Changes Ch. 02

I nodded, totally resenting her with a tight lipped smile and carefully imparted, "Uh, I have this pesky little thing called a rental agreement that I kinda do have to be gainfully employed in order to-"

"That's no longer your concern, boy, and watch that tone. You've been doing well, don't ruin it now."

She became the school principal then, back straight, legs crossed and looking so sharp, regarding me as though I were a suspicious, possibly unruly student who'd been sent to her office.

"I feel we have some understanding here, boy. I feel that you now have begun to accept where you stand. Therefore, I would be reasonably upset if, the next time I speak to you, I have to put up with what arrived here tonight. Quite reasonably upset."

"Yes.", I agreed, hearing the defeat in my voice; it sickened and frightened me.

"Tell me you'll make an effort next time, boy."

"I'll make an effort next time." I dejectedly toned.

"For now, it's all I ask and all you're capable of anyway. You were told to be clean and wearing clean and decent clothes. You were also to be on time, respectful and obedient. Let's see,... You were clean, you were dressed in clean clothes, but they're little more than rags and quite unbefitting of my status. You managed to be punctual."

She paused here, raising an eyebrow for effect before stating, "As I've said, you were lucky enough to enjoy a short grace period tonight, a sort of orientation to what you can expect. I've given you that because, as I've also said, you don't understand yet. You're about as vanilla as they come, and I do love that, but know that your orientation period is over."

I nodded, wondering what she meant by 'vanilla'.

"Good boy." she said with a rewarding smile. "Now, be off with you, and remember my instructions for tomorrow, carry them out to the letter, and I'll be in touch soon.", she said, standing.

"I will." I said morosely, joining her on my feet.

She accompanied me to the entry where I grabbed my jacket out of the closet and put it on, followed by my boots. I turned and headed for the door, somehow not sprinting the few steps, and managing to hold my head high.

"Boy."

I turned slowly, facing Dagmar and waiting for her to say some awful and further life wrecking thing.

"Aren't you going to say good bye to your Mistress?" she asked, neither insulted or angry, merely the Principal.

"Goodbye, Mistress."

She held me there in her dimensional entry for a few moments, studying me, suddenly looking at my bare chest under my unbuttoned jacket. She stepped closer and grabbed a nipple, grinning and squeezing painfully until I winced.

"Mmmmm. My whore.", she said with a quality to her voice I'd never heard from any other woman anywhere. "You'd better get out while you can, pet. And make sure you're properly fed and rested for me, huh?"

I really needed no encouragement. I left her door in a sort of stupor, noticing the rush of pleasure at my nipple after she let it go and as I walked down the hallway with her low giggle following me, my head anything but held high. I could feel her eyes on my back and held a vague fear of looking over my shoulder.

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

Blissfully, I remembered nothing the next morning. Not until I made it to the kitchen counter, reaching above the sink and into the doorless cupboard where I kept theTylenol. I quickly ran some tepid water from the tap into yesterday's dirty coffee mug and downed three caplets before remembering it all in an unexpected moment between two painful head throbs of my hangover.

I dropped the mug into the empty sink, hearing it break but not caring as I supported myself at the edge of the counter, eyes closed, trying to quell the sudden anxiety that made the two guys in my head hammer all the harder and faster.

After a long, hot shower, my hangover was mostly gone, leaving me at my kitchen table, force feeding myself some potatoes and drinking a coffee (clean mug) with the feeling of having been hit by a bus. Or perhaps a Mustang,...

It was quite early and I had some hours to kill before I ended my employment at the call centre, so I wandered out to the garage, trying to keep my mind off things, to pretend I was still a man and that everything was normal.

Once inside, my attention was grabbed by the car almost right away. Strangely, like the night before, I had to keep reminding myself that this was not the pedestrian destroyer, only the one that was set up to take the rap. It seemed so easy to forget that for some reason. I sipped at my second coffee, standing there staring at it in the shady, unlit bay in my slippers, ratty old dark green bathrobe hanging open and a fresh pair of black briefs. Then it hit me, almost causing me to drop that mug too.

