Chapter 61

"Well, I see you finally found out the family secret," boomed Marion's voice from behind us.

I wheeled around and ended up on my butt, my knees still shaky from trying to absorb too much information at once.

"Hey, little brother, it's not that bad," she grinned teasingly.  "Of course, I've known about this little room for years, so I can imagine it must be quite a shock to you to imagine Mom and Dad down here, doing, well ..."  Marion ended by sweeping her hand around to include the various devices in the cavernous room.

Especially Mom!  "How...  How did you find out?"

Marion looked a little sheepish.  "Just about the same way I came down now.  They left the door open one night when they were, well, you know...  I went looking for Mom for something and found them down here.  I was about 13 or so.  Life hasn't been the same since..." she ended, somewhat wistfully.  I belatedly noticed the housewarming plant she was carrying.

"Did you ever...?"  I couldn't bring myself to ask.

"... use this stuff?"  She guffawed.  "Once.  Well, kind of.  Mom and Daddy were away, you were out with Mac somewhere.  I had been obsessed with what I saw down her.  It was all I could think about, day and, uh, well, night."  My stoic sister actually blushed!  "Since I had the house to myself, I snuck down here and tried some of the stuff out.  It was hot.  I pretended I was imprisoned down here, typical teenage fantasy stuff.  Everything was OK until I jiggled something on the stocks over there and couldn't get out.  I was completely naked by that time and totally exposed, helpless."

"What happened then?" Nicole asked breathlessly.  She was totally wrapped up in this yarn Marion was spinning.  At least, I was sincerely hoping it was a yarn.  I mean, this was Mom we were talking about...

Marion gave a wry grin, remembering.  "Mom found me.  I had left the door ajar, and she knew I was down here.  I think she must have known I had found out about the cellar.  She wasn't mad at all.  She didn't laugh at me, either, when she found me trapped.  She just said, 'That's my favorite one, too,' and, then brought me upstairs.  She never said another word about it."

I sat there on the cold stone floor, astounded at the revelations I was hearing.  All my childhood heroes, not to mention my mother, were falling from their pedestals and I was left speechless.  I just sat on the cold floor, gumming the air, looking like a fish with my mouth opening and closing.

Marion continued her survey of the room, "I do like the improvements you've made, though.  It seems bigger, too."  It was kind of a question, but not really.

I looked around again, paying a bit more attention this time.  Ah, yes!  Some of the equipment strategically came in pairs, particularly the pieces I preferred to use on them or the things that they liked me to use on them.  Most of those were newer than some of the solitary units.  Two stations, no waiting, if I knew my impatient wenches.  The various winches on the wall and the wires that criss-crossed the ceiling were new, too.  The ropes were all fresh and the chains were shining.  I idly wondered who the Hell they had hired to do this contracting job.  And could he keep his mouth shut?  But that was a worry for another time.

Struggling up from my sitting position, I hugged Sally first and then Nicole, reassuring them that this was a good thing, even though I still didn't trust myself to talk.  I was still a little stunned about Mom.  And Marion.  As we wound our way up the stairway to the bedroom, I began to have serious doubts about having moved back in with my sister.  As unconventional as my life appeared to be, adding my sister to the equation was not something I wanted to even contemplate.

I shut the heavy door to this new family twist firmly behind me.

We continued with the tour of the house, now with Marion in tow.  The third floor of our new home was mine, or at least one end of it.  Sally had made my new office up there into a masterpiece, though I could also see Nicole's touch here and there.  Sure, it was way up on the third floor and all.  In fact, it was the only room we used up on that level, but it was perfect.  It spanned the entire width of the back end of our wing of the house.  I could see Marion thinking about a similar office on her wing.

Sally had completely knocked out the outside walls on three sides and windowed them in floor to ceiling.  Walking into my office was like walking into a rooftop paradise.  I had a sweeping panoramic view overlooking the manicured grounds all the way down to the river in the back.  I also had an unobstructed view of just over 60 to 70% of the rest of estate.  The windows were made out of that photo-gray glass that turns darker in bright light, so I didn't even need blinds.

A beautiful blonde wood desk and matching chairs completed the office furnishings Sally had provided, together with some matching butter soft leather couches and chairs gathered in a conversation grouping around a small table in one of the far corners.  Everything else, all my files and the manly stuff that normally cluttered up the floor around my desk, I could keep in an adjoining workroom that had bookshelves and tables and even a small bathroom.  The main office was for show.  This was my 'home court advantage.'  This room was for me, a wedding gift from Sally and Nicole.  I checked the invoices later.  There was not a single charge for this room, which was why it was such a special surprise.  They had been planning this for a long time.

My girls, all four of them, had decided amongst themselves that this office was to be my sanctuary.  They would come into it uninvited only in the direst emergencies and, even then, under the threat of certain punishment.  It was a rule they wanted and that they had insisted upon.  Their reasoning was that I had provided each of them a place of their own they could escape to for sanctuary, quiet time or whatever.  Sally and Janey had their house and Nicole and Simone had their apartment for quiet time.  This office was to be my space.

I wasn't sure I liked that arrangement, yet.  It was still too new and we were continually working out the kinks of the changes in our relationship.  The other kind, too.  I joked that that rule was just their way of getting away from me.  It was a poor joke.  Sally looked especially hurt and Nicole even teared up.  Talk about feeling like shit.

I was sitting in my chair later that afternoon, enjoying the new smell of the carpets, expensive leather and fresh paint.  Sally knocked on the doorsill.

"You like it, Master?"

My grin was couldn't get any bigger.  "Yes, I do.  Very much.  Thank you, again."

"I'm glad you like it."  She stood silently, enjoying watching me enjoy her gift to me.  Then she continued, "I brought this up for you.  Where do you want it?"

"Where do I want what?  I thought the movers had gotten everything put away."  I knew my office stuff was complete.  I had marked and sealed and numbered all the boxes personally, then counted them at the new house and checked the seals.  Twice.  Old habit.

"This metal case," she said, holding it up higher for me to see.  "It's not Janey's, Nicole's or mine.  Simone said you'd know what to do with it.  She got kind of a strange look on her face when she saw it, like she knew what it was but didn't want to remember."

She was holding a large aluminum briefcase, heavy by the way she was standing.  The one Mac had given me at the wedding.  Given back, more accurately.  It slowly came back to me where I had first seen it.  Stinking, dark, clouded memories of flashing knives, death, fire, screams, empty men hurting Simone ...

I shook my head to clear it of those searing memories.  "Just put it there, by the door.  I'll take care of it."

It stayed where she put it for about an hour.  I couldn't bring myself to open it, but I couldn't get that nagging feeling out of my head that it was somehow important.  I had ignored the damn thing long enough and now that it was finally out in the open, I had to deal with it.

I took it into the workroom and, using some of the tools I had left over from my time at the agency, I opened it.  It was an expensive case and the locks were more than a cut above average.  But no problem for me to open.  I was a little worried that the case might have been booby-trapped or something, but you really only see that in the movies and spy novels.  Right, and they only used the X-Ray machine in the bomb-squad unit to check the kids' candy at Halloween, too...

The lid popped open with a slight creak and the old smell of musty air assaulted my nose.  I lifted the top up slowly, revealing the hidden contents.  I wish I hadn't.

What I found inside sickened me all over again.  I had more flashbacks of glinting knives, the stench of human waste and acrid smoke.  My knees felt a bit rubbery as the contents brought back the memories of those sleepless days of searching for and then finding Simone, her hair stapled to a wooden post, her body bearing ugly marks as well as the feces, piss and ejaculates of dozens of men.

At first I thought the case was just stuffed full with untidy bundles of money, thousands of dollars.  Then I saw the corner of a white square.  Using the eraser end of a pencil, I carefully lifted up the clumps of cash covering it up.

The first thing I thought was that it was a stack of family or vacation Polaroid snapshots.  I was so in denial.  What I saw in the case, when I finally opened my eyes and my mind, was a thick stack of photos of girls and young women and surprisingly, one or two boys.  Donning a pair of latex gloves, I quickly sorted through the pile of pictures and estimated that there must have been about 30 or more different females pictured in them, most of them in much the same shape I had found Simone.  A couple were actually in worse shape, and I hadn't thought that that was possible.

My stomach finally revolted.  I had to rush to the bathroom, afterwards rinsing out my mouth to get rid of the sour taste of bile.  Not an auspicious initiation of that room.

I laid out the several wads of money stuffed in the case by denomination.  It was mostly $20 bills, probably the price they charged for the use of the girls.  I carefully bagged the cash in several large Zip-Lok bags.  The fingerprint people in the lab would have a field day with all those clean prints on the bills.  All the time I was working on the contents, carefully bagging the evidence, I didn't even realize I had made the decision to take this to the agency.  I was running purely on instinct.

There was a vial of clear fluid in the case, stuffed down along one side, semi-protected by being wrapped up in an old rag along with a couple of syringes.  It was probably the drug they used on the girls to make them easier to handle at first.  There was no label, so it went into another bag along with the two syringes.  The lab would figure out what it was, and, with any luck, what company had made it.  If it was rare enough or a narcotic, they might even get a lead on the source.

Not surprisingly, there were no new needles.  Only two used ones, and I could actually see dried blood on them.  They obviously didn't care about blood-borne diseases like hepatitis.  Or AIDS, or a hundred other minor medical maladies.  I had a feeling that the girls would have been used up way before anything like that became a problem, and those bastards knew it.  They counted on it.

I was closing the case back up when I noticed a shadow on the bottom of the case.  There was an unusual bump in the lining.  I wasn't expecting anything to be hidden in the case, so I hadn't looked that close.  My mistake.  Running my fingers carefully around the edge of the case, I finally found a discrete cut hidden along the back seam of the lining material.  I ripped it open.  I didn't give a shit about the damage, as they wouldn't need it back.  OK, so I was a little pissed I'd missed it in the first place.

I stared at the exposed bottom of the case.  I couldn't believe it.  It was a fucking notebook.  The kind they use in the labs, with numbered pages.  We used to have to use them in school.  A dull, chewed up pencil was jammed down the spine for safekeeping.  I remember I had done the same with my pencils so I wouldn't lose them.

I stared at the damn thing for a long time.  I knew- I just knew I didn't want to know what was inside of it.  I had this horrible premonition, a burning feeling in the pit of my stomach and it wasn't because I had just vomited.

But I had to know.  As repulsed as I was by the little book, at the same time, I was irresistibly drawn to it.  Not just because it might have some useful information.  It was more than that.  It was as if this briefcase and particularly this little book were my future, my destiny, in some mysterious way.  And somehow, I knew it.  Not with my link, not any parapsychological stuff.  I just knew.  In my gut.

I think I had known what it was, how bad it was going to be for a long time, too.  That's why I had shut the existence of the battered briefcase out of my consciousness until now.  Even though I hadn't known the little book was hidden in the bottom of the briefcase, I couldn't bring myself to open the case.  And now I knew in the same way that this little book would change my life.  I mean, just think of everything that could have happened that would have kept it from me, for me not to have found it.  All this time, it could have been lost or forgotten, burned in the building or trashed by looters only interested in the cash.  But here it was.  Just sitting there in front of me.  Like a death sentence.

I eased open the cover, hoping I wasn't opening a Pandora's Box.

The handwriting in the book was a childish print, the letters large and laborious, the words short and simple.  I tried to think back to that night, to the characters I had met, and killed, in the cellar.

I dismissed the buyer, the third man.  This wasn't his case.  Then there was 'Yellow Hat.'   But he would have either written with a girlish script or would not have been able to write at all, probably the latter.  He would have beaten up the smarter kids and threatened them to get them to do his homework.  Yeah, he would have done that, at least until he figured out that he could bully most of the inner city teachers easier and not have any homework at all.

That left just the bodyguard.  And that made sense, when I thought about it.  Not too bright, but smart enough to know that he had to write things down to remember them, to get them right.  And smart enough to keep it a secret that he was keeping a journal of sorts, a record of everything.  As I skimmed through it, this record was more than just a little incriminating.  Even this dummy knew it was a stupid thing to do.  Simone must have seen him writing in the notebook when Yellow Hat wasn't there and realized what it was.  That was why she had known the case was important.  Not because of the pictures or the money, but because of the incriminating history in this dog-eared journal.

Important was an understatement.  As the extent of what I was reading sunk in I was filled with a tremendous sense of dread.  It was too horrible, too ghastly, too God damned easy for the bastards to do this and get away clean.

Yellow Hat and 'Dumbo', as I had dubbed the author of the book, subsisted at the lowest end of a long food chain, an large organization of human flesh peddlers.  These two were the bottom-feeders, the lowest of the low in a despicable network of white-slavers.  But that wasn't entirely true, if the Polaroids were any indication.  They didn't seem care what color the victim was.

These people were the scum of the earth.  Flotsam in the septic tank.  You get the idea.  This pair took delivery of various 'goods' and delivered or bartered them to others higher up the chain.  They were opportunistic and indiscriminate.  Drugs, kids, video tapes, money, or sealed envelopes - it made no difference to them.  They just picked up and delivered and, if they could turn a little profit on the side, so much the better.  No one cared if the merchandise was a little damaged.  It was only going to get used up anyway.

Dumbo, being the deliveryman, had written down addresses, descriptions of cars, license plate numbers, descriptions of the contacts, telephone numbers, dates, amounts paid in and out, and what was picked up and delivered.  The level of detail in the list was astounding and beyond incriminating.

I reined my excitement in as I read the list of names of the victims.  Simone's name was the last one on his list.  I stifled the urge to vomit again.  As dead as these two were, I didn't think that Simone's was the last snatch the larger group would have made.  It was too well organized, too slick, too hidden.  It either existed completely hidden from the authorities, or it was supported by them.  I didn't even want to think about the latter.

I kept reading, wondering all the while if there was another reason why he had written everything down.  I didn't think he was keeping the log for blackmail.  He wasn't smart enough to pull that kind of a scheme off.  No, he wasn't trying to rat out his boss.  Dumbo was just trying to do a good job, the loyal oaf.  He simply didn't want to forget anything.  The thin book was organized more like a cheap daytimer, a calendar with the important dates up front, a list of contacts along with addresses and telephone numbers in the back, and the directions to various places in the middle along with other notes.

As I read more of the pages, I could better understand the thought patterns of Dumbo.  I was able to organize what I learned and it was stunning.  I had to sit down.

It was appalling.  From the entries in the ledger, there appeared to be at least two primary sources of 'goods' for this duo, two specific revenue streams.  Each source provided a different kind of merchandise, but both were equally lucrative.

The first source, the one Yellow Hat obviously preferred, was the simplest kind of snatch.  This was the type of crime they were most familiar with and it's what they were probably doing when they were recruited for the second, more complicated criminal activity.

The 'easy' crimes were actually initiated by the serendipitous procurers like the man that had picked up Simone.  Those were the non-descript men who took the biggest risks.  They appeared to be 'cruisers,' never in one place very long, as there were only vague descriptions of their vans.  The cash transactions always occurred at deserted intersections.  The relatively small amounts paid for a snatch surprised me.  With the economic law of Supply and Demand at work, what that meant was that there was a readily available supply of young victims, keeping the price low.  I could see from his list of buyers that there was a sickeningly strong demand for the kids, once they had snatched one.

Dumbo's notebook supported my theory that this happened more than anyone in authority either knew or admitted.  These cruisers were generally single men, opportunistic vultures that prowled the vicinity of popular nighttime events like ball games, concerts, state and county fairs, and such.  Anything that would attract young people.

We've all seen them, too, their prey, those lone waifs wandering aimlessly among the crowds, as they seemed to be destined to do for life.  There always seemed to be at least one foolish young kid who would need to get home, or who would strike out alone in anger or rebellion.  Or sometimes just to get away.  It didn't seem to matter to these cruisers if the straggler was male or female, though they seemed to prefer girls.  Young and alone was enough to attract their attention.

Yellow Hat had several of these loners that would turn up with a snatch on a fairly regular basis.  It didn't seem to be often enough for him to keep a regular place to break the victims, like a safe house.  On the other hand, Yellow Hat may just have been a cheap son-of-a-bitch and just didn't want the expenses of securing a regular place.  Either way could explain why they were in the abandoned warehouse when I found them.  Readily accessible, quiet, and cheap.

The frequency of the abductions bothered me.  According to these books, this happened regularly.  If this was so organized and sinister, why wasn't there more of an outcry?  Or maybe there was, and nobody was listening?  Or perhaps no one had put together yet that this was an orchestrated crime wave....

