Shelley glanced at her reflection as she passed the large mirror outside the elevator doors. She was so average. As the elevator reached her floor, she tried to remain focused on trying to enjoy this, her first holiday in years.
She had a tedious job in a prairie city that could be crushingly lonely. She had little contact with her family, except her sister, who lived a hundred miles away; a short drive she took once a month or so. Shelley loved Meg more than anyone in the world. It was Meg who had walked away from the oppressive life that lie before her if she took the path demanded of her by their parents, who were staunch fundamentalist Christians. It was Meg that smoked weed and listened to Tool, and worked as a waitress in a strip club to save up the money to start her business. Now she had 30 people working for her, and lived in sin and comfort with her man, Ben. Shelley wanted to be just like Meg when she grew up. She still did, at thirty five.
Sometimes, she wondered if the loneliness was driving her mad; the closest she'd been to intimacy in years had been to e-chat with the few men who'd responded to her posting on some cheesy "Horny Alberta Girls" website. However, there had been few of those; she was honest enough with herself to see how plain and undesirable she appeared in the photo she'd posted of herself. She'd fiddled around for hours setting up her camera to photograph herself in a rather unflattering bra and panties. Not one man pursued any sort of contact with her after the first chat room conversation they'd have with her, though many were initially attracted to her rather desperate claim of being "willing to try anything".
As she carried her bags toward her room, she heard footsteps behind her. Pulling the keys from her pocket, a voice from behind her clearly spoke her name. She turned and saw two people approaching her, a man and a woman. The man was tall, with a steely gaze and a military haircut. the woman was also tall, a blond, and disarmingly attractive. Although not actually wearing uniforms, they were obviously on government payrolls.
"How do you know my name?" she asked them, feeling immediately intimidated in spite of the pair's affable demeanor.
"Department of Immigration and Naturalization, Ma'am. We'd just like to see your passport, please." the man stated evenly.
"Oh, sure, I have it right here in my purse..." Shelley replied, feeling the nervousness in her voice as she dug to the bottom of her purse. The two Feds carried her bags into the room for her.
"Oh, thanks, but I could have......", Shelley said nervously, as she began to panic. She could not find her passport in her purse.
"No trouble at all, Ms. Van Rhys," the blond replied. "The sooner we can see your passport, the sooner you can get on with your holiday."
The knot in her stomach began to tighten as she started going through her wallet for the third time. That passport had been in her purse not more than an hour earlier.
"Perhaps in one of your bags, Ma'am?" the man queried.
"No, I'm sure...." she faded off, real fear creeping into her tone. "I know I have it, I know it's here somewhere, it's...."
"Well, let's just be calm, I'm sure it's here. If you would be so kind as to unpack your bags for us," the blond said to Shelley as she scanned her body English. "Chances are, it's in there."
Shelley unpacked the things she'd bought for the trip; some new blouses and skirts, sandals, a sun hat. The new underwear that Meg had purchased for her at a boutique on Seventeenth Avenue in Calgary. Just a few bras and panties; Shelley was shocked when the total cost was nearly fifteen hundred dollars. There it was, laid out across the bed; a lonely woman's desire to be fucked, desired, far from her normal, boring life. She felt pathetic as the two scrutinized her pretty things, the plumage she so desperately hoped would attract....someone.
"If you could open this, please." the man said to her as he passed a zippered velvet bag to Shelley's shaking hands.
"God, not this." she thought to herself, wondering why the hell they needed to do this.
"Please, it's just some.... personal things, that's all, just, um..." She was in tears.
"Unless you have some contraband in that bag, and for your sake, let's hope you do not, I suggest that you show us the contents, Ma'am." the blond said to her, impatience and suspicion growing in her voice.
Shelley laid the contents of the bag on the dresser. A tube of Astroglide personal lubricant. Some more of the expensive panties Meg had bought her. A filthy little novel of lesbian lust, written by a woman with the evocative name of "Tereska Torres". And finally, a thick black dildo, nearly a foot long. She glanced at her face in the mirror; it was a mess, puffy- eyed, her makeup a trashy looking disaster.
"Why the fuck is this happening?" she thought to herself, as the blond picked up the large silicone phallus, an expensive one at that, and examined it, bringing it to her face as she sniffed it lightly.
"Am I correct in assuming that you get a lot of use from this big boy, Ms. Van Rhys?" the blond asked, sounding a little cocky.
The blond was right; Shelley had used that big black tool on herself a lot. But what the fuck business was it of hers, anyway? A woman that looked like that would have no problem getting as much real cock as she wanted, and Shelley wondered if the blond wasn't trying to get under her skin, to throw her off balance even further.
The blond handed Shelley the dildo. She put her hand around it, her fingers barely able to wrap around it's girth. The blond, however, did not let go of it, She looked directly into Shelley's eyes and asked her if she was aware that the novel that she'd brought with her could be considered obscene material, and that she could be detained or deported for possessing it.
She then asked Shelley, "Are you a lesbian?"
The blond let go of the dildo, leaving Shelley standing in the middle of the room, holding the huge rubber prick. The blond picked up the novel, a well used copy printed back in the fifties, and leafed through it. Mixed with the lurid descriptions of locker room longing and sapphic self satisfaction, was the faint aroma of the secret places it had been hidden over the last half century; the cedar chests and leather bags and lavender scented drawers, and the subtle wisp of the places the fingers that had turned these pages had touched while reading them.
The blond slipped the novel into her pocket, and once again asked, with a dark, intimidating tone in her voice, "Are you a lesbian?"
"Why, is that illegal here, too?" Shelley spat back in anger and frustration.
The man rushed toward her, getting right in her face, and stated with a bone chilling calm,
"Listen. You are in this country illegally until you present a passport. Until that time, WE will be asking the questions. Now what fucking part of that do you not understand, lady?"
"Come with us, we are going to our office, until this problem is sorted out." the blond said, taking Shelley's arm while the tall man took her other. The two led her down a stairwell, into an unmarked, windowless van. She was terrified.........