Days went by. Armed with her stolen map, Alexa ranged as far as the next trading post to the east, called White’s. It was much like the others, but when she first saw it there were a number of men standing around outside it, talking and drinking what looked like beer, so she didn’t dare approach. Instead, she faded back into the sheltering woods, feeling angry and upset that no one had told her that beer was available at the trading posts. But then, Albert had told her that they weren’t obliged to offer information unless she specifically asked. Still, it felt like a raw deal to her. A nice, cold beer would be so good right now!
Once she’d had an unnerving feeling that she was being shadowed. It had stuck with her for most of the day as she crept slowly and cautiously from one patch of cover to another, all the while with her head on a swivel, looking in every direction from which a hunter…or hunters…might come. It wasn’t until after sundown that the feeling passed. She felt more than a little let down when it did, because feeling as if she was in imminent danger of being taken had her incredibly pumped up and powerfully aroused. Her sleep that night kept getting interrupted by vivid dreams of faceless men coming upon her in the night and dragging her, too sleepy to resist effectively, out of her sleeping bag. She always woke up at that point, heart pounding, mouth dry, her hands shaking.
This strange and new experience of being hunted was having an unexpected effect on her. On the one hand, she still desperately wanted to beat her competitors, and that drove her. On the other hand, the constant tension, while it had her feeling incredibly alive, was getting to the point where she could barely stand it. It was beginning to make her jumpy and nervous and, if she couldn’t get a handle on it, it could very likely cause her to make a mistake.
She drifted back towards Jackson’s but only came close enough to it to see if the striped red and yellow flag was still flying over the shed she’d seen Lydia in. It wasn’t, but she saw two more men there, dressed for the outdoors. Since they were almost certainly hunters, she quietly slipped away, unseen.
She’d gotten into the habit of moving her campsite daily. As much work as that entailed, it seemed much safer than trusting that a hiding spot would remain undiscovered. She was running low on food, and water, and clean clothes. She’d found a stream big enough to rinse her things out in, but that was a stopgap measure at best. She still had her third cache, if no one had discovered it by now, so one morning she packed up her gear and set out to find it.
Everything felt strange, somehow. Sounds seemed either unusually sharp or strangely muffled, and there was no wind at all, not even a breeze to ruffle the trees overhead. She picked her way through the woods just as cautiously, but much more easily than she had on her first day out here. She felt as if something was coming, but she had no idea what it might be, or why she should feel this way. As the day wore on, the feeling neither grew nor faded away, so Alexa decided to put it down to how jumpy this whole thing was making her. It was nothing a good night’s sleep wouldn’t fix…she hoped. The problem was that she wasn’t getting any good night’s sleep lately. She rested for a while after she reached what she thought was the general area where she’d secreted away her last cache. Sitting on the ground and leaning against a tree, she surveyed the area, trying to spot anything that looked familiar. After so much time in the woods, though, everything had started to look the same to her.
She got up and started moving through the woods in an expanding spiral, hoping that she might find her stuff that way. As the sun dropped down almost to the horizon, she had to admit that her plan wasn’t working. Maybe she’d picked the wrong place?
“Hi, there!”
Alexa shrieked and at the sound of a male voice practically at her elbow. She whirled, ready to flee, and then saw it was Will Longstreet, sitting on a log and smiling crookedly at her, his air rifle slung across his back. She wasn’t on his list. She was safe.
“You scared the shit out of me!” she gasped.
“Didn’t mean to,” he shrugged. “I thought you saw me. You seem a little jumpy, Alexa Marx. How come?”
“This hunting thing is getting to me,” she said. “I’m just not used to it.”
“You’ve been doin’ pretty well, I’d say,” Will rejoined. “You still ain’t caught.”
“No, but I don’t know how the others are doing,” Alexa said. She wanted very much to sit down, but the only spot to do that wasn’t the ground was on the log right next to Will, and she didn’t want to get that close to him. She hadn’t had a shower in days, and washing off in the same creek that she did her laundry in was an unsatisfactory substitute.
“Well, I can give you some information about that,” Will sighed sadly. “My tall, blonde volleyball player got taken early today, about as far to the east as she could get without goin’ out of bounds.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.” Alexa’s sympathy was genuine. “I know you had your heart set on her. But that means it’s down to just me and Naomi, so it’s good news for me.”
