Hansel 1-4: The Complete Series (4 page)

Weeks later, it’s her voice that haunts me most as I lie on the cot in my room.

How, even when I kicked and cried and screamed as she hauled me out of the car and threw me on a rug that she rolled over me, she never sounded angry.

When I kicked my way out of the rug, she put a gun to my head and asked me would I please stand up and walk very slowly.

“Oh.” She laughed, a giggle, from a pretty, fair-skinned face. “You can’t use your hands, can you, sweeting? All tied up. That’s what you are.”

The gun was how she got me to walk to my room. Through the foyer and the hallway with its creepy, flaming torches. She held the gun to my head as she showed me several huge windows along a hall with a green rug. She showed me a statue of a naked man—
David
, I think it’s called—and explained how, due to Ben’s death, she had a lot of money to buy things like that, and to support “her” children.

When we got onto the long, hardwood hallway with a dozen or more doors, she stabbed me with a needle. When I woke up, I found myself staring at a forest: a painted, two-dimensional forest, suspended eternally in autumn.

CHAPTER FIVE
Lucas
Present Time
 

The process of finding another sub is always tedious. Looking over the notecards Raymond makes for me is damn near pointless. I don’t want to know their backgrounds or their interests. Just height, weight, build, and hair and eye color.

Raymond does most of the vetting on his own, one of the many tasks that he and he alone can be entrusted with. He’s been working with me since the year after I returned to Vegas, and by now, he knows exactly how I like things done.

How many subs has he found for me, I wonder as I lean back in my massive leather office chair. I tap my fingertips against my laptop, but it’s difficult to count them when they don’t have names.

If there were robots capable of serving my needs, I’d happily invest in one of them. I’m not looking for an emotional connection. I don’t need the physical connection either, not for anything beyond the demands of my dick.

The phone on my desk rings—my secretary, Leda, putting a call through from the head of the casino’s board of directors. I agree to the date and time of our next meeting and transfer him back to Leda so she can put it on the schedule.

Then I grab the stack of flash cards off the corner of my desk and thumb through them. Raymond knows by now what height I like, so all these girls seem to be between five-foot-one and five-foot-five. Wide hips and an ass I can sink my hands into. Blonde hair—pale, honey, and dark. I usually stick to pale blonde, but occasionally I deviate. If the only short girl in the pack with an ass, hips, and a Midwestern accent comes with dark blonde hair, I’ll take her.

I quickly thumb through the fifteen cards, pick four, and buzz Raymond in. Today, he’s wearing red suspenders with his black, hand-tailored suit. His fro looks especially tall and wide, and I notice that he’s wearing different eyeglasses than normal. These look…thicker. At fifty-three, I guess Ray’s decided to go hipster.

I reach across the desk and hand the four selected cards to him. “Contact these.”

He looks down at them, then nods thoughtfully. “It’ll have to be this morning.”

“Yeah?”

He nods again. “You’re flying to Boston tomorrow. Homes for Heroes, board of directors?”

“See who can be here in the next hour or two, then. You can call a few more if you want. Stick to light blondes this round. They’re all the right body type. I’ll meet you in the executive guests’ suite in two hours sharp. Have them separated, dressed and, obviously, masked. Tell me about the nine-thirty show, with Jones and Freeman?”

I listen to Raymond explain that Laura Freeman, one of our performers, is nine weeks pregnant and doesn’t feel comfortable with the whipping portion of the show. Something about getting an infection.

“Give her leave.”

He blinks. “Leave?”

I drum my fingers on my knee and sigh. “Maternity leave, Raymond?”

“But, sir…she hasn’t had the child.”

“So what? I don’t expect pregnant women fucking in my House.” Anger heats my neck. “How often does this happen, Raymond?”

“Maybe…every other year.”

“What do you normally do with them?” I ask.

I glare at him without meaning to at first, because my cock is hard, my suite is empty, and my back hurts.

“Well…sir, we let them go. Pregnancy and this career are incompatible. Remember? You wrote it into the standard contract years ago.”

I wave my hand. “Change it.”

“You said pregnant women—”

“Change it,” I growl.

“Yes, sir.”

I exhale slowly, stand up, and wave toward the door. “Get it handled for me. I’ve got a call in five with the vodka guy. After that, there’s something else. I’ll see you in the executive suite. Have them ready for me.”

Raymond nods and leaves my office. I spend the next half-hour on the phone with our largest vodka supplier.

After that, I open a new web browser, turn on an IP-address scrambler, and break one of my own personal rules.

I google
Leah McKenzie, Peachtree City, Interior Design
.

By noon, my cock is so hard, it’s throbbing, and my patience has worn paper-thin. I couldn’t find anything recent on Leah. It’s as if she’s disappeared these past six months. She hasn’t even updated her company’s web site since August 2013. I’m entertaining the possibility that she’s died or been abducted—again.

