What exactly did she have in that briefcase….

Lustful Weapon

“What’s her name again? April?”

“July,” Pike said snapping photos as she walked across the park. She didn’t look the way he had pictured her when he first read her file. Or rather, she didn’t dress the way he expected. The faded jeans looked worn and comfy. The tennis shoes off white, one lace untied and flopping behind her. The t-shirt white and plain, new and crisp. Probably from one of those Haines three packs.

“What kind of name is July?” Briggs asked.

“It’s the name she goes by, and it’s the only name we have. She didn’t show up on our radar until she started amassing large amounts of cash.”

Pike wasn’t sure what he had been expecting. Something trashier, he supposed. Some tight little mini skirt that barely covered the necessary places. Or a pair of those low slung hip-hugger jeans with her thong arching over her hips.

This was his first assignment involving the Sect of the Naked Goddess. Watching July, so pretty and unassuming, he felt conflicted. He knew she was a religious fanatic who engaged in ritualized sex to mimic the mechanical acts of a nameless porn star, but she didn’t look like the other deviants who had obsessed their way into magical powers. It was easier to ignore your conscience when the person you were putting the heavy on reeked of vomit and piss, or spent their free time carving the logos of Fortune 500 companies on their chest.

“Pike, you okay?”

“Yeah, just thinking,” he answered, turning his attention back to July as she sat down on a park bench next to a jungle gym. The telephoto lens zoomed past the bars, and Pike snapped another photo of her cross-legged, paper bag in her lap, smiling at the children running past. One of the kids, a little boy, ran up to her and handed her a flower. His father hurried up, video camera in his palm, and ushered the boy back onto the playground. He shrugged. She smiled and twirled the flower. The father turned back to documenting his children’s day at the park.

Pike zoomed out and scanned the perimeter. Kirkland stood next to the sandbox, spearing trash and looking a little bored. To the west, Connors looked mortified at having to sell hot-dogs, while two benches away Fulk pretended to read a paper.

“Look lively, gentleman. She may be cute, but she’s still dangerous,” Pike said through the walkie-talkie.

“That must be our boy.” Briggs pointed. “Oh, he’s a winner.”

Pike scooped up the camera again. The man approaching July looked to be in his late forties. What remained of his hair, he had pulled back into a pony-tail. A pirate-sized hoop dangled from his left ear. He sat down next to July, removed the sunglasses which were too small for his round, red face and reached into his backpack.

Pike snapped photos of the man as he handed her a package. July passed over the rumpled brown paper bag, and he wasted no time in rooting through its contents.

Briggs held the walkie-talkie anxiously. “Do we move on her now?”

“No, too many people in the way. We mobilize the teams and follow her. Usual formation and nab our prize later.”

*****************************
“What do you think she’s got?”

“I don’t know.”

“She went to a lot of trouble to get it, whatever it was.” The radio crackled as Kirkland reported her position. Briggs glanced at the map. “Turn left at the next light and we should come up right behind her.”

“They’re a cult, Briggs. They worship a porn star—it could be anything,” Pike said, pulling into traffic behind July’s white Honda.

They followed her deeper into the Hollywood Hills while Briggs rambled on aimlessly about sex cults and what he would do if they got captured and forced to perform countless acts of unspeakable perversion. Pike tuned him out, hypnotized by July’s blond hair spilling over the back of her seat.

Finally, she pulled into a long driveway and up to a modest bungalow. As they drove past, Pike radioed the address. “I want a complete history of the house. All the owner’s past and present.”

They parked down the block and waited for the rest of the team to arrive. For a time even Briggs was silent as if he too felt something approaching other than the coming darkness as the sun slowly ebbed past the hills.

Briggs scooped the paper out of the fax machine.

“The info on the house?”

“Yeah.”

“Anything?”

Briggs’ lips moved as he flipped through the pages, until finally, “Bingo. The house is owned by Pagan Video. And guess how it was acquired.”

“As part of their buy out?”

“Exactly.”

Pike snatched up the radio. “Connors, send your team around the back. On my word move in. Fulk, I want you ready to snipe her if she so much as twitches. Kirkland keep your team outside. Make sure we don’t have anyone surprise us. Whatever she’s got in there, we get it now.” Pike took a deep breath and pulled the surgical mask around his face. He looked over at Briggs and nodded.

The lock was easy.

The living room, large and open, spilled into the kitchen. Pike could see Connors and his team waiting at the back door, bathed in the dim light of the moon shimmering across the pool.

