4 comments/ 18660 views/ 0 favorites Nightmerrogation By: Smokey125 SMOKEY SAGAS #15: "Nightmerrogation" *** Short intro. First off, as this story is immediately following what has undoubtedly become my most popular thus far ("Hooked"), I want to take the moment to thank everyone who liked "Hooked" (despite its original unintentional typos *ahem* MADE BY THE SITE *ahem ahem*) and told me so with your far too generous votes. It turned out to be a pretty nice gift—particularly for the ladies—very girl-friendly, more in the vein of "Helping Hand." This one, though again mainly female-populated, is probably going to be geared more towards the guys (although you never know), a little more like "Hell And Back" or "Bad Rabbit." Which I don't think is giving very much away, not if you saw the title. I was going to categorize it under BDSM, but that isn't exactly accurate. Putting it under the Lebbi category is closer, but still not as close as Fetish. This is my 'tribute,' so to speak, to my number one fetish. I think I've put it (this fetish) somewhere in almost every story I've written, but THIS is, I'd like to think, my epic story revolving around it. That will be enough of that. Without further superfluous exposition..."Nightmerrogation!" *** July 7th, 8:57 a.m. Just another manic Thursday. Lucy Taylor pulled into a vacant space in front of her building and put the car in park. It was near the end of another fun-filled, action-packed week at her explosively exciting office clerk job—as she liked to sometimes facetiously refer to it—with which she'd from the beginning had a love-hate relationship. She slung the purse over her shoulder and trotted to the door to reach her desk and clock in within the next three minutes. She got inside, tossed the purse on her desk, booted up her computer, Ctrl-Alt-Del'd the login screen and tapped in her password. The former half of Lucy's love-hate relationship with her job was represented by the actual work they performed, and (most of) her workmates. Many of the folks in the office were at least pretty good friends. "Hi, girl," said Mary, her cubicle neighbor and best buddy, with whom she also shared her youthful age of 22. "How's it goin'?" "Mag-bloody-nificent," the Lincolnshire-born and raised Lucy uttered, eyes on the screen and keyboard, concentrating on getting into the time system in the next sixty seconds. "You then?" "Actually, I could be a little better," Mary replied. Click, click, type, type, type. "Uh-huh..." Mary continued. "We lost last night, and only by five lousy stupid pins! I swear, I could do so much better if the other teams around us didn't steal all the ten-frickin'-pound balls." Click, type. "Mm-hm..." "I mean, you know that's the only weight I can bowl worth a damn with. Any lighter, my fingers get stuck or it just flies out of my hand, and any heavier, I dent the lane." Click. "Right! There we are! Clocked in, just barely in time," Lucy smiled. Mary smirked at her. "Haven't heard a word I've said, have ya?" Lucy turned to her. "Huh?" "Well, well, well!" chirped Cass, a workmate who did not fall under the category of friends in the office, sauntering over to them in her trademark catty style. "If it isn't Mucy and Lary!" The dyslexic mispronunciation of their names was intentional, Cass's attempt at a witty verbal zing. Cass Wilson had only been working at the office for a couple of weeks to Mary's and Lucy's couple of years. They had months and months of seniority over her, and yet Cass seemed inexplicably obnoxious towards them. Lucy and Mary were both familiar with the concept of good-natured ribbing, and this wasn't reflected in Cass's remarks. Though they were a bit too polite to return her verbal fire—to her face. They regarded her by looking at their computer screens. "Cass," they replied together in monotone. Cass was a tall woman, about halfway between 5'9" and 5'10". Her presence brought a hint of intimidation, but she was really no more than verbally abusive. She leaned against the top of the cubicle divider. "And how is the Peanuts gallery?" "Doing quite well this morning, thank you, Pigpen," Mary called over. "OH, how clever, my friend," rejoined Cass. Lucy turned to her caustic workmate with an amiable smirk and burned her with a more clever remark. "Y'know something, Cass, if you didn't act like such a wanker, you might have some actual mates around here," Lucy advised. "And failing that," she smiled at her, "You may politely kiss me bum." "Whot?" Cass shot back, mocking her British drawl. "Oy cont unduhstond yoh foncy occent." Lucy didn't answer. It wasn't worth her time. She just shook her head, returned her face to the screen and got on with her work. The unimaginative mimicking actually bothered Mary much more than it bothered Lucy. The fact was, Mary became steamed when anyone mistreated or insulted her best friend. "Okay, how old are we here?" Mary countered. "You gonna act like a jerk or a little brat? Make up your frickin' mind!" "Don't get cross with her, Mare," said Lucy. "That's precisely what she wants. She's obviously nothing better to do with her silly little life than to behave like a rat. Don't lower yourself to her loutish level." "Know what, you're right, Luce," Mary agreed. She plugged her ear buds' cord into her iPod and placed them in her ears, turning only a few degrees towards Cass. "Goodbye, Miss Wilson." "Oh-kay, fine," Cass smiled tartly at them. "You two have a nice day now..." She turned around, then thought of one more offensive comment to deliver and turned back around. "Incidentally, Lucy," she asked, "Is that your name, or are your pants just easier to get into than a community college?" She promptly turned on her heel and sauntered her way back to her cubicle. "Thank you, Mama Ass," Mary commented once she'd left. "Oh, forget that buffoonish sod," said Lucy. "Why don't we talk abou—" "I mean, why do they keep her around here anyway?" Mary went on. "She's rude as hell, she does a half-ass job, she's g—" "Oh, come now, Mare!" said Lucy. "I say, don't let her spoil the whole blooming lot for us. It's not as if she can really do anything serious to us. If there's anyone who can make our lives miserable, it's not Cass, it's Victoria." It was Lucy's turn to go sour in the face. The latter half of Lucy's love-hate relationship with her job was represented by her boss. She wouldn't normally ever use the word "hate" to describe how she felt about any other human being, but if she had to make an exception, their boss Victoria would be at the top of the list. Victoria Sorenson was in her early 30s and had been in the company for about ten years before Mary and Lucy had started, and when they'd gotten onboard, Victoria had for some bizarre reason seemed to adopt a direct disliking to Lucy, a disliking as inexplicable as Cass's demeanor. She wasn't exactly crazy about Mary either, but Lucy in particular often felt personally attacked by her. To her, it was as if the first time they met, Victoria singled her out as an employee to make something of an "example" of, to gun for. It wasn't as if Lucy's apprehension about her was completely unfounded. Victoria had done a few things to Lucy that made work rather tough on her. Just for instance, she'd docked her half a day's pay for being a few minutes late when she docked others only an hour for the same negligence. She'd embarrassed her in staff meetings. She'd given her what often seemed like the lion's share of the collective labor. It was almost as if she were going out of her way and bending over backwards just to be a thorn in Lucy's side and give her a hard time. And because of their employer-employee relationship, the way she picked on Lucy felt, in a painful, embarrassing way, like Victoria always "won" over her somehow. Victoria would push her around and bully her, and she was the boss, so Lucy automatically "lost." So when Lucy's attitude regarding her boss was, "I just can't win with her," it carried a deeper significance. Lucy didn't know what Victoria's problem with her was. "Why doesn't she like me?" she often wondered out loud. "Everyone likes me!" It sounded like a toot of her own horn, but it was true; Lucy was a very lovable person. But as she once confided in Mary, "Oh, perhaps she's just Anglophobic." "Yeah...perhaps she's just an evil witch who likes to torment people," Mary'd muttered. It wasn't entirely untrue; Victoria didn't exactly treat anyone in the office like royalty. Mary'd gone on to make the comparison, "It's like I'm Anne Hathaway, you're Emily Blunt and she's Meryl Streep." Lucy nodded. Then she thought about it a moment and asked, "...Wouldn't I be Anne Hathaway? I know we started at about the same time, but I think the woman still jolly well hates my guts far more than yours." "I'm going by nationality," Mary jokingly explained. Lucy tried her best not to let it bother her. She was a positive person with a lot of optimism inside her, and what was more, she always tried to see the good in everyone she met. It might have been difficult in Victoria's case—in fact, it might require a pair of X-ray goggles—but she tried anyhow. She was indeed the only British person in the office—in fact, she was the only non-American in the office—which led her to the possibility that her boss could be Anglophobic—ironic