Mystery: Reporter's Tale

We ended up driving for nearly an hour. Heidi was a complete mess by the end of it; sweat dripped off her and she acted like the driver's seat was too hot to sit in. We were in a small town that was clearly a victim of one of the downturns; the center of town had only every other storefront occupied, and all with corporate chains; a Waffle House, a Krispy Kreme, and three different dollar stores close enough together you'd think at least one would go under. As we turned off the main drag, abandoned houses quickly outnumbered the occupied ones. We stopped in front of a modest house, clearly built before the McMansion craze set in, though it may have never reached whatever Podunk town we'd come to.

Heidi's hand trembled so badly she had to reach twice to open my door. She grabbed my arm gently but insistently to lead me to the door. I was going to shake her off but I noticed the grip seemed to be for her support more than anything. It also became more of a caressing hold by the time we went through the door.

The smell shocked me at first. I'd been ready for almost anything; overwhelming body odor from squatters who didn't have utilities, patchouli and incense enough to numb the nose, or harsh chemical smells from people who constantly deep cleaned to remove evidence of drugs. But what I got was mostly perfume, body wash, and other artificial floral scents. Basically my home bathroom just after a shower, but everywhere. Still, I was not at all surprised when Heidi led me down to the basement.

It was finished, had very plush carpet, and seemed larger than the house above it, but that could have just been a trick of the lighting and slightly lower ceilings. The scents were slightly different downstairs as well, with the floral theme more muted, and an undercurrent of some sharper smell I felt like I knew but I couldn't place. I didn't focus on that for long, however, because of the figure sitting across the room.

It was a fairly generic plush recliner, but Kimberly Kim sat in it like it was a palace throne. She wore an emerald green robe wrapped tightly enough to be modest, but she'd have needed five more layers to obscure the bulge her chest produced. It was difficult to tell as she was sitting but her hips didn't seem to pop out nearly as much as those mammaries, not that most people would care. Her hair was loose and hung down to her neck. It seemed clean but still a bit sloppy, as if she were growing it out but had neglected to get a trim to keep it even. Her facial features suggested heavy if not pure ancestry from Southeast Asia or Japan, though her eyes seemed wide, without much of an Epicanthic fold to them. The eyes drew me more than anything else; her irises were so dark they almost made it look like she had none, just whites and overlarge pupils. I wondered if she had some sort of defect in her vision, and that's why she was down in the darker basement.

"I...I brought her," Heidi said, stepping forward. I could tell by her movements she wanted to get down on her knees, or maybe even crawl, but she was either unsure or had been told not to, even though it was apparently a desperate need.

"Yes Heidi, that's good. And how are you?"

"I...I can't. I just can't handle that. I'm sorry," Heidi said, now dropping to all fours. Her hair draped over her face, hiding her features. I thought she was going to prostrate herself but the woman on the throne quickly got up and went to her. In the brief time she was standing I got another surprise as she was only slightly above five feet tall. My own five nine frame made me tower over her physically, but she still commanded a presence I couldn't nail down. I was nervous around her, beyond my knowledge that she was apparently at the center of a cult.

She whispered something to Heidi I couldn't make out. I gave her some credit because Heidi seemed to relax, and she seemed totally focused on the distressed girl on the floor, briefly ignoring me. Finally she stood and said, "Go with Carly now."

I had heard footfalls on the stairs and moved so whoever it was couldn't come up behind me. A young woman with dirty blonde hair and average white skin appeared wearing a thick plush white robe and quickly moved over to help Heidi. She took the girl in her arms and kissed her cheek a few times. It took me a minute but I recognized the girl from the descriptions of the missing co-ed from the local campus. The pair went back up to the main floor of the house.

"You didn't...you shouldn't have put her through whatever that was to come get me," I said.

"I agree," Kim said as she stood to return to her throne, "But she begged. I would have sent Mary, or Jacinta, but Heidi insisted she could handle it. I think I'm losing her and it's tragic. Her previous caretaker was so neglectful and cruel, and there was no reason for it."

"Losing her!?" I asked, alarmed, "If she's sick she needs to be in a hospital!"

The girl sighed, "I'm sorry, that was a poor choice of words. We need to start over. Lorraine Blumenthal, correct?"

