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Antidote	By : MadameManga Category: +G to L > GunSmith Cats Views: 4906 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own GunSmith Cats, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
********VERY STRONG ADULTS ONLY WARNING!!********

This story is not for kids or the easily offended. It deals with rape and contains explicit sexual words and descriptions, explicit violence and extreme profanity/blasphemy. If you object to reading such things, do not read this story.
This story is based on the Gunsmith Cats manga by Kenichi Sonoda. This is set after the end of the manga, but was written in 2000, before the complete series had been published in English.
I love feedback. All kinds! Please review, or write me at MmeManga@aol.com.
Characters of RALLY VINCENT, BEAN BANDIT, MAY HOPKINS, ROY COLEMAN, BECKY FARAH, GRANNY HAO copyright Kenichi Sonoda and Kodansha Ltd. All other characters and story copyright 2000 by Madame Manga. Do not sell or print for sale without the express written permission of the author. Do not change, plagarize, or distribute this story without the author's name and email address. This story is intended for entertainment purposes only.

Antidote

by Madame Manga

Part Two

Bean's black '68 Corvette stood in an alleyway three blocks north of Rally's house, and they got in and peeled out.
He accelerated to about seventy in the residential area, and when they got out on the main road he leaned on the gas and screamed along at a hundred and twenty. Cars and buildings and at least one red light blew by in a blur. He swerved abruptly to avoid a truck and took a freeway on-ramp to downtown.
She thought she heard a siren behind them, but it rapidly faded away. The big aluminum LS-7 engine roared as Bean took the car up to a hundred and fifty miles an hour, the pounding V-8 pistons and unmuffled exhaust so loud she had to half-shout to be heard.
"We're doing fine, Bean. We'll be there in five minutes at this speed! How are you feeling?"
"Not so good." He took a sidewise glance at her, his eyes wide and wild. "It's taking all I got just to keep my hands on the wheel and off of you."
"I won't bother you, then!" Rally grabbed the dash as Bean hit the brakes and took a violent slalom through a knot of cars.
"No, talk to me." Bean worked his fingers on the wheel. "You slowed me down that way already. Keep doing it."
"OK, you smoked some Kerasine...where were you?"
"Uhh...I was going to a machine shop with my truck. I had an engine block there to get the cylinders honed, and they'd called me to come pick it up. I stopped at a place for lunch first. I go there all the time. After I came out, that's when they pulled the switch on me�the kid who knocked my pack out of my hand."
Rally nodded. "So they�whoever it was�were waiting for you to light up once you got outside, which you probably do all the time, too. They had a pack of your usual brand prepared, soaked in Kerasine. "
"Yeah, I don't smoke over a meal. Mostly in the car�hey, check these!" He dug in his jacket and tossed her a pack of Marlboros. Rally looked at it, but it was nearly full.
"I don't think these are the ones they palmed off on you, which makes sense. After you got high, they must have intercepted you and recovered them. Don't you remember any of that?"
"Nope. Let's see...I remember smoking at the machine shop while I was shootin' the breeze. Those guys don't mind. I started feeling like I had the flu comin' on, though. I went home with the block and put it on my bench. I had the heads all ready and I was going to re-assemble it...and then..." His brow creased.
"What happened after that?"
"Damned if I know. That whole afternoon's a blank, 'cept for little bits. I was in a room somewhere and someone was telling me that Rally Vincent wanted me bad and she liked it rough. I dunno if that was a dream or what. I remember waking up this morning with a rock-hard�uh." His right hand wandered off the wheel towards her, and Rally took his wrist and put the hand back where it belonged.
"Thanks." Bean swallowed hard and veered around a line of cars, then back into the left lane. "I had the idea then. All I could think about was screwin' you, and I wanted to do it nasty. It couldn't wait. I called a couple of people to find out where you were and what you were doin', and I kept drinkin' while I was calling because I was thirsty as hell and I had this other feeling that it wasn't going to be a real smart idea in the long run."
"No kidding! Bean, I might have shot you!"
He glanced at her. "Why didn't ya?"
"Well...um, I don't like killing anyone! Especially not someone I...uh, someone I know. I've only done it when I absolutely had to. What did you do next?"
"When I got up the steam, I got in my car and went for it. I knew you'd be alone, and as soon as I saw your friends leave, I snuck in the house. I couldn't think about anything else and it's still awful hard to concentrate. Do you or die." He grimaced. "I guess that's exactly what I got told."
"I wonder how they got in contact with you, to give you the command. But even more important�who the hell hates me so much that they would send you after me?"
"Can't answer that one, babe." Bean swerved to the right and took an off-ramp to the surface streets, slowing down to a saner speed. They ran into heavy traffic as the Corvette negotiated the crowded neighborhood, slipping past open-air produce stands and packs of pedestrians.
"You know where to park in Chinatown?"
"Me?" He managed a chuckle. "I can park anywhere on the map, babe." True to his word, Bean cut off another driver and pulled the Corvette into a space across the street from Granny Hao's pharmacy. Rally unlatched her door and turned to get out.
A heavy hand came down on her arm. Bean pulled her towards him and into his embrace, propelling her halfway across his lap, and tried to kiss her mouth. She turned her head away and shoved at his chest. "Stop that! NO kissing, remember?!" His lips fell on her jaw.
"Aw, babe, please! I feel like I'm gonna explode!" She could still smell herself on his face.
"No, because if you get started now you are not going to stop! But I'm glad you've gotten to the point where you're saying 'please'! Hold that thought!" Rally squirmed under Bean's arm and launched herself out the door, vaulting over the Corvette's hood to the street. He followed as she ran across, and they reached the pharmacy and burst inside, panting.
A Chinese customer looked up, startled, and Granny Hao laughed, a rough, cackling sound. "Don't worry! These are friends of mine." She thrust a package into the man's hands and escorted him to the door, then shut it behind him. "Rally Vincent and Bean Bandit! I see you've made it in one piece...or am I assuming too much?"
She cackled again and shuffled to the dispensary counter, picking up a long brass pipe. Granny Hao was a small, stooped woman of seventy or so, grey-haired and dressed in a long Chinese robe. She had a wicked glint in her faded eyes and a sly turn of expression. Rally gulped.
"We're still all right. He's having some trouble, though."
"We? Ah, I see." Granny Hao took a puff from her pipe and cracked an evil smile. "Well, let's take a look at you, Bean. Sit." She pointed at a stool in front of the counter. "Rally, dear, would you turn the 'Open' sign over and lock the door? There we go."
The pharmacy was dark away from the windows and smelled strangely musty, lined with floor-to-ceiling shelves and drawers. Every surface was crammed with brown parcels and ceramic jars and garishly printed boxes labeled in Chinese characters. Huge glass jars of alcohol held bleached roots and an assortment of preserved animals, from seahorses to snakes.
Bean sat down on the low stool and the old woman rummaged behind the counter, looking through tiny drawers in a red-lacquered chest that rose well above her head. "How did you happen to get hyped on that stuff, Bean?"
"Wasn't my idea. She thinks I got it slipped to me in a cigarette."
"Mm." Granny Hao took out a magnifying glass and a flashlight. "Show me your tongue. Hold this." She handed Rally the flashlight. With the magnifying glass, she examined Bean's tongue at great length under the light, making sage noises and frowning.
"Very interesting. Now take off your jacket and give me your wrists." She put three fingers lightly on his right pulse and felt it for several minutes, then repeated the process with the left wrist. "You've certainly had a lot of alcohol today."
"Half a case of beer before eight A.M. You can tell that just from my pulse?" said Bean.
"No, I can smell it on your breath, you big lush!" she chuckled. "There's nothing mysterious about my methods."
"Can you tell about the Kerasine?" ventured Rally.
