"Did we do anything wrong, Beth?"

I'm standing naked in the basement of the new local Sapphire Club as Bethany and Marta, one of the members of her black team that helped with the rescue of Chelsea, are searching through my trunk, trenchcoat, mask, and even my hair to make sure no tracking devices were planted on me during the session. They find nothing and I dress in clothing that stayed in Bethany's care while I exposed myself to the students and burqa babes.

"I don't think so. I think we just got ahead of them. We prepared for a possible abduction attempt tonight, just in case, but they're probably planning something on their turf. We just heard before the event that the suspect husband left town tonight, with his kids. That seemed suspicious, because he could have been establishing an alibi, but it could have been totally innocent."

"At least we didn't find any trackers or bugs."

"True, but someone turned on that cell phone and might have seen the number. I wish that we didn't have to worry about a mole in our ranks. There were so many of them pawing through your stuff that we couldn't see who it was. We think you should lay low for tonight."

"But I promised to meet one of the students around midnight, at her house. She seemed like she really needed a friend."

"Which one?"

"Mindy Monrovia."

"Dammit, Cate."

"Oh shit. Don't tell me she's the one. Barbie and I have high hopes for her."

"We don't know that she's involved. We can't even say for certain that her husband is involved, but the message was received and confirmed inside her house. Claire's team verified that. "

"But you say her husband left town? It sounds like a good opportunity to gather some data on them."

"I don't like it, Cate. It's too risky. We don't exactly know where the other husband is tonight. We lost him in traffic. He could be on his way here."

"I don't think they'll try it tonight. I don't think she's involved. She seemed genuinely scared. I think it's just her husband."

"You don't really know anything about her. She might just be a very good actress. He might have taken the kids out of town to protect them during your abduction."

"I really think we're being too paranoid." We make our way up the steps and into the lounge where Kyra, Liz, and Celine are waiting. The club is new and the membership is small, so we have to get our own drinks. They don't have a single malt, so I make do with a blended scotch, but the hostess promises to stock Talisker for me.

When we get to the table, Liz asks, "What's our next step?"

Before I can speak, Beth says, "Our love-sick fool wants to stick her head in the lion's mouth tonight. She almost has me convinced to let her go into their den."

She has a smile on her face so I'm not as offended as I should be. "I'm not love-sick..."

"Cath, we saw the way that you both looked at each other. We just want to make sure you're not thinking with your twat, not that I would blame you. I'd like to have her looking at me that way."

"Okay well, I'm the one who's been looking into her eyes. It's just really clear to me, that she's no Mata Hari. I just think she needs a friend. She wants to be a gift for Dan, and she seems very sincere about that. I don't think she likes her husband, at least not any more. She wants me to be a gift from her to him so she can confirm that he's the problem in their marriage. That could be a setup, but I just don't think she's acting. I'm guessing that when the attempt happens, she'll be with the kids and he'll be the one who tries to take me. What do you think, Lini?"

"That guess is more consistent with the intel. These men look down on their women. It seems unlikely they would recruit their wives for this. But I think even if she's innocent, it's too risky to keep a sister who's living with a known enemy."

"I'm with Cate. We can't just abandon a sister. We don't do that. And she seems like a good candidate for us, but not too good to be true. If they wanted to plant a mole among us, you would think they would recruit someone more valuable to us, more irresistible."

"Liz, it's Cate that you're risking."

"Cath is going to be at risk either way. At least this way we can plan for it."

I finish my drink. "Kyra's right. I'll be able to gather intel on the house. If Mindy's clean, he'll never know I was there. Well, I guess I should get out to her house. But there's one other thing. It's about Keri. She thinks she might have to run from her husband."

"We caught that, Cate. He's the other suspect. Margo is checking them both a little closer now. They live in St. Loo. She's here on business a lot. He doesn't travel much, but he's traveled here before, and in a rental car. We'll keep an eye on that situation."

