Chapter No. 31 Cup of Indignation

Clouds of dust swirled in the wake of a Ford 2-ton delivery truck as it sped down a narrow alley behind rows of dingy factories and warehouses. Breaks squealed as it slid to a stop. A sturdy, but corroded, chainlink fence parted, and the truck rolled into a delivery yard covered in aging, faded blacktop with weeds and clumps of scrub grass trying to find sustenance through eggshell cracks in its surface. After making a sharp turn, the truck backed into hard rubber stops flanking a corrugated steel door. The driver, a stocky man wearing faded jeans, a Stetson, alligator boots, and a well-worn short-sleeved shirt unbuttoned to reveal a dirty white T-shirt, dismounted from the truck. A typical truck driver.

Appearances are deceiving.

Two others crawled down from the passenger side. They wasted no time in ascending a crumbling cement stairway to a rust covered steel entrance door. A short curly-haired man inserted a key in a Schlage lock, twisted it, and pulled the door open, grunting from the effort to move the heavy barrier on its aging hinges.

A thin woman with a gaunt face entered behind him. She seemed agitated, dancing around as if she needed a visit to the ladies room.

"Having one of your migraines, my Pet?"

She turned her pain twisted face to him. "Yes, Julie. I need your assistance.

The driver entered and immediately punched a green button near the overhead door. As motors ground to life and slowly lifted the door, the woman grimaced and held her hands over her ears.

"I need solace, Julie."

Julius escorted his wife across the expanse of the loading dock to another steel door in much better shape than the outside entrance. The sounds of a tow motor roaring to life followed them into a dingy corridor.

"Hurry, Julie. I'm having trouble seeing."

Julius Stram held his wife up with one arm while he turned a key in a lock. He pushed the door open and carried his wife to a bed that sat next to another with only a nightstand separating them. After he laid her on the bed, he rushed to a bathroom. The sound of running water preceded his return to his wife's side. He bathed her forehead in cold water while gently patting her slender hand.

"I will need more than a baptism, Julie." She said in a raspy whisper.

Julius rushed to a dresser, zipped open a small leather satchel retrieved a vial and a syringe wrapped in plastic, ripped the plastic away, inserted the needle in the vial and pulled five milliliters of clear liquid into the syringe. After squirting a few drops to clear any air, he inserted the business end into a vein in his wife's arm and pushed the plunger.

Her face relaxed, but pain still hassled her. "I will require the treatment."

His face twisted in imagined pain. "Are you sure, my Pet? Your treatment is extreme."

"But necessary. Please assist me."

He sighed before preparing to fulfill her wishes. He didn't care for her masochistic tendencies. It made him sick just thinking about it. But, he had no other choice. In her present condition, she had little tolerance for argument.

He began by slowly unbuttoning her dark green charmeuse blouse. The buttons seemed tiny in his stubby little fingers, but he completed the task without complaint. After he pulled the sleeves from her arms, he rolled her on her side to pull the garment away.
She moaned, but it didn't deter him from his task. He unhooked her skirt and slipped it from her. Her shoes came off next, but the last item made him pause.

"What's wrong, Julie?" She said it as if she were angry, but it was really pain speaking.

"Sorry, my Pet. It's just that your pantyhose presents a challenge."

"Pull the garment down at the waist and then pull at the toes to start the legs."

He did so, but the effort caused him to grimace. After he stripped the pantyhose from her, he helped her up.

"Are you able to walk?" he asked her, keeping a hand wrapped around her arm to steady her.

She pulled her panties up and adjusted her bra. "I think so."

Her first steps were tentative, but she quickened her pace with his assistance.

###

After squirting a small puddle of pink liquid into her hand, Joyce Conners rubbed Aloe shampoo through her short gray hair, rubbing a rich lather to life. From a pulsating showerhead, hot water played on her flesh in vigorous spurts, splashing in torrents against aqua blue tiles. She moaned as if in pain, but it was the pain of ecstasy. The watery massage stimulates her, and she loves to spend time in the shower with no worldly problems to disturb her only pleasure.

Door chimes pierced through the soothing water sounds.

