by Robert Cook
“I assume these are merit badges earned on the way to becoming the baddest motherfucker in the whole world,” she said, and stuck her tongue into a particularly nasty circular scar, high up on his left chest.
“More like zigging when I should have been zagging,” he laughed.
Enjoying herself, she leaned over to his chest and licked one nipple, then the other before she leaned back to nibble the first one gently. She stood to work the shirt from his back, pressing one of her nipples and then the other to his lips. He licked each one, then sucked it gently, making no effort to lead her.
She stood up. “Why don’t you do the rest of this while I go to do girl things? I’ll be right back.”
Alex quickly removed his shoes and socks, then stood and folded his trousers over the chair, careful to preserve the crease. T-shirt and boxer shorts followed, also carefully folded. He eased into the king-sized bed and pulled a soft percale sheet to his waist. Caitlin came back into the room and quickly slipped under the sheet. She pushed her hand into his hair and kissed him softly, then with more attention. Her tongue darted into his mouth and flirted with his, quickly becoming more searching and aggressive in his mouth and along the inside of his lips.
“You’re a good kisser too,” she said. He smiled at her and waited.
“I think I’ll just be the aggressor tonight. Do you mind?” she murmured into his ear, reaching for him.
“Marvelous,” he said. “I’m all yours.”
As she kissed him again, her hand slowly slid down his stomach and under the sheet. He felt her hand close around him, exploring.
She snuggled against him, her hand more active now. He could feel her breath warm in his ear when she whispered, “Jesus, Alex! I didn’t know you cared this much!”
“You can always get a rain check,” he murmured to her.
“Oh, I don’t think so,” she breathed into his ear, with a tiny giggle. “Besides, I’ve always wanted a pony.”
Alex felt her move and then the dewy whisper of her breath on his chest, moving down slowly, licking and teasing as her hand fondled him, stroking. Then the sheet moved away and he felt the first faint tickle of a tongue.
In the morning Alex was out of bed early, found the spare bedroom, and showered. There was a disposable razor and toothbrush in the medicine cabinet. He made coffee, found the San Francisco Chronicle and the Wall Street Journal on the front porch and was sitting, reading, at the breakfast counter in boxer shorts and a T-shirt when Caitlin stumbled into the kitchen, rubbing her eyes, wearing only a long T-shirt. “I figured that was you rustling around out here. Christ, it’s still dark. You fucking marines have no civility.”
He laughed. “The early bird gets the worm, and all of that. It’s almost nine o’clock in New York. Still, you look good at this time of day.”
“Thanks. You know, back at Princeton, you’d be known as the headmaster. How about a kinky encore?”
Alex smiled and said, “I’m almost afraid to ask what you mean by kinky, but I think I’m up for it.”
Caitlin snuggled to his neck and reached for his thigh to run her fingernails to his crotch, then explored a little. She whispered in his ear, “Indeed you are.”
Silicon
Valley
ALEX was having lunch at the Stanford Park Hotel, while a man named Francisco Leon stood looking out the window of his office on the top floor of an office building in Menlo Park. His office was furnished expensively in chrome and black leather furniture over a thick, white, wool carpet. He was tall, nearly six feet, and slim. He wore tailored gray wool slacks and an Italian silk shirt with the top three buttons open. An elaborate crucifix hung in his thick, black chest hair. His long hair was slicked straight back, black and shiny.
Francisco was mildly amused and even a little smug as he looked over the offices below him, filled with software programmers, hardware engineers, marketers, executives, and thousands of minions laboring seventy or eighty hours a week to fulfill the American dream of riches and early retirement. Many of them had succeeded, and many more would follow. A large majority of the others made more than enough with the products of Francisco’s company, Oro Distribution, to allow them to relax. Oro’s products shared advantages with those of the software companies. Product costs were low, prices were high, and demand for both seemed insatiable. Distribution was the key to both enterprises.
In the case of Oro’s products, the distribution was done by low-skilled entrepreneurs who had no office expenses, no overhead, no research and development costs, and no general and administrative expenses. A particularly skilled distributor could earn five or six hundred dollars per day, tax-free. Francisco had several hundred of these distributors working in Silicon Valley. This network was managed by loyal Colombians in six offices dispersed across the peninsula. These workers brought to Oro a daily profit—also tax-free, of course—of about fifty thousand dollars in cash, seven days a week. This income tended to rise, week after week, as consumers became incapable of controlling their desire. The steady influx of new clientele was a planned bonus.
Francisco was a bit bored with the business of cocaine distribution. Two years ago his father, who controlled the worldwide business from Colombia, had sent Francisco to the United States to take over the lucrative Silicon Valley franchise from his elder brother, Alfredo. In his youth Francisco’s family had been poor. When food had been scarce, Alfredo always got first choice, and a bit more of it. When life improved, both Francisco and Alfredo were treated well, even if differently. Francisco’s lesser role as the second son was clear, and traditional.
