Two months later, I found myself sitting behind a spotless glass desk in a prestigious London office. I was dressed in an immaculate black suit and bored out of my mind with paperwork. Miss Sharkey (appropriately named – or should that have been Snarky?) had decided to keep an eye on me before she agreed to clear me for field duty, and I had to admit that I was as close as I’d ever been to having my sturdy rod of control snapped in half. Filing in chronological order should have been declared a modern-day torture method. Seriously, I’d take waterboarding over the past three weeks of hell I’d been forced to endure. The inactivity was killing me, the coffee sucked, and the work was mind-numbingly dull. Faxing, copying, redirecting telephone calls, typing, spreadsheets, and more of the same came my way daily. The eight-hour workday suddenly morphed into a suffocating prison sentence with seemingly no end in sight. I couldn’t help but wonder if they were actively trying to court my r
The blue room was actually blue - a nice shade of topaz, in fact. Cellular Operations - our cover name - also had a green room, which was green, and a yellow room, which was hideous and vomit-inducing. Thankfully, blue was my favourite colour.I’d been twiddling my thumbs for ten minutes or so, because in my line of business you are always early. If you’re punctual, you’re late. This meant I’d had plenty of time to admire the stark décor which consisted of a sturdy grey table that could comfortably seat ten and a large black TV screen placed prominently on the far wall. There was also an overhead projector, a laptop, and some horribly bright halogen strip lighting. A few grey linoleum tiles completed the ghastly look. Apparently they didn’t want me distracted, not that they had any worries on that score. I was desperate to get back in the ring, and I was happy to do pretty much anything they required of me. It would be nice if the assignment was a challenge, though, because having
At the back of the file there were some brief instructions for my stay, mostly regarding what I could and could not bring. By the looks of things, I would be travelling light, but I hadn’t expected anything else.The actual location of the training camp had yet to be disclosed to me, and worryingly, I wouldn’t know where I was going until I got there. The destination was to be kept secret, and I would be picked up and dropped off by a driver. The cogs in my head began to turn. Why wasn’t I expected to drive there? Maybe they thought three weeks was a long time to have a parked car sitting about. Perhaps, but something didn’t sit right with me. I’d have to figure that one out later.Shoving my handbag over my shoulder, I said goodbye to my temporary office and added the term ‘good riddance.’ With any luck, I wouldn’t be asked to do any further paperwork in my long (hopefully!) and industrious career. Oh wait, I had half a ton of the stuff to do as soon as I got home. Maybe I could
Taking a large gulp of water from the bottle that had been placed in the seat pocket in front of me, I then put the large black rubber mask over my eyes. My world was without colour once again. Not that it had been any other way since Kiel’s death.Ten minutes later, I felt wonderfully calm and relaxed, and that confirmed what I had already guessed. I’d been given a sedative. Soon, blissful oblivion would consume me, and for that I could be grateful. Several days without sleep had begun to take its toll, and at least I would arrive well rested.I couldn’t help but wonder if this is what had rattled Janice. She was a control freak of the grandest order, and she wouldn’t have thought much about being drugged and dumped into the middle of nowhere. Still, she’d made it through the first two days, so that couldn’t have been it. As she was one of our top operatives, I couldn’t help but wonder what they’d done to her. She was a tough one to crack, so it must have been something good.Havi
When night began to fall, the air cooled considerably. I once again considered walking. It would probably take an hour or so to get some feeling back in my limbs, but after that I could disappear into the wilderness. With any luck, I wouldn’t be too far away from civilisation. The UK was a pretty crowded place, so unless they’d shipped me off to the Scottish Highlands, I’d probably be okay. If not, I’d get to eat berries and nuts, and be at one with nature for a while. Grimacing, I thought waiting out another day was preferable to that risk. So was the promise of kinky sex at some point in the future, although this kind of treatment didn’t bode well.My legs had long since gone numb underneath me. Goosebumps covered me from head to toe, and my naked body protested vehemently against the cold. I ignored it. I also ignored my stomach, which had begun rumbling in earnest. Typical. I’d barely eaten a thing all week, and now, when I couldn’t, I was hungry. Figured. On the plus side, I