I drive to Mindy's house and arrive a little late. She answers the door and it's very clear that she's been crying. Her eyes are all puffy and her face isn't looking its best. "Oh, thank you for coming. I was afraid you wouldn't. I must look awful."

I'm finding it very hard to believe that she could mean me harm. I find it very hard to believe that I'm someone who would attract the attention of the group Celine's network has been monitoring, but it was a chilling message. "Cate Blanc is the one we want. Take her." It was read by someone in her house and a confirmation was sent.

Mindy is wearing a bathrobe, but once she gets the door closed, she shrugs it off, letting it hang from her hands. Her naked body steals my breath away. I thought Honey had a beautiful body, but Mindy is in another league entirely. It's perhaps the most beautiful female body I've ever seen naked. Her profile says she's thirty years old, but she looks younger.

"You spent that whole class naked. That was so brave, and you're so beautiful."

"Don't flatter me, Mindy, or I'll have you kidnapped for an optometric exam." I specifically say 'kidnapped' to see if it elicits any response. I sense nothing.

"I guess I just have a thing for your type, Cate. You are very beautiful and part of that is because you're someone I can look up to. You exude confidence and seem very self-assured. Not like me. I can understand if you don't want me."

She starts to close her bathrobe, getting it back up to her shoulders, but I reach out and hug her into me, circling her slender waist with my hands before she can close it. Her bare skin is warm and soft and smooth.

"I'm not rejecting you, Mindy. You're beautiful, but I barely know you. Right now it seems more like you need a friend, or a mother, than a lover."

"I do need a friend, and I like to have a mentor. And I feel like I know all that matters about you, Cate. You've been baring your soul and I've been soaking it in like water to a desert flower. I just feel so helpless, and you seem like the only person I can dare to trust. My marriage just feels all wrong. I need someone I can trust. My husband dragged me here where I've got no friends. My sponsor is my next door neighbor and she's more like a watcher than a friend. And he didn't even try to keep me from discovering his affair. He rubbed it in my face until I ran next door. Our marriage was like yours used to be, but it got much worse just before we moved here. Something changed. I thought it was that club he joined, but he hasn't mentioned it since we moved away. It has to be her."

"Let's sit and you can tell me about this club."

I sit next to her on the couch. She leaves her robe open, an invitation for me to do something, but for now I just steal glimpses of her beauty as I try to maintain eye contact.

"It's some old Lutheran society. Some German name that means knights of old something-or-other. I was raised Lutheran, but I could never be as fanatic as he is. My parents just weren't that strict. His old college buddy dragged him into it. He's kind of a follower, which was fine when I was leading, but that guy has some kind of hold on him."

The more I hear from her, the more convinced I become that she is married to an enemy of the sisterhood who has used her to infiltrate us.

"Just before you got here, I had myself convinced that you weren't going to show up. I was thinking that I made a mistake joining the sisterhood. I'm planning to wait until Wil brings the kids home and goes to work the next day. Then I'll take the kids and go back home."

"Stay, Mindy. For now. Unless you or your kids are in physical danger."

"No, nothing like that. I can't fault him at all as a dad. It's just... extreme unhappiness for me. I thought the sisterhood would be the answer to my prayers, but I think... I think he actually wants me to become a whore so he can get a divorce and take my children away. He keeps asking if I've got my revenge yet. He's been withholding sex from me since the... since he agreed to the re-nup. He even sleeps in the den. He seems to know things about the sisterhood. I'm worried that he'll ruin us financially challenging the re-nup just to spite me."

"Then stay, Mindy. Rely on your sisters to help you find a way to keep your kids' father in their lives. We need to see if we can gain his cooperation. I'll be your gift to him. Depending on what I discover from that, we may have other options."

"Other options?"

I don't want to tell her about the black card sisters. "No guarantees. Let's see if we can change the man, or coerce his cooperation better, before we decide to throw him overboard. Just tell me, did you say anything about your first session to him, or mention that I would be at this session?"

"No! Barbie told us not to. He asked me about it, but I just told him it was hen business. He tried to pry, but..." She draws her fingers across her lips to show that she zipped them shut.

