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Vietnam '69 - Year of the Cat

By Wakboth

Part Three - Hearts and Minds

---

The village of Cao Sai was perched on the banks of a small tributary of the Perfume River, some forty miles west of Hue; beyond the village stood the wooded foothills of the Truong Son Mountains, forming the natural border between Vietnam in the east and Laos in the west. Officially, the mountains also served as a barrier to the war; in practice, Viet Cong operated out of Laos with impudence, and the US Special Forces units returned the favor by slipping over the border to chase the VC in Laos.

Cao Sai was generally considered as safe a place as any in Quang Trung province, outside the major cities such as Hue and Da Nang. It had neither strategic significance nor economical or political value; all it had was a handful of farmers with their water buffaloes, and a couple of dozen hookers living in an old all-female school, established during the French colonial regime.

The prostitutes welcomed Mabel quite eagerly; US forces, both Marines and the GIs, were their main customers. They arrived, once or twice every week, in trucks from the bases in the region; Mabel got the strong impression that the women serviced VC guerrillas in between the Americans' visits.

After politely assuring the mama-san, a thin, shifty-eyed mongoose woman, that she wasn't here because of her niece Tring, very nice girl, likes American women, ten dollars only, Mabel settled down to work. She took photos of the village and the surrounding rice paddies, of the old school turned into a whorehouse, and of the prostitutes. Some of them tried to cover their faces; others smiled to the camera, revealing teeth in various conditions; most didn't seem to care much one way or the other.

Mabel talked with the women using a mixture of Vietnamese, English and French; most of them spoke a different dialect than Minh, and there were some amusing difficulties. Eventually, they seemed to decide that Mabel was genuinely interested in them, and started to open up, telling her their life stories and occasionally flashing genuine smiles.

The sound of an US Army truck and Jeeps interrupted Mabel's interviews. On one hand, she was annoyed; she had just started to get the girls out of their hardened shell, but now they would automatically slip back into their professional behavior. On the other hand, this was a great chance to interview the GIs; she'd have to promise not to use their names, pictures or unit numbers, but she was sure that she could get one or two of them, at least, to speak with her. To hell with Burroughs, she thought again; if he wouldn't print this, she could always slip it to one of the commercial news agencies.

Then she noticed the mama-san, who was wringing her hands in obvious agitation, running back and forth, talking agitatedly in Vietnamese. She's terrified about this, Mabel realized. Dropping her notebook, she moved to the side of the window and peeked out. What she saw chilled her: instead of GIs, the new arrivals were definitely Vietnamese, and judging by the AK-47's they toted around, they were Viet Cong.

"Oh fuck," Mabel muttered, quickly drawing her head back. Suddenly she wished she'd listened to Minh's worried warnings. She wasn't afraid of being killed - there was a standing reward, rumored to be $25000, for any WACs caught alive, so they could be used for propaganda purposes - but suddenly a POW camp in North Vietnam seemed like a likely near-future prospect for her. And God help her if they somehow found out that she worked for the CIA!

Her only hope was that this was just an unscheduled visit by a bunch of horny guerrillas, and that the mama-san and the girls would keep their mouth shut about having an American journalist in their midst; not as unlikely as it might seem, but not very likely, either. Moving as quickly and quietly as she could, Mabel started looking for a place to hide.

Looking into the corridor, Mabel realized that the hookers were running around like headless chickens. Obviously something strange was going on, but what? Just then, an amplified male voice, speaking Vietnamese, echoed from the front yard. "Women of Cao Sai! The People's National Army of Vietnam requires your cooperation! Please come out and board the truck; you will not be harmed or harassed!" There was a slight pause before the speaker continued in a less friendly tone: "You have five minutes to comply."

The announcement had the effect of driving everyone into complete panic; Mabel could see that the prostitutes had some idea of what was happening, and they were afraid of it. Some of the women had given up and were getting out; men with assault rifles led them to the truck and helped them climb into it.

The best hideout Mabel could find was a small broom closet beneath the attic stairs; the narrow door was papered over and almost vanished in the wall. Any well-organized search would discover the place, but if she was lucky, and the searchers were lazy, they might miss it. A couple of the younger prostitutes had had the same idea; they looked at Mabel with wide, fear-filled eyes as she crammed herself into the small space next to them.

"Your time is out," the voice boomed. "We will now use tear gas." Mabel could hear the dull thudding of the grenade launcher, and the sound of breaking glass. "Oh fuck," she muttered, trying to recall what she had been taught about chemical weapons in her CIA training. "Close your eyes and cover your faces," Mabel told the girls in Vietnamese.

The acrid, peppery stench of CN gas slowly filled the cupboard. Mabel forced herself to breathe slowly and shallowly, through the napkin held over her muzzle, but even so she could feel her eyes watering and lungs starting to burn. The girls, untrained, confused and afraid, were affected faster; coughing and gasping, tears flowing down their faces, they started screaming and flailing, trying to get out.

Mabel swore again and pushed the door open. It was hopeless to try and stay in the closet; they'd choke in the close space. The air in the upper floor was full of white mist that burned her eyes and nose. "We must go outside," she gasped, dragging the girls behind her as she stumbled towards the stairs.

They were the last ones to emerge from the house; a few other women who had tried to hide were lying on the yard, weeping and drawing great gulps of fresh air. A graying cat with the loudspeaker, who seemed to be the leader, watched them with a contemptuous expression on his face. "You should have obeyed in time," he said. "Be thankful that we are humane people, and used a harmless tear gas instead of napalm, like the Americans do."

Eyes still blurred by tears, they were forced to board the truck; curiously, nobody seemed to pay any attention to Mabel, who towered over both the other women and her captors, looking totally out of place in her green uniform. One of the guerrillas, carrying a SMG instead of a Kalashnikov, climbed in after them. The rear ramp was closed and the tarpaulin cover pulled down; the only light came from small rents in the tarpaulin.

As the truck bounced along rutted back roads, Mabel thought of her situation. Conrad and Burroughs knew where she was, but she was not expected to report back until tomorrow evening at the earliest; in that time, she could be far from Cao Sai. Unless she was staggeringly lucky, and her snatchers ran into an American patrol - and if the Americans didn't just shoot up the truck when they noticed who were driving it - there was no rescue coming. That meant she was going to have to escape, and escape quick, before they got to wherever her captors were going.

Hours passed. The truck stopped a few times; once, Mabel heard distant gunfire and the muffled thumping of mortars; at another time, she could hear a group of choppers fly low overhead. The third time was a toilet break, on the shoulder of a badly rutted road winding up between wooded hills; at least one of the guards kept an eye on them all the time, offering Mabel no chance of escape. Their business finished, they boarded the truck again, and the journey continued.

* * *

Comrade Captain Ivan Mihailovich Korichenvy sat at his crude desk in the bamboo hut that served as his combined office and apartment, and listlessly leafed through a yet another report written on flimsy paper. It was astonishing how much paperwork a secret project, hidden in the mountains at the border of Vietnam and Laos, could produce every week, he thought.

At twenty-eight, Ivan had been a golden boy of the KGB. His father, Colonel Mihail Korichenvy, was a hero of the Great Patriotic War and a friend of Marshal Zhukovsky; his maternal uncle Volodja was the dread General Vladimir Popov of KGB's Omega Directorate. With these kinds of connections, his future in the nomenklatura of the Soviet Union was secure, barring major realignments of the Party factions or some terrible mistake from his own part.

His only weakness had been women. With his blonde hair, blue eyes and handsome features, the young bear looked like he had stepped straight out of a '30s propaganda poster; girls had practically begged for the privilege of getting fucked by Ivan until they cried for mercy, and he had gladly obliged them.

Unfortunately, one of the girls which he'd taken to his father's dacha, Tatjana Grolky, had been unhappy with having to share his attentions with two girls from the KGB Academy's soccer team, and in a fit of pique had accused Ivan of raping her. Even more unfortunately, Tatjana's father had happened to be the undersecretary of Heavy Industry, Boris Grolky. It was obvious to everyone who knew both Ivan and Tatjana what the whole thing was about; unfortunately, undersecretary Grolky did not want to listen.

