Beg Me (3 page)

“But she did die in the alley, Teresa. The cops and their forensics people know that much.”

“Yeah,” I said softly, nodding. “Yeah, I know. I think sex got her in with whoever this was, but it might not be sex that was behind her murder. Can’t be sure yet. I mean, how could she offend these guys? What
are
their limits? Could be something else entirely that set them off.”

His eyes flashed me a warning. “You’re not suggesting she was a druggie? No way!”

“No, I’m not suggesting that. That’s what they want everyone to think.”

“So you’re sure it’s a ‘they’ too?”

“Don’t look so surprised,” I told him. “Listen, I think this drug-deal-alley business was a panic scenario, but it’s still a conspiracy that was behind her death. To dig up this Hispanic guy who died with her took research. And I don’t think one fellow alone could coerce Anna into an alley and then set up that dealer—all while making sure she didn’t bolt! I can’t be sure of the psychology, but if I have to make a guess, I think they’re pretty smug with themselves right now. When the police found the kinky stuff, they thought it was irrelevant. Police see drugs, they think drugs. So Anna’s killers think they’re in the clear. They want to taunt you. If they brag among themselves, it’s a closed circle—no fun in that. They want someone else to know they got away with it.”

“They’re wrong,” he said, his voice flat and dead.

I watched him pull out another drawer, and when his hand slapped down on the blotter there was a plastic
click
under his palm.

“Here. Corporate credit card in your name. There’s a hefty limit on it, plenty for your expenses, but don’t go crazy, okay? I’ve already made a transfer into your account for payment. It should show up by the time you’re back in the UK.”

He showed me the deposit slip, and I tried to keep my eyes from popping. Yeah, I’d be comfortable on this for a while. It almost made me feel guilty, since I felt honor-bound to investigate Anna’s death as her friend. But I had been cleaned out lately and wouldn’t have been able to afford even a cheap flight to New York.

“Is there anything else you need to do the job?” he asked.

I pointed to his computer. “You got broadband on that thing?”

“Of course.”

“Let me on it,” I said. “You may want to get a cup of tea. You won’t like the sites I have to look at.”

He said I was right and that he was going for a walk.

It didn’t take long to find all kinds of links related to black BDSM. I couldn’t even be sure that Lee’s information was good and that this organization was made up mostly of black people with maybe a few token white or Asian girls in the mix. He said it was exclusive, and if you want to stay exclusive, you don’t keep a website. Just like the ultra-chic club that doesn’t have a sign out front, everything word of mouth.

I Googled away because I needed to start research somewhere, and I also had to reassure my client that I would get cracking.

I wasn’t terribly surprised at the number of black BDSM sites. Master Hines, Master Tain’s, Master Vincent’s, pansexual conferences, Ebony Doms and Panthers’ Leather, Master Dred who’d create BDSM furniture for you, Sistas who ruled and plenty of chocolate that thundered. Sites for just looking at pics of sisters tied up, like Black Girls Bound and Ebony Bondage. Then there was Dark Connections, which had historical overviews, personals, links, whatever you needed. But all of this was surface-skimming, a tourist view without a third dimension. Okay, remind yourself what you got so far.

The crime-scene forensics, except for a couple of details, don’t matter. All the stuff about the crystal meth, how Anna was dressed, who the Hispanic guy was—that’s all smoke screen, I told myself. Staged, just as Lee insisted.

We know Anna liked getting tied up. We have hearsay chatter that she wanted more and more thrills. And the old marks on her throat suggest she was a gasper.

We know she and her boyfriend broke up. He went home to London. Anna stayed in New York with this group.

We can
infer
that Anna stumbled onto something big, something the group didn’t want her to know. So they killed her and then staged her death scene.

We know somebody in that group is one smug bastard, wanting Lee to know he got away with it.

And beyond that? We don’t know much else.

The truth was that my job couldn’t really start until I was back home in London and interviewing Anna’s boyfriend, Craig, for my own answers.

I also knew even then that this world, one where Anna got her kicks and which she must have completely understood, was one that baffled me, and I would need to infiltrate it nevertheless. I had witnessed and played in some weird fads, and all too recently I had been lying on the green felt of a poker table, making it while others watched. But I knew next to nothing about the BDSM world.

I knew that what they did they apparently called “scenes,” and all the “Master” and “Slave” talk from books and movies struck me as a bit silly. Hey, I think of myself as mostly straight, but there are certain girls I like, certain things I like. I sure as hell was never going to like what they call water sports (ewwww!), and I couldn’t understand pain. At least I didn’t understand it yet.

It scared me to think I might.

It scared me to think I could possibly grow to like it, whether dishing it out or, worse, taking it.

But what I had never told anybody, what I had to admit to myself no matter how uncomfortable, was another insight I learned when I investigated the whole craze of strip poker games sweeping the posh set last year in London. Without going into details, I had what I call my “revelation of rope.” I’d never been so vulnerable.