for someone named Victoria. But Lucy wouldn't allow her boss to change who she was. She always greeted everyone—boss included—with a cheery smile and a friendly tone of voice. She took special pleasure and pride in being sweet and kind to individuals like Victoria and Cass, because she refused to give them the satisfaction of making her upset. She instead preferred to kill unlikables with kindness and TLC. She spoke in pleasant, pacing tones to them, not because she enjoyed annoying them—although that was a bit of a bonus—but because, like she told Mary, she wouldn't lower herself to their level. Getting back to this Thursday morning, Mary continued their conversation about the dear boss lady with, "Yeah, no kiddin'. Y'know, she and Cass oughtta get together and go bowling or something. Uh—not in MY league, though," she quickly added. Lucy smiled. "Hey, who knows, maybe they already have." Mary made herself laugh. "Hey, maybe they're lesbian lovers." Lucy laughed back. "Why, Mare, what a thing to say!" On went the day, as the sun made its daily arc above them. *** July 7th, 5:24 p.m. The day had progressed more or less like normal. When it was almost time to go, Lucy and Mary started getting their stuff together. "So when's Greg get home?" asked Mary, referring to Lucy's boyfriend. "Oh, he's got an extra few things to do, so probably about 7:00, 7:30," said Lucy. "Cool! So we've got time to grab something to eat." The final minutes ticked down, consisting of very little work and very much purse-packing. When they at last clocked out, they headed for the door, discussing dinner options. Victoria came out of her office with a folder in her hands. "Oh, Lucy, I almost forgot..." she said. Lucy didn't see this being very great news. "Oh, bugger," she whispered to Mary. "Turns out I'm gonna need you to be here actually both days this weekend, Saturday and Sunday. Got way more than usual for the week on Monday, and we're still really swamped. We're not going to be able to get it all done tomorrow." She started to go back into her office to collect her things. "W-...what?" Lucy said. She followed her in. "But-but...but Victoria, I already have plans for this weekend!" "Yes, well, 'Victoriur' is sorry," she said, mocking Lucy's accent, "But you're just gonna have to cancel them. While you're employed here, your work's always priority number one." So Victoria did hate her for being British, it seemed. "N-bu-I...Victoria, I-I can't!" exclaimed Lucy. "My boyfriend's birthday's on Saturday! I was going to spend the whole weekend out with him! He'll be so disappointed!" "I'm sorry, Lucy," Victoria repeated. "When you came on here, you knew from the beginning that weekends would sometimes be mandatory. That's all I can tell you." Mary followed Lucy into the office. "Oh, come on, Vicki, that sucks!" she insisted. "Let her have the weekend off! I'll come in and cover for her!" It wasn't any good; Victoria, finishing ordering papers on her desk into folders, promptly shook her head and reiterated, "Again, I'm sorry. The schedules have already been printed up and processed through the system. There's nothing I can do at this point." Mary and Lucy both sighed in frustration. "But-but, Victoria—" Lucy began to protest again. Victoria slung her own purse over her shoulder and herded them out. "Ladies, I'm afraid our business is concluded here. Please plan on coming in Saturday and Sunday morning, Lucy. Now, I've gotta be off. You two have a good evening." Lucy threw out one more "But—" before Victoria let the door swing shut behind her. She made her hands into fists and shook them angrily. "Oooooh, bleeding hell!" Mary was just as cheesed off on her behalf. She shook her head, hands on her hips. "That bitch! She totally did that to you on purpose." "I told you! Now I can't even be with my own boyfriend on his birthd-..." As a realization popped into her mind, her eyebrows jumped and her mouth opened. "Oh my God, I am Anne Hathaway!" She stamped her foot on the ground. "Oooh, she makes me so mad sometimes! What, just because I'm not an American-born citizen, she thinks she can treat me like her slave?! What is this, her own personal Revolutionary War?!" Her rage turned to sadness as she thought about how her boyfriend would react. "Oh, God, how will I explain this to Greg? What's he going to say?" "Ah, c'mon, Greg's a great guy," said Mary. "He'll understand." "Bollocks!" Lucy shouted. "He won't understand?" Lucy sighed with a whimper. "Oh, that's not what I meant. This whole situation is just bollocks." Mary tried to think of anything she could say or do to make Lucy feel better. "Hey, hey, maybe I could take Greg out instead, huh? Just as a buddy? I mean, I know it's not the same thing, but he could still spend his birthday with a friend, and we could do all the...the fun stuff that you were...gonna..." She stopped as she realized this wasn't helping at all. "I'm sorry, babe," said Mary. Lucy shook her head. "Why should we let her get away with that?" "'Let her get away with that'?" Mary repeated. "What can we do about it?" A few seconds of silence and another frustrated exhalation were Lucy's only answers. "You know, Mare," she lamented, starting to feel like crying, "Sometimes I wish that woman were dead." "Well, I don't wanna be unsupportive, but I don't think you need to go that far," said Mary as they approached the door. "I mean, if you're gonna make a wish, just wish she wasn't our boss anymore." "Oh, I guess you're right," Lucy agreed. "But I still say she needs to be taught a bloody lesson." *** July 8th, 9:04 a.m. A dejected, disenchanted and sleepy Lucy again rounded the corner onto her building's street. Greg was indeed a little bummed out about the news when Lucy'd told him, but as Mary'd predicted, he certainly didn't go into a spiraling depression or make her feel worse than she already did about it. Greg said he wouldn't really mind waiting until the next weekend, or whenever they could afford some quality time together. Lucy felt so lucky to be with him. They truly loved each other, and Greg always forgave her if she made a mistake, and she him as well. He really was the light of her life. She smiled thinking about him, and then her heart squeezed when she remembered she couldn't be with him for this exceptional weekend. It already hadn't been the best day ever, as she was getting to work a couple minutes late. She didn't know exactly, but it felt like she'd only slept for three or four hours. She still only felt half-conscious. She'd put on one of her favorite bright summer dresses to give herself confidence and feel good about today, but it wasn't working incredibly great so far. She was in a lousy mood anticipating her half-day pay dock, but...hey, she told herself, maybe if she showed up late enough every day, Victoria might fire her, and maybe then she could be free from her cruel boss and still also collect unemployment. What was quite strange about this morning, it somehow felt as if she were reliving it, experiencing it for the second time. At first she was certain yesterday was Thursday, but a small part of her persisted in asking, Was...yesterday Friday? She actually could have sworn... Well, it certainly wasn't Groundhog Day. She chalked it up to her lack of sleep the previous night. She almost felt herself fall asleep at the wheel. She smacked herself in the cheek. Wake up, Taylor! she told herself. When she pulled up in front of her building, she saw and heard something alarming. Literally. Several police cars were gathered around the exterior. What on Earth...? she thought. She parked, grabbed her purse and ran inside. When she reached her suite and opened the door, she saw that nobody was sitting at a cubicle working. They were a little scattered, but most were crowded around Victoria's office. Nobody was inside the office except for a few cops. They had put crime scene tape across the door. One of them was writing up a report. Lucy finally located Mary. "Mare? What in Heaven's name's going on?" she asked. Mary was crowded in with their co-workers. She leaned over to Lucy and whispered something that gave her a chill. "You got your wish, Luce." "What?" she whispered back. Mary clasped Lucy's hand with one of hers, and put the other over Lucy's mouth. "She's dead, Lucy. Vicki's dead." Lucy's eyes opened as wide as they would go. She almost shrieked, but Mary pressed her palm harder over her lips. When Lucy's eyes finally narrowed back to normal, Mary removed her hand. Lucy was breathing harder and her lower lip was trembling. As the realization of what this meant sank in, terror filled her mind. "Oh my God," she whispered in disbelief. "OH my GOD...when I said I wished it, I didn't really mean it! Oh, blimey, Mare, I...I killed her! I wished her dead, and she's dead! I KILLED her!" "Don't be ridiculous, Luce," replied Mary. "Of course you didn't. And stop saying that, someone'll hear you! Hush!" Lucy took a moment to look around the room. It went without saying that there were a lot of stunned and alarmed faces, but no one looked exactly heartbroken or crestfallen by the event. "How'd she die?" Lucy asked Mary. "I think they said it was a gunshot wound," Mary said. Lucy covered her own mouth. "Holy smokes!" she silently cried again. "Where's the body?" "They've