Mallory

by Michelle Love

  “Save that shit, Mom. Come clean. Tell me it all. Every sordid detail,” Beth coaxed her mother.

  “What do you want to hear? How I found Arsen one fateful night in a small bar? How I made him mine in a way you never could? How he loved me?”

  Arsen rolled his eyes. Love was not a thing they’d had. How she didn’t know was a mystery to him.

  “So he loved you, did he?” Beth asked. “And you repaid him by framing him for murders you had committed by another man?”

  “You have no idea how much Arsen Sloan deserves to be behind bars.” Anne said.

  “Tell me, Mom.”

  Arsen leaned forward and found he could see the two as they sat on the sofa. The back of their heads, anyway. Anne looked at Beth and said, “Look, I’ll cut you in on what I’m going to be getting once he’s in prison. How about that, darling?”

  He saw one side of Beth’s mouth quirk up into a smile.

  “Cut me in? On what?”

  “I’ve forged Arsen’s name on quite a few things. I had his social security number, his driver’s license number, his date of birth, mother’s maiden name. You name it, I have it. So I was able to get my name in on some of his best investments. See he has so damn many he has no time to check each one out for any changes. And the ones I put my name on as an eighty percent owner, I had the address changed on.”

  “Clever, Mother,” Beth said. “Who’s address?”

  “A post office box in Los Angeles. All I have to do is wait for a judge to find him guilty and off he’ll go to prison and off I’ll go to the bank with my papers in hand and tell them I want to cash out.” Anne patted her daughter’s shoulders. “Millions, darling. And I’ll share with you. How about I give you ten percent to stay quiet?”

  Beth laughed.

  “Okay. But tell me how you did it. How did you get those women killed?”

  “Arsen made it much too easy. The man must’ve been looking to hook back up with any of his old subs. I didn’t see that coming. But when I did, I got Allen White on the phone and had him move in. I was able to get this drug which leaves traces of things already found in the human body. It elevates a couple of things that occur naturally.”

  Beth nodded.

  “Wow! You did some research, Mom!”

  “I did. Then I got that into Allen’s hands. All he had to do was inject the women. He did so easily. I tracked Arsen constantly. Within a few minutes of him leaving the women’s homes, I had Allen go in and inject them.”

  Beth smiled.

  “So as they slept, Allen did the dirty work. But how did you know he’d choked them all?”

  “I watched him do it,” Anne said. “It was a thing I had introduced him to. He hated to have it done to him. But he sure didn’t mind doing it to others. Those women seemed to have an addiction to it. So when I found he did that to the first one, I jumped on that. Like I said, he made it easy.”

  “So smart, Mom. So Anne Sinclair is one woman with a lot of mysteries behind her.”

  Anne laughed. “I am quite a great actress! So, you’ll take the ten percent then?”

  “Let me think on that, Mom.”

  “Do not get greedy on me. I worked hard for that money. I made that man and he should’ve always given me money for what I did for him. Have you seen him? He’s magnificent, and I made him that way.”

  Beth looked confused. “Just how is what he became your doing?”

  “I made him exercise, eat right, do well in college. It was me behind all of that. I taught him how to be a dom. Taught him about a life he had never known. Then the fool goes and finds this little vanilla bore and loses himself in her blandness.”

  “Huh?” Beth asked. “You lost me. A vanilla? What’s that?”

  “Someone who doesn’t practice the BDSM lifestyle. And that young woman will never satisfy his needs. He’s better off in prison than to have a life with her. He’d end up leaving her, anyway. You don’t get that kind of thing out of your system. He’ll get the urge to hang her up by her cuffed wrists and beat her ass with something. She’s too strong willed to stay with a man who would do that to her.”

  Beth asked, “You know her, or what?”

  “Not really. But I went to see him and she came at me like a tigress protecting her cub. That’s how she sees him and he’s not the kind of man who even wants a female in that role over him. He likes to be taken charge of or he wants to take charge. He’s not into being protected and loved and that kind of crap.”

