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Bree woke up in a bed, not on the cot, in a bed. A nice, soft, comfortable warm bed. She was tied, bound, and gagged again, with the burlap bag over her head. She could tell someone had been between her legs.
But at least she was out of the basement prison.
Birds were singing outside the bedroom. Curtains on the windows made a flapping sound as the warm, early autumn breeze brought fresh, clean air into the room.
Bree laughed to herself as she heard a toilet flush. She heard footsteps on the wooden floor, followed by the smell of a man over her, close to her, then the bag being pulled from over her head, and then she felt tape being ripped from her mouth.
It hurt.
It hurt good.
It was a good pain.
It was pleasure.
Bree felt the hair on his hands and arms.
Bree felt the whiskers on his face.
Bree loved this.
She so preferred men to boys.
“Even their smell is different,” Bree told her friend Beth.
“Old man smell?”
“No, man smell. The aroma of a man,” Bree said. “A real man knows he doesn’t have so soak himself with cologne. His scent is what attracts a female. Not something he pours out of a bottle or sprays on himself.”
Bree stretched and wiggled her arms, legs, fingers and toes, after the ropes were cut from her ankles and wrists, loving the tingle as blood started flowing again, admiring the red marks left by the ropes when her blindfold was removed.
“I didn’t hurt you too much did I?’ she asked with a giggle, rolling over on her left side, naked as the day she was born, teasing and tapping his bandaged nose just enough to make Tim wince.
“It was just enough. I was going to ask you the same thing,” said Tim, every bit as naked as Bree, twisting his new love’s nipple tight. “You looked so hot, tied up like that, waiting for me on the cot, legs spread.”
“Oh, and it felt so good. Even better than I dreamed,” said Bree. “I didn’t break your nose did I?”
“Not much.”
“Not much? That’s like being not much pregnant. Is it broken or not?”
“It will heal.”
“Should I take that as a ‘yes’?”
“Yes.”
Bree felt so warm inside.
“Well, you dropped me on my head,” she said.
“I slipped. What can I tell you? Still hurt?”
“Not so much, but I can still feel the spanking you gave me last night,” Bree said.
Tim’s warmth inside was almost out of control. He felt like one of his favorite country songs, where the guy sings, “I’m not as good as I once was, but I can be as good once as I ever was.”
This was so much better than the internet. Bree was real. Bree was soft. Bree was his.
Tim hadn’t felt this good since Cheryl.
However, he still had to admit the age difference was also real.
As long as I can be as good once, it will be okay, he thought. And I was last night in the basement, and the night before, and the night before.
She is a screamer. Tim liked that too.
Tim opened his eyes and stopped pretending. Then he knew. No matter what he told Paul. No matter what he told himself, Tim knew.
But Tim also knew that Bree didn’t care, so why should he?
He just closed his eyes and pretended.
She did the same.
The fight to put Bree into the trunk of the car had been much more than Tim expected. Her idea of role play was much more real-life than what he was expecting. When Tim got on top of her on the cot in the basement, Bree really fought. The battle to put her in the trunk was just a warm up.
This bitch likes to fight, Tim thought running his fingers over the scratches on his head, face and neck. Bree’s fingernails had turned his back and shoulders into a relief map of the Great Rivers of the World. And, that was just from the last night in the basement.
And I love it, Tim thought so loud he almost said it.
Tim had taken Bree on the cot in the basement. Got on top of her, pulled the bag up enough to put his mouth on hers.
Bree bit his tongue, almost tore it off, punched and kicked, scratched and clawed.
Tim wrestled back, pushed her hands over her head with his right hand and slapped her across the face with his left.
Tim drew blood when he slapped her across the mouth with the back of his hand.
Both of them were sweating so much they stuck together.
Tim knew he was doing it was right. He was doing it the way Bree wanted it. It was the way he wanted it. Just like the night he had kidnapped her.
Fighting Bree on a sticky, sweltering August night that refused to give way to the autumn had left Tim drenched.
And I won, Tim thought and massaged the tent pole in his Levis.
That’s something none of those moron kids who watched us fight had ever been able to do.
