The cane sliced down over her breasts, and before she recovered a strike bounced them up to her chin. The last crossed her nipples causing a keening shriek, and then Donald caressed her with an ever present ice cube. He watched her ridiculous effort to pout with the mask obscuring most of her features. The tears were real, and as much as he appeared to commiserate her pain, his cock had thickened proudly.
Teresa called in the morning to discuss Tombstone’s trip. The club would indeed be slow for the next few weeks, and Jude could handle any issues when he returned. Donald agreed that they should avoid contracting new mannequins for Tombstone to prepare until after he adjusted his plans for Felicity.
Both of them agreed that the decision to tell him had been best. For years the members of the inner circle had worried about what would happen if Tombstone came to the realization on his own. Jude had left with him a few hours ago on their way to collect Felicity.
CHAPTER IV
“Fuck you too, Ike.” Felicity shouldered into the big man and she walked through the door.
Ike grabbed the collar of her cropped leather jacket. “Dammit, Felicity. You have to wait in line like everyone else.”
She raised a pointed toed boot to knee him in the balls, and Ike laughed and released his grip on her. “Shit. Go ahead.” He pushed her through the door of the BDSM club.
The music throbbed undulating hypnotic beats, and Felicity sneered at the weekend warriors dressed in their black leather ‘poser’ costumes while she walked up to the bar. She flagged the bartender and he handed her the beer that he knew she would not drink. Turning, she leaned back against the bar to study the crowd, ignoring the aroused eyes of a kid standing next to her stroking a whip. A quick glance at the lash showed minor abrasions and rough spots that would cut into the skin, and Felicity figured that the kid had probably practiced with it on a tree in his parent’s backyard.
It was Valentine’s Day, and Felicity was extremely pleased with the gift she had delivered earlier. “Fuckin’ old whore,” she muttered. Those were the exact words she had spray painted on Susanne Fry’s headstone. She had shown up at the grave every year and waited for hours behind the mausoleum, hoping to get a look at the bitch’s son. This year was the first time she had actually gone near the headstone, and she had resolved herself to the frustration that Jerald never visited his mother’s grave.
Through different contacts, she heard that he ran a successful business back east. Although the details were vague, it seemed unfair that he had been able to go on with his life while she remained trapped in the town where the whole thing had happened. All of her stilted attempts at researching Jerald Fry had proved useless. It seemed as though he had simply disappeared a decade ago, so she wondered if the crap she heard about him was even true. Maybe he was locked away, drooling in some straight jacket and as fucked up as she was.
Felicity’s own mother had died ten years ago today, but her grandmother had cheated Felicity out of the ability to ‘honor’ Bethany’s memorial by having her cremated and spreading her ashes over the Pacific Ocean. The crazy woman said that Bethany had no business being buried in sanctified ground. Felicity had squatted on the beach and pissed into the rippling waters on the shore before she visited Susanne’s grave. “Fuck both of you.” How the hell could they have stuck her being raised by that righteous old bitch of a woman?
Through her teenaged years, Felicity had gotten off by slicing herself with razors and pounding her knuckles into concrete. Now that she was older, her taste for cleansing pain had sophisticated, somewhat. She had avoided the drugs her mother craved, because they lessened the feeling she needed to feel grounded. Several Doms were already busy, and she searched the crowd for Marcus. He always made time for her.
Felicity found him at a table in the back. She caught his eyes and he gave a slight nod towards the stairs leading to the dungeon. Felicity left her full beer on the bar and made her way to the steps to the basement. Her pussy was sopping, and she reached down to her crotch to peel her leather shorts from her crease.
“Cell Seven,” Marcus’ voice whispered in her ear, and Felicity jumped. She had not heard him come up behind her.
“Yes, Master.” She walked quickly down the hall. She entered the sparse cell and heard the metal door clang shut behind her.
“Strip.”
Her nipples tightened and her breathing shuddered in quick pants. “Yes, Master.” Without turning around, she pulled down her shorts and tossed her jacket and black baby doll tee shirt into the corner. She had not bothered with underwear for years.
