Between Thieves

"Do me a favor," she said to the nearly naked man. "Struggle a bit. I want to make sure that the ropes are good and tight."

The tape over his mouth kept him from saying anything so he just shot her a brief, strange look and then quickly obeyed. When a woman has you tied up, you do what she says. When your legs are spread and she's sitting across from you and resting her foot on the edge of your chair mere inches from your balls, you do what she says immediately.

So, he struggled. He shifted in the chair, strained to move his arms. He tried extra hard to close his legs, but he got nowhere. He was a strong man, in good shape, but it felt like he could wriggle all night and never get loose. Her knots were tight. She had him good. She caught him in his little bikini underwear, no shirt, no pants. His bare skin stung from the rope.

"No luck, right?" she said, shaking her head, eyes glimmering from behind the black mask over the top half of her face. "I'm pretty good at this, you think?" She smiled.

The man stopped struggling and stared razors at her.

"Do you mind if I smoke?", she said. She pulled out a pack of Camels from a compartment on her black leather belt and slid a lighter out from between her breasts. She never looked away from his seething face as she lit up a cigarette.

The only light in the room was from the city streets outside of the man's 36th floor luxury apartment, but it was bright enough that he was able get a good look at the woman for the first time. He tried to  figure out who she was, but he had no idea. Even with her mask, he could see that she was much younger than him, probably in her mid-20s, with dark brown hair and lustrous skin. She wore a black spandex catsuit that stretched skintight against every contour of her hourglass body. Even in his situation, the man found her sexy.

"It's a bad habit, I know," she said after exhaling her first drag. "If you're gonna sneak around like we do, it's important to be healthy, I think. I work my ass off to fit into this outfit. I work hard to be agile and strong so I can sneak into places... like your apartment tonight... quietly. I've dangled from roofs, I've climbed ropes, I've snuck into ventilation systems. I've done crazy things. And yes, yes, the boobs can be a problem..."

Her breasts swelled against her suit like two big, soft pillows. The neck of her outfit scooped down to show off a mile of cleavage.

"... But", she continued, "they can also be an advantage. I'm very aware of their power to distract. When you saw that I'd broken into your apartment and you tried to fight me, you looked down at my chest twice, which gave me the upper hand. It definitely made it easy for me to kick you in the balls and win. You've looked down at my boobs four times as I've been talking to you right now."

It was true. The tied-up man blushed a little.

The woman smiled, enjoying his embarrassment.

"Sorry about your balls, by the way", she said after a drag off the Camel. "I can only imagine how much that hurts, especially with these pointy boots I have on. I've never seen a guy take a kick to the nuts well. Sometimes a man can tough it out and remain upright, but he's shaky. You can tell that he really wants to curl up on the floor and do some quiet contemplation."

She put out her cigarette and then reached into her belt. She pulled out something that he couldn't see.

"But," she continued, "you know what must really hurt? Having your balls cut off."

It was a switchblade. She touched a button and a knife flicked out.

The man's insides froze over with fear. He began to struggle at the ropes again, but quietly so as not to excite the woman with the knife.

"That has to suck," she said. She glanced down at the bulge in his briefs and then looked back up at his nervous face. "Not only does it hurt, but it pretty much changes a man because that's where your testosterone comes from. Without your balls, you kind of become a girl in certain ways. Now, since you're an adult, your voice won't get high and your facial hair won't stop growing, I don't think, but your natural muscle mass will fade away and you'll start to need help opening jars. Your sex drive will disappear. Some castrated men even grow boobs because the distribution of fat on their body becomes more like a woman. I think that's how it works, at least. Bottom line: you don't want to lose your nuts."

She looked the man right in the eye and stroked the flat of the knife with her other hand. He wanted to moan, but he didn't dare.

The woman stood up and stepped behind the man. She laid the knife down on top of a fancy liquor cabinet nearby and rubbed his bare shoulders for a bit.

"Wow, you are tense," she said. She grabbed a small towel that was on top of the liquor cabinet and dabbed sweat off of his bald head and his shoulders. She then tossed the towel aside, picked up the knife again and bent over the tied-up man from behind so that her chin rested on his shoulder and her arms were out in front of him, showing him the knife again. His body heat was a like a furnace.

