Neighborly Persuasions
(Version 1)

“You get that door Tamara,” chimed out over the muffled sounds of dance music, and despite never meeting the occupants of the apartment face to face, Kyle knew that it was the mother, Esther, yelling at her daughter.

He knew far too much about both of them, just from their yelling alone, and he knew even more about their taste in movies and music from the volume of their lifestyle.

That was the only way to explain it, they were loud people, and over the last couple of weeks, inconveniently ever since he’d gotten his promotion at the office, their volume had gone from ‘noticeable but easily ignored’ to ‘invasive and all consuming’.

But, as it turned out, Kyle was the only one really bothered by it.

Most of his neighbors were younger, and never home when the two of them would fight, or… well do anything at all really, because everything they did now seemed to have doubled in volume, and even if those other neighbors were home, they had their own means of blocking out the the noisy duo.

“Hi, you must be the guy to fix the shower,” before Kyle could say anything to the young woman on the other side of the now opened door, she turned away from him and yelled, “Mom, the shower guy’s here.”

“I’m, um, I’m not…” The woman in front of him looked to be about 20, maybe 22, had dark brown skin, long, straight, black hair, deep golden brown eyes, and even deeper cleavage that the plunging v of her white t-shirt made impossible to ignore.

He didn’t stumble over the sight of Tamara’s massive breasts, he just couldn’t get a word in edgewise as a shout from down the hall drowned him out, “Well he’s too late now, you talk to him while I dry off.”

“Look, I’m really not…” This time, even though he was struck by Tamara’s brilliant smile, he wasn’t allowed to finish because she was shouting back down the hall, before making eye contact with him again.

“Okay Mom, “ her voice was just like her mom’s only softer, and there was a musicality to both of their voices that was lost behind the walls and the doors, and distorted by the yelling. “You come on in. She’ll be out with you in a minute. So, where’re your tools?”

“I’m sorry, I’m not maintenance. My name’s Kyle, I’m down in Unit G, and I,” the dance music was still going, and Tamara’s hips were still moving to it, and that was making her tits bounce to it too. “I wanted to talk to you guys about the noise.”

“Oh,” her radiant smile shrank into a loose frown and her golden brown eyes grew a little wider, “are we too loud? It’s my mom, you know, she’s old country, she likes to yell. Tamara, in Haiti, honey, everybody yells to you. That’s her. In Haiti this, in Haiti that, mom you’re not in Haiti anymore. You know how it is too, right? You know, family, you fight sometimes. I’m sorry. You come with me, Kyle right? Come with me, we’ll talk.”

Her words were more up tempo than the music coming out of her room, but her body kept the beat, making it impossible for Kyle not admire your younger woman’s already irresistible chest.

“If you guys could just…” She turned her back on him and walked into her room, and he follower her through the doorway into the apartment, then into her room, following her like he was trying to follow his point.

“You want me to turn it down, and keep it done.” She picked up a small remote and the volume of the music became much lower, but still present. ‘This is better huh? I’d use headphones you know, but then she’d just yell louder, right? And you know, my music, it helps me relax, helps me unwind. I’m sorry it bothered you.”

“For me, the music levels everything out. I get lost in it, it takes everything else away, you know?” The way she was standing in front of him with her perfect posture made her seem taller than she was, and it also made her tits jut out even more.

The music hummed along under her voice, and her body stayed moving to it with a subconscious ease, making her chest continue to jiggle as she talked and talked. “And I’ve got so much to get away from, you know? Right? You went to university didn’t you? You’ve got classes, you’ve got friends, you’ve got work, you’ve got people you like, like people who like you too, and it’s like, what do you like more with your time?”

She ran a hand through her hair, “You know, because you work all day, then you come home and it’s like, well you’ve got your own place right? And it’s this quiet place just for you, and that’s it with my music. But I’m sorry we’ve been bothering you, just you know, when you want to find that quiet place too. You and me, we’ve got something in common don’t we?”

She stretchered her arms up over her head, then shifted her hips, and Kyle was only human so he couldn’t help but watch as Tamara’s torso moved, almost like a belly dancer’s would, making her breasts bounce up and down.

“We both just need a quiet place, you know, so quiet so relaxing where we can forget about everything. It’s all you want, peace and quiet, you like that, you know what that’s like don’t you? Leave it all behind, find your quiet place now; maybe my music can help you like it helps me. Doesn’t it sound nice now? No yelling, no noise, just the flow, you follow me, maybe we can get to the quiet place together since we’re looking for the same thing?”

