Jessica Darling 10: A Late Night at the Studio

LEGAL NOTICE: This is purely a work of fiction. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. continued from chapter 9

Chapter 10: A Late Night at the Studio

The next morning Jessica once again awoke to her loyal servant having drawn the curtains open, flooding the expansive room with the morning sun. Nothing about the routine differed from that of the previous days, save for maybe the redhead having a little more spring in her step after being provided with a direct lesson on the benefits of satisfying her assigned Mistress.

It wasn't until Jessica walked up to the girl as she began draw the bath that she returned the keycard to the maid's apron pocket, by pushing up behind her and running her hands up and down the girl's body. Jessica whispered into her ear how much she had enjoyed the previous night's activities and that she had done very well at satisfying her Mistress. As the maid closed her eyes, enjoying Jessica's touch once again, she didn't notice Jessica returning her missing key card. In fact, the girl didn't even notice it had ever been missing. After she left Jessica's care the night before she barely made it back to her room in the servant's quarters before collapsing in her bed completely exhausted. She had never had a Mistress, much less another woman; give her such a wonderful reward.

Jessica didn't know if the girl she had so thoroughly ravished the night before would make some gentle attempt to thank her Mistress during the morning bath, and was even slightly disappointed when she didn't. But that was the nature of the servant/Mistress relationship, what took place between them from one day to the next was always assumed to have been left in the past so long as the servant learned from whatever reward or punishment she had received. However, Jessica did notice a few light caresses in sensitive places when the girl was drying her off after the bath.

Jessica took her breakfast in the main dining room as previous mornings, making small talk with Heather and whoever else might be staying at the massive estate. And while Heather usually made her way to the pool, or the spa, Jessica would wander around the house, asking questions of the various staff members she encountered, attempting to determine what, if any, additional security might be in place that she would have to account for when she made her infiltration effort. Jessica tried to keep her movements through the house random, in the attempt to prevent anyone who might be watching her from getting a sense of her true purpose.

As it turned out, Jessica’s biggest break came from her loyal Antonia who emailed Jessica an invitation that had been sent out to the celebrity circuit a day before, announcing a lavish party being thrown at Brulée's estate later that week. “What’s she up to...” Jessica pondered as she read the announcement. The only thing Jessica could think was that it had something to do with either another celebrity being targeted during the party, or one that Brulée already had captured having their ‘work’ premiered to the gathered guests.

Jessica had gathered enough information on Brulée by this point to know that she never simply ‘threw’ a party. There was always some opportunity or scheme behind the venture, some type of activity to gain notoriety or visibility. Brulée’s parties had a well-earned reputation of extravagance, often combining both fetish as well as Las Vegas exuberance. The costs associated with these productions had to be huge Jessica had concluded as she delved into the details in her notes. “Whatever is happening has to center around the party…” Jessica kept replaying in her mind.

“Heather...” it ripped through Jessica's head. “Could she be planning something with Heather?”

Jessica considered the possibility, and although Brulée had been attempting to ingratiate herself with the more mainstream celebrity set, there was an undeniable connection between Brulée’s fetish-themed artwork and the ‘adult entertainment’ industry. “Could be returning to her roots?” Jessica considered as she processed the facts as she understood them.

“She mentioned that Heather’s statue was a ‘return’ of sorts… a return to her classical-themed efforts of the past… a return to where she started… and Heather is certainly the most profitable star in the industry at the moment…” The more the facts began to line up, the less Jessica liked the conclusion she was being forced to draw from them. And even if she were wrong, Jessica knew that she couldn’t take the chance with her friend. She had to assume that whatever Brulée was planning had Heather as its target.

“Jessica! I can’t believe it!” Heather replied, her voice full of incredulity. “You two have been at each other from the moment you both met. I can’t believe that you’d actually think she has anything to do with anyone’s disappearance. She’s only a business woman who dabbles in sculpture; she’s certainly not some criminal mastermind!”

“Heather, you’ve got to look at the facts.” Jessica implored her friend, yet even after having told her everything about Cardinalli, about the other missing celebrities, and about Jessica’s ‘gut instinct’, Heather just wasn’t going to hear it.

