A Dolls Foot Ch 21

THERE WAS A KNOCK ON THE DOOR OF THE CELL. The holding area, as it was termed more politely. Okay, their situation had improved somewhat since the maritime patrol had intercepted the lifeboat. They had clothes to wear. Granted, they were bright orange prison jumpsuits, but better than nothing. They had food to eat, a nice hot meal provided to them upon arrival. One that they had sorely needed. It had been almost a day since Rachel had a meal, and two days for the other girls. There were nice hot showers, which they desperately needed, even though the paint was stubbornly sticking to Beatrice and Marissa. They had nice comfy beds to sleep on, well prison cots but a lot better than the little carts or the gyno exam tables, or the cramped little seats on the lifeboat. So comfy they had all passed out almost immediately after their interrogation, no, the term was debriefing. No one was raping them, or trying to rearrange their genitals. The floor was not heaving around making them seasick. In spite of everything, they were still alive and mostly intact. And back at the Cape.

"Wake up ladies, you have a visitor. Inspector Javert, do you recognize these women?"

Beatrice cringed a bit at the term. Women. Not girls. Almost a milf, isn't that how Nestor had teased her?

"That one is definitely Rachel."

"Rachel Untel?"

"I don't believe I ever learned her last name."

"And the other two?"

"She was with three other girls, Elise her friend and Beatrice and Marissa."

"Last names?"

"I think it was Bucante and Rossini. It's hard to tell with their hair gone and their faces painted. Could you open the tops of your jumpsuits? Yes, that one is definitely Beatrice. The skinny one is Marissa. Ladies, I am delighted to see you back on dry land in one piece."

"More or less," Beatrice said.

"Lieutenant Martine, you are aware that there is a missing persons alert for these women? That they are possibly victims of a kidnapping?"

"We are aware, and these three wandered into harbor in a stolen lifeboat claiming to be them. But we had no way to confirm their identities, until now."

"Why didn't you contact Beatrice's brother Rocco?"

"She never mentioned such a person. She said to contact you, which is what we did."

"I don't trust fucking Rocco! My own brother! First he pimped us out, then he sold us out. Rachel too. Tell him, Rachel."

"He told me he needed to go to a Black Mass, and I needed to go along because he needed a date. Something like that. The next thing I knew I was on the Luxor and some idiot was trying to cut my clit off."

"The Luxor? He said he thought the pirates might have come from the Luxor."

"He

thought

? He

thought

! He knew damn well."

Rachel broke in. "He told me that the pirates threw him into the water and he had to swim home."

"He told you what? You never mentioned that part. They fucked us all a few times, then he and the pirates started talking and they let him get up and they walked out with him. Like they were having a friendly discussion. Don't you see? They sent him back to get you."

"No, no, I don't believe that. I can't believe that. Anna warned me that he wasn't a nice person, that he lied a lot, but I was talking to him on the way down to the Black Mass and he was charming. Maybe he was desperate. To save you. Maybe he sent me to save you."

"To save us? How could he know that you could save us?"

"Why would he go back for Rachel?" Javert asked.

"The sheikh. He wanted Nestor and Anna to do something they wouldn't do, maybe couldn't do. So they got Nestor set up to fall in love with me or something. Except it is was more the other way around. But then something gives them the idea it's Rachel he really cares for."

"Nestor set them up?"

"Maybe. Or his bots. He told me that as far as they're concerned we're just little pawns in some giant chess game. One where they can see a thousand moves ahead."

"Tell me," Rachel said. "Who came first? Anna or the sheikh?"

"The sheikh was always a big fan. But he got really interested in us after Anna showed up."

"Really. And Anna threw herself at Rocco?"

"You could say that. She was sleeping with him. All night. Every night. In the same bed. With the cats. She stole him from us and she stole the fucking cats from us. And then

she

has the gall to say

he's

not a nice person? Fuck her! Fuck her up her fucking ass! No, she'd probably like that." Beatrice started to cry.

"Rocco did call me," Javert said, "to report that Rachel was missing too. He was very upset. He said he woke up in his car, he had no idea how he got in there because he'd left the keys in the console and someone had to know the code to unlock it, but there he was in the car and the restaurant was closed and no sign of Rachel."

"Likely story," Rachel snorted.

"I read the report you gave at the debriefing. It's about as unlikely. You somehow managed to escape and steal a lifeboat? They just lowered it for you?"

"It was on a slide."

"And no one tried to stop you from getting to the lifeboat?"

"No one asked me that question. When we were doing the debriefing."

"I am asking you now."

Rachel gave Javert a long stare. "I don't think I want to answer that question."

"I see."

"We tried to contact the Luxor," the lieutenant said. "To return the lifeboat. There was no response. We sent out a helicopter to look for the ship, based on where the lifeboat had come from. No sign of it."

