Desert Encounter

Amy squirmed uncomfortably behind the wheel of the Jeep Cherokee. She was barreling down Interstate 8 through the Arizona desert, headed west towards San Diego, about half an hour out of the little town of Gila Bend just north of the Mexican border. Mile after mile after mile of desolate desert, with sparse patches of scorched scrub, prickly pear cactus and the occasional sorry-looking saguaro, flashed by on either side of the road. Her problem was that she needed to find a bathroom. Desperately.

She clenched her thighs together and glanced at the odometer: even if she pushed it to 10 miles or so over the speed limit -- the fastest she dared to go -- it'd be at least an hour before she came to Yuma, where she could run into a McDonald's. Turning around and going back to Gila Bend would be quicker -- about half an hour -- but there was no way she'd be able to hold on that long. The one rest stop she'd passed, a little after Gila Bend, had been closed for repairs. She'd considered stopping on the side of the roadway and peeing in the desert, but there were no bushes or trees to hide behind; and there was just enough traffic on the freeway that she'd surely be seen if she just went and squatted by the roadside. And Amy was much too modest to even dream of letting some total stranger see her relieving herself shamelessly by the side of the road, with her naked butt exposed for all to see!

Amy Waldron had been brought up in a strict Methodist family in Tucson, Arizona. She was extraordinarily pretty, with an angelic face framed by thick silky dark blonde hair that fell straight to her shoulders, with wide blue innocent eyes, a pert nose, and sensuous red lips that cried out to be kissed. Her body was trim and athletic, conditioned by years of regular tennis and swimming, with full breasts and hips, a narrow waist, long slim legs, and an ass that turned a lot of male heads.

She had graduated from the University of Arizona a couple of years ago with a degree in Communications, and had chosen to stay on in Tucson -- taking a job at an advertising firm in town -- because of a guy she had been romantically involved with at the time, even though she was aware that she could probably have landed a modeling job in LA or New York if she'd tried. Part of the reason was that she was a deeply moral person, almost to the point of being a prude: the thought of having to stand before the cameras in skimpy costumes, or expose her breasts or pose naked, filled her with revulsion. Her boyfriend -- the only one she'd had, she hadn't been big on dating in college -- had gotten her to loosen her up somewhat, and she had learned to enjoy pretty clothes and sexy lingerie.

But that relationship had ended a month ago, mostly because he thought she wasn't putting out enough while Amy felt found sex mildly distasteful: at best, something to be tolerated on occasion. She couldn't understand how people could find all that sweaty humping and grunting and moaning -- that ridiculous motion of the buttocks -- to be enjoyable. So now she was single and unattached again, which was just fine by her, and focused all her attention on her job.

"Damned coffees!" Amy swore under her breath. She'd been up until long past midnight the night before, trying to finish up some last-minute work for a new ad campaign for an important client. It turned out that they urgently needed to get a bunch of artwork for the campaign -- stuff that couldn't be faxed -- to the client, who was based in San Diego. When she'd called it quits last night, Mike, a senior vice president at the firm, had asked if she'd help out by driving to San Diego today to deliver the materials. She couldn't possibly have refused: Mike was notorious as a hardass, and if he thought she wasn't a team player, her career at the firm was dead.

So there she'd been at six this morning, all bleary eyed and feeling like shit, at the office to pick up the material and load it into the back of her red Cherokee. She'd thrown a big blanket over it, so it wouldn't get blown around if she decided to drive with the window open, before heading west. She had downed a big mug of strong black coffee before leaving her apartment, and another at the office before setting out, just so she wouldn't nod off on the freeway. And now she was paying the price. She'd given up a while ago on holding it until she got to Yuma -- now, she'd gratefully take a rest stop, a truck stop, whatever: anything with a bathroom. But -- this was just her crappy luck -- there didn't seem to be anything out here, just open desert.

She was getting increasingly desperate now, to the point of being prepared to abandon all modesty and do it by the roadside, when she saw an exit coming up. It was some obscure road cutting through the desert, with no sign of life that she could see. She gratefully pulled off the freeway onto the exit ramp, on a whim turning left at its end onto the deserted two-lane ribbon of asphalt: the road was empty to the heat-shimmering horizon on either side, and she figured that a five-minute drive should take her far enough from the highway to be free from prying eyes as she did her business. And this time her luck seemed to finally have turned: after a couple of minutes of driving she spotted a big pile of boulders off to the right of the road... they'd offer her some privacy should anyone choose just that moment to come down the road, unlikely though that seemed.

