The Road is a Harsh Mistress Pt. 01

Dedicated to all the dads out there... especially mine.

One of the greats.

I miss you, Dad.

The only thing Mike Carter loved more than a day driving through the mountains was his children. But he never could have imagined that a fateful days' drive would be interrupted by a beautiful, not to mention naked, woman stumbling into the road and completely upending his life. After Mike rescued her from certain death on a winding mountain road, he finds himself drawn into a web of deception and criminality. And at the heart of the conspiracy is a wish granting Artifact of unspeakable power.

Suddenly having found himself thrust into an adventure beyond his comprehension, Mike must navigate the challenging intersection between dream and nightmare as the forces of darkness align against him. His only saving grace? The beautiful woman he rescued from captivity... and who just might find herself in a position to save Mike from a prison without walls, and entirely of his own making.

The Road is a Harsh Mistress is a contemporary wish-fulfillment fantasy about a father's quest to make the perfect life for his children and, in so doing, discover happiness might not be beyond his grasp after all.

Author's Note:

This novel is a work of contemporary fantasy adventure. I've split it into three sections for publication here.

This is the third edition of this novel. If you've read it before on another site, you'll find this update includes many rather fundamental changes. In addition to changing some key plot details, I have also reimagined some characters while fleshing out others (and even removed a few who I found detracted from the story I was trying to tell). For those who enjoyed the novel in the past, I hope you like the new version. For everyone else, ignore everything I just said and enjoy Mike's adventure.

All sensuality (on page or otherwise) takes place between characters who are eighteen or older.

One

Mike Carter stood easily behind the wheel, enjoying the fleeting feeling of control and contentment that he always derived from driving. He made a nearly imperceptible adjustment, the rapidly changing conditions before him translating without conscious thought into minor corrections to their course and speed. The deep V-hull of the center console cruiser cut cleanly through the converging wakes with a satisfying woosh to accompany the fountain of water which rose along the sides of the craft. Having been built to cut through the waves of the open ocean with ease, the relatively sedate chop on the quiet mountain lake presented little challenge. His children were also enjoying the ride, leaning against the bow railing, and shouting for him to go faster with each splash. His parents, favoring a more cautious approach, opted to sit in the stern so they could stay dry.

The boat technically belonged to Mike's parents, having been purchased as a thinly veiled inducement to ensure frequent visits from their grandchildren, but there was never a question of who would be at the controls when Mike was aboard. As a boy, he had quickly transitioned through the phase where his folks had feigned horror at the thought of him behind the wheel. He had mastered watercraft before graduating from primary school. His mastery of automobiles had come even quicker thanks to an initially promising career in karting which had been cut short by a crash severe enough to cause his mother to be firm with her husband and son.

Despite the end to his racing career, he had retained a love for driving all manner of vehicles. It was one of the few places where he was truly in his element. Whether it was cruising across a mountain lake, or rocketing along an empty stretch of road, nothing was able to help Mike better reset after a stressful week quite like getting behind the wheel.

As Mike approached the cove on the far side of the lake, he backed off the throttle to allow the craft to gracefully coast to a halt near their favorite swimming hole. He set the anchor before giving his children the go-ahead to leap into the water to swim to their friends. His daughter Alexis grumbled briefly about wearing her life jacket, despite its bright pink color scheme which she had personally selected despite the existence of several more reasonable options being available. Yet, despite her precocious nature, she begrudgingly agreed that she was not a strong enough swimmer to swim across the cove unassisted. She headed to a group of primary-school aged children who were busy leaping off a dock which was moored in the middle of a circle of watercraft owned by his parents' neighbors. Mike's fifteen-year-old son Zach headed for a group of high school age kids, especially the sophomore head majorette from his school with whom he was clearly smitten.

Mike took a long pull from his insulated cup filled with the delectable combination of iced tea and lemonade named after the golfing great, which had become his drink of choice after swearing off alcohol. After giving the lines a final check, he sank down in the aft seating area under the Bimini top. He adjusted his sunglasses and cast his eyes across the cove, allowing them to linger on all the beautiful ladies who seemed to be competing to see who could get away with the smallest bikini. It was a fraught exercise, especially considering that some of the young ladies wearing the least were only a few years older than his son, but helpful markers like the presence of tattoos, tobacco or alcohol helped immeasurably in identifying those it was safe to ogle. Some were sunning themselves on the back decks of their bowriders. Others were hanging out on their pontoon boats surrounded by admirers. Still more were getting set to take another loop around the lake behind their wake boats. Mike's wandering gaze soon fell upon a new attraction in the cove: what appeared to be the Kaiju version of a child's floating toy. It was easily the size of a school bus, and was roughly in the shape of a sausage. Mike had a distant memory of seeing videos online showing people with more money than sense leaping from tall structures to catapult their comrades high into the air before, hopefully, crashing into the water. He could not remember what it was called, but he quickly decided it had been designed by a genius. A group of college girls had evidently towed it to the cove and were taking turns trying to bounce each other off. The bathing suits those beauties were wearing just did not seem like they would be able to handle the strain of the breasts they were tasked to contain as the ladies bounced ever higher.

Mike's reverie was broken when his mother Tessa asked, "So... how are things?"

Without taking his eyes from the gaily frolicking barely legal sunbathers, Mike replied, "Nominal."

"I'm not sure what that means."

"It means performing as expected, and without exceeding known fault tolerances," Mike's father Jubal supplied.

Tessa frowned and said, "That doesn't exactly sound the same as 'good'... or even 'fine'."

Mike shrugged and said, "It is what it is."

Jubal frowned and seemed about to say more, but Tessa laid a hand on his knee and said, "We see all you do."

Mike sighed and glanced around the cove again, waiting for the tightness in his throat to subside.

"You work too hard, son."

"Deety and Vivian are flying the kids up to their place in a few weeks, and things seem poised to calm down soon at work. I'm sure I'll find some time to relax then."

His mother smiled wanly and said, "Just know we're here for you, honey."

"I appreciate that. Truly. You guys have always been there for me, but especially these last few years."

"I just wish we could do more," Tessa sighed. "Perhaps we could have the kids spend the night. I believe the Winstons are having a barbeque tonight, and I'm sure Zach wouldn't mind getting to spend more time with their lovely granddaughter."

Mike's eyes scanned over to the deck boat where his son was animatedly chatting with the girl in question before agreeing, "Sure. That would be great. Just let me know when I should swing by tomorrow to pick them up."

"How about we drop them off tomorrow afternoon," Jubal offered. "Give you a well-deserved night off. Perhaps you could give one of those apps Paul was mentioning last time they were down here a try."

"I'll think about it," Mike grunted, unwilling to outright lie to his father while also having zero intention of downloading (much less making use of) the aforementioned dating app.

As the sun moved closer to sinking behind the mountains which circled the lake, Mike called the kids back to the boat so they could head to the marina. By the time he finished securing the boat and prepping everything for next week's lake day, it was time for everyone else to head to the house for dinner. His parents had invited him to stay for dinner, but he heard the siren's song of a rare opportunity indeed calling to him; one which he had no intention of ignoring.

After bidding his family adieu, Mike headed for the only thing he loved to drive more than 'his' boat, a twin-turbo V6 all-wheel-drive sport coupe. In his estimation, it suited him perfectly. It was a vehicle that had the performance of a sports car but looked like a boring family car. For the most part, he was very careful to drive safely when anyone else was with him. But on those rare occasions when he got his 350-horsepower coupe to himself, all bets were off. Especially if some particularly lonely mountain roads were involved. As soon as he turned onto the state highway that led from his parents' retirement home in the foothills back through the mountains to his home in the suburbs, he opened the gleefully taps.

Mike's soul rejoiced as his coupe got up to speed and gobbled up the tarmac. He loved the winding mountain roads nearly as much as he loved his children: the long sweeping bends; the challenging overtaking zones; the endless valleys where you could really put your foot down with confidence that no one would get in the way. The thrill he felt when he buried his left foot as he crested a hill and surged to twice the posted speed limit before reaching the valley floor was tantamount to a religious experience, only surpassed by perfectly hitting the apex on those wonderful, banked turns (even if said apex happened to be located in the oncoming lane).

Mike chose the 'quickest' route for his journey home, which was not necessarily the shortest. This route had several challenging sections but also had no traffic signals or stop signs until he was within twenty minutes of his house. After getting up to speed, he quickly achieved a near perfect state of calm concentration. The biggest risk of those mountain roads was someone pulling out of a nearly hidden driveway, either not knowing or not caring that he was barreling towards them at a speed normally reserved for aircraft. He was hyper aware of his surroundings when driving his coupe at its limit: scanning along both sides of the upcoming tarmac; checking each mirror every few seconds; keeping his hands perfectly placed with his fingers just barely kissing the paddle shifters; feet perfectly vertical and just barely resting on the floorboard. All of this was done to ensure that both he, and his coupe, were in the best possible position to handle whatever he might encounter when he crested the next hill or rounded the next bend.

His route took him through one notable valley, which was either fantastic or angst ridden, depending on one's point of view. As Mike approached the valley, he spotted a slow-moving pickup in the distance, and picked up the pace to ensure he could pass it before he arrived at the valley floor. The turbochargers screamed as he rocketed down the steep incline, and he was on full alert for the slightest hint that something was amiss. The roads he favored tended to be almost devoid of cops, but there was always the chance he would happen upon one who would like nothing better than to throw the dumb liberal from the city behind bars for driving 'recklessly'. He reached the pickup with only the length of a football pitch to spare, but the overtaking zone had already ended. Without a second thought, Mike took a quick glance through the truck's rear window to confirm there was no oncoming traffic before whipping around the slow-moving vehicle. The entire maneuver took less than a second, thanks to the fact that Mike was traveling nearly three times as fast as the hapless old-timer on his way to town for groceries.

He entered the valley shouting for joy. He reached up to the overhead control to deactivate his traction control as he approached the first bend. A quick tap of the brakes before he gunned the throttle and flicked the wheel sent the tail of his coupe sliding out as he oversteered through the first corner nearly perpendicular to his lane. His tires screamed as he held the drift through the end of the switchback before snapping the vehicle back in line and throttling out of it.

On the fourth switchback, he was surprised by an oncoming car just before he started his drift. He was forced to brake hard to avoid a collision. He heard the angry shouts of the other driver but could only shrug in response. After all, he reasoned, there were still five more switchbacks to go.

Reaching the summit on the opposite side of the valley, he reactivated the traction control and increased his speed. The switchbacks on the downhill run into the next valley were less severe, and thus more conducive to high-speed cornering. He took each corner quicker than the last, growing ever more bold. By the time he approached the summit, there was an active competition to see what was louder: the squeal of his tires as they struggled to grip the tarmac or the scream of the turbos as his engine climbed above six-thousand revolutions per minute.

He felt himself go light in the seat as he crested the a small rise, and his wheels momentarily lost touch with the road. His heart was racing with a mixture of delight and terror. It was the most alive he had felt in weeks.

Mike was just entering a small town along his route, thus necessitating that he pretend for a few moments that he was no different from anyone else out for a Saturday afternoon drive, when his phone rang. After glancing at the screen in the center of his dash, he thumbed the steering wheel control to answer the call and exclaimed, "Hey brother! What's happening?"

"Mike, my good man, I am splendid. Headed out to one of our branches to promote a very deserving young woman in person. Nothing but the steering wheel to keep me company, so I decided I'd reach out to my oldest friend. A friend, I'll remind you, who never seems to get around to calling his old friend Jake."

Mike cringed inwardly at the truth of his old roommate's words. He had met Jake during his sophomore year of college, and they had instantly become life-long friends. Jake had gotten married and moved to Florida right after graduation. Within four years, he was a father twice over. Now, as he neared his forty-second birthday, he was on the doorstep of becoming an empty nester. The plans he and his wife had for their post-kid years were as varied as they were ambitious.

"Sorry about that," Mike answered belatedly. "Things have been pretty hectic."

"How are Connie and the kids?"

Mike's eyes rolled back in his head, and he felt the beginnings of a stress headache building behind his eyeballs. He knew his old roommate was just being friendly. Moreover, he knew that he was long overdue to come clean to his former best-man. He pulled into a petrol station, rather than risk losing signal when he returned to the desolate mountain roads.

"The kids are great," Mike deflected as he set the hand-brake. "They're headed up north with my sister and her wife in a few weeks to see Niagara Falls. Alexis is starting fourth grade this fall and Zach's going to be a junior. How about you? Wife and kids doing ok?"

"They're doing great. Youngest is headed to our alma mater in a few weeks. Hope he never manages to find the liquor store on Spring Street that doesn't believe in checking identification. Oldest is changing her major. Again. She informed Nora and I that she's now on the five-year plan."

"Serves you right," Mike chuckled. "How long were you in school?"

"It's different when you get more than one degree. Ass."

"Have you and Nora decided yet where you're going first on your bucket list tour?"

"Patagonia."

"Wow. You guys aren't messing around."

"Go big or go home, brother," Jake jested. He then quieted and asked, "How's Connie, Mike?"

"That's rather a more complicated question than you might think."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Connie left me, brother."

"Oh, shit," Jake grunted. "I'm so sorry, Mike. What happened?"

"It's a long story, and not a very good one."

"So are you guys just going through a rough patch, or..."

"The divorce was finalized in January. She moved out right after Labor Day last year."

"Fuck. Brother, I had no idea. I thought she was just going through some health challenges."

"Maybe she still is," Mike conceded. "But, as she said, that's no longer my concern."

"What about the kids?"

"They're with me. I mean, not right now. They're at my folks for the night. But they live with me. Technically we've got joint custody, but no one's heard from her in months so..."

"That's... wow."

"Yup," Mike huffed, popping the 'P'.

"How you holding up?"

"I am... nominal."

"That's what I was afraid of. Any chance you'll be able to make the get-together next month?"

Their group of friends got together every year in a different interesting city. This year, they had chosen Vancouver. It was an event that Mike had missed for more often than not since Jake had arranged the first one the year following Zach's birth.

Mike shook his head, heedless of the fact that Jake could not see him through the phone, and said, "I don't think so."

Jake was quiet for a moment before finally saying, "You're allowed to have fun, you know. I'm sure your family would step up to the plate and help you out with the munchkins."

"It's not that. I just don't feel comfortable being away that long."

Jake sighed and said, "Fair enough. I said my piece. But I hope you'll consider it. I'd really love it if you could come. I think it might do you a lot of good. I can pretty much guarantee that you won't buy a single drink the entire weekend."

"Thanks man," Mike said resignedly. "I will."

"Listen, brother. I've got to let you go. I'm pulling up to the branch. Take care of yourself, ok?"

"You too. Be well, brother."

Two

Mike disconnected the call and shook his head wearily. He loved his friends, and would have loved nothing more than to join them on the trip. But he had known since the moment it was announced that he would miss it. Such extravagances were no longer worth the effort for him. It was hard enough to squeeze in a long drive every few weeks. With that in mind, he pulled back onto the state highway and resumed his drive back to the suburbs.

Thoughts of his friends from college, and his ex-wife, were soon driven from his thoughts as he realized he was approaching one of his favorite bends on the route he had chosen. It was a tricky left hander with a challenging double-apex, but it was perfectly banked so as to allow a skilled driver to exit the corner at a speed sufficient for more than 2 G's of downward force. The trickiness of the corner was due to the fact that while one could clearly see the oncoming traffic moving along the other end of the valley, the corner itself was shrouded in trees close along the road. He kept a close eye on the thankfully empty oncoming lane far ahead during the lengthy run-up to the corner, so he was confident there were no oncoming cars to worry him. He went intentionally wide on the first apex, knowing that even though the untrained eye would see two corners in quick succession, it was in fact one long corner if you had the courage, and the vehicle, to hold the outside of the first part of the turn at nearly full throttle. He entered the corner perfectly, dropping into the first part of the banked section of road well in excess of the speed limit and accelerating hard. This section of the road required the most skill, and the most confidence in one's vehicle. Keeping the engine cranked up to just north of six-thousand revolutions per minute in third gear planted the car to the tarmac like a fly caught in a web thanks to the maneuver forcing the vehicle's momentum, and a good chunk of the power thanks to the intelligent all-wheel-drive system, into the back end. He knew from the second he entered the corner complex that he had done things perfectly and smiled ear to ear.

His elation quickly turned to panic, however, when he saw a woman stumble onto the tarmac from the right shoulder. He spared a moment to give thanks that he was driving like a maniac. Had he followed the rules of the road, he would almost certainly have struck the woman. As it was, she barely registered as he flew past her. Mike kept his foot down (because to apply the brakes mid-turn would undoubtedly have led to a catastrophic loss of grip... followed by a spectacular crash). As soon as the bend straightened out, he flipped off the traction control and whipped the wheel to the left to execute the closest approximation to a bootlegger's turn possible without a manual hand brake. After his vehicle rotated to point in the direction from which he had come, he stomped on the accelerator. All four wheels struggled briefly for traction, but he was shortly picking up speed as he headed back towards the woman.

Had he stopped to consider it, he likely would have been perplexed at his eagerness to get back to her. He saw strange sights all the time when driving through the mountains. This certainly included strange looking individuals walking along the side of, or even on, those desolate roads. But something had struck him as different about the woman. He had only seen her for an instant, but he could not shake the feeling of dread that had overcome him.

She was passed out on what had become, from Mike's updated perspective, the oncoming lane. He quickly pulled off the road as much as he could (which still left one third of his vehicle in danger) before getting out and running over to her. She was unconscious, and had some cuts and scrapes, but appeared otherwise unharmed. He picked her up and hurriedly carried her back to his car, placing her in the back seat as gently as he could.

