Dance All Night

This is my first post, so bear with me while I learn all the ins and outs. ( ) indicates italics, which in turn indicate either thought and/or outside actions. I don\'t really care if you flame me, but if you don\'t like the story, then click the back button and all will be right with the world again. I wrote this on a whin, in a very short space of time, and have not edited it extensively. I do appreciate constructive comments, and will return the favor.

\"I\'ll be right back, Mom!\" Catie Thorpe yelled on her way out the door. She ran lightly down the front steps of her family\'s completely normal two-story white home and started towards the party store a block away. Catie was home visiting from college and had a major craving for popsicles. So, being an independent young woman of twenty-two, she threw on a light jacket and ventured off on her quest to the corner store.

Within two minutes, the flourescent lights of the store, flickering slightly in the October evening, were in view. Catie walked quickly to keep warm. Ohio in the fall months meant brisk air during the day and even lower temperatures during the night. The leaves were in full color and the grass was crisper every morning.

Just as Catie stepped on the cracked asphalt of the parking lot, an arm wrapped around her waist and a hand clamped over her mouth. Catie couldn\'t scream as the person dragged her backwards towards a truck that had pulled up behind them, its lights off. She struggled vainly against her attacker as her small body was hoisted up into the bed of the truck. The driver got out with a strip of cloth in his hands. Catie was shocked to see his face, and was rendered speechless at the very moment she could have screamed and saved herself. The person holding her removed his hand for a second to stuff the gag in and tie it around the back of her head, roughly tangling several chunks of her long light brown hair with it. Then her arms were pulled behind her back and tied with a length of thin rope, the same done to her ankles. Another piece of the rope was linked from the bonds on her wrists to her feet, effectively trussing her up like a pig. She was forced down into the bed of the truck, the driver getting back in the cab as the first guy leaned down to whisper in her ear.

\"Don\'t even think of trying to yell for help. No one\'ll care. You\'ve had this coming for a long time, bitch.\" He jumped out of the bed and tossed a blanket over her, covering her whole body.

The truck rumbled to life under her and they pulled away from the store. Catie\'s heart was pounding so hard she thought it would explode out of her chest. The blanket was musty and dusty, but threadbare, so she could see the lights of the party store get dimmer the farther away from it they drove. The only light she could see was the occasional street lamp. The blanket was covering her nose so that with every breath she took, she inhaled a lungful of digusting old dust. It choked her, making her eyes water and her chest heave.

After a few minutes, Catie got her breathing under control and tried to calm herself somewhat. She slid around the bed of the truck, but they weren\'t driving very fast. With a start, Catie recognized the white twinkle lights strung on the trees that lined the main street of their little town. She could hear the sounds of other cars, then the truck slowed and stopped, presumably for a red light. Catie started thrashing in the bed, trying to scream against the gag. Just when she thought she might be able to rock the truck a little, she heard the window on the back of the cab open, scraping over years of rust and dirt, and felt a hand reach under the blanket to grab her throat and squeeze.

A muffled voice said, \"Stop it or it\'ll only be worse for you.\" He squeezed her throat harder, making her vision start to go dark to emphasize his point. The truck jumped forward as the light changed and continued on its way out of town. The hand let go just as Catie was about to black out. She breathed deeply, unmindful of the choking dust, and lay still. Soon, there were no more streetlights. The cold of the night was beginning to penetrate both the thin blanket and the even thinner jacket she wore. Her jeans felt like ice on her legs with the wind constantly whipping over her.

Again, Catie felt the truck begin to slow down. A turn to the left, and they were no longer on a paved road. They bounced along a rutted dirt path for so long, Catie thought she would be knocked unconcious just from hitting her head on the metal bed so many times. As it was, she had a massive headache from all the jostling. Finally, they stopped. Catie\'s heart started pounding intensely again as she felt the engine turn off and heard the doors open and shut on their creaky hinges. The blanket was removed from her body, but it didn\'t make any difference in the amount of light. It was now full night, with just a sliver of a moon and no stars to pray to. She tensed as her abductors cut the ankle bonds and hauled her from the truck. By the tiny amount of light, she could see that they were on the edge of a wheat field, uncut and five feet high at it\'s lowest points. The man holding her left arm had the blanket and a flashlight. The man on her right seemingly had nothing else with him but the switchblade he\'d cut the rope with. He was staring straight into the wheat, an amused expression on his face.

