Hard Limits Page 10

  I opened ATL Dominant Black Women/White Male Slaves. I read:

  This is a group for the Black Woman of Atlanta who wants to be served by a willing and submissive white male slave. The white male slave will pander to her every need, obey her every command, and do anything his Black Mistress tells him to do. The white male slave will heel and serve his superior Black Goddess.

  There were one hundred and twenty members. I went through each one individually until I found what I was looking for. His post said:

  I am an Unowned White Slave ready to be trained by a hot Black Mistress in the Atlanta area. I am ready to serve. Please contact…

  The post was dated February 2013. I saw that Unowned White Slave had received a response from Mistress Ebony, saying she would private-message him. I brought up her page. It said that Mistress Ebony was a Bisexual Lifestyle Dominant who was serious about “turning you into a sissy.” Her profile claimed, “I wear heels bigger than your dick.” Among her fetishes, Mistress Ebony was into humiliation, degradation, orgasm denial, water sports, CBT (cock and ball torture) and the “white pet boy sucking my strap-on.”

  She had fifty-nine photos in her Perv file. Exhibitionists just can’t resist posting pictures of themselves and their submissives, I thought. I brought up Mistress Ebony’s images. She was a full-figured Black woman in stilettos and a black corset. The only thing her slave wore was a blindfold and a collar.

  I wrote the letter on a sheet of plain white paper. Block letters, no identifying marks, and I wore gloves, just in case. I inserted the letter into an envelope and printed “Mr. James Mosby” on the front. Pulling off the strip that covered the adhesive, I pressed it shut.

  I drove back to 205 Candler Road. I knew I was taking a chance, but I thought overall it was less risky than using a delivery service. I looked around before pulling up next to the post-mounted mailbox. No one was on the street. The drapes were still pulled closed inside the house. I lowered the black metal door and tossed in the letter. I shut the door quickly and drove away, hoping I hadn’t been seen.

  When James opened the envelope, this is what he would read:

  October 3, 2013

  Dear Mr. Mosby,

  I believe you have something that belongs to me. I would like very much to get it back. I feel certain that we can reach a mutually beneficial arrangement regarding terms. Please meet me at Hog Tied BBQ and Bar in Rome, GA. I believe you know the place. Friday, October 4, eight o’clock. I look forward to discussing the terms of our agreement. I’ll be the customer in the black Ruger snapback.

  Sincerely,

  N.

  After the drop, I stopped at Office Depot to buy a cheap printer and a ream of glossy photo paper. I had work to do.

  I took a corner booth near the front window. I put two walls behind me and a plate of glass at my side so I could see him coming. I was early. I ordered coffee from a tattooed waitress with tired eyes. The restaurant and bar were filled with Friday-night customers, their Harleys lining the front entry. I waited.

  At eight o’clock, a black Ford F350 pulled up. It was plain, discreet, no Confederate flag flying, no NRA bumper sticker. That’s for yahoos. The pros in the movement have learned to blend in, to not call attention to themselves. The driver got out and approached. I noticed that a male passenger stayed behind in the cab. I recognized Mosby from his pictures. He entered, stood at the “Please wait to be seated” sign, looking around. He spotted me just as the hostess started to say something to him. Waving her off, he walked over.

  I stood, taking off my Ruger cap.

  “Mr. Mosby,” I said.

  He appraised me, unsmiling. He was at least an inch shorter than me, cropped brown hair and light brown eyes. I always expect them to be tall, blond and blue-eyed, but that’s rarely the case. I don’t know why, but it seems that the biggest bigots, the ones trying to save the Aryan race, don’t look anything like their ideal.

  He sat down. He looked a lot like his brother, like the photo I saw online of Robert Mosby in his orange jumpsuit.

  “May I buy you a drink, Mr. Mosby?”

  He leaned forward. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt with a pack of Marlboro Reds in the pocket. He put his arms on the table, and I saw the tats: WR, White Resistance; BTK, Born To Kill; a spider web; an iron cross.

  “I hate dykes,” he said.

  I leaned back, took a breath.

