The Enigma Variations

"This looks nice." I wasn't kidding, the security light had come on revealing a neat two-storeyed town house.

"My father built the whole complex and he sold me mine at cost."

"Some people are lucky." I was nearly going to add that I'd had to work my butt off to pay for my three bedroom mortgage.

"Do I detect a note of jealousy?"

"Not at all, I'm sure that you've made the most of your luck, unlike some who have no idea how the other half live."

"You sound like someone that works for a boss who has given his useless son a job over you, in fact I know your boss and his useless son, you see we were at school together. He invited me to the Year 12 Formal (Prom in the US) and got really pissed when I refused."

"I heard about that episode, he got totally legless and threw up over some dignitary and the dance floor."

"Yeah it cost the old man a fortune to keep it out of the Press and to get the school to allow him to sit his finals and graduate. Not that the marks he got could be called graduating, barely enough for a generalist BA."

"He hasn't improved much." We were still standing outside, I was hoping that she would invite me in because I didn't want this evening to end just yet.

"Would you like to come in, I'll make you a coffee."

"Thank you, I would." She opened the door and ushered me into a neatly understated room. "This is nice." She was standing next to me, her hand touching but not holding mine. I turned to face her and she came into my arms, her arms around my neck and that 'I want to get to know you kiss' again. I returned her kiss with my own version of the same.

"I'm not going to let you make love to me tonight."

"I'm disappointed but it is not unexpected, I didn't think that you would."

"But you were hoping, weren't you?"

"I would be lying if I said 'no', but then with no expectations comes no disappointment."

"That's good. What I would like to do is for us to make ourselves comfortable and talk. I want to get to know you, everything there is to know about you, and I'll be open with you. I want, and I hope you want the same thing, is for us to really get to know each other." She kissed me again. "That will have to hold you until I make the coffee."

"Do you need any help?"

"No, but don't let that stop you from being there."

That first night led into the next day. I left her at around four in the afternoon, and then only after I had promised faithfully that I'd return after I'd changed my clothes into something less pretentious. It was a night to remember, we talked, with the occasional pit-stop to relieve the pressure caused by all of the coffee we consumed, and I remember in the early hours we had reached the point where we had run out of things to say and spent some time in each other's arms, me just being there, close to her.

From the very beginning we, Callie and I, realised that there was something special about our relationship, and it just got better from there. A year to the day after our first meeting I moved into her townhouse with her and became an integral part of her family. Her parents approved of me and had no problem when we announced that I was moving in with Callie. Bill, her father, helped me renovate my mortgage and sell it at a tidy profit. That's not entirely true, he did the work and I helped in my spare time. Her sister Millie (short for Millicent) lived in the same cluster of townhouses as Callie and I, and spent a lot of time with us, in a purely platonic and sisterly way. I introduced Callie to my parents and, during a lull in festivities, my father took me aside and told me that if I let her get away from me I would be seen as the biggest dickhead of all time.

I was smiling to myself as I drove on to the ferry. The smile didn't last long. The ferry operator came over to my car after he had shut the gates and started it on its journey across the river. "Are you Mr. Caulfield?"

"Yes."

He walked back to the cabin and retrieved the ubiquitous envelope and handed it to me. I opened it to be confronted by another fucking coded message, this guy, whoever it was, had to be a graduated of the Marquis de Sade School of communications, and I was getting a little pissed off. I was running out of time to find Callie before tomorrow, hopefully none the worse for the experience.

Immediately I looked at the message I realised that this was different, but the same. It was a number substitution code but the first two words, while they had the same number of letters, were nowhere like those in the previous messages. When I drove from the ferry I sat and stared at it for some time before, with a resounding clatter, the penny finally dropped. This was a bastard that was going to take some time and I wouldn't know until I reached the end, how long I had.

