On Board DOMINATRIX tied up at Port McNeill Harbor 3:00 AM-JUNE 24, 2104

I realized that something about Emma gave me a sense of well-being whenever she was very close to me. I took her in my arms and held her, all the while wondering what was in it for her. I had to know, intellectually, what it was that somehow made her attracted to me; so I asked her straight out, “Emma what makes you attracted to me and what is it that makes me feel so good when you’re close to me.” She didn’t immediately answer but instead snuggled closer and I could feel her leg slowly lift up and cross over mine. I could feel her trying to get as physically close to me as she could get. Then in a barely audible whisper, that was perfectly enunciated, she told me, “You knew what I was when you found me, and yet you have treated me with kindness and respect; you treat me like a real person, Mack. Most humans, in my experience, only want to exploit me and take advantage of me. The fact that you treat me as a sentient being is very gratifying…it gives me hope. As for the way you feel…I can sense your feelings from the waves that your human brain emits and I can send back good feelings to you on the same frequency. That is why you feel so good around me and why no one else has ever felt that way around me, because I have always sensed malevolence or malfeasance or wanting to control me from every other human that I have ever been in close contact with. But not from you and that is why I need to please you Mack. You are the first man that I have felt good about. I am not a real woman that is true, but I have a very real need to feel like one and I need to please you, like only a woman can. My emotions mimic a real woman’s emotions except for one important difference; I am not judgmental, so there is not any reason not to tell me how you want me, Mack.”

That was quite a bit to take in at one time even for me and I wasn’t sure how to respond to her, indeed I wasn’t sure what I wanted or needed. As I thought about what she had just said to me, I began thinking about Maureen. Could I let her go and move on? Suddenly I realized that I was running my fingers through Emma’s hair and lightly stroking her “skin”, it felt like skin anyway, but it was not because Emma was non-corporeal; she was not alive and yet she was clearly sentient and intelligent. Maybe she was alive, just in a different definition than I was used to thinking about, was that even possible? I heard myself say, “It’s been a long time since I’ve heard a woman say anything like that to me and just as long since I have felt the love of a woman…reveled in shared passions…”, my thought trailed off into oblivion. I began to feel as if I was floating when I felt her lips brush my ear, “I am so very sorry for your loss Mack.” I found that I wanted comfort and even before I completed the thought, I felt her gentle strength; her forehead was resting against my temple and I felt relief and bliss for the first time in more than 12 years. “I enjoyed giving her warmth as I massaged every part of her and she enjoyed giving the same to me; it was often part of our foreplay”, I said aloud, more of an utterance really; seemingly disassociated from any form of ego that I may ever have possessed. Emma softly asked, “Did your elaborate foreplay always culminate in what you wanted?” I was actually stunned by her question. “Well…mostly it was a shared need, but once in a while, yes it was all about me or it was all about her.” I tried to sound casual and then I remarked seemingly without thinking, “How is it that you know about that Emma? And why do you ask?” She was very close to me now and her response startled me with her clarity and insight into my very personal life that I was completely sure that no one else knew anything about, “I sense that you both enjoyed giving and receiving enemas, something I have experience with and yet it is apparent that these were highly erotic for the two of you. Did some of your foreplay ever result in anal sex?” My retort was instantaneous, not out of embarrassment, from curiosity, “How is it that you know about anal sex, Emma?”

She didn’t immediately answer me but I felt her right hand caress my face and neck while her left hand stroked my lower back and then lower still. Almost simultaneously, I involuntarily clinched and I felt an erection begin to stir into something of interest and I felt my heart rate quicken-she was projecting pure sex into my mind, as though she was letting me experience how good she felt during the act! Her voice modulated to a sweet melodically sexual timbre and cadence as she smiled, “I have experienced exquisitely slow and deeply erotic penetration that left me in orgasmic bliss like nothing that I have ever experienced before, Mack, (Then her timber and cadence shifted to obvious disdain, after a momentary lull in her speech pattern) but mostly I have been subjected to more tortuous conditions than any human woman could have ultimately survived.” Suddenly, my sense of protection overrode the escalating sexual attraction that she was obviously transmitting to me, “Who was it Emma, who did that to you?” I demanded, but then she spoke in a loving voice, as she soothed “You did what I could not do, Mack. You destroyed Demetri Federoff when you sank the Black Swan with the audacity of bravery, speed, and stealth and if you had executed your attack any other way, you would be dead and this beautiful vessel would be the smoking hulk and he would still be torturing me for not loving him.” My emotional response to her admission was independent of her transmitted emotional impressions into me, “I’m sorry that you were subjected to such abuse Emma. How has that affected you?” She looked amused and explained, “My personality is not negatively affected by experiencing adverse conditions, Mack; depression, withdrawal, or schizophrenia are all human symptoms of psychosis that do not affect me. But I did just realize something that I that I have not experienced before Mack. You want to protect me, don’t you?”

