"Ray?" Cheryl laughs, a horrible froggy sound. "What about him, Suzy?"
"Can I come in?" Suzy asks. I strain for a glimpse of her, but can't see past Cheryl. She has the door barely open, keeping Suzy from seeing inside.
"Now's not a good time," Cheryl says. "Do you have some information about Ray, or what?"
Suzy sighs. "I think he might be over here."
"Why would you think that," Cheryl snorts.
"Nicole told me she and Kim were keeping Ray over here, but he got away," Suzy says patiently. "Then she started crying and said she was afraid Kim had caught Ray again and was doing horrible things to him."
Cheryl shakes her head. "That girl. Quite an imagination."
"No, not really," Suzy says. "I don't think she would make up something like that."
"So, you really think my daughter would torture some poor, helpless little boy like that?"
"I don't know. Are you keeping her medicated like you're supposed to?"
"Goodbye, Suzy," Cheryl says and starts to shut the door. And without making a conscious decision, I bolt out towards the door, screaming, "Suzy! Suzy! Help me!"
"Son of a bitch," Cheryl mutters, turning towards me. "You're dead, you little shit." She raises her bare foot and stomps down. I stare up as her wrinkled sole comes down towards me in what feels like slow motion, realizing that this is it. No more play, no more torment. She's going to stomp me flat this time.
I fall flat on my back and brace myself for a messy end. Her foot rushes down at me, and everything slows to a crawl.
The front door flies open and Suzy rushes in, running across the living room. I watch stupidly, sadly, knowing she won't make it in time.
Cheryl's foot stops and jerks away from me. Cheryl lets out a bloodcurdling, raspy scream and stumbles backwards in slow motion. Her foot is in the air, shaking furiously. Because my safety pin is imbedded in it, all the way to the hilt.
Suzy rushes over to me, still in goofy slow motion, and drops to her knees. She scoops me up in her palm and lifts me ever so gently. I stare up at her, unable to believe it's real. It's going to wind up being a dream, I can tell. Hell, the whole thing already feels like a dream.
The long, surreal noises suddenly snap into real time, as does everyone's motion. Cheryl is sitting on the floor, yowling with pain, groping at the safety pin in her foot. A small stream of blood pours down her sole, dispersing through the wrinkles as it drips downward.
"You bitch!" Suzy shouts, trembling with rage. "What the hell have you done?"
Still screaming, Cheryl pulls the pin from her foot and throws it to the side. She climbs to her knees and stands unsteadily. "Give him to me," Cheryl shouts through gritted teeth, limping towards us.
Suzy's fingers close around me protectively. I feel her body shift and jerk sharply, and I hear a brutal thump of fist hitting face. Cheryl lets out another scream and falls with heavy thud to the floor.
"You pucking bith!" she screams incoherently. "You boke my node!"
"Call the police, then," Suzy says. "Hell, I'll do it myself."
"Wait," Cheryl croaks. I peer out between Suzy's fingers and see her mouth and chin are covered with blood. She's holding a cupped hand to her nose, trying to staunch the flow of blood.
"If you breathe a word about any of this to anyone," Suzy snarls, "I will call the police. And if you ever come near me, I'll fucking kill you. Understand?"
"Get out!" Cheryl screams tearfully. "You pucking dlut!"
Suzy carries me outside and pulls the door shut behind her. She looks down at me with such love and tenderness, her beautiful eyes brimming with tears. I look up at her, and something inside me suddenly breaks. I collapse sobbing in her soft hand, relishing the comforting feel of her fingers as they stroke my filthy, naked flesh.
"It's okay, Ray," she says soothingly as she carries me into her family's apartment. "I swear, everything is going to be fine now. I'm not going to let anybody else hurt you." She carries me through the living room, down the hallway, and into the bathroom.
"Shhh." She strokes me so lovingly, her fingertips soft and cool and so reassuring. "Let's get you cleaned up now, okay?"
I nod gratefully, and she carries me over to the sink. Still holding me in one hand, she adjusts the faucet with the other, testing the water with her index finger until the temperature is right. Then she closes the drain and runs about an inch of water in the sink.
I can't possibly describe how good it feels. Her finger, dabbed with soap, rubbing against my chest and arms. The soft, gentle splash of water as she dips her hand in to rinse me off. The gradual, dawning acceptance that this is it. My long, horrible nightmare is at an end. I'm back with Suzy, and everything is going to be okay.
