Heart Like a Lion

A warm anticipation suffused Max's belly as she thought: There you are. Continuing to lick and swallow her pussy juices off her fingers, she looked for all the world like a cat grooming itself as she sat poised, awaiting her new guests. Step into my parlour, said the spider to the fly... I'm going to eat you little bitches alive.

For a long while after the taser hit her, Lennie had felt like she was wandering in a thick fog. Everything felt and sounded... distant.

In a way it was a mercy because it all seemed like it was happening to someone else: the cuffs at her wrists, the tremor in her knees, the sudden sense of shame at being forced to walk naked through the Mall's gawking crowds, no longer a cat among the pigeons, her Valkyrie-self long banished and a scared, naked eighteen-year-old girl in her place. She was even distanced from the tears she felt wetting her cheeks... and the flutters of fear she felt in looking back at the massive mall security guard striding behind them like a Roman general celebrating a triumph, with a satyr-worthy lump of hard-on tenting the front of his slacks.

But the distance was alarming, too. She felt like she wasn't fully in control of herself, like her own thoughts were submerged somewhere in the pea-soup fog of her taser-shocked consciousness. And that was profoundly worrisome, because she could tell that she and Cami were in a very serious situation. The creepy undertones of their captor's behaviour weren't lost on her... and the thought of what might be waiting for them wherever he was taking them sent chills through her.

In normal circumstances she would have tried to distract the asshole who was parading them like spoils of war and just made a run for it. But the fog swaddled her, smothering any concrete sense of urgency, leaching away her energy and her courage. Lennie the bad-ass bootgirl had left the building. And looking over at Cami -- who was doing her level best to recover her normal brass and sass and failing miserably -- she could see it was the same for her. That maybe scared her more than anything; it was Cami she depended on to light the spark, to lead the way... although on the other hand, look where that had gotten them.

"Get on that escalator." The black guard's deep voice could only be referring to an escalator headed down on the right.

As she stepped onto it, feeling the ridges of the steel steps against her stocking feet, Lennie looked up and caught the intense eyes of another man watching from above. Another black guy, curiously reminiscent of and yet totally different from the guard, he was wearing overalls and a tee-shirt, thick-rimmed hipster glasses and high-piled dreads. For form's sake she normally would have sneered at him, maybe mouthed some kind of slur like fuck you jungle-bunny or eat a dick, pickaninny -- as was the generally-expected default pattern of Slammerskin race relations -- but somehow, Lennie-in-the-fog couldn't be arsed to do any of that. She just looked at him, and he looked back, and they exchanged a quiet nod and then he was gone.

They arrived at a basement level, devoid of shops and people. An office with a ram sigil and the acronym R.A.M.S. over the door. The guard was opening the door and ushering them in, locking it and hanging some kind of sign on it behind them and then marching the girls past a large and empty Reception desk -- that was weird, hadn't she heard him talking to someone about "Reception" on the radio? -- and down a hallway with a break room on one side, various half-eaten lunches still scattered around it, the entrance to a private office on the other side, and another fifty feet or so of passageway beyond with a nondescript but somehow ominous blank door at its far end.

Pointing to the office -- which sported a name-plate on the door reading MARCUS JAMES, SENIOR SECURITY PROFESSIONAL -- he indicated a pair of chairs in front of the desk and said: "You two, sit over there and pay attention." He poured himself a glass of water as the naked young lovelies stumbled over the chairs and sank awkwardly into them. Spoke to someone on his radio for a while, asked some questions, spoke some more... and more.

A very long time seemed to pass... or maybe it was only a few seconds. Lennie's sense of time felt off. At any rate the two 'byrds waited for some kind of span, sweating as their guts churned with anxiety, before "Marcus James" finally came into the office and sat down across from them at his desk, his eyes boring into them.

"So, the way I see it, we have two options," he started to say, but then stopped and snapped his fingers. "Drat, where are my manners. Sorry. Marcus James, Senior Security Professional for the Rapid Action Mall Security details here at All-American. Names please, ladies?"

He looked at Lennie first, and she answered unthinkingly from inside the fog: "Helena Mackie. Uh... everybody just calls me Lennie." He kept looking at her levelly until she experimentally tacked on the word: "Sir." Which seemed to finally satisfy him as he swung his gaze over to the blonde.

