While You Sleep

If I went on a camp out while in college and it was reported in the papers that several of the campers, who were, of course, college students and well over eighteen years old, had engaged in sexual behavior; it was automatically assumed that I'd gotten fucked.

I did date a lot because I got asked out a lot. A big part of that was the way I look. I'm not stupid, I understand that my looks attract a lot of attention and if I wasn't the president's daughter and the senator's daughter before that, I probably could have been a model. Not that I would have, but I could have been. So a lot of guys ask me out.

I'd say that half of them ask me out for my looks. The other half ask me out because I'm the president's daughter. Some of them do it for political or occupational reasons, others because they're really stuck on themselves and see me as some kind of trophy or prize to enhance their own status.

I've never yet been on a date where a guy treats me like I'm just a woman. I do make a very poor trophy though. Many of them run away after finding out that I'm the kind of trophy that likes to use her brains more than just sitting on a shelf looking pretty. I'm also the kind of trophy that can end up kicking you in the nuts if you make the wrong move.

I guess that's my problem, most of the men I date aren't really men. In a lot of cases they aren't even boys, they're more like toys. They're just something to play with and I'm beginning to grow out of the stage where it's fun to play with them.

My assistant Liz said something that I'd missed as I looked across the cabin and caught a glimpse of one of the agents assigned to protect me. His name was Richard something or other and he was surprisingly attractive for what he was. One of the things you expected from your security people in general and secret service guys in particular was that they were supposed to be innocuous, anonymous looking guys who wore dark suits and didn't draw attention to themselves.

This guy was different. He was kind of cute and probably about my age or barely older. But at the same time, he didn't have the arrogance of guys my age. He had kind of an old world charm. There was something else about him that made me look at him. Separately, both my mother and father had told me that if anything out of the ordinary or anything dangerous happened; I was to get myself to Rick.

As the plane knifed its way through the sky, I wondered why. He wasn't the biggest of the agents, or the oldest, or the most aggressive. He wasn't even the most intimidating looking one by a long way. I wondered what made him special.

"I thought you were on good terms with your mother," said Liz, my personal assistant.

"What?" I asked.

"I saw you staring at Rick Hammond," she smirked. "He is kind of cute for a white boy. But the word around the White House is that he's your mom's puppy."

The two female secret service agents laughed at that and I looked at Liz in surprise. Liz and I have known each other since high school and she read my face.

"No, stupid. I didn't mean it like that," she said. "Your mother taught both of us our values. She's a lady and she loves your father more than anything I've ever seen. That kind of love is especially rare in Washington. What I meant was that Rick has the BIGGEST crush on your mother that I've ever even heard of."

"He acts more like she's the queen than the First Lady," she continued. That sent the two secret service agents into another bout of laughter.

"Off the record," I said. "Is that true?"

The two women looked at each other and one of them nodded her head vigorously. "If your mother told him to jump, he'd leap into the air and hang there until she told him he could come down," she said.

"You guys have it wrong, I think," said the other agent. "I think that Rick is just extremely respectful. And it's not just your mother. It's your family."

She looked at the other agent. "Remember what he said about her at the briefing."

"He said something about my mother at the briefing?" I asked.

"No," she said. "He said it about you."

I got warm then wondering what he'd said.

"One of the agents there made the mistake of calling you, Millie the Model. And from what we've heard, I believe a lot of the agents there were either worried or disappointed about this assignment."

"Why?" I asked.

"Well...this is off the record, right?" she asked and looked at me.

"I swear it," I said.

"Well you go to a lot of parties and places that, while they're not dangerous on the surface, can cost people their jobs and their careers. Things you don't even consider can ruin people's lives ma'am. Do you remember when you went to that party in New York and snuck off to go to another party with the guy you were dating?"

"Yes," I smiled. "That was fun."

"For you," she said. "The four agents who were assigned to watch you were fired because they couldn't keep track of you. Two of them were married with kids. Your fun left them jobless with families to support." I was shocked.

"I never knew that," I said.

