Chapter 4: Disjunctive Allegations

Have you ever heard the old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words? Well, if that's true, then a demonstration has to be worth a million.

Marty had been a little too argumentative the night before and I decided it would take more than just argument to convince him who was right. So I thought to myself, 'What better way than a live demonstration?'

If he wanted proof, I was going to give it to him.

Once his eyes now adjusted to the light, Marty could see me. You should have seen the look on his face. I don't know what surprised him more, the fact that I was standing there, or the way I was dressed.

You see, while he had been sleeping, I had changed into a pair of red boy-shorts and matching sports bra. I keep them in my workout bag for those times when I'm on the road and want to exercise in my hotel room. I learned the hard way not to wear them in public.

They're a wee bit risqué for that. Not that I care, but it's kind of difficult to maintain a professional reputation when people you know professionally make 'Beaver Run' jokes after seeing you jogging on the treadmill at the gym.

Perhaps I better explain. That particular little ensemble of sportswear shows every, and I do mean every, curve of my body in almost pornographic detail. Unfortunately, they were the only things I had that were tight fitting enough to allow me to move around without making a sound.

All of which explains why when Marty saw me dressed that way, he lay there silently for several seconds with drool practically running out of his mouth.

He turned red in the face when he realized I could see what he was doing and tried to cover up by asking, "Rachael, are you out of your ever loving mind? How did you get in here? I had the door locked."

"I picked it with the filler from a ballpoint pen." I answered, ignoring his question about my mental state. I wasn't so sure about that myself!

Perplexed, he asked, "But how?"

"There's a safety feature built into the locks installed in most houses. It's a hole about a sixteenth of in inch located on the doorknob."

I went to the door.

"See, on this side is the lock," I opened the door, "On this side is the hole. It's there in case you lock yourself out of an interior room. All you have to do is stick something rigid in there and push until you hear a click." I demonstrated by pressing the button on the doorknob locking the door. Then I shoved the pen filler in the hole on the other side until I heard a clicking sound. Immediately the button popped out indicating that the door was unlocked. "See?"

Astonished, Marty exclaimed, "Well I'll be damned! I never knew that."

Anticipating what his next question would be. I explained...

"My little brother locked himself in his bedroom when I was babysitting him once. I had to call the fire department to get him out. A fireman showed me. So are you convinced yet?"

Either Marty didn't understand the question of he was playing dumb because he asked, "Convinced of what?"

"That it is possible for a woman can overpower a man!" I replied triumphantly.

As Marty struggled with his bonds, he asked, "Couldn't you have made your point some other way?"

"You're the one who said prove it to you, remember? And no, I couldn't. Anyway, you still haven't answered my question."

Marty said nothing. Instead, he began struggling with his bonds trying to free himself. But I had done a really good job of tying him up. Amused, I stood there and watched him. After about half a minute or so, he appeared to gave up.

"Finished yet?"

Frustrated he said to me, "Alright, you've made your point. It is possible for a woman to overpower a man. You can untie me now.

But that still doesn't prove that Lilly had the knowledge or skills to do the same thing to Vince. Does it? While you're untying me, you can tell me where did you learned to tie these damn knots anyway?"

"Don't go anywhere." I said, then laughed and headed out the door.

As I left the room, he called to me, "Hey, wait a minute; aren't you going to untie me."

"Not just yet. I'm not through with my demonstration."

The sound of the bed shaking half way down the hall told me he was trying to get loose again. He stopped long enough to yell to me, "At least tell me where you are going?"

"Don't worry; I'll be back in a minute and answer all your questions!" I said reassuringly. The bed began squeaking again telling me he was trying again to get loose. "You might not want to struggle against those ropes too much. Those are slipknots. The more you pull on them, the tighter they become!"

I went to the bedroom, picked up, and emptied my suitcase on the bed. Then I took the suitcase into the living room and filled it with items I knew I'd need in order to continued the demonstration.

The spring in my step indicated that I was really was enjoying what I was doing.

When I reentered the room carrying my suitcase, Marty ceased his attempts to free himself and said, "What do you have there?"

I didn't respond but rather sat it down on the bed and opened the suitcase.

"The list, remember? And I've got a few pieces of evidence." I removed the list of his objections I had made from the suitcase and held it up for him to see.

He didn't say anything.

