Chapter 30: A man layers sensations
Kaa reclined in the back seat of the Uber as it sped away from the Hong Kong International Airport, smiled broadly. Another very successful night.
He’d discovered early in his research Dian Mu’s stocking of electric sports cars in her hangars in airports around Asia, airports where she flew in with her tiny electric plane for business and pleasure, then whipped silently away in her exotically fast cars, whipping back hours or days later. He watched one day from behind as she disappeared into the distance, the professional driver and ludicrously fast sedan he’d hired for the occasion no match for the tiny car which wove through traffic at what seemed like twice its speed yet full of grace, gaps opening as it approached, cars surging forward or lagging back to give it free passage, passage denied to Kaa’s larger car. The driver had cursed, beaten the steering wheel, bore down harder, yet was left further and further behind with each passing moment.
To Kaa, Dian Mu’s toying with traffic had the hallmarks of joy, not efficiency, speed for the pleasure of speed, not the necessity of faster arrival. The cars were extensions of her sensual pleasures not utilitarian devices and as such were a suitable vector for his charms.
And so, earlier this evening he’d had a drink in the bar where ground crew with the right security accesses shook off the stresses of the day, unwound with stories of close calls and narrowly averted security breaches, false alarms and sex toys vibrating in luggage. A stranger to them, but no teetotal, he slid into their group as a u-boat would approach a group of freighters bearing necessary materiel for a key war effort.
He told jokes, laughed at theirs, bought a round, shouted toasts with them, marked his target, saw her mark him in turn, smiled inside at the familiar dance he loved so much. The evening progressed, and with little effort he had cut her from the group, a peach plucked from the tree, ripe and soft to the touch, full of juice and flavor, begging to be consumed.
The seeds he’d planted in conversation earlier had fallen on fertile loam, a story he’d told of workplace trysts leading to others sharing their ribald tales of cupboards and desks and security guards. It took little convincing to have her eager to return to her now quiet place of work nearby to explore its nooks and crannies with a willing gwai lo, rasher than what she had intended or would normally be, but her inhibitions were lowered with an age old combination of alcohol, desire and perhaps just a touch of Kaa’s will.
He plucked a security pass for his own use from one of the co-workers, her laughing at the audacity, then they slipped away, slipped through security and slipped out of their clothes in the hangar Dian Mu used. In recompense for his deceit, he brought to bear his considerable experience upon her, channeled the teachings of the djinn, left her spent and indolent, more satisfied than she had likely expected from drunken fumblings with a chance met man. Later, she would remember it vividly, but the specifics of his identity would be shadowed, any descriptors — short, tall, eyes, hair — lost to the mists.
When their play was over, he left her dozing, strolled to Dian Mu’s tiny, deep blue car, looked down on it, focused his will upon it, suborned it to his cause with his prepared enticements and ensorcelments. He mused that perhaps he was like William Tell, targeting the apple of seduction perfectly, then discarded the analogy as poor, possibly heretical. Nonetheless, the car which Dian Mu appeared to enjoy so much was now an instrument of his knowledge as much as hers, an instrument of his will in a specific spectrum, while still an instrument of her will in others, a trap of a pleasurable sort triggered by her pleasure, nothing to overawe her, merely something to predispose her when the time was ripe.
His work done, he returned to the instrument of his access, roused her from her slumber, roused her further. Then they reversed their journey through security, leaving his purloined access pass on the desk of its owner along the way, returned her to the transit point that would return her to her home as he summoned a silent, black car to take him to his next destination.
In the back of the rented car, he smiled, the night’s pleasures and preparations both enjoyable. A few days earlier, he had enjoyed a similar night in Guangzhou, wrapping a writ of will and magic around Dian Mu’s plane and car there, leaving another woman with vivid memories of pleasure but only indistinct memories of its source, no harm or loss to be incurred by her.
As the car sped through the night, he was unaware of the CCTV cameras that sparked to life, followed his progress, of the cameras that had marked his progress through security, inside the hangar, recorded and shared his every move, of the minds behind those cameras and what they intended and knew.