All acts of pleasure argi-7

by M. R. Sellars

  “The hell I can’t!” I shot back as I started forward.

  I didn’t get very far.

  I was stopped cold as the palm of Ben’s hand thudded hard in the center of my chest. I wasn’t surprised that he would do something of the sort, but I also had no intention of letting it stop me for very long. I instantly lashed out, swinging my right arm wide in a roundhouse punch.

  Of course, I should have realized that he would be expecting it. As turbulent as the past few minutes had been, he had probably been waiting for me to do something stupid all along. And, stupid was putting it mildly.

  My friend’s left arm shot upward out of trained reflex, sliding against mine and deflecting my angry fist harmlessly away. With a quick thrust of his right, he pushed me hard. Since my wildly careening punch already had me off balance, it didn’t take much for him to launch me backward across the room.

  I stumbled a pair of steps before completely losing my footing, and a split second later sharp pain shot through my buttocks as they impacted the floor. That sensation was almost instantly followed by a stab of agony lancing into my left elbow when it came down against the hardwood, and finally there was a dull thunk on the back of my head from striking the arm of the chair. That last blow didn’t exactly do wonders for my already throbbing grey matter.

  I heard myself yelp, and then I started to scramble upward but only came a few inches off the floor before dropping back down with a heavy thud. Dull pain was radiating from my tailbone up through my lower back, and my nerves were more than just a little jangled.

  “Jeezus! Fuck me! Goddammit, Rowan!” Ben sputtered with more than enough anger to fill the room to capacity. “GOD DAMMIT! GOD DAMMIT!”

  I was definitely stunned from the fall, and my ears were now ringing, so his tirade came at me as a muted string of syllables. Fortunately, I didn’t feel any queasiness or a blackout coming on, so I didn’t think I was truly injured.

  However, I just kept sitting there, motionless, letting my rage work as an anesthetic for all the pain, emotional as well as physical.

  Ben’s tone ratcheted down the scale from anger to remorse in the span of a single sentence. “Awww, Jeez, Row…Man…What’d ya’ hafta fuckin’ go an’ do that for?!”

  I assumed the question was rhetorical, not that I had really intended to answer him if it wasn’t. Still, I couldn’t help but throw one of his earlier comments back in his face.

  “I think you know,” I spat.

  “Jeezus…Are ya’ okay?” He stepped forward as he spoke, extending his arm and offering me a hand up.

  I simply shrugged away from him.

  “Row…”

  “Fuck you, Ben,” I told him.

  “Dammit, Row, this…”

  “Get out of my house,” I ordered, my voice a low growl, fully devoid of any compassion. “Just…Just get out of my house.”

  He stood there, looking down at me with abject sadness welling behind his eyes. What just happened was something neither one of us was going to be able to fix, at least, not right at this moment. And, the way I was feeling, I wasn’t sure if I ever wanted it fixed. I had a sickening notion that I was going to need every bit of my anger just to get through what was coming, and that was assuming that I was going to make it through at all.

  The silent pause continued with us both staring at one another, him pained, me incensed. I allowed it to continue for what seemed a full minute but was in reality probably no more than a scant few seconds.

  “You heard me you sonofabitch!” I finally screamed. “Get the fuck out of my house!”

  With a dazed shake of his head and one last look of sadness, he turned and headed for the door.

  CSU technicians were already coming into the house as Ben was lumbering out. One of them shot me a concerned look, glanced over his shoulder at Ben’s back as he disappeared down the front steps, and then returned his gaze to me.

  “Are you okay, sir?” he asked.

  “No,” I snipped.

  He reached his hand toward me and started to ask, “Do you need…”

  “No!” I cut him off, my tone still livid. “Just leave me alone!”

  He shook his head and muttered a sarcastic “Excuse me” as he took a step back then turned away and joined up with the other techs as they began fanning out through my home.

  I didn’t bother to drag myself up from the floor until I heard Ben’s vehicle back out of the driveway then speed away, taking my entire reason for living with it.

  CHAPTER 5:

  “This isn’t good,” Jackie’s voice hummed from the earpiece of the phone.

  Our attorney had patiently listened to me as I relayed to her the story of Felicity’s arrest, interrupting me only when necessary to ask for clarification on particular facts. Then, following a proverbial pregnant pause at the end of my diatribe, those three words were all she said. Unfortunately, they were far from what I wanted to hear.

  Jackie had a habit of thinking out loud, and I’m certain that the comment was nothing more than her rhetorically voicing her thoughts. However, I was still at least five notches beyond pissed off, not to mention the fact that a handful of crime scene technicians were turning my house into a disaster area all around me as I stood there. Therefore, I was really in no mood for listening to someone tell me something I already knew. Especially when it wasn’t helping to fix the problem.

  “No fucking shit,” I spat into the handset. “Are you billing me for that? Because I already had it figured out on my own.”

  “Okay,” she returned, far more calmly than I expected. “The first thing you need to do, Rowan, is settle down. Biting people’s heads off isn’t going to help the situation. Especially when the head you’re biting off is mine. I’m on your side, remember?”

