Fated Absolution (10 page)

“There is nothing passé about your breasts, they are perfect. I like them very much.” Kyle hadn’t meant to say anything Aaron thought and rolled his eyes at his friend. The words slipping out before his brain could think about who was in the room with them apparently.

The room grew perfect silent, the tension always there on the surface between them, bloomed to a palatable tangible thing. Aaron was amazed at the amount of sexual tension between the two of them.

“Madison, I’m s…” He started to apologize to her and then stopped suddenly. The look she was giving him made Aaron think she was seriously contemplating taking a silver knife to his throat or better yet to his dick. Aaron was hard pressed not to burst out laughing.

“What do you think, can we pull it off?” Changing the subject and the atmosphere was needed and lame as it was, if this was the best that Colin could come up and do the trick, Aaron would have to remember to thank him later.

“I’ll need to get started soon. Hummm…let’s see.” She rubbed her forehead. “I guess we should talk time frame and such, but I’ve got to tell you I’m whipped. I can get you some information and drop it off here sometime tomorrow afternoon. Then we can set up another time if my notes warrant it. Or if you decide that I’ve given you enough information to start, I can make some contacts. I have a good reputation and not above exploiting it.” Maddy was making more notes as she spoke.

“Why don’t we just set up tomorrow night and meet then? I’m sure we will all have questions, I know I probably will.” Colin said again.

“No, I have another job. I can’t miss too much work. As it is I’ve only just started working there full time and I don’t want to screw it up for me. I need the money.” She stood to go, gathering her things she didn’t notice the look shared between the four men.

“No, you’re working enough now. Just working for us and Schaller firm should take up enough of your time as it is. If you need money, I’ll give it to you. In fact, I’ll pay your rent as well; tell me who to see about setting it up.” Kyle was poised to take notes and do just what he’d proposed. Aaron thought about helping him but decided the only way some people were to learn was to have it beaten into their heads.

“Fuck Kyle, do you have a fucking death warrant?” Though Bradley had said it low, Maddy still heard him.

“Yeah Kyle, do you?” She advanced on him, like a steam roller Aaron thought, a beautiful mad steamroller. “What makes you think you have any rights whatsoever to tell me what I can and cannot do? And pay my rent, my rent? I’ll have you know that I’ve been taking care of my own bills for quite some time now, and I don’t need some big man to take care of me.

Why all the nerve, I should…I should…grrr, I should just kick your nuts up to around your eyeballs and be done with it.” She had him backed against the wall and was poking her finger in his chest with each word.

Aaron glanced around the room and noticed that they all but him had abandoned ship, leaving poor Kyle to sink or swim on his own.

When Kyle lifted his hand and gently caressed his finger down her cheek, Aaron wanted to applaud for him. Aaron heard her breath caught. Kyle slowly slid his hand and cupped the back of her head and drew her to him, to his body and his mouth. Aaron was just standing to leave when he heard Kyle say something he was sure was going to get him staked yet.

“Madison, I’ve dreamed of this, of tasting you. I want you, I want you so bad. This is what gives me the right, love; this is why I’ll do this.”

He watched Kyle stiffen. Then the man simply fell to the floor, holding his nuts like they were a lifeline. Aaron didn’t move, he wasn’t stupid. A pissed off woman sometimes didn’t care who was in her way when she wanted to leave and he didn’t want to ‘poke the bear’ as he’d heard said before.

When she stormed past him without a word, he remained there until he heard the front door close with a bang. Walking over to Kyle he looked down at the man.

“Will you ever learn? I’m beginning to think you won’t.” Aaron leaned over and picked his friend up. “Come on old boy. Let me get you to bed before sunrise fires you.”

“Aaron,” Kyle groaned. “I fucking hate you.”

Aaron laughed all the way to the sub levels where he dropped Kyle on his bed and laughed all the way to his own room that he shared with his lovely Sara. Yes, Aaron thought, this was going to be a great deal of fun.

“You will not make demandsss tonight, my love. You are mine to rule, yesss to rule. Come
to me, let me ssseee you, tasste you. Tell me yesss.”
It sounded more confident today, but no less demanding.

They were in the room again, the void. The air, or lack of it burned her, seared her throat and lungs with every breath. The pulled muscle in her back ached with renewed pain, it too burning her.

