‘You’ve gotta get the keys away from him,’ Kimberly said. Her hand tightened around my wrist.
‘I will,’ I said. ‘Are you all okay, though? I mean, I know you’re not okay, but ...’
‘We’re fucked,’ Connie said.
‘We’re fine,’ Billie said.
‘We are not.’
‘Our injuries aren’t too serious,’ Kimberly explained. ‘Superficial stuff. We probably don’t need a hospital, nothing that bad.’
‘I had you all figured for dead,’ I told them.
‘Hate to disappoint you,’ Connie muttered.
‘I couldn’t find your bodies, though. I went back to where we had the fight. I thought ... you’d all still be there. But when I couldn’t find your bodies ...’
‘We gave up,’ Kimberly said.
‘Thanks to me,’ Connie said. ‘My fault. I plead guilty.’
‘Wesley got her down,’ Billie explained from her distant cage. ‘You were already out of it, by then. Thelma’d clobbered you in the head with a rock. You never even saw it coming. Next thing I knew, Connie was flat on her face.’
‘I was still on the rope,’ Kimberly said. ‘By the time I got to the top, Wesley had a foot planted on her back. He was all set to kill her with a machete. We had to give up.’
‘Glad you did.’
‘You wouldn’t be so glad,’ Connie said, ‘if you had to go through this shit.’
‘Rupert?’ Billie asked. ‘Do you remember all our talk, those first few days, about Wesley’s motive? How we figured he wanted to kill everyone?’
‘Yeah, for the money.’
‘We were wrong. It didn’t have anything to do with money. He wanted us. The three of us. He had this fantasy about trapping everyone in a remote place, killing the men, and keeping us as his prisoners.’
‘He admitted it?’
‘Yeah. Told me all about it. He had me alone - Thelma’d wandered off somewhere - so I started asking questions. He happened to be in a talkative mood. Real pleased with himself. He’d just finished ... having a fine old time with me. So I found out a lot. For starters, we were all together the first time he met Thelma. So right from the beginning, he knew what we looked like. Me, Connie, and Kimberly.’
‘Three hot babes,’ Connie muttered.
Billie said, He told me that he’d never in his life scored with anything but bow-wows. Women like us would never even think about going out with him.’
“Cause he’s a fucking loser,‘ Connie threw in.
‘From then on,’ Billie said, ‘everything was a set-up. He started by going after Thelma. She was easy.’
‘Being also a fucking loser,’ Connie added.
I half expected Kimberly to speak up in her sister’s defense, but she kept silent.
Billie said, ‘What Thelma didn’t know is that he only wanted her as a way of getting at the rest of us. He figured he would have plenty of access to us if he married her. Then - surprise, surprise - it turned out she was as kinky as he was.’
‘A match made in Bedlam,’ Kimberly muttered.
‘Both of’em a couple of fucking sadists,‘ Connie said.
‘Was Thelma in on everything?’ I asked.
Billie answered. ‘She sure didn’t know her loving husband had the hots for every other woman in her family. He kept that to himself. Along with his big plan to blow up the boat and maroon us.’
He knew the cages were here,’ Kimberly said.
He did research,’ Billie explained. ‘My God, he hadn’t even gone on an actual date with Thelma before he started studying up—trying to find just the right place for his little caper. He thought about cabins in the mountains, ghost towns, abandoned factories, warehouses, barns - every sort of place he could imagine where nobody’d be likely to get in his way. Where he could keep us for as long as he wanted, and do anything to us that suited his fancy.’
‘Fucking degenerate,’ Connie said.
Billie ignored her. ‘It wasn’t long before he realized that an uninhabited island would be perfect. You’re cut off from everyone. You’ve got the run of the place, so you don’t have to keep your prisoners hidden away. Nobody around to hear them scream. And it’s tough for them to escape.’
‘Tough, all right,’ Kimberly said, her voice low. ‘Look what happened to Dorothy.’
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘Their mother. Dorothy. She made a break for it - Christ, just a few nights ago - but they ran her down and nailed her.’
‘I heard about it,’ I muttered.
