Episode 5: Bunnies in Black
Part 4
A skinny, mousy-haired man hurried down the corridor. He held his crotch tightly with his hands and clenched his teeth so as not to jolt out a yelp and draw any attention to himself. He was lucky anyway; everyone around the Mansion was too busy… well, with each other.
He felt a sharp pain again below his waistline and winced. He was a stupid man without any control over his hormones. Just one wink from a Playmate, and he’d ended up in her bed, making love — if that’s what you could call it. The Playmate had been beautiful, very beautiful indeed. He snickered; he’d never gotten this lucky in his entire life.
Lucky? Was he calling what had happened there luck? It hadn’t gone well at all. Sure, he was a little self-conscious about his performance in bed, but something told him that wasn’t the reason why the Playmate had started making weird noises and talking in a foreign language. The rest had happened in the blink of an eye; all he’d felt was a sudden pain in his penis. It hadn’t taken him longer than two seconds to get dressed and leave the room in a storm.
“I gotta get outta here. I gotta get outta here…” he kept repeating under his breath.
He heard voices coming from the direction he was walking in, making him stop dead in his tracks. “Oh my Doc!” he squealed. Looking around, he saw a big sculpture shaped like a giant bunny head. To his luck, he was quick enough to hide behind the bunny head only seconds before two women passed by it.
“I still can’t believe we agreed to do this,” a redhead spoke angrily to the blonde woman. “Is this what we were hired for? And these outfits, they stink. NOT comfortable at all…”
The skinny man wiped the sweat off his forehead; that was a close call. After escaping his hiding place, he headed toward the exit and thought about the potential consequences for getting caught. It would be dreadful, for sure, not being able to serve his master again. Gulping, he came to his senses. Getting caught by the enemy meant not living after all. Even if he survived, his master was a merciless man; he didn’t accept any failure at all. But no, his master was a generous man, too, if one served him right. And he was going to serve him right. Forever.
He slipped through the front door, smiling as he sucked in a grateful breath of fresh air. “I got out!” he squealed with joy. But still, he had to be extra careful until he was off the property. With that in mind, he decided to avoid the main driveway and forge a path through the tall bushes growing along the fence around the perimeter.
Just as he stepped through the first bush, a sudden buzz made him squeal with fear. Still holding his crotch, he looked down at his right arm and saw a small red light flashing on his black wristband. Kneeling between the bushes, where no one would notice him, he slid back a hidden panel on the wristband to reveal a tiny screen. He let out a gasp when he saw his master’s face appear.
“Donnie, what the hell are you still doing over there?!” Dr. Rough’s stern voice projected through the small screen.
“Hello, D-Doc… Doctor Rough,” Donnie stuttered. Oh, how afraid he was now, how afraid he was to disappoint his master.
“Answer me!” Dr. Rough growled on the other side. Even through the miniature screen, Donnie noticed the twitching in his master’s eye.
“Oh Doctor, I was… um, I was visiting my brother, sir. You know…” Donnie spoke slowly, trying to stop his stuttering, which got only worse. “I-I-I… I, you know… I w-was… v-visiting m-m-m-my br-brother… for… y-you kn- know…”
“Enough!” Dr. Rough growled as his eye twitched even more rapidly than before. Then, all of a sudden, he cracked a smile. “You know what my next great plan is, right, Donnie?”
Donnie could only nod excitedly. “Yes, master, you were too kind to tell me about-”
“Silence!” Dr. Rough growled once more before forcing another insincere smile. “And you know I need information to pull it off, don’t you?” Seeing Donnie nod, he continued, “Well, do I need to remind you that, out of all the people working for me, I’m counting on you to collect that information?”
“No sir, I… I… I am your devoted servant, sir, and believe me, by… by… by the end of t-tonight, I… I… w-will br-bring you the… the best information out there,” Donnie said in one breath, trying to control his stutter.
Annoyed at his minion’s miserable state, Dr. Rough let out a deep sigh. “Alright, Donnie, I trust you on this. And never forget, if you do it right, your devotion to me and my vision will be greatly rewarded.”
Donnie’s eyes grew with anticipation. “Thank you, master. You are so very generous, mast-” Before he could finish, the miniature screen went black and shut off with a beep. Donnie let out his breath, the last syllable of his sentence dying on his lips.
He remained hidden among the bushes for another minute, processing the brief conversation with his master as his mind raced to plan his next move. Then he straightened up, brushing the leaves and twigs from his body, and scurried along the fenceline like a scared rabbit. His heart pounded as he slipped through the front gate. Dr. Rough was counting on him. He couldn’t let his master down.