He climbed into the driver's seat, barely dodging an angrily honking oncoming farm truck in the process. Knowing he was still blocking the road; he wasted no time in putting the car in gear and stomping on the throttle. In seconds, they were back up to a reasonable velocity and seemingly out of harm's way.

But Mike knew that trouble was, at best, only over temporarily. There was a woman lying unconscious in his back seat who was both a stranger to him and obviously in peril. A young woman; likely in her mid-twenties if not college aged... one who could have easily been amongst the group he had seen frolicing on the lake earlier that afternoon.

She was also naked.

Twenty minutes later, Mike decided to pull off when he finally reached a scenic overlook which seemed deserted. He got out of the car and looked in the boot to see if he had any extra clothes, or even blankets, which would allow his passenger to cover up. He slammed the boot lid in frustration and headed back in the direction of the driver's seat.

As he opened the door, he heard a faint, "Hello?" come from the back seat.

He looked through the rear window and saw that the woman, who made no move to cover her nakedness, had sat up in the back seat and was shading her eyes against the setting sun.

"Are you... ok?" he asked haltingly, suddenly quite aware that he could think of no good way to begin a conversation with a naked stranger.

"I'm better now," she replied softly. "Thanks to you."

"Would you like some water? I don't have any extra clothes with me, but I can give you this shirt if you'd like." he replied hesitantly, tugging at the collar of his t-shirt.

It had been many years since anyone but his wife had seen him without a shirt on, and the years had not been kind to his midsection.

"What do you mean, 'if I like'? Did you think you just happened across a nudist out for a stroll in the woods?" she asked, with a crooked smile.

"That's hardly fair," he replied defensively. "I have it on good authority that removing my shirt in public is a hanging offense in some counties.

"I can't speak to that," she replied good-naturedly, "having not yet seen you without a shirt on. But I happen to know for a fact that running around bare-assed naked is a lot more frowned upon than a guy taking his shirt off."

"Perhaps," he offered, not sure what else to say.

"Don't sell yourself short," she replied seriously. "You risked a lot to rescue me back there. That counts for a lot more than you think. Besides, you're just my type of guy. Those gym rats are all so self-absorbed, but you just risked your life for someone you'd never met. And, I'd love to have something to cover up with, since you offered. It's only fair, after all." She gestured to her very naked body to emphasize her point with an indefatigable smile on her face.

"Don't say I didn't warn you," he added as he pulled his shirt over his head, very much aware that this was definitely one of the weirder conversations he could ever remember having.

She took the offered shirt and slipped it over her head. She then stepped out of the car and smoothed it down over her bottom before approaching him and hugging him tightly; not the obligatory hug one would get from a co-worker on their last day on the job or the quick hug one would give one's wife on the way out the door. Rather, this was a gesture which wordlessly conveyed her gratitude... and perhaps something more based on just how long she clung to him. Anyone passing by likely would have seen her naked ass peeking out from beneath his shirt, but her entire demeanor told him she could not have cared less. He tried to return the hug half as good as she was giving it, but he was distracted by the knowledge of her nakedness under the shirt and the pressure of her breasts against his midsection.

After a bit of hesitation, she took a step back. She looked around the beautiful landscape surrounding them and tentatively said, "Thank you for saving me back there. I was dead on my feet. There's no way that truck would have missed me were it not for you."

"You're quite welcome. It was the least I could do."

She smiled at him comfortingly and said, "So, now what?"

"Is there somewhere I could take you?" he asked helplessly.

He was not sure what would come next, but it had not escaped his notice that they still had not addressed her sudden (naked) appearance on the side of a remote mountain road.

Her face fell and she said, "I don't want to mix you up in this."

"Don't be silly. Just let me know how I can help."

"I don't know," she replied somberly. "I'm not sure if he's still following me." She looked around nervously before adding, "I don't want to go to the police because he was connected to organized crime, and I fear he's got the cops on his payroll. I don't know what to do." She looked crestfallen and kept her head down.

"Could I take you back home?"

She shook her head dispiritedly before looking around their scenic surroundings, "I'm not even sure what state we're in. I'm from California, but this doesn't look like the west coast."

"You're hell and gone from California, that's for sure." He pointed toward the south in advance of adding, "That's the Georgia, North Carolina border out there."

"I don't know anyone on the east coast," she whimpered.

Mike's mind furiously searched for an answer beyond the obvious one. He had no reason to question her distrust of local police. There were (in his estimation) a lot of great things about the mountains, but the police there could not be counted on to do much outside of profiling people of color and protecting their good-ole boy buddies. He was worried they would take advantage of this woman as soon as protect her.

Mike held out his hand and said, "I'm Mike Carter."

She shook his hand firmly and said, "Vicky."

He sighed wearily and said, "We've got an extra room. What do you think about hiding out in the suburbs?"

"Oh my God!" Vicky sobbed and she surged toward him to embrace him tightly. "That's so generous of you. Are you sure?"

Mike returned her embrace awkwardly (very much unable to quiet the voices in his head which reminded him that he had no idea where to put his hands) and said, "I insist."

Vicky signaled her agreement by climbing back into the backseat. Mike thought to question the move, but instead shrugged and got behind the wheel before setting off in the direction of his home at a sedate pace. He had no desire to frighten her even further with his wild driving.

He glanced in the rearview mirror and said, "You don't have to ride in the back. I know those seats are better suited to children. I just put you back there initially so I didn't have to run around the car while the traffic was bearing down on us."

She shrugged and immediately climbed into the front seat without giving him a chance to pull off again, coming agonizingly close to pushing her still naked ass against the side of his face as she climbed over the center console. He tried to continue to be a gentleman, but it was growing more challenging by the minute. Once she'd settled into the front and belted herself in, it was hard for Mike to miss the fact that he could barely see the shirt below her lap belt.

She said, "How long have you been married? And how's your wife going to react if you bring home a woman who's naked except for YOUR shirt?"

"How did you..."

"Wedding ring," she interjected playfully, gesturing to his left hand.

He fingered the symbol of a union which no longer existed, one he still wore for reasons which eluded even him, before remarking, "Right. Well... you needn't worry about her."

"Why?" she quipped. "Are you guys swingers or something? Fair warning... while I'm technically bisexual, I definitely prefer men. Especially the heroic savior type."

The next few minutes of the ride passed in relative silence while Mike attempted to stay hyper-focused on the road instead of the beautiful, nearly naked, woman in the seat beside him. It was impossible for him to avoid noticing her long tan legs, which the t-shirt did nothing to cover. He began to suspect she noticed his glances, which caused him to redouble his efforts to keep his gaze pointed through the windscreen.

She interrupted his thoughts by saying, "Seriously? You're just going to let that comment go without any reaction?"

"We got divorced earlier this year."

"So why still wear the ring?" she teased. "Afraid the cougars at your kids' school will start circling like hyenas around a wounded gazelle?"

"Hardly," he muttered. "Just habit, I guess. And what makes you think I have children?"

"You already told me the backseat was for your kids. Besides, you're basically the embodiment of every dad stereotype. Right down to the fact that you've got a hot-rodded sedan that you drive like you stole it."

"Fair enough," he conceded. "I guess that's better than your assumption being solely based on the equatorial distention."

"The what?" she snickered. He glanced demonstrably down toward his partially obscured lap, prompting her to add, "Haven't you ever heard that girls aren't nearly so obsessed with looks as you guys are? I'd much rather be with a guy who makes me feel safe, and takes care of me, as opposed to a meathead who looks like a movie star but sees nothing wrong with taking his day out on me. Besides, everyone knows big guys are way better in bed."

Mike shook his head in frustration at the lurid direction in which her comments seemed headed. "I never asked, by the way. Are you ok? You know, after escaping..."

"I'm great, in point of fact," she chirped. "He's an asshole, and I'm glad to be rid of him. But you needn't worry about triggering me, Mike. I'm glad I escaped from my captor, but it's not like he raped me or anything like that."

"You were abducted?" he yelped.

"I mean... technically? He plucked me up from a bar in L. A. a few weeks ago. I was between jobs at the time. I guess I still am, now that I think about it. In any case, I was kind of adrift while I looked for my next opportunity. My parents are dead, no brothers or sisters. I guess that made me an easy target."

Vicky twisted subtly in her seat to face him as she spoke. Her movement caused him to glance in her direction; a move that happened entirely by instinct. But it was an entirely different instinct which kept his eyes glued to the alluring way the safety belt brought her braless breasts into stark relief. He tried to avert his gaze once he realized he was learning, but a thousand generations of his ancestors traitorously drew his eyes to the junction of her spread thighs, and the smooth slit she was doing nothing to obscure.

She noticed his gaze by pointedly not noticing it before continuing, "Anyway... don't worry about the abduction... or whatever it was." This led to a natural lull in the conversation. They enjoyed the scenery for a few minutes before she looked back at him and said, "So... you said you're divorced. Any girlfriends who might be upset by the notion of you showing up with a stranger who is also naked and a woman?"

"Negative. Just my kids. But they're staying with my folks tonight, so we've got some time to figure this out."

After a few more moments of silence, Vicky said, "Listen, Mike. Why don't you just drop me off at a restaurant somewhere. I'm sure I can find my way."

He shook his head and said, "I told you I'd help you, Vicky. After what you've been through, it's the least I can do."

He was unprepared for the jolt he felt moments later when she laid her hand on his forearm and gently whispered, "Thank you."

Three

"Where are we going?" Vicky asked pleasantly as Mike pulled off the dual carriageway shortly after crossing into Georgia. "I thought you said you live in the suburbs."

"I do," Mike replied. "I figured we'd swing by the S-Mart and get you something to wear."

"How will I go in there like this? Or, for that matter, how will you go in? You'll need a shirt."

"Trust me, I know we're both ready for me to put a shirt back on..."

Vicky cut him off saying, "Mike, please don't to do that to yourself."

He shrugged and said, "I'm no dummy, Vicky. Nor am I blind. The mirrors in my house work just fine."

"There's more to a man than looks. I happen to think you're quite handsome. You're my knight in shining armor, and I think any woman would be lucky to have you."

She reached out and laid her hand on top of his where he gripped the steering wheel, squeezing him comfortingly. He stared at her hand for long moments while he struggled to contain the roiling emotions which threatened to escape the carefully crafted walls he had constructed long ago. He found it easier to bottle everything up, forcing it down deep where he did not have to confront it. He felt the beginnings of everything bubbling back up to the surface and it was only through supreme force of will that he was able to force it back down.

"Thank you for that," he murmured. "But right now, we need to solve our clothing problem. Do you trust me?"

"Yes." she replied solemnly. "I think at this point I am already trusting you with my life."

He blew out a breath before answering. "I hate the thought of putting you through this again, but I just can't think of another way to make this work. The best I can come up with is that I'll go into the store and buy what you need while you move the car around the lot to stay away from anyone who might see you."

"So, you're saying I'd just be naked in your car?"

"Well... yeah. I can't think of anything else besides going all the way home and letting you wait there for me. But, by the time we get there, everything will be closed. So that would have to wait until the morning."

She patted his knee and said, "It's ok, Mike. I'm a little surprised you're willing to trust me with your car, what with us having just met. But I'm extremely grateful you're doing all this for me."

Mike navigated toward the rear of the enormous S-Mart parking lot, where there were plenty of trees to shield the vehicle from the omnipresent lighting, before putting the car in park. He let out a long breath, not sure what to do, or say, next. He started to slowly look over at Vicky expectantly.

She just sighed and said, "Here goes nothing," before pulling his shirt off and handing it to him. She glanced around the lot warily but made no move to cover herself in any way. Mike tried to be modest for her: looking up; to the side; anywhere but at her. She snickered at him and said, "You've already seen me naked, Mike. What's the point of hiding anything now? Besides, I've gotten to see you topless for the last hour and you just got a quick peep. Do you not like the way I look?"

He guffawed and said, "Vicky, you're stunning. But that's beside the point. We have a job to do." As he pulled his shirt back over his head, he realized he didn't know what to get for her. "I guess we should talk about what you'd like me to get you," he stammered uncomfortably.

She shrugged and offered him a teasing grin. "I'm honestly fine with whatever you'd like to see me in. Perhaps yoga pants and a tank top, or some daisy dukes and a crop top. Ooh! How about some workout gear? Like short-shorts and a sports bra."

He stared at her for a long moment, his befuddlement sufficient that the undeniable truth of her nudity faded into the background for a moment. "You're serious about all that?"

"Oh course!" she bubbled. "Honestly, I'd be fine just staying naked, since you seem to enjoy the view. But you said your kids would be home soon, so I'm guessing I should wear at least a little bit. So, honestly, please just get whatever you'd like to see me in. I'm sure I'll love it."

"Ok... I guess I'll figure something out. I'll go as quickly as I can. Just stay here unless someone starts to approach. If that happens, then I recommend just slowly circling the outer parking lot. It's pretty close to dusk, so I doubt anyone can see in."

He stepped from the car and watched her climb into the driver's seat. He leaned down to hand her the key fob. "One more thing. Careful with the throttle. This car has got a few more ponies under the bonnet than you'd think from looking at her."

Vicky gave him a funny look as he closed the door, but Mike hardly noticed it with the way his head was swimming. Try as he might, he could not get the image of the intoxicatingly busty woman, to whom he had just handed the keys to his favorite thing in the world outside his children, out of his head. Nor could he come to grips with her baffling turn toward what his most distant memories suggested was flirting. He shook his head as he walked across the enormous parking lot to the store.

He found his thoughts drifting to his ex-wife as he wandered through the enormous monument to capitalism, if for no other reason than to try to use Connie's measurements through the years in an attempt to guess sizes for Vicky. Connie had always been curvy, something which had morphed in recent years as they each put on weight. But even when he had first met his ex nearly seventeen years in his past, she had been significantly more full-figured than Vicky. Using this as a guide, he bought four sizes smaller than his ex had been when they married. His cart was soon half full with T-shirts, tank tops, shorts and leggings.

The comparative mental exercise in which he was engaging was even more fraught when considering underwear. He guessed Vicky's breasts were at least D-cups, perhaps even E-cups, but they had also felt notably firm when she had hugged him. He thus suspected she would wish to forgo anything with underwire or padding. He opted for simple, lacy bras in white and dark-blue, and matching panties cut bikini-style along with a pair of thongs to go with the leggings.

He swung through the luggage section as he crossed the store to the personals aisle to grab an oversized backpack into which all of the purchases could be placed. In the personals aisle, he scooped up the dozen or so items long years of marriage had taught him modern females required to exist.

By the time he was done, his cart was nearly full and the annoyingly impersonal self check-out kiosk was demanding he remit several hundred dollars of hard-earned currency in exchange for his purchases. His natural inclination to balk at the total, perhaps even to return a few items to the shelves, was silenced at the memory of all Vicky had endured. He swiped his card without further delay, hoping against hope that this small contribution could help assuage the trauma of all she had endured.

It was only after Mike emerged from the building that he fully realized what he had done. As he walked, he wondered if Vicky's teasing flirtation had subconsciously guided the fact that he had bought such undeniably sexy clothing. He had entered with the goal of quickly getting her a handful of things to make her comfortable, and perhaps to do something nice for her after her ordeal. But, as he considered what was in the bags he carried, he could not help but think that she would interpret what they contained as concurrence with her perplexing behavior. This line of thought led inexorably to questions of her motivations. His mind rejected the possibility of her sincerity as patently absurd, but he scrambled for an alternative explanation for her actions. He had offered to help her, indeed demonstrated his willingness to open his home for her, before she had ramped up the flirting. So why, he wondered, was she doing it?

He started to turn back to exchange his purchases, but he then realized his car was not where he had left it. Instead, there were several cars in its place with teenagers spilling out, clearly gearing up for a night of what they surely hoped would be secret consumption of alcohol and weed.

Just as he started to imagine something terrible happening to Vicky and his car, she pulled up next to him and lowered the passenger side window before hissing, "Get in!"

He opened the door and quickly climbed in before any other shoppers got a glimpse they would never forget.

Vicky burst out, "I'm sorry I moved your car. I tried to watch for you coming out of the store, but I didn't want to get too close since, you know, naked. You must have thought I ran off with it."

"No worries. I saw those juvenile delinquents. I'm glad you moved the car and didn't stay where you might be discovered. How about you pull back onto the main road and we'll look for an abandoned parking lot where you can get dressed?"

She pulled up to the light and when it turned green, she gave the car just a bit too much throttle and they surged away from the intersection as the turbos screamed. She immediately lifted off and exclaimed, "Whoa! You weren't kidding!"

"Indeed," he conceded with a grin. "Why don't you pull behind that bank?"

After the vehicle came to a sharp stop, Mike got out of the car and stood at the back.

Vicky moved over to the passenger side and rolled the window down slightly to say, "What are you waiting for?"

He shrugged and said, "I was giving you a moment to get changed."

"I think the cat's out of the bag as far as you seeing the goods, and I'm sure you're anxious to get home. Why don't we just get going?"

Mike climbed behind the wheel so they could resume their trip to his house in the suburbs. Vicky looked through the bag of stuff he had gotten her and started putting on the blue bra and panty set along with the jean shorts and a t-shirt.

"This stuff is great!" she gushed.

"I'm sorry about that," he grumbled.

"Whatever for? This looks perfect. You even nailed my size!"

