Authors: Suzanne Steele
Kansas
I swat at the alarm which, in turn, falls to the floor without a cease and desist on its torturous digital beep. I can feel the effects of lack of sleep and I have an appointment at the women’s prison today. I force myself out of bed and into the shower before my body has a chance to fight the inevitable task of starting a new day.
What is it with these dreams that plague me? Lack of a sex life is all I can figure. I allow the water to flow over my body and make the decision to adjust it to a tepid setting because the heat and steam are only lulling me back into a state of relaxation.
I quickly finish and make my way into the kitchen to retrieve the thing I love most on days like this—coffee. I will need it today to get me through due to the fact that, once again, I’m going on practically no sleep. It is becoming more difficult with each new day to hide the dark circles and bags under my eyes. It has gotten so bad that my boss has forced me to seek out counseling, actually a shrink. Protests of “I’m not crazy,” have only served to get answers like, “Nobody thinks you’re crazy. This guy is the best at probing the subconscious to reveal hidden issues.”
The problem is… I don’t want anybody
probing
in my fucking head. In fact, I don’t want anyone in my head, heart, emotions, or anywhere else they might decide they want to take up residence. I don’t get this whole thing about needing to bond with people; I do fine by myself.
Hell, my psychiatrist is so damn good he has already labeled me as being afflicted with a disorder known as
Reactive Attachment Disorder.
Apparently, I’m unable to bond emotionally due to
abandonment issues
. It must be nice to have the whole world figured out the way he does. Everything is so tidy and neat, labeled and wrapped up with a pretty little bow. Screw him and his disorder. I like being detached. He has only met with me a few times and already he thinks he has all the answers.
I grab my sweater and head out the door in minimal make-up, jeans, a t-shirt, and a scarf around my neck. It’s one of the things I love about my job—no frills in the wardrobe department.
I pull out of my driveway and slam on the brakes as I realize I left my coffee on the roof. By some miracle of the coffee gods, it’s still there and I reach out the window, grabbing it and chugging half of it down one gulp. I speed into work, juggling my coffee and phone, and ignore the construction workers at the next light as they ogle me. I have no idea what they could possibly see in me. My highlighted brown hair is twisted up with a pencil stuck through it to hold it in place. My hazel eyes are accentuated by a light shade of brown eyeliner and that’s it for the day. I’m far more concerned about dealing with a prison mother who holds no allegiance towards her child. Maybe I can talk some sense into her and spare another diagnosis of
Reactive Attachment Disorder.
I might think it’s a bullshit diagnosis as far as I am concerned, but I certainly don’t want to take the chance of a kid suffering through a lifelong sentence of being alone due to their inability to bond.
I pull into handicap parking at my office and eliminate the chances of getting another ticket by not exiting my vehicle. I’m glad to see the social worker who will be accompanying me to the prison is already standing out front.
I eye my coworker and he appears to be as unkempt as I am, if not more so. His shaggy brown hair lies in tousled curls over his glasses which are falling down over the bridge of his nose. His button up dress shirt is haphazardly tucked into his wrinkled pants which encompass his overweight frame. A satchel, draped over his shoulder, isn’t enough to house all of his folders and paperwork so his hands fumble with the excess as he makes his way over to the passenger side of my car.
I reach over to pop the latch for him and he uses his knee to pry the door open. He looks almost relieved as he begins the process of dropping all the baggage he carries. In our line of work, it is called paperwork and there’s always an overabundance of it. I remind myself on the days reality overshadows my idealism that it is a necessary evil.
I spend the ride to the prison in idle chit chat with the man who is the social worker of the child of the woman we are visiting. It will inevitably be another tank of gas wasted on a client who cares nothing about anything but how she can get out and get her next fix. It’s sad to be so negative about the client but I know this client all too well. This is her second stint in prison for possession of cocaine and her fourth child in the system; she is only twenty-one years of age. It is hard to be optimistic in my line of work. I trudge through the necessary protocol, which has now become part of my existence due to my job choice. Some days I want to bang my head against my desk and say, “What was I thinking?”
It’s late in the day by the time we make it back to the office. I run in to grab a file, feeling like I accomplished nothing but being successful in staying out of the office all day.