‘Those poor children,’ Billie said, keeping her voice quiet, not wanting Alice and Erin to hear her. ‘They’ve been through worse than any of us. They’ve been in the cages for almost a month. They’ve lost their mother and father. And ... Wesley and Thelma do such awful things to them. My God, they’re only kids.’
‘Kids with tits and ...’
‘Knock it off, Connie,’ Kimberly snapped. In a softer voice, she said, ‘Billie, go ahead and finish what you were saying about Wesley looking for an island. Rupert oughta hear this.’
‘Yeah,’ Connie said. ‘So he can put it in his fucking journal.’
‘You still keeping it?’ Kimberly asked me.
‘I ran out of paper.’
‘Aw, ain’t that a shame,’ Connie said.
‘Finish it after you save us,’ Kimberly told me. ‘And put in how Wesley planned it all, how he picked which island, and everything. It’ll help show he had premeditation.’
‘like he’s ever gonna stand trial,’ Connie said.
‘However it all turns out,’ Kimberly said, ‘it’ll be a good thing if Rupert has a detailed record of the whole situation. It might be the only way anyone ever finds out what happened here.’
‘If I’m dead anyhow,’ Connie said, ‘I’m not exactly gonna give a rat’s ass.’
‘Billie, go ahead and tell him the rest.’
‘Okay. Let me see.’ She was silent for a few seconds, then said, ‘Wesley decided an island would be the perfect sort of place, so he started doing research. At first, he thought mostly in terms of islands in places like Wisconsin and Michigan. You know, on lakes and rivers. He concentrated on the Midwest. Probably because he was raised in that area. Grew up near Chicago. The minute he broadened his horizons, though, he realized that the Bahamas would be ideal. Beautiful, tropical islands with great weather. Conveniently located off the coast of Florida. Handy airline service. The best part was, he found out that there’re hundreds of uninhabited islands in the area.’
He didn’t pick an uninhabited one,’ I pointed out.
‘That’s because he read about the cages. He ran across an old magazine article ...’
‘Erin and Alice told me about that.’
‘When he saw the bit about gorilla cages ...’
‘Thought he’d died and gone to Heaven,’ Kimberly said.
‘In case you haven’t noticed,’ Connie said, ‘we’re in Wesley Heaven.’
‘Everything seemed to be falling into place for him,’ Billie explained. ‘It was almost uncanny. First, he finds the absolutely perfect place for fulfilling his nasty little daydreams about us. On paper, anyway. Then, it turns out that Andrew and I are about to have our twentieth wedding anniversary.’ With mock eagerness and an edge of bitterness unusual for her, Billie proclaimed, ‘Why not celebrate it with the whole family aboard a rented yacht in the Bahamas?’
‘It did sound great,’ Kimberly admitted.
‘It was great ... until ...’ Billie stopped speaking. I heard her start to cry.
For Andrew, her husband. That’s what I figured. Or maybe she was crying because of everything. Not only had she been made a widow during her twentieth anniversary celebration, but she and her daughter were locked in cages, kept like slaves for the amusement of a couple of demented perverts. She might’ve been crying for the others, too. Kimberly’s husband had also been murdered, and Kimberly’d ended up in a cage. The twins, too - Erin and Alice.
 
; All five of them had lost people they loved. All five had been toyed with by Wesley and Thelma-beaten, whipped, raped, and God-only-knows what else.
It’s a wonder that they weren’t all bawling their heads off.
You can’t cry all the time, though. This was Billie’s time for it.
Kimberly still held my wrist.
‘Let go,’ I whispered.
Her fingers opened. I slipped my hand free, then felt my way along the front of her cage. I crossed the open area and came to Billie’s cage. She was still crying.
‘Billie?’ I asked.
‘Rupert?’
I pressed my body against her cage and reached through the bars with both arms. ‘Over here.’
She found my arms and moved in between them. We hugged each other, bars sandwiched between our bodies. She sobbed quietly. The sobbing and gasping made her shake. I started to caress her back, but the smoothness there was broken by ridges - welts and scabs from the beatings she’d taken. She twitched slightly when I touched one.
‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered.
‘It’s okay, honey.’
Then I was crying, too.
I stopped caressing her back, afraid of hurting her. As I lowered my arms, she said, ‘No, hold me. Don’t stop.’
So I put them around her again, but very gently.
Jealous Dogs
‘What the hell are you two doing over there?’ Connie called out.
‘Shut up,’ Kimberly told her.
‘We aren’t doing anything,’ I said. Which was true. We were only embracing each other while Billie continued to cry.
‘Thank God you’re all right,’ Billie whispered. Her breath tickled my lips. Then she had her mouth there, wet and open, pushing against my mouth. It was a kiss, but not like any kiss I’d ever had before. She was still sort of crying while we kissed. It was strange, but awfully nice.
I’d been trying to ignore the fact that her bare breasts were pressed against me. You don’t want to notice that sort of thing when a woman is crying in your arms. But now that she’d begun kissing me, it seemed okay to think about them.
They were pushed out between the bars, soft and springy against my chest.
While we kissed, I squirmed so I could feel them slide on me. We were both sweaty. Our skin was slippery as if we’d been oiled. Her nipples were stiff, and rubbed against my chest like little tongues.
I tried to pull away so Billie wouldn’t feel how hard I was getting. But she held me tightly, so I couldn’t.
Her kiss was astonishing and wet.
By the time it ended, Billie didn’t seem to be crying anymore. We were both gasping for air, though. And she didn’t let me go. She kept her arms around me, just like before the kiss. We stayed pressed together.
‘Thank you, honey,’ she whispered.
‘My pleasure.’
She made a quiet ‘Hmmm’ sound, but didn’t say anything.
‘Are you okay?’ Kimberly asked.
‘A lot better, now,’ Billie said.
‘I’ll bet,‘ Connie called.
‘Why do you always have to be such a snot?’ That one came from Erin - the first I’d heard from either of the twins since I’d left their cages. I grinned.
‘Up yours,’ Connie yelled at her.
‘Same to you and many more.’
Alice got into the act. ‘Erin! Shhh!’
‘She’s such a bitch.’
‘You’re a shit-eating little twat!’ Connie shouted.
‘Cut it out, children,’ Kimberly said. ‘Let’s not fight among ourselves.’
‘Blow it out your ass,’ Connie told her.
Kimberly laughed.
Billie, still in my arms, called out, ‘Connie. Stop it. What the hell is the matter with you!’
‘Oh, nothing. What could possibly be wrong? My mother’s over there in the dark, bare-ass naked and messing around with my guy ...’
‘We’re not messing around,’ Billie said.
‘My former guy. My ex-guy. My worthless fucking loser of a wimp ...’
Very quietly, Billie whispered to me, ‘You should go over to her. Give her a hug.’
‘You’ve gotta be kidding.’
‘I mean it. Go.’
‘I don’t think she’d like that at all.’
‘Sure she would. Go on over to her, let her know you care about her.’
‘I want to stay with you.’
‘I know.’
‘Don’t you want me here?’
‘Sure. But Connie ... she’s really hurting. Go over and be nice to her.’
‘She hates me.’
‘No, she doesn’t. When she thought you were dead ... she was devastated.’
That was fairly hard to believe. ‘Really?’
‘Yes, really. I’ve never seen her so upset. Now, go over to her. Please.’ She kissed me again. This was a quick one, a thanks-and-get-going sort of kiss. Then her arms went away from me.
‘Okay,’ I said. I felt almost sick with disappointment, but I had to do what Billie asked. Whispering, ‘Is it okay if I come back later?’ I slid my hands all the way down her back. I was gentle about her wounds.
‘Sure,’ she told me. ‘Later. But help Connie first.’
She wore nothing around her waist. My hands curved down over her buttocks. She didn’t try to stop me.
But she kissed me once more, and whispered, ‘Go on, now.’
I stopped caressing her and brought my hands back through the bars. As I stepped away from the front of her cage, I said fairly loudly, so everyone could hear and stop wondering what was up, ‘So, what about Thelma? She didn’t know anything about Wesley’s plans?’