"They didn't contact you about the missing boat?"

"No."

"Or issue a distress call?"

"No."

"How strange. Tell me, ladies, can you give me any insight as to what might have happened?"

Beatrice took a deep breath. Rachel obviously couldn't handle the situation. A half truth is better than an outright lie. Where had she heard that? Probably from her brother. "We were being held hostage by the sheikh. When Nestor and Anna wouldn't do what he wanted, he said he was going to take us for his harem. That he was going to prepare us for harem life by circumcising us, then and there."

"Circumcising?"

"Cutting our clits off. We had to escape."

"That story does not make any sense. It's even more unlikely than Rocco's."

"What do you want to do with them?" the lieutenant asked. "Now that you've confirmed their identity I don't have any reason to hold them here."

"Where are we supposed to go?" Beatrice said. "Back to the apartment? With Rocco? No way."

"Why not take a waitress job at the resort? We're really short on staff."

"Can we stay here until we get it sorted out? Maybe until the paint wears off?"

"Not me. I need to get back to the resort. I need to get back to work. I'm going to lose my job. I'll talk to the manager, see if I can get you set up. See if there's a room open for you."

"I can drive you back to the resort. I don't think there's any reason for me to stay at this point. Let's get going." Javert fumbled to find his car keys. "Bea, should I let know Rocco you're back? He's terribly worried about you."

"Tell him to come tomorrow with our phones and some clothes. Maybe. I have no idea what I want to do now."

"Let's go then." Javert took Rachel's arm in a fatherly sort of way, steadying her, which she needed. Not that she'd ever had a father to do that, not that any man had ever touched her except with the intention to fuck her. She hardly knew how to react.

"I'm sorry," the lieutenant said, "you'll have to sign this release first. And return any government property."

"Really." Rachel glanced briefly at the piece of paper offered to her and scribbled her name on the bottom. She handed it to the lieutenant, who was giving her some sort of glare. What government property was she supposed to return? The jumpsuit, of course. She stripped it off defiantly and threw it on the cot. Then the clunky cotton panties. How long had it been since she had worn panties? She was already chafing. The resort put all the female employees on birth control pills that delayed their menstruation until tourist season was over. It was a point of pride, even when they did pull on a skirt, not to be wearing panties.

The other girls were trying not to giggle, which didn't help. Javert was maintaining an air of polite indifference, but the lieutenant was staring at her as if he had never seen a naked girl before. This from someone whose office looked out on the nude beach.

"I work as a waitress at

La Cochonnerie

. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. You should pay us a visit."

"She's on the menu," Beatrice added. "Very tasty."

"I couldn't... My, my wife..."

"Oh, bring her along. Rachel is very good with women."

"We'll be going now." Gallantly, Javert took off his raincoat, yes, he was wearing a Pink Panther raincoat in the middle of the summer, and offered it to Rachel. Well, the parking lot for the maritime patrol station was technically outside the nudist area, although surrounded by it. She wrapped the raincoat around her, it was so long it was dragging on the ground, and they walked out to the tiny Citroen. They sat in silence for the five minutes it took to reach the parking lot of the resort. He pulled into an empty spot, and turned off the car.

She slipped off the raincoat. Of course, there was no need for it now. But instead of thanking him for his help and wishing him a good evening, she leaned over to put a hand on his lap, to find the zipper to open his pants.

"What are you doing? Really, you don't need to do this."

She couldn't reply. Her mouth was full.

"Rachel, please, it's a lovely gesture, I'm very flattered, but it's unprofessional. What if somebody sees us?"

She clambered over the gear shift to sit on his lap, facing him, impaling herself on him. Sliding him into her quite easily, amazed at how much she wanted him inside her. It took her a moment to catch her breath.

"To answer the second question, anyone can fuck anywhere at the resort. As for the unprofessional part, that's exactly the point. I'm going to tell you what really happened, at least some of it, while you're fucking me. So you can't use it as evidence. Could you push the seat back more? The steering wheel is cutting into me. Thanks, that's better.

"So I wake up on the Luxor and I'm strapped onto what seems like a gynecologist exam bench, with my feet in the stirrups. And the other girls are there, shaved and painted like you saw them. So this guard, he looked like he was one of those African migrants, came in ready to rape me. And I convinced him he wanted me to do a blowjob first and then that he really wanted a finger up his ass while I did it. Ever done it like that?"

"No."

"I'm really good at it. I'll show you, after I finish my story. So he frees up my right hand to do that. Then sheikh shows up and tells him to stop and he forgets to bind my hand again. So later, when he was going to cut my clit off I used the free hand to slit his throat."

"You killed him?"

"I killed him. So now you know. That's how we managed to escape."

"Anyone else?"

"I didn't kill anyone else."

"What about the other girls?"

"We did what we needed to do to escape. If they want to tell you more about it that's their business."

