Angie and I believe in keeping fit, and we like to do it the natural way. We go power hiking. There are lots of mountains near campus, and we’ve walked, jogged, and run our way around most of them. “We’re lean, but I hope we’re not mean,” Angie likes to say. “All I’m interested in is the lean part.”
It’s early Sunday morning, and we are working our way up Mount Olympus. The first part of the trail is a series of switchbacks on the west slope. It’s a beautiful walk that overlooks Salt Lake City. You climb and climb and leave the city’s troubles behind. It’s July, and even though the trail is still in shade, this first part is steep, hot, dry, and dull, so we push ourselves hard.
Fifteen minutes into the journey, I’m overheating. I pull off my sweatshirt and wear only my black bra and shorts. Angie and I enjoy being informal when we’re up in the hills, and this early Sunday morning, we’re not likely to run into anyone who cares. By the end of the first leg, Angie and I are both huffing and puffing, and we feel like we couldn’t walk another step, not even if the devil himself popped up behind us. We like it that way. We’re here to push to the limit.
The second part of the trail levels out a little as it goes through a pine-filled canyon. It’s a cool and sweet section. We usually relax a bit on this section and get our wind back. Usually. But today, the devil himself does pop up behind us! I don’t know who he was or where he came from, but all of a sudden, I hear Angie squeal a little behind me. Angie is in the arms of some guy in a ski mask. She has a sack over her head, and he’s tying her wrists together!
“You, stay put!” he yells at me as loop after loop of rope go around Angie’s wrists. I think about it for all of two seconds … and decide that staying put is not my best policy. I turn tail and run!
I run, but I’m already winded, so it’s not a world-class sprint. And I’m running uphill. Even so, I expected to get more than the fifty feet before I hear the footsteps behind me. But I don’t, and this creep now has me by the hair. He pushes my head down, and I stop running; however, I don’t stop panting.
“Arms behind you,” he says.
It’s hard because I’m breathing so hard, but I put my wrists behind me. He lets go of my hair to pull my wrists together and loop rope around them. Once, twice, thrice, the loops go round my wrists. Then he lets my arms fall and lifts my head up, and he finishes wrapping my wrists with some cinch loops and a knot. In seconds, my wrists are bound behind me, and I’m in this stranger’s power, wearing only my black bra and walking shorts. He grabs my hair again, and while I’m still panting, we walk down the trail back to Angie.
She’s on her knees with her wrists bound in front of her and that ugly sack over her head. She could pull that sack off, but she’s shaking instead, and I hear her sobbing a little. She looks awfully scared.
“On your knees,” the man orders.
I go down without protest. I’m still out of breath. I watch as he gets behind Angie. He unties her wrists and then roughly pulls her arms behind her. Her back arches and her face goes up as her shoulders slide toward her back and her breasts jut out. The man in the ski mask forces her head down, and then he ties her wrists high up her back just above the bra line. He keeps them there by running a loop around her neck. I hear Angie choke a little, but she says nothing.
My breath is back. I look around. I test the rope around my wrists. It’s tight. To escape, I’m going to have to stumble around a bit to get up, and once I do, I’ll have to run with my hands behind me. I know this creep can run, so escaping by simply running away is out. I try plan B. “What do you want?” I ask.
The man has finished with Angie’s wrists. He pulls her back to kneeling upright and pulls off the sack. She gasps for the clean, cool air she can now breathe. Her blond hair is now a mess; however, it’s thick and long, and she’s so thin she still looks good as it cascades down her back in disheveled waves.
The man in the ski mask stands up and speaks, “You two are going to spend the day as my guests. If you behave yourself, we’re going to have an enjoyable time. If you don’t, I’m going to have an enjoyable time.” His chuckle at his own joke is harsh. Good God! We’d been caught and tied up by some melodramatic creep. It’s going to be a long day … and hopefully only a day!
I could imagine his face under the mask. He is swarthy, grinning, missing a couple teeth, and wearing a couple days’ growth. And God, I am probably going to have to kiss him!
“Time to get up and get a move on.”
He pulls up Angie by her arms and pushes her toward me. She offers no resistance, and she still looks pretty spaced out. He grabs me and pulls me up. I stand up and offer no resistance, either. Part of me is surprised at that. I’m a big woman, a strong woman, a modern woman. I know my rights! Why wasn’t I giving this yahoo a hard time? Why wasn’t I forcing him to drag me along while I screamed my lungs out?
