Amy turns Maggie around and kisses her gently on the lips, and Maggie melts into her arms and holds her tight.

“I was so lucky when I found you,” she whispers, and Amy smiles.

“Not as lucky as I was to find you.”

“I’m lucky to find you both.” Finn’s voice comes over their comm units, startling them both. “Especially since you keep hiding yourselves away to whisper sweet things to each other. It’s almost time for you two to make your entrance. Are you ready?”

Bishop grins and gives her best girl a squeeze.

“Yes, Michael,” she replies, looking into Amy’s eyes, “Let’s go make Harlan Straker cry.”
 

by Randalynn

 

---

 

 
“Hey, Lou! I think I got something.”

Lou Rossi looks up from the computer screen with bleary eyes. They had been looking through East Coast newspapers since nine a.m., and it was getting on six now.

“If it’s not a cannoli and a cup of coffee the size of Detroit, I ain’t interested, Donnie.”

“It’s better than that,” the younger man says, putting a laptop down in front of his boss. “I’m pretty sure I found Magdalene’s next target.”

“Miami …” Lou skims the article in the paper’s Society section. “Millions in rare jewels on display in the middle of a party?”

“And owned by somebody with a long record of bein’ an asshole. Harlan Straker.” Donnie clicks over to the next tab for a profile of Straker in a business magazine. “I don’t know if there’s a word for the opposite of a good rich guy, but if there was and you looked it up, his picture would be there in the dictionary. He takes what he wants and he don’t care who gets hurt.”

Lou keeps reading, and Donnie stands there, waiting for a reaction.

“It’s the kind of target Magdalene chases, owned by the kind of man he hates.” Lou scrolls down a little, reading more. “I thought …”

Then Rossi looks up at Donnie and says, “You thought right. Call the airport and get the jet gassed up and ready to fly by the time we get there.”

“So quick, boss?”

“Look at the date of the party,” he replies, getting to his feet and grabbing his coat. “It’s tonight, in about three hours, give or take. If we want to catch Magdalene, we need to be in Miami yesterday.”

As he shoulders into his jacket, he looks over at Donnie. “This was nice work, kid. If we catch this guy, you’re gonna get a bonus check like you wouldn’t believe.”

Lou runs his fingers through his hair and looks over at his protege. “Hell, just call the airport from the car. We’re burning daylight, and we’ve got a thief to catch.”

###

Wilson Applebaum knocks on the door to Mr. Curtis’s private suite and waits. As a junior bellman, he supposes being given something this important has to be an honor, but this whole week has been what felt like an endless series of odd tasks from what has to be the hotel’s two most eccentric guests.

‘A Texas millionaire and an Italian countess.’ He sighs and knocks again. ‘The place has been a zoo since they showed up, and with the big party tonight, it’s only gonna get worse before it gets better.’

This job is a perfect example. The front desk had received urgent instructions to deliver the boxes on this trolley at exactly seven thirty, and he had received the detail. According to Manuel, the shipment came from a high-end custom shop in L.A. that did a lot of specialty work for movie studios. And why did it have to be here at exactly seven thirty?

“Mister Curtis? I have a delivery.”

The electronic lock beeps and the door swings open slightly. Curtis’s voice drifts to him from somewhere inside. “Yeah, okay. Come in, and bring it with you.”

Wilson pushes the door the rest of the way open and pulls the trolley with him into the room. The door to the bedroom is open, and he hears the shower running in the bathroom. Curtis’s voice comes from inside.

“Put the boxes in the closet by the front door and make sure it’s closed,” the voice continues, “then take the hundred off the table and get gone. I’m already late.”

A hundred? The Fountainbleu has always been a hotel for the wealthy, but as far as he knew, tips have always be tens and sometimes twenties. Wilson finishes putting the boxes in the closet, closes it tight, then grabs the hundred dollar bill and slips out the door before Curtis changes his mind.

‘Wait until the guys downstairs hear about this!’

