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By Phil Lane
With Freddie Clegg
The Fourth Story in the Joe & Jenny Series.
A sequel to Thesis, Such Sweet Sorrow and Tales from a Far Country.
WHAT’S WHAT
Touchdown is the fourth episode in the story of the relationship between Jennifer McEwan, also recently known as Vyera Anatol’yevna Kuznetsova an adventurous academic who is studying BDSM games and adult play behaviour and her husband Joe, a civil engineer who is anxious about his wife’s sexual interests and where they might lead. Touchdown is the sequel to our last story, Tales From a Far Country in which Jennifer/Vyera had to endure rather more adventure than she was expecting and takes the story on after Jennifer is unexpectedly reunited with her husband Joseph and her parents one summer’s evening in Stockholm.
If you are a new reader, this short resumé will help you understand what is going on!
The tale began in our first story Thesis, when Professor Angela Dawney, Jennifer’s Head of Department and her research supervisor persuaded Jenny to enroll in a consensual slave training programme organised by the adult experience and adventure company, Inward Bound. Angela claimed this would be an excellent psychological laboratory for Jennifer to pursue her research but secretly, the Professor hoped to drive a wedge between Jennifer and her husband and win Jennifer’s affections for herself.
Inward Bound has received investment from what purports to be an international transport business called Freddie Clegg Enterprises but is in fact the front organisation for Clegg’s highly illegal abduction and slavery operation. Freddie Clegg Enterprises also have hopes for Jennifer’s research - to help them identify and recruit willing victims.
Angela, anxious to use Jenny’s experiences for her own benefit at the earliest opportunity, almost sabotaged Jenny’s participation at Inward Bound. The effect of this was to disturb the ever paranoid Clegg organisation which led to Jenny and Angela experiencing what they imagine to be a CIA inspired “rendition”. This claimed to be an investigation into Internet Crime but was really an attempt to discover if they were actually in the pay of Clegg’s arch Russian competitor, Anatoly Kustensky who, by an innocent but most unfortunate coincidence, is an old friend of Professor Dawney.
In the end Jenny completed her course at Inward Bound and returned home, marked emotionally, physically and psychologically by her experiences. She realised that she cannot suppress her desires, and wished more than ever to share her lifestyle preferences with her husband.
The second part of the story - Such Sweet Sorrow - takes place in the months which follow, when Angela has the opportunity to tell the tale of her ‘rendition’ and interrogation to her friend Anatoly Kustensky.
One bright day in London, as Jennifer makes her way to a medical library to pursue her research, she vanishes and despite an extensive and energetic police investigation and the efforts of Joe and her parents, no trace of her can be found.
Tales From a Far Country follows Jennifer’s further adventures after her abduction. She is subjected to a carefully calculated psychological programme designed to change her into Vyera Anatolyevna a slave to Anatoly Kustensky and his family and also to complete her data analysis and research project. One summers evening, after her psychological conditioning appears to have been a complete success and when Anatoly and Svetlana Kustenskaya his wife are aboard their yacht in Stockholm, Sveta suffers an emotional breakdown and releases Jennifer.
Touchdown follows the storm which breaks in the wake of Svetlana’s flamboyant and generous gesture and follows Joseph and Jennifer’s progress as they try to begin life together once more.
Now, read on – or start from the beginning with Thesis!
PREFACE
“Ladies and Gentlemen, we will soon land at London Heathrow Airport. Please return to your seats now. The Captain has switched on the seat belt signs and you should switch off any electronic devices as they may interfere with the aircraft electronic systems. Cabin Crew: ten minutes to landing …”
Joseph McEwan gazes out of the aircraft window as a panorama of suburban London stretches out in front of him, hidden and then revealed by gaps in the cloud as the ‘plane descends. He turns and looks at his wife Jennifer as she stirs in her seat, dozing in the space between sleep and wakefulness.
Joseph had not expected his holiday to end this way. He had not expected to return with his wife. He thought he and Jennifer’s parents had gone to Stockholm to bid Jennifer a final ‘farewell’ and admit to themselves and to one another that Jennifer had gone forever. He had been planning to return and restart his life over, perhaps with a new partner. Yet, here she was - but who was she now?
The Jennifer of memory was slim. This girl is muscular. Jennifer was pale and creamy. This girl is deep brown. Jennifer had short spiky hair. This girl is bald – not even shaven, but bald. Jennifer had brown – or blonde hair, according to her whim. This girl has no hair, except for eyebrows. Jennifer spoke English and Swedish. This girl mutters in her sleep in a language Joseph has not heard and does not understand.
The aircraft is much lower now and Joe can pick out the pagoda in Kew Gardens and the smart suburbs of south-west London. He feels reassured by their solid familiarity. Trees. Streets of houses topped with grey slates. Larger houses with gardens and red tile roofs.