Amy pulled onto what passed for the shoulder, killed the engine, frantically wrenched the door of the car open, and jumped out and headed for the pile of rocks. She was this close to losing it now, but she couldn't possibly show up for a meeting with a client with a big stain on the seat of her suit skirt, so she gritted her teeth and headed for the rocks, twenty yards or so away, as fast as she could. The ground was stony and uneven, and her high-heeled pumps -- de rigeur attire at her firm -- didn't make it easy to get there, but she somehow made it.

Her breath was coming in ragged gasps with the effort of holding her pee when she rounded the first of the boulders, hitched up her skirt around her waist, desperately shoved her panties down to her knees, and squatted down. She'd put on thigh-high stockings instead of pantyhose this morning -- mostly because pantyhose made her crotch sweaty and itchy in the heat, though she admitted that the stockings made her secretly feel feminine and attractive -- so thankfully that was one less piece of clothing that she had to deal with just then. And then, closing her eyes with a sigh and letting bliss flood over her, she finally let the floodgates open.

She was almost done when she heard the crunch of running feet. She wasn't alone after all.

* * *

The two of them -- Manuel Ortega and his brother Pedro -- had been trekking in the desert all night. They had started out from Hermosillo, in Mexico, five days ago, after paying a "coyote," a people smuggler, all their life savings -- some ten thousand dollars -- to get them across the border. They had headed north towards Nogales, but had been forced to turn west because of the stepped-up activities of the Norteamericano Border Patrol near Nogales.

Last night the coyote had finally gotten them across the border, but had broken his word and abandoned them after that. They were lost in the desert, with no maps and only a little water, and only a vague notion of which way they needed to go. They had come to the road early that morning, heard the faint sound of traffic on the highway to the north, and decided that it would be too risky to try to make it to the highway during daylight. Instead, they decided to hide in the shade of the boulders that day and then try to follow the highway to a town that night.

The desert lay still under the hot morning sun, the lazy swirling of a distant dust devil the only movement to be seen, silent save for the occasional scrabbling of lizards amongst the rocks and the distant hum of traffic on the highway. Manuel and Pedro were dozing fitfully, lying uncomfortably on the rough ground, when they were startled awake by the sound of an approaching automobile. They watched the Cherokee approach with increasing apprehension: when it pulled off the road and came to a stop near them, their first thought was that the Americanos had somehow found out where they were.

"Madre Dios!" Pedro had moaned in despair. "How could they know where we are?" Manuel had shushed him, and they had lain still and low and watched the car through slitted eyes. On closer inspection, it looked like there was only one person in the car, a woman, though they couldn't imagine what she might want out here in the middle of nowhere.

The woman got out of the car and headed towards them. She had blonde hair that fell straight to her shoulders and bounced lightly as she walked, a simple sleeveless blue blouse stretched tight across good-sized breasts, a navy blue skirt that came to her knees, and black high-heeled shoes, like those on the rich girls in Hermosillo, on long, slim, shapely legs covered by dark nylons.

She had a look of intense discomfort on her face as she half ran, half limped towards them. Except for a couple of quick glances towards the rocks she kept her eyes down as she hobbled towards them, and Manuel figured she was watching where she stepped on the rough ground so she didn't trip in her high heels and fall. She disappeared for a moment as she went around a big boulder, then reappeared on the other side -- barely ten feet from them, though they were well hidden in the shadows behind a pile of smaller rocks and some scrub bush and creosote -- and pulled up her skirt. The tops of her black stockings came into view, about two-thirds of the way up her thighs, with a band of smooth creamy skin above it, and then skimpy little black bikini panties covering her mound.

Manuel's breath caught as she hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her panties and pushed them down hurriedly -- almost frantically -- revealing a neatly trimmed triangle of brown pubic hair. Then, completely unaware of their staring eyes, she sat down and, with an audible sigh of pleasure, started to pee. Her eyes were closed, the discomfort on her face replaced by something close to ecstacy, as a stream of water erupted from her and hissed onto the parched soil.

