Edge of Reason Ch. 02

"I repeat, how many cases have you been a part of in your tenure as a medical examiner?"

"Thousands," he shrugged. "I don't like to keep count, Mr Markham."

"And among these thousands, how many have involved the death of a young child at the hands of a sick pedophile?"

"More than one would hope," he replied.

"Do you remember Cody Belvedere's case?"

"Unfortunately, yes," Gilbert sighed. "It is one of those things I would much rather put behind me."

"How horrific was that case compared to the other cases with children as victims?"

"No case involving a child is ever pleasant, Mr Markham."

"But still, in the interests of finding out how my client was affected when she first saw her son's body, how bad was it? Worse than the usual you have seen in your experience?"

The old man pursed his lips for a few seconds and drooped his shoulders.

"No mother should ever have to see what Mrs Belvedere saw that day," he said, turning his grey eyes towards the defence table. "I'm truly sorry for your loss, ma'am. Please accept my condolences."

Tom stepped back for a few moments. His sharp eyes went to the jury and he immediately had their undivided attention. They seemed overawed by the fact that they sat before a household name – someone they only got to see in the news.

"Now, Mr Sykes, could you describe for us the exact nature of the injuries sustained by Cody Belvedere?"

"Objection, relevance."

"It goes to determining what my client saw that drove her to do what she did," said Tom. "However nauseating it may be, it is necessary."

"Overruled," said Giles reluctantly.

An hour later Natasha, Heather and Tom sat in their room. Natasha looked wide eyed and hugged herself tightly. Heather held her head and softly stroked her scalp before shooting an acid look at her superior.

"You should have told me you were going to do that," she spat vehemently in his direction, forgetting that he was her boss. "Neither of us knew about it."

"For good reason," said Tom. "There's no way you would've gone along with it."

"You're damn right we wouldn't have gone along with it. I've tried so hard to shield her from what happened to her son. I destroyed the tape. You just forced the ME to describe what happened to Cody in detail. Do you have any idea what you did to her?"

"I won our case," he said simply. "The goal of it was to horrify the jury by the description and, judging by the two of them that almost threw up, I'll say I've been quite successful."

"That's all that this is to you, isn't it? Winning a game of wits with the prosecution."

"You're one to judge. If you weren't in love with her, you'd have thought of something similar yourself. Don't blame me for doing what is needed just because you're too emotional to see straight."

There were a few moments while Heather patted her client's head and whispered soothingly in her ear.

"You needed someone on this case to do what your emotions wouldn't let you. Right after this case, you can go back to being the dirtiest suit in the building, but please, for this case try to be a better person. Leave the dirty work to me. Let me be the bad guy on this one."

* *

"You should stop beating yourself up over it, Heather," said Tatiana. "Tom knows what he's doing."

Heather did not reply. In all fairness, it was considerably hard to reply with the gag stuffed in her mouth. Her hands were tied over her head to a hook hanging from the ceiling, her feet parted by a spreader bar. Weights hung off her nipples and her clit was clamped. There was an oversized toy vibrating in her pussy and her ass.

Tatiana took the opportunity to circle around the helpless lawyer. Ever so often, she cracked her flogger against some furniture. Her prey shuddered, hearing the twisted leather tongues make a fearful sound.

She orbited closer to her prey now, watching intently as beads of sweat rolled off her skin, leaving an ephemeral trail. The lean body looked curious, naked against the subtle interplay of light and shadow.

"There was something about you I couldn't put my finger on right at the beginning," she went on, letting the tip of her implement graze around Heather's torso. "You have this cold defiance to reality. I've never quite met someone like that."

Heather flinched slightly as one of the tongues smacked against her waist. Tatiana let her hand slip down to where the flared end of the vibrator stuck out of the lawyer's front. Her hand grasped and turned it. Heather bit into her gag, feeling the grooves and ridges rotate against her velvety insides.

"Your entire philosophy revolves around the truth that the world is beyond redemption. No matter how much we try, we're cogs in the same machinery of corruption and greed."

The sentence ended with Tatiana tugging on one of the weights dangling off Heather's nipples, eliciting a muffled cry into the gag. She smiled and continued to press downwards, watching her firm breast contort out of shape.