"Let me start from the beginning," I said and began showing Marty some of the certificates I'd discovered in the living room, "After you went to bed, I went over the file again and then watched both videos a few more times. Well, just like before, I didn't find anything useful. But then I got tired and decided to take a break. So I put on a pot of coffee; and, while I was waiting for the pot to finish, I decided to look at that shrine to outdoor life they call a living room.

That's when I figured out who the great outdoors-man in the family really is.

I'll bet when you walked in the door and saw all that junk on the walls you thought the same thing I did and that Vince, being the man, was the great white hunter. Am I right?"

He nodded.

"That's what I thought too. Well, brace yourself. We were both wrong. Vince isn't the one who loves the outdoors; Lilly is. Vince is just what he looks like, a city boy."

His jaw dropped open. One by one, I began showing him the certificates I'd placed in my suitcase.

"It gets better. Not only is she an expert fisherman, hunter, marksman and mountaineer, but she's also been a scoutmaster for the last twenty years. That means that is she skilled enough with knots to be qualified to teach them. Ergo, even if she's not an expert, which the evidence indicates she is, Lilly most definitely has the skills and experience needed to tie somebody up quickly."

After I finished showing them to him, I placed the certificates carefully back in my suitcase. Next, I retrieved three books I removed from the bookshelf in the living room and held them up for him to see.

"Now to answer you second question as to where I learned to tie those knots holding you. I found the knots in these books." I waved them back and forth dramatically. "I found the books on the bookshelf in the living room." One was a book entitled 'Outdoor Survival'; the second was the 'The Scoutmaster's Handbook', and the last was a book dedicated entirely to the use of ropes and knots entitled 'Knots and Ropes and Their Uses'. "And in case you're wondering who they belong to, they're Lilly's. I know that because her name is stamped in the flyleaf of every one of them."

"There are plenty of knots in these books that could have used. Once I found one that would do what I needed, it took me less than fifteen minutes to figure out how to tie it. I used the shoe laces from my running shoes for that. The next thing I had to do was determine exactly where to place the ropes and how to secure them. That's when I decided to make a late night trip to Wal-mart to buy some rope and a few other things. We'll expense that later. Anyway, after I got back from Wal-mart, I used the bed in my room to figure that out exactly where to tie the ropes. Since both beds are similar, it only took thirty minutes more practice for me to feel confident enough to try it out on you." I paused, and then said boastfully, "By the way, tying you up was a lot easier than I expected it would be."

Marty's reaction was simply to stare at me in disbelief.

"Need more convincing?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

"I take it that is a yes then?" Again there was no answer. So, I looked at the list, then put the books back into my suitcase and began taking out items and laying them on the bed.

Curiously, Marty asked, "What are you going to do with those?"

He was referring to the two home video cameras I had just placed on the bed next to him. I had picked them up also during my late night shopping spree at Wal-mart.

"You said the camera doesn't lie. Maybe it doesn't; but I can prove that sometimes it doesn't tell the whole truth. Want to find out if I'm right?"

If he had said no, I would have stopped there. Since I was having fun, I was thrilled when he replied, "You've got yourself a captive audience. Proceed."

I laughed.

I laid my notepad and pen over on the dresser; and, then I closed my suitcase and placed it out of sight in the hall.

Returning to the bedroom, I picked up the cameras and checked the batteries in each to make sure they were fully charged.

Next, I turned the LCD viewfinders on each camera around so that images being recorded could be seen from the front of the camera. Then, I made my best guess as to where Lilly had placed her cameras and put mine in the same positions on the dresser and television.

I was lucky to find that the store had in stock not a long a video output cable for the camera I put in the closet. I connected the camera's output to the plasma television. Then I switched on the television and selected the input for the camera under the television.

It took a few adjustments but I finally got the field of view of each camera looking almost exactly the same as they were in Lilly's videos. That accomplished, I carefully turned both camera's viewfinders around so they were facing the bed.

Meanwhile, Marty, who seemed intrigued by my activity, waited quietly. I guess he wanted to see what I was going to do next.

As I headed towards my notepad, he broke his silence, "Now what?"

"Now we go down the list." I replied.

"You said, 'I didn't see anybody holding Vince down. His hands didn't look tied to me'."

"Let's see if you're right." I said as I approached the head of the bed.

