Shudder (4 page)

Natalie wished Rafael and Shane good night with a trembling and hoarse voice, closed and locked the door, pulled off her green wig, walked back to her bed on shaky legs, and prostrated herself on it.

The special sheets were now crumpled and covered with cold wet stains made by various bodily fluids, most of them discharged by herself.

Although she didn't Kangaroo in either way, she did do Pelican. Layers of her own saliva covered her face, dried semen knotted her hair, and her whole body was sticky with hers and theirs sweat. Bits of semen also constricted the skin on her breasts, like small torn pieces of cling foil, but she couldn't yet muster the strength needed for the taking of a shower.

Her hands shook when she tried to lift them into the air and a foggy weakness had crept into her brain.

She breathed in small shallow inhalation and exhalations, as if the very air itself still held the imprint of the situation that had just ended, an imprint that she did not yet wish to let go.

She also breathed shallowly because now that the anesthesia of sexual excitement was wearing off, her throat felt far too sore to let in substantial amounts of air.

Her delicate hands slid slowly down her brown stomach and after lingering for a while on the inner sides of her thighs, settled on both sides of her vagina.

The small tremors going through her hands initiated in answer almost perceptible electric reactions in the tenderized skin.

Through no conscious decision did Natalie start stroking herself, it seemed to happen by itself shortly after she started replaying in her mind the sex with the two gigolos. In hindsight, they did everything as they should have, although at first she had felt short-changed.

The new man, Shane, turned out to be an Afro. They hadn't warned her. She herself was disturbed at her racist reaction, she had never respected that in her Dad, but it took her some effort to ignore the color of his skin.

Anyway, she couldn't go on being a black girl who only has sex with white boys forever. One had to start somewhere.

In the end, she had managed to suppress her involuntary revulsion, or rather, what was even better for this specific situation, had succeeded to convert it into arousal.

After ‘loosening her up' by kissing and licking her body for more than five minutes, the two gigolos had laid on both sides of her and had simultaneously pushed their tongues deep inside her ears.

A new technique, which had taken her quite by surprise. She had hoped that they would surprise her with something.

This outlandish sensation of a strong wet presence filling up her whole field of hearing with soft squelching, together with the increasing outside control on her body's movements, were enough after a mere minute to override her mind.

After that, by gradually increasing the stress laid upon her body, from caresses to gentle slaps, from gentle slaps to harder slaps, tugs of hair, and pinching of skin, but always very professionally, the two prostitutes entered their dominatrix roles and had used her for the remainder of the two hours she had paid for.

When they had taken their positions working on the orifices at the both ends of her body, they had managed at not too few moments to achieve harmony in their respective rhythms of movement, and in these moments Natalie's very self had retreated to a tiny glimmer of perception surrounded by a turbulent ocean of sensations.

It was as if she had regressed to being just a tube of flesh, at the two ends of which, synchronized vibrations produced waves that canceled out the whole human world.

Even before that, at the moment in which her brain had started shutting down as the two tongues slobbered on her eardrums, nothing any longer stopped her from contorting her face in the most uncontrolled grimaces and letting her mouth emit the most uncontrolled sounds.

Freedom?

As her brain relinquished responsibility of the situation, so had the inner controller relinquished control of the maintenance of the persona.

Years of standing in front of the mirror and years of practice in controlling the voice and the face had produced a certain Natalie, who had to be subdued by outside means, if she was ever to allow the body to go insane.

It was precisely this insanity that Natalie was after; this is what she learned to crave after the first tastes of it some years back, because as her body lost control and her mind retreated, so did yesterday and tomorrow retreat and disappear in the sensual haze which pulsated in her skull. With yesterday and today gone, she herself disappeared as well. Where there was no Natalie, there were also no pressures, demands, or responsibilities.

No plans, no obligations, no expectations… Not only was there no one to evaluate or judge, there was, more importantly, no one to be evaluated or judged.

Natalie was already building on top of her memories, adding and rearranging details in order to bring her solitary orgasm to fruition.

She no longer cried or moaned with abandon. She moaned now with a much more calculated voice. Without the outside influence to overload her senses, she was back in control, and in fact had to be in control, because solitary orgasms do not happen by themselves.

Instead of breathing deeper and deeper as she neared orgasm, Natalie almost stopped breathing at all. She let out small sobs as she felt the climax approaching.

