AMNESIAC
Chapter Seventeen — Consort
She lugged the heavy suitcase up the front steps, taking a break on the landing to catch her breath and take in her new neighborhood. It was a quiet street, and there was plenty of parking. The bare trees, though ugly and stark, looked like they would provide plenty of shade in the summer. From her position on the landing she could just make out the modest skyline of downtown Freeport. It was cold out, and she shivered in her light hoodie. First things first, a coat and mittens.
She fit her freshly-cut keys into the lock and tugged on the heavy front door, propping it open with her foot while she twisted her body to grab the suitcase. She pulled its handle, only for it to seemingly pull back at her, and she lost her balance. Her foot came loose and the door swung shut again. She swore under her breath and pulled out her keys again.
“Wait wait! Hang on, I got you!”
She turned at the clop clop clop sound of heels on concrete, and came face-to-face with a beautiful young woman in a sharp business suit. “Lemme get that,” said the stranger, unlocking the door and holding it open. “You need help getting it upstairs?”
“No, I’m good. Thank you so much!” She looked down at the suitcase, feeling guilty. “It weighs a ton and a half. I kind of over-crammed it.”
The blonde laughed loudly. “Girl, you travel like me! One of everything!” She held out her hand. “I’m Claire, nice to meet you.”
“Kate.” She smiled. “Do you live here?”
Claire held up her keys.
“Oh, right! Sorry, I just moved in. Guess that makes us neighbors.”
“Hell yeah, it does!” Claire held up her hand for a high-five, and Kate obliged. “Give me five minutes to get out of these shoes, and I’ll help you haul stuff.”
“Thanks.” She looked over at the Ford. “I don’t have much, really.”
“Even better, less work!” said Claire. “Welcome to the neighborhood!”
“Okay Jane, you can open your eyes again. Listen only to my voice.”
Claire watched as the pretty waitress slowly opened her dull hazel eyes and gazed through the dirty windshield. Inside, she felt her heart swell with pride. She was carrying out Kate’s orders perfectly, and nothing could be more perfect than that. It wouldn’t be long before the two of them, and perhaps Jane, would be bonding over another bottle of wine and talking about just how well she had obeyed her mistress. Then Kate would give her new orders, and she would obey them without question as well. I’m good at this. That’s why she chose me, out of everyone in the world.
A beautiful, brainwashed slavegirl.
It felt so good to think about it in that way. She wanted to say it out loud, to roll down the window and yell it at every jogger and dog-walker she spotted, but Kate had told her to pretend that she was normal everyday Claire, and to let know one know the truth. And what Kate wanted, Kate got. That was what slavegirls did for their mistresses. Wonderful Kate had promised to brainwash her, right there in the park, and she’d willingly let Kate reprogram her mind. It felt positively glorious.
But as they approached Kate’s house, the blonde tensed and gripped the steering wheel. Something’s not right here, Claire.
Aside from holidays and the occasional summer picnic, Kate’s street was always free of parked cars. Everyone used their driveway or their garage; Claire could even recall Kate complaining about the homeowner’s association sending out annoying flyers reminding everyone to ‘keep the streets clear.’ And yet Kate’s block was littered with vehicles—James’s Nissan, parked haphazardly across the driveway; Kate’s Honda, pulled in behind a black BMW with out-of-state plates; a cute little VW parked directly across from Kate’s front door.
Claire kept driving, reaching the end of the block and turning left to circle back around. “Shit, Jane, our mistress—Kate’s really fucked. Whatever’s going on, it’s not good. There could be fifty fucking guys in there with her. What are we gonna do?”
The waitress, lost in trance, said nothing.
Claire rolled her eyes. Her only programmed orders were to protect Kate, to hypnotize Jane, and to order Jane to help her to protect Kate. Everything else was left up to Claire’s discretion, because Kate was amazing and brilliant, and she knew that Claire could handle herself. Except, as she circled the block, she began to wonder if she really could. She made another left turn and frowned, at a total loss.
