Lilith

"And all I have to do is sign on the dotted line," said L, "Is that about right?"

"Essentially, yes," replied the attorney. "Although once the project is funded and the purchases are bearing fruit, he has indicated that he would like to meet with you personally. He'll contact you directly, when he thinks it is appropriate. He lives abroad and you would have to travel to him."

"I see. Let me think about it," said L as she stood and bent across the desk to shake the attorney's hand, giving him an even better look at what had fascinated him since he walked through the door. "I'll get back to you within a day or two. I need to discuss it with my own attorneys. Is that acceptable?"

"Certainly. I'll look forward to your response," replied the attorney as he got up and headed for the door. The sight of her bountiful cleavage and the intricate 'L' tattooed on one of her lush breasts was now imprinted forever on his consciousness. L was next to him now and brushed her breasts across his arm as she leaned toward him and shook his hand a final time.

"Thank you for stopping by," purred L. "I'll look forward to seeing you soon."

"And I you to, to see you again, that is," said the flustered lawyer as L closed the door behind him. She continued to be amused at how easily she had rattled him as she turned from the door and walked away.

L returned to her desk and buzzed her secretary, turning her chair to look out the floor to ceiling window at the San Francisco skyline and the iconic bridge beyond.

"Ingrid, please hold all my calls for now," said L, before reconsidering, "unless it is my son Jeff. He's on his way home from Princeton for semester break. Got it?"

"Yes, Ms. Nordquist," replied the young woman on the other end of the line.

Rocking back in her desk chair, L closed her eyes and contemplated what the meeting she just had meant. She never really thought she would hear from him again. But here he was. It had to be him! Mr. Anonymous! L's heart raced. It had been months now, over a year actually. The investigation into her husband's and Hank and Shorty's deaths had dragged on for months before the FBI and the sheriff's department in Markleeville were concluded. The investigation would probably still be going on if it were not for the fact that the agencies involved wanted to sweep their sloppy police work under the carpet, since they had failed to find George's handgun when they secured the house.

L's refusal to provide any details of their kidnapping and Jeff following his mother's lead, had not pleased either agency. When she indicated that any communications with them would have to be through her attorney, it did raise their suspicions, but it never came to anything. Her lawyer claimed that she was protecting her son from any further trauma.

Eventually she reached an equitable settlement with her husband's insurance company, setting for half the insured amount, which was still $1 million. Because he was killed in the commission of a felony, they tried to avoid a payout. But L's attorney argued that he was under extreme duress and not responsible for his actions. The insurance company settled when they realized that a jury would probably buy the explanation.

In the intervening months since the kidnapping, time had become a blur. L immediately sold the Mercedes motor home and the cabin as well. Both dredged up too many unpleasant memories. She sold their previous home and used George's insurance money to buy a nicer, larger home, a mansion really, on five acres in one of the more exclusive neighborhoods up in the hills.

Her new home and the gardens surrounding it were behind tall eight foot walls. The mansion was very French in style and the property was much more to her personal taste than the former ranch style home that George had insisted upon buying before she became a successful realtor.

L had been busy too, with Jeff. First his recuperation from the gunshot wound, then getting him through the last few months at his private school and then off to Princeton for his first semester.

She had been so proud of him when he was asked to pledge into one of the university's oldest and most renowned fraternities. L was glad that her son's life was headed in a positive direction after everything that had happened. But at the same time, she missed him horribly. She missed his voice, his touch, but most of all, she missed having him inside her.

As L sat rocking back in her plush leather desk chair, she closed her eyes and let her mind drift back to the day her life changed forever. She remembered the first moments in the diner, where it all began, then the trip in Tom's car through the driving rain, then everything that took place at La Femme Sauvage and in the cabin.

As L sat there letting her mind wander, she could hear the men's voices, smell them, feel their skin against her, and feel them inside her. L's body shuddered at the memory. But then she remembered the shots, Shorty slumping forward, Hank valiantly trying to protect her son and throwing herself over him to protect him as well.

It had been weeks now since these memories had crept back into her consciousness. But the visit from the attorney had unleashed them all over again, as well as other memories.