"Because of what I picked out. I just wanted to give you some different options to make sure you were comfortable, and I wanted to do something nice for you since I know this day has to have been unbelievably hard on you. It was only after the fact, when it was too late, that I realized how creepy all that stuff must look in your eyes. I'm not even sure what I was thinking. It's not like that was the kind of stuff I bought for my ex. Or my daughter... fuck! What the hell is wrong with me?"

Vicky groaned, "Would you relax? It's not like you got lingerie for me, Mike. These are just clothes; exactly what I would have bought for myself. You have nothing to apologize for. Ok? You just wanted to do something nice for me. And, you know what? You succeeded! This is just what I would have gotten for myself and I'm incredibly grateful for all your help." She lowered her voice an octave before repeating, "Incredibly." She looked around for a moment as they merged back onto the dual carriageway before murmuring, "How long did you say it'll take us to get to your place?"

He glanced in her direction questioningly. It was at this point that he belatedly became aware that she had yet to put on any of the clothing he had purchased. His gazed hopped multiple times between her undeniably spectacular nude body and the darkened tarmac beyond the windscreen before the awkwardness he felt compelled him to speak.

"Are they the wrong size?"

"They might be a bit snug," she conceded. "But just enough to be entertaining for a certain heroic savior of mine."

"Vicky," he warned.

"Come on, Mike," she complained. "I just want to show you how appreciative I am."

Before he could question what she meant, he felt pressure on his groin. He looked down to find her hand fumbling with his zipper.

He glared in her direction and hissed, "What are you doing?"

"Didn't your ex ever give you road head?" she teased as she groped him.

"That's too far, Vicky," Mike snapped heatedly. "And there are way too many cops who love to patrol this section of highway for us to do anything reckless."

"Suit yourself," Vicky chirped as she fell back into her seat and started to get dressed. "Just let me know if you change your mind."

Four

"Can't even give me a single morning to sleep in?" Mike grumbled dispiritedly in response to one of his dogs leaping onto his bed to begin an energetic game of tug of war with his sister who had been, until moments' earlier, using Mike's thigh for a pillow. He spent a few interminable moments hoping the dogs would either give up their game or take their frolicing downstairs before groaning in frustration and snapping, "Fine! I'm getting up."

He noted as he clomped down the stairs that the sun had just barely crept above the eastern horizon. He opened the back door and shifted his feet to prevent a career ending injury as the dogs scrambled to be the first to reach the grass, heedless of the fact that he was taking up half the doorway.

"Jerks!" he called toward their retreating forms.

Mike gave them a few minutes to burn off some energy, during which time he dumped some kibble in their bowls and got his coffee started. Once he let them back in, he took a moment to enjoy the unfamiliar feeling of having nothing to do.

Just as the dogs finished eating, he heard one of them growl softly. He beckoned them to his side with a snap of his fingers, prompting them to sit obediently by his feet as they stared unblinkingly at the door to the basement. Shortly he saw the door open slightly and Vicky popped her head out hesitantly. She caught his eye and whispered, "Is it safe?"

He said, "Sure, come on up. They're just making sure you're supposed to be here. This is Prof and Wyoh," indicating the dog on his right and then his left. She continued to regard them with trepidation, so he added, "Why don't I put them back outside?"

"Oh... um... ok."

After the dogs were once again patrolling the backyard, he returned his attention to his guest. "Can I make you some breakfast?"

Vicky looked around conspiratorially before asking, "Is it still just us here?"

Mike nodded and said, "Would you like some eggs? Or perhaps something more substantial? I happen to make an outstanding spinach and mushroom omelet."

She nodded gratefully and crossed the kitchen to pour herself a cup of coffee. Once he finished making breakfast for them both, she joined him at the breakfast table.

As they ate, she asked, "So, now what?"

"You're welcome to stay with us for as long as you need to."

"Are you sure?"

"Yup. It's not a problem. So, what can I do to help?"

She looked thoughtful for a minute. "When do your kids get home?"

"I haven't called my folks yet, but I'll either drive up there this afternoon and get them, or (more likely) my folks will insist on bringing them down right before dinnertime."

A smile bloomed on her face and she said, "That's more than enough time. Can you come downstairs with me for a minute? I want to show you something."

He followed her into the basement guest room where she had spent the previous night. She dropped onto the twin bed and he came to a halt in the middle of the room, as there were not any chairs available. Vicky gave him a curious look before patting a spot next to her on the bed. After a moment's hesitation, Mike sat down a comfortable distance from her. She reached out to take his hand, and his entire body froze when their skin made contact.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Mike," she soothed with a playful tone.

"I know," he stammered. "But... what are you doing?"

"Showing my appreciation," she murmured sultrily. "I love these clothes, Mike. And, I think you bought them for me because you wanted to see me in them."

She stood up and moved to stand in front of him. Smiling crookedly at him, she reached down and pulled her shirt over her head. Next, she pushed her shorts down to her ankles, so she stood before him in the white lace bra and thong he had bought for her.

She struck a pose before adding, "And... because you wanted to see me take them off."

He was incapable of speech. Despite seeing her naked several times the day prior, he was struck dumb at the thought of her not only not minding, but inviting him to look at her body. She had long blonde hair which fell demurely just below her shoulders, beautifully framing her elegant features, and a face which seemed almost to have been fashioned by a master sculptor. Her smile was devastating, with perfect teeth and full lips. She had an athletic frame and smooth muscles like a lioness and perfectly rounded, full breasts which sat high and firm on her chest. The bra was (as near as makes no difference) see-through, and her turgid nipples with medium-sized areola were impossible to miss. She had a taunt belly with well-developed abs which descended elegantly into a flared waist. The thong was also clearly see-through, and he could detect no sign of pubic hair despite the fact that it barely covered her mound. Her legs continued the theme of sleek muscularity and tapered down to feet which looked slightly small for her frame. She was clearly enjoying his inspection because as his gaze reached her feet, she did a quick twirl to show him her backside. Her ass looked other-worldly in the thong, and her skin smooth and blemish free. It was impossibly full and remained firm, even when she gave her ass a playful slap. Her back was as toned as the rest of her and offered a delightful view of her breasts swelling out from each side of her frame. She turned back around and smiled at him before reaching back to unhook her bra as she started to step towards him.

At this point one of the dogs started barking at what was almost certainly nothing, but the noise broke Mike's reverie. He reached out to grasp Vicky's arms before she could remove what remained of her clothing. "I can't, Vicky."

"Why not?" she asked coquettishly as she made a show of trying to break free from her grasp, giving him a glimpse of her nipple in the process. "There aren't any cops around to worry about, your kids won't be home until this evening, and you already admitted you don't have anyone in your life right now. So tell me one good reason why I shouldn't show you exactly how much I appreciate all you've done for me."

"I'm just not ready for this," he whispered dispiritedly. "Not yet."

"I'm not proposing that we run off and get married, Mike. Just that we have a little fun. I can promise that you'll find me quite willing."

Mike regarded her for several moments, almost as if he were testing his own resolve. He was hyper-aware of her near nakedness, as well as his own physiological response to her closeness. As his gaze lingered, he spotted the slightest hint of a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. The walls he had built up to hold everything in nearly broke at that point. Here was someone who freely offered everything he had not had the courage to hope for, all he had desperately wished his now-ex would offer him during the years since his daughter had been born. Yet despite the allure, there was something which felt off about her offer. Whether it was the undeniable sense that she was trying to repay him (rather than the farcical notion that she was genuinely attracted to him), or the memories of how his ex-wife had similarly come on quite strong at the beginning of their relationship, he had no way of knowing. What was undeniable, however, was the fact that, despite the urgent pleas being issued from the region of his genitals, he found everything about Vicky's proposal to be quite unsettling. He sighed wearily before he stood, standing awkwardly in an attempt to hide his arousal.

As Mike shuffled toward the door, he stammered, "You honor me, Vicky. Truly. And I appreciate the sentiment. But I really do have quite a lot to do. So, if you'll excuse me?"

"Of course," Vicky murmured with a smile. "Just let me know when you change your mind, because I certainly won't."

"Christ," Mike muttered as he headed for the stairs. "What the fuck am I going to do?"

Mike's phone buzzed insistently in his pocket, interrupting his efforts to extract what had turned out to be a rather substantial boulder from one of the natural areas in his backyard. He had chosen the task out of something akin to desperation after several hours of trying to watch a race on television while Vicky fiddled with a tablet he had made available for her use. Despite the fact that the race had turned out to be unexpectedly exciting, thanks to an sudden rainstorm in Budapest, he had found it almost impossible to keep his eyes on the screen, rather than on his gorgeous companion who had emerged from her room wearing nothing but a thong while acting as though nothing in history could have been more reasonable.

After admitting defeat and shutting off the television, he had announced that he needed to do some yard work. After several minutes spent looking for a project which his annoyingly efficient landscaper had neglected, he decided to remove the stone from beneath the base of a dogwood. No sooner had he hauled out his tools than he noticed movement on his back deck. Looking over, he spotted Vicky (who had thankfully donned a bra, but worryingly nothing else) settling into one of the loungers. By the time he had dug the boulder out enough to get a strap around it, she had flipped over on her stomach (allowing her to once again wearing nothing but the thong).

Mike extracted his angrily buzzing phone to find a text from his mother informing him they would arrive in five minutes. He hurried up onto the deck to find Vicky leaning on her elbows, bringing the stiff peaks of her nipples into clear view.

"Listen," he stammered awkwardly. "My kids will be home any minute, so..."

"Why don't I head back to my room?" she interrupted. "Just let me know when it's safe to come out."

She stood without even a token effort to cover her breasts, and Mike heard a reverent oath from the yard of one of his neighbors. Vicky's ears apparently heard the sound as well, because she waved and called out, "Afternoon!"

Mike heard a muttered, "That's one hell of a set of hooters," from his neighbor's yard in advance of Vicky strutting back into the house.

"Did you decide what you're going to tell your family about me?" Vicky inquired as she paused at the top of the basement stairs. "Or is your plan for me to just hide out until they go to bed? It's your call, obviously. And I'm fine with whatever."

"I had thought to tell them that I hired you as a live-in nanny," Mike replied. "Although you'd obviously need to..."

"Need to what?" she asked with a teasing tone which told him she knew perfectly well what he meant.

"Put your clothes on."

"Aw," she complained. "Do I have to? Your neighbor certainly didn't mind."

"My daughter is nine, Vicky. And my son is fifteen."

"Is he as handsome as his father?"

"What!" he growled.

"Relax, Mike," she chuckled. "I'm just teasing you. I assure you that you're the only man I'm interested in. Sure you don't want me to take the edge off before they get home? After all, it wouldn't do to greet your parents with a hard-on."

"Negative," he muttered. "Just please go get dressed. I'll let you know once I've brought everyone up to speed."

"As you wish," she replied before turning and heading down the basement stairs.

The kids entered the house like a Category-5 tornado, like they always did. His parents had walked them up to the door, so Mike walked over to invite them in. His mother politely declined, saying they wanted to get home before it got dark. He thanked them again and bid them a good evening.

He walked into the kitchen to find his children rapidly divesting themselves of everything they had carried inside. He gathered them both into a bear hug and kissed their foreheads, causing his son to squirm and his daughter to revel in the attention. He let them go and asked them to sit down before giving them the quick version of how he had found Vicky the day before. He told them she had been abducted. They were both familiar with this horrible crime after years of being drilled on stranger danger and family code phrases.

"Is she ok?" Zach asked somberly.

"She's fine," Mike replied reassuringly. "But she's afraid to go home. Do you remember how we've taught you that sometimes part of being a good person means giving strangers in need whatever they require to get out of danger?"

"Like the shirt off your back?" Alexis asked excitedly, clearly trying to be helpful. This derailed Mike for a moment. Sometimes he suspected his daughter was more than a little clairvoyant.

He tried to get things back on track by simply replying, "Exactly! In any case, I said she could stay here as long as she needs to."

"The way Mom let Donald stay here?" Zach asked with a grimace.

"Sort of..." Mike allowed. "But Vicky is really anxious to repay our kindness so she asked if she could help out around here. Especially with you two."

"Will she take us for ice cream?" Alexis asked excitedly. "And take us to the park... and take us to the pool..."

Mike grinned at the list of things his daughter rattled off, especially since it had no basis in fact. Before her list expanded to include things which would require either superpowers or generational wealth to make reality, he interrupted to ask, "Would you like to meet her?"

His children excitedly indicated in the affirmative. When they approached the door to the spare bedroom it was mostly closed. Alexis started to push it open, but Mike stopped her. "This is Vicky's room now and you need to respect her privacy."

He knocked on the door frame gently. Vicky, who had clearly heard their approach, opened the door immediately. Mike sighed with relief upon spotting that she wore shorts and a tank-top, something which Vicky signalled that she noticed by winking in his direction.

"Can we go get ice cream?" Alexis quickly asked once introductions had been made.

Vicky looked to Mike for guidance, who allowed the silence to linger until Alexis appeared on the verge of exploding, whereupon he shrugged and said, "Why not?"

Five

Mike arose early the next morning, as was his custom during the summer so that he could accomplish the bulk of his work while his children were coming slowly awake (thus freeing up time in the afternoon to spend with them). He was surprised, however, when he found Vicky in the kitchen unloading the dishwasher.

"Good morning," she said pleasantly. "I would have had coffee ready for you, but I wasn't sure how you took it... or even if you drink coffee."

He quirked an eyebrow in her direction in response to her change in demeanor, but said, "Cream, no sugar, please. And thank you."

"Should I make anything for you, or anyone else, for breakfast? I'm not a great cook but I can handle cereal, or even bacon and eggs."

Mike shook his head and said, "The kids will just have some cereal and I think I'll have coffee for breakfast today. They'll likely get up in a few hours and then screw around with their electronics until we kick them out to either head to the pool or a friend's house. They keep forgetting that school starts in a few weeks, and that they'll miss being outside when they're stuck in a classroom."

"How about I take them to the pool and try to get to know them better?"

"You really don't have to do all this, Vicky."

"You told them I was here to be a nanny, and that's what I aim to be."

"But what about yesterday?"

"What about yesterday?" she asked with a teasing tone.

He glanced in the direction of the stairwell to confirm no children were about before clarifying, "All the nakedness? And the trying to sleep with me?"

"Sleep wasn't really what I had in mind," she quipped. "As for the rest, I'm still as willing as ever. Say the word, and we'll head to whatever room in your house is the most discreet and I'll be yours for the taking. In the meantime, I figured there's no reason I shouldn't play the part you had in mind as well. Your kids certainly seem great, so why wouldn't I want to spend time with them?"

"But you don't have a swimsuit."

"I could go pick one up, if you'll lend me your car..." she said with a grin.

"Ok, but please be careful. Not with the car, although obviously that as well, but try to keep a low profile."

"I wasn't planning to buy a micro-kini, Mike," she teased. "I understand you live in the suburbs. In any case, it's not like I've made a secret of the fact that you can see however much of my body you desire whenever you like. Shall I demonstrate?"

"No!" he yelped.

"Relax," she groaned. "I didn't flash you. Not because I'm unwilling, but because I know you'd freak out. Just remember the offer stands."

He handed her the keys feeling no small amount of anxiety, but she merely plucked them from his fingers and sauntered from the room with an alluring swish of her hips. It was not until he heard her depart that his reverie was broken. He walked to his home office with the intention of spending the next few hours creating the perception that he had done a full day's work.

Thirty minutes later, he heard Vicky come back in. She stopped into his office and gave him a thumbs up, pulling a black bikini briefly from a shopping bag, before moving into the family room to greet the children.

This set the template for the schedule for the next few days. Vicky spent every day taking the kids to the pool, or the park, or just on long walks around the neighborhood. Mike spent his mornings working before either joining them in the afternoons or, in a few instances, simply doing nothing for a few hours. The children thrived off the attention. They began every day by bursting into the kitchen and asking Vicky if they could go on some new adventure they had thought up. It was, he realized upon further reflection, the happiest he had seen them since his wife had left him... and he should have known that there would be a price to pay.

"Mike?" Vicky asked from the entry to his office. "Do you have a moment?"

"One moment," he muttered without looking up. "I just need to finish this up."

He was a strong believer in the theory of productivity which indicated that few things could match the destructive power of disruptions when it came to writing code. He had spent long years dialing in his environment, both physical and virtual, with this philosophy in mind. It was thus significantly more than a single moment (but less than ten minutes) before he looked up and said, "What's up."

She glanced in the direction of the family room before stepping into his office and closing the door behind her. She took a seat across from him and watched him with a look he had never seen on her face since rescuing her on the side of a mountain road just five days prior: fear.

"What's wrong?" he whispered with concern.

"I've been thinking about the house where I was held captive."

"There's no way he can find you here, Vicky. Assuming you've been careful when you got online, always using the VPN like I showed you, there's no way for him to trace you to here."

"I know, and I trust you implicitly." Vicky took a deep breath before adding, "I'm not worried about me."

"Then... I'm confused. You told me you don't have any family left, and no friends who are more than acquaintances, so who could he go after?"

"I wasn't the only one there, Mike," Vicky whispered after a pregnant pause.

"Oh, Jesus," he gasped. "Are you serious? How many?"

"I have no idea, but likely at least three or four more. At least that's how many I saw when I... the day I escaped. Like I told you, he never raped me, or anything like that, but..."

"What! What is it?"

"That place was a veritable sex dungeon, Mike. There were tons of cells all over the place. And, in the center of it all, was this... I don't know what to call it other than a stage. It was this raised dais that was built for fucking. But not just for two or three people. This place was designed with a single purpose in mind: orgies."

"Holy shit," he breathed in horror. "We've got to help them!"

