Chapter One
Los Angeles was so different from New York the two cities could have been in
different countries. Everything from the weather to the greenery to the architecture put
them far more than a few time zones apart. New York was made up of concrete canyons with
little patches of sky high overhead. LA was all sky, spread out in all directions. Okay,
it was mostly gray and brown, but it was still sky.
The attitude was wildly different, too. Everyone was much more laid back, relaxed,
casual. Except, of course, for the FBI. No one wore jeans to the office at the FBI. No one
drove sports cars. No one had wild hair styles. None of the young men in conservative blue
suits had rings in their ears. If there were any navel rings among the few female agents
they kept them well hidden along with their navels.
The FBI was a throwback to another era, an era where managers took tape measures to
their male employees hair to make sure it wasn't too long, and to their female employees'
skirts to make sure they weren't too short. Of course, they couldn't actually do that any
more. They couldn't even put it in the rules and regulations. That wouldn't have been
politically acceptable. But the rules existed nevertheless. Drive a shiny sports car to
work at your peril. Wear a suit in any colour but blue, brown, or gray and watch the
eyebrows raise, the brows furrow with disapproval.
In this organization, a vegetarian was considered a radical. As for women and
minorities well, politics forced the Bureau to accept them, but it didn't have to like
it, and they better damned well know their places. Like everyone else, they had better
follow the unwritten rules especially the rules which said White Anglo Saxon Protestants
culture and work ethic if the fifties - reigned supreme.
I understood all that, and once I had even gone along with it. I had obeyed all the
little unwritten rules, been a good girl, never complained, never made waves, and did
nothing to stand out. But the events of the past year had permanently altered my ability
to accept bullshit. It had shaken me to the foundations of my personality, and then
twisted it around. I was no longer the painfully earnest and obedient girl I had once
been. In fact, as far as my alleged superiors were concerned I was a royal pain in the
ass.
Worse, I was getting away with it. My insubordination was always unspoken or
oblique. I seemed to have developed a knack for insulting people just by looking at them.
I hadn't always had that ability. I'd once been described as having an open and honest
face. Now I seemed to have acquired the ability to just look at people and convey the
contempt I felt for them.
And I felt contempt for a lot of people these days, not the least of which was
myself.
Months ago I had been captured by a Russian gang. If they'd known who I was they
would have killed me. Since they didn't, they merely gang violated me, then tortured me to
find out who I was working for. I'd woken as two of them were digging my grave, and killed
them both. But I had been so disoriented I hadn't even known who I was. It had taken some
weeks before the memories had crept back into me, but whatever had been twisted deep
inside my mind had remained that way.
From what I had learned from the other female agents those who would talk to me
what I was wearing had become their prime topic of conversation each morning. Which just
went to show how pathetic their lives were, and how little it took here to be talked
about.
I obeyed the rules, even the unwritten ones, for the most part. I wore business
suits, and if the trousers were sometimes a little tight, well, there was no rule against
that. And if the sweaters I wore looked good on my body, accentuated my slim waist and
full breasts, well, there was no rule against that either. Like my attitude, my clothes
skimmed the edges of rules which often weren't even written down.
I was wearing a silver grey business suit that day, with a deep blue silk shirt.
The colour alone was radical enough to cause tongues wagging, but the neckline of the
blouse was low enough to show the lacy trim of the black bra underneath. Most places that
wouldn't have caused a stir. Here, well, imagine a woman walking down a street in Saudi
Arabia in shorts.
Everyone who saw me during the day thought of me as a ball buster, a feminist
(which, to these guys, was almost as good as being a Communist), someone they watched
nervously whenever she was around. But I had developed a strange kind of split
personality. At certain times, in certain situations, I wanted to be pushed around,
wanted to be treated badly, with contempt and derision. I hated that part of me. It was
born of that twisted darkness which had been brought out of me during my torture.
