by George Olney
Having a Blast
The Further Adventures of Frenchy
by
George W. Olney
All text copyright 2015 by George Olney.
This is a work of fiction and all characters are a product of my slightly off kilter imagination. No resemblance to a real person is expressed or intended by the author, although just about anybody might think they recognize someone in it. Fact is, it's not them.
Cover quote by Val C. on Baen's Bar. Yep, he really did write that.
This book is respectfully dedicated to Steve Green for his dedicated editorial assistance, Frenchy's fan club for their enthusiastic support, and the folks on Baen's Bar, especially Edith and Val C., beta readers without whom the story would have not quite turned out the way it did.
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FRENCHY
Oh, damn, babe! You realize that's the first time
we ever did that routine with clothes on?
-Dallas Ashby
Once I married her, folks,
no two days have been the same since.
- Roger Whittaker
Chapter 1
The man crouched dangerously in front of her looked about like Frankenstein's monster, and just as monstrously ready to break her neck, back, or other readily available body part. At the moment she was wondering just what in the hell possessed her to voluntarily get into this mess - and just how in the hell she was going to get out of it.
One of the people watching this bout was a tall, muscular man with a patch over his left eye and long hair swept back in a ponytail. He had a silver earring in the shape of a skull dangling from his right ear and was dressed in the Tribal style, bare chested with a leather vest and leather breeches. The hilt of a knife protruded from a sheath sewn into one boot top. He also had a huge grin splitting his craggy face.
Laugh, you big lug, she silently promised, I'll settle with you later.
If there was a later.
The monster in front of her snapped a wicked kick at her head and she dodged beneath it, grabbing for his ankle and missing. They began a deadly circling and she wondered just what she was supposed to do next. This bout was, and was intended to be, a whole lot more difficult than her training. Basically, she needed help.
Duh. Oh yeah, she needed help big time.
Suddenly, it came to her.
She snapped straight and bounced back on her toes a few steps, getting a little room. Her face took on a thousand yard stare as she tried to remember just who that woman was on that goofy British TV show. Oh, yeah, Mrs. Peele, or Peel, that was it.
Grae, the barbaric looking customer with the eye patch, watched Frenchy disengage and get a faraway look on her face. He took a moment to admire the big, vibrant, Junoesque blonde that was now his wife and so much a part of his life. Alone in the cluster of people gathered around the match, he knew what she was doing. He smiled again as he wondered how many people watching this were going to get a shock at what was coming next.
Frenchy felt herself gain the confidence of a mistress of martial arts. Her motions were no longer tentative. She already knew, courtesy of the last several months of training, what to do. Suddenly, she was no longer a not-very-confident student facing a master. Now she knew she could do it. Her normal dancer's grace became augmented by a confident poise as she faced her oversized opponent. Her legs and arms swept in the graceful, deliberate arcs of a trained body under complete control.
Again, the man tried a snap kick at her head. This time, her perfectly executed counter pushed his leg further past her, throwing him off balance and setting him up as the flowing sweep of her own leg swung around and took his supporting leg from under him as she spun. He wasn't given time to recover, either. He hit the mat on his back, only to have a hundred and forty five pounds of large, highly toned, extremely curvaceous blonde land square on his chest. The killing blow to his unprotected throat jerked just short of contact.
"Point!"
The guy under Frenchy would have been happy to concede the fall, but a hundred and forty five pounds jumping on your chest is still a hundred and forty five pounds, no matter how shapely its package. He didn't have the breath to comment.
Frenchy sprang to her feet with a grin. Now that felt good!
The rest of the people crowded around the training mat in the middle of the gym floor applauded the bout while Grae came up and slapped Frenchy on her shoulder, eyeing the workout-suited contestants with their full contact protective gear.
With a knowing little grin that Grae shared, she acknowledged the fact that her shoulder wasn't exactly where he'd wanted to give her a mild swat. At least, thank God, she'd gotten him to stop patting her on the butt in public! She despaired of ever being able to make any other changes as major.
"Well," he commented in his dry voice, "it looks like you've just passed your last qualification exam for agent status, mistress. How about it, Inspector, what's your ruling?"
Inspector Xiximati Connor of the Federation Enforcement Arm, instructor in charge of evaluating Cadet Frenchy Kwakanni's unarmed combat skills, nodded with some obvious physical difficulty and a loud wheeze. He was still trying to get his breath back. The rest of the surrounding agents broke into loud applause again.
Connor was universally regarded with dread by the Arm's Enforcers, since all of them remembered their own time on the mat with the oversized, terrifying Inspector. Passing unarmed combat was considered one of the toughest hurdles to Enforcer, a sworn agent, since to get a pass you had to score a point on Connor or get him to acknowledge a tie. Not an easy task without a spectacular set of bruises.
Grae, a Master Warrior of the Kwaa'kani - the Yellow Knife Tribe of the Lycanthi - former Imjin Scout and Chief Inspector in the Federation Enforcement Arm, had considered his bout with Connor nothing more than goodhearted fun. Connor was one of the few men that had ever made him exert himself in a fight. It was a fond memory he occasionally thought on, but that fifteen second bout was one Connor preferred not to remember.
