Trust Me

by Paul Slatter

  “I’m rich now Dan, it looks like you’ll need to start fending for yourself, especially if you’re telling your mother to go fuck herself.”

  Dan looked at him, then to his mother, straightened up and stuffed a load of cheese into his mouth. With the words that were barely audible he said, “Oh, well you know how it is, I’m all upset about Sebastian and I needed time alone. Mum just came along at the wrong time.”

  “What about an apology.”

  “Looks to me like you’re out your jurisdiction now if you’re saying you ain’t my minder anymore, and since I don’t remember you marrying Mum, you can’t start asking those questions. So, spare me from listening to your daddy lectures. You know what I’m saying?”

  Chendrill wanted to grab the kid who was showing off to the supermodel downstairs and ram his face into the family size coconut yogurt he was about to add to the cheese. Do that, then pour it on his head and send him downstairs to ‘Marshaaa’ or whatever she’d told Dan’s mother she liked to be called.

  He moved towards him and Dan’s mother caught his arm and said, “Dan if you’re big enough to talk to Chuck like that, you’re big enough to leave. So, if you don’t apologize to me and him then you’ll be doing just that and you and your little high-pitched screamer of a girlfriend can go stay at whatever hotel she’s booked into.”

  Dan stood, still licking the lid of the yogurt pot, and he said, “Sure, I will, but you’re not being very understanding. You know how I felt about Sebastian. You should have some thought instead of being judgemental. I’ve never been in this situation before, I’m not old like you two. I’m still fragile and sensitive.”

  Then, taking them all by surprise, they heard ‘Marshaa’ who was now standing at the top of the stairs say, “Hey?”

  Chendrill turned and looked at the supermodel who liked to scream and didn’t look like a supermodel at all, but instead like a normal pretty young woman who’d just spent the afternoon in her boyfriend’s room—‘Marshaa’ standing there in nothing more than the same old sperm stained, creased t-shirt she’d slipped on earlier. Chendrill taking it all in said, “Hi Marshaa, nice to see you.”

  And Marshaa said as she walked towards him and took his hands in hers, “I’m sorry for your loss. You and Sebastian were such a lovely couple. I know he loved you so much, I could see it in the way he looked at you. I wish there was someone out there who could love me the same way.”

  And as Chendrill heard those words from a young lady who had his world mixed up, it all made perfect sense—the constant phone calls, the nice wage, the cars, the meals, the walks on the beach, Sebastian calling to have him over all the time, his inability to get fired regardless of losing the Ferraris all the time and thumping out Dan. And as he was about to start to explain to the young lady who, despite her status in this world, at the end of the day was just that, Dan stepped in for him and simply said, “Chuck’s not a poof Marshaa, even if he looks like one. He’s with Mum. I think you’re right though about old Sebastian—I saw it too sometimes.”

  Marshaa stared at Chendrill, looking at his shirt and then at his dick in his trousers and then to Dan’s mother who was almost the same size as her and said, “Ooo!”

  **************

  They laid in bed and listened to Dan and Marshaa fucking in the basement of the house. Dan’s mother wondering where her son got the stamina and how at such a young age he had the ability to make love to a woman the way he obviously was to Marshaa—the way she was moaning and groaning for so long. She heard Chendrill say, “We should bang on the floor.”

  Tricia laughed and felt the embarrassment of how she must have sounded at times when she’d been distracted from her love making by the broom handle Dan used to smash into the ceiling above his bed. She said, “I think it’s time for my young boy to leave the nest. I kind of hinted at it to see what he’d do.”

  Talking into the back of his woman’s neck, having just slipped his erection in between the top of her legs, he said, “How did he take it?”

  “Well this is all I’ve heard all day, so it seems as though he agrees.” Then she said, “You know, Sebastian’s said I can buy any house in town and it’s paid for, what do you think will happen with this lawyer who’s his friend if I was to buy a really big multimillion dollar house over in West Van, then sell it and buy myself one that I can call home in some nice family area like Deep Cove or on the Sunshine Coast? Do you think he’d mind?”

