Chapter 10: The Neighboring Suite
The question sat between them like a held breath. Carol stood by the bench, the towel forgotten at her feet, her blue eyes moving from Tessa's face to Aiko's and back again. Steam still curled off her skin, catching the last copper light from the windows.
"Why do you want to know?" Carol asked again, quieter this time.
Tessa's grey eyes held hers without blinking. "Can you take us to her?"
The silence stretched. Carol looked at the skyline, then at the floor, then back at Tessa. Some calculation passed behind her eyes, some weighing of an old friendship against an instinct. She let out a long breath and nodded.
"Yeah," she said. "She's two doors down. Give me half a minute to dry off."
She pulled a fresh towel off the brass rack and ran it over her hair, her arms, the flat of her stomach. The movements were quick and practiced, no ceremony to them. Aiko watched the way the towel dragged across the hard line of Carol's shoulder, the brief resistance of damp skin.
Carol dropped the towel on the bench and walked past them, out of the bathroom and through the suite. She did not look back. Her bare feet made soft sounds on the marble, then deeper thuds as she reached the plush carpet of the living area.
She stopped at the heavy door, her hand on the brass handle. "Tanaka's been here for two weeks. Works on her own schedule. She's usually awake at night." Carol glanced back at them. "You should know, she's not like anyone you've met. She thinks in spirals."
"Then we'll think in spirals with her," Tessa said.
Carol opened the door. The corridor beyond was dim and quiet, the deep pile carpet swallowing every sound. Warm sconce light washed the walls in amber. They stepped out barefoot, the three of them, and the door shut behind them with a soft click.
Carol led them to the left, past a service alcove, past a cart stacked with folded linen. She stopped two doors down and turned to face them. Her voice dropped to a murmur.
"What do I tell her?"
"Tell her we're Veronica's guests," Tessa said. "Interested in the production."
Carol nodded once. Then she raised her hand and knocked. Three sharp raps, a pause, then two quick ones. A rhythm that meant something.
The door opened a crack, then wider. The woman who stood there was not Tanaka. She was younger, mid-twenties, with sharp cheekbones and dark hair pulled into a severe bun that stretched the skin at her temples. She wore a deep green silk robe, cinched at the waist, and her feet were bare.
Her eyes swept over the three of them with the quick assessment of someone used to unexpected visitors. First Tessa, then Aiko, then Carol. Her expression did not change.
"Dr. Tanaka is not here," she said. Her accent was crisp, British.
Carol blinked. "She left? She's always here this time of night."
"Dr. Tanaka left twenty minutes ago," the assistant said. "She had an appointment. She did not say when she would return."
Tessa stepped forward, her bare feet silent on the carpet. "May we come in? We've come a long way to speak with her. If you can tell us where she went, or when she'll be back, it would save us a great deal of time."
The assistant's eyes narrowed, just slightly. She was sizing Tessa up, reading the length of her body, the steadiness of her gaze.
Behind Tessa's back, her hand moved. Two fingers curled, a quick signal toward Aiko.
Aiko read it instantly. Get Carol out of here.
She touched Carol's elbow, light and casual. "Carol, I left something in the bathroom. Can you show me which towel is yours? I'm still trying to get that sweat stain out of my skin."
Carol looked at her, puzzled. "What sweat stain?"
"Time-sensitive." Aiko's hand tightened on Carol's arm, gentle but insistent. She steered her back down the corridor, away from the door, past the service alcove, past the cart of folded linen.
"Wait," Carol said, half turning. "What about Tessa?"
"Tessa's got it," Aiko said. "She'll catch up."
Carol allowed herself to be guided, her bare feet padding over the carpet beside Aiko's. She glanced back once, then let out a breath and faced forward.
"Okay," she said. "But if your girlfriend gets eaten by a mad scientist, I'm not testifying."
The assistant watched the two women retreat down the corridor, then turned her attention back to Tessa. Her lips pressed into a thin line.
"You're one of Veronica's people," she said.
"We're guests of Veronica's," Tessa corrected.
The assistant studied her for another long moment. Then she stepped back, holding the door wide.
