Excerpt
So, it was a different world and an exciting one for my great adventure travelling across three states to a new and exciting life in southern California.

The first day on the bus was fine. It was about half full. I was sitting up front a row or two back from the driver. I had a double seat to myself and passed the time reading and looking out the window, maybe dozing from time to time and taking advantage of the few refreshment stops to freshen up as much as possible. It was late in the summer and the heat beat down outside on the semi-arid landscape and made all of us well aware of the benefits of the air conditioned bus when we stepped outside into the often blistering day-time heat.

In the seat opposite mine on the other side of the aisle was a dark-haired lady of, I guessed, around mid twenties in age. She glanced across and smiled a few times and when we stopped we exchanged the odd word or two although it was always she who started the conversations; I was too shy by far. I was much taken by her innate, it seemed to me, elegance and the fact she could maintain this in the less than ideal conditions of long distance bus travel.

It was the second day when things changed. At the first stop of the day, a businessman joined the bus. He wore, as I recall, a rather rumpled suit but he was clean shaven and outwardly respectable enough but I immediately distrusted him when, after looking around the bus as he got on, he sat right next to me. There were plenty of completely empty double seats to choose from but, at my age, I didn’t feel I could say anything.

For a while everything seemed OK and I suppose I dozed a bit because I remember waking up and feeling his leg pressed against mine. He seemed to have spread out well on to my side and my skirt, already fairly short, had slid up my thighs as I slept leaving a lot of bare flesh for his legs to rub against.

Just at this point, I felt his hand, hard calloused fingertips, stroking my inner thigh and then gripping the top of my leg in a strong and frankly terrifying grip. His hands moved under the hem of my skirt and onto the material of my panties which his fingers began to fondle.

I squirmed as far away as I could and twisted around towards the window and away from him and pushed against his hand with mine, not that that had much effect. I was so embarrassed at the idea of making any sort of fuss that I did not dare to utter more than a squeak of protest when I became aware of someone standing over us.

“You, leave her alone”, it was the older lady from the seat opposite across the aisle. “What do you think you’re doing” and there was a loud crack as she hit my tormentor back-handed across the face! I guess she was wearing some pretty bulky rings because his head jerked back and to the side and some blood ran down on to his collar.

At this point, the fuss had alerted the driver who brought the bus to a halt at the side of one of those endless country roads and came back to see what on earth was going on.

My saviour quickly made it clear exactly what had happened and the bus driver turned to me for confirmation. I was so upset by then that I could only nod through my tears but it was enough and the driver physically seized my tormentor and pushed him down the steps to the road. A few seconds later, there was the metallic sigh of the luggage compartment being opened and a distinct thud as the man’s suitcase made a none too gentle contact with the pavement.

Seconds later, the bus was back on the move again, the man left stranded by the road. It would serve him right to get sunstroke or die of dehydration!

LATER.......

You’ve been a very naughty girl, haven’t you? Haven’t you?” And she squeezed my hands hard in emphasis as she repeated the question.

I could only stand and stare at her. What did she mean and why was she being like this?

“I’m sure you have been told many times not to talk to strangers and yet, here you are, sharing a motel room with someone you don’t know and have only just met!”

“Yes, but, I do know you, sort of, Paula…”

”Do you? I don’t think so. I could be absolutely anyone and I’m going to have to show you that you must do as you are told.” Her eyes stared deeply into mine and held me transfixed. I really couldn’t speak or move and I didn’t know what was going on here at all.

She released my hands from her steel hard grip......