At that moment the only thing Kyle was really finding was how impossible to was to look away from Tamara’s chest. She wasn’t talking about anything, she was just talking. And while it sounded to Kyle like Tamara thought she’d figured something profound out, he was too worn out from work to really follow along with her point.

But, she’d finally paused long enough to let him answer.

“I guess. I mean, I just came by to…”

“You came to find your quiet place, you know you need our help to find it right? Just to relax, you can relax now, finding that moment, I’m quiet, the music’s quiet, I see you, you look like one of my friends from class when he’s got nothing on his mind. You’re not thinking about anything now, you’re just waiting now, quietly waiting in this place.”

It came around to him slowly as he stood there, watching as Tamara’s body continued its own little constant dance, and as he watched her, Kyle found himself zoning out with her as she spoke, unable to focus on anything other than her chest, and the way her breasts continued to bounce.

It wasn’t a struggle to stare at them, and she wasn’t doing anything to have him not stare, and honestly, if he was going to have to wait around to talk to her mother, maybe she was right, maybe there wasn’t anything wrong with zoning out a little. He could look at her as she talked, he could be polite, admiring without leering, then he could…

Her rapid fire words, which were double the tempo of the music that was still going on, still providing a backdrop to everything as she continued to sway in front of him, interrupted his train of thought.

“You know, sometimes guys, they kind of turn off a little bit with me, they just sort of go away a little, I don’t know what it is. I think I just talk too fast, talk too much, say too much, I think it’s too much for you too huh? We want that quiet place we want you in that quiet place and it’s too fast here right? You need to go talk to my mom now, just walk down the hall, you’ll find her.”

Tamara had started waving her hands a little as she spoke, and the way they moved, it brought Kyle’s eyes right to her cleavage and the dance of her fingers through the air, moving with the music, kept him there, staring at her breasts.

Then, when she told him to go talk to her mom, those hands started to wave him along, and it felt strange, because he’d heard the mom Esther say she’d say when she was ready or at least imply it, but he couldn’t argue with what Tamara was telling him, and what she was saying was something that would help him end this and get back to his own place, where it would be nice and quiet…

He found himself opening their bathroom door as the words quiet place filled his mind.

Esther looked like her daughter, only more refine din her beauty, only shorter, with darker skin, darker hair, darker eyes, and larger breasts, much larger breast that were barely covered by a towel,

“Excuse me honey, that’s why you knock first. I’m not ready for you to fix the shower yet.” She didn’t speak with the same speed as her daughter, and as the sight before him snapped Kyle out of his own thoughts, he blushed.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. You daughter said I should talk to you and… and I don’t know why I didn’t…”

Everything about the evening had been so far out of his comfort zone and so far out of what he’d thought would happen, it felt like he wasn’t really in his right mind. Plus, the way Tamara had been maybe flirting with him, or just teasing him, had really left him off-balance, but not as much as seeing this gorgeous older women in a towel that barely covered her tremendous breasts.

“Well now that you’re here, why don’t you fix my shower then.” The air was thick with condensation, still warm and wet, and even though he was in the doorway still, it felt like a sauna.

“I’m sorry, I was telling your daughter I’m not the maintenance guy, I’m Kyle from Unit G and…”

And, she laughed.

“Of course you’re not honey, you don’t have any tools do you? But you really think I believe you got to say all of that to my daughter? Please, the way she talks, you don’t get a word in, and she’ll talk and talk until you’re just worn down. She’ll just go on and on, and you, grown man like yourself, you need to slow it down don’t you honey?”

She was wiping little droplets of water off the tops of her breasts, and he found himself staring at her cleavage, watching the way little trickles flowed down into her cleavage, moving down so slowly, until she’d run a finger down to wipe them away.

“I was just… I was trying to say that…”
            Her laugh was rich and thick, as musical as her voice, which had started to stretch to him, and when she talked about slowing down, and being worn down, it felt like her words were elongated almost.

“There’s no rush, we can be slow. You just tell me, why is my water pressure so off now?” Her towel was slipping a little, getting loose around her breasts and she rested a hand on her chest to keep it in place as it started to droop just a little more, barely covering the massive swell of chest.

“You take a look here,” her hand tugged on the towel ever so slightly, and is started to fall away just a little more, “and you take care of my needs Kyle from Unit G, get my pressure right, and we’ll talk.”