"Yes," I said, briefly surprised by the quick subject change and that she knew my name.

"As someone with equally cruel parents, I can sympathize. My name was a joke before I was even aware of it. At least yours just sounds like it belongs to an eighty year old woman."

Making some connections in my head, I asked, "So you are Kimberly Kim?"

"I suppose if that helps. I don't have the same life I did before, in so many ways. I'm grateful for that, though there were so many mistakes along the way. Some of the mistakes are why the government is looking for me, I know. I think you do too. Heidi is one of them, and I know it's partly my fault."

"Why?" I asked as my brain started going in ten different directions. Some girly part of me wanted to let out an excited squee at finding Subject K and confirming she was Kimberly Kim. The journalist in me wanted to both start taking notes and secretly turn on my cellphone camera, even though in this lighting I'd need to leave the flashlight on to get good images. The safety-conscious responsible part of me wanted to call 911 and get the police to seize the place and everyone in it, or at least send them my location, in case I became another disappeared woman.

"I don't exactly know, honestly," Kim said, "Memory is a tricky thing with this. I remember Heidi screwed me over at work. Got promoted over me because she was screwing one of the bosses, then when she failed spectacularly she tried to pin it on me. I forced her first caretaker to bring her into the fold. I shouldn't have done that, but now that I am one, I'm not sure how I did it. I forgot so many details about the caretaker, but everyone does. I remember her hair. It was amazing; I'd never seen anything like it. Apparently what people remember about me are my boobs."

"I...well," I stammered, not sure how to respond.

Kim smiled at me and said, "It's okay, Lorraine. Do you use your full name? I'm guessing you avoided Lori since you didn't want to sound like a British truck?"

"I...never thought of that actually."

"Me spending too much time with Heidi, probably," Kim said.

"Lorraine's fine," I said.

"Good. Anyway, don't worry about avoiding my boobs. I can't. I was a living fetish for every otaku and weaboo who saw me, and most of it was from these," she said, hefting her chest briefly and causing an admittedly distracting bounce as her breasts resettled. Based on the movement, she had nothing on to hold them besides the robe."

"Did you ever consider getting them reduced? You must already be getting lower back issues," I said, hoping a mundane topic might help with rapport.

Kim smiled an odd smile and looked at me disconcertingly. "I do have some...unique things going on with my back, yes," she said.

"You said you don't remember the first caretaker. Did they leave, or were you thrown out with Heidi after all of that?" I asked cautiously.

"Oh no, they're dead. It was an accident," she quickly clarified, probably seeing my alarmed expression, "We...we didn't know what we were doing. I know the first caretaker was wrong, though, and that's why they're dead. So much they didn't understand. So blind. We have a better way forward now."

My anxiety started ramping up again as her explanation reminded me of the things chief advisors say about the leaders they've just murdered before they're "forced" to assume control of whatever group they're in.

"So you became the caretaker after them?" I asked, "And did you, what, inherit their group or family or whatever?"

"Oh no, that was part of the issue; they didn't have our cradle."

"Cradle?" I asked.

"That's my name for it," Kim explained, "our little group is a cradle. We find comfort and nourish each other, just like babies in a cradle."

"And you're the caretaker, not mother?"

Kim gave me another odd smile, "I think everyone feels like calling me 'mother' would be weird, and that's even considering everything else they're dealing with."

"Because you're having sex with them," I said.

Kim's smile widened, "I knew you were smart. That's one of the reasons I invited you."

"Do they have sex with other people too?"

Kim shrugged as she settled back down in her chair. "I know most of them have sex with each other. If they want to have sex with other people, they can. Most don't. But almost all of them have sex with me. I don't hide that from them. I tell them we'll be having sex regularly when I invite them. And I tell them it'll be different. But it'll be the best sex they've ever had, and they'll never have to worry about it getting stale, or wanting to leave."

"And who do you invite?" I asked.

"Girls who I think would do well here. Those who are burned out, stuck, in trouble. Poor Carly was dealing with a stalker. Date raped her, then wouldn't leave her alone. Police said it was an internal college thing. College kept them apart, but didn't expel him for lack of evidence. She wanted out. Her own parents didn't believe her, even. She was suicidal when I found her. I gave her another option.

"But what if they do want to leave?" I prompted, "What if Carly decides she wants to get counseling, go off, get her degree somewhere else?"