After half an hour, after eleven orgasms of various intensities, she let her body take a breather. She dreamt intensively for about a minute and a half, before waking up with a start, and slowly going to the bathroom to finally wash herself.

Standing barefoot on the yellow tiles, she looked at herself in the mirror. The heavy makeup she had deliberately put on for the sex, looked as messed up as she wanted it to be; her mascara all over her cheeks, with black tendrils projecting down to her chin; the glistening hardened remains of real semen, not the imitation gel, knotting up her hair; the puffy dark bags below her eyes.

She didn't recognize herself.

On a whim, she tried to make a face in the mirror, which would feel like the faces she knew she made during the intensive paid ravishing.

She crooked her open mouth like an angry baby and wrinkled her nose; slowly took in the image—the bloodshot eyes shining from the slightly bloated, twisted black face—and suddenly, for no reason she could point out, she started to cry.

A strong feeling of regret and for some reason of futility, all that tinged with a flavor of general injustice, made her howl and cry as a baby cries, without restrain, but shuddering with adult denunciations. This continued for about five minutes.

“Never, never, never, never again.” She spoke aloud as she washed her hair, no longer grimacing but tears still trickling down. “God, why does this happen, I don't want this to happen...”

With a towel turban on her head, somewhat calmer, she drank another half glass of red wine and changed the sheets of her bed.

She climbed into it, the new linens stroking her sensitive skin as she turned and twisted, still upset, her stomach knotted, overcoming her pride and no longer asking but directly praying: “Please God, look at what I do, look at what has happened to me, please help me.”

By three in the morning, Natalie managed to go to sleep. She dreamt of swimming in a lake and of things with tentacles that lived in the deep grabbing at her legs and pulling her down.

She tried to get away, but at the same time did not want to get away, and once under the surface of the oily liquid, the more she didn't breathe, the less she struggled to free herself.

Suddenly she was awake, feeling a presence in her room.

Two figures were standing by the window. She did not dare turn her head to see if they were really there, but she knew for certain that they were. She felt them looking at her, edging closer ever so slowly.

Then she heard a sound from the corridor between the living room and the kitchen.

Steps.

Someone was walking but feet were not creating that tap-tap.It sounded like hooves.

A thing with hooves was walking about in her home.

Natalie heard it quite distinctly, as distinctly as she felt the presence in her room.

She lay there, daring not breathe audibly, her muscles tightened, her nerves on edge, trying to look only at the wall next to her face, to avoid accidentally glimpsing something that would bring the whole world down.

She only managed to sleep a little in the morning, as the sun rose, before it was time to go to work.

After the pleasant talk yesterday with Andy Fortham in the precinct's cafeteria, Dave now had in his inbox the statements of all three victims of the ‘toy-basher', as he had named the unknown perpetrator for his own convenience.

Surprisingly, only one of the toy owners was a bachelor, the other two were married men and had apparently been keeping their toys secret from their spouses.

Until the toy-basher had struck, that is.

Dave closed his eyes and rubbed his face. Then his left hand went back on the desk, while his right one remained in the vicinity of his head, hanging from his lower lip. He pulled at his lip some more, scratched his nose, and made a funny noise by sucking air through his lower teeth.

What were the first things to check in such a case?

Three areas of inquiry fermented slowly in his mind for some time now: did the owners of the destroyed cyber dolls know each other; what specific type were the dolls themselves; had the owners purchased them in a shop, or ordered them online.

Naturally, the police had neither included the exact types of the dolls in their report, nor had they asked how they were purchased. Then again, what can one expect from badly paid amateurs like them? Evidently, it was up to him to hunt down the details of the case.

He was now in possession of the coordinates of all three victims and so he picked up his phone and dialed the first number. The phone on the other end of the line rang for about ten seconds before someone picked up.

“Hello, who is this?”

“Hi,” Dave said with his deep official voice, “I'm looking for Mister Phalak Chipayda?”

“Chippada. On the telephone, who am I speaking to?”

Mister Chippada spoke quickly, almost merging the words.

Dave tried to lead the pace to more measured modes, “Hi, this is David Cohran, a detective working with the city police. I'm working on the case of the break-in into your house.”

“Ah, good to know but I am busy right now…”

“Certainly, Mister er...Chippada.” Dave made a measured pause, “perhaps you can tell me when it would be convenient to meet so that I can ask you a few quick questions?”

There was a brief silence on the other end of the line. Then the fast-paced speech resumed, “Well, let's say in two, no, two and a half hours in the...do you know that place, near the… no, wait. Do you know that new shopping mall near the old railway station?”