already wrapped it up...or they had to have. No one's seen her body since we got here." "Good Heaven! Who did it??" "Well, I think they're still working on that one, but—" Almost as if responding to their conversation, one of the cops came out of the office. "Can I have your attention, everyone, please," he requested. "Now, we're certain that everybody's willing to cooperate with us, and that everyone understands that this being a crime scene, we cannot allow anyone to depart." Nightmerrogation Everybody understood that, and had this been just another normal work day, no one would have any intention of departing. What was hard for some of them to deal with, on the other hand, was having their desks and drawers searched. However, the search actually ended up taking not very long at all. "Everyone, your attention again, please," said the same policeman, from a familiar area of the office. All heads turned his way once more. Mary's and Lucy's eyes widened. He checked the nameplate. "This cubicle is occupied by a Miss...Lucy Taylor?" Lucy's blood went ice-cold. "Um...I'm...Lucy Taylor," she said, taking a timid step forward. They had her bottom drawer on the side of her cube open. "Please come over here with us for a moment, Miss Taylor," another of the officers said. Lucy was suddenly incredibly nervous and apprehensive. WHY would they be concerned with what was in her dra-... She came close enough to look inside, and her heart froze. Dear God in Heaven... she thought with terror. A revolver. And...a sizable stack of cash? And a...what else was in there? Lucy knew all eyes were glued to her, but that was the last thing on her mind. She realized what was happening...she was being framed! Whoever killed Victoria had planted the evidence on her—along with a ton of money which came from who knew where—and a third, momentarily unidentifiable object. The gloved hands removed all three. "W-what?? Tha-oh, my G-...that's no-tho-...those aren't mine!" Lucy claimed. "Someone else put them there!" The third object was a small recording device. One of the officers clicked a button on it, and everyone in the office suddenly heard Lucy's voice electronically coming through it. "Why should we let her get away with that?" WHAT in the... she thought with sudden dread. OH, sweet Jesus... "'Let her get away with that'?...What can we do about it?" came Mary's voice. A nauseous feeling welled up inside Lucy. Her heart started pounding. Someone had framed her for this murder...AND somehow recorded her, saying... "You know, Mare...sometimes I wish that woman were dead." Her colleagues behind her let out a cacophony of gasps and other shocked exclamations. The device started playing Mary's next sentence, as Mary herself stepped forward. "Hey! Whoa!" said Mary. "No, that's impossible! Officers, I was with Lucy last night; there was no way she could have had anything to do with this. She just said she wished that, that's all. You can take my word for it, Lucy Taylor is no murderer." "...right," they heard Lucy's voice say on the device. "But I still say she needs to be taught a bloody lesson." OH no...dear God, NO... thought Lucy, terrified, feeling a weight of doom descending upon her. One of the officers addressed Mary. "Yes, well, unfortunately, ma'am, the word of a friend is not a sufficient alibi to—" "B-but I do have an alibi!" cried Lucy. "You heard her! She was with me, we went out to dinner last night! We were at the Moonbeam Café! I had a grilled cheese sandw—" "I'm sorry, Miss Taylor," the first officer said. "We're going to need you to come to the station with us." He removed his handcuffs and started cuffing her behind her back. More worried chatter and murmuring generated from their co-workers. Lucy couldn't believe it. "Y-...are you arresting me??" she shrieked. "You're not officially under arrest just yet, Miss Taylor," said the same officer. "The cuffing's just procedure, for everyone's safety and protection. At this point we're just going to ask you a few questions." These two of the officers started gathering up the evidence and escorting Lucy towards the door. "B-but-but, you can't do this!" pleaded Lucy, being herded past her stunned co-workers. "You can't! I'm innocent! I'm innocent!" "Wait a minute!" called Mary after them. "If she's going to the police station, I'm going with her!" Mary started after them, but another of the officers held her back. "Ma'am, please remain in the building. At this point we cannot allow anyone else to leave." "HEY!" Mary shouted. "That is my best friend you're taking outta here! And she is innocent!" "Ma'am, she is not being arrested yet. She's only being taken in for questioning." "Then take me in for questioning!" retorted Mary. "I don't care! I am going with her!" The other remaining officer stepped in and took Mary by her other arm. "Ma'am!" he said. "No one else may leave at this moment. If you cannot comply, we're going to have to restrain you." Mary stopped and took a couple of frustrated breaths. For one brief second she considered doing something irrational that would make the officers arrest her, just so she too could go to the station, but that wouldn't do any good. On the contrary; if anything, it would just make her appear dangerous and threatening too, and potentially put poor Lucy in even more peril. Much as she hated to, she finally had to admit she didn't have the control to win this argument. She put her hands around her mouth and called in the direction her innocent friend had been led off, "LUCY, IF YOU CAN HEAR ME, I'M GONNA COME GET YOU AS SOON AS THEY LET US OUTTA HERE!" The cops held on to her for another moment. "All right, all right," she told them calmly, "It's fine, I won't give you any more trouble." They released her arms. She solemnly returned to her cubicle and let the attention gradually drift away from her. She put her palms to the desk, shaking her virtually spinning head, unable to believe what was happening any better than Lucy could. This is impossible! she mouthed to herself. How the hell cou... Something suddenly stuck in her mind. She turned back around and joined most of her colleagues, who were still gathered around Victoria's office. "Hey, guys?" *** July 8th, 11:46 a.m. The day wasn't even half over, and Lucy already felt more betrayed than she could ever remember feeling. Betrayed by whom, of course, she didn't even know. In the meantime, while they may not have arrested her, they did confiscate her purse and her shoes, recuffed her hands in front of herself and made her submit her fingerprints. Actually, Lucy was glad and relieved when they took her fingerprints, because she had obviously never laid a hand on that money or that gun, and now they'd finally have to realize she was innocent. They led her into a dim room and shut the door. One of the officers uncuffed her and withdrew, leaving the two who had taken her from her office. She padded in barefoot. "Did you really have to take me shoes?" she asked indignantly, looking with disappointment at the dirt on the bottoms of her feet. "Have a seat, Miss Taylor," said one of them, ignoring her question. The light above the table was bright enough for her to see everything, but still not bright enough to give her much comfort. She pulled down her dress, sat and dusted her grimy feet off. "Ugh, ugh, ugh," she groused uncomfortably. "Now then, Miss Taylor," began the other, "...Do you prefer Miss Taylor, or Lucy?" "Eh...Lucy's fine." "Very well, Lucy. Now...how long have you been employed at SunComp?" "Uh...it'll be...three years in October." "And in those three years, have you always been under the direct supervision of Victoria Sorenson?" Ugh again. "Yes." "No other supervisors or bosses?" "No, just her." "And how would you describe your relationship with Ms. Sorenson during this time?" UH-oh... "She was...me boss," Lucy shrugged. "Meaning...?" Hmm, how to best do this... "Well...sometimes she was reasonable, and...sometimes she was more...well, demanding." "Can you give us an example?" Can I give you an example?? Stop me before I get laryngitis! "Well, just yesterday, as a matter of fact, she demanded that I come in to work on both Saturday and Sunday, even though it was extremely short notice, and I already had plans for the weekend that were very significant to me. But she absolutely insisted I cancel them anyway." "And was this the stipulation on which you based your desire that Miss Sorenson be dead?" UH-oh... "Well...it was just the latest in a series of ways she...rode me, and persecuted me, and just made my life a livi—" "MISS...Taylor..." one of the officers interrupted her, speaking more fiercely to her, standing from his chair. He leaned over the steel table between them and penetrated her eyes with his stare. "Let's cut to the chase here. Did you kill Victoria Sorenson?!" "No!" Lucy insisted, naturally a little intimidated. "Of course not!" The other officer produced a laptop which he placed on the table and opened. "We'd like you to have a look at something, Miss Taylor," he said ominously as he punched a few keys and brought up a file. He turned the laptop around to show her the monitor. It was a digital scan of Lucy's fingerprint, he explained to her. Lucy gulped. Somehow, she did not have a good feeling about what would be happening in the