Duct Tape Princess

Vikki Colt twirled across her wooden apartment floors humming a gorgeous tune while smiling seductively. She kicked off her six inch heels and was left with her long flowing cyan dress and long flowing green hair. She thought back to her performance that evening and grinned even wider at the feel of dollar bills in her hand. The rent would be paid for god knows how many months and she’d have enough left over for something nice. Granted, that room was filled with gangsters in leather jackets. As long as Vikki got paid, she didn’t give two shits where the money came from.

The dancing, humming, and lipstick smiling continued for what seemed like the whole night. She didn’t even know what room of her studio apartment she was in. And then the world of unicorns and rainbows melted into hellfire and dead bodies. Vikki felt a cord squeezing her neck so tightly that her head could have popped like a balloon. She grabbed the cord with both hands and wheezed heavily as an unknown assailant dragged her into the bedroom kicking all the way.

When the burglar finally released Vikki before she could drift into the afterlife, the songstress plopped onto the bed hacking up blood and smearing her makeup. A feminine voice called her a drama queen while the voice’s owner went right to work in binding Vikki’s wrists and ankles in duct tape. The singer tried to suck down as much air as she could, her stomach inflating like a parachute with every breath she fought for. Her vision blurred during this civil war over oxygen, but once she blinked her eyes dry, she could see the shape of the female burglar peeling off a strip of tape big enough for someone’s mouth.

“No! Please don’t! I won’t scream!” begged Vikki in between gulps of bloody oxygen. The home invader silenced her anyways with a strip of tape across Vikki Colt’s mouth. With her hands, feet, and mouth bound, all Miss Colt could do was wriggle around and keep her lungs pumping through her snotty nose. Her head lightened and her vision darkened under this struggle, but she was forced awake when the burglar raised her brass knuckles-wearing fist in the air.

With her free hand latching onto a heedful of Vikki’s hair, the gangster threatened, “Don’t even try squirming out of here or I swear to god I’ll punch the living shit out of you!” Through the neon signs outside the window, the burglar revealed herself to be a raven haired young woman in a leather jacket and jean shorts.

Even with Vikki’s impaired vision, she recognized the woman as Nadia Rinehart, heir to the Rinehart crime family through her marriage to the puffy-haired drunk Johnny. These people were local celebrities for all the wrong reasons. Murder, extortion, money laundering, and beating the cops to the punch every single time. Vikki fearfully swallowed a gulp of blood and panted heavily through her nostrils.

“Did you think I was just going to let this go?” asked Nadia in a disturbingly calm voice. “I saw you flirting with my husband onstage. The kisses you blew him. The hugs. The handholding. If you weren’t too busy singing shitty songs at nightclubs, you could just as easily be a fucking hooker. Johnny tipped you big time, didn’t he? He loved your little performance, huh? Sorry, babe, but this ain’t no open relationship. He’s going to be disappointed when he sees his new girlfriend dead as a doornail.”

Nadia lowered her punching fist and instead used her hand to gently stroke Vikki’s hair. The songstress whimpered and whined through her tape gag as Nadia’s fingers glided down her face and over the bridge of her nose. The gangster smiled sadistically and pinched Vikki’s nostrils shut for the longest time.

The pain in the singer’s chest exploded as she squirmed around in her battle for oxygen. Her eyes bulged like basketballs and her body shook like tectonic plates moving beneath the earth. Just as she was ready to venture into the dark side, Nadia released her nose and fresh oxygen blew through her body whirlwind-style. Vikki’s stomach bounced up and down to acrophobic heights. Her insides tingled as though spiders were crawling across her body.

“You really are a whiny little baby,” sneered Nadia as she peeled off another strip of tape. “I really see no point in keeping you alive much longer. Enjoy your last few moments of oxygen, bitch.” The gangster’s tape hovered above Vikki’s nose, prompting the songstress to use her last breaths to belt a blood-curdling scream through her gag.

The duct tape had touched the tip of Vikki’s nose when a thump at the front door was heard by both women. “Are you in here, sweet cheeks?” rambled a drunken male.

“Oh, you gotta be fucking kidding me,” muttered Nadia as the drunk stumbled into the bedroom while flipping on the light switch.

That was him alright: disheveled hair, biker jacket, blue jeans, and enough alcohol on his breath to make sewage systems smell like rose gardens. Johnny Rinehart, in the flesh. The hair-covered, scar-bitten, ugly flesh. “There’s my little duct tape princess,” he chuckled. “Nadia, baby, you didn’t tell me you wanted to do a three way tonight. If I would’ve known…”

“Sorry, Johnny. The duct tape princess isn’t getting shit tonight. Duct tape princess is going to fucking die in a few minutes,” threatened Nadia while standing up to face her husband. Johnny burped obnoxiously and chuckled again, even after getting punched in the face with Nadia’s brass knuckles, which didn’t floor his big ass. “Babe, you’re getting worse every year we’ve been together. That alcohol is no good for you. It’s no good for us. If you hadn’t been drinking like a fucking pig, I wouldn’t be in this bitch’s apartment right now. What the fuck are YOU doing here? Getting laid?”

