I went ahead and wrote this as a multi-part story, and I'll be releasing one part every few days. Take a moment to write some feedback in the comments--it's what we writers keep writing for!
Foreign Aid, part one (m/f)
by
Kid Indy
The rattling of a Kalashnikov made everybody's heads duck, and the four members of the NGO relief team looked around to see if anybody--relief workers or refugees--had been hit. Alyana could not see any people hitting the ground, and moreover she did not see any tents or other equipment hit. The light was fading as evening set in, but even in those conditions she could tell that no human beings had yet died.
Whoever was coming wanted them to know, and they weren't looking to kill necessarily. Good to know. Alyana half-smiled at the grim irony: here she was, 24 years old, and she could assess what sort of warlord or militia was coming as well as a career military officer. As six men, five young ones and one middle-aged by Alyana's estimate, entered the forest clearing, she guessed that they wanted the medical supplies and maybe the prettier local girls for trading in the thriving war-zone black market.
She approached the older man with palms extended towards the sky. "I am Alyana Pulanski, and I'm an agent of International Medical Emergency Agency. I demand that you leave this place and let us treat these patients." Alyana knew, as did her counterparts, that such demands held no weight with these sorts of bandits, but it would make them less likely to kill the American and European aid workers and, if luck should turn the IMEA's way, provide a case in war-crimes trials if these men ever landed there.
The older man was the first to speak, confirming Alyana's initial assessment that he was the leader. "We're going to take all of the medical supplies you have for our revolution." He paused here and gave Alyana a second look, from her loose, curly hair, tied in a pony tail down to her neck, her undeniably attractive figure--and that's saying something in those jumpsuits--and her legs. He licked his lips, giving Alyana a chill, and said, "I'd watch myself in this war zone, Miss Elena. There are men among the tyrant's thugs who would like nothing better than to have their way with a body like yours." The younger men laughed and leered, and Alyana, who found herself strangely irritated that the man had misremembered her name, kept her gaze steady, hoping that they would keep to their mission and avoid violence.
No such luck.
The man began to take long strides her way, heaving his assault rifle onto his back and freeing both hands. One of those hands dropped to his belt buckle, and Alyana saw him start to manipulate it open. His eyes told Alyana that she was not going to make it out of this one without a fight, and she started to war-game how she might do enough harm to him to give her teammates enough time to escape. As he got close enough to touch her, another shot rang out, and this time the militia fighters as well as the relief workers and refugees began to look for cover. Alyana glanced to the side to see that a nearby tree was scored from the bullet. The shot had passed mere inches from the militia leader's head.
"Stand back, you wretched animal!" The voice rang out like an actor's, accented so that Alyana could hear the south of France in it.
The militia leader turned towards the voice and growled, "Denard! Stand down, or you'll have the people's revolution to contend with!"
A figure, clad in camouflage but striking even against the forest's background, stepped forward. "When I tell your general that I cut you down trying to rape a foreign aid worker, he will believe me, and you know that. And when he does, it'll be your squad, not mine, in danger from the revolution."
The militia leader's eyes burned into his adversary. He signalled to his men to retreat to the forest, and they faded into the darkness. Denard, if Alyana had heard his name right, walked up to Alyana, and he signalled to some unseen shooters among the trees to make sure the militia stayed on the move away from the camp. "Are you alright?"
"Who are you?"
The man chuckled. "Nobody you would approve of, I assure you. Since you're asking, though, I'm Andre Denard, a... security contractor."
"A mercenary."
"You must not be American, with that sort of directness." Alyana could hear other voices chuckling in the trees. She glanced around and saw her team members tending to the refugees and making sure none of their injuries had worsened.
"I'm glad you chased those men off, but I do have work to attend to here."
"They'll be back, you know."
"And by the time they are, UN security should have caught up with us."
Now it was Denard's turn to laugh. "And do you think the UN is going to be around forever? These guerillas will track you until the UN leaves you alone and come back for their treasure and for yours."
"Not when I request tighter security."
"Have you looked around-- Actually, I don't know your name. What's your name?"
"Alyana Pulanski."
"Ah, yes, I thought I heard Eastern Europe. But what about those American roots?"
Alyana's heart sped up. Nobody in this part of the world should know anything about her time in America. "What do you mean American?"
Denard reached into a cargo pocket and produced a crumpled half-sheet of glossy paper. "Your alma mater is so proud of you!" Two more mercenaries, who had joined the relief team in the clearing, were laughing with Denard.