I resisted those urges and needs, but they embarrassed me anyway, and on occasions
when I couldn't resist I felt a deep sense of anger and rage at myself for my weakness. It
melted away under the heat of the moment, but afterwards it tore at me, filling me with
self-loathing.
"Time to be heading home, Gwen."
I looked up and smiled at Dave Forrester. "Just about," I said.
It was a joke. It was quarter to four, you see. I occasionally scandalized the
office by leaving five or even ten minutes early. The rest of them, desperate to be seen
as hard, dedicated workers, wouldn't cut out until the clock was at least a couple of
minutes after four. Some would wait longer, for the SAC to leave ahead of them. Brown
nosing was not a derogatory term around her, it was a way of life.
But I no longer had the patience for it. I no longer had the patience for a lot of
things, like being polite to idiots, like smiling at bad jokes and complimenting people on
ugly ties and accepting barely veiled put downs from snotty punks six inches shorter and
50 IQ points lighter than I was. I liked being an FBI agent, but it was no longer the be
all and end all of my life, and I knew I could survive without it.
Michael Chang stopped by.
"Gwen, have you finished that report on the forgery case? I need to make sure it
fits in with the rest."
"I'm still waiting to hear from Celia about the tox results on the chemicals."
"Could you get her to put a rush on it? We have a show cause hearing coming up."
I nodded and picked up the phone to call Celia.
My cubicle is notorious on our floor. Most of the others were completely bare
except for the occasional picture of wife and kids. Everyone wanted to show how dedicated
to the job they were, how businesslike.
The wall my cubicle backed against held a seven by eight foot hand made Indian
wall hanging depicting a nature scene of birds singing on a fence, with a background of
green trees. It was inexpensive, and broke up the ugly industrial gray plaster that
otherwise made the place seem cold. I had a pair of ornamental lamps on my L shaped desk,
and had bought a high-backed tilt chair which was a hell of a lot more comfortable than
the swivel chairs most of the agents sat on. There were two large prints by John
Waterhouse on the cubicle walls, along with a small Renoir. A large Flamingo Flower plant
sat on the corner of my desk.
There had been innumerable hints and critical comments from senior agents regarding
every single one of the items I mention above, as well as the effect together on the
"business environment" of the office. Problem was, for them, there were no regulations
against any of it. No one had ever thought to draw up a regulation on what kind of chairs
agents could buy on their own, or what type of lamps they could have in their office.
There were all sorts of regulations about prints, pictures, posters and the like,
but all of them concerned sexist, obscene, racist, commercial, or tasteless articles, and
try as they had none of my alleged superiors had been able to come up with an
interpretation which matched. I had been told flat-out that the environment of my cubicle
was not "conducive" to a professional work environment and that I had to clear out the
"debris". I had ignored those orders.
It was ten to four. I had done everything that needed doing aside from a few things
I was waiting on replies from others for. I mentally shrugged and stood up. I had removed
my blazer, which was one of the reasons the guys kept finding excuses to walk by. I
slipped it off the back of my chair and pulled it on, but didn't button it. I turned off
the computer, took my gun from the drawer and slipped it into the holster at the small of
my back, locked my desk drawers, and strode down the aisle between the cubicles.
Francis Kosh looked up and scowled as I passed his office but didn't say anything.
He was anal, but not stupid, and he'd already lost every disagreement we'd had since I had
arrived.
It was still seven minutes to four. In most places the elevators would have been
packed, but not here. Only one man was in the elevator, John Graham, an already balding
thirty year old senior agent from the Mafia task force. He frowned at me, ostentatiously
looked at his watch, then frowned at me again. I ostentatiously looked at the balding top
of his head, smiled slightly, then looked away as his face reddened.
I drove a black Miata convertible. It was sleek and fast enough to make me happy,
but cheap enough to keep people from wondering how I could afford it. I drove it fast, but
seldom got tickets. Men are strange creatures. Over the past year I had come to think of
them almost as alien creatures, often threatening alien creatures. But in some ways they
were almost universally weak and malleable. Most cops were males, those who weren't were
often lesbians. In either case a little sweet talk usually sufficed.
