Training Ch. 01

He drove home, putting the plan aside and cheerfully anticipated his trip.

*********

As the renowned professor of the humanities rode down the disembarking ramp in a wheel-chair, Patty smoothed the front of her frumpy gray office dress and tried to adjust her "girls" as comfortably as possible. Patty was a large woman – in American parlance a BBW - with genuine beauty and warmth of character...which made her exceptionally well suited for her dual-role as secretary to the Dean and undercover agent to the Ministry of Internal Security. Her academic background had been carefully suppressed, but the dual-certified psychiatrist and criminologist had been attached to Alex because of the growing concern around his meteoric rise to international prominence. The government was not stupid, despite all indications to the contrary, and was highly concerned that Alex had amassed the power of a small country in the last eight years. Alex had been working with Patty for two years and she was still not entirely comfortable in his presence. The man oozed a sexual appeal that caused her to go gooey between her legs, and the look in his slate gray eyes was piercing enough to shear through steel. She couldn't look him in the eye without getting the sensation that he knew...something. But that's why the Ministry and Second House had hired him on contract to begin with. For two years Patty had played the role of Alex's secretary in an exemplary manner, and only twice had she seen anything that could be considered odd.

In the first case, the day Alex had arrived at the Ministry, Patty had greeted him in much the same manner as she was meeting him now, his tall, broad and heavily muscular form limping heavily across the tarmac to the Ministry limousine. He couldn't have had more than five percent body fat and his long blond pony tail whipped in the wind, catching in the piles of his dark Inverness coat. A quarter-bend bulldog pipe, unlit, was clamped firmly in his mouth and his eyes, barely visible behind the mirrored lenses of his spectacles, seemed to devour the very essence of everything he perceived. The odd behaviour Patty had observed happened as they entered the shelter of the temporary terminal to process Alex's pass and government security clearance. On the wall was a three-times life-size photo of a beautiful red-headed woman advertising the exotic destinations of the airway, in this case Ireland. When Alex's attention had been drawn to the advert, his brows knitted – ever so slightly – and his eyes snapped with proverbial lightning. He reached into his coat and twiddled with something therein before clenching his jaw and forcibly replacing a cheerful expression on his face. It was the most bizarre thing she'd seen to that point.

But the second instance really took the cake. In the process of completing the paperwork for Alex's insurance, he mentioned he needed a physiotherapist. Patty suggested several gyms, and when Alex's attention was drawn to one four-fifths of the way down the list, he requested the name of the manager. It was Lexys, of course. "I suppose I don't have a choice," he'd commented resignedly. "I'd better sign up here."

But that glint in his eyes intensified and would have ignited the paper if he had been able to project energy from his eyeballs. Patty wondered what triggered the reaction, but couldn't put her finger on anything specifically.

Now though, Alex was returning from a lecture series in Amsterdam, where he had been assigned to review the philosophies and the political theory underlying the operations of The Hague international court. His report was disturbing but not unexpected: the IC was limited by the validity members of the international community, specifically the members of the UN, EU and the G20 nations...but the United States was the primary "official" financier of the IC, with Germany and North Korea being the "unofficial" and actually, in the case of North Korea, a secret financier, the IC was dominated by a triumvirate of official and unofficial political powers. This was a non-secret, but the extent to which that the IC Triumvirs controlled the extradition of "criminals" was a surprise. The Dutch government, together with the Swiss supposedly ensured the safety of said criminals and protected their human rights. Alex's report on the practical philosophies enacted by the staff of the IC showed something less a civilized, professional prison system than a recreation of the Japanese Internment Camps in western North America during World War Two. The Second House was already calling for a covert investigation into the operations of the International Court.

Alex had now reached the bottom of the ramp and was kissing the cheeks of the tall, light skinned and slender Air Holland stewardess. He kissed her hand and patted her rump knowingly as the platinum blonde turned away with a small grin, and he focused his gaze on Patty.

"Hey Boss. Good to be home."

"Good to see you Alex. Too bad about the IC."

"Yeah. Not unexpected, however. Brought back some souvenirs though."

"Not another dildo I hope," said the large woman. "I still have nightmares that I'll die of a heart attack from the time I pulled open my drawer and that gigantic fluorescent thing popped erect right in front of the Minister." Amused sparks shot at her comrade. "Your laughing didn't help. And when you fell to the floor and nearly impaled yourself on your prostheses, it made the whole situation worse." Alex cracked a half-cocked grin.

"The paramedics were asking some rather forward questions, weren't they?"