"Yes, he has been under the influence of a powerful drug�other than beer! Its character is hot and dry, leaving him deficient in liver yin�that's why you were thirsty, Bean. Kerasine is likely. But let's use a Western method as well. Give me a blood sample."
She pricked Bean's finger and squeezed out a few drops on a glass slide. To the slide she added a few drops of a chemical. "The major effects seem to have worn off, but if it's Kerasine, the secondary effects may linger for a long time. It clears from the bloodstream very slowly." She held the slide up and squinted at it. "Hah."
Rally leaned over to see, and felt a hand on her rump. Bean's, of course. He ran the hand around her waist and drew her closer. Granny Hao was still examining the slide. "It will be a minute before the crystals precipitate," she said. "When they do, it will confirm the diagnosis." Bean pulled Rally down on his lap and kissed her throat.
"Hey!" she said, struggling with his hands, which seemed to be everywhere on her body all of a sudden. "Stop that! We're about to get you fixed!"
Granny Hao turned around and laughed. "Fixed? Nothing that drastic, though I can see why you're tempted!" She put a cover on the slide and looked at it with the magnifying glass and flashlight. "Yes," she said. "Kerasine. A truly massive dose! This is much more than one or two cigarettes could hold! It's a wonder you're able to speak coherently."
"Yes, Kerasine!" said Rally, still struggling. "Bean, it's the drugs�will you get hold of yourself�" He ran one hand under her skirt. "HEY!"
Granny Hao squinted at them and shook her head. "I'm still not certain what the problem is. You two look remarkably well suited to each other...and believe me, I've seen enough couples form and break apart to tell! So he's a little careless about what substances he abuses? So what?"
"Granny Hao, he tried to rape me. I mean, really rape me! He threatened me! That's nothing like him�"
"Yeah, nothing," said Bean, trying to get his fingers into her panties while she frantically pushed his hands away. "I don't know exactly what or who, but I know somebody told me to do this. We figure someone's got it in for her and decided to use me for the purpose." He gave up on the panties and grabbed Rally's breasts instead.
"Some command," said Granny Hao. "Let's find out what it was, shall we?" She began to take jars down from the shelves and compound an herb mixture in a wooden mortar, ignoring the wrestling match going on in front of her counter. "I can stimulate your memory and let you concentrate. Let's see..." She trailed off into Cantonese, sprinkling bits of dry brown leaves into her mortar.
"Stop!" said Rally, kicking Bean in the shin. "I am not going to let you do this to me�"
"Babe?" Bean froze. "I don't think you should've said that..."
"Oh, no!"
His eyes rolled back in his head and the blood drained out of his face. "Shit..."
"Fascinating," said Granny Hao, now paying attention.
"Bean, no, I didn't mean it, I will let you�"
"Nnngghh!" He doubled over. "NNNGGHHH!"
"Bean!"
"He gets into this state when you tell him no? Sounds a bit like unfair pressure to me."
"I'll let you have sex with me! I promise! Please, Bean, believe me!" There, she had promised again, and in front of a witness this time. Her mental reservation still held, though...
He was panting and grinding his teeth. "Don't...believe you. Yer gonna...hate my fricking guts after this!"
"I will let you, I swear it!" She leaned over and planted her lips on his. For a moment he didn't respond, then he sagged and threw his arms around her, tumbling both of them to the floor.
"Good heavens," remarked Granny Hao, leaning over the counter to look at them as they lay in a heap. "Is he all right?"
"Geez, what about me?" muttered Rally. "Bean, get up!"
He didn't move, apparently unconscious. Rally crawled out from under his arm and tried to roll him over. Granny Hao came around the counter and knelt down, and together they turned him face upwards. Bean lay completely limp, eyes closed and his huge arms relaxed by his sides. "Oh, dear. Has he been having these attacks all along?"
"Yes, this is about the third bad one. It seems to happen when it looks like he's not going to be able to accomplish his goal for any reason..."
"Third?" Suddenly the old woman looked sincerely worried. "That's very bad." She pulled up one of Bean's eyelids and peered at the exposed eye, then looked at the other one, shaking her head.
"Bad? How bad do you mean?"
"The pupils are unequally dilated. He's had the equivalent of a stroke. Let's hope it's a mild one!"
"A stroke?! But it was just a hypnotic suggestion!"
"Miss Vincent," said the old woman fiercely, "a hypnotic suggestion backed up with Kerasine can cause very real damage, as you should be aware!" She got up and opened a cabinet, taking out a vial of powder. "It depends on the strength of the subject's will. This fellow has will to shake the pillars of Heaven!"
"He's...doing this to himself?"
"Exactly." She knelt and put a pinch of the powder in Bean's nostrils. "Here, take this. Give him more as he inhales it. My old bones won't take too much crouching on the floor! He's much too heavy to move to a cot."
Rally stuffed some of the powder in Bean's nose. "A stroke needs treatment! Shouldn't we call 911?"
"Good heavens, no! His blood-Kerasine percentage is off the scale. They'll test him for drugs just as I did and take him to jail!"
"Oh...no..."
Bean gasped, his eyelids snapping open. "Oh...shit..."
"Good, he's awake. Can you sit up?"
Bean waved off help and stood, holding on to the counter. "What the hell happened? I can't see real well." He blinked a few times and wiped his eyes with his hand, then sneezed out a small cloud of the powder. His eyes focused on Rally, but he was frowning. "You look blurry, babe."
"You passed out. Granny Hao says you had a mild stroke."
"No shit? Is that why my eyes ain't working?" He rubbed them again.
"Yes, Bean," said Granny Hao. "That may wear off soon...or it may not."
Bean lowered his hand from his face with a tense expression. "Great." Rally touched Bean's chest. He reached out and enveloped her, and she returned the embrace with all her strength, burying her face in his T-shirt.
He smelled musky and smoky and unwashed, but for that moment she didn't care, savoring the living warmth of his body. "Hey, girl. You really did mean it, huh?" Bean smiled and stooped, his lips coming close to hers before he veered and touched her cheek instead. "Whoops, almost missed." He grinned wickedly.
Rally started to give him a sharp retort, but swallowed it. "Granny Hao, can we find out who sent him after me? If we know exactly what he was told to do, maybe we can counteract it before anything worse happens!"
"Mm. Perhaps." Granny Hao beckoned to Bean. "Come in my back room and lie down. I'm going to feed you some tea, since you seem to be all right aside from the vision problem. Count on you to keep forging ahead no matter what!" She cackled and picked up the mortar in which she had been grinding herbs. "This ought to loosen your memory."
Rally guided Bean behind the counter and stood in the door of the small back room as he gulped down a cupful of brownish herb infusion, took off his shirt at Granny Hao's instruction and lay down on a narrow cot. The walls of the room were papered with acupuncture charts and Chinese calendars, and a stand held sets of disposable needles in plastic cases.
Granny Hao sat on a swivel stool and rubbed one hand over Bean's forehead, marking a few spots with her finger and naming them. "Si zhu kong, yang bai, shen ting, zan zhu..." She then inserted near-invisible thin needles along his eyebrows and hairline with a quick jab and a few twists to each.
When the needles were placed, she turned his hands palm down and put two more into the space between ring finger and little finger. "These acupuncture points are for headache cure and memory, and the herbs aid in restoring balance to your system. This isn't a truth serum, of course�with your bloodstream so full of Kerasine, I can't use anything powerful. It's only to help your body recover and strengthen your mind. Lie still and relax. In a few minutes we'll be ready to draw out your memories. Is there anything you need?"
"Yeah," said Bean, staring at the fluorescent ceiling lights. "Her." He lifted one hand and made a searching gesture in Rally's general direction. "Damn, this is getting worse. I just see a big white glare."
"I'll give you two some privacy," said the old woman with a twinkle, and left the room, closing the door behind her.
Rally came forward and sat on the swivel stool. "I'm here, Bean."
