Mike worried. It seemed like that’s all he ever did. New York was a beautiful city, cleaned up to all hell in the past few years, and he had an amazing job. So why was he always so worried? He took a sip of coffee and padded across his modest apartment’s carpet to go step out on the balcony. Suddenly, with the crisp cold air, it came into focus.
Down the street, looming like an unholy obelisk, was Axis International’s gigantic black glass skyscraper. At the sight of it Mike’s stomach started turning in knots. Supposedly living so close to a major Axis headquarters was a good thing. Crime rates were almost nil, the city practically sparkled, all the best restaurants flocked to the area, and there was more tail than you could shake a stick at downtown during lunch hour. There were people now that went down around Axis just for the view, taking covert camera phone pictures and rating the hottest employees, trying to spot their various concealed weapons. It was a dangerous practice, and that was Mike’s problem with the whole thing.
Axis was dangerous. With a capital ‘d’. Sure there was no crime, because criminals had a way of disappearing if they operated near an Axis building. Mike had heard of a guy that bumped into an Axis exec on the street, tipped her right over in her six inch heels, and he made the mistake of laughing. She picked herself up and went on her way and that night he vanished from his apartment. They never found him. Everybody wore uncomfortable plastic smiles around Axis, nobody spoke out of turn, the whole thing was… disturbing. And to make matters worse, Mike had just started living with an adorable girl named Brooke.
She was beautiful, blonde, and athletic – just Axis’ type. And last week some femme fatale in tight black leather had noticed her, gave her a card, and Brooke was actually considering sending Axis her resume.
They’d had a big fight about it, she and Mike, knock down drag out, and she’d seemed to see things from his angle… but in the end he couldn’t blame her. He’d have been tempted himself, if they’d ever deign to take a male. Even an entry level Axis salary was through the roof, and good jobs were hard to find. Still, Brooke was the sweetest girl he’d gotten to know in a long time, and the thought of her swimming with those stiletto-heeled moray heels…
His train of thought was broken by a knock at the door. Brooke’s voice chirped cheerfully from the kitchen, “I’ll get it! I think it’s Sharka!”
Sharka Devantier, the Axis recruiter. Her business card had said ‘Executive Consultant’, which was corporate jargon for “you don’t get to know what this person does”. Seemed like most of the unfriendly ones claimed that as their job title.
Mike almost collapsed, his gut seized up on him so quick and hard. Before he could even collect himself she was in his living room. Sharka was a tall woman in her late thirties, packed with muscle but lithe, like a ballerina, with an elegant swan neck. Her features were beautiful and Germanic, with maybe just the slightest trace of exotic blood; cruel eyes set into high cheekbones and dark, almost mahogany skin that was probably helped along by regular tanning bed sessions. Her hair was cropped in a short but expensive cut and bleached a platinum blonde in keeping with Axis trends. Curving around the back of her neck like half a collar was a tattoo of a snake and between the tip and the tail, right in the middle of her windpipe, was tattooed a small swastika. As before, she was clad head to toe in leather, a leather skirt suit to be exact. It hugged every curve and was adorned here and there with gleaming steel buckles, it must have cost a fortune. There was a slight bulge under her left arm Mike seriously doubted was a cell phone.
Sharka plucked off her designer shades and hung them on her jacket, between her ample breasts. She stared at Mike in his bathrobe and boxers and narrowed her slate grey almond eyes, smiling a smile that was half polite and half hungry.
“Meat.” She said. Her voice was dark and husky, she spoke with a thick accent Mike had learned was South African.
Mike blinked. Had he heard her right? “Uh, excuse me?” He finally managed.
“I said pleased to meet you.” Sharka extended a gloved hand, which Mike quickly took, “You must be Brooke’s little plaything?”
Mike cleared his throat, mentally parsing the insult into something relatively inoffensive. The last thing he wanted was to piss off an armed chick named ‘Sharka’, “We’ve been together awhile now, yeah.”
“Hmm, that’s a shame.” Sharka’s grey eyes practically bored into Mike’s skull, the two stared at one another for a long, tense moment.
The standoff was broken by Brooke entering in her favorite pink pajamas, carrying a couple steaming cups of coffee and wearing a cheerful grin, “Coffeh time!” She offered a mug to Sharka, who took it with a little nod and sat on a nearby couch, crossing her tanned legs. Brooke sat opposite the Axis exec and took a sip from her favorite teddy-bear cup, patting the cushion next to her invitingly; Mike finally worked up the nerve to take a seat in spite of the deep instinct that he should be ready to run at a moment’s notice. He was a big guy, college football till just a year ago, but the most action he’d ever seen was a couple fistfights from his frat days – Sharka was a killer, it was etched on her face and in her body language.
And the way she continued to look at him… well it made him feel like he should be writing his will. He turned his gaze downward, but found his eyes drawn to the Nazi’s legs—shapely, long, and muscular, sheathed in silk stockings. Her shoes were stiletto-heeled slingbacks, looked like some sort of snakeskin. She wore a thin silver anklet around one ankle, a charm hung from it though he couldn’t make out from his seat exactly what it was.
“Enjoying the view?” Sharka chuckled dryly with not a hint of mirth, uncrossing and recrossing her legs, giving Mike just the briefest hint of lacey black underwear. Brooke elbowed Mike irritably, “Don’t mind him miss Sharka – you wanted to talk? I was gonna put together my resume and send it like today, I swear, but --”
“No need Brooke, I was so charmed the other day I took the liberty of putting our people on it. I have a nose for these things.” Sharka tapped the side of her suspiciously-perfect button nose conspiratorially.
“You--? Wow!” Brooke seemed pleasantly shocked, Mike was deeply unsettled. She’d put ‘her people’ on them? But the way Brooke squeezed Mike’s leg… was she as nervous as he was? She didn’t look it.
Sharka smiled pleasantly, “You had a look to you Brooke. I knew right away we’d be a match – and look what we found!” She placed a PDA on their little glass coffee table and slid it across to Brooke, who caught it and began reading silently.
“So it turns out I was right, does your little friend here know that you were Sandra Peters? Of Chicago? You ever tell him what the pills were for Sandra? Did you say they were vitamins?”
