Deviant Intent: OBSESSION Read online

  OBSESSION

  Deviant Intent:

  OBESSION

  Shakir Rashaan

  A novel

  Kemi-Ka

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  This book is for sale to adult audiences only. It contains substantially sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which may be considered offensive by some readers.

  Copyright © 2010 by Shakir Rashaan

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the express written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the owner is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Cover Design by Shakir Rashaan

  Published by Kemi-Ka Publishing, LLC

  Printed in the United States of America

  ISBN 978-0-578-04960-1

  Also from Shakir Rashaan:

  The Awakening: Book One of the

  Chronicles of the Nubian Underworld

  For My Beloved

  ~What moves men of genius, or rather what inspires their work, is not new ideas, but their obsession with the idea that what has already been said is still not enough ~

  Eugene Delacroix

  Deviant Intent:

  Obsession

  ~One~

  Hate me or love me, I get results…

  I’m damn good at what I do. Sure, I bent the rules a little bit, but what cop hasn’t? But I was never… I repeat, never… dirty. You can ask any of my old partners, and they’ll tell you that for a fact.

  But when your childhood partner in crime comes calling and says the words I got something I want you to run for me, and then backs it up with capital to keep me happy and away from the P.D., you jump at it quick. That’s what I did a year ago, and I haven’t looked back since.

  He and I go way back; in fact, we were damn near partners on the force together. That is, until he decided to start doing his photography thing, and we went our separate paths. I never held a grudge against him about it though. The way I saw it, things have a funny way of working themselves out, and he always said he would find a way to get me out of the P.D. before he figured that he had to bury me.

  Oh, by the way.

  The name’s Law… Dominic Law. But you can call me Dom. My now business partner Ramesses called me that when we were in high school and the nickname kinda stuck. But now, instead of Detective Law, you can call me by a different moniker now…

  Private Investigator… so you can’t tell me shit now.

  Actually, it’s more than that; I run the P.I. business, yes, but I’m also the head of Ramesses’ security detail at the Palace and Neferterri’s security detail at her club Liquid Paradise, so they keep me quite busy with everything that goes on.

  But that’s not all; thanks to Ramesses I got a lot of cases that the various P.D.’s can’t always deem high priority, especially when sometimes the cases aren’t always “normal” by mainstream standards. After while I got the rep for being the “Kink Detective”, and sometimes I could be brought in on a consult for the unusual sex crimes around the ATL area.

  Couple that with the fact that because of all these kink-related crimes, I found myself immersed deep inside the BDSM community here in Atlanta, which was fine, because it wasn’t like I wasn’t already into the shit to begin with. I can thank Ramesses and Amenhotep for that. I honestly didn’t think that I would want to be that deep, but when you see how women like Ramesses’ girls and the slaves at the Palace treat a brother, it is very hard to resist learning how to get that same treatment.

  Just to be clear, my boy has damn near converted me; my problem, as he saw it, is that I’m the new meat on the scene. Add that with the fact that I’m a heterosexual black man and my best friend (that is mentoring me, by the way) happens to be one of the power players in the Atlanta POC BDSM community, and the women on the scene drool over me because I was a cop at one point in time.

  The problem you ask?

  Technically there is no problem, except an ex-wife that happens to be into the same thing that I, when we were married, could really never be a part of because of my occupation. I mean, come on, a cop in the Deep South trying to be discreet doing ‘kinky shit’?

  It’s not gonna happen; in fact, it’s one of the ‘irreconcilable differences’ we had when she filed for divorce. Now, not only am I a newbie in the community, but I have to occasionally run into her at munches or at the Palace when a larger community function is going on, and then hear her damn mouth about it after the fact. I’d dwell on this some more, but you could probably care less. If you’re like most Americans you’re simply going to lump me into that collection of oddballs that you think of as ‘the strange people’. I find it offensive to be lumped into the same group as Jehovah’s Witnesses, and I’m sure they feel the same way about me, but go ahead; I’m used to it.

  I’m one of the popular people at the local munch.

  Oh, yeah, that’s right; you don’t know the ‘strange person’ jargon. A munch is short for a meet and lunch and that is the proper, and original, term for a gathering of people in the bondage, dominance and sadomasochism lifestyle. Take a minute to add leather to your mental label for me. Go ahead, I’ll wait. You’re wrong though. Not everyone into BDSM, the lifestyle we call it, is a leather clad freak. A lot of us, including Ramesses and Amenhotep, I’ll grant you, but not all of us. Not me.

  It’s not like that won’t stop Ramesses, though.

  Look at me… sounding like Ramesses again.

  Damn it.

  Well, he’s got me convinced now, but I had no intentions of sounding like a damn tape recorder, either

  Munches vary in tone. It’s all to do with the people involved. The South Fulton munch is mostly well-educated and well-employed, so the only difference between one of our gatherings and a meeting of your local Kiwanis Club is... well, damned if I know.

