Waiting For Eden (Eden Series) (3 page)

All traces of water had disappeared, and she seemed to be on some sort of ridge….
and high up now.  The trees had thickened and the undergrowth was scrubbier, denser than before... and she really couldn’t see very far in any direction.

“Shit,” she repeated, softly this time.  But really,
in whatever direction she set out, she was bound to run into something… eventually.  This wasn’t the freaking Adirondacks!

Flipping open her cell phone, it read zero bars, zero G’s
, and her heart dropped in response.  She wasn’t going to be hitting up her GPS location anytime soon. 

Her eyes flew over the map again, and Alex
finally spotted the fire-tower, from where James Sheldon must have detected her wicked rebel flames last evening.  If she could get back to it, she could easily find her bearings.  But in what direction should she go? 

Suddenly remembering her compass, she yanked it from her pack and fumbled with it.  Dismayingly, her fingers were shaking.   The arrow spun dizzily around as she rotated, until she finally located North. 
             

“I’ll take a gander on heading
west,” Alex muttered, breathing a little easier.  If she didn’t come back across the trail, she would eventually hit Route 144 and hitch a ride back to Ole Bull.  Simple. 
But not painless
, she thought, squinting at the rough terrain encircling her.  It seemed as though she would be getting a taste of the great outdoors the hard way.

~~~~~~

“S-h-i-t.  Shit.  Definition: excrement.  Dung.  Feces. Word of the day.” 

Sweat dribbled down between the cleavage of her breasts, 34 C’s to be exact, which were smushed forlornly in a too-tight running bra.  Alex halted, panting, and leaned against the rough bark of an oak tree, or a maple, or
an ash, who the hell knew exactly. 

She’d definitely had the shits of the mountains right now. 
Like….
definitely
.

Alex reached into her
lycra-spandex sports bra and scratched at the maddening droplet of sweat that continued to plague her like a tiny insect.  Oh
Christ
, it
was
a bug!  She grabbed it and flung it into the bushes without further inspection.  “Better if I don’t even know,” she muttered.  Now she felt itchy everywhere.

She
had paused to catch her breath after reaching a summit of some sort, both long and narrow, extending outwards from her left and right.  A grouping of wizened apple trees wiggled in the slight breeze, sporting a smattering of small white flowers which promised fruit in the season to come.  A slim doe with twin speckled fawns darted among the apples and into the open before her.  Alex froze, staring in startled delight. 

The youngsters paused to view her disheveled person curiously, while the doe stood guard
cautiously.  With her white tail flashing upward, the doe’s nostrils distended to pull in Alex’s human scent.  After determining that she was in fact, a threat, the doe bounded off abruptly, and the fawns followed suit, bucking in defiance and rampant glee.  Alex watched as their soft brown bodies and waving tails disappeared over the ridge.

On
sudden impulse, she followed them.  She eventually reached a fairly severe edge, and halted uncertainly, for the terrain was steep and vastly rugged below her.  The animals were already small dots in the distance, winding downward and downward, following a small stream that gurgled forth from springs along the top of the hollow. 

Well, she would do the same
as the deer.  Unless she changed her course, and struck off to the north or south, there was nowhere else to go but down.

Alex began her
careful descent.  It was rocky at the top, and footholds were difficult to find and keep.  It was steeper than she had even anticipated.  She went from tree to tree, pausing at the base of each to catch her balance and regroup. 

The weight of the pack on her back was throwing her off, and she felt ungainly and top-heavy.  Not to mention the fact that her legs felt like Jell-O after the last three hours of stead
ily climbing upward over tree limbs and rocks.

Almost lost it that time, Alex, better stop and take a
nother breather,
she counseled herself after a particularly shaky move, but when she stopped her legs from moving - the ground beneath her simply didn’t.  She was sliding, the backpack swinging roughly on her shoulders, as she desperately tried to counter balance. 

But
then her feet were out from under her, and she was rolling down the ravine, with no way to stop. 
One-way down
, the thought flashed in her head, before her world was filled with a tumble of stones and ferns and crashing noise, and the wildest, fastest ride of her life.

