It was more than three months since Joe had been gone. In fact, as I was  about to discover although I hadn’t worked it out for myself, it was exactly  one hundred days. The pain and numbness had begun to wear away, to be  replaced by something else. Not to put too fine a point on it, the something  else was desire. My libido was returning. I wanted love, romance, a man to  hold me tight and care for me, kiss me, stroke me into warmth. To be frank,  I knew I was unlikely to get that. And, if I couldn’t have love, I’d settle  for sex. And, if I couldn’t have it with a man, I’d have it with myself.

I’d lain awake long into the previous night, fighting the overwhelming urge  to masturbate. Today I was utterly washed out. I sat at the checkout in a  dream, hardly recognizing the customers even though I’d known them all my  life. You don’t get many new faces in a town like this.

I knew I was going to want to masturbate again tonight. This time, I wasn’t  going to fight it.

A shadow fell across me. I looked up. Nolan Katzberger was coming between me  and the light. Nolan is six foot four, two hundred and forty pounds and a  logger. If you know anything about logging towns, that gives you the  complete picture. Eight days in camp, not a woman in sight and strictly no  alcohol. Back into town for four days whooping it up. Then the camp again.

He swung his basket onto my station. Four six packs. As I checked them  through, he lifted each in one of his massive hands. You could heft a  fair-sized tree trunk in one of Nolan’s hands. He grinned at me. ‘How ya  doin’ Alice?’

I nodded. ‘I’m doing okay, Nolan.’

‘Ya know, I doubt that. I doubt you’re doin’ okay, Alice. Not in the things  that really matter to a woman.’

I rang through the last six pack and held out my hand for his money. ‘You’d  know what really matters to a woman, would you, Nolan?’

‘When her husband’s gone and not comin’ back for a long time? Yup. I guess  I’d know what’d really matter to a woman in that position. You can go and  see him but they won’t let you get your hands on him through the bars, now  will they? Young woman your age, prime of life, I don’t reckon she’d be  feelin’ okay with the world.’

‘Forty ain’t the prime of life, Nolan. In Hollywood, maybe. Not when you’re  working a checkout in this place.’

He leaned closer. ‘You look pretty good to me, honey. An’ it’s gonna be  twenty-five years, MINIMUM, before they let Joe out. Maybe I’ll come round  your place tonight. Give you a helping hand.’ He leered at me.

My face must have been bright red. I could feel it burning. ‘No, thank you,  Nolan.’

‘Bring some of the guys round? Make a party of it?’   ‘I said, no, thank you, Nolan.’

‘Aww. I think you’re just playing hard to get. See ya later, maybe.’ He took  his change and swaggered out. Old Mavis Swann was next in line and she gave  me a very strange look.

My shift ended at three. I got in the beat up old Chevy and drove home,  muffler blowing all the way. I tried to rid my mind of the picture of a  gangbang with Nolan and his friends. A gangbang is sex. It’s men forcing  themselves on a woman because they’re bigger and stronger and the woman  can’t stop them taking what they want. It should have been the most  terrifying thing I could have imagined. So why was my heart beating so fast?

Of course, I knew Nolan had been kidding. He’d be in Duke’s tonight, same as  every night he was in town. There wasn’t enough drinking time for Nolan to  want to waste any with a woman. Still, now I had the dream I was going to  masturbate to.

The house I shared with Joe is outside town a ways, down a dirt road and  hidden by trees. Joe liked it that way. It helped him keep what he was doing  private. Or so he thought. Didn’t stop the police catching up with him,  though. I parked in the yard, got out and went into the kitchen. There  wasn’t a soul there to say “Hi”. I thought, as I often had in the past three  months, that I must get a dog or a cat. Somebody to think I was important,  feel sad when I went away in the morning, be pleased when I came home again.

I got under the shower. The temptation to beat off, right there under the  warm water, was almost unbearable. I resisted it. Shower, sit on the porch  with a beer and my first cigarette of the day, have supper. THEN I’d take my  clothes off, get into bed and be kind to myself.

It was warm, even for August, and I’d just spent six hours in a plastic  coverall. I changed into loose cotton. Cotton everything. Then I went out of  the bedroom and into the kitchen, looking for my beer.