  The tone is set by the group leaders, in this particular munch it is Ramesses, Neferterri and Mistress Sinsual, generally the folks who have been around the longest. Mostly people dress casually, blue jeans, dresses, skirts and blouses, clean sneakers, and even the occasional suit.

  I tell you this so you can understand why I wasn’t surprised when peaches sat down across from me. Of course, peaches’ not her real name. Let me re-phrase that, peaches is her real name in the sense that it’s the only one she’ll answer to because it’s the name her Master gave her. Don’t worry about understanding everything, just keep up with me and Ramesses and let the otherness sort of wash over you… like a golden shower.

  Sorry, couldn’t resist.

  When I thought about it, I was surprised to see peaches here, much less anywhere outside of Inner Sanctum, one of the local dungeons. The South Fulton munch was a place for people to socialize among other lifestylers and Lord Aris and his harem weren’t really capable of getting outside the lifestyle. He thought it was a waste of time, except to collect more girls for his personal enjoyment. Ramesses and his mentor, Amenhotep, never could stand the guy. Hell, come to think of it, I hadn’t r
un into anyone that really held any affinity for the man, except for the subs that were with him. But in the interest of keeping harmony in the community, most people tolerated him.

  Not exactly what I would do if I know the man ain’t worth two dead flies, but I digress.

  Upon examining the situation further, I couldn’t recall in my limited experience ever seeing one of Aris’ slaves at a gathering where he wasn’t. Lord Aris was a controlling asshole, but women mistook his misogyny, control freak attitude and lack of social skills for a commanding air of dominance and they flocked to him like moths to a flame. He had to beat them off with a stick, which he loved. Hell, what man wouldn’t?

  I took another sip of the tea and waited. peaches wanted to talk to me, but the protocol that she’s under prohibits her from speaking to a Dominant unless spoken to first. I should have respected that protocol as a courtesy to her Master, but I didn’t. In case you haven’t been paying attention, I don’t much like Aris, and he’d been clear and vocal about his disdain for me because of my association with Ramesses, nothing more.

  So fuck him, and fuck her.

  I let her sit there and make eye contact with the table while I waited for her to decide which was more important, Aris’ protocol or her need to talk to me. It was torture for her. Call it a sadistic side of me, but I enjoyed watching her squirm.

  “May i speak, Sir?” she finally asked.

  “Yes, you have permission to speak, slave,” I replied, following the proper etiquette that I had been learning from Ramesses.

  “i can’t find Master. i haven’t seen Him in over a week and He’s not returning my phone calls.”

  I shrugged. Like I give a fuck, it’s not my problem.

  “Aris is not exactly known for letting His slaves down easily,” I pointed out. “Perhaps He’s simply just incognito for a day or two?”

  “No one has seen Him for a week,” she amplified, a slight bit irritated at my indifference. “He was supposed to have a session with slave maia on Thursday and He didn’t leave the key for her, Sir. I tried calling His work number and got the answering machine. i know He’s not Your favorite person, and i understand if you do not want to, but can You find Him for me, Sir? i know that You and Lord Ramesses are close, and He is an honorable Dominant, so i know that You are of honor as well.”

  Damn. She pulled the card of my mentor out on me, which made the prospect of saying no even harder. Truth be told, I’m a softie when it comes to women who are in earnest need of help. Some habits never die; after all, I was a cop before. But now, I was a businessman, and a businessman gets paid for services rendered.

  “slave peaches, the fee is one hundred dollars per hour, two hour minimum, plus expenses which will amount to a least another hundred dollars. I don’t promise any results.”

  I almost put my prices up enough to put her off. The key word is almost.

  “Lifestyle discount?” she asked tentatively.

  “Mind your place, slave,” I roughly answered, trying to sound like I knew what I was saying. Truth is, I really wasn’t sure if I was or not, but I didn’t care if I was being contracted, she was not about to lose her protocol just because I decided to help.

  “Please forgive me, Sir,” she sheepishly answered. She colored a little, embarrassed, and pulled some money out of her purse. She counted out three hundred dollars in neatly folded twenties and fifties and put them on the table. I counted them and put them away and then put my notebook and pen on the table in front of her.

  “I’ll need your Master’s home address and a list of all the submissives He worked with, as well as submissives that are currently under His charge,” I instructed her. Normally, I’d have asked about enemies, but with Aris we might be talking all week. Besides, this was typical Aris; I’d probably find out that he’d gone to Vegas for a week or something like that, while he waited for the subs he’d chosen to dispose of to get the message.

  “I’ll need your home info,” I told her. “I’ll send the contract to you there.”

  “Could You go ahead and start looking today?” she asked. “Please, Sir?”