~~~~~~

The world was out of focus
.  Alex blinked and sucked in a fearful breath, for right above her, a strange being hovered insidiously, stretching so tall and dark that she couldn’t even see its head.  It reminded her of the Slender Man, from children’s tales.

Another blink and the image lightened, sharpened, and Alex slowly realized that she was staring upwards from the ground at the base of an
immense
tree.   Remembering the fall, she cautiously wiggled her fingers and toes, and was grateful that there were no resultant stabs of pain. 

Alex became aware of the bulky pack beneath her shoulders and head,
and it seemed as if the whole damned contraption had wrenched itself up under her armpits.  Luckily so, she mused, struggling to push herself into a sitting position.  There were rocks upon piles of rocks behind her, a steep outcrop of forty feet or so over which she had obviously taken a ride.  The ungainly pack that had caused her fall must have shielded her head and back from any nasty impact.

As she surveyed the area around her, relief quickly melded into amazement.  Massive pines and oaks surrounded her,
behemoth
trees that spiraled powerfully upward to the heavens.  It made her dizzy trying to locate their crowns in the great canopy so far above.  She felt like an ant crouched in the backyard of giants. 

Shakily, she wobbled to her feet, and made a show of brushing off her pants and rearranging her pack, choosing to momentarily ignore the engulfing forest.  She
needed a second to collect herself.  When Alex peered around again, cautiously this time, the result was the same.  Wonderland.

The small, spring-fed stream ran nearby, gurgling playfully as it meand
ered around stones, and trickling beneath overhanging roots the thickness of her entire body.  Bunches of lush ferns patterned the leaf and needle covered earth in a verdant patchwork, but there was very little additional undergrowth.

Alex recalled reading of the Redwood forests of California, where the trees were so huge you could drive a car beneath one of them.  Well, these trees weren’t too far
off from the redwoods she’d read about. They couldn’t be.  She had never seen anything like them.

Her eyes were drawn back to the water, and Alex decided to follow it on
its gurgling course downhill, as the deer had. She was a little stiff, but the hiking went rather easy due to the sudden openness of the forest. The view was spectacular, and Alex felt an almost mystical excitement as she made her way down the narrow valley. 

Each tree seemed larger and more powerful than the next, so
stolid and firm, and far above.  Their branches seemed woven together to form a beautiful networking canopy that swayed, ever-so-slightly, in response to the slow breeze. They seemed more like creatures than trees, sentinels watching her, guarding her descent. Alex somehow felt protected.

A
nother small group of deer milled to her left, and she continued past them undetected as they snuffed for acorns.  Her mood lifted further when Alex realized she had come upon a small, well-trodden path... for after all, a path had to lead somewhere!  She wasn’t lost, not really, she told herself happily. 

Down and down she hiked, and slowly the great trees receded behind her, the undergrowth thickened, now peppered with assorted trees of less stature.  Alex was grateful for the narrow path
she walked, for her view was quite restricted now, and wading through the saplings and shrubbery would have been exhausting.

Suddenly, a gray, sloping roof wavered in the distance.  Alex soon found herself emerging into the backyard of an old farmhouse.  The aged building was drab and ramshackle
, early 1900’s or so, she guessed.  Shielding the bright sun from her eyes with one hand, Alex scanned the area. 

She started, catching a momentary flash at one of the windows.  A pale old face, there for a second, then gone.  A woman’s face.

Somebody
was
home.  Alex started forward uncertainly.  The grass was thick and un-mowed yet this spring, and she moved through it slowly toward the back door. 

The house had a wrap-around porch, and had once been painted white, but the
original bright color was now chipped and peeling.  Alex mounted the three steps and paused at the door, whose screening was hanging in disrepair. 

