The Bee Keeper

by Vincent, Tracy D

  The resounding crack is almost as loud as the ringing in my ears and one side of my face is on fire. “You will NOT talk to me like that. Not ever. I don’t give a rat’s ass who you think you are, but you are NOT someone who has the right to EVER—and I do mean EVER—talk to me in that manner.” She has her finger shoved so far against my nose, I swear she’s going to break it.

  “Let. Me. The. Fuck. Go. CUNT.” I draw the last word out because I’ll be damned if she tells me how I can or cannot talk to her. I’m the senator. I’ve had men killed for less offense.

  If looks could kill, hers are incinerators. She walks down to the foot of the metal table I’m tied down to, pulls off my shoe and sock. She walks toward my face, stops at my waist, and removes my belt. Her movements are jerky and angry. When she gets near my head, she shoves my sock in my mouth, wraps the belt around, and cinches it tightly enough to make my jaw hurt.

  “Shut up. You don’t get to do any talking. That’s what I’m going to do.”

  I try to talk around my gag, but it all comes out muffled. She simply arches her eyebrow and grabs a bottle of water and starts pouring it into my open mouth. The water soaks through the sock and begins to pour down my throat, choking me.

  “Let me tell you about all this that has happened. You can nod yes that you agree, or shake your head no to make your dissent known. Okay?” She pats my cheek and walks away, not bothering to look and see if I’m agreeing or not.

  She walks back out the door and Dr. Miller walks in with her. I start twisting and mumbling behind my gag, knowing he’s here to let me go. He stands beside me and I can see his eyes are slits behind his glasses.

  “I know you found me working in this lab. I know that you figured out that I had the constitution to do heinous things to people in order to extract the truth from them. I also know that’s why I have the position and the notoriety that I have now. However, I am not your toy,” he says quietly. His voice wavers only slightly, which make his words all the more terrifying.

  “I am not someone to be manipulated in order to advance you in any of your political machinations. Angela,” he growls, “didn’t need to be here. Your son didn’t need to be here. Hell, for that matter, neither did Edward nor Maya, though they were bordering on the crazy that is you and Timo Hauer. And yet, I did your job for you.”

  “No more.” He walks away from me, turning once to Dr. Staples. “He’s all yours.” Then he walks through the door, shutting it behind him.

  Dr. Staples walks toward me with a small smile on her face.

  “See, you have issues with Junior. I get it. And the car getting stolen was the perfect opportunity for you to get rid of the cause of those issues once and for all. But what you neglected to take into account is the integrity of that man in there.” She whirls around, pointing to the door that Dr. Miller walked out of.

  “He seeks out the truth regardless of why or how he gets it. And you sic’d him on that poor girl. Did you know she was raped by Phillip Allen James? The man you and Timo played errand boy with. He felt that it was her duty as the woman of the house to service his needs.” She paces around me, gesturing with her hands as she speaks.

  I know she’s upset about some young petty criminal, but I don’t see what’s so important to get worked up over. Was it unfortunate that Phillip raped her? Sure. Do I care that it happened? No. The only thing I have ever cared about is my reputation. My son has been slowly chinking away at it, and the little con artist gave me the perfect solution to my problem.

  “She was supposed to go into the system. But of course, Social Services never picked her up. Instead, she ran away and lived on the streets—alone—at the age of thirteen. In all of this—”she gestures around herself like she is including the world—“in all the circumstances of her life, she was innocent. She was a victim of your and Timo Hauer’s selfishness. And yes, I’m pissed about it!” She has shed the lab coat, pulled her hair back into a ponytail, and stepped out of her shoes. She stops in front of me, her chest heaving with her anger, her eyes snapping.

  I try reading her. Where Dr. Miller has always been reserved, mild-mannered, and readable as invisible ink, Dr. Staples is passionate and loud, and her emotions play on her face. Everything about her right now screams that she’s unstable, from the heavy breaths panting out of her to her wild-looking eyes.

