Reckless (11 page)

"Hey, in this business, you're likely to piss off a few people, once and a while. You and I blew the whistle on a hornet's nest, a few got loose. What am I suppose to do? Get scared?"

"You're telling me you're not worried?" Tad said.

He could tell she was, she just wasn't the kind of women that showed her fear.

"What good does it do to worry? You've been threatened before, haven't you?"

"And I almost died one time," he said.

"So what do you do? Panic. Go into hiding?"

"You get cautious with yourself, Kelly. That joint we were in last night, you're walking right into the same kind of scenario. You have no idea how these people might be connected."

"And you have no idea that they are," she said. "They're sexually kinky, but they're not criminals. It's a whole other element in that crowd."

"You're probably right. But you've been traipsing around the underbelly of normal society for weeks. You can't tell me that the brothel and the topless nightclub don't occasionally rub elbows with all the other places you've been visiting."

"I can't believe you'd be saying this."

"I probably wouldn't, if we weren't both getting these every few days."

She chuckled. "Tad Stone, getting rattled. I can't believe it."

"Tad Stone's not crazy, Kel, that's why I've lasted so long."

Kelly appraised him for several seconds, realizing that there was more than a little fear in this exchange. Of course the threats had upset her, and of course she wasn't quick to admit that. But from Tad, his hesitation was more than she ever expected.

"You're really serious about this," she said aloud.

"I wouldn't say it, if I weren't."

"Has something happened you haven't told me about?" she asked.

"I don't know, Kelly," he answered. "I go with my gut and my eyes. And what they tell me is that I've been followed several times in the last few weeks. I don't have any proof and I don't want to alarm you, but . . ."

"But you are," she said.

"Let's just say you should be cautious. If you have more research for the book, why don't you take me along. Or maybe you should consider ending the research. Certainly you have enough material to finish it."

"Of course I have enough material, but I want it to be thorough."

"Unless, it's really a personal obsession that's driving you."

"You mean the sex?"

"Of course, I mean the sex. Just look at you last night?"

"Just look at me!" she snapped. "You're judging me."

"I'm doing nothing of the sort. I'm just worried that you'll slip up."

"Isn't that why I asked you to come along?"

"I know you, Kelly, enough to know that when you're hot for something, you'll go right past me to have it. You've done it before."

"Funny how I could say the same thing about you."

"Touche," he replied with his most jaunty grin in place.

He was talking about the topless bar, about the night with Juno that led to the rape. She was referring to the way he'd climbed right into her job. There was a lot about them that was the same. She was probably as reckless as he was in her own way. Though when it came to working the streets, because she was a woman, that made her recklessness more dangerous. But who was he anyway, to act like this, when what they had was a relationship born of enmity and conflict and likely not to change? "You know, this is really quite a conversation," she finally said.

Tad shrugged. "Some things need to get said. So I've said them. Now, I really do need to get to work, or I'll be missing my own meeting."

"They made you the City Editor?"

"Only until they can have you back."

"That's not going to happen," she retorted as though it was silly to even think it.

"Well, I guess then, it's my job," he returned.

Same old Tad. Same old snicker. Same old arrogance and practiced evasiveness. Though it was just as carefully engineered as her own. This was something Kelly was beginning to realize somewhere in her hidden brain cells, even if it would take some time before she'd acknowledged it.

One thing she was sure of, Tad wasn't a man that could be easily loved. When something genuine and affectionate was about to happen, he had a way of slamming doors shut that defied physics. Of course that could be said of herself.

Kelly was actually taking Tad's advice, or at least stealing his thoughts about her book. She had enough material, more than enough, and she was stretching out the research simply because she loved the sexual thrill of it. In most cases she knew it wasn't dangerous. Just walking down the street could be dangerous. But maybe it was time to get a grip on her obsession for the shady sides of the erotic equation. Funny, how since meeting Tad Stone, sex had taken a whole new meaning. Certainly not because of him. He'd just been a catalyst to everything else that followed, at least that's what she wanted to think.

For the next week, Kelly made a few excursions to boutiques and adult book stores she'd missed, finding out little more than what she'd already learned. By then, even the fascination for the job was beginning to fade as she realized that the personal involvement was much more exhilarating than mere reporting.