“Jessica! I am looking at the facts. Fact one: You don’t like Brulée. Fact two: She doesn’t like you. Fact three: You think she’s dumb enough to do anything to the ‘highest-grossing star in the adult entertainment industry’. Give me a break! People in my industry don’t play games remember? They’re the same people who told you they ‘don’t care if this fuckin’ psycho falls into a tree shredder just get Heather back alive’ when I’d been kidnapped before right? You really think they’d let anyone kidnap me?”

Heather did have two things right; her handlers in the industry didn’t take shit from anyone. They had made their instructions painfully clear when she had been hired to find and retrieve Heather, ‘shoot first, don’t bother with any questions’. In fact when informed of Jessica’s unfortunate need to dispatch the kidnapper, they actually smiled. The second thing Heather had right was that Brulée would be stupid to try anything if everyone knew Heather was already there. Assuming they knew…

“Heather, did you tell your management folks you were doing this session with Brulée?”

“Great! Well so much for your second point Heather. If nobody knows you’re here, then what FUCKING GOOD does it do?” Jessica rolled her eyes at Heather’s response.

“Goddamn it Jessica! How many times do I have to tell you I’m breaking out on my own! Gezz! It’s about time I make my own damn money instead of giving it away to a bunch of people who do nothing for it!” Heather had mentioned to Jessica several times that she wanted to form her own company and market herself, but Jessica never thought anything had come of it other than words. Unfortunately, Jessica realized that Heather picked the wrong time to strike out on her own. If Brulée had anything to do with the various disappearances, Heather was now vulnerable and that meant Jessica had to take some action.

The rest of the ‘conversation’ carried a similar tone; Jessica complaining Heather wasn’t listening, Heather telling Jessica she could take care of herself and not to worry about Brulée. Neither woman was willing to budge from their respective points of view.

Jessica had changed into her standard ‘infiltration’ gear:

Black skintight rubber bodysuit
Black ballistic-nylon cargo-type pants
Black ankle-height, rubber-soled, motorcycle boots
Black leather ponytail holder to keep her hair pulled back and out of her face
Small black leather backpack.

Jessica left her standard black leather jacket behind since she was only going to be moving about indoors and didn’t need to be any more burdened than absolutely necessary. The skintight rubber suit would be enough to keep her warm, while still offering some protection against abrasions and scrapes if she needed to climb or crawl anywhere, but it did mean she had to either carry more equipment in either her pants or in her backpack. Jessica spent several minutes deciding what she needed to keep secured on her person in the various pockets on her pants, and what she could afford to jettison along with her backpack if she needed to make a hasty exit. It was a delicate balancing act between having what she needed to do the job versus the weight that would weigh her legs down right when she needed to be as lithe and quick as possible. Finally, Jessica thought she had the right balance and tucked everything away in the various pants pockets before packing the backpack and beginning to work her way down to the gallery.

Jessica had found out during a casual conversation that she assigned domestic staff typically went to their quarters for the evening only returning to the guest floors if they were summoned by their assigned Mistress. Over the course of her conversation Jessica had also been clued into the various schedules of the house staff, their assignments during the night, and the likelihood that Jessica would be disturbed if she wanted to head down to the library or gallery “for a quiet night’s reading” as Jessica explained it. It was under that pretense that Jessica had dismissed her maid, informing her that she’d be spending the next several hours getting caught up on some reading and would not be needing the services of her domestic for the rest of the night.

Jessica quietly moved down the hallways and stairs of the house, pausing every few meters or so to listen for conversations or footsteps. Even though her maid had assured Jessica that late night movement of guests through the house was not something to be concerned about: “My Mistress should feel free to roam the house as if it were your own”, Jessica would find it hard to explain her rather ‘unique’ attire for someone just heading down to the library to catch up on some reading. And Jessica didn’t have time for a disguise, it was late enough that if she didn’t get moving she’d likely end up reappearing in the gallery just as the main house staff was starting their breakfast duties. Being detected returning was even riskier than being spotted going.