Alyana was furious as she beheld her own image in the small Southern college's alumni magazine, posing on a ferry crossing the Hellespont. They had recently featured her work in war zones to show alumni doing good in the world, and the vacation photo provided a good contrast to the war-zone pictures. "So you knew me already. Why are you here, Denard?"
"I want to offer something more realistic than waiting on UN security, Alyana. My client has me stationed in this area, and I thought that I could do their work and protect your medical team at the same time."
"I assure you, my agency does not have funds to hire mercenaries."
"I think we can arrange security with what assets you have. Will you come on my river boat and discuss an arrangement?"
Alyana could sense her teammates gathering around her. A team of three nurses and a medical technician, they had been together for just over six months in the area. Carlos, the largest of the four, whispered first. "Alyana, this isn't safe or legal. We can't set a precedent of working with mercenaries, danger or no."
Sharon chimed in next. "Seriously, Alyana. We need to radio this incident in and get ourselves reassigned until the militias are under control." That thought stirred Alyana, and she looked around at the people they had been treating all day.
"But what will happen to these people if we have the agency pull us?"
Linda was the next to check Alyana's impulse. "Alyana, we're medical workers, not superheroes. We can't operate when we're in this kind of danger, and you know it!"
Alyana looked again at the wounded and the ill and set her resolve. She looked at her team, one member at a time, and spoke with all the clarity she could muster. "We have a duty to these people. Let me go on his boat, and I'll demand that one of you goes with me while the others go back to base camp. If we don't come back, I'll make sure he knows that his unit will be in the International press as the worst of the worst in this place."
"Alyana, don't do this!" Sharon implored. But Alyana had already turned back to Denard.
"I'm bringing one of my crew with me to the boat, and the other two will shout it from the digital rooftops if any harm comes to me or to these people!"
Denard nodded. "Fair enough."
"Where is the boat?"
A laugh. "Don't be in such a hurry, Alyana! Wait until this six-day tour is over, and on your rest days we'll spend some time together." He pointed again to the torn-out magazine page. "I want you to wear this skirt!" The men with him laughed again, and Denard, turning back towards the woods, said, "I'll send a car to pick up you and a friend of your choice. I'll have you back to the camp within four hours. In the meantime, consider the security we provide in the next three days a complimentary trial of our security services."
Alyana's eyes narrowed. He knew how long they'd been out and when they'd be back again.
* * * * * * *
By the time Alyana's team returned to base, she couldn't deny that the mercenaries had provided better security than she ever hoped for from the UN: not only had the revolutionary militias given her a wide berth but the soldiers of fortune had relayed clean water, supplies from base, and other help to their mobile hospital. The refugees had gotten better medical care in those three days than Alyana hoped to be able to provide.
She looked nervously in the mirror as she prepared to meet the car. Although a few lovesick boys had proposed marriage in college, she never thought herself one of the real campus beauties, though her curly brown hair had always been American girls' envy. She always assumed that their infatuations had been a product of her status as the "exotic" girl from Albania, though anyone who looked at her in the white cotton top and long gypsy skirt could list a striking pair of legs, a thin waist that defined a statuesque figure, and penetrating dark eyes as other, very good reasons. She put on sandals, a welcome relief from the boots that she usually wore in the field, and made her way to the base's main gate. Carlos would travel with her, and although in a fight his ability as a nurse would be largely worthless, nonetheless Alyana felt better bringing him along for the ride.
The car was nondescript, and nobody talked much as they made their way down one of the remaining highways towards the city on the river. When they did arrive, Denard awaited them on deck, having exchanged his fatigues for an expensive-looking suit.
"Alyana! Carlos! Welcome to my vessel! I hope the car ride treated you well!" He took Alyana by the hand to help her onto the boat, and she caught a slight whiff of a cologne whose subtle presence caught her breath short for a moment.
Carlos shuffled behind them, and Alyana could almost feel his discomfort with the sidearm that he carried. "Carlos, I'll ask you to dine with my officers. You'll be within earshot of us, and Alyana is in no danger, but I do want to discuss this proposition privately." Carlos nodded and allowed himself to accompany two more men as Denard led Alyana into a small, private dining room on the river-yacht's upper deck. Alyana could scarcely believe that this sort of luxury existed mere miles from the disaster in which she had worked for weeks, much less that the dangerous mercenary would spend his time like this.
"This is quite a vessel, Mister Denard."
"Please, call me Andre. We should be friends if we're going to do business."
"I'm going to guess, Andre, that your employers pay you well for you to afford this."
