Influencers: No Such Thing as Free

Harsini was on the rampage. Reece was looking studiously at the table while Davis and Christian were fidgeting with their pens. Colette kept her cool though; the bitch was unflappable. I had a free pass because I was nowhere near this shit when it went down. I was on the other side of the city, getting actual results, home free.

"So yeah, you think we do it again, right?" Harsini continued, pointing at Reece then at Colette.

"I was close, chief," Reece began, shrugging his massive shoulders.

It looked odd to see such a big guy look so intimidated, but his boss had really gotten into the flow now and was bristling. Too much testosterone around the table, too many opinions. Colette was playing it smart, keeping quiet and letting the men slog it out. Eventually, she piped up.

"Chief, I'm with Reece on this one," she began, her tone level and quiet, in stark contrast to the diatribe from moments before.

Harsini's hands settled on his hips, fingers digging into the belt. He was carrying more weight than he should have, and the argument had worked him into a sweat. He took a deep breath. That was the thing with all of the guys: they can go hammer and tongs at each other but they pull it back a notch when the females speak. Colette was using it to her advantage now. I'd pulled the same trick in the past too.

I had to though. I'm slightly below average height for a female so some of the guys, like Davis, tower over me. I'm clearly not one of them, so they peg it back a little to compensate. Add to that the fact that I'm first generation born here, daughter of parents who left the oppressive heat of the Indian monsoon season and never went back, so I don't look like them either. It could have all worked against me, but it didn't.

I'm a native, though. I don't speak with an accent. I like the cold: I was born into it, I like the seasons. I like my family, though my Amma keeps asking when I'm going to get married. I tell her I don't know, I have to actually meet someone first. I also like my job, and most of the people I work with. I like the way they call me Eve, though my name is actually Ava; it's like when I go to work I have a secret identity, one that my parents don't know about. If I'm being honest, I even like Harsini: he's a good boss who knows what he's doing, and right now he's in full expectation reset mode.

I listened to Colette explaining the intel they'd managed to obtain on the last surveillance, reiterating that we were focusing on the long game. It was all well and good to bust a few guys, but they needed everyone, which needed another excursion. I watched her work, the same way I'd seen her talk a man literally off a ledge back when we were both in genpop uniforms responding to whatever crazy shit came over the radio. I'd walk through fire if she needed it because I knew that if push came to shove, she wouldn't fuck up.

Harsini seemed to be winding down from defcon one. He looked dead at Reece.

"Okay, two more weeks. Then what you have is what you have."

He ran his fingers over the laptop keyboard and moved on to the next item on the agenda without waiting for a response.

I swivelled slightly in my chair so I could watch Colette. She was pretty, blonde, coming up to forty and a little heavier than when we'd first met, but in a way that gave her curves. She knew how to work the curves too: when to undo the extra button of the blouse, when to flash her little smile, and when to be a stone-cold viper. It made her good at her job, an extra set of tools in the bag that the guys around the table just didn't have. As she wound down from the stress of the conversation, she was playing with her wedding ring, turning it on her finger. It was one of her tells; it told me how worked up she'd been herself, even though she hadn't shown it, had kept her nerve.

Colette rocked her shoulders back, folding her arms behind her, dissipating tension. It had the effect of pushing her ample bosom forward, and viewing side-on as I was, my eyes were drawn to it. I'm not into girls, but I'm not blind either. I mean, I can appreciate what men see in her.

"Item three: the cafe siege. They're asking me to jump on the post-operation review, so that's going to be a shit-show. I'll be out of the office for at least three days next week."

Harsini ran a hand through his hair. The siege has been bad. Lone wolf gunman, unrealistic demands, four hostages. The anti-terror unit had pumped the place full of flashbangs and gone in shooting. They'd got their man but a hostage had taken a bullet in the back as she tried to run. She'd only been in her twenties.

Harsini sucked in a breath.

"Item four. Expense accounts. I'm hoping that you're all up to date with logging your hours, and your travel allowances," Harsini was saying. We all nodded, including Christian even though that was bullshit. He was weeks behind.

