Undercover

[JohnAubrey]

Here's the start of an idea I've been toying with - it will be a slow-burner and hopefully a bit different.


Undercover


It was a good knock. Firm without being intrusive, brisk without being impatient, and with a playful 5/4 time signature that suggested the person standing without was not all business. A lot of thought had gone into this knock.

No one ever noticed. After all, it was just a knock.

"Enter!"

Harriet opened the door and walked into a long, dark office, at one end of which sat a man reclining in his chair, feet on his desk, staring suspiciously at a cup of coffee as if he suspected it of harbouring seditious tendencies.

"DCI Beck?"

He ignored her, and sniffed at the coffee.

"I paid an extra twenty pence for the limited edition roast, and I reckon they've palmed me off with their standard slurry," he announced, still not looking in her direction.

He swirled the cup and took a sip, closed his eyes and contemplatively swilled the coffee around his mouth, serious as a sommelier. By now standing in front of his desk, Harriet had to suppress the urge to take a step back, in the event he decided to spit.

"Top notes of camel rectum... gritty mouthfeel... burnt plastic finish... Yeah, this is their regular blend, all right; I'd know it anywhere. Great. I've been bilked by a beanmonger."

"Sir?"

He glanced up at her, shaking his head ruefully, languorously uncrossed and then recrossed his legs.

"Can I help you with something?"

"I'm from the Serious Fraud Office, sir. I'm-"

"Fuck me, you guys are quick. And all for the sake of twenty pence? Still, the bastards have got it coming to them - they sold me a stale Danish last week too."

"Oh. Um. No, sir..."

Harriet tailed off, unable to decipher the expression on Beck's face, unsure whether or not he was being serious. He returned her stare, straight-faced but now raising an eyebrow.

"Anyway, throw the book at them, will you? Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm very busy, as you can see."

He took a long draught of the remaining coffee, but kept watching Harriet closely. She surveyed his desk, crenellated with uneven heaps of files. It certainly looked like he had a lot of work to do, but whether or not he was busy doing it was another matter. She must have seemed unconvinced, because Beck sighed, removed his feet from the desk, planted his elbows there instead and made a great show of staring intently at a report.

"See? Busy. Largo al factotum della città."

"Ah, bravo, Figaro! Bravo, bravissimo!" Harriet responded sarcastically, before she could stop herself.

Beck looked up from his desk, smiling, and then smiled even more broadly when he noticed Harriet was biting her lip, staring at the ceiling, wishing she'd kept her mouth shut.

"You got the reference! Well done. No one in here in CID ever gets my opera references. Mention Bellini around here and everyone thinks Prosecco, not Vincenzo. No, who am I kidding? If you went back outside and asked all of my Detective Constables to name a cocktail, at best, someone might suggest a lager top or a pint of snakebite."

Beck absent-mindedly scratched his chin and stared up at the ceiling, apparently lost in thought. Harriet felt the need to fill the silence.

"My sister is in the London Symphony Orchestra, sir. She started playing the violin at school - well, actually we both did - but she was the one with the musical talent, really. These days, I just go to a lot of concerts and listen to a lot of opera."

"She's the Squilliam to your Squidward, then?"

"I beg your pardon, sir?"

Beck seemed to have reached a decision. He stood up rapidly, shuffled some files around on his desk like a dealer playing a three-card trick and then picked one up.

"Well, unless you're from the SFO's rapid response minor coffee crimes unit, I take it you're the investigator I requested on secondment?"

"Yes, sir. That's what I've been trying to tell you."

Harriet tried not to sound reproachful, with only limited success  - but if Beck picked up on her tone, he didn't show it.

"I can already tell that you're what we've been looking for," Beck said, handing the file to Harriet. "Here you go. Take this and go and see my Detective Sergeant. You will find her on the way to the gym, on the way back from the gym, or actually in the gym."

He sat back down, selected and then began to read another report, seeming to forget that Harriet was still there. Eventually accepting that the conversation was over as far as Beck was concerned, Harriet started to edge towards the door.

"By the way..."

"Yes, sir?"

"Great knock."

[JohnAubrey]

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[seldom]

Intriguing start! Lovely wit too. I look forward to it!

[sevenpeight]

Great writing! Love it

[sgsg69]

Very nice start, like an old Columbo show...........has mystery wrapped up it. Nice style of writing. K+

[JohnAubrey]

Thanks for the feedback so far!

Some horrendous weather and a lot of disrupted travel over the last few weeks means that I'm still working on parts two and three, but I'm slowly getting there. Hopefully it will be worth the wait.

[JohnAubrey]

Here's Part Deux, hotshots:

Harriet walked down yet another anonymous corridor, absent-mindedly wondering whether the Minotaur ever felt this lost in the middle of the Labyrinth. She had been peripatetic for a good twenty minutes now, distracted and oblivious to the curious looks from the occasional uniformed passersby.

Not that she was keen to stop and ask for directions to the gym. Even though she was still in the early stages of her career she had spent sufficient time in various police stations to have learnt that the average copper, upon hearing her cut-glass enunciation, would stop and goggle at her, leaving her feeling as out of place as Brian Sewell ordering an Armagnac in The Rovers Return. 

Mostly Harriet was distracted because her mind was replaying her conversation with DCI Beck, trying to make sense of their brief discussion. She had been warned that he was unconventional, but their interaction had not revealed any further information about why she had been specifically requested on secondment by one of the force's most renowned investigators.

She was also, however, trying to suppress the image that had popped into her mind of an increasingly furious Minotaur trying to remove an Ordnance Survey Landranger map from his horns, where it had become impaled as he had tried to work out if he was on a footpath or a bridleway, folding the sheets in search of the key.

She stopped and sighed, wishing, not for the first time, that her brain would not pick such inconvenient moments to indulge in comic flights of fancy. She could almost hear her sister sarcastically referring to the 'benefits of a classical education' in her best Hans Gruber voice, as she had so many times in the past.

