Transformations: Latigo Key Ch. 01

The Blackhawk helicopter flew without lights over the dark water of the Straits of Florida. Behind it, the meager lights of Key West faded slowly into the distance.

The pilot stared through his night vision goggles into the moonless night, the whitecaps below outlined in eerie green by the night vision. "Your boss doesn't talk much," the pilot said into the headset microphone.

"No, he doesn't," the geek said.

The guy's name was Gilder - he'd offered it up when he had climbed into the copilot's seat.

The older man, Gilder's boss, had taken a seat behind them. He had stared out the open door all the way from Miami without saying a word.

This wasn't the first time the pilot had transported spooks in the dead of night with no running lights. These two smelled like NRO to him.

CIA guys talked some. NSA guys usually wouldn't shut up. Get a chopper load of black ops guys and that could be a fun party especially once the op was over and you went looking for booze and women.

But NRO? NRO guys were like his ex's goddamned cat - always looking for something to kill. No other redeeming qualities.

Not this geek, Gilder - he was just a techie. Satan's IT guy at worst.

Problem was? The old guy behind him was most likely Satan.

Dead shark eyes staring out the open door into the dark ass night like he could see clearly without night vision and, fuck, man, maybe he could.

"How much further?" Gilder asked.

"Less than five minutes. Latigo Key is off limits to all traffic. You guys did clear this with the Coast Guard, right?"

"They won't bother us," the man with the dead eyes said over the headset.

The pilot almost jumped out of his seat. Somehow he had thought the man wasn't listening, caught up in his own thoughts.

Instead he had been listening and he spoke in an East Texas drawl that sounded for all the world like he was accustomed to saying things like, "Draw, partner."

The pilot stared at the horizon. The ghostly silhouettes of small buildings and scruffy trees appeared on the night vision display. "Latigo Key dead ahead."

***

Menser and Gilder stood in the center of the abandoned town's single intersection. A few minutes before, Menser had instructed the pilot to fly back to Miami and return for them at sundown, some fourteen hours from now.

"It's... it's in perfect shape," Gilder said. Here was a town abandoned for nearly fifty years, but the buildings weren't in disrepair. No windows were broken, roofs were intact, the lawns had even been mowed.

"The cars used to be sitting where they were left in 1989," Menser said. "Hurricane about twenty years ago swept most of them into the harbor."

"Who's maintaining all this?"

"We do. The NRO. My order. A crew comes in and repairs anything that needs repairing twice a year."

"But, why...?"

"Active crime scene." He shrugged. "Might have been fifty years ago but there could still be something to learn from all this. Past and the future, Gilder. Past always comes back and I'll be damned but I'm beginning to think the future visits us as well."

"Colonel?"

"Nothing. Not important. What did Secretary Cook tell you in regard to me?"

"Umm, not sure what you mean, Colonel?"

Menser shook his head. "Son, you have got to learn how to lie if you are going to do my job someday."

"I don't want your job, sir."

"Yeah, that's why I picked you. You're a good man, Tony." Menser smiled - it didn't happen often. "That's right. I've picked you to be my successor when the time comes. Don't let it go to your head. I wanted you with me so I could impart what passes as wisdom from me."

"You really are going to turn yourself over to Kincaid, aren't you?"

"If Akimi Maru dies? Yeah, I am. Odds are they'll save her. They're a lot smarter than us - which never fails to scare the shit out of me."

"Sir, all due respect? Why me? Why pick me?"

"Got a story for you. My old man was a hateful son of a bitch. Raised hunting dogs when he wasn't drunk off his ass. Old man had a system for raising prize winning hounds: you send them out on a hunt. The ones that come back first? You put them down - they're too aggressive. The ones that come back last? You put them down as well - they're too lazy. You keep the ones who aren't too aggressive and not too lazy."

Gilder frowned.

"Yeah, he killed dogs. I hated that asshole. Bitch of it is? His system works. I use it myself. A man comes into the NRO with too much ambition? I put him down - sometimes literally. He's only looking out for himself, and this job is too important for any man's ambition. We're trying to save the country and that's more important than ambition. Likewise, if someone comes in here and treats it as a nine to five job? I run his ass off for the same reason."

"Makes sense, I guess," Gilder said.

"That's why I've picked you to be my replacement. You're level headed and you know what's at stake. Now, I'll ask you again: what did Secretary Cook talk to you about in regard to me?"