The forces generated in the aircraft as it turns and banks and descends, the noise in the cabin as the engines slow, then power up, the groaning as the ailerons extend and then extend again to increase wing area and lift as the aircraft makes its controlled descent, all these finally disturb the sleeping girl. She opens her eyes and manages a smile. Her hand searches out for Joe’s arm and squeezes it, for company and reassurance.
Joe glances once more out of the window. The buildings near the airport are much lager now and speeding by. The airport perimeter fence flashes past beneath the starboard wing. The aircraft yaws slightly left, then right and there is a solid bump as the main wheels connect with the tarmac and a more gentle bump as the nose wheel makes contact and the aircraft levels.
A moment later, the cabin fills with the roar of the thrust reversers and Joe feels himself thrown forward against his seat belt as the aircraft slows faster than he does.
The noise of the engines fades and as the plane turns off the main runway a voice says, “Welcome to London Heathrow Airport Terminal Five. We are now taxiing to our stand. Please remain in your seats until the aircraft has come to a complete stop and the seat belt sign is ‘off’. After the aircraft has come to a standstill, please be careful when opening the overhead lockers as items may have become dislodged during the flight and could fall out and cause injury. Please note that you are not allowed to smoke in the Terminal Building. We hope you have enjoyed your flight. It has been a pleasure to look after you and we look forward to welcoming you again on board another British Airways flight soon.”
Jennifer, faced with a barrage of instructions feels re-assured. Nowadays, she likes instructions and orders. It keeps her grounded. If she follows orders and instructions she does not get punishes and often, nice things happen.
Joe faced with the prospect of another flight feels exhausted at the mere suggestion. ‘Another flight? No thank you’ he thinks. ‘No more flights.’ He just wants to get back to the security of home. He just wants to get his wife back home, too. Whoever she is now.
1. Anamnesis
January 2010. London and Langley, Virginia.
Our present and future lives are always shaped by what has gone before.
The future history of Jennifer McEwan, erstwhile slave to Anatoly and Sveta Kustensky, her husband Joseph, her fellow captive Tracy and even Professor Dawney, Jennifer’s former lover and research supervisor begins to take shape during a conversation three months after Jennifer disappeared and almost two years before Joseph and Jennifer are reunited in Stockholm.
It is January 2010. Colleagues from the Security Services of The United States (1) and The United Kingdom (2) are holding a telephone conference and the story told to the British police, about the mysterious interrogation of Jennifer McEwan by the CIA is about to cross the Atlantic
“Clyde?”
“Edward! Happy New Year! Just back at work?”
“Yes, unfortunately.”
“Not skiing? Don't you usually go, after Christmas?”
“Normally we do, but Grace has been in hospital with appendicitis. I have only popped into the office. I am just about to go home and be a modern man and look after her.”
“Oh, gee Edward I am real sorry to hear that. Is she OK?”
“She is out of hospital but she is still quite sore. No skiing this year.”
“That’s too bad. Still, at least her appendix will not come calling again.”
“No, well that’s for sure. If it does, I'll be suing the surgeon! Clyde, look this is why I am calling. Can you tell me anything about a Company operation in London is June 2008? We have no record of it. If the facts are as reported, to be quite frank, we will be a bit disappointed that the normal inter-service liaison was not carried out. If it was an emergency it would be different but in that case, you would let us know as soon as you could?”
“Er, Edward, sure. Let me check the operations diary. When did you say it was?”
“June 2008”
“And where?”
“Suffolk. That’s east of London. At Inward Bound which is what they call a
‘Adult Adventure Centre’. Sort of kinky sex playground." (3)
“Wow, Ed, I didn’t think you had those sort of places in England.”
“Well frankly, Clyde neither did I.”
“Ed, there is nothing coming up at all which should mean there was no operation. Can you give me some details, some context?”
“OK, here is the context. A lady called Jennifer McEwan has disappeared.”
“One of yours?”
"No, not at all. No security service or military or any other significant connection at all. Actually that is not quite right. Her father retired from the Army not too long ago but he was not working in a particularly ‘sensitive’ area. She was writing a PhD thesis and was at this Inward Bound place doing her research.”
“Nice work if you can get it huh?”
“Yes, exactly. Anyway she vanished in London on … er… Tuesday 11 November last year and has not been heard of since. The Metropolitan Police regard her disappearance as High Risk because she had never gone AWOL before and she did not complete her intentions as the police say, on the day she vanished. When her husband was interviewed, he reported that when she was at Inward Bound, she was arrested by some men who said they were from the CIA. She was held in close confinement somewhere else, interrogated and then released. Her professor who was her research supervisor was also arrested and questioned. We have corroboration for the story from Doctor Corinne Aimes, also a psychologist, who is the CEO at Inward Bound, some of her employees and from her professor, a woman called Dawney.”
