‘Fuck my health!’ She thought acidly, pouring herself a large Dewar’s, knocking it back in one mouthful, then pouring another.
Wanda Starcrosse slumped onto a barstool, at the long white marble countertop in her kitchen. She’d returned home from her Madam’s office and taken a shower. Her exhaustion was matched only by the depth of her confusion and fear. The last confrontation with Sosa made it easy to swallow her pride. Thinking of Ramón’s lovesick devotion festering into hatred made the call to Lake almost easy. The Mexican was a dangerous man to begin with. Now he was a Benefactor in love – the very worst kind of trouble for a Bound Concubine.
She pulled the robe tighter around herself, barking at the apartment AI to raise the ambient temperature. Morensky was in the wind, lost to his own grief and various manifestations of guilt. He couldn’t be depended on. Uncle’s sudden death meant he had too much on his own plate. The timing sucked, but then when did it ever not? The drunken bastard couldn’t even remember being told… She cursed herself for going over the same old shit. Then she fumed silently, unable to grasp how it had even been possible. She’d had the required medical procedures, been implanted. All Lakes girls were. Trust Morensky to find a way to complicate things. The tortured soul routine was endearing, at first. Now she needed him to focus he was further away from her than ever. Enret’s Tavern had been a waste of fucking time.
Tears welled in her Lapis eyes as she cradled her second slug of Scotch. She tossed the Whisky down her neck and threw the tumbler in the nearest sink, flinching at the piercing sound of shattering glass. Then she screamed.
She’d been met by Madam Lake at the Training House underground, beneath one of her clubs. Careful to omit the most damning detail of her predicament, Starcrosse had confessed to getting involved with her first client – Jack Morensky. She’d gone on to admit to seeing him on a semi-regular basis, continuing the affair behind both Lake and Sosa’s backs. Wanda finally admitted being in love with the former cop turned bodyguard.
Madam Lake was neither angry, or surprised…
‘I’ve always known you were in love with Jack.’ She’d said evenly, reclining in her chair behind a desk that was more for show than work. ‘You were in love with him the morning you returned from your first time. I saw it in those deep blue eyes.’ Tiff went on. ‘I should’ve been harder on you, stricter. Somehow I could never bring myself to be so. You’re one of the finest girls I ever trained, Wanda. Perhaps even my best. You, Katarina, Durham – I’ve loved you all like daughters. Now look at us! Slaves to a spoiled over confident kingpin and his sister, both of them ripe for a fall.
Their own people no longer trust or respect them. Their alliances are crumbling under their noses, right beneath their feet. They’re both too wrapped up in each other to see it. Well, they’re not taking us down with them, my dear. I’ve already set things in motion to free us from Brother and his fatal short sightedness. ‘
‘What about Sosa’s claim I’m somehow related to his dead wife?’ Wanda demanded. ‘He’s freaking me out Tiff! Keeps banging on about my being her double, or clone, or something. I’ve told him – we can’t clone people yet, but he’s obsessed. He was creepy enough before, but now?’
‘It was a mistake for me to ever allow your paths to cross.’ Lake replied, as if that somehow constituted an answer. The mention of Inez Posada made Lake stiffen slightly in her seat, Wanda noticed. It was a subtle reaction, skillfully belying the true depth of feeling behind it.
‘That’s not an answer, damn it!’ Starcrosse snapped. Lake raised an expertly waxed eyebrow yet remained calm, at least on the surface.
‘You’re right. It’s not.’ She replied evenly, any anger at Wanda’s insubordination kept out of her tone. The Madam mulled it over for a few moments, as the silence grew louder in the air between them.
‘Go home.’ She finally ordered. ‘Take a shower, pack a few things, then drive yourself back here. I’ve dismissed Valenari from your service. He’s been well taken care of.
When you get back here I’ll tell you everything. Everything I should’ve told you a long time ago.’
‘No. Tell me now!’ Wanda’s voice was becoming shrill. Her head spun with confusion and fear. For the first time since becoming a Bound Concubine she felt utterly lost. Jack had been telling her for years her life was a cleverly structured lie. Finally, she was coming to believe him. Lake took a deep breath, clearly angering at the insistence.
