My Only Talent Ch. 37

Rachel shivered. "But she still goes dogging, doesn't she?" She downed her drink and signaled for another. As did everyone else. I stuck with water.

The next course of food arrived, served family style. A huge lamb shank, and a big slab of beef, both medium rare with a charred exterior. Some new potatoes and grilled corn. It was quite good. I was getting full. What's for dessert?

Abagail spoke up. "Where have we seen Robbie before?"

Tessa smiled. "Do you remember the TMZ video from the "Addicted to Austin" party? During the GP race in November?"

Hogan Allen barked. "All those women dancing naked to that old Robert Palmer song? Who could forget that?"

"They are going to do it again next year. I hope I can be there again too." She grinned.

Hogan whistled. "You were there, weren't you?"

"So was Robbie, he was the one in the big black suit and mask, with the girls in red and white leather suits on leashes!" I was pleased she wasn't mentioning either girl's identity.

Suddenly I was overwhelmed with Suzie signals. It seemed I was getting more sensitive, and I could discriminate between them all. Jeremy Mignot popped a big one, for me, and pictured me holding his leash. Both Abagail and Rachel launched easily identifiable curiosity Suzies about what it would be like to be on a leash, and the two other males were picturing themselves holding the leashes of the three females at the table. Wow!

Jeremy looked across the table and stared into my eyes. It was a little creepy. "Robbie, I am having some people over Saturday night. Just a small dinner party. Can you join us?"

My response was instantaneous. "No, I have commitments this Friday and Saturday night, and I have been notified to expect lots of overtime at my internship for the next 60 days or so."

Dessert turned out to be some kind of chocolate and butterscotch thing that was marvelous. I was topped off. Apparently, so was Tessa. "Come on, Robbie, I will give you a lift back to Wingham."

Jeremy followed us up the stairs. "Robbie, I hope I haven't put you off, or offended you by being too forward?"

"I'm not offended, Jeremy, just not wired that way. In Austin, some folks call me "excessively heteronormative".

He smiled. "Okay, I get that. Can I invite you to some things just as a friend, then?"

"Perhaps."

Tessa's driver was waiting for us when we got back up to the street. He reversed his previous course and soon we were speeding southeast. There was a sound wall partition between the back seat and the driver. "So, do you really have commitments this weekend?"

"Yes, but even if I didn't I would have said so!"

"That I believe. It was pretty obvious he was attracted to you."

"He likes you too, Tessa.

"He is gay."

"I think he is bi where you are concerned!"

"As you know, I like my men older and blacker than him."

"Perhaps you could find an old black man that you both like?"

She giggled. "My, my Robbie. You have come a long way, haven't you?"

"I'm not going there, but I am learning to recognize when someone else might want to."

Soon we were passing through Canterbury and into Wingham. I was looking forward to spending Friday and Saturday with Summer.

"Peggy Duchenne and her fashion model crush are the talk of the younger Soho artist set right now, Robbie. Peggy has become obsessed with fitness and they do erotic workout videos together. They also seem obsessed with each other, but obsession is rarely healthy. You must watch out if Peggy contacts you -- stay out of the limelight is my advice. We expect to write a lot about Peggy and I would prefer not to cover you. By the way, Abagail may ask you to escort her to a few events. I urge you to accept her invitations. Fare well."

I watched her car speed away with a mind full of more questions. That always seemed to happen with Tessa.

+++++++++++++++++++

Summer arrived at noon Friday just as expected. She brought a glass lamp looking thing and some glass jars with metal twist tops and set it on my little table.

"Good morning. I brought you this oil diffuser setup to help completely eradicate the tobacco odor in here. Are you ready to go?"

"Yep."

She had texted me to wear 'dungarees' and comfortable shoes, since I would be wearing one of her 'smocks' at the event. She was driving a white transit van with an understated SEC logo: Summer Event Caterers. It was almost empty.

"We have to go by the shop and pick up the first batch of food."

"What about chairs, tables, all that stuff?"

"I let the clients take care of that, or I use a subcontractor. I just do what I'm good at, which is the food."

The shop turned out the be a horse barn converted into an industrial kitchen several miles east of town. It was apparently shared by several caterers, and several people in aprons were working on big stainless-steel prep tables and commercial stoves. Her food was in two big refrigerators and several big cardboard boxes sitting next to them. We loaded it up and took off.

"We'll have to make two trips. We'll deliver this load and then come back to make the final courses".

We jumped in the van and headed north. "How long will this trip take?"

