Concierge

by Stella Barcelona

  Pic gave her a slight smile. “Joke, Andi. Mom was allergic to peanuts, but I could eat them. Just not around her. I don’t think there’s anything I’m allergic to, Doc, though I haven’t had to think about it in a while. Can’t remember being allergic to medicines or food.”

  “Take a full dose. It’s going to make you drowsy. Which gets me to my final point, which I want you to focus on before you start falling asleep. I suspect it’s been a hell of a long time since you’ve seen a doctor, and there might be things other than this cold that are bugging you. You can tell me about any concern that you have. And no matter what happens tonight, I’m returning tomorrow for a recheck. Probably in the evening. So, if you’re not sure about telling me something tonight, you can tell me tomorrow. Understand?”

  “Just the cold, Doc,” Pic said. “All I’m looking for is to feel better. Can’t remember when I felt this bad.”

  “I promise you’ll start to feel better soon. Now, at this point I’d normally ask everyone else in the room to leave. But I want to make sure you’re okay with that.”

  Pic glanced at Andi, then Gabe, with wide eyes and a quick headshake. His wide-eyed moment of panic was replaced with narrow-eyed skepticism, directed at Cavanaugh. “I’m not getting naked for you.”

  “There’s no need for that. Though I’d like for you to take your shirts off. Normally I’d be doing a chest x-ray with someone if they sounded like you do, but I might be able to avoid getting you to go to my office if—” He lifted the business end of the stethoscope and wagged it in the air. “—if I can listen close and figure out what’s really going on in those lungs of yours.”

  Pic frowned as those words sank in. “You going to give me a shot?”

  “Probably. Maybe two.” Benjamin nodded. “I’ll decide after I listen to your chest.”

  “Arm or butt?”

  “They’ll hurt less in your hip.”

  Pic glanced at Andi and Gabe. “Clear out, guys.”

  Chapter Twenty Five

  Concierge

  As I left the Gallery opening, I received news that our reapers had pulled in three light-eyed, fair-skinned, blond females from homeless encampments in San Francisco, Boston, and Oahu. Before the reapers get paid, they conduct at-home pregnancy tests, hoping for bonus money. None of these new women are pregnant.

  I can fix that.

  With acquisitions this good, my partner and I conduct an immediate assessment. We won’t waste these assets on our organ donation line. Even homely white women have a high market value in the sex trade, but that comes with a host of variables. Flat out sales are fast and expedient, though leasing is an option for select clients.

  And then there’s our breeding program, through which we lease the women when they’re pregnant and sell the babies for adoption when they’re born. Our breeding program is unsurpassed, and the benefits, in both remuneration and entertainment—mine—are off the charts. Infants are the cream cheese icing on my carrot cake. In some depraved, impoverished areas of the world, babies can be purchased for as little as two hundred dollars. That’s not ever going to happen here. Healthy white babies in my world-wide black market fetch anywhere from seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to a cool one million.

  Acquisition assessment meant postponing my playtime. Eve, the pregnant girl we’d scooped up on Friday, was unusual. Rarely do acquisitions come in so perfect and so pregnant. Eve had been ready for placement in a matter of hours. Usually it takes weeks. Sometime months. And some of them never manage to get pregnant, even though our stud program is designed to guarantee results.

  The project at hand is how to make today’s acquisitions fetch top dollars. In the sex trade, a fair-skinned female will always bring in money, but a beautiful, blonde with double D tits, pretty teeth, and skin polished to perfection will bring in a hell of a lot more.

  Our business thrives on more. More money. More of the illusion of perfection and exclusivity. I’m the Concierge, and I sell quality. I don’t sell ugly. I sell fucking fantasies—literally—and evidently, my clients don’t fantasize about making it with someone who looks better with the lights off.

  My partner and I meet in our office for a few hours of work. He settles into his desk chair with a tumbler of scotch. He loves this part of our work. I used to love it, but my restlessness now infects everything I do, and as I look at him, I realize I’m more than bored with him.

