The men emerged from the woods running low and fast. They pulled their ski masks down over their faces and stepped onto the back porch of the house. One tried the door, turned and shook his head. The other stepped off the porch and retrieved the spare key from under the fake rock.
The woman's back was to them, but the girl saw them and shrieked. The men rushed in. One tackled the woman, the other grabbed the girl. The woman gave no resistance as her hands were taped behind her back and her mouth sealed. The men wrestled with the girl, taped her wrists, taped her mouth, and dragged her to the living room couch. They wrapped tape around her ankles, joined them to her wrists with another length of tape. They returned to the kitchen, grabbed the woman and walked her out of the house into the woods.
I pulled into the driveway. Stacey's white Honda was there. A pleasant surprise. Stacey is my stepdaughter and finally of an age where I can entertain certain prurient thoughts. I don't have a thing for her, but she adds a certain, let's call it, decorative touch when she visits. Twenty, college junior, blonde hair usually in a ponytail, girlish, not quite a woman yet. She's on the curvy side, heading towards pudgy. But, at twenty, it looks cute.
I stepped into the kitchen and was met with a wall of silence. That was unusual. When Stacey visits, she and her mother are usually yacking up a storm. I found her in the living room, hogtied and gagged with silver duct tape on the couch. I paused. Her eyes were closed and I took the opportunity to enjoy the sight of the bound girl lying there. I pulled out my cell and took a couple of pictures.
As delightful as this was, I was burning daylight. I made a noise. She opened her eyes.
Let me tell you, gags are overrated. You could have heard her squealing outside. And then she started squirming and I had to resist the urge to crack open a beer and enjoy the show or take more pictures or both.
I pulled the tape from her mouth.
"Joe! They took Mom! Two men! They took Mom!"
"It's okay."
"What the fuck! Didn't you hear me. They took her! Two men! They took her!"
"It's okay, Stace. It's not what you think."
"Are you fucking crazy!"
She squirmed around some more. Braless under her t-shirt, shorts looking like she'd been poured into them. I put my hands in my pockets.
"You think I got this way by myself? The fuck! They took her. Two of them."
"Al and Ted. Mr. Greene and Mr. Taylor. Big guy, kind of like a gorilla, and the other about the same height, but skinny?"
Stacey blinked up at me. I sighed and walked over to the cabinet, poured a splash of vodka into a glass, sat on the coffee table.
"Joe! What the-"
"Stace, if you say fuck one more time you're going to be in serious shit. Now calm down."
She squirmed around a bit more.
"Untie me!"
"No. Not 'til you settle down and listen to me."
I leaned over and put my hand on her back, resisted the urge to let it travel down to her ass.
"It's okay. It's a game. A game we play."
She blinked up at me. I let out a sigh.
"Okay, here's how it is. You're old enough to understand."
I took a sip of vodka. It burned going down, but in a good way.
"The three of us, the three couples have this thing. It's a game we play. We all went to college together, we're all pretty tight, stood up for each other at each other's weddings and all that. Nothing against your dad, but I'm glad he dumped Liz. I always regretted that I hadn't put up more of a fight for her."
I waved my hand.
"Anyway, we don't have a lot of secrets. Like I said, we're tight."
"We've all been married a while, pushing middle age, and things can get, well, let's just say not as interesting as they used to be."
I took another sip.
"We tried the swapping thing."
Stacey's eyes went wide.
"It was okay, but we're all pretty happy, sexually, more or less, so we came up with the game. Every couple of months the guys pick a wife. We don't know when and we don't know who. Whoever was the "victim" last time gets to choose, he tells the another guy, and they, in turn, kidnap the other's wife".
"Sally, Ted's wife, was the last victim, so Ted got to choose and he chose Liz. He told Al and they kidnapped her. The victim's husband, that would be me in this case, has until sundown to rescue her. Otherwise they get to, er, enjoy the spoils, as it were."
Stacey blinked at me.
"Earth to Stacey. Are you with me?"
Another blink.
"Yeah. Yeah, I think so. I mean ..."
"Having trouble getting your head around the fact that your mother has a sex life, a kinky one at that?"
That brought a smirk.
"I found your stash years ago. The bag in the closet?"
"What were you doing in our closet.
She shrugged, well, as well as she could hogtied.
"I was a kid. I was curious. At first I thought you were a perv, but then I realized Mom was happy, so she must be into it, too. I still think some of those things are weird. I mean, what do you do with them?"
"Google it."
She gave me an evil look.
"I did. Maybe I'm still in denial."
"Nice river. A bit muddy."
That got a smile.
"Okay wise ass. I'm okay. Untie me."
I gave her a pat on the ass (nice ass), flipped open my pocket knife, and sliced the tape.