"You guess right! Of course, this is not my first battlefield. After a couple tours with the CM, I realized that I could be doing the same work for far better money, and I signed on with a private firm to fight for the Americans in Iraq. I did so well there that I struck out on my own, and we've been here for a little over a year now." As they talked and sipped wine, Alyana could feel her apprehension melting away--this was a man of some education and intelligence, not the type that he had chased off.
Dinner came, and the conversation continued. They talked about the politics that had brought them both to the same place, the nature of Alyana's work, and her college years back in America. Only the night's purpose remained as a source of tension, so Alyana decided to broach the topic before Denard could.
"Let's not defer the night's purpose forever, Andre. Why are we here?"
"You need something, and I want something."
"Yes, I know. If I'm going to keep serving this region's people, I need armed protection. Please don't tell me what I think you're going to tell me."
"What frightens you about this exchange?"
Alyana wasn't one of the prudes at the evangelical college, but neither was she willing to exchange sex for money, or even for protection. "I hope you don't think I'm some sort of war-zone prostitute."
Denard smirked. "Prostitute? Hardly. You're too well read, too much a thinker. The last three days were my audition to be your protection; the last hour has been yours to keep me company."
"You just want to eat dinner with me periodically?"
"To start with, yes."
"I already told you--"
Denard held up his hand to stop her sentence. "No, I'm not talking about prostitution. But I will be asking something more of you."
Alyana stared hard at him, breathing through her nose.
"Take off one of your shoes."
"What?"
"Take off a shoe, and place your foot in my lap."
Alyana was so disoriented by the request that she found herself complying just out of curiosity. She slipped off the sandal, raised her foot from the floor, and guided it towards his knee. She could feel a strong hand grip her ankle and hold it in place.
Then disorientation gave way to panic as she felt one fingertip run its way from her heel to the ball of her foot. Alyana jumped in her seat, trying in vain to twist away.
"Don't do that!"
"Ooh! You're a jumpy one!" She tried to pull her leg back, but his grip did not relent. Two fingers, and then three, began to work on the sole of her foot, and Alyana's fingers gripped the table cloth. She gritted her teeth and shook her head--she knew that any attempt to speak to him at this point would come out as a laugh. His fingers kept working the soft skin of her sole, and although she wanted to keep quiet, a squeal of protest escaped. She tried to move her foot out of the way, but all four of his fingers were now at work, and she began to laugh, a sound that only made the fingertips move faster. Her hands moved to the seat under her to make sure she didn't fall out of the chair, and she was laughing hard now, unable even to slow down. By the time he stopped, she had definitely broken a sweat, and she panted as she tried to stop giggling.
She wrenched her foot away from his hand and put her sandal back on as quickly as she could. "No! I'm not going to indulge you! I'm leaving!" With hurried steps she made her was for the cabin door.
"Walk through that door, Alyana, and your work in this area is over. I'll let the Wolf know precisely where your mobile base is and provide him safe passage to rob you and worse."
Alyana froze at the doorway. The indignity of letting this stranger--handsome though he be--touch her had been terrible, but she knew full well that, if her team abandoned these villages, the locals would have nobody in the world.
"If you want our services, you must come back here for one evening of dining and tickling every time your team is in the city. I'll never do any violence to you, and we'll never violate your religion. But you have to decide right now whether to walk through that door or to come here, take those shoes back off, and sit on my lap." He scooted his chair away from the table and gestured to where she should sit. The front of his pants told Alyana that he was without a doubt ready to receive her again.
Alyana's face screwed up into a scowl of contempt. She knew that Denard held the key to helping the people who had come to depend on her, but she knew that being subject to those fingers was going to... what? She knew that the tickling was not the same as pain, yet she could not stand that sort of pleasure coming from a man she held in such contempt.
Still frozen in the doorway, Alyana heard Denard again: "What are those people's lives worth to you? I'm only going to tickle!"
"You want me to come back here every two weeks so that you can tickle my feet?"
"Your feet, yes, but the rest of you as well. I'm not obsessed with any one part of your body to the exclusion of others. You're an intelligent, educated, energetic woman, and I want to make you laugh and squirm. Now come here, Alyana, and just enjoy yourself!"
She felt herself leaning towards Denard, and her will to save the sick lifted one foot, then the other, so that she walked almost unconsciously back to him. She slipped off her shoes and lowered himself onto his bent leg.
"See? That wasn't so hard, was it? Now raise your elbows."
