by Ella Ford
The police worked the case, but eventually let it go due to lack of evidence of any wrong-doing. Apparently, Katherine Foster was completely clean. From there, the papers ran with it, speculating on what might have become of the “Foster Six” and eventually the rumor mill concocted lurid tales of sex slavery and people trafficking, with Katherine Foster the evil mastermind that coordinated the whole sordid affair.
Foster herself did little to set the record straight, and instead withdrew into her private estate on the edge of the city.
That brings us to the present day, and this curious email. I was, perhaps, about to blow open the story of the decade and I could barely contain my excitement. Was Katherine Foster ready to come clean on what happened to the six girls? Or was this all some elaborate diversionary tactic, a PR exercise to win back her position as corporate America’s sweetheart?
I dragged myself back into the present and glanced out of the window. The gaudy McMansions had now faded behind tall, ivy covered walls and imposing wrought iron gates. We were getting close.
Several minutes later, the taxi pulled up at the gate of a particularly grand looking house and I paid the cabbie. As the car drove away, I gazed up at the home of Katherine Foster and began to feel the first tingle of nerves. There was so much riding on this story. The fate of six talented young girls, the future of an entire company. Not to mention my own lacklustre career.
As I wrestled with my apprehension, the gate before me buzzed and slowly swung open. Gingerly, I stepped forward and began the long walk up the gravelled drive to whatever lay before me.
If only I’d known then what I know now. That the Cassie Cook who emerged from Katherine Foster’s home would be very different to the one that entered. Would I have still gone through with it?
---
I reached the entrance to the house, a vast, heavy black door set between two grand, imposing marble pillars. Everything about the place screamed luxurious decadence. It was the kind of house that walked the line between classy and gaudy without ever truly becoming either. Most of all, it spoke of money, and plenty of it. I wondered what secrets lay behind the countless windows on its imposing facade.
Before I’d even reached the door, it swung open and I was greeted by a young woman. She was young, perhaps mid-twenties, and disarmingly attractive. She had the kind of face that would never want for a drink in a bar. Heavily made up with bright red lips and dark eyes. Her hair was pulled back in a tight ponytail that lent her face a kind of severity that was at odds with her prom queen features.
Most peculiar of all were her clothes. She was wearing a tight black dress that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a nightclub or uptown cocktail joint. It was short on her thighs and low on her chest, revealing a provocative cleavage that I imagined would make most men (and many women) weep. Her long legs were covered in sheer black pantyhose and she wore shiny black high heeled pumps that pulled her calf muscles taut and made her legs look unfathomably long. But on top of all this, she wore a small, white apron, tied around her waist with a thin band. It was frilly and clean, and looked entirely out of place on top of this society princess ensemble.
“Cassie Cook I presume?” the girl spoke, looking me up and down with a look that was equal parts interest and disdain.
“Yes, that’s me,” I replied cheerfully, hoping to win the girl around and perhaps interview her for my story later on. “I’m here to interview Miss Foster for the Midtown Tribune.”
The girl glanced around in the hall. “The Mistress was expecting you at three. It is five after. Lateness will not be tolerated,” the girl said, her voice deadpan and robotic.
“Um,” I stuttered, not quite sure what to say, “the traffic was pretty bad coming out of the city. I hope Miss Foster will accept my apologies.” I tried my best to sound humble, but was somewhat taken aback by the tone of the girl.
The girl nodded and gave a derisive snort, then stood aside and motioned for me to step inside. I did so and entered the biggest entrance hall I’ve ever been in. I glanced around, dumbstruck at the opulent luxury that surrounded me. Every wall surface was adorned with paintings or tapestries, frozen scenes depicting images from bygone days. The floor of the hallway was marble and to either side, a staircase curved up to the second floor landing. It was as ostentatious as it was possible to be, and gave away more about Katherine Foster than the thousands of pages of speculation had done previously. I scanned around frantically, eager to take in every intricate detail. It would make wonderful flavour for my story.
