Syracuse is Waiting

The post office was on the other side of the road and, dodging traffic, I quickly crossed over. At the counter I picked up a pen and seemingly from nowhere an address popped into my mind. I wrote it on the package, brought the appropriate stamps, and left it to be mailed. By the time I got back to my office I found that I had completely forgotten the address details.

The second parcel, just a little smaller than a shoe box, was similarly wrapped, and I was tempted to open it but I decided to wait. The most pressing thing was to put through my call to the Bahamas and only after that was done did I relax a little. My contact promised to get what I needed by the following morning.

When I went home I took the parcel with me and after I had had a stiff drink I started to unwrap it. Inside the box was something the shape of a soup can but, on closer inspection, I saw that it was constructed in two halves. The upper half was a beaker into which liquid could be poured. The lower half was something of a mystery. It, too, was like a beaker but lying at the bottom, side by side, were two clear plastic rods.

I turned it over and over in my hands trying to fathom it out but nothing came to me. Then I heard a voice. It came from inside my head but it was not me. The voice was female and vaguely familiar. I tried to shut it out but it was both insistent and authoritative. Having listened I walked to the kitchen and poured water into the beaker up to a mark that I had not noticed before. It looked to be about ten centilitres full. I carefully carried it back into the living room and suddenly its purpose seemed obvious.

I knelt down on the floor and, tipping my head back, I held the device over my face.

The pain in my neck, brought on by my exertions earlier in the day, had to be ignored. I put out my tongue and applied pressure where the two rods met one another. When I pressed hard enough I was rewarded with a drop or two of water and I felt a strange elation. I did not know why, I simply knew that it was imperative that I emptied the beaker.

It took nearly an hour. I found that if I applied a constant pressure it resulted in a steady flow but I was having to stretch my tongue a long way to make contact with the rods and it was difficult to keep up the effort. By the time I had finished I found that I had been sweating from the exertion

That night I unplugged the phone before going to bed and my sleep was fitful. The following morning I was anxious to get to the office but I knew there was something I had to do first. The problem was that I could not remember what needed to be done – until I saw the device.

Without thinking I filled it up to the mark and then tipping back my head I set about emptying it again. My tongue protested this new labour but I tried as best I could. This time it took well over an hour and for the last ten minutes my face was locked in a painful cramp.

As I drove to the office I had never felt so uneasy in my life. I had certainly been in some tight spots but, for good or bad, at least I was in a position to make my own decisions. Now, I found that I could be betrayed by my own subconscious at any moment.

As soon as I got in I ran for the fax machine. In amongst the junk mail and the genuine correspondence I found the fax from the Bahamas. The Trust that I was investigating was itself nested within other Bahamian corporate entities but my contact had been both busy and thorough. He had finally tracked it back to a Panamanian company and, pulling in a favour, he had got me a name.

Straight away things started falling into place and I smiled grimly. Now someone was going to pay.

The journey was almost seventy miles but, nearly three years on, everything was much as I remembered it. I drove around the camp perimeter to the off site accommodations reserved for officers. The house I wanted was probably the most secluded and certainly offered the best view of the hilly countryside.

The was no answer when I rang on the bell and for a moment I was tempted to force an entry but that was tantamount to suicide in full view of one of the most secretive bases in the country. I drove back down the road and spent the next two hours roaming over hills that had previously been familiar from long pack drills. By the time I walked back to the house it was late afternoon and this time there was an answer.

"I wondered how long it would take you to find me."

Colonel Tewson had hardly changed in three years, even now when out of uniform.

"Are you going to invite me in?"

The door opened wider and I stepped straight into a living room that still retained a country cottage charm. Now that the moment of confrontation was here I tried to keep my anger in check but I failed.

"Perhaps you would like to tell me what the fuck is going on."

"I think you mean "What the fuck is going on, ma'am" You are still a reservist and as such subject to military discipline."

