Fantasy Pt. 03: Cat and Mouse

*****

I called him back. Even though it had sunk in. His game was with me as much as with Alice. He would torment me as much as he could, and he'd probably enjoy it as much. What a game! The rules were simple. Even though I knew, I couldn't not respond.

"Richard, you brutal son of a bitch, so you keep her through fear. It's what I thought."

He picked up the call. Again. This was third time he'd done that. He knew exactly how I'd respond.

The first thing he said was: "Brutal? Henry, have you learned nothing? You think you lost your wife because I'm brutal? If you want to use discipline to good effect you'd best not be brutal, or you lower your chances of success. I admit I could be brutal now and keep her love, because — as you know — she chose me. But no. One isn't brutal, and chastisement isn't random. One knows the limits, and makes sure the target knows this is for the greater good, for the plan. It fits into the story you're creating, and after a while she accepts it. It never challenges her commitment. It even makes her love you more."

"You're fucking crazy! You admit you hurt her!"

"Henry, you don't want to know these things. Of course I hurt her. It's part of the joy, you know? No, I guess you don't."

"What are you doing to her?"

"I'm completing her re-education."

"Fucker! Shit, you fucker! Fuck you! I'm playing this tape for the police. This is kidnapping and battery. You think up all these twisted things..."

"Henry, Henry, Henry. Oh, I'm such an evil guy." He was mocking me. "I do these terrible things. Well, I do a lot of things. But you know, they're all just fantasy. They're what people want. Or they find out they want them. Everything. And I don't even have to think them up."

"You think things up pretty well." I was trying to sound sarcastic.

"Hah! You poor, dear boy. Don't you know where these come from? Don't you know of all those rape fantasies in romance novels? And all those millions of well-educated, professional women who read them and get hot? I find more on Internet sites than I could possibly ever practice, much worse things ..."

"That's not real life."

"Let me finish. Even though from their vocabulary most Webmasters don't seem to have more than an eighth-grade education. Anyway. I get more than enough from real life."

"Let me talk with her!"

He seemed a little exasperated again. "Let's take a different tack. You could use a nice lecture. Your folks were English, if I remember right. Didn't they love old Queen Elizabeth? The first one? The so-called Virgin Queen? Good Queen Bess? Role model for women who rule? I believe that's why they named your sister Elizabeth, and you Henry.

"What's your point?"

"You know what sweet Lizzy had her people do with troublesome types? She had them racked, had needles pushed under their nails, had them cut, lashed, burned, and mutilated. She had them thrown down dry wells and locked up in boxes. Have you ever heard of me plucking off a nipple with white-hot tongs?"

"Go fuck yourself."

"And then how she killed them!"

"Shut up!"

"She had them hanged, drawn, and quartered. Know what that means? First you're hung for a while, to choke and struggle. Then they take you down and stretch you out. Naked, of course. This is all in front of throngs of cheering crowds, you know." Richard was getting wound up as he talked, excited. "They cut off your privy parts, as they would call them. Your dick and balls. Sliced off slowly. To maximize the shock and pain and screaming. Then, when you're only moaning again, they butcher you, cut you open down the front and pull out your guts. You'd better be mostly dead by then, because they burn your intestines in front of your eyes. And then they finally cut out your heart and hold it up for the crowd!"

"Fucker..."

"But they aren't done! Your body is cut up. Your head goes on a stake and your quarters are hung wherever they want to make a point, so the people there will see them rot, and smell them, and know it could be them. That's what good Queen Bess did to people!"

"That's crap!"

"It's true, it's true, dear Henry!" Now he was shouting into the phone, but he caught himself and took a breath. "One thing you should know about me is I'm truthful. In fact, Bessie wanted to make the executions worse, and more drawn out, and even more terrible. Probably because she was a red head. Unfortunately, her advisors convinced her that hanging, drawing and quartering were sufficient, if done right. The pussies."

This time I didn't say anything at all.

