Authors: Bryan Smith
Echo sneered. “Look at me.”
Stu inhaled deeply through his nose, but kept staring at the floor.
“
Look at me!
”
The fury that came over Echo surprised her. All her remaining reluctance melted away. A need to do violence gripped her. She wished she still had the golf club she’d used to trash Ella’s car. But, no, that would be too easy. She needed to feel her own bare fist crashing into this worthless fuck’s face.
“
Look at me, goddammit!
”
Stu raised his head and looked at her with great and obvious reluctance. Thick tears spilled down his grimy cheeks.
“I want you to know something, asshole.” Echo’s tone was calmer now, but an unyielding hardness that surprised and delighted her remained just beneath the surface. “No matter what you’ve done or haven’t done, you deserve this.”
And then she let him have it with every ounce of strength she had. The blow broke his nose and caused blood to come streaming out of both nostrils. The brutal physicality thrilled Echo and got her adrenaline pumping. She found his tears strangely thrilling too, and immediately wound up to deliver another punch.
And then another one.
And another.
It went on and on until she had worn herself out. She stood there panting and staring at Stu’s swollen, purple face. Her hand was throbbing from the abuse she’d dealt out, but it was a good pain, a well-earned pain.
After a moment, Dez let out an appreciative whistle. “Good job, baby.”
Echo heaved a breath. “Thank you.”
Dez then stepped closer and shot Stu through the forehead. Echo felt only a mild repulsion as she watched the man she’d beaten die. It was the first time she had ever seen anyone killed in front of her. The only surprise was that it didn’t sicken her more.
They stared at the corpse in reflective silence for a few moments.
Then Echo looked at Dez. “Did he really rape you?”
“No.”
Echo nodded. “Okay.”
“Are you mad?”
A brief hesitation. “No. I mean, I really don’t think so. It’s weird.”
Dez took Echo by a hand and pulled her close. “Remember what you said outside? About having sex with me?”
Echo smiled. “Yeah.”
In a few more moments, they had shed their clothes and were rolling around on the dirty tarp, exploring each other’s bodies with hungry abandon as the dead man watched them with sightless eyes.
Chapter Thirteen
The Circle Completes (aka Three Become One)
Everything went down exactly the way Ted said it would. She vacated her apartment for a couple days while his people got in there and did their thing. During that time she stayed free of charge at a hotel owned by Ted. The more she learned about him, the more she realized he really was some kind of shady tycoon. He had his fingers in so many pies even he probably had trouble keeping track of it all.
One of the bigger surprises on that front was when she found out he was the real owner of the Booty Boutique. In fact, he owned a lot of strip clubs. Not just in Florida, but all across the southeast. He didn’t visit them often because he liked to keep that side of his business portfolio low profile. Every now and then, though, some prospective business partners with a taste for that kind of entertainment would need to be shown a good time. The day he met Lana was one of those rare occasions where some horny investors required an extra level of personal attention. That was the real reason he had swept into the club with such swagger that day. He had people to impress.
All Lana knew was she was grateful he had walked into her world that day. She would have gone to jail for double homicide for sure otherwise. After two days at the hotel, she received a text giving her the all-clear to return to her apartment.
She was a bundle of nerves when she got there. Rather than entering immediately, she cast many nervous glances over her shoulders as she pretended to flip through her keys. The paranoid part of her was certain police were watching from somewhere. Eventually she gathered her courage and went inside.
The interior of the apartment was oppressively quiet. The total lack of noise freaked her out, made it feel even more like a place where something bad had happened. She realized the impression was entirely disconnected from reality. It was just the voice of paranoia again. But knowing this on an intellectual level did little to calm her nerves.
The door to the bedroom was standing wide open at the end of the hallway, which she interpreted as a very hopeful sign. Her remaining reluctance deserted her then and she hurried to the door to peek through it.
Her jaw dropped open in astonishment.
Holy shit!
The bedroom was pristine. There wasn’t a speck of blood or brain matter anywhere. Some things were immediately obvious. Not from visible evidence, but rather by logical conclusion based on known facts. The wall had been cleaned and repainted. The carpet had been ripped up and replaced. Ditto for the blood-stained mattress. Yet there wasn’t even the slightest trace of the work that had been done, not even a new paint smell. The latter made no sense at all, but there was no denying it. She even put her nose to the wall and sniffed it. Nothing. There had been so much blood and sticky brain matter adhering to it. A mere cleaning of that kind of mess would have left visible evidence of scrubbing. No, the wall had been painted, she was sure of it, and they had done something to neutralize the smell. What that might be she couldn’t imagine, but there was no other explanation.
The new carpet exactly matched the carpet that had been replaced. There was even a small tear in it near the open bathroom door that precisely replicated a tear in the original carpet. The new mattress and sheets were also identical to their ruined predecessors.
After several minutes engaged in close examination of everything in the carefully reconstructed room, Lana moved to the middle of the room and turned in a slow circle, taking it all in one more time.
Then she laughed.
She couldn’t help it.
Ted’s people were
good
. No, that wasn’t right. “Good” was a word you used for people who did the expected acceptable kind of job. This was something on a level far, far beyond that. What she was seeing here wasn’t the product of simple workmen. This was actual artistry.
She called Ted.
He answered on the first ring. “I take it everything’s to your satisfaction.”
Lana smiled. “And then some.”
“Good. Glad to hear it.”
“I’m not even gonna ask how it was done.”
Ted chuckled. “That’s probably for the best.”
Lana put her purse down and breathed a languorous sigh as she stretched out on the new mattress. “So I guess it goes without saying, but I am forever in your debt.”
