The Woman They Kept (12 page)

Leanin was similarly restrained,
her flesh exposed, ropes tight around her breasts. There was a
black and red welt at her side where the stun gun had zapped her.
She stirred, shaking her dark hair from her eyes.

The cell door clanked and then
swung open. Malakir stepped inside, his eyes as cold blue and
granite as they had been in Masumoto's photograph. His facial
expression moved imperceptibly more than his picture, he ran a hand
over his long blonde ponytail and closed the door behind him, not
saying a word while he took off a well tailored suit jacket.

“
I heard you were looking
for me, I thought I would arrange a little meeting for us.”

Kneeling before Leanin, his eyes
wandered freely over her naked body. “Your form is very
pleasing,” he said tweaking her nipple between two fingers.
“You react well to stimulation.” His hand slid lower on
her body, rounding over her stomach and turning inward at her
thighs. She struggled against the ropes, they strained and creaked
but held. “Yes, very well. Why are you searching for me?”

With a quick motion he undid
Leanin's gag and she bit at him. Laughing, he jumped back. It was
the first change in expression he'd had since they'd been there, and
Gideon wasn't sure he wanted to see more. The door behind them
opened and a hulk of a man came in with a large black sack draped
across his shoulder.

“
Leon, can you set that
right here and go grab my tools please?” Malakir asked. The
man he called Leon nodded with a leer. “I want to show you
two something before we begin.” He walked to the black
plastic sack and pulled out a knife, slitting the package open.
“You guys were out for a while, long enough for us to have a
little talk with your friend here.”

He pulled the sack open and the
naked form of Masumoto stared back at them, a concave hole in his
skull. Black and red burn marks speckled his chest and his fingers
were bent upwards. When the body was unveiled Leanin didn't say a
word, but her jaw clenched and she breathed deeply, averting her
eyes.

The door opened again and Leon
brought in a large transport battery and a pair of alligator clips
with a bucket of water. He set them down and pulled out a thick
pair of rubber gloves.

“
Your friend was a good
one, it took him a long time before he told me about you. What he
didn't tell me was why you wanted to see me. So why don't you fill
me in on that one? I can't imagine it can be for anything good.”

Malakir reached into the bucket
of water and drew out a dripping sponge. As Leon hooked together
the alligator clips to the transport battery Malakir wiped the
sponge over Leanin's naked body. The water trailed down her curves
and she shone in the light. “I have a confession to make to
you. Will you be my priest?” He asked her. “I love
what I do. I love the look that a woman gets after she's been in my
stable for long enough, that blank stare of resigned hopelessness.
At that point she's little more than a cunt and a mouth, there to
serve. But that's not even the best part of the job.” He
walked to Gideon. “This man here, tied up next to you? I'll
work on him just the same, because I have to. But with you I'm
going to spend time, we'll really get to know each other.” He
strode back to Leanin and pressed the fork in his jeans against her
hand. “Can you feel how much I'm going to enjoy this?”

Leanin's face was still,
betraying nothing of what she was feeling. Malakir smiled.

“
You've got quite a heart,
kid. I'm going to enjoy breaking it.” Switching focus, he
sat by Gideon. Leon brought forward a tray with all the things that
Gideon had kept in his pockets. Malakir poked a disinterested
finger through them for a moment before pausing. His grin grew
incredibly large as he picked up the picture.

“
Maybe this will be more
than just work after all," he said. "I figured I would
start with you anyway, once I get working on the saucy little cunt
over there I'll probably cum all over myself, you know how it is.”
Turning the photograph around, he showed it to his prisoner. “I
don't think I've ever seen Rolanda look this happy.”

Gideon had never felt such a
helpless, impotent rage before. Trying to keep control, he
concentrated on his breathing. The ropes held him tightly, he
couldn't move more than a few millimeters in any direction.

“
What a beautiful woman.
Look at how she's smiling and the sun is weaving itself through her
golden blonde hair, she's got such innocence.” Malakir
unfolded the picture and showed Gideon himself, arm in arm with
Rolanda. “This doesn't seem to be a familial embrace; my
guess is young lovers?”

Gideon stayed quiet, flexing and
relaxing his muscles, trying to loosen the bonds that held him. If
he could only get free, there was nothing that could stop him.

Malakir stood close enough to
Gideon that he could feel an unnatural heat coming from the man.
“It's not often we get virgins coming through here. I thought
about selling it, it would have fetched quite a price, but then I
realized what an opportunity I had. I hadn't taken a woman's
maidenhood in years. You know what I really love about that moment?
That first moment when you break through the hymen? It's the look
in her eyes. There's pain and then the break and then rapture and
then horror when she realizes that she's enjoying it. She's now
dirty, and she hates that she likes it so much. Abrahamic girls are
best for this. The religion teaches them so much repression the
guilt they feel is palpable. Have you ever been inside a woman when
she starts crying? It's exquisite, the way her body shudders and
convulses, you can feel it through your entire cock.” Malakir
took Gideon's hand and looked him in the eye. “Rolanda cried,
I want you to know that. She cried when I was inside her.”

A burning hatred blinded Gideon,
giving everything a bloody hue. His entire consciousness, his whole
being, focused down to a single desire, to kill the man standing in
front of him.

Malakir's erection was quite
pronounced when he stood up, bulging through the silk suit pants he
was wearing. “I tell you what. I don't own her anymore, but
if you bend over and kiss my shoe,” he showed a highly
polished black leather loafer to Gideon, “I'll tell you who
does, and moreover, where he lives. Doesn't that sound like the
bargain of a lifetime?”

Gideon swallowed hard. His
heart thundered in his ear and he could feel a cold sweat on his
brow.