"Go away!" she yelled, knowing full well that the button pusher outside her apartment door couldn't hear her.

The chiming continued. She blew out a disgusted breath before turning off the water, stepping out of the shower, wrapping her wet body in a pink terrycloth robe and plodding out of the bathroom and across the living room to the entrance door.

She peered through the peephole.

"Who is it?" she asked, looking over the distorted face of her principal debate opponent.

Her principal debate opponent's brow furrowed. "You can still see, or has old age caught up with you?"

She unlatched the security chain and unlocked the door, opening it only enough to peer out at him.

"What the hell do you want, Stevens?"

"Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man--in this case, woman--hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him--her."

She swung the door halfway open. "What the hell are you babbling about?"

"I wanted to . . . Oh, I didn't know you were taking a shower. Sorry about that."

She swung the door completely open and gestured with her hand like an agitated kindergarten teacher. "Come on in."

He held his hands up, palms out. "Hey, I can come back some other time."

"Get your ass in here, damn it."

He stared with surprised eyes at her for a few seconds before he stepped through the entrance. She slammed the door and locked it, and then turned to stare at him with apologetic eyes.

"Excuse my French. I just don't like being disturbed when I'm washing my hair."

"I'm sorry," he said sheepishly. "I should have called."

"Bullshit! You never call."

"You're right. I'm inconsiderate."

She smiled, an expression that seldom graced her thin, wrinkle-lined face. "Can I get you something?"

He hesitated, surprise still showing in his eyes.

"Coffee?"

She went into the kitchen, but he could still see her through a trellis crawling with vines. He watched her draw a cup of coffee from a built-in coffee maker and bring it out to him.

"Do you mind if I finish my shower?" She sounded amicable and pleasant, something he wasn't used to.

His eyes examined her dark squinting eyes, her sharply tipped nose, her hollow cheeks, and her pointy jaw. Her lined leathery face offered nothing of interest.

Or pleasure.

After taking a sip of coffee, he shook his head. "No. Go ahead. I can wait."

She gave him a coy smile before taking her leave.

He watched her walk down a short hall and turn into the bathroom, but she didn't close the door. From where he was seated on a divan facing the hallway, he could see her in a mirror hanging on the wall opposite the bathroom door. The gilt-edged mirror hung above a small Federal-era antique cabinet decorated with patina vases and it allowed a full view of the interior of the bathroom.

He assumed that she would close the door, but she didn't. His heart raced in proportion to the passing seconds, but there really wasn't any reason to get excited. She was just standing there as if she were in a trance.

But it didn't last.

His eyes popped wide when he saw her drop the robe to the floor.

What the hell is she doing? Surely she realizes I can see her.

He stared mesmerized at the reflected image of her body, not from a puerile curiosity, but from a fascination in catching glimpses of the naked body of a skinny woman, especially the naked body of the most important marine evolution expert on the planet, not to mention his main advisory and harasser. As far as he was concerned, she was an unmitigated whiny bitch, and ugly to boot. But still, he couldn't resist looking at her.

He watched her pause before entering the shower stall, and even though he felt funny about looking at her, he just couldn't resist. He marveled how the bones of her spine were prominent along the entire length of her back, how he could make out the entire shape of her scapulars, and how he could literally count her ribs. It was as if her skin were paper thin and transparent. Her skinny legs seemed much longer and her buttocks more shapely than he had imagined. When she turned to pull the shower door closed, he caught a glimpse of her breasts. They were larger and firmer than he had imagined.

He rubbed his eyes.

I must be desperate, or suffering from delusion. Put a conical hat on her head and a broom under her and she could pass for the Wicked Witch of the West.

###p

Marian hurried over the gray cement floor of a large room as if it were on fire. She stopped next to a round steel pole and held on to it to steady herself. Her head swam from the unsteady images of a cavern illuminated by banks of fluorescent lamps high above. Painted over windows hid any view of the outside world, but light from this outside world penetrated through tiny holes in the windows, giving the floor a splotchy appearance. However, she wasn't concerned with the outside world. The world inside her head was making its presence known with painful malevolence.

"Assist me," she commanded her husband.