And found them sitting there. Five of them. Grinning at me.

Oh, Jeez. The gap between a fantasy to rub your clit to and the real thing,  sitting there in your kitchen. My heart was going like a jackhammer. I felt  sick in the pit of my stomach. And fear. I felt fear. I opened my mouth to  speak, but nothing came out.

‘Surprise!’ Nolan was smoking. They were all smoking. And looking at me as  if I were the entertainment.

I found my voice. ‘I’d like you all to leave, please. Now. Before I call the  police.’

Nolan said, ‘Go ahead, honey. Call them.’

I reached for the handset in the place where it always was. The sick feeling  in my stomach got deeper. ‘Where’s the phone?’

Nolan looked around at his five buddies. I knew every one of them. Or so I’d  thought. ‘Anyone seen Alice’s phone?’ he asked. Heads shook. Grinning heads.

‘Look, Nolan,’ I started, but he wasn’t listening. He stood up and stubbed  out his cigarette. ‘Get her on the table.’

Now I knew why he’d brought four buddies. A woman has four corners. Four  corners, four captors. One for each arm, one for each leg. They lifted me  up, swung me over the table and laid me down. Gently, not roughly. Smiling  down at me. As though we were all enjoying ourselves. They didn’t let go. I  have never felt so utterly helpless.

Nolan was standing over me the way he had at the checkout. He was smiling at  me. His hand came down on my knee and started sliding up my thigh. ‘Nolan,’  I said, ‘don’t do this.’

The hand went on moving. My head was twisting right and left and I was  pulling for all I was worth against the hands holding me down but…well.  There were four of them. All loggers. All tough and strong as oxes.

‘Nolan, please. PLEASE, Nolan!’ His fingertips were right up high on my  thigh, touching me where the skin is soft and smooth. ‘Oh, God, Nolan,  please. There’s still time to stop, Nolan. Nolan, PLEASE don’t.’

He took his hand away. I breathed out in relief, but too soon. He took my  cotton skirt and raised it to my waist. ‘Holy shit’ said one of his buddies.  Jake Barrard it was. We’d been in school together. Jake had married Theresa  Osovsky who’d been my best friend back then and I’d been her bridesmaid.  They were still together, with three children. He said, ‘Get her panties  off, Nolan.’ He was laughing.

Nolan’s hand went back to the top of my thigh. His thumb moved to touch the  lacy edge of my panties. He started to trace the lace around, taking his  time. I was still babbling at him to stop, please, please, PLEASE stop, but  I think I knew that wasn’t going to happen. I only had to look at their eyes  to know they were going through with this.

Nolan’s finger pressed hard into my panties where they covered me. Covered  the bit of me they all wanted. He laughed. ‘You little tramp! She’s wet,  boys. She’s loving it.’

‘No,’ I gabbled, ‘no, no, please, Nolan, please don’t do this,’ but he had  hold of my panties and was trying to get them down. I resisted with  everything I had, pressing my ass down onto the table, but it was useless. I  could no more stop a runaway semi on the highway by jumping in front of it  than keep Nolan Katzberger from doing what he meant to do.

He held my panties to his nose. ‘You little slut,’ he murmured. I hated the  approval in his voice. How could he possibly think I wanted this, was  enjoying it? He offered the panties to the others and they all sniffed,  whooping and laughing. I felt like the worst kind of lowlife tramp.

Suddenly he took his hand away. ‘Let’s find the bedroom.’ He set off looking  and the other four picked me up, the same way they had when they’d put me on  the table, one at each corner, and we followed Nolan.

They dropped me on the bed and held me down. Nolan was undressing. ‘Strip  her,’ he said. And so they did, twisting me this way and that so they could  undo snaps and clips until I was completely naked. Nolan knelt over me. I  was suddenly filled with calm. ‘Nolan,’ I said. ‘There’s still time to stop  this. You can all go away and I won’t say a word to anyone. Please, Nolan.’

He smiled. When he smiled it was like watching a happy little boy whose just  been given a present he’s longed for and thought he’d never get. Then he  kissed me, gently. His lips were warm and soft and his tongue pressed into  my mouth. I didn’t resist. What would have been the point? While he kissed  me he took one of my breasts in his hand. ‘Remember the junior prom, Alice?’

