by Loki Renard
He gave her a dour look. “It's called work, Ms Matthews. Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the concept.”
“Perhaps I should familiarize my foot with your ass.”
He made an irritated, hissing sound through his teeth. “You're being rude. I don't have any time for rudeness.”
Zora glared at him. “I don't have any time for... you.” It was lamer than she'd intended it to be, but there was really little coherent to say. She wanted to vent her frustration more effectively, but Tex wasn't giving her the reaction she wanted. He was just too calm. She wanted to fight. She wanted to yell and scream and kick things.
He screwed his face up impatiently. “I suggest you worry less about Captain Savage and more about your own problems, Ms Matthews.”
“I already have problems? How did that happen?”
“Don't be flippant,” he snapped at her crisply. “I will punish you if you need it.”
That was more like it. “Touch me and I'll break your fucking fingers,” she snarled, letting anger flow through her.
He looked at her steadily. “I'm going to give you one minute to apologize, walk out that door and go back to your room. If you're still here at the end of that minute, I'm going to thrash you.” That said, he pushed back the sleeve of his suit jacket, exposing his watch.
Zora stood silently as the seconds ticked away. She'd never really thought about how very long one minute could be before. There was no way she was going to simply turn around and walk away, though the silence of the room in those sixty seconds was conducive to the sort of reflection that might have resulted in her taking the out Tex had offered if she weren't so very angry.
“Ten seconds, Miss Matthews,” Tex said, glancing up at her.
She raised a brow at him and crossed her arms over her chest. Her feet were planted firmly on the floor. She wasn't going anywhere.
“Five seconds, little girl.”
She filled the last five seconds with profanity. “Shut the fuck up, don't you dare call me that.”
The end of the minute was marked by Tex standing up and approaching her. “Very well, we'll do it this way.”
“Don't you dare touch me...”
Tex's hand closed around her wrist and he tugged her over to a nearby couch without so much as another word. She'd forgotten how strong he was, how strong most men were. Savage's strength was less surprising because he was a massive mountain of a man, but Tex was almost as strong. Fighting did very little. She lashed out with fists and feet, but he ignored every blow as he wrestled her over his lap.
“The door's still open!” She shrieked, noticing that the door was still in the position she'd thrown it into.
“So it is,” Tex said, his tone grim as he raised his hand and brought it down hard across her skirt clad rear. The sound of his hand meeting her ass was like a gunshot, and was quickly followed by several more sharp blows that echoed all around the room and out the door. Zora tried to clench her teeth together and not make any sound. There were several others in nearby offices and she was sure they could probably hear everything that was going on. If Tex wanted to hit her, fine, she wouldn't give him the satisfaction of crying out in front of everyone.
He spanked her with hard, solid strokes that came in a slow tempo. There was nothing hurried about the punishment, nor was there anything particularly tense or angry about it. She'd wanted to provoke him, but instead she'd only managed to get herself a very sore bottom. It was becoming increasingly difficulty to stay silent and when he pushed up her skirt and hiked her panties up so her cheeks were exposed, she began to make muffled squeaks and squeals.
“You will not behave in such an undignified and thoroughly inappropriate manner,” Tex lectured her sternly, pausing for a moment as he reached for something on the windowsill. “You might be upset, but your emotional state does not give you license to wreak havoc wherever you go.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but the words were lost in a sudden screech as he brought something hard and wooden down on her bottom. Craning around she could not see what it was at first, then he raised it again and she saw that it was a small wooden paddle, about the size of a hairbrush.
“No!”
“Yes,” he said, bringing it down on the other cheek and imparting a matching sting and deep ache.
It was almost too much for her to bear. She buried her face in the couch cushions and squealed into them whilst her legs kicked and her hips bucked in reaction to the heavy sensation in her bottom.
Tex seemed to be without mercy as he spanked her, slapping the wooden paddle against her cheeks over and over again. Her tears soaked into the white upholstery, leaving dark gray marks as she sobbed. Sorrow compounded the pain of the spanking, resulting in an intense reaction that consumed her body and mind. She wasn't properly aware of the way she was thrashing around, the only thing she knew was that there was a hard arm around her waist and a pain in her bottom that grew exponentially with every successive smack. All thought of being silent and stoic was driven from her mind as she wailed and shrieked without shame or thought for anyone else. Tex seemed to be intent on pushing her to the very limits of what she could take.
When it did finally stop several minutes later, Zora's backside was red and swollen with darker patches here and there where bruises were starting to flower. She could barely move, every slight movement brought with it more pain. Tex eased her off his lap without undue concern for the way she whimpered.
“Into the corner.” He pointed to the corner next to his desk. It was diagonally opposite from the door, not quite fully humiliating, but hardly discrete either.
She shuffled over, her rebellion broken for the moment. Unfortunately for Tex, her rebellion wasn't the only thing broken. Any remaining friendly sentiments she had towards him had been obliterated in the paddling too. He was, to her mind, a mercenary monster taking advantage of her weakness and denying her any form of happiness or justice. She stood tense and angry in the corner for many long minutes, seething silently whilst Tex returned to work.