“Well, get set for more good news. Naomi was nabbed late last evening at Jackson’s.”
“That means…I won!” Alexa smiled. She almost felt like dancing. “Thanks, Will!”
“No,” he corrected her. “You beat them out, but the hunt’s still goin’ on. There are still men after you.”
“Oh. Yeah, I guess there are,” Alexa turned somber.
“So, now what?” Will asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, what do you plan to do now?”
“Oh.” Alexa said. “I guess I’ll keep trying not to get caught.” Now that she knew she’d actually beaten the other women she felt a bit let down.
“Think you can keep it up?” Will asked.
“I don’t know,” Alexa admitted. “This is hard. But…how did you know about Martina and Naomi?”
Will unclipped something from one of his pack straps. He held it up so she could see it. It looked something like a cell phone, only bulkier.
“See this?” he asked.
“Yeah,” Alexa nodded. “What is it?”
“It’s a chip reader,” Will answered. “You hold it up next to a woman’s earlobe and it reads the chip. A hunter catches a woman; he uses this to send the information back to Gordburg so they know she’s been bagged. I’m not sure if these things are connected, or if somebody in town sends a signal back out to all of ‘em, but it’ll also tell all the hunters carryin’ them that the woman was caught.” He clipped the device back onto the pack strap. “That’s how I know.”
“Can you talk to other hunters with that thing?” Alexa asked warily.
“Oh, hell, no,” Will shook his head. “Can’t talk, can’t text. It’s only good for sendin’ one kind of signal, and receivin’ one kind of signal.”
“Oh.” Alexa felt relieved. “So, what are you going to do now?”
Will shrugged. “I dunno. Head on back to town, maybe.”
“Well, thanks for the information,” Alexa said. “Sorry you didn’t get Martina.” She turned and started to walk away. She still had to find her stuff, if it was anywhere nearby, and she really didn’t feel like talking. She’d gone about half a dozen steps when she heard a sudden, loud ‘POP!’ behind her and something stung her left butt cheek, making her jump and cry out. She twisted her head around to look and saw a brightly colored feathered dart sticking in her. She turned to face Will. Her left leg wasn’t working properly, and she could feel a numbness spreading out from where the dart had hit.
“You fuckin’ shot me!” she exclaimed angrily. “I’m not on your list! Why did you fuckin’ shoot me?” Her left leg gave way and she dropped onto one knee.
“You think I shot you just to be a jerk?” Will asked as he approached her, shouldering his air rifle. “You don’t get it, do you? When you’re the last one left, you’re on everybody’s list.” He stopped a few feet away and looked down at her. “I told you,” he said. “It was a bitch and a half to get them to consider letting me use this thing,” he patted the stock of his gun, “and another bitch and a half for them to qualify me to use it. One way or another, I was gonna bag somebody. It was just dumb luck that I came across you lookin’ for somethin’ out here with you bein’ the only one left.”
Alexa had to get onto her hands and knees to keep from falling over, but from the way her body was going numb she knew that it was only a stopgap measure. She tried to scream, but all that came out was a croak.
“It’s just a muscle relaxant,” Will said to her. “Mixed in with a little tranquilizer, they tell me. Acts fast, but don’t last too long, so I’m afraid I gotta get started.”
Alexa couldn’t do anything as he shucked her pack off of her and tossed it aside. She slumped down, lying full-length on the ground, her face in the leaf litter. She couldn’t move. She could see and hear, but her body wasn’t responding at all to the panicked signals her brain was sending out. Will turned her head to the side and grinned at her. He flourished his chip reader before holding it against her earlobe.
“There we go,” he said cheerfully. “All done. Now it’s just you and me, Alexa Marx. I’m gonna strip you and tie you up now, but I’m not gonna use you until the shot wears off.”
Alexa tried to snarl at him. This time she couldn’t even make that croaking noise. Instead, she felt herself drooling.
“I’m gonna go old school, too,” Will chuckled. He held up a coil of rope so that she could see it. “I get you back to civilization we’ll see about some chains or leather.” With that he moved out of Alexa’s sight. She felt him doing something, and then, barely, felt him pull off her boots and socks.
“Always the first step,” she heard him say. Was he speaking to her? Was he expecting a reply? “Get ‘em barefoot, and even if they somehow get loose they won’t run far, or fast.”
