THE USUAL WARNINGS:

This is a work of fiction by a twisted mind.  If you
are offended by graphic descriptions of natural and/or
unnatural sexual acts, if you are underage, or if this
type of material is illegal where you are, don't read
any further.

This is a fantasy.  You will have to loosen your clench
on reality a little when you read it. This is a tale in
which physical acts and human responses are not limited
to, nor necessarily based in, reality.  Some acts and
responses in this story may be physically impossible
and/or physiologically improbable.

Also, as is the case with most of the stories in this
newsgroup, all the women in this story are beautiful -
gorgeous, even.  Gravity has not caused breasts to
droop nor have wrinkles creased unblemished faces.  The
men (the leading men, at least) are hung like bulls.
They can get it up and keep it up often and at will.
In this special little fantasyland, there are no STDs,
morals, or unwanted pregnancies.  Guilt is a four-
letter word.  Most important of all, neither strength
of character, courage of convictions, nor moral belief
stand a chance against any erotic stimulus.  This can
be as benign as an accidental glimpse of a bared ankle
or as stimulating as a whipping on the genitals.

For those of you who didn't understand the preceding
statements, GO AWAY!

This story is intended for the salacious entertainment
of consenting adults.  Do not try to do any of the
things described in this story.  You could injure
yourself or your partner, be arrested, or shot by her
father....

If you are under 18 years of age, GO AWAY!  This story
will burn your eyeballs and fry your brain.

If material of a strong sexual nature is prohibited
where you are, GO AWAY!

By continuing, the reader accepts all responsibility
for any disgust, revulsion, jail sentences, or pleasure
that results from reading this story.  If you don't, GO
AWAY!

You have been warned!

If you enjoy this story and feel the urge to post it on
a <free> site, at least give me (NightShade) credit for
it.

So, stick your tongue firmly in your cheek and enjoy
the story!....:)

NightShade

















Sandcastles

by NightShade
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.
