DISCLAIMER: This is a work of fiction. If you are offended by 
sexually explicit material or are under the age of 18, stop reading 
now. This material cannot be reproduced for commercial purposes 
without the consent of the author.



John Carter
By
Lazlo Zalezak
Copyright (C) Lazlo Zalezak, 2003


Part 2: Mantle Of Aries
Chapter 21

The house was extremely quiet. Beth and Kelly were at work. 
They had been accompanied by Ling and Bob to serve as 
bodyguards. Tiger was at the hospital with them. John, Ed, 
Shadow, and Rover were in the informal living room getting ready 
for the days events. Marguerite was in the kitchen where she lived 
for most of the day and Bill was in his office taking care of the 
bills. 

John fiddled with the remote control for the entertainment center 
trying to get a cable news network. He pressed a button and the 
stereo came on. He punched another button and a CD started 
playing. He hit the off button several times. Everything went dead 
and then turned on again. He punched the TV button and nothing 
happened. He hit the power button and the TV came on, but there 
was no sound. The stereo was still on. He was tempted to throw the 
remote control across the room. He muttered, "Who picked out this 
system anyway? What's wrong with old fashioned televisions that 
you turn on and turn off?"

Ed stepped in front of him with his hand out to receive the remote 
control. "Give it to me."

Ten key presses later, Ed had the television on, the sound coming 
through the speakers, and the channel set to the news station. He 
smiled as he stated, "Now that wasn't so bad."

John grumbled and went to the refrigerator. He poured two glasses 
of iced tea and brought them back to the couch. He set them on 
coasters on the coffee table in front of the sofa. "Have some tea."

Ed smiled, "We still have half an hour before anything starts."

John nodded absently. He finally answered, "I know. This is killing 
me."

"Are you worried or excited?"

John paced a little around the room. He answered, "I'm worried 
about whether it is going to go well. I'm excited about seeing the 
plan go into action. I feel constrained by the fact that I'm here 
rather than out there somewhere. I couldn't even stand the feeling 
of clothes this morning."

Ed laughed. "I noticed that. You're still naked."

John looked at Ed with a large grin. "What about you?"

Ed's laughter carried through the room. "Same here. I got dressed 
this morning and found myself pulling the clothes off before I hit 
the door."

"I need to be doing something." John walked over to the intercom 
and pressed a button. "Marguerite, could you fix a snack tray for 
us? We're in the informal living room."

Her reply came back, "You already asked me five minutes ago."

"Sorry, I forgot."

Ed smiled at John's nervousness. He hadn't seen John this nervous 
since Betsy had visited him after their breakup. "John, how about I 
give you a blow job? Maybe that will help you relax."

"I'm too tense to get it up."

Ed laughed. "Same here. That's why I offered to give you one 
rather than ask you for one."

John looked around the room. There were papers detailing the 
schedule of events were piled up on the coffee table. The pile was 
almost nine inches tall. The speakerphone was plugged in and he 
had tested it by calling Beth at work. He walked around the room 
again.

Shadow and Rover watched him pace. Tired of it all, both cats got 
up and strolled out of the room. John watched them as they left the 
room and entered the atrium. They vanished amongst the plants. 
He always marveled at how quickly they could vanish so quickly. 

Bill entered the room and stopped abruptly. His eyes locked on 
John's cock, but his conscious mind didn't make the connection 
that John was naked. He announced, "Uh, Ann Moore is here to 
see you two."

John absently stated, "Bring her in."

He wondered if she was here to complete the argument that they 
had on their last visit to the office. She had been upset and he 
hadn't been all of that helpful. He walked over the refrigerator and 
poured a glass of iced tea. While pouring the tea, he stated, "I 
guess we probably owe her an apology."

"I'm sure we will pretty soon," answered Ed with a grin. He had 
just realized that Ann was about to be brought into a room with 
two naked men. He was about to suggest that they go get dressed 
when Bill returned to the room.

"What's going…" Ann, not yet in the room, was complaining 
already. She stopped the moment she saw the two men in the room 
and their lack of attire. Her eyes never reached as high as their 
faces. 

John walked over to her and handed the glass to her. He was totally 
oblivious to her discomfort. He stated, "Make yourself comfortable 
on the sofa. You will want to examine the stack of papers on the 
coffee table."

Ann stated, "Mike ordered me to come here."

