The End Of Desire: A Rowan Gant Investigation

by M. R. Sellars

“I said,” she growled, emphasizing each word. “Tell… Me… What… You… Called… Me.”

  The man tensed and groaned heavily, his face screwed into a mask of pain.

  “Yes… yes… Mistress…” he stammered through the grimace. “I… I said, Felicity… I… I’m sorry… I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t have used…your… real name…”

  Annalise eased off on the nipple, but not without giving it a final rough tweak. She remained sitting as she continued staring blankly into his face. Now she knew why Miranda had insisted she come here in search of him in particular. He must have a connection to the other.

  The itch faded quickly upon the revelation, completely bypassing the tickle in reverse and becoming no more than a hollow numbness in the pit of her stomach. Anger welled inside her, and she felt her cheeks flush with its heat.

  “I don’t understand,” she murmured. “Why do you think I’m her?”

  “Mistress?”

  “Why do you think I’m her?” she said again, louder.

  “Mistress? But I don’t…”

  She didn’t hear the rest of his answer as it was drowned out by the voice inside her skull.

  “You will… When it is time…” Miranda said.

  “This is why?” Annalise muttered under her breath. “She is why I’m here?”

  “Yes…”

  “What, Mistress?” the man breathed.

  “Shut up!” Annalise spat.

  “Mark him…” Miranda’s voice echoed again.

  “No,” Annalise said aloud. “I won’t.”

  “Punishment or reward, Annalise… You decide.”

  “All you want is her!” Annalise complained aloud. “What about me? I’ve done everything for you! The reward belongs to me!”

  “There is enough for you both… Now mark him…”

  “Mistress?” the man questioned again.

  “I thought I told you to shut up!” Annalise barked, flashing him an angry stare.

  “Show him how much we love him…” Miranda demanded. “I promise, you will be rewarded…”

  “Damn you…” Annalise muttered. “Goddamn you…”

  “I am already damned… As are you… Now do as you were told…”

  Annalise huffed out a heavy sigh. She knew she couldn’t truly disobey. If she did, the punishment would come again. She feared that perhaps this time it would be even worse.

  Reaching back, she slipped off one of her pumps then turned it in her hand so that she could use the tip of the sharp heel as a stylus.

  The tickle returned, spreading out through her stomach, forcing the anger to flee, giving way to pleasure.

  Pressing the heel-tip against the man’s bare chest, she pressed down and began to drag it in a languid arc. He yelped at the new pain, tensing just as he had done before.

  “Relax, little man,” Annalise whispered. “I’m just showing you how much we love you…”

  Tuesday, December 13

  8:19 A.M.

  Saint Louis, Missouri

  CHAPTER 25:

  Normalcy had returned. Well, normalcy so far as I could consider my life normal. Several days had passed since Ben’s call about the homicide in Baton Rouge, and I’d heard nothing about it since. In addition, other than my painfully lucid nightmares, which had greatly lessened in frequency, my afflictions were keeping a low profile. I still had a bit of the chronic ache in the back of my skull but nothing like the blinding migraine I had faced before. Since I’d rarely been without the twinge for several years now, it was easy to ignore.

  At any rate, Felicity and I had fallen back into our routines, and though we were unable to ignore everything that had happened or that a killer was still at large, we decided not to let it consume our lives as it had in the past. For the time being at least, we were making a go at being just plain average, even if it was in large part a lie. So far, we seemed to be having a relative amount of success on that front, at least as far as the outside world was concerned.

  I took a drink of my coffee then glanced up at the clock on the microwave before bringing my gaze back down to my wife. As usual, she was in the middle of dumping what had to be the fourth or fifth heaping spoonful of sugar into her own cup.

  “What time is your meeting?” I asked.

  “Ten thirty,” she replied. “Why?”

  I shrugged. “Well, for one thing, you were out of bed before me, and you’re already dressed. It’s not even half past eight yet.”

  “That a problem?” she quipped with a smile, rattling the spoon around the inside of the ceramic mug as she added hazelnut-flavored creamer to the already overly sweetened brew.

  “Can’t say that it is. I’m just not used to you being on time, much less early.”

  I dropped my eyes back to the newspaper. Most everything on the front page had fallen into the category of depressing, so I was perusing the daily comics in hopes of finding a chuckle or two instead.

  “Aye, well I’m not actually there yet,” she said.

  “You have a point,” I agreed without looking up.

  “By the way, do I look okay?”

  “You look great, as usual.”

  “Rowan,” she admonished. “You aren’t even looking at me.”

  I lowered the paper and gave her a quick glance. She was clad in a dark grey, pinstripe business suit. Her hair was swept up off her shoulders and pinned in place, cascading into a neat fall down her back. It also didn’t escape my notice that she’d seen more than just a cursory visit with her makeup table.

  “You look great. Just like you did five minutes ago when you asked me the same thing.”

  “I already asked?”

  “Uh-huh. Twice actually… This time makes three.”

  “But, you’re sure I look okay?”

  “Yes,” I told her with a nod then looked back down at the comics. “You look wonderful.”

  “I was thinking maybe I should wear a skirt instead of slacks. What do you think?”

