The Housewife Assassin's Killer Christmas Tips (14 page)

Not a pretty sight.

Seeing my stare, he bows his head in shame, eyes closed.

“Oh please, my mistress of madness! Be gentle with me! Forgive me for not being worthy of you!” He opens one eye. “Um, what’s our safety phrase, Mistress?”

“All my subs use ‘big boys don’t cry.’”

He nods vigorously. “Excellent choice, Mistress! Most excellent!”

Maybe I should send Jack to him for lessons.

Nah. Jack’s too stubborn. It would never take.

Besides, I like it when Jack’s a very, very bad boy.

“Crawl over to the stockade, slave.
Now!
” I smack him hard with the paddle. He roars, but does as he’s told.

In a moment I’ve shackled his wrists, ankles, and neck so that he on his knees, doggy-style, facing the door.

Okay, let’s get this over with. “You have been a very, very bad boy.”

“Yes, Mistress. I have been very, very bad.” His voice cracks in anticipation of his punishment.

“Do you know what Mistress does to very, very bad boys?”

“No,” he whispers.

“What did you say?”

“No, Mistress! I don’t know!”

“I do this—” I smack him with the paddle again. He groans, in pain.

Oh my God! Was I too hard? “Um… did you like that?”

“Do you
want
me to like it, Mistress?”

What the hell? “Yeah, sure. I want you to
love it.
”

“I do, Mistress, I love it! May I have more?”

“That’s not how we ask, now is it? Didn’t your mother teach you any manners?”

“Yes, sorry, Mistress! She told me to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you.’”

Works for me. I slap him again. “So say it, slave.”

“Ow! Thank you, Mistress! More, please!”

I oblige.

“OW! Yes! Please! Yes!”

I aim to please. Sorry, bad pun.

But no, seriously, I could do this all night. Who knew it would be such a great stress reliever?

Suddenly I hear Jack’s voice in my ear, “Are we having fun yet?”

“I presume one of us is having a blast:
you
.”

“Yes, Mistress! Tons of fun!”

“Shut up!” I say to Miles. Then, to Jack: “Just where the hell are you, anyway?” I take aim at his backside.

“Don’t you see me? I’m right here, at your feet,” Miles answers again. 

“What?... Oh! Not you, slave!”

“But—”

To make my point, I whack him again.

“Thank you, Mistress,” he groans.

“Seriously, Donna, hell’s a’poppin’. The Quorum is here, too.”

“Yeah, I saw the way ‘the Quorum’ was all over you.”

“The Quorum?” Miles shrieks. “You know about the Quorum? How—?”

“Not you, dork. I mean Miles. I mean slave!” I slap his ass extra hard this time.

As if
that
will make him forget what he just heard.

“I think you need to untie me!” he whines. “Big boys don’t cry! Big boys don’t—”

Before he can say another word, I take a gag and stick it in his mouth, and zip up the eye flips of his hood.

Now that he can’t actually see what I’m doing, I search frantically for the MANPAD. It’s not under the bed, or in any of the large, body-sized pull-out drawers, which, by the way, also have shackles embedded in them. Well, well, well, it seems that
someone’s
got an Eddie Munster complex.

“Donna, they’re going to be there any minute. Let’s get this show on the road, shall we?”

“What do you suggest I do, smart ass?”

“Your magic decoder ring. Remember?”

Duh
.

“As if reading my mind, Jack laughs. “Listen for my knock. I’ll be there as soon as I can get away.”

“As soon as you can ‘get away?’ From whom?”

He signs off with a click. I guess it isn’t something he wants to answer.

I twist open my ring holding the SP-117 truth serum, and put my fisted hand into Miles’ mouth. “Lick my ring, Slave. Suck it! Go ahead!”

Instinctively, he tries to raise his head to look at me, but the rod holding his neck shackle keeps him drawn to my knuckles.

I slap his face so that he figures out fast that this isn’t any game.

He sucks it hungrily.

