Chapter 7
Alvin didn't panic. Miss Alex couldn't have disappeared into thin air. She had either been taken outside or was still inside the club. He immediately barred the door, then stepped into the tiny security office and rewound the surveillance tapes for the past 10 minutes. He only ran the one for the door and that at high speed.
As he suspected, only one exit was made during the time he was away from the door. The two homosexual Doms were escorting their sub out the door. Fucking assholes had refused to tie down her legs while they branded her. They were intending to brand their names, Bruce and Martin, up one side of her pussy and down the other. On the third letter, she had reconsidered and kicked Martin into the hot coals. Bruce, going over to help his lover, fucking stood on the hot coals and burned his feet through his fucking expensive boots. Alvin shook his head remembering the look of surprised indignity on the asshole's face when he felt the heat through his expensive kickass boots.
The three of them together could hold each other up, barely, and had rushed out of the club. Just as he was about to fast forward again, Alvin saw a blur on the screen. Someone had entered as they were leaving. He wouldn't have thought much of it but it placed the person at the right time and in the right place. With a cold knot twisting in his stomach, Alvin slowed the tape down and replayed it. He almost got sick when he saw it was that little shit, Lewis.
Lewis was on Alvin's black list. He couldn't prove anything, but a couple of months ago they had found a waitress badly beaten, raped and tortured. Broken bones, teeth knocked out and bleeding vaginally and anally from a brutal sexual assault. She was also bleeding from being whipped within an inch of her life. One eye was useless, the lens dislocated from a direct hit with the tip of a crop. The only reason it didn't explode from the impact was that she was wearing a blindfold.
Alvin had asked several of the people in the club if they had seen anything that night. Obviously, the private parties like this one frowned on tapes of what went on inside the club and regardless of his recommendation, Mr. D made him turn off the cameras. The little shit wouldn't have got in at all if Mr. D had sprung for the triple door security checkpoint. He had demonstrated to the boss just how easy someone could get in unchecked with just two doors. Just like now. But he had demurred.
The BDSM Club members reluctantly agreed to security tapes of the outside entrance, but the tapes and cameras had been off during the party that night, like they were tonight. In his investigation, Alvin had narrowed it down to a couple of unlikely possibles and one very probable culprit. Lewis. The guy had had the opportunity and was a mean little shit. Loco. Crazy. Nuts.
Quickly determining that Miss Alex was still in the building, Alvin set out to find her. He systematically scanned through the public areas nearest the door, examining and eliminating every female regardless of clothing, hair, skin or build. She wasn't in the public areas close to the door.
Next on his list were the closest less-public areas. He barged into the women's restroom, then the men's, checking every stall and every trash can for evidence. Hair dye, discarded clothing, large chunks of beautiful reddish hair. He found nothing.
He went back to the starting point, the front door. He was beginning to get a bad feeling about this. Too much time was passing. Mr. D was off the phone now and was walking towards him. He had just looked to see that Miss Alex missing and saw the look on Alvin's face. To his credit, the cold bastard had blanched white as a sheet when he saw she wasn't where she should have been.
Just then, there was a noise from out in the club. Why it caught his ear, he didn't know, but he knew it was Miss Alex.
Alvin was flying through the crowd, knocking people over, hurdling the Subs crawling on hands and knees. He reached the room with the hanging hook and saw her, Miss Alex. She had been strung up tighter than he would have believed possible, her feet shackled tightly to the floor.
Alvin lowered his shoulder and put his whole being into getting into that room. A crowd had gathered around. The macabre always attracted a crowd. The unsuspecting spectators gave with a groan. One huge black hand swept low off the ground and came thundering up, catching the shit with the flat palm on his chest. The fucker lifted off the ground, sailed over the ducking onlookers and crashed solidly into the wall, his erection a fading memory. He didn't seem to be into pain nearly as much when it was his own. The crowd, not wanting to be witnesses, dissolved into the anonymous hubbub of the party.
Alvin hit the emergency release and the strain came off Miss Alex' screaming muscles. Her legs were too widely spread to allow her to sink down and she just hunched there, moaning softly behind the gag. Alvin fumbled with the shackles, then finally just ripped them from their anchors. Miss Alex collapsed into his arms and he was cradling her protectively when Mr. D finally made his way into the room, pushing past the dispersing spectators.
Two legs were flopping in spastic panic over against the wall. One leg was bare and hairy, the other had a pair of cheap leather leggings around the ankle. The rest of the body was deep in the shadows of the room
Damon saw the big man holding Alex, one hand covering her lower nudity in a manner so chaste, he almost laughed. Covering her but not touching. The look in his bouncer's eyes told him not to try to take her from him. It wasn't romantic. It had been his job to watch out for her and right now it looked like the man had fucked up royally. That wasn't like him at all. Damon decided to wait and hear what he had to say. Then he would kill him. Or someone. Someone was going to pay, that much he knew.