“Oh … so what did the CIA team – not that I am admitting it was us, Edward – what did they want?”
“They wanted to know about Anatoly Kustensky and if he had been in contact with McEwan in connection with her research.”
“Kustensky? Does your team know him, Ed? I'll have a look at this end.”
“Kustensky was with the KGB in London in the 1980’s. He took a particular interest in the cruise missile protests at Greenham Common. I'd be surprised if you haven't got a record for him.” (4)
“Yep, I have got him. He is on our data base. Kustensky …we've got a case man assigned to the file but I doubt if he's doing anything unless this Kustensky's being a bad boy somewhere." Clyde pauses. Ed can hear the tap of keys at the other end of the line. "Hmmm, Kustensky seems to have had a change in career … business … engineering…oil and gas … aha, security. Well, I guess you need security if you are a rich man in Russia.”
“We think he is still well-connected.”
“Hmmm. More than likely. Ed, its hard for me to understand why we should have mounted an operation to find out about Kustensky’s interests in ‘Adult Adventures’ and he is not a hot case. I guess the best I can do is to look into this and get right back to you. For now let me say, if we have stepped out of the box I am sorry for any unhappiness caused. I will sort out where this one has gone wrong.”
“Thank you, Clyde. That is much appreciated.”
“Call you at home? “
“Er, well the operation was in 08 so I am sure it can wait. I will be back at work in a couple of weeks.”
“Give my best to Grace.”
“Will do.”
“‘Bye now Edward.”
“‘Bye, Clyde.”
Deputy Director Clyde Ritchie works in the Office for Russian and European Analysis, within the Intelligence Directorate of the CIA. He is the permanent liaison officer for the British security services, and has known Edward Black, Director of Operations for the British Internal Security Service MI5, for several years.
After he closes the call, Deputy Director Richie pauses for a moment to think over the story he has been told. Kustensky is not an Agency target and doesn't seem to have been of any special interest even back then. So why would it be worth anyone’s while questioning two academics with only a tangential connection with him? Were they all missing something? He makes a short summary of the conversation he has just had and calls Scott Anderson, the last Field Operative to have his sights on Kustensky …
“Scott?”
“Sir …”
“Scott, have you opened your emails yet?”
“No, Sir, I am just getting in.”
“Open them, find the email from me and look into the situation will you? Edward Black, from MI5 London has just phoned me, to ask why there had been no liaison about a Company operation near London in … in June 2008. I checked the operations diary and there was no Company operation corresponding to the details Black supplied, so now I am beginning to feel at a disadvantage. It starts to look as if we don’t know what we are doing or that maybe we are not being straight with our partners or maybe we are simply a completely disorganised rabble who can’t tell our ass from a hole in the ground and I don’t want any of those impressions to get currency, understand?”
“Sir, absolutely.”
“So look into it and get back to me. It's your priority for today, understand?”
“Sir.”
Scott Anderson boots up his computer, logs on and opens his email account. At the top of the inbox, marked by a red flag, is the email from Deputy Director Clyde Ritchie. Scott opens the email and reads …
By mid-afternoon he has enough to report back to Ritchie.
He calls his office and arranges to meet the Deputy Director.
An Entente Cordial?
“OK Scott, so what have you got?”
“Sir, the first thing is that I can find absolutely no official record of a Company Operation in Suffolk in June 2008. Nothing. I spoke to our people in London and while Kustensky’s interest in cruise missiles on behalf of the Soviets was of some concern then, he returned to Moscow in … 1990 and was off our radar screen. He re-appears as a business man after that but was no longer a person of particular focus and he isn't of particular interest to the Agency now, either. He has opened an engineering subsidiary in the US a couple of years ago but there seems to be absolutely no reason why we would have gone after two university people to find out more about him. In any case, why would the Company want to know more about Kustensky’s interests in ‘Adult Entertainment’ ? So I do not think the ‘CIA’ Team had anything to do with us.”
“The second thing: I did some research on Kustensky. His father was a famous second world war general and got to be a Hero of the Soviet Union. Kustensky junior was KGB and our records have him in London from 1984 to 1990 where he was interested in the anti-cruise missile protest at Greenham.”
“That figures …”
“Exactly. I was working out of the London embassy at the time, so I crossed his path then but apart from the surveillance he undertook at Greenham, there was nothing else in his ‘portfolio’ which gave us particular concern. We noticed that he saw quite a lot of a prominent student radical called Angela Dawney and may be the same person as in this report from MI5.”
"We could probably check that. But it's likely. Dawney's not a common name."
“Third thing, since the Soviet collapse, Kustensky has been a model bandit capitalist and made himself a substantial fortune. He does oil, gas, engineering and security. He has offices in Finland, Sweden, Germany, France, UK, Canada and New York. So maybe, when he was not in bed with Angela Dawney, he was learning bookkeeping and accounting and getting ready to make his move when the communist government collapsed. I don’t think that was much of a surprise to ‘insiders’ and Kustensky was definitely an insider.”