"Are you sure you want to do this, my Pet?"

"Yes!" She hissed the reply at him, gritting her teeth.

Julius unhooked her bra, and she removed it, throwing it on the floor. He slipped her panty down over her slender legs and pulled it away when she stepped out of it. She immediately slumped to the floor and stretched out spread-eagled. Her husband kneeled down and placed foam-lined doughnuts over her ankles before clamping them into wooden manacles. He tightened bolts through the wood restraints to secure her feet, making sure that they would not slip out and then hooked a cable hanging down from the ceiling to the middle of a rod that connected the right and left manacles.

"How does it feel?" He asked her.

She wiggled her feet. "Good."

He stood up and pushed a button on a box attached to a pole. A winch hanging from a steel beam high above came to life and began to pull the cable attached to the manacle assembly.

Julius watched his wife's body being slowly pulled up from the floor feet first. He waited until she was suspended with her fingers only a few inches from making contact before he hit the stop button.

"Thank you, Julie," she said, trying to tilt her head to see his face.

"How long do you wish to hang around," he asked, suppressing a smile.

"Two hours should be sufficient."

He stared at her suspended body for a few seconds before he walked over and gently rubbed the small of her back. "I will return at precisely two hours, my Pet."

"I appreciate your punctuality."

He shook his head and shuffled out of the room, leaving his wife to her unusual, if not ludicrous, treatment.

###

"That's much better," Conners said as she emerged from the bathroom wrapped in her robe. She stood in front of him and smiled. "What did you want to see me about?" She played with the robe's sash, tying and untying it as if she were debating whether to part the two halves.

He looked into her crowfeet-decorated baggy eyes. "I wanted to discuss some of Delvin's findings. See if you've formulated a theory about how these creatures evolved."

She plopped down in a naugahyde-pleated ottoman off to the side of the divan. "Why not bring that up at one of the endless meetings the Institute is so fond of having?"

He tilted his head and flashed a rare smile. "I thought that a relaxed setting would be more productive."

She crossed her legs, allowing the robe to split away to expose the majority of the flesh of her skinny right leg. "I thought you preferred the institutional arena for your confrontations."

He acted offended. "Not always. I don't know why you think I enjoy confrontation. I'm not an ogre."

"You just look like one," she said with a frown.

He frowned, more from confusion than offense, and shifted in his seat like a nervous father-to-be.

She stood up with the sash hanging untied, but she didn't allow the two halves to part. "Would you care for a drink?"

"What do you have?"

"How about some brandy?"

"Sure."

He watched her enter the kitchen and pick up two wineglasses and a decanter of dark maroon liquid. As she sauntered back, he caught flashing views of her body when the two halves of her robe flapped around.

She poured two glasses of brandy and handed him one before gently perching on the edge of the ottoman. Straightening her back, she sat with her legs together and allowed the two halves of the robe to drape to the sides.

He swallowed hard before he took a sip of brandy. He tried not to look at her, but his curiosity got the better of him. He felt uneasy in a situation he could not control, and to make matters worse, he had no idea what she was up to.

Gazing at her was a lesson in anatomy. Her rib cage made its presence known with a vengeance above a nearly concave abdomen that sported a shallow, inverted naval. Her clavicles made a base for a scrawny neck framed by rope-like tendons, and her gnarly kneecaps held reign at the top of protruding tibias. He could only see the medial aspects of her breasts, but they appeared small and delicately curved, like crescent moons flanking the prominent outline of her sternum. She was virtually a skeleton with flesh added for decoration.

She pursed her thin lips into a toothy smile, but it was not an amused smile. It was a smile that teased as effectively as her flashing.

He took a large gulp of brandy, hoping it would dull his senses before it was too late.

###

Julius Stram stared into the intense eyes of a young man with a round Asian face framed with a trim moustache and goatee. He marveled at bulging muscles beneath a tight leather shirt. It was a look that implied great power.

"Here is the anesthetic," he said, handing over a syringe in a plastic box. "To be sufficiently efficacious, you must inject this into the subject's neck. Unconsciousness will happen quickly, in seconds, if you do it correctly."