  Chendrill stopped pushing himself against her and thought about it, his girl buying herself a home in a nice family area around Deep Cove, just up the road from that leech of a human loan shark with whom Sebastian’s friend Suzy was in love. Maybe they’d all see each other in the park as they took in the view of the water on a sunny day. He said, “I don’t think Sebastian’s lawyer has a say in it. I’m sure it’s exactly what Sebastian wanted, you know the way he thought things through. I’m sure he was giving you that option. I’m sure it’s what he wanted you to do, in an around about way, then you’d feel like you’ve earned it.”

  She turned to him and kissed him and said, “Maybe I will speak to Patrick after all and have him go look.”

  **************

  The next morning, Chendrill called and met Daltrey in a café off Seymour and the first thing he heard her say was, “I heard you’re rich?”

  Was he? Chendrill thought. Everyone kept saying he was, but, so far, he hadn’t seen any changes to his bank accounts.

  They spoke for a while about Sebastian as Chendrill looked at Daltrey discretely, checking her burns. They were getting better, a lot less raw than they were and, in parts, he could see new hair growth in places. He asked, “How do you feel?”

  Daltrey shrugged, then said, “Okay I guess, better than when I was on that boat, stealing tuna from the larder, thinking I was going crazy because of that picture of Dan in those ridiculous underpants staring at me. It all seems surreal now.”

  And it did, almost dreamlike—there once was a time when the woman had been afraid of nothing, but now she was realising she’d bitten off more than she could chew when a real psychopath came into town from overseas. She carried on, “Since you’re so rich are you still going to hunt down bad guys?”

  It was a question that had been playing on his own mind for the last 24 hours and he had come to the conclusion that it was all he knew—finding bad guys and finding dogs. Shrugging his shoulders, he said at the same time as he wondered how she knew his business, “Don’t see why not. Maybe I can work for free now, pro bono like Samuel does sometimes. Do the superhero thing and help others who cannot help themselves.”

  “Yeah, you can wear a cape,” said Daltrey as she grinned and imagined Chendrill in a big spandex suit with a Hawaiian shirt styled cape.

  Then Chendrill said, “On that subject, I’ve got Ditcon on my back and I was wondering how you feel about keeping an eye on some shithead loan shark who hides himself away in Deep Cove and his girlfriend who works as a peeler?”

  **************

  Daltrey said yes. How big a shithead this man in Deep Cove was, though, she was yet to find out—as was Chendrill. She needed to start to get her feet back in the water and what Chendrill was asking could be construed as police work since the man, as Chendrill had said, was working outside the law.

  She’d been making progress in her own way already, starting off a search for the identity of the young woman who’d saved her life. So far, though, she was drawing a blank with missing persons, and at one point she’d plucked up the courage to step inside the morgue. But that took more courage than she’d thought. With her heart pounding as she’d approached the door, deep in the basement of the hospital on Burrard Street, knowing that the charred body of a young girl who should have been her lay somewhere within, she’d felt herself begin to shake and her breathing become hard. And then after as she’d held a hanky to her nose and stood by the drawer looking down on the corpse that lay there blackened and charred by the fire that the Russian had s
pat from his hands, she’d cried—cried for the girl who’d worn her name in death and cried for herself for still being alive.

  It had not taken long after this for Daltrey to hit the streets with a newfound passion. She’d walked the sadness of Main and Hastings looking for someone she knew was already gone in amongst the heroin and crack laden streets. She’d looked at the young who now looked so old, as the crack or heroin thinned their bodies and souls. Asking questions she knew would not be answered to those who were not listening, through the spaced-out confused cat calls from men and women who had fallen away from a reality they once knew, Daltrey would ask, “I’m looking for a girl who was missing—she was young, younger than me, and strong, a fighter?”

  But so many there were, themselves, already missing, missing from families, missing from loved ones and friends who’d grown tired of the evils that came with and from a habit they’d allowed to overtake their lives.

