Perfection-12
- PERFECTION
- by Xenarra
Chapter Twelve
A casual observer would never have noticed anything amiss, but Garrett Harris was far from a casual observer. As a trained reporter, Garrett had already built a substantial reputation for himself as a local reporter who could dig for the facts. His well developed nose for news had lead him again and again to this mansion, one owned by a reputed drug czar. Unfortunately, he had never had more than a hint of scandal on which to base a story. Not enough even for the free lance tabloid writing which supplemented his newspaper job.
The story was there, however. It seemed to permeate the air around the place. And so the sandy haired thirty five year old man returned, again and again on his free time, to loiter just outside its walls, to measure the comings and goings, track the visitors, dream of the "big scoop" which would be his 'Watergate' breakthrough.
Over the year in which he waited, Garrett lost his boyish figure to excessive burgers eaten as he watched and waited, gaining an extra roll around his once trim waist. He also gained an obsession with the place and the newcomer who owned it. This man was an unknown quantity, invisible almost and unknown save for a ruthless reputation on the streets which only took days to develop. He definitely was not on the up side of the law, and therefore was definitely a story in the making, at least in Garrett's mind.
And so it was perfectly natural that Garrett was the first to notice that the big house had gone suddenly quiet. Not a single visitor passed in or out of the gates. For two days, Garrett could see vicious dogs roaming the grounds during the daytime. This in itself was unusual as he had noticed that the dogs were only allowed free range at night. By the third day, the dogs were no longer visible. The empty silence of the house and grounds finally forced Garrett to violate personal and professional doctrines and slip over the fence for a quick look.
When no one challenged his presence, he ventured closer to the mansion. From a distance he could see that the front door was slightly ajar. That, and a faint odor which hung in the air, propelled him forward and to the door.
"Anyone home?" Garrett sang out as his fingertips brushed the door open. Again, no one appeared. So he entered and followed the increasingly nauseating odor forward to one of the side rooms. Another door left ajar opened under his fingertips' most delicate pressures. Garrett took a deep breath of the hallway air, then entered.
The grisly sight which greeted him was more than he could handle. His stomach leapt into his mouth, and he ran from the room in a mad scramble for an exit, any exit, away from the carnage. He found the door to the back patio and fled the house. He managed to travel five feet before he was forced to stop and vomit.
The image of the room burned within his brain. Bodies scattered like rag dolls, their heads and sides split open, lying in pools of their own dried blood. Spatters from the blood, now brownish red, and from the bullet holes polka dotted the walls and ceilings. Most of the people were unrecognizable beyond the clothing which marked them as guest or servant. Literally everyone in the house had been annihilated.
Two sights had stood out from the blur, and Garrett shook his head as if to clear them from his brain. One was the slogan written above the fireplace in dark letters, probably blood: "Cheaters NEVER Prosper". The other was a short, roundish man in a dark suit, made darker at various vital points by gunshot wounds. His face was contorted with impossible pain, one of his eyes open, staring. The other socket full of the stump of a cigar which, judging by the ring of soot and ash, had been extinguished there.
Garrett crouched beside the patio and vomited until it felt as if his insides were petitioning to become outsides. Eventually his stomach cramps subsided. He regained his feet and began to stagger about the yard, gulping in the fresh air and trying to expunge from his memory what he had seen. His wanderings took him far from the walls of the mansion. As time passed and the beauty of the woods around him permeated his confused mind, he slowly regained his sense of balance.
Then he heard a soft moaning coming from a nearby clump of bushes. He parted the brush and found a low, wire cage with something lying within. As he approached, he could tell that the form was human, human female. Her eyes were closed and gaunt, grimy skin was pulled tightly over her bones. Traces of the same putrid smell from the house clung to her skin. Empty food and water bowls nearby told part of the tale. This woman had been a captive of someone at the house, and had been left alone without food or water since before the shooting had taken place. There was no telling how long she had been there, but Garrett recognized immediately that she would not last much longer.
"Hey, lady, wake up." He said. There was no response at all from the woman. Garrett opened the door and crawled in. He touched her shoulder, moved her head back and forth, even yelled in her ear. She showed no response save to tighten herself into a still smaller ball. Knowing the danger of allowing this woman to remain uncared for, Garrett pulled her from the cage and flipped her up onto his shoulder.
While he strode back toward the house, he considered his alternatives. There was a hell of a story in that house. Undoubtedly, the person who broke that story would receive kudos from both the press and the police. The girl was a part of that story, perhaps the only witness to the mayhem. But she was obviously in no shape to talk to anyone, much less a crowd of police and reporters. Turning her over to them would be tantamount to throwing her to the wolves.
