“I’ll wear this home,” Joanne told the shop owner, her voice still trapped in her wildly inaccurate French accent. The woman looked at her with quite open surprise, and then blinked. She looked back at the other two costumes, the ones in the discreetly unlabelled bags, and her eyes widened for a moment in enlightenment.

“Ah.” She looked back at Joanne, smiling. “Party this evening, is it?”

Joanne didn’t know what Madame wanted with them, and wasn’t sure how to respond as a result. Luckily it turned out the shopkeeper didn’t need a reply. “Well, you probably left it a bit late,” she said. “But if you’re not going to be embarrassed walking back out to your car, it’s probably fine.”

The shopkeeper looked Joanne up and down again. “Honestly I’m amazed anyone can walk in those heels.”

Joanne simply smiled and collected her bags.

“Well, come again when you want to expand your selection, and enjoy your party,” the other woman said.

It wasn’t the first incorrect assumption the woman had voiced while Joanne was visiting the shop. What other items do you already have? Might it need to fit a strap? How easy should access be? Are you aware that this outfit doesn’t match the, ah, aesthetic of the other two? It’s very irregular to shop for this sort of thing without an actual fitting but as you have such detailed measurements - very precise, by the way, how did you come by them? - we can help. Joanne had had to ignore most of them, because she just didn’t have any answers.

She’d said that access should be very easy, though, had fallen over herself to say it, and still wasn’t sure if Madame had specified that, if she had simply logically identified that easier access would be better if it mattered and irrelevant if it did not, or if some part of her was eager that Madame have access.

It was hardly the first thing to confuse Joanne since Madame had stepped into her office. Madame was a confusing woman, she thought, and couldn’t feel rueful about it.

When she stepped out onto the sidewalk, dressed like a French maid in glossy plastic, her legs clad in wide fishnet tights and a choker with a big metal loop around her throat, walking on stiletto heels, her purse (mismatched to her new outfit) clamped under one arm, and three anonymous brown paper bags held in one hand (one containing the outfit in which she’d entered the shop) Joanne couldn’t help but be aware that some of those passing by stopped to stare at her.

To her own surprise, she found herself meeting the gaze of each one in turn, lifting her free hand, and giving a little fingers-only wave of salute to them all before she climbed into her car, where she discovered that while walking in heels of the proportions Madame had specified was difficult, driving in them was an even more significant challenge; however, as they fastened around her ankles with little padlocks, and as Madame had not given her permission to remove them while driving in advance, she made do. The novelty of the challenge did at least mean that none of her driving was on autopilot; she was completely focused on what she was doing at all times.

She found herself touching the switch that retracted the 8 Series’ roof. If there was anyone else in the car with her, she thought idly, and someone saw her dressed like that, they would assumed she was hired help, a driver, and not the vehicle’s owner. Joanne loved her BMW; it was one of the few things she’d bought that she felt expressed her own personality, rather than simply being something chosen to send the right signals to get ahead in her career.

She imagined herself driving, Madame in the back seat. Imagined the citizens she worked to protect seeing her and assuming she was a serving maid for Madame, that the BMW was Madame’s expression of personality and not Joanne’s.

She squirmed in the driver’s chair. It was a delicious idea. She didn’t know why. Wasn’t sure what that said about her.

She had been driving for some time before she realised she was making her way back to the precinct.

As she pulled into the parking lot she saw Madame in the employees-only doorway. It would be incorrect to say she saw her waiting; Madame was leaning back against the open doorframe while Hugh, a vacant and goofy smile on his face, groped her through her top.

She eased the convertible to a halt nearby and waited.

“Thank you, Hugh, dear,” she could hear Madame saying. “You run back inside and arrange the all-hands meeting for tomorrow, then check that everyone’s still listening to the recording in the interview room. Yes?”

“Yes, Madame,” he recited glassily.

“Good boy,” she told him. She ruffled his hair. “Off you go.”

Hugh set off back into the precinct on his new mission and Madame, after taking a leisurely moment to rearrange her clothing post-grope, strolled down to where Joanne was waiting. As she approached, Joanne got out of the car and stepped back to the rear door, which she opened and stood beside, waiting for the other woman’s arrival.

“You look delicious, Joanne dear,” Madame told her.

“Thank you, Madame,” Joanne said, surprised at how thrilling that specific praise was. She had thought she was standing up straight, but she was now standing straighter, and managing to do so in spite of how much her thighs wanted to clench together and squirm.