  And in amongst these people, Daltrey had roamed, asking, talking, slowly making progress in this world full of filth and sadness until at last she’d found a name from a hooker whose hair and teeth must have once shone.

  Bill, Bill from back east, the guy who’d once walked with a girl who was his sister—and now walked alone—as he searched between fixes, wandering, asking after a sister who was missing as he walked the alleys and side roads that surround the centre of Main and Hastings where the fallen now chose to gather and call home.

  Daltrey pulled her Audi up outside of her apartment block and looked up at another poster of Dan, wondering how that stinky little fuck had managed to get so high and so far in such a short time when the only place she had gone was down. But that was before and now she was on her way back up again.

  She’d sat with Chendrill awhile, spending quality time as he’d waited to get mugged, and it had been nice—her there with him, the pair of them drifting in and out of work with the little bit of idle chit chat. People coming and going, grabbing coffees and stuffing their faces with buns. Chendrill telling her about Dan in his astronaut suit and how he’d told Chendrill the only reason he was keeping his helmet on was so he did not have to listen to Rock Mason’s bullshit. Daltrey saying how she thought the man was cool and how much she’d loved the man’s films.

  What Chendrill wanted, though, would be interesting and for the moment she doubted she’d have the confidence to pull it off—but wandering about in a club for a bit in skimpy clothes could be different. She had the body, but the burn would be an issue. And as for lap dancing, she’d have to see how it went.

  She went up to her place and dug out her sexy gear from the bottom of the wardrobe and tried to remember the last time she’d worn it and then for a moment felt sad realizing that she hadn’t. Stripping off, she tried it all on.

  Daltrey stood there looking at herself in the full frame mirror at the side of the bed and remembered she had actually worn it once before, on the day she’d bought it, and with the excitement of seeing herself done up as she was now, she’d touched herself and watched herself in her bra and panties, stockings and high heels, caressing herself slowly until she’d seen herself come.

  But that was then, and she was thinner now—that was for sure, after a week of being holed up eating tuna from a can—but a lot of the girls who worked those places were thin. Cocaine has that affect, she thought. She opened the wardrobe fully and found the shoes she’d bought to wear with the outfit and put them on. The black leather heels were loose now on her feet and felt a little more comfortable as she moved freely around her bedroom. She closed the curtains in the room and stared at herself some more in the mirror.

  Yeah, she could do it, she thought, suddenly having some admiration for the girls who did it regularly. Spinning around she pointed her ass towards the mirror and looked back at herself. She looked good. She stood up straight and looked at herself over her right shoulder. Yeah perfect, she thought. Wow. You’ve got what it takes. Her legs tapering off, covered in tight sheer silk, her soft skin showing at the top of her legs, her laced panties halfway up her delicate bottom. Her curved waist, her spine twisting slightly as she moved her head from side to side for a better view—her beautiful back and her hair that dropped down the small of her back, touching the clip on her bra. She thought of Chendrill and what he’d do if he saw her now, doing a dress rehearsal for what he’d suggested she did after he had told her where the two people he’d asked her to watch hung out.

  “Maybe I should just get myself in there into the thick of it and see what comes along?” Yeah, she thought. Why wasn’t Chendrill right there with her now? Watching as she stood in the darkness. She turned and stood looking at herself front on in the mirror. The light from the window catching her from the side, catching her hair, the muscles on her curved stomach, the tiny bulge from her pubic bone. Closing her eyes, she lifted her right hand and began to touch her breasts, feeling them through the silk of her lacy bra, feeling her nipples, feeling the firmness of her breasts pulled extra tight. She touched the other one and did the same as she opened her eyes. She looked good.

  Yeah if Chendrill was here, she’d let him make love to her, she thought. Let him push her up against the mirror as she stood there in her lingerie and heels and she’d let him fuck her against it. She moved forward and still standing laid herself against the glass and took her other hand down below and rubbed herself from outside her panties.

