Chapter One

 

How she hated bedtime- hated The Service.

To take her mind away from the fact it was midnight, the girl stood watching cute pink toes: A papa bear, a mama bear, and three little baby bears; two families, one on each foot. She wiggled her toes.

The toes looked back at her from beneath the hem of an ankle-length, white cotton nightdress. It was homespun and had been hand-stitched by one of her Sisters. There was no embellishment; no lace, no ribbon, no embroidery. The buttons had been rescued from a thrift shop workshirt and were done up to her chin.

The girl wiggled her toes again and tried to forget.

All she knew about herself was that she had been raised as one of The Chosen, and as such, she had never received a formal education. She had no idea of her birth-date; had no birth certificate, no driver's license, no social security number, no official paperwork at all to prove the origin of her birth. She had never seen a television, let alone watch one, and never read a book or flipped through a magazine. She had been kept isolated by her Sisters and never allowed near girls her own age. All she knew for certain was she was being prepared for something. Or someone, she couldn't be sure which.

"Hey? You out there? Come kiss me goodnight."

It was the sound of her Sister's voice and it sucked all the goodness from the girl's heart leaving her shaken and empty. But she dare not hesitate; she would be publicly beaten. "Yes. I am here, Sister," the girl called back, trying desperately to keep her voice from faltering. She took a steadying breath and went to the bedroom door.

Inside, her Sister lay spreadeagled on the rickety bed that supported a straw mattress. She was face-down and naked; her buttocks like pudding cups and her dimpled thighs splayed open. The young girl felt sick to her stomach.

At the sound of the bare footstep at the side of the bed, the older woman lifted herself on elbows. "I'm such a terrible sinner, you understand that, don't you, Little One? I try hard, so very hard, but I have such unclean thoughts. I can't seem to help myself. I see you and the others, and I can't help myself. All those lovely young bodies. I need to be punished. You can understand that, can't you? I need The Service. Need to be punished and cleansed. Are you still pure, Little One?"

The girl lowered her chin. "Yes," she whispered.

"Let me see," her Sister asked. "Let me see the pinkness of your purity. Step to the light and show me."

The young girl took a step closer to the oil lamp that flickered on the bedside table and lifted delicate hands to her neck. "I am still pure," she said and worked the buttons loose, one at a time down the front of her nightdress.

The cotton opened to reveal a thin torso. Her etched ribs, carved like a Grecian slave-girl's lyres harp, supported the tiny mounds adorned with feisty nipples. Her stomach lay flat between narrow hips. And lower, as she parted her nightdress, she presented her Sister with a surprisingly prominent pubis. She was sparsely covered with honey-colored curls that did nothing to hide the two puckered fillets of flesh that were nestled between her legs.

She pulled her nightdress from her shoulders, let it slide down the length of her thin frame and stepped from the confines of the cotton. The girl made another tentative move toward the light.

"Show me."

The heat rose in her chest and she struggled with the humiliation. She hated this but bravely squatted, bending on knobby knees and pushing her hips toward her Sister's upturned face. Then separating her legs, the girl reached down and opened the folds of her sex for the older woman's inspection. "I am still pure," she repeated, reassuringly.

"Yes. But I will lose you soon. To marriage. You are of age, and a pretty morsel my Little One. You will be assigned to one of the Tribunal and then your duty will be to him. But you must promise me, always: You will never speak of what you do for me and for the others. Promise me that."

"I promise. I know what would happen to me."

"My, you are a good girl. As long as you are pure, you have the ability to preserve me. The Lord knows my terrible thoughts. He must be so despaired, but he has a divine purpose for me. So instead of lifting me up, he has sent you here, to save me. Do you understand what I am saying, Little One?"

"Yes Sister."

The older woman lay her head back on the pillow. "Good. You can continue... continue with my punishment."

There was a nod of acceptance and the girl came around to the side of the bed. She crawled up and positioned herself on her knees between her Sister's outstretched limbs and leaned forward to place a lingering kiss on each of the woman's buttocks. She blessed her, making the sign of the cross.