Colette stretched again, and the little silver necklace around her neck jiggled. It caught my eye: just a simple silver chain threaded through a set of what looked like charm pendants, resting delicately in her cleavage. They were unusual, and I took a moment to lean a little closer for a better look.

"Okay, that's it. Enjoy the rest of your day," Harsini announced and slapped the laptop closed.

We all got up, but Colette caught me staring at her cleavage and gave me a little smile.

"New necklace?" I asked.

"Nah, same necklace. It's the one Kent gave me before his last deployment."

"Looks different though, like you've added... uh."

I stopped. There was a tiny cross, which had always been there, and a teardrop with a little emerald set into it, but next to it was a tiny key. I realised I was staring at her neckline so shifted my eyes up to her face. Colette's eyes met mine, her expression enigmatic.

"Looks pretty," I managed to blurt out as I followed behind her, back to our desks.

My mind was racing, though. I knew that Kent had just returned from eight months overseas. I also knew their backstory, having found her a couple of weeks back, utterly miserable, in the kitchen. I'd been surprised because Kent had gotten home just a few days before and I had expected her to be over the moon to finally have her husband back, safe and sound. I didn't know him very well, in fact I'd probably only ever met him two or three times even though Colette and I had been buddies at work for years. Maybe it was the job: we could go out for drinks, but we didn't mingle personal lives.

"Coffee?" I asked.

"Sure. Too early for beer."

We made our way down the stairs and out into the fresh air. The coffee shop was right across the road. I guess they knew how to make money; crime never sleeps, and it's location, location, location. We grabbed two coffees and sat down at a table outside.

"How's the home front?" I asked, "Seems like you're happier."

"Yeah. I think we've worked a few things out."

"Kent's good then?"

Colette wrinkled her nose. "Same issue, but we're just trying a different way to deal with it."

I watched the tiny key glinting in the sun.

"So he's still jealous?"

"Mm hmm." She sipped her drink.

I knew what the issue was. It was Reece. There had always been a question mark in Kent's mind about his pretty, buxom wife spending time with Reece, and when it had come time for Kent to head off on deployment it had made it a lot worse for him. He was taking shit overseas every day with the thought of his sexy wife in an office with burly guys, or on assignments, or sitting in hotel rooms for hours on end. The boredom, the monotony, the lack of sexual release. For some reason, Kent had locked onto Reece as his nemesis and had eventually accused Colette straight out of fucking him behind his back. Worse still, she told me, he'd done it over a video link from thousands of miles away.

"When he got home, I really laid it on for him. I bought some new lingerie, picked him up in the car in a new dress that stopped somewhere around my kidneys. I had a hand on his thigh all the way home."

"You made it home though? I'm surprised."

"Only just. That first night we fucked like rabbits, Eve. It was just animal, like he was breeding me."

Colette sipped her coffee again and looked off into the middle distance.

"And then I found you in the kitchen," I prompted.

"Uh, yeah. That was the next day. I mentioned the assignment coming up and that I'd be away a couple of nights. He asked who I was going with."

"And you said Reece."

"I said Reece, and the shit hit the fan. I tried to tell him. I said, 'Who am I married to? You!' I even had to deny cheating on him. It didn't help."

Colette had brought her hand absently up to her neck and was running the little silver chain casually through her fingers as she spoke. I needed to ask the question, but she also needed to get it all off her chest.

"I thought that all the stuff he said when he called me up while he was away, I thought it was just bullshit, but I found out the truth. It's been in his head the whole time, the idea of me lying on my back getting pleasured by men while he's sleeping on his own in some godforsaken bunk house somewhere."

I could tell Colette was getting worked up now, the stone-cold side of her nature beginning to surface. She was never much good at taking shit.

"He asked me if I enjoyed it, getting fucked by random men and all the while knowing he was getting none. He asked me if I thought of him while they pounded me. In just those words. Then he asked me how Reece felt inside me, how big was he?"

She put the coffee down on the table.

"He'd convinced himself that he can't trust me."

I studied her carefully. It was time to ask so I eased into it.

"And yet, you seem happier now, and you have something new on your necklace."

Colette's hand slid down her throat and she gathered the chain into her fist. "It's just a necklace," she said, defensively.

"It's not. I know what that is."

