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Vietnam '69 - Year of the Cat

By Wakboth

Part One - The Naked Lunch

---

It was the June of 1969, and the Summer of Love had come and gone. The Vietnam War was going strong, despite attempts at peace, and there were still almost half a million American soldiers in Vietnam. Sergeant Mabel Brown of the Women's Army Corps was one of them.

For the last sixteen months, Da Nang, the military town in Central Vietnam which had been the site of the Marines' first landing in '65, had been her home, and Mabel was no longer intrigued by the smells of Vietnamese cooking, wafting from the small street kitchens where people were eating lunch, or annoyed by the heat and the constant noise of the traffic: time had worn out the novelty of such things.

Tall, athletic and busty, the young bear woman stood out from the smallish cats and monkeys and mongooses, who made up the majority of the native Vietnamese. She ignored the whistles she attracted from horny GIs as she walked down the street, having long ago gotten used to them. To a casual observer, she was the very model of a WAC staffer, perhaps a secretary, spending her city leave wandering aimlessly about the town.

In truth, Mabel was a military correspondent, working for the CIA on the side, and she was not wandering at all. The circuitous route she was taking to reach her destination had been carefully planned in order to draw out anyone shadowing her, and despite her oblivious appearance, she was fully alert, her eyes, ears and nose open for any irregularities.

Finally convinced that she wasn't being followed, Mabel turned onto a side street. It was narrower and much dirtier than the one she had been walking before, and the old colonial-style buildings, with small stores in their ground floors, looked much more run-down.

One of the stores was less dilapidated than the rest; the store window with its faded studio portraits and the boxes of cheap Japanese cameras was remarkably free of dust, and a new sign written in Vietnamese, French and English hanged over the window: "Trung Din Minh Photo Studio & Shop"; another, smaller one hanging from the door, proclaimed the store to be open. With a final glance along the empty street, Mabel entered, flipping the "Open" sign to "Closed" behind her.

Inside, the shop was faintly lit. The walls were hung with photographs showing French colonial bureaucrats with their families, young serious-looking Vietnamese couples getting married and other snapshots from the history of Da Nang. A few cameras on shelves stocked full of photographic supplies completed the picture.

Before the bell hanging above the door had stopped chiming, a bead curtain was drawn back and a young Vietnamese woman, a cream-and-tan cat with a black, page-boy cut hair, standing barely to Mabel's chest, stepped out from the back room.

Noticing her customer, her polite smile widened a bit. "Ah, mademoiselle Brown," she said in fluent but accented English. "I am very happy to have you back at my humble store! How may I be of assistance to you?"

Mabel smiled back at the girl. "I'm happy to see you again as well, Minh," she said in passable Vietnamese, before switching back to English. "Do you have the chemicals I ordered?"

Minh nodded slightly. "Yes, mademoiselle. But, ah! They cost more than I had thought. It is the war, nothing more." She shrugged, the gesture expressing her resigned disdain for the conflict that had been tearing her country apart for years, and had brought Mabel and the rest of the Americans there.

Mabel wasn't surprised in the least; in fact, she had expected something like this. "That is all right," she said, in Vietnamese again. "I was prepared for such thing happen."

"For such a thing happening," the cat said slowly and in a clear voice, making the American bear repeat the sentence a few times until she had it correctly. Switching to English, she continued. "I have them in the back. Please, follow me."

The back of the store was crammed full of things: not just photography supplies, but bicycle and motorcycle parts, rickety rattan furniture, old French-style clothes wrapped in bags smelling of moth balls, a film projector salvaged from some theater, stacks of old newspapers, and more. Minh, for all of her feline form, was a veritable pack rat, who never threw anything away and found some use for most of the things she hoarded.

Eventually they reached the first room that wasn't full of junk; in fact, it was neat and simply furnished, with white-washed walls whose only decoration was an old studio photograph that Mabel assumed showed the cat's parents; this was where Minh lived. A faint smell of food wafted from the next door, making Mabel's stomach rumble slightly; she had not had lunch yet.