This rankled more than anything. Katrina Tewson had been a psychologist in civilian life and, on joining the forces, she had assumed an honourary rank which still, nevertheless,

had to be respected.

She was only a couple of years older than me and yet she held a commission that I could not have aspired to for at least a decade. It would have been easier to take if she had been a plain looking intellectual but she had beauty and brains. She was of average height and build but she had a most striking face. Her deep brown eyes drew you in and held you and her mouth, with full lips and perfect teeth, begged to be kissed. I knew for a fact that, notwithstanding the disparity in military status, every man in the squad, including me, had tried it on with her.

"You don't seem frightened ...you ought to be"

The menace implicit in my tone was genuine; if what I believed to be true was so then she had much to fear from me.

"I'll give you credit for finding me so quickly, after all that's what you do, but you get no marks for making idle threats."

I felt my fists slowly clenching. If it became necessary to subdue her then I would not hesitate.

"I know that you've played with my mind and now I think I know why."

"Do you now? Well let's see what you've learnt. Come and lie on the couch."

The leather consulting couch took up one wall of the living room and the sight of it immediately brought back memories. At the time I had found the sessions mundane, almost boring, but now I felt a cold fear at the prospect of doing as she asked.

"There's no point fighting it. You will do as I say."

I tried to resist the urge but my body was already in motion. The real counseling work took place on the base but she had insisted that the initial sessions were held in her home. This was done, ostensibly, to set a relaxed tone at the outset but, as I drew closer to the couch, I saw flashbacks of events that were both unreal but somehow familiar to me.

I saw myself naked on the couch, something which had never happened, but I could also picture Katrina without clothes. No doubt this was something I had experienced in dreams but there was a vividness about this image that could not be denied. I could see her breasts with their pronounced conical tips, her slim waist letting on to flared hips and her well proportioned legs. I could even see the tiny roseate birthmark midway between the deep pit of her navel and the neat triangle of her auburn pubic hair.

I shook my head and tried to think clearly but I was already lying prone on the couch with Katrina hovering over me.

"Is some of it coming back to you?"

As she said it I was overcome with an irrational feeling of claustrophobia and I felt my heart beating a little harder.

"They send me the fittest, most able recruits in the country, in short, prime specimens of manhood. How is a woman to resist?"

I was not sure how to take this revelation that I had not been the only one. I tried to goad her into telling me more.

"You're using us to betray your country."

"Not "us" just you. Yes, I had my fun with some of the others, at least, the better looking ones, but you were my special project."

"Look, I don't know what you have in mind but it stops right here. I'm going to the authorities with everything I know."

She smiled down at me.

"You know you were the best looking of all. In part, that's why I chose you; in fact I think I've missed you."

Even before she had finished speaking she had started to undo the buttons on her blouse.

"What are you doing?"

"Isn't it obvious?"

She allowed her blouse to slip off her shoulders and she deftly flicked open the fastening of her bra. As it fell to the floor and, as I caught sight of her breasts, I knew that it had not been my imagination. Sometime in the past I had seen her naked.

"If you come near me I am going to hurt you."

"Don't make idle threats. You know by now that you cannot harm me."

She took off her skirt and slipped her panties down her bare legs.

"Yes, you can look at me."

Up until that point I had been looking at her out of the corner of my eye and had not realized that I was holding my head rigid but now I turned my face towards her. She was standing with her legs slightly apart, confident in her nakedness, running a finger idly through the auburn curls of her pubis.

I tried to follow up this new freedom of movement by rising from the couch but I was held like a pin to a magnet.

"With the others I simply instilled an overwhelming need to please me. With you, it was more fun to know that you were aware that you were a prisoner of your own subconscious."

"You bitch."

"You'll have to watch that tongue of yours, which reminds me, how are you getting on with my little training device?"

"Go to hell."

"Well, if you're not going to tell me, there's one way to find out."

She scooted up onto the couch and sat on my rib cage with her knees either side of my head. I tried to keep my face averted but she slowly closed her legs drawing my head round until I was staring at the ceiling.