Had he been an ordinary Soviet citizen, Ivan would have found himself in Siberia, doing hard labor for the next twenty years; even an ordinary KGB officer might have found himself at the same camp, stripped of several stripes and ordered to guard the prisoners. His connections, however, had saved him from the worst; Ivan had merely been demoted back to captain and sent to oversee an Omega Directorate project in Vietnam, keeping him out of Grolky's sight.

Now, almost a year later, Ivan was bored to tears with Vietnam. He hated the tropical climate; he longed for honest Russian food, instead of the endless variations of rice, fish and noodles; he had developed a healthy distaste for local liquor with its bottled snakes; and his only fellow Russian at the camp, Dr. Pjotr Pavlovich Volkov, though a genius with neurochemistry, was a dogmatic bore in every other way.

He had even had his fill of the local women, something that neither Ivan nor anyone who knew him could have thought was possible. The testing phases of Project Decadence had supplied him with an essentially endless amount of small, exotic-looking Vietnamese women, but the attraction had worn thin over the months. He now longed for a woman who you could take to bed without having the nagging fear that she might break apart if you were a bit too forceful; someone with hips that you could hold onto, and breasts that you couldn't hide within the cup of your hand.

There was a knock on the door, followed almost immediately by Volkov stepping in. Grey and lean, the KGB doctor was in a very good condition for a man in his mid-forties; only the slight touches of silver in his cheek ruffs indicated his age. "The last subjects have been brought to the camp, Comrade Captain," he said. "Once the preliminary checks are over, I can start the injections."

"Very good, Pjotr Pavlovich," Ivan replied, tossing the report aside. "I'll come over to see if there's anything interesting." Not that he thought there would be, but at least this was a diversion from the paperwork! He pulled on his uniform jacket, with its rank tabs of a major in People's National Army of Vietnam, and followed Volkov out of the hut.

* * *

The truck stopped again, but this time, the driver turned the engine off. Mabel could hear running steps and muffled speech in Vietnamese from the outside. "Get off the truck and get in line," the guard said and hopped off the truck. Nervously, the women obeyed, climbing out one by one; Mabel, sitting at the back, was among the last ones.

She was standing in the middle of a muddy yard, bordered on three sides by lines of bamboo huts. Cammo nets, woven with palm leaves, had been hung above the yard, to hide the place from flying observers, and armed guards in the uniforms of North Vietnamese Army were moving around. All around the small camp rose mountains; above them, the sky was darkening and the first stars were glimmering through the holes in the netting.

Mabel shuddered; this was clearly a guerrilla base, probably on the Laosian side of the border. She knew that escape would be hard, maybe entirely impossible, and felt a quick flash of despair. She wondered if this was how her parents had felt when they had been captured by SS during the last months of the war. Then again, Mom and Dad overpowered those Nazi bastards, she thought. Maybe I can manage to escape, as well.

The appearance of two men from one of the larger huts electrified the guards, who started prodding and herding the women into a line. Looking from the corner of her eye, Mabel could see that both men were Westerners; a middle-aged wolf and a blond bear who could not be many years older than herself. In this place, they had to be Russian advisors; officers of the Red Army if she was lucky, KGB if she wasn't.

They immediately noticed Mabel; several inches taller than even the tallest of the Vietnamese women, she stuck out like a sore thumb. The men stopped before her, the wolf looking angry and the bear suddenly interested. "What is this? Who is she, and why is she here?" the wolf asked in accented Vietnamese from the cat who had led the capturing party.

"I don't know, Comrade Doctor," the cat answered, looking suddenly nervous. "She was with the other women at Cao Sai, so we took her with us."

The wolf rolled his eyes and turned to look back at Mabel. "That's an American uniform; don't you and your men have eyes, sergeant?" he snarled. "She's obviously an American soldier, and you've brought her directly here!"

The bear, who had been looking at Mabel with an expression of obvious interest, shrugged. "Why don't we ask her?" he said in Vietnamese, then addressed Mabel in English that had just a hint of Russian accent. "Well, Sergeant Brown," he said, looking at the name tag in her jacket. "Care to explain what you were doing in that whorehouse in Cao Sai?"

His voice was warm and slightly amused, but Mabel could detect a cold undercurrent in it. She realized that she was, just now, very close to an unmarked grave in the mountainside. Thinking quickly, she decided to try and use the bear's interest to her advantage. "Umm, I'm not a soldier, sir. I, err, I'm... I'm a prostitute, like they are," she said, gesturing at the nervous-looking women around her.

"Ah!" the bear said. "You look like you could earn well in that business," he laughed, giving her an appreciative look, his gaze lingering on her chest before moving back up to her face. "That does not explain the uniform, though."

"It's my specialty, sir," Mabel explained quickly. "I pretend to be a soldier; many GIs get a kick out of it. They like to make a sergeant grovel, and to talk dirty to me."

The bear laughed. "I can believe that they would!" he said. "And your name isn't Brown either, I take it?"

"Actually, yes; that's my name. My name's Brown, Belle Brown," Mabel said, daring to hope that the Russian would believe her. "If you want, I could give you a sample; free of charge, of course!" She gave the bear the best sultry smile that she could manage under these circumstances; she hoped it didn't look as false as it felt.

The wolf had listened to the conversation with an expression of increasing disbelief and impatience. "She's obviously lying," he said in Russian. "I suggest we take her out back and shoot her; she has already seen too much." Mabel noticed him putting his hand on the grip of his pistol.

The bear studied Mabel for a moment and nodded. "You are either a very clever whore, or a very desperate soldier," he said, a hint of what seemed genuine sadness in his voice, "and I'm afraid that I must treat you as the latter one. Such a damn shame, but you should have been more careful where you went, Belle."

Mabel swallowed hard. Well, that was it, she thought, closing her eyes as the wolf grabbed her arm and dragged her from the group. Shot in the back of my head at the age of twenty-four, buried in the jungle, missing in action. Goodbye, Mom, Dad; goodbye, Minh; goodbye, Chuck and Hannah...

"She's telling the truth." The female voice, strangely familiar, spoke clear Vietnamese. "I've seen her in Da Nang; she's very popular among both the enlisted men and the officers. She is a very clever whore, as you said, Comrade Captain Korichenvy; a perfect example of the rot that gnaws at the capitalist system of America."

Mabel opened her eyes. The impossible had happened: her lie had been confirmed! But who, and why...? She turned her head slowly, until she saw the speaker: a small cat, dressed in the uniform of a lieutenant of the NVA. For what seemed like an eternity, Mabel's mind refused to understand what - who - she was seeing. It couldn't be Minh; it was impossible!

Korichenvy looked at the cat, then at Mabel, and finally nodded. "Very well, Lieutenant Trung," he said, a hint of relief evident in his voice. "Pjotr Pavlovich," he said, addressing the wolf in Russian. "I think we can trust her vouching. I think this American might turn out to be a useful asset."

The wolf shrugged and let go of Mabel, causing her to stumble and fall to the ground on her knees. All she could think of was Minh, standing next to Korichenvy, an expression of pure contempt on her face. A terrible, cold weight seemed to fill her stomach, and she felt hardly able to breathe. For the first time in her life, Mabel realized how true the old cliché of having your heart broken really was.

* * *

Mabel was marched into the largest hut and quickly inspected by a monkey girl wearing a nurse's smock over field pants; the monkey looked into her eyes, nose and mouth, listened to her lungs, took her pulse and finally shaved a small, bald patch into her fur at the crook of her elbow, while another nurse made her to stand up on scales. "Seventy-four kilograms," she called.

The wolf, who had put on a white lab coat, stepped up to her, filling a syringe from a small vial full of clear liquid. Mabel could see the number ten on its label. "Female bear, age about twenty-five; appears to be in good condition; mesomorphic body type," the wolf said aloud. "Sixty milligrams should do it; no, better make it seventy."

Mabel tried to pull away, but found herself immediately grabbed from behind by the two nurses; for all of their small size, they knew how to apply their strength, obviously having had much practice in holding involuntary subjects in place. "Do not try to struggle," the wolf said in broken English, sticking the needle into Mabel's arm. "This will not harm you."

The drug felt cold as it entered her bloodstream, but it was followed almost immediately by a warm, tingling feeling that rapidly spread from the point of injection. Mabel felt light-headed as she was dragged away by the guards.