"Shut up."

"Yeah. Anyway, no, not a dildo this time. Well, not for you anyway. That's inside the ass of the stewardess you saw me snogging."

"What went in the other holes, dare I ask?"

"The usual. I'm not a small...or uninspired...man, you know."

"No, I don't, and I'd prefer to keep it that way," Patty lied. Alex snorted.

"For you, dear lady," he said, rummaging around in his carry-on (and eliciting a sigh of relief from Patty, who was pushing the wheelchair: surely he wouldn't stick anything naughty in his carry-on!) "I have ... *THIS!*" and in one smooth movement he withdrew his hand and plopped something between her lips. It was slightly warm, had an odd texture and smelled...familiar. Patty went cross-eyed as she tried to see what was sticking out under her nose, and Alex, who was twisted around in the wheel chair to see her face, started chuckling.

"It's a joint of prime Amsterdam weed, Patty. The mix is called "London's Pussy's Fog" and is rolled by dealers in the red light district...and cured in some rather interesting juices."

"GHAGH! YUCK!" screamed Patty, launching the joint over Alex's head. He snagged it in mid-ejection.

"Kay. I'll save this for another time then. Your departmental birthday party is in two weeks, right?" Patty glared over her expansive bosom at the top of the professor's blond head.

**********

A week later, Alex was finally able to "come home" from his trip. He'd been in Amsterdam for over a month investigating the International Court and delivering lectures on how Adam Smith and Thomas Hobbes would interpret Foucault and Charles Adamson. It was nice to step out of the cab into the dreary, rainy late autumn evening and hobble into his house. The muted electric lights mimicked candle lanterns and cast a warm yellow-orange glow over his entryway. His telephone and writing desk had a leather-bound contact book open and his cat, a British Blue named Watson, sat on his brisket, paws tucked under his chest, on the stairs to the second level. The door to the basement, fully fifty feet below where Alex currently stood, was concealed behind a tapestry portraying Pope Gregory I and two inches of black walnut. He sighed and hung his coat up on the tree-hook and dumped his heavy boots beside them. He slipped his ebony-shafted cane into the cane stand and knocked the ashes out of his pipe. The last week since arriving home had been harrowing. He had stood before the Second House and testified to the validity of his report. He had answered a small mountain of mail (he insisted on hand-written correspondence, and Patty dealt with his electronic mail by sending reply asking that all requests for correspondence be resubmitted in hand-written form), and had tea with a visiting monarch who fancied herself a thinker. She ended up just wanting to meet him, and she was very, very happy when she left. As he had remarked to Patricia, he was an inventive man! Female monarchs liked his brusque manner and long hair.

His house-marm (house-keeper) had left a series of notes in his memorandum book, chronicling Watson's misdemeanours and various bills that had been paid. Watson had urinated in a potted plant, a scruffy Asian had tried breaking a window on the lower level, and Watson had again attempted to claw through Gregory's left foot. "Miss Tina" had left a message on the "recorder" and the Second House's speaker had hand-delivered an invitation to tea next week.

But the note that caught his eye was that Lexys had finally found out about his presence in the city (it had taken two years of being on every public television channel imaginable), and had sent a note welcoming him and asking to see him. Alex's hand quivered, and he clasped it with the other to steady himself. Sitting down on the step next to Watson (who stared at him with disapproval), Alex put his head in his hands as his emotions fought for prominence on his face. His anticipation made his entire body quiver; his heart felt like it was being torn from his chest; and the thought of Lexys' face made his hormones rush to his head and lose strength in his legs. And the memory of her hair in his hands, her flesh against his, it all made him very, very...uncomfortable. He sighed gustily and stood.

Alex limped around the main floor of his home and closed the draperies, locked the doors and basically shut it down for the night. But he went upstairs to his bed chambers and undressed. He couldn't help himself: as hot tears of embarrassment and regret (if he believed in regret, anyway) dripped from the corners of his eyes, he remembered the last time he and Lexys spent time together...

***************

Laughter rang out down the main drag of the university town as a group of youth piled exuberantly out of a bar. The Western and karaoke bar that they all worked at was shut down for the night and, at seven in the morning they were just getting off work. With more than a couple of pints of beer and/or vodka coolers in each of them, they were feeling pretty good for people who had been run off their feet for fourteen hours. Alex and Lexys were walking side by side and she was chatting animatedly to Erin, one of the other servers on the floor.

"I'm heading by this table – you know, the one next to the, uh, uh...uhm..."