"I think there's more to the story though," she went on. "I think behind this world weary cynic, there once was an idealist."

She let go off the weight and watched Heather's breast regain shape. She stepped behind her prey and let the flogger make contact with her ass. She grunted into the gag, feeling heat radiate off her skin. Tatiana stepped back to admire her handiwork, seeing unblemished flesh turn pink. She repeated the swat, a mere flick of her wrist, over and over again in rapid succession until a deep shade of crimson covered Heather's posterior. Every strike was precisely aimed at hitting the back of the butt plug, jarring it inside her.

The shots came in a staccato rhythm. She moved behind her upright submissive and trained her sights between her legs. The next several swings of the flogger caused the tails to curl upwards and swipe at her exposed lower lips. Her delicate mound turned an angry shade of red and went numb under the barrage of shots. They were more deliberate now, curling between her legs and smacking directly across her exposed lips and the rear end of the inserted device. The twisted leather yanked on the edge of the inflamed orifice on its way back.

Heather closed her eyes and lost herself in the torrent of pain cascading through her body. Her legs trembled and she felt her vision go hazy around the edges. A familiar churning deep within her made her acutely aware of the simmering arousal building up.

The flurry of strokes had both parties gasping. Tatiana worked her way up the lawyer's back letting her skin taste leather. Angry red patches appeared on Heather's pale skin. She really got into it as time wore on, every lash coming after she wound up her arm. She took gaps now, watching the skin react to the last lash before adding a new welt.

Finally, she put the flogger down and reached around her waist. Her bony fingers found the fleshy inside of her thigh and she pinched hard enough to hear the aria of a muffled scream.

"Yes, Heather, I know your secret," she hissed into the lawyer's ear. "I know how much you hate doing what you do."

She pulled the gag out of her mouth and tossed it away. Heather panted, saliva dribbling off her chin to the ground.

"Imagine if Natasha were to find out? Imagine if she walks in on us in such a position?" Tatiana went on.

Her eyes met Heather's as she pulled the lawyer's hair back. She searched her face for a while before she twisted her lips into a lop-sided smile of understanding.

"You want her to find out, don't you? You want her to be horrified of you, so horrified that she runs far away."

Heather didn't say anything, her skin still burning from before. The toys continued humming within her.

"She deserves better," Heather forced out between gasps.

"And this is what you deserve," said Tatiana, shortly followed by the flogger colliding with both the clamped nipples at once, detaching them. A sharp jolt of pain seared through Heather's body. Blood rushed back into her hardened nipples, leaving a jagged aftermath. "Am I right?"

She merely nodded. Tatiana got some distance and rained down a series of lashes across her breasts. Heather felt the sharp sting sporadically, gradually increasing in frequency. Each flash of pain triggered pleasure within her until they became deeply inextricable entities. The cocktail of sensations flowed over her nervous system. Her pussy leaked all over the embedded toy and dripped onto the floor.

She let the tongues of her flogger dance down one breast then another and alternated back and forth for several minutes. Top to bottom, left to right – the flogger smacked her delicate flesh with a resounding thump. All throughout, she kept her eyes level with Heather's who didn't so much as blink.

"Let me tell you something, Heather Franklin, no matter how much pain your body absorbs, it won't make what you do right. The pain you feel is a mockery compared to the pain you inflict. Pain for pain isn't how the world works."

Her eyes followed Tatiana's gaze until they rested on the wrists that had flogged her so thoroughly. There were still faint scars from when she had evidently taken a sharp object to them. Tatiana put her arm by her side and let the flogger rest.

"Tunisia, 2011. I set the spark to the simmering discontent on orders from certain individuals. One thing led to another and the entire region rose up to fight their dictators. I believe the media called it the 'Arab Spring'. My small campaign turned peaceful cities into warzones killing more people than you can imagine. Look at Syria and you'll see it's not over yet."

She put her palms on Heather's cheeks and brought her face so close that Heather looked into her aquamarine blue eyes and saw an unbecoming wetness shimmering within them.

"So don't you tell me you can heal the harm you cause with a self-inflicted dose of pain. It becomes a part of you until the day you meet the devil. You, me and the rest of our kind – we have a lot to answer for downstairs."