She was taken into another room that had been divided into bamboo cages or cells, and put into one. Mabel didn't pay much attention to her surroundings; she was feeling hot, almost feverish. The tingling had spread to encompass her whole body, but it seemed to be concentrating in her mouth and genital region. Soon it felt as if her pussy was on fire, yet the sensation was not unpleasant. In fact, it was starting to feel better and better every second...

Gritting her teeth in frustration, Mabel tried to focus on other things, like how relatively nice her cage was, or how the guards were bringing in the other women, placing them in different cages, or how they were whimpering and moaning, under the effect of the drug... Almost without realizing it, Mabel undid her pants and started to masturbate.

Her sex felt hot and swollen, as if she had been fucking for hours. Mabel had to bite her lip to keep from crying out as she slid first one, then two fingers into herself. Her whole body seemed to throb with lust; even the feeling of her bra against her oversensitive breasts felt like the hands of a lover. In no time, she was creaming, her juices feeling burning hot against her fingers.

After her second orgasm, Mabel felt in control once again, but the feverish feeling and the tingling remained. The moans and choked gasps coming from all around the room told her that the other women were similarly affected. Listening to them, she had to fight the temptation to start playing with herself again.

Slowly, the sounds of pleasure and lust died down, and Mabel felt the unnatural lust fade. She could still feel it lurking beneath the surface of her mind, and knew that it would take very little prompting to overwhelm her again. Physically and mentally weary, she lay down on the bedding and tried to rest.

Some time later, the sound of approaching footsteps made Mabel look up. It was Minh, still in her uniform. The cat stopped in front of Mabel's cage, keeping well back from the bars. "You were right when you said we'd meet soon again, Mabel" she said, looking at the bear with a strange expression on her face.

Mabel sat up and stared at the cat. "I thought that you actually felt something for me," she said in a low, bitter voice "That little game of yours, with the haughty French mistress and the Vietnamese serving girl... It was all a sham, wasn't it? And I bought your act, hook, line and sinker. God, I feel stupid!"

Minh shook her head. "It was no act," she said in a small voice. "I loved you, Mabel, I really did. You are so beautiful and strong... I've been strong since I was a little girl, since my parents were killed during the French war. I wanted to be weak, to be made to obey, and then you came and made me your kitten..." She looked away. "Why did you think I lied to them? I couldn't let them kill you!"

"Oh, very thoughtful of you," Mabel said, her voice dripping sarcasm. "What shall we do now? I could play the part of the servant if you like." Images of herself kneeling before Minh, being made to lick her boots flashed through Mabel's head, and she felt a hot flash in her loins. With difficulty, she concentrated on her feelings of betrayal and anger, and the images passed.

"Don't say that!" Minh yelled at her; Mabel saw tears in the cat's eyes. "Do you think I wanted this?" she hissed in a more quiet voice. "I tried to warn you, to keep you away from Cao Sai, but you had to go! We could have been so happy!"

Mabel shook her head. "You lied to me, Minh. It could have never lasted. I would have found out, sooner or later." She looked at the bamboo bars separating them and gave a short, bitter laugh. "And then it would have been you in the cage, instead of me."

Minh did not answer, and for a while they watched each other in silence. Mabel thought how she wanted to punish the cat; she imagined her stripped naked and tied, spread-eagled, to the bars of the cage. She could almost hear Minh crying and mewling as she flogged the cat with her belt...

A quiet moan from Minh returned Mabel to reality. The cat was looking at her with lust in her eyes. "I never thought it would be like this," she whispered. "Volkov told me, but I didn't realize..."

"You were given the shot too, weren't you?" Mabel asked. "What was that stuff, Minh? If you really loved me, tell me what it was. I feel like I'm on fire!"

The cat looked quickly around her and stepped closer to the cage. "It is a KGB drug," Minh said in a low voice. "Volkov says they invented it, but they might have stolen it from someone else. They call it Decadence; it goes to your brain and your genitals, and stays there. All of your bodily fluids become contaminated by it; if you kiss someone, or have sex with them, they are also affected."

Mabel looked at the other cages and at the Vietnamese women in them. "The hookers. They're injected with it, and they pass it on to their customers. But why? I can't understand why KGB would try and make American soldiers any hornier than they already are..."

"Decadence makes you susceptible to hypnosis," Minh said. "You can be implanted with hidden orders in just a few moments, and you'll forget them until someone says the code words, years later. They are going to riddle the American military with sleeper agents. And I'll be doing my part, like a good communist."

More tears flowed down her cheeks. "Do you wonder why I'm telling you all this? They will wipe your memory of this place and of everything that happened here. You'll be back in Cao Sai with a hole in your memory, but you can't even remember that you can't remember. Maybe sometimes, in your dreams, this will come back, but when you wake up, the only thing you can remember is that you had a terrible nightmare. And I will hug you tight, and kiss you, and make you forget the bad dreams... Isn't it ironic? It will all be a lie to me, but you will never know."

Minh turned away, her shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. "Korichenvy will want to see you," she said in a choked voice. "He's quite smitten with you; I've heard him say that we Vietnamese women are too small for his tastes. You must play along with him, if you want to live. Though I don't think you have much choice, with all the Decadence that Volkov gave you. Goodbye, Mabel. We shall soon meet again, and all this will be just a bad dream..." She walked away quickly, without looking back.

* * *

Two guards arrived soon after Minh had left. "Get up," one of them said in bad English. "You, Captain want see you."

They walked Mabel across the dark yard, to the house she had noticed earlier. The guard who had spoken to her knocked on the door. "The American whore is here, Comrade Captain," he called in Vietnamese. Mabel couldn't hear the answer, but the guards opened the door and pushed her in.

The hut looked like a combined office and an apartment, with a rickety desk piled with maps, papers, ashtrays full of cigarette stubs, empty glasses and bottles, and other junk, and a tent bed at the back of the room. The blonde bear, Korichenvy, lounged in a chair behind his desk; his uniform jacket hung from a peg in the wall.

"Good. You may leave," Korichenvy told her escorts who saluted and retreated from the hut. He turned the gaze of his blue eyes to Mabel, and studied her in silence, a slight smile on his face.

Mabel could feel the Russian's gaze on her body as an almost physical touch; she could feel her cheeks burn as the chemically induced lust stirred in her. "You wanted to see me, sir?" she said in English, trying to sound like she thought the enterprising prostitute Belle Brown would sound in this situation: nervous, eager to please, and horny. She had to get Korichenvy off his guard, if she was going to have any chance of escaping.

"You don't have to call me "sir", Belle," Korichenvy said with a charming smile. "I'm not one of your usual customers, so let us drop the military manner, shall we? You can call me Ivan." He gestured towards another chair. "Please, sit down."

"Thank you... Ivan," Mabel said and sat down, returning the Russian bear's smile. Damn, but he looked good; she could already feel herself being turned on!

The bear pulled a bottle out of the drawer of his desk, and poured a generous amount of pale yellow liquor in two glasses. "Terrible stuff," he said, showing her the bottle with the preserved snake in it. "Not at all appropriate to drink with a beautiful girl like you. Unfortunately, I emptied my last bottle of vodka last week; had I known I would have such a charming guest as you, I would have kept it for you."

He offered Mabel one of the glasses, taking a little sip of his own. "Well, Belle, you seem to be a clever girl; would you like to tell me what you think of this place?" Although Ivan's expression remained friendly, even amiable, his voice made it clear that it was not a request but a command.

Mabel tasted the liquor; it was strong, close to hundred proofs, and indeed tasted terrible. "I can think of many possibilities," she said, "and to be honest, all of them scare me." Ivan nodded, prompting her to continue. "This place is a Viet Cong training camp, isn't it? I mean, you and your friend - excuse me, your comrade - are Russians, and there are armed men everywhere. We're probably in Laos already. So... what I think is that those shots were antibiotics, and that I and the other ladies have some very hard work ahead of us. And I don't think Viet Cong is going to pay as well as the American soldiers," she said and took another sip.