next few minutes. But...wasn't this supposed to be the good news? Weren't they supposed to determine that she was innocent now? The officer turned the laptop to the side, pressed another key, and brought up an identical scan on the other side of the screen. "And this...as it turns out...happens to be the digital readout of the print of the same finger we dusted up on the murder weapon. "You'll notice, Miss Taylor..." he continued, turning back to face a now very panic-stricken Lucy— "...that they are one and the same." What??... No...no, she told herself frantically, terror welling in her eyes. This...this-this is not happening. This is not happening. This cannot be happening! "But...that-that's impossible!" she cried. "I never touched that pistol! I never even SAW it before today! This is a huge mistake!!" "Yes, well, regardless of whether you 'sawr' it or didn't 'sawr' it, Miss Taylor, the prints, don't, lie." What the hell do these bloody Yanks have against my mother land's speech patterns?? Things had taken a turn for the downright unreal. Lucy Olivia Taylor was a very self-aware individual. She knew herself. She knew her own heart, mind and soul, better than anyone else, better than Mary, better than Greg. The one single, solitary thing she could never, ever be, in her wildest dreams, was a murderer. It was nowhere near anything in her benevolent nature. She was honest and kind and wholesome. Her brain would not even allow her to consider the possibilities of such conditions as amnesia or split personalities to explain this atrocious anomaly. It simply wasn't true! That was all there was to it. "I'm not a murderer!" she exclaimed, starting to feel her belly rumbling and her eyes moistening. "Later, Miss Taylor," said one of them. "Now before the court issues your arrest warrant, there's one more small matter we need to settle here." "But...bu-..." Lucy helplessly pleaded, starting to lose her voice. "As you can see, we've securely taken the murder weapon, the money and the recording device into custody. But before we turn them over, we will need to have documented in our report all relevant details involved in this case. And that means we're going to need a statement from you in regard to the circumstances under which you obtained this money from Victoria Sorenson." "Wha—?!" Just when she thought it couldn't get any less believable. Her voice loudened. "Officers, I am NOT, a, thief! I am not a thief, and I am certainly bloody well no murderer!! How can I get this through to you?!" The officers started to get the evidence and the laptop packed back away. "Save it for the judge, Miss Taylor," said the one who had showed her the laptop. "Now, either you can tell us how you came to acquire the money, or you can tell Detective Geller." "But I am telling you, I didn't take—" Lucy paused. Her voice lowered. "Who's Detective Geller?" she asked timidly. "Detective Geller, Miss Taylor," said the other, "Is the investigator...under whose, eh...care...we'll be placing you, until such time as you are willing to divulge the specifics of obtaining Miss Sorenson's funds." "But, I-I can't divulge that, because I didn't TAKE it!" "OH, I think you'll divulge it to Detective Geller, Miss Taylor," were the first officer's last words to her. "That's right," added the second. "We call her..." Pause for effect. "...'The Leech.'" Suddenly, Lucy felt as if an actual leech were sucking away at her from inside. She started to have trouble breathing. She put both feet on the floor, no longer even caring about the dirt, leaned forward, and gasped for air. She watched in frightened shock as the officers left the room, closing the door behind them. Once the door clicked shut, Lucy couldn't hold it back any more. Her face crumpled into a tragedy mask as she put it in her hands and feebly sobbed. She let out the tears for about a minute, then took a deep breath and looked up to the ceiling. "How is this happening to me?!" she demanded to know. "WHY is it happening to me?!" She continued to let the tears out for about another sixty seconds, until she heard the door click and creak back open again. Oh, God, she thought, dreading those sounds. As much as she didn't want to, she looked up. The looming figure that had just entered the room and shut the door again behind her was clad in a fedora, trench coat, black gloves and black knee-high boots that were almost invisible in the lack of light the room offered. She carried a rather sizable bag at her side whose contents Lucy did not want to even consider. Also due to the dimness, Lucy was unable to detect any features of the detective's face under the fedora. "Hello, Lucy," said the dark, low voice. She sounded androgynous. Lucy wouldn't have known it was a woman had the officers not mentioned so. She said nothing in reply, just looked down at the floor in front of her. The detective approached. "I understand you have a little something to tell me about the recent events involving your late supervisor...perhaps a, uh...few little somethings?" Lucy was just about ready to scream her lungs out and fling her chair across the room. "For the hundredth bloody time, I didn't KILL her!" she protested, striking her thighs with her fists. Detective Geller ambled over to the table before her, sat on it and crossed her legs. "Mm...you know, as an investigator, I get that a lot, Lucy. However, in my experience with prisoners and criminals, after spending a couple hours of fun with me, quite a few tunes have been changed." She blew on her nails and shined them up on the coat. Sitting closer to her, her face was only slightly easier to make out. It would have been easier still if Lucy's eyes weren't muddled with tears. "There is a reason I am at the top of my profession, Lucy. And there is a reason I'm referred to as 'The Leech.' My method is rather...intense...a bit extreme...yet from past experience, I'd have to say also very, very persuasive. 'Tis a cliché, yes, I'm sure you've heard it many times before, but it's true, and you may lay to this..." Her next eight words struck deep fear into Lucy's heart. "I do have ways...of making you talk." Geller smiled at her, though it was impossible to see. Lucy wouldn't look at her. She stared at the cold hard floor, nervously curling her toes under her feet, sniffling and pawing at her eyes. "Care to get started?" Lucy was starting to seethe inside over this whole escapade, but she didn't have much energy to yell anymore. "I'm telling you, for God's sake, I did not bloody do it," she repeated through clenched teeth. "I'm innocent. I was framed." "Very well," Geller sighed matter-of-factly, jumping back down to the floor. She patted the surface of the steel table with her palm. "Hop on up, lassie." Lucy looked up with a quizzical expression. "What?" She patted it again. "You heard me, my little crumpet. On the table. N-O-W." Lucy glared up at her through her soaked eyes. "Why in hell's name would I get up on that table?" Geller took a breath. "Well, for one, if you refuse to cooperate with me, I don't think my little friend here would appreciate it very much," she informed her, patting one of her coat pockets, which Lucy even in the dim light could tell contained a very powerful item. Lucy let another couple of tears drop to the floor before she moved. "I henceforth reiterate, Miss Lucy Taylor," she growled at her sternly, "On, the, table." With indescribable reluctance, Lucy pushed herself up from the chair and put her hands on the table, starting to lift one leg up. Geller stopped her momentarily. "Oh—just a moment," she said as she halted her ascent. "We need to make one slight adjustment first. Get the dress off, please." "WHAT?" Lucy squealed. "Again, you heard me, ya little English muffin: remove your dress, and then get on the table." "WH—" Lucy was about to ask why again, but she was getting the feeling that she wouldn't get any compassion out of this situation or this nasty investigator. "Oh, this is bloody sick," she grumbled as she slipped down the shoulder straps. She took it off, trying to keep it from touching the floor, and draped it over the chair. Now stripped to the underwear, she climbed onto the table. "Very good. Now lay down on your stomach." Once more, Lucy's first instinct was to ask why, but arriving at the same quick conclusion she had last time, she just let out a whimper and obeyed the order. She squeaked again as the rest of her skin made contact with the cold steel surface. A second later, she heard the rattling of metal and she felt the detective stretching her arms out forward from the rest of her and recuffing her hands. She dropped her face on the head of the table, the rest of her body now sharing the cold steel sensation with her nose and her forehead. After her hands were done, she felt her feet now being cuffed as well. She didn't like that one bit. She squirmed and whined, kicking at the table to be set free, until Geller forced her feet down and finally restrained them too. The next object Geller put to use out of her bag was a length of thick, sturdy twine, which she wrapped around the short handcuff chain between Lucy's wrists, threaded lengthwise under the table, brought back up the other side and connected it to her footcuffs, drawing the restraint nice and tight, giving Lucy the