Swept Away
Marley Quinn
Swept Away
by Marley Quinn
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Miles Away
No Trace of Civilization
Predators and Dangers
Slippery
Kurt
Miles Away
Amy took out her phone and dialed her sister,
“Hi. Yeah. No, I'm here. Yeah, it’s perfect. Yep. Oh, it’s gorgeous. In fact, I might be slightly distracted. The cabin is cozy with a great little desk for my work but out the back door is an amazing view. Yeah, it’s nothing but nature here. There's a river and some trees and it’s so quiet. Yeah. Okay, now you remember what I asked you to do, right? Please, sis, it’s important. Don't give out my number to anyone, not even Harvey. I don't care if he begs on his hands and knees. I need to use this week to work. Okay. Okay. All right. You're the only one who has this number. I love you but please don't call me unless it’s a life and death emergency because I need to focus. All right. All right. Okay, love you too. Bye.”
Sighing, she set the phone on the scarred wooden table. The cabin really was perfect, totally isolated at the end of a long gravel road. The booking agent had said her nearest neighbor was miles away. The quiet was fabulous, the only sounds were the sigh of the wind in the trees and the gentle burble of the river.
Amy Lindberg knew she had been blessed with beautiful genes. All her life people had complimented her on how pretty it was. Her mother had been a beauty queen and her grandmother had been a pinup model. She’d inherited their fair skin, thick blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes. From her father’s side she’d inherited his mother’s substantial chest, flat stomach and long, shapely legs.
The problems had begun in high school. Male teachers would give her a passing grade solely based on her looks while female teachers were relentlessly jealous. By the time Amy was 14, her breasts were already bulging out of her sweaters and she’d had to become inured to guys drooling and snapping their necks as she walked past.
Getting a starting spot on the cheerleading squad had been a snap but the majority of her teammates had snubbed her. The few girls who had befriended her had done so out of lust, and Amy had been pawed and ogled a few times in the locker room. University had hardly been any better. If she went out to a party or a club, she could scarcely move without a horde of panting men throwing themselves at her. Amy knew she had a brain inside her pretty head but the rest of the world treated her like an empty-headed bimbo.
After graduation and a brief stint as a model, Amy had finally found a vocation where her work could stand on its own merits. She’d always loved books and writing came naturally to her, her thoughts flowing over the pages. With the rise of digital publishing, she could focus on the words. Purposefully, she’d omitted the standard author’s photo on the last page precisely so that people’s feedback and responses would be based on the story itself, not because of her looks.
Lately though, she’d felt stuck, her first experience with writer’s block. Her agent Harvey had just gotten her an obscene advance payment for the next installment of Space Crystals but Amy was having difficulty finding new mysteries for Crystal and the gang to solve. Feeling like she had too many distractions at home, Amy had searched long and hard for an isolated spot in nature where she could work in peace.
Smiling to herself, she stepped out of the cabin, still amazed by just how beautiful this spot truly was. Out here in the western part of the United States, much of the land was classified as desert, but it was far more than just sand and cacti. There were sage brushes and mesquite trees, and little brightly colored wildflowers dotted the landscape. Down closer to the river, verdantly green willows dipped their graceful branches in the water. On the distant horizon, she saw a hawk or bird of some sort soaring above the red cliffs. The view truly was magnificent. If she couldn’t be inspired to write here then it was time to hang up her pen and go back to swimsuit modeling.
The sun was high in the sky and the cabin was a simple, roughhewn affair, with no modern conveniences like air conditioning. Amy decided it was far too hot to work. She decided she’d go dip her feet in the river and then get her laptop set up later when it was a bit cooler.
There was a little path that led from the cabin to the river and she ambled down it until she got to a small wooden dock or pier. She supposed that the original owner might've kept a rowboat or small watercraft tied up here but for now she had the dock completely to herself.
She walked to the end and sat down, gingerly lowering her long, shapely legs until one of her painted toenails broke the surface of the water. She gasped. It was
chilly. But after a moment she put her toe back in. The sun was hot and the water wasn’t too cold. In fact, it felt quite nice. Soon she had both legs dangling in the water just past her ankles. The river was fairly wide, the far bank more than a stone’s throw away. The river didn’t seem too turbulent but the water was moving fast enough to tug her legs a bit.
Amy breathed deeply, soaking in the beautiful atmosphere of the unspoiled nature around her, willing herself to relax. She knew that if she tried to force an idea in her mind, it wouldn’t work. The best treatment for writer’s block was simply to ignore it. If she thought about something else then her subconscious could work on finding yet another mystery for Crystal and her gang of teenaged space detectives to solve.
