I was on my knees, his cock in my throat while he spoke on the phone. I was working him in and out of my mouth, trying to get him to cum quickly, but his attention was focused on his conversation.

He let one hand heavily fall on my head, his pinky ring knocking painfully on my skull. That hand also held a cigar which he would suck on between bursts of conversation.

I just hoped that the jackass didn’t set fire to my hair.

“What? No, I’m here alone. Well, as good as…I’ve got one of the sluts sucking my cock, but she doesn’t speak any French. She’s one of those fucking Ukrainian girls who wash through here all the time. She’s a pretty good cocksucker – you should come down here and try her. I just love shoving my prick down her throat.”

To emphasize his words, he did just that. He thought he was in control of the little red-headed Ukrainian slut who was sucking his cock and who didn’t speak French.

He was wrong on all counts.

This was the man who had owned the car that had run my Mistress, Miriam, off the highway, leading to her death. I was learning a lot about what had happened – part of which was that this was going to be more complicated than I had hoped.

This man was a pawn. I had learned that much. Now I had to figure out who the king was – and that was going to be difficult and dangerous. Plus, I wasn’t the only one looking.

It had taken me a lot of time and effort to get this particular asshole’s cock in my mouth. But there was a lot more I could learn from him, so for now, I just concentrated on eavesdropping as I sucked him.

And reflected on what it had taken to get me here.

~~~~~

A lot of things had brought me to this point, so many that it’s hard to say precisely where they started. Perhaps how I joined the hacker community would be as good a place as any.

Mistress discovered I was smarter than people suspected after she had played chess against me. She was brilliant herself, and, when the game was done, she just stared at me, thinking. She knew I had run away from home before finishing high school, then decided that I would enroll in courses that would lead to my diploma. She also had me take Tae Kwon Do instruction for self-defense and allowed me to select other courses that interested me.

I had never liked school and had never been very good at it, but I didn’t hesitate. I did as she told me – and worked hard to excel, as she had commanded. Initially, I excelled because I wanted to please her, but over time I found that excelling was addictive, and started doing it for myself.

Along the way, I found that computers fascinated me. I took an introductory course, then another, and another – then joined the computer club, and got involved in online gaming. I found out that gaming is addictive, plus I was very good at it, developing a bit of a reputation as Selene, my game name. And as computer games always push the boundaries of what is possible with computers, gamers are often hackers and vice-versa.

I was older than the other students in my computer classes, but my petite size, and ability to be whatever people expected me to be persuaded my classmates that I was their age. I dressed down, wore glasses, acted naïve and friendly, and persuaded them I was one of them.

The guys in my class were all nerds, and shy around girls. They had a hard time accepting me as an equal intellectually. There were female nerds, too, but they didn’t attract boys the way I did, for some strange reason.

But I was used to dealing with people who were difficult, and gradually won them over. Partly to thank them, and partly to gain their acceptance, I also taught them how to behave around girls. I’m pleased to say I helped a number of them get laid – just not by me.

I was there to learn, not have a “school experience.” I sat up front in class, took notes, asked questions, and worked hard. In all of my classes, but especially in computer courses, my purpose was to learn about how things worked, and what I could do with them. Then I ran into Henrique.

Henrique Moreau was French and taught one of my computer courses about networks and network security. I was the best student in his networks and security class – much to the surprise of my nerdy classmates. I thought it was fun, and it all just made sense to me.

Mistress, too, was surprised when I stayed up late working on my homework – or rather things that were related to my homework that interested me, including gaming. She got concerned as it almost became an all-consuming passion for me for a while. I even started preferring being on the computer to having sex, and that really concerned her.

But since I was getting top marks in all of my classes, she let it go. She said I had discovered my wings and should be allowed to fly.

 ~~~~~

There was a game we played in my network security class that counted towards our marks. We were paired up, one of us tried to attack the class network, the other to defend it. Whoever succeeded, got the higher mark.

