34 comments/ 30729 views/ 9 favorites One More Notch on the Bedpost By: HansTrimble We were pounding hard, very near to a mutual climax. Sherry was on top, riding away in cowgirl position, her bountiful, buxom breasts bouncing beautifully as she shrieked and whooped like a rodeo bronco rider. Finally we got there, exactly together, and it was magnificent. She leaned back, her spine arching and her nipples pointing nearly straight up. Her whoops and moans became understandable speech, as she half shouted, half sighed, "Oh, that was so wonderful, Tom!" Introductions are in order. My wife of four years is Sherry. We have a three year old son named Bobby, the absolute center of our world, who was staying that weekend with my parents. My name is Ralph. It may seem unlikely, given how common the name is, but I don't know anybody named Tom. I didn't think Sherry did, either. Guess I was wrong about that. Sherry collapsed on top of me and breathed hard for a minute, before she started covering my body with kisses. I just lay there, wondering what I was supposed to do next. Finally I couldn't stand the suspense any longer. I took Sherry's shoulders in my hands and raised her up off me. I think she expected me to worship her nipples, but instead I asked the one question that had eclipsed all other conscious thought. "Sherry, who the fuck is Tom?" She stiffened as if a broomstick had been stuffed up her ass. She had some expression on her face that I'd never seen there before, and I thought I'd seen them all. Horror? Shock? Disbelief? You name it, I was looking it right in the eyes. She screamed, "How do you know about Tom?" Then she looked frightened, as she realized what she'd just blurted out. "You told me some guy named Tom has been fucking you." I was bluffing there, but it didn't seem that I could be far from the truth. "I want to know the rest of the story. Start talking." "I don't know anybody named Tom," she said in a tentative voice that told me she was fishing around to see what I'd bite on. You must have misunderstood me." I shoved her off of me and got out of bed. I went to the computer where the our activities, as seen and heard by the video camera and microphone, were being recorded on a disk. I fiddled with the keyboard for a few seconds, stopping the recording session and directing the contents of the disk to play back on the 42 inch flat screen TV. I moved over to my right a little so she couldn't see the tiny flashdrive that I pulled out of the USB port and slipped into the desk drawer. I started the show and turned up the sound. Then I went back to the bed and held Sherry in a loving embrace while the screen showed us fucking our way to a mutual climax. I noticed something that had gone right over my head in the heat of the moment -- all the time Sherry was sucking my cock, swallowing my load, and smearing the overflow around on her tits, her eyes were closed. Later, when I plowed into her snatch in the missionary position, they were open, but after we rolled over and she went cowgirl, they were closed again. I pointed this out to her, and she stiffened but said nothing. I loved the part where she was riding me, waving her right arm like a bronc rider while she went from moans to screams, until we went over the top together, just before she dropped down onto me. I said, "Now listen." There it was, the incriminating compliment to Tom. The visible effect that Tom's name had on me was about what you'd get by hitting me in the head with a two by four. Then came my question, and her frantic reply. I had the remote control in my hand, and I quickly backed up and replayed that part. Then I turned the volume way up for my final words, "I want to know the rest of the story. Start talking." I turned off the disk drive and the TV, and walked over to the computer again. I made a show of setting the remote down on the desk,and then moving it over at the end of the desk toward the TV. That was just misdirection, hiding the fact that my other hand was starting up the audio/video recording again. "Okay. Your turn. I'm listening." I pulled a little side chair over close to the bed, so I could lean back in it and put my feet up on the bed. Sherry was sitting there all alone, bathed in the glow from the reflector light we use for shooting video. Looking at me, she was looking almost straight into the reflector, so I knew she couldn't read my expression. She was sweating hard. She had her left hand down on the bed, leaning on it a little, but her right hand was idle, and I could see it shake. I didn't say a word and I had purposely put myself into a position where I could remain absolutely still. I didn't want her to read my body language and tell me what she thought I wanted to hear; I wanted the truth. "R-ralph, honey, y-you know that I've always been a f-f-faithful wife, don't you?" She waited to see how I'd react, and I didn't. So she started up again. "You know how much I love you, and what a wonderful marriage we have. I'd never do anything to spoil that, baby." Again I didn't show that I was buying it or not, so she tried to reinforce it by adding, "Never." "All right, we've had the musical introduction, violins and clarinets. Now's the time for the verse, some words that mean something. But save the bullshit. As I asked before, who the fuck is Tom?" No words this time, just sobs as she buried her face in her hands. I supposed she was crying, but I wondered if maybe she was hiding her face and faking it. I decided to try to jostle her confidence a little more, and I got up and went out of the room. When I returned I was smoking a cigar, and I drew a wastebasket over to the chair for the ashes, as I sat down and propped up my feet again. "Ralph, you know we have a rule that you're never to smoke in the house!" Just what I expected her to say. "We also have a solemn vow that you're never to peddle your ass around, and look what that's got us. Stop stalling and tell me what's been going on, to save me the expense of hiring private detectives. I won't wait all day. Speak up or I'm leaving." I took a draw on the cigar and blew a cloud of smoke at Sherry. She hated cigar smoke. I hoped she was about to blow up and blurt things out without thinking about them. "You son of a bitch! You're just doing that to annoy me! All right, I'll tell you. Tom is a guy I met at the park when I had Bobby over there to play. He came there every day at the same time as I did, and we talked. He's a nice guy. He's interested in all the same things that I am, and he even likes the same authors that I do, and we've read a lot of the same books. So that's who Tom is!" "So some guy figured he'd get into your pants by saying things you'd like to hear. How many times did you bring him home here and fuck him?" "I don't know. Every weekday for a month, except for rainy days, I guess." "How was he?" "Not all that good, really. It was just that it was my thing, something that I did all on my own, without any help or advice from you. It was all mine! It was my affair! Nobody knew anything about it. It was something I did because I wanted to, because I had to prove that I was a person, with needs and feelings of my own." "All right, you remember to tell that to the judge in family court. Try to use those same words. I'll write them out for you in case you forget. But this Tom was obviously playing you, and I want to know what he was after. He had all the moves down, all the right words, and he did a good bit of homework to get into your