Chapter 5

The next morning John was awakened by the sensation of having his nipples licked. He’d licked the nipples of a few girls in his past, but it’d never been done to him. He was astonished at how good it felt. It’d been a long while since he’d gotten any sexual relief, even self-gratification, and this was affecting him far more than he would have ever imagined.

He opened his eyes while trying to orient his mind to where he was, and what was happening. He finally realized the was laying on his side, with Brenda laying in a position so she was facing him. He slowly rolled over on his back, and she followed his movements. When she was on top, carefully working around his arm and shoulder that were still bandaged, he wrapped his good arm around her, and held her tightly against his abdomen. She threw a leg over his and tried to get into a more intimate position. John could tell, from how she felt against his thigh, she was very wet. Unfortunately, he wasn’t ready for it to progress further, so he held her tightly against his body, not giving her enough freedom to maneuver herself into a position that would allow penetration.

Kissing the top of her head he said, “This is a nice way to wake up in the morning.”

With a shy little grin she replied, “If you’ll let me up I’ll make it even nicer.”

“You know you don’t have to do this, don’t you?”

“Yes, but you’re ‘my man, ‘ and I want to take care of you.”

“Brenda, I’m concerned about this whole thing. I don’t know all the gory details, but I know you’ve been hurt and betrayed by more than one man in your life. At this point I’ve no future and no freedom. I don’t even know my own feelings concerning a relationship with you, but I do know I don’t want to be the cause of more hurt for you. My natural tendency is to push you away, but someone recently helped me see I need to allow you to make that choice, instead of me making it for you.”

“Thanks for caring, but I’m making that choice. I know the problems and uncertainties we face, but no man has ever made me feel so alive, so appreciated, so cherished. I’m not asking for anything more than the moment. I’m not expecting a ring, a house, or anything but a tiny piece of your heart. If you can give me that, I’ll feel like the luckiest woman in the world.”

“What about your Aunt?”

“She loves you John, but not in that way.”

He laughed, “That wasn’t what I meant.”

“I know, but it did sound funny. John, she and I have talked many times since the rescue. She knew I planned to sleep here last night, and what it’d probably lead to. It’s at her direction the door was left unguarded. I won’t go so far as to say she’s encouraged this, but I’ll say she’s done nothing to fight it. She’s even created a new job position for me, Liaison to the System Consultant, based on our conversation in her office yesterday. This will justify us being together throughout the day. I’m excited about the new position, though the position I want most right now is for you to be in me.”

Satisfied with her answer John released the restraint of his arm and pulled her where they could kiss. He started with a soft tender kiss, but she was far too gone for that. She slipped her tongue between his lips and seemed to be using it to give his mouth a physical examination. As their kiss became hotter and hotter, she brought her body into position where she could mount him and make love to him. To add to the erotic feel of the moment, she started giggling out of sheer joy. It wasn’t long before John could hear her begin to pant, and shortly thereafter they both let go of their emotions in a long overdue orgasm each. She eased her body onto his chest, and slid off of her knees. She laid her head on his chest, and John wrapped his arm around her. Not wanting this to stop, but concerned about the reactions of others if they’re caught like this John softly said, “Brenda, I hate to interrupt this wonderful moment, but can you see the time?”

She looked over at the clock beside the bed. Realizing the time she urgently pulled away while she said, “It’s almost seven-thirty. We both know Aunt Beth is understanding, but I don’t need to be caught like this.”

She quickly headed for the bathroom while John straightened the room. When he heard the shower start he relieved himself at the commode. For her sake he made sure he let the seat down. He entered the shower while she was finishing, and they had a moment of ‘body rubbing’ before she stepped out and began to dry off. He could sense she was somewhat in a panic because of staying in the bed too long.

Hoping to help, John said, “Brenda, why don’t I start on breakfast while you finish your hair and get dressed. Then I can shave while you finish. That way, if anyone comes, it’ll just look like you came in at seven-thirty to help us get off to an early start.”

