Sarah had felt comfortable enough to share her darkest fantasies with me. Truthfully, it was a bit farther than I had ever explored. I had developed a feedback loop where my satisfaction was raised based on my partner’s enjoyment. Pain and terror had never done anything for me, but I had a bit of enlightenment as to why others enjoyed such things.
Yet Sarah… somehow awoke something within that I couldn’t explain. It was the raw innocence that she exuded, combined with her dirty little mind. It made me want her so much. A sheepdog shouldn’t feel such things for his flock. Maybe an old dog could learn new tricks.
– – – – – –
It was the sheepdog that noticed the door handle turn as Sarah started her journey home. ‘No, please don’t! Run! Please, please, just run for my sake.’
The Wolf was pleased as the goosebumps raised on it’s skin. Few people can at will call on the chemical cocktail needed for the fight or flight response that causes goosebumps, but I can. The excitement that normally signified a fight, rushed through my system. Strange, as I doubt this will be much of a fight.
– – – – – –
Strange would also describe the way I viewed relationships. Sex and feelings were at once intertwined and separate. I had no problem with my partner having other sexual relationships at the same time. In my opinion, sex was simply a release. Yet… inexplicably the emotional connection could blast my sex drive through the roof.
It had truly been a magical weekend and it changed things for me. No longer did I want to sit back and watch this enchanting creature stumble through life on her own. No… I wanted to be alongside her. When life would dare to blindside, I wanted to be the bulwark. After all, isn’t that what a sheepdog is all about? I’m the good guy here, right?
– – – – – –
Sarah smoothly stepped outside and turned to lock the door. With a practiced turn of the hand, the lock smoothly latched in place. Actions she had done a thousand times. The good guy had been locked in his cage. Tonight… there was only predator… and prey!
The wolf hunched, waiting to lunge in ambush. Four steps between it and the successful completion of the hunt. Step one, wait for Sarah to start to put her key in the lock. Step two, open the sliding van door. Step three, pin her against the door of her own car. Step four, use one arm to stop her struggle and the other to slide the hood on her head.
Why grandma, what a big nose you have!
All the better to smell you with, my dear!
-Little Red Riding Hood, as told by The Wolf
– – – – – –
It was the smell that really drove me insane. I swear the little minx just emanated pheromones. Though, it might have just possibly been that she was wet all the time. That little Nymph! Was she doing it on purpose? The animal part of my brain would wake up when she was near. Mine! Others needed her permission to be in her presence, but I was special. She always seemed a bit happier when she saw me.
That might have been why I finally got up the nerve. I’d act, dammit! Yes, it might poorly affect the friendship. I’d have to word it just right so that she had an easy out. The old, well it was either you or the apple pie maneuver. Make it seem casual. And truthfully, maybe I thought it could be casual too.
– – – – – –
Sarah began her walk toward her car. One foot after the other. The moment between footfalls seemed to stretch for an eternity of agony and anticipation as sheepdog and wolf watched. She made her way across the lot. How did time seem to move both fast and slow? Was it in an instant or an eternity that she managed to cross halfway?
She stopped. SHE STOPPED!!! Why did she stop? Maybe she knew! Maybe against all my planning, her instinct had proved superior. ‘Run! Run Sarah, run! Now’s your chance! Set off some car alarms. Run in the opposite direction along the empty road and hope someone appears.’
“Hope at its core is taking an impossibility and turning it into a possibility.” – Pope Francis at a gangbang
– – – – – –
It was hope that drove me to type the words in my phone. Fourteen words that forever changed our friendship. Changed because I was putting in writing what, at best, had been alluded to or casually flirted around. No matter what, things couldn’t go back to how they were. No matter how hard one could try, there was no erasing those fourteen words. Pushing send was easily the best and worst action that I had ever made.
Immediately a sick feeling wormed its way into my stomach. What the fuck was wrong with me? I was a combat vet. Hmmm… 19 minutes since she was last online. Fuck, hopefully this feeling would go away. It shouldn’t be but a couple hours until Sarah was online and seeing her messages if she held true to form. Just a couple hours to get through and the sick feeling would go away. I’d know. Just a few more hours.
– – – – – –
Just a few more seconds until she reached her car, but she had stopped! Did she know? The wolf wasn’t worried. His planning should continue unimpeded. Still, the best laid plans of mice and all that. There was always a possibility that Murphy’s law would raise its ugly head.
Oh, she’s just checking her phone. I wonder what she’s doing? Her thumb danced across the black mirror in her hand and then she put her hand away. My phone vibrated from its place on the dash, Sarah’s picture appearing momentarily. She had texted me something. A warmth surged at how she always tended to have something new to share with me. A quote or an idea. A meme or a picture of a cat. We truly are a generation that live and die by our phones.
– – – – – –
The phone never rang. I waited. Night fell and I just felt drained. Eh, stuff happens, maybe she’d open her phone by the morning. I awoke to a morning where time had stopped on the Sarah front. Still no answer. Not one. The hours of the morning passed excruciatingly slow.
I’m not one to wait around forever to deal with potential problems. I decided that she had seen the notification and had wanted to avoid a friendship-altering conversation. Yes or no? I needed to know. And so I sent Sarah a much longer message that was very clear about what I was interested in. Would my little lamb be interested?
