“On the call, you said it was the Glitter Man,” The Chief said, unlocking the cuffs for Markham then lowering the rack. He unlocked the cuffs on the lady next, freeing her hands. Tempest clung to the sheet placed over her body, and the plug was extricated from the bum hole of the Assistant D.A. It came out with a pop like the suction had held it in place by trained muscles.
“Yes, he’s trying to kill me,” Tempest said, nearly breaking down into tears.
“Any reason in particular why, and why he didn’t kill you both? Obviously neither of you made the call for 9-1-1,” The Chief said, scowling at Markham.
“Please call Beauty Kurtzwilde at the Company,” Tempest said in a low voice. “She’ll be able to explain everything.”
The Chief eyed Tempest suspiciously as she held onto the sheet given to cover her body. Her form was often a distraction to men desiring to possess the secrets of the dark goddess of love, craving an opportunity to be the one man to reel her in when others had tried and failed. The Chief knew the name of Beauty Kurtzwilde at The Company, like many law enforcement officials, especially if they earned over the six-figure mark.
Beauty had her shiny lacquered fingernails in every pot, in every state flower bed, and across all branches of trees in carefully tended gardens up and down the Eastern half of the United States. Her garden was cultivated by ten well trained gardeners working to till the soil so the country could function on a subliminal level, growing a pungent low-hanging fruit that required finesse few people understood. At times, Tempest barely understood the process herself. She was hired to keep it all neat and tidy from the bottom of Georgia, up through Virginia, and as far west as Missouri. All of those states were Beauty’s territory.
Outside of those states, up through Pennsylvania belonged to another division. She belonged to Beauty for at least a little while longer, until she was fired or the order came through requiring a visit with Mr. Exit. However, in her defense, none of this was her fault, a little detail she planned to let the boss know.
The Chief, on the phone with Beauty, passed Tempest the device.
“You were spotted on television at the crime scene,” Beauty said into the line, in that bitch, you’ve pissed me off tone. “Get rid of the phone, go to ground, and don’t be seen for a while. Call me when you get the new number.”
And with that, she hung up the phone.
The panic had returned to her chest, increasing her heart rate. She was scared. Mr. Exit would be dispatched and she had very few days left to live. She needed to get to Kentucky. She should go to Kentucky.
First, she would go to Georgia.
LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY
Midway across the football field, the young man took a knee. His chest ached with a severe pain and his mind became fuzzy. Emotions coursed through him, pinging from fear, terror, and a strong wave of anxiety.
“That’s not good,” he said holding his chest.
Friends called his name, running to his side, checking to make sure he was okay. Hands gripped his arms trying to get him on his feet, but the weight of her pain was holding him down.
“I’m okay. I’m okay,” he mumbled, flopping over onto his bottom, sitting the grass. A bottle of water got shoved into his face that he declined, opting instead to focus on the breathing. If the connection didn’t work both ways, and she couldn’t hear or feel him, then he needed to go another route.
I had been a while since he prayed, but he hoped there was still a line open for his call. Closing his eyes, he slowed the rapid breathing, evening out the exhalations. His eyes were closed and he asked for help to bring her home. She needed to come home. Getting Tempest to come home would be the only thing that could save them all.
Chapter Four – Bottom-Side Up
Blairsville, Georgia
Holding a stinking pair of light yellow, cum-stained dirty panties in her hand, Tempest left Markham’s apartment, no more aware of the journey she was destined to make or the path of destruction she’d left behind. Tempest believed in living in the now, loving in the wow, and failing to acknowledge the how.
How other people lived didn’t mean shit to her.
The only truth in her life was the now. That is what she loved about her job. Constantly on the move. Everyday was different. One call from Beauty and she was on the move.
“Wrong Way, there will need to be a cleanup on Aisle 8, right outside of Charleston,” Beauty would say in the line.
