Bondage story - The Phantom of the Roxy - 61

The Whisperer turned his burning gaze on Ira. “And what is ‘today’s situation,’ eh, Ira? I have fnally found the girl I’ve been looking for! Have you come to take her away from me?”

Ira started to shake his head no, but Hodge interrupted before he could speak. “You don’t get to keep them, you madman! Have you no concept of how the world works? You’ve had Miss Belzer for three days! Then you step onstage, strip Miss Patterson naked and whip her in front of the whole goddamn audience! How am I supposed to keep our secret with you doing that? How can I keep the police away from us? You’ve gone too far this time, Vidal! I have no choice now!”

Ira grabbed Hodge’s arm again. “Thaddeus, no!”

“Are you going to shoot me then, little brother?” rasped the Whisperer, stepping forward again.

Hodge shook Ira off his arm so violently that the little man fell to the foor. Then he leveled the gun at the Whisperer like he meant to use it.

Jessica had seen enough to know what was about to happen. She leapt off the bed and threw herself in front of the Whisperer. Hodge’s eyes widened. The young beauty stood before him, naked, her wrists bound behind her back, her eyes wide with fright, yet she deliberately shielded the madman from him.

“Please,” she said, “don’t shoot him!”

Hodge’s resolve wavered, she could see it in his eyes.

“You would protect him?” he asked, seemingly confused. “It’ll be all right,” she said desperately. “He’ll release Sarah, and I’ll swear to the police that I went to him of my own free will! Everything can be explained!”

Hodge lifted the gun toward the ceiling, his body losing a little of its tenseness. Then, suddenly, Jessica was tossed aside like a rag doll as the Whisperer barreled past her, charging at Hodge. He caught the gun before his brother could aim it at him again, his other hand going for Hodge’s neck. He drove him backward, slamming his head into the pillar behind him with a sickening thud. Hodge was dazed for a moment, but then he was fghting his brother, kicking at him and trying to break his grip on his gun hand. The Whisperer pounded his head against the pillar twice more, and then Hodge managed to twist his hand around and point the gun at his brother. The gun fred, then fred again, but seemed to have no effect, though bright blood suddenly ran down the naked madman’s side. Again the Whisperer pounded his brother’s head against the pillar, choking him the whole time. But his other hand fell away from Hodge’s gun hand, and Hodge brought the gun against his brother’s chest and fred seven more times, emptying the pistol.

“Noooooooo!” Jessica screamed, but it was too late.

The two brothers stared into each others’ eyes for several seconds, and whatever passed between them only they knew. Then, together, they slumped to the foor, Hodge’s head leaving a thick smudge of blood as he slid down the pillar. When Jessica crawled to them, both men stared with lifeless eyes. They were dead. She threw her arms around the Whisperer and sobbed. Ira walked slowly up beside her and sank to his knees, also crying.

“I loved them both,” he sobbed. “Why did they have to do this?”

EPILOGUE

The opening night show garnered rave reviews. A few of the reviewers passed it off as “Trivial, with a sado-masochistic nude scene tacked onto the end for shock value,” but most of them gave it a lot more credit. “Brilliant,” wrote one, “with an ending you’ll never forget!” Concerning Jessica’s nude whipping, another reviewer wrote “…It is diffcult to describe in mere words the intensity of this scene. If the whipping, or the emotions of the actress involved, were somehow faked, it is beyond this reviewer to see how. A daring and intellectually provocative ending for a beautifully- written parable!” Most of the others followed these lines.

The theater was shut down for six weeks following that frst show, but then, despite several outrageous rumors of scandal and murder, it reopened, and the play resumed as if it had never closed. It was performed four nights a week, exactly as it had been that frst night, with all of the original cast. It played to packed houses, and it was booked months in advance, with no end in sight. Ira, the theater’s new owner, couldn’t have been more pleased.

After Sarah had been paid a queen’s ransom from the theater’s estate and returned to Los Angeles, Jessica and David had found a growing bond between them. David discovered a new penchant for the strange joys of bondage and discipline, and Jessica found a much more sane approach to submission, based on trust instead of fear.

Every performance of the play ended with the scene the Whisperer had added the night he died. David stripped Jessica naked in front of the packed house, and then whipped her until she cried, then cut her down so she could kiss his feet and declare her undying submission to him. When the show was over, they’d both be so hot they’d go straight home and pick up where they’d left off at the end of the play. Sometimes they’d go until dawn, then fall into each others’ arms and sleep until it was time to get up and do it all again. Jessica would always remember the Whisperer as a mentor of sorts. He taught her much, and changed her life.

While she knew that he was insane, never was she heard to speak ill of him. And sometimes when she though of him, she’d smile wistfully. And then drag David into the bedroom for another go.

The End