  “Did you know I was also in the foster system?” She pauses, expecting a response, so I shake my head no.

  “Of course you didn’t, because you don’t give a shit about anyone but yourself. So long as your life is smooth sailing, who gives a shit about those you hurt along the way. Little girls included.”

  Her face morphs dramatically from angry banshee to cool indifferent ice queen so fast that if I didn’t see the change myself, I would argue that no one was capable of such an immediate and complete shift.

  She grabs a chair and sets it near the head of the bed. “I have a story to tell you. This won’t take too very long, but it will explain everything, so hold tight, buttercup. This ride has an abrupt ending, so brace yourself.”

  She settles back into the chair, getting comfortable, folding her hands in her lap, looking like a demure woman now. Her personality shifts are beginning to make me dizzy and doubt my sanity. “I have always tried to figure out what happened to my family. When I was nine years old, a bad fire broke out and burned my house down. My mom and dad didn’t survive. I just so happened to be in the kitchen with Cookie when it all happened.”

  She wipes the tear that tracks down one cheek with the back of her hand before continuing. “This wasn’t some ordinary fire. Someone had thrown bottles of alcohol into every single window of the house and set all the shutters outside the windows on fire. My parents were trapped. If Cookie and I hadn’t been on the ground floor and awake, we probably would have died that night too. But my parents’ room, which was on the third floor, was consumed.”

  “Cookie wanted to adopt me, but the courts told her that she couldn’t even be near me. That she was under suspicion for the fire, because she and her two sons, who kept our landscaping, made it out alive. They were arrested and convicted of the fire. Regardless of what I said, the judge never listened. Who cares what a nine-year-old wants anyway.”

  I’m trying to figure out what the hell this has to do with anything. Frankly, I’m not paying much attention to her. I’m trying to figure out if there is a way for me to get to my cell phone so I can dial out to someone. This bitch is bat-shit crazy and I need out of here.

  Movement out of the corner of my eye catches my attention too late because the back of her hand cracks against my face before I even realize she had gotten up. I try to complain, but the sock in my mouth and the belt muffle the response.

  “You need to listen to all of this. It’s very important, there might be a quiz later.” Her blue eyes snap and bore holes into mine.

  I nod my head, not because I’m afraid of her, but to placate her. I’m still shuffling around, trying to get my hand in my pocket to get to my phone.

  She settles back into her chair, her expression taking back on the unaffected manner of the doctor she was when she walked in originally.

  “The court ended up removing me from the only family I had left. And yes, I considered Cookie and her sons to be my family, even if we weren’t related. She was with my family before I was ever born. I was quickly placed in foster care, but due to my ‘lineage’ I was placed in good homes with caring people.”

  She sits forward, interest piquing on her face. “Did you know that I had no idea just how bad foster kids had it until I went to my first public school? I had no idea that I was blessed to be in the homes I was in, and this is all due to the fact that I came with a huge inheritance. That my parents were wealthy people. Otherwise, I might have ended up in some abuser’s house.”

  “I found a nice couple. Mr. Joseph and Ms. Eileen Staples. He was a doctor and she was a school teacher. Other than my own parents and Cookie and her family, I couldn’t
have asked for a more caring couple. They loved me as much as they loved their own son, Robert. So, my story has a happy ending. Too many kids in the system don’t.”

  I sigh because her rambling on is getting on my nerves. Me being tied down is on my nerves. Everything is getting on my nerves. That gets me a sharp look with her eyebrow up almost into her hairline, but she continues as if I never made a sound.

  “So, I got curious and started looking into it. Did you realize that the Child Welfare Services actually had a low turnover rate and more children adopted before you became a senator? After you became a senator, the adoption rates went to almost 100% for the wealthy children—there was a sudden influx of them in the beginning—but the adoption rates for the poorer children, the ones who needed the help most, plummeted to almost nothing.” She adds a smirk to the cocked eyebrow.