Bateau waits until he hears the suite door close before shutting off the water. He moves back to the bedroom and continues the search he had started as soon as the suite emptied earlier in the afternoon. He isn't worried about anyone returning. He knows Curtis and the rest of Straker's entourage are too busy dealing with all the problems he and Finn created to keep them occupied.

It takes a few minutes, but the vials of colorless liquid are surprisingly easy to find. They are in a leather case, with eight velvet-lined pockets for bottles. Only seven of the slots are full. Since Finn's surveillance showed that Curtis had the supply refilled with his contact in Miami, Bateau knows that if he takes one, it will be missed.

‘So I will not take a bottle,’ he thinks, smiling. ‘I am Bateau, and I am always prepared. I will take the drug, but leave the bottle behind.’

Taking a small vial of his own and an eye dropper from his jacket pocket, the Frenchman opens each of the seven bottles and takes a carefully measured amount from each one to fill his own. Then he returns the case to the drawer in the bedside table and moves quickly through the empty apartment and out into the hall with a smile.

Bateau glides down the hallway towards the elevators, already dressed in his Abramo Aldafieri disguise and his expensive hand-tailored tuxedo.

‘The drug will serve its purpose for us, as it has for Straker and Curtis,’ he thinks, nodding to passing guests. ‘And that hundred dollar tip to the bellman will ensure that the story of the delivery and Curtis’s acknowledgement of it will be remembered, and repeated to all the staff. It is quite a lot of work for a single piece of paper to accomplish, but money tends to do quite a lot if used wisely.’

‘Let us hope the rest of this job goes as well.’

###

Bishop and Amy stand before the large mirror in their shared bedroom, looking at themselves critically. For this part of the plan to succeed, the beautiful contessa and her dark, exotic friend must outshine every other woman at the party, and no detail can be left to chance.

After a deep examination of her own dress and accessories, Amy turns to Maggie. Her long dark brown hair tumbles down in soft curls that gently caress her shoulders. Sparkling earrings glitter and flash in the light, and her face is painted with such understated skill that she appears even more beautiful than she actually is — something Amy believed would be impossible before watching her lover skillfully applying her make-up at the vanity table.

A simple gold chain and matching bracelets set off her golden skin, and her gown fits so well that it might be easily be mistaken for a second skin. Amy smiles briefly, remembering how uncomfortable it made Maggie not to wear anything at all underneath, but once the dress was on, she had to admit that even the briefest of thongs would have shown through the form-fitting fabric. Maggie’s strappy heels matched the color of her gown perfectly, framing her dainty feet and her perfectly done toenails.

‘She’s beautiful,’ Amy thinks with a smile, ‘and perfect for catching Straker’s … undivided attention.’

The smile shrinks as she sees how Maggie looks in the mirror, shifting her weight from one hip to the other and fiddling with the clasp on her evening bag. She slips behind her love and wraps her arms around Bishop’s waist in a gentle hug.

“What’s wrong, angel?” Amy whispers into Maggie’s ear, holding her close. “You’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

“That’s what’s wrong,” Maggie replies, relaxing into Amy’s hug and sighing softly. “This is the first job we’ve done since … since what happened to me.”

Amy nods and gives her a gentle squeeze.

“I’m supposed to go in there and pretend to want Harlan Straker to sweep me off my feet and fuck me until I faint.” Bishop’s tone slides towards bitterness and disgust. “Even if I wanted a man to do that to me, which I don’t, I sure as hell wouldn’t want it to be him. But I have to make him think I would, tease him and make him work for his chance with me, even knowing he’s nothing but a slimy bastard who thinks the Contessa is little more than fresh meat. Even she knows what he truly is!”

Amy kisses the side of her neck, just under her ear.

“That’s gonna make it easier, baby, don’t you think?” She marks a trail of kisses down to where Maggie’s neck meets her shoulder.

“How so?”

“Well, if I got this right, the Contessa hates the kind of man he is, just as much as you do. And since she knows exactly what you plan to do to him, she’s gonna help you, because she’s on your side.”

“But she’s not real!”