[12-19] [5-4-25-17-12-16-13-21-14],

[10-1-8] [11-24-2-3] [22-1123-17-1] [24-10-13-13-7] [21-10-8] [20-23-15-11-14] [19-22-20-22-12-17-16] [12-8] [14-22-59-3-12] [2-6-16-7] [5-19-10] [1-16-14-24] [15-4-22-10-20] [25-5-12-8] [7-16-14-15-25-24] [2-19-11-7-11-10]. [5-22-3] [6-19-23-23] [7-22-7-5-12-25] [14-3-1] [17-13-22-14] [2-16-7] [5-17-22-21-15] [3-18-16] [13-17-19-1-17-26-22-24] [12-10-23-1]. [13-13] [25-16-23-21] [16-10-12-1] [7-24-5] [8-21-25-26] [8-21-22] [19] [6-9-15-1-9], [23-14-15] [4-10-8-7-16] [15-21] . [7-24-5] [8-21-25-26] [19-25-6-24] [21-14] [15-4-2] [11-14-20-6-14] [21-9-24-26-8-5-1-11-6-26-7] [15-3-20] [19-23-26-10-14-2] [16-4-20-22-20-17-13-19-13] [1-23] [8-25-6-4] [5-3-4-3] [16-7-14] [17-4-8-9] [1-14-17-13-14-8-24-10] [5-22-3-1] [12-3-17-14-25-21-17-10-12] [6-25-9-16] [25-24-16-3]. [7-6-22] [4] [11-20-21-11] [22-18-17-19-6'-6] [18-9-16] [19-6-10-11] [18-6-5-12-9-1-11] [6-23-4-2] [25-17-11-8] [24-4-10-12-11-15-24-16-6-13-13-19] [2-16-7] [5] [21-7-10-19-10-17-16] [21-1] [8-23-21] [5-7-11-8-4-10-4].

Fucking hell this was getting really frustrating, here I was, desperate to find Callie before tomorrow, and this fucking message was telling me to drive to Murray Bridge and check in to a specific motel. There I was to have dinner (like I could eat under these circumstances) and go to bed. 'Get a good night's sleep' it said. How the hell was I expected to get to sleep worrying about Callie and tomorrow? I had no option but to follow orders because my next instructions would not be available until tomorrow morning. I was going to have to get up at sparrow fart if I was to have any chance of finding her in time.

With part of a forgettable dinner sitting heavily in my stomach, I slid into your typical motel bed. My thoughts weren't about sleep, but to stop myself worrying I allowed my mind to drift back to the first time Callie and I shared a bed in the loving couple kind of way. We had been to a dinner party at a friend's house, it was our fifth date, and it was a great night, good food, excellent wines and bright company. It was around mid-night when we left and I drove her home. I parked in my usual place out front of her town-house and leaned over to kiss her before getting out to open her door for her. "Will you come in, I have something special for you."

"And what might that be?" I asked, hoping that it was what I was hoping for.

"You'll just have to wait." We got out and she led me inside. "No coffee tonight." She said as she came into my arms. "Tonight, I am going to give myself to you, totally." Her kiss wasn't the 'I would like to get to know you' kiss of previous dates it was an 'I am going to know you' kiss that suggested that the 'know' was in the Biblical sense, her tongue was pressing against my lips, so I let it in. Her hips were pressing against mine and she could not fail to feel my cock becoming rampant against her. "It seems that you are anticipating my gift to you." She whispered to me.

I would have to be completely devoid of feelings not to know where this is leading. My hands began to undress her, beginning with the buttons on her blouse and working down. With her blouse and bra out of the way I was able to concentrate on her breasts. I lavished the best of my lavishing skills on them, caressing them, smelling the perfume lingering in her valley and kissing her peaks. Her hands were working on the buttons of my shirt, she pulled it from my shoulders and tugged it down to hang from my waist. "I love a man with a hairy chest." She whispered as her fingers scrambled through my forest, pausing at my nipples, which she tweaked between her thumb and forefinger.

I picked her up and carried her to her bedroom. Laying her on the bed I pulled her clothes from her and moved my attention further down her body until I could smell the scents of her pussy, her wet pussy. "That hammering sound that you hear isn't my heart, it's Noah down there building an ark to escape from the imminent flood from my pussy. You are going to have to save him by plugging the hole."

"All in good time, we can't rush these things."

"Dammit Ben, I've waited weeks for this moment and I'm not going to wait a second longer. I want your cock inside me, now." I undressed and knelt over her, as I pushed him into she grabbed my arse cheeks and pulled me further in to her pussy. "Oh my god," she said in a slow sensual voice, followed by, "Oh my God, oh my God, ohmygodohmygodohmygod." As she lost control of her body which took off in a massive, shuddering, series of orgasmic spasms.

"Was that worth the wait?" I asked as her spasms slowed.

"If I'd known it was going to be this good I wouldn't have waited this long. Now will you keep going, I want you to come for me, come in me, I want you to fill me."

"I hate to bring this up at this time, but, are you on the pill or do you want me to search in my wallet for the condom that's probably perished anyway."