  “Yeah, well you’ll have to excuse me. I’m still trying to pry a knife out of my back that was put there by someone else who was supposed to be on my side.”

  “Your friend the cop? The one who arrested Felicity?”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call him my friend. Not now. Not after this.”

  “You might need to take a step back and look at it from a different perspective, Rowan.”

  “I’m not so sure that there is another perspective on this.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that,” she replied. “Think about this. You’re in a big city where they usually frown on having police officers arresting their friends. You aren’t in a small town where everyone knows everyone else, and there’s no choice in the matter. It would be better for the department to avoid a conflict of interest like this.”

  “Yeah, so what’s your point?”

  “My point is that your friend probably had to pull some major strings to be allowed to make the arrest rather than allowing someone else to take her in. He most likely saw what he was doing as a favor.”

  My reply was so sharply edged with sarcasm I’m surprised I didn’t cut my own tongue. “Yeah, some favor.”

  “I suspect he was trying to spare you from the anguish of having strangers show up and haul Felicity away.”

  I stayed silent for a moment and thought about what she had just said. I finally replied, “Well, I guess he did make it a point to repeatedly tell her not to say a word. The other cop with him wasn’t real excited about that at all.”

  “You need to give your friend some credit, Rowan. I’m sure he was only doing what he thought was best for his friends, given the situation,” Her statement was punctuated by an electromechanical “ding” in the background then the hollow quality that had surrounded her voice disappeared. I could hear a droning background noise and assumed she must have just stepped from the elevator in her office building and was on her way past the decorative waterfall in the lobby.

  “Maybe,” I replied. “But, this is wrong and he knows it.”

  “Yes, I’m sure that he does. But, obviously she was going to be arrested anyway given the fact that a warrant was issued. So, who would you rather have had do it?”

/>   I didn’t think she really wanted an answer to the question so I just grunted.

  “Now, the reason I said this isn’t good is the fact that they even had a warrant to begin with and that they came and got her on a Friday.”

  “What’s that got to do with it?”

  “Well, first off arrest warrants aren’t typically issued on felony cases if there is probable cause. Especially where violent crime is concerned. The arrest is simply made and the charges get filed. The warrant is just paperwork that happens during the process as a matter of course.

  “Someone is definitely dotting I’s and crossing T’s on this one. Being very cautious and official about it. So, that tells me one of two things. One, they don’t have much of a case so they are playing it by the book…”

  “That’s a good thing, right?” I interrupted hopefully, a sudden brightness in my voice.

  “If that’s the case, yes,” she answered then proceeded to extinguish my momentary glow. “However, it could also mean that they are pretty certain they have a smoking gun, and they’re just being careful because of their long time affiliation with you as a consultant.

  “Either way, one thing is perfectly clear. She is no longer simply under investigation. She’s been moved up from person of interest to prime suspect.”

  “Damn.”

  “Of course, we won’t know for sure what is going on until I can get there and get a read on the situation.”

  “Whatever it is, the one behind it has got to be Albright,” I mumbled. “She’s a bureaucrat with a badge and she hates both of us. She’s tried to pull stunts before, and I can just about guarantee you she’ll do whatever it takes to make this stick.”

  “Well, whoever it is, they’re playing for keeps. Warrants aren’t issued on whims. They’ve got something they think is damaging, or she wouldn’t be in custody right now.”

  “Okay, so what about it being Friday? What’s up with that?”

  “The courts are closed over the weekend, Rowan, and it’s…” she paused for a moment. “…It’s already after two in the afternoon. Given the nature of the arrest, I seriously doubt I’m going to be able to do much in the way of getting an emergency bail hearing. Unless there was a bail amount on the arrest warrant already.”

  “I don’t remember seeing one.”

  “I’m not surprised. It would be pretty much unheard of in a homicide case, and with this being a high profile double murder charge…so, anyway, what it all means is that I’m afraid Felicity is going to be spending the weekend, at the very least, in jail. To be honest, Rowan, probably longer. Bail in a homicide case like this is going to be unlikely, and even on the off chance we can get it set, it will be exorbitant.”

  “I don’t care. I’ve got money.”

  “We could be talking millions, Rowan, and even though you’ll only need ten percent in cash, it could mount up.”

  “I can cash in our IRA’s if I have to.”

  “I understand, but remember it could all be a moot point. Like I said, bail might not even be an option depending on what they have.”

  “Dammit!” I spat. “You aren’t telling me what I need to hear.”

  “Actually, yes I am. I’m just not telling you what you want to hear.”

  “Yeah. Okay. Fine. So what now?”

  “Now, I need to ask you a question.”

  “What?”

  “You aren’t going to like it.”

  “Yeah, so why should my day suddenly start getting better?” I returned sarcastically. “What’s the question?”

  I heard her take in a deep breath, and a second later she hit me with the last thing I expected. “Is Felicity guilty? Did she kill those men?”

  “Hell no! How can you ask me that?! What happened to being on my side?!”

  “It’s my job, Rowan. I have to know what I’m up against and whom I’m defending. You’re absolutely certain she’s innocent?”

  “Yes,” I returned harshly. “And don’t ever ask me that again.”

