The Fool Ch. 02

Sinclair raised his eyebrows at her candour. He hadn't been sure what to expect when he confronted her with what he knew, but this calm admission wasn't it. He hadn't expected her to make a scene in the restaurant, but perhaps flat out denial, or, at least, accusations about his own nefarious line of work. He realised at that moment that she was just as well-informed as he was and this may well be the reason for the change in her demeanour tonight. The silence stretched between them, and the waiter arrived with their meals.

"You didn't think I would be surprised that you would do a background check on anyone you were considering letting near your personal collection?" she asked once the waiter had gone. "You can look into my life as much as you like, but despite my mother and grandmother's careers and contacts, my business is totally legitimate," she said, looking him in the eyes.

"Your parents didn't want you going into the family business?" he asked.

"I don't think Dad ever knew," she smiled. "He's was a good guy, but I don't even know how they ever stayed together long enough to conceive me. They were polar opposites." It was a lie, of course; her mother had chosen her father carefully and had referred to him often as the sperm donor. He was tall, athletic and intelligent, all the things she needed for the sire of her child.

"Shift work," Sinclair said as if that answered her question. "It's easy to stay together when you don't spend a lot of time together, and I imagine your father's shift work gave your mother the freedom she wanted to live her life."

"I suppose you're right, I guess I never really thought about it that way," she nodded. "More wine?" she picked up the bottle and poured more into her glass.

"Sure, why not?" he asked rhetorically. Carrie had taken him by surprise tonight. It was as if she had expected his accusations and had decided that his invitations to dinner had merely been a ruse to find out if she was the Fool. Despite her quip about her age, he was still suspicious, but her coolness and seeming knowledge about the April Fool's activities intrigued him. It wasn't a well-known fact that his organisation had been targeted over the last decade.

"So, that's it? You list off my family's links to the criminal underworld and ask me point blank how I did it? No interrogation, no barrage of questions trying to trip me up? No threats?" she asked, once again looking him in the eye. "I must say it's a little underwhelming, to say the least, so what now?"

"I'm enjoying the frankness of the conversation," he chuckled. "It's refreshing to tell you the truth. You seem well informed, you've looked into my background as well, I take it?"

"I don't have the resources you have, obviously, and, since going legit, most of Robyn and Edith's friend's give me a wide birth," she shrugged. "I know enough to realise you've been toying with me, dangling the bait of your collection in front of me with no intention of letting me or anyone near your Treasure Island."

"That's fair," he admitted. "So this is the last supper?" Sinclair asked, feeling a little disappointed that he was finally seeing the real Carrie and she was saying goodbye to him, not that he blamed her.

"It's the last pretend business dinner," she laughed. "If you want to see me after this, then that's up to you, but you'd need to be honest about why," she leant across the table and lowered her voice. "You have a reputation Mr. Mansvelt, from what I have heard it's well deserved, but I'd like to judge that for myself." She smiled as his eyebrows went up involuntarily.

"Disposing of the museum mouse persona so easily?" he questioned. "Perhaps that is what I liked and why I continued to ask you out."

"If I thought for one moment you were interested in my professional skills the mouse would still be here being all business and no fun. You're not, though. So, the way I see it, I can find out just how well-deserved your reputation is for myself, or I can go out later and catch up with some friends. As I said when I arrived, whether I go out after dinner is entirely up to you," she took another bite of her meal and chewed slowly.

Carrie knew she was playing a risky game, and it took all her concentration to breathe as she gave him the choice of how this evening ended. She had no way of knowing how he would react to the new version of her, and she needed him to accept her proposal. At any other time, with any other man, she would shrug and walk away, but this was the plan, and if she messed it up, if she'd miscalculated him, they would be back at square one.