She knocked loudly, feeling a little nervous about appearing out of nowhere on someone’s private property.  But it really was time to figure out just where the hell
she was, and exactly how she was going to find her way back to her car and civilization.

Waiting for Eden

~*~*~*~*~*~

Chapter 3

The face in the mirror was pale
and drawn,
and the sky blue eyes gazing back were watery and red-rimmed.  It simply would not do. 

Andrea picked up a blusher brush and furiously applied some color to her cheeks.  She followed her ministrations with several drops of Visine to each eye, blotting the corners carefully.  She’d rather be caught dead than teary-eyed and fearful when Marcus returned. 

Stepping back from the mirror, she viewed the full length of her curvy body.  Clad in only a sheer black teddy, Andrea felt the familiar shimmer of pleasure she received from admiring her own flesh.  She touched the apex of her slender thighs briefly, and felt her loins respond with a surge, her nipples hardening immediately, as they always did.  But there was no time for such indulgence today.

Striding to the closet, she chose a simple silk robe that covered her near
ly-naked limbs.  She would placate Marcus with her body only if necessary.  After all, it really wasn’t her fault…

Andrea heard the key in the lock, and froze in the middle of the room, straightening her spine and composing herself.  She ached for a cigarette, but Marcus did not allow smoking in the apartment. 

He entered the large master bedroom, dropping his coat and suitcase on the couch.  Marcus didn’t look at her initially, so she had time to watch him, and assess his mood.  He was a tall man, his body corded with wiry muscles obtained from years on the street, with darkly waving hair and eyes to match. 

Marcus was an imposing man, and a handsome one,
as beautiful as the devil was beautiful.  Andrea observed the line of his jaw, and in those lines she could discern the tension and anger lingering there.  She steeled herself.

Marcus turned slowly, and smiled.  His manner was relaxed, and he slowly undid his tie with long fingers.  His eyes were dark and hooded, and Andrea was not fooled by his casual air. 

Refusing to let herself tremble, she turned and padded to the table, picking up her glass of wine.  He was on her before the crystal reached her lips.  The wine spewed across the carpet, the glass bouncing noiselessly into the corner.

“Marcus, I-”  Her words were cut short by a sharp and stinging slap across the cheek and she would have fallen but for the hard fingers that gripped her forearm painfully.  “It’s not my fault!” she blurted, hating the way she winced and cowered when he raised his hand again.

Instead of striking her, Marcus shoved her backwards, but Andrea reflexively caught her balance.  She rubbed her numbed cheek and glared at him.

“What happened
, Andrea?” he demanded.

“The cleaning woman was there, she came a whole day early!  How was I supposed to know she’d change her schedule, I...
?”

“It’s your screw-up, you dumb bitch,” Marcus ground out slowly.  “You were supposed to be in their apartment BEFORE the time I told you.  Simple.  That was the major rule, the ONLY thing you had to
fucking do right.  The only thing.” 

“But I can still get to it!  I know it, there’s time, I—“

“Bullshit.  There are cops all over the place now.  It’s done.”

Marcus advanced slowly, and Andrea took three steps backward until her legs came up against the edge of the bed, effectively halting her retreat.  Marcus placed his hands on her shoulders and shoved her down forcefully.  “Sit.”

His hands moved to unzip his pants, freeing his turgid erection.  “Now.”  Andrea drew a steeling breath, Marcus was always turned on by the power he held over her.  She bent her head to do his bidding, squeezing eyes shut to keep any fear from showing, furious that she would have no chance to use her body to placate him.  A simple blowjob would not be enough to stop what happened afterwards.

She felt his girth swelling in her mouth, and his hands roughly winding her hair into his fists, pulling her tighter, deeper, down over his burgeoning erection until she began to gag. 

As he began to thrust into her throat even harder, she felt hot reflex tears begin to dribble down her cheeks, or perhaps it was mere humiliation.  She tried to keep her noises to a minimum.  If she gagged too loudly, he would thrust even harder.

