Broken Blue: The Complete Series Page 4

  "Edward, come to me!" she says. "I'm ready for you. I have something that I'm quite certain will interest you. A gift".

  Smiling, I walk across the main room and reach the bedroom door. It's dark in there, with the only light coming from a single candle that burns on the dresser. For a moment, I can see very little, but finally my eyes adjust and I realize that Sophia is naked on the bed. I enter the room, walking around to get a better view of her body. In the warm red glow of the candle, she looks particularly beautiful.

  "I have decided to give myself to you completely," she says, opening her legs a little to expose the pink slit in her crotch. "Whatever you want," she continues, "and whatever you need, I am yours tonight. I will not fight you, nor will I demure from any request you make of me". She reaches down and dips a single finger into her glistening wetness. "My body is yours. Do what you want with me. Let me feel you inside". She parts the lips of her vagina, as if to better show me the passage within.

  I pause. "The game demands -"

  "The game doesn't need to demand anything," she replies firmly, as if she has been preparing for my response. "I give myself willingly to the game, body and soul". She pauses, as if she's expecting me to say something. "I thought long and hard," she continues eventually, with a little uncertainty in her voice, "and I realized what the game wants. It wants total and unconditional submission. It wants someone who will give their entire body to its cause. I am willing to do that". She smiles. "But first, as I mentioned," she continues, "I have something for you. It's just a small gift, nothing of monetary value, but... Would you like it now, my darling?"

  "Show me," I reply, bristling at her use of the word 'darling'. With a heavy heart, I am starting to wonder if I was wrong about Sophia after all.

  "It's in here," she says, shifting a little to better present her crotch to me. "It's inside me. You need merely slip a finger inside to find it". She takes my hand in hers and guiding my fingers between her legs. "I put it there for you. Only for you. I want you to find it. Don't wait".

  Once she has let go of my hand, I pause for a moment before finally slipping a finger between the lips of her vagina. She is so warm and wet, I feel an urge to lean down and taste her, but I know that such a move would be a terrible mistake. Instead, I gently move my finger deeper inside, while she leans back on the bed and lets out a gasp. Slipping my finger a little deeper, I finally feel my fingertip brush against something that should not be there. Very delicately, I start to pull the object out, and finally I watch as a single rose petal slips out between her labia.

  "It is beautiful, is it not?" she asks, smiling at me.

  I pause for a moment, feeling the wet petal between my fingers. "No," I say finally. "No, it is without a doubt the most pathetic thing I have ever seen".

  "What do you mean?" she asks, frowning as she stares at me.

  I take a deep breath. Poor Sophia has failed in the most heart-breaking manner possible; all that remains is for her to face the moment of truth, and to suffer the consequences of her choice. Somewhere, I fancy that Mr. White and Lady Red are laughing at my naivety.

  "Don't be too quick to decide," Sophia continues, a look of panic in her eyes. "Now that you have taken something out of me, you must put something else back in". She runs a hand over her fine bosom, pausing to press her thumb against one of her nipples before reaching down and opening the front of my trousers. She reaches in and places her hand around my hard penis, freeing it from the fabric and then starting to gently rub the shaft. Her desire to please me is pitiful, and I have to fight the urge to push her away.

  "Come to bed with me," she says softly. "All will be better, I promise you". She waits for me to reply, and then she slowly leans closer and takes the tip of my penis into her mouth, caressing it with her tongue. It's not unpleasant, but I can't stop thinking about the tragedy of the whole situation. She seemed so promising, and yet something has gone horribly wrong. With every new move, she makes things worse and worse for herself.

  "Stop," I say as she continues to suck on my penis. "Sophia, please. Stop".

  I wait a moment, but still she won't accept that it's over. The rules of the game say that I should force her to stop, but it's hard to resist such a beautiful girl. Finally, realizing that there is no point holding back any longer, I decide that the next best thing is to make this brief. Pushing her back down onto the bed, I climb on top and slip myself inside her vagina, and then I start making love to her with a kind of force and power I rarely display. When I make love, it's usually calm and calculated, and with consideration to the comfort of the girl, but this time I'm filled with an unstoppable desire to simply take her as fast as possible and fill her with my seed. It's as if, somehow, I'm hoping to whip myself up into such a frenzy that I'll barely notice as the game claims her life.