Within a moment he’s told me what I need to know: that the MANPAD is hidden in a second super-secret dungeon, behind the Wall of Shame. To open it, I have to push a button under the third dildo on the left.

Done.
Yuck
.

Now that I’ve opened the case holding the MANPAD, which is, quite simply, a shoulder-fired heat-seeking missile encased in a metal tube. It’s about four feet wide and six and a half feet long, but no more than three inches in diameter.

The case also holds a gripstop (the missile launcher) and a battery pack.

The whole kit and caboodle weighs a little more than Trisha, maybe just over forty-five pounds.

Just as I reach the door with it, I hear the rap of knuckles on it to the sound of
Shave and a Haircut
.

Jack has quite a sense of humor.

We’ll see who’s laughing after I give him the third degree about Valentina.

I struggle to unlock it without putting down the MANPAD case. Flinging it open, I mutter, “’Bout damn time—”

To Carl.

In no time at all he’s grabbed the case out of my hand and slapped me to the floor.

As I stagger to my feet, he yanks my arms behind my back. Looking around, he gives a low whistle. “Quite a little set-up old Miles has here! This would have made quite a bonus room addition to the old homestead, don’t you think?”

My answer is to spit on his cheek.

“Naughty, naughty girl.” He jerks me over toward Miles’ Wall of Shame. “Wow. I feel like a kid in a candy shop.” He picks up a studded dildo and tickles my nose with it.

I jerk my head away.

He shrugs. “After Jack, I thought you’d welcome something super-sized.”

“Oh yeah? Trust me, that’s never been his problem. In fact, you’re not half the man he is, Carl Stone.”

Carl raises his hand to slap me—

Then he thinks better of the idea and lowers it.

Instead, he jerks me into the man-sized birdcage and tethers my wrists so that I’m facing the bars. No matter how much I struggle, he’s too strong for me. Still, I get in one good kick to his side before he grabs hold of one leg and shackles my ankle. He binds the other too, so that I’m spread-eagled.

He rips the back slit in my gown all the way up, until my whole backside is exposed. He lets his fingers do the walking down my spine. Despite my resolve, I tremble at his touch. When he gets to my ass, he spreads my cheeks, and I gasp.

“Carl…
Don’t
.”

It seems like an eternity before he murmurs, “You know you want it.”

I close my eyes. All of a sudden, my head feels too heavy. I lean it against the steel bars. “No. Not like this.” I raise my head, and turn it toward him, but he is purposely standing out of my range of vision. Still I say, “You don’t want it like this, either. You were never a—a rapist.”

His lips kiss the small of my back, my shoulder blades, the back of my neck, an earlobe, and then he whispers, “How do you know what I was, or wasn’t?”

He’s right. I never really knew him.

I brace for the worst, the eleven-inch dildo.

What I get instead is nothing more than a gentle pat on my ass.

The sound of his footsteps stop when he reaches Miles, still blissfully unaware in the stockade.

But not for long. The gag I placed in Miles’ mouth smothers his piercing scream as Carl thrusts the dildo into him. Miles gasps and chokes on the gag. He can’t stop. We hear him regurgitating his own bile.

His death rattle sends a shiver up my spine.

“My God, Carl! Why did you do that?”

“To prove my point.” He chuckles. “And because it’s time to kill the competition. Lardner fucked up royally, letting you get this close to the MANPAD.”

So, Carl is also in the running for the Quorum 13 opening? Figures. And now he’s let Miles drown in his own vomit.

Carl gives a small grunt as he grabs the MANPAD. But instead of heading to the door, he walks out onto the balcony. I know why, when I hear the helicopter landing.

“Next time, babe. I promise.” He shouts. “And I’ll make it worth your while.”

I shake my head as best as I can. “There will never ever be a next time.”

But he can’t hear me over the thwacking blades of the chopper.

By the time Jack gets to Miles’ suite, our host is dead and my limbs are sore.

“What the hell happened?” he asks, as he unshackles me.

“The  cavalry was late. Carl got here first. So tell me, what took you so long? Never mind, don’t answer that. I can smell her on you.
Valentina
.”

