First You Fall: A Kevin Connor Mystery (29 page)

I was looking forward to a nice long shower and then a cal to Tony. With any luck at al , he’d be moved to come right over and the makeup sex would be great.

But when I got to my door I discovered the worst news of the day—it was unlocked.

My mother was back.

Great, I thought, I guess the limo didn’t work.

Thanks a lot, Dad.

“Mom?” I said, opening the door.

The masked figure from the hotel room stepped out from the hal way. “Not quite, whore.” I had just enough time to see the flash of the Taser before the lights went out.

Naked in the Belly of the Beast

DARKNESS.

I tried to open my eyes, but they weighed a mil ion pounds.

Arms hurt.

Whole body hurt.

I slipped back into the darkness.

Huh?

Where am I?

Opened my eyes but everything’s stil black.

Must be night time.

So sleepy.

Woke up again. The good news was I wasn’t dead.

That was pretty much it for good news.

Now for everything else.

I was blindfolded, so I couldn’t tel anything about my surroundings.

I was standing with my arms tied above my head.

My shoulders ached. The floor under my feet felt rough, like cement. The air was stale and smel ed faintly of leather.

One arm hurt like it had been jabbed with something. My guess was an injection of some kind.

The last thing I remembered was coming home and someone shooting me with a stun gun. It knocked me out. Whoever did that must have drugged me and brought me here.

Wherever here was.

I felt cool air on my skin which made me realize something else.

I was naked.

This was
so
not good.

I would have expected that my heart would have been pounding out of my chest, but I felt strangely calm. Whatever my abductor knocked me out with must have stil been in my system.

Good, I thought. Use that to your advantage.

Breathe. Relax. Listen.

Don’t panic.

Focus, Kevin, focus

Boy, did I wish I’d taken my medication today.

I heard someone in the room with me. Breathing.

“Uh, hel o?” I asked.

I felt something touch me on the bel y. I jerked away. “Hey!”

“Shhhh …” someone said. Something—a finger—

touched me again, right under my neck. The finger slowly trailed down my chest, between my nipples, over my abdomen, stopping at my pubic hair.

“Shhh…”

It was al very
Silence of the Lambs.

I knew I was supposed to be screaming or something, but I couldn’t muster the energy. The hand slipped down to my bal s, rol ing them between his fingers. Then around to my ass, tracing over my crack, lingering at my hole.

“Shhhh…”

I know it sounds weird, and it must have been the drugs, but my most prominent feeling at the moment was boredom. If he was going to kil me, I wished he’d get on with it.

“What are you doing, Michael?”

The hand smacked my ass. Hard.

“Ow!”

OK, maybe hoping he’d get on with it wasn’t such a good idea.

“I’m not Michael,” he answered.

And it wasn’t.

I knew that voice.

It hadn’t been Michael al along.

How had I gotten everything al wrong?

The brother I thought was the victim was real y the kil er.

“Paul,” I said.

“I’m not Paul,” he said.

Huh?

“Cal me Stryker,” he said.

OK, that was definitely Paul’s voice.

This time, he slapped me on the bal s.

“Oww!”

“I said ‘cal me Stryker!’”

“Fine, fine, you’re Stryker!”

I felt my blindfold being pul ed off. The room was dim, and it took a minute until my eyes adjusted.

Yep, it was Paul Harrington, al right.

He also was naked. Hmm, I thought absently, he real y does get better looking the more you see him.

I looked around. I was in a real, honest-to-goodness dungeon. The windowless wal s were padded with what I assumed was some kind of soundproofing material. Many had shackles hanging from them. There was a rack, stockades, and even a sling.

An open cabinet held a cache of chains, whips, and clamps. On a shelf was a col ection of dildos that ranged from dwarfish to Kong-like.

Welcome to Pervert’s Paradise.

I liked it better with the blindfold on.