"Standard fare, by the sound of it. There's plenty that have done similar."
“My conclusion was that someone wanted to get some sort of pipeline into Kustensky’s operations and picked up on the two academics as a means of setting something set up. The young one, McEwan seems to be a red herring. The older one, Dawney will be the place to start.”
“So who do you think it was?”
“Sir, in the UK you have to choose from MI5, MI6 and the Metropolitan Police Special Operations people. Only MI6 is a serious contender and they may be having a turf war with MI5 and decided to blame us.”
“That’s not the sort of thing the chaps indulge in? Not quite cricket?” asks Ritchie in a mocking English accent.
“Well, it's not what we have come to expect, I agree Sir." Scott smirks. “I don’t know if this is ‘key’ here but AKE - that’s Kustensky’s company - had just opened in France in early 2008. There has been a long history between France and Russia and I just wondered if it was the French who wanted to get some inside information, found out about Dawney from some sort of information sharing exercise they had done with the Brits and decided to mount an operation and blame us.”
“And that’s it?”
“Yes, Sir that’s about it, although it does not address the question of why McEwan might have disappeared. Would you like me to approach the French to ask …"
"The French? Waste of time. They wouldn’t give us the time of day. They wouldn't admit to masquerading as us, anyway. It’s a bit of a thin explanation.”
“I agree Sir. I am not one hundred per cent happy with the conclusion.”
“Recommendations?”
“I think we should keep a more careful watch on the Kustensky operation. I would be pleased to handle that. I crossed his path when I was in London and I sometimes thought he got the better of us. He was very – ah - personable. I think he knew how to make the most of that.”
“OK, Scott, you have got the job. Keep me in the picture.”
“Thank you Sir. I will do that.”
After he returns to his office, Scott thinks about his old adversary and about the strange changes and chances life brings.
Scott is about the same age as Anatoly. They joined their respective Agencies at about the same time; Scott, the CIA. Anatoly, the KGB. Scott had been on the side of the Angels, from his perspective. Anatoly had served the interests of his country, from his.
Scott was a team player and perhaps lacked the ruthlessness required to reach the very top of his organization. After years of careful, conscientious work, he was still ‘middle management.’ Anatoly did not lack when ruthlessness was required. He had the example of his father and of his father’s superior Marshall Dmitry Zhukov to steer by and he had the conviction that his destiny was to advance the interests of the Russian state and what was right for Anatoly, was right for Russia.
Scott had suffered a recent career setback: he had missed a long-hoped-for promotion to Head of Section. Anatoly had opened a successful North American subsidiary in his Engineering division.
Scott had suffered a severe financial reversal as the value of his home and other investments collapsed when the real estate bubble burst: he could no longer afford to send his children to Yale or Princeton, something he had schemed for and looked forward to, for long years past.
Property values in the DC area were rising after the election a Democratic President and the growth in the Federal Government, but Scott feared that this upturn was coming too late to help his cause as much as he needed.
Anatoly had made his fortune during the economic turmoil which came in the wake of the Soviet collapse in the early nineteen-nineties. He has used his inside knowledge and his contacts astutely and had worked hard. As the Russian economy recovered itself, Anatoly enjoyed the status of survivor, then successful business man and finally he became almost one of the New Aristocracy.
Anatoly could afford to be generous and would have been magnanimous, if he had met his old adversary.
Scott could no longer afford generosity and now, stung and goaded by what seemed to be the effortless success of his enemy, his natural generosity of spirit was transmuted by the hot, bitter fire of jealousy. He would get Kustensky! Quite simply, once and for all, he was determined, that he would get Kustensky. There was always something if you looked hard enough and the fall of Kustensky could propel him beyond Head of Section, perhaps even to Deputy Director. (5)
References:
1. The Central Intelligence Agency of the United States is the principle intelligence gathering agency of the US Federal Government and has close relationships with colleagues in the Intelligence Services of allied nations.
2. The British Security Services:
A. MI5 is now referred to as The Security Service. It is responsible for protecting the UK against threats to national security from espionage, terrorism and sabotage, from the activities of agents of foreign powers, and from groups within the UK who plan to overthrow parliamentary democracy by political, industrial or violent means.
B. MI6 is now referred to as The Secret Intelligence Service. SIS collects secret intelligence and mounts covert operations overseas in support of British Government objectives. SIS functions are to obtain and provide information and perform other tasks relating to the acts and intentions of persons overseas, in the interests of national security, with particular reference to the government's defence and foreign policies, in the interests of the economic well-being of the UK and in support of the prevention or detection of serious crime. James Bond works for MI6
C. The Metropolitan Police. Has a number of sections whose work brings them into close contact with the work of the Security Service such as serious organized crime and terrorism. SO15 is the Counter Terrorism Command set up to deal with this work.