"It's true, I have quite enjoyed the mouse persona that is Carrie Ward, but I have to admit the sex kitten routine is equally intriguing, Carrington," he said thoughtfully differentiating between the two personas with her name. "I expect the real Carrington Wordsworth Ward is somewhere between the two." He spoke as if to himself. This woman was sexy, and he had felt the physical attraction like a magnet since the first night he had met her. Even as the professional museum mouse she had an attractiveness that appealed to him. He sensed something beneath it all that told him there was much more to this woman than what she projected, and he still considered that she was more than likely the April Fool's Day thief that had been targeting his associates.

"I don't know, I'll have to ask my brother if he thinks I have multiple personalities just waiting in the wings," she laughed. "As far as I am aware, there is work and play, the mouse and the kitten, as you so eloquently put it."

"Dessert?" he tilted his head as the waiter appeared to take their plates away.

"Not the kind they serve here," she grinned.

"More wine?" he picked up the bottle.

"No, two is my limit when I'm driving," she tilted her head and looked at him. "So this is it then?" she asked, trying not to let her anxiety creep into her voice.

"For tonight," he said, not wanting to sever their connection entirely. "You've surprised me on a number of levels, and, while I find you most alluring, Miss Ward, the change in you tonight has left me confused, to say the least," he admitted honestly.

"Well then, Mr. Mansvelt, I believe I will be going. Thank you for a lovely dinner, as always. Perhaps we will see each other at the museum," she smiled and stood from the table. Sinclair stood with her, throwing some bills on the table to cover the check. "Oh, there's no need to walk me out. We both knew this evening was doomed before it began, one way or the other."

"One way or the other?" he echoed her words.

"I was either your April Fool, in which case I would be called to face the Hats, or not. Alternately, you have been leading me on, just to pump me for information and have decided I am not the April fool, and I would have every right to be hurt and think badly of you for treating me with such disregard. I gave you option number three, which has its own inherent risks and which you are not brave enough to face head on, as I correctly suspected," she leant forward and kissed his cheek. "Everything about this dinner was doomed from the start, Sinclair."

She turned from him then and walked away, carefully placing her feet in a heel to toe pattern so that her hips swayed in the tight material of her dress. She felt his eyes on her as she left the restaurant and walked out into the carpark, but she never once turned around. She wouldn't give him the satisfaction. She kept the persona perfectly intact until she had driven for five minutes in the direction of Diego's and pulled up at a red light. Swearing loudly, she thumped her hands on the steering wheel and dialled her home number, leaving a message for Jordan.

"Moving on to plan B, don't worry or freak out if I'm gone for a day or two. I'll call in sick for work tomorrow!" she snapped and ended the call. She was gambling that Sinclair had found the tracker app on her phone and would use it to follow her, but he had gone old school and put a tracker on the small purse she had taken. She'd been disappointed by that because the encryption Jordan used would have given them access to any device Sinclair used to track her whereabouts using that app.

If she'd been honest with herself, she knew they would have to go to plan B. She was anxious, however, that the risks were infinitely higher once she brought another person into the equation. To say that Diego was unpredictable was an understatement, and she regretted having such a heavy dinner beforehand knowing the workout she would get tonight.

*****

Sinclair watched Carrie leave. He walked to his car and opened his phone, sliding into the front seat, he watched the blip on the screen tracking the beautiful young woman. She was either the innocent she claimed to be, or something had rattled her badly enough not to realise he had placed a tracker on her purse. He drove slowly, not quite believing that she didn' know it was there and not wanting to catch up to her due to traffic accidentally, he was more interested in the friends she had said she was meeting. If she wasn't the April Fool, then someone was using her as a decoy, either with or without her knowledge. Her brother, perhaps, he had considered the notion more than once over the last few weeks, but his alibi for the night of the party at Rackham's was airtight.

He was surprised that he recognised the private club where her car had finally stopped and a few minutes later pulled into the carpark. Perhaps she did have multiple personalities, after all, he thought, as he looked at the non-descript building in the warehouse district. His reputation with women was built mostly on partial truths. He had always been careful to hide the side of his personality that had driven him to join this club and private clubs like it in his younger days. He rarely exercised his membership in recent years, but it was still active, and he knew he would be welcome if he went inside. He couldn't see her in either a dominant or submissive role here, and as he sat trying to figure out why she had come here, of all places, his curiosity overrode his good sense, and he stepped from his car.