"That's exactly what I keep thinking. And with Zach at band camp until late tonight and Alexis going to that sleepover with her little friend in a little while, I thought maybe this would be a perfect opportunity."

"Could you find the place where you were being held if we go back up there?"

"I don't know," she admitted woefully. "I have no memory of him taking me there. And, when I escaped, it was through the woods."

"Well, I remember where I found you, obviously, and the direction you were heading when you popped out of the woods. Perhaps, if we go up there, we could just figure it out by triangulation."

"I sure hope so," she whispered. "I just can't bear the thought of them continuing to live like that if there is anything we can do to help them."

"What do you think?" Mike asked quietly as they studied an unimproved road, barely more than a logging trail, from the side of the state highway.

"It's hard to say," Vicky replied with a shrug. "I never drove there."

"True. But based on the satellite map and how far you ran, the compound where you were held has to be right around here. And this is the only road that comes even close to approaching the spot you identified on the map."

"I guess we give it a try." Mike muttered as he turned down the road, carefully weaving his coupe between the trees encroaching on both sides.

The road was extremely rough, but Mike also noted signs of recent passage. Strangely for this part of the country, there were no houses to be seen. Nor were there other roads or driveways splitting off from the forest road upon which they traveled. He decided the emptiness of the surrounding wilderness could only mean that all the land in sight was owned by one person.

After ten minutes, the woods started to thin out as they climbed higher. But Mike could tell the change was artificial as they weren't nearly high enough for the altitude to be the cause. He was about to remark on this fact when they rounded a bend, and a sprawling chalet came into view.

He stopped the vehicle and said, "What do you think?"

"Nice place. Little remote though."

He chuckled and said, "Do you think that could be it?"

"Everywhere I was kept was underground. Or, perhaps I should say, there were no windows. You think that place could have a basement big enough?"

"Only one way to find out," he replied assuredly before setting off once more. He pulled to a stop once more in the notably empty parking lot. "You'd think that bastard would have had at least one car here," he posited, staring around from the driver's seat.

"Unless Don Ameche's crew absconded it."

"Indeed. So... did you decide which story you like best?"

"I think the paper subscription one. I'm not sure I could stomach impersonating an evangelist, even in jest."

"Right. Well, here goes nothing."

He stepped down out of the SUV and met Vicky at the front bumper before escorting her up to the front door. He glanced over at her a final time before taking a deep breath and ringing the doorbell, which thundered like a church bell within the chalet. They waited for several minutes, ringing the doorbell twice more, before risking a peek into the windows. The longer their presence went unnoticed, the more bold they grew. Soon, Mike began checking the doors and windows in hopes of finding one unlocked. He was unsure if he was relieved or worried when the door off the kitchen opened easily for him.

"Hey!" he hissed in Vicky's direction.

She scampered around from the rear of the house where she had been trying the windows. When she saw him standing before the open door, she skidded to a stop. "Are you sure about this?" she whispered.

"Not remotely," he replied conspiratorially. "There's still about a million ways this could go wrong. But if there are more women being held captive, we have to try to free them."

"Lead on, Mr. Hero," she replied with a regal wave toward the chalet's interior.

He stepped into the kitchen, listening carefully for any signs of another person. The interior of the chalet was decorated ostentatiously, almost as if the decorator had been given a budget five-times greater than their original quote with the single provision that they not leave a single cent unspent. All the furniture looked expensive, rather than comfortable, and the electronics were too large for the space. The décor looked like it had been stolen from the houses of social media influencers.

"You can smell the excess in this place," he muttered.

Vicky stayed behind him as he went upstairs to check the bedrooms. They were all decorated like the main floor, but they were also uniformly empty. They did, however, find a life-sized painting in the master bedroom. At first it appeared to be of Michelangelo's David, but then Mike noticed the figure's coupling gear hung nearly down to his knees.

"Your tormentor?" he inquired with a gesture in the direction of the painting. She nodded grimly. He sighed and said, "At least we're in the right house. Let's see if there's a basement."

She followed him back down the stairs and helped him search for a door leading to a subterranean floor. After their search came up empty, they met up in the kitchen to discuss next steps.

"I don't get it," he complained. "This has to be the place. Unless there's another structure hidden out in the woods."

"Maybe," she offered. "We could search for other roads or trails."

He shook his head firmly. "I know there's a basement here. The exterior wall on the north end of the house had a retaining wall twice as tall as I am. There's no way that's just a crawl space. Even if it was, there would have been an entrance. There must be something below us."

"But there's no stairs anywhere except the ones going up."

"Normally the basement stairs would be beneath the main ones, but I suppose the architect could have gone a different direction. Did you check all the doors?"

"I mean... I think so."

"Let's do another sweep. Check everything, even the closets and cabinets. One way or another, we've got to head back soon or there'll be hell to pay."

She nodded and headed for the front of the house. Mike worked his way around the interior of the rear of the house looking for a doorway which could possibly lead to a stairwell. He finally struck paydirt at the rear of the pantry.

"Vicky!" he called, before cringing at the amount of noise he had made.

She hurried up to him and said, "Find something?"

He gestured behind him to a darkened room barely larger than a phone booth.

She glanced between him and the room several times before exclaiming, "An elevator?"

Six

The basement level was just as Vicky had described. What her description had omitted was the smell of the place. It reminded Mike of his frat house after homecoming. The stink of sex was almost overwhelming. The elevator opened into what appeared to be an office which looked as though it had been tossed hurriedly. A quick scan revealed nothing of value, so they moved on.

The main room was quite large, perhaps the size of one side of a tennis court, but it was smaller than the structure above. Mike was filled with loathing as he gazed over the bacchanalian sight at the thought of the terrors to which the women who had been held there had been subjected. He hurried around the area looking for other captives but found nothing until he noticed a locked door behind a curtain.

He looked in Vicky's direction and said, "I don't suppose you spotted a key in that office."

She frowned and shook her head.

"Think we could use one of those fuck lounges as a battering ram?"

"Maybe, but you'd have more luck with something which focused force on either the handle or the hinges."

"Right. Any ideas?"

"You look down here. I'll run back upstairs and see if I can find any tools."

Mike nodded and said, "Good idea. Be careful."

She called, "You too," over her shoulder as she headed in the direction of the elevator.

Mike thought about what he might have seen which would be useful opening the door, groaning in frustration at the lack of suitable materials at hand. The sex chamber had nothing but couches and pillows, assuming one was able to ignore the significant amount of DNA strewn about. When he tried to lift the end of one of the couches, he discovered that it was either secured to the floor or heavier than a hatchback. Thinking back to the office, he realized he would have no more luck there.

"Dammit!" he exclaimed, slamming the bottom of his fist against the door.

He was stunned to feel it vibrate under his assault, having assumed it would be as solid as everything else in the lair. He took a step back and studied the door carefully. There was a knob paired with a deadbolt on one side, both looking annoyingly robust. The other side held a pair of hinges, rather than the more common three. He gave the door next to the lower hinge a testing kick and was rewarded with a satisfying crunch of wood. He took a step back and kicked with all his might. His foot buried itself deep in the door's panel and wedged tightly.

"Fuck," he hissed as the splintered wood dug into his shin.

He managed to yank his leg free, leaving a bit of flesh behind for good measure, before surveying the damage. He could now see a glimpse of a darkened room on the far side of the door. Examining the door revealed little, but he was hopeful that the tenuous connection between the door and the hinge would break with only a bit more encouragement. He took a step back before slamming his shoulder into the door.

The lower hinge lost its battle to retain usefulness and dropped helplessly to the floor in the room beyond. The upper hinge held but Mike could tell it was weakening. Three more attacks to the door with his now quite tender shoulder sent the door slamming to the ground.

He stepped into what he soon discovered, thanks to a helpfully placed light switch, was a long hallway with doors every few paces. He hurried down the hall, finding two out of the nine rooms empty while the others were locked.

"Hello?" he called out urgently before falling quiet to listen.

For several moments, all he heard was his own gasping breath. But, after a few moments, he heard a soft, feminine shout from behind one of the doors. He tried to give the door a similar treatment with his shoulder but found these doors to be much more solid. Searching around desperately, he was overjoyed when he spotted a key holder on the wall, similar to what one would expect to find in the mud room of most suburban households. On it, was a series of key rings, each with a single key. Mike scooped them up and proceeded to start unlocking the rooms.

Within moments, he was surrounded by six very attractive, and very naked, women representing a wide variety of body types and ethnicities. The women all appeared to be under the influence as both their movements and their reactions were notably lethargic.

"What about this door," he asked the group, indicating the final locked door which none of the keys would open.

"He said she was trouble," a lithe blonde who had introduced herself as Fiona offered.

Gabriela, a voluptuous Latina, added, "Kept escaping."

"Any of you know where the key is?" he asked eagerly.

Mike got nothing but vacant stares in response. He felt his anxiety spiking as his awareness of just how long they had been inside the house was highlighted by an alarm sounding on his phone which told him it was time to leave if he meant to pick Zach up from band practice on time. Yet he made no move to leave, because he knew his mission was incomplete. A distant portion of his consciousness began working on the problem of how to get his son safely home from practice while the lion's share of his awareness focused on the issue at hand. Despite his eagerness to free the remaining woman, he knew without further interrogation that the women before him would be little help. The undeniable fact was that they seemed dead on their feet.

He sighed and said, "There's an elevator on the other side of the... chamber. On the other side of the office. Go upstairs and see if you can find anything to wear. I'll figure something out for this door."

They quickly disappeared, leaving Mike alone with a single locked door and no way to open it. He searched around the area frantically for a key but once again came up empty.

"Fuck!" he shouted.

"Go away you worthless shitbag," a muffled voice came through the door.

"Hello?" Mike shouted.

"If you come in here again, I swear to all that's sacred and holy that I'll make the last beating I gave you look like a love tap."

"He's gone," Mike shouted. "I'm here to rescue you." Mike heard no immediate reply, so he shouted, "Do you know where the key is?"

"It's not on the hooks?"

"None of those worked."

"Try the office. Pull the top left desk drawer all the way out. There are some keys taped to the back of it."

"One sec," Mike shouted before racing back to the office. He returned moments later with a half-dozen new keys. The second to last one opened the door. He stepped inside to find a woman sitting placidly on a bed to which an array of restraints had been affixed, none of which were currently in use.

She regarded him with a suspicious expression before saying, "You don't look like you're with stupid. What are you doing here?"

"I told you, I'm here to rescue you. All of you. I found one of the other captors alongside the road and she led me back here. Your abductor seems to have left. We got everyone else out except you."

"Did you find the Artifact yet?" she asked worriedly as she hopped off the bed and rushed toward the door.

"The what?" he asked as he raced to catch up.

"Come on!" she called over her shoulder. "If that brain dead sex maniac is dead, or gone, then we just have to hope she hasn't found it yet."

"What are you talking about?"

She ignored him in favor of racing across the open area and into the office. Acting as though she knew exactly what she was doing, she sat down behind the desk and typed a number onto the phone without lifting the handset. He heard a tiny click, whereupon she shoved the instrument back on what he realized was a hidden hinge. Reaching into the shallow alcove beneath the phone, she scooped up the keys found there and carried them to the elevator. After inserting a key, she turned it and then reached for the door to swing it open and reveal an empty alcove.

She glanced back at him, seeming to inspect him for a moment before saying, "Come here." He crossed the room to where she stood, which led her to point upwards and say, "Can you reach that?"

He looked up to find the underside of the elevator enclosure before turning back to her in confusion. She pointed anxiously, whereupon he noticed what looked to be a painted steel box affixed to the bottom of the enclosure. The side of the box had opening for a key which appeared to be what had drawn her attention.

As if to confirm his suspicion, she placed the keys in his hand and said, "It's the hexagonal one."

"How do you know all this?"

"Later. Can you open it, or would you prefer to pick me up?"

"One sec," he grunted as he reached for the key hole.

He nearly tumbled into the elevator shaft before he managed to catch himself on the box. Thankfully, it was firmly adhered to the bottom of the elevator car so he could support himself against it while he fumbled to unlock the box. He reached in blindly and fumbled around until his hand struck something very soft. He plucked it free and managed to right himself before turning back toward his companion with a questioning gaze.

"Thank fuck!" she breathed as she took what he realized was a black velvet bag (which appeared to hold something the size and shape of a textbook) from him.

She opened it for the briefest of instants before yanking the drawstring closed again. Her eyes looked up at him and she said, "We need to get out of here."

"Agreed. But what is that?"

"Nuh... nothing. Listen, we have no way to know that the piece of shit who was keeping us all here won't come back. So, perhaps we could get busy getting the fuck out of here?"

"Oh, uh, sure," he grunted, but his eyes kept drifting back to the black

She re-inserted the key into the lock next to the door to the elevator and twisted it. Just as the doors started to close, she yanked the keys free and tossed them down the elevator shaft. As they waited for the doors to open, she swung the desk phone back into place before turning back in his direction with the bag held behind her back. She followed him onto the elevator, a space small enough that they could not help but stand in close proximity. She was treating her nakedness as though it was not noteworthy, so Mike tried very hard to do the same. But, even after all he had experienced since finding Vicky less than a week earlier, it was a monumental undertaking. The woman before him was, put simply, the epitome of girl-next-door beauty. Even Vicky's video vixen good looks were comfortably eclipsed by the strawberry blonde pixie hiding the mysterious black bag behind her perfectly shaped hips.

Thankfully, the elevator creaked to a stop before Mike's (he suspected) not-at-all discreet leering was noticed, and they stepped out. The other six women were all seated in the living room, staring vacantly at the wall. A pile of clothing sat on the coffee table, from which the last prisoner pulled some items and unhurriedly began dressing. He glanced around the room to look for Vicky and when his gaze returned to the soon-to-be-former captives, the last of their number was nearly dressed. More notably (at least in his mind) the bag she had carried was nowhere in evidence.

Mike looked in her direction and said, "You seem to be in the know about this place. Any thoughts on how we get everyone out of here? I can take two or three of you with me, but..."

"Don't sweat it. I know where all the keys are. We'll take one of the cars from the garage and get out of here."

Mike stared at her in amazement for a moment before saying, "Garage? How did you..."

"I can't tell you how many times I've escaped from this asshole only for him to inevitably capture me again. Why do you think he tied me up?"

Mike gave her a crooked grin and said, "Didn't seem to work."

"He's not a very good criminal. Or person. I was well on my way to leaving for good tonight. Even if I had to end his miserable existence to do it."

"Well I'm glad I was able to make a small contribution."

She smiled at him brilliantly, and he felt his worries dim in response, before she turned to her fellow captives and announced, "Chop, chop, ladies! Time to get the fuck out of here. Now move your asses!"

Mike watched them head toward the rear of the house for a moment before he started to follow. She turned to regard him before saying, "Don't worry. I've got them..."

"Mike," he stammered. "Mike Carter."

"Leia," she replied warmly. "Thank you for rescuing me, Mike. Now go. I couldn't have you getting in trouble with the missus."

Seven

"Where'd you go?" Mike asked Vicky as they pulled off the forest road and onto the state highway.

"I was looking for tools in one of the outbuildings," she replied flatly, "although it seems that you managed fine all on your own. By the time I gave up, some of the girls had already made it upstairs. I helped them find those clothes and was just about to come looking for you when you came up."

"Outbuildings?" he asked worriedly. "As in... more than one? Are you sure we got all the women?"

"I am," she said resolutely. "Those outbuildings were little more than garages and garden sheds. You checked all the rooms in the basement, right?"

"Indeed," he agreed with a grimace. "I'm still coming to grips with how fucked up that place was."

"But did you see anything in any of the rooms?"

"No, I told you I checked them all. Two were completely empty, the rest each had a single woman in them."

"But was there anything else? Something which looked out of place."

"I'm not sure. The room of the last woman I freed had a bunch of restraints attached to the bed..."

"I heard our captor talking about her," Vicky interrupted. "She seemed quite the thorn in his side. What was her name... Leah?"

"Leia," Mike supplied.

"But nothing else out of the ordinary?" Vicky pressed. "Something which had no earthly business in a room designed and built for the express purpose of safely hotelling a woman while she awaited her turn?"

He frowned at the windscreen as he negotiated the on-ramp to the dual carriageway which led back to the suburbs. "I'm not sure what you mean. The entire place was filled to overflowing with wrongness. There wasn't a single thing which didn't seem more fucked up than a box of Christmas lights. I honestly just can't wrap my mind around what you all must have gone through."

"I already told you that our captor wasn't a rapist," Vicky muttered.

"But how do you know he was like that with everyone?" Mike retorted, not quite able to keep his amazement at her cavalier tone from his voice.

"Because I paid attention. Rape wasn't his game."

"Then why the sex dungeon?"

"Don't get me wrong, he was certainly into sex. But his game was more akin to score keeping, for want of a better term. I once heard him mention that he wanted to put Wilt Chamberlain's record, if you can call it that, comfortably in his review mirror. And he considered a point of pride that he'd achieve his goal by bedding thousands of women who begged him for the honor."

"Then why were they imprisoned?" Mike exploded. "Why were you all imprisoned? And why did so many of those women seem like they'd been drugged?"

"Maybe they were just hungry. Near as I can figure, they had likely gone at least a day or two without food considering that, upstairs at least, we saw nothing to suggest our captor had been there anytime recently. Perhaps he left shortly after I did to come after me. I noticed there was a car missing when I was in the garage. Maybe we should check your doorbell camera to see if it's pulled past your house."

"Christ," he grunted. "Do you remember the make, model and color?"