  "Yes!" she gasps, shuddering under the force of my heavy thrusts. "Oh, Edward, take me!"

  Ignoring her words, I focus on getting this done as fast as possible. I don't think about her at all; I just focus on my needs, and on my desire to achieve an orgasm. I pound her faster and harder, paying no attention to her gasps of pleasure or to the way she wraps her arms around my torso. Within a minute, I reach the point of ecstasy and I feel myself ejaculate deep inside her body. I continue to fuck her until finally I'm sure that I'm finished, and then I withdraw. Sitting back, and feeling my heart hammering in my chest, I see a milky bead of semen drip down from her vagina and land on the bed-sheets. I have no idea if she was satisfied; all that matters is that I reached a climax.

  "It's over," I say breathlessly.

  "No," she says, sitting up. "It's only just begun. I can still win".

  "No," I say, "it's over. You've lost. You understood the rules from the start, Sophia. You know that it's forbidden to argue with the -"

  "You're wrong!" she says firmly, fixing me with a determined stare. Some girls collapse in a heap of tears when they learn that they have lost, while others become angry; it would seem that Sophia belongs to the latter category. "I haven't lost," she insists. "I can't have lost!"

  "Please don't make this harder than it needs to be," I say. "There's no need to make a fuss".

  She stares at me for a moment. "I refuse to accept what you're saying," she says finally, affecting an air of defiant dignity. "I have not lost. How would you even know what it is like to win or lose? What are the criteria? On what basis do you -"

  "Enough!" I shout, getting up from the bed. I walk to the door, but she rushes after me, grabbing my shoulder and forcing me to face her. My erect penis, still hard and wet from our love-making, slaps against her crotch.

  "You can't simply throw me away like this!" she says, with tears in her eyes. "There is nothing I could have done better!" she shouts. "Nothing!" Dropping to her knees, she attempts to take my penis in her mouth, but I pull away and walk into the main room.

  "I'm so sorry," I say quietly, knowing what must come next. It's as if I can already feel the game tightening its grip around Sophia's final moments. I have witnessed this moment with many girls in the past, but it is particularly painful with Sophia since I was truly starting to believe that she would do better.

  "You're wrong!" she shouts, running through to face me. "I'll go to the others! I'll show Mr. White what I can do. You're the failure here, not me. You're the one who has done everything wrong. Everyone else will laugh at you, and you'll be the one who has to leave the game. They'll give me your place. Who says Mr. Blue has to be male? Perhaps I'll be Lady Blue, and the game will continue with -"

  "Shut up!" I shout at her. "You have no idea what you're talking about! No idea whatsoever!" I pause, realizing that I'm starting to lose control, which would be a cardinal sin. "You have no clue how the game works!" I continue. "You are wrong, a thousand times wrong! I wish it were not so, but the truth is right before my eyes, Sophia".

  "Was it the rose petal?" she asks.

  I shake my head. Now is not the time for a post mortem, and one of the rules of the g
ame is that girls should not be told why they have lost. Anyway, it's never just one thing. It's about overall attitude, and Sophia - with her sudden and rather desperate desire to please me and to supplicate herself - has most definitely lost.

  She stares at me, with fury in her eyes. Finally, she runs back to the bedroom and gathers her clothes, before walking quickly to the front door. "You won't see me again," she says as she reaches the door. "Good luck, Edward. You'll need it once I've spoken to Mr. White".

  "Go ahead," I reply, feeling a sense of sadness well up in my chest. I know what is about to happen; it has happened so many times before. He is waiting.

  Angrily, Sophia opens the door, only to find Mr. White standing outside.

