by Jesse Jordan
“You're fast. Didn't think you'd be at home.”
“Yeah well, I didn't have anything planned this morning past a workout. Nothing's going on until this afternoon. What do you want?”
“Omar Al Gazi's weapons shipment.”
“What about it?” I ask, watching as a hawk circles in the sky. “I already sent you the details. From what I'm hearing, you guys have been doing a good job of fucking with him, he's had to twice cancel the shipment because the buyers get nervous.”
“It has to be disrupted. He's shipping nerve agents.”
“No shit, I'm the one that told you guys. What the fuck you want me to do about it?”
My contact rumbles, his voice growing rough. “Watch you mouth, you're still on our payroll. Fact is, things on this end... we can't get the shipment broken up permanently. Boss man's pissed off the Israelis and the Turks. They aren't listening to us right now. They think that it's not their backyard anyway, so fuck it.”
“And I'm supposed to stick my neck out because you guys won't play kiss and make up with them? My advice is to tell the boss not to go over there and make an ass out of himself. Fuckstick.”
“My advice to you is to remember that even though you're Deep Cover, you're still an agent of the FBI, Special Agent Campo. You have orders. Disrupt the shipment. If you have the opportunity, arrest or take out The Sultan.”
“Take out? I thought you were supposed to be the good guys. Ordering hits is what The Network does.”
“You have your orders, Campo. We'll be in touch.”
The line goes dead, and I shake my head. Fuck.
Like I didn't have enough going on in my fucking life. Well, at least they want me to take out The Sultan, I already have beef with that guy. Manufactured beef, I've been trying to take him down for a while the slow way, but still beef.
Still, I think as I slide behind the wheel of my truck and watch the lake for a while, why does it feel like even though I'm supposed to be one of the good guys, I'm working for the side that's got no balls? At least in The Network, if you want to kill someone, you man the fuck up and kill them yourself.
I sigh, shaking my head. All this, for an extra sixty seven thousand dollars a year. Chump change compared to what I get to keep from The Network.
I'll give Jessica a little more time on her test, then head home. If she passes... I think I have something for her.
Jessica
When Rodrigo closes the door, it's funny how in my mind I think of him as Rodrigo when he has clothes on and Master otherwise, I wait for the second or two it normally takes for him to throw the exterior lock on my door. When there's no rattle, no little metal on wood sound that I've gotten used to, I pause, wondering if maybe he's forgotten something he wants to tell me, something he wants me to do while he's gone. Then I hear the engine on his truck start up, and I look out the narrow window that gives me a view of the outside, shocked when he pulls away.
“Rodrigo?” I ask wonderingly before I go over to my door and knock. I try the knob, and it turns easily before the door pops back, startling me. I can see my lock just sitting there, freshly screwed into the wood to keep me secure, but for some reason the bolt was never shot this time. I look out, worried. “Master? Rodrigo?”
Silence greets me, and I step out of my room, my heart in my throat. I can hear a bird singing outside, and the sound of the wind against the north side of the house, but nothing else. I feel strange creeping around, checking each room, wondering what the hell is going on.
Then it dawns on me. He didn't lock me in.
He forgot.
This is my chance to run!
I blink, shocked for a second before I hurry to Rodrigo's room. I grab the duffel bag that he uses when he brings me gifts and carry it back to my room, grabbing things quickly. I don't have any ID, but if I can get out of this town, I can easily get over to Palermo. There's a United States consulate office there. They'll hear my accent, maybe they'll let me make a call to the States, where even if Rodrigo's threat that The Network's eliminated my ID is true, they can't have eliminated Mom.
I throw what I can think of quickly in the bag, a pair of jeans, a change of underpants, a couple of t-shirts. As I do I run through what else I know. I know I'm near Caccamo, I've heard Larissa and Rodrigo use that word before, and once there was some mail left on the counter of the kitchen. If I remember Sicily right, it's not far to the northern coast, where there's a big highway that goes straight to Palermo. I've got to be able to find a bus or something that can get me there.
Still, I'm going to need supplies, and I go into the kitchen, opening the fridge. Two bottles of water, a box of crackers, a nice block of Parmesan cheese, just in case. When I open the cabinet where Rodrigo keeps the sharp knives, I stop, surprised at the plastic sandwich bag that I see inside. I take it out, my eyes widening as I see the three rolls of euro bills inside. I quickly take them out of the bag, seeing that one's a roll of twenty euro notes, another of one hundreds, and then a roll of five hundreds. I don't have time to figure out exactly how much it is, I just take the rolls and throw them into the duffel bag.
“Call it severance pay,” I whisper as I close the cabinet and head to the door. I put my outdoor shoes on and reach for the doorknob to the outside. I know that the villa's surrounded by a wall, but there has to be a way around or through the gate, it's not that high or there have to be some sort of manual controls.
Wait.
My hand freezes, so close to the doorknob that I can feel the coolness of the metal radiating the short distance to my skin. What?
What if this is a trick?
What if it's not? What if this is my chance to get away from here? What if this is my one and only chance to not be a slave?
What if you don't want to go?
