Labyrinth

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  After giving Thayer a hot go-round of sex, I was bedded down in one of the cages in the properties stockroom. Such crude appellations like ‘properties’ and ‘stockroom’ force a woman further into the mindset of demeaning surrender. However, the properties stockroom is a very real place. The facilities were only rudimentary—cages, a bottle of water—maybe—and a piss pot if you’re lucky.

  Throughout the night certain chosen women were taken from their cages and led away, only to return an hour or two later—or not at all. In times passed, I have laid awake nearly half the night waiting for the returnees, for a peek at their faces, whether smiling or filled with a dreary expression. Some bodies were ragged, others jubilant. Some were whipped as severely as I’d seen Kylie whipped, others…well, I could make up more stories about crimes and offenses, doing time for perceived faults, or taking punishment they’d undoubtedly earned, but by the time I reached that night in the warehouse labyrinth, the stories in my head had petered out. I had little confirmation of facts and very few hints to whet the appetite of an unenthusiastic muse. Sleep, even in such an uncomfortable space as the harsh metal cage into which I was unceremoniously thrust was more welcome than a night of speculation.

  I drifted off to sleep several times and slept soundly for a while, only to be suddenly awakened by the shrill sound of a crying female. This was surprisingly unusual, as this was not the normal kind of crying in response to a sexual release or an answer to the hard pain of a physical beating. This was weeping, a soul-felt sobbing that seemed to awaken the entire stockroom. Metal cages rattled, wooden ones creaked. Dozens of eyes looked out through thick bars as the girl stumbled forward, barefoot and naked, carrying a wad of leather and silver under her arm that seemed determined to slip from her grasp.

  West’s girl?

  It appeared so.

  Her hands covered her face, though they hardly hid the red of her swollen eyes. But that was not the most startling part of her sudden appearance. As she stumbled along, a large dykish matron followed her with a cane in hand, whipping her ass to keep her moving.

  “On your knees, princess,” the woman bit off sarcastically as she laid an angry swat on the girl’s tender ass. There was hardly enough padding there to protect the poor thing.

  I don’t remember ever wanting to object to anything as much as I wanted to object to this. No, it was not the first time I’d been witness to such a scene. But for a novice! Was there no decency at all? Made me want to spit in West’s face. This had all the suggestion of that big man’s darker personality. But then to leap to that conclusion would just be me making up another story to explain the unexplained. I regretted that I’d earlier wanted to see the girl taken down to nothing—as though I and my imagination might have something to do with what had just happened to her. That was impossible, wasn’t it?

  Miss newbie was shoved into one of the empty cages, a metal one that had to be pretty uncomfortable for her thin body. After the dyke locked her in, the woman suddenly whipped around and looked directly at me.

  “If you’re tempted to play little mama to this one, you’d better not. She’s under orders and you wouldn’t want to earn her another trip into hell.” She swept the stockroom with her beady eyes. “That goes for the whole lot of you,” she spit out her final retort. Then she took her bullish body back through the door from which she’d entered, the cane tucked up under her arm.

  The new warden, I suppose. A novel and grim choice. Just added to the ambience, I would later conclude. But geez! Was that for show or was she speaking the gospel when she basically told us all to keep our mouths shut when it came to the girl? I didn’t really want to know, but the threat was enough to have me huddled back in my sleeping pose, waiting for a few blissful thoughts to take me into slumberland again. As the rest of the properties followed suit, the room fell disturbingly quiet. Even the girl had ceased her sobbing.

  When I was awakened a few hours later at the approach of dawn, she was gone. What happened to her is just another minor mystery of the labyrinth that will be left unsolved. I was betting that she wouldn’t be back.

  ***

  Several days after the warehouse doors were closed and locked and all the men and their properties had dispersed, I was back in my office, working frantically to get back in stride. My weekend jaunts into the dark side tend to leave me reeling so badly that I take an extra day or so to recuperate. I was just getting up to speed when Thayer suddenly whipped into my office like a superhero on a mission. My whole body instantly recoiled from the natural ferocity of his energy—ramped up in part by a happy weekend with his inner sadist—although I really had nothing to fear. He rested a hip on the far side of my desk and smiled broadly.