Think, Claire, think! Call the cops? Only as a last resort. That’s what Kate said. Is this a last resort? We could be outnumbered here. But what if I call the cops and there’s five guys in there and they shoot Kate and James when the police show up? I can’t get my Kate killed. I have to make sure she’s safe first. But I can’t just fucking walk in there and get myself killed, either, that’s not going to help me or her. Dammit, Claire! Kate trusted you with this. You have to think of something!
She looked at the hypnotized woman sitting next to her. Then again, if walking right into the house is what they expect me to do…
She parked another block away from Kate’s house, and let her plan take shape.
Kate winked at him. “Who needs tapes?”
“Very funny, Kate,” Decker sneered. “Who am I, really? You have no idea. I’ve never told you anything about me. Where am I from? Where do I live? What’s my real name? What are your friends going to tell the police? That Kate Pendleton gave them a picture of a guy in a trench coat and a tape of her doctor fondling her tits? You tried to blackmail me with a stupid bluff, and you failed. Game. Over.”
She turned to her husband. “You should have let me kill him.”
“I couldn’t let you do that,” James protested. “What would you have done if you’d woken up with a gun in your hand and a dead guy lying in a pool of blood?”
“It apparently wouldn’t be the first time, would it?” She looked at Decker. “Would it?”
Decker placed his hand on his forehead and wearily shook his head.
“See? It still would have been better than us being tied up in our own bedroom, James.”
James tugged against his bed sheet, earning a sharp eye from Nikki. “Why do you have to do this now, Kate? I’m doing everything I can to try to save us, and it seems like now you just want to throw it all away and go back to being… whatever, a secret agent or something.”
“I’m trying to SAVE your LIFE, James! Do you not understand that? He wants me, not you! I don’t know what else to do! I could have killed him, but nooooo, you had to save the day! Now you know what it’s like to be me, having someone force you to do things you don’t want to do. We’re dragging Claire into this, and you’re over here making side deals with Trenchy, and—“
“I’m trying to do what’s best for you, Kate!” He leaned forward again, earning another glare from Nikki.
“Oh! Oh! So it’s okay when you do what’s best for us!”
Decker sighed heavily. “Will you two shut up?”
“No, Decker,” James said, raising his voice. “I’m not going to shut up. What are you going to do, anyway? Shoot me? Have Sarah, Nikki, whatever shoot me? I can’t even play my stereo at full volume without Mrs. Hawthorne next door complaining to the police about it. How do you think she’s going to react to a couple of gunshots? So go ahead, kill me!”
“Fine,” said the sandy-haired man, aiming his pistol at the bed.
“Decker, no. He doesn’t mean it,” said Kate, eyes wide. “Decker, please. If you kill him…”
“My problems go away? Thank you, Kate. I always value your insight into situations like this.” He kept the gun aimed at James. “Should I kill you, James, or should Nikki have the honor?
“Decker, NO. Do you want to make this easy or hard? Think about it. If you shoot James in front of me, I’m not going to stop fighting you, ever. If you let him go, I’ve already promised to go with you. Decker, listen to me. Put. The gun. Down.”
He gave her a careful glance. “I want you to repeat after me, Kate. I want you to say ‘I will go with Decker and obey him without question,’ and say it like you mean it. Go.”
“I…”
“NOW.”
She let out a weary, resigned sigh. “I will go with Decker and obey him without question.”
Decker lowered the gun. “That’s better.”
From downstairs came a woman’s voice, loud and vaguely sing-song in tone. “Helllooo? Kate? Hey, where are you? It’s meeeee, Claire.”
For a second, everyone matched Nikki’s frozen pose. Then Decker grinned. “You two sit tight. I’ll be right back.”
They waited for Decker to move out of earshot. Finally, James broke into a weak smile. “Do you think he bought it?”
“I think he was distracted, at least,” said Kate. She eyed her reflection in the full-length mirror. It gave her a great view of the knots that Decker had tied in her bed sheet. Slowly but surely, they were coming loose. “I’m almost there. I… dammit! She saw me. Fine, Nikki, I’ll sit tight.”