"You think she didn't watch it and get hot? You know? Peek from a hiding spot, maybe inside a cloaked carriage, and frig herself? Good Queen Bess. I'm sure that got her cunt good and wet for her lovers. I imagine she got especially hot. Maybe not. But, you see, I don't have to make up anything at all. I just read other people's fantasies. And their realities. People desire things far more than I provide."

"What are you doing to Alice?"

"Just so you know, I'm not hanging and drawing and quartering the lovely Alice. What I'm doing to her now is taking her to Cannes, and then to my resort island for a brief stay. I do hope you won't try to track us there."

* * * * *

He wasn't done with me. Ten days later he sent me an email with several jpeg attachments. They were all photos of Alice. They were identified by name and number. I opened them in order, beginning with Alice1.jpg.

She was walking with Richard on a beach, topless. She wore a dog collar and he held the leash and she was laughing. There were metal rings on her nipples.

They were having dinner in a large hall in which everyone was topless. Some people were naked.

Still in the hall, Alice was dipping a breast into a glass of what looked like port. In the next picture Richard was sucking the breast, sucking in the nipple rings, dribbles of red stuff running down her front and down his chin. In this one she looked excited, staring down as he sucked and licked her breast in front of the throngs of diners.

There were a couple of photos of them after the meal was finished, before the plates had been cleared. There was some kind of sex show on a platform in the near background. Three men were fucking a woman's vulva, anus, and mouth all at the same time, while she held on to two other men's boners. Another pair of women were tied to chintzy-looking torture contraptions. Alice was looking at them in one of the photos, while Richard talked to her.

It got more personal.

Alice was in what looked to be a tropical hut, with her arms stretched over her head. Her arms may have been tied. It seemed so, though I couldn't see above her elbows. She had a blank look on her face. This was followed by a close-up of her torso. You could tell she did shave her pubis, and there was a ring on her clitoral hood. You could also see several pink lines, like whip marks, on her belly.

The pictures grew progressively worse, all the rest taken in the hut. There was Alice on her knees pulling down a pair of pants, smiling up at the owner. Next she was pulling a penis out of his underwear. Then she was holding his erection to her mouth and looking up to the face of whomever she was sucking. I guess it was Richard. I hoped it was Richard. It would be even harder to take if the penis were someone else's, if she would suck anyone at all for the camera, instead of just her lover.

I didn't want to look at the last one. Richard would have held the best for last, wouldn't he? I actually thought, for a moment, you can erase all of these. Dump them. The thought passed, though, and I clicked on it.

Yes, it was the worst of them. Alice was tied naked to a bed or something, inside the hut, completely spread out. You could see the same stripes on her body as before. I know they were the same because I went back to compare them. Surrounding the bed were six men, none of them Richard. All six were masturbating over her, six men leaning over her, six dicks stretched over her by six hands, a mini bukkake show. One had been caught precisely in the act of coming onto her chest. A little puddle was on her body already, right above her left breast, and another spurt floated between the two of them.

What did Alice think of all this? Her eyes were wide, her head was pulled back, and her lips were open as though she were saying something. I couldn't tell how she was responding. I just couldn't tell.

There was one other thing. Someone had written something across her breasts, a special, intimate message in red marker: "Hello, Henry. Wish you were here."

* * * * *

Afterward it was natural to have the dream again, but it changed. For a couple of nights I hadn't dreamed of her at all. Maybe I was on the verge of letting go. Who knows? But this! It couldn't be any worse, not unless he were to do her in front of me, live. Anyway, after the pictures the dream came back. I couldn't... couldn't what? Couldn't collect myself. Couldn't let go. Couldn't not think of Alice fucking a succession of faceless men, becoming Richard's complete sex slave. The pictures appeared when I'd turn a corner, or blink, or look into the refrigerator. So that night I had the dream again, and for nights afterward. Only this time a circle of men were spewing on her. The room smelled of spunk, but I couldn't get to her. The stench was overwhelming because the men went through an endless cycle of coming, and Alice was laughing with delight at each splash of semen, reaching her mouth to it, reaching her tongue to it. My loving wife.

End of Part 3.