The Daring Prey

Chapter Five-1

Chapter Five

Alexa woke to find bright sunlight streaming in through the gauzy curtains in the lone window of her room. She stirred in her bed, and then suddenly sat bolt upright. What time was it? Had she overslept? It felt almost certain that she had. She tossed back the sheet and clambered out of bed naked, searching for her parcel of fresh clothing. She found it, tore it open, and quickly dressed. She bundled her clothes from last night together, wrapped them in the shredded packaging her fresh clothes had come in, and made her way downstairs, bringing her water bottle and key with her. The saloon on the ground floor was practically empty, but she saw Mike sitting at one of the tables, drinking coffee and apparently waiting for her. He looked up and grinned as he heard her coming down the wooden staircase. She wasn't exactly thrilled to see that he'd caught up with her, but better him than the Anderson brothers, she supposed. She walked past Mike and over to the bar.

"Coffee, please," she said to the bartender. This morning, he was a young-looking man with a goatee that was a couple of shades darker than the hair on his head. After he'd served up a steaming mug, she held up the ragged package of the clothes she'd worn yesterday and asked if it could be sent back to her hotel in Gordburg. Only after he'd told her that it could did she ask what time it was.

"It's just about ten-thirty," Mike said from so close behind her that it made her jump so that she almost spilled her coffee.

"Thanks," she said sourly as she turned to face him. "How did you find me?"

"You're making yourself pretty easy to find," Mike answered. "You try to make a big noise everywhere you go. Here I thought you'd be flattered that I was still trying to keep up with you. Can I buy you some breakfast? Or maybe brunch? I'm betting that you're hungry after your very busy day yesterday."

"Well... thanks," Alexa relented. "Yeah, I am kind of hungry."

"Steak and eggs sound good?" Mike suggested.

They sat on opposite sides of one of the round tables and talked as they ate. She wanted to know what Mike had done after she'd left him behind. He seemed to take being seduced and abandoned with a certain amount of good humor, though when she looked into his eyes she knew that he was looking forward to getting some payback... or maybe at least another roll in the hay, and in these little hamlets an actual roll in the hay was a distinct possibility. But not for her, if she had anything to say about it, and definitely not today.

"So why did you keep chasing me?" she asked innocently.

"You're a challenge," Mike replied simply. "And you really do have the tightest p***y I've ever f****d. I'd like to do it again."

Alexa felt herself blush. She'd said a lot of things in the heat of the moment back then, and now she wished she could take some of them back. "Could you keep your voice down?" she asked, irritated.

"I could, but that wouldn't be as much fun," Mike teased. "Anyway, what have you got to be embarrassed about? You're in Gordburg, not back at home. Say, where is your home anyway?"

"None of your business."

"That's kind of rude," Mike commented. He didn't seem at all upset. "I mean, after I bought you brunch and all. What are your plans for the rest of the day?"

Alexa eyed him levelly. "I'm going on to the next little burg on this road," she said. "You want to chase me again?"

Mike laughed. "No way," he replied with a shake of his head. "I already know I can't catch you unless I get really lucky. I might try to anyway, if you could guarantee me another afternoon delight like we had yesterday."

"No way," Alexa said. "You want to f**k me again you have to catch me."

"Deal," Mike grinned. "That's what I was planning to do anyway. You know, I heard about you and the Andersons. I'm going to have to be at the top of my game to beat them out."

"You'd have to be at the top of your game anyway," Alexa grinned back. "And from what I've seen so far you still won't quite be able to do it."

"Really? Well, what are you planning to do once you've hit every little town along this road? Go back to where you started?"

Alexa paused. The fact was that she hadn't thought much past visiting every town. She'd intended to take a little time to think about her next step once she'd done that, but realized now that she should have done that thinking long before now. But then she hadn't counted on finding herself in her current situation. Maybe she should have. She was pretty sure she could stay just out of Mike's reach, but it was clear that he wouldn't be easy to shake off entirely. And then there were the Andersons. She had no idea where they were, or what they might be planning. And how many other self-styled 'girl catchers' might there be here on the south side? She wished Will had warned her about those, but it probably tickled his perverse sense of humor to not even mention them.

"That's none of your business either," she finally said as she finished off the last of her steak and eggs. "You want to catch me, you'll have to do all the work."

"I seem to recall that you liked doing all the work," Mike chuckled. "But could you answer me one question, at least?"

