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SHE WHO SOWS THE WIND
Chapter 1
Neela walked down the shopping mall aisle. People walked past her, going both directions. On either side, store windows were full of wares for sale inside. Muzak blared from the loudspeakers. But for the young Indian woman in red sweater and faded jeans, all of these things might have just as well not existed. Her face was downcast, her eyes locked at the floor a few feet in front of her.
She sat down at a table in a small cafe. Glancing quickly at the cheap wristwatch tucked underneath her sweater sleeve, she let out a small sigh of relief. She was on time - but at the same time, the dread of the upcoming meeting felt even heavier in the pit of her stomach. A waitress stopped beside the table. Neela didn’t really hear her question, but replied anyway.
“I’m waiting for someone”, she managed to say, taking a quick glance at the pretty face looking down at her. She saw small concern flash on the waitress’ face and tried to force a small smile on her lips. Anything to make her go away - anything to make her not to ask anything more.
“Well hello there, my darling, so nice to see you again!”
Neela managed not to flinch at the words. She looked up to see the brunette who’d plopped herself down in the chair across the table from her. The newly arrived woman was wearing a short leather jacket over a garish t-shirt and tight black jeans, her brown hair with blue tips cascading down her shoulders. She smiled at Neela, but her eyes were anything but friendly.
“Hello, Elizabeth.”
“Jeez, what’s gotten you so down? Cheer up, honey. Two cafe lattes, please”, Elizabeth added for the waitress’ benefit. As the girl departed to make the drinks, Elizabeth turned at Neela.
“Behave, bitch! If you keep up that my-cat-just-died act, someone is going to get suspicious - and believe me, you do not want that to happen.”
Neela nodded and forced a smile on her face despite wanting to burst out into tears. Anything to get this over with.
“That’s better. Did you bring it?”
“Yes.”
“Well?”
Neela reached into her battered shoulder bag and pulled out a small envelope. She pushed it toward Elizabeth underneath the table. The brunette’s eyes lit up with joy for the first time as she snatched the envelope.
“It better be all there.”
“It is.”
“Oh, I hope so. For your sake - and that other slut’s sake”, Elizabeth said as she rose from the chair. “See you next week”, she added, flashing a predatory smile at Neela before vanishing into the crowd of people.
“Where’d your friend go”, the waitress asked as she returned with the two cups a few moments later.
“She, oh, something came up and she had to leave. I’ll pay for them”, Neela said, reaching for her purse. The waitress set the cups down on the table and turned to look at Neela.
“Look, it’s probably none of my business, but… is everything ok?”
“Yes. Yes, everything is just fine.”
Liar, Neela told herself as she walked away from the cafeteria. But then again, what else could she say? Nothing.
She was so lost in her own thoughts that she bumped into someone at the top of the escalator. Looking up, she saw a petite blonde in a floral dress. The eyes underneath the slightly messy hair had a look that made even Neela grimace. Muttering something that might have been an apology, they passed each other and Neela stepped onto the escalator.
“Well, looks like someone else is also having a bad day”, she said to herself. Then again, for her, it had been a bad month. Bad ten months, to be exact.
Chapter 2
Ten months ago, she’d said yes to the persistent invitations from the group of women she regularly ran into at lunch. They worked in the same building and had kept asking her to go out with them for weeks. On that one night, Neela had said yes. Before long, she’d been wondering why she hadn’t said yes earlier. The fivesome had made her feel a part of the group right off the bat.
As midnight came and went, someone in the group had gotten the idea of doing something wild to close the night out. ‘Something wild’ had turned out to be a ‘gentlemen’s club’ at the edge of the town center. The bouncer had waved them in past the small queue and they’d taken over a table near the stage.
For Neela, it had been something she’d never experienced before. It seemed that her companions were a bit more familiar with the environment, but even some of them admitted that had it not been for ‘maybe a few drinks too many’, they would have never gone in. As it was, a few drinks too many turned into quite a few drinks too many… and then, in the middle of her performance, a brunette dressed as a dominatrix had asked for a volunteer from the audience. For anyone in the club, it was obvious she was looking at the table of six women.
