Chapter 14

January 21^st, 2007, Saturday

Dommi

“So, were you planning on pulling me away for the night, or did Kendry make a deal with you?”

Sebastien smiled, and Dommi understood once again just how strong his personal charisma could be.
“Planned. Honey, Kendry couldn’t have offered me anything, including the throne of Dallas, to stop me from trying to drag you off for mad kinky adventures.”

“And if I’d said ‘no’?”
“I would have been disappointed ... and had to make do with the two other guys and the three women awaiting us in my chambers.”

“Glad I didn’t say ‘no’, then,” Dommi said. “Besides, Kendry’s never had a night of just her and Eddie before. She’ll be getting them on business trips from now on, but even so, it won’t be the same as tonight will be.”

Kendry

He was asleep.

She’d gone in to the bathroom to freshen up, change into her teddy, hadn’t taken more than fifteen minutes, and when she’d come out...

Eddie was lying on the bed, snoring.

“It would make Tamara upset if I killed him,” Kendry murmured. “That’s the only reason he’ll live...”

Sighing, she threw the sheet over him.

Logically, she understood. Their days had started very early, and they’d each been busy. Follow that up with the night at the Fleur de Lis, the conference with Mistress Vincente ... but emotionally she was not so understanding.

Kendry saw the note on the bedside table.

“I’ve told the hotel we’ll be staying an extra night. We won’t be, but now we don’t have to worry about check-out times. Get some rest. I’ve got the hotel cleaning what I wore tonight. We’ll leave Dallas late, and go directly to Dominique’s from the airport. Otherwise, my time tomorrow is yours.”

“Okay, maybe I don’t want to kill him...”

She pulled off the teddy, threw on some comfy panties and a long t-shirt, tucked her Glock under her pillow, and crawled into bed.

Kendry was asleep within minutes.

Nicki

She had forgotten how energetic young people could be. Kelly and Carol could be tiring when they really got going ... okay, to be fair, Kelly could be much more than a handful all on her own.

But between Jason, Donna, Abby, Lizzy, and Yan, Nicki had cried for mercy. She received it, and crawled up out of the pit to lie panting on the upmost level.

“Looks like wicked Auntie Nicki needs a break,” Donna said.

“More ... more than a break...” Nicki panted. “Stick a fork in me ... I’m done.”

She visibly cringed when Yan held up a vibrating double dildo.

“Looks like a fork to me, Evil Auntie.”

Donna crawled between them.

“No, Yan ... leave her be. You’ve been where she is ... and if we push her further, she might not come play with us again.”

“Nah ... I probably would ... this was fun. But ... yeah, leave me be.”

Sheila stood up from a pile of subbies.

“Shall I drag you out of here, Mistress?”

“No ... well, I’m hoping I can stagger out with some help.”

Her legs were jelly, and before she could say anything, Sheila was beside her, half-supporting her.

“C’mon, Mistress. Let’s get you to a shower, then bed.”

“Fuck the shower.”

Nicki and Sheila left the master suite to good-natured laughter from the kids.

“I tried to warn you,” Sheila said as they lurched down the corridor.

“You did ... and I listened, and believed you, but it was a purely intellectual belief.”

“I gather you really believe me now?”

“Oh, yeeeeeah ... fuck, Sheila. I’m old. Hell, I’m decrepit.”

“You’ll feel better in the morning, Mistress. You’ll only feel ‘somewhat mature’ after you get some sleep.”

“Have I told you lately what a comedienne you are?”

“Why, no, you haven’t, Mistress.”

“Good.”

They reached their cabin, and Sheila helped Nicki to the bed where she slumped to one side.

“Woof, Mistress ... you sure you don’t want a shower?”

“Pretty sure...”

“You told me to always be truthful with you, Mistress. You smell like a whore at the end of ‘Dollar Night’.”

“A bath then...”

“That’ll take longer than a shower...”

“Yeah, but I can sleep while you bathe me.”

“All right, you zombify right where you are, I’ll go start the tub.”

Li Kuan

“I don’t like this,” she murmured, slowly making her way through the trees and the dark Colorado night.

Puppy was, of course, silent.

“I’m a city mouse ... no, a city rat, Puppy. This ... the trees, the sounds, the dark ... this is unnatural.”

She looked back to see Puppy smirking.

“Well, are you comfortable here? Are you a country rat?”

Puppy shook her head.

“Then quit smirking or your clitoris will grow old and shriveled before I touch you again,” Li Kuan growled.

Puppy tried to repress her smirk, but didn’t try all that hard.

“Which way is north again?”