His shoes crunched on pebbled carpark, Diego's was unusual, in that once past the initial security check for members there was a locker room where members could change into their preferred persona. Trysts at the club were anonymous, and most common kinks were catered for in some way. It was a voyeur's dream beyond the locker room doors as regular members engaged in all manner of depravity in full view of the other patrons. Other kinksters preferred the smaller, less public alcoves where they were still monitored for breaches in the house rules and the regimented etiquette of this place.

The strong dominated the weak here, and if you weren't strong enough to back up your claim to dominance someone would make you submit to their will. As an angry young man, he had lived for the adrenaline of this place and honed his skills in street fighting until his reputation had given him a seat alongside the ruling elite here, including the owner himself, Diego.

The muscled young man behind the check-in counter looked up at him as Sinclair threw his card onto the visitor's sign-in book and waited for the inevitable ping of the card reader that declared him a member. He was then given entrance to one of the members-only locker rooms. Glad that he didn't have to wait for the room to be vacated, he opened the locker and went about changing into his dominant persona. He chose carefully from the options he had in the locker. He did not want Carrie to recognise him until he was ready, let alone anyone who may use his presence here in the underground club as leverage against him.

He barely recognised himself as he smoothed the auburn goatee into place and pulled the bandana low over his forehead, disguising his shock of auburn hair that was a little too long and unruly. The black leather vest and pants highlighted his muscular physique, ensuring few people would challenge him if he decided to test the disguise against Carrie's powers of observation.

He entered the club and did a circuit around the main room before moving to pay his respects to the king of this den of denizens. He looked carefully at the dominant women, thinking this was the more likely role for a woman like Carrie, especially after seeing her tonight. Disappointed not to have recognised her, Sinclair approached Diego. The king of the Sodom and Gomorrah, Diego sat upon a black rock throne-like structure surveying the crowd. His leonine mane was brushed out and framed his head as his left hand reached out to welcome a woman in a black leather body suit and cat mask that covered the top half of her face, including her nose.

The body suit hugged every curve of the cat's exquisite figure, and as she moved the glint of a silver zip that ran down the front of it teased at the flesh underneath being exposed easily. The leather was polished and seemed to reflect even the dimmest light as she prowled around Diego until she stood at his right where she settled on a padded stool. The intricate mask and ears disguised her well, and he wondered briefly if this could be Carrie. The height and body type were right, and he tilted his head, wondering if she would possibly be the type to kneel at anyone's feet, let alone a sadistic hedonistic bastard like Diego.

"Old friend," Diego stood and clasped Sinclair's hand, pulling it against his chest so that they moved into a manly embrace.

"Good to see you, Diego," Sinclair murmured in a gravelly voice. "I see you still keep the best for yourself," he nodded toward the black cat who had settled to her knees on the plump cushioned stool beside the strange throne.

"The best?" Diego laughed. "That one has long claws; only the strongest get to play with her. She is feral and submits reluctantly. Then again, as I remember it, you preferred the feral bitches," he laughed loudly.

"Is she all game, or does she submit to the strong and fortuitous?" Sinclair continued to eye the woman, becoming even more certain that the sexy cat woman was Carrie. She lifted her eyes to him and narrowed them, judging him. There was no hint of recognition, he noted and smiled inwardly.

"The reward far outweighs the journey, my friend, but tonight I do intend to keep the best for myself," Diego's buoyant mood darkened as the challenge was put forth. If Sinclair wanted to get near that woman tonight, he would have to go through Diego to do it.

"I imagine I have a training collar that would fit that pretty neck perfectly," Sinclair smirked, ignoring the challenge. He walked toward her, his eyes raking her body. The hair was the right colour, and he recognised those eyes, the cloudy green-blue of the sea that he had enjoyed staring at him, not so long ago that evening.

