Suzie and the Monsters

by Francis Franklin

  ‘Fuck,’ she says as we get into a taxi. ‘Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. What the fuck am I doing?’

  ‘You can back out any time. I’ll keep you safe, whatever you choose.’

  She studies me for a moment. ‘I believe you, but you scare me a bit.’

  ‘Good,’ I say.

  Ben and Tom climb into the taxi with us, Tom shouting out an address in the north of the city somewhere, a good twenty minutes away, and I shuffle over to let them sit either side of Cleo. It’s not long before Ben and Tom are each sucking on one of Cleo’s exposed breasts, their fingers playing with her dark-haired pussy. I didn’t see them take off her bra and knickers. Maybe she took them off in the club. Maybe she never had any to begin with, although I believe she did. The driver is half-watching this in the mirror. I wonder how often he gets treated to a show like this. Cleo comes at least twice during the ride, and has to cling to me for support when we arrive at Tom’s house. A second taxi pulls up as we are waiting for Tom to unlock and open the door, and Derek, Charlie and Robert are quick to follow us inside.

  I’m relieved to see the place is reasonably clean. A quick scan of the rooms reveals that the kitchen and bathroom are professionally fitted, while the rest of the place is mostly Ikea, which makes me think previous owners installed the kitchen and bathroom. Tom’s priority, on the other hand, is the Bang and Olufsen entertainment system in the living room, which is where I find Cleo, naked, on her knees in front of Ben, pulling his trousers down, his boxer shorts following swiftly to release his hard, eager cock. She pauses for a moment to admire it, then takes the head into her mouth and slowly descends the shaft. I see she is no stranger to blow jobs.

  Charlie is the first to strip, his proud cock not especially thick but surprisingly long. He quickly rolls a condom along its length, kneels behind Cleo, and drives deep into her, making her cry out, but Ben’s insistent cock in her mouth is demanding attention. Derek and Tom grab hold of her bouncing breasts and tease her nipples. The men must have been really excited, because it’s not long before they come, Charlie holding fiercely to Cleo’s hips and driving as deep as possible, his face and body in painful tension as his orgasm tears through him.

  The four change places, Derek presenting a thick, hungry cock to Cleo’s mouth, Tom awkwardly applying a condom before thrusting into her waiting pussy. Ben and Charlie go and sit on the sofa with Robert who is looking at me. ‘What about you?’ he asks.

  ‘This is Cleo’s show,’ I reply. ‘Satisfy her, and I may join in later. Right now I need a drink.’ Tom grunts something about wine in the kitchen, so I go to explore. It’s mostly supermarket stuff, but I decide to try the Chianti Classico Riserva, and I’m not disappointed. I check to see the men are behaving themselves, and head into Tom’s bedroom to explore a little. In a drawer near the bed I find another pack of condoms and some lubricant. There’s also some fairly serious bondage equipment, which we definitely won’t be using tonight, and magazines in a similar theme.

  I return to the living room and relax to watch the action, sipping my wine. I’m amazed at the way Cleo has embraced her inner porn star, but despite her youthful energy, she’s getting tired. She rests her arms and head on the sofa and lets Tom pound away at her until he comes with a roar like a lion. I can see the men still have plenty of enthusiasm. Cleo’s not enjoying this as much as she could, I realise, so I strip off completely, which is tricky with these boots and the corset, and place my clothes neatly on a chair. Then lying down I wriggle under Cleo and push my head between her thighs until I can see Ben’s cock slamming into her. I lick around, mopping the delicious juices from her thighs, then I lick around her clitoris, and spell her name with my tongue sweeping across that sensitive bud, again and again, maintaining a steady pattern and pace, until suddenly she is screaming ‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’ over and over, until she collapses on top of me, breathing heavily, her breath warm against my own pussy.

  Ben is still hammering away at her, faster and faster, Derek’s thick cock is hard again, and Robert — Robert is pushing his monster of a cock into my pussy. Damn. I reach down to make sure he is wearing a condom, and warn him to be gentle at first. He ignores this, and I cry out at the sharp pain.

  ‘She’s a virgin!’ Robert says in awe. ‘Tissues! Give me tissues!’ I’m not a virgin, but for me every time is the first, and that is why I generally avoid sex with men. It hurts.

  Ben finally finishes with Cleo and Derek takes over, although I’m fairly sure she has fallen asleep. ‘Hey, guys,’ I say. ‘Let’s get Cleo to bed and you can all take a turn with me.’