Once in the clutches of these two, the victims would be rapidly debased and demoralized by the constant inhuman treatment they were subjected to.  No water to drink, only piss.  No food to eat, only shit.  Constant sexual abuse and humiliation.  The victims had no way to rest, no chance to regroup once they were handed off to Yellow Hat, if their treatment of Simone was any indication.  The young kids probably went irreversibly insane in short order, probably within two or three days.  Nothing they would have encountered before could possible prepare them to resist this inhumanity.  They wouldn't be any problem to handle after that point, as they would most likely be in a near-catatonic state.  The drug or whatever it was they injected into the victims no doubt helped speed the process along.

Dumbo had kept a careful list of buyers of this kind of merchandise, along with a simple preference of 'boy' or 'girl' or 'both.'  Since these kids could turn up missing at some point in time when they didn't return home, I figured their life span was pretty short after the snatch.  I mean, how many missing kids could the authorities simply discount as simple run-aways?  Someone was bound to report one missing, and insist the kid hadn't run away, sooner or later.  So this initial process would have to be short and fast.  There were several buyers in Dumbo's book who were ready at the drop of hat, opportunistic vultures.  It appeared I had located Simone just in time.  Another hour or even less and she would have been gone.

As horrible as this first scheme was, it was their other source of material, and what that material was and how it was so easily obtained, that filled me with the greater dread, however.  I had to get a grip on my terror several times as it became clear to me that this was, in fact, happening right here.  In fact, unless I missed my bet, I knew at least one person who was one of their victims.  Possibly more.

As I worked my way through the notebook, I recognized a chillingly logical and frightening pattern emerging.  It gradually dawned on me that I had battled against this same kind of organized evil once before.  The targets were different, but the tactics were the same.  I suspected the people were the same, too.  There were too many similarities, too many of the same quirks in the organization, the recruitment methods.  I had witnessed the same insidious tendrils of slime winding the hallways of more than one government, and not just mine.

As it became apparent to me to what extent these bastards had penetrated into the very fabric of our society, and the level of sophistication needed to pull off what these people were doing right under our noses, I realized I didn't have the access in my home office that I needed.  I needed to be sure of my suspicions.  Fuck, I was sure.  I needed to be positive.  Absolutely.

Instinctively, I wrote my report, just like I had been trained so many years before.  I never even gave a thought that I was no longer an active agent, I just wrote it up.  On paper with a pen.  I wasn't going to trust the electronic media with this one, not with all the hidden Internet connections and hackers out there.  The only safe way was hardcopy, one copy, and hand delivered.

I got in my car and took it to the anonymous building downtown.  I hand-carried my report in through security and placed it personally into the hands of the Analyst, along with the briefcase, notebook, photos, money, and drugs.

I also handed him a sealed envelope separately.  It was a game we had played since we had started working together.  I would do the field work on some project, then try to do his job, too, by writing out what I suspected the analysis would turn up.  I was often wrong, and it had pleased him to no end to 'educate' me, pointing out where I had gone wrong in my assessments.  I didn't like his attitude, but I did listen to him.  And I learned.  I don't think he realized that I hadn't been wrong very often towards the end of my service.

This time, I had written a name on a piece of paper and sealed it inside.  I asked him to do his analysis first, then see if he came to the same conclusion I had, with respect to this one name.  He grinned confidently, knowing the rules of the game.

I didn't know if I wanted to be right or wrong.

Chapter 62

During the renovation of the new house, Sally had suggested restoring the basketball court that I had practiced on growing up.  I had played endless games of one-on-one with Mac on that old broken concrete slab and it held many fond memories.  It felt good to have Janey and Simone using it now.  They had chipped in their own money to get a fancy backboard and a new hoop and net.  They got a book of rules that had the specifications for the lines for the key and the baseline and had painted the lines with professional accuracy.  Together with the new concrete slab, it looked great when they were done.

Janey's friends from her old school were just a little too far away to come over after school, but they made up for it on Saturday and Sunday.  We could count on a serious depletion of the stores of soft drinks and snacks by Monday morning.  I never knew how she did it, but Sally always had enough of what everyone wanted on hand, no matter how many hungry kids showed up to play or just hang out.  She had a gift for that kind of thing, the perfect hostess.  Or she had a huge cache of soda and snacks that I never found.  I don't know which.

Simone took a different tact.  She knew most of the kids from Janey's school, but since she was spending a lot more of her time these days with Gertie and the other scientists at the Agency and the rest of her time at home reading, she decided she wanted her own set of friends.  Without telling us, she started attending the local public school, the same one I had attended, on her off time.  She never registered as a student, she just showed up for classes.  She discovered that as long as she didn't turn in a paper with her name on it, no one cared that she wasn't on the class roster.

When we found out where she was going on those days when she disappeared from the house, - we flat out asked her - Nicole and I discussed it and decided to let her do it on her own for as long as possible.  I did a little checking just to be sure she would be safe, then kept an eye on her.  A close eye.

My high school had changed a lot since I had gone there, reflecting the changes in the neighborhood.  It had been a pretty decent school before forced bussing policies had delivered some other out of district white kids to it.  When they started the bussing, the school had gone to Hell in a hurry, which was the height of irony.  The reason my school had been selected to be desegregated in the first place was because it was felt that sending white kids to a 'good' black school wouldn't harm them as much academically as sending them to a 'poor' black school.

Fucking educators.  No fucking brains.  Give some asshole a Ph.D. and all you get is a smart-ass.  They have never understood the community pride that goes into a making an empty building into a good school.

You can't bus across community lines.  You can't force it, it has to happen naturally.  There is too much emotion involved.  Parents send their children to schools, children they love, children they care about.  They send them with their neighbor's kids, kids they know and have seen growing up.  They want those schools to be in the neighborhoods where they have chosen to live.  They like to know their children are not going to be influenced or challenged by outside forces.  Not just yet, anyway.  Let the kids mature, grow up first.

When Simone started attending the school, it was more like I remembered it at the beginning.  With the end of the bussing, there were only local kids attending.  Of course, there was a little more of a racial mix in the student population than when I had attended, so Simone didn't stick out quite like Marion and I had.  We had been the only two white kids in the whole school.  Talk about sticking out!

Part of the area surrounding our property had been renovated and rebuilt.  Some of the worst abandoned apartment buildings and most of the uninhabitable places had been torn down and new condominiums and apartments built.  The dilapidated warehouses along the riverfront in both directions from our property had been demolished and large luxury homes now lined the banks of the river.

Thorny had been one of the first to follow my father to this dubious area and had built on a much smaller piece of riverfront adjacent to ours.  The common wall between our properties had the only other opening through the wall surrounding us, other than the main gate.  We had never locked that gate to Thorny's house.

There were still a lot of rent-controlled apartments around, however.  The city officials in this town had either been too lazy or too stupid to intervene with the natural selection taking place and the strange mix that evolved seemed to work.  The people living here took obvious pride in their homes and stores.  Lawns were mowed in the summer, rusting wrecks were not strewn about the streets.  Block parties were common in the summer and the local community social hall maintained a regular schedule of well publicized events to bring people together.  Sure, there was the occasional confrontation, but in general the people knew and liked their neighbors.  The ones who made the effort necessary to meet them, anyway.

This was the neighborhood where Simone found the players for her pickup games on our basketball court during the week.  Janey was usually home too late to play, so this was Simone's time.  Janey would enter in if she was there, but found herself in the unusual situation of being the outsider.

Simone made it known that our court was open to anyone who wanted to play, male or female.  Being out from under the shadow of Janey allowed her to develop into her own person.  I found I liked that person very much.  Many others were attracted to her, as well, and the games quickly came to be well attended.  I noticed, after watching for a couple of days, that one boy in particular seemed to show up almost every time.  Over time, I noticed that when he picked players, he would always pick Simone, and I thought I could see her eyes shine a just bit brighter.

On the days when rain drove the kids off the court, the game room, as it was now called, became the center of the after school activity.  I swore the kids would all be deaf in a matter of months, as the only volume settings they used seemed to be 'Off" and 'Max.'  Fortunately, Sally had had the foresight to insulate that room extra well.  I often wondered how she knew how to prepare for these things, but, like most men, I didn't have a snowball's chance of figuring it out.  She just knew.  Sally had soundproofed the room so well we only heard the occasional tsunami of sound crashing down the hallway as the door opened and closed.  As rare as that was, it was still deafening.

One afternoon I heard a strangely familiar laugh mixed into the roar of the video games.  Not believing my ears, I walked down the hallway and looked in through the glass French doors.  There, sitting surrounded by a scraggly group of neighborhood ruffians was my darling sister, Marion, the US Federal Judge.  Her face flushed with excitement, she was engrossed in one of the less violent of the video games, intent on kicking the stuffing out of her opponent.  She was getting in some good punches, too, which caused even more hoots and hollers from the crowd.

Simone, one of the group crowded around watching, glanced up as I watched through the door.  I saw a flicker of concern pass across her face, then she slipped away and came out to me in the hall.  I noticed one young man's attention diverted from the action on the wide-screen TV to watch her ass as she walked by him.  Ah, youth!

"Papa?  Is everything OK?  We're not being too loud are we?"

I gave her a quick hug.  "No.  Everything is fine.  I just thought I heard Marion in there and thought I would check.  I didn't know we could join in, too.  It looks like fun."  I was teasing her a little, but only a little.

Simone got a look of horror on her face, then got herself under control.  "Uh, Papa, it's different with Marion.  She, uh, well, she's lived here longer and, like, she knows most of these kids and uh, well, um, you know...?"

I would have sworn she was uncomfortable with the thought of my being in that room.  I got the distinct impression I wasn't welcome.  Imagine!  "Well, as long as she isn't bothering you.  Uh, I'm kind of busy today anyway.  Tell you what.  You let me know when you want me to play and we'll see if it will fit into my schedule, OK?"

Simone's relief was palpable and so overwhelming that she didn't realize I was teasing her.  Then she got a guilty look on her face.

"It's OK, Simone.  Really."  I gave her a light kiss on the forehead.  She hated when I did that, but she felt so guilty, I got away with it.  Ha!

I watched as she eased back into the room, part hostess and part participant.  I was quickly forgotten as she approached that certain young man, her hips swinging with just a touch more sass than before.  He and I both appreciated her efforts.  She gave him a blinding smile as she spoke with him in passing.  He gave her a punch in the arm.  I could tell the kid needed help.

JT, as he was called, showed up at the backdoor one day when Simone was in Washington with Gertie.  Nicole, who was working at home that day, showed him into my office.  He kind of stood there for a couple of minutes, shuffling his feet nervously.

"What's up, JT?"

"Oh, uh, nothing, Mr. Sampson."

I waited.  Nicole's smile as she walked away had been a little too smug for this discussion to be about 'nothing.'

"Uh, Mr. Sampson?  Can I ask you a question?"  Damn, I had only had to wait a couple of minutes.  This must be urgent!

"Sure.  What's on your mind, JT?"

"Well, it's kind of personal.  'Bout basketball.  And, uh, 'bout girls."

Oh, shit!

He jumped right in.  "Why is it, when I pick Simone for my team, she plays hard to win, but when she picks the teams, she never picks me?  Then, when she guards me, she's always, well, bumping and rubbing against me.  Not hard, with her elbows and stuff like she does with the other guys, but, well, you know...?"

I knew.  You could say one thing for the kid, he got right to the point.  None of this 'I know a friend...' stuff, or 'there's this girl....'"  Straight to the point, him and Simone.  OK.

I got up and took him out to the basketball court.  On the way by the kitchen I called Sally and Nicole out to join us.  Not surprisingly, they seemed to be dressed and ready to play.  These two were getting scary.

"Let's play some two-on-two.  Why don't your pick one of the women for your team, JT?"

He looked at me funny.

"Go ahead.  Pick one for your team, JT."  I felt like drawing a map, sometimes.

He looked at the two women.  I could tell he favored Nicole.  She looked a lot like Simone in her cut off T-shirt and short-shorts.  She had fixed her hair different, too, so she looked more like her daughter.  I got a little distracted by her new look and realized I could get used to that look in a hurry.  She saw me staring and was pleased at my response.  Such simple pleasures.

Nicole was also taller than Sally, but I think JT sort of took a shine to her for other reasons.  I thought I saw Nicole 'help' him look her over, as I saw her nipples poking out through the thin material of her shirt, which seemed to get tighter across her chest as JT examined the two women.  Sally was playing her part, too, I understood, for once quite and demure and standing to look shorted, if that were possible.  That was not like her at all.

"Her," he said, indicating Nicole.

She smiled brightly at him and we played a quick basket.  Sally held her own against him and I got a couple of sharp elbows from Nicole.  Not enough to hurt, but enough that I knew she meant business.  This kid was important to her because he was important to Simone.  If I hadn't figured that out by then, which I had, I would have during that basket.

When the basket was over, I held the ball.  "Now let's switch."

He looked puzzled, but kept quiet.  I was going to like this kid, I could tell.

This basket took much longer.  Much.  I nearly molested Sally right there on the court.  Hell, I did molest her, and she loved it.  JT's eyes bugged out as he watched how closely I guarded the smaller blonde's body, especially at where I put my hands.  Nicole, playing her part to perfection, nearly poked his eyes out with her tits while she guarded him.  She even accidentally let her hands run over his crotch, several times, in fact.  I thought the kid would die from embarrassment, but he kept trying to play and get the ball to Sally.  Finally, the ball went through the hoop, and I held the ball again.

"Now, JT.  I want you to think.  Which way did you like better?  Playing with Nicole, or against her?"

He thought a minute.  "We won when she was on my team."

"Did you really?  You may have scored the basket, but is that the real reason for this game?"

"Yeah, but, ..."  I could almost see him blush when the light went on.  "You mean...?  Simone wants...?"

I grinned at the dumbfounded - and severely embarrassed boy.  "Yeah, apparently she does."  I shrugged.  "Go figure!  But I would suggest that you ease into it gently, and, speaking as her father, hardly at all.  And JT?  Never, ever do more than what she lets you, understand?"

He understood my implied threat.

"Would you want to try it again?" Nicole asked him sexily.  She giggled delightfully at his obvious erection and discomfort.  Sally and I glanced at each other.  From the size of the bulge in his shorts, Simone had chosen very well, indeed.

It was a bizarre thing to watch, a mother teaching a boy the proper technique to feel up her daughter.  Several 'not so hard' and 'no, like this' comments were eventually replaced by a rippling laughter and some serious gasps.  Nicole kept looking over at me for approval as she let the boy manhandle her.  It was a different feeling I wasn't sure I liked, but Nicole seemed to be enjoying herself.  I called a halt to the lesson when I felt the boy had the general idea.  I figured Simone could teach him the rest of the game.  Or not.  That was up to her.

When JT was gone, both of the women thanked me.  Right there under the basket.  He shoots, he scores!

Simone came in a couple of days later, flushed from the exertions of the game.  "Did you have a talk with JT, Papa?"  It was almost an accusation, and her hands on her hips didn't make her look all cuddly, either.

I nodded that I had.

She seemed to think about that for a minute.  "Thanks," she said, finally.

I went back to my computer.

"I kind of like him.  He's nice."

I looked back up at her.  She was asking if I approved.  "I like him, too, Simmie.  He reminds me a lot of Mac when he was his age."

At the mention of Mac and JT being favorably compared, she smiled proudly.  I think Mac had just lost this maiden's heart to another.  I'm not sure if he would be disappointed or relieved.  I wasn't sure how I felt, either.

Simone kissed me on my cheek and skipped off to her room.  Her daughterly kiss left me with a strange feeling in my chest.  I decided I liked it, kind of.  This parenting thing had its rewards.

Janey was commuting to school and seemed to have come to terms with having to use her Mom's old car to do it.  I knew we had overcome a major hurdle when I heard the 'thump-thump' of a new stereo system and saw her detailing the car with an old toothbrush.  She had just waxed it for the third time in two weeks and was getting all that white waxy build-up out of the cracks between the chrome and the paint.

Her cheerleading career was at its zenith.  She had been elected as the head cheerleader and was taking those responsibilities very seriously.  She had decided that the whole process of selecting the girls for the squad needed to be overhauled to allow for more participation from groups outside the 'in' crowd.  I figured that idea would be blown out of the water, but, as usual, I underestimated Janey's capabilities.

She knew the opposition she would face with that suggestion.  She lobbied and politicked the idea into reality.  Next year's squad would be made up of kids from several of the more identifiable factions in the school, from the 'geeks,' to the 4-H-ers, to the wall-flowers and other wanna-bes that normally just stood on the sidelines.  Attendance at the games, by both kids and parents was way up already over previous years, and the team wasn't doing that great.  People just felt like they were a part of the school again.

Sally had mentioned that Janey would be home later than usual on Mondays and Wednesdays.  She would be stopping by Amud and Bala's house on the way home to continue her 'education' in their culture.  That practice soon expanded to Monday through Thursday.  Janey was really serious about all of this.

