Life Sentence Read online

  “Are you the devil?”

  The man smiled. “There are some similarities, but no. I am Master Dante. I am here to offer you a choice.”

  Giacomo shivered and rubbed his arms. The friction did nothing to combat the cold threatening to consume him. He’d killed three people and died before he could confess. He was going to hell.

  “You’re not going to hell,” Master Dante snapped. “At least not yet. You weren’t fated to die today. And you died trying to save others’ lives.”

  He rolled his shoulders in another liquid shrug. “That you were saving them from an explosion you caused, well, that makes things difficult. But you have a choice. If you wish, you may serve your penance at the Monastery of Mastery and eventually be restored to complete your fated lifespan. Or you may go directly to hell.”

  “I’ll serve my penance.”

  “I thought that’s what you’d say.”

  Chapter One

  Present Day

  Two days before her thirty-fifth birthday, Samantha Taylor received the phone call that ended her life, although it hadn’t seemed that way at the time.

  “Mom needs you. Come home.” The voice of her sister Melinda sounded strained but not upset or tearful. Whatever their mother needed couldn’t be that serious.

  “What are you talking about, Mel? Why didn’t Mom call if she needs my help?”

  “She was carrying in some groceries, the bag broke and she fell. Thank God, she didn’t land on her cell phone. We just got back from the hospital. She cracked her vertebrae.”

  “Not her hip?” Sam knew that was a potentially deadly injury among the elderly.

  “Not her hip. And it’s only cracked, not broken. But she’s supposed to rest for four weeks. No bending. No lifting. No twisting. No driving.”

  “She needs someone to stay with her.”

  “Right. I can stay with her tonight while Bob watches the kids. But—”

  “No problem. My new job with Central High doesn’t start for another two months. I can easily come down and stay with her for a month.” She took a deep breath. “How’s she taking it?”

  “I think she was more upset about seeing a doctor who used to work with Dad than she was about the injury. It’s been almost a year since he died but she still cries when she thinks no one is watching. Since she was so upset, they gave her really strong painkillers and she’s sleeping now. She’ll probably sleep straight through the night. The fun will begin tomorrow when it starts sinking in how much of her usual routine she can’t do.”

  “I’ll pack tonight and hit the road first thing tomorrow morning. Expect me in the late afternoon, around three or four o’clock, depending on how bad the I-75 traffic is.”

  “Thanks, Sam. You’re a lifesaver.”

  “She and Dad were there for me after my divorce, letting me stay with them rent-free then dipping into their retirement savings to send me back to school for my Education degree. A month of playing nurse for her is the least I can do.”

  But when Sam arrived the next afternoon, a month’s worth of clothing, books and knitting piled in cartons in the back of her car giving her an unpleasant sense of déjà vu, she quickly realized that there was much more she could do to repay her mother.

  The two-story colonial had always gleamed beneath her mother’s touch, as clean as one of her father’s operating rooms. She didn’t notice the change when she relieved Mel and received a whispered status so as not to wake their napping mother. Then Sam carried the first pile of clothes into her old bedroom.

  Dust visibly coated everything and not a light layer either. Balancing her box on one hip, she dug a tattered tissue out of her jeans pocket to wipe off the surface of her desk. She put the box on the newly dusted desktop then looked at the tissue. It was black. She’d have to give the room a thorough dusting and vacuuming before she brought the rest of her things in.

  It looked as if her mother hadn’t dusted since Sam’s last visit home at Christmas. The holiday had been just a few months after her father’s sudden death and everyone was still in shock. They’d tried so hard to act happy for Mel’s kids, it had been painful. She’d hurried back to finish her final year of school, leaving early to escape the strained atmosphere of the house where everything reminded her of her missing father.

  Curious, she looked in on the shared bathroom. Mold stained the corners of the walls and discolored the shower curtain. Dirt gathered in the nooks and crevices beneath the fixtures, and the once pristine grout was gray and cracked. The neglect wasn’t limited to Sam’s room. That knowledge both relieved and disturbed her.

