The Noble Predator

© Pandemos, 2010. All Rights Reserved.

Fair warning to those who find this story familiar - I published this under another member name in 2010, but am moving it to my new member name.

*

Lira had longed to escape to the woods of Maine since even before the long cold, snowy winter had begun some four months ago. Being stuck in her 5x7 office and her 15X17 studio apartment in New York City, it had been so long since she had felt any connection with nature. But more than ever, Lira felt isolated in this city of over 8 million people.

A single woman lost in the throngs of the big city, Lira had become increasingly desperate for connection with others. She was nearly estranged from her mother who had mentally abused her for almost half of Lira's life. As a result of her need for acceptance, she had allowed her demanding bosses and co-workers in the paper products company where she worked to saddle her with every tedious and menial job they didn't want to do themselves, and her entire social life had been reduced to the fleeting sexual encounters with men from whom she desperately craved affection. She was lonely and miserable. Worse still, she had grown hopeless that she would ever again find happiness in her bleak existence. After the dark winter, she felt an urgency to return to the place where she had last felt peace and happiness back when she was just 16 years old, back before the tenuous fibers that had held her young life together came undone.

That was the summer her grandmother had taken her hiking in the backwoods of Maine. Since Lira was eleven years old, her grandmother had raised her, that was when Lira's father had left her and her mother causing her mother to spiral into a deep depression. Lira had been equally hurt by her father's rejection, maybe even more so. Her father's abrupt and inexplicable disappearance at such a tender age left Lira confused and scarred. But Lira's mother was launched into a psychological despair, frequently taking out her anger and fear on her only child.

Lira's grandmother, Belle, had stepped in to care for and nurture Lira. "Belle" was her grandfather's affectionate nickname for her grandmother, short for Lirabelle. A lover of nature and a bit of a free spirit, her grandmother felt a kinship with her only granddaughter, her namesake. She had protected Lira from much of the pain that she would have suffered at the hands of her mother. But she couldn't prevent the pain from ever befalling Lira, only delay it. Her grandmother had wanted to take Lira on a hiking retreat, to share with Lira a love for the raw natural beauty of nature, and to give Lira a place of refuge when her life felt unbearable. Their trip to Maine had come to mean so much to Lira in the years that followed. It was the last happy memory Lira had.

"Lira," she remembered her grandmother saying by the campfire during their trip, "you have been so strong since your father left you and your mother. You are stronger than you know. I wish I...I'm just so sorry your father, your mother, have not been there for you."

"But I have you, Grandma," she beamed and hugged her hard. "We'll always have each other."

Lira adored her grandmother. The neglectful parenting by her mother had been more than compensated by the love and care by her grandmother. She couldn't imagine life without her.

Her grandmother gave her a pained smile, "Life is full of surprises for us. Sometimes for the good and sometimes not for the good." She paused, "Sweetheart, I think very soon things may become more difficult." Her grandmother took Lira's hands in hers for emphasis, "but, no matter what happens, never forget how beautiful and strong you are, inside and out. Don't let anyone tell you differently." Lira understood grandmother was indirectly referring to her mother who had always been particularly harsh on Lira. "When life seems unbearable, when you feel alone, remember this place, remember how wonderful and beautiful life can be."

Somewhere between Boston and Saco, Maine, Lira recalled these words that she had long forgotten, and she began to weep. She pulled over to the breakdown lane of Route 95 as her body convulsed into sobs.

As she sat in her car, she now remembered in detail their last night on that mountain in Maine Her grandmother's words had come out in a rush, as if she was trying to impart a lifetime of advice to Lira.

"Always remember that you are loved and that you are deserving of love. One day you will find someone who will love you, who will see all that beauty in you and cherish you for it, just as you are." Sitting there alone on the mountain, her grandmother removed the wedding ring from her finger and pressed it into Lira's hand, to keep as a reminder of the love that her grandparents had shared, as a reminder of the kind of love Lira deserved. Until her grandfather passed away four years earlier, her grandparents had been inseparable. She had told Lira, "Your grandfather and I faced many obstacles together, it wasn't always easy, but our love transcended and gave us strength during the big and small troubles of life. That is what love can do."