Part of me is surprised, but that part isn’t running my body right now. Running my body is the meek teenage girl who does what she’s told. Is it the ropes? Having my hands tied behind me feels most peculiar, and other things feel different, too.
The man in the ski mask pulls us beside one another. As we stand there, he loops more rope around my wrists. As he finishes the knot, I look back. He is tying me to Angie with about ten feet of rope between us.
“Okay,” he says, “march!”
Angie and I continue our journey up the trail, but how different now! Now we are bound, our hands tied securely behind us. We walk instead of run, and we are in the power of that terrible man following us! I am leading, and every so often, I feel the rope to Angie tug. She has a hard time keeping up. When she slows, the brute would do something, and I'd hear Angie yelp. I don’t see what he does to her. I am too busy putting one foot in front of the other and not falling.
I look up. The beautiful pines overhead are now a prison. They would hide us from our rescuers. Who would rescue us? No one would come soon. Angie and I aren’t expected back for hours, and it would be hours after that before anyone would get serious about looking for us, probably not until tomorrow.
“Keep moving!”
My pace slows while I daydream. I hear Angie yelp again, only this time it’s my fault. I don’t go much farther when the man pushes by us on the trail.
“We’re going somewhere special now,” he says.
He holds apart some branches and pulls me off the trail and into some thick bushes.
“Keep moving,” he orders.
“I can’t,” I complain. “It’s too thick.”
“Wimp airhead yuppie,” he mutters.
I feel his meaty hand wrap around the back of my neck. He pushes my head down and plows me through the brush into a clearing on the far side. Branches scratch by my legs, arms, and the top of my head. I’m sure I am leaving hair behind. Angie stumbles along behind. In a few steps, I am in a tiny clearing.
“Stay here,” he orders.
I’m not thinking of going anywhere in that mass of green branches. I have no way to protect my face or hair. But as I stand, I notice a faint game path leading away from the main trail.
The man in the ski mask is doing something behind us. I finally recognize it as sweeping. He is covering our trail. I look around for a branch to break or some mark I can make, but with my hands tied behind me, it isn’t easy. I start reaching around for a branch, but the man comes back.
He leads us down the game path. It’s narrow, and the branches come across everywhere. Now I am yelping. I get snapped a couple times by branches he pushes aside. He stops and says, “Stay close. If you stay right with me, the branches won’t snap you.”
I get a step behind him.
“Real close,” he says with a chuckle.
Damn it! He’s right. I push my breasts into his back.
“Come on, Angie,” I mutter. “Real close.”
She presses into me. I feel her breasts in my back, and my hands are riding up and down her tummy and hips. I do my best to keep my hands out of her crotch, but … having my hands tied behind me makes lots of things feel strange.
The three of us walk like vaudeville dancers for about fifty feet. Then the trail finally widens a little. We can maintain our distance again. What a relief! Or is it? I realize it could be worse. Whatever his faults, this man had a nice, hard back. I feel powerful muscles moving under his clothing as we walk. And after a while, Angie puts her face on my neck so she can keep pace better. Cheek, breasts, tummy, hips—it’s a nice feeling having Angie so close to me, so dependent on me.
<<<*>>>
The path works around the side of rock face, and soon, we are in a small canyon that’s isolated from the main trail. A hundred yards into the canyon, we come to a small glen with some sort of cross between a tent and a hut in it. A yurt of some sort?
“Ladies, your home away from home,” the man announces with a flourish.
“How did this get here?” I think as the man in the ski mask leads us to the entrance.
At the entrance, he stops us and looks at us from head to foot.
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. You ladies can’t come in. You’re a mess!”
My mouth drops. What does he have in mind? He looks behind us. I look. I don’t see much, but I hear rushing water. He opens the yurt door and reaches inside. Out comes towels and soap.
It hits me then. “You’ve got to be kidding!” I say. “That’s snowmelt water. It’ll be freezing.”
I find myself trying to pull my hands forward to emphasize my point. I can’t. Even as I try, the man ducks and lunges for me as if he’s going to tackle me. He catches my legs behind the knees; however, rather than dump me backward, he straightens up, and I’m unceremoniously riding on his shoulder with my nose in his back and his arm holding my legs on his chest. I can’t kick … much, and if I did succeed in squirming free, I’d suffer a lot more pain when he dropped me.
He starts for the water. Angie and I are still connected, so she has to come along. I can feel her tugging a little on the rope.