"Come in," she said. "She won't be back tonight, but you can leave a message."
Tessa stepped over the threshold. The suite was warm, lit by low lamps that cast amber pools over dark wood and cream silk. A laptop sat open on a glass desk, a half-empty cup of tea beside it. The windows showed the city spread out below, a glittering field of light.
She heard the door close behind her.
The assistant's gaze slid from Tessa's body to the door, then back. She was reading the silence, trying to find the angle. Tessa let her search.
"You came to the right place," the assistant said. "She's been talking about the premiere for weeks. She'll be there, even if she's not here tonight."
Tessa nodded, letting her eyes drift around the room again. The notebook on the desk, the open laptop, a small earpiece on the windowsill. She filed each detail away without looking at them directly.
"Then we'll plan around that," Tessa said. "Thank you for your time."
The assistant's lips twitched, almost a smile. "I'll tell her you came by. Ms. Webb, was it?"
"Tessa Webb. And my partner, Aiko Nakamura. We're with Veronica's circle."
The assistant nodded once, a small, precise movement. "I'll make sure she knows."
Tessa turned and walked to the door. She could feel the assistant's eyes on her bare back, tracking the curve of her spine, the sway of her hips. She paused with her hand on the handle and looked back.
"One more thing," she said. "What's your name?"
The assistant's expression didn't change. "Mira."
Tessa's hand hovered on the handle. She made a show of glancing down at the floor, then crouched, one knee to the marble, peering under the side table as if looking for something she'd dropped. Her spine curved, her bare ass lifting toward the room, the cheeks parting just slightly with the angle of her hips. The lamplight caught the smooth skin of her lower back, the dip of her waist.
Behind her, Mira's gaze slid down. It tracked the long line of Tessa's spine, paused at the small of her back, then settled on the curve of her exposed rear. Her eyes traced the cleft, the shadow where her thighs met, the glint of wetness that caught the amber light. She held the look a beat longer than professional.
Tessa straightened, unhurried, and turned back to face her. "I thought I dropped an earring. False alarm."
Mira's hand had drifted to the sash of her robe. She let it fall back to her side. "I didn't see anything fall."
"Must have been my imagination." Tessa smiled, flat and polite. "Thank you for your help, Mira. We'll find Dr. Tanaka at the premiere."
Tessa's hand was already turning the handle when the sound caught her. A low murmur, almost subsonic, threading through the wall to her left. It was too regular for traffic, too organic for the hotel's air system. A voice, or a machine, or something in between.
She glanced back at Mira. The assistant stood by the glass desk, watching her with those flat, assessing eyes.
"That room." Tessa nodded toward a dark archway set into the far wall, half hidden by a silk curtain. "Is that the bedroom?"
Mira's chin lifted. "Storage."
The murmur rose, then fell, a rhythm that almost resolved into words.
Tessa smiled. "I'll just use the powder room before I go."
She moved past the assistant and pushed the curtain aside. The archway opened into a short passage that bent right and ended at a door, slightly ajar, spilling a narrow blade of cool blue light. The murmur came from beyond it, clearer now. A voice, female, low and precise, reciting something in a cadence that felt like a live script read.
Tessa eased the door open with two fingers.
The room beyond was dark except for the glow of screens. Three monitors arranged in a shallow arc flooded the space with pale blue light. Wires ran in disciplined bundles across the floor toward a tower unit thick as a refrigerator. The air smelled of ozone, coffee, and rosewater.
Dr. Tanaka sat at the center of it all.
Naked, cross-legged in a high-backed chair, a white lab coat draped over her shoulders like a cape. She had not bothered to close it. The coat moved with her as she shifted, falling open over her chest, exposing the heavy curve of her breasts and the hard, defined plane of her stomach. Her arms were muscle-corded, the biceps pronounced where she rested her hands on the desk. Her long, curly black hair spilled down her back, catching the screen light in dark rivulets.
She was editing. A video timeline stretched across the central monitor, and she worked it with both hands, dragging clips, trimming frames, her fingers quick and sure on a sleek control surface.