  “I won’t. Not you. But you need to understand that I’m going to have to ask Felicity the same thing.”

  “And you’ll get the same answer.”

  Here we had a slight problem. And, that problem came in the form of the fact that I wasn’t entirely sure I was telling the truth with that last comment. The night Felicity had been taken into custody at the East side motel, the suspicious fingers were already being pointed and the investigation underway. When I discussed it with her, she had told me that she wasn’t even certain in her own mind that she hadn’t committed the crimes. The Lwa possession had caused substantial blocks of time to be missing from her memory, and that frightened her. It didn’t do much for me either, but I still knew she was innocent. Why, when the police apparently had evidence to the contrary, I couldn’t say; but the fact remained that I knew it beyond any doubt in my mind.

  Unfortunately, something else I knew was that my wife was still harboring distrust in her own sanity. And, because of her personal history within the bondage and D/S subculture, she was finding it easy to convince herself that perhaps she really was the killer. The truth was, when Jackie asked her the question, she was very likely to say, “I don’t know.” What was even more frightening was that it was going to be a bit before Jackie got there. Given Felicity’s mental state, depending on what she was told by the police between now and then, her answer could well be “Yes. I think I’m guilty.”

  That single possibility, all by itself, scared me as much as anything ever could right now.

  “Find a way to get her home, Jackie. I know that’s asking a lot, but I need her home. I need her home NOW.”

  “I’ll do what I can,” she offered. “But, you need to be prepared for this.”

  “Prepared?” Incredulity filled my voice. “Okay, then why don’t you tell me how I’m supposed to prepare myself for my wife spending time in jail on a bogus murder charge.”

  “I wish I knew, Ro…”

  The end of her sentence was truncated by an annoying beep issuing from the earpiece of my phone. Lately, I had been ignoring the call-waiting when it chimed in, due to a recent resurgence of mysterious hang-ups that had been plaguing us off and on for the past few years. Under the circumstances, however, I thought it might be a good idea to answer it this time.

  “I’ve got another call coming in. Can you hold for a sec?”

  “Listen, I’m almost to my car,” she replied. “Why don’t you go ahead and answer the call. I’ll get back to you when I get to the police station and have a handle on things.”

  “Don’t you want me to meet you there?”

  “Absolutely not. There’s nothing you can do at this point, and emotionally you’re a bomb looking for a place to explode. You’d do nothing but cause trouble and make things worse. Just stay right there while they’re searching the house, and don’t do anything stupid.”

  The insistent beep chimed in again.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean just stay there and don’t do anything,” she instructed, heavily emphasizing the last word. “I need to concentrate on your wife right now, so I don’t need to be worrying about you too.”

  I answered in a clipped tone. “Yeah. Fine. Okay. Later.”

  I didn’t wait for her to say goodbye. I reached out and stabbed the off-hook switch on the telephone’s base with my finger, held it for a second, and then released it. A second later I heard the telltale click rattling in the earpiece as the call I had just been on was disconnected.

  “Hello?” I said into the mouthpiece.

  “Rowan,” a familiar voice floated into my ear. “How are you doing?”

  I sighed, half from relief and half from frustration. It obviously wasn’t a hang-up, but it also wasn’t someone calling to tell me this had all been a terrible mistake either. Of course, logically I knew that wasn’t going to happen, but under stress we tend to create fantastic resolutions for situations simply in order to maintain hope, and that was but one of
the happy endings bouncing around inside my skull at the moment.

  “I’ve been better, Helen,” I replied, my tone flat.

  “I know, Rowan. Benjamin just called and told me what happened.”

  “I suppose he wants you to find out if I’m still mad at him,” I quipped.

  I knew I shouldn’t be taking my anger with her brother, and the situation, out on her; but I just couldn’t help myself. The way I saw it, everyone in my path was a potential enemy at this point.

  “Actually, Rowan, no, he does not. I believe he is fully expecting you to be angry with him for some time to come. He has resigned himself to that.”

  “Very astute observation on his part,” I asserted. “Mainly because he’s right.”

  “He was forced to make an extremely hard decision.”

  “Well, I’ve got some bad news for him. He decided wrong. Felicity is innocent and he knows it.”

  “I am speaking of his decision to handle the arrest rather than allow someone else from the department to do so.”

  Apparently, Jackie had been correct. Still, it didn’t change the fact that he had led my wife out of the house in handcuffs.

  “Yeah, well, he just might have been wrong on that count too.”

  “Be that as it may, it really is not my point, Rowan.”

  “I’m listening.”

  “He is concerned.”

  “Yeah, well no offense, Helen, but I’ve got other things on my mind right now, so if he’s looking for absolution tell him to try a confessional.”

  “He is not concerned about forgiveness. He is worried about you.”

  “Could’ve fooled me.”

  “Rowan,” Helen’s voice took on a stern quality I wasn’t used to hearing when speaking with her. “Stop this. I know that you have a dire situation with which to cope. And, after our talk yesterday I think that I, better than anyone, know the stress you have been facing lately.

  “I want you to understand that I am certainly not begging sympathy for my brother. However, as both a therapist and as your friend, I am telling you that you simply must let go of some of this anger.”