Scratched Out Heart

Kimiko didn't care that she was dwarfed by velvet-festooned French doors, or that outside the morning sun poured gold over a garden the size of her home town. Instead, she scowled, incredulous, as a rash of red lights flashed all over the schematics on her tablet. The old rocker's house was riddled with wireless hidden cameras. All on. All sending data.

She might be a rookie, but she was no idiot. The first thing Kimiko did when he left her alone was scan the place for surveillance devices. If they were to protect the old rock-star's daughter, Angelique, from a stalker's death-threats while she convalesced after rehab, then why didn't they cover just points of entry? Why multiple cameras in bathrooms? And if they were to keep tabs on Kimiko, then that was weirder. Why pay a fortune for a week's worth of pay-per-hour bodyguard and then not trust said guard to guard said body?

She tugged at her cuffs, and let hot air out from under her collar. As if she needed another reason to be ill-at-ease here. She was utterly out of her league. Even the great house seemed designed to intimidate her; from its national museum monumentality to the edgy opulence of its décor. During her briefing, the rock legend had called the style 'brothel punk' and Kimiko had laughed bawdily, but he didn't even crack a smile. Her ears had sizzled, yet again the un-coolest girl in school.

"Chill baby," he'd said. "Chill."

Tosser.

She thumbed off the iPad and chucked it onto a chair. What a gig, though. And what luck. Rarely did a client specifically request a woman for a job, and what were the chances that the only other woman in the company - her female boss - should fall magically pregnant (after ten years trying) while simultaneously winning the lottery?

Scary job or not, Kimiko needed to make the most of her rare good fortune.

In a field at the back of the lawns a gloss-black Sikorsky idled while the rock god hugged his fashion-model daughter like a reptile throttling Bambi. She patted his back until he eventually let go, waving his finger at her. She seemed childishly excited about being left alone. Her golden braid wagged as she bounced, and her hands wrung behind her tweed Bermuda shorts like a preppy college-girl, not a fully-grown woman. But then that was her thing - and the most attractive thing about her in Kimiko's opinion - this old-school demureness. A total contrast to her rock'n'roll parents. Even now, at home, she was all buttoned up in a pristine fitted blouse, socks and penny loafers. Kimiko wondered what kind of rehab a woman like that underwent, not for drugs or booze, surely? Maybe she'd overdosed on 'Penguin Modern Classics'.

And she had a hardback waiting under her bed by look of it.

Angelique stood on tip-toes and offered her dad a peck on the cheek with those fabulous, inherited lips, but he twisted to meet her and suckered an inappropriate kiss to them instead. She jerked back with a pained smile. Kimiko grimaced. The guy might be famous for shagging anything - and his wife dead for a few months now - but really, there had to be a line drawn somewhere. Suddenly the proliferation of cameras seemed even more sinister.

He laughed and patted his daughter's bottom, then loped across the lawn to his helicopter, clasping a daft studded cowboy-hat to the top of his head. With a waggle of the fingers, Angelique waved him off to his 'clinic' - Kimiko suspected plastic surgery - and watched the aircraft until it was nothing but a thrumming dot in the sky, then the woman spun on her heel and blew a kiss. To Kimiko.

Momentarily shocked that Angelique had even been aware of her, Kimiko faltered and ended up waving politely at the woman's back as she scampered off around the corner. With a lurch, Kimiko scrabbled at the door's antique locks but by the time she got them open, she'd already lost her client. Or rather her client had lost her.

Kimiko trotted around the outside of the house, her cheeks blazing at being so duped, and burying - unsuccessfully - the déjà vu of running around town looking for her sister, Sachiko, during one of her highs. The mid-morning sun already had some heat in it and sweat soon prickled under her buzz-cut. If she hadn't been wearing her holster, she would have removed her jacket, but better to sweat than show off a weapon like the macho dicks back at HQ.

No sign of Angelique, anywhere, though Kimiko did discover a large Harley hidden behind some bushes by the gravel drive. Oh this was just typical of her luck. The old bloke had told her not to trust his daughter, warned that she was wily and desperate to escape her post-rehab prison without any care for the danger she was in. Kimiko had reassured him that - though she was a new to bodyguarding - she'd been in the police for years. She'd even said, "I know what it means not to let a subject out of my sight, sir."

