May 1943: New York City
It won’t be long now, Kathryn kept thinking as they walked arm in arm toward the bedroom door. The road had been winding, and not without its bumps, but the time had come. They were finally going to consummate their relationship. The air crackled with the anticipation of an opening night set list. The sensation sent a chill skittering up her spine. The feeling was so palpable, she was tempted to look around for the audience, sure the whole world was watching and lending its energy to their mission.
No one else was watching, though. It was just the two of them, finally, about to share something that had been building and, until now, had been denied for weeks. They’d put their previous relationship behind them. It had no bearing on who they were to each other now. Tonight would propel them forward and complete their transformation into a couple. No more teasing, no more truncated foreplay. This was it. It was happening.
At first, the realization made her nervous. That was odd. She’d had more than her share of lovers, and while every relationship differed, she’d never had so many stops and starts on the way to the inevitable union. This night would be a triumph of patience and perseverance for both of them.
She relaxed as the night wore on, and her nerves turned to fascination. A new lover was always interesting, but none more so than this one. There was an element of danger that both excited and frightened her. They’d forged a successful working relationship, and she worried this next step might compromise it. Too much was at stake to let sex get in the way. She wouldn’t let it, that’s all.
Tonight was the culmination of weeks of curious, but limited, exploration, and it had ended in an evening of wining, dining, secret seductive touches, and longing looks. At long last, they were at their final destination—the bedroom. After they entered, Kathryn kicked the door shut without looking.
She closed her eyes, stepped out of her heels, and pulled her long dark hair to the side, exposing the back of her neck and the zipper of her dress. As the zipper pull descended, warm lips painted a trail of light kisses from the nape of her neck and around to her collarbone. Her dress slid from her shoulders and to the floor. She reached out to the shirt in front of her and began liberating buttons from their holes with a seductive glance before each one. The glance was not a question of consent but a promise of things to come. Almost there.
A shaky exhale made her pause. Kathryn looked into nervous eyes with understanding. She pressed her body close in a comforting embrace, hoping her strength and confidence would calm her suddenly anxious soon-to-be lover. Through the thin material of her slip, she could feel the pounding heart that, to her surprise, seemed to resonate more fear than excitement. She kissed a flushed cheek and whispered, “We’ll go slow.”
A bashful nod.
She carefully slid a hand down an unfastened waistband but didn’t get very far before a choked voice whimpered, “Don’t.” A nervous breath. “Stop.”
Kathryn hesitated.
“Please. Stop.”
“Don’t stop, please? Or please, don’t stop?” she asked playfully.
“I can’t. Please.” A strong hand gently stopped the seduction. “Please. I’m sorry.”
Her assignment for the Office of Strategic Services, Marcus Forrester, was nothing if not consistent. He thrived on the foreplay but never went beyond, verging on panic the moment intimacy seemed near. Kathryn was grateful for that and amused at the rejection. That didn’t happen to her. She kept trying though. He wanted her to. He liked it, he promised. But Kathryn had her doubts. She wondered if, one day, he’d actually let her touch him intimately or if he would ever touch her that way. How bizarre, their little game, but thank you, Howard.
She smiled, as Jenny Ryan’s childhood misinterpretation of the line hallowed be thy name, from the Lord’s Prayer, popped into her head for a brief moment of respite from her current situation. She’d gotten used to her former assignment occupying her thoughts at the most unusual times. Marcus Forrester was supposed to cure her of that as she worked her way deeper into his life to uncover his traitorous sins, but it didn’t work. Jenny still lived in her heart as a constant comfort—hope to her usual doom. She hadn’t seen or heard from her since they parted at OSS headquarters. It seemed so long ago, and she missed her, despite vowing to move on. A month was a long time, wasn’t it?
She fully expected the plucky ex-reporter to show up to a rehearsal at her nightclub gig at The Grotto, hands behind her back and lashes fluttering over undeniable green eyes as she tilted her head and pointedly asked, “So, what exactly does got to you mean, and how do I cash in?”