  Yeah, she’d let him really give it to her, she thought. She’d surrender herself to him and push herself back to him so as he could hold her, thrust himself into her through his jeans as he touched her. He could hold her, wrap his arms around her waist then feel her breasts, then she’d feel his cock and pull it out and guide it into herself. Daltrey pushed her hand around the side of her panties and felt herself wet beneath. She rubbed the tips of her fingers against her clitoris and heard herself moan as she did.

  Yeah that’s what she’d do, she thought. She’d let him take her from behind. Let him fuck her really hard and feel his cock push up into her, feel him hold her tight and bite her neck like he used to. She let her other hand drop from her breasts as she pulled it from now inside her bra. She reached down with it and pushing her panties completely to the side, she pushed her fingers deep inside herself as far as her body would let her. Slowly she pulled them out until she could just feel her finger tips there at her opening, then she pushed them back inside against her moistness as her other hand stroked.

  Yeah, she’d let him fuck her from behind, she thought as she pushed her fingers inside herself again, over and over until she felt the electricity run through her body making her shudder and gasp out loudly before she moved herself unsteadily to lay down on the bed. She’d wait for a moment until her breathing settled just enough for her to begin to let her fingers touch her body, so as she could do it again. There were no doubts about it, she was beginning to feel better.

  **************

  Chendrill drove the Aston south along Granville and then further south on the highway, which took him straight down towards the border. If it was him they were watching in the park, then there was a high chance they’d be following him now, he thought, as he stayed at the speed limit and looked in the mirror. Ditcon was like that—whenever the man got off his ass that is. He’d done well though, he’d give him that. The guy had somehow worked it out that it was him who’d crossed the border. He’d have to prove that though, prove he was there, prove he stole the vehicle. Maybe there could be something in the vehicle that could pin him to the border infraction? But he’d slept with a woman who worked the border on the U.S. side not too long ago, meeting her in a bar in White Rock when he was out with friends and had taken a couple of trips, legally those times, across the border so he could kiss and hold her, and then watch her big tits go around and around in unison as he fucked her on her bed. That would be how his hair, or whatever, may be there, and had gotten into to the vehicle—from him to her, then into the vehicle. It would be a stretch, but he now had the money for
the best lawyers who knew just how to stretch things accordingly—it would be all they needed, should it get to that.

  But that was a worst-case scenario and it could be something altogether different that Ditcon or maybe that guy with the oily feet had on him—but the latter was no longer a problem.

  He reached the border and took a left and traveled along Zero Ave till he hit 272 Street and slowed as he passed the house with its barn set way back from the road. In need of a paint job, blending in and looking the same as all the others.

  It was the first time he’d seen it—the place being a guarded secret. The first time he’d heard of the place was when his old friend Rasheed had gotten out of prison and he’d told him he’d ‘inherited’ it from an uncle. Then months later he’d seen the guy driving around in a new Mercedes. Rasheed was gone now though.

  From what Chendrill had heard on the street, a one-way admission ticket to this little haunted house was a cool $5000 cash, per head, which carried a no return policy. You were picked up downtown in a blacked-out van and you didn’t see the light of day again until you got out of another blacked-out van somewhere in Bellingham on the U.S. side of the border.

  He carried on past the place and pulled the Aston into a small slip road and got out. He headed north again on foot, then jumped the stream at the side of the road and headed west again through some woodlands. The undergrowth catching his feet as he pushed though the weeds and nettles and fallen branches. Five minutes later, the house and the barn were visible through the trees. Passing the edge of a bog, he kept to the side hidden by the trees and dropped down over a neglected wooden fence and made his way through the back garden and stood against the side wall next to the kitchen’s rear door.

  He looked at his shoes and wished he’d put his boots on, but it was too late for that. From what he could tell, there was no one around. The rear door was held to the frame with cobwebs. He moved quietly around to the front and looked to the road almost fifteen hundred feet to the south. There were no cars, not on this side of the border or on the U.S. side either. But on the U.S. side they would be there, waiting and watching as they always were.