  “Okay.”

  “Well, do you think that would be too much?”

  “I don’t know. I guess that would depend on who you’re meeting with and how short the skirt is,” I chuckled.

  “I’m serious, Rowan.” She offered the words with a heavy note of exasperation in her voice.

  I folded the paper and laid it aside then brought my eyes up to meet hers, giving her my full attention. “All right… What’s up? I’ve never seen you this nervous about work before.”

  “I’m not nervous.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Okay, fine. I’m a little nervous.”

  “Why?”

  “I’m not usually dealing with the stigma of an arrest and a stay in a psych ward.”

  “I don’t understand. You’ve done several jobs since you got home. Why is there a problem now?”

  “Those were established accounts who already knew me. This is the first meeting I’ve had to pitch to a potential client since all that happened, you know. It’s different.”

  “Yeah, okay. But, I really think you’re getting yourself worked up over nothing, sweetheart,” I reassured her. “You’ll be fine. You always are.”

  “I wish I had your confidence about that.”

  “Okay, let me ask you this—Did you approach them looking for work or did they call you?”

  “They called me.”

  “There you go.”

  “There I go what?”

  “If anything that was in the news about your bogus arrest was going to affect their decision, I doubt they would have even called you in the first place. Obviously it isn’t a factor.”

  “Maybe they just haven’t heard about it yet.”

  “Only if they were living under a rock.”

  She frowned hard. “Thanks a lot.”

  “Seriously, Felicity. I really think this is a non-issue.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “I know I am.”

  “I hope so.”

  She took a sip
of her coffee while staring thoughtfully into the space just over my shoulder. I watched her for a moment then picked up the paper again and unfolded it.

  “Black, maybe?” I offered as I began to scan the cartoons.

  “Black what?” she asked.

  “Black skirt,” I replied. “Understated, professional. And, black goes with everything, right?”

  “So you think I should change, then?”

  “No, but you do. I can tell by the way you’re staring off into space.”

  “I’m going to go change.”

  “What a surprise,” I mumbled.

  She didn’t reply to my last comment. Instead, she simply placed her coffee cup on the counter then turned and headed out of the kitchen. Her footsteps hadn’t even faded around the corner when the dogs began barking in the back yard. The chime of the doorbell followed quickly, as if to add urgent punctuation to their ruckus.

  “I’ll get it,” Felicity called out.

  I heard her as she shuffled quickly to change direction, and that was soon followed by a click when she unlatched the deadbolt on the door. Before I had a chance to find where I had left off on the comics page, however, a somewhat disturbing noise hit my ears, and it took the form of my wife’s voice wrapped in an altogether annoyed tone.

  “Damnú!” she exclaimed. “I thought I told you to leave me alone!”

  I had already tossed the paper onto the counter and was out of my seat when I called out to her. “Felicity? What’s wrong?”

  I hadn’t even taken my first step when I heard a heavy thud on the floor along with a muffled male voice. Both of these new sounds caused my heart to jump in my chest, and I darted out of the kitchen. I wasn’t sure what I was expecting to find, but my brain was so conditioned to the horrific that a sense of semi-contained panic had already set in. In a fraction of a second, it had taken it upon itself to fill in the blanks with all manner of possible unpleasantness.

  What I did see when I rounded the corner, however, was the last thing I had imagined, and it gave me enough pause to stop me dead in my tracks. My wife was still fully upright and was trying to back away from the now open door. Unfortunately, her ability to affect the maneuver was being severely hindered by an altogether familiar looking man who was bowed down in front of her, arms locked around her ankles as he murmured half intelligible praises in between each fervent kiss he bestowed upon her feet and shoes.

  “What are you doing?!” Felicity barked as she tried to pull her foot out of his grasp. “Stop it!”

  My initial fear for her safety immediately shifted to annoyance. Brad Lewis, the man currently molesting my wife’s feet, was the same individual she had almost trampled to death while under Miranda’s control. Fortunately, he hadn’t pressed charges over his injuries, primarily because he was beyond just your average submissive fetishist who got a thrill from the abuse. So far beyond in fact, that by all indications, he was psychologically addicted to it.

  Unfortunately, however, that which saved Felicity from both criminal charges and a civil lawsuit had quickly turned into a very different sort of problem. Lewis had fixated on her, and for a period of several days made a major nuisance of himself with repeated telephone calls. She had finally stopped trying to reason with him and took advantage of her repressed persona along with his desire to serve a Domme by literally ordering him to stop calling. The tactic had seemed to work, as the unwanted contact stopped cold following that one-sided conversation.

  Until now, that is.

  Calls were one thing, but this was a whole new dimension. Prior to this point, he hadn’t been bold enough to actually come to the house—at least not that we knew of. Now, not only was this frightening in a sense, it made me angry.

  My momentary bewilderment wore off, and I started forward, but Felicity was already taking her own measures to deal with the groveling stalker.

  “Damnú! Get… Off… Me!” she shrieked, yanking one foot free as he was focusing his attention on the other.

  Squatting quickly, she grabbed a handful of his hair and began pulling his head upward as she stood. Given the burning glare in her eyes, if I hadn’t been as angry about his intrusion as was she, I would have almost felt sorry for him.