"What?"

"Why do you keep your hair so short? I heard a couple of guys saying that they thought you were into girls."

Alexa couldn't help laughing. "I've heard that before," she said. "Lots of times. You tell me something first. Do you think it looks bad this way?"

"Well, no," Mike replied. "It's different, though. It makes you stand out."

"Right. When I started with this personal training business I always tried to get my clients to work up a sweat. Problem was, to get most of them to do that I had to work one up myself, sometimes two or three times a day. I hated how my hair felt when it was like that, but I couldn't shampoo it after every session without getting it all dried out, no matter what kind of conditioners I used. Besides, when my hair was long it was always getting in the way."

"You could have worn it in a ponytail."

"You know, I've heard that before too. Yeah, I could have, but that still left the icky-feeling problem. So I had it cut short. It's worked out pretty well for me. It gave me a distinct look, too, and that got me a couple of exercise equipment commercials." Alexa took a sip of her coffee. It had gone lukewarm. "And as for the me liking girls part, I found out that a lot of wives didn't mind me getting their husbands into shape because they thought that too." She left unsaid one other reason: When her hair got to a certain length it became unmanageable and kept getting split ends.

"And it's never given you any problems?" Mike asked.

"Only with a few other women," Alexa admitted. "I'd give them a song and dance about having to keep my hair that way so I could snag some well-off, married men as clients without having their wives hanging around to keep an eye on things. You'd be surprised at how sympathetic they were once I told them that."

"So," Mike mused. "You're not into girls at all?"

"You're a pretty smart guy," Alexa told him. "I'm sure you'll figure it out." She pushed back her chair and stood up. "Now, if you'll excuse me," she said, "I'm going up to my room. Nice seeing you again, Mike."

In all her time in Gordburg, which, she had to admit, wasn't all that much, Alexa had yet to see anything in the way of a television, a radio, or even an electric alarm clock. She knew that they had electricity. Even in the scattered trading posts on the 'north side' they had it for lighting and, she suspected, refrigeration. There was an overhead electric light in her room, and another in the tiny bathroom. But there were no wall sockets anywhere, so even if someone brought in their own radio there was no place to plug one in, and batteries would only last for so long. Now that she thought of that, she realized that she hadn't seen any batteries for sale anywhere either. And even in the newer, resort part of Gordburg itself, while there were outlets in the hotel rooms, she still hadn't seen a television or a radio. Up until now, none of this had really registered with her, but at the moment she would have liked to have either one here in her room, just for background noise, while she thought about where she was, what she wanted to do, and how she might yet do it. Instead, she settled for lying on her bed and thinking quietly, which was turning out to be harder to do than she would have thought. She really missed that background noise she'd become so accustomed to without even realizing it. Back in the city where she lived, you could hardly go anywhere without coming across a television screen: Bars had them, lots of restaurants had them, and coffee shops had them. Hell, even the bank branch she used had one up on a side wall. It used to run news and commercials, the sound muted, until her bank had been taken over by another, bigger bank. Now it was never on, but the screen was still up there on the wall, a blank reminder of things past to anyone who happened to notice it.

Her main problem, as she saw it, was that she had tried to get herself noticed and succeeded in doing that far too well. Mike hadn't been the first, but he was proving to be the most dogged. In retrospect, maybe she shouldn't have dragged him up to her room after that long chase and ravished him on the bed, but by the time she'd reached safety she was so very, very excited that she'd barely known what she was doing until it was all done and Mike was drifting off to sleep.

She probably shouldn't have brought up how tight her p***y was either. Men really seemed to be intrigued by a tight p***y. Hers was a byproduct of all the exercising she did to keep herself in great shape, plus some pelvic exercises she threw in because they made her feel good. She should have just let Mike lie back and enjoy it, but she'd been in a very strange mood and Mike, still winded from the long run, had been so... submissive? Yes, so submissive while she was riding him that she just had to taunt him a little. There had been the thought in the back of her mind that a hot afternoon quickie with her might satisfy him so that he would go on his way and leave her alone while telling his friends about the tight p***y that got away. It would seem that she'd misjudged him. And, truth be told, if she was going to be captured she wouldn't mind if it was Mike who did it. Just not now, not so soon. Would he stay after her until she had broken the near-legendary Elf-Girl's record? Or would he finally get discouraged and go after a female who was easier to catch?