She knew precisely why he wanted her arms up, and once again she could not deny the humiliation. But she had already sat down on his leg, and so up went her elbows. She held her breath, knowing what was coming next.
Knowing did not translate into readiness. His fingers did sink their way into her underarms, and her elbows clamped down to her sides, encasing his hands. Alyana bent forward, already squealing from the tickling, and the hands followed. His fingertips squeezed, pulsed, wriggled, and Alyana's voice, before the calm instrument of negotiation, now spiked over and over again with laughter, at first a moan punctuated by attempts to scream but eventually giving way to a rolling giggle, all as she bounced on his knee.
"Oh, Alyana, this is going to be fun for me, I can already tell!" She only entertained the thought of retorting for a split second: before she could speak, one of his hands had slipped out of her armpit and secured a tickling grasp on her side, just where her ribs ended. When he touched her armpit it made her want to scream, but his strong squeeze on her last rib made her body twist, and he moved with her twisting this way, then that, and then right out of the chair. Both their bodies tumbled to the floor, and now both of his hands were on her sides, squeezing, tickling. She tried to move her elbows to protect herself, but his hands were not the tentative explorers that she had known when she had boyfriends (how long had that been?) but hungry hunters, and each had settled on its prey, and all she could do was twist on the floor and laugh when they pulled a laugh from her and pray that this would end.
She felt Denard's body shift next to hers, and she realized that her hips and shoulders were flat against the carpeted floor. The reason why became evident with another burst of ticklish horror: his hand, spread wide like a basketball player palming a ball, quickly descended on her abdomen, his palm covering her belly-button, his thumb claiming one side of her belly, and four fingers digging into the other. She felt her hands reach to the middle to try to extract this tickling claw from her belly, but to no avail: her knees came up, and her shoulders hunched forward, and the claw tickled her belly until she howled.
She realized too late that, even though one hand's tickling was just as torturous as two, a free hand meant that he could hatch more plans. He felt the other elbow hook around her calves, and with a swift twist he had applied enough leverage to turn her hips over, and she was face down on the carpet. Her elbows planted on the ground to get some leverage, but she could not move quickly enough to prevent his long legs from wrapping around hers in a scissor-lock. She could not go anywhere, and when she felt one of his hands grasp her slender ankle, she knew immediately why he had told her to take her shoes off. Here, face down on the floor without even gravity as an aid to escape, she could protest only for an instant before his fingertips once more began to work away at her sole. This time, with her whole body agitated from the body-tickling, her feet betrayed her immediately. His fingers seemed to find new sites of torture with every scratch and rub, and without the leverage to turn over and without the interval to seek lower ground, Alyana could only squeal and laugh and wriggle on the floor.
Denard released the scissor-lock, and Alyana tried to roll to one side. Immediately he grasped her elevated flank with strong fingers, making her flip clumsily onto her back once more, a giggling, writhing mess. She realized too late that her knees were no longer together, and his other hand grabbed a parcel of skirt and thigh, a move that made Alyana's back arch, which made her side more vulnerable. For what seemed forever Denard squeezed and tickled inner thigh, then side, then inner thigh, then side. Alyana's squeals never abated, and his fingers wouldn't stop. Her hands flew to grasp the forearm that reached between her legs, but
Alyana lost all sense of time, but something was changing. With every squeeze inside her leg, a tension, a pleasure, an unwelcome desire grew below her abdomen, between her legs. Somewhere in space, looking down on her ticklish body's carpet dance, a sense of dignity protested that she should not be turned on by this, that she should not be letting this man get the better of her lust.
As the fire grew, Alyana began to make a new sound, a sighing protest between the laughs, and when she managed to look at Denard, she could see him react with pleasure every time the sound changed. Her pride came back just for a moment, and she clenched her lips together to stifle the moan. But that was only another opportunity for Denard, who took the opportunity to remove his hands from her body, to push himself off the ground, and to stand over her.
"Yes, I think this is going to be a good exchange for us, don't you think?"
Alyana panted, giggled in spite of herself, unable to think of words for a retort.
"I didn't anticipate finding someone this beautiful and intelligent and ticklish. You're quite a woman, Alyana!"
She started to collect herself and stood up. "Can I go now?"
"For now, yes. Collect your nurse bodyguard, and the next time you have an evening off, expect my car. You can bring a friend along each time, if that makes you feel better."
She collected her shoes, distracted, and began to make her way for the gangplank. Looking out over the river, she knew, objectively, that the people needed her to do this, but her nerves, still singing from Denard's fingers, warned her that this could only lead to ticklish places.