It took almost twenty minutes to circle the sprawling gothic pile. She arrived back where she started without a glimpse of Angelique so decided to head back inside and search there, trying not to let the situation get to her, but still aware of how useless she must look to all those hidden cameras. Then she noticed that the enormous French doors, which she had left gaping, were partially shut. Cheeky cow. She must have hidden, waited for Kimiko to run off then slipped back in.

Kimiko stomped toward the doors, when a deep male voice from inside stopped her in her tracks. She darted behind a wall and approached the opening obliquely. There was not supposed to be anyone around other than Kimiko and Angelique. Shit. Was it the stalker?

A woman whimpered. Kimiko had her Glock out and was pressed alongside the window in under a heartbeat, hidden by a fortunately placed ornamental bay tree. More voices from the inside. Male cursing. French. Kimiko peeped through leaves and her stomach dropped into her boots. Oh no. How should she handle this?

Two identical male rears, giants, one standing, one kneeling. Both naked. Models or dancers by their hairless muscularity. Angelique sat before them as if her armchair was a throne. Regal, but for the shorts gathered at her ankles, and the gusset of her underwear pulled aside. And the indecent spread of her knees to the kneeler's eager mouth.

"Yes..." she hissed. Then she frowned. Then she shook her head. "Nope." She pushed him off her, and clicked her fingers at the other man. Wriggling her knickers off, she kicked them away with her shorts so she could loop her legs over the chair arms into a flagrant and very un-demure display, even in a buttoned-up blouse and socks.

Kimiko's head whirled. The dad had insisted on no visitors, especially men, and these were pretty unequivocally men. And they were visiting his daughter in some detail. So Kimiko was contracted to put a stop to it. But she was a bodyguard, not a bloody chaperone, she had no idea where to start. She couldn't just jump in there and stop strangers mid-sex. Mid-great-sex by the look of it, too. A gorgeous woman enjoying two gorgeous men in her own house, what right did Kimiko have to break it up? She knew from painful experience just how difficult great sex was to find, as well. No-one would thank her for ruining it.

Also, she was not often star-struck but Angelique - Vogue magazine's 'most desirable woman' seven years in a row - was an icon. 'The Angel'. Up there with Monroe and Hepburn. You did not usually see the spread of an icon's bald vulva before you'd even shaken her hand and gushed about their charity work. Kimiko did not relish embarrassing the nation's freshest treasure.

The chosen giant dropped to his knee and took his turn. He either had the most compelling technique on the planet, or his doppelganger had done all the prep, because in one puff, Angelique arched and shuddered. She threw her arms over the back of the chair and pulled her legs even wider. "Yes!" she hollered, "Yes-yes-yes... God-YESSS!"

Angelique writhed, cries rising up the octaves until finally frothing over into squeaky cackles, blustering for him to stop. He obediently pulled away and stood next to his twin, wiping his wrist across his mouth. So deferential that Kimiko half expected him to bow.

"Gentlemen, we have a winner," Angelique croaked, then slithered to her knees and grabbed the winner's penis, or what Kimiko assumed to be as she couldn't see with his back to the window. The woman's head disappeared behind his hips and - while model buttocks tensed - she seemed intent on returning the favour of her speedy climax.

No. No. No. Kimiko wasn't sure if she should storm in, or maybe let this one slip, and make more effort to keep an eagle-eye on the woman from now on. But the dereliction of duty had her squirming even as the idea popped into her head. Then Angelique's head reappeared, blowing escaped hair from her face while joggling both hands at the front of her moaning model. "You can still earn your sucking," she said to the other man, then tipped up and jiggled her bottom. He sprang behind her and dropped in one fluid move, both of them gasping as his thick, rigid appendage slid up into her. Her eyes slit as she watched herself work the front of one man, while panting softly with each thrust of the other.

Kimiko wanted to intervene, but her heart wasn't in it so her body wouldn't budge. She preferred women if she was honest - and she was honest, to the extent that she killed her marriage with unadulterated truth - but the sight of these three stirred up the embers of old fantasies. This was sex as you imagined it, where you were lithe and rippling and everyone was beautiful and hungry for each other's climax. Rare, secret warmth spread from Kimiko's hips. She could never stop something as wonderful as this.

Then Angelique swivelled those big, jewel-blue eyes straight at Kimiko; as if to underline just that point. As if to dare her to interrupt them.

Christ, did the girl always know when she was being watched? Kimiko ground her teeth, angry at being duped and now challenged. But however awkward the situation, this was a test. If she let the behaviour slide then they both knew the woman would walk all over her. And - damn it - all those cameras! The dad would be able to see all this, too; how badly she'd failed.

