FicWad

THE ADJUSTERS



65

Los Angeles, Part 4



"So what's the plan again?” Cindy Caprese asked, her voice sounding petulant over the phone.

"The plan is that I stay here and wait for Fairbank, and you stay in the car and if there's any hint of trouble, you tell Brisecoeur to send in the cavalry." Daniel Malcolm repeated for the third time that evening.

Cindy knew the plan well—her asking about it was merely to emphasize for Daniel’s benefit that she did not like it one bit.

"And remind me why I'm down here and why you're up there?" she asked.

"Because it's not your job to put yourself in danger, and I don't want anything to happen to you."

"That's selfish."

"Tough."

"And that's mean."

"Boo hoo. Non-negotiable, Cin."

"You'll pay for this later."

That banter with Cindy told Daniel that she was not really upset, which was good. He really did not want her to get in harm's way. One did not need to be a trained psychologist to understand why: he had lost too many friends already.

"Look, I'll keep the phone on so you can listen in, but you stay down there no matter what happens."

Cindy merely harrumphed in response.

Daniel leaned back against the wall in the small room in which he had taken position. Through the window, he could see Rebecca McGregor’s room. The window, from Rebecca’s perspective, was a mirror. This was an observation room he had co-opted through his credentials and a confirmation call from an ADCorp supervisor.

Rebecca, in the other room, was still in a coma.

"So you really think he's going to show?" Cindy asked.

Daniel sigh. He should have known better than expect that Cindy would remain quiet.

"I don't know, but I can certainly hope. It would simplify things a lot."

Brisecoeur had identified their suspect after running in-house facial recognition software on the images from the man coming out of the shop near the bank where Samantha Royston worked and where he was seen talking to her. One Douglas Fairbank, originally from Colorado, now a resident of Los Angeles, a business analyst in a small consulting firm that mostly worked for third-category companies that wanted to improve their internal financial processes. The videos obtained from Charles, the McGregors' neighbor, had confirmed that said Douglas Fairbank was the man visiting Rebecca McGregor when her husband was away.

When they went out to look for him, Daniel and Cindy had discovered that Fairbank was not at his apartment in Inglewood, and seemed not to have been there for a while. There was no indication he was anywhere either. No credit card activity, nothing. He had disappeared into the ether.

Which was when Daniel had an idea. For the past three days, news reports about the unfortunate wife of a powerful local businessman, Rebecca McGregor, was recovering from a devastating stroke at Encino Hospital, where she was expected to make a full recovery. Daniel had checked with Shawbank so that she could make sure that the husband would be okay with that false report, and Shawbank had merely responded that the husband would be fine with anything, and not to worry about it, and to simply find the Special and be done with it.

Daniel still found it strange that Shawbank had dissociated herself from the investigation, focusing instead on the husband. It had to have been because of the tattoo, and Daniel was spinning theories in his free time as to why that would be. None was good.

"You think he was trying to get her back?" Cindy asked him.

"That's one possibility, and if that's the case, I'm banking on him coming here to find her."

"What if what he wanted to do was get revenge and fuck her up?"

"Then he's done that and he won't show and we haven't lost anything but time. And Brisecoeur is monitoring all possible outlets to try to find him in a more conventional way. Douglas Fairbank is not going anywhere."

"But he might be hurting more people." Despite Cindy's twisted eroticism and deep-seated craving for submission, she could still see the pathos in women turned into sex objects against their will. Although it was at all clear that she always felt that way. Perhaps Daniel was merely projecting, and she did not feel empathy at all, and merely thought it the sexiest idea ever.

"Well, why don't you use some quiet time to figure out ways of finding him that Brisecoeur isn’t thinking of?"

It was an obvious ploy. Here, play with this and quit bugging me. But Cindy bit, and she went silent. Thinking, Daniel hoped, and not sulking. Either way, the silence was welcome.

Daniel hunkered down to wait, knowing that it might be futile. He remembered a documentary he had once seen in which they interviewed detectives who argued that the most boring part of the job is surveillance duty. You might think it's nice to sit and do nothing and just wait, but after a few hours, it drives you crazy.

It took ninety minutes before something happened. Daniel saw the door to Rebecca’s room open, and a nurse enter. He shook himself awake. He had cleared it with the hospital wing nurses that no one would enter Rebecca's room except at the top of the hour every two hours for routine checks. This visit was out of schedule. Moreover, he had committed to memory every nurse on duty that night, and this one he did not recognize. Male, average height, thin, wearing scrubs.

When the nurse turned enough so that Daniel could see his face through the one-way mirror, it was confirmed.

Douglas Fairbank. Recently of Inglewood.

Suspected Special.

Daniel could not help compare him to the Specials he had already seen. The man back in Virginia, the one in Chicago. Douglas Fairbank, in comparison to both of those, was quiet and composed. The one question was: what was he doing there?

"Cin," Daniel whispered into the phone. "He's here. He's just got into Rebecca’s room.. I'm going in."

Daniel muted the phone before hearing Cindy's response.

He gave Fairbank one last look through the mirror. The man had approached Rebecca’s bed, and was watching her. Whether contemplating further mayhem or in reverence, Daniel could not tell. Fairbank’s eyes scanned the room and the instruments connected to Rebecca, beeping and reporting on her vitals, and then they returned to Rebecca.

Daniel left his room quietly, and keyed the pre-agreed code on his phone that would indicate to the ADCorp extraction team to be on alert. There was no plan to involve hospital security, who could not be trusted to deal with a Special. For all he knew, they might send in a team with women in it, which would turn into disaster.

Daniel took a breath before the door to Rebecca's room to calm himself, then as quietly as possible opened the door.

Fairbank did seem to react. He was still hunched over Rebecca, not moving. He made no noise. The beeps from the monitors were the only sounds in the room.

Daniel approached the bed taking a wide berth. Part of him believed that he should have called in the extraction team already. Another part of him argued that he should have contacted Shawbank, or asked for another agent to be with him. But he had done neither.

He circled the room and stood at the foot of Rebecca's bed, Fairbank to his left. The man had heard him, Daniel knew—his body language had shifted slightly. But Fairbank was still watching Rebecca. There were tears in his eyes.

"I did this," Fairbank said, without looking up.

"I don't know. Did you?" Daniel kept his voice soft, and kept his eyes on Rebecca, calm and peaceful in her drug-induced sleep.

"I did." Fairbank closed his eyes. "I did not mean to hurt her. All I wanted was to make things right, make things better. Instead..." He opened his eyes again. He reached over as if to caress Rebecca's cheek, then seemed to reconsider it.

"Tell me what happened?" Again, Daniel kept his voice soft, like he would talking to a wild animal.

"I loved her. I loved her and she loved me. She did, you know?"