I was never defeated and got the highest marks in Henrique’s class.

It was only later that I learned that Henrique was also a member of an informal group of hackers that got together from time to time to exchange ideas and hacks, and he saw potential in me. He asked whether I was also into online gaming. I said I was, and carelessly told him my game name. I now know that was foolish, but it worked out well as I got an invitation to play a new game series that was by invitation-only.

It turned out to be a test. I had to find a way to get some special software, which I could only get by hacking. It was a fairly simple series of hacks, but it told them a lot about my attitude towards hacking, and my potential abilities as a hacker. I learned later that Henrique and one of my gaming buddies had recommended me to the group of hackers, that they had tested me, and I had passed.

Henrique stopped me after class shortly after that and asked if I’d like to meet some more accomplished network people. He didn’t say hackers, but that’s what I heard – and that’s what he meant. I later learned that the Henrique had vouched for me, and the game-test they had given me had convinced them I might be a valuable addition to their group.

And that’s how I came to be introduced, and later became a part of it. The group doesn’t actually have a name and doesn’t exist in any formal way, but we all call it The Collective.

Over time, The Collective has done a lot for me. They’ve helped me change identities, erase personal data about me in databases, alert me when someone was hunting for me, helped me evade detection and even capture – both online and in the real world – and helped me get information I needed.

In fact, I would say that my hacking, and my membership in The Collective, were the only things that made my quest for Mistress’ killers possible.

And now that I had retrieved my laptop from Gregor, I had access to The Collective and all the information that I’d collected so far. I started tracking Miriam’s killer or killers in earnest.

~~~~~

I started with the security cameras Mistress had installed in our house. Miriam had a security system, including cameras, and we could access the cameras remotely. After her death, and in preparation for my own, I hacked into our home system, and instructed it to download each days’ video to a separate server – mine – then switch back to the monitoring company, undetected.

I also got Gregor to obtain cutting-edge mini-cameras that were virtually undetectable and added them to the security system without the monitoring company knowing it. Now I had the ability to see anywhere in our residence – and to do so without alerting intruders.

Earlier, I had reviewed video footage prior to my faked death and found nothing. Now I watched whether anything had happened after my death.

The day I went missing, the police showed up, including Piers, looking unhappy. But Hans and the guy from the German Embassy were with them, too, which was decidedly strange. Normally, civilians – even diplomatic ones – would never be allowed into a police crime scene, certainly not in the early hours of an investigation. This meant that Hans had serious political clout – which I knew – but also that the German Embassy had more than a passing interest in the case, which I found puzzling.

Hans looked grim. I was torn between feeling sad for his anguish and concerned about whether he was involved in Mistress’ murder. But the attitude of the Embassy guy caught my attention. I couldn’t hear what anyone said, of course, but when Hans or the police were watching, he seemed the picture of a disinterested bystander. At other times, I could see him watching closely what the police were doing, where they were searching, and what they had found.

Then I ran the video ahead to that night – and sure enough, someone had broken into the apartment.

More interesting still, although the image was grainy and not all that clear, it looked very much like the Embassy guy. The way the intruder walked was the same, and it’s much harder to disguise your gait than your appearance. So, either the Embassy guy had an evil twin, or he had broken in to do a little informal snooping on his own – or for someone else, probably a government. Curiouser and curiouser, and worth investigating. I made notes and moved on.

Next, I looked through the material I had gotten from Piers, notably about the car that had probably been used to force Mistress off the highway. At one point, when Piers and I were in bed after sexing, he confessed that the cameras used to monitor autobahn traffic had gone blank during the ten-minute period when and where the crash would have been recorded. There was no explanation why the camera had stopped working – or why it mysteriously started again after the crash. As a result, there was no video of the crash itself.

And since the crash hadn’t been seen on camera, neither police nor ambulances were dispatched, and by the time the crash was noticed, Mistress was long dead, and the perpetrators were long gone. Meanwhile, the monitoring authorities had chalked it up to a computer glitch and forgotten about it.

When Piers first told me, I was shocked and demanded to know more. This finally seemed like concrete proof that someone had murdered Mistress. Piers was reluctant to tell me anything more, but I got bitchy with him, and wouldn’t let go until he talked – and now I was able to review the police reports for myself.

Miriam’s car had been identified going into that section of road from the camera farther back up the highway, so the police took note of any cars that were close to hers, and capable of interacting with her car in that time period.

Next, I pulled up the police reports that I had copied onto my computer while Piers had slept and started reading them carefully.

The first thing I noticed was that there had been a lot of in-fighting about who was going to lead the police investigation. Piers had told me that there had been some heavy political pressure from high up about this case – which he found odd. Normally, that kind of political pressure only happened when there was a media shit storm about a case, which had not happened here.

Finally, according to the reports, the case had been taken away from the department and given to another, unidentified department.

Curiouser still. It made me wonder what Mistress had been involved in.

Before the case was pulled from the department, all of the cars that might have been involved were tracked.  All but one was eliminated because they had shown no damage or were too far ahead or behind to intercept Mistress’ car.

That left one car unaccounted for.  That one did not have a dent going into that stretch of highway but did when it left. The plates recorded on video had been stolen off a different vehicle, and so were of no use. The driver and passenger were unrecognizable.

A later report indicated the vehicle had been found, torched, and abandoned in Frankfurt. That was typical of the way a criminal mob would dispose of a stolen car to eliminate any incriminating fibers or DNA.

The report went on to say that the VIN – Vehicle Identification Number – had been retrieved from the wreck and that the owner lived in Brussels. He ran a strip club, and was known to the Belgian police as someone with mob connections – yet he had reported the vehicle as stolen before the crash. I interpreted that as meaning he had cooperated in the “theft.”

When Piers had summarized what I now read, I had taken that as a signal that it was time for me to disappear. I had a name, and two locations – Brussels and Frankfurt – that I could check out, so I needed freedom from Hans’ smothering oversight. And I needed to be dead as far as the police were concerned so they wouldn’t suspect me of conducting a parallel investigation.

Which was why, in a very roundabout way, I went to work in a seedy strip club in Brussels.