The standing model juddered. He arched onto his toes and made a strangled noise. Angelique's head quickly dipped behind his hips again. Kimiko had no choice, it was nearly too late. She barged in, the second the standing model roared.

Shouting, "Enough!" she strode into the middle of the room and waved her gun around.

Both men leapt out of their skins, but the winner was already locked in spasms at Angelique's calmly nodding head and couldn't move with the grip she had on his cock. The other leapt to his feet, grabbed his clothes and scarpered, leaving them in silence but for the winner's grunts and Angelique's hummed, victorious laugh.

As Kimiko tumbled into a hot black hole of embarrassment, and while the bloke jerked and rolled wild eyes from Angelique's mouth to Kimiko's weapon, the woman seemed set on stretching out everybody's torture as long as she could. In her own good time, she finished him off, then released her prey and took her seat as primly as if she was at an afternoon tea.

The man pressed his hands to his heart and blabbered something adoring in French to Angelique. Kimiko jabbed her cold gun at his arse cheek and he yelped and fled, too. Then he blundered back in, grabbed his clothes and fled again.

Angelique cast a slow gaze up and down Kimiko. She made no attempt to hide her naked lower half; she even flapped her legs a little as if to draw attention to it. Kimiko didn't even blink. A Bipolar sister had been an early education on how to deal with sexual immodesty. Angelique smacked her lips showily. "You like sperm, sweetie?"

Audrey Hepburn never said anything like that. Or even Kimiko's sister come to think of it. "I think you should get dressed, Ma'am," she said.

"Or you'll shoot me?"

Kimiko holstered her weapon. Then picked up the woman's underwear and tossed it at her.

Angelique sniggered. "I don't like it very much." She stood up, letting the knickers tumble. "Jizz, I mean. But boys will do anything for a girl who pretends, won't they?"

She folded her arms, and smirked. "You know what, though? I deduce by that hairdo and your general... Pitbull puppy demeanour, that you're not much interested in what boys like are you darling?"

Kimiko had heard much worse than that; she and Sachiko where the only Japanese kids in their orphanage. "My name is Kimiko, Ma'am. I am charged with protecting you, and keeping you away from all stimulants. Namely, drugs, alcohol, nicotine, caffeine-" she parried Angelique's raised finger with her own "-and men."

Angelique's lips pressed to white. She tucked hair behind her ear. "Not women, though, hmm? No-one to protect me from you?"

Kimiko smiled. She might use a gun to intimidate men, but women were subtler creatures. Perhaps it was a phallus-versus-lips thing. Whatever the psychology, Angelique scowled, blushed and stepped over her clothes, barging past Kimiko for the door. A wake of expensively perfumed sex wafted behind her.

"Now," she shrilled. "Seeing as you interrupted my fun just as it was getting started, I'm going to my room to shag myself silly with a ginormous dildo, if you don't mind. Or do you have to supervise that as well? Check it's not dangerous or too stimulating?"

Angelique's voice squeaked so loudly it reverberated the windows. Kimiko relished this. As long as the woman was emotional, Kimiko had the upper hand. She followed her out of the room, averting her eye from the unabashedly naked jiggle of an enviable bottom as the supermodel trotted up the stairs before her.

"I will need to check your room, first, Ma'am. Then I'll station myself outside."

Angelique's fists clenched.

Kimiko wasn't surprised that the woman's windows were screwed shut, but the fact that all sharp objects - as well as any kind of med - had already been removed from the ensuite bathroom made her feel a little sad. In the light of the body language between dad and daughter earlier, Kimiko wondered what had turned this beautiful woman so sour. Then the bubble of empathy was burst as Angelique tutted and lunged past with a comically huge - glittering gold - cock, and proceeded to fill it with steaming water from a tap.

"Goldenrod," she said like that made any sense at all. "An ex made it for me. Had it cast from his own dick." She rolled her eyes. "Men, eh?" She screwed shut a lid on the base and thrust it at Kimiko who took it instinctively, then quickly passed it back. The warm, metallic weight of it lingered in her palm like a dirty secret.

"Fifteen minutes," Kimiko said, stepping outside. "Then I'll pop in and check on how you're getting on."

"Enjoy!" Angelique shouted after her.