The screen held her. Tessa stood in the doorway, barely breathing, her grey eyes fixed on the central monitor where a naked woman writhed against a machine.
Carol Conners, or her digital double, was spread across an X-shaped frame of polished black metal. Her wrists and ankles were locked into high-tech clamps that hugged her skin so tightly the flesh bulged around the edges. The frame held her arms wide and her thighs forced apart, her whole body stretched taut in a perfect X, every muscle in her stomach standing out as she strained against the restraints. Her breasts were lifted by the angle, the nipples already dark and pebbled with fear or cold.
Tanaka's fingers moved across the control surface. The image advanced. A row of suction cups descended on thin robotic arms, hovering for a moment before they latched onto Carol's nipples with an audible pop in the room's speakers. The actress on screen gasped, her back arching against the clamps. The cups pulled gently, drawing her breasts out, keeping them rigid.
"Tighter," Tanaka murmured, almost to herself. She dragged a slider. On screen the suction increased and Carol's eyes rolled back, her mouth falling open on a sound that was half moan, half sob.
More arms descended. Thin sensors, no wider than a fingernail, settled onto her skin like insects landing. One on her temple. Two on her collarbones. A cluster along her ribs, where her breasts lifted with each ragged breath. The lowest one found its way between her thighs, pressing against her slick, exposed cunt, and the actress's hips jerked against the clamps. Sweat beaded along her sternum, caught the harsh studio light, ran in rivulets down the deep curve of her stomach.
Tanaka zoomed in. The angle filled the screen with Carol's face, her lips parted, her pupils blown wide. A thin line of drool escaped the corner of her mouth.
"Beautiful," Tanaka said. The word was clinical, but her hand moved from the control surface to her own lap.
Tessa watched Tanaka touch herself. The older woman's fingers slid through the dark hair between her thighs, spreading the folds, finding the heat there. Tanaka's head tilted back, her throat exposed, and a low sound escaped her lips.
She still had not noticed Tessa standing in the doorway.
Tessa took a step closer. The carpet muffled her bare feet. She reached the edge of the desk, close enough to smell rosewater and coffee on Tanaka's skin, to see the slow rhythm of her fingers working between her legs. The screens bathed them both in pale blue light.
Tanaka's breath quickened. Her other hand moved up to her breast, cupping the heavy weight, pinching the nipple between two fingers. She was lost in the scene, in the strain of Carol's body on the screen, in the raw sounds filling the room.
"Dr. Tanaka," Tessa said.
Tanaka's eyes snapped open. Her hand froze where it was, buried in her own wetness. For a long second she stared at Tessa, naked and composed at the edge of her desk, and then something shifted behind her eyes. Not surprise. Not shame. Interest.
"You're not Mira," Tanaka said. Her hand did not leave her lap.
"Tessa Webb. I'm with Veronica's circle. We're here to talk about the premiere."
"Veronica's circle." Tanaka's fingers resumed their slow rhythm, unhurried. "Veronica sends her guests to interrupt my editing session and stand in my doorway naked?"
Tanaka's fingers did not stop their rhythm. She watched Tessa with the flat curiosity of a scientist examining a specimen, one hand working lazily between her thighs.
"Veronica sends her guests to interrupt my editing session and stand in my doorway naked," she said. "How quaint."
"I was hoping we could talk about the premiere," Tessa said. "The production's been generating interest among investors."
"Investors." Tanaka's lips curved, a thin smile that did not reach her eyes. "How delightful. I'm sure you have questions about budget allocations and marketing reach."
She turned back to her monitors, dismissing Tessa with the rotation of her shoulders. Her hand slid free of her lap and reached for the control surface, fingers already dragging a clip across the timeline.
"I'm busy, Ms. Webb. Whatever Veronica needs, she can discuss at the premiere. I have a cut to finish."
Tessa held her ground. "Dr. Tanaka, I think you misunderstand the nature of my visit."
"Then enlighten me."
Tessa stepped closer, close enough that her bare thigh brushed the edge of the desk. "Veronica sent us personally. There are certain aspects of the production she wants handled discreetly, before the premiere. She expected you to be available."
