Chapter 12
Harold came back to his old apartment frustrated and pissed off. He looked around at the dump he had left his wife in and he couldn't believe how he had managed to survive all those months living like this. Or how that bitch who called herself Mrs. Wilson could call this 'home.' The place was a fucking disaster. A squalid, vermin-infested sty.
They had laughed at him today. At Suzie's Whorehouse, out on Route 117. When he was living here, he'd been going there every fucking Wednesday for almost a year before he came home to his cold wife. He'd never been laughed at before. It was humiliating.
He couldn't figure it out. For more than a month now he'd been putting the wood to Marcy like John Henry drove railroad spikes. All fucking day long, day after day. He felt like he had been reborn, come into his own, his virility greater than when he had been a pimply-faced teenager. Then today, when he had strutted in and slapped down his new Gold Card, he had taken three of the most expensive whores upstairs, booking them for two hours. They had fucking fallen asleep waiting for inspiration to strike him, but only after they made sure the whole establishment had heard of his flop. Inadequate, they had called him and then made him sign the charge slip, including a huge tip.
To add insult to injury, he couldn't even get a twitch in the vertical direction for his loving wife, the cold bitch. It didn't even help to remember her bending over the couch like last time, her tight little asshole squeezing him dry as he humped her ass. There was nothing. Nada. Zip.
He had to be so fucking sweet to her tonight, too. He had hoped to get her in a good mood by balling her. Then he could have gotten her to do anything. Sweet talk the cunts and fuck them good. Then they'd do anything for you.
He'd managed the sweet talk but she seemed cool, distant somehow. Oh, she was very polite and smiled at him, but she seemed sad. Probably that time of the fucking month. Just his luck. There was no way was he going to stick his dick in that smelly swamp of a pussy, so maybe it was just as well to give his pride and joy a well-deserved rest.
He had to get her to sign those papers. He had shuffled them in with a lot of health insurance forms and general information stuff from the company. There wasn't a ghost of a chance she would even notice it was there. Marcy had marked all the places for her to sign with an "X" and highlighted it in a neon pink color. All she had to do was move the fucking pen with her hand.
He watched her as she waded through the forms. She was fucking reading them! What did she expect to do, understand Corporate America? She was from fucking Hicksville, Minnesota, for Chrissakes!
He had to think of something else. He had to keep cool. He-- they needed her cooperation for the plan to get put into effect. Oh, God! She was reading the life insurance policy and was checking the fucking actuarial tables and projected payouts. He was an accountant and he had trouble with those fucking things... Oh Shit!... No, thank God! It looked for a second like she was going to ask a stupid ass question... There! One signature... Oh, for fucking shit. Just sign the damn things... Oh, Christ! Don't look back at what you've already done. We'll be here all fucking night and this place in giving me the creeps. What a rat-infested shit-hole.
Alex finished signing the stack of forms and placed them in a neat pile. They were an interesting assortment of nonsense, almost enough to make her want to breeze through them without reading them. But Daddy had taught her to never sign anything without understanding it.
"Should I take these to the post office and mail them for you, Harold?" she asked. "I think I have enough money for stamps."
"Oh, no. Don't bother. I'll have Marcy drop them in the outgoing mail when I get back. As an executive, I get free postage from the company. It's one of the special perks." Fucking bitch just wanted more money. Well, now that she had signed the forms, he was done with her. She had gotten the last dime she was getting from him. She could get a job and make her own money, like he did.
Alex heard the name 'Marcy' and her heart broke in two. She died a little more inside herself, even though she had known it was over between them for a long time. She had known, ever since she had overheard the telephone call that night. True, Mr. Smith had not used Harold's name, but she knew. A woman knows.
Hearing Harold speak the name of the 'other woman' so easily in her presence was the hardest thing she had ever heard. Yet she didn't cry. They still had to spend the night together. She wondered if he would be able to tell the difference in her, her increased sensuality and her increased sexuality. She was still his wife and she was not only obligated, but ready and willing to give him whatever he demanded. She hoped and prayed he wouldn't take her mouth, but she would sacrifice even that for her husband if that was what he wanted. In her heart, she hoped he wouldn't, and she wasn't going to offer, either. She was saving that for, for, well, she didn't know what to call him.
Yes she did. She wanted to call him 'Master.' With all her heart and soul, that was what she wanted. It shook her to her core as that became so clear to her, yet at the same time, the realization of it calmed her. Grinning wryly, she now understood her first misunderstanding of what he said he preferred to be called. He had told her, from the very first time they had met. "Master Smith." He had instinctively known about her need then and had been so patient with her.