pants. With a campaign like that, he could get any babe he wanted to. Why was he targeting you, and what'd he get out of it?" "He wanted me, my body, you moron. I was so desirable that he couldn't help himself. First he noticed me because I was beautiful, and next he was drawn to me by my intelligence. But after that he was driven nearly insane by my sex appeal." "And you knew all this, how?" "He told me. A lot of times, in different ways. He's obsessed with me." I couldn't hold it in any more. I laughed, and every time I tried to stop I'd think of her words and laugh again. I had tears in my eyes from laughing so hard. Her face showed that she couldn't understand what was so funny, and I pointed my finger at her and laughed some more. At first my reaction was a total surprise; she hadn't told a joke. Then slowly it dawned on her that I was laughing at her, and her face showed bewilderment. I pulled myself together, and wiped away the tears that were streaming down my face from laughing so hard. "Oh, that was good. I haven't had that good a laugh since I first saw a film clip of Abbott and Costello doing 'Who's on first.' So this clown just reeled you in, hook, line, and sinker. And you took the bait and swallowed it whole. You poor, gullible fool! But that still doesn't tell us what his game is." By this time Sherry had shriveled into a crouch, showing that she'd rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, right at that moment. "Has he ever called you on the phone, either the house phone or your cell?" In a very small voice she answered, "No." "Do you know his last name?" "No." "Do you know where he lives?" "No." "Do you know what kind of a car he drives?" "No." "Has he ever been out of your sight in this house?" "Yes, in the bathroom, and he's let himself out while I was still lying on the bed." I went over to the bedside and whispered in her ear, "All right. I think we might be bugged. Don't say any more. Get dressed and go to my parents' house and have tea with my mother. Come back here with Bobby at six o'clock. Don't let on to anybody that there's anything out of the ordinary going on. Got that?" She nodded, relieved to have the pressure off her, although I'm sure she still didn't understand what had happened. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I got dressed and as soon as Sherry was out of the house I called Tony. We've been partners pretty much since we graduated from the academy and finished up our street training. We rode the squad car together, and made detective within a few months of each other. I made Sergeant before he did, and after I made Lieutenant I rarely went out to look at a case without Tony at my side. We had a simple catch phrase that we used to indicate that we were in trouble and needed help. It was just our thing, and we'd only had to use it a couple of times. But now it came in handy because I didn't know if anybody was listening. I issued a casual invitation with, "Hey, come on over in about half an hour and we'll go to the range and see who's got the best eye." "Sure. What do you want to shoot, duty pistols, backups, small stuff, or what?" "Anything you want. Five bucks says I can beat you, no matter what the weapon is. Last time you got lucky. Let's see if you can still sweep me." "You're on. See you in thirty." The whole conversation was a buildup to the punch line. "The best eye" was a code for needing help. "Sweep me" was the entire message. All the rest was window dressing. Tony came loaded for bear. He began by walking around the house with a broad bandwidth signal detector, to see if anything was being broadcast from the house. I had tuned every television set in the house to the same football game, and turned up the sound. If a voice operated pickup in any room was broadcasting conversations in real time, he would have picked up the signal. I was hoping that it was not a real time operation, because if it was, then the fact that I was onto Tom, or whoever he was, would already be old news to the listener on the other end. If the setup was a batch job, the day's recordings would be held in a memory device. It might be dumped in a compressed form when it was triggered by a nearby receiver, maybe in a passing car. The other way a batch job could operate is the old fashioned way, with somebody coming in and exchanging memories, swapping out either a whole recorder or just its memory chip. The next step was to go through each room with the instrument we'd nicknamed the "dick meter" to find listening devices. Meanwhile I was looking everywhere for a recording device. The trouble is that they're very small these days. The ones available on the civilian market are about the size of a pack of cigarettes, and easy to conceal or camouflage. Eventually I found two of them, one in the linen closet of the guest bedroom, and one under the kitchen sink, roughly at opposite ends of the house. They were high capacity devices that could accumulate data for weeks before being swapped. I felt confident that none of the morning's conversation, if you could call it that, had been heard beyond our four walls. We collected all the devices we could find and tossed them into a bag, which Tony stashed behind the driver's seat in his truck. Each one had been tagged with the location where it was found. They could be examined by techs on Monday, to see just what had been picked up. Meanwhile we had to plan how to grab Tom and find out what his game was. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * That night Sherry came in with Bobby, and we had a simple sore-bought supper of Whoppers and fries from Burger King's drive-through window. When Bobby was in bed, I began to lay our plan for the next day. I took Sherry down to the garage, where I turned the radios on loud in both cars and we sat down in the back seat of the SUV. "What time do you go to the park?" "About ten." "And what time do you come back here with Tom?" "Usually about eleven-thirty. It varies, say from eleven to almost noon, depending on the weather and how tired Bobby gets." "What room do you fuck in?" "Do you have to be so blunt about it?" "No point in beating around the bush about beating around the bush, is there?" "We go either to the movie room or our master bedroom." "Jesus, you've been fucking him in our bed? And you complain about me being blunt?" "Well, you asked, and you got your answer. What are you going to do to me?" "Right now I've got to get a handle on what this guy is up to, who he's working for, who's financing the whole thing, and what their next move will be. I doubt that you're the only one who's been seduced by these guys, and if I could find out who the others are, probably we could figure out some sort of a pattern or plan to it all. Did he ever say anything to you that would give you a clue about what he was trying to accomplish?" "He seemed to know that you're a cop. I corrected him and said 'Lieutenant' one time and he laughed and said, 'Yeah, for now.' What's that supposed to mean?" "That means that there's something funny going on that involves me and my job and the department. You go back upstairs and listen to make sure Bobby's all right. Keep the house locked up tight. And I mean, real tight! Don't answer the phone or your cell, either. If I need to tell you anything I'll leave a message. I've got to go out for a while, maybe several hours. Be back around midnight, I think. "Now look, let me leave you with this. I'm still really mad about you spreading your favors