CHAPTER ONE: BUTTERFLY CAUGHT
"Perplexed and troubled at his bad success
The tempter stood, nor had what to reply,
Discovered in his fraud, thrown from his hope,
So oft, and the persuasive rhetoric
That sleeked his tongue, and won so much on Eve,
So little here, nay lost..." - John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book IV
Grinning, Jack Sines walked along the corridor to the motel room at end of the hall. He knocked twice, then paused, then knocked three times in succession. He waited. "Gypsy tears", he almost giggled as the password, and the door opened up, revealing a bull-headed giant of a man with somewhat sparse hair and a stern, almost 'reflective brute' appearance. 'Like a great, stupid simian', Jack thought, patting him on the shoulder on his way through. The great, stupid simian - nicknamed Uncle - followed him inside. The room stunk of beer and weed, and two other men were lounging about inside. One was a red-headed man who was watching Jeopardy and answering everything incorrectly - Larry Oldsman - and the other was playing darts, casting the darts towards a Polaroid of an attractive woman's face, each dart slamming into her cheek, her temple, and so forth. The dart playing man was a British fellow, a long time conman whose lengthy (and prison-free) criminal career had been suddenly shattered by his arrest by Officer Carne.
Uncle was the first to speak. "Won't be long", he said. "But we need a lot of stuff, first. Want to make this really perfect, don't we?"
"Fuck yeah!" replied Larry, flicking on the VCR, so that a pair of blonde lesbians could be seen ploughing one another with dildos. "Fuck yeah. God knows we've been waiting long enough, haven't we?"
The British man - Ike Redford - snickered, piercing the snapshot's pretty nose with a sudden and vicious dart. "Oh, God knows. And he'll deliver her up, if he knows what's good for her family."
There was a brief silence in the room, only punctured by the grunts and occasional squeals from the television. Larry reached over to nurse his growing erection, until Ike threw an ashtray at him. It struck Larry's head, and he whined, "what the fuck was that for, cunt?"
Ike rolled his eyes. "We don't want to watch you fap, asshole. Get your head in the game. We have preparations to get together. You working on the hardwear?"
Larry nodded. He whipped a cell phone out of his dirty trousers, and chattered away about stocks, harnesses and handcuffs to somebody called Willy.
Jack Sines sat down and lit up a joint. "It's going to be a long twenty-four hours for the madame, isn't it?" He said this as though sorrowful, although he snickered at the end, unable to keep the irony in its usual expression. His small mouth opened wide, and smoke billowed out, as though from a dragon's mouth.
***
Officer Veronique Carne was a stately woman of thirty years old. She was even-headed, polite, organized, methodical. Her mind was quick, some might say sharp, and betrayed none of the corruption so often cast upon the police force of her home city of New York. Veronique was also drop-dead gorgeous. Of a moderate height, her other features far transcended moderate - fairly long auburn hair, fiery green eyes, a fairly pale complexion, and a stunningly tanned body made many eyes long to see her out of uniform. None ever had. When she had joined the NYPD, the standards for a female officer joining the force were identical to the expectations for men - only more recently had the need for a more even gender distribution altered this ideal; in other words, she was just as tough as her fellow male officers. This gave her both a certain pride in her abilities, and of course guaranteed her body was toned and muscled into a distinctly tomboy form.
Her virginity was forged of the kind of certainty that made her seem invincible. Some people are virgins against their will; it seemed to Veronique that those who were virgins by choice were higher than the former group. Better. They had the choice, and said 'no'. Not to have had the choice at all - what was to be celebrated there? In high school and university, she had certainly been propositioned, by every offer was rejected, sometimes with kindness, sometimes scornfully, always with certainty. Raised French Catholic until she had moved with her family to New York in the '90s, the idea of 'sex after marriage' was firmly drilled into her philosophy.
Around the police station in her precinct, her virginity was not known, but she was considered a bit of a prude. Several officers had asked her out for dates, in the most sincere and pleasant of ways, and been turned down with a reprimand for "behaviour not fitting a fellow officer of the law". Veronique had not gone so far as to report them, but had threatened to do so if they every asked again.
Veronique was proud of a few things - she tried to be proud in moderation, but did recognize self-esteem as psychologically healthy, after all. All things in moderation, and all that. Her Catholic upbringing brought her pride, for she felt it was the True Faith, and she had been a very faithful practitioner of the Pope's decrees ever since a streak of delinquency in elementary school. Her excellent grades throughout her education made her proud, as did her calm and (she thought) very pleasant way of rejecting male offers. Her family's successes in the business world made her proud, although she still felt that Justice was the ultimate pursuit of the true Catholic, the truly good person. She had read Aristotle quite thoroughly, and examined his Ethics with her eyes perpetually drawn to the notion of both the Golden Mean, as well as Justice as the best of virtues - the virtue that defended and kept the others sacrosanct.
There was only one thing of which she was ashamed, truly ashamed. She had a tendency to drift. Sometimes this was a boon, as when she chose to overlook the sexually derogatory comments crooks made while she dealt with them - being able to tune them out was rather nice. But it could almost be dangerous, as when she was interviewing a witness and felt her entire consciousness drifting away. Once or twice it had happened while driving. Doctor Steiner, a long time friend as well as general medical doctor, had suggested that this was due to insufficient sleep. Veronique tried to sleep more, but she was very busy and had little time for this remedy. The problem returned. Since she felt that her true duty in life was attention to reality, attention to the world around her, as a way to overcome the evils in the world, this was a source of great sorrow for Officer Carne.
***
"You must be careful in the forest," sang Ike, folding the girl's arms and legs behind her in the dark van. The rope emerged from the edges of the van and bound the limbs quickly, expertly. He had been well trained. He made sure that the girl would feel no pain, despite the awkwardness of her position. "Broken glass and rusty nails..." He was a great fan of Waits, and he felt the young lady needed some music to cheer her up. What was there more suited to the occasion than 'Just The Right Bullets'? That was exactly what Ike was collecting - just the right bullets for Officer Carne's fall. This girl was the future husband of Peter Jones (the most generically-named individual Ike had ever heard of), but at present she was Jennifer Carne, and an ideal target for kidnapping. What on earth would the officer not do for the safe return of Jennifer? Would she go through hell? Would she sell her soul?
'It's all on the table', thought Ike, and changed the tune he was singing to 'Black Rider'.
Jennifer wriggled about, neatly - almost beautifully, thought Ike - hogtied. Her breasts pressed against the hard floor of the van, painfully, though they would not yet bruise. Ike made sure that her blindfold was in place, and let loose his erection from his jeans. He rubbed it under her tiny nose, the sensitive skin of his penis's head rolling over her soft skin, and he was amused at the eighteen-year-old girl's squeamish (but clearly recognizing) reaction. A kind of little squeak. There was just a tiny trace of precum on Ike's erection, and he left it in a transparent trail under her nostrils, like a wet little moustache. Ike almost giggled, but checked himself.
The girl was sobbing, and finally Ike caught a few words - "I have to be somewhere, please let me go, I have to be somewhere..."
"Lay down in the web of the black spider - I'll drink your blood like wine," chanted Ike in a singsong kind of manner, mockingly. He sat on Jennifer's back. She was a rather attractive youth herself - good looks clearly ran in the family, even with the burning green eyes kept captive and hidden behind the leather blindfold. Wearing a white blouse and conservative black shirt, she looked the perfect schoolgirl. 'No stockings', Ike noted with irritation.
It made Ike sad that he was not allowed to rape her. Yet.
Getting himself into the front of the van, he laughed, crooning: "Come along with the black rider - I want your company...we'll have a gay old time! We'll have a gay - old - time!"