"Um... I'm not sure. I think it was a, um, S. U. V.... a black one. But I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable about cars as you are."

"Dammit!" he groaned, punctuated by slamming his fist down on his thigh.

"Let me borrow your phone," she suggested. "I can just scroll through the last week on your security app and see if I see anything which looks familiar."

"I guess that's better than nothing," he conceded as he pulled his phone from his pocket and unlocked it before handing it over.

"Don't worry, Mike," she soothed. "If there's anything there, I'll find it."

Mike's scowl deepend. He noted the time on the dash and their E. T. A. at Zach's school before bumping the cruise control ever higher until they were flashing past the ubiquitous semis like they were standing still. He urgently scanned their surroundings for signs of police presence and hoped good fortune would smile on him, thus enabling him to arrive at the high school right on time.

To his frustratingly mysterious companion, however, he said only, "Just let me know if you see anything suspicious."

But he could not dispel the feeling of wrongness which now accompanied her presence.

"Hey bud," Mike chirped with feigned enthusiasm as Zach climbed into the car. "Sorry we were a few minutes late."

"It's cool," Zach replied distractedly, his eyes glued to the head majorette he had been chatting up when Mike and Vicky had pulled into the nearly deserted parking lot twenty-two minutes after the appointed end of practice.

The remainder of the trip from the school to their house passed in silence. For Vicky's part, her mood had oscillated back to the simmering irritation which Mike had first noticed shortly after their departure from the captor's chalet. Her investigation of his security app had yielded nothing concerning, but he was unsure if this comforted or worried her. He also knew with complete confidence that there was something else, something larger, bothering her. Whether it was empathy, or intuition, or simply having been married to someone who had grown to despise him over their nearly two decades together; there was no doubt in his mind that she was highly agitated, and no amount of her assurances to the contrary could dissuade him from his conviction.

Upon entering the house, Zach bolted upstairs to shower off a full day spent in the Deep South's oppressive sun while Mike checked in with the parents at whose house Alexis was spending the night. Discovering that all was well (at least from his perspective... the parents currently riding heard on a half dozen primary-school-aged girls sounded as if they could use an infusion of either ibuprofen or bourbon) he bid them good night and looked around for his next action item. He found the house empty, however. Mike gave brief thought to tracking down Vicky to get some clarity on her behavior, but it took only a moment for the weariness of the long day to settle over him and make a compelling case that he had nothing on his agenda more important than a good night's sleep.

Upon arriving at the top of the stairs, he poked his head into Zach's room to bid him good night only to find that the teenager was already unconscious in bed. He closed the door quietly and padded in the direction of what had been, when the house was purchased, dubbed the guest room. It was where he had relocated when things started to trend precipitously downhill with his now ex-wife and he had never found the motivation to move back into the now barren master bedroom.

"There you are," a voice sounded from the darkness as he entered the room.

He flipped on the light switch to find Vicky lounging in a chair beside his bed and regarding him with an expression he would have found perplexing were it not for the fact that she was once again attired as she had been when he had rescued her.

"What are you doing?" he hissed urgently. "Zach's just down the hall!"

"He's also dead asleep. A herd of buffalo could stampede through the house and he wouldn't notice."

"Figured that out when you wandered past his room naked, did you?"

She kicked a T-shirt which lay in a pile on the floor along with a pair of shorts. "I wasn't nude when I came up here. Give me a little credit."

"That just leaves the question of what the hell you're doing naked in my room."

"I would have thought that would be obvious," she glowered. She then took a calming breath, which caused her features to go from angry to playful so quickly that he found himself doubting the former expression had ever existed in the first place. "I was just thinking after we got home that today must have been really hard on you."

"Who cares about me? I'm just worried about all the women that asshole held captive... including you."

"I honestly couldn't be better," she replied with a dazzling smile. "I went from being held against my will to finding one of the best men I've ever met. Handsome, charitable, a good provider, single? You're honestly the whole package, Mike."

"But I told you I'm not..."

"Not ready," she muttered. "I remember. But I also remember all those naked women swarming around you today. You're a conservative guy, Mike..."

"The hell you say," he growled.

"I'm not saying you're a fascist bigot," she said quickly. "Just that, from what I've been able to learn, you've spent your whole life in this state with the exception of very rare vacations. You married your first long-term girlfriend after graduating, and you stayed faithful to her despite her almost certainly not returning the favor."

"How did you know all that?"

"When you get tossed out onto the streets when most people are struggling with the transition from middle school to high school, you learn to read people... and you learn to pick up on the little hints they give. None of these things are negatives, Mike. But they also mean that today was almost certainly you were in the room with more than a single naked woman. At least ones who weren't strippers at a bachelor party."

"And?" he grunted.

"Regular guys who have led ordinary lives, ones who focus on the important things like taking care of their families, aren't equipped to cope with experiences like that. I'm honestly stunned you were able to force yourself to sit still in the two hours it took us to get home without seeking out some form of relief."

"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about."

"When's the last time you were with a woman?" she countered firmly.

"What the fuck difference does that make?"

She shook her head as though trying to discourage a buzzing insect. "How long? And, to ensure there's no miscommunication, I mean: how many years has it been since another human's skin came into contact with your cock?"

"That's no concern of yours!"

"I'm making it my business," she snapped. "Considering that I intend to bring said dry spell to an end in about three minutes, I have a vested interest in knowing exactly how much cum is stored up in those balls of yours."

"I think not!" he whisper-shouted.

"Tell me one reason why we shouldn't fuck," she countered. "You're single; I'm single." She gestured with a nod of her head toward his midsection. "You're obviously attracted to me; and I'm more than willing. And, believe me when I tell you, you won't find a more uninhibited partner without having to cash in your trust fund. Trust me, Mike, you're not ever going to get a better offer."

"I don't do impersonal fucking, Vicky," he growled.

"It's not impersonal. We've spent nearly every minute together for the last week. Even for someone of your background, I'd be stunned if you haven't taken at least a few girls to bed having spent less total time with them than that. Am I right?"

"That's not the point."

"Then what is the point," she flared.

"Keep it down," he hissed.

"No! I won't keep it down. And I won't stand for you ignoring me like I'm some common..."

"Dad," Zach called wearily from the hall outside his room.

"Yeah, buddy," Mike stammered. "Everything's fine. You need anything?"

"Nah. I'm good."

"Ok, Zach. Good night. I love you."

"Love you too," Zach mumbled in advance of his soft footfalls retreating toward his bedroom.

Mike turned to glare at Vicky and her eyes grew wide when she recognized the scarcely contained rage contained in his expression.

"What. The. Fuck!," he seethed at barely more than a whisper.

"Whoa. Back off there, sport."

"Put. Your. Clothes. On." he snarled. "Right fucking now."

"Ok, ok. Settle down. Jesus."

"You need to get something through your head, Vicky. Nothing is more important to me than my children. Including, and most especially, myself. You are to keep your God damn clothes on unless you're in the guest suite, and you're to stay out of my room. Do you understand me?"

"Lighten up," she huffed. "It's not like he saw anything, or that he'd even be that shocked if got a little. Hell, he'd probably be thrilled that you were happy for once."

"This isn't a debate, Vicky. This is my house, and those are my children. You don't get a vote here. So, I'll ask you again, do you understand me?"

She deflated and said, "Fine."

"Fine... what?"

"We'll confine our fun to the room you so graciously set aside for me in your fucking basement, despite there being a huge empty room up here."

"How I make use of my house is also none of your concern. Do you agree to my terms? Or do we need to find you a hotel while you figure out what's next for you?"

"We'll do it your way," she conceded with a sigh. "Just remember, I'm still willing despite your outburst... for anything from a quick handy to take the edge off to a no-holes-barred fuckfest that ends with me calling the paramedics. You come a knockin', and I'll start a-suckin'."

"Cute," Mike muttered. He waited for her to get dressed before checking the hall to ensure Zach had returned to his room, whereupon he opened the door to usher her out. As she stepped into the hall, he added, "No more mistakes. Nothing is more important to me than my children's happiness, Vicky. Nothing."

Eight

"Over here!" Mike called out as he spotted a familiar face walk through the door and climbed to his feet.

He waited until the newcomer took her seat before he resumed his, a fact which she noted with a raised eyebrow.

After taking a sip of the coffee he had ordered on her behalf, Leia said, "I really appreciate you meeting me. Did you have any trouble finding the place?"

"Not a bit. As a matter of fact, I used to spend a genuinely shocking amount of time here when I attended the Institute."

"You went to Tech?"

"Indeed," Mike replied wistfully. "Many moons ago."

"What is it with Tech guys and pretending that their ancient the moment they get out?" she teased.

Mike chuckled and said, "In my case it's the literal truth. My youngest daughter, who will enter the fourth grade in a fortnight, won't graduate from high school until I'm a third of the way through my fifties. I am, in fact, a notably decrepit forty-three."

"That term denotes elderly, infirm or senile, depending on the usage. None of which apply to you. Perhaps you should go with 'experienced'."

"You're assuming quite a bit," Mike replied glumly.

His guest gave him a queer look, but ultimately said nothing and picked up her menu.

Feeling the need to address the awkwardness he felt, Mike added, "After all, we've only known each other for, what, ten minutes in aggregate? And that was under, to put it kindly, less than ideal circumstances. Especially for you."

"I'm content to withhold judgement if you insist. After all, I can hardly claim to have unimpeachable instincts when it comes to men."

Feeling the discomfort which compelled him to continue shifting into legitimate tension, he lowered his voice and said, "I'm sorry if that's a sore subject. Is there anything I can do to help?"

She gave him a genuine smile before remarking, "You already saved me from captivity, Mike. I'm not sure my mind is capable of comprehending what you'd do for an encore."

He grinned despite the weighty topic. "Well... the offer stands if you change your mind."

"Thank you, kind sir," she replied regally. "Shall we order? They'll take forever if we don't get ahead of the students about to get out of their eleven AM classes."

Mike nodded his agreement and looked around for the waitress, since he intended to request the same dish he had been ordering since he was a student decades prior. While Leia studied the menu, he allowed his thoughts to drift to the mysterious missive he had received from her earlier that morning.

It had been just two days since Leia had been freed from captivity, and since Mike's confounding confrontation with Vicky. The intervening day had been, without possibility of doubt, the most frustrating of his life since his divorce had been finalized. Vicky had adhered to his request, albeit barely, but had still managed to come up with multiple excuses to summon him to the basement only to drop the pretense as soon as the door to the stairs closed and resume her efforts to seduce him. The only comfort Mike took from her efforts was that she was so brazen that even the most basic part of his consciousness had finally been convinced that she was anything but alluring; meaning an end to his traitorous arousal. He had nearly demanded her departure with each new incident, and he could no longer effectively explain to himself what mysterious force held that impulse at bay.

Then, as if by fate, he had received a text which he nearly deleted as spam before he spotted several keywords.

all of the women you saved made it to their homes safely

thanks to you o/

we need to meet. there are things you don't know about our abductor

beware of Victoria

she's not what she seems

Almost as if driven by the hand of fate, Mike had received the texts while at the local S-Mart picking up some last-minute things for the children for back to school. Vicky had strolled into the electronics section and zeroed in on the latest and greatest smartphone. She had flirted heavily with the teenager behind the counter, bending over to look in the display case while surreptitiously tugging the bottom of her tank top down to put her cleavage on full display. The hapless young man nearly dropped the device as he handed it to her, but she only giggled teasingly in reply. Mike was at a loss for her motives until he caught her glancing over at him for the third time and realized she was trying to make him jealous. Mike's response to Vicky's attempted provocation had been, outwardly, nothing. He had simply focused exclusively on his children's shopping until they were all set, at which time he had informed Vicky that they were leaving.

He also replied to the text:

just let me know when and where

After they ordered, Mike said, "Do you mind if I ask you a question?"

"This would be kind of a waste of time if I said no, am I right?" Leia asked teasingly.

"Indeed," Mike replied with a grin. "Anyway, I was wondering how you found me."

"You told me your name."

"True, but Mike Carter is hardly a unique enough name to track someone down."

"Perhaps. I guess you could say I have a certain... flair for finding things on the internet. I had your name. I saw your license plate as we pulled out, so I knew what county you lived in. That narrowed it down to five possibilities. I eliminated two more based on my guess as to your age and one based on median income."

"How in the hell could you know my income?"

She shrugged and said, "I don't. But the guy I eliminated is on food stamps and you drive a sixty-thousand dollar performance sedan. One which the manufacturer made less than ten thousand of due to a lack of overwhelming demand for family cars which could get around the Nurburgring in less than ten minutes. After that, it was just a matter of mining a bit of social media."

"But I'm not on social media."

She smirked and said, "The other Mike Carter is."

"Most impressive."

They grew silent as the waitress delivered their beverages, but Leia quickly picked the thread of their conversation back up.

"I'm sure you're wondering why I reached out to you?"

"The thought had occurred to me, especially with reference to your final warning."

"I take it then, that you've met Victoria?"

"Depends," he replied. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his photos app until he located a picture he had snapped the day Vicky began nannying. Taken at a park close to his house, it showed Vicky helping Alexis feed some turtles. "Is that her?"

"Is that your daughter?" Leia asked warmly. Mike nodded gravely. Leia continued, "She's precious. What is it about little girls wearing pigtails? Never not cute."

Mike's face broke out in an irrepressible grin, and he said, "Thank you."

"The woman on the other hand," Leia continued, "is sort of on the opposite end of the spectrum."

"How so?"

"Before I answer that, would you mind telling me what she told you?"

"Just that she'd been abducted and held captive in a sex dungeon hidden beneath a house in the mountains. She told me that her captor tricked her by impersonating an old friend of hers but then revealed himself once she arrived. She got free a couple times, finding me after her second escape. We then returned and freed the rest of you."

"This rescue. Was it her idea?"

"Definitely," Mike answered somberly. "After I found her by the side of the road, I took her back to my house because she said she had reason to distrust the cops. For want of a better idea, I said she could stay as long as she needed to. She offered to help out with the kids, and they loved the idea of an adult who does more than simply keeping food on the table and a roof over their heads. After she had a few days to recover, she told me there were more of you and pleaded with me to help her rescue the rest."

"Let me guess, when you found her: it was mid-afternoon... what was it... three, no five, five days ago; and she was naked as an oyster."

"How did you..."

"I caught that repugnant pile of cockroach excrement trying to break into his safe during my penultimate escape attempt. Unfortunately, she was so shit at it that she set off his laughably elementary alarm. He comes storming into the room, terrified his precious Artifact is in danger. But that stupid twit hadn't even bothered figuring out where he kept it before she started breaking into shit. He was fucking furious, let me tell you. Threw her ass out with nothing. It was almost worth him discovering me escaping to get to see her banging on the glass and screaming at him to let her back in. The stuff she promised to do for him, or to him, if only he'd forgive her, will haunt me."

"I see," Mike said slowly.

"Let me guess... she told you she was the victim. The goddamned damsel in distress."

"Perhaps it would be more accurate to say she didn't discourage me from jumping to that conclusion."

"What a contemptible cunt. She was his bag man... woman. She went into night clubs and gyms to find women with no encumbrances and then helped him bring them in. Once they arrived, she'd team up with him in an effort to entice them into joining his orgies. From my perspective, there was nothing he did without his precious Victoria standing by his side."

"And she was also his concubine?"

"I preferred the phrase 'cum gargling gutter slut', but I suppose the terminology doesn't much matter. I'm not sure how they found each other. I heard she started off as one of his early victims, but quickly decided that it was better to be a wolf than a sheep."

"Why... that term?"

Leia grinned and said, "What would you call it if every time you saw a person, she was glazed like a fucking donut? God knows why that was one of his kinks, but that dude was obsessed with cumming on chicks."

"Gross," Mike muttered, with an apologetic glance at the server who had arrived to deliver their food as Leia was speaking.

"Very gross. I'm all for letting the fella I'm with get his rocks off however he wants if he's good to me, but those two took it to legitimately creepy levels of obsession. She'd pop into my room looking like she'd been hit with a semen firehose and wonder why I didn't wish to join her for round two... or two-hundred. The most unsettling part was that I don't think she did it because she got off on it, or even because she wanted to do something nice for him. It always seemed darker to me. Like she'd do anything to put herself in a position to siphon off some of his power."

"I feel like such a fool," he grumbled.

"Why?" she asked with genuine confusion. "You find a beautiful, naked, woman on the side of the road who tells you she escaped from a sex trafficking ring. Believing her and deciding to rescue her doesn't make you gullible, it makes you a good person. Perhaps even a great person. How many dudes would have just instantly started scheming for how to 'get dem somma dat'? You can't blame yourself, Mike. You're not the first guy to lose some critical thinking skills when faced with a great set of tits. Naked tits at that. And you won't be the last."

"Indeed," he conceded reluctantly.

"How'd your wife react to you bringing home a beautiful naked blonde?"

"How..." he repeated.

She gestured toward his left hand and said, "Kinda of a dead giveaway, my guy."

"Right," he grunted. "I keep forgetting I'm wearing it."

She regarded him with intense suspicion and said, "You didn't strike me as the type to shed his ring just because he's having lunch with a woman to whom he hasn't been joined in holy matrimony."

"I meant... I never got around to taking it off after I got divorced."

"You understand of course that it is well within my capabilities to confirm or disprove that claim, right?"

He shrugged and said, "I have nothing to hide. Or... I didn't until I allowed myself to be duped into housing a human trafficker under the same roof as my children."

"Tell me she's not with them now," Leia breathed.

