Hard Limits Read online

  Lyon is a well-known mistress in the local scene. She said she took Leppard on as a “house slave” and took control of Leppard’s finances when Leppard suffered several major financial setbacks this year and last. “She couldn’t handle her own money,” Lyon said.

  Lyon said she sometimes whipped Leppard or disciplined her in other ways—like feeding her only dog food from a bowl on the floor—but reported that she never seriously hurt her. She said Leppard liked the pain.

  But a mistress considers her slave to be property. Lyon shared Leppard with the other members of the BDSM household at 118 Peachtree Court. It was a misunderstanding about a simple household chore that led to Leppard’s punishment, and death.

  “She never said her safeword,” Mistress Camp said. But, because Camp had shoved a sock in her mouth, there was really no way to tell what Leppard was mumbling.

  “I was devastated when I heard what happened,” said Lyon. “This isn’t the way we punish slaves.”

  According to District Attorney Howard Paul, Lyon has agreed to cooperate with the State and will testify against her housemates at the trial of Robert Mosby, Michael Flynn, and Sandra Camp Flynn. Bail has been denied to the defendants because of the severity of the crime.

  “Brett, my friend.”

  It was Brigitte’s voice. I recognized the inflection even with my eyes closed. I tried to lift my lids but they felt too heavy, like the weight of the world was lying on my eyelids. My head throbbed, my mouth was stale and cottony and smelled like cigarettes. I managed to open my eyes, finally, and Brigitte’s grinning face came into focus.

  “How do you zay it?” she asked. “I think it’s, you really tied vun on. Here, take dis.”

  She put a pill in my mouth and tipped a cup of cold water. I tried to lift my head but like my eyelids, it was impossibly heavy. The pill slid down, water spilling on my chin and dribbling from my lips.

  I tried to bring up my last memory. I saw a picture in my head of a pimply clerk in a red checkered shirt. There was a pint of brandy on a glass counter and I was pulling dollar bills out of my pocket. That was the last thing I remembered.

  “Oh,” was all I could say. I lay my head back down on someone’s pillow and immediately fall asleep.

  It took nearly forty-eight hours for me to get sober enough to drive back to my cabin. Brigitte told me on Thursday night I was waiting on her front porch when she arrived home from work. I was already drunk. She took me inside and sipped Heinekens while I finished the rest of the brandy.

  She said I told her about Skyler and that I cried until I shook, that I cried like a little child. I couldn’t remember any of it. She said she put me to bed and let me sleep it off.

  “What day is this?” I asked.

  “Saturday.”

  Skyler was dead. It was real. Skyler was gone.

  Brigitte said when I was drunk I swore I was going to kill somebody. Again. She said I said again. And what did I mean, again?

  Wynonna

  “So, what’s this new lead?” I asked Tanika.

  We were again in the Egyptian cotton sheets at the Renaissance Hotel, where I thought I should be getting a discount for repeat visits. We were waiting for Room Service to bring us a late dinner. Earlier we couldn’t be bothered with food. When I got to my room there was only a sentimental bottle of Argentine Malbec and two glasses waiting next to the dozen red roses she had made sure had been delivered. Now, after two hours of sex, I was famished.

  She propped a big pillow behind her back. Her skin was so lovely and the curves of her breasts so inviting, I was tempted to begin exploring her body again. I got a grip on my libido.

  “Remember The White Resistance?” she asked. “From our days on SGATF?”

  “Sure, I remember it,” I said. “They have a real presence in the mountains.”

  “Yeah, well, in Georgia, too. We think they may be connected to Lyon’s abduction.”

  “So, it’s an abduction now?”

  Adjusting my own pillow, I turned sideways to see her properly.

  “That’s what our CI is saying.”

  “You have a confidential informant in The Resistance?”

  This was news to me.

  “The Feds do. It’s a joint investigation. And she’s telling us—”

  “Wait, wait. You have a woman CI working The White Resistance?” I interrupted.

  “We do,” Tanika said.

  “Lordy,” I said. “Somebody’s got big ones.”

