TRANCE, Inc. 15

"Ohfuckyeah..."

Pleasure tingled up my spine and down the backs of my legs, making me curl my toes and flex my shoulders into the mattress beneath me. My cock — wrapped between soft, beestung lips and lavished by a skilled tongue — was hard as a flagpole and throbbing with pent-up desire. My balls ached for release, and my muscles tensed in preparation.

Between my spread thighs, the blonde head bobbed up and down, up and down. There was no stopping her steady rhythm, as smooth and even as clockwork.

"That's so good, babe..." I groaned. One of my hands released its grip on the sheets and trailed down, tangling in the flowing mane of golden locks. I fucking love mind control, I decided.

Pop.

The soft, wet sound of Amber's mouth slipping off the end of my rod as her eyes sought mine.

"Do you love me?" she asked, sky blue eyes blazing up at me devotedly. She wrapped her hand around my shaft, slowly pumping up and down, purring and nuzzling up into my hand.

I hesitated, still stroking gently through her long, crimson hair.

Her expression shifted, growing sad. "But Chance..." Daisy murmured. "What did I do to deserve this?"

I... I wanted to explain to her, to explain that she'd been lying to me about her work and I didn't understand.

Bwah!

I blinked, shaking my head. The noise was loud, and stabbed into my mind like it was coming from right beside my head. Daisy stared up at me, emerald orbs wide and deep and pleading.

Wait... What had Daisy been lying about, again?

Bwah! Bwah! Bwah!

My eyes shot open and I sucked in a breath. What? Where am—?... Oh.

The ceiling was familiar, but not the one I'd expected. Beside me, Carmen rustled and then rolled over, snuggling against my chest. She tugged the covers higher sleepily, trying to ignore the blaring alarm on the bedside table.

Trying not to move too abruptly, I stretched out across her slender body and reached for the phone. My fingers scrabbled, but I couldn't quite pick it up. "Be quiet," I grunted, blindly stabbing at the screen.

Bwah! Bw—

I must've gotten lucky, because one more tap and the device went blessedly silent. I flopped back with a groan, staring up at the ceiling. Carmen's ceiling, in the twins' apartment.

"Mmm..." Carmen murmured. "Thanks, babe..." She kissed my chest, a small hand stroking up my side. Then she wrapped her arm around my torso in a sleepy hug. Her body was bare except for a pair of gray and pink sleeping shorts, and her skin was hot against mine.

"'Course, cutie," I answered softly, kissing the top of her head.

Above us, early morning sunlight streamed in through the window that, not long ago, had allowed Carmen to overhear my fateful conversation with Mike Lassiter. I could tell that it was probably only 6:30 or so, and I knew that if I gave myself permission I could slip back into dreamland. Despite the intensity of my sleeping visions, however, I had no desire to dream again. I had no desire to think about Amber or Daisy or Victoria.

Instead, I wriggled down until I was face to face with the semiconscious teen and gently kissed her forehead. "Time to rise and shine," I murmured. "Up and at 'em for a Monday morning run before work."

She sighed, long and slow, then her lashes fluttered and green eyes blinked open. "Okay, Chance," she said. She kissed me, then slowly stretched herself awake.

* * *

We had been up late the past few nights, eating takeout and gaming into the wee hours of the morning. It wasn't a normal schedule by any means, especially since I'd gotten so used to an early-bird routine, but I knew that Carmen and I were trying desperately to distract ourselves from what had happened on Thursday.

As we walked through the Starside lobby, a silent space stretched between us. It was a shared guilt that kept us together and pushed us apart; the knowledge that we had done something very wrong to people that mattered to us, and also the knowledge that neither of us was ready to admit it.

We'd been living at Starside since Thanksgiving, and hadn't gone back to my apartment for clothes, toiletries or reconciliation. Rather than return, Carmen had taken me to a small outlet mall nearby. I'd looked on while she selected pajamas and a couple of workout essentials. I had alternated between those two types of outfits all weekend.

We jogged in silence, taking the same route as yesterday: down toward the river and then along a winding path, through carefully-spaced trees and beside a grassy park. We passed few people, mostly other joggers, but despite our freedom and solitude we were mostly silent.