Instead, she hadn’t heard a word, which she supposed was for the best. Jenny was an assignment while the OSS looked for her deceased father’s medical research files. Kathryn got too close. Cared too much. It got messy emotionally, but they had made their peace with each other before they went their separate ways.
In the rare moments when Kathryn was honest with herself about it, she was disappointed. Her parting comment, that Jenny had gotten to her, was meant to be bait, even if she didn’t realize it at the time. She accepted Jenny’s decision not to contact her, and she found serenity in the choice. It was for the best, now that they both worked for the OSS.
Kathryn periodically asked her OSS handler, Colonel Forsythe—casually, of course—how the new recruit was doing, and he would always say something to the effect, “Miss Ryan is a very hard worker, creative as hell, and already making substantial contributions to the war effort in Morale Operations.” Kathryn would hide her proud grin behind her coffee cup, but she knew she wasn’t fooling anyone. Colonel Forsythe least of all.
When she thought of Jenny, which was more often than she cared to admit, it was not with angst and guilt, as she had before because she failed to preserve her beautiful, normal life, but with a feeling of satisfaction that Jenny had found her niche. She was making a difference. Kathryn knew that would make her happy, and she realized that’s all she really wanted for her. In some small, unexpected way, she was responsible for a piece of her happiness. She liked the feeling. Quite an odd turn of events. Guilt had turned into pride. Miraculous! The demons must be sleeping on the job.
A sense of calm had entered her life without so much as a How do you do? as it brushed by her usually alert defenses. It wasn’t the apathetic calm that she was used to—the one that wore disdain behind its back—but something better, like she’d crawled one step higher than she’d ever stood before, and the air was a little cleaner. Even her time with Forrester seemed effortless. They’d moved seamlessly into their new roles after Jenny, thinking she was saving her, turned her gun over to the police, causing Forrester enough trouble that he considered taking her life with his own hand. This would forever be known as the gun incident. He thought better of her execution, and she continued playing the good little mistress while he became more open and trusting than ever.
Despite his claim that their business arrangement was now a friendship as well, he started acting like they were a couple, with her as his absentee wife. He doted on her in public and in private, frequently dining and dancing with her at supper clubs. He’d even taken to having her on his arm at charity functions, a previous no-no, in deference to his wife. All pretenses had fallen away in that regard, and it seemed he’d do anything to be seen in public with his favorite girl. He always looked around, making sure he was noticed, that they were noticed. She wondered if it was leading up to something. Something in his business world, that is. It had already led up to something in his personal world, and to that end, he promised this night would be the night she was waiting for. She would have put off this night forever if she could.
He’d stopped their usual sex-for-dysfunctional-lovers game right after the night of her aborted murder. He treated her differently after that, more like a cherished partner than a plaything on the payroll. He had not asked her to perform for him since. Instead, he took a more interactive role in their physical relationship, actually touching her, and allowing touch in return, but nothing more intimate than adolescent petting, not even kissing on the mouth. She found his pseudo sex life utterly fascinating, even while not minding it a bit. This was her job, after all, nothing more.
She wondered what he was thinking, how he derived pleasure from such a frustrating exercise in denial, but, honestly, she didn’t want to know. If his big lead-up to the evening wasn’t to finally have sex with her, she wondered what on earth he had planned.
After he stopped her seduction, she took in a silent breath and reeled in her adrenaline-induced excitement. It wasn’t sexual arousal she felt but the promise of power. Control. Triumph. That’s what sex was to her. Partners always mistook it for passion. What else would they think? It was an honest mistake and one she let them make. It only added to her satisfaction. They couldn’t know it was a release for her anger, a panacea for helplessness, and a victory where none other was possible. She had come so close this time to dominating Forrester. She longed for the pleading look in his eyes as she held his release hostage to her whim. The harder they come, the harder they fall. It was crude but true. Putty in her hands. That’s what her lovers were. She would have laughed at her arrogance if she hadn’t proved it true again and again.
“I have a surprise for you,” Forrester said brightly, recovering quickly from their oft repeated termination of affections. He removed his dinner jacket and replaced it with a rich maroon velvet smoking jacket. “Here …” He passed her a silky black robe with an absurd feathery trim. “Put it on.” She complied, and he held out his hand. “Come.”