Even now, Uncle Felipe, his father’s younger brother, had less. His father had an enormous villa and a large staff of bodyguards and servants; Felipe ran one of the distribution centers in Columbia with a nice living, but not much more. I can raise my status, Francisco vowed to himself. I will make myself the favorite son, my way. With money for stealing gringo defense secrets, I can make Oro Distribution a worldwide player. The Yankees call it vertical integration, leveraging one product set to build a newer, more lucrative one. I’ll just call it Fuck the Gringo.
Francisco was given a free hand and a checkbook to set up his operation, and he was determined to outshine his brother in business. He brought with him from Columbia a group of subordinate managers who exercised strict and somewhat ruthless control of the distribution. They were under his supervision, and they fully protected him from any exposure to the law enforcement authorities.
When one of his managers would get arrested, Francisco would pay all expenses for the best legal defense money could buy. Ordinarily it would buy far better talent than the government’s own overworked and underpaid professionals. In the event that his man would get convicted and sent to an American prison, Francisco and his father would provide generously for the man’s family in Columbia and ensure that the rather large community of Colombians ensconced in American prisons would welcome and protect the new arrival.
So far only one of his Colombian associates had chosen to cooperate with the authorities. But he had suffered sudden and severe memory loss when pictures of the eldest of his four teenaged daughters were smuggled into his hands. One of the photos showed the girl being raped by one man while having her mouth sodomized by another, with a long line of men in clear focus waiting their turn, fondling themselves. Francisco had directed the photographer himself and was quite proud of the quality and sharpness of the image. He almost wished he had pictures made when he had personally deflowered and then sodomized her, but his father had a strict rule against photos of the family ever being available.
Francisco turned to his senior manager, who was standing patiently in front of the desk. “What is the status of our pet project, Alberto?” he asked in Spanish.
“We hope to have a full set of plans and several of the special electrical boards within the month, Jefe,” Alberto said.
Francisco exploded. “The month? Our customers are planning to be here in less than one week. I
told you to have everything ready by next week.”
Alberto flushed. “One of our consumers has resisted, and he is one of the key targets for this project. I cannot kill him or even beat him badly; his colleagues might alert the gringo authorities. He is too visible and too important. We have strengthened the product we provide to him and have begun to mix what the gringos call crack into it. It is unbelievably addictive, according to our chemists back home. I am confident he cannot hold out much longer.”
“We are businessmen, Alberto. We are expected and paid to keep our word. This is even more important when we are dealing with new customers who have no desire for our primary product and who have no more compunction than we do to use violence when frustrated. The Arabs and the Chinese are not weaklings like the Americans. Besides, the twenty-million-dollar payment they offer is more profit than we make in many months of selling directly to the consumer.”
Francisco paced back to the window, then turned and said, “Find someone to abuse. And make it messy on his mind, not on his body, to shock our weak northern cousin. Make it ugly. It should be someone known to our recalcitrant consumer, perhaps precious to him. A little object lesson on what could happen to him, or those he holds dear, should move things along.”
Alberto looked thoughtful, then said, “Si, Jefe. That is an excellent idea. It will be done.”
“That will be all, Alberto,” Francisco said.
As Alberto turned to leave, Francisco said, “I will be displeased if you fail me. Oh, and send that new girl into me. The young redhead. Tiffany?”
Alberto smiled and nodded. “Si, Tiffany. She has a smart mouth, but a big appetite for the product. I think she is a little strung out today, since she has no money for a purchase. She is quite beautiful.”
Francisco looked into Alberto’s eyes and said, “Later, she could be yours. Do not fail me. Do not fail me, Alberto.”
Alberto looked directly at Francisco and said, “My life is your life, Jefe. I will not fail you.”
Francisco sat at his desk and thought through the situation. His father had warned him against this venture, saying the Americans would not tolerate that kind of interference in their national security affairs. Francisco smiled. He knew better than his father and his arrogant brother how weak the Americans had become, and how their stupid laws allowed him to operate with total impunity. If he were successful with this first venture, he thought he could get an extra fifty million dollars per year, pure profit, by selling gringo defense secrets to foreigners. He’d like to see his brother’s face when he found out Francisco had become the new favorite son with his father.
There was a knock at the door, and Francisco said, “Enter.”
The door opened and the young girl named Tiffany came through. She was small, almost tiny, five feet or a little less, beautiful and young—perhaps nineteen. She wore a white polo shirt and khaki shorts. Her hair was dark red, thick, straight, and parted in the middle. It fell to her shoulders on either side of her face, framing high, delicate cheekbones and the perfectly symmetrical lines of her jaw and chin. She wore too much eye makeup and bright red lipstick. Large, nearly green eyes were accented by a scattering of freckles on her cheeks and across her thin nose. Her legs were slightly tanned below the shorts that reached to mid-thigh. A tiny waist rose to a swelling, almost-out-of-proportion bustline. The nipples on her breasts pushed out from the polo shirt, announcing she neither needed nor wore a bra. She walked across the room, confident, and smiled at Francisco.
“You called?”
“Yes, my dear,” Francisco smiled in return. “How have you been? I have seen so little of you. Is there anything you need? Is there anything I can do for you?”