"That's good, so good," the older woman murmured. "Kiss me again." And reaching back she opened her cheeks. The tight whorl of muscle compressed when the girl's lips first touched it. Then, holding her hand like a pistol, she pushed hard, knifing two fingers deep into her Sister's rectum. The older woman heaved, her breath caught short in spasms. But a moment later she barked, and smothered her giddy laughter into the pillow.

The girl curled her fingers inside her Sister's bowel and, hooking her by the anus, she got her feet under. She balanced precariously on the shaky mattress. "Ready?"

"Yes. I gladly receive my punishment."

The girl bolted upright, lifting with both legs. Her fingers slipped and she dug in harder, gripping with fingernails and pulling her Sister's knees up from the bed sheets. Her Sister felt the tearing inside and howled, "Oh yes! Again. Again. Make it hurt. Make it bleed."

The girl eased off, lowering the older woman back down. She forced deeper inside and redoubled her claw-hold, forcing her nails into the rectal wall. She widened her stance and hauled up again, lifting her Sister from the mattress a second time and shaking her like a cat does a mouse.

She held her Sister's bottom, hooked in the air, until her own muscles cramped, quivering uncontrollably for relief. She pulled hard to the side of the mattress and, straightening her hand, she dumped the older woman to the floorboards and landed down on top of her.

"Now finish it," the older woman gasped, on her knees again and writhing in anticipation.

The girl nodded and jammed her hand back into the woman's bleeding rectum as hard and as fast as she could. With only her wrist showing between her Sister's buttocks, she knotted her fingers inside. Then leaning back, she wrenched her fist free.

The woman's breath caught and she bit back a strangled cry.

As her hand broke free, the girl saw the anus bulge to pass the obstruction; the small opening stretching thin and bloodless to allow for the withdrawal of her gnarled fingers. She hated her Sister for what she made her do and, maddened by the thought of what was to come, the girl thrust forward again, punching into the woman with all the strength her thin arm had left. In a frenzy, she finger-fucked her Sister's until her hand ached. And, knotting her fingers for a final time, she tore out from between blood-smeared buttocks.

To the girl's disgust, she heard her Sister convulsing in gleeful laughter. And when her Sister had taken a breath, the girl heard her mumble, "Cleanse me now. Cleanse me of all the poison."

In all her short life the girl had been taught to obey and now, nodded wordlessly. It sickened her to place her hands on the outside of the older woman's thighs and lower her face down. But obedience was mandatory and she licked the anus; licked it clean. She closed her nostrils to the earthy smells and licked and sucked and probed.

"Lower," her Sister finally encouraged. "Do me there as well." And the girl licked her there, licked and sucked until her Sister heaved over and tuned face up. "The seed," the woman cried, "is bursting with poison. I can feel it."

And the young girl took up her Sister's clitoris between her lips and sucked until she was grabbed about the head and wildly told to stop. And all the while, as she performed The Service, all that was running through the girl's mind was how much she hated being used this way. How much she hated bedtime. How much she hated the lesbians.

She was desperately alone with no one to protect her; no one to fend for her. Her mother had strayed, bedded another man without first seeking Father Benjamin's permission. The man was reprimanded and forbidden to attend the communal meals for seven days. Her mother had been Raptured.

She would never rid herself of the sound of her mother's tormented screams piercing the night air.

The girl had stood by the wall in the compound, listening, and finding it hard to believe that the bloodless shrieking coming from the Meeting Hall was from her own mother's mouth. Women, crossing the compound, turned away, eyes downcast. Others ran, hands clasped over ears. Later, she watched the procession wind its way up the hillside like a ghostly serpentine; fiery torches lighting the way. She saw her mother supported between two men, her right leg useless, a foot trailing behind in the dirt. The men dragged her into the pine trees and the girl never saw her mother, ever again.