  “I see.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, yer all a genetic mutation. Ya don’t reproduce. Yer job as a white woman is to make white babies. You dykes refuse to do that. Yer all traitors to yer race. The white ones of ya. So why should I do business with a dyke?”

  I took a sip of coffee. The waitress returned to take his order.

  “Not now,” he snapped at her. Before leaving she shot me a look that said, some asshole you’re with.

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s how you see it. I’ve heard it before. So, let’s get right to the question.”

  His steely eyes drilled into mine. I could see ice behind the steel.

  “Why should you do business with me? Because you’ve got Lucy Lyon. How I know this is not important. What’s important is that you’ve got her, and I want her. I believe you and The Resistance and I can agree on at least one point. Lucy Lyon is dangerous. And I also believe that we can agree on something else. We all see the same end for Ms. Lyon.”

  He took the Marlboros out of his pocket along with a book of matches. Pulling out a cigarette with his teeth, he lit it and took a deep hit. A couple of customers turned their heads at the whiff of cancer but said nothing.

  “And what end might that be?”

  “Let’s put it like this,” I said. “Your brother is in the Atlanta City Jail waiting for his trial date. Lucy Lyon is cooperating with the State Attorney to prosecute him. If Lucy disappears, a key witness goes away. Your brother is probably still going to prison but without Lucy’s testimony, his chances just improved a whole lot with a jury of his peers.”

  “Gaw on,” Mosby said.

  “A creative defense lawyer might be able to argue that this was a crime of passion. Your brother could be looking at a decade in prison instead of the rest of his life. Or worse. Georgia has the death penalty, you know. And murder with torture is a death-penalty offense.”

  I let this sink in before I continued.

  “Skyler Leppard was a friend of mine. Your brother killed her, I know that. He struck the fatal blow. But I’m not here to get even with him. I’ll leave his fate in the hands of the jury. I’m here to even the score with Lucy. Because I know that if it hadn’t been for Lucy, Skyler Leppard would still be alive.”

  The ash was growing; he was looking around for an ashtray. There wasn’t one.

  “You want us to hand the girl over to you,” he said.

  “I do. That’s what I want.”

  He sniggered and cupped the cigarette. The ash fell into the palm of his left hand. He didn’t flinch.

  “Whadya say yer name was agin?”

  “I didn’t. Call me Nem.”

  “Well, Nem, I’m sorry but we cain’t do that. The girl is our problem. We’ll take care of it.”

  “I was afraid you might feel that way,” I said.

  I brought a manila envelope up from the vinyl and black duct-taped seat and set it on the table. Opening it, I laid out the photos for him, one by one, big glossy eight by tens. As he looked at his image, his face turned a shade I have seen only on color charts: ash gray.

  “Desire is an interesting thing,” I said. “Sometimes there’s a war inside a person between desire and shame. Sometimes the thing we desire is also the thing we can’t admit we want. Some people say that sort of internal struggle creates a kind of erotic tension.”

  He couldn’t stop staring at the photographs.

  “Am I getting too esoteric for you, Mr. Mosby? Mistress Ebony, Atlanta Goddess. I’ve heard good things about her. She seems to be very, ah, skilled. I hear she specializes in humiliating whit
e boys. But you would know more about that than I would, wouldn’t you, Mr. Mosby?”

  Looking up, his eyes had changed. The steel was gone from them, replaced by something more malleable.

  “What do you want?”

  “Really? You’ve forgotten already? I want Lucy Lyon. That’s all. Give me Lucy and these pictures are gone with the wind.”

  He couldn’t help himself. His eyes had gone back to the glossies.

  “Mr. Mosby?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do we have a deal?”

  He nodded.

  “Is that a yes?” I asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Good, we have come to terms. Now then. Not that I don’t trust you, but in case you decide to do to me what you were planning to do to Lucy, I have to tell you something. I’ve taken the liberty of providing a flash drive of these images to a friend. If anything happens to me, she’s been instructed to release these photos to my favorite watchdog organization. Oh, and you know how vicious those watchdog groups are about this kind of thing. I’m sure they’d just love to get a hold of a White Supremacist on his knees in front of a Black Mistress.”

