Melissa MacNeal - Beyond Redemption

So I thrust back to meet my lover stroke for stroke, gripping the bars alongside my hips as I bent forward to receive him. He began to ram faster, sensing we played on borrowed time…sensing we both were on the verge of a noisy climax that would bring the others in here.

"God, Billy, give it to me!" I rasped, bracing myself against the metal bars to take his full length. "Please say you'll never leave me again!"

"If it's good loving' you want, I'm your man, Andrea," he assured me breathlessly. "I'm gonna shoot…hang on, I'm gonna-"

He was banging me like a crazy man, driving that thing inside me until I thought I might die from the pleasure of it. Like a wild animal he rutted, gripping my hips. When I tightened around him, the explosion was so swift and stunning I saw stars and started to pass out. Billy's incoherent love words floated around me, and then he gushed.

Sometime between my howl of release and Tripplehorn's final shudder, the back hallway came alive with a commotion of another kind: my eyes flew open to see Perfidia and Pink wheeling Virgil Furmeister, chair and all, into the adjoining jail cell-while Pandora yanked the keys from his belt loop! The deputy was hollering obscenities, but with his pants down around his legs and three wily women surrounding him, he was powerless. He had no idea how those half-naked Gypsies could move so fast-how they shoved his chair into the cell, slammed the door, and triumphantly turned the skeleton key in its lock before he could defend himself.

Trouble was, Pandora had already unlocked the door to Billy's cell, while the other two darted close enough to murmur appreciatively as my young lover pulled out of me.

"Better run for it, Billy!" Pink said with a giggle. "We'll catch up as soon as we can, big boy!"

No fool, he yanked his pants up around his butt and bolted, blowing me a kiss as he disappeared down the hall. My face was aflame and I could feel his seed oozing down my thighs. Damn him for leaving me yet again! Exposing my passions to the very women who didn't need to see it!

"I don't know what you Gypsies think you're doing, but-"

"You've had two turns with him, so now we'll take ours!" Miss Pink exclaimed.

And before I could lower my skirt, to keep Virgil from gawking at my wet, bare backside, I was hoisted by superhuman hands. They tossed me into Billy's cell with a heave-ho that sent me skittering backwards against the wall. Before the sickening clank of the cell door died away, those three bitches had disappeared into thin air.

Gripped by an invisible hand, the key twisted in the lock. Then it, too, flew from the room.

"Furmeister!" a familiar voice called from the front office. "The crew's here to construct the gallows for Tripplehorn, so-"

His Honor, Harold Legg, gaped at us from the doorway. "What the hell kind of game is this, Virgil? You're supposed to be supervising-I have a funeral to-"

He stared at me, his face growing paler. Without his powdered wig and billowing black robe, Harry looked old and ordinary: his black suit hung limply on his frame, and a halo of fuzz, like the down on a baby duck, framed his pate. The lines on his face were etched more deeply today.

His large hands gripped and released at his sides…hands that had encircled his daughter's neck? I had a vision of Lucy's body being shaken until it hung limp like a rag doll-but that didn't explain the tooth marks. Harold Legg had indeed sucked the lifeblood from many a petty criminal's career, but he'd done it in broad daylight, with the power of his position.

"I don't have time for these shenanigans, Deputy," he snapped. "Where's Billy?"

Our situation wasn't funny, but I swallowed a laugh. The potbellied lawman had fastened his fly and prepared his story for this moment of truth. But how could he explain that three Gypsies had charmed the pants off him, locked him in his own jail, and then spirited his prisoner away? The truth, no matter how plainly and sincerely told, would never convince the magistrate who grew more irate by the second.

"The Gypsies took him, Your Honor."

"Gypsies? What the hell did Etta put in your coffee?" When the judge stepped closer, his eyes looked bloodshot and I heard a slight waver in his voice. "For chrissakes, Virgil, this is no time for-"

"With all due respect, sir," Furmeister blustered, wiping his brow with his shirt sleeve, "I'm tellin' ya three purty ladies-wearin' nothin' but see-through suits-come in here durin' the wee hours, and they-well, I hate to say it, but you would've fallen for the same-"

"Cut the crap! You can't tell me three women bamboozled you into that cell and then made off with Tripplehorn!" Legg turned sharply on his heel. "I'm going to fetch the key-"

"They took that, too, Your Honor."

Virgil Furmeister made a sorry sight, shaking like an overgrown rabbit in a blue uniform. His Adam's apple bobbed with a hard swallow when his boss wheeled around again in disbelief.

"They WHAT? Why do you think for one FUCKING minute that I'll believe-"

When the agitated magistrate broke off for air, I cleared my throat. "Incredible as it sounds, Mr. Furmeister's telling you exactly what happened. I saw it all myself! And I certainly didn't intend to get locked up as part of their escapade!"

The Judge's face lengthened into the weasel mask he wore when he was sorely displeased…or rendering a creative interpretation of the law. "And who might you be, Miss-?"

I glanced at the floor, feigning humility. "It's been years, Your Honor, so I can understand why you don't remember me as one of Miss Lucy's first nannies. When I heard she was dead, I hurried in here to see if the rumor was true-to get a good look at the man you had locked up. But three women had turned the front room into a-a circus!"

Legg crossed his arms, his gaze unwavering. "And what exactly were they doing to my deputy?"

I glanced furtively at Virgil, whose expression now resembled the grey-green clouds that precede a tornado. Since I couldn't show myself as Alex Moore in the immediate future, I had to keep a few secrets for Furmeister, in hopes he'd do the same for me. "They were dancing, Your Honor-with such lewd and promiscuous moves that I believe they drugged his coffee! That must be how they were able to roll him back here on his chair, snatch his keys, and escape before he could overpower them. They say Gypsies know a thousand ways to distract a victim while taking advantage of him!"

The magistrate rolled his eyes. From outside came the ominous pounding of nails into lumber…the scaffolding and gallows designed to bring Billy Tripplehorn to swift justice and stand as an example to Redemption's other errant souls.

"Your story's no better than his, but that doesn't unlock these cells, does it?" he said peevishly. "I'm already late for my dear Lucy's funeral, so I'll just have to leave you two locked-"

I was rummaging in my reticule, to remedy this very predicament. "Try this, Your Honor. I have a buttonhook…and…a long, sturdy hairpin. Perhaps one of them will trip the locks."

He didn't ask how I might know this-so I didn't have to lie about my tiptoed trip into the front office, about an hour ago, when Furmeister finally dozed off. As I'd anticipated, I found a signed statement of Billy's guilt in the murder of Lucinda Legg on the deputy's messy desk-a document so falsified, the lawyer in me couldn't walk away without it. I could say those obnoxious Gypsies had made off with that, too, of course. Women so intent on rescuing the town stud would leave no evidence behind.

Legg was feverishly poking the buttonhook into the keyhole of his deputy's cell, twisting and lifting for the give of the tumbler. I watched him from between my iron bars, keeping an intense innocence on my face. After all, I'd jimmied the lock much faster myself while standing behind it! Finally we heard a dull click, and the two men exhaled their relief.