Chapter 8

“Make a hole with a gun perpendicular
to the name of this town in a desktop globe.
Exit wound in a foreign nation,
showing the home of the one
this was written for.”
-They Might Be Giants, “Ana Ng[“

The other tourists who’d witnessed the attack were still being held for questioning inside Castle Finzione when Lady Maria returned and the castle went into lock-down. La Policia seized their phones and electronic devices to examine the footage as evidence; however, it was several minutes before anyone thought to shut off the castle’s complimentary Wi-Fi, and that was time enough for a few of them to upload their photos and video to social media before they were rounded up.

Within an hour, the international news outlets were broadcasting the footage. The American media outlets decided that although San Finzione was in Europe, because Contessa Helena de San Finzione was born an American citizen and was also a wealthy, young, beautiful, Caucasian female, they would go ahead and cover the story just this once.

“Critical Intra-Abdominal Trauma” was all that the media had been able to get on her current condition. The videos of the assassin’s attack played on the screen as medical experts in suits pontificated about what could be seen on the video.

“She’ll definitely have intestinal trauma. Probable liver damage, she may require a transplant,” said one of the talking heads as the video showed La Contessa walking into the ballroom with Generalissimo Ramirez and being caught off guard by the tourists. “Kidney injury is entirely possible,” he continued as the video from the tourist’s phone suddenly jerked away from the image of La Contessa toward a woman in a French Maid’s outfit dealing with a small electrical appliance that had shorted out. When the phone panned back to her, the assassin was charging.

Contessa Helena de San Finzione looked wide-eyed at the man, then stood fast and shouted for him not to move. The man kept coming and slipped the blade into her right side. He stuck her twice more as his momentum caused her to fall over and him to land atop her. Gasps and screams were heard, but no one on the edge of the action seemed to be moving at all as the assassin struck her right breast.

“Now, I can’t see how long that blade is from this angle,” the expert continued. “But depending on the length, it may have passed through her breast tissue and between the ribs to puncture the lung.” The assassin’s back was to the camera, and he was cutting her neck when four gunshots rang out through the Grand Ballroom and the man flailed and rolled off La Contessa. One of the two Ultimados knelt by her side and started ripping away the clothing around her injuries, and then the people were moving again. The tourist who was holding the phone tried to step closer and twist around the Ultimado tending to her. The image of a beautiful blonde soldier with a smoking gun and a furious look on her face filled the camera for a second, a Spanish obscenity was hissed, there was a yelp of pain, and then the phone tumbled to the ground.

“A punctured lung?” Julie Equals asked no one in particular as she sat on a plush sofa in front of a 120-inch television, her hand on her own breast in roughly the spot where Helen was stabbed. “They know she smokes, right?”

“Everybody knows that, hon.” Susan Bailey said as she placed a tray containing a drink on top of a coaster in front of Julie.

With a deftness forged by long years’ experience waiting tables, Susan had positioned herself so that the action of placing the tray had put her between Julie’s reach and the remote. She was then able to combine snatching the control, straightening up, and backing away; taking herself and the remote out of Julie’s reach, into one fluid motion.

“And we’re doing everything that we can, which is ‘get to her, ‘“ Susan continued. “So, no more listening to dicks in suits make morbid guesses about shit we don’t know. If anything really important happens, Maria or the Ultimados will let us know.”

She found the off button while a famous psychiatrist was over-explaining The Bystander Effect to the show’s host.

“Now, come with me, Mrs. Equals. I need a word with you and your husband.”

The Contessa Class suites on Air Finzione’s upcoming featured SST routes consisted of four rooms: The Gathering Room that they were leaving held the suite’s full bar and enormous entertainment center. A lavish bedroom, private lavatory with full bath, and office with secure telephony for the world leader, CEO; or, like La Contessa, both; with business to conduct in flight comprised the other three.

Susan took Julie’s hand and led her into the Office; where her husband, Troy Equals, was on his iPad and phone at the same time. He sat at a large, expensive-looking desk in front of a giant official portrait of Helen and alternated between speaking Greek and English while he dealt with calls and messages from relatives in Greece and friends from the old days who knew how close he and Julie were to Helen.