While she was extremely popular with a wide range of kids at school, Janey didn't date anymore, and soon stopped going to parties that weren't at our house.  A lot of that was because of homework - she still maintained her high grades - but she just seemed to have lost interest in the social whirl.  Sally didn't seem to be concerned but I confronted Janey about it one afternoon.

She got this puzzled look on her face, like, why should I be worried?  When I explained that I was concerned that her lack of interest in boys and dating might have been a result of what had happened earlier, she solemnly nodded.  She then proceeded to explain that she still liked boys - she called them 'men' - but that the boys at her school were just too juvenile.  She was looking for more maturity, among other things.  I figured I'd better stop while I was ahead.  I wasn't sure I wanted to know what 'other' things she was looking for.

I immediately cornered Sally.  Had she talked with Janey about this?  Did she think Janey's expectations were too high?  Was she OK with all of this?

Sally, too, patiently answered my questions, just a bit amused at my fatherly concerns, even if they were belated.  Janey was growing up, she said, and it wasn't unusual for a young girl to shun social contacts with kids her own age, especially when forced to meet life head-on as Janey had been.  Some girls matured much faster than boys and felt uncomfortable with them.  She trusted Janey.  In other words, butt out.  But thanks!

The Saturday basketball games were played with a different crowd of kids.  These were the kids from the other school, mostly Janey's friends.  Simone hung around the edges, but it was clear none of the other week-day kids showed up, not even JT.  It was probably for the better, but it didn't sit right, watching her just stand there.  It wasn't Janey's fault, either.  She kept pulling her in and including her, but it was just not a good fit.

After the second week of watching this awkwardness, I grabbed Nicole and - not THAT way, Geez!  Anyway, I located Nicole and walked with her out to the garage.  I caught Simone's eye on the way by the basketball court and motioned her to follow us out towards the garages.  We opened up Simone's bay and stood staring at the jumble of boxes and crates.

"Well, it isn't going to build itself!  What do you say we get busy?"

Two squeals of delight were my answer.  I knew they had both devoured the instruction manual in the first three or four weeks.  Simone had been amazed at the technical aspects of the task while Nicole had found two minor errors in the specifications.  I just shook my head.  I hadn't read it.  Being a guy, I knew the manual was only there if I couldn't figure it out on my own.  When all else fails, read the directions, right?

Before we began doing anything, Nicole, who naturally took charge of this task, had us inventory and inspect each and every piece.  Several of the larger pieces were hauled down to a specialist's shop she knew of and each piece was tested for stress fractures along the seams and welds.  Surprisingly, only three parts failed the extra inspection, all of them non-critical but nonetheless, sent back for replacement.  As Nicole said, this was her daughter's car we were building, not just some hunk of metal.  I agreed.

That was how Saturday became the day for Nicole, Simone and I to work on the car.  It was a unique experience, working that closely with a beautiful woman willing to do anything to please you, even when covered in grease.  It became expected that at least once, but usually more often I would ease myself into Nicole's willing and waiting cunt or asshole or mouth.  When that would happen, Simone would slip out of the garage, discretely timing her return until after we had completed our screwing around.  Usually she came back with soft drinks for the three of us.  Only once, when I was unzipping for the fourth time, did she roll her eyes.  But she was grinning as she left, her Mom's satisfied and lustful moans escorting her out the door.

That car was taking forever to build.  Thank goodness!

Sunday's were family days.  At home.  Sally and Nicole would fix light snacks and have them available in the big family room above the entryway.  Marion would join us almost every Sunday, and soon, other friends began dropping by.  Amud informed me that Sally and Nicole had quietly urged he and Bala to make this a regular thing, something he and his wife seemed eager to do.  Mac, CeCe and Beth would drop by when he was in town.  I was pleased that he seemed relaxed in the old house and in general with his new relationship.  The tone of those days, even when he was there, was quiet and relaxed with good food and good conversation.  Good friends are a great treasure.

Janey and Simone would often use the opportunity of Sunday to cuddle with me, not sexually, but as daughters.  Janey in particular seemed to need to just be close.  She would be quiet as she curled up next to me in one of the huge pillows, attentively following the conversations that swirled around us.  Simone would occasionally snuggle up on the other side, unless Mac was there.  In that event, she would usually be tormenting that poor man somehow.  Even though JT was in the picture now, I don't think she could help herself.  Instinct, I guess.

I had given Nicole the Bugatti as a wedding gift.  I had thought it was something she would like, but I was wrong.  She loved it.  Adored it.  She showed her appreciation to me over and over and over.  And over.  I mean, it's not that we had that much more sex than normal, well, we did, but then we had more sex than normal before I gave her the car.  It's not that she did any thing different when we made love, either.  I guess it's that she just did it with more feeling or something.  Attitude, maybe?  It's hard to explain, so I'll leave it at that.

She drove the car back and forth to her work at the Rosen's clinic.  She didn't work there every day, and she began to look forward to those days she could drive.  I drove with her once to The Guild after she had become familiar with the car and the road.  She had found back roads almost the entire way that wound through the countryside.

I had never been as terrified of dying in my life as I was on that ride.  I was certain I would not see tomorrow.  It's not that she was careless or a poor driver.  Just the opposite.  She drove that little racer to the limits of its capacity for the conditions of the road.  And beyond.  She and the machine became one living, breathing beast.  She owned the fucking road.

I thought perhaps she was driving this way to impress me, but she confessed that she had actually backed off for my benefit.  This was the first time for her to drive with two people in the car and the weight distribution was unfamiliar.  It was more familiar to her on the way home, and I swear I almost wet myself as we flew on the road by the quarry.

I forced myself to ride with her as often as I could.  I didn't have a death wish, I just liked to deal with my fears head-on, although that's probably not the best term to use in this case.  'Head-on' was the last thing I wanted.  A ride with Nicole driving the sports car made me glad to be alive, especially when it was over.  It made me want to kiss the ground after we arrived at our destination.  I did on several occasions.

Sally, of course, was predictably envious, in her own quiet way.  She understood the attachment Nicole had for that particular car, but still, the specialness of that gift to her co-wife certainly stuck in her craw.  She sulked around the house for a couple of weeks until I innocently suggested she go shopping with Nicole over at The Guild for the afternoon.  Just an easy afternoon, two women out for a casual drive to go shopping.  She was ashen and pale when I saw her later that evening, and she never said another word about the car.  She never rode with Nicole again voluntarily, either.

I treated Sally and Nicole differently.  They had asked me to.  Still, I knew that I had to be careful and maintain a reasonable balance.  I was spending a lot of time with Nicole for various reasons, and I knew, even though Sally wasn't keeping score, that I needed to do something for her.  Hell, I needed to be with her, too.  I was stumped for a solution.  Then I had an idea.  And, yes, this one actually worked out OK!

For Sally's birthday I gave her a small gold box.  The box held an engraved golden plaque, about the size of a business card.  The words on the plaque read '1:00-2:00 M-F.'  Her disappointment was palpable but was only slightly greater than her befuddlement.  She didn't understand what I meant, why I would give this to her as a gift.  I didn't elaborate, just asked her to show up tomorrow at 1:00.  So, on that first day, at 1:00 sharp, she came to me in the office.  She was stark naked, and more than a little upset, thinking I just wanted to have sex with her.  Well, I did, but that wasn't the point.

I explained to her that what I had wanted to give her was a special time everyday that was just hers, for whatever she wanted.  I told her why, that I missed her and that I wanted to be with her, but that this time was for her mostly.  Sure, we could have sex, too, but if she wanted to talk, to shop, to cuddle, to play basketball, or to take a nap then that's what we would do.  I only made two requirements, it had to be something she wanted to do and it had to be with me.  When she realized what her gift really was, she too, showed me her appreciation over and over and over.  And over.

All in all, it was a pretty satisfying time.

Even the shopping.  Ok, almost.

Chapter 63

I was riding with Nicole in the Buggatti, scared out of my mind as usual, when I suddenly found my face pressed up against the windscreen.  Nicole was transfixed, staring blankly out the windshield, gripping the steering wheel with both hands in a death's grip.  Her foot was still jammed on the brake, the finely tuned engine idling smoothly under the hood.

I heard the birds chirping, replacing the whistling wind and my not infrequent screams of terror.

Then I felt it.

Nicole turned to me, eyes wide.  I wasn't sure if she was terrified or overjoyed.  Or something else.

"Master."  Not a question.  Not spoken.  It took me a moment to realize what had happened.  It was over the link.

Nicole had found her connection.

As quickly as it was there, it was gone.  We sat there for a while, trying to reconnect, looking for the key.  We drove back to the beginning of the skid marks on the pavement, thinking it might have been that particular spot in the road, like a nexus in the warp of time and space.  Hey, after all the things we had tried before, there was nothing weird we wouldn't consider.

I worried, as the link faded, that Nicole would be disappointed.  Well, I have never figured women out yet, and I was so wrong this time, it amazed even me.  She was ecstatic.  She was thrilled.  Overjoyed.  And grateful.  Very, very grateful.  We would have to wash off the hood of the car.  Again.

Sally knew instantly what had happened as soon as we walked in the door.  She took one look at Nicole, gave a little squeak and the two collided in a joyous, bouncing hug, dancing around the kitchen in happiness.  Hell, I knew it was important to Nicole.  I just didn't have a clue how much it meant to her.  Or Sally.

We continued to drive together after that, Sally insistent upon it now, hopeful that we would connect again.  Sally and Nicole, unbeknownst to me, had spent hours trying to connect on their own.  Failing, they had concluded that if it were going to happen, it would have to be with me.  My link was stronger and different than Sally's and it was growing stronger almost daily.

I think we tried had too hard, and, after that one blip, we tried even harder.  Then, as I thought back, reconstructing the event, I noticed that neither one of us had been seeking the link at that particular point in time.  I had been scared shitless, my usual condition in the passenger seat.  Nicole had been totally focused on her driving, the roads being slightly slick.

One afternoon I turned to Nicole, pale and sweating from fear.  "Nicole, I want you to take me to the Rosen's.  As fast as you can.  Take the route by the quarry."

"Yes, Master.  Should I point out that you do not particularly like that road?  It has many corners."

"I know.  I need to get to clinic.  Fast."

The concern in my voice convinced her I was serious.  The slight quiver of terror at what I was about to experience helped convince her.  I know they say that fear of the unknown is a powerful motivator.  I would have taken that fear any day over the certain terror I knew I was going to experience on that road.  Sharp corners, no fences, sheer drop-offs into the black waters 50 feet below.  It was the stuff of nightmares and I had just volunteered to do it at top speed.

Nicole drove like a woman possessed.  She thought I was ill or needed to be at the clinic.  I only hoped I wouldn't need to be in one by the time the ride was over.  I hoped that the link wouldn't kick in on a sharp corner.  I hoped that I was right.  We were getting desperate, and desperate times call for desperate measures, so I've heard.

The way I figured it was that Nicole's mind was such a flurry of thoughts going in a million ways at once that there was just too much interference for the link to work normally.  I know it didn't make sense with her being so smart and all and she couldn't link, but Simone could and she was presumably even smarter than her mother.  But I had my theory about that, too, having to do with Simone's trauma and stuff.

If I was right, driving was the one thing that Nicole loved, maybe even more than me.  It totally absorbed her, involving all of her faculties, skill and cognitive processes.  By clearing her mind of other extraneous thoughts, it might also allow us to link, for that part of her mind to come through.

It happened on a slow corner, thank God.  It was the second turn of a four turn combination and she had down-shifted in preparation of accelerating us through the last two turns.  I had been prepared for the link when it came, so I noticed before she did.  When she did sense it, she again slammed on the brakes, almost sending us sailing out into the quarry.  Against my better judgement, I yelled across the link, "Drive, Nicole, Drive!"

I could tell when she figured it out, what I was doing.  The burst of sunshine over the link was blinding, growing stronger the more she focused on her driving.

I felt her bemusement, Shit, she was laughing at me, as she sensed the pureness of my terror.  She could not comprehend the feelings I had at not being in control of the vehicle, at having to trust her skill.  Not that I didn't trust her driving.  It's just that I had to, and it scared the living fuck out of me.

We made it to the Rosen's clinic in record time, then turned around and came back faster yet.  We stayed linked most of the time, only occasionally losing touch.  The more we connected, the easier it seemed to be for her, the more she was able to do it at will.  Granted, she was still new at this, but if I knew Nicole, she would be totally focused on this until she had mastered it completely.  She had wanted this for so long she was not going to let this go ever again.

Sally felt Nicole for the first time that night.  They shared an orgasm so intense, that both of them were flopping around on the mattress.  Janey and Simone had felt it as well and they all had a good cry over it.  Happy tears, but they still left wet spots on the sheets.

It was a few weeks after the race to the Rosen's that I got a call from a nearby law enforcement officer.  Apparently several officers had clocked an antique foreign-made sports car-type vehicle they thought was registered to me travelling at excessive speed.  It was an area Nicole had to drive through to get from our house to the Rosen's Clinic.  He asked me if I knew anything about it.

"Who was driving it officer?"

"Uh, we don't really know, Mr. Sampson.  Our, uh, officers couldn't apprehend the driver.  In fact, we could only get close enough to catch a couple of the numbers on the plate.  We think it's your vehicle.  But we're not positive."

"The driver wouldn't stop?"

"Well, uh, it's kind of embarrassing, sir.  We aren't sure the driver even knew we were there.  Those roads are awfully tight and twisting.  The cruisers we drive couldn't keep up with that little car."  He really did sound apologetic.  And embarrassed.

"Oh, I see."  I thanked him and rang off.

I confronted Nicole with this conversation.  Her blas, attitude about it bothered me.

"But Nicole, they can take away your license if you get caught!"

"License?  What license?  I don't have a license!  I don't need to take a stinking driver's test.  I KNOW how to drive!"

She was emphatic.  I was shocked, even though, by now, I shouldn't have been.  So I made her a deal.  Actually, I intended that it be more of a threat.  I told her that any cop that caught her got to spend the evening with her in the dungeon.  Doing whatever.  And she paid all the fines and court costs with her own money.

Nicole thought I was bluffing.  She said I was too jealous to go through with that.  That was a big mistake, challenging me like that.  Later I realized that she thought of it as a win-win type of situation and that she had suckered me into it.  She got to drive like a bat out of Hell with my permission and, if she got caught, she got to have a session in the dungeon, again with my permission.  I realized too late I had been the one who had made a mistake, but being the kind of guy I am, I felt I had to keep my word.  So I decided to make matters worse.  Of course!

I hauled her up to the bedroom and told her to dress in her canary yellow bikini, the one she had been tormenting all the high school boys with around the pool all summer.  The one that was hardly there.  It's small even by French standards, and you have to remember that they go topless on most of their beaches.  While she was changing, I went down to the dungeon and got a few items.  She sashayed down the stairs when she had changed.  She was excited and it was clearly visible.  The minx has removed the lining of the suit at some point this summer and it was as good as transparent.  I hated to think what it would be like when it was wet.

I called her over to me and fastened a thick collar around her neck.  This was not her normal slave collar.  This one was the kind you see in the BDSM catalogues, with studs and chrome rings and a thick buckle.  It was designed for show, and definitely gave a clear impression of the submissive inclination of wearer and what kind of sex he/she enjoyed.  To this I attached a heavy chrome leash.  This was for show as well.  I let the leash hang down between her barely covered tits.

I turned her around and fastened a pair of heavy-duty handcuffs on her wrists, fastening them behind her back.  Then I slipped a light cloak over her shoulders, snapping it closed at the neck.

I put her in my car and drove her down to the police station.  After a quiet word with the Sargent, I made the same proposition to the officers.  Unofficially, of course.  If they caught her, they got her.  At this point I removed her cloak.  As she was standing right there beside me, as beautiful as ever, taunting them with her confidence, you can imagine the excitement the wager caused.

While we were there, the Sargent warned his officers that before any prizes, as he referred to Nicole, were awarded, a thorough investigation would be held to ensure that everything had been done by the book.  No traps, no excessive chases, no reckless driving, no danger to the public.  Only then would the winner get the prize.  He turned to Nicole and asked if she agreed with this.

"But, of course!  It is the same way in France!" she said with more than a touch of national pride, then gently kissed his stunned face.  As we left the spellbound audience, she turned to the officers and in a heavy French, and very sexy accent said, "Let ze bes' man..." then noticing she also had the attention of all of the female officers, "...or woman ween!"  Her head held high, emphasizing her tits, she made one complete circuit of the squad room to give them all a good look.  Then, with a strange look at me, we left.

There was a lot of cheering in the squad room as we left that morning.  All in all, a weird briefing, but one that managed to hold everyone's interest.