While Mabel waited, the cat crouched down and pulled an old cash box from under her bed in the corner. She lifted it to the table against the opposite wall, and taking a small key hanging from her neck, opened it.

Inside, there were indeed photographic chemicals: silver nitrate, fixatives, development agents, and more. Minh picked up one bottle, uncorked it and shook out a roll of film. "Here it is," she said in a low voice. "They were very difficult to get. Please, tell that to your superiors."

Mabel nodded. "I understand that, and if it were up to me, I wouldn't ask you to do anything that might endanger you," she said in an equally low voice. "But the people I work for may want more." Reaching a hand into her shirt, she pulled out a small bundle of folded bills that had been nestled in her cleavage. "How much extra?"

Minh chewed her lip, looking thoughtful, but the twitching of her ears told Mabel that she was thinking furiously: how much did she dare to ask? If she asked too much, the CIA would give her less work, meaning less money for her; if she asked too little, they would expect her to take more similar risks in the future.

"Two hundred," Minh finally said. "And the usual bonus," she added with a slight smile as she looked coyly at Mabel.

Mabel returned the smile, and counted a seven hundred dollars' worth in assorted bills, still warm from her body, into the cat's hand. Minh put the film back into its bottle and closed the metal box, giving Mabel the key while she pocketed the money.

The official part of their clandestine deal done, Mabel sat down in the room's single rattan armchair, and waited as Minh started to undress. Barely five feet tall, with a slim, wiry figure, the cat was tiny; Mabel could have picked her up and carried her around without difficulty. From personal experience, Mabel knew that Minh was just as flexible as she looked like, and a good deal stronger, although she wasn't match to the bear's size and strength.

That's what attracted her to me, at first, Mabel thought. Next to me, she feels small but safe. She watched as Minh tied a simple velvet band with a single, tiny silver bell on it around her neck. Such chokers had been worn by servant cats in the colonial days, and the connotation of servility, still attached to them, meant that very few Vietnamese would willingly wear one these days. Minh was one of them.

The cat was now standing naked before Mabel, her eyes down and hands held in front of her in a traditional, respectful gesture. The bear watched Minh with half-lidded eyes, trying to maintain a suitably aloof expression. Time to play my part, she thought.

"Stand straight," she ordered in French. "Keep your hands by your sides! I want to see your body!" Minh obeyed mutely, revealing herself to Mabel. The cat's tawny, white-dappled fur faded into uniform creamy white on her chest, belly and inner thighs, making the dark little nipples of her small, perky breasts stand clearly out.

Mabel allowed the moment to stretch before she spoke again. "That's better. Now, serve my lunch."

Minh bowed her head. "Yes, mistress," she said, also in French, and hurried out of the room. The cat returned only a moment later, carrying a tray laden with the meal Mabel had smelled earlier: roast chicken legs, vegetables, and the ever-present pho noodles, along with tea.

The food looked and smelled delicious, but Mabel, in keeping with her role as a haughty mistress, did not dig in straight away. Instead, she spent a couple of minutes scrutinizing the food, making Minh squirm, until she finally, with a gracious nod, accepted it and started eating.

While Mabel ate, Minh hovered around her, serving tea and generally acting the part of a servant. Only the way she kept presenting her naked figure to the bear, and the longing looks cast at Mabel, departed from the character.

The noodles were slimy, but that was only normal; Mabel didn't think she'd ever understand why the Vietnamese were so fond of them. The vegetables were nice and crunchy, however, and the chicken was just as Mabel liked it: spicy, tasty and greasy. By the time Mabel dropped the last clean-picked bones back to her plate and leaned back, all that grease was on her hands and muzzle.

"Is the mistress satisfied?" Minh asked, quickly collecting the empty dishes and slipping the tray out of sight behind Mabel's chair, before returning to her position before the bear.

"So far, I'm not unsatisfied," Mabel said. "But my hands are all greasy now! Come here and take off my shirt," she ordered.