Lira had stared at the heirloom diamond ring in her palm. Until that day, Lira had never seen her grandmother's hand without the beautiful emerald cut diamond adorning her finger. Lira had taken the ring and tucked it carefully in her pack, wrapped in tissue to protect it. But when she returned home, she was devastated to discover she had lost it. It must have fallen out of her pack somehow, somewhere between the woods of Maine and New York City. She wracked her brain to remember how and where she could have lost it, but she could not remember opening the zippered pocket where she had stored it. In retrospect, the loss of that ring was an omen heralding the difficulties that would curse Lira from then on. For it was the last time Lira had felt such affection from another human being, it was the summer her grandmother was diagnosed with the cancer that took her life that fall.

Lira sat in her car wondering how she could have blocked such memories for all these years. After an eight-hour drive from New York, Lira was finally entering that part of Maine where cars were scarce. She stayed the night in a quaint bed and breakfast just outside of Bangor before setting out for another two-hour drive north. She vaguely recalled the location of the woods where her grandmother had taken her hiking many years before and hoped she would recognize the area when she came upon it. Suddenly, the peculiar rock formation behind which her grandmother had parked her car some 8 years ago came into view. She was struck by how dramatically the vegetation had changed from what she remembered, but the earth remained immobile and unaffected, forcing life to move around it.

Lira hid the car behind the granite stone and began her way up the mountain. She had thought there had been a trail when she and her grandmother had come but now she was hiking on completely virgin ground, trudging through growth that scraped and tangled in her legs as she walked. The renewed memory of her grandmother left her emotionally drained, but she felt drawn up the mountain with her pack and overnight camping equipment on her back. The smell of the damp and musty woods permeated her nostrils. Her muscles relaxed as she absorbed the smells and sounds of spring. Birds were chirping overhead, rays of sunlight filtered through the pine trees, and branches were strewn with buds of the spring blossoms. She felt energy begin to fill her depleted body.

The climb was exhausting and required Lira to rest frequently. She couldn't remember the last time she had done any real physical exertion. The most physically demanding activity of late was the self-induced orgasms she enjoyed every few weeks or so. Those muscles were not much use in hiking, however. After seven hours, Lira had decided to set up camp. If her memory was correct, she was only another three or four hours from the summit of the mountain, but she decided not to push ahead any farther today. It had been a long time since her body had been so physically exerted, especially with the weight of her loaded pack. She knew she would feel the pain of overly strained muscles in the morning.

Lira set up camp in a small clearing in the woods and cooked a can of veggie and beef stew. As she was setting up her tent, she had the eerie feeling that she was being watched. She eyed her surroundings often for any movement, but decided her mind was merely playing tricks on her, perhaps the effect of having seen too many campy horror movies where the hikers were inevitably brutally slaughtered. She felt a chill run down her spine before pushing such gruesome thoughts aside.

After eating dinner, she sat against a large maple tree under the full moon to listen to the sounds of the forest. It was a symphony of barred owls, wood frogs and crickets comforting her, yet her senses warned her that something was amiss. Without any evidence of danger, Lira tried to clear her head of these irrational fears and finally closed her eyes. Overcome with exhaustion, within a few minutes her head was lolling to the side as she dozed.

Lira slowly woke with a growing fear that something was not quite right, though in her groggy haze, the reason for her discomfort wasn't apparent. As the cobwebs of sleep began to lift, she listened to her surroundings -- but there was complete silence. That was it. She couldn't be sure how long she had been asleep but suddenly the forest was deathly silent. No more crickets, no more owls. Something was definitely wrong.