John could see some of the tension drain, as she thought about what he’d said. “Could You? I think it would cover us.”

“No problem. Also, I know we had to get up quickly, and we need to discuss this further; but I really enjoyed our time together.”

“I did, too. That was probably the best I’ve ever experienced. I just wish we could’ve enjoyed the afterglow awhile longer. You really made me feel appreciated, and the tenderness of your hands was like nothing I’ve ever felt before.”

“Brenda, you’ve had sex before, but that was more than sex. I don’t have a clue about how our relationship can work, but I know I care deeply for you as a person, with or without the sexual aspect. I’m more bonded to you right now than I was ever bonded to my wife.”

John then disappeared into the kitchen, and looked through what’s available. Finding some English muffins he quickly split them and placed them into the toaster oven. He also found several patties of sausage that had been previously cooked. He took four of them and quickly broke them up into a frying pan, adding the others, but leaving them whole. As the sausage was warming John started heating another smaller frying pan after spraying it with non-stick oil. He looked in the refrigerator and got some milk, butter, juice and eggs. He flipped over the whole sausage patties and stirred the broken pieces. In a moment he removed the whole patties and sprinkled some flour and a pinch of salt in with the sausage pieces. He gave it several twists of the pepper mill and let the hot grease mix with the flour. Before John could do anything else he felt Brenda’s soft body slide up against him. She said, “I can take over here, while you go finish getting ready. Now what are we cooking?

“It’s called ‘Tiger Eggs.’ You’ve got English muffins in the toaster oven to watch, you need to add milk to the sausage and flour to make sawmill gravy. Fix four over-light eggs in the other frying pan. When you finish, you’ll have four buttered English muffin halves, each with a sausage patty and egg, covered with the sawmill gravy. Think of it as an Alabama redneck version of Eggs Benedict.”

She laughed while she sarcastically said, “Thanks for keeping it simple. That’s a hell of a lot to coordinate.”

“I know, but if it’s fixed right, it’s definitely worth the effort. Do you need me to help finish and then shave?”

“Go ahead. If I’ve problems, I’ll call. The first time might not be as good as you like, but I’ll learn.”

John quickly shaved and put on some jeans and a pull-over shirt, slipped on the moccasins, without socks, and joined her in the kitchen just as she set everything on the table. When he sat he bowed his head to give silent thanks for the food, and everything else that was happening in his life. Before he finished giving thanks, the phone rang. He got up from the table, went over to the wall phone a few feet away, and said, “Hello.”

“John, this is Warden Saunders. Is Brenda in yet this morning?”

“Yes, Ma’am. She’s so excited about her new ‘position’ she ‘came’ early, and has already prepared my breakfast. She’s really anxious to see things begin to ‘come’ together.” Brenda was about to choke while listening to me use the double meanings, with emphasis, while talking to her Aunt.

Warden Saunders, though, took it in stride. With a mischievous tone she replied, “I bet she’s looking forward to getting ‘hard’ to work at getting things ‘straight.’ Anyway, what I called about is, do you know a Dan Cashman?”

“Yes, Ma’am. He was my partner.”

“He called my secretary from Mexico first thing this morning wanting to get a street address where he could FedEx some software.”

“He caught me on-line last night, and has offered to help.”

With real concern in her voice she said, “I was worried about someone recognizing you on-line, I thought you were going to take precautions.”

“Warden, there’s one site I needed to review and get some opinions on my various options. This site is by invitation only, so if my old user name and password hadn’t worked I would’ve been left out in the cold. He just happened to be on at the same time. I don’t see him as a problem, and I think he’ll help us.”

“OK, but please be careful.”

“I’ll do my best. What he’s trying to send us should enable us to convert the existing data in a fraction of the time it would’ve otherwise taken. I was supposed to get that information for him, but he must’ve been so eager to help he made the long-distance call himself.”