As he neared the house, the girl over his shoulder grew agitated, her moans turning to sobs. He didn't need a second reason to avoid viewing the atrocities inside again and continued to walk, taking a side path around the building before trudging down the long drive. Light as she was, the girl was beginning to tire him. He debated the feasibility of vaulting the fence again, then discarded it and tried the gate. With a little fumbling, he was able to release the catch and slip through the opening quickly, reclosing it behind him. Almost at a run in an attempt to avoid prying eyes, Garrett moved from the gate to his car and slipped the girl onto the seat. Before she had a chance to protest, he was seated beside her and had the car moving into traffic.
The ride to his apartment was uneventful. The girl curled herself into a ball on the seat beside him. He tried to stroke her hair to calm her, but she shrank from his touch. As they passed through traffic, he found he could tell much of the tale of her abuse from the marks on her body. Only one thing puzzled him: Every time he asked her who she was, she said, "Slave, Master." Those were the only two words she would speak. And she spoke them with a roteness born of constant repetition.
Constance was a long way from Garrett Harris. In the convoluted paths of her mind, she had found her way back to her childhood home. She was a girl of eight again, playing with dolls, believing in Santa Claus and fairies and unicorns. She had been home for several days before she began to have waking dreams. There was a woods, and she was carried through it. There was a ride in a smelly car. But these things only barely were a part of her awareness. It was much easier, and much more fun, just to play with her friends and forget about these disturbing visions.
Upon arriving at his apartment building, Garrett searched through the accumulation of old clothing and newspapers in the back seat until he found a jacket long enough to pass as a mini skirt, provided one didn't look too closely. He straightened the girl into a sitting position, then tossed her the jacket.
"Here, put this on," Garrett said gruffly. The girl made no move, but sat where he had placed her, the jacket draped over one shoulder and breast. "Goddamn it," he swore and picked up the jacket himself. Raising her left arm, he slid it into one of the sleeves, tugging until it was completely in the sleeve. He then pushed her lightly forward and she flopped over her knees limply. The exasperated man passed the bulk of the jacket behind her, then crouched over her and reached for the other arm to repeat the process. It was an awkward and embarrassing procedure at best. Fortunately, the street was empty and the bizarre scene went unnoticed.
By the time he had managed to lean her back and zip the jacket, his patience and strength were exhausted. The trip across the mansion's grounds had been done on adrenalin. But the constant stress had begun to take its toll. What he wanted more than anything was a cigarette. His last pack was safely tucked away in his apartment, three floors above the car. He didn't dare leave the girl alone who knew what might happen to her in his absence. He therefore gathered his strength, walked around to the passenger's side, and lifted his guest out in preparation for the long climb up.
Garrett draped her left arm over his shoulder holding her left hand with his, and used his free right hand to encircle her waist and pull her tightly against him. His forward motion pulled her along, and her feet responded automatically, if a little awkwardly, until they reached the first step. The feet then stopped working, and Garrett was forced to take each step individually, stepping up, then pulling the limp form next to him up to join him.
At the landing, he tried other strategies. She would not budge at all when he attempted to push or pull her up. The exertion from his struggles left him wheezing for breath. He sat cross legged on the step above her prone body and studied it, wondering if she or the story was worth the trouble. The more he looked, the more scars and burns he noticed. Someone had done this to her, and someone had killed a house full of people. 'Yes', he sighed to himself, 'this did have to be done'.
'This dream seems very real,' thought Constance, 'and I wish who ever keeps pushing me along would leave me alone. I don't want to wake up, and I don't want to walk.' But it was still easier to relax back into her play world than to fight with the world outside.
In the end, Garrett carried the girl in his arms up the last two flights to his tiny studio apartment. Once inside, he made his way immediately to the bathroom. He ran a tub full of hot water, and spent a great deal of time removing the jacket from her still limp form. He placed her in the tub, and she immediately slid below the water and began to drown.
"Not now you don't, lady," Garrett said as he hauled her up by her hair. "It took me too long to get you here." He let go and turned to get soap and wash cloths. She sank again, gentle bubbles rising to the surface to mark her passage. Turning back, he spotted her beneath the water again, and again brought her to the surface. He pulled the plug from the drain and watched the now gray water coil down the drain.
"This isn't working," Garrett muttered to himself. He knelt beside the tub for a while, supporting her head above the water before an idea took shape in his head. Pulling her unresisting, slick body up from the water, he turned her and flopped her tummy down over the side of the tub. "Stay," he commanded and raced off to ransack his closet for needed supplies. He returned with a handful of one inch nylon webbing strips from his last wild assignment, a camping trip with a fifth grade class from the inner city. He had come close that time to using the webbing to secure one particularly 'well behaved' child to a tree. The use he now had in mind was not far from that.
