Authors: Bryan Smith
Keely followed the security guy up some steps to a large deck at the back of the house. A few upper echelon Order members lounged in chairs on the deck. A middle-aged man with a large beer gut played with an iPad while a woman of the same approximate age was texting on her phone. This was a striking reminder of the wide gulf between inner circle members and lower-level initiates, none of whom were allowed access to modern technology. Initiates were expected to live simply in order to become more “pure”. It was an idea Keely had bought into completely in the beginning, but now she figured it was just a way of keeping initiates uninformed and in their place.
A shapely younger woman in a tiny red bikini was lying on her stomach on a chaise lounge. She had long and glossy dark hair that fell past her shoulders in waves of lush curls. She turned her head in Keely’s direction as she followed the security guy across the deck. A small, inscrutable smile tugged at the edges of her mouth. Her eyes were hidden behind dark sunglasses.
Keely couldn’t help wondering what that smile meant. Was it innocuous, or did it hint at some secret knowledge?
Does that bitch know something bad is about to happen to me?
It was impossible to tell and Keely kept her face carefully blank as she walked past the woman. Whatever was about to happen here, it couldn’t be any worse than what Susan was already putting her through every day.
Or so Keely sincerely hoped.
The security guy opened the back door and stepped aside, beckoning her inside with a tilt of his chin. She tried again to calm her nerves as she entered the house. The thing to keep in mind was she didn’t really know what was happening here. It didn’t necessarily have to be anything bad. Until the worst actually happened it was premature to give up hope. A big part of her still wanted to believe in John Wayne.
The security guy led her through several rooms until they emerged into the large foyer at the front of the house, where they climbed an ornate spiral staircase to the second floor. When they arrived at John Wayne’s office, Keely noticed a little speaker embedded in the wall next to the door. The security guy thumbed a button below the speaker and leaned close to it. “Sir? It’s Boyd. I have Keely Miller with me.”
“Thank you, Boyd. Send her in.”
An electronic buzz sounded and the door popped open. Boyd waved Keely in and she stepped through the doorway. Rather than accompanying her into the room, he shut the door behind her and presumably remained outside in the hallway.
It was a relatively spacious room. The floor was hardwood, varnished to a high gloss. There were several bookcases lined with old volumes. A big desk dominated the center of the room. Two comfortable-looking chairs sat facing the desk. Beneath the chairs was a round throw rug with a map of the world design. Keely felt sort of like she had stepped through a magical portal into the goddamn oval office.
Seated behind the desk was John Wayne de Rais.
Keely’s heart raced at the sight of him. Aside from the initial intake assessment, the guru rarely interacted with lower-level initiates on an individual basis. They would usually only see him when he delivered his weekly talks to the faithful. Being face-to-face with him was surreal. It was like being in the same room with Jesus or Mohammed. The fact that she’d had the man’s dick in her mouth did little to lessen this impression. She had forgotten what a presence he was. Though she knew it wasn’t rational, just being here and feeling his silent scrutiny made her feel guilty for the doubts she’d begun to harbor about the sincerity of his message.
She thought she might faint when he smiled warmly at her and said, “Have a seat, Keely.”
Keely sat in one of the chairs facing the desk. “You…wanted to see me, sir?”
“Call me John. We’re all equals in God’s eyes, Keely. There’ll be none of that ‘sir’ business here.”
Keely smiled. “Okay. John.”
“You’re curious to know why I summoned you.”
She hesitated, frowning. “Well…I know I’ve been in some trouble lately and I’m real sorry about that, but I’m trying hard to do better.”
John propped his elbows on the edge of the big desk. “Yes, I know all about your work lapses. That’s part of what I wanted to talk to you about today. Keely, would you say you’re happy living here with us?”
Keely’s mouth opened, but no words came out because she didn’t know whether she should be honest about her feelings or just say whatever felt necessary to smooth things over. She was terrified at the prospect of saying the wrong thing.
Sensing her discomfort, John smiled again, infusing it with even more of that dizzying charm. “It’s okay, Keely. We’re all friends here, brothers and sisters united in a common cause. Feel entirely free to say whatever’s on your mind without fear of repercussions. Is anything troubling you?”
Keely hesitated again.
Just go for it. Spit this shit out.
“I think…” She heaved a breath. “I think Susan Wagner is abusing her position.”
John arched an eyebrow. “Oh? How so?”
A sudden conviction that she had already said far too much assailed Keely. Surely John Wayne had some inkling of Susan’s kinky proclivities. If so, that knowledge must mean he did not disapprove. On the other hand…she had already come this far. The proverbial genie was out of the goddamn bottle and there was no putting it back. The only path left to her was to tell the whole truth and hope for the best.
“She had some men rough me up for not doing the work I was assigned. Maybe I kind of deserved that, I don’t know. Or some other kind of reprimand. Some suspension of privileges. But…” Another tiny hesitation, another flickering pang of doubt. She swallowed hard and pushed ahead. “But she’s been doing things that don’t seem right. In fact, they’re really kind of fucked up.”
Keely then gave him a detailed account of the sexual abuse she had suffered at Susan’s hands. John Wayne’s expression conveyed thoughtfulness, but otherwise did not betray his true feelings while he listened to her tale. When she had finished speaking, he leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers over his stomach.
“Let me explain something, Keely. Susan and I have a long history together. Maybe you know that already. But I like to think I’m a fair man, one who dispenses justice with an even hand. Favoritism is not a factor here. Make no mistake, I consider these serious allegations.” He unlaced his hands and spread them in a vague gesture of magnanimity. “So tell me…what would you like to see happen here?”