Shutting the lockless door behind her, Kimiko braced for the expected histrionics. However, Angelique did whatever she needed to do in complete silence. It was as if she knew that this would drive an eavesdropper even crazier than theatrics.

Kimiko had not bothered with sex since husband had left when she came out to him. Over a year ago. She'd hoped he'd come out, too and they could at least be companions, the guy was so obviously repressing his own homosexuality. They'd only made love - if blowjobs counted as making love - a handful (mouthful) of times in five years; what difference would it have made to live platonically?

So given Kimiko's privation it was no surprise that a phantom formed out of her straining senses, and imagined itself into Angelique's room. She pictured 'The Angel' working that silly thing silently between her legs. How would it fit? It was so big and Angelique so small. The woman must have been very wet still from her model-twins. Probably very relaxed too from having that man's great club inside her. There. Was that a gasp? Bedsprings! Which way up was she? On her back, with legs pulled back and wide, or on her front? All fours, maybe...

Kimiko shook the porno pictures from her head and swallowed but her mouth was too dry. She was not being paid enough for this job. It was a blessing that Angelique was such a nasty bully. Kimiko could grasp at that fact every time she was tempted to enjoy the recollection those naked bottom cheeks bouncing up the stairs, or the oddly wholesome perfection of Angelique's puffy vulva and delicate pink labia, or how her eyes screwed tight when she came.

Seconds flowed like hours. There was a keyhole, should she take a peek? If the cameras picked up her peeping-tomminess she could argue she was just being diligent; checking Angelique hadn't bludgeoned herself to death with that expensive, heavy-metal monster. She put it off as long as she could, not least of all because there was every chance that the woman would be watching the keyhole, waiting for Kimiko's indiscretion.

Then - no doubt like many others in Angelique's life - Kimiko couldn't resist. She stooped and peered through the hole.

Angelique lay on her side, foetal, her back to the door, her bare bottom like a recumbent love-heart. Kimiko could see no sign of movement, cheeky or otherwise.

Other than the shaking of the woman's shoulders.

Kimiko's insides melted. She punched her thigh and stood back to attention. A rush of anger overwhelmed her. At herself, for being just another bar in this woman's cage, at the lecherous old sod of a father, at the stalker and the stress that his death-threats must cause. And at herself again for dopily caring so much. Would she empathise if the spoilt cow wasn't the - actual - most desirable woman in the world? And if Kimiko wasn't the most desirous? And did she really think she could atone for past lapses by over-caring now?

She let Angelique be and returned to the lounge to pick up her tablet, entertaining the notion of emailing HQ. She could request a replacement due to illness. Scattered on the floor were Angelique's shorts and knickers and without thinking she picked them up to fold them. They were exquisitely tailored and still held the ghost of Angelique's shape in them. In the place of labels, were little pink monograms of love-heart-shaped flowers. How was it Angelique was born into all this, while Kimiko and Sachiko didn't even get parents?

Kimiko was always resigned to bad luck. Sachiko refused to accept it. It was no doubt part of her illness but she had persuaded herself that if she could control the toss of a coin then she could "make luck." She spent every spare second flicking pennies into the air and catching them and filling notebooks with the results. Until one day she stopped. Then their troubles started.

Back at Angelique's door, she knocked and got no response, so entered on tip-toes. The woman snored, so Kimiko laid her folded clothes on a chair by the bed, then reached over her to pull a sheet over her nakedness.

Angelique spun at her. "Shit!" she spat, swiping the sheet off. "What do you think you're doing?"

Kimiko stepped back with her hands up. "Nothing, Ma'am. I just—"

"Listen, you don't need to creep around me. Just use my Dad's damned pervy-cams. Give me the iPad." Kimiko handed it over and the woman logged her into the camera feeds then flung the device back. "Take a break," she snapped. "And take a shower or something, you smell like sodding... ham."

#

Half an hour later, Angelique was still asleep, according to the camera in her room. The rest of the house was empty and motionless but for the slide of sunlight through it. The 'pervy-cams' might be an intrusion on their privacy but they were certainly going to make Kimiko's job easier over the next few days. She disabled the ones in her room, though. Let the bugger complain.

Propping the screen on a chair in the bathroom, so she could keep an eye on her client, she stripped and took a shower. On top of the morning's drama she'd been travelling all night and was badly in need of a dousing. Both crushed and amused at the concept of smelling like ham, she lathered quickly as the room filled with thick, fragrant steam.