I barely responded to his shaking or veiled threats, and quite frankly I didn’t care what he did to me. My body was bone tired, and it needed rest.I finally managed to rouse myself when I was being dunked into the bath. The warm water lapped around my legs, and life began to stab at my limbs in a very unpleasant fashion.“Nnghh.” That was a ‘no, take me out of this bath and let me sleep,’ but he wasn’t having any of it.“Just give it a couple of minutes, Lois. I promise the pain will go away. It feels hot, but this bath is only lukewarm at best.”When my eyes fully opened, it was with horror that I realised I wasn’t actually dead, and that my angel was indeed James Leveritt from Elite Encounters. Oh, my fucking God. I immediately spluttered about a bit and tried my best to set a rocket-like course out of the bathtub, but my nemesis was having none of it.“Relax into me. I’ve got a cup of tea and some food if you’re hungry?”I’d finally spent the last reserves of my energy. James’s
I had to bite my lip against the protest that wanted to arise. I would not be doing myself any favours if I challenged him on every move he made.“Tomorrow, you can gather your things and we’ll see what we can do about getting you back home. I’ll have a word with Sharkey for you.”“No,” I said with a little more force than necessary. If the volume of my voice shocked me, James looked stunned.“No?” The look he gave me was not friendly.“No. I need to do this.”He stopped dead, and we came to a rather painful abrupt halt. “You need to walk into a certain death trap and have sex with lots of random men?” He raised his eyebrows at me, and his icy blue irises could have given me another dose of hypothermia.“You don’t know that,” I countered.His voice went low and soft as he said, “Au contraire, Lois. I do know that for certain. Sharkey knows it too, but you’re just a number to her.”That little snippet of information was not news to me, so I made no comment.Leading me into a sterile be
Door number five was the last I could see, but the hallway veered off to the left at the end, so it was possible he wasn’t anywhere near me yet. To be on the safe side, I approached this door with considerably more caution that the other four, and that toldme all I needed to know. My sixth sense had an uncanny ability to spot danger, and it was screaming all sorts of obscenities at me now.This time, as soon as I pulled the handle down, the fucking thing squeaked. I then stopped dead in my tracks, listening for any sound that might indicate someone was alive in there. The house was eerily silent in response. If James was in there, he was an exceptionally quiet snoozer, but that wasn’t unheard of. Standing there for a good minute or so, I finally gathered the courage to depress the handle degree by slow degree until I could push the door forward. As if in response to my earlier alarm bells, a big oak bed greeted me, with a large lump in the middle of it. James appeared to be complet
“Lois, concentrate.” And that’s what I did. Less than two minutes later, with my fingers coiling firmly around her insides, Sharkey came with a guttural roar and an impressive eruption of her own. Somehow, I’d made the woman squirt. This had to be a near miracle. Feeling particularly proud of myself, I almost didn’t notice when James wrapped his hand around my neck. “Impressive, Lois. Maybe you’ll fit in just fine at CB after all.” It seemed I now had a red, rosy glow to go with my feel-good mood. If it was praise from the master, it had to have been good. “Elizabeth, I want you to watch Lois and me while you masturbate yourself to orgasm. Do you think you can do that?” James’s voice suggested that he did, even if she didn’t. “God, yes,” came the immediate, raspy reply. I didn’t know how she could be so sure - she’d just come twice, for goodness’ sake! “Then be a good girl and open those legs wide. We want a good show, don’t we, Lois?” I wasn’t given time to respond before his lip
“Lois, get off her and give her a minute. You might as well pick your poison out of these goodies meanwhile, and then you can return to tormenting her. I had no idea you had a taste for domination.” To make sure I complied with his orders, James grabbed a handful of my ha ir and pulled me upwards. “She needs air, Lois.” He rolled his eyes. Sighing, I pouted prettily before saying, “Did you know you can come just from having your nipples stimulated?” I then got very distracted by the large plastic tub of toys that he had in his hands. Handing them over to me, I was like a kid in a sweet shop for a moment as I considered what I could do with all these wondrous implements of torture. “Funnily enough, I did know that, Lois. I do own a fucking shop, after all. Found anything you like yet?” If he thought he could change the conversation that easily, he was much mistaken.“Ha. You own a fucking shop, but you don’t fuck. That’s a joke for a start. Who did a number on you?” And there it was.
