Sending a Message

It had all happened so suddenly.

The small party at the McDonnell's uptown penthouse suite had been in progress for roughly two hours. Fourteen people -- all executives of Osterman's International Consulting Firm or their spouses and guests -- had been mingling, drinking, and occasionally acting foolish, thoroughly enjoying themselves and the lucrative lifestyle their employment had provided them. Stout, gregarious, and bustling Barbara McDonnell acted the proper host, while her twenty-year-old daughter -- equally stout, gregarious, and bustling -- lent a hand wherever she could. Mrs. McDonnell's husband was still in Kuwait and hadn't been able to get back in time, but he urged his executive team to attend the get-together at his penthouse anyway. His wife was familiar with all the guests, and she loved a good party, so he knew she wouldn't view it as an inconvenience.

And then, all hell broke loose.

At first, the guests didn't see anything out of the ordinary. A pair of black men in business casual appeared in the kitchen, smiling warmly at the hostess and making small talk. Everyone thought they were guests too.

Then a few more appeared, accompanied by what appeared to be their wives. Some at the party felt there was something 'off' about them, though. One of the guests -- the firm's financial officer -- leaned in to whisper to the company's foremost corporate lawyer.

"Do you recognize them?" he asked.

"No," she replied, casting a puzzled frown at the black folks mingling through the group. "Maybe they work for those private contractors McDonnell likes to use?"

Fifteen minutes later, all the newcomers were pointing guns at the McDonnell guests.

**********

"A'ight, ya'll," a large, bald black man yelled over the frightened babbling. "Listen up!"

The guests had been herded into the spacious main floor with its open concept design, massive blue-green sectional couch, and luxurious floor coverings. The anxious attendees were crouched on the floor or sitting on the couch or one of the two love seats, surrounded by over a dozen grim intruders holding guns. Their captors were hard-faced men and women, all dressed in expensive clothes -- well-groomed and menacing. They held their weapons confidently; it was abundantly clear that they knew their way around a gun.

"Ya'll can call me Mr. Trevor," the spokesman said, grinning. "Now, before ya'll freak out and do something you shouldn't do, let me say it loud n' clear -- we will shoot you if you give us a reason. Ya feel me?"

Total silence.

"Good. Now, me and my crew, we got a job to do here tonight. You folks are the job. Ya feel me again?"

Lisa Carlyle, the ranking executive among them, her long black hair flecked with bits of white, spoke up. "I'm afraid I don't understand," she stated calmly. "If you are here to rob the place, we aren't-"

Mr. Trevor burst out laughing. "Rob the place? Are you shittin' me? Do we look like a street gang to you, lady?"

Lisa Carlyle glanced quickly around at the other members of Mr. Trevor's crew. "No, I guess not."

"It's 'cuz we black, right?" Mr. Trevor chortled. "Black folk with guns. They must be here to steal our watches and wallets, is that it?"

A few of his men smiled, amused. Near the kitchen, three of Mr. Trevor's crew were unpacking large, heavy bags and setting up some sort of equipment, but the guests were only passingly curious about it. Their attention was riveted on Mr. Trevor and all the guns around them.

"Goddamn, that's funny," Mr. Trevor said to no one in particular, and then he crouched down to get face-to-face with the group's spokeswoman. "No, we ain't here to rob you, Lisa Carlyle, Chief Operating Officer of Osterman's International Consulting Firm. No, we're here for something else."

The woman's expression was still calm, but her eyes narrowed.

"I see the light dawns," Mr. Trevor chuckled, standing back up. "Yeah, we know who you folks are -- Gary Peterson, Chief Financial Officer at Osterman's; Debra Simmons, Chief Human Resources Officer; Barbara McDonnell, wife of CEO Carter McDonnell, and their daughter Rebecca; James Paige, Chief Administrative Officer; Penelope Stone, Osterman's hot shot lawyer; and on and on it goes. Eight of you here represent most of the leadership of Osterman's, the other six of you are either related to, guests of, or married to one of these muthafuckas."

The group shared nervous glances.

Mr. Trevor's face turned deadly serious. "Naw, we ain't no common thugs," he intoned ominously.

Silence descended again, finally broken by Lisa Carlyle. "What do you want, then?" she asked simply.

Mr. Trevor cocked his head, a faint smile on his face. "You're a cool customer, ain't ya, lady? Well, it's real simple: we've been hired to do a job here tonight. We're supposed to 'send a message' to the people who pull yo' strings -- your Board of Directors and your absent CEO. He lucky he ain't here."