I see Colette's eyebrows arch, surprised. I continued, "The question on my mind is whether it's for you or him."

Colette's eyes are the lightest grey, like a winter sky, and they burrowed into me. I knew that she was trying to work me out. I've seen it happen to scumbags, but I know to hold the course. I would not be the one to fill the silence.

"So you've worked me out?" she said at last.

"Do you want to talk?"

Colette took a long swallow of her drink and in answer I took a sip of mine, waiting for her to continue. She cocked her head to one side, scrutinising me. Her next question caught me completely by surprise.

"So you've seen these keys before," she said, "Was it for you or someone you were with?"

Ah shit, blindsided. She's so good. Still, if this was truth or dare, maybe she just wanted me to put some skin in the game.

"It was in a club. There was a woman sitting at a table next to her husband. She had a key on a necklace just like you. She'd locked her husband's penis up and then brought him out for the night. She ordered him to show me the cage."

"What did he do?"

"He looked at his wife like she'd just slapped him. I could see in his eyes he was pleading with her."

Colette shifted in her seat, her face suddenly intense. "And then what?" she asked.

"She stared him down and finally he just sort of slumped and undid his pants. She made him drop them to his knees so the cage was on full display to me."

Colette's cheeks began to colour. "How did it look?"

"It was actually so pretty. Stainless steel. But the thing I couldn't get over was how purple his penis was, how it filled the cage to bursting. He was obviously fully hard, but squeezed in a tiny compartment."

"I would have thought he'd have shrunk completely, from the embarrassment."

"No. And I think that's what she understood. She wanted to humiliate him, and it made him absolutely rigid when she did that to him."

"Why did he let her?"

"She told me, right in front of him like he wasn't there. She said if you lock them up long enough, they'll do whatever you say. Because they know if they don't they'll never get let out. I could tell that she'd wrapped him around her finger."

I finished and looked expectantly at my friend. "Anyway, I was asking if the key was for him or you?" I prompted.

"Oh," she laughed, "It's definitely not me. Why would you think that I'd let that happen to me?"

"Uh, the fidelity thing, the trust issues. I thought maybe you'd agreed to wear something to reassure him that your pussy was just for him."

"Eve, see this?" Colette replied, dangling the key. "He'd have to be pretty fucking stupid to lock me in a chastity belt and then give me the key."

She let the key fall back into her cleavage.

"No, I just got sick of the atmosphere, so I did something about it. I told him straight. If I want to fuck some guy, there's nothing stopping me. For all Kent knows, I told him, I'm going to go on the assignment and spend the entire time getting ridden by Reece and his massive cock while Kent is home all alone. I told him that with my line of work and my skill set, I could be fucking any guy that took my fancy and he would never find out."

"That's pretty confronting. Then what did you do?"

"I told him straight. I said, 'I don't because I choose not to. I'm married to you for a reason. You need to get it through your head that I belong to you and you belong to me. You need a reminder, starting now', and I showed him the cock cage."

I could see Colette was getting angry, remembering it. "He went ballistic and swore blue murder at me. So, I swore back and said I'm not living another day under the same roof as him like this, and to get the fucking thing on. And then to my utter amazement, he did."

I was fascinated. "And that fixed it? How did you come up with that?"

"Trust. That's it. Reverse psychology. I told him that if he lets me go free and I come back, I belong to him. If he lets me go and I don't then I was never his to begin with."

"Corny."

"Worked though. I've lived with him a long time."

"And he just put the thing on?"

"Yup, like I told him it was either that or walk. So, I locked him up. We've been starting small. Just during the evening at first. Then out to dinner and overnight. Then for a weekend. Building up. It's Thursday now and I locked him up Monday evening, gonna let him out tonight maybe or wait 'til the weekend. But the point is that he's got a cage that constantly reminds him that he's the centre of my attention and I have a key that constantly reminds me that he's agreed to be locked up for me."

She touched the key again.

"And it's true. Whenever I feel the key on my chest, I think of him, all locked up and waiting for me. He's not a wimp, as you know, but somehow I've managed to take control of his cock. I never dreamed that he'd go for it or let me lock him up for longer and longer but I'm really starting to like the control. I think about him all the time. I've never been so horny."

