Stall

Sue’s mind raced…”can’t betray Reed, must get back to Reed…stall.” She looked at Kraven, gave her best attempt at a sensuous smile, then slowly removed one boot, then the other. Barefoot in the jungle dirt, she closed her eyes, summoned the sexiest music she could think of to her mind, and began to dance. She pulled off her gloves, turning her body and swaying her hips to the beat in her head. She languorously reached back and touched a spot at the back of her collar, and the seam at the back of the tattered top of her jumpsuit split open. She slowly peeled it down one arm, then another, finally flinging it off in a careless gesture that revealed her generously-filled white bra to the jungle sun.

Eyes still closed, she touched another control at her waist, and the bottom of the jumpsuit split and rolled smoothing down her legs to pool at her feet. With a moment of awkwardness, she stepped out of one leg and kicked the pants away, wondering for a moment why Reed had made their suits so easy to remove. “He never takes advantage,” she thought. “Maybe I need to show him…” Lost for a moment in that thought, she swayed back and forth, head swinging, as she reached up to unfasten the clasp of her bra. It fell away, and she reached up to grasp her own breasts, swaying to the music in her head…

Only to stop, startled, at the sound of clapping. She opened her eyes to see Kraven was standing and smiling. “A most impressive display, Mrs. Richards,” he said. “But I fear our dinner will be burned if I allow you to go on much longer. Will you join me at table?”

Table, in this case, proved to be made of crudely hacked planks, set with haunch of roasted dinosaur and potent red wine poured generously into coconut-shell cups. Kraven ate vigorously while Sue picked at the food, torn between hunger and a desire not to accept the hunter’s hospitality.

Karven set down the bone he had been tearing meat from. “If you hunger, you should eat,” he said. “This is the Savage Land. There is no need for restraint, here. You flee, you fight, you feast, and then…,” he said, looking her up and down.

“Some of us do not throw off civilization so easily, Mr. Kravinoff,” Sue replied.

The hunter stood and walked over to her. “But this land changes those who pass through it, in ways gross and subtle,” he said, removing his belt as he looked down at her. “I think it has wrought some changes in you. Do I lie?”