“Er, yes I do know that mall. I haven't been there yet.”

“Splendid, they have a nice cafe on the first floor. Okay to be there in two, no, two and a half hours?”

“All right, Mister Chippada, see you then.”

“Quite, good bye.”

Dave wrote down the appointment and called the second number. It rang for almost half a minute before the voicemail switched on.

“Er, hi, this is Dave Cohran, detective for the city police. I'm looking for Mister Muis Munyos Bardales. Please call this number.”

After leaving this message, Dave scribbled a question mark beside ‘Bardales', and dialed the third number.

The phone was snatched up almost immediately, and a hoarse voice snapped, “Yes, who is this?”

“Mister Boyle? Desmond Boyle?”

“He speaking, who you be?”

Dave rolled his eyes and introduced him for the third time, “Hi, this is detective David Cohran, concerning that break-in into your house.”

“Ah yeah, you've pinked who make the
fafa
?”

“Not yet, Mister Boyle. I'm calling to ask you to meet me, so that I can write down some details, which my colleagues in the police may have overlooked.”

“Well, I be out of town at the moment and be back in a week. Can't we deal liner?”

“Certainly, if you don't mind.”

“No I don't. Go snap me in.”

“Right, how did you purchase your sex doll—online, or in an old shop?”

“Hrmph, an old shop.”

“What was its name and address?”

“Erm...just a sec.”

Dave was aware of the background voices that had audible up to now through the phone receding into the distance. Mister Boyle had walked off to a more private place.

“Listen, you be right, Mister...Calahan”

“Cohran.”

“Pardon, Cohran. That's an infa I be only giving to a dook I be sure is a sniffer, and here-now, as I cannot see your...credentials...”

“All right, I understand, Mister Boyle. When did you say are coming back into town?”

“In a week. Next Friday.”

“In that case then, I will give you a call on Friday.”

“Yes, do that, best mest and goodbye...”

“Bye,” snapped Dave and switched on to the other line. Someone was calling him. “Yes, Detective Cohran on the phone.”

“Hello, Munyo Bardales, you called just now but I couldn't talk then.”

“Ah yes, Mister Bardales. I would like to take some more details concerning the break-in into your home, when would it be convenient to meet?”

“Where are you now, detective?”

“Er, you want to come over to me?”

“Sure thing, I'm a cabby, just say where you are.”

Dave said his address. The cabby repeated it. “Okay, I can be over in forty minutes. Is that good?”

“That's good, Mister Bardales. I'll be waiting.”

Dave put down the phone and crossed out the question mark near Bardales' name. He added ‘next week Friday' next to Boyle's name and looked at the time. It was 16.04.

Presumably, Bardales would arrive a little before 17.00. At around 18.20, he would meet Phalak in the new mall. It would take him about a half an hour to get there in the early evening traffic, so he could give Bardales forty minutes of his time at the most. That should be more than enough.

He heard the sound of dance music in the other room, and deciding to combine idle curiosity with lukewarm coffee, he took his private mug and exited his private office.

Maldiva was sitting at her desk, with a sparkling crimson lipstick today, and the old TV near the visitor's sofa was on.

A girl of about eight was sitting on the sofa, one leg folded beneath her, the other dangling over the edge. She was watching intently a music clip and was trying to imitate with her arms and shoulders the movements of the people dancing on the screen.

“Mister Cohran, this is Lucy,” Maldiva said quickly. “Lucy, say ‘hi' to Mister Cohran.”

Lucy unglued her gaze from the screen long enough to wave a hand at Dave, and sank back into the glamorous world of close-ups of high heels and tilted frames of moving bodies.

“You remember I said last week that Lucy would be with me today, Mister Cohran?” asked Maldiva.

Dave had completely forgotten, but now an echo of a memory resurfaced, that he had indeed heard something like that, and had probably nodded in a noncommittal way, which Maldiva had expertly interpreted as enthusiastic agreement.

“Yeah, I remember,” Dave said. “Lucy,” he added as proof that he remembered, and started pouring the coffee into his mug.

“Slap. Slappy slappy slappy yeah.

Slappy, slappy, slappy hoe,

Nevah nevah let me go,

Nevah evah slappy hoe.”

Dave finished refilling his mug and glanced at the TV screen. Lucy's torso was modestly gyrating in attempted sync with a female performer surrounded by six young males in g-strings, red masks with zipped mouth holes clinging to their faces.