"I believe you."

"The nurse downstairs said she didn't know what's wrong with her."

That statement raised red flags in Daniel's head. No nurse would have freely given such information to someone that was not immediate family. Which meant that there was a nurse downstairs that Fairbank had affected. He made a mental note to get Fairbank to name everyone he had touched.

"You were waiting for me, weren't you?" Fairbank asked.

"I was."

"You with the police?"

"No."

At that, Fairbank finally looked at Daniel, and Daniel could not read anything in his eyes. Fairbank stared, and Daniel held the gaze. He remained motionless, and relaxed.

Fairbank nodded. "You know."

"About?"

"I didn't mean to hurt her. Didn't mean to hurt anyone, really. But you know when you are so hurt that you can't think straight? When you get so angry that all you can do is try to assuage that anger, any which way possible? I can't control it anymore. That's what happened with Becky. I... just lost control."

Daniel did not respond. He looked at Rebecca, lying motionless on the hospital bed.

"But he did something to her, too," Fairbank added, his tone shifting from melancholy to agitated.

"Who?"

"Her husband." Fairbank spit rather than said the words. "She hated him. Wanted to leave him. We were supposed to run away together. But then he did something, he did something—he turned her against me, then beat me up. He tried to kill me, I'm sure. I was in the hospital for five months, five months, during which time he brainwashed her. I don't know how he did it. He just... brainwashed her."

A realization came upon Fairbank at that point, and he turned to Daniel, his eyes wide, looking stunned. "Maybe he's like me!" He rolled the words around on his tongue, tasting them for veracity.

Daniel nodded, although he doubted that possibility. “Perhaps.” He wondered whether that was what Shawbank was investigating.

"You're gonna nail his ass for what he did to her, won't you?"

Daniel said nothing. He looked at Rebecca again. Poor girl. He wondered whether Fairbank picked up on the irony. Was it even irony?

Daniel was distracted. This interaction did not feel right. It did not have the vengeful effect he was hoping for. It just felt... sad and claustrophobic.

"I guess you're here to nail my ass as well, huh?" Fairbank looked wry. "I guess I deserve it." He looked almost sad. “After what I did to her. I guess I'm no better than that bastard. Even though it was an accident."

He remained silent for a while, as though considering his words.

"I do have to take you in, yes,” Daniel said. “You’ve left quite a trail of broken people behind you. People that won't ever have a normal life.”

Fairbank, to his credit, looked genuinely pained. "You're not wrong. I just couldn't... I just couldn't help it. It was all out of my control."

Daniel registered the blow of hearing the thoughts that had been going through his head for the past few days bounced back to him from such an unexpected direction. It took the self-restraint he had not to react.

"He won't let you, you know?" Fairbank said, almost apologetically.

"Who?"

"The demon that's inside me now."

"Demon?"

Fairbank's grin was a grimace. "It's certainly what it feels like. It's like this... thing that just pushes me to... do stuff. It's angry, you know? Really angry."

"Maybe you've got a part of you that's really angry?"

“Maybe.” Fairbank almost looked more dejected by that possibility. "I did think I was going crazy. But it feels so... different. It's almost like another voice in my head."

"We can get you help," Daniel said.

Fairbank laughed. "Help? You know a good priest? Like, a really good priest? It's a demon, and it's winning. Already it's telling me to take care of you, and I'm trying really hard to ignore him.”

Fairbank closed his eyes, and Daniel made the mental calculation to determine how long it would take him to bridge the gap and disable the man, but Fairbank's eyes opened again, and there was a fire in them that was not there before. His voice had taken an edge.

"You're not police, are you?" Fairbank asked again.

Daniel shook his head. “I told you, I’m not."

"But you're the one that put out the word that Becky was here, right? It was a set up. And you're here to kill me, aren't you? Or if not kill, the capture me—take me away?"

“Not kill you. And you said it yourself, you're dangerous and you've done bad things. Or at least, something inside you did." Daniel was happy to indulge the man's delusions if it kept him under control.

"I won't let you," Fairbank said. And he pulled a gun out of his jacket pocket.

Daniel was not expecting that. Nothing in either Fairbank's file or in the behavior of the Special suggested a weapon.

Fairbank seemed to understand exactly what was going through Daniel's head. "I got this for Rebecca's asshole husband, after I got out of the hospital. But now I'm thinking that maybe I should take care of Rebecca too.” His voice was unemotional, almost cold. A different person. “Punish the two-timing bitch for betraying me. A shot through the cunt—sin by the blade, die by the blade. Then the husband, shoot him through the balls and then kick him to death like he tried to do to me. And then we can take care of every single bitch in this place, show the world what they really are."

Fairbank hesitated, his voice faltering. There seemed to be a momentary confusion on his face, and his eyes were driven to Rebecca on the bed.

"You don't really want to do this, Douglas,” Daniel said.

"So you know my name too, huh? You're right, I don't really want to do this. But I have no choice, you see? The demon inside won't let you take me away. He won't rest until every single bitch is taken down and shown her proper place and until every man see them for what they really are."

Daniel nodded, taking a step toward Fairbank.

"Stop right there. I'll shoot you."

"Go ahead. I don’t care. I can't let you leave."

“I’m gonna shoot you, I’m telling you.”

Daniel felt a sense of calm invade him. It was as if a voice inside was sighing, Finally, peace. He took another step. Blissful peace.

Daniel saw Fairbank's hand tighten, his eyes narrow. The man was about to press the trigger. Oblivion beckoned, there was no other word, and it was a strong draw.

But then the door opened.

Neither man turned toward it.

Daniel felt something dangerously close to disappointment—the cavalry had arrived, even though he had not given them the go-ahead. Perhaps Brisecoeur had not trusted him to take care of the Special on his own. Or perhaps experience had taught Brisecoeur that it took more than one agent to take down a Special.

"Don't shoot him."

Cindy's voice made Daniel jerk in surprise. He turned to stare at his friend. What was she doing? "Cin, get out of here!"

Fairbank shifted his eyes toward the door, finally, his aim never wavering from Daniel. His eyes narrowed when he saw Cindy—he must have been expecting another security person, or a cop. Not a pretty young woman with a dress that exposed way too much leg and that was unbuttoned low enough to suggest she was not wearing a bra.

"Who are you?" Fairbank asked her, still aiming his gun at Daniel.

"I'm his soulmate," Cindy replied, taking a step into the room. "Please don't hurt him."

Daniel had never heard Cindy sound the way she was sounding—vulnerable, scared, on the verge of a breakdown. He looked at her to try to catch her eye, but she had her gaze trained steadfastly on Fairbank.

"I don't have any choice," Fairbank replied. "I won't be put in some zoo somewhere getting my innards poked at. That's what they do to people like me, you know. And beside, I have a mission now."

