"Just keep calm, Mandy," the heavyset man said. "Just keep calm, don't get excited." He pointed to the bed. "C'mere, lay down here."
Mandy--having already stripped herself totally nude on his instructions--complied without argument. Using duct tape, he bound her wrists tightly to the bedposts, her arms spread. He then proceeded to her ankles, spreading her beautiful legs just as wide. He didn't tie her too tightly; she could still bend her knees. Her eyes wide, she watched him and waited helplessly for his next move.
"Comfortable?" he asked solicitously.
She shook her head to clear her billowing dark hair from her face. "Yeah--as much as possible, considering."
He pushed her hair back for her and stroked her forehead. "Good," he said softly. He didn't say anything else, he just stared at her. She kept watching him, wondering if he was going to rape her. She could take it, she told herself, if he did.
Finally, she broke the silence. "How long are you going to leave me like this, Eddie?"
He sighed and looked away. "Not very long, Mandy..."
She stared at him for a moment; then her eyes grew wide. "Eddie, what're you going to do? You're not going to--"
He turned back. "Yeah," he told her. "Yeah, I am going to." He knelt beside her and drew out a knife. "I have to, Mandy," he murmured. "It's what they tol' me to do..."
She looked down at it. "Oh, Eddie, oh, no, please, please, don't do it..."
He shook his head sadly. "It's the way it's gotta be."
She stared at him wildly. "No, Eddie, please please please... I'll do anything, you can fuck me, I'll suck your cock...!"
"Shh," he said. "Don't do that, now, don't beg. I gotta do this." He ran his hand gently over her full round breast. "Damn, you are so fuckin' gorgeous... this is such a fuckin' waste..." He raised the knife.
Tears squeezed from her eyes; she raised her head and stared at the shining blade. "Eddieee...!"
"I'm sorry, Mandy," he answered. He averted his eyes momentarily. "I hafta do it, that's what they told me to come in here and do. If I don't it'll be bad for me and they'll send somebody else in here to do it anyway. There ain't no way out, not for neither one of us."
She started to cry. "Oh, Eddie, go talk to them please, listen, I didn't take their money, I don't know where it is, I--"
"I believe you," he said, cutting her off. "I do. I don't think you had a thing to do with it. But they do, and the only way this isn't gonna happen is if you tell 'em what they wanna know. If you really didn't do it, then you can't tell 'em where it is 'cause you don't know." He sighed, long and deep. "You know, maybe I could convince 'em. But if I do they're gonna be convinced Jodie took it. And then they're gonna go after her."
Mandy stared. "But Jodie's just a kid, she's just nineteen!"
"What difference does that make?"
She squeezed her eyes tightly closed for a moment. "None," she agreed. "It makes no difference, I know." Opening her eyes, she looked at Eddie again. "Can you keep them away from Jodie, Eddie? Can you? I don't want them to hurt my little sister..."
He nodded. "I can and I will. If they believe you took the money and that you've paid for it."
"Promise me, Eddie! Promise me!"
"I promise, Mandy. You have my word."
She continued to stare for a moment, then nodded her own head. A few tears ran down her cheeks, and she looked back up at the knife. She bit her lip. "Do it, Eddie," she whispered. "Do what they told you to do..."
Eddie sighed and pursed his lips. With his left hand he stroked Mandy's face. Then, abruptly, he plunged the knife down and into her belly, stabbing her just above her navel and nearly burying the blade. She gave a short loud scream and arched her neck, throwing her head far back as her blood started to boil up around the steel. After a moment she raised her head, looked down at the blade piercing her, and moaned loudly.
Letting go of the knife, leaving it standing in her belly, Eddie stood watching while blood ran down over her side and pooled on the bed. Her head fell back onto the pillow and she looked up at him, her pain and her fear clearly visible in her wide eyes.
"Okay," he said. "Now, you gotta wait a minnit, here. The boys want a word with you."
Leaving her to stare after him in confusion, he turned on his heel and walked out of the room. After a few moments he came back; two other men--Mitch and Larry--were with him. Mitch Ryan, a tall man in his fifties with iron-gray hair, was Amanda's employer, the owner of the Tiffany Lounge, where she'd been a dancer--and where her sister Jodie worked as a waitress. And the man who'd accused her of stealing fifty thousand dollars in drug profits from his office. Larry Sanderson was his bouncer and right-hand man.
"Looks good, Ed," Larry said. "Good job."
"Please," Mandy begged. "Please, if you're going to kill me, just get it over with..."