3. Inward Bound and Jennifer McEwan’s adventures there are described in ‘Thesis’, the first book in this series
4. The Greenham Common Cruise Missile Protests were a cause celebre in the UK in the 1980’s. In brief, UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (who was a controversial and divisive person herself) agreed to host nuclear-armed Tomahawk Cruise Missiles at the Greenham Common airbase near Oxford. The aim of the policy was to counter the installation of nuclear-armed SS20 missiles by the Soviet Union in The German Democratic Republic, i.e. communist East Germany.
5. For those of you interested in Scott Anderson’s misfortunes with property see United_States_housing_bubble on Wikipedia.
2. Something of the Night About Him
January 2012. Houston, Berlin and the Padmoscovnye
A Nocturne
The telephone rings.
It is dark in Manfred Randolf’s bedroom but not completely. During the week he lives in the penthouse of the Randolf Corporation office tower and at night the lights of corporate Houston throw a constant dim glow into the room.
Randolf turns over, reluctant to be disturbed. In his mind, there is a vague idea that his PA can be left to answer the ‘phone. But she does not answer and the ringing keeps up.
Suddenly, Randolf’s sleeping brain computes. This is his private number. This is not anyone. This is important. Randolf has not been sleeping well for some time now. He's worried about the Corporation. A call at this time is bound to be bad news.
Now pitched wide awake, he snatches the receiver.
“Randolf!”
“Good morning, Manfred: it's Petra.”
“Petra?" He looks at the watch on his bed side table. It's quarter to four in the morning. He's trying to work out the time in Germany where Petra is supposed to be. It should be getting close to eleven o'clock there, mid-morning. "Do you know what the time is here? Couldn't this have waited?"
"No Manfred. This is urgent."
"What's so urgent in Germany that Tracy can't deal with it?”
“It's Tracy that's the problem. That's why she can't deal with it. Manfred: Tracy has gone AWOL.”
“AWOL? What the fuck is that bitch of a daughter of mine …”
“Manfred, we're worried here. Have you sent her on a private errand?”
“Of course not! You know I would give you a heads up first.”
Petra knows no such thing but she can sense that Manfred is as confused by the situation as she is. “OK, so here is how things developed. I last saw Tracy at the Berlin office Tuesday. Tuesday night, she is going clubbing, she says.”
“On her own?”
“She is over twenty one, Manfred. How would I know? So, Wednesday, she is not in the office but I am in Frankfurt. 3 pm I get a call from Albrecht to say Tracy has not come into the office, she is not scheduled to be out or travelling and she is not answering her phone and do I know where she is?”
“ ’Cell or apartment?”
“Both.”
“Oh.”
“So by 8pm, I am back in Berlin and go round to the apartment but it's empty. No sign of Tracy. No sign of forced entry. No sign of a struggle or anything like that. Nothing taken but no Tracy and no sign of her purse, cards or passport, so I called the local cops and also the Embassy, OK?”
“Yeah, yeah. OK and ?”
“The cops have swept the apartment and found nothing – I think – well they don’t want to say exactly but I didn’t find anything to give me a steer on where Tracy was and I don’t think they did either. The thing is, Manfred, they are going to want to know if there was any reason for Tracy to leave? Also, because of who Tracy is – your daughter – they will also be talking to the FBI Legation at the Embassy so you will have the Feds calling tomorrow like as not.” (1)
“Jeez, Petra. I can’t afford to have the FBI crawling all over the Corporation asking awkward questions! Not at the moment.”
“No I thought not but is there anything you can give me, to head this off at the pass?”
“Er, look let me think this thing over. There might be some doors I can knock on … Jeez, Petra … Tracy …”
“Knows sensitive information …”
“And then some … Fuck!”
“Yeah, thought so. Manfred, I don’t think we should say too much more on this line. Do you want to call me back?”
“Yeah. Just lemme get my head around this and get some food ‘n coffee into me. Coupla hours?”
“Time here is 11 am so that’s 4am with you? Get yourself some warm bagels and call me 7am your time, huh? You will not get any ‘visitors’ much before afternoon, if they come today at all.”
“Right Petra so expect me at 2pm your time?”
“Check!”
“Hey, Petra?”
“Hmmm?”
“Why don’t I come over to you? I would rather be ‘out’ to visitors just at the moment ‘till we get this thing in hand.”
“That’s good thinking Manfred. Why don’t you do just that. I will get you a reservation at the Marriott, Potsdammer Platz. Steaks are good there.” (2)
“They had better be! I am going to give the hide of that daughter of mine such a slap when I catch up with her …”
“Sure Manfred, but just keep it legal huh?”