"Cin," Daniel warned, suddenly desperately looking for a way out that did not involve getting himself shot. What was she thinking? She knew exactly what a Special like Fairbank could do. She had seen his victims, after all.

But Cindy ignored him. She took another step toward Fairbank, "Please," she reiterated with a plaintive tone that Daniel had never heard her use. "I'll do anything.”

“Come closer,” Fairbank said.

“Cin, don’t!” Daniel snapped. But he was not moving. Two minutes earlier, he was ready—almost craving—to get shot. But now, he was immobilized. His mind was in a whirl. Should he jump Fairbank, even though he was point a gun at him? Fairbank might shoot him, and then what would happen to Cindy? But if he did nothing, then Cindy was just as badly off. It was a lose-lose situation. He looked around, seeing if there was something he could use.

Fairbank looked like he had not even heard Daniel. “So you love him,” he asked her, and Cindy nodded, taking a step toward him. Daniel tensed. “And clearly, he seems to love you just as much,” Fairbank continued. His voice was emotionless but for a lilt that might have been amusement.

“He does,” Cindy said, her voice now filled with hope. “No one’s ever looked at me the way he does, treated me the way he does. It’s like I'm the purest angel in his eyes, like I could do nothing wrong. Do you know what that does to a girl, to have someone worship her in that way?"

“Come on, Douglas,” Daniel said, trying to stall, to give himself time to think. “Let’s talk about it. You don’t need to do this. You said so before, you don’t want to do this. Let’s find a way. I’ll let you go free. I’ll tell them that you subdued me, threatened to shoot me—I mean, that part's true, right?”

Fairbank did not even bother looking in Daniel’s direction. "Open up your dress,” Fairbank asked Cindy.

Cindy did, exposing a thin laced bra that did wonders at pushing her breasts upward.

"The bra," Fairbank nodded.

"Don't hurt him, please," Cindy pleaded as she unclasped her bra and pulled it down. Her breasts were on display, round with hardened nipples in the cool air of the hospital.

"Nice tits," Fairbank said. “I bet your boyfriend there really loves sucking on them."

“Douglas—“ Daniel said.

"Please don't hurt him," Cindy said, almost tearfully.

“He calls you Cin. What’s your name?”

“Cindy.”

"Cindy. Cin. Like Original Sin. Woman revealing her true nature. Original Sin. A wonderful dancer name. How do you feel about dancing, Cin?"

Cindy looked confused for a second. "Huh, I don't..."

Daniel could see Fairbank raise his arm. He was going to touch her. The gun was no longer directly pointing at him—Fairbank was distracted. He knew he was too far, but he had to do something. He jumped.

And almost made it.

Had he been two feet closer, he would have gotten to Fairbank in time.

As it was, Fairbank was fast enough to see Daniel move and whipped his arm around, hitting Daniel on the side of the face with the grip of the gun. Not strong enough to knock him out, but enough to send Daniel careening into a shelf of equipment.

Cindy let out a small scream.

“Nice try,” Fairbank said, his voice still not showing much emotion.

And then he reached out and palmed one of Cindy’s breasts.

Daniel stared in horror and self-loathing. He was useless. He could not protect her, like he could not protect Jenn.

Cindy's eyes widened, but she did not step away from the touch. Fairbank smiled a thin smile, and then looked over at Daniel triumphantly before glancing at Cindy once more. His hand caressed her exposed breast, then tweaked a nipple.

"We're going to have you get some implants, babe. After all, a stripper looks better when she got big tits that bounce about as she dances, don’t you think? Guys love that. And you're gonna love showing them off on the dance floor. Having men stare at you in lust will get you so hot you'll have to resist with all your might not to start frigging yourself up there on the stage. And then you’re going to fail and really put on a show.”

Another glance at Daniel, who was shaking. He was too late. He had lost her, had lost everything. Anger rose in him, uncontrolled, and he could barely contain it, and Fairbank saw it for his hand tightened on the gun and he directed it straight at Daniel's head.

"I'm doing you a favor, man. She'd end up betraying you anyway, because they all do. They all do." He glanced at Rebecca on the bed, and a sneer curled his lips. “They all do. I'm doing you a favor.”

He turned back to Cindy, who had not moved, and was still staring at him, wide eyed.

“You’ll never make it a secret to every guy you meet that you live for stripping, that you can’t get enough of the extras that you pull in the back rooms, those private lap dances where you let guys do anything they want because not only are they staring at you in lust then, but you make them so hot that they can’t help themselves and just have to have you, over and over again. And you will let them.”

Cindy was still staring at him, and nodding. His hand was back on her breast, caressing and pulling on the nipple, pulling hard. “I’m thinking of making you enjoy pain as well. What do you think? That’d be interesting, no? A girl that loves to strip and turn guys on, and that also enjoys getting hurt and beaten. Plenty of possibilities there.”

"You piece of shit!" Daniel grunted from where he had landed.

Fairbank did not bother turning to him. He was still pulling on Cindy’s nipple, and twisting it. "She's a slut. They're all sluts. I'm just showing the world.”

“I’m your slut, baby,” Cindy practically purred. She stepped up to him, her shirt still open, breasts hanging out, and one of her hands was caressing them while the other was on Fairbank's shoulder.

She was swaying in place, her little ass dancing back and forth, her head tilting, as though she was hearing a music all of her own.

“Of course you are,” Fairbank nodded.

"Do you want a lap dance, baby? I bet I can make you hard and make all your troubles go away..."

"I have no fear you could," Fairbank said, his eyes irresistibly drawn to the now bouncing breasts of the girl in front of him. "You're going to have to find a club to show off tonight. After we’re done here, of course.”

Cindy grinned, and she kept dancing to her inner music, practically humping Fairbank’s leg. "Oh yes," she said. "I'll be the best sort of stripper they ever had—the kind that puts out, again and again.”

Before Fairbank could say anything else, Cindy pushed him down into a chair, and swayed her body to and fro, and even without music, her movements were fluid and she swirled and she hummed all the while, her own accompaniment. The skirt of her dress twirled and lifted tantalizingly.

She danced against Fairbank’s leg, her arms reaching up high on his shoulders, completely exposed to him, her eyes closed, her head swaying. Fairbank's eyes kept being dragged down to her hips.

"Do you want to guess what color panties I have?" she said, her voice low, her eyes closed.

"What?"

Cindy opened her eyes, and looked at Fairbank through her eyelashes. "My panties. Care to guess their color? I'll give you a prize if you get it right.”

"Huh... white?"

She straddled one of his legs, and shifted her hips back and forth, rubbing herself against him. Her breasts jiggled as she did so, and Fairbank just stared at them

"Guess again,” she said.

