Story: Dirty Laundry

Posted by Thanatos on September 26, 2001 at 15:39:28:

In some ways, it was a perfect setting.

Heathrow Airport at night is like some strange city, with gigantic aircraft lumbering past behind the hotchpotch of buildings that have sprung up round the runways, and inadequately planned roads that threatened to burst with traffic. Every minute, the tail fin of another jet would line up on runway Two-Seven Right, across from the choked A4, wind up its engines to full power, and fling itself down the outbound runway, up and away from London and the world, out into the cold of the upper atmosphere. The frigid night air carries the fantastic sounds of the giant turbofans, and you can hear, and almost feel, the whining, slicing sound of the blades as the fans spool up for maximum power, spewing out their awesome amounts of thrust into the cold November air.

Laura blinked, and the aircraft lights reflected in the pupils of her eyes flickered for a moment.

It's strange, she thought, that sometimes the settings at times of great emotional stress burn themselves into your mind.

She watched the gigantic form of a Cathay Pacific 747 race past, on the other side of the road to the Heathrow Marriott, as Matt's words sank in, and the green-and-white livery etched itself into her brain, the red light blinking on top of the fuselage.

She glanced back at Matt, and his lips continued to move, and more platitudes tumbled out, some better, some worse, but her mind was still frozen on those words that had telegraphed his intentions the moment he had spoken them:

Laura, I want us to be friends.

She was aware she was going white. This time, she knew it was chalk white, because she was getting those funny little black specks sparking off around her eyes like tiny hovering flies. The rational part of her mind reasoned that it must be shortage of blood to the brain as her body rallied itself against the terrific emotional shock, preparing to poleax the body, get it lying down, preparing to shutdown, rebuild, repair, recover.

He had stopped speaking, and was looking at her. No, not at her, but at her hand.

'You're spilling your drink,' Matt said, looking at the forty-five degree cant of her wineglass.

'Oh, am I,' she said, and her hand moved of its own accord, as if it was connected by a thread to some invisible puppeteer that was working her body, and it threw the contents of the glass over him.

He sat there, dripping, his face a mixture of suppressed anger and trying to look understanding. It was a difficult look to bring off, when a full glass of red wine is running off your hair, down your face and over your Yves St Laurent shirt and tie, but he made a passable go of it, she had to admit.

A few slow seconds passed, and the conversation in the lounge area of the Marriott returned to normal. Just some foreigners having an argument.

Italian probably. Look at the way she threw that wine over him. Sure, she's Italian all right, look at those clothes. Hey, he won't be getting any tonight. Are they married? No, they're having an affair, can't you see that? Stop gawking, Jerry. Jerry, hello?

A passing barman proffered a napkin, which Matt was about to wave away in irritation, then changed his mind and snatched it back in even greater annoyance. The barman made a sympathetic smile, which Matt ignored.

Fine, asshole, you ignore me. I won't offer to loan you that sweatshirt that was left here last week, that would fit you and would cover that stain. I'll just smile and carry on serving you and you can sit there with that wine stain, looking like the jerk you probably are.

Matt mopped his face, hair, and dabbed at this shirt.

'Look Laura,' he began again, 'I just need some, some...' he groped for words, waving his hands, as if he could somehow scoop the words up from the air molecules themselves.

Laura wondered what it would be. Space for himself? Time by himself? More time? Or would the real answer be Sex With Someone Else? And as the words came out (oh, and it was Space For Himself, she noted, how original) her heart, which by now was a smoldering coal as black as the night outside, ignited with a dreadful, smoking flame.

She almost heard the silent thud as the flame lit and curled around her soul, she felt the moment of shock, when there is no pain, and then the searing shriek of her mind as her nerve endings were caressed by fire. The pain grew and grew, until she thought it would burst and engulf her, and she had to hold on to the chair to stop herself from shaking, from yelling out, from striking him, from SOMETHING.

Her knuckles went white on the chair arms.

HOW could he do this, to HER? She had had no warning, no idea this was coming, and with the insight of the suddenly betrayed, a sudden collage of events and inconsistencies ran past her mind, like some rapidly-edited movie, and she could see the odd behavior, the lies, the concealment, and the other person that he had been seeing, as clear as if she had been lit up by a photographic flash in some studio.

