Fortunes Fool

by Gale, Eva; D'Arc, Bianca; Kent, Cassidy; March, Selah

  A hand descends on the back of her naked thigh. The touch is quick, and so are the words that accompany it. "I'll make this as easy as I can."

  Now she turns her head, trying to catch a glimpse of the owner of the voice. Male, deep and warm—unusual in this place of so many women. Men don't wield the implements here. The Madre is firm on that point. So, tonight there is a difference in the dream.

  But it hardly matters who lifts the crop over her bare ass and thighs so long as he or she brings it down with enough force to bite. To leave a mark. To make her flinch, then push her hips higher still in anticipation of the next sharp strike. Because this is who she is—one who craves bliss shot through with pain, like veins of crimson in perfect white marble. Suffering underlined with the bold purple ink of pleasure. The shape of the dream and her desire never changes. Only the details.

  Tonight the details include this man, who applies the crop with special attention, taking care not to strike over the same place twice. To make the sting electric, but not overwhelming, so that her whole body hums and tingles with sensation. Soon enough, she's fighting the need to grind herself into the horse's padded bolster, to relieve the pulsing ache in her cunt. But she won't because that's been forbidden, and even knowing none of this is real, she fears the consequences of disobedience in which the pain is not tempered with pleasure, but pushed to an extreme that would leave her broken in body and spirit.

  The fortieth blow falls, and it's finished. She trembles, taut and panting, anticipating the finale. The touch returns to her thigh. Climbs higher. Skims over the raised welts ever so gently, making her moan. Her legs shake, the muscles spasm with the strain of holding her hips so high. The twisting agony merges with the thick, wet pulse in her pussy and the pounding in her brain.

  "What do you want?" he whispers. It startles her, breaking the moment. It's not supposed to happen this way. She chooses to submit. After that, the choice is no longer hers. She becomes an empty vessel waiting to be filled with sensation for the entertainment of the patrons.

  He moves around to stand near her head. She turns her face toward him, but he's too close and she can't twist her neck that way. She can only see his hands, holding the crop. Large and square, with long, blunt fingers. A scar on the back of the right one, shaped like a crescent moon. She closes her eyes and hears the sound of breaking glass. The shatter is muffled by distance and time. "Do you want this? Tell me, Leah." The crowd mutters, displeased. They'd come to see a show. To see a submissive pushed to her limits, made to plead and beg and cry. Maybe with a little humiliation and loss of dignity for an encore.

  Any moment now, one of the acolytes would appear to drag them away—Leah and this unknown man—to face the consequences. The Madre would punish her for breaking her vows. Or force her and the mystery man to torture each other, until one of the two was no longer good for anything outside an ICU unit.

  "What do you want, Leah?" His voice is so deep, she can feel it vibrate in her chest. He reaches out and snags a strand of her hair, where it's fallen loose from its braid, and weaves it between his fingers. "Tell me what you want. I'll do anything."

  Anything? Who says that, and means it? That's just stupid. And she'd be twice as stupid to believe it. What does she want, anyway? The crowd's irritation is like a swarm of bees buzzing in her head,

  louder and louder... She reached out and smacked the alarm clock. The audience, along with their noisy protest, evaporated. Then she stretched, groaning at the way the muscles in her legs cramped, and the tense, frustrated ache between her thighs. In the silence of her bedroom, she heard the man's voice asking one more time... "Leah, what do you want?" She sighed and ran a hand over her face, scrubbing away the last

  traces of sleep. "Damned if I know." Leah threw back the covers and crawled out of bed, leaving dreams and memories behind.

  "Today we'll be

  literature." Forty bodies sat up straight on uncomfortable chairs. The chatter echoing off the walls of the half-filled classroom died away. In the front row, a sophomore—the one with "virgin" written all over her preppy kilt and pearls—scrunched her face like she'd accidentally sucked a big old slurp off of a lemon. Well, that got their attention. Leah set her books on the desk and turned to write a name on the blackboard: Marquis de Sade. Beneath it, she scrawled the words, father of sadism, and underlined them twice. Then she turned to face her Basics of World Literature class. They stared at her, pens poised above notebooks. Even the uber-jocks in the back looked interested.