Madame stopped directly in front of her and explored her new outfit’s decolletage with eyes and fingers, Joanne whimpered softly, her eyes unfocusing.

The more she did for this woman, the more open and vulnerable to her she felt.

“Right,” Madame said briskly, once she’d fondled her fill. “And the other purchases?”

Joanne gestured to the back seat, where the bags waited. Madame inspected them curiously, delving into the bags one by one. “Hugh confirmed he gave you the measurements,” Madame continued. “I don’t need to insult you by asking if you got them right. You’re a good girl, you got them right.”

“Thank you, Madame,” Joanne said again, her head dizzy with the high of it. Her imposed accent was growing even stronger; this time, it had come across closer to Sank you. She felt as if what was happening now was the most perfect and natural thing that had ever happened.

“Splendid,” Madame said simply. She looked up and smiled broadly. “Ah, excellent. Hold your hands out.”

“Oui, Madame.”

Madame picked up two of the bags and placed them into Joanne’s waiting hands. “Follow,” she said. Not even Follow me.

“Oui, Madame.” She turned and walked with her across to where two officers had just come off shift, out of uniform and back in their civilian clothes. Joanne suspected they were the two whose names Madame had known and whose measurements she had been made to look up - the context clues were there to support the assumption - but she already couldn’t remember their names. (Some part of her was certain that if Madame asked it, she would remember them instantly.)

She was a couple of yards behind Madame’s determined stride and trying to work out whether she enjoyed the look in her subordinates’ eyes as they studied her appearance in a fetish outfit or not when Madame reached them.

“Trevor,” Madame said, both warmly and loudly, hands shoulder height and out a little from her sides as if she were gathering them in, “and Vicki. My dears. I see you’re following as you should.”

“Yes,” they both answered. There was an eager glassiness in their tones and, she realised as she drew nearer, also in their eyes.

“You follow, obey, and enforce the law,” Madame told them. Just listening, even with her attention focused on them, Joanne felt a shiver run down her spine. “And along with all actual laws, my word is your law. Sleep for me now, both of you.”

Her hands were up almost framing their faces as she said it, and Joanne watched glassy eyes cross and roll backwards, and she saw eyelids flutter closed, and she saw heads droop forward. The two officers did not collapse, but they sank forwards into her hands, and she cradled their heads close to hers, and her voice was soft.

Standing at a respectful distance behind Madame, Joanne could make out only the occasional word of the instructions Madame was giving them. She found herself wishing she was hearing those instructions herself, wishing whatever duty was due to fall to them was hers to shoulder instead.

In a matter of moments they were stirring again in her arms, straightening back up, smiling. She kissed Trevor and let him go; he made his way forward and took one of the bags from Joanne’s hands, his glassy eyes straying hungrily to her proudly displayed chest. Madame was kissing Vicki, and then she let her go. Vicki followed suit, collecting a bag of her own. The two of them turned and walked back into the precinct.

Madame smiled cheerfully, that smile she had which suggested an ongoing private joke, possibly at Joanne’s expense. Even with that awareness, she just wished she could know what the joke was. She would happily be the butt of the joke if it just pleased Madame.

How she ached to be useful.

Madame slinked across to Joanne. She took her head in both hands, palms cradling her cheeks, long fingers slipping into the Chief Superintendent’s hair, and pulled her into a kiss. Joanne almost sagged into it, wanting everything, giving her all, a passion she did not fully understand enveloping her.

“Good,” was all Madame said after she broke the kiss. “That was lucky timing. I got to do that ahead of time. You’ve made the car ready?”

“Oui, Madame,” she answered eagerly. She turned and made her way back to the car, and she was halfway there by the time she realised she was not walking but strutting in her heels, a steady sway to her hips that combined with the rhythmic click of her heels to make her a fuckable metronome.

Joanne was struck by the phrase. It had seemed to come into her mind from nowhere, did not sound like her, but seemed entirely appropriate. Perhaps it came from Madame?

She stopped by the open rear door, once again standing up straight as Madame approached. “The Beachfront Theatre, Joanne,” she directed. “Stage entrance.”

“Oui, Madame.”

*

It had been a shame to send Joanne away after being delivered, Hannah thought idly, her memory lingering over a body which, once revealed, was surprisingly glorious. She really could have retooled the act to use three assistants…

Of course, that would have involved spending more of her time today laying plans and less of it enjoying herself. Once before, seven years earlier, Hannah had indulged her appetites to this extent using her understanding of hypnosis to do so. It had left a sour taste in her mouth.

