



                        Bird of Prey 




	He was sweating, the knife in his hand catching the
blinking red neon "Motel" sign through the window.
        She was sitting, looking at him, and he could see her
blood-red eyes boring into him.
	He knew with absolute certainty that one of them was
going to die.

		*				*					*

        The unknown made Seargant Jakes nervous, and he had no
idea who he was looking for.
        Four suicides in four days, and it was his job to find
out why they had all spent their last hours in this bar, or why,
having spent hours in this bar, they had killed themselves.  It
was a pretty dull bar, as sleaze factories went. The strippers
were ugly and untalented, and the music was disco.
	He looked at his watch. 1:30 A.M., only twenty-five
minutes to go, and he and the three other plainclothsmen could
get the hell out of this dump.
        "Can I get you anything?" A voice asked.
	One hell of a voice, he thought, and turned to see the
one body that could have fit that voice.
	"Oh, baby.  Where have you been all my life," he said. 
He was the type of person who would say  that.
	She was shorter than him, maybe 5'4" tall, and blond. 
The makeup was subtle and the dress was not too tight. She looked
out of place in a bar full of heavily painted women with
sprayed-on clothes.  That body was all sin, he thought.
        She ignored his line.  "Do you want to drink, sir?" she
said in a superior sort of tone.
	"I'll drink you, baby," he said. and moved towards her. 
Something strange about this girl, he thought.  His erection
caused the thought. The first erection that night, in a bar full
of strippers and prostitutes.
	"Sorry, Sergeant, I don't play with pigs," she replied,
and walked away.
        He was too busy watching her walk away to take offense at
her comment, and the question of how she knew he was a cop did
not even enter his mind.
	He got up and followed her to the bar where she began
talking to the bartender.
	"Hey, waitress," he said, and when she didn't answer, he
put his hand on her shoulder.
	"Don't touch me," she said, and drove her thumbnail into
his wrist.  He flinched and pulled his hand back.  It hurt, a
lot. He sat back down and watched the show, looking for suicidal
men.  He didn't see any, and at 1:55 his Captain dismissed him,
and the other policemen left.
	He started home, but twice forgot the way to get there,
and ended up taking the wrong exit off the highway.
	He still had an erection.
	He had never been this disturbed in his life.  He didn't
know why, but he turned around on the vain hope she might stay
late to clean up.
        When he arrived back in front of the bar the interior
lights were dimmer, but they were on.  He looked in several of
the windows, but could not see through the dirt.
        He tried the front door, and to his surprise it opened.
	When he walked in, it was like another world.
	It was the same bar, but where there were drunks, now
there were businessmen, doctors and lawyers, in three-piece suits
that would cost Jakes three weeks pay.
        Where there were cigarette buts and dirty napkins on the
floor, now was polished tile.
	He sat down.
	She was on stage, singing something soft and dancing
slowly from side to side.  She caught his eye.
	He winced expecting a frown and maybe a rude gesture, but
he couldn't look away.
	She smiled and involuntarily he leaned forward in
surprise.  It never occurred to him to smile back.
	At that time, it started to make sense.  He knew
something was wrong, and it related to four suicides.
        He just didn't care.  When the number ended, she bowed to
the standing ovation, and he got a glimpse of nipple, under all
that tastefully concealing clothing.
        The impact of that forbidden glimpse pushed him back into
his chair and drove his suspicions away.
        The music began again and the tempo picked up a bit.  She
was not singing this time, just dancing.  She whirled around the
stage, writhing in the lights, all the time staring at Jakes. 
She bent foreward until she was on her knees, shaking her ample
chest to the rhythm.
        She locked eyes with him and it seemed that the music
stopped and everyone vanished.
	She crossed her wrists over her head, closed her eyes and
licked her lips.
	He ejaculated.
        When the music beat its self back into his consciousness
and he was surrounded by people.
	He sprinted to the bathroom to clean himself up.  When he
came back out, she was at the bar, drinking water.  He couldn't
look at her because he was sure she knew what had happened.
	He stayed at his end of the bar and ordered a drink.
	He watched her fend off passes for five or ten minutes,
then she started towards him.  He began to sweat, hoping that the
stain dried, wondering what sort of humiliating comment she would
make.
        He cringed back into the wall, farther away.  The closer
she came, the more frightened he was, knowing humiliation to be
seconds away.
	She passed him without even a glance and entered the
ladies room.
	He breathed a sigh of relief, and went back up to the
bar, ordering a double scotch.
	"Alcohol impairs performance, although with you, it
probably wouldn't make a difference." She said from behind him.
	He almost fell off his seat.  He tried, but could not
make himself turn to face her.
        She reached around him and patted his thigh.  "I saw that 
you liked my performance."
	He blushed scarlet, but nodded, vigorously.  He couldn't
speak.
	She sidled up close to him and whispered, "If you give me
what I want, I'll give you what you want."  She smiled at him,
licking her lips, "but you've got to promise."
	"Wh- Wh- What do you want?"
	"No, no, Sergeant, that's not the way it works.  We
promise each other blind.  I promise I'll do whatever you want,"
she rubbed her breasts against his back, and he could feel her
erect nipples pressing into him, "and then you promise you will
do anything I want."
	"Yes."
	"Do you promise?"
	"Yes."
	"Say it."
	"I promise I'll do whatever you want."
	"Repeat after me.  I promise Melissa that I'll do
whatever she asks me to do, no matter what it is."
	He repeated it exactly.
	"I have to be on stage.  You will wait, won't you?" she
asked, rhetorically, and went on stage.
	As she left, a man in a white suit came up to him, all
smiles.  "Congratulations, sir.  I wish you the best of luck," he
said, patting Jakes on the back.  Jakes didn't know what to say
so he said nothing.
	For the first time he noticed that he was the only person
in the bar who was not wearing white.
	He did not notice that Melissa was wearing red, or that
she was the only women in the bar.
	There was a band behind her, where there had not been one
before, and they struck up some blues tune.  He did not recognize
the music, and he didn't care.  He just watched her dance and
sing.
	When the set was over, she came to him directly.
        "Take me somewhere," she breathed, leaning heavily on
him. They left the bar.  The men in the bar all applauded as the
closed the door behind them. Jakes did not notice that none of
them were smiling.
	Once in his car, he asked where she wanted to go, and she
did not answer, instead rubbing his knee.  He just drove and
pulled in at the first vacancy sign he came to.
	The hotel was a dump, but he did not even see it.  he
paid thirty dollars for the room without hesitation.
	They ran up the stairs, and into the room, slamming and
locking the door.
	She sat gently on the edge of the bed.  "I'm yours if you
remember," she said, and waited.
	He took out his handcuffs, and she crossed her wrists over
her head.  He snapped the handcuffs shut, and laughed an evil
laugh, feeling in control for the first time in hours.
	He was about to order her to undress and watch and laugh at
her difficulty in disrobing in handcuffs.  He was about to tell
her to do degrading things to herself.
	She found the tab on his zipper and opened his fly with her
teeth.
	It wasn't exactly what he wanted, but he lost the voice to
object, and he soon gave up on the idea of pushing her away.
	He relaxed and enjoyed it.  He enjoyed it a lot
	Gradually, he lost awareness of his surroundings, of his
partner and was simply aware of his own pleasure.
	He hand went to the back of her head to force her, brutally,
to the rhythm he liked and that made it better for him.. He
thrust and pulled aggressively, and in the corner of his mind, he
realized he must be hurting her.
	He liked that idea a lot, and accelerated.
	She played him like a musical instrument, stimulating the
most sensitive parts when most effective.
        As he climaxed, she scraped her teeth across him
hard.
        The pain just heightened his peak.
	It was the most powerful orgasm he ever felt, and he passed
out.