  “How about lunch?”

  “This is a first.” I looked at him questioningly.

  “I just happened to be in your part of town today, thought I’d drop by.”

  I always regretted the fact that every morning Thayer went in one direction and I went the opposite as we were off to work, which meant that spontaneous lunch dates with my husband were pretty improbable.

  I looked at him dourly, not wanting to say no. “You really couldn’t have caught me at a worse time,” I moaned.

  “That’s what I thought,” he chimed right back in. Then he reached down and lifted a grocery sack to the top of my desk.

  “What’s this?”

  “Lunch.”

  I beamed. “Too cute, Thayer.”

  “I am charming, aren’t I?”

  He grabbed the sack back and began laying the lunch out on the desk, while I worked frantically to clear it of important papers.

  While he was devouring a Reuben sandwich and I munched on a Greek salad, we made small talk about the weather, the upcoming weekend and a vacation trip to Spain we were planning for the fall. Though I tried to keep my mind focused on the present conversation, I couldn’t help but think of the past weekend in the labyrinth. Any attempts to ban the most shocking scenes from my mind were pretty pointless. I’d had this happen before; eventually, a week or two passes and the life inside my mind returns to normal pursuits. But I was particularly fascinated by West’s girl, the missing girl as I’d come to think of her.

  “Not to change the subject—” I found myself impulsively jumping in, “but I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind a loaded question?”

  “Loaded question?” He looked curious.

  “About last weekend.”

  His face immediately changed from jolly to grim. “I’d have to know what the question is to see if it’s out of line.”

  “The girl. West’s girl.”

  “The fainting but beautiful blonde? I guess she’s a blonde, sort of ash blonde. Not fake, that’s for sure.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Sorry, I don’t know a damn thing about her, Kathryn, and that’s the truth.”

  “Though you probably wouldn’t tell me if you did.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. Why does she have you so curious?”

  “Everything about her is curious, especially the last time I saw her. She was getting mildly worked over by West, in his typically domineering way…”

  “Which I thought you liked.”

  “I do. I’m just saying, he was taking quite an interest in her. And me, figuring that she was there for her initial visit, was sort of freaked out when she arrived late in the stockroom, naked and sobbing as if she’d suddenly had her whole world ripped to shreds. Never seen anything like it before, inside the labyrinth or out.

  “Humph.”

  That appeared to be all the reply I was going to get. I kept waiting, trying to be discreet and suggest how much I was jumping out of my skin to know what her story was. Anything I tried to make up on my own just wasn’t going to satisfy me. By the time I’d waited a few minutes, my phone started ringing off the hook and lunch ended as abruptly as it started. I got a peck on the forehead from Thayer as he scooped up the remnants of lunch and took them with him out the door.
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br />   That night in bed, I broached the subject again and got an even more terse looking Thayer staring at me annoyed. “What’s the problem here, Kath? You know it’s not protocol to discuss this business.”

  “I can’t help it. I was just so disturbed and it keeps coming back to me.”

  “And what good would it do if you knew the whole story?”

  “I haven’t a clue. But I wanted you to tell me something, anything that would put my mind at ease.”

  “Sorry. You’re out of luck on this one. I’d suggest you ease off and climb back into the real world. The labyrinth’s just a game. It’s never made sense, and that’s the way it’s going to remain.”

  Chapter Three

  Thayer

  She assumes that I understand the inner workings of my dark world, but I do not. That place in my psyche is as much a labyrinth as the weekends we spend reveling in beastly desires. I know when it began, almost to the day where the rage inside me started. Some battlefield moments are just a blur now, but this one remains crystal clear, not so much because of what I saw—that is crystal clear to me even now—but because of how it felt.