  Before I covered the few steps between us, she had him back up into a kneeling position in front of her with his head held back so that his face was upturned. In a flash the open palm of her free hand struck his cheek with a loud crack. I was just grabbing him by the shirt collar when she slapped him hard again.

  “Felicity!” I barked. “Don’t you think that might just be encouraging him?!”

  “Is cuma liom sa diabhal!” she shouted. “I’m pissed off!”

  The spate of Gaelic was a new one on me, so I wasn’t entirely sure what she had said. However, the English portion of the sentence left nothing to the imagination, not that her actions hadn’t already spoken volumes.

  “All right, get out!” I demanded as I hooked one hand under his arm while keeping the other twisted into the back of his collar. I was trying to pull him toward the door, but Felicity still hadn’t let go of his hair.

  “But, Mistress…” he whined.

  “Dún do bheal!”

  He was obviously completely unfamiliar with Gaelic as he half whimpered again, “But, Mistress…”

  “I am not your Top!” my wife shouted back into his face. “I thought I made that clear!”

  “B…b…but, last night…” he stammered.

  “Tá tú glan as do mheabhair!”

  That one I knew, and it roughly translated into something about him being crazy.

  “She’s right. You’re delusional,” I growled then glanced at Felicity. “I think it might be time for a restraining order. I’ll hold him. You call the police.”

  “But… Last night… At The Whine Cellar… Where we met… You were there. Don’t you remember?”

  “Aye, now I know you’ve lost your mind,” she harrumphed, finally letting go of his hair and stepping back.

  “But you were!” he insisted. The whimper in his voice was starting to fade and now even seemed to be taking on a bit of agitation.

  “She was here all night,” I countered. “She never left the house.”

  I quickly repositioned my grip on him for a better hold. I was beginning to worry that his mental state was going to make this a bigger problem than it already was, and I wanted to be prepared if this became any more physical than it already had.

  I shot Felicity a firm glance and said with emphasis, “Honey, I really think you’d better call the police now.”

  “You marked me!” Lewis contended. “You said I was yours… That I could serve you… You said that you loved me!”

  “I did what?”

  His free hand started to move, so I immediately let go of his collar and did the only thing I could think to do. I slipped my arm around his neck, placing him in a headlock. From looking at him, he definitely appeared to be in better shape than me, so I felt I needed every advantage I could get where leverage was concerned.

  Even with my tightening grip, however, he didn’t stop. But, instead of reaching for my wife, as I had feared he was about to do, he grasped the front of his own shirt through the wide opening in his jacket and ripped hard.

  Buttons bounced across the floor with a sharp, plastic clatter, and I heard Felicity gasp. From my present angle I couldn’t see what she was staring at, but the look on her face told me it couldn’t be good.

  “What?” I asked her. “What?”

  Instead of answering, she brought her hand up to her mouth and closed her eyes as she took another step backward. Since he was no longer struggling against me, I loosened my grip just enough to peer over his shoulder.

  Even though it was upside down and less than perfectly scribed, the design was unmistakable. The welts were an angry red and were scabbed over in the places where blood had seeped out of the deeper scrapes. The wounds were obviously recent, and that supported the time frame of his story to s
ome extent.

  I felt a familiar hollowness well in the pit of my stomach as I stared at the pattern. Among the bruises and fresh high heel marks covering his chest, scraped deeply into his skin was a checkerboard heart pierced by what could only be meant as a dagger.

  “Felicity,” I breathed carefully. “Call the police, then get Ben on the phone.”

  CHAPTER 26:

  “This is seriously fucked up,” Ben said. The tone of his voice was flat and more than just a little introspective.

  My friend had arrived while the local police were still taking our statements. After he spoke with them for a few minutes, then made a quick phone call, they left, taking Lewis with them. As usual, the neighbors got an eye full of the goings on. I was beginning to think we might need to move, but who was I to take away their source of entertainment?

  Now, some half hour later, we were sitting at the breakfast nook in the kitchen, contemplating our cups of coffee.

  It was just the two of us at this point. Felicity had been slightly shaken but not enough to keep her from being determined to attend her scheduled business meeting—even though I objected. In a way, I suppose it was a good thing she ignored my protests. She probably needed something to take her mind off the whole situation. The truth is, I wished I had something to divert my own attention from it, but I also wasn’t naïve enough to believe it would matter even if I did. My attempt at embracing denial was no longer working. It was painfully apparent that forces beyond my control simply wouldn’t allow it.

  “Believe me. I know that.” I replied after a thick pause. “I guess it could’ve been worse though. It’s not like he actually assaulted her or anything.”

  “Yeah, Row, I’m afraid he did.”

  “Not really. All he actually did was slobber on her shoes.”

  “While she was wearin’ ‘em,” Ben added. “Simple battery is any form of unwanted physical contact, so by law what ‘e did qualifies as common assault, Kemosabe.”

  “Yeah, that’s what the other cops said too.” I shrugged. “What I meant was I just usually think of assault as something a bit more malicious. He didn’t actually attack her with any intent to do harm.”