Stacking in Rivertown Read Online Free PDF Page A

keep it up forever. They caught me near Ansel’s trailer and dragged me behind.
    I bled then, thinking I was going to die like Mandy. But I didn’t. Pretty soon after that I started my blood. I thought for a long time that it had to do with what happened behind that trailer.

    Snuff and Gedders held me down on my back to do what they did. When I was first at Ben’s, Kat, Toni, and Matt made me get up on my hands and knees doing me a different way. They started me slow, and I never liked it much, especially after all those weeks in the basement, crying.
    And sitting at home after seeing Ben, I’m shaking just like I did then. I’m thinking that calling Ben was a big fat mistake.
    And I forgot to explain about the whips.
    Ben kept a whip for each of us with our name on the handle. They were all different. Kat’s was thin, with a split in the end. Matt’s was short with lots of strands, each ending in a knot. Ben never used a whip on Violet. With her, he used a cane.
    My whip was thick. It was long and mean. BETH , it said in red paint on the hefty handle.
    Because of your will, Ben said, your strength. It’s what makes you so good in the straps.
    Thinking about my whip, I fret. I’m not sure I can do it now. Maybe it’s like falling off a horse. Maybe I’ll jump right back on.
    But it’s more than that. From the moment I saw Ben’s face again, the thing that’s pushing from behind began pushing harder.
    That week, I attend my two book signings in a daze. Jeremy sits beside me. He’s so proud. My agent starts bugging me for a photo for the book jacket of the next printing the publisher’s planning. I send her a picture of Jeremy’s sister.
    “This isn’t you.” My agent, the complainer.
    “Nobody needs to know that,” I say.
    In the meantime, I get busy with my other details. I check on my savings account and find that now I have a whopping twenty-eight thousand dollars in it. I switch it into checking, using my old IDs to pose as Elizabeth Boone. By Thursday afternoon, I’ve purchased a 1993 Taurus for eight thousand dollars and rented a garage in upper Manhattan.
    Friday morning, the dangers buzz me. I take a long bath, administering an array of lotions and creams. Then I dress and hit Manhattan by mid-afternoon, getting in some shopping. I find an incredible black silk dress that falls just above the knee. When I walk, it flows like water. I pick up new stockings, new heels, and a bra of green silk trimmed in black lace.
    My hair appointment is at five. I have it cut shorter. If it’s too long, it gets in the way. Then I have Ronny do my face. He’s a minimalist when it comes to makeup, which suits me fine.
    “You’re humming today, Clarisse,” he says. “You look like a model ready for a shoot.”
    Now Violet could have been a model if she’d had the right breaks. And like I said, she had teeth. The real problem with Violet was that she never got over the berserks. Being tied down can get to you if you’re left like that too long with all sorts of things happening to you. We all got the berserks in the beginning, but after awhile, they go away.
    Violet never got over them. That’s why she usually just sucked cock. Not the multiple-orifice approach for Violet. She almost always berserked on that. Or a lot of straps. If she hadn’t had teeth, Ben would have dumped her fast. She also kept that little-girl look. Violet carried it into her twenties.
    Pulling off a weekend away from Jeremy is a little touch and go.
    “My screwy agent called,” I say. “She’s lined up a lecture and a dinner for Friday and Saturday. I think I’m going to throttle her.”
    “I’ll be there to help you, sweetie.” I think of him curling up at my feet like a Labrador while I’m at the podium.
    “No,” I say like I’m talking to one of his strays. “I need peace and quiet.”
    “I want to go,” he says, tucking his tail. Stay, I think. Lie down. Be a good doggie.
    He pouts for two days, cultivating a