"POPPED IN THE CORN"By
David Shaw THIS STORY IS INTENDED FOR ADULT READING ONLY
"Why you take pictures of us, hey?" Oh shit, I'd made a big mistake here. Maybe I was a street smart investigator, but it looked as if I was out of my league here in cornstalk country. I was supposed to be running a check on a guy called Walter Durley, an old farmer type who'd gotten a big insurance payout on an auto accident he'd been involved in. The claim had gone through on medical evidence that fifty three year old Walter would never be able to do any physical work on his farm again. Now the payout was some months down the track the insurance company wanted somebody to see if old man Durley was still a genuine invalid, or whether he'd made a miraculous recovery. In fact it's a miracle how many miraculous recoveries there are from permanent injuries once insurance checks have cleared. Not that I'm complaining, I'm glad of the work that all this divine intervention puts my way, although this was a new one on me. It was the first case I'd ever handled outside the city, and it was a pure bitch. Say what you like about the mean streets, there's usually plenty of people to mingle with in them, and almost always a place where you can stake out a person of interest. To get onto a farm and put it under surveillance was a hell of lot more difficult. Eventually I'd decided the best thing to do was to hide up near the farm gate with my car parked away out of sight up a dirt track. If I saw Walter drive out wearing work clothes I'd jump into my vehicle and see if I could follow him. The game plan was that he'd stop somewhere ahead, maybe get out some tools and I'd drive past, looking every inch a city slicker Ms who'd taken a wrong turn someplace. Then I'd give him twenty minutes, half an hour maybe, then drive back past the same spot, still looking like little girl lost. If Walter was still there and working, I'd keep on going, park my car up further down the road again and this time sneak back on foot to get my pictures. I thought it was a good scheme and until the last five seconds it seemed to have worked perfectly. I'd hardly gotten to my guard post outside the farm at the very crack of dawn when a blue pickup had come through the gates. Walter was driving, his son was next to him, both wearing dungarees, and there was a big Arab looking guy sitting in the tray. I could also see some shovel handles sticking out above the back of the pickup. It looked like this was going to be too easy. Easy was the word. I stayed close enough behind them to be there when they stopped and the Arab guy jumped out with the shovels -- three of them! Oh boy, it looked like Walter's prayers for full recovery had been answered by return mail after all. Now I just needed those pictures to prove it. So I drove another half mile, well out of sight of the work gang and then made a three point turn on the narrow black topped road. Then I waited. Waiting is something I do a lot of in my job. Often I'll amuse myself by trying to think of something to sing that matches the circumstances. Watching the early sunlight filtering through the head high cornstalks, today's choice was a no-brainer:
Oh, what a beautiful day, The corn is as high as an elephant's eye, And everything's going my way." And what great cover those head high cornstalks provided. I could sneak up on those guys and they'd never know about it. My dress might never be the same again, but the insurance company would gladly pay for a new one and I'd been smart enough to put on a pair of hiking shoes ready for a piece of cross country travel. I'd even stripped off most everything underneath it because it was going to be a warm day for walking. Yep, I was all set and everything would be fine as long as Walter really was working. Time to go. Drive nice and slow, don't let them know I'm there until I'm on top of them. There's the pickup, still where it was, there's the big Arab digging out a ditch by the side of the road, there's the son digging away as well, wearing a very snappy hat, must be a contestant for best dressed country boy -- and there's old Walter, standing in the ditch, lifting up a full shovel load of mud waist high and showing no pain or strain at all! The crooked old son of the soil! He squints at my car and then focuses on me, I wave a cheerful greeting at him, then look ahead, show no more interest in any of them, ease past the pickup and drive on. I look in the mirror and everybody still seems to be digging, nobody's taking a second look at my rental car and out of state plates. Got you, you dumb pricks! Four hundred yards, five hundred yards, and around a bend. I pulled over to the side of the road, switched off, checked the camera, locked the doors and carefully walked down the road until I reached the corner and moved into the corn field. Then I turned left and negotiated my way through the plants, keeping the road in sight. Being in there was kind of eerie, the sun still hanging just above the horizon and the sunlight sliced up into bars by the tall stalks, with irritating clouds of midges hanging around in the dark patches. The air smelt strange to me too, like being inside a house that had been locked up for a hundred