[Author's note: Alice is married to James, a professional football player who has found himself at a loose end after retiring from the sport. After attending a charity auction in which she was outbid for her own husband, Alice and James have been blackmailed into service by Jodie and her upper-echelon friends. They have no choice but to do her bidding, letting Jodie pimp James out to clients, otherwise she will release the videos she took.]
---
SISTERS
We pulled into the car park, down the ramp into the basement level. There was a section against the far wall, and that's where we parked, deep under the mall.
"No phone signal," James observed, "Not down here."
"Yeah."
"I feel like James Bond."
James gave me a sidelong glance. I said nothing.
"This is where you say I look like James Bond."
I didn't rise to the bait, crossing my legs and regretting it immediately as I felt the wire tug.
"Shit," I hissed, shuffling in my seat.
"You should do that at home."
"Like, when? At what point do I get to sit down for more than five minutes without interruptions?" I snapped.
"Okay, Alice. Sorry. Geez."
I smoothed my hands down my skirt, conscious of the little wire dangling between my knees plugged into the car's charging port. I let out a long breath.
"Sorry," I muttered, "That was uncalled for."
"It's okay, Alice."
"No, it's not. It's what she wants."
I recalled Jodie's little barbs, probing the cracks between us, trying to drive in a wedge. Even stood in my transparent latex dress with my hands glued inside the slick black gloves to the drinks tray, turned into a table while I watched women fucking my husband, I'd resolved what I was going to do when I got home. Jodie wanted us to keep secrets from each other, but I'd told him everything, straight away.
James had fumed silently for the rest of the night, still trying to get his head together, clouded by the drugs, and I'd let him be. It took him until the next morning to articulate the words. He'd just looked me in the eyes and told me: no more secrets. Then, I'd raised the hem of my nightie to reveal the belt she'd locked in place, giving him a good look at Jodie's revenge on me.
I stared down at my knees glumly. James reached over and put a hand on one knee, brushing the wire to one side. He gave me a little squeeze.
"I love you," he said.
"Me too. I'm just...."
My voice trailed off and I detached his hand gently.
"That's not helping," I chided, softly, "It's making it worse."
I didn't look up at him, I didn't need to. I knew what he'd do if I did and I really didn't want him to smile at me and tell me it was going to be okay. I needed something else, I'd needed it for weeks, and it was off the menu.
"She's late," I observed.
"Five minutes, give her time."
"I guess I'd better, uh...."
"Yeah. Is it charged enough?"
"I guess so."
I rolled my skirt up, shuffling in the passenger seat until the space between my legs was exposed. The hard, slatted rubber of the belt nestled there, a wretched, unwanted thing, locked in place, sealing me up. Beneath, thanks to something as trivial as my husband's hand on my knee, I could feel myself moistening slightly, the background denial triggered again by his touch. I reached down to tug the end of the charging cord from the little port in the top of the belt, pressing the little rubber plug back into place.
My fingers lingered over the thick rubber, feeling the little vertical grooves cut into it to allow me to go to the toilet, to soak myself clean in the bath, to do all the natural things, save one. I was locked up unable to enjoy my husband sliding into me, the thing that I had taken for granted for all these years. Now, after Jodie had threaded my key onto her necklace, taking control of my sex, it was all I could think about. I found myself daydreaming around the house, snapping back to reality when I felt that single insistent urge, the itch I couldn't scratch.
James had wanted to get the bolt cutters from the shed, but Willow's warning had come back to me then, that a harsher punishment awaited for non-compliance. It hadn't been what Jodie had said, it had been the look in Willow's eyes when she confessed that she'd removed her own belt and had then had her behaviour corrected. I didn't know exactly what she'd meant; all I knew was that I didn't want to ever find out.
So, the belt had become part of our daily routine, an unwanted guest in the family. It had its own needs, throbbing insistently when the little built-in vibrator pad was low on charge, needing to be fed. I had decided out of spite not to acquiesce, but the belt insisted, buzzing periodically, never enough to get me off but just enough to heat me up. I'd managed to hold out for three hours with the belt showing no signs of relenting, before I plugged in the charging cable and gave it what it wanted. I spent the rest of the day with urgent cravings for my husband's manhood and a migraine headache.
The rest of the time, the belt was benign. I could go to the toilet easily enough: the thin slits in the front cup allowed liquids through without being wide enough for me to prise apart to gain access. The back strap was wide and surprisingly comfortable, splitting into a wide ring over my rear entrance to let me go to the toilet as normal. I even found sometimes that I'd gone for hours without thinking about it, as if my body had come to accept the devious constraint upon it that Jodie had imposed.
Jodie didn't mention the belt when we spoke, almost as if it was of no consequence to her. On the occasions I brought it up her answer was always the same: she would unlock me when she was sure we were on the same team. I'd asked her how I could prove that, and she'd merely smiled. I had managed to keep my expression neutral, but I hated her for that. My only solace was that I didn't let her see, I hadn't given her the satisfaction of knowing what her device was doing to me.
"Heads up."
I pulled my skirt down quickly, looking around. Across the car park, a Mercedes had just pulled in. James opened his door and got out. I opened my door too, going around the car to join him. The driver's door of the Mercedes opened and Fee stepped out.