"He asked me to keep an eye on you."

"He's afraid I'm slipping?"

Gilder shrugged. "Not in so many words, no."

"I am slipping, Tony."

Gilder paused. "What do you mean?"

"I missed that girl on purpose. Blew the head off a parking meter instead. I wanted her to know I could have taken her out."

"But you didn't."

Menser shook his head. "In so doing, I lost Diadem and quite likely our only hope of mounting any defense against the Church of Morpheus. I've been fighting this war since the 1980s and I dropped the ball because..." His voice trailed off.

Gilder watched him for a moment. "Because?"

Menser sighed. "Not important. The important part is this: The Church of Morpheus is the greatest threat to this country in its history. Communism, Fascism, none of it even comes close to the danger Sister and her flock represent. They want to fundamentally change what it means to be human, Mr. Gilder. I can no longer trust myself one hundred percent. At some point, perhaps very soon, I will need to hand off leadership to you."

"You know, I missed her with a lot more shots than your one, Colonel," Gilder said.

"Yeah, but you missed her because you're a lousy shot. I never miss."

Gilder laughed. "Hardly makes me a candidate to replace you."

"This job isn't about being able to kill effectively, Mr. Gilder. It's about being able to think effectively. It's about having enough intelligence and imagination to realize just exactly what you're up against and finding a way to conquer it. You have that. Which puts you head and shoulders above the rest of our current and most of our past government employees at all levels."

The sun was beginning to rise and the abandoned streets of Latigo Key were being revealed in all their late 80s splendor. A tired arcade stood beside a video store across from where Gilder and Menser stood. The video store had a faded advertisement for Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure. The movie theater at the end of the block advertised Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in a broken string of red plastic letters on the chipped, white marquee.

"It's like a time machine," Gilder whispered.

Menser looked at him curiously, "What did you say?"

"I said it's like a time machine."

"Yeah, I suppose." Menser shook his head. "I come here every once in a while. I feel like if we could just understand what happened here in 1989, what the Church did to these people? Maybe we could figure out a way to stop them."

***

Ninety miles to the south, Cathy Greene di Hecate sat naked on the sand beside Tracy and held her tight. "It started out such a normal day." She laughed. "But nothing was normal, not on Latigo Key. It hadn't been normal on my little island for years... it's just that none of us knew it..."

***

Key West Florida

Thursday, June 8, 1989

Cathy Greene did a spinning back kick. She had been practicing and she was getting good at it. So good in fact that she had added an improvisation: she had leaped two feet in the air on her left leg before swinging her right foot in an arc behind her. A spin of 370 degrees with her foot at exactly the same height as her Sensei's head.

It was glorious, that feeling of leaving the ground, her body obeying her wishes to the letter. She felt free! Unfettered by anything, even gravity.

It wasn't until she encountered her Sensei's blocking right forearm that she realized she had thrown a technique to his face - a faux pas of the highest degree.

She realized what she had done at the last instant. If not for her instructor's skill, her foot would have struck the right side of his head, potentially hurting him severely.

Sensei Douglas was rocked to the side by the force of the blow and he crashed to the mat.

Cathy dropped to her knees beside him. "Oh, God! Sensei? Are you okay? I am so sorry."

Sensei Douglas sat up slowly, blinking. "Jesus, Cathy..."

"I didn't mean to. I just got carried away. How many knuckle push ups should I do? One hundred? Two hundred?"

Sensei began to laugh. "Just hang on a second... let me get my wits about me, okay?"

"Are you sure you're okay?"

He held up his hand. "I'm fine. Just... that was some real Chuck Norris shit... where did you learn that?"

"I don't know I just... it just seemed like the right move. I wasn't thinking."

"It was amazing. Don't ever do it again but... wow."

Cathy laughed. She liked Sensei Douglas. He had been a Green Beret and, while he didn't talk much about his career, she was fairly certain he had been an exemplary soldier.

"Help me up," Sensei said.

Cathy stood up and held out her hand. She pulled it back. "Wait. Are you going to throw me onto the mat as punishment?"

Sensei grinned. "Would I tell you if I were going to?"

Cathy laughed and held out her hand. "I suppose not."

"Help me up, Bruce Lee."

She pulled him to his feet.

She'd been taking karate at this small dojo on Key West for about a year. She'd joined on a whim.

Cathy had been shocked when she progressed so quickly. In a month, she would test for her black belt. Sensei had stopped teaching her at the same time as the other students, giving her private lessons instead.