"So yeah, a lot of us were worried about being assigned to your protection detail. It's a "lose-lose proposition." If nothing happens to you, it's simply business as usual. Watching you on what is supposed to be a short fun outing isn't the kind of assignment that will stand out on our records or lead to any advancement. On the other hand, if you ditch us or something does happen to you, whether it's because of happenstance or because you ditched us, then we're either fired or we have a black mark on our records that would prevent us from ever going any higher." I had trouble meeting her eyes.

"On the other hand, they put together a very good team and some of us were thinking that with our service records, we should be assigned to more prestigious duties like one of the big three," she said.

"You'd rather work for one of the car companies?" I asked.

"No, the big three are the president, the vice president or the First Lady," she said. "Anyway, after agent Carlisle was dismissed for simply saying what a lot of people felt, Rick raised his hand with a question. He started out by saying that he was happy..."

The other agent interrupted. "He didn't say happy. He said he was honored to be assigned to Miss Cameron."

"Oh, you're right," said the first agent. "He said honored and he asked who would be replacing Carlisle because the assignment was supposed to call for ten people."

I took another look at the sleeping man. No one in my life had ever said that being around me was anything other than a pain in their ass, unless they were trying to impress my parents or get into my panties. Perhaps that was the reason that my parents both liked him. They thought that he was one of those men who'd go beyond the call of duty to protect me.

* * * * * *

Gregor

"They will be here in only hours," he spat. "Everything must be ready and it must be perfect. Oil those fucking hinges so they don't make a sound or replace them."

"Yes my prince," said the craftsman. "But this room will probably not be used."

"What are you babbling about idiot?" asked Gregor. He didn't like the man at all. The citizens of Pacmanistan should be more solicitous towards their future king. The Pollinscourt family had ruled Pacmanistan for centuries. With his father aging, it was only a matter of time before Gregor would be king.

"Your sister has put her in one of the rooms near her own," said the man. "Since she is, after all, her guest and she invited her. They did not consider your plan, my prince."

Gregor's face grew red with anger and he stalked off.

As soon as he was alone, he dialed a number on his cell phone and spoke into the instrument. "There has been a change in plans," he said. "We are going to have to do this the hard way. So we will go back to plan A."

There was a voice heard from the other end of the line. "No, you idiot this was plan B. The other plan was plan A. But I guess when we decided to go with this one it became plan A and plan A became plan B. But now that Plan A that was originally plan B became impossible, the plan A that became plan B, became plan A again. Just fucking do it."

Gregor hated his sister. Sanyia was always trying to upset the applecart. She wanted to modernize the country and especially the way that women were treated. The bitch was too stupid to even realize that it was Gregor who had arranged for the American delegation to even come here.

Gregor had fooled his sister into inviting them. With the spring festival coming up, Gregor had begun to put pressure on his sister to attend the festival instead of remaining in England where she was working on her doctorate. Sanyia's views on women were stupid. She didn't understand the women of Pacmanistan because she didn't know any of them. She'd been educated abroad from the time she was twelve. She thought more like a western woman than any woman from her own country. Her friends didn't even call her by her name. They called her Polly.

It was a good thing that Gregor was the older of the siblings. He'd also done what he could to allow her to stay out of the country. He didn't need her drumming up support for her stupid causes at home. There had been a couple of instances in Pacmanistan where a queen ruled the country until she married.

Gregor had too many alliances with other strong countries and men who were counting on him to rule the country. His father did tend to echo Sanyia's views on it being time to modernize. He didn't want it to come to that, but sacrifices might have to be made.

He walked to the window and looked down at his sister's compound. His sister had her own luxury bungalow built in the shadow of the huge palace. When she was home, that was where she resided. In her house, she made the rules. He should have foreseen Sanyia's choice to have her guest stay in her bungalow with her. After all, they had shared a room in college. It was an oversight that he shouldn't have made.

He made a list of everything he'd need to have done. He could still accomplish his goals. It would simply be harder on the other side.