Her eyes flew open and were greeted with two muscular legs standing some four feet in front of her. She looked up fearfully and saw a monstrous beast looming over her, clad only in a loincloth. Under the evening sky, the moonlight cast shadows emphasizing the muscles protruding under his skin. Lira slowly drew her eyes up scanning the figure towering nearly 7' over her. His body was thick and muscular; each muscle shimmered under the silvery light. His broad chest was covered in a mat of dark hair. Though not exactly handsome, his face was sharply chiseled and there was raw masculinity in his rough features as he languidly peered down at the woman resting in front of him. His face was smooth, but dotted with small cuts bleeding slightly around his chin.

Lira gasped and moved to run away. As she turned on her knees to escape, a large hand grabbed her around the waist and pulled her to his massive frame. She screamed and kicked to be extricated from his grip. She landed a solid kick in the creature's shin causing him to growl and release her, and she fell to the ground in a thud. In flight mode, Lira scrambled to her feet and began to run, not knowing where she was running to but desperate to put distance between herself and the beast. It didn't matter, however. After her body lurched forward some ten feet, the massive hands were around her waist again, this time he tackled her to the ground, using his size and weight to pin her under his frame.

"No," she screamed, "let me go!"

He looked at her with a palpable desire. "Not fight me," he grunted, "Mine." There was no mistaking his intent.

Lira fought the intense fear overtaking her and threatening to immobilize her. Her daylong hike had sapped her energy. Under the best circumstances, she would be no match for this beast's strength and her unfamiliarity with the forest further disadvantaged her in any effort to flee. Yet she would not let this creature ride her without a serious fight.

She laid still for several moments eyeing the beast, gathering her courage and strength. Her stillness paid off as the beast loosened his grip slightly, signaling to Lira the opportunity to strike again. With a sharp knee to his loincloth, the beast rolled on his side in agony while clutching his groin, freeing Lira from his grip. Mustering all her energy and focusing the lightening bolts of fear coursing through her body, Lira sprung to her feet and sprinted straight ahead for forty feet then veered off to the right hoping to throw the beast off her trail in the dark.

However, the stars were not in her favor this evening, literally. For though it was the dead of night, the stars and moon shone brightly in a beam across the forest floor, like a floodlight illuminating all that was behind and in front of her. She knew that as soon as the beast recovered from the pain shooting from his groin, he would be able to spot her easily, and she would not stand a chance of outrunning him.

Seeing a massive granite outcropping, Lira ran behind it and hunkered down hoping he might run in the opposite direction. She peered out from her hiding place, watching out for him. It felt like an eternity had passed, but there was no sign of him, no sound. Sitting deathly still, she closed her eyes and sighed quietly. She would wait here awhile and....feeling a slight breeze, her body was gripped with fear as her eyes flew open to see those muscular legs before her again. His stealth was creepy. His countenance however was no longer as leisurely as when she first awoke to find him staring at her. Her aim had been good, and the beast now stood before her rubbing the target of her last attack that lay hidden under the loincloth. His eyes narrowed on her and she feared her blow to his manhood had sparked in him a darker desire to do her serious physical harm in addition to simply quenching his sexual desire. She attempted to sprint away again but not before his hands grabbed her by her waist as he pulled her up to him like a rag doll.

"Let go of me, you beast," she screamed.

As he pressed her against his broad chest, she stood still again hoping to feel his grip loosen, but he would not fall for that trick again. Instead, he took the opportunity to spin her around pressing her back against his chest as he reached around her to extricate her from the clothing that protected her womanhood from the desire she felt growing between his thighs. Panic reinvigorated her fight response as she thrashed and flailed at him, her efforts barely caused even a moments delay in his task. Having unfastened the buttons of her khaki hiking pants, he pushed her to the ground while she continued to flail and struggled to crawl away from his reach. She felt the tug of fabric as the cargo pants were effortlessly pulled to her ankles, barring any possibility of escape with her legs bound together by her own clothing.

She twisted her body to face him, his eyes still raging with the injustice done to his manhood. Seeing the effect her earlier contact with his crotch had on his demeanor, she feared incensing him further and lessened her resistance slightly. But having been so sorely abused, he was braced and prepared for her to lash out at him again, making another surprise attack unlikely.

"Please," she begged. "Please let me go."