Harriet glanced around for any sign that she was heading in the right direction. From somewhere outside, a dull thudding noise rattled the glass in the windows, presumably the result of some sort of excavation work happening out at the roadworks on the nearby dual carriageway.

Except, as she meandered a little further down the corridor, it began to sound more and more like the thudding noise was coming from inside the building. She took a few more steps, turned the corner, and saw a heavy set of double doors, painted the same uniform grey as the walls, but bearing a small, old-fashioned legend stencilled in fading white paint: GYMNASIUM.

Relieved to have her bearings finally, Harriet walked towards the doors and pushed them open. The gym was poorly-ventilated, warm and fusty; if this room were a body part, then it unquestionably would have been an unwashed armpit.

It was also almost entirely empty, but its sole occupant would have been capable of immediately drawing the attention even if the gym were at full occupancy: half-crouching with her back to the door was a woman, an unusually substantial woman, in cropped leggings and a loose vest stained with sweat, a generous blot that would provide an interesting start to any Rorschach test.

As Harriet stepped inside the gym, the woman began to slowly straighten her legs and Harriet could see that she was lifting a bar even longer than she was tall, and loaded with weights at each end. Legs wobbling slightly, a whistling of air escaping from the moue of her pursed lips, the woman slowly but surely raised the bar, pulling it up and driving her hips forward; Harriet stared as the woman's callipygian buttocks solidified and pushed together, jostling for space beneath the leggings like two cowled men butting heads.

The woman held her position for a couple of seconds and then dropped the bar. If Harriet had remained in any doubt as to how heavy it was, the sound of the weight hitting the padded floor and bouncing a few times before eventually succumbing to inertia resolved the issue. 

The woman turned, rubbing her hands together like a miser anticipating a saving, a puff of some kind of powdered chalk scattering through the air, her upper arms balling and twitching with muscle. Noticing the new arrival, she started to walk towards the gym's entrance, and Harriet couldn't help but notice her slightly divergent strides, her legs moving forwards and outwards to accommodate the size of her thick thighs.

Harriet could not remember if she had ever met anyone as large and powerfully-built as this woman - perhaps, she thought, her mind travelling back to university and her college's obligatory complement of rugger buggers, some of the members of the First XV were bigger, heavier, stronger, but only perhaps.

The giantess stopped in front of Harriet, her proximity and size almost entirely blocking out Harriet's view of the gym. Although the stranger was definitely smiling, her broad mouth curling up at the corners, and nothing about her body language suggested she was trying to physically intimidate Harriet, her unexpected size made Harriet feel defensive and, for the second time today, she had to suppress the urge to take a step back.

"A'm DS Kane. Dae ye ken that you're staring, pal?"

[hatour]

Slow indeed.  But I love your writing style. Keep up the good work and you might get a pint for your troubles. Karma for all!

[JohnAubrey]

Part 3 should shed a little light on where I'm going with this story, and will hopefully be up tomorrow.

[JohnAubrey]

Part the Third:

Like so many miniature dogs, the dachshund currently standing on DCI Beck's desk wore a look - currently directed at Harriet - of pre-emptive reproach, as if resigned to the fact that its ankle-height existence presented her with an inevitable trip hazard. Maybe not today, it seemed to be thinking, maybe not tomorrow, but at some point this stupid woman is going to fall over me; she'll go arse over tit, and I'll be the one to get the blame.

Not even the fact that the dachshund was at the moment well out of harm's way and being fed cubes of cheese by Beck could make it look any happier about this potential scenario. It maintained eye contact with Harriet and paused for a moment between gnawing lumps of cheddar long enough to be lavishly flatulent, a peculiarly squeaky ebullition, as if it were a balloon animal losing all of its air.

The interruption seemed to make the little man, who had been droning on for the last ten minutes, lose his thread, and he paused to fiddle nervously with his collar. He had been introduced to Harriet only as 'Pooter, from the Financial Conduct Authority,' and if he enjoyed his job, he certainly didn't give that impression. In fact, it was hard to imagine him enjoying anything.

Harriet didn't feel particularly happy either. Even sitting down, her entire body ached, limbs trembling as if suffering from palsy, occasionally violently jerking in a sort of St. Vitus' dance as her muscles spasmed; the taste of vomit still lingered in her mouth. Ninety minutes of working out with DS Kane had reduced her to this enervated state. A trip to the gym hadn't seemed that deleterious a prospect yesterday, when she had first met Kane and the sergeant had told her to report back the next morning because apparently Beck wanted to know how Harriet would cope with a 'proper gym sesh'.

The little man cleared his throat and peered around at the group, as if to make sure everyone was still listening to his litany. Harriet tried her best to look alert. Beck continued to focus on feeding the dachshund cheese. Kane stood leaning against the wall, her broad shoulders almost as wide as the lintel of the doorframe next to her, legs crossed like two inosculated trees. 

Harriet couldn't stop thinking about that first meeting with Kane yesterday. The embarrassment of being caught openly staring at the woman's muscles had been immediately compounded by her inability to think of anything to say, tongue-tied as she tried to ostentatiously not look at the sergeant, ending up able only to stare at the floor and thrust forward the file Beck had given her into Kane's calloused hands.

There was little to no chance that Kane could have thought that Harriet had made a great first impression but, if anything, the sergeant had looked even more unimpressed once she had opened the file only to find a selection of paperwork which, she informed Harriet with no little Glaswegian asperity, she had been pestering Beck to sign for the last fortnight.

He hadn't.

Perhaps Kane regarded her as a collaborator, Harriet thought as her legs cramped and she squirmed again, trying to get comfortable in the chair; it might explain the relentless punishment meted out that morning.

The little man continued to expatiate.