"Bravo, Belle!" Ivan said, smiling broadly. "You are a perceptive and intelligent woman; I like that. And you seem able to keep your head cool in a situation like this; that's much rarer, in men as well as in women." He took a good swig of the snake liquor and studied Mabel again. "I'm intrigued by you, Belle; most women who take up your particular line of business are not as beautiful or intelligent as you are. I'd like to hear a bit about your background. Go on, have another drink!"

Mabel took a gulp of the liquor and shuddered as it flowed into her stomach, burning all the way. The alcohol seemed to suppress her mounting lust a bit, but she could feel it starting to go into her head, and that was a bad thing; she was going to need as much of her wits as she could. "Well, I'm a soldier's daughter," she began.

"Ah!" Ivan said. "We have a connection, then; my father is a soldier, as well; a veteran of the Great Patriotic War. Did your father fight in that war?"

"Yes, he did," Mabel said. "They kicked him out after the war, just when I was born." She didn't mention that her dad had taken advantage of the GI bill, gotten an engineering degree and founded a machine shop after the war. "Then came the war in Korea, and he was recalled into service." In truth, Dad had volunteered, but that didn't fit the story she was telling. "He was wounded there," Mabel added a hint of bitterness in her voice. "Grenade shrapnel in his leg." This was true; her father still had a limp and a foreknowledge of shifts in the weather, but nothing like the invalidity she was implying.

"My mother had to work to support us," Mabel said, telling near-truths again. Her mother did work as a schoolteacher, but not because of any need for money; Congressman Johnson, a former Army superior of her father and an old friend of her parents, had arranged that his company had been accepted as a subcontractor on some defense contracts. "They couldn't afford to send me to college," she continued. This, again, was true after a fashion: Mabel had attended Madison College, instead of the more prestigious - and a lot more expensive - William & Mary. "So I had to face the choice: either sell my work at the factory, at minimum wage, or sell my body, on my own terms. You can see which one I chose."

Ivan looked sympathetic. "That is a sad story, Belle," he said. "In Soviet Union, your father would have been treated differently. We have free college education, for all capable citizens; you could have freely participated in the building of a better, Communist future, instead of having to face a choice between wage slavery and prostitution."

Mabel could not tell how genuinely the bear believed his own words, but she certainly didn't. Nor would Belle. "I don't know," she said, taking another gulp of liquor. "I'm a free woman now, and I make my own decisions. And my job isn't all that bad; most of the time, the customer does all the work while I get to lie in the bed," she said, giving Ivan a lecherous grin.

"Your customers seem to be lousy capitalists," Ivan joked. "If I were one of them, I would demand more for my money's worth."

"Oh, they never complain," Mabel said, her voice low and husky. "They're working class, like me; they're used to doing the hard work, even if it's them doing the screwing." Images of herself, lying on the tent bed, while Ivan fucked her, flashed in her mind; she could feel herself getting wet at the mere thought.

Ivan threw his head back and laughed loudly. "Oh, you are amazing!" he said. "I haven't had a conversation like this in months!" He looked at Mabel with lust in his eyes. "You speak very well, Belle. Are your lips and mouth as talented with... other things, as well?"

Mabel smiled. "Oh, yes! Do you want me to demonstrate?" she asked. The sexual fire inside her was burning hotter all the time; it was taking real effort to not tear off her clothes and beg for the Russian bear to fill her yearning slit. Even the thought of sucking his cock was making her dizzy with desire; a cavalcade of dicks belonging to her lovers passed before her mind's eye.

As a reply, the bear stood up from his chair and opened his pants, his erection standing proudly up. It wasn't as big as Charley's, but still well above the average, and a quick glance at Ivan's grin told Mabel that the bear was quite proud of himself. A faint flicker of distaste at this kind of male arrogance appeared in her mind, before vanishing.

The sight of the erect cock was making Mabel unable to concentrate; she felt herself starting to drool. She retained enough self-control not to just rush and grab the prize, but with the Decadence burning in her veins, it was getting harder and harder to think. "Mmm... that is very impressive," she murred, slowly opening her shirt and taking off her bra; she was certain that Ivan would enjoy the sight of her boobs; not to mention that it would make it easier for herself to play with her breasts! Breathing heavily, she kneeled before Ivan and reached for his shaft.

The door of the hut was thrust open, making them both jump. From the corner of her eye, Mabel could see the wolf, Volkov, striding in, looking angry. She found her attention turning back to Ivan's cock, so close to her tingling mouth, and tried to move closer, but the bear's hand on her forehead stopped her. Mabel almost wanted to cry for being denied the pleasure of pleasing him!

"What the hell are you doing?" Volkov growled in Russian; Mabel could hear and understand the words, but they seemed to come from somewhere far away. With all of her willpower, she forced her to concentrate on listening; perhaps he would say something important.

"What does it look like, Pjotr Pavlovich?" Ivan asked, sounding annoyed and amused. "I'm bored with these Vietnamese guerrilla girls and the Laosian hill monkeys; I'm not going to let a bear like her slip through my fingers! Just look at her breasts, damn it! Don't tell me you don't want to fuck her too!"

"I'm a married man," Volkov said stiffly, making Ivan laugh.

"Yes, you are," Ivan said. "But your Ludmilla is six thousand kilometers away, in Kazan! How long has it been since you last saw her, anyway? Two years?"

"Twenty-two months," Volkov admitted, looking at bare-breasted Mabel kneeling at Ivan's feet, her mouth hanging slightly open and a trickle of saliva falling to her chest.

"Want to have her?" Ivan asked. "She's full of Decadence; you should feel her straining against my hand, wanting to suck me off! I bet you want to try out how your big invention really works..."

Volkov was silent for a moment, and Mabel's attention started to turn back towards Ivan. "You're a persuasive bastard, Ivan Mihailovich," he said finally. "One time, just for science. And you will keep silent about this!"

"Of course," Ivan said, turning Mabel's head to the side so that she could see Volkov. "Well, Belle, it seems that you're indeed up for some hard work tonight," he said in English again. "My comrade, Dr. Volkov, would also like a demonstration. Be good for him, and I will be good to you."

Normally, Mabel wouldn't have paid much attention to Volkov; he wasn't exactly bad-looking, but he was at least twenty years older than her. Now, however, the wolf seemed very alluring indeed, and Mabel found herself imaging him taking her from behind, in the canine fashion. "Yes, sir," she said and quickly clambered over to Volkov.

As she started opening his pants, Volkov got agitated. "Ivan Mihailovich, the antidote!" he said in Russian. "I left mine in the laboratory; you must give me the pills, quickly!" Ivan took a small bottle of pills from his desk drawer and tossed it to the wolf, who opened it with shaking hands. Several small, white pills fell out, clattering to the floor, and the wolf swore. Finally, he managed to get one out and swallow it; and none too soon.

Mabel had the wolf's cock out in the open; he wasn't particularly impressive, but in her current state, the sight of his meat made her head spin. With an effort of will, she held back for a moment, shifting to a slightly different position on the floor. Then she allowed the Decadence to take over.

Her mind full of lust, Mabel slipped the wolf's cock into her mouth, sucking and licking its head. The salty taste of precum made her think for a moment that he would be a quick to come, but as Volkov showed no other sign of an approaching climax, she realized it was just a matter of his canine ancestry; one of her boyfriends in the college had been a Dalmatian, and had done the same thing.

Growling with pleasure, Volkov started thrusting into her muzzle, taking an active part in the blowjob. At first, Mabel found it pleasant; the friction of his cock sliding against her tongue and palate sent shivers of pleasure through her body, making her imagine another cock in her pussy. Volkov was getting rougher, however; he was now holding her ears tightly, almost painfully, and his thrusts were going deeper, his cockhead touching the back of her throat and making her gag.

If not for the Decadence, Mabel would have struggled or given a warning nip, refusing to be used like this; now, she could not stop sucking at him. Luckily, Volkov's endurance didn't match his roughness; he was panting, with his tongue lolling out, and thrusting faster and faster. With a final thrust that pressed Mabel's nose into the grey fur of his belly, he hilted his cock in her muzzle and came with a howl of pleasure, forcing her to swallow his come.

Shaking slightly, Volkov let go of Mabel's ears and pulled out of her muzzle; despite everything, she was feeling disappointed that he had finished so quickly. As she licked his softening cock clean, Volkov shuddered again. "She's too much for an older man like me," the wolf said Ivan in Russian. "Decadence could make a whore out of an angel; it has made a demon out of a whore. She's all yours, Ivan Mihailovich, but return her to the cages when you are done with her. I want to do the memory wipes early tomorrow morning."