  “Aw right,” he said. He pushed the photos at me. I collected them and put them back in the envelope.

  Standing, I extended my hand to him. I noticed a twitch above his right eye that wasn’t there before. I waited until he shook my hand.

  “Thank you, Mr. Mosby. I’ll let you know about the time and place.”

  It wasn’t true, the part about the friend. The only friend I had was in Germany and she knew nothing about what I was doing. No one knew but me.

  I was sitting at the Flying Squirrel Truck Stop off I-75, Exit 290. It was ten minutes before midnight. A light rain was falling on Atlanta, fifty miles south, and on the Flying Squirrel as well. I had checked out of Downtown Suites ahead of schedule, forfeiting two hundred bucks in the process, and was on my way back to Altamont.

  There were a dozen eighteen-wheelers parked at the far end of the expansive lot, their lights dark. Inside, truckers were asleep in their bunks. One gleaming big rig was at the pump, being dieseled up by a muscled guy in jeans and what looked from this distance like a company T-shirt.

  A couple of young women were standing in front of the convenience store, smoking. ‘Lot lizards’, the truckers call them. One wore a black mini-skirt and a spaghetti-strap tank top underneath a white peasant blouse. The other was in cut-off jeans and a white tube top. Both wore black heels that I judged to be at least six inches high. The mini-skirt spotted me, snubbed out her cigarette with the sole of her right sling-back. She ambled over, swinging each leg out in a semi-circle before hitting an imaginary line on the fantasy catwalk between the store and my Ranger. When she reached the driver’s door, she peered inside but couldn’t see past the tinted window. She knocked. Loudly. I lowered the glass.

  “Hey, baby,” she said.

  She was young and looked like a Kewpie Doll in a blonde wig. She had a pouty mouth smeared red with lipstick, false eyelashes flashing cracked blue eyes. Meth, I was thinking, or cocaine.

  “Yer needin’ yer truck cleaned tonight, sweetie?”

  “Nah, I’m good,” I said.

  “Oh,” she replied. She looked at me more closely.

  “Damn. I thought you were a dude. I am so sorry, hon.”

  “No problem.”

  “Ah butcha know I swing that way, if yer interested.”

  “Nah, still good.”

  “Ah right then. Flash yer lights ifin ya change yer mind.”

  At five-minutes past midnight, the white Chevy rolled in. The vehicle idled in front of the girls at the convenience store, then moved toward me, coming to a full stop one spot over, on my left. Mosby exited the driver’s side. I got out at the same time, holding the manila envelope with the photographs inside. We met at the back door of the van.

  We eyed each other for a moment. I waited for him to speak. I had already noted the male passenger still in the van. Habitually, I touched the Ruger on my hip.

  “We good?” he said.

  “We’re good,” I confirmed.

  He opened the van door and yanked out the cargo. Lucy was squirming against her restraints, mumbling behind the gray duct tape across her mouth. Her wrists were held together behind her back by zip ties. Her movement was hampered by a set of professional ankle cuffs held loosely together by chains. A black bandana covered her eyes. She was still in the clothes of her abduction four days ago, last Wednesday night.

  “I thought she’d be drugged,” I said.

  “Here.”

  He tossed a paper bag at me. Inside I found a hypodermic needle and small vial with a red cap and Haloperidol 5 mg. printed on the label.

  “Vitamin H,” he said.

  He nodded toward the envelope in my hand.

  “I’ll take that.”

  I passed it off to him.

  “This is the only copy?”

  “That’s the only print copy,” I said. “But our deal still holds. If anything happens to me, my friend knows what to do.”

  “The deal holds,” he said.

  “Goodbye Mr. Mosby.”

  He didn’t say goodbye. He got back into the van and drove away. I noticed the girls were no longer in front of the convenience store. Nobody was around. I pulled down the tailgate of my Ranger, lifted the back window up and pushed Lucy into the shell. She was still squirming, trying to fight. I closed the tailgate but kept the upper window open.