He knelt down to take off her boots that prevented him from fully disengaging her pants from her limbs. While this would free her legs to run, it would be difficult to run very far in bare feet in this terrain, she thought to herself. He meant to take her here in the depths of the forest, and there was nothing she could do about it. His eyes caught hers as she beseeched him with real tears brimming in her eyes. Despite his anger, his face softened slightly as she pleaded with him to take pity on her.

"Please don't do this," she continued to cry, hoping to exploit the spark of compassion she noted in his eyes while her mind raced to come up with a means of escape from this nightmare.

He looked at her intently and softer this time said, "Mine."

Mustering her resolve, she firmly but softly responded, "No," daring to look in the eye of the beast. She had vowed not to be victim of the desire of any man, or beast for that matter. But as they stared at each other, sizing the other up, she noted he was not quite a beast. In fact, he had a rough, rugged, handsome look that sparked a flame of desire in Lira. But his brutish attack on her, his scant clothing and monosyllabic dialogue gave him a beastly, feral quality leaving her to question the nature of this creature in front of her and what he would do with her.

He continued to look at her as he removed her pants before moving his gaze to the creamy white flesh of her thighs. Turning his eyes to Lira who leaned back semi reclined on her elbows facing him, her face that had been beset with fear softened with a tinge of curiosity. He reached forward to grab her legs just behind the knees and dragged her toward him, his knees planted just between her supple thighs.

"Belle," he breathed softly. His grip was firm but gentler now.

His declaration unnerved her. Lira looked at him bewildered. Belle had been her grandfather's nickname for her grandmother, Lirabelle. Though Lira was her namesake, noone ever called her "Belle.

Or was he calling her beautiful? Lira had never considered herself beautiful, and her mother removed all doubts about Lira's attractiveness, which is why she had long ago dropped the suffix from her name. Her 5'4' petite frame was not particularly muscular. There was a softness to her torso and limbs, her round buttocks and curvy thighs that made her envy the sculpted bodies of her co-workers who spent hours at the gym to hone their physique. Her ash brown hair had no particular style, and was more often than not pulled into a long ponytail away from her face, as it was now. Her face was plain, though her full lips and prominent cheekbones gave her a severe appearance unless she allowed her locks of hair to fall loosely around her face to soften the sharp angles of her features. While her grandmother had frequently insisted she was beautiful, Lira's experience with men only contradicted those claims and confirmed her own mother's frequent reproval.

Lira's love life, or more accurately, her sex life, had been littered with a slew of one night stands and short term "relationships", each of which she had pathetically hoped would turn into more, but none of which lasted beyond a few short weeks. Inevitably, by the third or fourth week of dating, she had become nothing more than a booty call without even the benefit of a dinner or a movie.

Towards the end of each such relationship, the man would appear at her front door, sometimes he would be hours late for their date, sometimes he would just show up uninvited. He would cajole her to invite him in, persuading her to stay in for the evening, at which point he would hastily remove her recently pressed clothes, carelessly tossing them to the floor. After attacking her with brutal kisses, smudging her newly applied make-up and mussing her hair from the tight bun on her head, he would fuck her quickly once or twice before leaving her in a rush. The length of time of each of these encounters was inversely proportional to the period of their dating. The man would close the door behind him as he left her alone in her bed, lying in a puddle of his fresh cum where she would masturbate until she finally reached orgasm unless the shame of the evening's affair caused her to break down into tears before she could climax.

She had recently come to recognize the pattern; each predator had read her desperation and pounced on her to exploit her for their sexual gratification. And she allowed them, letting them take away her self-esteem and self-worth in the process. She was trying to break the pattern and this past winter had forsworn sex, and men generally, in an effort to regain her self-respect. It was no comfort that the brute that now sought his own gratification on her body had taken a moment to sweet-talk her so with terse words of flattery. Yet, feeling the intense heat of his gaze, she was beginning to become aroused despite her vows of celibacy, and probably because of it. Even if she could prevent this monster from taking her, she began to wonder if she really wanted him to stop this molestation of her body.