  Together they lift her off me and carry her to Tom’s bedroom, giving me time to finish off my glass of wine before they’re back, attacking my breasts and pussy with their hands and mouths.

  It’s at least an hour of non-stop fucking before they all give in to exhaustion and switch the TV on, deciding eventually on the latest Die Hard, and I have to agree with them that Maggie Q is ‘fucking hot’. It’s another hour before they’ve all dozed off. I switch off the TV, lower the lighting, straddle Robert and start whispering in his ear, which wakes him up and he looks at me in confusion, looks into my eyes and is captured. I repeat this until all five men are in this suggestive state, and check on Cleo to make sure she is asleep.

  Then to each man I say, ‘I’m going to kiss you. It won’t hurt. The mark you will have on your neck is just a harmless love bite, but it’s embarrassing and you won’t show it to anyone.’ With sharp, sharp teeth I bite into his neck until a trickle of blood, just a trickle, runs into my mouth. I suck at the wound, drinking slowly, savouring the rich delight.

  Just a few mouthfuls from each man, but it’s enough to satisfy me more profoundly than all that night’s many orgasms. I make sure the bites have stopped bleeding, and clean the blood away. Then I get dressed and pick up Cleo’s clothes, and send them all into a proper sleep.

  I wake up Cleo and explain that we need to go, and help her to get dressed. ‘My mum’s going to kill me,’ she mutters, and falls asleep again on my shoulder. God. Her mother. Cleo’s mother might not kill her, but if I take her home like this, barely able to walk and stinking of sweat and sex, I doubt she’ll ever be allowed out to play again.

  I phone for a taxi, and fortunately we don’t have to wait more than a few minutes, which is how long it takes me to get Cleo out of the house and to the road, the taxi appearing around the corner almost at once. Ten minutes later we’re outside my flat, and Cleo is still half-asleep on my shoulder as I take her up the stairs and inside to my bedroom. I strip her clothes off again before I let her retreat under the covers, and as soon as I have extracted myself again from boots, corset and the rest, I climb under the covers with her. But I can’t go to sleep without tasting her gorgeous pussy again, so I work myself between her legs and caress the sensitive lips with my nose and mouth until I feel orgasms coursing through her loins, and she rolls over away from me whispering, ‘Stop. Please stop.’

  Satisfaction Guaranteed (Saturday)

  The girl in the doorway, well, the woman in the doorway, judging by the stylish suit and shirt and the professional no-nonsense hair, gives Mrs Lane no chance to hug or, more likely, berate the girl half-hiding behind her. ‘I’m so sorry to be returning Cleo so late, Mrs Lane, but we all stayed up half the night watching DVDs. I slept through my alarm and now I’m desperately late for a meeting.’ The woman checks her watch, but discovers her wrist is bare and frowns anxiously. ‘I’m so sorry, but do you have the time?’

  ‘It’s ten thirty, Miss ah...?’

  The woman winces. ‘There’s no way I’ll make the meeting.’ She sighs, then frowns again and turns to Cleo. ‘You told me you phoned your mother.’

  ‘I thought you phoned her,’ Cleo replies innocently, a hint of a smile playing about her lips.

  ‘We really have to work on our communication skills, young lady.’ The woman turns back to Mrs Lane with a look of embarrassment. ‘I’m so sorry, again. I’m Suzie Kew, Jenny’s mum.’


  ‘Susie Q?’

  ‘Kew, K-E-W.’ She hands over a business card which Mrs Lane studies intently. Deciding finally to accept the story, Mrs Lane relaxes and invites Mrs Kew, me, in for coffee, which I accept with a smile and follow her through to the kitchen at the back of the house, overlooking a sunlit garden with recently cut grass edged by tulips and rose bushes still recovering from the winter. Cleo races up the stairs, probably to change out of her new Armani jeans and Jimmy Choos before her mother notices them. The jeans were in exchange for her pink jacket. The Jimmy Choos are a couple of sizes too big for me, a failed experiment with internet shopping, and I’ll never wear them, but they fit Cleo perfectly. ‘You’d better wake your brother and his new girlfriend,’ Cleo’s mum shouts after her.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she says to me wearily as she fills the kettle and sets it to boil. ‘What are you supposed to do when you wake up one morning to find your son in bed with some girl you’ve never seen before, and your daughter is nowhere to be seen, her bed not slept in. I’ve been sitting here all morning praying that she’s slept over with some boyfriend.’ She laughs unhappily at the irony of this. ‘She says she doesn’t have a boyfriend, but... and all sorts of horrible things could have happened.’

