Deceptions

by Dana Mansfield

  Vivienne was William’s pride and joy and although watching Landon and James hurt someone brought him intense pleasure, Vivienne magnified that pleasure with her medical and pharmaceutical tortures along with her own expertise at harming men and women where it counted. And when they tortured together, it got them both going and the sex between them was incredible. It didn’t take much either.

  As William gazed upon Penny’s hanging, naked body, he felt himself respond. He blamed Penny. Her body was perfect stretched out. She was so thin her ribs easily stood out and he grew hard as he admired her concave stomach and jutting hip bones. Penny’s breasts were lovely. They were not very big, barely a B cup before the starvation, but they had a nice shape. Her body proportions were perfect and if it wasn’t for his job, she would make a nice pet for him and Vivienne. Technically, she could still be their pet but not until he had the information he needed for the Employer.

  William continued to harden as he watched as she struggled in the manacles. Her pretty yet beaten face was set in pain. He knew the damage to her wrists, shoulders, and knees contributed to that pain but he also knew the damage he inflicted on her back wasn’t helping either. For a second time during her stay, he severely flogged her. He had no choice after she insulted the Employer. Plus, she needed a reminder of the severity of the situation. That was a problem with Cooperate. Although Vivienne’s drug loosened the guests up, it also gave them a little bit too much moxie so to focus them, William had to inflict pain. There really was no other choice.

  He had used his belt on Penny’s back just as before and just as before, she took the punishment well. It wasn’t a surprise; he knew her sexual background but could not let her know that. Penny wasn’t a sexual masochist.

  “How are you doing, Penny?” he asked and approached her. She looked at him through her pained eyes but otherwise, gave no reaction to him nor did she answer his question. He walked behind her and admired her back. Even before his handiwork it was beautiful, although scarred, but with the bruises and welts and blood…

  William took a deep breath and let it out slowly. He needed Vivienne exactly at that moment. Penny could wait.

  . . .

  The day without Penny was hell on Jack. Questions raced through his mind and he was desperate for answers. What did she know that the Employer wanted to know? Why was he unable to give the information? What were they doing to do Penny to get the information?

  When James brought his measly lunch of half a peanut butter sandwich and a small cup of milk, Jack asked him what was going on with Penny but James ignored him. The same happened when Landon came with his dinner which was half of what he and Penny called the boiled dinner – chicken breast, potatoes, and broccoli. His worry for what was happening to Penny took away his appetite so he had to force himself to eat. He was losing weight again and skipping meals was not a wise decision.

  When he wasn’t pacing, Jack sat on the mattress. It was impossible to keep his Big Brain settled and it didn’t help when he heard muted screaming coming from somewhere in the basement. After the first scream, he raced to the two inside walls to try and listen and see if he could hear what was going on but the brick walls were thick. This did not help Jack’s nerves at all.

  The sun set and despite his worry, he grew tired. Between his pacing and lack of nutrition, it was easy for exhaustion to set in and he leaned back against the brick wall and closed his eyes. Jack didn’t intend to fall asleep but he did and the next thing he knew, it was time for a small mound of pasty oatmeal. Penny was not in the cell.

  “Where’s Penny?” Jack asked James after he finished his measly breakfast.

  “You will use the bucket from now on,” was James’s answer as he picked up the tray and left.

  With each meal, Jack asked the same question but no one ever answered. Time advanced as it did all over the world and as it did, Jack grew more scared that Penny had been killed.

  * * *

  Chapter 26

  William carried Penny from the bungalow to the secondary work room in the hog barn. A change in tactic was needed and since she had turned into a screamer, he decided to continue the work away from Jack. Penny was holding on like a vise despite the various drugs and tortures and it was time to ramp things up. He was amazed at what a strong will she had but he was also growing impatient as was the Employer. A week had passed, longer than he expected. William had managed to crack her just a bit the day before and the goal was to widen that crack so the information flowed.