Jessica only had to duck into an odd alcove or anteroom twice to avoid stumbling across a couple of the latex-clad house maids making their way to their quarters for the night, having finished their assigned duties dusting or cleaning some part of the massive palace Brulée called a ‘house’, before she managed to reach the large gallery just inside the library wing. Once she had entered the gallery, Jessica ducked behind the door to review the notes she had taken on the location of the elevator access mechanism. Jessica had recited the location and the two book titles when Taffy used her card during the tour but made sure she wrote them down since she wasn’t sure exactly when she would have to make her attempt to breach the studio.

Just to be sure, Jessica fished in her backpack and retrieved a small scanning device and an aerosol spray can to check for hidden beams that might be monitoring the approach to the bookcase-door. When her scans didn’t turn up anything unusual, Jessica resorted to the old trick of spraying a dust into the air around what the figured the doorway perimeter would be to show any infrared detection mechanisms. She then retrieved a small pair of goggles from her pack and repeated the process as she held the goggles over her eyes. Jessica didn’t like having to make the noise of releasing the spray a second time, but the ‘dust’ it sprayed would also reflect any ultraviolet-wavelength laser beams that could be in place so it needed to be done. A slight sigh of relief passed Jessica’s lips when the ‘dust’ didn’t reflect any other detection mechanisms; hopefully the elevator was clear for Jessica to approach.

Jessica quickly located the shelf and then the books that hid the card scanner, and then inserted her counterfeit key card between the two books before mentally crossing her fingers. She knew that is was always possible that someone had noticed that her maid’s key had been pilfered a few days before and that they had already changed the access codes embedded on the keys, which would mean Jessica’s counterfeit version would be useless. It was also possible, Jessica considered, that the access control routine in the computer would know that the owner of the card in question was not ‘on duty’ at this time and thus wouldn’t need access. But Jessica discounted that as unlikely since, through her own experience with Antonia, a dedicated domestic was expected to retrieve anything or perform any service for her Mistress regardless of the time of day or night. Jessica optimistically assumed that meant retrieving materials from the studio as well as the rest of the house.

She let out a soft sigh of relief as the panel slid open, revealing the massive lift. Jessica quickly surveyed the inside of the conveyance for any security measures she had not noticed the few days prior, and satisfied there were none, slid into the lift and quickly pressed the ‘studio’ button on the wall panel. Jessica remained alert for any intervention while the massive panel, which had only completed half its programmed opening sequence, suddenly reversed direction and closed again. “Now to take care of the guard” Jessica moved to the next step in her mental checklist as the lift descended to the studio level and settled to a stop before opening its massive maw once again. Jessica had concluded that a full attack on the guard was not her best alternative; “Too risky, too much distance to cover, would give them a chance to hit any alarm button before I could close the distance to them.” Jessica decided that the best approach was to act like she was intended to be there and began marching directly towards the bewildered guard.

“May I be of some assistance Mistress?”

“Yes, Madame Brulée ‘instructed’ me…” Jessica almost choked on the word as if she’d ever let Brulée ‘instruct’ her on anything, “to meet her in the studio this evening to pose for her.” Jessica hoped that created enough confusion on the part of the guard to allow her to finish closing the distance to her station. The look on the guard’s face told Jessica that her strategy worked.

“Ummmm… I’m not showing anything on tonight’s schedule…” The guard quickly began shuffling through her computer screen looking up schedules and calendars and notes.

“Excuse me!!! Is ‘ummmm’ the appropriate way to respond to your Mistress?” Jessica adopted the same approach which had worked so well with her assigned domestic... “And I really don’t care what it says on your schedule I know what Madame Brulée told me!” Jessica elevated her tone to feign annoyance; “And she told me to be here at this time!”

Jessica had reached the guard’s desk and began to mumble under her breath while she paced back and forth in a strategic move to escalate the tension of the situation and increase the amount of discomfort on the part of the guard who was now beginning to tremble visibly. “This is just freakin’ great! I’m instructed to be here at such-and-such a time and nobody knows I’m supposed to be here! I could be laying in bed right now getting some sleep instead of this crap!”