"Thanks, girl. Can I touch you?" He closed his hand around hers when she slid it under his palm. "You're stickin' with me after what I did to you? I'm gonna owe you big time."
"It's nothing. I'd do it for any...friend."
"That so? Didn't know you gave a damn if I lived or died."
"Of course I do."
"Thanks," he said again. "But it's a debt and I settle my debts. I'm gonna pay you back as soon as I can."
"Oh?"
"That's right. You'll have to name the price."
"OK..." She wondered what kind of payment he had in mind, but knew better than to refuse. "You seem to be getting more control over yourself, Bean."
"Yeah, it's just a constant urge now," he said, grinning. "I don't think it's gonna go down to nothing any time soon." He turned his head to look at her, his gaze unfocused. "Babe, I want to screw you so bad it hurts. Feels like I'm dying of thirst and you're a full keg of ice cold beer. Knowing you'll keep your word is all that's keeping me flat on my back here. Right?"
"Uhh...right."
"I don't want to force you, though. Not any more, I mean. I guess you talked me out of that."
"Good! This isn't how I thought I'd be spending my day!"
He was silent for a few moments, his expression difficult to read. "Do you want it?"
"Uh...no. But you knew that!" Rally tried to smile, but it felt like a desperate grimace. Could he even see her face? "I'm sure Granny Hao can solve the problem! If not, well..."
"Guess that'll have to do," he said obliquely.
"I don't want to delude you, Bean, even if the way you're talking is all due to the drug. You know you don't sound a thing like yourself!"
"No? What do I sound like when it sounds like me?"
"Well, you certainly never told me you dreamed about me before! I guess that's Kerasine talking...you certainly aren't the kind to, um, develop a crush on me or anything! I'm looking forward to seeing you get back to normal, anyway. This is all too weird!"
"Back to normal?" He gritted his teeth suddenly, and his hand clenched hard on hers. "Damn straight. There's only one way to get this over with and get rid of this goddamn monkey on my back!"
"Huh?"
"C'mon, Rally. Let me fuck you." He got up on one elbow "Right now."
"But�"
"Get up on top. I'll stay on my back like I'm supposed to." His disturbingly vague eyes alight, Bean unbuckled his belt. "Let's go for a ride, babe."
Rally darted a look at the closed door. That sly old woman�this had been her intention! If she refused, would he have another attack? "Can we...can we do it later? After we find out why you were sent to assault me? It...it might be important!"
"How important could that be? What harm's in it, anyway?" Bean sat up and took her around the waist.
"Bean, I'm a virgin! I told you that!"
"You were tryin' to get me to stop, yeah. But it ain't true, is it?"
"It IS true! I've never done it with anyone!"
"Shit." Bean's face began to go pale. "I didn't know�"
"NO!" Rally flung him flat on the cot and grabbed his fly. "I won't let you have another attack!" She got her hand inside his jeans but stopped at the barrier of his underwear. Bean reached down and freed his stiff penis from his clothing, then wrapped her hand around his shaft. Rally tried to back away, but her hand was trapped in his.
She hissed a terrified breath through her teeth. His erection was nearly as long as her forearm, and so thick that she could barely circle it with her fingers. The hot scent gave her the shivers. She couldn't do this�it was impossible!
"What if I...were to let you come in my mouth?" She put her free hand over her lips, wondering what had possessed her to say that. At least it wasn't intercourse! She'd do anything to avoid it, and that went double now that she'd seen this...thing! "Would that help? Probably not, huh?"
"Worth a try," said Bean, breathing hard. He'd looked shell-shocked from the instant her fingers had touched his penis. "You ever sucked a cock?"
"No..."
"Well, I'll tell you what to do. That OK?"
"OK."
"...You might want to start with putting it in yer mouth," said Bean after a pause.
Rally leaned down towards the big purple head of Bean's penis, but halted in midair with a gulp. She'd never fit that thing in her mouth! It was fist-sized, uncircumcised, and so hard that the skin stretched out nearly transparent.
"D-don't be scared," said Bean, his voice shaking. "It won't hurt ya. You won't have to do much anyway." He put his hand over hers and began to pump it up and down. "Kiss it a little. Please."
"A-all right." She squeezed her eyes shut and gave the head a quick peck, then another. It didn't feel so strange�smooth and very warm. She let her lips linger and tried an experimental lick with the tip of her tongue.
"Ohh...yeah..." muttered Bean. "Do that, babe." His hips pumped in a slow, intense rhythm, their hands sliding up and down his penis. "Feels good." Rally kept licking around the rim of the head, then ran her lips down his shaft and up again, and once there, she slowly covered the head with a glistening coat of saliva.
Bean looked transported, his eyes closed, his mouth open: she could feel the tremors building in his body. The head was lubricated now, so she tried to stretch her lips to envelop it. She didn't quite succeed, but Bean's body jack-knifed and he let out a cry.
"Rally! Oh man�here it comes..."
She raised her head and caught a big jet of semen directly up her nose. Gasping and spluttering, she caught the next jet on her upper lip and the last under her chin, which left her thoroughly drenched. The sharp smell caught her off guard; she started coughing and choking and scrabbling for a tissue. To her mixed chagrin and relief, Bean was laughing.
"Sorry!" said Bean. "You OK?" She couldn't answer with cum running over her lips, so she wiped it off and kept scrubbing away with half a dozen tissues. Bean sat up and reached for some himself. "Guess it startled you, huh? You really haven't done this before." He sounded wry and amused, almost like his usual self.
"I'll recover! How are you? Is that, uh, urge gone now?" She prayed that it was�how much more of this could she take?
Bean made a face, then glanced up at her with a look that made her heart shrivel. Hot, intense, thirsty. "Ya took the pressure off for a little while, I think. My eyesight's mostly back, but it ain't gone."
"Oh. Damn..."
Bean buttoned himself up. "Better call her back in here before I lose it again. I feel almost sane, but I guarantee this won't last." Rally threw the wad of tissues away and opened the door. Granny Hao was sitting on the stool in front of her counter, smoking her brass pipe with a knowing smile on her face, and smirked up at Rally when she emerged.
"So, problem solved? We'll just find out who's responsible for drugging him and let you two deal with that in your own way, hmm?"
"The problem's not solved, no."
"What? Didn't you just decide it wasn't such a bad idea after all?"
"No." Rally clutched her upper arms and hugged herself. "I didn't."
"Come on, girl, I can smell it! Can't fool this old lady when it comes to sex!" Granny Hao hopped off the stool and jabbed her pipe at Rally. "You've sucked him off at least! That didn't do the trick?"
"He says not."
"Too literal-minded, that's his problem..." muttered the old woman. "Well, you'll just have to screw him! Go on, go back and do the job right this time!" She flapped a hand at Rally and sat down again, putting her pipe in her mouth.
"I...I...he said the pressure's off for now! Can't we find out who did it first? Maybe we can solve it that way�I could argue him out of raping me, so maybe�"
Granny Hao shook her head in disgust. "If I was a lovely young woman in your line of work, I'd have jumped that young man's bones ten minutes after I met him! What's the�oh, I see!" She cackled and stood up. "You and that lusty little May! I didn't realize you're a lesbian!"
"No! I mean...no, I'm not gay." She felt her face turn red. "May and I don't...."
"Then what's the problem? Not interested in sex?" Granny Hao knocked the red ember out of her pipe. "What a pity. Youth's a stuff will not endure!" She snorted and shuffled into the back room, Rally following. Bean was still on the cot, a hand over his eyes and one knee drawn up. "All ready, Bean?"
"Yeah. I feel OK."
"Good! You stay right where you are and relax. I'm going to help you recover the memory of what happened to you."
"Hypnotism? I ain't too hot on that right now."