It must have been the drinks talking, but one of them had suggested doing rock-paper-scissors for the ‘privilege’ of volunteering. Despite her misgivings, Neela had said yes.
And lost.
She’d walked to the stage with the entire club applauding her. The dominatrix had helped her up the stairs, pushed her against the pole - and before Neela had known, handcuffed her wrists to it. As the music had begun to play, Neela had, despite herself, found herself getting into the situation, playing along.
A few minutes later, as the music ended, she crawled on all fours through the curtain with the mistress leading her on a leash.
“Thank you”, the mistress said, helping her up. “Did you enjoy it?”
“That was… different, that’s for sure.”
The brunette’s face had curled into a smile. “Liar. You liked it. You just don’t want to admit it.”
Neela returned the smile. “Well… I’m not going to say no…”
“Don’t lie to your mistress”, the brunette had said, pushed Neela against the wall of her small dressing room and kissed her full on the mouth.
Neela had been caught off-guard with the kiss, but found herself getting into it. She’d… experimented at college, but that had been a while ago - and none of the girls she’d fooled around with had been anything like Elizabeth. The memories were a little hazy, but Neela could remember she’d enjoyed it. A lot. When she’d finally returned to her friends’ table, she'd been smiling like the cat that ate the canary. There had been questions, of course, but Neela had insisted nothing had happened - while knowing full well that everyone knew something had. As they’d left the club to find a cab, her companions promised that whatever had happened at the club would stay at the club.
Someone else hadn’t made that promise.
Two days later, Neela had received an envelope in the mail.
Inside, she’d found a stack of photographs of her and Elizabeth practically naked and all over each other. The enclosed letter gave a direct threat: unless you want your employer and everyone else in the world to see these, it’ll cost you two hundred.
She’d been completely dumbstruck with how Elizabeth had managed to find her - until she’d remembered she’d used her credit card at the club. A name like Neela Chowdhury was rare enough that finding her address probably hadn’t been that difficult. It wasn’t that big a town, anyway.
As much fun as that casual encounter had been at the time, she would have never consented to having pictures taken - and would never, ever, ever let anyone publish them. Still in shock, she’d gone to the first meeting, hoping - naively, she later admitted to herself - that it would be a one-time thing, she’d pay and get the photos. Elizabeth had laughed in her face when she’d suggested that. No, she’d pay each and every week. The only consolation was that she’d agreed to a hundred dollars a week.
As a one-time expense, the two hundred wouldn’t have been unbearable - no pocket change, by any means, but still something Neela could have lived with. A hundred dollars a week… Her salary was decent, but nothing more - and between rent, utilities and other expenses, not to mention having to eat once in a while, the four hundred a month was enough to bring her life to a halt.
She didn’t dare not pay. Even if she had somehow found enough courage to tell Elizabeth to go fuck herself, there was the threat of the other woman’s photos. As bad as Neela’s situation was, she couldn’t countenance doing that to someone else.
Chapter 3
Neela stared down at her shopping basket. Looking at the contents, she wanted to cry. She was no longer able to buy practically anything of the things she wanted to eat. Between the junk she was forced to eat and the inevitable comfort eating, she was gaining weight - which meant that pretty soon she’d need new clothes…
A tap on her shoulder startled her out of her thoughts. She looked up to see a blonde dressed in the grocery store employee uniform.
“Excuse me, ma’am.”
“Oh, I’m sorry”, Neela stammered, moving to let the other person pass. The woman didn’t.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry to bother you like this, but there’s something I have to ask you. Would you please come with me?”
Neela stared at the blonde, her mind racing a mile a minute. What was going on?
“Please”, the blonde whispered. Her voice had such a frantic tone that Neela nodded.
The blonde led her past the shelves and through a swinging door into the back of the store. There, she turned to Neela.