“Seems like she’s real enough to me. She walked you through the whole entrance scene in the lobby the other day, didn’t she?” Amy looks into her eyes in the mirror, and Bishop nods back. “Look, honey, Straker thinks he’s in control because he’s sure you want him, and he wants you to think you’re in control because that’s the kind of woman he thinks you are — thanks to what I told Curtis.”

Maggie nods again, and Amy smiles.

“And in the end, you do want him, Mags, both you and Francesca. Just not in the way he thinks. But guys like him? That’s all he’s gonna see — that you want him. Best of all, he’s the kind of man who doesn’t think any woman is smart enough to outthink him. Work with that. Remember what our goal is. Make him work to catch you, make him think he’s playing you, so you can catch him instead.”

Amy turns Maggie around and kisses her gently on the lips, and Maggie melts into her arms and holds her tight.

“I was so lucky when I found you,” she whispers, and Amy smiles.

“Not as lucky as I was to find you.”

“I’m lucky to find you both.” Finn’s voice comes over their comm units, startling them both. “Especially since you keep hiding yourselves away to whisper sweet things to each other. It’s almost time for you two to make your entrance. Are you ready?”

Bishop grins and gives her best girl a squeeze.

“Yes, Michael,” she replies, looking into Amy’s eyes, “Let’s go make Harlan Straker cry.”

###

Standing by the display case in the center of the room, Harlan Straker watches Miami’s rich and famous admiring his collection. He is wearing the most expensive tuxedo in the world, the K50 by Kiton. The company was launched in the mid-1950’s by two Italian tailors, Ciro Paone and Antonio Carola, and its highest quality tuxedo normally costs $50,000. However, to ensure his suit was the most expensive ever sold by Kiton, Straker insisted that each button be cut from black diamonds of the highest quality, raising the price to well over a hundred thousand.

Each dish served at the party is a creation of a group of master chefs from all over the world. Each chef was flown into Miami early this morning and paid $25,000 to cook for this one event. The party music is performed by the Brodsky Quartet, with the Rolling Stones scheduled to play a single set later in the evening.

Everything is exactly as it should be, despite all the last-minute snags that popped up just hours before the shindig was supposed to start. Ingredients missing from the kitchen, decorations misplaced, shorts in the electrical system … the list went on. Straker didn’t believe how many things could go wrong at a top-drawer hotel like this one.

‘Just goes to show reputation doesn’t mean perfection, I guess,’ he thinks, fingering his bolo tie and glancing again at the door. ‘If I didn’t have Curtis and the boys to nail things down, I woulda looked mighty stupid. I can’t risk looking like an idiot if I’m gonna catch me a countess tonight, Ain’t gonna be able to rope and tie her lessen she respects me, and that’s a fact.’

The millionaire treats himself to a small smile. ‘A’course, once she tied up, things might get a bit less respectful, as least as far as my attentions toward her are concerned.’

He hears the quartet hesitate, almost together, before continuing with the music. As he turns to give them a disgusted look, his eyes stop at the main entrance and can’t move on. The band stops completely, and the silence speaks volumes.

The countess and her friend have arrived.

They stand in the doorway, wearing dresses that fit them so well, there’s no mistaking how beautiful their bodies are. Perfect hair, make-up applied with an artist’s care, and jewelry that accents without taking attention away from the woman wearing it. They define femininity, both with what society says is beautiful and an inner fire that makes Straker wonder, just for an instant, if he’s even up to the challenge of catching the countess, let alone bedding her.

He hears more than one sharp intake of breath from the women closest to him in the crowd, and turns his head for an instant to see eyes narrowing with jealousy and envy. Francesca and her companion aren’t making any friends with the Miami elite tonight, but Straker is pretty sure that doesn’t bother either of them — not for an instant.

“Damn,” Curtis says softly, only a few feet from his boss. “I have never seen a woman that fine close up.”

“Right with ya there, hoss.” Straker replies, taking in the sight that stops everyone in the room. “But I ain’t worried, and you shouldn’t be neither. We can be pretty darned persuasive if we gotta be.”

