She was able to use the vanity mirror to both bend down away from him physically-as if in
fear? pain?-and yet look up at him through her eyelashes (unfortunately not made-up).
"Mostly," she said. "Couldn't you loosen up just a little bit or untie one hand and let me
move it around and get some circulation? You're going to really hurt me badly if you keep
this up."
John could see that this was true, Only her one wrist had been free that morning and now it
was tacked up behind her again. Besides, keeping her sitting up had been his own idea.
"Hmnn-" He considered and savored a bit. "Think of something, please? I couldn't get
away if I wanted."
"OK," he said with magnanimity. Going to where he had been sitting, he brought back the
spare piece of rope and bound her upper body more securely to the chair back. Then,
however, he released her wrists, both of them, one by one.
"Oh! Oh-h-h-" The sound she made was sincere enough. There had been rope on her wrists
almost without relief for over thirty-six hours. As she disbelievingly allowed her hands to
fall by her sides, it was
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like when she was a child and her hands were cold from playing in the snow and burned
when she came in the house. Blood seemed to rocket straight out to the ends of her fingers
and pulse there. She flexed gently and brought her hands up to her lap where she could
see them (rope around her body prevented her from doing more). They were red splotched
with little white freckles in the palms and blue veins on top, and there were deep indents in
the wrists where the cord had been.
If her complaint was real, however, the accompanying gestures were not. She closed her
eyes and bit her lower lip and furrowed her forehead. Unfortunately she was not an actress
and could not cry on demand. It was outcby enough (a term they used on the swim team),
but it wasn't going to kill her nor could she pretend that it would.
"Umnn-" She tried to stroke her sore bands, but one would not quite reach the other.
"What is it?"
"The blood's starting to run back. It burns." She moved her fingers like someone rubbing
sand or powder between them.
"Is it better, though?"
"Yes." She bit her lip again. Bravely this time. Impulsively, even daringly, John reached
down
and took one of her free hands in his and began massaging the inside of her wrist. -
"Ow!"
"Does it hurt?"
"No." In fact, it did. What her hands really needed was just to be let alone, but she did not
say it. "That's nice, but be gentler. Please?" She looked up at him briefly and then lowered
her eyes again. She made an effort to relax. That was going to be the nicest, softest, most
maidenly hand that any boy ever stroked, even if it killed her. It worked, and after a while,
he took her other hand and chafed some color back into it. Such a game could not go on
forever, however.
At length he stood back. "What about your legs?"
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Sexy Barbara looked up at him demurely, and he colored a bit.
"Oh, I see. Only my ankles. The comer of the chair legs-" In the morning, Bobby had tied
her upper legs together above the knees and then tied each foot out to its own chair leg,
and the chair legs were uncompromisingly square and sharp (to her). This, John proceeded
to change, eyes discreetly upon his work which nonetheless seemed to go slowly. He untied
each ankle and then retied them-Ioosely-_together in front of her but not to the chair. She
could swing her legs up and down like a child in a swing if she wanted to, but she did not.
Afterward he slightly eased the rope about her bare knees.
During all of this, Barbara-both Barbaras-had the opportunity to examine her captor more
closely. He was, as she had noticed straight along, a manly boy but more manly than she
had taken the time to see before. He had strong, suntanned shoulders and arms, smooth
and babylike perhaps, but definitely developed. And he was a clean boy with none of the
acrid smells she associated with men on the make. He was like a big, strong pup.
No, stop that, Barbara said. The whole mental sequence, her entire imagined conversation
with Terry came back to her. You don't tum people into bunny rabbits. They are people;
John is nearly a man. He's bigger than I am, stronger than I am, and he can do a lot of
things to me that I can't stop--now. And why stop it, Sexy Barbara said.
Sexy Barbara, indeed, allowed herself to be handled with grace and opportunism (such as
was allowed her). She flexed her toes and rubbed her feet-sole on top of top-together when
she was free, and docilely pressed her heels together when he retied them. She moved her
legs together as if there was pleasure when he eased the line above her knees-actually,
she could barely feel the difference-and sighed with gratefulness when he was done. There
was truthfulness in this, and there was manliness in John.
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Moreover John Randall seemed to have a streak of kindness in him. After the preceding day
and a half, he was the only one who had now gone out of his way to help her. Both
Barbaras found this his most endearing trait. While she was not any more free--she could
not have gotten free in a month of uninterrupted labor-she was suddenly in a state
approaching endurability, and she was making progress.
"Thank you, John." Sexy Barbara flashed him another calculatedly shy look from beneath
eyelashes and
held up her right hand a bit.
-
For a moment he seemed about to shake it, but at the last instant, he clumsily squeezed
her fingers as he had seen polite adults do. There was about it a touch of the minuet. "You
can stay that way while I'm here," he said.
"That'll be nice," Barbara said. "Wait a minute don't go away."
"I'm not going anywhere."
"I mean, don't go over there in the corner where I can't see you. Stay here and talk to me."
"Well ... what about?"
"Anything," Sexy Barbara said. "Just don't leave me alone."
John wavered. Then he sat down on the dresser, one leg along the top, one leg extended
1
down to sup-
port himself.
"Well ... where do you go to school?'' "Here. Bryce High."
"Junior?"
»:
"Next year. I mean, next month." "Do you go out for sports?" "Yeah, football."
"Do you get to play?"
"I played JV last year. I'm supposed to go up to varsity now."
"Do you like it?"
"I dunno." He shrugged. "It gives you something else to think about."
"You ought to be good at it. You're big enough."
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"Pm not very fast." Nonetheless John accepted
the compliment with a faint coloring.
"Do you go steady?" "No."
"Do you have a girl you like?' "Well ... yeah, I guess so." "What's her name?"
"Sue," he said. 'Susan." "What's she like?"