Psychotic

They have driven for over an hour through lanes and suburban roads, leading farther and farther away from the city. He is avoiding the freeways. She no longer recognizes where they are going. Perhaps they have crossed over to another county.

She still doesn’t know if his intentions involve rape, robbery, murder or kidnapping; though the last – given her state of finances – is unlikely. Her bladder is aching from piled pressure. She steals a look at him, desperately needing to pee. He’s fumbling in his pants pockets. What on earth for? Surely he’s not taking out his – ?

Ah, a cigarette box.

He glances sidelong at her, that pleasant smiling face, and flicks alight a bluish flame. “You smoke?”

She shakes her head.

“Mind if I smoke then?”

Not waiting for an answer, he swerves onto the side of the road abruptly and slams on the brakes. Rachel lurches forward with a jerk, but the seatbelt catches her between her breasts, a sensation she hates.

“See?” he says, tugging at the seatbelt as though to test it. “Useful, isn’t it? You sure you don’t want a cigarette?”

She shakes her head again.

“You don’t talk much, do you?”

You warned me not to.

The hand at the belt suddenly stills. Rachel holds her breath. It snakes lingeringly downward to cup her breast, gently squeezing it as though to measure its texture. Here it comes. With mounting apprehension, she scans her silent, cicada-filled surroundings – the quivering shadows of trees in the wind, lining the road in rows like stoic night sentinels who will not come to her aid. No street lamps are lighting the travesty, they are too far out of town for those. No houses are in sight.

He senses her thoughts.

“Hey, if you try to run, there’s no one around here for miles. You’re not thinking of running, are you?”

Rachel runs a tongue across her parched lips. “Please,” she says, “I have money . . . I can pay you.”

“That’ll come in good time.”

There is anticipation in the static air. Charged electricity she can only describe as sexual. Something will happen. His hand dips down to pull her tucked T-shirt out of her jeans. Sweat had pooled, staining the thin cotton material around her armpits and her belly.

“How come a pretty girl like you wears something so tatty?” He does not wait for an answer before adding, “Now let’s have a look at you.”

He turns on the light overhead, and in one swift movement, pulls her shirt up to reveal the mounds of her breasts. “Hmmmmm, nice. Big girl. Big, big girl.” One hand fingers the strap of her cheap elastic brassiere, greyed with age. Her left breast is shuddering with every heartbeat. She wonders if he can see this.

“Nice. Very nice. You look better without your clothes on. I think we should take them off.”