least amount of slack or mobility possible. "That reason I mentioned before, Lucy, the reason that I am the most effective interrogator in the city is as immediately follows: I do not believe in mercy." Naturally, she still could not believe this was happening, not in the least. What did I ever do to deserve to be put through this? she thought resentfully. I'm a good person! I'm an honest person! How could this be happening to me?! She felt hurt, angry and terrified all in the same emotion. Four hours ago, this was, more or less, a perfectly normal Friday, and she was simply on her way to work, like any other day this week (or weekend). Now she'd had her freedom forcibly taken away from her, right along with her dignity, to say nothing of her clothes. And though it mattered less, she was also unable to get over Victoria's death. True, she intensely disliked the woman, it was just shocking to think that, once again, twenty-four hours ago, everything was perfectly status quo. Now her whole world was upside-down. Nightmerrogation "Now then," Geller addressed her. "We're gonna start out simple. Be advised, Lucy, this doesn't have to be difficult. If you're willing to work with me here, you'll be allowed to dress and appear before the judge much sooner," she went on, trying to keep from grinning, knowing full well she was going to terrorize the life out of this poor young girl no matter what, whether she liked it or not. "If you're not...well...things are likely to get a little, shall we say, unpleasant." She was insidiously lying to her; "unpleasant" wouldn't cover it. Not even close. Lucy incredulously shook her head. Why wouldn't these damned people just believe her? She actually briefly considered trying to come up with some sort of story to concoct to adequately answer this detective's questions, but unfortunately she had to dismiss the idea. She wasn't that great at thinking on her feet (or on her tummy), and she'd long since sworn off lying, when she was a teenager. Eventually, after she got caught in what she thought was a harmless lie for the umpteenth time, she decided she wasn't very good at this lying thing, so she simply stuck to the truth. She wished Mary were there. She thought she'd heard Mary calling after her about coming down here, and if it was true, she wished she could arrive already so she wouldn't be trapped in the defeat of isolation, being chained to this scary table by this mean detective woman. And if she couldn't have Mary there with her, she wished her Mum could be there. Or Greg. Or at this point just anyone else who would protect her. In the meantime, Geller clapped her hands. "Now!" she announced. "Let's begin. So, the gist of the story is, you basically offed your boss, after having declared wishing she was dead, and relieved her of her bankroll." Lucy just shook her head vehemently. "No!" she moaned from under her hair. "That was not a question, Lucy; I saw the fingerprint match." Lucy summoned all the breath she had. "IT'S A MISTAKE, GODDAMMIT!!" she screamed as loud as she could, adding her fists and feet to the tantrum, banging them on the table. Geller's tone didn't change one bit. "You can cut the drama, princess; the only mistake that gets made around here is forgetting when Dunkin' Donuts is closed. Now, would you like to behave yourself, and explain to me how you came to such a decision?" Lucy's only answer was to cry. Geller waited another moment, and then squatted down at the head of the table in front of her, reached under her neck, took her by the chin and brought her face upwards to look at her. Lucy certainly didn't want this sleazy woman to touch her. She jerked away from her hand. "All right, Lucy, come on. Look at me." Lucy turned her wet, messy face back to her and glared at her. She still couldn't make out hardly any of the detective's face. Geller retrieved something else from inside the bag. "Lucy, I want you to take a look at something." Lucy blinked her reddened eyes, trying to give them a little soothing, as Geller showed her what she was talking about. She held in her hand a long...moderately stiff...pheasant feather. When she got it into focus, Lucy's eyes widened in fright. Geller was waving the feather in front of the girl's cloudy eyes, twirling it back and forth between her fingers. Suddenly, Lucy felt her body tense up. "You see, this is what I was alluding to before, describing what might happen if one refuses to play nice with me," she explained, as she idly let the feather glide down Lucy's left cheek, making her twitch and turn her face away in discomfort. Geller moved it to her right cheek and then under her chin. "As well as what I was alluding to by saying that my method of interrogation may be seen as extreme, or a bit unorthodox..." She let the edge of the feather glide from between her eyebrows down her nose, as she whispered the words— "...but DEFinitely effective." Lucy shut her eyes and scrunched her face, trying to avoid the tingling sensations. Her face tightened up even more when the feather reached just beneath the tip of her nose, and she heard, "Get a good look at it, young lady." She frightfully opened her horrified eyes to see the feather being threateningly brandished before her. "Yes..." whispered Geller sinisterly, "Take a good, long look...I want this image BURNED forever into your memory. Look at it, up and down...isn't it pretty? How light it is...nice and loooong...the beautiful stripe-like pattern..." She let the image firmly register in Lucy's brain, then leaned up closer to whisper right into her ear— "...Scared?" There was no point in denying. Lucy nodded her melancholy head. The sight of this feather had indeed been irreparably lodged into her mind, almost as if she was born with it. She couldn't not see the feather now, not even by closing her eyes. "Excellent." The poor girl buried her face in the table surface again, heart beating half again as fast as thirty minutes ago, to hear the squeaking sound of Geller's leather boots as she stood back up. "So, as you see, Lucy, young lady...we can do this the easy way..." Lucy squeaked herself, twitching and jerking when she felt the feather playing about her spine. "...or...the hard way." The feather came up her side to just below her arm. Lucy wriggled on the table and rattled the cuffs, trying not to giggle too loudly or to let the detective know how ticklish she was. Unfortunately, she knew she wasn't going to be able to hold it inside for very long. "That being said, Lucy...is there anything you'd like to tell me right now?" She felt the feather leave her body and loosened up, settling down flat on the table again. "Why pray tell won't you bloody believe me??" Lucy begged. "I'm innocent, blast it all! I'm not a liar, a thief, or a murderer! I was fra-a-amed!" she cried, stretching the last word into a three-syllable sob. The next thing she felt was the detective stroking and petting her hair. "Oh, young lady," she said, her voice oozing with condescension, "If we ignored the evidence and put our criminals on the honor system, we might as well just set all the inmates free, and take them out for a picnic." "But I'm not a cr—EEEEE!" Lucy shrieked as Geller slipped the feather into her armpit and gave it a ride down her torso. She rattled the table. "OH my God, please STOP!" she beseeched as the detective again temporarily relented. "It's horrible! I can't stand it! Please, don't do this to me!" she cried. "Then start talking, Miss Taylor." This was beyond ludicrous. "But I keep telling you, I didn't DO anything!" wailed poor Lucy. Geller smirked sadistically and produced another object from her bag, as she returned to in front of Lucy's face. "You know, my friend, this is one of my favorite segments of our little interrogation sessions," she told her. "In fact, sometimes it actually disappoints me when a confession is submitted right away. Because then we've no opportunity to do implement this funny little aid." Lucy looked up to see the object Geller now held in her hand, which appeared to be a faded, torn scarf. Lucy had no idea what she was going to do with that, until the detective wrapped it over her eyes. She started trembling with terrible anticipation. "Oh, no, no, God, no, please, don't do this, ple-e-e-ease!" she entreated as Geller finished tying it behind her head. "That part has already been done, Lucy-goosey," the detective taunted her. She took her around the arm and middle and started to turn her body onto her back. "All right, come on now, over we go..." Lucy felt her entire world falling apart. "Oh, please..." she wept, "Please, you can't do this to me...I swear to God, I'm innocent..." "You keep saying that as if you actually expect me to believe it," replied Geller as she'd finished flipping her body all the way over. It was her back's, her bottom's and her calves' turn to feel the cold steel. "But you must! You have to believe me, it's true!" the girl insisted. "You're gonna have to tell me more than that, young lady." Lucy broke out into a wracking infantile bawl, at which Geller reprimanded her by clamping her hand over Lucy's mouth. "And knock off that sissy crying or I'll give you something to really cry about, you little weasel!" she threatened. "Now toughen up and take it like a woman!" Lucy tried to be her