The Daring Prey

Chapter Four-2

She looked over at a corner table and stopped. There was one man seated at the table, lean, dark-haired, goateed and watchful, with penetrating dark eyes. He wore a loose-fitting jacket and loose-fitting pants that looked as if they were made of deerskin. Under the jacket he wore a plain gray shirt. He was leaning back in his chair, taking occasional sips from a shotglass half-full of some dark amber liquid that he held in his gnarled right hand. It was what he gripped with his left hand that drew Alexa's attention, though. She was kneeling on the sawdust-strewn floor, naked, her arms bound behind her at the wrists and elbows with a white cloth gag covering the whole lower part of her face. She was small and slender and the man had a tight grip on her disheveled pale blonde hair as he held her not just in place but bent over so that her breasts were pressed hard against her knees. It didn't look like a comfortable position at all, but the female looked more pissed off than anything else. She had angry, pale blue eyes and a pert little nose that suited her pert little body. If she was allowed to stand up, Alexa guessed that she wouldn't quite reach five feet tall. The man noticed Alexa staring at him and his captive and caught her eye. He smiled at her and gestured for her to come over with his shotglass. Uncertain, Alexa made her way over to him and accepted the seat he offered with another gesture of his shotglass. Up close, she could see that his grip on the blonde's hair had to be painfully tight, which might explain why the female was keeping so carefully still.

"I saw you this morning," the man said without any introduction. "That was a nice piece of broken-field running."

"Uh... thanks," Alexa said. Explaining that she'd been lucky would take too much time, so she let it go at that. "So you know who I am?"

"Yes, I do," he nodded and took a sip of his drink. "Saw you last year, too, in that cage. You've got a fine body, Alexa Marx."

"I keep in shape," she said. "But who are you, and who is she?"

"Ah," the man said. "Please excuse my manners. I'm Jacob Farmer. I'm a girl catcher, and this here is my latest catch." He gave the blonde's head a little shake and she made a snarling noise behind the gag.

That was the second time today she'd heard the term 'girl catcher'. Will had never mentioned it to her, and she was beginning to wonder if he'd left out anything else. He probably had.

"And you're allowed to bring her in here like that?" she asked.

"It's part of her early training," Jacob replied. "She's a feisty little thing, and she needs to get used to being kept naked in front of men. I cleared it with a proctor. Care to have a better look at her?"

"Uh... no, thanks," Alexa replied after a moment. There were already plenty of naked females to look at around here.

"Have a look anyway," Jacob offered. "Up, Anne." He gave her hair a surprisingly gentle pull, and Anne slowly and gracefully got to her feet, still glaring. Once she was standing, Alexa couldn't help but look. The blonde had an exquisite little body, every bit as trim and toned as hers, but on a smaller scale. Her hips flared out in sweet curves below her waist. She had small, round breasts tipped with coral-colored n*****s that looked like fleshy little knobs pointing ever so slightly upwards. Alexa had a sudden impulse to reach out and touch the female's body to see if that peaches and cream skin was as soft and warm as it looked. She managed to resist the urge.

"She was a gymnast," Jacob said as he slowly pushed Anne back down into her previous pose. "Still keeps in practice."

"What are you going to do with her?" Alexa asked him, thinking that this would be a very strange conversation almost anywhere else in the world.

"Find a good place to break her down a little, give her some training, then take her back to Gordburg and auction her off," Jacob replied.

"And... you get paid for her?"

Jacob chuckled. "I get paid in Gordburg credits," he answered. "And she gets half of whatever she brings credited to her account.. That's how some of us manage to afford coming back again and again."

"I see," Alexa nodded. Will had already informed her about how that worked. "But what do you do in real life?"

"Not really any of your business now, is it?"

"Sorry," Alexa apologized. "This is only my second time here. I'm still learning the customs." She looked down at Anne. The female was keeping perfectly still, her eyes closed.

"Care to tell me a little about your run-in with the Anderson boys?"

"What? Oh, yes. They kind of surprised me," Alexa said. "I was pretty sure I could outrun them, but I almost didn't."

"Different girl catchers have different styles," Jacob commented. "The Andersons'll run a female into the ground before they move in and take her. She's usually too winded to put up a fight for a while, and by then it's too late. Me, I like to stalk 'em." His eyes were fixed on Alexa's: Penetrating, intense, and unreadable as a professional gambler's.

"Are you thinking of stalking me, Mr. Farmer?" she asked.

"No," the man replied. "No offense, but you just aren't my type."

"Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, you wear your hair way too short. Suits you, but it don't give a man anything to grab hold of." Jacob gave Anne's head a small shake. Her eyes flew open and she made a snarling noise.