She hadn’t spoken directly to every member of the police department now under her influence, but everyone she’d spoken to had been either an active participant in dubious behaviours or someone in authority who turned a blind eye to them. Joanne had reached a height where she could more or less pretend she wasn’t even ignoring it anymore, because any complaint a member of the public might make simply didn’t reach her. But she’d covered for them in the past - had confessed to doing so in order to advance her career while Hannah had her deep - and she’d been one of those indulging in them herself before then.

It was enough. She didn’t feel guilty at all. If she was to take her own pleasure in it, well, what price that when she was both righting a wrong against herself and throwing a spanner in the works for the future?

Vicki and Trevor had been the officers who happened to engage with her. Hannah had confirmation now that if it had been someone else, she would have run into the same trouble. They weren’t even considered troublemakers by the department’s standards.

She finished applying her makeup, concealed the lav mic in the high collar of her blazer, and buttoned it tight over what appeared to be bare skin but was in part cunningly concealed corsetry designed to give her the kind of figure audiences expected from female magicians, especially at an adults-only stage show.

Then she stepped out of her dressing room and nodded to Ash, the stage manager at the Beachview. She’d only met them the day before when she got into town, but they’d had a couple of email exchanges as her tour approached, and Ash and their assistant Nico seemed extremely competent and capable. They’d even been happy to accommodate her with some last-minute change requests when Joanne dropped her off at the venue. Not every stage manager would be.

Ash smiled and mouthed Good Luck, then wordlessly held up one hand with their thumb tucked into their palm and the other four fingers splayed. Each finger was drawn into a fist, one at a time, a visible countdown. At two, Nico touched a control and the Madame Mystique theme music started to play. At one, Hannah started to walk forward, and at zero she passed through the curtain to warm applause from the crowd.

“Thank you, thank you,” she said, smiling warmly around as she did. “Is everyone having a good time?” There were a couple of whoops of agreement from deep in the audience, and she smiled. The Madame Mystique persona was certainly her own construction, her own design, but there were times on stage when she was performing in it that she felt like a completely different person.

“Well, that’s splendid,” she said. “In that case I don’t need to do much tonight.” There was generalised laughter from the crowd, though some people took longer to work it out and join in than others.

It was surprising how often she’d felt like her stage persona once she started to take control in the precinct. Hannah Taylor would sit meekly and accept the authority of others. Madame Mystique couldn’t.

“Now, this is my first time in town,” she said. “So it’s lovely to see so few empty seats in this theatre. I’m sure we’ve got some entertainment for you, dears, alright?”

More whoops, but most of the audience instead gave a rather softer cheer; happy to participate, willing to go along, perhaps not willing to make a fool of themselves.

Usually Madame would have been scanning the crowd looking for a very specific mixture of reactions. She always pulled her assistants from the crowd. Always used a little hypnotic patter while getting them ready. Sometimes pushed it a little further, sometimes not; cold reading skills were also useful for making sure you never pushed someone beyond a level of discomfort they’d enjoy.

She could usually tell from the reaction at this point in her patter which audience members would be just a little uncomfortable being asked to volunteer, but not enough so to refuse or to be upset if they did; which audience members would actually enjoy the uncertainty afterwards, and love telling the stories of what they’d been asked to do that they hadn’t believed they had in them.

This time, though, she knew exactly who would be coming up. “Now, before I begin the show proper,” he said, “I do need to get some assistants on stage. And - “

She broke off very theatrically, staring into the crowd off to one side, and waited until she was sure that a good chunk of the audience were looking where she was or craning their necks and trying to see what had caught her attention.

“Well, well, well,” she said briskly, striding over to the nearest part of the stage to that end of the audience. “What do we have here? Excuse me, are you two actually police officers?”

The skepticism she dropped into her voice drew laughter from around them. She watched Trevor and Vicki shift awkwardly in their seats, Trevor in particular, and privately amused herself reading the uncertainty in his face. Under his current suggestions, she knew he’d have so many questions. Where had most of his last shift gone? Why was he attending a show with his partner? Why hadn’t they changed out of uniform? Why did he find himself feeling oddly deferential to the woman on stage?

Those would all likely be nudging against the instructions to forget that she had given him, but she could tell in the way he was acting that those instructions were still in place, just as they should be.

Vicki at least nodded.

“You are?” Hannah asked. Vicki nodded again.

