THREE TIMES A LADY Read Free Page A

Icy blasts of air immediately gave birth to painful goose bumps that rocketed up and down his spindly arms and legs.  The soles of his feet went numb; painfully at first, and then as though they’d never been attached to his body at all.  Holding his underwear in one tiny hand, he looked up at his mother once more.
    ‘Now place them over your head,’ she ordered.  ‘Wear them like a mask.  Put the crotch over your mouth and nose.  Breathe in your own waste.  Taste your own sin.’
    Again, Nicholas did as he was told.  The sharp smell of his own urine filled his nostrils.  The acidic taste of his own piss burned his tongue.
    And then something very strange happened – something that Nicholas wouldn’t understand for many years to come.  For the first time in his life, he felt his tiny member begin to grow slowly between his legs.  Only a little at first, and then a bit more insistently, until it had become completely erect.
    Nicholas could almost hear the smile in his mother’s voice as she stepped inside the freezer after him.  ‘Well done, son,’ she said approvingly.  ‘Very well done, indeed.’  Her throaty voice dripped like warm honey all over his naked body, making it feel progressively stickier with each one of her seductive words.  ‘That’s exactly what I wanted to see.  You’ve been a very good boy here today and now you deserve your reward for it.  Tell me, son, are you ready for me?  Are you ready to receive your mother’s love?’
    Anticipation ripped like a bullet wound through Nicholas’s gut, taking away his breath and setting every last one of his senses on fire with excitement.  This was it.   Now the fun and games could really begin.  He only wished that Timmy could have been around to see this.  His little brother had always loved these moments almost as much Nicholas did.  ‘Yes, Mother,’ Nicholas whispered, the pressure between his legs almost unbearable now and only growing stronger with each passing second.  So much blood pumping down there that he thought the skin might split along the seam.  ‘I’ve always been ready for you.’
    The sounds of his mother’s high heels echoed against the freezer floor; joined a moment later by the sound of a wooden match striking to life.  Even with the soiled underwear covering his eyes, Nicholas could see exactly what she was doing now.  What she always did when the two of them were alone together inside the butcher’s shop.
    When the smoke from the match reached its intended destination three seconds later, the fire sprinklers overhead turned on in an icy shower of water that drenched Nicholas’s entire body from head to toe.  Moaning softly, he lifted up his face to the ceiling and stretched out his arms like Jesus Christ hanging on the cross, luxuriating in the exquisite pain.
    Then his mother simply left the freezer, closing the heavy steel door behind her and sliding the metal locking pin into place.  From outside the freezer door, she called out to him.  ‘What do you say, son?’ she asked.
    Shivering uncontrollably, Nicholas felt his testicles shrivel up and crawl deep inside his stomach for warmth – the kind of warmth he could never seem to find on the outside of his body, no matter how hard he looked.
    ‘Thank you, Mother,’ he said.
    And the really sick part about the whole thing – the part that not even Nicholas himself would ever be able to understand – was that he’d actually meant it.

PART I
    CLEANING UP AFTER THE STORM
    ‘If this is “normal”, we have a serious problem in this country.  The federal government ought to be embarrassed about what is happening.  If local government tried to run things this way, we’d be run out of town.’
      Benny Rousselle, president of Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana, commenting on the cleanup efforts following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

CHAPTER 1
    Los Angeles International Airport – 12 May – 2 p.m.
    The muscles lining Dana Whitestone’s