I drank some of my coffee. It was almost cold.

"So I guess you now know what that woman in the club felt like."

"Uh huh. Oh, and Eve... you in the club, eh? I'd have never picked you for that. I always thought you were too straight-laced."

It was my turn to laugh, knowing that we both now had similar secrets. Colette leaned across the table, dropping her voice to a murmur.

"Do you want to come round for dinner Friday night?"

"That's a big step."

"Sure is. We got a hot tub."

---

I turned up at eight o'clock, a bottle of red wine in hand and my best dress on. Colette and I had co-ordinated, which was funny in itself. If the night was going to go to plan, she obviously wanted me to make an effort, but when we'd discussed hemlines, I very quickly got the impression that she expected that with my slim figure I'd be able to outdo her. I knew what she meant: I needed to look sexy, but she needed to be the blonde bombshell. So here I was, standing on the welcome mat waiting for the door to open, in a little black cocktail dress that flapped around mid-thigh. It showed off my lovely legs and my shapely calves, enhanced by the four-inch heels. Oh yes, Colette hadn't mentioned heels so I'd taken that to mean anything was game. Her fault for not having given me a more detailed dress code.

Kent opened the door and I smiled brightly. I was wearing dark red lipstick which went well with my coffee-coloured skin tone and smoky eye shadow. Colette should have been more specific about that as well.

"Hi," I said and held out the wine for him to take.

"Uh, thanks. Come in."

As Kent led me through the house, I scrutinised him carefully. One thing about the job, it makes you aware of body language; you look for the details. Kent wore a dress shirt and dark pants, covering his bulky, muscular frame. The few times I'd met him, I was always struck by his quiet, calm demeanour and the way he'd size you up: I guess his line of work wasn't much different from ours. Kent was a guy who was used to being in fights, but not the guy to start a fight; he was the guy that ended them. I marvelled again that, tucked away under his pants, Colette had him caged. Kent was the last guy on earth I would have expected to let that kind of thing happen to him. More than that, he was the last guy in the world I would have expected to be bothered by the thought of a prick like Reece. If push came to shove my money was all on Kent. Reece would need feeding tubes.

He led me through to the back of the house, an airy open-plan space that was half kitchen, half living area. It was nice, and I knew that Colette was happy with it, after Kent had made Captain and got the pay rise to cover it. After all, she and I didn't take home much. I found Colette bending over, pulling something from the oven. My eyes went wide.

She was dressed in heels, sure, but it was the dark blue lycra dress that occupied my field of view. Stretched tight over her rear, riding up so that your eye followed the line of her inner thighs to a meeting point just hidden by the dark, taut fabric. There was no trace of pantyline. I sneaked a sideways glance at Kent. His eyes were transfixed on his wife's backside.

"Hi hon," she called out, pulling a large lasagne from the oven. Holding it carefully in both hands, she turned and smiled at me.

Once again, I was stopped in my tracks. Colette had done her hair up in ringlets, her fair skin a soft canvas for the dark eyeshadow and bright red lipstick. Her cheeks were rouged delicately, the entire look just enough to highlight the prettiness of her face without overwhelming. She looked me up and down and smiled.

"Babe, can you set a mat out on the table for this? It's red hot."

As Kent turned to set the table, she leaned close to me and whispered, "You look red hot too."

I only got a brief flash of a smile from those red lips before she was already past me, on her way to the table.

The dinner itself was nice. She had Kent sit at the head of the table with us both on either side. I noticed that during the meal, her hand would often slide under the table and a few moments later Kent would shift in his seat. When she asked him to open another bottle of wine, I took the opportunity to have a few words with her.

"What's with the hand?" I asked.

"I'm just reminding him."

"I didn't know you were such a cock tease."

"I'm a quick learner."

Kent returned with a new bottle of wine and sat back down. I couldn't help but check out his trousers. There was a visible bump: she had him rock hard in his cage.

"How are you, Kent?" I ventured. "What's it like to be home again?"

Kent poured the wine, filling our glasses. "Better than getting shot at."

Colette's hand slipped under the table again and she said, "Being home with your wife at a nice dinner on a beautiful evening is better than getting shot at? Just marginally?"