And something inside her, something buried deep, came out. It came out from under some stone that had kept it hidden since childhood, a misshapen monster that had no name, and it seized its chance, and twined itself round her mind, muttering its words of dark power. It snuffed out the flame and replaced it with something far worse, and suddenly her revenge was laid out on the table, as clear as the glass that formed it.

Her anger evaporated, and she smiled.

It stopped him dead in his tracks.

Her eyes met his, and they were liquid pools of brown in the soft lighting of the bar.

'I, I'm sorry about the wine. I just don't like to be rejected, that's all,' she opened her purse and gave him a packet of paper tissues, while she made a show of composing herself, of resigning herself to the fact. She looked down and breathed a heavy, slow sigh.

'Laura, I, I don't know what to say.'

Oh yeah? How about: 'Thank goodness the crazy bitch has calmed down?'

'It's okay,' she said, nodding. 'It's okay. I guess I'd known things weren't right. I'm just a little shook up, that's all. I guess you're right. Sooner or later someone would have realized that we were having an affair.'

She sat back, and looked out again into the inky darkness where tailfins marched slowly past, and her revenge coiled lazily round her, like incense rising in the darkness.

She looked back at him, and her eyes moved over his face, caressing it. Matt dropped his eyes momentarily, expecting hate, then glanced back as he saw something else, something that he couldn't resist, and Laura's revenge twisted round him, pulling him in.

'You know,' she murmured, dropping her eyes to the table, then raising them again under seductive brows. Her soft hair fell round her face as she did so, but she resisted the urge to pull it back, and left it there, framing her face as she stared at him, devouring his eyes. 'It seems such a shame to waste the room here. They're so expensive. And you've got that corner room where we can make lots of noise... and I've dressed up for you, and I was hoping...' she dropped her voice, glanced around, then leaned closer. 'I was really hoping you'd pretend to... you know, rape me again... like you did in Milan before the last regional Board Meeting.'

She bit her lip, looking slightly nervous, as if she felt guilty at the thought, then smiled; her slowest, most sexy smile. 'I'd really like to do it one last time; for old times' sake? We go our separate ways afterwards? We leave on a high? What do you say?'

She twisted slowly in her chair, smiling at him, telegraphing her arousal, and she moved her legs under the table, sliding one long leg against the other, and one hand drifted down, unconsciously as it were, to touch one thigh below her short skirt.

He was staring at her legs through the glass table, following the curve of her thigh from the line of her skirt, past her knees, down her calves to the gray high-heeled shoes that adorned her feet. His mouth moved, but no sound came out.

She leaned closer, and her voice sank to a whisper, and the dark wings of her will enfolded him and drew him closer, pulling him in. She waited until his eyes flickered back to hers, and she held them there.

'Matt, you know how much I like it. Pretending to die for you...'

* * *

She eyed herself in the mirror in the bathroom, while she fixed her makeup. She knew he liked to take her in her business suits. And this one was her best. Dolce & Gabanna. Dove gray. Normally, she would have squealed with protest, would have insisted she took it off before he started, but tonight she didn't care what he did to it. He could spread cum all over it, for all she cared.

She would burn it, along with every other item of clothing he had ever fucked her in.

The replacement cost would be outrageous, but the people at the KLM customer service desk at Heathrow owed her some favors, and she would be able to enter a lost baggage claim the next day.

She looked at her body, and her legs in her Dior tights went on forever, up and up, all the way up to the hem of the fitted short skirt. She smiled as she imagined him outside in the bedroom, hard, his mouth dry, panting as he shed his clothes, as he stroked the knife that she knew he kept in his briefcase.

Matt and knives.

Stuart and his guns.

Ron and his handcuffs.

Men were all the same, they all had their little sordid sexual secrets, that they thought were so amazing, and once you'd figured it out, you had them; hook, line and sinker.

She smiled. Boys and their toys.

Then the smile fell off her face as she reached out and pulled on a pair of black leather gloves that came halfway up her forearms. They were very thin, and fitted her perfectly. She wriggled her fingers in the taught black leather and smoothed them up her arm, and let the cuffs of her jacket fall back over them.

Tonight he would get the thrill of his life.

