Kat glanced back over her shoulder—that black car still behind her, a rental car plate frame around the license plate reading Budget Rent-A-Car.
Shit!
Calm down, Leen, she told herself, you know how many tourists there are in New York every day? Get a grip.
She didn’t flinch, not wanting to trigger any chase response in case her wild hair of a notion actually had any merit. Maybe this is becoming too much. It started with a few lies, to my mother, to Ben. Now I’ve thrown my business away, I’m swapping out my best friend for some desperate bid for a world I don’t understand and I’m not even sure I could survive. I mean, I’m wild about the guy, I can’t deny it. But what do I think a second session is going to achieve? Do I think he’s just gonna…keep me? What do I do when he releases me again and nothing has changed?
But Kat felt that creepy sensation again, unable to resist walking a bit faster. Her palms started to sweat a little and she clenched her fists, ready to use them and all her training. She thought about Carter, yet again, about his power and strength. No assailant could be a greater physical threat, and she very nearly did knock him off his feet. She walked on with a greater tension and readiness, her senses more alert.
Maybe I should just give this all up, Kat thought. It’s only bringing out the worst in me. I thought maybe it had opened new doors, given me a new lease on life. But the lying and the … the dealmaking, the paranoia; maybe there’s a reason people don’t do this kind of thing…ever, never mind doing it all the time.
But that rang hollow in Kat’s head and in her heart. No, there’s something…something natural about me, something basic, primitive. She looked at the city around her, a museum of modern civilization. She took in the people shuffling past her, each on their way to wherever they needed to be in a lifelong litany of chores, meetings, meals. They seemed like zombies to her, each roaming through the wasteland of their lives. I’ll bet it’s no different in Tucson, or anywhere else. But I don’t want to be one of them, not anymore.
She walked on, deciding to turn right on West 53rd Street, just to make sure. Maybe someone from that sex service? Tia McBride didn’t seem all that pleased with me, that’s for sure.
No, she wants Jackie, and now would be the time for her to watch and wait, not start trailing me.
Could it be Carter? I know he felt the same thing I felt. What’s he been doing since then? What does he do; what’s his life like? Who is he, really? I’ve got to find out; I’ve got to see him again. What if that was him in the car and I’ve lost him?
Kat turned to cross back toward Fifth and gasped in quick terror.
Chapter 16
Kat
“I’ll kill you, you bitch!” he bellowed, and she instantly recognized him as the homeless guy from the party in Central Park. He’d caught sight of her on his wanderings and amused himself with a little game of cat and mouse, it seemed to Kat, as much thought as she put into it, which was damn little.
She smashed him hard in the chest again, her flat-palm assault enough to once again send the man stumbling back. But this time he was ready, stronger, and he charged her again. Kat’s body reacted in a flurry of defensive power, a side kick snapping his leg with a loud crack, her fist smashing into his grimy face, his last few teeth flying out of his rotting mouth.
He fell to the sidewalk, an instant heap of filth and stink. She stood in a ready stance, fists clenched, but the guy was down and out. And around her, a crowd of pedestrians stood silent, then broke out into a little round of applause and cheers, people holding their phones up to capture the action on video. Kat looked around, suddenly feeling conspicuous, and turned to scurry off down the street, hoping to leave the whole mess behind her and unable to convince herself that she’d be able to do so.
Jackie shook her head, waving her hand in front of her face. “Girl, you’re a freak magnet—there’s just no two ways about it.”
“Yeah, thanks a lot,” Kat answered back, turning to look out that window, the laundry slowly getting pulled in off the lines. They seemed like ghosts drifting across a hellish landscape that consumed every damned soul sad enough to sink so low.
“Anyway, you’re lucky you had that training. And I’m proud of you. See, you’re not just some damsel in distress at all.”
Kat turned at that remark. “Oh, I’ve known that for a long time now, Jackie, thanks to you. And thanks again for doing that thing, with Ms. McBride.”
Jackie could only shrug, crossing to the kitchen for her other best friend, a chilled bottle of white wine. “It’s good for you, it’s good for me, why should I worry? More I thought about it, more I thought I wanted in, tell you the truth. Two grand for a day’s work whuppin’ some white boy’s ass? Sign me up!” The two old friends laughed, a chorus of unity, each one seeing more in the other than had been possible before. “But one thing, babe…watch yourself.”
Kat squinted as she tried to puzzle out that cryptic warning. “Watch…for what?”
“I’m not sure. Lemme see what I find out when I get on the inside. Until then, just…watch your back.”
Kat headed straight for the mall for the right clothes, and then to the gym. She had a few days before her window opened and she was determined to make the most of them. The weight room in the local Gold’s Gym was filled with the faint trace of sweat, the clanks and clunks of metal machinery a steadily chaotic rhythm in the background. Kat walked through the weight room looking for an empty machine. She felt like she was walking through a museum of living displays: beefy men and superb women pushing levers and pulling handles, weights swinging or rising in response.
The men were often gorgeous, thick legs and arms and broad shoulders and chests. But their faces were strange, mutated by steroids and anger, eyes fixed forward while they huffed out their rage. The women lacked any kind of aggression that Kat could sense. They were concerned with their own beauty, with what that beauty could win them, what it could buy them.
