Just before sliding off of her stool, she ordered yet another drink to take with her. She didn’t want to show up at his table empty-handed. He never saw her approach and only looked up from his drink when she was standing right next to his table.
“May I sit down?” Carrie asked.
He looked up at her, disinterested. She’d broken his dark concentration. Before he could decide what to say, she’d sat down across from him, drink in hand. “Suit yourself,” he said, then looked back down at his drink.
Carrie felt a weird tingling in her ‘cop senses’ which usually put her on high alert. The alcohol, however, had dulled them considerably.
She sat watching him for a while as she slowly nursed her drink, not saying a word. He was very interesting to her. He seemed out of place here, but yet somehow still at home.
“I’m a good listener,” she said.
He looked up. “What makes you think I need a good listener?” he asked. His voice was neutral. He did not appear irritated at her question, but he also didn’t appear as though he wanted to continue the conversation.
Maybe Carrie should just leave him alone and find someone else to entertain her. No, she thought, he would be a challenge. She decided he would be her fun for the night.
She sat her drink down on the table and resting her arms there, leaning forward. Her blouse slipped low showing voluptuous cleavage that had never been turned down. She had used it often to get what she wanted.
“I think you’re deep in thought. By the look on your face, the thought you are deep in, is pulling you under,” Carrie said.
He looked at her. Her face and her body. Nice, he thought, very nice. But what did she want, he wondered? He had his own problems and didn’t need another needy female adding to them.
Almost as though reading his mind, Carrie said, “Hey, I don’t want anything but a good time. I want to enjoy tonight and not think about tomorrow.”
He thought about her words while watching her face. Did she mean it, he wondered? Why not? What did he have to lose?
He picked up his glass to indicate they should toast. Carrie smiled and picked up her glass.
They talked very little. Carrie had as little interest in getting to know him as he seemed to have in her. Finally, when she felt she’d put her time in with small talk she asked, “Do you want to get out of here?”
He did. He was sufficiently drunk and ready to do anything at that point.
They walked out to the parking lot with Carrie leading the way. About two feet from the car door, he stopped with a start.
He couldn’t believe the car he was about to get into. He’d never ridden in something like this, but had always wanted to. He looked from the car to the lady standing on the other side. What was up with her? A beautiful woman in a small town seedy bar driving a Porche. It didn’t fit, but oh well!
They were soon tucked inside the soft leather feeling the roar of the engine underneath them. With sweet intoxication still lingering, they rode in silence for several miles.
Finally he asked, “Where are we going?”
“I have a spot,” she said and looked over at him once again giving him a seductive look.
They were driving on a small highway, going north away from town. With each mile there were fewer and fewer businesses, houses, and traffic. The man didn’t care and eventually closed his eyes, drifting off.
Then the crunch of gravel beneath the tires jarred him awake. He had no idea where they were. He’d sobered up somewhat, but still didn’t have his full senses about him.
“Where are we?” He asked looking around. They were in a very wooded area and had been traveling down a long gravel road.
“I said I had a spot,” replied Carrie. “I don’t like people in my business. This is an old family cabin that I use sometimes. It’s quiet here and no one will see us or bother us.”
She parked the car around back in a detached shed she used as a garage. She opened a small compartment in the car and pulled out a separate set of keys that were just for the cabin.
When they entered the backdoor of the cabin, the man saw that it was clean and cozy. There was no electricity, but it had been fitted nicely with gas lanterns, one of which Carrie lighted immediately upon entering. The lanterns filled the room with enough light to see, and the low light was quite enticing.
The cabin had a living room, one bedroom, a kitchen and a bathroom. All rooms looked as though someone lived here from time to time. “You live here?” he asked her.
“No, it is just a private little getaway when I can’t take the stress of the city anymore,” Carrie said as she finished lighting that last lantern.
She walked over to a cabinet where she kept a liquor stash. She uncorked a bottle and poured them each a glass. The man took his glass and drank it down as did Carrie. They each felt a refreshed surge of heat and intoxication.
He sat his glass down and walked over to her, putting his arms around her. The embrace led to passionate kissing and fondling. Very quickly, the man became very aggressive. Carrie pushed him away.
She gritted her teeth and glared at him. She was the aggressor, not him. They were to play her game and follow her lead, not the other way around.
But no one had told the man the rules of her game. Carrie’s rejection had only fueled the anger he had been trying to overcome earlier in the evening. He would not be denied. She wasn’t going to set this whole thing up and then stop him cold.
He grabbed her and pulled her so tightly to him she had no room to fight back. Then his mouth found hers and the mutual aggression soon led to rough passion.
Carrie was so drunk by then she didn’t care.
Chapter Thirteen
It was late afternoon before Carrie came to consciousness. Blinding pain shot through her entire body. It wasn’t the normal pain of a hangover. She couldn’t even open her eyes. The light seemed so bright it blinded her and she felt an incredible pain throughout the rest of her body.