“Who are you? Please, tell me who you are?” She knew this was a dream. It had to be a dream.

“I’m no dreamsss, I am real. Patcalusss, me, I’m Patcalusss, for you. You are mine. You
were promisssed to me. I demand you come to me. Me. You must say it, that you will come to
me.”

She suddenly knew it could read her feelings, was somehow feeding from them. She wasn’t sure how she knew. There was something else, something she was supposed to do, or say…what was it?

“No,”
he shouted through her mind
. “Me, you mussst listen to me. You were promised to
me, I will have you. Breed, you will breed for me, only for Patcalussss.”

“You aren’t real, you aren’t real. Get out of my head. I will breed for no one, never.” Her head hurt, her body felt hot and heavy and the incredible pain.

Like before the scream tore from her and into her. Whatever it was it was pissed. She arched up out of her bed and onto the floor, screaming over and over. She had finally collapsed by the time they had broken down the door.

No one called the police, or an ambulance. In this building both or either could get you killed. One of the guys simply picked Maddy up and put her back into her bed and Marcie wiped down her face until she felt soggy, her pillow soaked.

“You okay sweetmeats? Gotta tell ya, you got a great set of lungs on you there. I’m thinking maybe you outter go out to singing or something with those puppies. Girl, yeah you know it.” Marcie meant well, at least Maddy hoped she did. One could never tell.

“Yes, I’m better. Just another bad dream. I’ll be okay now. Thanks.” She started to sit up and pain grabbed her by the throat and stopped her lungs moving. Frozen in place with it, she tried to remember, to think even what the hell she had done.

“Wow, oh wow, you’re like white, like sheet white. Well not all sheets, mine you know are red, ‘Oh Baby Red’ I think they should be called. Then Frank’s his ‘er black. Some silky shit or something. When you get going though, we damn near fuck ourselves right outta bed. You getting up now?”

Maddy had to get away from her, her head was splitting and she was thirsty. So thirsty.

She stumbled to her dresser where she always had bottled water and nearly tore the lid from the bottle in her haste to get it opened. She drank it down in one draw. She reached for the second bottle and with a little more fineness, opened it and drained it as well. The water hit her empty stomach hard, making her gag and cough. Dropping to her knees she threw up all the water and bile into the trash can.

“Fuck me girl, that ain’t right. You wanna maybe have me, I don’t know, call somebody for ya. Cause, you know, fuck that ain’t right.” Marcie moved toward the broken door. Maddy didn’t care. She just wanted to die, to crawl into a tight ball and die.

It was an hour later before she could sit up and another thirty minutes before she stood.

Thankfully she only needed to use her laptop for the next couple of hours then she’d be able to take a shower and go to work. Hopefully. ‘Fuck girl, that ain’t right, well no shit!’ she thought.

By the time she finished working on the proposal for the men and decided that they needed a business name she decided she was feeling a little better. After the hot shower, she was nearly human feeling again.

“I need to ask Mr. Wolff if he feels human, just for comparison purposes,” she said with a giggle.

Maddy had only been to sleep for an hour before the dream hit, so by the time she’d made it to the MacManus estate it was only one thirty. By then everyone but Sally and Duncan were gone or to bed or coffin, whatever she thought.

“These are for the men. They’re labeled for them. I left a phone number where I’ll be tonight if anyone has any questions.” Maddy could smell the muffins in the oven and wanted one in the worse way. Instead she asked for a glass of water, no ice please.

“If you do not mind my saying Miss, you do not look so well. Are you unwell?” Duncan asked, concern coloring his voice. She smiled at him. She knew she looked like shit, she’d seen what she’d looked like when she’d left home. Dark circles under her eyes, pain riddled her body.

Kyle, she grinned would have no trouble telling her what she looked like.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I had a bad dream that’s all. Just a bad dream. Duncan, I’m really sorry about this, but do you think I can have one of those muffins? They smell heavenly.”

Her mouth was watering now, she didn’t know what she would have done if he’d of said no. But he didn’t, he sat her down and found her a plate and Miss Penny fixed her a glass of iced tea. Before too long she was wolfing down her third muffin and enjoying a second glass of the best tasting tea she’d ever drank.

