Chapter 30: Washington

Over the next several months matters progressed pleasantly for Jack and his concubines. He continued spending personal time with each of them at the Hilton, as well as group fun at home, as they all made plans for when they could move into the mansion. By late fall Sharley had signed with Hot Mama Designs, a design studio for sexy maternity wear; their motto was ‘Remind him how you ended up like this!’ Sharley and the chief designer held a webcam press conference where Sharley wore a very sexy miniskirt and tank top combo that showed her new baby bump. At the inevitable question of who the father was, she simply smiled and said some things were going to remain private, but he was a wonderful man and would be a great father. A series of future photoshoots was promised, and Sharley intimated that some of them might be very steamy when new lingerie designs were introduced.

Dakota began demanding that Jack ‘practice’ impregnating her and pushed for a schedule for when that would occur.

Sharley and Dakota found an architectural firm that could handle the redesign of the Holmby Hills estate, and Jack approved the blueprints and plans. Work was to start as soon as Light Lord Green closed on the purchase and rescission was over; a finish date of early spring was anticipated.

Teresa cut her hours back at Booker & Blakely so that she could go back to college full time in the spring semester. She did have Jack go home with her one evening and cool her parents’ ardor some, so that they limited their friskiness to times when they were alone. The Jimenezes were still making up for all their years of almost non-existent sexual activity. Jack simply toned it down a notch. He also had the chance to see Teresa’s mother in the all-together again, since she was riding Teresa’s father on the living room carpet when they arrived. He whispered to Teresa the old rule that if you wanted to know what a woman would look like twenty years in the future, look at her mother. Teresa blushed and punched his arm.

Construct had several designs printed up for a private jet with an interior layout optimized for the Mile-High Club. Jack passed those to Lisa with the wry suggestion the plane be named ‘The Flying Bordello’. Lisa in turn got together with an aircraft customization firm and Light Lord Green purchased a mint-condition year-old Gulfstream G-650ER and had the designs implemented. Jack and Lisa christened the plane on a flight to Cabo San Lucas for a long weekend, where Jack retrieved a shard of the green crystal from an owner of a resort and a red shard from the local drug lord. The drug lord and his assistants all died afterwards, and Cabo San Lucas enjoyed a brief but welcome respite from drug-related crime.

Tina, Lisa, and Teresa all kept Jack informed as to what was happening at Booker & Blakely. The Cortez Motors campaign was going great guns and Danny Cortez was planning another new location, with Booker & Blakely rolling out a new ad plan based on the very successful ‘Cortez Motors, of course!’ campaign. Meanwhile the Metrobank ‘Next Level’ campaign was on track to substantially raise Metrobank’s revenues and market penetration in the southern California region. Will and Don were using Jack’s notes and thoughts from his last weeks at the agency to prepare several more campaigns for the spring.

As Jack and Construct expected, the Solana family businesses imploded over the late fall and winter. Millions of dollars were missing, and a variety of Federal and California regulators and tax agencies were being very unpleasant. Maria’s lawyers put the company into bankruptcy and sold the company for pennies on the dollar to pay the taxes and fines. A total of nine paternity suits were filed against the estate, and the bank holding the mortgage on the house was looking for payment. Jack ‘convinced’ the bankers to allow Maria and Valentina to stay in the house until Valentina graduated from high school. After that, the two women would move into the Holmby Hills mansion with his other concubines and the bankers would take the house.

Tina and Kirsten would also be moving into the mansion when the remodeling was finished. Jack had Construct keep track of the rape case working its way through the justice system. The six teens were down to five by Christmas; one of the boys mouthed off to another prisoner, who responded by punching him in the throat, crushing his larynx and suffocating the boy before help could arrive. Another boy and the girl who supplied the drugs confessed and were sentenced to prison. The other three went on trial in January. Jack was there and, as he had promised, nothing went right for the defendants. Kirsten proved a compelling witness, and the jury took longer ordering lunch than they did finding the defendants guilty. Jack and Tina took Kirsten home, where the two women had a good cry and then joined Jack in the bedroom afterwards.

One semi-amusing incident occurred when a lawyer approached him as the remodeling of the estate was nearing the end. Jack was impressed by the lawyer’s tenacity and ability to track him down, and even then, he only found Jack by staking out the Hilton. He introduced himself as a representative for the rightful owners in Guadalajara and requested that as soon as the renovations were finished, Jack should simply sign over the property to the rightful owners. No names were forthcoming, but the lawyer presented a small jewelry box. Inside was a bullet. At that point Jack simply took control of the lawyer and figured out who the ‘rightful owners’ were. Jack took a jet to Guadalajara with the lawyer and had the lawyer take him to the cartel manager, taking control of everybody he met along the way, and either having them come along or killing them immediately. Nobody was left alive afterwards, though Jack did take control of a large sliver of red crystal. Drug shipments from that cartel dropped precipitously and the cartel was eventually absorbed by a different group.