“And if we can’t get ‘em by stealth, we still got an ace in the hole.” Curtis pats his pocket where a small bottle of the date-rape drug rests. Straker gives him a look.

“Let’s not think about cheating just yet,” he says, as the band begins to play once more and conversation resumes. “The game’s just beginnin’ after all. Go rustle your cow, and let me rustle mine, and we’ll see who beds one first.”

Curtis grins at his boss and nods, and they both head for the door, just as the Contessa’s personal assistant arrives behind her, remaining a respectful distance away.

###

Finn relays their conversation with each other to everyone over the comms.

“Seems to me they’re making a game outta this,” he says. “Cocky bastards.”

“What they don’t know is who is playing who, yes?” The Contessa spoke under her breath, smiling and taking in the admiring and jealous stares of the crowd. “They may be cowboys, but Amelie and I are lionesses, not cows, and when we hunt, we do not play.”

Finn switches to a private channel.

“Looks like the bitch is back, Bateau. Should we be worried?”

The Frenchman turns his head and looks down the hall, masking the movement of his lips.

“Maybe it is as simple as it was in the lobby. As deep into her character as she was before, she never forgot the goal of her entrance. This is no different, yes? Maggie must be the Contessa to lure the mark to where we want him to go, that’s all.”

“You’re probably right. It’s just deeper than he — she used to go, yeah?”

Bateau’s eyes narrow as he thinks. “Perhaps. Or perhaps it was not as noticeable when she was a he, Michael.”

“I guess we just have to have faith.”

“Always, mon ami. Always.”

###

“Look at them, Amelie,” Francesca says with a smile as the two men come close enough to hear. “They walked all the way across the room to greet us, leaving all of the other women to stare at their backs and wish we were dead. We must be stunning, yes?”

“Oui, Contessa,” Amelie replies, a sparkle in her eyes. “How could you and I be anything else? One wonders how they could possibly have enjoyed themselves without us by their sides?”

“We were both doin’ our best to pretend we were having fun.” Straker took the Contessa’s hand and kissed it softly. “It is my party, y’know. Gotta keep up appearances.”

“Yeah,” Curtis takes Amelie’s hand and mirrors his boss. “But anybody who knew us could tell we were just marking time, waiting for the two of you to make the night complete.”

“Hell, now, Curtis, don’t go making me look bad!” The millionaire slaps Curtis on the shoulder. “Save some of the best lines for me!”

“Oh? Is that how this is?” Francesca raises an eyebrow and smiles, tilting her head forward to look at Straker through her lashes. “Is everything tonight scripted, Harlan? Is your admiration only a performance?”

“Not scripted, Contessa,” he replies, pulling back from what could be dangerous ground. “But you can’t expect a man like me to not do a little thinkin’ about what to say to a woman like you. As for performance? Well, maybe we’ll get to that later.”

She catches a predatory gleam in his eye through the flirting, and decides to turn the tables, just a little.

“Maybe we will,” she says softly. “But the night is young, yes?”

Francesca smiles slowly, then raises his hand to her lips and plants a small kiss that takes him by surprise.

“For now, we should enjoy the moment, and the party. And if you want to keep me happy?” She lets go of his hand and lets her fingers trail across her stomach. “I have been here two whole minutes, and I am still hungry and thirsty! You talk very sweetly, cowboy, but as you Americans say, ‘actions speak louder than words,’ yes? Where is this … abbondanza you Texans are known for? And how could either of us … perform on an empty stomach?”

Straker smiles and puts his arm out.

“Allow me to escort you to the grub, Contessa,” he says, as Curtis does the same for Amelie.

“I thought you would never ask,” she replies, slipping her arm into his.

The two couples make their way across the floor, with Aldafieri following at a respectful distance should his mistress need him for anything.

###

“Game over, man. Game over!”

The sound clip from James Cameron’s Aliens alerts Finn to the completion of his safecracking software’s successful deconstruction of the locking mechanism on the DoD-certified secure room in the basement of the building. Some of it involved finesse and some brute force, but as usual, he succeeded where others could only fail.