  William decided a day or two in the chair in the chilly hog barn would be a nice change. First, however, she needed cleaning up from pissing herself. It was one thing for him to work on one of the male guests who smelled of human filth, it was another thing for Penny. Although bathing was not a priority, he was not keen on smelling her piss. On a man, it didn’t bother him but it bothered him on Pretty Penny. Of course, he made sure the experience was uncomfortable and as he had carried her from the bathroom cage, he felt her shaking from the ten minutes she spent under the cold water and then the additional time it took for her to air dry as she hung. Her shoulders were a mess.

  As James set up the camera, William stood to the side to formulate his plan for the day. There would be the drugs and typical physical harm such as slaps and such. In the past week he’d been working with her, he had not held back and that morning, Vivienne confirmed Penny had at least one broken rib. Her wrists were raw and bloody and Vivienne gave her just enough nutrition to keep Penny alive. Skeletal. That was the perfect adjective to describe her.

  When the camera was ready and Vivienne started a new IV, she gave Penny a double dose of both Cooperate and Fear. William kneeled down in front of Penny. She tried to shrink back against the scarred chair. Her demeanor clearly demonstrated Fear was working well on her. She shook even harder and couldn’t look at him. Fear was a wonderful drug. Vivienne was also enjoying using it and used Penny almost as a lab experiment.

  “I have a present for you, Penny,” William said, keeping his voice kind. His words confused Penny; the space between her eyebrows crinkling. It was another sign Fear was working. He took the small paper plate that held apple slices smeared with peanut butter and held it in front of her. He saw her desire for it in her eyes. “Would you like?”

  “Yes, please,” she whispered, her voice meek and near childlike. “But what do I have to do for it?” William smiled at her. She was exactly where he needed her to be.

  “You don’t have to do anything,” he said, speaking to her as if she was a child. “This is a reward for doing so well yesterday.” His words confused her again.

  “But I talked,” she replied, a little weepy.

  “And that’s what I wanted.” He held an apple slice to Penny’s mouth. It was evident she was torn between the simple snack and holding her guard. She had been through a week of hell, however, and she opened her mouth. For several minutes, William fed her slices of apple and then gave her a drink of cool water. “Time to get back to business,” he said. Penny shook her head.

  “No more,” she begged.

  “Then you’ll tell me the two things I want to know.” Again, Penny was torn.

  Finally, she spoke. “No.”

  William bound her wrists to the arms of the chair and her ankles to the legs. Vivienne administered another dose of Cooperate and Penny’s eyes drooped a little and she leaned back in the chair. Despite the chill of the barn, William rolled up his sleeves. Today was the day he was going to start getting the answers, enough pissing around. He had a lot of information about her but he and the Employer wanted to hear her speak the words. He wanted her to remember memories he was certain she didn’t want to recall.

  “Penny, tell me what it was like growing up with Sunny?” She looked up at him with puppy dog eyes.

  “Sunny was my mommy,” she slurred.

  “Yes, she was, Penny,” he said and stroked her bruised face. “What kind of a mommy was she?” Penny closed her eyes and shook her head. She was
resisting and William slapped her hard. The tone for the session was now set.

  * * *

  Chapter 27

  Jack’s days were the same. Oatmeal, PB&J, boiled chicken breast/potato/broccoli. In between he slept or paced. Three weeks. Three weeks. He had not seen Penny in three weeks and when he demanded to know what happened to her, William had James and Landon beat him until he promised not to ask again. His jaw still smarted from James’s right hook and three of his teeth broke. Some days the tooth pain was the only thing that took his mind off of Penny and even then it was just for a short time as her memory came through the pain.

  He didn’t know what was taking so long. Penny said she would tell William whatever needed to be known and yet she was not back. She had said she wasn’t going to be a hero. Had she talked and the Employer was just keeping them apart? Was Penny murdered once the information was out? This prospect caused him many moments of nausea and vomiting over the days. His stomach was not doing well. Since relocating to the basement, Jack had not received his preventative medication and he feared a new ulcer was forming due to the stress. It was the last thing he needed.

