Alisha meekly returned to her seat at the front of the bus and sat down between her three silent friends. Each of them extended a caring hand towards Alisha and consoled her as she sat back down.
Turning her gaze first across the aisle towards Renee, Alisha seemed to share a momentary glance of shared experience with her before they both turned to look at Laura and Emily as if knowing what each of them were in store for.
"There are two guys sitting back here who are more than a little jealous," Keenan spoke up once Alisha had taken her seat. "This bus ain't movin' until they get their's."
All four girls cringed as they stared at the snakebit guards for any hint of support, but none was forthcoming. Quickly they realized once again their only salvation lied in their own hands.
A gleam of "We don't need to do this," remained in Laura's defiant pupils, but all that was left in Emily's eyes when she tried to measure her friend's mindset was a fatalistic pout of "We don't have a choice".
That outward, tangible expression of submissiveness and helplessness in Emily's eyes belied something much darker and very confusing happening inside her body. Emily's seat seemed to be melting beneath her and a V shaped burn had ignited inside her body, starting at each of her nipples, ripping like a live wire down both sides of her torso and meeting in a sizzling rush deep inside the center of her crotch.
Laura was mortified. What was unfolding went against everything she held dear and on top of it, she tortured herself for getting so drunk the night before. Somehow she knew that if she had a clearer head right after the car broke down, she would have been able to make some snap decisions that would have certainly prevented things from unraveling the way they had. Instead, she was sitting there, one of 12 starcrossed souls on a prison bus, hidden from civilization by a thick patch of brushline. Gradually, a sad clarity crept into her heart as the dearth of options became readily apparent. Feeling the weight of everyone's gaze, Laura swallowed hard as she imagined what might come next.
Laura was the furthest thing from promiscuous. She hadn't lost her virginity until her freshman year of college and even though she did sleep with one guy during her trip to Daytona, one was far fewer than each of her three friends had.
"Hey Lil' Bashful.....," Keenan's voice rang out in the direction of Laura, the head on top of her 5' 3" frame barely visible above the seat.
Defiantly, Laura rolled her bloodshot eyes back to face the shackled black man in the rear seat. She had never been one to take much crap from men, it was part of the reason she hadn't had much luck with them over the years, but she simply wasn't wired to suffer fools or play petty games. What she was however was a realist, and even though her head continued to pound from her slowly dissipating hangover, Laura clearly understood the situation she and her friends had found themselves in and just how limited their options were. But there still was a certain disconnect going on for her. Always a stickler for control over her surroundings, Laura couldn't help but feel a gnawing and unfamiliar itch deep inside when she stared back at Keenan and absorbed the strange hold he had over everyone on the bus.
"Get back here and let's complete the circle," Keenan said in a calm, level tone.
Laura now stewed in the same juices Renee and Alisha had just minutes earlier and she hated it. Her only solace was looking over at Emily and knowing she too was experiencing the exact same sensation.
Turning her focus backwards, past the guards, to the inmates gazing up at her like starved vultures, Laura surveyed the two prisoners in the seats in front of Keenan and Rich. One was a rather large black man, both in height and bulk, who appeared to be in his late 30's and who hadn't lost the same maniacal, cockeyed grin he had since the girls walked onto the bus. The other inmate was relatively short, sleepy-eyed Hispanic youth who had barely made a peep since the drama began to unfold.
For the first time, Laura found herself openly pondering which one of the jailed men she'd be called on to service. The whole world seemed to turn to static around her as she stood up and walked out into the aisle. Her legs had become numb jelly beneath her as she turned to make the short walk. Out of the corner of her eye however, suddenly Laura's heart warmed when she saw Emily stand up as well and fall in line behind her. If they both were going to do it, at least they were going to do it together.
All four guards stood up and backed away, allowing both girls clear passage to the back of the bus, and the painfully aroused men that awaited them.
Once she was close enough to everyone in the back, Laura was startled by just how human and real the men appeared sitting there in their restraints. From the instant she'd walked on that bus back at Renee's broken down car and realized who the men in the back were, she had tried her best not to so much as look at them, much less think of them as anything but monsters. Faced with having to stand directly before all four of them, Laura couldn't help but feel tiny in their presence.
Looking down at Rich on her right as she scanned her surroundings, Laura eyes quivered seeing his shrunken and satisfied cock still dangling from his opened fly and the pattern of cum smears that dotted his lap from his just completed relations with Alisha. Darting her eyes quickly to the left, Laura briefly made eye contact with Keenan, but as quickly as she could, Laura turned her eyes away from his hawkish, all encompassing glare.
Parallel with both the heavy set black guy to her left and the silent Puerto Rican boy, who was just about her age to her right, Laura just stood there absorbing it all. Rocking backwards slightly, Laura rested her shoulders against the much taller Emily's chest as they shared a quick moment of support.
"I want the tall one," the strapping black man to the girls' left spoke up a few seconds later.
Instantly, Laura felt a strange twinge of jealousy and inadequacy shoot through her system. Even though she was mortified with finding herself in this situation, to have a man speak up and openly say he was picking another woman over her clawed at some primal scar deeply embedded inside her. Laura couldn't help being transported back to all the times as a child not being picked until last for teams in gym class, or having boys she liked ask other girls out instead of her as she got older.
The feeling was only heightened by the sensation of claustrophobia trapped on the small bus with the four inmates in front of her and the four guards behind, all hidden under the shade of a thick, daunting wood line.