“I’m sorry Mistress, I’m sure the notification is somewhere here… it’s not like Madame to not notify us…” The guard at this point was becoming frantic in her efforts to locate the fantasy schedule which Jessica had created.

Jessica seized the moment of distraction to quickly move herself around and behind the guard’s desk and began shuffling through the various papers and clipboards. ”Goddamn it! Get out of the way…” Jessica fumed as she enacted the final stage of her act and moved alongside the guard. As anticipated, the guard had become so flustered at this point that she didn’t respond to Jessica’s breach of security protocols and continued to quickly scan through her emails and messages in the vain attempt to locate any notification of Brulée’s instructions. Finally as the guard turned her back, Jessica retrieved a small gas canister from her thigh pocket, grabbed the guard in a chokehold and drew her back. The guard barely had enough time to inhale, which was Jessica’s intent, as she was pulled backward while Jessica discharged a small burst of gas from the canister directly in front of the guard’s mouth and nose.

The guard struggled briefly as she inhaled the gas through her mouth and nose, aided by the sudden intake of it as Jessica grabbed her. It didn't take long for the gas to take effect, maybe a few seconds as Jessica maintained her chokehold until, finally, she slowly lowered the guard to the floor as the gas rendered her unconscious. After she had placed the now unconscious guard on the floor behind the desk, Jessica quickly pulled out a couple zip-ties from her thigh pocket and secured the guard's ankles and wrists. Jessica couldn't help but decide to have a little fun with the guard, as she pulled down the prone girl's panties and turned on a small egg-shaped vibrator before she slid it into the girl's sex. Jessica pulled the girl's panties back up to help ensure the vibrator would not work its way out, and then secured the guard in a hogtied position by looping a large zip-tie between the smaller ones around her extremities. Jessica pulled the zip-tie as hard as she could to make the hogtie as severe as possible with the limp and unconscious victim.

Jessica stood back and examined her handiwork, before she decided it needed two final touches. The first touch called for Jessica to place a blindfold over the unconscious girl's eyes so she wouldn't be able to identify Jessica again when she came back by later. For the second touch, Jessica removed the guard's shoes and ankle socks, wadded up the two socks and placed them in the girl's mouth, before she finally secured them by wedging a large strip of leather in her captive's mouth and buckling it behind her head.

“There, that should help keep her from getting too loud.” Jessica smiled at her handiwork before moving on to examine the various monitors in the guard's station. Jessica spent a few moments observing the display presented on each monitor to convince herself that she would not encounter anyone else in the various rooms and hallways she needed to infiltrate, before she located the video recording of her approach on the computer and erased it. “At least the guard won't be able to prove anything...” Jessica thought to herself as she stepped over the prone guard, “and that egg should keep her company until I get back.”

Jessica moved over to the electronic lock on the door and once again pulled out her counterfeited version and swiped it through the slot. Jessica's breath paused when the display on the lock indicated an error in reading the card. “Did they change the code? Did my maid not have access to this level?” Several other thoughts ran thought Jessica's head as she tried the card a second and then a third time. Just as Jessica was beginning to reach into one of her large pockets for her portable keycard decoder, she remembered a little trick she had to use at some shops when using her credit card. Jessica held her breath one last time as she swiped the card again, this time very slowly and deliberately. The display suddenly went blank, then displayed a sequence of dots on the screen for several seconds before a large green light lit up and 'Code Accepted' flashed on the LCD panel. Jessica exhaled and mentally wiped her brow as the door slid open to allow her access to the inner sanctum of Brulée's studios.

Using the key panel on the other side, Jessica closed the metal door and embarked on her investigation as she moved from one area of the studio complex to the other, looking for any clue to the missing supermodel's location or fate after being in Brulée's facility. She began by retracing the route of the tour she and Heather had been given days earlier. Then she carefully examined the studio where Heather had been encased for her pose of Andromeda.

“That's odd...” Jessica commented under her breath... “it's barely been a day and already they've moved that huge hunk of marble out of here.”

