Hall of Mirrors

It started when I was paged, although I didn’t know it at the time. I probably should have. I’d been trained, and besides, who gets paged anymore? Just call my cell! But I jumped up from breakfast and ran over to the front desk, and all I got was a dial tone.

****

I was up early for the first tracks. Skiing’s the best when you have the clean snow all to yourself, and this was going to be a classic day in the Rockies — cold, crisp, and clear, with a nice thick layer of overnight powder. It was windless this early, unless you count the biting headwind from skiing really fast. I’d grown up near here, and if there’s one thing I can do competently, it’s slide down a hill. I was used to leaving most other skiers behind, but apparently, today was going to be different. A blond in an electric blue racing suit had appeared from nowhere and was hanging with me.

It’s fairly common, when you’re skiing with guys, to get into little unacknowledged competitions. You go a little faster, find some tougher terrain, see who wobbles first. I’d never had a girl chase me down like this one. I’m sure plenty of them could, but typically not the ones you find skiing casually on a weekend morning at a big resort. So I turned it on and tried to shake her. It didn’t work; the trail was too easy. I finally found a steep, bumpy part and carved some good turns. She hung with me for a minute but then went across the trail, so I tried to put some distance between us before we met again. Then I glanced across the trail just in time to see her launch herself off a crest and sail thirty yards through the air in a perfect tuck, landing slightly ahead of me with an annoying ‘thwack!’

Message received.

We traded positions a few times, totally ignoring each other of course, and arrived at the lift line together. We fetched up side by side. Out of breath, I just said “Hey!”

“Good morning! Still waking up?” Big grin. She was hardly breathing at all.

****

Her name was Jana. She had a charming little accent, enormous blue eyes, high cheekbones, and a perfect athlete’s body with highly-developed skiing muscles. She had a perma-grin. Implausibly, she seemed interested in me, which was surprising because she was way too cute. But she must have put a hand on my forearm five times as we laughed our way up the lift.

At the top she hopped off and skied right up to me, stopping face to face with her skis outside mine, grinning mischievously. It was unusual. Normally, you talk side-by-side so it’s easy to push off again. This position seemed oddly sexual. She was close, straddling my skis, with the crotch of her skin-tight suit right over my upturned ski tips. She had to be aware.

“Ready? Let’s do Death Spiral!” She bolted off. “I’ll wait at the bottom!” she called over her shoulder.

We were off.

****

Of course we had lunch together.

We introduced and filled in our bios. She was the daughter of immigrant parents who had moved to the States when she was fifteen. Before that she’d lived in Czechia and skied in Austria, sort of like living in New York and skiing in Vermont, but with actual mountains. Now she lived and worked near D.C. and was pursuing an advanced degree at night. She was Miss Enthusiasm, one of those people who seem happy about everything.

I asked who she worked for.

“…. I’m in government,” she said. “DHS.”

“Really? You’re a fed too? Doing what?”

“… Nothing important. It’s my first year. I’m one step above a summer intern.” She smiled so ruefully I couldn’t pursue it. “How about you? You’re in government too?”

Something about meeting cute girls brings out the worst in me. I tried to impress her. “Yup. I’m with the Diplomatic branch of the State Department. My first rotation was two years in Islamabad, and next week I’m headed for Prague.”

“Really? You’ll love Prague!… How was Pakistan, though?”

“Not great. You can only go out in groups, with guards, and curfew starts right after work. We never send any women there anyway, of course. You do get a free handgun and self-defense lessons. But it was a good post, career-wise.”

“It must be competitive! How’d you get it?”

“I have an uncle in the Department,” I admitted. “He got me into a hot-spot embassy so I wouldn’t be stamping visas for a living.”

“Mr. Bond, James Bond? How nice to meet you!” We shook. She giggled. “What’s your portfolio?”

“Non-proliferation, actually.” That was the sexy part, anyway.

“You mean like, back-pack bombs?”

An uneasy feeling started to creep into in the back of my mind. Everyone knows that in Pakistan, the usual non-proliferation issues are urgent. The Pakistani military has plenty of nukes on hair trigger, mostly aimed at India. But I had done some work in a slightly different area: miniature atomic devices. Mini-nukes are a major concern in the third world. Small enough bombs would be deliverable anonymously, by car or home-brewed missile. Non-attributable weapons, like ex-pat assassinations or hacking attacks, are a problem when the only defense is the threat of retaliation.

