“Tell me, Emma!” Ben stepped forward and took her by the shoulders roughly. She stared back at him with eyes that were full of sadness, not fear.
“We were prisoners, in a sense,” she said, almost in a whisper. “They took us from our parents, and they tried to ransom us. We were ten years old when we first met, just two little scared children, with no hope.”
Ben paused as he ran the sentence through his head.
We were held for ransom?
His head began to hurt again, but he continued to search every scrap of memory in his conscious and unconscious mind for hints of the truth.
Emma looked almost like she wanted to cry. She turned away from him and began walking forward, faster than she had been before, and without holding Ben’s hand.
“It’s right up here,” she said. “My place. Come on, we can talk more once we get there.”
The two of them walked in silence for a minute or two more, and then Emma stopped. The house they were in front of was drab and deep in disrepair, and Ben expected her to keep walking, to lead him around the corner or across the street. But she didn’t, and walked up to the front door, gesturing for him to follow.
“This is it,” she said softly. “Come on in.”
Ben furrowed his brow and followed after her, doing his best to not make judgments on the peeling paint job of the exterior and splintered wooden floorboards of the porch. It was a small, single story house, and the properties on either side looked to be either abandoned or foreclosed.
“Are your, uh, parents home?” Ben asked the question cautiously, realizing that he’d never talked much with Emma about her living situation.
“Not exactly,” she replied.
The inside of the house was only slightly nicer than the outside. It was clear that the wooden floors had been scrupulously swept and cleaned but there were still stains deep within the grain that suggested that it had been years, possibly decades since they’d had any real work done on them.
The living room was sparsely decorated, with only a single couch along the back wall for furniture, and no carpet. Ben glanced around for a TV, or computer, or anything to distract him from the assumptions his mind was attempting to jump to about Emma. She had a neutral expression on her face, as there was nothing out of the ordinary about the residence.
“I’ll get us something to drink,” she said. “Have a seat. You can relax, it’s just the two of us here.”
“Uh, okay.” Ben shrugged his shoulders and sat down on the couch, which was very drab looking and a little dusty. The room had an ancient scent to it that reminded him slightly of an antique store that Rachel had brought him to once.
“I have some beers if you want one,” said Emma. “Or soda, if that’s not your thing.”
“Beer, yeah that’s fine,” said Ben.
I might as well try to be polite. It’s not as though it really matters how nice her house is.
Emma was smiling and holding two bottles when she came back out. She joined Ben on the couch and handed him one.
“I’m sure you still have questions for me, Ben,” she said. “It’s not as though I don’t want to answer them. I was just hoping… well, I’m still hoping, that you’ll start to remember some more on your own.”
Ben took a sip of the beer and looked at the girl sitting next to him. Emma was so gorgeous, and yet so different from anyone else that he’d ever met. He couldn’t help but wonder about his missing memories, about what it was that had happened between them in their captivity that had tied the two of them so closely together.
“I understand, I guess,” said Ben. “You’ve given me a couple of basic details. I get that we were both… kidnapped? Is that how it was?”
Emma nodded.
“Okay, so we were both kidnaped, and held for ransom,” said Ben. “It was brutal, just judging from what little has come back to me, but obviously we escaped at some point. Is there anything else that’s crucial for me to know right now?”
Emma opened her mouth to respond and then hesitated. For the briefest moment, Ben could see conflict on her face.
“…No,” she said. “That’s pretty much it, Ben.”
Ben nodded, took another sip from his beer, and then almost jumped in surprise as Emma pushed herself closer up against him.
“I guess part of what I don’t want to have to tell you…” Emma slowly ran one of her hands up his leg, and excitement began to course through Ben’s body like electricity. “Is how close the two of us were, for those four years. That’s something I want you to remember really, really badly.”
“Emma…?” Ben was a little bewildered, but he set his beer down on the ground and didn’t resist as she moved closer to him.
Why don’t I remember any of this?
She placed a soft kiss on his lips, the type of kiss reserved for two people who share a sensually, well-formed love. Ben let his hands slide down to her waist as she continued kissing him, on the mouth, on the cheek, and then on the neck.
“Ben,” she whispered. “I… I missed you so much.”
Her hand rubbed his crotch with deliberate, aggressive affection. Ben felt his cock slowly began to harden underneath her touch and began to kiss her more passionately.
Regardless of what might have happened between the two of them years ago, the experience of making out with a girl on a couch, the two of them touching and petting each other freely, was still new to Ben. He was clumsy, and whether it was due to an actual lack of experience or from the gaps in his memories, it didn’t matter.
“Just relax,” whispered Emma. She took one of his hands and guided it up to her breast. Ben felt it through her t-shirt, so big and soft underneath his palm. Emma kissed him again, and then leaned away as she pulled her shirt up and over his head.
Am I lucky or am I cursed? What did we go through for her to feel this way about me?
Emma’s fingers were deft and efficient as they unbuttoned and unzipped Ben’s pants. She pulled them down and then kissed him again, first on the lips, and then on the neck, and then on his chest and stomach.