James looked at the hypnotized blonde guarding them. “How does she not hear us right now?”
It existed in the same manner that Jupiter and Saturn existed—out there, somewhere, probably important in some way to someone, but not to her. “She does, but she’s not programmed to react to it. Weird, right? That’s how I felt when Mulroney hypnotized me to kill Decker. I saw and heard things just like normal but they just… like, slid right through my brain and out the other side without stopping. As long as we don’t try to escape, she won’t react to anything.”
“How are we going to get out of this, hun? Even if we get free, they’ve both got guns and we don’t.”
“Claire’s on it. I’m on it. You’re on it. Hopefully Disha did her part and now Mulroney’s doing his. We’ve come this far. I’m sure that Claire has a plan right now. She knows what’s up.”
“What if she doesn’t?”
Kate tried her best to shrug.
“You know I love you, Kate. I don’t care if you were made to love me. I’ve always tried to be a good husband.”
“I know you did.”
Claire heard the footsteps on the stairs. She felt her stomach clench into a painful, terrified knot. Here goes nothing, she thought, as she slid behind the door of the study. She gripped Señor Pepper Spray tightly in her right hand and waited. The footsteps reached the entry hall, changing from muffled to clacking on the tile floor. One set, one person. She tried to decide whether the steps were male or female, before realizing that she had no idea how one would sound different than the other. Heavier, maybe? I can’t tell.
The footsteps went silent again. Her attacker was on the carpet, probably moving though the living room. They were well out of range of the pepper spray. She held her breath and waited. The footsteps returned to clacking. Kitchen. Then everything went silent. She could hear the ticking of the grandfather clock in the next room.
A minute passed, then two. Her hands began to tremble. She slowly braced herself against the wall, making herself ready to leap out with pepper spray in hand. Another minute passed. Where the hell is this asshole?
The grandfather clock continues its ticking. Her breathing was rapid and shallow, and she struggled to remain as quiet as possible. She eased forward into the room, still behind the door, hoping to better listen in on the person hunting her. If they get far enough off course… maybe they went into the basement? Maybe I can sneak upstairs and deal with the oth-
A hand closed around her wrist and yanked violently, pulling her arm with enough force to drag her off-balance and out of her hiding place. A second hand grabbed Señor Pepper Spray and twisted the arm holding it behind her back. She crashed into the wall face-first, hard, and shouted in surprise and anger. A heavy body pressed against her back. She could taste her hair in her mouth, and instinctively, she spat the strands out. Both hands were now pinned to the wall. Suddenly, she could sense a head hovering over her shoulder. A man’s voice, angry and arrogant.
“Welcome to the party, Claire,” it hissed.
“This is all a huge misunderstanding, officers,” said Doctor Mulroney with pleading eyes. He was surrounded by an unhappy collection of police officers and security guards. “I can explain. One of my coworkers drugged and hypnotized me. She must have programmed me to make that phone call, and to say those things! I’m completely innocent!”
That was it. It would be his word against hers. Eventually her treachery would be revealed to everyone, and the whole thing would be written off as a malicious prank. He wondered how Decker had managed to get to Disha in such a short amount of time. He looked around, briefly wondering if he could manage to convince everyone in the room to watch the clock on the wall as he lulled them into a trance. He decided to give it a shot.
The interrogating officer jotted words into a notebook. He looked up. “And do you know where this person is right now, Doctor?”
He stared at the young man. “What?”
The officer tapped his pen impatiently. “You just told me that you have an accomplice. I’m asking you if you know where that accomplice is right now.”
That’s not what I said, I said that Disha hypnotized me! Horrified, he heard himself say “That’s right, I have an accomplice. His name is Decker. I don’t know if that’s a first or last name. He never told me.”
“And this Mr. Decker is where, Doctor. Where is what I need to know. We’ll want to talk to him, maybe pull him in for some questions.”