Well, she had no control over that.

Then there was the matter of the Andersons. They advertised themselves as 'girl catchers', as had Jacob, that interesting character she'd met last night That was different enough from 'female catchers' so that she'd tried to get more information on just what a girl catcher was. When she saw Will again she'd have to ask him why he'd never bothered to mention them. Last night, she'd asked the bartender about them, but he'd been too busy to tell her much. One of the waitresses who had just gone off shift had been a lot more helpful. According to her, girl catchers usually only went after the younger women, preferably the smaller ones. Tiny blondes were especially prized, 'tiny' in this case meaning no taller than five-foot two, which meant that Jacob Farmer had hit a jackpot with his little ex-gymnast. Once captured, a girl would be given some rough basic training in obedience and submission, with the emphasis on 'rough'. Then she would be sold off at auction, either back at the big slave market in Gordburg or in one of the little hamlets on the south side. Normally, Alexa would have been safe from girl hunters, but she probably wasn't safe from the Andersons at all, not after eluding them the way she had in front of an audience. Dumb luck had had a lot to do with that, but nobody seemed to realize it and she didn't feel like telling them.

The problem was that while she knew where Michael Andrew Jackson was, and was sure that she could outrun him over a long course, she didn't know where the Anderson brothers were and was just as sure that they could run her down any time they really wanted to. The more she thought about how she'd just barely escaped them, the more she came to think that they had been toying with her, planning from the start to catch her just before she reached safety. If they'd been toying with her like that, what might they be capable of if they ever actually caught her? Thinking about it made her shiver. She'd seen females come in for some rough treatment here, but was sure that there were much rougher things that she hadn't seen yet: Whipping, caning, n****e clamps, suspension... even strappado and bastinado, two words that she didn't understand at all until Will had explained to her what they meant. She didn't know how she'd react to those. There was a universal 'safe' word in Gordburg, though they called it a 'bailout' word, and she knew what it was. Last year she'd even heard Lynette scream it just before she could be rogered from behind by a strap-on-wearing Alexa. To this day, Alexa was kind of sorry that Lynette had wimped out like that. She would have loved to give the boot-stealing b***h a good, hard f*****g in front of that very interested male audience in the slave market. Well, at least she'd been able to do it to Martina.

Reminiscing over last years' good times was fun, but it wasn't helping her figure out what to do next. Alexa turned her thoughts back to her current situation. Her next step had to be getting to the next and last little hamlet along this road. Mike was hovering nearby, but she could outpace him. And so far there was no sign of the Andersons. Maybe the business they'd mentioned having to get back to would keep them away for a while. She certainly hoped that it would.

And with that, she knew exactly what she should be doing right now. She got out of bed, hit the head, and went downstairs. Mike wasn't there, but she knew he had to be around somewhere. She turned in her room key and then went out into the street. It was a warm day, and dry. She made her way to the edge of town and began her warming-up routine. It attracted some male attention, as she expected that it would. As she went through her stretching exercises, she scanned the men watching her. None of them seemed to have anything to say, so the odds were that they already knew who she was, what she'd done, and what she was about to do. She didn't see anything in any of them to give her any concerns. One or two might be pretty fast in a sprint, but she didn't think any of them would have the stamina for a miles-long run. All the same, she gave herself as much of an edge as she could by suddenly breaking into a flat-out run without warning. She heard excited cries erupt behind her and just kept going. She'd had enough of looking back over her shoulder.

After a while the lack of any kind of noise behind her – no yells, no heavy footsteps, no labored breathing – compelled her to take a look. There were two men still trailing after her. One of them looked as if he was ready to quit, but the younger one looked motivated and determined. She'd never met either one of them before, and as neither one looked like one of the tall, lean Andersons she didn't feel worried. She was moving along at a pace she knew she could easily keep up until she reached the next hamlet. There wasn't any chance of being caught by either of those two.

Then she came around another shallow dogleg bend in the road and realized that she hadn't thought everything out as well as she probably should have. Up ahead she saw two more men walking along side by side, their backs to her. From the way they were dressed, she figured that they'd been out hunting in the woods for a while and were now on their way back to town. Neither of them seemed to be aware that she was rapidly coming up behind them.