“Are you finished eating?”

“No, Ma’am, we were just starting.”

“Is there enough to share? I really didn’t get to eat this morning.”

“If not, we’ll make some more.”

“I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

“We’ll try to keep yours warm, but we need to go ahead and eat.”

John placed one of the ‘Tiger eggs, ‘ without the gravy, into the toaster oven at a low heat and returned to his place. Brenda had finished hers and was eyeing the extra one. “If you’re hungry, put some more on.”

“I might. Will you eat more than one?”

“Why don’t we split that one? If your Aunt wants more than one, or if we’re still hungry, then we’ll fix more.”

Smiling, she replied, “That will work. These are good. How did they come up with the name ‘Tiger Eggs?“

“Some boarding house at Auburn started making them occasionally. When asked what they’re called someone said they’re ‘Tiger eggs.’“

“But, Tiger Eggs?”

While they were talking Warden Saunders knocked and came on in. Brenda got her a plate and added the saved portion from the toaster oven. She turned the oven off and got her Aunt a cup of coffee. She sat the plate and the coffee in front of her Aunt and spooned some of the thick white gravy on top of the sausage, egg, and muffin combination.

John continued, “Auburn’s sports teams are called the ‘Tigers, ‘ and the students are extremely loyal and vocal. Because of the school spirit it’s a very special place to go to school.”

“Ah, now it makes sense.”

Warden Saunders asked, “What were you talking about?” So Brenda explained the name of the dish and how it got named.

The Warden nodded and then asked, “But John, if it’s such a unique place, why did you only attend one year?”

“I had a scholarship from Stanford in computer science, which is one of the best places in the world to study computers. I stayed home and going to Auburn my first year, because my mom was dying of cancer and my dad needed me there. Mom died in December, and Dad just faded away. By April he was gone, too, since without Mom he just lost the will to live. I had the executor sell everything, putting the proceeds in a trust fund to supplement my college. I contacted Stanford, and they were glad for me to transfer there at the beginning of my sophomore year.”

Shaking her head in obvious distress Warden Saunders said, “So at the age of fifteen you were on your own. How did you cope?”

“Not easily. The trustee was given guardianship, but he had to give temporary custody to somebody in the Stanford area. We went through several families and widows before we found someone who really cared about me as a person. Even with all that, I never found someone who has cared for me as you have.”

There were tears in the corner of her eyes when she said, “I just wish we could set you free.”

“I know, and I feel your love and caring more than you know. I almost wish I could call you Mom, because you seem to care for me like she did. I knew Dad loved me, but he was intimidated by my intelligence. It’s like it made him feel inferior, though I never tried to do that. But Mom never cared about those things; they just ‘were’ in her eyes. They no more affected her view of me than the color of my hair.”

Pushing away her plate Warden Saunders said, “Brenda, that was fabulous.”

“Aunt Beth, most of this was John’s work. I just finished up at the end.”

“So we learn that you have other talents besides the computer.”

“Unfortunately, I had to learn while Mom was sick. I’m not a gourmet chef, by any means, but I won’t starve.”

“I hate to move on to other things, but I’ve a meeting starting in a few minutes that will last most of the day. Did Brenda tell you of her new position?”

John grinned and replied, “Yes, Ma’am. She showed it to me earlier this morning.” Brenda turned red as a beet, and her Aunt got the hiccups from laughing so hard.

Then, with her Aunt still laughing, Brenda slapped him on the arm and said, “I’ll get you for that, Buster!”

“Sorry about that, Warden, it was just too good to resist. Yes, she did. I understand the liaison part in concept, but how about explaining it in practical terms?”

“Well, besides the aspect of preparing meals and being here at odd hours, her job is to make sure you get everything you need. Now, ignoring the teasing reference to sexual activity it also means if you need information regarding prison requirements she’ll get it. If you need something done like data entry she’ll take care of it. She has my full authority, so you won’t have to come to me for approval of anything, unless you both feel it’s important you see me about it.”

