Chapter One

Damsel In Distress

 

I was lost.

Stupid, idiotic, no good, useless when you really need it GPS! Oh, sure. Just input your destination. Watch as the tiny red dot that's supposed to be your car and the condescending bitch's voice that you swear is laughing tells you when to exit the main highway so you can take the "shortest route" and save a grand total of thirty-five minutes off the day's travel time of over six hours. Only after leaving the interstate and turning onto State Highway 33 but instead it's really Coyote Road and the upcoming town is nothing more than an abandoned gas station, and then the broken yellow line on the road disappears and the somewhat smooth asphalt gets more and more cracked and the sun is going down fast and the trees are getting bigger and darker that's when you know you've been lied to from the Laughing Bitch.

And then you hit a deep pothole at too fast a speed.

The car didn't stop and for a moment I was on a circle jerk ride at some generic theme park. I think my head snapped forward and hit the steering wheel, but what really got my attention was the car's brand new squealing noise from somewhere down below that said "Not going much further" and soon made good on that promise. The engine stopped and all the little green, red, and white lights on the dashboard turned dark. And I mean all of them. The oh so reliable GPS was dead (and I swear, I swear, that woman's voice on the GPS laughed at me. A light, almost carefree chortle that told me my problems weren't hers) which wasn't any loss, but so was my cell phone. No bars. No fucking bars!

Shit. Did I ever need to whip someone.

So, yeah, I sat there for a few minutes, just another helpless female (not), stunned, in shock, whatever you want to call it when those things, those mechanical things you take for granted all desert you. I jumped out of the car, useless phone in hand, wandering here and there along the cracked road like some witless lost puppy, desperately trying to find a signal, getting none then, with the spiked heel of my boot, kicking the car door shut. The ensuing slam gave me a sense of temporary control and satisfaction, but then I discovered the dent and scuffed paint from my boot. Wonderful.

"Arrrggg!" I yelled, then proceeded to curse all the gods and goddesses in creation, and even made up some new ones too just so I could also curse them, like the goddess of lost drivers, the god of potholes and bad roads, the god of missing cell phone signals, and especially the goddess of GPS... Well, you get the idea.

Then amidst my blood rage and stomping around on the cracked tarmac from behind me came what I thought was the same woman's light laughter like from the GPS. I spun around, but not to find a woman.

"Having trouble with your car?"

Holy crap. Talk about an all American farm boy! He stood there, hands on hips in a red and blue checked flannel shirt, faded blue jeans and short blonde hair. A knowing smile graced his dazzling features with a simultaneous message of already knowing my answer and slight amusement at my situation. Shit, the only thing missing was his pick... No wait, he did have a pickup truck. There it was, parked behind my car, dark green, certainly not new with little dings here and there but still sturdy with a couple of square hay bales and what I assumed farm equipment in the bed.

"I... I can't get a signal," I said, kind of holding my phone out for proof.

"No kidding," he said. "Let me guess, shortcut?"

"Uh, yeah."

"You're not the first one stuck out here. I'd say there's a running pool in town as to when someone will find the next stranded person, but something tells me you don't want to hear about it. C'mon, I'll give you ride to our local mechanic so you can continue your cursing once you find out how long it's gonna take to get it towed and fixed." He turned and started back to his truck with all the certainty that I was sure to follow.

"Just a minute!" I called after him. "What makes you think I'm getting in that truck with you?"

He stopped and turned around, an authentic expression of bewilderment crossing that handsome face. "You wanna walk? Fine with me." He pointed in the direction I had been driving. "Just go fourteen miles that way. But by the time you get there the only garage in town will be closed and those boots of yours will be ruined, which would be too bad because they're nice boots. Really nice boots." He winked.

So there I stood, angry at my helplessness, not feeling like my usual dominant self and needing to make a decision, and make it fast. But then this mid America young man reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet.

"Here's my driver's license," he said and handed it over. "If I'm a chainsaw maniac then when you get away, and we both know you will, you'll have my name and exactly where I live. It's not much but I'm sure not leaving you out here alone with night coming on. Now will you please get in the truck?"

I glanced down at the license. Yeah, it was his. The photo wasn't the best (What driver's license photo is?) but it was him. His name was Parker Blake Norwell. The address had five digits starting with the number four and was on some place called Woodridge Trail. And the date of birth told me he was twenty-eight. In fact...

"Your birthday was last week?" I said.

