One Wrong Move

by Shannon McKenna

  She leaned closer, tilting her head so that the scary hairstick jabbed at his shoulder. “What are you scared of?” she purred.

  Miles gulped back a hoot of nervous laughter. “Ah . . . you.”

  “Me?” She laughed. “I’m not scary.”

  “Yes, you are,” he said grimly.

  She stopped by a door, looking up at him through insanely long eyelashes. “But you’re brave, Miles, aren’t you?” She pulled him inside.

  The light from the grounds outside barely illuminated an administrative office. Reception desk, partition, and behind it, cubicles, tables, file cabinets. “Shall we, ah, turn on the lights?” he asked.

  Her pale shoulders lifted. She glowed in the darkness, like moonlight on snow. “Aren’t we supposed to get to know each other? Sometimes that happens faster in the dark. Dark is license to reveal.”

  “It also can let you hide,” he said.

  She pulled him deeper into the room. “You’re not going to hide anything, Miles.” She stopped at one of the desks, swept off the surface. Things thudded to the floor. Something broke. A coffee mug bounced and rolled, piles of papers from an in-box scattered and slid, fluttering to the floor. “Come here.” She yanked.

  “This is really weird,” Miles said nervously, his voice strangling into a squeak as she grabbed his crotch, squeezed. “Oh.

  My. God. ”

  “Weird, yes.” She stroked him, exploring his dimensions.

  “Weird is my life now, Miles. But weird can be fun. Wow. So it’s true, what they say, about big noses and big cocks.”

  “Ah . . . I wouldn’t know,” he gasped out. “I, uh, have never done any statistical analysis.” His voice choked off as she cupped his balls.

  “Statistical analysis,” she echoed. “Is that how econ nerds talk? I’ve never done an econ nerd. Never wanted to, until now.”

  Her attack was so sudden. He yelled as the pain gripped his head, weirdly muscular, like a strangling snake squeezing, with a questing tendril of awareness like a flicking tongue, searching for entry points. Prodding, poking, licking. It felt sexual, in a nasty, dirty, prurient way.

  He couldn’t breathe. Didn’t dare move, it hurt so bad. All he could do was hang on to the image. Data locked. Password box blinking.

  The data was safe. It was his head that was about to implode.

  The pressure released. He gulped in air.

  “You lying son of a bitch,” she said. “You’re one of us, aren’t you?”

  He took a moment to remember how to speak. “One of who?”

  “Don’t play dumb.” She slapped him. “You blocked me.

  You’re not surprised. You’re not confused. You knew exactly what you were doing.”

  Oh, shit. The jig was so very up, and he hadn’t even come up with a coherent plan B. He had to just wing it.

  “You’re enhanced, right?” she yelled. “No one has ever blocked me but another user! Where did you get your stash? What’s your talent?”

  He shook his head. “I’m not enhanced.”

  “You’re lying!” Her voice was shrill. “Who gave you the drug?

  Where did they get it? Who’s producing? Where’d they get the formula?”

  “Nobody,” he insisted. “I’m not taking any drug.”

  “Then let . . . me . . . see! ” The squeezing pain was back, harder than before. He struggled not to cry out. “Let me in!

  Now! ”

  Fucked if he would. He shook his splitting head. “No.”

  The pressure eased off, to his intense relief. “Want to know something about me, Miles?” Her voice was a caress. “A fun fact?”

  He shrugged. “Whatever.”

  “I don’t wear underwear. Not on my pussy. Other lingerie is fun, but not there. I like it to be bare. Accessible.”

  “Oh,” he said stupidly, still struggling to breathe.

  “Want to see?” She perched on the edge of the desk, and hauled up her rustling taffeta skirts. There was enough light from outside to see that she was telling the truth. She had a wax job, too, just a delicate swatch of curly fuzz at the end of her slit, like a decorative flourish. Her eyes glowed at him, hot and feral.

  She put her hand on her pussy, slid her fingers inside, diddled herself, as she stared into his eyes. The little wet sounds seemed extremely loud in the silence, the darkness.

  She lifted up her glistening fingers, and wiped them on his cheek. “Don’t you want to fuck me?” she purred. “Everyone else does.”