grown-up 22-year-old self, but she was too petrified, too overwhelmed and too ticklish. Not to mention too innocent and too framed. Very few human beings' bodies turned less ticklish as they grew up, and unfortunately for her, Lucy was no exception. If anything, hers was even more sensitive than as a child. She already hated and deathly feared this awful feather which was putting her through such anguish. Well, she obligatorily reasoned, there was no reason to hate the feather itself, but rather this horrible, ruthless, merciless investigator who was administering the torment herself. All of a sudden, she didn't have any trouble using the word "hate," or a more explosive choice of words, describing her feelings towards this nefarious Detective Geller. Geller poured on the unjust punishment. "Now are you ready to be a good girl, and tell the nice detective lady the truth?" Lucy shook her head hopelessly. "I don't know what else I can bloody tell you," she whined. "I did not do it! For the love of God, Miss, what do you want from me??" She felt the feather slide from just between her bra cups down her belly. She involuntarily sucked it in and broke out in raucous laughter. "OH, bleeding hell!" Lucy screamed again when she could take a breath. "Please STOP it! That tickles like the devil!" "You have a startling grasp of the obvious, my lass," she heard Geller's voice say. The feather rode down her side. She uncontrollably laughed again, trying to twist and lean away from it. Geller poked at her with it wherever she could get at her, driving her insane. This little game filled the space of the next ten or fifteen minutes. "PLEASE STOP!! PLEEEEEEASE STOP!!" Lucy roared between fits of laughter. "You know how to get me to stop, Lucy," the detective said barely audibly. Lucy struggled to circulate oxygen. "Bu-...but I...I ca-...I di-...I c—" Geller slipped the feather into her belly button and gave it a wiggle. "AAAAAHHHHHHHH!" Lucy erupted, screeching so loud the sound echoed off the walls. "Isn't it SO much more fun on your back?" Geller shouted down at her over her scream. Lucy was (quickly) losing her mind. The wicked feather at last vacated her belly button and she let out a coughing breath. "Ahhhh," sighed Geller, leaning over the table. "What do you say, Miss Taylor? Ready to talk yet?" This could not be logically happening, Lucy again thought to herself. She wasn't living in the real world anymore. "Oh, please just kill me," Lucy finally sputtered out in tears. "Ah—priorities, young Lucy. First we goochie the information outta you, then we can talk about putting you out of your misery." Lucy had no reactions beyond tears and contemptuous thoughts. Geller chuckled malevolently. "All right, tell you what. I'll make things a little easier on you. I'll ask you a more concrete question. How about this: when you murdered your boss, did you consider yourself to be of completely sound mind at that moment?" OH, FOR, GOD'S, SAKE... "I didn't kill h—AAAAHHH!" The scream again morphed to a shrieking laugh as the feather strode down the side of her body it hadn't visited yet. "That's not what I asked you, my little waif," Geller strictly admonished her, casting her dominant shadow over her. Lucy couldn't begin to describe the terror of the prickly tingle jumping through her body courtesy of the feather of doom. On top of which, she felt utterly shamed and humbled, like a small child being punished. She'd never been so submissive or helpless, lying motionlessly flat on her back, virtually every spare inch of her body exposed and ripe for the torture. She thrashed and flopped the tiny amount that she could while tensing up and sucking in her tummy, just trying the escape its deadly touch. "All right, Missy," announced Geller, "We've worked our way halfway down your body, and while I have all the time in the world..." she said, drawing it out just to terrify her even more, "I think I know how to convince you still better," she muttered, as she strutted down to the foot of the table and patted Lucy's ankle cuffs. "You don't start talking now...you're gonna be very sorry." She smiled, relishing the fear those two despicable final words poured over her. The realization of what was about to happen next encased Lucy's veins in ice. "Oh, God, no," she groaned, feeling the impending condemnation upon her. "Oh, please, you can't...oh, Heaven, save me..." poor Lucy blubbered. "Praying can't help you now, sweetheart," declared her terrorist detective. Playing with her mind while she was playing with her body, Geller made her think she was going to complete a full sentence. "You know, Miss Taylor, the—" She pretended to continue talking and waggled the feather between Lucy's arches on the word "the." Lucy's face went red in a deafening guffaw. Geller chuckled at her little mental manipulation. "Ah...damn, I love my job," she remarked. "So what's the verdict, kiddo? Still not talkin', huh?" Lucy tried to sniffle back her heaving breaths. "I...I..." she gasped. "...I..." Geller finished the statement for her in the form of a guess. "...Have a death wish?" She drew the feather between each of Lucy's toes, which made her kick the quarter-inch from the table she was allowed, and made her try to grab the feather with her toes, but it swished through too quickly and kept slipping out from her toes like a bar of soap. Geller let her variation of "This Little Piggie" go on for about twenty or thirty seconds, and then lowered her voice and announced, "All right, you little worm, that's it. Play time's over. Spill it." With that, she let her have it. She aggressively, violently swirled the evil feather all over the soles of her quivering feet. Up and down, back and forth, figure eights, zigzags, any other pattern that came to mind. Needless to say, Lucy was dying...literally...very, very slowly...literally dying, from eventual fatal shortness of breath. Neither the stimulus nor the response could be more insane. Lucy tried her best to roll herself closer to the end of the table, just to grasp for a morsel of relief. She would have preferred to roll right off the table onto the floor, cold and filthy as it was, but leaving aside the pesky little fact that the twine wouldn't allow it, even should she crash to the floor, the tickle treatment would inevitably just proceed down there, and she'd also have injured herself. Nah...bad idea. All she could do was lie back...and laugh...uncontainably. Her face was on its way to getting stuck in this forced contortion, scrunched in perpetual laughter, tears flowing down her temples under the scarf. The word "struggling" did no justice to the erratic spasms through which her body was convulsing. The simple word "torture" didn't do the trick anymore either, a new word would have to be created to extend the magnitude of her suffering. That infernal feather, ever so lightly but ever so devastatingly grazing the dusty, tender bottoms of her wiggling naked feet, was setting off firecrackers from those deathly sensitive nerve endings, making her entire frame spastically quake on the table, remnants of her voice evaporating in screams of laughter and tears. Her face was aching from the continuous cheek labor, and the rest of her head hurt from the crying. The sounds coming out of her were barely even human anymore. "You can make all this stop at any time, Lucy-goose," Geller lied to her again. "Just spit it out. Just spit it right out...tell me the truth...and it'll allllll be over." After about ten to fifteen more minutes that felt like centuries, Lucy wasn't even begging anymore. She wasn't trying to form letters or sounds. The laughter was eroding away the machinery of most of her biological systems, and was gradually turning into hacking and choking. Her feet were alternatingly curling all the way forward and flexing all the way back. The worst aspect of the horrendous foot tickling was that no matter how far down, how tightly she curled the wrinkles into her soles, folding her toes over each other, it was to no avail. There was no escape. The cursed feather was relentless. Again thinking irrational thoughts, she now even hated the pheasant from which this feather came. She wanted out of her skin. She was beyond being unable to get over how ridiculous the situation was; this interrogation had become so unbearable, so intolerable, so piercing, so agonizing...that actual, mortal death was starting to look like a not-so-bad idea. Unfortunately, she was pretty certain Detective Geller wouldn't allow that. She was right. Shortly after she'd lost her voice and her face had turned a nice shade of maroon, the fiendish Geller finally, finally, finally brought a stop to the agony she was drowning the poor girl in. Lucy could not even distinguish being tortured from not being tortured by this excruciating point. She fought just to get her breath back, coughing her lungs out and wheezing for life-sustaining air. She felt like she was on life support. "He-e-e-e-elp..." she rasped out, hoping something had somehow changed and she could be released from this prison of torment. Geller chuckled as she leaned against the table, gazing gleefully into the girl's havoc-wreaked face. Lucy couldn't think a single coherent thought. She just hissed out pleas of "He-e-elp me-e-e-e..." and "No-o-o