“Thank you for doing this.”
“What is this about?”
The blonde looked at the floor and took a deep breath. “Do you know an Elizabeth Mathis?”
The question hit Neela like a brick. Staring numbly at the blonde, she managed to nod.
“Does she have something on you? Something she’ll… make public if you don’t pay her?”
“Yes”, Neela managed to whisper.
“And if you don’t pay, she’ll publish something on someone else, too, yes? Something about some other woman?”
“Yes.”
“I think I am that woman.”
Recognition flashed in Neela’s mind. This was the blonde in the floral dress she’d bumped into in the mall, the one with the haunted look on her face.
“My name is May. My shift ends in an hour. Please, can you meet me then?”
Neela stood near the shop’s rear entrance as May - now dressed in a black hoodie that reached her knees - emerged from the door. She smiled as she saw Neela.
“Oh, thank you so much for coming.”
“You’re welcome. How did you find me?”
May smiled, the first genuine smile Neela had seen on her face. “I met Elizabeth today, too. I got to the mall quite a bit earlier and saw you meet her in that cafe. Pardon me for saying, but I recognized your body language - and seeing the envelope you passed to her was all the confirmation I needed. I actually bumped into you on purpose - I wanted to see your face close up and I wanted you to get a look at me. Of course, at that time I had no idea how I was ever going to find you. I guess I got lucky.”
“I guess we both did.”
May looked around. “I’d like to talk more, but I don’t want to do it here. I live a couple of blocks away. Would you like to come over?”
May opened the door to her flat and Neela followed her in. The first thing she saw was the pile of cardboard boxes and bags in the middle of the single room.
“I’m getting ready to move. I can no longer afford to live here. I can make next month’s rent - I think. After that…”
Neela nodded.
“Coffee?”
“Please.”
A moment later May emerged from the tiny kitchen with two mugs in her hand.
“Instant. Hope you don’t mind. If you want to sit down, pick a box. Goodwill collected my furniture two days ago.”
Neela set herself down on a tan cardboard box that was marked ‘CLOTHES’ in thick black marker.
“Thank you”, Neela said and sipped her coffee.
“You’re welcome.”
They sat for a moment in silence.
“So… How did she get you”, May asked. Neela gave her a fairly detailed explanation of how it had happened. When she finished, May nodded.
“Ten months, then.”
“Yes.”
“Lots of money.”
“I’m trying not to think about it. If you don’t mind me asking…”
May replied before Neela managed to finish her question. “A year and a half, give or take. I actually met her at a party. I’d just moved here and, well, I didn’t really know anyone. Oh, she was wonderful. She seduced me hook, line and sinker. We actually dated a few times. Then I made the mistake of telling her that I hadn’t - still haven’t - come out to my parents and that they would freak the fuck out if I did.”
May’s knuckles whitened around the mug. “Three days later she gives me a handful of photos of us… having sex. Fucking. Conveniently, none of them showed her face, but mine was perfectly visible in each and every one. The smug bitch. She told me that unless I paid her, hundred bucks every week, from that point on, she’d send the photos to my parents. She’d snooped out their address from my notebook. And well… if mum and dad get the photo of my face buried in another girl’s pussy, that cat is out of the bag.”
Neela reached over and took May’s mug from her shaking hands.
“Ever since then, every single fucking Wednesday, one cafe or another, hundred bucks, that damn smug look on her face. Two months ago she told me that from now on, it was 125. The hundred I could pay, barely. That extra 25 means I can’t. That’s why I’m moving. I’ve already sold my car - well, the guy is coming to pick it up in a week”, May said. She looked around the flat. “If I don’t find a place, all of this goes into storage and I’ll...”
May buried her face in her hands.
“I can’t go on like this. I just can’t.”
Silence lasted a good while. “What can we do? What could we do”, Neela asked.