Harriet had not spent much time becoming acquainted with the free weights in any gym in the past. Even when she had played hockey at university, sport had been a secondary consideration - her academic work had always come first, always - and while she had been considered 'sporty' and enjoyed physical activity, she had lacked the necessary obsession and singularity of focus needed to devote herself to becoming a better athlete. Her purposeful approach to her studies was not matched in the gym, where she had mostly spent her occasional visits on treadmills and rowing machines, happy to maintain a decent base level of fitness without ever looking to build on it.

These days, she still ran regularly and she did a few sessions of yoga at home each week. Until this morning, she had naively thought herself to be quite fit still - until, that is, Kane had introduced her to the concepts of 'reps', 'sets' and 'working to failure', and had finished their session with a series of squats, dizzying, winding, repeated exertion until Harriet had vomited.

An officer working out nearby had guffawed, but he had been instantly silenced by a single look from Kane who, not unkindly, had then manoeuvred Harriet over to the water fountain for a drink. Harriet could still feel the sensation of Kane's huge arm across her back; she had found its size and power unnerving. Perhaps that must be what it feels like to be caught up by an anaconda, she thought, and feel it start to coil and constrict, knowing that you were entirely helpless and would be almost effortlessly overwhelmed.

Harriet snapped back to attention as Beck pretended to throw the last bit of cheese to the dog, didn't let go of it, and then flipped it into his own mouth instead. The dachshund barked, now sounding as disapproving as it looked.

"Much as we all appreciate your rundown of the relevant legislation, Pooter," Beck said, his voice slightly muffled by the cheese, "but how about you just outline the bare details for Harriet now, hmm?"

"Very well, sir. In short, we are investigating the Peyton-Maxwells of Walton-on-the-Manor. The current baronet - the third, if you're counting-"

"We're not," said Beck, wearily.

"Hmm. Well, the current baronet is Roderick Peyton-Maxwell. Along with his mother, the widow of the second baro... I mean, along with his mother and his sister, he has been responsible for turning the family's country seat, Wimbourne Hall, into a very exclusive country club and hotel attracting many high-net-worth individuals. Gyms and spa, swimming pools, polo club, golf course, a well-regarded series of operatic performances across the summer months which, of course, while not of the same stature as Glyndebourne are-."

"All very nice," said Beck, interrupting. "All very expensive. Enough money sloshing around to give Scrooge McDuck a hard-on big enough to open a Melchior with. As a result the Peyton-Maxwells seem to be doing terribly well, it would appear. Not that we've been able to unpick their various companies' finances. As Pooter was, erm, so succinctly outlining earlier, the baronet's non-dom status and offshore banking arrangements make it difficult to say with any certainty exactly what is going on there."

Beck grinned mirthlessly and pointed at Harriet. 

"I know what you're thinking: I smell a muroid and I am in need of a talpid."

"You smell a rat and you need a mole, sir," hazarded Harriet quickly, delving into the slightly dusty corner of her brain where she kept her Latin vocab.

"You fit the bill," said Beck, nodding. "Worst case scenario, we give you an alias, you go in, you spend the next few months there, and maybe that's as good as it will get... but at least we'll have some eyes in the place. Best case scenario, you befriend the Peyton-Maxwells, get to know their inner circle, maybe manage to do a little sneaking around behind the scenes."

"What about the other aspects?" piped up Pooter. "The drugs and the disap-"

"Thank you for your time, Pooter. I'm sure you have things to be doing. DS Kane will show you out."

The mismatched pair walked out of the room, Pooter entirely eclipsed by Kane as she moved in his wake, a tanker behind a tugboat. When they were gone, Beck stood up and lifted the dachshund into the top drawer of a filing cabinet, from where it surveyed the room like a soldier from a watchtower.

"This will be a big commitment," said Beck, turning to Harriet. "Months of your life. And... there is something else."

Harriet managed to sit upright, her heart starting to pound again, this time because of a nervous excitement rather than physical exertion.

"Yes, sir?"

"The Peyton-Maxwells are all very much involved in the day-to-day running of Wimbourne Hall, but they tend to deal with different aspects of the business. The mother, the relict of the second baronet, for example, runs the charitable arm of the family business, which organises the al fresco opera festival; hopefully you'll get to know her later. But I want you to concentrate on the daughter for the time being. She's a personal trainer with a big online following. She has a track record of befriending young female gym clients who want to undergo radical body transformations and compete on stage. I want you to attract her attention."

"So I would join the club, work out in their gym, catch the daughter's eye?"

"More or less. But, in this case, to catch her eye as quickly as possible, I think you'll need to undergo a radical body transformation of your own. How shall I put this? You need to get... big."

Harriet looked puzzled.

"Big like DS Kane, sir?"

"Well, it wouldn't hurt."

[JohnAubrey]

Life under lockdown has proven to be unpredictable, but I hope to have the next part up tomorrow!

[JohnAubrey]

Life under lockdown has proven to be unpredictable, but I hope to have the next part up tomorrow!

Yeah, that didn't happen. Anyway...


Vier: The Peepers

"Welcome, gentlemen, welcome."

The men moved slowly, quietly, along the length of the narrow hallway, Savile Row suits barely rustling, ice clinking in their cocktails, their attention already diverted by the view through the floor to ceiling window forming one of the passage walls.

"I'll let you inspect the merchandise at your leisure, gentlemen. Of course, if you have any questions, feel free to ask me and I shall endeavour to give satisfaction. I have already been furnished with choice biographical details and I shall be happy to share these with you, if required. Sealed bids may be submitted at any point after we leave this room until midnight tonight."

One man, whose girth and old-fashioned style of dress gave him the air of a gouty Dickensian bon vivant, pressed his face to the glass like a child at an ice cream shop, excitedly rapping the ferrule of his walking stick against the floor. The young man next to him recoiled, shying back like a nervous pony.

