All Acts Of Pleasure: A Rowan Gant Investigation (5 page)

“Exactly.”

“I know Felicity is a photographer, but why
did Benjamin call her? Is that not something that should have been
handled by the police?”

“Under normal circumstances, yes. But, the
flu had pretty much taken the majority of the Crime Scene guys out
of commission. Felicity has evidence photography training, and
she’s on the short list of freelance contractors the department
calls for specialized techniques, like infrared, painting with
light, that sort of thing. Anyway, since the scene was high
profile, and the Crime Scene Unit was on a skeleton staff, they
decided to bring in a freelancer, so they would know all of the
bases were covered.”

“Ahhhh,” Helen nodded. “And, Felicity got the
call.”

“Pretty much. From what I understand, they
went down the list and she…actually I…was the first one to answer
the phone.”

“I see. Sorry to interrupt. Please, go
on.”

“Not a problem. Anyway, I’m sure you’ve
probably seen some of the news reports, so you’re aware that
Wentworth’s body was found in a motel in a bit of a compromising
situation?”

“Yes, of course. As I recall it had something
to do with bondage, did it not?”

“Yeah. Apparently Wentworth was into the
whole kidnap and torture game. No biggie in my book. I mean,
whatever does it for you as long as it’s between consenting adults.
Problem is, it looks like something went way south with the
scenario because he was found with the back of his head sprayed all
over the bathroom wall.”

Helen held up her hand, “Please…consider
yourself free to spare me those sorts of details unless you really
feel them to be important.”

“Sorry,” I apologized. “I didn’t realize you
were squeamish.”

“Only about certain things, but that is all
right. Continue.”

“Okay, well our first thought was that he had
been purposely executed, but something didn’t feel right about the
scene to either Felicity or me.”

“What were
you
doing there?”

“Helping Felicity.”

“Helping her, Rowan, or trying to protect
her?”

I looked over the top of my glasses at Helen.
“Does anything get past you?”

“Usually, no.”

“Okay, guilty. Either way, I was there and
the whole scene just felt weird. You could actually sense the
sexual arousal and such in the room, but that wasn’t what struck
us. The bizarre thing was that there was no lingering sense of
fear, like you would expect if the whole scenario had been a real
kidnapping. Still, Ben didn’t rule it out because the whole thing
could have been a setup. Plus, while he listens to me when I say I
have a feeling, as we know, not everyone else does.

“Anyhow, since Wentworth was actually known
to have a history with prostitutes that had been getting swept
under the carpet for a while, he looked into it. After doing a
little digging, it came to light that the whole kidnap and torture
victim fetish was his particular kink. So, things added up in that
respect, but there was still something weird going on.”

“How so?”

“Felicity,” I said in a matter-of-fact tone.
“She started acting strange. It began with her acting…well…kind
of…I guess the only delicate way to put it is sex starved. She was
just plain insatiable. And, if that weren’t enough, she turned into
a complete bitch.”

“Bitch?” Helen echoed. “That is certainly not
a word I would have ever expected you to use in conjunction with
your wife, Rowan.”

“Tell me about it, but that’s what happened.
She would actually get herself aroused by berating me, or in some
instances, by actually physically abusing me.”

“I believe I see a rather obvious connection
with your nightmare now.”

“Yeah,” I grunted. “Kind of brings it all
into focus, doesn’t it? Anyway, it was at about this time that I
found out my dear, sweet wife actually has a history with the BDSM
community.”

“Yes.”

“Yes?” I repeated, slightly puzzled. “You
don’t seem particularly surprised by that.”

“Actually, I was already aware of it.”

Slight puzzlement became brow-furrowing
confusion. “I’m sorry? I’m not sure I heard you correctly.”

“Remember, Rowan. Felicity has sought my
counsel as well. She shared her proclivities with me quite some
time ago.”

“Well, that’s interesting,” I said in a mild
huff. “Because she never bothered to tell me.”

