Haiku: Part 5
* * *Jennifer kicked her heels off and threw her briefcase onto the kitchen table and her jacket over a chair and went to the cabinet and got herself a glass and then the other cabinet and took out a bottle and poured herself a glass of red wine and took a long sip, her features changing from severe to soft as she swallowed.
Her hair was blonde with darker streaks and done up with many hidden hairpins, which she pulled out one by one and placed on the counter between sips. Her eyes (green) kept going to the briefcase. It was full of legal documents, all with the company letterhead of HERON at the top.
She picked it up and dropped it into the front closet so she wouldn’t have to look at it.
Her feet hurt. Her calves hurt. Her business skirt felt too tight. She needed a long hot bath. She looked at the glass of dark wine then down at her $300 white dress shirt, was thirsty, then imagined spilling even a drop on it, and turned towards the stairs to go up and change.
As her foot touched the first step there was a sound at the door.
It was a little sound. Not a knock, not someone trying to open it. A scratching.
She opened it.
Two small pink paws were pressed against the bottom of the storm door. A little white cat looked up at her from between them. It was thin and sleek and pretty and looked to be either an adolescent or a small female.
“Mew,” it said.
“The food’s out back.” She pointed over her shoulder with her thumb. She had two cats of her own, two large black males who were mostly outside cats in the summer months, and there was always a bowl of food on the back steps for them which other cats, and occasionally raccoons and opossums, frequented. Local wildlife at the door was no strange thing. It usually came to the back door, though.
“Mew,” the cat said.
“Ok.” She opened the door, picked it up, carried it down the hall and through the kitchen to the back door, and dropped it on the steps in front of the food bowl. “There.”
It looked at the food then up at her.
“Mew,” it said.
“That’s all we got. Sorry.” She shut the screen door and went back into the house.
She was almost to the stairs again when several rattling thumps came from the screen door. The cat had climbed halfway up it and was looking in. It was a trick her own cats used. The screen was riddled with holes from them doing exactly that.
“Mew,“ it said.
“Shoo!” She ran back and banged on the door. The cat dropped down and looked up at her again.
“Mew,” it said.
“Who do you belong to? The Rushes? They got another cat for one of their daughters that they ignore?” They ignored the cats, not the daughters.
“Mew.”
“You can’t come in. Sorry.”
It lifted one paw, claws out, and put it on the screen.
“Don’t you dare.”
The cat flexed its paw and caused a number of small holes in the screen.
“Git!“ Jennifer threw the door open and swung her hand down to swat it away, but it dodged under her, a little white streak of furry lightning, between her legs and into the house.
“Oh, you are kidding me.”
She chased it into the living room. It jumped up onto the couch, curled up, and closed its eyes. Just like that. Ignoring the angry human three feet away.
Jennifer looked at it. It wrapped its tail around itself and purred.
She sighed.
“If you shit in my house, you’re dead.”
It purred louder, let out a sigh of its own, and went to sleep.
She brought the wine and the glass upstairs and set them by the bathtub and turned the water on and put some bubbles in and left the room. When she came back in she was wearing a pink bathrobe and carrying a Danielle Steel novel.
The robe fell to the floor.
Her body would have been considered very attractive fifty years ago. It was full; not fat but full. She was a woman. The shape of her resembled the silver screen stars of old: she was the shape of Marilyn Monroe, of Rita Hayworth. Her stomach, although it was mostly flat, was soft. Her bush was a neatly trimmed yellow square, which seemed decidedly un Rita Hayworthlike, but only dead men know that for sure.
The tub was a large one, oversized, bubbles covering the water and a gentle lavender scent rising from it. She stepped in and eased into the hot water, feeling the bubbles tickle her legs as she slid through them, then lay back and closed her eyes.
The book went unread, as it often did. The day began to run through her head instead. It came as disjointed images that she sifted through, rearranging them, discarding some and rolling others over and over in her mind’s hand.
After a while she heard the front door open and heavy footsteps: her husband, Stephen. She counted the seconds until he finally took his shoes off, her jaw tensing, and then he did and the clomping stopped and she relaxed again.
A few minutes of blessed silence passed before the bathroom door was nudged open.
She looked up, expecting Stephen, but it was the cat. It walked over to the tub and curled up on the bath mat just as easily as it had on the couch.
“Don’t make me get up”, she mumbled.
She closed her eyes and tried to get back to her thoughts, listening to the bubbles pop, a low background hissing, willing the interruptions to go away for just twenty minutes.
There was a sound at the edge of the tub.
“God damnit.” She made a halfhearted swatting motion and touched something that was not a cat. It was smooth and warm, like skin. Human skin.
She opened her eyes in time to see a brown streak above her and then she was shoved under the water.
The view from above was this:
Haiku, crouched over, her brown legs clamped over the woman’s stomach, two graceful curves that hugged the paler body beneath her. But between those curves was a deadly grip.
She held Jennifer under the soapy water with what looked like offhand ease. She held her by the upper arms, by the biceps, putting all of her weight forward to keep her pinned down.
Jennifer was thrashing, flailing, struggling for her life—but under Haiku’s expert hands, her struggles had all the effectiveness of a kitten.
Her legs slapped against Haiku’s back and ass, churning the water. They kicked out, hitting the wall, the faucet, the end of the tub, knocking shampoo bottles everywhere. She bucked, her entire body arching, her hips rising out of the water.
Her hands grappled and clawed at Haiku’s wrists. Uselessly. And she was screaming into the water, which was not just useless but was wasting the little air she had and creating a sound so faint, it couldn’t even be heard over the splashing. Her green eyes wide with horror as she fought.