  Arsen shook his head. Anne could not be more wrong. He wanted all Steele had to give him. Her love, her protection, herself. He knew without a doubt he had changed since he met Steele. For the better.

  He knew what love felt like and he’d be damned if he ever let it go. His need to dominate was over. He had never wanted to be dominated, he had merely lacked the gumption to get the hell away from Anne.

  Anne’s words had damned her. He knew he had enough to put her ass away forever. But he waited. Wanting to hear all she had to say.

  Beth said, “So in essence you’re saving him from a life of love and boredom? How nice of you.”

  Anne smiled broadly. The lines on her face pulled all together with the smile.

  “It gets better. Allen is going to kill Steele. That way Arsen finds out just how much he’s lost by leaving me. I can take it all away from him. Every last thing he cares about. His money, his freedom, and even the love of his life.”

  Heat filled Arsen as he tried hard not to run out and kill the old bitch. His hands fisted at his side. Anne was more horrible than he’d ever realized. She was the most sadistic woman he’d ever known.

  “Mom, how’s he ever going to know it was you who took that all away from him?”

  “That’s what the book is for. I’m going to write all the details until I can’t write anymore. Then I’ll have the book sent to him upon my death. Then I’ll have the ultimate revenge on him. His money will be going to the very people who broke him. You will end up with it all once I’m gone.”

  Beth’s hand moved to her chest.

  “Me?”

  Anne nodded.

  “Of course you. I mean it was you who started the whole thing. The boy was head over heels for you and when your father caught you two in bed and beat him, you’re the one who broke him. I thought you wanted him broken.”

  Beth looked down.

  “I was a dumb kid. A foolish girl. You and Dad were people I thought were strong. I wanted a person like that in my life. Arsen was always so emotional. So soft.”

  “I know,” Anne said. “He brought you flowers and candy for no reason at all. He bought you little trinkets of cheap jewelry all the time.”

  “Told me he loved me only a few weeks after he first asked me out,” Beth added. “He was sweet, kind, thoughtful. His mother was a horrible person and he wouldn’t allow her to meet me. Told me I was too good to have to deal with his crazy mother. He was protective, but not overly.”

  “He fawned all over you. You remember that time It was raining, and he brought you home after a night at the movies? He took his shirt off and held it over your head all the way up the sidewalk so you wouldn’t get a hair on your head wet.” Anne broke into laughter. “What a pussy!”

  Beth looked back over her shoulder towards the door she knew he hid behind.

  “Well, Mom, I wouldn’t call him that. That was nice and very sweet.”

  “He was so skinny back then,” Anne laughed. “A real weakling.”

  Beth turned back to look at her mother.

  “Well, he has muscles on muscles now. From what I saw on television.”

  “I made those,” Anne said as she patted herself on the chest. “I made him work out. Pushed him past his limits. I made that body. That was all me.”

  Beth’s cell phone rang.

  “It’s Bill,” she said. “I’ll forward it to voicemail.”

  “Nonsense,” Anne said. “I’m going to make us a couple of drinks. I see your glass of vodka is
sitting there. I’ll add some OJ to it for you and brighten it up.”

  Anne got up and left the room as Beth answered her phone.

  “Hey Bill.”

  Arsen could hear the man yelling from where he was.

  “What the hell are you doing with him?”

  “Shh. I’ll tell you everything when I get home in a little while. I swear you have nothing to worry about.” Beth looked back. “Please, be patient. You’ll understand everything soon. Have faith in me, Bill.”

  “I don’t like this Beth!” he shouted.

  “I know. I promise you will understand soon.” Beth got up and walked towards the kitchen where her mother had gone and then back towards where Arsen was hiding. “Bill, I’ll call you as soon as this is all over. I love you. Bye.” She hung up and stepped around the corner.

  Arsen held his finger to his lips. She nodded.

  “Are you getting all this?” she asked.