Paul’s face looked fierce. His lips were tight and pul ed back into a menacing grimace. His nostrils flared with rage. His eyes were narrow and looked dead inside.

I thought he was unhinged when I met him at the bar, but just how crazy was he? Was this Stryker crap a pose or some kind of split personality?

Had he kil ed his father and those other men—the supposed suicides?

But why would he have had them leave their money to his brother?

And how had he control ed them?

Control.

That was the key.

I looked again at Paul’s eyes.

They weren’t dead, they were vacant. He wasn’t control ing anyone. Not even himself.

Oh Paul, I’m so sorry.

Suddenly, I didn’t feel quite so calm. I was angry.

“Michael, you son of bitch! Your own brother! What have you done to him?”

From behind me, I heard muffled applause. Then the deep, sensuous voice of Michael Harrington.

“Wel done,” he said. He came around to face me.

Michael was the Dark Lord of Scary Sex. His tal muscular body was clad in skintight black leather lace-up pants tucked into black boots. He was shirtless except for a black leather vest. He wore matching gloves with studs along the back. His huge pectorals flexed with each breath. His handsome face wore a condescending smirk.

He reached up and pinched my nipples. Hard. I denied him the pleasure of crying out.

“I’m impressed,” he said. “I thought it would take you a lot longer than that to figure out what was happening. You’re a smart little faggot, aren’t you?”

“Fuck you.”

Michael punched me in the gut. I saw it coming and relaxed into it, but it stil hurt. Michael wasn’t playing around.

“Unfortunately for you,” he said, “I happen to like hurting pretty little boys. You don’t want to make things worse for yourself by provoking me.” I looked at Paul to see how he was reacting. Now that Michael was on the scene, Paul stood motionless, his face a blank slate.

Michael had every advantage in this situation. I had to play him right.

“I know you’re in control,” I said. “Look at what you’ve done with Paul.”

Michael laughed. “Oh, that? Paul has been mine since we were teenagers. Watch this.”

Michael turned to his brother. “Stryker: Wake up.” Suddenly, Paul’s entire demeanor changed.

Awareness came back into his eyes. His body relaxed, then jerked even more upright. “What the hel —Michael who’s that?” He walked closer to me.

“Kevin? You’re naked.” He looked down. “I’m naked!

What the fu—.”

“Paul: Stryker’s back.”

Bam: Just like that, the light went off for little brother.

Once

again,

he

stood

alert

but

expressionless.

Michael spoke to him dismissively. “Now, just stand there and await your orders until you’re cal ed again.”

Things weren’t looking too good for me.

“Pretty cool, huh?” Michael winked at me. “It’s one of my favorite tricks.”

I figured my best bet was to keep him talking while I thought of a plan. “Who’s ‘Stryker?’” I asked.

“Oh that? Just a little alter ego I created for him when it worked to my advantage to have him rough someone up a little. It al ows him an excuse to let his anger out. You know what they say, every bottom wants to be a top, and every top wants to be a bottom.”

“Nice,” I said. “So, I guess it was you who sent Paul to talk with me at the bar the other day.”

“Oh no,” Michael said. “That was Paul working on his own. I didn’t approve of it at al . Of course, I had to punish him for that.”

He looked at Paul. “Stryker: Turn around.” Paul pivoted. Rows of whip marks crisscrossed his lower back and his ass.

“I think he learned his lesson,” Michael said. “But the damage he did—tel ing you about me, wel , that’s damage I have to undo.”

He sighed. “Yes, I always have to clean up after my brother’s messes.”

“How are you doing this?” I asked Michael.

“Paul has always been my greatest achievement.

He’s the one who gave me my start, you might say.

“Even when we were kids, I knew he idolized me.

It didn’t take much encouragement to turn that into devotion. He would pretty much do whatever I said from the time he was twelve.

“But I wanted more. When I went to col ege, I sought out people who shared my… interests. First, it was just hypnosis. Standard stuff. I was good at it.