Tim had to admit it turned him on much more than he had imagined.
That’s why he had played the scene out for all it was worth in the basement. What, a great idea! Had it been his or hers? Tim couldn't recall.
But since Bree hadn’t used a safe word — she did later, which means I won again — Tim knew she was enjoying it too.
No matter, that was then. This was now. It felt so good to be holding another human being instead of holding himself while watching the girls on the internet. And so much better than holding Paul.
He and his best friend had been doing it since high school. It had been going on too long. Tim had never felt great about it. But he pretended.
We are close. Closer than most men, or at least many men, Tim had thought while he looked at his best buddy over the forest of dead soldiers on the table. We are more than friends.
Tim didn’t tell him everything. Tim didn’t have to tell him anything. Paul just instinctively knew.
Paul knew what Tim and Bree were going to do. And Tim knew, he knew. If Tim knew, Bree knew. Small minds do think alike.
And she did. Bree knew. And Bree had a problem with that.
“But, there is no way that Paul could know about Steven and Debbie,” Tim said.
“Paul knows the rest. And, the rest is too much,” Bree said. “Knowledge can be a very dangerous thing.”
“I didn’t tell him anything. Nobody knows about us.”
“Baby, I know you love him. Paul’s a great guy. He just can’t be trusted. He knows what he knows now. What if he figures out the rest?” Bree said.“Paul is going to have to die.”
Bree had figured out the truth about Tim and Paul the same way Paul had discovered she and Tim were going to run away together.
She just knew. Paul just knew.
“He’s a cop, Tim. I know you love him. I know how you love him,” Bree said. “But he is a cop.”
She just knew.
Bree didn’t have to be told.
Bree just knew.
“Baby, you are such an open book,” Bree said. “Don’t be embarrassed about Paul. Come out of the closet. It makes you that much more exciting to me. I want to hear it all.”
“You tell me about Paul, and I’ll tell you about Beth,” she said.
Tim’s closet door opened. Bree heard the stories of how Tim and Paul had met, how they had explored each other’s bodies, and more. He cried. She comforted him. Tim felt a release he had never dreamed was possible.
Bree smiled. This was not too much information. This is just what Bree wanted to know. Knowledge can be a very powerful thing.
“Did you see the looks on the faces of those kids?” Bree asked.
“I didn’t have time to look, I was too busy bleeding all over you. What a fight!”
“Yes, but it’s all over now,” said Bree. “Everyone thinks I have been kidnapped.”
“Part one of the plan,” said Tim. “Now it is time for the second chapter.”
“You’re going to get the gun?”
“I will get the gun.”
It was a simple plan. Bree and Tim had done their homework and decided that murder plots always go awry when the killers get too fancy.
At least that’s the way it went on TV and in the movies. Instead of just pulling the trigger and walking away, the killer always had to make a speech to the victim.
“Like he’s going to remember any of that with a bullet in his head,” Bree laughed.
Their plan was beautiful in its simplicity. It was nothing fancy. Tim wouldn’t waste any time talking to his victims. He would just kill them.
Well, it would be dragged out a little bit for Steven. He would watch Debbie getting killed and then he would be burned alive — that was Bree’s idea — but other than that, it should be quick.
Tim would break into their home, shoot Steven in the kneecaps, tie him up, shoot Debbie in the head, and then light the house on fire.
“What could be easier?” said Bree. “I get the insurance, whatever money those two idiots have left in the bank, and we spend the rest of our lives spending it.”
Tim kissed Bree, loving the feeling of bare skin against bare skin, forgetting his skin had seen about forty years more of life. It was so easy to forget — to pretend — with her breasts against his chest. Tim was rising to the occasion as his fingers found their favorite spot between her legs.
Bree closed her eyes and pretended. She learned years ago — actually only two, but that was a higher percentage of a life at sixteen than a life at fifty-seven — that the ability to fake it was one of the best skills a woman could learn.
It made the guy happy. And it made everything go so much quicker for the girl. All she had to do was pretend. With eyes closed, and the mind in a happier place, it wasn’t so difficult.
Bree closed her eyes and pretended.
Tim closed his eyes and remembered Cheryl.