So I’d been trained to watch for questions about my work. Part of State Department rookie induction, even for diplomats, is a quick course on intelligence and counter-intelligence — how to extract information, but also how to tell if you’re a target. It might seem farfetched for a youngster like me to be targeted. I didn’t have that much to spill. Yet. But I was inexperienced and single, and I had a diplomatically sensitive career ahead of me, so I’d been told I was a prospect. And as a recruiter, Jana seemed custom-tailored for me.

Of course she might have figured out that miniaturized nukes were a hot issue all by herself. It’s logical, once you think about it. But that would be pretty perceptive for a civilian. So after lunch I told her I had to make some calls, and she went back on the slopes while I had a precautionary talk with Uncle Mike.

****

Mike had always been my guardian angel. The help with my career was just one example. He said he was glad I called.

“I realize it’s probably nothing,” I said. “I just want to be careful and — you know, show I’m paying attention.”

He seemed slightly amused, but interested, too. “No, no,…. good for you, Dave. You can’t be too careful. Your career could be stunted if you associate with the wrong people, especially without reporting. But this is interesting. Let me think for a minute….. Actually, you know, you should talk to my buddy Ralph. He’s FBI, in domestic counter-intel. He’ll know what to do.”

“What if it’s nothing, though? Won’t I seem alarmist?”

“I’ll tell him you’re just a new guy being cautious. He’ll understand. I’ve known him for years and we’ve worked on a bunch of stuff together. He’s good. He’ll give you a call on your Department phone after I’ve talked to him. Just do exactly what he says, OK?”

That was the second step on my trip down the hall of mirrors.

****

Ralph called a few minutes later. I told him my suspicions. “She’s at least an 8, which seems way too cute for her to be pursuing me, frankly. Her parents are Czechs. And then there was the page call.” I described the breakfast hang-up. “That could have been how she identified me, and after that she must have followed me up the lift and down the slope. She came up from behind me even though I was going pretty fast, we got into a little race, and by lunch I was fielding questions about mini-nukes, which just happens to be the most sensitive area I’ve worked in.”

Ralph seemed like a classic spook, rough-edged, smart and guarded, but he was surprisingly receptive to my concerns. “I’ll look at her Homeland Security file, but an 8 sounds about right. No one sends 10s anymore; they’re too easy to make. The call, the meeting, the questions… they’re innocuous taken separately, but together, they’re pretty coincidental. And it’s interesting that she deflected your question about her position. The fact that she may have a DHS security clearance means that if she’s a problem, she could be a big one. I think we should follow up. Let’s check her out.”

“I’m just a desk jockey. What should I do?”

“If she’s Russian, her tradecraft will be excellent. Frankly, an untrained guy like you won’t be able to sniff her out, and I don’t want you scaring her off. So we’ll stick to the basics. First, stay in contact. Keep talking. Pal around. Second, try to get her contact information, especially her cell and email. Third, don’t under any circumstances make her suspicious! In fact, feel free to feed her some tidbits. If you seem like a potential source it will keep her interested. Mike doesn’t think you know enough to be dangerous anyway, and information often flows both ways in these situations; the trick is to contain the outbound amounts and let us help you sneak in some disinformation down the road.”

“The fact that she got onto nukes with me so quickly actually seemed kind of amateurish.”

“Maybe. But didn’t you tell her you were leaving in a week?”

“Oh…. you mean maybe she thought she had to work fast.”

“So we need to know more. You should try to reconnect and keep engaging with her while we check her out at his end. And keep me posted! That’s an order.”

****

The slopes were pretty crowded now, and I had no idea how to find her. But I wasn’t that worried. She’d found me once, and if she was on a mission, I was willing to bet she could do it again. So I just went skiing.

I did the steeps at the top, and then stopped at my favorite lift, a slow little double that goes all the way back up. In the lift line I got to talking with an old guy who spent summers skiing in Chile. I remember remarking on his extremely savage tan when I suddenly found myself looking up at clear blue sky. A knot of people was gathered around, looking down at me with worried expressions.

“What happened?” asked someone a long way off who sounded vaguely like me.

Savage Tan was crouching next to me. “That girl came in hot. She looked like she was trying to bury you, but she lost her edge.”

