The Abatement of Kyle Trinter, Chapter 16 (Patreon)

Also, big announcement: I'll be posting the next chapter of Emma's Growth Spurt Monday night, April 1st! I can't wait to show you all what I've been working on <3 <3

Chapter 16

“Wait, so…you’re telling me that you need the entire week off!?” Peter asked incredulously into the phone as he sat at his desk. His plate had been full for the last couple weeks, ever since he had to step in as the acting accounting manager for Ted, who had apparently injured himself in some sort of…what had it been? The details were hazy, but the story Peter had been told was that Ted had fallen down some stairs in his home and broken a few bones. It had been very odd, though, that Ted hadn’t told him this information himself. In fact, ever since his mysterious injury, Peter hadn’t heard from Ted at all. No one in the office had. A few broken bones would have been painful, sure, but to not hear from Ted this long…? It was weird. Ted had always been so hands-on, so in-charge of everything…so to have him go suddenly silent like this was bizarre to say the least.

And now Laura, one of the most solid, dependable employees at the firm, was taking a whole week of her paid leave off, without announcing it ahead of time. This was technically allowed, but Peter was truly thrown for a loop, since he would have expected someone like Laura to keep him informed about any lengthy absences.

“Yes, Peter, I’m really sorry to have to spring this on you last-minute,” Laura replied back on the other end, a genuine sense of understanding and empathy evident in her tone. “And I know how tight things have been at the office ever since…Ted hurt himself…but I’ve made sure to manage all the invoices, and I’ve lined up a couple auditors for Musgrove, Inc next week, one for their financial statements and accounting systems, with an emphasis on the last 12 quarters, and one for their fiscal records going back a decade. Plus I resolved all the discrepancies I found with the Timberview hotel chain…remember, the ones we talked about?”

“Mhm,” nodded Peter, his heart already sinking a little. Laura was really on top of it, he had to give her that. It was exactly this type of proactivity that he was going to miss for the next week.

“And I also made sure to get a head start on the year-end financial statement,” Laura added, “And I emailed some of the Excel spreadsheets to you – I know a lot can change in a few months, but a lot of the work is just getting the graphs and charts in place for the algorithms, you know? We can always substitute different numbers when the data fluctuate.”

“Heh, well…I can’t really complain, can I?” chuckled Peter. “We’re just lucky to have you, Laura. That’s all I can say.”

“Thanks, Peter,” Laura replied back, trying to sound as light and natural as possible. “And again, I’m really sorry to be so sudden with all this. Something came up and I…just really need to take the full week.”

“Well I know it’s none of my business,” Peter said kindly, “But I hope it’s nothing too serious, Laura. You always know that you can call me or anyone else here if you need help or…you know, someone to talk to.”

“I really appreciate it, Peter, thanks,” Laura responded quickly. “I’ll be in touch in a week, okay? Alright, bye!”

She hung up the phone and took a deep breath, letting it out again as she sat on her bed. Her eyes traveled down to all the documents and newspaper clippings that she had scattered in a semicircle all over her bedroom floor. Ever since she had learned Martha’s full name, Laura had kicked her investigations into overdrive, spending all of her free time trying to discover who this monster of a woman actually was, and the nature of her past life. There had been a lot of information, far more than Laura had hoped for. It was this sheer volume of information that had prompted her to ask for a week off from work – her obsession with Martha (and, of course, freeing Kyle from her clutches) had developed to such an extent that Laura had actually been covertly doing her investigatory work while she was at her desk at her actual job, and, being a principled person, this didn’t sit right with her. And so she had decided to take some time to focus solely on this bizarre, disturbing case.

Martha’s ominous words rang in her ears, promising to kill Laura if she even got a whiff of the police being involved, so Laura had taken the law enforcement option off the table. She wasn’t going to risk calling the cops, not only because she feared for her own safety, but also because she feared for Kyle’s as well. She had no idea what Martha would do to him if the police suddenly showed up on her doorstep. Laura had resolved, therefore, to go at the investigation alone, and already, she had unearthed a surprising amount of information.