In fact, the entire studio where Heather and Jessica had just recently been looked immaculate, as if it had been cleaned entirely from top to bottom. Not a trace of the marble edifice remained... “That had to have left some type of marking or scrape or something...” Jessica thought as she knelt down to where she figured the exact center of the rock had been. “Nothing. Absolutely nothing.”

Jessica moved from room to room and saw the same complete absence of activity, as if nothing ever took place in any of the studios in the facility. Only the absence of dust or dropcloths over the various desks and workbenches gave any indication that the studios were in use at all. Any tools that would be used for sculpting or material working were carefully placed in their holders, the floors were all swept clean and mopped until even the light from the low-output flashlight Jessica carried reflected off their surface. It all struck Jessica as fairly odd, even if Brulée was obsessive about keeping things orderly. “Of course, if she's hiding something she'd have to keep the place spotless...” came the consideration in Jessica's mind.

It didn't take long for Jessica to conclude that searching the other studios would be pointless, as the three she'd surveyed so far were absolutely no help whatsoever. “There's got to be somewhere else, something that I've missed or haven't thought of...” the phrase kept running over and over in Jessica's mind, and she had to think of something or else she'd run out of time, the gas had worn off over 20 minutes ago and she had no idea when the next guard would come on duty, nor how soon or far away that shift change might be. Jessica decided it was time to try her luck elsewhere in the underground complex before she ran out of time, and made her way to the wing that Taffy indicated were the 'secret' areas where Brulée did her new product development and testing.

“If there's one place where Brulée would feel secure in hiding something, that would have to be it.” Jessica reaffirmed her decision in her mind as she carefully backtracked her way to the restricted area. It took longer to make her way back then it did to move into the complex initially as Jessica decided to be extra cautious in case the guard had either managed to alert someone to her infiltration, the shift change had already taken place, or there were sensors that she'd somehow overlooked with her equipment. Of the three possibilities, Jessica quickly discounted the first and third: She'd secured the guard with zip-ties that would have to be cut so there was no way the guard could simply slip out of them, and, Jessica had used her tried-and-true equipment she had stowed in the various pockets on her pants to search both for electronic as well as infrared and ultraviolet beams that might trigger an alarm. So far, she'd encountered nothing.

“Well, if anyplace in this whole glorified basement has a sophisticated alarm system...” Jessica commented under her breath as she stood in front of the large door to the restricted area.

The door had a similar lock as the one on the main door Jessica had passed through earlier, so she tried her card again. This time, however, no matter what trick she tried Jessica's counterfeit card didn't open the door. “Humph, I guess my maid isn't allowed back there. Looks like I'll have to hack the lock if I want to find out what's behind this thing.”

Jessica removed her PDA from one of her pockets, retrieved another piece of equipment, and then began her assault on the lock. Jessica swiped a second card, this one hooked by a thin electrical lead to her PDA, through the lock's reader slot and then studied the results on the PDA display. Jessica smiled, and then used the PDA to send the appropriate codes back to the emulator embedded in her card as she swiped it down the slot one more time. Jessica knew that the software on the PDA had determined the codes necessary to trigger the lock, when the lights, as with the door by the guard station, flashed green and the door slid open.

Even with the door open, Jessica still exercised extreme caution before walking into the room behind the portal. Jessica had seen locks open as a trap, giving the invader a false sense of security, only to then trigger a secondary security system that trapped the unwary person as they blundered in. Forewarned, Jessica carefully surveyed the room before she stepped through the doorway, again looking for any infrared, ultraviolet, temperature, or laser detection systems that might give her transit away. Jessica didn't expect to see anything so elaborate based on her experience with Brulée's pathetic security measures so far. “After all...” Jessica snorted to herself, “you don't use magnetic card locks to secure anything valuable. They're way too easy to hack.” Jessica actually preferred the old mechanical locks that either had to be picked or blown to the new electronic systems, as she thought the mechanical ones took more skill than simply running a PDA as she had just done. But, this wasn't the first time Jessica thanked her lucky stars that someone had mistakenly placed their faith in modern electronics and computers and made her life easier.

Satisfied that there weren't any additional security measures that needed to be defeated, Jessica quietly moved through the doorway and into the room beyond, as the door slid closed behind her.

18.03.10