what was about to unfold, to reason how best to manage herself and Conrad to expose Vaughn to 326

the least possible danger, the least harm. She had wanted so badly to be good for Vaughn, to help him. But instead she had brought Conrad here to torment him.

“Devan?”

Conrad’s voice stirred her from her thoughts.

“Have you written anything since you’ve been here?”

“Written?”

Panic. She had been wrong, before. It was not what had happened between them, the day Vaughn had held her down and taken himself in his hand…that was not what most had to be kept hidden. It was the journal. Vaughn’s journal. The journal in which he had recorded his life-destroying secrets, and in which she had written the only words she had written since arriving at the cabin. She felt, literally, that Vaughn would rather be dead than be subjected to Conrad’s torment over the content of that journal.

On this matter she was ready to lie. To risk all of Conrad’s wrath on the chance that she could save Vaughn that torture. But she trembled violently and went limp and ashen when she saw, out of the corner of her eye, that the journal was laying in plain sight, right there in that room, atop the dresser by the door.

Conrad, of course, noticed everything. The stalling, questioning repetition of the word ‘written,’ the silent pause, just a second, but so pregnant with meaning, as Devan must have been struggling to come up with an answer better than the truth. Then her sudden twitch and pallor, not following directly upon his question, but caused by something else.

“Yes, Devan, written. I’m sure, since arriving here, you must have written a little something. You, who’s written in your diary every day without fail since adolescence, 327

even under circumstances of sheer routine and inactivity, must surely have written a few words following the rather dramatic events preceding your discovery of this little nook.

I’m not mistaken, am I?”

He suspected her, she was sure. It was not just his certainty that she had to have written. He had caught her pained hope of hiding something. Knowing it was futile, she had to try.

“I haven’t written anything.”

“You didn’t feel compelled to write, to work through all that had happened between us?”

“No.”

She thought, suddenly, that it would have been much better to have said she had written, just as he imagined, but to add that in a fit of rage over what he had done to her, she had thrown the pages into the fire. But it was too late now.

She watched as he rose, and she felt as though she were melting, softening into a dead waxy lump, as he stepped toward the dresser, as he honed in, seemingly inevitably, on the little wire-bound journal sitting atop it, hanging slightly over the edge.

Inadvertently she had let her eyes point him right to it.

“Is this anything that might interest me?” he asked, taking the journal in his hand.

Her look of misery told him plainly that he held what he had been looking for.

Still, he took a look inside to be sure. Seeing her familiar handwriting he grinned smugly. Then he frowned and turned his eyes on her.

“I’m disappointed, Devan. I was sure, at this stage in our relationship, that you knew better than to lie to me like that. And so clumsily, and with this lying right in plain 328

sight. I look forward to reading it as I suspect whatever is inside must be quite something for you to take such a chance. But this does mean you’ll be punished. I’d hoped to avoid such unpleasantness. But perhaps it will be a good lesson to Vaughn, as well. Come along.”

Vaughn's agony had gone on for over an hour. He'd stood there, his eyes locked on the dark wood of the door that had closed between him and Devan. On its surface his mind played a series of images that tortured him. Conrad undressing her.

Undressing himself. Kissing her. Touching her. She succumbing to everything out of fear for Vaughn’s safety. He pictured Conrad making her lie on the bed, then mounting her, then forcing himself inside her.

There was no escape from the handcuffs, from the heavy iron fixture to which he was chained. The seconds expanded to unelapsable proportion. They would never pass. His heart aching with fear and sorrow, his blood raging with murderous hate he stood, shaking, sweating, waiting for that despised door to reopen.

Finally, to his eyes in slow motion, the door opened. Devan emerged, followed by Conrad. Devan, in helpless misery, gazed on him in tender sympathy which to him looked like something else. Conrad’s eyes met Vaughn’s confrontational glare. His smug look and Devan’s sorrowful eyes sealed Vaughn’s certainty that Conrad had raped her. He was ready to cry. The agony of suspense that had been building during the last hour burst open, releasing a flood of heart-rending sorrow. He had not helped her. He had failed her. He had handed her over to that monster, and he had raped her.

Conrad, coolly observing Vaughn’s torment, seeing that he was struggling not to reveal the depth of his pain, put his hands on Devan’s shoulders and whispered in her ear,

“Tell him, love.”

“What?”

“Tell him what he needs to hear, put him out of his misery. I can hardly bear to see it.”

“Vaughn,” she said, softly, “he didn’t touch me.”

Vaughn looked at her. Looked at him. Now it was his relief which almost made him cry.

“It’s true Vaughn. Your darling Devan’s virginity is quite intact.” Then, feeling cruel, he added, “For the moment.”

Then, with a stern face but a playful light in his eyes, he went on.

“I’m afraid, Vaughn, than Devan has been caught in an unfortunate lie.” He held the journal he had carried from the bedroom up before Vaughn’s eyes.

“This item, it seems, was worth risking my anger, though I doubt she had much hope of getting away with her little deceit, and though she knew very well she would be punished for her transgression.”

Conrad noted something about the look on Vaughn’s face when he saw the journal. He turned, then, to Devan.

“And now, Devan, it’s time for you to take your punishment. Come over here please.”

He indicated the end of the dining table, just a few feet from Vaughn.

“Now bend over, and lay your tummy nice and flat on the table. Turn your head toward Vaughn, and let your cheek rest on the table. I want him to see your face as you receive your punishment. Hands down by your side. Good.” Vaughn was hyperventilating, clenching his teeth against a scream he knew would do no good. His arms strained ineffectually against his restraints. The journal.

She had lied about the journal. He felt ill thinking she might have lied in an effort to protect him, and that it was for this Conrad would 'punish' her. God, he wasn't going to…"

Devan, bent in a tipped over “L,” was looking at him, her face strangely serene as Conrad moved behind her and slowly lifted the gauzy fabric, folding it back, revealing the curving profile of her bottom to Vaughn. Watching Vaughn, Conrad unbuckled his belt, amused as his prisoner struggled in vain to wrench himself free of the cuffs.

Vaughn was crying, terror-stricken at the thought that he was immobile, that he would be able to do nothing as this man raped Devan. Unable to look away, he watched as Conrad pulled off his belt, doubled it, and brought it down with a loud whack on Devan’s backside. Vaughn felt a momentary euphoric relief as he told himself Conrad was not raping her, only whipping her, before he was struck by a fresh wave of hatred and outrage that Conrad would dare to flog her. Devan continued to look at Vaughn, that same serene look on her face, even when Conrad’s beating brought tears to her eyes and a hot flush to her cheeks. She was trying to calm him, to let him know she was all right. Then the beating was finished.

“You think I’m cruel.”

Conrad spoke to Vaughn as he put his belt back on.

“But you see, I understand some things about Devan that you may not realize yet. For example, this whipping I’ve just given her hurt her. If you were not here, she would probably have cried out in pain. But she’s also quite excited.” Vaughn went on looking at Conrad with unmingled hate.