  Crossing her arms over her chest and leaning one hip against the desk, she began, "The Marquis de Sade, otherwise known as Donatien Alphonse François. Can anyone tell me something about this man?"

  Silence. Leah stifled a sigh. No challenge here. Nothing to make her think or try. Just the never-ending battle to make them—her summer term students, who didn't want to be here on a Friday afternoon in the dog days of August, and who could blame them?—think and try. The very definition of a losing battle.

  "De Sade's philosophy was based on a single principle: perfect freedom. Freedom to do whatever struck a person's fancy, with no restrictions imposed by ethics, religion, or law."

  The sound of pens scratching against rough paper was loud in her ears. She continued, "For de Sade and his followers, the pursuit of personal pleasure was the highest ideal."

  The virgin sophomore— I really should quit thinking of her that way, it's not fair—raised her hand, and Leah nodded. "When you say 'personal pleasure,' do you mean...?" The girl's voice

  * * * * studying sexual perversion as depicted in trailed off. She flushed a pretty pink against the white of her pearls.

  "Yes. I mean sex." Leah uncrossed her arms and gestured toward the blackboard. "But not just regular, run-of-the-mill sex. We're talking about real perversion here. Taking pleasure in the suffering of others."

  The good-looking blond junior at the opposite end of the row cleared his throat. "Yes, Ray? You have a question?" "More like an observation." Of course. Ray Delacroix never asked questions when he could

  make comments, remarks, or observations. "Go ahead." Ray shrugged and said, "You're way too uptight. There's nothing perverted about getting off on a little pain." He leveled a smirk at her and sat back in his chair, the muscles beneath his tight tee shirt rippling.

  Leah felt her lips twist in distaste. She stepped away from the desk and went to stand directly in front of the boy. "Can I assume you have some experience in this area?"

  Ray laughed. "You know it. Nothing like a little kink to spice things up, baby." He leered at her. "I'd be happy to give you some private instruction, if you're interested."

  Several students gasped. A few tittered. A sharp bark of laughter rang out before it morphed into a coughing fit.

  "I don't think that will be necessary. However, I'd like to try a little experiment. May I touch you?" He rolled his eyes and grinned. "For sure, baby. Go for it." With her right hand, she reached out and caressed Ray's left ear. He leaned into her touch, his suggestive smile deepening. When she was sure she had his trust, she closed her fingers around his ear and twisted. Not hard...just enough.

  "Hey!" He jerked his head, but Leah held on, digging her nails into the flesh around his ear. "I thought you liked pain, Ray. I thought it spiced things up." "Let go, you crazy—" "Hold still, and I won't hurt you." He stopped struggling. "You wait 'til I see the dean about this, you

  nutty—" "Listen to me," Leah said, keeping a firm grip on his ear. "Listen and consider. Imagine if, instead of your ear between my fingers, I was holding a different piece of your anatomy...say, your testicles?" A groan erupted from one of the jocks in the back. Ray muttered an obscenity, his color deepening to an unattractive shade of magenta.

  "Imagine if you were hanging in chains, and I continued applying pressure to said anatomy until the pain made you black out. Imagine if I then revived you by having you flogged."

  The virgin sophomore made a gurgling sound, and Leah paused to glance at her. S
he'd gone as pale as her pearls.

  "Okay, I get it," Ray said, his face nearly purple. "You made your point."

  "I don't think so. I think you need to keep imagining...considering how it would feel to know I was 'getting off', as you put it, on your agony. Taking joy from your helplessness. Reveling in the knowledge that I could kill you slowly, and all for the sake of my own pleasure." Ray's gaze flickered to her face, and she smiled at him. "You still like the idea of pain?" "That's not what I meant. You twisted it—" She gave his ear a sharp pinch and let go. He flopped back in his

  seat. His face was bathed in sweat, and he was panting. "I know what you meant. But de Sade wasn't about a little consensual spanking or a set of nipple clamps—he was the real deal. Inflicting torture for the sheer enjoyment of watching others suffer, more often than not against their wills." She wiped her fingers on her skirt, as if she'd dirtied them. "And he was imprisoned for over twenty-nine years for his writings on the subject."