Eh? No. Should I?

‘I asked you to be my date. You said no. You went with Jason Kermody. A nice  boy from the right side of the tracks. Like you. But Jason’s gone, Alice.  Jason’s leading a nice corporate life with his nice smart wife and his nice  smart kids in some town with a future. And you married Joe, and you’re stuck  here. What went wrong, Alice?’

All the time he said this, he’d been gently kneading my breast. ‘Joe’s a  lowlife, Alice. Your parents cut you off when you married him, didn’t they?  I’d have been better for you than Joe, Alice. And I’ve wanted you. Ever  since junior prom. I’ve watched you and I’ve wanted you.’

I lay still as his hand moved down across my stomach. ‘I’m sorry, Nolan. I  didn’t know. I had no idea.’

His huge hand lay for a moment on the top of my thigh. Then his thumb  pressed against me, asking for entrance. All the fear had left me. I was  embarrassed as hell, but I no longer thought they’d hurt me, or kill me. I  moved my thighs to let his thumb come into me.

It was a big thumb and it knew what it was doing. Very soon I was breathing  heavily. Very soon my hips were moving. Very soon I was crying out. The  others let go of me. They knew I wasn’t fighting them any more. I threw my  arms around Nolan’s immense shoulders and dragged him down to bury my  scarlet face in his throat as I lost all control. I held up my lips to be  kissed and he obliged.

I looked down the space between us. Just like the rest of him. Big. I  reached down and wrapped my hand around it. ‘You want to put that inside me,  Nolan?’

He nodded.

I pulled him gently upwards, maneuvering him until his warm tip pressed  against my lips. The very place I’d been planning to rub with my fingers.  Even with four people watching, this was better than fingers. I rubbed my  nose against his face. ‘Think you can take it from there, baby?’

He nodded again, and slid into me. It wasn’t like I expected. That is, it  wasn’t “slam, bam, thank you ma’am”. It wasn’t just Nolan’s thumb that knew  what it was doing. When it came to knowing the way around a woman’s body,  everything about Nolan was expert. I wrapped my legs around his back and  rocked with him. Every powerful thrust made me grunt. I didn’t care. I’d  never been to this place before. I was floating.

And then it came to me that the audience was part of it.

We hide sex. I did, anyway. The same mother who cut me off when I married  Joe had taught me that sex wasn’t nice. It was something you did for your  husband, as infrequently as he would let you get away with, and you didn’t  expect to enjoy it. You could say it was a generation thing. I’d had good  times with Joe. But if you were my mother’s daughter, you learned that some  things take place in private, and you don’t talk about them afterwards.

And here I was, stark naked and fucking my brains out in front of four men  who, undoubtedly, were going to want their turn when Nolan and I were  through.

It should have made me suicidal. In fact, it felt great. For once in my  life, I – Alice Murphy, failed daughter, barren wife, checkout slave – was  the center of attention. And all of it was approving. It was like I was at  the plate in some vital school game and Nolan’s hand played gently over my  nipple and his lips plucked at mine as he drove in and out of my joyous  cunt, and “Yeah, baby” and “Go, girl” wafted over me from the bleachers. I  could never have done this in public of my own accord. But I wasn’t doing it  of my own accord. I had no choice. And so I could let go and revel in the  sheer exhibitionism of it.

When Nolan came, he took the weight of his body on his elbows instead of  just dropping on top of me the way Joe did. I liked that. It meant he might  be rough and he might be from the wrong side of town but he was a gentleman.  Over the years, I’d learned something I don’t think my mother ever knew. It  isn’t money or breeding or education that makes a man a gentleman. It’s what  he has inside him.

He kissed me, long and tenderly. I wrapped my arms around him and kissed me  back. ‘You’re a hero,’ I said. ‘A fucking hero.’

Then he rolled away from me and stood up. And, as soon as he did, Jake  Barrard came into view. Jake was as naked as Nolan had been. As naked as I  was.

