By a Thread

Chapter Two-2

Red shirt pushed off the truck’s fender and stepped into the circle of light. Bev watched him coming, too frightened to move. He smiled and underhanded her crotch.

Bev screamed, bent forward at the waist, and tried to back away. She pushed at his hand but he got a fistful of her hair and slapped her hard across the face. Her eyes came up, startled, and her mouth hung, open and ugly. He drew back and hit her again. His fist was closed this time and he knocked her to the ground. He stood over her, a stupid grin on his lips.

The other two men raced forward and hauled her to her feet. “Nice little titties, baby,” the red shirt said, reaching to tug on a breast. “You got long n*****s? Or tiny rose buds?” Bev managed to get a hand up but he pushed her into the arms of the man opposite who spun her around, slapped her ass and shoved her toward the Mexican. He grabbed Bev from behind, a hand on each breast.

“No,” she cried, but suddenly hands seemed to be everywhere– up her dress, on her breasts, digging in the crack of her bum. And all the while, there was the insidious laughter ringing in her ears. The men jostled her back and forth, slapping her, pulling at her clothing, spinning her dizzily. Until the red shirt announced: “Right. Time for the show.”

The men retreated to loll against the front of the truck and suck beer, abandoning her to waver drunkenly, still in the circle of light. Time for the show. She sensed their eyes on her body even though she could not see clearly in the glare. Bev was disheveled– battered and bruised. And her mind was screaming: This can’t be happening to me! There has to be someone who can help me!

“Okay, baby. Your clothes... take ‘em off. Get yourself naked.”

The finality of his words took her breath and seemed to freeze her lungs. They wanted her to undress. And then what?

She willed herself to reach behind. Take hold of the zipper. But she stalled. Couldn’t do it. Instead Bev spun and bolted for the trees.

Her eyes were dazzled. But still she ran, her legs pumping hard. Bushes were tugging at her dress, scratching her bare skin, she couldn’t see but it didn’t stop her. There was a downed tree limb and Bev stumbled over it, took three halting strides, caught herself, and kept going. A pine bough caught her in the face. She spun to one side and ran harder.

There has to be a way out of this canyon, she prayed, then lost her footing in the loose shale at the bottom a dried up creek bed. Down she went, hard. Bev tried not to cry out, not wanting to give herself away. Straining her ears, she expected the sound of footfalls closing in, hands reaching, but there were only the night peepers singing in the trees.

The moon had lifted above the desert, casting a chalky light among the pines. She could just make out a gap in the trees. A path, maybe, and she scrambled to her feet. If only she could find a path, she would climb up to the ridge and make her way out. Would go straight to the police.

A beam of light hit her in the face and she panicked. Bev wheeled back. Another powerful beam of light and her heart sank– along with her hopes and prayers. She dropped to her knees in the dirt and started to cry. She had come so close.

Bev was pulled to her feet, a man with a flashlight each side. She stumbled, lost one of her shoes and was half dragged, half carried back to the truck.

Red shirt was waiting for them. Bev was hauled up in front of him. He gave her a cheery smile and punched her in the stomach. The men caught her before she hit the ground.

“I’m not asking again,” the red shirt was still smiling “Take all of your clothes off,” he said, asking as casual as if asking for the time-of-day.

There was the pang of denial and she looked away.

“You hear me?”

“Yes,” she mumbled and lowered her eyes. The men stepped back to watch.

Feeling nauseated and hopelessly defeated, she reached behind and dragged the zipper down. The front of her dress sagged into the crooks of her arms. She hesitated a moment, staring into the glare of the headlights.

Bev was little but had nice legs and the dress was short and sexy. It had always been a favorite but now she could never wear it again; not without remembering the night she had been forced to take it off in front of strangers. She would never wear it again. She would burn it.

“C’mon baby,” someone said, “don’t keep us waiting. Show us those titties.”

Bev nodded weakly, straightened her arms and the tiny dress tumbled down about her ankles.

She didn’t have much on underneath. Only her bra and pants set. Her pale body looked stark in the light from the truck and the white lace glowed.

She ignored the dirty chuckle and, forging a breath, Bev twisted the clasp at the front of her half-bra. The small cups jumped, spilling her tiny mounds free into the cool air.

“Sweet,” someone said at the sight of her raspberry n*****s. She brushed the straps from her shoulders, letting the slip of lace fall to the pine needles and she stood before the men clad only in her panties.

Her legs gave out. “Please... oh please,” she cried, swooping to her knees. “You have to let me go. My mom is waiting.”

The men pounced.

Bounding from the front of the truck, they surrounded her. They reached down and lifted Bev bodily into the air. Two of them held her writhing torso shoulder-high while the third pulled her underpants from thrashing legs. She screamed but there was only the impenetrable pine forest to hear her futile struggles. They bent her face-down over the trestle with her bum in the air and secured her arms with the leather straps. Her legs were forced apart and her ankles fastened to the wooden stakes they had beaten into the earth.

Once they had her, they stood back to admire her ass; their staggered breathing punctuating the night-air. “Let’s draw for her,” she heard one man say. “Short straw gets her in the mouth. Long straw gets her in the ass. Last straw gets what’s left.”

Bev fought a well of dread. The realization was numbing: They were selecting who would do what to her, where. Not only would she be vaginally r***d, but also forced to perform oral, and be brutally sodomized.

A man stepped up behind and he swiped the tip of his p***s along the cleft between her legs. She tried to release the strain from her muscles. Bev felt him adjust his position, swatting slightly at the knees, and then the thrust. The burning rip into the deepest part of her groin was like a knife going in and she ground her teeth until the jawbone popped.