“You’re here to serve the public good?” Hannah asked, putting a naive excitement into her voice. Vicki nodded again.

“Well, in that case, I think we certainly need to salute you. Please, ma’am, come up on stage. Bring your partner with you.” She turned away and started walking toward the far wing, where some of her props were waiting. It was a reliable way to short-circuit arguments before they could start.

By the time she turned back and started across the stage, with two long brass rods wrapped up in shimmering blue silk-look cloth under one arm, the two officers were standing at the bottom of the steps that connected the stage to the audience. “That’s it, my dears,” she said breezily. “Come on up. Don’t be shy. I’m sure the local police are brave, aren’t they?” With her free hand she summoned cheers and calls from the crowd, and Vicki made her way up the stairs, Trevor following uncertainly.

“Brave AND strong,” she continued once the two of them were stood on stage with her. “Look out over that way, my dears. Let the crowd look at you. Now, your name is…”

“Victoria,” she said.

“Vicki,” Madame Mystique announced into her mic. “And you?”

“Trevor.”

“Trevor. Vicki and Trevor. Everyone, give Officers Vicki and Trevor a big hand, please.”

She handed each of them one of the rods wrapped up in cloth while the applause was subsiding. It was always delightful how people would take them, even when suspicious, if you only handed them over with enough confidence, she thought.

“So now you’re up here, I’m hoping you brave officers will help me with a little trick,” she said. She had taken a step back behind them as she talked, gesturing their attention out toward the crowd. “Just one and then you can go back to your seats,” she went on, and as she did she shook her head at the audience and offered them a theatrical wink. “You’ve both got a drape there. If you could unroll it and hold it horizontal a little above your belts, please.”

They did so wordlessly. Watching from behind she could see the uncertainty in their expressions and their stances, along with the belief that if they just did this, it would be over with and they could go back to just being audience members.

“Alright. Now, raise up those bars level with your shoulders,” she told them, and they did. Trevor looked over his shoulder at her, some part of him unsure, and she dimpled back at him. “Honestly, dear, you’re the one carrying pepper spray and a gun. There’s no need to be scared,” she smiled. The audience burst into laughter.

She watched the twitch in Trevor’s jawline. Yes, she thought. That’s not anger a policeman needs. It’s not about the law. That will have to be corrected.

“Alright. So, Trevor, Vicki, just nod your heads for the audience if you’re real police officers.” They both did so.

“Fantastic, dears. Brave and strong, both of you.” She reached out and rested a hand each on the smalls of their backs. “Now, what I want you both to do is to quickly raise the bars you’re holding up higher than your heads, then just let go. Alright? Now!”

Both of them were very quick, Trevor almost throwing his up in his haste to have the trick be over with. For just a split second, they were fully obscured from the audience’s view. And as the drapes that had obscured them fell away, the audience saw them in very new presentations.

Gone were the well-fitted short-sleeved blue shirts and the clip-on ties they both wore. Gone were the black dress pants and the sensible running shoes. In their place, Trevor wore glossy black anklets and sandals, a pair of tight plastic hotpants that outlined his erection very visibly, and a tight latex shirt in light blue that split down from collar to navel in a V. His gunbelt carried what was obviously a water pistol and a pair of handcuffs wrapped in hot pink fluff.

Beside him, Vicki woke a shiny black microskirt in pleated plastic, above which her own light blue latex shirt was unbuttoned but clipped together under her cleavage with ‘trailing ends’ that suggested it had been tied instead. Her hair had gone from down to tied back in a ponytail. Her lipstick was bright pink rather than subtle, and her cheeks had blusher. Her sneakers had been replaced with high heels.

Not that any of the crowd were likely to put their finger on what else they were seeing, but above the sudden bright smiles both officers’ eyes were deeply glazed, the act of following her instruction having plunged them back down deep in trance.

Quick change costume tricks had been one of Hannah’s specialities before she further developed the character of Madame Mystique. As the only person who’d seen how the trick was executed - and the person who’d made sure the two officers were standing where their new footwear could be delivered onto the stage mechanically, from below - she was very happy with how her two assistants had executed the trick.

She usually couldn’t use that one, as it very much needed the bulk of the outfit to be under their regular clothes, and it needed either rigorous practice or the kind of precise instruction and timing that you really need prior hypnotic instruction to drill into someone.

It didn’t matter. The crowd were enthusiastically applauding and cat-calling. The big difficulty when she was lucky enough to be able to lead with that trick was always coming up with a showstopper that would top it. You could dial it back after an opener, and often should, but the last trick needed to be the best.