"Then think of it as concentration. This is nothing like what Goldie did to Rally, or what apparently has happened to you. That was simply forcible drugging with Kerasine, which takes little skill to exploit. I'm going to help you into a natural state that everyone slips into several times a day, if only for a few moments. It's not like being drugged, and the only commands you will pay heed to are those of your own mind. You can break out of trance whenever you wish."
"Huh." He looked skeptical, but shrugged.
"All right?"
"Yeah, OK. So what do I do?"
"Look at the clock on the wall. Watch the time go by. Imagine it's standing still...then moving backwards. You are going to move back in time by twenty-four hours..."
Bean's eyes focused on the clock and soon he was breathing regularly. Granny Hao droned on for several minutes about the clock hands, her cracked voice oddly soothing. Rally herself felt some tension ease away.
"Think about yesterday. Was yesterday a good day?"
"Up to about two in the afternoon, it was fine."
"Were you enjoying yourself?"
"Sure. Good weather and I had some errands to run. I broke my personal record time from home to Pep Boys."
"Sounds like fun. What did you buy there?"
"Case of 10w-30. November issue of Corvette. Set of grinder bits since I wore out all but one smoothing the ports on that gnarly ol' 427. One of those vinyl repair kits and a new gearshift knob for my old Mercury. I see a model of a '67 GT-500. Looks like hers down to the white stripes."
"Do you buy that?" Granny Hao switched to the present tense, just as Bean had. Rally stole a look at him and saw that his face had slackened, his eyelids fluttering rapidly. He had slipped imperceptibly into trance.
"I pick up the box and look at it. It's just a damn toy."
"Do you want it anyway?"
"Naw. Pretty to look at, but what'm I gonna do with it? It'll just get busted."
"Very likely. Now go somewhere else for me. All right?"
"Sure."
"It's two o'clock in the afternoon that same day. Where are you?"
"In my garage."
"What are you doing?"
"Working on a Ford small-block. I got the chambers and piston decks thermal-coated last week and the cylinders honed today and I'm finally gonna put the whole friggin' thing together. All the parts are on my bench. Valve train all laid out, I finally got the right roller lifters in the mail and I'm unpackin' a brand new set of moly rings. Oughta feel good but I think I'm gettin' sick. My head's full of clouds."
"Are you smoking?"
"Yeah."
"How many cigarettes have you had today?"
"Half a pack after breakfast. A couple after lunch. This pack tastes like floor sweepings since I ate."
"What happens to interrupt you?"
"The phone's ringing. My cell phone, so it's business."
"Who is it?"
"Fred Stoneman, he says, but the voice don't sound like I remember. I ain't heard from him in a couple of years anyway, but he's a friend of mine."
"What does he want?"
"He's askin' me to do a quick pickup. I'm startin' to feel kinda shitty, but I tell him OK�I ain't sure why."
"Where does he want you to go?"
"Downtown. Meet a man in a parking lot and follow his car."
"Are you going there?"
"Yeah, the 'Cuda's gassed up, so I'm takin' that. Short drive but I like to do it in style."
"Where are you now?"
"Parking lot. I see this guy in a red rice-burner�a '99 Prelude with about fifteen grand worth of aftermarket doodads stuck on, plate number NET PRFT. That's the one I'm supposed to follow. I give him a honk and he gives me one back and takes off down Division. He's tryin' to prove something, going about eighty in traffic, so I stick right on his ass. I'm nailed to him like a trailer hitch, six inches off his nice custom bumper. He speeds up, I speed up. He changes lanes, I change lanes. He slows down, I slow down�but first I make like I'm gonna dent his plastic bodywork with my big steel Mopar. Give him a little kiss and ease off.
�He's gettin' nervous and I laugh my head off. I feel a little better. But I can't get rid of the clouds in my head. Feels like my brain's running out my ears. I wonder if it's something I ate. But it wasn't, was it?"
"Where does he take you?"
"Out on the expressway and north. We drive about fifteen miles. Takes me to an alley back of a construction site, up in Wilmette. Nobody around that I can see. Tells me to get out an' come with him. I'm wondering what the hell is going on. He says not to resist, which strikes me funny. But it sinks in somehow and I wonder why."
"What does he do now?"
"Asks a few dumb questions, like what's the date and who's President. I answer, and then he asks me to put my hands out. He pulls out a set of steel bracelets and cuffs me, and I can't move because I ain't supposed to resist. Part of my head's yelling blue murder at me, but my body ain't cooperating yet. I start getting shaky because I'm trying so hard to move. I reach out and start to take a swing at him with both hands but it's in slow motion. He takes out a needle and sticks it in my neck and mainlines the whole load into me." Bean's lip lifted in a snarl.
"Oh, my God..." hissed Rally.
"I can feel that shit soaking through me like hot grease. It's burning hot and my mouth goes dry and my brain feels like it's frying on asphalt. Now I can't hardly think about fighting. He orders me to stand still and do everything he tells me, and I do it because my muscles won't twitch. Like this drug, this Kerasine shit, can lock down my body. But there's still this little voice in my head that's mine and it keeps screamin' at me to wake up and get the hell out of there, no matter how, because this guy could do anything to me. Cut my throat or..."
Rally put her hand to her throat, her gullet constricting. Bean had been even more helpless than she had been...
"Does he hurt you?" asked Granny Hao.
"Naw. He puts a blindfold on me, pats me down and takes all my knives and stuff. I just stand there, but I'm wanting to kill him so bad my legs are shakin'. Then he shoves me in the back of his car. Tells me to lie down and keep out've sight. He drives for a while, not too far. Left turn out of the alley, straight for five miles down a busy road with three stoplights, right turn, half mile, left turn and a curve, then a driveway and through a gate. Gets me out and takes off the blindfold and the cuffs.
�We're in an underground garage. There are people around and it's an office building. He takes me in and we get in the elevator. Sixth floor. He puts the blindfold and the cuffs back on. Walks me out and around a couple of corners, puts me in a room and I just sit there for a while. Then another guy comes in with a couple of muscleheads�I can hear 'em breathin'�and talks to me. I know him from the voice. But he ain't a friend of mine."
"Who?"
"Name of Nick Henry. He's in the rackets�gambling, long cons, a little Internet scam stuff."
Granny Hao turned to Rally. "Do you know him? Would he have any grudge against you?"
"Not that I know of. I never heard of him before."
She turned back to Bean. "Tell me more about this Henry fellow."
"Just a punk grifter. Never thought he had it in him. We got on each other's bad side a couple of years ago and ever since he's been on my ass. Too scared to get in my face, though. Just keeps tryin' to screw up my jobs. He badmouthed me to someone last month and I lost a contract...or almost did. I found him and I whipped his ass and I got him to admit he'd lied. Little shit."
"Does Henry say anything about Rally Vincent?"
"He doesn't. He kinda laughs for a while and pokes at me. I just sit there because he tells me not to move. I'm paralyzed. I want to get up and belt him but my legs won't cooperate. Henry slaps my face a couple times. It don't hurt because he can't hit worth shit. Then one more guy comes in. A doctor."
"A doctor?"
"He's got a medical case and he looks me over. He checks my heart and takes my blood pressure and he says everything's good. Then he takes out another needle and injects me."
"More Kerasine?"
"Makes me feel really awful, so it probably is. I hate that�that out-of-control feeling." Bean's face contorted and his eyes snapped open.
"Bean? Are you still under?"
"Naw." He sat up and swung his feet to the floor. "That command's getting loud again. Gettin' hard to listen to anything else." His eyes moved to Rally.
Granny Hao shook her head. "I was afraid of this. I can't use anything to help you stay under, not in your condition. You could rest and try again...if you think you can concentrate long enough."
"Don't worry." Bean grinned sideways. "I remember it now. He told me to forget, but I just busted it open. Thanks."
"Good for you! Then go on."
