back.
The blonde moaned. I got the cuff over to her right wrist as I thrust myself halfway inside her, moving her body up toward the headboard, up where I could secure the shackle to the post. The blonde screamed once and tried to get up on all fours, trying to buck me deeper. She was strong. When we eased back down to the bed, the handcuffs swung into her face and fell between the headboard and the wall. I reached for them but, in that instant, the blonde made the game. She began to fight me off.
‘What the hell are you
doing
?’ she screamed, struggling to turn over.
I grabbed her arm, trying to get it near the headboard. ‘It’s just a game,’ I said, but I knew that I had lost her. She was
very
strong.
‘I’m not going to let you handcuff me!’ She wrestled herself free of my grip and rolled onto her back, then off the bed. ‘Are you fucking
crazy
?’
‘It’s okay,’ I said, trying to calm her. ‘We don’t have to if you don’t want to.’
But the blonde already had her skirt in her hand and was backing toward the bathroom and the rest of her things. She was nearly hysterical with rage.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I said, stepping off the bed, slipping the small Taser unit out from between the mattresses. I just needed to touch her once. ‘I got a little carried away. We’ll forget the kinky stuff, okay?’
‘I don’t even
know you
.’
I stepped closer to her, naked, led not by my desire now but rather by my obligation. ‘If you’d just—’
‘Don’t come near me.’ She wiggled into her skirt, pulled her blouse over her head. She gathered her shoes, held her hands out in front of her. ‘Just stay away.’
She looked so incredibly beautiful, still flushed with her nearness to orgasm, her hair matted with the sweat of our lovemaking. As she turned to leave the closet door closed completely and I knew then that the blonde would get away. It was a first.
‘No hard feelings?’ I dropped the Taser into the pile of sheets at the foot of the bed.
‘You turned me on, you bastard,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe I …
shit!
’ She threw open the motel door and the light from a nearby streetlamp washed the room.
And then she was gone.
I walked over to the door and closed it. I smelled my hands: perfume, sweat, the woman’s musk. I touched myself with what was left of it. As I walked back to the bed I noticed that the blonde had left her bra and panties. They looked very expensive, but something told me she wouldn’t be coming back for them.
I slipped into her panties and pulled the make-up kit from underneath the bed. I set it on the nightstand next to the bottle of Absolut. I lay down on the bed, cuffed myself to the headboard and waited. After a few moments, the closet door swung wide.
I closed my eyes.
And took my punishment.
8
ABOVE THE FOLD yet, Paris thought. This was going to be a long one. The
Plain Dealer
had run the three pictures side by side – Maryann Milius, Emily Reinhardt and Karen Schallert. It had been just a few hours since the Schallert investigation began and already the newspaper had more information than the police. The
PD
had managed to fit all three pictures under the headline:
Are these women victims of a serial killer?
The article beneath carried no answers of its own:
Michael A. Cicero
Plain Dealer Reporter
As Karen Schallert stepped through the door of room 127 at the Red Valley Inn on Superior Avenue, she probably had every intention of leaving in just a few hours. According to Donna Ballou, the woman’s sister, Karen Schallert taught a morning reading group at Mayfield Regional Library and this Saturday they were going to read from
Oh the Places You’ll Go
by Dr Seuss
.
Her partner had no intention of letting Karen Schallert go anywhere
.
Because according to police reports, sometime early Saturday morning Karen Schallert, 23, a personnel assistant with the United Way organization, was brutally murdered in room 127 at the Red Valley Inn
.
A
Alexander McCall Smith
Nancy Farmer
Elle Chardou
Mari Strachan
Maureen McGowan
Pamela Clare
Sue Swift
Shéa MacLeod
Daniel Verastiqui
Gina Robinson