Chapter 13

Ohhh my arms… why do my shoulders hurt so much?

Gabrielle’s head felt like a bowling ball. Her skin blazed and her insides felt electric.

“It’s okay. You’re okay. I promise I’ll get you out of this.”

Her eyes flew open and she shrieked when she realized her body was pressed up against Fidel’s. When she squirmed, she found out why her arms hurt so badly: they were strung up over her head, her wrists attached to Fidel’s by chains hanging from the ceiling. Her toes barely touched the ground.

Gabrielle shrieked. “Where are we?”

“Torture chamber,” Mme de Villeneuve said from somewhere behind her.

“One of many,” Fidel added.

What? Why does a rehab clinic need a torture chamber?

Stepping into Gabrielle’s field of vision, Madame said, “I keep it here for patients who attempt escape before their program is complete.”

Bile rose in Gabrielle’s throat. “Who wouldn’t try to escape when your therapy is tying up patients and raping them into submission?”

“Tsk!” Waving a dark leather paddle, Madame said, “You sound just like the medical board. They will approve drug treatments that cause bleeding ulcers and birth defects, but propose a style of therapy that’s a little unconventional and suddenly they’re revoking your license to practice medicine. It’s all politics.”

“Ummm… right,” Fidel muttered.

A single bulb burned overhead, and it buzzed every time anyone spoke. The room had obviously been some sort of group showering facility at one time. The tiles glowed grimly underneath a thick layer of dirt: blue, white, mint green.

“Is there a reason we’re both naked?” Gabrielle asked.

Fidel’s cock hardened noticeably. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“I have so many problems with this. Where do I even start?”

“Enough chatter!” Mme de Villeneuve struck Fidel’s ass forcefully enough to launch him clear off his feet. “I will not allow your punishment to turn into a soppy fairy tale sex romance.”

Gabrielle leapt off the tiled floor, wrapping her legs around Fidel’s waist. “Fairy tale sex romance? What does that even mean?”

Madame ignored Gabrielle and spanked Fidel with the paddle. This time it really must have hurt. He cried out in a pain so bold it blew the few dry tendrils of hair away from Gabrielle’s face.

“Stop it!” she cried, clinging to him tighter as they swung from the ceiling. “Can’t you tell he’s in pain?”

“I hope he is in pain. I hope he feels even half the pain he’s caused me.”

She whacked him again, this time catching Gabrielle’s toe with the edge of the paddle.

“Holy Mother!” Gabrielle cried. Not only did the pain from her toe radiate throughout her body, but Fidel chose that moment to sink his teeth into her shoulder. She could feel his erection hammering her slit too, but she didn’t make mention of that, only climbed a little higher up his body so Madame wouldn’t catch her toes again. “What pain has he caused you?” she asked their cruel mistress. “Whatever it is, he doesn’t deserve to be treated this way.”

“What do you know about it, you seductive little minx? Girls like you are the reason women like me can never get ahead. Buxom little tarts who prance around my woods, always on display, always tempting the eye.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gabrielle cried. The chain above their heads began to twist, sending them spinning in nauseating circles. When they came to rest, she asked, “Women like you? What women?”

Masked in a cough, Fidel said, “Denial.”

“Pardon me?” Mme de Villeneuve shouted.

“Nothing. Is it dry in here?”

Madame spanked him again. “Shut your useless mouth.”

“Useless?” Gabrielle laughed. “He obviously hasn’t put his face between your withered old legs lately.”

“It’s been years,” Fidel whispered, and she could hear a smirk in his tone of voice.

“You brats! You testy little brats, the both of you!”

As they spun on the chain, Madame brought down the paddle once again. Instead of smacking the beast this time, Mme de Villeneuve struck Gabrielle square on the ass.

She screamed as tendrils of pain travelled her nerves. “What’d you do that for?”

“What does she do anything for?” Fidel asked. “She spends her days treating everybody else’s problems, but she couldn’t see her own issues if you put them under a microscope.”