Tiffany walked to the black leather couch and sprawled upon it. Her poise was slipping a little, as she wetted her lips with her tongue and wiped her nose discreetly. She was unable to maintain the pose, and began to move around on the couch irritably, licking her lips and clasping her hands randomly. Her nose began running again and she brought a tissue to it.
“I’m fine, Frank,” she said. “But, you know, Alberto has been stingy with the coke recently. It’s not that I need it, but I like it, and Alberto hasn’t had much to give me lately since I ran out of money. If you’ll just trust me for the money for a few days, I’ll get it to you.”
Francisco smiled, leaned back and said, “I know, my dear, but there is a shortage of the product right now, and we don’t have enough even for our paying customers. I think I have the only supply in the area. It is wonderful stuff, but I’m afraid I have only enough for me and for a woman who is coming in to be with me tonight. Alberto has told me he would like to have something for you, but I am afraid it is impossible, at least for the next several weeks. We both know you don’t need this stuff, so why don’t you just take a few weeks off and Alberto will call you when we get a new supply? It won’t be longer than a month, I assure you.”
Tiffany’s face tried to conceal the panic welling up in her. “I suppose that would be okay,” she said. “Listen, Frank. Tell me about the woman you’re meeting. Maybe I can help out with whatever you need.”
Francisco shook his head ruefully and said, “Tiffany, my dear. She is going to provide services to me of the type that you are much too young to understand. She is a call girl.”
She looked down at the floor, then glanced up quickly, a look of determination on her face. “I’ve always found you to be attractive, Frank. Maybe I could take her place just this once. I’m not a virgin, you know. I’ve been with a few guys.”
“Tiffany, Tiffany,” Frank sighed. “You are so young that you couldn’t know much about men. Men have needs that young women don’t know how to serve—basic needs. You don’t want to know about these things.”
“I know more than you think,” she said.
Francisco stared at her for a second, then reached into his desk drawer, brought out a glassine package, and dropped it on the desktop. “That is enough blow to last you for a month. Are you telling me you would like to work for it? That you will do whatever I ask for as long as I wish?”
Tiffany stared for several moments at the fat package and whispered, “Yes.”
Francisco smiled and said, “I’ll give it a try, but only once. Stand up and take all of your clothes off, very slowly.”
Tiffany hesitated, then stood and slowly pulled her polo shirt loose from her shorts and drew it above her head. Her breasts stood out against her narrow torso, the size of large cantaloupes with small, pale aureoles and thick nipples standing out from them. She reached to unbutton her shorts and dropped them to the floor. She wore no underwearm and the thatch of her pubis was a thick, dark red.
She stood nude and proud, and smiled at Francisco, her legs quivering only a little. “How am I doing?” she said.
He walked to her, stopping a few inches in front of her. Her reached up to one breast and fondled it, as if weighing it. He tilted up her head and looked into her eyes as he grasped the other breast. His fingers moved to each of her nipples and squeezed gently, then much harder. Her pride gave way to pain. She pushed his hands away.
“You have a great body. Biggest tits I’ve ever seen on a girl as small as you. But you’re a long way from the coke, and I’m getting bored.” Francisco walked over to the window, looking down. He smiled to himself. This was the part he enjoyed most about dealing with the arrogant Anglos; their pain, humiliation, domination, and ultimate submission. It added spice to an already enjoyable experience. He should get a camera.
Tiffany panicked, oblivious of her nakedness. “What do you want? I’ll do anything you want. Tell me what turns you on.”
“Okay, Tiffany, I’m going to take it easy on you until you mess up. I am going to tell you exactly what to do, because you don’t know shit. The first time you mess up and don’t do exactly what I say—and do it with skill and tender enthusiasm—I don’t want to see you again, ever. Go get your coke elsewhere, clear? If you don’t get it right, you are history.�
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Tiffany stood with her head bowed and hands clasped in front of her, her breasts pushing out between her arms. Her eyes filled and she whispered, “What do you want me to do?”
Francisco turned from the window and walked to the high leather chair. He sat on it and swiveled toward her, his legs pushing straight out and spread a little. His hips were slid forward to the edge of the seat. He put his hands behind his head and said, “First, get on your knees. Then crawl to me and put your head in my lap.”
She slowly fell to her knees and began to move to him, her head still bowed. When she reached him, she put her head in his lap and was still.
Francisco savored the fantasy of Tiffany’s father, maybe a little chubby with a bushy red mustache, an engineer, standing mute across the room and watching his little Anglo princess about to perform. He reached to her tousled hair and stroked it gently, smoothing it. He picked up her head and looked into her eyes and smiled. “This is a start, my innocent one.
“You know what to do,” Francisco said.
She dropped her eyes to his fly and began to pull down on the zipper. She looked up at Francisco, who was watching her intently.
“Now, my dear, we will see if you have any creativity,” he said. “Do the best you can. Think of it as something on the path to the cocaine. Act as if you need me to be pleased, as much as you need the coke.” Tiffany shuddered slightly, then looked back down. She pulled back a little and Francisco wrapped his fingers in her hair, twisting. “Never, never pull away,” he said.