As they strolled companionably back to the showers, Grae leaned over and whispered in her ear, "All right, mistress, tell me. Just what persona did you take on during the bout? I know full well that wasn't you out there. You were using your psi, again."
Frenchy nodded. After she was kidnapped by Grae from the strip joint back on Earth where she headlined the show, the rather unconventional start to their relationship, one of the tests he gave her during her initial physical was for psi, paranormal mental abilities. Frenchy scored high in a number of undefined areas, one of which turned out to be the ability to create and take on any persona she could visualize. Now that she was aware of it, she was fast developing that ability as a reflexive aid in any number of situations, such as her final test for Agent status. "I was thinking of an actress I used to watch in one of the old British TV shows, The Avengers. In the show, she was a master of unarmed conflict. I always admired her grace and ability and I guess I absorbed more of it than I thought. Sure helped me out there on the mat!"
Grae nodded, then hugged her shoulders as they walked along, which for him was a huge show of public affection. "Just remember, mistress, you won't have time in a real fight to pull that stunt."
Frenchy grinned at him, looking smug. "Won't have to. Now that I've done it once, it'll come back automatically whenever I need the persona."
Grae stopped in surprise, staring at her. Her gleeful expression showed her pleasure at scoring on the superior bum. "I've been working on that little skill, buddy. Found it's almost automatic, once I know what I need."
"Humph. Well I promised you a night on the town if you passed, and I guess I have to pay up. There are still a few weeks until graduation, b
ut the rest of the course is just add-ons. As soon as Connor certified you, you were an agent."
"Yup. Don't forget what else you promised."
Grae's irritated look was only partially feigned. "Trust you to remember something I'm not sure I promised."
Frenchy slapped his broad chest. "You promised, you bum. I remember it, even if you don't. Now, let me get a shower and we'll go home and get dressed up. I've never been partying in a Galactic city. I want to see some interstellar night life."
As Grae watched her trot off to the shower room, his look mingled admiration and irritation. Then he shook his head in resignation. Hell of a woman.
#####
On Frenchy's former home world of XB734, A.K.A. Terra, A.K.A. Earth, Dallas Ashby was contemplating a number of pleasant subjects. One of which, of course, was this gorgeous, isolated beach a couple of miles from Puerto Morelos, surrounded almost totally by mangroves. Another was her pleasingly plump bank account, quickly growing outrageously fat. Finally, there was the pleasant subject of just how far a girl could go if she grabbed the right opportunity at the right time and applied a hitherto unused business sense. Dallas giggled at what her law firm and accountants would say if they could see her right now, nude in a lounge chair, bikini stowed in a nearby beach bag, soaking up the rays on a hidden Mexican beach.
At least they all knew what she looked like out of a business suit. All of the guys had autographed nude pictures of her, publicity stills from her stripper's days, given after that snooty female accountant's comments about sexual harassment and "trailer trash". Dallas grinned when she fondly recalled the accountant's face as she found herself also presented with a picture, highly graphic and warmly personalized, straight from the hands of the owner of Warner and Swazie's biggest account.
Truth be known, Dallas was a real and highly successful representative of the new millennium's entrepreneurial class. She was someone who had successfully moved from a birthday suit to a business suit and made a fortune in the process.
Dallas Ashby stood slightly above five-two, when she held herself perfectly erect and fluffed up her barely-neck-length red hair. Short, yes, but the figure nature and the gym had given her would have made her a knockout, even if it had been distributed over a body a good bit taller. The effect said figure had on the male had made her a headline stripper at clubs around the country. It had also gotten her busted one night in Florida, during a period when her checkbook was suffering a severe drought and the local DA was running for reelection on a morals ticket. As it was, she just had enough money for bail.
A computer geek friend's sympathetic loan of a couch for a week, many a case of beer, and pure inspiration during the post-hangover bull sessions had created Do Dallas!, one of the original soft-core nudie sites on the Net. Do Dallas!, because of its emphasis on classy and glamorous models instead of vulgar sex, was rapidly moving to occupy on the Web the same niche Playboy had in the print world. It was also becoming as lucrative. Members and advertisers loved it.
A week of intense work and intense debauchery with Paul, the computer geek, had given him a lifetime's golden memories and put him well on the way to making himself indecently rich as well. Dallas snorted. She sometimes wondered if the guy even knew he was rich, given the way he dressed and lived. Although, she reflected, he did drive a Mercedes. She decided there was no accounting for taste. She, on the other hand, knew how to enjoy hard earned money, thank you.
She stretched herself full length languidly and sighed, an action that would have driven any given crowd of college guys totally insane if they were lucky enough to witness it. She considered laying out on the sand so she could even up her tan, then decided she was just too comfortable to move at the moment.
It was about that time the noise penetrated her golden glow. She frowned slightly, eyes closed behind her sun glasses, irritated at anything disturbing her personal perfection. Then the nature of the noise called up some long-ago memories. Damned if it didn't sound like someone stealthily moving through the mangroves. Hmm.