Behind me, the girl swung the enormous door shut and then walked ahead of me, signalling for me to follow. As she stepped through the hall, her sharp heels clicked against the hard flooring and her long legs swished together with every purposeful stride. I found myself wondering, for the first time, if the girl was one of the missing six girls who had disappeared after interviewing with Foster Pharma. It was difficult to tell, with her face so heavily made-up, but she fit the profile: young, attractive. I cursed myself for not committing the six girls’ photos to memory, but the whole thing had happened so fast. I decided to try the direct approach.
“So,” I said nonchalantly, scurrying behind the long legged girl as she walked, “how long have you been working for Miss Foster?”
The girl turned and glared at me, as if the very question offended her. “I’ve served the mistress for a long while now.” Not helpful.
“And, what exactly is your job here?” I asked, realizing I had about five seconds to get as much information out of her as possible before we reached our destination. I cut straight to the chase.
The girl stopped before an imposing set of double doors and gripped the handles, then she paused. She turned to me and fixed me with that icy glare again. “I serve the mistress, that is my job.” Then she pulled open the double doors and stood aside, allowing me to enter.
---
I stepped into the room and the door closed behind me. The aloof girl had done her job, and hadn’t followed me through. I looked around, surveying my surroundings and struggled to calm my pounding heart. The whole situation was beyond strange. Why did I receive this unsolicited email? What was the deal with the girl? What on earth was I getting myself into? I realized that I hadn’t really thought about the situation before now. I’d simply plunged headlong into the story, eager for fame and recognition, but never really thinking of the consequences. What if there was some truth in rumours about Katherine Foster?
I gathered myself and stepped forward. The room was a sitting room, but it was like no sitting room that I’d ever been in. Two comfortable looking but vintage sofas sat in the center, facing each other with a mahogany coffee table between them. On the far wall was an open fire that was mercifully unlit on this hot summer’s day. Above the fireplace was a seriously huge portrait of Katherine Foster. She looked stern and serious, yet not unattractive. For a woman of forty, Foster had aged remarkably well and could still turn heads. I stood between the two sofas and stared at the portrait, drinking in every detail.
“Do you find it a little gauche to keep such an imposing painting of oneself in the sitting room, my dear?” a voice spoke behind me and I spun on my heel. Standing at the door was Katherine Foster herself. She’d entered the room and I hadn’t even noticed.
“Not at all,” I lied, “it’s a good likeness and adds a certain… presence to the room.”
The older woman laughed kindly and stepped towards me, offering a hand out to me. “You’re very kind Cassandra, if a terrible liar.” I took her hand and shook it warmly.
Katherine Foster in person was nothing like Katherine Foster the portrait or Katherine Foster the media heroine/villainess. In person she was a lot smaller, dainty, almost petit. Her face was delicate and refined, with serious eyes that lingered on whatever she looked at with a furious intensity. I felt her gaze burn into me as we shook hands, an indescribable feeling of being scrutinised. I wondered if she was looking for a weakness in me that she could use to h
er advantage. A warm flush spread across my face as I wilted before her.
After an endless time, she let my hand go and motioned for me to sit on one of the sofas. I did as I was told, and she sat opposite me, crossing her stockinged legs before her and folding her hands over her knee.
She was dressed for business, with a knee length, beige skirt and matching blazer, over a black satin blouse. Her jet black hair was held in a loose ponytail that hung down her back beneath her shoulderblades. I wondered if the serious attire was for my benefit, or whether she simply dressed like this all the time.
I cleared my throat and pulled myself together. I had one chance to get this right. “Thank you for inviting me here today Miss Foster. Your email came as quite a surprise.”
She smiled warmly. “Please, you may call me Katherine, for now. All my friends do.”
I returned her smile and felt more at ease. She wasn’t coming across as the bitch that the media portrayed her as. In fact, she was downright pleasant. It was only later, much later, that I realized the significance of the phrase “for now”. But, at that moment, I felt relaxed and determined to enjoy this interview as much as I could.