“Children!” Mme de Villeneuve smacked Gabrielle’s ass again, and the pain it aroused simply blinded her. For a few seconds, her field of vision devolved into a thick haze. She struggled to keep her head up and failed, letting it fall to Fidel’s shoulder. “Oh, don’t be so melodramatic,” Madame chastised. “It’s only a tap on the bum.”

“I think my shoulders are coming out of their sockets,” Gabrielle mumbled.

“How do you think I feel?” Fidel asked. “You’re hanging on me.”

She tried to unwrap her feet from behind his back, but got scared half way and ended up with her feet wrapped around his thighs. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“After everything I’ve given you,” Mme de Villeneuve cried. “After everything I’ve done, this is how you thank me?”

“This isn’t even about me,” Fidel shot back. “It’s about you. Why can’t you see that? If you’d just admit you love pussy, you wouldn’t be so nutso all the time. It’s no big deal. You’ve got this weird fear of yourself and you let it take over your life.”

Gabrielle joined in to say, “Yeah, this isn’t the 1840s, Madame. Nobody cares about that stuff anymore.”

“I am not a Sapphite!” Madame cried, punctuating every word with an unforgiving blow to her bum. “How can you think such a thing, Fidel? I made love to you, did I not?”

“Yeah, twenty years ago.” He leaned back and looked at Gabrielle. “Thirty? Forty? How many years have I been here? Fifty?” He cocked his brow. “Ten?”

Gabrielle couldn’t answer. She could barely hear his voice beyond the ringing in her ears. Every nerve ending, from her toes all the way up to her scalp, seemed to react to the cruel spankings Madame sent her way. How could Fidel be so nonchalant? How could he just take the pain?

Maybe he was used to it.

Through the foggy ringing haze in her skull, Gabrielle moaned, “If you’re not attracted to girls then why did you take me? And not just once? Again and again and again…”

The memories stabbed at her brain like an icepick. Why did her guilt around the beast’s attacks feel distant and irrelevant now, but the thought of Madame molesting her still filled her with shame?

“Don’t let on that you like it,” Fidel whispered.

His breath sent a shiver right through her. “Don’t let on that I like what?”

Fidel’s cock twitched between her legs. As the paddle dealt out punishment, Gabrielle took his meaning. Madame’s blows sent her into a frenzy so fierce she struggled and writhed, but she soon realized half her purpose was not to escape, but to provide an escape for Fidel. Her mind blazed with the fires of hell, but she just kept moving her hips, climbing his body until his tip pressed against her slit. So close… so close… if he just held that position while she let her body drop down little… by little… by little…

As Madame pummelled Fidel’s ass, his body thrust forward. He filled Gabrielle’s pussy with such unrepentant force she screamed uncontrollably. When he groaned, she was reminded of the beast she’d first encountered in the basement of this horrible home. Gabrielle didn’t mean to look in Madame’s direction. Perhaps she only did it because she knew there’d be trouble if they were caught fucking while taking their punishment. She met Madame’s gaze completely by accident, but once they’d exchanged that look there was no going back.

“Oh no,” Mme de Villeneuve growled.

Gabrielle whimpered as Fidel’s cock pulsed inside her.

“No,” Madame repeated.

“Yes,” Fidel groaned. “Oh yes, do that. Do that.”

Gabrielle’s pussy trilled, milking his cock like a tight little fist. It felt so good to have him inside her that her muscles went into spasm. A strange fleeting orgasm ripped through her body. She couldn’t hide it.

Madame’s grey eyes turned black and beady. “How dare you? He’s mine!” She punished Gabrielle’s ass with the paddle before turning the instrument on Fidel. “And you! She’s mine too!”

Spinning in the heady heavens of desperate pain, Fidel and Gabrielle looked into each other’s eyes… and laughed.

“Stop it! Stop laughing at me!”

They couldn’t contain their mirth. It was a living thing, shared and exchanged in sparkling eyes and hysterical laughter.

“Stop it!” Madame attacked them with the paddle, relentlessly, joylessly, like she was swinging a cricket bat at their bodies. “Stop laughing!”