  “Interesting, isn’t it? Also, upon further investigating, many of the children who were suddenly orphaned belonged to those parents who vocally and financially opposed you. They were placed with families who fully supported you and your policies. It does cause questions to pop up.” She reaches down into the attaché sitting next to her, that I never noticed her bring in, and pulls out a thick folder.

  She flips pages until she obviously finds what she’s looking for. “There’s a newspaper that used to exist, quite a few years ago, that was keen on writing exposés on you. They constantly called into question your integrity and your policies and how you managed to fund and push your agenda through. Did you know that the newspaper office burned down? Did you know that it was during business hours and that almost everyone who worked days and second shift died in that horrific fire? Strange, hm?”

  I know the newspaper she’s talking about. I remember telling Timo it had to go because of the information that they presented, trying to get me to resign. It would have ruined our entire government and the Scarelli family would have obliterated everyone I cared about if it got out. He only asked me how I wanted it done, and I’d told him to burn it. Fires leave no evidence. At least, not back to me.

  She rifles through the papers some more. “Oh, and here’s another one. This is a political opponent from your same party. She was a real firecracker. She gave instances of your failure as a senator. She went to bat for the underprivileged and the minorities. She was really hard to discredit, too. This woman was practically a saint. She was found strangled and raped in her house. A man, who claimed innocence, was found guilty and was not only given a death penalty, but that verdict was carried out within three months of his sentencing.”

  Meredith Baxter. She’s referring to Meredith. Meredith would have been the death of everything I worked so hard for. She wanted to build new roads on the south side. She wanted to improve all schools to Dartmond Academy levels. Until then she wanted scholarships for those who qualified scholastically. She wanted to close down Church Hill Avenue. She never understood that without those wretches giving so generously, the north end wouldn’t have attracted so many new people. People who brought wealth with them.

  Not only could Meredith sway votes from the destitute, she couldn’t be discredited for bad business practices or any personal matters. It wasn’t hard to get rid of her. She was a beautiful woman and Timo has always had a thing for beautiful women. I just made sure that they were together when the time was right and let nature take its course.

  Timo’s been known to get a little carried away when he’s intimate with a woman. This time he ended up killing her and we set up one of her campaign flunkies to take the fall, and a judge that owed me a favor made sure that he never came up for air.

  I’m trying to figure out why Dr. Staples is bringing all this up. It’s all old news. At least twenty years old. I watch her going through the papers again.

  “There are many reports throughout the years: rapes, fires, drive-by shootings, you name it. All of them target someone who opposed you in some way. It really looks suspicious, doesn’t it?”

  She turns and sets the files on the table behind her. She stands and smooths out her shirt. “I think it’s time for a little fun, don’t you?”

  There’s something feral about her expression that I don’t like. It isn’t something obvious, or something anyone else would notice, but I’ve been watching her for a little while now and her expressions are as mercurial as her moods. I don’t trust this new personality that she’s presenting.

  She walks over to me and unties my tie. She pulls it out of my collar and drapes it around her neck. Then she starts to unbutton my shirt, slowly flicking one button after another. The whole time, she’s looking at me, a small smile playing on her lips.

  Lucifer was found to be most beautiful until he was corrupted. This is how I see Dr. Staples now. She’s beautiful, even more so than before, strangely enough. But there’s something to her now that puts me on edge. Once she has my shirt unbuttoned, she walks out of the room, only to return momentarily with a pair of scissors. I squirm and protest when she starts cutting away my jacket, my outer shirt, and my undershirt, and then pulls them out from under me. She trails her nails down my bare chest to my trousers. I can’t help my clenching stomach or my stiffening cock.

  I don’t want to be aroused by her, but she is a very beautiful woman and she is trailing her nails sexily down my body toward my dick. She smiles wickedly, unbuttons my pants, and pulls down the zipper to my fly. She takes the scissors and cuts down first one pants leg, cutting through my boxers as well, and then down the other. She tugs and pulls until she can get those out from under me as well.