I looked sideways. My neck hurt. My head hurt. There was Jana, on the ground too, still smiling, but sheepishly. “Sorry, Dave…. ”

****

There are lots of ways to meet people, but injuring them turns out to be particularly effective. You can accompany them to the clinic, acting remorseful and caring, and wait around for the concussion assessment, and then you can follow them back to their room and say you owe them a drink. Then you change into something cute and bring some non-alcoholic, concussion-friendly drinks to their room, and then you offer to buy them dinner, during which you can ask them about all kinds of things, coincidentally including their politics and their next assignment. Then you can walk back to your rooms together and say you’re really sorry but in a way you’re glad because you had a nice time getting to know each other, and you stand a little close, rest your fingertips lightly on the side of their hip, and wait. Pretty good tradecraft.

I said I’d had a nice time too, concussion aside, and spent a moment at my door with her wondering what to do. Then I kissed her on the cheek and closed the door, because I was still mad. It was impossible that such a fucking awesome skier would try such a juvenile stunt, much less screw it up. Trying to spray snow on people in a lift line with a last-minute hockey stop is the clichéd stupid beginner trick, something you would never, ever do after years of skiing. Plus, just happening to find me again so fast, on a mountain packed with skiers?

It had been intentional.

****

I called Ralph again and said the game was afoot. He still seemed to be weighing the odds.

“Well,” he said, “the crash is interesting. But it’s not totally impossible to explain if she’s the playful type.”

“And she found me again, right away! I thought she gave me a pretty strong kiss-goodnight signal, too.”

“Oh… well, now, that’s interesting! But the question is still whether she’s after your secrets or your dick. Romance goes so fast these days that a quick hook-up is hardly a reliable indicator anymore. Maybe she just likes you.”

“A crash is a funny way to ingratiate yourself.”

“True. Maybe she did just slip, though. At this point I’d say, just keep seeing her. Keep up the dialog. She has no idea she’s the target now, so she might spill something… Hey, I know you’re not a field operative and I can’t ask you to screw her as a part of your job, but if she tries to seduce you, why not let her? It sounds trite, but it’s actually true that people are more likely to blab in bed. You might even encourage her! It’s win-win, either way, right?”

“I guess. She’s really cute, and she’s fun. Without this whole national security thing, I’d very interested. But of course I may never see her again, after I kind of brushed her off last night.”

“Well, don’t do that again!”

“OK. If she’s after me for information, I suppose there’ll be more contact. I just hope I survive it!”

“So now you want hazardous duty pay? C’mon, man! Get out there and fuck a hottie for your country!”

Ralph sounded like he really enjoyed his job. Or maybe he wasn’t taking me all that seriously.

****

At breakfast the next morning she wandered in right after me and plunked herself down at my table, still looking chagrined. “Hiya! Skiing today?” She was wearing only a silky, skin-tight underlayer that hid absolutely nothing, and, obviously, no bra. My curt good-night hadn’t put her off at all.

“The medic said to give it a rest, until the headache’s been gone for a day. I’m going to catch up on my email.”

She thought for a minute. “… You can’t do that all day. And this is your vacation! Let me keep you company. We’ll make this Dave Day. We can do something nice and calm together.”

“Are you sure? You’re paying a lot to stay here and ski.”

“Oh, no, that’s OK. I feel responsible, and we got a good workout yesterday. The visibility isn’t that great anyway. Snow showers all day, they say.”

“There isn’t that much else to do here, though. I guess we could go window shopping in the village, get lunch, and then… want to try out my hot tub?”

“I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”

“I bet we can buy one in the village.”

“If you insist!” Big grin.

****

I couldn’t help re-examining her motives as we wandered through the village in the lightly falling snow. The romance signals were getting stronger. It would be nice if they were real.

In favor of innocence, we enjoyed skiing together, and she might just want a quick fling to keep the week interesting.

She was way too cute to be chasing me, though! I had upgraded her to a 9 over breakfast, while appreciating the assets jiggling in that thin little top. And zeroing right in on mini-nukes — what were the chances of that being random? Also, that crash, and finding me again so fast? Had she waited and followed me out of the restaurant? Had she planted some kind of tracker on me? That sounded paranoid, even to me. And last but not least, the paging — there was no good explanation for that!

