Bad Samaritan, by Rajah Dodger {rdodger@hotmail.com}, Copyright (c) 2006. All rights reserved, except that electronic not-for-profit reproduction rights only are explicitly granted with the stipulation that this authorship and permission note must remain attached.
Author's Note: For Gail.
Jerome sweated in the black Ford SUV. His tongue darted between his cracked lips and he flicked his gaze restlessly up and down the dim alley. Soon, he thought, soon.
A rattling noise from the cupholder made him jump. He picked up the vibrating cell phone and opened it, checking the caller ID. "Yeah," he grunted. He rocked back and forth in the driver's seat, occasionally responding in short, clipped tones. "Uh-huh... Already done... No problem." He clicked the phone shut and set it back in its place.
Closing his eyes, he tilted his head back for a minute, two minutes, three. Then his eyelids snapped open and he leaned forward to turn the key in the ignition.
Ahead of him in the alley, a bare bulb cast a flickering yellow light over a battered metal door. That door opened to expel a figure in heels, wearing a beige raincoat and clutching a black purse. A dark scarf protected her hair from the weather and also covered much of her face. She trod cautiously but quickly down the cracked concrete steps as the Ford rolled forward to meet her. Opening the door, she held the purse to her midsection and slid into the passenger side.
"Seat belt," Jerome reminded her. The metal tongue slid into its receptacle with a loud snap, and the vehicle moved forward to the end of the alley and out into the damp city streets.
The woman opened her purse and lifted a cigarette to her lips, only to be brought up short by his quietly firm response, "Not in *my* car." He put particular emphasis on the possessive. Pouting slightly, she carefully pushed the cigarette back into its pack and closed her purse. After several blocks, she spoke up. "He won't find out...?"
Her voice carried an undertone of pleading, and the tension on her elegantly made-up face was highlighted by the alternating illumination and shadow of passing streetlights. She grabbed the door handle for balance as he negotiated a particularly sharp turn on the slick pavement.
"Nobody's going to know. That's what you paid me for, and I'm very good at what I do."
There was irritation in his voice; she kept her thoughts to herself after that, drumming her fingers on her leg and looking out the window. The vehicle passed through business and residential areas in no meaningful order, and they were quickly distant from the parts of town she would recognize. Jerome didn’t spare his passenger more than an occasional glance; his eyes moved with minimal effort between the road ahead and the rear-view mirror.
They arrived amidst darkness and mist in a neighborhood that was run down but not past all hope. He reached up for the garage opener, waited as little as possible then pulled the vehicle in, shutting the engine as the wooden panels came down to hide them from the outside world. He unlocked and opened the anonymous house door and they passed through a utility hallway, breakfast nook and kitchen until they came to the living room. The predominant colors here were brown and dark blue, and the room gave a general impression of dimness despite the functioning overhead light. Frowning, the woman went to find the bathroom.
When she returned and stood by the couch, he was standing at the wet bar putting ice into two glasses, a dutiful if not particularly gracious host. He looked up at her and inquired, "Drink?"
She took off her scarf and shook out her hair, an auburn mop falling artlessly to her shoulders, and thought for a minute. "Seven and seven, please." He uncapped a bottle of Scotch and mixed her drink, taking a plain soda for himself. He brought both to the middle of the room and handed her glass over before taking his seat. They sipped from their glasses, the social ritual doing nothing to dispel the surrounding air of tension.
"So." She broke the fragile silence. "What happens now?"
Jerome placed his drink on the coffee table. His eyes surveyed her professionally. "Now you take off all of your clothes."
His words lingered in the air around her, coolly matter-of-fact and all the more menacing because of that. She jerked her head and stared at him as if not comprehending. Her lips parted, but nothing came from them.
"Don't make me wait." There was a sharp undertone of steel in his voice. The nervous mannerisms he had shown on the road were gone now, replaced by a clear, implacable resolve.
For the first time she really looked at him, his size and build, the competent strength in his hands. She shrank from the force of his gaze. "You don't really mean," she started, but her protest died there. He obviously did mean it as he rose to approach her, stopping a mere handbreadth from her body.
"I'm always serious. You knew that when you hired me."
She pulled herself to her feet and snapped back at him, anger giving her worn features a new life.
"I hired you to get me away from that cold fish of a husband without his trained goons finding me and dragging me back. I hired you because you have the contacts to get me into the underground to start a new life. I hired you," she emphasized, "to do a job. Period."
Jerome slapped her across the face. The outline of his hand was briefly visible on her cheek, white against pink. Her eyes flared, but his expression never changed.
"Clothes. Off. Now."
The words came out with blunt force, and she began unfastening her blouse buttons with nervous fingers. His eyes followed her movements as he continued speaking.
"Let's get a few things straight, lady. I'm nobody's hired hand. You wanted out from your husband, so you nosed around in the poor-wife chat groups. Twenty years ago you were arm candy, now you're a reasonably attractive appendix but he's got all the money. You talked to some people and they passed you to some other people, and eventually you got me. Now nobody knows where you are, and the only person who might be interested isn't looking."
She stopped moving at the implications of that statement. His eyes were still on her, though, so she dropped her blouse to the floor then fumbled with the back catch of her bra until her breasts swung free. She pushed the zipper down the side of her skirt slowly, trying to delay the moment when she would be completely open to his gaze.