"OK, the doc shot me up. After a little while Henry started to talk to me. He asked me if I knew Rally Vincent. I said I did. He asked me if I'd ever thought about screwing her, and I said yes. Couldn't keep my mouth shut, you know? I had to answer. He didn't ask anything more, but he started telling me she wanted me."
Rally saw Bean swallow hard, but his face didn't change. "Claimed he knew all about her and that she wanted me bad but she'd never admit it. So he told me I had to go and do her. I finally got a little backbone and I told him he was full of shit. Told him that lady was a straight arrow and she'd never�" He flicked a quick glance at Rally, but she looked down and bit her lip.
After a pause, Bean resumed. "He got mad. The doc shot me up again. Henry kept it up until he got me to say I believed him, and dammit, I did. I thought I...needed her." He let out a short laugh, something halfway between a scoff and a groan. "Thought she'd go crazy for me if I screwed her, even if she was tellin' me to stop. Then he really got going."
"Going?" said Rally. Bean turned his eyes to her, his upper lip twitching in a snarl.
"Yeah, he described everything he wanted me to do to ya. Beat you up. Tie you with your clothes. Twist your tits. Screw you up the ass and then make you suck it clean�real nice guy. Must be reading way too much jerk-off material."
"But...but why? What did he have against me?"
"Babe, it ain't you he gives a damn about. It's me."
"I don't understand."
Bean slammed one fist into the other hand. "I understand it too damn well! He wanted me dead, he didn't want it traced back to him, and this is how he figured he could do it!"
"I was a way to kill you?"
"He knew you had gone up against me before and that you didn't like me much. You were the toughest dame in Chicago, he said, and you had the cops wrapped around your little finger. So he must've wanted to get you mad at me, mad enough to kill me. The worst thing he could think of, maximum pain and humiliation."
"Yes," said Rally, feeling a little light-headed with shock. "That probably would have done it."
"Yeah. You'd be sure to kill me afterwards if you hadn't done it the moment I showed up."
"You'd have deserved it."
"Damn straight I would have."
"Not so bad a plan," said Rally, tapping her chin. "It would look like you just got high and went crazy. A Kerasine OD can do awful things to anyone. I wouldn't say I've got the cops on a string, but I have friends on the force, sure. Not many people would call it murder if I shot you because of something like that, so there wouldn't be much of an investigation. I doubt Nick Henry cares if I go to jail, but he wouldn't want his involvement uncovered."
"Well, there you go. Just about perfect." Bean slammed the fist into his hand again, his expression frightening.
"How about the headaches? Why did he tell you to have a stroke?"
"I said I wouldn't screw you that way. I wouldn't hurt you. He said if I didn't do it my brain was going to rip itself apart in my skull. The doc shot me up one more time and ol' Nick gave me a demonstration. Left me pukin' on the floor. I don't know if he knew it was likely to do real damage, but it's not like he would've minded."
"No. Then he told you to forget about him giving you the order?"
"Yeah. He told me to lose my memory of the whole thing, from the phone call on down, and they drove me back to my car and told me to go home. I fell into bed with all my clothes on when I got there and I didn't wake up until morning."
"How come you didn't crash your car on the way?"
"I don't care how stoned I was, babe." Bean grinned with a shade of triumph. "I don't forget how to drive."
"Heh. So you woke up without any memory of Henry, but�?"
"I didn't remember what had happened, but I sure remembered that I had to screw you. He covered all his bases, except one."
"Which is?"
"He didn't tell me not to come kill him if his plan didn't work out. There's his mistake."
"And one other mistake, the biggest one he made..."
"He didn't know you knew me better than that." Bean smiled out of one side of his mouth, his face warming. "He must've thought I'd stick it to any gal I felt like. You may not like me, babe, but you know I ain't that kind."
"Um...yeah." Rally smiled back for a moment, the warmth moving between them. She looked away when Bean's expression heated. "Great! You've broken free of his orders, one by one. First the ones you resisted the most�to hurt me, and to ignore me if I told you to stop. Now you've broken his order to forget your conditioning. All that's left is the order to have sex with me, and to have a brain rupture if you fail." She turned to Granny Hao. "So how can we break the remaining ones? Shouldn't be a problem, huh?"
"Bean?" said the old woman. "What do you think of Rally's assessment?" She raised her brows and pursed her thin lips, plucking the acupuncture needles out of his scalp and forehead.
Rally looked back at Bean with hope. Her rising mood crashed instantly when she saw his face. Hot, his eyes burning red with broken capillaries, his expression as lustful as she'd seen it yet.
"Granny, you got any beer?" said Bean. "I'm gettin' damn thirsty." She filled a paper cup with bottled water and handed it to him. Bean drank it off and stood up, the cot creaking as it relinquished his weight.
"But...why?!" Rally put her hands up defensively. "Why is that order still active when the rest are gone? Why can't you convince yourself�"
"I don't know, babe. You talked me out of a lot of it, so give yourself the credit. I don't want to hurt you and I don't want to force you. All that's left is...I gotta have you."
"But maybe if�"
"Nothing else is gonna help. No one but you. I can feel that all the way down to my balls. I got rid of most of it, but I can't get rid of that." Bean stepped up to her and grabbed her shoulders. "Now, babe. You got all the facts. I've been waitin' real patient. Let me do it."
"But...but, Bean�"
"You promised me."
"You most certainly did," remarked Granny Hao.
"But now you can erase the command! Hypnotize him again and...and do something! Find Nick Henry and make him take it back! Give him the antidote!"
"Bean," said Granny Hao, "go into the other room for a moment, would you? I need to talk to Rally."
He looked hard at both of them. "OK. Don't leave it too long, or I'm coming back on my own." Bean went out and closed the door.
The old woman folded her arms and took a deep breath. "There IS no antidote, Rally. There is only Bean's state of mind."
"But he's got the will to overcome Kerasine-reinforced commands! He's done it already!"
"Yes, he resisted the order to harm you all by himself. You helped him shake off the order to rape you, and I did the same with the order to forget his conditioning. He wanted to break all those orders, so the difficulty wasn't insurmountable."
"You mean he doesn't truly want to avoid having sex with me!"
"Need you ask?" the old woman snorted. "But he knows you want to avoid it, so don't blame his conscious mind. It's a little more complicated than that. He desires you, and I'd guess that's been the case for a long time."
"Well, he said so, but that must have been the drug! He never even dropped a hint for years!"
"So he's suppressed it all this time?"
"Or it didn't EXIST all this time! Well...uh, actually he's made a joke once in a while. Like teasing me about following him around on his jobs or calling his number when I was trying to track him down...just jokes!"
"Ah. Of course, suppressing an emotion only makes it stronger."
"Oh, Jesus..."
"Here's my analysis. Nick Henry's order has brought something to the surface that Bean never intended to make known to you. What you are seeing is a coincidence of intentions�a combination of pent-up natural emotion and single-minded artificial encouragement." Granny Hao shrugged. "I can't even imagine how powerful his urges must be."
"All right, so he wants me! What's reinforcing the last order? Why can't he stop forcing himself to have a stroke when he doesn't get what he wants?"
"That's the deadly part. I don't know. Probably only Nick Henry has the answer to that question."
"Then we just have to go nail Nick Henry!" Rally grabbed for the doorknob, but Granny Hao shook a knobby finger at her.
"Don't! If you refuse him again, he'll have an attack!"
"You don't know that�"
The old woman seized her wrist. "Don't toy with him any longer! The risk is too great! You do realize what will happen to him?"
"Sort of..."
"Even one more stroke may render him permanently blind. The best driver in Chicago! You of all people know what that will mean for him."
Rally had no reply.
"Continued strokes will slowly destroy his brain, leaving him paralyzed, speechless and incontinent. Then, he will die. But of course you know how to prevent that."
"But�"
"You are the antidote, Rally. Give yourself to him, or he will die."