So this had to be more than just flirting. It had to be tradecraft.

Too bad she was so much fun. And so hot.

****

Apparently the naked hot-tubbing had been an empty threat, because we stopped into one of the overpriced clothing stores and Jana slowly cycled through a million hangers of tiny, celebrity-worthy swimsuits. She modelled a few for me by holding them up against herself, sticking out her chest and pivoting to tease me, wearing her perma-grin. Smiling back, I picked the raunchiest one. She shook her head with a bigger smile and put it back. But it was fun. We both knew exactly what we were doing. And where this was going. And, unfortunately, why.

After shopping we had lunch, and Jana asked whether I was looking forward to Prague.

“Well, yes and no…. I’ll have a lot more responsibility this time, but it will be another post a long way from home. Not as bad as Pakistan, but the language is just as incomprehensible.”

She laughed. “Oh, don’t worry, everyone speaks English! Will the work be interesting?”

It was time to drop a few harmless crumbs. “Hard to tell, in advance. I hear the intelligence unit is always pretty active there, so diplomats sometimes get involved, like it or not.”

“Sounds cool! What kind of thing would you get to do?”

“Mostly making contacts outside the embassy. But I’m really not allowed to discuss it.”

“Even with me? I have ‘confidential’ clearance.”

“I don’t know that. I think I’d better wait.”

“Awww… OK…. ”

If this was a feeler, it wasn’t a patient, subtle one. It seemed like amateur hour again. Odd. Maybe I was over-reacting.

****

At five there was a knock on my door, and in came Jana. She was wearing a short little hotel robe, flip-flops, her perma-grin, and possibly not much else. She was equipped with a cold six pack. “Hey there, hot stuff! How are you feeling?”

“Much better, thanks!” Her cheerfulness was infectious.

“Thinking clearly?”

“I think you missed most of my cognitive parts.” Actually, I had been in a mild sexual haze all afternoon just thinking about her, and her shapely, chiseled legs were now interfering big time with rational thought. They were utterly fantastic.

“You’re lucky I wasn’t aiming! Are you just being a tough guy, or are you ready for some action?” She was trying to seem shy. It was cute, but implausible.

“Sure, if it’s not too strenuous.” I grinned back. “Wha’d ya have in mind?”

“Let’s discuss it in the tub!” She walked over to the slider and waited while I opened it and ushered her out.

The sun was already low, and the air was freezing. We hastily removed the top of the tub together, which made her robe fall open a bit and gave me a nice look at some squished cleavage. We turned on the bubbles, and she dropped the robe and clambered in, deliberately flashing a skimpily clad butt at me. It was cradled in a tiny bikini bottom with a deeply gathered seam that separated two sensational ass cheeks. She slid into the water up to her neck, grinning coyly.

I hopped in beside her, in my board shorts, and casually put an arm behind her on the rim of the tub. It felt like a first date at the movies, except that she was practically naked. We popped open two cans, clinked, and sipped while we watched the last few skiers cruising home in the waning, reddish light. Long tree shadows were patterning the slopes and tiny ice crystals glinted and sparkled in the air. Faraway clouds were starting to glow orange against a deep blue sky. It was nature being awesome. I wondered whether she had treason on her mind. Somehow, despite the logic, I just couldn’t believe it. I supposed this was why they sent 8’s. Or sometimes, 9’s.

“Hey,” I began, “I meant to say I’m sorry for being so secretive about my work. I mean, it’s mostly shuffling papers around anyway, but they really don’t want us to talk about it.”

“Only ‘mostly,’ Mr. Bond?”

Hmmm. “How’d you find me so fast this afternoon, anyway? That was amazing.”

“Partly luck. Partly we like the same trails, though, I guess. I followed you halfway down that run so I could surprise you.”

“Do you always try to bury people in lift lines?”

“I’m really good at it! Usually…. Look, Dave, I’m sorry I hurt you. It was unbelievably dumb. I just wanted to be sure I had your attention. But now it’s Dave Day. Maybe I can make it all better?” She very deliberately put her can down, leaned over, put a hand on my cheek and slowly kissed me right on the lips.

The kiss broke, but we looked carefully at each other and reconnected. The new kiss started to linger. Her hand moved down to my chest. Our tongues met, and as we flicked each other’s tongue tips I could feel her smile. I was starting to get short of breath when she finally drew back. She wasn’t grinning anymore, and her boob was pressed hard against my arm as we gave each other a long look.

