A mind of her own.

Turnabout.

Two minutes later the soldier pushed open the door and came out into the dark at the side of the building with his arm about Susan, supporting her under her breasts, talking softly to her the whole time to keep her calm. She was almost comatose by then, and having difficulty walking, but still seemed to want to push him away.

He was too engrossed in her to see what happened to him.

Deke hit him then, hard; very hard, and before the man’s eyes had adjusted to the dark. One fist went straight into the man’s face at the level of his nose with all of Deke’s weight behind it, aiming for a spot six inches behind him.

Deke felt, and heard bones crunch, and as the man began to fall, Deke hit him again from the side, and laid him out. He caught Susan before she fell, but the door came back on its spring, and clipped her on the forehead as it closed, causing her to let out a gasp. No one inside had seen what had happened.

He sat her down on the step by the door, out of the area of broken glass, and went through the man’s pockets in the dim light diffusing from the parking lot lights, and from the main highway running a couple of hundred feet away. There was his Base ID, wallet, and another couple of loose pills. No doubt they were the same kind that he had slipped into Susan’s drink, and that the two girls with her would then be responding to. Roofies. Date r**e drug. If they didn’t know what had happened to them in every little detail, and couldn’t remember, then they could not easily complain or lay charges, using anyone’s name.

He popped both pills into the man’s mouth under his tongue, and laid him along the side of the building and out of the way, before he pocketed the man’s things to find out who he was, later. He picked up Susan in his arms, walking out into the dark of the poorly lit parking lot, speaking to her to let her know who he was. He doubted it would register in her brain.

No one else left the building behind them, but he had been ready for that too.

Deke could hear and feel the noise of the music. If you could call it music. There was no one to see him carrying her away. They were all inside. As the evening went on it would be turned louder to drown out the talking and get the beer flowing until the neighbors, just beyond the parking lot, called the police as they did almost every night, either because of the noise, or the fights that often broke out in the parking lot over some woman. The MPs would be the first to get there.

He had parked at the end of the building, out of the way. It had been quiet then. It was hopping now, and the parking lot was full.

He opened his cab and slid her in, dropping his gloves on to the seat beside her, except she struggled, but was not resisting him.

“I need to pee.” Her words were indistinct, slurred. That soldier had put vodka in the orange juice, or whatever she had been drinking. The bastard! Liquor, along with those pills were a hell of a combination.

He lifted her out and helped her, holding her against his truck with his knee pushed in between her legs to support her as he lifted her dress, then changed his hold upon her. There was no finesse called for at this time. He doubted she would recognize him in that light, nor would she remember any of this by morning. She was unable to do much for herself, so he leaned into her, getting a whiff of expensive perfume (over-indulged kids, again. Those other two.), hooked his fingers over the top of the back of her panties and stripped them down her legs, holding her around the waist, taking them down and over her feet as he continued to support her, changing his hold on her as needed. She would never have allowed anyone to handle her so familiarly, in this way, had she been herself.

She did not resist or object. She was too far gone for that, just as she would have been unable to resist that soldier about now.

Deke kept her dress out of the way, holding it up around her and supported her against his arm, leaning against the side of his truck. He held her familiarly under her dress, both hands on her cheeks, supporting her weight, as she tried to pee, feeling a hint of hair on his finger ends, hearing her start and stop a few times before she was able to relax enough to let it flow. He stooped over her until she was finished. At any other time and place, and with Susan, he would have become aroused himself by now, wanting her, as he always did and always would, and they would both have been aware of it, laughing about it even, though without actually speaking about it openly, as they should have done.

He heard her peeing for some time; could smell it. She hadn’t gone to the washroom, but might have intended to leave, to escape her attentive escort, and walk back to the College (she’d never have made it, dressed like this), except that soldier had stayed close to her the entire time, not wanting her to escape him, or to be found by any other man as intent and as horny as he was.

He used her panties, still in his hand, to touch at her firmly for a second or two between her legs to dry her, threw them into the back of his cab, regretting it almost immediately—he should have left them between her legs, except they might have dropped from her and been lost—and slid her onto the seat. She was sitting on most of her dress, which had ridden further up her body as he had picked her up. She might have objected to his easy familiarity with her had she been fully conscious. Or maybe not.

