The Case Of The Iron Maiden

A Julie Summers Mystery

Julie Summers, Ph.D.

Attorney at Law

— the brass plaque proclaimed. It was new and shiny, and Julie, who had just screwed it to her office door, was quite satisfied when she stepped back on bare soles, cocking her dreadlocked head and checking the effect. "All set up", she said resolutely to herself. "This is it, girl. Now all you need is a client", she sighed, entering her office – and the late Sixties.

She was greeted by the sound of Cream, live at the Fillmore, from an old turntable record-player with twin boxes sitting on the floor, and the fragrance of Patchouli, curling up as a thin blue string of smoke from an incense stick on the low Scandinavian-style coffee table which for now served as her desk. The view from the bay window went out over San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, as Julie had been able to rent what had originally been a one-room apartment in one of the beautiful old townhouses on Cole Street. The rent was not quite paid though, and now she was hoping the clients would start coming in before the bills started coming in.

"You also need an assistant", were her next words to herself, as she looked round the room which was in a paradoxical state of chaotic emptiness no actual hippie commune would have been ashamed of. Julie had already draped some colourful shawls around the window and managed to drive a nail into the wall to hang her genuine Tibetan thangka showing the venerable Milarepa, but that was it in terms of decoration. Milarepa was famous for staring at the same wall for eight years once in deep meditation, or so she had heard. You could still go see the wall in some Tibetan monastery. Julie hoped she wouldn't have to share his fate. "Someone to talk to." The wooden floorboards were creaky and dusty, from the little bathroom the sound of slowly dripping water was emanating. The office furniture, consisting of Julie's old battered desk and office chair from her grad school dorm, two bookshelves, a few cardboard boxes with her desktop computer, her textbooks and files, her framed doctoral diploma, and a rotating ceiling fan someone would have yet to install, was piled up in a corner. "Someone to organize you."

She patted her jeans pockets, only to realize she had forgotten to take her smartphone with her again. "Case in point", she sighed. At least the landline phone, a bulky device straight from The Rockford Files which had come with the apartment, was working – Julie set it on the coffee table, sat down crosslegged before it on the fake-fur carpet, and had the receiver already cradled on her shoulder to order a celebratory moving-in pizza to eat by herself, when there was a knock at the door.

"Come in, it's open", she called, banging the receiver back on the phone, jumping up to meet her, hopefully, first client. "My, that was quick", she added under her breath and with a sigh of relief.

*

The girl who peeked around the half-open door was probably about twenty, maybe even younger. "Excuse me, are you Ms. Summers? I need a lawyer."

Julie knew the pugnacious tone from her internship with Burnbaum Goldman in her last semester: hurt and hopeful at the same time. Here was her first client all right. This girl wanted to sue the hell out of someone. The accompanying aggrieved look on the girl's face was a little hard to discern because of the tattoo.

The large bold blackwork face tattoo.

The whole lower and upper third of the girl's face from her chin back to her ears and up to her nose and then again from the eyebrows upward to the hairline were inked solid black in two wide horizontal bands, with the pattern exchanged on a narrower vertical strip down the centre, about as wide as her nose, in which her brow and her jaw had the natural skin tone while the nose and its surroundings were a solid black. Narrow lines in black and skin-tone ran along the borders of the blackwork, accenting them. "Yep, I'm Julie Summers. Come on in", Julie said on autopilot, still taking in the breathtaking, bold design.

"Hi. Kyra Kaczinski", the girl introduced herself, also somewhat absent-mindedly, extending her hand, looking around the apartment doubtfully, hesitantly closing the door behind her. Apart from the bold silent exclamation of her face tat, she looked disappointingly like a normie, Julie found: brunette hair about shoulder-length, parted in the middle and pushed back behind the ears, a white T-shirt, neat blue jeans, flat sensible sandals without socks. Two matching star-like older tattoos were visible on the tops of her feet, though, and her pierced earlobes were stretched by surgical-steel flesh tunnels, a process which would take quite some time and determination. Not quite a normie then, Julie decided.