Jack considered the problems Rosita and her husband Manolo would have after the Solanas lost their home to the banks. He didn’t like that they would be unemployed, and he didn’t want to separate them from Maria and Valentina. Instead he had them visit the new estate while it was being remodeled. Manolo agreed that he would be able to handle the larger grounds, but Rosita suggested she get a couple of her younger cousins to help around the house. A week later, Maria brought her cousins Elena and Sofia to the Solana house and introduced them to Jack. Both girls were in their early twenties like Rosita, and very pretty. Jack gave them both a horizontal interview that took up most of the afternoon and agreed that they would be perfect additions to the staff at the estate. He also suggested to them and Rosita that since he wouldn’t be able to handle their needs as often as they wanted, Manolo should be allowed to help; Jack already knew that Manolo thought the two cousins were almost as beautiful as his wife was. Construct hacked into the ICE database and ordered up permanent residency documentation for them like he had done for Rosita and Manolo.

In March, Dakota prevailed on Jack to let her stop taking her birth control pills. By then she and Kirsten had been able to have several long talks about the difference between rape and fantasy. Jack stayed out of it and let the women work it out between themselves. The result was that Kirsten agreed to not participate in any of Dakota’s rape or coercion fantasies and that Dakota would help Kirsten with her particular kinks. Specifically, Jack was the principal when schoolteacher Dakota brought very naughty schoolgirl Kirsten to him for punishment. It seemed that Kirsten had forgotten her bra and panties and was wearing a blouse that was too tight and a skirt that was too short for school and needed the principal to discipline her; said discipline involved being bent over his desk while he demonstrated what happened to girls who didn’t wear panties.

Sharley and Tina made the arrangements for Dakota’s ‘breeding’. Sharley got the props and Tina arranged for them to be set up in the suite at the Hilton. Dakota wasn’t told what was happening, but when she drove to the Hilton that Tuesday night, Tina and Lisa were waiting for her. They were dressed in naughty nurse uniforms and immediately told Dakota not to ask any questions; they had Dakota sit down in a wheelchair, which they pushed to the elevators and rode up to the suite in. Inside, the nurses put Dakota on a gynecological examination table. With ‘Doctor’ Jack supervising, they cut her clothing off and strapped her down to the table, with her legs up in the stirrups. Then the nurses assisted the doctor in removing his clothing and helped him begin the ‘impregnation procedure’, which required that for a successful breeding Dakota needed to be in a state of constant orgasm; while Jack bred Dakota, Sharley and Tina sucked her tits and rubbed her clit vigorously. Afterwards, the nurses would clean both the doctor and the patient by licking up any excess fluids and prepare both the patient and doctor for another procedure. By the end of the evening Dakota’s pussy and uterus were awash in Jack’s sperm, and Construct assured him that she was undoubtedly pregnant.

Jack spent considerable time flying around the country collecting shards of the green and red crystals. He always took one or two of his concubines with him, so he made sure they all had up-to-date passports. Over the winter break he took a week off from collecting shards and took Kirsten, Teresa, and Valentina to a very private resort in the Bahamas, one where they could work on their tans without any pesky swimsuits to cause tan lines. When Jack came back, he complained to his other concubines he needed another vacation, so he could catch up on his sleep! Nobody seemed sympathetic.

Jack slowly gathered crystal shards throughout the fall, winter, and early spring, focusing on North and Central America, with one brief visit to Brazil thrown in. He cleaned out the shards in Canada and Mexico, and slowly worked his way across the United States. Along the way, Jack impregnated a score of beautiful women, helping to spread the ancient blood widely. Finally, it was time to gather the remaining North American shards. Construct suggested a trip to Washington. “Lord, Washington has one of the greatest collections of shards in the world. It is a planetary center of power, and those with power congregate. Many shards are present there.”

“If so many pieces are there, why haven’t I collected them before? I would think that you would have me go there first, to gather as many as possible to grow the green crystal as quickly as possible.”

“One answer, and it is a true answer, is that enough shards were there that you needed to be stronger before you could collect them. However, that is an insufficient answer. The fuller answer is that you needed to understand their power better. You needed to understand what the crystals can do, and how they, and specifically the green crystal, can change things. You needed to mentally prepare yourself to become a true Lord of Light. I judge you to be ready to begin being a Lord of Light,” answered Construct.