around. I think you can understand that, can't you?" "Yes. That's all I've been thinking about all afternoon. I never should have done it. I deserve to be tossed out on the street. I know that now." "You were manipulated by a pro. He probably could have done it to anybody. Do you understand that?" "Yes. I'm so sorry. It's hard to admit that I was taken advantage of, but I can see it now and I'm ashamed." "Look at me. Right here in my eyes. I'm sorry you got mixed up in this. I'm hurting from it right now, and it'll take some time for me to get over feeling hurt and angry. But that will all go away in time if we can make things turn out right. "Before I leave, I need the phone number for your aunt in Springfield. She doesn't work, does she?" "No. She stays home and does her hobbies, works in her flower garden, goes to meetings of her women's club. She says that she really enjoys her retirement. Uncle Jerome still works. He's not planning to retire until next year." "Okay. We may need you and Bobby to go visit her for a week or so. It'll depend on how we can deal with this threat in the next day or two. That'll be plan B. Try to stay away from the downstairs windows. If anybody comes prowling around, or tries to break in, call 911 right away. I mean immediately! This place will be crawling with cops so fast it'll make your head spin. Now wish me luck." * * * * * * * * * * I met Tony at the park a block away from my house, but I'd driven eight miles to get there. He was sitting on a park bench near a parking area, with his truck in plain sight. I parked a few spaces over and walked to his truck. He joined me and we sat in the truck and talked. "What's behind all this, Ralph?" "It sure sounds as if somebody wants to get me into some sort of trouble, but there's nothing there to get any real meaning from. You got any ideas?" "Not so far. My gut feel is that this isn't a one-man show." "Yeah, but I don't know why a group of people would be out to get me. One or two, maybe, to get revenge because I locked somebody up or broke up a promising operation, but not a big gang of people. But that's just guesswork. If it's not directed just at me, it could be part of an attempt to get a whole bunch of supervisory people in the department demoted or fired, but it's anybody's guess why. The next possibility is that there's something real big that's about to go down, some sinister plot that will affect the whole city, but I think that just happens in comic books." "What do you want to do?" "On Monday morning, I'd like to get you planted in the park with a woman, and I'll get Sherry out there with Bobby as bait. If Tom comes around to hit on her, we can grab him and see what we can find out from him. I don't want to take him into the station, because it's too easy for the word to spread, and he can lawyer up so conveniently. I'd like to stash him where we can gradually drain him of all the info we can get. Some place where if he yells for a lawyer, nobody will hear him. "That sounds like a good idea." "And we need to get somebody working on those bugs and recorders, but I don't trust the department right now." "Okay, that's easy enough. I'll go over to see Harry in the morning. That's where they were probably bought, anyway, and maybe I can find out about who the buyer was." "Good idea. Even if Harry didn't sell them, he can probably find out all about the sale. Those spyware guys will tell you they never heard of each other, but they all play poker together every Wednesday night. Now look, Tony, about ten-thirty Monday morning I want to pick up this Tom. We'll need enough people in the park to make sure nobody hurts Sherry or Bobby. I was wondering if you might want to have Sonia with you, looking sweet and airheaded. I was thinking of maybe having two of the young uniforms show up in plainclothes and play frisbee over at the top of the slope, by the edge of the grassy area, but that's just a suggestion. If we use any of them, remind them that hitting on Sonia could get them hurt real bad. "Look, Tony, you ought to consider Sherry part of your team and give her the instructions yourself. I'm still pretty pissed about the whole thing and I might screw the whole deal up. Anyway, have her tell Tom to go on over to our house and wait in the bedroom for her. Maybe she can say that they've been together so often that she's worried someone will get suspicious. That way, we can plant some people in my house and take Tom without anybody else seeing a thing. That's important -- inside the house, so we there are no outside witnesses to the arrest. "I'll pick up a car tomorrow and have it in the garage, ready for your team to transport Tom. What I want to do is give him a dose of Rohypnol or something to knock him out, and take him down to Patagonia. Doctor Johnson's down there. Remember him? He's got a nursing home down there, near the Mexican border. Scenic but very remote. My plan is to get Tom into the nursing home, in a locked room. Very plain surroundings, no TV or radio that he can get at, no phone, and nobody coming into his room but Mexicans speaking Spanish. Not a word of English where he can hear it. If we have to keep him there for a long time, I'd lilke him to swallow the notion that he's in Mexico, where he can't get a lawyer. One More Notch on the Bedpost "So that's it. We get him, read him his rights, and haul him to a place where he's totally disoriented. A few days of that ought to get him ready to sing like a canary. If not, we can get him juiced up with pentothal to speed up the process." "Yeah, that sounds good to me. But I wish we could find somebody else that we can tap for info. Right now, Tom's the only window we've got." "We'll just have to take good care of him and make the most of this opportunity. But if this goes on for a while we may get another shot, because somebody'll get nervous when Tom disappears. Whatever they're fishing for, they haven't got it yet, because If they did he'd have stopped hitting her. Once they find out that Tom's missing, they'll have to do something new." "You know, when you think about it, we're probably doing Tom a favor. Banging Sherry every day has to have him worn out. This is his chance to get rested up." He must have read something in my face, and he hurried to add, "No disrespect, you understand." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I'd made an appointment for a private meeting with the FBI's Special Agent in Charge of the district office, for ten o'clock. That's ten pm. As I was driving there I reflected on what a lousy job he must have, to schedule a meeting late on a Saturday night and act as if it's business as usual. Gordon Wilkes looked like an FBI agent straight from a prime time TV show: tall, ramrod straight, blond hair just going gray at the temples, good looking, with eyes that made contact and bored into you. If I didn't know him from the old days, I might have wilted in his presence. He knew that he couldn't melt my soul with his presence, so he'd brought in another agent, named Ellie. Have you ever thought about coming in your pants from a woman just smiling at you and from shaking your hand? Ellie is that woman! I won't even try to describe her. Words won't do it. You'd have to see her, and here she was, up close and personal. Wow! Gordy swiveled around in his desk chair to slide open the door of his credenza, and dragged out a bottle of Jack Daniel's and three glasses. He poured me maybe a double shot and I resisted the temptation