Author: Bulgroz the Third
Title: The Adjusters #35 - A Wedding and a Lead
Keywords: MF, mc
Posted: December 4, 2012
Edited: December 4, 2012




			  The Adjusters #35


			 A Wedding and a Lead



(Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Two months ago.)


He sneaks into the church with all the other guests--it is a large
wedding, the parish church struggling to contain everyone--and nobody
notices him.

That is a certain advantage with large groups, near anonymity--nobody
gives him a second glance. But it has the potential of making it more
difficult to find the bride. There is still an hour to go before the
official start of the ceremony, so he is not worried. Not yet.

He will have to venture in the back of the church. Not a problem. He
heads in that direction, and begs an elderly lady who shots him an
initially distrusting glance for directions to the nearest
restroom. She finally takes pity on him and walks him down a small
recessed hallway.

It is a single-person restroom, which is what he hoped for. He locks
the door, then buttons his shirt all the way up after sliding on a
clerical collar. A quick turn of the comb, and he feels confident he
can pass off as a minister. A distinct advantage of religion--a
singular respect for authority figures. He grins to himself in the
mirror--if he cannot pass off as a clergyman, he has little business
with godhood, does he not?

Back outside, he takes a second to orient himself. The actual minister
is the only person he really needs to avoid. He has to find the
bride. He walks slowly, paying attention to noises and opening and
glancing at the room beyond every door he encounters. He crosses path
with a few people, but they do not say anything beyond a respectful
"Good afternoon." He merely keeps his face gentle and neutral.

Beyond one door towards the end of the hallway he sees a mirror and
clothes piled in a corner, and he sighs softly when he sees a bridal
veil hooked on a chair by the wall. But where is the girl? He enters
and closes the door behind him, trying to remain quiet. Then he hears
a faint noise, and freezes.

A whisper. "Ssshh... Stop it--I heard something."

"It's all in your head." That one is a man's voice, louder.

"No, I'm telling you. I heard something." Still whispered, but
louder. A woman's voice.

With a eery sense of calm he does not really feel, he notes the deep
curtain used to block out the large bay window, and hurries to hide
behind it.

And just in time, too.

"Fine," he hears. "Hold on. I'll check. Look--" the voice is louder
now, coming from the direction where he has seen a door that he
assumed was a closet. "There's no one here."

"Still," the woman's voice this time, giggly and nervous at the same
time. "You shouldn't be here."

"Ah come on," the man says, amusement in his voice. "It's not that
thing about seeing the bride before the wedding, is it? That's just a
bunch of hooey, honey."

"I don't know..."

"It is... now kiss me. You look so hot in that dress..."

He picks up sounds of kissing coming from the other side of the
curtain, followed by sounds of rustling.

"Lucas, what are you doing? Behave yourself!" the girl says, with
another nervous giggle.

"Come on, Chris. I'm getting desperate here! You want me to explode
right there during the ceremony? Or even just have a plain old big
boner the whole time, sticking out of my pants?"

The girl--Chris--laughs, and there is more rustling.

"How about a little head, Chris? A quick one, just to take the edge
off. I can eat you out, too, if you want. It'd be hot with that dress
up around your waist..."

"Lucas! I told you, no! I love you, I'm going to marry you, and I'm
going to spend the rest of my life with you, but I'm not taking
your.... I'm not taking you into my mouth. It's gross! You pee from
there, for Pete's sake!"

"Well, I eat you out!"

"And that's your choice. I'm certainly not asking you to do that. But
you enjoy it, and I sometimes think you do it more for you than for
me."

"Hey, that's not fair!"

Chris snorts, but her tone grows softer. "Fine. Okay, I'm sorry. I
didn't mean it like that. But it's true. Look, you enjoy giving oral
sex; I don't. So don't ask me to do it, please?"

"But it's our wedding day. A little treat, you know? Something
special..."

"Hey! Don't make me out to be a prude, okay? Who was it that let you
fuck her in the laundry room at his brother's place last week, while
his family was in the other room? So there's one thing that's off the
sex plate. Deal." Her tone of voice is starting to rise. "Now just
drop it."

Lucas sighs exaggeratedly. "Okay, okay. But that's just because you're
staring at me with those big innocent blue eyes that you know full
well I can't resist."

Chris laughs, still sounding a little edgy. "Good. Now kiss me some
more, you big log. And come in the other room--you're right, I should
help you take care of that little... problem you got in your
pants. Not that you deserve it, but I think a quick hand job would do
the trick, don't you?"

Her voice fades somewhat as she guides her fiance through the door
once more. "I'll let you come on my thighs, if you want. And I won't
clean up. So you'll know your cum is dripping down my legs all through
the wedding...."

Lucas's moan drifts away as the couple leaves the main room.

He remains behind his curtain for a moment, wondering what to do
next. He has no intention of wasting this opportunity. It is time for
some Godly acting.

He steps out from behind the curtain after a quick peek to ensure the
room is clear. What he thought was a closet door is almost
closed. Soft moans and sounds of flesh rubbing on flesh can be
heard. He makes his decision quickly. He goes to the main door, opens
it without attempting to cover the noise, and steps loudly on the
floor a few times, grunting out.

Immediately, a startled cry comes out of the adjoining room, sounds of
mad shuffling, and whispers. He grunts again. "Who's there?"

A few seconds later, the groom emerges from the adjoining room, red
faced, adjusting his jacket. "Oh... Reverend... I'm sorry... I didn't
think..."

"Who are you?"

"I'm... I'm with the wedding party... I'm..."

"You should not be here. This area is restricted."

"Of course... I... huh... we..."

"Leave, now."

Lucas, the groom, looks back towards the adjoining room, and after a
moment's hesitation leaves in a hurry.

The door to the adjoining room is mostly closed, and there is no sound
coming from it. He looks at it, smiling to himself. He closes the main
door behind him, and locks it.

He waits a few seconds, then calls out to the bride. "Miss? I know
you're in there."

After a long pause, there is some shuffling, and a head peeks out of
the slowly opening door, face red with
embarrassment. "Huh... Reverend?"

He pinches his face into a frown, trying to look as disapproving as he
can. "Come here, Miss."

The bride, Christina, emerges from the room, looking crestfallen. The
redness on her face goes all the way down her generous cleavage. Her
dress is tight, hugging her body close, revealing round curves and
long limbs. It goes down mid-thigh straight, remaining tight the whole
way down, the material wrinkled and bunched together horizontally in
fine lines. Her legs, wrapped in white nylon, are simply perfect.

He must have stared for a moment too long, and certainly in a way
unbecoming of a minister, because Christina is frowning by the time
his eyes have made their way back to her face. Her voice is
uncertain. "Reverend...?"

There is no time to waste. He takes the two steps separating him from
the bride, and although she reflexively moves back, he presses his
fingers into the soft flesh of her naked shoulders.

The familiar sensation runs up his arm, and his fingers tingle on her
skin. Christina's face grows blank.

He sighs with relief, and lets his fingers run down her shoulder to
her sternum before dipping down the valley of her breasts, teasing the
gentle slope of flesh encased in her dress's corset. His cock, already
hard, twitches in expectant excitement.

She is more beautiful even than on the pictures he has seen--porcelain
skin, round piercing blue eyes, large breasts, long legs. She is a
model, Lizzie told him. And now, she is his, ready to be a Vessel for
her Lord.

"Christina," he says, raising his palm to her face. She is looking at
him expectantly, the tip of her tongue teasing her upper lip. Her
breathing is deep, which does wonderful things to her breasts. "I am
your Lord, your Savior. I am the Light that illuminates your life and
reveals the Truth. You are my Servant. You are my Vessel."

