Punishment with Kisses Read online

  I don’t care what my sister thinks of me, but it does hurt, the way she looks down her nose at me. I’m trash, I know, pure trash out here, banished to the pool house because I can’t play by the rules, can’t stay in school, can’t keep a job, can’t keep my legs closed. I know I can’t keep on this way. Something’s got to give in my life. I know danger is out there, lurking in the shadows, stalking me at every turn, but I don’t know what to do about it. I know I’m pushing it way too far. I just wish I could have said no when it counted. But I can’t, I never can, never have.

  I saw a woman today. A tall blonde with long hair and green eyes who I had years ago at the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival. Just a one-week-long fling of sex and music and mud, where tofu seemed romantic fare and moonlight and folk music was enough to get me there. It seems so long ago. I don’t remember her name, though I can picture her pussy, perfectly pink and puckered, quite well. I saw her, the woman from Michigan, today and I thought about the woman I was then. So filled with hope and brightness and a chance to be someone or something other than what I have become. But she knew me when I was something other than what I am now. What I am now is a shell, lost to frivolities like romance and moonlight and folk music. I considered saying hello, but instead I watched her get lost in the crowd. I’ve become an empty shell while all the women I’ve fucked have been swallowed up in the crowd, forever faceless and nameless.

  *

  I was lucky to live alone. I had made a few friends through work and they all had roommates, but they didn’t come with a trust fund, and none of them were left property by their dead siblings. I didn’t tell them about mine, but I was certain they had seen enough in the papers to deduce a thing or two about how I could afford to live where I did on my journalist’s salary. Being alone worked for me. It was a relief.

  While I hadn’t become the person I swore I’d be after Shane—free of all emotional attachments—I had managed to avoid any serious relationships. In the year since, I had never once let someone in the way I did with Shane. But I hadn’t been able to block her out entirely. I still thought of her often. Shane tried to talk to me after Ash’s murder, first the day of the funeral, after we’d lowered her casket into the ground and tossed dirt in afterward. Even in the final days of summer it seemed such a cold and ignoble end. I decided right there that I wanted to be cremated when it was my time.

  I was walking back to the limousine, trailing behind Father, who was half carrying, half dragging Tabitha, who was mute and ashen like a porcelain doll after she collapsed during the service, crumpling to the ground. Only Father’s strong arms prevented her from falling right into the grave.

  I was lost in my head, dreaming of what-ifs, when Shane stepped out from behind a tree, scaring me half to death.

  “Megan,” Shane said, her face drawn into a stern grimace. “We have to talk.”

  I just stared at her. It was like her words had been spoken in a foreign language I couldn’t understand. I shook my head. I looked back at my feet and urged them to move. I stepped forward.

  Shane moved in front of me, blocking my path. “Megan,” she pleaded. “Please. ”

  I looked up again and caught her eyes. They burned into my own. I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could I heard my name being called again. This time it was Father’s bellowing baritone and it pulled me back to reality and my desire to avoid speaking to Shane ever again. I tried to move on, but Shane grabbed my arm.

  That was a mistake.

  “Get your hands off my daughter!” Father roared. He had shuffled Tabitha into the limo and was thundering toward us.

  “You’d better go,” I hissed the warning.

  She must have realized the danger she was in because she took off running.

  Father missed tackling her by a few yards. “God damn paparazzi!” he spat.

  I didn’t correct his misassumption. If he’d realized who it was things would have been worse for Shane, and me. Father despised all of Ash’s ex-lovers, but he seemed to hold a special hatred for the “biker dyke,” speaking as though Shane was somehow more emblematic of Ash’s Caligula-style descent into debauchery. Plus, he clearly thought Shane made an excellent suspect in her murder.

  Although I knew better I harbored my own ill will toward the woman who broke my heart.

  Shane approached me again and again at the bar until I finally stopped going to the E-room entirely.

