ONE
Fog encased the lighthouse from a distance so that it only became visible as they drove within a hundred yards of the hulking fortress.
She knew enough about lighthouses to identify its outbuildings such as the keeper's living quarters, a fuel house, a boat house, and the fog-signaling buildings coupled to the actual tower itself. But this lighthouse compound was extremely large, bigger than any she had ever seen.
He stopped the SUV in the only parking space not overgrown with brush and deep sand. As he pulled her out of the vehicle, she looked for signs left by any other people and saw none. Looking up she could finally see the lighthouse compound in its entirety.
Sitting at a the end of an islet extending half a mile into the sea, the lighthouse had been abandoned for years, a historical relic of the US Civil War when the South was trying to protect the entrance of the grassy river that led inward to the state capitol only miles north of this spot on the Gulf of Mexico.
The lighthouse compound served as both a working beacon to warn ships of dangers, but also a military garrison of rebel soldiers, cannon batteries, and moorings for supply and war ships.
She looked out at the sea as the fog continued to roll slowly up the beach from its direction. She knew it would cloak them from the prying eyes of anyone driving past the main road to the structure. She could smell tea olives blooming and feel the mixture of sea spray and fog delicately landing on her face and neck like a tender kiss from a woman's subtle lips.
She stood by the SUV as the driver opened the back and extracted two small brown duffle bags. He knew one contained the implements of pleasure and pain she would be begging for before the afternoon's sun burned off the fog, and another bag with contents to protect themselves from would-be rescuers.
He approached her from behind and slowly caressed the back of her arm before grasping her long hair and snapping her head around to meet his lips in a long embrace. He had waited the whole drive to steal this moment from her.
The mixture of surf...the smell of flowers...his aggressiveness...these all made her aware of the moisture which had found its way from the water's edge to her inner lips, causing a shiver up her spine.
"I'm surprised there's still so much fog this late in the day," he grunted as he broke off his assault. "The sun should have burned it off by now. Better for us. Move your ass inside before it thins!"
Nothing else was spoken between the two as they made their way up the steep steps leading to the creaking, wooden deck which encircled the lighthouse compound's structures. She was startled by the noise of the planks under her feet as they felt like they could give way with each step, almost signaling that going any further would be dangerous, both literally and figuratively.
Her sense of impending doom was only intensified by the sound of the sea breeze thrusting around the outside of the concrete moorings, which resulted in a moaning sound emanating through and around the skeleton of the lighthouse's very foundation. If not for her terror, the moaning would actually sound erotic, as though two lovers were immersed in each other's desire.
Her senses were heightened by the inability to see clearly.
There were strange sounds coming from all directions distorted by the dense curtain of fog, which only seemed to be intensifying instead of escaping the sun's wrath as he had promised. Everything around her told her animal instinct to flee, but she continued to walk slowly forward, testing the strength of the two-hundred-year-old pine under their feet.
He didn't even seem to notice their perilous state as his boots walked confidently behind her, his hand firmly guiding her forward when she became too scared to move another step. She considered that the danger excited him as well, and his total control and confidence overwhelmed her desire to escape her captor. He forcefully grabbed her wrist and guided her hand to the doorknob of the lighthouse's main entrance and whispered in her ear.
'This is your chance to say 'No'."
TWO
The door opened with some resistance and the two entered the cathedral-like inner chamber of the lighthouse keeper's living quarters. The structure was immense. Because of the fog masking the windows, it was almost too dark to know what the cavernous room contained but she could sense old furniture and autumn leaves which had blown in under the door and broken windows.
In one corner, she could faintly make out a small bed surrounded by leather armchairs distinctly out-of-place. Over the bed with its dingy mattress dangled the only light she could see, which appeared to be some type of lantern which was magically suspended in midair. Why go through the effort to place the lantern there and why all the leather chairs surrounding the bed? Surely no one had been here in years, but the eerie glow of the lantern's flame made her know she was deluding herself.
The distinct smell of sex mixed with the odor of mold and decay emitting from the corner repulsed yet beckoned for her to be ravished on the sullen mattress.
"Is this what he has in store for me, safe from the eyes of onlookers and the police, miles from earshot of my reaction to the pain he promised to inflict during our drive to this place? I should have tried to escape while still in the city, before he kept driving further and further away from town and obliterating any chance I had of escape!" she thought to herself.
"That filthy bed is not for you...too provincial and cheap," he said as if almost reading her mind. "There are things much worse in store for you today...although...at least classier. Those are the trappings for high school sweethearts after senior prom getting high and fucking, much below your pedigree."
She only nodded in agreement, knowing that she had been forbidden to speak under the threat that her mouth would be bound with duct tape as it had been earlier.
The abduction...
Had it really only been two hours since the kidnapping? She was already losing her sense of time, and the fear mixed with unsettling desire was confusing her, at best.
The abduction happened so fast. Her mind was a blur trying to remember details so she could tell law enforcement. But her memories of the actual taking were already fading and were being replaced with the fear growing from the barrage of sexual questions and promises of pain her captor repeatedly cast at her since throwing her in the SVU.