"Here we go," James murmured.
Fee strode across the concrete to us, smiling.
"Hi," she said, "How are you?"
"Same as usual," I grumbled.
"Well, at least no worse."
"I guess."
She came to a halt, smiling breezily.
"So," I continued, "This is very cloak-and-dagger."
"Barton's idea, just in case you're being monitored."
"Monitored?" I snorted, "What?"
"If she put something on your phones."
"She hasn't," I retorted, "I'd have seen."
Fee smiled wryly back at me.
"I could tell, I'm sure," I continued.
"Look, maybe you need another phone. One she doesn't know about. One she never gets access to."
For a moment, I felt an awful, clammy sensation. The phone in my bag, the belt around my crotch, all working against me, monitoring and controlling me, reporting everything back to Jodie. Was the belt only set to vibrate via remote control, or was it listening to the changes in my body? Was it letting Jodie know exactly when I was angry, or sleepy or horny?
"So," Fee said, turning to James, "Did you get it?"
"Yeah," James nodded, "I made a bit of a big deal about the booking, and she gave it to Alice."
We were on our way to an afternoon in an apartment in the next suburb. All that Jodie had told us were their names, Skye and Stacey, and that they wanted my husband for the entire afternoon, as many times as they wanted. Jodie had passed me a little coloured square, wrapped in tissue paper. I fished it out of my handbag and gave it to Fee.
"So, this is the wonder drug?" Fee exclaimed.
"That's it. There's enough soaked on there for James," I told her, "It's by bodyweight."
"Yeah, Barton thought as much."
"What are you going to do with it?"
"He's going to run it by a guy he knows. He's in forensics these days, wants to get a breakdown, see if there are any telltales."
Fee slipped the tissue into her purse.
"It's all pieces of the jigsaw."
"And how's the jigsaw looking?" I asked.
"Incomplete. We need all the pieces, Alice, if we're going to crack this. Barton thinks it's a ring. We need to make sure they get everyone. We can't let even one of these bastards escape, not with everything they have stashed on us all."
She shrugged.
"Barton's talking to people. It's going to take time. We just need one more thing."
"What?"
"I don't know. Neither does he. A catalyst. Something that brings it all together, something the cops can pounce on."
She grinned at us conspiratorially.
"Then we grind these fuckers into the dust."
---
The address was in a newer part of the city, among regimented streets of six-storey apartment blocks, each with a coffee shop and a bakery on every other corner.
"This used to be the pulp mill, back in the day," James observed, "Lumber yards and train tracks. My grandfather used to work here."
"Changed a lot."
"Yeah, and not for the better."
We found a parking spot on the street and made our way though the glass doors of one of the almost identical buildings to the elevators. James punched a button for the sixth floor.
"They probably sold this as a penthouse," James grumbled, "With stunning views across the street at the penthouse opposite."
"You okay?" I asked.
"Yeah, I'm good. It's all good."
"Nervous?"
"Nah."
James watched the numbers counting slowly upwards.
"Look, yeah, maybe. It's a whole afternoon."
I opened my purse and extracted a little pad of tissue paper, unwrapping it carefully. The elevator pinged and the doors opened. We stepped out.
"Nah," James said, looking down at my hand.
"If you need it, you need it."
I looked down too, at the sliver of coloured paper I'd shaved off the sample we'd given to Fee.
"It's not a full dose, but it's enough to...."
"I said no, Alice. Put it away. I can get through this."
He looked up the corridor, then back at me.
"Fuck knows, I need, uh, shit, sorry. I'm sorry Alice, that's not fair on you. I know you're doing your best."
I didn't dare look up at him, concentrating on folding up the little remnant of Jodie's paper and placing it safely back in my purse. I didn't have to say anything. We'd already said it all, cuddled up in bed at night, feeling him spooning my back, feeling his erection pressing against my skin. We'd progressed from hand jobs, to oral, each step a little more humiliating for me, to be only able to pleasure the man I loved that way.
It just wasn't the same. There was release for him, but not that deep sense of connection for me, the moment afterwards where I basked in my afterglow with my husband still inside me, our bodies mated. Now, cuddling just made the unwavering ache in my crotch even worse, the frustration mounting each time. The last time, I'd heard him drift off to sleep afterwards, his arms still around me, and I'd laid awake for an hour, burning for release. I had very quietly cried myself to sleep.
I followed in my husband's wake as he arrived at the door. He knocked.
"Here we go," he breathed.
A young woman opened the door, flashing brown eyes with long lashes, delicate face framed by tumbling dark hair over bare brown shoulders.
"James?" she asked.
"Yes," my husband replied, "And this is Alice."
"Alice. How do you do? Nice to meet you. Please, do come in."
I was taken aback by the young woman's formality, but we followed along behind her as she led us into the apartment. She was barefoot, a dark dress swishing around her knees, glancing back at us with those wide, sensual eyes.
We were brought through to a balcony, where another woman rose from a lounge chair to greet us. She too had the same wide eyes, the same delicate face, dark hair falling over brown shoulders.
"Hello," she said, "I'm Shriya."