"You sure you're a lawyer?", Kyra gasped, staring at Julie. What she saw was a gangly, pale young woman with a freckly face, wearing a spectacular head of blonde dreadlocks reaching down between her shoulders, with little bells, beads and rings woven into them, a rather skimpy tie-dyed top with no bra underneath, as the freely moving mounds with their two pointy prominences under the psychedelic fabric told her, a pair of bellbottom jeans, and no shoes whatsoever on her tanned, dusty, tough-looking feet, the naked toes glinting with silver rings. The little bells in her hair tinkled with every movement, and up close there was a distinct scent of marijuana around her.

"I can even prove it", Julie grinned. "You're my first client, though, Kyra." She motioned the girl to sit down opposite from her at the low coffee table on the fake-fur rag, dropping down into the lotus position again. "Wanna share a pizza?" Julie invitingly lifted the receiver of the Rockford telephone.

Kyra, kneeling awkwardly at the table, looked at her again, doubtful at first, then she took a deep breath, visibly relaxing. "Yes, please. That would be great", she said, smiling for the first time.

*

"So. Kyra. I suppose you don't wanna sue your tat artist? Cause that's some great blackwork you got there", Julie began a quarter of an hour later, pizza slice in one hand, her mouth full, takeaway plastic coffee cup in the other hand. "This was clearly not a tat rape. Far too time-consuming and carefully done."

"Nah, I didn't wake up with it after being drugged at a party or something", Kyra snorted. "I've heard the stories girls will tell after they get second thoughts about their ink. This", she indicated her face with the point of her own pizza slice, the flat greasy box open between them on the table, "took six all-day sessions, I badly wanted to get it, and I'm very proud of it."

"Great, cause I love it. I like to look at you. Be a pity if you didn't stand by it."

"Thanks." Kyra, smiling, was a little taken aback, not quite used yet to Julie's direct ways. "It is about the tat, though, that I'm here."

"You wanna sue for discrimination, then."

"Is it that obvious?"

"To a lawyer, yes." Julie mumbled around her next bite of pizza. "Your employer kicked you out for a trumped-up reason after you showed up with the blackwork? That's an easy one. Guaranteed win. You won't get your job back, but they'll pay you a fortune."

"No, it's... it's worse." Kyra looked down into her lap. "I'm fresh from college, looking for a job as an executive assistant. I was top of my class, did two high-profile internships, but since I got the tat, right after my graduation... The HR folks, they don't mention it. Nobody ever mentions it, but I can see their looks. I get invited to interviews all the time, they see me, I'm out. And now I'm gonna sue. I've had it."

"Hopeless." Julie threw the last bite of the slice into her mouth. "Who exactly d'ya wanna sue?"

"Gatesoft."

"Gatesoft? Forget it."

"I was in Round Two already, and I saw my application on the table at the interview, and there was the word INK! scrawled on the cover letter. With an exclamation mark!"

Julie chuckled. "Subtle."

"Surely that's a proof of discrimination?"

"Yeah, but doesn't matter. Gatesoft's a multinational giant. They got a Legal Division larger than the Attorney General's Office. They'd delegate your claim to some newbie to practice on and drag it out until you're broke. And broken. They can afford it, they won't even notice, while you'll end up with a heart attack or jump off Golden Gate one sunny day. Kyra, negative discrimination is illegal, but almost unprovable when it consists in not giving you something you have no legal claim to in the first place. Like being hired."

"Yes, but..." Kyra looked up, suddenly there were tears in her eyes. "But..."

"You got your paperwork with you? Resume, testimonials, and stuff?"

"Yes, I thought my lawyer would want to see them." Kyra eagerly pulled a large, dog-eared cardboard folder from her shoulderbag, hopeful again. "I was the best everywhere. It's clearly discrimination."

"So, you reached Round Two when applying at Gatesoft? Impressive. Lemme see..." Julie was leafing through the collection of stamped printouts, diplomas, and formal letters, the hazel eyes in the tattooed face following her every movement anxiously. "All of this is pretty impressive." Julie snapped the cardboard folder shut, looking up, her eyes suddenly shining. Cream were still playing in the background, the incense stick still smoldering away. "Kyra, my advice as your lawyer is: You don't need a lawyer. You need a job. Wanna work for me?"

