Beyond a Reasonable Doubt Ch. 01

"Yep, that's him."

"Thought so. What can you tell me about the club? Where you two met?"

"He called it the Hole in the Wall, but it doesn't have a name on it. Anywhere. It's a red brick building over on Leary."

"By the docks?"

"Yeah. I don't know the address but I could take you there, show you where it is."

I nodded. "Tell me about the people there."

"Like what?"

"Anything that comes to mind. Rich, poor, black, white -- whatever."

"Well, I'd say mainly middle-aged white people, probably pretty educated group as a hole. Some nights they have erotic poetry readings, other nights erotic art shows."

"Do people just hook-up there, or do people have sex as well?"

"To tell you the truth, Woody, I'm not sure. I think the place is pretty big but I've only seen a little of it."

"Is there a bar?"

"Oh yeah."

"Any people doing drugs? You know, out in the open?"

"I saw some guys doing lines off the top of a girl's thighs. Does that count?"

We laughed.

"Probably so." I looked her in the eyes now: "How many times have you been?"

She looked away: "More than a... more than once."

"With Tottenham, or with other people?"

She didn't answer.

"What are you into, Mary-Jo? Swinging? Or is it something else?"

Again, she just looked away, didn't answer.

"I need to know, Mary."

She nodded. "Yeah, I know."

She seemed to gather herself inward, as if to protect herself from a storm, then she looked up at me. Her eyes were really lovely, soft, kind, but confusion lurked in the shadows, didn't it?

"Tell me."

Something seemed to snap-to when I told her what to do: "I'm a Bottom, Woody."

"A Bottom? What's that? Like something to do with anal sex?"

She laughed. "No Woody, it means I'm submissive. I do what people want me to do."

"What do you mean, 'what they want me to'?"

"Sexually, though sometimes it's just role playing. You know, like the French maid and the Gestapo interrogator?"

"What? You mean like bondage and stuff?"

"If that's what my master wants to do."

"Your master?"

"Yeah. The Top, the person in charge."

"The person? You mean man or woman?"

"Yes."

I coughed, took a long pull on my drink.

She reached up, wiped my forehead: "You're sweating, Woody. Does that turn you on?"

It was my turn to look away.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of, Woody. Everybody has fantasies."

"Yeah? I guess so."

"What would it be, Woody? Would you to tell me what to do? Would you like to do that?"

Her hand was under the table now, then it was resting on my thigh. I cleared my throat as her hand drifted up to the zipper on my trousers.

"Or maybe you'd like it better if I told you what to do. Would that do it for you, Woody?"

She was squeezing my cock through my pants. I'm pretty sure an eyelid was trembling.

"Ooh, Woody! I think that's it! I think you'd like it if I told you what to do!" She squeezed again: "Do you feel that, Woody? Feel that need? To let loose, lose control? Let me?"

"Let you? What?"

"Let me take you there, Woody?"

"You keep squeezin' my dick like that and you won't have to take me anywhere. I'll pop-off right here."

Her eyes smiled, she licked her lips. "Really?"

She slowly pulled the zipper down, undid the belt, then she reached in and pulled my cock out; our waiter came over to fill our water glasses and she looked up at the kid: "Would you bring me a clean glass?" she said to him. "An empty one, if you please?"

"Certainly, Ma'am."

He disappeared and she started squeezing my cock again, milking it. Every now and then she'd pause and run her fingernails up and down the shaft, then she'd jerk it fast a few times before squeezing it again, milking it.

The waiter came back and dropped off the glass.

"Take it, Woody. The glass. Hold it down there."

I did as she said, felt my balls boiling, my cock getting hard as a rock.

"Hold it there, Woody; let me shoot it in the glass."

I did as best I could; within a blinding flash I started to cum. And cum. And cum some more.

"Jesus, Woody! How long has it been?"

I couldn't answer. I was biting my lower lip, holding on to the edge of the table with one hand and the glass in the other... and I was still cuming... it felt like it lasted forever...

"Hand me the glass now, Woody."

I brought it up from under the table and put it on the table.

"Woody?"

"Yeah?"

"No, Woody. Not yeah. It's 'Yes, Mistress.'" She squeezed my prick with her fingernails to drive home the point. "Woody, I said hand me the glass."

I picked it up and put it in her hand, then she released my cock and I groaned.

A couple at the table across from ours was looking at us, they were leaning close and whispering something to one another. Mary-Jo held the glass up to the dim light like she was examining a fine wine, then she drank the cum -- all of it -- in one smooth motion. The man across from us squirmed in his seat, the woman with him was directing her attention to his lap, and soon he held up his glass as if toasting us, and handed it to the woman to drink.