     He woke, crumpled on the floor next to the bed.
She was sitting in a chair across from the bed.
	"My turn."  she said, showing teeth.
	"Sorry, Baby."  he started, getting up and putting himself
carefully back into his pants.  "I'm spent."  He walked to the
door.  "Maybe we'll do this again, sometime."
        She laughed, the last thing he expected.
	"And your promise?"
        He actually laughed at that.  "Made to be broken."
	"Like your wedding vows."
	"Yeah, just like that." he replied, and reached for the
handle of the door.
	She stood up, and her shoulder strap fell down one shoulder. 
"Too bad."  She purred, and ran her fingers through her hair, making her
breasts thrust foreword.
        Her nipples were erect, and before he could turn the handle
of the door, so was he.
	"Sit down on the bed, Sargent."
	He was no longer in control, and he knew it.  He tried to
turn the handle of the door, and found that he was sitting down
on the bed instead.
	She turned on the cheap clock  radio, pre-tuned to some
musac  station, and started unbuttoning his shirt.  As buttons
opened, she kissed his chest, nipples, stomach, until it was off. 
His eyes closed.
	She gently touched his eyelids, and ordered "open them."
He complied, and she stood in front of him, swaying slightly to
the barely audible music, caressing herself gently, arms and
shoulders.
        "You see, sex does not exite me, Sargent."  She started,
"I'm turned on by control.  watch."  She pulled the strap of her
dress farther down, revealing pink, stopping just short of
letting the nipple free.  He leaned foreword, with a slight moan. 
When she lifted the strap back to her shoulder, his hands went
out to her and he moaned " no!"
        She swayed back out of reach.  Her face
flushed.  Her chest pushed foreword, and her hips, and her legs
opened slightly.
	"You see, that's control.  It turns me on."
	"Please..." he moaned, but did not finish.
        "Will you keep your promise, Mr. Cop?"
	He nodded.
        She reached up slowly, and brought the strap down,
revealing her breast completely.  He reached for her, but again
she swayed backwards.
	He tried to move toward her, but he seemed to have no
strength.  "I want you." he whispered.
	"How much?"  She asked, and walked to where she had dropped
her purse, took something out.
        He searched for words to answer her, found none.
	"Control, Sargent, control,"  she said, and returned to him,
just out of reach.  "How much do you want me?"  She showed him
the knife she held in her hand. she laid it on his lap.
	He looked at the knife, and thought of the suicides he had
started the night investigating. He started to stand up.
	She stood in front of him, pinching her nipple between thumb
and forefinger, eyes closed, moaning.
	His erection called to him.  So did the knife.  He could put
that knife through her now, and end his problem.
	Her eyes still closed, she swayed foreword, moving herself
so the knife point was almost touching her nipple.  she
moaned in pleasure.  "Yes, you could kill me, but you won't," she
said.  "It's your choice, Sarge.  Kill me, and you never have me. 
Surrender to me, and I will give you..."  She pulled the other
strap down.  Her eyes were still closed, and her legs were
pressing together, then opening gently.
	He froze there, half standing, watching her body sway until
her nipple gently caressed the point of the knife.  
	He collapsed back onto the bed, something inside his brain
screaming at him to kill her and go.  He couldn't.
	She felt his surrender as he fell back, and she groaned
loudly. Her knees buckled. She caught herself before
hitting the floor.
	After a moment, she straightened.
	"More" he said.  It was all he had the strength for.
	"Show me how much you want me." she breathed, and he
remembered the knife.  Seemingly on its own, the knife pushed
itself into his skin, sliding down toward his navel, leaving a
red snake of blood behind.
	The knife was so sharp as to cause no pain, but the sight of
the blood shocked him.
	"My god!" he almost screamed, and started up.  he saw her,
head thrown back, mouth wide open, screaming silently.
        He fell back to the bed.  She felt him fall, felt him give in, and
she orgasmed.
	Sweat broke out on her face and chest, dripped down between
her breasts.  She sat in the chair, her eyes boring into him.
	