“Does that include hardware items?”

“John, I’ve scraped up sixty thousand from the current budget for you to work with. One of the meetings I’ve got this week is with the Governor. If we can have some rough ideas to show her, along with the financial requirements, we can probably get some of her emergency funds.”

He nodded, and said, “Warden, I’ll do my best.”

In contrast to the pleasant morning Brenda and John had experienced, Maria Corsay (whose Indian name was ‘Little Ground Squirrel’) lay softly crying on a pile of furs and rags in the corner of an old Indian dwelling. For the second time in her life Maria felt terrified and no longer in control.

Several days earlier, she’d been kidnapped by the man whom her parents had forced her to marry almost four years ago. He’d grabbed her from the Arizona State University Parking lot and brought her blindfolded to this isolated area. Since she was in a Navajo Hogan she assumed she was somewhere on the Navajo Indian Reservation (in her Indian Studies Class she’d learned the structural differences between a hogan and the wickiup of her people, the White Mountain Apache).

For what seemed like days her feet and hands had been bound, and she’d been beaten until there was very little of her body that wasn’t bruised. The ordeal had really begun four years earlier, shortly after she turned sixteen. For the previous six years she’d been raised by her grandfather, Jason ‘Longbow’ Magill, who lived in an isolated corner of the western part of the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. Her parents had given her over to him, saying they were too busy in their missionary work to other Apache tribes to deal with a rebellious and insolent child. She really wasn’t like they claimed, they just rejected her because she preferred to learn the old ways of her people. Their belief was she should give up her Apache heritage as they had, and ‘live in the real world’ following the ways of the ‘Lord’ (as they defined them).

During those early years she and her grandfather had been very close. Being the apple of his eye he’d taught her all the ways and knowledge of the Apache, not just those normally taught to a woman. At thirteen she’d participated in the sacred ritual known as Na ii ees, or the Sunrise Ceremony, which celebrated her transition into womanhood and honored this time in her life as holy. Out of pride for his granddaughter, and wanting to see his daughter and her husband be part of their daughter’s life, he sent them a picture of her dressed for the ceremony. Regrettably, instead of instilling pride in their daughter’s growing up the picture infuriated Maria’s parents. They didn’t see it as just a rite of passage, they saw it as a flaunting of the grandfather’s pagan religion. In their view her grandfather, a respected Diiyan (which literally means ‘one who has power, ‘ but is normally translated Medicine Man or shaman), represented everything they stood against. Not only did he reject the teachings of their church, and in their view by doing so he rejected Christianity, he continued to teach those who wanted to learn the ways of the past. Even worse he was a military hero of the Vietnam War; he’d killed people in the war. It didn’t matter to them it was war, or he was in the military; it just went totally against their belief in ‘Thou shalt not Kill.

Maria’s parents were upset, but not enough to change their lifestyle of traveling from area to area preaching a doctrine of do’s and don’ts (mostly don’ts) and hatred toward all who didn’t believe as they believed. Wherever possible they attempted to disrupt the tribal celebrations and dances by any means available. They also spent a lot of time going into regular churches, raising support for their work against these ‘savages’ and their ‘pagan, satanic practices.’ If they were really honest about it they spent a lot more time raising money than they did working with the tribes. Also, many of the things they did were primarily to demonstrate to their supporting churches they actually were doing something.

At sixteen Maria was chosen as homecoming queen of the small high school she attended, and her proud grandfather sent a picture to her parents. She was now five-five and weighed about one hundred ten pounds. Though she’d the high cheekbones of the typical Indian physiology she didn’t have the pudgy roundness normally found in many of the women of her people. Her eyes were dark, but her hair was not pure black, but more a deep, dark brown. Unfortunately for Maria another couple in her parents’ group had seen the picture. They convinced her parents Maria just needed a strong man who’d discipline her, break her rebellious spirit, and bring her to the ways of God. What was more, they had the perfect candidate, their son, Robert Gray Hawk, who was supposedly doing missionary work among the Lakota Sioux. In actuality he was in a detox center in Colorado, but his parents were convinced he needed a wife to help him get past his drinking.