Fairbank placed a hand on her naked thigh, and slid it upward.

"Hey," Cindy said, swatting him gently. “No cheating.” She ran her own hand down his front, down to the erection that was clearly tenting his pants. She leaned forward, her lips two inches from his, red and wet. “Guess right, I'll make it super good for you."

“You’re not wearing any, you little slut.”

Cindy grinned back at him. "Why don't you find out?" she said in a low voice, kissing the man deeply and pressing herself against him.

Fairbank reached down blindly to run a hand down under skirt.

Cindy leaned back, giving him better access.

And distancing herself so that when Fairbank’s head jerked after a sickening thud, she was well away from it.

Fairbank went limp and slid out of the chair at Cindy's feet.

Daniel stood in front of Cindy, his hands still holding the metal crutches with which he had brained Fairbank.

"Took you long enough," Cindy said, grinning. "I worried there that I might have to blow him to keep him distracted."

"Cin?" Daniel asked, tentatively. "Are you... okay?"

"Of course. Why do you ask?" She looked at him innocently.

“I mean… He... he touched you."

"He did," Cindy said, and then she laughed, her crystalline laugh rising in the small room. “This is LA, Dan. It’s called acting,” she added with a theatrical emphasis.

"So you're not..."

"Feeling any incentive to go off and strip naked and dance in front of perfect strangers that lust at my body? No more than usual" And she grinned again, and her smile this time was mischievous. She had still not closed off her dress, and was now only grabbing the lapels together over chest.

“How…?”

"Specials can't control me," Cindy said, shrugging.

“And did you know that Specials could not control you ?”

"Of course. I'm not crazy."

Daniel bit his tongue.

“How did you find out?”

“Later,” Cindy said, searching for something in a nearby cabinet. “Aha!” She pulled out a syringe. She crouched beside Fairbank, and stabbed him in the arm. She extracted out a sample of his blood. “There. Now should we have the muscle come and take him?"

Daniel stared at her for a second, and then nodded. "You should go before they get here."

As Cindy buttoned her dress back up, he placed a call to Brisecoeur, and called in the retrieval team.

"This evening," she mouthed to him before disappearing. "My place."

Daniel nodded, then sat on the bed beside Rebecca McGregor's comatose form. Fairbank was on the ground, still unconscious.

Daniel was still there, silent, winding down from what had happened, digesting, when the retrieval team arrived.



*



Later that night, after the retrieval team had whisked Douglas Fairbank away God knew where, and after he had notified Shawbank that the Special had been captured, Daniel was finally free from obligations.

He sat in front of Cindy's apartment building, strangely apprehensive. He was still reeling from the events that afternoon. The way he had been so casual with his own life, almost daring Fairbank to shoot him, even hoping that he would. And then freezing, utterly and completely freezing when Cindy appeared and put her life in danger. He had acted, eventually, but too little, and too late.

What’s wrong with me?

But he knew. It had been masked away when he was in Baltimore, kept busy between worrying about Jenn and dealing with ADCorp, with training and Calypso and the work. But coming here, spending time with Cindy, it put a lot in perspective. She had been a breath of fresh air, one he had not been aware he needed. And then he almost lost it all. Almost lost it all again, the internal voice corrected.

He shook his head. He approached the large house in which she shared an apartment with a roommate. He rang the doorbell, which emitted a bass carillon inside.

A young man answered the door, tall and scrawny and heavily tattooed. He stared at Daniel, his face not unfriendly. "Yes?"

"Hi. I'm here for Cindy?"

The man's face lit up, and he let Daniel inside. "Ah, cool! I'm Drummond," he said.

"Nice to meet you. Daniel," he nodded.

"So you're the dude from back East that she talks to online all the time, huh? Here for a visit?"

"Work, actually."

“Sorry to hear, man. What do you do?"

Daniel hesitated for a second. "I'm a troubleshooter," he said.

"Nice! Like a fixer or shit?"

Daniel had no idea what Drummond might have meant by a fixer, but if it made him happy… “Yeah, you can say that."

“Drum, who was it?” It was a female voice from deeper inside the apartment. Not Cindy.

"A dude coming over to see our Cin."

A woman’s head appeared in the doorway to what looked like the kitchen, a deep frown on her face. “The slut’s got a boy over—big surprise.” There was a sneer in her voice, and she stared at Daniel up and down.

“Come on, M. Don’t be mean.”

“Fuck you, Drum. You’re always defending the slut. You can’t stop from ogling her whenever you get a chance. I wonder why the fuck I keep you around.”

“Because no one else would tolerate you, M. You’re a bitch.”

There was grumbling from the kitchen as the woman’s words were lost in whatever she was doing.

“Don’t mind Maura. She’s actually a sweet girl. She’s just got… issues. Anyway. We’re out of here. I think Cin’s taking a shower. You got the place to yourself.” Drummond said it in a nonchalant way and not a little bit of humor, but Daniel did detect a tinge of envy in his voice, and he figured that perhaps Maura had not entirely misinterpreted Drummond’s attraction.

“Thanks, Drummond. Hope you guys have a good time.”

“Oh, we will. Punk Open Mike Night at the Turnbull. It’s always a blast. We’re gonna get smashed.”

Maura emerged from the kitchen, and gave Daniel the once over. She was a tall and voluptuous brunette with large breasts and olive skin. She was clad head to toe in black leather, in a way that Daniel would qualify as a mix of goth and old-style punk. She did not even acknowledge Daniel’s presence.

“You look good, M,” Drummond said.

“Fuck you. And if you mentioned that slut’s name even once tonight, I swear I knee you and then I shit on your face.”

They left, Maura sniping at Drummond that he wanted to watch that little slut showering, while he defended himself. “Well, have fun you two,” he said to the closed door. He shook his head. Trust Cindy to find a girl like that to share an apartment with.

Now that the apartment was silent, Daniel could hear the shower running upstairs, and Cindy’s voice singing, high pitched, surprisingly melodious. Looking around, taking in the apartment, he noticed touches of colors that had to have come from his friend.

She had made this place a home.

“Dan, you there?” she shouted from upstairs. The showed had stopped.

“I am.”

She shrieked—shrieked, of all things—in pleasure, and then tumbled down the stairs, half dripping over the floor, wrapped in a large fluffy white towel that threatened to engulf her.

She jumped into his arms and kissed him, hard, and he responded.

After several seconds of a soul-wrenching kiss, Cindy pulled back, breathing hard. She stared at Daniel in the eyes, then smiled as she let her towel drop with a wet plop to the ground. Her petite body was naked, pearled with drops of water, her breasts standing up as if begging for attention.

“Are they gone?” she asked.

“Now you ask? Yes, they’re gone.”