She put one hand on Trevor’s pec and squeezed appreciatively. “Not only brave,” she told the crowd. “Strong, too.” Cheers immediately became laughter.

“Officers, why don’t you take a stroll down into the crowd? Shake hands, pose for selfies, let them press your flesh… and show everyone that those are real outfits, not just an illusion. Go up to the back wall, touch it, then come back.”

The two officers descended down the stairs and split up, one of them walking each aisle. Most of the audience didn’t reach out, but some were curious, and both Vicki and Trevor stopped every time to allow people to run their hands over bodies, test the way their outfits felt under their hands, or pose them for hands-on photos.

Some people would call that too much, she thought. She considered it a lesson they’d remember, even when she’d made them forget all the key details.

The next order of business once she had assistants was always the same trick, one that Hannah thought of as the Never-Ending Cocktail. Taking drink orders from randomly selected members of the audience, she never poured anything into the cocktail shaker in her hands; from the small ‘bar’ in front of her she simply selected an appropriate glass from inside the cabinet, placed it on the bar, then screwed the cocktail shaker lid in place, shook, and poured.

The audience were then delighted when each one of them drank a very different cocktail, even many with differently coloured liquids filling their glasses.

The idea for the trick went back over a century, though it hadn’t been cocktails back then; you needed a shaker full of the best filtered vodka possible to provide the genuine kick, and the ingredients for each drink were concealed in different shaker lids kept with the glasses out of sight.

Hannah had made minor modifications, but it was usually the sight of her new assistants (typically after a quick offstage costume change into something less embarrassing than these two, but more provocative than they’d started in - she favoured sparkly underwear and loose, sheer robes for the right effect when she had less control over precise sizings) ferrying the drinks to different audience members that really underlined the trick and created the party atmosphere. She finished it - these sequences always needed a payoff before you dialled it back down - with a last glass that burst into fire when she reached for it.

That party atmosphere would persist through a half hour or more of mentalist tricks, the staple of Madame Mystique’s easy-to-pack part of her arsenal. Some favoured close-up magic, others mentalism; their role in both cases was the same, showily impressive while requiring the minimum amount of equipment to be transported around. She would usually give her assistants some time to rest at this point, but this time she had them both out in the audience holding microphones.

It only seemed reasonable to keep them out there, part of the community that they’d been exacting an additional price for protecting all this time. Their confirmed role as real police plus their current appearance definitely seemed to be making the audience more handsy, and while she didn’t encourage it exactly, she was certainly enjoying it.

She interrupted the mentalism very briefly to call her assistants back up to the stage, where the batons at their belts were mysteriously transformed into floppy tentacle dildos. There followed a little more low- or no-prop magic before she transitioned into the run to her finale. The Multiplying Balls were a classic, but that was the thing about magic shows; people expected at least one trick they recognised, with a different spin on some side of it.

Finally she called her assistants back up on the stage. “Ladies and gentlemen,” she began, “haven’t these two been good sports?”

The cheers and applause took a moment to subside and she smiled. “I’m sure if any of you found yourself going from a real job to… whatever version of it this is… you’d have questions.” This brought on another round of laughter and delight.

If she ever made something like this a regular part of her act, she thought, there’d be some pyro here, and a quick disappearance, and mannequins wearing duplicates of the assistants’ outfits. But without the lead notice, she was going with an old standard instead.

She brought back the rods with drapes, this time with a third. “Find the magician,” she told the audience with a grin. All three of them lifted their drapes up above their heads. After a moment they began moving, quickly, in not-quite-figure-eights, always moving to one or the other side but coming forward or stepping backward as appropriate to not collide. They moved slowly at first, then faster, and all stopped at the same moment; with that done, first Vicki swept her drape to the side, and posed, and then Trevor, and then herself; the audience, startled that she had slipped their tracking, applauded.

The drapes were raised again, the movements began; this time, when they stopped, first Trevor swept his drape to the side, then Vicki. And then Hannah’s fell to the stage, revealing that she was gone, and she received the best compliment of all, a moment of stunned hush before the applause started.

She waited for the count of five before nodding to Nico to open the curtain behind the main stage. That way, it parted exactly as Trevor and Vicki changed their poses to gesture toward her.

