Regime Change

Author's warning to the readers: This part of Regime Change is very noir, very dark, contains violence and is in the non-erotic category. You may not want to read further.

PART 11: HORIZON

Finishing touches.

Her head in the cloud smiling Sara the maid walked unsteadily in red stiletto heels out of her steamy bathroom, her wet hair brushed back, a salmon pink towel wrapped snugly around her from armpits to just above her knees, and was shocked to see her startled expression reflected in the round mirrored lenses of the sunglasses her boss's wife had on.

Darlene was gripping the dildo modeled after her husband's rod in her right hand and she wasn't alone. Two tall men in black long sleeved shirts, with thin red ties and wearing black pants and combat boots stood behind Darlene Del Toro. They both wore red grinning handsome devil masks.

"This belongs to me," Darlene brandished the phallic symbol at Sara. Mrs. Del Toro had her raven hair tied back; she was wearing a sleeveless simple black dress and sensible sneakers. And no jewellery except her wedding band.

Panic and turmoil roiled through Sara.

"You said He promised if I didn't make you...cum...I'd have to do the Walk of Shame! But I made you cum! What's going on! Lance promised!" Sara's voice nearly shrieked, her shoulders trembling.

Darlene grinned like a cartoon shark.

"You certainly did make me cum sweetie, thank you for your service."

Sunbeams through the Venetian blinds of Sara's bedroom window lit up the unfolding tableau.

"My man is a man of his word, you should know that. We're not here to take you on a Walk of Shame. We're here to keep a promise Lance made to Master Layman."

Sara saw her baffled look reflected in Mrs. Del Toro's sunglasses.

"Who?"

"The devil who fucked your ass in the mountains dear, thirteen months and a day ago," Darlene laughed.

As if on cue the two devils stepped around Mrs. Del Toro and grabbed Sara's elbows. Sara struggled in their grip. In vain.

"You won't be needing that towel where you're going cutie."

One of the devils yanked the pink towel off Sara, exposing her fortieth birthday suit. Sara blushed all over with shame, embarrassment, panic and confusion. She was starting to hyperventilate.

The same devil who'd stripped Sara pulled her arms behind her back and handcuffed her wrists. The cold metal of the cuffs, their implacable grip, gave the distraught whore the willies. He pulled a strip of red silk from his breast pocket and blindfolded the whore with it.

"Where are you taking me?" Sara asked.

In the darkness the whore heard her boss's wife laugh.

***

The devil who had sat beside Sara in the back seat of the Range Rover Evoque during the four hour trip opened the door next to the blindfolded whore. A blast of scorching air entered the air conditioned SUV. He grabbed Sara's closet bicep and manhandled her out of the Rover. Sara could feel she was standing on sand.

Mrs. Del Toro and her driver, who was also a man in black wearing a red handsome devil grinning mask, stepped out of the black, stretch limo parked a few feet behind the Rover. He wasn't wearing a tie. He kept the engine running.

The high noon made Darlene's round mirrored sunglasses flare up.

The two devils from the Rover took the still handcuffed Sara by her biceps and marched her south. They stopped her from stumbling from the perch of her red stiletto heels more than once. Darlene and her driver followed closely behind.

After five minutes the devils brought the naked, sweating whore to the edge of a rectangular pit with a mound of sand beside it. The mound had three shovels stuck in top of it.

The two devils carefully turned Sara Service around and uncuffed her. One of them flung the cuffs into the pit.

"Stay still," the devil who had blindfolded the whore ordered Sara in a whisper. She thought she recognized the voice.

The two devils walked to where Mrs. Del Toro and her driver were now standing. The devil who had blindfolded Sara reached behind his back and pulled out a Beretta APX A1 Carry WG and handed it to Darlene. Mrs. Del Toro's driver handed her a silencer, which she slowly screwed into the barrel of her pistol.

Darlene gripped the pistol in both her hands, assumed a shooter's stance and aimed at the target. The three devils stood behind her.

In a husky voice Mrs Del Toro commanded, "Take off your blindfold whore." The head of the devil who had put the blindfold on Sara jerked sharply behind Darlene's back.

The maid hesitantly reached behind her head and untied the knot of the red silk blindfold. It fell to the sand in front of her red shoes.

The desert light blinded Sara. The heat disoriented her. In what seemed to take a life time, what was in front of her came somewhat into focus. "So many devils," flashed through her mind, "what's Darlene holding, a camera?"

"I'm so hot," gasped the whore.

"The boss says you're fired."

Per her controller's instructions, Darlene fired two bullets through Sara's heart, the force of which spun the bondservant around, plunging her into the pit, arms and legs flailing.

Darlene picked up the two spent cartridges from the sand. The diabolic crew strode to the edge of the pit and looked down on the fired employee in silent judgment. The whore had landed in the dirt face-down spread eagle. She was still.

Mrs. Del Toro unscrewed the suppressor from the end of her pistol's barrel and threw it into the pit. She picked up the shells off the sand and flung them into the pit, expertly ejected the round in the chamber into the pit, pulled the magazine out of the Beretta and threw it and the pistol into the pit. As she had been instructed.

