Chapter 89

Her mind awhirl, Tina didn't know what to do, but Frank's lips descended on hers and the world went away, Frank becoming the center of her universe for a time. After awhile, he just held her to his chest as he stared over her head at Margaret, a question on his face.

"Just trust me, Lover," she smiled at him. "Now, let's sit over here," she said, motioning to the love seat.

"There isn't room..." Frank started.

"Tina can sit on your lap. She needs to feel you — snuggle with you for a while. We'll be gone tomorrow, and this is all too sudden to take her on our honeymoon with us."

Frank sat on the love seat and Margaret encouraged (gently pushed) Tina to sit on his lap. Sitting beside them, Margaret took Tina's hand. "I want to ask you about some personal things that we need to get out of the way. I didn't ask them last night when we talked, because I wanted you to feel Frank again before we got into this conversation."

Tina sat tensely on Frank's lap, her emotions and logic on opposite ends of the spectrum.

"Kiss her again, Frank. Let her feel your pheromones, but I don't want the two of you to make love yet. So be ... cautious. However, I also don't want to come back from our honeymoon and find out that she's decided to go back to Saint Louis while we were gone."

"Margaret, I..."

Margaret leaned over and briefly touched her lips to his, her face very near Tina's for an instant. "Please do it, My Love. Trust me on this."

Tina looked as if she couldn't believe what was going on.

When Margaret moved back, Frank again kissed Tina. Margaret could feel herself getting wet as she responded to the pheromones, and Tina's nipples suddenly became obvious even though she was wearing a bra. Frank, reluctant, broke the kiss.

Margaret thought she could detect a faint woman smell that wasn't her own. Tina apparently realized it too, because her face was suddenly bright red.

"We need to discuss some things that I didn't mention last night, and I suspect the best way is to just be candid about it. I'll explain later why I need to know. You've felt him. You know you want him. To reiterate, he's an Alpha, like I told you last night. I'm to be his ... Queen." Margaret hesitated, then, "No, that's not right. I am his Queen. I've been his mate for a while, but I think the Queen thing started when I made up my mind that he needed another wife. At least, that's what Diana says, and I tend to think she's right. To further confirm my suspicions, my nipples started tingling not long after I began looking for another woman."

Realization started to dawn on Frank.

Margaret smiled at her fiancé, but then changed her gaze back to Tina. "Queens of Alphas generally give milk — lactate all the time. They don't have to be pregnant or be nursing an infant; it just happens. Diana says there's a reason for it, but we haven't gotten around to discussing it yet. I don't have milk, but my breasts feel different, and my nipples tingle and ... sort of itch. Since I pushed you on Frank last night, and with what I'm doing now, the sensation in my breasts has ... changed — increased. Something about me changed as soon as I seriously considered another woman for my mate. When I saw you, I knew. I just knew. I can't explain it, and now I know why Diana can't explain it either. But it feels so right that it's almost scary.

"A few months ago, I would have laughed in the face of anyone who suggested that I would share my man with another woman. Now," she chuckled, "it seems like the most logical thing in the world, and I can't imagine why I haven't realized it long before now."

"I don't know what to say," Tina whispered.

"Is there any chance you're pregnant?" Margaret asked, startling Tina with the seeming non sequitur.

Tina shivered, then quietly said, "No, I don't think so, but he ... didn't use anything the first weekend. I've had a period since then, though. I'm on the pill, but I was afraid he had given me ... something. I went to my gynecologist and she tested me. All the tests came back negative, but she said I would have to be tested several more times for HIV, and I couldn't be certain I didn't have it for six months. But I don't have any of the other STDs. I hate that bastard. I wasn't going to have sex with him again, but somehow I did."

"Did he drug you a second time?" Frank asked, his voice tight.

"I ... I don't know. I was very careful, because I was suspicious about why I had acted like I did, and since my memory had blanks in it. I did drink a coke, but he took it out of the refrigerator, opened it and handed it to me. I heard it spew when he broke the seal by unscrewing the top. But it wasn't long until I was in bed with him again. But I knew everything this time, I just ... couldn't stop. But even then, I kept screaming at him until he used a condom. There is a lot more to it than that. He's ... really good at seducing. He was so ... soothing when I talked about not remembering. Oh, it sounds so stupid here, but he made everything sound so logical then. Oh, I'm fucked up; I believed the bastard," she said, burying her head in Frank's shoulder for a moment. Then after a bit, she raised her head and continued, "When we started with the sex, I couldn't stop. I couldn't stop. Afterward, just like the first time, I knew something was wrong with me. When he came to pick me up at my apartment the next time, I told him we were through. That's when he yelled at me and said he would show the video to my friends and family if I didn't go with him."