Even when we returned, I didn't mention my dream.

We made coffee and quiet conversation, passing the time idly with Carmen on one side of the kitchen island and me on the other. Neither of us glanced at the microwave clock, which slowly counted up the minutes until the hour when the teenager would have to say goodbye and head to her first shoot of the day. Eventually, though, I couldn't put it off any longer.

"Are you going to be okay?" I asked. I set my mug down carefully, watching the girl with worried eyes. "You know what I need you to do?"

Carmen sipped her coffee and nodded silently, glancing up at me over the rim. Her green eyes were alert, but without their usual sparkling mischief.

"Thank you," I said heavily. Then, I added, "Really. I don't see how I can go back until I've figured out what Amber is really up to. I can't stand to be around her anymore, her lying right to my face and me having to pretend that everything is alright when it isn't."

The young redhead nodded.

She knows what that's like, I realized. After all, that's what Daisy has been doing to her. To you, for that matter. Somehow, though, I couldn't be mad at Carmen's twin. Sure, I was upset with her for hiding things from us. But with so much mental RAM devoted to stress over the Amber situation, I couldn't split my mind into fractions of discontent.

I looked across the island at the beautiful 18-year-old and suddenly recognized that her silence and preoccupation for what they really were. She's scared stiff, I thought, and with the thought came the urge to comfort her. The feeling welled up abruptly, a mingled warmth and affection and protective instinct that made me want to come around to her and wrap her in my arms and keep her here. I did, and she didn't say a word as she leaned in against my chest.

"I love you, Carmen," I murmured into her hair.

She answered into my shirt, but I knew she was echoing the sentiment.

"And thank you," I added. "For helping me get to the bottom of this. I really just want to go back to how things were, but we can't do that until we have some answers."

"I understand." The girl nodded as she pulled back, looking up into my face with mingled worry and hope. "I feel the same."

A moment of silence as I looked down into her eyes and hoped that I could fix things. For both of us.

Carmen sighed and glanced away. "I'd better get going if I want to get there ahead of them."

* * *

They're here.

Carmen's text buzzed into my phone, and I glanced down to read it before taking a deep breath and settling the device back down in the cupholder. I closed my fingers around the wheel and then released them, one by one.

"Not yet," I told myself. "Don't jump the gun."

Several minutes later, another buzz.

Alright, she's on her way out.

I typed back a quick, Thanks babe, before I turned the key over and eased away from the curb.

I hadn't been able to simply park in the TRANCE parking structure. The women would recognize my car, and that would make my current task impossible. Instead, I'd needed my teenaged lover to loiter inconspicuously in the lobby, waiting for the others to arrive. She'd notified me when Daisy, Amber and Victoria had shown up for work, and then sent me another message when Amber left the building.

It was as I'd suspected. Lassiter had told me that Amber wasn't doing any shoots, but she still went to work every day like nothing had changed. She was fooling Daisy and Victoria, too, which meant that if she went somewhere during the day she still got back to the studio in time to leave work alongside them.

My girlfriend was up to something, and I was going to find out what it was.

I came around the corner and nearly swallowed my tongue as Amber's car pulled out of the parking structure in front of me. Luckily, there were two or three vehicles in between us and I had to trust that the buffer would keep my presence hidden.

"Keep it together, man," I ordered myself, and tried to relax my grip on the steering wheel as we drove onward.

Lassiter called me as I followed the blonde pornstar towards downtown, and I picked up after a flicked glance down at the screen. He and I hadn't spoken since Thursday.

"Hey, Mike," I answered into the speakerphone. I felt a wave of guilt hit me, but battled it down. No time for that, I told myself. "What's up?"

A pause, like Lassiter was considering saying something else before he answered, "Good morning, Sir."

"Good morning," I said automatically, then repeated, "What's up?" I didn't have time for this right now.

Amber took a turn off the highway and I slowed. I had to not be obvious about this, and I was suddenly wishing I hadn't driven my own car. Nothing to do but go for it, I thought, and followed, keeping several vehicles between us.

Another pause, and then the executive said, "Sir, I feel like I really should apologize—"

"No time for that, Mike," I interrupted.