Her voice was dripping over his mind like honey, and the little beads of moisture on her breasts, each one seemingly cascading down into her cleavage at the same slow and rolling pace made him feel like he stepped onto a different planet than the rapid fire world of Tamara and her constant, all consuming dance.

“Go on honey, don’t be shy, you get on your knees for me, you see what you can see, and tell me you can fix my problems now.”

She was speaking so tenderly, so slowly as more and more of her breasts were becoming visible that Kyle felt a weight on his shoulders pushing him down. It felt like the only thing to say to her was yes, but instead of speaking, he just got on his knees and looked at the valves for the hot and cold water that linked to the faucet of the bathroom’s free standing tub.

All the units had these old style ones, so he was familiar with them from first hand experience only.

“It looks like…” he twisted the nobs, “it looks like the volumes were turned down here, so you’re getting less flow into the shower in the first place. Do you want them all the way up?” It was the most he’d been able to say since walking through the front door, and it was for their benefit not his own.

He’d come to talk to them about being too loud, now he was doing something for them.

“Tamara,” Esther’s voice boomed out through the bathroom and down the hall, “why’d you mess up the water!”

The sudden volume shook him, especially as her voice had become so soft, and so slow.

“Kyle, baby, you go talk to my daughter, you go get her to apologize for wasting your time now.” Her towel started to fall away, and he still stood there, watching as it did.

“I see you staring honey, go talk to my daughter now, you take your time talking to her too, don’t let her rush you. You just go, it’s okay, I know you don’t know, but I know, you just go now, go on.”

Esther’s tone had become that same, delicate, slow rolling and almost nurturing tone again, and as she spoke, her towel become something like a prop in a burlesque show, teasing a little more, showing a little less, serving as a curtain in front of her as she unfastened it and held it up.

“I’m sorry but, you’re shower’s fixed and…”

More dark brown skin entered his vision as the towel seemed to be raised just enough to cover her nipples. “Slow down, relax, tell my daughter, talk to Tamara, be slow now, you’re here, I’m here, I see you staring, I’ll be here, you come talk to me again once you talk to her, be slow now Kyle, be slow.”

The word slow had taken on a haunting softness, and like her breasts, it seemed too big and too round, and the way she said it, the way it became a lullaby in between other words, was starting to blot out and cover up other things she was saying.

Kyle was going slow.

He was slowly taking his time helplessly admiring Esther’s barely covered breasts, and as disoriented as he was, going from a moment of pure engagement as he dealt with her simple plumbing problem, to once again being pulled into the off balance world of her methodical softness, her instructions seemed to take on a more logical and appealing weight.

He was walking out of the bathroom before he realized it, wandering down the hall to Tamara’s room in a stupor much like the one she’d sent him to her mother in.

How long had that conversation in the bathroom really taken? He felt odd, like twisting those water nobs had been hours ago, and even thinking those thoughts felt like it took forever. Esther’s voice, washing over him is those sticky, thick layers of softness, really had slowed him down.

So had her breasts for that matter.

He was thinking of the fluffy white towel that had barely covered them as he opened the door to Tamara’s room, fully on autopilot, exactly the same way he’d walked into the bathroom… however long ago that was.

“Um excuse you, Kyle.” Tamara’s laugh snapped him out of his pillow-y soft daze, as he found himself alone with her, only now she was stripped down to her bra.

“Don’t you know how to knock? I know you do, you knocked earlier.” Her music was still going, and her bra was white, but decorated with lace.

“Your… your mom wanted me to…”

She had started to move with the music again, her torso and shoulders rolling in the same enticing , absent minded rhythm, “I don’t care what she wants, she always wants something. She’s always bossing people around, getting her way. Most of the time you don’t even realize she’s doing it either, she’s so good at being pushy, but I don’t care what she wants. You don’t either. You already probably did one thing for her, now she’s got you back here, trying to do something else, you listen to me…”

Tamara’s hands moved to adjust the straps on her bra, then pushed her breasts together before readjusting the straps some more, “… you walked out of here earlier, and didn’t let me finish my story, then you come walking back in here doing what my mom tells you, it doesn’t matter what she wants now, listen to me.”

He wanted to say, ‘what story’ but the young woman’s words kept flying at the same rapid speed as before, even faster now maybe, and every time she shifted in her dance, every time she adjusted the straps of her bra, and fidgeted with the cups, it made it even harder for him to track what she was saying.

