Reginald Bones: Part One Page 8

  Bones typed. ‘No. You can’t.’

  “Why so rude,” Reginald muttered.

  “I’m a level three sadist, Reggie.”

  “They’re assholes?”

  “Unless you think bringing a woman to death’s door and denying her that release is the mark of a gentleman,” he muttered.

  Reginald checked his page then went back to Bones when he found nothing.

  “Oh, look at that, she’s typing again,” Bones said, amused.

  “She’s just asking questions.” Reginald read her message. “Can I have references? My friend says I should have that. Shit, we’re doomed. Now what?”

  Bones took over. ‘I’m a student of the founding precepts. My word is my reference.’

  Reginald snorted. “That’s the lamest thing I’ve ever heard. Who could ever trust that?”

  “Cinnamon Lame Wrols would,” Bones muttered, nodding at the screen where she typed her stupid— “I like that.”

  “Hell,” Reginald whispered in light shock. “Winter, how can you be so sweet and so stupid?”

  “Hmm” Bones muttered.

  “There’s a reason,” Reginald said.

  “Yes, there is.”

  “Not that one, Bones. She’s too smart and sweet to be what you think.”

  “She’s a masochist, Reginald. Did you not hear that in her blubbering? I don’t deserve mercy, I’m wicked blahblahblah? She’s at this site because she wants to be punished. Funny thing is, pain makes her pussy hot. Tell me how that’s a punishment again?”

  “Maybe it doesn’t make her hot like you say. And even if it did, why does that make her bad?” Reginald countered, incredulous.

  “Reggie,” Bones said, ready to strangle him. “You don’t go around hating yourself for all the great things you do.”

  “Is that why you hurt yourself?”

  “No, Reggie,” Bones said annoyed to fuck with him. “I hurt myself for the wicked things I crave to do. The pain is a distraction, not a punishment. But wicked will be punished. The universal code demands it, that’s why the body and mind crave it. The wicked itch is designed to be scratched. You scratch the itch and it’s appeased, the toll is paid and you can pass another day.”

  “Another day? They have to do it daily?”

  Bones wanted to snarl at the pity in his tone. “Why do you always take the wrong side?” he half asked. “Evil demands punishment and the crime defines the weight of the penalty, Reggie. That’s what you see with her, she’s paying a toll but she’s learned to find pleasure in that punishment. Pleasure is a double-edged sword, brother. When life gives you pain, your brain will learn to flip it and turn it into pleasure. The mind finds a way, Reggie. Even steeped in darkness it finds a way to create a light.”

  ****

  Reginald was so disappointed. And yet he was sure there had to be more to this, there was no way she could possibly be this stupid, this naïve. She was going blindly with complete strangers that made no secrets about being nut jobs.

  Was Bones right? Did she learn to enjoy the bad? He recalled the things she’d told him earlier that evening, looking for clues. “I went to the church… Father Burns said it will all be okay… Rituals for the dead.” It hit him suddenly and he froze.

  “What are you doing?” Bones asked when Reginald opened a new page on the computer.

  “Finding out what happened to her brother.” He accessed the database for their cemetery and found his name, feeling Bones’ interest piqued. He scanned the obituary, muttering through the details before finally getting to the reason for death. Overdose. Shit, that told him nothing.

  How could he find that out without anybody knowing he was looking?

  We can ask her during tryouts.

  “Ask her what?”

  About family, about anything I damn well want to know. And I’ll let her know if I find out she lied, I’ll drop her from my selection.

  Reginald considered that. Bones sounded confident but he always did about everything, even the things Reginald was sure he was wrong about. But when it came to the particulars of this… whatever they were doing, he wasn’t sure.

  “What are we going to do once we have her?” Reginald asked.

  I’m still thinking about it.

  “We need a plan of action. One that makes it fair.”

  As in?

  Reginald shrugged his shoulders and held them up. “Like we should both be allowed to only do so much. We need a limit. How much, how long, what, when. That kind of stuff.”