Manuel held his breath and watched her with wide eyes. He had never seen anyone as pretty as this smartly dressed golden-haired gringa. She was young -- he figured she was maybe twenty-five -- her skin was fair, and -- unlike the girls he knew in Hermosillo, who all had thick thatches of coarse black hair "down there" -- when she pulled her tiny panties down her private parts were clean and smooth, except for a trim little triangle of brown curls above her slit.

She was completely exposed to him: he could see quite clearly the delicate pink inner lips of her pussy and the little fold of skin at the top covering her clitoris. He had always been partial to fair-skinned women -- maybe because all the pretty, rich, unattainable girls in his town, who didn't have to work with their hands in the fields and who'd looked down at common folk like him with disdain, had been fair, while the girls from the barrios were dark from laboring under the sun. So, despite his exhaustion, he felt his cock begin to harden at the sight of this pretty woman's naked pussy displayed so openly to him.

As he stared at her, inspiration struck: if they could get the gringa's car, they'd be able to get out of the desert and find their way to a big city in no time, instead of having to painfully plod their way through the desert. For that, though, they'd have to first get the girl. The gringa still wasn't done peeing, though her stream was weakening. Manuel gestured towards her to Pedro and mimed the outlines of his idea. Pedro nodded, and they slowly straightened from where they were lying into a crouched position, then burst out together from behind the rocks and bushes and ran at her as fast as they could.

* * *

Amy heard the running footsteps, opened her eyes and looked up, and froze in panic. Two dark scruffy men were running towards her -- were almost on top of her! After what seemed an eternity, her body finally responded, and she leaped up and turned to run. Things were happening in slow motion now. In one isolated corner of her mind, she felt a dribble of warm liquid on the calf of one leg and realized, with an incongruous sense of regret, that she hadn't quite finished emptying herself. Meanwhile her brain tried to propel her away from her assailants ... the Cherokee wasn't too far from where she was, maybe a couple of dozen strides away, and if she could make it there ahead of these men she'd be OK.

Out of the corner of her eye, as she began launching herself away from them, she noticed the closest of the men maybe six feet behind her. There were no coherent thoughts in her head any more, just a refrain of "Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit..." And as she began her run, on her very first step, she came crashing down, completely unexpectedly, without any warning whatsoever.

She grunted from the force of the fall, which knocked the wind from her. She barely had time to reflexively twist to one side so that the side of her shoulder took the force of the fall rather than her face. Her sunglasses, which she had pushed to the top of her head as she got out of the car, skittered across the hard ground and fetched up against a rock. She rolled limply onto her back, her vision dimming and blurring momentarily from the force of the impact. Then she looked up and finally saw, clearly, the men who had surprised her. They were big men, unwashed, disheveled and scruffy, their faces drawn from fatigue.

Both had big shaggy mustaches, and one had a long pale scar that slashed across one cheek. They were standing over her, staring fascinated down towards her middle. Realization came to her with a sickening flash: why she had fallen, why these vermin were staring at her crotch. Her skirt was still bunched up around her waist, her panties still down around her knees, where she'd lowered them when she'd squatted. In her panic she'd forgotten all about them, forgotten to pull them up before she began to run, and had tripped on them and fallen. And because of that one little mistake she was sprawled helplessly on the ground, her most intimate parts exposed in the bright sunlight for these men to drool at. She cringed with shame and humiliation as she tried to cover herself and get back onto her feet.

And then one of the men brought out a knife.

* * *

Manuel looked at the girl lying on the ground before him. She was tugging at her skirt and struggling to get up at the same time. Her little black panties, which she had pushed down to just above her knees when she had initially squatted down, had now slid down to her ankles. Her knees fell open for a moment as she tried to sit up, inadvertantly giving him another glimpse of her beautiful smooth-shaven pussy. His cock, which had begun to soften a little in the adrenaline-pumped rush from their hiding place behind the rocks, stiffened immediately, straining uncomfortably at the crotch of his pants. Out of the corner of his eyes he could see that Pedro had seen the same thing and seemed to be having a similar reaction.