"Yes, mistress!" Her hands shaking with excitement, Minh hastened to obey. As she opened the buttons, one by one, she could see that instead of the regulation Army bra, Mabel was wearing a lace-embroidered French-style brassiere that hugged her breasts snugly. Mabel could hear Minh's breathing become more agitated, and had to bite on her tongue to keep from smiling; the time spent in Da Nang's shops, looking for a C-cup bra in her size, was obviously well spent.

The cat swallowed audibly as she stared at Mabel's chest; the bear had noticed that she had a rather obvious breast fetish. "May... may I touch you, mistress?" Minh asked, her voice belying her excitement.

Mabel was strongly tempted to say yes, but she knew she had a part to play here. "No! You may not! You are presumptious!" she said forcefully, making Minh cringe. "Get down on your knees, and remove my boots!"

"Yes, mistress; whatever you say!" Nodding eagerly, Minh obeyed, starting to unlace Mabel's Army boots. Soon, she had them off, and was looking up at Mabel for new orders. Mabel had tried looking for some nice stockings as well when she shopped for her bra, but without success; a new, clean pair of the standard Army green socks and some scented talcum was the best she could do.

"You may remove my socks and kiss my feet," she said, as imperiously as she managed. Generally, she didn't like ordering people around - the reason why she had turned down the chance to attend the WAC Officer Candidate School - but this kind of play-acting with Minh turned her on despite its silliness. And the cat certainly did enjoy it.

In fact, she enjoyed it a lot; instead of just kissing Mabel's feet, Minh was licking them! Her raspy little tongue tickled, and made Mabel giggle, despite her best efforts to remain serious. "Stop!" she said, trying not to laugh. Minh stopped immediately, looking up at her. "You're a bad cat; a very bad servant," Mabel said as harshly as she managed, making Minh cringe again. "Do not try that again, unless I command you!"

After a moment's wait, she pretended to relent. "All right, you may remove my pants." Minh happily obeyed, undoing Mabel's belt and unbuttoning her pants. Mabel raised her buttocks slightly from the chair, allowing the cat to pull her uniform pants down, revealing a pair of panties just as frilly as the bra, although of a different color.

The whole thing was making Mabel quite horny, and she was of half a mind to start playing with herself, letting Minh watch and stew in her own juices, but decided against it. It would be a good trick to spring on the cat some other time. Instead, she spoke again. "Now, remove my panties...."

As Minh reached out at them, Mabel slapped her hands lightly. "I had not finished!" she said. "Don't you dare use your hands! They're filthy!" Minh gasped and nodded happily, knee-walking closer and pushing her face into Mabel's crotch. The feeling of the cat nuzzling and nudging her pussy through the thin satin made Mabel squirm; she was getting wet, and knew that Minh could smell her arousal.

After what seemed like an eternity, Minh managed to pull the panties down to Mabel's thighs; the bear was quite certain that Minh had not been working as fast as she could have. She allowed the kneeling cat to stare at her brown-furred pussy for a while. "Do you like what you see, cat?" she asked.

"Yes, mistress; I like it very much," Minh said. "I love the sight of your pussy. It is very beautiful."

Mabel sniffed haughtily. "Would you like to lick it?" she asked.

Minh nodded. "Yes, mistress! I'd love to lick your pussy. May I do so?"

"No, you may not!" Mabel said. "You haven't earned that!" She held her hands before Minh's face. "Since you forgot napkins, you shall clean my fingers with your mouth, instead."

Minh blushed. "Yes, mistress," she said, and leaning forward, started licking at the spicy grease on Mabel's fingers. The bear shuddered slightly as she felt her fingers being sucked into Minh's warm mouth, one by one, thinking how good the cat's tongue would feel on other parts of her body.

A sudden, sharp nip on Mabel's pinky made her start, more from surprise than from pain. The cat had the finger almost entirely in her mouth, and was looking at Mabel with an expression of mixed mischief and lust. "Ouch! That hurt!" Mabel said in English, breaking character for a moment. Minh merely flicked her ears and gave the captive digit another, although more gentle, nip.