"Zach, who's fifteen, is at band camp until late this evening, and Alexis is back-to-school shopping with my mother. I told Vicky to take the day off. I'm not even sure at this point if she's aware that I'm keeping her at arm's length considering that all of her attention is currently wrapped up with trying to seduce me."

"She's just trying to get leverage on you, Mike," she pleaded.

"Oh, believe me, I'm very aware that no one of sound mind and body would ever actively seek to get my clothes off."

She frowned at him for a long moment before saying, "You think too little of yourself, sir."

"That's neither here nor there," he deflected. "You mentioned before that Vicky sought out unencumbered women. Are you..."

"No family. Still trying to find my place after I got out of the service. Just me and my trusty computers. Perfect target for a sex trafficker."

"I'm very sorry. That must have been hell."

"It was more annoying than anything," she replied with a shrug. "Whatever his other faults, the piece of shit wasn't into rape. His game was more convincing women to want him more than they wanted to take their next breath. I guess he was onto something because it worked more often than it didn't. In my case, I met Vicky at my gym. She found out I was in InfoSec and asked if I could help her; said her neighbors kept hacking into her wireless and stealing her identity. It sounded fishy, but she offered good money, so I took the gig. Once we got to that place in the mountains, he introduced himself and told me I was going to be part of the biggest orgy in recorded history. I told him to go fuck himself, but he was confident that I'd come around eventually. Joke's on him, I guess. I never laid a finger on him other than in anger. He never got to do anything other than look, although he got to do plenty of that thanks to the whole no clothes thing. Although, I'm guessing you're not too broken up about that part."

Mike frowned and said, "Sorry about that. I tried my best to at least pretend to be a gentleman, but I recognized in hindsight just how much I was leering that day."

Leia reached across the table and took his hand, squeezing it reassuringly before saying, "I was fucking with you, Mike. You were in fact a perfect gentleman. To tell the truth, you were almost offensively reluctant to take a peek. Even sitting here now, I haven't once noticed you dropping your eyes even though I realized right before it was time to head over here that my wardrobe is in woeful need of an upgrade considering... well... everything, and my boobs don't even come close to fitting in this top."

"It was the least I could do," Mike mumbled.

"Listen, I hate to cut this short, but I've got a meeting with a prospective client in a few minutes."

"Of course," Mike said after snatching the check off the table and standing up. "I really appreciate everything you've told me."

"It was honestly the least I could do."

She waited while he paid the bill at the counter before following him outside.

Mike looked around the nearly deserted parking lot before saying, "Did you drive? I can drop you somewhere."

"I already requested a ride share," she replied, holding up her phone.

"Right..." he drawled. "Well, thanks again."

He started to turn away, but she said, "Victoria is bad news Mike. There's no telling the damage she could do if she decides you're her enemy."

"I know. I'll talk to her tonight and let her know she's no longer welcome."

"Do you mean that?" she asked with surprising intensity. "Really mean it? You're not just telling me what you think I want to hear?"

"I'm as spineless as the next middle-class male, except where my kids are involved. And, since I believe you implicitly with respect to her true nature, she's gone."

"But why would you believe me over her? We just met."

"Because from the first moment she woke up, something felt... off about her. And I get the opposite sense from you, Leia. I recognize this may come off as inappropriate, but I feel like we're kindred spirits. Not only do I believe you, but I find myself trusting you."

She regarded him for a long moment before replying. "I don't trust easily, Mike. Or often."

"Totally understandable," he interrupted. "Especially after what you've been through."

"Yet I find myself in complete agreement with you."

"Well... good?"

"Indeed," she agreed. She then looked around the parking lot in which they stood for several moments before adding, almost to herself, "I do trust you."

"Everything ok?" he asked in response to her growing seeming distraction.

"If I give you something, do you swear, on your honor and your children's lives, that you'll keep it to yourself and not let anyone else find out you have it? Especially Victoria? Normally I wouldn't mention it... but, with things seemingly headed south with both my boyfriend and my job, I don't really have anywhere to keep it where there isn't at least one person I don't trust implicitly who could find it."

"Of course," he replied without hesitation. "Whatever you need. Are you sure everything's ok? Do you need a place to stay?"

"I truly appreciate the offer, Mike. But I'm good. This, on the other hand," she remarked as she extracted the black velvet bag (which he had retrieved at her direction while in the chalet of her abductor) from her backpack, "is very much in need of safe keeping." Mike started to open the bag, prompting her to yelp, "Don't open it! At least... not here. Just keep it under lock and key. After you get rid of Vicky, we can talk about why I strongly considered chucking that thing in a woodchipper rather than placing it in your keeping." She glanced at her smart watch before muttering, "Fuck. I've got this client thing. I've gotta jet. Do you have somewhere to keep that?"

Mike opened the boot lid of his coupe and pulled up the cover over the spare before depositing the black velvet bag in the empty space surrounding the tire. He sent a questioning look in her direction, to which she responded with an agreeable nod. He replaced the cover over the spare and closed the boot lid.

She glanced anxiously at her ride before saying, "Listen, I'm free after seven. Call me after you settle things with Vicky and let me know how it goes. I mean... if you'd like.

He smiled and said, "I might just take you up on that. Thank you."

"You're quite welcome. And, if you ever need anything, let me know. Kidding aside, I owe you big time."

"You don't owe me anything. Like you said, you were well on your way to busting out of there all on your own. Right?"

She smiled warmly at him and said, "Maybe, but we'll never know because a perfect gentleman from the suburbs decided saving a group of strangers was more important than his own happiness."

She took a step toward him and without thought, he matched her movement. It was not until they were centimeters apart and his arms were nearly encircling her, that he came to his senses and froze. He looked down at her sheepishly before taking a step back. In response, she merely shrugged and gave him a coquettish smile.

Just as the moment threatened to transition from awkward to positively agonizing, she murmured, "Farewell, Mike Carter."

Nine

"Good evening," Mike spoke from his chair in the living room when Vicky crept through the house toward the door to the basement many hours after dark the evening following Mike's lunch with Leia.

"Christ!" she yelped as her hands went to her breast. "You scared the hell out of me. What are you doing?"

Mike set his book aside before replying. "Waiting for you."

"Well this is a welcome development," she simmered as she crossed the room toward him. After dropping her bag on the couch, she began unbuttoning her shorts.

"What are you doing?" he grumbled.

"Getting naked for you," she replied reasonably as she shoved her shorts to the ground. What remained of her clothes soon followed, leaving her standing nude before him with her arms crossed beneath her breasts. "As I will every time you desire. Because, unlike your ex (who I suspect made quite the habit of refusing you), I will never say no to you. My body is yours for the taking. Always."

"Why in the hell would you make such an offer?"

"Because you deserve a woman who treats you properly, Mike. You're a good guy. Not only do you take care of your family, you also have no qualms about taking in a complete stranger."

"I can't help but notice that you haven't mentioned anything about yourself, other than with reference to my finding you by the side of the road."

"What do you mean?"

"You are offering yourself to me, but none of your reasons for doing so suggest you have even the slightest desire to do so. It's almost as though you view sex as nothing but a means to an end."

"What do you want me to say?" she asked with a shrug. "I wasn't raised religious, so I don't have that instinct to view sex as something which is inherently shameful. So why wouldn't I want to do it as often as possible?"

"That still doesn't answer my question."

"Forgive me," she replied with a smile. "I'm a little tipsy. Perhaps you could repeat your question."

"Why me?"

"I already told you. You're a good..."

"Guy," he finished. "But that's not a good enough answer. There's tons of good guys in the world, Vicky. Surely you'd be attracted to at least one of them."

"I'm attracted to you," she replied with a tremor in her voice.

"Perhaps," he conceded. "But I think not for the right reasons."

"What in the hell are you talking about?"

"For example," he continued undeterred. "That gym rat trying to hide his male-pattern baldness by wearing a backwards ballcap who spent the evening feeding you vodka tonics. I'm sure he appreciated the blowjob you gave him behind what that establishment optimistically calls a stage. Why not just see if he might be the right one for you rather than continuing this charade with me?"

"How did you..."

"A word of advice," he replied sadly. "The next time you try to run this con, pick a mark who hasn't had to develop black-belt level skills in sniffing out infidelity. You even went to her favorite bar."

"That guy was just..."

"Save it," he interrupted. "And put your clothes back on."

"You never intended to fuck me," she spat angrily, making no move to get dressed. "But you certainly didn't object to me getting naked for you. You try to deny it, but I can feel your desire for me. Imagine your cock sliding between my tits; how good it would feel to cover me in your hot, sticky load."

Something snapped free in Mike's brain at her words, suddenly remembering all Leia had told him. He took a step back and said, "Like you did for your quote, unquote, abductor? Or should I call him your co-conspirator?"

"Who have you been talking to? It was that fucking bitch, wasn't it? The one who framed me and got me banished.""

"That's hardly relevant, considering you're making no effort to deny it."

"You weren't there!" she snapped. "I did whatever I had to do to survive."

"You're right," he said resignedly. "I wasn't there. But, in the end, it doesn't really matter one way or the other. Get dressed, Vicky. I think it's time for you to go."

"What do you mean?" she asked with a tremor in her voice.

"I appreciate you helping me out these last few days with the children, but I won't have need of your services any longer."

Her expression darkened and she said, "You can't cast me aside like some common whore. You owe me, Mike."

"In what universe could I possibly owe you anything?"

"You said you'd give me a place to stay as long as I needed one."

"I did indeed say that," he conceded. "But that was before I knew you were engaged in human trafficking. I regret the circumstances that brought you to a place in life where you felt that was a reasonable course of action, but I won't have it under my roof."

"Oh, I know what this is," she declared boisterously. "This is about the money, isn't it?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Oh... well then... I guess I'll get my stuff together."

"Your bag is by the front door. And a cab will be here in three minute which will take you anywhere within a half-hour of here."

"You can't throw me out with nothing, Mike. How am I supposed to live?"

"There are prepaid cards for $250 in your bag. That should get you a room for a night and a few meals. After that, it'll be up to you."

"What do you expect me to do? Sleep in some flea bag where I'll be as likely as not to get raped and robbed within the first few hours?"

"I've been more than generous, Vicky. Take the money and call it a win."

"A thousand."

"No. God damn. Way."

"Seven-fifty."

"We're not negotiating here."

"Six-hundred or I go to the cops."

Mike sighed and said, "And tell them what?"

"Five-hundred and I'll sign an affidavit attesting that I won't bother you or your family ever again."

"Don't threaten me, Vicky."

"Come on, Mike. This is my one chance to make something of my life. Before I was abducted, I went from one dead-end job to the next. Ever since my folks kicked me out when I was sixteen, I've been on my own. Then I get abducted and find myself faced with an impossible choice. I admit it, I did everything that motherfucker asked: I let him remake my body; I helped him find more girls; I fucked him whenever he wanted. What else was I going to do? Let him cast me down with the rest who refused him? I'm not proud of the decisions I made Mike. But don't you fucking dare judge me when you've never dealt with a tenth of the shit that's been dumped on me."

Mike sighed and said, "Fine. Four hundred" He pulled three more gift cards from his pocket and held them out. But, before releasing them to Vicky, he added, "But I want you to understand that my friend Jake is coming to visit tomorrow. He works in the U. S. Attorney's office as a prosecutor. If you ever bother me or my family again, I can assure you that you'll find yourself up on federal conspiracy and trafficking charges which would result in a prison sentence measuring in hundreds of years. And he has a conviction rate north of ninety-eight percent. Do we understand each other?"

She startled at his pronouncement but nodded solemnly. Mike hoped very dearly that he had made an impression upon her, especially considering he had no plans to see Jake anytime in the near future.

Ten minutes, almost to the second, after he had locked the door following Vicky's contentious departure, Mike's phone buzzed to notify him of an incoming text. Putting the ruminations about what, if anything, he should tell his children about Vicky's absence were pushed to the back burner when he saw that he had received another text from Leia. He could not help the smirk that crossed his features when he read her message:

I haven't heard any explosions to the north

can't decide if that means she's resorted to a different form of warfare or if you haven't yet worked up the nerve to throw her worthless ass out

The bubbles indicating she was typing popped up and disappeared three times while Mike grew increasingly amused. At length, he relented and sent:

she's gone. zero casualties to report

His phone rang immediately, the misleading contact he had created for her with a symbol from one of his favorite movies popping up along with the name 'Detention Block AA-23 / Cell 2187'.

"Good evening," he said quietly after pressing the ACCEPT button.

"How'd it go?" Leia asked without preamble.

"About as well as could be expected. In the end, I agreed to give her a not insubstantial amount of money, but I also told her that I'd arrange for one of my close personal friends in the U. S. Attorney's office to bury her under the prison if she ever darkened my door again."

"Think she bought it?"

"Who's to say I'm not being sincere?"

"Strictly speaking, I wasn't implying you were trying to deceive her. I was merely asking if you think she believed you."

"I really hope so. She mentioned something about my children when we were negotiating how much money it would take for her to go away and it changed my perspective. Not to mention my demeanor. She certainly shut up rather quickly when I told her."

"I hope for your sake she leaves you alone."

Mike sighed wearily and said, "Me too." He paused for a moment before adding, "I'm surprised you didn't ask how much money it took."

"It's none of my business. But I was curious if you brought it up out of the blue or if she did something else reprehensible to prompt the conversation."

"I was waiting for her when she returned from an evening carrousing at the local watering hole. When I told her that we quote, unquote, needed to talk, she assumed I'd changed my mind about allowing her to seduce me."

"That woman truly has a one track mind. And the morals of a plague rat."

"Indeed. She made sure to mention how much she would excel at catering to my needs," Mike added spitefully.

"Sure, now. When you're still holding all the cards. But once her name is on the accounts, she'd shut that pussy down right quick."

"Of that I have no doubt."

Leia's voice softened and she said, "Sounds like you speak from experience."

"So, have you had any trouble re-integrating yourself back into your life?" Mike deflected.

"You mean after disappearing for a month and my appearance changing so radically that not even my parents, may they rest in peace, could have ever recognized me? Yeah, I'd say it's been a bit of a challenge."

"Wait," Mike interrupted. "What are you talking about?"

"I didn't always look the way I do now, Mike. Not by a long shot. That's just one of the many things that bastard who held me prisoner did."

"He gave you a make-over?" she deflected.

"I guess you could call it that. My only saving grace has been that: one, my voice didn't change; and two, my company fully supports the patriarchy. Meaning from my boss all the way up to the head of the company is nothing but white males who go googly eyed when confronted with an impressive set of knockers. I could have gotten them to give me their cryptocurrency passwords if I'd just tugged my neckline a little lower."

Mike chuckled and said, "We are truly doomed as a species until the fairer sex finds a way to wrest control from their oppressors. The only bright side is that I fully expect us to go from the same ignorant savages we've been for five hundred years to beings of pure energy in a few generations once you ladies are in charge. Just look at my favorite movie trilogy: two groups of old white guys nearly destroy the galaxy (the first in their hunger for power and the second in their crippling fear of change), but then a few charismatic ladies come along and stage a successful revolution which freed hundreds of billions of sentients."

"Why am I not surprised that you like those movies," Leia gushed.

"I have few foibles. That's one of them. I wanted to name my daughter Leia because of those movies."

"So did my dad," she interjected with a chuckle. "I guess he was more persuasive."

"So it would seem. You should be proud of your namesake. She's one of popular culture's great heroines."

"Oh, I am. I love those movies too. It's one of my favorite ways to remember my dad. He used to watch them with me all the time."

"That's awesome. I tried to get my kids into them, but their jerk friends showed them the prequels first and now they're convinced all movies in that series are mindless drivel."

"Meddling brats," Leia spat derisively.

"Indeed."

"So how are your kids taking everything with Vicky?"

"Funnily enough, I was pondering that exact question when you reached out. Speaking of which, how was it you knew when to text me?"

"How do you mean?"

"Vicky left, as near as makes no difference, exactly ten minutes before you texted. How did you know?"

"I don't have you under surveillance, if that's what you mean. I just had a feeling, if that makes sense."

"Well, I'm glad you did. As to the question of the kids and Vicky, I guess I'll just tell them she quit. She's only been here a few days, so hopefully her departure won't upset them too much. If it does, then I guess I'll be in the market for a nanny."

"Sorry," Leia retorted teasingly. "I've already got a job. But I suspect that money won't be a problem if you do decide to bring on someone new."

"What do you mean?"

"Did you look in the bag I gave you yet?"

"Of course not," he replied quickly. "You asked me to keep it secret, keep it safe."

"Nice," she murmured in response to his quote.

"I put it in the fire safe I use for all our important documents before Vicky got back to the house, but that's it."

"You've got quite a knack for doing the exact right thing," she sighed. "Has anyone ever told you that?"

"My ex frequently told the exact opposite," he muttered. "Does that count?"

"I'm not sure I'd get along with your ex. But that's a conversation for another day. Would you mind fetching the bag?"

"Sure, just give me a minute."

He rose from the easy chair and crossed the house to his office before pulling open what appeared at first to be a drawer and keying in the lengthy code to disengage the locking mechanism. After extracting the black velvet bag, he laid it reverently on his desk before taking his seat.

"Ok, done," he reported to Leia. "Now what?"

"Open it," she replied warmly.

Mike untied the silk ribbon which held the opening closed before reaching into the darkened interior and extracting the item from within. He inspected it for several long moments before speaking again - his voice filled with a mixture of wonder and bemusement. "A Speak-And-Spell?"

Ten

"Thanks?" Mike said with a snicker. "Does this one do the thing with the made-up language?"