"Pillar?" suggested Alex

"Yeah, exactly! Thanks! The pillar and this group of guys (oh my GOD were they hot!)" exclaimed Lexys and Erin simultaneously, breaking down into giggles, "they start hooting and hollering and one reaches out to grab me, you know? So I swivel my hips, and down goes my SKIRT! OH MY GOD it was OH MY GOD!!!" she shrieked as she remembered the humiliation. "So, like, I was standing there with like, two hundred bucks in booze on my arm and my skirt is sliding down my legs, and the farther it goes, you know, the farther I spread my knees, trying to keep it from going down!"

Alex shook his head quietly and continued walking, the image burning into his mind. It had taken longer than he would have liked to navigate the crowd that evening, and so...

"By the time Alex got there," Lexys giggled, too far gone to be feeling anything but light headed, "the big-shouldered guy with the tats had his hand up my skirt and on my leg, like, right beside my CUNT!" The word rang up and down the street, and a couple of the other bouncers and Alex hurried to shush her when the street cop on the early-morning beat looked their way.

"Sorry!" she said in a stage whisper. But her voice promptly rose enough for the cop to hear. "So Tats is sitting there, calm as like, you know, an ocean or something and his hand creeps up farther and farther my leg! So like my skirt's goin' down to the floor, I've got like a grand in booze I'm trying not to spill,"

"A grand?"

"Okay, like three hundred bones, and this guy's slowly moving my panties out of his way! I mean, my face was so hot it was like, melting! It was soooo HOT! Oh my GOD! But his hand was up my skirt and he had soooo many TATS! He had like, green eyes and red eyebrows and a little soul patch you know? And AWESOME, GOD his shoulders were AWESOME! His delts were like steaks glued to his shoulder and his pecs were HUGE!" Alex had eyeballed the guy as he pushed his own form through the crowd, and Tats was a skate-boarder "bad dude" and admittedly, while he was fit, his muscles were more steroid-based than actual muscle. He seemed to have been diligent in his cardio though, and didn't look like he had any fat on him. That had made Alex hesitate for a microsecond.

"But then I saw like, Alex! Oh my GOD Alex thank you! That was soooo embarrassing! I saw him and I shrieked like, help, you know, and he blew through like ten people and grabbed Tats around the neck! It was AWESOME!!" Lexys whirled around and threw her arms around Alex's chest and kissing his throat – it was the highest she could reach. "He grabbed Tats," she squeezed Alex hard and he instantly came to half-mast, "And THREW him like, all the way to the patio doors!" Lexys squealed, "It was like forty five feet! And he went over EVERYBODY! Like, and with only one arm!" Alex did feel pretty proud about that, but his little bubble of self-satisfaction was instantly popped.

"But like, when Alex picked him up, OH MY GOD Erinn, it happened soooo fast," Lexys rolled her eyes and licked her lips, and one hand shot down toward her crotch, "His hand, like THREE fingers! Went up into my puss!" She squealed. "It was sooo hot and his fingers were sooo big and I was wet, OH I felt I was dripping down my leg!!" Alex stopped dead in his tracks.

Alex visualized the scene as it had happened, and Lexys hadn't been exaggerating. Tat's hand had curved at the wrist and indeed had entered the redhead's ... opening. And she HAD been wet. Alex stood there and his vision slowly glossed over with red rage, but outwardly, he simply looked slightly confused, and slightly cross-eyed. Lexys and Erin stopped and Lexys grabbed Alex's arm and dragged him on.

"C'mon, big guy, you were gonna walk me home, remember?"

"Yeah," he said haltingly. "Yeah, I always do." He struggled to push past the anger and the thought of his friend being violated in such a manner, and, with a firm shove of his will, he returned to the real world. He grinned at the bubbly redhead. "Yeah, come on. Erin," he said, "What's the plans? We going back to Ryan's for a drink or is it a night?" The brunette's face nearly split in two with the size of her yawn.

"Dunno 'bout them, but Shwa and Joe're probably gonna play poker and light a dubie before they head in." She yawned again. "They brought home some tequila and some Laker earlier today, so I might not even get fucked before I fall asleep." Her dejected tone elicited a moan of sympathy from Lexys and an indifferent look from Alex.

Lexys giggled. "Maybe if you blow Shwa before you go you might get him to take you on the poker table."