In less than 24 hours, she could be in Charleston, removing the waste left by technician number 8 on a work order. There were nine technicians and a cleaner to each team. In the past ten years, she’d worked with all nine, having a preference for Mr. Mann, and Mrs. Hump. Their jobs were easy ins and outs. One Way, Mr. Exit and Mr. Slow were the least favorites because they were often messy. However, it was her job; get inside, stage the scene, remove any trace evidence that could tie the techs back to the organization.
She knew how to break down the remains of a full grown 225-pound man, including teeth and bones, in less than four hours, a skill learned as a teenager after growing up in a household governed by a woman who was all about the wow. Delilah didn’t care a great deal about the now or the how, she just loved the bang of it all. Her mother, Delilah, ran a whorehouse.
Rich men with sick fetishes about young black women frequented the home of Delilah Fateman, right off the corner of Broad Street in a part of town called the bottom of Augusta, Georgia. Delilah took pride in knowing that if the aunt of the godfather of soul could take care of her community by offering joy to the locals, there was no reason to allow such a lucrative profession to pass her by. Businessmen who rolled through town annually to watch a national golf tournament flocked to the two- story antebellum house, painted labia pink with black shutters. Delilah wasn’t one for subtleties, but she didn’t allow any man to touch her daughter.
“Tempest is going to college in two years, straight to the University of Georgia right there in Athens,” Delilah frequently boasted to the male customers who wanted to get touchy.
Delilah’s hard work at protecting her only daughter from the bad men didn’t sit well with the houseful of young black flesh being peddled to the bastards who wanted to roll on top of a bucking ebony filly. In their eyes, Tempest wasn’t any better than them. The only difference was that Delilah ran the show, and her precious daughter wasn’t on the stage to shake her ass for a few dollar bills.
“I think you should get in there and earn you a nice hun’ned, Tempest,” Cary Nells said one night. “Hell, your shoes are run down and them pantyhose have seen better days. Oscar ain’t gone hurt you none. He’s a toe sucker. Lift your dress so he can see your ‘poom’ while he sucks on your toes and he whacks his skinny little pink pecker, and you get a crisp bill.”
“No, there has to be more to it than that,” Tempest replied, wanting the money, but not to be the sex toy for a grown man.
“Cross my heart, Honey,” Cary said with her overly painted red lips. She wore that color because Delilah made the woman specialize in drinking a man whole. Tempest didn’t know what that meant, but if she could earn a hundred dollars for a man sucking her toes, then...why not? As her Momma always said, life was about the wow.
“I dunno, Cary. My Mama will get real mad if she knew I was in one of the work rooms,” Tempest pleaded.
“I tell you what, Tempest. I’ll keep watch at the door, you go on in with Oscar, and you yell if things get out of hand,” Cary said, pushing her inside the door.
Oscar waited on the floor. His cotton boxers were open with the tip of his pink pecker poking proudly out of the opening. Yellow stained teeth grinned at her as he patted the bed for her to sit. The ratty green chair that always sat in the corner had been pulled close to the bed, and Oscar lifted Tempest’s leg, pushing the skirt up to show off the white cotton panties. The puff of hair covering her genitals was imprinted in the underpants, barely covering the outline of thick, meaty vaginal lips.
The pecker was fully erec
t, sticking out of the underwear as Oscar removed her shoe. He ripped away the panty hose from her legs, breathing heavily as he shoved her whole foot in his mouth. Anxious hands rubbed the erection as he slobbered over the feet, but then he shifted his body. His hand ran down her leg. Greedy fingers clawed at the cotton panties, trying to shove his fingers inside of the material. Tempest screamed, making her mother and three others come running.
Uncle Carl, who served as muscle for Delilah’s House of Love, came through the door first. Looking back on it, she wished Carl had come through last. Everything in Tempest’s life from that point forward became a haze of unfortunate incidents that she constantly tried to cover by cleaning up behind others.