"Do not worry, sir. The glass is an extremely robust one-way mirror. They cannot see you. It is largely soundproof, also - certainly the music would make it almost impossible for us to be heard - but discretion is the better part of valour, and we advise our clientele to maintain a certain serenity at all times, lest an unfortunate incident occur."

"Her!" said the fat man loudly, ignoring this advice and jabbing a generous forefinger against the glass, a gesture which made the man next to him flinch again, despite the reassurances. "Oh yes. I want her!" 

"Ah yes, sir, an excellent choice, if I may so. Her name is Chardonnay, and she is what I believe is commonly known as a WAG. She is twenty-two years old, and she is currently dating her third professional footballer - they have all been lower league players, but she has worked her way up from the Conference to the Championship, so I warrant she is an ambitious young lady."

On the other side of the glass, the woman flicked her straightened, bleach blonde hair over her shoulder, ratcheted up her pout another notch, and took a cluster of selfies with her phone. Between each photo, she moved her head to a different angle, always staring into the camera, first this way, then that, in a manner that brought to mind sparrows or, perhaps more pertinently, great tits.

She did not appear to be dressed very practically for a gym environment, and her shorts and sports bra certainly did not conform to the dress code, being in many respects closer in form to that of a bikini than sportswear. However, as she had oh-so-slowly leaned over the front desk to sign in and fluttered her false eyelashes at the young man on duty, he had found that all thoughts of demurring had suddenly been waylaid by other, more prurient notions.

And perhaps it did not matter that her sports bra did not seem to conform to the usual standards of compression, and had apparently been designed for a woman several cup sizes smaller, or that her shorts appeared to have shrunk in the wash. After all, she did not appear to be doing any actual exercise. Granted, as the group of men watched her from their clandestine viewpoint, at one point she did pick up a pair of dumbbells, but that was only to place them carefully on the floor next to the branded water bottle at her feet, props for her next series of selfies. Shortly afterwards she wandered off, making no attempt to replace the weights, leaving them lying askew on the floor, heading to the adjacent spa to find a tanning booth, her version of the Fortress of Solitude.

It did not take long for the other bidders to start making enquiries as they observed various oblivious women going about their business in the gym - the young mother looking to get back into shape, the trophy girlfriend trying to make sure she stayed in it, the recovering anorexic, the model and TV star wanting to look her best, the Pony Club twins - they ran the rule over all of them.

Eventually even the nervous young man gestured towards the glass at someone who had caught his eye, and he watched her keenly as a personal trainer talked her through the required technique for a power clean.

"Are you desirous of knowing more about this young woman, sir?" enquired the auctioneer, quietly.

"Erm, yes. Yes, please!"

"Her name is Dina, sir. An athlete of some promise, I am given to understand. She is in contention to be named in next year's squad for the European Athletics Under 20 Championships. She is a sprinter, and she has been sent here for a high-level training camp to improve her 'explosive power', I believe was the phrase her Performance Director used."

Dina's approach to training could not have been more different to Chardonnay's: she watched her coach intently as he demonstrated each movement, and then replicated the lift, first, with an empty bar and a frown of concentration on her face, and then, once she had mastered the movement, several more times, on each occasion with an increased amount of weight on the bar.

Her limbs were long and surely gave her good leverage, but she was still slender, and obviously lacked the power of more mature competitors. She did, however, already have noticeably defined legs and a chiselled backside, and it seemed to be this was holding the young man's attention.

In due time, expressions of interest had been registered in several of the gym-goers the men were there to inspect. Many had clear preferences for their bids; others clearly had lots to think about and decisions to make.

As a general movement back towards the doorway began, one man stopped and pointed at a new arrival in the gym, a lithe brunette with her hair pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail; she headed straight for the dumbbells and, without hesitation, started a superset of hammer curls and tricep kickbacks. If anything, her approach was even more meticulous and determined than Dina's had been.   

"What about her?"

"I'm afraid that I have no information on this woman, sir; I am uncertain as to whether she is one of the allocated lots for today."

Looking disappointed, the man rejoined the rest of the group as his companions filed from the room - all but the auctioneer, who remained behind and wandered closer to the glass and stood and stared at the mystery woman, watching her intently. Eventually he reached for his phone and made a call.

[Jaguar]

Great start!  Please continue, I am certain you'll pick up more readers as you get further into the story.

[JohnAubrey]

Great start!  Please continue, I am certain you'll pick up more readers as you get further into the story.

Cheers! I've got more of this one sketched out, but got distracted toying with some other story ideas. Just about ready to crack back on though, so watch this space...

[JohnAubrey]

Cinq (or Swim)

Naked and glistening, Harriet walked from the shower and into her bedroom. It was not exactly a cinematic sexy entrance - seductive femmes fatales tending, as a rule, to sashay rather than limp, and to do rather more in the way of looking winsome, than some wincing - but it was still a beguiling sight and, all things considered, it was a shame that there was no one present to witness it.

And anyway, bending down to put on a honey of an anklet was not even an option after leg day.

She sat down heavily on the edge of the bed, the softer portions of her body continuing to jiggle for a little while after she did so. There were certainly fewer softer portions than there had been at the start of this mission, but she retained an improbably perky pair of breasts; they had always been much rounder and much fuller than one would have expected on a slender woman of her size, and in her typically understated clothing. Her sister had always said that Harriet had breasts like the Spanish Inquisition: 'nobody expects them'. 

And anyway, she wasn't so slender any more.

Absent-mindedly, she ran her hands up and down her thighs. This was not only a reflex, her aching muscles requiring a massage, but also a response to the changing size and shape of her legs, which fascinated her. Her whole body was transforming, it was true, but perhaps nothing told the story of the many hours she had now spent in the gym as eloquently as the newly undulating lines of her legs.