A strong hand rolled down from her shoulder blades and over her ass. Felicity hissed and sucked in a deep breath. The hand slapped down on her bottom and she rocked forward, but kept her feet in place. “You interrupted my celebration, girl.”
“I’m sorry, Master.” Felicity felt her juices drool. Marcus was pissed… and that was a very good thing.
“And why should I waste my time on you?”
Felicity gasped. No. No, he couldn’t leave. She turned and fell on the ground and began kissing his boots. “Please. Please, Master.”
Marcus’ cock had thickened as soon as he had seen her at the bar. He had tried to talk her into a more permanent arrangement. It was obvious she was a complete submissive and could barely function on her own. The beautiful woman subjected herself to his most arousing and degrading torments. From past years’ experience, and a little investigation, he knew that Valentine’s held special meaning for her. This year, he had her followed. “Post,” he hissed, and swatted her ass again when she rose.
Felicity ran to the pole, placing her hands through the leather cuffs overhead and sliding down the straps to hold them in place. At the feeling of the restraints locking her into position, unable to move or deny her Master’s tortures… Felicity moaned. Marcus smiled at her clenching bottom and enjoyed the two pink prints left from his strikes. He could see the glistening issue of her arousal on the insides of her spread thighs.
“You have desecrated the whores?”
“Yes, Master,” Felicity quivered. How did he know? She hoped he would be pleased… or maybe even more pissed off. She heard rustling and knew that he was taking off his coat. Felicity was sure it meant the cane or the whip, and her pussy clenched frantically. Yes. Oh, god. Please, Marcus. Do it.
The first strike of the cane sliced across the fat flesh of her reddened bottom, and Felicity pushed into the smooth wood of the pole and gasped. “One, Master.”
The second left a welt under the cheeks of her ass, and Marcus winced when he saw droplets of blood on the stripe. Fuck, I have to ease up.
“Two, Master,” Felicity groaned in passion.
The girl made it difficult, because her submission bordered on true masochism. His third stroke lashed across her shoulders, leaving a pink welt but minimal discomfort.
“Three, Master.” She wiggled her hips in frustration.
Marcus dropped the cane and lowered his zipper. She was in the mood for pain tonight, and it would be very easy for him to oblige her and lose control. Felicity felt his hands running down her ribs and over her welts. Perhaps the most agony of all for her was knowing he would not cane her further. She could beg, but she knew that he would not listen. He had warned her that her responses could send him over the edge, and that he would stop before then.
His tongue licked the top of her ear while he pumped into her pussy. “Move in with me, Felicity. We can enjoy our pleasure and learn each other’s limits.”
Felicity leaned her head back against his shoulder. “I can’t, Marcus. Please don’t ask me to do that.” One of his arms wrapped around her chest, and his fingers alternated from brushing a tight nipple to pinching the erect nub. His other arm was wrapped around her hips, his fingers disappearing into her wet folds and stroking. Felicity moaned in pleasure when the welts on her ass brushed against him, and he exploded inside her.
After his breathing calmed, he whispered, “You know I’m being transfer
red in two days. You’re running out of time to change your mind.” His lips brushed her cheek.
Felicity felt the strange twinge of loss in her chest. It was an emotion usually reserved for her grandmother, mother, and sometimes Susanne… who she considered to be the cause of all her problems. She was still determined to find Jerald Fry. “I won’t change my mind, Marcus.”
He growled and crushed both her nipple and clit in a wrenching grip, then he stood back and off to the side. Marcus’ hand slapped over the fresh welt on her bottom, over and over, while he watched blood droplets from the poorly executed lash hit her thighs. The girl continued to moan and thank him, counting out his strikes until her ass was fire red and burning his hand. Marcus knew that Felicity was right. There were no final limits she could discover, and he would end up in trouble from going too far.
