Authors: Bryan Smith
She pushed her chair back and stood. Susan was a slender woman somewhere in her forties. Her hair was a dark shade of blonde. It was tied back in a loose knot. She wore a white blouse and tan shorts.
Keely’s hands were shaking and she feared she might lose her grip on the desk. “Please. I know I haven’t been doing my part, but I don’t deserve this.”
Susan grunted. “Oh, but you do, Keely. More importantly,
I
deserve it.”
Keely frowned.
What an odd thing to say…
In a corner of the room was a wooden stand containing a number of rattan canes of varying lengths and thicknesses. Susan approached the stand, smiled as she glanced over her shoulder at Keely and selected one of the longer, thicker canes. She then moved out of Keely’s field of vision and took up a position behind her.
Susan chuckled. “Brace yourself, girl.”
“You’re enjoying this.”
The words just came out. There was no forethought to the suddenly blurted accusation. Keely silently cursed her stupidity. No way could it do anything other than make things worse.
“You’re being impertinent.”
Keely sniffled. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re right, though. I’m enjoying this very much.”
Keely flinched as she felt the tapered end of the cane touch her quivering buttocks. “Please. Please.”
“Do keep saying that word. It sounds so sweet on your lips.”
The end of the cane came away from her buttocks as Susan drew it back to deliver the first blow. Keely flinched as it come whickering through the air at her. When it snapped against her bare flesh, the pain made her weak in the knees.
“Do not fall.”
The cane whickered through the air again.
SNAP!
“You’ve earned yourself an extra week of laundry detail, Keely.”
SNAP!
“After that you will join a recruiting party daily until you personally have brought ten new initiates into the fold. And you can forget about trying to escape. You will be monitored closely from here on out.”
SNAP!
“Do you understand?”
Keely whimpered. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Good.” Susan made a soft sound of amusement. “And I’m pleased to hear the appropriate subservience in your tone.”
Keely gasped as she felt the end of the cane slide between her legs and stay there. Susan didn’t penetrate her with the cane, but she did press it firmly against her pussy. Several moments passed and nothing happened. Keely didn’t know what to make of this development. But by now the once absurd notion of a sexual assault by a sister Order member shouldn’t have surprised her, but it did anyway. It was just another in a growing series of dashed illusions.
Susan let out a shuddery breath and withdrew the cane.
“You’re very pretty, Keely.”
Keely worked to keep her voice steady. “I know.”
Susan made a contemplative sound. “I could possibly be persuaded to end this unpleasant phase of your punishment in exchange for other considerations.”
Another long silence ensued. When it became clear Susan wouldn’t speak again until Keely said something, she stood and forced a smile as she turned to look at Susan. “I’ll do anything you want.”
Susan handed her the cane. “Hold that.”
Keely accepted the cane with open-mouthed astonishment, but she said nothing. Her mouth stayed open as she watched Susan unbutton her shorts and wiggle out of them.
Susan took up the very position Keely had abandoned. With her bare ass thrust up in the air, she glanced over her shoulder and said, “Cane me.”
Keely shook her head. Not because she didn’t wish to do as instructed—she was more than willing to cane the living shit out of Susan Wagner—but because of all the bizarre, unpredictable twists this day had taken, this was by far the strangest.
Susan’s voice emerged as a strangled whine when she spoke next. “Cane me, Keely. Please.”
Keely got a good grip on the cane and drew her arm back. Then she swung it forward with every ounce of strength she could muster.
SNAP!
And then she did it again. And again.
It went on that way for a while before things progressed in a direction Keely didn’t find surprising at all.
Chapter Eight
A Song of Lana
The time between the end of her phone call with Ted Wilkinson and his arrival at her door were the tensest, most uncertain moments of Lana’s life. She spent nearly every second of those twenty-some minutes second-guessing the advisability of contacting him. He was still a stranger to her, just some big-talking blowhard who had tried a little too hard to impress her. Blurting out a double homicide confession to the man over the phone had maybe not been the smartest thing she had ever done.
But taking the lives of your cheating boyfriend and his whore lover had a way of traumatizing the common sense out of you. The insult done to her pride could not have passed unpunished. But now she was wishing she hadn’t acted so rashly. This was too big a thing she had done. Despite Ted’s assurances to the contrary, there was no way he could make this all go away. There were two bullet-riddled bodies and a blood-soaked mattress in her bedroom. And Alice had bled all over the carpet. Also, there were bits of Blaine’s brain on the wall behind the headboard. The whole room was your basic DNA evidence extravaganza, a crime scene investigator’s fucking wet dream.
And then there was the goddamn baby.
Yep.
She had to face it. Big Ted had just been humoring her. He probably called the police the moment their conversation ended. The likelihood of this was something she couldn’t deny. It was what any remotely sane person would do. Any moment now she would hear the first rising whine of sirens. And at that point she would have a big decision to make. She could either surrender quietly or take her own life before they could take her into custody. The gun still had some rounds in it. She could put the barrel in her mouth and squeeze the trigger. Just be done with it all. Though she had never previously been suicidal, the prospect of a life in prison was unacceptable.
Seated on the edge of her living room sofa, she looked at the gun still clasped in her right hand. It didn’t look like much. It wasn’t a big gun. But in this case looks were definitely deceptive. She had seen what it could do.
Fuck it.
She opened her mouth wide and slid the short barrel inside. Only fear of dying and what might (or might not) come after death made her hesitate. Some people said suicide was a sin and that you went straight to hell for it. Lana had never given the notion of hell’s possible existence any serious consideration. It just seemed so ridiculous. But having a gun in her mouth put a different spin on things. What if she was wrong about hell? She had been wrong about many things in her life. Why not this too?