Harriet's entire life had changed. A standard routine of commuting, paperwork, and evenings out had been replaced by lifting, eating, and sleeping. She was no longer working nine to five, but her life had never been so structured. Early in the mornings, she discreetly visited the station gym for a beasting overseen by Kane, primarily focussed on the big, compound lifts, and now involving loaded barbells that weighed more than she did; in the afternoons she visited Wimbourne Hall for a second gym session of the day, peacocking her way around the public gym, powering through a range of isolation exercises and then paying a visit to the pool and sauna.

If anything, Harriet had found the eating more of a challenge than the lifting. She had, after all, some experience of pushing herself physically on the hockey pitch or during a run, and even if her current exertions were several orders of magnitude greater, she at least had an idea of what to expect. But going from a standard three meals a day up to seven - not including all the supplementary pills and powders - was a completely new experience, and her body had struggled at first to digest the huge amounts of fish, chicken and steak she was now having to eat. She felt like a dinner guest at La Grande Bouffe. For the first few days of her diet, eating ad nauseam had not been a figurative expression. She had felt febrile as her metabolism accelerated to deal with digesting the caloric surplus. Eventually she returned to a state of general eupepsia and - although she never would have believed it to be possible - she even started to feel hungry between meals.

Her hand lingered on her vastus lateralis. It was not the first time today that she had lovingly run her hands over her body. Earlier in the evening as she stood in front of the oven, impatiently waiting for her salmon to finish cooking, she had suddenly realised that she was no longer standing arms akimbo, but had slid her hands round from her hips to the top of her glutes, and was enjoying the feeling of the muscles hardening and changing shape as she swayed gently from side to side. She was alone, but she had still blushed furiously at the realisation of her own vanity.

Now she reclined on her bed and turned her body, reaching for the open laptop by her pillow and pulling it nearer to her, relaxing like a Roman diner in a triclinium as she stared at the screen.

Once again, she started to browse Florence Peyton-Maxwell's insta**** page.

It was now a daily ritual. It had started as research, but had become an obsession. Over and over again she studied the progress pictures and workout clips of dozens of clients shot in various locations around Wimbourne Hall, all interspersed with pictures of Florence herself, bronzed, buffed, and beautiful. It was noticeable that, no matter how impressive the transformations of her clients - and many of them bordered on unrecognisable after submitting to her tuition - none ever looked as sleek and sexy as Florence herself, apparently always photoshoot-ready. Perhaps Florence ditched her clients before they became as hot as she was, Harriet speculated.

There were many workout clips on the page, but Harriet selected one she had watched many times before - a recent compilation of Florence spotting a succession of her clients on the incline leg press. Every clip in the montage was much the same, indeed it was almost a signature of Florence's personal training program: a young woman, face incarnadine and often stained with tears, contorted by a tortured rictus, howling, legs wobbling, her shoulders pinned back by Florence, unable or unwilling to let her quit, and bellowing "Come on! Two more!" at her.

Once again Harriet watched, enraptured. When she had first found these videos at the start of her assignment, she felt as if she were back at school, a novice language student asked to study some foreign news bulletins. Always keen to learn, and knowing that what was happening must make sense, she had tried to work out the meaning of it all, but it was as if she then lacked the required vocabulary to fully understand. She could explain in outline what she was watching, but she could not explain why it was happening.

Now though, now she spoke the same language as these young women. She knew why they begged to stop even while they fought on; she could decode their screams of pain, and had even cried the same tears. Kane had bellowed in her face too, as Florence did to these girls, and as her training had progressed that shout of 'Two more!' had gone from what felt like a promise of absolution, to a finishing line tantalisingly close, to a mere suggestion, a target to be smashed.

The compilation finished with Chardonnay, recognisable if only because of her lip fillers, fake tan, and the fact she was looking like she was about to burst out of her gym clothes. But this time she was wearing proper athleticwear, her body was just subjecting it to an entirely different set of challenges to those imposed on the flimsy glorified bikini she had worn when she first walked into the Wimbourne Hall gym. Bug-eyed and snarling as she lifted multiple plates, she looked like a woman possessed, and Harriet half-expected a priest to pop into shot and start sprinkling the holy water. Anyone who had been familiar with Chardonnay's voice - a babyish, vacuous affectation - would have been forgiven for assuming the guttural growling noise that escaped her lips was made by Zuul hearing Gozer coming home from the office. 

Harriet's time at Wimbourne Hall had seen her body develop in ways she could not previously have imagined, but had so far been a failure in the sense that she had still yet to encounter Florence, who mostly seemed to train with her clients in various private rooms around the main gym. But if Florence was elusive, Harriet often saw Chardonnay in and around the swimming pools, clearly angling for attention as she splashed about with all the subtlety of Anita Ekberg in the Trevi Fountain.

Harriet was weighing up a new scheme of her own invention, which was to attract Florence's attention by first befriending Chardonnay, and she had been considering how to share this idea with Beck. Beck had been clear that he did not want Harriet to initiate contact with Florence, but to wait until she was herself approached. It had seemed a reasonable idea when it was first outlined, but it had become clear to Harriet that continuing in this vein might mean she would never get to meet her target.

But how to tell Beck she wanted to change the plan? It was not so much that she thought that Beck would dismiss her idea out of hand that gave her pause, as the fact she had hitherto always meekly done as she had been told and she wasn't sure how best to argue her case.

As she weighed up the problem, her phone rang. It was Beck.

She panicked - she was naked. It may not have been a video call, but she couldn't talk to her boss on the phone without any clothes on; it just wasn't the done thing. She rolled off the bed, dashed across the room, grabbed a dressing gown, clumsily wrestled herself into it, realised she'd left the phone on the bed, dashed back across the room, lunged across the mattress, and answered the phone in bit of a tizzy.

