Human Weakness
A Smuthunter Story
“Hello? What can I do for you?”
Davis had been expecting something when the door opened, but he hadn’t been expecting her.
The woman he had come for, Priya, an employee from the other side of the merger was an attractive woman. He knew because he’d seen her pictures, studied her social media, and had observed her from afar for the past week.
The woman who opened the door, what he thought was Priya’s door, was something else entirely. This woman who was taller that Priya, with a darker complexion, and dressed in black tights and a sports bra, with no makeup and her long black hair piled in a messy bun atop her head, might have already answered all his questions.
“Hello, my name is Kent Davis, I’m looking for…”
The woman smiled at him, and her bright green emerald eyes looked deep into his, “Oh, you must be Ben’s friend, my sister is out for a moment, she wasn’t expecting you so soon. Come in, please, come on.”
Ben’s friend?
Expecting him?
Yes, Ben Taylor had been what brought him out here to the island, back to the island for the first time in five years, but the man was not his friend. Six months after the merger, Mr. Taylor’s name started to show up in a series of questionable, and unusual links in a chain of events that were unacceptable to his employers. It wouldn’t have mattered to anyone down the chain of command, but the higher ups were feeling a sting in their pride because their people weren’t the ones connected to the businesses successes. It was a chain of events that would lead to people being downsized and the other side’s leadership taking over.
Everyone could stand to make more money, but no one successful was ever happy to share, and that was the truth on both sides of the merger. For Davis, a business intelligence and security expert, his job was to root out the issues and solve the problems.
Ben Taylor’s actions reeked of being handled, of social engineering, and the beautiful, astoundingly buxom woman in front of him was probably the reason why.
He guessed blackmail.
A well orchestrated and deeply researched scheme to put a high value, low visibility employee in a compromised position where they could have him pull subtle but influential string to turn the merger into a takeover.
“I apologize,” she held out her hand, “my name is Esha, I am Priya’s roommate and friend, she is like a sister to me so I call her that, and we think any friend of Ben’s is a friend of ours.”
When he shook her hand, and said, “Kent Davis, but please call me Davis, it’s nice to meet you,” she clapped her other hand on his and kept hold of his hand.
“Please,” she gripped his hand in hers and gently pressed her thumb gently into the soft flesh between his thumb and forefinger, “relax and have a seat.”
She also pulled on his hand ever so slightly as she said the word seat and led him over to the couch. “You must excuse me, I need to keep stretching for my workout, but we can talk as I do. I have to keep up my physical therapy, I have a few lingering issues from my youth as a dancer.”
Professionalism and experience kept him from rolling his eyes, and he knew better than to blow his cover, or to take the bait she was setting for him. There was no way of knowing for sure how they knew he was coming, and he wondered if Ben had caught on to the fact he’d been watched, and that it set off a red flag in Davis’s book when the man and his wife took a trip back here.
He’d wondered if Ben was at the stage in his moral and professional compromise when he realized he’d never be out from under with these women, and that even if they gave him their ‘evidence’ that it would only be another set up, another way to turn the screw. He could hear it in his head, he could imagine this woman saying it, complete with her smooth, British inflected, so charm.
‘Yes Mr. Taylor, this is the only copy. But don’t you think you’d feel safer, I know I would, if we kept our arrangement going? After all, how do we know you won’t try and do this to us?’
Davis didn’t need a confession, and he didn’t need to get this Priya woman on the hook, all he needed was to create some leverage and some continuity that went up the chain from Ben, to her, and to whomever she was working for. He wasn’t a cop, and he wasn’t anyone’s boss, he was a spy. He was gathering intelligence, and if possible, recruiting an asset, but that was the thing with spies, and whatever else this Esha woman was and whatever Priya was they were certainly spies, you couldn’t trust them if you tried to flip them, you could only use them and either cut them free and keep them in the back yard chasing their tails.
“You seem like a very contemplative man Mr. Davis,” as she spoke, she sat down and started to lazily spread her legs out into the splits and bend forward until her chest was on the ground.
“Well,” he let himself find his charming small talk voice, “it’s always awkward meeting new people. How do you know Ben?”
Big business had always been a part of international espionage and intelligence, and as businesses started to become akin to nations unto themselves, with vast fortunes of not just financial wealth and property, but innovation, information, and talent, corporate espionage grew in prominence, weaving in and out of national and political motivation, all the way down to simple greed and rival competition.
She sat up and turned to face him before languidly stretching out over the leg that was pointed at him, reaching for her toes and squaring her shoulders, giving him a pronounced view of her pushed together, semi-contained cleavage as she answered.
“My sister worked with him, and she suggested we have drinks one night.”
She leaned forward then, lowering her head to her knee, and continuing to speak, but not before letting him see a sparkle in her soft green eyes. “But it wasn’t like that. My sister said he was so in love with his wife that he would be a safe man to share my company with, and that he and I would get along.”
She was smooth, he had to give her that, smooth as glass, and obviously good at what she did. “How about you, you work together,” she looked up at him, right into his eyes and smiled, “yes?”