  He nodded and waved her back into the living room. She smiled and left him, finding her mother walking back in.

  “More snooping, darling?” Anne asked. “You’ll find nothing more. And nothing in that room at all. I was going to do something very racy with it but lost interest as things heated up with operation fuck Arsen’s world up.”

  Beth laughed too. “So this Allen White guy. What are you going to do to make sure he never talks or tries to get more money out of you? Or are you paying him anything for murdering all those women?”

  “I told him I am.” Anne took a long drink from the tall glass she held filled with some kind of amber liquid. “But you don’t need to pay a dead man.”

  “Oh?” Beth looked at her with intrigue. “And how will you accomplish that without getting blood on your hands?”

  “Not sure yet, but thinking about how I can inject him with the same drug used on the other women and framing Arsen for that murder as well. What do you think? A good idea?”

  Beth nodded and clapped her hands as if she was excited.

  “Sounds positively fantastic! Is there nothing you can’t pin on the man?”

  Anne laughed.

  “I know this may be an odd thing to talk to your daughter about. Especially since we’ve both had sex with the man, but how do you think I can get a taste of that scrumptious man one more time before he’s put away forever?”

  Beth frowned.

  “You want to have sex with him again?”

  “Of course. And I know you're married and not as liberal as I am, but you should want a little taste as well. From what I saw that one time, you did not get what that man has to offer. He has the right moves. I taught him so I ought to know.”

  “I think he would be kind of broken up if this woman you say he’s in love with is killed. Don’t you? Not really the time a guy thinks about plowing into another female.” Beth shook her head at her mother.

  “If you showed up to console him, maybe he would give you a little of the new and improved man he’s become. And once you had him naked and in bed, I could sneak in with a little something to slip into his drink and then you could help me string him up while he’s knocked out and I can have my way with him.” Anne looked back at the door Arsen was hiding behind. “Did you hear something?”

  “No,” Beth said. She tapped her mother’s shoulder. “Now get back to telling me how you’d get him to have sex with you if you have him drugged.”

  Anne blinked then took a drink.

  “I’ve been so jumpy these last few weeks. Anyway, I would give him some ecstasy and when he was aroused, he’d wake up to find me and wouldn’t be able to stop himself from doing it. I use to do that to him all the time when he was mine.”

  “You drugged him a lot?” Beth asked with arched brows.

  “At first it was constant. I mean, he wasn’t into yet. He would get sick, the little puss. The littlest kinky things would set him off. So I would sedate him to relax him then give him some ‘X’ or some Viagra and perk him up. Also adding some type of stimulation. A clamp to his balls always accomplished what I wanted.”

  Beth looked back over her shoulder and her face looked sad. Arsen caught her eyes through the crack in the door then took a step back as he couldn’t bear to see the sorrow in them.

  His first love had no idea what he’d gone through at her mother’s hands. Arsen had no idea how often Anne had drugged him. He didn’t recall a lot from the beginning of that whole thing and now he knew why that was.

  Anne had left him in a drugged up stupor for the first few months. And then he realized why he let it all happen and how it all became kind of commonplace.

  Anne laughed, bringing his attention back to her.

  “I had him on three different drugs the first time I took him to a BDSM club. I walked in with the guy on the end of my leash and even though his body had not filled out yet, heads turned. He was pretty sexy even then.”

  “You drugged him and took him there on a leash?” Beth asked.

  “Wearing nothing but some ass less leather chaps. The women were clamoring for him. I had him fuck a few of them then me. It was marvelous!”

  Beth’s face squished together.

  “You let him have sex with other women? I don’t get it.”

  “You wouldn’t. You see, I wanted others to know what I had in him. His large cock was a thing so incredible I wanted others to know how great I had it. You know, be jealous of me and what I had found,” Anne said.

  Beth took in a deep breath and Arsen knew she was holding herself back from puking.

  “Okay, so you made him have sex with women he didn’t know. Did he even know he was being taken to a club like that?”