“You need to listen carefully now, you need to pay attention now, my mom, she has this way of making people do whatever she wants, and I have this way with guys, I was telling you earlier, guys who like me, they get a little lost sometimes, you know what I mean. Guys who like me, guys who think I’m cute, who maybe stare at me, they zone out a little…”

She turned her back to him and walked to her dresser, then unfastened her bra, “They get a little agreeable too when it happens, you know. You know, you do know, you felt it earlier, I didn’t want to be rude and call you out on it, but you like me a little, so you got a little spacey with me.”

She was looking back over her shoulder at him, one arm across her chest, the other placing her white bra on top of her dresser.

“You seem nice, but Tamara I really think there was something…“ She turned to him, with both hands over her breasts, dancing again.

“Look Kyle, you’re sweet, you’re polite, you’re nice, you’re listening, Look Kyle, you’re back here talking to me, when you could have just left. You’re back here listening to me now, look Kyle, you look at how you don’t remember what you were going to say, and that’s fine, you just wanted an excuse to talk to me. I know that, look, relax, let me finish my story okay?”

She was smiling, and her hands looked small in front of those massive breasts. Whenever she said look, her hands moved a little with the music, and she was speaking even faster now, like it was almost deliberately supposed to overwhelm him, and as confused as he was, and as much as he wanted to stop the ride he was on and get back onto solid mental ground, all he could do was look at her.

“My mom knows how to make people do what she says, you know this,” Tamara turned her back to him again and help up her hands, filling Kyle’s imagination with thoughts of what those massive brown breasts would look like bouncing up and down naked, “and I was telling you that it’s like the more a guy likes me, the more zoned out he gets. It’s like the more he likes me, the less he sort of pays attention to paying attention, like he really does zone out.”

She turned back around, her arms through the starps of a very flimsy, mostly lacy pink bra, its large cups loose over her tremendous breasts. “What do you think?”

The music was going, pulling at him, moving him along in the brief silence she’d left for him, “I don’t know. I’m feeling kind of lost right now.”

Kyle wasn’t really aware of what he’d just said. He knew the words, but he was so caught up that he missed the context.

She laughed.

“I mean this bra, silly. Look at it. I already know you like me, I know you’re having a hard time thinking clearly, I just get used to it. But, do you like this bra,” she let it start to fall a little before turning around, taking it off, and replacing it with a bright purple one that was decidedly more plain but also seemed to lift her breasts more, “or this one?”

Her torso seemed to slither again in the same snakelike dance as before and the bra starts started to fall off her shoulders; he just stared for a second, unable to remember what the last one had looked like.

“Look,” she was whispering to him now, barely over the music. “Look closely baby, you like me, you like what you see, you like to listen, and you had something to tell me. You better go talk to my mother again, let her boss you around again, let her tell you what to do again, and this time, I’ll let you tell me when you come back okay?”

He thought he knew, he thought if maybe she could give him a minute he’d be able to remember what it was, it was so close to the surface, but the fact of the matter was, he couldn’t stop staring at her breasts long enough to collect his thoughts.

“Look, ” Tamara let her bra starts slide down, and covered up as one arm, then the other came free, before the bra dropped to the floor, leaving her hands covering her breasts again. “Look Kyle, you like me, you want to help me, and you go talk to my mother, don’t wait, don’t make her yell, don’t make her ruin the quiet place we have, remember?”

There was something nice about being in Tamara’s room, something even  nicer than looking at her breasts in various stages of undress, nicer than the infectious sway of her music, and the steady procession of her words moving through his head, covering up his own thoughts with her ideas and stories, and desires. It was like the external layers of noise and distraction were filling in the holes in his psychological make up, creating a sort of balance to his thoughts that he could only find while looking into her cleavage.

“Look Kyle, go now, and when you come back I’ll show you which one I’ve picked. Look Kyle, you better go now before she ruins the quiet place.” He found himself staring at her back for a moment before blinking, and walking back out into the hall.

Kyle’s feet took him to the empty bathroom first, then across the hall to a closed door.

Once again, not thinking of the moment and thinking only of the round fullness of dark skin that had been filling his eyes as fully as that endless stream of words, he opened the door and walked inside.

“Honey, I know I told you to go slow, but that took you long enough didn’t it?” The words were accompanied by the slow, lingering pull of Esther’s fingers on her white silk robe, and the delicate, thought smothering reveal of her huge, naked breasts.

“You be a dear and shut the door behind you now, and come inside, okay?”

Kyle blinked, and the sight was so overwhelming that it shook him from the trance he’d found himself in, instead of being taken deeper.