"Fuck you," said Cami automatically... but then something in his eyes persuaded her to answer a bit more fully. "Uh... sorry. I mean, it's... I'm Camilla Snow. Uh... Cami." It took a much longer span for her to grudgingly append the word "Sir," but she finally did it.

"Okay, Cami and Lennie. Have to say I wish I was meeting you in better circumstances." As Marcus went on, his eyes drifted over their naked flesh, and after a moment she could tell he was reading their tattoos as he spoke -- the Celtic Cross at Cami's throat, the colourful flames and skulls and Gothic lettering radiating out around it saying "Blood" and "Honor;" the crossed hammers at her hip; the Black Sun on Lennie's shoulder and the Nordic runes on her half-sleeve and the SFFS and SKIN tatties on her fingers -- and there was a weird light in his eyes, a look of perverse... satisfaction at what he saw that made her flesh crawl. "As I was about to say, we have two options. The first is, I can do just what I said I was going to do upstairs and turn you over to the BPD --"

"You go ahead and turn us over to whoever you fucking feel like, 'bunny," Cami cut him off, but she looked paler and more frightened than the shaky bravado in her voice. "We're not afraid of your fucking pigs."

"For the crimes of Trespassing and Assault and Lewd Conduct," he went on as if she hadn't spoken. "I have a feeling the word from the infirmary on my deputee will mean a charge of Assault Causing Bodily Harm. You really shouldn't have done that. And then of course there's the matter of the police APB for a pair of stolen bikes that sound a lot like the two you rode up on. Do the Village Park Apartments ring a bell?" Cami and Lennie were both sullenly silent, but Lennie could see him reading their expressions like a book. "Yes, I thought they might. You see, the police apparently are there right now taking statements from a couple of victims claiming a pair of girls lured them into the courtyard there and then beat them unconscious with a set of brass knuckles. Don't suppose that sounds familiar?"

Lennie's blood was running cold now, but she managed to get out: "Mister, you said we could get... legal advice. Call like a lawyer or something. Shouldn't we maybe... do that?"

"You sure can, if you like," said Marcus. "After I've had my say. I'd be wary of lawyering up too quickly, though, just between us. BPD tends to see it as an admission of guilt. Not fair of them, maybe, but it's how they are." His eyes were still roving, and he gave most of this speech to Lennie's tits before drifting back up to her eyes. "Now, like I was saying... right now the cops are taking statements from the young men you robbed, though they don't seem to be able to manage a coherent description of either of you just yet. They're also trying to clean up a much bigger mess, though... you see, sometime after you took off on your joyride, a small group of drunk skinheads came down from the Apartments and tried to beat up the entire World Naked Bike Ride."

"From... the Apartments?" Cami blurted, going a shade paler yet.

Marcus nodded. "A couple got their heads split open pretty badly, apparently. The crowd was already feeling pretty aggressive by hippie standards... can't imagine why. A couple of others seem to have gotten away, so naturally BPD are on the lookout for them into the bargain."

Cami's eyes were wide suddenly. She was trying to assimilate this news and couldn't seem to force any words out -- and Lennie knew why, feeling the same fear hitting her like a bucket of ice water. She had to fight to keep herself from asking about Eddy or Eoin and instead said: "What's this got to do with us?"

"Plenty, as you know," Marcus said. "But mainly it means that when the BPD arrive here, which could take some time, I'm duty bound to inform them about those bikes and my suspicion that you're the honey-traps they're looking for. And about the blood-stained brass knuckles my security people just told me they found in one of those boots we confiscated. Which means they'll almost certainly be charging you with Theft and Assault with a Deadly Weapon as well." He shrugged, leaning back. "It could get even more time-consuming back at the precinct. And probably at Holding after that, and County after that. So if we go that route, well... I hope you ladies aren't planning on being anywhere in particular anytime soon."

After a long silence, Lennie finally said: "You said we had two options."

"That I did." Marcus gave a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "The other option is... I can let you go."

Beat. Cami: "The hell you say."