The devil who had handed her the pistol pulled off his mask. Lance Del Toro's big bald head was drenched with sweat and he was red-in-the-face. He threw the mask into the pit. It landed on the maid's back.

His wife laughed in delighted surprise and grinned lop-lopsidedly and sighed, "My secret agent man, watching over me?"

Lance's blunt features convulsed as he leaned down and picked up the strip of red silk off the ground.

The other tie-wearing devil pulled off his mask and threw it into the pit. Officer Black of the LAPD was also drenched in sweat. He cocked an eyebrow at the remaining devil, the limo driver, who answered Black's unspoken question with a French accent: "I enjoy the heat."

His dark eyes narrowing, Del Toro growled at his wife, "You shouldn't have told her to take off the blindfold, she didn't deserve that!"

Darlene snorted: "Didn't deserve?"

"Nua para o assassino," Del Toro coldly commanded.

Darlene's face froze in horror, she understood Italian.

When the time had come to fulfill the commitment made to Master Layman after he had demanded that an impudent servant must receive the ultimate punishment, Darlene volunteered to do the hit. "It's my wifely duty," she purred, fluttering her eyelashes.

Del Toro had hidden himself amidst Darlene's hit squad to be certain she went through with it. She had gone through with it and now he was certain he was through with her.

The three men in black seized Darlene and effortlessly ripped off her simple black dress and threw its remnants into the pit--the rags fluttered down like a shredded pirate flag. Mrs. Del Toro wasn't wearing any lingerie. Her sensible sneakers remained on her feet.

Officer Black and the driver twisted Darlene's arms behind her back forcing her to bend forward facing the pit. Del Toro loomed behind her with the strip of red silk stretched taut between his clenched fists.

Del Toro passed the taut silk in front of Darlene's sunglasses and then slid it under her chin.

"No! Lance! Wait! Why?!" Darlene's shriek was cut off by the constriction tightening around her throat.

Del Toro recruited Darlene Fontaine after the Court of the All-Seeing Eye had given him her dossier. She's been red flagged when she was a spokeswoman for certain agencies because she swayed in overlapping swinger and government circles.

By the time Lance seduced Darlene she was the hub of a thick network of sluts and whores ripe for the picking. Darlene eagerly informed on and betrayed former lovers, customers, friends, cousins, who provided Whore-stoppers with stacks of incriminating evidence. She entrapped her best-friend Nubia and her business partner's girlfriend Sara Service.

She reveled in the degradation of her lover the traitor Yumi Widow and was instrumental in Leilah's deportation to Iran, knowing a member of the Pahlevi dynasty would inevitably be harshly punished. Darlene's well-placed bribes ensured the Islamic Republic would two months after giving birth to one of Lance's bastards, string Lailah up on a secluded beach on the Persian Gulf wearing nothing but a black hood, hand cuffs and red stilettos.

Consequently Darlene had a lot of enemies. Del Toro had decided it was too high a security risk to have such a hated, treacherous, bloodthirsty bitch living in his Casa with Lexy and his children. He'd led Darlene to believe that she was his favorite slut. As Sun-Tzu said: "All war is based on deception."

And Lance Del Toro wanted to prove to the highest bench in the land and his competitors that he will lead by example, where his deepest loyalties lay and to make the neccessary sacrifices on their sacred ancient altar.

He knew the unseen drones were filming.

With a grunt Del Toro force majeured Darlene with the red silk strip to stand up straight and declared to the back of her head: "The Court of the All-Seeing Eye wants you to die."

The last thing on earth Darlene Del Toro saw before she was born again with her in hell was Sara's body at the bottom of the pit.

***

When the garroting was over Lance's team members let go of Darlene's arms and with Spartan utter contempt he booted his ex-wife into the pit. Thus bitter ended Darlene's first and last vid on Whore-stoppers. And she had to co-star with Sara in "Assignation" to boot.

Del Toro kept the strip of red silk. He planned to give it to Nubia on her fortieth birthday.

***

After the burial the LAPD officer carried the shovels on one shoulder to the Rover, threw them in the back and got into the SUV. He waited for the limo to drive away first.

Just before the widower and his driver got to the idling limo the devil asked, "When's the wedding?"

"I'll make Lexy an honest woman on Monday," the widower boasted. Del Toro let himself into the cool darkness in the back of the black, stretch limo and closed his eyes.

"How did the driver know about the wedding?" Del Toro questioned himself.

He opened his eyes and picked up his ex-wive's smart phone she which had left on the seat next to him. He stonily scrolled through her pictures, incriminating evidence, for a few seconds, then turned the power off the phone and put it in his back pocket.

Del Toro pulled out his phone from his chest pocket, turned it on and sent a text. "My ETA is 4 hrs. I want the Cow sent to the farm before I arrive."

Del Toro looked forward to his honeymoon in Rome. It'll be a good place to recruit two new maids. Circassians.

***

The devil got into the driver's seat in the front compartment. He turned on the radio. It was playing Laibach's cover of "Sympathy for the Devil."

The grinning devil drove the bridegroom towards the setting sun on the horizon.