‘Get yourself packed and get back here. Then we’ll talk!’
‘And what about Jack?’ Wanda asked helplessly, sounding way more pathetic than she’d planned.
‘Forget about Morensky!’ Lake barked. ‘At least for now. He’s no use to anyone – least of all you – the state he’s in. I might be able to get word to him about you at a later date. I have various connections I’ve built up over the years, independently of Brother and his minions. I have to get you all safe first!’
‘I have to go away?’ It was dawning on Wanda now. Lake was deserting Nexus and taking her entire business with her. Panic entered her bloodstream along with the confusion.
‘We don’t have any fucking choice! We’re out of options. We can’t be a part of his dealings anymore. If we want to live we have to disappear. ALL of us.’
Morensky’s office hadn’t returned her calls. Her holo-emitter held no messages. She was sickened, even if she understood why. Morensky would be at Drakken Manse, shut away from the world. Isolation was the only thing that could alleviate the crushing headaches from those damaged eyes. Wiping Scotch off her hands she hopped off the stool, went to her computer console and tried again, conscious that she should be packing.
Lucretia Revis flickered into view on Wanda’s photonic display. She expected nothing more, but was still surprised at the increase in her misery getting Jack’s personal secretary caused.
‘I’m sorry Ms. Starcrosse,’ Revis said politely with a saddened smile. ‘He hasn’t been in the office since before the funeral. I’m under strict instructions that he not be disturbed.’
‘Goddamn it, it’s urgent Luc!’ Wanda inadvertently shouted, not wishing to be nasty. Revis, to her credit, ignored the outburst. The gothic secretary looked down, checking her touch screen again.
‘I’ve left several messages on your behalf,’ She said gently. ‘Drakken’s AI informs me he hasn’t even checked his service. All I can suggest is you go see him yourself. A personal call may have better luck?’
‘I’m sorry for my outburst Luc. You’re just doing your job.’
‘Not at all. You have a good evening.’
Starcrosse understood Ramón’s position, the emotions driving him. Reading men as if they were books had been her calling, her life’s work, if she ever had such a thing. Understanding Sosa didn’t make her skin crawl any less. The Mexican’s fervor made him even more dangerous, born of his frustration at her inability to love him.
Her diagnosis hadn’t broken through Jack’s blackout and Madam Lake would have to be told when she returned to Training House. It wouldn’t be long before she’d be unable to conceal the condition. Starcrosse finally needed Morensky for something other than to make her feel like less of a flesh and blood sex toy. She’d admonished him so many times for his insufferable pride. That same pride now stuck in her own throat, choking her. How had she been so stupid as to let this happen? She wasn’t sure Jack was up to the task. The last thing he needed was her problems heaped upon his own. His drinking continued to spiral out of control. If not for that he would’ve remembered her words in the first place. The alcohol had blanked their last night together from his mind, now it was further away from where she needed it to be: clouded by grief. A sense of urgency gripped her. She needed to change and leave.
She stared at herself in the bedroom mirror. Perfect hair, albeit wet. Perfect skin, perfect eyes and a body that men would die to consume. She didn’t see herself any longer. She saw a moving breathing doll. A waxwork, not a woman. Her fist had clenched unbeknownst to her. Suddenly it flew into her blank reflected face, shattering the cold eerie silence of her apartment once more. She barely flinched as the glass fell to the marble floor around her feet. Tiny cuts on her calves, ankles and bare feet didn’t register.
Wanda ignored the mess she’d made smashing her mirror, stepping over the broken shards leaving tiny slivers of blood on the floor. She stripped out of her robe, slipping on a white t-shirt, panties and a pair of stonewashed 501’s. She then packed, hurriedly.
Looking around at the luxury in which she lived she chilled further to the realisation she was losing it all the second she walked out the door. Considering the nightmare her young life had been, she’d done extremely well for herself.