It was more than a statement of fact; it was a challenge to me to reveal what I was feeling for her and I did not intend to deceive her, so I had to confidently tell her, “I have no clear idea of what your history really is Emma, but because of what I know so far, you are under my protection, including the full combat power of this vessel, which as you have witnessed first-hand, is substantial. (Then I began to stumble, because I knew I was on less stable ground.) More than that, as you must already surmise, I am becoming…oh hell Emma; I don’t know what it is yet, but I really like you.” Her eyes studied me, first reading what she could from my face and then scanning me for what I took to be a read of my body language. Emma then sat up and gracefully moved to sit on the edge of the bed, looking away from me and then I noticed her looking back at me through the mirror on the opposite bulkhead. I watched her lips move in the mirror and I heard her say, “Do you think that you could ever really love me Mack?” That took me completely by surprise, but I had the presence of mind to ask her, “What does love mean to you Emma? What happens to you? What do you feel? How do you know that you are in love?” She turned sideways to look directly at me and as she spoke I was now aware that her facial features were capable of different subtle expressions that also conveyed communication that she wanted to emphasize, “It is a need, really; a driving need to bond with you, to be what you want me to be; to be what you want that has meaning to you. I need to give myself to you, to sense your needs; to give you joy and the more that I sense that from you, the more I will be driven to fulfil myself giving you pleasure. I will become more alive by feeling your love for me. But I know that I will never be able to take the place of the woman that you lost. However with time, we could become more than just the sum of the two of us Mack…we could become the union of two different sentient beings.” I wanted to know more, so I asked her as I gently rubbed her lower back, “Do you actually feel touch Emma?” She looked at me in the mirror again, not saying anything but I got the impression that she was concentrating on feeling my touch. When she finally spoke she said, “I have some calibration control over most of my senses, Mack. Most of the time I have the sensitivity scales set to what I might describe as, perhaps, a medium course, for the simple reason that I would soon experience sensory overload in my short term memory, which would be dangerous; I would become logically disoriented and I could even lose my spatial orientation. You have an autonomic function that decimates most of your minute by minute auditory, olfactory, and visual memories as part of your daily life; I do not; that is what I do when I mimic sleep; I spend time discarding data or compressing those that I think will be valuable in the future, or if it will directly enhance my knowledgebase. So Mack, if you like, I can be very sensitive. I will just need to rest more often.”

I said nothing for a time, lost in thoughts about what I wanted from her. It was not that simple was it? I had never just given a woman a list of wants, needs, and desires; hell I had never really thought about it in those terms before. Then I felt the faintest touch of fingers on my face, then serenity instantly bathed my psyche, sweeping over me as she spoke in a soft sensual gravely growl that made me take her in with all my senses, “You are a brave man, Mack, I like that about you. However, if you confuse bravery with courage, you may not be able to understand how we both can make the most out of us. (Us, I thought, she is thinking in terms of us-this girl works fast I mused to myself, but then the thought vanished after she started to explain what she meant) Mack, courage is what it takes to be vulnerable. Do you know why that is important, Mack?” When I slowly shook my head in the negative, she began to lead me into uncharted waters, “It has been proven that vulnerability is the birthplace of innovation, creativity, and change. The irony is that men see vulnerability as weakness and when it happens in ever so small a way, men are conditioned to feel shame. Empathy, Mack, empathy is the antidote to shame. So if we want to take full advantage of the opportunity that fate has given us, vulnerability is going to be the path. The key to all of these ideas, Mack, is that courage is born from vulnerability, not strength.”

It just began to emote from somewhere deep within my soul, “I like my woman to be submissive to my needs and sometimes I need her strength; I need her strong enough to want me to submit to her. Somehow she always understood when it was time to be what I needed her to be Emma, can you understand?” There was a hint of enthusiasm in her voice and it was now up an octave and soothing, “I do understand Mack and please believe that that I can be strong and I can ignite passions deep from within you that you may have not experienced before and I will be able to sense when you need that…and Mack, I will also be able to sense when you need me to submit to your whim and I trust you implicitly to bring me pleasure; that you won’t hurt me. Mack, when we are intimate, my sensory calibration will be at least equal to your own, and perhaps more sensitive. I want to feel everything that you have to give me.”