Leia chuckled and said, "It's not really a Speak-And-Spell, dork. I think that's just how it's disguised so no one guesses its real abilities."

"So, what is it?"

"I don't really know what it is... exactly. But I know it's very powerful. And I know it scares the shit out of me. Near as I can tell, it's a device which gives its wielder almost unlimited power; only limited by their imagination and one other important feature. But even within the confines of the Artifact's limitations, it is still more powerful than you can imagine.

"After Vicky tricked me into traveling to the chalet of the man who imprisoned me, she proudly introduced me to the man she called her life partner. A moniker, I'll point out, which seemed to annoy him every time she said it. In any case, he's a man who I knew the moment I met him that I would never forget."

"I'm sorry," Mike murmured.

"Don't misunderstand me," she soothed. "Being held captive sucked. A lot. But I won't remember him because he mistreated me. It was his body. He was like something from the pages of comics. Assuming, that is, that the comic in question was drawn by someone who'd had a particularly traumatic childhood, and who needed a shitload of therapy.

"Tripod, as I called him for reasons which will soon be apparent, was a hulking Adonis of a man. He was as tall as a power forward and had the muscles of a bodybuilder. He was also nude, always nude. Clothes were forbidden within his domain. And his penis. Gods, what a monstrosity. It was easily as long as my forearm, and as big around as a soda can. And he was completely hairless, like something out of a dystopian movie. I recoiled from his grotesqueness, but I kept quiet. He told me I was to have the 'honor' of participating in his conquest of two-hundred beautiful women in a single day. Apparently he was going for some kind of record."

Mike reeled in silent horror as he recalled all the horrible things he had heard about the victims of sex trafficking.

As though she could sense his thoughts over their cellular connection, she hastened to add, "I told him 'no fucking way', and demanded he take me back home. His reaction was almost more worrying than if he had grown angry. He just smiled assuredly and said, 'I am the most magnificent man ever to walk the earth. You will eventually desire me... then you won't be able to live without me.'

"I was taken to his sex dungeon, but the festivities weren't set to begin right away so he locked me in the room in which you found me. I was able to escape that night since his security was basically at the level of keeping a six-year-old from getting into the cookie jar. I had almost made it to the road where you found Vicky when I was suddenly stricken with unbelievable fatigue. I tried to keep going but it took every ounce of will I possessed just to put one foot in front of the other. Soon, I wasn't able to resist anymore and collapsed by the side of the road. When I woke up, I was once again in the presence of Tripod."

Mike could not help chuckling at her description of her abductor.

She echoed his merriment before continuing, "He told me, 'I am very disappointed in you, young lady. I had high hopes for you. Where were you going?' I told him I was going home to be with my boyfriend, who was more of a man than he'd ever be. My captor simply said, 'We shall see.' After that I found myself falling into another unnatural sleep.

"When I woke up, I was back in my apartment. It was late at night, so I ran into the bedroom to find my boyfriend there asleep. He seemed oddly unconcerned by my absence. He said he figured I'd just been, 'You know, out.' I told him everything that happened as he listened distractedly. When I was done, he simply said, 'Well I'm glad you're home babe,' and went back to sleep."

At this point, Mike could sense the fury rolling off Leia in waves as she relived the experience, despite the distance that separated them.

"I was apoplectic with him," Leia continued. "How could he not believe me? Why would I make up a story like that? The next morning, I woke up and headed into the shower. I heard my boyfriend get up and follow me but then heard a gasp as I started to step into the shower. I spun around to find that my boyfriend was staring at me like I'd grown a second head. He stammered out, 'What happened to you?' I looked down and was horrified to see that I'd somehow gained a shitload of weight overnight. My tits, such that they were, looked like they belonged on a pensioner, and I had this pendulous pot belly. I'd also somehow grown a rainforest of pubic hair. I felt frantically around my body and discovered what had elicited my boyfriend's initial reaction. My ass felt like it was covered in cottage cheese! I yelled at him, 'You see! That monster must have done all this! Now do you believe me?' My boyfriend backed out of the bathroom in horror. I followed him and he averted his eyes saying, 'Cover yourself, would ya?' I couldn't believe it. I kept trying to explain what was happening. He just kept saying, 'What happened to you?'

"He had no ears for my insistence that my abductor had been responsible for the changes I'd undergone. I tried to reach for his hand, pleading for some comfort from him, but he wouldn't even look at me. I got fed up with the way he was acting and told him I was going to the police to file a report. He didn't even look at me or say goodbye when I left. It should come as no surprise that the police were no help. The story was just too fantastical. They also seemed to imply that since I'd escaped, 'no harm, no foul.' When I returned to my apartment, the locks had been changed. I called my boyfriend, but he dodged my call. So, I kept at it until he finally picked up. I demanded to know what was happening. He just said he didn't think he could be with someone he wasn't attracted to. I hung up on him. I'd had genuine feelings for him, although I by no means loved him. I felt so betrayed at how shallow he turned out to be."

"You don't have to tell me all this, Leia," he murmured. He wanted to hear her story, but he could not bear the pain it was causing her.

"I think I'm mostly over it at this point," she replied with conviction. "Everything I'm describing happened nearly a month ago. Don't get me wrong, I was properly pissed for the first week or so. But maybe Tripod did me a favor by showing me what a shallow prick my boyfriend truly is.

"In any case, I fell into another one of those unnatural sleeps right outside the miserable shit's door. I awoke once again in Tripod's dungeon. He said, 'I told you your boyfriend wouldn't measure up. You put on a little weight, and he couldn't abandon you quickly enough. You should be with me. You'll notice I have returned you to the way you were before. Now you can join my harem.'

"I laughed in his fucking face and told him what he could do with his preposterous cock. This started a weeks' long process of me escaping, only to fall into that God damned stupor at some point. I once made it two whole days before he brought me back. And each time, my body changed a bit more. Closer to what he called the body I quote, unquote, truly deserved. And which, at least in his mind, would eventually be sufficient for me to agree to join his harem.

"As I'm sure you've now surmised, I didn't look anything like I do now before this ordeal began. I kept myself in shape and tried to eat healthy, but I certainly didn't have these enormous boobs... or this impossibly toned yet somehow simultaneously rounded ass! In truth, I looked a lot more like Hermione Granger than Jessica Simpson.

"After the fifth or sixth time he brought me back, I was just exhausted. So rather than ignoring Tripod, I asked him how he was doing all this shit. By that point, my need to understand what was happening overrode my fear at once again having lost my freedom. He said, 'I already told you; I can do anything I want. If you don't like the body I've given you, just tell me what you don't like and I'll fix it. Then, you can be the one I break the world record for the most partners in a single day with!'

"I told him, again, that he was out of his fucking mind, and that I'd never have sex with him. He said, 'We'll see' and grabbed my hand to lead me to the main room of his sex dungeon and proclaimed, 'Let the games begin!' I know you've been there, but most of the lights were off so you likely didn't get the full effect of the gaudy fabric hung from the walls, or the artwork which depicted mostly grotesque erotic acts. What the room didn't have was people. I stayed quiet but couldn't keep from smiling. At this point it was becoming increasingly clear that while my captor had unnaturally altered his physique, he was still quite stupid. It took him about ninety seconds to figure out what was wrong. He shouted, 'Fuck! Do I have to do everything around here? Vicky!' He waited for a long moment before realization appeared to dawn and he grunted, 'That's right. She's in the city.' He whirled to face me and said, 'Come on sweetheart. I guess its your turn to help me make the magic.' He took me into his office and extracted the Artifact you now possess before adding, 'It takes blood to make it work. And it has to be someone different each time.'

"I told him to fuck off, that I didn't want any part of his stupid sex record. But he just worryingly replied, 'Not yet.' I stared him down and said, 'I took ten years of Krav Maga. If you come near me with that thing,' indicating his obscene cock, 'I'll tear it off and beat you to death with it.' He just snickered and said, 'How do you think I brought you back? How do you think I made you ugly before that? I can do anything I want.' At this point, I've got to admit, I was a little freaked out. But I was also curious. Who wouldn't be, am I right? So, I just shrugged in response and told him he was full of shit.

"He grabbed my hand, whipped out a knife and sliced across my palm. The blood welled up and as soon as droplets began to form, he took the Artifact and rubbed my bloody hand along the screen. The blood soaked in almost immediately. He then typed into the Artifact instructions for a harem to appear in his sex dungeon, and for them to be willing and eager for anything he wanted from them. I know this because he haltingly said each word as he typed it, like a child. He then hit the GO button. Words started scrolling quickly down the screen. He shouted, 'Fuck! I hate the stupid check mode. Why do I keep screwing that up?' He then typed out the same command again but this time he pressed the ENTER button. The screen on the Artifact just said, 'Instructions Accepted'

"He placed the Artifact into the safe beneath the elevator and replaced the keys beneath the dummy phone. Satisfied his precious Artifact was safe, he grabbed me by the arm to drag me back to the sex dungeon. It was suddenly filled with women in various stages of undress. They all looked to my captor and started moving towards him as they continued to shed their clothes. He chained me to a chair where I could see everything and turned back to the women enthusiastically.

"Within minutes it was a full-scale orgy. I don't know how my captor thought I'd be turned on by this scene, but it was genuinely horrible. He would shout at the girls if they ever did anything that wasn't directly aimed at pleasing him. Several girls were disciplined for kissing or touching each other. My captor had made his way through twenty or thirty girls when I started noticing a change.

"He wasn't as energetic anymore. He had already ejaculated nearly fifty times, and he was clearly losing steam. The seemingly never-ending stream of bewitched girls, however, were not. Those that had not yet been 'serviced' by my captor continued to fall over each other to get to him. Their mouths, pussies, asses, and tits were all thrust at him constantly, and he eventually fell into a stupor. The girls continued to take turns fucking him any way they could even after he had passed out.

"Recognizing my opportunity to take my leave, I began working on the cuffs he had me in. But before I could get free, I heard a voice behind me say, 'Where do you think you're going?'

"I slowly turned around and was faced with one of the most astonishingly gorgeous older women I've ever seen. She'd clearly had some work done but it somehow fit her. If you can imagine the type of woman who looks perfect with surgically enhanced H-cup tits, washboard abs and an ass you could set your drink on, then you're imagining this woman. She said, 'Aren't you going to please the master?' I told her I hadn't planned on it. At this point, her slavish expression started to fade, perhaps because Tripod had lost consciousness. It took her a few minutes to get her wits about her. I asked her who she was, and she told me she and her companions were the mistresses of Don Ameche."

"The notorious organized crime lord?" Mike queried.

"The same," Leia replied excitedly. "I asked her what they were doing there? That seemed to clear the last of the cobwebs away for her. She looked around and saw the other women still having sex with my unconscious abductor. This time her voice was like steel when she asked what was going on. I told her that the giant who everyone was fucking had kidnapped all of us and tricked them into having sex with him. I told her I was working on getting out of there, and that she should do the same. She smiled cruelly and said, 'Oh, I don't need to run from the likes of him.'

"The way she said it sent a shiver down my spine. She found a phone and called someone. I couldn't make out what she was saying since I think she was speaking Italian, but the place was crawling with gangsters within thirty minutes. They locked me up in the room where you found me. But, before they did, I saw them carry Tripod to the elevator. The looks on their faces made it pretty fucking clear that their intentions toward him weren't benign.

"That was late the night before you rescued me. None of the other women who were still held captive know what happened to him, but I'd frankly be stunned if Tripod is still breathing."

"Good riddance," Mike grunted.

"Indeed," Leia agreed. "In any case, that's my story, and what I know of the Artifact. So I guess the only question now is... what are you going to do with it?"

Eleven

"Mike? Do you have anything to add?"

"Pardon?" Mike asked distractedly.

"I was speaking of the sprint your team just committed to getting done in the next two weeks," the project manager clarified. "Did you have anything further before we wrap up?"

"Oh," he grunted. "No. I'm good. Thanks everyone."

"Ok," the PM continued enthusiastically. "Then let's go build some world class software!"

It was multiple minutes after everyone else had left the virtual meeting before Mike thought to click the LEAVE button. As he sat staring numbly at his screen, he had the fleeting thought that he desperately hoped that his team had not over-committed themselves while his mind was elsewhere. The undeniable truth was that his attention was focused where it had been since the moment Leia had spoken aloud the most fundamental question in his life since his no ex-wife had asked if he wanted to have a second child: what did he intend to do with the Artifact?

There was a hard to ignore portion of his brain which was vociferously arguing for him to seek out the closest metal refinery or lava flow and destroy the Artifact before it could cause more trouble. He could not deny the influence of both books and movies in this mindset. After all, he reasoned, he could think of dozens of dystopian stories which included at least one moment where the hero failed to destroy the item which eventually caused endless suffering.

The counter-argument was at once compelling and impossible to ignore. The safe which had held his attention throughout the morning contained a literal genie, sans bottle and musical numbers. What human not born to generational wealth could possibly resist the lure of making any wish they could imagine come true. Complicating things was the realization he had made the prior evening after Leia had pleaded fatigue and ended their call; namely that the vast majority of his admittedly limited cash liquidity had unexpectedly vanished. The cause of the disappearance was not hard to determine, given that the withdrawals had occurred during his return trip with Vicky from Tripod's chalet. But knowing that she had stolen from him would not help pay the mortgage. A mysterious Artifact which appeared to be a child's toy, however, might, at least according to the woman he found himself trusting implicity despite knowing her for less than fifty hours.

Mike removed the Artifact from his safe and held it reverently, marvelling at its unremarkableness. It genuinely appeared to be nothing but a child's toy, right down to the cheap-feeling plastic. He felt the weight of destiny as he straightened his finger to press one of the buttons, but the feeling was one of excitement rather than dread.

'This is it!' he thought. 'The nexus! The moment of transition after which nothing will be the same.'

He took a calming breath and pushed the 'A' key. An 'A' dutifully appeared on the screen, but he frowned in response to nothing more remarkable happening.

He muttered, "She said that when he pushed GO, it entered some kind of test mode."

He thought for a moment before clearing the display and typing in, 'GIVE ME THE WINNING ÜBER BALL NUMBERS FOR THE NEXT DRAWING' and pressing GO.

Rapidly scrolling text filled the display, moving past so quickly that he was unable to make anything out. The device's behavior reminded him of experiences during the dawn of personal computers, when running the prior year's software on this latest and greatest computer resulted in truly comical instances of programs running at hyperspeed. The disgorging text stopped after a few seconds, leaving him with a bit of a headache. Thankfully, he also felt the beginnings of inspiration.

Swivelling in his chair, he dug into his stockpile of electronics doodads until he located a tripod which would hold his phone. He activated his camera app in slow-motion mode and started recording in advance of repeating the exercise with the Artifact. When the scrolling stopped, he ended the recording and extracted his phone from the tripod. Watching the video at reduced-speed on his phone, the scrolling text was easy to read. It told the story of instant and unwanted fame after his purchase of a ticket for the $400 million jackpot made national news thanks to Vicky's very public insistence that she had in fact bought the ticket and he had subsequently stolen it. According to the scrolling text, things continued to go downhill thanks to tabloid-nature of the spat with Vicky until Mike was forced to allow his house to be foreclosed upon. He stopped the video before it ended, as there was little doubt as to the conclusion.

"Holy shit!" he exclaimed jubilantly. "It's a debugger!" Memories of Leia's tale, specifically her captor's aggravation at having mistakenly triggered the debugging mode, leapt to the forefront of his mind. "What an utter moron!" Mike whispered. "The ability to test any wish, before expending a person's blood? And that God damn chuckle-head thinks it's a burden."

Almost at once, Mike's imagination began to run wild with the possibilities. He knew that what lesser mortals would see as unnecessary busy work was, in the proper hands (for instance, an engineer with twenty years experience following graduation from one of the world's premier engineering institutes) a staggeringly powerful tool. There would be no guesswork, no questioning about the possible outcomes, only perfectly dialed in results. All he needed was the patience and creativity to craft the perfect program to execute on the Artifact.

Mike opened up a new text document on his laptop and began typing. But he had made it no further than, 'new safe' before he realized that even the medium used to take notes needed to be significantly more secure than his work computer. A few more minutes of searching through his cabinets produced a legal pad and a few pens. He loathed writing, thanks in large part to his wretched penmanship, but he could think of no other way to guarantee that his experiments would be kept isolated from the internet.

He had nearly filled an entire page with notes when Alexis threw open the door to his office and asked, "Vicky told me yesterday that we could go for ice cream, but she never took me and now you said she won't be coming back. Does that mean we're not going... ever!"

Mike's response was hampered by his instinct to hide both the Artifact and his notes, almost as though he were a highly placed double-agent who had just been discovered examining classified documents at a rival embassy. It took several moments of his daughter staring at him expectantly for him to calm his racing heart. He looked down at the black velvet bag, which now contained both the Artifact and his notes, as a plan coalesced in his mind.

"Absolutely, sweetheart," he replied belatedly. "We just need to run a couple errands first. Then we'll get a double scoop before we pick Zach up."

"Double!" Alexis shouted jubilantly. "Can I get two different flavors?"

"Why not," Mike replied affably as he secured the Artifact in his safe, hoping beyond hope that it would do the job until he could get something more secure.

Much more secure.

"Come on, you little bastard!" Mike growled. "Get in there."

It took five more attempts, but he finally managed to align the pieces of the shelving unit which he had disassembled two hours earlier to conceal his newly purchased safe. The unit in question weighed more than his son, and had taken Mike nearly an hour to wrangle inside using a hand truck. Yet every muttered curse, every smashed finger, had been more than worth it in his estimation if it meant that he had a safe which could be configured to only open after the entry of a lengthy alphanumeric passphrase.