to chug the whole thing down in one gulp. Instead I merely tasted it with the tip of my tongue. Getting comfortable in a soft visitor's chair, I relaxed and recited my whole story. "Why come to me with this, Ralph?" "Because I don't know whether I can trust anybody else. It smells to me like something rotten in my department. But what's next? Sheriff's office? Aside from the fact that their detectives aren't too swift, who's to say that they're not involved? State police the same explanation. You Elliot Ness types are supposed to be untouchable, so here I am, prostrating myself at your feet in supplication. Lawdy, Massa Gord', please heah mah plea an' he'p me." "Have you called Doctor Johnson yet?" "No. I didn't want to make a move until I talked with you." "Okay. Here's what we'll do. You go ahead with the plan for grabbing Tom, using your own troops. The only change is that I'll have somebody at your house, not to do any heavy lifting but to witness the Miranda reading. After that, if your prisoner shows any signs of injury or irrational behavior, you must get immediate professional help for him, in a safe place, where his criminal associates can't harm him in any way. If you solicit help from federal agents in doing this, we are duty bound to assist you. Once the suspect is returned to a normal condition, you have the option of charging him or releasing him. Do you wish to comment, Ellie?" "Only that I agree with everything you've said, Agent Wilkes. To do any less would violate this poor man's constitutional rights." At least, I think that's what she said. I had a hard time concentrating. This chick could recite the weather forecast and guys would line up to ask where they could buy some. Put her on TV and kill the audio, and guys would still watch, just to see her breathe and move her mouth. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * On Monday morning we had a pretty good crowd in and around my house. In the kitchen, Sherry was chatting with her new best friend, Ellie! Ellie had started out by complimenting her on her new sun dress, and when I looked in they were talking animatedly. Ellie seemed to have a calming effect on Sherry, who after all had the leading role in the pageant that was about to unfold. What I saw made me feel that Sherry would rise to the occasion, and it also told me that Ellie must be a handy person to have on our side. Down in the basement rec room, aka my man cave, one of our old timers named Miller, was shooting pool with one of Gordon's FBI guys named Wells. Out in the park, Tony had laid out a blanket on the grass and was settling down with our ace detective Sonia. She was a prize, distinguished by three special attributes: She was a good looking woman who appeared to be in her mid twenties, while actually she was almost forty. She had perfected a stupid act -- you'd look into her lovely face and swear this chick hadn't entertained a serious thought since puberty. And she was the best shot with a handgun in our whole precinct, counting all our uniforms and detectives. That was mostly because she seemed immune to pressure. In my one and only gun battle, some years back, Sonia was right beside me, shoulder to shoulder. I was awash with adrenaline, doing all the right things but trembling with fear, rage, and hormones. Sonia was just as cool and accurate as she was at the pistol range. There was one guy that I missed, and she helped me out by giving him one shot right between the eyes. Given all those abilities, you might assume that Sonia would act like a diva, but she was just the opposite. From the time she made first class she stopped studying for the exams, content to work for Tony and let him handle the decisions and the paperwork. She was friendly and pleasant, and she cheerfully took whatever assignment she was given without comment. We all loved her. Tony had borrowed a detective named Wilson from another squad, because he was a bicyclist. He would come riding into the area on the bike path, and stop twenty yards east of where Sherry would be, while he tinkered with the chain on his bike. The grassy area of the park rose slightly at the edge away from our house, to end at a small patch of trees. Back in there we had two young guys, uniformed officers from our precinct who were in plainclothes for the day. They were watching the surroundings but when Tom showed up they'd come out to the grass and toss a football around. Tall, lean, and limber, they were up for chasing anybody anywhere, and had all the skills needed to subdue a suspect, including deadly force if needed. I heard a car drive up and stop, and when I looked out I saw Bert Hasting, one of our detectives who is a runner. He has competed in marathons, and at the other end of the spectrum I've seen him sprint a torrid hundred yards to grab a suspect. He was wearing running shorts and a T shirt under a flimsy jacket. I knew that the T shirt was a trick garment, actually an elasticized slip-on holster for his service pistol, with a pocket for two spare magazines. The shirt/holster held the hardware securely enough to keep it from jostling around as he ran. Between his running ability and his concealed armament, I knew the front of the house was secure. Bobby had been in his bedroom, playing with his toys, with the door closed, as all of our team assembled. We all got out of sight when Sherry took him out to go to the park at ten o'clock. Then Ellie and I watched the scene at the park from the big window over the kitchen sink, while the pool players downstairs occupied themselves playing eight ball at a dollar a game. Sherry had given a good enough description of Tom to Ellie so she felt confident she could spot him. Nobody showed up until ten-twenty when she said quietly, "There he is. I spotted him when he walked into view, and now he's sitting down with Sherry and talking as if they're old friends." I went down the stairs and told the guys to get ready, and not make any noise. They climbed the stairs behind me and pulled the door almost closed, so they could see movement in the hallway and shove it open and burst out when needed. I looked hard at this Tom, who was apparently good enough to take my wife from me. He didn't look like anything special to me. He must have gotten a lot of mileage from reading the right books. I said to Ellie, "As much as you can, scan the surroundings. If this guy is as important to the bad guys as we think, there may be some backups lurking on the flanks or up beyond the woods." "I don't see any. Oh, Tom's getting up and coming this way." I called "Stations, everybody." Ellie went into the dining room. I walked down the hall to the master bedroom, pausing at the cellar door to ask, "All ready?" Both of the poolshooters nodded. I entered the bedroom and pulled the door open, while I got behind it. The way we'd planned it, I'd stop Tom as he entered the bedroom. The two from the stairs would then step in behind him, one with a pistol to his head, and one with handcuffs ready. Ellie would step into the living room, where she had a clear view of the hallway, and if things went sour at our end, she'd stop him, alive or dead, before he got to the living room. Tom opened the back door and stepped in from the patio. He'd been walking south on a sunny day, so he had to blink and pause to let his eyes adjust. Then he came on through the kitchen and into the hall, just as we had hoped. As he walked slowly toward the bedroom, I could see through the crack on the hinge side of