“Yeah,” she was telling him she knew that he knew, but when someone gives you what you want, it’s because they’re trying to take the initiative. Davis wasn’t going to drop his cover; you’d be surprised what made people get sloppy. “We’ve been at the company for a while, and we see each other around.”
He adjusted the collar of his polo shirt and then brushed at his shorts, “Different teams, I’m in data science, but you know how it goes. You never know who you’ll hit it off with at a company picnic or holiday party.”
She shifted her stretching, reaching her arm over her head and towards her toes, and he watcher the way she moved. She was lithe, so lithe that it made her incredible flexibility seem common. “No, you never know where you’ll meet someone, or how you’ll suddenly connect with them. Ben is such a delight, such a dedicated and loving husband, and his wife Shannon is such a delight too. They stayed with us when they were here.”
It was a trap, Ben’s wife’s name was Alice.
“That’s funny, he might not be as loving as he seems. His wife’s name’s Alice.” Davis made it into a joke and laughed at his own humor. “Maybe he has a secret family I don’t know about.”
The back of Esha’s sports bra was a series of thin crossed straps, and her shoulders and arms were nothing but long, lean muscle. She sat up, looked deep into his eyes and laughed, “Oh, I don’t think there’s anything about Ben you don’t know.”
Her emerald green eyes sparkled as she spoke, then she twisted further towards him and held her pose, breasts jutting out towards him even in the smothering sports bra. “But I wonder what he knows about you?”
She reached up with both hands then leaned backwards and he watcher her lithe, muscular abdomen as her chin tilted towards the ceiling, pausing to let her question hang there.
“Who knows,” Davis laughed, “I doubt he’d have any cause to mention me… or to tell anyone I’d be coming here. Let alone expecting me.”
Esha sat straight up again, then turned her back on him and started to repeat her stretches on the other side, “We assumed our relationship with Ben would inspire you, or maybe another friend to come out here to visit us, especially my sister. Priya is a very extroverted woman and we both love good company.”
Esha had an exquisite body, muscled and toned and limber as a dream, and as Davis couldn’t help admiring her, he thought he might take the bait or offer some of his own. “When Ben mentioned Priya, he didn’t say anything about a sister.”
At some point one of them would play the other, or get tired of the dance, and since they were both working from the same playbook he wondered if she was enjoying the dance, or was already tired of it.
“Oh you know, it’s as I said, we’re not sisters,” she twisted around to look at him, and he looked at her chest again, “not in blood, but we’re not simply friends, or roommates, or even lovers, we have a word in our language, but the closest in yours is sister. We’ve known each other since we were children, and we’ve schooled together, and danced together, and we both left and returned to the island at the same time. But I’m sure you don’t care about that. I’m sure you’d rather talk about more pressing things.”
She twisted away from him and Davis chewed on what she had to say.
These women were both, whatever they were to each other, involved in the same business.
“Ben told us that you visited here five years ago, and I think maybe you met a friend of mine.” She twisted around to face him, and the laughing sparkle in her green eyes was a challenge, “Do you remember meeting a young woman named Rina? Many people think she is very memorable.”
Rina.
Davis made a point not to react, but he knew the name, and this woman was right, Rina was memorable.
She was light skinned, with bright blue eyes, or maybe contacts, hair that was dyed platinum blond, with an aggressive undercut,,
Five years ago she looked like she was barely out of college, and like Esha, had the body of a stripper. This Rina woman also had large breasts, not as large as Esha’s but still remarkable. He didn’t identify women that way, he was seeing a pattern.
She’d been an administrative assistant in one of the offices, and Davis had seen her on video sucking a man’s cock in that office. That man was the reason he’d been on the island. That man had been guilty of an aggressive amount of embezzlement, and then flagrant attempts at extortion, but when he’d been confronted by Davis, and then the police after he’d been arrested and extradited back to the States, he’d said it was all his idea.
Rina had her fingerprints all over him, but when he questioned her she said she’d just made a mistake. She denied everything, and as convincing as she was, he didn’t believe her. He took the blame for everything, and he wasn’t convincing, but he threw himself on the grenade, and threw himself at the mercy of the courts.
It didn’t matter how carless she had been, he took the fall, and even said that he’d taken advantage of her, that he’d coerced her into sexual favors at the office, and that was what was on the video.
“But, she seemed to say it was unpleasant business, and I am sorry for you, because while Rina can be quite reckless sometimes,” Esha stood up and then turned to face him, “she is quite charming.”
Esha’s eyes didn’t leave his, not even as she clasped her hands together and stretched them up over her head before languidly shifting her hips and bending side to side. “And I hope you and I can have a more enjoyable introduction than hers.”
She unclasped her hands and let her arms fall until they were out to her sides, then she started to roll her hips back and forth on either side, “I hope that you can bring yourself to enjoy my company and relax with me. I will tell you everything you want to know, if you just ask me. I will only tell you the truth, it would only be right.”
Her voice was soft and mischievous, and her eyes were daring him to admire her body, to watch the serpentine roll of her hips, her abdomen and her torso, slinking like a belly dancer while her arms remained almost perfectly still, moving ever so slightly like the surface of a pound under the gentlest breeze.
It was a sight to see, because she was a sight.
