The Weapon - Passion - part 4
By Diana the Valkyrie
Intimidation



I could not resist taking them both out for lunch, down to the Dog and Duck,
my local pub. I told Milly to keep her feet firmly on the ground, told Wendy
not to show off, at least not too much, and the three of us walked down the
road to the Dog, arm in arm. Hey, when you've got a trophy, you want to show
people, right? I had steak and kidney pie, Wendy had a ploughman's and Milly
asked me what she should have. So I told her, "Whenever you're in this sort of
situation, it's always a safe bet to say "Same as you" when you're asked."
"Same as you," said Milly. The other guys in the pub eyed us covertly and
enviously, and when I paid a quick visit to the khazi, I found that a couple
of them had made a move on the two girls. But before I could make an
appropriate suggestion to them (two words, second word "off"), Wendy had
handled it. She moved to the bar billiards table, picked up one of the
billiard balls, and crushed it in her hand. "Oops," she said, "that keeps
happening." The two guys fled, and Milly remarked, thoughtfully, "Yes, I see
what you mean about intimidation."

That evening, George came round - he still had my car. I met him at the front
door, and warned him that Wendy had a bit of a surprise for him; his response
was to look nervous, and ask what it was. "It wouldn't be a surprise if I told
you, would it?" I asked. He followed me into the dining room, but he stopped
as he passed through the door. I saw him look at Wendy, then at Milly, then
back at Wendy. I did the same. Little minx. She'd gone back to brunette, and
now they looked identical again. "Milly, don't confuse the poor boy, turn your
hair back to blonde," I said. She grinned, and did as I asked. Wendy did the
same, of course. Sigh. Kids, they're bloody kids. George continued to do his
impression of a tennis umpire, he even made some "Ba, but, b ... " sound
effects. "Wendy!" I said in my stern-father voice. Wendy changed back to
brunette, so now we could tell them apart.

"George, meet Milly." Milly floated over to George, and held out her hand.
George, brain still in neutral, looked down at her hand, wondering what he was
supposed to do with it. "Shake hands, George," I advised. He held out his
hand, gingerly. "Milly? Er. Who are you? You look like ..." and he looked at
Wendy, "but, er, um." Milly took his hand, and pulled him towards her,
violently. He fell forwards, she caught him, wrapped her cape round him and
about half a second later, the window I'd just carefully repaired needed
another pane of glass, and I was left alone with Wendy. "Mmm, she's a bit ...
aggressive, isn't she?" "Takes after her mum," said Wendy, fixing me in the
eye and stalking towards me. "Now, Wendy, we haven't had dinner yet ..." She
stopped about an inch from me, then moved two inches forward. "We can't eat
yet," she explained, "first of all the casserole isn't ready yet, and secondly
our guests are ... otherwise occupied." I looked up. "Are you in contact with
her?" "Yes, but now is not a good time to ask her any damnfool questions,
she's a bit busy right now." "How long will she be, do you think?" "I told her
an hour, then to get her Wielder back here." "Wielder?" "What did you think
this was, ballroom dancing?"

The plot was now revealed to me in all its glory. Wendy had found the perfect
solution to the George problem, one that left me without those unpleasant and
unjustified feelings of jealousy, and that removed the "second-hand,
second-rank" feelings that George had told me he had. I kissed her, hard.
"Sometimes, Wendy, I wonder why you think you need a Wielder." She kissed me
back, lifted me up, and as we floated through the already-shattered window, I
started to think about mechanisms for automatically opening a window as a
flying body came close to it, and the alternative possibility of a curtain of
warm blown air to keep the draughts out while still allowing the passage of
flying weapons. What we needed, was a kind of giant cat flap.

A couple of hours later, George and I sat down at the dining table, and Wendy
and Milly brought the casserole out, in a very ceremonial manner. "This is
Milly's first cooking effort," Wendy explained. I looked at George, it's at
times like this that I'm envious of the Wendy-Milly radio link, because I
wanted to send him the message "No matter what, smile and enjoy it." I guess
my look must have conveyed the message just fine, because he did exactly that,
and so did I. "Any suggestions for improvement?" asked Milly anxiously. "Um, a
little less salt," I suggested, on my third glass of water, "but otherwise
just fine." "Can I take him home with me?" asked Milly. "Of course you can,"
said Wendy, "that's the whole idea. I hadn't expected the fledgling to leave
the nest quite so quickly, but I guessed Wendy knew what she was talking
about, and they did have their radio link. "Tell George about your training
idea," she suggested to me. "Training?" said George.