Ed stated, "That makes sense to me. We should have invited you, 
but we were so caught up in this that thought didn't even cross our 
minds."

She had finally gotten over her embarrassment at the naked men in 
front of her. Her anger at being left out of whatever was going on 
returned ten-fold. She stomped her foot. "Invited me for what?"

John's voice was soothing as he said, "Ann, please read the papers 
on the coffee table. They will explain everything."

Ann sat on the couch near Ed and picked up the first page. She 
started reading the material on the page with a frown. It was a 
timed agenda for a raid to take place on a restaurant in New York. 
The individuals targeted in the raid were identified, as were the 
agents. She picked up the next page and studied it. This was for 
another raid that took place the same time in Washington D.C. She 
looked up at the stack of papers on the coffee table. She looked at 
her watch and realized the raids were to start in five minutes.

She stated, "How come I didn't hear of this before now?"

John bowed to Ed. Ed answered, "No one has heard of this before 
now. The lead agents were woken this morning by a call from 
Mike Holden and directed to pick up a box of instructions. Inside 
the box were specific instructions for each agent. The instructions 
for the lead agent were to notify all participants to meet at specific 
locations at a specific time. Once there, individual agents were 
given their instructions according to a timetable."

"How many raids are there?"

John smiled, "Almost eight hundred spread across twenty cities."

"This is huge! You've got local police, state police, ATF, Federal 
Marshals, and the IRS involved as well."

"Darn right." Ed sounded as proud as he felt. "The security on it 
has been very tight. As of the last time that I was in your office, 
only three people knew what was being developed. John and I 
were two of them."

"You've been busy!"

John smiled as he thought about the past ten days. They hadn't 
been busy working at all. They had spent most of the time playing. 
John had even gone hiking for three days. John answered, "Well, 
we did put a couple of months on it."

Ed had been hard pressed to help John with this effort and finish 
his degree. He complained, "It was closer to a year."

Marguerite entered the room pushing a cart loaded with all kinds 
of snacks. They ranged from the healthy vegetables to the 
unhealthy potato chips. Ed frowned when he realized that she was 
still wearing the body jewelry and waist chain. At least she had 
added a chain mail bikini bottom to it. She stated that she was 
going to wear that outfit at work until someone broke down and 
did something about it.

She took a very long time to position the cart. Her eyes flicked 
between John and Ed constantly. Ann looked up at Marguerite 
with raised eyebrows. She knew John was involved in a weird 
lifestyle, but she hadn't realized it was this strange.

Ed decided the whole situation was becoming surreal. "John, do 
you realize that we have a guest and we are both naked? Did you 
notice that Marguerite is still protesting her work conditions by 
wearing her little outfit?"

John looked around noticing the situation for the first time. He 
apologized, "Oh, I'm so sorry!"

Ed watched Marguerite leave the room. She was smiling at John's 
discomfort. Ed turned to Ann, "I must apologize. You caught us on 
a bad day. We don't normally walk around the house like this when 
guests are here. Marguerite has been protesting her work 
conditions and has taken to dressing like that to make a point. Our 
lawyer is negotiating a new contract with her even now."

Ann laughed, "I've had problem employees before, but none of 
them chose that way to express their unhappiness."

"Well, I apologize for all this." John repeated. Ann glanced down 
at his crotch and licked her lips. She wondered how it was that 
both men were extremely well endowed. She was lost in her 
thoughts when Ed jumped up suddenly and shouted, "Oh yeah!"

She glanced at the television. The news anchor was acting very 
flustered. She listened as it was announced, "We are getting reports 
that a large number of raids have just been launched here in New 
York. Oh, wait a minute, we seem to be getting similar reports 
from Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, and…"

The telephone rang and Ed answered it in speakerphone mode, 
"Control Central. Report!"

"This is city 4, group 2, raid 1, we have captured 9 and confiscated 
$200,000 in cash. Drugs and paraphernalia were present. They are 
nailed."

Ed smiled, "Thanks. I'll hear from you after raid 2."

John went to the fax machine and pulled out the paper that listed 
the names of the people arrested. He went over to another sheet 
containing the names of the important people they had wanted to 
catch and started marking off the names the list.

Ed scrambled through the stack of papers and pulled out the one he 
was looking for. He wrote the basic report on it and put it in a 
separate stack. He smiled at Ann in elation. 