We wordlessly settled back to breathe and think. I put my arm around her shoulders this time, and we continued to watch the skiers coming home for the night. But after a few minutes, frowning like she had forgotten something, Jana reached behind her back, pulled a string, and dragged her bikini top off over her head. She tossed it on the deck, where it was going to freeze solid. She settled back against the tub.

Some people need everything spelled out for them, apparently.

I leaned over and returned the kiss. I’d forgotten to put my beer down, though, so from me it was just another lingering kiss. For her it turned into a chance to let her fingernails dance lightly over the rigid dick tenting my trunks.

Like any good operative I put down my can and placed a hand low on her taut, hard stomach, preparing to slide it somewhere. She pushed it away. “Uh-uh,” she whispered. “This is Dave Day. Nothing strenuous for you, remember? Just relax… Take your suit off, though, OK?” I pushed it down to my knees and kicked it off. She grabbed my cock and stroked.

Her boobs were floating in the bubbles, only half submerged. I reached over, squeezed one and then tweaked a nipple as we kissed again. She moaned quietly, mid-kiss. “Hey, if you do that, I won’t be able to stop! Let’s stick to Dave Day.” She leaned back against the rim of the tub again, still stroking me. I sat back too, and, side by side, we watched the sun setting as she jerked me off.

“This is nice…,” she sighed. “I love skiing!” We laughed. It was comfortable.

A few minutes went by. Eventually she leaned toward me, changed hands, cradled the back of my neck and started kissing me deeply while stroking more seriously. I played with a boob, and soon I was involuntarily humping her hand. She gave me her sunniest smile. “Ooooh, this is fun! You like me! Are you gonna come?”

“Not a good idea. You wouldn’t want to jump back in the tub….”

She slowed her motions and looked dubiously at my dick in her hand. It was almost a foot underwater. “I know what to do, but I don’t think I can hold my breath that long. Whatever shall we do?”

“Cowgirl?”

“Too strenuous. Tough in water, too.”

“… I could say when…?”

“OK…. Good! ” Without releasing my dick, she rose and crouched on my thighs, with her knees straddling my hips on the seat. She started stroking me vigorously with both hands. Her boobs, now well above waterline and inches away, jiggled enticingly. We kissed, and I experimentally pinched and held both her nipples at once, which seemed to turn her on. She lost her perma-grin and closed her eyes but kept jerking me, so I just held them. She moaned and started unconsciously rising and falling as though she were imagining being fucked. It was hot. Within moments I said “Ready!” and she hastily backed off my knees, took a breath and dived onto my cock. I could see only the back of her head moving up and down, but I felt her fingers, her tongue and some suction, and maybe some little vibrations like humming underwater. Then I came like a guy who had just spent two years in Pakistan, and from underwater, I heard a surprised “MMMPH!!!”

****

I called Ralph while Jana was back in her room, changing for dinner. He was encouraging. “It sounds more and more like a honey trap,” he said. “She’s being pretty fast and aggressive, but not for her own personal pleasure. That’s as clear a signal as you ever get in this business.”

“What if she’s just being nice and friendly? You know, paying me back?”

“Dave, you have to assess these things in context. You already have too many coincidences you can’t explain. Keep an open mind, but if she’s seducing you, let her! And don’t settle for a cheesy little blow job next time; take it all the way. We want to be sure she’s serious. And keep reporting!”

If he was right, she would be coming for me hard, which sounded great. But why was he insisting we hook up? That seemed likely now, no matter what her reasons. A better test would be to resist again. Her quick rebound from my annoyed good-night already seemed revealing. If a sexy ‘9’ refused to be put off, I’d have a pretty clear indicator that she was on assignment. Or, I could try to get her to do something a girlfriend wouldn’t normally do, something outrageous. Either would be more revealing than just falling in bed.

****

Jana brought some tourist brochures to dinner. She wanted to be sure I made a full recovery before skiing again, she said, and besides, there were lots of other things to do. She flipped through them excitedly while teasing me about where we could have ‘fun.’