* *

"Are you ready?" asked Heather with some trepidation. Natasha looked ahead with a blank, glassy expression. "Your testimony is up next."

"What happens if I don't make an impact on the jury?"

"You will," said Heather, leaning in and locking lips with her client briefly. "You have to."

The courtroom stood perfectly still when Natasha took the stand. Entire news crews waited in silence. Heather took a deep breath and steeled her resolve.

"Mrs Belvedere, I'm sure the jury would like to hear your version of what happened that day. I know it is difficult, but I would ask you to tell us exactly how you felt from the moment you heard the judge letting Lance Whittaker walk free."

Natasha's hands held the railing of the witness stand and she spoke in a voice with little emotion.

"I just kept hearing it over and over again. The man who so heinously killed my baby was going to get away with it. He was going to walk free. That one thought stuck in my head. Everything else is a blur. The next thing I knew, I was standing over his dead body with a gun in my hand."

"How did it feel at that moment?"

"All at once, it felt like this weight I was carrying around with me was lifted. I felt a strange happiness. For once, I didn't have a care or an attachment in the world. In that moment, I didn't care who saw me shoot him or who would call the police."

"But you do understand you committed a crime?"

"The last person I loved was my son. When he died, a part of me died with him. The only reason I didn't end it all that very day was I wanted to see Mr Whittaker go to jail and not be able to do to another boy what he did to mine."

"So you took the law into your own hands?"

"I'm not a violent person, you have to believe me," Natasha implored. "I had never before done anything which was against the law. But when he walked out of that courtroom, laws and morals suddenly seemed irrelevant. My body went into auto-pilot."

Heather paused and turned to the jury. She made sure she had their collective gaze before turning back to her defendant.

"Mrs Belvedere, I know this is going to be very hard to answer and I wouldn't ask you if I didn't have to. How did you feel when you found out your son was dead?"

She took her cue to step back and let the spotlight go to her client. Not a single eye in the room wavered from the witness and not a single ear remained idle. Natasha clenched her eyes shut and gripped the railing hard, trying to push back the deluge of memories flooding into her. When her eyes opened, a solitary tear seeped out and left a trail down her cheek. The cameras zoomed in and sent that tear to the television and computer screens of hundreds of millions around the globe.

"Cody, baby, why did you leave me and go away so soon? Can't you see how much Mommy misses you? Can't you see how hard it has become to go on without you? Please come back. I love you, baby, and I promise I won't let anybody else hurt you. Please come back, Cody. Please."

The rest of her words were reduced to incoherent syllables by her sobbing. She clutched the wooden rail and wept bitterly. Heather looked on in open-mouthed wonder. Somewhere through all the misdirection and the propaganda, she had forgotten that this case was about a barbaric tragedy that had befallen a six-year-old boy. What she saw before her was not a woman who had been prepped or a woman who had rehearsed a speech.

She saw a mother, crying her heart out at losing the one person who still gave it a reason to beat.

Instinctively, she did something she had never even considered before. In two swift strides, she reached the witness stand. She reached in and held her witness to her chest. The rest of her tears wet the shoulder of her suit, but she didn't care. She cradled Natasha's face in her hands and wiped away the tears with her fingertip.

"Let it go, Natasha. It's what Cody would've wanted. If he is looking down on you, your tears hurt him more than you will ever know."

And then she kissed her client. The kiss lasted a few seconds, stretched out infinitely in the moment. In that moment, there was no trial, judge, jury, prosecutor, media or courtroom. There was nothing else except a woman who had bared her soul for the world to see. The kiss was captured by shutterbugs and rolling cameras, immortalizing the tender embrace of two pairs of lips.

Heather stepped back, taking a deep breath and letting the rest of the world come back into focus. She turned to the jury and saw several handkerchiefs out to contain the overflow of emotion from the juror's eyes. Even one of the prosecution team members shielded her face with her palm.

All around the world, in front of television sets, computers, smartphones and tablets alike, there was an outpouring of emotion. Mothers immediately missed their children, going to the adjacent room to hold them close. Others called up their far-away children just to hear their voice and hold them the best they could over the phone.