  “Interesting metaphor,” she said. “But more to the point, our CI is saying that The Resistance was planning to abduct Lyon and hold her at a member’s house in Verona.” She paused. “Georgia,” she added, in case I didn’t know the town.

  “No shit.”

  “No shit.”

  “Damn,” I muttered. “What’s the motive? For the abduction.”

  “Remember Robert Mosby? The defendant in the Skyler Leppard case.”

  “Of course.”

  “Mosby has a brother in The Resistance, James Mosby. James did a dime at Riverbend for Aggravated Assault thanks to yours truly. A bar brawl here in Atlanta.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “We’ve been watching him and the rest of the group through the eyes of our CI. She’s been inside for more than a year. And she’s saying that word is Robert Mosby told James Mosby to make Lucille Lyon disappear. Lyon is the key witness for the State, as you know. If she doesn’t appear at trial, Robert Mosby has a better chance at acquittal.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “Do they have her? The Resistance?”

  “Our CI doesn’t know.”

  “All right,” I said. “So, what happens next?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean, nothing?”

  “The Feds don’t want to risk exposing their CI over this,” Tanika insisted.

  “But what if they kill Lucy? She might already be dead.”

  “She wouldn’t be their first victim. The Resistance has its fingers in a lot of dirty pots: drugs, firearms, extortion, murder. Blood in, blood out, you know the drill. What we’re working on is bigger than one death. If she’s dead. Lucy may still be alive.”

  “Jesus,” I said. “So that’s it? End of search?”

  “That’s it until the Feds go in. Robert Mosby and the Flynns are the guests of the Fulton County Detention Center until their trial date.”

  “And Lucy?”

  “What happened to Lucy is anybody’s guess.”

  Driving back to NC, I saw a text from an unidentified caller.

  “Hey, girl,” it said.

  “Who is this?” I texted back.

  “Tanika. I’m using a friend’s cell phone. You haven’t seen my cell phone, by chance? I seem to have lost it.”

  “No. Sorry. Did you check the Renaissance?”

  “Yes, called the Front Desk. Nobody turned one in.”

  “I’ll check my truck but I don’t think I have it,” I wrote.

  “All right. Gotta go, TTYL.”

  “Hope you find it.”

  She signed off with a heart.

  Brett

  It had been seven and a half weeks since Skyler’s death. I was calm now, breathing mindfully, practicing the Kundalini meditation I learned as a young Leatherdyke. I was alone. My one friend flew back to Germany after learning that her mother had died. Brigitte was in Berlin, arguing with her siblings about the will.

  Skyler’s profile was no longer on Perv. When I tried to bring it up, Perv returned the message, “A search for Skyler Leppard resulted in nada, nothing, zilch.” Mistress Sinestra had removed Skyler as her slave but, other than that, nothing on her Perv page had changed. There was no reference to the murder, no indication that anything happened at all. The only suggestion that Lucy was part of Skyler’s life and death was an addition to Mistress Sinestra’s profile description, in the opening sentence. I don’t do drama, it said now.

  Under Events, I saw that Lucy had posted a workshop she would be presen
ting at The Indulgence: “Safe and Sexy: A Beginner’s Guide to BDSM.” The class was described as instruction in sexual anatomy, safe sex practices, and communication for “safe and sexy play.” As soon as I saw it, I knew what I needed to do.

  I was standing at the front desk of Downtown Suites, an extended stay hotel in Central Atlanta. My Ranger was in the parking lot; in the back of my truck were all the supplies I would need. As always, my Ruger was on my hip.

  I gave the jowly desk clerk six hundred dollars in cash for two weeks in a room with the bare essentials. I used an alias. I had bought a burner phone at a convenience store enroute. When the clerk asked for my contact information, I gave him that number. In my duffel bag, I had a GPS Real-Time Tracker that I had purchased online from The Spy Shop using an untraceable VISA Gift Card.

  The Indulgence was a membership club. Checking the card in my wallet, I saw that my membership was good for one year from March 30, 2013, the night Skyler took me to the dungeon for the first time.

  It was the last Friday night in September. Tomorrow night would be “Safe and Sexy,” The Indulgence workshop taught by Mistress Sinestra. I would be there.