"Give myself...?" Suddenly she felt as if someone heavy and strong had tackled her to the floor, and panic welled up again. "But...but I can't!"
"Why on earth not?"
"I'm a virgin!"
"Is that all?" The old woman chuckled. "Seems like high time you did something about that!"
"No..." Nameless fears gibbered in her ears.
"Now honestly, Rally. What is more important to you? This young man's life, or your, ah, pristine state?"
"Both of them are pretty damn important!"
"Listen, girl. Once it's over with, you'll wonder why you bothered to keep it so long!"
"How do you know what I feel about this?!"
"I became a woman when I was much younger than you are, girl, and I had NO say in the matter. Consider yourself fortunate!"
"I'm frightened! Please! You know he attacked me�I'm still shaking from that! Isn't there any other way?"
"You know very well there isn't!" snapped Granny Hao. "I'm ashamed I have to talk you into this, after you've seen how courageously he's borne the pain!"
"I've borne a lot too!" screamed Rally. "He nearly RAPED me!" She knew Bean could hear her out in the dispensary, but she didn't care. "He threatened to do exactly what Nick Henry told him to do! He would have split me open!"
"Ah! If it's pain you're afraid of�"
That wasn't the whole story, but... "He's huge," whimpered Rally, covering her face with her hands. "He's gonna kill me!"
"Oh, no need to worry! I can solve that in a moment!"
"Huh? How?"
"A special treatment of mine!"
"No drugs!"
"A few acupuncture needles. You won't feel any pain when he enters you. Naturally I know how to do it so that you won't miss the pleasure either!" The old woman rubbed her hands with lecherous glee.
"I don't expect much of that!"
"Good heavens, girl! What do you want? A handsome, strapping young man who adores the ground you walk on, and you don't think he'll give you pleasure?"
"Adores...? What are you talking about?!"
"I'm not going to waste time convincing you of that!" Granny Hao flapped a hand at her impatiently. "Take off your clothes. I'm going to stimulate a few qi points and get this nonsense over with!"
Rally locked stares with the old woman, her body trembling all over. This was it, then. She had no alternative but to comply, and Nick Henry's plot was going to succeed, at least in part. With grim resignation, she jerked her skirt and blouse off and kicked her shoes away.
Granny Hao opened the door an inch and spoke quietly to Bean. He replied shortly, with an impatient tone. She could just shoot Bean now, so his death would be quick... She put her shoulder holster on the floor under the cot and lay down in her underwear. Granny Hao snorted and fetched her needles.
"Zhi bian," she muttered, poking tiny sharp stingers into the upper curves of Rally's buttocks. "Zha liao." That was in the top of the crack. "Shen shu..." She placed two on each side of the lower spine. Two more in the backs of the knees completed the set. A mild burning at the insertion points was all Rally could feel of the needles. The old woman then began to massage Rally's shoulders and upper back. "Relax, for heaven's sake. Tension causes pain. Why be so afraid?"
"I just don't want to do it. Not with him, not with anyone."
"Ever?"
"Never."
"Hmm. Well, that's not possible now, if you want to save his life. You do want to save his life?"
"Yes. I never thought it would come down to this!"
"He'll give you pleasure, I promise you." The old strong hands kneaded away a painful knot. "I've done this for many young women who never even met their first man until he walked in the door of the bedroom!"
"You mean...prostitutes."
"Of course. They enjoyed their first and every one after, if the men had an ounce of ability! No worries there, of course! I can see it in the way he holds himself�he knows how to please a woman."
"Really."
"Don't scoff! I've had sixty years of experience in three countries and eight whorehouses! I can spot masculine talent a block away."
"I never wanted any man, no matter how talented he might be..."
"Men's organs are meant for women's organs! The Jade Pole parts the Pearl Flower...what is more fitting?" The old woman cackled salaciously.
"Whatever. Couldn't you just hypnotize me unconscious or something?"
"What an idea! No, of course not." Granny Hao gave each needle a twirl, then bent them flat and put Band-Aids over them to keep them in place. "You're all ready, my dear. Take off the rest of your clothes, and here's a blanket." She tossed a thin cotton one at Rally and opened the door. "Bean, come in."
A slow step, and he filled the doorway, looking downcast and sullen. "Maybe I better get the hell out of here before I do somethin' I'm gonna regret. Just go get Henry, then drive my car into the goddamn lake and get it over with." He zipped up his leather jacket and stuck his hands in the pockets.
"Bean, that's not necessary. She promised to help you, and she will!" Granny Hao opened a drawer and put a strip of condoms on the head of the cot. "Clean up if you make a mess. I'm going to open up shop, so take as long as you need." She grabbed Bean's elbow and yanked him into the room.
"Rally?" said Bean, his head hanging low. What she could see of his expression was so tormented with shame that her fear began to mutate to something more uncertain. At least she had some control over her emotions. He didn't have even that shred of dignity.
She let her bra and panties fall on the floor, wrapping the blanket around herself. "I promised."
"I ain't ever gonna be able to pay this one back, lady. I don't like runnin' up debts I can't pay." He didn't seem able to look her in the face.
"I said I'd do it! Will you just get it over with?!"
"No," said Bean, raising his head. "I ain't gonna do it." His face blanched to the color of ash, but he managed to smile into her eyes. "I ain't that kinda scumbag, and that's all there is to it." Teeth gritted, he turned to the door as if to leave, tottered and fell to his knees.
"Bean, no! You'll die!" That was her voice, her panic taking her by surprise. She leaped off the cot, clutching the blanket.
"I'd...rather...die..." he gasped out between agonized pants. "I got my pride. Gonna break this or�"
"You stupid macho idiot! Do you want Nick Henry to win?"
Bean slumped to all fours. "I ain't...nngghh...lettin' him... ngh!...win this one..." He tried to get up and collapsed on his back, jaw jutting at the ceiling. "Vincent...take care of him for me..." His eyes rolled up into his head.
"Bean!" Rally seized his jacket lapels and tried to lift him.
"Unngghh...!"
"We are not going to lose this one, Bean!" she screamed into his face. "I am not going to lose YOU!" Rally stripped off the blanket she wore wrapped around her naked body. "You are going to have sex with me, and THAT is all there is to it!" She ripped his jeans open and took his penis in her hand. It stood up huge and hard as before, though its owner was half unconscious and groaning in pain.
Granny Hao was watching, her expression half voyeuristic, half sharply observant, and she hissed at the sight. "Get out of here, you old panderer!" cried Rally. Granny Hao looked startled, but slipped out and closed the door.
Rally threw a leg over Bean's body and knelt above him, the head of his penis pressing up against her vulva. "I'm going to do it now, Bean. The antidote!" She took a deep breath, closed her eyes and bore down.
Two huge hands seized her shoulders and yanked her sideways. Rally fell on her elbow, sprawling on the floor, and rolled backwards. Bean lunged at the same time and they landed with him lying half on top of her, her legs wrapped around his thighs. "Stop that!" he choked out. "I ain't gonna screw you!"
"Oh, yeah? You seem to have revived, so I'd say you want it!"
"NO! I won't bust your�" His eyes were squeezed shut, but he moved so that he lay entirely between her legs, his genitals pressing on hers. Sweat sprang out on his forehead.
"Look at you! You can't stop yourself!" She grabbed his hips and tried to pull him down. He reared back and sat up, stuffing his penis back into his pants, then opened his eyes and froze.
Rally thought for a moment that he was having another attack, but his gaze locked to her naked breasts and his face darkened. They sat on the floor a few feet apart, legs interlaced, and the sudden silence pounded in her ears.
"Bean?" Rally whispered.
His eyes moved jerkily over her, closing spasmodically as if she were too much to take in at once, and his hands trembled. "Damn," was all he managed to say. "God...damn..."
"It's all right, Bean. Come here." She rose and patted the cot next to her. "Come and...let's do it."