"You see, yo' company has been pissing people off, and not just here in the States. Probably got something to do with that shit your contractors pulled in Kuwait and Dubai. Who knows? The point is.... some angry folks with a lotta money gave us one helluva paycheck to come here tonight and make sure you people back off."

"Now, normally, we'd just take the lot of ya in a truck somewhere and that would be all she wrote. Make ya vanish. It sets just the right tone, because yo' superiors be looking over their shoulders for months. It throws them all off -- they shittin' their pants wondering when they goin' be next, and their key people are out of play, so their plans are thrown off, too."

"But I don't think we need to do that here tonight," Mr. Trevor smiled benevolently, and a few of the guests breathed a sigh of relief. "I still got to send that message, though. We ain't gonna kill ya, but we gots to do something to ya."

A loud crash startled them, causing everyone to jump and look behind them. Cursing, one of the men in the kitchen retrieved the hefty film camera he had dropped, shrugging an apology to Mr. Trevor. A series of tripods mounted with digital cameras had also been assembled and stood in a row like silent, judgmental sentinels.

"Now," Mr. Trevor clapped his hands, drawing their attention back to him. "I'm gonna give you folks a choice. You can decide for yourself how this all plays out tonight."

"What do you mean, a choice?" Jim Paige asked, confused. A wide-eyed woman, the stereotypical blonde and busty trophy wife, huddled behind him.

"Well," Mr. Trevor grinned, relishing the moment. "Option number one is we beat the shit out of all ya'll. And I don't mean a few bruises here and there. I'm talking broken bones, bust up faces, and time in the hospital."

A frightened hush fell on the group.

"It's gotta be that way. It has to be a for-real beatdown, or else who the fuck is gonna take it seriously? So, yeah, it's gonna hurt, it's gonna hurt bad."

"What's option two?" Lisa Carlyle inquired.

"Option two, boss lady, is that you all get butt-ass naked and get your freak on with my crew -- right here, right now."

"I beg your pardon?" heavy-set Max Jones, Chief Information Officer, blurted out, confused.

"You get fucked, my man! A big muthafuckin' orgy! Tits, asses, pussies, and cocks, all going at it! And all of it captured on film! Ya'll gonna be porn stars! How about that?"

Shocked expressions greeted Mr. Trevor's proposal.

"Aw, c'mon," he chided, amused. "It ain't that bad an idea, is it? You white folks racist? Don't wanna get down with these good-looking niggas I brought with me?"

"You're going to rape us?" Lisa Carlyle demanded to know, clearly angry.

"Naw," Mr. Trevor disagreed with a broad smile. "Ya'll are gonna give it up willingly. That's why I laid out two choices here -- ya get the beatdown, or ya get fucked and ya get filmed. Maybe ya'll prefer the beatdown? That's cool, we can do that. Broken bones and bruises will heal, sure 'nuff, and ya ain't got to worry about some pictures showing up on the internet. It's gonna hurt, though, right? Fuckin' around with us won't hurt, and ya'll got my word that the only people who will get the videos and pics will be yo' bosses. It's sort of an insurance policy against bad behavior, ya feel me? We don't release the vids if they behave."

"That's still rape," Lisa Carlyle retorted. "You're basically saying, 'have sex with us or we beat you up.'"

"You say tomato, I say tomato..."

"It's barbaric."

"No, it's not!" he shot back, irritated. "I've seen what soldiers do to women -- and children -- in a war zone! None of my people are going to do any of that shit with you folks. If we take it too far, then we gotta look over our shoulders for some revenge-seekin', butt-hurt muthafucka. What we got going on here is a business transaction."

His gaze softened. "Look, Mrs. Carlyle, let me be real with you. I was paid to beat the fuck out of all ya'll and make you and the financial wizard Peterson over there disappear. I'm talking a sharp knife and a deep hole, ya hear me?"

Lisa Carlyle frowned and fell silent.

"That's the truth. But me n' my crew had a problem with that -- it's not our style, you could say. We've done some hard shit in our time, but we done with that life. This contract, though,... it's a big paycheck, too big to pass up. Lucky for ya'll, I was able to convince 'em that Option B would be even more effective than tossing the place, and less risky, too. Dead bodies and missin' rich white folk get the wrong people askin' questions, you dig? So, boss lady, what I'm doing here is offering ya'll a way out. A no-pain option. We don't wanna kill ya, and ya'll don't wanna die. So, yeah, something's gotta happen here tonight -- why not a big muthafuckin' naked-ass party with some sexy-hot folks? Ya'll might even like it!"

"Why should the people who paid you to work us over accept Option B?" Debra Simmons asked, confused. She was a lean, athletic middle-aged woman with short black hair and laughter lines on her face.