“I feel like such a pig. I hope that those weren’t for anything special. You have to let me pay you for them. I’ve never…I was suddenly so hungry. I guess it was from throwing up, but I feel so much better. How much do I owe you?” She had been dragging out her wallet, and thinking she didn’t have much, but she would certainly give him all she had and more for what he’d done for her.

“Nonsense. I have baked them for the household and you are a part of it now. You will just take the rest with you. I have already wrapped them up. Miss Penny, see if you can find her a nice jug please? Good girl,” he told the older woman when she handed him one. “and some of her lovely tea to go with them as well.” Despite her best efforts, she left with seven more muffins and a thermos of iced tea.

Maddy was at work by four-thirty and had her fruit cut and the glasses gleaming by the time the bar opened at five. The girls had shown up while she was finishing up.

“You know girl, you look a little under the weather, you feeling fine,” Nips asked as she sat on one of the bar stools.

Maddy explained about having a bad dream to Pink Nips, hopefully her stage name and not something her parents had actually picked out for her, and after she’d been starting at Maddy for about ten minutes, she finally told her how to sleep better.

“Ah girl, you gotta get laid and good and laid, not one of them quickies. One that lasts the night and you walk funny the next day kinda laid.”

“She’s gotta meet a man first, don’t ya, Mad?” Marabeth was the oldest stripper working at Puss n’ Boots at forty-four. She must still
‘have it’
as they were good at saying, because she brought in about two grand a week in tips alone.

“I’ve met one, thanks. And I didn’t care for him. He’s an arrogant prick and I’d rather sleep alone than be bossed around, thanks. Besides, he didn’t want me when he had me.” Maddy still stung a little about Kyle being sorry that he’d kissed her, but there wasn’t a whole lot she could do about it.

“Show time ladies and Marabeth. And leave Mad Hatter alone. Men suck.” Paul said with mock anger, as he winked at Maddy and went to the kitchen to get the grill started up.

The bar served a few dinner items from six until eleven or so and Paul did all the cooking. Jake, his son did the short order stuff and kept the pots and pans up. It worked out well for them as a family, the family that bar keeps together drinks together, and all that.

~~~

“Puss n’ Boots, what do you want?” Aaron pulled the phone from his ear and stared at it.

Okay, he thought, that couldn’t have been right.

“I’m sorry, what did you say?” The surly voice on the other end confirmed that he had indeed heard them correctly. “Ah, well then is Madison Harm there by any chance?”

“Yeah, she’s standing on the bar,” the man on the phone told him. “She’s about to pistol whip some asshole who got fresh with Shelly. Hang a minute.”

The phone was set down on the bar with a bang. Aaron listened to the noises in the back ground and could hear Maddy telling some ‘
small minded, tiny dicked, poophead to either leave
on his own, or she’d help him out via the meat wagon’
or something along those lines. She worked in a bar and by the sounds of it an unsafe bar.

“What,” she snapped.

“This is Aaron MacManus. What the hell is going on over there? I’m assuming this is

‘Puss n’ Boots’, it’s a bar?”

“Some nights,” she told him with a great deal of anger. “I have to tell a customer that just because he’s twenty-one it doesn’t give him the rights to grab someone’s tits as he called them.

And since he hit the bartender—me in this case I had to show him who’s boss.”

“And what was his answer to that may I ask.” Aaron could feel his anger about to boil over. This woman, he decided had a death wish.

“Before or after he spit on me? I pistolwhipped him. You don’t screw around with the bartender here. Who would make the fucking drinks?”

“Is it safe for you to be working in a place that you have to pistolwhip someone into submission?” He knew his voice was calm, but that wasn’t what he was feeling. Aaron had had fifteen minutes of listening to the byplay between her and the young punk and his anger had gown with each passing minutes. Someone needed to take her into hand.

“It was that or kill him, and I can’t be your lawyer if I go to jail for murder,” her voice sounded so reasonable that he wanted to murder her. “Besides, I don’t see where this is any of your business Mr. MacManus. I will do the job you want me to do and if you have a problem with that job, then you can ask me to stop, otherwise, fuck off. My jaw hurts and right now I’m not in the mood to be reprimanded by my daddy.”