The man nodded, adding a slight curl of his thin bottom lip.

"How am I to be sure that the subject will be at the assigned location?" he asked with no obvious accent.

"She is under constant surveillance. You will be notified of her arrival."

He nodded again and stood up to take his leave.  

"Good luck," Stram said as he exited the room.

He sat at the table and tried to rub fatigue from his eyes. He was ready to call it a day, but he had one more task to finish.

He made his way to the large room, carefully opened the door, and casually walked over to the suspended woman. He paused to study her swaying body, kept in motion by muscle twitching. He watched vibrations pulse up her flesh like waves flowing onto a shore, marveling at how she could keep them from becoming too violent.
"I trust that you are relieved of your pain."

The muscle twitching stopped. "You are early, Julie."

"I thought that you might prefer my presence."

"I am flattered. I was under the impression that you disapproved of my treatment method."

"If it works, use it," he said, adding a placating smile. "But, I find it hard to understand why you prefer to suffer in such a ridiculous fashion."

"It helps me focus my attention away from my headache. Suffering is good for the soul."

There was no use arguing with her. Her mind is made up, and it cannot be changed. He resigned himself to observing her suspended body.

He ran his eyes up and down, taking in the various aspects of her figure. He found it fascinating that he could count her vertebrae along the entire length of her spine. He could easily trace the shape of all of her ribs and make out the complete outline of her scapulars. Her rib arch was so well defined he could see the bottom of her sternum. The only location on her thorax that bones didn't protrude was where her breasts were flattened into pie-shaped mounds. Even her ileum was outlined in the paper-thin flesh of her hips. She could easily substitute for a skeleton in an anatomy class. 

"You looked bored, Julie. Am I that uninteresting?"

He cracked a brief smile. "On the contrary, my Pet. You are quite fascinating. You are literally an anatomical tour de force. I enjoy looking at your body."

"You are only saying that to please me."

"Pleasing you is a priority, but I meant what I said."

"In that case, I appreciate your compliment."

"How long do you intend to hang here, my Pet. I've had a long day. I'm tired."

She flexed leg muscles to impart a sway to her body. "I require several more hours to free my head from nature's retribution."

He pulled up a chair and slumped down in it. "My retribution is resident in my weary bones."

He sat there with a contemplative expression for a few minutes before a smile replaced it.
She noticed his smile. "What is it, Julie?"

"Oh, It . . . I was just anticipating the spectacle that will unfold tomorrow, my Pet."

"Ah, yes, Julie. Tomorrow will not be boring. I look forward to it."

He sighed. "I know you do, my Pet. I know you do."

###

Eric Hauptman sat there and watched his wife comb out her long silver hair. He enjoyed seeing how it glistened in the rose and amber glow of a sunrise, how it fell down her back and swayed seductively, and how she deftly piled it up on her head, pinning it into place without so much as a single strand out of place. It was a visual treat.

What she was preparing to do was not a treat.

"I'm going to Georgio's," she said, leaving no doubt in the tone of her voice that it was open to debate.

Her husband couldn't resist the challenge, though.

"I'm surprised that you would give up a day with your buddies."

She turned and stared at him. "I need a break, and they need a break." She turned around to continue primping. "Besides, I need some lingerie. Some of my things have had it."

Eric grimaced. This was going to be expensive.

But, unavoidable.

"Be sure you turn on your phone, Love."

"I always turn it on when I go out. You don't have to remind me."

"I'm just concerned, Love. Things have been hectic of late. I just don't want anything to happen to . . ."

"You're a worry wart, dear. What ever happened to your optimism?"

"I think it's been beaten out of me. I've joined the dark side."

She flashed a smirk at him. "Very funny, dear."

She got up and grabbed her purse. "Why don't be a nice boy and do the laundry."

"Ok, Love. It'll help prevent my mind from conjuring up images of you getting into trouble."

"I'm not going to get into trouble," she said as if she was annoyed by his sneaky way of trying to dissuade her from her favorite hobby: shopping.

"Just be careful. I love you."

She kissed him. "I love you too."

He watched her grab her keys and leave. Her absence increased his anxiety.