May’s voice was muffled by her hands. “Well, now that we’ve found each other, that’s a start. Believe me, I’ve thought long and hard about what I could do to make her stop. Try as I have, I haven’t come up with anything that doesn’t involve violence.”
Neela nodded. “Yeah. It’s not like she’ll stop if we ask her nicely. It’ll have to be something a lot more than that.”
May looked up at her. “You mean…”
“Like you said, we can’t go on like this. We just can’t.”
Chapter 4
Elizabeth left the club in the wee hours of the morning. She was walking with a purpose, like owned the street. It had been a good night at the club. She had even managed to find a woman from the audience to volunteer for one of her dances - too bad she hadn’t gotten into it at all. Too bad, really - she hadn’t looked half bad.
It was already Wednesday. Another payday. She’d see the blonde first - April or whatever her name was - and then the Indian girl. Briefly, she wondered if she could squeeze her a bit more. 225 a week wasn’t bad, but more would be even better...
Good thing she lived so close. She jogged across the street, cursing the fact that she’d forgotten to take her walking shoes along when she’d left for work. As used as she was to heels, trying to run in them was always a pain. She looked down as she fished for they keys in her bag just as someone grabbed her from behind.
Neela wrapped her left arm around Elizabeth’s neck and slapped her gloved right hand over the brunette’s mouth. She pulled backwards, making Elizabeth lose her balance, and with May helping her they dragged their target quickly to the alley beside Elizabeth’s house. Neela pushed Elizabeth face first against the wall and pulled her left hand behind her back, pulling it upwards and using it to keep her pinned to the wall.
“Not a word, bitch”, she snarled, her voice distorted by the neck gaiter she’d pulled over her face. Elizabeth tried to push back against her. May reached over and shoved her head against the wall.
“Play along, slut!”
The bump dazed Elizabeth long enough for May to get her other hand behind her back. Working quickly, she wrapped the brunette’s wrists with blue duct tape, securing them behind her back. Neela grabbed a handful of Elizabeth’s hair and pulled backwards, causing her to yelp. The noise was stifled as May shoved a bundle of tube socks into her mouth. Working together, they secured the gag with tape.
Neela leaned closer. “Listen up. Play along and you get to go to sleep in your own bed tonight. We know you live in this house. What apartment? Is the number over ten?”
Elizabeth tried to struggle. Neela pushed her face into the brick wall.
“Remember what I said? Play along and this ends well - but if you don’t, it won’t. Is your apartment number more than ten?”
Elizabeth nodded. A few more questions got the right number.
“Good girl. Now, we’re walking in and taking the elevator to your floor. Lead the way.”
May tried not to sigh with relief as she closed the apartment door behind them. If they had run into someone else in the stairs…
Neela pushed Elizabeth into what looked like her livingroom. As she released her grip, Elizabeth turned around to look at her assailants. She saw two figures dressed in dark clothes with neck gaiters pulled over their nose and mouth and their hair covered in black knit caps. The two looked at each other and pulled the face coverings down.
Elizabeth’s eyes went wide as she recognized Neela and May. May reached up and pulled the tape off Elizabeth’s mouth, getting a yelp from the brunette.
“The blue tape goes so well with her hair, don’t you think”, she said. Neela gave a small chuckle. Elizabeth spat out the bundle of socks and worked her jaw.
“Hello, Elizabeth.”
“Just what the fuck do you think you’re doing? How did you find me?”
“You still work in the same club we met in, remember? After that it wasn’t all that difficult to follow you here”, Neela said with a snigger. Elizabeth looked up at the ceiling and swore under her breath.
“What in the actual the fuck do you think you’re doing?”
“Take a wild guess. We want the damn photos.”
“Ha! In your wildest dreams, sluts.”
May stepped closer and gripped Elizabeth’s jaw. “If you think we’re joking, you’re the one dreaming. We’re done being blackmailed. Give us the damn photos.”