  “You mean, everyone wants to, or everyone fucks you?” he asked.

  Her laughter sounded bitter. “Does it matter? Do you only fuck good girls, Miles? You kind of have that stink to you. Have you ever wondered what it would be like to do it with a bad, dirty girl? A girl who was up for anything you wanted?”

  There she went again, with the python mind squeeze, oh, shit . . .

  Miles dragged in as much air as he could before it got unbearable, but his hard-on had not abated. On the contrary, it intensifed, as if the stranglehold on his mind was on his cock as well.

  He clenched his teeth and endured it. It was easier this time, without the element of surprise. She meant to lure him into sex, and then pounce. There was very little chance he could keep up the shield if he was fucking her, and if he came, no chance in hell. He simply was not that cool of a customer. He tried, but he wasn’t.

  “Of course I want to fuck you,” he said.

  She grabbed his hand, pressed it against her pussy. “Do it, then,” she whispered. “Come on, whip that big, fat fellow out for me to play with. I’m so turned on, Miles. You have to. Now. Or I’ll kill you.”

  Her pussy was silky, the folds of her labia so delicate, tightly furled. Her pussy hair was springy ringlets, totally different from—

  “Cindy,” Anabel sang out. “Is she your wife?”

  He practically yelped, he was so startled, and whipped his shield back up. “None of your business.”

  She seized his hand, thrust it inside her, so hard his fingernails must have hurt her. He felt that squeeze around his mind and cock again, the questing snake tongue. “Cindy,” she taunted, as she slid his fingers in and out like a dildo. “Tell me what you like that Cindy won’t do for you. Does Cindy give good head? Does she take it up the ass?”

  He hung on to his analog with every fiber of his being. “She hates doing it from behind,” he said. “Says it makes her feel like an animal.”

  “Oh, does it? Well, guess what? I am an animal. We all are.

  Poor uptight Cindy doesn’t know that. That’s why her man has his hand up my snatch, and not hers.” She turned, hoisting her skirts up. Braced herself against the desk, arching her back. He’d never seen an ass that perfect, not even in glossy, retouched magazine photographs.

  “Are you animal enough for me, Miles?” she crooned.

  “I’ll try,” he said, coming closer, to stroke the smooth globes of her ass cheeks. Taut, round, perfect. She wiggled, parting wider.

  “Fuck me hard, Miles,” she ordered him. “Now.”

  He yanked the plastic cuffs out of his sock. Shoved her facedown against the desk. She squawked as he snagged her hands behind her back, fastening them, ratcheting them tight.

  She shrieked, flopped. “No!” she shrieked. “No, I don’t like it that way, you bastard! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?

  No! ”

  She was very strong, but he gritted his teeth, hanging on to his mind shield with grim desperation as he bore her down to the floor. He planted his weight on top of her while he cuffed her feet, and hooked her hands and feet together. It was as uncomfortable as hell, and he hated doing it, but he had to immobilize her. Buy them some time.

  She twisted, shrieking obscenities. Attacked with her mind, too. The strangling snake squeezed, and he thought his eyes would pop out of his head from the pressure by the time he’d dragged her across the floor and fastened her to the radiator. She sobbed, wailing incoherently. Her hair had come loose,
spread like a bright fan across the floor.

  It was the most distasteful, horrifying thing he had ever done, and when he stumbled to his feet, his legs shook beneath him.

  He groped in his other sock for the knife, and knelt, as far from her as he could, hacking two long strips of taffeta off the bottom of her skirt.

  “What the fuck are you doing?” she spat.

  He wadded up the piece of cloth, stared at it, stared at her, and decided, what the hell. Nothing to lose by not asking, at this point.

  “Where’s the B dose?” he asked.

  The blankness on her face made his heart sink. She stared at him with her mouth open. “My God! If I knew that, would I be here, peddling my mind and my tail for these pig-fuckers? If I knew that, I’d be the queen of the fucking world! You ignorant jackass! Who are you, anyway? Are you with Arbatov? With that Christie bitch?”

  So much for that. “Never mind. Where is Lara Kirk?”