The heaven and hell of pleasure and pain soared through the one body they now inhabited: the beast had two backs, and so did the beauty, and both were each. And when they kissed, Mme de Villeneuve’s curses floated away on a cloud of searing pain. Their bodies were only flesh. As they remained connected yin to yang and mouth to mouth, their spirits became one. They kissed shamelessly, and they paid for it. They were so battered they could no longer feel their skin. It grew numb behind layers of love and pain.

All that remained of life was the cascade of him into her. Her cries filled his mouth when she sensed his arousal expanding into bliss.

“No!” Madame growled, brandishing her paddle over her shoulder like baseball bat. “How dare you betray me this way? I banish you, Fidel!”

“You banish me?” An unexpected pain rang out in his voice.

Turning her nose up, Madame said, “You are not welcome here anymore.”

His voice cracked as his cock slipped from between Gabrielle’s legs. “I’ve lived here for ten… twenty… seriously, what year is it?”

“Fidel!” Gabrielle cried, clinging to his wretched body. “Why would you even want to come back? She banished you. That means you’re free! We can leave together unencumbered, just me and you! Forever!”

Fidel’s eyes widened like saucers. “Whoa… we haven’t really talked about this, Gabrielle.”

When she heard her own voice in her head, she realized how cloying that must have sounded. “Sorry, that just slipped out. Forget I said anything.”

“Well, it’s kind of hard to forget when a woman basically proposes to you.”

“That’s not how I meant it.”

“That’s sure what it sounded like.”

“I know, but I take it back. I never said it. Okay?”

“Not okay.” Leaning back, he looked worshipfully into Gabrielle’s eyes. “I’ve just been banished, Gabrielle. I’ve got nowhere to go. I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be than at home with you.”

“Oh, Fidel!” Gabrielle tightened her calves around his thighs because she couldn’t hug him with her hands bound over her head. Just as she inched forward to lay a kiss on his lips, a bright flash of rage flickered from across the dirty tiled room. Everything happened in slow motion after that.

In her black cat suit and impossible heels, Madame stepped forward, paddle in hand. Her words echoes off the tiles: “How daaare you?”

Gabrielle had never seen anger like this, and she wasn’t sure whether it was meant for Fidel or herself or the pair of them. But when Madame swung the paddle, she reacted. Fidel didn’t. His eyes widened as the paddle came at him on a sideways trajectory.

“No!” Gabrielle screamed as she turned away from the attack.

In her mind’s eye, all she could see was Fidel’s silent mouth hanging open as the deafening crack echoed through the room.

All sound disappeared into a fuzz of white noise. Pain drained through her toes, and she wondered if she was dying. She wondered if she was dead. No. Because she could feel Fidel’s blood trickling down her chest. She could feel its warmth against her skin, and then its sheer ice coldness when it trickled all the way down to her belly.

When her auditory sense returned, it was to the sound of Madame grumbling. “Look what you did! You broke my paddle, you ass! Now I’ll have to find something else to kill you with.”

“Whaaa…huh?” Fidel’s chin fell against Gabrielle’s shoulder. He picked his head up, then dropped it back down, letting out a terrible moan.

Gabrielle didn’t want to look. She could smell the metallic warmth of his blood and she knew if she saw the state of him, everything would change.

And yet they were bound together. How could she not see him?

“Whaaa… what happened to me?”

Fidel’s cheek was sliced open from his temple to his jaw. His eye was red and swollen, but it was his nose that made her stomach turn like a tumble dryer. It wasn’t at all where it was supposed to be.

“You’re okay,” she said, her voice quivering. “You were hit with a paddle, but you’ll be fine. Your nose is just a little… sideways.”

He lifted his head, but obviously couldn’t keep it up. It circled around and fell on her shoulder. “I’m too ugly for you,” he mumbled. “I’m a monster. I’m a blood monster. I’m a beast.”

“Stay with me,” Gabrielle said, snapping her fingers though they were nowhere near his face. “You’re not ugly. You’re fine. You’re going to be fine, Fidel. We’ll get out of this mess together. I promise.”

He laughed, thought he didn’t seem perfectly conscious. “You have boobs.”

“Uhhh… yeah.”

“Am I dead?”

“No, Fidel. Don’t say things like that.”

“I’m too ugly for you now.”