  Mel’s room and the master bedroom were not obviously dirty. But now that Sam knew what to look for, she could see cobwebs stretching between the curtains and the windows, and lines of dust crusting the folds of the curtains.

  The first floor, where her mother rested in her father’s old recliner in front of the forty-two-inch plasma television that had been his last big purchase, was marginally cleaner than upstairs. But even there, dust gathered around the bases of furniture and darkened lamp bulbs. Unread mail, magazines and newspapers covered the dining room table and cobwebs skirted the kitchen cabinets.

  In fact, the only room that seemed up to her mother’s former standards was the foyer, which anyone coming to pick her up would see, with the unforgiving Florida sun streaming through the open door to highlight any dust or spider webs.

  The house had obviously not been cleaned in months. Quietly opening the cupboard under the sink, Sam dug out waterproof gloves, cleaning solution, a bucket and a rag. She’d start in the kitchen.

  Half an hour later she’d emptied the black water in the bucket three times until it remained a dingy gray and the kitchen was as clean as she could make it. She had no idea what the sticky stuff on top of the refrigerator had been but felt much better knowing it was no longer anywhere near the food.

  As she was rinsing out the rag her mother called from the den, “Melinda? Are you making tea?”

  She dropped the rag into the sink and hurried into the den. “It’s Sam, Mom. I was just tidying up the kitchen.”

  Her mother frowned, her once-smooth forehead creasing in newly etched lines. “Samantha? When did you arrive?”

  “I got in about half an hour ago. You were resting and I didn’t want to wake you.” Sam leaned down and kissed her mother’s cheek. “Mel called and told me what happened. I came down to take care of you.”

  A happy light sparked in her mother’s eyes, quickly hidden when she glanced away. “I’m sorry I didn’t have a chance to prepare your room. I didn’t know you were coming.”

  “Mom! You cracked your vertebrae. I didn’t expect you to clean when you’re supposed to be resting.”

  The frown returned. “When your father was alive, I wouldn’t have needed to do anything besides change the sheets. Keeping up with the housework has just been beyond me lately though.”

  “Don’t worry about it, Mom. I’m here to help. You tell me what needs to be done and I’ll do it.”

  Her mother smiled, relaxing back into the recliner, a brief spasm of pain crossing her face as her back twinged. “How long are you staying?”

  “As long as you need me. I’ve got two months before school starts.”

  But as days turned into weeks, it became clear that two months would not be sufficient. Her mother had lost interest in everything. She was forced to abandon her gardens and her morning swims due to her injuries. But she also stopped reading, ignored fashion magazines and sale circulars, and couldn’t even sustain her interest for the length of a movie on television. If Sam didn’t put out different clothes for her, she’d wear the same jogging suit every day.

  Sam’s new life as a high school math teacher was over before it had even begun. She resigned from her job, canceled the lease on her apartment and moved back home to care for her mother. A part-time work-at-home job proofreading math books and standardized tests gave her a little bit of income. It was a far cry from the indep
endent existence she’d envisioned for herself when she’d gone back to school for her teaching certification, but the warm glow of satisfaction that filled her with each of her mother’s grateful smiles was nearly enough to make up for the lost opportunity.

  Caring for her mother kept Sam almost too busy to think about what might have been. But in those odd moments of time between tasks, she occasionally spared a thought for her dreams of independence and accomplishment. The thoughts were quickly dismissed with a stern reminder that she’d had her chance to do something with her life and wasted it. Second chances were earned and she obviously hadn’t done enough to deserve one. Each time the selfish thoughts occurred, she firmed her resolve to earn a second chance by being the best, most helpful daughter she could be, doing whatever it took to help her mother recover.

  Yet it seemed that the longer she helped her mother, the less she could do right for her. She tried to tell herself that her mother was cranky and upset because of her long, enforced inactivity, but in her heart, she knew the failing was hers. Over and over she vowed to do better, to do more. Time after time she failed to measure up to her mother’s needs and expectations.