  Okay. We each get an hour?

  Reginald considered. “That sounds reasonable.” He waited, feeling Bones thinking.

  We can touch but she can’t touch us. Fuck, do you have to, Reginald?

  “I can’t help it,” Reginald hissed, grabbing his sudden hard on. Talking about touching her…

  That’s not helping!

  He let it go and Bones made a sound of exasperation as the hard on slowly settled. “How do you do that?” he wondered.

  You don’t want to know, Bones assured.

  No, he probably didn’t. But it was a great trick and he could stand to learn it. He returned to thinking about that one hour they got. All he could think about was being able to touch her. “Will she be tied?”

  Not literally.

  “What do you mean?”

  I mean she’ll be bound with our word.

  “What if she breaks our rules?”

  Then you lose.

  “Me! Why me? Why shouldn’t you lose?”

  Because you’re the one claiming she’s so good. If she’s good, she’ll follow the rules.

  “If they’re reasonable,” he said. “I still don’t get what we’re doing in that hour and how that’s supposed to determine anything.”

  Let’s make the competition fair. We’ll do two out of three.

  “What do you mean?” And who was this fair to?

  I mean in one hour, we compete in three things. Who gives her the best orgasm. The fastest orgasm. And who she picks. But whoever she picks gets the right to determine what happens next.

  “We’re… making her orgasm?” Reginald repeated, making their dick impossibly hard.

  Fuck, Reggie. You need to get laid dude, that’s for damn sure. You’re killing me. And yes, we’re making her orgasm.

  “Why?”

  Why? Why not?

  “Just… it doesn’t seem necessary.”

  You don’t want to?

  “I do, God I do, I just—”

  Just nothing. We’re doing it.

  “What if… I’m not sure how?”

  Are you serious here?

  “I don’t recall you teaching me, Bones,” he informed, fighting the shame of his inadequacy.

  Well you better get to googling that shit, I’m not telling you. You want this, you better get ready. You’ve got time to prepare.

  Google? Yes, he could do that. Easy enough. “I don’t get it.”

  What?

  “Why all of a sudden you’re so ready to… touch a woman.”

  It’s not sexual for me, Reggie.

  “But it is for me.”

  I’ll survive. I know how to detach.

  At hearing that, anger hit him. “So why make me go through all this if you can just detach?”

  Because it’s not easy to do.

  “Well being stuck in your body isn’t easy either, but I make the sacrifice.”

  Why do you think I’m doing all of this, Reggie? For me?

  Reginald scrubbed his hands over their face, trying to settle his nerves. “So in a way, we’re being interviewed too?” How the hell was he supposed to win this? He remembered Bones no touching rule for her. “You made a rule about her not touching. I want to make a rule too.”

  Like what, Bones asked.

  “Like… you can’t be mean to her in the interview.”

  Mean?

  “No insulting how she looks,” Reginald said. “I can’t take that.”

  I’m a sadist, R
eggie. Sadists are cruel bastards. And if you recall, she did say she was looking for one of those.

  “Well find another way to play your sadist card. And what if she wants to quit?”

  Safe word Bones sighed.

  “Safe word?”

  We give her a word to say if she wants me to stop.

  Reginald tried to think of anything else important. There was probably twenty other rules he needed to make but didn’t know what they were. He’d know it when it happened and it would be too late then.

  He thought about the safe word. “You can’t penalize her if she uses it.”

  I won’t penalize her, but I will consider it.

  “Consider it for what?”

  If she selects me, I may want to keep her.

  Fear and confusion hit Reginald. “For what?”

  My toy.

  “Your toy!”

  If she chooses me and can handle me… then I may want to keep her.

  “You better be joking right now.”

  Bones shrugged. Maybe indulging your need to be normal is waking my need to not be.

  Reginald sat there, feeling trapped. Images of him hurting her made Reginald’s gut burn. He wouldn’t allow that.