I’m sitting on the king sized bed, flipping through my iPhone contacts for my favorite PI, when the first girl knocks. I set the phone beside me and sit up a little as she struts into the room.

She’s wearing the uniform—blue teddy with blue garters, and a silver, masquerade-style mask—the way she should, but immediately, I spot a problem. Her neck and upper shoulders are pocked with acne.

I look her over, have her turn a slow circle, and thank her for her time before dismissing her. She never speaks a word—just goes.

Next is T-Rex. She’s got a fuckable ass and nice enough tits, but the hands on her are…rough and weathered-looking. Leah’s hands are soft.

Cut.

My mood has worsened by the time the third one walks into the room. It takes another nosedive when I start to…smell her? What the fuck? But yes. Fuck yes. That’s fucking B.O. I sit up a little, checking to be sure it isn’t me. Nope. Her. Disgusting.

Pass.

I dismiss her, then wrap a robe around myself and stick my head out the bedroom door. “Ray?”

He’s right outside, in the apartment’s living area, sipping a can of Mr. Pibb and holding a clipboard. “Two more,” he says, passing the clipboard to me. I scowl down at the papers on it.

“What is this shit?”

“It’s the application, sir. We had another girl apply. Just now, in fact.”

“So what? The deadline’s passed. How am I going to deal with someone who can’t do the first thing that I ask of them?”

“Yes, I know.” He strokes his chin. “But you might like her. Her voice is as you like, and the images she sent look perfectly in line with what you need.”

“I thought there was another one today. Besides this late girl?”

“Bleach,” he said cryptically.

I don’t do fake blondes—not because I have anything against them, but because I have to have a certain thing for this to work.

I skim the hand-written application, scowling as I do. When I finish, I shove it back at him.

“Whatever. But I want to see her here in ten—or no dice.”

“Sir—”

“Ten minutes.” I look down at my watch. “That’s all the time I have before I have to call a fucking escort.”

I clench my teeth, because I want to lash out at Raymond. Instead, I take a long, slow breath before walking back into the bedroom. There I wait with my eyes shut, aching for someone I’ll probably never see again.

CHAPTER SIX

Leah
Ten Years Ago

The room has a cot, a small closet stocked with all-brown clothes, a desk stocked with paper, markers, and paint, and a few paperback books. I find the markers are dried up, and so are the paints. All part of the game, I guess.

At the bottom of my door, there’s a hole about the size of a school textbook where Mother pushes a plastic plate through once a day. The food is good enough, maybe. I don’t know. I don’t really eat it. When I’m finished, I toss the plate outside the door. Sometimes, I can hear other people’s plates clatter against the hardwood hall. Occasionally I hear screaming, sometimes faint sobbing, and from the room to the left of mine, an intermittent sawing sound.

It’s been thirteen days now. Thirteen days I’ve spoken to no one. Six days since Mother appeared at the small hole in my door and asked me how I liked the forest. Three days since Mother pushed a sheet of Disney stickers through the hole in my door. I thought I was finished crying, but today, I’ve cried all day.

I’m lying on my back on the cot, staring up at the smooth, white ceiling, twitching as I come down from my latest crying jag, when a soft thunk has me flipping over on my stomach, looking over at the wall behind me.

I’m stunned to see a small hole at the bottom. It’s roundish, a little jagged around the edges, and no larger than a compact disc. On the floor in front of the hole are two small pieces of sheetrock.

I lie there for a second, staring, and wonder what kind of game this is.

Then I walk slowly over.

I get down on my hands and knees on the green rug and wrangle up the courage to peer through.

I see a hazel eye, a dark eyebrow. He disappears momentarily from my sight before coming back in view a little farther back.

“Gretel?”

When his voice vibrates the air, I feel it deep down in my belly. It’s low and…nice.

I look into his eyes, and he looks into mine, and I feel warmer. Even though I can only see a little of his face, I can read the sympathy there.

“Gretel,” he says softly. “That’s what she’s calling you?”

I nod a little. Tears have started up again; they flow down my nose, dripping onto the rug.

“You’re crying,” he says. “What’s wrong?”

I sniff loudly. “Are you Hansel?”

“I am.”

I nod, and start to cry again with disappointment. I was hoping he was here to rescue me.

“What’s wrong?” he asks again. His voice is gentle, prompting me to cover my face and sob into my hands.

“I miss my sisters…and my mom and dad!”

He nods a little. My view of his face is a little sideways, like he’s lying on the floor the same way I am. “I’m sorry.”

I pause for a second, and determine that he sounds sincere.

“Hansel and Gretel,” I scoff to myself. I wipe my eyes. “How long have you been here?”

I stare into the yellow flecks of his hazel eyes, and he moves slightly away from the wall, so I can see still more of his face. He’s dark-haired and attractive. Cuter than any guy in my school. I watch as his luscious mouth goes serious.