“Oh good,” and then she kissed him again.

Daniel surrendered to the moment. This was Cindy, his friend, his lover, his confident in these dark days. This was Cindy, who made it clear that what they had was friendship and sex. Part of him still felt guilty about what he was doing, but it was easier to feel guilty and repentant and to vow not to succumb again when one was at the other end of the country. When presented with the fact in flesh and blood, it was more difficult to deny the attraction and the sheer bliss of being enlaced by someone that genuinely cared for you. And part of him craved such an enlace. Part of him clung to life.

He let his hands roam down Cindy’s naked back, while she purred in his arms. She felt good. Too good. She was the harsh spotlight that revealed how empty his life was.

Cindy must have felt something, for she pulled back from him again, and ran a hand up the side of his face. She was looking up at him with tenderness, a look that he was not accustomed to see from her.

“So are we going to talk about the big fat elephant in the room?” she asked softly.

“There’s a big fat elephant in the room?”

“Oh yes. He’s huge, pink with white polka dots, and he’s wearing a tutu. He’s called Theo.’

“Theo the elephant?”

Cindy merely grinned at him. And waited.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said, shaking his head.

“You need to.”

“I know.”

“Promise me you’ll talk to me about it before you leave.”

“Yes.”

“Promise.”

“I promise.”

Cindy looked at him for a second, then her ten-watts smile returned, and she looked the perky powerhouse again. “Okay, then it’s time to play. I’ve been good, I’ve behaved, and now I want my reward. And I did help our, right?” she asked, almost coy.

“You did,” he said, a bit taken aback but the sudden change in atmosphere.

“And we sort of did a good thing, taking this guy off the streets. He did mess up some girls pretty bad.” He voice had that tinge of longing he had heard from her before. She had been programmed by the Delta Iota Kappa fraternity back at Darnell, and while she had broken free of their programming and agreed that what had been done to her and the others was wrong, part of her also missed the release of control. She had said it had been the only way to get around that weird blockage she had about sexual intercourse.

“We did do a good thing…” he answered, carefully.

“So you sort of owe me?”

“What do you want, Cin?”

“I’ve been good these last few days, haven’t I? Gave you your space, been a good girl?”

“You have. Though you’ve been a bit of a tease, too. Okay, okay, okay, Fine: I owe you. There, happy? How can I make it up to you?”

“I want to play,” she said brightly.

“Play?”

“Role play. I want to role play with you. One of my fantasies. I’ve had it for a while, and seeing everything that happened in the past few days. well, it made it… worse.”

“I should be worried about this, shouldn’t I?” Daniel was open-minded and enjoyed role play. Jenn had been a big fan too, although she tended to be more storyteller than actress. She loved to spin tales and watch Daniel react.

“Oh, you’re going to like it,” she said. “You get to fuck me however your dirty little mind wants. So you should start thinking about how you want me. I want you to role play being a Special.”

“Come again?”

“I want you to play at being a Special who’s snatching up a not-so-innocent victim. Please?”

Daniel stared at her.

“I don’t know if I can do it, Cin…”

“Oh, I think you can. I believe in you. You’ll do it, for me. And I think I can make it so that you’ll enjoy it, too. Plus, you’ll get to do whatever filthy thing you want to me.” She stood up. “I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere. Get in character!”

“But…?” he asked as she ran up the stairs to her room.

Daniel stood, and started pacing. He could not believe this girl. After everything that had happened, here she was, asking for him to play the role of a Freak that victimizes women for his own amusement.

It was all a fantasy though.

A fantasy that was very much along the lines of every other fantasy Cindy had been telling him over the past year, fantasies where she was controlled, used, dominated. He had participated in many of those, playing the dominant role, at times even enjoying it.

This was very much along those lines.

He could do it. He wanted to make her happy. Even more so now that he was starting to get a glimpse of just how important she was to his sanity.

Cindy was enthusiastic, playful, mind-boggingly sexy. This was no hardship. So she was twisted. Who wasn’t?

He readied himself, trying to put himself in the right frame of mind. He was a Special. He had the power to make any woman do whatever he wanted by touching her. He could unleash all his subconscious desires, sway women to his will. He could understand the attraction. At least, on a purely physical level. A purely animalistic reaction, seeing a beautiful arousing body and wanting to possess it. No love, no warmth, no closeness. Merely rutting, mindless rutting.

Footsteps down the stairs dredged him out of his reverie. He opened his eyes to see Cindy walk toward him. She had on a black wig that changed her more than a wig should have, and heavy mascara. She had on a short flared schoolgirl’s skirt that barely reached her upper thighs, and over it she had on a tank top that was too large for her frame and gave tantalizing glimpses of her breasts whenever she moved. But it was the three Greek letters stenciled diagonally down the front that made Daniel start. Delta. Iota. Kappa. The fraternity back at Darnell University that had enslaved Cindy, and Serena, and Jenn. On the spot, Daniel felt his jaw clench.

"Hi," Cindy said, a teasing smile on her face. "I'm Cindy Caprese. You must be Douglas, the visitor we're expecting today." She used the name of the Special they had just captured, but Daniel barely noticed, so distracted he was by Cindy's tank top. "My sorority asked me to be your guide and show you around, to see whether you'd be interested in donating to us and our associated fraternity.”

Daniel observed her. He demeanor had changed. She was fully immersed in her role. He knew her enough to guess the scenario she was stitching together. She looked practically demure as she pulled her hands from behind her back. She was holding something that Daniel knew well: a bronze medallion, attached to a leather cord. He knew that were he to look at it closely, he would find Cindy's name etched on one side.

That medallion.

Of course.

It was a cheap Olympic medal knock off, but that was not the point. Cindy had brought it back with her from Darnell. It had been used as a prop by the Delta Iota Kappa fraternity at a party they had thrown where they had girls walking around—all girls they had programmed using Doctor Thaddeus Cargyle’s technology, it turned out—and the gimmick had been that whenever a girl would put their medallion around a guest’s neck, that guest could tell that girl to do anything and she would obey, without question, without hesitation.

Undoubtedly, those girls had been programmed so that indeed, they would obey the wearer of the medallion.

Cindy had been one such girl, but she had eventually and naturally broken free of her programming.

But she had held on to the medallion.

It still affected her. Or she let it affect her. Daniel was actually not sure.

It allowed her to be sexual, she said. It was another way to get around her intercourse blockage. It was a remnant of the programming she had suffered at the fraternity’s hands. Whenever he wore the medallion, she remained Cindy, smart and sassy and utterly weird Cindy. But when he said something, she would obey, and obey him completely. It was as if a part of Cindy slipped away and what was left was obedient and eager and absolutely shameless.