Amber turned off of the main avenue and down a side street. I was certain that I hadn't visited this neighborhood before. The buildings were nice, modern, some of them reminding me of Starside. There was a lot of glass and steel, big sheets of the stuff.

"Alright, Sir," the businessman said. "Down to brass tacks, then. In my research over the weekend I believed I found some leads."

As the man spoke, I kept my eyes on the car up ahead. I slowed way down, keeping the maximum possible distance between us. There were fewer people on this street, which meant that I only had an old, yellow Bug between me and Amber.

"I needed to be sure, though," the man continued, "and so I waited to mention anything until I had the chance to log on to my office computer this morning."

I realized I was nodding along, even though Lassiter couldn't see me. If I were being honest with myself, I'd actually managed to forget in the past few days that I had my very own corporate espionage agent digging up dirt on my pornstar girlfriend and the people she was involved with. "Keep going," I said, watching Amber carefully as she pulled to up to the curb and parked at a T-junction. Across the street in front of her was a tall building with broad steps and a pair of double doors.

Without slowing, I drove past Amber's parked car, took the corner, and then headed quickly around the block so I could come up behind her again.

"Well, the conclusion is clear that Landon Shrike started up the Platinum Services branch of TRANCE for the express purpose of handling those large incoming and outgoing payments made by or to the various front organizations I already mentioned. I originally had suspicions, as I believe I told you, that these payments might have been a way for stars to leave the business for good. I had this idea because every time a request has come through for a specific actress to be replaced, there's been a corresponding incoming payment just as the actress leaves TRANCE for good."

"Sure," I agreed, not really listening. I had pulled around and was once again facing the pale, modern building up the street. It had the whitewashed coloring of a hospital, or a library. Amber was prancing up the front steps as I came to a stop, her heels and yellow minidress making her figure shimmy enticingly, even from fifty yards away.

Heat curled in the pit of my stomach. Damn I missed my girlfriend.

"However," Lassiter went on, "what sinks that idea is the fact that sometimes big payments go out just as actresses arrive. And that doesn't make sense, because why would they be paid up front just to join the industry?"

"Yeah," I said, only half-listening. My eyes were glued to the curvy blonde as she arrived at the top of the stairs and knocked briskly at the door. I had parked down the street in the shadow of a sidewalk sapling, and I muted my voice on the phone as I hastily rifled through the glove compartment. "Shit!" I swore quietly, wishing I'd thought ahead and brought binoculars to keep an eye on Amber from a distance.

I thought about cop shows I'd watched, and frowned. You idiot, they always have binoculars or something. Then I stopped. Cops didn't always use binoculars. Sometimes they used... With budding hope, I glanced over into the passenger side floorspace.

"So, I thought to myself, 'If I can trace the money back to its origins, maybe I can figure out what TRANCE stands to gain by investing in Platinum-tier pornstars.'" Lassiter's voice was thoughtful.

Thank god teenagers don't clean up after themselves, I thought, reaching down and pulling Carmen's camera up into my lap. I tapped my phone screen to end Mute and said, "So, who benefits? Who does TRANCE pay in order to 'buy' adult film stars? And what does this have to do with Amber?"

"Right, Sir. I'm getting to that." By now, Lassiter could tell that I was harried, and he spoke more quickly. "Just when Amber arrived, there was a payment made out to a very strange party. An academic institution right here in the City."

I frowned, twisting the camera around in my hands and fiddling with buttons to try and turn the damn thing on. "An academic institution? You mean, like a school?"

There we go! The screen lit up, glowing to life.

"Exactly," the man answered. "Apparently, a private finishing school for daughters of society's elite families."

"That doesn't..." I turned the camera lens, trying to focus on the building in front of me. "I don't understand. Amber never mentioned attending school in the City."

Not that she's ever mentioned anything about her past, DC muttered, poofing into existence just to drive home the barb of my girlfriend's secrecy.

Fuck off, I thought, figuring out the setting and bringing the front doors into sharper focus.

"I wasn't able to find out much," Mike continued, "but I was able to dig through several layers of secrecy to uncover the name of the place. I suspect that it may be a front for a much more sinister operation than its appearance suggests."