Minh had done that on purpose, Mabel realized. She was misbehaving, and wanted to be punished by her mistress. And if Mabel did not oblige her, either Minh would get more and more insistent until Mabel was freaked out, or she'd lose interest in the game of dominance and submission they were playing; either way, both would be left unsatisfied and unhappy.

Doing the only correct thing, Mabel returned to character. "What are you doing? Stop at once!" she commanded and drew her finger out from Minh's mouth. She made a show of examining the bitten pinky closely, while the cat waited, kneeling between Mabel's legs. As she had guessed, Minh's bite hadn't even broken her skin, but Mabel wasn't going to let that stop her; it wouldn't have stopped the colonial lady she was supposed to be, either.

"You clumsy, disobedient, naughty servant!" Mabel said loudly, holding the finger in front of Minh's face. "Look at what you did! What a bad kitten you are!" she berated Minh, who was blushing more and more with every reprimand, although not from shame.

"I am very sorry, mistress," Minh said, looking cross-eyed at the finger that almost touched the tip of her nose. "I've been bad-"

"Shut up! Don't talk!" Mabel snapped. Minh fell immediately silent, looking at the bear with her wide eyes full of anticipation. "You deserve a punishment," Mabel said in a mock-stern voice. "Get up and lay yourself over my knee."

Minh obeyed without hesitation; she had difficulties in keeping her expectant expression under control. The cat was light and warm as she laid herself across Mabel's legs. With her left hand, Mabel gripped Minh's long, sinuous tail, moving it out of the way. Minh's buttocks were lean and tight, just like the rest of her body; Mabel admired the cat's bottom for a moment, before bringing her right hand down with a loud smack.

The cat twitched in Mabel's lap. "Count the smacks I'm giving to you, kitten," Mabel ordered, and spanked Minh again.

"Yes! Two! ... Ah! Three! ... Oh! Four!" Minh counted, her tail twitching in Mabel's grasp and wrapping around the bear's arm, squeezing every time as her buttocks were spanked. After the first couple of slaps, Mabel reduced the force she was using; she didn't want to hurt Minh, just make her butt sting enough to qualify as punishment she craved.

After twenty slaps, Mabel stopped, judging that Minh had had enough of this to satisfy her need for discipline. "Have you learned your lesson, kitten?" she asked.

"Yes, mistress! I will be good from now on," Minh answered, her voice sounding shaky and breathless. As the cat got up, Mabel saw that she was blushing with arousal, and her nipples were erect: Minh was as ready as she came.

"Come here, kitten," she told the cat, patting her thigh. "Sit into my lap." Minh did so, her bottom feeling very warm against Mabel's leg. "Do you like my breasts?" Mabel asked, petting Minh's head.

The cat nodded. "Yes, mistress. They are magnificent," she said, making Mabel smile.

"Would you like to touch them, kitten?" she asked, sounding less stern this time. Minh nodded again. "Go on, then. Touch them," Mabel said. Minh obeyed immediately, running her hands along the bear's bra-clad bosom, caressing her breasts and giving them a series of little squeeze that made Mabel gasp; if Minh loved being commanded, breast-play was Mabel's weakness, and one that Minh knew well.

After a moment, Mabel couldn't take more. "Take off my bra, kitten," she said. As Minh reached behind her back and started fumbling with the clasp, Mabel started caressing the cat's thighs with her other hand. "You've been dreaming about this, haven't you?" she said.

Removing the bra, Minh leaned closer and started kissing Mabel's breasts, the hot little kisses sending shivers down the bear's spine. "Just thinking about you makes me mad with lust," the cat whispered, her eyes gleaming.

"That's a good kitten," Mabel crooned into Minh's ear, finger-walking her hand up the cat's thigh and into the wet tangle of fur in her groin, until she touched the hot, slick flesh of her pussy lips. "Tell me, do you touch yourself when you think of me?" she asked, teasing Minh with the tip of her finger.