Christina's face flushes red again, this time with arousal, and she
lifts a hand up to her chest, as if to hold it in. It rests on the
cleft between her breasts where his hand was a moment earlier. Bright
red fingernails tipping dainty fingers tease him with the promise of
playful scratches.

"I am yours, my Lord. I am your Vessel. Do with me as you please." Her
voice is filled with unmistakable lust.

His cock throbs.

His hand on her face trails down to her mouth, and he runs his index
finger over her ruby red lips. Her breath catches.

His eyes looking deep into hers, he slides his thumb between her lips,
and she gently slurps the invading digit inside, wrapping her tongue
teasingly around it, scratching against the nail.

He thrusts his thumb deeper, and without prompting Christina starts to
suck on it, softly at first, then more vigorously. Her eyes never
leave his.

He is starting to see why Lucas was so keen on getting head from this
pair of lips--she looks like she was created to do exactly what she is
doing now, sucking on something thrust in her mouth.

He sighs. He is under a time constraint--and indeed, the groom must
still be around, and is bound to come and investigate what has
happened to his dearly beloved if she does not emerge from the room,
but good sense takes second stage to sheer lust. The feeling of
Christina's mouth suckling on his thumb makes his cock twitch in
synchrony, and he wants to feel her mouth on his shaft. She has
probably never sucked on a man before--but here she is, about to have
her mouth invaded for the first time by a God.

"Christina," he says, pulling his thumb out of her mouth and moving to
unfasten his pants, "prepare me, for I shall penetrate you and shower
you with the gift of Life Eternal."

"Prepare you, my Lord?" Her look is half innocence, half wickedness.

His cock springs free, hard and angry and demanding attention.

"Have you ever pleasured a man with your mouth, Christina? Held a hard
shaft between your lips and let it slip into your mouth and possess
you?"

"N...no..." Even through the haze of his control, he can see she is
hesitant, her strong natural reluctance fighting off against the
signals of lust and desire that must have been radiating from her sex.

He smiles, and lifts two fingers to her mouth, and slowly pushes them
in the wet orifice, thrusting them in deep before pulling them out and
sawing back and forth in a simulacrum of fellatio. Christina moans,
and sucks.

"You will prepare me with your mouth, Christina--prepare your Lord's
spear so that it can penetrate your sacred slit and consecrate
you. Get down on your knees, and worship your Lord like a penitent,
like a suppliant, like a wench seeking forgiveness for her sins. Take
me in your mouth, Christina, and revere your Lord!"

He gently presses on her head, and she haltingly slides down his body
to kneel at his feet, her face only inches from the tip of his hard
cock. She looks at it with fascination and apprehension, her mouth
open, breathing hard.

He runs his hand through her hair and gently pulls her towards her
reward. "Go on," he says, "take it in..."

The tip of his cock makes contact with her lips, and she closes her
eyes and shivers. He pushes in, taking his time, enjoying the
sensations of her lips closing around his flesh, of her tongue dancing
on the surface of his glans, of her cheeks as she sucks in hard.

She gags slightly when he touches the back of her mouth, and he
relents. She lets him slide out, and then takes him back in, this time
helped by a hand on her head. After a few iterations, he lets her go,
and she bobs gently on his cock, sucking him on her own, taking him as
deep as she can before releasing him at the edge of discomfort.

For someone that has never sucked a man, she is a natural, her mouth
playing his shaft like a well-trained flutist her instrument. Her eyes
remain closed as she bobs back and forth, slowly, soft sucking sounds
filling the air.

"Christina," he says, "look at your Lord."

She does, looking up at him as she keeps sucking, her big blue eyes
full of desire and adoration.

He caresses her cheek. "You truly are beautiful."

Christina blushes, and sucks harder, the slurping sounds from her
mouth music to his ears. She is not the best fellatrix he has ever
sampled, but she has enthusiasm, and her beauty makes it all the more
rewarding. For what man does not secretly crave for a model to
lavishly worship his shaft? What God?

"Christina," he adds, after a particularly deep thrust from the blonde
makes him shiver, "I will grant you a Boon. From now on, whenever you
have a hard shaft in your mouth, you will get arouse--you will get
wet--wetter than your deepest dirtiest unmentionable fantasies have
ever made you. Every thrust of a shaft in your mouth will ratchet up
your arousal, bit by bit, until you crave for sweet orgasmic release."

As soon as he finishes, Christina moans, and her efforts on his cock
redouble in ardor, as if she is possessed by an increased hunger--she
takes him deeper, repeatedly, and the act sends delightful sensations
up his spine every time she forces his cock to bump the back of her
throat. She cannot take him all, but he does not mind, not this
time. What she is doing is wonderful enough.

He nods approvingly when he sees that while bobbing up and down on his
cock she has lifted her dress up her thighs and has sneaked a hand
underneath it, undoubtedly to finger herself. He almost tells her to
stop and take off her dress so he can witness the spectacle of her
dainty hand thrusting a few fingers up her hungry twat as she sucks
him off, but the feelings on his cock are simply too good to be
interrupted.

For the first time since he started his Ministry, he contemplates
releasing his seed in a Vessel's mouth before inseminating her, for
the sheer pleasure of it. The way she thrusts herself forward, the
sounds of suction escaping her lips, the moans emerging from her
throat, the press of her cheeks and her tongue and her whole mouth
around his cock is incredible, and he does not want any of it to end.

Christina's hand under her dress is more frantic now, and it becomes
clear that she is thrusting fingers in and out of her pussy, the soft
squelching sounds merging with those from her blow job in a harmony of
lewdness.

No--he needs to adhere to the Plan, the Vision, the Prophecies. He
cannot afford to stoop to satisfying some primal desires.

"Christina, stop--"

She does not. She does not hear him, or so he tells himself. Because
the alternative is that she resisted his Command, a Blasphemy the
consequence of which he does not want to consider.

"Christina, stop at this moment!" He does not want to raise his
voice. He grabs her hair and pulls her off his cock.

Her head back, her mouth wide open with strings of saliva connecting
her lips to the tip of his shaft, her eyes crazed and unseeing, she
looks like an animal--a beautiful, sexy, utterly desirable animal. She
keeps thrusting a hand under her dress, hard, and the whimpers that
she cannot control suggest that perhaps his Boon earlier was too much,
that perhaps her mind is unable to cope with the pleasure he has
forced through her system.

"Please... my Lord... Please! I want... I want... my Lord, I want to
taste your cum!" It looks like it is a struggle to resist the urge she
feels to dive right back onto his cock, and he cannot help a smile.

"You want your Lord's seed, wench?"

"Fuck yes," she says, her eyes finally focusing on him, her free hand
rising up to grasp his hard shaft and stroke it lightly. "I want you
to splash it all over my face, all over my mouth--I want to drown in
your cum, my Lord!"

"You will get my Seed, then. Lie down, lift up your dress, spread your
legs. Offer your holy hole to your Lord, so that He may consecrate you
with his Rod."

Christina obeys him, lying down on the ground at his feet, not caring
about the dirt floor. She pulls her dress up over her thighs, exposing
the top of her stockings--along with the garter--and then her sheer
panties, which are almost translucent at the crotch so abundant is her
arousal.

He points, while stroking his cock. "Take them off."

She does. She then spreads her legs wide, and caresses a beautiful
pussy covered with a fine dew of light hair. She moans, as her fingers
busily dance up and down her swollen labia.

He stares, still stroking his cock, admiring the beautiful blonde with
her long legs spread, ready to welcome him and please him.

"Please," she moans, lifting her pelvis so that her crotch sways
closer to him, "please enter me, my Lord. Enter me, and fuck me..."
Her voice trails as she thrusts two fingers into her pussy to
heart-warming sloshy sounds.