Her mother committed suicide when she was six. For the frightened little girl, there was no time to grieve. There was no time to look to the sky and ask God why her mother had left her all alone, in a world that cared too little for its children. She became a ward of the fragmented Golgothan welfare system. The pretty little blonde girl with pigtails (and a raggy brown teddy bear as her only true friend) was soon shunted from foster home to foster home; state raised with no father or known living relatives. Charlie Bear would listen silently for hours at night, while she poured her broken heart out to him. His cute yet earnest furry brown face would, more often than not, be damp with her tears as she snuggled down with him under her thin blanket at night. Sleep seemed the only escape from the unrelenting misery of a life devoid anyone to call her own. Mommy must have hated her, or thought her a very bad girl to leave her. Only Charlie Bear understood. That teddy bear was always there for her.
Wanda glanced at the sofa where Charlie sat. The teddy looked up at her and a smile spread on his fuzzy face. He was another thing she had to thank Jack for. When the fur and fabric bear had grown tatty to the point of disintegration, Jack had taken her childhood companion to the robotics department of FAO Schwartz in New York. Using her old trusted cuddly toy as a reference, he’d commissioned the engineers to custom built her a revitalised Charlie Bear. Morensky returned a week later with a soft and cuddly robotic AI companion. The trusted teddy bear of her painful past now thought, walked, talked. Charlie even learned thanks to a few algorithmic tweaks Tao had added for her.
‘Good evening Wanda.’ Charlie said in his low gruff voiceprint. ‘How are you?’
‘Not so good tonight Charlie.’ She said. The bear climbed slowly and carefully down from her couch and scampered to her side. She scooped him off the floor and hugged him gently. His black eyes reminded her a little of Jack’s as he nuzzled her face.
‘Anything I can do?’ The bear asked, putting a paw to her face.
‘You can come with me, as always.’ She replied, opening her bag and gesturing to the robot. The bear climbed into her bag, sitting between the carry handles, looking expectantly up at her.
She’d been coldly spurned by the other foster children as ‘the freak whose mom killed herself’ and by her foster parents (of which there were many) as a sullen withdrawn child living in a world of her own. Wanda lived in that personal purgatory. At eight years old she was transferred, due to another parent’s inability to bond, to a care hostel in the Wilson district of Sector 11. Unbeknown to her at that age, the hostel was greatly subsidised by The Golgothan Nexus. One day a beautiful and kindly woman named Tiffany came to the Wilson Farside Hostel for Underprivileged Girls. It had been Ms. Lake who’d transformed Wanda’s life.
‘The blonde in the corner, off to herself, will not mix with the other girls. She lives in a self-imposed dream world, refuses to put aside that damned teddy bear she drags after her everywhere.’ Wanda supposed Lake heard this story from several of the staff at the hostel during her scouting visit. She must’ve been intrigued because she made it her mission to get to know her. It was now clear to Wanda that Lake was grooming her for the life she now led, from the first time they met.
It took several visits to the home, over several months. All the while she now knew Lake had been recruiting other young women into her school for Bound Concubines. Eventually Tiffany began to draw Wanda out of her protective shell. Lake became many things to her: a friend, an ally against the cruelty of the other girls or the injustices doled out by hostel staff. Lake became (as the weeks and months drew on unheeded) the Mother she’d never had. Against her strong instincts to the contrary Wanda had often felt Lake to be personally invested in her, during the months spent drawing her out. She would eventually become one of Lakes many novices in the vaunted ‘Training House’.
Before that Starcrosse left the hostel and went to live with Tiffany in her luxurious high-rise apartment in Sector 2, near Shibuya, Little Tokyo. Most of the Japanese population lived and worked there, in opulent central Golgotha.
It was there that Wanda was quickly shown a life of which she had only dreamed; a life where she was loved and respected and appreciated for her worth as a human being. Lake bought her new clothes and she slept with Charlie in a deep luxurious bed. She ate food beyond her wildest imagining, was introduced to friendly polite and wealthy business people from all over the country. This was her gentle introduction to life as a highly trained and greatly rewarded courtesan. It was a long time before she knew of Tiffany’s secretive and sadist boss.