“He’s dangerous. He’s at a house in town. I can give you the address, if you like. It’s in my files.” He let the officer help him up from his own chair and, powerless in his own body, found himself retrieving Kate Pendleton’s file from his cabinet.
Kate was with Disha. Kate was with me. Disha was with me. Kate wasn’t… goddamn it, Kate! This whole time it was…
“Mrs. Pendleton’s house. Here is her address. She’s another one of the patients that I’ve… that I took advantage of.”
Inside his own mind, he screamed.
Kate’s eyes were locked on the open bedroom door. James fell silent, and she knew that he was following her lead. The commotion downstairs continued, more quietly now, with muffled shouts and uneven footsteps. Someone had clearly gotten the better of someone else. It occurred to her that the winner of the battle downstairs was going to determine the rest of he entire life. Strangely enough, the expected sensation of fear and dread never came to her. Instead, she sat and watched to see what would happen next.
The sounds below moved to the stairs. Thud thud thud. As the sound got closer, she could make out two sets of feet, one heavier than the other. Her heart sank. It wouldn’t make sense for Claire to haul Decker upstairs, but on the other hand…
Claire appeared in the doorway. Her defeated expression said it all.
“Dammit,” James muttered. “Dammit.”
Their sandy-haired captor followed, gun in hand, triumphantly giving Claire a shove as he entered the room. She stumbled over her feet and fell to her knees.
“Ow, fucking hell, you dick!” She looked at Kate, then at James, and finally at Nikki. “I’m sorry, Kate. I tried to jump him downstairs, but I couldn’t.” Tears formed in her big blue eyes. “Now he’s gonna kill us all and it’s my fault. I should have gone home and gotten Steve’s gun, I should have taken—“
“All right, enough of that bullshit,” said Decker. “Nikki, give me one of those pillows.” He tossed it to the floor and pointed the gun at it. “Sit on that, blondie. This isn’t going to take long.” He waited for Claire to comply, then turned his attention to Kate. “Hypnotize her,” he said.
The three hostages all turned to him in unison. “What?”
“You heard me, Kate. I want her nice and compliant for when we all walk out of here. I’ve got enough trouble handling you and this schlub over here. Put her into a trance, right here, right now, or I turn her head into a canoe.”
“Am I a vampire, Trenchy? Do my hands look like they’re holding a crystal right now? You can’t just hypnotize someone at gunpoint like it’s a Hollywood—“
“I’ve watched you do it a dozen times, Kate. Do it again now, or else.”
“Kate… I don’t… please.” Claire’s voice was thin and broken. “I don’t want to die, but…”
Decker aimed the gun at Claire’s head.
“Okay, okay. Claire,” Kate said, trying to sound forceful and commanding. “Listen to the sound of my voice.”
The blonde shook her head. “K-kate, n-no. Please. No. Don’t. I don’t want to be hypnotized.”
“Shhhh. But you do want to be hypnotized, Claire. You’ve already been hypnotized before. You went so deep, so quickly, so very deep, just as now you’re starting to relax as you remember how good it felt to just slip into a deep, deep sleep. Your muscles are so relaxed, and your eyes are so, so heavy. So deep. So heavy.”
“What are you…”
“Heavy, sleepy. Listen to my voice. Letting yourself relax, again, just like every time you’ve fallen into a deep, deep sleep. Listening to my voice and feeling sleepy, eyes heavy, so tired, so deep. Deeper, Claire. Deeper.”
“Deep… er…”
“Down, down, deepening into a tired, relaxing sleep. So heavy, just drift away into sleep, listen to my voice and just drift away, into a deep sleep, relaxed, heavy, tired. So sleepy. Let your eyes close, and sleep. Eyes so heavy, falling closed, deep into sleep. Deep into trance. Relaxed and asleep now, eyes closed and asleep. Sleep.”
“Nnnn…”
Kate snapped her fingers as best she could. “Sleep.”
The blonde’s eyes slammed shut, and she toppled onto the floor.
“Good,” said Decker. “Now put her under my control.”
