The Investigative Reporter 7: The Price Of Freedom, part 2

(story continues from The Investigative Reporter 6: The Price Of Freedom, part 1)

Part 7: The Price Of Freedom, part 2

Beth knew she wouldn't be able to easily open the trunk lid from the inside in the dark, if at all, and that if she needed to escape it would have to be right past the stranger staring at her. That was at best a near impossibility, but even if she did escape this stranger she would be stranded nearly naked in an unknown place with no food, water, or even money to buy her freedom. She knew she could be easily grabbed by some opportunistic men who could take extreme advantage of her, (if they could catch her), only to return her to Grandview where she belonged when they were eventually done with her.

Burned into the leather straps of her harness were her prisoner number, "Property of Grandview Correctional Facility", and a warning about the penalty for unauthorized removal of the harness. It would be a simple thing to know where to bring her, or if her potential captors were especially clever, who to contact to negotiate a reward.

Under those circumstances Beth knew what awaited her, but what if whoever grabbed her decided that since she was already wearing a harness that they could utilize her as still another stock animal on their farm indefinitely? Her three month sentence could turn into a life sentence, making Grandview look like a vacation, and making Beth wonder why she didn't just put up with her torment like the others until her sentence was over.

Beth realized in a painful moment of introspection that deep down she did think she was special, despite her denial of such when first cornered by the girls in their bunk house on that first day. She was better looking, smarter, and didn't belong at Grandview, just as the man who gave her the easy twenty lashes confirmed. Other than at the hands of the evil snakelike wife she was treated with kid gloves by the staff, until the end when the men had little choice with the precedent the evil wife had set. Even when she was worked hard, the team did almost all of the actual pulling, her job really just to guide them.

Too good to finish at the university and receive her degree, too good to accept the lewd advances of her editor, too good to serve out her sentence at Grandview, even too good to actually pull with the team instead of just guiding them. She was also too good to be forced sell her clothes and strip for her common jailers, not to mention servicing them afterwards to earn her prison sack dress, but she did so anyway when given little choice in the matter.

Beth was angry with herself when she saw the pattern clearly for the first time, and wondered how she ever expected to write her expose without fully living the experience, instead of just briefly visiting a softened version of it. True she had done more already in pursuit of her illicit tale than most writers could ever imagine doing, but they didn't give Pulitzers to "most writers" either. Beth realized then that it came down to choices, the kind given, a well as the kind taken away. Would the editor humor her unusual request if she could maintain the courage to ask? Could any rational man not? He was first and foremost a man, and while she had no desire for him, she knew he would suit her purposes specifically because she didn't...

**********************

"I'm no policeman, my name is Sam, and I'm an illustrator. Our mutual employer coerced me into aiding and abetting in your escape, likely to save his skin if something went wrong."

"Well 'Sam', forgive me if I seem ungrateful, but most men wouldn't do such a thing lightly knowing the trouble they could get into. I also couldn't help but to notice that you don't seem terribly surprised by my attire, or lack there of, as if you expected as much. So my question for you is, who are you really 'Sam', and what are your intentions?"

"If I were a younger man that would be a much more difficult decision," and this look was one of both admiration and despair. "But as it is I intend to take you to our employers summer house before I am caught with you. We will need gasoline soon, and the service stations will be open by then if I have planned well. I have a sandwich for you if you're hungry, as well as half a thermos of coffee, and even though I slept the last day away in preparation, I will need sleep long before we reach our destination. I have nothing for you to wear I'm afraid, save for one of my shirts, but purchasing something for you in Grandview myself the day before your escape wouldn't be smart. Now if you will excuse me, I need to replace the tail lamp I removed earlier to conceal my license plate."

Beth instantly felt small for her suspicious tirade the moment Sam got out to repair his tail lamp, and she added one more thing to her list, "too good to appreciate a free ride to freedom in the trunk of a Ford." She also took notice that Sam the illustrator felt the need to take his ignition key with him, less the naked convict with the bad attitude in his trunk should try to steal his nearly new car. With no money to her name the car wouldn't take her very far, not to mention sitting in the drivers seat would get her loads of attention that would be sure to draw the police.

By the time Sam got back into the car Beth had devoured half of her sandwich. He started the engine once again and drove off as Beth leaned forward to talk with him through the open half of the seat back, but she kept low so nobody could see her through the windows even though the roads were deserted.

"I hope you can forgive me for my earlier rudeness Sam, nobody would blame you if you put me out on the street you know. You could just take off and leave me to fend for myself. I of course have a good idea how that would turn out, and I am indebted to you for not doing so, but the thought must have occurred to you."

"It did... How was the sandwich by the way?" Sam asked to change the subject.

"Quite good, and the coffee was as well. Aren't you the slightest bit curious about my harness and boots, if not for the manner of our meeting?"