Now L saw herself rushing down the hallway with Tom, after first seeing the men in tactical gear. She remembered closing and locking the bedroom door behind her. In her mind, she heard herself warning Tom about what was happening and grabbing his parka and backpack as she pulled him by the arm into the bathroom. She saw herself covering her bejeweled breasts and pussy, and the sexy teddy she was wearing, with her new robe as she pulled it from the back of the bathroom door.

Next, she saw herself pulling the bathroom rug back to reveal the trap door to the old bomb shelter the previous owner had built during the cold war. She heard herself begging Tom to crawl down. Promising him she would hide him until she could safely help him make his escape.

Finally, she remembered running to the window next to the bed and pulling it open, then crawling onto the bed and clasping the restraints on her ankles together and struggling to do the same with the wrist restraints as she struggled to connect them behind her back, finally getting them secured just as the officers burst into the room.

L was dragged back to reality by the sound of her phone ringing, penetrating her consciousness as she relived that pivotal day.

"It's your son, Jeff, Ms. Nordquist," said Ingrid.

"Wonderful, connect him," replied L.

"I'm in Denver," said Jeff, "and my connecting flight will be taking off in a few."

"Great!" said L. "I miss you so much, baby. I can't wait to be with you."

"I have a surprise for you," said Jeff. "Several, in fact."

"Really?" replied L, her curiosity aroused. "What?"

"It wouldn't be a surprise if I tell you, now would it?" said Jeff mysteriously.

"Well, I can't wait," said L, energized at the sound of her son's voice.

"Got to go," said Jeff, "we're all boarding now."

As L hung up the phone, she could feel herself getting aroused at the thought of having her son to herself during his semester break. It wasn't as though she had been celibate since he left for Princeton. Far from it, now that she was unattached again, she had become bold in exploring her sexual needs. She had remodeled one of the rooms on the ground floor of her new home, just for the purpose of hosting sex parties with her new friends from the local swinger community.

But none of the men or women L had sex with at these soirées could satisfy her the way her son could. None of the men were as well equipped and none of them stirred her emotions the way he did. Her son understood her needs and knew how to fill them.

Nor could her new playmates stir the heightened sense of danger and erotic excitement that her couplings with Tom, Hank and Shorty had, when she was truly their slave and they fed her wild fantasies of subjugation and humiliation, creating that edgy sense of eroticism that transcended normal sex.

L could feel her juices flowing now. She knew she wouldn't be able to get anything more done today at the office since her mind had wandered elsewhere and it didn't want to return to the mundane tasks of running her busy real state office. L dialed Ingrid.

"I'm leaving early today," said L. "Hold the rest of my calls and email me regarding anything you think can't wait until tomorrow.

"Yes Ms. Nordquist," said Ingrid as L hung up.

After the events at the cabin and her husband's death, she had also moved her real estate offices into the city and was now focusing exclusively on high end luxury properties that were affordable only to the privileged few. Her new business strategy quickly became a colossal success.

She had a complete turnover in staff and her new realtors were all young, sexy women much like herself, who were not opposed to using all their assets to close a sale. From their new offices in one of the downtown towers, they were acquiring a reputation as the 'go to' agency for selling pricy properties.

L used her private exit and took the elevator down to the garage. Her private parking space was one of the closest to the elevator and she popped the locks on her silver Peugot 508 as she opened the door. She quickly exited the parking structure and maneuvered over the downtown surface streets toward the major boulevard that would take her to her exclusive neighborhood where her new home was in the hills south of the city.

As she drove, her mind turned to the legal documents she had thrown in her briefcase, along with the attorney's business card. She had made her decision already. She just hadn't wanted to appear too eager in front of the attorney. Snapping open her briefcase on the seat next to her, she retrieved the lawyer's business card and dialed his cell number. He picked up on the second ring.

"You've made your decision already?" asked the lawyer, without so much as a greeting.

"Yes," replied L. "I'll courier over the papers in the morning."

"Great," said the lawyer. "I'll look forward to receiving them. My client will be very pleased."