  After ten years of trying to brush it back, hide it, mask it and deny it, the labyrinth found me. I certainly did not go seeking it out—no one in their right mind could make up something quite like that. I’d known Alec West a long time before he approached me. But odd as his mysterious discourse was about an opportunity I might be interested in, I was pretty taken aback when he actually described what it was. When I initially balked, he simply suggested that I come along and bring my wife—as long as she didn’t have any hang ups about sex—was the only codicil. I wasn’t about to toy with Kathy’s life based on what West had told me, so I told him I’d come on my own first. He had no problem with that plan. Despite my utter fascination with the possibilities, I wouldn’t have gone back if Kathryn had not agreed to go. I had no intention of ripping my marriage apart by diving into such unbridled and sadistic excess without her there to see, to witness, to accept. She needed to understand what I needed. I never would have guessed that she’d turn out to be such an amazingly beautiful slut inside those walls.

  But about the girl? Kathryn’s little fascination. My wife wasn’t the only one who was fascinated by the beauty. She made an impression on all the men that were there that weekend. Leave it to Alec to experiment with novices. It’s a foolish thing to do, but he seems to get as much of a rush from taking chances as he does the sex itself.

  The only thing I know that Kathryn does not about that girl is that she’s not Alec’s girl. He’s just a front for someone else, a proxy, another master’s surrogate. Kathryn’s sure she won’t see her again. I’m sure we will. There are forces operating here that are far greater than anyone would know. And one mere girl with a quivering tummy and a whole lot of fear is no match for what she faces in trying to run from a long-reaching grip that’s sure to drag her back. No match at all.

  Chapter Four

  Jewel

  “Bend over and spread your cheeks, bitch!”

  The words might of ripped me a new one, if I hadn’t known the source soon as my sad little mind cleared. I froze like a scared rabbit, getting a grip. I mean, there I am behind the factory, taking out the trash, and he jumps me like I’m gonna do whatever the hell he says.

  I’m thinkin’ he’s half a block away, then suddenly he’s right at my back with his fingers doing a number on my ass. “You hear me, Jewel?” he says.

  Yeah, sure I heard him and the bastard knows that.

  “Billy, you can’t do this to me,” I whined.

  “Jewel, honey, I ain’t kiddin. You just bend over, give me what I want and I’ll leave you be.”

  “Here?”

  “You questioning me?”

  Something in me—you know that little piece of self-protect that tells you, you got to take something seriously? Well that kicked in. Suddenly, I have no desire to face the consequences Billy is always using to threaten me. Besides, damn, the boy just knows how to jerk my chain. I look around, make sure nobody’s watching, then I step forward, bend over and raise my skirt. Been light years since I wore panties, so there I am, my ass buck naked and exposed to the breeze while I’m holding it open, waiting for what comes next.

  “We’ll, ain’t that pretty?” he says in a long slow drawl as if he were the one from Alabama, not me.

  I know he ain’t looking at all. He’s right behind me with a greased finger in my ass, getting me all hot and bothered and ready for something special. By then, I wasn’t caring who might be watching—though I’m pretty sure no one is. The place clears out fast once the last bell rings. I pick up a few extra bucks hauling out the trash, so I stay late. Just me and Jiggs left—he’s the janitor, who’s probably snorting dope in his little office. He’ll get to his job once he’s high.

  So that’s how I came to be out in the open with Billy Brignace easing into my ass, that big proud prick of his taking it nice an’ slow. Once he’s in charge, he doesn’t need me to hold my ass cheeks wide. He’ll take care of it himself with those rough fists. And God almighty, am I in heaven.

  “Yeah, baby, fuck me,” I’m yelling to a big blue sky and a pair of fat maple trees at the far end of the factory lot. My face is flushed, my eyes half closed, and my insides is rockin’ all to hell, while my heart’s singing a lazy blues. Damn, I’m happy anytime Billy’s dick is up my ass or my cunt or shooting all over my mouth. But really, he does asses best. Wish my life were as sweet as being screwed by Billy.

  Course, it’s not.

