Chapter 13

Andrew thought about him and Suzanne for a long time once she had returned to Inverness. He had gone with her out to Heathrow and knowing that they would see each other in three weeks made the parting not too bad. They had arranged for the tickets to be sent to Leslie and had also arranged where to meet on the Saturday morning at Schiphol Airport. The mechanics were all set, the easy stuff.

Everything about dominance and submission was a journey into the unknown for Andrew. He knew one person who thought she was submissive, Suzanne, and he had never met someone who claimed to be sexually dominant. At least to his knowledge. There were no books to look up, at least that he had ever heard of, they were literally on their own. It was that summer that things started to be clearer in his mind.

Suzanne asked whether modelling changed him and they had agreed attending university was more significant than the modelling, at least in maturing him. When he thought about the same question about him and Suzanne sexually, had they changed? Andrew thought it was the same thing. The experimentation changed him, but at the same time they also were maturing. When they started this journey tying up Suzanne seemed key, the physical loss of control. And an act that requires an enormous amount of trust on the part of the submissive. And that is where they had dived in. And all these steps forward had missteps as well. The idea that he was going to photograph her and send the photos off to a magazine was one that was a serious mistake.

Until that summer exploring this part of their sex life involved bondage. To Andrew’s mind, without that then he wasn’t doing it ‘properly’. He thought that unless Suzanne was tied up, literally had lost control, then she would not be mentally into it. And he was doing all this for her. But he realised that something changed that weekend. When Andrew was with a woman he wanted to make sure that it was good for her. He wanted a full and active partner and to make sure she got something from the encounter. And with nearly all of his sex partners that worked well. Communication, no taboos, just lots and lots of good dirty fun. But with Suzanne this rather defeated the purpose of being dominant. So he overcompensated with bondage. That weekend however, it very belatedly hit him that Suzanne knew him as well as he knew her and if there was something that she wanted, something that she didn’t want to do, she would let him know. That was the whole point of ‘Paula’. Suzanne was sexually submissive and would do anything he wanted. That he wanted to do it to her was a turn on and the idea that she had no control was core to her sexual being. But Andrew didn’t need to tie her up all the time. Some of the time, sure, but all the time? He guessed it started when he had told her she was coming to Amsterdam. He did not give her a choice, she had no control. And when they talked about it the next day the point finally sank in that control, dominance was not ropes and buckles. It was a state of mind. Yes, Andrew knew it but he was not trying to live it, as he didn’t want to be someone who was a dominant. To his inexperienced mind, a dominant was someone who got off on beating someone else, a woman. Probably the part of the whole journey that left Andrew the most conflicted. Instead for the rest of that Sunday with Suzanne Andrew had taken control over her in the bedroom. He hadn’t asked, didn’t check whether what they were doing was okay, Andrew did what he wanted. But in doing that he did what Suzanne wanted, and that meant he was doing what they wanted. Escher made an appearance.

But it was important in breaking dominance and bondage for him. Bondage, leather, cuffs, tying up were only part of the experience, they were not the whole thing. And how large a part of the experience was up to the individuals involved. They had survived that weekend with just a tie. Another thing that blurred the lines and blurred Andrew’s thinking was their complete lack of taboos. There was nothing that either of them wanted to do that they had not tried. Andrew had watched Suzanne pull a bloody tampon out of her pussy and fucked her immediately thereafter. When the boundaries are off over the horizon then submissive behaviour does not allow you to secretly let go or something like that. It was the everyday.

Andrew felt closer to Suzanne and thought he understood each of them better. But with too much time on his hands that Monday morning he also thought about the difference between her and Ara. The big difference was background knowledge, there were no secrets with Suzanne. There may be some random thing that she didn’t know he owned, like the Ferrari earlier that summer, but other than that she knew everything. But she had also seen him every day for years. They had learned to date together, they now lived together. Andrew had not been out with another woman in Edinburgh since he went up to Cambridge. Yet they were not a couple, or so they claimed.

And in contrast, the thing he knew he needed most of all with Ara was time. And they were not going to have it before they graduated. Turkey and their courses were going to see to that. Ara was never going to have the luxury of time as they got closer. As always, Andrew was confused about Suzanne, Ara and him.

Returning to West Berlin Andrew tried to leave the confusion behind. His stumbles around dominance and submission were less than trivial compared to the subjects of his summer work. The penultimate week of his time at BRIXMIS was spent giving presentations using AIMS on critical, top secret data from the tours round the Soviet Union’s 3^rd Shock Army’s area of operations. And it would be this Army that would engage the British Army of the Rhine if the Warsaw Pact invaded the west. Carlisle took the lead and Andrew had to answer an occasional question. But after the presentations he did answer a lot of questions on adapting AIMS and changing the fields for the summary reports. Andrew was going to have to ask Mhairi about the sales contract to ComputerCom to understand what was allowed. But the really gratifying thing was seeing how pleased the operational leadership were with what they had done. It was not just the Brigadier and the Wing Commander that were pleased. Several of the officers that went out on tour sat in on some of the presentations. That the civilian analysts were able to identify ways and places to make their job easier or more effective, they were surprised by that. Everyone was doubly surprised that by using a computer program they had found these improvements.