“Well, off you go, Lois. I must say, I think I’m almost looking forward to this.” James motioned with his hand for me to continue. There was just one small problem with that. I was still gagged. Since when had James ever made anything easy for me? Eyeballing him rather unpleasantly, I took a moment to calm down and think the challenge through. Seriously, this was child’s play considering some of the things I’d had to do in the past. Something would come to me.Think, Lois, think. What would James want from you? And then it hit me. There was something I very much wanted to do. Hopefully James wouldn’t be as averse to the idea this time, and now I was more than prepared to beg for my supper – especially if it meant getting the use of my voice back. Patting Sharkey softly on the cheek, I let her know I’d be back to finish what I’d started very shortly with a wink.My next move was to push James’s chair back a little, which enabled me to kneel on the floor at his feet. Looking up him, un
“What is your name?” James’ voice was softer than usual, and it had a kinder lilt. I guessed he figured he didn’t have to try so hard after the poor woman was pumped full of drugs.“Elizabeth, Margaret, Sharkey.” Although Sharkey’s speech was still slow, there was no pause this time, and more importantly, no giggling.“What do you do for a living?” The second question came as smoothly as the first, and she answered it without hesitation.“I work for Cellular Operations. It’s nothing to do with mobile phones - it’s more of a front for undercover operations.”My eyes bulged as Sharkey began revealing all the pertinent details of our business. If this happened to me while under Alain’s roof, my life would be toast - very burnt, black, and unrecoverable toast.“What’s your role in the business?” The question seemed benign from James’s lips, but that one little question could do a whole world of damage in the wrong person’s hands. “I oversee day-to-day operations. My role involves a bit o
Unable to stop myself, my back arched, and I let out a low mewl of pleasure. He then tweaked my nipple sharply, and I was brought swiftly back down to earth. “You enjoy the games just as much as I do, Lois, you just don’t know it yet.” Closing the gap between our faces, he then claimed my lips with a fierce ab andon, and now I was sunbathing in another dimension.The thought of pushing him away didn’t enter my head, although that would have been my best option. Instead, I sat there dumbstruck and lapped him up with everything I had available. Lips, tongue, hands, fingertips… they all clamoured for soft heat and smooth skin. The fact that I couldn’t have him only made me want him all the more, but that was half the point. If the man wasn’t so unobtainable, would I still want him? That question would eat away at me for a few days, I was sure.“Lois, you should be pushing me away, not trying to eat my face off.” James’s lips twitched as he pulled away, and I wanted to bury my face in m
“What is your name?” James and Sharkey now sat facing each other, across the dining room table. There was no such luxury for me. I was still on the cold, hard floor, craning my neck up to look at the pair.There was a pause as Sharkey deliberated her answer. It might have been amusing in different circumstances.“Sandra Blakely.” She giggled.James turned towards me and sighed. “Does that sound convincing to you?”I shook my head. “She’s only been under the influence of the stuff once or twice, so I can’t expect a lot from her. Although she’s been instructed to lie in response to everything I ask her, when I up her dose in ten minutes' time, she’ll find it nearly impossible to do so. That’s because ‘so-called’ truth serums slow down your body’s reactions. It will take a lot longer for messages to be sent to the brain and performing high-functioning tasks will become increasingly difficult. Her concentration span can now be likened to that of a toddler.”Sharkey giggled again, and thou
“You can tell me all about luck after you’ve finished your next assignment, Lois, because you’ll need to be the luckiest woman alive in order to do what you’re planning and get out alive.” Removing the soft metal cap of the vial, he fished out another wipe to clean the top of the bottle. He then grabbed the syringe and tugged the cap of the needle away with his teeth. Punching the tip of the needle into the top of the vial, he depressed the plunger completely before slowly extracting a few cc’s of clear liquid.“Well, I guess I’d better give you the whistle-stop tour,” he said, slowly withdrawing the needle from the vial. Unable to tear my gaze away, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear this, but that didn’t concern him in the least.“There’s Sodium Pentothal, which is a barbiturate, and in light doses it can be used as a truth serum. You’ve got to be careful with that one, though, because if you give your subject too much, you’ll send them to sleep.”If only, I thought.“Alain will use t
Reaching for the bathroom cabinet door with shaking fingers, I located the black plastic container easily. Bar a couple of toothbrushes and some floss, it was all that was in there. Now, did I obey orders, or did I open the box? The temptation to disobey was great. It was probably better to be prepared for what was going to come next, or was it? There was a good chance that even if I opened the box, I’d have no idea of its contents. Hovering with indecision for a moment, in the end I decided to err on the side of caution. If James did have this place rigged out with cameras everywhere, I was going to pay at some point in the near future, and I could take a surprise. Hopefully.Back on two legs, I raced back through the corridor to make up for my earlier dithering. I needn’t have bothered. When I entered the kitchen once again, the two of them were rolling about on the floor in a state of impressive dishabille. My first thought was to deliver a swift kick into any ribcage I could find
“Two weeks. I can work with two weeks.” James didn’t look at her chest, which was now fully on display, revealing a sexy black lace bra that must have borne an expensive designer tag.“Lois, can you pay really careful attention and listen to everything James tells you? If you can, you can take the intensive James Leveritt course and be out of here in a week. Does that work for you?” Again, she didn’t look at me. Her voice was aimed over her shoulder in my direction, but her eyes were firmly on James.“Say no, Lois.” This time, he did look at me, and his eyes were pleading. Why? Why did the man care whether I lived or died? Most of the people in my business were hardened to such things. Casualties were an unfortunate but regular consequence in the little games we played. If James had been one of Sharkey’s trainees, he’d have patted me on the head, pointed me in the direction of Carte Blanche, and his conscience could then rest easy. This didn’t appear to be the case, and I couldn’t un