"There's still a lot you're not telling me. It's not credible. The three of you were tied up and naked?"

"Yep."

"And just the one guard in the room with you?"

"The sheikh was there but only as a hologram."

"Why didn't he alert the rest of the ship?"

"Nestor said he was buying us some time. Maybe he was jamming up things somehow."

"Nestor?"

"Okay, once the guard was dead, we took his phone. Does that count as theft on top of murder? And Nestor called us, on the phone. He told us how to get to the lifeboat."

"Oh. The guard had weapons with him?"

"Of course."

"What kind?"

"A pistol and a little assault rifle. We took them both. So what, now it's weapon possession on top of theft and murder?"

"Did you shoot anyone?"

"Me? No. I have mo idea how to use a gun."

"What about the other girls?"

"You'll have to ask them."

"There weren't any weapons on the lifeboat when the maritime patrol intercepted you."

"No."

"But they did find some bullet casings near the rear hatch. Do you know anything about that?"

"I don't want to lie to you."

"You do know something."

"This is going to sound really strange. You aren't going to believe me. I don't even believe it myself."

"Try me. I've been doing this for a long time."

"Fucking me?" She realized it had been a while, and she'd lost track of it. But he was still there. She bobbed up and down a couple times as a reminder.

"Asking questions. Putting together things that don't seem to make sense. It's what I do for a living."

"Okay. So the lifeboat was up on top of the ship, on a slide. It just sort of dropped down the slide into the water. That's why we were able to get off the ship."

"That makes sense. How did you know how to release it?"

"I'd seen a video once about them. I got it up on the phone and followed the instructions."

"And no one noticed?"

"Didn't seem like it. But after we were in the water they were sending out a boat to catch us. Or sink us, or whatever."

"Another lifeboat?"

"No, one of those fast boats like on Miami Vice. A cigar boat. It had a battering ram on it, too. I guess that's a good boat for a pirate ship to have. So I'm there wondering out loud what the hell to do and the phone came up with some sort of personal assistant. It called itself the Borg."

"Really."

"So it came up with this crazy plan that I should get the fast boat to miss me and then turn around and head for the Luxor and get the fast boat to miss me again and ram into the Luxor."

"Doesn't sound like it would work."

"You think? The part about getting it to miss was okay because the lifeboat could make really tight turns. But the other part? No one in their right mind is going to crash into their own ship."

"If they're alive."

"Exactly."

"So that's why there were shell casings near the rear hatch?"

"That would be the reason. I had Bea and Risa wait until we were really close to the Luxor and the cigar boat was really close to us, then aim for the windshield."

"They both had assault rifles?"

"Yes." She realized she had left that slip. He didn't bother to ask where the second one had come from.

"So you sank the Luxor?"

"Yep. We watched it sink. The I set a course for the marina and we tried to get some sleep. The next thing I knew the maritime patrol was boarding us. We'd ditched the guns before we went to sleep so it was a good thing it wasn't the pirates. So are you going to lock me up?"

"Not unless someone makes a fuss. Which does not seem likely."

"What is it you really do?"

Javert gave a sigh. "I, we, try to keep a lid on things. We try to protect the innocent, of which there aren't that many. As for the rest of you..." He gave another sigh. "This town is built on bad behavior. People doing outrageous things to each other. In your case..." He gave another sigh.

"Look at what happened to Bea and Risa. Shaved like that. Painted like that. Raped."

"Raped? Really? Rocco told me that they had all signed a contract, a release. He even showed me a copy on his phone. All that was within the terms that they had agreed to."

"They were going to cut our clits off."

"Were they? Really?"

"They said they were going to. The guard had a knife he was going to use on me."

"And did he?"

"No, I used it on him. What about me? I never signed a release. I never agreed to any of this."

"Yes you did. At the Black Mass. Rocco showed me his copy. Apparently neither of you read it very carefully."

"You've got to be kidding me." Rachel went back over to the passenger seat and starting sobbing. "So you're telling me I'm in trouble?"

"I'm telling you that you've caused a lot of trouble. Trouble that can't be fixed. You have blood on your hands."

She actually stared at those hands. She was sure it had all washed off.

Out, out, damned spot

. Her English class was coming back to her again.

"So what am I supposed to do about it? Be more careful next time, if there is one?"

"If you had hesitated, if you'd had any qualms, you might not be here talking to me. Maybe..."

"Maybe what?"

"Maybe you should find a line of work that uses your talents. You would make a great spy, a wonderful assassin. Mata Hari."

"No. No. Pull your pants down."

"Why?"

"So I can keep my promise. Pull your knees up, no, apart some." She reached a hand between them to find the back of his balls, then further back to the puckered ring of flesh that was the gateway to his dark side. "Ever do this before?"

"No."

"Then you're in for a treat."