***
“And the shit just keeps going,” Emerald marveled as she rounded a corner, only to be met by another long corridor.
The Mansion was the most extravagant place she had ever set her eyes on, a far cry from the streets she’d grown up on. Looking around, she could almost hear the boisterous voice of Robin Leach pointing out its many beautiful features on an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. Everything was so lavish and pristine. And it all must have cost a fortune.
Under normal circumstances, Emerald would have been excited to explore the place and see what kind of trouble she could cause as she helped herself to the mini bars that seemed to be present in every room in the house. But these were not normal circumstances.
While the outfit was ridiculous and demeaning, the mission itself was not the problem. Neither were the Mansion’s other occupants. The Bunnies were — no surprise — completely useless and unable to think for themselves. And most of the men in the house were more interested in the slutty babes than anything Emerald was doing, but they didn’t bother her. No, the problem was a certain horny old bastard who seemed to have taken a liking to “the feisty one.”
Theoretically, this job should have been a cakewalk, but so far, she’d come up with nothing. Nada. Zilch. Not a single clue that could shed some light on the case. “Jack shit!” she grumbled as she searched the dresser in the master suite.
Rolling her eyes at the black leather bondage accessories in the bottom drawer, she hit a button on her wristwatch. “Jay!” she hissed into it. “Jay! You know I can appreciate getting kinky every now and then, but I have my limits! That horny old bastard is like a damn bloodhound! He’s everywhere!” She reached into the drawer and held up a large rubber dildo, shaking it at the camera in her watch. “I swear to God, Jay, if you don’t get me out of here, I’m going to bring this back with me and shove it up your-”
“Ms. O’Riley?” A deep, gentle voice questioned nervously, “Is that you?”
“Bri- er, Officer Littrell!” Emerald was unable to hide the horror in her voice as Brian’s flushed face appeared on her watch.
Though Brian had no qualms with Emerald and loved the fact that she hated Nick Carter, the genteel man was somewhat scared of HimTak’s little firecracker. “Agent Jay is on the phone with Kevin at the moment,” he explained, regaining his composure. “Is there something I can help you with, darlin’?”
“There’s nothing here except brain-dead blondes, booze, and a shitload of sex toys.”
Slightly embarrassed — and Emerald did not get embarrassed — she hit another button on her watch, severing communication with the CIA officer. Littrell was such a good ol’ boy, or at least that was the impression he gave, that she doubted he would even know what half the stuff in this drawer was. Hell, even she didn’t know what it all was, and she had slept with rock stars!
“You are truly one depraved fuckbag,” she muttered, closing the drawer, the dildo safely inside.
And not a moment too soon. For as soon as the whispered words left her mouth, she heard the click of the bedroom door opening and jumped. Her body stiffening, she looked around for a place to hide and ducked into the connecting bathroom just as Hugh Hefner strolled into his chamber.
Emerald silently removed her stilettos, knowing the heels would make too much noise against the bathroom tile. Clutching the shoes in her hand, she tiptoed over to the bathtub, which looked more like an in-ground pool, and stepped down into it.
A shower curtain surrounded the circular tub, but naturally, it was gauzy and transparent, the liner behind it totally clear. It was hardly worth trying to hide behind, but she carefully pulled it halfway across its bar anyway, hoping it might keep his eyes from looking into the tub should he come in. She sat down on the cool bottom of the tub; then, realizing her head could still be seen above its rim, she took a deep breath and stretched out her body until she was lying flat. It was deeply uncomfortable — the tub was hard and cold, and her skimpy Bunny costume provided no cushion. She tried not to think of what had been done in this tub or what she might be lying in. She hoped to god the Mansion employed good housekeepers.
She drew in a sudden breath and held it as she heard the door to the bathroom open. Through the gauzy curtain, Hef’s silhouette appeared. Her mind raced as he came toward the tub, trying to think of what she would say when he drew back the curtain and found her lying there.
But to her relief, his figure stopped before he reached the tub and lowered, she realized, onto the toilet. Oh no, she groaned internally, disgusted beyond belief.
The next ten minutes were among the most uncomfortable she’d ever experienced, and not just because she was lying on stone cold ceramic. She tried to block out the sounds of Hef’s grunting and straining as he rifled through what she assumed to be a magazine, hearing the pages crinkle against his dusty old fingers.
It was probably one of his own Playboys, she thought with disgust and silently shifted her weight, rolling onto one hip. That damned bunny tail felt like a tennis ball up her ass when she tried to lie flat.
Finally — thankfully, without the sounds or smells of the bodily function she’d been dreading — she watched Hef rise from his “throne” and put the magazine down. He did not flush. She let out a breath of relief, assuming he would leave now so that she could find a way to escape.
