Chapter 17

“CORIANDER, TURMERIC, allspice….”

The man with the silver-rimmed glasses reviewed the text message from someone whose phone number registered as Dwayne Horton but whom his Beloved had stored in his phone as Jamayqua. The ghosting program, which he had finally managed to install on his Beloved’s phone by attaching a Trojan virus to a spam e-mail, worked perfectly. It had taken him weeks to break the encryption protocols installed on the government-issued cell phone, but he was finally in. He felt so much calmer, so much closer to his goals.

He scanned the list of e-mail messages and the phone log and was happy there appeared to be no recent contact with the Zachary creature. Nor did he find signs of anyone new. That was hardly surprising, given the Beloved’s resistance to providing his contact information to his playthings.

On the other hand, he was almost disappointed. He wanted to try his new machine out, give it a practice run before he put his endgame into motion. He considered the one who had bothered his Beloved recently at Mata Hari. Though his video feed lacked sound, he’d had a clear view of the cretin’s lips and had made out the words “You’re too old for me anyway.”

The slight infuriated him, quite aside from its ridiculousness. His Beloved was ripe and mature like the best wine. He was a paragon among men. Yes, that churl might be just the candidate.

He tilted his head as he considered the implications of The Rule. Had the boy irritated the Beloved enough? Had he been marked out for punishment for daring to speak again to the Beloved? He studied the recording of the Beloved seated on his bar stool, but found no clear guidance in his actions before the police detective stepped into the image to speak with him. He concluded the woman’s interruption was all that prevented the signal from being given and that he should indeed chastise the irritant.

His little trick with the boy from the dance club seemed to have turned serious attention away from the Beloved, as intended. If it was what the Beloved wanted, he could risk taking that insulting young fool. He made a note to himself to follow up. He just needed to remain careful and find ways to throw off the police, who had announced they were looking for a possible serial killer. He chuckled to himself at the absurdity of the term.

Of course, even with the police watching for patterns, there was one thing he simply couldn’t bear to change in the manner of his chastisements. With each punishment he learned so much. His pulse began to throb as he turned away from his array of computer monitors and got up to check again that he had assembled the new device correctly.

The padded bench was solid. He shook the apparatus with all his weight, and it barely moved. The leather cuffs for wrists and ankles, with their thick buckles and their hooks to keep the legs elevated, were attached to the bench with extra bolts. No one was getting out of those.

And as for the heart of the machine, well, it took his breath away. The large Lucite rectangle on its heavy steel pedestal gleamed and caught the late afternoon light and prismatically shed rainbows on the leather bench. Inside the box, shiny gears and pistons were intentionally left visible around the engine he had chosen. The design specifications called for less horsepower and torque, but for what he had in mind, those safety concerns were irrelevant. The steel rod he had used was three quarters of an inch in diameter and extended from the mechanism by two feet—again, more improvements on the designs he had purchased over the Internet. Nestled inside its Lucite coffin, the machine was heart-stoppingly elegant and sleekly dangerous.

To complete his tests, he positioned clamps on either side of the bench. He was careful to protect the leather as he used the clamps to secure an inch-thick block of plywood. The rod glinted about a foot away from the surface.

He activated the small remote control device he had made, and the gears began to turn on low. They caused the rod to extend and retract, extend and retract. He shivered. The movement was as smooth as ice. The end of the rod merely tapped the wood each time. It left slight dents but no more damage than that. On low.

His heart beat faster, and he let the tension build with each stroke of the piston. He grew hard inside his pants.

Tap—tap—tap.

The steady back-and-forth motion of the rod, the clean turning of the gears, and the shimmer of light were almost unbearably exciting. He was close to coming without even touching himself.

Tap—tap—tap.

When he could hold off no longer, he pressed firmly on the button for high power and the machine gained speed and force.

Tap—tap—TAP.

The end of the steel rod punched cleanly through the plywood, and sawdust burst into the room from the neat hole left by the rod. With each further stroke, the rod plunged in and out of the same hole, and the man pictured someone in place of the plywood. Some creature like Zachary Hall, subjected to his glorious machine….

He squeezed his eyes shut as he hunched over and ejaculated into his pants at the image he had created. Ah God, he was almost ready.