The singer was dressed in a tight orange latex suit, with sparkling glass gems, at least Dave hoped they were glass gems, on her green boots and gloves. She had a tilted fedora on her head, and a close-up of her own brown mask revealed that not only was her mouth hole with an unzipped zipper, but that also the eye slits had tiny zips, which were also unzipped.

The camera twirled a few times around the performer and then suddenly receded, showing the whole dancing crew.

“And when I come to your door,

Don't you evah let me go,

Take me quick-ah, take me quick-ah

Nevah evah slappy hoe.”

Dave glanced at Lucy, then at Maldiva. Maldiva was quietly typing something on her PC, her blue nails flashing with each clickity-clack. To Lucy, apparently the clip was showing a fantastic way to dance, and dress, unfortunately.

He shrugged his shoulders and retreated to his room.

There was no point in thinking further about the toy-basher case, until he had met with at least the two victims that were in town, so he decided to be a responsible citizen and see what the news sites had to offer concerning the upcoming elections.

As usual, it was easier said than done, because of the battle of his conscious will against his deep-seated aversion to politics, and thus numerous other news distracted him quite successfully.

The South Carolina governor had finally come out and made a public statement concerning his use of a cybernetic little boy sex toy.

Naturally, as a Christian and a long standing defender of family values, he hoped for the forgiveness and understanding of his family and supporters. This was a difficult time for everyone and only by working together would they get beyond this shameful episode.

Dave pressed the see whole statement link.

Blah, blah, family and supporters, aha, here was the continuation of the humbled senator's speech.

“I hope everyone, including the media, will understand the need for some simple human privacy, which I and my wonderful family need, in order to sort things out.

I regret with all my heart, that I have let my family down, and also that I have let down my supporters.

I have not been true to my values and my behavior is not what my family deserves. It is not what you all deserve.

I am not without faults, as I am only human, therefore imperfect.

This was a disgusting lapse of morals on my behalf, but as we all know, sin is strong, but with the help of the Lord, we can be stronger.”

Dave glanced at the comments below the article, which were not very informative, since they had almost nothing to do with the story. Rather, the commentators were pursuing personal vendettas against each other.

An analysis of the current phase of the Indo-China cold war caught his attention. Its outlines now lurked behind the tension between Sudan and Kenya, where already a number of armed skirmishes had taken place.

The nuclear superpower behind Kenya was India, and the one behind Sudan was China.

The author of the article counted this as a positive development, since India and China were no longer amassing troops and missiles at their common border, but had apparently graduated to the more mature behavior of the US and the SU in the previous century.

Americans and Russians had fought it out indirectly in places like Vietnam, Afghanistan, Angola and the Arab-Israel wars. Now India and China had also reached the more sophisticated levels of realpolitik, where faraway conflicts by proxy superseded the option of mutual annihilation.

Dave remembered the last time when there was a crisis between India and China, five or six years ago.

India had made two nuclear tests to show that it was serious. Then Pakistan, as an ally of China, had done three nuclear tests, to confirm that the stakes were high. Russia and her allies stated that they would protect their citizens and interests in the region, by force if necessary, and Chairman Kulachenko had met with the Indian prime minister...

The American president had said that the US will not tolerate use of weapons of mass destruction by any side, and had sent the seventh American fleet into the Indian Ocean, where the Indian and Chinese navies were already at a standoff, and suddenly the whole world was sweating and praying and markets were crashing.

In a sense, the analyst whom Dave was reading was right. Much better that Kenya and Sudan massacre each other for a while, than have global nuclear winter.

Disgusted with himself, Dave finally backtracked to the news section concerning the upcoming elections.

Again, there were tantalizing links around the article and Dave just couldn't help himself. He chose,
Indonesian President: Moon Landing Within Five Years.

He raised an eyebrow. He read the article.

In cooperation with Malaysia, Australia, and Thailand, Indonesia was working on a moon program, which apparently would allow a crew comprised of cosmonauts from the four countries in question to reach the Earth's satellite.

There was a link to Nigeria's space program, but Dave suppressed the impulse to check it out. He promised himself to read just one more article, before concentrating on the elections.

His choice for a last distraction was
UK Hooligans Sent to Siberia
. An eye-catching headline certainly.

A new law and another effort in the war against teenage binge drinking and knife crime would help send the young offenders with sentences up to five years to work in Siberian correctional camps for the duration of their sentences.