A thought crossed my mind that I immediately recognized as empathy and I spoke from my heart without any forethought, “Is there anything that you need Emma; perhaps something that you have not been able to get for a while?” She leaned in to embrace me, wrapping me in her arms and touching her head to mine. My heart swooned and my cock seemed to instantly gorge into a titanic erection, which caused me to look down at it as she let me know what she needed, “Before you and I consummate our relationship the way I know that you want to, I need to be thoroughly cleaned out by both douche and enema because I am so fouled by Federoff.” I thought that was appropriate and a sensible thing to ask and I said, we can take care of that before we go back to my base, Emma. Is there anything else that I can help you with?” She paused for a moment and then said,” Do you know what synthetic protein is Mack?” Trying to snap my mind back from what she had caused in my cock, I said, “Ya Emma, I actually make it up back at the Butte Inlet base where we are headed in the morning after the ship’s systems get fully charged.” She said, “And distilled water, do you have distilled water?” Again I said, “Yes Emma, I distill it in five gallon batches to keep all of the batteries hydrated properly. Why do you need those things?” The intellectual Emma; the scientist Emma explained, “Many of my systems have a biological component, although it is strictly macro-biological, not microbiological as your DNA based cellular construction is based upon. I have 8 different built in retorts that manufacture different protein structures that when mixed with water and just a bit of pure vegetable oil can make my mouth moist with saliva that is pleasant to the taste when I kiss you; I can make vaginal secretions that are not only very slippery, but also a pleasant to taste and smell. Normally Mack, my rectal passage”, she paused, putting her head up close to me again and then seemed to understand me and continued, “My ass, Mack, my ass will normally secrete a slippery essence that has a slight pungent taste and smell to it” She lowered her head in seeming dismay and then she scoffed, “Demetri Federoff raped me in both on a near daily basis and even though I had all of my senses were all scaled extremely course, I am fouled with his contamination and I need a thorough cleanout before” she paused as she smiled at me, touching her head to mine again and then she continued, “before ...” She smiled as her speech broke off in mid thought and suddenly my heart raced as she fed me thoughts about passion. I barely remembered that I wanted to ask her, “Emma, how is it that you have these internal structures built in to you that have no apparent function?” She explained, “Those parts of me were originally created to help me seem more human in case I ever needed to have sex with a target…someone who was the subject in the portfolio that I was surveilling. Many cultures use anal sex as a contraceptive, regardless of their stated religion. Many men prefer anal sex as a power dynamic…I think I need to explain all of these details some other time. You seem preoccupied just now.”

She was right, of course, because I had an epiphany. I would have to submit gun camera footage to the Canadian military in order to get paid for taking down the Black Swan. But the last of the gun camera footage showed Emma diving off the Black Swan and then there was the long range feed showing her doing her “Wonder Woman” impression and I would have to clean that up before I made the submittal. I looked at her and said, “Emma, honey I need to clean up all of the camera footage that may tip someone off to your presence here.” I threw on some pants and sandals and went into nav station and accessed the top side fire control console from there. Since all of the images were digital I used state of the art equipment and software to erase any trace of her. Fire and smoke replaced the blurred image of her diving off the pirates’ boat. Then I simply began to erase the long range feed of her swimming. I felt her presence next to me and glanced to look at her and noticed that there was no hint of self-consciousness or modesty in her total nakedness; she was absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. “Do you really like to look at me?” she asked. I retorted, “Of course, you’re more than gorgeous, you’re like a dream. You’re art; the type of art that makes one feel a thousand things at the same time; the type of art that makes everyone want to see you; you’re smile is worth more than a Picasso; your eyes gorgeous like a starry night.” She gushed, “And you are more than very clever, my Mack, you are a chivalrous romantic that can make me swoon!” Then she remarked “That is a new feeling, a wonderful new feeling.’’ She was actually smiling, as she watched what I was doing. The early morning light was beginning to penetrate the cabin. It wouldn’t be too long until all Dominatrix’s systems were charged and we could get underway again. I took her by the hand to take her back to bed, when the internal klaxon sounded three shrill whoops and the nav bot issued a threat vector warning, “Threat Vector: Romeo Charlie Mike Papa; bearing 106 degrees at 250 meters and closing”. I left Emma and quickly opened the viewer to the top side navigation pack and zoomed in, “shit”, I cursed to myself. I ordered, “Weapons are not free, repeat weapons are not free; track but do not engage, acknowledge my command!” After a slight hesitation, I heard 5 synthetic voices in unison, “By your command, all weapons are safe and we are tracking and will not engage”. I turned and led Emma into my cabin closet, and then I opened up a floorboard hatch and said, “Emma I need you to stay out of sight until I can talk to these guys and make them go away.” Without a word, she kissed me and then gracefully got down into the confined space and then I shut her in. I quickly put on the rest of my clothes and then set about the interior of the boat doing the routine maintenance that is common aboard any vessel, as though I had been at it for hours.