Johnny wiped the blood off of his nose and shrugged. “Jesus Christ, do you know how long it’s been since we’ve done it together? We’re always out beating the shit out of everyone and we never have time to be with each other.”

“You’ve really lost your damn mind, haven’t you, Johnny,” said Nadia while tugging on her husband’s hair. “This is business, lover boy. You don’t fuck with business. You were born into this shit. You should know better than to screw everything up. That’s how dickheads like you get killed in this game. Ain’t nothing stopping me from punching the fuck out of you right now.”

“I love you so much right now, girl,” grinned Johnny as he sloppily kissed his wife’s lips. She tried to pull away, but he only brought her closer and the make-out session was getting wet and wild. The two of them shed their jackets and Nadia wrapped her legs around her much bigger man’s waist while he pinned her to the wall.

With her vision getting brighter and her lungs inflating at a steady pace, Vikki Colt decided enough was enough. While the lovebirds were busy blocking the doorway with their bad romance, she sat up slowly in bed and hobbled to her feet. She bounced lightly towards her only escape: the bedroom window. The closer she got to freedom, the harder she bounced. In caged animal fashion, she leapt through the glass back first and prayed to god that she didn’t split her head open.

Splitting her head open would require a landing first. She felt the muscular grip of Nadia Rinehart on her bare ankles while the crazy gangster screamed obscenities at a million miles an hour. Vikki howled through her gag and squirmed like a snake with every ounce of strength she had. The howling intensified as Nadia’s nails dug into her calves and her body was being pulled back inside. “Goddamn it, Johnny, give me a hand with this bitch!” the gangster shouted.

“Anything for you, sweet cheeks!” cackled Johnny, who bumped stupidly into Nadia in an attempt to clutch her waist for extra strength. The drunken moron couldn’t distribute his weight properly and Nadia’s nails dug deeper as a result. Vikki thrashed around with more intensity, not caring if she banged into the brick wall. Part of this life or death struggle also included tugging with her legs. It felt as though swords pierced her body. She could smell the copper blood splattering across her chest and face. Even with bone nearly exposed, she tugged one final time for freedom.

Instead of shredding her legs to pieces, the tug pulled both Nadia and Johnny out of the window with her and the three of them crashed to the back alley concrete below. Bones snapped and crackled. Blood painted the sidewalk and ran down the storm drain. Final breaths grew progressively weaker until the angel of death was ready for his pickup. But none of these violent actions occurred with Vikki, because she landed in an open dumpster padded with puffy trash bags.

The singer’s intense nose breathing made her ill to her stomach as the odor of dog shit and rotten food assaulted her senses. She fought hard to swallow her digested food, but the gag reflex was so powerful that the tape on her mouth ripped apart and the tidal wave of sickness descended upon the trash bags. Vikki felt as though her body was being ripped inside out while breakfast, lunch, and dinner poured out of her now free mouth like Niagara falls. The tightening of her muscles gave her enough strength to pull the duct tape apart on her wrists. She rested a few moments in her own sickness before reaching down to pull the tape off of her feet and vacating the rubbish bin.

The chilly night air felt heavenly on her heated skin. The tears in her eyes cooled off as wind blew on her face. Vikki felt so weak that she could barely stand up after the night of excitement. She might as well have been the one drinking booze out of a trough instead of Johnny Rinehart, who’s broken body lay motionless in the alley. Nadia’s hand however grabbed a hold of Vikki’s red ankles. But this grip had the strength of a little baby rather than a boa constrictor.

Low and behold, Nadia’s roll of duct tape laid beside her, covered in the blood of her now dead husband. The crazy gangster tried to pick her head up to face her would-be killer, but her neck bones kept cracking with every expended effort. Vikki gazed down at the duct tape and back at Nadia. The songstress’s usual seductive smile was replaced with evil anger. She spit out blood on the sidewalk, rolled Nadia on her back, and began peeling off various strips of duct tape.

“Who’s the duct tape princess now, you stupid bitch?!” belted Vikki while coughing up more blood. “You want that drunken retard? You can have him! In hell!” The nightclub singer went to work in sealing off Nadia’s oxygen with the strips of tape. Unlike Vikki, there would be no glorious struggle for Nadia, just defeated moans and shallow breaths. The gangster’s body was broken so badly that bones jutted out her skin. If anything, the torturous suffocation was more like mercy kill. Nadia’s face turned bright white as she drifted off into the night, cold and lifeless like her loving husband.

Vikki plopped backwards against the brick wall and sat down slowly on her tired ass. The breaths she took were deep and delicious despite the garbage stains on her once beautiful dress. Speaking of which, she pulled the stack of hundred dollar bills out of her pockets and gazed at it with the same evil intentions as when she suffocated Nadia. “Who needs an apartment when I can have my very own hit man?” Vikki said to no one in particular. Her soft speech fluctuated into rebellious roaring with her next sentence. “You hear me, Rineharts?! I’m coming for you motherfuckers!”