She flicked her hair back, turned the bathroom light off, and stepped out into the bedroom. It was dimly lit; only one of the reading lights burned above the desk, and Matt was nowhere to be seen. Unconcerned, she walked across the room and sat down at the desk. She opened the lid of her laptop, the picture of the busy businesswoman doing her email.

A strong hand appeared from behind, and clamped itself hard over her mouth.

'Don't move, bitch,' came a hard voice, and there was something cold and sharp being held across her soft throat. She went rigid with fear. She knew it was a knife being held against it.

She could hear Matt's panting breath in her ear as he slowly forced her head round until she could see him. He was naked, and his hand held a huge commando knife. Its serrated edge glinted in the near-darkness, and his penis leaped in excitement at her fear, almost as if it could see her with its single blind eye.

'Go over to the bed,' he said, in a deadpan voice that Laura knew wasn't Matt talking, but the voice of his twisted lust.

She stood up, very slowly, and he followed her actions with his own, never taking the knife away from her throat or his hand from her mouth.

She walked, very slowly, over to the bed.

'Get onto it.'

For a moment, he had to extend his arm as she climbed onto the bed, and she saw her chance and jerked away from him, tearing the hand from over her mouth.

'Help! Somebody please help! Please don't -'

The knife was thrust back over her throat again, and this time it was so swift it drew a minute drop of blood from her throat.

'Please don't kill me,' she gasped in a tiny voice, shaking in fear, but he was enraged now, now that she had spoken, and he flung her backwards onto the bed. She scrabbled backwards on the bed, the heels of her Prada shoes catching on the coverlet. He got onto the bed and advanced on her on his knees, and she let out a cry of terror, raising her gloved hands to protect herself as he held the knife in an overhand stabbing grasp. Wrestling the expensive short skirt up and round her hips, he tore open her Dior tights with the point of the knife and ripped the sheer nylon apart with his fingers. He slid the sharp edge of the knife under her panties, the metal cold against her pubic mound, and yanked. The razor sharp knife slit through them with a sudden rip, and the sound seemed to drive him mad. He leapt onto her, forcing his way between her legs as she struggled, and plunged his erect penis into her waiting vagina. She flinched slightly as his huge glans parted her outer labia, but she had taken the precaution of lubricating herself with some K-Y jelly she kept in her wash bag, and he didn't notice a thing.

'Die, bitch!' he hissed, and now he was using the knife to tear open her jacket, ripping out the buttons, pulling it aside, slitting open the expensive, hand-stitched silk lining. Her ivory colored silk blouse was next, and he fucked her with a frenzy as he ripped at it, tearing it into long shreds as he passed his knife over her clothes, again and again. Then came her bra, and he slid the edge of the knife under the center and pulled, and her breasts came out for his crazed eyes to feast on. He went crazy as this happened, and pounded away at her like a stallion, his eyes narrowed to thin slits, the breath hissing from between his teeth.

Even she had to admit it was a good effort.

He pounded away at her for a goodly time, and Laura felt well and truly ravished, and he was building up to an explosive climax, when she suddenly stopped in her motion, and she grabbed his head and pulled it down towards her mouth.

'Oh no,' she said, whispering in his ear, 'Not so fast.' She paused for effect, then went on, in an even lower tone. 'I want to tie you up,' she breathed, and pressed her tongue in for good measure, 'I want to have you at my command. I want to tie your hands behind your back.'

Gently but insistently, she pushed his hands behind his back, and reached out for the duct tape that she had strategically placed on the bedside table. There was a jerky, ripping sound as she slowly pulled out a length, then a sharper sound as she tore it off with her teeth, and she kissed him on the mouth as she wound it tightly round his wrists as he lay there on top of her.

His hands were bound behind him now, and he liked it; his weight was holding her down, and he started making thrusting motions into her.

'Oh, you like that, don't you,' she said as his thrusts became bigger. 'Mmm, that's good. Are you hot? Do you want me, baby?'

She gently pushed his aside, and sideways, so he rolled off her.

'Hold on, lover, I've got to go to the bathroom,' she said, and she stood up, leaving him lying on the bed. His eyes followed her as she strutted past him and disappeared into the bathroom, then came the trickling sound in the bowl of the toilet, and the sound of the flush through the open door.

Her high heels were muffled in the thick bedroom carpet as she returned.

'Face away from me,' she said, in an excited voice, 'I've got a surprise for you.'