the door that he stopped and readjusted his pants, which suggested that he must be getting a hard on just thinking about fucking Sherry in a few minutes. That was good for our side. Better to have him distracted than looking for an ambush. He ambled on down the hallway and walked slowly into the doorway to the bedroom. I stepped around the door and grabbed the front of Tom's shirt with my left hand, which I then rammed up into his Adam's apple. I shouted, "Police! Freeze!" as I brought my right arm around and slammed my elbow into his nose. Then I shoved his head back against the doorframe with my right forearm against the bridge of what was left of his nose. I held him there while I watched his hands, which were simply hanging down at his sides with his fingers spread wide open. I yelled "Gun to the head," and Wells, the Fed, put his pistol muzzle against Tom's brainstem. "Cuffs" I yelled, and Detective Miller grabbed Tom's wrists one at a time and cuffed them behind Tom's back. The action had all taken place in way less than half a minute. Ellie came down the hall, holstering her pistol and talking as she walked. "You have been arrested on suspicion of interfering with the constitutional rights of a citizen, a federal offense. Ralph, you're in front of him so you're in the best position to read him his rights." I knew that she'd be recording the whole thing. I recited the ritual, and asked, "Do you understand what you just heard? If the answer is yes, nod once." He nodded and I said, "The suspect has nodded to indicate yes." Tom was doing a good job of bleeding from his smashed nose. The vigor had gone out of him, and he was slumping. "I'll hold him up while you two frisk him. Be thorough." Wilson did one side and Wells did the other. They found nothing that could be used as a weapon, but they did find a wallet. Wells held it up, looking at me questioningly. "Hand it to Ellie," I said. Ellie flipped through it until she found his diver's license. "Ronald Rogers, from Cleveland," she announced. To Wilson I said, "that door by your right hand is a linen closet. In there you'll find a plastic shower curtain, folded up in a package. Please get it out and spread it out flat on the floor down cellar. We'll be bringing Mister Rogers down the stairs and lay him down flat on the shower curtain, to do first aid on the injury he sustained resisting arrest." As soon as Miller went down to the man cave, Wells and I took Rogers down the stairs, a step at a time, with me in front and Wells behind. Ellie grabbed some basth towels and followed us down the stairs. Over the next ten minutes we stuffed rolled gauze up his nostrils and wrapped gauze around his head, to surround his nose and catch as much of the blood as we could. As I stood up I could hear women's voices chattering amiably. Ellie had gone up to be with Sherry, who was peering down from the top of the stairs. She asked, "Everything okay?" I smiled up at her and answered, "Proceeding as planned." Then I saw Sonia's face as she looked around Sherry at the suspect, who now looked like the victim of a bomb blast. She asked, "Nose?" "Yeah. We'll spread this shower curtain over the back seat of the car to catch the blood. I'll need two rolls of paper towels and four white garbage bags for the trip. Maybe two or three big towels just in case. Tony excused himself and slipped around the ladies as he came down the stairs. "Keys in the car?" "Yeah." "Rope?" "On the driver's seat." Ronald Rogers was placed into the back seat of the car, an old Lincoln TownCar, with his ankles tied securely together and then suspended above seat height from the riser rods of the head rest on the shotgun seat. We got Rogers situated so he was in a stable position, secured him with two seat belts, and made sure he could breathe all right. Then Ellie took a syringe out of her purse and gave him a shot in his shoulder, right through his shirt. "Monitor his breathing, Ralph. You can insert a hand through the front of his shirt, just above his belt buckle, to feel his diaphragm. Keep checking for the next fifteen minutes, and after that you can just spot check every ten to fifteen minutes." Once Rogers was asleep and breathing evenly, Sonia came to the garage with a portable fingerprint kit and took his prints. She gave them to Wells, to be checked on the FBI's computerized ID system. Then we were ready to travel. Tony drove, Ellie was in the shotgun seat, and I was in back with our suspect. We were making great time down Interstate 10, until a state trooper pulled us over for speeding. "I'll handle this," said Ellie. The trooper came up to the driver's window. Ellie reached across Tony and opened her ID wallet. "Federal agent, officer, on official business." The trooper pulled out a little notebook and wrote her name and ID number. "Thank you, ma'am. I'll radio ahead. You're cleared to wherever you're going." As he was flipping his notebook closed, he mumbled to Tony, "Best lookin' Fed I've ever seen." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The trip to the private hospital south of Patagonia was about 180 miles, and it took us about two and a half hours. Doctor Johnson was expecting us, and we were relieved of our prisoner by two burly Mexican orderlies. I went with them, to look at the room he was to be confined in. It was very plain. The walls were concrete blocks, painted off-white. There was one small window high up in the outside wall. Furniture was a bed, a small bedside table with a drawer, and a chair. The bathroom was open to the bedroom, with a small step down from the bedroom floor so it could be hosed down. It had a toilet, sink, and small shower stall. The door to the hall had a viewing port, glazed with heavy Plexiglas, with a sliding panel to cover it on the outside. Below that was a wide, low panel that could be opened, closed, and locked from the outside, for passing food trays in and out. Doctor Johnson invited us to join him for a late lunch, and we discussed the case of Ronald Rogers, whom we called Edwin Smith. Edwin was obviously disturbed, and it was very important that we get to the bottom of his disturbance. He might have been forced by his employer to do things that violated his personal code of decent behavior, and the only way to proceed in that case was to get him to purge all the memories that were bothering him. But first he would have to be returned to physical health, which might take a few days. We decided to try to do the memory dump on Friday. Then we thanked Doctor Johnson for his hospitality and hit the road, except that we went back by a different route, with a stop in Tucson to change cars, and returned home in a late model Taurus with the high output engine. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * I dropped Sonia off at her house, and Tony at the precinct house, where his truck was. Then I went home and put the Taurus in the garage, along with my wife's car. My SUV was at the precinct house, but I didn't want the Buick to be seen parked there, which might have helped somebody figure out where Tom, aka Ronald, aka Edwin, was staying. It was late, and Sherry was already in bed. I stripped off and slid in beside her. She didn't wake up, but she did wrap an arm and leg around me and pull me close to her. Gradually, the inevitable happened, that miracle of rapid human tissue growth. Sherry was wearing a shorty nightgown. I pushed it up around her waist, and began to rub my little friend against her crotch. I could feel a little moisture down there, and decided to help it along. Sliding down in bed, I gently lifted her legs and laid them over my shoulders, which rolled her onto her back and opened up her snatch. The position was perfect to fit my head in between her thighs and stick my tongue between her outer lips. She tasted delicious! I slipped two fingers into her cunt and started a sliding motion, finally building up to a decent rhythm. I rotated my wrist and dragged my fingertips across her G spot, which got a response, and then brought my thumb around to rub her clit at the same time. She began to moan, softly at first, but gradually picking up in volume. I decided she was far enough along to have an orgasm on my little friend, so I slid quickly up to where he could enter her cunt. This proved to be a great success, and soon Sherry was saying, "Yes, yes, fuck me, fuck me Ralph, jam that big prick into my cunt and make me your woman again. Fuck me, oh, fuck, fuck, fuck me hard. Bang me. Harder. Oh, come on, harder! Ram it in there. Oh, yesssss! Oh, I'm, I'm, I'm coming! Go on, come in my cunt! Fill me up!" And on command, I did. It felt wonderful to be filling her with my semen again, as I pumped one squirt after another into my sexy little Sherry. I bent down a little and at the same time, pushed her back so that she straightened up. The combination brought her tits even with my mouth. I shoved the straps of her nightgown off her shoulders and down her arms, until the whole nightgown was bunched up at her waist. But that was immaterial. What mattered was taking her tits, one at a time, into my mouth and sucking as much in as I could hold. As I let them out I tongue-lashed her nipples ferociously. She wrapped her arms around my neck and pulled my face into her tits as she sang a song that had no words and no melody, yet was music to my ears. Then the lyric poetry began. "Ralph, you fucker, you long-tongued cunteater, you titsucker! I love you, and I'll always love you!" While I was being crushed happily against her beautiful chest, she began to rock back and forth. "Honey, I got you a present. Do you want to open it now?" "A present? For me? You bought me something, and it's not even a birthday? Sure I'd like to open it. Where is it?" "The first part is right here, in my nightstand drawer. Here, it's wrapped as a gift. Let me turn on the light. See the pretty paper?" I tore at the wrapping and pulled it away from the gift, which was a plastic bottle, with a funny top that had a little squirt nozzle set off at an angle. I pulled off the tiny cap and squirted some on my hand. It felt gooey and slippery, and it smelled like strawberries. I licked some off my finger and it tasted like strawberries, too. One More Notch on the Bedpost Sherry rolled over, face down, and said, "put some on me." I said, "you mean like massage you?" "No, I mean like lube up my asshole. Squirt the goo on me and rub it in with your fingers. Rub in and out till I open up for you." I was shocked. Ever since I started fucking Sherry, long before we got married, she had been firm about her asshole. "It's strictly one way, exit only!" she used to tell me. I decided to ask questions later and fuck her ass while I had the chance. I squirted a little puddle of lube beside her asshole and started to rub it in, first with one finger, then two, although the second one was still a pretty tight fit. I added more lube and swirled the fingers around, then started the up and down motion. The hole started to breathe, alternately opening up and closing down. As it opened next time I put a third finger in and squirted more down between the fingers. She was starting to hump up and down, and I started to lick around my fingers, bathing the rosebud with my tongue. At last she seemed to relax completely. I pulled out the fingers and almost broke a leg, hoisting my crotch up to align my cock with her bunghole. In it went, without even a grunt. It went halfway in on the insertion, and another thrust bottomed me out. Bottomed out on her bottom! I never thought I'd see that happen. I held still for a few seconds, waiting for some response, but when I got none I figured it was time to fuck the forbidden hole. I started with short strokes, gradually making them longer. Finally I got the commentary I'd been waiting for: "Oh, yes, fuck my ass! Sodomize me! That's it, a little faster now. Okay, give it to me! Ram your big prick up my shitter, you buttfucker! Fuck that asshole! Ream me! Now ram it in and hold it there. I'm coming! I'm coming after you fucked my virgin ass! You fucked me to an orgasm in my ass! Did you come yet?" "No. Almost, but not quite." "Then don't stop. Keep fucking my ass, you bastard! Reach around and pull on my clit. Pull my clitty as you fuck my ass. Oh, I'm coming again!" And this time I joined her, as we both sailed off through the solar system together. I collapsed on her and we both toppled over, and lay there on our left sides with my cock still in her asshole. "Just leave it in there, Ralph, Honey. Leave it in there. I don't want you to take it out. Maybe it'll still be there when we wake up in the morning. Oh, I love you, Ralph!" "I love you, too, Sherry. And I love my new present. Thank you, Honey. I rank it right up there with your tits and cunt as one of the most exciting gifts I ever got. I'll use it often. I promise. We were just drifting off to sleep when an idea popped into my mind that was so exciting that I had to share it right away. "Hey Sweetie, I just thought of something." "Will it keep till morning?" came the drowsy reply. "No! Think of the great home movies we can make of me using my new present!" * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Friday morning came early. I could have used another hour or two in bed. The whole week I'd been getting less sleep than usual, mostly because of playing with my new present. Tony was driving, and I elected to ride in front, where I could recline the seat nearly all the way back and get some sleep. Ellie was in the back seat. She had loaded the trunk with electronics to record the dump of Edwin Smith's memory. Tony and Ellie kept up a casual, low-key conversation that blended with the road noise as I dozed, half asleep and half awake. Thoughts about our planned memory dump tripped lightly across my semiconscious brain. Ellie and I represented two different schools of thought on this business of memory mining. I was impatient to find out what was going on in the particular criminal endeavor that Ronald Rogers was part of, in the present. It affected me and my family, but it might also affect my job, my co-workers, and our employer. But Ellie and Gordon looked at this as an unlocked window into the world of crime and they wanted to learn as much as they possibly could, including every crooked act that Rogers was ever involved in, back to kindergarten if necessary. Ellie would be the interviewer. I'd given away the right to lead the investigation when I went to the FBI for help, and they'd jumped in with both feet, so I couldn't complain. I had wondered why Gordon decided to keep Ellie on the case as lead investigator, but during the hours we'd spent going to Patagonia and back, shooting the breeze about cases we'd worked, I found out that she was an old pro in this sort of interrogation. Women are much better at this stuff than men, because they can connect with the subject at a more basic level, taking him back to early childhood, and establish a level of trust. They can offer simple