For the Sake of Chocolate, part 3

  She fell asleep thinking about how her hormones must have finally driven her mad.  She’d imagined a dictator in barbarian’s clothes kidnapping her through the ice cream freezer at the grocery store.  She must have finally gotten herself shipped off to the crazy farm.  That didn’t explain why she was warm and toasty down her left side and frozen down her right side.  Nor did it explain the rhythm of movement that had lulled her to sleep in the first place, despite the uncomfortable juxtaposition of hot and cold on her body.  The cessation of that movement had brought her back to consciousness.  She yawned and stretched, only to freeze in place when her hips and back were gripped firmly by very large hands. 

 A very deep voice rumbled from against her body.  She squeezed her eyes shut.  She recognized the barbarian’s voice even though the words were spoken in a language foreign to her.  Was she still trapped in her imagination? Or could she actually, possibly, have been dragged through some weird portal in time and place?  She shook her head, denying the possibility.  She must be crazy. That was the only explanation.

 Another male voice spoke from a few feet away, responding to her kidnapper’s query.  The one holding her responded with a grunt and then began moving again.  She slowly opened her eyes to see where she was, hoping that she was being carried by a large orderly on the psych ward.  She flinched when her eyes encountered bright, white snow. It was so bright it was blinding.  She buried her head against the man’s chest. He laughed at her, the rusty sound rumbling through her body. 

 “Wait another little while, woman.  We have arrived in the village.  Soon, you will be warm and properly dressed.”

 “Will I get one of those cute little gown’s that hang open in back to bare my backside to the world?”

 “You want your ass bare to the world?” He sounded puzzled.

 “Well, not particularly,” she admitted.  He stopped walking and she heard another person’s feet shuffling beside them.  She thought she heard a heavy door creak open in front of them.  When the man holding her moved again, she was suddenly enveloped in warmth.  It was almost too warm. There was an aroma of cooking food combined with the stench of unwashed bodies. It turned her stomach.

 “Hey, can you turn the thermostat down a notch or two.  It’s boiling in here!” She complained.

 “What is a thermostat?” The man asked.

 “Oh. I guess the room doesn’t have a separate thermostat.  OK, well, I hope that the little gown isn’t too heavy then. I don’t want to be roasting while I’m trapped in the loony bin.”

 “Woman, you make no sense with your ramblings.” He spoke rapidly to someone else in that language she couldn’t understand.  It had rolling r’s and sharp vowel sounds.  Did the staff in the mental hospital have to learn a foreign language so that they could speak to each other without their patients understanding them? She heard more voices, speaking excitedly, and more shuffling feet around her.

 She was abruptly set down and she stood awkwardly, holding the fur tight around her shoulders.  She kept her eyes closed, denying the possibility that she was anywhere but in a hospital.  From smell to touch, her senses told her she was nowhere near a cold, antiseptic, sterile environment.  Her mind rebelled at the idea that she was, in fact, in a barbarian village far from the heat of Florida where she had started her day.

Read more: Part One, Part Two

For the Sake of Chocolate, part 2

“Get up. Come on, woman, you are supposed to help and instead you sit there whimpering. Get up.” The man nudged her with the toe of his rough leather boot.  She looked up at the giant of a man who had just shoved her through the ice cream freezer case into a snowy landscape she’d never seen before.  His clothing was a single monotonous color, olive drab, and he seemed to have layer upon layer of cloth covering his body.  His boots had laces going from ankle up to over his knees and his arms were similarly laced with leather thongs.  She couldn’t figure out how he could move with all the layers and lacings.  He had a wide leather belt around his waist and her eyes widened when she saw the long blade sheath hanging from it.  How did he get anywhere in that grocery store in get up like that?

“Woman,” he growled.  He reached down and grabbed her elbow, pulling her up to stand. “We must not sit here.  We are needed.”  He began striding down the snowy hill, dragging her along behind.  She began to understand what it meant for the weather to be bitingly cold.  Her toes were going painfully numb in their flip flops and her fingers weren’t much better.  She began shivering and whimpered.  The man growled again and stopped walking.  She stumbled against him.

He surveyed her from head to toe and shook his head.  He reached to his back and drew a bag forward.  From it, he pulled two shirts, a pair of creaky leather pants and leather moccasins.  He thrust the clothes at her and said, “Put them on.  You are not dressed properly.”

Gratefully, she pulled on each shirt, pulled the pants on and tried to balance on one foot to put one of the moccasins on.  She swayed and stumbled, her bare foot dropping to the snow to keep her balance.  She yelped at the cold of it.  The man’s eyes narrowed on her.  He reached into his bag and pulled one more item out.  Then he knelt in front of her and softly said, “Hold on to my shoulder.”

She did as he told her, and was rewarded when he lifted her bare foot to his knee and slid a soft, warm sock on to it.  Then he placed the moccasin on.  He repeated the maneuver with her other foot after removing the cheap plastic flip flop.  The he stood and turned and began striding down the hill again, expecting her to follow.

“Wait, please,” she called, stumbling after him.  He turned to look at her.  She was still shivering, alhtough she was warmer now.