"My thoughts exactly," he mutters as he stretches himself over her and
presses the head of his cock against her pussy. She does not wait for
him to push in, preferring to thrust her groin upward and impale
herself on his descending shaft.

She groans a loud "Oh fuck!" and comes in his arms, shivering with her
pleasure. As he slowly fucks in and out, she clings to him, breathing
hard in his ear, her legs wrapped around him, the tip of her high
heels digging into his calves, her body pressed against his.

"You fill me up so good, my Lord," she whispers in his ear, as she
thrusts back against him.

He lifts himself up on his elbows to look at her. Her skin is
gleaming, her eyes are half closed. Her mouth is open, her lips wet,
her tongue dancing in one corner. Without thinking, he runs a finger
over those red lips.

Christina grunts and grips the tip of his finger between her lips and
suckles on it before opening her eyes and while keeping them trained
on his, sucks that finger deep into her mouth.

"Mmm," she moans, as she gives his finger a blow job, a little smile
on her lips, her big innocent eyes watching him.

He fucks her harder.

She seems to enjoy that. She lets go of his finger, grasps him behind
the neck and pulls herself up, her nose against his, breathing through
her mouth. "Are you going to stuff that big cock of yours in my mouth,
my Lord? Are you going to fuck my mouth? I want to swallow you whole,
my Lord--I want to drink you all up..." She mashes her lips against
his and kisses him hard, bucking underneath his rutting body.

He is taken aback, and almost explodes right then and there. He pulls
back, closes his eyes trying to think of something suitably neutral,
and when he is calmer, he finally speaks.

"Christina, I will now baptize you into your new Faith. You will
accept my Seed deep into your womb, and carry it to term so that you
can bring forth a new generation of worshippers for your Lord. Tell
me, do you want my Seed?"

"Oh yes! Spill in me, my Lord! Feed me your cum, drown me!"

It is not quite what he has in mind, but the enthusiasm behind the
thought pleases him to no end, and once more he almost gives in to his
desire to pull out and shove his cock into her mouth and continue
introducing her to the joys of oral sex.

But he does not. Duty comes first. Duty always comes first. Duty is
the code that keeps the Spirit from flying off into space like a
helium balloon. He thrusts into Christina harder, cementing his
determination. She moans as she feels him inside her, and urges him
on.

He smiles to himself. There is no reason why he cannot derive pleasure
if Duty is seen to. After all, even Gods need rewards. He raises
himself on his hands, and looks at the bride, her eyes closed, sweat
dripping off her brow, her mouth open and panting. "Is this how you
want your mouth fucked? Hard and fast?" He punctuates his question
with a few hard thrusts.

Christina's eyes fly open, her lips parting wider, the tiniest bit of
drool seeping off the corner of her mouth. She looks crazed. She moans
loudly before wrapping her nylon-sheathed legs around his waist and
clutching him close.

"Fuck yes," she groans before her tongue sneaks out to lick his
lips. "Fuck my mouth hard and deep--fuck my mouth like a cunt, my
Lord--shove your cock down my throat over and over and over and--Oh!
God! Yes! Like that!"

She clutches him tighter, pulling herself off the ground, her legs
wrapped around him. His arms are starting to shake from having to
support their combined weight. Christina is panting in his ear, little
animals sounds coming from her throat. "Fuck me, my Lord! Fuck me!"
she repeats, like a mantra.

He pushes her down and redoubles his efforts, his hips driving his
cock deeper and deeper into her welcoming pussy. The wet sounds from
their coupling testify to the arousal Christina is subject to. When he
runs one of his hands down the side of her face, she swivels her head
like a panther and grabs his hand and sucks two of his fingers into
her mouth and she swallows them repeatedly, gagging loudly, and the
sounds from the mouth compete with those from her pussy.

Her eyes are closed. Her hips do a mad dance. The hand grasping his
hand holds it in a death grip, while her other hand is on his butt and
urges him deeper inside her.

And then she pushes his fingers down her gullet and elicits a gag that
threatens to make her retch on the spot, and she stiffens underneath
him, and practically explodes with an orgasm that nearly throws him
off.

And the feeling of her pussy squeezing his cock in the throes of her
passion brings him over the edge, and he lets go--spurting jet after
jet of his Seed deep in her womb, while she sucks harder and harder on
his fingers as if they are about to provide the same nectar for her to
enjoy.

He slumps to the ground next to her, drained. The cool floor is hard
against his side, but he does not care.

Christina snuggles up to him, still keeping his hand near her face,
gently licking his fingers. Her other hand is softly stroking his
cock, which is barely deflated.

When he recovers his breath, he looks at her. He tries to summon
enough energy to sound powerful and dominating. "Christina," he says,
pushing his voice low.

"Mmm... yes, my Lord?" She licks the palm of his hand, looking for all
the world like a cat playing with a mouse.

"You are now a Vessel of your God."

"Mmm... yes, my Lord."

"You and your soon-to-be husband are blessed. He shall be rewarded for
offering his bride as a Vessel. Listen to me well, Christina." He
raises himself on an elbow.

Christina looks at him, nibbling on one of his fingers.

"From now on, you shall provide your husband-to-be with oral sex
whenever he so desires. No matter when he wishes it, or where he
wishes it, you shall endeavor to satisfy him to the best of your
considerable skills. You will offer to wake him up every morning with
a blow job, and you will make it very clear that your mouth is his for
the taking. You will, at your convenience, practice your oral skills,
seeking to become the most accomplished fellatrix you can be. Your
Boon, Christina, will remain your gift. But your oral-driven orgasms
when satisfying your husband-to-be with your mouth will be even more
pleasurable than any other."

Christina is listening, absorbing, changing upon hearing his words,
even as she is sucking on his finger.

"Now show me," he says, lying down on his back. "Show me how you are
going to suck your husband's cock--worship your Lord like you would
him."

Her grin is wide. "With pleasure, my Lord!"


				* * *


(Charleston, West Virginia. Two months ago.)


Elizabeth Bowden strolled through the lobby towards the security guard
behind his reception desk.

"Kanawha Insurance," she said with a smile.

The guard nodded without looking up from his bank of security
cameras. "Sixth floor. Please sign in."

He only looked when Elizabeth was signing her name, and from the
corner of her eyes she saw his double take, and repressed a
smile. People--mostly men--had been reacting that way to her as she
made her way to Greg's building, which confirmed that she had done
well. The security guard at least was trying to remain professional,
in contrast to the corner florist who unashamedly gawked at her as if
she were a Saturday night stripper whom he had paid good money to
ogle.

Not that she was dressed particularly scantily, she reflected with a
touch of wonder as she smiled to the guard after picking up the
bouquet of flowers she had purchased from the corner florist and
heading to the elevator bank. The pale raincoat she wore was perhaps a
little bit high on her thighs, and the way she kept it cinched tight
at the waist did wonders for her figure. But her shoes were anything
special--runners, what anyone with half a sane mind wore to walk
around the city. But the white nylons that were visible between the
hem of her coat and her shoes caught the eye, and certainly her hair
and makeup were flawless, which they had better be because she had
spent nearly an hour perfecting them, brushing her long red hair in
exactly the way that Greg said he loved, and she knew she looked
good. Smashing, in fact.

And she looked good because she felt good. More than good, great! With
two months to go before she and Greg would tie the knot, two months
before they could move in together without her father getting a
stroke, two months before her husband could ravage her and make her a
woman. Like a puppy picking up on the excitement of her mistress and
happily wagging its tail in anticipation of something good, her pussy
tingled in sympathy.

