The Possession

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Warning:

The following material contains strong sexual content meant for mature readers. “The Possession” has been rated NC-17, erotic, by four individual reviewers. We strongly suggest storing this electronic file in a place where young readers not meant to view this e-book are unlikely to happen upon it. That said, enjoy…

Prologue

      
Kris Torrence took a deep, contemplative breath as she stared at herself in the mirror of her postage stamp sized bathroom.
This can’t be as good as it gets
, she thought morosely.
I can’t be as good as I get…

      
She was pretty enough, she supposed, with her wine-red hair and cat-like green eyes. Undoubtedly more average than beautiful but pretty enough that she should have been dating, should have been leading a more exciting life. Yet she wasn’t and didn’t.

      
Thirty-four and never married, Kris was content with being single—enjoyed it even. She liked living alone, relished the freedom of being able to do what she wanted when she wanted to do it without having to confer with a man about her plans for the evening. Being single definitely has its rewards.

      
But, she conceded, it has its drawbacks too.

      
Loneliness was the biggest of them. Lots and lots of lonely nights spent staring at the empty pillow next to hers in the queen-sized bed, fantasizing about falling in love, fantasizing about risqué sexual situations she’d realistically never find herself in. She was a normal woman after all.
She had needs.

      
But mostly, she sighed, mostly she just fantasized about obtaining companionship.

      
However, she reminded herself, her chin going up a notch, she wasn’t lonely for companionship altogether, just lonely for male companionship. And, she thought pointedly as her cat Hercules sauntered from the bathroom and toward the kitchen with a
meeow
, human male companionship in particular.

      
She winced, wondering not for the first time if she had inadvertently turned into the living portrait of an old maid without even realizing it. Hercules, she thought grimly, was but one of a grand total of ten felines living in her apartment.

      
Ten cats! Kris grimaced. When in the hell had she managed to acquire ten cats? It’s as if she’d fallen asleep one night a young woman and woke up the next morning a pathetic spinster…

      
She rolled her eyes at herself in the mirror. “Stop it, Kris,” she chastised her image. “You’re not a spinster and you know it. You’re just…” She sighed. “…you’re just lonely and bored.”

      
It was the truth and she knew it. Yes, she was thirty-four. Yes, she had never been married. No, she wasn’t dating anyone and hadn’t in at least six months.

      
But overall she loved her life. She enjoyed her tenured position as a professor of anthropology at San Francisco State University, found the research she did on other cultures with her graduate students invigorating and challenging.

      
And, she sniffed, there was nothing wrong with owning cats. Many cats. Lots of cats. All kinds of cats. Smallish short-haired ones, tall and lanky long-haired ones, big fat furball ones, and—

      
Her teeth gritted. Okay, so maybe she owned too many goddamned cats.

      
But other than the fact she was a one-woman humane society, there wasn’t anything wrong with her life and she knew it. And really, she thought with a grin as Zeus jumped up on the bathroom sink and purred against her hand while his rough tongue lapped at her skin there, there wasn’t anything wrong with being a hopeless, dyed in the wool, lover of felines. It’s just that…

      
Her grin slowly faded as she stared at herself in the mirror. It’s just that she was a bit tired of the status quo, a bit tired of leading a boring, complacent existence.

      
And, she acknowledged as she drew in a deep breath, she had needs like any other normal woman. She was at her sexual peak for goodness sake—hardly the time in her life to remain celibate due to complacency!

      
She wanted to once—
just once
—do something wild and crazy, something completely out of character from the Dr. Kris Torrence everyone at the university knew and respected. Something brazen and reckless enough to give her a lifetime of memories she could hug close to her heart whenever she was in the mood to wax sentimental on rebellious days gone by. She was getting older and…

      
She sighed. In her youth, and onward into her twenties, she had always done the right thing, the proper thing. As a teenager she had done what the nuns at the parochial school she’d attended had expected of her, she had been the good girl her parents had wanted her to be, and…

      
She sighed. And she was sick as she didn’t know what of being that good girl. No thirty-four year-old woman needs to conform to the expectations of others when those expectations were not her own. Or, more to the point, no thirty-four year-old woman
should
conform to the expectations of others when those expectations were not her own.

      
Kris nibbled at her lower lip as her cat-like green eyes slowly strayed down to the bathroom sink counter and toward the magazine laying opened upon it. She mentally resisted rereading the classified ad she’d been compelled to study for what felt like a thousand times in the past three days. But in the end she found her hands reaching for it and her heart rate picking up as her eyes soaked in the words:

      
Hotel Atlantis is currently searching for select females to work in our exclusive gentlemen’s resort situated on a private island off the coast of San Francisco. Pay is exceptional for exceptional females as our resort accommodates only the wealthiest of clientele. Women comfortable in the role of submissive are especially needed. Island excursions last anywhere from 3-7 days…

      
Kris blew out a breath as she reread the part of the ad that most appealed to her.