Andrew could see, almost taste, the end of the job and couldn’t wait to get out of there. After all the exploring and fun he had with the Police for the last two summers, that summer had been a bust. West Berlin was a place to visit for a weekend, and not on your own. It was definitely not a place to be stuck for 10 weeks on your own. Could Andrew have made more of an effort? No doubt. He didn’t know whether it was the way he was treated at the start that got to him and soured him on the place. All the security briefings about being careful of Warsaw Pact spies maybe they had an impact? But it was like school again. He worked all day and then studied all night, and he was not upset about it. He had spent four long weekends with friends in Edinburgh, Paris and London so was fine. He did not regret the way he spent that summer in West Berlin. Mind you the following week may have had something to do with it. Andrew only worked one of the days at the weekend to catch up for not returning until Tuesday and spent the Sunday doing some last minute tourist things around the city. But on the Monday everything changed. Carlisle was called into a meeting first thing in the morning and Andrew did not see him again until lunchtime.

“I need you to finish up here as quickly as possible. You need to go back to Edinburgh House and pack. We are going back to London. The presentations last week have caused a stir.”

Oh, oh.

“Come on, get a move on. What do you need to finish to get out of here? And make sure you return your pass as well.”

20 minutes later Andrew was walking back to Edinburgh House happy that his stay in West Berlin was over. Although he had no idea what the week was going to be like in London. Because they were flying back officially he and Carlisle were supposed to fly back from the RAF base at Gatow rather than commercially from Tegel. Knowing the Flyboys, Andrew figured that was going to be a long cold trip and they would end up at bloody Brize Norton again. So he told Carlisle he would take the British Airways flight back to Heathrow and would meet him outside the office in the morning. There were advantages to not being in the chain of command. When he met Carlisle the next day he was supremely bitter. The Hercules had landed at RAF Lyneham, even further west than Brize Norton. Andrew decided not to smirk or say anything. On the flight back to Britain he had also made his mind up that he should stay with Freya and Jim. If the Ministry of Defence headquarters were getting involved then he needed to make sure that she was not sandbagged at a meeting. It was 7.30 when he opened the door to their flat for the first time in two months.

“Hello, it is just me.”

They both came into the hall as Andrew closed the door behind him.

“What are you doing here? Not that it is a problem, but a Monday night?”

He dumped all his stuff in his room and followed Freya into the kitchen. Jim made himself scarce for a few minutes. Freya made Andrew a sandwich as he told his tale.

“Do you know where I ended up working?”

“No. Brigadier Larkin told me that the BSSO had not worked out but that you had been utilised elsewhere. I didn’t ask where.”

“Should I tell you? Meaning am I allowed to tell you?”

“The organisation but none of the details.”

“BRIXMIS.”

She nearly cut her finger off. Andrew could see her wince with her eyes closed.

“So the meetings scheduled for later this week about some new computer program that they are using in Berlin, let me guess that is you?”

He nodded.

“Why can you never keep out of mischief?”

Now this was said like he was some misbehaving eight year old but she had a huge grin on her face.

“I am to understand that there were presentations in Berlin last week that demonstrated the value of a government computer program that nobody knew we had. They have called back the two civilians from Berlin to demonstrate the program.”

She stopped and looked sharply at Andrew.

“You are one of the civilians, aren’t you?”

Another nod.

“That is going to put the cat among the pigeons. I don’t know that anyone has figured out your status yet. When do you finish up?”

“Friday. I am on a plane to Paris on Sunday.”

Freya handed him the sandwich and sat down with a big sigh

“I will be at the meetings so you had better tell me everything. Hang on, let me go and tell Jim this will take more than a few minutes.”

When she returned Andrew gave her a full recounting of the last nine weeks. She sat quietly letting him talk it out.

“So they will harp on about starting this without permission. That broke at least a thousand regulations and almost certainly contravened the Official Secrets Act. But it was at the Stadium Barracks, in a locked room and nothing ever left the premises. And it proved to be immediately useful and within weeks very important. That should shut everyone up eventually but there will be a lot of posing and posturing first. Keep your head down and look abashed. Don’t sit there with one of your ‘fuck off’ faces.”

Andrew was shocked, he couldn’t recall the last time he heard Freya swear.

“When did we, meaning the government, buy this program?”

“October 1981, the day before the Chelsea Barracks bombing. It was the meeting with the Department of Industry that meant we were here in London. So nearly five years ago.”

“Explain the background to me.”