It was Friday. My night to party. My night to let loose, to try to expunge the
frustrations which had built up over the previous five days. Saturday I would sleep in,
then spend the day hung over and hating myself for what I'd done the night before. It was
like I was an addict, but the addiction was inside myself.
I headed west on the Santa Monica freeway with the sun in my face, then turned
south towards Marina Del Rey. Ten minutes later I was home, and ten minutes after that,
not having eaten, I was trotting out to the car and heading for the club in my little grey
dress.
Truth is you could have folded it up and put it into the back pocket of my trousers
and hardly seen a bulge. It was made of shimmering grey metallic thread. It was tight
where the spaghetti straps held up a pair of cups which held my breasts and showed a
generous, but not slutty amount of cleavage. It was loose below, so that the skirt floated
around my thighs just below my buttocks.
The back and sides were mostly bare, and the chest curled across my breasts only a
bit, so that both were half bare from the side. With the stiletto heels my legs seemed
especially long, and the skirt especially short. I liked it. The look was hot, sleek,
sexy, sensuous, and just borderline slutty.
I added a lot more makeup than I'd ever wear outside a dark club, and brushed out
my dark hair, frowning at it in the mirror. It had once been blonde. Now it was a dark,
gleaming black. I'd dyed it to be taken more seriously. I'd cut it because men seemed to
like to use long hair as a handle to drag me around. It was growing longer now, but I
hadn't cut it. I wasn't sure why.
I hadn't eaten before leaving because eating would make it harder to get drunk, and
I needed to get drunk on Friday nights.
The club was noisy, music pounding against the walls, the heavy base thumping
against my body like a physical force. The lights flashed and spun overhead, and bodies
writhed and twisted and thrashed on the floor. It was also dark, and the dark encouraged
the daring and the drunk. I wasn't drunk, but had a pleasant buzz on. The daring part I'll
confess to.
I was dancing with two men amidst the jostling crowd of bodies. Our bodies were
grinding together, and then apart, and then together again as the mood took us. Or me, I
should say. The guys wanted us close, very close, close enough so they could pull my body
in against them and press my breasts against their chest.
The two I was with were Latin guys, both with a lot of cocky self confidence. They
had started out bracketing me, dancing a foot back, almost daring me. I didn't mind. We
danced. And they began to move closer, testing the limits of what they could get away
with. Jose was tall and thin, with a small moustache. Paulo was a half head shorter with
broader shoulders. Jose put his hands on my hips as we danced, flicking his tongue out at
me. Paulo moved in from behind, his hands sliding up my waist.
Since I didn't run screaming, their light touch grew heavier, and they began to
move in closer. Jose pulled me in against him, sliding his knee between my legs to do a
little dirty dancing. I could feel his thigh pushing up against my pussy as I ground
myself against him, and a hot little surge of excitement spread through my lower belly.
I danced backwards, and Paulo pressed himself against me, his hands sliding around
me, stroking my belly as he ground his pelvis into me. Then Jose moved in close from the
front, grinding his upper body against me, squeezing my breasts in between our ribs. We
moved apart, and together again, apart, and together, and they grew more confident with
their hands. Jose's slid down my back to squeeze me through the thin, loose skirt.
On my next dance back, Paul ran his hands slowly down my belly and along my thighs,
staying in safe territory, but skirting (pardon the pun) the danger zone.
I pushed forward, staring challengingly at Jose, and he wrapped his arms around me,
pushing his knee between my legs again so I'd ride up on his thigh. His hands slipped
casually under my skirt, fingers spread wide to squeeze and knead my buttocks. The small,
lacy thong I wore did nothing to impede him, and my pussy thrummed again as he pulled me
up onto his thigh and ground it against me.