“And that requires me to be in Washington?’

“You will understand better when we get there.”

That was all Jack could get from Construct, so he had Tina arrange a weeklong trip to Washington on the new G-650; a limousine would be at his disposal the entire week. He took Maria, since Construct informed him there would be several black-tie events during their time in Washington, and that she was probably the most politically savvy of his concubines. They would stay in the Presidential Suite at the Mandarin Oriental. Tina explained, “There are some bigger names in Washington hotels, like the Willard or the Hay-Adams, but they are very old. They’ve been updated, but they were never really designed for spas and swimming pools. I know you will be heading out on your own some days, and Maria might want some spa and pool time on her own.” Maria was quite excited, and she and the other women spent considerable time shopping for evening gowns and cocktail dresses and getting Jack some new suits and a couple of tuxedos.

Maria and Jack drove to the airport Sunday morning. Between a five-hour flight and flying three hours east, they would be landing in Washington around dinner time. Until then, Maria informed Jack that she planned to test out all the possibilities in the new plane. Tina had shown Maria a layout of the plane, pointing out the possible arrangements of the seats and the private bedroom in the rear. Tina admitted that the shower in the bathroom was too small to fool around in - they had tried - but otherwise the plane had all the comforts of home.

After climbing on board, Maria looked around and steered Jack to a dual seat on the right side of the jet. They settled in and Maria lifted the armrest between them and snuggled up next to Jack. Maria was wearing a long wrap skirt and a beige satin blouse, and her legs were exposed to mid-thigh when she crossed them. Jack was dressed in slacks and a sport shirt, comfortable and practical for travel. When he asked Maria if she wanted to wear something more comfortable, she smiled and replied that her outfit would be very comfortable once she took it off. Jack laughed and agreed with her logic.

“Ever been to Washington, Lord?” she asked.

“Not really, not unless you want to count trips that simply made connections at Dulles.”

Maria smiled but shook her head. “Dulles isn’t even in Washington. It’s in one of the Virginia suburbs. I don’t think that counts.”

“Can’t argue. What about you? Ever been there before?” Jack thought that quite likely. Her late husband had been a politician and Washington was Mecca for politicians.

He was right. She nodded and answered, “Yes, several times. Diego, Junior, managed to get on a couple of trips for state senators and such. His father, Senior, also did a lot of business in Washington, and he invited me along for a few trips, along with a few other women.”

“Hostesses?” Jack asked delicately.

Maria shrugged but nodded. “He would send Junior off on business trips, telling him I could assist him lobbying. He seemed to think it went well when he brought some hostesses as assistants.”

The engines began whining louder and at a higher pitch and the jet began moving. Jack dropped a hand to Maria’s leg, caressing her stocking clad thigh. “And did any of those trips occur on a private plane?”

Maria smiled and shifted, exposing more leg, to a point where the elastic tops of her stockings could be seen. “Senior owned a jet, maybe not as nice as this one, but he liked to pass the time in the air enjoying himself. Diego sold the jet but would occasionally hire one for trips.”

Maria reached over and began running her fingers over the front of Jack’s slacks. The beautiful redhead began undoing Jack’s belt and unzipping his pants; Jack assisted by lifting his hips so Maria could tug his pants and briefs off and then pulled his own shirt off. By the time they reached altitude, Jack was naked, and Maria’s skirt and blouse were in the aisle. Maria gave Jack a leisurely blowjob in the double seat and then they retired to the bedroom for an extended session that left them both sated and sleepy. They didn’t wake up until the pilot announced they were beginning their descent to Dulles.

It was late afternoon by the time they reached the hotel, and both Jack and Maria were hungry. They dined in the Empress Lounge, the hotel’s bar, and then went up to their suite to unpack and settle in. After Maria took a shower and returned to the living room wearing nothing but a negligee and heels, Jack decided to begin his shard hunt in the morning.

Monday morning, while Maria lazed in bed, Jack asked Construct, “Where do I begin looking for shards in Washington?”

“Probably where you would expect them. The three main locations will be the Capitol, the Pentagon, and K Street, the location for many of the lobbying firms in Washington. Those are the locations of power in Washington, so those are the locations of shards. I can sense numerous green and red shards.” A map of Washington and the surrounding suburbs imposed itself on Jack’s vision, with red and green dots showing up in several small clusters.