She laid there with her eyes closed. She tried to remember where she was and what she had been doing the night before, but nothing came to her.
Void of memory, she attempted to determine where she was. Beneath her hand she felt a rough wooden floor. She smelled sweat and vomit. It was repugnant but she couldn’t move to avoid it.
She felt like she would be sick and when her body violently convulsed to reject what was no longer in her stomach; she felt something snap. She gasped as what must have been a cracked rib, actually snapped in two.
The pain was so severe that she could hardly breathe. Each slight movement, even her lungs taking in air, shot her with unbelievable pain.
It was then she also realized her left eye was swollen completely shut and her right eye, almost. As she lay there on the cabin floor, tears dripped one by one out of that eye and puddled in the dust.
She wished she was dead. The grief of her life flooded through her. It had all led to this. Why wasn’t she dead? Why hadn’t he just killed her?
It must have been at least another hour that she laid there. She had no desire to move or to live. A warm sensation between her legs caused her to realize that she had just wet her pants. She didn’t care.
She drifted back to sleep. Maybe this time she wouldn’t wake up.
~~~
When Carrie once again opened her eyes, the light was fading. She was stiff and sore, and still alive. She wasn’t sure if she felt disappointment or relief.
Choices had to be made. She could continue to lay here and hope she finally died or she could get up.
Being so constricted by pain, she laid there a little longer. Her body was in no shape to move, but her mind was finally fully alert.
It forced her to think. Think about her life and how she had gotten to this horrifically low point. This horrifically, shamefully, low point. Tears once again began to drip from the corner of her eye.
She had to decide to live. And if she did live, she had to come to terms with where her life was and w
here it was going. It was evident that all she had to do to die was to keep living the way she was. It would lead her straight to the grave if that was what she wanted.
If she wanted to live, she had to stop all this. Then sobs wracked her broken body; as painful as it was physically, the pain inside was greater. Waves of shame and remorse flooded her, hitting her hard, wave after wave. She felt as though she were drowning and had to move. She sucked back the sobs and tried to stuff down the pain.
From somewhere deep inside, the faint will to live, picked up its head ever so slightly. It was afraid to come out. Living would mean there would have to be major life changes, changes that would be hard, very hard.
But she was alive. Why, she didn’t know, but she had to commit fully one way or the other, so she would live.
Clearing her head, she continued to lay there attempting to assess her situation. She knew physically she was in bad shape. She knew at least one rib was broken and probably more. She had been beaten, but had there been more?
As she took a mental inventory of her body beginning from her feet, she came to realize with surprise that she had not been violated, only beaten. She was still fully clothed, even though her clothes were ripped and torn.
She felt relief and gratitude, a genuine gratitude for the first time in many years. She was going to live, and she wanted, really wanted, to live differently. With gratitude came hope, and she breathed a small prayer, “Help me. Help me, please.”
Calm blanketed her. She felt peace for the first time since she had been a young child. She could do this. She wanted to do this.
Instinct kicked in. She hurt, but the only critical physical place she needed to protect was her ribs. She held her left arm across her mid-section. She was lying on her right side and that arm was numb clear to and including her hand.
She tried to roll to her back very gently, then to her left side. Needles immediately assaulted her right arm as the blood rushed back through. She could feel the ribs grinding and the pain was so intense she thought she might lose consciousness. Once on her left side she stopped to take a breath and allow the feeling to come back fully in her arm. She would need it to help pull herself up.
Rolling over had put her smack up against the bed. She was in the bedroom and lying on the floor next to the bed. She decided she would reach up and use the bed to pull herself up.
Using her right arm, she reached up and grabbed the covers on the bed, pulling hard. Her left arm continued to hold her mid-section. Just as she thought she was making progress upward, the covers slipped, and she fell back hard to the floor.
The pain took her breath away yet again. But she had resolve now to live, so after only a brief moment, she thought she could pull then press on the bed frame to leverage herself up.
It worked! She was up on her knees beside the bed. “Thank you,” she said to no one. Her voice was barely audible even in the silent room.
She still needed to muster the strength to get all the way up and then out to the car. There was no landline in the cabin and her cell phone was in the car.
As she sat kneeling beside the bed, she thought that this time when she would sink her body into those precious leather seats, she would be filling them with her dirty body covered in stale urine and vomit. She didn’t care. She wanted out of here and out of this life.
The pain finally subsided enough that she could use her right hand to push herself up enough to get her wobbly legs underneath her. Standing upright relieved some pain that she had felt while lying prone on the floor.
She slowly shuffled to the bedroom door. The eye less swollen had opened more in the last few hours. It allowed her enough vision to see the door and the way out.
Keys. She needed keys. Had she brought them in with her or left them in the car? She couldn’t remember.