Finally, his back arched and the muscles in his neck pulsed as he finished, holding her head in place until she had swallowed his hot seed.  He then withdrew and turned his back to her, and Andrea wiped her mouth on the sleeve of the robe while he fastened his pants. 

“I want a solution from you,” Marcus demanded quietly.  “You have ten minutes to think of a really good one.  So good luck with that, dumbass.”  He moved to the bathroom, slamming the door behind him. 

Andrea relaxed, falling back across the bed when she heard the shower engage.  She knew that anything she said would not be good enough for Marcus.  She prayed his temper would dampen beneath the cascade of steaming hot water.

How had she gotten herself into this mess?  Of course, if not for Marcus, she might still be walking the streets, her pimp beating on her every other night.  Marcus only beat her up every once in a while really...

Having run away from an abusive step-father at the age of fourteen, Andrea found herself miserably combing the streets of
New York City after her small wad of cash ran out, sleeping in shelters or under bridges, finding food if and where she could. 

Prostitution was a natural progression, a step up in the world, actually.  But it had been rough going, her johns foul-smelling and disgusting, not to mention the rottenness of the pimp who had gotten to her first.  Being fucked nightly by her step-father might
just have been preferable.

One rainy night in June, Marcus had picked her up along
E 66
th
Street, and amazingly, they had spent the night simply talking.  He told her he’d been watching her for weeks, and that he saw beneath her cheap, slutty clothes and heavy makeup to the fair-skinned loveliness that lay beneath.  He told her she was destined for bigger and better things, if she would listen to and obey him.

Marcus was beautiful, his young body
impossibly hard and sinewy, and Andrea had felt an incredible sense of lust that she had never before experienced.  But Marcus hadn’t slept with her, not until he had her under his control, hook, line, and sinker.  As it turned out, he was a brutal lover, and cared not a whit whether she found her own pleasure in the act. 

Once on the streets himself, Marcus had been a gang member, stealing, dealing, sometimes selling his own body for whatever deviant use would bring large sums of cash.  But Marcus had a sharp mind to his advantage, and he had risen above the ranks of underground street crime to larger and more prosperous dealings. 

As the money flowed in, Marcus made himself over completely, projecting himself as a college-educated businessman, with tailored suits and impeccable English.  His sharp mind was constantly absorbing, turning, planning, and twisting new ideas into ingenious schemes.  Marcus had larger fish to fry.

Why he had chosen
her
, a simple slut hooker, Andrea would never know.  Why did she continue feeling grateful that he kept her, as mean and hurtful as he was?  All she knew was that Marcus had been the man who cleaned her up, and given her the appropriate schooling to pass herself off as a credible secretary.  She could not help but continue to love him.

Although she could never be a
true lady, he taught her how to behave like one.  And now, she was an instrumental part of his planning, using her when a sexy blond could gain more information than any man or dowdy woman could... only she had completely failed in this latest endeavor.  God, sometimes she detested herself.

It
was supposed to be a simple maneuver, and Marcus had fastidiously planned it, with the solid unmarked bills to follow from Brian Ridgeway when he had attained the key.  But it hadn’t happened that way.  One glitch, a fucking
cleaning woman
in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the whole thing blew up. 

At the time, Andrea thought it wouldn’t matter, she was sure she could find the access code inside the apartment, she had been inside many times, and even knew
the combination to the man’s safe.  She had screwed him –literally and figuratively- to gain that knowledge.

The thought left a bitter taste in her mouth, ten times worse than Marcus’s semen
had earlier.  Andrea rose and retrieved her wine glass from the corner, cursing when she stepped in the wet remains of her first glass.  It was white, at least it wouldn’t stain. 

As she poured, she realized that the shower had kicked off some time ago.  She looked over her shoulder apprehensively.  Marcus was in the doorway, and his long, lean body was naked.  His penis was flaccid, but Andrea felt a glimmer of hope anyway. 