rewards, too. After a hard tussle to pull out deeply hidden memories, a few kind words and maybe a pat on the hand from a woman can help soften him up for the next secret. Rogers had demonstrated his ability to connect with a woman on an intellectual level, and then take that attachment to the bedroom. He was so good at it that I was sure he'd done it many times before. I was equally sure that Ellie, a walking wet dream with brains, could suck the memories out of his head like a vacuum cleaner. But were we in for a fuckathon, boasts about every woman he'd ever seduced, before we'd hear about recent history? That made me think about his month-long affair with my Sherry. I gritted my teeth thinking about that, and what torture it would be for me to listen to those details. Then without meaning to, my mind put on its detective hat and reminded me that if I displayed hostility to the prisoner I could inhibit him from telling us everything we needed to know. Thinking about hostility got me wondering if I might harden his resistance just by walking into the room, since I was the guy who broke his nose and physically captured him at his arrest. Nobody could miss the hostility behind an elbow to the face. Maybe I should just listen from the next room. My mind drifted back to why I hated this asshole, and what he had done to Sherry. But I needed to avoid thoughts that would trigger a shot of adrenaline, and keep me wide awake. A nap would sharpen my critical thinking. So I moved onto loving thoughts about Sherry, which reminded me of last night, the gift she gave me, and what we did for hours instead of sleeping. On that pleasant note I finally dropped off to sleep. I woke up when the wheels crunched on the gravel of Doctor Johnson's driveway. The trunk of the Taurus looked like the back room of an electronics store. Everybody grabbed two handfuls and we waddled in, avoiding contact with doors and walls. Tony the electronics man was in his world, helping Ellie to get everything hooked up and tested. While they were sorting and hooking up cables, I talked with Doctor Johnson about my potential for screwing up the session by my presence. He set me up in an adjacent room, with a reclining chair, a table where I could rest a drink, headphones to monitor the session, and a small refrigerator stocked with bottled water and assorted soft drinks. There was even an attached, private bathroom. Clearly, it was my day in the catbird seat. I stood in an observation booth, watching through a one way mirror, when Rogers was brought in from his cell. He was erect, moving well, and responsive to suggestions. But his face was a mess. If he faced north, his nose would have pointed northeast. It didn't stick out as far as it once had, either. His face was red and blue and purple and brown fading to yellow, from his upper lip to his eyebrows, and laterally almost to his ears. My first impulse was to feel sorry for him, but the thought that pushed that one aside was smug satisfaction that I had messed him up that completely with a single blow. My squad might think of me as a desk jockey, but I hadn't lost my touch! The doctor said that Rogers might remember Ellie from when she gave him first aid after he got hurt, and Tony, the leader of the men who had rescued him and brought him here where he could recuperate safely. Rogers smiled at them and thanked them for helping him. With those warm, friendly feelings implanted at the outset, they all sat down to have a friendly chat, while I went to the next room to listen and relax. I could see that Doctor Johnson hadn't lost his touch with mind altering drugs in the years since his version of "better living through chemistry" had landed him in trouble with me. As a young detective I busted him as an accessory to a scam to fleece wealthy widows, but couldn't get enough evidence for a conviction. With the help of a wise old attorney, we worked out a gentlemen's agreement: he could live out his life in a place were nobody trusted him, with me ready to pounce at the slightest provocation; or else relocate to where he could put his abilities to good use and enjoy the life of a trusted professional. He's sent me a Christmas card every year since. The "conversation" started, and Ellie led him through his teenage years, trying to get a fix on his early sexual experiences. I noticed that she leaned on two things: what he did, and how it made him feel. Then she led him to his early attempts to make his partners feel good, and from there to the first time that a girl started to request repeated sessions. I'd never have thought of starting out like that, and I admired her expertise. Going on into his twenties, she asked him about being paid for sex, without specifying who did the paying. This brought forth a series of recollections, related with undisguised pride. He was good, he knew he was good, and nothing proved it like getting money for it. His life as a gigolo transitioned into working as an escort, then on to his earliest seduction of a woman to benefit a third party. He went into detail about the complexity of the scheme and his reluctance to get involved in it, and how that was settled by the fee being doubled. From then on, he seemed to have no misgivings about his life as a paid seducer. The narrative to this point was studded with examples of various techniques and details of what happened, with names, places, dates, and every lick, stroke, groan, and orgasm. He was especially proud of the orgasms. Some of the time Ellie could move him along, but when he got to a woman he had made particularly happy, he insisted on telling all. Eventually she got him to take a lunch break, and excused herself to go to the bathroom. She came into my room and closed the door. "Ralph, you'd better call Sherry and tell her we'll be going on into the evening, and you'll be lucky to get home by midnight. You might have noticed that he resisted telling me about the episode in Toledo. That's a sign that the medication is wearing off. At lunch they'll get another dose into him, and it has to have time to work. They'll probably put him down for a short nap and then we'll start again. After the afternoon session, we'll have a supper break with another dose, and then in the evening I hope I can get specifics out of him about current events. That means that the afternoon session has to get away from chronology and into episodes that bear similar characteristics. "Bear in mind that the closer we get to his sessions with Sherry, the harder this is going to be on you. I know you've prepared yourself to try to be objective about all this, but even though you're a dedicated professional, you're going to be surprised by the amount of effort that'll take, and how wearing it will be on you. I've already talked with Sherry about this, and she understands how hard this is on you. Keep trying to tell yourself how much better you'll both feel after this case is closed." "Yeah, as you say, it's hard, all of it. It was hard listening to how a nice young kid was gradually transformed into a serial seducer for profit. One side of my head felt bad about the job I did on his face, while another side was feeling proud of it. I feel sorry for what Sherry's been put through, violating her vows and her own standards of behavior, at the same time I'm still angry with her for falling for it. I've never had such mixed emotions. It's exhausting. I'm impressed by your performance here, by the way. You've really got all the moves down pat. I'm glad you're on our side!" "All in a day's work, Ralph. Years of education and specialized training, and experience, and then one day you get called on to use everything you learned. No different from your work, and I've done my homework on what you've been through to get where you are. Difficult interrogation, I get the call. Difficult detection and arrest and fact finding, that's you. And if we do our jobs right, nobody even knows our names." Ellie opened the door and listened. Rogers was being led back to his cell for lunch. As we heard his door clanging shut in the distance, she waved her hand at me. "Let's go to lunch." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * The afternoon session was more of the same, but different. As Ellie had told me she would, she started off on familiar ground and then picked at characteristics of an episode and asked if they came up very often. That led the Rogers away from strict historic narration, and brought up several episodes that were years apart. After following that pattern for a while, she noted a peculiarity in the reason for his being hired for one seduction, and used that to start moving the emphasis away from the seductions themselves and gradually into the business dealings of his clients. After an hour of that, she let him get back into the meat and potatoes of the seductions again. I could tell, from his voice and speech patterns, that talking business was stressful for him, and that reliving the sexual experiences relaxed and recharged him. I had to admire how she played this man, and I had the thought that if Ellie had studied the violin instead of applied psychology, she'd be playing first desk at the Boston Symphony or New York Philharmonic. Our evening meal was to be cold, pretty much like a picnic. Assorted sandwiches, fruit and cheese, and a green salad, with iced tea and assorted soft drinks available. The menu was selected so we could have it any time it suited our lead investigator, or in other words whenever the truth serum was wearing off and Rogers needed a fix of it to keep reciting. The procedure was just like lunch. He was taken back to his cell to be fed and medicated, and while we ate he was put down for a short nap. Then he was revived and brought back to continue his "conversation" with Ellie. As before, Tony was in the interview room with Rogers, Ellie, and Doctor Johnson, and I listened on headphones from the next room. Ellie was getting tired. What the hell, I was getting tired, and I wasn't doing anything. I guess it's just wearing on anybody who has any sensitivity at all to hear a professional sexual predator recite the details of his crimes, not displaying any shame or contrition, but rather being smug about what he'd done to hundreds of women, young and old, married and single, motivated almost entirely by money. An interesting thing happened when we were just about finished eating supper. We had been talking about our prisoner and what he had revealed so far, and it finally got too much for Ellie. She started to sniffle and although she had been in the middle of saying something, she stopped talking and seemed about to break down. Tony was sitting next to her and he reached over to her and pulled her to where she could put her head on his shoulder. She started to bawl like a baby. Tony, the stereotypical tough cop, stroked her hair and said little comforting things, like "There, there," and "That's all right, let it out. You can cry all you want. We're your friends." And then he made a statement that ought to be on a plaque somewhere: "It's okay. Psychologists have feelings, too, just like policemen." When the crying was over, Tony took out a handkerchief and wiped her tears away as gently as if she were a tiny baby. Ellie looked at him, then turned to me. "You must think I'm a failure. I try to be detached and objective but sometimes it's just too hard." I reached over and took her hand in mine. "We're your friends. What you're feeling, we're feeling, too. If we ever get too hardened to feel for the victims of the crimes, we'll have lost our humanity. Then who will be left to stand up for what's right?" She brightened a little, even tried unsuccessfully to smile. "If the word gets out about this, I'll be so embarrassed." "Ellie, there are a lot of things that happen here that are never going to be mentioned outside these four walls. Your private thoughts and feelings are safe." Then, as an afterthought, I added, "What happens in Patagonia stays in Patagonia." That brought out a tiny smile, and she went into my private bathroom to freshen up. Pretty soon Doctor Johnson rejoined us and Rogers was brought back, so we could start the final session. Again Ellie took the lead, complimenting Rogers on his excellent memory, and telling him that the things he had told her were going to help her so much in her work as a psychologist. He swallowed that whole. Along with reducing his inhibitions, the medication had dulled his ability to think critically about anything that was said to him, so until it wore off he had no interest in discriminating between truth and bullshit. Ellie wanted to wrap this up, as we all did by then, and she moved the session along at a brisk pace. Finally she got to what we wanted to know. "How long have you been in Arizona?" "Since last winter. I flew to Phoenix in January. My contract runs for one year." "You're under contract?" He nodded. "To whom?" "The name of the company is the Legion for Morality in Government." "Is that just a front for some wealthy sponsor?" "Yes. The man who runs it is named Grover Lippincott. He has a lot of money." "Do you know what else Grover Lippincott does?" "He has done a lot of things for Phoenix and for Arizona. Right now he's the state police commissioner." "And exactly what does your contract say that you will do for Mister Lippincott?" "It's all in the kind of language that lawyers use, but it calls for me to perform personal services at Mister Lippincott's direction, with people that he will specify." "How much are you being paid to perform these services?" "All my expenses are covered, and on top of that I get two thousand dollars a week." "When you arrived in January, what did you do first for Mister Lippincott?" "First he wanted me to seduce a lady who works in the Governor's office. Her name is Gwen. He didn't say why, but I thought maybe he was testing me to see if I could really do it. So I did. It took a while, but by March I was fucking her just about every day. She isn't married, so we could spend all our weekends together, mostly in bed." "What kinds of sex acts did you do with her?" "Oral sex, regular straight fucking in a lot of different positions, and anal sex." "Did she enjoy all this sex?" "Oh, yes. A whole lot. I still spend a lot of weekends with her. She just loves it all." "So you get to spend a lot of time in her home, I suppose." "Yes. Sometimes I stay there while she's at work. I have my own key to her house." "Have you done anything else in her house?" "Yes. I planted microphones and video cameras in all the rooms that she spends very much time in. There are two recording devices there, too, and every week I pick them up and leave two blank ones in their place." "And what do you do with the ones you picked up?" "I give them to George. He works for Mister Lippincott. He know about all kinds of spyware. That's what he calls it, the things to pick up and record audio and video. Sometimes he calls them bugs, audio bugs and video bugs."