DANGEROUS AFFAIRS- Infiltration (The Closure)

At 6 o clock that afternoon, Tom and Stephanie arrived at Carlton’s converted theatre. A tall, attractive, dark haired lady let them in and led them through the theatre itself, past the rows of seats to the front area where the stage must have originally been. There were sofas and tables dotted around the place and Carlton was sitting at a table with three women and another young couple. Looking closer, Tom recognised one of the women from the previous night. She smiled at him as they approached the table.

Carlton stood. “Welcome, I am glad that you made it.” He turned to one of the women. “Get them a drink.” The woman poured a glass of wine for Stephanie and handed it to her.

“How would you like to see backstage? I think you’d be impressed,” the woman asked Stephanie as she handed Tom a drink also.

“Yes, I’d like that,” Stephanie smiled.

The woman led Stephanie backstage, accompanied by another guest, while Tom sat making idle conversation with the woman he’d met yesterday.

Moments passed, but then Tom looked up suddenly. He turned around to see that both Stephanie and Carlton had gone. He didn’t like it, Carlton was trouble. He excused himself and headed towards the voices he could hear coming from backstage. He found them in a small room, one of many that were behind the stage. Presumably they were dressing rooms when the place had been a working theatre. Tom walked into the room to find Carlton sitting on a sofa in between two women, and Stephanie sitting on a separate chair to the side of them. He strolled over to Stephanie and stood behind her, placing a possessive hand on her shoulder and giving Carlton a purposeful glare. Carlton looked up at him and smiled, inviting him to sit down. Tom took the empty chair opposite Stephanie.

“Whiskey?” he offered Tom, holding out a decanter. Tom let Carlton fill his glass. “And the lovely lady? Would you like more wine?” Carlton motioned to one of the women and she brought a bottle of wine to him.

“Thank you, but I have had sufficient,” Stephanie said, glancing at Tom. Ignoring her statement, Carlton proceeded to fill her glass anyway. She really did not want anymore; firstly because she was still feeling slightly nauseous from the after effects of the pill she took yesterday, but also because she wanted nothing more to do with Carlton at that moment. However, if they were going to get anywhere with their story, then they needed to spend more time with him. She’d have to play along with him for now. Smiling at Carlton she took a small sip of the wine.

Carlton turned to Tom. “That’s how you get women to do what you want. You have to be assertive, show them who’s boss. In my experience women rarely know what they really want. Don’t you agree Tom?” Stephanie had to fight the urge not to throw her glass of wine right in the arrogant bastard’s face. She looked across at Tom, waiting for his reply. On seeing her face, Tom thought it wise to be noncommittal and he simply gave Carlton a nod of his head. “Mind you, you two seem to have it all Tom, I can tell. How did you get together then?”

“Oh, it was through work. But it wasn’t always easy with Stephie here. She took some time to give in to my charms, didn’t you Steph?” Tom said, looking at Stephanie with a raised eyebrow.
What kind of a game was he playing?

Carlton continued. “Is that right Stephanie?” He looked interested.

“Well, I tried to resist his advances but he was persistent, so I eventually gave in to him,” she replied, cringing inwardly at her own words.

Tom looked at her with a thoughtful expression.” Yes you did, didn’t you Stephie. Tell them all about it.”

What the hell was he up to?

“Oh, I’m sure they don’t want to hear all about our love life Tom!” she said, raising her voice slightly and glaring at him.

Carlton quickly interjected. “I’m always interested in hearing stories from the people I entertain. It means that I get to know them better. You never know who you can trust these days.”

“That’s true enough. Go on Stephie, tell him about how I seduced you that night when we first got it together.” He threw a challenging look at her from across the room.

She gave him a fake smile that barely hid her annoyance. “Well erm, I invited him to my house and cooked him a meal. Steak I think it was, wasn’t it Tom?”

“Yes, go on.” He knew she was stalling.

She reluctantly continued. “He put some music on, turned the lights down and sat next to me on the sofa…then …err…” She could feel Tom watching her intently. “He, erm, reached over to run his fingers through my hair.” His eyes were locked onto hers. “Then he moved over and started to kiss my neck, lots of tiny kisses that broke down my will.” She rolled her eyes at him, she couldn’t help it. Nevertheless, Tom’s whole body was alert and focused on her, registering every detail of what she was saying.

Carlton watched Stephanie adding, “But you liked that, didn’t you?”

“Yes I did, but I tried to push him away, only…”

Tom interrupted. “Only you wound up pulling me towards you and kissing me full on the mouth, isn’t that true Stephie?” He didn’t let her answer. “We ended up making love over and over again, all around your lounge that night, didn’t we?” He watched her with smouldering eyes, but she stared back angrily.. “Yes, we did Tom.”