Minh nodded. "Mm... yes, yes! I was doing it yesterday, when a customer arrived. I didn't hear the bell, until he called; I had to serve him, with no underpants on and my pussy all wet and aching for your touch... when he left, I continued playing with myself behind the counter, before the door was fully closed!"

Mabel felt slightly weirded out by this revelation; she had no idea whether Minh was telling the truth, or inventing stories about her naughtiness. The thought of Minh standing in her store, her fingers buried in her cunt, moaning out Mabel's name as she brought herself off, made her burn with desire, whether it was real or not. She sighed as Minh circled her nipple with quick licks, making it stand up hard. Wrapping one hand around the bear's shoulders, Minh started to suckle at Mabel's breast.

Mabel groaned loudly, and slid her forefinger into Minh's pussy; the cat's slit was hot and quite tight about her finger, but so wet that she could easily slip her digit in. "Why, you naughty, naughty kitten," she panted. "You're all wet! You're a little slut, aren't you?"

Removing her mouth from Mabel's breast, Minh moaned and panted out an answer. "I'm a slut, yes; I'm all wet and ready for you to use!"

Grinning, Mabel slid another finger inside the cat's body and started to slowly thrust them in and out. "Ooooooh yeah," Mabel sighed, slipping back into English, as Minh started purring loudly against her sensitive breasts.

"You're my very own little slut, aren't you, kitten?" she asked, starting to use her thumb to tease Minh's clitoris. The cat shivered every time as Mabel touched the little nub; she was very, very close to an orgasm. "Do you want to come, kitten?" Mabel asked, her voice a breathy whisper.

"Yessss..." Minh hissed, twisting in Mabel's arms, trying to thrust against her hand. The bear held her in place, and with a wicked grin, withdrew her fingers, leaving Minh hanging at the edge.

"You have to ask nicely," Mabel said, brushing her wet fingertips across Minh's pubes. "Tell me what you want me to do!"

The cat looked pleadingly at her, but Mabel didn't relent; she knew Minh loved this. "Please, Mabel, please!" the cat moaned, addressing Mabel by name the first time. "Fuck me with your hand; push your fingers into my cunt!"

"Come for me, kitten," Mabel mouthed into Minh's ear, as she thrust her fingers back into her, twisting them and pressing her thumb down on Minh's clit.

Minh reacted immediately; she went rigid in Mabel's arms, and her cunt convulsed around the bear's fingers. Her eyes rolled back in her head and her tail twitched violently, making Mabel feel a slight tinge of envy for what looked like a perfectly mind-blowing orgasm.

While Minh panted in her arms, hugging the bear tightly, Mabel slipped her hand into her own muff and quickly brought herself off; as nice as it was, her own orgasm felt almost like an anticlimax after what Minh had just undergone.

"Ohhh... thank you, Mabel... thank you," Minh said in a weak voice. "I love you..."

"I love you too, kitten," Mabel whispered back, kissing Minh's ears as she cradled the small cat in her arms.

* * *

"Sit down, sergeant, sit down," Major John Conrad said, brushing his stiff hair with his paw and blinking owlishly at Mabel. The terrier, with his bifocals and graying fur, looked more like a kindly, slightly absent-minded professor, and Mabel occasionally needed to remind herself that Conrad, despite his Army rank and position as the Army PR officer in Da Nang, was in fact a seasoned CIA veteran.

She generally liked her boss; Conrad was one of the very few men she had never caught checking her out. The terrier, in turn, had taken a somewhat paternal liking to Mabel, and had often told her that she reminded him of his daughters, back in the States.

"Now, then. Tell me all about it," Conrad said, leaning back in his office chair and fixing his gaze somewhere in the shadowy corners of the roof.

Mabel proceeded to give a verbal account of her meeting with Minh, omitting the part where they had sex. Fucking your contacts, as opposed to fucking with them, was strictly forbidden by CIA regulations, except when you were told to do so by your superiors; in any case, Mabel did not want Conrad to know about her personal life.