  Her mother was at the doctor’s office now, followed by a visit to the physical therapist. Sam had two glorious hours all to herself and hadn’t hesitated about how to spend them. As soon as she’d dropped her mother off, she’d driven to the used book store, looking for escapist fiction to temporarily transport her out of her life.

  Her tote bag was already bulging with over a dozen romances, exciting stories of women taking control of their lives and going after what they wanted the way she wished she could. Romance heroines rarely had sick parents who needed constant care. Although if she found a book featuring one, she’d pick it up in an instant.

  Having combed the romance shelves, she moved to her other love, fantasy. There wasn’t as much turnover in this section of the store so she located the new books quickly.

  A heavy leather-bound volume caught her eye. Most of the books in the store were paperbacks but occasionally someone cleaning out an estate would bring in hardbacks and fancy leather-bound editions. This looked old enough to have been on some collector’s shelves for decades. In faded gold print on the spine was printed, To Serve Man, and in smaller type, “M. Dante”.

  She smiled, reminded of the classic Twilight Zone episode, and pulled the book from the shelf. The pages fell open to a pen and ink illustration of a naked woman, her hands tied behind her back, kneeling in front of a masked man who held her hair in one fist and a whip in the other. She appeared to be giving him fellatio.

  Sam’s eyes bugged out. “What kind of book is this?”

  She flipped through the pages, finding illustration after illustration of how exactly the beautifully muscled man should be served. His cock was thrust variously between the woman’s bound breasts, into her mouth, into her vagina and into her anus while the woman knelt, crouched on all fours or was bound to the wall or bed.

  The pen and ink sketches were beautifully rendered, every straining muscle and fervent expression as clear as if the book’s pages were windows into a strange black and white world. She expected the man’s features to be twisted into the self-satisfied smirk her ex-husband had worn every time events confirmed his position at the center of his own universe. But she didn’t recognize the man’s expression as one she’d ever seen.

  After a brief struggle, Sam dismissed the puzzle as unimportant. Instead, she was transfixed by the expression of bliss the artist had drawn on the woman’s face. On page after page whenever her face could be seen, she appeared nearly transported by rapture. As if the heady ecstasy could be transmitted through the paper upon which it was drawn, Sam found her own breath growing shallow, her nipples tightening and her pussy heating.

  Lightly she traced her finger over the woman’s spread thighs, stretched nearly into a full split as she sank onto the reclining man’s cock. Sam’s own thighs burned imagining being spread that wide. Her ass muscles tightened and her pussy dripped hot lubricant into her panties. Her lips were spread as wide open as the woman’s in the picture, ready to claim the man’s thick cock for herself.

  She wriggled uncomfortably, trying to rub her clit against the seam of her jeans and get some relief. Her breasts tingled, the nipples tight and hard, and her lungs labored to draw breath.

  For the first time in weeks she felt truly alive. She had to have this book.

  Stuffing it into her tote, she hurried up to the counter. The clerk rang up the romances without comment then paused when she saw the leather tome.

  “To Serve Man. I don’t remember seeing this one come in.” She reached for the cover to flip it open.

  “It’s a cookbook,” Sam blurted. “Get it? To serve man?”

  “Oh.” The clerk pushed the book unopened into the pile with the romances. “I just do the fiction sections. That’ll be nineteen dollars and fifty-six cents.”

  Sam’s hands barely trembled as she counted out the money then scooped her books back into her tote. Her blood sang with a heady mixture of daring and dread. She’d die if anyone saw the contents of this book. And she could hardly wait to get home and read it in private. Carefully she stowed the tote in the trunk of her mother’s car, braced in the corner of one of the empty cardboard boxes kept there to prevent bags of groceries from sliding around.

  It took three tries before she could force herself to close the trunk lid. The book seemed to be calling to her, begging her to read it immediately. Locking it away caused a physical wrench in her chest and she had to fight not to pop the trunk and retrieve it. Instead she hurried around to the driver’s seat and drove off to pick her mother up at the physical therapist’s.

