Clive Bedford - Mistress of torment

However, there was nothing wrong with his instincts, or his training. He walked down the stairs into the underground station, bought a ticket for a long journey, and went down the escalator to the platform. He let two trains go by, and noticed that a stout man in a fawn raincoat did the same. Someone was tailing him! When the third train came to the platform. Gerry stood well back, keeping the corner of his eyes on the man who was reading a newspaper. At the very last moment, just as the automatic doors began to close, Gerry ran forward, put both hands between the closing doors and pulled hard. With an effort he squeezed through, and had the satisfaction of seeing the man in the raincoat dash his paper to the platform and stand there, swearing. Maybe Dodds had put a tail on him, or maybe it was someone else. Whoever it was would be disappointed. Gerry had no intention of either being nurse-maided, or of being foiled in his work before he had started. He got out at the next station and took a cab to the Westland Hotel.

Without announcing himself either at the desk or on the house phone, Gerry went right up to Room 128 and pressed the buzzer. The door opened a crack, then wider and a warm, seductive voice said, "Come in Sergeant Glasner. I have been expecting you!"

Instinctively Gerry stood for a few seconds, studying the American girl, and from what he saw he felt that this job would have certain compensations, even if he ended up in the morgue, wearing a strange metal chastity belt! Sonia Evans was worth spending a few seconds – or several hours – studying in detail! She was tall and very beautiful, with a breath-taking figure. The black leather trouser-suit she wore showed off every detail of her magnificent body to perfection. It was a moment before Gerry could reply.

"Here's my identity card," he said. "May I see yours please?"

"Come right in," said Sonia. "Here it is!"

They exchanged cards and stood inspecting them gravely. Gerry held the girl's card in his right hand, checking the photograph. It was all in order, but as his thumb rubbed over the edges of the photo, something odd stirred at the back of his mind. He looked again more carefully, checking the descriptions in detail.

NAME: Sonia Evans.

NATIONALITY: United States Citizen.

AGE: 22 years 4 months.

BIRTHPLACE: St. Louis, Miss.

HAIR: Black.

EYES: Large, dark brown.

COMPLEXION: Pale.

NOSE: Straight.

HEIGHT: 5 foot 10 inches. (Tall for a girl, but she looked taller.)

Gerry's eyes traversed that glorious body noting the full, generous breasts, the incredibly tiny waist, the zip-fronted crotch – surely that was a small lock that closed the zipper? And at last his gaze fell on Sonia's feet and rested there. She was wear in black shiny boots, laced tight to below the knee, with sharp, pointed toes and the most incredibly high heels he had ever seen in his life – and working around Soho, he bad seen quite a few pairs of high-heeled boots in his time! That was why she seemed taller than her description! That was why she towered over his own six-foot height!

His uneasiness faded. There had been some thin wrong – and that was it. The girl looked far too tall for her description. Nothing more than that. A small detail, but in noticing it he showed himself that his instincts were still alert. But not quite as alert as he believed!

He handed back her identity card and took his own.

"We destroy them both now," said Sonia, in the deep, seductive voice that gave Gerry goose-pimples every time she spoke. She walked across the sitting room and took a gas lighter from the table. She held one corner of her identity card in the flame and, when it kindled, put it carefully into the large ashtray. The card smoked and flared until it was a heap of ashes. Sonia stirred the ashes with the base of the lighter, crushing them to powder.

"Your turn," she said. For an instant, some warning voice inside Gerry's brain said it was unfortunate that he could not look at that card just once more. He dismissed the thought and came beside Sonia to destroy his own card. When it too was reduced to black powder, the girl took the ashtray into another room and Gerry heard the sound of the toilet flushing. Obviously she knew her security!

She came back, striding swiftly and purposefully to answer the phone. She stood with her back to Gerry.

"It's not important now," she said. "Goodbye." She replaced the receiver. "They've lost one of my dresses in the cleaners," she said. "I'll have to let it go." Why was it that, into Gerry's mind came a sudden vision of a heavy man in a fawn raincoat?

"What's the drill?" he asked. "What do we do? How do we start?"

Sonia said, "Sit down. I'll fix you a drink." And when Gerry began to protest about "Not drinking on duty," she smiled so that at the sight of it his entrails seemed to turn to water inside him!

"This is a different kind of duty, Sergeant," she said. "I have a feeling you're going to need a drink. What'll it be? Scotch?" Gerry nodded, and the girl poured him a large Scotch on the rocks and handed it to him.

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When she, too, sat down, it seemed to Gerry as though a queen had seated herself on her throne. The chair was large, with arms and a high back, and while Sonia was not fat or overweight she was a big girl, so that she filled the chair, sitting with her back straight, not touching the chair-back. She crossed one leg over the other and sat, lightly swinging the upper foot. Gerry's fascinated gaze was upon that sharp tip – and suddenly, unbidden, came into his mind the wonder what it would feel like to kiss it, to feel the sharp stiletto heel grinding mercilessly into his genitals! He raised his eyes, and was aware of Sonia's sardonic smile; he knew that she understood his thoughts, and he flushed.

"We start here," said Sonia, "and now!"

"How can we start here?"

"I have all our instructions detailed in writing," replied the girl.

"I'll let you see them before we… start. But briefly, this is what is required. The previous agents have discovered that, for some reason the Andromedans… the, er… extra-terrestrial people, are attracted to what we know as 'perverse' people. You must realize that our information has been gathered carefully now for almost ten years, not merely on the reports, of the seven agents who have been executed."

"Executed?" asked Gerry. "That's a strange word!"

"From their point of view… executed. From ours, of course, murdered!"

"We'd better continue to look at things from our viewpoint," snapped Gerry. "Otherwise we'll get confused… What was that name you used for the… creatures?"

"Andromedans."

"Andromedans?"

"Yes."

"Is that our name for them, or their own?"

"Ours, of course."

"Meaning we believe they come from the nebula in Andromeda?"

"It could be." Sonia waved the idea aside impatiently. "It's not important. We have to call them something. 'Andromedans' is as good a name as any other, until we know better. The important thing is that the ones who reach Earth seem always to be attracted to 'perverse' people, and to no others."

"That must limit their field of operations!" said Gerry, grimly.

"Not so much as you might think," smiled Sonia. "I am told that in America and Britain it is estimated that one adult in five is actively 'perverse', and about four and a half in five are psychically perverse, in that they fantasize about perversions, or what are called perversions anyway. You, for instance, are psychically perverse!"

"I beg your pardon!" Gerry was suddenly angry, his face red.

"Just now, you were thinking extremely perverse thoughts about my boots, weren't you?"

"Well… yes… maybe… But how do you know that?"

"It was written all over your face!" Sonia laughed lightly. "You're potentially perverse at present. Before we set out to find the Andromedans… you have to be actually, dynamically perverse before we can interest them in us!"