  "Make it quick," I say, but it's too late. I see the tip of Mr. White's hunting knife slice through Sophia's neck, and then the blade twists around before he pulls it back out. Sophia steps back, clutching her throat as blood pours down her body. She staggers toward me, her eyes wide open in shock. It's almost as if she thinks there's something I can do to help her, but of course it's far too late. No matter how she tries to contain the flow of blood, she can do nothing to save herself as the bright red fluid erupts from the gash in her neck. With blood flowing down over her breasts and dripping onto the floor, she tries to steady herself against a chair, but her legs give way and she collapses.

  I step back, to make sure she can't get any blood on my shoes. Still refusing to accept the end, she tries to crawl toward the window, leaving a thick trail of blood across the carpet. Finally, she stops crawling and rolls onto her side, before reaching out as if to grab something that might save her; she opens her mouth, and for a moment it seems that she's trying to say something; she makes a faint gurgling sound, but finally she falls silent and I realize that the life has left her body. She's dead, her cold, glassy eyes staring up at me in horror. The very last thing she saw, before death, was my naked body standing over her.

  "Well," says Mr. White, still standing by the doorway with the bloodied knife in his hand, "another one bites the dust. I suppose we must get to work".

  Eight

  Today

  Standing in the middle of a huge, high-ceilinged warehouse, I reach out and touch a large gray membrane that's hanging from a gantry. The whole thing feels so weird, like a giant gray rose petal coated with a thin layer of moisture.

  "It might not seem like much," Mark says, standing a little way behind me, "but this is the most advanced skin in the world. It's extremely thin, thinner than the skin on a human body, but it's also very strong. You could fire a bullet at this stuff from a couple of inches away, and it wouldn't make a mark". He steps forward and touches the membrane. "It took five years to create a tensile substance that's so strong but also so flexible. Traditionally, flexibility has had to come at the expense of strength, and vice versa. Your father finally cracked the problem and made these two aspects complimentary rather than mutually exclusive. It's physically impossible to damage this stuff. You can try to tear it, but you won't succeed. It's perfect in every way".

  "Huh," I say, feeling mind-bogglingly stupid. I don't really understand why this big lump of magic plastic skin is so special, but I don't want to seem stupid by asking dumb questions. I already feel like I'm totally out of my depth. "So could you put it on a person?" I ask.

  "The primary application will be in aviation," he replies. "In ten years' time, I'm confident that most new aircraft will use this material to reduce drag and increase torsion. The skin doesn't crack under tension, and it doesn't warp as the atmospheric pressure changes. It can also be used for road cars, and obviously there are military applications that we've barely even begun to explore. Nevertheless, I have a delegation from the United States coming to take a look next week. They're very interested in what we've been doing here".

  "Cool," I mutter, walking around the membrane to the other side. To my surprise, I see that it's very slightly transparent, and I can just about see Mark's face. So this is the stuff my father was working on: a huge, gray sheet of high-tech skin that they're gonna put on airplanes. Ten years of a man's life, reduced to this. How many hundreds or thousands of hours did my father sit at his desk, working out how to make this fucking stuff? It kinda doesn't seem worth it.

  "Let me show you to his office," Mark says, gesturing for me to follow him to the other end of the warehouse. We climb some steps and end up in a small room with a panoramic view over the rest of the warehouse. Everything in here is slightly messy, just like my father's study at home, and I can instantly smell his aftershave. It's weird being here, and I almost feel like he might walk in at any moment.

  "So you paid for this whole place, right?" I ask, turning to Mark.

  He smiles. "Your father was the brains behind the project," he says. "I just recognized the potential and supplied the necessary funding".

  "How much?" I ask.

  He looks awkward for a moment. "Many tens of millions," he says eventually. "This type of work doesn't come cheap".

  "No kidding," I reply, walking over to the desk by the window. This must be where my father worked, day after day. He was always fairly secretive about his work; well, not 'secretive' exactly, but he didn't like talking about it much when he was at home. He preferred talking about the latest football news, or music, or movies. Most of all, though, he liked to ask me about my life. I'd tell him about the latest books I was studying, and he always seemed genuinely interested. Now, looking at his desk, I realize those conversations are a thing of the past. He's gone.