I stop, pulling my hand away and thinking. My internal voice has to be crazy, or maybe it's just afraid. I mean, I've been a captive here for a long time, over two months by my count. Rodrigo's been my Master for two weeks, and before that... yeah, I've been here over two months. Of course it's afraid.
I'm not afraid. Well, not totally. I'm being serious. What if you want to stay?
Stay? Stay for what? Being locked up at night, a pet in a cage?
Stay because of him. Not in fear of him. Because of him.
You're out of your fucking mind.
It's your fucking mind, remember.
I groan, grinding the heels of my hands into my eye sockets, the pain... delicious. Like the pain of Master when he's got me in the training room, my body on fire with intense sensations, pain and pleasure and ecstasy all mixing together and overloading my brain and my body.
No other man's ever given you anything like that.
That doesn't mean it can't happen. Just because I know I like it doesn't mean Rodrigo's the only man in the world who can do it for me. Fuck, I lived an hour from New York City. You can find anything in New York. You can probably find two of everything even.
Yeah, you're right. You can find someone to tie you up, whip you, spank you or whatever. But... it won't be Master.
Yeah... well, I'm not doing this because I'm afraid of him. Got it?
Got it.
I back up from the door and take the duffel bag, putting it in the middle of the small table that we were going to eat breakfast at. I go back to my room and retrieve my now cold breakfast, eating it quickly before I take it and the other plates to the kitchen in order to start washing up.
Rodrigo said that he'll be back in a few hours. Maybe he'll like it if I have lunch ready for him. The question is, what can I make that can keep just in case he takes longer than he said? There's nothing worse than cold pasta, and I have no clue how to make pizza dough.
I think, then decide on a panzanella salad. We've got some stale bread, I can toast that up.... yeah, I think that'll work just fine. I hope Rodrigo won't mind if I use one of the sharp kitchen knives, there's no way I can cut up the bread without one.
Rodrigo
I hang out in the hills overlooking the lake for two hours, mourning my loss. There's no way she won't take the opportunity and run. I've kept her as my hostage and slave for a long time now, and while I'm not worried about the police, things on Sicily run differently than the rest of Europe, I still feel sad.
The fact is, I couldn't force her to stay any longer. I reach into my pocket, taking out the satin ribbon that I've been carrying around. It's the one I dream about, the ultimate ribbon in my mind. Part of me has been wanting to ask her to put it around her graceful, elegant neck. But that's a level of submission that has meanings, has an intensity behind it that I can't force on her, not that I ever have really. It's what made Jessica unique.
“Fuck it, makes my job easier anyway,” I whisper to myself, wiping at my right eye as some dust gets inside it and makes it water. “Bitches be holding me down.”
I get back in my truck, closing the door and thinking. The FBI must really be freaking the fuck out about The Sultan's weapons shipment to be so direct in telling me to take him down. For three years now, almost as soon as I graduated the Deep Cover course at Quantico, I've been infiltrating The Network, using a combination of my real identity and made up information to work my way in with Scoglitti. I used my villa as a quiet place of solitude, a place that I had at least a chance of privacy to think, even if Larissa drops by unexpectedly.
Eighteen months I've been working to disrupt The Sultan. I kept hoping that by feeding enough information to the FBI, that they'd use their friends the CIA or Israeli Mossad to take Omar Al Gazi down. I've fed them times and shipment details, what I knew about his locations. I knew the Italians weren't going to do shit, but I kept hoping he'd get tagged on the far end of his deliveries. Barring that, I was hoping that by planting enough seeds of doubt with Scoglitti and Rachmaninoff that The Sultan would find himself on the outs, and maybe he'd be eliminated in a nice little 'internal' matter.
No dice. Now they want me to confront him directly, to bring the two of us to full on dealings. Doing so risks three years of work in addition to my life. Never mind that if I do it wrong, I blow the entire point of my operation, which was to work internally to allow The Network to be contained. I won't say eliminated, no fucking way would the power brokers who I already know are 'customers' of The Network would let all of the skeletons out of the closet.
It's the biggest reason I've been so unsure about which side I'm on. It's all well and good to talk about being one of the good guys when you're in a nice antiseptic classroom in Quantico and you've got some stoolie who used to be the man before he got his ass in a sling and came running to Uncle Sam telling you about how bad the bad guys are. It's something else when you know that at least ten of the motherfuckers who voted on the appropriations bill that paid for your paycheck are customers of the same bad guys. Tough on crime my ass, they're tough on the criminals who won't play ball with them, that's all. Soon as you demand that Senators start paying retail for their sins, your ass is in a sling.
But now... I don't know. Being with Jessica, I've started to wonder. Sure, keeping her as my 'slave' for sure means that I'm a full fledged criminal now, I mean slavery is kinda against the fucking Constitution. But she makes me wonder about what the hell I've been doing. I have to figure out something, and I guess it's easier that Jessica's gone. I'll need the time to think, to plan, and to prepare myself for what most likely will end up with someone, or more than one someone, dead.
I drive back to my villa, hitting the remote control on the front gate, grateful at least that Jessica closed the door behind her when she left. I go up the stairs, each step feeling like a thousand pounds, and before I open the door I look out over the hills, where I'm sure she is now. “Good luck, Jessica. You were... you were worth every euro.”