"I was hired to keep an eye on you, so to speak, and to sketch you as you worked in the fields from my vantage point on the local hilltop with the telescope that your laying next to. Our employer showed me your mug shot and directed me to include you in as many sketches as possible for a story he had planned, before I knew you were the one possibly writing it, and I did once I got over the shock of seeing you girls being run through the streets like animals."

"That explains a lot," Beth said, and then she laid down in the trunk to nap with food in her belly once again. She slept lightly, felt Sam eventually pull into a service station for gasoline, and then out again. Some time afterwards the road got rough and Beth woke with Sam telling her to keep quiet and stay put. When Sam finally opened the trunk for her she found herself in an idyllic setting with a stream and some shade trees, and apparently quite private in the afternoon heat. These days she was immune to the heat, both with her physical conditioning, and her lacking clothing, allowing her body to breathe as nature intended.

Sam noticed both as he set up his simple tent with his bed roll inside. "I like to come here to sketch, and nobody ever really comes here in the heat of the day. I need some rest before I fall asleep behind the wheel, so if you think you can behave yourself you can wander down to the stream and wash up while I nap. If you can't I'll just handcuff you to one of the trees instead!" he threatened.

Sam kicked most of his clothes off and laid atop his bed roll to nap while Beth found his shaving kit and soap, after she promised to "behave" herself, being put off by his choice of words. She knew he couldn't lock her inside the trunk with the way the seat opened up, but he had made his point with the handcuffs, and he did in fact have a set inside his suitcase right next to his shaving kit. Sam still apparently held a grudge with Beth's earlier rudeness, one that would no doubt increase when he discovered she had used his razor and cream, and his soap in the stream as well while making herself look and smell like the woman she used to be. When Beth put his things back in his suitcase she picked up the cuffs, not knowing at the time the reason for his having such things, other than to restrain her if she didn't behave for him.

Beth got into the tent when she was finished, and she pulled the blanket over both of them as they napped for hours until the early evening, Sam eventually discovering his good fortune waking up next to Beth, her rough harness contrasting nicely with her soft and warm skin.

"We should go soon" he said softly to wake her.

"Sam, I didn't behave myself while you were sleeping, I used your shaving kit without asking first."

"Oh, that's OK, I like the results," he said with a mischief that he hadn't felt in years. Sketching erotic scenes was his only passion these days, but back when he was a younger man (he reminisced), if presented with a young woman so lovely and provocatively dressed as the one next to him...

"No it's not Sam. I was rude to you even as your risked so much to rescue me. I wish to show my gratitude to you for all you have done for me, before you deliver me to our employer tomorrow and I resume my duties as a beast of burden on his estate."

"Even he wouldn't do that," Sam opined, "I could take you elsewhere if you want you know."

"He'll do it if I ask him to, as long as his pretty wife has no objections. She may even take a liking to wielding the whip herself, other wives have in the past. I realized in your trunk that I need more material for my expose Sam, along with some of the rougher treatment that I had been spared to better understand the girls condition. Only after I have been thoroughly dehumanized can I properly expose their dehumanizing plight, and EARN my Pulitzer."

"On a lighter note, it has been some time since I've been truly grateful to a man as deserving as you Sam, and I may have to go some time without until I have all the material I need." Beth's offer couldn't have been more clear without the use of some form of popular vulgarity, something she found revolting and every man like.

"I really, really wish I could Beth, but I am forty five years old you know."

"I have known older men Sam, I actually prefer them, it's really just a matter of finding the proper stimulation. Older men just need more spectacular things to activate their desires, and I know what men like." Beth rolled on top of Sam and straddled his flaccid manhood through his shorts as she continued to speak. "Some want a younger woman to take charge of them, the very idea of being controlled by a young woman being incredibly provocative to their successful ego's. Imagine the president of a major university that I can't name in the same position as you are now, with someone looking just old enough to be a senior high school student where I am. Men who control great things sometimes like to be controlled for just a little bit themselves in this man's world of ours, a kind of mental vacation for them. Their bodies can be provoked to do things that they only fondly remember from their youth, and they can be most grateful afterwards."

Beth rolled off of Sam's flaccid member when she was done speaking, he obviously not responding to being on the proverbial bottom. "Other powerful men lust for the hunt, the pursuit and capture of their prize, and many captains of industry fall into this group, as I suspect you do yourself Sam."

Beth put her arms high over her head and stretched provocatively before fumbling with Sam's cuffs that she had found and taken inside the tent earlier. Her magnificent little body that looked several years younger than Sam knew it to be was stretched out supinely right next to him, her position reminiscent of a surrendering captive, but on her back instead of standing. Her body, deeply tanned and toned from working nearly naked in the hot sun for weeks was like nothing Sam had ever seen before his assignment to sketch the young ladies of Grandview, and Beth's neatly shaved legs and trimmed womanhood aided in her youthful appearance, even though Sam had yet to get that far.