mo-o-o-o-ore..." Geller grinned down at her. "All right, snap out of it, kid," she ordered, taking her by the chin and giving her face a little shake. It took a few more minutes, but at last, Lucy's lucidity came all the way back. "All right, up," said the detective, indicating her head. When Lucy lifted it as high as she could, Geller reached under her arms and untied the scarf from her eyes. Predictably, the middle of it was now drenched. She delighted in the sight of Lucy's wet, red, puffed, baggy, misery-filled eyes. Lucy tried to open them and blinked a few dozen times. Geller wanted to wait for just the right time when Lucy was brought back to life, so to speak, to continue. In the meantime, she tsk'd her. "How ironic," said Geller, iciness dripping from her voice and her words. "Too bad; you wouldn't talk, and so you had to be punished for it...and now, you can't talk." Lucy turned her face to the side away from her, trying to keep from slipping into another bout of stinging tears. "Well, now I've got a little surprise for you." Lucy wordlessly turned back to her in alarm. Geller walked away from her, to the door, and Lucy again heard the crunch and squeak of her boots. The next thing she heard was the door open. "C'mon in!" She heard two sets of footsteps now approaching her, on either side of the table. Lucy tried not to concentrate on anything like how vulnerable she remained in this state, or what would happen to her beyond this, or who this other person turned out to be. A moment later came a frosty voice she hadn't heard up to now, but nonetheless still recognized. "Hello, Lucy." Feeling something suddenly going very wrong, terrified Lucy raised her eyes to see standing above and wickedly smiling down on her, to her utter shock and awe... Nightmerrogation VICTORIA??! She croaked out a voiceless scream. "WHAT in the hell?!" she hoarsely exclaimed. Geller finally removed her fedora, switched from her artificially lowered voice back to her normal one and reiterated, "Surprise!" Lucy whipped her gaze back to her. "What the f—CASS??!" "Allow me to properly introduce myself," she said. "Cassie Vanessa Geller." "Cass Wilson was a pseudonym, you see, Lucy," Victoria explained. "Victoria?! What in the bloody hell are you doing alive??" Lucy rasped. "Cassie was undercover at SunComp, Lucy. She is actually a real detective. And she also happens to be my...very close friend," said Victoria, leaning towards her over the table. Lucy's face morphed into a stunned question mark as directly above her body, Cassie and Victoria proceeded to...press their lips together? They were, Lucy witnessed with an unplaceable expression on her confused face. They were kissing. Passionately kissing. That was definitely a romantic kiss. WHOA, was the first word that shot through Lucy's mind. Wait a minute...let me get this straight. Mary was right?! You're lesbians?...AND lovers? It then occurred to her that Victoria never exactly answered her original question. Again, Victoria, WHAT, are you doing, alive?? They broke from the kiss and returned their eyes to hers. "What is going on here?!" Lucy demanded. None of this made any sense! How did they...what did... Victoria elaborated. "It all began a while ago, Lucy, when Cassie and I decided we wanted to do something special to spark up our relationship..." Lucy really hated the way this story was beginning. "So when we came up with the idea to stage my death and frame one of the girls in the office for it with some of our crooked cop buddies, well...your face kept popping up in our minds," Victoria smiled at her. The disbelief in Lucy's face and mind defied description. She opened her mouth and attempted to produce sound. "You mean...everything...just...?" They nodded. "That's right," Cass took over. "The police cars, the crime scene tape, the gun, the cash, the arrest, dragging you down here, the fake interrogation...allllllll part of the plan." Lucy's eyes widened and grew as large as saucers. Her lower lip quivered again. "Oh, and recording your voice, that was my idea," Victoria said. "What we did was, we gaffer taped the recorder to the pillar right in front of the entrance. So when I met you there, we had it running, and after I told you to come into work for the weekend, I was counting on you to say some pretty nasty stuff about me for us to get on the recorder." "Which, turns out, you totally did!" added Cass. "Seriously, Lucy, you truly did; you played along perfectly," grinned Victoria. She looked up at Cass. "That worked out better than we could've imagined!" They both laughed. It went without saying that Lucy's disbelief and incredulity only grew exponentially. She found herself outraged, and rightfully so. She quickly summoned all the strength she could and rattled the cuffs as hard as she could muster. "YOU SICK EVIL BITCHES!!" she rasp-screamed. "Settle down, Taylor," Victoria calmly commanded. "Flattery will get you nowhere." "Why would you do this?!" Lucy croaked at them. "Just to torture me??" "Well, essentially...yeah. Pretty much, yeah," Cass replied to her. That was all. She stopped talking; that was the extent of the explanation. Once she realized that was all there was to it, Lucy became angry again. "You rotten beastly twats!" she hiss-shouted. Her next outburst surprised even herself: "I hate you both!" "Ah, ah, ah!" said Victoria, randomly poking at Lucy's belly and ribs. "You're being naughty and rude, Lucy. Now what kind of way is that to speak to your employer?" Lucy couldn't believe it. Oh, how bloody embarrassing, she thought, as she let it totally sink in, realizing how severely they'd tricked her. She'd fallen right into their trap! Right into their clutches. And furthermore, she'd lost again! Her boss had yet again completely humiliated her and gotten the best of her, just as always! Damn it all, blast it all! she thought defeatedly. Her boss had triumphed over her once more. Her boss had won. She always won! She got her every damn time. NOW I know why her name's Victoria. "Oh, s—" Lucy tried to answer her, but was cut off by the forced laughter from the midsection-prodding. "S-...s-sod off!" Lucy finally managed to spit out. "You're never going to get away with this!" "Y'know what," Victoria said, "I'm getting a little tired of her sass. You wanna...?" She motioned to Cass. Cass nodded and stuffed the scarf, which she was still holding, into Lucy's mouth, gagging her with it, reducing her protests to muffles. "Ah! Much better," Victoria commented. "Well then! Shall we get on the final act of our little play?" Final act? Lucy thought. She didn't have too much to ponder over this, however. Before she knew it, just when she thought things couldn't get any worse, she felt Cass... OH DEAR GOD... ...tugging down her panties. "You don't need these, do you?" she rhetorically asked her. Lucy reflexively did all she could: flailed with her arms and legs, fighting fruitlessly against her immobility, half-vocalizing stifled exclamations of objection and disgust. But it was no good; they were plucked off her bottom and went right down her legs. When she felt her vagina exposed, Lucy shut her eyes extra tight, as if she thought if she didn't see it, they wouldn't see it. And almost immediately after, Victoria pushed her body up to the side to reach behind her back. "And the bra, I don't think she needs that either," she added. Lucy reacted the exact same way, but after ten more seconds felt the air on her breasts as well. Her mind went back to the moment when the crooked officers originally lured her into believing her fingerprint matched the fingerprint on the revolver. The same repetitive thought revisited her, circling her brain lap after lap. This is not happening this is not happening this is not happening this is not happening this is not happening this is not happening... "Now, Vicki is going to hold down your feet while I uncuff them here," Cass called up to her. "So be good, and hold still for us..." She felt Victoria's hands fasten around her ankles as the shackles came off them. The temptation to try and kick at them was great, but Lucy resisted it, reminding herself her hands were still cuffed and stuck in position. If she hadn't known before, she sure as hell knew now that refusing to cooperate would win her no favor. Once her ankle cuffs were off, Lucy's panties (and bra) were discarded on the chair where her summer dress still lay. They each took one of her legs and pulled them under either side of the table. It took a little doing, but they finally got her feet close enough together under the table to recuff them there. Wasting no time afterwards, Cass did as she did at the beginning of the interrogation, fetching the twine and adjusting the connection of the two sets of cuffs to again cut off Lucy's slack and movement. Lucy could feel herself sweating, willing this mission to somehow abort, though she knew her wishing was useless. She was stark naked, cuffed on the steel table, legs open, unsure of what was about to happen. She was deadly frightened, wondering if they were going to rape her, but what they had in mind was somewhat more familiar territory. "Here they are!" she heard Cass's cheery voice announce. They stood at either side of her again. "Hey!" Cass greeted her again, waving their awful tickle tools