But to her horror, he did not head for the door. Instead, he turned, his silhouette growing larger behind the shower curtain.
Emerald moved quickly. By the time Hef drew back the curtain, she had pulled herself into a very centerfold-like pose. She lay propped up on one elbow, her bare legs curved, toes pointed, ass turned up so that a hint of the bunny tail could be seen. She returned his surprised look with a smoldering one and purred, “I’ve been waiting for you, Hef.”
Blinking back his surprise, the old man cleared his throat. “So you have, I see. Most of my ladies don’t dare to come into my private rooms without an invitation.”
She could tell he wasn’t scolding her, just explaining his astonishment to find her stretched out in his bathtub. She offered her sexiest smile and gazed up at him through half-lidded eyes. “I’m not most of your ladies. Haven’t you noticed by now? I’m something special.”
“I have noticed,” he replied, an eerie smile splitting his wrinkled face. “And I’m glad you’re here. I was just about to relax in a hot bath. I need to ease some tension. You’d like to join me, wouldn’t you?”
Emerald could not think of anything she’d less like to do, but she also couldn’t think of an excuse to get away, and it occurred to her that some private time with him could be helpful to the mission. Maybe she could get some information out of him while he was relaxed. And so, steeling herself, she replied, “I’d like nothing more than that.”
Hef drew the bath, filling the tub with hot, sudsy water and turning on the whirlpool jets so that it bubbled and churned. It looked like heaven to Emerald until the naked, wrinkled, eighty-year-old body pressed itself against her bare breasts, and then it became her own private hell.
She thought she might vomit as he groped her happily beneath the water, and when she let him kiss her, she thought the vomit might go straight into his mouth. It was only out of loyalty to Himitsu Takana that she fought her gag reflex, hoping her own bile would be all that she had to swallow to protect the mission and her cover.
When Hef finally let the water drain from the tub and climbed out, thankfully covering himself up with a large towel, Emerald thought the worst was over. But she was wrong. The worst was about to begin.
“That was nice,” Hef panted, as if she’d just given him a workout in the tub. She imagined his elderly heart was pumping fast; she was hot, after all, and she knew just what to do to turn a man on, even an old man.
But what to say to get information? That part, she hadn’t figured out yet; Hef seemed to operate by the mantra “A little less conversation, a little more action.” She’d gotten nothing out of him, which made the way she had degraded herself seem pointless. She was anxious to get away and try to forget the whole thing.
But Hef wasn’t so keen on letting her go. “And now, sweetheart, I need your help with something.”
She wanted to spit “fuck no!” and run, but to her own revulsion, she found herself cooing, “Of course, darling. What do you need help with?” It was so uncharacteristic of her, so phony, that her own voice made her want to gag almost as much as he did.
“I’ll show you.” He opened a drawer and pulled out a black leather case, like a shaving kit. Carrying it with him, he beckoned her into the bedroom, and she followed in curiosity. Maybe she was finally about to learn something important, a revelation that could turn the whole mission around.
“What’s in the bag?” she couldn’t resist asking as Hef sat down on the bed in his towel and placed the case on his lap.
He hesitated for a moment, then handed it to her. “Open it.”
Mystified, she unzipped the leather pouch, folded back the lid, and wrinkled her nose in dismay as she looked down at its contents: latex bags and plastic tubes and nozzles. Medical equipment, though she wasn’t sure what kind. She looked back up at Hef with the first genuine expression she’d shown him: confusion.
“It’s time for my daily enema, sweetheart,” Hef explained, and just like that, she was back to the struggle of trying to hide her disgust.
“O-oh,” she choked. “Well, I should go and leave you to your privacy then.” She backed away quickly, but with reflexes quicker than she had expected of him, he reached out his gnarled hand and grabbed her arm, his papery fingers locking around her wrist.
“You misunderstand me. My Bunnies always give me my enema. I thought you might be honored to receive the privilege today.”
Honored? Privilege? Emerald had to fight hard to keep the horror off her face. “Oh Hef, I really don’t think I can–”
“Come now… Cookie, is it? I have given you a palace of luxury in which to stay, and you’ll have a spread in my magazine if you’d like. The least a beautiful young thing like you could do is help an old man. You do care about me, don’t you?”
No, no, no, and hell no! Emerald’s mind screamed, but she had no choice: she had to play along if she wanted any hope of uncovering his secrets. If he was this willing to share something so intimate, so embarrassing, with her, perhaps he would share more.