Susan stepped up to him and snatched the phone away, telling whoever was on the other end that he’d call back later and hanging up. Troy leaned away from her and gave a quizzical look as she tapped on his iPad.

“Troilus,” she said to him, using the real, Greek name that was on his identification instead of Troy. “You have already talked to Julie’s parents, your cousins in Greece, Denise, and all our friends who know Helen. Everyone else is secondary. Post to Facebook and let them read it there, then fucking unplug and help me take your distraught best friend’s mind off all this.”

Troy nodded his head down once, closing his eyes and turning his head slightly to the left as he did so. He then remembered that Susan wasn’t Greek and nodded affirmatively the way the rest of the world did so.

Susan sat up on the desk and shoved the iPad to him, leaning to show off the cleavage of the clubbing dress she was still wearing from the night before.

All of them had been in bed when they got the news, and so the clothes they’d worn the day before were the closest at hand when they hurriedly dressed. Slightly panicked at the beginning, Troy & Julie had barely thought to throw a few things into overnight bags before departing. A habit born of Susan’s troubled past, however, caused her to always keep a prepared bag where she could grab it on her way out the door. Apart from better shoes, she hadn’t bothered to change, and Susan’s look now could have been uncharitably described as “walk of shame” if not for the unmistakable glow of pride on her face.

“That ‘good and thorough fucking’ that your Mistress expected her Master to give her is now medically needed.” She leaned in closer to Troy, whose attention was now divided between trying to post the update and Susan’s generous cleavage.

“And I’ve been missing her too, Troy. Even after the night I’d had earlier with the rest of the girls; her being back home with us and the ideas that both of us, and probably you, too; have been having about Colleen? Mmm ... I could definitely go again.”

Julie casually leaned against a wall by her elbow and watched as Susan slid up onto her knees on the desk, then maneuvered her legs to slide back off of it, straddling his chair. Color started to return to Julie’s face, and the seeds of a smile sprouted when Troy just hit send on whatever he’d typed without bothering to look at it and tossed the device aside. She loved watching this woman fuck her husband.

Julie loved women, and she loved sex with her best friend. And she loved watching her best friend give samples of the deep, intense fulfillment she received from him to other women. It always inspired her to either jump in, grab hold of the nearest convenient female body; her own if not someone else, as her hands were unconsciously starting to do now; or reach for one of the sex toys that she’d named after her husband.

If the weekend had gone as she’d planned, she and Troy would have spent Saturday in bed, trading stories about the hot chicks that both of them had Done What They Do to and fucked in each other’s absence. They sometimes turned it into a mind control sex game where they’d take turns going down on each other while the other told their story, and the one who had the best story would make the loser their mindless sex slave for the rest of the day; helpless to find the winner’s every suggestion anything less than the most arousing idea ever and begging to carry it out.

Julie usually played to lose. And she loved losing even more when at least one of the other women in Troy’s story was Susan.

She loved Susan too. Troy and Susan had a special connection of their own, and watching how the two of them shared it aroused her on a level that was just as special.

“The other girls send their love,” Susan stage-whispered into Troy’s ear so Julie could hear it too, taking hold of the back of his head and pressing his face down between her breasts. “Can you still smell it on me, Troy?”

He looked up from kissing her cleavage.

“Not yet,” Troy said, wrapping his arms around Susan’s waist and looking over to Julie. “Perhaps if I had some help from the audience, Mistress?”

The smile that had been growing on Julie’s face blossomed into a wicked grin as she walked over to the two of them. She tried to slide in behind Susan, but there was no more room on Troy’s lap, so Julie sat on the edge of the desk. Troy figured out what she was going for and wheeled the swivel-backed chair closer so Julie could wrap her arms around Susan’s waist and lean forward to begin kissing Susan’s neck from behind.

“I’ve got a better idea, Master,” Julie responded. “Since I went straight to bed from an eight-hour drive myself, why don’t the three of us see if we CAN fit in that bathtub that looks like it might big enough and get cleaned up, then Susan can show us what she’s learned with Colleen? And anything that happens in the bath in the meantime ... well, happens.”

“Helen picked it out,” Troy said as one of his hands moved from Susan’s ass to Julie’s knee. “We’ll all fit.”