Lisa Carlyle answered. "If footage or pictures got out, the scandal would wreck us. We'd be known as the company that likes to hire black prostitutes to screw us in wild orgies, or something like that."

Peterson nodded glumly. He was a stocky man with an impeccable taste in clothes. "Say goodbye to all those lucrative government contracts, too."

Mr. Trevor grinned. "That's the idea," he confirmed. "Hell, this is high-stakes shit right here. You talkin' rape, boss lady, but when you up here in the higher echelons of power, things work differently than they do for common folk. I think you know this."

"But..." a young redhead near the back of the group raised her hand timidly, "I'm married. I don't work for Osterman's. I just came here at the last minute with my brother. I'm not part of this. Can't I just go?" she pleaded plaintively. "I won't tell anyone."

"Babygirl, listen close," Mr. Trevor advised, taking a seat in the lounger nearby. "I knew a guy in Baghdad, real decent dude. He was a local civilian, a pharmacist, American-educated, and friendly to US forces, but on the downlow. He took care of his community as much as he could, giving out medicine sometimes to people who couldn't afford it. He closed up shop early one day. It was his wife's birthday, and he wanted to surprise her. He bought some flowers and a little trinket his wife had admired in a shop window, and headed home. Five blocks away, a car bomb blew up, taking this good, decent man with it."

"The bomb wasn't meant for him. It was meant for some police officer who was collaborating with US intelligence. The cop got in, turned the ignition, and set the muthafuckin' thing off. If the good, decent man had left his shop at his regular time, he would be here today. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time." Mr. Trevor nodded toward the redhead. "Like you here tonight, babe. Wrong place, wrong time. Ain't no one's fault, that's just life. Now you gotta deal with it."

"Now, I'm gonna give you folks a few minutes to talk this over. You ain't gotta make the decision as a group, neither. You ain't all gonna get beatdown if some of you ain't down with fuckin' niggas. I promise you this, too -- if you go along with the fuckin', we won't make ya'll do crazy shit like take a big dick in yo' ass if you ain't done it before, or make the dudes fuck each other. A'ight? Yo, Zeke, what they been drinkin'?" he called out to one of the guys in the kitchen.

Zeke was lean, muscular, and sporting a pair of glasses, looking more like a well-built black accountant than a professional mercenary. He held up two bottles.

"Oh, hell, they drinkin' some pricey juice!" Trevor exclaimed with a smile. "Let them pass that shit around. It might give 'em a bit of courage."

Chuckling, Zeke slipped around the counter and handed a bottle to the redhead, and the other bottle to Max Jones. The redhead immediately took a large swig before passing it over to Jim Paige. She glared at the tall, pale red-headed fellow next to her as she did so.

"There ya go," Mr. Trevor encouraged. "Hey, girl, don't be too hard on your brother, now. He couldn't have known what was gonna go down tonight. You made the choice to come with him, ya gotta live with that." He glanced at Rebecca McDonnell. "Babygirl, you a virgin?"

Mrs. McDonnell's daughter, a pleasant-looking, slightly overweight young woman with wide-set eyes, blinked in surprise at the question. "Uh... no," she replied hesitantly.

"Good. Any female on her period?"

Silence.

Mr. Trevor grinned. "Guess we on, then!"

"Your name isn't really Mr. Trevor, is it?" Lisa Carlyle asked sharply.

"Naw, it ain't," Mr. Trevor confirmed amiably. "And he ain't really Zeke, and she ain't really Trinity, and he ain't really Moose. Ya feel me? And don't worry, no one will recognize us on your orgy tape, neither. Our faces will be blurred out, and we gonna edit it to remove anything else that could identify us. All folks will see is ya'll throwing down and loving you some black pussy and some big black cock!"

"Or we get beaten nearly to death," Lisa Carlyle muttered.

"There is that," Mr. Trevor agreed pleasantly. "Ya'll go ahead and talk. Don't mind me." He leaned back in the lounger, waiting expectantly. Most of his crew kept watch over the huddled mass on the floor, while the others began setting up the tripods around the room. The executives and their guests were whispering furiously among themselves, with some of them sounding distinctly panicky.

"Trevor," Lisa Carlyle called out finally, standing up.

"That's Mr. Trevor, boss lady," he corrected.

She ignored him. "We'll all take option two, Trevor," she continued, her face a stony mask. "But we have a few conditions..."

"No conditions," Mr. Trevor interrupted. "I already said we wouldn't do no crazy shit with ya'll. That's the only condition. Understand?"