Her head began to toss back and forth, as if to try and get air from somewhere on the side of the tub.
Haiku watched, calmly, as the woman’s struggles became more frantic. As the bubbles stopped rising from her lips.
Then, at the last possible moment, she lifted the woman out of the water.
Jennifer sucked in a great, heaving lungful of air, her chest and breasts rising, her back arching with the force of it—
—at the same time, Haiku snaked her head forward, kissing her and breathing into her mouth.
Then she dunked the woman back under the water.
This time Jennifer didn’t waste her air by screaming. She held her breath, keeping the sweet air trapped within her lungs (and it did taste sweet, although in her panic, she didn’t process that fact consciously). Her eyes wide, confused, terrified.
And then she began to blink, as if trying to clear her vision.
She did it over and over as if there were something in her eyes. And each time her eyes opened her expression was calmer than it had been before.
Her struggles became less coordinated. Aimless. One of her feet slid down the edge of the tub. She stopped bucking and flailing.
Her muscles, knotted and tense in the melee, softened.
Bubbles began to leave her lips as her jaw went slack.
Haiku lifted the limp, slippery woman out of the water and propped her up against the back of the tub. Jennifer’s expression was that of a person watching television. Her hair hung in strings all over her head.
“Look into my eyes,” Haiku said.
Jennifer didn’t react. Her eyes were fixed on one of Haiku’s round, brown shoulders. Haiku took her by the chin, tilting her head up. A little dribble of bathwater ran down her chin from her lips.
“You will look.”
She looked.
They remained like that for some time, Haiku holding the woman up her her hands, keeping her slack body from sliding back into the water. Then she spoke:
“You will do whatever I tell you, without thinking, without hesitating. Say it.”
“I will do whatever you tell me, without thinking, without hesitating.”
“Good. Dry yourself off and get dressed. Wear whatever you would normally wear at this time of the evening.”
Jennifer stood, the soapy water cascading down her body in sheets.
Apparently what Jennifer would normally wear at that time of the evening was pink sweatpants and a pink pajama top. She walked into Ashe’s living room without knocking or closing the door behind her then just stood there, staring into the air, her hands at her sides. Two pink barrettes held her hair back cutely. She looked like Alice in Wonderland might if she were in her late 30’s.
Haiku hadn’t come in with her. Ashe poked her head into the hall, then closed the door and went to the woman.
Her eyes were still. Empty. Placid. Emerald green.
“Can you hear me?”
Jennifer gave no indication that she could.
Is that what I looked like when I was first... tamed? She could hardly remember; those first few times were all flashes and blurs. Haiku had forced her way into her mind and it was like she hadn’t existed until she woke up from it.
She waved a hand in front of the woman’s face. On a whim, she touched the woman’s arm. Nothing.
She’s like a doll.
“Kind of, yes.” Haiku walked around the corner from the bedroom. She’d come in through the window.
“Can she hear us?”
“Yes. But her mind isn’t doing anything with the sounds.” She walked over and stood face to face with the woman, positioning herself directly in front of the pretty, vacant eyes.
“Oh. So are you going to...” She cleared you throat. “You know. Make her your pet now?” And she tried not to be jealous but it happened, and though she managed to keep her voice casual she was pretty sure Haiku sensed it anyway.
“No.” A faint smile was on her face for a moment, then it was gone. “She is just a thrall. She feels nothing but what I tell her to feel and knows nothing but what I tell her to know, and afterwards she will go home and forget.” She locked eyes with the woman. “You will answer any question she asks you,” she said, and pointed to Ashe.
The vacant eyes swung and locked onto her.
It was eerie. The woman was staring right at her, and yet... not there. Ashe took a breath.
“Ok. This should be easy. She has to know something, even if she doesn’t know she knows it.”
She didn’t know anything.
Ashe asked her everything about the top levels of the company, about her cases, about things she had heard, anything involving buying, selling or trafficking in animals. Nothing.
“Which one is this?” Haiku asked. Impatiently.
“The lawyer. I thought she would be the best bet. She’s the chief legal officer; everything has to go through her at some point. But I guess... I don’t know, I’m really shooting in the dark here. I’m not a very good detective.” She could feel Haiku’s impatience; it made her chest hum. “Maybe we should have tried someone in accounting first. You said the jet said HERON on the side, right? That makes it a company jet. That costs money, so someone in accounting has to know—”
“So we’re back to going through the entire company one person at a time.”
“Maybe not the entire company, but, you know, just the executives? Just people with a lot of pull? We might stumble on someone who heard something, anything about a private zoo, because this guy must have visitors and anyone who’s been to his home should know—”
“Richard Keane has a private zoo,” Jennifer mumbled.
Ashe and Haiku stared at her. Then Haiku stared at Ashe.
“You didn’t think to ask her that?”
“I did! I mean, I asked her about everything involving animals, you heard me, I—”
“It’s all right.” She smiled. “But for future reference, you have to be very careful with your words when you question a thrall.”
Future reference. Heh.
Then Ashe paused.
She wouldn’t ever need to know that for future reference. As soon as Haiku found her sister, she’d be leaving.
The thought filled her insides with an inexplicable longing. She tried to quell it but couldn’t, it grew, and she looked at Haiku guiltily, waiting for her to sense it and reprimand her, but Haiku wasn’t paying attention. She was staring at Jennifer again, staring as if to burn holes in her, and then she seized the woman-sized doll by the shoulders and spoke:
“Where does he live.”