I felt betrayed.’ ‘Jules, I didn’t….’ I cut off as she gave me an evil stare and I knew she wasn’t finished. ‘John, I was a nine year ol... girl living a horror, a nightmare. I had nobody to wrap my arms around to console me.’ The tears that poured from Julie’s eyes put Niagara Falls to shame. The mental image I received returned my tears from earlier. I relived that night in her shoes, causing goosebumps and chills to shoot through my body. I saw the heartless face of my father taking his anger. We had all talked until late in the evening and it was well after midnight when my wife and I finally crawled into bed. Again, it was very warm, the air still and muggy, so we decided to sl**p naked on top of the covers. I was in that stage of half sl**p half wake, my mind drifting lazily, when I felt the first breath of chill air. Immediately I became alert as I recalled instantly the events of nearly two weeks ago. I closed my eyes and lay back on the bed in anticipation. Could I go through. She left the room. He studied the gear: whips of all types, clamps, restraints, straps, chains, paddles, and dildos, especially the dildos- some seemed pleasurable, thin tapered toys for fun, others were fierce and frightening in size and shape. She had told him when they met, Her specialty and favorite was taking a man with a strapon, “Have no illusion if you come with Me, I will take you hard and often, you better be sure you want this, but first you must suffer pain for Me, surrender to Me,. The trail that they traversed was cut by the first generation of settlers who still had machines that worked. At the far end of the trail, in the middle of the Waste was a site of some archeological significance, but nothing that gave a clue as to who built it or what they did there. Some still claimed that there is a treasure buried beneath the building footprints that remain, but Zeb believed that was just people talking. The question of treasure was moot anyway because the end of the trail.