The telephone rang again. The report this time was from city 9, 
group 6, and raid 1. They had captured 4 and confiscated 500,000 
in cash. Ann searched through the pile and pulled out the paper 
with the title that had been given. She handed it to Ed, who marked 
the results on it.

The telephone was ringing constantly. They went through close to 
one hundred calls. It took less than twenty minutes as each call was 
kept short. Ann took off her jacket and started to roll up her 
sleeves. She was sweating from the tension. She looked around and 
then took her shirt off. Neither man noticed. 

When the calls stopped, they turned their attention to the news. 
The news anchor was stating, "We don't have all of the details yet, 
but it appears that massive raids on organized crime have been 
launched all around the country. We are trying to locate someone 
who knows what is going on."

John came and sat down on the couch. He smiled, "We can relax. 
We have ten minutes before the next round of raids start."

Ann asked, "Can I use your pool for a minute? I need to relax and I 
find a pool very relaxing."

John smiled, "Sure, it's right through that door there. Towels are 
kept in the cabinet in the corner."

Ed looked at John and remarked, "Now I'm excited enough that I 
could use that blow job we were talking about earlier!"

John laughed and joked back, "I know what you mean, but this is 
not the time for it."

The men went over to the snacks and started munching. They knew 
they would only have about ten minutes before the calls started. 
Between handfuls of food, they congratulated each other on the 
success of the first raids. The news station was going crazy. Live 
shots from all over the country were being put up on the screen as 
the press chased cop cars to find out what was happening.

Ann came back into the room. She was topless with a large towel 
around her waist. Her hair was still wet. She grabbed a couple of 
pieces of fruit, "I can't believe how extensive this operation is. You 
guys are working miracles. I looked at the expectations for each 
raid as I found them. You're hurting them big time. It'll take them 
years to recover."

John smiled, "You haven't even seen the big stuff yet."

"We better get back to our positions. Calls should start coming in 
any minute now."

Even as Ed and Ann sat on the couch, the telephone rang. Ed 
answered, "Control Central. Report!"

"This is city 3, group 5, raid 2, we have captured 3 and confiscated 
their computers. We found records for money laundering on the 
computers. They are nailed."

Ed thanked them and hung up. He gave a shout, "We took down a 
money laundering operation!"

The telephone continued to ring. Short conversations were 
followed with marking sheets with the reported results. John 
continued to scratch off names on the master list as additional 
faxes arrived. The activities now were a little more involved than 
before. The raids took longer, but the confiscated materials were 
much greater. They were taking out drug manufacturing sites, 
warehouses, and fencing operations.

Finally, it was quiet and all three sat back on the couch. John 
stated, "It's going to take them an hour to get all of the evidence 
removed. We've got a little time to kill."

Ed suggested, "How about a swim and the hot tub?"

John asked, "Should I call Bill in to butle?"

Ann stated, "There's no such word as butle."

Ed laughed. "Go ahead. My iced tea glass was empty and I couldn't 
get away to fill it."

John corrected Ann, "There's no word describing what a butler 
does. Therefore, we invented butle to describe his activities. A 
butler butles."

"Oh, I see."

John actually looked at Ann for a moment and realized that she 
was just as naked as Ed and him. He had meant to get dressed 
earlier, but the excitement had distracted him. Now he guessed that 
it didn't matter. He debated between calling down Marguerite or 
Bill. He knew that Marguerite would be busy getting ready for 
tonight's dinner. He went to the intercom and pressed the talk 
switch. "Bill, we need someone to butle."

Bill attempted a bad imitation of Igor. "Yeth, Mather."

John laughed as he retorted, "You'd better be a hunchback when 
you get down here."

"Yeth, Mather."

John turned to head towards the pool. Ann looked at him, "You 
have strange relations with your staff."

"Thank you. It almost makes having me work for you seem 
normal."

 Ann laughed at that. Nothing could make having John work for 
her seem normal. She voiced her conviction, "There's nothing that 
could make it seem normal."

They went into the room with the swimming pool. Ed was floating 
on his back slowly moving across the pool. John entered the pool 
and took up a similar position. Ann went into the pool at one end. 
She pushed off and started swimming the length of the pool using a 
breaststroke. They swam that way for half an hour, then John and 
Ed went into the hot tub. Ed turned to John and commented in a 
low voice, "She's never going to be able to look at us the same way 
again."