Kat just didn’t feel at home among that crowd, though she could sense the men eyeing her as she sat down at a bench press, her back flat and legs splayed, her breasts heaving as she pumped that iron.
They want me, she knew. They’d jump me right now if they could.
She went on pumping those weights, eyes fixed upward, muscles fixed to their task. She didn’t notice the gradual cease of the clanking and clunking sounds around her—her panted breath and steely determination the only thing in her mind.
So it was easy for her not to notice the slow receding of those sounds as the machines became still around her. It was easy not to realize that the other men and women were slowly standing up and approaching her, one by one, from every angle.
Kat set the weights down and sat up on the bench, looking around at the zombie stares of the other gym bunnies as they approached her, hairy arms and legs, muscular, unemotional expressions as they bore down on her.
She tried to lurch up and off the bench, but it was too late. They were already upon her, their hands around her arms, wrists and elbows and upper arms, she unable to wrench away. They grabbed at her legs, grasping her ankles and calves, her thighs flexing as she kicked against their greater strength and numbers. They had her back on the bench in a frenzied instant.
“Let me go! Get your filthy hands off me!” But they paid her no mind at all, staring at her and even past her, their weight pushing her down, pinning her squirming limps, hands groping closer and closer to her most intimate corners. “Let…me…go!”
Hands slid up her thighs, nearing her crotch.
“Stop,” she cried out, “stop it!”
But as much as she strained to raise herself off that bench, Kat knew she was pinned solid, no chance of escape. But what worried her more was that her hypnotized captors’ attention was suddenly turned to a new point in the room, somebody walking toward them all, slow and sure.
Carter! She hoped. It has to be!
But it was a strange man who stepped around from the other machines, a
devious expression on his face.
Kat’s eyes shot open to look around the gym, everybody going about their rounds as they would normally be doing, no one paying her any attention at all. She shook her head and huffed, struggling only to refocus from her sexy daydream.
Gotta get a grip!
The music in the aerobics class was a throbbing disco beat, pulsing and intense, but it had an undeniable effect on her hips, her shoulders, syncing up in some strange way with her heartbeat and propelling it forward in a stout and healthy rhythm. She tried to keep up with the others—men and women following the instructor’s enthusiastic calls of one pattern or another: one cycle of running in place followed by twists to the side, deep-knee bends and other familiar but suddenly strenuous exercises.
She noticed herself in the mirror with the others, her crop top revealing a body, taught and lean, her tight spandex pants accentuating her firm ass.
Carter’s gonna love this, was her only thought. He’s gonna love me.
Chapter 17
Kat
Kat was walking down Henry Street, wondering how long it would be until Jackie’s part of the deal had been fulfilled. People walked past her, disinterested, consumed by their own private dramas.
She was about to be in the same condition to a much greater degree.
“Don’t scream,” Carter said, suddenly behind her, his big, strong hand on her upper arm. “Don’t flinch, don’t even breath. Just keep walking.” She did as she was told, her feet passing one another swiftly beneath her, her eyes dead ahead.
“Carter—”
“Don’t say a word,” Carter said, his own eyes also fixed on the sidewalk ahead of them. “Scream, and you’re dead. Got it?” She just nodded and kept pace, the two moving swiftly to a red corvette parked on the corner. He opened the passenger door, and she allowed him to ease her into the car before closing the door behind her.
He walked around the side of the car and got in behind the wheel. Without a word, he put the key in, turned the engine over, and peeled out onto the street.
“Where are you taking me?” Without taking his eyes off the road, Carter jammed the transmission. Knowing her role in their new scenario, Kat said, “Look, if you’re after the microfilm, I…I don’t have it. I gave it to the police; I don’t have it.”
He looked at her with a wry smile, gunning the engine as he turned onto the street.
“I-I know you think I-I have some information about whatever you’re up to, but I really don’t! I’m just a secretary, that’s all! I don’t know anything.” He offered no answer, pulling over and parking in a nearby space. Carter jockeyed the car back and forth, Kat looking around, eyeing the door handle.
He parked the car and killed the engine. “You’re going to be quiet and you’re going to behave yourself, is that clear?” She nodded. “Any problems from you, even a peep, I’ll gun you down and everyone else in the place, you understand me?” The sudden feeling of fear prevented her from speaking, but he repeated much louder, “Do you understand me?”
“Yes”—she was too quick to answer—“yes, I understand.”
Ten minutes later they were walking down the supermarket aisle, colorful boxes stacked up in seemingly countless numbers: aluminum foil, sandwich bags, waxed paper.
Carter stopped at the stacks of Saran Wrap brand cling wrap. He examined the box, then looked Kat over. He put the box into the handcart she was holding. A little thrill rang through her body as she held out the plastic basket, loading it full of three boxes of cellophane, then five boxes, finally ten.
She cleared her throat. “You don’t think this is gonna make them suspicious?”
Carter smiled. “Tip them off and there’ll be trouble.”
“Kathleen?” Kat and Carter turned to see Ben standing only a few feet away, pushing a shopping cart half-filled with a variety of junk foods, paper plates and bathroom tissues, and other staples of bachelor life.