The men laughed. "What's your hurry?" Mitch asked. Both men pulled up chairs and sat down by her bedside. "It don't matter anyway. Things are gonna go the way we want 'em to go, Mandy, not the way you want them to go. If they were going the way you wanted 'em to go, you wouldn't have a knife sticking it your belly right now, now would you?"
"Mitch, I didn't steal your money! I didn't even know you were selling drugs!"
"I didn't say you did," Mitch shot back. "What we're talkin' about here, Mandy, ain't got nothing to do with the drugs, not really. Has to do with the money. The money's gone, honey. The money's gone and you were the one who was around when it got gone." He shrugged. "Now, in a way I don't blame you. Fifty grand, that's a lot of bread. It'd tempt most anybody. But you lost, Mandy, you got caught. Now I want you to tell me where my money is."
She didn't answer for a moment. "Mitch, I don't know. I can't tell you, I don't know. I didn't take it!"
Mitch shook his head, then reached out and lightly touched the knife piercing her. She gasped, loudly. "Eddie," he said, "C'mon over here, pull this blade out of her." He touched her breast. "And start cuttin' her. Cut off her nipples first. Then the rest of her tits."
"No, Mitch, no, please!"
"Then tell me what I want to know, Goddamn it!"
She closed her eyes tightly for a moment. "Okay," she said finally. "Okay. I'll tell you..."
Mitch grinned. "That's better; I knew you'd listen to reason. Where is it?"
"At the club," she told him, improvising. "The dressing tables... the one I use, the one on the far right by the wall. The makeup drawer, it's in an envelope taped to the back of the drawer."
He gazed at her suspiciously. "Why would you leave it there, Mandy? Ain't you afraid one of the other girls'll find it and take it?"
"I was more afraid you'd find it in my apartment," she answered. "Then I'd be caught. At the club, anybody could've put it there. Besides, no one ever takes those drawers all the way out, and you can't see it if you don't..."
Mitch pursed his lips and gave a little nod. "We'll go check it out, Mandy," he told her. "It better be there. If it ain't, it's gonna get rough around here when we get back."
She gave him a wan smile. "Mitch, I got a blade stuck in my belly here, I'm dying. Whattya gonna do, kill me? Haven't you already had Eddie do that?"
He glowered. "I can hurt you a lot more before you go," he threatened.
"That's why I told you where it was. It sure isn't gonna do me any good now, is it?"
Mitch stood up. "You stay with her, Eddie," he ordered. "Me 'n' Larry'll go over to the club. We should be back in, oh, maybe thirty minutes."
"Yes, boss," Eddie said obediantly. He glanced at Mandy. "Should I take the blade out of her?"
"No. If you do she's liable to bleed to death quick, she'll last longer if you leave it there."
"Okay." He went to the door with the two men and locked it after they'd left. Then he turned back to Mandy. "You told me you didn't take the money..." He sat down heavily in the chair beside the bed.
"I didn't," she admitted. "They're not gonna find a thing."
He rolled his eyes. "Damn, Mandy, when they come back--!"
She gazed at him steadily. "Eddie," she said, "what I'm counting on is, when they come back, I'm gonna be dead and out of their reach. I need your help with that, Eddie."
He shook his head. "I can't. They'd know. You heard Mitch tell me to leave the blade in you."
She looked at it again. "Yeah. And you have to, I know. But there's other things you can do, Eddie." Her eyes pleaded with him. "C'mon, Eddie," she begged. "You can... you know how. Pull the blade out a little and push it back, work it around inside me. It'll get me bleeding inside and I'll go down, they'll never know. Do it for me, Eddie." She raised her eyebrows and flexed her legs. "You can fuck me... I'll suck your cock..." She licked her lips. "Come on, take out your cock, stick it in my mouth here..."
Eddie hesitated only for a second. Then he stood up, unzipped his pants, and, with some effort, extracted an already-hard cock. She smiled. "Sticking me turned you on, didn't it?" she asked. He looked embarrassed and she managed a little laugh. "It's okay, Eddie. Lots of guys get turned on by snuffing a babe. You do think I'm a babe, don't you, Eddie?"
He moved close to her head. "Yeah, Mandy," he answered, "You're a babe, you know you are. Damn, I wish it wasn't going down this way..."
"Not your choice," she said crisply. "Or mine. Let's make the best of it, huh?" She turned her head toward hin and opened her mouth widely; he pushed his erection into it, and she began massaging it with her lips, running her tongue over it. Keeping her eyes open, she looked up at his face as she sucked him. He sighed with pleasure.