She was alone in the elevator that carried her to the sixth floor,
which gave her some time to get ready mentally and rehearse what she
wanted to do. She had visited Greg at his office often enough, and
sometimes for exactly the reason she was there today--sex--but never
in such an elaborate fashion. Never with anything but, say, her own
satisfaction in the balance. Today, she was not there for herself, she
was there for Greg, and that added a certain pressure, a certain
weight, which made her just a touch nervous.

When she thought about it cold, early in the morning upon waking and
before leaving the comfort of her bed, she still had trouble coming to
terms with what she could only qualify as her good fortune. She was a
romantic at heart--had always been--and even as she was growing up,
she had had to hide her favorite movies from the boys without whom she
used to play and spend most of her time. She had grown up a tomboy
with a wild closeted romantic streak. And fifteen years later, she had
come full circle and was a wedding planner. While she was clear eyed
about the realities of modern marriages--not everyone took it equally
seriously, and as long as both parties agreed that this was the case,
there was no harm done-- but she held the deep feeling that the
institution was special, was worth preserving, that vowing love and
support and partnership in front of witnesses and through a ritual had
benefits that went beyond economy or companionship. And that's why the
push to recognize gay marriages is really a Godsend, she thought, not
for the first time, it counters the narrative that permeates
everything nowadays.

The elevator dinged for the sixth floor. She grinned to herself
thinking about running that argument by her father--he'd have a
stroke, albeit a smaller one than if she had moved in with Greg before
her wedding. Her father still fumed and exploded when he spoke of
young people living together without getting married, and the sheer
concept of homosexuality--gay men in particular--was one he hated so
much it did not even warrant a rant on his part. Elizabeth wondered
the extent to which his time in the army had shaped his views,
wondered whether he had witnessed or experienced something that had
traumatized him. He rarely spoke of the war. About being in the
military, yes, all the time. But the war itself, almost never.

She stepped out of the elevator onto the comparatively busy floor that
housed not only the offices of Kanawha Insurance, Greg's employer, but
also a small investment bank and a orthopedic practice. Her mother, in
the year before her death, the year during which she and Elizabeth had
talked endlessly and had grown much closer, had always maintained that
her father was a good man, deep down inside, but a wounded
one. Wounded beyond any physical damage. Some damage is not visible,
she had often repeated.

Elizabeth nodded her head and smiled to a few of Greg's colleagues
that she recognized, having met them at several official functions
where she had been introduced as his fiancee. She barely noticed the
looks they gave her, hungry, lustful, predatory looks, the kind of
looks she saw throughout her college years. Her father was still
foremost on her mind as she wondered, not for the first time, how he
would take her upcoming nuptials. She worried about him--he seemed
happy for her, encouraging, even begrudgingly recognizing that Greg
was an "upstanding young man" even though he had never served his
country.

Giving up his legs for his country in Iraq during the First Gulf War
had been tough, but tougher still had been his reintegration into
society. In a story line calqued almost shamelessly from the headlines
of a Second World War paper, he had fallen in love, not with a nurse,
but with the doctor at the rehabilitation center in which he had
landed back in the States--and he had been at first surprised, then
disbelieving, then reluctantly hopeful upon realizing that his
feelings were shared and that his doctor, Elizabeth's mother, shared
those feelings despite his damage, despite his nonfunctional lower
body, despite his perceived uselessness.

Elizabeth had been three years old at the time. She did not remember
her biological father--the man her mother used to call the
Bastard. Elizabeth had never met him, had never sought him out. And it
did not matter, because Sergeant James Bowden of the 24th Infantry
Division filled the role of father as if it was meant for him in the
first place.

And he had been wonderful and supportive when her mother--his
wife--died eight years later, even though Elizabeth knew full well
that that time had been terrible for him, a hell not unlike that of
his war years and the loss of his legs. And yet he soldiered on,
taking care of her, and she carried in her heart the secret that
perhaps, just perhaps, she might have given him a reason to live, a
role to play, a home to stoke the fires for. He treated her like she
was his own daughter, like she was blood from his blood, grown from
his own seed. And for that, for not abandoning her, for giving her a
home and giving her his heart, she would forever be thankful.

She shook her head to clear it as she approached the desk of Greg's
administrative assistant, which he shared with four other
colleagues. The assistant, Meghan, stared at Elizabeth with wide
eyes. They had spoken often a functions and parties thrown by Greg's
company, and they had gotten along quite well. That the assistant was
but a few years younger than Elizabeth helped, and that they came from
similar backgrounds helped even more.

"Miss... Miss Bowden," said Meghan. It had become a joke between them,
calling her Miss Bowden, although Elizabeth suspected that the young
Meghan mostly meant it, as she had always seemed a bit in awe of the
redhead. Not that Elizabeth knew why. Shelley's theory, when Elizabeth
had mentioned it, after asking if the assistant was pretty--not a
beauty, but not unpleasant to look at either, the word mousy fitting,
too reserved and unwilling to put herself forward--was that the
assistant was indeed awed, awed by Elizabeth's togetherness, beauty,
and the fact that she had landed her direct boss, for whom the
assistant might bear the slightest crush.

"Hi Meghan. Is Greg in?" Somehow, that Meghan might have a crush on
Greg, on her man, endeared the young woman even more to Elizabeth--as
if they had something more in common. Elizabeth was not generally
prone to jealousy, and she did not get any vibes indicating she might
need to feel otherwise towards the reserved administrative assistant.

Meghan nodded. She was still staring at Elizabeth as if she were an
apparition, her eyes wide. "Yes... yes, he is. Miss Bowden. He's been
back from lunch as of half an hour ago. Do you want me to tell him
you're here?"

"I was thinking of dropping in to surprise him, to be completely
honest. Is he alone?"

Meghan nodded once again, watching Elizabeth put her large handbag on
the desk and pulling out from it a pair of white stiletto pumps.

As Elizabeth slipped off her runners, Meghan seemed fascinated by the
shoes, and then appeared to realize that she was staring and blushed
and without really looking at Elizabeth asked about the wedding. "You
must... you must be excited about the big day... Miss Bowden? Two
months to go?"

Elizabeth grinned as she slid her feet into her pumps, immediately
gaining four inches. She noted that at least one man in the office was
staring at her, exactly what Meghan was avoiding at all
cost. Elizabeth felt a bit of a blush coming to her cheeks,
recognizing the spike of arousal that she remembered so well form her
college days when she felt male eyes on her that cemented the power
she held over them--one that she never abused, but enjoyed
greatly. She had toned it down after graduation, considering it part
of growing up. But perhaps Shelley was right about this--as Shelley
was wont to be about most things--that it was her true nature to show
off, to feed on sexual energy. She wondered, again not for the first
time, whether Greg would approve, and how he would react to learning
about that aspect of her personality, if he had not already guessed
it.

"Nine weeks," she answered, putting her runners in her bag. She
decided not to put on her tiara--she had not been sure, but now that
the choice had to be made, it did not feel right. "But who's counting,
right?"

She flashed a happy smile to Meghan, who responded with a small smile
of her own. "You're so lucky," she said, wistfully, looking as though
she wanted to add more.

"Oh, I'm not the one who's lucky today." She gave Meghan a weighty
wink. "Can you make sure Greg is not disturbed for the next, oh, let's
say, forty-five minutes?"

She did not wait for the now brightly blushing Meghan to answer before
strolling to Greg's office door, teasingly imparting the slightest
exaggerated sway to her hips for the benefit of the anonymous gawker
whose eyes she still felt on her back and on her legs. The thrill that
perhaps the older man would masturbate thinking of her, imagining what
she wore underneath her coat and what she was going to do entering her
fiance's office added to her arousal.