  I can do it when you sleep, Reggieboy.

  Like hell he would. But Reginald wouldn’t say anything to jeopardize his chance with her. He’d find a way to handle him if it got to that. He’d throw them off a bridge if he had to.

  There will always be the safe word option.

  Safe word option. That made his blood boil more. He knew Bones just well enough to know that safe and him were very possibly decoy options.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Winter’s hand shook as she fought to apply her makeup just right. She had to make sure everything was perfect. She needed this to happen, she needed this to work. This was the club she’d been trying so hard to get into. Her friend had said watch for a friend request from a guy with tattoos and Dragon Bones was loaded. And he’d asked her the code question. The big surprise was the brother. Christopher. He seemed so sweet. But that might be a front. She’d never heard of two men doing something like this.

  She made sure her lips were defined perfectly. She looked at herself in the mirror. She’d used some of her brother’s purgatory money to buy the outfit she wore. She hoped it was okay to use for this. She chose something that said delicate and fragile, but not valuable.

  She adjusted the airy thin sky blue material around her curves, trying to make it accentuate the right places. The dress hugged her waist and stopped short. Short enough that he could reach whatever he needed to without working. The top was much the same. Fitted but made of a material that was easy to move below her breasts. She wore no bra of course. She touched Sebastian’s choker at her neck. She normally would never mix such precious things in her life. But this time, it was appropriate.

  She lifted her wrist and checked the time. She had a whole hour still. She was to drive to the Waterway Bridge and call him. He would tell her what to do.

  She left the bathroom and went into the store, purchasing a pack of mints. She wasn’t sure why she cared about her breath now. If the rumors about this man were true, you only played with him once and then you were finished. For good.

  Winter made her way to her car and got in. She found her cassette she’d planned to play and fought her shaking hands as she put it in the player and turned it on loud. A minute into Sabastian’s favorite song and she had to fan her face. No crying. He loved all the songs on here. She’d made it special for this day. Took her a time to find cassettes to do it since they were obsolete. But her old car was obsolete too. Like everything else in her world.

  Where she’d failed her brother in life, she’d do right by him in her death. She looked down at her dress. He’d liked sky blue. It didn’t really compliment her complexion but it didn’t matter. It was all about what he would’ve wanted. Something she’d never thought about when he was alive. Everything she thought about and did now was for him.

  Her phone rang and made her jump. “Hello?” she answered.

  “Drive to the Starlight Motel, go to room 35, and lock the door. Go to the bed and you’ll find a blindfold on it. Put it on tight and sit in the chair in the center of the room. Christopher will come first. You may not touch him.”

  The line clicked and Winter gripped the phone to her ear, closing her eyes. This was it. She hung up and turned on the car. As she drove to the small hotel, she again turned on the cassette tape. She forced herself to sing to her brother’s favorite song. She sang it real loud with all of her heart.

  She pulled up at the place and looked around at the town’s rundown motel. Her stomach and chest knotted as the worth of her whole life stared at her. A deep pain clenched that forgotten place inside her. It seemed to finally see it. The little girl dreams of hope and love were seeing it all in that second. None of her fancy dreams were going to be coming true. Something that little girl had never once imagined, because the ugly side of life hadn’t existed yet, was upon her.

  The pain threatened to break her and she grabbed hold of the only thing she knew. The final images of her brother in death. They were her anchor, keeping her feet on the ground and taking those steps she needed to.

  She forced herself to look at all of it. At her reality. This is what she bought and paid for. She had the receipt to prove it, burning in her chest and in the grave at Reginald’s cemetery. Her heart throbbed, reliving how he’d held her. She gasped and closed her eyes, feeling the stroke of his large hand on her back. He might be crazy but whatever made him that way didn’t manage to take that truly good part of him.