After a few seconds, though, he pulled his cock back. She looked up at him questioningly. "I guess," he said slowly, "I better get to it here..."
She bit her lip, but she forced a seductive smile. "Yeah, that'd be a good idea..."
He reached for the knife. "What you want me to do?"
Staring at it, she chewed her lower lip and fought with her fear. "Pull it back," she instructed. "Like halfway out. Then point it up toward my head and push it back in again. Okay?"
"Okay." He wrapped his fingers around the hilt and pulled a little.
Pain exploded in her gut; she twisted on the bed, her arms tense and her legs flexed. "Ah, God, oh Eddie, shit, oh, hold my mouth, I'm gonna scream, I can't help it...!"
Nodding, he clamped a huge hand over her mouth. Her eyes huge, she stared as he tugged it again. Her skin clung to it but it slipped back--and a new eruption of pain came with the movement. More of her blood started welling up and out. Her whole body tense, she fought the pain.
As she'd said, though, she couldn't help screaming. "MMmmmph!" she cried from behind his hand. "Mm... mmmph... uhhh!"
By then only an inch or so of the blade remained in her. Eddie glanced at her agonized face, then lowered the handle of the knife, aiming the point toward her head, as she'd suggested. He shoved on it, she felt it cut through her entrails, and she shrieked again behind his hand, her body stiffer than ever. Holding her mouth tightly, he kept sliding the knife on in until it was again buried. It was no longer standing at the same angle as before, and Eddie started pulling it back once more. More blood still was gurgling out, and Amanda's body bounced helplessly as he slipped it back into her again, setting it as it was before.
After a moment he took his hand away from her mouth. "That what you wanted?" he asked.
She couldn't speak right away. "Oh, God, Eddie, God," she murmured finally. "I feel so cold, I'm so scared..."
He looked concerned. "Can you...?"
She knew what he wanted. "I'll try," she told him. Again she turned her head to the side and opened her mouth, and again Eddie stuffed his cock into it. Making an effort, she tried to do her best, tried to give him as good a blow-job as she could manage, but she felt weak and foggy. The pain was fading, and she tried to be grateful for that, but she knew what it meant, too. Eddie began to play with her breasts, and the movement made the knife move slightly inside her, bringing new shocks of fresh pain. She tried to ignore it, tried to make it good for Eddie, but she was fading fast. After just a few minutes her lips and tongue stopped moving. She looked up at Eddie helplessly, her lips slack around his cock.
He drew it out of her mouth. "I understand," he said. "You've done about all you can do." Standing very close to her, holding his cock near her breast, he started stroking it with his left hand. And, at the same time, he took hold of the knife with his right. "Time to finish it, I think," he told her, and he began slipping the blade out again.
It hurt, but not as badly as before and in any case, she now lacked the strength to scream. After drawing the knife back until almost all of the blade was exposed, Eddie tipped the handle downwards at a strong angle. Working his own cock furiously, he began pushing it in again, cutting a new path through her insides. She found the strength to strain against her bonds, and her mouth opened in a silent cry as the steel sank deep into her yet again, unleashing a new flood of redness.
After holding the knife deep down inside her for a second, Eddie pulled it back again and again slipped it deep, setting it straight. He groaned loudly and, his hand moving very rapidly, sprayed come all over her breasts.
Amanda tried to relax. She could hardly see him, her field of vision was very small. "Remember, Eddie," she croaked, "convince them... Jodie had nothing... to..."
Her words stopped. He saw her eyes dart about wildly for a second; then she let out a long rattling breath and didn't draw another. Eddie stared at her for a moment, then hurried to the bathroom, retrieving enough toilet tissue to clean the evidence of his activities off her breasts.
Just a few minutes later, the door opened; Mitch and Larry, looking furious, came in. Walking quickly to the bed, they looked down at Amanda. "God damn it, she's dead!" Mitch raged. "What happened here, Eddie?"
He shrugged. "I dunno. She just died. Lost too much blood, I guess."
"Shit. The bitch lied to us, Eddie."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"I kinda figured."
Mitch looked around at him. "You did?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Before she died she told me she didn't take it. She said she figured her little sister Jodie mighta done it."
"Yeah? She said that?"
"Sure did." Eddie grinned broadly. "You want me to go get Jodie, boss? Do the same thing to her?"
He looked, Mitch thought, terribly eager...