"Now keep it still."

She relaxed the grip of her legs and, once again, I found I could not move but her weight, centred on my lungs, was making breathing more difficult. I was almost glad when she slid forward slightly so that her pubis was resting against my chin.

"Did you know that one of the deepest memory centers in the brain is associated with your sense of smell? You might not appreciate it but you have retained a scent memory of every woman you ever went down on but amongst those smells we remember most readily are those that we associate with some form of trauma. ...Now, do you remember my scent?"

She pressed her fingers against her sex, opening herself, and the subtle smell of her, which had already begun to pervade the room, was suddenly stronger. The lingering feeling of claustrophobia that I had been feeling immediately increased and I felt my heart beating more quickly.

"Take a breath"

I gulped air as she rose up over me and then, with practiced ease, she sat down on my face. She removed her hand, allowing her labia to close around my nose, and, as she leaned slightly forward, her buttocks sealed my mouth.

She did not move. She simply rested there cutting off my breathing. It must have been a full minute before she relented and allowed me another breath. It was a moist, unsatisfactory, lungful but, as she had predicted, it triggered an illusive, fearful, memory. She had done this to me before and I had suffered.

She moved forward again and this time stayed still even longer. Every instinct called out to me to fight her off but the panicked commands could not reach my limbs. At last she lifted herself and settled her weight back on my sternum.

"Get off of me!"

"Begging's good...I like that...it does I for me."

Without warning she sealed me off again and I only had time to take in a half-breath. My indignant lungs fought to be filled and I could feel my nose flaring inside her as I sought in vain for air.

Without thinking I put out my tongue and licked blindly but somehow I knew that this was not what she wanted. She took her pleasure in control and, in this case, it was literally life and death. She had neutered my free will and now she was exercising the ultimate power.

She raised herself again but this time she did not sit back. She remained where she was just centimeters above my face and, as I gasped a desperate breath, it was hot with the aroma of her.

"Did you know that you had the best scores of your intake in the free diving drills? No, I suppose not, they like you to work as a team rather than individuals. Still, nearly two minutes is very impressive, are you still in condition?"

The question was rhetorical and, whilst I wanted to swear at her, I found I could not answer. Even as I watched she turned herself around and faced down my body.

"Let's see if you can go for the record."

I felt my pores open and my face was bathed in fresh sweat as I fought my body but it was in vain. Her arse, which had appeared so taut, now took on a velvety softness as it came down and blocked out both light and air.

This time she had allowed me to draw an adequate breath but only to put me cruelly to the test. I counted off seconds but by the time I got to thirty I was already struggling. When free diving the tanks were chilled to simulate sea water and this helped to slow the metabolism. Also, we never dived to any great depth and buoyancy worked for us. Now, the pressure on my face was greater and more painful than anything I had experienced in the tanks.

It got to a full minute and the pounding pulse in my eardrums started to make me count faster. In the tanks I could release measured amounts of carbon dioxide but not so now. I knew that if I once started to let go I would loose my whole breath.

I could no longer count. My lungs were screaming and my whole body was covered with sweat. I tried to relax, to find the trance state that had helped me in the water, but the water had been cool, supportive, her body was hot and physically oppressive.

My last hope was that if I remained totally still she might think that I had passed out but she wriggled herself more comfortably into place letting me know that she was not in the least bit fooled.

At that point the stars that I was seeing on my eyelids started to dim but my body suddenly found a lease of life. I felt myself starting to spasm as my primal instincts overcame any other commands either conscious or unconscious. For a second or two I think she was caught by surprise but then it must have become obvious that these were simply reflex movements and she started to use them to her advantage. As my head jerked on my rigid neck she rode it down squirming herself across my face.

I was just on the point of finally letting go when I felt a new heat and wetness on my face and some part of me registered that she was climaxing. It did not last long. Her body was now being wrenched in the same uncontrolled way as mine and, even before it was over, she remembered to lift herself from me.