She sank down from her position on her bed and sat on the floor, among the dozens of documents and articles, picking them up one by one and browning over them for the umpteenth time, making sure that she had all her information correct. So far, she had found out that Martha had been employed for years by a traveling circus, called Voleria, and that she had become well-known for performing feats of strength under the stage name “Mama Gargantua,” shortened to “Mama G” in later articles after she had become more famous. Laura had winced when she had read that name for the first time.

‘Ugh, god,’ she thought, her insides almost writhing with disgust, ‘Even back then she was obsessed with the “mommy” thing…she’s totally crazy.’

Early in her career, apparently, Martha had performed more conventional acts, like lifting heavy weights, and Laura found some early magazine articles, some of them over 20 years old, which showed her lifting huge barbells weighing 200 pounds or more above her head. Even when she had been in her early 20’s, Martha had been an absolute beast of a woman, just as tall and muscled as she was now, though perhaps not quite as big. Laura had found several of these early photos, all with Martha wearing a skin-tight circus suit of black and bright pink, which showed off her enormous arms and legs, with a huge pink “G” on her chest, distorted by her giant breasts.

Gradually, though, as Laura read through the more recent articles and documents, she discovered that Martha’s act had become progressively extreme as the years went by. Initially just a typical “strongwoman,” she had started to spice up her act with more aggressive feats of strength. She had started crushing apples in her bare hands, and watermelons with her legs, and had apparently taken great pleasure in tossing out the mangled fruit to the eager crowd. Laura had even found a grainy picture of Martha handing a disfigured piece of watermelon to a man in the crowd. It was such a strange, unsettling experience for Laura to find all these pictures…and at first she could hardly believe that there was all this information out there about this gigantic, crazy woman. But there could be no doubt who it was in those pictures – her face looked a bit younger, and she didn’t have quite the amount of middle-aged padding on her curves, but that was Martha alright. No one else looked like that.

And then, when Martha had apparently gotten tired of crushing fruit, she had switched to crushing other things with her hands, biceps, and thighs – chairs, sofas…and even rocks. She bent metal kitchenware and tore up phone books too…and apparently the crowds absolutely loved it. Laura had found higher and higher-resolution pictures of Martha’s feats, which coincided with her increased popularity. One particularly impressive one was her holding up two torn halves of a massive phone book, while a large boulder lay crumbled into pieces at her feet, with a pile of broken furniture looming behind her. Laura’s eyes had popped out at just how massive Martha’s muscles had been…but she quickly reminded herself that they were STILL probably at least that big, and that they were just hidden under some extra curvaceous weight. The longer Laura focused on this case, the more easily she was able to digest these pictures and stories – it had made her sick initially, thinking about what Martha had done to Ted, and what she might be doing to poor Kyle right now…but Laura had forced herself to handle the traumatic memories and reminded herself that Kyle was depending on her to rescue him. And this rescue depended on Laura learning as much as she could about her adversary, until a plan could begin to form in her mind about how Martha should be dealt with.

Laura had not been surprised to learn, then, that Martha’s circus career had taken a more alarming turn as her act became more and more extreme. Apparently, just around 5 years before the present, with her circus career in full bloom, Martha had started incorporating the crowd into her act. She would kidnap certain men from the stands, even going so far as to stalk into the crowd herself, wrench the poor guy out of his seat, and then bring him into the ring. There she would humiliate him in a variety of ways, wrestling him, pinning him, making him submit, lifting him high above her head…all manner of things. There were more pictures, and, with a knot in her stomach, Laura could see an obvious pattern in the types of men Martha chose to kidnap for her act. Invariably, they were short, small, rather petite men, men who looked soft and weak…

‘Kind of like Kyle,’ thought Laura, before inwardly chiding herself. ‘But no…wait, Kyle doesn’t look “weak!” He’s just…well…small! Small-boned, petite…and so cute! There’s nothing wrong with him!’

Laura didn’t at all like that she and Martha apparently shared a taste for small men, but she reminded herself that it was for completely different reasons. Laura liked small guys because they didn’t overwhelm her, and because she just thought they were cute – Martha, on the other hand, liked small men because she wanted to totally dominate them, to overwhelm them, to humiliate them into total submission so that she could mold them into whatever she liked.