*

Kyra stared, her eyes wide, giving Julie some more time to enjoy her face tattoo. "What?"

Julie spread her hands. "I need a secretary. I would've put up an ad tomorrow. I can pay you about half of what you would've gotten at Gatesoft, but in exchange you get me as your boss, free pizza and coffee as a benefit, plus you get to work for a lawyer, which means lots of exciting cases, mysterious clients, police shootouts and so on. Can you start right away? Look around this office. I need someone to organize me."

"You mean... Well, I shall consider..." Julie saw the girl wanted to stay aloof and professional but couldn't help her joy and relief showing.

"Yes, I mean it. You're hired. Welcome on board, Kyra." Julie held out her hand.

Kyra, as if drawn by magic, took it for the ceremonial handshake. "Thank you... Julie?"

"Oh, it'll have to be 'Miss Summers' now, since I'm your boss", Julie explained, her mouth full again, the next slice of pizza in her hand. "And as my secretary, you're 'Miss Kyra'."

"They're called 'personal assistants' these days? And get addressed by their last name? And 'Miss' has been deprecated?", Kyra smiled.

"Yeah, but not in 1969, Miss Kyra. And of course we shall have to do something about your professional appearance."

"I'm sorry?"

"But first let's set up your workplace", Julie continued inexorably. "You can have my old uni desk for starters. Help me push it over to the door here." Julie emptied her coffee cup, wiped her hands on a paper napkin, and got on her feet. "Your first task will be to set up your own employment contract and file away your folder as Employee No. 1. - Hendrix or the Jefferson Airplane?" Julie was perched by the record-player on the balls of her bare feet now, holding up two psychedelic record covers.

Kyra slowly shook her head, but with a warm feeling in her gut. There was no resisting this Julie person, and she didn't even want to. She already felt at home in this impossible office.

*

"Now, as my secretary", Julie continued when they had pushed the desk to the door, put the office chair behind it and the desktop computer on it, "you'll have to be barefoot like me." The Jefferson Airplane were playing now, Grace Slick's strident voice telling of rabbit holes to sink into.

"Sure." Kyra shrugged her shoulders. The things you did for a job. "I can ditch my shoes if you want me to." She stepped on the heel straps, kicked off the sandals, rubbed her feet against each other, flexed her toes. It did feel good, she had to admit. It was a warm day, too, the eternal spring of San Francisco. The Sun was shining, they were both standing in the bright yellow slanted rectangle the window threw on the floor. "There, I'm barefoot."

"OK, but I mean always barefoot, as in Not Owning Any Shoes. Like me. It will be in your employment contract as a barefoot secretary."

"Uhm..."

"Take your shoes, go out to the trash chute and throw them in, Miss Kyra. Now."

Kyra experienced one moment of resistance, like a bump on the road, then she shrugged her shoulders again, gathered up her sandals and walked out the door to where there was a trash chute in the corridor, with Julie watching expectantly from the door. She opened the metal lid, dropped the sandals into the opening and watched them disappear down the dark shaft. There was a lump in her throat. She was very aware of her own bare feet on the floorboards.

"See, now you're barefoot." Julie was not done yet with her, it seemed, when Kyra closed the door again behind her. "When you get home, you will collect all your shoes, your socks and your stockings and sort them into those fit to donate and those to throw away."

"What? Miss Summers, it's..."

"You're a barefoot secretary. That means you're always barefoot, as I said." Julie looked down at her own tough, tanned bare feet, enjoying the sight of her own cute toes in a neat row. "How else would you get a pair like mine?", she explained, watching the resistance melt away on the girl's tattooed face staring at her. "Your naked soles will turn tough and leathery, your naked toes nimble and prehensive. Like mine. It's liberating, and it's sexy. Lots of guys – and girls, too – will secretly want to lick your soles and suck your toes. I always feel powerful when my bare feet are stared at. And the most important part of barefooting is not possessing any shoes, to be a barefooter. Therefore, you will throw away the second pile and donate the first one. Today. I expect you to send me pictures as a proof. I'll give you my phone number, you'll need it anyway. You will not keep one single pair of shoes. You don't need them anymore."