In Beth's world view men were only to be used to achieve her goals, but Sam was about to get a rare freebie from her for his selfless sacrifice, and because she needed him to calm her angry spirit before she attacked him again with her sharp tongue. Beth ratcheted the cuffs closed she had been fumbling with, pinning her wrists together in helplessness invitation as she felt Sam's obvious response to her offer. He looked up from her body when he heard the cuffs close, a shocked look in his eyes that did little to dampen his excitement.

Sam equated himself quite well in that tent with Beth's encouragement, and as she had deduced, he turned out to be a man who liked a little conquest now and again. Of the different types of men she had been with over the years, she sometimes loathed them even while needing herself that which they provided, but she respected them at the same time for having the courage to take what they wanted. Beth knew deep down that for her to do anything else would be hypocritical...

**********************

"Tell me again Sam, why would a man have a set of handcuffs in his possession, but not the key?" Beth asked with some irritation in her voice inside the now dark tent. She couldn't find it in her heart to be truly angry with Sam, he had sated her desires in a way that only a man can, and he fornicated the bitchiness out of her that had been there since before her incarceration at Grandview. Besides, she had put those cuffs on herself before Sam could stop her, and their presence would actually aid in her overall plan with her editor.

"They aren't mine, but belong to our employer and were lent to me so that I could incorporate them into any sketches of you that would make sense. He's dreamed about seeing you in them for quite some time by the way, and apparently now he will get his wish. I only hope for your sake that HE has the key, and that he didn't lend them to me because he lost them."

"Very funny Sam, so now your going to deliver me to him like a real prisoner, after you have taken your liberties with me first. What do you think his lovely wife will think of my popping out of your trunk all harnessed and cuffed up?"

"She won't mind at all, I guarantee it," Sam said, knowing what Beth didn't and that she was away in Europe with her maid. "However, we better toss you back into the stream before we go as you're quite the mess suddenly."

Beth made another visit to the stream with Sam's help, the cuffs she was stuck wearing hampering her efforts. The two then left for the remainder of their trip, driving once again under the cover of darkness, but this time with Beth cuffed in the trunk with no way to even slip into one of Sam's shirts.

**********************

The two of them arrived at the editor's summer mansion mid-morning, the part time staff being dismissed early in anticipation of Beth's arrival. Beth knew she could set the tone and the very nature of their post Grandview relationship by the way she greeted her employer and soon to be temporary jailer. She still needed him to continue her debasement so she could write the perfect story, and his help in publishing the completed work afterwards. For the former, his manly desires and inflated ego would ensure his cooperation, he likely having similar thoughts on his own, although probably not realistically expecting any them to come to fruition. The latter would only be accomplished if he thought there was money to be made.

Beth knew there would be a stiff price to pay for her eventual freedom with what she had in mind, and that her editor turned jailer would likely enjoy collecting every payment until the last one was due. She also knew that if she were to write the perfect story and earn her Pulitzer, she had to first live it without any more choices than the two policemen gave her, and her eventual freedom would only be earned and not given...

The hatch opened by the editors own hand, and he helped his nearly naked and cuffed investigative reporter out of the large trunk as his eyes looked her over in disbelief. Seeing Sam's talented sketches was one thing, but in his opinion they paled in comparison to the stunning creature before him, her warm and tanned arm in his hand passively. From the editors point of view the scene was nearly perfect as Beth looked down submissively and didn't utter a word, and he would be surprised to learn, about to get even better than that.

The editor looked to the cuffs once again, and then to Sam, "Did she give you a hard time?" he asked.

"Oh, several times!" Sam said straight faced as Beth faced away from the man, responding to the editors unintended double entendre as Beth fought off a smile of her own.

By way of a speedy dismissal the editor shook Sam's hand and handed him an envelope after they spoke together quietly, then telling him everything they had agreed to was inside loud enough for Beth to hear, that being Sam's obvious cue to leave. Beth felt like a commodity that had just been purchased, nothing more than the consequences of a business transaction between two men, and wondering what price the editor had paid for her freedom. Beth stood nervously in her harness and boots while still cuffed at the rear of the car, looking down submissively and not wishing to make eye contact with Sam before he abandoned her. Would he see the fear and indecision in her eyes if she looked and wish to intervene?

Beth knew this was her moment of truth, and where she ordinarily would find some excuse to back out before she recommitted herself to her crazy plan. Sam's Ford started and drove up the long cobblestone driveway while she intentional faced away from it, the warm exhaust briefly tickling her bare legs above her boots. As the exhaust note of the engine faded, so did her chances of an instant freedom, but she knew if she could maintain the courage she had found earlier, her eventual successful expose would provide a much more permanent one...

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19.11.14

story continues in The Investigative Reporter 8: Destiny Strikes Again

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