Felicity climbed the dungeon stairs, rubbing her bottom and enjoying the heat through her shorts. Marcus was already back at his table, ignoring the attempts of a wannabe sub about eighteen years old and kneeling by his leg, stroking his black boot and trying to seduce him with her eyes. Fuck you, little girl. Marcus ain’t nobody’s daddy.
Felicity edged to the side of the stage, scanning the club to make sure no one was watching her. Ike and the other bouncer were busy separating two women who were fighting over the kid with the whip, and he was cowering behind them. Everyone was a fucking pretender in the club, except for Marcus. Felicity still did not understand what kept her here and afraid to commit to him. She snuck behind a back curtain by the dance floor and opened the second door on the left.
This was the old part of the club. She faced a dark corridor lit by a bare bulb hanging from the ceiling. When she got to the first door on the right, her fingers stroked over a brass tag that had come loose on one corner and was pitted from age. ‘Room One’. She opened the door. The five rooms were all used to store liquor now, and the stages were covered with a thick layer of dust.
This was what her mom had given up her life for. Felicity squeezed by some boxes and sat on the stage. The old wood creaked, and she laid back and stared at the socket where the stage light had been. Through the darkness, she saw the tattered edge of the sheet on the wall. The box below it held remnants of rats’ nests, and they had chewed the glued paper as high as they could reach. Felicity still made out some of the words that she had them memorized.
‘Mannequins expect to be tipped proportionately to the act you wish them to portray. Room One Prices: Upper body configurations are one hundred dollars, facial confi… are one hund… fift…, and low… body…. igurations are two hun… twen… fiv… Mannequins will remain fixe… the position …ou place them in.’ The words that presumably instructed the patron to put the money in the box, had been completely chewed off.
Felicity had met a few old men who explained the club to her. Their rheumy eyes would glass over with whatever passion they could still manage while they reminisced about their time in ‘The Mannequin Closet’. Without fail, they all seemed saddened that the erotic club had closed down after Stevie had died.
Over the years, Felicity had delved deeper down the hall. There were small rooms in the back that must have been dressing rooms. They were stacked with old furniture, but she had managed to squeeze into the room closest to the ally door and shimmy under chairs until she scooted under a heavy curtain hanging half off the rod. On the floor, she found a black rubber mask. It was stiff from age and cracked when she tried to put it on. Scooting out of the room, her hand slid on the dirty floor under the vanity. One leg had broken, and the table was half supported by an old vinyl chair. Her fingers felt something small and metal, and she picked it up and carried it out to the hall. Under the incandescent bulb, she held a rusted little car in her hand. Felicity kept it in her jacket pocket.
Her mind envisioned the mannequins, tightly wrapped in rubber and posing on the stages. Felicity felt her ass burning where it contacted the wood. She squirmed to increase the pain and let her fingers rub over her nipples, erect and straining under her thin tee shirt. Her eyes were closed, and she saw herself restrained in tight latex, ordered not to move or speak while men approached the stage.
Her forefinger and thumb squeezed her nipple, pinching harshly until she could barely contain her gasp. Her other hand slid down the front of her shorts, spreading her lips and slipping through her cream. One finger stroked her clit, increasing in tempo until her thighs stiffened and she fought the urge to thrust into her hand, forbidding herself to climax even as her finger tortured her bead. A soft moan escaped her lips… and Felicity’s eyes filled with tears.
She could not remain silent, and, like her mother, Felicity knew that she would never have been promoted to the back rooms. The true agony was that Felicity accepted Susanne had not been the reason Bethany had been kept out front. Her mother had been a junkie slut, and could not control her passionate responses any better than Felicity could. When she had thrown this cold fact into her mother’s face the last time they sat in the prison yard, Bethany had shrieked and slapped her. Two days later, her mother was dead.
Felicity sobbed out her orgasm, announcing her failure to submit to the room. She curled onto her side with her hand still caressing her pussy, and she fell asleep to the sound of the muffled beat of the music from the club in the background. She figured that Ike might know she slept there, but he never said a word to anyone.