I think it turned her on, being bound and exhibited like that in front of a crowd.  She knew it wasn't meant to be humiliating or degrading to her, like it had been before.  More of a challenge.  I know she was excited on the ride back.  It was the first time she had ever had sex in a car.  The Buggatti was too small and cramped inside.  We normally just leaned her over the hood and had sex on the car, not in it.  I had left the handcuff keys in the dungeon.  We couldn't wait until we got home.

As far as I know, Nicole never got caught.  I wasn't sure how I felt about the prospect of another man having at her for a night, but the way she drove, I didn't think I had too much to worry about.  I did notice she added a sophisticated radar detector and a police band radio to the minimal equipment in the car.

(Author's note:  I have been informed by a reliable source that a challenge of this nature would never be allowed in any police force, regardless if the force was urban or rural.  I debated taking the scene out, but I kept it in, reasoning that this is, after all, a fantasy.  I did feel, however, that the learned objection should be noted, even if I ignored it.)

Nicole strode into my office one fine afternoon.  It was a glorious day outside, the birds were singing and I could smell the flowers from the garden.  Nicole tended to be outwardly more aggressive than Sally, but her stride that day was even more forceful than normal.

Her hair was mussed, unusual for her.  Her eyes were smiling, glittering, smoldering points of happiness.  Very calmly she closed all the folders on my desk, then moved them to the credenza.  She carefully took my phone, blotter and pencil set and set them next to the folders.  I sat there in my chair with a bemused smile on my face, watching her carefully urgent movements, my interrupted work now neatly put away.  She knew from prior discussions that I did not like the things on my desk moved.  Not at all.  So, whatever the occasion, this must be serious for her to do this.  The clock and desk lamp were placed on the floor.  The desktop was completely bare.

She turned to face me, a strange smile on her face.  "Lawrence.  I need you.  Now."

With that she lifted me out of my chair by grabbing the front of my shirt.  She pulled it open - we'd find most of the buttons later - and proceeded to strip me.  Of course, I responded in kind.  I took her right there on top of my desk.  I mean, she'd gone to all that trouble, after all.

Later, much later, I asked what brought this on.  I wanted know so I could make it happen again, if I could.

She smiled tiredly.  It had taken a lot of effort on both our parts to work out her tensions.  "It is the car, Master.  And this link thing.  I love driving so.  It excites me, it becomes a part of me as I fly down the macadam.  Now when I drive, I can feel that touch of you deep inside me, especially down there where you have planted yourself so well just now.  It drives me wild, Master.  This energy has been building, this lusty need in me for some time.  Today, with the top down, the wind in my face and the gendarmes in pursuit... Oh Lawrence, it was perfect!  I think I wet myself from the excitement."

God Damn!  The fucking car made her horny!  Extremely.

She lay quietly under me, her face relaxed, just a little of the flaming ember left glowing in her eyes.  She sighed.  "I apologize to you, Master, oh my lover, my glorious lover, and will accept whatever punishment you give me for making these demands on you and for interrupting your work.  But please, do not take the car...."  She tapered off, slightly worried now that her need was sated.

I eased out of her and sat back down in my office chair, pulling her to her knees between mine.  I grasped her head tenderly with my hands and eased her face towards my groin.  There was no resistance as she swallowed my re-hardened cock.  I moved her head up and down to let her know she could move, then let her take over.

I talked to her as she worked on my stiffness.  "Well, Nicole, for interrupting my work, I pronounce a sentence of 15 kisses, like the one you are giving me now, to be delivered on my demand," I intoned in my most serious voice.

She giggled around my prick, a truly astounding sensation.

"As for your making these horrid demands of your Master, for that offense, I sentence you to driving the car for at least one hour everyday or until you are so horny we must repeat the cure."

It took her a moment to be sure I was not angry with her.

"Now, as for moving the things on my desk, I am going to spank you when you have finished with the first kiss."

We both knew that that wouldn't be a punishment either and she threw herself into the blowjob.  When I finally ejaculated my cum down her throat, she hugged me fiercely to her.

I disengaged from the embrace and positioned her over my knee.  As I gazed down at her fabulous ass, I realized it had been a while since our last session.  We had all been so busy with the new routines and other things that some of the important things had been ignored.  No more.  I started slowly, using my bare hand.  I didn't often get the chance to deal with her luscious ass and I relished each and every stinging blow.  I don't know how long I swatted her, but each cheek was a deeply flushed shade of red by the time I was finished.  I had felt, both with our link and my other senses, that Nicole had climaxed two or three times during the spanking.

I myself had risen to the challenge again, so I bent her over my still bare desk, her lovely breasts smashed against the smooth blonde wood.  Standing up behind her, I slowly penetrated her nether hole, savoring the hot moist suction of her talented rear end.

We finished one more time, slowly.

Like an obedient slave, she dutifully drove the car as often as she could until she was so horny she would have to jump me.  I began waiting for her in the garage.  I didn't want her to walk off any of that wonderful excitement.

I couldn't wait to collect those 14 remaining kisses.  They would be special ones, I knew.

Chapter 64

It was 1:15 and Sally wasn't here yet.  She hadn't missed a minute of our special time together since the day we had started having it, so naturally, I was concerned.  I wandered down through the house, looking for her in the various rooms as I passed them.  I heard voices when I finally reached the main floor and I followed the sounds to the kitchen.

I immediately sensed that something important was going on, as Sally and Nicole were doing their alternate sentence thing.  The third person at the table, a woman I didn't know, but who looked vaguely familiar, watched their performance with a bemused smile on her face.  Their coordinated sentences were still disconcerting to me, even now.  I don't know that they sensed how disorienting it was to other people.  Or if they did, if they even cared.

Sally looked up at me when I entered the kitchen, then over at the clock.  She realized what time it was, but she didn't seem too upset.  I wasn't sure I liked that.

I grabbed a cup of coffee, topped up their cups with the pot and joined the ladies at the table.  Nicole had sent me a sense over the link, blasted it actually, as she was still getting used to the 'volume control', that I was welcome to join.  Sally's link asked me to stay as well.

As soon as I sat down, both my wives moved over to flank me.  It wasn't defensive on their part, it was just the position they normally took, one on each side.  What was curious was that, in their psychic mode, their actions were mirror images of each other, down to the position of their hands in their laps.

"Larry, this is Jerome's mother, Diane Turner."  They used the synchronized talking to introduce the other woman at the table.  But I didn't make the connection immediately.

Jerome?

"That's Simone's friend.  You know him as 'JT'."

Ah-ha!  Mama bear here to protect her cub.  I sent a probing finger of my link out to this new person and was not surprised by the suspicious thoughts I found.  What did surprise me was that her honest curiosity about us, the three of us, was even stronger than her suspicions.  She had great faith in her boy, that he could handle himself.  She was here to find out what kind of people would be influencing him.  Particularly me.

"I'm pleased to meet you, Mrs. Turner.  JT is a fine boy."  God, did that sound as lame as it seemed?

Diane sat across from us, considering her first words to me.  She had apparently been here a while, or at least long enough to have gotten the idea that our lifestyle and marital relationship were not normal.

"Are you Simone's father?"  Her tone was accusatory, almost bitter.  I let it pass.

"She calls me 'Papa,' but I am not her father."

"Oh.  What about the cheerleader?"

"Cheerle-...   Oh, you mean Janey?  No, she is Sally's daughter, not mine.  But she calls me 'Dad.'"

Diane had a look of disbelief on her face.  "So.  Are you at least married to one of these women?  I don't see any rings."  She glanced pointedly at our hands.

I saw a glance pass between Sally and Nicole, then watched as their hands stole silently under the hem of the shirts they were wearing.  Together they lifted up the fabric to expose their piercings in their left nipples.  Following their example, I unbuttoned my shirt and moved the left panel aside to show Diane my rings as well.

The tall black woman didn't get it right away, then she saw the letters they were wearing and the letters I was wearing.

"Shit!" slipped out before she stopped herself.  She paused before she continued.

"I was worried about the kind of weird rich people that might be influencing Jerome up here.  Now don't take it wrong, I don't mind you being rich, especially if you worked for it.  Sally here assures me that you do, though I'll be damned if I can figure out when you've got the time..."  She looked pointedly at Sally and Nicole, "...or the energy."

She seemed to stop herself from continuing down that path.  Smiling ruefully at us, she apologized, "I'm sorry I said that.  It's just that, well, you," and she pointed her chin right at me, "represent everything that is wrong with the stereotypical black man."  She raised her hands to prevent us from jumping all over that statement.

"You work hard, you stay home, you are raising not one, but two children and neither one of them is yours.  You are not promiscuous, ignoring the fact that you have two wives.  At least you're honest enough to marry them both, not leave them in the lurch."  She gave an exasperated sigh.  "Do you know how many of the single black mothers in this community alone would kill for a man like you?"

I assumed the question was rhetorical, so I didn't answer, but just in case I hadn't caught on, two very sharp sets of fingernails suddenly and simultaneously dug into both my legs, both sets dangerously close to the holy land.  I nearly farted with the effort to not squeal like a stuck pig, and that started the two women to giggling as they sensed it over the link and then having to suppress the laughter.  Served them right.

She continued as if she didn't notice, "I guess I really can't complain.  My Jerome, JT's dad, was killed in action.  And since Simone has been spending time with him, JT has come out of the shell he had built around him after his Dad died.  I was worried about him, he was so withdrawn, not doing well in school.  I was worried about the gangs getting to him, now that he was missing a father figure.

"Simone changed all that.  He has even started cleaning his room without me asking him.  He is taking special care with his clothing and hygiene.  Especially his hygiene.  And his grades!  He has never done so well in school.  I mean, he was always the smartest kid in the class, but now?  It's like she is challenging him to do his best."

She paused.  I knew what was coming.  I felt Sally and Nicole's grips tighten on my leg again, encouraging me to be quiet.  Geez, give me some credit, will you?

"That's why I'm really here, I guess.  I'm so happy for him, but at the same time, now I'm even more scared than before.  I guess I just needed to know where the girl was coming from, what kind of a family, if she could be counted on not to screw with his head and dump him."  She looked at us, her relief evident.  "You might be crazy and weird, but you're not cruel.  Somehow, I know I can trust you to do right by my boy."

Sally and Nicole's grips on my groin relaxed and I could feel the tension flowing out of them.  They hadn't been sure of the outcome of this meeting and, somehow, that made me feel a little better.  They were mortal, after all.

Diane stayed a while longer, actually daring to examine Nicole's rings at close range after a bit.  She told how her husband had been killed while stationed overseas.  He had been a Major in a Special Forces unit.  She had never been told how or where, only that it had been in action, and that he had died serving his country.  JT had taken his Dad's death hard, but had never cried that she knew of.  He just kept it bottled up inside.

She left with an invitation to dinner the following week.  It was going to be a special night, with JT and Simone hosting.  She asked if that meant they would be cooking, as well.  When Sally said it did, Diane just rolled her eyes and said, "I'll bet you $10 we have hotdogs and beans.  That's all he knows how to fix."

I walked out to the basketball court to check the action a couple of days later.  What I found was not exactly the action I expected.  The ball was sitting in mid-court, and three couples were there as well, two on the baseline and one at the top of the key.  While there was a lot of activity, none of them were actively looking for the basketball.  I cleared my throat, and six teens separated guiltily, caught, thank God only figuratively, with their pants down.

I decided to establish some ground rules of my own.  "JT, what's going on?" I asked him specifically, thus making him responsible.

"We, uh , she, uh ..."

I stopped him right there and pulled him off to the side.  "First, JT, and as you get older you'll understand this better, but first, JT, never, ever blame the woman.  It won't work."

He looked back at me with a solemn face, taking my statement as wisdom from the ages.  God! This kid has got to lighten up!

I continued in a more serious vein, but more in keeping with his attitude.  "JT, as a man, be a man.  Take the responsibility, take charge.  And right or wrong, take the blame.  Understand?"  I raised my eyebrows at him, trying to get him to lighten up.

He nodded, still unsure.

"Now then, I'll ask you again, what's going on out here?"

He looked around, then over at Simone, who had wandered up to us.  He grinned, "We, uh, I was resting, sir!"

I laughed.  "Well, just don't rest too long, OK?"

The six of them grinned back, the message understood.  From then on I kept the window to my office open whenever Simone had the kids over.  I couldn't see the court from there, so I wasn't spying on them.  I kept it open so I could hear the 'boing-boing' of the basketball as it was occasionally dribbled between the rest periods.  What can I say, hormones were raging.

Sally popped up to my office and informed me it was time to dress for dinner.  I grumbled at her, as I was puzzling my way through a complex international financial transaction that nagged at me.  Something was just too sweet with the deal and I wanted to make sure my clients wouldn't be left holding an empty bag if I recommended it to them.  I could feel I was almost at the point of seeing the catch, and I wasn't ready to eat dinner.

"Now, Master!" came her voice again from the doorway.  Something in her exasperated tone cut through the fog in my brain and I gave her my full attention.  God, was I glad I did.  Sally was wearing an outfit I hadn't seen before.  I guess it could best be described as a formal loincloth.  And a necklace, her jeweled collar.  I idly wondered how she had gotten it out of the safe, but in a rare flash of brilliance for me, I determined it was best if I didn't know how she had figured out the combination to my safe.  It would only frustrate me, and right now I was once again totally besotted with her beauty.
 
She noticed me staring at her nakedness and she blushed, both from the joy my attentions still brought her and her frustration at having yet another delay in getting me dressed for dinner.  She finally got me to our bedroom and into a similarly brief covering, now completely inadequate given the aroused state my cock was in.  It looked more like a window awning with a single support than a loincloth, and Sally and Nicole got a severe case of the giggles as they escorted me down to the dining room.

As we entered the rarely used formal dining room, I noticed that all the stops had been pulled out for the evening.  Candles, the good china, my family's silver service, and the good linen napkins with the monogrammed silver rings.  The large square table was set for 11 people.  Sally and Nicole guided me to our places facing the door, bursting out in fits of laughter as it became obvious that the head of my prick was going to poke out above the level of the table.  Unless something could be done, there would be 12 for dinner.

Nicole, I might add, was similarly attired, her loincloth as brief as Sally's.  Her collar was also in place.  She had added a pair of high heels to her outfit that lifted her butt nicely.  With all the visual stimulation around me, there was no chance in Hell I was going to relax anytime soon.  I thought Sally or Nicole would take the initiative and relieve the stress, so to speak, but neither left her place at my side.  The four of us waited for the other guests to join us.

I heard Janey's voice first.  She was in 'polite' mode, I could tell.  Not nervous, not scared, just on her best behavior.  Whoever was with her, the guest was bound to be important.  Then Marion's voice chimed in, again trying to reassure whoever was with them by her tone.  She had practiced that tone on me all through our growing up and beyond and she did it well.  I was curious about who was coming in with them when it suddenly hit me.

JT's Mom!  Debby, or Dana,  no.  Diane.  Suddenly panicked, I stared at my stubbornly erect member, trying to will it into submission.  I guess you know that didn't work.  As I heard them coming closer I got more desperate.  I grabbed the linen napkin from in front of me and tried to yank the silver napkin ring off the damn napkin.  Like a Chinese finger puzzle, the harder I pulled on it, the more it stuck, until it gave with a sadistic suddenness.  The cloth I was hoping to cover myself with sailed out into the middle of the table, clearly out of my reach and too far away to get to without totally exposing myself to the group just now entering the dining room.

The silver ring, on the other hand, took another route to complete my humiliation.  It flipped up into the air, glinting and gleaming in the soft candlelight.  The flashes of light from the spinning ring managed to catch everyone's attention, and six pairs of eyes watched the ring, in agonizingly slow motion, from my perspective, anyway, descend into my lap, landing squarely on the head of my cock, crowning my prick with a crown of softly gleaming silver.

We were all stunned by what had happened and were silent, staring at that damned napkin ring/crown.  Sally and Nicole, again in unison, started shaking silently, their lovely tits jiggling enticingly.  Watching those lovely orbs quaking was not helping my situation at all.

"You know, I've always wondered what to do with those damn rings after you take the napkin out.  I never thought of doing that, but I'll bet my Jerome would have loved it."

Five pairs of eyes swiveled from staring at my cock to staring at this unruffled woman who had just defused a humiliating situation.  Then we all laughed, wiping tears from our eyes.  Nicole or Sally, I couldn't tell which one, surreptitiously lifted the ring from its awkward perch during the laughter and placed it on the table next to my place setting.

Marion, Janey and JT's Mom finished entering the room and sat at our left.  Conversation was admittedly a bit less stilted and formal after that, and I could tell I was going to take a lot of ribbing for a long time.

Simone slipped in and out of the room, serving wine and bringing in the salad and the soup.  There was still no sign of the other guests or of JT, but Simone did not show any concern about the late arrivals.  She also showed no sign of having heard the ruckus earlier.  I admired her calm demeanor.  She was growing up to be a confident and accomplished young lady.