“A long time,” he says, shifting his eyes away for just a moment.

“Long like years, or long like months?” I whisper.

“More like years.”

My heart skips a few beats, and I watch his face for context. “Are you serious?”

He presses his lips together, creating a dimple on the left side of his mouth. “I’m afraid I am.”

I start to sob again, dropping my head down on my arms. A moment later, I jump lightly when I feel something warm on my elbow.

His hand.

He’s stretched his hand through the hole in the wall, and is lightly stroking my forearm. I study his fingers as his soothing voice says, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you more upset.” Silence blooms around us as I examine his muscular arm, his big, gentle hand.

“I could hear you,” he says softly, “through the walls. I’ve been digging my way to you since you got here.”

“Thirteen days ago,” I tell him.

“Oh, yeah?”

I sniff, and nod, then remember he can’t see me. “Yeah.”

He’s folded his hand into a partial fist, his knuckles resting against my arm.

“How ya holding up? You scared? Feeling okay?”

“I miss my sisters,” I choke. “I’m a triplet.”

His fingers start to stroke again, and I forget to breathe. “That must be pretty cool.”

“It was,” my voice cracks, “but now they’re gone! I’m gone! They probably think I’m dead.”

He stops stroking for a moment, then picks up again, even gentler than before. “I’m really sorry. That sounds…really hard.”

“What about your family?” I murmur.

“I don’t have a family.”

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” he says.

His fingers are still stroking so I figure the conversation isn’t over yet. My throat is sore from the little bit of talking I’ve done, and that bothers me. I’m afraid of how lonely I’ve been, so I keep talking. I decide to try a question, even though I’m nervous if I ask the wrong one, he’ll stop touching me.

“How did you get here?” I finally manage.

There’s a little pause in his stroking; then he starts again, and answers in his deep voice: “Mother took me from a family who didn’t want me anymore.”

I wonder why they didn’t want him. That’s so sad.

“How old are you?” I ask.

“I’m sixteen or seventeen now, I think.”

He doesn’t know? I take a deep breath and try to imagine what scenario facilitated this boy’s capture. I look down at his fingers. Maybe I could ask.

“How did she do it? How did Mother…get you?”

His thumb traces a line on the inside of my forearm, the motions gentle, slow, deliberate. I can almost see him thinking. Finally, he says, “The other family helped.”

“They did?” I move my arm out from under his stroking fingers and clasp his fingertips as a sob builds in my throat. “It’s just…so hard to believe that things like this happen, you know? How did they…how’d they help her?” I dare.

He turns his hand over, and I see a thick scar running along the inside of his wrist.
Oh, no
. My stomach aches, and for a moment I can’t speak. “That’s when it happened?” Silence rises up between us, and I rush to fill it. “I’m so sorry. That must have been…so horrible.”

“Not your fault,” he says after a second. His hand is in a fist again, lying against the rug, away from mine. He starts to pull it away, and my fingers touch his knuckles. I don’t want him to leave yet. For the first time since I got here, I feel…better.

“What happened?” I whisper. “To…your arm?” I’d normally never ask this sort of question, but in this scenario, it just pops out.

His answer is simple, and delivered in a quiet tone. “I got tired.”

My fingers fold his hand open. I allow one to tremble over it. “It looks painful,” I whisper.

“I didn’t feel it.”

“How did you dig this hole?” I ask. I’m holding his arm with my hand so he can’t move it. I want to stroke the scar, to show him that he’s not alone, but I think he’ll definitely move if I do, so I restrain myself.

“Are you worried about sharps?” he asks with a rough-sounding laugh.

“I guess so.” I smile a little. “That’s smart, right? If I’m going to be your sister, I need to watch out for you.”

“I’m okay, Gretel.”

“My name is Leah, not Gretel.”

“Leah,” he says slowly. “That’s a nice name.”

“Thank you.”

“Well, Leah, I’ve got some stuff tucked away inside my room. If you ever need anything, let me know. I might have it.”

My fingers tighten over his hand because I’m worried he will move it now. I can’t stand to be alone. “Please don’t go! I’m…so alone in here! I’m all alone, every day! I can’t stand it!” I start to cry again.

His strong, smooth fingers intertwine with mine. His thumb strokes the top of my hand, gentle and rhythmic. It’s the nicest thing a boy has ever done for me.

“You’ll be okay,” he says. He turns my hand over, so the palm is facing up, and runs a finger over it. “You’re strong. I can read palms. You’re going to have a long life, mostly good. You won’t be here for very long.”

“I won’t?” I whisper.

“No.” His hand folds over mine and squeezes. “Leah, would you like to hear a story?”

“Yes.”

“Let me tell you about a princess renowned for her fair hands…”