It occurred to her, once ten or so minutes had passed, that there was no real reason for her to obey him. How much more could he actually hit her? What else would he do? She glanced at Tex out of the corner of her eye. He was working, his face a mask of concentration. Gathering the shredded remains of her courage, she turned and began walking towards the door.
“Back into the corner, Miss Matthews.” Tex spoke mildly, almost offhandedly.
She stopped. Though her mind willed them on, she found her traitorous feet turning and taking her back to the corner as if they worked for him, not her. She spent the rest of her time in the corner in a befuddled state. Why was she there? Why hadn't she just walked out? She wasn't afraid of him, surely. The idea of being afraid of him made her bristle.
Another fifteen minutes went by before Tex laid down his pen and spoke to her again. “You can come out now.”
She slowly turned and walked out of the corner, trying to look dignified. She could not meet his eyes so she looked at the floor and made her face as blank as possible.
“I will not tolerate the kind of behavior you displayed earlier,” he said. “I hope you understand that now. Go to your room and compose yourself.”
Zora took her leave before anger could rise again and get her into trouble. She moved so quickly down the hall and past the receptionist that she practically scampered. When she got back to the room she realized that a faint scent of Savage still hung in the air. It was enough to make her break down completely. She laid down on the bed and cried into the pillows. Her misery seemed endless. Emotionally, physically, mentally her world was crumbling.
In the hours that followed she decided that she had no intention of ever being nice to or speaking with Tex again. He could go fuck himself if he thought he could just beat the shit out of her whenever he felt like it and she would forgive him. She was never, ever, ever going to talk to him. If he so much as said hello, she would...
�
�Catch.”
A small shiny tinkling missile arced through the air as Tex unexpectedly put his head around the door. She didn't catch. She just looked at the keys that had landed next to her.
“What's this?” She wiped her nose on the back of her shirt and sniffed as he stepped into her room.
“It is about time you got something to wear you can put on without an hour's worth of drama. Why don't you go out and do some shopping.” He smiled as her eyes went wide. “Those fit the black Saab out front. You can't miss it.”
She looked at the keys as if she wasn't sure they were really there. For a second, she forgot all about the harsh spanking he'd given her. “I can drive myself?”
“You sure can, and,” he plucked a credit card out of his breast pocket and handed it to her. “You can use this to get what you need. Just keep it reasonable. We're not the government.”
She looked up at him incredulously. “You're giving me money and a car?”
“I'm not giving you the car,” he corrected her. “You can drive it though.”
“But you just...”
“What?”
She blushed, not wanting to put the name to the thing.
“I just disciplined you?” He filled in the blank. “Yes, I do that Zora. You earned every bit of it too. That doesn't mean I intend to hold you prisoner.”
Trying not to blush too hard, she pocketed both the card and the keys before asking him the question at the forefront of her mind. “It hasn't occurred to you that I might just leave and never come back?”
There was an air of complete confidence about him that she found confusing. “Do you know how homing pigeons work, Zora?”
She shook her head, baffled by the sudden change of topic. “No, why?”
“A homing pigeon doesn't come out of the egg ready to home.” Tex said, assuming the air of a teacher who doesn't much care if his student is paying attention or not. “All the instincts are there of course, but its not until the pigeon bonds with a mate that it becomes a homing pigeon.”
Slight comprehension began to dawn. “Are you comparing me to an animal with a brain the size of a penny?”
“Closer to the size of a quarter, but yes. The mechanism is the same. I know you'll come back because Captain Savage is here. Or he will be. Either way, this is your loft, so to speak. You will come back. As will he.”
There were a lot of holes in his argument, but Zora wasn't about to point them out. She was being given her first taste of real freedom in a long time and she wasn't going to argue her way out of it. If Tex was delusional enough to give her funds and the means to get away, so be it. He'd soon learn the lesson everyone learned eventually – it was dangerous to underestimate Zora Matthews.
Chapter Ten
Blue skies and a clear road, the very definition of heaven. Zora sped along the highway, pushing the needle of the borrowed Saab well past sixty as if sheer speed could wipe away the angst that rode with her. Savage's brisk departure was disappointing, but the memory of the pain in his eyes served as a strong reminder that she was not alone in her suffering. He'd sacrificed a great deal to try and make things better and he couldn't be blamed for having made a deal with the devil if the devil was the only one open for business.
As for the devil himself, what did he think he was playing at, beating her ass one moment and showering her with kindness the next? Perhaps his slick and shrewd exterior fooled other people, but it didn't fool Zora one bit. He was throwing the full forces of his manipulative powers at her, keeping her off balance, punishing her harshly for relatively small infractions, rewarding her lavishly for very little at all. He'd sent Savage away, possibly to die and he thought that she'd forgive him for everything simply by giving her a little bit of freedom and some cash to throw around? His arrogance was astounding, as was his low opinion of her. In Tex's world, all women could apparently be bought off with shiny cars and shopping trips.