I watched Diane watching her.  She didn't do it openly, but her attention was never very far away from Simone.  Several times I caught a pleased smile teasing the corners of her mouth, as if Simone had just satisfied yet another of the myriad unnamed requirements on some sort of checklist.  The common thought is that men are the competitive sex, but it's nothing compared to what women put each other through.  Men will accept best effort.  Women have to be perfect.

Mac's unmistakable voice came booming into the room and I knew the last guests had arrived.  I could tell he was nervous about something even before he entered the dining area.  He was always about 10 decibels too loud when he was like that and he was really loud now.

Mac entered first, ahead of CeCe and Beth.  The two women stayed out of sight around the corner of the door, hesitant to come in.  Mac was dressed just like I was.  Barefoot and an inadequate loincloth was all he was wearing, other than the championship ring he had just won.  Somehow his team had pulled it off, winning everything they had to.  Even with that effort it had taken a lot of luck, too.  The other teams in the league had just folded at the end of the season, allowing Mac's team to slip into the wild card slot.  Against all the odds, they won.

Mac saw how Sally, Nicole and I were dressed and grinned widely, obviously relieved.  He waved merrily at us and then did something very uncharacteristic for him.  He turned towards the door and snapped his fingers in a commanding way.  It was odd, as he was so gentle and deferential with CeCe, but here he was, ordering her into the room with a snap of his fingers.

Beth entered first, her head bowed, her perky breasts bobbing as she tread lightly into the room.  As she approached Mac, she stole a glance up at him, and I felt a deep devotion to him over the link.  She didn't mind that she was nearly naked, nor did she even know that Sally and Nicole were wearing the same attire as she.  She just knew that this was what Mac wanted and that he was pleased with her.

Oddly, Beth had a leash in her hands.  With a gentle tug, she urged CeCe into the room.  CeCe was not dressed like the other three.  She had quite a bit more on, but was even more exposed.  The tight leather corset and the single glove binding her arms behind her back didn't cover any of her beauty.  Or the marks of a recent whipping.

CeCe entered and sat opposite Sally.  Their eyes met and I felt Sally questioning her silently.  I didn't think Sally's link with CeCe was that strong that she could sense her.  Sally probably could have with Nicole because of our relationship, but to be honest I wasn't sure about that either.  I touched lightly on CeCe and found her very calm, happy and very aroused.

I looked over at Sally and relayed what I had found.  She relaxed perceptibly with the news.  I honestly think she hadn't known that CeCe was going to show up in severe bondage like this.  Leave it to Mac to surprise her.

As was usually the case with Mac present, he presumed we were all there to hear of his latest exploits on the sports field.  Usually he was correct.  He had a way of telling the stories that made every other player on the team the hero.  To hear him tell it, he was no more important to their stunning turnaround than the batboy.  It was an endearing quality, but on this particular evening, there was a hitch.  JT's Mom was present.  It was obvious from her polite, but brutal dissection of his first sentence that she was not going to sit quietly and listen to him monopolize the conversation with silly sports stories.

Diane deftly turned the conversation to other topics, leaving Mac a bit stunned at first, and then challenged to participate in the current conversation.  It was the first time I had ever heard his political views aired in public, although he and I had had many conversations about them.  Mostly I teased him as he realized that his early liberal beliefs were slowly, but surely blown to smithereens.  As he came to realize that all the fucking programs those idiot liberal politicians implemented did nothing to help him or the vast majority of other minorities in the 'hood, he began to see that those programs were the very thing that kept most minorities from getting out of their poverty and ignorance.  His own success had come about because he had helped himself, no one else.  He had not benefited from one single program instituted by the government.  Granted, he was talented in sports, but he had also worked harder than anyone else I had ever known to hone those God-given skills.

Now that he was actually making some money, Mac was even more apoplectic about the cost of those worthless social programs.  He hadn't realized how heavily he was going to be taxed and he resented that the only ones that would benefit from his taxes were the politicians.  Them, and those very few people who actually needed the kind of handouts the programs gave them.

JT and Simone wheeled in a large serving cart in the middle of the conversation and began serving us dinner.  Diane had a smug look on her face when the entr,e was revealed.  Franks and Beans, although her first bite wiped the smugness from her face.  I guess we should have warned her that Simone had kind of a heavy hand with the chili peppers and other hot spices.  We usually had to use the asbestos toilet paper after she cooked for us.  After tonight, with all these beans, we'd probably have to avoid open flames, as well.

JT didn't get a good look at Mac until he put Mac's plate in front of him.  What with trying not to spill anything and with four naked ladies literally shoving their tits in his face, he had not really bothered to take a look at anybody's faces.  The look on his face when he realized who was sitting there was priceless.  As was Diane's.  She had apparently known of the hero status her son placed on this man.  It may have been the 25 posters of Mac that wallpapered his room or the incessant recitation of his lifetime statistics, but a Mom just knows these things, I guess.

Suddenly, the reason behind Diane's controlling behavior became clear to me.  While her son was a talented athlete, she wanted him to see his hero as more than one dimensional.  She wanted him to see that while Mac might be destined for the Hall of Fame, there were other sides to him, too.  I smiled as I wondered if she had realized that one of those sides was kinky.  I had a feeling that that might have been a bit of a surprise, but to give her credit, she didn't blink an eye when she saw his pecker dangling well below his loincloth.  OK, she did stare at it with a look of longing disbelief, but she didn't blink.  Not once....

And to give JT credit, when he realized his hero was going to be sitting at the same table, he never gave the eight bare boobs around the table another glance.  I guess hero worship beats hormones.  He barely paid attention to Simone, a fact that did not sit well at first with the young lady.  After several attempts to get his face to rotate even a few degrees in her direction, all unsuccessful, she finally rolled her eyes at her mother.  Nicole consolingly laid a gentle hand on her daughter's hand and gave it a few maternal pats.  It didn't help, but by that time Simone had resigned herself to losing this one to Mac.  I just wondered which of the two, JT or Mac, would be paying for it later.

After a surprisingly sports-free dinner, a rarity with Mac in attendance, the ladies adjourned to do whatever ladies do after dinner.  I have always suspected that women want guys to think that it is a drudgery to do the dishes and clean up, but having it done myself more than once, there isn't that much to it.  And, no, I did more than paper plates and plastic forks...  I really think that they just want to get us out of earshot so they can talk.  For my part, I was hoping to hear all about what they talked about from Sally and Nicole.

JT, Mac and I retired to the family room at the top of the grand entryway.  Mac had put an arm around JT's shoulder when he started to wander away to leave Mac and I alone.  I thought the buttons would burst off his shirt as his chest swelled with pride at being included by Mac.  When the ladies were done talking, they would join us before everyone went home.  Simone slipped in once to offer us an after dinner drink, but Mac declined for all of us, saying he didn't want anything that might detract from the enjoyment of the wonderful meal.  Leave it to Mac to say just the right thing and get off the hook.

I was dying to know about him, Beth and CeCe and what was going on with their relationship, but I didn't think it would be right to ask about them in front of JT.  If Mac and I had been alone, I would have bugged the shit out of him, but now I didn't feel I could.  With Diane not there to steer the conversation, I figured Mac would revert to his normal self.  Again, he surprised me.

Mac started asking JT about himself, how he had met Simone, what he wanted to do, how much time he spent with Simone, how his grades were, what he thought of Simone, did he like sports, did he like Simone....  You get the picture.  I kept waiting for him to ask the poor kid if he had scored yet, but he held back from going that far.  JT held his own, though, answering each question with quiet assurance and seriousness.  I could see Mac trying hard not to like the kid, but it didn't work.  By the time the women joined us, Mac had resigned himself to being replaced by JT in Simone's life, as if there was anything he could have done about it, or would have done if he could have.  Simone had picked JT out of the herd and had picked well.

There was considerably less tension in the family room with all of us there.  Apparently the women's talk had gone well, too, as Diane left the conversation alone.  She seemed relaxed, laughing with the rest of us as Marion and Mac enthralled us with stories of the old neighborhood from when we were growing up.  Simone curled up in JT's lap, somehow making their total body contact seem chaste.  I could only tell he was bothered by their closeness because of the sweat on his forehead, but then, teenaged girls always have that effect on teenaged boys.  Especially when they are in such close proximity.

It was a most enjoyable, if uneventful evening.  I was sorry to see it end.

It was a few days later when Simone came up to me as I was doing one of my favorite things.  I was sitting at the dinner table, the every day table, resting after one of Sally's delicious dinners.  I was enjoying watching the show Sally and Nicole put on as they finished cleaning up after dinner.  Tonight's entertainment was particularly nice as Nicole didn't normally get to help out too much as she was working more and more at the Clinic.  She seemed to enjoy being included in the domestic chores from time to time.  It let her feel a part of the everyday household.

I liked to watch Sally work in the kitchen as it always entailed much bending over and stretching.  I realized early on that she enjoyed me watching and usually seemed to take much longer cleaning up, with a lot of bending over and reaching up on her tiptoes on those times I watched.  Getting to watch Nicole was a special treat, as she was still not used to my lustful observations of her.  It was in pure contrast to her blatant invitations to look at her when she was dressed in her finery.  Now that she was wearing her slave clothing, which hid absolutely nothing, she seemed to blush with each bend or stretch.  It was very becoming on her, this appearance of innocence.

Whenever Nicole helped out in the kitchen, Sally took advantage of her height and had her stretching, for my pleasure, to reach many unnecessary items.  Although it was obvious Nicole had caught on to her antics, she went along with them willingly, but blushing profusely.  And very prettily.

"Papa, do you have any prophylactics?" Simone had come up behind me and stood beside me as I was absorbed in the kitchen ballet.  At first, I didn't realize I had heard what she had asked me.  Whether it was the uncommon use of the proper term for a rubber, or whether it was because she asked me in plain hearing of her mother and Sally, I don't know.  What I do know is it took me a couple of heartbeats to comprehend what she had asked, and the implications of it.  Try as I might, I just couldn't convince myself that she and JT were going to have a water balloon fight.

I could hear the sudden silence in the kitchen area as two sets of curious ears tuned into what was bound to be an interesting conversation.

"Are you doing a science project, Simone?"  Hey, I could always hope.

She looked blank for a minute, about like what I must have looked like a second before.  The she blushed.  Stuttering, and obviously now uncomfortable, she took the easy way out.  "Uh, yeah, I guess."  I guess, my ass.

"I think I could rustle up one..."  I paused,  "...or two.  Would that be enough?" I asked innocently.

"Uh, I was thinking more like a case.  Or two," replying in kind.

I heard a muffled gasp, followed shortly thereafter by the sound of breaking crockery as it hit the tiled floor.  I didn't see what happened as I was looking at Simone.  I assumed that Nicole had dropped them, but I was wrong.  Sally had been handing the plates to Nicole and had pulled her hands away to cover her mouth to stifle her laughter, in the process dropping the plates before Nicole even had a chance to reach for them.  I could see both women were now fighting the laughter that threatened to burst out.

Her hand over her mouth hadn't worked to keep quiet and now, in addition, they had to be careful not to step on the shards of glass with their bare feet.  The kitchen floor was now covered in a minefield of ceramic shrapnel.  Nicole was in no better shape than Sally, as she was holding her sides and crying, too.  Simone didn't understand what it was that she had said that was so funny and looked at me curiously.

"Well, Simmie, I think I could find a few more for you when you need them."  I paused and took her hand.  "Just be careful, OK?  I don't want you to get hurt."  I pulled her into me and kissed her forehead.  "Or JT, either."

Imagine the color of beets and you would have a good idea of the color of the young girl.  I can't imagine how kids ever think their parents are that dumb, that we wouldn't figure it out.  But then, I think back on just how dumb my parents were while I was in High School and I guess it was just my turn.  Simone did manage to turn and walk away with dignity, which is more than I can say for the two women who were now howling in the kitchen area.

Grabbing a broom and dustpan, I went in to rescue my two damsels in distress.

Chapter 65

The phone rang.  Picking it up, I hoped it wasn't anyone important.

"Sampson?  Get your fucking ass down here.  Now!"

It wasn't.

I looked over at the clock.  It was just 12:55.  It was too close to Sally's time.  She was more important.  In fact, she was just coming to the door.  I looked up at her and smiled.  Fuck this telephone shit.  Our times together were becoming too precious.  I never knew what she was going to come up with, but I think I liked the 'nothing' days the best.  We often just sat quietly holding each other, not talking, not petting, just being.  Doin' nothin'.

"I'll be there at 2:30."  Sally heard me and smiled at the timing.

"Now, Sampson."  I suppose I should have told him I didn't like to be ordered around, especially by someone in his position.  It tended to make me angry.  I was already well on my way to pissed off.

"2:30, asshole!" I told him, again.

He changed his tone, and I finally recognized that what I was hearing wasn't arrogance, but fear.  Out of control fear.  "Look.  It's not me, sir.  But the directors are going to be really pissed if they have to wait that long."

Now my curiosity was piqued.  "Directors?  As in plural?"

"Yeah, butt face.  Ours, the FBI's, the CIA's, and another guy that has those three spooked out of their shorts.  Believe me, they don't want to sit in there and drink coffee with that guy for an hour and a half."

"No shit?"

"No shit!  Now get a move on!"

"OK.  I'll leave as soon as I can get away."  We both knew I had no intention of leaving any sooner than I had said before.  Let the bastards be a bit uncomfortable.  It still beat a long night living with the rats...

"Now, you motherfucker...." I heard as I hung up the phone.  I smiled up at Sally and went to her with my arms open.  I had a bad feeling I was going to need all the love and support I could get my hands on.  Sally must have sensed my need for her comfort and love.  It was a 'nothing' day.

I think she wondered why I cried when 2:00 came.

I got to the anonymous building downtown at 2:20.  I waited outside the door, in clear view of the security cameras for 15 minutes.  It was too much hassle for them to come out and get me, then have to get cycled back in.  Sometimes things work in your favor.

By the time I got through security it was 2:45.  I walked into the conference room and sat down.  Four government suits stared back at me.  Well, three, anyway.  The fourth one was too expensive to be government issue, which meant only the government could have afforded it.

One of the men I knew better than the others because I had worked for him, prior.  I knew two of the others as they were in the news occasionally, political appointments and congressional hearings.  The fourth man looked familiar, as if I had seen him somewhere.  It was more like I had sensed his presence somewhere, like a dullness or deadness on the fringes of my consciousness.  Or like a disease.  I decided didn't like him.  When I looked at him, I had a foreboding sense I was looking at myself in 10 years time.  It scared the shit out of me.  Not that I would be alive in 10 years, but what I would become.

FBI started in.  "Where the Hell did you get this evidence?"  The briefcase and its contents were on the table.

I told them the story, starting with Sally's involvement with Gary.  I told them about finding Nicole and taking her and Simone into my home and into my protection.  Since they had my report on Gary's demise and my part in it, I left that out.  I related that Simone had had difficulties adjusting to the new situation and run away.  I said I had traced her - I didn't say how - to the warehouse and rescued her.

"But that was months ago, Sampson!  Do you realize how much time you've wasted?"  I didn't want them to know how frightened I had been of dealing with that briefcase.  I had successfully forgotten about that particular ugliness until we moved and it showed up.  Like a bad penny.  But this FBI guy was a real asshole.  And he was scared, too.

"Well, I figured you were still sifting the evidence you got from that child molester's house you had under observation for all those years," I shot back.  The FBI had taken public credit for putting away Gary, when it had been handed to them on a silver platter.  That kind of positive PR meant billions of dollars in increased funding.

"Fuck you!"

I didn't answer.

"Why did you wait so long, son?"  CIA was more intelligent, smoother.  Still an asshole.

"It wasn't part of my mission."

"I don't understand.  Was this an official mission?" he asked, turning to my old director.

He shook his head, then looked at me.  "If I may?" he asked.

I nodded.

"Mr. Sampson's mission, as he had been trained to defined it, was to recover the young girl.  Our agents are trained to be focused, mission specific.  I'm surprised he brought out the case at all, to be truthful.  It shows a break in his training."  He looked at me with a raised eyebrow.  That look had ended more than one career, and they had been damned good agents.

"It wasn't entirely voluntary, Sir, as I recall.  I remember I couldn't find the door, I remember my head kept turning to face the corner this case was hidden in.  The girl later told me she was tugging my ear, turning me so I would find it.  This was her find, not mine."

"That would be Miss Le Brech, the young girl, right?  Dr. Schwartz has said some very nice things about her."

"Yes.  Simone.  She is my stepdaughter now.  She wasn't at that time."

"Very nice for you, I'm sure.  Can we get back to the fucking point?"  Mr. FBI again.  "You're telling me that you didn't have any idea what was in the case?  I find that hard to believe!"