"Yes, Miss Summers. - But how shall I get home? I have no other shoes with me, and driving barefoot is..."

"Completely legal. Believe me, I'm a lawyer. California Vehicle Code does not state anything about legal or illegal attire while driving. It's been expressly and officially confirmed by the State Police, too. Driving barefoot is legal. - So far, so good. Now for your bra. This is simply not acceptable office attire here." Julie pointed at the modest protrusions under Kyra's white T-shirt. "Take it off. And that top - please tie it at least on your midriff. Do you have any tie-dyes? I can tell you where to buy some nice ones."

"No bra? But that's..."

"All the rage in 1969. We shall set those tits free now. Women's Lib and all."

"I think they meant something different..." But Julie could see how Kyra's hands were already busy under the back of her T-shirt, unhooking the bra, uncupping her breasts, reappearing with the offending article of clothing.

"In the trash, please."

"Next thing you'll expect me to show up topless...", Kyra grumbled, disposing of her bra in the trash bin under her new desk, her boobs jittering now under the top with every movement like Julie's own, the nipples, two dark circles, clearly discernible.

"Only on Casual Fridays", Julie grinned. There were even two nipple rings under that top, she saw, betraying themselves by the little circular shadows they threw.

Kyra stared at her, then snorted, then couldn't help but grin back.

"Good. Now for the jewelry problem."

"Oh, there is one?", Kyra retorted.

"I regret to say so, but I don't see a single necklace or bracelet on you. Luckily, I can help you. Follow me." Julie led the way into the little bathroom, opened a wooden box balanced on the rim of the sink, revealing a heap of glittery junk like a pirate's treasure chest. She grabbed a generous handful. "You can have some of my stuff until you get your own. Here, put this on. That's a glass-bead necklace like Janis Joplin used to wear, and this is a Buddhist mala. They make nice bracelets. Wait, I'll show you how to wind it round your wrist. And from now on, I want to see at least one toering and one anklet on your naked feet every day, Miss Kyra. The more, the better. Understood?"

Kyra nodded, watching helplessly as Julie put the jewelry on her.

"And now for the final touch." Julie was brandishing a metal spray can now. It was covered in printed marijuana leaves and an inscription in flowery, mock-Sixties lettering saying STONER GIRL - all the groovy fragrance without smoking! "If there's a market for it, someone will produce it", she smiled, mercilessly enveloping Kyra in a fog that smelled pungently of weed. "See, now you smell like a real hippie girl. Matter of seconds. Nothing to it."

"Then you don't actually..."

"I'm not against a roach now and then, mind you. It's nice to drift in the clouds for a while. But I can't risk my brain. I need it to be clear and alert for my clients. I just like the effect of the scent. Sets you apart from the squares. They'll shy away from you instinctively now."

Kyra sniffed her upper arm. "Ugh, I reek like..."

"...you will always from now on. I'll show you where to order this stuff. You'll put it on every day before leaving for work. OK, and now, with your makeover complete...", Julie let her voice drop, "...can I just admire your tattoo for a few seconds?"

She could see how Kyra fought with herself, then gave in. "OK", said the girl after a brief hesitation. "It's nice to have someone liking me for it for a change instead of rejecting me", she admitted, looking Julie in the eyes, presenting her geometric blackwork with quiet pride now, "although I should probably object to you hiring me because of it."

Kyra would wear this indelible decoration for the rest of her life, Julie thought, whether she wanted it or not, rain or shine, good days or bad. In her face, for everybody to see. A little provocative weed perfume or not owning any shoes was nothing against it. How courageous this girl was... She found her fingertip softly tracing the geometric borders of the design on Kyra's face.

"No need to object here", she said soothingly. "I hired you for your qualifications and because I actually need a good secretary and because you happened by at the right moment. This... is just an added benefit, don't worry. And you're incredibly brave to wear it." Her fingertip was still caressing Kyra's face.

Kyra made a little noise, holding still.