I came more times than I can count.

The truth. The truth is I have an exhibitionistic streak.

The truth is that I was ready for new revelations of vulnerability.

Breathe. I love how people say it to you like it’s a conscious choice. It takes you a second to realize it can be in many contexts. Breathe to remind yourself you’re living. Breathe to slow down. Breathe because you’ve stopped in panic, fear, surprise, whatever. So. Breathe. Focus on your breathing.

I had called Busaba and Keith to come out and play—our first transition from me as escort client to friend—and after showing me a couple of the sights, they asked if I wanted to try practicing meditation. “I bet you lead a plenty stressful life,” Keith observed in a teasing voice. Well, not so much—only when rent is due or when people are trying to kill me. Okay, stop thinking and just breathe.

So here I was in Wat Mahathat, an eighteenth-century temple that goes back even before the founding of Bangkok. Shaved-headed monks in their brilliant orange robes walked in a barefoot line through the compound, and the three of us sat cross-legged in front of a golden Buddha, trying to empty our minds. And I did my best to stop fidgeting.

I loved the informality of it. The faithful come and go as they please, no severely hard church pews, no images to inspire crushing guilt. When you think about it, the depiction of a smiling fellow, just sitting calmly and
thinking
(or not thinking too much if you want to get technical), has got to be one of the most sublime accessible images in world religion.

Stop thinking. Just breathe.

I felt Busaba’s tiny fingers push gently on my spine to correct my posture. A smile flickered on her lips, and then she was back to her own concentration. No rebuke in this quiet place, no holding on to regrets or problems. People told me they walk out and feel refreshed after they go to temple. Faintly, I heard Keith a few feet away recite under his breath what I took for a Buddhist sutra (scripture) in Thai. I sat and relaxed, letting thoughts float in and out, and gradually I felt more alert, my peripheral vision opening up like curtains drawn on a picture window.

But more than this, I was feeling a wave of gratitude for this gift from my new friends.
Here, have a little piece of serenity, just for a few minutes, in this beautiful place.

We walked out hand in hand, the three of us, and half an hour later as we stole into a narrow market street, empty of shoppers, Busaba suddenly turned, her hands lifting my top and expertly pushing up one brassiere cup, her lips sucking my nipple. I felt Keith’s large hand steal under the waistband of my pants, digging down until he reached my core. Breathe. Oh, yes, breathe and breathe faster.

Three nights in Bangkok—into the third night. Jeff Lee took me out to a sumptuous Thai dinner in a place somewhere near…God, I don’t know, I can’t even pronounce the districts. I can get around Paris, London, Chicago, parts of Africa, but Bangkok baffled me. The restaurant had a twenty-foot ceiling, and we had this postcard view of temple spires across the river.

I really appreciated sampling at last the local cuisine, because the night before I was wolfing down a burrito in a Tex-Mex spot next to Patpong, which beat hands down the servings at the Texas Embassy off Trafalgar Square—who would have thought? Of course, back in London, you weren’t likely to get served your burrito by a very tall and heavily rouged Thai transsexual. Tonight we sat around having another drink after our meal, and I realized I’d better clear the air over an ethical issue.

“Listen, Jeff,” I said. “Are you paying me to find these guys so they can go to jail or for something else? You bring me into this, and I will not be there to paint the bull’s-eye on someone. I’ve been used like that before, and I
don’t
like it. Can we agree we’re going to see them put in a cell?”

I could understand why he took a moment to consider. I waited.

“I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want them to suffer and then die, Teresa. My second choice would be to have them in a
Thai
prison. People have no idea how horrible it is here if you mess up. I do this myself, I might never track them down, and I don’t even know where to start.” He blew the air out of his lungs, frowned, and then said, “Okay.”

We shook on it.

His voice was calm, but his tone was almost pitiful. “Please…”

“Don’t worry,” I whispered.

He settled our bill, and then we walked for a bit through the streets.

“Jeff, there’s something I don’t get,” I said, thinking aloud. “People move to different countries for love; they don’t move for sex. What did she say when she told you she was staying for a while in New York? She must have told you something.”

“Not me,” he said bitterly. “I found out later. She left a message for my parents on an answering machine. A message, not even a conversation with them! She said she was staying in America for a while and not to look for her. They couldn’t believe this shit. Just out of the blue! Told you, Teresa. This is some kind of cult—”

He said something else but I missed it. All of a sudden the skies broke open.

There is nothing quite like a downpour in the tropics. We were drenched within fifteen seconds as sheets of water poured down and the narrow streets filled with lakes of accumulated rain. What strikes you is how the water is
warm.
It’s not the bone-chilling, miserable drip of English rain—it’s a genuine hot shower. But it still was going to make a mess of my hair and—