He pushed his hand between her legs as he lifted under her knees, unavoidably touching her personally, but not with any awkward intent, and tried to pull her dress out from behind her where it was caught, but it wouldn’t move. He gave up and grabbed a blanket from the space behind, covering her exposed lower body with it, able to see everything about her there in the cab light. He shook his head, wondering how this could be happening to him or to her. She was beautiful, vulnerable, and helpless. She disturbed him in ways he fully understood, and always would. He fastened the seat belt around her to hold her upright, and got her to drink from a bottle of water before she was totally unconscious, encouraging her to keep drinking to flush the poisons out of her system. When she objected, and began to resist, gagging and struggling with the water running down her chin and onto her dress, he stopped. She would need fluids to get that stuff out of her system.

To his surprise, she held onto him tightly, with her eyes closed, and spoke to him in a hoarse voice.

“Thank you.” The only thing she missed saying was his name, but she hadn’t needed to say it. She knew him, and knew that she was now safe. He waited so see if she might say anything else, but felt her hand slip from his arm.

His tire iron was on the floor. He picked it up and took his flashlight, locking his truck behind him as he looked for a car that was out-of-state licensed, and that shrieked adolescent female (from the doll swinging under the rear view mirror, clothes, or shoes on the back seat, stickers on the bumper), and stupid parents. Nobody in this State sent their kids to that particular college.

What kind of parents would give their immature kid, a car and money to throw around on drugs and booze, shortening their young lives, ending them before they had begun? That was likely to be the fate of those other two girls. Kids should be made to earn every penny for themselves and buy their own cars, and insure them, just as he had done. That way they learned the value of hard-earned money.

Deke was determined that such a fate was not going to happen to Susan. He would not stand by and let that happen to her. He should have told her of his feelings for her before this had happened. They both knew how they felt, and knew that they should speak about them, get them out into the open. Their feelings for each other were long overdue in being stated out loud for the other to hear. But the school had rules about that, and so both had waited for term to end. He was pretty sure they both felt the same way.

There was only one out-of-state car that was not from the army base or local. There was a bra between the front seats, and a mess of candy wrappers on the floor, as well as a paper carrier from a local woman’s store. There were also a couple of empty condom wrappers on the back seat. This was it. He jotted the number down and made a note of the year and make, and then took a photograph of it. He was thorough in everything he did, just as when he was working in the college.

He popped the trunk with the tire iron, breaking the lock without hesitation, bending the metal, and recovered a couple of garment bags with womens’ clothing in them. There was no alarm, or it had been disabled.

At first glance there seemed enough clothing for three girls in there, along with other personal things. They had changed after they left the college, before coming here. He would ask Susan about that, later, if she felt like telling him. She probably would not want to remember any of it.

Susan hadn’t expected this to happen to her or she would never have been here. Somehow they had coerced her into going along with it, but he couldn’t understand how. He remembered the look on Susan’s face as she had come into that bar, like a rabbit trapped in a snare, and it was the last place she wanted to be.

With the bags containing all of their school clothes gone, the other girls could drive back to college dressed as they were, or as undressed as they might be, with all of the evidence of what had happened to them on their clothes and bodies. They would have some explaining to do about where they had been all night, and looking like that. If they got back to school. If they still had all of their clothes when they got back, and looking the worse for wear, having been relentlessly and mercilessly f****d the entire night long by who might know how many men from the base.

Stupid girls!

But at least Susan was no longer caught up in that.

Their parents would not be long being told to take them out of school, and they would be given no choice about it. The school did not want girls like that, giving the college a bad name.

Deke took another look in the back seat, seeing nothing he might have overlooked, and then went back to his own vehicle, tossed both bags into the back, and got Susan to drink more water while she still could. She was still able to respond, so maybe she had not drunk all of the drug the soldier had put into her drink. Perhaps she had detected something wrong before she had finished it, and had left it.

Before he drove off, he made a quick telephone call, smiling at what that call would set in motion, but without Susan being caught up in it. Even so, it might take the police hours to respond. It was a Friday evening; a payday, and a long weekend. They would get a lot of calls tonight and would have to prioritize them. They might get there by morning. Ten minutes or ten hours would not matter too much to those other girls. Hell, the cops might pull over to f**k them too as they took them back to the station. Who the hell would ever know?

Those two girls would be f****d hard all of that weekend if the police didn’t show up, and even if they did. It was already too late from what he had seen. They would be the subject of a lot of personal attention whether they liked it or not, as more soldiers floated through.