Page 58 of Girl, Reformed

She flicked another glance at the businesscard in her hand at that pretentious red scrawl. Decision crystallized withevery beat of her strung-out heart. It could be a coincidence, of course, butin her experience, coincidences were just patterns with bad timing.

‘Let’s get Harry’s pants back up. The guysout there are looking at us like we’re grave robbers.’

With as much grace as possible, Ella andLuca redressed Harry Shepherd. She mentally apologized for the indignity, thenfollowed up with a promise to find justice for this poor gentleman.

‘Time to go and visit a professional dom,’Ella said.

‘What, now?’ Luca asked. ‘It’s nearlymidnight.’

‘That’s the beauty of late night calls.People are always home.’

The game was afoot. At last. Thethrill of the hunt sang in Ella's blood, razor-edged and bittersweet as thefirst sip of rotgut after a long dry spell.

And she had to admit, she had a goodfeeling about this.

CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

He glanced down at the mask dangling fromhis fingers and locked eyes with the black holes that bore into him likejudgmental pits.

The frown was slipping, sagging at theedges where his sweaty mug had stretched the material. Turning the expressionfrom comically morose to downright pathetic.

Youblew it,the mask said to him. Threw it all away, like you screw up everything.Weak, pathetic, can't even get through a set without bombing.

‘Goto hell,’ he snarled back. ‘Just a minor setback. I've still got thecloser, the coup de grace.’

The mask just stared. Anger pulsed in histemples, thick and curdled and tasting of bile. With a strangled roar, he torethe thing to shreds. Felt the tacky plastic stretch and give, digging into hisfingers until it finally cracked.

Panting, he flung the pieces to the grimyconcrete. Stomped on them for good measure, grinding the tattered remnants intothe muck under his heel. There. Gone, erased, removed from the act like arotten tomato lobbed by some heckler in the cheap seats. The thought curled hislip, old hurts prickling under his skin like hot needles.

He'd been so close, so goddamn closeto finishing his masterpiece. To take his sweet time with this squid before thebig sendoff. Really make the bastard squeal, make him pay.

Butthe damn pigs just had to show up and stick their snouts where they didn’tbelong. Interrupt his work, his art. And now he was running, lungs burning,rabbit-hearting through the urine-filled backstreets of this hopeless city.Filth under his boots, fear clogging his nostrils.

The whole scene - the grand guignol, themagnum opus, his fucking raison d'etre - left behind like so much setdressing. Abandoned in his mad scramble to ditch the cops and save his ownsorry skin.

And the wheelchair. The damn wheelchair.All part and parcel of the performance, and now it was police property.

It was all coming apart, unraveling like acheap sweater. All his planning, all his prep, all the hours spent honing hismaterial, rehearing the moves front of the mirror until everything flowed likepoisoned honey, all primed for punchlines that'd bring the house down.

Wasted. All wasted.

Well, he hoped they enjoyed the show.Hoped they got a real kick out of ruining a man's life's work, his goddamn magnumopus. No appreciation for the craft. For the blood, sweat and tears hepoured into his routine. Now, the timing was screwed. The rhythm was off, theflow interrupted. He'd lost the beat, the groove, that zesty je ne saisquoi that separated the hacks from the headliners.

He had to get it back. Had to dip backinto the old toolbag and pull out one last zinger, one final bit to bring itall home and leave them howling. Or screaming.

Same difference, in the end.

They’d all been so quick to judge, soeager to cut him down. The whole stinking world lined up to take their shots,take their pounds of flesh. Well, he was taking his own back now, and thecurrency was suffering. The sweet music of screams and sobs, the crunch ofbones and the glorious snick of life leaving the body.

Payback. Revenge. For everyslight, every snub, every cruel word and mocking gaze seared into his memorylike a brand on a steer's hairy ass.

It wasn't enough. Would never beenough, not until the whole world choked on its own sick laughter. On thejagged shards of its own smug superiority. But it was a start, a mere downpayment on the reckoning to come. The grand balancing of the scales that'dleave him the last clown standing in a world of corpsified straight men.

And he'd get there. Oh yes, he'd getthere. Just one more to go - the main event, the big kahuna. The headliner he'dbeen saving for the finale, the glittering jewel in his carnage crown.

But first he had to book. Scram, vamoose,skedaddle stage left while the getting was good. The pigs would be swarming thescene by now, combing for clues and getting their grubby mitts all over hisgenius. Mucking up the delicate timing, trampling the nuances until they wereflatter than a critic's punchlines.

His car was nearby. Far enough away fromthe scene that the pigs wouldn’t connect it to the grand display at thefountain. He needed to get there, get back home and plan for tomorrow’sperformance.

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