“Who do you work for Esha?” He met her eyes, her sparkling, scintillating, bright green eyes and didn’t blink.
A good liar wasn’t afraid of the truth, and a good liar didn’t have to lie, they used pieces of truth in a different pattern and shape. He would take her word for it, and find the lie in her truth.
It was better than second guessing the details.
“I am in public relations for our government,” her wrists rolled and her head moved to one side, then they other, but still her eyes stayed fixed on his, looking deeper into him, and he saw her confidence in that stare. “And that includes establishing strong relationships with visitors to the island. You understand this, your job is like mine, flexible, demanding, interesting… it is to be what you do, and what you do is to be what is needed for what you need, isn’t it?”
There was a roll in her shoulders, some training, some practiced use of muscles he didn’t know he had, that allowed her chest to shift and roll with her body as everything about her become more serpentine, more fluid and lithe, but Davis didn’t look way from her eyes, he didn’t give her the satisfaction of taking the bait.
He didn’t let her seem him acknowledge the impressive, captivating sway of her body, or the shape of her heavy breasts swaying and jiggling in her sports bra.
“So,” he smiled at her and let his own authority and confidence take control of the conversation, “are we done playing game?”
Esha shifted her hips and took a half a step back, her motions all looked like different small stretches, or limbering up motions, but together they became a sort of dance. Though, nothing in her face said she was leaning into this obvious act of seduction.
“I suppose we could be done, but I never play games, or perhaps I should say,” she stopped the undulating motion of her body and instead gave her arms and legs a casual shake before continuing her thought, “that maybe I never stop playing, because you know how it is. It’s all the great game. Move for move, we all play it. Now…”
She started to sway her hips again, more obviously stretching as she did, “what else do you want to know?”
The tone was as soft as it was confident, and she obviously didn’t think anything bad could come of this conversation. She was too comfortable in this confrontation, and it gave Davis pause. But, he didn’t show it, and he didn’t look away from her emerald eyes. He didn’t stop trying to read what she might show in them. He stared deep into her eyes, so deep that everything else faded at the edges, and he didn’t care.
One of them would have to give ground first, one of them would provide an opening, and then they could be undone. There was always a winner, someone always could come out on top, there was always leverage to gain, always a secret or a weakness to exploit.
He looked deep into her soft bright eyes, deep into the gentle emerald green, and spoke, “What do you have over Ben? Blackmail? Did you seduce him? What’s the end game for him now that you obviously know we’ve made him, and are on to you?”
“Oh,“ her arms started their languid motion again, her wrists started to twirl, and now her dance became more obvious. She took a step towards him and her head started to sway back and forth, and her eyes led his back and forth.
Back and forth, back and forth his eyes followed hers, and he saw the whole of her body, smooth, flawless, swaying to and fro, serpentine motions compelling his eyes to choose between her eyes and her body, different parts moving one way and the other as she took another step towards him while he sat on the couch and looked up at her.
“You cannot seduce a man like Ben, he loves his wife far too much to be seduced. And blackmail is so limiting and so dishonest. What is the point of giving something to someone, just to take it away? Fear and anger don’t inspire loyalty, and loyalty is the end goal with Ben, with all of our… you do not have a word for them either, it does not matter. But you’ve seen it, you saw it with your last friend that brought you here. More than love, or lust, we have our design set on the deepest, most abiding loyalty…”
Her smooth, ceaseless motions, her dance to music that wasn’t there still followed a beat and a cadence in her voice. She was filling up the room with every little twist and roll, and while he stared deeper and deeper into her eyes, he felt himself watching and following her body, led, distracted, and coerced into seeing what was in front of him.
She was effortlessly seductive in her smooth, fluid motions, and Davis understood why anyone would be tempted by her; more than Priya, who downplayed her beauty, this woman was the one who must have overwhelmed Ben’s better judgment.
“…as you’ve seen before, the last time you were here.”
Her hand came across her face and waved across her eyes once, then twice, and Davis found himself following that hand as it started to sway back and forth in front of her breasts. “You cannot seduce a man who is truly in love, just like you cannot tempt a man who is truly happy. You have a saying… what is it?”
Her fingers curled and waved as her hand moved back and forth, “Ah yes,” she snapped her fingers in front of her breasts and Davis blinked then found his vision following her fingers up to her eyes, “you cannot con an honest John, I believe?”
He felt a little slow on the uptake all of a sudden, and for a moment found himself staring at her without a thought in his head, staring deep into her eyes, her deep green, soft, inviting emerald eyes.
Davis blinked again, “Yeah, that’s it. So, if you didn’t seduce him, are you saying he wasn’t happy, and you gave him a better offer?”
He realized in that moment that the rest of her body hadn’t stopped moving, and as she suddenly became still, perfectly still, he felt himself also suddenly become very still. Had he been swaying back and forth with her?
Davis put his hand down on the couch and leaned on it to balance himself.
“No,” her hips started to sway again, “I did not seduce him, not as you mean it, and I did not bribe him, or make him a better offer. Those are passing things that have their place, but not for our sweet Ben. I, it is more than this but again it does not translate perfectly, you would say I hypnotized him with my breasts.”