Cindy took a step toward him, reaching out with the medallion. "In order for you to get access to our facilities," she said, "I have to put this on your neck. It will... identify you to the residents."

He still stared at her, without saying a word, but without resisting either as he bent his head down and let her slide the leather cord around his neck. The medallion settled on his chest, the weight of it familiar even though he had not had it on him for a long time.

Memory flooded back to him—of the pain and the distress of those weeks after Jenn disappeared, and how Cindy had been there to keep him distracted, to keep him afloat, the way she was still doing, asking for nothing in return.

Well, she was in fact asking for something now.

"Thank you, Cindy,” he said, trying to get into the role. He was still reeling from the tank top she was wearing. He had not known she owned one.

“I’ll be honest,” she said with a coy smile, “the generous donation you're thinking of making makes your happiness important to us. I've been delegated by the fraternity to help show you around and tell you about our… special incentives. Are you ready to hear my selling spiel?" she asked, a glint in her eyes.

“Please,” Daniel said.

“Again, being honest: you and I both know that you're probably looking get some benefit in return for your donation. And if you were looking for benefits in the form of academic credentials or getting things named after you, you'd have donated to the university proper, or to one of the more academic fraternities. So you are looking for… other sort of benefits."

"You're very perceptive, Miss Caprese."

“Call me Cindy. And thank you. I try. So what sort of benefit would you consider getting from Delta Iota Kappa? Undoubtedly, you know what they say about them, right? That they have the best looking frat groupies of the state?"

"Frat groupies?"

"You know, girls who hang out around the fraternity, coming to parties, getting involved with the brothers..."

“Right. Yes, I did hear some… good things."

"And it's all true," Cindy said, brightly. "These are some of the best looking chicks I've seen. I mean, I don't lean that way, but they manage to make me doubt sometimes, if you know what I mean."

“They’re that attractive, then?"

"The best. And you know the best part of it?"

"Please tell me, Cindy." He tried to put some weight under her name, and she felt it for he saw clearly her nipples tighten under the hated tank top. She was getting into it. “What’s the best part?”

“They’re available, of course.”

“Available?”

“Come on, you know. If you ever need some female companionship of the… carnal kind, they’re available to satisfy your needs.” Cindy smiled, a little smile that Daniel had never known her to have, in part naughty, and in part scheming, like she was sharing an inside joke with a lucky fellow.

“Let’s not beat around the bush, Cindy,” Daniel said, getting into his role. All the Specials he had made had a certain assurance to them, almost an arrogance. And it was easy, too, because the way Cindy was acting, with the tank top she was wearing, was starting to rub Daniel the wrong way. She was promoting the fraternity that had ruined his life, and there was a part of him that considered it too fresh, too real, too concrete. It was too easy to forget this was all made up. “So what you’re saying is that if I donate to your fraternity, then some of the girls will fuck me?”

“They will fuck you, they will suck you, they will worship the ground you walk on. If you want to hurt them, abuse them, humiliate them, they’ll let you, with enthusiasm and without complaining. Unless that’s what gets you hot, of course.”

“And why would they do that?”

“Do you really care? That’s not the point, is it? The point is that these girls—pretty young things, the cream of the crop—will do whatever you want, whenever you want. Anytime you want to dip your stick into some young tight cunt, you just stop by, and wham bam, you get your rocks off and go on with your day. Want to take one home for the weekend for some fun time? Just drop by on a Friday and take your pick. We got all kinds: sporty girls, glam, nerdy, ditzy. Brunettes, blondes, redheads. Innocent and experienced. Whatever your kink, we have a beautiful coed that can’t say no to indulge you until you go blind!”

Cindy’s eyes were shining bright as she spoke, and she was leaning forward, getting all excited. And her eyes held a darkness. It was as though she relished what she knew those girls were going through. Daniel’s head was spinning. It was too real. He had known those girls—Serena, Jenn, they all had been those girls, programmed to do the fraternity’s bidding.

He took a deep breath, trying to quell that shrill of anger that was threatening to burst deep inside of him. He held himself very still.

Cindy leaned back, a dirty smile back on her lips, the self-satisfied look of a saleswoman who knew she had hooked her prey. “These bitches are the filthiest sluts you can imagine.” She winked at him, as if he was in on the joke, the scam.

Daniel straightened. It was too easy to forget this was Cindy. She was that good. Her whole demeanor had changed, there was an arrogance and an entitlement there that reminded him so much of the fraternity guys and their leaders, the one that had roped in Doctor Thaddeus Cargyle. They thought the world was theirs. They had paid, all of them.

The medallion weighed heavy on his chest.

Cindy—or her evil alter-ego?—was looking at him, waiting for him to say something, possibly something about taking advantage of the choice of girls she had to offer him. “Well?” she asked.

Daniel eyed her, level. “What if I want you?”

Douglas Fairbank would have been that forward.

She laughed, her laughter crystalline and somewhat mocking. “Me? Oh no, I’m no frat groupie. I’m just a sorority girl, and I help out when I’m asked, but no, I’m sorry, I’m not available.”

“Really? Are you so sure about that?”

Before she could react, he extended a hand and touched her naked arm. Even though he was not a Special, Daniel managed to convince himself that he felt a spark or something. Even Cindy flinched.

But he was not a Special. And the only way he could affect her was by ordering her to do something, and she would respond to the medallion.

“I think you’re mistaken, and you are available, Miss Caprese. You are available to guests, like those filthy sluts you so casually referred to.”

Daniel was fighting hard to keep his anger at bay. Anger, and helplessness. The fraternity—Biff—was an open wound in his side and Cindy had stuck a big fat finger down it.

She was looking at him, with a blank look in her eyes, her eyes wide open. She repeated his words, “I’m available.”

Daniel stared at her for a beat. “Tell me what you are, Cindy. And tell the truth.”

He had meant it as a reinforcement of what he had said, that she was available, remaining within their role play, but she surprised him. He had forgotten the actual real power of the medallion on his friend’s mind. “I’m a tease,” she said, her voice low and soft. “I like to dress sexy with skirts that are way too short and tops that are way too tight, and act all innocent like I was nothing more than an airhead. I’m waiting for the right man to come along and claim me. Just take me, overwhelm me, dominate me, put me in my place, in my proper place, not caring one bit for what I feel except making me come over and over again. I want to surrender, and not think, and not deal anymore. Just be.”

Daniel cocked his head to stare at her. He had a feeling that was not part of the role.

“I think you may have just found that man, Cindy.” He was sticking to his role.

“You have potential.” She was talking to Daniel now, not role-play Douglas. “But I think you’re too soft to really do what I want you to do—too kind, too sweet, too loving. You care too much.”

“Too soft?” he said. “Too kind?”