"Hi-llo?" she said, deciding too late to abandon her initial casual greeting for something slightly more formal, mangling the words together in the process.

"'Hi-llo'? Interesting greeting. I like it. Makes you sound a bit like an indecisive contestant on Play Your Cards Right."

"Erm, sorry, just a slip of the tongue, sir."

"No need to apologise. This is just a quick check-in. I'm hoping today might be the day you have a 'Brucie Bonus' for me?"

"Sorry, sir, still no contact made, I'm afraid."

Beck sighed, and Harriet cleared her throat.

"Do I get the sense you do have something to discuss, at least?" Beck ventured.

"It's just, well, sir, I thought, perhaps... it might be time to change your plan - just slightly."

"You have something in mind?"

"I'm just not sure I'll ever make contact, unless... unless I attract her attention through a third party, sir."

"Ah, you have an intercessor in mind?"

"Yes, sir - are you familiar with Chardonnay Green from the case files?"

"One moment. I have them right here."

"I see her quite often in the swimming pool, sir, and she's a client of Florence." This was going much more smoothly than Harriet had feared. "I thought it might be a good idea to befriend Chardonnay and then try to meet Florence through her."

"Yeees. Yes. I can see that working. Very well. You have my approval. But we'll need to give Chardonnay a codename."

"A codename?"

There was a rustling of documents.

"Let me see, where was her photo? Ah, yes. Yes. How about 'Duckface à l'orange'?"

[JohnAubrey]

Here we go again. I've had some free time recently, and was feeling in the mood to write again. Apologies for any mistakes you may spot - this was written quickly and only given the briefest of proof-reads.

Enjoy! Or not. But if you do enjoy, let me know! I hope the next chapter isn't too far away.


Starting to Feel Sechs-y

Harriet was aware that her heart rate was quickening and she was fidgeting non-stop as she changed clothes in her cubicle. It wasn't just the usual jitters caused by the pre-workout kicking in; she was definitely nervous, and understandably so. After all, so far her time undercover had essentially comprised a holiday from her usual desk job and a lot of time spent getting paid to work out. She had done no investigative work, had interviewed no suspects, and followed no leads for months. Instead she had dutifully gone to the gym six days a week, every week, and spent most of the rest of the time eating and sleeping. Her detective instincts felt like a blunt edge in need of a whetstone.

Today was Harriet's first opportunity to do some actual undercover work on this mission and this was an operation she had instigated herself. It was she who had suggested to Beck that she take the proactive step of making contact with Chardonnay with a view to inveigling herself into Florence's inner circle, and she felt even more pressure because of the personal responsibility.

Harriet had always got nervous before interviews at the SFO, even though forensic accounting was hardly pulse-quickening stuff. And asking gently probing questions about a company's accounts was her métier; all this cloak-and-dagger stuff was entirely new to her. So far her entire experience of successful covert work was limited to remembering not to announce herself as an officer of the law to the receptionist at the Wimbourne Hall front desk when she signed in for the gym.

In the past Harriet knew just what she had to do to ease her nerves before an interview: over-prepare. She would go over and over the case files and her notes, and then she would go over them again. It was like swotting for an exam, and her school and university marks were testament to the efficacy of her meticulous preparation. "Never half-ass two things; whole-ass one thing," as a wise man had once said, quoting Ron Swanson.

This time was different though. Harriet couldn't prepare like she had in the past. This time it wasn't about memorising facts and figures, or combing through spreadsheets. It was going to be a matter of attitude - it was going to be a performance. And whereas normally she would prepare her mind, today the main tool she had at her disposal today was her body, and she was going to have to amp herself up like an athlete getting ready for an event. A natural introvert, she was going to have to affect a new personality and a new attitude for the duration. She was going to have to go method.

Granted, what Stanislavski had in mind probably hadn't specifically involved ordering the smallest pair of booty shorts and the most revealing sports bra Harriet could find from an online company that actually sold athleticwear as opposed to lingerie masquerading as gym clothes, but it was one way of getting in character. Even alone in her flat, Harriet had squirmed with embarrassment at how exposed she was in her new gym clothes when she had tried them on - and now, as she stood in the changing room cubicle with just a plywood door between herself and the hordes of gym-goers without, the half a dozen eggs she had eaten for second breakfast were at serious risk of making a premature reappearance.

All Harriet could think about was all the attention her exposed flesh was bound to attract. But that was what she needed, and she was just going to have to deal with it. She was going to strut into that gym feeling like the most confident woman in the world, she was going to go out of her way to attract attention, and then she was going to bask in it; she was going to get into the mindset of someone like Chardonnay, become shamelessly preening and exhibitionist, and, with any luck, all that fake confidence was going to transmute into real confidence.

Harriet took a deep breath. Youcandothisyoucandothisyoucandothispleasedon'tthrowup she repeated to herself like a mantra, and she opened the cubicle door.

The funny thing was, she reflected later, all the doubt, all the self-consciousness, all the nervousness, all the nagging little voices in her head disappeared as soon as she wrapped her hands around two dumbbells and hoisted them from their rack. She was transformed by the iron.

And with every exercise Harriet did grow in real confidence, especially when she spotted various men checking her out, with various degrees of subtlety. This was a novel experience. She had only ever witnessed men perving over other women before, and had always thought that in the event it happened to her she would have felt violated, but she was coming to realise why some women found it empowering.

They are in your thrall, she told herself. You control them; you are a Siren and they are enchanted by your song. She forced herself to walk closer past the ogling men than was necessary, and chose to linger in their lines of sight, taking much longer than was necessary bending at the waist to fiddle with her shoelaces. That's right, she thought,  take a good look, boys, because I am worth looking at.

There were no two ways about it: Harriet was starting to feel amazing. Now it wasn't just pre-workout pumping through her system; she was overflowing with a lubricious confidence, and it was an exciting and intoxicating feeling for someone who had never before even sipped from that cup.