I reached into my bag and pulled out a small tape recorder. I held it up to her as a magician might offer a pack of cards to a skeptical observer. “Do you mind if I record? It’ll help me later on as I’m piecing together the story.”
She smiled again, “Not at all Cassandra. Do you mind if I call you Cassandra?” she asked.
I grinned back at her. “Well, only my mother calls me Cassandra, most people call me Cassie,” I offered, as friendly as I could possibly be.
At once, her face turned. The previously soft lines of her smile faded in an instant and her lips thinned to a serious line. Her eyes narrowed and locked on mine, and she spoke, “I think Cassandra will do for now.” Her voice was low and calm, compelling in its seriousness.
I blanched before her, my nerves returning with a vengeance. “Y-yes, Katherine. Whatever makes you more comfortable.”
She nodded and her face softened once more. The smile returned, but I realized that the smile was a facade, and that the real Katherine Foster had allowed herself to show. Cautiously, I continued.
“I guess we both know why I’m here. The case of the ‘Foster Six’. Should we talk about that first, to get it out of the way?”
She blinked twice as I mentioned the ‘Foster Six’, but otherwise her face barely registered what I was saying. Instead, it remained locked in the viper smile that I was beginning to realize was Katherine Foster’s default state.
“Yes, let’s talk about that,” she spoke, her voice dripping with malice and sarcasm. “Why don’t you tell me what you think you know about it?”
I paused, but decided to be as open as possible. “Well, I know as much as everyone else. Which is to say, very little. I know that six… at least six girls have disappeared shortly after visiting your companies to interview for internships. The six girls all fit a similar profile - young, attractive, intelligent, with promising futures ahead of them. In each case, the girls all contacted their parents and told them not to worry or try to find them.” I stopped, wondering whether I should speak about the rumors and speculation that had spread like wildfire throughout the world’s media. I decided to get it all out into the open and allow Foster to address them as she saw fit. “There have been no charges filed, but lots of speculation,” I continued, “Everything from sexual slavery to people trafficking to medical experiments. But no-one really knows. And, I guess, that’s why I’m here.”
I stopped talking and studied her for signs of a reaction, but she remained stoic and unmoved by my summary. After several seconds, she stood and marched purposefully across the room to an ornate cabinet that contained several bottles. She reached in and pulled out what looked like a scotch and held it up to me. “Would you like a drink? I find that airing one’s dirty laundry does tend to give one a furious thirst, don’t you?”
I shook my head, “No, thank you, I’d like to remain clear headed if it’s all the same with you.”
She smiled back at me. “Very wise Cassandra. I hope you won’t mind if I have one anyway,” she said and poured herself a drink. She took a small sip, her gaze never leaving me, then strolled back across the room to take her seat again. I realized that she was attempting to unnerve me, to make me uneasy in order to take the dominant position. To my surprise, I found it working.
“Okay, let us start at the beginning,” she began and I focused my attention on her, not wanting to miss a single word. “You are correct when you say that a number of girls have interviewed for roles in my organisation. And you are also correct when you say that, to the outside world, these girls have appeared to drop off the face of the earth. But that is where the scurrilous rumours depart from reality. There is nothing sinister happening here, none of the girls have been coerced, intimidated or otherwise made to do anything at all against their will.”
I thought about this for a second, then asked a question that had been bugging me since I entered the house. “The girl who let me in, your maid, is she one of the six?”
“You mean Elizabeth? Why, I’m not sure who the ‘six’ includes, I’m not given to reading tabloid tittle tattle you understand. But I would imagine that Elizabeth entered my employment in precisely the circumstances you describe,” she answered, as casually as if she was describing a trip to the mall.
I chose my next words very carefully. “If you don’t mind me saying, Elizabeth had a very… particular way about her. The things she said, the way she phrased things. She sounded almost… brainwashed.”
She allowed the word to hang between us. I thought I saw her acid smile faltering for a single second. When she spoke, it was slower than before, less jovial, considered.
“Tell me, Cassandra, have you ever felt a need to let go?” she asked.