So, four years ago her parents showed up at her grandfather’s saying they were on vacation and wanted to spend time with her. She’d reluctantly gone with them, but had been surprised at how much effort her parents had put forth to show they’d changed. On that Sunday morning they told her that they’d be going to church, but she was welcome to stay at the hotel. She’d decided since they had been so accommodating, she’d go with them. Once inside the church building she suddenly found herself bound, gagged, and standing next to a man she had never seen. Seconds later she realized it was a wedding, her wedding. She tried everything she could to escape or disrupt the proceedings, but to no avail. At the end, when the pastor read the vows instead of her saying ‘I do’ her mother said, “She does.”

After the ceremony they’d all gone to a cheap motel. While her mother kept explaining they were doing this to save her soul, and provide her the discipline she needed from a husband his parents had tied her hands and feet to the four corners of the bed. When they finished tying her down her mother kissed her, and said she was praying for her soul. Both parents left and were barely out of the parking lot before Robert Gray Hawk, her ‘husband, ‘ brutally took her virginity, making no effort to get her wet, ease her pain, or get her off. And this is the way it continued for the next week. He took her other virginities, he drank, he fucked her harshly, he drank, he beat her, and he drank. The last two days he’d been so drunk he hadn’t been able to keep an erection, but he blamed her for that, too. In punishment he beat her more, and refused her food and water. By the time their parents arrived to take them to their new home Maria was in pretty bad shape.

Maria’s father was appalled at the situation, but his wife and the boy’s parents convinced him it was Maria’s fault. Robert’s mother convincingly said it was their daughter’s rebellious attitude that caused her kind and good son to lose his temper and beat her, and it was her resistance to fulfilling her wifely duties that caused him to drink.

Ignoring treatment for her they took her with them to their home in Ruidoso, New Mexico, near the Mescalero Apache Indian Reservation. Here her ‘husband’ and his parents kept her as a slave for more than a year. She had to do all the housework for him and his parents who lived next door. She also had to provide sexual satisfaction to all three.

One weekend with everyone but her ‘husband’ gone to disrupt some celebration among the Kiowa Apache she managed to escape while he was passed out drunk. Unable to find his car keys she at least found a New Mexico road-map. She grabbed a few small items to help her and began her escape.

Deciding she shouldn’t be seen on any of the roads in the area she started north through the Lincoln National forest using the ground-eating lope of an Apache warrior. Though it was only a little over thirty miles to highway 380 it was through fairly rough country. To make it worse she had to cross several groups of four to six thousand foot high mountains instead of being able to run along the ridges. Late in the day she came to a small stream running between two high ridges. Since her body wasn’t in very good shape she fell exhausted at the edge of the stream. Waking up sometime later she was at least feeling somewhat human. What was even more important, she felt free for the first time in what seemed a lifetime. It wasn’t yet dark, so she was able to find some berries and roots to eat. She washed them down with water from the cold mountain stream. Maria had brought her husband’s large folding knife, some small rope, and a blanket. Moving away from the stream she found a thicket of young aspen saplings. She selected three and tied the tops of them to a fourth at about sixteen inches above the ground. She cut several smaller trees and wove them in a pattern across the first three. When she finished she cut other young aspens to lay across them, leaving no area uncovered. She added some fragrant juniper, sassafras, and pine boughs to help cover her scent. Finally, she cut numerous small thick tops from some red maple and pussy willow bushes and shoved them inside the ‘tent’ she’d built. She then crawled inside, arranged the soft leafy limbs into a bed, wrapped herself in the blanket, and went to sleep.

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