Chapter 10: The Pink Pussy

"Are you a jealous woman, Lucy?" Albert inquired.

"I'm sorry, sir. I don't understand."

Albert took a leisurely sip of his tea and he beckoned that Lucy move closer. Then he smiled; that oily, smarmy smile of a man that begs to be mistrusted, of a man dishonourable in matters of sex. He placed the cup on a waiting table, careful not to spill it. "There are many types of women, Lucy," he smiled broadly. "There are those who accept that men are licentious and filthy lechers, and there are those that aren't so forgiving." He stared tiredly around the room, toying with Lucy but not actually communicating anything at all. From the corner of his eye he was studying her figure and enjoying her growing consternation. "There are those who are tolerant of the peccadilloes of their men; and there are those who shut their eyes to the truth."

His eyes were flirting with old family photographs and dingy paintings hanging on the wall, and they visually caressed the clocks ticking there noisily and announcing the time. He kept talking in his slow monotonous rhythm, keeping time with the clocks, while he studied Lucy and her body, his eyes unbuttoning the buttons on her blouse: "There are girlfriends who understand that a man fucks another woman as soon as the opportunity presents itself; and there are those who call for the wrath of the Gods. So. I was wondering, Lucy; which type of woman are you?"

It was four years since Lucy had been introduced to her real father and his sexual mores. For three of those years she'd lived in his care - learning much, because her step father had been right in that Albert had a great deal to teach, but now she'd returned to live with her erstwhile parents in a more tranquil setting, and here, with them, she lived by their rules. She went to Church on a Sunday and she dressed in dour conservative clothes, but she wasn't the same woman as before. She was taller, 5 feet 10 inches in height; and she was now almost, although not quite, 22 years of age.

She sat straddled on a leather sofa with two soldiers opposing her; Albert was one of them, and the other was a Sergeant. The Sergeant was a female, a woman squeezed into an army uniform several sizes too small for her, and she had a slutty, although glamorous appearance.

Lucy knew at once that she was a torture girl, a new one, a girl who hadn't yet been told what she was in for. She undoubtedly thought that she had a glorious army career ahead of her, some heroic, dignified role.

How sad.

Albert would break her. Albert would torment her. Albert would degrade her. He would do what he did best.

Lucy frowned because her parents were out - her mother and step-father - and so was Daniel. They were all out. Lucy was alone and at the mercy of her father, and the thought made her flutter.

She sat passively as Albert's eyes finished unbuttoning her blouse. He was her father - her real father - but he always enjoyed unbuttoning her blouse. He pulled it off and stared lasciviously at Lucy's chest, and then down at her legs; his eyes distant, wayward and yet awake. He peered unapologetically at her calves and her knees, and then up mischievously under her skirt at her thighs, as if checking to see whether he could make out the skimpy outline of her panties. He smiled again, thinking his oily, smarmy thoughts and Lucy shivered with unease, for there was a sinister artfulness to this man, some creepy, nasty air that put her on edge. She knew his capacity to hurt her, to hurt anybody; and the fact that he was her father simplified nothing.

He gave her hot sweats.

"So, you have a new boyfriend," he observed slyly, still staring intently at Lucy's chest, his eyes stepping methodically along her bra strap until they arrived at the clip where they worked it open with ease.

Lucy nodded.

"So does he deserve you, my dear? Eh, Lucy? He's a soldier. He'll travel the world and he'll get horny because that's what happens to soldiers when they're alone in foreign parts. What would you think if your man picked up a woman and fucked her? Eh, Lucy? What if you discovered this girl's picture hidden inside his wallet? She's nude, her legs are parted and there's no sign of her clothes. Her finger is buried deep inside her pussy and she's beckoning that Howard should play with her sex. Would you be jealous, Lucy? Would you throw a silly tantrum and end your relationship with our noble, virile Lieutenant? Would you be done with him?"

Lucy flicked a fleck of loose dirt from her skirt. She knitted her fingers and laid her hands neatly on her lap, and yet somehow, they wouldn't stay still.

"I could handle it," she muttered tensely, ending the statement with a nervous inflection for she hadn't understood her father's motivation for this visit, and now, perhaps she did.

Albert renewed his acquaintance with his cup, lifting it languidly to his lips. He slurped the contents to the back of his throat. He swallowed, and he complimented Lucy on the quality of the tea. It was Darjeeling, he pronounced, and he coughed, holding his hand politely across his mouth, and then he shared a joke with the pretty Sergeant who sat very quietly at his side.

"Howard has been recommended to a new assignment," he smiled drolly. "An important assignment. He must be vetted, and I wondered whether you might help us, my dear."