The taste of the good life afforded her only strengthened her resolve to become the most skilled Bound Concubine in Lake’s Academy. Wanda exceeded all Tiffany’s expectations; becoming adept at all aspects of her extensive training. Lake’s girls where not just beautiful bodies contracted to the highest bidders, they were artists. She’d been schooled properly for the first time in her short miserable life. Between the ages of eight and sixteen she was taught reading, writing, math, science, some philosophy, yoga, gymnastics, swimming, massage and undertook weight training. All these skills were intended to create the perfectly honed body and intellectual mind. Combined these skills and attributes made for a stunning hostess and companion. Lake had to admit that Wanda was one the finest she’d ever had the pleasure of schooling.
Starcrosse knew her power over men; took pride in it even. She’d worked her ass off perfecting herself. She’d been a quick study – exuding sexual maturity and sensual allure from a perfect sixteen-year-old body. By the time she’d completed her training, Tiffany knew that her little protégé’s first client would have to be a man of select background. He’d have to be someone her organisation could vet, under close scrutiny. Her first client would have to treat her little darling with tenderness and respect, and above all – be gentle. So Lake held Wanda back from making her professional debut while she researched her vast wealth of client data for the right personality type to break her favourite ‘daughter’ in. Then came a recommendation from another wealthy Nexus client. Stove King informed the Madam that he had a business connection perfect for Wanda’s debut. This was how Starcosse came to meet Morensky. He’d been disgraced and maneuvered out of the police department, in a hail of adverse publicity. But King spoke highly of him. King never spoke well of anyone, which was good enough for Lake to reach her decision. Morensky became her professional debut and in doing so she broke the cardinal rule of a Bound Concubine.
Now, stood in her sterile white apartment, the situation confronted her, like an unlit highway at night.
Wanda could never understand how a man of Ramón Sosa’s ill temperament and violence claimed to be so deeply in love with her. Well, strictly speaking that wasn’t true. She knew how he could be. It was the premium fantasy she was trained to provide. The illusion of love, of sustained intimacy that was her skill set. She felt no pity for Sosa. He’d given her no reason to. The random slaps, the humiliation he’d subjected her to for resisting his ‘affection’. Her previous complaints about Sosa’s violent disrespect were like waving into blind eyes. Lake’s sympathy was there alright, beneath the surface. The Madam was as trapped in business with the man named Brother as she was, Wanda eventually understood. The wages of sin were great, but the soul paid a higher price. What Starcosse had witnessed at Nex-Com, concerning Orlova’s murder proved the point. Her Madam had been as scared as she, as they’d watched Sosa take a vicious beating. Wanda refused to believe Tiffany’s fear was solely of Brother. The name Posada Wanda laid on her was part of that fear. Who the fuck was Inez Posada? Why did she look identical to Wanda? Lake had spent too many years’ flesh dealing to just roll over for Brother, the way she had in recent months. Tiff used to be a hard-boiled business woman. That had now changed. Lake was afraid. Really afraid now. Someone was systematically slaughtering Bound Concubines and their political Benefactors. Even Brother and Sister had no idea who…
Starcrosse wasn’t sure being back at the top of Tiffany’s Benefactor ‘wish list’ was what she wanted. Then again, was exile preferable? She had no clue what Lake had planned for her surviving girls, only that being spirited away was part of it. Morensky had offered her a way out of the life, so many times before. She hadn’t taken his offer for the very reason she saw in his oily eyes, whenever she told him she loved him. She didn’t like being dependent on anyone, physically or emotionally. It was because of that she understood his fear of commitment, even if she hated him for it. Truth to tell, she utterly reliant on Jack whenever they were skin-to-skin. He was like air to her. She needed him to breath. She’d needed Lake most of her life. Fucking up in her duties as a Concubine had cost her dearly, in the past. Ramón Sosa would never let up. Lake was right. They all must disappear.
The sky darkened as she stood staring out of her panoramic Intelplex window.
Starcrosse dropped the bag to the marble floor, to a grunt of protest from her teddy. She glanced down at Charlie. His fuzzy caramel brown face was rippling, as if he were leaning from a car window, travelling at speed. The blast wave rendered her deaf and struck her dumb. A brief feeling of weightlessness permeated her body as she was lifted out of her heels. Searing pain came next as her body was thrown hard against the lounge window.