Carlton broke the silence. “I’m not surprised, there aren’t many couples I know of who have as much sexual attraction between them as you two have.”

They had almost forgotten that Carlton was there and, at his comment, both Tom and Stephanie looked at him suddenly in surprise.

Carlton stood then abruptly. “Come on ladies, let’s leave these two love birds on their own for a while shall we?” They stood and left the room.

As soon as they had gone, Stephanie turned on Tom. “What the hell do you think you were doing Tom? You could have blown the whole story!”

He grinned at her. “Well, you were quick to come up with something, and you were very good with the details.”

“This isn’t a game for God sake. Don’t push me or I’ll leave, and the only reason we are here right now is because of me!”

“Hey now wait a minute, if it weren’t for me lady, Carlton would have you wasted on pills right now and eating out of his hand. Think about that sweetheart!”

“Would you like to say that a bit louder Tom, so that everybody in the next room can hear?”

Tom glared at Stephanie, grunted and turned his back to her.

“And furthermore, since we are now on our own, do you not think it would be an idea to start looking around the place? That is actually what we are here for remember?” she added.

In a tense silence, they entered the corridor and peered into one or two of the other row of rooms at the back of the stage.

“Psst…Stephanie come here.” Tom beckoned her to one of the rooms. It had been converted into some kind of makeshift office, and Tom wasted no time riffling through the desk drawers. Stephanie joined him and found an array of papers and files, which she quickly scanned. One paper in particular interested her, so she folded it, placing it in her shoulder bag and filing away the other stray papers again. Suddenly, she became aware that Tom had stopped searching and was standing motionless.

“Did you hear that?”

“What?” she froze.
The sound of voices outside then became apparent.

“That,” he said, grabbing her arm pulling her across the room.

He propelled her to the side of the room where there was some kind of store cupboard with a sliding door. He backed into it, pulling her with him to stand facing the door. His back was pressed against a row of shelves and there was very little space, but they managed to close the sliding door before the men from outside entered the room. Stephanie peered through the gap between the door and the doorframe.

“I have some stashed in here somewhere, just for personal use, but you can try it and see if you want to buy more. I’m having a large group here tomorrow morning, come along.”

It was Carlton and another man who Stephanie didn’t recognize. Carlton went to his desk and opened one of the drawers. Both Stephanie and Tom tensed, waiting to see if anyone would realize that something was amiss. Nothing was said, and the two men sat, speaking in hushed voices. Moments passed but the men showed no signs of moving.

Stephanie relaxed a little as the moments passed, but she gradually became aware of Tom standing behind her. His hands were placed loosely on her upper arms, but after a while, they began moving downwards. They ran along the length of her arms to rest lightly on her hips as he pulled her gently back towards him, closing the slight gap between them. She looked back at him with a frown, but he placed a finger over his lips to indicate for her to stay silent. She felt suddenly uncomfortable by his nearness, and the lack of space in which they were standing, but she was helpless to put any space between them until the two men had left the room. Then suddenly, to her horror, she felt Tom brush his lips gently against the base of her neck, by her collarbone. He continued by running a row of tiny kisses all the way up her neck, from her shoulder to her jaw. Her breathing started to become shallow and rapid. Damn it, she wasn’t going to let this affect her. She wasn’t. Besides, she felt nothing other than animosity towards the man. So why the hell could she feel her body reacting to him? She stood, willing herself to remain still, and praying for the men to leave the room soon.

Then, she felt her whole body flood with heat as his tongue found the skin of her neck. With a will of its own, her head shifted slightly, allowing him better access, and her back arched against him in pleasure. He missed none of her reactions and his body filled with a heat to match her own at the realization. She was enjoying this, he knew it, in fact she must have been enjoying it a hell of a lot or she would have abated any reaction to him by now if she possibly could. She closed her eyes, trying desperately to gain control as she felt his tongue moving on her skin. Then, in the back of her head, she suddenly registered that there was no more noise in the room outside, and she peered through the crack in the door to see two empty chairs. She slid the door open quickly and stepped out of the store cupboard and away from Tom.

Turning on him, she said with barely controlled anger, “I told you not to play games with me Tom.”

“Just getting into the role darling. We want to convince Carlton now don’t we Steph?”

“Go to hell!” she growled furiously. ”I’m this close to leaving, right now!” She indicated how close with her index finger and thumb.

Her rejection fuelled an anger in him also. “No you won’t, you’re not jeopardizing the story at this stage just because you can’t control your urges.”