He stared at her as he said this; examining her groin like he might if she were a whore sitting beneath the lights of an Amsterdam brothel dressed in her bra and panties, her nipples shining through her bra and her fuzz peeping through the gauze of her panties.

The fact that Lucy was his daughter had never changed Albert's behaviour towards her. He hadn't a moral qualm in his body and he treated her like he treated all his girls: like a whore.

Their first year together had been hard. Lucy had been billeted with the other cadets, and she'd been trained with them, with no special privileges to protect her from the endless fucking, and so she'd grown up fast, developing from a mawkish self-conscious schoolgirl into a dark, olive skinned seductress. Then, once she'd earned her crowns, Albert had paid for her to attend the Royal College of Music to develop her voice. As a spy she needed a genuine career to avert suspicion, some ruse to enable her to move from place to place, and since she had significant vocal talent, Albert had arranged a place at the college.

A couple of weeks later, he'd turned up unexpectedly, appearing out of nowhere as Lucy was preparing to study.

She should put on something pretty, he'd said.

He was taking her out, he'd said.

She deserved it, he'd said.

Lucy had wanted to know where they were going, but he wouldn't tell her. Instead, he thumbed through her dresses and he lifted one out. The evening was to be a surprise, he said, and so, excitedly, she'd put on the outfit and she'd prettied her face.

And it had been a surprise, although not the kind that Lucy had been expecting. To her consternation, her father had taken her to the seediest dive you could imagine, a place called the Pink Pussy at the wrong end of town. Tramps, pimps and drug pushers had been hanging around outside, and Lucy had felt anxious, for dressed in the outfit that Albert had picked out for her, she'd stood out a mile.

Inside wasn't much better. The punters had been drunk and noisy and the talent on stage was old, fat and disinterested.

"You're next," Albert had informed her as they'd sat down. "Your stage name is the Stripping Diva and you're going to strip in front of these people. Why? Because I want to see how you perform," he'd said, and she'd had no choice, for Albert was her father, and not only was he her father, but he was her superior officer and these were her orders.

Of course, in truth, striptease had always been Lucy's fantasy, and although she had no idea why this was or where it had come from, Albert had known, for he'd known Lucy's mother. He'd understood what Lucy was, what made her tick, what turned her on.

So now, with Albert sitting at the front of the Pink Pussy, watching and mentoring her; with him telling her how to move, how to touch herself, how quickly to become excited and how to reach her climax; with him knowing how to make a man feel hot and important, she was happy. Over the next six months, Albert turned her into the most brazen singing stripping machine the place had known, and she was proud of herself because Albert was proud of his daughter. He came to know her intimately, from the various features of her nipples to the bounce of her ass to the shade of her pink.

He remembered one occasion when she'd been on stage, wearing her wig and nothing else. She'd been singing 'One Fine Day' from Madame Butterfly, and demonstrating how badly she desired the attention of her American husband, ably assisted by her fan, the butt of it submerged in her cunt.

Albert remembered how Lucy had become so visibly wet during that performance that her juice had dripped down her thighs and she'd climaxed dramatically... almost melodramatically... and she'd stared at him greedily, and she'd been in need of a screw...

Albert took a long sip of his tea, wallowing in the memory of those dances at the Pink Pussy, and then he swallowed contentedly, remembering what he'd done after.

He knew everything about his daughter. Everything.

"I'm not allowed to tell you too much about the Lieutenant and his new line of work," he meandered, and his eyes roamed about the room, this time settling on the pictures of Lucy and Daniel on the mantelpiece. "I'd like to be open with you, especially as my Sergeant would appreciate your assistance, but this visit is confidential and to say more would be opaque..."

"What do you want to know?" Lucy sighed warily, and she tilted her chin and blushed because Albert was looking beneath her skirt again, like he expected her to lift it and show him her sex as she'd done so often at the Pink Pussy.

There was so much history between the two of them, so much shared memory, so much light, so much darkness and hurt. In fact, the Major was remembering the time when Lucy had protested outside the barracks with a group of political agitators, when she'd been carrying anti-war placards and chanting left-wing propaganda.

Albert had previously asked her to infiltrate a group of pompous drug fermented anti-war dropouts, and that morning, one of the guys had plied her with drink.

Soon, with the crowd pressing around her, Lucy had found herself without air and space. She was being jostled and harried, and then, in the middle of the melee, the man she'd befriended had explained to her that the press were looking for a story and he'd pointed cannily to the photographers, and he'd suggested seductively what she might do.

Suddenly, there had been a big shout and the tanks had rolled through the gates and onto the road, and Lucy's "friend" had pushed her forward, reinforcing his point, and as one, the agitators had chanted, and they'd been baying and encouraging her to strip: to take something off, to get her picture into the next day's papers, and the photographers had crowded around, clicking and taking pictures, and even though Lucy hadn't agreed to do anything, they were telling her that she must do it and take something off.