"Joe wasn't home last night and Shwa was horny!" blathered Erin. "He grabbed my bra strap and snapped the clasp altogether." Her face screwed up with the memory. "I think I still have imprints of foosball men in my ass." Even Alex had to chuckle at that. As Erin, Shwa and Joe turned east down one of the main drags, Ryan jogged up ahead with the other Ryan (a burly football player), waving cheerily back toward Alex and Lexys.

"Guess that's that then," muttered Alex. Lexys turned her face up at Alex and winked, pulling on his arm to get him moving again.

"Take me home. I'm tired dude."

Alex and Lexys covered the next mile in silence, Alex eventually carrying Lexys as her legs gave out from exhaustion. Her billowing red hair smelled slightly of the bar, but her cinnamon hair spray and vanilla body butter. He bit his lip to keep from drooling and brought her closer to his chest as he hiked up the road. The alcohol was beginning to overwhelm Lexys' system, and she began to moan sleepily as he neared her apartment. For a moment, he was tempted to bring her to his place, which was on the way and considerably closer, but he chucked that idea almost as soon as it formed, though the lingering aftertaste stuck around much longer. Alex shifted her gently as he bent his knees to reach the keypad to enter the passcode for her apartment – 373578. He kneed open the door and swung her into the foyer, causing her to giggle in a half conscious way. He unlocked her bedroom door and lay her on her bed like one would a small child. He stretched her out and uncrossed her ankles, removing her shoes and jacket.

"Take my skirt off, Alex. I'm too tired to..." and she drifted off again.

"I don't think I should gorgeous," he said, his voice growing husky and his eyes dark, desire fighting a war with logic. But he did sit at the end of the bed and hoist her feet into his lap. Reaching over and grabbing a cloth from the pile of clean laundry beside her bed, he moistened it from a nearby bottle of water and started washing her feet and legs, removing the stench and stickiness of an evening's worth of spilled booze from her silky skin. Like all redheads, her flesh was tender and pale, and now, with her exhaustion spilling over into every cell, her body was getting colder, her extremities turning purple despite the heat outside. Putting the washcloth aside, he took a foot in his hands and started to massage her blood back into circulation. He tugged her toes apart and slipped his fingers between, stretching the skin between the small digits and eliciting a moan and a giggle from the sleeping girl. The warmth of his large hands quickly brought her skin temperature back to normal, but he continued to work at the tense muscles in her legs, spending a long time on her tendons and ligaments, gradually increasing pressure and speed. He ran his hands up and down her bare legs, feeling where the muscles were tightest, applying heat and pressure when he found a spot in need of attention. He worked at her football-player's legs for hours, eventually heating up her entire body with renewed blood flow. As he stood up, careful not to jostle the bed, he smiled down at Lexys, whose hand was now up her shirt and resting on one of her modest breasts. For a brief moment he allowed his imagination to run wild, but clamped down before it could jump off a cliff. A portion of him complained and he deliberately started reciting a boring piece of Churchill's diaries to get that portion to soften its complaints. Alex took one last look at Lexys before carefully opening her door and turning off the light. The sudden darkness woke her.

"Alex?"

"Yeah gorgeous. I'm just heading home."

"Wait," she said, struggling to a sitting position. "Mmmm. My legs feel good, they feel all rubbery and relaxed. Thank you Alex."

"I love your legs, you know that."

She stood, carefully placing her feet between the berets and textbooks on the floor. She smoothed her skirt against her thighs. "No one ever has taken the time to massage my legs like you do, Alex." She took a step and Alex's cock lurched to full mast. "You make me feel warm." Another step, another lurch. "Safe." Step, lurch. "Horny." Lurch lurch lurch lurch. Alex's breathing started to get heavier as he tried to calm himself down. It wasn't working.

Lexys brought herself right up against Alex's body and pushed her hips into his, looking directly into his eyes. She reached down between them and undid the clasp of her skirt, puddling it at their feet. She reached over and, taking Alex's hands in her own, ran them up her flanks, raising her flimsy, nearly see-through shirt over her head, tossing it on the bed. With a dry gulp, Alex searched for something to focus on, anything, other than this minx stripping in front of him. She reached up with carefully manicured hands and took his head in hers, pulling herself up his body to just under his chin...and she kissed him there, right on the point where his pulse could be felt through his flesh, nibbling and sucking. She traced her tongue down his throat to a series of scars above his collarbone and nibbled them too. Even though they had no sensation themselves, the tugging of her teeth and the saliva pooling against his neck brought his self-control to its limits, and he was struggling with every fibre of his being to keep from jumping her. His hands traced up her flanks and when they were in line with her breasts, he clenched and unclenched his hands, torn between desire and fear.