	He was sweating, the knife in his hand catching the blinking
red neon "Motel" sign through the window.
        She was sitting, looking at him, and all he could see was
her blood-red eyes boring into him.
	He knew with absolute certainty that one of them was going
to die.
	"Now we are down to it," she said, her voice coming in
ragged gasps  "This is it.  are you mine, Officer Jakes, or are
you your own?"  She slowly pushed her dress down over her hips,
letting it fall to the floor.  She began to caress herself
through her black panties.  "I've been in control of you all
night.  I made you come in your pants, I made you come up here. 
I gave you the best orgasm you've ever had.  You have been more
alive and excited than ever before in your live, and you loved
it.  You are going to give me your life, the ultimate control,
just because you want me.  And you are never going to have me. 
You know it, and you're going to do it anyway."
	he didn't hear a word she said, but watched her.  he placed
the knife against his solar plexus, and as her fingers crept
beneath her panties, He experienced his third and best orgasm of
the night, and he shoved the knife into his chest.  It slid in
smoothly, and the pain of it just made it better.
	
        She collapsed on the floor, as he was dying.  His
diaphragm had been cut, he could not scream, and the blood came
out in shallow spurts.  She dressed, watching him carefully, and
when she judged him close to death, she leaned over and kissed
him, her tongue exploring his silently screaming mouth.
	"I love you,"  she said, and left the room.

      When they found the body, it was dressed in white,
immaculately.   

  
  
  

  
  