“Safe room lock codes are hacked, Your Eminence.”

“Buon, Michael, buon,” the contessa replies in a breathy whisper. The slight echo tells Finn her lips are hidden by a champagne glass. “Siete vero una gemma.”

His eyes flash to the voice recognition/auto-translation box in the corner of his main screen.

“Uh… thanks, I think.”

She delivers a throaty laugh that sends a shiver up his spine.

“Oh, Michael, you really must learn how to take a compliment.” Finn hears a clink, like glass hitting metal, and then Bishop’s voice raised in a teasing tone. “Harlan, I am thirsty!”

Straker’s voice, coming closer. “That’s why I brought you a bottle, Frankie!”

“My name is Francesca, Harlie! Frankie sounds like a tiny boy. Do I look like a boy to you?”

He could hear Straker retreating, trying to regain lost ground. “Not in any way, Francesca. Not at all.”

“Good.” Finn hears the self-satisfied smile in the Contessa’s voice. “I would hate to think this dress was wasted on a man who could not tell the difference between a woman and a boy.”

###

Hours pass, full of food and drink and celebration. Crowds and couples swirl around the long display case of jewels in time to the music, and another dance, this one of seduction, takes place on the dance floor as well. Warm bodies pressed together kindle a fire that is as old as humanity itself, and as the women fan the flames, the men are consumed by the heat.

The party begins to fade around one a.m., and both Straker and Curtis are feeling unimaginably lucky. The contessa and her friend seem very receptive to ending the night in bed, and the men can barely keep themselves from thinking about what comes next.

Watching as the last of the guests move out the main doors, Francesca grabs a bottle of champagne from the bar. Amelie comes to her as she pours four glasses, and watches as she adds a colorless liquid to two of them from the bottle Aldafieri passed to her earlier in the evening. Francesca catches Amelie’s eye and smiles, and they each take two glasses and go back to their dates.

“It is time for a toast,” the Contessa says, handing a glass to her date as Amelie hands one to hers. “To end this party … and begin another.”

She raises her glass. “To an evening … and a morning … we will never forget!”

Straker and Curtis glance at each other, raise their glasses and drink. Francesca and Amelie follow suit, and then all place their glasses on the nearest table as the hotel staff begin to clean the party debris from the room. Straker holds out this arm, and Curtis follows suit. The two women move to their respective escorts and together they leave the ballroom.

Outside, in the hallway, the security contingent waits for the clean-up to end, so they can relieve the guards in the ballroom, lock it down, and guard the space until the morning.

Not that guarding it will do them the slightest bit of good.

###

A few hours earlier …

“When I hacked the servers at the lab Curtis gets his stash from,” Finn said over the comm links as the party started rocking, “I got the chance to look at their testing data. This drug is a strong mix of mood elevators that make everything feel good and seem right. At the same time, it makes people very suggestible and suppresses the part of the brain that weighs alternatives and rejects things that make no sense.”

“So if you give this to a woman and tell her you’re her deepest fantasies made real, in her eyes, you will be?” Amy tried to keep a smile on her face as she sipped champagne and watched Maggie and Straker dance. Keeping her anger at bay wasn’t easy.

“Pretty much” She could almost feel Finn nodding back in his hotel room. “And if you tell her to forget everything that happened the night before, she will. The drug has its own amnesia effect that’ll help, too, I’m thinkin’. I’m pretty sure this stuff is illegal, so a DEA task force just might be getting an anonymous tip about the lab and Straker’s hotel room before we leave.”

“But if this drug does what you say it does,” Bateau said from his position against the wall. “I believe we can get it to work for us tonight. Both of them should cheerfully cooperate and then wonder what happened when the morning comes, just like every woman they have used this on in the past.”

“And way past that if we work it right, Bateau. When people are on this stuff, they get pretty suggestible. And hypnosis’ll last a lot longer with the drug. What do you think, Maggie?”

“Mmmhmmm,” she hummed, still dancing with the mark. Just to be clear, she pushed the signal contact in her mouth once with her back teeth to send a single ’yes” tone to the group.