Puppy looked at the compass she wore on her wrist, and pointed north.

“Damned unnatural I tell you.”

Li Kuan was well aware of her own shortcomings. She might not admit them to anyone else, but she wouldn’t, couldn’t, lie to herself.

She was out of her depth and would probably need help getting to Thurmond and Lesley Nelson, if they were indeed holed up at Cascade View Resort.

Li Kuan was unsure how much help Thad Newton could provide. Her impression was he, and his resources, other than financial, were stretched in far too many directions as it was. She knew people in San Francisco, contacts of Madam ... but they weren’t the type to provide armed strike teams of trained professionals. The Grimes, House Chorale? She was sure they’d be willing to try putting together such a group...

She crouched down, and looked to Puppy.
“What about the group that rescued Master Janak and his people? I doubt they’re allowed to work in the States, but enough money should deal with that problem ... and Master Newton has plenty of money.”

Puppy nodded, and signed to Li Kuan, “Good plan. Can we leave now?”

Li Kuan looked to what she hoped was the north. Somewhere out there was the Cascade View and, hopefully, Thurmond and Lesley Nelson.

“Yes, let us get back to a world where cell phones have a signal.”

Shaun

“What?”

“You heard me,” County Sheriff Sheriden said. “And keep your voice down.”

“Why?”

“Because my financial arrangements with Wexler aren’t the whole damn county’s concern. Like I said, I can keep local law enforcement’s nose out o’ your business. Can’t do shit about state or federal other than give y’all a head’s up. Now, my lookin’ into this cross burnin’ ... that’s not part o’ any deal...”

“Meaning you won’t give it too much effort?”

“Nah, that ain’t it at all. I mean I ain’t gonna charge y’all anything extra for it. It’s part o’ my job. Makin’ sure nobody surprises you, that ain’t my job unless the payments start up again.”

Shaun watched the skinny, myopic Sheriff shift from foot to foot.

“I will have to discuss this with the property’s new owners.”

“Go on ahead with that. I will tell you this, as a sign o’ good faith – no one’s lookin’ at y’all currently, far as I can tell. If that changes in the next ... oh, two weeks, I’ll let ya know. After that, if I ain’t gettin’ my piece o’ the pie, I ain’t tellin’ y’all nothin’.”

Shaun considered what Sheriden had said.

“Fair enough, Sheriff. I’ll pass on the information. If you don’t mind me asking ... why have you waited so long to bring this up?”

“Show a fish the hook right off? He says ‘no, thank you kindly’, and swims on. Let ‘im get used to the bait, enjoyin’ the taste an’ all? He don’t decide to swim off so easy.”

Shaun nodded, and said, “Well, I’ll have Elena come by your offices tomorrow.”

“No rush,” Sheriff Sheriden replied. “I don’t ‘spect I’ll get much from her I ain’t already got from y’all. You have a good night now.”

“You too, Sheriff.”

Earl

“A burning cross...”

“Yes, Margaret.”

“Sheriffs Department been here?”

“Yes. The security people have given their statements ... well, all except one of them who got sent, with some from the house, to help guard the Corral.”

She leaned into him and he tightened his arm around her shoulders.

“Tell me ‘no’, Earl.”

“No. I don’t know exactly what I’m telling you ‘no’ about, but I think I can guess. And I understand...”

“Do you really, Earl?”

“I think so ... I hope so. We both already wanted them hurt, badly, and you wanted them chopped up into chum.

“If they were right here, tied up ... say, to poles, surrounded by wood, prepped to burn,” he continued, “could you light the match?”

His wife was quiet for several minutes, and he let her have the time without prompting or prodding.

“I’d like to think I wouldn’t,” she finally replied. “I’d like to think I’m more civilized than that, more civilized than them. But I’m not sure I am.

“What about you, Earl?”

“First off, I ... we owe Tammy a vote of thanks. She came and kept me company.”

“She’s very good company.”

“Yes, she is. While she was here my anger waxed and waned ... I wanted them all arrested and tried, I wanted them dead, I wanted them beaten until their bones were jelly but left alive to suffer, I wanted them delivered to the sheriff’s department with railroad spikes in their skulls...”

“That’s a new one for me,” Margaret said, her smile evident in her voice. “I have, in my less Christian moments, imagined them tied to crosses, and set alight.”

“So ... no, I’m with you. I’m not sure I’m more civilized ... more compassionate. All I know, Margaret, is we have to be.”

“I don’t agree -”

“I know. It’s not a case of we must be the bigger people, the better people. We must be humans, with all the nobility that can entail.