He put her on her back. All Alexa could do was try to glare at him. He kept his eyes fixed on hers as he ripped her khaki shirt open, popping buttons all over the place, and seemed a bit disappointed at her utter lack of response. Well, that was his own damned fault! She managed to make a gargling noise as he pulled her sports bra up, baring her breasts.
“Well, hey, these are kinda nice,” he said as he squeezed one. Alexa couldn’t tell if it was a gentle squeeze or a rough one. All she felt was a vague sense of pressure. He pulled her sports bra up over her head and then rolled her onto her stomach. Now Alexa was grateful that she couldn’t feel much of anything. The ground was covered not just with leaves but with twigs and small stones as well. She felt Will tug her shirt and sports bra off. When he began to pull her arms behind her back, she made one titanic effort and managed to get one of her arms to flop free of his grip. That seemed to take everything she had, though. All Will did was try again, successfully.
“Now, the trick here,” he said, as if they’d been carrying on a normal conversation, “is to make ‘em secure without cuttin’ their circulation. Handcuffs are best, but I didn’t bring any with me. You let me know if this starts to pinch later. Okay?” All Alexa could do was make that gargling noise once more. Will chuckled and put her on her back again. He took the time to brush off leaves and other debris that had gotten stuck to her torso. Alexa found herself in an uncomfortable position, with her bound hands digging into her back, but she couldn’t do anything about it. She couldn’t even tell Will about it. But as his attention was entirely taken up with tugging her pants off she doubted that he would have paid much attention anyway.
She’d deliberately chosen loose-fitting shirts and pants. Those would be more comfortable for running around in the great outdoors, but she’d gone with close-fitting underwear. As Will grunted and tugged and yanked her pants down and off of her…she couldn’t do a thing to help him there, not that she would have if she could have…her white bikini panties remained in place. Will tossed her pants away, gripped her panties by the waistband, and yanked. Alexa grunted at the powerful wedgie he wound up giving her. The panties remained intact. Will muttered something under his breath, tightened his grip, and gave another, stronger yank. The panties tore, but not completely. He made one last effort, and this time managed to rip them off of Alexa’s body. He stood up, waving the torn garment like a flag, and looked down at his prize, now lying bound and naked on the ground. As Alexa watched, his expression changed from triumph to something she couldn’t quite identify.
“Um…wow,” Will said as he surveyed his captive. He walked slowly up and down, just looking at her body. “What is it you do for a living?” he asked after a moment. It had to be a rhetorical question, because he knew she couldn’t answer. “Personal trainer and sometime fitness model, isn’t it?” he continued. “Geez, girl, why didn’t you wear a bikini back when the four of you were showing off to the hunters? I’d have put you right at the top of my list.”
He squatted down beside her and began running his hands over her body: Breasts, belly, thighs, and hips. His touch was gentle, even though his hands seemed rough. Alexa found that she could move a little and tried to pull away from him.
“Ah, see, I told you it didn’t last long,” Will chuckled. “Hold on. I’ll make you a little more comfortable.” He went away from her. She managed to shift her bound hands so that they weren’t digging into her back any more, but couldn’t do anything more than that. Then Will came back with her sleeping bag. He laid it out on the ground next to her, but didn’t open it. Then he rolled her onto it, on her belly.
“You’ve got a really gorgeous body,” he said as his hands roamed over her ass and thighs. Alexa tried to protect her ass with her bound hands, but he easily moved them aside. “I was kinda expecting you to look like a body builder,” he said to her. “Looks like you’re more into body sculpting instead. Let me tell you, you’ve got some real artistic talent.”
She didn’t know what he was talking about. Her jobs called for her to keep in shape, but she’d never regarded her body as anything special. She felt him squeezing her ass cheeks.
“Feels like you’re built for endurance,” Will chuckled. “Good thing. You’re gonna need it.” He let go of her ass and a moment later she felt him tying her ankles. She bucked weakly. Feeling was coming back, and control was coming back. But she was already naked, and he was still binding her.
“Just hobbled you, Alexa Marx,” he said to her as he came back to fondling her. “It occurred to me you might kick.”
“Ba’tard,” Alexa snapped at him.