The dirt, grime, and stink of my ordeal are rinsed from my body. The water is so warm and her skin is so soft and I feel like I could start crying again, but I'm all cried out and I look up into her beautiful, kind face, the face of a goddess, a face that I love more than any other I've ever know, more than Louise even...
I've got to tell her, she's got to know how I feel. I'm scared to death that she doesn't know, that she doesn't understand how much, how truly, how deeply I love her. Now that I'm with her, the thought of losing her is suddenly unbearable.
"Suzy?" I say, and she touches her fingertip to my mouth to shush me.
"I love you, Ray," she says, smiling down at me. The tears in her eyes have begun their trek down her perfect cheeks. "I'm in love with you, and I just wanted to hurry up and tell you before you spoiled it again by saying it first."
She moves her fingertip to the side of my head, stroking it gently, brushing my wet hair from my eyes.
"I love you too, Suzy," I tell her, amazed at how lame it sounds. She was right.
She scoops me out of the sink and wraps me in a soft bath rag. "I know," she says, with that sexy tight-lipped smile that borders on being a smirk. I swear to God, I never thought I'd be this happy again.
"Let's go find you something to eat," she says.
Already, the horror of the last few weeks has become distant and dreamlike. I'm lying in Suzy's cupped palm, stroking her thumb as she pets me, and it feels like the most natural thing in the world. And much to my surprise, I find myself thinking about her perfect feet, her slender toes with the beautiful pale green nails. And maybe tonight, she'll let me kiss and caress those feet...
There's a knock at her bedroom door, and Suzy sighs. She sets me on her nightstand, behind the lamp. "What is it, Dad?" she calls, sitting up.
Her dad enters, followed by two large men with crewcuts in ill-fitting suits. My sense of foreboding comes to a brutal, horrifying realization when these men are followed by Rachel Foster from GenetiTech.
"Suzy, these people need to speak to you," her father says in a stern voice. "They say it is confidential, so I must leave them."
"Ms. Le," Rachel says, walking over and sitting on the bed next to Suzy. She's an imposing brunette, pretty and intimidating. And she's come to take me back to Naomi and Paul.
Suzy's dad leaves, followed by one of the big guys. The other one closes the door behind them. I crouch behind the lamp, watching with mounting horror.
"May I call you Suzy?" Rachel asks, smiling in a very friendly way.
Suzy shrugs. "Whatever. What is this about?"
"I think you know," Rachel says. "We've come for Ray."
"I don't know where he is," Suzy says. "He ran away like a month ago, didn't he?"
"Suzy," Rachel says with a sigh, "I'm going to save us both a bunch of time, okay?" She nods to the big guy with the crewcut and says, "Oswald?"
The big guy, Oswald, clears his throat and recites thickly, "We suspected that Ray Miller would eventually come to you, so we've had you under constant surveillance for the past month. Our man reports that at 11:34 this morning, you drove to the residence of Cheryl Morgan and forced your way in. You then left the premises at 11:38, apparently agitated and possibly carrying something. We dispatched a team to the Morgan residence, and found Cheryl Morgan beaten up and half drunk."
"With," Rachel adds, obviously amused, "a puncture wound to the bottom of her foot."
"We interrogated Cheryl Morgan," Oswald continues, "and ascertained that she had, indeed, been in possession of Ray Miller until he had been taken, rather forcibly, by you."
Suzy casts her eyes to the floor, obviously shaken.
"We also interrogated Kim Morgan and Nicole Ricci, and were able to piece together just what happened. When Ray Miller ran away a month ago, he recruited the help of Nicole Ricci to make contact with you. Instead, Nicole Ricci and Kim Morgan decided to keep Ray Miller for themselves. Then, apparently, Cheryl Morgan discovered Ray Miller and..."
"God, that's enough!" Suzy snaps. "Stop calling everybody by their full name, okay? It's annoying!"
Oswald clears his throat and continues, unabashed. "Cheryl Morgan discovered Ray Miller and held him prisoner, letting Kim Morgan and Nicole Ricci mistakenly believe that he had run away. Then, six days ago, Ray Miller escaped from the custody of Cheryl Morgan."
"He's pretty resourceful, that Ray," Rachel says with a smile.
"Ray Miller spent the last six days inside the house, trying to escape. Meanwhile, Kim Morgan became concerned that Nicole Ricci was going to reveal to her parents the true nature of Ray Miller's disappearance and, fearing exposure of her own complicity, fabricated an elaborate story to keep Nicole Ricci at bay. To wit, that Ray Miller was once again her prisoner, and she would torture and kill him should Nicole Ricci inform on her."