The tattooist had spared Kyra's soft pink lips which stood out enticingly in the black ink now, parting a little, quivering a little. For one brief moment the two girls were on the brink of becoming intimate.

The world went quiet, Grace Slick chanting hypnotically over the distant droning of traffic down in the streets the only sound.

There was a loud knock at the door, a brief pause, a second knock, the sound of the handle, a gruff male voice. "Hello? Anybody in? Hello? Dr. Summers?"

*

"So, you need a lawyer, Professor Shultz. What can I do for you?" Julie was in the lotus position again, behind the coffee table, casually as if in a leather chair behind an imposing desk, looking up expectantly.

Professor Shultz, as he had introduced himself, had taken a seat on the only chair available, Julie's old swiveling desk chair which Kyra was to use for now. The secretary was busying herself with setting up the desktop computer, plugging in cables, trying switches, positioning the flatscreen monitor. Shultz had given her an astonished look but was visibly too preoccupied with his own problems to stare at the girl or at Julie. He was in his forties or early fifties, handsome in an old-fashioned way like from a wartime film noir – clean-shaven, sharp, even hard features, wore a suit, even a Fedora hat which he had taken off politely in the presence of the ladies when they emerged from the bathroom. He had an indrawn, unworldly academic air about him, but was seeking counsel nonetheless.

"It's my wife. She's to appear in court today. It's just because of a parking ticket she forgot to pay", he stated. "Not the first one. If she doesn't show up, she might get jailed. For a parking ticket. I need somebody to stop this."

"OK, and why can't your wife appear in court?", Julie asked.

"Because she's vanished."

"How's that?" Shultz was not one to make many words, it appeared, Julie thought. He minced them like he had to pay for everything he said. As he would actually have to, it came to her mind. My first client. My first fee. Ha. This lawyer's in business now.

"If I knew that, I could find her myself. I reported her missing to the police just now."

"For how long has she been missing?"

"Since yesterday morning. She was alone at home, I was out, I returned, she was not to be found."

"OK, sounds like you don't need a lawyer but a PI." There goes my fee, Julie sighed inwardly, or most of it.

"Pardon?"

"Private Investigator. A sleuth. I can recommend one or two to you, plus I can keep your wife out of jail when she reappears. You reported her missing?"

"Yep."

"Good. Then it's just one phone call. They'll defer the proceedings without prejudice against her. Which court is she to appear at?"

"County Court, Traffic Division."

"OK, I need the Missing Person case number. It's on the copy of the protocol they gave you at the precinct." Julie lifted the receiver. "Miss Kyra, would you look up the phone number for me, please?"

"Right, Miss Summers." Kyra, who, in contrast to Julie, had not forgotten her smartphone at home, began scrolling and swiping.

Shultz watched, shaking his head. "You sure you're a lawyer?"

"We're just setting up shop", Julie explained. "First day."

"Ah. Just like us. My wife and me."

"You just moved in?" Julie suddenly had a vague idea. New surroundings. Unfamiliar. People getting lost easily... Her thoughts started to move while she punched in the number Kyra read to her now.

One short phone call later during which Shultz turned his hat in his hands, his gaze now, as he had calmed a little, wandering from her dreadlocks to her jiggling tits to her bare feet and back, Julie put down the receiver and looked at him. "OK, court's notified. As I said, there'll be no prejudice against your wife. Give them a word when she's back, they'll send a new summons, she'll get away with a symbolic fine."

"Thank you." Shultz seemed genuinely relieved. Trouble with the law was apparently worse for him than losing his partner in life.

"Now we'll just have to find her", Julie began encouragingly.

"I don't know where she might have gone to."

"No disagreements, estrangement of any kind?"

"Good God, no. Mrs. Shultz and I, we've been together these twenty years. I teach epistemology at Berkeley, money's good, love-life's good, no complaints. We just bought a big house for us, a few blocks from here in the Mission District, a real mansion, quite ancient. Fun to explore. I was at Home Depot yesterday, getting some stuff, the garage door wasn't working. I got back, she was gone. Her car's still there. I looked everywhere in the house and on the grounds, poked my head in every corner, the attic, the stables, the garden pavilion, even into the Dungeon. Nothing."