  By the time a year had passed, I was no longer too hostile to listen when Shane showed up once more. But I did figure anything Shane had to say was probably all bullshit anyway. Then again, maybe she just wanted to soothe her guilty conscience and who was I to prevent her from apologizing to me? It was the kind of thing I secretly longed for—that all those who’d done me wrong in the past would be driven by remorse to seek me out and express their deepest regret. It could happen. Couldn’t it? “I spent all those days at the pool trying to get a chance to talk to you,” Shane insisted the last time we spoke. Oh please, that’s on par with “she fell on my dick” as an excuse for infidelity. I wanted to hear her admit her wrongdoing and take responsibility for the pain she’d caused me.

  And I wanted to confront her again about the engine I’d heard the night Ash died, the engine I’d never told the police about because I’d always secretly feared it had been Shane’s motorcycle, and I didn’t want to be the one placing her at the scene of Ash’s murder. During my previous attempt to get the truth, Shane had been adamant that she was nowhere near the estate that night, that she was at home alone, with no one around to corroborate her story. I didn’t believe her. I thought she just wasn’t ready to be honest with herself or me. I hadn’t seen her since.

  I had moved on. I moved into Portland, and now my days were filled with work at the Willamette Week, a local alternative newspaper.

  Then one night I finally relented and went out with a group of friends, celebrating my recent promotion from flunky to editorial assistant. We were drinking microbrews at a lesbian bar called the Mint, laughing and passing gossip around the table like salt, and up walks Shane, cool as Ocean’s Eleven, asking if anyone would mind her joining our group. What balls! I had forgotten the impact the mere sight of Shane had on me, on my body. I hated her, but just having her in proximity to me was like a magnet pulling me to her, a palsy forcing my knees apart, a flood soaking my panties.

  Just like the conniving bastards they were, my friends conspired to leave me alone with Shane. To their credit, they didn’t know the whole story and had only seen the way my eyes lit up when she sauntered over. They also knew it had been quite a while since anyone had brushed the cobwebs from my undercarriage, and being good friends, wanted to arrange my servicing. So one by one, they slipped away until by the end of the night, I was left drinking alone with Shane.

  I couldn’t deny the chemical attraction I’d once had to her. And though I’d managed to keep it in check for a year, it all came flooding back, right there in the fucking bar. It was enticing.

  Damn it. I couldn’t say no to her.

  We ended up back at my place, at Ash’s place, and I shoved her onto the bed. Which should tell you that this wasn’t anything like the sex we had before. There was no sweet tenderness, no head to toe kissing. It was fast and raw and I was in control of the entire encounter. I fucked her good. I was more in control than even Shane realized. I had learned a thing or two from living in my sister’s love shack. Unbeknownst to Shane, I was taping the entire encounter. And when I was finished, chagrined at myself for not saying “No” to begin with, I rolled over and demanded that she let herself out—as soon as possible.

  April 18

  I love power. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with admitting that, is there? I’m turned on by power. I am Father’s daughter in that way. Life is all about power. Sex is all about power. Life is all about sex. Life is all the sweeter with power. These are the things that give me power:

  1. riding on the back of a motorcycle

  2. cont
rolling pain, usually mine

  3. making videos of people in compromising positions

  4. bagging wealthy babes

  5. banging doctor’s wives

  6. emotional control

  7. dumping people who still want me

  8. fucking the daughters of Daddy’s clients

  9. then telling him all about it

  10. fucking Daddy’s and Tabitha’s best friends. Both of them. Together.

  That was a fun night. Milly and John Castleford were two stuck up WASPs until you got them in the sack and then they turned into She-beast and the Fuckinator. John liked to be sucked, and you know a good girl like Milly wouldn’t do that, so I did it and then took it up the ass while Milly came in my mouth again and again. I think it may have been Milly’s first orgasm. It worked for me too, because even though I was only eighteen, I just kept thinking repeatedly how angry Daddy and Tabitha would be if they saw me ass up with the brandy and croquet set, much less their best friends. And Milly and John came back for more and more, eventually getting kinkier and kinkier with me until at some point I had to cut them off because I got bored.