I jog back out to my car that now sits behind the building, hidden by the threatening shadows of dusk that are now upon me. I shake off the feeling of being watched as I juggle with my keys, dropping and then hurriedly retrieving them to get into my car. I try and dismiss the eerie feeling I have become so accustomed to—the nagging feeling of being stalked. I get in, lock the doors, and look around, chiding myself when I see nothing threatening in my vicinity.
I pull out of the lot and try to recall when it all started—this feeling of being watched. I come to the same conclusion I always do; it started when the dreams did. Maybe I should open up to the shrink about the night terrors. I decide against it because I know it will only cause me problems at my job and the last thing I need is to be an out of work social worker. Once you’re labeled crazy in my line of work, you’re toast and you can forget about ever being able to get another job.
Right now I just need a glass of wine and a good night’s sleep, preferably with no dreaming.
I systematically make my drive home and drop my bags as I enter. I bend down, gathering up my mail from the floor where it has been dropped. A small manila envelope catches my eye and my heart start racing. Once again there is no return address and I know what its contents are before I open it. This time, its samples of perfume—twenty or thirty samples of high end perfume with a note.
My dearest Kansas,
I count down the days of seeing you face to face.
Soon, my love…very soon…
A mixture of fear and intrigue race through my system and, once again, the cycle begins—the cycle of not knowing who this man is or when he will reveal himself to me. It gives me a feeling that I should not be feeling. It gives me the feeling of being wanted…
Executioner
I watch her sleep from the corner of her room… after I drug her. The twinge of guilt I am beginning to feel lodged in my chest isn’t part of the plan. I saw her one day as I snuck out the back door of my shrink’s office and had to ask about her on my next visit. I can remember the conversation as if it was yesterday.
“Who’s the cutie, Doc?”
“You want to get to know her? I have a proposition for you.”
I feel my cock jump because I know he knows I get off on a woman’s resistance; he’s up to something.
My face is set like flint, revealing nothing as I speak. “What’s the deal, Doc? Just spit it out already.”
“You and I both know you enjoy a good mind fuck, Trent.
Just follow her, break in her house, and move shit around.”
“Let’s just cut through the bullshit. You want me to make her feel like she is going crazy, don’t you?”
“The ultimate mind fuck, as I already stated.”
“What do I get?”
“You get my write off saying you aren’t crazy. Then that paranoid son of a bitch who is buying your computer app patent can rest easy knowing that you won’t come back and kill him. He’s scared of you, though I can’t really say I blame him.”
The look of contempt on his pompous face shows me he means what he’s saying. I stand up, place my palms down on his desk, and look down on him like I hate him—because I do.
“You just sign off on that paranoid fuck’s medical check on me and I’ll take care of little Miss ‘I can’t bond with anybody.’”
He has filled me in on the fact that he is doing a study on kids with
Reactive Attachment Disorder.
He has some idea that he is going to use her for an in-depth study to write a book and get rich. Whatever, like he needs the fucking money. He is swimming in it already.
There is one good thing about this shit I have gotten myself into and that is that I can protect her from Dr. Quack-a-Doo. Whether she can bond or not, she’s going to find out very soon that while I may not form attachments very often, when I do, there is no getting rid of me. Unfortunately for and unbeknownst to her, I have now bonded with this woman…
Kansas
I find myself waiting for him, wondering when he will strike next. Sometimes he makes me wait 2 or 3 weeks until I am left wondering if he doesn’t want me anymore. Other times he will only wait 2 or 3 days. He has no system, no behavioral patterns. I can’t figure him out; I never know when, where, or how he will strike. This time it was 5 days.
He eyes me from the top of the steps. He is intently listening to me beg him to loosen the chain he has placed around my neck. I’ve cussed him out, kicking him with my stiletto boots, all while screaming, thrashing, and lashing out at him like a wild animal. He loves it when I fight him, I can see it in his eyes. He loves it because it makes my giving into him that much sweeter. Fighting against the chain is cutting my off air and he is enjoying the fear he sees in my eyes.
“Yes, this gives new meaning to ‘predicament bondage;’ you are in a predicament alright, one of my making, Kansas.”