"Now you're a bad guy, but, hey, I'm a bad girl so who cares?" she said. "You're a thief, just like me. You disarm burglar alarms, just like me. You crack safes, just like me. You sneak into places that you shouldn't be in and take things that you shouldn't take, just like me. And just like me, you have clients who hire you to steal for them.

"And it doesn't happen often, but sometimes two different clients will hire two different thieves to steal the same thing. It's kind of funny. It can lead to funny situations, like this one."

For the man, things suddenly became very clear.

"Now, I'm not sure who your client is," the woman continued, "but my client is a very powerful Russian collector and he hired little ol' me to, um, acquire The Royal Crown Jewels as soon as they left his country for their big American museum tour. I had a great plan for how to do it, too. I was ready. I was gonna glide in like a bird.... BUT you beat me to it. By literal seconds. And I know it was you because I saw you. And I followed you. I've been keeping tabs on you. I've been a fly on your wall for a week. I know your name, John. I know that you're 42 and turning 43 in two months and seven days. I know that you drive a new Lexus. I know that you had a divorce ten years ago. I have your social security number. I may even have your high school report cards. I'm good. You're good, too, but I think you've gotten a little sloppy with time. You certainly won't see another thief breaking into my apartment in the middle of the night while I'm in my underwear and kicking my ass and tying me up.

"I also know that you still have the jewels. But pretty soon, I'm gonna have the jewels. Either The Crown Jewels or"--she reached down between John's legs and cupped his testicles--"these jewels."

She stood up straight and walked to where she was facing John again. She reached down and ripped the tape off of his mouth.

"Okay, where are they?" she said.

"I don't have them."

She instantly lifted her leg and buried the toe of her boot in his nuts. John's face went ruby red and he moaned out loud.

"Do you care to rephrase your answer?"

He shivered under the ropes and his eyes welled up. He moved his lips, but for several seconds nothing came out. His eyes looked out wide into nothing.

"I... I... I mean that... I don't have them... here", he finally managed to say. "They're... in the trunk of... a car... in a garage on... 4th and King."

"That's down the street. What kind of car?"

"Buick Century.... silver... 2005."

The woman sat down in the chair across from John. She raised her leg and put one foot on John's chair. She pushed the heel of her boot against his balls hard enough to make him moan.

"Okay, let's see," she said. She pulled a cellphone out from her belt and dialed up one of her contacts.

"4th and King, parking garage," she said to someone on the phone, no greeting, no pleasantries. "2005 Silver Buick Century, the trunk."

She hit a button on the phone to end the call and then waited.

She calmly looked around the apartment. "This place is really nice," she said as a mix of John's tears and sweat dripped onto the pointy black toe of the boot that she kept pressed to his testicles.

Seven minutes went by, though to John it felt like an hour. She talked more about his apartment during that time, but he didn't hear a word. Then her cellphone vibrated.

"Good," was all the woman said to the mysterious person on the other end of the exchange before she ended the call and put her phone away.

"Well, you told the truth," she said. "I have the jewels now and you get to keep your balls. My Russian will be happy. I guess I can stop this now." She lifted her foot off of John's sac and he winced in slight relief. She also retracted the switchblade and returned it to her belt pouch. She stood up and looked around the room to make certain that she didn't leave any clues as to her identity. She even scooped up the cigarette butt. All that she was going to leave behind were the ropes. She tugged at them, now sweat-soaked from John, to make sure they were still holding him tight. They were.

"Your housekeeper, the little skinny woman, she works tomorrow, right?", she said to John.

He nodded his head.

"Good. She can untie you when she gets here."

The lady thief tore off a fresh strip of tape and put it over John's mouth.

"I know that your housekeeper comes in at ten," she said. "That gives you about six hours. It sucks, I know, but it could be worse". She reached down and firmly patted John's balls, which made him wince.

She then climbed out the window where a rope hung down from the roof of the building and disappeared into the night.