"It's my considered opinion that contact NADINE remains reliable and useful to us in the future, sir," Mabel finished, using Minh's assigned code name. "Here are the microfilms I received from her," she added, placing the film roll on Conrad's desk.

Conrad nodded absent-mindedly. "I agree with your actions and analysis," he said, still gazing at the roof. "The accounting department may not be quite as happy; you know how they dislike operatives using the discretionary funds. But they always grumble; it's their job, after all."

He tilted his chair forward and looked at Mabel. "Good work, Brown. I want a written contact report on my desk, first thing on Monday. Is this acceptable?"

"Yes, sir," Mabel answered truthfully, although had Conrad demanded the report in half an hour's time, she would have said the same thing. She hesitated before asking the question that had been bothering her for some time. "Sir, may I ask why you have not answered my requests for assignments further in the field? In these sixteen months, I've been doing nothing but carrying messages, paying off our agents, and doing routine reliability investigations here in the city."

Conrad looked at her much like a schoolteacher whose star pupil had disappointed him. "Because you are doing an important job here," he answered. "And doing it well, I might add." He leaned back and steepled his fingers underneath his muzzle, looking so patient and understanding that Mabel wanted to tear at her hair. "Mabel, let me be frank with you. You received, at our facility in Virginia, three weeks of training-"

"Four weeks, sir, including a week of training for field operations," Mabel interrupted.

Conrad cleared his throat. "Four weeks of training, then, before arriving in Vietnam. And I'm aware that you received very good grades for that crash course. That doesn't change the essential fact that you are not a fully trained CIA operative, and I feel that I cannot jeopardize a good asset such as yourself by assigning you to more dangerous missions; not until you have gained more practical experience, at least."

Mabel wanted to ask how the hell she was going to get more experience, if Conrad didn't let her do anything, but kept her mouth shut. "Very good, then," Conrad said, after a moment's silence. "I will inform you in the usual way if we require anything from you. Have a good day, Mabel."

* * *

Mabel's next meeting, with her other, official, boss, Lieutenant Burroughs, did not go any better; quite the opposite, in fact.

Unlike the paternal, middle-aged Conrad, Burroughs was a tall, rakish rabbit with a well-earned reputation as a womanizer. If not for his arrogant personality, Mabel might have considered him attractive; as it was, she merely found him annoying; the fact that his advances seemed to work on the other women around made Mabel even more annoyed.

Initially, Mabel was glad to notice that Burroughs seemed to be on his best behavior today, however; he made no dirty jokes, didn't seat himself on the corner of Mabel's desk, or stare at her body too openly. But as Burroughs went through the next week's scheduled events, assigning people to cover them, and commented the other correspondents' stories, she was starting to feel that Burroughs was ignoring her completely.

"That's it, guys," he finally said, flipping his notebook shut and giving everyone present - Mabel excluded - one of his sparkling, buck-toothed smiles. "We'll meet again on Monday morning, barring new developments."

As the male correspondents rose and started to leave, Burroughs turned to Mabel and grinned slightly. "Sorry if I made you feel neglected, Brown. Come to my office; I want to speak with you about something."

Immediately suspicious, but willing to assume the best about her editor, Mabel followed him. She half expected Burroughs to pinch her tail when he held the office door open for her, but the rabbit kept his hands in check.

Burroughs' office was eerily similar to Conrad's; it was much neater and better lit, however. As the lieutenant seated himself in his office chair, tilting it back and lifting his big rabbit feet on the corner of the desk, Mabel started to get a feeling of deja vu. "I've been keeping an eye on you, Brown," the rabbit started, making Mabel to bite back a bark of laughter. "You're a damn good correspondent, one of the best I've seen, and I've seen plenty of them," he continued, looking earnestly at her.

"Thank you, sir," Mabel replied, flattered even though she didn't quite believe Burroughs' claim. She knew she was a good reporter, but hardly the best among the staff even here in Da Nang, let alone the whole Vietnam!

