The phone was ringing.
At first Ron thought it was just his imagination. It seemed far off and distant, like it was a mile away on a silent country night, faint and fading. It wasn't just that he was coming back into consciousness that made it sound like that, though. There was something around his head, something muffling the noise, like earmuffs.
Only bigger.
And hotter.
And softer.
But growing harder and harder by the second. Constructing. Closing in. Squeezing. Creating less and less space, pressing into his throat like a noose, taking away his breath, making every inhalation a struggle...
"God! Oh, God!" Ron eyes opened with a start and found themselves looking down the Intruder's imposing body, as he laid on his stomach and she laid on her back before him, stretched out. She gazed down his way over the hills of her breasts and the plains of her chest, with one hand behind her head her and the other at her side. It made for a striking visual, even he had to admit that through all the pain. It was just a shame he couldn't enjoy it for long. Her legs made that somewhat difficult.
She had her thighs wrapped around her neck, trapped n the crux of her legs while they draped over his shoulders. Snug and tight and tight[i]ening[/i]. He reached up and tried to pry them, digging his fingers into the thighs in a vain attempt to pull them apart. He would've had an easier time prying apart the Jaws of Life, he was sure of it.
If she noticed his futile attempts, she didn't show it, and he wasn't just thinking about her usual silence. No, the Intruder's attention was hardly on - instead, her eyes were focused on the cellphone in her hand. [i]His[/i] cellphone.
At first he was confused, or as much as he could be with the strangulation affecting his capacity to think and breath. That confusion only mounted when she held the phone up to his face, close enough that he could read the screen
1 Missed Call. From Anna. His wife had been trying to reach him.
His first instinct was one of relief, knowing that someone was expecting. She'd be coming soon, she could call for help, she could do something to help him. That feeling deflated and the color went away from his face a second later, though. If Anna came home now, she'd have no idea what she was walking into, and Ron strongly doubted the Intruder would have any more problem crushing her than she had crushing him.
It was a sobering thought, imagining Anna in the spot he was in, but he had little time to process it before the phone rang again, lighting up his face. The Intruder shifted around her legs, moving them higher, just reaching his cheeks, and then she pressed the little red button on the screen and turned on the speakerphone.
"A-Anna?" He stammered, fear and confusion and pain clear in his voice. "Anna, are you there, you need to-"
Before he could finish the warning, the Intruder's legs came down on his jaw with skull-cracking pressure, pulverizing his bones for one agonizing moment. It was brief, a flash, but it pure agony and his cry filled the room.
"Ron!" His wife's sweet voice perked up right away. She was in the car, judging from the way the sound bounced about. Probaby on her way home. "Ron, what's wrong?"
He opened his mouth to speak, then shut it just as quickly, looking up at the Intruder, staring into her ironclad, steely eyes. He couldn't help but feel there was an unspoken threat, here, a warning to not say anything that would displease her. If he had to guess, he'd say that would include telling his wife to call the police.
He had to be smart about this. Say the right things. That was the game.
"Nothing, nothing, I'm fine." The Intruder eased up on the hold, lessened the pressure. A reward. "I just got through with a workout, went really hard, that's all?"
"You went to workout?" Ron could almost hear his wife's eyebrow raising over the line. He loved her, really, but the woman had a habit of analyzing [i]everything[/i]. Sometimes it was cute, but not so much when he was on the verge of a concussion. "Where'd you find the time, you only got off-"