He was short, almost as short as Catie, with shoulder-length black hair. (It\'s grown out some,) Catie thought irrationaly. Indeed, it had. It had been two years since she\'d seen him last, but Joe was little changed since high school. Still greasy and chubby, he exuded a mixed aura of ennui and maliciousness that choked her almost as badly as the dust from the blanket. His companion on Catie\'s left, Sam, was also little changed over the years. He was a little taller than Joe, but at least twice as heavy. His short-cropped blond hair was just as greasy. Or it might be sweat, Catie didn\'t know. Suddenly, she was being dragged forward, into the field.

Catie struggled against them, for all the good it did her. With her hands bound behind her back, she couldn\'t strike them, and if she kicked, they could just dance out of her range. Once, Joe cuffed her on the back of her head hard enough to make her see stars. \"Cut that shit out,\" he\'d said. Sam just chuckled, his jowls shaking with the effort.

The farther they got into the field, the sweeter the scent of the wheat became. Catie vaguely wondered if she\'d ever be able to stand the smell again. Assuming she got out of this alive, of course. She figured she would. Catie didn\'t think Joe had it in him to kill her. After all, at one time he\'d professed to love her for the rest of his life, even though she\'d told him, in the nicest way she knew how, that she could never love him back. But then, two years can twist a man. Who knew what he was capable of now?

They reached a point in the wheat where there were no sounds other than the wind whistling through. Sam turned on the flashlight and began stamping down the stalks of wheat until he\'d made a sizeable clearing. Over this, he spread the blanket.

Joe turned to Catie, a smile playing on his lips. He reached up a hand to lightly caress her face, a parody of a lover\'s touch. \"Did you ever think we\'d come to this, Catie? I always thought you\'d come around sooner or later. If I wanted it bad enough, wished hard enough, you\'d want me. But you left me here to rot in this shithole, didn\'t you?\" His hand threaded through her hair and grabbed a handful, tugging painfully hard. Catie tried to back away from him, but he put his other arm around her shoulders and pulled her flush against him. \"Not trying to leave me again, are you sweetheart? We\'re gonna dance all night, don\'t you worry.\"

\"Joe, it\'s ready.\" Sam was sweating even moren usn usual, but smiling, proud of his handiwork. The clearing was about six feet by six feet, big enough for all of them to lie down in. Catie trembled with that thought. She knew what was coming. She could feel it against her thigh, trapped against Joe along with the rest of her.

Suddenly, Joe backed away and shoved her down on the blanket. Catie landed hard on her bound hands, and felt something wrench in her left wrist. She tried to roll over to alleviate the pressure, but Joe was on her in an instant, halting her movements. He straddled her waist, putting all his weight on her hipbones, grinding her pelvis into the uneven surface below the blanket. The crushed stalks of wheat were letting off an incredible stink and poking through the blanket, scratching her body.

Joe leaned forward and started whispering in her ear as his hands moved to her jacket and started unzipping it. The things he said were lewd and disgusting, and Catie felt her stomach start to rebel. Even as her breathing bordered on hyperventilation, Catie closed her eyes and concentrated on hearing nothing, smelling nothing, feeling nothing. One by one, she shut down her nerve endings, starting at her toes and ending with her fingertips. Vaguely, she registered Joe\'s hands on the button of her jeans, then shut out that sensation as well. Catie chanted in her mind over and over, (dark and quiet and safe, dark and quiet and safe.) Still, a phrase from earlier intruded on her cavernous quiet. (We\'re gonna dance all night.) Dance all night. Catie was reminded of a festival she\'d once gone to, where all the men and women had dressed like Victorian-era royalty. They\'d danced all night like the aristocracy used to, wide gowns sweeping across the floors, violins and wooden flutes and a tinny-sounding harpsichord playing one waltz after another.

Catie put herself in one of the dresses, (Sam held down her shoulders) accepted the arm of a nice young man with brown hair tied back with a ribbon, (the air was so cold against her skin) and let herself be swept away by the music (a jolt to the body the mind didn\'t feel).