Tanaka did not look up. Her fingers moved with unbroken precision, trimming a frame, marking a segment.
"Veronica knows I don't take meetings during editing. She has known this for years." Tanaka paused, her hand hovering over the control surface. "If she truly sent you, you would have been told that before you left Macau."
The words landed clean. Tessa's face gave nothing away, but she felt the shift, the careful recalibration of her approach. The cover was holding, but it was paper thin.
"Perhaps there was a miscommunication," Tessa said.
"Perhaps there was." Tanaka's voice was flat, final.
She reached for a mug of coffee, black and cold, and drank from it without breaking her focus on the screen. The blue light carved shadows across her jaw, her collarbones, the heavy weight of her breasts where they rested against her unhurried breath.
The curtain behind Tessa rustled. Mira stepped through, silent as a cat, the green silk of her robe brushing the marble floor.
"Ms. Webb," Mira said, her voice warm and apologetic. "I'm so sorry. I should have explained this before I let you in."
Tessa turned. Mira stood with one hand pressed to her chest, her face softened with genuine remorse.
"Dr. Tanaka's editing sessions are sacrosanct," Mira said. "Veronica's instructions are explicit. No visitors, no messages, no interruptions. The last person who disturbed her mid-cut was removed from the project entirely."
"Then we have nothing further to discuss," Tessa said.
"Please." Mira gestured toward the curtain, her other hand hovering near Tessa's elbow, not quite touching. "Allow me to escort you out. I'll leave a note in your file at the front desk. When Dr. Tanaka surfaces, I'll make sure she knows you called."
The exit was graceful. Tessa had been in the game long enough to recognize when a door was closing, and how to walk through it without slamming her dignity on the frame.
She nodded, once. "We'll be at the premiere."
Mira led her back through the dark archway, through the sitting room with its amber lamps, to the heavy door that opened onto the corridor. Tessa stepped out into the dim carpeted hallway, and the door clicked shut behind her with a soft, final sound.
The corridor felt longer on the way back. The carpet swallowed her footsteps, and the amber sconce light cast her shadow ahead of her, a long pale shape that slid along the walls. Two doors down. She raised her hand to knock, then paused.
Sounds came through the wood. A rhythmic creak, the steady thud of something heavy hitting the floor, and beneath it, a low moan that she knew. That she had heard in the hangar, in the penthouse, in the dark of a Neo-Tokyo club room.
Tessa pushed the door open.
The light was low, golden, coming from a single lamp by the window. The city glittered beyond the glass like scattered jewels. And in the center of the room, on a thick mat of black rubber that had not been there twenty minutes ago, Carol Conners and Aiko Nakamura were squatting.
They faced each other, close enough to touch, both naked, both slick with a fresh sheen of sweat that caught the lamp glow. Their thighs trembled with the strain of the hold, their backs straight, their arms extended forward with a dumbbell in each fist. And on their bodies, the devices moved.
Circular bands of black silicone circled each breast, hugging the undercurve snugly. From each band, a suction cup enclosed her nipple, a soft translucent cap that pulsed in a slow, milking rhythm. The skin around each nipple was flushed dark, drawn into the cup, and every pulse made the woman draw a sharp breath through her teeth.
Lower, a pad pressed between their thighs. Flat against the mound, curved to hug the lips, a single thick protrusion nestled inside them, moving with a soft mechanical hum. Each thrust of the pad coincided with the suction, a synchronized rhythm that made Aiko's hips jerk and Carol's inner thighs glisten.
Neither of them had noticed her yet. Their eyes were locked on each other, wide and glossy, their mouths parted.
"Lower," Carol breathed, and they both sank deeper into the squat. The dumbbells hung at their sides, and Tessa saw the plates: twenty fives, each hand. Their shoulders bunched, their cores locked, and as they held the bottom of the squat, the suction cups pulled harder.
Aiko's back arched. The pad between her thighs ground against her clit, and a long, shuddering moan escaped her lips. "Fuck. Fuck, that's good."