"You think so?"

Ed stated, "Her eyes hardly ever leave our crotches."

John laughed as he replied, "Well, we are rather large."

"She's pretty."

"Yes. Funny that I never noticed that in the office."

Ann stepped out of the pool and walked over to the hot tub. She 
slowly got into it. Once settled, she stated, "Well, this is strange."

"What?"

"Sharing a hot tub with two coworkers with none of us wearing 
clothes."

"Not odd at all. Most cultures are rather more relaxed about nudity 
than our culture. Most Druids could care less about clothes. The 
morning after our wedding, I was talking to a bunch of the Druids. 
Half of them were naked. Of course, that chased away several of 
the caterers that were packing up."

Ann laughed. She was amazed at how easy it was to relax with 
them outside of a work environment. When they worked, their 
concentration of what they were doing was total. Anyone or 
anything that got in the way, had better watch out. Those two 
would run right over the impediment without even noticing it was 
there. Yet, when they relaxed, their attention for those around them 
was almost just as intense. When they talked to you, they listened 
to every word. She asked, "What about sex?"

Ed laughed, "We are even more relaxed about that. There is 
nothing better that you can do than to please a person and bring 
them pleasure."

John stated, "The exception is when the other one wants nothing to 
do with it. Then it becomes rape and that is the worst thing we can 
do."

Ed added, "True. There's nothing casual about sex though. We just 
prefer to view that making love is a gift that people can give each 
other. It is a gift you can give as many times as you desire."

Ann sighed. She leaned back and enjoyed the feeling of the water 
wash over her. She stated, "It sounds so easy the way you say it. 
Too bad life isn't more like that."

John asked, "Why isn't life like that for you?"

The question startled her. She hadn't ever thought of living any 
differently than she did. Did her job make her feel like her options 
were limited? She pondered the question. Ed interrupted her 
thoughts with the announcement, "Time for us to get back to 
work."

They returned to their original working positions. The news anchor 
had just gone to a live broadcast in front of the FBI headquarters. 
The reporter was stating, "I am standing in front of FBI 
headquarters here in Washington D.C. I just talked to the public 
affairs officer and was told that they would not be able to release 
any information until they knew what was going on. More than one 
individual here has expressed surprise at learning about the raids 
across the country."

The telephone started ringing again. The three of them returned to 
work. There were just as many calls as before. The raids were 
capturing more people and goods than they had predicted. 
Everything was going according to their plan. In this round of 
raids, the groups were usually caught packing up to leave. This led 
to the confiscation of more drugs, stolen goods, and money than 
the previous raids. Ed was smiling broadly as he listened to the 
reports coming in. Bill refilled their glasses and brought snacks to 
them as they worked.

Sitting back after this round of raids, Ann shook her head in 
amazement. She asked, "How did you plan all this?"

John smiled and then explained, "We took police reports and FBI 
reports. Looked at the times and places where things had gone on 
in the past. We used that to predict where people would be and 
when they would be there. So far, we're batting a nearly perfect 
score."

Ed nodded his agreement. "Only four raids have netted nothing."

John smiled, "If we get fifty percent on the next set of raids, I'll be 
amazed."

Ann asked, "Why?"

Ed answered, "We tried to predict where they would be going after 
the first sets of raids. We figure this one will net the big guys with 
lots of money in their possession." 

John stated, "We want to get them for tax evasion."

She looked at the paper on top of the small stack that was left. The 
raids started in two hours. She looked up, "Why did you stagger 
them like that?"

"We wanted to give them time to get to their hideouts."

"How will you know where they will go?"

Ed smiled, "We don't know yet. We are tracking their cell phones."

John asked, "What do we want to do for the next two hours?"

Ed shook his head, "I don't know. I can't believe how tiring this is."

John nodded, "yeah. Let's just sit back and take it easy for a while."

Ann looked at the two men. She inquired, "I know almost nothing 
about you two. How often do you guys just relax?"

Ed answered, "Well, I'm getting ready to work on my doctorate. I 
consult here and there concerning minerals. I guess I'm one of the 
leading experts in determining what mine a particular stone was 
mined. However, it doesn't leave me much time to relax."

 John stated, "I'm obliged to continue my researches. Right now, 
I'm working on a new project. We've also got the charities that we 
run. I still get called away at times to save someone. I really don't 
have much spare time, either."