It was a great feeling to earn good money from her wits and not her looks, but at the same time the writer’s life was kind of lonely. Dating had always been difficult. Guys who were interested in her fell into two camps. The majority would become mesmerized by her beauty and turn into tongue-tied idiots who would stammer and stutter. The rest were loser assholes, who thought that insulting her and using degrading speech around her would make up for their lack of inner confidence.
Amy wondered if she’d ever find a real man to love. She craved romance and physical affection just like any other girl but she seemed destined to never find it. If she went on a date, the guy invariably lost his cool. The last time she’d taken her clothes off in front of a guy, he’d been so excited that he’d spurted all over the sheets before he’d even had a chance to touch her. Despite the fact that her female friends assumed that she had a string of guys at her beck and call, Amy spent most of her Friday nights alone at home with her vibrator.
Amy had read once that the prettiest girl in school never gets asked to the prom and she was starting to really understand the painful wisdom in that witticism. How long had it been since she’d actually had sex? Over a year. And if she was counting good sex, the kind of hard, passionate fucking from a confident man who knew what he was doing, then the answer was never. She’d read her fair share of romance books that described such a thing but never experienced it for herself. Her good looks that made everyone envious were more of a curse in her opinion.
The water on her feet felt wonderful but the sun was far too hot for her to stay on the end of the dock. She saw that the river had a slight bend to it near one of the willow trees. She rose to her feet and then walked to the path, carefully hopping down onto the desert scrub. She made her way over to the river’s edge and saw there was a small sandbar at the bend of the river. The current was fairly swift but the water wasn’t deep. She gathered up the hem of her skirt, and with a few quick steps she made her way over to the sandbar.
Perfect! Almost like a beach, with pure white sand between her toes, the large willow tree providing welcome shade. She hadn't been to the beach in years, not as a regular person did anyway. She’d been flown around the world during her modeling career but all the bikinis she’d worn on the beach had been for work. People always thought being a model was glamorous but trying to look casual while a photographer yelled at you for hours was not much fun at all.
But this private beach was heavenly, no photographers, no ogling stupid guys, nobody here but herself. She took a few steps towards the downriver part of the sandbar until her feet were in the crystal clear water. She wanted to go in a bit further but was hesitant to get her skirt wet. She stood there for a good five minutes until suddenly she laughed out loud. She was out here all alone. Why did she need to get her skirt wet? She could just take it off. Silly!
Amy stepped back onto the sandbar and carefully removed her skirt, folding it neatly and placing it on a flat rock. After a moment’s consideration, she also took off her top. The warm air and sunlight felt delightful on her bare breasts and skin. Out of habit, she looked around her, worried about voyeurs, but there was no one. In for a penny, in for a pound, she told herself, stepping out of her expensive lace underwear. Now she was completely naked and it felt wonderful. She felt wild and free, like some kind of island girl, or a survivor of a shipwreck cast away on a Pacific island.
She waded further into the water, bracing herself for the cold as she got far enough in that she was waist deep. She splashed the water, laughing as she saw the drops sparkle in the bright summer sun. Gathering her hair into a rough rope, she held it up as she dipped her body under the water until it reached her chin. Fabulous! The water was cool but it felt great on her heated skin. She bobbed up and down a few times, watching with fascination as her large breasts floated every time she went under the water. Too funny to see that.
Nervously, she once again scanned around her but saw no one. She knew that if someone was watching her, he’d probably be creaming his jeans by seeing her naked and splashing around in the water. But she was out here in nature all by herself. Bit by bit, she let herself relax, until she was frolicking and playing in the water, all thoughts and stresses about her work, her sex life and her deadline had disappeared completely.
The downriver part of the sandbar functioned as a kind of mini harbor, slowing down the current of the river. But Amy was having too much fun to pay attention and she splashed and swam too far out. Without warning, she suddenly lost her footing, the much faster part of the river causing her to lose her balance. Her hair! She grew angry as her head went briefly under the water. With her long hair wet, it would take hours to dry and require a great deal of time with the blow dryer to keep from kinking into unattractive curls.
But soon her hair was the least of her concerns. The river current was far more powerful than she realized. Her feet slid against the slippery bottom, failing to give her enough purchase to fight the water. Amy was pushed further downstream and soon it was taking all of her effort just to keep her head above water. Her foot banged painfully against a rock and then the river took her. In the space of an eyeblink, she was swept away downstream, the cabin and dock rapidly disappearing from sight.
The river straightened out and with it, the current got even stronger. Flailing her arms, Amy tumbled through the water, panic rising in her throat as she realized she was in real danger of drowning. Her feet scrabbled to touch the river’s bottom but it was too deep. She turned and tumbled, gasping for air when she managed to get her mouth above the water’s surface. The sound was deafening, the water roaring as it gathered speed and pushed her slender body downstream. With a painful thud, she slammed into one rock, and then a second.
Blinded and disoriented, she failed to see the third rock and her head slammed into it with brutal force, knocking her unconscious.