That wasn’t likely. Kathryn took his hand with a fake smile.
He led her through the cavernous halls of his Long Island estate to the room Kathryn liked to call the whorehouse. This is where he indulged in his sexual fantasies.
He should have been a Broadway producer. The room looked like a small, intimate theater, with a bed center stage. Behind the bed was a large mirror, reflecting the scene for the best possible view. Kathryn knew that another girl had taken her place in his little voyeuristic sex game, and she offered a silent apology to the stand-in. The whole setting was absurdly over the top, and Kathryn was glad she no longer had a role there.
She wondered what he thought his sexual quirks did for her as a partner. If she really was interested in him sexually, like she pretended to be, his rules would result in total frustration. Maybe he didn’t care. Maybe he thought she would have no trouble finding sexual satisfaction elsewhere whenever she wanted it. He already thought she had a lover, despite her protests to the contrary.
He led her into the mostly dark room, which really amounted to a half room, as the entryway deposited them into a stage-level theater box, complete with low, warm footlights and swooping velvet curtains. There were two seats instead of the usual one, and she supposed she was going to be part of the audience for his little show for a change.
He disappeared for a moment and then came up behind her in the shadows, which startled her, as his warm breath reached her neck before his hands settled around her waist. He held her close.
He motioned toward the bed. “Look.”
The lights slowly came up to a comfortable but appropriately moody level, revealing two incredibly beautiful women on the bed, one blonde, one redhead, dressed in surprisingly tasteful lingerie, considering.
“They’re for you,” he whispered, obviously pleased with himself.
She chuckled, as if he was kidding. “Both?”
His smile crackled in her ear. “If you like.”
“Mm,” Kathryn said, as she assessed the two scantily clad women. She was unsure of his intent, though, and she looked sideways at the extra chair and then to the women who were staring seductively back at her.
“You can watch, or you can join them if you’d like,” he whispered softly as he stroked her cheek. She didn’t have to accept, but Forrester seemed to like the idea of it, and no one would have to twist her arm. The night was turning out better than expected.
“You’re sure you don’t mind?”
He responded with an incredulous expression. “Silly of you to ask, isn’t it?”
She grinned in agreement.
“One thing …” He took her trailing hand and entwined his fingers with hers. “Do me a favor.”
“Hm?”
“Let them … take you.” He leered his meaning. “Just let them.”
She moaned her approval as she spared a glance at the beautiful women. “My pleasure.”
She entered stage left wearing a smirk, her back to Forrester. She’d seen women pressed into this kind of service by hardship or coercion, and she could tell them immediately. There would be fear and shame in their eyes, and their body language would struggle not to betray a mind screaming for escape. These women, however, were not of that variety. Kindred spirits? For now, perhaps. They were all on the same page tonight, and no one was doing anything against their will.
She turned to face the seating section, where the low footlights were casting an eerie shadow on Forrester’s face from below. The two beauties slithered off the bed and began their seduction. She held out her arms in supplication and, as requested, just let them take her.
She supposed Forrester imagined himself as those girls, devouring a woman he desired but unable to bring himself to try. She soon found herself on the bed wearing nothing but a smile and two very attentive women. She didn’t even mind Forrester watching. In fact, it felt triumphant. It wasn’t the complete victory she envisioned, but it would do, and the benefits weren’t too bad either.
Warm bodies pressed against hers with a velvety softness only another woman’s gentle curves could supply. For Kathryn, this was a world of pleasure that men could only watch from the outside with their fantasies and egos. They could mimic the actions but never attain the innate intimacy that only the feminine psyche allows.
She stared directly at Forrester with eyes that, for the first time in his presence, registered true arousal, as the blonde and redhead greedily caressed her naked body with hungry hands and intimate kisses. He could never compete with that. Maybe he knew that. Maybe that’s why he never tried.
Freud would have a field day with the lot of them, she imagined. A mouth found a particularly sensitive spot, and Forrester disappeared from her vision and her mind. She gave in to the pleasure, allowing herself, on this special night, to be consumed.