Elizabeth pulled free. “You’re delusional, you little slut - and you too”, she added to Neela. “The photos are mine, period - and if there ever was a chance you were getting them back, I can say that you’ve just pissed it away with this stunt. If I were you, I’d start thinking real hard about how you can find a lot more money each week. How does five hundred a week sound?”
Neela and May looked at one another. “Fuck this”, Neela said. She grabbed Elizabeth by the upper arms and wrestled her to the floor. May picked up the socks.
“Oh hell no you don’t!”
“Shut up, already”, May replied and pushed the wad into Elizabeth’s mouth. She wanted to secure the gag by wrapping tape around the brunette’s head, but since would probably need her to talk later, she made do with several strips of the blue tape criscrossed over the mouth. She then taped Elizabeth’s ankles. Neela rolled the bound brunette facedown and working together, they pulled her into a hogtie. May strung tape between Elizabeth’s wrists and ankles before wrapping more tape around her bent legs, tying her shins to her thighs. A final wrap went around Elizabeth’s upper body and arms. Getting up, Neela gave her a shove, rolling her to the side.
“We’ll do it this way, then.” Neela walked to a desk and started pulling open the drawers. May stepped over Elizabeth and started going through the small bookcase.
Elizabeth struggled ineffectually and protested into her gag as her belongings cascaded onto the floor. Neither Neela nor May were particularly careful about not dropping stuff on top of her, either.
“Hey”, Neela called as she pulled out a stack of printed photos from an unmarked envelope. May stepped over. They leafed through the photos, nodding.
“That’s them.”
“Yeah, except… These are printouts. Where are the photos? The files themselves?”
They both turned to look at the closed laptop on Elizabeth’s desk. May flipped it open and jabbed the power button. The password screen came up.
“Figures.”
May crouched down, brushed some papers off Elizabeth and started picking at the edge of the tape that gagged her. This time, it took a little longer to remove the tape. Elizabeth gave a groan as May pulled the soaked socks from her mouth.
“Password.”
“Keep dreaming, bitches! You assaulted me, kidnapped me, thrashed my apartment… You’re already looking at so much trouble when I get to the police, you have no idea.”
“You going to the police? Oh, that’s rich. After all the shit you’ve put us through, you going to the police?”
Elizabeth smirked. “Prove it, slut.”
Neela held up the stack of photos.
“So what? So I have some… intimate photos of you. I can always say you consented to them. Your word against mine. Plus there’s all this”, Elizabeth added, turning her head as to indicate the chaos around her. Her smirk started to shrink as Neela crouched down beside May.
“You’re right, we will have some explaining to do. But since we’re already there, we’re not going to leave here without what we came for. So - the password.”
Elizabeth spat into Neela’s face. “Make me.”
Neela grabbed hold of Elizabeth’s hair with her left hand and pushed her right against her mouth, using her thumb and forefinger to squeeze her nostrils shut. May stepped over Elizabeth and sat on her, straddling her body.
Neela counted to ten in her head before letting go. Elizabeth yelled, trying to suck air into her deprived lungs.
“You’re a maniac! He…” Her cry for help was cut off by Neela’s hand.
“Listen to me, bitch! You’ve made our lives miserable for months and months. You thought we’ll just roll over and let you carry on indefinitely? Sow the wind, asshole”, Neela concluded before raising her hand a little bit.
“You wouldn’t dare”, Elizabeth gasped, but her bluster was clearly cracking.
“Try us.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
This time Neela counted to fifteen before letting Elizabeth breath again. When she finally let go, the arrogance was gone from Elizabeth’s eyes.
“You… you’re insane… you’ve both… lost your fucking minds”, Elizabeth managed to gasp out. She turned to look at May. “You realize you’re an accomplice to this? If she chokes me to death, you’ll be an accessory to murder.”
May slapped her across the face. “Eighteen months, you smug bitch! A year and a half. You’d think I was the one with more reasons to get violent with you.”
Elizabeth looked back and forth between the two.
“bumblebe3”
“What?”
“The password in bumblebee. All letters lowercase, but replace the last ‘e’ with the number three.”