She pulled the gun out of her mouth and heaved a big sigh.
In the end, it wasn’t fear of eternal damnation that stayed her hand. The baby was awake again, staring up at her with those big blues eyes from the car carrier at her feet. She just couldn’t blow her brains out in front of him. Or, whatever, maybe some part of her was looking for any excuse at all not to commit suicide.
The baby didn’t look scared or traumatized. Just innocent and curious. The look on his face triggered her first tears of the afternoon. Alice and Blaine deserved what they got. They were adults. They had known what they were doing was wrong. But the cute little complication in the baby carrier didn’t deserve any of this. It wasn’t his fault his mother was a worthless whore. Still, his life had changed forever thanks to Lana’s rash actions—and probably not for the better.
A knock on the door made her jump and almost drop the gun. “Lana, you in there, darlin’? It’s Big Ted.”
A big, hopeful grin spread across Lana’s face. Ted’s presence at the door meant there were no cops on the way, at least not yet. It might only be a temporary reprieve, but she was grateful for it.
She carefully set the gun on the coffee table and got up to go to the door. When she opened it, Big Ted smiled broadly at her around the unlit stogie wedged into a corner of his mouth. “Come on in.”
Ted tipped back his cowboy hat and entered the apartment as she stepped aside for him.
She closed the door and followed him into the living room.
Ted stood with his hands on his hips as he stared down at the baby in the carrier. He made a clucking sound as he shook his head. “Shit. Poor little fella.”
Lana took up a position next to him and looked at the baby too. “Yeah. I done fucked up his life forever.”
Ted snorted. “What little is left of it. Go grab me a pillow, sweet thing.”
“Why?”
Ted gave her an incredulous look. “So I can smother the little cocksucker. What do you expect me to do with him? We can take him out on my boat later and drop him in the ocean. Over and done with.” He snapped his fingers. “Like
that
.”
“You can’t kill him. I’d rather go to jail.”
“Seriously?”
Lana nodded. “Yeah.”
“Well, shit.” Ted took the cigar out of his mouth and scratched the back of his neck. “That makes things a mite more complicated, but coming up with an alternate solution ain’t necessarily undoable.”
“Good. Because killing him is a deal breaker.”
Ted put the cigar back in his mouth. “There are things I could possibly do, but first I need to get a feel for the full scope of what we’re dealing with here. Show me the bodies.”
Lana led him down the hallway to the bedroom. The bedroom door was closed for some unknown reason. Closing the door on the scene didn’t negate the reality hidden inside the room, but then she hadn’t been thinking logically for a while. Though Ted already knew what was waiting on the other side of it, she nevertheless hesitated for the briefest instant when her hand closed around the doorknob. There was a strange tingly feeling in her gut that reminded her of childhood. It was the one she used to get when her parents were about to discover something naughty or just plain wrong she had done.
The deep lines around Ted’s eyes crinkled. “You gonna open the door, sugar?”
Lana let out a nervous laugh. “Sorry, just not in a hurry to see this again. It’s…pretty horrible.”
Not really
, she thought.
But for some reason I need you to believe I think it’s horrible.
Ted smiled and touched her shoulder, giving her what he meant as a reassuring squeeze. But the touch was a little too intimate for that. She half-expected his hand to slide away from her shoulder to grope some other part of her body, but for the moment he refrained. “I understand, girl. I really do. But the sooner we can start dealing with this unpleasantness, the sooner we can put it behind you.”
Lana made herself smile. “I know. Thanks for caring. It means…a lot.”
She tried to summon a fake tear—or at least a sniffle—to garner more sympathy, but her eyes remained dry.
Ted squeezed her shoulder again. “Happy to help. You’re a special gal, I knew that the second I laid eyes on you. Now let’s see what’s what.”
Lana let out a breath and opened the door. Ted was right behind her as she entered the room. He removed the cigar from his mouth and let out a low whistle. The bodies remained where they had fallen. She hadn’t touched them. Blaine was facedown on the bed, but the hole at the small of his back and the ruin the second slug had made of his head were plain to see. Alice was flat on her back on the floor, her unblinking, dead eyes staring up at nothing.
Ted grunted. “Damn. That one had a pretty good rack on her.”
“I worked with her. She danced at the Booty Boutique too.”
Ted’s brow furrowed. “I thought them titties looked kind of familiar. Fakes, huh?”
Lana nodded. “You can tell by the way they don’t spread out when she’s on her back.”
“Huh.” Ted glanced at her. “Your titties fake?”
“I have naturally bodacious breasts.”
Ted chuckled. “Nothing better than a legit pair of great tits.”
Lana agreed, but she was eager to move the conversation along. “So…as you can see, I made one hell of a mess. I hate to be a doubting Thomasina, but I don’t see how you can make this go away.”
Ted’s default joviality gave way to an unexpected earnestness. “I hate to break it to you, darlin’, but this ain’t my first rodeo.”
Lana frowned. “Meaning what?”
Ted’s eyes twinkled in a way that chilled her. There was a certain shady vibe criminal types who patronized the Booty Boutique gave off, one she was usually able to smell on them as soon as they came in range. She hadn’t caught that vibe off Ted before—possibly because he was more skilled at concealing it than most—but it was certainly there now. “Meaning this won’t be the first time I’ve made bodies disappear.”
Lana smiled. “I see. That’s good to know.”
It was strange. She knew now she was dealing with a genuine bad guy, a dangerous man by definition. But, rather than disturbing her, she found the knowledge reassuring. A for-real villain who knew his way around effective corpse disposal and crime scene cover-up was exactly the kind of dude she needed in her corner right now.