  Our desks face each other, and the wall of video monitors is to my right. My partner powers up his desktop computer, while I leave mine alone. The screen saver of Andi, painting in Crescent Park, taken a few days ago by one of my reapers who I pay to keep tabs on her, suits me just fine.

  We’re intertwined in more than just business matters. He cannot exist without me. I established that fact on day one with the mind-fuck I pulled on him. I’m the dominant one in this relationship, and I take dominance to a new level. He has no idea of the calculated moves on my part that went into our first, seemingly by-chance meeting. When we met, I already knew I’d establish myself as the Concierge. I had the imagination required for the start-up of what’s now become our one-of-a-kind enterprise. My partner had the seed money, necessary skills, and most importantly, the desire to make me happy.

  On his own, he was deviant enough for me to turn him into a mini-monster. I nurtured his deviant side. I also brought to the table ideas, determination, ambition, and enough contacts to make those first few critical sales. Ours is a partnership with roots in the depths of hell, fed by the devil himself.

  Using video monitors, we start a head to toe analysis. First up, the Hawaii-Kai woman. The reaper’s camera does a slow pan from head to toe. She looks to be about twenty. She’s drugged and can barely keep her baby blue eyes open. She’s lying naked, spread-eagled, on her back.

  “Why does everyone have tattoos?” my partner grumbles, as he starts typing, creating a file for this acquisition. Each medical procedure goes into a flow chart that outlines the steps from acquisition to sale. From a drawer, I pull out matches, a fresh box of long tapers, and light the first one.

  “Put her down for laser work. That tat’s got to go,” I say, as the camera shows a crude, black, peace sign on her shoulder.

  “Great bone structure,” my partner says, typing, as the camera scrolls in for a close-up of her face.

  “High cheekbones. Square jaw. Nice. Strong shoulders. Fantastic hips,” I add. “Right amount of softness. A little too fat on the thighs. Liposuction needed.”

  “Agreed.” He types for a few seconds.

  “Not too much, though. I see her as a curvy platinum blonde. We’ll feature her as a Marilyn.”

  My partner stares at the video monitor, then nods and resumes typing. “Fantastic idea.”

  “With enhancements, she’ll qualify as top shelf merchandise,” I say. “We’ll do a video auction. Platinum blond hair, red lips.”

  “Lips need filler. And her face and arms, even her chest, will need post-laser peels and bleaching creams. Too much sun exposure.” He types more.

  I sip on ice-cold vodka, and light another taper, creating a mini bonfire of dripping tapers on my silver tray as I keep one eye on the wall-mounted monitor. “Tits are way too small. Hell. They look like bananas. Implants needed. Desperately.”

  “Yes,” my partner chuckles. “C?”

  “No,” I say, threading my index finger through the delicious, warm wax puddling on the silver tray that I use for this purpose. “You know better than that. Double D.”

  “But that’s too large for her hips.” The whine in my partner’s voice annoys me to no end.

  “Hell,” I snap. “Milo?”

  Milo is our Hawaiian reaper who is delivering this potential beauty. “Yes, Concierge?”

  “Take a rest for a couple of minutes.”

  The camera goes from live to a still shot. I mute the audio and glare at my partner. “Don’t start whining. We’ve been through this before. You can’t turn every woman into your goddamn fantasy
girl.”

  “Why the hell not?” he says, with a marked frown. “I know what’s waiting for you in your bedroom. And I know what you did last night.”

  “Goddammit, you sound like a whiny teenager. If you’re going to claim this acquisition as yours, go ahead and do it up front.”

  “Look who’s talking,” my partner says. “The woman you burned last night wasn’t supposed to be reduced to organ donation, for God’s sake. Do you want the analysis of how much it cost to prep that woman? I have it right he-”

  “Not no, but fuck no.”

  He clicks a couple of times, then glares at me. “She spent six weeks at our clinic. Those resources could have been dedicated elsewhere. I estimate the value at sixty three thousand dollars. With the improvements we made, she had the potential to bring in a cool one point two million, while now, at best, she’ll bring in seven hundred thousand. Because we can’t deliver her alive, and we certainly can’t deliver that body anywhere. We’ll have to harvest her organs and dispose of the rest.”