Sh
e padded across the carpet, swaying her hips seductively.  When she reached him, she dropped her robe, swirling a finger in the cool Chardonnay.  She brushed her index finger across his nipple, and then ducked her head to suck upon it lightly for his pleasure.

He flicked
her own bared nipple hard.  “I’m not finished discussing the incident yet, Andrea,” he murmured. 

“
Oww,” she pouted up at him, still licking at that puckered male nub with the pointy tip of her pink tongue.  “Ummm,” she purred softly, “not now, baby.  This tastes so good.”

His hand shot out and encircled her neck.  Andrea gagged, her eyes bulging under the pressure of his grip.  Marcus removed the wine glass from her clenched fingers, and threw back his head, downing the remainder.  “
How many times did we go over what you needed to do?” 

He released her, and she stumbled backwards. 
“You know what that means, Andrea.”  Humiliatingly, she could no longer control the quivering in her legs.  Marcus saw her weakness and smiled.  “Tell me what it means, Andrea.”

She saw that he was hard again, so fast this time!  “You can’t mark me up, Marcus!  I... I have an appointment with...”

“Tell me what it means, Andrea,” he repeated softly.

“I have to be punished,” she whispered.

“Get on the bed.”  She moved woodenly now, knowing she had lost.  “Lay back.”  She complied and he bent over her, his hands moving to stroke across her cheek and down her throat to her collar bone, almost tenderly.  “I won’t mark your face, darling,” he murmured.

Andrea managed to smile at him, confused. She felt his fingers
moving down across her belly and over her loins.  “Spread your legs.”                She complied, her breathing increasing.  Did he want her that way?

He bent closer, his lips touching her ear.  His hot breath made her shiver, half in fear,
and half in anticipation.  If only -   “Oh, Marcus,” she breathed, “I want you too.”

He rose slightly, and she recogni
zed the look in his eye.  The fear returned fully, swiftly.  He reached down beside the bed to pull up a small lock box.  Andrea began to cry audibly, brokenly, because she knew what kind of things he liked to do with the items in that box.

Marcus captured a nipple between his thumb and forefinger, and squeezed
, hard enough to make her squeal.  “You want me.  That’s good, because you’re going to get me, Andrea.  I’ll mark you up from the inside.”  After flicking open the box, he fell upon her.  Andrea felt his hand clamp across her mouth, and her resultant cry was silenced.

~~~~~~

Her knock went eerily unanswered.  Alex walked to a grime-coated window that was sporting a large, unsightly crack.  Cupping her hands around her eyes, she peered into the gloom.  She slowly made out a country-style kitchen, with oak cupboards and a giant wooden table with claw-footed legs. 

The flooring was hardwood, and there was an oak, preacher-style bench perched beside an old coal stove. The room was dark and uninhabited, and looked as if it had been that way for some time.  Had she
merely imagined the face in the window?

She knocked again, loudly this time, still peering into the kitchen.
 
What a shame
, she thought, for Alex could image the cozy room bustling with kids and grandmothers, with the little stove chugging out heat... and the scent of baking bread and cookies.  She sighed.  It was a simple, dumb dream she had known as a child. One she had never actually experienced.

Again, n
o one answered her persistent knocking.  She scratched her neck, dislodging a clump of dried mud.  Alex wondered what her friends would say if they could see her now.  Filthy, bruised, and lost in the backwoods.

Two weeks ago, she had made the mistake of telling them about her plans for a woodsy excursion, and they had been immediately appalled, scorning her idea as melodramatic and crude. 

“But I need to get the hell out of this city, Janine!  I mean, I NEED to.”

“Well, if that’s the case, I know a perfect little spa in southern Virginia that would be much more.... dignified.”
Which, in Janine-vocabulary meant
don’t revert to such crass, blue collar instincts, ye daughter of a backwoods, small town school teacher
.