“You are still feeling the cold too much,” he grumbled.  Reaching into his bag yet again, he pulled out a fur covered skin.  It almost looked like sheep skin but it was too matted to tell for sure.  He wrapped it around her shoulders, fur side towards her body, and abruptly lifted her up into his arms.  He began striding between the evergreen trees which were weighted down with snow and ice.  She thought about protesting this treatment, but could not find the energy. His body heat began to seep through to her skin, helping to warm her.  She nestled closer.  Her eyes drifted shut as she contemplated the sudden change in her circumstances, from innocently hormonal woman searching for chocolate to freezing cold abductee in a strange science fiction story.

Click here to read All For The Sake of Some Chocolate, the first part of the story.

All for the sake of some chocolate…

The cute red headed woman slowly walked down the grocery store aisle.  She was examining the options on the shelf, looking perturbed by all of the choices.  How many different types of chocolate did people really need? She wondered, grumpily.  She just wanted some plain dark chocolate, rich and bitter.  No nuts, no milk chocolate, no caramel.  Did they even make such a thing anymore?

Not seeing what she wanted on the candy aisle, she decided to try the baking aisle.  Maybe the chocolate chip assortment would yield what she was craving. She was so intent on getting to the chocolate chips, she didn’t pay attention as she turned the corner.  She ran straight into a broad, hard chest.  Large hands wrapped around her upper arms to steady her.  She gasped in shock.

“I, uh, I’m so sorry.”  She stuttered.  She tried to step back, but the hands stayed on her arms, trapping her.  She craned her head back in order to look up into the face of the man holding her.  His eyes were striking, a brilliant blue with long, lush eyelashes that curled in a way most woman spent an hour trying to achieve.  Bushy black eyebrows hung over them, like the Spanish moss that hangs from the trees in Florida.  His mouth was curved in a satisfied smile which made her hackles rise.

“Come with me,” his deep voice rumbled through his chest.  Her jaw dropped in surprise and she could feel her eyes widen.  As if she’d go anywhere with a stranger, she thought, especially one so overpowering as this one.  He made every alarm in her head ding, whistle and clatter in warning.

“Let me go!” She said, loudly, hoping someone in the store would notice.  A middle aged woman with two school aged kids hurried past, paying no attention to them.  She didn’t even look up and look away, as if she was ignoring them on purpose.  It felt more like the woman just plain didn’t see them!  The red headed woman was mystified.

“You must come with me now,” the man rumbled.  His hands tightened briefly on her arms.  She could feel the promise of danger in his grip, but oddly his hold was gentle.  She tugged against his hands, and although they held her firmly, they did not bind or hurt.  They also did not let go.  She shrieked. 

If she’d been cranky before, she was getting downright angry now.  She was being held by this man against her will, struggling as much as she could, kicking at him and clawing any part of him she could reach.  Despite her efforts, yet another pair of shoppers walked by, plainly not seeing anything wrong in the situation.

“Stop fighting me.  You must come.  It will be easier if you do not fight.”  He was looking down at her with a frown creasing his forehead.  She stopped her struggles and glared at him, her fists clenched at her sides.  His calm words fueled her fury.

“Why must I come?  Why shouldn’t I fight when you grab me and hold me against my will?” Her voice was tight with barely controlled fury and it rose sharply as she said, “And why the hell isn’t anyone trying to help me?”  She tried to twist from side to side, but he held her too tightly to go far.  She growled in frustration.

“You are the one I have been looking for.  You must come.  There is much for you to do.”  He started to pull her towards the frozen foods aisle.  She pulled back away from him, trying to break his grip.

“What do you mean that you’ve been looking for me?  I’ve never met you before in my life!  I think I’d remember a mountain your size if we’d met!”  She tried to needle him, to distract him. He just kept pulling her down the grocery aisles to the center of the store.  They walked past the cleaning aisle and past the bread aisle.  They were almost to the frozen foods aisle.  She couldn’t imagine who or what could possible depend on her there!

“What is it I have to do?” She tried again to get him to explain himself to her. He continued to drag her behind him.  In desperation, she began screaming as loudly as she could, hoping to grab someone’s attention.  Surely not everyone in the store could ignore the brute manhandling her down the aisles!

Finally, he stood before the ice cream case, it’s door frosted over as if someone had held it open too long.  He opened the door and pushed her through.  She threw up her hands, expecting to run into hundreds of containers of ice cream.  Instead, she stumbled through and fell onto her hands and knees in stinging, freezing snow. Her shorts and tank top were not designed to protect her from wherever she suddenly found herself.  The man stepped through the door way and she watched as the view to her normal safe world closed behind him.  She screamed and lunged towards it, but as soon as the door clicked closed, the frame disappeared.  She cried as she realized she was trapped.  She didn’t know where, and she didn’t know why. 

She sobbed, unable to stop the flow of tears or the overwhelming feelings flowing over her.  Strange happenings aside, she was hormonal and had had a bad day to begin with.  This was just the perfect way for her day to go.

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