“Oh, Ben, hi.” She stood in the stiff silence swirling around the three of them. Ben looked at Kat and then at Carter, then back at her. The fact that the two were intimate was obvious, though the nature of their relationship couldn’t have been guessed by him or any objective person.
The handcart filled with ten rolls of Saran Wrap was another thing altogether.
“So, um,” Ben cleared his throat, “who’s your friend here?”
“Ben, this is…” She turned to Carter, who gave her a small shake of his head. “This is…Cole, Cole…Armstrong.”
“I see,” Ben said, looking Carter over and extending his hand. “Nice to meet you, Cole.” “Um, Cole, this is a friend of mine, Ben Clark,” she said, trying to get through this painfully awkward encounter as quickly as possible.
“Ben,” was all Carter said.
Ben looked back at the conspicuous amount of cellphone in their handcart, but only cleared his throat again and looked around. “All right, well, I gotta hit the check out,” was all Ben could think to say. “Nice to meet you, Cole,” he added with the worst fake smile she had ever seen. He looked at her to add, “Kat,” with a wink before pushing his cart farther down the aisle.
Chapter 18
Kat
Once in the their hotel room, pleasant but not at all ostentatious, Carter locked the door and dropped the bag of clingwrap rolls onto the bed. She hadn’t said a word on the whole ride from the grocery store or on the way to the room, and the silence was becoming deafening. She knew what that clingwrap was for, but for some reason she couldn’t quite understand she heard herself ask, “What are you going to do to me?”
But because there was no need to have asked, Carter didn’t even bother to answer. Instead he said simply, “Take your clothes off.”
She was slow to respond, nodding, arms slowly reaching to pull her T-shirt off. “No, do it now!” The urgency in his bark made her arms move faster, T-shirt suddenly off, breasts free to sit perched on her chest, nipples already rock hard. She dropped the T-shirt to the floor and undid her jeans, letting them and her panties fall to her ankles. She stepped out of them and stood there as he threw the clothes across the room, one roll of clingwrap already out of its long box. He wrapped it several times around her ankles and lower calves before spiralling it upward. The feel of the thin plastic wrap against her skin was odd and unique—a general presence on her skin that brought neither pain nor pleasure.
“Put your arms at your sides.” She immediately did as she was told. Carter wrapped the clingwrap over her arms, pinning them to her sides. The wrap was tight against her breasts and, after a few more wraps under her shoulders, the roll ran out.
Carter pulled something else out of the bag, something he’d retrieved from the trunk of his car before escorting her up to the room. He plugged in the blow-dryer and hit the switch, the loud little engine belching hot air at her. He passed it over the end of the roll, pressing it down.
But one layer would never hold against her energetic struggling. A humming bird could fight its way out of this!
But there were nine rolls left to go.
The second roll went from the breasts down, right up to the shoulder and then down again, crossing the first roll and covering the exposed slits of skin. The hairdryer helped melt the wrap around her ankles, where the third roll began.
The fourth and fifth rolls began to add pressure, her arms securely pinned to her naked sides. She tried to pull her arms free, giving it all her strength; her heart started beating faster when she couldn’t do it. Her breath came faster as her insecurity rose. She watched him go about his grim but fascinating business, wrapping her in layer after layer. He said nothing, never looking into her eyes. Instead he seemed like some bizarre artist engrossed in his work. But instead of bringing human form from something vague and ill-defined, he was disguising her, wrapping her up to be discovered later. If she was to be a masterpiece, she first had to be a hunk of rock.
One more roll was more than enough. She tried to pull her arms from her side, bending to tr
y to free her legs, but she was tightly cocooned and helpless.
But there were still two rolls left.
Carter pulled a long stretch of clingwrap off the roll. He looked at her, and she knew what he had in mind.
“No,” she mewed, shaking her head, “please … ”
“It’s okay,” Carter said with a low, calm voice. “Hold your breath and trust me. Okay?” After a doubting moment, he repeated, “Okay?”
Her eyes locked on that plastic roll, Kat nodded and took a deep breath. He pressed the plastic against her face, locking mouth and nostrils closed, and she panicked, gasping and losing her breath. Carter pulled the plastic away and she looked at him, at it, knowing she would succumb. It was the fear she’d come for—the challenge, the trust. She took a few breaths then one deep lungful to hold.
He pressed the cellophane over her face and quickly wrapped it around her head. Her ears registered the loud, stretching sound of the plastic wrap tearing from the roll, but it became duller and duller as the plastic wrapped around in quickly increasing layers.
Her lips were pressed tight, nose pressed to the side and sealed up, and Kat knew she would suffocate after only a few minutes. But she also knew he wouldn’t let that happen. But after blasting the wrap with the hair dryer, her breath was running out. Her body started to flex, invisible needles pricking her skin through the plastic as her nerves began to burst and twitch, telling the brain that something was terribly, terrifically wrong.
But the familiar click of his switchblade made Kat jerk again, her vision white with the layers of plastic in front of her. He held her from behind, his plastic-muted voice saying, “Don’t move, not even an inch! You hear me?”
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