"No, I mean it." Marcus leaned forward again, intent now, his eyes fervent. "If you can convince me that you want back on the straight and narrow -- well, that is to say, if you convince my associate and I, then you'll be free to go. I can't speak for the police, of course, but I can have your belongings and 'your' bikes returned to you, persuade my deputy not to press charges. And I don't strictly have to tell the cops about my suspicions."

Lennie looked at him distrustfully, her heart sinking. She had a feeling she knew where this was going, and could see the same realization dawning in Cami's eyes. Cami said: "That's a heck of risk to take for us."

"You'll have earned it," Marcus predicted confidently, and Lennie felt that crawling sensation in her flesh intensify. "And doing so wouldn't take you more than a single hour."

"A single hour of... what?" Lennie could feel a sense of unreality coming over her. This psycho can't be suggesting what I think he is.

"Well." Marcus attempted a sly look that he plainly didn't have the acting skills to carry off. "Let's just call it a... game. Our outside-the-box approach to suspect interrogation here at R.A.M.S. We call it "serve for an hour." You'd have to agree to confidentiality for any deal to hold, of course."

"Sex," said Cami with a touch of contempt. "Let's be real, freakazoid. You're talking about sex. Why don't you just spit it the fuck out?"

Marcus looked back at her stonily, abandoning slyness now, wearing the same implacable expression he'd had when he'd captured them upstairs. He said nothing more except: "Of course you're welcome to take your chances with the BPD. Make a decision."

Lennie's stomach flopped. It's all moving too fast, she thought fearfully. I can't think straight, think what to do... An imaginary scene of a brawl in the Village Park parking lot played out before her mind's eye. She could see Eddy lying on the pavement with a cracked skull. She could see cops, jail cells. No way out, what had seemed to be an easy day's entertainment turning into a years-long nightmare. But weighed against all of that... was the possibility of letting this perverted black bastard lay hands on her. And she realized she couldn't do it.

She was just opening her mouth to say so when Cami suddenly piped up, in something close to an echo of her normal, brassy tones: "Okay, you know what? Fine, I'll do it. You've got a deal."

Marcus smiled, a predator baring its teeth at the sight of prey, and looked over at Lennie.

For her part, Lennie's mouth hung open in shock as she looked at her friend, caught a wild gleam in those blue eyes, and realized: She's up to something. What it could possibly be she had no idea, but Lennie let a frisson of hope buoy her up as she made a split-second decision to follow Cami's lead. I just hope she knows what she's doing.

"Uh, f-fine, okay," she said. "Sure. I'm, I'm in, too."

"Good." Marcus had that bright, creepy light in his eyes again. "Very good." He got up -- that tent in the front of his slacks was bigger than ever -- and said: "Come with me."

He led them back out into that long hallway, gestured at them to walk down toward the door at the end as he followed a discreet distance behind. Lennie was still trying desperately to work out what Cami's angle could be; there was a sense of finality about that door that scared her more with each step they took. Try as she might, she couldn't work it out. Were they supposed to just run for it? With cuffed hands and stocking feet and neither of them at a hundred percent physically? How were they going to get past Marcus? How were they going to unlock the front door? What about whoever was waiting for them up ahead?

Finally she murmured to her friend sotto voce: "So, what's your plan here?"

"Didn't you hear him?" Cami whispered back. "He said a couple of the skins back at Village Park got away. Who were the best fighters out of all that group? It can only be Eoin and Eddy."

"Is that right?" Lennie said.

And she thought: Oh God.

"That's right," whispered Cami enthusiastically. "It can only mean one thing. Eoin and Eddy are out there right now gathering the whole crew together. They have to have figured we'd come here. They're coming for us. All we have to do is hold out until they get here."

"Hold out." Oh God oh my God...

"Trust me, kid." Cami gave her that old conspiratorial grin. But Lennie could see now that that gleam in her eyes wasn't the usual devil-may-care Cami fuck-offness. It was just flat-out trapped, cornered desperation... a desperation verging on madness. "Eoin won't leave us to go to prison and he won't let this happen to me. To us. You'll see. You just do your sweet thing and me and Eoin, we'll take care of the rest. You in?"

"You're a psych-o-o-o..." Lennie said in a wan, desolate echo of the old ritual.