“The women from Veracruz are in place, mon ami. Both the ones who ran the orphanages and some of the whores from the brothels our friend created in their place.” Bateau smiled. “As you can guess, neither group is happy with Mister Straker.”

“Bateau?”

“Oui, Amy?”

“I’m curious. What would we have done without the ‘miracle drug?” Amy asked, watching Curtis talking to some of the guards at the door.

“Oh, knockout drops would have been enough for what we needed, cher,” Bateau responded. “Once they were unconscious, we would have removed them from the situation, placed them in a more embarrassing one, and then moved forward with the plan from there.”

She looked over to where he stood, and he smiled at her with a twinkle in his eye. “But this … this will be so much better, don’t you think?”

###

Harlan Straker lets himself into his suite, although it seems a lot harder to fit the key card into the slot than it was earlier in the evening.

‘Wish she woulda come with me though,’ he thinks as the door swings closed behind him. All of his entourage are in rooms he’d rented just for tonight, thinking he’d need privacy to woo the countess.

“Glad I moved ‘em out. She’d sure as hell not want to be in the next room from a suite full of rowdy Texans, that’s for damned sure,” he says out loud as he wanders into the darkened room. “Always got to think ahead when you plan to rope a filly … or milk a shy cow.”

From the darkness comes a voice. “You got that right, boss. And you’ve always been the best at thinking ahead.”

“Curtis?” Straker peers into the living room. “Where’s your girl? What the hell you doin’ sitting in the dark?”

“Waiting on you, what else?” He sees a dark shadow moving on the sofa. “The girls said they had a surprise for us, and wanted me to wait here for you while they got it ready. And they said not to turn on the lights.”

“Girls and their games.” The millionaire shakes his head and sits down on the chair closest to him. “Take a simple little thing and turn it into a production.”

“Well, you know, Harlan, they think what they got is special,” Curtis says, the grin on his face hidden by the darkness but easily heard in his voice. “So they need to dress it up and be all enticing about it. Like we need to be encouraged to chase ‘em and catch ‘em, right?”

“Damn straight,” Straker replies, grinning back at his friend.

They sit in companionable silence for a while.

“Say, Harlan …” Curtis’s voice is still full of smiles. “Ever think about what that must be like?”

“What?” Straker’s reply comes out a little slow, as if he’s been drifting.

“Being wanted like that? Chased and caught, like a stallion on a filly.”

“Hell, no!”

“Oh, come on, boss, it’s just you and me here, and you trust me, right?”

“Sure do.” Harlan smiles. "I know you got my back, son. Always have. Always will.”

"So you musta wondered sometime what it felt like to be the filly, instead of the stallion, right? To be the one who gets to run and get chased, instead of having to work so hard for it? Cause we both know sometimes, it's damned hard to catch a filly. And who wants to work hard, right?”

Straker thinks for a moment, his mind drifting. "Yeah, I guess. When I was just getting old enough to want to chase 'em, I wondered what it must be like to be the one who was chased. Ain't nobody really ever wanted me, Curtis, and that's a fact.”

Bateau’s eye brows raised slightly in the darkness, but his impersonation of Curtis never wavered. “Finding that hard to believe, Harlan.”

“It’s true. My folks paid people to watch me, and shipped me off when I got old enough to send away to school. Nobody at school ever gave a damn about me, and I ain’t never met a woman who liked me for me. Finally, I figured if I was the only person I was ever gonna have in my life, everyone else could just go to hell.”

“So … wanna see what it’s like for someone to want you? To be the one being chased? Just this once?”

Harlan smiles slowly, almost dreamily. “Sure, Curtis. What the hell, right? But how?”

“I got you covered, boss. Just go in the bedroom, close your eyes, and do whatever the nice ladies say. And you’ll know what it feels like to be a filly. You’re gonna have to lose the ‘stache though.”

“You got it, son.” He stumbles to his feet and lurches towards the door.

‘No,’ Bateau thinks with a small smile, ‘We’ve got you.’