"Good," said L. "Tell your client I look forward to seeing him very much."

"I will indeed," replied the lawyer as he hung up.

In a few miles as L approached the foothills where her new home was located, the phone rang. It was an unknown number. L hesitated for a moment but answered anyway.

"Hello," said L into the car's speaker, "who is this?"

"Your master, slave," said the familiar voice.

"Hello master," replied L softly, her voice full of emotion. "I've missed you, master!"

"And I, you," replied Tom. "We'll have to do something about that."

"Where are you?" asked L.

"That information will have to wait for now," replied Tom. "I just wanted to hear your voice."

"When can I see you?" asked L, excitedly.

"Soon," replied Tom. "I'll let you know. But in the meantime, make sure your passport is current, so you can leave at a moment's notice. You'll have quite a journey."

"Yes master," replied L softly. But even as low as her voice was, her heightened emotions were apparent.

"I have made many new friends who you'll enjoy meeting," said Tom. "They share our mutual interests...."

L could hear other voices on the line. Gradually they grew louder.

"Look I have to go now," said Tom. "I'll be in touch soon. Be ready to travel. Bye for now."

The phone went dead, and L's heart raced for a minute. She replayed the call several times in her head and each time it was the words 'mutual interests' that reverberated in her mind.

As Tom's voice lingered in her head, her mind drifted back to the aftermath of Tom's prison escape and everything that had happened subsequently. She remembered the news clips she had read after returning home from Markleeville after a short side trip to Las Vegas.

The trip to Vegas had ostensibly been to sell the Mercedes motor home. It provided her cover for the unusual trip in the days right after her kidnapping and allowed her to spirit Tom away under the noses of the FBI and sheriffs who, in her paranoia, she suspected were still keeping an eye on her. She had informed them of her trip in advance on their final visit to the cabin, in order to allay any suspicions, she thought they might have. Although uncomfortable, Tom had remained hidden in the motor home's small bathroom for the entire trip, just in case they were surveilling her.

She and Tom had waited for the FBI and sheriffs to quit hovering around the cabin in the days following the shootings. Finally, she had been able to spirit Tom out of town and down to Las Vegas where he had cash stashed in a private safe deposit box repository. With the cash, he was able to purchase a counterfeit passport and other identification with a new identity. Days later he flew out of the country and disappeared. It was when she returned home to the bay area that she discovered Tom's full story and true identity.

Thomas Aquinas Foley had been Wall Street wunderkind at 25, and a reviled conman and master criminal at 30. He was a magician at both stock manipulation and making money disappear. By the time Tom Foley was caught, he had fleeced some of the richest, powerful, and most greedy, people in America out of hundreds of millions of dollars, much of which had neither been found nor recovered.

'Tom Terrific' was another name he was known by in the society pages of the New York tabloid press during his halcyon days on Wall Street. He had taken 'The Street' by storm, graduating at the top of his class at Wharton and never looking back. "His ability at picking and manipulating stocks was exceeded only by his larcenous proclivities." So said one of the stories in the New York Post reporting his "death in the snows of the Sierra after an extensive manhunt for him and the two prisoners who escaped with him." The article did little more than identify the other two men who had died, neither was worth much more than a footnote, apparently.

As his premature obituaries noted, "he vanished in the snows of the high Sierra in much the same way as the fortunes of the greedy stock speculators he preyed upon...without a trace." Another obituary noted that "an early fall blizzard in the Sierra, south of Lake Tahoe, accomplished what the two prison assassins hired by his vindictive rich victims could not."

As L drove the last few blocks to her home, she laughed to herself. As many times as she had taken a roll in the hay to close a lucrative real estate deal, she had never fucked as much money as she did when she climbed on top of this escaped felon.

L was rounding the last turn on the serpentine drive that led up to her new home near the top of one of the taller foothills in her small exclusive bedroom community. Her house was at the center of a quiet cul-de-sac. It was surrounded by an eight-foot block wall with a wrought iron gate on the street providing the only access. High above the gate was a wrought iron arch of similar design which said: Chateau Roissy, with the lettering painted in bright red.

