Posted by Menagerie on July 14, 2005 at 19:51:42:
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
“You realize,” Rita said, as calmly she possibly could, “that I’m not really a hooker.”
She tried to sound calm, she really did, but her voice quavered, just a bit. That, in and of itself, was not terribly surprising, for Rita was naked and dangling by her ankles from the guy’s ceiling beams, her hands tied behind her back. The guy was just kind of humming and smiling to himself; he was sharpening a knife, a very large knife, the blade making gruesome scraping and clanking sounds as he brought it very rapidly, back and forth, against a rasp.
“I mean it,” Rita said. Her voice carried a little more urgency now. “Do I look like a hooker?” She imagined hookers looking a certain way.
This time, the guy turned, and she saw his lopsided smile from her upside-down vantage point. He pointed to the bare wooden chair on the corner; piled on it, very neatly, were Rita’s fishnet stockings, her lacy, black brassiere and panties, and the bright orange dress with the skirt slit way up the side. Sitting forlornly on the floor next to the chair, one propped up and one on its side, were the pumps that jacked Rita’s heels up so high, she’d gotten dizzy looking down. “No,” he said, gleefully. “Not anymore.”
It wasn’t Rita’s fault; the cops had kept the prostitute disappearances quiet. Or maybe they hadn’t noticed. Or maybe they just hadn’t cared. Whatever the reason, the guy--Rita still had no idea what to call him, he hadn’t given her any kind of a name--made sure she knew that he was behind the disappearances.
Yes, he did. While she was cuffed and spreadeagled on the moth-eaten, stained mattress he called a bed, he showed her the piles of streetwalker duds in his closet. Showed her the photos. Showed her the tufts of hair. Later, down in the little torture chamber he’d built in the basement of his modest townhouse, he showed her the skulls. Showed her the freezer.
An experienced pro, of course, would never have let him snap on the cuffs to begin with. But Rita wasn’t experienced. In fact, she wasn’t kidding. She wasn’t a hooker.
This was all her damn boyfriend’s fault, and she started visualizing him as the guy over there with the knives, the guy testing them against his thumb, whistling as he piled the bags on the old table, deep knife grooves in it. Every once in a while, the guy would turn to her, and she’d see that big grin again, through a red haze--all her blood must be in her head now. His features were fading in and out, and from one angle--bending over the table as he got his tools ready--he really did look her boyfriend.
Rita had loved to play bedroom games with him, and their favorite was John & Hooker. She’d don the stockings and the Day-Glo dress, and totter on her heels outside her apartment late at night under a bright streetlamp, until he came around the corner to pick her up. “Ready for a little action?” she’d purr through the open window, her pixie eyes narrowed mischievously, her bow-shaped lips crinkled into a pouty smile.
He’d play his part with relish. “Let’s take a little spin,” and Rita would clamber into the late-model luxury car he couldn’t afford, cross her legs seductively, and smirk at him. As he drove around the block five or six times, they’d discuss price, sexual positions, and props; then, it was back up to her apartment, where they’d do things regular Rita and her square boyfriend would never dream of doing.
And yes, he had a pair of cuffs. That was what Rita had thought of when the guy showed them to her; she hesitated for a second. “Are they safe?” she finally blurted, and he’d assured her with a smile that they were, showed her how they’d pop apart with just a tug, just like the ones her boyfriend had. Except her boyfriend had demonstrated them on his own wrists. “See?” he said, the spring-loaded link giving way easily.
So Rita let the guy put the cuffs on her, and it didn’t occur to her until much later, with tape over her mouth and securing her ankles, as he was carrying her up the dark, rickety stairs of the townhouse, as she repeatedly tugged at the cuffs behind her back, that he must have switched them.
She kind of wished the boyfriend was there about then, as she dangled from the ceiling and the guy moved stuff aside in his freezer to make more room. They'd never thought of playing this kind of game, and it might have been fun. It wasn't, now. But she should have figured, if she needed to play a hooker or a cheerleader or a movie star or, once--she shivered--a corpse, just to keep his interest, it wasn't going to last very long. “You have no imagination,” he said. “I don’t feel it any more.” He went and found another girl who could bend over completely backwards from the waist, and wrap her legs around the back of her head; that, he decided, was different. The bank got the car.
So Rita was sitting there by the phone on a Friday night, a pack of cigarettes and a tumbler full of brandy to keep her company. Both were soon empty, and that’s when her somewhat blurry eyes partially focused on the hooker outfit. It took some tugs and grunts to zip up the dress; maybe all that exercise with the BF had kept the pounds off. She looked at herself in the full-length mirror on the bathroom door, then grabbed a piled up redheaded wig, looked at herself again. Held the cigarette out at an angle, shot herself a sideways glance. You know, you look...purrrr-fect, she said to herself.
Clanking out there on the street in those heels took some doing, too. She wore flats at the office. Smiling, giving a little half-wave to the cars passing by in her quiet neighborhood; the drivers were undoubtedly saying either, "What's a hooker doing out here?" or, "Rita sure goes to a lot of costume parties." Finally, the big, black sedan slowed down, and the guy poked his head out the window, that lopsided grin on his face. Rita was so surprised, her brain jammed up, and she was back with her boyfriend again. Finally, she croaked, "Ready for a little action?,” wrapping her arms around herself. Sure, he said, hop in. And damned if she didn't.
If Rita hadn't been off on Saturn somewhere, it would have occurred to her that the guy hadn't discussed price, hadn't talked about what he wanted to do to her. In fact, he hadn't talked at all, except to show her the cuffs. “Put these on,” he told her, “it’s my thing.” They were at a stoplight, and Rita was thinking, Time to go. The door wouldn’t open from the inside. “It sticks,” he said. He did his presto change-o act with the cuffs, and Rita was still trying to figure out how to pop them when they pulled into the back of the townhouse. It all kind of went downhill from there.