If this was just a story I was writing here, I’d have a different ending.  Jake, or one of the others, would say, “Jeez, Nolan. I never knew you felt  like that about Alice. That was beautiful. That was like a religious  experience, man. That was like being in church.” And they’d keep their  clothes on, tiptoe away, let themselves out and drive off to Duke’s. Where,  of course, they would tell no-one what they’d just witnessed. And Nolan  would stay here with me, and we’d have something to eat, maybe send out for  a pizza, drink some beer, and then we’d go back to bed and lie there the  whole night through. And before we went to sleep, Nolan would make love to  me. And, in the morning, before I got up to go to work, he’d do it again.  And I’d go through the whole day knowing he was waiting at home for me. And  I’d never need to even think about masturbating ever again.

That’s what I’d write if this was just a story.

But this isn’t just a story. This is an account of what happened that night.  I read somewhere that some writer said, if you’re going to tell the story,  you have to have respect for the truth. And I reckon that’s right.   So what I’ve written there about religious experiences and being in church,  that isn’t what actually happened. What happened was that they fucked me.  All of them.

Jake hooked my legs over his shoulders, bent my legs right back so I was  almost screaming with the pain and rode me. There isn’t any other word for  it. If this had been the Fuck Rodeo, Jake would have had the gold cup. He  just went right at it till he came and then he rolled off without a word,  stood up and started to dress.

Barry Gombold was more gentle. He made it last, too, but he didn’t even  start to rouse me the way Nolan had. It wasn’t good, wasn’t bad, just going  in and out hard with no finesse, no kisses, no gentle manipulation of tender  nips. Just a fuck. A sex act like most sex acts that go on between most men  and most women every day of the week. I lay back and let him do his thing  till he shot his load into the same place as Nolan and Jake had already left  theirs. It occurred to me that it must be getting like the inside of a  bill-poster’s bucket down there and I wasn’t surprised that no-one attempted  to go down on me.

I’m not going through the whole thing man by man. They fucked me, every one.  They didn’t try to hurt me, they treated me like a good sport, but every one  of them did it to me. And then they left.

Nolan stood by the bed before they went, looking down at me. I couldn’t read  the expression on his face. Contempt I could have understood, but it wasn’t  that. Understanding? Sympathy? Desire? Love would be too much to hope for.  ‘I’m sorry about the junior prom,’ I said.

He nodded.

‘It was my mistake,’ I went on. I knew what I wanted, but asking for it  would take courage. My voice was small. Timid. ‘Do you want to stay? Let the  others go without you? Send out for a pizza? Have a beer or two? Spend the  night together?’

He shook his head. ‘No, honey. Thanks, but no.’

‘Okay.’

I lay where I was for quite a long time. Then I got up, pulled the stained  sheets off the bed and hauled them to the old Bendix. I’d wash them on  Sunday. I replaced them with fresh sheets from the closet.

Then I took my second shower of the evening. I didn’t feel like masturbating  now. There was absolutely no need.

I put on a cotton robe and slipped a pack of Low Tar and a lighter into the  pocket. I went into the kitchen, made myself a sandwich and carried it onto  the porch with a beer. I sat there for a long time as the light faded and  the darkness came in. Not thinking about anything much. Just sitting there,  smoking. The dark doesn’t frighten me. I feel at home in the dark. It’s sort  of cherishing. Protective.

I smoked six cigarettes in the time I was out there. Six is a lot for me. It  was beginning to cool and I was thinking about bed when I saw lights on the  dirt road. When they turned past the last of the trees I recognized the  pickup. Strangely, the only thought I can remember having is that I’d  changed the sheets for nothing. They’d come back for seconds and the clean  ones would end up in the same condition as the last lot. And did I even have  another set ready to put on?

But only one man got out of the pickup.

He raised two take-out pizza boxes, one in each immense hand. ‘I don’t know  whether you like anchovies,’ he said. ‘So I got one of each.’

‘With or without,’ I said. ‘It’s all one to me.’

We ate the pizzas in the kitchen. We drank a couple beers, smoked some  cigarettes. It felt good. Companionable. I stroked his forearm. It made my  hand look tiny and it was as hard as a board. He said, ‘I suppose you’re  wondering why I let them all have you?’

I waited.