Brooke turned pale, she got a look about her Mike had never seen before. Her eyes never left the PDA, “I – how—“
Sharka simply shrugged, sliding a cigarette between her lips, “You don’t mind do you. They tell me it’s bad for me but what isn’t, you know?” She lit her cigarette up and stared at Brooke appraisingly, her head cocked slightly like a cat that was waiting for the mouse to make its move.
Brooke swallowed, staring at her kneecaps. Her voice was pleading, “Look, things were different then, I was sick but I’m better now – “ She sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as anyone else.
Sharka snorted derisively, a plume of smoke pouring from her nostrils, “More boring now, I’ll give you that. But you could have it all again! Come on. Don’t you remember how fun it was being in your own right mind? Leave the pills in the cabinet. Come with me. We’ll get you a place of your own uptown, a rack of suits anybody with taste would kill for, a line of credit you can ride into a life of luxury. That’s just for starters.”
Brooke’s sea-blue eyes widened, “You want me to just leave with you? Right now? Just like that?” She shared a glance with Mike. Her eyes said ‘this is NOT what I had in mind, help me’. He’d never felt so powerless.
Sharka nodded, “Just like that. Listen Sandra, I want you on board with this, I really do. I’ve sort of made you my personal project; the company doesn’t even know I’m here yet. Things go smoother that way. But you’re coming with me whether you like it or not – and even if it stings a little now to dump this lunk you’ll come around to realizing I was right. Trust me; I’ve been doing this awhile. They always come around in the end. Okay?” She wore a comforting smile with warmth that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Brooke’s lower lip quivered, she was squeezing Mike’s leg in a death grip, “You can’t just -- now I don’t think I want to anymore–“
Sharka raised her eyebrows, “And you turn down a dream job why? Him? This lump of nothing?” She gestured at Mike without even throwing him a glance, “At Axis you’ll get your pick of the choicest pussy in town, don’t be petty.”
Brooke frowned, “I’m not just some pet you can lead around on a leash-- I love him –“ First time she’d used the ‘l’ word in Mike’s presence. The moment was sort of overshadowed by the mortal peril though.
Sharka scowled in frustration. She knew she’d miscalculated, pushed too hard; but pride wouldn’t let her back down now, “This is ridiculous, don’t be such a child. If you want a man you can buy as many as you like later, but right now you’re coming with me.” She got to her feet, taking an angry drag on her cigarette and hurling it on the carpet. From this angle the glint of a bellybutton stud was just visible under Sharka’s short suit jacket.
Meanwhile, Mike was steeling himself. Brooke… she said she loved him. And here she was, cowering from this cunt like a frightened little kid. Mike wasn’t a brave man, and there was some heavy sh*t going on, but he’d had enough of this Axis lady and her bulls**t. Sandra or Brooke or whatever her name really was, his girl didn’t deserve to deal with this amazon on her own. Mike cleared his throat. Sharka didn’t seem to notice, so he did it again, louder. Her grey eyes turned on him with a viciousness that made him think twice, but his mind was made up. He got to his feet and cleared his throat a third time, “She said she didn’t want to go.”
Sharka reached underneath her suit jacket, revealing the slightest hint of a black-lace bra. There was a ‘pop’ at her shoulder like a button being unsnapped. She raised her eyebrow and hissed in a low voice, “Excuse me?”
To his immense shame, Mike’s voice cracked as he spoke, “I said leave her alone, get the f– please leave my apartment – now, before I call the police.“
“That was the worst thing you could have said, little boy.” A gun was in Sharka’s hand, faster than Mike could react. She shifted her weight, tossing her hair haughtily and pointed her pistol straight between his eyes. Affixed to its barrel was what Mike recognized to probably be a silencer -- he’d seen the movies. So that was it, she was going to kill him, and nobody would even hear it. Those merciless eyes and that self-satisfied little pouty smirk would be the last things he saw.
*THOK*
Sharka grunted as Brooke’s coffee cup slammed into her forehead dead between the eyes. The Axis bitch’s head flopped around limply on her long neck, rocked by the surprisingly heavy impact.
Her formerly shrewd grey eyes rolled back in her head and crossed almost comically; her mouth hung open, jaw slack. She was thrown back like a ragdoll onto the couch, momentum bouncing her forward limply head first into the coffee table, which shattered noisily on impact with her face.
And it was stuck half inside the now-empty frame of Mike’s shattered crystal coffee table that Sharka came to rest, her delectable ass up in the air and her arms dangling over the sides of the table’s frame. She trembled and made a few low, agonized grunting noises, but a few shuddering breaths later and she fell completely still.
Mike’s jaw was as slack as Sharka’s had been.
He was dumbstruck.
His brain sputtered in vain to form a coherent thought.
After a long moment he glanced over at Brooke, who was arguably more shocked than he was.
She seemed frozen in time; her arm was outstretched in the same position it had been the moment she’d let the coffee mug fly. Mike’s eyes turned back to Sharka, who was still not moving.
He stared a little while longer. Nothing. The waistband of the Nazi’s black lace panties peeked out from under her belt; Mike could now see she had a tattoo of a pair of handcuffs just above her tailbone. He tried to follow the loop of the cuffs endlessly around her back, anything to forget what was happening. It wasn’t working.
“Oh no – oh no oh no—“ Brooke had managed to drop her arm, but her eyes remained fixed on Sharka, “Oh no…”
Mike ran his hand through his matted brown hair, “Brooke, you just –“
“Oh no—“
“We are so f***ing dead, you have no idea, they are going to skin us and make purses –“
Brooke squeaked irritably, stomping her little foot, “Shut up! That is NOT HELPING!” She shook her head, violently clearing the cobwebs, her strawberry blonde hair haphazardly framing her face. There was a crackle of broken glass under her slippers as she crossed around to Sharka’s side of the table. She poked the Nazi’s ass tentatively with her foot. Sharka’s ass swayed back and forth lightly with the force, but she was otherwise still.
Mike knelt down beside the Nazi, “Is she dead?”