"Everything I want...right in front of me," he said. "Hurts to look at you."
It almost hurt her to look at his face. "Then I'll pick up the blanket�"
"That's OK, beautiful lady," he said with a faint laugh. "Reckon I'll get used to it in a minute." He inched a little closer and got up on one knee, his gaze riveted to her. "Hey, you're the same color all over. Kinda like honey."
"Are you the same color all over, Bean?" she said, laughing shakily. Despite herself, his palpable longing was affecting her. Adored the ground she walked on...? That was a flattering assertion at the very least.
"Guess that's a hint, huh?"
"I never liked being the only naked one in a room."
He grinned at her, pulled off his boots and stood. His clothes came off with dispatch and he flung them on the floor.
For her the shock wasn't extreme, since she had once seen him naked, though she still felt a jolt when his heavy muscles and long legs were bare. So big, so strong and forceful, but one part of him was more under her control than his. The thick staff of his erect penis bobbed its head at her.
"Damn, I'm glad I got my eyesight back," he said, still looking at her.
"You're welcome."
"Am I?" Bean sat down next to her on the cot. "Say the word, babe." He hadn't touched her yet, but her skin tingled uncomfortably at the thought of his hands on her nude body.
"Go ahead." Adrenaline fading, she began to shake, and closed her eyes.
"Uhh... Can I kiss you?"
"What?" Rally's lids flew open.
"You made me promise not to..."
"You want to kiss me?"
"Yeah. Please."
"Do you have to?"
"Technically, no." He looked at his erection for a moment. "Will you let me anyway?"
What was a kiss? Nothing but lips and tongue and spit? No, it was the most emotional part of the lovemaking she'd had to bear today...and lovemaking was all she could call it. While Bean had fought the brutal command embedded in his unconscious, he had touched her as gently as he could manage and kissed her in a way that had let her know something else was under his threatening guise.
That kiss had aroused her suspicions and her unwilling body, disturbing her almost more than anything else he had done. Simple kissing expressed much more than fucking ever would. Prostitutes didn't let their clients kiss them, only their lovers, and right now she felt like Granny Hao's latest recruit. Did she want Bean's drug-induced affection, or not? Would it make the experience more bearable, or less?
"If I do let you kiss me...all right, you can kiss me. No getting mushy on me, right? This doesn't mean anything like that�it's only an antidote!"
"Whatever you say, babe," said Bean, and leaned over. No embrace, no confinement�just his lips on hers for a moment, and a happier sigh. "Don't feel right without that. Thanks." He put his arms around her and lifted her onto his lap, then took her mouth again.
Rally let her head fall back and leaned into his arms. Perhaps Granny Hao's treatment was working�she didn't feel as tense or jumpy as she had, and a feeling of warmth crept through her lower body. Bean kissed her with open lips and their tongues began to slide together. So far, it seemed bearable.
He tasted only of himself now, to her tentative response, and his scent didn't seem so rankly aggressive�the complex emotional notes of his sweat had changed key. Bean put a hand on her thigh and stroked it while they explored each other's mouths. Wedged between them as she sat on his lap, his erect penis dug into her hip. Had he ever lost that hard-on? He had said he'd woken up with it, so he could have had it for hours.
Rally tried to scoot a little farther away, and Bean leaned into her, tongue probing deep. His hand slid between her thighs and parted them. She felt a pulse in her groin, a pulling-up feeling as she tightened every muscle, trying to close herself off, create some kind of barrier against him. Treatment or not, she was sure this was going to hurt.
Bean's fingers cupped her sex. Freeing her mouth, he began to kiss along the line of her jaw; he didn't move his hand, keeping his fingers curled over her hair. Rally arched her neck and Bean slid his lips to the pit of her throat, then kissed his way up again to her ear. His breath echoed in the sensitive spot between nape and jaw, his lips tasting her skin. Their heads swayed back and forth together as her eyes gradually closed. She heard herself sigh, and he echoed her in the same tone.
Her eyes snapped open. Already he had one finger between the petals of her labia, and he was pressing deeper. Dipping into the moist entrance of her vagina, he gathered some of her juices and spread them over her clit. He started a slow rhythm, stroking upward and lifting, then plunged a finger into her.
"Ohh...!" she said in surprise.
"That OK?"
"Um...yeah." She bit her lips and tried to relax. "Is there something I should do?"
"Nah," said Bean, his head bowing lower. "You take it easy." He rubbed his face over her breasts, burrowing his nose between them. Continuing to stroke her clit with his thumb and thrust his forefinger into her, he kissed her breasts with leisurely attention.
Rally closed her eyes again, listening to the light slurping and feeling little quivers travel along her nerves, from breasts to sex. Bean's hair brushed her chest and tickled under her chin, his warm tongue moving and swirling around her erect nipples. She wasn't sure whether to give in to her growing arousal. His fingers stroking her moist folds brought out a moan, then a long sigh of escalating pleasure that she couldn't stop.
This was reminding her of what had happened on her living room sofa: he'd been preparing to rape her then, less than an hour ago. Her body had still responded, even though her fear and anger had tried to defend her, furious at the invasion. There was the real core of her reluctance�she feared some kind of personal dissolution if she let herself go, if she let her guard drop so far as to allow someone into her body and take some private bit of herself for his own. She'd never imagined that she would enjoy giving up her body to a man, and her fight to keep Bean from raping her had only reinforced that conviction.
So powerful a resolution, now disintegrating by the second. Now she had given consent, though under some duress, and her responses threatened to multiply out of control. This was only an antidote�Bean wasn't her boyfriend, he wasn't even an ordinary friend. He was still largely unknown to her, an exasperatingly calm, cool operator with an iron set of rules and little emotional surface: fascinating and infuriating and totally self-sufficient, someone without attachments or involvements of any kind.
Nevertheless, he was making love to her with earnest desire and the same confident skill he brought to his peerless driving. That thought, to her irritation, pushed her over the edge, and she gasped out a sudden orgasm.
"Sweetheart," muttered Bean, catching her in his arms and pressing his lips to hers. "You're so beautiful..."
"D-don't�no mushy stuff!" The declaration sounded so strange from him that she recoiled even as she returned the kiss, her body throbbing with climactic aftershocks. Kerasine was terrible stuff, as if she'd needed any more evidence.
He was much too far gone to pay her any heed. The room spun as he lifted her and laid her down on her back, the cot creaking with their combined weight. Reaching for the condoms Granny Hao had left, Bean bit one out of the packet and put it on. He settled between her legs and began to probe for her entrance. "I just want to make you feel good, Rally darlin'."
"Ohhh!" The tip of his penis slipped inside as he pressed it against her wet vulva. "Stop!" She felt no pain, only a teasing pressure.
"You sure you want me to do that?" Bean flexed his hips and sank deeper. "Oh, sweetheart..."
"Ohhh..."
"You feel so hot in there. Want me?"
"Oh, oh god..." Rally tossed her head from side to side, panting with her eyes tight shut. "Bean...be careful..." Only the head of his penis was inside her, and she waited for the rest with trembling anticipation. Even if it did hurt a little, she thought, that might not be such a disaster...
"Tell me you want me, baby. I want you so bad..." He thrust hard and opened her completely. She felt him enter her tight flesh, a warm polished slide aided by her slick juices�something ripped, but it was only a sensation, not discomfort. The complete absence of pain surged through her with the sweetest relief, pleasure in itself.
"OHHH!" Rally bucked and clutched Bean's shoulders, her pelvis working up and down. Her vagina stretched to accommodate Bean's thick penis, the fullness inside her like well-machined parts locking into place. Filled with his body, she could not restrain her cry of shocked gratification. "BEAN! Oh, god, Bean..."