Tracy had also suffered a disturbed night. Several, in fact, as she endured a repeated cocktail of fears for her immediate future and dreams about Hans-Peter, the man she met in a favourite café on the way home from work.
In her dreams she is revisiting the day when things started to unwind. She had been on her own, wearied by another day in the corporate jungle with her mind still occupied by the things she was doing to keep the Randolf Corporation financially solvent. He had just come into the cafe, ordered his drink and walked over to her table.
“Ist dies geschehen?” He had said and smiled. The smile had brought Tracy properly back to the real world; the world where people get home with a clear conscience, where they laugh and enjoy the company of friends.
“Ja, ist dieser Ort nicht getroffen” she replied. (3)
“Hi”, he switched to English, “you're American!”
“Texan”, she corrected.
“Lone Star State!” he quipped
“Yeah that’s it.” Tracy was smiling broadly now.
He had offered his hand. “Hans-Peter. May I?”
“Sure: sit down. I’m Tracy. If you will excuse me, you don’t look like a Hans-Peter to me?”
“Ah, Hans Peter is from my father who is German and the skin and hair are from my mom, who comes from Ghana. So,Tracy? Hmmm. I love your hair.”
“My hair? What sort of a chat up line is that?”
“No sort of line but you see where my mother comes from, where I grew up until I was a teenager, everyone has the same hair and eyes. Black skin. Black curly hair. Deep brown eyes. When we came back to Germany – you were all so odd! So many different colours of hair and I am not talking colours out of a bottle and then the eyes! Brown, green, even blue. Blue was just so creepy!”
“Blue eyes were creepy?”
“Sure: it felt as if you look right inside people with blue eyes.” (4)
Hans-Peter gave a little shudder at this ethnographic memory and Tracy laughed out loud.
“So I have blue eyes. What do you see in me?”
“I see someone who needs another coffee. Black? I mean you obviously look after yourself properly. Hans-Peter was standing now, looking down at her scanning her frame with his gentle laughing handsome eyes.
“Yes I’d like that and yes I do.”
Tracy watched his walk to the counter and order. Water for him. Coffee for her. Who was he? Check clothes. Boots, clean and polished. Jeans, clean. Black leather biker jacket with a pale blue shirt underneath.
“There you are.”
“Thanks. So what do you do? You must write advertising copy?”
“Close: I lecture in politics.”
“Oh I get it! You teach your students how to soft soap their voters?”
“Ah, that’s speech writing. I am interested in the responsibilities of the Unitary States. You?”
“I am interested in the corporate finance. I am an accountant. I work for an oil company.’
“Ha! The oil girl from Texas? I thought the oil business was the sort of place where a man has to do what a man has to do?”
“Yes-sir, there are plenty of them, believe me. My daddy for one. But these days you need more that a gang of roughnecks with large noisy machines.”
“Roughnecks?”
“That’s oil slang for the men who work on the oil rigs and platforms.”
“You mean that’s not you?”
“Very funny. Nope. I’m the accountant.”
“Ah so that explains the leather briefcase and laptop. Why have I never seen you here before?”
“Yes, why? I often stop by after work for a coffee.”
“OK, well I am normally here earlier. Tracy, you are going to have to excuse me. Got to go. Gym.”
“Hmmm. Looks as if you look after yourself too.”
“Bodies are meant to be used and they get soft if you spend every minute in the library of tutorial room.”
Tracy was sorry to see Hans Peter leave the café. He moved like a dancer. He was tall and so well presented. And obviously bright. Her sort of Texas girl did not often hook up with black boys but this was not Texas and he was hot …
To Tracy’s surprise and pleasure, Hans-Peter’s schedule seemed to bring him into the café more often and after a week or so, she was receptive to being asked out.
“Tracy?”
“Mmmm?”
“There is this night club near the old Templehoff Airport.”
“What sort of club?”
“A night club. A pretty wild night club. I ‘ve never been and I was thinking about going. Are you brave enough to join a sort of academic expedition?”
“So long as there will be no slide rules involved!”
“I think the only slide rules will be used on each other's bottoms.”
“Oh, it's that wild is it?”
“Well, I think it might be, in parts.”
“So what is a girl going to wear in a place like that? I left my kinky leathers in the ‘States.”
“I don’t think your daddy would allow kinky leathers in the house, Tracy.”
“No, well that’s for sure. Y’know, this might be important for my education. What are you wearing?”
“I am going in evening dress.”
“So I will go in evening dress.”
“And we will leave with our virtue intact?”
“You think? You know what they say in Texas?”
“No?”
“You just don’t know what she might do next!”
“Ah. Am I in danger?”
‘You betcha!”