I shrugged.  Fuck him.  But something wasn't right.  Suddenly, the stench of panic in the room made sense.

"God damn it!  You bastards didn't have a clue.  Even after I handed you that guy's house and all those tapes, all the pictures and the dead fucking bodies.  I'm right, aren't I?  You're all sitting here chewing on my ass because I'm the only one who has any god damn fucking clue what's going on.  Oh, God help us!"

I looked at them accusingly, demanding a response.  Finally the scary one nodded.

"What the press, what no one outside of a very, very small circle knows is that the funerals that were televised were almost all staged.  No one had missed those 34 girls.  No one had ever reported them gone.  No one."

"What about..."  I stopped myself.  I had taken the tapes and photos of Miki.  But she was only one.

"What you uncovered has shaken the foundations of the law enforcement community to its very core.  That such a massive and hideous crime could have been committed in the very heart of one of the safest major communities in the country and never been noticed, is... is..." Spooky couldn't finish.

"Sampson, you're being reactivated."  My old director, quietly.

"Fuck you."  I wasn't about to let this get dumped on my lap.

"This isn't a request."

"You can't... You wouldn't..."  I saw the set of his face.  "Oh, shit!  As what?"

"As a Free Agent."

"This isn't fucking baseball.  What the Hell is a 'free' agent."

Spooky took over.  "Well, we're not really sure, exactly.  Currently, you're the only one there is.  You'll have just this case.  That's it.  Take what you need, from anybody here.  You will have our full, unquestioning support.  Do what you need to do.  Just wrap it up.  Quietly.  Quickly.  And let us know when you're done."  Spooky shrugged.  He couldn't say anymore.  I didn't think they would want any written reports.  I also knew without them saying, that there would be complete deniability if anything went wrong.  Hell, what was I thinking, 'if'....

I stared at Spooky for a long minute.  Then I looked at them all, one by one.  To their credit, each one looked me in the eye.  They knew they had just made me the judge, jury and executioner of tens, maybe hundreds of men and women.  007 in spades.  A license to kill.

"I've been known to make a bit of a mess," I stated.  Understated, actually.  I think I almost got a smile out of my old director, but I wasn't trying to make a joke.

"There won't be any problems.  Just not too many civilians, if it can be helped."  That was Mr. Tact from the FBI again.  I think he was actually trying to make me feel better.

I stood, towering over him.  "I have NEVER involved civilians, you mother fucker.  I don't burn children in farmhouses or communes and I don't break down fucking doors of unarmed civilian's homes and steal little children at gunpoint.  And if you say one more fucking word, YOU will be the first casualty in this war you are asking me to wage.  Quietly and quickly.  Do you fucking understand me, you incompetent asshole?"  I was a little miffed.

After several minutes of silence I packed up the evidence in the briefcase and started out the door.  The meeting was over.  All except the...

"Mr. Sampson, a moment, please?"  I was surprised.  It wasn't my old director.

We waited while the other three men left.  I turned to face the spook.  He apparently was my new boss.

He looked at me for a minute, measuring me.  "This is hard for you, isn't it."  It wasn't a question.  He said it softly.  He knew from experience.

"I look at it the other way.  It's too easy."

He was silent, agreeing with me.  "I'm sorry it has to be this way.  No publicity, no bodies, no noise.  That's the main reason we chose you.  You don't burn kids or break down doors.  You don't like it.  But you'll do the job, and do it right.

"You have to understand.  There are too many cities in this country where the police departments are hanging on to their credibility and their respectability by their fingernails.  A crime of this magnitude, at this point in time, making them look totally incompetent, unable to protect the populace, would be the last straw for too many of the marginal departments.  And honestly, we're not sure that some of them haven't been compromised, and are involved in this in some way.  But we don't know.  We just fucking don't know.

"I don't have to tell you that if word of this got out, neither the states nor the Feds would be able to contain the rapid spread of violence and anarchy.  Needless to say, don't expect any help from the locals."

"What help can I expect?"

"You will have complete and total access to every piece of information I get.  I get it all."  This guy was beginning to scare even me.  No one had that kind of access.

"How do I contact you?"

"Your contact will be the Analyst you have used up until now.  We thought it would be easier that way.  Besides, as a result of reading your report and doing his own analysis, his security clearance is now as high as it gets.  He, or someone like him, will be on the other end of your phone 24/7."  He paused.  "That was a good piece of analysis, by the way."

I somehow knew that was high praise coming from him.

"Other support?"

"Clean up will be on demand.  Just tell him where.  Then get out.  You are never to come back here again.  He has your equipment, computer, phone, all the usual toys.  Anything else you need, just ask him."

I nodded my head.

"No other questions, Mr. Sampson?"

"Not that I can think of."

"You don't want to know who I am?"

I looked at him for a moment.  "Not really.  I don't think so, no."

He smiled sadly.  "I know what you mean."  He thought a moment.  "What tipped you off?  What made you make the link with that particular group?"

The memory of the dark basement under Gary's house flooded over me again.  I had known then, I just hadn't pieced it together yet.  "The graves.  I'd seen them before.  Over there."

He nodded.  There was no substitute for fieldwork.  We left the room together.  The Analyst waylaid me before I could say anything else to him and he slipped out, a shadow.

"Holy Shit, man!  You hit the fucking jackpot!  Do you know how high my clearance is now?  Would you like to read the President's e-mail?  Launch a missile?  Damn, this is so scary, it's cool!"

He was having so much fun with his new toys I decided not to slug him.  That 'fucking jackpot' had cost countless lives.  I was going to have the unpleasant task of trying to account for them, somehow.  I listened carefully while he rhapsodized over the features of the new hardware that was already installed in his now ultra secure office.  Looking around, even I was impressed.

I'll say one thing, this spook guy didn't mess around.

Chapter 66

I was busy in the cellar of the new house going through those old photos Gary had taken of Sally.  I had stored them down there in one of the many empty spaces onf the cavernous cellar.  This time, though, as I went through them I wasn't looking at Sally.  I was looking at the faces of the men and women who had been with her.  They hadn't been important to me before, but now, if I was right, they were part of a group of professionals who had stuck together, all there at the beginning.  I believed that at least the core group of them had known or known of each other in their former lives in espionage and they would tend to stick together now.

These people would have been the 'true believers,' the fanatics who wouldn't care how they hurt America, as long as they hurt her.  Their politicians had long ago realized the error of their system and moved on.  The tool they created with those fucking policies, these trained agents, remained to fight blindly on.  It was all they knew, and all they believed in, now that their own system had collapsed.

I was down in the files because there was this niggling suspicion that I had seen one of the men before.  It wasn't a strong feeling, but it drove me into the basement to these archives.  It still sickened me to look at the way Sally had been used.

I figured, with the time lag and all, that Sally had been one of the early experiments for this group of kidnappers and murderers.  That was why Gary took his time with her, seducing her into bondage slowly over a period of months.  They were feeling their way, how much they could get away with, how far they could push her.  They may not have even had the conscious thought of doing anything organized as yet.  That would explain them allowing the photographs of themselves.

My theory was that the photos of themselves had been a careless mistake, which meant they probably hadn't started routinely killing the women and girls yet.  This was just a lark, humiliating the rich American women, abusing them and making them beg for it.  The killing would come later.  You don't take incriminating pictures of yourself having bondage sex with someone who you intended to murder or snuff.

The photos they took were also thorough.  I could attach a face to every body or part of a body in the photos.  Even the photographer took a self-portrait in the mirror.  I was surprised.  It was a woman.  I spent a long time looking at that hard-edged face.  I suppose you could have called her pretty once, but I was repulsed by the hollowness of her eyes.  Unless I missed my guess, she was the brains behind this.  A heartless bitch.  I studied her carefully.  I wanted to make sure I would know her if I ever saw her.

It was probably the photos that started it.  They discovered how easily they could sell them and make money.  From there they just took the path of least resistance, filling the sordid demands for more and more graphic and violent pictures.  I hoped it was an accident, the one death that started it all.  With this group, though, I didn't think so.  It had gotten to that point too quickly.

I was working intently on the files, so I didn't hear Janey and Simone come into the room next door.  Sally and Nicole had discovered the access to the dungeon from our bedroom.  They had taken the next step and had converted an even larger part of the basement into a 'dungeon' that could hold all of our equipment.  They didn't want everyone traipsing through our bedroom to get here, so they provided access to the dungeon from the other parts of the basement as well.

With two to four 'slaves' to deal with at any one time, we needed multiples of most of the specialty devices and, even with the huge space they had created, it felt crowded at times.  Most of the bigger pieces were on rollers and were stored in another part of the room.  The girls had rolled a couple of pieces into the dungeon and were setting up for a session before I heard them talking.

"Gosh, Simmie, it's great that you agreed to help me.  I really need the practice," Janey said.  That was the first I heard them speaking.

"Uh, yeah, OK.  Just remember you agreed to, uh, you know..."

Janey giggled.  "Yeah, I remember.  Where did you get that huge thing anyway?"

I moved to stand in the doorway between the two rooms.  Janey was facing me and grinned as she saw me.  Simone had her back turned to me and wouldn't have seen me anyway.  Janey had just finished putting a blindfold over her eyes.  Simone was fidgeting, shifting nervously from foot to foot.  Not wanting to spy on their session, I reached out to Simone with my link, and asked her if it was alright for me to stay and watch.  I saw her relax and could feel her approval, even without her sending back a positive 'Yes' over the link.  She also asked me not to let Janey know that she knew I was there.  This could be interesting.

Simone answered Janey's question.  "It's one of Aunt Marion's toys.  She has me use it on her sometimes."

"You sure it will fit?  It's awfully big"

"It will fit."

"Are you sure?  How can you know?  I'd think it would tear you in two!"

"It's the same size as JT's, if you must know."

"God!  Really?  Oh!  So, that means you two are, are, doing it?"

Simone actually blushed.  "Yeah.  For a while now.  But he's been at that advanced placement summer school at the university for a couple of weeks and, well, I miss him and his, umm, thing.  I almost suspect that Papa arranged for him to 'win' that scholarship."

Damn, that kid was smart.  I had used two dummy corporations to set up that scholarship for JT.  And she still figured it out.

"You think Dad's trying to keep you two apart?"

"Oh, no!  I know Papa likes him.  Very much so.  Remember, I was supposed to go to that course, too, before JT even knew about the award.  Then I couldn't go because of the stuff with Gertie.  It's a great opportunity for JT even if I have to go without being fucked by him for a while."

"My, my, JT seems to have progressed a lot in that department."  As Janey and Simone talked, Janey had been preparing Simone.  After slipping off her robe, leaving her nude and blindfolded, she had tied her wrists and ankles to a large upright stand.  Simone was secured in an 'X' shape with all of her considerable charms exposed.  Janey had made sure I had a total view of all of Simone's lovely features.  Like I said, they were considerable.

"Yes, he has done quite well for a virgin.  I will have to ask Papa for another case of condoms soon."

"Another case?  Geez, you're only supposed to use one at a time, Simmie.  Besides, you're on the pill aren't you?"

"I know to use just one.  Don't be silly.  JT is so concerned about me not getting pregnant that he insists on using one.  He is so cute that way, taking the responsibility for protection that I haven't had the heart to tell him I am on the pill.  Besides, he is so anxious to please me, he does it five or six times."

"A day?"

"In a row!  It is wonderful, Janey.  I had no idea.  But surely, you and Papa have done it that often, no?  He is so virile and strong."  Simone knew Janey and I had never had sex, so I wondered what was going on.  Uncharacteristically, Janey didn't pick up on her teasing.

Janey got very still for a minute, then, looking directly up at me, answered Simone in a very serious tone.  "Dad and I have never done it, Simmie."  She hurried to explain.  "I know, I know.  We tease each other a lot, and he could if he wanted to.  At least, I think he could.  I'm not so sure now.

"I know Mom told you and Nicki about our agreement that he could, well, have sex with me.  But he never has.  For a while I thought he didn't like me, or that he was afraid that Mom would get mad or something.  But I realized later that the purpose of the whole agreement was for me to get over what that boy did to me, and for me to want to have sex and to like it.

"Dad is really smart.  He teased me into liking myself again.  God, he was awful.  He made me play with myself in front of him and Mom once.  It was so embarrassing, but I could tell he was turned on watching me and that made me feel, well, special, kind of.  In a weird sort of way.  He treated me just the same as Mom, most of the times when we did family things or bondage stuff, only he didn't make love to me.  He has licked me and touched me all over and he drove me up the wall with those crazy toys from the Rosen Clinic.

"If his objective was to make me want to have sex, he succeeded."  Janey smiled over at me when she said this.  "In fact, more than he knows.  But, well, to answer your question, so far I can only imagine what it will be like to be with a man.  Some day and with the right man.  But I'm happy for you and JT."

She stopped her seriousness, in part because Simone was grinning.  "So, how did you get JT to finally do it?  He was so shy and all."  I guess she was going to try and turn the tables on her.

Now it was Simone's turn to be silent for a moment.  "I think Papa had a lot to do with that, too.  As much as I tried, I couldn't get JT to look at me hardly.  I knew he liked me, he kept coming over and was always hanging around me.  But he would get all embarrassed and flustered then run away somewhere.  Then he came up to the house and talked to Papa one afternoon while I was gone.  You remember they told us about the basketball game with Mama and Sally?"

"Yeah, that was funny.  I think your Mom kind of liked teaching him."

"I was kind of upset with Mama for that.  JT said he thought she was going to rape him or something, then realized she was just playing.  But she did get him started, so I guess I forgive her.  The first time he grabbed my boobies in a basketball game I think I had an orgasm.  I couldn't do anything but stand there and quiver.  He was so worried he had hurt me or done something wrong.  He had tried to be so smooth.

"I let him help me over to the side of the court.  Oh, Janey, I was shameless.  I leaned into him, then held on to him, rubbing my chest all over his.  He could have had me then and there, I was so horny.  I could feel his hardness against my tummy and it made me all tingly.  I moved my leg between his and pressed it up against his cock.  Then I moved it back and forth.

"He groaned and then pulled away, ashamed because he had spurt his stuff in his pants.  I wouldn't let him go.  I was so amazed when he didn't get soft."

"So what happened?  How did you get him to screw you?"

"It took much planning on my part.  It was fun, too.  I didn't let Mama near him again, because I wanted to teach him.  I wanted to learn, too.  Don't misunderstand, Mama didn't mean to interfere, I just wanted to do it myself."

"And....?" Janey said, impatiently.

"Well, we played a lot of basketball.  He got better at touching me.  He got very good, in fact.  He seemed to like my butt.  I don't know why.  Anyway, I spent a lot of time backing into him with it, feeling his hard cock pressing up between us.  Then there was the kissing, and he could hold both my ass cheeks in his big hands.  I thought he would rub them raw some days.

"Then one day I let my hand touch his cock.  It was so cute.  He froze stiff, with his tongue in my mouth and his hands on my butt.  He gave a little groan and then tried to suck my tonsils out.  God, it was exciting.  I wanted to taste it, him, so I slipped my finger into his shorts and found the gooey wet stuff.  When I put my finger in my mouth, he ran away.  I was afraid I had done something to offend him.  He said later that he had been so upset because he wanted to put his cock where my finger was.  I asked him if he still wanted to.  He cried when I licked him.  I like how he tasted.  He even kissed me after.  I was surprised, but very pleased.

"Next, I let him take off my shirt.  He liked it when I wore a bra, so he could take that off, too.  Tittie fucking was the next step.  He got so excited when he would come in my mouth that way that he would squeeze my boobies really hard.  They would be sore for days.  It was wonderful.  I could just roll over in bed and remember his big hands on them.

"Once, when he saw the marks he had made with his fingers, he was so sorry.  He kissed them to make them feel better.  Boy, did that work!  With only a little encouragement from me, he was soon finding his way down to my slit.  That took a lot of practice, to get him to do it right.  I even shaved off the hairs to tease him.  It drove him wild when he saw me bare like a little girl.  Papa is right, it is better that way, with the woman shaved.

"Anyway, from there we went to the sixty-nine position.  JT could eat me for hours, and stay hard the whole time.  It was amazing, but I still wanted him to fuck me.  He wouldn't until he had protection.  He couldn't ask his Mom, so I asked Papa.  We've been doing it ever since, almost everyday, and it is wonderful.  He is a good lover.  But I don't want to marry him."

I think she said that last part for my benefit.  She had just described the total debauchery of a young innocent lad, then basically said it was a science project.  I wondered how JT felt about her.  Janie must have been thinking along the same lines.

"How does JT feel about you?"