“No you’re not. Don’t say things like that.” Sighing, Gabrielle whispered, “You’re talking to the ugliest person on the planet. You just don’t know it yet.”

“Nooo.” Fidel tsked his teeth. His eyes rolled back. “Raccoon ate my French fries, the bastard.”

“Your French fries are fine.” A sense of impending doom sat heavily on Gabrielle’s chest as Fidel’s life drained onto her skin. “Fidel, listen, I’m ugly too.”

“Nooo.”

“Yes, I am. I’m ugly on the inside. I did something truly terrible and I’ve never told anyone about it in my entire life.”

“With the raccoon?”

“No, not with the raccoon.”

“He ate my French fries.”

“I know, babe.” With a quick glance at his badly bleeding face, Gabrielle inhaled sharply. When Mme de Villeneuve returned with another weapon, that would be it. The end of them both. And she’d never have confessed her gravest sin. “Listen up. I need to tell you something. Are you listening?”

He licked her shoulder. “I’m never buying this ketchup again.”

“It’s blood, Fidel.” Sighing, she said, “Listen, I need to tell you something: when I was thirteen my mother died in a fire and it was all my fault.” Tears burned the back of her throat, but she fought them to speak. “I lit a candle because I wanted to… to touch myself… you know?”

Fidel nodded against her shoulder. “Raccoon knows all.”

“Oh, Fidel… wait, are you the raccoon? Never mind. Here’s the thing: I wasn’t supposed to play with matches. I wasn’t supposed to have candles in my room either, but I thought that made it special or romantic or something. I don’t know. I was just a kid. But I fell asleep and left it lit and it caught some posters and things I had hanging on the wall. I didn’t wake up until the fire alarm went off.”

“And the raccoon was full of smoke.”

“The room was, yeah. Smoke and fire, and I had to crawl out of my bedroom. I learned that in school, to stay close to the floor. My eyes stung so bad and I could hardly see where I was going, but I knew the way to the stairs and I could hear my sisters behind me. My dad had fallen asleep in front of the TV, so he was already close to the door, but my mom always took a pill because she had trouble sleeping.”

The tears wouldn’t hold off any longer. They fell on Fidel’s face, salting his open wounds, probably doing more harm than good, but what could she do? There was no escape from this situation, and no escape from this emotion.

“It was all my fault and I never told anyone. My daddy still blames himself after all these years, but I could never tell him. Now he’ll never know. He’ll always blame himself.”

“I’m gonna get you out of here, little raccoon.”

Gabrielle laughed through her tears. “Now I’m the raccoon, huh?”

“You’re the most beautiful raccoon I’ve ever seen.” Fidel lifted his head only slightly. “Inside and out.”

As Gabrielle’s eyes filled with grateful tears, the door kicked open. Her heart stopped when Mme de Villeneuve burst into the shower chamber bearing… oh merciful god, was that a machete? Gabrielle had never seen one before, but the blade was big enough to decapitate a woolly mammoth. It would have no trouble taking them both out in one swift blow.

Madame heaved the machete over her head, howling, “Defy me and suffer the consequences!”

“No!” Gabrielle screamed as Madame’s monkey followers raced into the room. “He doesn’t belong to you, and neither do I. You’ve got issues, lady, and killing us won’t do a thing to resolve them.”

Eyes blazing, Madame cried, “Shut your mouth you little—”

The monkeys in chefs’ uniforms jumped on the woman in latex. Swinging from her arms, biting her face, they sent her screaming into the far wall. The sound of that frightening woman hitting the tile shocked Gabrielle every bit as much as the realization that the monkeys had been on her side all along. Maybe they’d chased her from the kitchen to drive her out of the mansion and away from danger.

And she’d thought the worst of them…

“Samuel! Gerard!” Hope broke across Gabrielle’s heart when the monkey butlers entered the chamber. “Oh, thank goodness for you. Fidel’s badly injured.”

“Eee! Eee! Ooo! Ooo! Eee! Eee?”

You think I can’t see that?

Gerard crammed an ancient bottle of iodine between his teeth and climbed their naked bodies, coming to rest on Fidel’s shoulder.