“Claire, you are deeply hypnotized. You will obey Tan Trench Coat without question.”
“Yes, Kate.”
He frowned, and she looked up at him. “She doesn’t know who you are, jackass. She knows what you are. Deal with it later.”
He shook his head. “Claire, listen and obey. I am Decker. DECKER, your new master. You will obey me without question.”
“Yes, Mister Decker. I understand.”
“Open your eyes and sit up straight.”
Claire slowly pushed herself up from the carpet, and calmly adjusted herself until she was fully seated on the pillow that Decker had tossed on the floor. She looked at him with placid, unconcerned eyes.
Decker produced a Swiss Army knife from one of his many coat pockets. “Claire, you can feel no pain in your arm. You will feel absolutely no pain in your arm. You will obey without question.”
“Yes.”
“Decker.” Kate leaned forward against her bindings. “That’s not how hypnosis works, you can’t… you’ll break her trance if you stab her like that.”
“Who said I’m going to stab her? Claire, you will push this knife into your own arm, slowly, feeling no pain, until I tell you to stop. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she replied.
He flipped open the largest blade and pressed the tip against her forearm, placing her limp hand over the handle. “Now, obey.”
“Yes.” She pushed on the knife, wincing as the tip broke through the skin. Blood began to seep from the wound, and she paused.
Decker’s lips curled into an angry frown. “Keep going. You feel no pain. Keep going.”
Claire began to press down again. With a sharp grunt, she twisted onto her side and savagely lashed out at Decker with the knife. She felt the blade strike something, and looked up in triumph, only to discover that she’d only managed to cut a small tear in Decker’s trench coat. He was standing above her, pistol once again pointed at her head.
“Nice fucking try, you two,” he said, a mixture of amusement and righteous anger. “Now do it for real, Kate. I’m not giving you a third chance. You, blondie, drop that knife and sit up.”
Claire looked at Kate, seemingly asking for permission to drop her weapon. Kate nodded, and the knife fell to the carpet. “Fuck, that hurt,” Claire said, rubbing her injured arm.
“You’re a fucking monster, Decker,” said James.
“Thank you for that ringing endorsement. Now, where were we? Oh right, the part where my highly-trained hypnotist puts her best friend into a mindless trance. For real this time.”
Kate sighed. She blinked away the tears at the corner of her eye. “Claire, three.”
“I’m so sorry, Kate. I tried.”
“I know. Two.”
“Please don’t make me into a slave like that girl.”
“I won’t, Claire, I promise. One.”
“I…”
“Sleep for me, Claire.”
Claire’s eyes slid closed as her world went black.
“You FUCKED HIM?” Claire’s shocked eyes opened as wide as they could. “Oh. My. GOD, Kate Thomas, you are the fucking BOMB! Tell me all about it, in disgusting detail!”
Kate finished her wine and smiled. “I’ll never kiss and tell, Claire.”
“Bullllllshit! You’re gonna sit right there and tell me exactly who stuck what in where, and how sexy it was, and how big his dick was, and you’re gonna like it. Because it sure sounds like you did the first time!”
“Okay, OKAY.” The auburn-haired girl rolled onto her side, her outstretched hand reaching for the wine bottle in vain. “Lil… uh… lil help… here… please?”
The blonde wobbled over to the end table and filled both of their large glasses to nearly the brim, somehow managing to avoid spilling any on her way back to her chair. “I need this, Kate. I need a happy story. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve gotten laid? Like, really mind-numbingly fucked? Come on, give me a good story so that I can go finger myself later tonight just thinking about it.”
“Ew! That is not… do I need more wine?”
Claire pointed to the table. “Right there in front of you.”
Kate grabbed the glass. “You coulda… he has the biggest crush on you, Claire. Like everyone has the biggest crush on you… Tim, Corvette guy… you’re fucking hot! James is hot. He is so fucking hung. Oh my God it… oh shit!” She giggled. “Am I drunk?”
“Are you gonna tell me all about the other night?”