Chapter Two

 

Victim No.7 was a pretty accountant by the name of Beverly Dalton and employed by a firm on the East Indian School Road near the old downtown center. Barely twenty-two, she had just started a promising career and was living, for the first time, in her own apartment. Bev wore her soft blond hair swept over her forehead, had expressive blue eyes, and, her best feature she thought, full, sensitive lips. She was a good girl, still single, and spent the weekends in the desert, at her father's stable where she exercised the horses.

She was a petite little thing; a slip of a girl, as folks liked to say, with long swan-like limbs. Anyone who had been fortunate enough to meet her, was immediately taken by the shyness of her exquisite charm.

The only dark spot on what had been, up until now, an idyllic life, had been the sexual assault: Bev had been molested in her apartment elevator. It happened six weeks ago, after work. She had parked in the underground, locked her car, and pushed the button for the fifteenth floor. The elevator stopped at the lobby and a man, about thirtyish, stepped through the doors, selected the top floor and mumbled something about visiting friends.

Bev was sorting out her apartment key at the time and hadn't taken much notice until she felt his hand on her shoulder. Startled, she looked up to find the muzzle of a gun pointed at her left eye. When she tried to scream, the gun moved quickly down to her lips and, pushing her back, he lodged the barrel into her mouth. Bev was pinned into the corner of the elevator while he roughly ran his hand across her breasts. Then, moving down the front of her business suit, he groped her between the legs.

A moment later the elevator doors opened and he was gone. It had happened so quickly, Bev wondered if she might have imagined the whole thing. But there was no mistaking the taste of gun oil on her tongue.

She had reported the incident to the police but not told her parents. She didn't want them to worry. And besides, she convinced herself, nothing had really happened. It wasn't like he had followed her into the apartment and forced her. It was humiliating, sure, but she felt more stupid than anything else, for letting it happen. Damn, she couldn't even give the police a description of the guy and it was no surprise that she heard nothing further from the detective who documented her complaint. So in the end, she took it as a warning to be more vigilant and a month later had dismissed the incident altogether.

 

She was running late. Bev had spent two hours, pro-bono, straightening out the accounts for the Women's Rally. A shoe-box of receipts had been dropped off and she dutifully sorted through the paperwork; entering expenses into a computer spreadsheet for submission to the IRS.

It was a Friday and well after six o'clock when she finally left the office; she knew her mother would be holding dinner. As Bev negotiated the dense, Phoenix drive-home traffic, the steaming asphalt seemed to pulsate under her wheels. She grimaced when saw the backup of cars waiting to negotiate the on-ramp to Interstate 8 and made a decision that would ruin the rest of her evening: She decided to take the Old State Road out onto the desert.

Bev didn't like the road, especially at night. There wasn't any street lighting for one thing; the road was little used and crossed a barren, empty desert. But it would cut twenty minutes from the drive to her parent's ranch. So, with the sun already dipping below the mountains in the west and throwing the sky into a wild dance of color, she turned onto the Old State Road and watched the shadows reaching as night-time closed in.

Her headlights picked out a stretch of highway she knew ran straight to the horizon where, against the dark purple night-sky, she could just make out the dominating profile of Monastery Peak. It cut out the starlight leaving an empty black hole in the night sky. She knew the road took a turn to the south, skirted the mountain, and a half-hour after that, she would be sitting at her mother's kitchen table, enjoying a glass of wine and catching her parents up on her week in the City. Bev took a deep steadying breath, the fragrance of her mother's roast of beef already manifesting itself in her nostrils. She smiled to herself and accelerated into the darkness.

The road was empty. Two cars rushed past on their way into Scottsdale for city shopping or restaurants and bars, perhaps, but other than a couple of bunnies that bounded away from her tires and the light reflecting from a coyote's eyes, she was alone.

Suddenly, angry headlights flared up and hung on her rear bumper as if giving her the once-over. But just as suddenly, she watched the vehicle slow in her mirror, back off, and finally disappear as she made her turn to the south. Bev wondered if some cop was checking to see if she was wavering out of her lane. The terrain to her right had gained definition, sloping up in the darkness and she could smell the pine trees that grew in the lower ravines around Monastery Peak. She was almost home.