"We have discussed this.  He likes the sex, but knows this is not love.  We are very good friends, sex is something we both like.  But he is not the man for me.  And I am not the woman for him.  I am too strong, and he is strong, too, like Papa.  He needs someone like Mama.  I will talk to Papa.  Maybe he will let JT come to stay with us for a while, to learn from him.  And his Mom, too.  She's hot!  Do you think Papa would like JT's Mom?"

"God, Simmie, don't you think he's got enough with our two Moms?  And, yeah, she is hot.  I saw her when she came to pick JT up once and she was just wearing shorts and a t-shirt.  I hadn't realized how built she was.  Good luck talking Mom and Nicole into sharing him with another woman.  But I think you're right.  JT could learn from Dad.  Maybe it would get Dad out of his mood.  Have you noticed how serious he has been lately?"

She was still looking at me while she worked on Simone.  I hadn't meant to let this secret agent stuff affect them at home, but it obviously had.  I know it affected me.  Killing people, even bad people who deserve it, is nasty business.  I don't know about other people, but I died a little with each one.  And looking at the pictures, I was looking at a task that would mean a lot more killing.  I was astounded at the number of different partners who had had Sally during her time with Gary.  Some of them may have been clients.  But most of the men, and women had had that hard-edged look I knew so well.  Jaded, aloof, as if they were dead inside emotionally.  There were close to 50 different faces, and those were only the ones in the pictures.  How many others were there who hadn't been with Sally during the startup?

Simone got really quiet.  She was uneasy about the question and Janey knew she knew something.

"Come on, Simmie.  What do you know?"

"I- I- can't say.  Just that Papa is working again."  She paused, "I don't think he likes what he is going to do."

"Huh?  What do you mean?  He has always worked.  For that financial thingy.  Building shopping centers like The Guild and stuff.  And if he doesn't like it, why does he do it?"

"It's called a Real Estate Venture Capital Investment Corporation, not a 'thingy.'  Geez, Janey.  Anyway, he's not doing that anymore right now.  He's working for the government again, with Gertie.  And I, well, I can't say anymore."

"Come on, Sim.  Give.  Pleeeeese," Janey begged.  But no matter how much she wheedled, and she was good, Simone wouldn't say anymore.

"Tell me what you and Bala have been doing, Janey.  You have been over there a lot, lately."  Simone was trying to change the subject.  I thought that was a good idea.

"I don't know that I should, since you're keeping secrets from me," she giggled.  "But what the heck.  I guess I can be the bigger person."

"You are the bigger person - OUCH!"  Simone yelped as Janey smacked her on the bare bottom with her hand for her smart remark.  "OK, OK, I'm sorry!"

They laughed together, their differences put aside.  While they had been talking, Janey had been working on Simone, wrapping what looked to be fishing line all over her body, from her head to toes.  The line wasn't too tight so as to cut off circulation, but it still looked like Simone was wearing a quilted skin made of small patches of triangles and squares.

Janey told Simone what she had been learning from Bala.  "I like to help Bala prepare for her special times with Amud.  They are so in love.  I was brushing her hair one night and watched as she carefully took each hair from her brush and put it in a special drawer.  There wasn't very much in there.  I asked her what it was for, keeping her hair like that.  I thought it was religious or something.

"Bala told me that the hair was every woman's dream.  She seemed quite surprised I didn't know about it, then realized again that I hadn't grown up in her culture.  She seemed shy about telling me, but finally did.

"The hair is saved for a special occasion.  So special that most women never get to have one.  While this is not reserved for the royalty, it is an event called the 'Queen's Tears.'  When the drawer is full of the woman's hair, a servant comes in and weaves the hair into long thin strands.  Then, on that special night, the strands of hair are wrapped around the woman kind of like I have done to you with Dad's fishing line."  Janey glanced over at me and shrugged in a belated apology.  I wondered where she had gotten the fishing line.  I didn't think she even knew what a sporting goods store was.

"Then," as she finished an intricate weave on Simone's breasts that kept me staring and aroused, "another woman, one with a special title, uses a light whip and teases the bound woman to unimaginable heights of ecstasy, according to Bala."  Janey sounded disbelieving and wistful at the same time.

Janey picked up a light crop and swished it a couple of times.  "I need the practice.  I have used the whip on Bala a couple of times and, although she says she enjoyed it, I could tell I didn't please her.  It wasn't quite right.  I just can't seem to sense what or where the next step is."  She stepped up to the spread-eagled girl.  "I hope you can help me, Simone.  I want to give Bala a special gift for her birthday next week."

"As long as I get fucked," Simone replied.  Her crude language told me that she was already being affected by the entire process.  Her level of arousal was high and climbing.

I stopped short suddenly as I recognized a familiar pattern.  Only he had used chicken wire and it was so tight I was afraid the patches of raised skin on my arms would burst.  It was in one of those middle African countries, one of those 'Dictator of the Month' countries.  The government had switched in the middle of an operation and so had the guy I was working with.  All of a sudden this bastard pulls out a cannon and points it at my head.  We had been having lunch and discussing the next phase of the operation.  Apparently, the coupe had taken place at 12:30.  So, one minute we were having chicken salad, the next I was in the chicken coop, with my arms fastened to the arms of a chair with chicken wire.

I don't know what he was trying to prove, other than to look good for his new bosses and proving to them he was really on their side, but to be honest I didn't care and didn't want to stick around to find out what his particular reasons were.  All I cared about what that he had forgotten to tie my feet.  He died.

But the experience of that never left me.  I had just never found a good excuse to use it on anyone else.  What I knew was that each of those puffy patches of skin on Simone was now in a highly sensitive state.  What I had experienced was extreme pain, the constrictions pulled so tightly that it nearly cut off all blood flow.  Tied less tightly, as the fishing line was, the blood was allowed to flow into each patch, but less able to flow out.  This accentuated the puffiness of the patches and was particularly notable on the soft tissues of her breasts.  Simone's nipples were rock hard and very large.

I knew immediately that Janey faced two problems by practicing on Simone.  One was Simone herself.  I knew Simone was stronger on the link than Janey.  Almost as strong as myself, in many ways.  I sensed that Simone was actually guiding Janey with her own link, having her use the crop on her for her own immediate gratification.  I didn't think that was the purpose of this particular exercise.  But what finally helped me decide to step in was Simone's attitude.  It wasn't that she was making fun of Janey or anything, it's that she wasn't being submissive to her.  For someone tied up and blindfolded, she was quite demanding.

The other problem that Janey faced was with herself.  She just couldn't see the 'lights' that she needed to see so she could do it correctly.  I could see them.  God, Simone was practically glowing.  I could tell Simone was directing her to push enough of the lights together so she could cum.  I had discovered that by stirring up the lights, keeping them moving and apart was extremely arousing for the woman.  Whipping too hard extinguished a light.  The object was to keep things stirred up.

Janey was having a hard time of it.  I stepped up behind her quietly and focused on her link.  That was when I sensed Simone was really playing with her.  I stopped that by putting a shield around Janey.  Simone knew I had blocked her and suddenly she wasn't so demanding.  I think she was a little scared, too.  Good.

I 'asked' Janey over the link if I could help her and she indicated I could.  I hadn't tried this before or anything like it, but I let myself slip into Janey.  I wanted to 'see' through her eyes and maybe show her what to look for.

I was totally unprepared for the cacophony I sexuality I encountered in her mind.  It was no wonder she couldn't focus with all this arousal.  Everything she touched, felt, saw, tasted or smelled was associated in some way with sex.  Or with her sexual nature.  Sally had understated it when she said that she and Janey were sexual beings.  I couldn't imagine being so constantly bombarded.  It was amazing she could get anything done other that masturbation.

I felt her recoil in fear.  I thought I had gone too far, but she assured me she was alright.  What I had not realized was that I would not be the only one experiencing this sharing.  She was amazed at the silence of my mind, where I was.  Everything she looked for was there, it was just deadened, or repressed.  That was her word for it.  I preferred to think of it as keeping things under control.

I opened her eyes to the lights dancing around Simone.  At first she didn't understand what they were for, as they were always there.  She had seen them before, but then, she had always seen them.  Sort of.  Like air, I guess.  It's always there and you just take if for granted.  So even though she saw them, she never really saw them.

Now she did.  I showed her how to move them around.  I showed her how to keep them all together, but not touching.  The lights seemed to grow, to feed on each other.  Janey learned quickly, and soon I was able to pull back out of her mind.  I watched her deftly and surely put Simone in a state of mind that had her babbling incoherent sounds and grunts.

The Queen's Tears required that the woman be one stoke shy of unconsciousness and without orgasm.  Then the King would enter the room and enter the Queen.  The legend had it that the effect on the Queen would last for years, leaving her a submissive and willing wife for the King.  Given that many of the Queens had been surgically altered to prevent their arousal, this long lasting effect was commonly attributed to be a myth.

After watching Simone, I wasn't sure.  I left before Janey used the strap-on artificial JT on her.

Chapter 67

I wandered upstairs, leaving the two teens in the dungeon.  I needed to find Sally or Nicole or both.  Watching the two girls had been extremely arousing and I needed relief.

I was attacked in the kitchen.  Both women had been experiencing Simone's arousal with her through their links.  Both were very aroused and very frustrated.  Simone had still not cum and thus these two were in almost as aroused a state as the poor girl in the dungeon.

It was brutal but satisfying for all of us.  I took Sally first, nailing her against the kitchen wall.  Nicole was pressed up tight behind me, touching both of us, urging both of us to finish together.  And quickly.  I let Sally almost get to her climax, then I pulled out of her.  Her cry of anguish almost made me rethink and let her finish, but her co-wife deserved a little of this, too.

I took Nicole bent over the kitchen table.  Again, I wasn't gentle and she didn't complain.  Sweat was pouring off of both of us by this time, adding to the slippery sliding of our bodies.  Nicole would grunt each time I pounded into her.  I briefly wondered where Sally was, and saw her collapsed in a puddle on the floor.  She looked as if she had just slid down the wall when I wasn't supporting her on my prick anymore.  Her eyes were open and she watched in amazement as I pounded into Nicole.

Just as Nicole's grunts began to turn into a continuous howl of cumming, I pulled out of her.  It was a different kind of howl now, and as a very base level, it pleased me.

I took them both to our bedroom and tied them side by side on the bed, their hands over their heads, their legs spread.  I then proceeded to fuck first one, then the other, always to the point of climax, but not beyond.  Somehow I knew that neither of them should finish before Simone did.  They knew, too, deep down, but that didn't make it any easier for them.

When Janey finally let Simone climax, I thought the house would come down.  I was between fucks, letting one of them cool down to the point where I could fuck into her again when both of them went rigid.  I quickly released them and they sandwiched me between them as they came, holding me and each other tightly.  I thought it would be over in a while, but it wasn't.  Simone kept cumming and cumming in the dungeon, pushing Janey, Nicole and Sally over as well.  Janey had discovered the beneficial effect of being on the other end of the strap-on, and was fucking the living shit out of Simone, as Simone described it later.  In hushed and reverent tones.

As the tsunami subsided and the aftershocks faded away, Sally looked at me and said simply, "We want that, too."  I felt Nicole's head nodding her eager assent on my shoulder.  I was unsure if Janey would do Sally, but I felt sure I could convince her to do Nicole.  If Simone watched, and Janey helped, I figured that I could have Simone do Sally.

Simone and Janey slipped upstairs to their bedroom a little time later, with Janey supporting and almost carrying the drained teenager.  However, Simone couldn't have been all that tired as we soon felt Janey thrashing over the link as Simone repeatedly expressed her appreciation for giving her the experience of the Queen's Tears.  With all that noise coming over the link, Sally and Nicole decided it would be a good idea just to stay in bed for the rest of the day.

I didn't object.

We had played so hard the day before and most of the night that I was surprised to wake up alone the next morning.  My two minxes had been so aggressive sexually that I had to finally restrain them with the ropes before we could get some sleep.  They had released themselves sometime before I woke up and were now nowhere to be found.

I found the four of them in the kitchen.  After the events of the day before, I didn't expect to see such long faces.  Simone was nervous, but was still subservient to Janey.  She was kneeling by her chair and would continually look up to see if there was anything she needed or wanted.

Nicole was scared.  Whatever it was, she was frightened.  Sally was shaken as well, but had a better grip on her emotions.  Janey was the only one who was calm and quiet.  But something was wrong.

I looked at Janey and suddenly, I knew.  "Janey,..." I began.

"We're FAMILY, Dad.  You shouldn't make decisions like that without talking to us about it."

Wait a minute!  How did this get to be my fault?  "Janey, you shouldn't have told them.  I didn't exactly 'tell' you, did I?"

"That doesn't make any difference.  What were you going to do?  Give us all a kiss good-bye and go off and get yourself killed?"

This was worse than I thought.  "I am going to try very hard not to get killed.  Shit, Janey, how much did you tell them?"

"Almost everything, Papa," chimed in Simone.

Three sets of eyes wheeled on the girl.  "What!  There's more?" cried Nicole.

"She didn't tell them why you're going to do this," Simone said quietly, her head down.  I saw a tear escape from the corner of her eye and slip sadly down her cheek.  My heart ached for her, accepting the blame for my actions.  But she was wrong.  Yes, I was doing if for her.  And Miki.  And Sally and Janey and Nicole.  And the 33 other lost souls that were buried in Gary's basement along with Miki.  And the countless others who had not yet been discovered.  And so on.  And so on.

We were all crying when I was done.  Janey hadn't realized my doing this was not up for debate or discussion.  I think she was sufficiently chastised by the time we were done.  I had not tried to hide this from them.  I was trying to protect them, and they all understood a little of the weight I had been shouldering for the past several weeks.

I think what made Janey realize her mistake was when Sally quietly asked her if she felt better knowing or if she had felt better yesterday, before she had known.  Sally's question implied that, whether or not she knew what was going on, I was going to do it.  It was a lesson in growing up she needed to learn.  Sometimes it isn't good to know everything.  Just trust the one you love to do the right thing.

Then Sally got down to business and took charge.  I was charged with getting Nicole and Simone proficient in handguns, as I had done with the two of them after the gun accident earlier.  I thought Nicole was going to protest, but went along with the training.  She was a pretty good shot and preferred the heavier pieces.  When I commented she might be more comfortable with a lighter gun, she retorted that if she had to use it, she didn't want to be comfortable.  She wanted the bastard to be dead.

Simone shied away from the guns.  Sure, she went through the training and was a decent shot, but her heart wasn't in it.  The she saw a rifle I had down in the basement firing range.  It was an old 30.06 with a hell of kick.  Simone fell in love with the idea of not letting the bastards get close.  I set her up with a smaller 9mm rifle with a long barrel and scoped it with one of the specialty scopes from the agency.  It used an infra-red laser that was invisible to the naked eye but that could be seen though the scope.  It worked in any light, and, in case the batteries went dead, it was also a decent scope by itself.

Simone was a dead shot with her rifle.  There wasn't a spot on the grounds she couldn't hit from at least one window in the house.  Gertie got her a silencer from somewhere when she found out from Simone what was going on.  I thought it a strange gift for a young girl and told her so.  I was politely told to mind my own business.

Sally had a discrete early warning system installed on the grounds.  I didn't even want to know where she got the high tech and classified stuff that was being installed at an alarming rate in and around the house.  I do know it made me feel better that they felt better about doing something.

Somewhere in all of this chaos, Janey, Simone and Nicole disappeared into the dungeon for Janey to practice the Queen's Tears one more time.  I had anticipated that Janey would use a strap-on as she had with Simone, so I was a bit unprepared when the two teens carried a nearly catatonic Nicole up to my office and deposited her on the desk.  Then they turned and left, to take care of their own selfish needs, no doubt.

I could see from the swirling of the lights that Nicole was about to explode.  Janey had learned well.  In fact, I had never seen Nicole in this state before.  In truth, I had never seen any woman in this state.  The lights just swirled and swirled around.  There was a little ebb and flow, but I knew that they wouldn't diminish.  If nothing was done, Nicole would slowly, but surely, go crazy.  Her mind was totally focused on her satisfaction and would remain there.  If satisfaction was withheld, she would go nuts, to use a highly technical term.

I stood looking at the quivering woman silently.  Sally slipped in quietly dressed in her coat and carrying her purse.

"I'm taking the girls away for the weekend, Larry," was all she said.  I nodded agreement, not realizing until later that it was only Tuesday.

Believe me, we needed the time.  Nicole needed a lot of satisfaction.

Something happened in our relationship after that.  Nicole had been submissive before, and was, as far as I could tell, in love with me.  As I was in love with her.  But now, after that experience, she became devoted to me.  It is a subtle difference, I know, but she was now absolutely unquestioning when I asked her for something or to do something.  There was an anxious willingness to her that hadn't been there before.