"They can try," Kim said, "But they always come back. They have to. It's part of the symbiotic relationship we set up here. Sometimes, with some people, I wish it wasn't like that. I wish I could give Heidi her life back. I can't."

"There are detox programs that can get people off of any drug," I said, "Especially if you give them a sample of whatever you're giving them. Or I don't know, maybe just don't get them hooked on the drug in the first place?"

Kim smiled again, and this time her look was definitely condescending, "It doesn't work like that."

"It can, though. Look, I assume you get all these girls' money and assets and everything, that's part of the deal? That's how you support yourself?" I asked.

"Yes," Kim said, "We tried having people work jobs initially. A few of them still do for a bit, but most can't handle it. It gets to be too much. We need money from somewhere. We've got enough to last for a while now, thankfully."

"People have arranged the same thing without using drugs. Communes have been around for...well forever in a sense. You don't need to hook these girls on whatever shit you're giving them. You can probably make the money go farther too. You have charisma, I can feel it. If you want to help women that's great. I mean, sexual therapy is a thing, I think. I don't know how legit it is. You might be able to make this a charity, get donations."

Kim's expression told me I wasn't getting through. This girl wasn't a scammer looking to fleece people; she was a true believer. Whatever system or whatever philosophy she sold these people, she genuinely believed in it. If they were on a drug, she was hooked on the same one.

"You're so fixated on the drug idea. What if I told you there were no drugs? It's just sex, Lorraine. It's extreme sex, it's sex like you've never seen, unless you have some very specific tastes in pornography. And it's irrevocable. You can't get away from it once you've had it. Your own body won't let you. Eventually it'll get so bad you shut down. The rooms behind me have two women who are basically comatose because they abstained. I let them do that, I told them what would happen, and they accepted it."

"Let me out of here," I said.

"We'll be gone by tomorrow. You know that," Kim said.

"Let me out!" I nearly shouted.

"The door's behind you. You can get a cab in the square."

I ran out of the house. No one tried to stop me. I kept running toward the square, nearly twisting my ankle; one inch pumps are still pumps. I got the cab courtesy of the zoned out, and possibly strung out, manager at the waffle house. As I waited for the taxi to arrive and my adrenaline dropped a bit, I reflected that the manager looked more like he was on drugs than any of the women I'd seen. Then again, I had only seen two, and not every drug is like meth, where you start looking like walking death.

It took the ride back to the motel for me to realize I still had to try to turn this into a story. I was looking at a cab ride that would either take up a lot of the rest of the discretionary funding I had or would cut into my rent for the next month. If I didn't want to be late on housing I had to put together something to show for it. Fortunately the adrenaline and excitement of the experience kept me from feeling tired despite the hour and I wrote up a draft article "Subject K and the Cradle." I almost put a "K" instead of a "C" for cradle but I reminded myself I was writing a news article, not a movie script. I sent it off to my editor with notes about what had happened the previous night, as well as a few pictures I'd managed to snap with my cell camera while Kim and I talked. It was three am when I finally sent the e-mail, it would already be five am at the office.

By eight AM the next day I was staring at the same house from the driver's seat of a rented Ford Fiesta, a name I knew only because the rental agent said it no less than ten times, making sure it was okay. I'd already missed my flight and checked out of my motel.

The conversation with my editor had been brief and uninspiring. He'd berated me for going off on my own in a potentially dangerous situation, which at least showed some concern for me. The rest of his tirade focused on my "nothing" story, saying I may as well have written an expose about a sorority house; a bunch of girls in a house, having sex, possibly doing drugs, with no proof of anything. My grainy, half-lit pictures could have been of anyone; the missing Heidi Robertson certainly wasn't identifiable. He had conceded that if the story had more support they might be able to make something out of it, but with his boss, via Adam, trying to kill this, the fact that I went off the reservation was problematic at best. He said I was probably looking at six months of copyedit work before I'd be tapped to follow a lead again.

I'd driven to the house but I didn't remember doing so. I vaguely remembered figuring out the address by doing an hour's work with Google maps and street view to find it, then using the GPS to get there. After I "came to" I got out and walked up to the house.