  “Lara? Why are you asking about her? What does she have to do with anything? Who the fuck cares?”

  “I do,” he blurted incautiously, and instantly cursed himself for it. He could get the poor chick killed with his big mouth. Better shut her up fast, and himself as well. He was making things worse.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, and tried to stuff the gag into her mouth.

  She jerked away. “I’m going to tell everyone how you cuffed me, and beat me, and raped me! After they find me here like this, they will believe me! You will go to jail and rot there, you sick piece of shit! ”

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  “No? Miles, honey, do you see that hair stick? On the carpet?”

  He looked, saw it. “What of it?”

  “When I get loose, I will hunt you down, and fuck you with it.”

  “That’s nice.” That sentiment gave him the oomph he needed to jam the gag in, but she still writhed away. Just not done with him yet.

  “You won’t be able to stop me, and you know why? Because you’re a pussy! I smell it, see? Nicey nice guy! No balls at all! I bet Cindy’s out somewhere this very night, on her knees, taking it hard from behind from a guy who has what she really needs!”

  “Huh,” he said drily. “Yeah, probably.”

  “You don’t even have the balls to kill me like a man, do you?”

  “Nope, I sure don’t. Shut up.” He pinched her cheeks until her jaw yielded, stuffed the fabric in, tied the other piece over it, as tightly as he could stand to tie it. Fucking awful. He surveyed the results, uneasily. He’d heard horror stories, of people dying accidentally in stupid sex games from gags. Big suffocation hazard. Her wrists were bleeding. That sickened him. He didn’t want to hurt her, not even if she meant to bugger him with a sharp stick when he least expected it. Hmm, tasty thought to ponder as he drifted off to sleep. Perfect for taking his mind off his love troubles. Along with the maddening question of whether or not he had balls. But she seemed to be breathing OK.

  He was done here. He could not do any better or any worse than this. He backed away, staring at the blazing hatred in her eyes.

  He shut the door, listened at it for a moment. Could not stand to stay there one more second. Or even walk down the corridor like a normal person. He kept breaking into a shaky, stumbling, panicked run. His legs so shaky, they threatened to dump him onto his face.

  He spied a restroom and bolted for it, hanging over the sink for ten minutes, washing his hands and his face, over and over.

  It was true, what she’d said. He was a fucking pussy. Toughen up, lamebrain. He could not fall apart like this. Could. Not.

  He lifted his head, stared into his own face in the mirror. Dead grayish pale, dripping with water from his obsessive washing.

  Eyes haunted, like he’d seen the shambling horrors of the crypt.

  Which, in effect, he had.

  It occurred to him, some grasping instinct for self-comfort, that the only possible experience more disgusting and soul-killing than tying and gagging a screaming, weeping, unarmed woman—

  if you didn’t count the mind-raping—would be tying and gagging a screaming, weeping, unarmed woman after having fucked her.

  But he hadn’t. At least that.

  Still, he had to wash about twelve more times before he could bear to leave the bathroom.

  . . . cow should know when to lay off the Botox . . . plastic doll . . .

  . . . was looking at me, oh, God, he was really looking at me. . . .

  Nina strolled through the room while speeches droned on. She brushed everyone as she passed, the lightest mind touch she could manage, but her head still pounded, after letting a stampeding herd of smug philanthropists trample through it. Or maybe it was the specter of imminent death that was making her neck muscles stiff. She must have tapped everyone in the place, but she must have missed someone. There had to be someone here who knew something. Had to be.

  . . . like to drag that dress down until those titties popped right out into my hands, and then bend her over the table . . .

  That lascivious thought had been aimed at her. She recognized her red dress, though she herself was unrecognizable through the man’s eyes. She glanced back, caught a hot-eyed guy chugging a glass of whiskey, eyeing her boobs. So exhausting.

  Didn’t they have anything else to think about? Being invisible had been simpler. She missed it.

  She’d have thought that the minds of the super-rich would feel different from the minds on the New York subway, but it was all the same obsessions, desperations. Sex, sex, more sex. Stress about money. Larger amounts, but the anxiety was the same.