Disposing of the unwanted traces of evidence that could tie a mind to a moment of reality became her specialty. If there were no traces left of a crime, then none of it was real. The reality so many claimed to live in and love around was just as fake as a pair of silicone filled titties on a sixty-year-old woman. It just wasn’t right.
Over the years, Tempest had been told by many men that because of her thought process, she too wasn’t right. However, she never stuck around long enough to have a long-term discussion with any of them. Her plan was clear: this is what I want, this is what I need, give it to me when I want it, and we’re all good.
Thus far it had worked.
“I’m not so sure if it’s working for me now or against me,” she said, driving the I-24 Southbound towards Blairsville. The pavement came up to meet her tired eyes as she drove onward, afraid to go forward but terrified to go back.
She’d left her old cellphone at Markham’s and was hoping to make it to Blairsville before lunch. More than anything, she needed a good night’s sleep, uninterrupted by the arrival of a hardened penis needing attention, just a soft pillow asking for nothing in return other than to be loved. The main problem which she couldn’t get around, was that she owned only one shop which was the white van she was currently driving.
Her coworkers, or the technicians, owned multiple vehicles which could be interchanged each time they entered a different state. She didn’t have that luxury. Large rolls of black sheeting, acids to breakdown flesh, and solvents to melt down bones couldn’t be shifted from vehicle to vehicle. There were too many details that would get lost in the minutia of ensuring all the tools of her trade were on hand. Her shop was her life, and in a pinch, she could sleep in the back next to metal barrels of solvents. Not quite her thing, but in a bind, she’d do what was needed.
Four hours later, still wearing the same dirty clothes from the night she was with Jacob, she pulled into Blairsville, Georgia. Tempest spotted the diner she’d heard Mr. Mann speak fondly of that was owned by a woman named Ethel with cankles, who made the best chicken and dumplings he’d ever eaten in his life. The woman also made cornbread waffles to go with hot fish on Fridays, and Tempest could use a plate full of comfort at this point in her life.
Per her normal standard operating procedure, she never parked her vehicle in front of any business. If she ever were to be involved in an accident, a great deal of explanation would be required for the contents in the cargo of the van. Therefore, she parked in the rear of the business and would walk her way around to the front and enter Ethel’s for a plate of homemade goodness. Her foot hit the pavement, and immediately she was angry for parking too close to the dumpster, providing her too little room to get out of the van.
“For shit’s sake,” Tempest said, pulling her leg back inside the vehicle. She reached for the handle and closed the door, not paying attention to her surroundings. The keys were still in the ignition, so she turned the latch, starting the engine, and placed the vehicle in reverse. “Shit!”
A flash of bright light, so brilliant, so white, so pure, materialized in front of her eyes. Spots of blackness appeared and try as she might to blink them away, the darkness would not abate. She held onto the steering wheel, eyes clenched tightly, waiting for the burning to stop and praying that when her eyes opened, the retinas could adjust, slowly becoming clearer.
“What in the hell?” she asked, touching her face for fluid and wondering if the chemicals in the back had exploded, but she felt no wetness. The bright light made no sense in an alley unless there was an explosion. She had heard no explosion.
The sound of the van door opening made her jump. The skin on her arms prickled. The hairs on the back of her neck tickled. The taste in her mouth nickeled. He was here. The Glitter Man was near.
“Tempest,” she heard the voice call her name. The sound was just below her ear. “Tempest, I’m going to help you, Darling.”
“Rami? Rami, what have you done?” She asked feeling the panic crawl up her throat, threatening to strangle her. How was he in Blairsville? Tempest tried to rationalize how the crazed man could know where she was going when she’d only thought of it herself a few days ago. “I can’t see, Rami.”
“I took away the one sense that you had but refused to use, sweet Tempest,” he said from passenger seat of the van. “Now, without the use of your sight, you’re going to be forced to see just how ugly you really are on the inside.”
“Rami, I’m sorry. I was just following orders. I did my job. I did what I was paid to do,” Tempest pleaded.