Unbelievably, Harold didn't want sex from her. He didn't even undress before he went to bed. He acted like the sheets were dirty or that there were bugs or rodents crawling around the apartment. Soon enough he was snoring and Alex was able to get back up and re-examine those insurance papers.
She found them very interesting and vaguely familiar as she read through them. If she was reading all the paperwork correctly, what Harold was involved in was a variation on a huge scam that a race horse owner had pulled off back in Wisconsin. Or nearly pulled off. He got caught and everyone knew about it.
The only difference was that in this case, Harold was the horse. Back home, the guy had used a trumped up, worthless old nag with a false, but documentable track record. An altered ID tattoo here, a few charred remains in a barn fire there, and the insurance company was paying out a couple of hundred thousand bucks for what amounted to a pile of overcooked dog food. Too bad the guy couldn't tell a gelding from a stallion.
Harold's life insurance policy was too big. That's what made her suspicious. That and the off-shore bank account. Why did they need one of those? She thought long and hard about telling Harold of her suspicions. She had started to say something when she first saw the policy stuck in among all the other crap. But she hadn't. He wouldn't have listened to her, anyway. He was too excited about this, too involved.
She wondered how they had suckered him into doing this. She figured they had made it seem like his idea, his scheme. Now, he thought that this was his big break.
Alex sighed. She was his wife and he needed her help to pull it off. That made her an accomplice to it, sort of, plus she was the named beneficiary. She figured that that explained the off-shore account. They wouldn't be likely to check if he was supposed to be dead. All he needed to do was match the signature card. Still, it was a risk and he was putting them both in danger, but if he was willing to take it, she would support him.
She did, however, make a couple of changes to the policy. Minor checkboxes that wouldn't add much to the premium, but added tons to the benefits as well as splitting the deposit accounts into two accounts. Just in case someone else could get access to the account. Like Marcy. She doubted Harold would notice.
What kept nagging at her was Mr. Smith's involvement in the scam. What part did he play in all this? That was what she couldn't figure out. She had already witnessed his ruthlessness. Alvin had warned her Mr. Smith was involved with something to do with Harold. But maybe Alvin was just saying that to confuse her. He had tried to scare her by telling her Mr. Smith had beaten a girl to death. She didn't think he could, but, well, maybe. He had been very angry that day.
She was confused, pulled by her longings one way and her gut instinct in the other. She so wanted to believe in Mr. Smith, wanted him to be the Master she was longing for that it was hard for her to believe anything bad about him. She was even beginning to doubt he had really killed Lewis. Maybe he was just scaring him. There hadn't been any police asking questions or anything.
Alex went back to bed and didn't sleep.
Harold left at first light. She had his coffee waiting for him, made just like he liked it. He had sipped it and tossed it out, said it tasted funny. Marcy's was better, he had told her, smirking.
She didn't say anything to him about the scam. Now, she didn't care.
Alex waited for Damon's call for three days. She wasn't used to being idle, so she made use of her time. She borrowed one of her nicer neighbor's sewing machines and made some alterations in the few clothes she had. If she had learned anything from the past couple of weeks, it was how to look sexy and how to make clothes look as sexy as possible.
With quick and sure stitches and snips, she altered her one remaining blouse, modified Harold's one silk shirt that he had left here when he moved out and then completely redid her Sunday dress. The white one with the little flowers. When she was done, she stood in front of the cracked mirror on the closet. She'd probably best not wear this to church anymore, she giggled to herself. She could see clear through it and it fit a lot tighter now. She brushed her thumbs over her protruding nipples and watched as they stiffened to their full height. They were always aroused now, and it made her feel sexy.
The slits up the side of the skirt had gone a little higher than she had intended, but with the high waistline the long skirt bound her thighs too much. She could have cut the bottom off and hemmed it up, but she rather liked the sexy effect of the slits. When she twirled around the material flew up and you could see her dark hair between her thighs. Oh, she felt wicked. Wonderfully wicked.
Damon came back from his meeting late and furious. It had not been the meeting he had been prepared for. Someone was feeding them all the wrong information. He was convinced now it was Alvin, and that made the bastard expendable. He had just the thing, too. He had picked it up from an untraceable source, but it was delicious revenge. It was un-fucking-believable. Give the guy a break, help him make something of himself, and how does he repay you? Fucking stabs you in the fucking back, that's how!