  That’s the beauty of power too. You have more of it when you don’t flaunt it. You hold on to it, knowing full well that one day you’ll put it to good use. Do I tell everyone what I’m doing at the time? No. Coach Harting doesn’t need to know that I’m schtupping his wife Peggy. I’ll give her a little pickle tickle and leave her wanting for more, and when I need something, well, I’ll call Peggy or Father and remind them just how Coach would feel about all this.

  I get bored a lot, but I’ve discovered a new source of power. It comes in a little package, but it packs a big wallop, like the best ones always do. It’s given me a new game to play. Let’s call it Sex, Lies and Videotape. It’s amazing how tiny those cameras are these days. My little secret was a package deal, a couple of cameras (multiple angles being all the rage), and recording equipment that gets triggered by a motion detector. Technofucking fabulous.

  I even got my own little secret fuck hut prepared for my new little gizmo. I had some overly curious handyman wall off half of the walk-in closet, making a nice little fuck hut where the cameras roll all night long. He did such a good job even I can’t tell where the old wall ends and new work begins, and since the guy was used to creating panic rooms for his ritzier clientele, he made it so the passage in and out disappeared into the wall and the cameras are completely undetectable. I get kind of horny just thinking about it. I rigged the rest of the room myself. No need having mister working class curiosity finger my love swing and other toys when the contraptions were so easy to hook up.

  Did I think twice about taping other people? All those women traipsing in and out of my panties? I know there are repercussions to power, there would be for me if I were to reveal who and what I was doing even now. But I won’t tell and neither will she. Or will she?

  Ash was filming herself? I thought as soon as I read those final paragraphs. Having sex? Oh, my God, was it still on? Had it been turning on every time I came in to my bedroom? I started to panic. What if it was being broadcast to someone else?

  Holy fuck, what if it had a live feed to a Web site? I was suddenly filled with paranoia and dread. I had to find that camera right that very instant. I dropped the journal unceremoniously and darted into the bedroom. I ripped down wall coverings, ran my fingers along every inch of the sheetrock, trying to sense the seam in the plaster. Nothing.

  I moved into the closet, yanking outfits, hanger and all, off the rod and tossing them in a pile on the floor. I picked up shoes by the armful and flung them toward the bed. Finally, I had space to walk to the far end of closet and feel around in the dark until I found what I was looking for. Who puts a cable TV outlet in a closet? I fiddled with the metal plug and eventually the wall gave way under my hand, a panel moved to the side. A slight turn to the side and I meandered through.

  I couldn’t believe my eyes. This wasn’t just a camera room, a secret private vanity space that Ash could hide away in, taping people on both sides of the doors, and scurrilously watching the DVDs later. No, this was her own shrine to Eros, a room of pleasure, and by the looks of it, pain. Upon whom was it inflicted, though? Along one side of the room was a shelf with a large screen TV atop a black shelving unit. On each shelf sat a stack of baskets with labels on each that read like they were straight out of a porn movie: “gags,” “plugs,” “nipple fun,” “floggers,” “vibes,” “strap-ons,” “electro.” I wasn’t even sure what a couple of them could possibly hold, but I was too flushed taking it all in to even go dig through the baskets. Standing there felt like walking into the Hustler Store and discovering that my sister lived in the place. There wasn’t a bed, but where you’d expect one sat this gloriously delicious lipstick red suede playpen sectional sofa, which took up nearly half of the diminutive room. It was squared off on all sides so you sat on the sofa and slowly slid down into a bed-like flat area that was penned in on all sides. Lying on the sofa felt like a cross between being in a child’s playpen and an orgy den, and the sheer surprise of that dichotomy was so alarming that I wanted to rush out and forget all about Ash’s fuck den. But I didn’t because, as much as I was appalled, I was equally drawn to this room and to what it represented, and to Ash’s role as some sort of sexual provocateur. When I came back to my senses, I remembered my initial reason for breaking through that veiled partition: to find Ash’s videos. I started sifting through the containers on the cabinet, trying to focus less on the instruments of pleasure—or torture—that made up the contents and look only for the sexy surveillance videos Ash had mentioned in her diary. Not surprisingly, the large black rectangular box jutting out from the bottom shelf and labeled “Punani” contained dozens of DVDs, meticulously labeled with a code I wasn’t sure I wanted to crack.

