Richard Laymon - Island

“It did sound great,” Kimberly admitted.

“It was great… until…” Billie stopped speaking. I heard her start to cry.

For Andrew, her husband. That’s what I figured. Or maybe she was crying because of everything. Not only had she been made a widow during her twentieth anniversary celebration, but she and her daughter were locked in cages, kept like slaves for the amusement of a couple of demented perverts. She might’ve been crying for the others, too. Kimberly’s husband had also been murdered, and Kimberly’d ended up in a cage. The twins, too—Erin and Alice.

All five of them had lost people they loved. All five had been toyed with by Wesley and Thelma—beaten, whipped, raped, and God-only-knows what else.

It’s a wonder that they weren’t all bawling their heads off.

You can’t cry all the time, though. This was Billie’s time for it.

Kimberly still held my wrist.

“Let go,” I whispered.

Her fingers opened. I slipped my hand free, then felt my way along the front of her cage. I crossed the open area and came to Billie’s cage. She was still crying.

“Billie?” I asked.

“Rupert?”

I pressed my body against her cage and reached through the bars with both arms. “Over here.”

She found my arms and moved in between them. We hugged each other, bars sandwiched between our bodies. She sobbed quietly. The sobbing and gasping made her shake. I started to caress her back, but the smoothness there was broken by ridges—welts and scabs from the beatings she’d taken. She twitched slightly when I touched one.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered.

“It’s okay, honey.”

Then I was crying, too.

I stopped caressing her back, afraid of hurting her. As I lowered my arms, she said, “No, hold me. Don’t stop.”

So I put them around her again, but very gently.

“What the hell are you two doing over there?” Connie called out.

“Shut up,” Kimberly told her.

“We aren’t doing anything,” I said. Which was true. We were only embracing each other while Billie continued to cry.

“Thank God you’re all right,” Billie whispered. Her breath tickled my lips. Then she had her mouth there, wet and open, pushing against my mouth. It was a kiss, but not like any kiss I’d ever had before. She was still sort of crying while we kissed. It was strange, but awfully nice.

I’d been trying to ignore the fact that her bare breasts were pressed against me. You don’t want to notice that sort of thing when a woman is crying in your arms. But now that she’d begun kissing me, it seemed okay to think about them.

They were pushed out between the bars, soft and springy against my chest.

While we kissed, I squirmed so I could feel them slide on me. We were both sweaty. Our skin was slippery as if we’d been oiled. Her nipples were stiff, and rubbed against my chest like little tongues.

I tried to pull away so Billie wouldn’t feel how hard I was getting. But she held me tightly, so I couldn’t.

Her kiss was astonishing and wet.

By the time it ended, Billie didn’t seem to be crying anymore. We were both gasping for air, though. And she didn’t let me go. She kept her arms around me, just like before the kiss. We stayed pressed together.

“Thank you, honey,” she whispered.

“My pleasure.”

She made a quiet “Hmmm” sound, but didn’t say anything.

“Are you okay?” Kimberly asked.

“A lot better, now,” Billie said.

“I’ll bet,” Connie called.

“Why do you always have to be such a snot?” That one came from Erin—the first I’d heard from either of the twins since I’d left their cages. I grinned.

“Up yours,” Connie yelled at her.

“Same to you and many more.”

Alice got into the act. “Erin! Shhh!”

“She’s such a bitch.”

“You’re a shit-eating little twat!” Connie shouted.

“Cut it out, children,” Kimberly said. “Let’s not fight among ourselves.”

“Blow it out your ass,” Connie told her.

Kimberly laughed.

Billie, still in my arms, called out, “Connie. Stop it. What the hell is the matter with you!”

“Oh, nothing. What could possibly be wrong? My mother’s over there in the dark, bare-ass naked and messing around with my guy…”

“We’re not messing around,” Billie said.

“My former guy. My ex-guy. My worthless fucking loser of a wimp…”

Very quietly, Billie whispered to me, “You should go over to her. Give her a hug.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding.”

“I mean it. Go.”

“I don’t think she’d like that at all.”

“Sure she would. Go on over to her, let her know you care about her.”

“I want to stay with you.”

“I know.”

“Don’t you want me here?”

“Sure. But Connie… she’s really hurting. Go over and be nice to her.”

“She hates me.”

“No, she doesn’t. When she thought you were dead… she was devastated.”

That was fairly hard to believe. “Really?”

“Yes, really. I’ve never seen her so upset. Now, go over to her. Please.” She kissed me again. This was a quick one, a thanks-and-get-going sort of kiss. Then her arms went away from me.

“Okay,” I said. I felt almost sick with disappointment, but I had to do what Billie asked. Whispering, “Is it okay if I come back later?” I slid my hands all the way down her back. I was gentle about her wounds.

“Sure,” she told me. “Later. But help Connie first.”

She wore nothing around her waist. My hands curved down over her buttocks. She didn’t try to stop me.

But she kissed me once more, and whispered, “Go on, now.”

I stopped caressing her and brought my hands back through the bars. As I stepped away from the front of her cage, I said fairly loudly, so everyone could hear and stop wondering what was up, “So, what about Thelma? She didn’t know anything about Wesley’s plans?”

“Not a thing,” Billie said, sounding a little surprised about the return to that subject. “She actually believed he’d blown himself up.”

“Why didn’t he tell her?”

Billie was probably wondering why I was still standing near the front of her cage, instead of heading for Connie’s. The truth is, I wanted to please Billie, but wasn’t very eager about confronting her daughter.

Connie was not in one of her finer moods.

“He planned all along to kill her,” Billie explained.

“What?”

“Wesley intended from the start to murder Andrew, Keith, you and Thelma. That’s what he told me.”

“Why Thelma?”

“You ever take a good look at her?” Connie called out. “Oh, yes. Forgot. Sure you have. But apparently you found her so attractive you wanted to wrestle naked with her. You got this thing for older women, don’t you? Thelma, my mom, Kimberly. Bet you’d like to wrestle naked with…”

“Knock it off,” Kimberly told her.

“Wesley hated Thelma,” Billie said, speaking loudly and firmly. “He hated everything about her, but most of all that she was so much like him.”

“Bet he didn’t tell you that,” I said.

“You’re right. That was a personal observation. But he did say he hated her. Called her ugly and disgusting. He fully intended to kill her as soon as he’d finished off the men. He’d had enough of her. He didn’t want her getting in the way. He only wanted us.” She lowered her voice. “And the twins, too. He didn’t know about them. He picked this island because it had the cages; the twins were a special bonus for him.” Lowering her voice even more, she whispered, “Go and see Connie. Go on.”

“I will,” I whispered back. Then I asked in my normal voice, “Why didn’t he kill Thelma?”