  She looks me over from my feet, one still clad in its sock and shoe, up past my belted gag and then to my eyes. “There, now we can play.”

  “I think since you represent all of us here in Hartford, you should be able to truly empathize with everything we have to experience. Since we don’t have time to starve you and have you live in squalor, I think I’ve come up with the next best thing.” She smiles largely, menacingly. My skin grows clammy despite the cool temps of the room.

  “Angela was brought in on Wednesday after being incarcerated for a few weeks. She was hauled in, frightened. She was pretty, too. Didn’t look anything like Maya or Timo, but she was pretty. And she was real smart. Did you know she could have gone to college? Timo decided that instead of taking care of his daughter—the child he conceived from raping her underage mother—he opted to have her mother murdered. Slowly. Painfully. It took a year to kill her. But we don’t have time to make you suffer like she did.”

  She pulls out a scalpel and slices a long line down my forearm. I see the blood bead up before I feel the sting. I complain, but the gag prevents me from being made clear. I squirm but the straps holding down my arms and legs are keeping me pinned to the table. I know my eyes have to be shooting daggers at her, but she’s acting as though we’re having a pleasant chat.

  “This is how Dr. Miller extracted the truth from her. He would run little slices down her body, then when she would get accustomed to it, he would wet it with a form of vinegar water.” She slices me again, this time across the chest. And again, across one of my thighs. Another across my cheek. a final one between my fingers. “I think these are some of the worst cuts. Between fingers and toes. Sweat stings and they itch so badly.”

  I’m screaming into the gag, “I’m going to fucking kill you, you goddamned cunt. I’m going to fuck your dead body and shit on your face.” She doesn’t understand me, though, everything is garbled. She does stop, however. She arches an eyebrow and picks up the water and soaks the sock again, effectively shutting me up by causing me to sputter and choke.

  “Oh come now, Senator. That’s just a few cuts. Angela suffered through much more. Her suffering could have been prevented had you called and informed Dr. Miller that you knew the location of the briefcase. Instead, she was sliced over and over again. And you allowed it to happen. You didn’t care that it happened. It took care of a problem you had, so you went with it. So, don’t lay there crying about a few measly cut
s.” She cuts several more into my chest, abdomen, and legs before she stops.

  She walks over to the table and lays the scalpel down next to the folder. She saunters toward the door, calling over her shoulder, “I’ll be back in a bit. Ruminate on your past, Senator, and wonder what you’ll suffer through next.”

  I scream and pull on my restraints. None of it doing any good, the only thing it succeeds in doing is causing my cuts to burn and sting. Nothing too horribly bad, but unyielding in its irritation.

  She comes back in, this time carrying a strange looking blade in her hands. I recoil from her instinctively which causes her to laugh. “Are you wondering what this is? All in due time, Senator.” She pats my thigh as she walks past. Her nonchalance is beginning to unnerve me.

  “Angela died dreaming of her mom. I’d say that is a pleasant way to go, considering how much she loved and missed her. She didn’t have to die, though, did she?” She pokes me with the blade and a hiss escapes me from the stabbing.

  “Next is your very own son, Geoffrey. I found him at a club. He was about to go snort some blow with two women. I bet he wished he went with them instead of me. Anyways, he took a shine, I gave him a sedative, and he found himself in a room waiting for Dr. Miller.”

  She stands next to me, looking at me critically. “He looked a lot like you. I think he could have been a good man if he had a better father.” She reaches up and pats my cheek hard enough to be considered lightly slapping me.

  “Geoffrey Jr. wasn’t really a bad guy. He was a whore, sure. A drug addict, most certainly. Spoiled rotten, absolutely. But deep inside he wasn’t a bad guy. He made bad decisions. And yet, you set him up. You sent him here. You gave us the means to get him and bring him in. You, who knew how it went here, sent your son to us.” She snorts, a very unladylike sound coming from her.