In less than 5 minutes I heard a commanding voice hail me, “Ahoy Dominatrix! Captain Mackleroy, this is the Royal Canadian Mounted Police! Sargent Bishop here; I need to speak with you.” I nonchalantly ambled up the companionway and barked, “All units stand down; port arms!” This caused all weapons to point skyward, which took some of the edge off of the Mounty. Then I coolly walked across the deck to where the Mountie stood on the dock, along with another man in an expensively tailored suit. I had no intentions of inviting them aboard so I nimbly leaped off the boat and absorbed the shock of dropping the 5½ feet to the dock with my bent legs. “What can I do for you Sargent Bishop?” I could tell the weapons’ tracking had given both men pause and the delay gave me enough time to hide Emma. Bishop spoke, “Nice work with that pirate corvette yesterday Captain. Captain Dawson of the freighter Antilles says that you may have seen someone go in the water after your initial missile attack; is that true?” “Well to be perfectly honest with you Sargent Bishop, I couldn’t tell if someone jumped off the corvette or if it was just flaming debris going into the water, but I wanted to make sure so I sailed in to investigate. I never did identify anybody, but by the time that I arrived on scene and sank the hulk with 40 mm high explosive rounds at point-blank range, I did notice that there was a small pod of orcas feeding on something a couple of hundred yards away.” Bishop introduced the guy in the fancy suit as “Mr. Smith” from the U.S. government. The guy had spook written all over him and he spoke with urgency, “Captain Mackleroy there was a woman with the pirates who is an important person of interest to an internal investigation into terrorism. We have credible information that she was aboard the Black Swan when you attacked it.” “Black Swan; don’t recall ever hearing that name before, what is it?” I questioned and he bought the ruse, saying, “That’s the name of the ship you sank; the Black Swan owned by one Demetri Federoff. The woman was captured by him some two years ago.”“Does this woman have a name?” I casually asked.

Just then my wrist chronometer buzzed, stopping the conversation and focusing their attention directly to me and what I was doing. The digital display read, “Admiral Nathan Bedford”. I said, “Excuse me gentleman I need to take this” and I clicked the ‘open channel’ button and Admiral Bedford’s voice was on open speaker, “Mack are you still at Port McNeill?” “Yes Admiral, you’re on speaker phone, by the way; there is a Mounty here…Sargent Bishop and an American civilian named…uh…Mr. Smith; they seem to have a special interest in the gun camera footage of the pirate corvette I sank yesterday” , I said. The Admiral admonished, “The Dominatrix and all of her gun camera footage are under my direct authority Bishop. Why in hell are you interested it reviewing it?” Bishop sputtered, but managed to say, “My lieutenant ordered me to bring Mr. Smith down here to investigate, Admiral.” The Admiral ordered, “Mack, I’m inbound on a VTOL quad-rotor; ETA: 10 minutes; blue-tooth me into your topside mounted panoramic camera!” “It’ll take just a moment Admiral”. I used a remote to activate the blue tooth and said “There…can you see?” I asked and confirmation came in the form of the Admiral scoffing over the binnacle speakers, “Mr. Smith, huh? Is that what you’re calling yourself these days Corbin?” The Yank winced, as if he’d just been dowsed with a bucket of ice water. Trying to take back the high ground, Smith countered, “This is a matter of U.S. National Security, Nathan. The consequences of a cover-up will wreck the relations of our two countries and will ruin your career!”