"Good. Keep it that way. Just send me as a gift when he's on a business trip."

"He doesn't travel much for business. I'm the white collar. He's a small business owner. He'll be here alone next week. I'll be taking the kids to visit my parents. My mother really doesn't like him, so he doesn't visit with us."

"Then that's the plan."

"Okay. Will you stay the night?"

If this was a trap, it was the perfect trap for me. She was such beautiful bait, a damsel in distress who pinged me on every level from maternal to sexual. This frighteningly suggests that the enemy knows me pretty well. She pushed all the right buttons and answered the questions I didn't dare ask.

I hoped that Bethany heard everything. She would call my cell phone if she needed to talk to me.

We've reached the awkward point. I want to comfort her. Sex would be great, but at the moment, I feel more like her mother, or her savior, than her lover. I don't want to take advantage of her weakness. I know that she masturbated a few hours earlier, as I fucked Honey Brown's ass, so neither of us need an orgasm.

"Let's get some sleep."

"Will you... hold me?"

"Yes. I'd like that."

"I sleep naked."

"Even better. I do, too. I'll be the big spoon. Just let me brush my teeth and I'll join you."

I enter the bathroom with my large purse and call Bethany..

"Hello, Mrs. Blanc. I'm still not convinced, but I'm leaning toward the good Mindy camp. Margo called Keri and asked if she needed out. They had a good long talk. She's been leaking info to her husband about our sessions, but Margo is convinced that it was unintentional. Our display scared her, but in a good way. She'll unpack her bugout bag and sneak a few things out to Margo for safekeeping. It's good to have that forewarning.

"Also, The sponsor looks clean, but says Mindy's husband asked her for help. We think he knew that she's a likely sponsor and fed her a good candidate. This is a clusterfuck now. We'll get it sorted out. Just to be safe, don't eat or drink anything there."

"Right.

What's going to happen with Keri?"

"Loose lips sink ships. We'll either tighten them or feed disinfo through them."

"No rescue?"

"Not yet. We don't want to tip our hand."

The next call is to my husband, just to let him know that I'm okay and spending the night with a hot chick.

"Mindy?"

"How'd you guess?"

"She reminds me of Chelsea."

"Ah, you think I have a type."

"Bold, guileless, beautiful, lost."

"You bastard."

He laughs. "Have fun."

As I crawl into bed behind her, she asks, "Who were you talking to?"

"My husband. He guessed who I'm with. He told me to have fun, but I'm too sleepy."

I snuggle against her, one hand on her ass and the other thrown over her so I can gently smoosh my breasts into her back. I sense nervousness.

"You know I... touched his..."

"You made him come. A ruined orgasm."

"That doesn't bother you."

"No. He was like an animal when he got home. Thank you."

"He said that would happen. I'm glad you're not hurt." She relaxes. "G'night."

In minutes she is asleep.

As I become aware that I've been dreaming, I'm feeling tongue and lips right where I want them to be. My nipples are hard and feel cool from the drying wetness of a recent suckle. I move my hands to them and turn up the heat in my furnace. I spread my legs further and the tongue dives deeper.

It was such a pleasant dream, a visit from Dream Girl. My first visit from her occurred during college when I started having guilty fantasies about Kyra. I guess my dreams were reflecting my inner turmoil. I would waken from these homoerotic dreams right at the moment when I kissed Dream Girl, or touched her nipple, or felt her touch on mine. I would be aroused and frustrated because I didn't dare masturbate until I was in the shower or until Kyra was gone to class.

In all the years since, Dream Girl never gave me a name. She almost never said a word. Her eyes and her smiles did most of the talking. Her face and body only changed a little bit, often to adopt some feature of whomever I was currently fantasizing about. Sometimes she was a stranger that I had just met and couldn't resist, but other times it was clear that we had been friends and lovers forever.