Pushing Mabel off, the wolf turned away and left, leaving Mabel alone with Ivan. "Well, Belle; how did you find him?" the bear asked her.

"He was rough," Mabel said truthfully. "I like rough men, but... not like him," she finished, making Ivan laugh.

"Rough but gentle, eh? Well, Belle, come here and we'll see if I can be both rough and gentle enough for you!"

The bear's erection had slackened, but even semi-hard, his cock was quite impressive. "Go on," Ivan said, pouring himself another glass of liquor. "Make me hard again, and we'll see what happens next."

Mabel did not have to fake enthusiasm as she slid her tongue along Ivan's shaft; he was so much bigger than Volkov! He couldn't fit into her muzzle; she would have to take him into her throat, if she wanted to taste all of him, and the thought made her shiver with delicious nervousness.

Murring softly, Mabel caressed the bear's hardening dick with her mouth, her hands playing with his large testicles. Hungrily, she licked her way down along the underside of his erection and sucked his balls into her mouth, rolling them on her tongue and making the bear groan. "You are good at this, aren't you?" he said, looking at her.

As a reply, Mabel worked her way back up to his cockhead and started lapping at it. "It is easy when I have so much to work with," she whispered, drawing a chuckle out of Ivan, and started sliding her mouth down his pole. She had been right about the size of it, compared to her muzzle; there was still an inch or so of Ivan's cock outside her mouth, when she felt the head press against her throat.

Gagging slightly, she pulled slightly back and started to suck him in the earnest: hard suction, with his cock deep in her mouth, her lips and tongue working on his shaft, followed by pulling back and giving more attention to the glans. Mabel liked giving blowjobs, but this was something different; this time, it was as if her mouth and her cunt had been wired together. She could feel vagina twitch and spasm in time with her sliding Ivan's dick in and out of her mouth, and realized that she would soon come from sucking him off!

The Russian bear was enjoying her actions as well; he had put his glass aside, and was now groaning and growling with pleasure. Mabel could see his balls clenching and felt his cock starting to swell, and knew he would come soon. She pulled back for a moment, looking at him with her mouth hanging slightly open, trails of saliva connecting her lips and his cock. "I want your cum," she panted. "Where you want to come... on my face..." She gave him a quick little lick. "Or on my tits..." Another lick. "Or in my mouth?"

Instead of speaking, Ivan put his hands back on her head, and pushed Mabel back down onto his cock. She blinked to show that she understood, and resumed her fellatio. This time, she was taking him as deeply as she could, trying to swallow the full length of his shaft and eventually succeeding. That did it; grunting, he started to come. Mabel quickly pulled back; she wanted to taste his cum. The feel of his hot, salty, slimy semen flowing into her mouth was lovely, and she shuddered, a mini-orgasm going off in her loins.

"Goddamn, but you're good," Ivan panted. "The only girl here who can take me all the way in her muzzle is a mongoose, and I worry about her teeth all the time..." He poured more liquor and thrust the glass at Mabel. "Here, you can clear your mouth," he ordered.

Mabel wouldn't have wanted; she enjoyed the aftertaste of the bear's cum, but she daren't disobey. She knocked the liquor all back, and coughed as it burned in her mouth. She could feel herself getting drunk; combined with the effect of the Decadence, it was becoming hard to think at all.

"I love your breasts, Belle," Ivan said, looking appreciatively at Mabel. "Nice and big and round. Let the French keep their little tits fitting in a champagne glass; I can see why they conquered this place!" He turned and swept the papers off of his desk, pushing them carelessly to the floor. "Come on; take off your pants and get on the desk," he told Mabel.

She undressed quickly; Ivan laughed as she peeled her wet panties off of her fur. "You're a horny girl, Belle," he said. "Your business must be very good if you're half this eager normally!"

The bear sat her on the desk and stood up, his erection returning again. It must be due to Decadence, Mabel thought in some remote corner of her mind. He's taken an antidote, but the drug is still having an effect on him.

Ivan took the liquor bottle and poured the last of it on Mabel's breasts; she shuddered as the alcohol burned her nipples. The bear tossed the empty bottle with its snake over his shoulder and leaned closer. "This is the only good way to drink this stuff in the company of a beautiful woman," he said and started licking the liquor off from her fur.

Mabel moaned loudly, the feeling of Ivan's tongue on her breasts bringing back memories of Minh doing the same thing. The pleasure she was feeling now became mixed with the pleasure remembered, and she whimpered, squirming under the Russian's attentions.

"I think you are about ready," Ivan said, straightening again. "You've been waiting for this, haven't you?" he said as he pressed the tip of his penis against Mabel's wet labia.

Mabel felt delirious, unable to wait for the pleasure she knew would soon come. "Yes, yes!" she cried. "I want it! I need it! Push that great, big cock into me! Please, fuck me!" she begged.

Laughing, Ivan complied; the sensation of the hard cock sliding into her wet folds was the best that Mabel could remember. "Yeeeesss! Thank you, ohhh thank you soooo much!"

"Well, well," Ivan said, pushing deeper into Mabel's loose cunt. "You're a real eager slut, aren't you?" She shuddered, feeling every vein and bump in his cock as it stretched her hypersensitive vagina out.

"Yes, yes, yes! I'm your slut," she moaned. "I'm your slut, I'm your whore, I'm your bitch, I'm your fucktoy! I'll be anything you want; I'll do anything, please, anything! Just fuck meeee!"

"How could I... unh! Refuse... unh! Such a... unh! request!", Ivan grunted, starting to thrust into her. He leaned over her, starting to squeeze her breasts with his big hands. "You're... nngh! Quite a handful!"

Mabel was beyond speech, now; she stared at the bear pounding into her without really seeing him, her whole world narrowing to the feeling of his hands on her breasts, of his hips slamming into her body, and most importantly, of his magnificent cock filling her pussy.

She felt another of the mini-orgasms coming; it made her cunt flutter around Ivan's dick and made the bear groan. It was quickly followed by another, slightly bigger one, and then another one... Like a string of firecrackers, they went off one after another.

Mabel could hear someone screaming; distantly, she realized it was her own voice. Then the big one hit her, the orgasm that all the previous ones had merely hinted at, and filled her body with fiery pleasure so great that it was almost painful. She could feel her pussy clenching on Ivan's dick, milking him in rhythmic spasms, and felt him come again, deep inside her.

Slowly, she returned to her senses. Ivan was staring at her with an astonished expression on his face, his mouth hanging open. "Boju moje! That has never happened with any woman I've been with," he said, his voice hoarse. "Never! How much Decadence did that bastard Volkov give you?!"

Mabel groaned, her body shuddering from exertion and feeling completely spent. She, too, had never felt like that; once, with Minh, she'd come four times in a row, but it had been nothing compared to this.

She felt Ivan pull his cock out of her; to her astonishment, he was getting hard again. The bear looked just as astonished, and swore in Russian. "What the hell? I'm going to ask that fucker some pointed questions," he muttered. Then he looked at Mabel, lying there before her, and smiled. "Not quite yet, though..."

He pushed a large finger into Mabel's pussy and pulled it out, covered with the slick mixture of her juices and his semen. "There's one more thing I'd like to get from you, Belle," Ivan said, moving his hand lower, between her buttocks and touching her tailhole. "The local girls are too tight-assed for me to enjoy," he said, rubbing her rear entrance with his finger. "You, on the other hand, look like someone who might appreciate it."

In truth, Mabel didn't care for anal sex; she had tried it, like she had tried everything else, and found it to be painful at worst, and boring at best. Some girls loved it, or at least learned to like it, but she had no inclination for it. Yet now, as soon as Ivan had mentioned it, she found herself wanting it.

"Yes... fuck me in my ass," she moaned, feeling the Decadence-burn spread to her tailhole from the pussy juices on Ivan's finger. He didn't reply, concentrating on loosening her with his finger.

"I'll try to be gentle," the bear eventually said, pressing his slick cock against her ass and pushing slowly into her.

