Free Leper Tango by David MacKinnon

drinks, which involved walking through the kitchen past the gaping, hostile stares of our new stable mates. Small talk or pedestrian courtesies were not an option either Sheba or I was inclined to exercise.
    She lay on her back. We had been acting out a number which she had laid out for me the previous day. It involved tying her up, gagging her and raping her. I had tied her up, and was fucking her from the top.
    â€œStop.”
    â€œWhat’s the matter?”
    â€œI want you to hit me.”
    â€œWhatever. Where?”
    â€œIn the face.”
    I pushed my left hand into her throat and kept her head rigid. I delivered a solid cuff across the left cheek, then backhanded her across the right. Her face folded into a grimace which I initially mistook for pain.
    â€œI said hit me, espèce d ’ imbécile ! As hard as you can.”
    â€œHave it your own way.”
    I wound up this time, a good telephone booth swing.
    I think I was recalling an old newsclip of Sammy Snead blasting the ball out of the 18 th sandtrap at Augusta with his sand wedge. My open hand made a sharp ping as it collided with her face, and left the palm of my hand a scarlet red. The force of it knocked her to the other side of the bed. She righted herself, and lifted her hand up to her mouth. A trickle of blood spurt from the inside of her mouth. Her tongue licked it dry, but the moisture prevented the blood from clotting and it leaked out in a steady trickle.
    For a moment, we stared at each other wordlessly, listening to the heavy, thudding steps of the Newfie marching down the hallway towards our room.
    â€œEverything all right in there?”
    â€œT ’ inquiète pas.” Sheba had not turned her face away, and was still displaying a smile of lurid satisfaction. As if she had found something she had lost for a long time.
    â€œThat’s better. Now, play it again, Sam . But, this time on the other side.”
    The next afternoon, things deteriorated. The Newfie, whose overtures not a week earlier when she met Sheba had been replete with lesbo-friendly we’re all sisters jargon, was pounding on the door so loudly it shook.
    â€œI want to talk to the two of you,” called the Newfie. “Go away,” responded Sheba from the other side of
    the door. “We are busy.” She looked at me and placed her index finger over her pursed lips, and pried open the lower lip as if she were shucking an oyster.
    â€œThis cannot wait.”
    Even from the other side of the door, I could sense some apprehension in the Newfie’s fury. She had been accustomed to pushing people around, whether men or women, big or small, and her Amazon physique and 38 Triple C tits coupled with a rude, brassy voice and lack of manners had served her bullying ways well in her local society. But, even the Newfie’s thick skull could detect through the previous week ’s renovations, the newly installed mirrors and canapés, the boxes of perfume still arriving by courier, the lavender veils and catwalk fashions and general air of secrecy which had suddenly enveloped the place that, whatever Sheba was, she didn’t fall under any definition of the word sister .
    Sheba stood up and walked across our room to her vanity table. She glanced at me, shrugged, reached inside the top drawer. She pulled out a large wad of bank notes and slipped them inside the lavender, ruffled panties clinging to her cunt as if an alternating current were running through them. As she walked towards the door, I noticed she was making an effort to suppress a smile. She stopped short, and looked at me. Through the glistening eyes and moist lips, she was telegraphing one of her favourite messages, one which I would learn to decipher before long. Act II. Scene III. My next piece of prey. Then, she opened the door. The Newfie opened up festivities with an announcement.
    â€œI am missing five thousand dollars from my safety deposit box.”
    I had never