The club was incongruously close to the Berlin Police Headquarters, which stood across the road in sober pre-war monolithic buildings but its serious gaze did nothing to dampen the goings on at Insomnia. (5)
Insomnia was every bit as wild as Hans-Peter had promised. On each of the four floors, patrons cruised in various states of dress and undress; they danced and spanked one another and drank and made love and swapped partners and bound one another to equipment, to be tormented or whipped or indulged and all in a miasma of music and lights and shadow. It was the most erotic and amusing and liberating evening's entertainment Tracy had ever enjoyed. She had been to nothing like it before, especially in Texas. Eventually, there came a point at which Tracy’s rising sexual temperature reached ‘critical’.
With her arms around Hans-Peter’s sweet smelling body she whispered – actually shouted, to be heard above the festivities – “I have an apartment nearby and inside, there's a large bed and I need fucking! I want your cock, Hans-Peter! Now just do as you're told, like those nice obedient subs over there” - Tracy indicated two naked muscular hunks carefully licking the black shiny patent thigh highs of their mistress. They both wore collars and their mistress held the shiny chain leads attached to them.
“Well Tracy, replied Hans-Peter, turning her towards him and grabbing a firm handful of butt cheek in each hand, you are not the sort of girl a man can deny!”
As they entered her apartment building, Tracy caught sight of a shipping container standing on a low loader, parked in front of the building. It was odd, but her mind was full of Hans Peter, just as she was looking forward to her vagina being full of hard Peter and that was much more important than the eccentric parking habits of truckers.
Once inside Tracy’s apartment, the lovers wasted no time. They tore each other's clothes off: as Tracy pulled down Hans-Peters black shiny sheer Emporio Armani trunks, his penis sprang up taught, thick, hard and - oh joy! – proudly bearing a ring right through the slit. Tracy had never had a guy with a ring before. Actually, Tracy had not had many guys of any description before and Hans-Peter’s careful, patient, practiced seduction had made Tracy more ready and more ravenous than she had ever been.
He scooped her up in his arms and carried the wriggling squealing bundle to the bed where he began his assault on her body with his tongue planted firmly on her lips – her lower lips.
Soon Tracy had her legs wide open and spread. Her butt was atop the pillow, to raise her hips and hand Peters cock was pushing its way up her vagina.
He was perfect! Not too long and not too short and wonderfully broad. Tracy stretched greedily to accommodate him, right up to the hilt. Then he began to ride. A gentle see saw of his cockhead against her vaginal walls. She was so sensitive! Tracy was sure she could feel Hand Peter’s ring tickling her cervix, teasing it open, ready to swallow his sperm. It occurred to Tracy, vaguely, that she was not protected but actually, she didn’t care. She thought of Edna, the kind black lady who had brought her up, because her real parents had always been too busy. Who had read her stories, bounced her on her knee, cuddled her when she was unwell, encouraged her when things were bad at school. Tracy actually wanted to be the sort of woman that Edna had been and this was her, on her way. The pace of the cock inside her was more insistent. The strokes deeper. The thrusts stronger. Should she say anything? Too late! Hans-Peter took his pleasure deep inside her. He gripped her tight. He tensed his body and curling his toes against the bed sheet, he pinned her down with his cock as it pulsed, driving his sperm deep inside, irrevocably inside.
For her part, Tracy wrapped her legs around him. Contracting her calves tight, to prevent any escape of that glorious, thick, stretching, pulsating cock, emptying Hans-Peters balls as far inside her as she could possibly get him!
As their passion subsided (just for the moment, until they caught their breath, until once more the rising tide of lust carried them onwards, as Tracy hoped) Hans-Peter said, “Let's get you coffee. I need you awake!”
Actually, ‘awake’ was the opposite of what Hans-Peter had in mind. After Tracy had finished her coffee, she subsided into helpless stupor, sedated by alcohol from the club and the flunitrazepam that Hans-Peter had introduced into the cup. (6)
Her dream, her recollection of times past, is over. At last Tracy awakes. All about her there is a low rumbling noise and she is aware of being gently shaken. She sits up in what she first of thinks is a small room. Then she realises it's a cage! In one corner there is a metal toilet with a wash hand basin on top. The pervasive phenolic smell suggests it’s a chemical toilet. Ewww! In another corner, there stands what looks almost like a drinking fountain. The walls and ceiling are all formed of steel bars about one inch thick. The floor is wooden slats and between then, once again, there are bars. The cage door is ostentatiously padlocked.
She is dressed in a tracksuit, trainers, a warm jacket and gloves and she has been laying on a mattress, under a very functional looking duvet.
Outside the cage, an electric light casts a subdued glow and next to it, there is a surveillance camera with a cable snaking away behind a blank partition wall. The cage is stabilized against what must surely be the walls of a shipping container by steel bars from each corner of the cage, wedged to rubber blocks so however hard she hammers the cage, the sound will not transmit. In addition, the container walls have been lined with insulating foam.
In dismay, Tracy turns round and finds a hiker’s rucksack with a note pinned to the outside. She reads …
“Dear Tracy.