She slipped into Greg's office. Her fiance was at his desk, reading
from a folder, a frown on his face, tapping a cheap plastic pen on the
surface of the desk in time with some rhythm only he could hear. It
took him a moment to register her presence, and only looked up
startled when Elizabeth pulled the deadbolt on the door with a
finality that would have been frightening if not for the smile that
split her face. She did not say a word as she leaned back against the
door, her arms loosely crossed before her, her handbag dropped by her
side.

"Lizzie?" He looked surprised, confused, and Elizabeth guessed maybe
even a bit apprehensive. Which he should be, she thought.

"Hey baby," she said, trying to make her voice throaty. "Is this a bad
time?"

He looked down at his files. "No... no... just... an adjustment that's
being contested, and..." He looked up, embarrassed. "But that's not
interesting. What are you doing here? I've already had lunch, and..."
His voice trailed once he took in how she looked. "Wow..." he said,
his voice low.

"I'm not here for lunch. I was out shopping this morning with Shelley,
and I needed your opinion on something."

"Okay... Right... Sure... Of course. What... what do you need?"

She smiled, and pushed away from the door, taking two steps to the
center of the office. Her hand went to the belt cinching her
waist. "Well..." she said, undoing the knot slowly. Greg was still
holding his file, but his eyes were on her fingers, mesmerized, unable
to look elsewhere. Which was perfectly fine with Elizabeth.

In one smooth movement that she had practiced a few times back home,
she pulled her raincoat open and let it cascade down her body to pool
at her feet. She kept her eyes on Greg the whole time, and was
rewarded by his eyes opening wide and his mouth actually hanging
open--just the way she had hoped he would react.

She savored watching his eyes drop down from her face to her chest,
taking in the lacy white semi-corset that pressed her breasts upward
while mostly baring them but still covering her nipples that were
hardening in the cool conditioned air of the office; his eyes dipped
down her body to her matching lacy white garter belt framing a
diminutive pair of panties, then further down following those garters
to the lacy top of her stockings and then down her long legs to her
pumps. He brought his eyes back up the way they came, following her
curves, and sending shivers up along her spine.

Her smile was radiant. "I just wanted to know whether this is the sort
of outfit a groom might find arousing on his wedding night. Shelley
thought it covered way too much. I thought it served to exercise the
old imagination a little bit, to tantalize, if you will. Opinions?"

Greg opened his mouth a few times, but no sound came out. Elizabeth
was pleased. And horny. And she knew how to take care of that last
one. She sashayed her way around Greg's desk like a model on a
catwalk, making sure that his attention remained focused on her hips
and on her legs.

"You know," she said to him once she had made it behind his desk, next
to him, "they say actions speak louder than words..." With her foot
she pushed Greg's chair away from his desk, and then straddled his
lap.

Greg was still staring at her looking vaguely stunned. "Meghan is--"

"Don't worry about her, she's the lookout." Elizabeth felt Greg's
growing erection beneath her through his pants, and slowly ground her
crotch upon it, eliciting a slight groan from Greg who closed his eyes
and leaned back in his chair. "In fact," she continued, "she's
probably getting wet thinking about what we're doing in here, maybe
even has a hand down her panties and rubbing that little clit of hers
raw."

Before Greg could respond, she was leaning into him and kissing him
hard, her hips rocking back and forth and pressing into his cock,
trying to massage the itch she felt deep inside.

Once the kiss broke, Greg seemed to have recovered some amount of
clarity. His hands lingered on her thighs, just below the lacy tops,
his fingers playing with the garters.

"Well," she said, looking at him in the eyes. "If that hard cock under
my ass is any judge, can I infer that you like this lingerie set?"

"I do," replied Greg, running his hands down her thighs, and she
shivered at the feeling through the sheer nylon.

"I wanted something that would make you want to fuck me--make you want
to deflower me in style come our wedding night. Will it work?"

He looked at her, and she could read love and lust and a thousand
other things in his eyes, and it made her wet and maudlin at the same
time. "Sweetie--I'm half temped to take you right here, right now..."
He reached to kiss her, and she let him, clutching him as the kiss
turned more passionate, as his hands went up her back and pulled her
into him, and she pushed down on his lap and rubbed her crotch harder
against his cock.

"Believe me," she whispered in his ear, "I so want to let you, to lie
back with my legs in the air and feel you invading me..." And she
did. It took a lot more willpower than she had expected to not throw
her promise to her mother away and just fuck her fiance on the floor
of his office.

"Do you like my stockings?" she asked, as she felt Greg's hands back
on her legs. "I bet you do--all men like stockings. It's so cliche."
She kissed the side of his face. "But I admit that it does feel pretty
sexy. I was walking around, and I felt like telling every man that
walked past that I was wearing stockings under my coat and watching
them want to take a peek at them. Would you like me to wear stockings
more often? Maybe after we get married, I can wear stockings for
you--or maybe just when we fuck? Or maybe as a signal, you know, when
I get horny and I need you in me, I can wear stockings so that it's
clear what I want--" She grinned as she felt his cock throb underneath
her. "Oh you like that idea, don't you?"

"Any sane man would," grunted Greg, as he dove into her cleavage, and
she giggled as his lips and tongue caressed and tickled the soft skin
atop her breasts.

"Hold on," she said, reaching behind her to unclasp the semi-corset,
while Greg's hands played with her garter belt. She pulled it off and
tossed it across the desk, and shivered as the cold air kissed her
nipples. But the sensation was only temporary since Greg wrapped his
lips around one of those nipples and sucked, while he grasped her
other breast with his hand and started kneading it.

Elizabeth leaned back. "Oh--suck on my titties, baby--just like that."
She put her hands on Greg's head and caressed it while he sucked and
worshipped her breasts.

"I've been lingerie shopping with Shelley all morning, and it's made
me so horny you wouldn't believe. Looking for what would turn you on,
make you go crazy, make you want to fuck me hard and long--it just got
to me. All the while Shelley commenting, telling me that such and such
a bra looked hot on me, that such and such a thong looked wicked on
me, that such and such a camisole looked obscene--it just made me gush
and made me want to find you and just use you as a sex toy, baby."

Greg's answer, if there was one, was muffled by Elizabeth's
breasts. And between her own chatter and the feeling of Greg's mouth
and hands playing with her nipples, her arousal climbed and climbed
until she could take it no longer and her rocking on his lap
threatened to destroy his pants and was more frustrating than anything
else.

She stood, and sat back on Greg's desk after pushing aside the folders
that he had been perusing when she appeared. "I want to feel your
mouth on me, baby. I want you to eat me out and make me come." As Greg
looked at her at first with shock and then with a smile forming on his
lips, she grinned as well. "And then I'll suck you off and make you
explode so hard you're gonna have to take the rest of the day off."

She pulled off her panties--which she had put on over her garters, in
expectation for exactly something like that, and had made her feel
even more wicked--and spread her legs, exposing her pussy, freshly
shaved but for a little shard of reddish hair above her labia.

"You like?" she asked, as Greg whistled softly.

"How does it feel?" he asked back, lightly running his fingers on the
smooth skin, sending sparkles of shivers up and down her lower
body. Even her toes tingled.

"It feels incredible--your lips--I want to feel your--oh!" Elizabeth
threw back her head and pushed her hips forward as she felt Greg's
mouth press against her pussy and gently start nibbling on her lips.

It felt good, so very good when he ran his hands over her spread legs
as he ran his tongue over her clitoris before diving in to lick her up
and suck her off. She put her hands back on his head, as if to
reassure herself that he would not stop or move away and leave her
unsatisfied.