* * * * * *

Millicent

As soon as the plane landed, I was on my feet and headed towards the exit. That didn't last for long. I walked thinking about the door and found my way blocked. It was, of course, Rick. He pretended that it was an accident. He pretended that he'd just been clumsy but I'm not stupid. He simply didn't want me to be the first one to the door.

As the door opened, he nodded and a couple of agents stepped out of the plane and walked down the jet way to the ground and the limo that waited there. He looked at them through the window of the plane. They scrutinized Polly and her escort and nodded back to him.

He then apologized again for blocking my path. I smiled when I realized how concerned he was for my safety. The funny thing about it is that he never made eye contact with me. The whole time it was ma'am this and Miss Cameron that. I wasn't used to being treated like that.

My protective squad usually called me Miss Cameron out of respect, but the whole Ma'am thing was unnerving.

The agent in charge, Mr. May, seemed to be a bit perturbed that Rick had taken charge. I nodded at him and he smiled at me but I could still tell that he was pissed.

"It's not like there was any danger," he said to Rick when he thought I couldn't hear them. "I repeat we are on a purely fun, visit. There are no diplomatic or political ramifications here. Relax, we don't want your over-zealousness to cause an incident."

As soon as I got into the limo, Polly and I started chattering as if it had only been a day, not a couple of years since we'd seen each other.

We all called her Polly as a shortened form of her last name Pollinscourt. She acted just like any other girl at college. It was hard to believe that she was a princess. Her long dark hair and pale skin contrasted with my blond hair and tanned skin.

We talked about everything under the sun until the limo arrived at her compound. Once there, I met her father, the king, and her brother. They all seemed to be very polite. Her brother seemed to be the brooding artist type. I'd run into enough of them to realize that they were just shy.

He did try to get me to move myself and my staff into rooms in the palace, but I assured him that whatever Polly had set up for us was fine. Besides I WAS sure that he was only being polite.

While we talked and Mr. May introduced the agents and staff to the palace's chief of staff, I noticed that Rick and another of the agents were missing. I have no idea when he left or how long he'd been gone. He nodded at May again when he re-appeared. I figured out then that he'd checked out the bungalow for whatever he thought might possibly be wrong and had decided that the place was safe for me. Again, May was fuming.

I was sure that it was protocol for my father and my mother to have an advance team go over every inch of anyplace that they might visit. Apparently, Mr. May and Rick had differing opinions on whether or not I was important enough for that kind of treatment. I doubted very seriously that Polly would allow anything to happen to me, but it was nice that someone found me important enough to worry about my safety.

For the rest of the day it was business as usual. We spent a lot of time at Polly's bungalow reminiscing about our college days and what we were doing now. I found out that we weren't Polly's only guests. Judging from the accents there were a couple of women from England and one from Japan as well. Polly was getting to have an international cadre of friends.

One incident happened that I could have handled better. Mr. May was giving Rick a talk.

"You have to relax, Hammond. This is not that serious. It's not like the president is here. I think you're stressed out. And for heaven's sake go somewhere and shave, this isn't Miami Vice," said May.

Polly, Liz, the two female agents assigned to me and I were passing by them as he said it. I sometimes forget that I have to act in a certain way. Decorum has long been one of the things my mother has tried to drum into me.

I simply stopped, tapped Mr. May on the shoulder and when he turned to look at me in shock, I said, "Leave him alone. He's doing fine and I kind of like his scruffiness."

May's eyes bugged out and he just gave me a curt nod and walked away. Rick naturally looked down and just stood there. I just wanted that man once to look me in the eye. I never got a chance to say anything else though because there was a bunch of shocked gasps and laughter behind me.

As we walked away, one of the English girls simply stayed there and watched Rick as he finally walked away in the opposite direction.

"I've never seen that before," said Liz.

"You've never seen what?" I asked.

"You went after that man like you were a mother bear and he'd threatened one of your cubs. That is not the Millie we all know. What's going on here, Mill? Are you falling for the help?" she asked.

"Of course not," I said defensively. "You know I have a boyfriend, Liz."

