Rude (Choose Your Own Adventure)

Chapter 29

Dr DuMaurier is clearly terrified. Her fear makes you remember some of the uneasiness you've had since meeting Hannibal, and your doubts about the meat you ate at dinner.

'What will happen if you don't escape?' you ask her, in a whisper.

'Hannibal will kill me. And I believe he will kill you too.'

'You mean this isn't just a sex thing?'

'No,' says Dr DuMaurier, beginning to strip the sheets from the bed and knot them together, 'it is not. That is, it's partly a sex thing, but mostly it is a killing thing. Help me make a rope.'

Working together, the two of you knot the fine Egyptian cotton bedlinen together to make a line long enough throw out the window and dangle a metre or so from the ground. You tie it to the bedpost and climb down, Dr DuMaurier going first. For a woman in a pencil skirt and four-inch heels, she can really move quickly.

You hail a cab, which takes you to her house, a beautiful modern construction on the verge of the city. 'We can't stay,' she tells you. 'Hannibal will find us. I have bags packed, false passports, open airline tickets, and money for both of us. I've been planning an escape for a very long time.'

'Why do you have two passports and airline tickets?' you ask her, but she just shakes her head. 

Within half an hour, you're speeding in her Mercedes away from Baltimore. You drive through the night, and as you do, you learn enough about Dr Hannibal Lecter to make your hair stand on end. You have to ask Bedelia to stop the car by the side of the road so that you can be violently sick.

'If we are very lucky,' she says grimly, 'we may have just saved each other's lives.'

Though you can't help thinking, If I hadn't saved you, I'd be having hot raunchy sex with Hannibal Lecter right now.

Though you might also have ended up in his meat locker.

Late that night, you stop at an anonymous motel somewhere in New York state. For security, you share a room. Bedelia takes a shower and when she comes out, her golden hair dripping, her creamy-skinned body clad only in a towel, you can't help but stare at her. She is absolutely stunning.

And you...you are rather sexually frustrated.

Bedelia sits beside you on the bed. 'I owe you my life,' she says. She licks her luscious lips. 'We're going to be spending a lot of time together, you and I. Shall we get to know each other better?'

And then she drops the towel.

If you pull Bedelia on to the bed with you and kiss her, go to Chapter 33.

If you say, 'Sorry Dr DuMaurier, but I think we're better off as friends,' go to chapter 34.