  There’s Frank my husband. He’s a drunk and a lecher—the only good thing about the lech part is that he wants every other woman he sees and could care less about me. We have an understanding. I stay clear a’ him, he stays clear a’ me. If it weren’t for two kids and my whole life’s savings tied up in the little three bedroom rancher we own together, I’d have split a long time ago. Yes, I would have taken the kids. I’m not a bad mother, just a miserable wife.

  And Billy is my salvation.

  Not only has he got a heart of gold and a kinky idea of what gets him off—I got no problem with either one of those—but he’s also got this spooky thing going with a guy who I think is his boss. Never been quite sure of that. The man’s name is West. A big strapping brute of a guy who I’ve never seen in anything but a tuxedo. You think he’d just stepped off the red carpet of some Hollywood premiere.

  The spooky part? I’m hard-pressed to describe it. Let’s just say it’s a fantasy ball and we get free passes. All I got to do, Billy says, is follow instructions and do what I’m told. Somewhere he got this weird idea—well, it’s really not so weird, cause it’s true—that I like to get my ass beat and to submit to all that S&M stuff. One night, he started talking to me, real and stern and demanding—just like he was before he started fucking my ass outside the factory. He was standing close behind me, whispering in my ear. This sweet erotic music starts playing through my body, the creepiest, sexiest melody and I’m starting to hum, my imagination lit like a wildfire and soon enough, Billy’s getting really rough with me. He pulls out a belt, bends me over and starts laying it on my ass real hard. I never had a daddy that would do that, but I sure fantasized about it more times than I can count. Maybe that’s where Billy got the idea. Maybe I said something one of the times he started slapping my ass real playful-like. He listens. He knows stuff I wouldn’t imagine he’d know. I’m sure he’s not making millions doing whatever he does for his boss, but he’s the smartest person I know.

  God, how I love him!

  So, one Friday night, he picks me up in his truck and tells me I’m not goin’ home that night. He knows the kids are at my sister Scarlet’s for the weekend. They’re happy to have their favorite aunt spoil them. Scarlet’s happy because I’m sharing them, and I’m happy because Billy’s taking me away from Frank for a night.

  Frank, he doesn’t care. When I bother to tell him I won’t be coming home until sometime Saturday, he just
grunts.

  So that sets the stage for our little soiree, my first time. It was almost like entering a nightmare, I was that scared. But as rough as it was, I came out just fine. I could tell you tales about that night and the many others. Although, truth be told, I’d rather tell you about the last time we played our fun and games, not the first. It might have been the best time ever, and it was certainly the strangest in a long string of strange weekends away with my Billy.

  I heard the dogs barking long before we turned the corner and set our eyes on that big old ugly building. Seemed to just to pop right up out of the woods. Mind you, these are not Mary Poppin’s woods, more like Hansel and Gretel, big bad wolf scary woods. Tall trees that moan in the wind and big dark clouds circling around them. My whole body starts to shudder as if a cold wind, or maybe a ghost has just crept through my rattling bonds.

  “What the hell is that!” I point to the long brick building. One end is crumbling into the ground as if it will disintegrate before my eyes, although there’s a lot that’s still standin’ like an old gothic mansion pointing to the sky.

  “Army barracks,” Billy tells me.

  “You’re shittin’ me? Excuse the French,” I immediately add. Billy doesn’t like me talking dirty around his friends—well, at least not a lot. Then again, I’m really not sure the men at the ball are his friends.

  “Boss said that before it was an Army barracks it was an asylum.”

  “Well, that’s more like it,” I declare. But I’m not so sure about this one. “You know, honey, I love what we do on these weekends, but couldn’t you just put me in chains in your apartment this time?”

  He turns to me and stares. “You’re scared of place?”

  “Billy, I’m always scared before I go in. I’m so nervous I think I’m gonna pee my panties—I mean if I wore any. But this ain’t right. Something’s all wrong here.” I shake my head as if I could shake away the willies, but they are not about to leave.