Mabel gasped; he felt big as a log in her ass, unused to such an intrusion. The burning feeling intensified, mixing with the pain from being stretched out, making her shiver. The feeling wasn't exactly pleasant in the way having Ivan plowing her cunt had been, but she found herself wanting more. "Uhh... please, deeper..." she gasped, reaching out and pinching her nipples with her hands.

Ivan nodded, and pushed a bit deeper; he had only about half of his length in Mabel, but that was more than enough. As he slowly started to fuck her tailhole, he moved one hand to her spread-out pussy and started to probe it gently. "Damn, you are tight," the bear grunted. "Don't the GIs want a taste of your ass?"

Mabel had difficulty remembering what Ivan was talking about. "It costs... extra... owhh..." she managed. "Awww fuck! Yesss, do that again..."

Despite his eagerness, Ivan couldn't last long; this was his third time in just an hour, and he came quickly, shooting his load into her ass. The unfamiliar sensation caused another, semi-pleasant spasm in Mabel's pussy, but that was all; she was feeling sore and tired as the effects of Decadence subsided.

Ivan collapsed in his chair, a satisfied grin on his face. "What an evening," he said, taking another bottle of snake liquor from his desk drawer. "You're certainly a very special woman, Belle; I won't forget you in a long time..."

"Nor I you," Mabel sighed, feeling too weak to get up, content to just lay on Ivan's desk. "God, that orgasm was the best I've ever had..."

"Oh, you will," Ivan said, taking a swig of booze straight from the bottle. "You will," he repeated, looking tired. "Hell, I'd better take you back like I said to Volkov." He stood up, staggering slightly. "Can you walk?"

Mabel tried to get up, but her rubbery legs couldn't carry her, and she almost collapsed. The bear grunted, and crouched to pick up Mabel's clothes, throwing them into her lap. "To hell with it; I'll carry you," he promised.

It was easier said than done - Mabel was a big woman - but Ivan managed it. He almost struck her head at the doorframe as they left his hut, and stumbled a couple of times on the dark courtyard, but they eventually got to Mabel's cage without any trouble. "There you go," Ivan said, laying Mabel down on the bedding in the corner of the cage. "Sleep tight, Belle; tomorrow, all this will be just a dream."

He turned to go and hit his head on the low frame of the cage's door; holding his head and cursing in Russian, Ivan locked the door and staggered away, leaving Mabel alone. With her last bit of strength, she pulled her pants to her and looked through the pockets, until she found it: the antidote pill she had snatched from the floor while blowing Volkov. Only then did she allow the sleep to claim her.

* * *

The hangover on the next morning was a lot worse than what Mabel had had after the night on the beach; her head was pounding from all the snake liquor she'd drunk into an empty stomach, her tongue felt as furred as her arms, her fur was a sticky mess, her pussy and ass were sore, and to top it all, she was ravenously hungry, having missed the evening meal while fucking the Russians.

The breakfast was simply boiled rice, but she wolfed it down hungrily, licking the bowl clean. She felt a bit better after that, and managed to use some of her water to clean up her face and hands a bit.

Feeling the antidote pill in her pocket, Mabel wondered how it would work: would it remove the Decadence from her body entirely, or just neutralize it for a moment? And how quickly would it work? Finally, she swallowed it, washing the pill down with the last of her water. Now she couldn't lose the pill, or be found with it.

Perhaps half an hour later, the doors were opened and the guards walked in, starting to open cages and drag the Vietnamese women out. Mabel was the last one to be taken; she recognized the cat who had led the capturing party as one of the guards.

They were marched through the connecting door, back into the room where they had been given the injections. This time Mabel could look around her; she saw several work loaded with laboratory equipment and shelves full of chemicals standing at the back of the room. At the other side of the room were a screen and a film projector, and several benches facing the screen.

Mabel and the rest of the women were made to sit down and wait. Soon, Volkov appeared, followed by his two nurses and a rather hung-over looking Ivan; Mabel felt a faint flicker of lust in brain at seeing him, but nothing like the unnatural desire caused by the Decadence. Apparently, the antidote was working.

"You must all be very confused about what is going on," Ivan said in fluent if accented Vietnamese, standing in front of the screen, his hands behind his back. "Rest assured that we have the best interests of yourself, your people and your nation in our minds. The following film will explain it all better than I could do," he said in a friendly but authoritative voice. "The lights, please!"

The lights were turned off, and Ivan moved away from the screen. Mabel could hear Volkov fumbling with the projector behind her, and was surprised to find Ivan sitting down next to her. "I'll be narrating the film for you in English," he said in a low voice. "It will answer all your questions."

An image of Ho Chi Minh, flanked by the flags of North Vietnam and Soviet Union, appeared on the screen, accompanied by a rousing music. The first few minutes of the film seemed quite like the standard propaganda stuff, but Mabel's trained eyes and ears noticed something odd; the film seemed to flicker too much, and the narrator was talking more directly to the viewers than usual.

Then, quite suddenly, the propaganda pictures vanished, replaced by a complex pattern of concentric circles and overlapping geometric figures; it reminded Mabel vaguely of the Buddhist mandalas. As the pattern started moving, the circles rotating and counter-rotating, while bizarre fern-like swirls appeared in the background, growing rapidly only to be replaced by similar patterns growing out from their details; the whole effect was dizzying, making Mabel feel like she was plunging at great speed through some weird space.

"You are relaxed and at peace," Ivan whispered into her ear; around her, the Vietnamese girls stared raptly at the screen, listening to the soft voice speaking in Vietnamese. "You feel calm, very calm. Watch at the pattern; see it flow through you, through your mind... You are relaxed and at peace."

The effect was hypnotic; Mabel had to strain her will to keep from letting Ivan's words and the flickering pictures to carry her away. Without the antidote, she would have had no chance at all. "You remember everything since you were taken from Cao Sai," Ivan whispered. "You see the memories clear in your mind. You see the pattern flow through the memories. You are relaxed and at peace."

The patterns were flowing faster on the screen, and Ivan's whispers were becoming stronger, more commanding. "The pattern flows through the memories. It flows through them and takes them away. Your mind is clear and empty. There are no memories, only the pattern. You are relaxed and at peace."

Around her, she could hear the girls whispering quietly in Vietnamese. "We are relaxed and at peace..."

"The pattern fills your mind," Ivan said. "There are no memories; there are no thoughts. You are relaxed and at peace. You will obey the orders; the orders are part of the pattern. There is only the pattern. Until you hear these words again, there is only the pattern," he said. "Apricot, persimmon, banana. When you hear those words, the pattern will be gone, and you will be relaxed and at peace. You will not remember anything; there are no memories or thoughts. You are relaxed and at peace."

The film ended, and someone turned the lights on. The Vietnamese women were staring blankly at the screen, and Mabel did likewise. She managed to not move as Ivan gave her a quick kiss on the cheek as he stood up and walked back to the front.

"Everyone, stand up. You will walk to the truck outside the building and climb in. It will take you back to Cao Sai," he said in Vietnamese; the girls around Mabel stood up as one and walked out. She could see the feline nurse look at them with a pity in her eyes.

Ivan walked back to Mabel and pulled her up by her hand. "This is where we part, Belle," he said. "Go to the truck outside and climb in. You'll be back home, minding your business, before you know it."

Mimicking the hypnotized hookers, Mabel turned and walked out, without looking back. She climbed into the truck, fearing all the time that either Ivan or Volkov would call her, shouting that she wasn't hypnotized at all, and that she was to be shot. Nobody shouted, however, and the truck started on its return journey.

* * *

The return trip seemed to take less time; Mabel assumed they were driving a different way back. They had to stop only once this time; she couldn't hear anything, but the truck stood in place for nearly ten minutes before moving again.

It was just after noon as they finally reached Cao Sai. The rear door was lowered, and the hookers climbed obediently out, lining up before the former school that was now their brothel. The cat who had led the capture party, now wearing the uniform of the South Vietnamese army, walked to them and said a few words in Vietnamese that Mabel couldn't recognize. The women shuddered and blinked, looking like they had just woken from deep sleep. Confusedly, they returned to the building, while the cat offered the mama-san a stack of bills and a bottle of snake liquor. "Compliments of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam," he said with a big grin. "Your women more than earned their pay!"