‘Not a thing,’ Billie said, sounding a little surprised about the return to that subject. ‘She actually believed he’d blown himself up.’
‘Why didn’t he tell her?’
Billie was probably wondering why I was still standing near the front of her cage, instead of heading for Connie’s. The truth is, I wanted to please Billie, but wasn’t very eager about confronting her daughter.
Connie was not in one of her finer moods.
He planned all along to kill her,’ Billie explained.
‘What?’
‘Wesley intended from the start to murder Andrew, Keith, you and Thelma. That’s what he told me.’
‘Why Thelma?’
‘You ever take a good look at her?’ Connie called out. ‘Oh, yes. Forgot. Sure you have. But apparently you found her so attractive you wanted to wrestle naked with her. You got this thing for older women, don’t you? Thelma, my mom, Kimberly. Bet you’d like to wrestle naked with ...’
‘Knock it off,’ Kimberly told her.
‘Wesley hated Thelma,’ Billie said, speaking loudly and firmly. ‘He hated everything about her, but most of all that she was so much like him.‘
‘Bet he didn’t tell you that,’ I said.
‘You’re right. That was a personal observation. But he did say he hated her. Called her ugly and disgusting. He fully intended to kill her as soon as he’d finished off the men. He’d had enough of her. He didn’t want her getting in the way. He only wanted us.’ She lowered her voice. ‘And the twins, too. He didn’t know about them. He picked this island because it had the cages; the twins were a special bonus for him.’ Lowering her voice even more, she whispered, ‘Go and see Connie. Go on.’
‘I will,’ I whispered back. Then I asked in my normal voice, ‘Why didn’t he kill Thelma?’
‘Because she saved his ass,’ Kimberly said.
‘When we tried to ambush him at the beach?’ I asked.
‘Right,’ Billie said. It went sort of like we thought: he was wounded so badly that he needed her help. After they got away, he put on a big show of breaking down and confessing. He basically admitted everything.‘
‘Not that he hated her, though,’ Kimberly added.
‘No, not that. He kept that to himself. Claimed he loved her. Said he’d done all this for her, because
he knew how much she despised us.’
‘How could she possibly despise you?’ I asked.
‘For one thing, we tried to kill her husband.’
‘She didn’t take kindly to that,’ Kimberly added. ‘Also, she just hates our guts on general principle.’
“Cause she’s a jealous fucking dog,‘ Connie called out.
I heard a bit of grim humor in Kimberly’s voice as she said, ‘Apparently, we make Thelma feel ugly.’
‘Make her feel like the worthless loser she is,’ Connie said.
‘And she’s been making us pay for it,’ Kimberly explained. ‘She’s been having a great time with us.’
Billie said, ‘She’s worse than Wesley.’
Connie let out a harsh laugh. ‘At least Thelma hasn’t got a dick.’
‘She makes up for it,’ Billie said.
‘They’re a hell of a team,’ Kimberly said.
I knew that. But I didn’t say anything. Nobody was supposed to know I’d watched them in action with Erin.
‘Does that about cover it?’ Billie asked.
I didn’t know who she was asking.
‘That’s the important stuff,’ Kimberly said. He doesn’t have to know everything.’
‘I bet he’d enjoy hearing all the juicy details,’ Connie said. He can write all about ’em in his diary. Isn’t that right, Rupe?‘
‘I ran out of ...’
‘Oh, yeah, right. But you wanta hear it all anyway, don’t you? Wouldn’t you just love for us to tell you how they raped us? Which orifices Wesley preferred, and how Thelma ...’
‘Shut up!’ Kimberly snapped.
‘Connie?’ Billie sounded worried. ‘What’s the matter with you? Stop that.’
‘Come on over here, Rupert,’ Connie said. ‘I’ll tell you the good stuff. I’ll give you an earful.’
‘Thanks, anyway,’ I said. ‘I don’t . . .’
‘You wanta know what Thelma did to Kimberly with a stick yesterday?’
‘You’d better shut your mouth,’ Kimberly said.
‘Come on over, and I’ll tell you all about how Mom sucked Wesley’s cock.’