His Favorite Girl (14 page)

All for the sake of voyeurism and, in
Kate's case, rape.

How many times had he spied on the students while they showered, jacking off to naked underage girls without so much as a hint of guilt or shame?

He was an animal.  A brainless, gluttonous, lustful machine controlled only by his dick and his appetite.

I'd rather let James deep-throat me.

I'd rather get gangbanged by Sean's guards.

I'd rather fuck Mr. Shriver in his bathrobe and slippers.

Time limit
, I reminded myself. 
Fucking go already!

Pulling the trap door open, I forced myself to climb down before I lost the courage.
  It was pitch black, but I'd climbed on the other levels enough to know when I should be reaching the staircase.

There wasn't one.

The rope ladder went all the way to the floor.

Of course.  Why would
Clifton want to spy on his own floor?  The only thing worth seeing was the Showcase Hall.

My feet firmly on the floor, I felt around until I found a wall and carefully walked the perimeter of the room, looking for a light switch.  What I discovered was that this room, while the same length as the ones above it, was only about four feet wide.

I found the light switch, flipped it on, and immediately noticed the doorway in the wall Clifton had built to section this little room off.  It wasn't really a door, just an opening between two studs where he'd cut out the drywall.  To hide this room, he'd blocked the opening with a metal shelf.

I would have to push it out of the way to get to the other side.  It would be noisy, and I had no idea where
it led or who might be waiting on the other side.

I put my ear to the back of the shelf and listened.

Nothing.

"Okay
Clifton," I murmured to myself.  "I hope to God you're fucking Kate up the ass right now, far away from here."

I put both hands on the shelf and pushed hard, expecting it to be heavy, maybe loaded down with tools.

The shelf tipped forward, teetered, and crashed to the floor, generating a shrill thunderclap so loud I feared everyone in the building heard it.

I panicked and climbed halfway up the rope ladder, high enough that my head poked through the ceiling, and there I waited until my arms and legs started to shake.  I had to make a decision, so I told
myself to at least go back down to stand the shelf up and turn the light off.  If someone was coming they'd be here by now.  Why leave behind any evidence?

I climbed back down and peeked into the other room.  A mop sink in one corner, shelves of chemicals and paint against the right and left walls.  The shelf I knocked over housed new mop-heads, rags, towels.  Light
items that were easy to move.

But I only gave these things a cursory glance.

On the opposite wall was a door.

I stepped over the corner of the fallen shelf and made my way to it, my heart racing as I put my hand to the knob and turned it slowly.

It was unlocked.

I opened it slowly, just a few inches at first, listening for movement, voices.  Then wide enough to poke my head through.

The first thing I noticed were the black boxes stacked against the left wall.  Dozens of them, just like the one Mr. Moses had wheeled through my front door, with Flora tied up and aroused and terrified inside.

Mr. Moses the deliveryman, who murdered my husband and died for me on the same day.

I couldn't interpret what I was feeling right now.  Glee?  Dread?  Sheer panic?

Pushing the door wide open, I stepped out into the loading dock and wandered slowly over to the
only bay, a grey garage door with three foggy windows.

Daylight on the other side.

To the left of the bay door was a small metal box with a red button sticking out.

I pushed it.

Then I began to cry as the door raised up slowly, gears whining and buzzing above my head, a cool breeze wafting on my face and arms, and finally the warmth of sunlight.

I stood there staring out into the back lot of the building, where a truck labeled YFG sat parked near the cyclone fence separating the lot from the sidewalk.

This was it.  I'd found a way out.  I could leave right now, run away and never look back.  I had no money, no clothes but the ones on my back, nowhere to go, and no one to turn to, not even my family, but all I had to do was jump down.  The rest I could figure out later.

Nowhere to go.  No one to turn to.

I could hear the sounds of the city: police sirens, honking, even clusters of voices in the wind.  The collective clamor of
outside
.

Flora had never been outside before.  The closest she'd ever come was the garden lobby on Level D.

I couldn't leave without her.

And I knew she wouldn't leave without the rest of the girls.

I had always been a selfish person, and this moment was no different.  Pushing the red button, I walked away from the closing bay door, headed back the way I came.

It wasn't an act of altruism.

I was still the self-serving bitch I'd always been, driven only by the determination to tear this fucker down.

─
Insoluble─

I MADE it back about half an hour before two of Sean's guards knocked on the door to inspect the room.  One of them was the one Brian had sent to beat on Judy.  I thought it cold and heartless of Sean to put him on the manhunt, but it didn't surprise me.

His black eye did surprise me, however.  Sean must have been furious that he'd taken orders from Brian.  At least he'd suffered at least a minor consequence.

Flora and Frog stayed on the bed, watching television and pretending not to notice the guards.