Only the one man who knew the inner Lucy could have orchestrated those events: only the Major.

He'd worked out his plans and he'd pulled the strings from a distance. He'd told his agent what to whisper and that Lucy should do something special... something to make the next day's papers, and then... when there had been a moment's pause - no longer - a second in which Lucy's upbringing and religion and her sense of caution had been swept to the wind, she'd stepped forward. She'd been drunk and drugged and not thinking clearly.

She'd done what they wanted but she'd also she'd responded to her nature; for from inside her sub-conscious, she'd heard the clicking of cameras and the buoyant applause from the agitators, and then she'd been stumbling along, tugging at her clothes and discarding them onto the road.

Her gait had been ungainly and her direction uncertain because she'd been lifting her top and lowering her skirt; and the one had been over her head while the other had been around her ankles, and there was no ladylike way to do these things whilst chasing a tank but Lucy had done her best; and then afterwards she was unhooking her bra and tugging at her panties, shuffling them down her legs while trying to maintain her humour, if not her dignity.

It was Albert who'd made her do it. He'd created the scene because of knowing her soul, her mind, her addiction; and then he'd let the events play themselves out.

She'd stopped and she'd smiled cheesily at the bequest of a friendly reporter - posing suggestively for him - and then she'd made a final athletic bound towards the tank before jumping onto it, tossing her panties to the photographers so that they might have what they wanted, a naked and glamorous and feminine Lucy; a sexy Lucy; and she'd climbed up again, higher, scrambling a toe onto the turret and tossing her left leg astride the main gun; and then she'd sunk down, her delicate parts coming to rest on the cold metal and she'd sat there at length posing for the cameras.

They'd asked her to pose as if the gun was fucking and penetrating her pussy. They'd asked her to make faces. They'd asked her to cum. It was supposed to be allegorical, they'd said, to indicate how the war was affecting the ordinary women of Iraq, but Lucy didn't buy into their politics. All she'd known about was sex and spying and religion, and there'd been a naughty smile on her face and the knowing arrogant expression of a cat that's got someone's cock tucked deeper and thicker into its cunt than nature could have possibly managed by any straightforward method, and that's the picture that had made the papers.

Lucy had rolled her hips and had made the right noises. She'd leaned back and had squeezed the gun tightly. She'd swayed provocatively and had become vocal in her shrieks, and then vociferous in them, right up to the thick gargled screams of her multiple orgasms; and the paparazzi cameras had captured it all.

Had it been real, people wanted to know the next day - the unknown readers of the cheap lurid tabloids - or had it been faked? Albert had known of course - but his lips were sealed and he wasn't telling - because he'd known every intimate detail about Lucy's character, every memory, and every nuance of desire.

He'd known such things because he was her father.

"You've known the Lieutenant for about three months, I believe?" he coughed.

Lucy nodded. "About that," she agreed.

"And your relationship is a stable one, I suppose?"

"Yes. Of course. We intend to get married."

"Isn't that hasty? If you've only known him for three months?"

Albert flashed her a tired cardboard smile, and he sipped his Darjeeling and leaned back in his chair. "Humour me, Lucy, but as your father, before we talk of romance and marriage, imagine that Howard's role is to interrogate prisoners, denying them the basics of food, water and sleep. How would you feel about that? Your first reaction, please, as his newly betrothed: tell me, would it concern you?"

Lucy looked anxious. "Yes. It would make me uneasy," she frowned, hesitant, because she was perpetually in awe of Albert. She knew him too well to be otherwise.

"But it wouldn't make you leave the Lieutenant or do anything drastic?" the Sergeant interrupted, a clipboard balanced on her lap, and it was fortunate for her modesty that she had it, for her skirt was short and neatly folded back, and without the clipboard, Lucy would have seen all the way to her crotch.

"I wouldn't leave Howard," Lucy agreed, finding another small fleck on her skirt and flicking it away. "I could never leave him. But I wouldn't want him to be unkind either... Of course not..."

"Why do you say that, Lucy? You see, in this new role, Howard's job is to be a stern disciplinarian. I mean... someone has to do that shit."

Lucy scowled. "Yes. I suppose so..."

"And you've no other boyfriends? No one you're seeing or sleeping with... ?"

"No. Of course not... You know that... There's only Howard..."

"Or girlfriends? No other girls that you fancy?"

"No!"

The Sergeant mumbled to the rhythm of Lucy's words, tutting in the right places and scribbling unintelligible text onto the white surface of her clipboard, which slipped annoyingly on her lap. "And if the prisoner was a woman?" she added. "I'm sorry to persist in this, but would that worry you at all? Or would it be the same as if she were a man?"