How long would it take before the cops started interviewing people at the call center where Kelly worked? They may have already been to see the dayshift, possibly the nightshift as well after I left the evening before. Would anybody mention the show-off with the loud, bright orange Monza? They'd probably want to ask everyone there if they ever saw other employees driving dangerously,...

"Oh, shit!", I hissed in dismay, imagining them working their way to Sally to find out where I was, her telling them how I'd left,... And now I had to go and quit, which really wouldn't look good.

And, oh my god, I pressure washed the car at a publicCanwashwhere they often had security cameras installed! (!!!!)

"Fuck me!" I swore, tossing the mug, along with its steaming contents into the varsol bath with a crash and making a beeline for the door. I never even closed it behind me, just bolted at a dead run for my back door, tearing inside and whipping off my robe on my frantic way to the bedroom.

Less than five minutes later, I was outside again, dressed and with my car keys, soon finding myself back at theCanwash, greatly relieved to find that the smaller, rinky-dink operation obviously couldn't afford security cams.

I was still smiling, sitting in a place calledGiggles, one of those dark, dingy little shopping mall bars that seemed to attract mostly old alcoholics, washed up truck drivers and VLT addicts. I sat there watching the news, as I always did when I went there, and as always, only my eyes were on the screen, not my mind. I was telling myself over a beer that there was nothing I could do if the cops came looking for me from work, wondering if there wasn't something else I may have missed and trying to convince myself that I was just being paranoid.

Of course, I also thought of Dagmar.

The main problem was that she had me over a barrel and we both knew it. There was no doubt that I pretty much had to play her game by her rules, that was for sure. At least for now. It was just possible (always possible!) that I could yet squirm out from under her thumb at some point in the future, hopefully the near future and, with each sip of my beer, I became more and more convinced that if anybody could give the vampire the slip, it was me. I just had to be patient, batten down the hatches and somehow ride out this storm while keeping my eyes and ears wide open for anything useful, or any opportunity that presented itself. Sooner or later.

Of course, in the meantime, I had to contend with her, didn't I? That meant that my immediate concern was actually getting those hatches battened, but was that even possible with her? Would I end up being my ownEdmond Fitzgerald, going to the bottom of Lake Superior by the overwhelming Alejandro Gale before I could ever find a way-

"In local news, police still haven't found the hit and run driver that took the life of Kelly Preston two nights ago in front of her place of employment, an Etobicoke area call center."

The screen cut to a somewhat attractive, uniformed Policewoman, her name stated at the bottom of the screen as being, 'Const. Amy Gordon'.

"We do know that shortly after one O'clock AM, Ms. Preston was using the crosswalk in front of her place of employment and was struck. The driver did flee the scene of the accident. Unfortunately, there were no witnesses at the time and Ms. Preston was found by a passing motorist who called 911, however, she was dead at the scene. We do have some solid leads that we're investigating, but we're asking the public to contact police if anybody saw anything at all and Crime Stoppersisoffering a reward for any information that leads to an arrest and conviction on this case."

The attractive blonde Constable went on to say more, but apparently the Anchor felt it was unimportant, choosing instead to briefly go over who Kelly Preston was, showing friends of hers crying and placing flowers at the curb outside the call center. He finished the piece by informing the public at large that there would be a candle light vigil held that evening.

No witnesses? Solid leads? No sir, I didn't like it. My smile was gone by the time I walked back out into the sun, feeling like a cockroach caught in the light.

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

I was never enamored with my job, despite my success there, so it wasn't a major problem to quit, especially since I no longer had any choice in the matter. There just seemed very little point in worrying about that, of all things, in light of everything else, anyway.

Sally did try to talk me out of it, looking at me a bit strangely all the while, as if I'd grown another eye or something but, as I said, I had no choice in the matter and, while she didn't know it, she was talking to the wrong person in that respect. I didn't see the person Sally would have had to plead with while I was there. Dagmar's office door was closed the entire time I sat in the center pod, (aka: 'The God Pod) signing all the appropriate forms, their sort of 'job un-application process', if you will. Sally and a few others from management, who never bothered with me before, positively wished me good luck (I figured I'd need that) and all the rest of it. I left and got into my car, leaving and thinking little of it, trying to ignore the flowers and little stuffed animals across the front lawn and at the curb as I pulled out into traffic.