Once there, I reached behind him with my left hand and pulled the pillow from behind his head.

"It would be easier for both of us if you raised your head. Vince might not have been given that choice; or, they could have just pulled him up by his hair. How do you want to do this, the easy way or the hard way?"

Deciding to take the easy way, Marty raised his head. When he did, I gently placed the pillow under his head and then stepped back so he could see the camera on the dresser. He looked at it and then at the television.

"Do you see any ropes?" I asked.

Stubbornly, her replied, "No, but that still doesn't prove anything. They couldn't be seen if they weren't there either."

"But I've made my point. While the camera might not lie, it also doesn't necessarily tell the truth either. Does it?"

Begrudgingly, he conceded the point and I moved on.

"Now what was it you said next?" I looked at the notepad again. "Oh yes, here it is...

'How, then, do you explain the erection Vince had?' and I then said, 'Have you ever heard of messaging the prostate?' Look over at the dresser. I'll bet I can find something over there that could get a rise out of you!" Then to prove my point, I walked over to it and picked up the biggest vibrator I could find. It was at least eighteen inches long and two and a half inches wide. "Do you feel adventurous enough to find out?"

Marty tensed up suddenly. "You wouldn't dare!"

"No! I wouldn't," I confessed, "and I seriously doubt they did either." I confessed, and then put the oversized phallic back on the dresser.

"But, no pun intended, that brings to the next item on the list."

"When I suggested that one of them gave him something you said, 'I didn't see him swallow anything.'" I reached into my pocket and produced small plastic bottle half full of red syrupy liquid.

"Do you know what this is?" I held it up him to see it.

He examined it, laughed and then said mockingly, "Spanish Fly! You're joking; right? That stuff doesn't work."

"One thing I can tell you is that somebody living in this house thinks that it does. I found this bottle in the kitchen cabinet. There were eight others just like it there. They were on the same shelf with the coffee, tea, and soda. Unless I miss my guess, somebody's been mixing it with the soda to hide the taste."

As I saw the pillow move, indicating to me that Marty was trying his ropes again; he said to me, "What makes you say that?"

"This particular brand of Spanish Fly just happens to come in three flavors: cola, cherry and, my personal favorite, strawberry. Want to take a guess what flavors of soda were in the cabinet next to it?"

Marty looked up as if in thought, then answered, "They wouldn't they be cola, cherry and strawberry by any chance would they?"

"Good answer!" I said excitedly.

Being argumentative again, Marty insisted, "That still doesn't prove anything. Maybe they just bought it and haven't had a chance to use it yet?"

"Nope, somebody's used it. Or, do you have a better explanation as to why this bottle was a quarter empty when I found it?"

Avoiding my question, Marty said, "Alright, I'll concede that point. But let's assume for a moment that you are right. If Gloria gave it to him, how did she do it without the camera seeing? For that matter, you also haven't proved to me that it works."

"I'm not sure it does. But, but there is a way we can find out. You can try some while I show you how she got him to drink it?" Of course, he could always say no! But something told me Marty wouldn't.

Looking skeptical, he replied, "Go ahead. But don't be surprised when it doesn't have any effect on me."

The instructions were printed in tiny find print on the bottle and it only took me a second or so to read them. I unscrewed the cap on the bottle and then said...

"You sure you want to do this? I don't know what this stuff could do to you!"

Marty grinned and challenged me, "If it were dangerous, it wouldn't be on the market. Besides, my guess is nothing at all. Just in case though, promise me you won't start laughing if it does."

"I think I can handle it."

He laughed, "Very funny!"

"Okay, here we go!" I told him and then began lifting the bottle to my mouth.

Seeing what I was doing, Marty cried out, "Hey, I thought I was supposed to drink that. What gives?"

I paused.

"Just watch and learn!"

Then, I poured a quarter of the small bottle's content into my mouth. I hadn't intended to drink any myself; but, most of it went straight down my throat. It was bitter. Since there was still some left in my mouth, I bent down over Marty in the same manner that Gloria had over Vince in the video. Then, I placed my hands on each side of his face. Using my thumbs, I gently pressed on his nostrils until he was forced to open his mouth for air. When he did, I placed my mouth firmly upon his and opened my lips. The remaining liquid in my mouth went straight into his. I released my thumbs and instinctively, Marty swallowed and then took in several deep breaths through his nostrils.