  Lucy drove a Chevy Impala, Switchblade Silver, with a couple of dents in her blind spot. It was an old model, boxy and long. I was in the parking lot of The Indulgence, back near the far fence. I watched her pull into a spot close to the dungeon and heard the radio go off with the last strains of a Guns ‘N Roses song. There was a quarter moon in a gray-black sky.

  A tall woman exited the passenger side. This must be Shelby, I thought. She was a big girl in a big corset, trying to balance on very high heels. Lucy exited the Impala next, saying something I couldn’t make out. I could only hear the murmur of their conversation as they walked toward The Indulgence. Shelby stayed back several paces behind her Mistress. She was leashed, a chain hanging slack from Lucy’s hand to the collar around Shelby’s neck.

  I let other players arrive and park and go inside to attend the workshop. When there was no one around, I left my truck. I was dressed entirely in black, including a black snapback, and was wearing disposable gloves. Getting down on my knees on the gravel, I slipped the tracker underneath the back of the Impala. I felt the force of magnetism suck the case up tight onto the metal frame. Mentally, I was following what I’d read online: away from the exhaust pipe, under the trunk.

  I glanced around. No one had seen me. I returned to my Ranger, started the V6 and drove away. Back in my hotel room, I logged onto my laptop and opened to Google Maps, following the instructions for my Find a Cheater Tracker. The page showed no activity.

  I turned on the TV. I had missed the evening news. I’d been following Skyler’s story, but there had been nothing new for weeks. The only thing I’d learned was that after the autopsy, Skyler’s remains had been claimed by her parents and returned to New York for burial. There was a photo online of Skyler, showing a much younger girl with dark eyebrows and short black hair. The picture surprised me. I’d only known Skyler as a blonde.

  I found an old movie on Turner Classics. It was Double Indemnity, a forties’ film noir with Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck. I’d seen it many times. I watched until seven minutes after one, when Lucy’s Impala started moving. A red pin flashed on my computer screen, tracing the car’s progress. The pin blinked from I-285 South to I-20 West to Exit 244. The Impala stopped, pulsing in place, and then continued onto Cosmopolitan Boulevard until it reached its destination at 118 Peachtree Court. The pin stopped, still flashing. Then it froze in place. They were home.

  I closed the laptop. I turned off Double Indemnity and went to bed. I knew how the story ends. Everybody who needed to die, died.

  Sunday morning I logged back on. The Impala wasn’t moving. I made coffee in the Keurig while I waited. I turned on the flat-screen and skipped over the TV evangelists until I found something less offensive. It was Meet the Press. I watched cynically, with little interest. Around eleven I noticed the blinking red pin on my laptop. The Impala left Peachtree Court and turned onto Cosmopolitan Boulevard, moving along several long blocks until it paused at 136 Pryor Street. It stopped there, blinking in place. Then it froze. I clicked on the address. It was the District Attorney’s Office of Fulton County.

  Lucy was saving her own skin, absolving herself of any responsibility for Skyler’s death, selling out her household to ensure her freedom. The car didn’t move for more than an hour. At eleven minutes after noon the Impala blinked into action, retracing its route back home.

  Seven-thirty Monday morning the Impala snapped awake on my laptop. It headed down Cosmopolitan, stopped in traffic, then continued until it arrived thirty minutes later Downtown. A click revealed the location as AT&T Corporate Offices on King Boulevard. The car didn’t move until five p.m.

  I waited to see if she was going back to the D.A.’s Office. But no, the Impala took her home.

  Tuesday was a repeat of Monday. When she wasn’t torturing her slaves, Lucy seemed to lead a fairly dull life. I saw on Perv that there was a meeting of the Cheshire FemDommes scheduled for Wednesday night, eight o’clock, at The Indulgence. Mistress Sinestra would be leading the meeting, which was for Dominants only. No submissives would be allowed. Perfect. Shelby wouldn’t be there.

  I double checked my gear. I had everything I needed. I was ready. Tomorrow was the night.