Felicity cruised the streets by day and hit the soup kitchens for food. At twenty-six, she had no interest in getting an education or work. She had an uneasy, empty feeling that she was waiting. Waiting for fucking what? Waiting to go completely crazy like my mother, and enjoy the ultimate pain? If she used drugs, she might have already done it. The reason Felicity did not consider suicide was because the pain would end.
A few weeks later, she sauntered up to the club. Her dejected shoulders were slumped and her life was a depressing shell. Marcus was gone, and it was unlikely she would find a replacement. Felicity cursed herself for not being able to accept his offer, and she expected another night of futile searching for a true Master who could make her feel for a while.
Ike silently stepped aside and let her in. He knew Felicity was depressed since Marcus had left, and on the nights when she did not sneak into the liquor rooms, she passed back through the door at closing, still looking lost and angry that no one else could fulfill her needs.
Felicity sat at the bar peeling the label off the beer she would not drink, while she scanned hopefully… desperately… through the crowd. The same pretenders were dressed in costumes, as much a fake testament to fashion, as the designer jeaned bitches in the clubs uptown. They were out for an evening of erotic enjoyment and would return to their straight lives when the bar closed. Obscene attempts to spike professional haircuts into gothic monstrosities that were supposed to dangerously arouse, were as plastic as the people wearing them.
Felicity chewed her lip. She questioned her resolve not to go with Marcus, but deep inside Felicity knew that he would have eventually rejected her. It was better to let him go and hope she could find someone else to quench her passionate tastes. Her eyes roamed the tables, and then the bar. Felicity’s green eyes locked onto a pale blue gaze in the corner. The space was so dark that all she could really see were the eyes. They seemed to be lit from inside, and Felicity felt her pussy squeeze and drip. This man was not a pretender.
* * * * *
Tombstone and Jude pulled into the caretaker’s yard in a rented luxury sedan. Gertie and Jerry walked out to meet them. It felt awkward to be hugged by the woman, and Tombstone studied her face. She was much older than he remembered, and his hand reached to sift through her curls. There was more gray than red in them now.
Gertie and Jerald walked across the lawn, passing the markers and talking. She reminded him of stories of his mother, but Tombstone remained uneasily detached and confused. When they stood in front of Susanne’s headstone, the words etched into the surface jolted him.
By the ti
me they returned to Jude and his father, Gertie was already crying. Tombstone shook his dad’s hand and kissed Gertie on the cheek. It was silently acknowledged that they would never meet again.
As much as Tombstone had accepted that Susanne was his mother, the only gratitude he could summon was that she had kept Jerald safe until Tombstone could emerge. Tombstone was not as starry-eyed about the woman, and he remembered the things that Jerald ignored. He remembered the selfishness that had kept him to herself and away from his father. He remembered the nights Gertie had cancelled plans while his mother took off on a whim with whatever current man could cure her itch. He remembered her stealing Aunt Gertie’s boyfriend, and telling her she did it to prove to Gertie that men could not be trusted. In private, Suzanne had told Jerald that they could not afford the apartment if Gertie moved in with the man.
There were other things Susanne had done that Jerald had blocked out. He continued to see her as his super-hero, and he let the dark corner of his mind, that would one day become Tombstone, absorb all her faults. Of course, back then Jerald did not understand the black hole in his mind. It was the part that made him do naughty things like try to watch his mother change into her costume, and go back to the club years later to see what despicable acts Susanne had performed under the guise of necessity to raise him. It was not until Bethany’s act of vengeance began releasing him that the bridge of Jerald’s control was slowly destroyed and pushed below the surface.
Jude drove downtown and they parked in the lot across the street from the club, staring at the building. ’The Mannequin Closet’ was barely discernable as a small side addition to the larger club linked beside it. The door was bolted and it was dark inside, so they made their way to the “Dungeon of Pleasure”. Jude winced at the name, already expecting to see a bunch of business executives and their secretaries enjoying a night out. “Are you sure this is where Mr. Strickland said we could find her?”
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