Brooke straightened her pink jammies and knelt, grabbing Sharka’s jacket by the collar and hauling her upright. Displaced glass tinkled and rained to the carpet as the Axis thug was taken from her resting place in the table. Surprisingly, for a bitch that fell through a pane of glass, Sharka didn’t look half bad. There was a single thin cut across her cheekbone and a small but nasty-looking blue-purple mark between her eyes in the shape of a teddy bear, like the one on Brooke’s mug. Not too bad. But even so, if she wasn’t dead she sure looked it. Her gorgeous grey eyes were half open and staring at nothing, and her mouth still hung open. Not breathing as far as Mike could tell. Her immaculate platinum blonde hair had come undone and now hung around her face messily.
Brooke began picking little pieces of glass from their resting place between the girl’s breasts, “I dunno, I think so.” She gave Sharka a little shove and the Axis exec’s head lolled around limply on her long neck, and as her neck moved there came a small cacophony of crackles and pops. Brooke frowned, “Yeah, that doesn’t sound good.”
The couple froze as there came a knock at the door. An old woman’s voice filtered through, “Folks heard a noise, is everything okay?”
Mike spoke up, calling out, “Yeah everything’s fine Missus Jorgenson! Just a little accident! No big—“
“Okay, I’m comin’ in!” The sound of the lock being fumbled with.
Brooke and Mike exchanged a desperate glance, “Help me!” Brooke hissed, grunting cutely as she made a token effort to lift Sharka onto the couch. Mike hopped over the table and grabbed the inert Nazi under the arms, dumping her onto her former seat. Brooke took the opportunity to kick Sharka’s fallen gun under the couch.
“Now get rid of this glass!” Brooke took Sharka’s shades from her jacket and slid them onto the Nazi’s nose, pushing them up until they obscured Sharka’s blank eyes. She tilted Sharka’s head back and began fussing with her disheveled platinum hair, placing a strand between her eyes to obscure the black-and-blue teddy bear imprint. Mike, meanwhile, hustled to clean the broken glass from the carpet, taking the table under his arm and hustling out of the room. He dumped the glass on the bed, and took a moment to look at himself in the mirror. He looked like sh*t, predictably. He fiddled with his hair and his robe a bit before taking a deep breath and going back to the living room to face his notoriously nosey landlady.
When he got there Erma Jorgenson was already inside, chatting happily with Brooke while Sharka reclined on the couch with her legs crossed and her chin resting on her collarbone.
“I don’t know what it could’ve been either, we were just having breakfast, weren’t we honey?” Brooke glanced at Mike, who nodded dutifully.
Erma nodded, “Long as everything’s okay –“ she looked down at Sharka, “—how bout you sweetie, did --?”
Brooke cut her off, “Please don’t disturb her, Miss Jorgenson, she’s dead.”
Mike made a choking sound, which Brooke ignored, “She’s a friend of ours, slept over after a really long night – out like a light --“
Erma cackled, “Slept right in her clothes! Okay darlin’. I’ll leave you alone – you didn’t hear anything--?”
Brooke was politely ushering Erma to the door, “No Mrs. J, thanks Mrs. J, bye Mrs. J.” She shut the door carefully behind the landlady and braced herself against it, chest heaving, a thin sheen of sweat beginning to coat her skin, “Geeze –“
Mike put his hand on her shoulder, “Are you okay?”
Brooke stared at him like he’d just grown a second head, “Been better, Mike.” It was a side of her Mike had never seen. He hadn’t decided it was necessarily a bad thing quite yet. It had saved his life, after all. After a moment she swallowed and added, “But thank you.” She gently pushed past him and padded back to Sharka, unbuttoning her suit jacket.
“What are you--?” Mike stammered.
“I’m not sure, I heard they got tracking devices – like GPS and stuff on em.
We need to find it so we can, y’know, get rid of her. Want to give me a hand? All this needs to come off.”
There was a part of his mind that had been just waiting for her to ask, but he dared not admit it. Instead he simply knelt beside her and tilted Sharka forward, wiggling her jacket off as Brooke worked with her skirt. As Mike had suspected, it took a lot of work for Sharka to get her fetching skin tone, there were some major tan lines around her breasts, and he’d venture to guess there were some downstairs as well. He plunged his hand into Sharka’s soft cleavage, feeling around under her bra for hidden pockets. Nothing but a nipple ring. His face scrunched up in concentration as he tried to work it off, “S’got like a clasp or a lock or something—“
Brooke grunted noncommittally, sticking her hand lewdly down Sharka’s panties and rooting around for hidden piercings and pockets. If she’d been watching the Nazi’s hands, she’d have seen them twitch a bit as Sharka was fingered and probed. Satisfied that nothing was hidden in or around the Nazi’s naughty bits, Brooke unclasped the Nazi’s bellybutton stud, removed her diamond earrings, silver anklet (the charm hanging from it was a small crescent moon), and thin lady’s watch, working off her pistol rig as well.
Sharka’s tight body jiggled, her already-ruined hair bobbing around her face as Brooke worked her skirt off. They hurled Sharka’s discarded skirt suit and holster rig in a heap on the carpet, and the bitch was left with nothing but her leather gloves, shoes, and lacy black underwear. Her stockings were fastened to a garter belt with little straps; at the moment she looked less like a corporate goon and more like a woman looking to surprise her husband on Valentine’s day. A little pink bow was fastened to the front of her panties, and another between the cups of her bra. Did they all walk around wearing stuff like this? Mike couldn’t help but wonder. After a Herculean effort, he got her nipple ring unclasped and pocketed it, reaching around her toned stomach to undo her bra. That, he had experience in.
“Hey!” Brooke elbowed him in the ribs, “Knock it off, help me with the suit.” They rifled through Sharka’s suit together. The grand total at the end of the search was: an Axis smart phone, a pack of gum, a pack of cigarettes, a lighter engraved with a swastika, a wallet, a little key chain, and an ivory-handled butterfly knife. Brooke took the keys and organized the rest of the objects, along with the PDA, the jewelry, and the shades in a neat pile and stuck it in the oven, cranking up the dial.
“See if their fancy-schmancy tech can handle a little heat!” Brooke beamed at Mike, who chuckled in spite of himself.