‘It’s sick…just…sick,’ thought Laura, going through these more recent pictures of Martha laughing as she twisted these small guys into uncomfortable positions, lifted them over her head as they yelled out, and compared her huge arms and legs with theirs, pointing to the discrepancy in their sizes as she burst out laughing for the crowd. In one particular picture, Laura had been struck by the faces in the crowd witnessing Martha humiliating a short, small man by flexing her giant biceps next to his head – all of them had been rapt with attention, many of them laughing, but a few of them had just been sitting there with their mouths closed, their eyes wide, hardly believing what they were seeing. The small man in question certainly looked uncomfortable, but then again, what was he supposed to do!? Martha literally plucked these little guys out of the crowd and made them a part of the show.

Laura also noticed that, as the years went by, Martha began to look fiercer and fiercer. The earliest photos of her were noticeable enough, since she was so big and tall, but her outfits were more “normal.” As she had become more popular, though, Martha had devoted more and more energy to her appearance. She had started braiding her dark hair into pigtails, and then cornrows, which made her look like some kind of a barbarian, amazonian warrior. Her makeup became thicker and more vibrant, and her eyes, which had always looked imposing even in the earlier pictures, took on an especially intimidating dark gleam. She hadn’t even painted her nails in the earliest shows, but in her later shows, she had grown her nails out and filed them down into long, sharp, scary-looking claws, which she always painted black. In every sense of the word, “Mama G” had become more and more extreme, more and more imposing and terrifying…and apparently the Voleria Circus loved it because she was one of the star attractions. Ticket sales were through the roof.

And then…as Laura had found more recent articles, she had learned that Martha had started to get into trouble. In one incident, she had actually broken a male patron’s arm in the middle of an act, forcing a cancellation of the rest of the performance. Laura picked up a clipping of a local newspaper that had reported on the incident:

Attendees to the popular Voleria Circus are complaining the day after a performance was canceled due to an accident that left many spectators traumatized. Famed performer “Mama G,” a strongwoman known for her creative feats of strength, is facing accusations of negligence, and potentially even assault, after she broke the arm of a male spectator whom she had plucked from the stands during her act. The spectator, who was not available for comment and still recuperating in the hospital, apparently suffered the injury when Mama G was demonstrating her “bicep crush,” during which she routinely crushes a variety of fruits by flexing her muscles. This time, however, she had trapped the man’s forearm in between her muscles, and had flexed, resulting in the injury. Mike G, one of the spectators, was shocked by what he saw. “We all thought it was all part of the act,” he told WGTV News, “Until we heard the snap. We all gasped, and the guy was yelling. It was awful!” Susan B, another spectator, was angry and upset. “This is the circus!” she exclaimed to our reporter, “But Mama G turned it into a horror show! There were a bunch of kids in the stands that’ll never forget what they saw! She should be charged!”

When reached for comment, a Timberwater police spokesperson replied that they are investigating the incident, with no further comment at this time.

For her part, “Mama G” surprisingly made herself available for an interview after the performance was canceled. “Look, if anything this is just further proof that our men need to drink their milk!” she laughed, apparently unfazed by what had happened. “It’s not my fault that the little guy had brittle bones!”

Upon being asked whether or not she was worried about the young man, or about whether or not she would be charged, “Mama G” was similarly flippant.

“Oh please…it’s just a broken arm,” she replied airily. “And as to being charged – that’s absurd. Every attendee has to sign a document that absolves the performers from legal action should something like this occur. There’s not a case to be made. Period.”

Our reporter noted that “Mama G” displayed a surprising lack of concern throughout the entire interview, and had even asked him if he was interested in feeling the bicep that had broken the man’s arm. He sensibly declined.

When Laura had read this article, she hadn’t believed how “in-character” all of this was for Martha. So she had been hurting people for years now…whether on purpose or not. Laura strongly suspected that Martha had intentionally broken that man’s arm, as a show of strength, as a joke, and maybe even as manifestation of some sick sexual satisfaction that she got in dominating others. The circus was a fittingly wild and flamboyant backdrop that she could blend into, without anything seeming too far out of the ordinary. Laura had to give Martha credit – her clever plan had worked for years, but clearly, as time went on, not even the circus could disguise the insanity of who Martha truly was.