Backwards against Paulo, Jose staring hotly at me, and Paulo's breath was hot on my
cheek as he ground himself against me. I could feel him now, hard and thick as he pushed
against me from behind. His hands ran slowly up my sides, fingers caressing the bare sides
of my breasts, then gently easing forward beneath the cups. For long seconds his
fingertips gently stroked my flesh just inside, as if he were waiting for me to protest.
When I didn't his fingers slid forward until his entire hands were inside the cups and
filled with my warm breasts.
Our bodies ground slowly from side to side, my hands above my head as my hips
rolled and twisted. His fingers squeezed my breasts repeatedly, his thumbs and fingers
searching for my nipples. I danced forward, pulling myself free, and Jose's lips came down
on mine as his fingers dug into my bare buttocks. And then Paulo was pressed against me
from behind again, his hands moving forward along my ribs, easing around beneath my dress.
One of Jose's hands squeezed my right breast, blocking Paulo, who promptly dropped
his hand to squeeze me between the legs. Our bodies continued to move and roll to the
music, as I felt two erections grinding into me, one from ether side, and my heart began
to beat faster with the rush of lust to my belly.
Jose was chewing on the nape of my neck, and then Paulo leaned forward to do the
same on the other side. Sandwiched between them, I continued to swing and roll my hips,
hands on Jose's shoulders, hair swinging as we circled and turned. I felt one of Paulo's
fingers pierce me, then a second. I knew he would feel my wetness, and sure enough his
fingers slid deep, then withdrew completely. I felt his hand at my lips and opened them,
letting him push his fingers inside where I sucked and licked hungrily.
And then suddenly there was another man there, a large man, taller than me in my
heels, and far bulkier. A black man, bald, with broad shoulders. He had a darkness in his
eyes that made me shiver, and he thrust Jose back as if it didn't even occur to him he
might disagree. Jose glared at him, but one look at those eyes and he backed away.
The Black man danced with me, or at least, swayed in place, and a part of me wanted
to spit on him and turn away in a huff. I didn't like guys who threw their weight around,
after all. But another part of me roused, that dark, twisted part of my soul, and it
looked into those eyes and thrummed with heat.
I danced against him, and he let me. His big hands slid along my waist, then behind
me as I rolled and swayed. They stroked up and down my back, leaving a hot trail behind,
then down onto my ass, squeezing me through the skirt. Just as he had with Jose and Paulo,
he clearly didn't imagine I would object to anything he did.
His hands closed on my bottom and he lifted me up against him. My long legs slid up
around him, my hands going over his shoulders. We kissed, the kiss rough, hungry, violent
enough that I tasted blood. His tongue twisted inside me, fighting against my own,
battering it down as he turned and carried me back against the wall.
He set me down there, and I looked up into him, seeing nothing but shadow with the
light behind. His fingers stroked my shoulders, then hooked into the spaghetti straps,
sliding them down over my shoulders so that the front of the dress lowered and my breasts
fell out.
I looked past him, stomach tight, breath coming in short, ragged pants. No one was
looking, and his breasts cupped my breasts and squeezed them together as he leaned in
against me, his mouth biting and sucking and licking at mine.
I reached in between his legs, squeezing his cock through leather pants. He was
hard and thick, and growled as he pulled his head downwards and bit at my breast. I stared
over his head now as he dropped to his knees, gasping and jerking against the wall. The
room was dark, but not that dark. We weren't invisible, and my breasts were now bared to
the entire club.
But it was that kind of club, a wild club where anything could happen. Half the
women there were wearing sheer tops or bras, and there was a lot of groping and making out
going on.
But no one was as obvious as we were as he mouthed my breast and bit down until I
cried out in pain and pleasure.
He straightened, and I unconsciously pulled the top back up, sliding the strings
over my shoulders. He took my wrist and led me through the dancers, to the rear of the
club, down a nearly lightless hall. He hit the crash bar leading out and suddenly we were
in an alley behind the club. Even as the door closed I heard the thumping noise of the
rock music pounding through the stone.