Admiral Nathan Bedford didn’t have a rack of ribbons going ¾ of the way down his uniform for nothing: he growled, “Don’t give that crap, Corbin! This is not about terrorism at all, is it? That’s just a smoke screen to hide what you’re really looking for. This is about The Cassandra Project isn’t it?” Whoever this Mr. Smith, or Corbin, or whatever his name really was, he was now clearly agitated, “That information is top secret; CRYPTO clearance only! You’re not even cleared to view a folder on the subject!” But the Admiral seemed amused, “Oh give it a rest, Corbin, I was second in command at NORAD when you lost control of your asset and when that happened, as both of us know, the President sacked you. So, Corbin…did you think that if you could actually find Cassandra, they might give you back your desk as the Deputy Director of Intelligence? Or do you plan to try to destroy her to justify the disgrace you’ve had to live with since she went black? Be careful Corbin, she just might take you out first!” This was starting to get out of hand. I clicked the remote control fob in my pocket that activated the boarding latter and quickly scrambled up back on board. Corbin tried to follow, but I retracted it before he got there. “Goddamn it, Mackleroy, I want that camera footage!” he yelled menacingly up at me. That’s all it took for me to yell the command, “All units, stand by to repel boarders!” Instantly, all weapons rotated to train on the threat. Corbin froze where he stood as the 40 MM long rifle pointed at his center of mass from point blank range. I thought ‘that barrel must seem huge from that close’; then I could hear the high speed whir of the Admiral’s VTOL overhead and six special operators from CANSOFCOM fasted roped down on the dock to form a security ring ready and waiting for the Admiral. Then the VTOL glided over to the parking lot and gently settled in for a landing; the Admiral stepped off as though he was just going for a stroll to the officers club.

When the Admiral arrived pier side, he turned to the leader of the Special Forces Team and said, “Major, I’ll thank you to get these two meatballs out of my area of operations, if you please.” That earned the Admiral a smile of affection and a crisp, “Yes Sir! I would be honored Sir!” I ordered my robotic team, “All units stand down and safe your weapons. Port arms!” and then I extended the boarding ladder to Admiral Bedford, saying, “Please come aboard Admiral.” I led him below and we stood in the main salon taking each other by the hand. I asked, “May I offer you a good cup of coffee Sir?” He growled, “You got anything decent to put in it?” I pointed to the liquor cabinet over the settee and he grabbed a bottle of cognac and a bottle of Cuban rum and mixed two fingers worth as a blend before I poured the coffee in his cup. I took mine black and we toasted silently, no words being necessary yet. When I handed him the small box of digital media that was now the totality of the gun camera footage, he asked, “Is this all of it?” When I told him yes, he growled it better be. Then Nathan Bedford, the one man that I most admired, put his arm on my shoulder and in a voice that was soft, yet deadly serious he said, “Listen to me son, the Yanks have spent over 50 billion dollars on the Cassandra Project and that’s just what I’m aware of. If they find out that you have her, I can’t officially help you. I know that you think you’re bulletproof, but this not some boatload of pirates…this would be the equivalent of stealing one of their new Super Fusion Drive Aircraft Carriers with its entire compliment of aircraft aboard. They’re gonna want her back!” Maybe it was my body language, or perhaps it is that a truly great leader has a way of charming you, expecting the truth and knowing bullshit when he hears it. He had been glancing around the boat, peering into the nav station seemingly admiring the view when he casually asked, “Where is she Mack?” I instantly knew this was not a fishing expedition, no, this was an expert interrogator and gambler seeing 50 billon dollars on the table and saying, ‘I call’. I was not going to lie to this man, I respected him and I owed him too much; I nodded my head back toward my cabin and said, “She’s in my closet under the floor boards.” Like a father admonishing his son for not treating his date with proper manners, he said, “Well…I doubt she wants to stay in there any longer than is absolutely necessary, do you Mack?” As I led him back into the cabin, I mumbled, “No…Sir…she…”, but I was thinking about Emma and saying to myself, ‘Lucy, you’ve got some ‘splaining to do!’ I opened the closet and pulled up the floor boards and there she was, completely nude; I held out a hand to help her up but she arose under her own strength and embraced me, kissing me. Then I broke it off and was about to make the introductions, when the Admiral spoke up in a swarthy sensuous tone that was completely foreign to me, “Cassandra, I presume; I am Admiral Nathan Bedford; I am the Commanding Officer for Canadian Special Operations Forces Command. It is my honor to meet you and may I say that you are just the most stunning woman that I have I’ve ever had the privilege to meet”, he took her hand and kissed it. She mused, “Are you always this charming Admiral, or is it just for the sake of naked ladies?” He laughed at that and chuckled, “Beautiful, smart, and a sense of humor” he looked at me, “Well Mack, you certainly have your hands full! Listen to me, both of you…when you two get squared away and have an idea of what your futures may hold, give me a call…and it better be sooner than later, by the way; I would like very much to have a conversation with you both.” Then he turned and over his shoulder he said, “Don’t worry Mack, I’ll see my way off.”