Manuel pulled out the short folding knife he'd brought with him from his pocket and flipped it open, just so the girl didn't do anything stupid, and gestured to Pedro, who took a couple of quick steps to a spot right behind her. She had managed to sit up by now, and was beginning to scramble to her feet, when she saw the knife. She gasped and her eyes bugged out, even though the knife wasn't very big, and froze in mid-motion. Pedro reached down, grabbed the back of her blouse at the collar, and jerked her to her feet. She gave a soft whimper of fear and pain as she was brought to a standing position, then stood there trembling, her arms limp by her sides, her eyes riveted on the knife in Manuel's hand. Her lips moved, but no sound came out.

Manuel looked at her for a moment, as if trying to decide what to do next, while Amy stood there paralyzed with fear, her panties lying limp around her ankles, with Pedro holding onto the back of her blouse. Then he handed the knife to Pedro, dropped to one knee, reached out and took one of her shapely nylon-covered ankles in his hands. He lifted her foot up gently and eased her panties off over her high heels, repeated this for the other leg, and stood back up with the flimsy black panties in his hand.

Amy was utterly mortified. She had never felt so terrified and vulnerable in her life, standing helpless in the middle of nowhere, with only the skirt of her suit covering the nakedness of her pussy from the greedy eyes of her assailants. As if reading her mind, Manuel, grinning lecherously, reached down and flipped her skirt up to her waist. Amy was horrified ... had these filthy wretches no decency at all? Reflexively, she jerked her hands forward to cover herself and protect what modesty and dignity she could. Pedro's reaction to her sudden movement was just as reflexive: in a flash he jerked the knife up to her throat, its point just touching her soft white skin. Amy froze again, tears coming to her eyes as she began to realize how completely helpless she was.

"P-p-please don't hurt me," Amy pleaded in a soft, terrified whisper. "Please. Please let me go. I'll give you all the money I have..."

Her voice tailed off as she felt the point of the knife on the skin of her throat. Manuel's face was just inches from hers now, and she could smell him, a raw unwashed smell of tobacco and stale sweat. She looked into his hard eyes but saw no trace of mercy there.

They looked at each other in silence for a moment that seemed to stretch to eternity. Then Manuel glanced over to Pedro and said, in Spanish, "Hold her for me." Pedro handed the knife back to Manuel in response, grabbed Amy's arms at her elbows and brutally pinned them behind her back, drawing a whimper of pain from her. Manuel, who had been standing in front of her holding her panties and leering at her, reached out towards her skirt again. Amy struggled frantically, knowing what he wanted to do. But Pedro was much too strong for her, and he held her with her arms pinned behind her, unable to do anything to defend herself.

Then, unexpectedly, Manuel abruptly pulled his hand away, shook his head and muttered something under his breath to Pedro. Then -- to Amy's immense surprise and relief -- he ran over to the Cherokee, circling it, peeking into its windows. All of a sudden he let out a whoop, opened the back of the SUV, and started rooting around inside; a few moments later he was back with the big blanket she had thrown over the boxes of artwork. He spread it carefully in the shade of the biggest boulder, out of sight of the road, then nodded to Pedro, who marched Amy over towards the blanket. Amy struggled desperately to free herself, knowing full well what these depraved monsters intended, but no matter what she did she was unable to break Pedro's iron grip. Walking on the rough ground was hard in her high heels, with her hands pinned behind her and being pushed and shoved along, and she stumbled a few times, but Pedro never lost his grip on her. A couple of minutes later she was standing at the edge of the blanket, panting from fear, her pretty face flushed from her exertions, still very much in Pedro's firm grip.

Her fast breathing, almost hyperventilating, made her breasts rise and fall very prettily, and Manuel's eyes were locked on her heaving chest. He was approaching the edge of a precipice of lust now... He grabbed the front of her blouse with both hands and yanked hard, popping the delicate little buttons off and tearing the blouse all the way down the front with a sharp ripping sound that seemed very loud in the silence of the desert. Amy yelped with surprise at this unexpected assault on her modesty, but with both arms pinned behind her back there was very little she could do about it. He then grabbed the torn blouse at each shoulder and pulled down hard, causing it to rip down the back as well, the tattered garment coming flying off in his hands in shreds. The proud mounds of her breasts were now exposed to her assailants, scarcely concealed by the lacy cups of her flimsy black bra.