"Ah. Well. Um." I hadn't expected George to be in on this one. "It's actually
an old friend of mine, I'm going to ask her to improve their intimidation
skills," I explained. "Wendy's pretty good already, you should have seen her
with the American Cabinet," George said. "Yes, I know, I've seen her in
action, but anyone can improve with good teaching, and it's clear that this is
going to be an important string in her bow. Milly is the main reason for
calling for training, though, to get her up to speed fast," I explained. "So
who's the teacher?" "Her real name is Sally Curzon, but she goes by the name
of Miss Hardlash." There was a silence, then George giggled. "Dunc, what have
you been up to?" I went red, and said "It's not what you think, I knew her at
school, she's just an old friend." "Hardlash?" said George. I ignored him.
"Dunc, what are you going to be teaching these sweet innocent girls?"
"Innocent?" I asked, "Innocent? They're as innocent as a cabinet minister with
an empty petty cash box. Wendy stopped being a virgin within 24 hours of
arrival, and Milly within an hour." "Milly's wasn't a virgin when we ... ?"
"Come on, George, don't come the raw prawn. They ganged up on me, what was I
supposed to do, fight them off? I couldn't even fight one of them off." "You
tried?" "Sure, it's a, well, Wendy and I, er, look here, it's none of your
business what we get up to. Anyway, you stand about as much chance of stopping
Milly from doing what she wants as you do of stopping the tide from coming
in." George grinned, beatifically. Milly put her hand up.

"Yes, Milly?" I asked. "Can we go now?" "Yes, Milly." There was a blur of
white and gold, and Milly and George shot out of the window. I got up and
pulled the curtains, then turned to face Wendy. "Time for ..." I didn't get to
finish the sentence, we were upstairs, on the bed. "Mmmm."

. . .

Next day, I phoned Sally. "Hello?" "Yes?" "Miss Hardlash?" "On your knees,
boy!" "Er, it's me, Duncan, Duncan MacCrae?" "Oh, hello Dunc, how's things?"
"A bit unusual, Sally, and I may have need of your professional services." "On
your knees, boy, and it's Miss Hardlash to you!" "Um, not, it's not quite like
that. Could we come round and explain?" "We?" "Me and, er, Wendy." "I don't do
..." "No, it isn't like that, either." She thought for a moment. "Can't you
explain now, on the phone?" "Sorry, no, I need to show you." She sighed. "All
right, if you must. This afternoon, at four o'clock sharp." "Fine, we'll be
there." "You better, or else," she said, menacingly. I think she just did that
sort of thing out of habit.

After lunch, we flew to Sally's house. On the outside, it was a fairly
ordinary detached house in Ruislip. The inside, however, was not at all
ordinary. She'd decorated five of the rooms to be used for professional
purposes. One was the rather obvious medieval dungeon with suggestive torture
apparatus hung on the walls. One was a classroom, one was a medical room, one
was a baby's nursery, and the fifth one contained a vaulting horse and a wide
selection of whips, canes and floggers. After she'd shown us round, Sally led
us to her tea parlour and did the usual ritual with tea and biscuits. "Where's
the baby?" said Wendy. Sally gave her a "when did you hatch out of the egg"
look, and I explained to Wendy, there isn't a baby, that's for, er, clients.

But I wasn't there to explain to Wendy, Sally would do that if she accepted
the job. "It's like this, Sally," I began. Then I turned to Wendy, and
motioned her upwards with my hand. She rose a couple of feet, and floated
there while Sally's jaw dropped a couple of feet. "I've heard about you!" "You
know who I am?" asked Wendy. "You're the one they call the Weapon, right?"
"Right, but my friends call me Wendy." "Wow," said Sally, "and you want a
job?" Wendy looked at me.

"No, Sally, the idea is that you teach her all about dominance." "Why?" "Uh,
so that she can dominate people." "Why? From what I've heard, she could punch
a man's head off, she doesn't need to play games." "Actually, she does. She
doesn't want to have to kill someone to make a point. She doesn't even want to
hurt anyone." "Ah. Yes, I can see that would lead to a bit of a problem. But
that isn't widely known, is it?" "No, we're trying to keep that a secret, as
much as possible. But you can see how she needs to learn your skills. Would
you teach her, and if you would, how much will I be paying you?" I wanted to
make it clear that I wasn't expecting something for nothing.

Sally thought for a moment. "Dunc, I'll do a trade. She comes here, three days
each week for two hours, and in that time I'll teach her dominance skills,
within three months she'll be so dominant you'll be licking her boots each
day." I looked at Wendy, she grinned at me. Gulp. "In exchange, I get her for
two more hours on the same day, in which she'll apply those skills to clients,
and we split the fee 50/50." That sounded good; I'd been wondering how we
could keep the wolf from the door now that I wasn't working any more; Wendy
didn't seem to have grasped the concept of money yet. "There's two of them,
Wendy here and Milly, same deal for both?" Sally nodded, and held out her hand
to shake on the deal. "OW!!" "Oh, sorry Dunc, I wasn't thinking, I do that,
like automatically." I was shaking my hand in the air and blowing on it, she'd
done something to the knuckles. Wendy moved over and sat next to Sally, turned
to her and said, quite softly, "If you ever hurt him again, I'll break both
your arms in two places, forearm and upper arm." And she patted Sally's arm,
gently.

