Tina shoved her hands into her coat pockets. Soon she'd need to bring gloves with her on assignments. Cold weather gloves, she specified in her mind. She always had latex gloves on her, just in case. She glanced down at the book open in her lap. Sitting on a bench in the middle of Perspective Park wasn't the best place to read, but it was the best place to people watch.
"Tell me," she quietly said without moving her lips, "about the couple at 10 o'clock."
"My 10 or your 10?" the man sitting next to her asked.
"We're facing the same direction, Dirk," she responded. "It's the same 10 o'clock for both of us."
She watched out of the corner of her eye as Dirk took a deep breath and pretended to play a game on his phone. As a former male model, he instinctively struck a pose that was natural and visually pleasing. The casual way he wore his autumn jacket showed off its manly shape and rugged details. His long, muscular legs, carelessly crossed, accentuated the lines on his blue jeans. The lock of dark hair falling over his pale green eyes was like an invitation to run one's fingers through his hair.
Tina shoved her hands deeper into her pockets.
"Ok," Dirk mumbled, still pretending to stare at his phone, "10 o'clock is on the right."
"Left," she quickly corrected.
"Left," he agreed. "So the couple at 10 o'clock is... Oh sure. Man and woman in their late 20s. He has a good paying job, a lot of pressure, but he skates by. She is an entrepreneur and makes her own hours."
"How do you know that?" Tina asked.
"Well, he's got a nice suit on," Dirk explained, "and she's wearing paint splattered jeans and a hoodie. Also he's buying drugs from her."
A wide smile spread across Tina's lips. A passerby would have assumed she'd just read something sweet in the new Slap Sullivan mystery. "Very good, Agent Allen," she said. "You're going to ace the observational section on the exam."
Technically Dirk wasn't an agent, not yet. He'd been training under Tina's watchful eye for several months now. Tomorrow was the exam to become an accredited Secret World Security Organization Agent. If he passed the test, she wouldn't be his boss anymore. They'd officially be partners.
"How are you doing with the Regulations?" a mechanical voice chirped in their ears. "You're not going to pass anything if you haven't memorized all the SWSO rules." Fac-Tel was the artificial intelligence that monitored all of Tina and Dirk's missions, providing information and logistical back up when needed. It didn't have the same confidence in Dirk that Tina had. In fact, it had bet Tina 3 bitcoins Dirk would fail the exam.
"I've been reading them," Dirk said. "There are one hundred rules. I'm up to 93."
"93? Really?" Tina pulled her hands from her pockets and unzipped her coat. "That's... almost all."
He was almost up to Rule 96, the rule that specified what forms of love secret agents were allowed to feel. Love of country, love of duty and love of sacrifice were the only permissible loves. Everything else was off limits.
It was the hardest rule to keep, but it was necessary. Seventy-two percent of agents in training couldn't do it. Upon learning what it truly meant to give up love, they left the SWSO. They just couldn't hack it.
Dirk had a complicated relationship with his parents, but Tina was confident he'd be more than willing to wipe them from his life. It was the other love, romantic love, that had her worried. She was fairly certain he was falling in love with her. Worse yet, she might be falling in love with him too.
It was all the sex they'd had. The fact that it was strictly work related coitus didn't prevent the emotional bonding. Everytime they took off their clothes and engaged in intercourse, the bond strengthened, deepened, grew more profound. It didn't help that she genuinely liked him. Tina enjoyed Dirk as a person. She trusted him. If they continued to have sex, eventually there'd be no turning back. The bonding, trust and appreciation would combine into something unbreakable. They'd be in love and in danger of compromising everything they'd worked for.
Four out of five times it had been absolutely necessary for Tina to drop her panties and ride Dirk like a wild stallion. Lives had been at stake. Except for the last time. The last time they'd fucked because they wanted to fuck. No one would have died if they had kept the investigation platonic.
All their missions could be platonic if they worked at it. Tina had been an SWSO agent for nearly 10 years, but it was only in the past several month that she'd had to have sex with her partner. Perhaps the issue was her problem solving skills. Maybe she was getting a little lazy and falling back on the familiar. She just needed look past the obvious solution of boning Dirk and get more creative.
That was exactly what she was going to do. From now on, no matter how dire the situation, they would not have sex. They would just have to find another solution. Fac-Tel would help. The computer had never liked the coital solutions. Tina was sure it would be more than happy to find a different way out of a jam.
And perhaps if she and Dirk stopped having sex, the bond between them would stop growing. If there was no bond, there was no love and if there was no love, then Dirk probably wouldn't have a problem with Rule 96.
Tina closed her eyes and said a little prayer to a god she didn't believe in. Dirk had to accept Rule 96, he just had to. If he didn't, he'd have to leave the SWSO and Tina's heart would break into a million jagged pieces.
"Gonna finish up the Rules tonight," he was saying, blissfully unaware that Tina had lost herself in a long inner monologue. Maybe his observational skills did need more work. "And then I just gotta remember to take my gun with me tomorrow. Look, I remembered it today."
He pulled back his jacket and lifted his T-shirt to reveal washboard abs, defined obliques and a handgun shoved into the waist of his jeans.
"That's great." Tina did her best not to draw attention to them as she quietly moved his jacket back into place and covered the gun. "You are improving in that department, but you need to wear an SWSO approved holster. It's not safe to shove a gun down your pants."
"I will remember that for next time." He smiled brightly at her. "When you're a student of life, everyday is a learning opportunity."
Tina couldn't help but smile back at him. His thirst for life was infectious. It made her want to take off her clothes. It made her want to ask Fac-Tel to find the nearest sleazy hotel where she and Dirk could fuck for the rest of the afternoon. She craved the feeling of his hard cock inside her. She wanted it so bad; she was practically drooling from both ends.
But Dirk's cock wasn't an option, not anymore. She'd have to satisfy herself with saving lives and putting bad people behind bars.
"So, back to observational skills," she said as she did her best not to picture Dirk naked. He looked so good naked. "As secret agents, we have to be aware of our surroundings at all times. It's so easy to get distracted, but we can't let that happen. An assassin will attack when you least expect it."
"I doubt there are any assassins in Middleburg," Dirk said. "Besides, who would want to kill- Ouch!" His hand shot up to the side of his neck. "I think a bug just bit me."
"A bug? What sort of-" Tina started to say, but she was stopped short by a sharp, stinging pain in the back of her neck. "Ouch!" It wasn't a bug bite, she was sure of that. Her suspicions were confirmed when she pulled a large blow dart from the back of her neck.
Dirk held an identical one in his hands. Both were approximately five centimeters long, with impressive blue feather fletching, and on the end was a circular tag that said, "Nice knowing you. Love, General Zero."
* * * * *
A cold shiver ran over Dirk's body. Whatever was on the tip of that dart, he could feel it spreading out from the wound on his neck.
"Fac-Tel," Tina said, her voice quiet, yet determined. "We've both been dosed with an unknown substance. Analyze our blood to find out what it is."
"Starting analysis now," the computer responded.
Dirk found strength in Tina's brown eyes. She knew what to do. She'd save him.