I racked my brain at my desk the next day. ((Where the hell do I go from here?))
‘…Bring you now a breaking story about one Santa Virginia prostitution ring’s attempts to create an illegal brothel downtown, minutes away from the family-friendly shopping district of Balboa Hills…’ My head swiveled towards Sergeant Detective Fred Tiernan to hear more clearly the news report he was listening to on his phone. ‘…sparking fears that children may be lured into their sex trafficking rings. Now on the scene of the Torrey Pines Hotel is Fochs News correspondent Harry Dickson.’
‘Good morning, Gerry, it is a beautiful Monday morning in Santa Virginia, California, and I am standing in front of the not-so-beautiful Torrey Pines Hotel on Adams Avenue, a building that has seen better days on a street notorious for its Red-Light District, where a human chain of criminals and prostitutes is attempting to prevent the renovation of the rundown hotel.’
‘Harry, could you tell us why the hotel is set to be demolished?’
‘Of course. The derelict hotel, not even fit to be called a “fixer-upper”, was recently purchased by property development firm Gunther and Sampson with the aim of restoring the neighborhood to the opulent glory of its distant past, back when men were gentlemen and women were ladies. The neighborhood is to be rezoned, and all the properties replaced with high-rise luxury residential buildings, which are expected to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars into the city’s economy and jumpstart the local tech sector with an influx of affluent STEM professionals and businesses who are expected to bring millions to the city’s coffers and invest tens of millions more into local businesses, such as Starbucks coffee shops and Amazon.’
‘Why not simply renovate the hotel?’
‘Well, the structure, as I have said, is derelict. The wiring is not up to code, the rooms are too big, it hasn’t been rated for earthquakes, there’s no Wi-Fi to speak of, and we have been informed by the city’s Department of Environmental Health that there is asbestos— “a substance known to the state of California to cause cancer”, as the locals like to say—’ Both newsmen laugh. ‘—there is asbestos falling out of the walls and ceiling. The city has acknowledged that the building is a public health hazard that needs to go.’
‘And what are the prostitutes demanding?’
‘The hotel is notorious for hosting their sordid activities, and we have been informed by police that it has been functioning as a sort of headquarters in their efforts to legalize immoral and unnatural extramarital behavior, and indoctrinate vulnerable children into their cult of indecency. They wish to continue using the hotel for these indecent purposes in spite of widespread opposition to their efforts to rebrand their criminal enterprise as a “legitimate business”.’
‘That is very concerning, Harry. What is the city doing to address a moral crisis that is threatening to cripple the city’s economic growth, destroy loving marriages, set a precedent for tolerating immorality that will spread throughout the nation, and corrupt our children’s sacred bodies and eternal souls?’
‘A source on the scene has stated that the homicide unit of the Santa Virginia Police Department has dispatched a detective along with a Crime Scene Investigation team to investigate a “blood pool” inside the hotel. We have been unable to get ahold of the officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Andrea Bachman, for an explanation as to why she is investigating a few specks of blood in a building that has already been condemned, thus delaying its demolition, so vital to public health.’
‘Are you telling us that Detective Andrea Bachman is actively hindering the demolition of a den of misery and sin?’
‘That would appear to be the case, Gerry, though sources within the department have informed us that the Vice Unit is gearing up for a raid, though the unit is notorious for being slow to react to emergencies. Our sources explain that the unit’s First Precinct squad has had its funding cut several times over the past decade, and many have alleged mismanagement.’
‘That is unfortunate, Harry, but I have faith in our boys in blue.’
‘As do I, Gerry. Harry Dickson, signing off.’
‘Also happening in Santa Virginia, the same detective investigating a tiny blood spot in the Torrey Pines Hotel in Santa Virginia, Detective Andrea Bachman, is also investigating the disappearance of Alexander Brookvale, the city’s most notorious antifa, considered by numerous experts an America-hating terrorist, who was last seen Wednesday morning. Detective Bachman has so far ignored our requests for comment, and it is unknown whether she has a secret liberal agenda, or even… possible antifa sympathies. We interviewed several of her fellow officers anonymously and every one of them was shocked that one of their own would attempt to rescue a criminal agent of chaos who stands in the way of the very Constitution she has sworn to protect and the law and order she has sworn to uphold. Next up on Fochs News, another substance known to the State of California turns out to be not-so-harmful: a groundbreaking study by the Heritage Foundation has discovered that, contrary to what liberals want you to think, lead is not in fact hazardous to children but is rather an essential dietary mineral critical to the suppression of gender and homosexuality in school-age children. Leading health experts including Doctor Oz and Robert F. Kennedy, Junior have therefore proposed that the essential mineral should be added to drinking water in place of fluoride…’
Every hair on my body stood tall throughout the entirety of both of the reports that had mentioned me. I had made national news. Conservative national news. The conservative national news every other blue blood in the country watched religiously. And every one of my coworkers had known I was on both cases since the day I took the oath. I looked around the squad room. No-one was looking at me.
((Maybe the rest of them missed the news reports. Maybe only a few of them know what I’ve been up to. Or maybe they’re waiting for me to make my next move.))
((Regardless, I have a mission, and I’m running out of time. I can’t keep fucking around trying to determine with absolute certainty who did it, I need to just skip to figuring out where they took him.))
((I need to start playing hard and fast with the facts. I need to start making guesses.))