Burroughs smiled and continued. "There has been some bad blood between the Army and the Marines - brawls and such - and the big brass has decided that it's time to remind everyone that we're all on the same side," he said. "So, every Army and Marine newspaper in the region is going to do a series of stories, showing the other side in good light. I was thinking that you might want to cover the first couple of them: get into the field, interview the jarheads, observe them in their natural surroundings."

Mabel swallowed. Burroughs was right: she wanted this assignment! Not only would it look good in her personnel file, it would also get her out of Da Nang and the city's immediate environments. And it would make it much harder for Conrad to justify keeping her cooped in the city; hell, he might as well give her something to do when she was going to be in the bush!

Burroughs dropped his feet back to the floor and leaned towards Mabel. "There are some issues that need to be solved, however. You do a good job, Mabel," he said, dropping Brown, "but you have an attitude problem. You don't work well with other people. If you want the job, you need to convince me. Show me just how cooperative you can be..."

The tone of the rabbit's voice, as well as the look in his eyes left no doubt about what he meant. Mabel felt disgusted; here she had hoped that Burroughs might have been genuinely impressed by her work, while all he cared about was her body!

"I think I understand, sir," she said in a soft voice, looking intently at the rabbit. "How would you like it if I stripped right here and now? I know you have kept an eye on me; I think you'd like to see me naked. Then I could suck you off, here in your office; I'd let you come into my mouth, or on my face, or on my tits, as you'd like. Then, if you wanted, you could take me to the meeting room, and fuck me right there, on the table where we meet every week. I'd be a good girl and take it in the ass while you called me a slut and a whore, until you gave me that assignment, because that's what I would be."

As she spoke, Mabel saw Burroughs' eyes widen in surprise and interest; she knew he saw himself doing all the things she said, and more. The sudden slam of her hand against the desk made him literally jump in his chair.

"I refuse," Mabel said in a clear, hard voice, looking straight at the rabbit who shrunk back from her. "I want that job; you were right. But I want it because I believe I deserve it, and because I could do it well; not because I'm a hot piece of ass you desperately want to nail. So, if you're not convinced that I'm the right person to do the story, give it to Katz or Sheppard or someone else, because it'll be snowing in Saigon before I'll ever let you in my bed, sir!"

To his credit, Burroughs recovered quickly, only the redness of his ears showing his flustered state. "No need to be rude, Brown," he said, getting up. "I'll let this slide. Think about my offer; you'd be a fool to turn this assignment down. You're dismissed."

Mabel rose up and walked out, pointedly not saluting Burroughs, who said nothing.

* * *

By the time she had returned to the WAC barracks she shared with a dozen other women, mostly working as secretarial staff at the base HQ, Mabel was still seething.

She wasn't sure which of them made her more angry: Conrad, treating her like a kid and all but telling her that he wasn't going to let her go out and get hurt while playing a spy, or Burroughs, who wanted her to prostitute herself to him in exchange of good assignments.

Mabel flung herself on her bed and stared at the roof, her hands behind her back. Why the hell didn't the men let her serve her country properly? It wasn't as if she and the rest of the WACs were going to overwhelm them!

Mabel came from a patriotic and very military-minded family; her mother had been a decorated WAC officer in the Second World War, and her father was a veteran of both WWII and Korea. With a background like this, she had found the idea of joining up to support her country in wartime a natural one. With her talent for languages, which she had inherited from her mother - Dad spoke nothing but English and bad English - and a bachelor's degree in journalism, Mabel had expected to become a combat correspondent, or perhaps an interpreter, like her mother; she had been completely unprepared to being approached by the CIA.

She often wondered how her parents would react, if they knew what she was doing in Vietnam. They'd probably agree in general terms; it would be the details - like her expanding relationship with Minh - that they would have problems with.