"Baby," she said, her breath short, her hips involuntarily jerking
with the lashes of his delicious tongue. "I want you to think about
something as our big day comes. I want you to think about your
fantasies. I want you to think about what you would like us to do
together, about what you like me to do, what you crave. I want to be
everything you ever wished for, everything you ever hoped for. Oh yes!
Like that! Suck my clit!"

She groaned. He had picked up the pace, sucking and licking with
skill. If he uses his dick the way he uses his mouth, she reflected,
not for the first time, I'll be the happiest bride in the world. "I
want to know your dirtiest fantasies, and make them come true. Don't
worry if they're perverted; I can take it. Maybe you'd like to be tied
up and teased? Or maybe you'd like me to be tied up, so you can do
whatever sick and twisted thing you want to me?"

She felt the change, the slight stiffening and the renewed vigor with
which he worshipped her pussy. She smiled, and spread her legs further
to provide him better access. "Is that it? You want to tie me up and
do things to me? While I can't do anything to stop you, except maybe
beg? Would you want me to beg? Please, sir, please, don't fuck me too
hard! Oh! What... what are you doing?! Oh!"

Greg was still licking her pussy, but he had taken advantage of
Elizabeth's thrusting of her hips to slide a hand between her ass and
the desk and, using the moisture that were flowing freely from her
juicing pussy, had slipped a finger between her cheeks and had pressed
it past the tight ring of her anus. Before she could say anything
else, he had inserted his finger up to the second knuckle, and was
gently thrusting it in and out.

It had been so long that she hadn't had someone play with her
ass--Greg had never done it before. In conjunction with the action on
her pussy, she knew that she would not last very long, and that she
would come rather explosively.

"Oh," she moaned, as she grasped his hair in her fist. "You like
sticking your finger in my ass? You're so fucking dirty! I guess if I
were tied up and unable to move, then you could even stick your fat
cock in my ass, and I wouldn't be able to stop you. You could fuck my
ass, and I'd have to take it, like a good obedient little wifey... Oh!
Fuck!"

Greg was sucking on her clitoris with abandon, after adding a second
finger to his anal assault, and Elizabeth had no complaints--her hips
were keeping time with Greg's ministrations, and she was feeling a
massive orgasm build up like a swelling ocean behind a dike.

"Maybe..." she groaned, feeling her thoughts starting to lose
coherence, "maybe you'd like to tie someone else up-- we could play
with her together--maybe little Meghan out there, stripped naked and
trussed up, sucking on your cock while I fuck her with a big fat
strap-on? Or maybe Shelley--cute little blonde Shelley--tied up fast
so you can stuff your cock in her tight cunt and fuck her hard while
she sucks on my clit--like you're doing now. Oh! Fuck! You're
gonna... baby, you're gonna make me come! Don't stop! Fuck! FUCK!"

She barely noticed how hard she was pressing his head against her
crotch as she cramped in orgasm when it blasted through her pussy and
down to her extremities in a long fiery wave. She was concentrating on
not screaming her head off, and her lower body went wild, her spasming
sphincter practically trapping Greg's fingers in her ass. Greg's mouth
on her clitoris did not let up, and it served to prolong her orgasm
beyond its natural conclusion and she shivered and moaned and humped
his face until the sensations became too much and she had to push her
fiance away to catch her breath.

Greg stepped back into his chair as she recovered, her legs dangling
from the desk, her breasts rising with each shuddering intake of air.

When she rose up from the desk, her legs wobbly, she saw Greg was
looking at her with a smile on his face. His pants were down at his
feet, and he was slowly stroking his cock.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

She stuck her tongue out at him. "You think you're so good, don't
you?"

He shrugged, and tried to sound aloof. "I don't know. You seemed to
come pretty hard right then. I can't help but think I got a little
something to do with that. Besides, it's the least you deserve, what
with the twisted thoughts you were putting in my head."

She grinned, and eyed his cock. Her grin turned wolfish. "You think
those thoughts were twisted? You ain't seen nothing yet, baby." She
stepped off the desk, and sank to her knees between his legs. "But we
can talk about that later, 'cause right now, I want some of this."

Her hand pushed his hand away, and she picked up the stroking,
enjoying the feeling of the warm flesh in her hand, its pleasant
softness wrapped around a hard core that she could not wait to feel
drilling into her pussy. Only two more months, she thought.

"Maybe I should tell you one of my own fantasies," she said, leaning
over with her eyes on his and breathing onto his cock, which reacted
by jerking in her hands--he seemed already close to climax, probably
from having been turned on by her shameless display earlier, as well
as the images she had put in his head.

"Sure," he said. He seemed unable to resist the touch of her hand and
the anticipation of her mouth, and he kept thrusting his hips upwards
to press his cock to her lips.

"Don't mock me, but the idea of a threesome with you makes me
incredibly hot..." she said in a half-whisper, before slipping her
lips onto his cock and sliding all the way down to its root in one
smooth movement that had Greg simultaneously moaning and
stiffening. She savored the sensation of his cock filling her mouth
and her throat, its flavor, its texture. She kept him inside for a few
seconds before pulling out and breathing in.

Greg let out a deep breath himself. "Darn you're good at that! But..."
he seemed hesitant, and she looked up at him with eyes full of
innocence as she gently suckled on the head of his cock.

"Yes?"

"I don't think I can deal with another man putting his hands on you,
Lizzie, or even just looking at you naked..."

She did not answer, and merely sucked him inside once more, harder
this time, keeping him deep into her throat for longer, swallowing
around his cock and eliciting a grunt of satisfaction from him.

When she pulled out, smiling at the thin thread of saliva stretching
from her lips to the tip of his cock, she looked up at him again,
while licking his shaft with a gentle tongue. "Who's talking about a
man, baby?" She made sure her expression did not foster any
ambiguity. "Wanna hear a naughty story?"

She sucked on the head of Greg's cock while swirling her tongue across
the sensitive underside. Greg settled further in his chair, and almost
naturally spread his legs out.

"Whatever you say," he said, his voice low, trailing, almost dreamy,
"just don't stop..."

"Wouldn't dream of it, baby. It happened this morning--as I said, I
was shopping with Shelley, and we were trying out some clothes, you
know, some lingerie, and she was helping me, and her hands kept
brushing my hips, my tits, my ass, and I don't know if she was doing
it on purpose or what, but it got me even more turned on than I
already was, and I was pretty soaked to start with, let me tell
you. I'm sorry, baby, but I wanted to feel her lips wrapped around my
nipples like yours were a few minutes ago, feel her hands grab my ass
and squeeze it and paw it like a frat boy would." Elizabeth did not
feel the need to mention that Shelley had in fact done just that that
very morning, and that she herself had reciprocated by fingering the
blonde engineer to orgasm in the changing room of Victoria's Secret.

Greg did not say anything in response, but his cock responded for him,
twitching and getting even harder, and Elizabeth grinned to herself as
she slipped it into her mouth and sucked hard a few times before
returning to her stroking.

"She told me once, a while back, when she was drunk, that she fancied
you. And I know she fancies me too--she's bi, did you know? She used
to tell me of her adventures back in college, with boys and with
girls, and it made me wet at times." Again, Elizabeth felt it was
still too early to tell Greg that she herself had often been a
participant in those same adventures. But given Greg's reaction, she
was confident that before too long her fiance would learn every sordid
detail of her college tales.