“You what! Can’t control my urges eh, well I’ve got a very strong urge at this minute to commit grievous bodily harm!”

“Oh come on Stephanie, why can’t you just damn well admit that you enjoyed it?”

“Listen to me will you Tom? My skin was crawling in there to get away from you. Are you taking this in sweetheart?”

Her response filled him with utter fury.

He grated back at her. “You want me to try that again and we’ll see how much you enjoyed it darling?” He advanced towards her threateningly; his eyes locked on her lips and panic suddenly rose in her. With quick thinking, she reached into her handbag, pulling out the piece of paper that she had hidden in it earlier and holding it up between them.

“Well listen, I’ve got enough information here for a story, so you can do whatever you like, but I’m leaving.” And in three quick strides, she was out of the door and down the corridor.

Tom found Stephanie storming down Pickering Street in the dark. He was in his car so he pulled up alongside her and wound down the window. “Come on Stephie, get in the car.”

“I’m not getting in there with you, you’re a leech!” she shouted at him. On hearing this he couldn’t help but chuckle. This didn’t improve her mood. “I can see that you are finding this all very amusing!”

“Come on Stephie, you’re right I am a leech, but I promise to behave. Now get in the car.”

She stopped then, turning to him. “You had no right to do that Tom! You were bang out of order.”

“Okay, I’m sorry, now will you please get in the car?”

She hesitated.

“For your own safety,” he added.

With a growl she yanked the door open and got in. “Don’t do anything like that to me again.”

“Okay, I promise not to do anything like that again,” he assured her. “Unless you want me to,” he added with a grin. She gave him a steely glare.

Stephanie sat in the passenger seat of Tom’s car with her arms crossed, and she fumed. Just when she thought that perhaps she’d misjudged him after he took care of her the night before, he’d started his damn seduction techniques on her. He obviously couldn’t help himself. He just had to have every woman in sight swooning after him. Well he’d met his match with her. She’d not give into him that easily. Okay, so she’d had a small moment of weakness in the store cupboard, but he’d bloody well purposely wheedled out of her what to do to make her go weak at the knees in that stupid conversation earlier with Carlton. She actually thought that she’d behaved with a fair amount of control, considering that he’d teased her to distraction in a most sensitive place. God, why couldn’t she have just made something up? That he’d kissed her on the cheek or…or…somewhere that didn’t have quite the same effect. The problem was, in the back of her head, Stephanie suspected that wherever he’d kissed her, the effect would have been the same. Damn it, now that kissing and Tom were in her brain, she’d not be able to get them out. He’d opened up a great huge can of worms which she’d always managed to keep shut, and now she was wondering how to get the worms back in!

“I don’t suppose that you’d like me to take you back to my place,” Tom said brazenly.

She turned to him slowly, a look of disbelief on her face. “Right, that’s it! Pull over,” she ordered furiously.

He swung his head to her. “Calm down, I was only kidding.”

“Oh really. So if I'd have said yes then you wouldn’t have gone along with it?”

He grinned. “Why don’t you try it and see?”

She growled with anger. “Pull over I said! We need to talk.”

“Only if you promise not to get out and go charging off down the street.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Just pull over will you?”

“All right, all right.”

He indicated to pull onto the side of the road. Perhaps he’d pushed her too far. Maybe she was going to batter him. He grinned to himself. He rather liked the idea of that. Stephanie and anything physical seemed like a good idea to him. He finally switched off the engine and turned to her. She moved in her seat so that she was facing him. She knew exactly what she wanted to say to him, but before she got the chance to begin, he stalled her with a question.

“So what was in that paper you found then?”

A frown flickered across her brow. She had other things she wanted to get off her chest and he was stalling.

"Enough evidence for Brick to pass on to Inspector Benton. They wont waste time in raiding the premises no doubt," she said quickly. "And enough for me to write a decent article. Now listen," she began, ready to give him a few home thruths.

"Job done then," he cut in. "For this story anyway. But if you want the juicy stories Stephie, you're going to be facing men like Carlton all the time. It would be prudent to ask Brick to team us up...that is, if you are interested in more risky stories," he added, knowing that her pride would prevent her from turning his offer down.

“Okay, now that you've brought it up..." she was finally able to speak her mind. "...I want to make some things very clear before we go any further. If you and I are going to work on any stories together, then you have to understand that, one, you can’t pull the kind of tricks you tried out in there, two, we work together in a professional capacity only, and three, there will never be any kind of sexual relationship between us. Is that clear enough for you Tom?”

He sighed and looked deeply into her eyes as if to find some indication that she hadn’t really meant all of that. He saw only the icy look that he’d seen so many times before in the office.