“Because they’re all the venality, all the evil, that can entail. That position’s taken. In spite of all my bitching and whining -”

“And Lord have mercy, there’s been a lot of that.”

“Yes ... but in spite of all that, this House, these people ... they’re standing with us on the ‘noble’ side of things.”

“Most of the time.”

“Honey,” he said, kissing her hair, “nobody can be noble all the time.”

Margo

“Go ahead, ask.”

She looked at her wife, the woman who’d brought Margo and Harry together again.

“Carol ... it’s not my place...”

“It is if I say it is. Ask.”

“You’ve killed two people?”

“Two men, yeah. Self-defense both times. Never arrested, never even a suspect. Not that I was all that worried about it either time. Pretty sure a halfway decent lawyer could’ve gotten me off either time, and both times I ... or better said my Master, had access to enough money to hire such a lawyer. And both of them would have, if I’d been arrested.”

“Did you ... did you tell anyone?”

“First time, yeah. I talked about it with my Master and ... it soured something between us. It was like he ... he was afraid of me, and that didn’t work in our relationship. I spent a lot of time thinking about it, praying about it. But that’s why the second time, I didn’t talk with anyone. Not until Tony.”

“Of course you told him...”

“Of course,” Carol replied, grinning. “He helped me be okay with both times. And it wasn’t that he was a killer ... he helped me understand what ‘self-defense’ really meant. After each man I killed, I’d locked away a lot of it. He helped me see that in those moments, it was them or me. I was going to be raped, beaten, and/or killed. Or I could defend myself. My brothers ... they always told me ‘fuck that put them down and run for help thing’. Put them down. Permanently. Make sure they can’t hurt you, can’t hurt anyone ever again. Because if they would do it to you, they had, or would, do it to others.”

“And you’re really ... okay ... with those...”

“Killings? I accept the karma for them. Beyond that? I don’t know. I’ve thought about them, about what I took from them, what they wanted to take from me. I’m not okay, but I’m also not not okay.”

“Isn’t that the same as ‘okay’?”

“No, it isn’t. It isn’t even close.”

Kelly

“We’re worried about you. About all of you,” Lisa said as she sat on the couch, Kelly’s head in her lap as she stroked Kelly’s hair.

“Thanks, Bodacious,” Kelly replied, but her grin was hollow, and both of them knew it. “I’m sure we’ll be fine.”

“Honey, people are trying to kill you.”

“Well, not me specifically, not that I know of.”

“Kelly, they’re fucking Nazis. They want you dead.”

“Okay, yeah. But ... that makes us Chorale. The kids, us ... it’s kind of our family thing.”

“I’m serious.”

Kelly looked up into Lisa’s soft brown eyes.

“I know ... but if I let myself get serious about this ... I’ll cry. Probably keep on crying ‘til I’m all swole up and ugly.”

“Not possible. But, another question...”

Kelly sighed.

“Let’s smoke a bowl, and if it’s a question still worth asking after that, ask away.”

Twenty minutes later, Lisa said, “How are you feeling about the whole San Francisco thing, the stepping down from being a Domme thing?”

Kelly frowned at her, and stuck out her tongue.

“Are you trying to depress me? Isn’t it enough we’re going to a child’s funeral?”

“If you’d really prefer that I...”

“I would ... but.

“Do I still wake up some nights dreaming of the beating? Yes.”

“I didn’t think you remembered it...”

“My subconscious may or may not remember it, but my vivid imagination? It has no such problems.”

“That sucks.”
“Yes it does. I think about what happened to the kids a lot ... sometimes I wish I could have taken their place, and they’d been the ones to wake up after a beating they didn’t remember. Most times I don’t ... because while that impulse is all noble and shit, it would have ended really fucking badly for me. The three of them got out of it. I wouldn’t have. I often wish we’d never gone to San Francisco. Some good ... very good ... things have come out of it, but the price was way too high.
“As for stepping down ... mixed bag. Do I miss being a Domme? Yeah. But I also am very aware it isn’t a good place for me to be. I’ve proven that repeatedly, and given some objective distance ... I deserved what I got. In my darker moods, I deserve a lot worse. Would it be fun to back on top, so to speak? If I’m being honest, hell yeah. There are a lot of situations that would be more fun than my current position ... but they’re not where I need to be. Hell, it’d be fun to do an 8-ball of coke and dive into a Dark Room filled with complete strangers for a 12-hour fuckathon, and that’s miles away from being a good idea, let alone where I should be.”

“You don’t find where you are right now fun?” Lisa teased.