And then he had swung me around, lifted me up to sit on a low packing crate and
stepped in between my spread legs. His hands slid up my thighs, brushing back the skirt
until my thong was in sight, then he hooked two fingers into the top and tore it off. He
gripped the hem with both hands and it ripped upwards along my body and over my head to
drop behind me. Then a push on my chest threw me back so I was laying still, panting for
breath, fire racing through my veins.
My legs hung over the edge of the crate, and I grunted as he yanked them up and
apart. I heard his zipper go down, but did nothing. My arms were laying on the crate
beside me, and I stared up at him, letting him do me, knowing it would be rough. He
glowered down at me, his lip curling as he drew himself out. I knew he thought I was a
whore, maybe even a white slut who was hot for Black men.
It shamed me, but I revelled in it. He moved his hands roughly over my body,
squeezing my breasts, pinching and twisting the nipples. I cried out as he entered me. He
was big, and had no patience. I was wet, though, and he forced himself two thirds of the
way inside me in that one hard thrust.
He yanked my legs up and apart further, lifting my bottom off the crate, then
thrust forward once again to bury his cock inside me. It hurt dully, but the sense of
being filled was incredibly hot. He forced my legs back, grinding his pelvis down against
me, drew his hips back, and lunged forward. I could see his pleasure when I cried out, his
excitement at the pain he had caused me.
I shuddered and stared up at those dark eyes, my arms twitching on the rough wood
of the carton. He drew back and slammed in again, and again I hurt, deep inside, my head
jerking from side to side. I reached up, and stopped, and he speared me again, stabbed me.
That was what it felt like, as if he were using his cock as a weapon to impale me.
I reached up, slapping his face. He smiled and lunged in again. I slapped him
again, and - I don't know if you can understand this but - it wasn't to stop him. I wanted
to make him angry.
He forced my legs back harder, then started to pump. He pumped like a steam train
building up speed, but built it up almost immediately, slamming his muscular hips against
my upraised bottom, stabbing his thick prick down into my body so that I bucked and
twisted and cried out in pain.
I dragged my nails along his arm and he cursed viciously, and his hands shifted to
my throat. I felt them closing, completely covering my neck, squeezing so that I couldn't
breath. I dropped my hands to the wood, gasping. His hips pounded into me violently, a
raw, animal fury gripping him as his cock pistoned in and out of my aching, throbbing,
never satisfied pussy.
My chest began to burn and ache, my head to throb from lack of air. I put my hands
on his wrists, knowing I had no chance whatever of pulling them free. Each was thicker
than both mine put together. Fire filled me, a fiery, terrible heat that felt as if it
would consume me. I made no effort to pull his wrists free, just holding them made that
twisted side of my mind flash with a kind of sexual exultation.
I knew that he could kill me, and pictured myself laying spreadeagled, naked and
dead, draped across the crate in a dirty alley. Dead. The thought excited me. I felt the
orgasm building, a huge, towering orgasm. I let my hands fall off his wrists, my arms
falling wide, laying on the carton. I revelled in the violence of what he was doing to me,
in the pain and using, in the tight hands around my throat and the hard cock pounding
inside me.
Black spots began to flicker before my eyes, and the world began to blur. The
orgasm screamed around me like a whirlwind and I felt myself about to be consumed.
My hands rose, snapped up violently, slammed into his ears on both sides. He
screamed and clasped his hands to his head. I drew my knees back a little further, got my
spike heeled shoes against his chest and thrust out hard. He flew back and landed
sprawling in the garbage as I grew in deep, shuddering breaths of air.
And yet I made no move to stand, no move to finish him, no move to escape. That
dark twisted heat was still gripping me, still clawed at my mind. I lay atop the carton,
arms at my sides, legs spread, waiting for him to recover, knowing he would hurt me when
he did. I was gripped by fear, but more than that, a desperate, anxious excitement.
