As the sun set over the beached schooner, lights began to flicker on at the Boardwalk twenty miles away. Daytona Beach buzzed with tourists and college students out to enjoy the night. Their lecherous anticipations of what waited was as Clement C. Moore’s poem, “...when all through the house. . . while visions of sugarplums danced through their heads.” The Ferris wheel turned with its sparkling lights; the Bullet spun with its screaming riders. Arcades crackled with excitement and flashed beckoning lights from pinball and video machines. Women dared the crowds in the skimpiest bikinis, as Daytona Beach was the place for the daring and bold.

A young woman, dressed modestly in white terry cloth shorts and a red cotton shirt, meandered through the wind-caressed crowds. She’d hitchhiked ten miles to get to this place so rich with men. Tammy was nineteen. To those more perceptive, she created a sad contrast. Though blond, well built and tanned, she limped the slightest limp as she treaded along. Her pretty red shoes were too small—the right one hurting her foot. Tammy had liked the shoes from the moment she found them in a local thrift store for just thirty-five cents, and had purchased them, hoping she could break them in. At home, her alcoholic mother and too impassioned stepfather made life miserable. Tammy was naive, considering the average woman on the Boardwalk. She felt—deep down—that she’d find her man and when the magic moment arrived, he’d realize how different she was from most women and he’d be overjoyed that he’d found her.

“Hi, baby, let’s go for a ride?” A middle age man approached her. “What about it, honey, I got the bread.”

“No thank you, sir,” Tammy answered, trying not to insult the balding solicitor. “My boyfriend should be catching up any minute—he had to go to the bathroom back at Strolling Charlie’s.”

The man said nothing but backed away and disappeared into the flowing crowd like a potato wedge into stirred stew. Tammy turned into the Fantasy Land Arcade and strolled, the best she could, wearing the shoes, along the crowded aisles looking at each prospective male. A hand pressed against her buttock. She turned defensively as two young men hurried away, glancing back and giggling. “Nerds!” She yelled after them.

One video game caught her attention—a Popeye game with Olive Oyl and Bluto. Tammy stood before the screen and watched Popeye run about the stairs and precarious walkways trying to save Olive Oyl from the dastardly villain Bluto. She didn’t have a quarter to play but she enjoyed watching.

A hand from behind her appeared and inserted a quarter into the machine. She turned and looked upward into the dark eyes of a tall pale man. Pale but handsome and his clothes looked very expensive. He was older than she—probably by twenty years but he was still sexy. Tammy attempted to move out of his way.

“No. Don’t.” He put a firm hand on her shoulder. His eyes burned into hers. “I want you to play. I don’t know about such things but I’d get pleasure watching you.”

“I don’t think I should, sir.” She felt foolish. This man was what she was looking for, but she was messing things all up by turning to jelly. His eyes seemed so strong. She began to play the game.

He moved close behind her, his body against hers, arousing her. Tammy pretended not to notice. Strange noises came from other video games all around her. Somewhere in the far off distance, a recorded ominous laugh cackled, daring the brave to enter the house of horrors. She continued to play, trying to give the game her undivided attention, but instead she speculated as to what future she might have with her new found admirer. She knew other girls who had done really well marrying an older man. But she’d like this man if he didn’t have a dime—he had sex appeal.

She wished he’d stop leaning against her.

“Hello,” a passing, flirting girl said.

Tammy looked at the girl whimsically as the girl made her way along the aisle away from them. The girl, dressed in light blue short-shorts and a dark blue halter, was attracted to the man also.

Tammy wrinkled her nose at her.

“How’s the game?” he asked. He put his hand on her waist. “You’re not paying attention.”

“Oh, it’s doing fine, thank you,” Tammy answered. She hoped he didn’t sense her nervousness. He raised his hand from her waist and slid it slowly toward her left breast. Tammy knew she should stop him but she did nothing as his fingertips touched and caressed the breast and remained.

The game ended. A yellow square on the panel flashed “GAME OVER, INSERT COIN PLEASE.” She stared at the flashing light not knowing what to do. He held her close, his fingertips now gently stroking her nipple. Tammy felt her body responding.

“Don’t do that,” she managed to say. Her command came out a weak, sedated, squeal.

He placed his lips to her ear and whispered, “Let’s leave these people and go somewhere a little more suited for what we both have in mind.”

Tammy hadn’t intended this to happen. She wanted a husband who would love her and work and keep the financial end of things in line. This man was seducing her. He stepped back, his strong arm pulling her with him. She wanted to protest, but she said nothing. People flowed around them as they left the arcade.

They entered the stream of tourist on the boardwalk, the shoes no longer hurting her feet. Neither spoke as they strolled north toward the band shell. Tammy knew he’d find someplace there in all the dark spots to be found. She no longer noticed the sounds of the arcade or the fading voices of other people as they left the crowded area—all she heard was his constant breathing and felt his breath gushing against her ear and neck causing her to almost hope they found a spot soon.

They passed through the arched entrance of the coquina rock wall surrounding the open-air auditorium. Vacant wooden benches stretched five hundred feet to the dome of the band shell. As they walked along the aisle through the center of the white benches, the roar of the nearby surf smothered the sound of their footsteps. The half-hemispherical interior of the band shell was as dark as the mouth of a great shark waiting to devour them. He guided her along to the dome. They ascended the stone stairs to the platform, where many a nationally famous musician had played, and entered the silent darkness. Their shoes striking the concrete surface echoed louder within the band shell. They walked toward the wall that seemed to curl out toward them and entered a doorway into a deeper darkness she didn’t like. Tammy protested but he had her by the waist still and guided her along a curving corridor and then turned, entering a still darker room. The air became suddenly cool.

She smelled decaying feces. “No,” she said, trying to pull free.”

“There’s nothing in this darkness that scares me, my child.”

He began brushing her cheek with his lips. “Don’t be ashamed to want to do what comes naturally.”

“I don’t want to.” Tammy struggled harder. “Not like this. You’re just using. . . .”

He put his lips firmly over hers, drowning her words. He pushed her down to the floor. Her eyes adjusted to the darkness and before he forced her to her back, she could see the rectangle of the doorway to the room. She wished she could free herself and run through that shaded rectangle and back to the arcade again.

They struggled on the dirty concrete floor. She felt grit and cool concrete on her buttocks as he pulled her terry shorts and panties to her ankles and then off. Tammy began to struggle even harder but he pinned her firmly with one arm while forcing himself between her thighs. He entered her and began thrusting savagely. She closed her eyes tightly, forgetting the darkness and the gritty concrete floor and the fact that this man was raping her.

Her orgasm was slow coming; though a brutal beast, he was a master at love. He massaged her nipples while augmenting her pleasure with each deliberate stroke. It seemed they lay there, locked together, for hours.

Tammy tensed.

For a short moment, she moaned and enjoyed the pleasure for then he put his mouth to her neck and a pain shot through her like lightning as something sharp pierced the tender skin.

Tammy screamed a blood-curdling scream.

Outside, on the other side of the coquina wall nearest the soporific surf and wind of the mighty Atlantic, two hippies sat on a wooden bench rolling a joint.

“You hear that, man?” one said, standing on the bench and peering over the coquina wall toward the band shell.

“Take it easy, shithead,” the other hippie snapped as if the first was stupid. “Nothing going on over there but some little cunt’s getting the fucking of her life.”

“I don’t know, man. She sounded like somebody was hurting her bad,” the humane hippie said.

“Don’t worry ‘bout it, asshole.”

The two dissidents went back to rolling a joint and watching for cops.

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Chapter Thirteen
DARK-FICTION EZINE