“I’m not sure what you mean by that…” I responded, disarmed by the sudden change in direction.
“I mean, my dear, have you ever felt the need to relinquish control of yourself to someone? To let someone else make all the big and scary decisions?”
I thought about her question for a few seconds. “I-I guess so. Everyone has, I suppose. Responsibility can be a real bitch sometimes.”
Her smile returned, clearly fueled by my faltering response. “I’m not sure whether you take my meaning, at least not totally,” she said, “What I mean is, have you ever felt the need to give yourself to someone totally? To submit to them, to allow them to possess your thoughts, your actions, your body and your mind?”
This conversation was not at all going like I had planned. Why were we suddenly talking about me? And why did the line of questioning make me feel so unnerved. I realized deep down that we were talking about the missing girls, but at the same time, I had the intense feeling that Katherine Foster was interviewing me for some purpose that I could not fathom.
“I-I’m not sure that I understand what you mean. You mean… sexually?”
She seemed to find this amusing and tittered lightly, “Sex is a part of it, to be sure. But I am talking about total submission. To become a possession, an object. Owned by another for their amusement.”
I shook my head cautiously, but didn’t speak.
She nodded, then spoke again. “I can see that I’m not making myself clear. Perhaps a demonstration is in order.”
Chapter 2
I watched as she reached forward to the coffee table and took hold of a small silver hand bell. She sat back and looked at me, smirking mischievously. Then she raised the bell and shook it between her thumb and forefinger, never once taking her eyes off me. Ding ding ding. It was the first time I’d heard that bell, but it was definitely not the last.
Almost immediately, the doors to the room opened and two girls hurried through. They girls were dressed identically to Elizabeth from earlier. Tight, black dress; black pantyhose and heels; cute white apron and hair pulled back into a severe ponytail. I s
tudied them. With their identical dress and makeup, they could have been mistaken for twins, especially at a distance. Yet on closer inspection, I became convinced that the shorter of the two girls was Charlotte Duval, the missing girl who had triggered this whole scandal in the first place.
The girls stepped into the room and stood together at the end of the sofas. They both adopted an identical pose, bodies moving in perfect unison. They stood with the their feet apart, a shoulder’s width and crossed their bare arms behind their backs. This had the effect of pushing their chests out provocatively and I began to realize that, despite Katherine’s earlier protestations, sex was very much a part of this whole arrangement. I studied the girls as they waited, their expressions blank and betraying no emotion at all, other than their total subservience.
Eventually, Katherine Foster spoke once more. “Cassandra, allow me to introduce you to Charlotte - who I’m sure you’ll recognize from the gossip pages - and Jennifer. The girls, as well as Elizabeth and Ashley, whom you have not met, are my house staff.”
I stuttered a polite hello to the two girls and wondered exactly what was going to be demonstrated here. The girls remained expressionless and didn’t return my greeting, instead both stared intently at the oversized portrait above the fireplace.
“Girls,” began Katherine once more, her voice laced with sarcasm once more, “Cassandra here wishes to know if you are here against your will. If you have been somehow coerced or cajoled. Would you say this is the case?”
“No, mistress,” the two girls replied in perfect unison.
“Then, why are you here?” Katherine asked, studying my face for signs of a reaction.
“To serve you, mistress,” they replied, again in perfect harmony. There was something creepy and unnerving about the robotic nature of the girls’ responses. And yet, there was something else as well. Something unfamiliar and strange. The way that the girls responded to Katherine’s words, the way they stood. It was, if I’m perfectly honest, highly erotic. I had never considered myself a lesbian before, nor had I even really contemplated sex with another woman. It didn’t disgust me, as such, it had simply never occurred to me. I enjoyed sex with men a great deal and women just weren’t on my radar. Yet as I sat in that room, in the presence of such a powerful feminine presence as Katherine Foster, and the perfect yielding femininity of Charlotte and Jennifer, I found myself experiencing a longing that I had never experienced before. I wondered what was going to happen next…