  "He kept some personal items here," Mark says, walking over to join me. "I suggested to your mother that perhaps you could take a quick look and decide what you want to keep". He pauses. "I was a little surprised when she said you'd come today. I thought it could wait".

  "My mother wants to keep me busy," I reply. "She doesn't like it when people sit around doing nothing". I sigh. My mother's definition of 'nothing' is pretty broad, and encompasses pretty much anything that doesn't meet her approval.

  "Just take anything you want," Mark says. "I've already moved all the paperwork out of the way, so everything that's left is up for grabs. I'll step out and give you some privacy".

  "It's fine," I say, taking a deep breath as I try to work out where to start. Mark, who seems like he'd rather not be here, walks to the door and goes back down to the main part of the warehouse, leaving me standing here looking at my father's things. I wish I could just walk out of here and tell everyone that none of this stuff matters, but I guess my mother wants to know that I saved a few trinkets. I grab a box from nearby, tip out the files, and decide to just grab some stuff. Within a few minutes, I've filled the box with staplers, hole-punchers and a bunch of other totally impersonal stuff that nobody gives a crap about, but at least I've got something to show my mother when I get home. This trip clearly isn't about getting specific items; it's a ritual that has to be performed, and I just have to get through it as fast as possible.

  Eventually I start going through the drawers, which turn out to be mostly empty until I get to the last one, which I find is locked. Jiggling it about a little, I realize that something is rolling about inside, so I crouch down and try to get a better look. It seems slightly odd that my carefree, happy-go-lucky father would suddenly decide to lock one particular drawer, so I find myself searching through the rest of the desk again in case I've missed a key. Coming up blank, I try to drawer again and start wondering whether there's some way I can force it open. I know it probably doesn't matter, but there's a part of me that figures my father wouldn't care, not now that he's dead. I just want to get this fucking drawer open already, so I can get whatever's in there and then leave.

  After a few minutes, I decide I need to take some more forceful action, so I get up and stand back, figuring that maybe I can kick the drawer open. Pausing, I try to work out where I can place the kick so that the front will maybe come loose. To be honest, I feel pretty stupid right now, but I just want to get the drawer open so I can f
ind out what's in there and then get out of here. My father's dead now, so he doesn't need to have any secrets. Counting to three, I kick the front of the drawer as hard as I can, but nothing budges. Determined to get it open, I pause for a moment and then try again, but still I don't have any luck. I take a deep breath, realizing that there's no way this approach is going to work, so instead I kneel down, pull my wallet out of my pocket, and try using the edge of my debit card to get the lock to open. It's a desperate move, and I kinda already know it's not going to work, but I figure it's worth a try. Eventually, after fiddling for a few minutes, I realize I'm on a hiding to nothing. As I put my card and wallet away, I feel something wet in the corner of my eye, and moments later a tear rolls down my cheek. Shocked, I wipe it away. Damn it, why can't I just cry properly like a normal person and get it all out at once, instead of having one tear every few hours?

  "Are you okay up here?" Mark asks from the doorway.

  Looking over the top of the desk, I see his concerned-looking face. I guess I was pretty noisy when I was trying to kick the drawer open. I stand up. "Yeah," I say, "it's just this one drawer that's stuck. I think it's locked or something".

  Walking over to the desk, Mark takes out a set of keys from his pocket and checks them, before selecting one and trying it in the lock on the front of the drawer. To my surprise, it works and the drawer slides open to reveal a bunch of papers and files.

  "Your father gave me a spare set," Mark says. "He said he was always losing his own".

  "Sounds about right," I reply, taking the papers from the drawer. They all look like technical drawings, but suddenly a photo slides out. To my horror, I see that it's a picture of me from about five years ago: I'm standing on a hotel balcony, wearing a Nickelback t-shirt and smiling an awkward, spotty smile at the camera. I grab the photo and tuck it away in my pocket, but Mark blatantly saw it.