“Get off me, foul beasts!” Madame screamed.

Gabrielle turned as much as she could, but she could only see out of the corner of her eye as Mme de Villeneuve struggled under the monkey hordes. They beat her with their tiny fists and lifted the machete out of her ancient hands.

“Oh my goodness!” Gabrielle cried.

“Is it the raccoon? Use vinegar.”

“No, no raccoons, bud.” Gabrielle bit her lip as Samuel climbed their bodies, all the way up to where their tender wrists were locked in place. When he spit a key into his hand, Gabrielle’s heart jumped. “Samuel! You brilliant primate! I could kiss you.”

Fidel laughed dreamily, then jerked upright as Gerard splashed a stream of iodine on his face. “Balls!”

“Hurts, huh?” Gabrielle was just so relieved to see him alert and alive. As the monkey chefs brandished the machete over Madame’s head, Gabrielle said, “The monkeys were trying to help me before. They’re on our side.”

“Eee! Eee! Eee! Ooo!”

Take Madame out!

“Ooo! Ooo! Eee! Eee! Ooo!”

No you take her out.

“Eee! Eee!”

I’m not sure I can live with murder on my conscience.

“Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! Ooo! Eee! Eee! Eee!”

It’s for the greater good! Just do it, Gary!

“Well, yeah,” Fidel said, though he obviously couldn’t see that they were moments from slicing Madame’s head in half. “You should hear what they say about her behind her back. For monkeys, they are some catty bitches.”

Gerard slapped him in the side of the head.

“Oww! Brain damage over here.”

As tenderly as she could manage while a team of monkeys perpetrated a homicide within earshot, Gabrielle said, “I don’t think there’s any kind of damage you couldn’t overcome—to your body, your mind or your soul.”

“Nobody overcomes anything at Loindici Manor. You’d think that raccoon was being paid by the hour.” Fidel tried to lift his head, but Gerard blocked his view. “What’s going on over there?”

Gabrielle’s heart shivered. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

He’d lived with Mme de Villeneuve so long. However contentious their relationship had become over the years, they obviously shared some kind of connection. If Fidel spotted a gang of monkeys holding her down like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, ready to take her out with a machete, who knew how he’d react?

“Fidel,” she said. “I will love you for the rest of my days.”

“Haha. You love a raccoon.”

“Oh, shut up about raccoons and kiss me.”

“Whatever you say, talking banana.”

Launching herself at the damaged plane of his face, Gabrielle pressed her lips to his. She kissed Fidel so forcefully he released a moan that shook the foundations of Madame’s ageless building. She tasted blood, but she wouldn’t let go. She clung to the man who’d once struck fear in her heart. He’d released her, and now it was her turn to save him from disaster, though she knew not how.

Above them, Samuel screeched a warning and Gerard swung down Fidel’s shoulder. As Gabrielle lost herself in their kiss, the chains loosened overhead. She couldn’t escape the metallic tinge of Fidel’s kisses, even as the building trembled viciously. If they died like this, surrendering to one final kiss, she would on some level die happy.

But this kiss was something special. With Samuel’s help, it broke the bonds that held them. They collapsed to the floor, Gabrielle’s legs clinging to Fidel’s. The still point in this crumbling world was their kiss. Even as the tiles broke from the walls and the ceiling crumbled upon them, Gabrielle couldn’t pull away.

When the earth shifted under Loindici’s base, the monkey holding the machete tumbled forward by the force of the quake. The unwieldy knife split Mme de Villeneuve’s head like a melon. Before she had time to cry out, her body stopped writhing under the weight of her minion monkeys. The ones near her face looked on in a horror Gabrielle equally shared. She’d never witnessed such a thing. It was different on TV. This live gore made her want to be sick all over the shattered tiles.

Pulling away, Gabrielle said, “Come on, Fidel. We need to get out of here. This house is coming down on our heads.”

“Snowflakes!” he cried, trying to catch a falling tile on his tongue.

“Not snowflakes!” Gabrielle tried to wrap her arms around Fidel, but she couldn’t get them down. They were stuck above her head. “Can you stand? We need to leave. We need to go.”