The final mention of Martha that Laura could find proved this point beyond any doubt. Dated just a few years in the past, the brief article posted on a circus-centered internet forum announced that Voleria had fired Martha for “a regular pattern of sexual misconduct.” Laura felt her heart skip a little when she read that phrase – she had known that Martha’s crazy business with Kyle was, at its heart, sexual…but now she had identified a distinct pattern in her behavior. The article did not elaborate on the nature of Martha’s “misconduct,” but Laura was able to scroll down and read the comments that people had posted on the forum in response.

“Noooooooo not Mama G!” lamented one comment. “I’ll never get to see her live again! It was totally crazy what she was capable of, strength-wise. Olympic-level talent. Such a shame.”

“A long time coming,” read another comment, “An absolute lunatic who gave strongwomen everywhere a bad name. The rumors I’ve heard about her…”

“I work at Voleria,” declared another user, “She wasn’t just picking men out of the stands for her act anymore. She had actually started nabbing male patrons as they left, taking them back to her trailer, and straight-up fucking them. I’m talking about the “r” word here. Everyone was terrified of her, so no charges were filed, and it went on for a few weeks before it finally got leaked up to the management and they fired her. They didn’t do it in person, though. Can’t say that I blame them. We were all scared to come to work the next day, since we thought she might show up. This is serious stuff, guys. “Mama G” isn’t some act – it was a persona that contained the insanity that is Martha Bartel. And now that she doesn’t have that persona anymore, I shudder to think what she’ll unleash on god knows what poor soul.”

Laura read this comment over and over again, her breathing intensifying the more she read. Never in her life had she been more certain of a required course of action. She HAD to do something about this woman. Kyle was a prisoner in her house…right now…and she was doing profane things to him. It was a nightmare – her cute co-worker had been kidnapped by one of the worst people imaginable. Laura remembered when Kyle had told her, beaming that he had found a room to rent, and that he was going to use the savings to put a downpayment on a house in the next couple years. Sure, it had seemed like a longshot at the time, but that’s one thing that had attracted Laura to Kyle: he was optimistic. Plus of course it didn’t hurt that he had big plans. But it had all been a terrible mistake, because that ad for a room had been a spider web woven by Martha…to catch her little flies.

Several times, Laura felt a retching sensation in her stomach, and was very nearly sick, but she finally managed to pull herself together. She was on the case, and Kyle was depending on her to find a way to rescue him. The vision of him in that ridiculous tutu, in the swing, totally at Martha’s mercy, made Laura even more determined.

So Laura hunkered down and kept working. It seemed crazy that Martha had managed to stay under the radar for so long after getting fired, given her clear inability to control herself. Apparently, she hadn’t been charged and had been allowed to flee the state she was in…to the house that she had bought a few years before she was fired. It was so odd – Martha had bought the house many states away from where she had been working at Voleria.

‘Was she…planning on getting fired?’ Laura thought to herself. ‘Did she buy that house as a contingency? Did she know that she’d eventually go too far?’

It certainly seemed like a possibility; anything was possible for Martha. This was the main reason why Laura hadn’t gone to the police – she knew that Martha’s threat had been real. Under no circumstances could the cops get anywhere near this situation, or else Laura was afraid that Martha wouldn’t just go after her, but that she might do something awful to Kyle…even more awful than what she was doing right now. Martha had this utterly bizarre and depraved attitude about her and Kyle’s relationship, and, as much as she hated to, Laura could envision a scenario in which Martha, barricaded in her house by the police and confronted with the prospect of having Kyle taken away from her, might do something drastic…like a mrder sicide…something that crazy. It was certainly possible.

“So I’ve got to find a way to get Kyle out of there myself,” Laura said aloud, sitting up straighter on the floor, surrounded by all the data she had amassed. The sound of her own firm, determined voice reignited her resolve. “That’s what this comes down to. I can’t involve the cops. I can’t involve anyone else. I’ve got to do this myself. There’s got to be a way…some way…to get him out of that house, without her realizing. I’ve got to do some surveillance on that house, to learn her patterns, when she leaves…”

Laura stared straight ahead, up to her desk, where there was a pair of binoculars sitting. Her grandfather had given them to her so that she could bird-watch. She smiled grimly, appreciating the insanity of the current situation. There wouldn’t be a lot of bird-watching happening for the foreseeable future.