“Mmmmm… sure.”
“Then you’re just drunk enough,” said Claire, laughing. “Now start from the beginning and tell me everything!”
“You can stop undressing now, Claire.”
Her hands fell to her sides. “Yes, Mister Decker.”
She faced the closet door, away from her friends, completely unaware of anything except the sound of Decker’s voice. She was wearing only her panties and a pair of socks. The rest of her clothes lay piled around her, forgotten. Fresh blood darkened the gauze wrapped around her left arm.
“Turn and face us, Claire,” said Decker.
She did so, and Kate instantly wished that she hadn’t. Her friend’s blank, hypnotized face was nothing new to her, but this time it seemed different. Hypnotized Claire was still Claire. Brainwashed slavegirl Claire was at least pretending to be Claire. The topless woman in front of her was something else entirely.
Claire was alive, but dead to the world. And Kate had been the one to pull the trigger.
“Yes, Mister Decker,” it said.
As Decker admired his newest robot, Kate winked at James. The latter began tugging at his bed sheets again, causing Nikki to swing her gun in his direction. As she did so, Kate took the opportunity to loosen her own bindings. Then James, acting suitably chastened, fell still, and the mindless sentry resumed her surveillance. They’d been doing this for a while—Nikki, trapped by her specific programming, couldn’t understand what they were up to—and Kate’s bindings were now loose enough to slip away. There was still the issue of the zip ties around her wrists, and the guns held by her two enemies, and the hypnotized girl she’d just handed to her opponent. Even so, being looser in the restraints gave her hope, and circulation, and she waited for an opportunity. I’m not going to leave here without a fight, Trenchy.
She glared at him, expecting a taunt or boast in return, but the sandy-haired man was whispering new instructions into Claire’s ear. The blonde moaned happily and narrowed her eyes into a sultry stare.
James saw it, too. “If you lay a hand on her, Decker, I swear to God.”
Decker pulled away from Claire, leaving her swaying from side to side with a dreamy, horny look on her face. “Oh Pendleton,” he said, “what do I always say? Have you been paying attention? What do I always say? I don’t do anything myself. I have others do things for me.” He clapped his hands together, twice, and watched with satisfaction as Claire began to cross the bedroom.
Kate thought about kicking her, or tripping her, something to snap her out of her trance, but the blonde had gone under deep and the act of kicking itself risked setting off the hair trigger that was Nikki. She watched Claire raise her hands to her breasts, arms crossed, and suddenly realized just what it was that Decker had whispered into her ear. “You sick fuck,” she said. “You sick motherfucker!”
The beautiful robot that was once Claire Jenkins stood before James, swaying her hips suggestively and lightly massaging her tits. “Mmmmm… I’ve seen the way you look at me, James. When your wife isn’t looking. When I wore that bikini last summer. When I wore that cocktail dress to the Christmas party. You want my body, don’t you? The way I’ve always wanted yours? Take me now, right here, right now.” She bent over him, letting her breasts press against his chest as he tried to twist away. “Feels good, doesn’t it? My big tits on your body, waiting for you to hold them. I want you inside me, James. It’ll feel so good.” She leaned further into him. “She can watch us fuck, if you want. It makes me horny just thinking about it.”
“No. Hey! Claire, you can fight this,” said James. He bobbed his head from side to side, trying to keep his face away from hers. He pulled against his restraints, but the focus had been on helping Kate to loosen her bed sheet, not his. He squirmed uselessly as his hypnotized friend hovered over him.
Claire reached out and caught his head between her hands, holding it still while she delivered a passionate kiss. She shuddered and moaned as her eyes briefly rolled into her head. “Mmmmm, yessss… oh yessss….”
Decker could barely contain his glee. He turned to the other hypnotized woman in the room. “Nikki, do you still have a supply of X-33?”
At once, she snapped out of her blank state, and addressed him. “Yes, sir. I have a supply of X-33 at home. It is stored in a place I will remember only when I am in trance. I was not instructed to bring any with me when I was summoned.”
