The Catalogue

Chapter 8

The Catalogue

Kitten scrambled to her feet with an energy that made her breasts bounce, clearly thrilled to be given a task. She retrieved a slim tablet from the nightstand drawer—Marc hadn't even noticed it there—and brought it back to him with her head bowed, offering it up like a sacred text.

"The hotel keeps a catalogue of all available girls, sir," she explained, her voice trembling with excitement. "They're sorted by... well, by everything. Hair color, body type, special skills. Some are trained for conversation, some for massage, some for..." she bit her lip, "more specific tastes."

Marc took the tablet, feeling the weight of it in his hands. The screen lit up at his touch, displaying rows of thumbnail images—women in various states of undress, each with a number and a brief description beneath their photo. It was like browsing for furniture, he thought with a chill, except these were human beings.

"I don't know," he said, scrolling through the images with a mixture of fascination and revulsion. Blondes, brunettes, women with elaborate tattoos, women with surgically enhanced bodies, women who looked barely out of their teens. "This feels... wrong. You choose."

Kitten's eyes went wide, and then she let out a sound that was almost a squeal—a pure, unadulterated noise of joy that echoed in the penthouse suite. "Sir! You want me to choose?"

"If you want," he said, suddenly uncomfortable with the power he was wielding. "You know what I like now, presumably."

"Oh, yes sir, yes!" She took the tablet with reverent hands, her fingers flying across the screen with practiced ease. "I've been trained in matching preferences, sir. I know exactly what you need. Someone who can challenge you a little, but not too much. Someone who looks like she could be... someone you know."

Marc felt a flicker of unease at her words, but before he could question her, Kitten had already made her selection. She tapped the screen with finality and looked up at him with a grin. "She'll be here in five minutes, sir. Room service is very efficient for guests of your stature."

"Who did you pick?" Marc asked.

"You'll see," Kitten said coyly. "I think you'll be pleased. Or at least... interested."

The minutes ticked by with agonizing slowness. Marc found himself pacing the room, unable to sit still, his mind racing with conflicted thoughts. He had just betrayed his marriage in the most visceral way possible, and now he was ordering up another woman like a pizza. What was happening to him? Was this place corrupting him, or was it simply revealing who he had always been beneath the veneer of civilization?

A knock at the door made him jump. Kitten moved to answer it, opening the door just wide enough to admit the new arrival.

The girl who stepped into the penthouse was dressed in a parody of a schoolgirl uniform—a plaid skirt so short it barely covered her, a white blouse strained across her chest by breasts that were unmistakably large and firm, knee-high socks, and pigtails that made her look simultaneously innocent and obscene. She was a redhead, her hair a deep auburn that caught the light, and when she looked up at Marc with green eyes behind thick-rimmed glasses, his blood ran cold.

It was Caroline.

Or rather, it wasn't Caroline—it couldn't be—but the resemblance was uncanny. Same sharp jawline, same scattering of freckles across the nose, same intelligent eyes that now held nothing but vacant submission. The girl was younger, perhaps twenty-five to Caroline's forty-five, and her body was different—more voluptuous, more artificially perfect—but the face was his wife's face.

"Good evening, sir," the girl said, her voice higher and more breathy than Caroline's academic tones, but with the same crisp enunciation. "I'm Apple. Kitten requested someone who could provide... a specific experience."

Marc's mind reeled. This was a setup. It had to be. The Americans had done their research, pulled his file, found photos of his wife, and trained or surgically altered some poor girl to look like her. It was a trap, a way to compromise him completely, to ensure he could never go back to Canada and pretend he hadn't been changed by this place.

"Sir?" Apple said, tilting her head in a way that was achingly familiar. "Is something wrong? Would you prefer a different girl?"

He should send her away. He should call the Canadian embassy, demand to speak to his superiors, get on the next flight out of this madhouse. He should do anything except what he was about to do.

"Kneel," he said, and his voice was steady.

Apple smiled—a smile that didn't reach her eyes, that was programmed rather than felt—and sank to her knees before him. She folded her hands behind her back, thrusting her chest out, and looked up at him with an expression of eager servitude that was the complete opposite of everything Caroline had ever been.

And just like that, Marc stopped caring about the trap, about the manipulation, about the moral abyss he was descending into. The fact that she looked like his wife didn't fill him with guilt anymore—it filled him with a dark, transgressive thrill. Here was Caroline's face on a body built for sin, Caroline's intelligence replaced with obedient emptiness, Caroline's independence crushed into absolute submission.

"Unbutton your blouse," he commanded.

"Yes, sir," Apple breathed, her fingers working the buttons with practiced efficiency. When she pulled the fabric apart, her breasts spilled out—no bra, just perfect, heavy tits with rose-colored nipples already hard and waiting.

Marc reached down and grabbed a handful of her hair, pulling her face toward his crotch. She went willingly, eagerly, her mouth opening automatically.

"Look at me," he ordered, and she did—those green eyes, so like Caroline's, looking up at him with complete adoration. "You're going to suck my cock, and you're going to thank me for the privilege. Do you understand?"

"Oh yes, sir," Apple moaned. "Thank you for letting me serve you. Thank you for using my mouth. I'm just a dumb little fucktoy for you to use however you want."

As she took him between her lips, Marc looked over at Kitten, who was watching from the corner with a satisfied smile. The Canadians had thought they were coming to save America, to bring it back into the community of civilized nations. But Marc was beginning to understand that America didn't want to be saved.

And worse, he was beginning to think he didn't want to save it either.