Hollywood After Dark Ch. 05

Hustling back to my car, I kept looking over my shoulder to see if I had been followed. I hadn't, but I still didn't manage to shake the paranoia I had until I had gotten a few blocks from the hotel, my time at the party lasting a whopping hour and a half.

Driving home, I saw that the porch light outside my apartment was on. Strange, I thought to myself. I guess Katherine had come back a bit earlier.

Climbing the stairs, I opened the front door. Inside, it was pitch black dark and as I stepped inside, I heard a voice call to me. It was a weak sound, but my name could clearly be heard. Switching on a light, I listened again and followed it as the person, a woman, repeated it.

It was coming from the kitchen. Walking into it, the very dim light of the living room not even illuminating even half of the room, I saw a figure standing against the far wall. It was Katherine. Only...in some way, it wasn't.

"Katherine? Is that you?" I asked hesitantly. I could hear soft sobs coming from her and though my first instinct was to rush over to her, something told me to stay where I was.

"Yes, it's me Alex. Oh God,"

"Katherine, what's wrong?" I asked, my voice now deep with concern.

"It's...they found me Alex," she said, a resigned tone in her voice.

My heart froze. "They found you? How?"

"When I was going home. Oh Alex, they...they punished me,"

"What? How? Are you alright?"

Still sobbing, Katherine suddenly put her hand to the wall switch nearest to her and the light over the kitchen table lit up, casting her in a pale yellow halo. As my eyes adjusted to the sudden change in light, I gasped at what I saw.

Katherine stood naked in front of me, only...it wasn't quite her. There was no mistaking her face, the way she stood, all of the little nuances that a person has. But everything else about her seemed confusing and different. Her long, blonde hair was gone. Instead, it had been cut into a somewhat rugged short length, and had been dyed brunette so well that you would never have thought that she was a blonde in the first place.

Scanning down her body, I again was shocked to see her breasts. Through each one of her nipples hung a small gold ring - they had been pierced. The area around them was somewhat red and swollen and the entire thing looked somewhat painful. Her belly and thighs were also red, long strips of color on her pale skin. Places where it looked like whips or belts or something had been. And finally, the one beautiful patch of pussy hair that she had diligently kept trimmed was now gone, her cunt shaved bare.

I was in shock at seeing all this, and Katherine began to cry anew now at my expression of surprise.

"Oh Alex, it was so horrible. They whipped me, they tied me down...I passed out before they changed my hair but when I woke up, I saw that they had put these...these THINGS in my breasts. Oh God Alex, they treated me like property. Like cattle. They were laughing and joking the whole time, even as I screamed. They said they were branding me, making sure I knew I was 'theirs'," she said. With that last comment, she collapsed on her knees onto the floor, her back sliding down against the wall.

I rushed over to her, holding her in my arms.

"I...I didn't tell them about you, even though they wanted to know. But Alex, I think they DO know! Or they will soon. They kept saying something about having ways, about knowing that I wasn't working alone..." she said, sobbing into my chest.

I held her there like that for a few minutes, just letting her cry it all out, the entire shock of it all - of Katherine getting caught and abused like this - just pissed me off further. And now that they might be looking for me...it all seemed to fall into place. The hesitant stares at the party...the hairs on the back of my neck...

I shuddered at the thought of what was to come, but knew full well that there was nothing I could do to stop it.

WILLIS' STORY:

"This better be good Gordon, dragging me away from the party like this," I said to my assistant as he shut the door of one of the bedrooms here in the suite. It was already approaching 2 in the morning and even though most of the guests had left, there was still a few stragglers that I felt compelled to entertain.

"It is sir. Very good. We have pinpointed our problem with the Rose Petals last night," Hapsboro said.

"You have? Excellent. And who was it, were the suspicions about Ms. Heigl correct?"

"Yes sir, they were. But she wasn't acting alone. I'm afraid that there is someone else in the organization that was helping her out, someone we didn't find out about until a few hours ago,"

"Who?"

"Remember that screen writer you hired, Alex Hilt? It's him sir,"

I sighed to myself. Hilt had seemed like a good kid, a friendly guy. "You are positive?"

"Yes sir. We checked out where he was last night and we haven't been able to put a trace on him other than a trip he made to Las Vegas around 5 in the morning. He stopped at a Vegas gas station and we pulled the card from the credit card company,"

Rubbing my eyes, to say that these findings disappointed me was an understatement. But business was business and I could not let my emotions get involved.

"Alright, well let's take care of him very soon. Pull no punches Gordon, this thing ends with him,"

CHAPTER 6 - COMING SOON