"Did he take your virginity?" Margaret softly asked.

Tina shook her head. "No. I gave it to a boy I dated during my senior year in high school. We were going to be together forever." She made a sick sounding chuckle that sounded suspiciously like a sob. "I couldn't afford the college he went to, so we wound up in different schools. Three months later, he called and broke off our engagement. I didn't even ask if he had found someone else. I just hung up and started crying. I vowed that I wouldn't sleep with anyone else until I was married. Well, so much for that," she sobbed. "Then I woke up with that creep."

Frank held her for a while as she sobbed, then stood and left her sitting on the seat. "Be right back."

A couple minutes later, he walked back in with three cokes from the refrigerator in the sitting room. A look passed between Margaret and Frank. Frank handed Margaret her drink and she unscrewed the top, the hiss evident as she did so, but she realized that the plastic lock ring on the base of the top had already been broken before Frank handed her the drink.

Frank turned the top on Tina's drink, the hiss again evident, then handed her the drink for her to finish opening. Unscrewing the top on his, he took a long drink, watching until Tina took a sip of hers. "Is that about the way it happened?" Frank asked, looking at the young woman.

"What..."

"The drink. You said that Gregg opened your drink for you."

"Uh, yeah. I guess. He opened the drink right in front of me, then handed it to me. But I had to have been drugged. It obviously wasn't as strong as the first time, but I wanted sex — had to have it. That ... that... bastard made a slut out of me."

"Tina," Frank said very quietly as he squatted in front of her. "I opened that drink in the other room. I could have put anything in it. I obviously didn't, but I could have."

"But ... but it hissed. I heard it when you opened it. How could..." But then her mind caught up. "You opened it, capped it back and shook it, didn't you?"

"Yeah. It's an old college trick. You can't shake it much or it will really fizz and spew out. But a couple shakes will produce a faint hiss just like opening any carbonated drink for the first time will do. Chances are, he knew you would be suspicious and had your drink doped before you two got together. He faked unscrewing the top and snapping the lock ring, just like I did then." He sighed, standing back up. "I wish I had fucked the bastard up while I had the chance," he snarled.

"I'm an idiot," Tina whispered. "An idiot." Then at normal volume, "I got my BS in three years. I thought I was sooo smart, and now this. He made a fool out of me ... He ruined my life. He made a slut out of me," she repeated, her voice breaking. Then the tears started in earnest.

"You didn't fuck him," Frank said, deliberately being blunt, his eyes blazing. "He raped you, but you can bet that pretty little ass of yours that he will regret it — immensely."

An Alpha was pissed — really, really pissed.

Frank picked Tina up and sat back down with her again on his lap. "We want you to stay here with Jeff and his family until we get back from our honeymoon," Frank said as he pulled Tina to him, tucking her head against his shoulder and neck and stroking her back as he looked at Margaret.

"I can't do that," Tina quietly said, sitting back up. "I ... I want to be with you two, but I've got to go back to my job. I have some bills, and the apartment rent is high. I can't afford to miss a week off from work."

"We have a job opening," Margaret said as she locked eyes with Frank. "I need a new assistant. The one I had was excellent, but she wasn't as consistent as she should have been with taking her birth control pills. From the grin on her face when she told me she was pregnant, I'm a little suspicious that she just forgot to take them," she chuckled. "Anyway, she quit to be a stay-at-home mom, and the baby is due in a couple of weeks. I've interviewed several people, but I haven't found one that feels right. Want the job?"

Tina rose up a little to look past Frank. "Well, I was worrying about going back. Gregg doesn't work in my department, but he does work for the same company, although he's a couple of floors above me where the brass lives. I was going to try to keep the job I have for the time being, but look for another one so I won't have to risk seeing him at work. But I don't know about taking the job. What does it entail? I don't know if I would be any good at it. I've never been anyone's assistant before..."