Lucy grabbed at a cushion and she squeezed it, playing for time. She could feel the cotton gusset between her legs becoming hot and sticky, and there was no air in the small room for her to breathe. "I'd be worried," she stuttered warily, noticing again how bizarrely short the Sergeant's skirt was and that it was neatly folded back to expose her legs and that she was wearing black stockings. Lucy noticed that there was a strange gold motif on these stockings, high on the leg, in the shape of two crowns.

What was her father up to?

"What would you be thinking if you discovered this, Miss Caldwell?" the Sergeant insisted, crossing her legs and hiding the motif. "That's what interests me. Talk me through your feelings from the beginning, from the moment you realize that Howard likes his job and he's throwing himself into it. Tell me your thoughts."

Lucy was unprepared for this conversation. Her father was challenging her choice of boyfriend as father's often do, but this was different. It was a tunnel and she was moving through it at speed and she didn't know why. "My thoughts?" she mouthed anxiously.

"Yes, Miss Caldwell. Your thoughts."

It wasn't a real tunnel, of course, but something unseen and dark and claustrophobic that resembled a tunnel; something horrible and infested without any end.

The pretty Sergeant uncrossed her legs and Lucy was sure that she'd seen a flash of black minge above and beyond the two crowns, but then the Sergeant's legs snapped shut and ruined that picture, and Lucy was left gaping at the triumph on the pretty Sergeant's face, and she knew that she hadn't imagined it, and that she had seen the Sergeant's Sharon Stone, and that was why her skirt was folded back to the top of her legs...

"Lucy? Are you listening to me? Shall I repeat the question?"

"No, no. There's no need," Lucy mumbled hurriedly, staring dumbly into the tunnel and seeing a faint light in the distance. "I understand where you're coming from." She coughed warily: nervously. "You want to know if it were a woman that Howard was questioning, would I be worried that he might like her - sexually, I mean - the woman. Is that right?"

The Sergeant was writing this all down very carefully; and Lucy was digging a hole that was becoming deeper and broader and longer. She wanted to invent something but she couldn't with Albert there because he would spot a lie in an instant and he would punish her for it... or worse... Oh God. She stammered: "It doesn't seem right that Howard should be interrogating a woman... It isn't correct in this day and age... and a woman should be doing it, shouldn't she, if the prisoner is a woman; by rights?"

"A woman?"

"Yes. I was thinking that the interrogator should be a woman..."

"A woman such as yourself, perhaps, Lucy?"

"No! I didn't mean that... No! Not me!"

"Why ever not?" the Sergeant demanded. "I would have thought that you would have been perfect for the role. You could save Howard from temptation... Isn't that what you Christians do? Save people?"

"I couldn't! Honestly!"

"Imagine that the woman is naked and tied to a bed frame - imagine, Lucy, that Howard is interrogating her. She's crying and accusing him of having tortured her... of raping her... Listen to her and having listened to her account, how do you feel? Is she lying or do you believe her?"

"No. I mean... I don't believe her! Why would I?"

"Because it's the truth... There is evidence marking her flesh, Lucy. It's on her tits and her belly. Look at her! She's covered in burns..."

"No! I don't see it. I trust Howard..."

It was airless and Lucy was transferred to the tunnel and its rats and she could hear them echoing in the distance. The pin prick of hope had been snuffed out and she was isolated and alone, and she was imagining the poor naked woman tied to a bed frame and convulsing and screaming upon it. The poor sod was pale and skinny and she had undersized breasts and a tuft of loose hair at the top of her legs, and she had a long slit that bisected it in the middle; and Howard was in the room and he was alongside her. He had a packet of cigarettes in his hands and he was smoking one, stubbing the end on the woman's white flesh, doing so slowly so as to enjoy each one of her screams.

"Let's imagine this woman's clothes are on the floor," the young Sergeant persisted, continuing her attack in the face of Lucy's obstinate denial. "Some are discarded, others are torn and they're twisted and inside out. You can make out the woman's panties and her bra and stockings in separate locations on the floor, and you realise that Howard must have done it because it's the only logical conclusion. There's no one else there. He's gone berserk. He's lost his cool and he's savaged her clothes. The stockings are shredded; the bra straps are cut; the panties are torn... You see scratch marks on the woman's breasts and genitals... and bite marks too. Don't look at me like that, Lucy! You know that it's what happens in these establishments. It's our job! Depriving a lady of her clothes and roughing her up is how we soften her for questioning, and unless it's done indelicately we don't get the results. The procedures are agreed and approved - so don't get righteous and judgemental."

Lucy couldn't stand the confinement. The room was pressing in on her and there was a screaming in her temples. It was Albert: her father.