A mind of her own.

Gone without a trace

Deke drove off into the night with Susan beside him. No one followed him. He made sure of that. It was too early for anyone else to leave with the fun just starting. That soldier would be out for at least an hour, maybe for a couple of days. Serve him right. He’d miss all of the fun that his friends would brag about for the rest of the week as they f****d their brains out. Fun for them, but not for those two stupid girls.

Despite having work gloves on to protect his knuckles before he had hit him, Deke’s left hand was still sore. He didn’t care if he’d broken the man’s jaw with that second blow. He should have done more damage to him for what he had planned to do to Susan, even castrated him, but there hadn’t been time. His friends might have followed him out. Deke had stood a wooden pallet near the door to jam it closed under the handle, if they had.

He went over in his mind what he should do now. His options were limited, and soon discarded.

Hospital? No. Too many questions for him, and tests on her, and they’d want to contact the school or her parents. He was also known to most of the doctors and nurses.

His own doctor? No. Besides, he was out for a few days.

Police? No. Too many questions, and too much danger for her with them likely to pull over and f**k her too if she was comatose, and before they got her any medical attention, and then they would contact the school. Anyway, he’d already contacted the police, but had given no names.

Back to the school? Maybe!

He had Susan’s school uniform in the cab with them. The school insisted on a dress code and were strict about it. He could dress her in that after he got rid of this clothing from her, and then get her back to her own bed in school. He had all of the keys to get into any door in the school. Except he wasn’t sure where her bed was. He knew where it had been a year ago when he had worked through the dorms installing electrical outlets, recognizing her name on some clothing there, but it might have changed since then after she had moved up a year.

And there was that makeup on her, and the smell of cigarette smoke in her hair. And she was unconscious. He’d have to get that make-up completely off her in a bathroom somewhere, and would run the constant risk of another girl walking in for a pee, and seeing him kneeling over her, striving to either dress her, or undress her, with a pile of her clothes on the floor beside them. She would assume the worst as she ran off, screaming bloody murder and going for help. Yes, that would look good! All of the students knew him.

None of it sounded doo-able. Then, if the alarm had not been raised, he would have to try and dress her in her pajamas or nightdress, wherever they were. Too tricky. Too dangerous for them both. She also might not be easily awoken in the morning. He gave up on that possibility. He’d never get her into the college or up to her room without being detected, even if he took her along all of the back ways.

There was only one place to go, with her as she was, so as not to raise a hundred questions. She would go back with him to his home. The least bad of all bad choices Then he’d still have the problem of getting her back to school without her absence being detected. At least she would then be in her prescribed uniform, and she would also be a lot less unhappy than she would have been.

She was uncomfortable beside him, and fidgeted. He pulled over, once he was off the main highway, put the cab-light on, unfastened her seat belt, and encouraged her to lean against him where he could hold her close to him and to comfort her. She adjusted her position instead, to lie down, resting her head on his legs, and curled up there. He pulled her closer into him, by pulling behind the top of her thighs, touching her briefly in the hair there, as he did that. Despite that brief familiarity, she seemed to sense that she was safe and did not fight him. He moved to hold her by her lower arm, conscious that his forearm was upon her breasts, and that her dress no longer covered her lower body at all. He felt his own temperature beginning to rise, now that the adrenaline had faded, especially when her arm moved up onto his legs and accidentally touched him in a very tender and obvious place as she snuggled into him there. She didn’t seem to notice, but he did.

Yes, he was excited. Everything about her excited him, no matter where she was. She had always affected him that way and she knew it. He covered her with the blanket again, but she was too hot, despite the air-conditioning being on, and fidgeted until he removed it from covering her.

He’d drive slowly, and watch for deer or other wildlife that always crossed this road, and hoped she did not become more curious about him there, as she once had been, just as he had been curious about what he had seen of her at that time, and could still see.

That shocking introduction to each other, just a year earlier, had not gone in any awkward direction after that, as it could so easily have done, but what had happened had been devastating enough. It had been the result of an accident, and they had needed to back off from each other after the discoveries following that event, to think about what had happened between them. After that introduction, they had come back at things slowly, without letting the rest of the always-nosy school know what was happening between them as they sat down to eat lunch together in the school cafeteria every day, or spoke as they passed each other in the corridors. But most of the girls knew, of course. They had both been watched closely after that.

They had been gradually moving into a different kind of relationship for the last year now, as they'd discovered more about each other, but in a different and more delicate way than it had begun. She had not been ready for the fireworks between them then, and he knew enough to slow it all down so that he would not lose her by being too eager, as he was always tempted to be.

However, the rest of the school seemed to know some of it, if not all of it. If they knew all of what had happened then, between them, he would have been given his marching papers, and she would also have been asked to leave.