by Dean Covin
“In spite of relishing the experience, she realized it’d been a huge mistake. If the photos got out … she was terrified. She had needed the money to start out, but dancing was more than paying for her education, and so she put a priority on getting them back.”
“And she got them all?”
“Apparently. The problem was, she met the one during her last year of college and made the mistake of showing him the photos. Mr. Right stole copies from her and sold them to an adult site for a measly five hundred bucks. She found out, forced him to buy them back and destroy the copies.”
“And did he?”
“She said he did. But in her anger she had him charged with theft, and he was given a conditional sentence. They never spoke again, but Ivy heard he was killed while on vacation in Mexico last year—drug violence, wrong place, wrong time.” She topped up her wine. “How did you guys come across the pictures?”
“We caught some boys at school with them this afternoon. Turns out they had shared them with a couple other boys, and it got out yesterday. My tech says so far there have been eleven unique member downloads using New Brighton IP addresses.”
“Fuck!” As soon as she sat, Kyla began trembling. “This isn’t how she should be remembered. Can’t you stop them?”
“They’ve pulled down the photos as of an hour ago as part of this investigation. But I doubt we can do anything about the ones that were downloaded.”
“Jesus Christ,” she whispered. “Do you know who they are? I’ll go after them myself.”
“They’re working on it.”
“Will you tell me who has them?”
Vicki shook her head. “I can’t.” She stood up. “It’s getting late. I still need to get this laptop sent off.”
“You have them here?”
“Ivy never showed you?”
“She destroyed her copies before she moved here—said keeping any was too risky. Please, I have to see them.”
“If she didn’t show them to you herself, I can’t.”
“She had already destroyed them. She would’ve shown me. She told me all about them, I just told you that.”
“They’re part of our investigation.”
“Will you please take off that fucking badge for one minute and listen to me? I was her best friend. She was proud of them. Photography is my life—she was my life. You have to show me. You’ve seen the pictures I take. She would’ve been okay with it.”
“I don’t know. These are pretty—”
“That’s your badge talking. Ask your gut. Ivy, no matter how explicit, would never have allowed anything degrading—she wasn’t that way.” Kyla answered Vicki’s silent thought. “I’m right, aren’t I? So listen to your gut and show me.”
Something about this town made Vicki break the rules. She opened the laptop, typed nose_fucker95 and clicked on the folder.
She let Kyla run the show, noting which sets interested her most, trying to justify this as investigative. If Vicki detached herself from the subject being Ivy, Vicki did find the dark images dangerously alluring.
Kyla lingered on the ones of Ivy with two muscular savages, but as Kyla slowly scanned the BDSM photos, she touched her fingers to her lips and began to weep. “They’re magnificent.”
Not a word that came to mind for Vicki, but she deferred to Kyla’s professional eye.
“My God, her submission is total supremacy.” She spoke with a reverence that was lost on Vicki. “I knew she was amazing, but this is…”
“Magnificent?” Vicki recalled for the tipsy lady.
“Yeah.” She nodded with a deep sigh, pulling a tissue to her face.
Viewing the photos alongside a professional and Ivy’s best friend, Vicki started seeing the scenes in a new light. Society’s judgment made her angry.
“A woman should be able to do this and not have it haunt her for the rest of her life,” Vicki said.
Kyla agreed, a slight slur forming her words. “Let’s be real. We all want to see it … yet we judge those who offer us titillation … and ecstasy.” She took another sip and raised a finger from her fist to halt the madness. “Fucking hypocrites!”
She wandered back to her kitchen island. “You sure you don’t want one? … So be it.” She rolled to the sofa, closing the laptop and looking Vicki sort of in the eye. “I’m a voyeur … to the extreme—professionally speaking. It’s my gift, my passion. But I need to meet this photographer.”
“You know who he is?”
“He? Are ya kidding?” She waffled between laughing and crying, shaking her head. “No man could do this. This kind of beauty has to be the work of a woman—I promise you that.” The tears fell steadily with her drunk-speak. “I so miss her, so much…” She looked upon Vicki like a jonesing heroin addict, desperate for her particular brand of fix. “You really need to let me take your picture.”
“That’s not gonna happen.”
She pouted for a moment but then came to a sudden revelation. “That’s actually really smart!” She wavered slightly as more of the red kicked in. “You’re so like her—so beautiful … and sexy.”
Vicki didn’t bother asking the woman to remove her hand from Vicki’s thigh.
Kyla continued her speech. “I create visions of people, for people. It’s my claim to fame. But some people can’t simply take pleasure in looking,” she warned. “These could be dangerous photos for you—of you.”
“Kyla, could these have gotten her killed?”
She turned her red eyes up at Vicki, anger shining through her slurring. “It’s a wonderful world, but some very sick people are in it. Looking like Ivy, breathing could have gotten her killed.”
Forty-two
The silence of her bedroom opened to black chaos. Vicki couldn’t stifle her screams. Her eyes were locked open against the piercing agony, even against the burning of her tears. Blades were churning out her vagina with a sharp, sadistic hammering against her cervix, triggering waves of relentless, painful convulsions within her uterus. Her legs kicked out at the assault in a frantic, futile frenzy, knocking away her covers.