Mike was just driving the final screw of the door hinge when his phone dinged. He dropped into his desk chair and took a long pull from his drink before he scooped up the device to determine the nature of his interruption. He re-read the notification several times before he was able to make sense of the text he had received from Leia.

how much do you think I should charge for a fuck?

After more than sixty seconds staring frozen at the device, he knew that he had to do something... if only to confirm receipt of the message and confirm that he was neither ignoring nor judging her (despite her baffling missive).

are we resuming a conversation I have no memory of beginning?

Mike nearly dropped his phone when he read her immediate reply.

you are NOT serious!!!

>:(

how could you forget propositioning me?!?!?

repeatedly

and for such disgusting acts of depravity

honestly... you should talk to someone about that special request you made

"What the actual fuck?" he grunted in confusion. Before he could consider crafting another reply, his phone rang. After thumbing ACCEPT, he hurriedly said, "I'm very sorry if I..."

He was interrupted by the sound of Leia's cackling. "Holy shit," she gasped as her laughing faded. "Thank you. I really needed that after the day I've had."

"What the hell is going on?"

"Oh, nothing. Just my manager's manager accusing me of being a whore in a team meeting."

"Please tell me you're joking."

"I wish I was. That rat-faced prolapsed anus started off by making a couple remarks about my new tits, not-at-all-subtly implying that my recent extended absence was actually because I was getting a world-class set of bolt-ons rather than having been abducted. He then graduated to responding to my stated preference for not being on-call this coming weekend by commenting to my manager that I'd be busy featuring at the gentleman's club in Midtown. I didn't quite hear what he said next, but I suspect said senior manager will be withdrawing a stack of ones on Friday night in hopes of buying the same show you got for free."

"What a dickhead," Mike breathed. "You should send me your resume and I'll see if my company has any openings which might work for you. No one should put up with that shit, Leia."

"I appreciate that, Mike. But I also appreciate my company's H. R. department who was appalled when I filed a report with them this afternoon. I suspect that the aforementioned senior manager will have a rather uncomfortable start to his day tomorrow."

"Good," he grunted. "Hopefully your company makes use of the 'run their genitals through a woodchipper' form of corrective action."

"You're a real Old Testament kinda guy," she chuckled. "Aren't you?"

"I don't adhere to any religion, if that's what you're asking. But I am a strong believer in more appropriate punishments for boorish behavior. Especially for people in unearned positions of power."

"You're suggesting the nephew of the C. T. O., just six months out of college, might not have been the most deserving candidate for a role typically held by someone with twenty years' experience? Perish the thought!"

"Gotta love unapologetic, raw, naked nepotism."

"You just can't keep your mind out of the gutter when you talk to me," Leia teased. "Can you Mike? I'm frankly shocked that you resisted the urge to snap a few pics of me when I was running around with my ass hanging out and these big dumb tits flopping all over the place."

"I detected neither hanging nor flopping," Mike retorted good-naturedly.

"Well done!" she declared. "I totally expected you to once again apologize for something totally outside your control. I think I like the more playful Mike. In any case... now that I shamelessly used you to cheer myself up... how was your day?"

Mike thought for a moment before replying. "Is this line secure?"

"If you're asking me as an InfoSec expert, then... no. But I'm not sure either of our phones is capable of achieving what I would consider to be secure. If you're asking, however, if anyone can overhear me on my end, or if I have any reason to believe our call is being intercepted, then the answer is most certainly not. My boyfriend seems to have placed himself in a position to be indispensable to his company, and is once again working late."

"I see," he replied slowly.

Leia prompted, "I assume you asked because you wanted to talk about the Artifact?"

"I actually just finished installing a new, much heftier, safe to keep both it, and everything related to it, secure."

"Have you used it yet?"

"No way. I won't be ready for that for at least another sprint... I mean for a few weeks."

"Holy shit," she snickered. "You're not just a nerd. You're an über nerd. Do you manage your kids cleaning their bedrooms using Agile as well."

"They're allowed to stay Kanban so long as they don't fall behind," he conceded with a chuckle.

"You know, I just realized I know nothing about you other than the kind of car you drive, your home address, your kids names, your birthday..."

"That's more than enough to steal my identity," he interrupted.

"I promise your secrets are safe with me," she replied warmly. "What I realized, however, is that I know next to nothing about you."

"You know I'm divorced," he offered lamely.

"I suspect that is far from your most important quality."

"I sometimes wonder," he muttered. "Seems like it's hard to forget about sometimes."

"I'd love to hear the story, if you're up to telling it."

"You don't want to hear my whining."

"While I can't predict the future, you don't strike me as the whining type. In fact, you come across much more as someone who would endure significant hardship rather than allow someone else to help shoulder the load you carry. As I said, I won't drag the truth out of you if you don't want me to pry. I'm also not saying I'll reluctantly agree to listen. As you said yesterday, I already consider you to be a friend and I find myself trusting you despite our relatively short affiliation." She paused for a moment, as though to give him room to speak. But, before he could come up with something clever to say, she added, "After all, you're on the very short list of people who have seen me naked without any qualms or regrets on my part since I started primary school. Very short."

"I guess that's another area in which we're kindred spirits," he soothed. "And I can promise you that I will honor your friendship, and your trust, by never subjecting you to the same spectacle in reverse."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Mike sighed before replying, "There are people in the universe who, all appearances and common sense to the contrary, believe themselves to be beautiful inside and out. I am not burdened with such delusions. Thus, I am aligned with the rest of our species in a commitment to ensuring that my unclothed flesh will never again be seen by human eyes save for the very infrequent times I catch sight of myself in the mirror. You, on the other hand, have nothing to fear."

"Mike," Leia huffed. "Who put that garbage in your head?"

He sighed wearily before saying, "It matters not who else might agree with that sentiment, because I know it to be true. Listen, I've got an early start in the morning."

"I'll let you go," she conceded. "But only if you swear to me that you'll call again tomorrow. And that you'll call me if you ever need anything. You saved my life, sir. And that's not something I take lightly."

"You're not sick of me yet?"

"Not by a long shot," she replied warmly. "Goodnight, Mike. Sweet dreams."

"G'night, Leia," he echoed before disconnecting the call. Then, to the empty and soulless office in which he sat, he added a bitter, "And not bloody likely."

Twelve

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ

BUZZ BUZZ BUZZ

"This had better be important," Mike growled as his hand fumbled blindly around the bedside table in search of his phone.

He did not even give a thought to not answering the call, as only a very limited list could breach the defenses of his do-not-disturb mode.

"Hello," he grunted into the phone after finally finding and answering the call.

"Mike?" a worried voice asked over what sounded suspiciously like dance music being blasted in the background.

"Leia?" he asked with palpable concern after a quick glance at his display to confirm the caller's identity. "Are you ok?"

"I am not presently in danger," she deflected.

"That was worryingly specific," he huffed as he sat up in bed and activated the lamp. "What's wrong?"

"I don't suppose your kids are staying with your folks tonight?"

"You're really starting to worry me here, Leia. What's going on?"

"I won't be party to you doing something you'd regret with your kids," she shouted over the music in the background. "I was really tossing up a Hail Mary here hoping you'd both have a Saturday night off and be of a mind to help a girl out."

"Where are you?"

"Where are your kids?"

"They're in their rooms, but..."

"Then forget it. I can work this out on my own."

"Not bloody likely," he groaned as he tugged on some shorts and stepped into a worn pair of flip flops. "Leia. Where are you?"

"You can't leave your kids, Mike."

"Zach's fifteen, and he's a very responsible kid. Do you honestly think this is the first time I've left him in charge? I texted him to tell him what's going on, if that will make you feel better. Now tell me what's wrong."

"What's that dinging?"

"My car's ignition. All I need from you is a destination."

"Are you sure? I mean... really sure?"

"Where am I meeting you, Leia?"

"I'll text you an address," she sighed. "It's not far from you."

More traffic laws than not were either bent or outright broken on Mike's twenty minute drive to the adjacent suburban town. He had long experience in how to drive quickly on surface streets without eliciting any of the more obvious signs of reckless driving, and he managed to spot the single cop who was passing a quiet shift by manning a speed trap and was able to halve his speed in less time than it took the cop to bring his radar gun to bear.

Upon reaching the location Leia had indicated, a parking lot outside a strip mall, he bounced over the bumpy entrance and was forced to throw his coupe into a hasty slide when Leia stepped out of the darkness and beneath a streetlight. He slid to a stop in a reasonable approximation of a bootlegger's turn and was out of the car before it came to a full stop.

"Are you ok!" Mike gasped in time with Leia shouting, "How in the fuck did you do that!"

He gave her a thorough inspection, coming to the conclusion that she had no obvious injuries just moments after she cocked an eyebrow in response to what she no doubt mistook for yet another instance of his repugnant leering.

"I'm fine," she said with a crooked smile as she rounded his coupe and climbed into the passenger's seat. "Although I suppose you're welcome to look for as long as you feel is necessary. Assuming, that is, you first tell me how in the fuck you just did that Smokey & The Bandit shit. And that you do it after we get on the road."

"What's going on?"

"I'll answer all your questions, but can we get to that after we get under way?"

"Fair enough," he conceded. "Where are we going?"

She indicated the screen in the center of his dash and said, "If I put the address in here, will that work for you?"

"Yeah," he acknowledged as he stomped on the accelerator and peeled out.

"Jesus," Leia gasped as Mike feathered the throttle to control the drift as he left the parking lot. "Be careful."

He chuckled and said, "What makes you think I'm not being careful?" as he eclipsed the threshold of double the speed limit. "And where are we going?"

"Nevaeh, one of the women you saved when you freed me, contacted me a little while ago. She's been having a hell of a time with her family ever since she got back, mostly on account of those bigoted assholes disowning her."

"Bigoted?" Mike prompted in confusion.

"They still persist in dead-naming her as Jimmy," Leia replied flatly.

"And the gift Tripod gave her was a transition that would fool a geneticist?" Mike guessed.

"Correct," she confirmed without emotion. "Is that a problem?"

Mike glanced in her direction to confirm that her expression held worry rather than judgement. "I know you still know next to nothing about me... but I'm no bigot. Both of my siblings are gay, and my kids spend multiple weeks a year vacationing with them."

"I figured that was the case. You know, because you're not an asshole. But we are in the Deep South. You know what I mean?"

"All too well," he confirmed. "So, her family is a bunch of assholes who are disowning her?"

"They've also declared their intention to call her new-former cousin, who's a welder, to brute force their way into her storage unit so they can destroy all of their quote, unquote, dead son's belongings before she can quote, unquote, steal them."

"What a bunch of contemptible shitheads," he grunted. "Where are we meeting her?"

"She got a ride-share over there after her sperm donor stole her keys. Speaking of which, I'm really racking up my debts to you, Mike. That ride-share I was in when I called you was one of the more terrifying experiences of my life. And I've been held captive for over a month in addition to serving a deployment in an active war zone. That mother fucker was BLAZED!"

"Glad I could help," he chuckled.

"I'm not sure how much of an improvement this is," she teased. "Do you always drive this fast?"

"We're barely moving," he quipped. "Hardly more than twice the speed limit."

"Twice! Are you insane?"

"Hell, we're not even close to half as fast as I've ever driven."

"You fly jets on your free weekends?"

"I used to race."

"You mean like go-carts?"

"It was called Karting. And they didn't go very fast in the grand scheme of things. But it also put me in a position to drive all kinds of fascinating vehicles. I once got my hands on a V-12 Ferrari at Sebring. You want to talk about fast!"

"So you're, like, an actual racecar driver? Not just a dude who thinks possession of a Y-chromosome gifts you with preternatural skills and reflexes?"

"I was a racecar driver," he clarified. "But I suspect I'm still a better driver than most of your aforementioned meatheads. Perhaps someday I'll get a chance to give you a demonstration."

"Is that not what you're doing?" she asked animatedly, gesturing to the streetlights flitting past so rapidly that they were indistinguishable one from the next.

"We're being cautious, right now. In truth, we could easily go fifty percent faster. But then I wouldn't have time to slow down should we come across a..."

"What the fuck!" Leia gasped as Mike stomped on the brakes and shed a significant percentage of their speed.

He gestured toward an embankment just as a police-sped sedan was revealed by their forward progress.

"How in the shit did you see him?"

"Years of practice," he smiled as he started bumping their speed back up. "We should be there in a minute if you want to give Nevaeh a head's up."

"Don't pull some Elwood shit when we get there, yeah? It might scare the shit out of her."

"Not even a little shimmy?" Mike teased. "Perhaps a tiny drift?"

"Not the time," Leia replied with an irrepressible grin.

"As you wish."

Mike dutifully slowed to a more sedate speed as the storage unit complex hove into view. He spotted a gated entrance and pulled up to it, only to find the gate open.

"Gotta love the security at this place," Leia muttered.

"Let's hope the MAGAts aren't already here."

"There she is!" Leia yelped, pointing off to the left.

Mike could not prevent the tires chirping slightly as he juked the coupe in the indicated direction.

"You did that on purpose," Leia accused playfully.

"You have no proof," Mike muttered as he goosed the throttle a bit to speed toward where he could just make out a woman hiding in the shadows.

He screeched to a stop and left the engine running as he triggered the boot lid release in advance of jumping from the car.

"Who the fuck is that?" the woman asks accusingly.

"That's Mike," Leia soothed. "He was the one who freed us. Remember?"

"No," Nevaeh replied, although Mike was glad to hear some of the fear had faded from her voice. "That piece of shit gave me enough weed that I didn't know shit about what was going on up there."

"I swear he's one of the good ones," Leia assured her. "Now, where's all your stuff?"

"In here."

The trio spent a very busy seventeen minutes loading Nevaeh's possessions (which had obviously been hastily stored considering that almost no boxes had been called into use; presenting them with the challenge of scooping up countless loose items) into the first the boot and then the backseat of Mike's coupe.

"That's the last of it," Nevaeh finally announced.

Before Mike could even reach for the handle to the driver's door, they heard the opening strains of 'Dixie' pierce the relative calm of the early morning.

"You've got to be shitting me," Mike growled.

"That's my brother's truck!"

"Get in!" Mike commanded. Once he heard the doors close, he added, "And buckle up. We're going to take Jethro..."

"Cledith," Nevaeh corrected.

"That's hardly an improvement," Mike observed. "We're going to have a little fun with him. You guys ready?"

"What's he talking about?"

"I find it best not to ask," Leia replied with a smirk. "But I suggest grabbing onto something."

Just as they got under way, a rolling testament to the problematic confluence of ignorance and privilege appeared at the end of the row upon which they were parked. It was a lifted luxury pickup sporting enough chrome to be a navigational hazard to every plane in the sky on a sunny day, including dual smoke stacks connected to its turbo diesel engine.

Mike pulled out of the parking lot, keeping his speed firmly in the sedate range. It was not hard for him to keep track of their avid pursuer, thanks to the thunderous sound of its engine. He allowed himself a moment to be impressed by the truck's acceleration, but he kept them firmly behind him with little effort.

"What are you doing?" Leia asked worriedly.

"I'm not sure what you mean," he replied with feigned innocence.

"Come off it, Mike. You were going twice this fast on the way over here."

"Perhaps," he conceded. "But it wouldn't do for them to give up just yet."

"They'll never give up," Nevaeh whispered. "Not while I'm still alive."

"Then we're going to give them some time to think about their sins."

Mike braked hard and took a corner sharply, cranking the wheel a bit harder than necessary to generate some oversteer and bring the trailing vehicle closer.

"What the hell!" Nevaeh shouted as some of her clothes tumbled onto her lap.

"Just a few more minutes," Mike whispered distractedly as he kept his eyes on his mirrors.

The cacophony of the pursuing turbo diesel filled the empty streets as Mike allowed them to come ever closer. The tarmac stretched before them invitingly, straight as an arrow and flat as a pancake. And, far in the distance, the welcoming sight of a billboard advertising a fast food chain whose base was surrounded by shrubbery and from which protruded the almost imperceptible sliver of a front bumper. He started to nudge his speed up on the straightaway as his eyes danced between the chasing truck and the promise of salvation ahead.

"Just a little closer," he muttered as he hand drifted up to the overhead controls to re-enable all the driver's aides and safety features on his coupe.

Just as the thunder of the truck grew loud enough to rattle his ears, Mike stomped on the brakes. Over the distance of less than a football field, he had shed two-thirds of his speed as both he and his passengers were thrown against their safety belts.

Their pursuer took almost two full seconds to react to his sudden deceleration and was still traveling at three times the posted speed limit when they flashed past the hidden police car. A speed which Mike hoped would be more than sufficient for them to be invited to spend a few hours in jail.

"Holy shit," Leia gushed. "You totally entrapped them."

'That's only applicable when the cops do it," he offered with a grin. "And it looks like we might get an added gift."

"How do you mean?"

Mike gestured through the front windscreen toward where their erstwhile pursuer was nearing the horizon with no signs of stopping with the police following close behind. "It looks like those morons just caught a couple of felonies for fleeing and public endangerment to go along with their reckless driving charge. With any luck, it'll be a few months before they breathe free air again."

"Oh, my God!" Nevaeh gushed. "You're amazing."

"Indeed he is," Leia murmured from beside him.

Copyright © 2025 Jake Lazarus

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This book, or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the author (except for the use of brief quotations in a review).

This is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, business, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner.

Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.