“Alright, lets get the rest of her clothes off.” Brooke moved back to Sharka and began removing the rest of the Axis exec’s clothing, carefully sliding off her gloves and removing her expensive stiletto heels with the reverence that only a shoe-addict would really understand, letting each meaty leg thud to the floor as its shoe was removed. Mike noted as he began to unclasp Sharka’s bra again that all her nails were painted glossy black; this was a woman who had cared deeply about her appearance. But when one was a sociopath, what else really was there to care about? He could feel her hair on his neck as he worked to undress her, her smooth brown skin was lightly scented with exotic perfume and maybe some lotion.
He wondered if she wore flavored lip gloss.
The fact that these where things that crossed his mind freaked him out a little, but he was only human wasn’t he?
He tried to think of Brooke, her laugh, her hypnotically beautiful blue eyes. But she wasn’t the girl whose bra he was unclasping. Within a moment it was off, and after Brooke jerked off Sharka’s panties and rolled the stockings off her shapely legs the Nazi was sitting on their couch buck naked, jaw slack, staring at a spot on the floor. Mike had been right about Sharka’s skin tone – the skin around her sex and pert nipples betrayed pretty drastic tan lines.
Smoke was starting to trickle from the oven, and as Brooke rushed to turn it off Mike worked a hand under Sharka’s chin and tilted her head up. Not so damn tough anymore. The predatory gleam was long gone from her grey eyes, they now angled slightly upward and crosseyed as if to stare at the goofy teddy bear imprint on her forehead. Unable to help himself, he ran a hand along her smooth stomach, working downward towards her sex. Barely an ounce of fat on this girl, seemed like. All muscle, just the right tone. He lifted her arm and let it drop into her lap.
At this point he noticed her pubic thatch, shaved into a straight little ‘landing strip’, her natural hair color now revealed to be a rich dark brown.
With great effort he willed himself to break his gaze, craning his neck to look back at Brooke, “What’d we do with her?”
“You got any pigs?”
“Uh, no?”
“Phooey. Well your bedroom window looks out on an alley right?”
“Yeah –“
“What if we just throw her out and let the garbage men deal with her?”
Sharka made a little noise neither of them heard.
Mike pondered this a moment, “Won’t the apartment be one of the first places they look if she turns up dead right under it? With her head split open like she fell out a window? Brooke?”
Brooke began muttering to herself, Mike could barely hear what she was saying, “Yeh yeh you’re right. Anyway she prolly drove here… got to have a GPS in the car prolly… we have to get her to her car. We get the GPS from that too and then get rid of them together.”
Mike grinned and snorted, “Oh yeah sure, we’ll just take a dead naked chick downstairs.” He glanced back at Brooke, and his smile slowly faded. She was serious.
“You got a better idea?”
He had to admit he didn’t. He mentally sized Sharka up. Without her heels she didn’t quite clear six feet, probably weighed not more than a hundred thirty to a hundred forty pounds. He could lift her easy if he had to and carry her as far as he needed. He shook his head, “No. It’s a good idea honey.”
Brooke beamed in sheer joy that her idea had met with approval, “Okay! So I’ll go downstairs and pull her car into the alley and you meet me with… her. Lets do it!” Without another word she scampered off into the hallway with Sharka’s keys clutched in her hand. Still wearing her pink jammies. This was the most f**ked up morning Mike had ever been a part of, and he’d seen a few contenders in his day. This topped the time he’d woken up next to a circus clown.
He turned to Sharka, “What’d you think Sharka. You figure we can pull this off?” Sharka didn’t answer. She simply sat, motionless, her hands nestled primly in her lap. He took her arm and hefted her up with a grunt, lifting the limp Nazi bitch over his shoulder, her perfect ass now pressed against his cheek. He gave it a little pat and ventured to the door, sticking his head out to see if the coast was clear. Of course, if anyone saw him they’d also see a woman’s naked ass draped over his shoulder, but Mike was not the brightest bulb under even non-stressful circumstances. Luckily for him, the coast was clear. He sprinted as silently as possible to the stairwell, his bathrobe billowing out behind him and Sharka bobbing and dancing limply with every stride.
At the bottom, twelve stories down, Mike felt like he had to catch his breath or his heart would explode. Anyway, he heard someone having a conversation in the hall outside, hopefully they didn’t inexplicably want to take the stairs or he’d be up sh*t creek. He took Sharka off his shoulder, laying her breasts up on the stairwell floor as he caught his breath and waited for the voices to die down. Her eyes were obscured by her platinum hair; he brushed it aside for reasons even he didn’t really understand.
Her eyes had been brushed closed at some point in her little post-mortem adventure, it almost looked like she was sleeping… sleeping off a hit between the eyes anyway, she still had a bit of a shiner.
The voices faded; he tried to heft her back up on his shoulders but it had been a long time since he’d had a workout like this. His muscles felt like they were on fire, and grunt as he might they wouldn’t obey him. All he could do was hold her in his arms like a battering ram. And in that vein, he lurched clumsily into the door and used her head to open it with a hollow *BANG*. His eyes wide with fear, Mike stumbled down the hall and out into the alley, kicking the door shut behind him. Waiting for him, its engine idling with a menacing growl, was an Axis Sedan. He was either soon to be saved or soon to be dead, with little to do about either.
Mike was so relieved to see Brooke pop out of the driver’s side he dropped Sharka face first into a puddle. Too tired to do anything about it immediately, Mike simple leaned on a nearby wall and caught his breath. Brooke glanced down the alley nervously, but as it seemed clear for the moment, and they knew this alley was rarely trafficked, she decided to let her man rest a couple minutes.
It was too subtle for either of them to notice, but a tiny trail of bubbles had broken the surface near the Nazi’s nose, her toes clenched and unclenched as she quivered almost imperceptibly, but within a half minute the bubbles and the movement ceased.
After another minute, Mike had worked up enough strength to heft Sharka into the trunk and collapse into the Sedan’s passenger seat, more out of breath than he’d been in years. The day wasn’t over yet, but Mike suspected that as long as they were careful things would go smoothly. He glanced over at Brooke, who didn’t look much better, and she looked like she’d aged a decade. Poor kid, she’d really put her ass on the line for him. She looked at Mike, her blue eyes now sunken and sallow and yet still somehow good-natured, and gave him a tired little smile.