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

I had about ten minutes to spare when I parked just down from the address Dagmar had scrawled for me. I smoked a cigarette with the window open, looking at the building which shared the address on the stickit memo. It was a three storey, brick block fronting the sidewalk under the hot, noon sun. There was a business with a plate glass front window at street level, a hanging sign that jutted out from the wall proclaiming it to be, 'Queeny's Tats n Piercings'. Less than upbeat about this, I finished my smoke, got out to pay the meter and went inside.

A thin woman who looked about my age, late twenty something, looked up from behind her counter. Her hair was buzzed and bleached and she had tattoos up the wazoos, wearing thick, black eyeliner against her pale complexion, making her look somewhat akin to a raccoon just back from the dead. Piercings adorned her face and she'd dressed herself in tight, black leather pants and vest.

I noticed how ill at ease she seemed right away and, when I presented myself by name as Dagmar told me to do, this became more pronounced.

"This way." she said to me in a clipped tone.

I followed her, passing another woman whose back was toward us while she worked on a large eagle that covered the chest and shoulder of a big guy who looked at me as if everything wrong in his life was my fault as I passed.

We proceeded to a side room where, once seated, she gestured to what looked a little like a dentist's chair, telling me to sit down on it.

"Why, what's goin' on?" I asked.

"Just sit down!" she snapped.

"Great, another crazy lady." I mumbled, sitting.

"Undo your pants, tuck the right side down and in, and pull your shirt up."

Again, I did as I was told. She came over and took some time to prep an area just under the waistband of my faded blue denims before going back to her small work counter and returning with a strange contraption that she promptly used to stick me with.

"Ahh, ff-! What're ya doin!?" I demanded , jumping at the pain.

An alarmed expression came across her face, which very quickly turned to anger.

"Fuckin hick!" she yelled at me. "If you make me fuck this up, don't think I'm facing her alone! Got it!?"

"Well, why didn't you warn me, stupid zombie bitch, Iaskedya what was fuckin' goin on, didn't I!?" I yelled back.

She shot up and got right in my face, gesturing violently with her contraption. "I'm giving you a tattoo,bright boy!And if you weren't her slave, I'd gouge your fuckin' eye out for talking to me like that! So just sit there and shut up, or I'll call her and tell her you're being a pain in the ass! Ya get it now,hick!?"

"Well, be fuckin' careful, stupid!"

"You f-! Fuuuuuck youuuuuu!" she screamed in my face.

Obviously, she wasn't used to being treated the way she treated others. There was a knock at the door. The other tattooist, presumably, asked if everything was alright in an unsure voice.

"Yes!" the re-animated raccoon spat before addressing me again. "Just sit there and don't move, andyes, it's gonna hurt, so suck it up, because if you ruin this, we're both gonna get it!" Understand, hick!? Justdon't fuckin' move!"

She didn't wait for a reply and I only rolled my eyes and shook my head disgustedly anyway, not overlooking the anxiety that fueled her anger before she went back to work. I thought about that and whether or not she was making it hurt like that on purpose as she went about her business, looking down at the top of her head from my reclined position.

Did Dagmar have something on the undead, tattooed critter as well? Was that why she was so afraid? Again, I wondered how my new Mistress could afford to live where she did on a Floor Manager's salary and just exactly who Dagmar Alejandro was. I also wondered that she obviously hadn't called the accident at the crosswalk in to 911 that evening. Apparently, she only soaked a cloth and left.

It gave me an idea before all I could think about was how much it hurt getting a tattoo.

When she finally finished the torture of the trillion needles, the zombie slapped cellophane with some stuff on it over her work and repeated some directions to avoid smudging and discoloration a few times, handing me a printed leaflet entitled,'So, you got a tattoo'.I was starting to think she'd make me promise on my life that I'd do exactly what she said, but her fear of Dagmar was really enough motivation for me.

Once she was sure I understood everything perfectly, she walked to the front door, opened and held it.

"Get out."

I hesitated, not quite believing how freaked out my mere presence made her.

"Get - out!"she repeated, more insistent now. "Just fuck off!"