###

Amelie and Curtis sat side by side on the sofa in the group’s suite, glasses of wine in their hands. She could tell from the glazed look in his eyes that the drug had taken effect, and it was time to put her part of the plan into action.

“So, my brave, impetuous friend who did not fear my wrath,” she whispers softly, her French accented English sending shivers up his spine. “I am thinking you are so proud of yourself, for capturing the heart of the Ice Princess, yes?”

“You bet,” he replies, the drug acting almost like a truth serum. “You were real hard to catch, too. Even though I was damned charming, you kept making threats, putting up all those walls … damned hard.”

“Do you know why I was so difficult?”

“I know why. Because you’re a woman.” Curtis grins at her. “It’s your job to make it hard … in more ways than one.”

She lifts one finger with a blood red nail and waves it in his face. “It is NOT my job to … make it hard. But you were half right. I made it difficult because I am a woman, and you have no idea what a woman is, really. How she thinks or feels. That is why it is so hard for you. Because to you, I am not really human. I am just a thing to be captured, and used.”

“Do you know what it is like to always be chased? To never have a moment to yourself without some ‘charming’ man wanting to tell you whatever he think you wish to hear, so he can take you away, rip off your clothes, and treat you like a sex toy? Because that is what you wanted to do to me.”

Curtis stops to think about what she said. When she puts it like that, it sounds pretty awful. But it’s true.

“Did you know your mother, Curtis? Did you have any sisters?” He nods, his mind twisting around on itself. “What would you do to any man who treated them the way you wanted to treat me?”

“Make sure he’d never do it again, that’s for damned sure.”

“Then why are they people, and I am not?”

“But … but wait!” He put down his wine glass and looked into her eyes “I’m here, right? So what I did must have worked. You must want me to … to rip your clothes off and …”

“Treat me like a sex toy?” Amelie shook her head. “No, what I wanted was to get you here and give you a gift. Something that will make it so much easier for you to truly know a woman — how she thinks and feels, and who she is inside.”

“How can you do that?”

She smiles at him. “Because I am a witch. I can do magic.”

“You can!” Amelie nods. Curtis grins. “Damn, girl, that must be great.”

The girl barely suppressed a grin. “It has its moments. This is one of them. I am going to transform you into a woman, so you can feel what it means to be a woman, and see the world through our eyes.”

Curtis feels a chill run through his body. “Wait, now, I never said …”

Amelie raises her eyebrow. “Is my brave impetuous suitor not man enough to be a woman?”

Still thinking through the fog of the drug, Curtis’s anger flares. “I never said that, either. Okay, then, bring it on.”

She rose to her feet. “Stand up.”

He did, a trifle unsteady.

“Close your eyes and listen carefully. You will go into a deep sleep but obey every command I give you. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“First, I want you to make your voice as high as you can make it without it breaking.” She thinks for a moment. “You will speak exactly like your oldest sister did when you saw her last. Right now, you will go into the other room where some women are waiting to give you a makeover, fix your hair and make-up, and dress you in something appropriate for your night out. Say thank you, Amelie.”

“Thank you, Amelie.” His voice had become higher and much more feminine — almost musical, with something of a New York accent.

“Go now, and enjoy!”

“I will.”

###

“The two kings are becoming queens, Your Holiness.” Finn suppresses a snicker. “The security people have checked the ballroom and sealed the doors. Ready to make some magic?”

“Past ready, Michael,” she replies, feeling a little shiver run down her spine. Her skintight black catsuit hugs her curves, and her black vest and belt hold everything she will need to pull this off.

Except, of course, the courage to take that first step.

‘After all the preparations and the play acting, it all comes down to this,’ she thinks. ‘But with everything I’ve been through, can I still be the Magdalene I was before?’

Bishop looks from the top of the elevator across to the maze of pipes and ventilation shafts that fill the drop ceiling between her and the ballroom. She smiles, and feels the rush that used to come whenever the man he was reached the beginning of the end of a job, a lifetime and just a few weeks ago.

‘I guess we’ll find out.’

###

© 2014. Posted by the author.