The kisses continued all the way down until her face was right in front of his boxer covered bulge. She kissed that as well, first through the fabric, and then, after sliding her fingers into his waistband and pulling his underwear down, right on the skin.
“Oh man, Emma!” Ben was in disbelief. He stared down at her as she smiled up at him, eyes full of excitement and flirtation.
“Ben,” she whispered. “I’m so glad that I found you.”
She pushed her lips forward, kissing the head of Ben’s cock as though it was no different from kissing his face. Ben groaned in pleasure and felt his hips jerk forward involuntarily, sliding the tip of his member into her warm, wet mouth for the briefest of moments.
“Sorry…” he whispered. Emma just smiled at him and wrapped one of her soft hands around his dick.
She moved her head forward and began to slowly kiss every inch of his shaft as though it was imperative for her to be thorough about it. It was torture of the most pleasurable kind, and Ben could feel his cock heating up and growing harder by the second.
Finally, Emma began to use her tongue along with her lips, licking Ben’s cock as though it was a fast melting popsicle on a hot day. Ben couldn’t stop himself from moaning, his eyes blinking and staring down at the beautiful teenage girl in disbelief.
This feels like a dream.
Emma smiled up at him as though she could read his mind, and then slowly moved her mouth back to the head of his penis. With deliberate slowness, she brought his cock to her lips, and then into her mouth, letting her soft lips create a seal against it as she began to suck him further and further in.
“Oh…wow,” moaned Ben. He had never experienced anything like it before in his life. Nothing could match the feeling of her mouth, and it almost felt a little scary. She suddenly had a strange power over him, this beautiful, mysterious girl that seemed to know him better than he knew himself.
> Emma looked as though she was enjoying giving him the blowjob as much as Ben was enjoying being on the receiving end of it. She took her time, sucking and slurping with little cute, lewd noises. She was an expert at it, as far as Ben could tell from his limited sexual experience. The fact would have given him pause if it wasn’t for how enamored she appeared to be with him.
“Oh yeah,” whispered Ben. “Emma, I’m…”
The girl didn’t slow down, even for a second. She sucked Ben off faster and faster, bringing more of his cock into her mouth until it was poking against the back of her throat. It was an odd sensation, but everything about the situation was odd.
Ben stared down at her and realized that she looked even more beautiful with her chest exposed than she did clothed. He wanted to take her bra off, and her jeans off, and everything off, until he could experience her naked body as it was meant to be seen. As Emma bobbed her head back and forth, her boobs jiggled with a tempting eroticism that was captivating for Ben to watch.
Without really thinking about it, Ben let one of his hands come to a rest on the back of her head. Emma’s eyes flashed with recognition, and suddenly Ben felt his was on the verge of remembering something. The pleasure was building in his crotch, and as her tongue wrapped around his cock inside of her mouth, Ben felt himself pass over an invisible limit.
“Emma!”
He held onto the back of her head as his cock began to blast out its load, hot and sticky and determined. Emma sucked down every drop, staring up at him with her gorgeous eyes the entire time as if looking for his approval. She continued sucking even after his cock had sprayed its last string, all the way up until the moment when it started to relax.
“Emma…” whispered Ben. He was spent, and he pulled his boxers and pants up as he felt his body melt into the couch. Emma pulled her t-shirt back over her head and smiled at him.
“I’m going to go make us a snack,” she said. “Wait right here.”
CHAPTER 9
“Hey Emma, where’s your bathroom?” Ben could hear chopping noises coming from the kitchen, along with the sound of water working its way to a boil.
“It’s just down the hall, on the right,” said Emma.
Ben stood up and glanced towards a hallway on the other side of the room. It was dark and dingy looking, with only a single light bulb hanging from a cord on the ceiling above. He headed down it, again feeling a little put off by how strangely off the entire inside of the house looked.
Maybe it’s just a work in progress? Though it doesn’t look as though there has been much work done to it, yet.
The door across from the one that Emma had directed him towards was open the tiniest crack. Ben ignored it at first, but light draft blew from somewhere behind him, creaking it ever so slightly further open. He stepped through the door immediately did a double take at what he saw on the other side.
The walls were covered in pictures of him, in various different sizes. His jaw dropped open, and he took a slow step into the room, turning in a complete circle and feeling his stomach begin to twist and know up as he saw the extent of the photos.
Some of these were taken recently. Emma has been… following me? Watching me?
Every inch of the wall in front of him was filled of photos of him, some with Danny and him walking together, others taken from the outside through windows in his house or school. All of them were incredibly unnerving to look at. The other walls had more photos, and disturbingly, they were all still of him. The entire room was like some kind of sick, voyeuristic shrine, with him as the figure of worship.
“What… the fuck?” Ben took a step back and bumped into a table. He turned and looked at the surface of it and saw something that made the situation suddenly feel much, much worse.
There were guns on it, lots of them. It took him a second to realize what they were, and another second to acknowledge that they weren’t props or toys. Ben lifted one of them, a pistol, up in his hand. Somehow, he could tell from the weight that it was most definitely loaded. Strangely, the gun felt a little familiar in his hand.