The other students just couldn't keep up with the 5'11" brunette.

"You know there's a tournament in Miami this weekend, right?" Sensei Douglas said.

Cathy laughed. "No, I don't think so..."

"Cathy, I really think you could win."

Cathy shook her head and looked at the floor. "This weekend I'm helping my husband barbecue lobster tails and drinking Margueritas."

"Hey, I'm serious. I think you could go to the Olympics in a few years..."

Cathy scoffed. "Oh, come on, Sensei. A forty year old moth..." She paused and frowned. What had she been about to say? Mother? She wasn't a mother. She and Dan had no kids.

"You may be forty, but you'll mop the floor with the twenty year olds... if you don't kill one." He rubbed his forearm.

Cathy shook her head. "I'm in this to stay healthy. I don't want to be the next Ralph Maccio to your Mr. Miyagi."

"Fine. One hundred."

"One hundred what?"

"One hundred knuckle push ups. And, while you're doing them? Repeat to yourself: I will not throw techniques to the face in Sensei Douglas's Dojo. Understood?"

Cathy smiled and dropped to the floor, her knuckles pressed into the hardwood. "Hai, wakarimashita, Sensei."

***

Cathy rubbed her sore knuckles in the dressing room and smiled. Even punishment in Karate class was fun.

Me, in the Olympics? She laughed as she took off her white gi and carefully folded her brown belt before placing both in her gym bag.

At forty, she was healthier than she had been twenty years before. Firm muscles had replaced the admittedly small amount of flab she had in her youth - Cathy had been a bean pole until two years ago. She had started putting on muscle even before karate.

The change in her over the past few years went beyond just the physical. She had a positive outlook. She couldn't remember the last time she had felt anxious or even sad.

The overhead lights in the dressing room were big hanging fluorescents and one of them was going bad. The light began to blink and hum.

What was it called? The ballast. The ballast was going bad and...

It hummed louder and Cathy's eyes fluttered back in their sockets. Everything went black.

When she came to, she was standing naked in the middle of the dressing room, her fingers pumping in and out of her soaking wet pussy as she came.

What's happening to me?!

Her internal muscles squeezed and milked her probing fingers as her stomach clenched tight in orgasm.

"God, God... God!" She squealed through clenched teeth.

A stroke?! Had she had a stroke? Or, could epilepsy develop out of the blue at her age? She trembled as she looked at the small white clock on the dressing room wall: 12:35. She had started getting dressed at 12:10.

Twenty-five minutes. She had lost twenty-five minutes.

And this wasn't the first time - on four separate occasions over the last year she had lost time.

She sat down on the wooden bench and pulled her soaked fingers from her quim.

Her gym bag was open, and her Cherry Bomb Red lipstick lay beside it on the bench.

She stared at it.

Why had she opened her lipstick?

She stood up and looked in the mirror.

Her lips were painted with a thick coat of Cherry Bomb Red.

But that was the least of it.

The words 'Cum Slut Cathy' were written in red lipstick on her chest above her full breasts.

Get a grip, Cathy, she thought. She needed to get a handle on this... whatever it was... but first things first. It was 12:35 so she had missed the 12:30 ferry back to Latigo Key. The next one wouldn't be until 4:00 PM.

She needed to shower and get this... vulgarity off her. Then she needed to find some way to get home.

"And then I'll just check myself into the looney bin," she whispered.

***

William "Wink" Wanker, Jr. was double-checking the hold before leaving the Key West Marina. A morning spent fishing had made him $750.00 - not bad. He had one dejected looking Mahi Mahi and an ass-ugly Grouper left in the tank. Somebody back home would probably want them.

"How was the fishing, Wink?"

He looked up to see Cathy Greene smiling at him from the dock. "Hey, Missus Greene! What are you doing here?"

"I had... an appointment in town and I missed the ferry." She was wearing a pair of cutoff blue jean shorts and a paisley print black bikini top with her old flip flops.

"I was just getting ready to head back to Latigo. Hop on, Missus," Wink said.

"Wink, you're a life saver. Listen I'm going to pay you..."

"Ahh, your money's no good. Ain't costin' me a dime extra to take you along, Missus."

Cathy smiled and shook her head. "Wink - we've known each other for thirty years. I think you can call me Cathy, don't you?"

