He smiled. "You'll see. You're gonna like it."

"No I won't. Let me go! Let me out."

"Hang on, would you?" he asked, acting like I was getting all worked up over nothing and wouldn't I feel silly once I realized that I'd just been over-reacting…

Well, I wasn't over-reacting. I was being taken down a tiny dirt road, a real backwoods washboard road, and then, suddenly, he stopped the car, and the thing had been making so much noise before, rattling and shaking over the bumpy road, that the sudden silence was jarring. Frightening… almost as frightening as the look on Johnny's face reflecting the moonlight.

"Where are we?" I asked. I cursed inwardly at the way my voice was shaking.

"Where do you think?"

"I… I don't know."

"We're at the playground."

I looked around. I couldn't see anything but trees.

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm talking about the fact that now you and me… we play."

"You stay right where you are," I said as he slid across the seat anyway.

"Don't be that way, Junella," he said. "Don't. It's real unfriendly."

"You get back. I never let a boy kiss me on the first date."

"Suits fuck out of me," he said. "I'll forego that and get straight to the good shit."

"You leave me alone!" I shouted.

"Ain't no point in you shouting at me," he said, "or shouting at all, for that matter. No one's ever going to hear you out here."

"Johnny… please…"

"There's an old saying. 'Put out, or get out.' You ever hear of that saying?"

My hands and my voice were both shaking terribly by now, and I didn't have the faintest idea what I was going to do next.

"What's it going to be?" he asked. "You going to put out, or are you going to get out?"

"I… I…"

Then, I realized. The bastard… he was bluffing.