“You weren’t supposed to see this room.” Emma was standing in the doorway, her gaze downcast, abashed and guilty.
“Emma…” Ben was still holding the pistol, and suddenly it felt as though he needed it in his hand. “This is like, some serial killer stuff.”
“I can explain!” She took a step towards him and Ben instinctively raised the gun a little higher, not pointing it in a threatening way but making it clear that he wanted her to keep at a distance.
“How can you explain this?” asked Ben. “There is no explaining this, Emma!”
She shook her head from side to side, her eyes pleading for a second chance.
“Your parents don’t live here,” said Ben. “Do you even have parents, Emma?”
“Do you have parents, Ben?” Emma’s voice was just a whisper.
A long, tense moment went by without either of them saying anything. Ben tried not to look at any of the photos of himself as beads of sweat began to form slowly on his forehead.
I have to get out of here, now!
“I’m leaving, Emma,” said Ben. “I don’t care what you know, or what you have to say. You might have come here to find me, but I want nothing to do with you, from now on.”
“Ben!” cried Emma. “Hold on, just listen to me!”
“No!” Ben pointed the gun at her and moved forward. Emma took a step back, not so much out of fear, but almost as a way of compromising, taking a new approach in the hope of getting him to hear her.
“I love you, Ben,” she said, her voice wracked with emotion. “I thought you were dead for so long.”
Ben took a step into the hallway. He lifted the gun up and pointed it not at Emma, but at the ceiling. He knew that he had to get out of there and away from her, but some part of him held him in place.
Who is this girl? Who am I, to have her stalking me?
“Ben…” Emma took a step towards him, and he flinched back. His first instinct was to point the gun at her, but she had no weapon of her own. It was as though she trusted that he wasn’t going to shoot her, as though she trusted in that fact more than Ben did himself.
“Emma,” said Ben. “You need to stay away from me. Leave Emerald Hills, and don’t come back. I’m not interested in…”
He paused, unable to find the words to express what he was feeling. Instead, he just shook his head back and forth and then turned around.
“Ben!” cried Emma. He didn’t stop walking and sped up as he made his way to the door. He paused for a moment before leaving, making totally sure that Emma was still in the hallway before putting the pistol down on the floor and then sprinting out into the street.
Ben didn’t stop running until he was completely out of breath. He didn’t head home, even though he knew there was no point in misdirection. If Emma was following him, she already knew where he lived. She knew where he went to school, she knew that Danny was his friend and most likely where he lived, as well. And she knew so much more than just that, about everything that Ben had forgotten.
“Fuck!” Ben was headed out of town and towards the eponymous hills of Emerald Hills. There was a real estate sign on the lawn of a nearby house that was for sale, and he pulled his fist back and punched it as hard as he could.
Emma… Why did you come here in the first place?
Ben kept walking as he regained his breath. It was still early in the afternoon, but the sky was getting cloudy, and combined with what he’d just discovered, it gave the day a rather ominous feeling.
Emerald Park, the town’s foremost recreation and nature preserve, was just ahead of him. Ben felt as though he needed to sit down and take a breather, regain what he could of his composure before heading home and trying to make sense of the day.
There was a path that snaked its way through the park’s hills, and alongside it were some benches. Exhausted, Ben walked over to one and sat down hard, closing his eyes and taking a second f
or himself.
His back still hurt. It must have been years since the original injuries healed up, but the scars seared on his skin as though they were from the day before. Ben winced as he remembered the fainting episode and what he’d heard as he went down.
She had been yelling for them to stop. Maybe I made a mistake…
There was a noise from over in the street. An unassuming black van had pulled up alongside the park and slowed to a stop. There was something about it that made Ben’s blood run cold, and he looked at it out of the corner of his vision, trying not to turn and stare at it directly.
It was waiting for something, or someone. Ben sat on the bench and waited along with it, for someone to get out, or for it to move. It never happened.
After one of the longest minutes of his life, Ben stood up, wiped sweat off his forehead, and started walking deeper into the park. It was on the town’s flank and of a decent size, but there was little to no foliage cover outside of a couple of trees on its edges.
As Ben rounded the first corner in the path, he heard the unmistakable sound of a van door sliding open. He began to jog forward, off the path and up one of the hills, fighting the panic that was welling up inside his chest.
It’s just a van, probably with some workers or a family inside it
Ben sensed danger of a kind that was impossible to talk himself out of. He broke into a sprint as he headed up the last ten or so feet of the hill, falling forward and using his hands to pull himself forward, along with his feet.
As he made it to the top, he glanced over his shoulder and back at whoever was after him. There was nothing there. He could see the van from where he was, and all of its doors were closed.
Am I just being paranoid?
He shook his head, remembering the pictures of himself and the guns that he’d seen in Emma’s room. It all had to fit together somehow. She had tracked him here and whether she was an actual threat or not, he needed to be on guard.
Ben took several deep breaths and tried to calm himself down. He felt his heart rattling against his ribcage and did his best to will it to a slower rhythm. Then, after glancing as far around the park as he could, he began jogging down the other side of the hill.
Lost Memories (Forbidden Romance) Page 6