Alvin motioned with his head at the legs on the floor. The man's dick was glistening, droplets of fluid refracting the harsh spotlights even from the side of the room. Damon went cold. Someone had touched Alex, his Pet. Effortlessly, he began the process of picking up the struggling man. Finally upright, the light in the room revealed a hopped up prick he had seen a few times before. Bad news. No one liked the little fucker. He smelled, too, and Damon looked down at what he was standing in.
While the little shit got his pants on and laced up, Damon used a piece of discarded cloth on the floor to wipe up the puddle of urine the guy had been laying in. It took him a minute to comprehend that it was the shithead who had pissed himself, not Alex. Somehow that made him feel better. Not much, but a little.
A firm grasp on his arm propelled the man out the door, down the hallway, and into his office. A forceful hand in the chest had flattened the jerk into a chair in the center of the room.
"Stay there!" There was no misunderstanding the order, high on drugs or not.
Damon went next door. He suspected Alvin had already taken Alex in there. Knocking twice, he waited. Alvin opened the door and stepped outside.
"She's alive and appears to be in one piece. The guy in your office is named Lewis something or other. Give me a couple minutes and I'll come in and give you a report." Seeing the look on Damon's face, he added, "A full report." He knew Damon would want to know who, what, why and how this had happened. He also knew his boss wouldn't like the report.
The bouncer slipped back into the dimly lit room. Damon turned and went slowly back to his office. He had known Alvin for several years and the man had never lied to him once. There was no reason to believe he would start now. If anything, Damon and he had had some heated disagreements about the security arrangements for the club, the manager always arguing for better security for the customers. But it was expensive. They had discussed this very thing happening. Even after the incident with the waitress, Damon hadn't relented.
Now it was personal and close to home. He had an uneasy feeling he wasn't going to like the full report Alvin had promised him, especially as Alvin hadn't seemed worried. Damon knew the manager was getting constant updates over his wireless. No doubt he had made several inquiries about the little shit in his office. Alvin didn't usually hesitate to state what he felt was the truth and to name names. Even when the name was his own or Damon's. Odd, he reflected, it was that very trait of integrity that made the bastard so fucking indispensable.
What he couldn't let Alvin know was that the first thing that had gone through his mind was not about Alex being OK, but that if anything happened to her now, the whole scheme of the newly hatched insurance scam he was building around her would be fucked up. A delay was almost as bad. The bitch Marcy could only put up with that prick Wilson for so long. It was going to cost a bundle to keep her on the team, and, after talking to that asswipe of a husband on the phone for nearly an hour, he couldn't really blame her. What a jerk. Cute trick, though, putting Viagra in his morning coffee.
Alvin slipped into the room and held his finger up to his lip, signaling for silence. Two glittering points of light across the room followed his every move. Alex had regained consciousness while lying in his arms on the walk down the hall. She had not tried to cry out or struggle against his huge hands holding her. He had noticed the change in her breathing and sensed more than anything that she was awake. Looking down he had seen her clear green eyes gazing calmly up at him. She had seemed more ashamed and confused than frightened and Alvin suspected he knew the cause. The same bright eyes were watching him now from the cot on the far side of the room.
He stood silently by the door of the room, holding it open just a crack, listening to the faint footsteps outside. They were so faint he had to will himself to hear them, going towards the main office. Then the office door opened and they could see Damon enter his office through the one-way mirror. His boss headed for the well-equipped bar in his office. Good move. Give yourself time to think.
Alvin flipped up a switch on the wall underneath the mirror. She noticed he had flipped it the wrong way, up instead of down, where the 'On' marking was. The clink of ice tumbling into a crystal glass filled the room. Alex looked at him with a bemused smile.
"I swapped out the switch." He shrugged, grinning mischievously, then grew serious. "Miss Alex, I have to examine you. I'll be as gentle as I can, but it may be uncomfortable." He had already removed the handcuffs and the ballgag. She had removed the tattered remains of her blouse herself. All she was wearing was the collar and the leash. It was locked on and Damon had the key.
Alex lay back on the cot when he pressed her down. She looked up at him without fear as he began to examine her body, looking for bruises, swellings and sudden pains which might indicate internal bleeding or other soft tissue damage.
Gently he spread her legs. "Did he penetrate you, Miss Alex?"
"No. I don't think so."
"Here?" He touched her swollen labia. The fluids still seeping from her were thick and sticky, much like semen would be. He smelled his finger. It wasn't male and now he was sure what had happened.
"I don't know. Maybe." She turned her head to the side, biting her lip.
"I'm sorry, Miss Alex." He moved his finger down. "How about here?"