  Chapter Eight

  “Megan, there’s a Shane on line two.”

  Who gave her my work number? Probably one of my damn nosy friends. Great. Who knew how I’d be able to dodge her now.

  “Hello, Shane. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, that’s formal. Okay then, can I see you again?”

  “No, sorry, not going to happen.”

  I didn’t want to see her again. I got everything I needed the other night. That was a display of weakness on my part. I had vowed not to let anyone in, much less Shane, and there I was, taking her calls again.

  I didn’t care that Father suspected Shane was involved in Ash’s murder and insisted I stay away from her because she supposedly had a criminal record, which probably meant she was busted drinking underage. I didn’t care that she was home alone all night when Ash was killed—an alibi that was beyond flimsy—or that the cops had hauled her in for questioning.

  I knew Shane and she might have been a terrible girlfriend, but she was no killer. Plus, she was as enthralled with my sister as any of them. Why on earth would she kill her? Still, our last encounter was a mistake, a one-time need on my part that shouldn’t erase the way she treated me, fucking my sister and then flaunting it by the pool for weeks after. I didn’t want to be with her, not the way I did that summer so long ago when I was a love-struck little baby dyke. Maybe I wasn’t as jaded as Ash was but I was starting to understand a bit of what drove her, and I could see that there was a little part of that inside of me. Apparently last night, that little part reigned supreme, but that didn’t mean I’d give in to my base urges again.

  Shane called again. And again. And again. In fact, Shane called twice a day, every day for the next week. Finally, I listened to her explain, “It wasn’t by accident I ran into you at the Mint. I tracked you down.”

  I hung up. Undaunted, Shane showed up at my office the next day. And the day after that. Finally, on the third day, more out of embarrassment than anything else, I relented and agreed to cocktails at Saucebox, a trendy nightclub eatery where the noise was such a roar it kept all conversations quick.

  What I hadn’t planned was how much I would n
eed to lean toward her in order to hear even half the words Shane was saying. By the time the two cocktails in front of us had a few empties in their wake, I was practically sitting in her lap. Shane had her lips pressed to my ear, telling me about her job as the editor of a women’s poetry journal. I didn’t realize she worked in publishing. I didn’t know much about Shane at all. For example, I would never have guessed that just the slightest tickle of her breath on the ridge of my ear would send chills down my spine.

  After a few more Washington Red Appletinis and some supplementary ear play, I started to forget just what I hated so much about Shane. I started to forget about her betrayal. I started to forget about my dead sister. I started to forget about everything, except how much I wanted Shane, how much I’d always wanted her. There was nothing left but the noise of the club and my passion for this woman.

  I took her home again, only this time I didn’t film our encounter. I still kicked her out of bed, but not until I woke up in the morning, the sound of mouse feet blasting holes in my head. When I rolled over and found Shane next to me all smiles, I threw up. I don’t know if it was her, the alcohol, or the alien that burrowed into my stomach and died. I allowed her to clean herself—and me—before sending her away, calling in sick and, like any good addict, swearing I’d give up my vices for good if only God would mute the world for one day.

  It wasn’t my fault he didn’t keep his end of the bargain.

  When I crawled out of my alcohol-induced coma I realized that I still had yet to hear Shane utter those three magic words, and until she did I absolutely, positively could not spend another minute with her.

  I ignored her calls for a few days and then finally instructed our receptionist to give Shane the message—I wouldn’t take her calls until I was assured I would hear that expression: I am sorry.