And then the unthinkable happened: With a sickening shudder, the engine faltered. She was stupefied. It couldn't be possible. She worked the accelerator, pumping it hard. The engine caught again and momentarily, she clung to the hope that the problem had been short-lived, a bit of water in the fuel perhaps. But no; her luck had run out. The engine coughed once, and died. Her car, as lifeless as a tin coffin, rolled to the side of the road and the foreboding silence of the desert descended about her slim shoulders.

With her stomach tuning knots, she fought the panic: First turn on the flashers. Check the fuel gauge. Fine. Try the key again. Not so fine... Okay. Call dad.

Bev was just reaching for her bag when the pulsating yellow lit up the interior of her car. That was quick, she thought. The light-bar was mounted on the roof of a truck and squinting into the cascade of bright light, she watched a guy in a red checked shirt step down. He walked alongside her car, hunched as if it were raining and she suspected an older man.

"Where did you come from?" she asked through her open window. "I was just about to call my dad."

"I'm outta Avondale. Patrol this stretch of road all the way to the border and back, most nights. It's not the place to breakdown, Miss, fer sure. You outta gas? I gotta a can in the truck."

"I wish it were that simple. I filled up yesterday and the gauge shows three-quarters."

"Humph. Probably electrics, then. Here, let me pop the hood."

With a sense of dread, Bev realized her mistake far too late: Before she could protest he pulled back on the car door and squatted to reach for the hood release under the dash.

Bev had pretty legs; a fact she celebrated with short skirts and by wearing four-inch pumps.

He ran his eyes along the calf muscle, up to where her dress was hiked, held back by the seat cushion. Bev watched his hand snake toward the hood release but a moment later, his fingers diverted. He touched the softness behind her left knee and ran his hand up the curve along the bottom of a bare thigh. Bev was so shocked she made no cry nor offered any protest. Not until his hand forced up the hemline of her dress.

Her chest caved. "Don't," she threatened and tried to get an arm up. But he just laughed and reached in to get a grip on her throat. He dragged her scrambling body from the driver's seat, bucking and kicking. He lifted her clear off the ground by the neck. Suddenly there was a second man. Bev was aware of his hands, first running across her breasts and then, reaching around, he cupped and squeezed her buttocks. He clamped his arms around her waist and hauled her bodily toward the truck.

"No," Bev screamed, knowing there would be no saving herself if they got her inside the cab. She kicked harder. Someone hit her across the face.

The shock of violence stilled her and the hands about her throat tightened. With dread she realized he might choke her to death, right there, at the side of the road. Her body seemed to crumble.

"Now you just do as you're told, Miss, and everything's gonna be fine," the man in the red shirt hissed in her ear. He pulled her up by the neck again and gave her a shake. "You hear me?"

Bev nodded. He shook her some more before setting her down.

She stood by the truck, her nerves lacerated and her bowels feeling loose.

"You're a nice little piece," the man said, running a hand down her bare arm. "A bit of City ass for some good ol' country boys. What'dya say, sweetie? You gonna help us out?"

He was much younger than she first suspected, but his hard-planed features were weathered and his eyes unforgiving. "You're going to rape me?" Her voice was small.

"Not just me. There's three of us, sweetie. You're in for a busy night."

The strength drained from her legs and Bev reached for the truck fender to stop from dropping to her knees. "Please," she managed. "Please don't do this. You can't."

The man in the red shirt just laughed again. He was standing too close, smothering her. She looked up, pleading into his face. "You can't."

He ignored her and turned back toward her car. "Get a hook on this thing," he called out. "Let's get the fuck outta here." There was movement inside the cab and the gears ground as the truck was expertly backed up to the front of her car. She gasped as a third man piled out to attach the chains.

Oh God, all three, she turned her face away and wiped the tears on the back of a hand.