“Dave! — Looky this! We can go hot air ballooning in the morning! We could join the mile high club! I guess we could do that right here in the hotel, though….” She wiggled her eyebrows at me. “And how about this: there are hot springs up the road, with a big pool. Bikini territory! Did you like mine? And then there’s x-c skiing — too strenuous — or we could take a sleigh ride to dinner at a cabin in the woods. Sounds romantic!” She went through the whole pile, exclaiming enthusiastically about everything. They were all nice, low-stress events that would give us plenty of time to get to know each other. And, coincidentally, plenty of time to question each other. “Well?”

We settled on the balloon ride and the hot springs. Then we had a nice dinner and went into the lounge for coffee. I sat on a couch. She parked herself right next to me and immediately pressed her ultra-fit thigh hard against mine.

This seemed like my last chance to try a little more resistance. Not so much that Ralph would object, but enough to test her and to sooth some deep down, irrepressibly honest part of me. “Uh — Jana, I just want you to know… this afternoon was great. I loved it. But I’d understand if it was just a one-off. I mean, as far as payback goes, you’re all paid up, and more. And remember I’m being shipped off to Prague next week, right? I don’t want there to be any false pretenses here.”

“Oh, I know that. You made that clear.” I’d successfully wiped the grin off her face. “I had a boyfriend transferred to Hong Kong last year, and I couldn’t follow him because of my job and my degree program, so I know the score. We can still have a good time this week, though, right? And maybe when you come back to visit, if you want? But, whatever… I still like hanging out. Don’t you?”

“Yup. I just think we shouldn’t get too, you know, wrapped up in this whole thing. The better it goes, the worse it ends.”

The thigh departed. There was a long silence. “You’re trying to tell me this is just for sex, aren’t you?”

I’m too nice to be a spy. “No! Actually, I like you — a lot! It’s just that I had this situation before, with Pakistan, and breaking up was rough on both of us. So I think we should be careful about getting too invested in this whole thing.”

“I don’t know about that. Maybe having only a few days means we shouldn’t waste them.”

So that didn’t tell me much, except that I really couldn’t resist her.

****

Being seduced was actually quite enjoyable.

I wasn’t allowed to twitch a muscle, so I was reclined on my bed, head propped up on a nice comfy pillow, non-strenuously following the proceedings. My blood pressure was still spiking, though, possibly because a naked Jana was lying between my legs with my cock stuffed in her mouth, staring at me expectantly while she worked on it. She could smile even with a rigid cock between her lips. Pretty good tradecraft!

This wasn’t the porn version, though. It was the nice, attentive, fun-loving, teasing, girlfriend version. No discomfort or distress, just the good mind-play of a really hot girl fondly arousing me for our mutual amusement. She was constantly shifting her attention back and forth between my dick and my reaction. She had a trick of running her lips and her circled fingers up and down the shaft together, all while maintaining a steady eye-lock, which got me thinking about coming without warning her, to see how a professional handled it. Being seduced probably came with certain privileges.

Eventually, stroking me lightly, she said, “I want to watch you when you come this time. It’s my little ego boost. Say when, OK?”

“OK,” I croaked.

“Do you want to come in my mouth again?”

I could only shrug.

She took me in again and spent a moment unsuccessfully trying to stretch her lips for the base of my cock. She applied vacuum. I couldn’t resist thrusting a little. She was smiling again, somehow. Then she suddenly froze, staring me right in the eyes and motionlessly holding most of my cock in her mouth while she reached down and concentrated on her pussy for a minute. Finally she seemed to come to her senses and freed herself to speak. “Would it be OK if I… hopped on? I’m sorry! I’m just so horny!” She smiled at me apologetically. “I’ll be careful. Really.”

I held my dick up for her and she climbed aboard, settling slowly down onto her knees, enveloping it with a nice smile and a sigh. “Oh! That’s… so good! You lie still, now! If this sets you back I’ll never forgive myself! Tell me when you’re going to come, though, OK?” I could only watch as she started bouncing herself on me, eyes closed and seeming blissful.

For minutes I just lay there while Jana enthusiastically fucked herself on my dick, her muscular torso writhing sensuously, abs flexing, getting herself all heated up and making lots of cute little squeaky noises as she got more and more into it. She let her mouth drop open. Her tits bounced gently. Finally I just had to interrupt. “Oh,” I said, “this is fun! You like me! Are you gonna come?” She opened her eyes just long enough to roll them at me and put a hand over my mouth, but she didn’t stop fucking herself and, minutes later, she came with a low, trembling moan, falling on her arms and dumping her long blond hair in my face as I helped her with the last few strokes. My brainstem fired while her breasts were swinging right over me in the final stages, and I said, “Coming!” She snapped her enormous eyes wide open and watched intently as I pumped load after load into her, thrusting and spasming with each shot.