“The funny thing is, Tempest, I’m certain that’s the same lie you’ve used most of your life to justify your filthy actions. Slipping from bed to bed, fucking willy nilly in the name of sexual liberation, and living your best life,” he said in a raspy whisper. “You’re an overpaid whore masquerading as a housekeeper, but you’re sad. A sad woman with no real sense of self, and now, you’re going to have to learn.”
“Dear God, what have you done?” She felt her face, touching on the lids of her eyes and willing the darkness to go away.
“The blindness is temporary, and in a few months, your vision will return; maybe,” he said in a chuckle. “In the meantime, you’re going to truly find out how you’ve lived your life and who will be willing to care for you in such a fragile state. The men who love to fuck you don’t want a blind bitch in their house. I’m going to enjoy watching you suffer.”
“Rami, you can’t mean this. I’m sorry for hurting you, honestly I am,” Tempest cried, touching her eyes, searching for powder or a liquid agent that had caused the lack of eyesight.
“You’ve hurt so many people in your life. It’s time to see it in your lack of vision,” he said softly. “I’m going to lead you to the front door of the diner and then I’m going to take your van. All you shall have is what’s on your person. Find your way back to being a decent human being, Tempest.”
Niceness wasn’t working on him. She shifted tactics and came at him hard. Tempest went on the attack hoping to jar him from this path he was on.
“Fuck you! The Glitter Man is a gay fucking code name for a pussy ass wimp trying to play grown up in a league with real hitmen and assassins,” Tempest said, swinging a balled-up fist at where she thought he was sitting. “When I get my sight, I’m going to hunt you down and slice off your nuts in thin slivers while I make you watch your future children dissolved in glass bowl of my special acid mix!”
“Ah, there’s the real you,” Rami replied, satisfied to bring the real woman out of hiding. “Keep in mind, I could fuck you right now in the back of your van, and you’d never see it coming, but you simply don’t appeal to me. It’s time for you to face your demons and grow up, Tempest. This time, you turned down a wrong way street and ended up bottom side up. Ha, did you see what I did there?”
The Glitter Man took her by the hand, leading her out the vehicle. She swung at him twice, but he pushed the lady, making her stumble and reach out for help. Convinced he was her only assistance in getting to the front of Ethel’s, Tempest obeyed. He hushed the lady as he would a small child as she physically shivered while he led her by the hand. Her steps landed with a newfound sureness, although she didn’t know where they were going, and she prayed he was leading her to the front door and not out in
to traffic.
Sounds of the day of cars passing along the country street, didn’t seem to slow as he guided her to the front entrance. The darkness was prevalent in its entirety, seeing no signs of light although her eyes were opened wide. Fear of having no help in the escape from the dark prison he’d placed her inside, she gripped his hand tightly. She would be of no use to Beauty or any of the technicians in this incapacitated state. Her male friends wouldn’t desire to have a handicapped woman in their home even as a blind fuck partner.
Rami, convinced his steps to humble the woman would make Tempest become a better person, guided her to the door. She was a bad woman, a wayward whore who lived a selfish life and hurt others and a person who didn’t care about her fellow man. He cared. Too many people had taken advantage of him, and those days were over. All of them would pay, starting with Tempest.
Life had broken her down to nothing, and she didn’t even know it because she was too busy filling her days and nights with things to shove inside the gaping hole which sucked in her soul. All she needed was a reset. Structure. A good meal at the dinner table with friends and family. A friend to listen to her and an inability to use her eyes to lure men into the trap between her legs. A blind fate that turned around and kissed her flat on the mouth now laughed in her face. He knew Beauty’s system as well as the owner did and he planned to use it against them all.
Mr. Exit would come to see Tempest, this he knew, especially in her current state of uselessness to The Company. She would have to make a choice on what was truly important to her in this world. The choice needed be made before Mr. Exit took her from this life. Yes. He knew the structure of The Company far better than the woman hired to clean up behind the technicians.
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