Ingrams & Assoc 1: Double Bluff Ch. 01

The most outlandish training was the whorehouse. She was assigned to shadow a couple of high-end call girls. She learned the arts of sexual release and gratification – she ended up fucking one of the girl's johns herself, to see if she could get away with it. She learned the finer arts of a blow job, how to slowly seduce a man or a woman, how to dance provocatively, how to make sex last or to get it over with as fast as possible.

She had thought she was pretty hot stuff before this, but after this, she knew she could make a night memorable for anyone. She began to see what Jessica had hinted at in their initial conversation– the more she learned about the mechanics of sex, and got better at it, the more it felt like a planned act than a spontaneous one. It was less about the moment and the partner and about working out how to do what in what order.

Directly following that, she was given some training in seduction. She was told to read 'Rules of the Game', and then go out and seduce several people, to prove she knew what she was doing. She would go out for dinner with one of the other agents, who would select a target at random and she was told to go get a phone number, or make an rendezvous with them (that she would never follow through on.)

At first it was exciting, but then she got some of the agents with a wicked sense of humor. Attempting to seduce a man who was on an anniversary dinner with his wife was a hard call for anyone, let alone someone with no time. She had to do it while he was on the way to the bathroom. She felt bad about doing it, and made a point of paying for the couple's dinner, anonymously, once she'd got his number. She'd only managed to do it by suggesting that they have a threesome –she wasn't going to potentially destroy a marriage on an anniversary night at the whim of a co-worker.

Once the seduction phase of training was complete, she was assigned two targets– one knew she was coming and the other did not. She was given the task of extracting a specific piece of information from both and came through with flying colors. The unaware target was the wife of a local city councilman and she had to get the minutes of a specific meeting from him. That was a first for April, seducing a woman. When she was given it, she'd raised an eyebrow and made some acidic comments about the automatic assumption of female bisexuality, and how a man would never be assigned to seduce another man. She'd been told that, in fact, all of their male agents had experience with another man; it was just part of the job. She'd shut up after that.

The job was complicated by the fact that the woman identified as strongly heterosexual and had never had an experience with a woman before, and although April had, she'd never pursued a woman before – her experiences had been purely in passing. It was new for both of them and April enjoyed it – a woman was an entirely different kettle of fish from a man; she had to totally change her style of seduction to get where she needed to go. Strangely enough, once it was done, April felt like she'd done the wife a favor. She'd not expected her to enjoy it as much and she did worry a little bit about what she'd awakened. When she looked in on them three months later, she found both her and her husband sharing a girlfriend. She had to smile internally at that.

It was at this point, when she was out with Megan one Friday night and they were both fending off would be suitors, and playing mind games with them, pitting one potential interested party against another – just because they could, not because it was any part of any training – when April had another enlightening conversation.

The two of them were sitting at a bar, dressed in their Friday night finery, perfectly made up and just eating nachos, drinking coke and doing shots and people watching in the rest of the bar. They made jokes about the other patrons and took turns shooting down the men that approached them.

After doing another shot of tequila, Megan reached out and grabbed April's arm. "Wait, wait. I've got a good one. The next guy who shows up, we throw this glass of water on the floor, and then tell him he has to throw down his jacket on it, so we can walk to the bathroom!"

They both dissolved into the giggles that comes of too much alcohol and not enough food.

After they finished laughing, April wiped her eyes, then looked around at the bustling bar scene, at couples and people hitting on each other and suddenly got subdued.

"Megan, what do you do for fun? Besides bar hop?" she asked.

Megan took her question seriously. "Not much, to be honest. The job...it doesn't leave much time for anything else. Then there's no way you can join any kind of club that requires regular attendance. I was on an operation once that required me to be a part of an amateur dramatics play – it's how I met the target. I found I loved it. I loved going to rehearsals and belonging to something, you know? I had a speaking part and everything. And then the operation concluded before opening night, and I had to drop out, once the job was done. You know the rules, and they are there for our protection. I think that's one of my big regrets, letting the cast down. I went to the opening night in disguise and sat at the back and watched. They did such a good job and I wasn't there. Wasn't part of it, if you know what I mean? Sometimes this job demands way too much sacrifice."

