“You seem content with being here. I would have thought you might resent the way things are done these days.”
Sam knew better than to say anything politically controversial. It had been made quite clear during his induction training that his opinions on the the current government were of no interest to the staff or the members. “It’s what people voted for, I suppose,” he said, non-committally.
Catherine found his response amusing. Men everywhere seemed to have learned to keep their views to themselves, so different to the bad old days when her male work colleagues seemed to think that almost everything needed mansplaining to her.
Sam stretched against his bonds, not so much testing their strength as trying to gain some measure of comfort from a slightly altered position.
“Are you uncomfortable, guaillou? Or is that something else you cannot express an opinion on?”
“No, Miss,” Sam responded It was a question he always found difficult to answer. Should he admit that he was and goad her into making his position worse or should he claim that he wasn’t and run the risk of her saying that she would do something to make him so? He watched, concerned, as Catherine got to her feet and approached him. Was she going to tighten the straps or alter how he was bound?
Sensing his trepidation she reached behind the cage that enclosed his cock and gripped his balls. Her sudden touch made him flex against the straps. Catherine smiled, amused by his wordless response. Sometimes the toys needed to be gagged but this one, Catherine thought, this one knows how to be quiet.
Catherine was wondering how much Sam knew about the ECR movement. She scraped a single finger nail across Sam’s chest. He winced as she approached his nipple, wary of whether her sensuous touch was about to turn to a punishing pinch. If he did know something, he wouldn’t last long with the department’s Inquisitors. Of course, the use of sexual responsiveness in interrogation was formally frowned upon but Catherine was pretty sure that it was used and the Sam would find it difficult to resist. She was never sure whether that was any worse than the more physical methods used by the MCF but in reality it didn’t seem like Sam would have much to say.
Sam wondered for a moment whether Catherine’s sudden interested questioning mean that she was suspicious of his involvement with Gerry and the others. Maybe she was only tormenting him because she thought he might be involved in anti-government activities. He dismissed the idea almost at once. After all, why should she be bothered about that when she had just come to play and have a few drinks in the club?
Catherine decided to return the conversation to safer areas. “So, for you New Order has been a good thing?”
He nodded his head as much as the clamped collar about his neck would allow. “Yes, I suppose so. Of course there are restrictions but in many ways my life is easier.”
Catherine thought about his words. She knew that there were plenty of men that were quite happy with things as they were now. There were some whose sexual orientation fitted well with the new order of things and there were those that agreed with the political ideas behind New Order too. She wasn’t sure that Sam was either of those, though. There seemed to be an element of fetishistic pleasure in his response to her, she felt, and he seemed more like a man that had found a convenient, even comfortable, niche. It was certainly true that the tattoo studio he used was implicated in male subversive activities and he had certainly been sufficiently on board with them to get an “ECR” tattoo but she wasn’t sure if he was really active in what the tattoo implied. She was going to carry on watching this toy on both a professional and personal basis.
Chapter 25: Alternative Perspectives
In the bar of the Pride of Éireann, Norm and Danny were enjoying a drink with Patsy.”How was it going back to your old hunting grounds?” Danny asked Norm.
“Nerve wracking. I’m not cut out for intrigue and undercover work.”
“Well, you know, I think that makes you the ideal man for it. You got the cards in and you got yourself out. We got paid and everybody’s happy.”
“I’m not so sure about the lot in Mudchute,” Norm responded.
“It sounds like that whole set up was a shambles,” Patsy chipped in. She looked no less dishevelled than when Norm had first seen her at Dublin airport. He’d become used to the fact that she didn’t see why she shouldn’t give her opinion at any opportunity. Danny seemed to be happy to put up with it and Norm was happy to have her around. She’d spent most of the drive back from Dublin explaining why the current crop of Irish singers weren’t a patch on the ones that she’d grown up with. For Norm it had been a refreshingly normal experience not to be regaled with this or that political issue.
“Maybe. There’s some people there that know what they are doing. I wasn’t impressed by the speed with which Gerry took off at the first sight of trouble though but Jack — the lad I took up the river seemed to be a bit brighter than the rest; once he got over the shock of the MCF turning up on their raid. I mean, I know sod all about this sort of thing but even I could tell they were rank amateurs.”
“Now that’s where we have the edge,” Danny said. “A fine long tradition of knowing when to keep your head down and when to stick it up. And a nose for who you can rely on and who you can’t. From what you’ve said, I think that lot in Mudchute have got a leak, the same as our friends had over the border. They need to get that plugged before they get completely taken apart. It’ll start off with events like the ExCel thing getting disrupted and then one morning they’ll all wake up to find an MCF officer hammering on the door.”
“And, of course, Danny, you just do it for the cash. No complicated moral compass to mess with your judgement, eh?”
“Now, that’s unkind, Patsy. Accurate, but unkind. Whoever’s funding that lot in Mudchute ought to be looking to get better value for money though.”
“You don’t suppose it’s the government themselves? As a sort of ‘let’s set up an incompetent dissident group to make all protestors look bad’ thing?”
“You’re a cynical soul, Norm Hailman,” Patsy downed the last of her Guinness. “Which is a good way to be, believe me. I suppose I could ask a stupid question like, ‘Do you want another drink?’ but I’m guessing you do.”
Norm nodded and Danny did too. Patsy took the three glasses off to the bar.
“That sounds a bit smart for most of the governments that I’ve come across. No, there will be a bad apple somewhere in Gerry’s circle. He’ll need to convince me he’s fixed that before we do any more business with his group.”
Norm nodded. He wasn’t sure if Danny was right but he wasn’t in any rush to head back to the UK.
Danny smiled, “Sure, we can forget about all that for a while, though. Our friends over the border are looking to take another consignment of those magazines. They might not overturn the government with them but it would be good to let them have a bit of fun. Anyway, you seem to have hit it off with Patsy. She usually can’t be bothered to hang around after doing one of her taxi jobs. I reckon you could be in there. She’s a sucker for an English accent. How the devil you managed to pass yourself off with an Irish passport, I’ll never know.”