As soon as he had got to the resort he had sensed something was wrong. First, the bitch was there with her sniveling toadies. She never came to these boring business meetings. What was she doing here?
How a female had gotten on the Board in the first place was a topic of much discussion, but Damon leaned towards the inheritance theory. He had heard that she got on after her husband had died, leaving all the blackmail evidence he had accumulated on everyone else in her fucking little hands. Others said she fucked her way onto the Board, but even 50 years younger she would still have been ugly. Damon didn't buy that one. The most ridiculous theory, however, held that she had fucking outperformed every other director the company had ever had and had earned her position on the Board. Like that was fucking possible for a woman!
Right from the first reception she had not avoided Damon, as she usually did when they met. She had several male 'secretaries' and attendants to care for her needs and she wasn't really his type. Too wrinkled and ugly, though he had only expressed that opinion in his office. Privately to people he could trust.
Waggling her finger at him, she motioned him over to her. Smiling and silently cursing her and her fucking mother who gave birth to her, he made his way gracefully over into her sphere of influence, edging out some of the lesser toadies. She made him stand by her, smiling and laughing. The directors were constantly judged by their grasp of social graces, and this bitch was the one Board member you didn't say 'No' to. Not if you wanted to keep your job, much less your head.
By the end of the reception, an interminable length of three hours, she had maneuvered him so that he was somehow kneeling at the foot of her chair. Like a fucking slave! Impossible, but she had done it. Everyone there saw him kneeling, smiling and laughing up at her. Sucking up. They had to have seen him, as she had made several general announcements from her chair, her fucking throne, her sharp fingernail digging into the soft tissue over his carotid artery. The message was clear: If he stood he would be committing suicide. In more ways than one. No one but her sycophantic secretary could see her lethal grip and that cocksucking bastard just giggled until he peed his pants.
His public humiliation could have been mitigated by his success at the business meeting, but he hadn't been there. A junior flunky he had never heard of from headquarters gave his report and was promoted on the spot. The bastard had been one of the bitch's toadies and as a reward had gotten the new club in South Beach. It wasn't that Damon wanted to move down there with all that money and beautiful women, it was the principle of the thing.
He hadn't been at the meeting because he had been tied up at the time. Literally. For the first time ever. Elizabeth fucking Farnsworth had commanded -- Commanded! -- him back to her room after the opening reception. For a quick little private chat.
When he got to her suite, she had roofied him. The date-rape drug of choice. When he came to, he was naked, sore and confused, with several days growth on his face. He couldn't move.
There was a slide show running on the hotel TV channel complete with sounds, flashing through the pictures one by one by one. A hundred or so. All of him. Over and over, it just kept playing. Everyone in the resort would see them and he was sure they would have been e-mailed or posted on a web site as well. He would have, if he were in her shoes.
There were pictures of him sucking the bitch's cunt, white semen running out of it and over his tongue and down his chin. Others were of him kissing her wrinkled ass, his tongue stuck way up inside it. One series showed her pissing on his face, flabby thighs straddling his head, his mouth open and a chunk of brown shit on the tip of his nose.
Those kinds of pictures he could have lived down. And live with. Given enough time. The photos with the faggot secretary he couldn't. How could he explain having an erection while sucking the guy's cock? And those groans of passion, obviously in his own voice, urging the fat cock deeper into his own ass, all while pictures of him being sodomized by the little fucker, who, incidentally, wasn't so little, were being flashed on the screen for all to see and hear.
He had been bound with wire hangers and left for the cleaning crew to find. They found him wearing a pink lacy padded cross-dresser's bra and pantyhose with enough lipstick and mascara to paint a small house. He wondered where the pictures of him dressed like this would show up.
He had been thoroughly humiliated. By the time he was freed, everyone had left the resort and his chartered jet had been sent home without him. At least he hadn't had to face his colleagues and see them laughing at him.
There had been a ticket in coach class on a no-name airline waiting for him at the desk, along with a huge room-service tab. He knew better than to change the reservation or upgrade. He would take it, take all the shit she could throw at him. He had seen others run the gauntlet. The directors were tested. He'd never seen a test quite like this one, but he was sure it was a test.
There was a note waiting for him, too. A warning. The bitch wanted a five million dollar increase this quarter or the local police would get a tape that would make them reconsider a recent suicide in his little town. Make it happen or else. His blood ran cold when he saw the amount she was demanding.