“Esther, I don’t know what’s going on with you and your daughter but...”

Despite his protests, he still did what he was told, and he was still staring, rapt, at her massive, dark breasts, each one the size of her head.

“But, you’re still being helpful, you’re still being sweet, so listen honey, breathe slow baby, and slow down your questions and I’ll teach you something. My daughter, she’s young still, she’s learning, so she always goes so fast, showing you something instead of teaching you something. She’s always talking so loud about the quiet place, but with me, you find yourself there so easily, don’t you, going where all the noise is all gone, going where everything else is like a ghost except for me. My daughter, she’ll push you in, drop you in, but go slow with me, breathe slow with me and find it. Find the quiet place and tell me when you’re there Kyle, tell me when you’re there and I’ll teach you.”

Her robe spread farther, and her fingers started tracing up and down between her breasts, rolling slowly like the droplets of water that had fascinated him and captured him in between her breasts. “Go slow Kyle, follow the path honey, follow the path and tell me when you get there.”

This went on for a while, time slowed down with Esther as it did before, and he felt himself breathing deeper, felt his shoulders slumping, and even felt a warmth and a heaviness behind his eyes that was making him blink.

“You might be there and not know it yet, so you keep watching, look here, and you nod for me now and we’ll both know you’re there since I can see it in your eyes baby, I see through you Kyle. My daughter, she saw what you could be for us, saw your profile on-line, saw your promise, but I see through you, I know what you need honey. I’ll teach you how to get it here with me in the quiet place, in this peace and quiet, you just look at my breasts, you just look at how big they are, bigger than my daughter’s, more powerful than hers too. She tricked your mind, taught you to be blank for her because you like her, she learned that from me, how to use her breasts to make a man like her, how to make a mind go blank, but she told you what I’m saying now, that I can make a man obedient, I can trick a man into the quiet place, into the quiet room in his own head, and then he starts doing things for me and he doesn’t know why.”

His eyes were getting tired from moving up and down with her fingertips, and he was starting to blink and yawn from the warmth coming out of her, enveloping his mind in a cocoon of sleep. It was hard to make sense of what she was saying too, he was too worn down, to overwhelmed by her, by her daughter, by the weight of the day, by their massive breasts, and his desperate need for the peace and quiet she was giving him.

“My friends, they all have different names for it, hypnosis, seduction, brain washing, but I don’t need those names, my daughter doesn’t need those names, you don’t either, that’s what you’re learning now, all you need is the quiet place don’t you? When I give you the quiet, when I give you the peace, when you see these breasts, you’ll do anything for me, and that’s what I’m teaching you. You see my breasts, you hear my voice, you fall into this place with me, led here, finding it in between my tits, finding it just under my voice, like the music you heard in Tamara’s room, this is the quiet place, and when you’re here you know you’ll do anything for me, just like you know you’ll go blank for Tamara. You go sit in that chair and you close your eyes when you understand.”

He watched those hands tracing those massive, tremendous naked breasts, their dark skin was so soft, the way they moved up and down so slowly was like a picture of sleep, and in between them, nestled in Esther’s cleavage, Kyle found the quiet, and he moved to the chair she pointed out and drifted away into sleep and silence…

“MOM!” Kyle’s eyes opened with a start and he sat bolt upright. “He was supposed to come back and tell me what you told him to tell me, now you got him asleep in here.”

Tamara was in the bedroom now too, in tight blue jeans and nothing else but her purple bra, and Esther’s robe was almost closed, just enough to cover her nipples.

“Honey, this man’s had a long couple of weeks hasn’t he? And he came over to ask us something didn’t he?” As Esther spoke, her robe came a little looser, then closed a little more back and forth with every word, and as her mother spoke, Tamara’s hands were teasing along the tops of her breasts, then pulling the straps on her bra up and down to make them bounce.

Kyle felt something in the back of his head, something in the base of his skull click, like a light being turned off.

“Kyle, you tell my mom why you’ve come over honey?” His glassy eyes moved to Tamara then back to Esther, or more accurately, to the nipple she had exposed for him.

“You wanted us to be more quiet didn’t you? You want to have a nice, quiet place when you come home don’t you? And we’re loud, we’re distracting, but then you’re here with us, and you have this quiet place. Tell my daughter that’s what you want, to be in this quiet place all the time honey.”