When her eyes fluttered open in panic. She instinctually shielded her face, throwing up shaking hands as she found herself laying on her side at the foot of her cracked window. She was engulfed in a cloud of shattered glass and fine bone china. The explosion had thrown her against the toughened Intelplex window with such force it had spider-webbed. She’d slid to the floor, leaving a red negative of blood in the expanding web of cracks. Looking up through the dense cloud of choking concrete dust she could make him out as he stepped into her home.
Ramón Sosa stood on her flattened security door, in the chasm where her interlock used to be. His half emblazoned face bore a strange kind of resigned. With an arctic chill in her fluttering heart, Starcrosse knew she hadn’t fled fast enough.
He watched her gaze widen in fear, feeding off it with insatiable appetite. The same ardor he’d shown her in bed. She staggered to her feet with difficulty, screaming. White hot pain from multiple spinal lacerations flaring throughout her shaking body.
‘Hey beautiful.’ He said softly, stepping forward through the cloud of dust. Then he punched her the face.
Wanda left her feet again. The sickening crack of her left cheekbone breaking, filling
her skull. Dizziness engulfed her even as her face exploded with pain. She landed badly
on the hard white floor by the sofas. Spitting out several teeth, her mouth was suffused
with the hot coppery tide of her own blood. She coughed hard, spattering the floor with
crimson. Split lips and a broken cheekbone reeling in her skull made her want to
vomit. The blood made her gag.
Sobbing, she immediately tried to sit up. Pulling shards of glass and china from her
bleeding thighs, turning her denims slowly black. Her eyes were prisms of tears that
seemed to delight the Mexican. The days since their last meeting had fermented
desperate love into a hatred burning his skin like lye.
Wanda wiped the stream of blood from her lips with the back of a hand, snarling at Sosa.
‘So I guess if you can’t have me, no one can?’
He ignored the question.
‘I thought we’d have one last appointment, before I send you back to your ‘mommy’.’ He replied, his facial tattoo contorting slightly.
The smashed particulars of Starcrosse’s apartment spun in Sosa’s head, along with his desire and anxiety. He was deep within the grasp of a mind-set hell-bent on getting it’s due. For too long he’d been held back from this blonde succubus by the scum his Father had allied his family to. Why the hell he’d begged and accommodated Starcrosse for so long was finally a puzzle to him. He was her Benefactor, her master in essence. Her existence came from a percentage of every thousand-dollar hour she’d spent expertly lying to him; he and doubtless hundreds of other poor spellbound bastards. He’d found he hated her as much for that, as her callous inability to love him as he did her. Ramón had slowly come to realise Wanda would never yield to his affections. Uncovering her relationship with the American had cemented it, beyond hope. Kidnapping the snotty cunt was pointless. He didn’t want her to be captive. He didn’t want her forced. He wanted her to love him; gratefully, willingly. She never would.
‘Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interred.’ Sosa uttered, almost under his breath, as he looked down on her through desolated eyes.
Wanda’s mind swam with thought. Why hadn’t the fucking AI alerted her to an unannounced caller? Lake had fired Valenari, it wasn’t his fault – this time.
‘Shakespeare, really?’ She asked, grinning at him with crimson teeth in spite of both herself and the pain. He slapped her hard across the broken cheek turning deep purple from sub-dermal haemorrhaging. His opening right hook had been perfect. All those savage bouts in his Father’s boxing ring back home paid off. She slumped backwards, blood flying from her lips, slashing Charlie Bear’s earnest caramel face as he watched helplessly from her bag. The blow left her laying spread eagle on the floor before him with another gurgle choked scream. The robotic bear wiped her blood from its face, climbed out of the leather overnight bag and rushed to her side. Amused, Sosa kicked the robot, punting it into the corner of the lounge. Charlie Bear didn’t get up: damaged or broken. Sosa laughed as he straddled her fallen body, applying the full weight of his muscled torso to keep her from getting up, gripping her legs with his own.