“That’s fine. We don’t need to have it here right now. As long as there’s enough to put James into a nice, suggestible state of mind. How many vials do you have?”
“Two full ones, sir. And one that is nearly empty.”
“Good enough. I know it made you sick last time, James, but sometimes the drug does that. It’s not genetic or anything, as far as I know. Just my bad luck and your good luck that it didn’t stay in your stomach. Or maybe it’s the other way around. After all, if you’d have let Nikki put you under at the hotel, none of us would be in this unpleasant situation, would we?”
“Mmmph, you…” James turned his head from side to side again, trying to free his mouth from Claire’s. “Claire get off.. mmmph. Off! You’re not going… mmmmnnno Claire no.”
The blonde giggled and pressed against him. “I’m so hot for you right now, James,” she cooed.
“Let’s see how long you last against repeated drugging and a few rounds against the brainwashing equipment, James. Our little Kate here didn’t last long at all, and she’s… well, how do I say this? She’s tougher than you, buddy. I gave you the chance to walk out of here willingly, and now you’re going to do it unwillingly. By the time I’m done with you, you’ll barely remember being married.”
He ran his hand across the side of Kate’s face, drawing it back quickly as she attempted to bite him. “Easy there, tiger. How’s this for irony, Kate? Your husband and your best friend, fucking like bunnies, totally brainwashed and completely under my control. Tapes? Photos? They’ll happily explain those away to the police if need be. Your own husband, betraying you, just like you betrayed him. What a fitting end for you, Kate.”
She glared at him through tears and rage. She opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.
“Oh, no smart mouth now? I’m surprised, Kate. You always have so much to say! I have to hand it to you, I really do. If you’d just come to my office yesterday and shot me dead, you probably would have gotten away with it. I’d have never seen it coming. But you had to be clever, didn’t you?” He paused, letting Claire’s giggles and moans fill the empty space between words. “Claire,” he said loudly. “Listen and obey.”
The blonde stopped kissing James and pulled away from him. Her eyes focused on the wall. “Yes, Mister Decker.”
“Nikki is going to take James downstairs. You’re going to follow them, because you’re madly in love with James. You’ll do whatever Nikki tells you to do, because that will allow you to stay with him. When you get to Nikki’s house, you’ll be able to have sex with him for as long as you want. Doesn’t that sound good?”
Her blue eyes returned to James, and she gazed at him as if he were the most precious thing in the world. “Yes, Mister Decker. That sounds good.”
“Good. Now get dressed. I don’t want you attracting any attention. Nikki, you will take James and Claire to your home. Kate and I will follow shortly. You will kill anyone who tries to interfere.”
“Yes, Mister Decker.”
“Yes, sir.”
James fumed while Decker undid the knots binding him to the bedpost. “You realize that as soon as I’m untied from this bed, I’m going to kill you, right?”
Decker stepped back. “I know that you think that’s what you’ll do.” He curled his hand into a fist and delivered a punch straight to the stomach, causing James to groan and pitch forward in pain. Decker undid the last of the knots, and James toppled onto the floor, still moaning.
“James!” yelled Kate.
“Oh James, baby!” yelled Claire. The blonde rushed to his side and embraced him. She cradled his head against her chest and stroked his hair, kissing his forehead.
Decker pulled her up, chuckling as he did so. “Young love,” he said, grinning at Kate. “Claire? Nikki? Help our injured friend out to the car.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, Mister Decker.”
The two blondes helped James to his feet, Nikki taking care to keep her gun hand free. She let James lean on Claire for support, a role the other woman eagerly relished. The three of them filed out of the bedroom one-by-one, and vanished into the hallway.
“Those crazy kids,” said Decker, still laughing to himself. “They’re going to be okay, I just know it. You might say I have a good feeling about it. How about you, Kate?”
“I have a good feeling,” she said through clenched teeth, “that the rest of your life is going to be brutal and short.”
He sat down on the bed. “Now there’s the Kate that I know and love.”