I could hear him cursing, sense him pulling himself to his feet. A part of me
screamed in fury, in fear, demanding I sit up, stand up, get ready to defend myself. I did
nothing. My heart pounded as I waited.
And then the carton flipped and I cried out as I went with it. I caught myself
against couple of boxes of newspapers put out for recycling, but then a fist yanked on my
hair, ripping my head up and back, and flinging me onto the dirty pavement. Faster than
thought his knee jammed down against the small of my back, and I screamed in pain. His
fist yanked on my hair, forcing my head back, and he shifted back, moving his knee.
A hand went beneath me, throwing me up as if I were a rag doll. And he was behind
me, and then inside me. He gripped my wrists in his huge fists, yanking my hands back
along my thighs, and began to ride me. As before, he was using his cock, his body as a
weapon, hammering against me, pulling on my wrists to yank me back to meet every thrust so
that my head and torso jerked violently up and down.
He dropped my wrists so suddenly I almost smashed my face against the pavement. I
caught myself just in time, and shuddered as his big hands folded around my breasts and
crushed them. Hard, thick nails caught at my nipples, grinding them between them so that
my breath came in sobs and my body shuddered. My bottom stayed high, my legs spread as he
continued to ram himself into me. I hurt, but the pain was glorious.
He whipped off his belt, and suddenly it was around my throat. I didn't fight it.
The buckle squeezed in against the side of my throat as he pulled the belt back, and I
gasped and shuddered. He pulled up so that I came off my hands, but I made no attempt to
ease the strain. I remained in place, on hands and knees, well, on knees. My hands hung
down loosely, an inch or two above the pavement as I slowly strangled.
His hips continued to pound me. He slapped my left breast, then crushed it
painfully in his hand. His cock was slicing violently in and out of me, punching against
my cervix. The world began to blur, and then the climax hit. I screamed, or tried to, but
had no breath. The world was a dark place filled with odd shapes and angles all bouncing
wildly up and down.
I couldn't breath. My head was going to explode, and the orgasm was consuming me.
It burned along my veins and howled through my nervous system. My muscles spasmed and
nerve endings crackled. My arms and hands continued to hang loosely below me, but now
flopped and flailed mindlessly. Waves of sensual joy swept through me as orgiastic bliss
gripped my body and mind.
Some distant part of me knew I was about to pass out from lack of oxygen, and even
that I might never wake up. But I didn't care. The pleasure was too powerful, the darkness
too deep. I heard his snarl behind me as he slapped at one of my breasts again. The pain
was a sharp, jagged burst of light and fire, but it only drove the darkness deeper into my
mind and shuddered in pleasure as well as pain.
And then, suddenly, the pounding stopped, and the belt was released. I fell
bonelessly to the pavement, eyes wide but unseeing. I felt the belt pulled loose, but
cared little about it. The last vestiges of the massive orgasm were trickling slowly from
my body, and twitched and trembled in the afterglow, my breath a soft, ragged croak as I
lay on the pavement.
I was on my belly, and after a minute, or two, or three, I recovered the energy and
awareness to turn slightly, gasping as I pushed my sore breasts up off the pavement and
turned onto my side, or at least, turned my upper torso onto my side. I lay, half twisted
on the ground, my mind slowly beginning to clear. Very slowly.
I heard a door open, and then footsteps. A part of me quaked with embarrassment.
Another part trembled with the dark excitement of being found this way, naked and well
abused. It hadn't been r*pe, of course, but the violence had been there.
Voices in Spanish, and figures in shadow knelt beside me. It was Paulo and Jose. My
vision blurred and focussed and blurred again. I was rolled onto my back, and felt my legs
being spread. Jose fumbled at his pants and knelt between my thighs. I moaned softly and
he leered, his pants dropping.
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