Money Shot

7.

“Angel,” Malloy was saying again. “Angel.”

His voice sounded so far away that I thought I was still on the phone until I felt his hands on me, wrapping a rough blanket around my body and lifting me like a tired kid. I have no idea how I got away from the phone and the mercado but I did. I also had no idea how Malloy found me, but he did. I’ve never been so happy to see anyone in my life. I would have kissed him if my lips hadn’t felt like I’d just kissed a belt sander. He bundled me into the passenger seat of his blocky old SUV.

Things went all non-sequential and confusing again. The next thing that seemed solid was me in a doctor’s office. I was lying on one of those examination tables with the paper that rolls down to cover it fresh for each patient. There were stirrups, like at the gynecologist. My trash bag dress was gone and I was wearing one of those backless deals they give you in the hospital. I seemed relatively clean and odor-free, but the cacophony of pain made it hard to concentrate.

I rolled on my side, briefly breathless from the effort. That’s when I noticed a tan leather locking restraint hanging from the nearest stirrup. I frowned and looked around.

There were three other restraints hanging from the table, plus a thick leather strap that presumably buckled around the waist. Beside the table was a stainless steel tray on wheels, filled with terrifying antique medical instruments. There was a red rubber enema bag on a pole by my head. The glass-front cabinet against the opposite wall was filled with boxes of needles and bags of saline solution and clear plastic speculums and catheter kits and medical staplers. Above the examination table was a large framed photograph of an icy blonde in skintight white latex. Her waist was corseted down to insect proportions and her long legs were laced into thigh-high boots. She held a hypodermic needle the size of a .357 Magnum.

I struggled to sit up, dizzy and sick but then Malloy was there and so was the blonde, although she was dressed down in faded jeans and a white t-shirt. Her pale, shiny face was free of make up. She was still stunning.

“Angel,” Malloy said. “Lie down, will you?”

“Where the hell am I?” I asked. “This isn’t a hospital.”

The blonde smiled. Malloy shook his head.

“It was this or Tijuana,” he said.

I didn’t want to lie down but my body overrode my brain and I fell back on the table. I looked up at the photo.

“You brought me to a dominatrix?” I asked, pressing my thumb and forefinger into the corners of my eyes and then flinching at how much that hurt.

“This is Ulka,” Malloy said. “She’s gonna fix you up.”

“You’ve gotta be kidding,” I said.

“Don’t be afraid,” the blonde said in a clipped German accent that did nothing to reassure me. “I am very good. And much cleaner than Tijuana.”

She turned and began washing her hands at a steel sink with foot-operated faucets. Suddenly I remembered Didi, how she hadn’t answered her phone. I’d meant to ask Malloy to check on Didi, not rescue my sorry ass.

“Shit!” I said, sitting up too fast and feeling stabbed by a dozen knives, the largest just beneath my armpit. “Malloy, I need you to go check on Didi right away.”

“Keep your shirt on,” Malloy told me. “I talked to Didi on the way to pick you up. She’s ticked off at the cops who took her in for questioning and worried sick about you, but otherwise she’s fine.”

Relief stole the very last drops of energy I had left. My body slumped back down on the table while my brain concentrated on not puking. It worked, but just barely.

“I’m ready,” Ulka said.

“I’ll wait outside,” Malloy replied.

I wanted to ask him to stay with me, but I felt suddenly shy and embarrassed and then it was too late, because he was gone, leaving me alone with Ulka, She Wolf of the SS.

I’ve never gotten along all that well with pro Dommes. The ones I’ve made videos with always seemed to look down on me and my girls because we do things on camera that they feel are beneath them. The way I see it, we’re all in the same business. Providing visual stimulation. Does it really make a difference if that stimulation is the most exotic, esoteric fetish or just good old fashioned baby-making? Bottom line: Everyone is doing the same thing while they watch it.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any sort of anesthesia,” Ulka said, slipping her mannish hands into latex gloves. “That would be sort of counterproductive in my line of work.”

“Great,” I said, looking away toward the wall.

“I do have some of these,” she said, pressing several chalky white pills into my palm. “You’ll need them.”

I didn’t even ask what they were. I just dry swallowed them all before she could even bring a paper cup of water to my lips.

I waited impatiently for the pills to work while she started to examine the mess below my right armpit. Her hands were much more gentle than I would have expected.

“It looks like the bullet went right between your arm and your torso,” she said. “Maybe bounced off a rib and then angled through the triceps. Either you are very lucky or the person who shot you is very stupid.”

“A little of both, I think,” I replied.

“You will need a few stitches,” she said.

“Stitches?” I felt suddenly lightheaded. “Can you do that?”

“Of course,” she said, selecting a sterilized paper packet the size of an index card from a box in the cabinet. “Sutures are my specialty, though to tell the truth, my clients rarely actually need them.”

I wouldn’t say that she was nice, but she had a wry, deadpan sense of humor and her hands were steady as stone. Of course it hurt like hell, but she didn’t make me feel like a slut. She treated me almost like a real patient. I’ve had legit doctors treat me worse. I wound up liking her far more than I had planned to.

“How do you know Malloy?” I asked between bouts of silent, jaw grinding pain. “He’s not a client, is he?”

I couldn’t see Malloy crawling around on the floor begging to lick a woman’s boots, but you never knew these days. Ulka smirked and shook her head as she snipped the thread from the last stitch.

“Nothing like that,” she said. “He provides security for me when I book night sessions with new clients. I removed a bullet from his right thigh two years ago. That was amazing. Well, for me anyway.” She placed a bandage over her handiwork. “One more thing.”

Before I could protest or even register what was happening, she was pressing her large thumbs against the mess of my nose, giving the whole thing a decisive shove to the left. The pain was indescribable.

“You’re done,” she said, slapping a piece of tape over the bridge of my nose.

Truer words were never spoken. There was no need to stick a fork in me. The pills had kicked in with a vengeance while I wasn’t paying attention and now that the bright foreground pain of the stitches and whatever the fuck she’d done to my nose was over, I could feel everything shutting down. I was most definitely, unequivocally done. I vaguely remember Malloy returning to carry me somewhere and cold leather against my bruised skin and then merciful nothing.