She extended a foot forward and began to walk back to the car.
Foreign Aid, part one (m/f)
by
Kid Indy
The rattling of a Kalashnikov made everybody's heads duck, and the four members of the NGO relief team looked around to see if anybody--relief workers or refugees--had been hit. Alyana could not see any people hitting the ground, and moreover she did not see any tents or other equipment hit. The light was fading as evening set in, but even in those conditions she could tell that no human beings had yet died.
Whoever was coming wanted them to know, and they weren't looking to kill necessarily. Good to know. Alyana half-smiled at the grim irony: here she was, 24 years old, and she could assess what sort of warlord or militia was coming as well as a career military officer. As six men, five young ones and one middle-aged by Alyana's estimate, entered the forest clearing, she guessed that they wanted the medical supplies and maybe the prettier local girls for trading in the thriving war-zone black market.
She approached the older man with palms extended towards the sky. "I am Alyana Pulanski, and I'm an agent of International Medical Emergency Agency. I demand that you leave this place and let us treat these patients." Alyana knew, as did her counterparts, that such demands held no weight with these sorts of bandits, but it would make them less likely to kill the American and European aid workers and, if luck should turn the IMEA's way, provide a case in war-crimes trials if these men ever landed there.
The older man was the first to speak, confirming Alyana's initial assessment that he was the leader. "We're going to take all of the medical supplies you have for our revolution." He paused here and gave Alyana a second look, from her loose, curly hair, tied in a pony tail down to her neck, her undeniably attractive figure--and that's saying something in those jumpsuits--and her legs. He licked his lips, giving Alyana a chill, and said, "I'd watch myself in this war zone, Miss Elena. There are men among the tyrant's thugs who would like nothing better than to have their way with a body like yours." The younger men laughed and leered, and Alyana, who found herself strangely irritated that the man had misremembered her name, kept her gaze steady, hoping that they would keep to their mission and avoid violence.
No such luck.
The man began to take long strides her way, heaving his assault rifle onto his back and freeing both hands. One of those hands dropped to his belt buckle, and Alyana saw him start to manipulate it open. His eyes told Alyana that she was not going to make it out of this one without a fight, and she started to war-game how she might do enough harm to him to give her teammates enough time to escape. As he got close enough to touch her, another shot rang out, and this time the militia fighters as well as the relief workers and refugees began to look for cover. Alyana glanced to the side to see that a nearby tree was scored from the bullet. The shot had passed mere inches from the militia leader's head.
"Stand back, you wretched animal!" The voice rang out like an actor's, accented so that Alyana could hear the south of France in it.
The militia leader turned towards the voice and growled, "Denard! Stand down, or you'll have the people's revolution to contend with!"
A figure, clad in camouflage but striking even against the forest's background, stepped forward. "When I tell your general that I cut you down trying to rape a foreign aid worker, he will believe me, and you know that. And when he does, it'll be your squad, not mine, in danger from the revolution."
The militia leader's eyes burned into his adversary. He signalled to his men to retreat to the forest, and they faded into the darkness. Denard, if Alyana had heard his name right, walked up to Alyana, and he signalled to some unseen shooters among the trees to make sure the militia stayed on the move away from the camp. "Are you alright?"
"Who are you?"
The man chuckled. "Nobody you would approve of, I assure you. Since you're asking, though, I'm Andre Denard, a... security contractor."
"A mercenary."
"You must not be American, with that sort of directness." Alyana could hear other voices chuckling in the trees. She glanced around and saw her team members tending to the refugees and making sure none of their injuries had worsened.
"I'm glad you chased those men off, but I do have work to attend to here."
"They'll be back, you know."
"And by the time they are, UN security should have caught up with us."
Now it was Denard's turn to laugh. "And do you think the UN is going to be around forever? These guerillas will track you until the UN leaves you alone and come back for their treasure and for yours."
"Not when I request tighter security."
"Have you looked around-- Actually, I don't know your name. What's your name?"
"Alyana Pulanski."
"Ah, yes, I thought I heard Eastern Europe. But what about those American roots?"
Alyana's heart sped up. Nobody in this part of the world should know anything about her time in America. "What do you mean American?"
Denard reached into a cargo pocket and produced a crumpled half-sheet of glossy paper. "Your alma mater is so proud of you!" Two more mercenaries, who had joined the relief team in the clearing, were laughing with Denard.