"Beautiful lady..." He kissed her and cut off all speech on both sides. Tongues working frantically together, they heaved in unison, moaning. She met Bean's thrusts with her own, feeling his hard shaft part her clinging tissues and tug them back and forth.
So open, so close�the reality was nothing like the dread, and as excitement shot through her Rally gave herself over to the moment, riding the rhythm of pleasure the way she did the drumbeat of combat. The intensity was similar, but there the comparison stopped.
His groin hair tangling with hers, Bean tilted his pelvis and rubbed his pubic bone over her clit as his hips rocked hers. Rally lost all logical thought in the swirling heat of sex, her only concern the feelings that Bean excited in her.
"Oh, baby, you do want me, don't you?" groaned Bean, dropping kisses all over her face. "You want me to fuck you, don't you?"
"Yes...oh yes..."
"Ahhh..." sighed Bean.
Her body pulsed in time with her lover's strokes, her hands wandering over his heaving back and his sweaty hair. Bean kissed her neck and shoulder with his face pressed into her throat while Rally rolled her head back and forth on the cot, her mind lost in a warm whirlpool of sensation.
His scent...and his thrusting weight...and the gloriously intimate invasion of her body, the utter vulnerability of each of them to the other and to their coupling, on every level that it was felt�she reveled in the multiplying spiral of intensity. "Oh...you feel so good..."
"Better'n dreams, darlin'," replied Bean. He slowed down and thrust deeper.
"Oh! Ohh..." Rally felt a trembling itch in her loins, a marvelous irritation that needed soothing. She savored it, breathing deeply to let the feeling permeate her. Bean supported himself on one hand and slid the other down between their bodies, finding the point of their connection, his penis continuing to move in and out of her as he searched for and found the sensitive nub he wanted.
She cried out. Stroking her with his fingers, Bean kept his eyes fixed on her face as she whimpered, as she felt the irritation grow and gather until it had to release. With a scream that started at the root of her soul, Rally climaxed.
Her vision went dark, her body arched, and her vagina clenched around his penis as if to hold it within her forever. Pleasure? Somehow even without experience she had realized the consuming power of sex, which could be used as either the worst crime or the greatest gift in life. Finally she had the key to the essential difference: the joy of letting someone else share her body, letting a man share himself with her.
At that moment, that joy was everything she wanted: long-suppressed and unsuspected emotions burst open, flooding her with the strongest ecstasy she had ever known, because this man, who took her body with such passion, was everything too...
Bean waited until she opened her eyes, his sharp white teeth exposed in a panting smile, his tongue running along his dry lips as his eyes glazed over. Sweat ran freely down his face and he began to move again, slowly at first; it was her turn to watch his rapidly approaching loss of control, tenderness rippling through her as Bean dropped his hands on each side of her body and began to pound his hips into her, groaning. "Rally...gonna come...gonna..."
"I want you to." She cradled his face in her hands and stroked back a lock of his hair, smiling into his eyes. "Please come in me, Bean!"
"Lady..." His face contorted and his jaw clenched, then relaxed. With an expression so blissful she barely recognized him, Bean leaned down and crushed his lips to hers, his penis pressing so hard inside her it seemed she could feel every ridge and vein. "No one but you," he said into her mouth, and climaxed with a sound like the most powerful engine ever built.
About ten seconds later, as Rally lay in wonderment, tears in her eyes and a reply on her lips, Bean pushed up on his hands with a sudden jerk and looked down at her.
"Sorry."
For the first time since she had seen him step into her kitchen doorway, his gaze seemed as clear and hard�and as cool�as it had always been.
"Sorry? For what?" Only slowly could she recall how she had arrived in this bed with him. All that seemed to matter was how she had felt in his embrace, and what he had said to her. Her smile was warm and tremorous. "Are you back to normal?"
"Yeah. Uh...I gotta thank you for that. Hope I didn't hurt you."
"No, I'm all right...a little bruised from fighting in the kitchen, I guess, but nothing bad. How much do you remember?"
"Ahh, shit." Bean rolled off her, his softening penis leaving her body with a liquid sound. It felt like she had lost something. "All of it. Seems like it was someone else doin' it, but it's all there, dammit." He sat down on the cot and briefly put his head in his hands, letting out a low growl like a waking lion. "You shoulda shot me."
"Well...um, it was a good thing I didn't!"
"I dunno." He got up, discarded the condom and looked for his jeans, then picked them up and pulled them on. He didn't look at her.
"What do you mean?"
"Shit, lady, I just busted your cherry!" he snarled, holding up his blood-smeared right hand. "You must be mad as hell!"
"Mad? Oh, Bean, no! It didn't hurt or anything..." Rally sat up and did a quick self-exam. Her fingers came away pink, but still there was no pain. She pulled off the bandages and took out the needles. "It wasn't your fault, anyway. And...Bean, you know I�"
"I feel like crap no matter whose fault this was." Bean pulled on his shirt and picked up his boots. His motions were hasty and aggressive, anger seething in every breath. "You oughta be mad, because I sure am. I'm gonna pulverize that bastard Henry. Want to help?"
"But I...I thought you..." The warmth in her heart, which had filled to overflowing, began to drain as if through a jagged hole. "I thought you wanted..."
"What? You think I wanted to do that to you? I can't believe I was actin' like some kinda pervert. No wonder you knew something was up. That just ain't me."
"Not you?" With Bean now dressed, Rally felt conspicuously naked again, though he sat with his back to her and never turned his head. Keeping his distance, when one minute before he had been kissing her passionately, his body knowing hers as intimately as it could be known. Rally quickly put on her clothes and stood up, a weird mortified pain hollowing itself a place in her chest. "What part of it wasn't you?"
"All of it. I sure said some crazy things to you, but I didn't mean 'em...I mean, I don't mean 'em now. Just forget it all if you can. I'm going to do that�just as soon as I break every bone in that little shit's body."
"You're going to forget it just like that?"
"Guess you can't do that, huh?" He turned his head halfway, then looked at her when he registered that she was dressed. "Don't blame you. I ain't going to be walking around with a reminder the way you are."
He seemed determined to misunderstand her, or perhaps to deflect the question by changing the circumstances. Was he embarrassed at what he had said to her? Or had it really all been a drug-induced euphoria? The only problem with that theory was that she herself had taken nothing.
Rally dipped her head. "I said it didn't hurt. That's not what is going to be difficult to forget." She waited for a response, but Bean merely put on his armored jacket and stroked his messy hair back with his fingers. "I guess I'm going to have to be the one to say it, then."
"Say what?" said Bean, opening the door to the dispensary.
"All fucked out?" said Granny Hao with cheerful vulgarity. "I see you're ready to roll, Bean."
"Hey, Granny. Thanks for the help. Yeah, I'm fine. Aside from bein' mad enough to chew nails." He stalked past the counter and to the street door of the pharmacy.
"That's understandable! Going to take care of Henry now?"
"Damn straight. Hey, Vincent!" he yelled. "You takin' a cab home, or are you comin' with?"
Rally came out of the back room and looked at Bean as he stood with one hand on the doorknob, a feral expression on his long-jawed face and his black hair bristling around his head. "I'm coming. But let's go by my place to get some equipment first."
"Fine. Let's ride." He slammed the door open and went out.
Rally looked at the amused old woman. "I have to go, but I haven't forgotten about payment. Maybe you couldn't prevent...well, you helped us a lot." She felt a growing sting between her legs. "Call me about what I owe you."
"That's going to take some thought." Granny Hao put her pipe between her lips with a smile. Rally shivered a little, but headed for the door. "A little pleasure, eh? He knows how to get the job done right?"
Rally blushed, knowing her cries of ecstasy had been audible all through the shop�probably all up and down the block. She flashed a sheepish smile. "It wasn't what I expected."
"Probably wasn't what he expected either," said Granny Hao, and blew a perfect smoke ring.

Continued in Part Three!
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