The mongoose woman blinked, then smiled and slipped the bills into her clothes. "Certainly, lieutenant! If you and your men ever desire company again, we are most eager to help you!" Bowing, she quickly backed in, no doubt wanting to count the money before her employees started to demand their share of the pay.

The cat walked up to Mabel, who did her best to look as mindless as the hookers had been. "Apricot, persimmon, banana," he said in badly accented English, reading from a slip of paper he had taken from his pocket. Mabel shuddered, pretending to be awakened. "You're a big woman," the cat said with a smirk, and gave Mabel's rump a slap that made her yelp. "But I bet you won't overlook us smaller men again, eh?"

Chuckling, he climbed into the truck's cabin. Mabel remained still, standing in front of the whorehouse, watching the truck drive away. Only when it had vanished from sight, did she start to run.

* * *

It was late in the evening when Mabel returned in Da Nang; she had walked for several miles, before managing to hitch a ride in a Vietnamese boat sailing down the Perfume River that had taken her near Hue. There, using her credentials as a military correspondent as well as all of her sex appeal, she had managed to get onto a supply chopper heading back to Da Nang.

All the day, she had felt the effect of the antidote fading, and the tingling that indicated the presence of Decadence returning; Mabel sincerely hoped that the scientists at CIA would manage to somehow neutralize the stuff entirely, or at least reproduce the antidote. She did not want to go through the rest of her life like some pornographic version of Typhoid Mary, ready to fuck everyone she met, but unable to do so because of the chemical she was carrying!

Back at the base, Mabel ran straight to Conrad's office; never mind her modesty, her superior had to learn what had happened, and fast. She had no idea where Minh was; here, in Hue, or in some other place, nor of how many men she might already have infected.

Conrad's secretary had long gone, but there was still faint light coming from under his office door; Mabel knew that Conrad often worked late. She knocked urgently on the door. "Sir? It's Sergeant Brown; I must speak with you immediately!"

There was no answer, and Mabel repeated her call. Still no answer. She swore and tried the door; it was locked. And knowing Conrad, it was not a lock she could pick, at least quickly or without a professional set of tools. She drew a deep breath, and gave the door a kick, just beneath the lock, with all of her strength.

With a crash, the door flew open, and Mabel rushed in. There was no sign of her boss, and the room was dark except for his desk lamp. Beneath the lamp, in an ugly clay ashtray made by one of Conrad's daughter, Mabel found the stump of a familiar-looking cigarette. Conrad did not smoke; he used the ashtray only when he had visitors.

She looked at the stump closely and sniffed it, recognizing the sweet smell of marijuana. "Oh goddamn fucking hell!" she swore. Minh! The cat had come straight to Conrad! It was only rational, she realized; before Mabel had arrived, Conrad had handled Minh, or contact NADINE, himself.

Now what? Mabel couldn't very well call the MPs; they'd most likely throw her in the brig if she started babbling about CIA double agents and secret KGB sex drugs. But she wasn't going to go after Minh without some kind of a back-up; once the cat realized that she remembered everything, she wasn't going to give up without a fight. Swearing, she headed towards her barracks; she had to get her pistol, at the very least!

Mabel quite literally ran into Lieutenant Burroughs at the corner of the base street leading to the WAC barracks. They stumbled back, talking simultaneously.

"Ouch! Watch where you're going-"

"Unhh! Sorry, I'm in a hurry-"

Recognizing each other's voice, they stopped and stared at each other. "You!" Burroughs shouted. "What the fuck are you doing back in the base, Brown? You're not supposed to be back until tomorrow! And why the hell are you running around like that?!"

"Get out of my way, sir," Mabel growled. "I have no time to talk with you; you will be explained later, but now I must go!" She tried to go around the rabbit, but he grabbed her by her arm.

"Oh, no you won't, Brown! I want a full explanation, and I want it now!" Burroughs said. Then his expression changed, as a new idea came to him. "Goddamn, are you trying to fool me, pretending that you went to Cao Sai but staying back here? Wait until the Colonel hears about this- oooff!"

Burroughs doubled over as Mabel expertly kneed him in the balls. She followed this up with a quick karate chop at the side of his neck; the rabbit gave a short cry of pain and went limply down. Feeling tremendously satisfied, Mabel dragged him out of the way, tying him up with his shoelaces and stuffing his socks into his mouth as an improvised gag. That should keep him out of my back for some time, she thought.

Hannah looked up, startled, as Mabel rushed in. "Hey! I thought you were still out in the boonies! What's going on?"

"Some very bad things," Mabel said, going straight to her locker and opening it. She opened the false bottom that covered those tools of her CIA work that couldn't be passed as belonging to the equipment of a reporter, such as lockpicks and a small automatic pistol with its bulbous silencer.

Hannah stared at her, eyes wide from shock, as Mabel straightened up, putting the lockpicks into her pocket and screwing the silencer in place. "Oh my God! Is that... it can't be," the raccoon stammered. "Mabel, tell me that isn't a silencer!"

"Sorry, Hannah," the bear said. "I've no time to explain, even if I was allowed to, but I guess you can hear this much: I work for the CIA, and I'm in a terrible hurry. And if you ask anything more, or try to stop me, I'm going to punch your daylights out."

The raccoon's tail bristled as she heard this. "Hell, no! I'll be coming with you," she said, just as Mabel had feared.

"Hannah, look at yourself," she said in the most patient voice she could manage. "You're overweight, out of shape and you only scraped through the personal defense training because I helped you; I like you, I really do, but you are worse than useless for what I have to do. If I took someone with me, it'd have to be someone who could hold their own in a fight, not a secretary like you!"

"How about a couple of Marines?" Hannah asked, making Mabel stop and stare at her. "You remember the guys we met at the beach a couple of days ago? There was a change of orders; they aren't leaving until Friday, instead of today, and they're partying in the town. I just got back from there half an hour ago..."

Mabel blinked, then grinned fiercely. Oh yeah; she knew one Marine who was sure to help, and would be a nasty surprise for Minh! "You know, Hannah, that's a very, very good idea. I'll just grab this shirt, and we're ready to go!"

* * *

Getting out of the base was easier than Hannah had expected; Mabel simply picked her special wire cutters, their blades made from extra-hard steel, and headed to the perimeter fence. In just a few minutes, she had cut a hole in it big enough for them to crawl through. The next patrol would notice it, of course, and there would be an alarm, but at this point, Mabel couldn't care less. If she failed, she would be hosed anyway; if she succeeded, Conrad and the CIA would protect her from any and all consequences.

Hannah led her to the bar where the Marines had been hanging out when she had left; luckily, they were still there. Unfortunately, most of them were already totally wasted, barely able to remain standing. They recognized Mabel, however, and gave her a rousing cheer.

"Hey Chuck! Your girlfriend's here!" one of them yelled, gesturing at Mabel so wildly that he almost fell off his chair. She could see the big bear sitting at the back of the bar, with a handful of less drunken-looking Marines.

"Hello, guys," Mabel said, walking up to them. Seeing him triggered the Decadence again, and she had to concentrate hard on the current situation, images of her in a threesome with both Chuck and Korichenvy floating through her mind. "I need to return Chuck his shirt," she said, taking the neatly folded piece of clothing from behind her back and tossing it to the surprised bear.

This drew much laughter from the Marines, and made Chuck look as sheepish as was possible for a guy of his size. "Come on, I want to talk to you," she said, reaching to take his hand. The other Marines moved out of the way, cracking jokes about how they'd like to have a talk with her as well.

She led the bear out of the bar, where Hannah was waiting. "Chuck, I'm in trouble, and need your help," Mabel said.

The bear's expression darkened. "Your boss? Show him to me, and I'll break him in two!"

"Not him," Mabel said. "I already dealt with him; he'll probably wake up soon. It's my other boss who I'm worried about. Follow me; I'll explain on the way."

As she led Chuck and Hannah to the street where Minh's shop was located, Mabel gave them a short version of the situation, leaving out the embarrassing or explicit details. "I work for the CIA along with my job as a correspondent. When investigating a story, I stumbled upon a North Vietnamese plan to drug soldiers and intelligence people, in order to interrogate them. When I figured it out, I immediately returned here, only to find that my CIA chief, Major Conrad, is missing. I can't go to the MPs, because they don't know I'm in the CIA; and I can't go to the Army Intelligence, because they'd waste time verifying the story and interrogating me. So I had to take the matter into my own hands."