It isn’t far, and it is beautiful. The man puts me down, and I see a waterfall and a small, clear pool. It isn’t big or deep enough to swim in, but it looks like nature’s perfect hot tub.
The man in the ski mask strips me, ties my knees together, unties my wrists, and then pushes me in! It’s cold! Colder than I expected! I scream, but in truth, I had been so hot and grimy that after a minute or so, it doesn’t feel that bad. Angie follows me. She screams for a while too. I hug her close to help her get sorted out. We look up at the man. He’s out of his jumpsuit, naked, and reaching for his ski mask. I admit it. I look. His body doesn’t look that bad, and I’m going to be disappointed if he’s toothless, swarthy, and stubble-covered.
The mask comes up, and under it is … another mask! A rubber one this time, part of some sort of wet suit. He laughs and jumps in with us. As he hits the water, he whoops and blows and thrashes around. “Gosh, this is cold!” he gasps.
I admit it. He’s funny. I laugh and splash him for a moment with one arm. He deserves it! Then I sober up, and I hold Angie tighter, waiting for this monster’s next move. She’s holding me back tight, too. We must have been quite a sight for this man.
He acclimates and then grabs the soap.
“Turn around,” he orders.
We do, and he starts rubbing our backs with soap. He uses one hand on me and the other on Angie. He isn’t in a hurry, and he isn’t rough. He lathers our backs and then gives us each a bar of soap. He continues to rub our backs and arms in big, lazy circles. It’s a wash and massage, and it starts to feel good.
The meek little girl in me is gradually back in charge. First, I’m not fighting his touch, and then I’m leaning into it a little. I hear the slight moan of a woman in pleasure. At first, I can’t figure out where it came from. Wait … it was me! I didn’t do it again, of course! But why had I done it at all? I’m sure sending the wrong message for a modern woman!
I get a slap on my butt.
“Take your soap and do your friend,” the man orders.
“I didn’t say you could do that!” I riposte reflexively.
He slaps me again. “Hop to it.”
Men! How do you communicate with them? English certainly doesn’t work! I stumble around to Angie’s front and begin lathering her neck, breasts, and tummy. While I am, the man lathers her hair. Then we’re both working her over.
After a minute, I hear her moan the same quiet moan I had earlier. Her head tips back farther and farther as the man turns a simple shampoo into a sensual tour of ways to stroke a woman’s head, neck, back, and shoulders with long, soapy, wet hair. She’s breathing deeply, and she puts her arms on my shoulders for balance. I see her breasts heaving, and I’m getting my own thrill out of touching the warm, soft, soapy skin of her breasts, shoulders, and tummy. Her knees start to move forward and back, rhythmically stressing the cords holding them tightly together.
The man is the mask slowly starts to rinse her off—her waist, her shoulder blades. She shivers. She’s breathing normally.
“Hold your breath and dunk,” he orders.
She does so without hesitation, and he rinses her hair.
“Help me,” he orders, and we rinse for about fifteen seconds before she comes up, eyes closed, still quite calm.
“Now your turn,” he orders.
I have no choice. Angie and I trade positions. She looks at me in a strange, dreamy way as she lathers my front. The man lathers my hair, and … I understand what Angie is saying with her eyes. This male being … this man is good with his hands. His fingers are exploring me. Now his fingers are more. They are expressive. My soapy hair is simply a tool those fingers are using to stimulate my skin. Those fingers are relating to me in ways that no woman hairdresser has ever come close to imagining and no male lover has come close to achieving. Oh, God! I hope he’s not toothless!
I feel Angie, too. She’s learned. She’s working my front as if she knows what I’m feeling. I’m going out of body again. I put my hands on Angie to steady myself, to complete the circle! She touches me. At her touch, energy flows into me. The energy flows back to her through my hands on her shoulders. I rub her shoulders gently, faintly. I watch as my hands are moving in sensual circles. Who’s doing that? Who’s in me? Who’s responding to this? Like moths circling, the little circles of my hands are spiraling toward the source of light—her soft, gentle breasts. She doesn’t resist. She rubs her soapy hands over my soapy breasts again and then slides them up and down my forearms so her arms are not in the way of my circling fingers. Her breathing deepens.
There is water splashing on my waist and then on my back.
“Hold your breath and dunk,” the man orders.
I sigh inwardly as I comply, and I stay under as long as I can.