For a few moments, set firmly between swathes of mundane reality, parents suddenly felt so much more attached to their children.

"No further questions, your Honour," said Heather, regaining her composure. She strolled back to the defence table.

"Go ahead, Seth. Make my day and completely alienate the jury by going hard at her."

Seth had apparently read that thought and rose tentatively to his feet. All eyes in the room looked at him as if he was a misshapen sea slug.

"Mrs Belvedere, I will be very brief with my questions. If at any point of time you want to take a break, I will let you do so."

She nodded. He stepped towards her and began. "On the morning of the 20th of February, do you remember your actions?"

"As I said, it's all a hazy blur until after the shooting."

"Let me tell you then, you took out your personal gun from your closet, withdrew money from an ATM, went to a store to buy bullets matching the calibre of the gun, found out the bar where Mr Whittaker spends his time, lay in wait at the mouth of the alley leading to that bar and then shot him. Do you remember doing any of these things?"

"No, I don't."

"But you did them nonetheless," Seth said calmly. "You carried out a series of logical actions, all leading to your ultimate aim of killing Mr Whittaker. Am I right?"

"I suppose you are."

He turned to the jury and crossed his arms over his chest. "You heard her. She carried out a series of logical actions to achieve her goal that day."

Before returning to the table, he turned to face the defendant once more.

"It should go without saying, Mrs Belvedere, but I am truly and deeply sorry for your loss. I would not even pretend to imagine the grief you must feel."

"Mr Watkins, do you have any children of your own?"

"I have a little girl," he smiled weakly. "She turns four next month."

"In that case, Mr Watkins, despite our current circumstances, I will pray that you never ever have to feel what I feel right now."

He looked down, the realisation of how bad he looked to the jury sinking into his skin slowly.

"That will be all, your Honour. The prosecution rests."

"The defence rests."

"We will have closing statements on Wednesday morning," said Giles. "Adjourned."

* *

"I gotta tell you, Rick," said an analyst on TV. "I didn't see that coming. I mean, the lawyer kissed her right in front of the cameras."

"Do you think it will have any bearing on the outcome?" asked the sharply-dressed news anchor.

The analyst put his palms together. "If Twitter is anything to go by, there is an outpouring of support for her. In the morning, there were millions of tweets per second coming from all over the world. A whole host of celebrities have tweeted their support too. Heather Franklin is a lesbian icon now."

"Interesting you mentioned that, Bob," said Rick. "We've just got news that there are gay pride marches being planned in at least six major cities tomorrow in her support, and this is in addition to the rallies that have been going on all over the world anyway."

"Thanks, Rick, back to the studio with Jen now where we'll be following more of this legal phenomenon as it unfolds. Stay tuned for an interview with Dr Shreedhar Banerjee, a widely respected professor of law at Columbia University, over videocall, where we will get his expert insight into-"

Heather turned off her television set and yawned. The last few days had been taxing to say the least. She had half of her closing statement written down. The urge to call up Natasha was overwhelming but she was with Tatiana and her team at the Lowell and Heather had sworn to keep a distance.

"What the hell was I thinking?" she repeated to herself, stubbing out her latest Marlboro stump on the ashtray.

The hug, the words of comfort and the kiss. It wasn't who she was. Definitely not in front of the whole world to see. These unusual feelings had come at the exact wrong time.

"I can't give my closing so messed up."

Heather needed answers. She needed closure. There was one place where she once used to go to get it, but that was a lifetime ago.

She shrugged and threw on her overcoat, hoping there were some answers for the many questions in her mind.

Fifteen minutes later, her Bugatti drew up in front of a church. She didn't know the name, but it seemed grand enough to warrant a try. She made sure no one was around and slunk in through the door and settled herself quietly on the last pew. She looked around her furtively, waiting for the answers to come from somewhere.

"Hello there, young lady," said a voice. Heather turned her head to see an elderly priest standing behind her. "What brings you here at such an ungodly hour?"

"I'm sorry, I'll be going now. I didn't know someone else would be here."

"No, stay," he said, placing a palm on her shoulder. "This is the house of God. All are welcome at all times."