Mike smiled back, “Love you too.”
FIN
Down the street, looming like an unholy obelisk, was Axis International’s gigantic black glass skyscraper. At the sight of it Mike’s stomach started turning in knots. Supposedly living so close to a major Axis headquarters was a good thing. Crime rates were almost nil, the city practically sparkled, all the best restaurants flocked to the area, and there was more tail than you could shake a stick at downtown during lunch hour. There were people now that went down around Axis just for the view, taking covert camera phone pictures and rating the hottest employees, trying to spot their various concealed weapons. It was a dangerous practice, and that was Mike’s problem with the whole thing.
Axis was dangerous. With a capital ‘d’. Sure there was no crime, because criminals had a way of disappearing if they operated near an Axis building. Mike had heard of a guy that bumped into an Axis exec on the street, tipped her right over in her six inch heels, and he made the mistake of laughing. She picked herself up and went on her way and that night he vanished from his apartment. They never found him. Everybody wore uncomfortable plastic smiles around Axis, nobody spoke out of turn, the whole thing was… disturbing. And to make matters worse, Mike had just started living with an adorable girl named Brooke.
She was beautiful, blonde, and athletic – just Axis’ type. And last week some femme fatale in tight black leather had noticed her, gave her a card, and Brooke was actually considering sending Axis her resume.
They’d had a big fight about it, she and Mike, knock down drag out, and she’d seemed to see things from his angle… but in the end he couldn’t blame her. He’d have been tempted himself, if they’d ever deign to take a male. Even an entry level Axis salary was through the roof, and good jobs were hard to find. Still, Brooke was the sweetest girl he’d gotten to know in a long time, and the thought of her swimming with those stiletto-heeled moray heels…
His train of thought was broken by a knock at the door. Brooke’s voice chirped cheerfully from the kitchen, “I’ll get it! I think it’s Sharka!”
Sharka Devantier, the Axis recruiter. Her business card had said ‘Executive Consultant’, which was corporate jargon for “you don’t get to know what this person does”. Seemed like most of the unfriendly ones claimed that as their job title.
Mike almost collapsed, his gut seized up on him so quick and hard. Before he could even collect himself she was in his living room. Sharka was a tall woman in her late thirties, packed with muscle but lithe, like a ballerina, with an elegant swan neck. Her features were beautiful and Germanic, with maybe just the slightest trace of exotic blood; cruel eyes set into high cheekbones and dark, almost mahogany skin that was probably helped along by regular tanning bed sessions. Her hair was cropped in a short but expensive cut and bleached a platinum blonde in keeping with Axis trends. Curving around the back of her neck like half a collar was a tattoo of a snake and between the tip and the tail, right in the middle of her windpipe, was tattooed a small swastika. As before, she was clad head to toe in leather, a leather skirt suit to be exact. It hugged every curve and was adorned here and there with gleaming steel buckles, it must have cost a fortune. There was a slight bulge under her left arm Mike seriously doubted was a cell phone.
Sharka plucked off her designer shades and hung them on her jacket, between her ample breasts. She stared at Mike in his bathrobe and boxers and narrowed her slate grey almond eyes, smiling a smile that was half polite and half hungry.
“Meat.” She said. Her voice was dark and husky, she spoke with a thick accent Mike had learned was South African.
Mike blinked. Had he heard her right? “Uh, excuse me?” He finally managed.
“I said pleased to meet you.” Sharka extended a gloved hand, which Mike quickly took, “You must be Brooke’s little plaything?”
Mike cleared his throat, mentally parsing the insult into something relatively inoffensive. The last thing he wanted was to piss off an armed chick named ‘Sharka’, “We’ve been together awhile now, yeah.”
“Hmm, that’s a shame.” Sharka’s grey eyes practically bored into Mike’s skull, the two stared at one another for a long, tense moment.
The standoff was broken by Brooke entering in her favorite pink pajamas, carrying a couple steaming cups of coffee and wearing a cheerful grin, “Coffeh time!” She offered a mug to Sharka, who took it with a little nod and sat on a nearby couch, crossing her tanned legs. Brooke sat opposite the Axis exec and took a sip from her favorite teddy-bear cup, patting the cushion next to her invitingly; Mike finally worked up the nerve to take a seat in spite of the deep instinct that he should be ready to run at a moment’s notice. He was a big guy, college football till just a year ago, but the most action he’d ever seen was a couple fistfights from his frat days – Sharka was a killer, it was etched on her face and in her body language.
And the way she continued to look at him… well it made him feel like he should be writing his will. He turned his gaze downward, but found his eyes drawn to the Nazi’s legs—shapely, long, and muscular, sheathed in silk stockings. Her shoes were stiletto-heeled slingbacks, looked like some sort of snakeskin. She wore a thin silver anklet around one ankle, a charm hung from it though he couldn’t make out from his seat exactly what it was.
“Enjoying the view?” Sharka chuckled dryly with not a hint of mirth, uncrossing and recrossing her legs, giving Mike just the briefest hint of lacey black underwear. Brooke elbowed Mike irritably, “Don’t mind him miss Sharka – you wanted to talk? I was gonna put together my resume and send it like today, I swear, but --”
“No need Brooke, I was so charmed the other day I took the liberty of putting our people on it. I have a nose for these things.” Sharka tapped the side of her suspiciously-perfect button nose conspiratorially.
“You--? Wow!” Brooke seemed pleasantly shocked, Mike was deeply unsettled. She’d put ‘her people’ on them? But the way Brooke squeezed Mike’s leg… was she as nervous as he was? She didn’t look it.
Sharka smiled pleasantly, “You had a look to you Brooke. I knew right away we’d be a match – and look what we found!” She placed a PDA on their little glass coffee table and slid it across to Brooke, who caught it and began reading silently.
“So it turns out I was right, does your little friend here know that you were Sandra Peters? Of Chicago? You ever tell him what the pills were for Sandra? Did you say they were vitamins?”