"Sure thing." Wink took off his beat up baseball cap and ran his fingers through his thinning blonde curls. "Cathy it is then. Can you get the bow line for me?"

She gave him a salute. "Aye, aye, Cap'n."

She slipped off her flip flops and stepped over the gunsel and onto the bow.

She was a beautiful woman and Wink couldn't help but notice her. Looks wise, she was somewhere between Julie Newmar and Linda Carter.

Not that he would ever cheat on his Margaret. He'd sooner die.

She cast off the line like a woman who had spent her entire life on an island surrounded by boats and sailors - which, of course, she was.

Then she sat down on the bow and looked out toward the open sea.

Wink smiled and started the engine.

He pulled away from the dock and threaded out through the tied up yachts and sailboats.

Wink reached over and turned on the radio.

"WLKY, Lucky 100.1, Key Latigo. Up next we have "She Drives Me Crazy" by Fine Young Cannibals..." a man said over the radio.

Cathy spun around and slid down from the deck to stand beside him by the wheel. "Is that Willy?"

Wink rolled his eyes. "It is. They gave my son noon to three on Thursdays at the radio station. Let him play whatever he wants... God help us. What's a Fine Young Cannibal, anyway? I miss Jethro Tull, Bread..."

"We're getting old, Wink."

"I'm gettin' old. You island girls like my Margaret just keep gettin' younger."

"How many years have you and Margaret been together?"

Wink laughed. "Ahh, thirty years in August. Best catch I ever landed. How about you and Dan?"

"Twenty-one years back in April." She smiled. "Best catch I ever landed as well."

"Well, me and Dan are both lucky men."

They left the harbor and reached open water a few minutes later.

Fine Young Cannibals ended, and Willy Wanker returned to the microphone. "WLKY time is 12:55 PM and it's time for news from the Associated Press..."

The news broadcast started but along with it came a low buzzing across the speakers.

Wink lowered his head and closed his eyes.

Cathy mirrored his actions.

The buzzing continued as they both raised their heads and opened their eyes.

Wink eased back the throttle and cut the engine.

Cathy went aft and dropped the anchor.

Then she turned around, her eyes half-closed.

She licked her lips and untied the back of her bikini top, freeing her firm breasts. Then she pushed the cutoffs down.

Her hard body glistened in the noonday sun. She kept her pubic hair shaved and she gently fingered her protruding clit. She bit her lip as she stared at Wink. "Show me."

Wink pushed down his jeans and boxers revealing his long, thick cock which was beginning to stiffen.

Cathy smiled and walked toward him, swaying her hips. She dropped to her knees and took his stiff cock in her right hand.

She let her lips brush across the engorged head and licked the tip. "I missed your cock," she breathed. It was her voice but not quite. This voice was throatier, sultrier. "The other afternoon in the drug store? When you fucked me and Margaret in the aisle?"

"I missed Cum Slut Cathy." Wink said. His affable, good old boy demeanor was gone. He stared down at Cathy and gave her a confident smile.

She laughed and opened her mouth wide, inhaling his ten inch cock and letting it slide past the back of her throat.

It slid down and down as Wink moaned. He ran his fingers through her long black hair.

This Wink didn't know Cathy Greene, but he knew Cum Slut Cathy intimately. He knew she would drain his dick if he let her.

But Wink remembered her tight pussy and how it had felt when he took her at the pharmacy. She had been locked in a sixty-nine with Margaret on the bottom. He had fucked her from behind as Margaret had licked his balls.

He wanted to feel that tight hole again.

He pulled his dick out of her mouth as she protested.

"I want it on my face... in my mouth... on my tits," she whimpered. She was a sex kitten now, her lip pouting.

He turned her around and pulled her to the side of the boat. Then he bent her over the railing.

Her pussy was practically dripping as he gave her his cock.

"Mmm, yeah," Cathy laughed. The femme fatale voice again.

"Fucking tight..."

She clenched her muscles and Wink groaned.

"Promise me you'll feed me your delicious cum?" Cathy asked.

"Mmmph..." Wink pushed his thick middle finger against the pucker of her asshole. "What if I decide to take your ass?"

She laughed. "Then I especially want your big cock in my mouth, Wanker."

He laughed with her and began to pump in and out of her tight pussy.

"Oh, God, yes... I need fucked... it's been hours..."

"Goddamn, how can you be so fucking tight, Cathy? You're like a vice."

Cathy was leaning harder on the railing and thrusting back to meet his movements.