It was a Friday evening. She was in the vicinity of the Blue Lady, thinking just a brief peek into one lone store with a sad neon light over its door would be her last of these trips. Inside the well-worn edifice there was the cigarette smoking proprietor, and a handful of men furtively perusing the rows of shelves. Their minds were turned up a notch seeing a good-looking blonde enter the store. Although since Kelly's conversation with Tad, she'd taken a few extra precautions in her travels, combing back her hair and tying it behind her. Instead of wearing her contacts, she wore her more dowdy looking reading glasses. Still, it could have been any woman entering the shop, all attention was focused on the female form, even if the eyes only bothered to glance at her on the sly.

Looking over things herself, Kelly stopped at the front counter to talk to the clerk.

"Are you the owner?" she asked.

"Most days," he groused.

She smiled.

Kelly continued, asking him the questions she usually asked the owners of such shops: which items were most popular? How many people could he expect in a day? Was there any overt sexuality going on. Did his clientele remain passive? Or were there flagrant sex acts going on in the corners?

Half way through her list, a man approached the counter and laid several items there while he fished through his pockets for his cash. It took only seconds for Kelly to see that it was the redhead man from the night of her rape. Her heart thumped so loud she thought sure that it could be heard all over the store. Hoping not to be recognized, she turned away and walked along the wall of sex toys, waiting for the man to leave.

Unfortunately, a moment later, she felt him behind her, much too close. "You been getting my notes, bitch?" she heard his raspy voice ask her. She ignored him, but he followed her to the far wall and was standing so close that she could recognize the smell of him – something she'd never forget.

"I don't know you," Kelly said, just half turning.

"You know we put all the pieces together, Juno and me."

"What do you mean?"

"Juno's in jail. But I'm not. We know what you did, bitch, who you tipped off, everything that went down."

"You're mistaking me."

He laughed. "No, I don't mistake the women I fuck, not even when I'm stoned. You might have looked like a brunette then, but no one's going to mistake your face. We know who you are and where you work. I know you almost as much as I know your pretty ass," he said. He reached down and pinched her. She jerked.

"Get your hands off me," she snapped, and she moved to the front of the store, giving the owner a quick nod.

"You got more questions?" the man asked.

"No, not today," she said, nodding to the back of the store.

"You gotta expect that kind of thing in a place like this, lady. No such thing as politically correct here."

He had no idea why she was so upset, and he wouldn't either. She left quickly, trying not to look too scared of the redhead man, just in control.

Notes under her door, the redhead in the shop, the feeling that she was being followed, it all added up. Since Tad had told her about the notes he'd received, the whole thing was taking on a much more ominous feel. Maybe it was time to get real with it. But did she trust the police, even after they'd nailed Captain Forest? And what about McMillian in the Mayor's office. He'd been implicated, but never arrested. She mulled over her choices, but decided nothing. And for the twentieth time, at the very least, she put it out of her mind, thinking that the next day, she'd do something. She didn't sleep as well however, knowing it might have been the redhead slipping notes under her door. He knew where she lived. Was she safe in her own bed?

***

Kelly had one last stop to make before her research for the book was done. She swore to herself, just this one, and for this one she'd have Tad at her side. She was willing to put aside several S&M clubs and various other titillating opportunities since she'd already interviewed dozens of people who'd made leather, chains and whipping a part of their lives. But this particular experience held a unique fascination – a unique porno theatre that she'd heard about through the grapevine of her previous sexual explorations. It seemed that a lot of activity in this venue was by word of mouth. More than just a theatre showing porno flicks through the long hours of the night to men with nothing better to do that jack-off in the dark, this one was designed for the sado-masochistic crowd. Some of the same group that she and Tad had run into the night in Jerry's leather boutique.

It was called a theatre because there was performance art going on all evening long, in addition to the pictures of sex moving on the walls in an eerie collage of body parts. She was told it was the very best place to observe this sub-culture. She'd heard that from sources she considered experts in the field. Considering the recommendation came from a variety of people, she knew this was the event she needed to attend.

It was referred to as John Guy's masquerade. John Guy the man who'd founded the bi-monthly event. Held in a broken-down warehouse, because that was the best atmosphere for S&M, the theatre of the absurd was packed, though never wall to wall. John Guy wouldn't let it become a social occasion because there were necessary desires lived out that night. It wasn’t for gawkers and the curious. The fetish and the fascination had to be real.