Nicole and Simone took Sally down shortly after they returned, the same night Janey went over to Amud and Bala's.  Again, they left me to deal with a highly charged woman.  The two of them went back to their apartment for the week, cleaning it out for sale.  Nicole didn't need or want to keep it anymore.

Sally turned out to be needier than Nicole had been.  And more demanding.  I sort of liked the sexual aggression she began to exhibit.  Not that she was dominating, just very demanding.  We spent most of our long weekend in the dungeon using some of the equipment I had shied away from.  Nothing was too severe for her, it seemed.  The tighter the bondage, the stiffer the whip, the tighter the clamps the more she begged for more.  And more.

Sally was a mass of bruises and welts by the time the other three returned.  I had used the most judicious use of force I could, but Sally had craved no limits.  Nothing was broken, but I was seriously shaken by her tolerance of what I had done to her.  I was dreading the reunion as my brutality would be evident to them.

Nicole embraced Sally tightly in the doorway, causing I can only imagine how much pain to the injured Sally.  They clung to each other silently, then Nicole came over to me and knelt at my feet.  Sally quietly joined her, the two of them holding each other's hands as they knelt there.  No words were spoken, but they were telling me by their actions that there were no recriminations.  They were mine, totally.  Absolutely.  No questions.

It was scary.

What was even scarier was Amud and Bala's next visit.  It was obvious they were shaken by the experience Janey had given Bala, but I had not realized how much I had given Janey when I 'helped' her out.

Bala stayed on her knees, her head to the floor the entire visit.  While she had a very nice ass that I had always enjoyed looking at, I did miss her face.  OK, just a little.  But it was unusual for her to be so quiet.  She never left Amud's side, leaving him to do all the explaining.

"Janey has been given a very special gift," he began.  "She told us how you 'opened her eyes' to the lights, but even then, she would have had to have the ability within her to begin with.  We do not wish to diminish your part of this great gift, but my loving Bala is insistent on bestowing the title of 'Yama' on the young girl."

He looked questioningly down at his bowing wife.  "Never before has one so young received this title.  These women, most treasured and so few, have always been older, much older by decades.  So it has been since the beginnings of our people.  But there can be no question.  Yama Janey has the gift of the Queen's Tears."

He looked at me seriously.  "You must realize what this means to my people.  There has not been a Yama in generations.  Women have collected their hair for centuries, lately in the faint hope a Yama would appear.  There will be great rejoicing in my country, and the neighboring kingdoms."

"Do you expect Janey to go over there?"  I asked him.

"It is beyond hope that such a thing would happen.  My beloved and myself cannot ourselves return to our own country, so how will Janey go?  But it will bring hope to women who have never given up hoping.  A Yama exists.  That is all they need to know.  Most of them could never afford the ceremony anyway.  But now, it is possible."

"The ceremony is expensive?" I asked stupidly.

Amud looked at me like a slow child, then down at Bala.  "Yama Janey has given me a gift more precious than my life.  What price could I refuse her?  Whatever I have is hers."  Thinking on my own experience with Sally and Nicole, I had to admit, he had a point.

Janey and Simone entered the family room at that point.  It was the only time Bala moved from her devoted position beside Amud all night.  Bala embraced the surprised Janey fiercely, putting more emotion into that one hug than Janey was prepared for.  Then, as Amud explained again the honor being bestowed on her, Bala presented her with an amulet that was to be worn in typical mideastern fashion with the stone at the center of her forehead.

Janey was about to refuse the gift until Amud explained that the amulet was not a gift.  It was the symbol of a Yama.  There were only three known to exist.  This particular one had belonged to Bala's family, a great-great-great-grandaunt or something.  The stones were expected to be passed along regardless of family lineage whenever a woman with the gift was discovered.  Nothing, not war, not politics, not boundaries, was to stop the presenting of the amulet.

With a maturity far beyond her years, Janey graciously accepted the adornment.  Solemnly she fit it over her head.  The stone nestled softly between her eyes on her forehead.  I know it sounds weird, but standing there wearing that stone like a crown, she looked like a queen.  I had the sudden vision of my Janey standing in some far away land, not coming home every night and it felt like a vise had my heart in its grasp.  I had to blink several times as my eyes kept watering for some reason.

Allergies, I guess.

Chapter 67

The next week another local girl went missing.  Again, it was quiet and if they hadn't been looking for it, she would have gone completely unnoticed.  As it was, this poor girl was only missed because she had made a regular volunteer Saturday at the animal shelter.  Once a month, like clockwork.  When she didn't show up, someone asked a question, then a report was filed.  And forgotten.  Almost.

An hour later, I was standing in Gertie's office.  As I looked around, I noticed there had been some subtle and some not so subtle changes lately.  There was a new picture on her desk of a large young woman and a painfully bent young man.  They were happy.  The picture was in a silver frame with a soft blue velvet ribbon draped artfully over it.  The ribbon didn't detract from the frame or the photo, but highlighted the colors of the woman's dress, making her seem somehow attractive.  I recognized Simone's delicate touch.

I heard her clear her throat behind me.  It took me as second before I realized Gertie was in the same room with me and my eyes weren't watering.  No perfume!  I spun, astounded.  I was even more amazed at the transformation in her.  Make no mistake, she was still a large, large woman.  But she looked somehow less formidable.  Almost feminine, if I could be so bold.  I stared, speechless.

"Close your mouth, Mr. Sampson.  As nice as it is to have you silent, I assume you are here for a reason?"

Good old Gertie.  "I, uh, yes.  We have to talk."

"Is this official?  I got word of your activation.  Congratulations.  I think."  She, better than most people, knew what this was going to do to me.  My only hope was that she could patch me back up after.  Again.

"No, Gertie, this isn't official."

"Can it wait?  I have an appointment."

"At this hour?"  She blushed.  Then I noticed the make-up, lightly applied.  The fresh lipstick, artfully done.  Simone had been very busy, in deed!  Gertrude Schwartz, MD had a date or my name wasn't Lawrence Sampson.

"Can it wait?  Please?"  She was pleading with me.  This was unprecedented!

I shook my head.

Sighing, she picked up the telephone.  She dialed a four-digit extension.  Oh-ho!  A local boy, an intra office romance.  She turned her back to me for a brief and mostly whispered conversation.  I didn't try to hear.

She turned back to me, put her massive capable hands flat on the desk and lowered herself into her chair.

"I remember a fable from grade school," I started.  "A kindhearted woman is out for a walk on a cold winter's day.  She comes across a snake in the path, cold, freezing, dying.  Her heart goes out to the dying snake.  She picks it up, slips it inside her coat, and hurries home.  Over the next several days she would feed and cuddle the snake, and eventually the snake recovered.  One day following, as the woman picked up the snake and kissed him gently, the snake bit her on the neck.  The venom rushed to her brain, and the kindhearted woman fell to the ground, dying.  As she lay there, she gasped out to the snake,  'Why?  Why did you bite me?'  The snake replied, 'Because I'm a snake.  What did you expect?'"

Gertie sat there puzzled, then started to get up.  She looked angry.  I held up my hands, a plea for time.  She sat back down, but she glared.

"The American people have long held the medical profession in the highest esteem, and rightly so.  Years ago, family physicians made house calls, delivered countless babies in bedrooms, saved countless lives from sickness and pretty much wiped out serious diseases.  We owe our health and our lives to your profession.  We have been trained over the past generations to trust our doctors implicitly, without question.  We tell our doctors everything, from Aunt Peg's lumbago to crazy Uncle Willie's wooden leg.  We tell them when our family grows, when someone dies, and how it happens.

"The doctors moved from visiting us to us visiting them.  It made sense, it was more efficient.  They could help more of us, and there were certainly more of us that needed help.  The population was exploding.  The doctors needed hospitals.  Hospitals cost money to run.  Insurance companies were formed to cover the costs of the medical care.  Medicine became a business."

Gertie was getting madder, now.  This was her profession and she didn't like where this was headed.  But I needed her to hear this.  She had no idea where I was headed.  I held up my hands for patience once more.  I didn't think it would work again.  She was pissed. .

"Businesses run on information.  The information we entrust to hospitals is total, absolute.  They know where we live, where we work, how much money we make, how we are going to pay, credit card numbers, social security numbers, telephone numbers.  They know the size of our families and who to contact in case of emergency.  In short, the hospital databases contain all the information you would need to determine if you could safely make a person disappear."

"Mr. Sampson!  That's quite enough.  Those databases are secure!"

"Are they, now?  Suppose a person worked for a government agency in a sensitive position.  The FBI runs a security check on that person to the level appropriate to the position.  You know that.  And even with those measures, some of that secure information still gets out.

"Now suppose a group of people skilled in the art of subversion and seduction was suddenly out of a job.  Their government no longer needed them.  They immigrate to another country whose people welcomed them with open arms.  These kindhearted people just wanted to help these unfortunate souls.

"The immigrants are industrious, but this is not their country, not their culture, not their landsmen, not their laws.  Some of them gravitate to the shadier side of the law where they are more comfortable, where there is less competition.  Probably by accident, one of them meets or picks up a stray girl.  They take her in.  Things happen, she panics, tries to get away.  An unfortunate trip, a fall, she dies.  No one misses her.  No one cares.  She vanishes.

"A seed is planted.  They've seen other girls like her.  On the streets, in the malls.  But who to take?  Who has no one to care?  Who will no one miss?

"Then one day, one of them has an illness, requires hospitalization.  They are astounded at all of the personal information they need to provide to the hospital for admittance.  Where does all the information go?  What is it for?  Does everybody have to provide it?  You can imagine the questions.

"Remember, Gertie, these are people skilled in subverting and recruiting others to do their bidding, even to the point of convincing someone into betraying their own country.  One day the pieces fall together.  A pretty young girl approaches a bored middle-aged married man.  She seduces him.  The next day, he is presented with the photographic evidence.  His life is ruined if his wife/family/church ever found out.  But they don't want money.  In fact, they want to give him some.  Just give us the name of that young person who was here last weekend.  Oh, her address and telephone number, too.

"He does, and he is hooked.  They probably don't even want the data on the first person they ask for.  What they are after comes later, after he has lost all conscience about what he is doing.  Nothing happened to the woman after all, and it is always women they ask about.  He knows because they make sure he found out that nothing happened to her.

"They begin looking for certain types of women.  He may even do a search on the database for them.  They look for divorced or single women, 18-40 years old, one child is OK as long as it is a girl. Credit checks are run, at hospital expense, of course.  Bank balances, savings accounts, it's all available.

"Then a certain young woman is targeted.  Younger, well-off, single, lonely, recently divorced, and horny.  She meets a tall, dark, handsome man who sweeps her off her feet.  He's probably in town on business.  It may take a week, a month, a year, but he convinces her to move to his town with him.  He has a new job for her, better pay.  Or maybe he moves her out of country, the Bahamas, far away from familiar people.  Then she disappears.  Gone."

"Oh God!  Angela!" Gertie gasped, pale now.

"What?"  I hadn't quite finished before she interrupted me, but it was obvious she wasn't upset with me now.  I don't recall her ever calling me 'Angela'.

"Angela, a secretary who used to work here.  Just divorced, she had sold her house, and got a large cash settlement from her ex.  She met this guy, all sudden like.  He was here on business.  He said he lived in Cincinnati, wanted her to move.  He got her a great job at his company.  We had a party for her, but at the last minute he had to cancel.  We never met him.  Then, later, when we tried to send her some of her personal stuff....  The new company didn't know anything about her.  Or him."  She broke down.  "Oh God!  Oh God!"

I let her cry.  There was more I had to tell her.

"Another woman, older, divorced or widowed, well off.  A kid or two.  Another guy, or maybe the same one.  A real seduction, she falls in love.  Romance for the first time in her life ever.  Funds begin to disappear, siphoned off at an alarming rate.  Cars, jewelry, gifts she can't afford.  When the money is gone, so is he.

"Another woman, this one with elderly parents.  Another seduction.  This man meets the family.  Probably poses as an insurance salesman or has a relative who is one.  Gives them a great deal on a huge term life insurance policy for the mom and dad.  Parents have a tragic accident on Christmas.  There's an investigation, the daughter is cleared.  The insurance pays out millions, tax-free.  Since the boyfriend is there, supportive, loving, before all of this happened, he couldn't possibly be after her money, could he?  She, he and the money disappear together."

"Ok, Ok.  You've convinced me.  But why?"

"That bothered me, too.  None of the tapes, none of the photos turned up here in the States.  None of that crap had been sold to the agents who look for this stuff.  Then it hit me.  Gertie, do you know how many people in this world hate Americans?  I mean, really hate us?  With loathing, with deep dark jealousy, angry at everything American?  I'll tell you.  Billions.

"Oh, it may not be the first thing they think of when they get up in the morning, but at some point in the day, they will come across some reminder of the difference between them and us.  A plane will fly overhead, a boat or car speed by, they will glimpse a old episode of 'Dallas' on the community TV.  Something.  And they will be reminded, again and again of how much they hate us.

"Now, Gertie, imagine giving those billions of people the opportunity to see soft white American bitches being humiliated, being beaten, to hear them screaming, begging, to see them bleed.  To see them die, horrible, painful deaths.  How much would they pay?  Now feed that perversion slowly over time.  They would be like junkies and would need more and more, ever more horrible and graphic.  Or give those men the opportunity to fuck a real American cunt, pink and tender.  Fuck it to death.  Don't worry about the damage, they're cheap.  There's more where it came from.  Tell me.  How much would they pay for a piece of revenge?"

Gertie was weeping openly now.  "Why?  Why are you telling me this?  What am I supposed to do?"

I paused.  "In the hospital, with Simone, you asked her for one name.  Just one.  You wanted revenge.  You felt what I do now.  You feel that way again, now, don't you?"

I paused letting her think.  "Simone couldn't give you a name.  I can.  Do you still want it?"

Gertie stared at me, in anguish.  I knew that particular torment she was in.

"He is involved?"

"Yes."

"Positive?"

"Gertie, you know me better than that."

She nodded.

"I...  I..."  She took a deep breath.

I thought she was going to ask me for the name.

"I can't do it."

I stood and walked towards the door.  Just as I reached it, she said, softly, almost to herself, "I'm sorry I'm so weak, Larry.  I - I just can't."

Without turning, I replied, "It isn't you who is weak, Gertie, because you can't do this.  I'm the one who is weak, because I can."

The Analyst had confirmed the name I had put in the envelope when I had handed him the briefcase.  He was involved, and had been for years.  Dumbo had identified him by what he wore - a white lab coat with a red carnation.  I knew his name.

I picked him up from his home one night later that week.  He wasn't expecting me, but then, if he had been, he wouldn't have been sound asleep.  He would have been out of the country, if he was smart.  I left his wife and children asleep in their beds.

Carl Anderson, Assistant Hospital Administrator, did not enjoy the last three days of his life.  He spent them screaming, strapped to the bottom of a 3-ton counterweight of a freight elevator in a 12-story apartment building.  I visited him on the second day, after he had been riding the bottom of that heavy weight in the terrifying darkness of the elevator shaft.  As I hung there by my harness, riding up and down with him, he told me everything I wanted to know, everything he knew or thought he knew.  He probably even made stuff up, just for me.

He had been so helpful I left a light on at the bottom of the shaft so he could see the floor rushing up at him as the balance plunged down, lifting the elevator higher and higher.  When would someone push the button to top floor?  When would the weight crash down on those closely spaced heavy iron I-beams down below?  Sometimes shedding a little light on something can be more terrifying than being in the dark.  Apparently Carl Anderson thought so.  He went insane before night fell.  I was almost disappointed he wasn't with it for the grand finale.

Two elderly women returned from the country late Sunday evening.  They had won yet another free weekend in that lovely spa upstate.  The younger woman pushed her older sister onto the freight elevator, the wheelchair gliding smoothly over the worn wooden slats.  She pushed the button to their floor, the penthouse.  The elevator rose smoothly, then it stopped short of the 12th floor with a lurch.  The doors opened and she noticed they were about three inches too low.

For a moment she was frustrated as it was Sunday and the building superintendent wouldn't be there until Monday morning.  Then she remembered what that nice repairman had told her to do when this happened.  It had happened before, in fact, several times a couple of years ago.  Dutifully, she pushed the button to close the doors, sent the car down four floors, then back up, just like the nice man had shown her.  The third time she did this, the elevator arrived at their floor with only a fraction of an inch difference in the floor heights.  The younger woman knew that by tomorrow even that little difference would be gone.  Smiling, the ambulatory woman was able to push her sister up over the small inconvenience and into their apartment.

I died a little when I saw the lights on the twelfth floor come on.  But this was just the first of many, many free weekends in the country for those two nice old ladies, and I knew I would die a little more each time they came home.  I reached for the special cell phone I had for these occasions.  I dialed the number I had memorized and gave the pre-arranged signal.

"Clean up."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The End, for now.