  Ray shot her a dirty look and mumbled something she didn't quite catch. "What was that?" He lifted his chin. "I called you a fascist." Leah laughed. "You think I approve of locking people up because of

  what they write?" "Sure sounds that way." His defiant stare didn't quite meet her eyes. "Well, that makes an excellent topic for debate, doesn't it?" Leah turned toward the blackboard, intending to write something further about de Sade and his literature of perversion. She'd picked up the chalk and was reaching toward the board when a wave of scent drifted over her, strong and dark. Latex? Why am I smelling...? And perfume. Chanel No. 5. She looked over her shoulder, expecting to see one of the girls in the front row applying the scent to their wrists or neck. But no—they were all staring at her expectantly, waiting to see some other outrageous teaching technique that would likely get her ass hauled into the dean's office yet again.

  Another whiff of Latex, and then a stronger one of perfume, and now she was hearing... Oh no. Not here. Please-please-please not here. But the guitar chords were unmistakable. Hotel California, by the Eagles, circa 1976. Playing in her head—a private performance, just for her. And getting louder.

  She turned again and clutched the back of the chair that was pushed into the footwell of the desk. If she could hold on just a few minutes...long enough to get them out of the room...long enough to get home...

  She took a breath and lifted her head. "A thousand words on the topic of free speech versus social responsibility, on my desk by Monday. Now scoot, all of you."

  The chorus of groans that met her statement didn't come close to drowning out Don Henley singing about mirrors on the ceiling and pink champagne on ice. She stood at the desk as the room emptied, barely hearing the clumsy footfalls and excited, pre-weekend conversation. Only when the door banged shut behind the last student did she clamp her hands to her ears and squeeze her eyes shut.

  Loud...so damned loud. The music and the voices, and the aroma of Latex and perfume, sharp enough to make her gag and sickeningly familiar. A surge of dizziness struck her. She wasn't going to make it— not even to her car, much less all the way home.

  Just as her knees gave way, the door opened again. She felt the floor rushing up to smack her hard and heard someone shout her name, but all of it was muted by the sounds and smells in her head, and now... Oh, God, now the pictures, too... She saw a face peer out of the shadows. Sharp, almost devilish features, black hair, dark eyes, strong jaw covered in inky stubble. He was looking past her, at someone just beyond her, and he was saying...he was saying...

  Chapter Two

  He was saying, "Sure baby, whatever you want, I'm easy," and smiling at the redhead standing to his left. She'd just proposed a trade—a brief interview with her employer in exchange for his company, and maybe some fun and games later on. The scent of her perfume swirled around him, mixing with the medicinal odor that rose from her black Latex cat-suit.

  "You won't be sorry, lover," she whispered, barely audible over the clash of music and voices. The club was crowded. The ebb and surge of bodies filing past pressed them tight against the bar, leaving little room to breathe. Marcus reached up to loosen his tie, but the redhead beat him to it, yanking him down and latching onto his lower lip with her teeth. She bit hard enough to make him wince.

  Kinky chick. And a little on the aggressive side for his taste, but beggars couldn't be choosers. He wanted that interview with the reclusive Madre Donnatella, though he didn't believe the woman had any information he could use. But, the trail was getting colder by the hour. If he didn't turn up something soon, he'd be shit out of luck, and Julian's murder would go unsolved.

  He had to try. And if the freckle-faced cutie wanted him to spank her and tug on her nipple piercings to get what he needed, well...

  Bonus. He smirked around the mouth of the beer bottle and glanced into the mirror behind the bar, surveying the Friday evening crowd at Hotel California, the area's premiere alternative hotspot. Nothing like it in this part of the state outside the city limits of San Francisco.

  From what he could see, the redhead wasn't anywhere near the kinkiest clubber in the room. He'd nominate the guy in the far corner for that prize—the one wearing nothing but a black rubber diaper and sucking on an adult-sized pacifier. Or maybe his date, who appeared to be taking considerable joy in whacking the backs of his thighs with an extra-large fly swatter.