His voice, laced with threats, excites me. I begin to beg him to have mercy on me and the more I beg him, the more moisture pools between my legs. Even though it is me begging him, it seems to give me a sense of power to watch him listen. I have his attention and, not only that, I can see his cock hardening in the tight jeans he is wearing. He is my lover of sorts, because he comes to me at the time of his choosing and takes me. He takes and, by the time he is done, I give. He always dons an executioner’s hood; it is the reason I have dubbed him ‘Executioner.’
Today he wears tight black jeans that are tucked into his high black combat boots. He wears a fitted black t-shirt on his massive frame.
He makes his way down the steps, purposely stepping on my loose hair that hangs over to the side. I wince as it pulls tightly against his boot and the stair that it is laid over.
“You need to be tamed. You need to be taken. You need what I give you.” I whimper as the chain cuts off some of my air. I’m trying to shake my head to agree with him. His gaze is fierce as I hold the excess chain tightly in my hand. Just holding onto something gives me a sense of security, even if it is false.
He leans over and pulls my lip down with his thumb as he takes in a whiff of my cologne, “Mmm ‘Euphoria,’ what a nice choice, my love. Did you think of me this week? He gives me no time to answer as he barks out once again. “Answer me, Vixen!”
The bastard, I hate the way he is able to control me… until he touches me, that is. He tears at my shirt, ripping a breast from its resting place in the bra that holds it. He viciously clamps down on it with his teeth and I scream out, “Yesssssssss, I think of you! Every whiff, of whatever scent you send me, brings you to the forefront of my mind when I wear it. Please, fuck that hurts!”
He pulls my breast into his mouth, suctioning and flicking his tongue over it, sending a jolt of pleasure to mix with the assault of pain he just inflicted on it. “Pain and pleasure, pain and pleasure,” he informs me, “until the two become one, my little Vixen. Say it, Vixen; tell me.”
“Yes, yes, I think about you at the oddest times. It’s as if your memory infiltrates my mind in ways I can’t control.”
It is the truth; he has inserted himself into my life. He comes and goes like the wind. He has commanded me to throw out any scents that he himself has not provided.
The packages continue to come. He is smart enough to send them with no return address. He mails me what he likes and I know I put myself in danger if I do not obey him, so I do what he asks and wear only what he sends. He knows each and every scent. There is a purpose in the gifts that are sent to me; it keeps my mind right where he wants it—on him, of course.
He loosens my neck chain, flips me over, and pulls me back by my ankles as far as the chain will allow. I watch him as he pulls his swollen cock out of his jeans that can barely contain it anymore due to the swelling.
“Your fucking jeans are too tight!” he hisses in my ear as he struggles to get them down over my hips.
I laugh at him as he struggles to get my pants off, but I will soon regret it. He viciously grabs a fistful of hair and slams his huge cock into me causing me to cry out in pain.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, pleeeeeze, fuck, don’t hurt me, Executioner. I’ll be good.”
“Good girl, good girl, gooooood girl.” He slows his pace, watching his shaft go in and out of my velvety vice grip that he believes he now owns.
“From the first day I saw your independent, wild, and free spirit, I knew taking you would be just like the scent you’re wearing—Euphoric! And now I come and go out of your life at will. You know what I expect, obedience! The rules are clear and precise: don’t fuck anyone else, be ready for me at all times, and, of course, last but not least, obey!”
He feels so fucking good. How can I enjoy this man whose identity I don’t know? It is crazy. He has come into my life and taken over at will. I wear what he sends. I answer when he calls. I subject myself to him. Then, I fight him at every turn, conflicted, obeying and disobeying, all at once. The things he does to me keep me held captive even when he is nowhere in sight. Every time I see a man that is his size, I find myself wondering if it could be him. Each time he sends me something, I search high and low for clues but never can find so much as a trace.
The sound of my wetness and his voice invade my thoughts, bringing me out of my daydream.
“Soon, my Vixen, one day soon, I will reveal myself to you.”
His hand reaches around to touch my clit and his voice pierces into my very soul.
“Come for me, my little Vixen, come…”