  Week five began and he no longer paced. When his food came, he left the tray covered. No one questioned his inaction. He drank only his water and let the gravity of the unknown capture him. Jack moved next to the bucket where he curled up and started sleeping for long stretches. Two, three, four days passed and all he did was drink water, piss, sleep, and assume Penny was dead. His mind then went blank, nothing occupying his waking moments. As each day passed, he felt himself slipping.

  Jack wanted to die.

  After seven days of his self-imposed hunger strike, as he lay on the cold floor, he looked at his inner left arm and the names of his children. His children. Even though his world was so bleak at that moment, he had a purpose for living. He felt shame for forgetting. Jack needed to survive to see his children again and to raise them, to see their futures. As he gazed upon the names, he realized he had a second purpose. He was reminded of that purpose by a feeling. That feeling was in his heart and had been muted for a week. It was a feeling he wanted a chance to act upon; a feeling that drove him to a decision that seemed so long ago. His second purpose for living was Penny. He needed to live so he could love Penny.

  Sitting up, Jack rubbed his forehead with the heel of his palm. He was greasy and smelled as he wasn’t allowed to shower in the time that Penny was gone. He had short hair now, though matted, and an annoying full beard. If Sofochka were to see him, Jack was certain his appearance would scare her.

  He did not want to cause her any nightmares; he needed to return to her and his family. Jack opened the bottle of water that came on his latest ignored food tray and drank it down in three large gulps. He then scraped the cold oatmeal from the bowl and when William brought his lunch tray, Jack took a chance. It was a big one but it had to be done.

  “I demand to see Penny,” he said in a voice that was strong for the first time in several weeks.

  William laughed at Jack. “Still demanding, no?” he quizzed, mimicking Jack’s way of posing a question. Jack said nothing. He pulled himself up as straight as possible and kept his gaze at William’s dishwater colored eyes. William set the tray down and leaned against the brick wall. He was thinking and Jack’s stomach cramped in fear. He hoped that fear did not show in his face. “I was going to be kind and let her recover before bringing her back.”

  “So she gave you the information?”

  “Yesterday. It wasn’t pretty. Penny is stubborn and we had to break her to get her to talk.”

  “I want to see her.” Jack made his demand again. William crossed his arms in front of him. Throughout the conversation, a tense one, neither gentlemen broke their gaze on each other. Jack heard rain hit the painted over window. Spring was beginning to show herself in the mountains.

  William pulled his cellphone out and tapped away on it. It was a long conversation and with each ding of a new text, the pain in Jack’s stomach grew. After eleven dings, the conversation ended.

  “You will be able to see Penny after you view what has happened over the last few weeks. I, along with the Employer, think it’s only fair.”

  “Whatever it takes,” Jack replied, “I just want to see Penny.”

  “She’s been through hell, Jack. What you’ll see… Well, it’s not going to be easy.”

  “I do not care. I want to see Penny.” Jack wasn’t thrilled with the idea of seeing what William had been doing to Penny but he had no choice. He needed to see her and if that meant watching her torture, then that’s what he had to do.

  An hour later, William returned with a laptop. Jack took it and didn’t try to steady his shaking hands in doing so.

  “You can’t connect to the internet so don’t think you can email off a 911,” William warned. “You’ll find the video files on the desktop and they must all be viewed to grant your wish. I took out some of the fluff and left most of the storytelling. Enjoy.”

  . . .

  “She’s stable,” William replied to a near maniacal Jack who was being held back by James and Landon.

  “You are a monster!” Jack screamed. What the megalomaniac put Penny through was unbelievable yet Jack watched in horror and sickness as she was tortured with drugs and beatings and other horrible, horrible cruelties he didn’t want to remember and could not unsee. In one of the last videos, he had to watch Landon rape Penny. This caused him to vomit his lunch up.