Alexa couldn't help smiling at that. She'd let her hair grow out before she'd gone to visit Will, and when he'd grabbed her by it she'd been so immediately and so intensely turned on that she'd simply frozen in place, waiting for him to do whatever he wanted. It had been such a powerful moment that she'd wanted to keep it special, which was why she'd had it cut again once she'd returned home. In the back of her mind the thought still lingered that any other man might provoke the same reaction in her simply by grabbing her hair, and she didn't want to find that out for sure. She wondered how Anne felt about it.

"Besides," the girl hunter went on, "I like 'em smaller and blonder. Mind you, if you happened to come into my possession I wouldn't just turn you loose. I can see you've got a wild streak in you, and I like a challenge. But I got to warn you, the Andersons are probably gonna come after you."

"Really?" Alexa felt a thrilling little chill at his words. "Why is that?"

"You got away from them," Jacob replied. "You didn't just get away from them, you did it with lots of people watching. Hurts their reputation. And they like challenges same as me. They get hold of you, they'll put you through the wringer, sure as shit."

"Thanks for the warning," Alexa said. She finished off what was left of her whiskey with a quick gulp and felt it burning on its way down her throat. All of a sudden getting a good night's sleep in the barn sounded as unappealing as it did impossible. The Andersons already knew she was here, and it was entirely possible they were on their way here right now. She could stay safe from them simply by staying inside the safety zone until they got tired of waiting and gave up, but that wouldn't help her achieve her goal, and she didn't think they'd be all that easy to discourage anyway.

"Thanks for the company, Mr. Farmer," she said as she stood up.

"My pleasure," he replied as he looked her up and down. "Best of luck to you,"

Alexa went out of the saloon and took a deep breath of cool night air. Then she took another. The whiskey had been strong stuff, she hadn't had much to eat, and her head was fuzzy. A third deep breath chased off the last of the alcohol fumes for the time being, and she made her way back to the barn. As she gathered up her meager belongings she heard the unmistakable sounds of a female being spanked, slowly, deliberately and hard, each resounding smack immediately followed by a muffled feminine grunt. She checked to make sure no one saw her before she slipped out of the barn and set off down the road to the next hamlet along the line. She moved at an easy lope. The Moon was up, and while it wasn't full it gave her enough watery light to see by. Maybe up ahead she'd be able to rent a room and sleep like a civilized person.

The exercise helped to clear her head, and she began to think more clearly. She'd hoped to visit every one of the little hamlets along the way and get herself noticed at each and every one before striking out into the wilderness and making her way back to Gordburg. Unfortunately, she'd done too well at attracting attention. Besides the Anderson brothers, Mike had been dogging her footsteps from the very beginning. Mike was attractive. f*****g him earlier that day had been very enjoyable and had worked off some of the nervous energy she'd built up during the long chase. It had also been great fun riding him cowgirl-style. She was sure that if he ever caught her he'd make her pay for that, but that might be fun too. He was well-muscled and in really good shape, and could probably overpower her if she didn't use some dirty-fighting self-defense moves she'd learned on him.

On the other hand, if the Andersons caught her they would probably make her pay for not just escaping them but embarrassing them. That might not be as enjoyable. She picked up her pace a little without even realizing it.

She figured she was about halfway to the next hamlet when she heard a shout come from the woods to her right and a little behind her. She immediately kicked her speed up to a run. She heard another shout, and dared to look back over her shoulder. She saw two men standing in the road behind her, and a third just emerging from the woods. They weren't making any attempt to chase her, so she slacked off a little. They just stood there, watching her go. Maybe in the moonlight, with her short hair, they weren't entirely sure if she was a female or not, or maybe they just didn't feel like chasing her. She let her speed slacken to a slow jog and kept going. When she looked back again, the men were nowhere in sight. She breathed a sigh of relief. She had no doubt that she could outrun most men over any kind of distance. All Mike had demonstrated was that he was able to keep up with her, not overtake her. The Andersons were another matter. She pushed them to the back of her mind.

It was some ungodly hour in the morning when she finally reached the next hamlet. It looked very much like the one she'd just left, right down to the street dimly lit by gas lamps and the saloon outshining everything in sight. She went in through the swinging doors to find a few people standing at the bar or sitting at the tables. Everyone looked up or around when she entered, took a quick look at her, and then went back to whatever they'd been doing.

"Too late for liquor, ma'am," the bartender told her as she approached.

"Water will be fine," Alexa puffed. The moonlight run had taken more out of her than it should have. "And a room, if you've got one."

"We do," the bartender said.

"Good," Alexa turned her head and presented her ear. "Charge it to my account, would you? And what time is it?"

The bartender held one of those cellphone-looking things up to her earlobe. It made a chirping noise when he pressed a key.

"It's just past one o'clock, Miss Marx," the bartender said. He put a container of bottled water down on the bar in front of her. "You've got Room Five. Top of the stairs, all the way down on the right." He put a key on a wooden fob down next to the bottle of water.