"Do you mean to tell me that you haven't bought a new condom for such an occasion as this?"

"Of course I have." I moved to retrieve my trousers from the floor and get the condom from my wallet. I was almost out of her pussy.

"Don't you dare take him out of me, and don't worry, I'm on the pill."

"That's all right then." I said as I returned to my position between her legs. She had one big and several smaller orgasms before I came, and when I did it was her first orgasm all over again with the added gush from her pussy that would have drowned Noah, his family and a whole bunch of animals.

"Now that's a first for me, gushing like that, what with our combined fluids we've made quite a mess of the bed."

"Do you want to change the sheets?"

"No way, we are going to wallow in this and possibly add to it, and in the morning, if we feel like it we might change the sheets, or else we could add to the damage before we change them." We luxuriated in each other's closeness for some time, just being us, and then her hand, either deliberately or accidently, brushed my half comatose cock that sprang immediately to life. "Oh boy, I see this is going to be a long and memorable night."

"Do you think so?" I had my hand over her pussy and a finger inside.

Her answer was to climb on me and lower herself onto my, now hard, cock. "We've only just begun." She sang to me as she rode my cock, and that pretty much summed up our night of debauchery that was followed by a morning of similar debauchery. It was afternoon before we got around to taking the sheets from the bed and tossing them into the washer. Life was never to be the same again, it got better and almost five years later it was still as good as it can be.

With thought uppermost in my mind I clambered out of bed and jerked off into the toilet bowl before climbing back into my lonely bed.

My next waking moment was the sound of a knock on my door and the rattling of breakfast stuff. I opened it to find a tray with the usual motel breakfast, a covered dish with a plate of bacon, an egg, half a tomato and a greasy sausage. Next to it a bowl with a small sample pack of breakfast cereal, a jug of milk, a pot of tepid coffee a cup and saucer and a plate with a couple of slices of toast and those horrible foil wrapped frozen butter and containers of alleged marmalade. Not something to inspire me to eat it. I drank the coffee in one gulp and took a bite out of a piece of toast before giving up. I had other things to do.

The package contained a familiar looking suit, a freshly ironed shirt, a tie and fresh jocks and socks and shiny shoes. I was to appear dressed up like a pox doctor's clerk for my next assignment. The message was, you guessed it, in code, and this again was different from the previous codes. It was still a numerical substitution but a different progression. It took a little while to work it out and, suddenly it all became crystal clear to me. I went to the reception desk to find that my account had been settled, so, there being nothing to keep me here, I climbed into my car and headed back to Adelaide. I looked at the clock on the dash of my car and worked out that I had no time to dawdle, whoever was controlling me had the timing worked out almost to the minute.

[13-18] [5-3-23-14-8-11-7-14-6],

[26-14-11-25-11] [9-26-13] [9-25-5-2] [18-21-26-13-24] [23-2-7-8-6-9-17-8-23-3-2-7]. [15-5-11] [14-26-3-3] [9-13-12] [9-8] [16 4 1] [1-10-12-13-18-6-3-17] [20-8-1-20] [1-17-23] [1-13-16-16] [12-15-20-10] [17-22] [3-18-15] [13-26-16] [18-6-23-10-19 ] [18-17-19-1] [1-2-7] [21-24-25-16-21-3-24-25]. [21-11-17] [21-7-10-10] [4-18-9-22-5] [22-17] [24-12-9] [7-10-10-24-11-25-25] [24-26-23-4-17-12-13-12]. [24-25] [17-26-6-17-4-21-26-19] [8-22-19] [18-11-25-2-20-25-4-3] [16-6-12] [17-3-6-6] [24-1] [11-3-18] [2-25] [3] [17-5-18] [3-14-21] [5-17-20-20] [4-11-21-15] [11-1-7] [8-3] [9-24-21] [8-4-19-21-23] [19-4-1-14-1] [23-15-19] [23-9-12-12] [4-7] [22-9-25-18-13-24-9-8] [3-16-1-15] [11-9-20-17-1-2-9].

An hour later I parked my car at the side of the building, there were a lot of people out front waiting for something, I knew what it was, but I'm not going to tell you just yet. I entered through the back door to find Brian (my brother) and Peter (Callie's brother) waiting for me. "So you made it on time, we weren't worried at all, well not much, well no, we were starting to pack it, thinking that you hadn't been able to work out all of those messages."

"Were you two responsible for this?"