Chuck made some sharp questions about the exact nature of the drug, how it was administrated and how she had found this all out; Mabel answered in a circumspect fashion, fighting to hold back her desire to jump at him and personally introduce him to Decadence. Even Hannah was starting to look delicious, which really made her worry!

Finally, they reached the shop. It was closed and dark, like every other house along the street. "I'm assuming there are at least two people in there," Mabel said in a low voice. "Conrad's in his fifties, a terrier with greying fur. He may be wearing an Army major's uniform, or may be in civilian clothing; I don't think he's going to make any trouble, but I can't be sure." She swallowed and continued. "The other's a Vietnamese female cat, about twenty years old and five feet tall. She's fast and stronger than she looks like, and may be dangerous. Hannah, if she comes out without me or Chuck, you try to stop her, but don't try any heroics, okay?"

The raccoon looked nervous, but nodded. "S-sure. I've played soccer; I'll tackle her if she comes near me," she said.

"Good. Here we go..." Mabel walked to the shop's door, Chuck following quietly at her heels, and slipped her lockpicks in the lock. It was a cheap one but well oiled; she had it open in just a minute. Opening the door slightly, she reached in and up, and caught the chime with her hands, muting it as she pushed the door fully open. "C'mon," she whispered to him and slipped in.

The store was dark, and Mabel had to use her pocket flashlight. They walked through the junk-filled corridors; Mabel noticed that the film projector was gone. The door to Minh's bedroom was closed; a flickering light showed beneath it, and she could hear the whir of the projector and a soft voice speaking.

"They're in there," Mabel whispered to Chuck, who nodded. "I'll count to three; on three, you kick in that door and go in, to the left side. I'll follow you, to the right. Okay?" He nodded again, and Mabel started counting. "One... two... go!"

Chuck didn't just kick the door in; he kicked it clean off its hinges. Mabel followed the bear in, her silenced gun held in her hands, ready to shoot if she had to.

She didn't have to. Conrad was sitting in the rattan chair with an erection, his pants around his knees, and staring at the flowing patterns on the white wall; the picture of Minh's parents had been removed, leaving a gap in the wall between the small bedroom and the next room where the projector had been set up. Minh herself was standing next to Conrad, naked and as beautiful as ever in the flickering light.

Mabel reached up behind her and flicked the light switch; the patterns faded into shady flickers on the wall. The cat stared at her, and for a moment, Mabel thought Minh might jump at her, or order Conrad to do so; then all strength seemed to flow out of her, and her shoulders slumped down in defeat.

"Right," Mabel said in a choked voice. "That's Conrad; take him to the store and check if you can get him to wake up. Be careful that you don't get any bodily fluids onto you: saliva, blood... or, um, anything else."

The bear looked at her with an incredulous expression, but realized that Mabel was serious. "I'll keep that in mind," he said. "You sure you can handle her?"

"Pretty sure," Mabel said, feeling a lot less sure. Chuck expertly coaxed Conrad to stand, pulling up his pants, and led him out of the room, leaving Mabel alone with Minh.

For what felt like an eternity, neither of them spoke. Then, finally, Minh spoke. "I hoped you would be strong and clever enough to cheat them," she said. "I knew it'd be the end of me, but..." The cat swallowed, turned away from Mabel and fell onto her knees, bowing her head. "Please, do it quickly," she said in a small voice. "I can't live without you, anyway."

Mabel stared at Minh, and found that her victory had turned into ashes in her mouth. Sighing, she put her gun down. "I am not going to kill you, Minh. I can't. Perhaps, if you had attacked me... but not like this, not in cold blood. And... I still owe you my life."

Minh looked up and at Mabel over her shoulder. "Are you arresting me, then?" she asked, tears gleaming in her eyes.

Mabel sighed. "No. I'm a bloody idiot, and they will never let me hear the end of this at the CIA, but I'm letting you go. Do you have any secret escape route?"

Minh stood quickly up and nodded. "In the next room, there's a trapdoor in the floor," she said. "It leads to the cellars; all the houses on this street share those. I can get out that way." The tears welled up again in her eyes. "I love you," she said, hugging the bear tightly, pressing her head against Mabel's bosom.

"I love you too, kitten," she replied, returning the hug and giving Minh a kiss on the top of her head. "Now, get going; my friends are going to start worrying soon, and I don't think I could get them to play along."

The cat nodded, and snatching her clothes from her bed, slipped into the next room. Mabel could hear the trapdoor being opened and closing again. Sighing, she drew her pistol, and fired two shots into the wall next to the door and a third down the corridor, slightly above the level of Minh's head; she could hear something shattering at the other end. Goodbye forever, Minh, she thought as she turned and, picking the ashtray from the table, hit herself on the head with it as hard as she could.

* * *

Trung Din Minh vanished completely from the knowledge of the CIA; based on circumstantial evidence, the Agency's official opinion is that the North Vietnamese eventually learned of her duplicity and executed her. Mabel has never accepted this, and has rather chosen to believe that Minh's living under a different name in some small village in Vietnam's backwoods; she hopes that she's happy, wherever she is.

Corpsman Charlie "Chuck" Bedford, USMC, didn't get to see Mabel ever again; she wrote him a few letters, but that was it. He was wounded on patrol in late 1969; he lost three fingers from his right hand, and was honorably discharged for medical reasons. He returned to United States, went back to working at the mental hospital, and eventually married a nurse who worked at the same hospital. He has two kids with his wife, Charlie Jr. and Mabel.

Private Hannah Grain, WAC, served through her tour of duty without any further incidents, and returned to United States; unlike Chuck, she's kept in contact with Mabel by phone and by mail. She's working as an executive assistant in Hollywood, and is seeking divorce from her third husband.

Lieutenant Henry Burroughs, US Army, never got an explanation of what Mabel was doing, or why. He still bears a grudge for her, despite not having seen her ever since. He works as a freelance journalist, writing for several magazines.

Captain Ivan Mihailovich Korichenvy returned to Soviet Union in early 1970, following the death of undersecretary Grolky and the marriage of his daughter; he managed to avoid blame for the failure of the project to spread Decadence among the US forces in Vietnam, and proceeded to work with the Omega Directorate of KGB until the dismantling of the Soviet Union. He's currently seeking a publisher for his (heavily expurgated) memoirs.

Doctor Pjotr Pavlovich Volkov wasn't quite as successful at deflecting blame, and spent the '70s in Siberia, working as the doctor of a KGB arctic training facility near Yakutsk. He was rehabilitated later, but still refuses to speak with Korichenvy.

As for Mabel herself, she was returned to the United States post haste, and turned over to SPICE (Sensitive Penetration, Infiltration & Counter-Espionage), a rather shadowy branch of the US intelligence community, concentrating, among other things, on the use of sex and sex-related technologies in espionage.

Their scientists eventually managed to replicate both Decadence and the antidote from numerous samples drawn from her, and a clandestine war of hooker-snatching and counter-snatching was waged for some months across the red lights districts of Southeast Asia, as KGB and SPICE tried to chemically control the prostitutes of the region. Eventually, KGB abandoned their attempt at spreading Decadence throughout the US military, although they used Decadence in individual cases up until late '80s.

Mabel did not participate in any of this; having had her fill of action and adventure, she was happy to receive a position as a media analyst at the CIA headquarters, with a side job as a part-time instructor in "social intelligence gathering" at the Farm. She's still eating Decadence antidote, to ward off the occasional attack.

Nine months after returning from Vietnam, Mabel gave birth to a daughter, whom she named Nadine Brown. Nadine grew up to be a very healthy girl and a patriotic, very busty woman, who joined the Army and the SPICE straight out of college; she's better known in the intelligence circles by her code name "Jynx". The SPICE researchers are still divided on the subject of whether her sexual talents can be explained by her prenatal exposure to Decadence, or are just the result of good genes.

* * * *

My thanks to Greg Panovich for his invaluable help and suggestions with this story, and for allowing me to use the character of Mabel Brown. Thank you!