EXFIL by Anthony Patton (best book reader txt) 📕

with a kiss, which transported me back to how I had felt with Jewel, back to the arousing submission of Asian women. I took Anna’s advice to go with the flow and let Judy take the lead. I was surprised by how quickly she unzipped my jeans, slid them down, and performed oral sex, with the most dazzling and delightful tongue play. As my eyes shifted between Judy and Anna, I felt overwhelmed by a desire to sleep. I resisted and blinked my eyes to stay awake.

The last thing I recall was Judy unzipping her skirt.

NINETEEN

I awoke the next morning alone, bathed in sunlight and with a pounding headache—no idea where I was or who I was. The walk to the kitchenette was painful, worse than the usual throbbing hangover. I was surprised by the time on the microwave oven—9:45 am—as I drank a glass of water and checked my phone to see a missed call from Brett.

I vaguely recalled Anna and Judy, so I called Anna and was surprised to hear that her number was no longer in service. Perplexed, I called again and got the same message—not a good sign.

If I had learned anything from my career in intelligence, it was to not reach conclusions too soon, but my cloudy intuition combined with fragments of recollection weren’t presenting a promising picture. The ladies hadn’t left any clues, but I sat heavily on the bed and rubbed my head, groaning when I saw a ring of white residue at the bottom of a glass on the nightstand.

Holy shit.

I couldn’t distinguish the smell and opted to not taste it, but it didn’t take a genius to conclude that they had drugged me. The only relevant question was why?

My first thought was theft, but nothing was missing. I didn’t have any classified information, either, which took me down the rabbit hole.

In light of what had happened in Bangkok with Captain Chen, it was possible that the purpose of this threesome was to film me in a compromising position. However, this would suggest that Anna was working for the Chinese, which seemed unlikely because this single act would reveal her crime with China and allow me to report her to the FBI.

Getting caught might end my marriage, but I could use the fact that I had been drugged as my defense, combined with a single-minded obsession to get promoted—mea culpa.

Not to mention, I would never betray my country, no matter what the cost.

I imagined a scenario in which I, like that Middle Eastern diplomat, would cheerfully offer to buy a copy of the video. Whoever thought they could compromise me this way, if that indeed is what was happening, didn’t do their homework.

I had the sneaking suspicion that my next meeting with Jade Envy would be revealing.

My best thinking was often done in the shower, the calming hot water, isolation, and combination of fine and gross motor skills allowing me to achieve clarity.

While soaping up my pits and groin, I recalled a wild night in Bangkok with Jewel.

Most normal men are squeamish about discussing anything related to their ass since it served a single purpose and had no place in sexual activity. Most men didn’t have a problem including a woman’s ass in sex, but the man’s ass was off limits, which was why I had initially sought to resist Jewel’s proposal to include anal beads during one of our drunken evenings.

It had taken some convincing on her part, but I finally relented when she explained that the pleasure men experienced had nothing to do with any latent homosexual tendencies. Inserting the beads was out of my comfort zone, but a smile had filled her face, and mine, as she removed them with a steady tug as I reached orgasm, with more pleasure than I was willing to admit.

As a matter of principle, to prevent this pleasure from becoming a habit or a perversion, I declared it a one-time event. As the soaping in the shower continued, however, I realized that my ass was now feeling the same way it had after the anal bead session. Filming me with anal beads or a dildo would be an unwelcome addition to an otherwise embarrassing video, but the fact remained that I had been drugged and couldn’t be coerced with such a video anyway.

Under normal circumstances, an Intelligence Officer would report this incident up the chain of command immediately, to nip any potential counterintelligence issues in the bud.

The idea was that by reporting the names and details, we could conduct deep dives in the databases to uncover links to other nefarious activity. Someone else might have met “Judy,” if that was even her name. In this case, however, we were in the U.S. with an American woman, and “Judy” might even have been a foreign national, so I decided that the best option was to collect more information before making any embarrassing revelations.

◆◆◆

I was late for a meeting with Brett and Nguyen, so I called them from the car to apologize. Brett quipped that he would prefer to avoid seeing me for the foreseeable future.

I told him I couldn’t agree more.

“Looks like you had a rough night,” Brett said with a smirk and sipped his coffee as Nguyen looked up from his file deep in thought.

“I bought tacos from a street vendor last night,” I said and rubbed my stomach, which prompted sympathetic cringes from both.

Women could invoke women’s problems, and men could invoke digestive problems.

“Congratulations again on stopping the cyberattack,” Nguyen said. “That was one of the best successes we’ve had in a long time.”

“You finally have your work of art,” Brett said.

“Thanks,” I said, pretending to be flattered, but certain it wasn’t true. “I still categorize this success as science. A great success, but not art, yet.”

“When is your next meeting with Jade Envy?” Nguyen asked, making the transition to his code name even within the confines of a secure conference room.

“Two days,” I said. “I’m heading up