Sally sat very still for several seconds. "Was that good?" asked Wendy, "did I
do it right?" Sally faced her. "Yes. Very good. Force escalation, credible
threat, corroborative detail, made very calmly. You, my girl, are going to be
good. Very very good." Wendy smiled. "Thank you." "I like her already," said
Sally. "No sex," I said. "Of course not," said Sally. "Domination isn't about
having sex, it's about not having sex. If they want sex, they go to a prostie.
This," she said proudly, "is a house of fear, pain and domination." Wendy
licked her lips and looked at me. I could see that I was going to be used for
practice.

We arranged for the days to be Monday, Wednesday and Friday, to apply over the
next three months. "Except when she's on a mission, of course." "Mission?"
"Like the fire in Melbourne" I explained, using the example that everyone had
heard of. "And she should be in disguise," said Sally, "that white-and-gold
outfit is a dead giveaway, you don't want the tabloids to find out that The
Weapon is also a part time dominatrix in a House of Pain." "Disguise is no
problem," said Wendy, "I guarantee you won't recognise me when I turn up."

When we got home, I suggested that we work on her costume for Miss Hardlash's
establishment. "I was thinking of black leather," said Wendy, "and a mask so
they can't see my face. And you know the way Wonder Woman has a golden lassoo
at her hip? I thought I could have a bullwhip, like Indiana Jones. And black
leather gloves" "Golly", I gollied, "wicked." "Short skirt, and stiletto
heels." "Unh." "I'll show you." And she changed her outermost field of force
from her white-and-gold, to black-and black. I could see where she'd gotten
the mask, it was Batman without the ears. I don't know where she'd gotten the
skirt, it didn't cover much, it must have been about eighteen inches above the
knee, Twiggy maybe. And the boots were a few inches above the knee too. "Would
you like my honest opinion, Wendy?" "Yes, let's hear it. You think I look
hilarious?" "Wendy, if I met you in a dark alley on a dark night, I'd wet
myself."

She laughed, and jingled the handcuffs that dangled from her waist. "And now
I'm going to get you!" she shouted, making a leap at me. I stepped to one
side, so she missed, crashed into the wall, bounced off and lunged for me
again. This time I couldn't move fast enough, she had me. Click, click, she
put the handcuffs on me. "I thought handcuffs were to keep my hands behind my
back?" "No way, I want them up the front so you can reach me," she said. Then
she scooped me up and threw me onto the floor. I was expecting a hard landing,
and tried to get ready for the pain of the impact, but she got under me on the
way down, so I landed on top of her, a soft landing. And that was how I found
out why she'd chosen a skirt rather than trousers or pants, and it was also
how I found out what she was wearing underneath the skirt. Or rather wasn't.

After several minutes on the floor, I found that it rather restricts what you
can do if you're in handcuffs. Well, I suppose that's the whole point. "Wendy,
could you get these things off me? Where's the key?" "Key?" she asked, "Sally
didn't say anything about a key, what's the key for?" "To get them off" "You
don't need a key to put them on." "But you do need a key to get them off,
where's the key, Wendy, don't tell me you forgot the key?" She nodded. "Looks
like you're locked up for ever, Duncan." "Come on Wendy, don't mess around."
"Why not?" she asked, messing around a bit more. "Ooo." "Mmm." "Mmmnn."

And that's how George found us when Milly flew in through my broken window,
with him in her arms.

I'll spare you the explanations. I mean, there was nothing to explain, really.
I don't know why George kept chuckling, or why Milly kept breaking out into
giggles. "You wait, my son, you just wait. Just you wait until Milly comes
home and decides to tie you to the bed, stuff a ball gag in your mouth and
practice her tickling on you." "You seem so knowledgable about these things,
Dunc," he said, and they both started laughing again.

Feh. Just you wait, my lad.

We went out for a Chinese meal that evening. I suppose I was lucky, Wendy
decided to get the handcuffs off me; using chopsticks while handcuffed didn't
appeal much to me. It turned out she didn't need a key, she just snapped the
chain. So now I had this nifty pair of bracelets. "Just like Wonder Woman,"
said George. I glared at him. Just you wait, my lad, till Milly gets into the
swing of this.

When we got back home, I asked Wendy if she'd get the bracelets off me. "How?"
she asked. "Er, can't you just break them?" "Not without a risk of breaking
your wrists, love." George, of course, was grinning like a Barbary ape. Feh!
Well, sometimes the old fashioned ways work best. I gripped the cuff in a
bench vice, and hacksawed through it. Then it was fairly easy to twist it with
a mole wrench, and get my wrist out. I'm not ambidextrous, and I didn't have
enough skill in my left hand to be able to do the right hand cuff, and I was
blowed if I'd ask George for help. So I asked Wendy. She took my hand in hers,
kissed the back, bit through the handcuff and swallowed the piece of metal.
"Showoff," I said, wondering why she hadn't done that in the first place on
the other cuff. At least it stopped George doing his laugh-like-a-drain bit.

"Well," I said, yawning and stretching theatrically. George took the hint.
"Come on, Milly, time we wasn't here."

. . .