Jack used his new abilities to zoom in on the clusters, noting their locations. Several were in a group of buildings in what Construct informed him were locations of lobbying outfits. Several more were south of the city in Alexandria, where the Pentagon was. Jack glanced at where the White House was, but no shards were present there, nor were there any showing in the map at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, the Capitol. “Why aren’t there any shards at the Capitol? I would figure Congress would be full of ambitious people using their shards to amass power and money.”

“You would be correct, but you don’t understand your own Congress. Today is Monday. Every Congressman is at home, working fundraisers and making deals with lobbyists and constituents. They will all fly in tomorrow on the first available flight, work a few days here, mostly dealing with lobbyists here, and then fly home again on the red-eye on Thursday night. They call it the Tuesday-Thursday Club.”

“So, they only spend three days a week in Washington?”

“Less, really. If you look at the Congressional schedule, you’ll find that fully fifty percent of the year, Congress is in recess.” A calendar appeared in Jack’s vision, with vast sections blacked out.

“How does anything get done?” Before Construct could answer, Jack interjected, “Stupid question. Obviously, nothing gets done.”

“Correct, Lord. You need to take your place as a leader to do any good. There is a saying that you need to drain the swamp. Only a Lord of Light could drain this swamp.”

“I’ll need to work on the Congress tomorrow. Today might be a good day to collect shards elsewhere.” Jack went into the bedroom, where Maria was waking up. “Maria, I need to go out. I’ll be driving around most of the day, so you’ll be on your own. We have full privileges at the pool and spa, so maybe you should spend the day being pampered and primped.”

Maria smiled coyly and pulled the sheet off slowly. “I bet I know a better way to spend the day.”

Jack smiled back. “Tempting, so tempting, but this is a business trip for me. Maybe I can make it up to you this evening?”

“Make it up how?”

Jack shrugged. “You decide. Maybe me in a suit, you in a fancy dress, dinner and drinks somewhere expensive...”

“ ... And a nice long drive afterwards in the back of the limousine?” finished Maria.

“Sounds positively decadent! I will leave it in your capable hands.”

“Let your driver know, in case we need a second driver for later.”

Jack nodded and kissed her on the cheek. He called their driver and told him he would be down in half an hour, and then went off to shower and dress. Maria was asleep when he came out. Then it was downstairs to begin shard hunting. Shard hunting was simple. Construct would give him directions to the nearest shard, the driver would take him there, and Jack would pop out and get the shard. That was equally simple. Jack exercised just enough control to go into whatever building they were in front of, and Construct would direct him to the owner. A few simple commands would be enough to get the owner into a room alone, at which point Jack took the shard and touched it to the appropriate crystal. It would be absorbed, and Jack would go on his way. Jack occasionally would ask how the owner acquired the shard, and the answer was always that it was a lucky piece or talisman, handed down from a relative or found in a family lockbox. In most cases the owners simply used the shard unknowingly, thinking it was simply their inherent charm that made them so successful. Jack wondered how successful they would be in the future without the shard.

Most of the day was spent in simply driving from location to location. After working his way through lobbying firms, Construct directed Jack to several other spots in the city, including a very expensive restaurant, where the owner was the chef and who parlayed the information he gleaned from the rich and powerful dining there to become wealthy himself. Jack had to admit that his lunch was amazing, but he had a hard time figuring out how two crab cakes and a mixed drink could run three figures.

It was late in the afternoon when Jack returned to the Mandarin Oriental. He found Maria in a satin robe watching the news. She smiled when she saw him and turned off the television. “I am so glad you are back! I swear, this city is hopeless!”

Jack tossed his jacket on a chair and sat down on the couch next to Maria. “Is that a general observation or did something specific trigger that comment?” He lifted an arm and Maria snuggled up next to him.

“Just a general observation. Diego used to say that after a few good terms in Sacramento he’d run for Congress. He thought he would be able to clean things up. It didn’t work out that way.”

“No, it didn’t. I’m not quite sure what could clean up this town. Probably need a good Biblical plague to wipe it out and start fresh,” said Jack.

Maria snorted. “I’m not sure anybody in Washington would notice, or care. So, did your business go well?”

“Well enough, I suppose. I have several more days to do what I need to do. Did you figure out our plans for tonight? How was your day, by the way? Did you do a spa day?”

Maria’s face lit up. “It was amazing! I just got back a few minutes before you did. I did an entire day at the spa, with a body wrap and a massage and a facial and a special lunch and ... oh, I brought back a brochure.” She popped up from the couch and ran to the bedroom, where she grabbed the spa brochure. She returned to the living room and sat back down with Jack and pointed out what she had done down at the spa. “They even have men’s programs available.”