The next morning, Kyle woke up to his alarm, and for a few seconds, he panicked, nearly toppling down off his bed onto the floor. For weeks now he had been sleeping in a crib, and had subconsciously gotten used to the bars on all sides, keeping him caged in. When he had reached over to turn off his alarm, he had recoiled from the edge of the bed, fearful of the distance to the floor below. But then, all in an instant, he remembered what was happening. Martha wasn’t treating him like a baby anymore! He wasn’t sleeping in a crib – he was sleeping in his real bed! In HIS room! And Martha was going to let him leave! Just…after a couple weeks of “getting him ready” for the outside world. Thinking about that idea now, Kyle couldn’t help but think that it was a really weird way for her to react, but what did he care now? He was finally going to get out of there! And he could find a way to somehow explain everything to his parents, and then go back to work and…and have that dinner date with Laura!

Laura…Laura…Kyle’s stomach twisted itself up just thinking about her, and about what she had witnessed Martha do. He had no idea what Laura was up to right now, but Kyle sincerely hoped that seeing that horrible incident hadn’t forever turned her off from him. The more he thought about it, the more worried he felt about it. What had she thought about him wearing that tutu? And about Martha kissing him!? It made him feel dirty…and guilty. But what did he have to feel guilty about!? He…he hadn’t WANTED any of this…surely! And just because Martha had found a way to…to…well…turn him on all the time…didn’t mean that he was HAPPY about any of it! No, he would be able to explain to Laura what had happened, and how crazy and scary Martha was, and all the rest of it.

‘But look at me, getting ahead of myself already!’ he chuckled to himself. ‘Let’s just put one foot in front of the other, and I’ll be out of here before I – ‘

But here his thoughts trailed away, because he suddenly became aware of a wet sensation in his crotch, and all over the sheets around his midsection. With a sickening jolt, Kyle realized that, during the night, he had wet the bed. He couldn’t believe it – all those weeks in a diaper had made him mentally regress over 20 years, to the point where he couldn’t even go a full night without doing…well…something like this. He felt the shame beginning to burn in his ears and cheeks, but he quickly rallied, purely out of self-preservation.

‘I’ve got to hide this,’ he thought desperately. ‘Otherwise Martha will use it as proof that I’m not ready for the “real world.” It’s nothing. It’s just…lots of things are happening now. It’s just my body adjusting. That’s all.’

Five minutes later, he had managed to clean himself up, and had stuffed the wet sheets into a plastic bag from the closet and hidden them away behind a stack of boxes. He shut the closet door, satisfied that his embarrassing mishap was hidden away. He was just in the process of putting on his “training” t-shirt and sweatpants when he heard a cheerful whistle coming from the living room…like always, Kyle felt an automatic twinge in his cock, and his heart rate increased. This was something he was going to have to get over. But even more than all that, Kyle was shocked by another aspect of his body’s reaction. His stomach, which had already felt twisted with the anxiety of thinking about Laura, Martha, and his bed-wetting, was now suddenly twisted up in an entirely new way. He was hungry…for one thing, and one thing only.

“Yooo-hoooo!” came Martha’s jovial voice, seeming to send its vibrations directly down into his groin. “Kyyyyyle! I heard your alarm go off a while ago – it’s time to start our traaaaaaining! I’m all ready in the living room!”

“I–o-okay, yeah!” Kyle called back, hating that he was incapable of speaking to her without stuttering. “I’m…I’m coming! B-Be there in just a minute!”

He knew that the shorts Martha had given him were tight for a reason. Try as he might, he couldn’t hide his erection. Surely she would use that against him too. But Kyle suddenly felt a surge of confidence. So what if Martha intimidated him? So what if she had tapped into some strange fetish-thing he had going on? None of this had anything to do with his ability to function in the real world! He would show her that he was ready.

And so, with this newfound defiance and determination on his face, Kyle took a deep breath and left his bedroom, trying as hard as he could to ignore the growing hunger in the pit of his stomach.