Malakir tapped Leon on the
shoulder. “See that? That right there, I love that.
Confliction." Kneeling by Gideon, he whispered in his ear.
"You want to attack me as soon as I loosen the bonds, to let
that animal that's been building inside you out, but you need to
know where Rolanda is, and you know if you try to kill me two things
will happen. First, Leon over there will break your legs, and then
you won't ever be able to find your precious Rolanda. It's need
versus want. And I think your need outweighs your want. Do you
agree?”

A sense of helplessness invaded
Gideon, as though he were floating ten feet above where this
horrendous scene played out, unable to do anything but watch. After
a moment, he nodded once, and Malakir motioned to Leon.

“
I love life, it's quite
interesting,” Malakir said while Leon undid the straps that
bound Gideon. The smell of shoe polish grew stronger as Leon pushed
Gideon down onto his knees in front of Malakir. “Go ahead,
I'm not telling until you kiss them.”

Swallowing hard, Gideon forced
his pride and his anger down to a place where their protestations
couldn't be heard, and tenderly kissed the man's shoe.

Malakir laughed. “That
was hard to watch. I sold her to a man named Shelton Wainswick. He
works and lives in the coastal city of Algernia. She's a fighter,
you know. She'll have to go through quite the seasoning process.
Leon, will you tie him up again?”

In that instant Gideon knew that
they would never leave the room alive, and all the anger that had
been building in the last twenty minutes came surging through him.
Something broke free, and he gave all control over to his fury.

When Leon came for him Gideon
threw an elbow back and caught him in the nose. Gideon grabbed the
only thing available to him, the transport battery, it felt light
as a feather in his enraged hands, and he swung it back at Leon's
head. It connected with the sound of a watermelon being split open
and chunky bits of blood and brain sprayed out against the wall.

Malakir hadn't moved, his jaw
hanging open in surprise. Gideon lunged at his legs, tackling him
to the ground. That seemed to startle him out of his shock, and
Malakir began to fight back. Fists and elbows rained down on
Gideon's head but he was beyond pain, pure rage driving him on.

Gideon mounted him, pinning him
beneath his legs. He gouged and scratched and hit Malakir until the
man stopped moving, but still he wasn't done. The strength the
anger had given him seeped from his body; this time he struggled to
lift the transport battery above his head and drop it onto Malakir's
chest, caving the ribs in.

The pain of his wounds caught up
with him as he cut Leanin from her chair, and soon after she was
free he collapsed. Everything about him was in pain, he couldn't
move, so Leanin dressed him and then slung him over her shoulder,
carrying him from that place.

Something had happened in
Imperium that Leanin couldn't understand. They were outside the
city holed up in a cave, Leanin was watching Gideon sleep. The
night was quiet and clear, the moon glowing over everything. It was
still a long way to Algernia.

When Gideon had broken back in
that cell in Imperium, Leanin had felt something stir within her, a
little itch where there hadn't been anything before. She tried to
rationalize it, telling herself that they had massive amounts of
adrenaline pumping through them, and that things were bound to get
hazy. But it hadn't gone away.

His chest rose and fell with his
exhausted slumber and her eyes traced the curves of his muscles. It
was a weak chest, skinny, but she found herself wondering what that
chest would feel like if she were to run a finger along it. His
jaw, too, she did not like. It was set too wide, too angled and
sharp, but still she wondered what it would smell like if she were
to rest her head right under it.

She rested her hand lightly on
his chest and he woke. Within an instant she had snatched her hand
back.

“
Leanin, what is it?
Trouble?” His face was beaten to mush, lopsided, his eyes
opened as wide as the swelling would allow.

“
You must have been
dreaming, I didn't wake you,” she said.

Gideon pulled on a shirt. “How
much time 'til sunup?”

“
Hour or two. Go back to
sleep, I'll wake you up.”

Gideon shook his head. “I
want to be going as soon as we have enough light. Do you think we
can make it to the ocean today?”

Leanin pulled out a little bag
of dried beef and handed it to Gideon. “All depends on the
miles we get.” As he chewed eagerly through the meat, she
watched him. “Gideon? You know that no matter what happened
to her, she'll still be the woman you loved.”

He stopped chewing. “You
think it's true, don't you? Everything Malakir said?”

Avoiding eye contact with
Gideon, Leanin packed her bag. “It's a probability that
you're going to have to accept. It doesn't change her, not deep
down, but you may have to work hard to get her to come back to the
surface.”

Standing, Gideon threw the pack
of meat at her feet. “What do you know about it? Who asked
you to chime in?” He was breathing heavily, an ugly flush had
risen to his cheeks.

Leanin went over to him and
placed her hands on his chest. He was trembling. “Calm down,
Gideon. I'm just trying to help, I've been through this.”
Neither Leanin nor Gideon were paying much attention to their
bodies. She had begun to stroke his chest softly and he was leaning
into it.

“
Jenny?” Gideon
asked.

Leanin nodded. “I was the
tomboy of the family, getting dirty and fighting with the other
kids. Jenny was my opposite, beautiful, and kind, and prim and
proper in all the ways that I never was.”

“
I think you're
beautiful,” Gideon said without thinking.

She smiled and a slight blush
crept onto her cheeks. “Not compared to her. She was the
type who could stop a conversation when she entered a room. People
revolved around her like hopeful little planets circling around the
sun.”

“
What happened to her?”

“
The Thirteen took her.
They had a party with her that first night, passing her around like
she was no more than a warm hole for them. They sold her to Daniel,
and then he sold her to someone else. I still haven't found who the
last owner was, I found her out walking the streets. She
was...broken. I got her out of there and took her home, but
something had gone wrong inside of her. We stayed away from cities
for a few days, but she ate so little, so I took her back home.”