  Lucky for Diaper Boy that Hotel California continued to exist. Uptight, outraged citizens had tried to shut the place down more than once, but since nobody here was breaking the law...or, at least, nobody had ever been caught breaking the law...

  The sign over the entrance read: "Safe, Sane, and Consensual. No public nudity or lewd acts. Follow the rules or leave the premises." The club had no record of citations, no nine-one-one calls, no marks on its liquor license—a clean shop, in other words. And likely another deadend when it came to finding Julian's killer.

  The redhead grabbed his chin, pivoted his face toward hers, and stretched up on tiptoe to nibble at his mouth again. Her breath tasted sour, but he didn't pull away. Couldn't afford to offend her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the tall, blonde barmaid take his nearly empty bottle and set another in its place. "Hey, I didn't—" "On the house, sir." The barmaid—also attractive and also wrapped in Latex, just like every other Hotel California employee—ran her tongue over her full, pink lips as she let her gaze wander all over him. Nice. Maybe he could talk her and the redhead into a threesome once he'd finished his interview. "Let's go, lover," the redhead said. "My boss is waiting." "Yeah? Is she as hot as you?" She lowered her eyes in an obvious attempt to look coy. "I think

  you'll like her. And I know she'll like you." He lifted his hand and caressed her face. "What's your name,

  sweetheart?" "Clarice," she said. Her lips trembled. Nervous? That was kind of

  sweet. Maybe she wasn't quite the pro at this scene she pretended to be. "Clarice," he repeated, running his thumb lightly back and forth

  over her quivering lower lip. "You remember our deal, right?" She nodded, staring into his eyes as if mesmerized. "Good girl." He winked at her, and she smiled in response. Then he reached for the bottle and tipped it back, taking one long swallow before the taste struck him funny. He turned the bottle in his hand to check the label. Definitely not his brand.

  But Clarice was pulling at the sleeve of his leather coat, drawing him away from the bar. The music, which had been a background beat up until now, morphed into something heavier—something with monks chanting in Latin over drums and synthesized techno-funk. As they wove their way through the club, the air grew thicker with the musk of eager bodies.

  "This way," she said, and guided him through a door. It opened to reveal the top of a staircase that led down into perfect darkness. "Come on, hurry up. She's waiting."

  He pulled away from her grip on his sleeve and stopped to look at her. Even in the dim light, her agitation was obvious. Suddenly, something about this whole deal smelled wrong. "Are you coming or not?" she said.
Two weeks since his partner's death and not a single break in the case. He couldn't blow this—couldn't let anything get in the way. Not even his better instincts.

  Her hand fell on his sleeve again, tugging. He stared at her for another second. Then he said, "Lead on, sweetheart." * * * * "Are you sure you're all right?" Leah lifted her head from where it was firmly lodged between her knees and tried to smile. Jeff Crandel, Associate Professor of Math and Good Samaritan, pressed the damp washcloth to the back of her neck and clucked like a chicken. The beads of sweat on his shiny pate and the way his hands trembled as he supported her back gave away his anxiety.

  "Skipped lunch today. Stupid of me." She struggled to her feet, leaning heavily on Jeff's arm. The look of concern on his face made her smile. What a nice man. A good friend. "I'll be fine."

  "Well, if you're sure..." He looked thoroughly unconvinced. "I could call over to the infirmary. Wouldn't take a second."

  She shook her head. "What I need is a sandwich and a glass of milk." No, what I need is a drink. Several drinks. That always helps. Well, not really. Not if she were perfectly honest. But getting wasted on tequila would take the edge off and make her forget for a while. Maybe long enough for the music and the odors and that dark man's face to go away. And the memories they invoked. The memories...God, they're the worst of it, by far.

  "I'm headed home for dinner and bed," she said. This time her smile was as genuine as she could make it while lying through her teeth.

  Ten minutes later, she pulled into a parking space behind a plumbing truck and stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of her favorite escape. The Gringo was the kind of place that attracted working class stiffs—a rare thing in a college town brimming with academics and overprivileged students. Which made it perfect for Leah on this night or any other. She could lose herself in the stink of cheap beer and try to forget her dissatisfaction with her past, her future, her job and life in general.