"Yep," he said and smiled and affected a broad accent. "You should'a been here, ma'am. Why we had a square dance, tossed a few horseshoes and even had a spittoon contest. Real fine time. Course asiding from mah birthday the only other times ah get inta town is whenning ah need to fix the tractor."

"Now I know you're lying," I said and laughed. I couldn't help it. Even with all my anger and frustration he got through to me.

"Now there's something that makes you even prettier," he said. "Maybe you'll keep on smiling and keep the sun out a little while longer."

"Now you're really bullshitting me," I said but gave another small laugh.

"Not at all," he said. "I'd say you're not the most beautiful woman that I've come across along this road, but I'd be lying. And especially one so well dressed." His eyes again went down to my leather boots.

What the hell? I thought. Even if he was an axe murderer at least he was easy on the eyes. So I found myself removing my two travel bags from the trunk, dropping them in the truck bed then climbing into the cab and sliding onto the vinyl bench seat. (Vinyl? Did they still cover truck seats in those?) With the seat belt placed myself in safety bondage. The floormat was strewn with little dirty thin hay straws here and there, a couple of them sticking to the soles of my boots. The boots he had made a point of complimenting.

You ever get the feeling that someone is trying to tell you something without really telling you? I had it now. And as Parker Blake Norwell shut the driver's side door I caught him again looking at my boots. And then those eyes came up and found mine; those blue eyes totally guilt free from checking me out. And then he smiled. Oh, boy, what a smile.

He started the engine and threw the truck into gear. "Now, isn't this better than walking? We'll get you fixed up and on your way as soon as possible."

"I don't know about that," I said, my dark mood starting to return. "I think that car has seen its last mile."

"Oh, it can be fixed, but yeah, it might take a while. Bobby at the garage is gonna have to call in an order for a part or two."

"How long is that going to take?"

"At least one full day, but I've seen 'em take up to three."

"Three days?! Aw, crap."

"You gotta be somewhere?"

"Just home to Chicago to pack things up for a move. I drove out to L.A. to visit a friend and decided to move there. I should've flown."

"Aw, the way things are these days you'd be in a crowded line, then your flight would have been canceled and you'd be spending three days in a hotel anyway."

"But instead I get to spend them here?"

"Which would you prefer? Recycled, stale smoggy air or a fresh and clean breeze?"

I shrugged. "You got a point."

We didn't say anything the rest of the way, but I thought a lot. Partly still bemoaning my fate at breaking down virtually in the middle of nowhere, and thinking about what had caused me to drive cross-country instead of fly.

I had gotten fucking pissed off, that's why. I had caught my slave, Isaac, with his head between the legs of someone I had thought was a friend. As I stood there, in the doorway of my bedroom, and when Shaneece finally looked my way and just smiled...smiled!, I felt like the biggest fucking cuckquean of a schlub ever.

I tore Isaac away, yelling - no screaming - at them that I was gonna have his balls for breakfast and Shaneece's tits for dinner. They bolted out the door into the bright, afternoon sun, Shaneece still buttoning her shirt and Isaac hitching up his pants. Isaac had the decency to at least look guilty but Shaneece's claws were fully extended, telling me that Isaac had been submitting to her for the last two months because she knew how to truly dominate a slave. I shot right back at her that if all it took to dom someone was just giving up pussy then any bitch on a street corner was a better dominatrix than her. That night I called my friend Betty in Los Angeles, hurriedly packed up a few things and headed west behind the wheel, fully intending never to go back to Chicago.

And here I was, on the road back.

I had hoped to take care of everything by either text or email. Put the house up for sale, sign everything electronically and never set foot there again. That all worked out great, but there was still my stuff and I needed to decide what to keep for the move and what to sell. Sure I could have done it by vid link, but that meant paying someone to show me everything one item at a time which would have been agonizingly tedious. So it was another road trip in the car. Yeah, yeah, I know, planes are faster, but the handsome man sitting next to me was right; the flight could have been canceled. That's what I went with outwardly, but inside there was a little niggling fear about flying itself.

It wasn't that bad. I had flown a few times before, but never without a good, good reason. And, as time went on, as the intervals between flights got longer, the fear grew. I could still get on a plane if needed, but more and more looked for an excuse not to, hence the long drive from and now back to Chicago. And now here I was, stuck in Sticksville.

The town was called Bergron and was little more than two or three convenience stores/gas stations, a small grocery store and a little café which was opened only until mid-afternoon, and the ubiquitous pizza parlor. Tall trees with heavily leaf laden branches lined the street (the only one paved, the rest were little more than dirt trails leading off here and there) and the car repair garage was more for tractors and other farm equipment. Parker pulled up beside some kind of huge combine and shouted at it from his window.