He turned over to face the window, his hands behind him, and he felt the pressure on the bed as she knelt behind him. Then the slow ripping sound of another length of duct tape being pulled out, and the sharp rip as it was pulled off.

'Are you ready?' she asked, and reached over him and slapped the tape over his mouth. His eyes popped wide, but with surprise, not fear, and she gently removed the knife from his startled hand.

'Goodbye, Matt,' she said brightly, and pulled the room laundry bag over his head and face.

It had a drawstring to close it, and her leather-clad hands, unseen behind the wall of whiteness that closed him in, pulled it tight and smoothed the bag downwards to exclude the air.

His muffled cried came from inside the bag, and it enlarged as he exhaled panic-laden air through his nostrils. He was throwing himself around on the bed in panic, but she managed to smooth the bag down again, and now it was clinging tightly to his face, smothering his taped mouth and nose, and there was no air.

She stood up and watched, stone faced, as he struggled to draw breath. His early panic had emptied his lungs, and now he was desperately trying to draw air. She could see the features of his face under the taught white polythene, the tight blank opening where his mouth gaped wide, trying to get air, but finding only a wall of plastic in its place.

He really had quite a good body, she thought, and she watched his muscles bulge in his arms and shoulders as he strained against the tape that was holding his wrists together. He was struggling violently now, his legs making bicycling movements, and his thrashing took him to the edge of the bed, and she stepped aside as he fell onto the carpeted floor.

She lifted one leg, and moved to stand astride him in her high heels as he slowly suffocated on the floor. A heady sensation of power flooded through her, as she stood over the suffocating man, and she realized that she was panting as his struggles became more desperate, his hands clenching and unclenching behind his back, faint sounds of agony coming now. His chest heaved in spasmodic attempts to draw breath, but there was none, and she saw his erection start to rise again, a desperate try for life. She watched in guilty fascination as it quivered there, his whole body becoming hard and unyielding, his muscles shaking, then there was a creaking sound from his throat, and his taught body started to fade, his limbs going limp, as he lost consciousness.

His movements stilled, but he was still alive, and she watched resolutely as his heartbeat slowed, stuttered, and fell still.

His erection remained there, nodding slightly as the last few systoles pulsed through it, then the blood pressure fell away; it lost its rigidity, and fell slowly sideways, shrinking as it went.

She watched until he had been still for a good five minutes, then she took off all her clothes, everything except her gloves, and stuffed them into a black plastic bin liner that she pulled from her overnight bag. She unfolded some casual clothes from the bag, and hummed a little tune as she pulled on a pair of jeans and a tee shirt over some clean underwear.

Duct tape was marvelous stuff, she thought, as she found the roll again, and pulled out a length and wrapped it inside-out over her hands, and then went over the bed and the entire floor, picking up all the hair and dust she could find. The Marriott maid service did an excellent job at keeping the room clean, and she only needed five changes of tape to remove all the stray hairs from the entire room.

Then the opened her washbag, took out her comb, and carefully combed his pubic hair, and head and chest hair, to remove all traces of her hair from his body. She wiped his penis with a damp facecloth from the bathroom, cleaning every trace of her vaginal secretions from him, even under the foreskin. She was pretty sure that he hadn't scratched her, but just in case, she took out her manicure set and scraped under every one of his fingernails.

Then she sat down at the dresser and carefully redid her makeup. She had probably left traces of makeup on the bed and on his body, she thought, but they wouldn't get anything useful from that.

A few minutes later, satisfied with her appearance, she pushed everything she had used into the bag full of clothes, stuffed it into her overnight bag, and checked Matt's body one last time.

It had not moved during all the time that she had been busy. She peered closely. A muscle was twitching in the back of one hand in a nerve reflex, making his little finger move slightly. She leaned down, flicked the finger, and the twitching stopped.

In that motion so familiar to anyone who has stayed in a hotel room, she straightened up and surveyed the room before turning to go.

On a sudden whim, as she left she slipped the laundry list over the outside handle of the door, where the housekeeper would see it.

The door swung shut behind her, and the electronic lock snicked shut.

'Dirty laundry,' she said softly, and as she walked confidently down the hallway to the elevator, the tailfins circled and marched past the atrium windows, in their endless procession into the sky.