Carey went over to the dresser again, opened the third drawer down and brought out a canvas duffle bag. He pulled the drawstring, held the bag upside down and emptied it onto the bed.
‘A veritable treasure trove,’ smiled Samantha, ‘if you like that sort of thing.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘Toolkits are fun if you’re Bruce Wayne, but you can’t beat found objects and a little ingenuity for true gratification.’
Carey only half managed to mask his irritation.
‘Okay, so what would you use?’
Samantha swept the instruments onto the floor, then pointed to Carey’s belt on top of the dresser, then to the twisted pair of panties on the floor.
‘I could make this twat squirm just with those.’
‘Show me.’
Samantha shook her head. ‘Oh no, dearie, this is your show, but if you don’t mind taking direction…’
‘Fine.’
Samantha picked up the belt.
‘Go get me the sharpest knife you have, and I trust you have a couple of pairs of gloves?’
‘Of course.’ Carey left the room and came back with a pairing knife. Samantha snatched it and began poking holes in it.
‘Hey! That’s Abercrombie! It cost me eighty bucks!’
‘Do you want this done cheaply, or do you want it done well?’
Carey grimaced.
‘Raid every drawer in the house - we’re going to need more than one of these.’
‘What are we…what am I gonna do with them?’
Samantha smiled, kept working.
‘You’re going to give Prince Charming the girlfriend experience…BEING one, at least.’
When she’d made extra notches in all ten belts, Samantha laid them out on the bed in neat rows, deliberated for a few seconds, then chose the plainest of the lot.
‘I’ll start you off. Help me sit him up.’
Samantha pulled on the gloves while Carey propped Tommy up by wedging pillows behind him.
‘Hold him still while I do this - tied hands don’t make a guy immobile.’
Carey did as he was told. Samantha put the belt around Tommy’s waist, slipped the end into the buckle and slowly pulled it through. A typical, image-obsessed twenty-something to the last, his midsection was well defined, the hardened bumps of muscle acting as a bull work against the sturdy but barely utilitarian design of JC Penney. Tommy barely flinched.
‘Give me another,’ Samantha ordered.
Carey handed her a second belt, and Samantha repeated the process. The corners of Tommy’s mouth turned up, ever so slightly but other than that, if he was feeling any pain, he was hardly demonstrative about it. Samantha rigged him up twice more, then turned to Carey.
‘Okay, your turn. The important thing here is to take it slowly. There’s no point going to all this trouble if it’s going to be over in a flash, is there?’
Carey put a hand on the Abercrombie belt, but Samantha stopped him.
‘No…save that one for last.’
‘Why?’
‘We don’t put our ice cream and our chocolate sauce on top of our cherry, do we?’
Carey gave an impatient sigh and opted for the cheapest looking belt of the few that were left. He fed the end through the loop and pulled, precisely as he had been shown, his youthful strength and energy affording him the endurance required. Tommy remained stoic a lot longer than either of his torturers expected, but finally gave in on the tightening of the ninth belt and let forth a scream that sounded as though someone had reached down his throat and wrenched it out with jagged metal tongs. There was a loud clunk in the bathroom.
‘Go check on her, would you?’ Carey said, not bothering to look up.
‘Yes, master.’
Samantha walked out of the room and down the hall, treading softly and carefully - one didn’t sneak up on a frightened, conflicted victim, however meek she might look on the surface. Professional experience had shown her innumerable times that trauma and confusion could make a girl go from Pollyanna to Mrs Voorhees in the time it took to fart. She reached the bathroom door and knocked three times before opening it to discover that she needn’t have worried: the girl seemed fine. Well, that wasn’t strictly true - the girl looked as scared as hell, she just wasn’t waiting behind the door, wielding a blunt object.
‘What are you guys doing to him?’
Samantha picked up a scented candle from the floor and put it on the counter.
‘Nothing he doesn’t deserve.’
‘Are you going to kill him?’
Samantha sat down on the edge of the tub.
‘Yes.’
‘Can I watch?’
‘Have you ever seen somebody die?’
‘No.’
‘Do you think you could handle it?’
The girl slid down a little deeper into the foam-filled water.
‘It takes getting used to,’ said Samantha. ‘I was a little girl the first time I saw it happen. He was a local boy. Mean thing. Bullied everybody. One day he picked on the wrong kid.’
‘What did they do to him?’
‘Sat on him, beat him about the face and head with a rock until all you could see was blood. Then she held the rock down on his throat, crushed his windpipe. You have no idea how wide the human eye is capable of opening until you’ve watched someone being choked to death.’
‘What did YOU do?’
Samantha felt the trace of a smile beginning at the corners of her mouth, and stifled it.
‘All I could do was stare. It was the most ghastly thing I’d ever seen, but I couldn’t tear myself away. I was riveted. She made me help her drag him away after that. We stuffed him down a sewer drain. He was a big boy - we had to strip him to make him fit.’
Samantha realised she’d been staring into the mid-distance and snapped herself out of it.
‘We had a massive rain storm not long after, and he must’ve been swept out to sea because all they ever found was his t-shirt. I tried to tell, but nobody believed me. I was sent to my room without dinner for lying. That’s when I decided to become a cop. I give everyone the benefit of the doubt until someone provides me with proof that they’re guilty. My job is to help people, not punish them.’
‘But, you’re punishing Tommy.’
‘I’m helping YOU, and other girls like you. Do you think you’re his only victim? Do you honestly believe your his one and only movie star? How did he find you?’
The girl sunk a little deeper still.
‘I was hitch hiking.’
‘Did he film you that first day?’
‘No.’
‘Did you sleep with him?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let me guess: you’d run away from home, you were hungry, you were afraid, and good old Tommy Boy said “Hop on in, li’l lady and let me take care of you.” Was that how the conversation went?’
The girl didn’t answer. There was no need. Samantha proceeded a little more gently.
‘The reason girls like you end up with shit heels like him is that they’re too afraid to leave. They think nobody will believe them and the thought of being left to fend for themselves again is more terrifying than being a punching bag for hire. It took me a decade or so to realise that this whole fucking world is just one giant conveyor belt, constantly churning out pus-filled boils and sweet little arseholes just waiting to be infected by them, and the law doesn’t have the resources to stop it.’
She put a reassuring hand on the girl’s shoulder.
‘We do.’
ns 15.158.61.5da2