Another long recounting this time of the Open University, government ministers, leading up to the big meeting with Sir Adam Butler and then the follow-up meeting with the civil servant where Leslie suggested the Government buy 1,000 copies and without a moment to pause or consider they did.

“And it was this program that got you operationally involved with the MoD Police?”

“Yes. The Property Services Agency was the only organisation that was using it, and left copies with the Army in Germany. How it got mixed up in the case is not relevant but I saw an AIMS printout when I was sent with some files to Colchester, and it snowballed from there.”

“Who is using it now?”

“No idea. The Police have several copies but I don’t know if anyone else does. There is a Department of Industry storage facility in Wolverhampton, that is where the PSA, the MoD Police and BRIXMIS got their copies. They would be able to show who else has requisitioned them.”

Freya said she needed to think for a bit and so Andrew went through to his room and sorted out all his clothes which he had stuffed into his bags to make sure he caught the late afternoon flight. As he was unpacking he thought about the situation. And it reminded him of the very start of the company, all the way back in the autumn of 1979 and then the situation with Julian’s dad’s company that Christmas. Computers were starting to make an impact on the economy and in society in general. But the government had not been willing, sure ministers were but there was resistance within the Civil Service. And it was most pronounced in places like the Ministry of Defence. The concept of ‘squaddie-proof’ was never an explicit design requirement but computers were the very definition of the opposite of squaddie-proof. Andrew had no evidence to support his contention but was pretty sure that the computer he had fixed at the start of his time at BRIXMIS had been shaken to try and make it work. It was very unusual for internal connectors or connections to come apart. So highlighting the usefulness of computers in the MoD was a big deal. That it had a direct impact on operations was an even bigger deal. It was 1986, Gorbachev had only been in power for 18 months, and it might not have been the height of the Cold War but there were still massed armies on both sides of the inner German border. Andrew had no idea how the meeting was going to go. He hoped to sit at the end of the table and let Carlisle do all the talking. The rest of the evening was spent catching up with Jim and Freya.

“Did you stay in the house when you were here in London?”

“I did. It is only when I lived in it that I realised that it is a big place. The dining table seats 12, there are five bedrooms and I have a large room on the ground floor that I don’t know what to do with. It was called a reception room in the selling particulars but as I don’t plan on holding any receptions I don’t know what to do with it. It is too big for a library or study. Anyway, it did rather highlight that I don’t need a four story, five bedroom house.”

“What are you going to do?”

“It is one of the things I wanted to talk to the two of you about. Would you mind if I stayed here most of the time next year?”

“Of course not Andrew, we enjoy having you around. You would rather stay here than at your house?”

“I think during term time when I am in London I would prefer that. It is not even the prosaic things like there being fresh milk in the fridge it is more this seems a scale of house, or flat, that I prefer. I am not going to make a rash decision and lock myself out of it again for several years but I am thinking of letting it out again next summer and buying something smaller instead.”

“It is that bad?”

“There are three bedrooms on the top floor that I am never going to use but that will need to be kept clean. The living room is at the front of the house on the first floor with my bedroom at the back of that floor. That is fine but the kitchen is two flights of stairs down in the basement past the room of no purpose. It is a family home not a bachelor pad. Even my flat in Edinburgh, I think the longest I have lived there is 17 days. I have rooms at College with shared facilities and where we go to Hall to eat. I have a flat in Edinburgh that never has any food because I am never there and now I have this house which is just a bigger version of the flat. Now just listing all that makes me sound like the whiniest, most entitled arse on the planet but I have not had a home for a long time. That is why I am going to leave it for a year and see if something changes when I graduate and am there permanently.”

Jim laughed.

“If it would help you out we could swap.”

Freya whacked him but although Jim said it in jest it made a whole lot more sense that a 22 year old engineer living in the place on his own. Given all their dinner parties they would probably use the reception room. The following morning Andrew was keyed up and so awoke early and ran over to Marshall Street to get there as it opened and pushed himself hard to burn off some energy. He was back in time to accompany Jim and Freya to work although he did not acknowledge them after they all left the Tube station. He met Carlisle at the Old War Office Building and they started their day of meetings.

Andrew’s memory of the morning was defensive bullshit. It was not all like that but it was how he would have summarised the morning if asked to describe it. The files that were used in AIMS, first the low level ones where Andrew demonstrated the use of the program and then the tour reports from the western part of East Germany, were duplicates of the originals sent to the Defence Intelligence Staff based in the building where they were meeting. The analysts who reviewed those files, those reports, all worked there and what BRIXMIS had done, mainly Andrew, was show the gaps and misses in their analyses. There were no major misses, like a new tank or fighter jet, but there were sufficient anomalies and oversights that questions had been raised. Thus all these meetings. All morning was bluster, because they had been caught bang to rights. Carlisle and Andrew did not have access to additional information, they had used the same source documents but using AIMS had helped them identify additional things.