  She pulled herself together and hardened her resolve. She put her phone in her purse and hid it under the seat, mostly out of habit. She wouldn’t need any of it now and she didn’t want the temptation of it. She examined her appearance in the rear-view mirror, wiping at the smudges under her eyes and then opened the door before she could chicken out.

  After locking it, she adjusted the flimsy dress. Everything she owned was a cheap imitation of something nice and valuable. For the first time, she knew it down to her core, how every single thing in her world was a cheap imitation. She’d learned how to pretend that it wasn’t all fake and ugly. She tried to remember if she’d ever been the smart, courageous woman she’d imagined growing up to be. Had she always been fake? Like every bit of the love and affection men had shown her?

  She stood at the door she was instructed to go to and stared at the handle, her breaths shaky. She opened it and entered, blinking several times to adjust her eyes to the darkness. She locked it as instructed and went through the first room that smelled of strong cleaning chemicals. Nothing could mask the ugly truth of every broken life that passed through there.

  She went to the bed and her heart thundered at seeing the lone blindfold at the foot. She picked it up and stared at the black satin strip then lifted it to her face. Her reflection in the mirror caught her eye and she paused, staring for many seconds, looking at who she’d become. She focused on the dress, wondering what Sebastian thought of her in it. She hoped he thought it was pretty on her. She wanted to be wearing something really beautiful the day she went to meet him.

  ****

  Reginald was ready to ask Bones to pull over so he could vomit his guts up. But Bones’ body was like an iron fortress and Reginald was a prisoner. He wanted his own body. He wanted to be sick and puke up his fears, not be a stubborn calm ocean as they drove toward a fate he was officially sure was not his. It was a mistake he wanted to say but couldn’t because he still wasn’t sure it was. He wanted it to be a mistake, he wanted to know it was a mistake so he could say that and call it all off.

  Images of what he’d studied via google emerged in his brain to add to his nausea. He’d watched what he later realized was porn. After a little more digging, he ended up spending hours watching romance movies. It was night and day. The romance movies held elements the porn didn’t. He loved the direct educa
tion aspect of the porn—it was easy to get at the basic mechanics and he’d committed them to memory. The romance had little mechanics but it had something special, that mysterious stuff he felt when he was around Winter. He was sure he needed both but wasn’t sure in what mixture. He did know that he wanted to perform every aspect of the porn’s mechanics with her. On her. Was he supposed to want that?

  The other big problem was Bones. What did he have in mind with her? All this talk about electric chairs and death row was suddenly demanding his attention. He kept reminding himself that he agreed to not hurt her. And there would be a safe word.

  They finally arrived and before Reginald knew it, they were getting out of the truck. Then they were standing at the door. Reginald watched as Bones did everything. Unlocked it, scanned the parking lot after he entered, then shut and locked the door. Smooth and cool.

  He turned and walked toward the room she was supposed to be in, his steps calm and calculated. Reginald wanted to indulge a million OCD urges but Bones refused him on every angle, forcing him to just hold on tight. It didn’t matter that he no longer wanted to do this. He didn’t need to interact with humans, he didn’t need….

  His thoughts froze right in his mind when she came into view. Bones stopped at the doorway and slipped behind Reginald, giving him the floor.

  Reginald slowly walked toward her, his eyes devouring every detail, just like in the graveyard. The blindfold allowed that. She was so beautiful, he could hardly breathe. Step by step, he drew closer. He caught the light tremble in her body as he carefully sat on the bed next to her chair.

  “Cinnamon,” he whispered.

  She jumped and turned her head toward him.

  “I’m sorry,” he hurried in quiet tones. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

  She kept her face aimed at him and he took in the visible shaking in her body. Nervous? Scared?

  “It’s Christopher,” he said, feeling like she needed to know. “How are you?” he asked, worried about her. The bruises he’d seen in the dark were barely visible. Hidden under her makeup, he could see. His eyes lowered to her chest and he studied the rapid rise and fall. He took in the way she gripped the edges of the chair until her muscles trembled. She held her knees tightly shut.