Realtor Revenge Pt. 06

One of the most ridiculous price negotiation sessions I'd ever experienced was at 235 Mulberry. When we walked through their ten-foot-high, solid wood, double entry doors, not only were both owners present, but their realtor was also with them. This particular sale happened late one afternoon. I was exhausted due to the long hours we'd been working and sore because the last gentlemen we dealt with -- who had a surprisingly thick male member -- insisted on sticking it in the wrong hole.

All that to say, I wasn't paying complete attention to the negotiations. Even if I had, I probably still would have ended up with the owner's dick in my pussy and his realtor's cock in my mouth. Which should have brought the price way down... if Mark hadn't brought the price back up forty thou while bringing the owner's wife to the most violent orgasm she'd ever hope to experience.

"Why did you do it?" one might ask. Nobody was holding a knife to your throat, so why submit to humiliation after humiliation?

Simple answer. If I refused. If I kept my clothes on, my lips closed and my knees together, there was no doubt in my mind, Mark would find another realtor. With everything I had invested so far, getting poked by a few middle-aged men was well worth the reward. And we were less than a week away from his deadline. Once we bought all the available Merryville property, what else could he do to me?

***

Noises in the night

Flanagan kind of disappeared for a while after we put Janis in the ground. I mean, he was still around. I saw him drive by in his patrol car a couple of times and waved to him at the coffee shop once. But he wasn't inventing excuses to come by my house every night. Which was a good thing. I needed his help to frame the city council, but during that process, he was starting to think he was more of a partner than a hired hand. Sure, he spent a few nights in my bed while we plotted the demise of Janis Moorehead, but that phase of my plan was over and the last thing I needed was another penis to please. After a full day with Mark Seiman, the only thing I craved was sleep.

Speaking of sleep... have you ever moved into a new house and spent the first few nights hearing strange noises? I sure have. All houses have their own sounds. It takes a few days to get used to a new home, sometimes several weeks. What some might think was an intruder walking across the kitchen floor was actually the ice maker doing its thing. The axe murderer trying to get into the bedroom was really a south wind blowing willow oak branches against the rain gutter. And when my visiting niece was sure a ghost inhabited my attic, I spent most of the night assuring the child it was only the furnace cycling on and off.

But I wasn't in a new home. I'd lived in my house for five years and knew every sound it made. The tapping and scratching noises under my bedroom were new and different. They started shortly after I officially signed on with Mark and were preventing me from getting a full night's sleep.

"Has to be an animal under your floorboards," Mark said when I mentioned it to him.

So, I called an exterminator who said, "your house is built on a twelve-inch concrete slab on top of hard packed dirt. There's no way an animal can get down there. You're just hearing things." He charged eighty dollars for the ten-minute house call.

"Maybe sub-terranean termites," a neighbor suggested when I explained my plight.

I paid a different exterminator a hundred fifty dollars to declare my house "completely termite free."

Several days later, I was running out of exterminators and still hearing strange noises at odd hours of the night. I tried sleeping in the guest bedroom. The sounds followed.

Three a.m. the next morning, back in my own bedroom, I was awakened by what sounding like somebody alternately scratching and beating on a piece of wood.

Wide awake, I jumped out of bed, intent on finding the source of my insomnia. Putting my ear to the floor, I confirmed the sound was definitely coming from below me... which two exterminators and three neighbors said was impossible. As I continued to listen, hoping I'd pick up a clue to the source, I started to shiver. Not because I was afraid... I was cold. It was freezing in my bedroom, like I'd just stepped into a meat locker. I lifted my ear from the floor and was going to put on a robe when I heard her.

"Help me," said a faint voice. "Please, help me."

One minute I'm laying on my bedroom floor, shivering. A minute later, I'm in my Porsche, driving out of the neighborhood like Danica Patrick in the last lap of the Indy 500. I'm still shivering even though it was a warm night. This time my shivering was due to fear. Not because I heard someone ask for help. What scared the shit out of me was I recognized the voice.

It was Janis Moorehead.