  I considered making her beg. I’d enjoy that. She’d enjoy that. But this was a public munch. Discretion is the term that applies and Ramesses and Mistress Sinsual get very unhappy with people who make the vanillas squirm, and it’s not a pretty sight. The only nice thing about being ‘in the know’ is that you aren’t actually an outcast. It’s hard to find the kind of women I like in vanilla circles.

  I texted Ramesses to keep from drawing too much attention to peaches; it was difficult enough as it was,

  considering that she was wearing a skirt just short enough to cover her ass and a halter top and sandals.

  Not conservative, but she was a youngster and she knew she could show off her body and no one would complain… at least except those of the straight female persuasion, that is.

  He texted me back about a minute later, telling me that I had the afternoon to handle business, but I needed to do a quick check at the Palace before the night was out. That gave me a few hours to do some preliminary work.

  I put my Blackberry back in its holster and told peaches, “Sure. I’m not doing anything this afternoon. I can at least get some quick follow up done.”

  ~Two~

  I was headed up 285 North, heading past the Glenwood Road exit.

  Aris lived in Stone Mountain, where most of the upwardly mobile blacks live. It was a pretty large home, no doubt; I’d bet good money that I don’t have that Aris thought it made him look grand and important. If you ask me, I thought it looked like someone frankly was compensating for something that they didn’t have in other areas. The mailbox out on the driveway was stuffed and I took a little look through it. He had the usual assortment of junk mail, including the sort that only lifestylers receive, and a bunch of bills. Nothing really jumped out at me so I just stuffed it back into the mailbox and rang the doorbell a few times.

  I was certain that the full mailbox was just Aris being Aris, but in any missing person case finding an overflowing mailbox is never a good sign. Neither is an unanswered doorbell. So I did a walk around of the house and kept my eyes open and my SIG-Sauers drawn. It was a quiet neighborhood; no one noticed me or, if they did, said anything to me about it. I didn’t see any signs of forced entry or any convenient open windows or doors. I did notice what looked like an enormous doggie-door. It took me a minute to connect that with the doghouse and chain-linked kennel in the back yard and then translate the idea into something that most in the BDSM community understand.

  It didn’t take a seasoned kinkster to figure this one out; he’d been treating submissives like pets. Making them sleep in the kennel, crawl through the doggie-door, and stuff of that nature. Not my kink, but I know a few people on either side of the collar that enjoy that sort of thing.

  I put a handkerchief over my hand and tried the lock; I’m not an officer anymore, so, such precautions were necessary. It gave me an idea though. It was locked, of course, but people who put fifty dollar locks on their doors put ten dollar locks on their doggie-doors mainly because they don’t think that anyone would have the guts to crawl through it. Picking it was pretty easy, and I crawled through and into the house.

  I searched around the main floor of the house, trying to find anything that would give me any inkling that there wasn’t any foul play. Experience teaches a lot, but it also makes you jaded in some instances. My senses were telling me that it was just a matter of time before I would find something that would not be pretty.

  My instincts were right on the money.

  As I approached the basement door, I had to take the handkerchief that I used on the door to cover my nose and mouth, as the unmistakable stench that I’d become all too familiar with as a homicide detective in my former life began to haunt my senses once again.

  Let me tell you this, in case you hadn’t figured it out already…

  Bodies stink.

  No way to get around that. In m
y years on the force, I had seen bodies in all sorts of conditions and none of them was pleasant to be around. A body that has had some time to decompose for a few days was perhaps my least favorite because the stench can be overpowering until some ventilation could be brought in.

  There was definitely a dead body in the room that I was approaching.

  If you ever find yourself in this situation here’s what you do. First, go outside to throw up. Second, call

  the police. I didn’t do either of those. I didn’t do the first because I was mostly past that reaction, and I didn’t do the second because I was nosey as hell and I didn’t want the P.D. involved just yet. Okay, maybe also because I could also close out the case if I positively identified Aris, but nosey was still accurate.

  The smell came from downstairs in his private dungeon.

  There had been a lot of discussion about the merits of dungeons, private or public, during the munch discussions. Submissives tended to love them; they made the fantasy real. Dominants knew that they’re expensive to set up and took a lot of work to maintain, but the benefits far outweighed the costs.

  For someone that kept such a well manicured home, he’d apparently been too cheap to spend money on things like a floor and some lights; but then again, Aris had the most realistic dungeon I’d ever seen. It was damp. It was dark. It was perversely perfect and I don’t mind admitting that it was disquieting. It looked like the kind of place a serial killer would torture and dismember his victims. Thanks to the dead body that was hanging in front of me it smelled like that too. In my mind, it had to be Aris.

  At least, I thought it had to be Aris. I couldn’t positively identify him. The sonofabitch habitually strutted around at shows and at Inner Sanctum half-naked, but any tattoos I might have used to identify him were hidden behind bloated black flesh or covered by the damage. There was just enough genitalia left to identify the person as a he, but that was about it. Someone had done a real nasty job on this guy.