  ‘Cleo’s a good girl,’ I tell her. ‘I’m happy to look after her.’

  ‘That’s kind of you, and of course I’d be happy to look after — Jenny, was it? I don’t think I know Jenny.’

  ‘Long blonde hair? Thinks she’s God’s gift to fashion?’

  Cleo’s mum laughs at this, a loud genuinely happy laugh. ‘Don’t they all!’ she chuckles.

  The kettle clicks off and she turns to make coffee. ‘Strong, four sugars, no milk,’ I supply before she can ask. She shakes her head a little at the idea of so much sugar. When she puts the mug on a coaster in front of me, I close my eyes and spend a minute just breathing in the steam, bathing in the earthy aroma. I open my eyes to discover my spectacles have misted over, and I have to take them off to see anything.

  Mrs Lane looks at me in some confusion. ‘How old are you, Mrs Kew?’

  ‘Thirty five.’ This is pushing it. I can usually convince people I’m thirty, for a while anyway. ‘I look younger than I am. It runs in the family. My mother died last year and lots of people thought she was still in her thirties. It is nice to look young sometimes, but it’s a real pain trying to get through Border Control. “Excuse me, Miss, but this says you’re thirty five. You’d better come with us.” I swear it would be easier to bleach my hair and travel on my daughter’s passport.’ She grins at this, but there is still a shadow of doubt in her eyes.

  Cleo bounds into the kitchen wearing white cotton trousers and a white T-shirt with bloody handprints and the legend ‘Keep Calm and Kill Zombies’. She grabs a carton of milk from the fridge and a glass and sits down with us. I can sense laughter bubbling up inside her. ‘They’ll be down after they’ve showered,’ she says. ‘What are you two gossiping about?’

  ‘I was about to ask if it was okay for you to come Salsa dancing with Jenny and me next Friday.’

  ‘Oh, I think that’s a wonderful idea!’ Cleo’s mum enthuses.

  Cleo is more wary, however. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Great!’ I give her a grin. ‘I’ll take that as a maybe. And now, apologies, but I really have to be going.’

  ‘But you haven’t even touched your coffee,’ Mrs Lane protests.

  ‘I don’t drink coffee,’ I say. ‘But I adore the smell, so thank you really.’ I pick up my spectacles, which have cleared now, and make my way out.

  Back in my blue Mini Cooper I ditch the spectacles and the Armani suit jacket, putting on Cleo’s jacket instead, and apply Illamasqua Corrupt, purchased in town before coming over here. It matches the jacket very well, and describes me perfectly. I consider removing my Armani kitten heels, but they’re a lot better for driving in than the sandals in the box on the back seat. Then I phone Alia. ‘What’s the deal with this guy?’

  ‘I think something’s spooked him,’ she replies sleepily. ‘He isn’t going anywhere, just to work and back home. He’s even had a new security system installed.’

  Alia is my employer as well as my closest friend. She runs a private investigator agency specialising in missing persons. This is something I’m good at. I know all the places where the lost and forgotten end up. But it’s my other talents that Alia values most.

  ‘Give me his address.’

  ‘You can collect it from reception in ten minutes.’ I laugh at this. ‘Reception’ is a drop box in the lobby of the building where she lives. The office in town has a sign on the door saying ‘By Appointment Only’ with a phone number and e-mail address underneath. All of her investigators work on a finder’s fee basis and a share of annual profits, if any. It’s certainly not my main source of income. No, I work for Alia because the work is interesting and it gives me an identity: Suzie Kew, Investigator, Missing Persons — yes, Suzie the imp, business cards and all. Because Alia knows how to really pleasure a woman, and because after all these years she still never asks how old I am or what my real name is.

  I see Cleo watching me from an upstairs window and give her a wave. ‘Do you believe in love at first sight?’ I ask Alia.

  ‘If anyone else was asking, I’d say no.’ She laughs. ‘Take care, little Suzie,’ she says, and ends the call.

