Reckless

The shower water was hot and it felt absolutely wonderful.  I had gone a bit too long without a shower and my odor was getting pungent.  In fact, I was starting to smell like the homeless person I really was. I started with my hair, washing twice like it said on the bottle only because it would be a while before my next shower opportunity.  The drain was a bit slow, and the water that pooled up was brown.  I took my time to do a good job because I knew the class schedule of the apartment’s one occupant.  She wouldn’t be back for at least two hours.

Just as I was finishing up I smelled something odd, and my stomach tightened into a knot.  Cigarette smoke.  Shit.

I turned off the shower and pushed down on the faucet knob so the water would drain out of the pipe all at once instead of gurgling out slowly.  That done I listened carefully.  All was quiet.  As slowly and quietly as I could peeked around the edge of the shower curtain.  I needn’t have bothered being quiet.  The apartment’s occupant, a young woman with short black hair was seated in a chair in the bathroom’s open doorway looking back at me.

In a sarcastic tone she said, “Why don’t you make yourself at home.”

In a panic I reached for my towel which I always brought with me on these excursions.  It wasn’t where I had left it on the toilet seat cover.  My clothes which had been on the floor were gone as well.

She held up my towel and clothes in one hand and said, “Looking for these?”

“Err, thanks love, pass ‘em over will ya?”

She sucked greedily on a cigarette, smiled broadly and said, “Not a chance.”  She tossed my stuff onto the floor behind her, then raised a small pistol from her lap and pointed it at me.  It appeared to be a small caliber twenty-two.  Not much power with a tiny gun like that, but deadly enough at this range.

She said, “Come out of the shower slowly and stand on the bath mat.”

“Ah, Miss, but you see I’m all wet and a bit naked.”

“So I see.”  She waved the gun at me.  “But since you seem to be at a slight disadvantage, you might want to do what I tell you.  At least if you want to keep all of your little bits in one piece.”

I cupped my hands over my equipment and stepped out of the tub.

She smiled broadly, and I saw now that she was actually quite pretty.  Glossy black hair and nicely applied makeup.  She had on black lipstick too, which I could never quite fathom as a fashion trend.

She said, “Now now, why spoil my fun.  After all, you invaded my personal space.  Show me what you’ve got hidden behind those hands.  Maybe you have a concealed weapon there.”

Far from being excited, I was scared shitless.  My equipment was shriveled, and the last thing I wanted to do was show her.  I said, “Ah, Miss, I’m real sorry that I…”

With a sharp edge to her voice she cut me off.  “Do it.”

I hesitated, then dropped my hands to my sides.

She leaned forward, her eyes inspecting my crotch. “Hmm, couldn’t possibly conceal anything there.  Now I have a few questions for you.  I suggest you answer them truthfully.  I’m a behavioral psych major, and I’ll know if you’re lying to me.”

“Um, could I possibly have my towel…”

She ignored my question. “I need a name.  Something besides homeless guy with a small weenie”.

“Hey, that’s not very nice, Miss.  I don’t usually have this small a…  errr….  What makes you think I’m homeless?”

She laughed.  “Well, for one your clothes absolutely stink.  And why else would you invade someone’s home to take a shower?  Now, your name please.”

I looked at my feet.  “Jake.  My name’s Jake.”

“Well, Jake, how have you been getting into my apartment.”

My head snapped up.  She had said it in a way that implied she knew I had done it before.  “You know?  You know that this isn’t the first time?”

“Of course.  There’s even a pattern to it.  That’s why I skipped class this morning.  Now answer my question.  How have you been getting in?”

“I, uh…  have a key.”

“You have a key.  I see.  And how did you come by this key?”

“I used to live here.”

“And you didn’t turn in all your keys when you left?”

“No.”

“I see. I guess I’ll have to have a little talk with the building manager.”  She took a long drag of her cigarette and tossed one of her legs over the armrest of her chair.  “Tell me, Jake of the small weenie, why you think you can waltz into a stranger’s apartment and use it for your own personal grooming?”

“It’s a long story.”

“I have time, Jake.  Let’s hear it.”

I grimaced.  This was going to be embarrassing, as if standing butt naked in front her wasn’t embarrassing enough already.  “Well you see I got expelled last year, my parents stopped paying my rent, and my lousy stock-boy job at Walmart doesn’t exactly pay well.  A month after I was expelled I was evicted.  I’ve been living under the bottom flight of stairs of various college halls ever since.”

She sat up straight, a spark of interest shining in her eyes.  “Why did you get expelled?”

“I’d rather not say.”

She raised the gun but said nothing.

I held up my hands in a placating gesture.  “Okay, okay.  The Dean and I didn’t see eye to eye about a harmless prank.”

“Oh, I see.  You’re that Jake.  I heard about you.  Did you really superglue your professor’s briefcase to his desk when he stepped out of the lecture hall for a smoke?”

I looked up in surprise.  “How did you…”

“Jake honey, you’re the talk of the town.  Why did you do it?”

“I was pissed off.  It was an hour lecture, and he spent at least fifteen minutes out of the hall smoking while we sat around waiting for him.  This happened almost every single damned lecture.  So I thought I’d teach him a lesson.”