So she wanted to play? She wanted to tease him by wearing that stupid tank top from that stupid fraternity, acting like she was better than all those poor girls that had done nothing wrong except being attractive?

“Do you know who I am?” He said. He knew the role he was playing. He simply piggybacked on what Fairbank had said earlier that day. But his words had the weight of anger behind them that went beyond the role. “See, I own a series of strip clubs back home, and I’m always on the hunt for good performers. And I was hoping that this frat would provide me with some good prospects—and I just found one.” He stepped closer to her, reached with a hand toward her face. She was beautiful, there was no denying, her face soft and almost innocent, hiding all the turmoil that raged underneath. So different from Jenn, who looked more like the vamp next door, if such a thing existed.

Daniel ran his hands down her face to her chest, and roughly pushed the hated tank top aside, exposing a round breast with a rosy nipple. He palmed it, the way Fairbank had done earlier, and squeezed it hard, the way someone like Biff, someone like any of those other jerks, would have. “And I think my customers will just love to see a pretty little thing like you strutting her stuff up on the stage. What do you say, Cindy—are you going to be my new star, my new hit girl?”

Cindy, her eyes almost blank, clearly enjoying his treatment of her breast, nodded. “If… if you want me to.”

“Sir.”

Cindy practically shuddered at that. “If you want me to, sir.”

Daniel nodded, pulled down the tank top further, letting her other breast plop out. “I’m glad to hear that. You’ll be very popular I think. Especially because you’ll be the most uninhibited performer I have. You will live to have crowds of guys cheer for you to strip, to touch yourself, to demean yourself in front of them.”

He was channeling what Fairbank had said that afternoon, without thinking. But he was no longer speaking to Cindy, he was speaking to a fictitious girl that spoke of the girls that the fraternity had enslaved as though they were chattel, and he was angry.

Cindy was eating it up.

The medallion weighed on his chest.

He leaned toward Cindy, and said the rest into her ear, all the while running his hand down her side and lifting her skirt, finding her bare underneath. No surprise there. She was dripping wet, and groaned when his fingers touched her lips.

“You will work cheap, too. Just for the love of being a shameless slut showing it all on stage. Just for the tips that horny guys will slide into your thong, or stuff up your pussy. And when you’re in the VIP room giving a lap dance to some lucky guy, you will never say no to those little extras that make my club so popular. You’ll be the most enthusiastic private performer those guys have ever met. You’ll get turned on at the thought of a complete stranger paying money for you to dance over his lap and fuck him and generally do whatever he wants to you. But when you do that you’ll think about those girls that you’ve helped turn into mindless whores for that fucking frat of yours!” He was gnashing his teeth there at the end, and Cindy had arched her back and was pressing into him, humping his fingers that had found their way inside her pussy.

“I’ll be the best fucking stripping whore you’ve ever had,” she said, her breath short, her words difficult to understand.

“You will. Now, show me. I’ve just paid to spend fifteen minutes in paradise with Cindy Caprese—oh yes, you’ll use your real name, because we want people that know you to come and see you and realize how depraved you really are. Show me what you got. Here,” he said, sitting down on the couch, and thumbing his phone to find some appropriate music.

He was fully immersed in his role. The medallion felt heavy on his chest. He was aroused, why exactly he was not sure. Cindy, before him, her eyes still wide, the neck of her tank top tucked underneath her breasts and pushing them upward, started swaying to the music that was now coming out of Daniel’s phone. It was almost funny—hard thumping music coming out tinny from the small device, but neither of them cared.

Cindy bumped her way around the living room floor, her skirt flying about and exposing her pert body before she slipped out of it and chucked it at the other end of the room, remaining clad only in the tank top that she stubbornly insisted on keeping on. She played with it and she used it to hide and expose her breasts over and over again, even as she strutted about.

And then she swayed her way toward him and turned around and sat down on his lap, her hands on his thighs, and rubbed against him, against his hardening cock, and Daniel’s response was automatic, what any man in his place would have done, reaching around her and grabbing her breasts and squeezing them, and Cindy did not protest, the way a proper exotic dancer would have, but instead moaned and pressed against his crotch harder, the feel of her naked ass sending waves up his body.

When she turned around, a crazed look in her eyes, and slid down his body to tug at his belt, Daniel let her, noting the wet patch over his crotch, cause from Cindy’s overflowing juices. She was turning her on, and that pleased him and bothered him at the same time.

When she had removed his pants and pulled out his cock and slipped her lips around it, Daniel grasped her hair—the way he figured Fairbank might have, the way Biff and his frat brothers certainly would have—and pulled her down hard and forced her to take most of his shaft into her mouth and fight her gag reflex, and he used her hair to drive her up and down and Cindy rather than fight it let herself be used in that way her tongue swirling around his cock head when he was almost out, and sucking hard when he was in, over and over again.

Her hand was between her legs and rubbing feverishly.

As if knowing that he did not want to come inside her mouth, she let him go after a few minutes, his cock drenched with her spit, her lips red from her blow job, her breath short. Her eyes were still crazed, as though sucking him off only served to arouse her more.

She straddled his lap, and guided his cock inside her, and Daniel sunk in without any resistance, her pussy swallowing him whole. She groaned as she sank down all the way, her eyes closed, her arms resting on his shoulders. Daniel looked at her, at her face, at the pleasure etched into every line, every curve. She felt good around him too, squeezing him inside with pulsating regularity.

Up and down she went, fucking herself on his shaft, letting out adorable little squeals, her breasts bouncing, still shelved by that tank top bearing the name of that stupid fraternity. Daniel’s eyes were drawn to it every time Cindy bounced on his lap.

Without thinking, he reached over and pulled it off her, tossing it in the distance, knocking over a lamp. Cindy grinned and let out a loud groan as she fucked him even harder, seemingly aroused by his temperamental display.

Whether that was the trigger for what she did next, Daniel did not know. But she leaned over to kiss him hard, shifting from bouncing up and down to pressing down on his crotch and giving her a back and forth motion that sent all sort of different delicious feelings down his crotch.

Cindy was breathing in his ear, and started whispering. “I’m thinking about this girl that one of the frat brothers Biff snagged up, a pretty thing, brunette, long dancer’s body, nice tits, tight ass, legs up to here, and the filthiest mind you ever saw. He’s been fucking her nonstop since he grabbed her. He likes to dress her up in kinky lingerie and make her expose herself and put on shows for him and some of his friends. He’s got her acting like she’s a wanton slut that can’t get enough and will do anything so that she can be fucked by a man. He loves to hear her beg to be taken hard up the ass.”

Daniel’s mind reeled. Biff. Dancer’s body. She was talking about Jenn! What was going on? He tried to push her back, but Cindy clung to him, her hips doing double duty on his lap, grinding into him, her pussy squeezing hard on his cock. He could feel her breasts press into his chest.