Alyana was furious as she beheld her own image in the small Southern college's alumni magazine, posing on a ferry crossing the Hellespont. They had recently featured her work in war zones to show alumni doing good in the world, and the vacation photo provided a good contrast to the war-zone pictures. "So you knew me already. Why are you here, Denard?"
"I want to offer something more realistic than waiting on UN security, Alyana. My client has me stationed in this area, and I thought that I could do their work and protect your medical team at the same time."
"I assure you, my agency does not have funds to hire mercenaries."
"I think we can arrange security with what assets you have. Will you come on my river boat and discuss an arrangement?"
Alyana could sense her teammates gathering around her. A team of three nurses and a medical technician, they had been together for just over six months in the area. Carlos, the largest of the four, whispered first. "Alyana, this isn't safe or legal. We can't set a precedent of working with mercenaries, danger or no."
Sharon chimed in next. "Seriously, Alyana. We need to radio this incident in and get ourselves reassigned until the militias are under control." That thought stirred Alyana, and she looked around at the people they had been treating all day.
"But what will happen to these people if we have the agency pull us?"
Linda was the next to check Alyana's impulse. "Alyana, we're medical workers, not superheroes. We can't operate when we're in this kind of danger, and you know it!"
Alyana looked again at the wounded and the ill and set her resolve. She looked at her team, one member at a time, and spoke with all the clarity she could muster. "We have a duty to these people. Let me go on his boat, and I'll demand that one of you goes with me while the others go back to base camp. If we don't come back, I'll make sure he knows that his unit will be in the International press as the worst of the worst in this place."
"Alyana, don't do this!" Sharon implored. But Alyana had already turned back to Denard.
"I'm bringing one of my crew with me to the boat, and the other two will shout it from the digital rooftops if any harm comes to me or to these people!"
Denard nodded. "Fair enough."
"Where is the boat?"
A laugh. "Don't be in such a hurry, Alyana! Wait until this six-day tour is over, and on your rest days we'll spend some time together." He pointed again to the torn-out magazine page. "I want you to wear this skirt!" The men with him laughed again, and Denard, turning back towards the woods, said, "I'll send a car to pick up you and a friend of your choice. I'll have you back to the camp within four hours. In the meantime, consider the security we provide in the next three days a complimentary trial of our security services."
Alyana's eyes narrowed. He knew how long they'd been out and when they'd be back again.
* * * * * * *
By the time Alyana's team returned to base, she couldn't deny that the mercenaries had provided better security than she ever hoped for from the UN: not only had the revolutionary militias given her a wide berth but the soldiers of fortune had relayed clean water, supplies from base, and other help to their mobile hospital. The refugees had gotten better medical care in those three days than Alyana hoped to be able to provide.
She looked nervously in the mirror as she prepared to meet the car. Although a few lovesick boys had proposed marriage in college, she never thought herself one of the real campus beauties, though her curly brown hair had always been American girls' envy. She always assumed that their infatuations had been a product of her status as the "exotic" girl from Albania, though anyone who looked at her in the white cotton top and long gypsy skirt could list a striking pair of legs, a thin waist that defined a statuesque figure, and penetrating dark eyes as other, very good reasons. She put on sandals, a welcome relief from the boots that she usually wore in the field, and made her way to the base's main gate. Carlos would travel with her, and although in a fight his ability as a nurse would be largely worthless, nonetheless Alyana felt better bringing him along for the ride.
The car was nondescript, and nobody talked much as they made their way down one of the remaining highways towards the city on the river. When they did arrive, Denard awaited them on deck, having exchanged his fatigues for an expensive-looking suit.
"Alyana! Carlos! Welcome to my vessel! I hope the car ride treated you well!" He took Alyana by the hand to help her onto the boat, and she caught a slight whiff of a cologne whose subtle presence caught her breath short for a moment.
Carlos shuffled behind them, and Alyana could almost feel his discomfort with the sidearm that he carried. "Carlos, I'll ask you to dine with my officers. You'll be within earshot of us, and Alyana is in no danger, but I do want to discuss this proposition privately." Carlos nodded and allowed himself to accompany two more men as Denard led Alyana into a small, private dining room on the river-yacht's upper deck. Alyana could scarcely believe that this sort of luxury existed mere miles from the disaster in which she had worked for weeks, much less that the dangerous mercenary would spend his time like this.
"This is quite a vessel, Mister Denard."
"Please, call me Andre. We should be friends if we're going to do business."
"I'm going to guess, Andre, that your employers pay you well for you to afford this."