"Bobby? Hey, Bobby Paul! You stuck in there?"

"Hell, no!" came back a metallically muffled reply. "I'm acth'ly on a beach sipping one a those funny drinks with an umbrella stuck in it. Where the d'ya think I am?"

"Get over here. I got a damsel in distress."

"Hey!" I said. "I am not - "

"Take it easy," he said. "We all got our buttons, and I know Bobby Paul's."

There was a bit more cursing from inside the huge machine, yet eventually Bobby Paul came crawling out, feet first pointed to the sky, then sliding out over the rounded metal grill on his stomach. Crap, what was it with these farm boys? Getting a good look at him even with all the grease and muck on his clothes and face this guy could just about give any man a run for his money, including almost the one behind the wheel of the pickup truck.

Almost. But not quite.

What the fuck??? What was I thinking? I needed to get out of here! Not get mixed up with some stupid, ignorant hick!

Bobby Paul sauntered over, wiping his hands on an already greasy jumpsuit. He looked a little peeved at being taken away from his latest mechanical struggle but leaned on the truck's open window frame, his head partially inside. As the young man behind the wheel described my problems and just where to find the broken down piece of metal full of betrayal a slow smile spread across Bobby Paul's face. "An ac'tal fairly new car to work on? Finally. With all these old junkers we got around here everyone thinks they're a shadetree mechanic. By the time they face up that they don' know what they're doin' it's almost too late for the car and way too late for their wallet. 'Course, I ain't complaining. More money for me."

"You gonna need help getting it here?" Parker asked.

"Nah. Me 'n Carly Jo can get it." He looked at me. "Pleased to meet ya, ma'am. My friend's manners are lackin' so I don't know yer name..."

The young man behind the wheel kind of started. I knew his name but he didn't know mine.

"Renata," I said.

"Pleasure, ma'am. Don't know what Blake here told ya, but just from the sounds of things, it'll be about a week before we can get the part in and get ya up and running."

"A week?!"

"But I still hafta really take a good look at it. Could be less. Maybe a little more."

"Bobby Paul, don't you go scaring her like that!"

"Sorry, Blake. Sorry, ma'am, but if I give ya a guess shorter than that and it turns out longer ya might think I'm trying to rip ya off."

My head fell into my hands. "Just do what you need to," I said. "Where's the hotel around here?"

" Hotel?" Bobby Paul said, then lowered and gently shook his head in reproachment. "Ya shoulda told her, Blake."

I wasn't sure I liked the sound of this. "Tell me what?"

"We don't have a hotel," said the man in the truck next to me.

"What?!" I yelled.

"Like I said," Bobby Paul reiterated, "Blake should a told ya."

"Who's Blake?" I demanded. This going around in verbal circles had lost all its homespun charm after the second revolution.

"That's me," said the young man behind the wheel. He shrugged. "I go by my middle name."

Oh. Right. I saw it on the license but had been thinking of him as "Parker". Alright. So even though I thought I knew his name, I also kind of didn't, so that also kind of made us even, but I blew past all that as my temper started showing.

"Fuck whatever you're called!" I said. "When were you going to tell me there wasn't a hotel here? When we got to your one room palace of a fucking shotgun shack?"

"Hey!" Blake said.

"Wow," Bobby Paul said. "Now there's a mouth."

"Shut up!" I said to "Bobby Paul", then turned back to "Blake". "So what was the game? Get me there and say 'Well, it's too late so you might as well just stay here and, oh, sorry, there's only one bed?' "

"Alright," Blake said. "Alright. You wanna see my place? Then let's go." He threw the truck in reverse, splattered Bobby Paul, then shoved the gear in to drive and peeled out. Soon we were racing down one of those dirt roads leading away from town. He didn't look at me once as his hands white knuckled on the wheel. I didn't say a word. We were going way too fast for me to jump out and I sure didn't want to piss this guy off any more, so I just hung on for the ride.