We slept in each other’s arms.

My discouragement efforts weren’t working all that well. If anything, they were making me come to grips with how much I liked her. Would have liked her. Or maybe she was innocent after all. She just seemed so open, so genuine. So normal, except for being too cute.

****

We woke just after dawn.

“Jana Day!”

Good grief, she was cheery the moment she woke up. “What happens on Jana Day?” I asked cautiously.

“Your dick is all mine, all day. I can do anything I want with it.”

“What do I get?”

“Sorry. Dave Day was yesterday.”

The logic was incontestable, so I had to start a little wrestling match. The problem was that whenever she got those steely legs locked around me, it was game over, so eventually I had to tickle her right off the bed and fuck her on the floor — slowly and gently, of course. We probably didn’t wake up more than three or four neighbors.

****

I let her go ahead to breakfast and made a quick call to Ralph to report the latest developments, feeling like a rat.

Ralph seemed to experience a complete change of heart. He was dramatically cooler on the project after I filled him in. “We think you’re getting too far out over your skis, kid. Her background is completely clean, and from your description, I don’t think she has any operational training. Also, she’s so well placed already that they’d be crazy to risk her cover with a field operation, especially targeting a junior guy like you — no offense. Our assessment is that she just likes you. Congratulations.”

“I’m not sure I agree. She’s still being very aggressive, she still seems very interested in that one area of my work, and she has all these glib little explanations ready for everything — except the paging.”

“Maybe they’re real. Ever think of that?”

“Maybe they’re not. Like you said, remember the context. There are too many of them, and you can’t ignore the paging.”

“Dave…. ”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t overcommit to the spy angle, OK? It’s just romance, and operations aren’t your specialty anyway. It sounds like you’ll be spending all your time with her now, and that’s exactly what we would recommend. Enjoy yourself. But keep in touch!”

“OK.”

That was patronizing! And he was almost certainly wrong. He had a point about risking a potentially well-placed source, but there were still lots of things he couldn’t explain.

So why was he suddenly stretching for certainty? Did he have an ulterior motive? Maybe he knew more than I did. I hoped so. That’s the trouble with spooks. They’re spooky.

****

It was another bluebird day in the Rockies, with air so crisp, clear and dry that you could see a hundred miles. We got our morning coffees to go and walked to the balloons. Ours was still partially lying on the ground, filling, when we arrived, so to kill time I asked Jana about her degree program.

“I’m doing a Masters’ program at night. It should open a lot of doors at work.”

“How long will that take?”

“A few years. But I have to do it, and the sooner the better. Without it I’ll be underqualified for some jobs and younger people will start to get ahead of me.”

“And you can still take vacations like this?”

“When school is out, I can. My boss seems to want what’s best for me. He’s a good guy. It’s a great situation, actually.”

Kind of like Uncle Mike, I thought. Interesting.

We scored a spot standing at a corner of the basket. I stood behind Jana, put my arms around her and held on to the railing. A thousand feet up, with the fire roaring behind us and other balloons all around, she started pressing her butt against me. I was occasionally pressing my stiffy back against her in a friendly way. It was a little nerve-wracking because this was Jana Day, but for now, this was apparently just a different sort of feeler. I was following orders and enjoying myself…

… until she said, “Dave, I suppose it’s occurred to you guys that a bomb could be delivered by balloon? Like a garden-variety weather balloon that anyone can buy?”

I gritted my teeth and didn’t answer.

“I know you’re not supposed to discuss this, but… come to think of it, what are you going to do about self-driving cars? A bomb in a car could pinpoint a target hundreds of miles away, like a cruise missile! No need for martyrs. All the clues would be vaporized. Scary, right?”

The question was revealing. It was too incisive for a civilian. How much did she know about my work, anyway? Was she being coached?

“I’m not looking for answers. I just want to be sure you guys are staying ahead of this stuff…?

It was definitely a question, though. And the lack of subtlety was still odd.