“I see it’s just about worn off,” Will observed. “Pretty soon you’ll be able to walk and talk and everything. Now, I gotta ask you before I go any further: You want to bail? You want out? You can, you know. You already beat those other women. You’re the last one caught. Do you wanna be the first one to bail out?”
“No,” Alexa managed to spit out.
“Good. I understand that none of you ever did this before, so let me tell you what I plan to do to you.”
Alexa shuddered. He was entirely too cheerful and matter-of-fact for her peace of mind.
“I’m gonna fuck you. You can’t blame me for wantin’ to do that, runnin’ around with that body like you are. I got you all to myself out here, and I mean to enjoy you.”
“Sumbitch,” Alexa growled. She was still having trouble forming words.
“That’s the spirit!” Will laughed. He slapped her ass hard, making her yelp. “And before mornin’ comes, you’ll be callin’ me ‘Master’. Care to do that now?”
Alexa looked up at him and glared.
“Didn’t think so,” Will shrugged. “You just rest here for a minute while I pitch camp.”
Alexa lay on her stomach and watched as her captor rolled out his sleeping bag, then set up a small campfire. She was feeling more in control of her body by the minute now, but not fully herself yet. And even if she was, what could she do? She knew she didn’t have a chance of getting away from him. She sighed. She’d known this could happen from even before the start of the hunt, but actually having it happen was way more than an intellectual exercise. She’d wondered how she’d react to being taken. Now it looked like she was going to find out. At least there was only one of him.
Although…some part of her mind began wondering what it would be like to be captured by several hunters, stripped and bound and passed around as a hunk of captive female flesh. She abruptly shut down that line of thought. She could always ask Martina about it later. Or, better yet, she could ask Lynette. That thought made her smile. Unfortunately, she smiled just when Will finished what he was doing and turned back to her. She killed the smile immediately.
“What were you just thinkin’ about, Alexa?” he asked as he squatted next to her. He ruffled her short, short hair with one hand. She didn’t answer him.
“Well, it don’t matter. All that matters here and now is what I’m thinkin’ about. Get on your back.”
“No,” Alexa replied. The next moment his hand was gone from her head. It came down on her ass with a loud ‘crack’! Alexa yelped and jerked.
“Let’s try that again,” Will said. “And let me tell you first off that I’ve got a nice leather strap that I use on females who get too feisty. Now, get on your back.”
Alexa looked up at him. He was smiling, but she could see the determination in his eyes, even in the failing light. Slowly, keeping her eyes on his, she wormed her way over onto her back. She felt terribly exposed that way and even more so when he began fondling her breasts. When he bent to take her nipple in his mouth, she squirmed. She felt his free hand trying to get a grip on her hair and failing. It was too short. In the end, he put his hand on her forehead and pressed down as he continued to suck at her nipple. When he finally straightened up, it was swollen and erect. She expected him to do the same to her other nipple, but he didn’t. Instead he moved one hand from her head to her breasts, and the other from her breasts to her belly, just below her navel.
“Nice and tight and toned everywhere, aren’t you?” he chuckled as he continued to fondle her. Alexa just looked up at him. She didn’t feel especially like glaring any more. In fact, her body was beginning to respond to her captor’s handling, and it was getting difficult for her to even pretend to resist him. His hand moved in slow, lazy circles across her lower belly, as if he was smoothing it out, and with each circle it moved down a little further, closer and closer to her pussy. It felt very good, although after a while she thought he was taking an awful lot of time to get where he was going. His fingers were barely brushing the top of her small, neatly trimmed pubic thatch.
“Raise your knees,” he ordered. Alexa obeyed without thinking, even parting them to make her pussy more accessible. She closed her eyes. Her breath was beginning to come fast and shallow now as she anticipated what was to come. The fact that her hands were bound behind her and her ankles were hobbled only added to her growing arousal.
She let out a high-pitched ‘Ah!’ when she first felt his fingers playing with her pussy, stroking the plump and sensitive outer labia, probing between them, slowly thrusting up into her. She writhed slowly under his hands, not trying to get away at all now but instead trying to show him how ready she was. His fingers had to have told him that already. She moaned for him, trying to make him get on with it. Instead, he played with her body for a little while longer, driving her half out of her mind. She spread her knees further apart and lifted her hips up towards his hand.
“You want it?” he asked, his voice pitched low.