"No, it wasn't us I swear. It was Callie and Millie. Callie found out what we had planned for you and decided that there was no way that you were going to be standing here hung over after a night of drunken revelry, especially when she heard that there was a stripper involved."

An organ burst into life and the three of us walked into the church and stood, waiting for my beautiful, radiant, Callie on her Father's arm as they walked slowly down the aisle. I took her from Bill and we turned to face the Minister. "You made it I see.' She whispered to me.

"Bitch." I whispered back.

"There was no way that I was going to turn up here if you were hung over, and had been fucked to within an inch of your life." She whispered back.

"I had no intention of doing that, I'd already worked out my withdrawal strategy. Did you think that I would risk spoiling today?"

The Minister cleared his throat to attract our attention and the ceremony began.

The ceremony dragged itself towards its conclusion. It probably didn't, it just seemed that way to us. Then, to the strains of the Wedding March from Mendelssohn's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream', Callie and I, the newlywed Mr and Mrs Benjamin Caulfield left the church. We posed for photos with family and friends, some I'd actually met, before climbing into our limo for the inevitable photo opportunities around the city.

"Do you think we could give this bullshit a miss?" I asked Callie as we drove away from the church with an entourage following us.

"Look behind you." I looked to see that the entourage had dropped back and felt our car turn a corner and head towards home. "I owe you this. Forgive me for last night. Last week I heard Brian and Peter plotting your downfall, and I wanted to save you from that, save you for me. There was no way that I was going to let some stripper have you the night before our wedding."

"Did you stop to think that there was no way I was going to allow that either?"

"I told Millie that, but she convinced me that you should not be subjected to the temptation."

"Wait until I get my hands on her."

"You just keep your hands off her." Callie said just before she kissed me with an 'I've got you' kind of kiss that I was going to enjoy.

The limo pulled up outside our house and we headed for the door and our bedroom. "We've only got half an hour before the mob arrives."

"What do you mean?" I had started to undo the hundreds (not really) of clasps at the back of her wedding dress and take it from her. She was wearing no underclothes! The bodice of the dress held her boobs in place quite nicely without any other need for support, but the lack of knickers came as a surprise. I draped the dress over a chair as she worked on my suit, shirt and jocks. I left my socks on, figuring that if we had to get dressed in a hurry there was one thing less to put on.

Our lovemaking was just like our previous efforts, but in fast forward, not that we were going at it hammer and tongs, it's just that our previous efforts tended to take their own sweet time. We had just finished when there was a banging on the front door. "Come on you two, get decent so we can come in". We scrambled into our wedding finery to admit Millie and Sonia, one of Callie's friends from work, along with Brian and Peter. It looked very much like Brian and Millie were getting along just fine, and Peter and Sonia weren't far behind.

We looked outside to see caterers setting up trestle tables and chairs and food and wine being unloaded from vans parked in the courtyard area. It was going to be some party judging by the quantities being unloaded.

"Well, did you?" Millie asked. Callie just smiled.

We took our places at the main table and the proceedings began.

Things proceeded pretty much as wedding receptions tended to, Brian's speech was funny as he described my childhood and youth and remarked that I had exceeded expectations by actually reaching my ripe old age (I'm a year older than he is) without being either dead or married with three kids. It also included a bunch of supposedly real emails from absent friends, all loaded with double entendres that had the well oiled guests chuckling and some of them scribbling on napkins. Just when I thought he'd finished, he paused to look at the guests and yelled 'fornication!' to the shocked gasps of the crowd. "For an occasion like this I think you should all be upstanding and drink a toast to the happy couple. I give you Mister and Mrs Ben Caulfield."

I gave it my best shot, thanking all of those that needed thanking and making light of the fact that for the past so many hours I had been chasing around the countryside on a wild goose chase, thinking that I was in danger of losing Callie, that brought cries of 'fat chance' from those in the know, and offering my services as a code breaker. It took ages for the masses to leave but when they did Callie and I went back to what we were doing before they'd arrived, only better.

Tomorrow sometime we'll leave on our honeymoon, and I ain't gunna tell you where.

For those of you who are interested, I have included the translations of the coded messages.

1

Mr Caulfield,

Congratulations on solving the code.

You will drive back to your home and when you get there you will access MS Word on your laptop and open the file 'Enigma 3' that contains your next instructions.

You will follow the instructions to the letter and any attempt to involve the police or a third party will result in you not seeing your Calista again.

You have two hours to complete your instructions, don't be late.

2

Mr Caulfield,