Liu, back from her forced date with James, had changed into a black see-through blouse with no bra and a pair of white shorts cut so high her ass cheeks stuck out--a remarkable accomplishment for Liu, considering she barely even had an ass.

The dickless guard only glanced at her, but the other one stopped and said hello, studying her like a kid at a candy store.

"She'll fuck anything, if you're interested," I told him.

"No I
won't
," Liu said, stomping her foot and clenching her fists.  The way she represented herself pretty much summed up the sexual dysfunction of the world: exhibiting overt sexuality with childlike behavior, an insoluble combination, sure, but if you shake up oil and water long enough, you'll end up with a cloudy mixture that takes a long time to separate.

I followed the guards
around as they inspected the room, the closet, and the shower room, trying to be annoying as possible and not letting the dickless one get away with what he'd done.

"What did Brian promise you in exchange for beating a helpless woman?" I asked.  "A new dick?  How's it feeling, by the way?  Can you still get it up?  You might want to look into taking it up the ass.  This guy might be able to help you."

Despite the homosexual reference, the other guard found me quite amusing.  At first he tightened his lips to conceal his smirk, but by the time they were finished I had him rolling.

The dickless guard had nothing to say, indomitable in his pursuit of Judy.  When they left, I f
elt unsatisfied.  Relieved that they didn't find the vent cover behind the tropical plants but irritated, too.

Liu started pestering Flora and Frog, first taking the remote and flipping through the channels, and then, when she couldn't find anything that interested her, throwing the remote across the room.

Neither of them said anything to her, but when Flora climbed off the bed to go pick it up, Liu pushed her and called her a cunt.

I ran up and grabbed her by the ponytail, yanking her head back.

"Stop being a goddamn bitch, Liu!"

"Fuck you!" she cried.

I spun her around and shook her.  "What is
wrong with you?"

She dissolved into tears, tore away from me, and ran down the shower room corridor.

"She's fucking crazy," I said apologetically.

Flora just nodded and went after the remote.  Frog sat there looking scared and confused, blinking frequently.

I went to the kitchen and called Patton.

"Hey babe," he said, sounding unusually chipper.

"What's the status on Liu getting her own room?"

"I . . . don't know.  Haven't heard back from Sean."

"Can you find out?  I'm about to kill this bitch."

"What'd she do?"

"She attacked Flora."

"Is Flora okay?"

"Yeah, she just pushed her."

Silence for a moment.  "I'll talk to him when the search is over.  Will you be in your room?  You and I need to talk anyway."

"About what?"

"You'll see."

Whatever it was, it had to be good news.  His voice had the tone of someone who'd just gotten laid after winning the lottery.  I didn't know he was capable of being so excited.

"What time are you coming?" I asked.

"Search should be over soon.  Maybe an hour?  Just stay put."

"It's not like I have anywhere to go."

"True.  Cheer up, babe.  It's going to be a good day."

He hung up, leaving me confused, a little intrigued, and super-anxious.  Why did he have to tease me with the promise of good news?  Why not just tell me or keep his mouth shut until then?

I wasn't enjoying this "babe" development, either.  I'd never been a fan of pet names, terms of endearment.  A "babe" is a woman in jean shorts and a bikini top bent over the hood of a sports car with a look on her face that says, "Stick it anywhere you want and I'll come for days."

Fuck that.

He'd earned the right to sex, but he hadn't earned the right to call me anything other than Melissa.

I made it a point to remind him of that later.

Flora crawled back onto the bed returning the batteries to the remote and replacing the cover.  She found their channel and the two of them resumed watching some children's cartoon, a show Flora had obviously selected for Frog's sake, not her own.

I went to
the shower room to check on Liu and found her sitting by the poolside banging a disposable razor against the granite.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm gonna kill myself," she said calmly.

She was trying to break it apart to free up the blades.

"Why?" I asked.

She looked up at me, brushed a strand of hair from her face.  "Why not?  Everyone hates me.  You hate me.  James hates me.  Patton hates me."

"Patton doesn't hate you."

"Yes he does.  He doesn't even talk to me anymore.  He just comes in to refill his coffee and leaves.  I don't even have a job.  I just sit there.  All day. 
Alone
."

Was this all a ploy or was she being genuine for once?  My cynicism was rising right alongside my sympathy.

I watched her hammer the razor a few times.  Then she said, "You didn't say
you
don't hate me."

"I don't."

That was probably a lie.  I hated so many people so strongly these days, it was hard to determine how much I despised a small fish like Liu.

"Bullshit," Liu said.  "Look at my fucking face."

"You were trying to pick a fight and you know it.  Don't sit there and act innocent.  You're mean to people, Liu.  If you would just be nice for a change, you'd probably have a lot more friends."

She shook her head and started crying again.  "I just want to go home, but Patton said I can't.  I miss my parents."