She felt so amazing that with each new exercise she began to challenge herself to break her PB, and when she smashed record after record, she felt even more amazing. Her excitement peaked when she started to do alternating curls and realised that she was actually lifting more than the middle-aged man next to her - okay, he was built more like a runner than a lifter, but he was obviously physically fit, and he was a man, and he was clearly trying so hard to challenge himself because he was so obviously embarrassed about standing next to a young woman who was easily curling dumbbells ten pounds heavier than his, and for more reps, and with stricter form.

By now the pump was real. Harriet's arms were engorged with blood and looked bigger than they ever had before, her cephalic veins prominent and pulsing. Never mind the fake confidence now; when your arms looked like this, it was impossible not to feel as indomitable as a Gaul after drinking Getafix's secret potion. But Harriet wanted more. She wanted the sort of pump where your arms feel like they are too exhausted to move while simultaneously also feeling like they are stronger than ever before.

Harriet decided to finish with sets of cable curls. Her arms were by now full of blood, to the point where contracting her biceps was difficult, not because she was struggling with the weight as she pulled on the cable handles, but because even at a ninety degree angle her arms were so ludicrously inflated that it felt like she may not be able to bring her fists any closer to her shoulders. But Kane had taught her not to give up so easily. She focussed, breathed deeply, and forced her way through more reps.

While Harriet had walked tentatively out of the changing rooms, she now positively swaggered back into them, red-faced, clothes saturated with sweat, but feeling like a million dollars. At the end of the room standing in front of the mirrors, she spotted a woman she recognised on sight as Amy Bain, not one of Florence's pet projects, but a successful bikini competitor with a big social media following of her own.

Harriet's only previous interaction with Amy was to be scolded by her for daring to walk in front of her camera when she was filming herself performing glute thrusts. Harriet felt sure that Amy wouldn't even recognise her, not least because she seemed to spend almost all of her time in the gym filming herself and snapping at people who got in the way of her camera, as if they were intruding on a closed film set. Amy had a harsh, sarcastic tone and a carrying voice, and if she wasn't using it to bitch at people, she was boasting on video to all of her online followers about how she wasn't just a bikini competitor, but also a successful and sought-after marketing executive #ladyboss #bossbitch #shecandoboth.

If Harriet was being completely honest with herself, she would have admitted that it wasn't just Amy's unfriendly personality that had made her take an instant dislike to her, but the fact that Amy was also the sort of woman whose looks and lifestyle inspired envy - a lissom beauty queen who was gym-buffed, salon-coiffed, and who drove an expensive car and always but always wore revealing designer clothing.

When she had first seen her, Amy was the sort of woman that Harriet could only dream of becoming: athletic, desirable and completely self-assured. Except Harriet hadn't spent the last few months only dreaming, she had spent them pumping iron, and now - a joyous epiphany - she realised that for all the finely detailed musculature, Amy the bikini competitor was actually small compared to her. At some level, Harriet must have been aware of this discrepancy for a while, but the image Amy projected, the force field of glamour, had not allowed her to see the truth clear.

Amy was certainly not a woman who suffered from shyness, and she had stripped to her underwear in the middle of the changing room to film a 'check in' for her posing coach - but also, frankly, to show off, because if you've got it, flaunt it, right? - loudly narrating her satisfaction with how she was bringing a 'better package' to the stage this year, and throwing in some bonus flexes to show off her gains to her followers.

This is level two, Harriet thought. She had shown off to a crowd in the gym from a distance, and now it was time to get personal; now she had to meet and dominate a woman like Amy one-to-one - and then her rendezvous with Chardonnay would hold no fear.

Unnoticed by Amy, who was staring over her own shoulder into the mirror and lovingly detailing how impressed even she was by how her rear delts were looking, Harriet retrieved her hoody from her locker, zipped it up, and then quickly walked over to Amy and stopped right in her personal space, coming face to to face with her as Amy turned around. At this close distance, Harriet calculated, Amy would be denied a sense of perspective - until it was too late.

"Excuse me!" hissed Amy, "Can't see you see I'm filming; I need to update my posing coach with my latest progress."

Harriet smiled what she hoped was a disarming, shy smile, and tried to channel her tongue-tied personality when she was baffled by a conversation with Beck.

"Oh, sorry, sorry. I'm sorry. It's just that, you just look so amazing and I was just wondering if you compete at all?"

The obsequious approach did not have its intended effect. Amy snorted dismissively.

"Erm, obviously I compete; I mean, look at me!" she said, gesturing at herself, "Nobody looks this sensational if they're not planning on competing. Do you have any idea how much hard work and dedication it takes to look this fabulous? Oh, silly me; of course someone like you wouldn't know. I doubt you could handle even one of my workouts."

Harriet had been correct in assuming that by wearing her baggy hoody and by standing so close to Amy, the conceited woman would assume she was just a fatty. Little did Amy know this hoody was actually a pump cover. Harriet feigned embarrassment.

"I know, right? I saw you in the gym earlier with your booty bands and, well, you looked incredible. I can't imagine what it must take to look as good as you."

"Dedication, honey," purred Amy, softening her attitude slightly in the face of more unadulterated praise. She twisted her hips, angling her torso away from Harriet, and pointed at the accentuated result in the mirror. "This squat booty didn't build itself, you know."

"Oh wow," said Harriet.

"Damn right. You might not think it to look at me," said Amy, playing up to the still-rolling camera and tossing her glorious blonde hair while pouting in the mirror, "but I am actually a lot stronger than the average man." She was warming to her theme now. "A lot of people think bikini contests are just beauty pageants, but we are definitely bodybuilders; we just happen to be bodybuilders who want to look sexy as hell in a bikini and heels. Strong and sexy. Take a look."

Amy flexed her bicep, and a firm, lemon-sized bulge appeared on her arm.