"Now I'll give you some advice for free. Don't believe everything you hear on the internet. You know Joanne, the woman from somewhere up North whose husband slapped her around whenever he wanted sex? The woman who finally gave you my name?" He grabbed her by the chin and forced her to look into his eyes. "Meet your good friend Joanne. Also Margaret and Esperanza. Your money's good, lady, but so is your husband’s." He glanced downward and barked, "Now get those panties off before I rip them off you myself."
Stunned, she hurried to remove her last protection and stood, shaking but determined to defend herself.
He reached out and casually groped her left breast. His thumb rasped over her nipple, rough skin scraping inquisitively. She bit back a comment and just glared at him, steeling herself and looking for an opportunity to run, fight, do something. His finger poked between her breasts and drew a hard line down her stomach toward her pubic hair. She fought the impulse to retreat as her stomach muscles pulled in tight, but when his finger probed further down she slapped at it.
In return he calmly smacked her face in both directions, hard enough to make her head ring. "Don't bother fighting -- what you have may not have been good enough for your husband but it's plenty good enough for me." Crying from anger and weakness, she tried to duck around him but he swung his arm around her throat and pulled her back hard against him. Her lungs ached as the air was gradually cut off, her vision blurred and filled with swirls and stars. He squeezed under her chin with his other arm behind her head, and slowly her limbs ceased their movement and her body slumped in his grip.
Carefully letting her body sink to the floor, Jerome flexed his fingers then removed his own clothes. His erection bobbed ahead of him, the head swollen. Picking up the unconscious woman, he carried her to a small bed in the side room and laid her out on her back, spreading her legs apart. Moving to his bag, he pulled out a plastic bottle of lubricant and worked the tip inside her, squeezing until the oily liquid oozed out onto the sheet. Sliding a finger into her and satisfied with the results, he unrolled a condom over his length and kneeled between her legs. He grabbed and lifted her thighs, then pushed forward and began a deliberate back and forth rhythm.
The sound of his legs slapping against hers was interrupted by her gasping sobs as she swam up to awareness. She lacked enough control of her limbs to do anything but lie there and feel his friction and her body’s response. He used her with as little emotion as he might a can opener or a washcloth. Tears dripped from her tight-shut eyes while he pumped and grunted, the muscles on his backside standing out as he filled the condom. Even then he didn’t release her, his hips gradually slowing to a halt and his hairy stomach pushing her down into the bedsheet.
He paused, his breathing echoing hers, and shifted to withdraw. To his surprise, she swung her legs around him and grabbed his sides with weak but insistent hands. "That's not enough, damn it!" Her voice was filled with bitterness and frustration. "I had to take that kind of thing from him, but I thought you were a real man!" She bore down inside, and was rewarded with a pulse running the length of his buried shaft. He lifted his head, considered the look on her face, and then slid his hands up to cup her breasts, squeezing them almost gently as he once more began to move in and out. That gentleness quickly dissolved, converted by mutual urgency to a demanding grapple on both their parts. Her nails dug into him as his pelvis slammed down. Her voice rose in animal squeals above the noise of their coupling; her body writhed and drew a second, slower eruption from him.
She twitched and shifted beneath his weight, the long-absent feeling of juices between her thighs giving her a sense of comfort. She turned her head to one side, as if afraid he might claim the intimacy of a post-coital kiss. She was still crying sporadically, quiet tears sliding down her face. He reached down and grabbed the base of the condom, holding it tightly as he withdrew and moved off the bed. The flushing of the toilet and subsequent splash of water in the sink announced his activities, and he returned only to pick up a blanket and toss it casually across her body before leaving her alone with her thoughts. She shivered despite the protective warmth, closed her eyes, and eventually yielded to sleep.
* * *
Morning came, and she stretched under the enfolding blanket. With light came memory, though, and those memories had her quickly curled into a tight ball of shame, fright and anger. There wasn't any escaping her situation, though, and she poked her head out to see that her clothes from the previous night -- blessedly untorn, down to her panties -- were laid over a chair neatly. When she felt presentable, she left the small room and found her benefactor/captor casually drinking coffee. He greeted her as if nothing unusual had happened. "Are you ready to head out of town?"
She looked at him in confusion. "What about my husband?"
"Oh, him." Jerome shrugged. "He did pay me a nice sum to find out how you were planning to run and catch you. That doesn’t mean I’m going to give him his money's worth. It's not like he can report me to the better business bureau."
She looked at him, then confusion gave way to a consuming anger. Two quick steps and she raked her nails across his face before he could set his coffee down. "You BASTARD!" she yelled.
He grinned back with that infuriatingly smug attitude, ignoring the blood oozing down his cheek. "You ought to know about bastards, you certainly married one. And by the way, if you're not going to eat breakfast then we ought to get out of town before someone wants his progress report." The reminder of her position and the backwash of her anger left her suddenly weak, and she nodded meekly as he got up and led her to the garage.
As they left the city limits behind, she finally boiled all of her conflicting emotions into one short word.
"Why?"
Jerome shrugged. "I may be a bastard, but I've got principles. Let's just say I don't like your husband any better than you do. And I liked the way you tried to stand up to me. Besides, I can always use a good reference in the chatrooms -- especially from someone who's not me."
She cast him a disbelieving glance, reflecting on her salvation, betrayal and ultimate release. Yeah, she thought. Like I'd let you get your hands on anyone else in my position.
It bothered her no end to realize that she might do just that.
***** {END} ***** Original completed 2006-09-18; revision workshopped at the Fish Tank (http://www.desdmona.com) and completed 2006-09-30; 2288 words.
Copyright (c) 09-18-2006 Rajah Dodger (rdodger@hotmail.com)