The same parents who were trying to marry her off to a stranger.

It made sense now.  Liu had grown up the center of attention in her family.  Her parents had trained her to use her sexuality to get attention from men.  Liu's torment in this place stemmed from not being the object of others' desire.  She'd been jealous of me initially, which explained her bad behavior.  Now that Flora lived with us, she was going completely mad.  She wanted to be wanted.  Not by the right person but by everyone.  She wanted to be a Favorite Girl.

I took my vial of the Libido Drug out of my pocket and filled the dropper, squeezing some back into the bottle so that only a drop remained.  Liu was too busy with the razor to notice, so I had no trouble leaning forward and dropping it on her lips.

She stopped trying to break the razor and looked up at me, the anguish dissolving from her face, replaced by exaltation.  The razor slipped from her fingertips and clattered to the floor.  I picked it up as Liu frantically unbuttoned her shorts and stuck her hand inside, massaging herself and breathing heavily.

With her free hand she reached out to me.  I backed away.

"Kiss me," she begged.  "Melissa, kiss me . . ."

She was close to her first orgasm already.

Picking up the razor, I turned and went back to the room, confident that I'd delayed any suicide attempt by at least a couple of hours.

It occurred to me that she might get so overwhelmed in ecstasy that she could fall in the pool and drown, so I went back, dragged her over to a rug on the floor, and fought to get away from her before she could put her lips on my skin and draw me into a sexual romp.

I took Flora aside and warned her about Liu.

"Can you check on her while I'm gone?  Don't get too close.  I drugged her so she wouldn't try to cut herself."

"The Libido Drug?"

"Yes."

"So she's . . ."

"Yes."

"Okay."

I checked on her myself after Patton called to say he was coming down.  She had taken all her clothes off but still lay in the same place, fingering herself furiously and letting out strange, high-pitched squeals.

I thought Patton was taking me to his room, but when I closed the door behind me, he looked up and down the hall to make sure no one was around and said, "Pack a bag.  We're going on a trip."

"What?"

Surely I'd misheard him.

"They didn't find Judy," Patton explained, "so Brian wants a replacement.  He already has a job interview scheduled.  Some neuroscience professor at UC Berkeley.  I'm driving out there to do the interview and make the offer."  He stepped forward and cupped my face with his hands.  "And you get to come with me."

My mind was racing.  Something was wrong here.  It didn't make sense.  Why would Sean let me leave?
  And why was Brian so eager for a replacement?  Did this have something to do with his plan?  Were we being set up for murder?

Patton could see the concern on my face.

"What's wrong?  I thought you'd be excited to get out of here for a while."

"I am," I said distantly.  "It's just . . . hard to take."

"You'll be more into it when we're on the road."

On the road.  Free.  At least for a while.  I was already afraid that if I spend a few days away from this place, I'd stop caring about Flora enough to never come back.

Flora.  I can't leave her
.

I told Patton as much, but he shook his head and said, "She'll be fine.  I have Sean's personal guarantee that she won't be harmed."

"It's not Sean I'm worried about," I lied, focusing on the more immediate threat.  "Liu is going crazy.  I can't leave Flora alone with her.  I had to drug her just now to stop her from slitting her own wrists."

Patton surveyed the hallway again, then looked at me sternly.  "You know you're not supposed to do that."

"What else could I do, Patton?  She was trying to kill herself."

"You should have called me."

"So you can talk to her and send her right back?  If you're leaving tomorrow, here is where she'll be.  You've
got
to get her another room, Patton, or else I can't go."

He sighed.  "Okay, I'll see what I can do.  But you're going
with me regardless.  The agreement has been made and there's no going back.  Sean doesn't like revising plans."

I felt like arguing, but I could tell he was disappointed.  He must have built this up in his head.  A honeymoon of sorts.  Just the two of us, driving across the country.  Hotels, fast food, and a blow job every hundred miles.

I wanted to be excited, but right now I had too many ducks to line up in a neat little row.

"When are we leaving?" I asked.

"Tomorrow morning.  Six a.m."

"Jesus, Patton."

"It's a thirty-hour drive.  We'll do half that tomorrow, stay at a hotel, and do the other half Monday.  Tuesday we'll get to relax and enjoy ourselves a little."

Now I was feeling the excitement.  This was real.  I would actually get to leave this horrible place for a while.  I'd never left the state, let alone travelled all the way across the country.
  Finding the loading dock seemed like a joke.  All this time holding me captive and they were going to let me walk right out the door.  I wonder if Sean expected me to run.  If so, would he come after me?  Did he care?

"So I need clothes for how many days?"

"Six," Patton said.  "Interview is on Wednesday, and it'll take two days to get back."

He kissed me, said go
odbye, and headed up the hall.

I watched him go with only one word on my mind.

Wednesday.