This story is copyrighted 2009 by Jason Morris, may not be excerpted, reprinted, reproduced, or reposted in any form without the express written consent of the author. Visitors to this web site may read or temporarily download pages but are not permitted to modify or re-distribute them.
The story contains sexual activities and situations that are to be read only by readers above the legal age of consent. The story is not to be read in locations where such stories are illegal. If you are not of legal age, or live in the wrong place, please exit this site immediately.
*
Alex was the best of all the journalists on the magazine's staff; except he wasn't really on the staff. He enjoyed being a freelance journalist and selling his stories to the highest bidder. This was ideal for him because he never had specific deadlines, except for making his necessary monthly bills for one thing or another; and that usually only required one of his stories to be published.
Ales had decided to do a story on the underbelly of the sex business. He had already brought down the heads of a few porno magazines by bringing to light their business practices with minors. He had helped local police in several major cities to crack down on the street prostitution and their pimps by getting some of the girls to actually come forward and report the crimes they were being forced to commit by their pimps.
Now, he had set his sites on the legalized brothels of the Nevada deserts. He had visited two of them so far and made it all the way into the back rooms and interviewed the women. He found it hard to believe what he was hearing and seeing. The rooms were cleaned constantly, including new sheets on the bed after every customer left the room. The girls produced fro him cards that showed their STD status with the recent date of inspection by a certified doctor.
Doing background checks, he found out the two businesses he had visited were far more legit than the typical Mexican food vendor or Chinese buffet was. While doing one of these background checks, Alex had come across the name of the most recent brothel to open up.
He began to research the background of the Succubus Ranch and found that all the forms were filled out in proper order, as well; but his journalistic senses told him that something just wasn't on the up and up with this business. The further he dug into the papers for the business, the more shocked he became. The other brothels had had a few errors here and there in their papers. Some even had a complaint or two from angry customers about contracting an STD after a visit to the brothels.
Succubus Ranch had none of that. Their papers were too neat and perfectly in order. They seemed cleaner than the best operating room. Alex began to distrust it completely. He looked and was unable to find a list of clients, as was typical for all the brothels; but there was always something in the papers about some high official visiting one of these places and getting busted for it. As he was coming to expect, there was never a bad article that contained the brothel's name in it.
The most recent article for Succubus Ranch told of a concert with a small time band playing. Looking at the picture of the all girl band, Alex decided that his next story would be on the quick rise to stardom for D'Vnt Sound. It seemed like they had exploded right after this concert at the small brothel in the middle of nowhere. That would mean that someone high up in the record industry had been at the brothel during the free concert.
Tearing his eyes away from the picture of the four hot and sexy band members, Alex began his background research on the co-owners of the ranch. Jason Maurice and Maradith, no last name, proved to be a much more interesting read than what he had been expecting.
Maradith's name was completely non-existent until the opening of Succubus Ranch. It was as if she had sprung up from the hard packed dirt of the desert to stand beside Jason and become his business partner. He had checked all the city, state, national, and even international sources to find who this Maradith was. She proved to be absolutely nobody. She didn't even exist.
Jason Maurice, however, was a completely different story. The only son of Mikail Maurice, graduated with high scores in high school and much better than average college scores. Jason served as an intelligence officer in the Marine Corps and had risen quickly in the ranks to captain before leaving the service with an honorable discharge. His accommodations and medals were easy enough to find and it was a long list.
Jason had been living in the Midwest for a couple of years on the salary of a stay-at-home job. Then, it seems, trouble found Jason. His name was on a couple of police reports for missing people. It was a bit of a happy surprise to Alex to see that the two people missing was a pimp and his good friend or bodyguard. Then there was an incident where a serious fire had burned down a large club and Jason was the only survivor, buried under the many bodies and protected from the flames and heat.
With some passing of cash, Alex had received a copy of the medical reports, and once again, Jason was part of a missing person report. Apparently one of the nurses in the wing where Jason was staying disappeared at the same time that Jason had snuck out of the hospital. No report was filed on his non-payment because they had received a check for much more than the amount owed from an anonymous source on Jason's behalf.
Since that time, the investigations had been marked as solved but no resolution was filed with them. It was as if they had found the people, but the police had decided not to let anyone know where they were now. There was definitely something strange going on here.
Alex had tried to track Jason's father and get some answers; but that quickly became a dead end. Even Jason's father had disappeared off the planet. Mikail had left a forward address that listed him as living at WolfCastle in RavenBlack City; but there was no such place. Frustrated, Alex decided that he was just going to have to get the skinny on these two strange characters.
That was why Alex was now parked a good distance from Succubus Ranch, watching the cars come and go, customers, both men and women, enter and then exit several hours later with big smiles. He waited until it was nearly 3:30 in the morning, when there was on two cars in the parking lot for the southern plantation style mansion.
Alex climbed out of his car and began to walk toward the brothel. He was thankful for the night vision goggles he received from the military for not turning a situation he uncovered into a major disaster in the media. They handled the situation internally without the public knowing that several thousand service members' lives would have been at risk by a few high ranking officers.
He wore them now as he walked nearly a football field off the road. With the eerie green glow that was giving him sight, Alex could easily make out the building and everything else that was around him...except for the old man.
"Don't go in there, young man," said a raspy voice nearby.
Alex stopped and turned his head in all directions, seeing nothing but the flat expanse of the desert and a few plants that were no where close to him. When he started to move again, the voice spoke once more.