Before she knew it, he lay stretched out on his stomach, his drooping, wrinkled ass bared for her to access. She followed his careful instructions to prepare the enema. Red should be fucking doing this, she grumbled to herself, but she didn’t complain out loud. She would gain his trust if she did what he asked; she felt reasonably confident about that. Somewhere in this mansion, there was the key to unlocking the mysterious events she had witnessed at HimTak the other night. She just needed Hef to give it to her.
“…Now, rub some lubricant on the end of the nozzle,” he said, gesturing to a tube of KY Jelly on his nightstand. “Don’t go too light on it either. Then you can insert it.”
Emerald’s stomach, normally quite strong, churned with nausea as she forced herself to do as he asked. He groaned as she placed the tube, and she couldn’t tell if it was from discomfort or pleasure. The latter brought her close to the verge of vomiting; she could feel the stomach acid rising up her throat, but she swallowed it back. If she lost control of herself, she’d blow the whole thing, and she had come way too far to let that happen now.
As her hand touched his skin, she inadvertently displaced the towel he had removed from his waist and draped over his back like a blanket. When the terrycloth material moved, it exposed something she had not noticed before on his body (not that she had been looking too closely at it; she’d tried to avoid that as much as possible). It looked like a tattoo — a strange symbol on his lower back, below where his waistband would rest, centered over his spine.
It’s a tramp stamp, she thought with a smirk, but the tattoo had piqued her curiosity. Though not quite a connoisseur like Jay, she was something of an expert on them, but she had never seen one like this. It was not the usual Chinese or Native American or even a hieroglyph. In fact, she had no idea where a character like this originated from, let alone what it meant.
And that was not the only strange thing about it. In the very center of the symbol, she could just make out something that was not skin but metal — a very thin metal ring, seemingly embedded in his skin. Was it a piercing? She leaned closer to study it; again, even in all her years of banging rockers, she hadn’t seen anything like it.
“This is a cool tattoo,” she finally said, reaching out to trace it with her fingertips. “Who did it?”
Her question was never answered. His reaction was lightning fast. He whipped around and grabbed her wrist again, jerking it away from his body and overturning the IV pole holding his enema bag in the process. She winced as the tube was ripped out of his backside, but he didn’t so much as grimace.
“Don’t touch that,” he hissed, with a fury in his eyes. Emerald was stunned. Gone was the suave, horny, yet kindly old man who had probably been quite charming in his younger years. The man who was gripping her arm now actually scared her.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized quickly, forgetting about the mission, just anxious to get out of the room now. “I was just wonder-”
His eyes narrowed at her. “You really aren’t like the others, are you? Why are you here? Who sent you?”
“I… no one! I came for my dream… I’ve always dreamed of being a Playmate, Hef.” She tried to return her voice to the sexy purr she’d used with him in the bathtub, but it was shaking. “I came here for you.”
As he surveyed her through those hard, suspicious eyes, she realized he didn’t believe her and knew what she would have to do. She hadn’t wanted to do anything that would compromise the mission, but now, she knew she had to, to save it.
With her free hand, she reached down the front of her Bunny lingerie and across the silky material of her black bra, custom-tailored for her by Pearl. She found the tiny valve hidden in the center of the bra’s padded cup and released it. She held her breath. A split second later, a hazy blue gas began to rise from her cleavage. She wafted it away from her and watched its progress up Hef’s nostrils.
He was staring at her more with confusion than rage now. Before he realized what she had done, his eyes glazed over, rolled up into the back of his head, and closed as he fell back into a twisted heap on the bed. Releasing a shuddering breath, she leaped away from him and shook all over like a wet dog, trying to rid herself of every detail of the experience she had just endured. Then she looked back at Hef, making sure he was safely unconscious.
Sleeping gas. The bra, her secret weapon, had a store of it in its cups, to be used only for dangerous situations like these. The gas didn’t kill its victims; it only rendered them temporarily unconscious for up to twenty-four hours, leaving them dazed when they awoke. Hef would probably shit his bed while he slept and wake up bewildered and smelling worse than he already did, but if she was lucky, he wouldn’t remember what had happened.
Still, time was short now that she had nearly been discovered. Hef had only inhaled a small puff of gas; he wouldn’t be out long. She and the other girls had to find some answers, and soon. Maybe the strange tattoo on his back was a start. Alarmed by her close call, she didn’t dare stick around to investigate it now, but she carefully rolled the old man over to take a picture of it before she left. Maybe she could get Pearl in his bed next… to do some further study, of course.
With that thought in her mind, she fled the room, ducked into the nearest bathroom off the corridor, and finally expelled the contents of her stomach into a golden toilet bowl.
***