It took only a minute to find the files on Elizabeth’s computer. However, neither Neela nor May was quite prepared for what they found. There were dozens of photos, not only of them but several other people. Mostly women, but a couple of men among them.
“She… She’s done this before.”
“What? Did you think you were so fucking special? Of course I’ve done this before. Oh, you have no idea how easy it has been. I can spot the best targets in a roomful of people. The moment I saw both of you, I knew I could do it”, Elizabeth mocked.
Neela and May looked at the photos in silence, not bothering to acknowledge Elizabeth’s words.
“She’ll do this again”, May finally whispered. Neela nodded.
“Even if we destroy all of these. Even if she won’t go to the police. She’ll just pick someone else and do this all over again.”
They continued through the photos. Then May grabbed Neela’s hand.
“Stop.”
“What?”
May stared at the screen. “I know her. That blonde there.”
“You sure?”
“Well, okay - I know of her. Around the time I met that piece of shit, I also dated another girl. She had that woman’s picture on her windowsill”, May said, swallowing. “She told me they’d dated earlier. Then the girl had broken off all contact - and even when they’d seen each other on the town, she’d run away from her. The last she’d heard of her was… She walked onto the railroad tracks.”
Neela stared at May. “You’re sure? You’re sure that’s her?”
“Yes.”
They turned to look at Elizabeth.
“Is it true?”
Elizabeth tried to reply but the words wouldn’t come out. She looked at each of them in turn.
“She’ll do it again. She’ll do all of this again. Even if we destroy these photos, she’ll have them somewhere else. She’ll do this all over the fuck again”, May said, her voice falling into a whisper.
Elizabeth opened her mouth to scream. Neela lunged to handgag her. May scooped up the socks and together they forced the soaked wad back into her mouth. This time they wrapped the tape around her head, over and over, covering her entire face from her chin to her nose. Neela looked around the room and spotted a bundle of dirty linen in the corner. She reached over and pulled them closer.
Epilogue
A battered grey hatchback was parked beside an empty fire road in the early hours of the morning. Two figures in dark clothes and dark knit caps emerged from the woods. One of them opened the trunk. Both reached in and pulled out a long, slender bundle wrapped in cloth and secured with blue duct tape. They carried it into the woods.
Half an hour later they returned without the bundle, but carrying shovels. Without saying a word, they put the shovels into the trunk and got into the car. The car started and pulled out, leaving the predawn woods completely empty.
Neela took her lunch break at the cafe she’d used to frequent. She spotted the fivesome from the same building and waved at them, getting happy greetings in return. As Neela had settled down to eat, the five women were leaving. One of them said something to the others and turned back, walking to Neela’s table.
“Hi! Long time no see. We were wondering where you went.”
Neela shrugged. “Well, I’m back.”
“It’s good to see you. Look, we visited that club again a few days ago - you know, the one we went to the last time you came along. That dominatrix wasn’t there any more. Sandra - I swear, that woman is going to get her nose broken, the way she keeps sticking it everywhere - asked the bartender about her. He said that she’d just stopped coming to work a couple of weeks ago. Won’t answer her phone, either. He didn’t seem particularly bothered about it, though. Apparently it wasn’t the first time one of the girls just walks off the job.”
“Oh.”
“Thought I’d mention, since…” the woman said with a wink. “Well, like I said, good to see you. We’ll have to do that again, though - go out together, I mean. We can skip the strip club. See you”, she added, already walking away. Neela watched her leave and then turned her attention back to the salad in front of her.
Later that evening, May emerged from the back door of the grocery store, again dressed in the long black hoodie. She saw Neela standing outside, waiting for her.
“Hi.”
“Hi. Look, I live just a couple of blocks that way. Wanna come in and have coffee? I want to show you my new couch.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Walking side by side, the two headed down the street, chitchatting. Their shared secret buried by the side of a nameless road in a nondescript forest, their lives were once again theirs.