The applause redoubled as she walked out to take her bow. Half an hour later, with the last backstage visitor regretfully dismissed, she climbed into the back seat of Joanne’s BMW again as the woman held the door in her maid outfit. Trevor and Vicki took the other seats, still in their gear, and the car drove off back to Joanne’s home, where she had already prepared a meal for Madame.

Hannah didn’t mind the speculative looks she got; word would spread, and the next time she came into town, the theatre would sell out. And even with word spreading, unless she missed her guess, the specific identity of her driver at least would be safe.

The officers who’d assisted her? Well, they were due some surprising time on social media for the next few days.

*

“Very good, Hugh,” Madame said breezily. “This is everyone?”

“Yes, Madame.”

“Splendid. Joanne, dear, introduce me to your team.”

“Oui, Madame,” Joanne agreed. The maid costume hung in her closet now, but her business suit hung up in her office. She stood in front of the precinct in the lingerie set that Madame had approved of most that Saturday morning, lying in bed with Vicki and Trevor curled up devotedly around her. It didn’t faze her at all that her staff were mostly ogling her.

Hugh had excelled himself at Madame’s instruction. Every officer, even those who weren’t on shift, was in the auditorium. Admittedly, if they hadn’t all been brought into trance at least once even that wouldn’t have done it; all the same, Joanne was proud of the work her assistant had done.

Almost as proud as she was of the admiration in the eyes of several of the staff when she clapped her hands together twice to capture the attention of the rest of the team.

“Good afternoon all,” she continued. She remained far too conscious of her own French accent, but it had been required of her so it remained. “You all know, I think, that Madame has authority over us. What you may not know is how to recognise Madame. So I tell you all - this is her.” And with that she took a step back, clasping her hands behind her bare back, and bowed her head slightly in deference. She wanted to squirm, but wasn’t sure it would be setting the officers the right example.

“Thank you,” Madame said, stepping forward. “Although I must warn you, you’re not going to recognise me in future, either. And that’s perfectly alright. You know it is.” Joanne watched her survey the precinct.

“Now,” she began. “I have spoken directly to some of you. I have watched some of you push for free food and arrest someone who didn’t look happy about it. I have heard you all talk about the little things that are benefits of being a cop, that someone else would not get. And I have seen that when someone was arrested for knowingly bad reasons, the custody sergeant did not object.”

She paused. “But all of you, let me ask you. Did you listen to me, or a recording of me?”

“Yes, Madame,” everyone but Joanne chorused. She, of course, said “Oui, Madame,” instead. The agreement was strong.

“Trevor,” she went on, “what duties do you serve for the law?”

“To follow, obey, and enforce, Madame,” he answered. His cheeks were flushed with the knowledge of his past. Madame had directed he and Vicki to confess to Joanne the night before.

Madame looked around the room. “I know this is typical. I know it will happen again elsewhere. I know that it may happen here again. But I choose to make that difficult for you. Just as you will not remember me when I have left, you will only get off if you are a good and righteous citizen first and foremost. That means being true to the law and to your partners.”

Joanne felt an ache in her chest which did not fully ease when Madame said “And, of course, it may in future mean being true to me again.”

The magician looked around the room again. “Sleep for me now, officers.”

Joanne made a soft sigh as her eyes closed, the tension dropping out of her shoulders as her head drooped forward.

*

It has been long enough, Madame’s voice said in her head. Wake up, Joanne dear.

Still listening, Joanne followed and obeyed, her eyes opening to take in a view of the ceiling. It was the first awareness she’d had that she’d moved since her last recollection. A slight stiffness in her neck suggested that she might have been unaware for a short while.

She could still hear Madame’s voice, but the woman herself was an empty visual space in her mind. Madame, surely long gone, was a voice, and the feel of her touch, and the taste of her pussy on her tongue. But the person that gave those elements shape and purpose was forgotten.

She cleared her throat, and sat upright, and then realised she was in her lingerie and hurried toward her suit. There was a knock at the door to her office, and Hugh opened it a crack, his head peering in. “Uh, ma’am, I think something’s happened,” he said. “It’s Sunday.”

She hesitated, thinking. “Yes,” she said. “I know. I’m sure my senior team will want to meet with me soon. Arrange it when you can. But first…” She wasn’t sure any longer why she was saying this, but she did. “Find Trevor Packham and Victoria Ashford, wherever they are right now, and tell them to report to me.”

“Of course, ma’am. Uh… should I give them any indicator of what’s coming?”

“No, definitely not,” she said. She smiled grimly. “They’ll work out it’s trouble soon enough.”