He doesn’t say anything as he tosses off my last shackle.

“What? Are you going to lie to me, and tell me you weren’t with her all this time?”

He opens his mouth, but what comes out isn’t what I want to hear. It’s not a firm, angry, and hurt declaration that nothing happened. Instead, he says, “It’s… complicated. Later, okay? Abu is waiting for us.”

We lock the suite behind us, and head for the lowest deck.

My naked backside draws no raised eyebrows, only admiring Pippa-worthy glances. I’m handed invitation cards bearing the aliases of the rich and perverted.

Thanks, but no thanks. I’ll happily pass on the honor of beating them silly.

I need to get back to Planet Sane.

I need kids and dogs and carpools, and a man I can love and trust.

I guess that’s not Jack after all.

And okay, I admit it. I really need Christmas.

Chapter 12

Boughs of Holly

The tradition of decorating with holly was used in the pagan celebration of the Winter Solstice. Its symbolism was new growth. 

Holly was thought to be a “male plant” (Um, “prick”…Get it?) whereas ivy was thought to be female. During Solstice, should one be brought into the home before the other, it would dictate who ruled the roost that year.

Quaint, ain’t it?

At the same time, holly was thought to ward off evil spirits. Used properly, this is more than a myth. It’s a fact. Should something evil come your way, smacking it in the eyes with holly will make it howl in pain and run away.

So will buckshot, but there’s no symbolism in that. Still, there is always room for new traditions.

Despite its halls being all decked out in boughs of holly, you’d think Acme was a funeral home, what with all the long faces.

This is to be expected, now that it’s been confirmed Carl has the MANPAD.

Despite the efforts of two crackerjack Acme assassins.

Jack and I are sitting in the two chairs opposite Ryan’s desk. Don’t’ ask me why, since he’s been pacing the floor of his office, like a lion who hasn’t been fed in days.

He’ll be chewing and spitting out one of us, that’s for sure.

I don’t plan on it being me.

I’m not the one who chose to sleep with the enemy.

Jack has a lot of explaining to do. So, why does he look so calm, cool and collected?

Ryan glances from Jack to me, and back again. “So, what the hell happened?”

I scoot down in my seat. “I cede the floor to my colleague.”

The way the frames holding Ryan’s commendations and POTUS fan boy pics shake when his fist hits the wall, you’d think SoCal is being hit with a tremor. “Ms. Stone, There will be no ‘ceding.’ This isn’t some high school debate. I’d like some answers, damn it!”

Jack shrugs. “The intel was sound. The MANPAD was onboard. Donna secured it—for a while, anyway.”

“For ‘a while?’” I shake my head in disgust. “You know, Jack, if you’d shown up when I called—”

Jack swats my accusation away, as if it’s a pesky fly. “But we got sidelined—”

“
We?
” My tone makes it very clear: there was no “we.”

There was him, and there was her.

Ah yes. This is the “we” he’s talking about.

As for me, I was tied up, so to speak.

Ryan yanks at what little hair he has left. “Do you want to explain how?”

Jack takes a deep breath. He starts to speak, then shuts his mouth.

I can’t stand it any longer. “For God’s sake, tell him, Jack.”

“Tell me what?” Ryan asks.

I glare at Jack. “Tell him, or I will.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t understand, Donna.”

“Like hell I don’t! I understand perfectly.” I turn to Ryan. “Valentina.”

Ryan’s eyes go blank. “What about her?”

“She was there, at Miles’ free sex soirée!” I practically choke on my words. “
With Jack
.”

Nothing. Not a peep from Ryan.

On a good day, his expressions are stonier than the Sphinx’s.

But this is not a good day.

It is a very, very bad day.

So yeah, you can knock me over with a feather when he says, “Yeah, okay. So what?”

I can’t believe my ears. “‘So what?’ She’s the enemy… right? Hello, am I missing something here?”

Ryan’s gaze shift from me to Jack. I don’t know why. Jack can’t see it. He’s closed his eyes.