at her. "Remember these little guys?" Lucy squealed at the sight. OH NO...TWO of them??!...You have got to be bloody kidding me! "Hmm," said Victoria. The first thing she did was to softly swish her feather over Lucy's right breast. That sensation was bad enough. But the first thing Cass did was to go straight to her womanhood. With the fingers of one hand, she spread Lucy's labia further apart than they had already been. Understandably, the girl freaked. "MMMMMPH! MMPH!!" Lucy emanated in complaint, feeling nausea welling up in her, wriggling on the table before feeling the inevitable. Just as she had with her belly button, Cass dipped the feather slowly into her vagina, inch by inch, and Lucy astonishingly continued still to bury her previous outbursts with her current ones. It got worse. This tickle torture was on a completely separate level from its interrogative counterpart administered on her underarms, tummy, sides and feet. It was almost a toss-up which was worse: not being able to breathe, or being infiltrated...downright violated, by these two depraved assailants. Victoria's part was reasonably less harmful and traumatic than Cass's, as Victoria was basically just toying with her nipples—albeit also nonpermissibly fondling her with her wandering hand in the process. Cass was actually inside of her with her own feather. Once she had inserted it about three quarters or so of the way in, she began to retract, equally slowly. Lucy almost didn't even notice Victoria's activity while her vagina was being feathered inside and out. This was a completely new and different sensation she'd never felt before, and it no less than...drove...her...utterly...CRAZY. The basic principle was the same, being tickled by this evil feather on the most sensitive areas of her body, but the provoked reaction from this act began to diverge from normal involuntary laughter. "MMMMMMPH!!" Lucy again blurted through her scarf gag, this time on a different octave. This was not a normal human octave. This was not a high-pitched, a soprano, a falsetto or even a piccolo octave. This was, for intents and purposes, a "dog-whistle octave." When this feather reached the back of her vagina and poked and tickled inside her, the unfamiliar signal to Lucy's brain transferred to the rest of her, and Lucy Olivia Taylor went insane. Every form of her shrieking, writhing, vibrating, trembling, squirming...every fragment of her collective opposition to this horrific mistreatment returned...with a vengeance. "Vicki, tickle her nose," Cass smiled maliciously. "She likes that." As if she didn't have enough with which to contend already. But Victoria indeed then did precisely that, swirling the feather around and under Lucy's nose, making her grimace and whip her face back and forth, just trying to avoid a single facet of this torturous humiliation. She kept her tearful eyes closed. The picture of this dreadful pheasant feather was eternally seared into her mind, just as Cass (Vanessa Geller) had desired. Actually looking at it before her eyes again might be too much to bear. "Oh, I could do this ALL day," she heard one of them remark, as the other laughed in agreement. While she was trying to get her face away with Victoria's feather, Cass was now drawing hers out of her vagina and slithering it back in, now at a faster pace. What was more, she was rapidly twirling it between her fingers, sending increasingly intense tingling signals through her until she decided perhaps she'd move on from the vagina, at least for right now. Victoria continued distracting her waving her feather around Lucy's cheeks and nostrils, and Cass withdrew hers from inside of her all the way out and let it further down on the table, sliding it along the table surface underneath Lucy, between the cheeks of her ass. "Hey, Lucy!" Cass called up at her. "Is this the bum, what you wanted me to kiss?" She poked the feather up under her bottom and again started swirling and whirling it around her perineum and her crack. This proved more similar to tickling her feet or her belly. This sensation forced her facial muscles back up into a smile again and coaxed even wilder, rowdier laughter and squeals from within her. If she could form intelligible words right now, they would be, "Not the bum! NOT THE BUM!!" Again, Lucy was dying, both figuratively and literally. She couldn't stand much more of this before...before... Miraculously, fate jumped into the picture. Right when she thought she couldn't make it through one more moment of this horror... ...the door burst wide open. "Lucy! Lucy, where ar—" Cass and Victoria ceased their activity to look up at their interruption. Hearing this voice shouting out her name, Lucy did the only thing she could and tilted her head back as far as it would go to see an upside-down— "MAHHWY!" she cried out in response. "Mahhwy, hellllhw!" "Lucy, oh my God!" Mary exclaimed when she saw the tableau. Mary was not concerned that as far as she knew, her co-worker and her dead boss were in this room with them. She dashed the few steps to the head of the table, right beside Lucy's, yanked the scarf out of her mouth, grabbed her cheeks and starting smacking her face. "Lucy!" she shouted in her ear. Amazingly, Cass and Victoria didn't do a thing to stop Mary. In fact, had Lucy looked at them, she'd have noticed they had abruptly frozen. Eerily still. Not moving. Not breathing. Fading...into transparency...vanishing right into the thin air. Mary continued slapping her on the cheeks. "Lucy! Lucy! "Wha-..." Lucy soundlessly gasped as everything went black. "Lucy, wake up! "Lucy, it's a dream! Wake up! "Wake up, Lucy, you're okay! It's just a dream!" Mary's shouts into her ear overlapped and swirled into Lucy's subconscious, circling her brain, in her state now halfway between asleep and awake. At last, Mary's shouting penetrated deep enough that Lucy's lucid will to be freed from the nightmare prevailed. Cass and Victoria vanished...the surrounding atmosphere vanished...Mary vanished... ...and Lucy vanished. The dream had been broken through. *** July 9th, 7:51 a.m. "Aaahhhhh!" Lucy shrieked as she shot bolt upright in bed. She took a second to realize she could breathe, put her hand over her pounding heart, gasping air, icy sweat trickling down her face. She was having trouble waking up completely, but she felt a surge of relief warming her body up. Oh, cuh-RIKey, she mouthed. She wiped at her face. "Thank goodness," she mumbled. She got up on all fours, crawled to the edge of her bed and let herself to the floor. She was pretty certain it was her room, but it wasn't possible to be absolutely sure yet. And she had absolutely NO idea what day it was. Oh well, this would all be figured out later...wouldn't it? She stumbled out into the hallway, trying to get her eyeballs to roll into correct position. Oh my gosh...it WAS just a dream, wasn't it?...I AM awake and back in my own home now, aren't I? "Hi, babe!" said Greg Miller, coming out of the kitchen where he was getting something ready for breakfast. Lucy was rubbing her eyes, trying to make sure she was in fact now awakened. "Great news!" he told her cheerfully. "Your boss called, and she said you don't actually have to go into work today after all! Isn't that fantastic? Now we can spend the day together!" The first thought through her mind was, Oh, that's n-... The immediate second was, Wait...WHAT? He paused. "...You okay, darling?" She took a breath and blinked repeatedly. "I just had the most horrible...intense...perverse monster of a nightmare...I've ever had." He gave her a hug. "Oh, honey, I'm sorry," he consoled her affectionately. "But you're awake now, and everything's okay." She nodded, trying to convince herself he was right. "But it really messed up me mind," she said. "I-I can't think straight just yet." "Oh, well, you'll be all right," he assured her. "You just need to sit down, relax and have some breakfast." Lucy still felt dizzy and disoriented, but now also happy and relieved. "Oh, Greg, you're the best...I'm so glad you're in my life." She leaned against the wall, shut her eyes and resumed rubbing on them. "Me too," he said. Then, he changed the subject. "Hey, this is weird, but kinda interesting," he said, "Look what I found outside, right there on the driveway, when I went to get the paper. Wacky, huh?" He showed her the object he was holding in his hand. She stopped rubbing her eyes long enough to blink it into focus and look. After a few moments, she accumulated the faculties necessary to register it. Greg shrugged. "No idea how it got there, but what sort of bird do you suppose that came from?" Lucy had still only half-woken up. "...A...pheasant, maybe, you think?" The last thing that Greg heard come out of Lucy Taylor that morning...was a bone-chilled...blood-curdled...horror-stricken...ear-piercing scream, that filled the entire house. The last thing he saw was the back of his half-conscious, mind-screwed, petrified girlfriend, as she fled back into her bedroom, slammed the door shut, locked it, shoved a chair up against it and scurried under her bed, cowering and shivering, feeling as if she was no longer able to discern what was real and what was not. HELP!! THEY FOUND ME!! Not even awake was Lucy Taylor safe. "Hello, Lucy... ...have a death wish?"