"The party is at a small estate just south of the Stodmarsh preserve. Maybe a 30-minute drive. Why?"

"Because it gives me a chance to go over the ground rules of our relationship."

I was watching her as she drove. Her eyes got wide and her Suzie signal rasped. She raised her eyebrows.

"And you are going to define those for me?"

"Yes, I am, my pet. First, discretion. I will never talk about our relationship in any way with anyone but you. No gossip, no bragging, no stories. The only thing I will ever say about you is that you are a wonderful young lady and that I am proud to call you my friend. I expect the same discretion from you with respect to me."

"Okay."

"Okay?"

She froze for a minute. I reached over and squeezed her knee, hard.

She gulped again. "Yes, Master."

"Very good. Second, honesty. I will always tell you my needs and desires and even whims, and you will do them for me without hesitation. Anything I want, anytime, anywhere, any way I want it. You will tell me all your needs and desires and fantasies, and I will decide what you may have and what must remain a fantasy. But you must tell me everything, no holding back. Per the first ground rule, I will never reveal them to anyone."

Her Suzie wailed like a siren as the van drifted across the centerline, then she startled and regained control. She gritted her teeth, then smiled.

"Yes, master."

"Third, I know you are attracted to me, and you know I am attracted to you. But I sensed some hesitation or sadness about your attraction when we first met. What was that about?"

Her Suzie paused completely. "My husband."

Now I was taken aback. "You're married?"

"Widowed. I married young to a schoolmate I had known almost all my life. I loved him. He was in the Army and was killed in Afghanistan eighteen months ago. There will always be a sadness there."

I needed to keep my game face. "Would he want you to be sad? Remain celibate in his memory?"

"Perhaps, but it's not up to him anymore."

"Then you will devote yourself to pleasing me, and that will make you happy."

She shuddered, then her Suzie resumed. Her face turned red. "Yes, master."

Wow. This shit really works if you find the right girl.

"Finally, we need to talk about your big muscular ass, and your plain face."

Her face turned white. Her eyes filled with tears, and she gripped the steering wheel like she was strangling it. I sensed a wave of humiliation, shame and hatred modulating her Suzie. She would not look at me. I'm sure she had been teased about her ass in school and on the job. And certainly, as smart and observant as she obviously was, she knew her face was relatively plain.

"I am sure your big ass stands you in good stead on the job. You can lift and carry as well as any man. But..."

I paused for effect. She stopped breathing.

"Summer, I absolutely adore your ass. When I first saw you bend over, I was filled with wonder and lust. I want to hug it and kiss it. I want to caress it, spank it, and taste every square millimeter of it. I want to spend the summer exploring and enjoying it in every way possible!"

She still did not breathe. Perhaps she was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Honesty is the best policy, Robbie, but his might be pushing it.

"When I first saw your face, I noticed your eyes. They flashed with intelligence. I thought you were no-nonsense kind of girl, didn't wear make up on the job, were a devoted career firefighter, et cetera. But when you came to my apartment, in that understated and classy dress, with just the right touch of makeup, I wanted to gently touch your face, and then grab your head with both hands and fuck your mouth!"

She took a deep breath. Color returned to her face, and her arms relaxed on the steering wheel, but tears still dripped gently from her eyes. She looked over at me and smiled through the tears. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"I mean, yes, master!"

There is just something about England in the summer that I really like.

+++++++++++++++++++

They found a workaround for the router. The mystery file was the version that the router manufacturer had to provide to sell into the Chinese market, with all the MSS backdoors, censor traps, and monitoring hooks built in. Same version functionally, but a bigger file with all that snoop ware included. But why was it in this apartment? The agency expert system had the codes for the MSS backdoor. One day of copying the monitoring traffic and it was easy figure out why it was there. Dwight had to adapt, but it would be better than his original plan. After the heart attack, the investigators would find the Chinese monitoring software, then the bogus Russian stuff, then finally the 'real' Russian stuff that Dwight would install. It would take another day to get ready, plus someone else had to be assigned to roll up the Chinese botnet. The other techs setup the femtocell that would take over the cell phones nearby during their hack. They would also send traffic through the jiggered router and on to the Russian embassy, although the Russians wouldn't know it at the time. It would only be discovered later.