I unlock and open my door, shocked by what I see. Instead of an empty, ransacked house, Jessica's dressed in my newest outfit for her, a light tan billowy skirt of unbleached cotton and a pale gray sleeveless blouse, standing over the stove in her bare feet, frying something. “Jessica?”
She turns, a smile coming to her face as she takes the pan off the fire and I smell the scent of herbs, olive oil, and toast. “Welcome home Master. How was your business?”
I close my door, taking two tries to put my keys back in my pocket, still blinking in shock. “What... what are you doing here?”
“Making lunch Master,” Jessica says, pouring the pan of toasted chunks of bread onto a sheet tray and putting them in the oven. “I'm sorry, I thought I'd have this done before you got home, but the bread needed more toasting. Would you like something besides panzanella?”
“No... no, that's just fine,” I reply wonderingly. “Thank you.”
Jessica gulps, then lowers her eyes. “I'm sorry Master, but I don't deserve your thanks. I left my room without your permission and... well, you can see the bag on the table.”
I go into the dining room, where I see my duffel bag in the middle of the table, a silent confession to what Jessica nearly did. I unzip the top and look inside, a knot working itself into a ball in my chest before loosening. She stayed. She stayed!
I take the bag to Jessica's room and set it on her bed, then go to the kitchen where she's still cooking, slicing up tomatoes with one of the kitchen knives that I'd previously not let her use. I cross my arms, forcing myself to put on a stern look. “Jessica. Set the knife down and look at me.”
She sets the knife down immediately and turns, her gray eyes swimming with doubt as I look at her. “Yes, Master?”
“When I left, you were in your room, yes?”
“Yes, Master.”
I nod, then let a whisper of a smile come onto my face. “And you passed my test. You didn't leave, you were a good slave.”
“I nearly did, Master,” Jessica says. “I'm sorry.”
I nod, and go over, grabbing a handful of her hair and forcing her head back before kissing her hard, our tongues clashing and wrapping around each other. She moans into my mouth, and I know that I was more correct than ever. She's unique, one of a kind. Two hundred and fifty thousand euro was a bargain for this woman.
“You still need to be punished, you know,” I growl when I let go of her hair and step back. “You left your room to nearly run away, you touched the knives I haven't let you use... and you took my money.”
“I know, Master.”
I watch her, warmth growing in my chest. I purse my lips, lifting an eyebrow. “So just how should I punish you?”
Jessica holds herself perfectly still, her eyes gleaming in fear and happiness as I think. Finally, I smirk. “I have a few ideas. First, you lose the right to clothing, other than your outdoor sandals, for the next twenty four hours. So go take off that dress, put it and the rest of the items in the bag away, and come back. We'll have lunch, and then we'll take care of the rest of your punishment. Understood?”
“Yes Master,” Jessica says, a wide, joyful smile lighting up her face as she gleefully prepares to accept her 'punishment.' Seriously, there's no other woman in the world like her.
“Good. You have five minutes, or else your bread's going to burn. Now go.”
I strip the fold down bed, Jessica swallowing nervously when I fold up the sheets and point. “Get on. On your knees, hands behind your back, wrists crossed.”
Jessica nods, I told her at lunch that once we came in here she wasn't allowed to speak except to answer a question, and she obeys perfectly. Kneeling, she's scared and nervous as I go over to my cabinet and take the ropes off the wall. They're kinder than what some people use, silk instead of harsh jute or manila, but useless pain is not my goal here. The goal is restriction, taking away her freedom of movement and to teach her control of her body.
I start with her wrists, looping the rope around slowly, each layer binding her tighter, tighter. I don't have the time for intricate weaving patterns, but I still make sure that Jessica is bound securely before I take her hair and tie a short cord into it before pulling her head back and th
en fastening it to her wrists. If she bends her head forward, she'll pull on her shoulders. If she keeps her wrists down, her neck will be stretched. Uncomfortable, but not injurious.
I keep going, binding her legs next using the eyelets on my wall and at the corners of the bed to keep her perfectly in the middle, her ass up, her pussy already gleaming and dripping down the inside of her thigh as I strip all the way and come around to her head. “Look at me, slave.”
She turns her head carefully, hissing when her wrists are pulled, but I was careful. When she's looking at me I nod. “You will not have a safe word for this. But, if you are truly injured, you are to tell me. The ropes will hold you, but if your legs or hands go painfully numb, you are ordered to tell me. Understand?”
“Yes Master,” she says, her eyes roaming over my body.
“Look forward,” I order, and she obeys while I go over to the tool rack, taking off my cat o' nine tails. The first lash is the hardest to make her jump, but I've whipped too many people to actually injure her. The skin on her back and ass redden, but I control the lashes just right, not letting them cut her at all. With each strike she hisses, but I can see her pussy, and I watch her face carefully, she's being driven wild by it.
“You may speak, slave.” I command as I put the cat away. Her entire back from her shoulder blades to her ass is pinkish red, and my cock is aching, hard and stiff in front of me as I look at her beautiful figure. “You took that well.”
“Please Master... punish me more,” Jessica half moans, half sobs. “Please.”