Badly wounded, she struggled uselessly to escape him. She watched, through bleary eyes, the satisfaction swelling in his heaving chest. Excitement ran wild in his veins like pure adrenaline, but more than that he was also afraid. She could tell there was a war being fought inside him. As cold as it was in her apartment with the door blown off, Sosa’s forehead shone under her lounge lights, beaded heavily in sweat. His eyes were as wild as his body language, pupils dilated.
Sosa couldn’t decide what was more fun – his arousal or her fear. She was making a show of strength, in the face of her uncertain predicament, but they both saw through that. Her fear was a total rush, the perception of which the mescaline vape he’d taken on the way over had heightened considerably. His desire to kiss her smashed and bloody lips was overwhelming. Blood seemed to run from her mouth in slow motion, as the drug swimming alongside the Patrón in his arteries altered his perception of time. His lips devoured hers. His rough kiss stifled her scream as she clawed at him. Ramón forced his tongue into her mouth, savouring her coppery taste.
‘I’d tell you that you’re coming home with me.’ He went on, having broken away, with her blood smeared all over his face. ‘But we both know all that would be is a kidnapping…’ He watched her battered face, in a glorious peyote altered frame rate; watched the realisation of what that meant etch itself on her swollen face.
‘What’re you waiting for, then?’
Sitting back, his heart pounded in his chest aching with a dull thud. In a way he was grateful, even as the sight of her trapped him, just as Inez had trapped him once. No more dithering. Procrastination had run out of time, along with his alliances North of the wall.
‘A man should take pleasure in his work…’ He intimated, allowing his words to percolate within her, giving the allusion time to become her resignation.
Then he punched her a second time, knocking her unconscious.
Some type of dense woollen blanket was removed from her head, then replaced. Several times she felt this happen, her woozy mind struggling to reboot.
‘You’re trembling.’ She faintly heard a muffled voice say.
Disorientated, full of adrenaline and fear; the mixture had her feeling akin to drunk from her hyperactive endocrine system. Cold air, sharp, like kitchen blades, wrapped itself around her throbbing skull, as he finally removed the hood. Through the clearing vision of the eye that wasn’t swollen shut, she looked around.
She was still in her apartment.
The pain flooded back to her, riding on a wave of intense cold. She tried to move and movement brought agony. Her wrists were bound so tightly together the rope he’d used had cut deeply. Her arms were sticky with blood, strung above her head, tied to a hard point he must’ve bolted in her lounge ceiling. Her bare thighs ached. Dried blood smeared black on them itched in the cold. Her legs, like her arms – stretched and tied securely, giving her only enough room to pivot.
Starcrosse was gagged. The twisted rag in her mouth hurt her gums, sawing on her missing teeth. The pain reminded her they’d been knocked out. Her clothes lay on the floor around her feet. Naked and displayed before a faintly smiling Sosa in her lounge window, Wanda shuddered. She couldn’t tell what made her colder – being scared beyond words, having some idea as to what was about to happen, or the certainty she could read in Sosa’s smiling eyes that she wouldn’t survive.
With no desire to be present for whatever justification her former Benefactor was sure to offer, she closed her good eye, just in time to feel her head jerk back. He’d stepped forward, grabbed a fist full of her wet hair. Every organ within her freezing torso shrank like saran wrap under heat, like his hot breath on her exposed neck. She didn’t need to see to feel him penetrate her personal space, as he’d invaded the sanctity of her body so many times before.
‘I am the greatest,’ he whispered tenderly, almost regretfully, in her ear. ‘able to do least,’ she could smell the silver Patrón and Monte Cristos on his breath, close enough to taste the desperation on his flickering tongue. He continued to quote his favourite Shakespearian tragedy.
‘Yet most suspected, as the time and place
Doth make against me, of this direful murder;’
She sucked air violently as she became aware of the blade. Reflex made her bite the rag in her mouth, so hard the sickening crunch of more broken teeth filled her skull. Tears filled both closed eyes as she felt the tip of the blade slip effortlessly beneath her skin, then travel through her abdomen, just below her navel. Wanda realised in that glaring white moment that, to Ramón, their relationship was his very own romantic drama. Even as he made her the finale, she actually pitied him.
‘And here I stand, both to impeach and purge
Myself condemned and myself excused.’
Darkgingerbread 