"Hold it," Carol said. Her own voice was strained, tight. "Three more."
The devices pulsed. The suction released, then re-applied with a wet pop that echoed in the quiet room. Aiko's knees buckled, caught herself on the dumbbells, drove back up. Sweat ran down her temple, traced the hard line of her jaw, dripped off her chin onto her chest.
Tessa stepped closer. Her bare feet made no sound.
Carol saw her first. Her blue eyes found Tessa's face, and a slow, wicked grin spread across her lips. She did not break the squat.
"Tessa," Carol said, her voice rough. "You're back. We found Veronica's gift basket."
Aiko turned her head. Her eyes were hazy, pupils blown wide, and when she saw Tessa, her mouth fell open on a sound that was half laugh, half plea.
"Tessa. Help. They won't stop."
"They don't stop until you come," Carol said. "That's the point."
The suction cups pulsed again. Carol let out a low groan, her abs flexing as she held her position. The pad between her thighs hummed louder, and she pressed her hips forward against it, grinding down.
"You want to join?" Carol asked. Her voice was frayed at the edges. "There's another set in the basket."
The invitation hung in the air between them. Tessa felt the weight of it, the pull of Carol's slick skin and the steady hum of the devices working her partner's body. Her cunt tightened. Her nipples hardened with the thought of joining them on that mat, of letting the suction draw her out while the pad ground against her.
She swallowed. Reality pressed back in.
"Rain check," she said. "I found Tanaka."
Aiko's eyes, hazy and dilated, snapped into focus for half a second. "What?"
"She's here. In a hidden room behind the storage archway. Mira lied to us."
Tessa stepped over the mat and lifted the basket Carol had mentioned. It sat on a side table, woven bamboo lined with black silk, holding a neat row of devices identical to the ones working Carol and Aiko's bodies. She set it aside and reached for Aiko's hand, pulling her up from the squat.
The devices stayed on.
Aiko staggered, caught herself against Tessa's bare shoulder. The suction cups pulsed, drawing a gasp from her throat. The pad between her thighs hummed louder as she straightened, pressing against her clit with a fresh rhythm.
"Shit. Tessa. I can't... hold on."
"I'll talk fast." Tessa kept her grip on Aiko's arm, steadying her. "Tanaka's been editing the torture scene. The one with Carol's double. She's obsessed with it. She was touching herself while she watched it."
"Mm." Aiko's knees buckled. Tessa caught her, hauled her upright. The suction on her nipples released, re-applied, and Aiko bit down on a moan.
"The door was open. She didn't notice me. I watched her for a full minute before I said anything."
"How... how close were you?"
"Close enough to smell her. She was wet. She had two fingers inside herself."
Aiko's hips rolled against the pad. Her hand found Tessa's hip, gripping hard enough to bruise. "Fuck. Tessa. Slow down. I can't."
"What do you need?"
Aiko shook her head, sweat flying from her temple. "I need these things off. I need you to fuck me. I need to come so I can think."
Tessa looked at the devices, at the suction cups locked around Aiko's nipples, the pad grinding between her thighs. The quick release was a small tab at the base of each band.
"Not yet," she said. "Focus. Tanaka's cover is thin. She told me she was busy editing, but her hands were on her own cunt, not the control surface. Mira escorted me out. But if I go back now, alone, she'll know something's off."
Aiko's breathing came in ragged pulls. Her stomach muscles flexed as she fought the rising pressure. "So we... go back... together?"
"Together. With a better story."
The pad thrust harder. Aiko's back arched, her mouth falling open, and the suction cups pulled her nipples out in a long, wet draw that made her whole body shudder. She came standing, pressed against Tessa's hip, grinding down on the device as wave after wave shook her thighs. A low, guttural sound tore from her throat.
The devices clicked, cycling down to a soft idle. Aiko sagged against Tessa, her breath hot against Tessa's shoulder.
"Okay," Aiko whispered. "Okay. I can think now."
"Good." Tessa ran a hand down Aiko's damp spine. "Because we're going back in tonight. Before she tries to move her lab."