Margaret took Tina's hand. "I will have to train anyone I hire, so why not you? All you really have to have is a good memory and a willingness to learn. If you got through a BS in three years, you're obviously smart enough. And ... that way, all of us could stay together. I'm never very far from Frank, and I don't intend to ever be. So what do you say?"

"This is all so fast. I mean..."

"Kiss her Frank."

Wainwright, enjoying his role in the conversation, did, cutting Tina off in mid sentence. Eventually Margaret tapped him on the shoulder and said, "Easy on the pheromones. A little more and I'm not going to wait for that judge to marry us. You're going to have to fuck me right here."

"I don't believe this," Tina gasped out as her mouth left Frank's.

"Want me to send him on his way?" Margaret teased

"No," Tina hissed out as the older woman chuckled.

"Well, we're going to have to get started on decorating the living room, anyway. Those two wedding planners are probably ready to have a coronary," she chuckled, "and I really need to supervise the decorating. Want to help?"

"Sure," Tina said as she reluctantly stood, patting her hair and straightening her clothes, self-consciously, then glanced down at the bulge in Frank's pants.

"You'll get to see it soon enough," Margaret laughed as she grabbed Tina's hand and pulled her toward the other room.

Several months in the future, Gregg would return to the lake house after a night of drinking. He had continued to use his date rape drugs on occasion, accompanied with threats, intimidation and videos to keep most of the women from turning him in to the police. He tried to limit his visits to each bar, nightclub, or other social gathering to one drugged conquest each to help forestall any investigation by the cops. Frequently, his victims were married women out to have a good time, sans their husbands. Two of the women had filed reports against him, but lack of any real evidence of forcible sex had prevented him from being prosecuted.

Gregg had obtained his rape drugs from a buddy he had palled around with while in college — a buddy who became an excellent chemist, although he had discovered the drug more by accident than design. So far, the drug hadn't been detected during a blood analysis of the victims, and according to the chemist, it became almost impossible to detect after six hours or so.

Gregg hadn't scored on this particular night, but he had been drinking heavily. Staggering up the steps of his mother and dad's lake house not far from the city limits of Saint Louis, he fumbled his key into the lock. Stepping inside, he was reaching for the light switch when someone jammed a stun gun into his chest. Shortly, a needle was pushed into his arm.

The world appeared to rock around Gregg as consciousness gradually returned. Everything seemed upside down to his drink-befuddled mind, and the scrambling of his brain from the chemicals injected into his system didn't help any, either. There was pain in his ankles, and as his eyes focused, he realized that he was naked, hanging by his feet from one of the exposed beams in the ceiling. There was also an odd stinging to his forehead and chest.

"What the fuck?" he mumbled, trying to jerk his legs free, but of course they barely moved since there was a rope around each ankle and each rope was attached to an eye bolt which had been screwed into one of the exposed ceiling beams. The eye bolts were positioned well apart, causing his legs to be spread. He struggled fiercely for a couple of minutes, but with his hands-duct taped together behind his back, he accomplished little.

The lights were now on. "Who the fuck are you?" he yelled at the two men who stood watching him. "Get me down you bastards!" he screamed. Then, "Help! Somebody help me!"

But the house was well insulated, and the nearest neighbor was several hundred yards away. No one heard him. Both of the men had on ski masks and latex gloves. Neither uttered a word. They just stood and watched as Gregg's struggles grew weaker when his strength ebbed and he finally realized that his exertions would gain him nothing.

"What do you want," he panted. "I have money. I'll pay you."

He tried to focus on the two, but everything looked odd with him hanging upside down. Still, he could see some of their skin through the eyeholes in the ski masks. The skin appeared to be dark around their eyes, and the near-transparent latex gloves seemed to show dark skin also. Gregg was scared and that fear was growing the more he looked at the silent men just standing there watching him.

One of the men stepped over to a case setting on the floor. Reaching inside, he pulled out a hand mirror, then held it in front of Gregg's face.

"What the fuck?" Gregg mumbled, then as he looked in the mirror and his befuddled mind finally processed what his eyes were trying to tell him, he screamed out again. When his screams and thrashing died down, the man again held the mirror in front of his face. "You bastards. You tattooed me. What does it say? It's backward in the fucking mirror. I can't..." But then his mind finally unscrambled the backward letters.