Welcome to the Eastern Wind Container Express Train from Berlin. Your journey will take about three days. You have food and water for just three days – don’t be greedy now – and fresh air for a week. The container is being tracked and we have the camera to keep an eye on you – oh, and heart rate sensor; that’s the strap you can feel across your chest. I would leave it alone, if I were you. This means you are going to arrive in good condition.
Hans Peter sends his regards. He says you were a good fuck, last night. You were given emergency contraception, just in case. He hopes you enjoy the memory.
Enjoy your new life.
Your Hosts”
For a moment, for several moments actually, Tracy finds it hard to understand what the words mean.
Her mind begins to cycle through the possibilities. Mistaken identity? Extra-Ordinary Rendition by the US Treasury Department on account of irregular bookkeeping ? Kidnap for Ransom? Criminal Extortion? Collateral against unpaid accounts?
Tracy rapidly re-runs memories of some recent business transactions. But maybe that was the problem. There were no transactions when there should have been. Bills to pay which her father refused to authorise.
She thinks again about The Treasury and the Department of Justice … these are the people who she really wants to stay clear of. The people who could so easily have her on their ‘wanted’ list, for the things he was doing on behalf of Daddy - and then Tracy brightens up. The US government agencies would want her to go west and she was (apparently) going east. She was carrying information. In her head. Perhaps a trade was possible? Perhaps it was time she left the Corporation? Perhaps the information she carried would mean she could go free-lance? (6)
The Dangerous Wild Animal
Tracy wakes from sleep. The rumbling noise has ended and she can hear other noises, outside. Voices. Suddenly, she has the sensation that the container has been lifted and is being moved. The forces generated by movement allow her to make some guess about what is happening. There is the slightest feeling of descent, as if she was in a lift and then a thud as the container grounds on something, something which once again begins to move. This time the noises are different. Tracy guesses she is on a road truck. She is finally going to where ever they are taking her.
Tracy has been on her own, in the container for over three days now and has lost her sense of time. She cannot form a particularly clear sense of how long she has been in her cage. She has no idea of the time of day. What she does have, is a building sense of anger at what is happening.
She's angry at being taken for a sucker by Hans-Peter. Angry at being over-ruled by Daddy when she told him about the seriously over-due accounts. Angry about being manoeuvred – by Daddy – into taking more responsibility (she really means ‘blame’) for the Corporation's financial position.
Most of all she's angry at being abducted and held for ransom by the Corporation’s creditors which, she thinks, is the simplest explanation for her predicament. Jeez! It's medieval!
Red formless anger is filling Tracy’s mind.
She does not notice that the truck has stopped. She does not hear an access ramp being moved up to the doors but she does hear the outer doors open, and she does feel the in-rush of cool evening air as she is blinded by the flash lights of people coming into the container to get her!
By the time her cell door opens, Tracy is incandescent. All the disappointment and anger she feels for her father is directed at whoever these people are. She hears a female voice say in accented English ‘now who have we here?’ and taking hold of her wrist. Tracy forms her free hand into a small tight fist and projects it as hard as she can towards the voice she has just heard. She feels a very satisfying contact. Her wrist is abruptly released and whoever it was, collapses into a heap on the floor!
However, The Voice has assistants. The next hands which take hold of her are larger, stronger, rougher. However hard Tracy writhes and struggles, she is held fast. She is half dragged, half carried out of the container, down a ramp and into some sort of building. But Tracy can still talk:
“You bastards! Lemme go at once! Do you have any idea who I am? Do you realize what is going to happen to you? Get your goddam hands of off me! Oh Jeez, stop this at once!”
By now, Tracy has reached another cell in a basement corridor – her very own cell. She is being held fast whilst someone is cutting her clothes from her body with paramedic shears. They slice and pull and in seconds, she is as naked as the day she was born. Someone gives her a firm shove, sending her sprawling back against the white painted wall. The people – men, maybe women, it was hard to tell – abruptly leave her alone, to continue to scream and pound on the locked door of her cell with empty threats until she is finally overcome by the fatigue of disorientation and fear and surrenders to sleep. (7)
References
1. The FBI in US Embassies abroad
2. The Marriott in Potsdammer Platz is on Marriot.com
3. The conversation in German -
Hans Peter - is this place free?
Tracy - Yes, this place is not taken
4. Blue eyes. A story told to Phil by a West African friend
5. Insomnia Night Club can be found on the web. Phil read about this place in a magazine at the dentist’s, but he has not had the chance to check it out yet!
6. Flunitrazepam Check out its effects at Wikipedia.
7. Eastern Wind Container Express can be found on Inter-rail
8. Russian Railways rail freight
9. More on Tracy’s arrival at the Dacha Kustensky can be found in ‘Tales From A Far Country’ in the chapter “An American Cousin”
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