  “I’m a professional.” William handed a set of chains to Landon. “Shackle him up so he doesn’t do anything stupid.” Like a dangerous criminal, Jack was bound at the wrists and ankles by chains that went to a waist belt. It was a good thing; Jack’s anger was at the level where he might just explode.

  The two thugs led him out of the cell behind William. They moved towards the door behind the unfinished bar. It was unlocked and William hit the switch to illuminate the interior. Landon shoved Jack in and the door slammed behind him.

  Jack’s eyes went to the curled up figure in the corner of the small and cold space. There was no bed, nothing soft for his battered best friend to lay on and her right wrist was handcuffed to a bolt in the floor. A bucket sat a couple feet away and in the corner, a red light indicated a camera. Next to Penny was an unopened bottle of water. She wore no clothing and her skeletal body was covered in scratches, bruises and dried blood. Her face was battered. There were ugly red spider lines emanating around her bruised eyes.

  Seeing her this way, laying so broken, after watching the videos and knowing the causes to many of her injuries brought tears to Jack’s eyes. The guilt he felt all along in the ordeal multiplied to an infinite level as her words from the last video echoed in his ears. I just want to protect Jack… She had held out for him and only when her knees once again encountered William’s damned sledgehammer after days and days of enduring the horrific Red drug did she finally break. Yes! Yes! We made love…

  He took a deep breath and fought for control of his emotions before shuffling to Penny and kneeling down. Her breathing was shallow and rapid and Jack knew from the videos that the torture took a terrible toll on her heart. In the light of the single bulb, he saw a bluish tinge to her lips. She needed medical attention not just for her broken bones and other injuries but also for whatever cardiac problem that was worsened due to the torture.

  Jack kept his breaths even and moved from his knees to his ass. He wanted to wake her up, needed to interact with her after so many weeks but she was in no condition for chitchatting. Jack wanted her to know, however, even in sleep that they were together again. Ignoring the pain his bindings caused, he stretched over and with the gentleness Penny deserved, took her left hand in his.

  “I am here, Penny,” he whispered close to her ear that was crusted in dried blood. “I am here and I love you.”

  * * *

  Chapter 28

  Someone had stolen at least one of his journals. Jack was shocked to see William approach Penny in
the first video with it and her reaction was also the same. As Jack sat next to a sleeping Penny, his Big Brain was at a constant run with questions, concerns, and fears. Every day since the kidnapping, he had tried to figure out who was behind it and as he sat on the dusty floor holding Penny’s cold hand, he finally decided it was a concerted effort by someone who had access to his home and a crazy fan who had money to buy William’s services. It had to be a fan; a normal person or a normal fan would have no reason to kidnap Jack and hold him as some sort of sick trophy. The fan must be deranged; the type of fan who had delusions Jack was her, or maybe his, soulmate. There were always fans that were angry he was married.

  Jack realized the mastermind read the reference in his journal about that weekend at the cabin but he had kept the entry very vague. It was one of the few times he was at a loss for words in his private journal. Spent time with Penny at the cabin. Special. Decisions must be made now. It was in his scientific journal he kept at the cabin for his jaunts around the property where he ended up using more words to figure out the weekend. It was not normal for him to write personal entries among the notes of his property’s flora and fauna but he had this time because he had so much about that weekend to put into words. For the journal that went with him, he wrote very little. Just thirteen words. That’s all he wrote and Penny was tortured because of them.

  He was stymied as to how the journal left his study at home but also angry that some bastard had invaded his personal space. They had no breakins so he ruled that out – unless it happened since the kidnapping – and decided it was one of the few outside individuals that had access to his property. Penny used to be responsible for cleaning the entire house but after the accident, Jack hired a cleaning service. She wanted to take back that responsibility after she healed. Jack tried to talk her out of it and they bickered but he put his foot down. It was his idea to keep them. Did a member of the cleaning crew pinch the journal? He kept the specially made bookcase locked but anyone could easily find the key to it at the bottom of the ceramic pencil cup Karie made for him. Maybe it happened during one of the times he just left the key in the lock. On occasion, complacency was his flaw.