“Until now, obviously.”

“Well, yeah.”

“And did she give you a reason why she did
not tell you before now?”

“What she said is that she was afraid I might
not be open to the idea and that I would stop loving her.”

“Yes. That was her concern when she spoke of
it to me.”

“But, she knows me better than that.”

“Does she?”

“Of course she does.”

“Contrary to what you may believe, Rowan,
everyone has secrets. They do not necessarily keep them secret to
harm or injure. Sometimes they do so in order to protect. You are a
perfect example.”

“Me?”

“Yes, you. How often have you lied, or simply
twisted the truth, in order to protect Felicity from what you
perceived as harm?”

“That’s different,” I objected.

“Actually, no it is not. You are simply too
close to see that.”

“Maybe,” I half-agreed. “But she lied to me
about our relationship.”

“No, Rowan, she did not. She simply repressed
one of her own desires in order to protect her relationship with
you. She never lied.”

“You’re splitting hairs.”

“No, I am stating a fact.”

“Okay, fine,” I said with a nod. In my heart
I knew she was correct, so further objections wouldn’t do any good.
“So, what else did she tell you?”

“I am not at liberty to discuss that. Her
sessions with me are confidential, as are yours.”

“But you just…”

She cut me off. “I simply told you something
you already knew, because she had told you herself. Please, do not
ask any more about things you know I cannot discuss. Now, continue
your story.”

“I’m not sure that I’m comfortable with that,
given what you just…”

“Rowan, you need not worry. Your wife adores
you, which is the very reason she repressed this aspect of her
sexuality to begin with. Believe me when I tell you there is
nothing else you need to know. Now, please…go on.”

“Well, I don’t really see the point…”

“I, however, do.”

“Okay,” I huffed. “Anyway, things really
escalated a couple of days later when Officer Hobbes was found dead
in a motel. This time there was absolutely no question about the
whole B and D, S and M thing. All of the trappings were right there
in plain sight. But, this time there was a new twist to the scene.
Artifacts were present that lead me to believe some sort of
convoluted Voodoo ritual had taken place.”

“Voodoo?”

“Yeah, Voodoo. Well, a horribly
bastardized version of it really. I’ll leave out the gorier details
since you asked me to, but let’s just say it was twisted. What
happened in that room may have started out as consensual sex play,
but that’s not how it ended. It also didn’t have anything to do
with true
Vodoun
religious
practice…it was just sick…

“What’s even worse is that once again there
was an overwhelming sense of female sexual arousal permeating the
room. Almost to the point of being stifling—for me anyway. It was
then that I was absolutely positive the killer was a woman and that
she had literally gotten off on torturing this man to death.”

“You felt it deeply, didn’t you, Rowan?”
Helen asked.

The tenor of her question told me she already
knew the answer, but I gave it to her anyway. “Yeah. From both
sides of the fence, actually.”

I paused and absently attempted a drag on my
cigar only to find that it had gone out once again. Instead of
relighting it, I simply fiddled with the band, twisting it in an
endless circle.

“Anyhow,” I continued. “Felicity had a
meeting with a client that morning, so she didn’t go to that crime
scene with me. But, while I was standing there talking to Ben, she
just suddenly showed up. The problem was, it wasn’t really her. She
was acting haughty and abusive to everyone, calling herself
Miranda, and had even started speaking with a heavy Southern drawl.
That’s about the time I started doing the math and figured out she
was being possessed by a
Lwa
.”

“Low-ahh?”

“Kind of a high ranking ancestral
spirit in Voodoo culture. They are more or less the pantheon of
Gods and Goddesses that
Vodoun
practitioners worship. During rituals they will invite
Lwa
into their bodies. They call it
being
ridden
, and the
practitioner is then called the
horse
for the particular spirit. That’s basically
how the ancestors speak to them from the afterlife.