The big guy, who was slowly having himself turned into a wildlife exhibit, spoke up then.

"Queeny, you want me to take him around back and smarten him up a-?"

"No!" she blurted, even more alarmed now, pushing her palm out at him from where she stood in a 'stop' gesture."Don'tlay a hand on him if you don't want all our lives fucked up for good, believe me,don'ttouch him!I said get out, hick!"

I threw up my hands, letting them fall again in a sincere gesture of giving up, looking around at the oaf and then back to Queeny before just walking out like she insisted, shaking my head in wonder as I passed.

Back in the car, I peeled the waistband of my jeans down again to see what was causing the raw, road rash pain on my left, lower belly. It was a black rose with red edging, the colours and light effects creating Dagmar's initials in the shape and flow of the petals, the same as on her memo stickits. She'd had me marked as her own. The first tattoo I'd ever had and it was feminine!

"Shit!" I breathed, looking at it critically with a frown.

I covered it again, lit a cigarette and sat there for a minute, watching traffic go by before starting the car and pulling out. As I did, I noticed the zombie raccoon, peering out her front window, watching me and biting anxiously on her thumbnail.

At a payphone outside aPizza Pizzafranchise on the way home, I waited nervously for the other end to pick up with the Monza choppily idling right outside, drivers door left open.

"Toronto Police Department."

"Yeah, I have information about what happened to Kelly Preston, listen cl-"

"One moment while I transfer you, sir."

"No, I don't need- Hello? Shit!"

After a moment, "Constable Gordon."

"Yeah, I got information about what happened to Kelly Preston."

"Okay, go ahead, Sir."

"It happened right about five after one AM. It was a red Mustang, 79-93 model, T-top."

" ... License plate number?"

"Never got it. He sped right up the street, around that blind, uphill curve and went right through her. Brake lights never flashed once and he stayed right on the gas till he was gone, I saw the whole thing."

" ... Why didn't you-"

I hung up the phone. Pushing my way through the swinging, plexiglass doors of the booth, I grinned as I hopped behind the wheel, slamming the door and getting under way, back to my peaceful little home on the lonely, rural road where people left me alone.

Wasn't I clever?

----- ----- ----- ----- ----- -----

A sudden knock on my front door startled me out of one of those really nice, early evening naps, the kind one has after one comes down from two or three beer after a drunk the night before.

I got off the couch, walking into the kitchen and checking out the window that the late sun was raying through.

(Cops! Ho-ly she-it!)

I jerked myself away from the window as they knocked again. With the car in the backyard, it wouldn't do any good to pretend I wasn't at home, so I bucked up. Just another sale, right?

I went to the door and opened it. It was Constable Gordon herself, accompanied by another female officer, this one a brunette, shorter than her blonde partner, who was not a lot shorter than I was.

"Uh- Can I he-"

They shoved their way in. Gordon grabbed me right by the throat with one hand, my balls by the other and pushed me backwards, the brunette entering behind her and closing my door.

"Hey, what the hell!?" I stammered in a voice a lot higher than the one I remembered being mine.

The brunette laughed as I was forced to the floor on my front, a boot suddenly holding me down at the back of my neck as handcuffs were clasped around my swiftly captured wrists.

"Hey, get the fuck offa me!" I protested. "I didn't do nothin', what the hell are you-?

"Shut up, Legassy!" Gordon ordered as the brunette grabbed me by the hair and held my face up, leering strangely at me. I took note of her nametag, which identified her as Constable Raitt, before she spoke.

"I'll bet you thought that was pretty clever, huh?" she asked. "Unfortunately for you, we really don't tape calls to Crime Stoppers, just like we say on TV and, also unfortunately, your call was determined to be a crank."

"What!?" I asked, not believing what I was hearing, or the implications.

Gordon slapped the back of my head hard and repeated her wish for me to shut up, allowing Raitt to continue.

"Ever been fucked up the ass, Legassy? No?" she asked addressing the sudden look of horror on my face, correctly assuming my answer by it as I watched her remove the police baton from her equipment belt. "Well, since you seem to want to go to jail, maybe we should do you a little favour and get you oriented. Eh?"