She knew everything, even to the exact amount of the insurance scam. And she knew about Lewis. Only one person could have helped her.
That person had met him just inside the club. Alvin had obviously been waiting for him in the small security office by the front entrance. He'd probably been viewing his copy of the shit eating pictures from the meeting. He wondered if he had copies of the cross-dressing session, too.
The big man took his arm, gently, but firmly and ushered him back outside the club and down to a rundown diner a block down the street. The place was deserted and it was no wonder. It was a fucking dive.
What his club manager told him stunned him. The place was bugged and had been for years. Years! He had thought they'd find maybe one or two hidden mikes, but almost ten devices had been found. He was even more stunned when Alvin told him about the ultra-modern devices only recently out of R&D from the spy shops. Very trendy, very powerful and almost impossible to detect. He didn't mention Alex' help in the search.
Damon found he had to reconsider his previous assessment of Alvin's loyalty. He had expected there to be a bug in his office and that he would tell him about it, but that he had probably already replaced it with two more he wouldn't tell him about. Alvin had had no reason to tell him of all three they found or of the newest ones at his reserved table. The one hidden in the chair explained how fucking Farnsworth knew about the little shit's fake suicide, too.
He could tell Alvin was worried about the bugs. He probably had some things to hide, as well. Any good club manager did a little business on the side. The question was; Who was Alvin afraid of? The obvious answer was the Feds. He didn't usually like the obvious answer, but this time he was going to go with it.
The reason he did was that Damon already knew the bugs weren't the Feds, so that meant Alvin wasn't working for them. Convoluted logic, but it fit. The big guy had his faults. He was ethical, he had too much integrity and couldn't stand the sight of blood. He was just a teensy bit dirty on the side, and even that worried him. Damon could live with that. He could work with that, too, and make it work to his advantage. He filed that information away for future use.
He felt better than he had in days. Much better. He felt even better when he got his phone messages and heard that the life insurance policy on Harold had been filed. The agent had already received a favorable reading from the company's underwriters, too.
Alex answered his call on the first ring and was in his office with a small overnight bag within the hour. He had asked her if she wanted to continue her training -- he had used that word specifically -- and she had readily agreed. He said he wanted her to stay with him at the club until she was ready. He didn't say for what or how long she would be here and she didn't ask.
He noticed she was more subdued than when he had left. He wondered what had happened, but didn't pry. All that mattered to him was that it was a move in the right direction. He would just keep her moving rapidly along that path.
He kept her standing in her new white blouse, sexy short skirt and bare feet for about 30 minutes. He wasn't busy and she knew it. He just wanted her to wait. He was pleased to see she did so without fidgeting or complaint. Things were coming together. She seemed to be back under control, and right now she was the key to his future. He'd show that bitch Farnsworth, then shove his humiliation down her throat. Then he'd rip out her heart.
Alex sensed a change in Mr. Smith, too. He had no humor about him now, no sense of joy. He was still very polite, but he was cold. It wasn't that he was just calm, he seemed like he was dead, or something. Her heart ached for him, and she vowed to please him as best she could.
She looked carefully around the room. Several things had been changed, including the chair she had been using for her education. Her training. The chair was missing and the monitors had been moved back against the wall. The security cameras were active in each of the separate screens, showing the various views of the club. They were empty and still, except for the ones that captured Alvin moving about the club. He was using something that looked like a metal detector and was working methodically around all the floors, walls and ceiling of the club. Every once in a while he would put a small mark on a large floor plan of the club. He would look at it and shake his head.
She saw Mr. Smith watching her watch the screens. He smiled at her nice, like he meant it and it set her heart racing. She chided herself for reacting like a schoolgirl then let her feelings go. It was what she wanted, to please him. He was happy, and that made her happy.
"I have you to thank for that, Alex," he said, nodding at the screens. "Thank you."
"Sir?" She didn't know what he was referring to.
He seemed puzzled that she didn't know what he was talking about. Then it struck him. She probably didn't know what a bug was and had never seen one. He remembered her reaction to the latex training clothes. She had thought it was a game, a contest.
"Never mind. Are you ready to continue your training?"
"Yes, Sir!" she said eagerly.
He took a collar from his drawer, the same one she had worn before, and fastened it around her neck. He attached the chrome leash.
Without a word, he tugged on it and led her out of the office. She
followed obediently.