My shrink had offered the guess that Dream Girl was based on my perception of the girl that my mother was before I was born. It seemed like cliché pop psychology, but Dream Girl almost always had my mother's red hair, freckles, slender build, and green eyes. Her chin, lips, and nose usually resembled my father's boy face, which I had seen only in photographs. Perhaps Dream Girl was the combined beauty of both parents, but carnal desire awoke every time she visited me.

As I became comfortable with my bisexuality, my visits with Dream Girl would last longer, and the intimacy would go much further. This time, I had my hand between the legs of a strange woman that I had met at a business presentation, and she had her hand between mine. In the strange way of dreams, the men in the room had become irrelevant. I knew they were watching, which made it more exciting, but the other woman had all of my attention. Also in the strange way of dreams, I was back to my dream age, in my early twenties, about the age when I married Dan. Dream Girl is always a little older, but just enough to seem more worldly.

We had gone from making eye contact to kissing to petting to discovering a pussy sans panties under each other's skirt without a single word of conversation. My pussy was smoothly shaved and hers had a thick curly bush that I knew would be a firecrotch, like the one and only time that I had seen my mother's. I was hoping to see Dream Girl's and to taste her syrup, but then I drifted up out of sleep. I felt a tingle on my lips and tasted a strange lip balm. Mindy must have kissed me while I slept.

"Ohhhh. God that feels good, Sweetie." I look down and see the straight black hair on the top of her head. She's tied it in a pony tail so it won't get in her way. Her green eyes look up at me and I can tell she's smiling as I stretch my arms up over my head, feeling the pleasant rolling of my breasts toward my sides. She's good.

"This is not your first taste of pussy."

She pulls her face back long enough to say, "Nope, second, or... a much higher number if you count incidents instead of separate pussies. Ancient history now. I don't think Wil knows about her." She continues licking. I continue enjoying the long slow buildup that makes me admire the stamina of her neck muscles. The moment arrives and her instincts are good. She nibbles and sucks as I dissolve into bliss-filled contentment.

When my panting stops, she is next to me, her face just inches from mine.

"Thanks for staying with me. I feel so much better today. More Optimistic"

I kiss her and she kisses back. I lick my juices from her smiling face.

"I intend to make you feel so much better still."

I move down to her breasts, my lips dig out the nipple that is against the sheet. I suck it briefly and then gently tug and tease it with my fingers as my tongue and lips suckle its twin.

"Oh, man. I've sure missed this. You wouldn't happen to have that dildo here would you. I've been craving cock."

I roll out of the bed and dig into my purse, pleased that I thought of stocking it as a miniature GO bag before coming here.

I give her the dildo and lube and turn my back to her, thrusting my ass toward her. "Will you do the honors?"

She coats the anal post with gel and I coach as she presses it into me. She inserts the other post into my pussy and ties the thin straps behind my back as I clip the metal balls on. When I turn to face her, she drops to her knees and sucks my faux cock.

"How do you want it?"

"On my back. I want... Please pretend you love me."

Love might be a strong word to describe how I feel for her, but I have no trouble feeling affection for her. As I kneel between her knees on the bed and look down at her, affection and lust blend. I look past my jutting cock at her pussy. Her jet black pubic hair is short and neatly cut in a heart shaped V. My eyes travel up her smooth skin, which has barely a hint of her past pregnancies, to her breasts, and then up to her angelic face. There is no sign of the previous night's angst, only anticipation. I look into her eyes and say, "You are beautiful, Mindy, and I want to fuck you."

"Oh, yes. Fuck me, Cate. Fuck me good."

I kiss her lips and our tongues meet. I lick and suck her nipples until they are as hard as cherry stones. My finger dips into her wetness and she gasps. I bring my fingertip to my mouth to taste her, keeping the eye contact as I first inhale her bouquet through my nose like fine wine, and then suckle her dew.

"Mmmmm. Dee-lish."

"Oh, god, Cate. I want it."

My cockhead parts her folds and I thrust slowly into her until I'm balls deep.

"Oh, thank you, Cate. This is perfect."