"You guess right! Of course, this is not my first battlefield. After a couple tours with the CM, I realized that I could be doing the same work for far better money, and I signed on with a private firm to fight for the Americans in Iraq. I did so well there that I struck out on my own, and we've been here for a little over a year now." As they talked and sipped wine, Alyana could feel her apprehension melting away--this was a man of some education and intelligence, not the type that he had chased off.
Dinner came, and the conversation continued. They talked about the politics that had brought them both to the same place, the nature of Alyana's work, and her college years back in America. Only the night's purpose remained as a source of tension, so Alyana decided to broach the topic before Denard could.
"Let's not defer the night's purpose forever, Andre. Why are we here?"
"You need something, and I want something."
"Yes, I know. If I'm going to keep serving this region's people, I need armed protection. Please don't tell me what I think you're going to tell me."
"What frightens you about this exchange?"
Alyana wasn't one of the prudes at the evangelical college, but neither was she willing to exchange sex for money, or even for protection. "I hope you don't think I'm some sort of war-zone prostitute."
Denard smirked. "Prostitute? Hardly. You're too well read, too much a thinker. The last three days were my audition to be your protection; the last hour has been yours to keep me company."
"You just want to eat dinner with me periodically?"
"To start with, yes."
"I already told you--"
Denard held up his hand to stop her sentence. "No, I'm not talking about prostitution. But I will be asking something more of you."
Alyana stared hard at him, breathing through her nose.
"Take off one of your shoes."
"What?"
"Take off a shoe, and place your foot in my lap."
Alyana was so disoriented by the request that she found herself complying just out of curiosity. She slipped off the sandal, raised her foot from the floor, and guided it towards his knee. She could feel a strong hand grip her ankle and hold it in place.
Then disorientation gave way to panic as she felt one fingertip run its way from her heel to the ball of her foot. Alyana jumped in her seat, trying in vain to twist away.
"Don't do that!"
"Ooh! You're a jumpy one!" She tried to pull her leg back, but his grip did not relent. Two fingers, and then three, began to work on the sole of her foot, and Alyana's fingers gripped the table cloth. She gritted her teeth and shook her head--she knew that any attempt to speak to him at this point would come out as a laugh. His fingers kept working the soft skin of her sole, and although she wanted to keep quiet, a squeal of protest escaped. She tried to move her foot out of the way, but all four of his fingers were now at work, and she began to laugh, a sound that only made the fingertips move faster. Her hands moved to the seat under her to make sure she didn't fall out of the chair, and she was laughing hard now, unable even to slow down. By the time he stopped, she had definitely broken a sweat, and she panted as she tried to stop giggling.
She wrenched her foot away from his hand and put her sandal back on as quickly as she could. "No! I'm not going to indulge you! I'm leaving!" With hurried steps she made her was for the cabin door.
"Walk through that door, Alyana, and your work in this area is over. I'll let the Wolf know precisely where your mobile base is and provide him safe passage to rob you and worse."
Alyana froze at the doorway. The indignity of letting this stranger--handsome though he be--touch her had been terrible, but she knew full well that, if her team abandoned these villages, the locals would have nobody in the world.
"If you want our services, you must come back here for one evening of dining and tickling every time your team is in the city. I'll never do any violence to you, and we'll never violate your religion. But you have to decide right now whether to walk through that door or to come here, take those shoes back off, and sit on my lap." He scooted his chair away from the table and gestured to where she should sit. The front of his pants told Alyana that he was without a doubt ready to receive her again.
Alyana's face screwed up into a scowl of contempt. She knew that Denard held the key to helping the people who had come to depend on her, but she knew that being subject to those fingers was going to... what? She knew that the tickling was not the same as pain, yet she could not stand that sort of pleasure coming from a man she held in such contempt.
Still frozen in the doorway, Alyana heard Denard again: "What are those people's lives worth to you? I'm only going to tickle!"
"You want me to come back here every two weeks so that you can tickle my feet?"
"Your feet, yes, but the rest of you as well. I'm not obsessed with any one part of your body to the exclusion of others. You're an intelligent, educated, energetic woman, and I want to make you laugh and squirm. Now come here, Alyana, and just enjoy yourself!"
She felt herself leaning towards Denard, and her will to save the sick lifted one foot, then the other, so that she walked almost unconsciously back to him. She slipped off her shoes and lowered himself onto his bent leg.
"See? That wasn't so hard, was it? Now raise your elbows."
She knew precisely why he wanted her arms up, and once again she could not deny the humiliation. But she had already sat down on his leg, and so up went her elbows. She held her breath, knowing what was coming next.