“I’m the one who pointed her out to him, did you know? I pointed her out and told him that she was one of the finest pieces of ass that I’ve ever seen. And he’s going to ask me to join him one of these days, I know it. He’s going to ask him to go and fuck that little slut Jenn with him and I’m going to say yes and I’m going to go and see how well she sucks cunt—if she’s half as good as Biff says she is swallowing his big fucking cock, then I’m in for a fantastic time! And then I’m going to sit down and watch him destroy her the way he does every night, over and over again, leaving her in a puddle of sweat and cum with her cunt and ass and mouth chaffed raw.”

Daniel struggled to get her off of him, but she seemed to resist. What was she doing? She had gone back to bouncing on his cock now, and incredibly enough, she seemed tighter, impossibly tight, as she fucked him harder and harder.

“Do you wanna hear what he had her do in front of the rest of the fraternity the other day? Do you wanna hear what earned her the reputation of the biggest slut these guys have ever seen? Do you wanna—”

“Shut up! SHUT UP!”

Cindy did, immediately, as Daniel snapped and pushed her away. She slipped off his lap and fell to the ground, and in one smooth motion flipped onto her hands and knees.

Beside himself, not even noticing that tears were streaking down his face, Daniel slipped to the ground behind her, and without thinking, slapped Cindy’s ass, hard, the smack leaving a dark red imprint. “Shut UP!” he said, over and over again, as he spanked her harder and harder. Cindy merely let out a sharp breath on every stroke, remaining silent, but she did not attempt to get out of the way of the hits—she merely pushed her ass further out, offering a better target, her chest pressed into the carpet, her head down between her arms.

With a growl that was more animal than human, Daniel lined his cock with Cindy’s exposed and dripping slit and pressed in, as deep as it would go, almost as if he wanted to hurt her with the thrust, as if he was pushing in with a sword rather than flesh. He slapped her again for good measure, his pain blinding him.

Her fucked her hard, harder than he ever had, harder than he though he ever would. Fucking the pain away, Jenn would have said, with her typical way with words, and the image that Cindy had painted in his mind danced before his eyes, blurry but in sharp focus, Jenn dancing for Biff, submitting to him, begging him to fuck her, to fuck her ass, to fuck her like the slut she was.

He came inside Cindy with a howl, even as she came herself, letting out loud squeals but not a single word, her shuddering body collapsing even as Daniel did too, right next to her. He was still howling as he laid on his back, howls that quickly turned into a primal scream that had him hitting the ground with his fists as the remainder of his rage and impotence fought their way out of his body.

When his throat was raw and his body shook from the emotional toll, utterly exhausted, drained, wretched, he turned his head and saw Cindy lying down on the ground, with her back to him, writhing, her body shuddering, sounding like she was sobbing, angry red marks on her ass.

Daniel stared, horrified. What had he done?

He grabbed the medallion around his neck, that cursed piece of shit from Delta Iota Kappa, and he tossed it across the room. “Cin! Oh my God! Cin!”

He reached with a hand to turn her around, and his tossing the medallion must have broken the spell, for Cindy turned onto her back, and Daniel saw that she was not sobbing. Far from it. “That was AMAZING!” she laughed, her face broken into the hugest grin he had ever seen, though her face was red and blotched and her mascara had run down her cheeks. “Best ever! You are WONDERFUL! Thank you!” She looked at him with adoration in her eyes.

Daniel was so confused he did not even know where to start. “What…?”

“That was the best fuck I’ve had in a long while,” she said, wiping tears from her face. She stretched her body like a cat about take a nap. “I so needed that.”

“What you said, what you told me, before, did you… was it…?” He could not even complete the sentence.

“Of course made it up, you bozo. Do you really think I’d have done something like that? Do you really think I’m that kind of person?”

Daniel did not know what to say. Cindy was twisted, there was no doubt about it, with her own sense of ethics, but she was not so callous as to have thrown Jenn to the wolves and lied to his face about it.

“So why did you…?”

“Well, it did make you fuck me the way I wanted to be fucked, for one.”

Daniel was stunned. And hurt. She did that so she could get off? She must have read his thoughts on his face for her expression softened. “For two, well, how do you feel right now?”

“Confused? Hurt? Betrayed?”

“No, no, no. I mean, beneath it all. That weight in the pit of your stomach?”

Daniel stopped, and stared at her. He closed his eyes, relaxed, and tried to feel what he was really feeling, underneath the churning of superficial emotion. Reluctantly, he dove for the darkness that he knew was there, had been there ever since Jenn was taken from him, ever since Radhu died, ever since that night at the Delta Iota Kappa fraternity house when everything went to hell.

And he was stunned. The darkness was still there, of course. The pain had not left, the anger, the frustration, the fear. He knew them like they were friends. But they were… human-sized now. He could look at them, contemplate them, confront them.

He opened his eyes, stared at Cindy, who was looking at him, entirely too pleased with herself, still with her broad grin on her face.

“You’re not out of the woods yet,” she said. “But you had way too much anger accumulated. It’s not good for you. You have to air out your feelings. It’s like lancing an abscess. You gotta clean out the pus.”

“Yuch!”

“Yeah, pretty much. It ain’t pretty. Though it makes for some stellar fucking!”

“You’re nuts.”

“I’ve been told. And you will go nuts too, but not in a good way, unless you start taking care of yourself. If you ask me, I think you’re way too lonely back in Baltimore.”

“I talk to people.” Even he could tell he sounded defensive.

“Colleagues don’t count. Calypso might count, but I don’t think you’ve opened up to her.”

“I don’t trust her.”

“You don’t have to trust her. We’re not talking about revealing your deepest darkest secrets. We’re talking about airing out feelings. You’re sad—say it, talk about it. You’re upset—say it. Happy? Angry? Confused? Say it. Talk about it. Even better, find a therapist. Point is: take care of yourself.” She paused for emphasis, and looked at him, serious. “I don’t want to lose you.”

Daniel sighed. “I’ll… consider it.”

“Good,” Cindy said, and then she stood up. “Now let me get dressed, and let’s go eat something. I’m famished. Then we can come back here and you can fuck me again!”

Daniel watched her skip up the stairs toward her room. Happy and carefree again. He was glad she did not reach for the fraternity tank top. He dreaded asking her why she had it. If he were to guess, he would have said that some part of her yearned for those days when she was a fuck doll for a bunch of frat boys.

He sighed, and hunted for his clothes.

He never heard the front door of the apartment close softly. Cindy did not either, of course, since she was rummaging up in her room for something to wear. Had either of them heard it, they might have wondered who had witnessed their interaction, and for how long.