I guess it hit me then; they were here minding us, to keep an eye on us. Just part of the club, I guess.

I felt cold dread as I looked at the smiling couple across from us, as I watched the woman drink down the milky contents of her glass.

+++++

I felt my phone go off in my coat pocket and excused myself, went out on the front deck and called dispatch, trying to conceal the alarm I felt. The only way anyone could have found out about our dinner plans was through Mary-Jo -- or Tate, and the latter just wasn't possible -- was it?

"Woodward."

"Detective, have officers at the scene of a homicide; they want to talk to you directly. Can you take a number?"

"Go ahead," I said as I fumbled with my pad. I scribbled as she spoke, then hung-up and dialed the new number.

"Woodward."

"Detective Woodward?"

"Yeah. Go ahead."

"Ah, yessir, we're going to need you to come out here."

"What's going on?"

"Can't say sir. Not on an unsecure line."

"Well, where the hell are you?" I wrote down the address of a hotel out north on the Interstate. "I'll be there in about an hour," I said as I closed the phone, then: "Fuck!" I walked back in, sat down beside Mary-Jo, avoided looking at her.

"You okay?" she asked. The couple across from us had departed, I noted.

"A call." I couldn't even look her in the eye.

"You have to take it?"

"Apparently so." Fuck! What had I just let happen?

Our waiter had brought our dinner while I was out; I had a beautiful King Salmon and some steamed broccoli Hollandaise and I was damned if I was going to walk away from it, so I lit into it as fast as I politely could.

"Goddamn, someone back there sure knows how to cook fish!" I said as I finished up. I flagged our waiter, got the bill and paid up. "Sorry," I said as I stood.

"I understand. Will you call me later? Let me know you're alright?"

"Sure."

I walked out to the Ford, saw a note tucked under the windshield wiper and plucked it up while I opened the door. 'Watch your six... T'

Goddamn! Tate hadn't gone home at all and he'd seen something. I closed the door and my phone went off again.

"It's me," he said. "Did you get it?"

"Four."

"Need to twenty-five with you," he said. "Betty Lincoln west?"

"Four." I started the Ford and drove the three blocks over to the visitor's parking lot by the locks; Tate winked his lights and I drove over and parked next to him.

"There's a shitload of traffic on the scanner. I mean, even the Chief's on the air, en-route to a Signal One."

"Tottenham?"

"No, no, not an A/C... I mean THE Chief."

"Fuck."

Nice night to dawdle over dinner, Dickhead!

"I just got the call, I think. I'm on my way now."

"Want me to tag along?"

"If you're not too tired, sure. The Silver Cloud, in Mukilteo."

"Wow, out of our jurisdiction. Oh well, I'll follow you."

We made our way over to I-5 and blended in with the northbound traffic and I didn't even bother to look for a tail. We probably would have looked like a freight train if I had. Twenty minutes later I exited and we wound our way west between huge Boeing assembly buildings, then down to the shore. More patrol cars -- local ones, more flashing lights, a couple of ambulances. The Chief waiting in the lobby, looking at his watch.

"Great! Just fucking Great!"

I grabbed my stuff and walked in, looked at the Chief and walked over to him. He was on his phone talking in hushed tones: "Okay, he's here now. I'll call you in a half hour."

"Chief Anders," I said as I walked up.

"Where the hell have you been? And wipe that shit off your shirt!"

I looked down at a nice, shiny glob of Hollandaise sauce on my shirt and smiled.

"Who's that with you? Richard Tate?"

"Yessir."

"He's retired, isn't he? What's he doing here?"

"Chief, I'm still active in the reserves; just putting in some hours."

"You were homicide, weren't you?"

"Yessir."

"Oh, well, come on, then." We walked up a flight of stairs and down a hall that stretched off into infinity to an area cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape. We walked past two patrolmen into the room.

Mark Tottenham lay face-up on the bed, his penis had been cut off and was dangling from his mouth. The tattoo on his chest had been cut out of his flesh, and it looked like he'd been stabbed about a hundred times in the chest and belly.

Now I didn't know what to think. I looked at the Chief. There was a tear running down his cheek and his teeth were clenched so hard the side of face was trembling. Tate walked over to Tottenham's body while I walked around to the other side of the bed. There was a glass there, the rim smeared with red lipstick, and obviously, whoever she was, she'd drunk a shitload of cum from the glass.

End Part One

6/16/09©2007-09AdrainLeverkuhn