John Wayne’s words ignited a spark of real hope inside Keely. The healthy paranoia was still there and right now it was telling her to be wary of trusting anything this man said in light of his long history with her tormentor. But now a part of her believed there was a real chance something might be done. “I want to see her stripped of her position. She doesn’t belong in a place of authority. She should also be severely punished somehow.”
John stared at her in silence for several seconds. His smile had vanished. “I’m afraid I can’t do any of that.”
Keely’s heart sank and her eyes filled with tears.
Shit.
She wanted to scream. The cruel motherfucker had been toying with her the whole time.
“Please don’t cry, Keely.”
She sniffled. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize.”
She wiped at her cheeks. “It’s just…you said you took my allegations seriously.”
“I do. Very much so.” He smiled, but this time it was chillier, a ghost of previous smiles. “But what we’ve got here is a she said/she said situation. It’s your word against hers. Without witnesses, you can’t prove a thing. For all I know, you’ve got some kind of unrelated vendetta against my old friend and this is your way of getting back at her.”
Keely started to protest, but he held up a hand to silence her.
“Now I’m not saying that’s the case here. You could be telling the truth. So let me run something else past you, see what you think. How would you feel about a position of your own within my inner circle?”
Keely gaped at him, temporarily unable to speak or believe what she had just heard.
John Wayne laughed. “You look thunderstruck. I reckon I can’t blame you because I know what you’re thinking. No one advances up the ranks that fast. Am I right?”
Keely could only nod in response.
“You’re absolutely right. We have a hierarchy in place for good reason. Trust has to be earned. Loyalty has to be proven. And these things happen only after careful evaluation over time. But I’m prepared to make an exception for you, Keely.”
Keely finally found her voice. “But…why?”
The sunniness of John Wayne’s smile surprised her, given the previous direction of their conversation. “Exciting times are ahead for the Order. A revolution is brewing. A great time of cleansing is on the horizon. We’re going to shake the world, Keely. Do you believe me?”
Listening to the rising thunder in his voice made Keely’s own spirits soar. She again began to feel like she was in the presence of true greatness. “I believe you, John Wayne.”
He beamed at her and clapped his hands together. “Good! Then believe this. When the time comes to wipe this rotten world clean again, I’ll want all my best people—all my
favorite
people—standing with me. And, Keely, I do believe you have what it takes to be one of those people.”
“Holy shit.”
“Holy shit, indeed. This is a righteous time and we are righteous people. And as part of the inner circle, you would no longer be under Susan’s authority. In fact, you would be her equal. You will work harder than ever before, but the rewards will make the work you put in more than worth it, I assure you.”
Keely still didn’t much care for the idea of hard work, but she loved the idea of not being under Susan’s thumb anymore. She also found the notion of rapidly vaulting up the ranks so alluring it verged on intoxicating. All the other initiates would be so jealous of her.
“What do I have to do?”
“Take off your clothes.”
It should have disappointed her, but it did not. John Wayne eyed her slowly up and down. His expression was very similar to the way Susan had looked at her that day she was dragged into her office. The difference was she didn’t mind this kind of scrutiny from John.
Keely rose from the chair and began to slowly remove her garments, teasingly drawing out the process for his pleasure.
She believed in John again, but knew he was still a man with a man’s needs.
And she would do anything for him.
Chapter Twelve
Dez: An Origin Story in Three Parts
1
Things started going to shit in my life long before I got sent away for a few years. Saying I come from a dysfunctional family is like saying the motherfucking Nazis may have had some issues with the Jews. It’s like, no shit, you know what I’m saying? Listen, I’ve got this idea for a new kind of dictionary. A picture dictionary. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. On second thought, don’t do that.
Anyway…in the picture dictionary, the only words in it are the ones you’re looking up. But instead of using more words to describe those words, there’s just a picture of the one thing in the world absolutely everybody understands defines that word. Like, for instance, you look up the world “evil” and there’s just a picture of Hitler. And right away you get it. You say to yourself, “Yep, that’s evil. I understand what that word means now.” And then you close the book and put it away because you are fucking
done
. Your intellectual curiosity has been satisfied. Same deal with my family. In the picture dictionary, there’s just a picture of them next to the word “dysfunctional”, because where I come from everybody and their motherfucking mother knows the Morgan clan is the foulest, twisted, most fucked-up and batshit crazy bunch of inbred, sibling-fucking, dope-peddling, dog-kicking, cornholing, mush-brained, necrophiliac contract killers you could ever hope to never meet.
By the way, the reason I was in the bathroom so long before was because I was doing a lot of cocaine. So, you know…fair warning.
My dad was gone from the time I was ten. If you want to know why I hate men so much, you gotta start with him. He spent the last twelve years of his life sitting on death row for killing a federal judge. Damn shame about the slow way our legal system works. At least he went away before I got old enough to grow boobs and attract the wrong kind of attention from his sick ass. My sisters weren’t so lucky. You’re probably wondering where my mother was while all that was going on. Well, I’ll tell you. She was in on it with him. She’d take pictures of that shit and sell them to her pervert friends. This was right before all the freaks and sickos figured out they could get their filthy contraband online for free.
Maybe you’re wondering why nothing ever got done about this shit. What you don’t understand is how feared my douchebag daddy and all his shady brothers and cousins were in that town. They ruled that area through terror and intimidation. They did things that would make those Al Qaeda motherfuckers say, “Perhaps you are going a little too far there, my white devil friends.” These guys were a real redneck mafia. It was a big deal around those parts when it all came crashing down. Only reason my mother got spared was because she worked out a deal to testify against dear old dad.
My sister Janine killed herself after he went to the penitentiary. Just blew her fucking brains out. She was finally free of him, finally safe, and she offs herself. Crazy, right? Took me a long time to realize it was maybe because she realized she’d never truly be free. She was gonna live with the memories of the things he’d done to her the rest of her life and it was just more than she could handle.