****

The hot springs fed a large community swimming pool. Steam was rising off the hot surface in the chilly late afternoon air, and snow showers had started again. There were other bathers, but the combination of fog and big, soft flakes was veiling everything. We were almost in our own quiet, surreal little world.

We were standing almost chest-deep in the water, and Jana was talking in hushed whispers, pretty clearly trying to make up for asking too many questions in the balloon. She traced a finger down my front into the water and hooked it in the top of my trunks.

“Are you up for some exercise tonight? I’ll do all the work again, if you want.”

“No, I’m OK now, and besides, it’s Jana Day.”

“I don’t mind. I really do like seeing the effect I have on you. It’s my little kink. I guess it’s empowering.”

Good explanation for aggressively seducing a motionless invalid. It dawned on me that I should use the moment to see how far she was willing to go. If she was a professional, she might do just about anything. “But I owe you!” I said. “We should even things up.” I reached out and pulled her to me. My cock docked right in her crotch.

I got a grin. “…. Are you going to get even right now?” She moved her hands behind her back and rocked her hips against mine gently, trying to look coy again.

“Sure. But… here?” I gave her my best wide-eyed, innocent look..

Jana took my hands in hers and looked around. She hesitantly placed my palms on her breasts. I got stiff. She could tell. I squeezed her boobs for a moment and she closed her eyes, sighed, and leaned into my hands. She pressed her hips against me harder.

I was already at the edge of my public comfort zone, but I didn’t think I should stop. I slid a hand into the front of her little bikini bottom and waited. “Just go slow,” she breathed. She wrapped her arms around my neck, backed off a few inches and leaned her forehead on my shoulder to watch. I shoved my hand in further and started gently massaging her pussy. We could both see I was bulging, clearly stiff as a board, but this time it was her turn, so she just kept her arms around my neck and watched.

The angle was awkward. I spun her so she was facing the center of the pool and reached around from behind her, sliding my hand into her suit again and gently massaging her pussy lips and everything in between. As soon as she was wet enough, I inserted a finger into her. She leaned back against me and started making small little hip motions to amplify my efforts.

I reached my other hand around her and groped a tit, well above water. She didn’t stop me, but in her new, more exposed, position she started scanning the pool for watchers. After a minute or two I noticed she was looking at another couple, a skinny, freaky, guy and a tattooed girl with two dayglow-orange braids about fifty feet away. They were watching us. I accidentally made eye contact with the guy, and he silently copied me by placing his hand on his girl’s unusually large tit. He squeezed. His girl, apparently entranced by Jana’s situation, barely seemed to notice.

I copied her boyfriend by squeezing Jana’s tit. He copied us by sliding his other hand down his girl’s front. The girls silently watched each other getting finger-fucked.

Jana backed into me, pressing her butt against me. Apparently I wasn’t aligned right, because after a few seconds she reached behind her, fished around in my suit for my stiff cock and positioned it upright in my trunks. Then she carefully captured it between her ass cheeks, in the recessed seam of her little bikini. She flexed her big skiing muscles on it.

Obviously this was her right, on Jana Day, but having my cock squashed in her ass cheeks was so stimulating that I couldn’t resist humping a little, sliding up and down against her. That other couple could probably tell what we were doing anyway, because Jana seemed beyond caring. She had started a slow twerking motion, flexing her abs and rolling her hips so that she was humping my hand between her legs and my dick between her ass cheeks. I moved both hands into her suit so I could pull her against me while I fingered her and massaged her clit. We were making little waves.

The friction was dragging both of our bathing suits down. Her bikini bottom was halfway off, and my dick was sliding up and down between her partly bare cheeks. It was hard to stay subtle. In fact, the whole thing was starting to resemble a public fucking. Jana seemed completely lost in the sensations, reddening and tensing against me, breathing heavily, mashing my dick and writhing on my fingers right there in the pool. Under the water, she pushed the front of her overloaded bikini down and placed a hand on top of mine to show me the right pressure. She pushed rhythmically on the knuckle of the finger inside her. The back of her little bikini snapped down onto her thighs.

We must have stood there for minutes as Jana worked on getting off. I snuck another glance at the other couple. The girl still seemed completely spellbound, but the guy had managed to pull her sizable tits out above her suit and was now flopping them around in his hands, showing her off.