Reluctantly, she decided to get up and investigate. Peeping Toms didn't bother her. In her experience, those characters ran off as soon as they were challenged face to face. She simply wanted whoever or whatever it was to go away and stop intruding on the best day in ages.
She got out of the chair and stood up, trying to locate the source of the sounds. After a few moments, she spotted careful movement on the other side of a screen of mangroves. Damned if it didn't look like men in full combat gear moving along on some kind of patrol.
Bandits? Were there any guerrillas in this part of Mexico? At any rate, she had no desire to make their acquaintance. Better lie low and let them clear the area. Lie low? How? She was standing buck naked in the middle of a not particularly large beach. The water?
Yep. Get in the water. Get out a ways, with everything but her head below the surface. That ought to keep her from being noticed until those birds could clear the area, followed shortly thereafter by her.
Dallas started backing carefully towards the water, her eye intently on the spot she last saw movement. The metal object she backed into also awoke old memories and seemed strangely inevitable, given the current situation. She slowly raised her hands and turned around carefully, glancing first at the recognizable barrel of a very strange gun, then its owner, a very big and ugly thug, dressed in weird but recognizable combat gear. She smiled in what she fondly hoped was a friendly and ingratiating manner. There seemed to be only one comment to make.
"Oops."
#####
Frenchy finished the next-to-last touches on her hair and makeup then began to slip into her evening gown. It was a very special and very daring evening gown, one Grae knew nothing about. It was made to her own design and order by the manufactory in an exclusive boutique in the city, visited during one of her infrequent off times from the Academy. It was custom made, because nothing like it existed on the planet. The gown was a sleeveless tight black satin sheath, cut way low in front and much lower in back, with a thigh-high slit on the left side. The small bracelet and exquisite necklace were a bridal gift from Grae, and complemented the beautifully carved little coral stone ear posts that proclaimed her a Valued Woman of the Yellow Knife Tribe. Those ear posts were both beautiful and extremely important, a gift from Grae back when the two of them were still sorting out how they felt about each other. Only a Master Warrior such as Grae could proclaim a Valued Woman. When he gave her the ear posts, she became a Valued Woman, a person of very high status among the Tribes. Any tribesman seeing those posts would render her the greatest respect.
She put on her high heels, also custom made for the same reason as the gown, and ran a quick brush through her shoulder length blonde hair. Then she stood in front of the bedroom mirror, turning as much as she could to study the effect from all angles. Well, the front was certainly low (and lifted) enough to open more than a few male eyes wide. It was with purely evil enjoyment she noted the gown's back rode just where it was supposed to, hinting at, but not quite showing, any rear cleavage.
Devastating. She could feel that Yelen thought so, too. She was going to knock Grae's socks off and the woman that was now her sister and only existed as a very distinct personality literally in her mind (and Grae's) joined her in anticipating the fun. Yelen was looking forward with malicious female enjoyment to seeing the expression on the big lug's face when he caught his first sight of Frenchy in this little number. Only a beautiful woman in excellent shape - with a high degree of self-confidence - could wear the thing.
Frenchy paused for a moment, looking in the mirror but seeing the wild adventures of the last year. Both the good shape and the self-confidence were new things for her. A year ago, she was nothing but a nearly washed up stripper in a dead-end joint, a slowly self-destructing alcoholic. Then Grae kidnapped her into bondage one night, taking possession of her under Lycanthi Custom for companionship (and possibly - well, definitely - sex) during a long mission. In the course of gettin
g out of that little entanglement, she found herself losing her alcoholism, training as his ship's gunner, killing a disgustingly diseased monster before fighting her first space battle then becoming honorably unbound on the beautiful, deadly desert planet of Lycanth. With the help of Maev, another Arm Enforcer, she joined Grae in defeating a disgusting and dangerous plague by destroying the smugglers that harbored it. Along the way, she found herself legally adopted by Grete - who also happened to be Grae's mother - and killed the horribly diseased body of Yelen, Grae's original bondsmate. Yelen had been bonded to Grae with ties the Tribes considered mystical and holy, the highest state joining man and woman. When a couple bonded, they had become so close that a part of each was in the other's mind, separate, distinct, and real. Because of last year's adventures and Frenchy's psi, she and Grae were now mental hosts to Yelen's personality, allowing the woman to survive the death of her terminally ill body. Also due to Frenchy's psi abilities, Yelen was now as intimately bonded to her as she still was to Grae. Yelen was now truly her sister. At the same time, a lonely woman fell in love and was now married to the lethal warrior that was her kidnapper, Grae.
So now she was an almost-qualified Enforcer, also a fallout of her adventures. Busy year.
In the living room, Grae sat pondering an unaccustomed topic for him, clothing. The pondering involved a fair degree of irritation. What he wore, or didn't wear, he considered a matter of no importance, and he much preferred his comfortable leathers or his skin. Instead, he was dressed in the midnight black tunic and hose of Federation Service Full Dress uniform, complete with fighting knife belted on his right side. He regarded the uniform with mild distaste, since it required him to also wear all of his awards and decorations as well as his badge. Given his career, there was enough of the junk to cover a good portion of his sizable chest. He didn't mind the badge, but he thought the rest of it made him look like a counter display in a cheap jewelry store.