As L approached the gate, she hit the remote above the rear-view mirror and the gates opened. She never tired of driving past her manicured French garden as she approached her house. After a hundred feet or so up to the circular turnaround in front of the house, she turned slightly to the right, parking inside the triple garage.

L's cell phone rang just as she entered the kitchen through the door from the garage. It was her son again.

"I'm leaving the airport now. Where are you?" asked Jeff, getting straight to the point.

"I just walked in the door," replied L.

"Good," said Jeff, his voice sounding eager. "Go upstairs and take a long bubble bath and beautify yourself for me. I want you to wear your special jewelry as well as your wrist and ankle restraints, and your slave collar as well."

"You're making me so hot, baby!" exclaimed L.

"Shut up and listen, slave," barker her son over the phone. "I also want you to wear that leather strap thing you had on the first night at the cabin. Wear your black silk stockings and red garters too."

"Yes master," said L, becoming appropriately submissive now.

"You'll wait quietly in the bedroom, and I'll take you down to the playroom when I arrive,' instructed her son Jeff. "Is that understood?"

"Yes master," replied L, as her heart swelled with burgeoning anticipation.

"God knows what my master has planned for me," L thought.

Jeff hung up.

L immediately began getting ready, not sure how long it would take him to get there. She assumed that with evening traffic from the airport, she would have at least an hour to prepare herself.

She hurried to ready herself and the faster she worked, the more excited she became. She was fully dressed as her master had instructed in thirty-five minutes. Then an hour passed. Then an hour and a quarter, then an hour and a half. L was growing more anxious and frustrated by the minute. The sexual tension was boiling inside her.

Finally, L heard the front doors open and the sound reverberated through the empty mansion. The chilly evening air rushed into the house and up the stairway to her open bedroom door. L shivered, as much in anticipation as she did from the cold burst of air.

L's heart leapt with excitement as she waited for her son to come through the open door to her boudoir. Minutes passed and she hadn't heard him climb the stairs yet. L fidgeted on the edge of the bed. What was taking him so long? Was he consciously toying with her, teasing her, torturing her?

When she finally heard her son's feet climbing the stairs she dropped to the carpet and knelt on the floor, assumed the pose of a prostrate sex slave with her head and breasts touching the floor, her ass provocatively raised, and her arms outstretched in front of her body with the palms of her hands facing up. Her heart was pounding now.

"Where is your cape?" asked Jeff, his voice ruthlessly cold. She could see his bare feet directly in front of her head as he stepped between her outstretched arms.

"In the closet, master," replied L softly.

"Put it on," demanded her domineering young master.

L got up and did as she was ordered.

"No, not the black one, the red one," ordered her impatient master.

As she returned from the closet, she could see that her son was already naked and that he was apparently very pleased to see her. She also saw that he was wearing a black balaclava, which was a new twist to the sex games they now played.

He also had something in his hand that was covered in feathers that thrust wildly out it all directions. As L got closer, she could see that it was a beige colored mask. L immediately recognized the feathers as those of an owl. It was like 'O's' mask from the movie, she realized! The one 'O' wore toward the end, when her master and lover offered her body to a large gathering of his debauched friends to enjoy at an erotic costume ball.

"Put this on and follow me to the playroom," ordered Jeff as he handed her the exotic feathered owl mask. L snuck a peek at herself in the mirror. The mask covered her face from the nose up and only her eyes showed through. The owl feathers radiated a dozen inches from her head in all directions.

L followed three steps behind Jeff as she descended the stairs to the large foyer, her head festooned with the exotic feathered mask and her red cape trailing behind her. She looked like she was on the way to a costume ball.

The playroom they were about to enter was painted completely black, had black carpeting, and a huge circular bed at the center which was also black. It was draped with a black velvet cover with matching black velvet throw pillows of all sizes and shapes.

The only lighting came from the flickering scented candles that had been arrayed at the back of the room on the long black refectory table that filled the back wall. The candles smelled of musk, as did the incense that burned in oblong black ceramic bowls in front of the candles.