“Nonsense. Always happy to help out a lady in distress.”
Lana lifted her legs and stretched out her feet, inspecting her toenails. She needed to paint them again soon. A shade of turquoise might be nice. “Don’t be modest, Teddy. Do you mind if I call you Teddy? Of course you don’t.” She lowered her feet and turned onto her side as she giggled. “We both know you’ve earned a shitload of favors. I don’t want you to ever forget how grateful I am for what you’ve done.”
Ted made a thoughtful sound. “When you say ‘favors’…”
Lana adopted the breathy, kittenish tone she already knew turned him on. “That means whatever you want it to mean, Teddy. You want to fuck me? You can have me any time you want, as many times as you want. Any
way
you want, no matter how degenerate. You want me to do certain unsavory things for you, maybe use me to manipulate other men in ways that benefit you, I’m your girl.” She made her voice even lower and breathier. “I’ll even kill for you, Ted.”
Ted made a choked sound. “Ah…you probably shouldn’t say shit like that on a cell phone, doll. You never know who might be listening in.”
Lana’s laughter then had a giddy, musical quality to it. “Well, I’m only joking, of course.”
But you know I’m really not
, she thought. “The point is, I’ll do anything you want.
Anything
.”
“That’s good to know, darlin’. Maybe I
will
cash in some of those favors now and then, whenever the mood or necessity strikes.”
Lana shifted a little on the mattress and ran her free hand down the length of her bare thigh. Listening to Ted’s baritone voice—which now actually sounded sexy to her—was getting her all stirred up. “Hmm, maybe you could come over here right now and fuck the daylights out of me, sort of christen the new…well, you know.”
Ted sighed. “That’s mighty tempting, but I’ve got some business that will keep me occupied the rest of the day. I might be able to see you tonight if you don’t mind me dropping by late.”
Lana smiled. “Honey, you can come by any time, day or night. But I’ve been gone from work too long. I need to call my manager and go in for a shift.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Ted made a sound Lana guessed was a hard puff on a cigar. It was amazing how well she already knew all his little tics and quirks. “You’re my girl now. You don’t need to work.”
“But I need money.”
He snorted. “You’ll have money. Lots of it. And I’ll pay your rent from now on. Everything else too.”
“Wow, the real princess treatment.”
“You deserve it.”
Lana laughed. “I don’t know about that, but I won’t turn it down. Here’s the thing, though, Teddy. I
like
stripping and want to keep doing it, even if it’s only a couple nights a week. It’s a great release. I love the physicality of it and I love the dumb cow looks the stupid men give me when they stare at my tits. Makes me feel powerful.”
Ted grunted. “Well, you do what makes you happy, doll. That’s all I care about. Maybe I’ll drop by the club late and see you there.”
Lana smiled. “I’d love that.”
“See you there, darlin’.”
“See ya, Teddy.”
They hung up.
Lana decided to take a nap. Before she drifted to sleep, she thought about how she had coaxed Ted into fucking her atop Blaine’s corpse, an undeniably sick and depraved act. A thing she never could have imagined doing prior to that day. She couldn’t help feeling as if the whole incident—from the murders themselves to that act of borderline corpse defilement—had awakened something genuinely monstrous inside her. Because she felt no revulsion at recalling any of it, not even that sensation of Blaine’s hairy legs beneath her back as Ted pounded into her.
Maybe there’s something really wrong with me.
Maybe so. But, as she closed her eyes and adjusted the pillows beneath her head, she knew for a fact she didn’t care. She was at peace with herself and her life, regardless of any darkness residing within her. In the last moments before sleep finally took her, she realized she hadn’t asked Ted what had become of Alice’s baby. She also realized she didn’t care and went to sleep with a smile on her face.
When she woke up less than an hour later, she called her manager at the Booty Boutique. He gave her no grief about her missed shifts. There was an unusual level of deference in his tone over the entire course of their brief conversation, bordering on obsequiousness. Lana had no doubt he had received stern instructions from Ted regarding how to treat her from now on.
She headed out to the club after taking a shower, bopping her head to loud dance music as she wove her way through the thick Tampa traffic. Other motorists gave her dirty looks, especially when she would come to a stop next to them at a light. Their faces said they were unhappy about the pounding volume of her music, but Lana didn’t care. The way she felt now, nothing could touch her. She delighted in mocking the angry motorists, sometimes smiling and waving, other times responding in cruder ways, including the usual middle finger gestures as well as miming fellatio. One man was so livid at her behavior he started to get out of his car, but she punched the accelerator and shot through the red light, laughing at the screeching tires and honking horns that ensued.
A few blocks away from the club she decided to pull in at a convenience store. Her gas gauge needle was right at empty and she didn’t want to bother having to fill up after her shift. She parked at a pump that was the farthest away from the store’s entrance, but she did not immediately shut off the car’s engine. Instead she sat there and bobbed her head to the music some more as she rooted through her purse. She knew she had some good pills in there somewhere. Some bop pills. Some motherfucking get up and go pills. They made her happy and always made her shifts at the club so much more fun in general. She found a red one and popped it in her mouth. On reflection, she wasn’t sure what it actually was. The bop pills were usually white or yellow.
She giggled.
Whatever. It’ll be a surprise, a nice drug adventure.
She finally shut off the engine and got out of the car. Her keys slid from her hand as she kicked the door shut.
Shit.
She knelt to pick them up, but before she could snag them a booted foot stepped on them. Her initial reaction was blinding anger. Whoever this joker was, he or she was playing with fire and definitely did not know who they were fucking with. The anger turned to fear when she glanced up and saw the scowling face of the man who had tried to come after her at the traffic light.