BJ Brown was astonishingly liberal for a woman of her generation; Mabel remembered how her mom's first "flowers and bees" talk had veered off onto the subject of what she and Dad did in the bedroom, until Mabel had begged her to go back to explaining menstruation! She had very strong opinions on lesbians and lesbianism, however, and those were uniformly negative. Mabel, who had experimented with several boys and girls in the college, until finally deciding that she could never decide between the sexes, didn't think she could ever explain sleeping with Minh to her.

As for Dad, he seemed to have some kind of a mental filter in place that made him see Mabel as an eternally flat-chested fourteen-year old tomboy, who loved baseball and thought that boys were icky. No, keeping her parents in the dark was the only possible way, for both personal and professional reason, Mabel thought. Maybe after the war...

Her introspection was interrupted by the arrival of a plump young raccoon woman, dressed in the same WAC uniform as Mabel, but with just the single chevron of a private first class. Hannah Green was an eternally cheerful Californian girl, whose reasons for joining in WAC were unclear even for herself; unlike Mabel, Hannah wasn't particularly patriotic, and often joked that she had chosen the Army just to rebel against her parents. She worked as a secretary at the personnel section of the base HQ, and seemed perfectly happy to stay in Da Nang; she had a mortal fear of snakes, and thought she wouldn't last for a day in the jungle. Mabel privately agreed with this last assessment.

Despite all this, they had become good friends: Mabel, being the older and more level-headed of them, kept Hannah in check and had even managed to instill something resembling military discipline in her, where the WAC instructors had failed. Hannah, in turn, was just the person to shake Mabel out of her occasional bouts of melancholy.

She threw herself down on the empty bed next to Mabel's and looked at the bear. "Hey, boss, what's up? You look down in the dumps; did they redact your story or what?"

Mabel sighed. She wasn't really in the mood for discussion, but knew from experience that Hannah would keep on asking unless she told the raccoon to shut up, and she didn't really want to hurt her feelings. "Burroughs again. The man can't take a hint that I'm not interested in him; he keeps on pushing," she said.

Hannah grinned. "You mean that rabbit lieutenant? I think he's cute, and half the girls at the hospital agree!"

"You wouldn't if you had to work with him," Mabel said. "Anyway, I'm fed up with him, and told in no uncertain terms that he's wasting his time. I doubt he'll give up, though."

"Why not give the guy what he wants?" Hannah asked, grinning lewdly. "You know what they say about rabbits: wham, bam, thank you ma'am!" She accompanied her comment with an appropriate gesture.

Mabel leveled a withering look at Hannah, who ignored it completely. "No thank you. Hell, we're in the same chain of command; it'd be against the regulations, anyway. Not that Burroughs cares; it's his word against mine, if I complain," she said. "Sometimes I think it would be best if I gave up on men entirely."

Hannah shivered in mock horror at this. "Don't you dare give up, boss! If Burroughs is a creep, there's still half a million guys here in 'Nam for you to pick from!" She sat up suddenly, as if a thought had occurred to her. "Hey, I know just what you need! You remember Rachel and Mary, from the hospital?"

Mabel nodded without much enthusiasm; they were nurses, a cat and a mouse who shared Hannah's sunny and carefree worldview despite working with wounded soldiers all day long. She didn't know them very well, apart from what she'd heard from Hannah, who loved gossip.

"Anyway," Hannah continued. "Mary said that they've been taking care of a couple of wounded Marines, and were invited to a party at the China Beach by their buddies who came to visit in the hospital. I'm sure they won't mind if we come along! It'll be fun, boss: the three B's will do you good!"

Mabel sighed. "Three bees? I'm not sure if I want to know..."

"Beer, barbeque and beefcake!" Hannah said and laughed, making Mabel roll her eyes. "C'mon, boss! You know you'll like it," she said.

Mabel opened her mouth, ready to tell Hannah to go away and leave her alone, but reconsidered. The raccoon was trying to cheer her up, and it wasn't as if she had anything better to do. Mabel knew that if she was left alone, she'd just slide deeper into her funk. "Oh, what the hell; I'll come along," she finally said and sat up.

* * *