~~~~~

The fat man looked at me, puffing on his cigar. “So…” he glanced at my application, “…Stefánia, you want to be a stripper.”

I ducked my head, and replied, “Ja, Stefánia good stripper. Men like very much! Vhistle, uh, clap, drink!” I was pretending to be from Ukraine and spoke only broken English and Dutch. Like many Ukrainians, I had supposedly left my Motherland because of the violence and war, plus the threat of Russian invasion.

This was the man who had owned the car that killed Mistress. I wanted to get into his organization to investigate him and his criminal connections. I decided the easiest and most inconspicuous way to do that was to get him to hire me as a stripper and gradually work my way into his office and his confidence.

He puffed on his cigar, looking me up and down, then said, “Okay, strip off your clothes and lemme see what you got.”

Acting as if I were a little bit embarrassed but eager to get the job, I did a slow strip, ending up with just my bra and panties – inexpensive cotton ones, such as Stefi might wear.

The slob walked around me, looking at me like a side of beef. “Ya got stretch marks. You had a kid?”

I nodded, “Had to give to, um, other people.” I hung my head, “No could pay expenses.” I looked up at him anxiously, “But I still sexy, still pretty, ja?”

He puffed on his cigar again, then gestured towards the show floor. “See what you can do with the pole”

I kicked off my shoes, climbed up on stage, and pretended to hear music, then circled the pole, grabbed it with one hand, swung around it, slid one foot forward to hook my leg on it, and pulled myself up tight. I leaned out away from the pole, unhooked my bra, and tossed it towards him, then turned away, pointed my ass towards him, and peeled my panties off, catching them on the pole. I straightened up and let my panties fall to the ground, then stepped out of them.