Suzy says nothing. Her eyes are brimming with tears. Rachel puts a comforting hand on her arm and pats her.
"Nicole Ricci eventually had a change of conscience, but remained afraid of telling her parents for fear it would get back to Kim Morgan. So she chose to confide in you. At which point, you rushed to the Morgan household, rescued Ray Miller from Cheryl Morgan, and brought him back here."
"It's okay, Suzy," Rachel says. "You aren't in any trouble here, understand? As far as I'm concerned, you're a hero. If we had people like you working for us, we would have found Ray weeks ago. Right, Oswald?"
Oswald nods. "I suppose so, Ms. Foster."
"We've discussed the matter thoroughly with Cheryl, and she understands the need to keep a lid on things. She understands that we won't offer her up for prosecution as long as she keeps her mouth shut."
"She fucking tortured him," Suzy says angrily. "She was going to kill him."
"Oh, she's a bitch, no doubt," Rachel says. "But we've been very careful to keep Ray out of the press." She makes a distasteful face. "Unless you count that National Mirror, and fortunately they've got something of a credibility problem. So I think the best solution for everyone would be to return Ray to the Daltons and pretend like none of this ever happened."
"Bullshit," Suzy says, furiously. "You take Ray from me, and I'll..."
Rachel holds up a hand to cut her off. "Before you finish that sentence and force me to take drastic action, let me just ask you something. Have you ever heard of Carol Ruiz?"
Back in 1997, there was a sexual harassment lawsuit filed against GenetiTech. A corporate recruiter named Carol Ruiz claimed that she was indecently propositioned by one of the VPs. The poor girl died in a car wreck and that lawsuit went away as well.
Last year, an e-mail started circulating. It was supposedly composed by a disgruntled former GenetiTech employee who wanted to share some startling information despite the fact that his life was in "grave danger." He told a sordid story of Machiavellian conspiracies and suspicious deaths. Of course, he included Carol Ruiz on the list, but he dismissed the sexual harassment as a cover up. He claimed that Carol had been on her way to the State's Attorney's office to turn over evidence of GenetiTech's "genocidal agenda," and postulated that GenetiTech's black ops team had "silkwooded" her brake line.
I remember this only because the e-mail was quite a hot topic around SPECTRUM. Louise dismissed the whole thing as an "urban legend," and Gary even went so far as to imply that SPECTRUM might have started the rumor themselves.
Suzy's eyes widen and she snaps her head to stare at Rachel. "What are you saying?"
"I'm just saying, GenetiTech will go to great lengths to protect its image and its investments. Understand?"
Suzy buries her face in her hands and starts sobbing.
"Now, Suzy. Just tell me, where's Ray?"
She says nothing, and Rachel's kind smile fades with chilling quickness. She stands up and turns to face Suzy. She raises her hand over her head, and brings it down at a blinding speed, slapping Suzy so hard that her head snaps towards me. She cries out and closes her eyes as the tears pour down her face. Already, her left cheek is turning red.
"Come on, Suzy," Rachel says. "Just tell me where Ray is, and this whole ugly mess can end. Now where is he?"
"Go fuck yourself," Suzy whispers, earning another blow.
Rachel sighs and steps back, rubbing her hands together. "Tell you what. I'll have Oswald bring your dad back in here, and every time you tell us to go fuck ourselves, we'll extract one of his teeth."
"You... you can't do this..."
Rachel nods towards Oswald, who starts to open the bedroom door. Suzy screams out, "No!" She sobs bitterly when Rachel takes her by the chin and forces Suzy to look her in the face. "Last chance, Suzy," Rachel says. "Where is Ray?"
"I'm right here!" I shout, stepping out from behind the lamp. Suzy turns to look at me, her face wracked with raw, naked anguish. "No, Ray," she whispers, then starts weeping again.
Rachel smiles at me as she steps over to the nightstand. She reaches down and grabs me between her finger and thumb, and lifts me to her face. "Well, aren't you the little noble gentleman," she says, showing her teeth in a fierce grin. I'm suddenly, painfully aware of my nakedness.
She carries me to the door, which Oswald opens for her. She stops and turns to address Suzy, who is sobbing bitterly. "You're on thin ice, Suzy," she says. "We'll be watching you, so I'd advise you to keep your nose clean. For your parents' sake, if not your own."