The robe closed and the bounce of Tamara’s purple bra and massive breasts resumed as his eyes drifted back to her, “Look Kyle, you listen to my mother, she knows what you need, but she’s not thinking of how much easier it would be for you it you were here. And she’s not thinking about how much less she’d holler at me if I wasn’t here? And you got a one bedroom apartment, and we got a two bedroom, and you tell my mother, you tell her where your real quiet place is now.”

Esther’s robe opened wide, and the older woman pressed her mammoth breasts together, “Your quiet place is right here, between these, with me, where you do things for me and you don’t know why, So why don’t you give your apartment to my daughter, and you move in here. That was you can always be in your quiet place, and we won’t yell, and her music won’t be a bother anymore. You be a sweetheart and tell my daughter how you want to move in with her mother, and how you want to take care of her and take care of me now.”

Before he could start to look her way, his eyes were pulled to Tamara’s chest when she said, “Look,” and started to pull the straps of her bra down, “look at you marrying my mom to be such a gentleman, look at you proposing to her, and helping me get an internship at your office, paying our rents, taking care of us with your new promotion, and introducing me to your co-workers while I finish at university. Look, Kyle, look how much I appreciate it.”

Tamara’s bra fell to the floor, and she started to trance little spirals around her nipples with her fingers until Kyle felt that same sleepy heaviness swallowing him again, all the while he heard Esther whispering, “Slowly Kyle, go slow, slowly to quiet place Kyle, go slow.”

“Tamara, honey, leave my finance and me alone a bit now, you were sweet to him, but he won’t be appreciating you that way now that he only has eyes for me doesn’t he. He’ll stop noticing you won’t he, and when he sees you, he’ll see himself coming back to me, to my breasts, bigger, fuller, the only thing that’s right for him when everything else is wrong. Right back to the quiet place, the place between these breasts. You let him take care of you, and you let me take care of him, while I teach him how to take care of us now.”

Tamara picked up her bra, slid it back on, and a short time later she was out the front door, all of her work in the apartment having been completed.

Until the sound of the door closed, Kyle sat in that chair watching Esther’s hands massaging her massive breasts while she was quietly repeating a few important messages over and over again.

Kyle was going to marry her.

Kyle was going to move into Tamara’s room and giver Tamara his old one bedroom apartment.

Kyle was going to pay for everything.

Kyle was going to introduce Tamara to his co-workers after he helped her get an internship.

Kyle would live in the quiet room, in the quiet place whenever Esther or Tamara took him there.

When the door shut, his eyes closed and he drifted off to sleep, only to wake up a few minutes later to Esther calling to him softly.

“I’m sorry about the noise, my daughter is a handful and I could use a man’s help with her. She’s an adult, going to university and everything, but I still need someone here. But enough of that, you come stay and have dinner with me, and we can watch a movie, get to know each other like good neighbors.”

Over the course of the meal and the movie, that is exactly what happened on the surface of his mind, but buried deep inside, the suggestions and instructions the two women had cocooned his subconscious in started to take root and weave themselves into his conscious thoughts too.

Over the next few weeks he found himself over there so often, magnetized by Esther’s charms and her massive cleavage that was always on display, and enthralled by shared similarities and tastes.

She was, he felt, exactly what his life had been missing, and when he proposed to her, acting on something that felt like a dream and she said yes, it was the happiest day of his life.

He moved in, and while they didn’t share a bedroom, the sight of Esther’s naked breasts filled him with a pleasure and a satisfaction that was beyond words, like it was a new emotion that had been created in his heart and mind alone.

Of course, everything Esther had continuously whispered into his subconscious about her daughter came to pass, and in truth, that was the most important part of all of this.

Yes, she enjoyed having a kept man, someone to provide for her and pamper her daughter, but personal luxurious were only at the surface.

The Organization had wanted to get someone inside his company for a while, and while her mother had been training Tamara to take her place in the Organization, to replace her really, she had been a few years away from her first assignment, or at least she would have been had circumstances not been otherwise.

The Organization usually planned these rendezvous, even marking people from afar and installing their agents into their target’s lives, but this time one of those targets just wandered into their web, or more accurately, opened the door for the real infiltration.

No, they wouldn’t need Kyle for anything, but Esther would. She’d needed someone like him for a very long time, someone who cherished her even outside of the manipulation and the mind games. Because, despite being brainwashed into compliance, there was something real there between Esther and Kyle, the hapless vector that would deliver her daughter’s seductive influence and compromise into another business to be preyed upon by the Organization.

Sometimes, things just worked out that way in the end.