"What kind of finishing school trains its graduates to be pornstars?" I asked, half to myself. I zoomed in on the bright brass plaque beside the door, and felt an abrupt prickle of unease sweep down my spine.

"I couldn't say, Sir," Lassiter concluded. "Apparently, a finishing school called—"

I frowned, and read aloud. "The Brighton Barnsworth Academy."

* * *

I was driving again, but I didn't know where. I was on the highway. Then, an offramp. The skyscrapers rose on both sides.

I hadn't lasted long on my stakeout. My patience and spirits had worn away with equal speed, and when Amber hadn't returned for over an hour I had given up for the day. I already had enough new information to tussle with, in any event.

"What is that place to her?" I wondered aloud, not for the first time. "Why is she hiding the fact that every day, instead of going to work, she visits a finishing school?" My imagination tried to come up with an answer, but its limitations were all too plain. Most of the ideas were farfetched and ludicrous, with the remainder seeming pretty much impossible from what I knew of the woman.

The woman... I thought dully. In just a few weeks, Amber had gone from my closest confidante to a generically-labeled specimen under my scrutiny. I didn't like it. Not one bit.

When I pulled to a stop in front of the Black Dragon Dojo I glanced around with surprise. I hadn't been intending to come here, but when I checked my phone it was only half an hour before my usual arrival time. I guessed that several weeks of habit must have put me in autopilot to the destination of my daily workout with Terra.

The parking lot was a narrow strip of asphalt with faded white lines. It was empty but for a sleek black BMW. The car was also parked in front of Terra's studio, and as I watched the front door someone exited.

It was a man, probably in his mid-thirties, with sandy hair and a physique that made me guess he'd been training here for years. Despite his impressive body, his face was pale and he swayed as he stepped off the curb. He braced himself with his palm on the hood of his car, and I saw a chunky, chrome-colored watch on his wrist. He was wearing dark blue suit, and looked to me like my imagined image of a successful young lawyer.

Must've been a hard workout today, I thought sympathetically. I wonder if Terra's in a good mood.

The man glanced around as he backed out of the parking space, and for a moment our gazes met. I recognized the expression in his eyes: the glazed exhaustion but floating warmth of satisfaction that accompany a successful training session. Then, he was driving away and I was left staring at the glass double doors of Terra's dojo.

Now that I was here, though, I didn't know what to do. I was still wearing my running gear from earlier, so technically I could go in and offer myself to Terra for training. But was that really the smartest move?

For obvious reasons, I'd skipped my session last Friday. I couldn't justify leaving Carmen all alone, especially in the wake of the familial implosion. We'd spent the day together instead, getting a start on our long weekend of gaming and eating takeout. I had wondered, that first night, if I should talk to her about what happened, to figure out why she'd said and done what she had. To figure out if she actually believed it. But, before I could work up the courage, I realized the sad truth.

Carmen was the only one I had left, and she had trusted me. She'd trusted me to pick her up and take her home, without complaint, when I'd left Thanksgiving in her wake. She'd trusted me to stay with her, no questions asked, while she broke down and cried quietly against my shoulder. Harmless or not, Daisy had been lying to me just as frequently as Amber had. And that was a breach of trust and affection that I couldn't just pardon offhand. If nothing else, Carmen had never lied to me. So I decided that if Carmen had something she wanted to tell me, she would. I left it at that.

However, none of my perfectly valid reasons to skip Friday's workout handled the ball of nerves that sparked to life in my stomach like an electric coil when I contemplated facing Terra's wrath. She'd already made herself clear on the subject of missed classes, and legs and arms and lungs were already burning with anticipated effort.

She doesn't know you're here, I told myself. You could just leave now if you want to. Nothing's forcing you to go inside.

I vacillated for another few moments, even though I already knew what I was going to do. Once I'd parked, I really hadn't had any other option. Carmen had gone to work, had been forced to face the prospect of running into her sister or one of her estranged lovers. But she'd done it, done it in order to give me a chance to shadow my own girlfriend like a private investigator seeking evidence of infidelity. Appreciating this fact made me realize that, despite her age and rampant emotions, there was a strength in the young redhead that I should admire. The truth was, I shouldn't just admire it. I should learn from it.