"What about those of us who are married but our spouses are not here? If this gets out, it could ruin our marriages..."

"No conditions," he repeated. "And it will only get out if yo' bosses don't back off. So, I guess you better put some pressure on them after tonight, right?"

She nodded, relenting. "Okay."

"A'ight," Mr. Trevor said, striding forward and clapping his hands together in anticipation. "We all set?" he asked the mountain of a man he had called Moose. The big fellow gave him a thumbs up, and carefully adjusted the last camera. "Well, don't just stand there," Mr. Trevor barked at the dispirited group clustered in front of him. "Take 'em off, people!"

They exchanged resigned glances. The two bottles were still being passed around, but none of them made a move to begin stripping.

Mr. Trevor folded his arms, frowning. "Either you do it, or we do it. Ya hear me?"

With a deep sigh, Lisa Carlyle grabbed one of the bottles, took a long drink, and started removing her shoes. Behind her, grumbling, Gary Peterson started to do the same. Finally, all the group began tossing clothes aside, moving reluctantly, slowly.

"Goddamn," one of Mr. Trevor's men whistled in amazement.

"What's up, Cote?" Mr. Trevor asked.

With a smirk, the young merc nodded his head toward Dawn Paige. The executive's wife was in the process of slipping her panties down her tanned legs, and her big breasts bobbled deliciously with every move.

"She fine as hell, Trev," another merc agreed.

"They all look pretty good, don't they?" Mr. Trevor murmured thoughtfully, gazing over the group of people, most of whom were trying to cover their intimate areas. Only one or two of the women were in the same 'hotness' league as Dawn Paige -- the redheaded young woman and maybe the lawyer Penelope Stone -- but all of them were attractive to some degree, even if a little chunkiness or age was marring their appearance. Mr. Trevor knew that the women ranged in age from the McDonnell daughter at twenty to Debra Simmons at fifty-two, and it appeared that the affluent life agreed with them. Most of the men were in decent shape, too -- Jake Simmons, Randy Denton, and Carl Stone, for example, were lean and muscular. "I guess when you got the money, you can find time to hang out at the gym," he shrugged.

"Are you shittin' me?" the female merc behind Mr. Trevor suddenly exclaimed.

"What's the problem, Trin?"

"White boy be packing some meat!" she admired, pointing at Jake Simmons, Debra's husband. His substantial cock dangled half-way down his thigh. The 55-year-old architect just glared at her, refusing to cover up. His wife was holding his hand. Mr. Trevor noticed with amusement that several of the other women -- Dawn Paige, Penelope Stone, and the McDonnell ladies -- were staring at his massive dick, too.

Another woman spoke up. "Looks like chubby boy over here has a chubby cock, too," she said, grinning at Max Jones. "That fat thing must weigh ten pounds!"

"A'ight, ladies, you get first pick," Trevor called out.

Lisa Carlyle gave him a confused look. "You want us to pick --"

"Naw, boss lady, not you folks. I'm talking to these fine sisters with me. Ladies, let's get it going on! White boys, you better bring it, 'cuz these sistas will hand you yo' ass if you don't."

Around the room, the six black women sauntered forward, handing their guns to the male mercs nearby. They were eyeing the naked men like wolves stalking their prey, smirking at the discomfort some of them were showing.

"Six white boys, six ladies," the one called Trinity said with a chuckle, casting a sideways look at the other women. "Even split?"

"Only one?" a busty black woman with a wicked scar on her right cheek scoffed. "These titties need more than one dick, girl." She cupped her enormous boobs to emphasize her point.

"Add one of ours to it, Eve."

"Hell naw. I can fuck these niggas anytime I want. I'm not passing up this chance!" She pushed her way forward, brushing past Lisa Carlyle and Debra Simmons, and grabbed Jake Simmons by the arm. "You, Godzilla dick," she said. "And you," she added, pointing to Carl, the husband of Penelope Stone. "C'mere."

"Wait," Penelope Stone pleaded, holding on to her husband's shoulder. "Can't we just do it with our spouses? It's still on camera, right?"

"Girl, if you don't let go of him...", Eve growled ominously, glaring at the pretty brunette.

"It's okay, honey," Carl reassured her, removing her grip. "We'll get through this."

Eve guffawed. "Cracka, you ain't never had pussy like this. You may not survive!" She grabbed the two naked married men by their dicks and pulled them away from their wives, moving toward the sectional.

Another merc took a step forward. She was smaller than the other women, and she wore a pure white wig. "I think I want to play with chubby boy here," she crooned, resting her hand on Max Jones's chest. "I like a man with some meat on his bones."