+++++++++++++++++++

Summer's breathing began to slow down as she drove on, but I could still see her pulse in her neck. It was lovely. We approached a big brick house surrounded by a wooden fence and some huge old oak trees. It might have fit in near Bent Tree Country Club in North Dallas -it had the same kind of wooden fences surrounding the golf course. But there were stables and a horse ring nearby -- and a couple of smaller houses too. The main house had a very complex roofline with three big chimneys. The was a nice formal garden (a big back yard) south of the house, that was currently being set up with big tents, a stage, and a dance floor. If this was Dallas, it would be a debutant coming out party.

I was curious, so I asked Summer, "What kind of party is this?"

She laughed. "Officially, it is a fundraiser charity auction to benefit a local children's organization. Most of the invitees are OKS. Unofficially, it's for a rising star London banker to show off his new country house and much younger trophy wife."

I was stunned. "Okies? You have Okies here?"

"You say 'Oh-Kay-Ess'. Old King's Scholars. Alumni of King's School Canterbury. I went there, my father taught there. My husband went there, too. As did W. Somerset Maughan, among others, that's how I got my name. But what's an Okie?"

I may have exaggerated a little, giving her the standard Texan description, usually given to young Texans on the way to their first Texas-OU football game at the Cotton Bowl in October, of the "hard drinking, tobacco chewing but spittoon missing, meth snorting, gas siphoning, expletive spewing, incest enjoying and highly inbred Oklahoma fans that leave their double wide trailer homes to drive to Dallas in primer colored old cars for the game. And that's just the grandmothers. The younger adults are even worse."

She was aghast. "You mean like the dust bowl, Grapes of Wrath, all that that stuff from in American History?"

"No. The nice ones went west, the dregs stayed behind!"

She giggled. "The Kings School dates to 597 A.D. It's a big deal." "So, it's a famous public school, sort of like Charterhouse?"

"Bloody hell! Those Carthusian, Kardashian-like cretins, twits, latecomers, pretenders, overcharged fools? It is the most expensive public school and that is about the only superlative that it qualifies for!"

I supposed I wouldn't mention Nora Upman, or her mother and father, who all went to Charterhouse.

I changed the subject. "Have you ever heard the song "Okie from Muskogee?" She shook her head, I hummed and sang a few bars. "I'm proud to an Okie from Muskogee...."

She nodded. "I have heard that tune. I have an ear for music. But it was at a 1960's themed party. I think the words were something like 'Hippie from Olema' or something like that."

"One of the fraternities at ESU always plays a version called "Asshole from El Paso" at their spring party". "That 60's party was the same estate where our event is this Saturday. This time it's a 70's party. A big blowout with a tribute band stage show. Lots of bigwigs will be there! Big fee for me." By this time, we had pulled up to the smaller building to the left of the main house, which Summer said was atop a wine cellar and would serve as the staging area for all the food and drink tonight. They would auction off rare bottles of wine donated by the house's new owner, plus children's art projects at highly inflated prices, cooking lessons, music lessons, and even dates with some of the single ladies from leading families that supported the charity. Another van was unloading racks of plates, glasses, and silverware, and decorators were stringing LED lights and colored bunting everywhere. Tables and chairs were already set up. Summer's boxes had apparently been chosen to fit in the big wall mounted cooler inside. Summer pointed to the workers setting up the tables in the back garden. "When we get back here with the last part of the food, we'll store it in the cooler and then make sure all the places are set properly."

"What time do we serve?"

"Eight."

We headed back to the kitchen shop. Summer put me to work chopping onions and potatoes in mass quantities, while she browned a lot of meat in 4 huge deep pans on a big gas stove. One of her other helpers was making a big pudding in a vat the size of a 55-gallon drum. Summer was playing the kitchen like a one-woman band, cooking, seasoning, chopping and all the while giving me things to do. The Master was temporarily a sous chef.

+++++++++++++++++++

Dwight decided everything was ready, and they kicked off the op, by waiting. The target spent the morning working out with his personal trainer, and authorizing wire transfers for his clients in the Far East. That network was how he attracted the agency's attention in the first place. Dwight's counterparts back at HQ were watching the financial traffic carefully, waiting for the moment when interrupting the process would strand the maximum amount of laundered money, in Russia, and probably cost many of the target's clients their illicit businesses, if not their lives. Left untouched, it might be pilfered, or traced, and either was very bad news for several criminal enterprises, and one very important terrorist funding network.

When it arrived, they pounced. The femtocell took over control of the pacemaker and all its communications from its normal local cell site, and simultaneously sent a scripted and very normal looking set of readings onto the cloud monitoring center.