“And it is not an unheard thing if the Wolf is thereby provided with his dinner. I say Wolf, for all wolves are not of the same sort; there is one kind with an amenable disposition neither noisy, nor hateful, nor angry, but tame, obliging and gentle, following the young maids in the streets, even into their homes. Alas! Who does not know that these gentle wolves are of all such creatures the most dangerous!” – Charles Perrault, explaining the morals contained within his tale Little Red Riding Hood
– – – – – –
Sarah’s steps resumed across the parking lot, but she looked lighter. Was she thinking about her recent text? She was at the end of her car now. Just a couple more steps and she would turn to put her key in the door.
Those last couple steps would have imprinted themselves in the minds of onlookers had there been any. They would have seen civilizations rise and fall, destroying themselves in an instant or an eternity. Nobody was there though, so the only reliable account seemed to come from the Wolf.
– – – – – –
It seemed as if the air had dried out around me. I was waiting for a text that never came. Finally after two days of waiting, Sarah texted me back.
She’d had a recent obsession that had pulled her into its world and didn’t release her from its clutches for the longest time. Thus she had missed my original text and the follow up clarification. A curtain had been lifted about an aspect of her friend she hadn’t seen revealed before, but this was not a welcome opera.
– – – – – –
The Wolf gazed as Sarah fumble with her key for a moment. That was step one. The moment was now. The universe held its breath as the van door slid open. Step two was finished. Sarah started to simultaneously jump and turn as the sound startled her. Step three caught her mid jump and crushed her against her car.
Her confused brain let out a yelp as the foreignness of the moment caught her off guard. Before she could get herself together enough, step four let it’s arm find purchase on her not-yet struggling body. It held her in place as the hood was slipped over Sarah’s head. The darkness became consuming.
“All men are the same in the dark.” – Helen Keller, as she worked the pole at Alley Cats
– – – – – –
The fog of uncertainty faded as the light of knowledge drifted into his brain. His heart leapt as her first paragraph assuaged his fear of being ignored, of not being important enough for her to take the time to deal with his advances.
And then his heart plummeted as he read on. He could read between the lines. She truly wished that there was a possibility as he had described. Nevertheless, the siren call of her own Phantom rang in her ears. His dream fell to the possibility that her dream could be realized.
“It was written I should be loyal to the nightmare of my choice.” – Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
– – – – – –
Sarah’s dream filled head quickly gave way to an unending nightmare of darkness. She didn’t struggle much, the violence and intensity of the situation paralyzing her with fear. For years, she had wondered what it would feel like to be in such a situation.
Today, she was. And it was mind-numbingly petrifying, as she tried to process the signals and emotions her body was going through. Blindly sensing her hands get ziptied and her body getting put into a vehicle.
– – – – – –
A gloom came over me as Sarah sympathetically explained that, even though it wouldn’t work out, she understood why I had approached her as I did. Even in her refusal, why did she have to be so perfect?
I didn’t expect it to hurt that much. Yea, maybe I’d had a bit more riding on my question than I had let on to myself. A gut punch wouldn’t pull out half the reaction. I staggered a bit. Did I cry? Did I feel a droplet cross my face? I didn’t know. Suddenly a storm had broken out in my psyche. And deep within, a lupine form shifted restlessly.
“Wolves don’t lose sleep over the opinions of sheep.” – A Wolf
– – – – – –
He pulled her body into the vehicle. It sounded as if she was mumbling “why,” as if the reality of her situation hadn’t fully struck her.
‘You know why,’ the wolf snarled inside it’s head. ‘You broke him, now I have to fix him.’
I attached her zip tied wrists to the jerry-rigged hook I had set up for the purpose. And as I held her trembling form in my arms, I had to wonder. How do I compare to the wolves in her fantasies?
“What do you want, then?”
“What I can’t have.” Wit turned to him, eyes solemn. “Same as everyone else, Kaladin Stormblessed.” – Hoid in Words of Radiance
– – – – – –
The following days were a dizzying blur of nausea and self-recriminations. Yet Sarah was there, trying to make things seem like normal.
‘Had I seen the latest picture of her cat?’
‘Had I seen the latest episode of our favorite TV show?’
Why did she say no? My mind replayed our conversations. The shy admittance to enjoyment of being dominated, commanded, and forced. The flirty touches and snuggling.
Why? WHY!?! Why did she seemingly broadcast so many signals to me? How do you kindly break someone’s heart? I wanted to hate her so bad, but I couldn’t. It was Sarah, kind and kinky Sarah.
My carefully constructed reality was crumbling as suddenly my foundations and principles seemed to lose all meaning. Until a cold voice broke through my nearly fugue state.
‘You know, she’s always fantasized about being forced. Maybe that was her catty method of pushing you to take such an incredibly dominating action. What if she wants it?’ The Wolf had awoken.
– – – – – –
Sarah’s choked “Stop. Please don’t!” rang in the enclosed space as she whispered it to her captor. His silence was telling. Would there be a stop? An end to this madness?
Sarah’s body was pressed against the floor of the van that sat in the Rent-A-Car parking lot. Nobody else would be here this evening. We were alone. I was confident I had a couple hours at least before anyone would come out looking for her.
“Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.” – William Gable, Gone With The Wind
It was that imagining that she truly wanted to live out her fantasies that led to a non-de*********** van sitting outside a lonely Rent-A-Car agency at the witching hour. It led to remembering a half-forgotten conversation between Sarah and I.
“Are you a sociopath,” she asked.
I snickered and replied, “I probably exist on the spectrum.”
She laughed, “I was just wondering. Gotta know who to count on.”
And so… I set out to make her mine, consent be damned.
“The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it’s yours.” – John Galt in Atlas Shrugged
– – – – – –