"I don't think," she continued, her hand maintaining a steady rhythm
on his cock, "that it would take too much convincing to get her on her
knees in front of you, like I am, and have her blow you. Like this."
And Elizabeth straightened up slightly and then shoved her head
forward, impaling herself on the hard shaft, and started sucking him
harder than before, her head thrusting back and forth violently. She
kept her mouth open, gagging every time Greg's cock bottomed out as
loud sucking sounds and drool fought their way out of her lips,
blowing him the way that drove those jocks in college crazy, like a
porn star. Greg seemed to be enjoying it just as much as the boys had
back then, and soon he was pushing his cock into her mouth every time
she thrust her head forward, furthering penetration.

When she pulled out to catch her breath, her hand found his cock
again, now slick with her saliva. "Would you like to have both of us
at your feet, sucking you? Maybe you'd like me to blow you while
Shelley licks your ass, or sticks her tongue up your ass? Even been
rimmed, baby? They say it feels amazing, especially when you got a hot
bitch sucking you off at the same time." And suck she did, and Greg
moaned and ran his hand through her hair, clearly fighting the urge to
grab her head, and Elizabeth was disappointed--a little--that he did
not.

"Or maybe you'd like us both on our hands and knees in front of you,
with our asses up in the air, all eager, and you can fuck us, going
from one to the other, back and forth, pussy after pussy, until you
spurt your load into one of us--either one, who cares? And then when
you're resting, we could put on a little show for you, a little girl
on girl action? Men like that, I read, to have two girls doing each
other just to please them. Would you like that? Seeing me and Shelley
dyking it out, locked in a sixty-nine, with my tongue in her cunt and
hers in mine, our bodies rubbing together, our tits--"

"Oh fuck!" spat out Greg before grasping her head and pulling her onto
his cock. Elizabeth was almost taken by surprise, and she only had
time to wrap her mouth around the spasming cock before the first jets
started hitting her throat and she swallowed greedily.

She suckled gently as Greg wound down and slumped back in his chair,
his cock squirting its last few loads.

When he was done, she let the softening shaft slip out of her mouth,
and she licked it clean before resting her head against her fiance's
thigh, happy, satisfied, temporarily sated. Greg had a goofy smile on
his acne-scarred face, and his hand was caressing her hair. She
pressed her head into the caress like a cat seeking a petting.

Elizabeth knew, as she rested at her soon-to-be husband's feet, that
not only was he not repulsed at the idea of having Shelley join in
their game, but that part of him might even welcome it. All she had to
do was lightly stoke the flames. Something she would do in the future,
after they were married, after she had gotten her fill of finally
fucking her man.


				* * *


(Charleston, West Virginia. Now.)


"I finished crunching through the data," said Brisecoeur, his image on
the tablet planted on the dashboard of the rental car between Daniel
and Shawbank.

"Good," said Shawbank.

"Well, based on your search parameter, namely change in reported
sexual behavior coinciding with weddings--and let me say, that's a
maudit general parameter right there, I think I managed to narrow our
presumed victims down to about twenty from the original fifty-one
first-child births with conception around their wedding night."

Daniel thought back to what Shawbank had told him the day before,
before their visit to Natalie Grifford. "So thirty-one of those
are... well... natural."

Brisecoeur's image on the screen nodded. "Roughly. Depends a bit on
what you count as changes in sexual behavior. But projections were
that between thirty-two and thirty-eight such births would be
expected, so it fits."

"Meaning," completed Shawbank, "that the parameters were correct."

"Well... let's not get into a correlation and causality discussion,
but yeah, it does suggest that the parameters were useful ones."

"Is Desiree Cummings on the narrowed list?" asked Shawbank

Daniel looked at Shawbank. Desiree Cummings was the woman they had
just interviewed not an hour ago, the second such interview they have
had. Cummings lived in a trailer park twenty miles from Beckley, where
they had interviewed Natalie Grifford. The interview had not gone
well, partly because Cummings had been belligerent, not trusting the
two agents not to be from Child Services there to take her newborn,
who was crying in the adjacent room. Cummings, never letting her eyes
off Daniel--who had wanted to make sure the child was okay--had told
them her husband had been cavorting with "a cheap slut on his
construction crew" and that she had kicked him out after kicking his
ass. The bruises on Cummings arms suggested to Daniel that Mister
Cummings had done his fair amount of kicking ass before leaving, but
after a warning glance from Shawbank he had kept his mouth shut.

While Shawbank had conducted the interview--"no, things had not been
different since the wedding, except for that bastard putting his dirty
grubby paws on that no good cheap whore!"--Daniel had looked around
the trailer, always feeling Cummings's eyes on him whenever he
approached the door that led to the room where the baby was crying. He
had been itching to find a reason to actually call Child Services.

When Shawbank's questions turned to Cummings's husband and she
launched into an invective-filled narrative, she has been distracted
enough that Daniel could quietly open the door to the child's
room. While the trailer as a whole was in bad need of upkeep, the
baby's room--in which said baby was now quieting down to sleep--was
almost pristine, and cheerfully decorated. A stack of reusable diapers
sat on table, and toys lined one of the shelves. Two of the walls were
decorated with what had to be hand-painted figures from well-known
children's book--Daniel had spotted the Velveteen Rabbit, and Winnie
the Pooh at first glance. The crib looked, if not new, nice and
serviceable. Perhaps most importantly, Daniel had felt a sense of love
and protection from the room. He had closed the door softly so as not
to disturb the baby. When he turned back to the two women, Cummings
was still talking, but also staring at him with a challenge in her
eyes. He had given her a little smile with a nod.

"Desiree Cummings..." mumbled Brisecoeur, typing on his keyboard at
his end of the connection. "Nope. No flag on behavior. Could be she
didn't do anything worthy of mention anywhere though."

Shawbank shook her head. "No, it fits. I didn't get the sense from her
that she was in contact with the Special."

"Parfait," said Brisecoeur. "So I've run through the narrowed data,
and there's little commonality in either demographics or standard
classification categories. The strongest correlation is in terms of
age and race and physical characteristics: all identified victims are
young, between twenty and thirty-three, white or at least not overtly
non-Caucasian, all above the culturally acknowledged standard of
beauty. Much of this is expected."

Shawbank nodded. "So it doesn't tell us much?" asked Daniel.

Brisecoeur shrugged. "Not all that much, no. I mean, it does say that
our freak is not all that freaky--he's into young conventionally
beautiful women."

Daniel completed the thought. "Right, which doesn't really narrow
things down because he's pretty much average in that respect."

"Exactly. If the guy was into morbid obesity, we would have something
to work with, because people with extreme fetishes will tend to leave
easily identified traces."

"Skin color," said Shawbank. "The skin-color thing is data. Only going
for white women. Is there a correlation between skin color of the
victims and other demographics or geographic markers?"

Brisecoeur typed for a while on his keyboard, his lips pursed, then
waited as he undoubtedly read out and interpreted whatever data his
analysis algorithms were reporting.

"No strong correlation. Based on the sample data--which is small, I
need to remind you--the victims list should have a projected five
African-Americans and at least three of undifferentiated Hispanic
origin."

"Good," nodded Shawbank. "Run further analysis down that path."

"Will do." Brisecoeur seemed to start on it right away.

"So we're probably looking for a... a what? A racist? A white
supremacist?" asked Daniel. Did Freak psychology affect radical
positions? He remembered his run-in with the New American Deal
Association back at Darnell, an ultra-conservative and decidedly
racist organization that had almost mutilated his friend Radhu.

"Not necessarily. Our Special is attracted to white women, to the
probable strong exclusion of other ethnicities. It may just speak of
deeply ingrained cultural drivers. Those bleed into aesthetic
judgments, especially if this Special has an eye towards procreation."

"So we're looking for someone who comes from a background with deeply
ingrained segregationist beliefs?"

"Most likely. Maybe a closed community, likely religious, likely
fundamentalist, and undoubtedly homogeneous."

