Page 58 of Their Cruel Love

“Not here?” I plead with Marcus when he eyes a picnic bench in this pool area. My pitiful pout works, and he keeps going toward the gate.

“We are going to have to get you over this lack of exhibitionism. Back to our room then, pronto.”

“Yet here I am, naked.”

“But without cock inside you.” Marcus tsks.

“Tonight,” Razor says, cryptically. “Tonight will do it.”

I do not like the sound of that. I sigh. “Not more fornicating in front of everyone?”

Though Marcus scoffs at my F-word, neither of them answers me, but I can read the room.

I’m beginning to wonder if the generators here run on come and orgasms.

23

Phoebe

A parade has been planned for tonight. I’m told this once the hour it’s supposed to begin draws closer. A secret like that can only be kept for so long before it has to be told. I’m supposed to wear some diaphanous slave girl costume. Already my head is boiling with minor annoyance. I may like being forcibly dicked down by these guys, but roleplaying like that is never going to be my thing.

Which is why I sneak away on the pretense of going to admire the beach.

Although this white, cotton-dobby dress minus panties may not be climbing gear, I did slip on some gym shoes. I’m checking out that set of ruins with my own eyes. And after that, I’m going anywhere else I can, before the men catch up to me.

The island is small, so being found is probably inevitable.

On second or third thoughts, after I close that rear door as quietly as I can, I decide to explore the right-hand side of the hill. The path that goes straight up the slope is terribly visible from below.

If there are graves here, they will be on the less trafficked parts of the island. If there has been more than one person murdered. If.

Everything we are doing here is based on ifs.

If my nightmares mean anything.

If snuff films have been made here and people were killed.

If they didn’t simply throw the corpses to the sharks and crocodiles.

If Milli is really gone.

The back trail that goes from the resort to the hill also passes the pool enclosure. I’m hoping the men don’t decide to check on me at the beach too soon. Earlier in the day, a large crocodile swam past in the shallows near the beach, its dark shape rippling against the sand in the clear blue-green water. The croc was a monster at least five meters long. That it ventured here, in the middle of the ocean where there seems nothing for it to eat, is apparently not that unusual, according to other guests.

Going there at night for a moonlit stroll would be foolish.

Then and there, I decided to only swim in the enclosed, very artificial pool.

The track splits to the right quite early, and I jog along it for a while since it is quite flat and even. Although it continues around the base of the hill it seems to end at a slender beach, after which the rocky shoreline takes over. I sit and rest on a grassy knoll, using my dress to shield my skin from the small rocks. Grass stains may be the least of any damage I sufferhere. Dozens of thin shrubs with tiny pink blossoms scatter themselves between where I am and the top of the hill, but I can easily see through them. Much of the island’s flora seems to have scrunched its leaves and branches smaller, as if hiding from the sun. I don’t blame them. I’m sweating, and I’ve only come a short distance, and it’s late afternoon.

The ruins would have been a more interesting bet, though I’d have risked being seen far too early. I can only see the cell tower from below. There is a ledge of rock below the top of the hill. That and the glimmer of sunshine on metal makes me think there might be some sort of railing up there, where there should only be cliff face.

A padlocked trapdoor would have to go to a room, and such a room might have a window in the rock face? I will have to check that out, too, but not today.

I head back to the resort and creep in through the door. By now, they must be wondering where I am. Likely, they will look for me out the front, worried I’ve wandered too close to the water.

That thought makes me nibble my lip. What if I panic everyone?

Well, I might, but I needed to do this, and what I’m planning next.

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