  The grab happened in the parking lot at a little after ten. About two dozen women had already found their cars and driven away by the time Lucy walked out of The Indulgence. Juggling a satchel and a bakery box, she had her car keys poised in her right hand. By the time she started on the concrete path to the gravel parking lot, she was all alone. There was a Toyota in a spot closer to the building and my truck at the far end of the parking lot. Everyone else had gone.

  Lucy was dressed vanilla: a white T-shirt over jeans and sneakers that glowed green stripes in the dark. I was completely in black behind a tinted window. I got ready to pull a ski mask over my face. A dark pillow case and a 75,000-bolt Taser were at my side. I rested my hand on the inside latch of the driver’s door. I was ready.

  Suddenly from out of nowhere, a Ford commercial cargo van squealed into the parking lot. Before I could register what was happening, it had pulled alongside the Impala and three men in black had jumped out. Lucy looked as stunned as I felt. The inexplicable arrival of the van had stopped her in her tracks. She was standing at the passenger door of the Impala, the key erect in her hand. She seemed to be unable to comprehend what was taking place and to deliver herself to the safety of her car.

  One of the men stuffed a gag in Lucy’s mouth and threw a bondage hood over her head. Another grabbed her arms and deftly duct taped them together behind her back. A third picked her up while the first man opened the back door of the van. The third man tossed her in. The man with the duct tape secured her legs. The man at the door slammed it shut. The three men got into the van using separate doors, and in another moment the van peeled away. The grab could not have taken more than two minutes.

  A professional job. But not my job. Someone besides me wanted Lucy gone.

  The kidnapping happened so fast I didn’t have time to think. And then I did. I thought, now what am I going to do?

  It took only a moment for me to come to my senses. I started the Ranger, jammed it in gear, and let the all-terrains burn rubber. The Ford van was already two blocks ahead of me, going seventy in a fifty-five. I sped up in pursuit. The vehicle turned onto I-75 and headed north. I got close to enough to read the Georgia plates: FTW-188. I fell back and changed lanes, following a safe distance behind to the driver’s right in what I hoped was his blind spot.

  About an hour later he took the exit marked Verona/Rome. Stopping at a red light before turning left, he glided past a Shell gas station, a McDonald’s, and a WalMart. I wondered if he had noticed me. I got behind a truck overflowing with teenagers and let them stay between me and the van.

  We turned off the boulevard onto a side street that soon becam
e a rural road. It was just me and the van then. About a quarter of a mile later, the van slowed and turned right into a driveway. I didn’t slow down. I drove past until I was out of sight. Pulling over underneath a street sign that read Candler Road, I killed the engine and headlights and waited. About five minutes later I did a U and backtracked, my headlights off, until I was in front of the house.

  The setting was a country property, a fifties-style brick rancher with wide eaves and a hipped roof of black shingles. The front lawn was weedy and overgrown. The van was in the driveway and a Ford F-150 was parked in the open carport. There were lights on inside the house, but I was too far from the picture windows to see anyone inside. I pulled up to the dented mailbox and read the number: 205. That’s all I needed. I rolled to the corner before I turned on my lights.

  Back in my motel room, I Googled the address of the house in Verona. Public records showed that the property was owned by James Mosby, aged thirty-nine. Mosby. I checked the White Pages. It provided James Mosby’s address, phone number, and only living relative: Robert Mosby. The man who had killed Skyler.

  Something called ‘Checkem’ promised that for fourteen dollars and ninety-five cents, it would show me all I needed to know about James Mosby’s background. I paid and discovered that James Mosby was affiliated with The White Resistance, a supremacist organization on the watch-list of The Southern Poverty Law Center. It also revealed that James had done time for B and E, assault, drunk and disorderly, assault, and rape.

  On a hunch, I logged onto Perv. I checked groups in Verona, GA and found one for local kinksters. Nothing in that group suggested any connection between their kink and The White Resistance. I searched Aryan and found a group called Aryan Idolatry for Black Submissives “who worship Aryan cock.” I tried the reverse. I searched “Black Mistresses White Slaves” and found dozens of groups. One of them was in Atlanta.