She walks down the hall into the living room, followed by Oswald. Suzy's father sits on the couch, his face buried in his hands, crying. The other big crewcut stands in the center of the room, his hands behind his back, watching with a definite lack of interest.
"Let's go," Rachel orders them.
The GenetiTech car is a black Cadillac Deville limousine. Oswald opens the door, and Rachel climbs into the back with me. The door shuts, and Rachel looks down at me with a friendly smile. "Well now, alone at last."
I glance around nervously as her fingers wrap around me. Oswald and the other guy climb into the front seat, shielded from us by a sheet of tinted glass.
"It's good to see you again, Ray," Rachel says. "I've asked the guys to take the long way home, so we could have a chance to talk."
"I've got nothing to say to you," I yell at her, struggling to cover myself from her gaze. "Why can't you just leave me alone?"
She shakes her head. "I've got a job to do, Ray. Just like your friend, Alan Mackey." She laughs coldly. "In fact, if Alan was better at his job, I guess we wouldn't be having this conversation. So I should probably be thankful."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"I'm just saying. If Alan had been better at keeping you a secret, GenetiTech wouldn't even be aware of you." She grins. "The ironic thing is, they read the original Mirror article, the one with the picture of your mom holding you? And they dismissed the whole thing as unlikely, not even worth investigating. It wasn't until the picture earlier this year that we decided to acquire you."
"It's not Alan's fault," I tell her. "He was on some assignment when Tony took that picture."
"Well then, he should have had somebody competent watching things while he was gone. You think security is lax at GenetiTech just because I'm on assignment here?"
It's chilling when she smiles at me, because there's nothing inherently threatening about it. With Cheryl, at least you knew she was an evil bitch. Rachel keeps it hidden well. It writhes inside her, like snakes in a marble statue.
"So, you know Alan?" I ask her, curious. She's hinted that she and Alan share similar jobs, but I'm having trouble imagining him behaving as amorally as Rachel. Alan's one of the good guys, a hero like James Bond.
"I know Alan Mackey very well," Rachel says with a chuckle. "I'm the one that gave him that scar."
"Bullshit," I tell her. "He got that scar when he stabbed some assassin with a fork!"
Rachel chuckles again. "Well, he did kill one of our guys with a fork, but that wasn't where he got the scar."
"You're lying," I shout at her, for no other reason than to see her defensive. I so desperately want to break that icy veneer.
But no luck. "Seriously, Ray," she says, shaking her head. "Why would I lie about something like that?"
"Then how did he get it?"
She sighs. "I'll tell you some other time. Or maybe you can ask him on his next visit." She adds, almost as an afterthought, "Which will hopefully be his last. After the hearing, when the Daltons are awarded custody, we'll finally be able to bar SPECTRUM from coming anywhere near you."
I just huddle miserably in her palm, desperately wishing for something to cover myself. I can't stand to have those cold, piercing eyes looking at my nakedness.
"That reminds me," she says, snapping her fingers. She reaches over to the armrest and flips it open to reveal a telephone. She presses a button, and a number dials itself with a series of rapid tones.
"Hello?" a man's voice answers through the speaker, totally normal and non-descript.
"Three nine nine eight seven six four nine seven zed Bravo Zulu Tango," she rattles off with practiced ease. A couple of clicks, another tone, and another number dialing itself.
"Operations," a voice, this time a woman's, answers.
"It's me," Rachel says. Obviously, that's all she has to do to identify herself to the woman on the phone. "We have acquired Homunculus," she says. "It's no longer necessary to stall SPECTRUM with regards to the mother's visitation. Have Coffey arrange a meeting at a neutral location on Wednesday. I'll make certain the Daltons are on board."
"Yes ma'am," the woman on the phone answers. "Anything else?"
"Maintain surveillance on the Morgan family and the Le family, but take no aggressive action without consulting me first. Oh, and were you able to get that name I needed?"
"Um..." I hear the rustling of paper. "Looks like Winston Ellis," the woman says.
Rachel sighs and shakes her head. "That's no good. Ellis isn't... sympathetic. Find out what it'll take to get us moved over to Weining."
"Yes ma'am. Anything else?"
"That's it for now, Judith. Have a great weekend."
"You too, Ms. Foster."
Rachel disconnects and shuts the lid on the armrest. She looks down at me and offers a sympathetic smile.