  I inserted the needle into the permeable top of the vial and pulled the clear liquid into the syringe, then tapped it a few times with my middle finger to remove air bubbles. Leaning into the back of the Ranger, I grabbed Lucy’s leg and shoved the needle into her upper thigh. She wailed a muffled protest. I slammed the window shut and returned to the wheel.

  I took it slow. I was in no hurry now. Lucy would be knocked out for hours. There was almost no one else on the road. I followed the silent interstate back through the flat, empty land of rural Georgia and South Carolina until the Saluda Grade took us up and up and up again, winding into the darkness of the Blue Ridge Mountains. A person could get lost in these mountains, could be lost and never found. It’s happened.

  Wynonna Wynonna

  We always texted so when I heard my ringtone, Blurred Lines, and saw the name on the incoming call, I thought something must be wrong and answered right away.

  “Hey lady, you found your cell phone,” I said.

  There was long pause on the other end.

  “Tanika?”

  “No, not Tanika,” someone said. “This is most certainly not Tanika. Lemma ask you something. Did Tanika tell you she was married?”

  I found my voice.

  “Karen?” I said.

  “Yeah, Karen, you bitch. I have one piece of advice for you. Stay the fuck away from my wife.”

  “It’s not what you think,” Tanika said. She’d gotten her phone back and was trying to explain. I was ready to hang up on her.

  “You’re married,” I said.

  “Yes, but—”

  “There is no ‘but’ in married. Jesus Christ, Tanika, why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I was afraid you wouldn’t go out with me,” she said, meekly.

  “Well you were right. I wouldn’t have.”

  “See? That’s why. But it’s not what you think. Karen and I are not together anymore. We’re not lovers. And it was just a church ceremony that I agreed to because she insisted, and Karen always got her way about everything. It’s not legal. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “All right,” I said. “Let me get this straight. You’re living with Karen. You’re married to Karen. Karen has told me to stay the fuck away from her wife. What part of this doesn’t mean anything?

  “Wyn, please.”

  “Uh-uh. You figure out who you want and when you make a decision, you let me know.”

  “I want you!” she said.

  “Not good enough. You need to g
et your house in order.”

  “And I will, I will. Just give me a little time. Please, Wyn.”

  That almost worked on me. But I’d been down that road before and I’d learned my lesson. Three is a not an even number.

  “No. I’m sorry. I just can’t,” I said.

  And I hung up.

  Brett

  Several weeks after Skyler’s death in August, I asked my realtor to show me the abandoned cabin we’d passed years ago when I was first looking for property in the mountains. He couldn’t understand why I was interested in the old cabin except that it sat on forty-two acres of land surrounded by nothing but more land, deep woods where nobody goes. Ironically, the closest sign of life was an old cemetery that ran parallel to the property line. We had stopped at the private dirt drive off Metcalf Creek Road long enough for him to point out the wrought iron sign that told us this was Old Hemphill Cemetery. Next to it, a marble stone donated by The Daughters of the Confederacy commemorated their dead ancestors.

  “Does anyone visit?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “There are supposed to still be a few empty graves at the east end of the cemetery. But nobody’s used this place in decades. Maybe a century. Nobody comes here.”

  The road up and in to the cabin was a testament to the cycle of Carolina seasons; hard frosts and spring rains, summer pollen and autumn leaves. His Lexus complained the whole way up but finally got us there. Inside, the cabin was just one big room with one small window that a previous owner had nailed shut. Perfect, I had told him, I’ll take it.

  The cabin was probably somebody’s hunting home that went to seed. The place was never a slave cabin. There were never slaves in these mountains. Not until now.

  It was Monday, the seventh of October. The cabin was mine and it was ready for its slave. The cage was five by ten by six and took up most of the interior. The pen had chain link fabric that I’d strung between steel posts held in place by tension bars and bands, carriage bolts and nuts. There was a mesh roof and a gate that was wide enough for someone the size of a large dog. I’d secured the cage with a keyed Meister padlock. There was no floor to the pen other than the warped floorboards of the cabin itself. Outside the cage there was an old area rug about six by eight, beige with a black bear design. Inside the cage I’d placed an aluminum bucket for use as a toilet and two stainless steel dog bowls. There was water in one, the other was empty.