At Pike’s signal, Connors went to work on the backdoor.

“Fulk,” Pike whispered into the radio, “anything?”

“Lights still out. From what I can tell she’s sleeping.”

The backdoor opened and Pike gestured for Briggs to follow him down the hallway. The bedroom door was closed. Pike listened. He could hear something faintly on the other side. A soft humming. He turned toward Briggs and held up a finger. The humming continued. He held up another finger. As the third rose into the air, Pike swung the door open wide and hard.

He hit the lights on the way in. July sat up suddenly. “Don’t fucking move,” Briggs barked, cocking the hammer back.

“Holy Christ!” Fulk’s voice spat over the radio.

The sheets lay tossed at the foot of the bed. July lay there naked. Her long blond hair mussed and spilling over her face. Her breasts heaved and sweat beaded on her tanned skin. In her hand, the source of the humming. A blue, glittery 10 inch dildo.

Footsteps pounded down the hall, while Briggs gaped and Pike turned his head, spotting the package lying on the nightstand, opened.

He turned back to July. She stared at him, at Briggs, at the faces suddenly crowded into the doorway. A dildo? Pike thought. All this trouble for a dildo?

Pike shook the thoughts from his mind. Orders are orders. “Miss, hand me the…the…the dildo.”

From behind the surgical masks, the rest of the team snickered. I’m never going to live this down, he thought. That’s when he felt the presence.

The scent came first. Hot and powerful. The scent of feminine desire. Then the tingling on his skin as if someone, some woman, was about to touch him. The tingling ran up his spine in a quick, sharp current and his breathing came suddenly in deep, excited breaths. Someone else was here now.

“Shoot her! Fulk! Fucking shoot her! Now!” He screamed, forgetting the gun in his own hand.

July flung herself backward as the glass shattered. The bullet missed and blew out Briggs’ back, spraying everyone behind him in crimson.

Pike swung his gun toward the bed. July flung the dildo at him. Without thinking, he dropped his gun and caught it. She leaped off the bed as Connors fired three quick shots, shredding the pillows and sending feather’s flying. Pike was hypnotized by the undulating movements of her lats as she her fist swung toward his nose. His nose splattered, sending tears spilling from his eyes.

Pike dropped to his knees, trying to blink away the tears. July blew Connors a kiss as he swung the gun toward her. Pike blinked harder as he watched Connors suddenly double over, screaming with pain.

July grabbed her prize and sprinted for the door. Another one of the team stepped into the room. July cracked him across the face with the dildo and barreled down the hall.

Pike pulled the drenched mask down around his neck and reached for his radio. “Kirkland! She’s coming out.”

“What the fuck is going on?”

Pike said the only thing he could think of, “Get the dildo!”

*************************
Hours later, back at the safe-house, Pike’s nose still throbbed when Hardcastle walked in.

“Sir—“

“We received this half an hour ago.” Hardcastle walked across the room to the TV/VCR combo. He inserted a video tape, grabbed the remote and stood behind Pike.

A phallic-looking bullet sped across the screen, trailing the title behind it—Lustful Weapon.

“I think you know who’s starring in this,” Hardcastle said fast-forwarding. “It’s one of her early films. Your typical porn dressed as your typical cop movie. The plot, if you could call it that, concerns a woman suspected of some crime or another, who’s under surveillance by the police.” Hardcastle stopped fast-forwarding. “I thought you’d find this interesting.”

The Naked Goddess, clad in jeans, white T-shirt, and sneakers (one lace untied) walked through a busy park, crumpled paper bag in her hands and sat down at a park bench. A man approached her with a back-pack.

“Son of a bitch.”

“His name is Jeremy West, a minor porn actor during the late 80s.”

“It plays out much the same as your report,” he said fast-forwarding. “Even this.” The movie began to play again. Cuts of the police, lead by the chief detective, surrounding the bungalow were interspersed with shots of Her and her glittery toy.

Hardcastle pushed stop. “It’s standard Goddess cramp. Lead detective wants her while she bangs everyone else on the force except him.”

Pike rubbed his temples while Hardcastle continued, “Apparently, the item was a favorite of hers and disappeared after this movie was finished. Likely, West absconded with it.”

Pike slumped in his chair and stared at the blood staining his shirt and Hardcastle slid the note across the table.

On pink Hello Kitty paper, it read:

To the cute guy with the spiky black hair,
I just wanted to thank you and the rest of Abel’s flunkies for the help in recreating a moment of Her glory. Sorry, about your nose.

Xoxoxo
July