Her clockwork cycle wasn’t due for another two weeks, yet a gush of sticky wetness weighed against her panties and then splashed against her inner thighs with her violent kicks. The skin in her throat was tearing away from the force of her screams. Flashes of white pain filled her vision as her hand instinctively grabbed to protect her already-savaged center. Fresh flow foamed through her panties, painting her hands in blood. She cried against a suffering that she could never have conceived possible. A wave of malicious heartache and emotional carnage violated and destroyed, beyond the physical, all that was sacred and feminine to her.
She screamed in anguish for a full minute before the knocking started, and the thrust of the pain fled its assault. It took another sixty seconds to get to her feet against the lingering agony, her legs fighting every step as she scrambled for the hammering against the door. By the time she reached the doorknob, the wave upon wave of cruel, destructive pain had subsided.
A terrified man and woman, wrapped in their robes, looked at her tear- and sweat-smattered face. She wanted to plead for help but, instead, held her bloody hands and torso behind the door.
“We heard screaming.” They looked as white as Vicki must appear. “You okay, miss?”
She could feel her draining face dripping against the cool night air. “Oh, sorry, you know …” she hesitated.
“Do you need help?”
Yes! her mind screamed, feeling the hot dripping gush trickle down her already-sticky thighs. She leaned against the back of the door, fighting gravity. Why couldn’t she ask for help? Something was pulling the strings in her mind, restraining reason, holding her logical pleas in chains.
“Sorry, it must have been a nightmare. I’m so sorry I woke you.”
They stood, unconvinced. “If you need anything, I’m Margaret and this is Stanley.”
She avoided their stares, peripheral stars invading. “Vicki.” She kept her hands behind the door. The flow continued down her leg, pooling at her feet. “I really need to get to bed. Thanks—g’night.” She shut the door with shallow breaths, slapping at the light switch.
Her eyes burned against the brightness. A sharp sickness grew in her stomach as she regained focus, seeing the red mess trailing across the floor. Her legs weakened as she leaned her wet back against the door. She sobbed, fearing the worst. Her hand hesitated, held back—dreading the truth.
She breathed as she chanced a finger to feel for the wound. Her touch found soft, wet, sticky flesh that was hot like a fatal fever, but her anticipation of pain was not met. She explored a little farther into the bloody gush; nothing. Deeper she went, ready to wince the instant the damage was found. Nothing.
She squatted farther down the door, careful not to slip in the puddle. Even with a second, deeper finger she could find no source of pain. Nothing. But the sticky crimson mess on her fingers, down her legs and on the floor was real enough.
In a momentary lapse, she cradled her face in her hands to breath heavy in confusion—the strong smell of wet copper was unmistakable. Shocking herself away from her sticky hands, she had no doubt it was blood.
The memory of the deep torment remained as real as the cherry slick on her fingers. She mindlessly wiped them on her T-shirt, wandering aimless in the small space before her door. She managed to quiver the word help quietly from her lips as she continued to shake. Uncontrollable whimpering took hold, but she managed to squeak, “Please help.”
“Please help me,” she repeated again and again, wobbling as she paced, refusing the urge to rest on her blood-soaked mattress. Cold fingers brushed against the confusion in her mind, stirring the dust over her thoughts—then she knew. She rubbed her fingers clean against the outsides of her thighs and grabbed the card from her purse along with her phone. She took a deep breath and tried to speak. “Dr. Voxel? It’s Agent Starr. I need you.” She fought back her shaky tears. “Now.”
† † †
“We should be calling an ambulance.”
Although Vicki’s vitals were stable, Dr. Voxel expressed irritation that they were not doing this at the hospital.
Vicki shook her head again as she braced against the doctor’s probing. Vicki’s mind raced. Was she drugged and then assaulted—raped? The pain slashed through her memory, and she trembled at the possibility … raped with a knife? She feared total ruin.
“Losing all this blood, you shouldn’t even be conscious.”
Her clock blinked to 4:00 a.m. as Vicki rested atop layers of blankets on the kitchen table, still wrapped in her towel from her sponge bath and covered from neck to belly in her spare comforter. She held her knees back as Dr. Voxel continued to examine her insides.
Allison had taken great pains to gently clean the area after carefully rinsing Vicki internally with a warm solution. Dr. Voxel’s search for the source of blood was taking a long time. Vicki was uncomfortable but patient. She was just happy to be breathing normally again, with a level heart rate.
The doctor had given Vicki a series of remedies to slow the bleeding, and then a strong homeopathic followed by an herbal tincture to calm her nerves and alleviate the pain. Finally Allison had added something to sooth Vicki’s distressed throat and restore her voice.
The doctor looked up from between Vicki’s legs. Vicki didn’t like her look, which wasn’t concern, but anger.
“What is this?” she asked. “Some kind of cruel joke?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m surprised at you.” She stood from her chair, snapping off her gloves as she gathered her things. “You need to give me back my phone.” Vicki had insisted that the doctor not call for help—ensuring compliance by stripping away her phone.