“And did he learn anything from it?”

“Ah, sadly no.  What I learned was not to mess with a tenured Professor.  The Dean sided with him.”

She stood up and pulled her chair back into the hallway, keeping her little pop gun trained on my chest the whole time.  She gathered up my clothes and towel and tossed them on the seat of the chair.  Then she kicked the chair with my stuff down the hall to my right.  “Come with me.”

She backed down the hallway to my left, gun in hand.  I followed slowly.

She opened the door at the end of the hall, and only then did I remember that she was heading for the apartment’s one bedroom.  I hesitated, unsure where this weird encounter was heading.

“Jake, this is no time to do anything stupid.  Come in here before my finger gets itchy.  Now.”

As I entered I looked around my old bedroom, now her bedroom.  I hadn’t been in here any of the times I had used her shower, and I was surprised by the décor.  Most of her apartment was barely furnished, and what there was tended to be college dorm stuff.  But her bedroom was something else altogether.  The room was dominated by an enormous brass bed covered with an embroidered quilt and way too many matching throw pillows.  The walls had been painted a soft yellow, and a large white makeup station and mirror ran along one wall. It was so at odds with her short black hair and black lipstick that I almost laughed.

I said, “I like what you’ve done with the place.  It’s a lot nicer than the junk I had in here.”

She stubbed her cigarette out in an overflowing ashtray, pulled open the top drawer of her makeup station, and pulled out four pairs of handcuffs.  I groaned.  This was getting way too weird for me.

She waved the gun toward the bed.  “Get on it.”

I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.  Look Miss, I didn’t mean any harm.  I just needed a shower.  I never took a damned thing of yours.  I even brought my own towel and soap.  Can’t you…”

She spun like a dancer and kicked me hard in the chest.  I fell over backwards onto the bed, my chest a mass of pain.  She advanced on me with the gun pointed at my chest.  “Look, you little shit.  You broke into my apartment repeatedly.  For all I know you were beating off your little weenie in my underwear drawer.  On top of that I’ve busted my ass to put myself through school, and I’ve got student loans that’ll take me ten years to pay off.  And you--- you wasted a free-ride education on a fucking prank.  That really pisses me off.  Now, put one of those handcuffs on an ankle, and secure it to the footboard.”

This woman was psychotic.  Did she really think she could get away with this?  Yeah, I had broken into her apartment, but she was threatening to kill me.  I was more in the right, wasn’t I?  Not that it mattered though, not with a gun pointed at my chest.  She had me secure both of my ankles to the brass footboard and one wrist to the headboard.  The final handcuff dangled from my right wrist.  As she held the gun on me I snapped it onto the headboard.

She smiled down at me.  “Sweet.  Such a good looking boy you are.”

She pulled a new cigarette from the pack on her makeup station and stuck in between her lips.  Then she placed the tip of her gun to the end of the cigarette and pulled the trigger.  A small jet of flame came out of the barrel, and she sucked air through the cigarette to get it started.  A fucking lighter.  She had threatened to kill me with a god damned lighter.

She saw the look on my face and said, “Jake, my boy, it was just a little prank.  You like pranks, don’t you?”

I ground my teeth.  “Yeah.  Love ‘em.  As long as they’re not done to me.”

“Excellent.  I think we’re making progress here.  Now you know what it feels like.”

I rolled my eyes.  “Look, Miss, just tell me what you want from me.”

“Isn’t it obvious?  Just a little satisfaction.  You can give me satisfaction, can’t you?”

“You want…satisfaction?  I don’t have anything to give you.”

She just smiled, grabbed the bottom of her blouse with both hands, and pulled it over her head.  My mouth fell open.  She wore no bra under her top.  Two fantastically proportions breasts bounced under my gaze.

She looked down at my rapidly growing member.  “Oh, yes.  I think you do have something that will satisfy me.  My, it’s not quite so weenie anymore is it.  You’ve been holding out on me, haven’t you?”

I swallowed hard and said, “Yes mistress.”

She looked up sharply at me and said, “I see you finally understand.”

Eventually she let me go, but not until noon the next day.  And oh, did it take a lot to satisfy her.  I was sore for days.  She taught me ten times more about sex than I had learned since puberty.  A psychotic behavioral psych undergraduate Dominatrix - what a combination. 

When it was all over, she told me she never wanted to see my sorry expelled ass again.  But strangely that encouraged me.  I took it to mean that I had to get my act together if I ever wanted to see her again. And by god I sure did, strange as that might sound. I swallowed my pride and apologized to the idiot Professor.  He spoke to the Dean and had me reinstated.  I even reconciled with my parents and got a new apartment.

****

I stand outside her apartment building’s front door.  I know she’s home because I watched her return half an hour ago.  My hand is shaking as I push the intercom buzzer for her apartment.  I hear a static buzz, and then I hear her say, “Yes, who is it?”

“Mistress, it’s Jake.  I’ve been reinstated.”

I wait.  Ten seconds go by.  Then twenty.  The door lock buzzes.