The door was ajar and most of the windows open. Inside the scent was mostly gone. There were no women, no furniture. Kim's plush chair was MIA, but in its place was a folded piece of paper. I picked it up and found an address written on it in cursive.

According to my Google, the address led to a town that looked even smaller and more run down than the one I was in. my GPS told me it was two hours away. The closest airport was four hundred miles. I drove off.

I got there in the blazing heat of Arizona's late spring, looking kind of like Heidi had the previous night; sweat dripping off me and soaking into my clothes. The new house of the cradle was another cookie-cutter house that could have come from any "American Suburbia" slideshow. It and all the houses around looked abandoned, many with shattered windows. A girl I didn't recognize opened the door and introduced herself as Jacinta. She was darker skinned, probably black, but I was too out of it to pay much attention to details. I walked into the house and just said I needed to see Kim.

"Kimberly," Jacinta corrected me, and then led me downstairs.

It could have been an exact copy of the previous location, though this basement had clearly been a game room at some point; there were no separate rooms or hallway and a totally empty bar setup occupied one corner. The carpet was also not as plush.

"Hello Lorraine," Kimberly said to me, "I see you followed us. And alone. You didn't bring the cops?"

"I need more," I said, accepting and downing a tall glass of water Jacinta brought down without my asking, "My editor won't accept my story with what I have. I need Heidi's picture. A clean one. I need you to tell me what you do, how these girls get hooked."

"And why would I do that? I understand you want to save your story, and judging by your condition you seem somewhat desperate, but what would I get? At best I would be set upon by police, hounded even more than I am now," Kimberly asked with a knowing look.

"Fine, you want to fuck me, is that it?" I snapped. I was tired and angry and wasn't thinking straight but in the back of my head I knew it was going to come to this. As soon as I'd gotten in that car and started driving I knew I was going to have sex with Kimberly, or someone. I didn't know if you had to work your way up to Kimberly or if she had "first dibs" or whatever.

"I do," Kimberly said, "but to be fair I want to fuck most beautiful women I see. You're certainly tempting now, with the hint of desperation and the clothes sticking to your skin, revealing more of your body. But I won't rape you. I won't trick you into this. I told you what happens. If we make love you won't be able to leave. You won't be able to stand it. Your life will change forever. You will see and experience things that will scare you, change you, and remake you."

"For God's sake, it's sex. I mean, you're probably good at it but seriously? Full of yourself much?"

Kimberly's expression darkened, and too late I forgot that despite being cult like, Kimberly never mentioned anything about serenity, or nonviolence, or loving your fellow woman, except in the physical sense.

Kimberly moved forward much faster than I expected and had me pinned against the wall with her forearm before I could react. I gripped her arm instinctively as it pressed my neck to the wall but I was shocked to find I couldn't move it. The pint-sized Asian somehow had the strength of a linebacker or a bodybuilder.

"Hold her, lose your robes" she said.

Jacinta and another lady I didn't know appeared in my vision behind Kimberly. Both of them shrugged their robes off. Jacinta had a toned runner's body, curves mixed with prominent muscles, every muscle group rippling under her dark skin as she walked. Her breasts formed two cones on her chest with dark nipples on the top. She had full lips above and below and she looked unapologetic, even a little eager. The other woman looked like a Playboy model; alabaster skin, long straight blonde hair, all smooth curves, no bulging muscles, perfectly formed teardrop breasts thrusting out from her chest with small pink nipples, and a cleanly shaven pussy forming a tight slit between her shapely legs, with no visible inner lips.

Both of them held my arms against the wall, then Kimberly tore my clothes off. Not in the sense of frantic lovers in a romance novel; she literally shredded my clothes with the strength of her arms. My shirt ripped in half down the middle, the two cups of my bra snapped apart as the middle seam gave way. She ripped each pant leg from the thigh down and let them settle around my feet, then tore the button, zipper, and center seam of what remained of my jeans. My cotton panties may as well have been tissue paper. Goosebumps rose on my skin as so much sweaty skin was suddenly exposed to the air. I could see her appraising my body with no shame, only lust. I was in decent shape, although odd hours and a lot of takeout gave me extra padding in places. My C-cup breasts stood out enough that there was noticeable bounce to my chest, and I thought my ass always looked good, though at the moment it was pressed against the cold wall. She seemed to linger on the landing strip I kept above my pussy.