The Stolen Girl

The Gulf of Santa Catalina lay like a bound woman under the blanket of roiling storm clouds. She struggled against the onslaught, lashed by wind and the weight of falling water, but her lover’s embrace was not to be denied. The violence aroused her, whipped her to frenzy and, ultimately, spent itself into her body. Such passion was always fleeting, and the storm would move on to other conquests, leaving the Gulf behind, alone, unchanged, undefeated.

John Willis stood very still in the deep shadow of a lifeguard stand at Newport Beach, watching the wicked lightning show out there above the water. Thunder growled with the kind of persistence that made him think of a hungry belly. Los Angeles seemed to hold its collective breath as the storm moved implacably ashore. It was just after midnight, and the rain was very close. He could smell it in the air.

Just down the beach, a girl named Jillian Ingalls gave twenty dollar blowjobs to five USC varsity football players. Someone had ripped her shirt off, roughly, if the marks on her skin were anything to go by. She was heartrendingly beautiful, and her cooing laughter suggested that she might be enjoying herself very much, indeed. The closest of the boys was less than twenty feet away from Willis, but no one had picked him out in the darkness, which was his intention, exactly.

Four of the five had already gotten their rocks off and were kicked back, ragging on the last, who didn’t appreciate it, and growled back. He was the biggest of the lot, with a shaved, bullet head, and shoulders like grain sacks. It looked like he was having a nice little bout of performance anxiety, and it was making him mad. His fists were clenched tightly in the girl’s hair, desperate as a drowning man clutching at a life ring.

She worked him like a pro, two-handed, taking him deeply into her mouth, sucking so that her cheeks indented. Finally, Bullet Head let out a triumphant whoop, teeth glinting in a grimace of completion. The girl fell backward and he drove her down, knees in the sand on either side of her body as he finished.

“About time,” somebody muttered, and there was laughter.

When it was over, Bullet Head got to his feet and walked away, swaggering for his buddies. The girl sat up and wiped her mouth on the back of one hand, watching them, saying nothing. Her fine breasts seemed almost to glow in the soft light. She made no effort to cover them.

“Let’s get out of here,” Bullet Head said, zipping up.

Willis detached himself from the shadows then and stepped forward, glancing down at the girl in passing. She gave him a sardonic smile, eyes glittering with reflected lightning. Her broad areolas were very pale, but the nipples stood unabashedly erect. The hulking boys saw him at last, and turned almost as one, looking half-defiant and half wary. Willis thought that made them about half right.

“Pay her,” he said, flat and hard.

“Hey, fuck you man,” one of the kids said,