"Yeah," she said. "He's a boy and you guys are definitely FRIENDS. But you haven't even kissed the guy yet after three months of dating."

"So you and the guy back there have nothing going on?" asked one of the English girls.

"Of course not, he's like her body guard," said Polly.

"That's good to know," said the English woman, smiling. "I think I need a nap," she said. "All of this excitement is too much for my delicate constitution, you know. Polly, I may go into town at some point; perhaps to get some native clothing for the party tonight. Could you arrange a suitable escort?"

As the woman walked back towards the room where we'd be sleeping, her friend just shook her head.

"She's still a slut isn't she?" asked Polly. Her friend just nodded and suddenly without knowing why I was pissed.

For the rest of the morning, I was upset. I think that Polly knew it too. Liz spent a lot of time staring at me and shaking her head. The two female secret service agents stayed silent but they had trouble keeping their faces straight a lot of the time.

The two English women just pissed me off. The slutty one was Carmella. I was angry at her companion Beth because she reminded me of Carmella.

Polly told me that we'd probably end up going into town after all. Carmella had already gone and the other women wanted native outfits as well. Pacmanistani women actually dressed like women all over the world did nowadays, but it was customary to wear the old time clothing for the festival.

I sent one of the female agents to find Mr. May. He came over a few moments later and the closer he got to me, the calmer he became. I knew he was angry but I didn't care.

"Mr. May You are in charge of my protection, right?" I asked. He nodded.

"Well, I'm going into town and..." I began.

"No...you can't," he said. "We haven't had a chance to investigate the city and who knows what could..."

"Make it happen," I said.

His entire face turned red and he clenched his fists reflexively. But he kept his composure. I'll put a team together at once," he said.

"Will Agent Hammond be on the team?" I asked.

"No," he said. "Agent Hammond has been assigned to the team that watches you at night."

"I want him on the team," I said.

"But he's asleep," he sputtered.

"Make it happen," I said, turning towards the bungalow.

I guess I was acting every bit as much the spoiled arrogant princess that they'd all assumed I'd be. That really pissed me off because I wasn't actually like that. In fact, everything pissed me off that morning. But the thing that pissed me off the most was the thought of that bitch Carmella being alone with Rick. Why the hell would May assign him to watch me during the night when everyone was asleep?

I was also afraid that he wasn't sleeping alone. So there was no way I was going to town and leaving him here with Carmella. I started getting ready to leave. About twenty minutes later, Mr May and three other men came into the bungalow and stood in front of me. I looked at him and tilted my head. Before I opened my mouth he interrupted me.

"He's checking over the limo," he said. "He's going over the motor and everything under the car." I smiled and he sighed.

Just as we were about to leave, Carmella flounced her way into the group. "I'm so glad I caught you," she said.

"I thought you'd already gone into town," said Liz.

"I forget to get something," smiled Carmella. She scooted into the limo and somehow ended up sitting right next to Rick.

On the trip into town, Carmella was flirty and charming. I didn't appreciate her charm and her flirting wasn't directed at me. Rick kept his eyes constantly scanning for possible threats.

Apparently Carmella wasn't used to being ignored, so she struck up a conversation with him.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"My job ma'am," he said.

"Oh, you're making sure we're safe," she smiled. "That is so exciting."

"What would you do if there was more than one attacker?" she asked.

"Protect Miss Cameron and get her away from danger," he said.

"What if both of us were in danger?" she asked.

"I'd protect Miss Cameron and get her away from danger," he said.

"What about me?" she asked, leaning forward so he could look down her shirt. "What if I were in danger and she was safe?"

"If there was any danger in the area," he said. "My first priority would be to protect Miss Cameron. If you were in danger, she might still be a secondary target and my job would be to protect her."

"Would you kill someone to protect her?" she asked. He nodded.

"Would you risk your own life to protect her?" she asked.

"Of course," he said without hesitation.

"So now here's the tough question," she said leaning forward again. "What if I, her friend attacked her. You know, nothing serious, just one of those girl on girl cat fights that you guys love to watch."