Page 5 of Master Class

“You’ll be doing a great service for your country,” The Congressman became elusive. There was a twitch at the corner of his eye.

“Why? Is he a danger?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“Politically.”

“In what way?”

Jansing sighed with exasperation, and then spoke as if he were talking to a child, explaining something far beyond their comprehension. “About eight months ago, Edge’s business partner, Anna Wilkinson, was kidnapped. She just went missing,” the Congressman began, guarding his words and measuring each of them carefully. “Edge believes she was taken and sold into sex slavery. He got mad. He formed a private group, which he runs. The group is made up of other former military personnel. They hunt sex traffickers. He’s searching for his friend.”

“And that makes him a danger?”

“Yes. To the careful status quo of checks and balances that go into maintaining a thriving political system, and sustaining the men who run it.”

Clarissa narrowed her eyes. Through the double-speak, the Congressman was hinting that there were powerful men in Washington who wanted Nick Edge stopped, lest he uncover their own nefarious connections to the dark sex trafficking trade. Clarissa had no doubt that men of power would have dirt on their hands, and the whiff of scandal had the mightiest of them scared and ducking for cover. She let the Congressman’s reply pass without comment and instead changed tack.

“Why would he even look twice at someone like me?”

At last the Congressman smiled. He grinned deviously. It was the moment to reveal the neat perfection of his plan, and he paused for a moment to savor the sensation. “Because you are the exact double of his missing business partner,” he revealed. “The resemblance is absolutely uncanny. That’s why I bought your virginity. You look like the twin to Anna Wilkinson who was sold into slavery.”

Clarissa blinked in shock. The procession of her arranged thoughts and questions suddenly tumbled into fragments. “Are you serious?”

“Deadly,” the Congressman chose the word deliberately. “You look exactly like her – and that’s going to be your key into his world.”

“His world?”

“Yes.” Jansing slowly rubbed his hands together like he could make fire from his fingertips. “Edge has become a BDSM Master. Do you know what that means?”

Clarissa nodded her head. She had discovered her own peculiar kink for the fantasy of submission. “Yes.”

The Congressmen looked mildly surprised. He hadn’t expected the girl to be one for fetishes. She looked too Sunday-school prim and perfect.

“He trains women who want to submit to him. He started doing it about six months ago as a way to better understand the minds of the sex-traffickers he is hunting – some cowboy jargon about knowing your enemy,” he waved his hand flippantly. “At the moment he doesn’t have anyone…”

“And you want me to go to him and ask him to train me?”

“Yes. Then I want you to let him fuck you.”

“But what makes you think he will want me?”

“I know he will,” the Congressman tapped his temple gently with the tip of his finger. “Because I know how Edge thinks. He’ll see you and instantly make the connection to his missing sex-slave partner. He’ll have to take you in. The instinct to protect you will influence him.”

“And if he doesn’t act the way you expect?”

“Then you tell him you are worried about putting yourself into the hands of some stranger – some predator. He’s a man of morals. He won’t be able to let you take the same risks that his partner took.”

“This Anna girl…” Clarissa said slowly, “was she into the BDSM lifestyle?”

Jansing shrugged dismissively, as though the matter was irrelevant. “Who fucking cares?” The short fuse of his temper had reached its threshold. “You just keep your mind on what you’re expected to do; lay on your back and let Nick Edge fuck you.”

Abruptly, the Congressman got out of the chair and began pacing around the room. He had his hands thrust into the pockets of his pants, his head bowed and his shoulders hunched. He seemed suddenly plunged deep into thought. Clarissa watched him for several minutes, and once again she was overcome by the eerie feeling that she was being stalked by a predator, waiting for its moment to strike.

“I still don’t understand how some photos of me having sex with this man will make any difference,” she said into the long tense silence. “So what?”

The Congressman seemed not to hear her. He finished pacing to the windows then stopped suddenly.

“There will be no way of knowing when your photos were taken,” he pointed out. “They might have been taken before his partner disappeared. Hell, they might even be of him and his partner having sex together. At least they are the questions I will ensure are asked by the media. The scandal of a sexual relationship with this woman would be the ruin of him… and will be enough explanation to quell any ideas about searching for the girl. Suddenly her kidnapping into the underground sex-slave trade becomes, instead, a story about a lover’s breakup, and the girl fleeing to parts unknown to start a new life…”

Clarissa shook her head. “So what? You have photos of a man and a woman having sex and it looks like Edge is sleeping with his business partner…” she shrugged her shoulders. “That’s hardly scandalous these days.”

“It is if the company they both run is designed to help wayward kids, and if that benevolent organization is largely funded by churches and other religious Christian groups who see Edge as some kind of new-age saint. His backers couldn’t stand for such a scandal and still continue to maintain their public support. Edge would lose their donation money, and access to their networks. He’d be shamed into ruin.”

Clarissa felt herself overcome with the enormity of the scheme she was unwittingly being dragged into. She was to play a part in the downfall of a man.

“How will I contact you?”

“I’ll have a burner phone delivered. Use that if you need to reach me.”

“A burner?”

“Pre-paid and pre-programmed with my direct cell number.”

Clarissa nodded, then asked the question that mattered to her most. “And what becomes of me?” she wondered in a small voice.

“Wonderful things,” the Congressman suddenly smiled benevolently. “You’ll have a very expensive haircut, a new color and a makeover. And you’ll need them too… for the job that’s waiting for you in Los Angeles at the Party’s Californian office.”

That was it. It was all arranged, down to the smallest detail. The Congressman had

plotted the demise of this man, and manipulated all the pieces on the board so that escape was impossible. It was just a matter of toppling the king with an unexpected move that the victim could never see coming.

Jansing spent another hour in the penthouse, arranging specific clothes for Clarissa to wear, and a driver to escort her to the home of Nick Edge the following morning. He left her in the room for the night with his secret service agent guarding the door.

A car was parked and waiting for him outside the hotel, a driver standing obediently by the back door, holding it open. The Congressman got into the vehicle without a sideways glance and settled himself into the dark seclusion.

“To your residence, sir?” the driver asked when he got behind the wheel.

The Congressman looked up, distracted and drawn from his brooding thoughts. He frowned. “Yes,” he said. “Take me home. It’s been a long day.”

The house was a two-story brownstone in one of Washington’s most exclusive suburbs. Congressman Jansing stepped out of the car as it pulled to the curb, and another secret service agent appeared from the shadows by the front steps. He greeted the Congressman with a deferential nod of his head. The car pulled away, back into light traffic.

“Evening, sir.”

“Agent, Kline.”

“Pleasant day, sir?”

The Congressman gave an oily smile. “It’s always a pleasure to serve the people of America. You know that.”

The agent retreated back into the shadows, and the Congressman went up the steps to his front door. He glanced at his watch. It was almost 10 pm.

There was no one to greet the Congressman when he entered the house, though the maid service had left a cooked meal for him on the stove. He set his briefcase down on the kitchen table.

There were eighteen messages on his voicemail. He listened to them distractedly while shuffling through the mail. His chief-of-staff rang him on his cell phone, and they spoke for several minutes before Jansing abruptly cut the call short. He hung up and went deeper into the house until he reached the door beneath the stairs.

---