“Yes!” Alexa replied. “Please, yes!”
She wasn’t at all expecting what happened next. He seized her, turned her over onto her belly, then moved behind her, put his hands under her hips and hauled her ass into the air. His strength surprised her. She felt him pressing up against her from behind, and from the feel of things he was still dressed. He gave her ass a smack.
“Ow!” Alexa complained. “You don’t have to do that!”
He smacked her ass again, harder, making her yelp. “Maybe I don’t have to,” he almost growled, “but I want to. And this is all about what I want, not what you want. Got that?” He spanked her again, not quite so forcefully but more than enough to sting.
“Yes!” Alexa wailed. She half expected him to swat her ass again and ask: “Yes, what?” He had told her that she would call him ‘Master’ before morning, and she was feeling helpless, vulnerable and horny enough right now to call him that if he wanted her to. But he didn’t. Instead he kept hold of her with one hand while he did something with the other. Then she felt something thick and blunt pushing between her pussy lips, and she knew what it had to be. She moaned and shut her eyes as he pushed his cock into her, very slowly, very deliberately, and very powerfully. He felt gratifyingly thick, but when he kept on thrusting, deeper and deeper into her, Alexa felt a sudden surge of alarm. How big was he? She’d heard horror stories from women about lovers who were so big that it hurt. And then she felt his body come into contact with her ass. She felt stuffed, impaled, filled. She groaned.
“Damn, you have a tight pussy,” Will grunted. “I almost had to check to see if I’m in the right hole.” His fingers dug into her waist, getting a better grip on her.
Alexa shivered.
“You like it from behind?” he asked as he slowly pulled his cock back out of her, but not quite all the way. All Alexa could do was moan and brace herself. Being taken from behind had always felt like an act of male domination to her. Being taken from behind while she was tied and helpless smacked even more of male domination. And then Will slowly pistoned himself all the way back into her, pulling her body against his and holding her close. Alexa moaned again. He felt incredibly long and thick inside of her.
“I guess you do,” Will laughed harshly. “Well, I gotta tell ya, I really like your tight, slick pussy. Now hang on, girl.”
Her mind fogged by all the new and strange and incredible sensations that her body was trying to deal with, she didn’t know what he meant at first. Then came his first short, powerful stroke, hard enough to make her breasts jiggle and almost drive the breath out of her. That was followed by another thrust, just as strong, and then another, and another, and another…
Alexa arched her back and yowled. Right now she was all for being dominated so long as it was accompanied by the kind of fucking she was getting right now. Will kept pounding away at her. She thought she heard him say something more about how very tight her pussy was, but if he did, it was through clenched teeth, and she wasn’t really able to pick up on any comments he might make anyway. She writhed in his iron grip. He was holding her tightly enough for it to be painful now, but the pain was so inextricably mixed in with the pleasure he was inflicting on her that it all seemed to be part of the same overwhelming package. She whimpered and moaned as Will kept using her, her body quivering with each hard impact of his body against hers. She yowled again, but weakly.
And then Will was done. He rammed his cock more deeply into her than he had before and held her in place, groaning as he came. Alexa whined. He’d gotten his release, but she hadn’t gotten hers.
“Good girl,” her captor said as he gave her ass one last smack. He sounded as if he was out of breath. “Damn, you’re tight! Tightest pussy I ever fucked.”
Alexa whined again. Her body was still thrumming and tingling from all the rough treatment. She ground her hips against him, trying to get a little more pleasure for herself. Will laughed at her efforts as he pulled out of her.
“Don’t feel too bad, Alexa,” he said to her as he pushed her back down onto her belly. “I’m gonna want to tap that pussy again real soon. Maybe even tonight.” He gave her ass an affectionate pat. “So I want to be sure you don’t try to slip away. Hold still.”
Hold still? Alexa thought that she could barely move. She felt him run some rope across the back of her neck, then pull the ends down in front and run them back behind her under her arms. He knotted the ends between her shoulder blades before pulling her bound hands up into the small of her back and securing them to the makeshift harness with a short length of rope.
“How’s that feel?” he asked. She didn’t answer him.
“Well, you tell me if it starts to hurt.”
Alexa merely grunted. She was feeling angry and frustrated, now that the waves of pleasure were beginning to subside. But there was nothing she could do about it…and that was strangely arousing.