Knowing did not translate into readiness. His fingers did sink their way into her underarms, and her elbows clamped down to her sides, encasing his hands. Alyana bent forward, already squealing from the tickling, and the hands followed. His fingertips squeezed, pulsed, wriggled, and Alyana's voice, before the calm instrument of negotiation, now spiked over and over again with laughter, at first a moan punctuated by attempts to scream but eventually giving way to a rolling giggle, all as she bounced on his knee.
"Oh, Alyana, this is going to be fun for me, I can already tell!" She only entertained the thought of retorting for a split second: before she could speak, one of his hands had slipped out of her armpit and secured a tickling grasp on her side, just where her ribs ended. When he touched her armpit it made her want to scream, but his strong squeeze on her last rib made her body twist, and he moved with her twisting this way, then that, and then right out of the chair. Both their bodies tumbled to the floor, and now both of his hands were on her sides, squeezing, tickling. She tried to move her elbows to protect herself, but his hands were not the tentative explorers that she had known when she had boyfriends (how long had that been?) but hungry hunters, and each had settled on its prey, and all she could do was twist on the floor and laugh when they pulled a laugh from her and pray that this would end.
She felt Denard's body shift next to hers, and she realized that her hips and shoulders were flat against the carpeted floor. The reason why became evident with another burst of ticklish horror: his hand, spread wide like a basketball player palming a ball, quickly descended on her abdomen, his palm covering her belly-button, his thumb claiming one side of her belly, and four fingers digging into the other. She felt her hands reach to the middle to try to extract this tickling claw from her belly, but to no avail: her knees came up, and her shoulders hunched forward, and the claw tickled her belly until she howled.
She realized too late that, even though one hand's tickling was just as torturous as two, a free hand meant that he could hatch more plans. He felt the other elbow hook around her calves, and with a swift twist he had applied enough leverage to turn her hips over, and she was face down on the carpet. Her elbows planted on the ground to get some leverage, but she could not move quickly enough to prevent his long legs from wrapping around hers in a scissor-lock. She could not go anywhere, and when she felt one of his hands grasp her slender ankle, she knew immediately why he had told her to take her shoes off. Here, face down on the floor without even gravity as an aid to escape, she could protest only for an instant before his fingertips once more began to work away at her sole. This time, with her whole body agitated from the body-tickling, her feet betrayed her immediately. His fingers seemed to find new sites of torture with every scratch and rub, and without the leverage to turn over and without the interval to seek lower ground, Alyana could only squeal and laugh and wriggle on the floor.
Denard released the scissor-lock, and Alyana tried to roll to one side. Immediately he grasped her elevated flank with strong fingers, making her flip clumsily onto her back once more, a giggling, writhing mess. She realized too late that her knees were no longer together, and his other hand grabbed a parcel of skirt and thigh, a move that made Alyana's back arch, which made her side more vulnerable. For what seemed forever Denard squeezed and tickled inner thigh, then side, then inner thigh, then side. Alyana's squeals never abated, and his fingers wouldn't stop. Her hands flew to grasp the forearm that reached between her legs, but
Alyana lost all sense of time, but something was changing. With every squeeze inside her leg, a tension, a pleasure, an unwelcome desire grew below her abdomen, between her legs. Somewhere in space, looking down on her ticklish body's carpet dance, a sense of dignity protested that she should not be turned on by this, that she should not be letting this man get the better of her lust.
As the fire grew, Alyana began to make a new sound, a sighing protest between the laughs, and when she managed to look at Denard, she could see him react with pleasure every time the sound changed. Her pride came back just for a moment, and she clenched her lips together to stifle the moan. But that was only another opportunity for Denard, who took the opportunity to remove his hands from her body, to push himself off the ground, and to stand over her.
"Yes, I think this is going to be a good exchange for us, don't you think?"
Alyana panted, giggled in spite of herself, unable to think of words for a retort.
"I didn't anticipate finding someone this beautiful and intelligent and ticklish. You're quite a woman, Alyana!"
She started to collect herself and stood up. "Can I go now?"
"For now, yes. Collect your nurse bodyguard, and the next time you have an evening off, expect my car. You can bring a friend along each time, if that makes you feel better."
She collected her shoes, distracted, and began to make her way for the gangplank. Looking out over the river, she knew, objectively, that the people needed her to do this, but her nerves, still singing from Denard's fingers, warned her that this could only lead to ticklish places.
She extended a foot forward and began to walk back to the car.
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