With the girl still bent over the side of the tub, Garrett had little trouble binding her hands together at the wrists. He tugged a bit at the tie until he was satisfied it would support her upper body without cutting into the skin at her wrists. He lowered her back into the nearly empty tub in a sitting position, and fastened the free end of the webbing to the towel bar above and behind her. Her head fell forward to rest on her chest; and while she surely wasn't comfortable, she was in no immediate danger.
Now she was wet. 'Why am I wet?' she wondered. 'Oh yes, it must be getting late, almost bedtime.' Her mind's eye envisioned the pink tiled bathroom of her youth. It must be her mother bathing her. She settled back to enjoy playing in the tub.
Garrett took up the flexible shower head, adjusted the water to a soothingly warm temperature, and began to work on the girl's body, scraping the crusted grime off with the soapy washcloth and rinsing it down the drain. At first he swabbed at her arms and legs with rough, broad strokes, scrubbing the skin red with his efforts. He then took his own razor and shaved the jungle of hair from under her arms and from her legs. When he had only her breasts, belly, and sex left to clean, he released her hands and placed her in a crouched position on all fours. Amazingly, she stayed in place.
'Mustn't move. Mustn't move a bit. This isn't home, and its going to hurt. But it will hurt more if I move. Can't move. Must not move.' Constance had left her home and was now in a gray space. If she strained, she could make things out. But she didn't want to try it was too scary. 'Just float, and accept whatever happened. Better than struggling. Much better.'
He armed himself next with the shampoo. Wetting her head thoroughly and applying the powerful liquid liberally, Garrett let the water run freely as he used both hands to wash her hair. Some of the snarls and tangles were impossible to deal with, so he washed them as well as possible. Handfuls of hair came out as he washed, the obvious result of poor nutrition. These he untangled from his fingers and tossed in the nearby wastebasket. He rinsed the hair, then repeated the process. When he had finished, the covering on the girl's head no longer looked like matted fur.
Again he took up the washcloth and took on the dirty maze of scars which was her back. Many of the wounds were still open and festering with these he took particular care to clean without being cruel. As a final act, Garrett slid the cloth up and down between her ass cheeks, removing all of the matter which had collected there. He hosed her off, the slick suds and dirt sliding down to drip onto the floor of the tub, then be whisked away by the flood of water.
'What now? Why am I being moved? I didn't move. I was good. Please don't hurt me.' A tear slipped down her cheek, unnoticed among all the other drops of water.
She did not seem to want to change positions, and it took all of his strength to return her to her original position and refasten her hands to support her seated body upright. Taking a clean wash cloth, he dampened it and, raising her head by her chin, passed the fabric lightly over her face. He then rinsed it and began to clean her face more meticulously.
He traced and retraced the lines molded in her forehead. He could only speculate at the fear and horror which had ingrained them so deeply in one so young. Next he closed and washed the girl's eyes, one at a time. He looked deep within them when he had finished, searching in vain for a spark of life or understanding. Then he found and washed her ears, releasing dirt stored for weeks with his touch. Her nose, cheeks and chin were next. He even used the cloth to scrub at her teeth.
Not satisfied with the results, he broke out a new tooth brush and went after her mouth with a passion. It was difficult to hold her head up and her mouth open wide with one hand while brushing with the other, but he managed to remove a reasonable amount of the crud which had collected there. More impossible was getting the girl to rinse her mouth. He ended up using the shower head while leaning her forward to prevent the passage of water into her lungs.
Finally, he rested her back and soaped the wash cloth one last time. As he knelt before her, Garrett could feel true affection welling up within him for this woman, so badly used by the world. He put on his mental armor and became determined to defend her against any who would use her so again. The hands which rubbed the soapy cloth against her breasts, belly and sex were far different than those which had started the cleaning procedure. These hands were no longer rough, they were gentle but firm. They massaged the dirt away from her nipples, washed slow circles around her navel, and slid between her legs to caress the filth from her sex. By the time Garrett had finished the final rinse, the girl's body was warm, wet and responding to his touch. He released her arms from the restraints and sat back to light the long awaited cigarette. As much as he wanted to protect this woman, just having his hands against her naked, female body for so long had aroused him.
'Someone was touching her, touching her on her special places. It didn't hurt. It wasn't ok, but it didn't hurt. Too hard to fight. Give in or get hurt. But it didn't hurt? Why?'