“Where’s the raccoon?”

Gabrielle felt her gaze stray to the sickening sight on the floor, where blood-spattered chef monkeys loomed over Madame’s corpse. “Raccoon’s staying here, bud. We gotta go. Come on. Up on your feet.”

Her entire body shrieked with pain. As they stumbled to the door, a troupe of frightened monkeys darted past their legs, leading them down the darkened hallway.

“Oh boy,” Gabrielle said. “I have no idea where we are.”

Everything came down all around them: paintings fell off the walls, glass smashed to shards, plaster tumbled from the walls and the ceiling. Every step was trepidation—either her foot would find a frightened monkey or an ancient floorboard would split in front of her. Darkness and disaster surrounded them, but they were together, running naked behind a steam of clothed monkeys.

“I don’t know where we’re going,” she said, tears streaming down her face.

Stumbling beside her, Fidel nonchalantly mumbled, “Doesn’t matter to me. We can eat wherever you want.”

“Oh, Fidel!” As they followed the trail of monkeys into the darkness, Gabrielle managed to lower one arm enough to wrap it around the man whose love she would die for. “Come on, bud. Follow the yellow brick road.”

Where was the exit? The house wouldn’t hold long enough for them to find it—Gabrielle could tell by the tremble underfoot. The gates of hell were about to explode, sending up the underworld’s inhabitants like confetti.

And then it happened: an explosion took the house in its grips, shooting Gabrielle and Fidel and the monkeys clear across the lawn. They landed together on a pile of rubble, with Samuel and Gerard between on them. Dust filled the air. She couldn’t see her hand in front of her face. She could scarcely make out Fidel beside her, but she knew he was alive because she could hear him moaning. And then she heard another sound—more a scream than a moan. After a moment, she realized it was coming from her mouth.

Bolts of pain streaked through her body. At first, she couldn’t tell where they were coming from. Then, when the dust began to clear, she spotted something gleaming in front of her. What was it? A dark mirror? No, it was highly-polished wood—the writing desk from the library. It had landed on her foot.

“Oh, Fidel, please get it off!”

Fidel sprang into action, but let out a blood-curdling scream to match hers.

“Your arms!” Gabrielle said. “I think your shoulders are out of their sockets. Oh my goodness, we need an ambulance. We need help. Help! Help!”

Fidel raised his voice in harmony. “Help! Somebody please help us!”

Little white polka dots appeared on the dusty horizon. Gabrielle blinked hard, and when her eyes adjusted to the hazy darkness, she realized the monkey chefs had surrounded the desk.

“Eee! Eee! Eee!” they cried, collectively.

Heaving on three, they lifted the desk from Gabrielle’s foot and a new kind of pain took over—the kind that required immediate medical attention.

“Thank you,” she said, again and again. “Thank you, all of you. Thank you for everything. I don’t know what we’d have done without you.”

And then a ghostly motion caught her eye. When she gazed across the clearing haze, she realized the statue garden was no longer where it had been. Gerard clung to her hand, shaking with fear as the marble statues descended from their podiums and wandered across the lawn.

“It’s okay,” she said, consoling the little monkey. “I talked to them before. They were nice to me.”

Stepping down from her podium, the Victorian nurse smiled serenely. As she turned toward the ravine, her garments changed from ghostly white to vivid pink. Her hair was coiffed much the way Madame’s had been, but it was chestnut brown without a trace of grey.

“Bye,” Gabrielle said, barely pushing the word past her lips.

As the young nurse disappeared into the trees, she heard the words, “Thank you,” and her heart swelled.

“They’re free,” she said, turning to Fidel. “You see that? We’re all free.”

“Told you,” he said, like his concussed mind could feel no pain.

“You told me what?”

Pointing across the lawn, he said, “Raccoon.”

There in the treeline, a raccoon cocked its head. Its eyes glowed, but it remained still as it observed the marble statues wandering toward the ravine.

Somewhere in the distance, an alarm sounded. Sirens. An ambulance must be on its way. The raccoon ran off when its space was invaded by flashing lights, but Gabrielle had never been so relieved in all her life.