“Okay, now I want my say. If you want my help, and let’s face it you really do, for your own safety, then one, you’re going to have to chill out quite a bit more. That comment was only a joke. I was flirting with you, teasing you, whatever, but you don’t need to over react every time I make a throw away comment.” She took a breath as if to defend herself, but he halted her and continued. “Two, I may have a weak moment every now and then.” She frowned and he proceeded with more feeling in his voice. “I’m a human being! Unlike you who seem to have the resolve of Mother Teresa. And three,” his eyes moved over her face and he sighed again. “I like you Stephie.” He reached out and swept a lock of silvery blonde hair away from her face with one finger. “I think you’re stunning.”

She brushed his hand away. “You think the same about every other woman you meet.”

He watched her intently for a while before speaking. “I don’t know why you would think that.”

“Oh come on Tom, I’ve seen you at work with the other women in the office. Anyway it doesn’t matter, one to three still stands for me.”

He smiled. “Likewise for me.”

She tutted. “Fine, just promise me there’ll be no more games like you played in there.”

“Fine,” he said reluctantly, reaching down to start the car up again.

"Wait,” she stopped him by lightly touching his arm and he looked at her in surprise.

“There’s more?”

“Yes there is. You made a very big assumption in that cupboard tonight Tom.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, and what was that?”

She paused for a second as if unsure whether she was going to continue. “You assumed that I was single.”

He stared at her. He hadn’t expected that, and it shocked him momentarily. “Are you married?” He knew that she wasn’t, or at least that she didn’t wear a ring.

“No.”

“Engaged?”

“No, but I don’t see what that had to do with anything,” she said defensively.

“So how long have you been seeing this boyfriend of yours then?” he asked.

The cheek of the man! “That’s none of your business Tom.”

He smiled as if he’d scored some sort of point. “Okay, I got it. You’re unavailable, ” he said, pulling out onto the road again. He didn’t seem in the least bit put off, and that annoyed her. What was it going to take to get through to this man?

The following morning, Tom found himself driving through red lights and breaking the speed limits to get back to Pickering Street, where he was certain Stephanie had returned. Damn, she shouldn't put herself at risk like that just to be there for the story. The police were raiding the theatre; it wasn't going to be a good place to be.

As it turned out however, by the time he arrived, officers had covered all the exits and flooded into the building, seizing all drugs, making arrests and searching the rooms for hidden stashes. They had found Carlton in his office, cuffed him and brought him out into the main theatre where Benton was overseeing procedures. Stephanie was talking to Brick, and so Tom took a seat on one of the theatre chairs, placing his feet on the top of the chair in front of him and pulled out the cigar that he always saved for times like that: another scum bag exposed.

When he saw Carlton being brought out, he grinned and shouted in his best John Wayne voice, "Young fella, if you're lookin' for trouble I'll accommodate ya!"

Carlton scowled. "Bloody Paparazzi." He turned to Benton, "You got them working for you now! She's alright mind," he looked at Stephanie, "Wouldn't mind a piece of that!"

On hearing this, Tom bolted out of his seat then and flew over the chair in front of him, grabbing Carlton by his shirt. "Just try it, snake!"

Stephanie had swung her head around in shock at the suddern outburst, and had then watched on with a mixture of alarm and warmth in her eyes.

After the finalities, Tom found Stephanie sitting in the back row of the theatre, leaning on the seat in front of her, with her head resting on her hands.

He sat next to her and she said wistfully, "You know it looks like it would have been a lovely theatre, it's a shame."

"Yeah," he said looking around. "It sure has been one hell of a story this one," he commented, turning to look at her.

"Mmm." She made a disapproving sound and looked at him dubiously.

"Well at least you won't be popping any pills any time soon," he laughed.

"Thank you for reminding me of that Tom."

"Oh so you do remember then?" he came back quickly.

"What is there to remember? You got me home and stayed to make sure I was okay. That's what partners do, right?" She tried to make her nervous voice sound nonchalant.

"Right, you don't remember what you said then?" He grinned at her, raising a questioning eyebrow.

"Well, I'm sure I came out with a whole load of mumbo jumbo," she said, shrugging off his comment.

"Sure, I figured that you didn't mean most of the insults you gave me."

"Oh, in that case I meant every word I said," she replied.

"Every word, hmm, that's interesting and I quote, ‘I might have to admit to being secretly attracted to you all along.’”

She looked up at him then, her eyes widening in shock.

“So I’ll be waiting for my invitation to your place for steak then Stephie,” he said with a wink, standing to leave. “See you at the office later.”