"I don't know much about Western Virginia, but from where I stand it
looks pretty homogeneous already."

Brisecoeur piped up on the screen. "You can that again, mon
ami. Probably why this freak managed to stay out of sight for so
long. Earliest victim suggests it goes back to almost two and half
years ago. Shawbank, I have an update on your question. No further
correlations even projecting onto a Caucasian demographic and
marginalizing probabilities."

"Do we know what might have happened two and a half years ago to
trigger such an episode?" asked Daniel. "Maybe that can help identify
suspects."

"There's rarely a triggering event for this," replied Brisecoeur. "A
Freak's ability will just pop out of the blue and off they go."

"Okay," continued Daniel, who was not ready to let the idea go. "But
we're working on correlations, right? What if this guy had victims
before, but completely different ones--which because of the difference
we can't identify. Then two and a half years ago, he shifts to brides
and decides to procreate? Maybe something happened then to change his
perspective. Maybe he just arrived in the state, got a job here,
something..."

Brisecoeur gave this a thought. "That's a long shot. But could be. And
it really opens up the field. I guess I can push the search for
correlations with similar events prior to that time elsewhere in the
country, and correlate it with employment information. Mmmm... that's
really going to beat up those machines downstairs." He seemed to
already start thinking of possible models and equations and
statistical tests for these new hypotheses.

"Data," said Shawbank. "We need more data. We should interview other
victims."

Daniel mused. "Do you mind taking the next interview and dropping me
off at the hotel? I have a few ideas I'd like to explore, and I need
to look at the data Brisecoeur has."

Shawbank looked at him with an expression that he had to interpret as
amused "Ideas? You think you can outperform Brisecoeur's
supercomputers?"

"Not outperform, no. But I may spot something his analysis missed. He
works from models, right? And models can only extrapolate from
existing data and assumptions that have been built into the model."

"Assumptions. And you're going to question them?"

"Well, maybe refine them a bit."

Shawbank gave him a long look, then nodded. "Fine. Hotel it is. But
you keep me up to date."


				* * *


Two hours later, at the desk in his Marriott hotel room in downtown
Charleston, Daniel was staring at data files that Brisecoeur was
pumping at him at a rate faster than he could process them.

Brisecoeur was sitting in a chat window in the corner of the screen,
looking none the worse for wear.

"It doesn't seem to bug you too much," said Daniel after a long pause.

"What doesn't?" Brisecoeur did not look up from his own data
crunching.

"This complete lack of progress. It's like looking for a needle in a
haystack, and not even knowing there's a needle there in the first
place."

"Part of the fun, mon ami. The thrill of the chase and all that."

"And while we're banging around in the dark, this guy is going around
raping women."

"Hey, at least, that's all he's doing. Not to minimize it, but
premièrement, the women don't seem to remember what has happened to
them, and deuxièmement, he's not leaving them messed up and crawling
around from jerk to jerk begging to be abused."

Daniel stiffened as he flashed to an unbidden image of Jenn crawling
around from jerk to jerk begging to be abused, and he clasped hard on
his mind, dreading what else it might dredge up. Did Brisecoeur know
something about Jenn? About Biff? Shawbank showed up at Darnell when
Biff captured and programmed his fiancee. Was it correlation--Shawbank
looking for Doctor Cargyle, as she claimed--or was it
causation--Shawbank working with Doctor Cargyle until something went
wrong? He recalled O'Neill's words, you shouldn't trust anybody. And
Jenn crawling from jerk to jerk begging to be abused was exactly what
Biff had promised he would have Jenn do if she were to get away from
him--and now he was dead, and Jenn was missing, and who knew where she
was and what she was doing.

"Are you okay?" asked Brisecoeur. He was frowning, and Daniel realized
that he must have made a face.

"Yeah, just a... Never mind." He pinched the bridge of his nose, then
rubbed his cheek, still unused to the feel of the soft beard. But that
a slightly different face stared at him every time he looked in the
mirror, a face different from the man that had failed his fiancee,
that had lost her, that had dropped her in the lap of a monster and
that had been unable to recover her in time, well, it helped, a little
bit. How was O'Neill doing in his search for Jenn?

"So nothing came up on the guest list we got from Natalie Grifford?"
Daniel said to try to get his mind back on track.

"Nothing. Though many of those people don't have much of an online or
even official presence anywhere," replied Brisecoeur.

"So there's no commonality in the churches or the officiating
ministers? Maybe the church organists all going to school together or
something?"

"Nothing. And two of the weddings were civil ceremonies, and one was
Jewish. That rules out a lot of common ground right there."

Daniel leaned back in his chair. One of his ideas was that the victims
may have had something in common not based on who they were, but based
on the externalities of their wedding ceremonies. But that seemed to
be a bust.

Closing his eyes, he thought back to the admittedly preliminary
discussions he had had with Jenn about their own nuptials, and tried
to navigate the hurt it was bringing him.

"Okay, let's move away from the ceremony itself, and to the
receptions. For I assume that all of those people had receptions after
the wedding?"

Brisecoeur nodded. "Yeah, I managed to pull out that information, and
they all had some sort of party. Different venues--in different
cities. All in West Virginia, so that's a commonality, though not a
useful one."

"Management?"

"For the venues? All of them owned and operated by different
companies. Even ran a search three-plies deep on employees
relationship both within the companies and without, and nothing came
up, except for an old lady in Florida being a distant cousin of two
employees at two different companies."

"A friend in common to many of those people?"

"The search did include most social networks, and nothing came up--not
even a name with connections to more than two management companies. It
could be someone without much of an online life."

"Or someone trying to hide their tracks," mused Daniel.

"Exactement."

"All right, what about the classics?"

"Excuse me?"

"The reception equivalents of the butler. The staff. Or the
caterers. It's always the caterers, isn't it? They have access, no one
looks at them twice because they're in uniform and they belong, and
it's a comparatively easy job to get."

Brisecoeur tapped away at his keyboard. "Good idea. I don't have
catering information here."

Daniel was thinking, having moved from receptions to support. "And
what if it happened right before the ceremonies? How about
hairdressing for the bride? Makeup? Hell, what about the dresses?
Where did they get their dresses?"

Brisecoeur frowned. "Mmm... I can do a rundown of the wedding shops in
the state, and also try to narrow down purchases. Hairdressing and
rest, no data. Although again I can narrow down likely
possibilities. We'll need to do some of this the old-fashioned way,
though, and talk to people."

Daniel nodded. "I'll call Natalie Grifford and see if I can get that
info from here. Is Shawbank done with her interview?"

"She has not checking in, so I presume not. I'll tell her to get as
much information as possible about the reception, including catering
and organization, and ask about hairdressers and wedding dresses and
generally anything that the bride may have done leading to the
wedding."

Daniel grabbed his phone, pulled out Natalie Grifford's number from
his notes, and called her.

"Mrs Grifford? Agent Daniel Malcolm here. We talked recently
about... about the events surrounding your daughter Chloe?"

"Yes, of course. Agent Malcolm. How are you? How may I help you?"
Daniel could hear soft cooing in the background. Chloe, he thought.

"I was wondering if I could get some information from you about your
reception, and about the people you talked to prior to the wedding:
people who did your hair, your makeup, who tailored your dress. We
want to make sure we talk to everyone that was involved in the wedding
and reception."

Natalie Grifford gave a short laugh at the other end of the
line. "I'll get you the information I have, but to be honest, I
probably don't know half the people that were involved. You really
need to talk to the wedding planner."

"You had a wedding planner?"

"Of course. Who has the time to plan a wedding anymore? I'll get you
the info I have, but you should definitely talk to Elizabeth
Bowden. She took care of everything."