"She feral, a training collar won't help you," Diego chortled. He seemed to consider his old friend. It was rare he gave up the opportunity to dominate this spirited young woman. The struggle to subdue her was exhilarating. When he ultimately won that battle and made her a purring sex kitten who fulfilled his needs, he felt as if he could conquer anyone. The man before him, though, was an ally and a friend he enjoyed the benefits of having in the murky world he dwelled. If Sinclair pushed him, taking back the challenge might be the wisest course. Carrie always came back to him eventually, after all.

"I guess we will never know, as you've made your intentions clear," Sinclair reached out and lifted her chin, looking down into her eyes. "It's a shame. It's been a long time since I've truly battled for dominance. Even without your reassurance, I could tell it would have been a battle worth fighting."

"What do you think, Kitten?" Diego asked her. "You think he can tame you?"

Freeing herself from Sinclair's gaze and touch, she leant toward Diego where he had resumed his seat. Placing her hands on the arms of his throne, she undulated her body and moved up to purr in his ear. "How many men here have you seen that have the stamina to best me. I could battle him and be back to purr in your ear just as you wish." She stroked the nails of her hand down over his cheek and neck to his bare chest.

"Don't underestimate this one, Kitten. He is far more skilled than he seems. I have never seen him bested, whereas you, my feral feline, can be brought down eventually if a man has the stamina" he looked at her and could see that he had only increased her enthusiasm for battle. He knew she played with him only because he was the best, not through any misplaced affection.

"She thinks you're full of shit," Diego looked at Sinclair, "And while I have warned her that you are not a man to be taken lightly, she still believes she will be here with me in the end."

"Ladies choice then," Sinclair smirked, having no doubt that Diego would allow it now. "Shall we talk rules of engagement and terms for the victor?"

"House rules," Carrie eyed him carefully. "When I win, you will submit to my every demand for the next three days without argument or hesitation." It was the standard victor's terms, if a little longer than usual, but, being that she had given herself a long weekend to do this, she may as well enjoy it.

"I agree," he said without flinching. "To both. The rules and the terms when I win shall be the very same." What was good for the goose was good for the gander. If it was a fight she wanted it was a fight she would get.

Ten minutes later the ripple of news about the fight had run through the crowd. It wasn't unusual for two dominants to fight to prove themselves or end an argument. It was even more unusual for a Dominant and a Domme to fight each other for total domination of the other. Diego was careful with who he let enter the ring, even with the restricted membership he wasn't about to take any chances of real damage to one of his clientele or his reputation for a safe, sane and consensual establishment.

The VIP members followed Diego to a first-floor balcony overlooking the warehouse floor, giving them a complete view of the floating cage. The other club members on the floor of the club would only see the parts of the bout that took the combatants against the bars of the cage.

Carrie looked across the cage to where Sinclair had entered across the bridge from the opposite side. She'd entered through Diego's balcony, whereas Sinclair had made his way up through the victor's room. Whoever won in these type of duels got to retire to a luxury suite to tend their wounds and enjoy their prize, if they wished, before re-emerging downstairs.

Carrie knew she was good; she was younger, she had experience in fighting men, and she felt she could match him in this contest. She went into a series of stretches, despite her confidence. She had no recent information on Sinclair's skills or training techniques, but he had been better than good in his younger days in several martial arts. He had taken off his shirt and prowled the edge of the cage, letting her finish the series of stretches. She knew this was going to be much harder than her bouts with Jerome, or the half-hearted resistance she put up against Deigo, and she turned to face him.

"You know I offered you this without a fight only an hour or two ago," she said sweetly.

"Let's just say that the mouse and the sex kitten didn't interest me nearly as much as a feral cat that can win over a man like Diego," he said almost conversationally.

If she were going to have any chance of winning this she would have to be quick. She needed to take advantage of her youth and speed while he relied heavily on experience. They circled each other warily, and she wondered if youth and speed would be a match for his obvious strength, coupled with that experience. He glanced to the side for half a second, and she made her move, rushing forward and attempting to sweep his legs from under him.