Traveling at such high speeds it was not long before she saw the city spread out on the plain in front of her. It had been many months since she last saw a proper city and it awed her, momentarily making her forget about Tex and Savage and everyone else. To think that it had all been created by men one brick and slab at a time was quite something. The arterial roads leading into the main shopping district were clogged, but she didn't care. She was out and in common society again, one person amongst a million others. She felt insignificant and she loved it. Parking the car, she stepped out into the flow of people feeling like an ant returning to the hive. There were no plans in her head, she didn't know if she was going to simply go shopping and trot back like a good little pigeon or prove Tex wrong by running away, but she did know that she wanted a decent coffee and some proper clothes before she got too much further.
After running a few little errands, she took herself into the first coffee place she came to. It was a chain store that had apparently decided to go out of its way to make actually ordering coffee a Krypton Factor style challenge. She approached the barrista, who appeared to be engaged in deep thought on another plane of existence. His ears were pierced with large cylinders, his lip had been spiked through with something pointy and metallic. She took his eventual grunt of acknowledgment as a sign that he was ready to take her order.
“Yeah, can I get a coffee?” Her tone was tentative and somewhat doubtful.
He sniffed as if she was beneath him in every way, as if her very attempt to order was contemptible.“Do you want large, double large or grande supreme?”
“Grande supreme sounds fine.”
“And what sort of coffee do you want?” He pointed a well painted finger at a board full of words that may or may not have been referring to beverages.
“Just, er, coffee?” She attempted a simple order, but the scowl of derision was too powerful and she ended up pointing at something that looked like it might have edible ingredients, unlike some of the coffees, which appeared to be flavored with bits of ground up deck chair and failed indie albums.
Eventually the beverage was procured and to her delight, was actually quite tasty. Sipping on her beverage, Zora perused shops through their windows. Nothing grabbed her immediately, but she was in no hurry. She had all day, perhaps longer. After all, Tex hadn't exactly given her a curfew. Maybe she'd book a hotel room and stay over for a few days, shopping and living the high life on Tex's dime.
“No. Fucking. Way.”
Her spirits were higher than they'd been in a long time until she spotted someone on the opposite corner, likewise looking through the plate glass shop window. At first she could not believe what her eyes were telling her, but when she raised her sunglasses and saw that the woman was looking directly at her, she realized that it was who she thought it was. Tall, slim, unbearably blonde.
Anja.
As usual, she looked irritated. Zora contemplated the possibility that Anja might simply be a suffer of chronic bitch face. Certainly she'd rarely seen the woman emote anything other than a tight kind of pissyness.
Time slowed down as their eyes met. It was not good. Zora was still very much a fugitive from what the military considered to be justice and Anja, well, Anja had given her soul to the institution. Glancing over her shoulder, Zora checked to see if there were any other military people around. She couldn't see them, but she knew from experience that didn't mean they weren't there.
A flash of light reflecting off the barrel of a gun caught her eye and she looked back just in time to see that Anja had drawn a weapon. The woman's eyes were cold as she squeezed the trigger, spewing rounds through the shop windows. The bullets shattered two sets of windows before whizzing past Zora's head so close she could hear the whistle as they went by. One punched a hole in the paper cup, spilling Mocha-Choca-Frotha-Frilly Latte all over the sidewalk.
From the sound of the first bullet exploding in the chamber people began to scream and run and Zora joined them, putting considerably more focus on the running than the screaming. Behind her more bullets thudded into the pavemen
t as Anja jumped through the broken windows in hot pursuit.
Running as hard as she could, Zora felt a sensation like a hard punch in her upper thigh. She had no time to investigate as she made her way towards the car. Sirens were sounding nearby and she could see flashing red and blue lights bouncing off the buildings nearby as police units began to roll up in response.
It was the police that saved her, albiet indirectly. As they began spilling from their vehicles, Anja turned tail and ran, apparently unwilling to get into an altercation with the law. More shots were fired, but Zora didn't turn to see who went down and who stayed up, she ran full speed to the car, wrenched the door open and slammed the key into the ignition before peeling away in a cloud of burning rubber.
It took some time for her to realize that she'd been shot. At first there was no pain, just a heavy dullness. When she moved, she felt a squishing sensation. It wasn't until she was stopped at some lights that she noticed her seat was wet. She pushed down on the soggy material with her fingers and brought them back up red with her own blood. Swearing up a storm she muscled the car aggressively through traffic and out onto the highway. Adrenaline was pumping through her system, making her feel dizzy and sick. For once in her life, she couldn't wait to get back to the site of her imprisonment.
The drive, which had seemed so lovely and free hours earlier, was suddenly a deadly race against time. She didn't know how bad she was bleeding out, she didn't know if she was going to make it back, but there was no way she was going to stop before she got there. The Saab responded to the emergency smoothly, approaching and exceeding 100 miles per hour with ease.
The compound came up fast. Too fast. The bullet had buried itself in the leg that controlled the accelerator and break and she'd steadily been losing sensation in it as she bled out. She tried to pull her hunk of human ham off the accelerator and apply breaks but her reaction was slow. As a result, the car at first failed to slow, then locked on the brakes as it careened through the barrier arm and came to a messy, rather abrupt halt in dense bushes.