“The thing is, though,
Lwa
aren’t evil beings that run about
torturing and killing. In a rudimentary sense they are messengers.
Because of that, I figured that this particular spirit wasn’t a
generally accepted
Lwa
but
instead had to be one that this person elevated to Godhood in her
own mind.”

“Thank you for the primer. However, I still
do not understand what this spirit has to do with Felicity? Why
would it choose to possess her?”

“That’s the sixty-four thousand dollar
question, Helen. I’m not sure either, but I can tell you that
Felicity was being
ridden
by
someone or something who wasn’t particularly friendly, and that’s
when the so-called
incident
occurred.

“In a nutshell, after physically assaulting
me and managing to twist the situation such that it got me arrested
instead of her, my wife disappeared. Well, actually while Ben was
getting me out of jail, she went home and changed clothes.”

“That seems to be an odd thing to do.”

“Normally, I’d agree, but given where she was
heading, it actually made a bizarre kind of sense. So, anyhow, Ben
called Agent Mandalay and asked her to stop by our house just on
the off chance that Felicity went there. When she arrived, Felicity
was in fact still in the house, but things went south.
Felicity—actually at that point, Miranda—assaulted Agent Mandalay,
somehow managed to get the upper hand then took her weapon and
really did disappear for a while.

“Obviously, we managed to find her but only
after several hours. And, this is why the change of clothes—she
went over to a fetish nightclub on the East side, picked up a guy,
and took him back to a motel.”

Helen looked at me, a note of concern in her
face. “But, surely she did not kill him, did she?”

I shook my head. “No. The
Lwa
jumped ship before she got that
far. She did manage to do a serious number on him with her high
heels, though. Literally trampled him until he was bloody and
unconscious.”

“Do you have any idea why the possession
ended so suddenly?”

“Actually, that’s typical for a
Lwa
possession. They pop in and pop
out. Although, I don’t have an answer for why this one didn’t
complete its task before it left. I suppose it could be because
taking over Felicity had to be some kind of accidental collateral
possession—because she doesn’t practice Voodoo and certainly didn’t
consciously invite it in, that I’m aware of.

“In fact, prior to showing up at the Hobbes
crime scene, she would tend to fight it whenever she would realize
an attack was happening. Of course, that was before I had a handle
on what it actually was, so I wasn’t much help in that department.
Anyway, I suspect she was still trying to fight it to some extent
even then, so I guess it was kind of like a host rejecting a
transplant or something of that sort. But, that’s only a pet
theory. Either way, I’m just glad she didn’t kill the guy.”

“How serious did his injuries turn out to
be?”

“She hurt him pretty bad,” I replied. “He
spent a day in the hospital, which I’m sure I’ll end up getting a
bill for. But, when the cops talked to him, he refused to press
charges against her. Seems he actually liked getting stomped on by
her so much he wants to ‘submit to Mistress Miranda’ again. He
somehow even managed to make the connection between Felicity and
the pseudonym. Probably from the cops would be my guess since he
was actually being urged to press charges. Anyhow, he got her
business number and has called several times.”

“I am sure that is disconcerting for
Felicity.”

“Yeah. She was a bit freaked out at
first. After the fifth or sixth time though, she just switched on a
whole alpha female persona and
ordered
him to stop calling her. That seemed to
do the trick, for now at least.”

“Obviously you think he will call again.”

“He seemed pretty fixated on her, so, no, I’m
not going to rule it out.”

“Does this bother you?”

“Well yeah, stalkers are not something you
take lightly. And, even if he isn’t dangerous it’s just plain
annoying.”

“No, Rowan. What I mean is are you
jealous?”

I thought about that for a moment. I hadn’t
really considered jealousy as a possibility, consciously anyway, so
I weighed it carefully before responding.

“I don’t know, to be honest. I don’t
think I am. I mean, she was being
ridden
by a
Lwa
when the encounter happened, so it’s not like she was
cheating on me. However, she did tell me that when she snapped back
to reality, she was so aroused that she didn’t exactly stop right
away.”