Stretching one arm above me and one at chest height, I twirled around the pole, one leg up and hooked, the other lifted off the floor, then let both legs down, ending up with both feet straight out in front of me, my ass sticking out behind, and my pussy rubbing up against the pole, my head to one side, my mouth open in a big O as if shocked to be feeling this giant cock between my legs. I ended sitting on the floor, both feet pointing towards him, with my pussy up against the pole, peaking at him coyly from behind it.

“Yeah, okay, you’ve used a pole before.” He puffed on his cigar again, apparently unimpressed – although I could see the pulse throbbing in his throat and the bulge in his pants. “I’m just not sure how much I want you…” and lifted one eyebrow.

I got the message, unwrapped myself from the pole, and crawled over to him, naked, and with a smile on my face. I slid down from the stage onto my knees, unzipped his bulging crotch, pulled out his not-very-impressive cock, and cooed over it. I started to lick it, getting it nice and wet before sliding it into my mouth and down my throat, making “MMMmmmmm” sounds as if I were really digging his tool. I worked his cock in and out of my mouth, stopping to lick it now and then, all the while holding his gaze, smiling, and gauging his excitement level.

I made a better job of blowing him than I had of stripping. I wanted him to think I was skilled onstage, but not to show him how skilled. I wanted to be just another run-of-the-mill stripper, not the legendary show-stopper I had become at De Coven. I didn’t want to stand out on stage, but to fit in.

On the other hand, I wanted him to hire me, so sucking him dry was very much in order. He would chalk that up to his own irresistible manhood, not my talent.

And suck him dry I did. He almost had a heart attack when he came. I made appreciative sounds like I was swallowing the yummiest dessert.

And just as I swallowed his cum, he swallowed my act.

Once he had recovered, he pulled out of my mouth, zipped up, and said, “Okay, you’re hired. But report to me every night before you go on. And Stefánia – you don’t talk to anyone about what happens in my office, get me?”

I nodded vigorously. “Yes, you boss man. Me blow you every day, and not tell no one!”

He looked at me, obviously feeling smug, then said, “You start tonight. You’ll go on in the first show.”

The first show is usually the slowest, and wouldn’t lead to many lap dances, but it was a start, so I nodded again, “Thank you, boss man! You not regret, promise!”

I was in. Now all I had to do was to get access to his computer.

And put up with blowing him every evening, of course.

 ~~~~~

It was getting late – or early. I heard Big Ben strike the half after three a.m., and trade was definitely finished for the night. I had hoped to turn one more trick – it would mean I could afford to buy day-old bread for my supper from the bakery near my bolt-hole, but it looked like that was not to be. White Chapel was finally quiet and foggy, and most of the fuckers had staggered home to bed.

I sigh and resign myself to going to bed hungry after I paid old Talbean for my sleep spot. It wasn’t safe to sleep rough, what with that Jack the Ripper killing working girls.

I turn down the next street and hear someone coming. My hackles rise, and I get goosebumps up my arms. I duck back and turn into a nearby alley, hiding in the shadows, trying to make myself small and invisible.

I hear his footsteps pass by the alley, then stop. My breath goes still in my chest, and my heart threatens to beat its way out of it. The footsteps back up to the mouth of the alley, then I hear him moving slowly towards me.

“Ah, here you are, my delightful little sinner. I’ve been looking for you all night, and now, you’re here…just…waiting for me!”

I scream, then feel his hands wrap themselves around my neck, shutting off my breath…

I screamed and sat bolt upright, then dashed for the bathroom. Flipping up the toilet seat, I dropped to my knees and vomited into the toilet bowl, once, twice, thrice, then hung on the edge of the bowl, breathing hard and shuddering.

FUCK! that dream had been awful. Possibly the worst yet.

Fuckers would pay, I gasped to myself. The fuckers who killed my Mistress, and my happiness, would pay!

I spat into the bowl, got up and rinsed my mouth from the tap, then went back to bed.