She had to think fast. In a moment her grim-faced pursuer would be coming around the bend himself, and if he had enough breath to call out a warning the two men up ahead of her might try to grab her. Alexa kicked her run into high gear, sprinting towards them. They must have heard her footsteps once she got close, because they both turned an instant before she heard someone behind her yell for them to stop her. They probably weren't used to potential prey running straight at them, and their hesitation gave Alexa the advantage she needed. Rather than run around them, she sped right between them, stiff-arming them both as she went by. She didn't know if they fell or just staggered back, but she was past them now, still running flat out. She heard angry cries and kept going. There was another shallow bend in the road coming up and she began to worry what she might find once she was past it.

This time her luck was in. The road ahead past the bend was straight and clear and she could see her objective, the last hamlet on this stretch of road, not too far off. She risked a look back. There was no sign of the grim-faced younger man, but the two men she'd shoved out of her way were just rounding the corner at a run. They seemed to be upset with her. Alexa laughed once and kept running. She didn't know how fresh her new pursuers were, or how fast they might be, but she wasn't taking any chances. She kept up her sprint until she'd passed between the stakes that marked the edge of the safe area. Once again, she'd attracted something of an audience by the time she got there, several men, a woman or two, and one black-clad proctor. Winded, Alexa came to a stop and leaned against one of the lampposts as she tried to catch her breath. Her legs felt rubbery, and the muscles in her thighs and calves had little tremors running through them. She pushed away from the lamppost and began walking in slow circles in the street. As much as she wanted to sit down, she was sure that she'd run the risk of cramping up if she didn't take a little time to cool down first.

Two men came over to her. They looked like the ones she'd brushed aside, though they didn't seem quite so upset now. They looked something alike, but that was probably because they were about the same height, had the same color eyes, and were both sporting several days' worth of beard on their faces. At second look, one had a predatory beak of a nose while the other one's nose was more stubby. They had different jawlines as well.

"What was that all about?" the beak-nosed man asked.

Alexa saw the proctor standing nearby. It didn't look as if she was going to interfere unless it became necessary.

"Sorry," Alexa favored the men with her most dazzling smile. "You were in my way."

"Who was that guy chasing you? Your boyfriend?"

For the first time, she noticed that the determined younger man was nowhere in sight. Where had he gone? Did he decide to just quietly fade into the woods? Maybe he didn't want to be embarrassed staggering into town all out of breath.

"No," she said. "He was trying to catch me. He had another man with him."

"Only saw the one guy," beak-nose said with a shake of his head. "I think he turned and went back. How long was he chasing you?"

"Oh," Alexa shrugged as if it was no big deal. "From the last town. A couple of miles, I think." She took a deep breath. She was still winded enough that saying more than a few words took an effort.

"I don't get it," beak-nose's companion said.

"Perhaps I can clear things up for you," the proctor said as she came closer. Alexa saw that she was on the young side for a proctor, though her dark blonde hair was done up in the severe bun that seemed to be as much a part of the uniform as the drab black dress. "This is Alexa Marx," the proctor told the men. "She started off on foot from the first town along the road yesterday morning. I was told to expect you, Ms. Marx."

"Oh?" Alexa looked at her. "Why?"

"You tend to attract a lot of attention wherever you go," the proctor replied with a hint of a smile.

"Excuse me," beak-nose broke in. "Are you trying to get caught? If you are, you're really going about it the wrong way."

"It would take me a while to explain," Alexa said. "And I'd really like to sit down for a bit."

"I guess you would, after a run like that," beak-nose's companion commented. "We were coming to town to get a meal and a drink when you knocked us down."

"Sorry," Alexa said with a shake of her head. "I didn't know if you'd try to grab me or not and I couldn't take any chances."

"Tell you what," beak-nose said. "Come on into the saloon with us. Sit with us, have a drink with us, and you can tell us your story. We'd kinda like to hear it."

"All right," Alexa agreed readily. She noted that they hadn't offered her anything to eat, but if she drew her story out long enough they might wind up buying her a meal. She wasn't especially hungry at the moment, but having strange men pay for her meals was starting to feel like something she was entitled to. Besides, if she told these two what she was trying to do it might add to the reputation she was trying to build. It might also get her caught before she reached her goal if it attracted the attention of too many hunters intent on bringing down such daring prey. Inwardly, she shrugged. If it worked, it worked. If it didn't, it didn't. This was no time to start playing it safe. Besides, she was having too much fun.