  *

  The address takes me to a barn conversion out in the countryside. The grounds are walled off and the only entry I can see is through the main gate which looks to be good, solid construction, steel bars and hinges, and an electronic system for opening and closing. There’s a little hut on the inside where a guard sits, watching the gate through a window, and perhaps he also has screens connected to the CCTV cameras mounted on the four corners of the house. Or perhaps there are other guards inside the house.

  I pull up outside the gate in an unmarked white van, hired for the afternoon and false plates attached. The guard watches my arrival with a professional distrust. I get out, take a large bouquet of lilies from the back of the van, and walk over to the gate, the guard coming over to talk to me through the bars. I would guess that he is mid-forties and looks in pretty good condition. He’s wearing a uniform that I don’t recognise, the only insignia a silver D shaped like an arrow head.

  ‘Flowers for, ah,’ I check the card, ‘a Mrs Vanessa Redgrave.’ I show him the card as evidence. He barely glances at it.

  ‘The actress?’

  ‘Huh?’

  There’s silence for a moment as he realises he’s fallen into the generation gap. ‘Are you telling me you don’t know Vanessa Redgrave?’

  ‘Is she in the new Transformers movie?’

  He gives up. ‘No, and she doesn’t live here.’

  ‘Oh. Does she live around here somewhere?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he says, exasperated.

  ‘I thought maybe you knew her, the way you were talking about her.’

  ‘Course I bloody don’t. Now piss off, will you?’

  I shrug, and leave, the guard muttering darkly behind me.

  Alia is right about the security. Just from the gate I spotted two motion detectors and what looked like a laser emitter.

  I drive back to the city, swap the plates back and return the van. Back at the florist’s, I write a new card, ‘Thinking of you!’ with lots of daft hearts, and pay for the lilies to go to Cleo in the next delivery run. The florist gives me a knowing look like I’m cheating on someone, but doesn’t comment.

  *

  It’s six o’clock before the guards change, and it seems there’s only the one guard. None go in or out of the house, anyway. I catch an occasional glimpse of movement inside the house, and lights sometimes switch on and off. The new guard drives up just before six in a company car with ‘Dodgeson Home Security’ in large blue lettering along the side, and parks outside the gate. He is allowed through the gate on foot. He is about fifty, and looks pretty tough. Reminds me a bit of Br
uce Willis in the film last night. The two guards chat for a few minutes and then exchange keys, and the original guard, the Vanessa Redgrave fan, gets in the company car and starts the engine.

  I climb down from the tree where I have been perched for the past three hours and jog over to the Mini. The company car came from the direction of the city, and I guess it’ll head off now in the same direction, back to base, wherever that is. I have to break the speed limit for a few minutes before I finally catch sight of him, and then I keep my distance. He’s driving fast, but not illegally, heading consistently south through the villages on the western fringe of the city. When he does finally turn into the city, along Riverside Drive, which is busy even on Saturday evenings, it’s only a couple of minutes before he turns into an industrial estate that backs onto the river. I drive past then turn back to look for an observation post.

  I end up climbing a drain pipe up to the roof of a warehouse across Riverside from the industrial estate. From the edge of the roof, however, I have an excellent view of the offices of Dodgeson Home Security, a building with tight security, lots of people wearing the same uniforms as Bruce Willis and the Vanessa Redgrave fan. Dodgeson Home Security is obviously supplying its own office security. It’s about half an hour before I catch sight of him again, exiting the office building and heading over to a blue Ford Mondeo, shiny and new. I scamper back across the warehouse roof and down the drain pipe, jump in my car and race around the block, just in time to see him pulling out onto Riverside in the opposite direction from me, back out of town. By the time I manage to turn round, he’s nowhere to be seen.

  I stop to think. I check my phone. One message: ‘Please don’t send any more flowers. Everyone’s asking who they’re from.’ I grin.

  I phone Alia. ‘Ever hear of Dodgeson Home Security?’

  ‘No, I’ll ask around.’

  It’s seven o’clock. Saturday. I think I’ll hit the clubs one last time.

  *

  The girl in the mirror is a mess, or at least her Armani suit is trashed from being used improperly as camouflage, but it would have been stupid to hide in a tree or walk across a warehouse roof wearing Cleo’s pink jacket. I throw it all in the bin, heels too, and have a shower for the second time today, washing with almond soap and carnation shampoo from a local artisan. I am reminded of watching Cleo in the shower this morning, and it occurs to me the flat feels very lonely without her here. It’s too long since I had a real friend.