  “No! He’d never have agreed to go. I had to drug him up and take him. He had fun. I mean who wouldn’t have fun fucking the night away with some gorgeous women?” Anne took a long drink.

  Arsen had to lean against the wall as he strained his brain to recall that night and just couldn’t. So much of that time was blank, gone, forgotten.

  He’d told himself for years he’d just blocked it as it was too hard to wrap his head around the man he’d become. But her admission to drugging him and essentially brainwashing him into thinking he liked that kind of thing was enough to tell him he really had become a man he never would’ve been if it wasn’t for Anne Sinclair.

  Beth asked, “Did you drug him the entire time you were together?”

  “After six months, I only had to drug him every now and then. He had a defiant streak in him even the beatings couldn’t tame. He had to be brought back down in other ways.” Anne looked a little sad. “But all along I thought we were getting closer and closer. Until one day he just wasn’t there when I got back from spending the week with you and your father.”

  “Is that when you lost him?” Beth asked.

  “I found him after a couple of months. He had a small apartment, and I dragged his ass back and beat the fuck out of him with these poles he had bought. He told me he had become a Dom and would never be a sub again. I left bloody marks all over his back. I hope the ass still has the scars.”

  Arsen leaned against the wall and tried hard not to go out and confront the woman. His body was aching with the memories she had conjured in his mind. She was a monster.

  Arsen had been in the lifestyle long enough to know Anne Sinclair was not your stereotypical Dominatrix. She was anything but typical. No Anne was a not into the real ideas behind that lifestyle. She was crazy.

  Anne took a young man, drugged him, manipulated him, brainwashed him and broke him. That wasn’t enough though. She wasn’t about to stop until he was thoroughly fucked.

  Arsen had heard more than enough, but Anne wasn’t through talking.

  “So you should see what I have in store for his vanilla princess,” Anne said.

  Arsen’s entire body tensed, holding himself back. He couldn’t believe she was planning even more than just having Steele murdered. She had more planned, and it was going to test him not to make a move and kill Anne Sinclair.
>
  “Mother, you really should leave that poor woman alone. If Arsen has turned into the man it seems you’ve turned him into, then I’m sure she’s suffering already,” Beth said as she scowled at her mother.

  Anne looked at Beth in surprise.

  “The man I turned him into? I didn’t turn him into a monster who kills women.”

  Beth’s jaw dropped.

  “Mom! He didn’t kill those women. You had Allen White do that.”

  “Well, yes. I mean.” Anne fanned herself with her hand. “You have me all mixed up, darling. With your accusation of me turning him into something he wasn’t. I mean, his good points yes. The fact he’s a lawyer. The fact he’s attractive, the fact he has a great body. Yes, I did all that. The fact he likes to choke women, no I did not.”

  Beth stood up and threw her hands in the air.

  “Look, just leave his vanilla princess alone. That’s all I’m saying.”

  “If you saw how he was with her you’d be so jealous. I know you would,” Anne said. “Just listen to what I have in mind for her.”

  Beth cast a nervous glance at the door Arsen was behind.

  “Mom, please.”

  Anne couldn’t seem to stop her mouth. “I’m going to get Allen to take her to this abandoned warehouse. We have her roommate there now. I think she might still be alive, but that’s neither here nor there. Anyway, I’m going to use every one of my devices on her until she’s begging for mercy and I’m going to record it and make Arsen listen to it. Well, I won’t be giving it to him until I’m dead. He’ll get that recording along with the book.”

  Beth looked at her mother with no emotion. “You have to know he’ll be set free after he gets those things in his hands. Then he’ll come after me. Do you realize that, Mother? Your plans are going to hurt me. A person who was never involved in any of this.”

  “Oh!” Anne looked shocked. “I honestly never thought about it like that. Well, perhaps I shouldn’t give you the ten percent or leave the money I’m taking from him to you after all. I guess I’ll leave it to a charity. Maybe one for abused women or something noble like that.”