"So this game, you kidnap a wife and the husband has to rescue her, otherwise, well, let's not go there. This is my mother after all. Where are they?"
I tossed back the last of my drink, walked into the kitchen. Stacey followed. I reached two beers from the fridge, cracked them, handed one to her. She gave me a look.
"What? Like you don't drink?"
She took the can and gulped half of it down.
"Yes. As a matter of fact I do. So what's the deal?"
"The deal is I have to go find Liz. And I have to do it in, oh, about nine hours."
"Where is she?"
"In the state park somewhere."
"You don't know where she is?"
"I just told you. She's in the park."
"Yeah, but where?"
"That, Stacey, is the problem."
I spread the map on the coffee table. We sat on the couch, thigh to thigh. I could feel her warmth. She smelled clean, fresh bathed. Things were happening, er, down there. Pleasant things. But, still, I shifted a bit to the left.
"She's somewhere in there," I said, making a circle with my finger. "It's damn near a thousand acres, but they have to be near one of the fire roads. Technically, you're not allowed back there, but Ted is a volunteer fireman and he has the key to the gate. Well, gates, actually."
"I don't see any roads."
"They're not on the map. They don't want people getting curious."
"So where do we start?"
"We?"
Stacey looked at me.
"Well, yeah, duh, we. You and me."
"It's you and I and, in this case, there is no I other than me."
"What?!"
"This is our game. You stay here and cool your jets."
"The hell I will."
"Yes, as a matter of fact, you will."
I eased off the couch.
"Want another?"
Stacey downed her beer and wagged the can at me. I took it and went into the kitchen. I took two more cans from the fridge, reached in her purse and grabbed her keys, slipped them into my pocket. I went back to the couch and handed her the can.
"You're staying."
"I'm not. You can't make me."
She said it in a whiney playful way. Couldn't help but smile. I pulled her keys from my pocket, dangled them.
"Joe! Damnit! Give me those."
"No."
I changed into my camo gear, went out to the truck, grabbed the backpack, flipped it open, then went into the garage for more paint balls.
I started to climb back into the truck, but I was struck by a thought. They'd be expecting my truck, but not Stacey's car. While the fire roads are technically off limits, people do wander back there sometimes. I climbed into the Honda and backed out of the drive.
The sign said No Trespassing, but I skirted the gate. The tracks told me I wasn't the first. It was a tight squeeze, but the little car made it. Finding their truck was no problem. Finding them was a bit of work, but I did. A game trail led me down into a ravine. The leaves hadn't been disturbed lately, so I knew it wasn't the path they'd taken. I poked my head over the lip and there she was.
Liz was standing in a clearing, her hands tied to a branch over her head. She wasn't quite hanging, but she was stretched out pretty good. She was wearing a green sun dress, a short one, short enough that I could see her white panties peeking out below the hem. She was gagged, still, with tape. The guys were nowhere to be seen, but I knew they were close by.
There was a pretty good breeze. The rustling of leaves covered my footsteps well enough. I found Al pretty quickly, damn near bumped into him. I raised my paint ball gun and plastered him in the back of the head.
"Ow! The fuck! Damn!"
He turned on me. I hitched my thumb over my shoulder. He shook his head, smiled, and headed out of the woods.
I heard rustling across the clearing over to the right. Ted. Of the two he was the more dangerous. I wished I'd gotten him first. As it turned out, he got me.
Expecting him to move to deeper cover, continue the game of cat and mouse, I made a dash for the clearing. I had my knife out as I raced toward Liz. I'd just sliced the rope when I took a shot in the leg and another in the chest.
"Damn!"
I held Liz by her bound wrists.
"Sorry, babe."
Liz just shook her head. Ted sauntered out of the underbrush.
"Hola! Amigo! Que pasa? Que what's happening with your pasa?"
He stood there with a stupid smirk, gun resting on his shoulder.
"Hey! Amigo!"
Ted whirled, took a burst of shots in the chest.
"Ow! Jesus! Hey! What the ..."
Stacey came into the clearing, making a show of blowing non-existent smoke from the gun barrel.
"Hey! No fair!"
"All's fair in love and war and I love my mother and this is war. You lose."
Al appeared.
"I ran into her in the woods. I couldn't stop her. Sorry."
I sliced the rope binding Liz's wrists, peeled the tape from her mouth.
"How the hell did you find us?"
"GPS. Remember? You put a GPS in my car to keep tabs on me."
"You knew about that?"
"Hey. I may be blonde, but I'm not stupid."
No, not stupid at all.
And seeing her there, chest heaving, cheeks flushed with excitement, the image of mother and daughter, hanging by their wrists flashed through my mind. Maybe it was time to change the rules of the game.
19.06.12