In the past, Harriet would have been genuinely impressed by this display of strength, but now it took no little effort to fake it.

"You look so good, girl! Do you think you could show me some poses, please? I'd love to know if you think I've got what it takes to compete too?"

It was now or never. Without waiting for an answer, Harriet unzipped her hoody and dropped it to the floor. For the first time in her life, she hit a double-bicep pose outside the privacy of her own home, and in front of another human being. The results were gratifying. Amy's jaw dropped. She stopped putting any effort into her own bicep flex, and the lemon disappeared, leaving a lithe arm poised in the air.

Harriet twisted her wrists and felt the big balls of muscle twitching. She didn't look at her arms, but she could feel how big they were, and how the biceps were bunching and bulging. She didn't need to look in the mirror: she could tell exactly how impressive they must have looked just by watching Amy's stunned face.

"I've been doing some working out too, but I'm afraid I don't really know any other poses. Maybe you could show me? What was that one you were doing earlier? When you made your back spread wide?"

"That... that was a lat spread," Amy managed, after winching up her jaw.

"That one. Show me how to do that," asked - no, ordered - Harriet.

Like a robot, Amy turned back to face the mirror, set back her shoulders and flared her lats. It wasn't a pose in a bikini competitor's routine, but she was proud of the width she had built after years of struggling with pull ups.

Harriet stepped behind her and copied her pose, a little awkwardly, because she had never attempted to flex like this before, but almost immediately dwarfing the size of the woman standing in front of her. Amy was in heels, Harriet in trainers, but they happened to be standing at almost exactly the same height, which made the span of Harriet's inflating lats all the more impressive. Standing behind Amy and out-flexing the woman in front of her in this way, Harriet felt like a snake dislocating its jaws to swallow its prey.

Amy stopped flexing again, and her body subsided. She almost looked like she had shrunk a little. She was no longer a confident athlete striking poses, but a humiliated little girl who just wanted to pack up her stuff and run for the exit.

Harriet wasn't done.

"Does this qualify as a squat booty?" she asked rhetorically, turning around and tugging down her sweat-stained shorts as she did so. Presented at close quarters with enough booty to keep even the most spendthrift of pirate crews happy on shore leave for a month, Amy's jaw dropped again. Harriet pulled down and kicked off her damp shorts, her thighs billowing as her feet hit the floor.

"I asked you a question."

Amy's mouth flapped up and down, but no words came out.

"Well, if you've lost the power of speech, instead you will demonstrate to me how you pulled that pose a moment ago, when you sort of half-twisted and made your little booty pop. Quickly, now."

Wordlessly, Amy repeated the movement. Harriet watched closely and then mirrored her movements. Her left glute ballooned out and smacked into Amy's right buttock, knocking the smaller woman off balance. Taken by surprise, and in heels, Amy toppled sideways. Harriet flashed out an arm, hooked Amy around her waist, and hoisted her back upright.

"Careful there," said Harriet. "Don't tell me you're one of those silly women that just can't stand up straight in high heels?"

There was an awkward pause.

"Could you maybe put me down... please?" said Amy, squeaking the last word.

Harriet realised that she had not just caught Amy, she had actually hoisted her off her feet and was holding her suspended, coiled in one arm. She had a sudden flashback to the time Kane had wrapped an arm around her and helped her to the water fountain all those months ago. She wondered if Amy felt as awed by the strength in her arm as she once had in Kane's grip?

"I suppose so. Oh, hang on, clumsy girl, one of your heels has fallen off. Let me just..."

Harriet easily flung the woman over her shoulder into a fireman's carry position, and squatted down to retrieve the shoe. She could feel Amy panicking, incorrectly fearing that Harriet wasn't going to be able to handle her weight as she crouched to grab the high heel, and giggled as Amy's arms scrabbled around for hand holds, tickling the small of her back. In the end the only things Amy could find to grab on to were Harriet's meaty glutes. Amy's hands felt comically small to Harriet as they squeezed hold of her bottom; in her mind she pictured a small child struggling to grab a basketball in each hand.

Having retrieved the shoe, Harriet stood back up, without any obvious difficulty.

"How much do you weigh, anyway?" Harriet asked.

"One... one hundred and twenty pounds," panted Amy.

"Oh, you little thing, that's not even my warm up; no wonder you feel so light," said Harriet, dropping once more into a squat and then working her way through a series of easy reps. She could feel Amy's hands slipping from her glutes - either her new booty shorts had been too sodden to absorb all the perspiration from her workout, or Amy's palms were damp with a panic-sweat.

Finishing the last squat, Harriet made eye contact with herself in the mirror. Or at least, she made eye contact with a woman whom she eventually realised to be herself. There she stood - formerly such a prude that she would struggle into a swimsuit after her workout just to take a shower in the public changing rooms - in only a sports bra and a thong, dripping with sweat, her body thick and heavy with muscle, pumped and veiny, and with a sexy woman slung casually over her shoulder, almost as if she were a cartoon caveman claiming her mate.

She looked unrecognisable when compared with the prim, nervous young lady in a smart trouser suit and sensible shoes who had hesitantly walked into Beck's office all those months ago. And, more importantly, now she felt like a different woman altogether. Perhaps she could borrow one of those hashtags Amy was so keen on using - hell, no need to borrow it; now she could just take it. It wasn't like Amy was going to be able to use it any time soon anyway...

#alphafemale

Harriet glanced across as Amy started whimpering. Could she? Of course she could: the tanned, toned buttocks draped over her shoulder were simply too inviting not to. She flashed a wicked smile at the camera and then delivered a ringing slap to Amy's honed little arse. Amy squealed. The red imprint left by Harriet's hand remained clearly visible on the otherwise flawless, peachy little bottom, as if Amy had been branded by her owner.

"Send that to your posing coach."