Except this time it wasn't a joke. And her blood was roaring in her ears and her guts were turning to water and her knees almost giving way beneath her as they approached that mysterious, forbidding door. Cami doesn't have a plan. There's no way out. This is really going to happen... whatever 'this' is. The air in her lungs was cold and thick with horror. Her heart was pounding, her mouth was dry.

And then the door at the end of the hallway was opening, and a sultry woman's voice was saying: "Hello, girls. I've been expecting you." And they were out of time.

It was while she was sitting across from Marcus James and listening to him explain -- with barely-concealed relish -- the mayhem that she and Lennie had trailed in their wake, the full nature of the consequences bearing down on them, and worst of all the perverted price he was demanding for extending them a reprieve, that it really came home to Cami how the half-baked adventure that booze and boredom had conceived might turn out to be the single dumbest mistake of her young life.

A wall of nausea had hit her as she'd sat in his office and realized how thoroughly screwed they were. That it was all her fault, that Lennie wouldn't even be here right now if she didn't follow Cami's lead nine times in ten. A pit of black despair had opened underneath her, and for what seemed like an eternity she hovered on the edge of simply slumping from that chair, curling into a ball and blocking out the world.

But that wasn't Cami's way. Even in extremis a part of her mind was searching for hope, a way out. And it was that search that had yielded the sudden, diamond-bright certainty that the skins who'd gotten away from the Apartments had to be Eoin and Eddy, and that they had to be coming for her, that they wouldn't let this go on. It was as that ray of hope broke against the blackness that she'd impulsively agreed to James' sinister, dubious-sounding "deal," buoyed by the feeling that if she could just endure long enough -- and after all, an hour wasn't all that long, really -- Eoin would find her and everything would be okay.

Of course at some level she could feel that there was a leap in logic going on here, that her newfound faith wasn't entirely rational. But that didn't matter; what mattered was it felt cosmically and emotionally right to her, and that gave her the strength to bear up and face whatever might lie ahead. For years it had always been her job to be strong, both for herself and for Lennie; she wasn't about to stop now that she'd gotten them into the ugliest mess of all their misadventures together, now that Lennie needed her the most.

That thought had gotten her through the horrible, surreal interview with Marcus James, had held her up on the brief -- yet somehow very long -- walk down that hallway. And it kept her unfazed when that door had opened to give her a first sight of Marcus' "associate."

She seemed taller than she actually was, partly owing to her outrageously voluptuous frame and partly to her sheer presence. She was dark-haired and dressed in something like a parody of the security uniform, her midriff bare and her shirt tied between breasts that strained at the confinement and her utility belt -- which looked to be kitted out with floggers, crops, vibrators and sex toys -- slung over a pair of booty shorts tight enough to produce a camel toe at the crotch. Every inch of her screamed lascivious sensuality, from her saucy arms-akimbo posture to the flush of desire in her creamy skin to the way her green eyes glittered hungrily as she took in the teens' naked bodies, licking her lips in anticipation.

"Hello, girls," she said. "I've been expecting you. My name is Max. Won't you come in?"

Cami could feel her pulse pick up as she and Lennie stepped over the threshold and into the room. She could hear Marcus hanging back, talking to someone on his phone in a low voice, but he was quickly forgotten as she tried to take measure of the room: her body tingling all over as she saw the racks full of whips and toys, the shackles, the crossed wooden frames. There were low benches here and there and toys strewn on some of them, and there were steel loops and pulleys embedded in the floor and ceiling. Hanging side-by-side from two of those loops, and anchored to the floor near the walls, were two long coils of rope.

Imagining from Marcus' abstract hints had been one thing. Actually seeing it was something else. They've built a whole sex dungeons right in their offices... how did they get away with this? Cami remembered hearing whispered rumours at school, when she'd still been going, of girls getting caught in the mall over minor infractions and tormented by sadists in the basement. She'd always figured it was just stories, really, until this moment.

Max gestured around with a broad grin. "You like? I decorated it myself."

Lennie looked like she was struggling not to faint dead away. Cami fortified herself with the thought Eoin is coming, just hold out as long as you can and said: "Okay, look... Max, right? Just tell us what the score is so we can get this done."