Chapter Four

The Turk had been closely watching through a crack in the closet doors as Cheryl promenaded into the bedroom. He saw her remove the blouse and got his first close up look at Cheryl’s endowments. The bra was a pretty lacy thing, white, and just large enough for functionality. Cheryl’s breasts didn’t spill over the tops of the dainty garment, but there was enough left bare to provide a confirmation of Turk’s prior surmise of a more than adequate pulchritude. Turk planned to let Cheryl continue her disrobement long enough to lose her slacks before he made his move. Stripping a girl of her bra and panties was child’s play, but slacks were always a pain in the neck. Especially tight ones. Now Cheryl was not the type to wear skin tight slacks to work. Her professional aspirations barred dressing as the office slut. But the world belonged to attractive people and her slacks were always judiciously form-fitting enough to display a hint of her charms.

And so Turk was pleased that Cheryl paused before the closet door to remove her pants. Turk watched her somewhat jerky movements as she balanced on one foot and then the other to get the slacks over her feet. She leaned against the closet doors, one arm outstretched, as she pulled the slacks free with the other. Her tawny hair swayed gently as she struggled, her breasts bobbing slightly. Of course, Turk could only catch a slim glance through the tiny aperture between the closet doors, but what he saw was enough to spark his delight and growing anticipation of the night’s events.

So when he saw Cheryl turn toward the bed to toss her slacks aside, he made his move. He quickly, but quietly, pushed the closet doors apart his knife already in his hand. When Cheryl turned back, sensing movement, it was the gleam of the blade that she saw first, then the dark nondescript clothes, and then the dark, angry, grizzled, fearsome face of the Turk.

But there was no time to react. Turk gracefully moved towards the startled woman, his left hand curling quickly behind her head grabbing a fistful of hair. His right hand moved towards her throat, pinning the seven-inch blade to her throat. Cheryl’s eyes popped open wide as she drew a panicked breath, prefatory to a scream or shout. Turk was well prepared for this quite normal reaction and he spun Cheryl around and banged her head sharply against the closet door. A well-placed knee then found its way to Cheryl’s stomach, landing a smart, but not damaging blow just above her sex.

It happened so fast that Cheryl had no time to really think. Most young female New Yorkers harbored secret dreads of rape and mayhem. This justified the double and triple locks on their doors, traveling in groups, avoiding the entranceways to dark alleys. But few believed that it would really happen to them.

Even so, Cheryl’s mind quickly grasped the severity of her situation. But reacting was another matter. She had taken a self-defense course at the “Y” last year, but training with a bunch of ladies and fighting off a friendly instructor was no preparation for the real thing.

The collision of her head with the closet door was not severe, but was enough to stun her briefly and cause her to see stars. But the knee to her groin, that was another matter. She had never been hit there before and the dull thud of the knee brought her an entirely new sensation. A circle of pain seemed to spread out from the blow as she tried to double over. But all she could really do was to try and draw up her knees since Turk was pulling her upwards with her hair. A low moan escaped her lips.

Turk now pressed his advantage. Pushing the blade tightly under Cheryl’s chin he spoke softly into her ear, softly but harshly, in a low guttural tone.

“One more sound and I’ll slit your throat from ear to ear,” he told her menacingly.

Cheryl noted the statement by whimpering mildly, the blade preventing her from nodding her affirmation and too afraid to vocalize the simple response of “yes”. The Turk pulled Cheryl sharply from the closet door and dragged her over to the bed, shoving her down on top of the bright yellow bedspread, jamming her face into the mattress.

He quickly pressed in Cheryl’s arms to her sides with his legs while sliding the blade into its sheath at his hip. The gag was first, of course. He could easily subdue any effort on Cheryl’s part to escape his grasp, but if she suddenly got the courage to scream, or realized, as she should, that her only hope was to call for help, it could present a problem. So the gag was always first.

Turk pulled the gag from his pocket. He always wore pants with large and ample pockets on a job like this. You needed to access your tools quickly and you couldn’t very well go around wearing them on your belt. The object he withdrew was a large red ball with a single continuous strap, made of tough elastic. With enough experience, which Turk had in surfeit, the gag could be administered with one hand by shoving the red ball into the mouth of the victim and then pulling back until the elastic slipped over and around the head. Now, removing it was even simpler than placing it, but you did need at least one hand to do it and Cheryl shortly would be deprived of that asset.

Leaning over his victim, Turk lowered his body onto the frantic, but still shocked Cheryl. If she had not been otherwise distracted, she would have noticed his now steel-hard manhood pressed into her back. Turk noticed it. He also noticed the gentle but firm mounds of Cheryl’s derriere, which were covered only by the light white cotton panties she had adorned herself with that morning. No doubt sexier lingerie was lying neatly in the nearby dresser drawers, and Cheryl would certainly have contemplated donning something to match her somewhat ambient randiness before she went out on the prowl that night. But why waste what had to be either hand laundered or sent out to the cleaners on a mere workday?

Turk had only a moment to enjoy the sight of the struggling white clad posterior. It was important to get the job done right and right away. After impressing Cheryl’s form with his bulk lying atop of her, he pulled Cheryl’s hair back to lift her face from the bed. The effect of having her face smashed against the mattress had deprived the young lady of air. Her natural reaction to the uplift of her head was to open her mouth wide to take a deep breath. Without ceremony, Turk plopped in the red ball and expertly expanded the elastic band to encircle Cheryl’s head. In a trice, she was capable of no more than a murmur, even with the most energetic scream.

The ball was quite large for Cheryl’s somewhat dainty mouth and now pressed behind her teeth. Realizing that her future was dimming, she struggled to free her hands from her sides. Turk, of course, anticipated her next move and had already dropped his hands to grab her arms. His hands were large and strong and it was a simple thing to join Cheryl’s wrists in one while extracting the handcuffs from his pocket with the other. Two clicks and they were on, their glimmering silver a stark contrast to the pale flesh they imprisoned.

Cheryl now had only her legs with which to flail, and naturally she attempted to do so. But the remedy for this was also rather simple. Turk merely pivoted his body on top of Cheryl’s and grabbed her right ankle. Another set of cuffs, this slightly larger than the first, was lifted from his pocket and snapped into place. Getting the second leg in hand was a bit more difficult. He didn’t want to let go of the right leg in order to get the left and Cheryl insisted on waving the left one around. But training and expertise will always tell. All Turk needed was to close his own legs around Cheryl’s knees and the left ankle was brought immediately into his arm’s range. Click, the deed was done.

On realizing that her limbs were irremediably secured, Cheryl’s thoughts now turned to her assailant’s intent. Rape, of course, was her first supposition. At this her stomach whirled and her mind darkened. She had often imagined what it would be liked to be raped and had always feared it desperately. But then her thoughts went to murder and her mind darkened further. She had seen his face, although only for an instant. Even the stupidest New York rapist, and especially one bright enough to get into her apartment, would have hidden his face to minimize the possibility of identification. Oh God, she thought, she was going to be raped and murdered.

Our friend Turk was not a murderer, at least not tonight. He had murdered before but mostly only when the profit was clear. And occasionally out of anger or revenge. And once he had killed a pathetic mealy mouthed bastard just for fun. But that was many years ago and now he took these things more seriously. No, he had plans for Cheryl, but killing her was not one of them.