He drove forward, lifting her heels. Her flesh opened, expanding to the point of tearing and she cried out bitterly. He was a big man and she was small and dry down there. Her lungs expelled in a rush: “Oh God. Oh God.”

He ripped out of her and, adjusting his feet for better traction, plowed into her body a second time, distorting her insides and crushing her cervix. He thrust and pulled back, settling-in, pumping her hard, turning her insides out. She managed to grasp at a breath, huffing in time to his thrusting. Bev drove her fingernails into the palms of her hands and prayed he would c*m. But he kept moving inside her, the vaginal walls straining, then letting go. In– out. Expanding and relinquishing. Over and over. Leaving her grasping for the remains of her sanity. And finally, with her tissues abraded and raw, he abruptly heaved and his spasm erupted. Bev slumped forward, felt the pulsing of his p***s. And after, once he had emptied into her and pulled back, she shuddered at the feeling of his slime draining away. Felt the cold trail on the inside of a thigh.

“God. She’s a tight little bitch.” And the man laughed. He zipped up his jeans. “I think I popped her cherry.”

“You mean...”

“Yeah. The big Vee. She’s a virgin. Or was,” he chuckled.

“You shittin’ me. She’s a looker for christ-sake and has to be old enough.”

“I’m just telling you, man.”

Bev started to cry. Is... was... it was all meaningless now, the thought coldly echoed in her mind. She would never be a virgin again.

Bev had always been a careful lover; choosing the partners that she allowed into her bed with great care. And both of those lovers had been thoughtful and careful with her feelings and her body. Now this: She had never given oral to a man, never been entered from the rear. Tonight, she was losing all of it.

A second man stepped around the end of the trestle. One of them grabbed a fistful of her hair and jerked her face up. She watched with wild eyes; the man undoing his pants.

He thrust a drooling c**k into her face and Bev took him into her mouth. Her hair was pulled harder, lifting her chin, making the angle right for him to enter her throat. He forced himself into the cavity; deep into the larynx. She retched terribly, choking on the obstruction. Bev couldn’t breathe.

He thrust deeply three times and Bev heard something crack in her neck; like the sound of a twisted chicken leg. There was the dull ache of drawn muscle that extended clear into her chest and when he pulled back, she found she couldn’t swallow right. But Bev had little time to consider what he had done to her. The strain on her hair increased and her throat bulged. He face-f****d her hard, ramming his hips forward and crushing her nose with his pubis bone.

When he relaxed his hold on her a second time, she managed to turn her face to the side and she emptied her stomach onto the ground. Bev dry heaved before he pulled her around and entered her once more.

When he finally came, he pulled back slightly and gave her room. He filled her mouth but held her head so tightly, she had no chance to turn away. She waited a moment, considering, holding it on her tongue, and then forced herself to swallow. Her broken throat rebelled but after three tries, she managed to work the gluttonous mass into her stomach. It was like swallowing wallpaper paste.

He stepped back and the man behind released her hair. She fell forward but managed to lift her chin in time. She tasted his filth on her tongue. Her stomach was in full revolt and she threw-up again, ridding herself of spent semen and stomach bile.

Bev hung in her restraints, heaving and wallowing in self-pity. Thumbs were separating her buttocks and her heart froze. This is what she feared most.

When he entered her, her head flew up and Bev heard her spine crack. The burn extended up her backbone and caused a star-flash behind clenched eyelids. She suddenly realized she was screaming, a bloodless, bone-chilling cry that rebounded against the distant rocks of the canyon wall. “Oh don’t... don’t,” she sobbed as he renewed his efforts.

“Your s**t’s on my d**k, sweetie,” he laughed as he lunged forward again. “Soon it will be blood.”

He thrust forward again and again.

Bev offered him money, her car, anything to make him stop. And in the end, she offered him oral, but he was having too much fun. By the time he was finished with her, he had torn her anus and blood was smeared across her buttocks. He strained to contain the flow from his p***s and pulled out.

He came around to the front of the trestle and pushed the tip of his c**k between her lips. “Take all of it, b***h. And if you throw it up, I swear I’ll make you get down on your knees and lick it up off the dirt.”

She tasted excrement and blood. And then she tasted his semen. Bev sucked and swallowed and prayed she could keep it down. And when she was finished, they untied the straps and pulled what was left of her shattered body into the center of the clearing.

“Know what this is?” The man held a circle of steel, shining in his hand.

Bev eyed it dully. “A fishing hook?” She fought to comprehend his meaning.

“A shark-hook, sweetie.”

She heard the sound of a rope being thrown. A not unfamiliar sound to a woman who had spent her life around horses. “No,” she hissed as she began to comprehend. “I’ve done everything you asked. It’s not fair.”

Two of the men came to stand either side of her shoulders. They bent Bev forward and held her steady as the third stepped behind. He fumbled low down and, pushing her buttocks aside, he fingered her ass. Bev felt the cold steel slide into her anus and pull up tight in her rectum. “Oh God! No!” She was lifted onto her tippy-toes.

“No,” she cried again when he brought out the razor. Bev tried, but couldn’t turn away. He slashed at her belly, from side to side and sawed from bottom to top. She looked down in horror and disbelief; she saw her own purplish entrails bulge through the opening in her gut.

The pressure build from behind and Bev screamed as she fell forward, her arms waving frantically to break her fall. There was a bright point of pain in her rectum. The tissues expanding and bursting. The skin just to the left of her spine stretched and finally ruptured. The hook slipped around and seated, her pelvic bone taking the weight. As she swung, head down, she realized she had lost one of her shoes– just before she was hoisted high into the pine boughs overhead and earning herself the dubious distinction of becoming Victim No.7 in Boyko’s murder book.