In the living room, she glanced around to see if she could see any sign of them. The room was in disarray. A faint memory of a struggle teased her mind. All but one lantern had burned out completely and with the night coming on, it was dim in the room.
Standing in the doorway she could not see any sign of the keys. She didn’t feel like she could walk the room looking for them in this much pain and in this much mess.
They had come in from the back through the kitchen. Maybe she had left them in there. She used the wall to steady herself as she made her way to the kitchen, her left arm still across her midsection protecting her ribs.
By now it was almost completely dark, and her swollen eyes made it even more difficult to see. She drug her hand across the countertop to see if she could feel for them.
Suddenly a sharp blinding pain sped through her hand. Broken glass. In the struggle they had broken at least one glass and maybe the bottle. A chunk now protruded out of her hand.
Carrie took a deep breath releasing her other hand from her side and moved to pull out the glass. When she did, blood rushed out. She had to find something to wrap around it. There would be a towel hanging by the bathroom sink.
The towel was hanging right where she remembered, which was good since it was dark in the bathroom. Carrie wrapped it the best she could around her cut hand. She stood bracing herself against the sink to gain enough strength to continue.
She tried to think hard about the keys. The car. She thought she remembered leaving them in the car. She hated to walk all the way out there only to have to come back. But if she could get to the car, her cell phone would be there even if the keys weren’t.
The loudness of the woods was almost deafening when she left the quietness of the cabin. The woods were filled with insects welcoming the night with their mating ritual sounds. Carrie had never stopped to realize just how loud it was this time of evening in the woods.
The light was dim outside and fading fast. She shuffled to the shed where the car was. She was looking down, watching the ground to make sure she didn’t trip. The last thing she needed was to trip and fall in her condition.
About three feet from the edge of the shed, she looked up and saw the open, gaping garage door. For a minute she thought in the dim light that her poor vision was deceiving her. The car was gone. Of course he would have taken the car. He had no other way to leave.
She made it to the side of the shed and then slid slowly to the ground. What would she do now? Her phone was in there, too. She knew, in the shape she was in, she could not make it down the long gravel road and out to civilization. It was a long way to reach another person and help.
As darkness settled in around her, the night air chilled her, making the pain worsen. Her only option was to go back into the cabin. She would try to clean herself up and bind her ribs. If she could rest, maybe even sleep, she might have enough strength to walk the road tomorrow.
Just like Scarlett she thought, as she made her way slowly back to the cabin, she would worry about that road tomorrow.
Chapter Fourteen
Senna woke early Sunday morning with anxiety. The closer the time came to go to church with Blake, the stronger the anxiety had grown.
Yesterday had been her day to work at the library. She and Andrea each worked two Saturdays a month with two part-time college students working the other two Saturdays.
Saturdays were usually busy at the library because kids were out of school and they plan several fun projects to get the kids interested in reading. There was still quite a bit to do for the book drive coming up at the school, so the day flew by rapidly for Senna. She’d had very little time to dread Sunday morning.
She and Blake had gone to the park again with another picnic dinner. This time of year was so nice out in the evenings. They both knew that would change soon as the summer heat settled in.
She knew Blake was intentionally avoiding talking about church. She could tell he wanted them to just enjoy their time together, and that was more than fine with her. They’d had a good time and had even wound up playing on the swings as if they were little kids again. She had laughed, and it had felt good.
But t
hat was last night and this morning she lay in bed, sick to her stomach about having to face this. What if she found she could not do this? She knew she would lose Blake over it. This was too important to him.
Then there was Andrea. Though she knew her friendship with Andrea was not based on going to church, Senna couldn’t help but think it would hurt her, and that was the last thing she wanted to do. When it had never been brought up, it had not been an issue. Now she would either accept or reject and both Blake and Andrea stood to feel any rejection personally.
And she knew what it would be. Senna knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that she would reject it. She knew this was only a formality. She would go this one time so that she could say she had gone, then reject further invitations.
Her soft bed felt good to her and, as she rolled over, she wished she could just stay there. She was sad because she knew today was a pivotal day and that things would never be the same again. In her heart she was already mourning the loss of the friendships she had just made and was about to lose.
Senna laid in bed until her phone rang. It was Blake confirming the time he would be by to pick her up. No avoiding it any longer, it was time to get dressed.
There was one suit she had bought recently while shopping, she really didn’t know why, but it had caught her attention. In her experience, it was always necessary to dress as formal as possible for church. So she pulled out that suit and dressed.
She pulled her hair back into the tight bun she had continually worn only a couple of weeks prior and left off any sign of makeup. When she looked into the mirror, she felt as though she were heading to her execution.
The doorbell rang, and she went to open the door. As the door swung open, she was surprised to see Blake standing there in blue jeans and an untucked shirt with his sleeves rolled part way up, and tennis shoes. Maybe they weren’t going to church after all.
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