"Wow. Maybe I've been too hard on you two. I guess I keep 
thinking of you as FBI agents with a normal home life."

Bill came over and refilled their glasses. John looked up at Bill and 
asked, "Bill, what do you think of the activities in this house?"

Bill shook his head, "You guys work harder than we do. I bet you 
put in eighteen-hour days, seven days a week. Those two wives of 
yours, they work just as hard. They work all kinds of shifts at the 
hospital. Then they work on the charity."

Ann asked, "What charity?"

Ed stated, "The Fusion Foundation."

"You guys actually run the Fusion Foundation." Ann looked 
shocked. The Fusion Foundation had become the largest charity 
organization in the world. It had provided lifetime funding for 
various chairs at Universities all across the country. A catastrophe 
response organization had been created. It had helped put out 
several forest fires, restored areas after floods, and cleaned up after 
tornadoes.  The group showed up with food, water, blankets, 
clothes, temporary shelters, heavy moving equipment, and medical 
supplies. Another organization established by them provided 
medical care. Both organizations would hire just about anyone that 
showed up and was willing to live in the provided housing. 

John stated, "We had better run it. I set it up."

Ann sighed as she stated, "You know, I keep forgetting you're that 
John Carter."

John laughed and agreed with her. "Don't worry. I keep forgetting 
that too."

"So how do you function?"

John shrugged, "When you work on something, you put all of your 
concentration on it. When you play, you extract every ounce of 
pleasure."

Ann asked, "You play?"

Ed told her about the medieval evening that they had. He told 
about the water pistol fights they sometimes had in the atrium. 
John told about the time that they had a paper airplane contest 
where they tried to see whose plane flew the longest distance. She 
listened in envy at the kinds of things they did. She understood that 
they were rich, but what they had done didn't require one to be 
rich. There were cheap ways to go about the same thing. It only 
required keeping a sense of play. She realized that sometime or 
another, she had lost that sense of play. She wanted to be alone. 
She asked, "Is there a rest room I could use?"

John and Ed looked at each other and realized there wasn't a rest 
room just for guest use in the informal part of the house. Bill came 
to the rescue. "If you would follow me, I'll take you to one."

Outside the room, she leaned over to Bill and asked for a place 
where she could be alone for a few minutes. Bill pointed to the 
atrium and told her about the bench in the center. She wandered 
into the atrium taking her time. When she reached the center, she 
looked around for a second. Seeing no one around, she sat down 
finally allowing herself to cry.  

John and Ed were looking for her all over. When Kelly came home 
from work, they told her that Ann had gone missing. Kelly was the 
one that found her in the atrium an hour later. Shadow and Rover 
were sitting among the plants watching her. Ann was still crying. 
Kelly asked, "What's the matter, honey?"

Ann sniffed, "You wouldn't understand."

Kelly asked, "Did John or Ed hurt you?"

"No, they didn't!"

Kelly hugged her tightly and just held on to her. Ann started crying 
even harder. After she calmed down, Kelly asked again, "What's 
the matter?"

Ann cried, "I've forgotten how to live."

Kelly cooed, "That's a rough one, but it's not terminal."

"Not terminal?"

Kelly stated, "You just need to learn how to play again. It's not that 
tough."

Ann turned to her, "Can you teach me?"

Kelly thought about it for a minute. A smile came to her as she had 
an idea. She stated, "Come with me."

Kelly led Ann to Marguerite. In the kitchen, Kelly simply stated, 
"Marguerite, I need you to do me a favor."

"What do you need?"

"I need you to teach her to play." Kelly winked at Marguerite when 
Ann wasn't looking. She smiled, "I want you to have lots of fun."

Marguerite smiled, "Yes, I have a very good idea what to do!"

When Kelly went to tell John and Ed what happened, she found 
them jumping up and down in joy. John turned to Kelly, "We did 
it! We did it!"

"What did you do?"

"We wiped them out!"

In this kitchen, Ann helped Marguerite cook while they chatted 
about playing. By the time dinner was ready, Ann was dancing 
along with Marguerite as she helped put the finishing touches on 
the meal. She could not believe how much fun Marguerite had 
while cooking. Marguerite talked to the food as she cooked. She 
made jokes and talked in funny accents to the food. She had 
laughed so hard that her sides ached when Marguerite had stuffed 
her fist inside a chicken and made it dance on the counter.