The Chastity Game

Chapter One-2

Tori leaned down and picked up her gym bag.

“Well I suppose I’d better go,” she said. “Thanks for the coffee Gemma – it was lovely to meet you.”

Tori got about ten feet before Gemma caught her up.

“Mind if I walk with you?” she asked.

“Why would I mind?” Tori replied. In fact she had pretty much all she needed to do a background check – although a license plate would be handy. It turned out they were parked on opposite sides of the parking area. That was useful actually; Tori was parked close to the only exit, so she’d have a chance to see Gemma’s car pause before pulling out into traffic and it would be easy to get the number.

“Look…” Gemma said nervously. “I’ll be here on Friday night; same time. There’s a nice Chinese restaurant on the way back for us both – do you know it? The Golden Palace? I’ve been meaning to try it; and I’m always famished when I finish a workout. Greg – my husband – won’t be cooking dinner on Friday either.”

“Maybe he’d like to come too?” Tori suggested. If Gemma was working as part of a team it’d be better to flush as many into the open as possible. By Friday Tori could have a surveillance team covering her if this was a government thing – CTC probably wouldn’t be interested if it was private sector.

Gemma looked her in the eyes. “I want to go with you,” she said quietly. “I mean – I want it to be just the two of us.”

Hmm; maybe she didn’t actually have a “Greg” team member. If Tori insisted, then Gemma would have to hurry to get one by Friday. She didn’t want to totally discourage her, and maybe Tori should give her more time to sort that out.

“We’ll see each other again in the gym,” Tori said.

Gemma looked to see if anyone was around. “You know what I’m asking, Tori,” she said softly.

Tori frowned – what was actually going on here? If an agency was trying to get somebody close to her, they wouldn’t use a woman. They’d only have to read Tori’s file to know she was straight – she’d never had any kind of lesbian affair. Why would they...? Unless this wasn’t…

“Gemma…” Tori said nervously, “I don’t want to lead you on…I’ve never…”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Gemma pointed out. “What are you afraid of? Don’t you like me?”

Tori looked her in the eyes – Gemma really did have amazing eyes. The whole time they’d been chatting Tori had been evaluating Gemma as a possible agent – probably private sector. But what if she was actually chatting Tori up? Jesus; Tori had sort of led her on a bit. No, this was too silly. Then it occurred to her there was an obvious way to shut this down.

“You’re married for a start,” she said firmly. “I’ve been on the other end of that and it’s not pleasant.”

“I don’t have any secrets from Greg,” Gemma told her. “I don’t do things behind his back – you can ask him right now if you think I’m bullshitting you; I can call him for you.”

“I’m not going to get involved in some kind of three-way either!” Tori chuckled. “Life is complicated enough. Look, it was lovely…”

“Tori, let’s just have dinner,” Gemma said softly. She reached out and touched Tori’s arm briefly and Tori felt an electric tingle run through her – this girl was so pretty. She could still be a pro, but Tori was starting to have serious doubts. Or else she was really, really good – and that probably meant a government job; which made it very interesting indeed.

She made a decision – if the girl was “working her”, then she’d have to have an opportunity for another meeting. The gym was OK, but a designated location that they could stake out was better. If the girl was genuine, she could buy her dinner and tell her she was straight nicely – and they could hopefully still be friends. Gemma was right, it was hard to meet people these days, and it would be nice to have an exercise partner in the gym – especially a pretty and intelligent one like Gemma.

“I do like Chinese,” she said. “And it was really nice talking to you Gemma – but I want you to know, I’m straight.”

“Thank you for being honest, Tori. I’ve been warned, haven’t I? Friday then?” Gemma’s eyes and smile were totally beguiling. She was really very good – if she did turn out to be a private sector spook, Tori might even offer her a job in the future.

Tori took a deep breath. “OK.”

Gemma gave her a peck on the cheek and walked away to her car.

Tori found herself walking towards her own car, remembering the smell of Gemma’s shampoo, and the softness of her lips on Tori’s cheek. If Gemma was real, what the f**k had just happened? She’d agreed to go out on a date with another woman – a married woman at that. A very attractive and rather charming married woman who was twelve years younger than her! She smiled to herself – why the f**k not? It was only dinner; and since her divorce she’d been on a dozen dinner-only dates with men who turned out to be less than interesting. She’d had more fun talking to Gemma in the past few minutes than any of them.

She dumped her gym bag into the trunk of her Jaguar. She loved her XF – it was like s*x on wheels. She suspected Gemma would like the car too. She fastened her seat belt, started the engine, and then waited. Gemma’s little red Fiesta drew up to the exit; Tori noted the plate number in her head.

The phone system was integrated with the car – she dialed the number on the touch-screen in the dashboard. The new digital scrambler technology didn’t need to sync up like the old stuff – it connected almost right away.

“Central Express; do you have a parcel tracking number?,” the voice said. It sounded like Jennie tonight. Since the call was automatically encrypted Tori still didn’t understand why they bothered with the courier company as a cover; but bureaucracy was slow to change.

“India 3268,” Tori said automatically – that was her own ID number. The last two digits were an even number; indicating she was not under duress. Jennie would see her caller ID and encryption handshake too.

“Romeo X-Ray,” Jennie said; it was the challenge code for today. It was another way to make sure Tori was genuine and to give her a second opportunity to signal if she was being coerced. Tori closed her eyes and imagined the letter grid. The correct response was…

“Echo Lima.”