April nodded. "I know. I've tried to join some clubs around here. I'm part of a volleyball league, but I'm an alternate on a team. I just can't let them depend on me. You know something else I did? I've always wanted to learn archery. I have no idea why. I think it's because it's a solitary sport, not a competitive one. Well, I thought so, anyway. You know what? I'm really good. I barely need to practice; I can just do it. A few weeks back, there was an internal competition and I went in for it, just for kicks, and I realized half way through that even though I could win it, easily, I couldn't. I couldn't get into the competition set – articles get written and my picture in places it shouldn't be. I had to throw it. And it sucked. It was then that I realized exactly how much this job takes from you. I don't even want to think about having a relationship."

Megan nodded and they both sat there for a moment in silence, fiddling with their shot glasses.

After a moment, April asked Megan point blank, "Do you have any friends that aren't at Ingrams?"

Megan looked at April with a look April couldn't identify. Sadness mixed with relief?

"Not really. I have a couple of friends back in Idaho, where I come from. I have to keep them at arms length most of the time. It's nice to go home and see them though, with their normal lives. No one around here though – the job makes it very difficult to meet people who you aren't scoping out, and frankly the amount of lying I'd have to do would make it a friendship that wasn't based on honestly or reality, so what's the point?"

April nodded and took a sip of her coke. She had come to the same conclusion. "What about family?"

"My family won't speak to me – I come from a religious family and you can imagine how they would take my sexually liberated personality. I was thrown out of the family home at eighteen. The only person who still talks to me is my brother, and even that is rare. He knows I'm in Washington and that I do something hush-hush, but that's it. What about you?"

"I have no family. My parents – well, my mother and who I thought was my dad, died when I was an infant. I was raised in the system, but my Uncle Marcus – who, it turns out, was my dad all along, unbeknown to either of us – kept an eye on me and made sure I was ok. He's the closest thing to family I ever had. The only person who's ever loved me, in fact."

Megan's eyes widened in sympathy. April nodded at her, gave her a smirk and an eye roll, "I know, my life is a like a bad soap opera in some respects."

Megan didn't say anything - she just leaned over and put her hand on April's. "I don't know what to say. You are one tough lady, you know that?"

They just looked at each other for a moment, and then April broke eye contact. After a second, she looked back and said, "You think either one of us will ever find someone to love us? With what we do? I mean, what man would understand, be ok with it? How could you possibly have a relationship with someone who is out there, screwing and using sex to manipulate people? How could you trust that person not to do it to you?"

April bit her lip. This was more than she had planned on revealing. She knew it was the alcohol speaking, but she had been thinking a lot about this recently, as the job training was opening her eyes to new ways of being. She was smart enough to know what she might be giving up. She saw understanding, acceptance and experience in Megan's face.

"April," said Megan, in a low voice, "Icompletelyunderstand what you are thinking and what you are saying. I grapple with this every day. I mean, look at you, what are you, twenty-seven? Twenty-eight? I'm thirty three. My clock is ticking even louder than yours is. I've been doing this a while now and Itotallyget what you are talking about. But thereareguys out there who could handle this. And if you find one that can't, well, that's a decision you have to make at the time.

"This job is not forever, no job is. If I met someone I really couldn't be without, then this job is toast. It's all a question of priorities. Right now, my priority is this – I get excitement, I get intrigue, I get to live on my wits and I get to help to people. And the sex isn't too bad either! But I'm not blind to what this job is. That's why there is so much bed-hopping going on among the field agents. We are all looking for a connection we can't have in real life. Don't tell me you haven't been hit on?"

April smiled at that. She had been, but she'd been respectful and ensured that her relationships with the other guys in the office was purely based on professionalism.

Megan caught the smile and then said, "April, you know all the training you've had to make a guy happy? Think about this. The guys have had the same training to make a woman happy."

Megan signaled the waitress and ordered another round of drinks and said to April, "Enough soul searching, babe. You need to come up with the next torture for a guy hitting this table!"

April smiled back. She had a lot to think about, but Megan was right, it was Friday night. Time for fun, not navel-gazing.

-----

Four months from when she was initially hired, the call came. Dermot knocked on her door as she was re-reading the report that Jessica had mentioned, where Ingrams had been caught, fair and square. She liked that one – it was a textbook operation that had gone off the rails and had required some inspired improvisation. Her respect for Jessica had gone up yet again when she realized that even though Ingrams had been discovered, she hadstillmanaged to get the job done.

Dermot stood in her doorway and said, "So, think you are ready? Because it's your turn. Here's the background." He threw the file onto her desk – with astonishing accuracy, she noted - and then said, "There are emails coming in. Read that, have thoughts and there is a briefing tomorrow at 0800."

April always smiled when Dermot used military parlance – it was so out of place with everything else he was. She reached for the file and said, "I'll be there..."