  “Save it. I’m not going to fight with you about money.”

  His glare intensifies. Like I’m supposed to give a rat’s ass about his moods. “How many times do I have to tell you that putting out cigarettes on someone’s back will lead to trouble?”

  “You’re paranoid,” I say.

  “One hundred and fifty burns!”

  I raise a brow, mocking him. “You counted? Sounds like someone really needs to get a life.”

  “You’re obsessed with Andi Hutchenson. With what happened to her in her kidnapping.”

  I glance at my screensaver, which has changed to another picture of Andi, this one as she stares at the sky above the Saint Louis Cathedral. Truth is, I’ve always had a thing for candles and flames during sex. When I learned what Victor Morrissey did to Andi’s back, I was riveted. I’ve wanted to touch those scars for two and a half years now. At this point, the wait is killing me.

  “Not a goddamn newsflash. Come on. You know that. And you’re not mad about the money. We have more than enough of that. So what if my fucking costs us a few bucks? I’m goddamn bored. You understand what I mean when I say bored?”

  I pause, letting that sink in, because my boredom threatens his very existence. He lives terrified for the day I decide to terminate our partnership, both of which are constant threats I use against him.

  “You know I get restless when I’m bored,” I say, putting a cajoling pout in my voice. I know he can’t resist it. “And we certainly have the capability to cover my tracks. So where’s the harm in letting me have some fun?”

  He glares at me, but underneath the glare, I can see that I’m winning. Of course I am. Because he likes what our millions can buy him. And he especially likes the unfettered access he has to doing anything he wants, at any time, with any one of our assets. And even more than that, he craves the opportunity to touch me.

  Which I allow, but sparingly. Truth is, I’m flattered that this man, who has a predilection for platinum blond, very young, females with perfectly proportioned bodies and equally beautiful sixteen year-old-boys, is obsessed with touching me any way I will allow it.

  “You’re just upset I didn’t invite you to play,” I say, because I have his number.

  His cheeks become flushed. He’s waiting for an invitation. Dear God, why is everything so goddamn easy? The only thing in my life right now that isn’t easy is my obsession with Andi. And that’s about to change. I study him as my taper burns, reading my partner’s sour expression, wondering whether to goad him further.

  Nah, I decide. He’s cranky enough tonight.

  Lucky him, I decide to back off, and offer a carrot, rather than a stick. “When we’re done here, why don’t you join me tonight?”

  He relaxes a little. He gives me an eager nod. “Thank you.”

  “But you have to stay silent. In the corner. No touching me or her. Unless I tell you. And then—” I pause. “You can only do what I tell you to do.”

  He takes a deep swig of scotch and nods.

  “Say it.”

  “Yes, Concierge,” he says, his voice gruff, as he imagines watching me do the things I like to do, which he knows I plan to do with my Andi doppelganger.

  “Are you getting hard?”

  “Yes.”

  I smile, and this one’s real. Because even though I love a warm, moist pussy, there’s nothing wrong with a good, stiff cock, either. Of course this makes me bisexual, but I’ve never really bothered with labels. Like I’ve said a million times, about the only thing I won’t fuck is a corpse. That’s actually something my partner likes to do. I prefer to do it with the living. And my favorite ever was Andi, and trust me, that says a goddamn lot.

  Maybe that’s what I’ll do tonight. I’ll let my partner do me while I have my first delicious taste of my faux Andi. She’ll be good for at least a few nights, if I’m careful. So having my partner in the room to please me isn’t a bad idea at all.

  My partner has a nice, smooth cock. When he’s aroused, it’s wide and heavy, and he enhances his erections with drugs. I pretend that I’m doing him a favor whenever I’m on the receiving end of it.

  “Yes, what?” I keep my voice stern, keenly aware of my partner’s deep-rooted need to be subservient.

  “Yes, Concierge. Thank you.”

  I nod, and gesture with my head to the video screen. “Back to work.” I reconnect to Milo. “Show us her teeth.”

  As expected, they’re chipped, with yellowing wear and tear that’s consistent with methamphetamine use.