Jack smiled. “And just what kind of massage do they offer a man that you wouldn’t be able to beat.”

“Let’s just say that their massage therapy wouldn’t massage the areas I specialize in.” Maria shrugged off the robe, leaving her naked, and then slowly undressed Jack, kissing and licking every bit of skin as it was bared. By the time she had his briefs off, Jack was moaning and groaning. He barely lasted thirty seconds after her mouth was on his cock before he exploded, filling her mouth with his cum. Next, she revived him and climbed on top for a very enjoyable fuck.

Afterwards, Jack lay on the couch caressing Maria and catching his breath. “So, the plan for tonight? More of this?”

“Eventually. First, though, we are going to clean up and get dressed and go out. I got the names of a few fancy restaurants, but they all were booked for weeks or months in advance. I did get reservations at a place called Morton’s that is supposed to be nice. Then, after dinner, I think we will just drive around sightseeing.”

“Sounds nice.”

“It will be. It’s going to be a long drive. I plan on becoming a limousine concubine tonight.”

Jack’s eyes opened at that. “Really? That’s a new term. Is that what I think it means?”

“Uh huh. Lisa told me she became an airplane concubine when you two went to Cabo, so I want to be both an airplane concubine and a limo concubine.”

Jack nodded in understanding. On their flight to Cabo Lisa had told him she wanted the entire concubine experience while flying. It was just under three hours flying and Jack was hard put to go around the world in that time, but he managed it by the time they finished taxiing to the private aviation terminal. He suspected it would be a long and enjoyable limo ride. “Ambitious, very ambitious. I am going to need a lot of motivation to manage that.”

Maria gave him a smoldering look. “I’ll handle the motivation. You simply need to take your vitamins. Lots and lot of vitamins!”

The next few days Jack gathered slivers of the green and red crystals, some so small as to be almost invisible, but Construct assured him that each shard was augmenting his memory and power. Tuesday, Jack began working Congress, which he learned was not just the Capitol building but an entire bunch of separate buildings for the House and the Senate; the Capitol was simply too small for the 535 members of Congress and the army of staffers they had. Likewise, he was surprised to learn that some of the shards were in the possession not of Senators or Congressmen, but of senior staff members, who often had more power than their putative bosses did. Along the way Construct was giving Jack a running lesson in power politics at a national level.

“What the hell do all these people do?” asked Jack disgustedly. They were leaving the office of a chief staffer of a House committee after Jack had taken a shard the size of a grain of salt.

“You have a saying about that - ‘Your tax dollars at work.’ You must remember that your world has a far higher population than the world that the first Lords of Light inherited. This nation alone has a higher population than the entire world a thousand years ago. Your governmental structure needs to be this large and sophisticated in order to handle the requirements of a nation this large and sophisticated.”

“But this? A subcommittee of a committee of a subcaucus of a caucus of God knows what?”

“Your government has grown because of a variety of interconnected trends. When your government discovers a problem, the solution is mostly the same. First, there will be massive chaos and chatter among the populace, the news media, and the governing parties demanding that something be done immediately, if not sooner. Next will be some form of legislation that mostly just shows that your government has done something to solve the problem. That legislation will call for the creation of some sort of government program. Eventually some kind of agency or department will be created, money will be allocated, people will be hired, and regulations will be promulgated. It is incredibly inefficient, but ultimately the problem the program originally identified will be addressed. This works well because Congress can say that they are doing something but often they simply are transferring their responsibilities to either a bureaucracy or the President.”

“There has got to be a better way!” protested Jack.

Construct replied, “Winston Churchill once said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried.”

“And you want me to run this mess? I have to tell you, no way will I ever run for President!”

“That is more complicated. When the crystals came to this planet, the population was far smaller. Governmental forms were limited to some form of monarchy. Single strong man rule can be quite efficient in a system like that. If you were to attempt to become a monarch, your nation would revolt. Instead you will need to work within the current system.”

“Good luck with that!”

“Your governmental system has evolved to a point of fundamental instability. More than a few of your contemporaries have stated that the qualities necessary to run for an office are precisely the wrong qualities necessary to serve in that office. This is primarily because of the incredible expense involved in running for office, which forces your politicians to spend thirty to forty hours a week raising money for their re-election. The winners end up so flawed that your media and news organizations spend equally massive amounts of time investigating these flawed winners and focusing on their crimes, whether imagined or not. As a result, individual who are capable of effectively serving in office will refuse to run for office. Ultimately, you end up with some people in office totally unsuitable for public service,” said Construct.

“I believe it,” Jack agreed.