Getting an invitation from the host however was another matter. Not everyone that asked, even if they could afford the cover charge, was granted admission. Getting hers, turned out to be a heart stopping moment for Kelly. John initially banged the phone down in her ear, just at the mention of being a reporter wanting to attend his gathering. On a second call, she convinced him with a fast talking speech to at least see her so she could present her story to him.

He agreed to let her to come to his office. John Guy was an architect working for the priciest building contractor in the city. When she arrived at the appointed time, and he was very precise about her being prompt, she was ushered into his private paneled office by a studious secretary in a blue, knee-length suit and a high necked blouse. When Kelly noticed the pin on her lapel however, she was shocked. The emblem was one that she recognized from her underworld travels. She'd been told that the gold submissive's pin would only be worn if there was a matching one somewhere pierced through a significant body part. On a woman preferably the hood of the clitoris or a nipple. The pin was worn to indicate to any dominant man acquainted with this cult that the woman would be available to service his sexual needs at almost any moment. When Kelly heard the cult's practices explained to her, she recognized her own desire shooting through her at the thought of what kind of life that would mean. Seeing the lapl pin on this woman's demure suit, in just seconds she imagined the secretary naked, dozens of perverted things being done to her willing body.

Pulled out of her momentary reverie, Kelly followed the woman through the door to John Guy's office and was instructed to sit down.

"I have five minutes, that's all," the man at the desk said. He was staring down at a pile of drawings on his desk. Close cropped brown hair, glasses, an expensive but simple silk suit, he presented an unblemished picture of himself as a respectable gentleman. It was not the first such regular sort of executive that she'd seen playing on the fringes of sexual extremes, but the contrast was certainly the most remarkable one that Kelly had witnessed to date.

"It won't take a minute," she explained to him. "I would simply like an invitation to the next gathering at the warehouse. I have a date, a dominant that would attend with me. You might know the name, Tad Stone?"

John nodded briefly, looking up at her for just an instant.

Kelly continued. "In all honesty we are reporters, but this is a very personal assignment. Perhaps if you spoke with Jerry Bianca. I believe you know his leather house? He could vouch for my personal as well as professional interest in this sub-culture event. I'm doing a book about the deviant sex practices of the decade. I can't imagine it being complete without a chapter on one of your parties."

John Guy looked up at her when she finally finished speaking. "You don't have to flatter me," he said. "That won’t work."

"Then what does?" she asked.

"Sincerity."

"And how would I prove that to you?"

He thought only for a second before he replied. "Bend over the desk, bare your ass and let me paddle it. That would do. You live through that without screaming, I might be persuaded."

Kelly and John Guy stared each other down for a long sixty seconds, while her mind raced and his remained passive. He was an immovable man. That was one thing that Kelly decided in that minute. He wouldn't be persuaded by anything other than her compliance.

"I'm not sure, Mr. Guy, if I'm submissive or dominant. I do know I'm not a pain freak. But I have been through worse to get a story."

Saying that, she did exactly as he'd told her, wondering how far she'd really go, just to get a story.

Her bottom bared, she waited while John Guy remained behind his desk. She wasn't sure how long she could take the suspense. Any moment she could feel herself fleeing out the door, left to call this stunt just another of her ridiculous mistakes. However, just as her resolve was about to crumble, the man rose from his seat, having just pulled something from his bottom drawer. Hiding whatever it was so that she couldn't see, he moved around the desk to her exposed backside.

John was brisk paddling her behind. And the stinging smacks hurt. She imagined her bottom must be red as a beet. It took every bit of strength she had to hold back nasty cry. But she held on, thinking of how Tad would be in stitches if he could see her now. When John was finished, he said nothing to her as he retraced his steps back to desk chair and sat down. Pulling out an engraved white envelope from another of his drawers he handed it to her.

"Keep the interviewing to a minimum," he said. "I don't want my guests knowing you're reporters, and if names, dates and places ever appear in anything you write, you can expect an immediate and life-threatening lawsuit. Is that clear?"

"I'll let you review your chapter if you like," she said.

He nodded. "That would be the intelligent thing to do. Now please go, I've already spent more time with you than you're worth."

As Kelly left the building, she wondered how John Guy managed to attract such a following, luring so many to his parties. She wasn't smitten with him, she was hardly even aroused, but obviously he created something that many in the city simply couldn't live without.