I roll my hips as I pump good intent into her. I want her to feel loved. I feel myself rising toward orgasm and thrust into her faster and harder.

"So good, so good, so good, so good..."

I get her to the edge and her heels raise up off the bed as she comes, filling the room with her cuntsong. I come and continue thrusting until we are both spent. I look into her eyes and don't see any deception. I see something a little more disturbing, adoration. If she is acting, I'm going to feel hurt, but if she is not, I'm going to hurt her.

As we dress, I say, "Tell me about Keri."

"I met her in the class. She seems to like me. It turns out that she's married to Wil's old college buddy, the one who got him into that club. We're in the same boat, lousy cheating husbands and not liking the prospect of being single moms."

"Does she seem on board?"

"With the sisterhood? Yeah. More than me. I felt kind of forced into it. Her husband's sister discovered he was cheating and brought her in, to keep the family together."

Like Liz and Kyra, only Kyra discovered the cheating on her own.

"How did you discover your husband was cheating."

"Photos in his emails."

"You check his emails?"

"I have to, for the bookkeeping on his business. He let me find them."

"Do you still have access to them?"

"Yeah. I forwarded them from his email to mine."

"Can you forward them here?"

I write down a burner email address.

"Yes, do you need them right away? I'll barely have time to get to work."

"Yes, right away. I'll start getting out of your hair."

"I'm not kicking you out. You can let yourself out later if you want."

I kiss her. "I have a job to get to. I'll see you again soon. Your driver will be in touch soon, too."

I watch as she forwards the photos. She gets out the door a few minutes before me. I take photos all around the house with my cell phone, and get a call from Beth as I do.

"Wear a mask when you leave. You've got a tail and he might have a camera."

"Holy shit!"

"They ran your plate while you were sleeping. Aren't you glad I made you rent that car?"

"Yes, Mother. How do I handle the tail?"

"Return the car. We'll see what he does. By the way, that was pretty convincing. I'm in the pro-Mindy camp. She seems starved for affection."

Marta becomes my personal body guard at the rental agency. I roll my trunk as she accompanies me onto the airport shuttle bus, to the departures terminal where we take the bypass to the arrivals terminal, into a taxi, around the airport to the general aviation terminal, and finally, into one of Margo's private jets. Bethany tells us that our tail stayed with us until the plane departed. She's taken photos of him and confirmed that he's Keri's husband.

"So he sat outside all night?"

"He got there at two AM. He probably saw your car in the drive and didn't know for sure who was inside. He didn't get near the car, so he followed by sight alone."

"Good thing I veiled before I left the house."

We transfer the photos out of my cell phone to Marta's via blue tooth and Marta destroys the phone with a multitool that appears mysteriously from somewhere on her body. We land in Bloomington, Indiana and meet Claire there.

"Got your tits in a wringer, eh?"

"Looks like it. Good to see you, Sweetie."

We hug, and kiss, for a while. Marta looks a little uncomfortable as we break it.

"I don't want to interrupt, but we're ready."

Claire and I hop in the back of the panel van and Marta drives us onto the expressway. We kiss a little more. It's been a while since we've seen each other, but sex does not ensue. This is Claire's domain, a mobile command post with links to comsats and wireless towers as we drive. We're not here to fuck. We're here to make sure I can get home safely. She sits at her console and does her thing with the keyboards and monitors.

I sense her growing excitement as the photos of Mindy's husband's lover match the photo of Keri's husband's sister, who is also Keri's sponsor. Her sponsor is also Mindy's sponsor.

I hear Claire mumble, "The common thread." Then much louder, "We've got the bitch!"

"Good job, Claire. Thanks."

"Oh shit."

"What?"

"She's also Mick's watcher. He must have got to her. This might be about getting to me, or my kids."

Click. The final puzzle piece falls into place. None of us could figure out why they were coming after me.

We tell Bethany our guess and she doesn't like it.

"Margo should have killed that asshole. Now he's hooked up with those fucking Prussians and we have to hope we can contain this".