Evan locked his eyes on the stars spread above the cornfield. Fireflies meandered between constellations. With all his might, he fastened on the North Star. Whenever they let him loose, that would be his beacon home again. In his mind he saw the back door, the stairs, the door to his room, the quilt upon his bed. He would wake in the morning. This would be nothing but a bad dream.
The night lay as black as engine oil. There was no moon, and the yard lights lay a mile away, barely a twinkle between the stalks. The first half hour his kidnappers had been mere silhouettes, dark cutouts against the stars. They were naked. He could feel their flesh. Smell it. Their titties were long and tubular, like in the old National Geographics lying boxed in the cellar. Their ratty hair moved like black snakes against the stars.
Evan was pretty sure they weren't American. Or Mexican. He knew a little Spanish from the seasonal workers, and the old lady's chant wasn't that. He decided they were witches. A cult. You heard about such things.
It was a comfort of sorts. He'd never given much thought to witches. Vampires, yes. And the winged monkeys in The Wizard of Oz, and werewolves, and flesh-eating zombies. And hadals, of course, though this was Nebraska, so safe the militias had disbanded. But witches? Since when did witches hurt you?
And yet they scared him. He scared himself. In his whole eleven years of life, Evan had never imagined such feelings down there. What they were doing felt good. But it was forbidden. If his mom and dad ever found out, they'd bust.
Part of him felt this wasn't fair. He shouldn't have been so late bicycling home. Still, it wasn't his fault the witches had jumped up along the county road. He'd pedaled away as fast as a fox, but even afoot they'd run him down. It wasn't his fault they'd brought him to the middle of this field to do things to him.
The problem was, he'd been raised to be accountable. It was his pleasure. And it was dirty. Sniggering about boobies and panties after school was one thing. This was different. Staying late after baseball was his fault. And taking pleasure, that was really his fault. They were gonna bust.
In the initial moments of stripping him bare, the witches had ripped his shirt, shredded it. Evan couldn't reconcile that. It was a new shirt, and the destruction scared him more than their animal strength or the hunger they'd gone at him with. His mom and sisters were forever mending clothes and ironing them. They would never have ripped a shirt to tatters and tossed it in the dirt. Or done these other things. Never.
He didn't know exactly what was happening to him. It was the dirty thing you weren't supposed to talk about, that was plain enough. Copulation. But what precisely the act consisted of, that was the mystery. In daylight, he could have seen what was involved. This was more like wrestling with a blindfold on. So far, most of his information had come through touch and smell and sounds. The newness and power of
the sensation confused him. He was ashamed to have cried out in front of women, mortified that it involved his unit.
They'd done it twice now, like milking a cow. The first time, Evan had been alarmed. There was no fighting off the bodily release. It felt like heat shooting out of his spine. Afterward, the mess lay as hot and thick as blood on his belly and chest.
Afraid they'd be disgusted with him, Evan started to apologize. But the whole bunch of them had thronged around him, dipping their fingers into his wet spots. It was almost like church. But instead of crossing themselves, they smeared it between their legs. So that's how it's done, he thought.
It went beyond his whole world of knowledge. For some reason, Evan was reminded of a science video he'd seen, in which a praying mantis female ate her mate when the act was over. That was reproduction. Until now he'd been mystified by the terrible consequences of doing it. Now the notion of punishment following the sin made perfect sense. No wonder people did it in the darkness.
Evan wanted them to quit, but secretly he didn't, too. Certainly the cluster of night women wanted more. After the first time, thinking it was over, he'd asked, 'Can I please go home now?' His words had agitated them. If grasshoppers or beetles could talk, this was how they'd sound, clicking and muttering and smacking their lips. It didn't make any sense to him, but he got the gist. He was staying. They went at him again. And again.
This third time was proving troublesome. Maybe an hour passed. Their rubbing and yanking and spitting on him didn't seem to be working. He sensed their frustration. The one holding him from behind went on with her singsong chanting and rocking.
'I'll be a good boy,' he assured her in an exhausted whisper. She patted his cheek with a callused palm. It was like being petted with a stick.
Evan genuinely wanted to help out. What they didn't know was that he had an arithmetic test in the morning. He was supposed to be studying.
Gradually his eyes adjusted to the night. Their pale skin took on a faint glow. He could begin to see them. He and his buddies had all seen TV shows with bikini girls, and several had big brothers with Playboys. It wasn't as if he had no clue what a woman's body looked like. But these women had no sunshine in them, no joy. They were all business. Evan felt like he was the center of a farm task, like the cow. Or like the hogs his dad butchered each winter. Like a beast at harvesting. They'd been at him for hours.
There might have been five of them, or as many as a dozen. They kept leaving and returning. The witches moved with watery grace, close to the ground, as if the sky were a weight. The cornstalks rustled. They orbited him like bleached white moons. Their stench ebbed, then surged.
They took turns, arguing over him in insect syllables. Each seemed to have a different idea about manipulating him. Evan had grown used to the one by his head. She seemed to be the oldest. Her chest wall had the feel of a washboard against his ear. Evan grew passive against her, and the arm relaxed. She wasn't unkind, just firm. Her skinny arm was a marvel, a few sinews covered with skin, but as strong as baling wire. When some of the others slapped or prodded him, she clucked at them, annoyed. One, smaller than the rest, was taking lessons from the others. Evan decided she was the youngest, maybe his own age. They urged her to mount him a couple of times, but she was awkward and Evan didn't know what was expected of him. She seemed as frightened as he was. He gravitated to her in his thoughts.