  They worried about cheating spouses, or they were the cheaters worrying about getting caught. They were angry about failing marriages, terrified their kids were doing drugs, scared of their medical diagnoses. Some felt smug. Some trapped. Some numb.

  Most felt scared.

  And she was in a daze, forgetting what she was trying to accomplish. Her eyes snagged upon Thaddeus Greaves, shaking the hand of the guy who’d just fawned all over him at the podium, going on and on about Greaves’s amazing awesomeness.

  She studied his smiling face. Helga had mentioned his name, but she had not said to go to him for help. But for God’s sake, why not? What did she have to lose, at this point? She reached out again with her mind, feeling at random.

  . . . how long until they find out about the money I took . . . got to make more money we’re a family now . . . can’t go to jail . . .

  She pinpointed the balding guy, smiling as he poured a glass of something for his pregnant wife. She touched the wife’s mind.

  . . . can’t tell him the baby isn’t his . . . would break his heart . . .

  Ouch. She moved away from those two, quickly. The speeches were over. The band began to play. She pulled away, scanning for Rudd or Anabel or Roy. Dug the strip of paper out of her bosom, visualized Miles’s dialog box. She visualized typing the password in.

  The screen in her mind changed, and a printed message scrolled swiftly down before her astonished mind’s eye.

  Third column behind bandstand.

  Hurry.

  Been waiting 4fuckingever.

  Wow. Miles’s system worked. She hurried, casting out for Aaro.

  She sensed him, but could not read his thoughts beyond a certain distance. When she caught sight of him, she jerked her chin toward Miles’s column, and made a beeline through the dance floor.

  Aaro caught up with her as she slid behind the column, and pulled her into a tight hug. “No luck?”

  She shook her head. Miles leaned on the wall, looking exhausted.

  “You OK?” she whispered. “Where have you been?”

  “Hiding from Rudd. I’m persona non grata now.”

  “Did she breach your shield?” Aaro asked.

  “Only insofar as she knew I was up to no good. She thinks I’m drug enhanced, too.”

  Nina studied his face, his haunted eyes. “Where is she?”

  “Cuffed and gagged in an adminis
trative office upstairs,” he said wearily. “Freaking awful. She didn’t seem to know about the B dose. Although I’m no telepath, so she could have been lying.

  I’m sorry I didn’t find any answers for you. I got squat.”

  Nina patted his arm. “It’s OK,” she murmured. She faced Aaro, bracing herself for a fight. “I’m going to go chat up Greaves now.”

  “No, you’re not.” His response was automatic, and predictable.

  “I have to try to read that guy, Aaro,” she said.

  “I told you.” His voice was low and savage. “He wants to fuck you.”

  Big whoop. Him and about a hundred and fifty other guys out there.

  She bit back the unwise retort. “He’s not likely to do so in the banquet hall in front of a thousand donors to the Greaves Institute Fund.” She adjusted her bosom, propping and fluffing for maximum bulge. “You said today my tits could get us killed.

  Let’s see if they can save the day.”

  “What about your promise? What about our addendum?”

  “I’m not going to have sex with the guy!” she said tartly. “And I did not solemnly swear never to flaunt my boobs to another man with an ulterior motive as long as we both shall live! Lighten up a little!”

  “Hah,” he said grimly. “Looks like I need to get a little more specific with the language in the vows.”

  “Sure, if you like, but not until after I talk to Greaves. OK, here goes. I’ve never done anything like this in my life, so wish me luck.”

  “Luck?” His voice cracked with outrage. “What the fuck con-stitutes luck in a scenario like this? Attempted rape?”

  “Calm down, Aaro,” she soothed. She scurried out into the room before he could organize his resistance.

  Serendipitously, Greaves had left the dais, and was strolling through the banquet hall on a trajectory she could easily intersect. She felt Aaro’s anger and unease blazing behind her, a silent shout of protest. She forged stubbornly on. She was doing this for them both. He just had to swallow it.

  She tilted her head back, stood as straight and tall as she could, imagining the gray fuzz shield falling down off her like a cloak. It felt counterintuitive, to seek attention with Rudd on the prowl out there, but she’d had no luck so far just slinking around.