"No, I don't think so. I don't remember," she said and stifled a sob.
"It's OK to cry, Miss Alex. It wasn't your fault."
"I know. But I don't have any clothes to wear. He cut my skirt. And I... I..." She didn't say anything more. She just sat there hugging herself.
Alvin never ceased to be amazed by the tiny details the human mind would grasp onto in a crisis. Silly little minutia that would later seem odd, but he knew that those were the things that helped people hold onto their sanity. He shrugged off his vest and draped it over her shoulders. She looked like she could disappear under it, but she was covered.
"I have to go out for a minute, Miss Alex. I'll be right back."
"OK." She called out as he reached the door, "Can they hear us, too?"
He grinned back at her, his gold tooth flashing, "That wouldn't be any fun now, would it, Miss Alex?"
Her light laugh followed him into the hallway.
He stepped into the office without knocking. He delivered his report to Damon, knowing Miss Alex could hear him. "About twenty minutes after you left Miss Alex in the holding area, I got a call from the marking area. The brass holder with the hot coals (The one I told you not to use. Soldering irons work just as well.) had been kicked over by two imbeciles doing an arts and crafts project on a runaway with what turns out to have been a fake ID. She was probably underage.
"The bartender reacted quickly and properly, (trained by myself for just this situation) contacting me first, then quietly clearing the room of everyone not involved or injured. By the time I got there most of the coals had been neutralized with the water cannon (which I had brought in since we had to turn off the sprinklers to use the fucking coals) and the three main parties treated. They were getting ready to leave as I got there (leaving Miss Alex alone and unprotected as it is your own fucking rule that puts the club first and everything else second).
"I helped treat a couple of the injured bystanders, calmed one or two persons, then came back. My total time off station was no more than seven minutes.
"I immediately noticed Miss Alex was missing. As you were still on the phone I had to assume someone else had taken her from the holding area. I barred the exit and reviewed the security tapes. The only persons exiting the building were the three individuals from the marking room. On their leaving, however, both doors were open at the same time, (just like I fucking showed you) allowing Lewis, here, to enter without being checked.
"I searched the club, starting with the public areas nearest the door. There was no sign of Miss Alex. I then searched the restrooms, looking for evidence of any altering of her appearance. I didn't find any.
"I was going to head down into the club when I heard a noise that sounded odd, out of place. You know what happened next."
Alvin took a deep breath. There was a lot he could have said, wanted to say, but parenthetically, he just added it to his report in his mind. They could assess the blame later. It wouldn't be his.
He continued, "I have checked Miss Alex. She is still out, probably sleeping as a result of the excitement of the party and then the brutality of the attack on her. She was not penetrated vaginally or anally, but she was badly beaten and with even less skill." Holding up Lewis' crop, he said, "I imagine that he used this. It's certainly cheap enough." He tossed the crop to Damon.
Damon's face was death. He continued. "There is evidence of a severe whipping and at least two serious blows landed, one across the buttocks which broke the skin, the other a vicious cut to the genital area. Her breasts were a favorite target of Lewis and she will have marks on them for several days if not longer. The blow to her genitals will mean Miss Alex will be unable to walk for a week and will be sore for another week. There is no evidence of internal injuries or of permanent injuries or marking, but a visit to a clinic would probably tell you better if anything occult was damaged. Finally, there is no DNA evidence of penetration or of the attack and I could find no witnesses who would admit to being at the party tonight, much less be willing to testify."
As he said this last his eyes met Damon's. No DNA evidence and no witnesses meant that they couldn't report this to the authorities and hope for any satisfaction. Alex had been blindfolded and couldn't identify her attacker. A good lawyer would make the case that Lewis was the Good Samaritan and was in the process of saving the poor girl when he was set upon by Alvin and Damon. No, if this was going to be handled, it would be done quietly without the authorities.
Damon suddenly realized that Alvin knew what he was doing. He was delivering this schmuck, for whatever reason, to Damon gift wrapped for execution. Alvin had never, ever involved himself in the dirty side of the business before. He was a good club manager, excellent even, but he drew the line at getting his hands bloody. He probably knew what happened around the club, any good manager does, but always before he had given himself an out, an excuse to be away when the dirty deed was done.
He usually made sure it was Damon's decision to punish or forgive and then to adjudicate any judgments, usually terminally. This time it was different. Alvin, by specifically telling Damon there was no physical evidence against this bastard, had just signed Lewis' death warrant. He smiled to himself. There was hope for the black SOB yet!
It didn't surprise him when Alvin bowed himself out of the room and
indicated he would be in the next room with Alex. Damon's eyes flicked
towards the tiny telltale he had had concealed in the ceiling. The
indicator light was off. Good, they wouldn't hear what he was saying.