Flanagan was not a happy cop when he answered his phone. I meant to simply tell him that I heard somebody under my house and wanted him to check it out. But the words that came out of my scared shitless mouth said "Janis is under my bedroom". I don't think he believed me.

"Any chance we can both go back to bed and talk about this when the sun's been up a few hours?" he asked.

"I'd rather not. I'm afraid to go back to my house."

"Where are you?"

"I'm not sure. I just started driving... wasn't paying attention to where I was going. All I wanted was to get away from the voice."

"Okay, here's what I want you to do. Find a safe place to pull over and use your phone to get to the Merryville Inn. Get a room for the night and we'll talk about this after you've had some sleep."

"That's not going to work," I told him.

"Why not?"

"I left in kind of a hurry. I don't have my purse or credit cards and I'm not appropriately dressed to check into a hotel?"

"What are you wearing?"

"My nightie."

"Great. You're wandering aimlessly around town at three a.m. with no ID and what you're wearing will get you arrested for indecent exposure. Not exactly the actions of a future mayor."

"It's not like that. Something's going on in my house and I had to get away."

"Is that what you're going to tell the cop that pulls you over? You thought you heard the voice of the woman you buried alive, so you ran?"

I tried to think of a proper retort, but nothing came to mind. Because he was right. There was no way I could have heard Janis' voice.

"Listen Raven. You're going to have to go back to your house eventually. Meet me there in half an hour. I'll go in with you and we'll sort this out. Take your time. Drive like an old woman in a funeral procession. Make sure I'm the only cop who gets to see your negligee tonight."

I followed his advice and took the long way home, keeping my speed well under the limit. My slow circuitous route gave me a chance to reflect on what happened earlier. Or what I thought happened.

The tapping, scratching sounds I heard were real. I'd heard them several nights in a row. Not knowing the source was no reason to freak out. My room being colder than an icebox was new, however that was most likely nothing more than a maladjusted air conditioner. And the words I thought I heard. The cries for help... the only reasonable explanation was an overactive imagination. By the time I made the left turn into my sub-division, I had reconciled myself to the fact that I overreacted and now had to pay the price.

Flanagan was already parked out front when I arrived. I pulled into my garage but didn't get out of the car until he opened the door for me.

He gave me a low, appreciative whistle when I stepped into the light.

"Yep. Definitely indecent exposure material," he said as he appraised my sleeping attire.

I walked towards the door when Flanagan stopped me. "Why don't you let me search the place."

"Why?" I asked.

"So, you'll know nobody's inside."

"Go ahead," I said. "But I've about convinced myself it was all my imagination. At least the voices."

As Flanagan went from room to room, looking for someone he knew wasn't there, I wondered how many times he'd done this in the past. How many women called 911 when they heard something go bump in the night? How many times did a police officer arrive at a woman's house to find her outside, hiding in her car, or quivering in fear behind a locked bedroom door? And when the cop finished searching the woman's house, finding no burglar and no sign of a break in... how often did the cop stick around for an hour or two to calm the woman's nerves?

In Flanagan's case, I was positive this was not his first "scared single woman" rodeo. He had the routine down pat. Once he finished his search, he escorted me to every room in the house to convince me we were alone. He had me look in the closets and under the beds, so I knew no monsters lurked in the shadows. And the last room we searched was my bedroom.

"Thank you, officer. I feel much safer now," the other ladies would say. "I'm so sorry to bother you. Is there anything I can do to repay you?"

"No ma'am," he'd reply. "It's all part of the job."

But, as he was leaving her bedroom, he'd turn and say...

"I know you were frightened tonight. Would you be more comfortable if I stayed for a while?"

In my case, even though I had almost convinced myself nothing was wrong. Even though I knew exactly what Flanagan had in mind. There was still a lingering doubt. A remnant of fear. Just enough uncertainty to make me say...

"Yes, Officer Flanagan. Please stay until dawn."

And since there's no way I'll get back to sleep, please take my mind off what happened by screwing me like there's no tomorrow.

***

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