  “Caps,” I say.

  My partner nods. “With procedures thus far, we’re at two months out. Meanwhile, we’ll monitor ovulation.”

  Because no matter what she looks like, and no matter what we can get for her in a straight-out sale when we feature her as a Marilyn, she’s worth more to us as a potential baby maker.

  When cosmetic procedures and surgical enhancements are complete and our assets are healing, we move the product to the farm where we can oversee the mating program. Though we do it the old-fashioned way as frequently as possible, we don’t leave things to chance. We make sure we have an ample supply of sperm and, when the acquisitions are ovulating, we do a variety of artificial insemination techniques in addition to plain old fucking.

  In the early days, we sold sperm. We learned it isn’t worth the trouble, even on the black market. A shot of ejaculate, no matter how it’s packaged, brings in about one thousand to fifteen hundred bucks. And that’s if the sperm count is high enough. Which means I can’t hook male acquisitions to a masturbator—a glorified milking machine that simulates the feel of a pulsing vagina—watching porn while shoving libido enhancers down their throats, for days on end. Also, end users of sperm are particular about ejaculate that’s infected with HIV and STDs. In the population segment where my product comes from, that’s a problem.

  Rather than waste time and effort selling sperm, it’s better to impregnate females, lease them while they’re pregnant, and when the baby is born, sell that. Then impregnate mama again, and start the lease process all over again. I have fifteen clients, world-wide, who I keep almost continuously supplied with pregnant women.

  We finish with our future Marilyn, then turn to the Boston beauty. Finally, at two a.m., we turn off the video image of our San Francisco blonde. We’re done with work for the night.

  My Andi look alike awaits. And this one sure better live up to my expectations, because if not, there’s only one place I’m going next. I’m bored with waiting. Bored with being bored. I want Andi.

  And what I goddamn want, I get.

  Chapter Twenty Six

  Andi

  Monday, February 15, 2:15 a.m.

  Andi climbed the first flight of stairs in the main house, debating whether she’d try to sleep in her bed, or on the couch in her studio. She’d lingered in the first floor of the guesthouse as the examination had taken place. The doctor had diagnosed a severe respiratory infection. Definitely b
ronchitis, bordering on pneumonia. He’d given Pic a couple of shots, and gave her and Pic, whose eyes were heavy and closing as he listened, instructions for medicine.

  Now, with Pic sound asleep, she was exhausted, but that didn’t mean sleep would come. Too many things had happened in the last twenty-four hours. To avoid a bad bout of night terrors, she needed to paint for a while. Needed to soothe herself, which was what she’d been trying to do when she’d had the bright idea of burning her journals.

  When she reached the second floor landing, she saw light spilling from the open door to Gabe’s room. His voice was low, but his words were audible as she approached the doorway. “Doc, I know it’s late, but would you mind drawing it when you get home?”

  Silence.

  “Great. Once you do, take a few photos, then either email or text it to us. I’m texting you now, so all you have to do is reply and it’ll come to both me and Ragno.”

  Concern for what he was talking about bloomed, as she looked at him. With his back propped against a mound of pillows, Gabe wore black shorts, and— oh God—not a damn thing else. Miles of broad chest, rock hard abs, and long legs graced the mahogany wood sleigh bed. Bare feet, crossed at the ankles, rested on the white linens, since he’d shoved the covers to the foot of the bed. His iPad lay on the sheets, an oversized phone was next to it, and a laptop sat on his thighs. Just looking at all that golden satin-smooth skin, and inhaling the musky-sweet scent of a freshly-showered male, made her breath catch in a way that reminded her of how long it had been since she felt full-fledged desire.

  It came back with a rush.

  Damp, dark hair was going every which way but flat, presumably from the rubbing he’d done with the towel that was slung on the floor beside the bed. Muscles, from his neck to his shoulders to his belly, rippled as he leaned forward and typed on the laptop keyboard. His abs were tight and ridged, without a roll where his navel met his shorts. Tight, tawny skin accented every bulge, every ripple that signified pure, muscular strength.