Brooke turned pale, she got a look about her Mike had never seen before. Her eyes never left the PDA, “I – how—“
Sharka simply shrugged, sliding a cigarette between her lips, “You don’t mind do you. They tell me it’s bad for me but what isn’t, you know?” She lit her cigarette up and stared at Brooke appraisingly, her head cocked slightly like a cat that was waiting for the mouse to make its move.
Brooke swallowed, staring at her kneecaps. Her voice was pleading, “Look, things were different then, I was sick but I’m better now – “ She sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as anyone else.
Sharka snorted derisively, a plume of smoke pouring from her nostrils, “More boring now, I’ll give you that. But you could have it all again! Come on. Don’t you remember how fun it was being in your own right mind? Leave the pills in the cabinet. Come with me. We’ll get you a place of your own uptown, a rack of suits anybody with taste would kill for, a line of credit you can ride into a life of luxury. That’s just for starters.”
Brooke’s sea-blue eyes widened, “You want me to just leave with you? Right now? Just like that?” She shared a glance with Mike. Her eyes said ‘this is NOT what I had in mind, help me’. He’d never felt so powerless.
Sharka nodded, “Just like that. Listen Sandra, I want you on board with this, I really do. I’ve sort of made you my personal project; the company doesn’t even know I’m here yet. Things go smoother that way. But you’re coming with me whether you like it or not – and even if it stings a little now to dump this lunk you’ll come around to realizing I was right. Trust me; I’ve been doing this awhile. They always come around in the end. Okay?” She wore a comforting smile with warmth that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
Brooke’s lower lip quivered, she was squeezing Mike’s leg in a death grip, “You can’t just -- now I don’t think I want to anymore–“
Sharka raised her eyebrows, “And you turn down a dream job why? Him? This lump of nothing?” She gestured at Mike without even throwing him a glance, “At Axis you’ll get your pick of the choicest pussy in town, don’t be petty.”
Brooke frowned, “I’m not just some pet you can lead around on a leash-- I love him –“ First time she’d used the ‘l’ word in Mike’s presence. The moment was sort of overshadowed by the mortal peril though.
Sharka scowled in frustration. She knew she’d miscalculated, pushed too hard; but pride wouldn’t let her back down now, “This is ridiculous, don’t be such a child. If you want a man you can buy as many as you like later, but right now you’re coming with me.” She got to her feet, taking an angry drag on her cigarette and hurling it on the carpet. From this angle the glint of a bellybutton stud was just visible under Sharka’s short suit jacket.
Meanwhile, Mike was steeling himself. Brooke… she said she loved him. And here she was, cowering from this cunt like a frightened little kid. Mike wasn’t a brave man, and there was some heavy sh*t going on, but he’d had enough of this Axis lady and her bulls**t. Sandra or Brooke or whatever her name really was, his girl didn’t deserve to deal with this amazon on her own. Mike cleared his throat. Sharka didn’t seem to notice, so he did it again, louder. Her grey eyes turned on him with a viciousness that made him think twice, but his mind was made up. He got to his feet and cleared his throat a third time, “She said she didn’t want to go.”
Sharka reached underneath her suit jacket, revealing the slightest hint of a black-lace bra. There was a ‘pop’ at her shoulder like a button being unsnapped. She raised her eyebrow and hissed in a low voice, “Excuse me?”
To his immense shame, Mike’s voice cracked as he spoke, “I said leave her alone, get the f– please leave my apartment – now, before I call the police.“
“That was the worst thing you could have said, little boy.” A gun was in Sharka’s hand, faster than Mike could react. She shifted her weight, tossing her hair haughtily and pointed her pistol straight between his eyes. Affixed to its barrel was what Mike recognized to probably be a silencer -- he’d seen the movies. So that was it, she was going to kill him, and nobody would even hear it. Those merciless eyes and that self-satisfied little pouty smirk would be the last things he saw.
*THOK*
Sharka grunted as Brooke’s coffee cup slammed into her forehead dead between the eyes. The Axis bitch’s head flopped around limply on her long neck, rocked by the surprisingly heavy impact.
Her formerly shrewd grey eyes rolled back in her head and crossed almost comically; her mouth hung open, jaw slack. She was thrown back like a ragdoll onto the couch, momentum bouncing her forward limply head first into the coffee table, which shattered noisily on impact with her face.
And it was stuck half inside the now-empty frame of Mike’s shattered crystal coffee table that Sharka came to rest, her delectable ass up in the air and her arms dangling over the sides of the table’s frame. She trembled and made a few low, agonized grunting noises, but a few shuddering breaths later and she fell completely still.
Mike’s jaw was as slack as Sharka’s had been.
He was dumbstruck.
His brain sputtered in vain to form a coherent thought.
After a long moment he glanced over at Brooke, who was arguably more shocked than he was.
She seemed frozen in time; her arm was outstretched in the same position it had been the moment she’d let the coffee mug fly. Mike’s eyes turned back to Sharka, who was still not moving.
He stared a little while longer. Nothing. The waistband of the Nazi’s black lace panties peeked out from under her belt; Mike could now see she had a tattoo of a pair of handcuffs just above her tailbone. He tried to follow the loop of the cuffs endlessly around her back, anything to forget what was happening. It wasn’t working.
“Oh no – oh no oh no—“ Brooke had managed to drop her arm, but her eyes remained fixed on Sharka, “Oh no…”
Mike ran his hand through his matted brown hair, “Brooke, you just –“
“Oh no—“
“We are so f***ing dead, you have no idea, they are going to skin us and make purses –“
Brooke squeaked irritably, stomping her little foot, “Shut up! That is NOT HELPING!” She shook her head, violently clearing the cobwebs, her strawberry blonde hair haphazardly framing her face. There was a crackle of broken glass under her slippers as she crossed around to Sharka’s side of the table. She poked the Nazi’s ass tentatively with her foot. Sharka’s ass swayed back and forth lightly with the force, but she was otherwise still.
Mike knelt down beside the Nazi, “Is she dead?”