"I know you've been through hell, Ray. I've just got a few things to cover, and then we can get you home to your parents."
"They're not my parents," I tell her.
"That's exactly what we need to talk about," she says. "I like you, Ray. You're smart and you're resilient, and if someone is lucky enough to earn it, you're fiercely loyal. But you're also short-sighted and impulsive, and it gets you into trouble when you start mouthing off without considering the consequences."
"Stop it," I shout at her. "Stop talking like we're friends. You don't know a fucking thing about me!"
"On the contrary," she says with a chuckle, "it's my job to know everything about you. You're sixteen years old, heterosexual, no strong religious convictions. Your favorite author is Richard Matheson, you enjoy movies by Coppola and Tarantino, and your favorite band is Love and Rockets. Your mother abandoned you at age five, and you were raised by the staff at SPECTRUM. You have since imprinted on your therapist Louise Herndon, seeking from her the maternal nurturing of which you were so sadly deprived."
"Stop it," I tell her, glaring up at her. But she just smiles and continues.
"You suffer from phobias of open spaces and spiders, both of which are understandable given your condition."
"Okay, you've made your point," I tell her. "Just stop it!"
"And," she adds, crossing her leg, "you become sexually aroused by the sight of a woman's bare foot. Now that one, I've got to admit, is pretty interesting."
Oh, God. I stare down at her palm, unable to meet her gaze.
"Okay, Ray," Rachel says. "Here's the deal. This hearing should be open and shut. We'll be appearing before a sympathetic judge, and I can assure you Paul and Naomi will come across as very loving and very competent parents. Your mother, on the other hand, will be seen as an opportunistic drug abuser who is seeking custody of you simply to cash in.
"Originally, we were hoping to use the National Mirror article to portray SPECTRUM as a vile place, but we forfeited that opportunity when we discredited the reporter Benny Doyle. So it looks like it's going to be a he said/she said match in the courtroom. Still, the odds are definitely in our favor. And by in our favor, I mean pretty much a foregone conclusion."
I sigh and shift uncomfortably in her hand. I'm so ready to be away from her that I'm actually looking forward to seeing the Daltons.
"Now, I know you're thinking about talking - to the judge, to your friends at SPECTRUM, to anybody that will listen - about the horrible things that have happened to you over the last month. And I'm telling you right now, it doesn't matter. You are going to GenetiTech, and nothing you say or do is going to change that."
"You're lying," I tell her. "If it doesn't matter, then why are you worried about what I'm going to say?"
Rachel arches her eyebrow. "You are a smart one. I swear, it's easy to forget you're just a kid sometimes." She reaches down and removes her black pump. She flexes her toes through her dark nylons and sighs. I stare, fascinated by the sight of the tight, black mesh stretched across her bright red toenails.
"In answer to your question," she says reasonably, "I'll admit, you do have the power to make things somewhat difficult for us. But just remember, I'm not without power of my own. If you say or do anything to make my job any harder, I'll have your friend Suzy charged with kidnapping. And while she's awaiting trial, I can see to it that she hangs herself in her jail cell. Understand?"
I blink, feeling tears of frustration running down my flushed cheeks. She's so arrogant, so certain of her power over me... and she's right. I'll die before I let anything like that happen to Suzy.
She takes me between her finger and thumb and hoists me to her face. Her smile is warm and friendly, which makes it even more chilling. "I said, do you understand?"
I nod weakly.
"Good boy," she says. "And now, what do you say we seal the deal?" Before I can even ponder what the hell that means, she lowers me towards the bottom of her foot. "Sorry about the hose," she says, spreading her toes and stretching the nylon like webbing. "I know you prefer bare feet, but it'll still be fun."
She holds me about an inch from her sole, wrinkled and pale beneath the taut mesh of nylon. Her toes wiggle slowly, seductively. In a matter of seconds, my idiot penis is standing at rigid attention. The smell is familiar and reluctantly exciting - leather, sweat and nylon. The heat from her foot is intense.
"There we go," Rachel says. She presses me against her warm, sweaty foot, stroking my naked body against the silky nylon until I climax indignantly in her grasp. She holds me aloft over her other hand, letting me ejaculate into a tissue. When I'm done, I hang limply between her fingers. She wads up the tissue and throws it onto the floor.
"Just play ball with us, Ray," she says to me as she slides her shoe back on. "That's all I'm asking."
Giantess World
Homunculus by Cayce