‘What do they call that thing,’ he asked, ‘where you’re obsessed with  someone but you can’t stand to think about them?’

‘I don’t know, Nolan. Love-hate relationship, maybe?’

‘No. That’s not it. I never hated you.’

I noticed he didn’t say he’d never loved me. I began to feel a tingling in a  place I’d have thought had enough done to it to be satisfied for a  month.

‘I thought if I fucked you and then I watched them fucking you, I’d be over  you. I’m not.’

‘Oh. Is that good or bad?’

‘That depends on you.’

‘How’s that, honey?’

‘I’m forty, Alice, and I’ve never had a steady relationship.’

‘Some men can’t handle one.’

‘Yeah. Sure. And some men fall in love once in their lives and, if they  can’t have her, they don’t want anyone else.’

‘The junior prom was a long time ago, Nolan.’

‘I guess that shows how hard I fell for you, Alice. Now I’m here, and you’re  here, and this looks like my chance.’

‘What do you want from me, Nolan?’

‘I want to know what my chances are. I want to cherish you and love you and  take care of you. I want to stay, and be your man. I want you to divorce Joe  and marry me. That’s what I want.’

‘That’s a lot for a girl to think about, Nolan. Coming out of the blue like  this. Why don’t you stay the night and I’ll give you my answer in the  morning?’

‘Okay.’

The love-making we had that night was as tender as anything I’ve ever known.  He stroked me until I was almost screaming with lust, his huge hand gentle  on the insides of my thighs. This time he did go down on me and I had a  shattering orgasm just from the insistent pressure of his lips and tongue  and teeth on my inflamed little nubbin. Then I pretended to drift off to  sleep, and he actually did.

When I was sure he was really sleeping, I crept to the drawer where Joe kept  what he always called his special items. I took out the cuffs he’d used that  time he’d tied me down and paddled my ass. Before he reamed it for me. They  were covered in fur and the carton had called them “silken restraints”, but  inside the fur was steel. Steel handcuffs. There’d been no way I was getting  up till Joe had enough of what he wanted. I’d made sure he never used  them on me again.

Getting the first one on Nolan and fixing it to the bed was child’s play  once I’d opened the cuff to the maximum so it would go round his monstrous  wrist. For the other, I had to wait. I fixed one end to the bed and left the  other opened. It took half an hour before Nolan rolled over in his sleep,  stretching out his free arm towards the far side of the bed. Where his  subconscious told him I’d be, most likely. Just lying there and waiting like  a Stepford Wife for his sweet attentions. The tugging from the cuff started  to wake him, but it was too late. I’d already snapped the other one on to  his wrist and closed it.

Poor Nolan. He tried everything to rip himself free, and I thought for a  moment the bed might not stand the strain, but it was a strong old bed and  it held. I sat on the side of it and smoked a cigarette while I watched him.  He talked to me, but I can’t tell you what he said. I wasn’t listening.

Then I went into the garage and got a tree lopper. I went back into the  bedroom and sucked Nolan’s cock. When it was good and hard, I cut it off and  stuck it in his mouth.

I had to sleep on the porch that night. I’d have liked to get into bed  beside Nolan, because to tell you the truth the emotional turmoil had left  me exhausted, but his screaming would have kept me awake. It must have  stopped at some point, because when I woke and went to get dressed he was  dead. Loss of blood or choking on his dick, I couldn’t say.

I spent Joe’s nest egg that I wasn’t supposed to know about on the best  lawyer I could get. It was a good investment. Justifiable homicide while I  was out of my mind as a result of gang sex. I got probation, and it’s over  now. The rapists got jail time. They’re still in there. I guess they talk to  Joe sometimes about what they did to his crazy wife. Or maybe they don’t.  Who understands men?

Theresa divorced Jake right after the trial and left town, but I’m still  here. Masturbation is all I have left to me now. Occasionally I see a man  who could press my buttons, but everyone here knows what I did. There ain’t  no man going to put himself at my mercy while he’s sleeping.

You can’t account for what some women will do. Probably there are women who  will allow themselves to be gang sexed and then forgive the ringleader and  take him into their lives and their beds because he says he loves them.  Probably there are.