The target did not notice the slow changes in his heart rate -- the 'frog slowly boiling in hot water effect' worked here too. As the oxygen saturation in the target's blood went down, his normal reflexes tried to increase his heart rate and respiration rate to compensate. Dwight had to let the respirations climb, but continued to drive down the heart rate. The banker and money launderer interpreted this as stress and anxiety, which was an integral part of his job. He tried to relax and slow his breathing, exactly the opposite of what was needed. Soon he was in a spiral -- his blood gases were all wrong, and his heart muscle was not getting the oxygen it needed, and everything was moving rapidly in the wrong direction. Dwight had worked with a group of doctors at the agency to plan the duration of such an imbalance that was required to do permanent and massive damage to the heart muscle. By this time, the target was convinced he was having a panic attack. When the terrible chest pains began, he realized it was a heart attack, but he could no longer rise from his chair. He was having trouble holding his head up. He realized that he couldn't even reach for his phone. Dwight tripped off the clock counter on his phone. When the calculated time had passed, he stopped manipulating the heart rate, erased the on-board memory in the pacemaker unit, and let the normal communications resume. The cloud based monitoring service noticed the errant readings, and placed a call to their contact number for the pacemaker patient. There was no answer. Following their protocol, and given the real and very alarming readings from the monitor, they called the cardiologist listed in their records. She took a few extra moments to berate them for the delay, and then ordered them to use their system to summon an ambulance. But thanks to Dwight's planning, they didn't alert the one they thought they would.

The two shooters looked little like real EMT's, but no one would really notice that when they arrived dressed in the proper uniforms in their very real but unauthorized ambulance. The doorman got the medical alert from the monitoring system, as he had been trained, and was gratified when the ambulance arrived so quickly. He used his key to get the express elevator going for them, and accompanied them up to the apartment and back down with their patient. He was pleased when they drove away, and hoping for the best.

+++++++++++++++++++

Summer was amazingly well organized. Fancy food in multiple courses for 100 people was prepped and ready with less drama than it took me to microwave a frozen lasagna back home. I had seen Nora work her culinary magic for 25 people or so at her coop, and Summer was just as efficient with four times the volume. It was like a Frederick W. Taylor time and motion study come to life, with smiles and happy talk all around. She was very good at this. The only limiting factor was how quickly we could run the food to the tables (buffet lines were strictly for the lower classes).

The party goers looked like overdressed Phi Iota Gamma white bread frat alums who had married KKG girls and inherited lots of money from both sides of the family. Conspicuous consumption dripped from their apparel and jewelry. The women were mostly thin -- some a healthy thin that must have come from a good diet, lots of exercise, and concierge medical care. Some were a fragile and unhealthy thin -- that likely came from fanatic dieting, bulimia, stimulants, little or no exercise, and a good deal of psychiatric treatment. Almost all of them had seen a plastic surgeon recently. I saw lots of those expressions of permanent surprise from facelifts or incongruous calm from botox, and there were quite a few large and expensive sets of breasts in evidence. The men were on average ten years older than the women, and according to Summer, plastic surgery was becoming much more popular among them, too.

The conversations sounded strange to my American ear. Unusual words and phrases jangled my brain as I moved around distributing plates. Laughter was very polite, but some of whispered gossip I overheard was decidedly not. To most people I was an invisible non-entity, a servant to be ignored. I noticed some lilting Suzie signals drifting up from the crowd. Then carriers and images became clear - my Suzie sensitivity was improving at an alarming rate. There were some ugly overtones I was not used to. Jealousy was there, and frustration, but not much excitement or longing. There was a good deal of what Asa had taught me to call schadenfreude - enjoying someone else's pain. This was sexual, though. A frustrated and ignored wife enjoying watching the same thing happen to a younger woman, a man taking delight in the knowledge that his neighbor's wife was banging the gardener, and two women happily sharing the shocking story of a neighbor's STD. Things calmed down a bit as the emcee began the charity auction. This was conspicuous consumption turned inside out, plus a heaping helping of virtue signaling. Buying a donated week at someone's villa in the Canary Islands was an act of love for the needy children of the poor. A spa day was really 'for the children'. Video vignettes of cute kids helped in the past, and some toasts to the donors lubricated the giving. The naming of a courtyard at a school for a donor was an act of unselfish love. Everyone laughed politely about the emcee's suggestive jokes while auctioning off a week in Ibiza. Donated gift certificates for trendy restaurants were very popular items, drawing inflated bids, as were specific donations for items like buses, computers, projectors, lab equipment, and after school enrichment programs.