“Hi Tori, it’s Jennie. What do you need?”

“Contact report please, Jennie. Last name Wilkes; Whiskey, India, Lima, Kilo, Echo, Sierra. First name Gemma; Golf, Echo, Mike, Mike, Alpha. Lives in Little Wharton. Drives a red Ford Fiesta – registration Golf 3 Mike Mike 5567. It’s a personal plate, but it looks like the new model Fiesta.”

“Physical description?”

“Female; 28; blonde hair; blue eyes. Five foot six. Slim build; I’d say fifty five kilos. No visible scars. Husband’s name is Greg. Golf, Romeo, Echo, Golf. She approached me in the gym this evening. I’ve got a plastic water bottle with prints and DNA if you need it.”

“That should be plenty to go on Tori,” Jennie said. “Since she approached you, and she lives really close to you, I’ll run a Level 3 background check. Your case officer will call you in the next fifteen minutes if there are any red flags; and I’ll email you the PNC file. If there are any issues we’ll need the bottle for the lab boys. If they think it’s urgent I’ll send a motor cycle courier over to your place tonight.”

“Thanks Jennie.”

“Are you OK, love?” Jennie asked. “You sound a bit worried.”

“No, I’m fine!” Tori chuckled. “The more I think about it, the more I reckon it’s either private sector, or maybe even innocent; it’s just that I’ve never had an attractive young girl try to chat me up before.”

“Oh really?” Jennie said, sounding surprised. “She’s married too – the little minx!”

“That’s what I thought,” Tori agreed. “Anyway I need to get some food in me; I’m starving. Bye Jennie.”

Tori sighed as she slipped the Jaguar into drive. Even now she was retired she was still required to make these contact reports. About half of her consulting business still came via the Counter Terrorist Command – CTC. Gemma certainly didn’t seem like an Islamic terrorist, she was far more likely to be private sector; looking for an inside track on Tori’s private clients. But you could never tell. Maybe she was even a reporter trying to get inside information. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to think that she was just a pretty girl who fancied Tori and came over to talk to her?

By the time she got home and had prepared a tuna salad, the email was in her in-box. Nobody had called her about it, and that meant that the background check hadn’t thrown up anything that warranted urgent action – that was a good sign. Since Tori had been involved in a high profile terrorist incident only eighteen months earlier, it was standard procedure for her to report unexpected contacts or suspicious activities to CTC. They would run a background check using the records stored in the Police National Computer and if anything suspicious popped up at that stage it would be referred to her case officer – she still had one assigned to her for another two months. He’d have called her right away if that had happened. Jennie had also chosen to run a Level 3 report, which would trigger a longer investigation into the lovely Gemma, using other data sources like newspaper records, f******k pages and so on. She’d get those follow-up files in a couple of days.

Gordon – her case officer – had dashed off a quick paragraph to explain his decision. She frowned as she read the civil-service speak. But the translation was, “this does not look like a threat – but we’re going to complete the Level 3 check for other reasons”. Other reasons? That was odd. And apparently they wouldn’t be needing the bottle for lab tests; so they must be pretty sure that Gemma was who she said she was.

Since there were no red flags, Tori decided not to read all the details in Gemma’s PNC report. She read the summary page. OK, that was interesting. Gemma was known to be bisexual, and her husband knew all about it. How did they know that? PNC files didn’t usually contain that sort of intimate information unless the subjects had been actively investigated in the past. It certainly wasn’t likely to come up in a basic check.

She could read the files to find out – she had them as attachments. But if there was no risk, why bother? They were always so boring – more importantly Tori had very strong feelings about not poking into other people’s private information unless she had good cause.

She stared at her kitchen wall as she chewed a mouthful of salad pensively. So it appeared that Gemma had actually chatted her up; how did she feel about that?

Her first reaction was – pretty f*****g good actually! Gemma was gorgeous; and young – not as young as Tori had thought. Without makeup Gemma could pass for a late teenager – she had that whole petite, blonde, pixie thing going on. More importantly she was really bright, and articulate – Tori hadn’t enjoyed a conversation so much in a long time – whether it was a date or not. The thought that Gemma would actually fancy an old bag like Tori made her feel rather good.

There was the minor issue that Tori wasn’t gay, of course. Minor? Make that show stopper!

Or was it? Gosh, it would be quite nice to spend time with Gemma. What would it be like to kiss a girl? Gemma’s mouth was small, but her lips had a lovely bow-shape. Her breasts were on the small side too, but they were large enough to cup in Tori’s hand. And Gemma’s n*****s had been erect when she was looking at Tori in the changing room. She wasn’t even put off by the scar – maybe she’d found it sexy?

Tori shook her head and laughed out loud. Now she was being silly; the date on Friday would be for her to politely tell Gemma she was straight – it wouldn’t be fair for her to lead Gemma on.

After she’d put her plate and silverware into the dishwasher, Tori clicked on the email again. There was a photo from Gemma’s passport application last year. Those eyes! My goodness! They really were quite something even in a crappy passport photo.

An image flashed into Tori’s mind; she was naked in bed, lying on her back with Gemma over her. Gemma had just been kissing Tori’s breasts and had moved up to kiss her on the lips now. But she paused, looking into Tori’s eyes; and her lovely face held the same expression as the passport image. You weren’t supposed to smile on passport photos, but Tori could see the twinkle of suppressed joy that seemed to be ready to burst out. Gemma was so full of life. So…gorgeous.