Brooke straightened her pink jammies and knelt, grabbing Sharka’s jacket by the collar and hauling her upright. Displaced glass tinkled and rained to the carpet as the Axis thug was taken from her resting place in the table. Surprisingly, for a bitch that fell through a pane of glass, Sharka didn’t look half bad. There was a single thin cut across her cheekbone and a small but nasty-looking blue-purple mark between her eyes in the shape of a teddy bear, like the one on Brooke’s mug. Not too bad. But even so, if she wasn’t dead she sure looked it. Her gorgeous grey eyes were half open and staring at nothing, and her mouth still hung open. Not breathing as far as Mike could tell. Her immaculate platinum blonde hair had come undone and now hung around her face messily.
Brooke began picking little pieces of glass from their resting place between the girl’s breasts, “I dunno, I think so.” She gave Sharka a little shove and the Axis exec’s head lolled around limply on her long neck, and as her neck moved there came a small cacophony of crackles and pops. Brooke frowned, “Yeah, that doesn’t sound good.”
The couple froze as there came a knock at the door. An old woman’s voice filtered through, “Folks heard a noise, is everything okay?”
Mike spoke up, calling out, “Yeah everything’s fine Missus Jorgenson! Just a little accident! No big—“
“Okay, I’m comin’ in!” The sound of the lock being fumbled with.
Brooke and Mike exchanged a desperate glance, “Help me!” Brooke hissed, grunting cutely as she made a token effort to lift Sharka onto the couch. Mike hopped over the table and grabbed the inert Nazi under the arms, dumping her onto her former seat. Brooke took the opportunity to kick Sharka’s fallen gun under the couch.
“Now get rid of this glass!” Brooke took Sharka’s shades from her jacket and slid them onto the Nazi’s nose, pushing them up until they obscured Sharka’s blank eyes. She tilted Sharka’s head back and began fussing with her disheveled platinum hair, placing a strand between her eyes to obscure the black-and-blue teddy bear imprint. Mike, meanwhile, hustled to clean the broken glass from the carpet, taking the table under his arm and hustling out of the room. He dumped the glass on the bed, and took a moment to look at himself in the mirror. He looked like sh*t, predictably. He fiddled with his hair and his robe a bit before taking a deep breath and going back to the living room to face his notoriously nosey landlady.
When he got there Erma Jorgenson was already inside, chatting happily with Brooke while Sharka reclined on the couch with her legs crossed and her chin resting on her collarbone.
“I don’t know what it could’ve been either, we were just having breakfast, weren’t we honey?” Brooke glanced at Mike, who nodded dutifully.
Erma nodded, “Long as everything’s okay –“ she looked down at Sharka, “—how bout you sweetie, did --?”
Brooke cut her off, “Please don’t disturb her, Miss Jorgenson, she’s dead.”
Mike made a choking sound, which Brooke ignored, “She’s a friend of ours, slept over after a really long night – out like a light --“
Erma cackled, “Slept right in her clothes! Okay darlin’. I’ll leave you alone – you didn’t hear anything--?”
Brooke was politely ushering Erma to the door, “No Mrs. J, thanks Mrs. J, bye Mrs. J.” She shut the door carefully behind the landlady and braced herself against it, chest heaving, a thin sheen of sweat beginning to coat her skin, “Geeze –“
Mike put his hand on her shoulder, “Are you okay?”
Brooke stared at him like he’d just grown a second head, “Been better, Mike.” It was a side of her Mike had never seen. He hadn’t decided it was necessarily a bad thing quite yet. It had saved his life, after all. After a moment she swallowed and added, “But thank you.” She gently pushed past him and padded back to Sharka, unbuttoning her suit jacket.
“What are you--?” Mike stammered.
“I’m not sure, I heard they got tracking devices – like GPS and stuff on em.
We need to find it so we can, y’know, get rid of her. Want to give me a hand? All this needs to come off.”
There was a part of his mind that had been just waiting for her to ask, but he dared not admit it. Instead he simply knelt beside her and tilted Sharka forward, wiggling her jacket off as Brooke worked with her skirt. As Mike had suspected, it took a lot of work for Sharka to get her fetching skin tone, there were some major tan lines around her breasts, and he’d venture to guess there were some downstairs as well. He plunged his hand into Sharka’s soft cleavage, feeling around under her bra for hidden pockets. Nothing but a nipple ring. His face scrunched up in concentration as he tried to work it off, “S’got like a clasp or a lock or something—“
Brooke grunted noncommittally, sticking her hand lewdly down Sharka’s panties and rooting around for hidden piercings and pockets. If she’d been watching the Nazi’s hands, she’d have seen them twitch a bit as Sharka was fingered and probed. Satisfied that nothing was hidden in or around the Nazi’s naughty bits, Brooke unclasped the Nazi’s bellybutton stud, removed her diamond earrings, silver anklet (the charm hanging from it was a small crescent moon), and thin lady’s watch, working off her pistol rig as well.
Sharka’s tight body jiggled, her already-ruined hair bobbing around her face as Brooke worked her skirt off. They hurled Sharka’s discarded skirt suit and holster rig in a heap on the carpet, and the bitch was left with nothing but her leather gloves, shoes, and lacy black underwear. Her stockings were fastened to a garter belt with little straps; at the moment she looked less like a corporate goon and more like a woman looking to surprise her husband on Valentine’s day. A little pink bow was fastened to the front of her panties, and another between the cups of her bra. Did they all walk around wearing stuff like this? Mike couldn’t help but wonder. After a Herculean effort, he got her nipple ring unclasped and pocketed it, reaching around her toned stomach to undo her bra. That, he had experience in.
“Hey!” Brooke elbowed him in the ribs, “Knock it off, help me with the suit.” They rifled through Sharka’s suit together. The grand total at the end of the search was: an Axis smart phone, a pack of gum, a pack of cigarettes, a lighter engraved with a swastika, a wallet, a little key chain, and an ivory-handled butterfly knife. Brooke took the keys and organized the rest of the objects, along with the PDA, the jewelry, and the shades in a neat pile and stuck it in the oven, cranking up the dial.
“See if their fancy-schmancy tech can handle a little heat!” Brooke beamed at Mike, who chuckled in spite of himself.