Soon, I was putting my classmates under. They thought it was just for fun, but they didn’t know that al the fun was mine.

“From my sophomore year on, I didn’t have a roommate who wasn’t under my control by October. I had boys who did my homework, boys who gave me their al owance. I had one boy who did my laundry every week for three years. He was trained to have an orgasm in his pants every time he handled my dirty boxer shorts.

“My only problem was keeping him from stealing them. That was a hard habit to break.

“And the girls—the girls! That’s where my true passion lies, you know. I had more pussy in col ege than the entire footbal team put together.”

“Classy,” I offered.

Michael leered at me. “Wel , you know what they say: Any slut in a storm.” He flicked a finger towards my dick and I jerked back. He chuckled, then continued.

“In my senior year, though, that’s when I real y took it up a notch. I had a psychology professor who had worked for the CIA in the sixties. I did some research on him, and it turned out he was working on mind control experiments.”

Michael started rubbing my chest and shoulders.

His touch was gentle.

“Can you see why I believe I’m doing the Lord’s work? What are the odds that, given my talents, I’d meet such a gifted mentor? It was meant to be.

“He

taught

me

techniques

that

weren’t

documented anywhere. Of course, in exchange, I had to let him blow me every once in awhile. Yes, he was another little faggot.” Michael gave me a surprised look. “There sure are a lot of you.” Michael’s hand moved lower. He traced slow circles over my stomach.

“We’re such simple beings. Al of us driven by the desires to seek out pleasure and to avoid pain.

Professor Standler taught me al about using those most basic of human drives to get even more control. To train people to condition themselves for you.”

Michael’s hand gently cupped my bal s.

“Pleasure.” He squeezed. “Pain.”

I doubled over as much as my restraints would al ow. That one hurt.

He laughed. “It’s so simple!”

He went over to the cabinet and took out a black box.

“Of course, over the years, it’s gotten even simpler.” He pul ed out a long syringe.

“Better living through chemistry,” he beamed. “An hour from now, you’l be no worry to me at al .”

“You can’t kil me. Too many people know I’m onto you.”

“Oh, I don’t need to kil you,” Michael said. “I’m thinking I’l keep you around. For fun.” He smacked my ass again. “Control ing boys like you is my definition of fun.”

“You can’t hypnotize someone against their wil ,” I said.

“I’m afraid that old wives’ tale is a little dated,” Michael said. “And what I’m going to do goes far beyond what you know as ‘hypnotism.’

“Today, for example, I’m going to give you a shot of this. It wil make you very suggestible for a period of about twenty-four hours. In that time, I’m going to convince you that not only am I your friend, but that you find me irresistibly attractive.”

He ran his hand over his huge pectoral muscle.

“My guess is that won’t be too much of a stretch for you.”

Great, I thought. In addition to al his other bad traits, he’s ful of himself.

“Not only wil you stop butting your nose into my business, but you’l find yourself compel ed to come back here tomorrow. And the day after that. Within seven days, you’l be doing anything I say.

“Basical y,” Michael said, “you’l belong to me.

Won’t that be fun?”

Michael walked towards me with the needle. I had a plan. If I timed it just right, I should be able to pul up with my arms and get him with a good kick in the gut.

Unfortunately, that was pretty much it for the plan.

After that, I’d stil be tied up.

Unless I got him right on the nose. With the heel of my foot, at just the right angle, I could drive his nasal bone right into his brain. I’ve heard you can kil a man like that.

That worked for me.

Of course, my odds of pul ing it off were pretty low, but it was the best plan I had.

He was getting closer.

I gripped the ropes that held me to ceiling, getting ready to pul up my knees.

He pul ed the plunger back on the syringe.

Focus, I thought. I visualized the movement of my leg, the arc of my foot as it made contact with the middle of his face. Hit him with the heel, the hardest part, and fol ow through with al my strength.

I was ready.

He was almost within reach.