((Who had a reason to kidnap Alex? Everyone. But… how did they do it? They took him into the Torrey Pines. Who had access to the hotel? Gunther and Sampson. And where did they take him after they beat him up in the hotel? Somewhere else they had access, of course. Another one of their properties. An unused property—either abandoned or waiting for a tenant. Remote, rundown, inconspicuous.))
((I might finally have a lead… Took me long enough.))
I SecreTexted Diane to ask her:
Pause.
Pause.
I scheduled a surprise appointment with Plaut, bought a strawberry cheesecake from the nearest Hangar Foods, grabbed a plastic fork from my desk, and was back just in time to see him.
“Um—Detective…” asked his assistant on my way in, “are you planning on giving him that cake?”
“Of course not, giving a gift to a superior would be inappropriate. I just wanted to have a snack while we talked. As you can see, I’m fat, and fat people like to eat vast quantities of food.”
“Oh… kay…” She let him know I was here, then cleared me to go in.
“Andrea, how can I help you today?” He was no doubt annoyed that I was visiting him on short notice without having given him a reason for it, but not so inconvenienced as to be irritated, no, not bothered in the slightest, as was made obvious by him very cordially referring to me by my first name… which indicated, to my surprise, that he and I were on friendlier terms than I had previously thought. Far friendlier. I had a feeling this was going to be a breeze.
I placed the cake on the floor and popped off the lid.
“Andrea…” He stood and leaned over his desk. “What exactly are you… doing with… that?” But the look in his eyes, previously simple confusion, told me he had a very good idea of what I was about to do to him with that cake. And as I took off my shoes and socks and cuffed my pants, he knew for certain the beautiful agony I was about to inflict upon him.
I balanced on my left foot and planted my right on the cake, being careful not to squish it yet.
“(Ohhhh…)” he groaned quietly.
I brushed the cake in sensual circles with my big toe, caressing it like a partner’s chest, spreading around the strawberry topping and getting some of it on my big toe.
“(Ahhh-haghhh-haghhh…)” His pleased gurgling fluttered as he bent all the way over his desk—ass up, like he was ready for a paddling—to get a better view.
I gently poked the cake, then pulled back to reveal the impression left by my toe.
“(Nnnggghhh…)” he moaned as he loosened his tie.
I splayed out my piggies and pressed them all in, creating more indentations and extruding strawberry stuff between them, then artfully raked them backwards, leaving behind long, shallow gouges and streaks of topping.
“(Hmmmmmmmm…)”
I pressed the ball of my foot into the cake and slowly sank it in, deeper and deeper, distorting the cake’s roundness just noticeably with the weight of my corpulence.
“(Hah—ah—hah…)” To my great satisfaction, he was now gently humping his desk.
I lowered my heel and pushed it down halfway, causing the cheese to splay out around it, and the cake to bulge at its edges.
“(Ahhhmmmggghhhaaahhh…)” His voice trembled with delicious, agonizing anticipation.
“Before I go any further, I need you to do me a favor.”
“(Hah… Ahh… Hah…) Anything… (Hah… Ahh… Hah…)” he moaned pathetically between pants.
“I want Intelligence to give me a report of all unoccupied or abandoned buildings in the city along with the title owner, current tenant, market value, square footage, business purpose, and purchase date.”
“It’s all yours…” He yearned for the sight and sound of my milky skin caressing the cheesy dessert.
I sank my right heel the rest of the way down, and he moaned in satisfaction. I shifted my weight and placed my other foot on the cake and started to repeat this process, but halfway in flicked my foot outwards, tearing and smearing and flinging chunks of the cake, causing his whining to rise in pitch—
“(Haah—haah—aah-haa!)”
I continued aggressively mashing and spreading the cake until it was unrecognizable, getting it all over his carpet as he continued to grunt and moan and whine in ecstasy, until there was no more cheesecake left on the tray, the whole of it having been spread across the room—
At which point I began grinding chunks into the piles of the carpet, staining and soiling his office while he whined and howled in delight.
As soon as there was no more clean carpet to stain, I stopped stepping, and he stopped making noises, other than panting and a satisfied ‘(oh)’. He pulled out his handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his brow.
I walked around behind his desk, pulled his chair out, and sat in it. “Kneel.” He obeyed, and I extended a cheese-caked foot. “You know what to do.”
He crawled towards me, as much like a worm as he could while on his hands and knees, and timidly licked my big toe, then, little-by-little, more and more aggressively. He wrapped his fingers around my foot and plunged the toe into his mouth.
I slapped his hand. “No hands. Only mouth.” He let go and bobbed his head up and down, sucking my toes and licking between them like my foot was a five-headed cock, grunting and moaning in pleasure while I held back tickle-giggles. Once my toes were clean, he leaned on his elbows so that his mouth could reach the bits of cheesecake sticking to my sole. After the whole foot was clean, I lifted the other to his face, and he repeated the process of greedily sucking and licking until it was clean. “What do we say when Mistress lets you have some cheesecake?”
“Thank you Mistress!” he said with a big, stupid grin.
I got up and gave him a smile and a pet on the head. “Good boy. Remember, Intel search—unoccupied or abandoned buildings, title holders, tenants, market values, square footage, business purposes, purchase dates. And… Can you have them handle my request ASAP? Drop whatever they’re working on, make my job their top priority.”
He plopped down in his chair and caught his breath. “As you wish, Mistress. I mean—” He shifted back into his professional voice. “—of—of course, Detective.” A pleased sigh escaped his throat as he leaned back and gave into the temptations of relaxing and smiling and giggling and letting his eyes droop in exhausted satisfaction.
I put my shoes back on and left him to take care of the mess on his floor.