Tied up on the smelly mattress in the upstairs bedroom wasn't much fun. Rita's boyfriend had tied her up a few times, but he liked to tickle her until she giggled uncontrollably, and then rub scented oils all over her. The guy wasn't a tickler, just would walk over to her, flop down on her, get up and leave again. Not very fulfilling. And after the third time, he remarked that she was a lousy lay.
He hadn't been very impressed by Rita's selection of hooker eveningwear, either. "Where did you get this?" he sneered, as he wrestled off her dress. "At a discount store?" Well, actually she had; if you bought three of them, they threw in the wig. She would have admitted it, if her mouth weren’t still taped up. He stacked her clothes on the chair, then showed her the piles in the closet, pointed to each one, and told her what had happened to its owner. He had fricasseed Frieda, basted Barbra, slow-cooked Suzanne. Wide-eyed and staring up at the guy, Rita swallowed, and tried to figure out what he was going to do with her. What started with "R"? "Roast"?
The guy finally ripped the tape off her mouth—Ow!—just before he hung her from the ceiling hook. Rita wasn’t getting anywhere with the denials—“I work in an office,” she pleaded. “Accounts Receivable. I send people bills, in triplicate. I could tell you what the Mayor paid to have his taxes done.” The guy just kept sharpening the blades, a far away smile on his face. Roast Rita, she thought, dully.
She saw the guy firing up his digital camera. It had been hard to look at the photos. Rita hadn’t realized a human breast would shrink that much after it had been in the oven for a couple hours. She was starting to wonder what she’d look like; she’d always taken such good care of her skin, used lotion and bath oils, kept it nice and smooth. Now, this bastard was going to peel it off of her, or burn it till it blistered, or—
“Hey, you know?” she called out to the guy, who was putting a new blade into a bone saw. “You and me, we really ought to party.”
He paused, looked over at her. “What?”
“C’mon, Big Boy,” Rita meowled, her voice as deep as she could make it, trying not to squeak. “You know you want to get it on with me. I can make you, ooh! So…hot!” She tried thrusting her pelvis forward; it was a little difficult under the circumstances. She hoped her eyes looked smoky.
The guy walked up to her; he was still holding the saw, hanging from his hand. Rita guessed none of the girls he’d hung from his ceiling beams had ever come on to him. “Just get me down from here,” she panted, “and I’ll take you ‘round the world…I’ll set you on fire, Baby. I’ll lick you…all…over…oooffft!”
“Sorry,” the guy said. He’d used the saw to cut the rope. Rita rolled over on her belly and looked up at him; her mouth slightly parted, and her tongue poked out and wet her lips lasciviously. “Don’t you want these hands on you?” she breathed. “Feel my hands rubbing you, getting you so turned on?”
Sure, he did. The cuffs sprang free. I’m still naked in a basement with a madman, Rita thought; gotta play for time. She reared up, those exotic, deep eyes narrowed; one hand reached down into his pants. He needed a bath. No, two baths. She kept the seductive smile on her face, crawling all over him, giving him a real good feel as she bent him backwards onto the heavy, scarred table; knives and plastic bags scattered.
Rita was barely half his size; she climbed up onto his chest, the sexy, catlike smile broader now as she fingered his shirt, undid it slowly, button by button. She was straddling him now, her thighs wrapped around his belly, her wide-open crotch maybe a foot from his face; he kind of had a dopey smile on his face, like he’d left his tractor double-parked.
Rita bent down and put her open mouth on him, working down his chest to his belly. Her fingers were starting to get some feeling back after the hours that they were pinned behind her, and she worked on his belt. Maybe I can bite him, she was thinking, right where it hurts; his pants were wide open, and his thing was big as a mule and twice as ugly. Ugh. Rita took the grotesque member into her mouth and tried to pretend it was soaked in Chivas; in, then out, and she looked up at the guy, seeking his approval.
He was sure having fun. This person, she reminded herself, wants to split my body open and cut me in two with a saw. At least, that’s what he did to—Rita shuddered involuntarily as she recollected the pictures—slow-cooked Suzanne. That kept her mouth and tongue working, and she earned a mouthful of glop for her trouble. The guy was in Nirvana, or at least an adjacent, parallel heaven. If she got out of this, Rita had decided, she was going to soak herself in a good kitchen disinfectant.
“Well,” she murmured, snuggling up next to him on the table, reaching again into his pants—the better to rupture you with—“I’ll bet none of your girls did that with you.” She smiled, and kissed his cheek softly. A few more inches, she thought, and his balls would be shaking hands with his butthole—
Rita had no idea how he’d gotten her hands back behind her back so fast. These weren’t the trick cuffs, either. She bounced off the ground again, found herself dragged by her ankles, back to the low beam. One ankle with a loop around it, hauled up, then the other. She looked up, but she already knew, because she saw the lopsided grin.
“They all did,” he said. “You hookers are all alike.”
Rita gulped; the guy was holding the knife down at his waist, right around where her jugular was. I acted, she thought in between terrified screeches of EEP! YIKE! HEEEEELP!…like a hooker. No imagination?
The Roast Rita, the guy decided, was very good; he polished off a platterful, and went back to the oven for more. Rita’s leg, the flesh half stripped away, lay in an inch of grease. He carved off another slab and plumped down at his rickety little kitchen table, pausing to mop the grease from the meat with a very cute, very tiny, very frilly pair of black, lace panties.