I took deep choking breaths as she hovered above my face and I could see tiny droplets of moisture clinging to the fine, almost invisible, hairs that covered her cheeks. When she had recovered she got up from the couch and, looking into my eyes, she spoke coldly.

"You'll be okay."

"I'll kill you for this."

"Maybe, but not today. I want you to leave. Come back tomorrow evening and we'll discuss this further."

And it was as simple as that. She went upstairs leaving me to get dressed and ten minutes later I was driving away from the cottage with the reek of her still heavy in my nostrils.

On the journey back it was as if there were two people in the car. One of us wanted to turn round, to threaten her with serious harm, whilst the other felt an odd calmness at the prospect of getting home.

Once home I took a long shower and brushed my teeth twice but I still did not feel clean. I prepared myself a TV dinner but my head was whirling with thoughts and I had no appetite. The sensible thing for me to do would be approach Katrina's superiors with everything I knew or suspected and let them take action but, for all I knew, she may have planted some sort of inhibition preventing me from doing so. I needed to confide in someone and, the more I thought about it, the more obvious the choice became.

The phone was answered on the third ring.

"Vikki, it's me."

"I told you, I don't want to speak to you again."

"I'm in trouble. I need your help."

Chapter 4

As we drove eastwards towards the barracks I could not help but cast surreptitious glances at Vikki's legs.

"Keep your eyes on the road. I'm only here because you've sparked my professional interest."

I thought I was over her but, in the six months since I had last seen her, she had, if possible, become even more beautiful and I cursed myself for a fool.

We had been engaged for nearly two years when I had a one night stand with her best friend. In truth I was jealous of the successful career she was carving out for herself and irritated that I saw less and less of her as she networked with the right people to get herself noticed. I had hit out at her in the one way that was guaranteed to cause her the most hurt.

If anything, my behaviour had only served to spur her on. She was now recognized as one of the U.N.'s senior civil rights lawyers and her job took her all around the globe.

As she got out of the car she adjusted the jacket of her business suit and, for a second or two, she struck a subtle pose. She shook out her mane of blonde hair and stood with her leg slightly forward allowing the slit in her skirt to reveal a couple of inches of tantalizing thigh. She could still arouse me and she knew it.

Katrina opened the front door and I was pleased to see a momentary look of surprise as she saw Vikki at my side but she recovered quickly and ushered us both inside. We declined drinks and she had us sit together on the sofa whilst she composed herself in an armchair.

"So, I guess an introduction would be in order."

"I'm Victoria Milburn, I'm her in my capacity as a lawyer."

It was subtly put as she was not actually representing me.

"And why might he need a lawyer?"

"As I understand it you employ hypnotic methods as part of your training regime. The suggestion is that you have abused the trust that was placed in you."

Katrina looked at Vikki as though lost in deep contemplation before she spoke again.

"You must realize that everything we do here is covered by the Official Secrets Act."

"From what I understand you are in no position to hide behind the Act."

Katrina smiled.

"Alright. Contrary to his orders he has probably told you that we are training Special Forces, the best men and women the services have to offer. Given the nature of their missions there is always a high possibility that they might be captured and, as a consequence, tortured. We train them to use self-hypnosis to disconnect their minds from their bodies to help with the pain."

"And you used drugs for this?"

"It's necessary to tap into areas of the subconscious that the mind usually guards against. The drugs open the requisite doors."

"So, unlike regular hypnosis, it's conceivable that you could make people act against their will?"

"Very perceptive. Did he tell you about the Tantric techniques as well?"

"Tantric?"

"We teach meditation techniques that allow some self control of blood flow. If blood flow can be slowed a wound need not prove fatal. Even a minute or two could make the difference in the field. Of course, blood flow can be useful in other ways."

She looked away from Vikki and directly at me.

"If I wanted you to have an erection for example."

As soon as she said it I felt my cock starting to stir. In seconds it was tenting my trousers to an obvious degree.