Chapter 22. Awkward Meetings

On the last leg of the trip, Audrey began to loosen up. That meant two things: she filled us in on her servitude to Master and she showed a surprised but willing Cassie some of her porn star fellatio technique. I caught Nicky licking her lips as she spied on their tutorial.

As she climaxed, Audrey rolled down her window before Cassie squired nearly a quart of juice out onto U.S. 395. To celebrate the occasion, I received the first, I hoped, of many blowjobs from darling Nicky. Unlike Cassie, Nicky was able to contain my discharge.

I leaned on the horn with my victory roar.

“Goddam! Am I right, Cassie?” I shouted.

“Double Goddam. This girl’s got skills!” she shouted from the backseat. Audrey raised her head from between Cassie’s legs to show that she’d cleaned much of it up with her face.

“Jesus Christ! I’ve missed this!” she grinned a sticky, dripping grin. “Now, girl, get that tongue over here and clean me up...”

But that honest moment was the high point of the day. Over the next few hours, a series of uncomfortable introductions took place.

Audrey met Stacy, Nicky finally had some time along to talk to Sara, Cassie saw all of her former dance mates for the first time in years and the lot of them met Brooke/Todd.

Remarkably, Audrey and Todd hit it off right away, and shared his/her bed that night.

But the most uncomfortable meetings kept until the next morning.

The dance troupe had already gotten acquainted with the new, improved Susan Castle (and Alice Miller) the day I made my road trip. But I nearly had to push Nicky and Cassie out the door to take them to meet with Castile the next morning. Alice did not yet know about Audrey’s return, but I insistent on her coming along. Audrey agreed, but only if Todd went with her.

As I pulled into the undersized parking lot outside of Castle Dance, Audrey murmured, “I know this place.”

“I’m not surprised,” I said. “You and Todd take a tour of the grounds while I drag these into for their moment of truth.”

We stepped into the studio to hear someone banging out a ragtime tune on the studio’s old piano, and it of course turned out to be Alice, looking very, very good. Her hair was newly styled, her makeup was deliciously old school and her toned body was draped in one of her favorite dresses; clothes did not make the woman, clearly.

“Damn! You go girl!” Nicky squealed when she saw the rejuvenated Alice.

“Hello, children,” she said, almost sounding like her old self. “Here to see Susan?”

“And you,” I said, admittedly admiring my work. “But we brought an old friend. Alice, do you remember Audrey Bellamy?”

“I do. That was so sad,” she said, only then stopping her rendition and turning to face us. “Dear, you look so much like her. Are you her daughter?”

Audrey could not help but me amused. No Alice, it’s me.

“What?” Alice briefly looked like her old, befuddled self as she looked helplessly in my direction. I simply nodded, and she began nodding as well. “Oh, my God ... Susan, SUSAN!”

Her scream could probably be heard across the street. Susan, in her office, nearly knocked over her chair in her dash outside.

“Jesus, Alice,” she said when she saw her accompanist. “I’d thought you’d fallen and couldn’t get up.”

“Susan,” she repeated, as if seeing a ghost. “Seems we aren’t the only ones who are getting a new lease on life. Uh, you are alive, aren’t you?”

“Yep,” said Audrey, stepping forward. “But I really don’t remember being Audrey. But this studio seems so familiar.”

Susan,. Who barely knew knew the girl originally, smiled and shook her head. But Alice still looked as if she’d aged 10 years with her look of shock. She felt for a chair, then sat down heavily, never taking her eyes off a puzzled Audrey.

“It was as if the last 20 years hadn’t happened,” Alice said as Susan moved behind her with her hands on her shoulders. “If Lawrence hadn’t cured my heart, I’m sure I would have had a fatal attack.”

“I’m having one anyway,” said Susan.

“We thought – everyone thought – you were dead,” Alice explained.

“I kind of was,” said Audrey glancing my way. “I became someone else. Audrey, if that’s my name, didn’t come back until right at six months ago.”

“What were you doing all that time?” Alice asked.

“I was making money for my Master,” Audrey said with a shrug. “He’s dead now, I guess. He left me all alone out there.”

“Audrey, you’re not alone any more,” I said.

“When am I going back?” she shockingly replied.

“What? No, you’re not. You’re free of that,” I said, wondering how deep her programming actually went. “You can live your life normally from now on.”

“My ‘normal’ for the last six months has been stealing food, and eating out of dumpsters and garbage cans when I couldn’t find any,” she said with a shrug. “I was breaking in houses just to bathe, sleeping in garbage. If that’s normal, no thanks.”

“There’s nothing normal about that,” Alice snapped out of it finally. “Lawrence, tell her.”

“It may take some time,” I picked up the thought. “But you’ll wind up being happy you’re free. You were stolen from your home and enslaved.”

“No, I wasn’t,” Audrey shook her head. “I left on my own because I felt I had a place to be. “For almost 25 years, I did.”

“She’s been two famous adult actresses, maybe three,” I tried to explain what Chuck had learned. “She was changed totally, mentally and physically. She became different people.”

“So they never existed?” asked Nicky, who’d been hanging on every word.

“History shows that Corinne Russell and Nicky Dial both disappeared from their ‘scene’ without a trace,” I said. “Except for special occasions, awards, stuff like that. Whoever he was, he was a master manipulator.”

“‘Master, ‘“ Audrey said, as if suddenly programmed. “Give me instructions.”

“Oh, shit. Did you accidentally say a trigger word?” Todd asked.

“I must have,” I said. “But I can make the most of this.”

“Audrey, listen to me, and only me,” I said. She turned and faced me. “I am going to count down from 10. When I get to zero, you will no longer be obligated or enslaved to any man or woman. You will make your own decisions, learn to be happy and comfortable being Audrey.”

I paused, sure she was taking all this in.

“You will retain all of your sexual knowledge accumulated during your time in that world,” I said after a deep breath. “You know Lawrence Childers has the ability to program you to do anything, but he does not control you.”

“You need to get her out of here before she begins to remember some very bad things,” Susan said. “Know what I’m talking about, Alice?”

“I’d managed to forget that, too,” Alice said. “Lawrence, this little girl was abused and abducted from this studio. You need to get her the hell out of here.”

“Audrey, when I get through counting, you will wake up and all you want to do is have sex with Todd/Brooke,” I said. “You down with that, Todd?”

“Let’s go,” Todd said.

I began the countdown and just like I’d hoped, Audrey only had eyes for Todd when she awoke. Todd took her by the hand and led her outside.

“Please explain,” I said as calmly as I could.

“His name was Marco Soren,” Alice said. “He’d been stalking me since my vaudeville days and moved here as soon as he’d learned I’d relocated. He never crossed the line, never trespassed or broke in or anything you could pin on him, and the police had much less concern about stalkers then than they do now.”