      
Women comfortable in the role of submissive are especially needed.

      
It had always been a fantasy, she conceded as she chewed on her bottom lip. A very big, got-her-wet-every-time-she-thought-about-it fantasy…

      
To be submissive to a man. To play slave to his master. To allow a man to tie her up and do anything he wanted to do to her—

      
It was something no good girl would do.

      
It was something she wanted to do very badly.

      
Her heartbeat sped up.
Just for one night
, she promised herself.
Or in this case, just for one island excursion.

      
It wasn’t as if nobody had ever heard of Hotel Atlantis. On the contrary, everybody who lived in or around the Bay area knew precisely what the resort was and whom the resort catered to, even if it wasn’t the sort of topic one tended to bring up in casual conversation.

      
Hotel Atlantis was
the
exclusive place that elite businessmen went for sun, fun, and no-strings-attached sex with any paid woman, and as many paid women, of their choosing.

      
If you want to live out your deepest sexual fantasies without anybody of your acquaintance finding out about it, this would be the place to do it, Kris.
She took another deep breath.
There is no way in hell that any of your male colleagues at the university make enough money to frequent that island!

      
Kris set the magazine down on the bathroom sink counter and resumed staring at herself in the mirror. She doubted such an exclusive gentlemen’s retreat as Hotel Atlantis would want to hire a woman as average looking as she was anyway. But maybe if she let her long and curly wine-red hair down from the bun, and applied a little bit of make-up, and…

      
Her lips pinched together in a frown. Perhaps if she underwent a complete reconstructive overhaul of her average face she could talk Hotel Atlantis into letting her work one excursion.

      
She bristled at that. As if she wanted to work in a place where she was destined to be the ugliest woman on the entire island! Especially, she thought morosely, when the entire reason she wanted to go in the first place wasn’t for the money as the other women no doubt were, but to get a little action.

      
She sighed as she glanced back down at the ad.

      
Hotel Atlantis will be conducting in-person interviews throughout the entire last week of March in the San Francisco area. Call John Calder today at 555-3212 t
o—

      
She stopped reading, her finger tracing the outline of the printed telephone number. “On the other hand,” she murmured, “it can’t hurt to at least call the guy.”

      
Closing her eyes briefly and taking a steadying breath, she closed the magazine and slowly turned around to face the exit to the bathroom.

      
Nervous and feeling surprisingly giddy, Kris swallowed hard against the lump in her throat as she found herself walking toward the kitchen—and the telephone. When she reached it, when the cordless phone’s receiver was firmly in her hand, she took a deep breath before pounding out the telephone number she’d committed to memory three days ago.

      
“This is insane,” she muttered to herself as she waited for someone on the other end of the line to pick up. “I must have lost my—”

      
“Thank you for calling Hotel Atlantis. This is Sheri Carucci. How may I assist you this evening?”

      
Kris’ green eyes widened at the disembodied sound of the throaty voice. Her heartbeat picked up so dramatically that she idly wondered for one hysterical moment if it would come thumping out of her chest.

      
“Hello? This is Hotel Atlantis. Hello?”

      
Her breathing grew labored as her heartbeat climbed impossibly higher.

      
“Very funny, buddy. Listen,” the throaty-turned-annoyed voice asked, “you wanna book a stay on the island or not?”

      
Terrified, and feeling way out of her element, Kris’ hand flew to the wall console, preparing to hang up. But just as she was about to end the connection, just as her fingers were about to press the disconnect button, her gaze was snagged by a photograph hanging on the wall a foot away.

      
Her eyes narrowed into slits. The photograph was of herself and…

      
Her lips pinched together in a frown. The photograph was of herself and her ten cats.

      
If only I had been wearing a parochial schoolgirl uniform in that picture the pathetic good girl imagery would be complete!

      
Kris’ nostrils flared as she planted her hand firmly on her hip so it couldn’t fly up to the disconnect button and nervously end the connection with Madame Throaty Voice against her volition.

      
“My name is Kris,” she gritted out determinedly into the receiver, her chin thrusting up. And with the conviction and resolution of a recovering alcoholic at a group prevention meeting, she added loudly and cathartically, her nostrils flaring impossibly further, “and I’m a submissive!”

      
“Hold on a sec,” Madame Throaty Voice replied with a yawn. “Let me transfer you upstairs to that department.”

      
Kris grunted.