Confused, exhausted allegations flew around the room. “Who put you up to this? I expected more from you. Was it Dr. Collins? Is this why you refused to go to the hospital? What are you trying to do to me? I have rights. I can sue.”
“Wait!” Vicki cried. She swung from the table and ran after her. “What? What is it?”
“It’s nothing.” She crossed her arms, glaring at Vicki. “There’s nothing there. Nothing.” She threw Vicki another blanket in disgust. “I don’t know what kind of sick game this is, but it’s not your blood.” Her anger broke into tears. “I can’t believe you’d do this to me. I’m a legitimate doctor. I take the same training as any other doctor and then some! Except for surgery, I’m as real as any—” She choked on a mixture of anger and humiliation, shaking her head in rabid disbelief. “This isn’t funny! This isn’t fair!”
“I’m not screwing with you, Allison!” Vicki yelled, wrapping herself in the blanket. “I felt the pain. I saw the blood. I called you because I trust you. Don’t you dare think differently.”
She appraised Vicki’s face while she wiped away her tears. “Well, there’s not a wound on you. Up there or anywhere. So whose blood is it then?”
Vicki turned her eyes to the sticky mess of balled-up panties on the floor and answered herself out loud, “I don’t know.”
Forty-three
The intense reek of bleach made Vicki dizzy. After securing her sheets, mattress cover, underwear and T-shirt in sealed bags, Allison had helped her with a thorough cleanup. The doctor had left an hour ago, still shaken with uncertainty.
Vicki was on her third scrubbing, trying desperately to peel away the violent memory. It wasn’t working. “What’s happening to me?” she repeated as she scrubbed the spotless floor harder, recalling the pain and blood on her breasts a few nights before.
Again she considered Charlie’s latest report—how it had affected her, as if the brutal savagery inflicted upon Ivy had manifested in Vicki’s body. But that was crazy, wasn’t it? Was it possible that the extent of the grisly medical details might be to blame for Vicki’s reaction to the vicious attack on Ivy’s vagina?
There had been cases of mind-over-body inflicting physical damage, but Vicki had never believed such reports. And Allison had found no injuries; so where did the blood come from?
Vicki’s mind raced through scenarios where someone was able to inflict pain and plant blood—had she been drugged? Allison had insisted that Vicki’s dilated pupils had appeared emotional rather than pharmacologically induced. Someone was doing this to Vicki—motivations were easy; method was harder.
Because no injuries were found, Vicki convinced Allison not to report the incident. She promised to investigate, pretending to agree with the doctor’s musings that it may have been an elaborate hoax to scare Vicki away. This was no hoax. Though the blood didn’t appear to belong to Vicki, the pain was vicious and real. Her pelvic floor still convulsed at the memory.
† † †
Later that morning, Charles Cooper came by Vicki’s house as promised.
“Charlie, do you trust me?”
“Always.”
“This is going to sound strange”—she pulled out the bag with her bloody panties—”but I need you to keep this sample between you and me.”
“What about Hank?”
“Please.”
“First, the contaminated T-shirt—now this?”
Vicki worried about how far she had already pushed her relationship with Charlie. “Are we okay? What can I do?”
There was a long pause. “I love Scotch.”
“Nice try, fella.”
“Worth a shot.”
She was happy to hear lightness return to his tone.
“You asked me to test the hair you sent.”
Vicki forgot about Sky Veil’s hair sample—to determine its natural color.
“R
aven as the night. No dye at all. Your suspect has naturally jet-black hair. The healthiest I’ve ever seen too. You’ll have to ask about the name of the shampoo used.”
Vicki just wanted to know if Sky Veil was Tanya Kilroy. “Can you tell me how that works if the person in question was born a blonde?”
He stood dumbfounded. “I can tell you that that’s impossible. That hair is black and always has been.”
This sent Vicki swirling. Is Sky really Tanya Kilroy or not?
† † †
Vicki glanced at her clock. She still had an hour before Hank would be ready, after spending the bulk of his day in the city. She appreciated him not pressing her as to why she had opted to stay behind—she had needed the time alone to reclaim her bearings after last night.
She remembered Rose Roscoe’s complaint that those spoiled rich bitches had bought up a pristine waterfront property to build a minidevelopment next year for just the four families.
“So they can bang each other in private,” had been the sheriff’s assessment.
Rose had said it was one of the most secluded and stunning plots along the shoreline. Resting just a quarter mile from the mouth of Cherrybrook Creek made the shore’s shallow water crystal clear. They had been able to secure that land because Jason Oliver had used his town planner contract and connections there to pull a fast one. He had even privatized the only goat-path road winding through the trees for half a mile before reaching the water.
Vicki had time to kill and required repose. Private or not, she had decided to check it out. She understood Rose’s envy. The spot was idyllic. The late afternoon sun washed the shore, glistening against the glass lake spread before her.
She spent her precious time skipping flat stones across the flawless sheet of water, the way her brother had taught her when she was young. She could feel him with her in this place. Tranquility married her to this enchanted earth.