Through the fields we raced. Then, in the distance, there rose a group of tall, green trees. A windbreak I think it was called. Trees planted around a house to keep the windblown dirt to a minimum. We sped through an open, wrought iron gate flanked by a high stone wall on either side running off into the now gloom. Blake slammed on the brakes and, after the swirling dust cleared, I found myself looking up at a big house. Two storeys with lots of windows and a wide, wrap around porch. "This is my house!" he said. "But you won't be sleeping there." He got out, walked around and wrenched open my door. He didn't touch me but his expression basically said, "Get out." Turning his back on me he stalked off and I hurried after him as he led me around to the rear of the house. About a hundred feet back of it was a smaller structure; not quite a cabin but more like a real guesthouse, with a small wooden front porch of its own. "That's where you're sleeping," he said. "You need a car? Here's the keys for my Mustang." He tossed me a set. "Go ahead, leave right now for all I care. Take it all the way to Chicago. Burn some rubber, do some donuts while you're at it, it's a five speed stick, it can take it. Just don't forget where it came from. Have one of your slaves bring it back."

"Slaves?"

"Don't play stupid," Blake said. "It's obvious what you are. Those boots and your attitude are a dead giveaway. Well, listen lady, I've played with doms way hotter than you if only because they knew meaning of the words 'please' and 'thank you'. So sleep well and in the morning take the car and get lost."

I stood there, stunned. No one ever talks to me like that! Not even when I caught my slave and my supposed best friend in bed together and I had verbally reamed them both a new one had either one taken that tone of voice with me.

"Hey!" I called after the angry young man. "Hey! Don't you turn your back on me. You should have told me right away there wasn't any place to stay around here. And as for 'thank you' then thank you very much for not telling me that. And as for 'please' how about you please not act like such a goddamed shit? And I'll add one more: I'm sorry, alright? I'm sorry if I offended you. I'm sorry for everything. But there's one thing for which I'm really sorry." I flung the car keys back at him. "I'm sorry I have to stay here 'cause I don't know how to drive a stick!"

Blake had caught the keys right out of the air with a reflex so quick I hardly saw it. He didn't say anything and still retained a glower so we kind of got caught in a mini stare down. At last he broke it off and continued toward the main house.

So what the fuck did I do now? He hadn't given me the keys to his truck and I kind of berated myself for thinking he would do so; asking a man to do that was like a hired fastdraw in the old west giving up his gun. So I grabbed my luggage and stomped over to the guest house. The door was open and I'd like to say my boots clumped on a wooden floor but what I got instead was tan satillo tiles stretching all throughout the place, covered with thick, colorful area rugs. Sure, the walls were made of woodlogs but the whole place had a very solid feel about it, like whoever had built it put just as much care in its construction as the main house. And it sure wasn't stinting on space. The combined living room and kitchen was at least a thousand square feet, while two good sized bedrooms down a short hallway shared a full bathroom between them. But right now it was the kitchen that held most of my attention. The fridge was bare, as was the pantry even though there were plenty of plates, glasses and cutlery available. Well, at least I wouldn't die of thirst, but with no food things weren't looking too good.

Way to go, bitch! I mentally yelled at myself. Here you are, stuck in Bumfuck, Nowheresville, and you've pissed off the one person who might've made your stay passing tolerable. You stupid idiot!

I tried my phone again. Got bars this time but who was I gonna call? The only person within helping distance was Isaac and no way was I gonna call him. Shaneece? Forget her too. And it's not like there was an old-fashioned phone book laying around here somewhere. Those things were as ancient and as extinct as dinosaurs. So what to do? With a muttered curse I reluctantly punched up Isaac. His smiling profile photo beamed up at me, a reminder of better times. I remembered when I took the photo, just after I had whipped his ass raw red and his screams for mercy bounced off the walls. Afterwards we went for a stroll along the Lake Michigan shoreline. Windy as usual but invigorating after two days holed up in my playroom. But now all I saw in that smile was betrayal and Shaneece's legs wrapped around his head. But I didn't have many options. In fact, none. So my thumb descended on send.

Someone knocked on the door. Aw, shit, was that Parker, I mean Blake, coming to apologize? Good. Let's just see who's gonna crawl now.

I got a good, angry grip on the door handle and whooshed it open. "Alright, down on your knees, you motherfucker - "

Not Blake. Instead of him Bobby Paul stood there with a petite, sweet looking young lady. Balanced across Bobby Paul's arms was a very large, flat box with "Earl Gray's Pizza" in bright green letters emblazoned across the top. The lady held in one hand a semi see through shopping bag with what looked like three large square plastic containers while with the other a raised fist seemed ready to again knock on the door. Beside her feet sat another bag with two huge round containers of soft drinks, one dark in color, the other light. At my sudden wrath she just about jumped back.

"You weren't kidding," she said to Bobby Paul in a sweet singsong of a voice and smiled. "She's got a mouth. I like her."