“Alright, lets get the rest of her clothes off.” Brooke moved back to Sharka and began removing the rest of the Axis exec’s clothing, carefully sliding off her gloves and removing her expensive stiletto heels with the reverence that only a shoe-addict would really understand, letting each meaty leg thud to the floor as its shoe was removed. Mike noted as he began to unclasp Sharka’s bra again that all her nails were painted glossy black; this was a woman who had cared deeply about her appearance. But when one was a sociopath, what else really was there to care about? He could feel her hair on his neck as he worked to undress her, her smooth brown skin was lightly scented with exotic perfume and maybe some lotion.
He wondered if she wore flavored lip gloss.
The fact that these where things that crossed his mind freaked him out a little, but he was only human wasn’t he?
He tried to think of Brooke, her laugh, her hypnotically beautiful blue eyes. But she wasn’t the girl whose bra he was unclasping. Within a moment it was off, and after Brooke jerked off Sharka’s panties and rolled the stockings off her shapely legs the Nazi was sitting on their couch buck naked, jaw slack, staring at a spot on the floor. Mike had been right about Sharka’s skin tone – the skin around her sex and pert nipples betrayed pretty drastic tan lines.
Smoke was starting to trickle from the oven, and as Brooke rushed to turn it off Mike worked a hand under Sharka’s chin and tilted her head up. Not so damn tough anymore. The predatory gleam was long gone from her grey eyes, they now angled slightly upward and crosseyed as if to stare at the goofy teddy bear imprint on her forehead. Unable to help himself, he ran a hand along her smooth stomach, working downward towards her sex. Barely an ounce of fat on this girl, seemed like. All muscle, just the right tone. He lifted her arm and let it drop into her lap.
At this point he noticed her pubic thatch, shaved into a straight little ‘landing strip’, her natural hair color now revealed to be a rich dark brown.
With great effort he willed himself to break his gaze, craning his neck to look back at Brooke, “What’d we do with her?”
“You got any pigs?”
“Uh, no?”
“Phooey. Well your bedroom window looks out on an alley right?”
“Yeah –“
“What if we just throw her out and let the garbage men deal with her?”
Sharka made a little noise neither of them heard.
Mike pondered this a moment, “Won’t the apartment be one of the first places they look if she turns up dead right under it? With her head split open like she fell out a window? Brooke?”
Brooke began muttering to herself, Mike could barely hear what she was saying, “Yeh yeh you’re right. Anyway she prolly drove here… got to have a GPS in the car prolly… we have to get her to her car. We get the GPS from that too and then get rid of them together.”
Mike grinned and snorted, “Oh yeah sure, we’ll just take a dead naked chick downstairs.” He glanced back at Brooke, and his smile slowly faded. She was serious.
“You got a better idea?”
He had to admit he didn’t. He mentally sized Sharka up. Without her heels she didn’t quite clear six feet, probably weighed not more than a hundred thirty to a hundred forty pounds. He could lift her easy if he had to and carry her as far as he needed. He shook his head, “No. It’s a good idea honey.”
Brooke beamed in sheer joy that her idea had met with approval, “Okay! So I’ll go downstairs and pull her car into the alley and you meet me with… her. Lets do it!” Without another word she scampered off into the hallway with Sharka’s keys clutched in her hand. Still wearing her pink jammies. This was the most f**ked up morning Mike had ever been a part of, and he’d seen a few contenders in his day. This topped the time he’d woken up next to a circus clown.
He turned to Sharka, “What’d you think Sharka. You figure we can pull this off?” Sharka didn’t answer. She simply sat, motionless, her hands nestled primly in her lap. He took her arm and hefted her up with a grunt, lifting the limp Nazi bitch over his shoulder, her perfect ass now pressed against his cheek. He gave it a little pat and ventured to the door, sticking his head out to see if the coast was clear. Of course, if anyone saw him they’d also see a woman’s naked ass draped over his shoulder, but Mike was not the brightest bulb under even non-stressful circumstances. Luckily for him, the coast was clear. He sprinted as silently as possible to the stairwell, his bathrobe billowing out behind him and Sharka bobbing and dancing limply with every stride.
At the bottom, twelve stories down, Mike felt like he had to catch his breath or his heart would explode. Anyway, he heard someone having a conversation in the hall outside, hopefully they didn’t inexplicably want to take the stairs or he’d be up sh*t creek. He took Sharka off his shoulder, laying her breasts up on the stairwell floor as he caught his breath and waited for the voices to die down. Her eyes were obscured by her platinum hair; he brushed it aside for reasons even he didn’t really understand.
Her eyes had been brushed closed at some point in her little post-mortem adventure, it almost looked like she was sleeping… sleeping off a hit between the eyes anyway, she still had a bit of a shiner.
The voices faded; he tried to heft her back up on his shoulders but it had been a long time since he’d had a workout like this. His muscles felt like they were on fire, and grunt as he might they wouldn’t obey him. All he could do was hold her in his arms like a battering ram. And in that vein, he lurched clumsily into the door and used her head to open it with a hollow *BANG*. His eyes wide with fear, Mike stumbled down the hall and out into the alley, kicking the door shut behind him. Waiting for him, its engine idling with a menacing growl, was an Axis Sedan. He was either soon to be saved or soon to be dead, with little to do about either.
Mike was so relieved to see Brooke pop out of the driver’s side he dropped Sharka face first into a puddle. Too tired to do anything about it immediately, Mike simple leaned on a nearby wall and caught his breath. Brooke glanced down the alley nervously, but as it seemed clear for the moment, and they knew this alley was rarely trafficked, she decided to let her man rest a couple minutes.
It was too subtle for either of them to notice, but a tiny trail of bubbles had broken the surface near the Nazi’s nose, her toes clenched and unclenched as she quivered almost imperceptibly, but within a half minute the bubbles and the movement ceased.
After another minute, Mike had worked up enough strength to heft Sharka into the trunk and collapse into the Sedan’s passenger seat, more out of breath than he’d been in years. The day wasn’t over yet, but Mike suspected that as long as they were careful things would go smoothly. He glanced over at Brooke, who didn’t look much better, and she looked like she’d aged a decade. Poor kid, she’d really put her ass on the line for him. She looked at Mike, her blue eyes now sunken and sallow and yet still somehow good-natured, and gave him a tired little smile.
Mike smiled back, “Love you too.”
FIN