  She arrived just as the session was ending. The therapist praised her mother’s progress and reminded her to continue exercising. Sam shook her head, anticipating her mother’s response.

  “I try. But it’s so hard. It’s too hot to go walking during the day and the pain keeps me up during the night so I’m too tired to go out first thing in the morning. And you know what the traffic is like in the evening. It’s not safe to walk on the roads.”

  “Well, make an effort. Every little bit helps.”

  They left the therapist’s office, her mother leaning on Sam’s arm. Instead of going to where the car was parked, they walked to the luncheonette in the same plaza.

  Somehow Sam made it through the soup and sandwiches, listening to her mother’s health complaints and what history suggested was a highly selective recitation of what the doctor had said, even while her mind played over and over again the images she’d seen in the book. Fortunately her part of the conversation consisted mostly of nodding her head and saying, “Mm-hmm.”

  By the time the waiter delivered their check Sam could barely breathe, her chest was so tight. Her breasts ached, the nipples hard and painfully sensitive, the light press of her elasticized bra nearly enough to make her come. Her panties were soaked through, her pussy hot and wet and begging for that gorgeous man’s long, thick cock to be buried deep inside her. She’d almost rested her water glass in her lap in a desperate attempt to cool herself down before she realized how the condensation would stain her jeans. So she fidgeted and counted to ten in base 2 through base 8 and tried desperately not to let what she was thinking show on her face.

  As she counted out the money for their meal, her mother said, “Here I’ve been running on and on. How about you? Did you enjoy your trip to the bookstore?”

  Sam’s cheeks heated. Her mother had no idea—and she had to keep it that way! “I got a whole bunch of books this time. Romance and fantasy mostly. I can hardly wait to start them.”

  They left the restaurant, her mother making the drive home an interminable hell as she adjusted and readjusted her seat, all the while complaining about the speed at which Sam drove as well as every pothole in the road, which were all well and good for healthy people, but she was injured and couldn’t be shaken around like a sack of pota
toes. Sam’s efforts to modulate her driving to suit her mother warred with her need to race home as quickly as possible. She breathed a soft sigh of relief as she finally pulled into the driveway, throwing the car into park and counting to ten before slowly unclenching her fingers from the wheel.

  “Come on, Mom. I’ll put the pillows on the love seat for you and you can have a little rest.”

  Her mother opened her own door and unclipped her seat belt then sat waiting until Sam circled around to hand her out of the car. Slowly they walked to the house, her mother leaning heavily on Sam’s arm.

  The smell of citrus-scented cleaner greeted them as they stepped inside the gleaming foyer. But it was no longer the only clean room in the house. In the past four months every cobweb and dust speck had been eradicated.

  Sam positioned her mother’s pillows on the love seat then helped her mother stretch out for a rest, covering her with a light cotton throw knitted in an airy feather and flame pattern.

  “You relax too, Sam.” Her mother’s eyes drifted closed. “Read one of your new books. I know how much you enjoy reading.”

  “I’ll be in the workshop. But I’ll have my cell phone. If you need me when you wake up, just call.”

  She made sure her mother’s phone was within easy reach then paused in the doorway in case she had any last requests before Sam left. Today was a good day. No pillows needed adjusting. Her mother did not discover any sudden needs for water or tea.

  Sam tiptoed carefully from the room.

  She grabbed her bag of books out of the trunk then hurried up the stairs to the finished room above the detached garage. It had been her father’s haven when she’d been growing up, someplace he could go to escape the estrogen-laden atmosphere of a house filled with a wife and two daughters. Even their dogs had been girls, their mother insisting that she wasn’t going to clean up after a male dog who wanted to mark his territory.

  Fishing poles were lined neatly in racks against one dark-paneled wall, ranging from short and stiff to long and whippy for different conditions and types of fish. Hand-tied lures studded canvas-covered boards, organized according to some system that had been known only to her father. A worktable sat beneath the boards, the bench pushed under it. The hooks, strings and bits of feather and fur used to craft the lures were stowed neatly in boxes under the bench.