"The what?" Julie suddenly pictured an actual mansion, some leftover from Spanish times, with secret doors and torture chambers where evil gobernadores tormented noble Zorro-like brigands or something.

"Dungeon. Ah", he smiled a little, "you can't know, of course. A... BDSM playroom. Left over from the previous owners. Full of gruesome devices. Not my kind of fun, though Mrs. Shultz seemed interested."

"So she might have gone there to have a look, maybe play a little, while you were away? But she's not in there?"

"Maybe, but no, I looked everywhere."

"Is there an isolation cell, a punishment box, a casket, any closed container at all that might accomodate a human?"

"No, just the Iron Maiden."

"The Iron Maiden."

"It's a dummy, though, we couldn't even get it open."

"Professor, let's go." Julie was on her feet, literally dragging up Shultz by his hand. "Miss Kyra, you hold the fort. – Come on, Professor, there's no time to lose. We'll take my car. I have a feeling I drive faster than you. Give me directions."

"Isn't driving barefooted illegal, Dr. Summers?", were the last words Kyra heard when Julie sped off with her first client down the hallway.

*

A quarter of an hour and one frantic drive in Julie's rattling VW Beetle later, they were running down mediaeval-looking dark flagstone stairs and bursting into an obviously newly made-over cellar vault which, as Julie registered with one sweeping glance, had all the latest sexual torture devices imaginable. Amid racks, a gyno chair, various cages, black-leather upholstery and dangling chains, the ominous fat-lady shape of an Iron Maiden was standing upright like an Egyptian mummy sarcophagus in a museum, tastefully pre-rusted.

"I tell you we never got it open", Shultz insisted, when Julie, bare soles slapping on the flagstones, headed straight for the device, still tugging him along by the hand. "It's stuck or something, and she can't be..."

"How about just looking instead of reasoning, Professor? - Mrs. Shultz?!", Julie called out loudly. The Iron Maiden had a sort of visor like on a knight's helmet, and Julie flipped it up, revealing the dark interior – from which a pair of frightened, tearful eyes was staring out. "Don't worry, you're safe now! We'll get you out as fast as we can!"

"Good God, Ann!", Shultz was heard coughing behind Julie.

"Now, lemme see..." Julie began running her hands round the iron torso, relying on her instinct, feeling for levers, clasps, hooks, letting her fingers do the work, until suddenly there was a clang, the iron shell burst apart, and the limp, somewhat overweight form of Mrs. Shultz, stark naked save for handcuffs, ankle shackles and a large ball gag, grimy with sweat, urine and rust, cheeks smeared with mascara, sank into Julie's arms.

*

"Elementary, Watson", Julie remarked to the visibly shaken professor, when they had extracted the gag from the woman's cramped-up jaw, unlocked the shackles (standard police handcuffs, for which Julie happened to have a standard key on her keychain) and carried her up the stairs to bed so she could rest. He was holding a glass of water to her lips, anxiously watching her swallow. "You looked everywhere save in one place. Consequently, that's where she had to be, especially since she has, as you stated, an interest in bondage play. This thing, because it's for play, not for real torture, probably has an inward release mechanism which your wife, as she had chained up herself, found impossible to trigger once she was in and had closed the shell. Having also gagged herself, she couldn't call for help. Something like that. I'm sure she can demonstrate to you how she got herself into this predicament, and you'll have to let her introduce you into this sort of play. Kink doesn't go away, as the saying goes, and if you love her...", she winked at him, "...better get involved!"

"Please, how can I thank you, Dr. Summers?"

"Pleasure's all mine, Professor. I like to exercise those little grey cells. And if you ever need a lawyer again – you'll find my card on the table in the hall. I'll leave you two inveterate kinksters alone now." Julie raised her hand to him from the guilded and elaborately carved baroque door of the stuffy bedroom, and was gone. She was eager to get back to her brand-new office, where the Jefferson Airplane were playing, where there was pizza in a carton to be had, and where a certain tattooed barefoot secretary was waiting for orders to type her very first bill.

***