years, but what would I know about how corn fields are supposed to smell like? Then I started moving even more carefully because I could see the pickup. I was almost level with it and that meant I was close enough to the guys to get the pictures I needed. But to get a clear shot at Walter I had to break cover and get out onto the road. It seemed like the best option was to move low and sneak out to hide behind the pickup. From there I should be able to let off the entire roll of film and then creep back into the corn. So that was what I did. I looked down the road towards the farmers and saw Walter and his son still digging out the ditch. The big guy must have moved off into the cornfield, maybe to take a leak, but I didn't care about him. All I cared about right then was getting a record of Walter the working man. Which was no problem at all from where I was crouched behind the pickup. I had Mr Durley dead in my view finder and right in the frame with the first three shots. Then a hand as heavy and merciless as a lawyer's bill grabbed my shoulder and everything went up shit creek. "Why you take pictures, hey, woman?" "It's my hobby. Let me go or I'll call the Immigration Department and see if they know about you." The big Arab looked shaken and it seemed like my guess about his alien status was right. If he'd been on his own the threat might have worked, but before he could get his head around it the Durleys came running up the road. They looked at me, then at the camera, and they didn't need any time at all to figure out what was going down. "The bitch is an insurance investigator," Walter snarled. "What's your name, shit for brains?" I don't usually answer questions framed that way, but circumstances alter cases. The circumstances in this case was that the Arab was twisting my arm like he wanted to make it pretzel shaped. "Christina," I said. There was a shovel handle sticking up by the side of the road only ten yards past the pickup. The Arab must have walked down to start digging there as I'd been going the other way through the corn. If I'd taken a look behind me before I came out onto the road I'd have seen him, almost close enough to spitball, but I hadn't. And if I could find a way of talking my way out of this mess I'd be a genius. 
Durley junior had reached down to run his fingers around the hem of my dress and then the Arab twisted my arm again: "You bad woman, you not tell lies or I hurt you some more." Walter laughed as I yelped in pain: "Better listen to him, girlie. We don't call him Saddam for nothing." He lifted up my camera and took a shot of the three of us. "How about it, boys, you feel like a little sex break in the corn before we do anymore work?" "Sounds good to me, Pop," Junior said. "How about you, Saddam, you want to fuck Christina?" "Yes, I like to fuck her hard." The grip on my arm felt as if I'd gotten too close to a gorilla's cage. "Take her away then, boys, take her away," Walter told them, like he was offering them a free ride on his tractor. I certainly hadn't had much success in trying to talk my way out of the situation, but on the other hand both my hands were still attached to unbroken arms, which might not have been the case if I'd kept on with a useless bluff. In fact, the more my brief acquaintanceship with Saddam grew, the more certain I was becoming was that he was a very mean asshole indeed, and any threats he made I should listen to very carefully. He came from a culture where woman are as disposable of kleenex tissues, and, as for the Durleys, what they wanted was to make sure that I never came back to this place again. I had a damned good idea of what sort of idea Walter had to make sure of that, an idea which certainly involved using the camera I'd providentially provided him with. So when Saddam hoisted me on his shoulder and headed for the corn everybody knew that Christina was going to get her legs spread for her, whether she begged for mercy or not. So I shut up and got ready to take my lumps. Yeah, well, sometimes that goes with the job as well. Especially for smart operators who aren't smart enough to keep looking behind them. There are times when I wish I was carrying a lot more insurance myself. 
"Watch out you don't get corn-cobbed, sweetie," the old guy called out. 
Guys like that sort of thing, it makes them feel macho to drag a girl off to their cave and keeping these guys happy was now top of my agenda. If rape is inevitable, especially a gang rape, lie back and let the guys enjoy it. That's the best way for a woman to deal with it because that way she stands less chance of getting hurt. Especially if there's a hulking great camel fucker leading the visitors' team. And I was getting no comfort at all from the fact that Saddam was carrying me as if I weighed about as much as his namesake's conscience. I wondered if he was going to take first turn and decided he was. Maybe he worked for the Durleys but trying to hold this vicious son of a bitch back from a choice helping of aggravated rape would be like stepping between a tiger and a tethered goat. Yeah, it was going to be Saddam first by a long head if I knew anything about it.
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