Garrett smoked slowly, watching the girl for any sign of mental awareness. He saw nothing, just a shell of a person. He was overwhelmed by the feeling that this woman had no soul, she was just an empty husk. If he skipped her slack jawed face and overlooked the visible bruises, she had cleaned up quite well and was now almost attractive. But there was no inner substance, no awareness. Garrett stubbed out the remainder of his cigarette in the sink, flushed the butt, and turned to the next task getting some nourishment into the girl. He left her in the tub while he found a bowl of broth and a glass of Gatoraid.
Returning, he spent the next exhausting half hour attempting to spoon liquids passed the girl's limp lips. The majority of the broth dribbled out of her mouth and ran in brown lines down her chin and chest. He fared better with the drink, tilting her head back a bit and massaging her throat to help her swallow. In the end, he once again resorted to the shower head to remove the sticky residue. He left her to drip for a moment while he went to the other room and opened the sofa bed. Lifting her out of the tub, he managed to get her to the bed where she landed cross wise. By the time he had her head on a pillow at the head of the bed, he was drenched with sweat and exhausted beyond measure. He stripped to his shorts and fell into bed beside her, slipping immediately into oblivion.
In a dream he felt a woman's naked breasts pressed against his back. They felt warm, soft, yielding. His dream self turned and pushed his face into those breasts. Each ended in a tiny pebble nipple, each in turn found its way into his mouth. Then the world tipped upside down, he lost the breasts. But hands removed his shorts, and a mouth was over his dick, sucking with an animal like ferocity. And a sweet smelling nest of hair was pushed against his mouth, begging to be licked.
There was a maleness beside her. She had to please it. It would hurt her if she didn't. She didn't want to, but she had to. She wanted to play dolls instead. Why couldn't she?
His dream self obliged the being beside him, first tasting the warmth of thighs and belly before dropping down for an extended nuzzle in her pussy. He could feel this woman rise up and push herself against his tongue. The more forcefully he used his tongue, the more deeply she took his rod and the more completely she yielded to his mouth, finally spreading her legs wide and holding his head with both hands.
It was good he was using her, using her hard. If she could make him come, he would be happy. He wouldn't hurt her too much. She could go back to her dolls. 'Touch me! Use me! Then, please, please, leave me alone.'
In his dream, he fondled the woman's breasts, sank fingers deep into her pussy, and teased and tugged on her clit until she grabbed him and bucked her cunt against his face. By now his dick was a painfully hard rock, waiting for release. Quickly, with a wild intensity of his own, he turned the willing body over and propped her with ample pillows in an all fours, head down crouch. This was his favorite fantasy position as it afforded him access to any of a lady's wonderful openings.
This dream woman grunted and thrashed her backside against his dick. She was so hot, so willing. Garrett slid his cock into her cunt and began to move his hips in rhythm to her bump and grind dance. As he worked his dick inside her body, the pleasure level slowly brought him to complete consciousness. With abandon, he pumped into her, grabbing her breasts to get a better hold. He had forgotten everything but the intensity of the moment. The girl's body seemed on fire, heat pouring forth from her belly, pussy and breasts. He might have gone on like that for days, save for a scream which rent the air and split his concentration.
He was fucking her now. If she called his name, he would be happy, he would come. Then she could be alone for a long time. It was nice to be alone. Then she could play. It would be nice to play alone again.
"Master!" she screamed, reaching out to him from her deep inner core. With a start, he looked down at his dream woman, and found the welts and scars of the girl he had saved. "No!" he answered back in a yell. "I am not your Master!" Shaken, he withdrew, cursing his weakness and her base reactions. She collapsed onto the pillows, her passion dissipated as quickly as it had been aroused.
What had she done? What was wrong? What was happening? And why was it happening? She had done everything right. Was he going to hurt her? Better go back home before she found out. Besides, she wanted to get back to her dolls. Best to go back home. End it and go back home.
The girl reached suddenly for a letter opener on the end table. She brandished it like a weapon at him, then began sawing on her wrists with its dull blade. Garrett grabbed her wrist, knocking the opener from her grasp with a mighty sweep of his hand. She fell backward to the bed, the blankness returning to her eyes. He sat very still, fighting to get his breathing under control. This woman was more animal than human. How could he protect her from others when she, herself, was so bent on self destruction?
Garrett left the bed slowly, his eyes never leaving her still body. Recognizing both his need to be alone and her drive for self destruction, he grabbed the webbing left over from the bath. Gently but determinedly he bound her hands and feet together and tied the webbing securely to the frame of the sofa sleeper. He left her on the bed to sleep. Disgusted with his loss of control, he dressed and left the apartment. He felt alone, trapped, and definitely in over his head. Nothing in his long career had prepared him to deal with a situation like this.
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