The Dulcet Sound of My Voice: Honey trap (NSFW)

[x-trance.livejournal.com]

Doug prepares for the honey trap.

"Are you sure this will hold?" Hope asked as she carefully dabbed a medical grade adhesive on the scaled material and carefully applied it to the back of Doug's neck.

"Yep.  We use this all the time for disguises."  Doug shrugged, making sure his range of motion wasn't impeded.  "You okay with this?" he asked Hope.  It probably wasn't the first time he'd asked - but he wanted to make sure she went into things with her eyes open about the human cost of being a 'player'.

"It takes some getting used to. But I have told you that already three times." Hope reached for the next piece and applied more of the adhesive, this piece covering Doug's spine. "Okay, can you bend forward a bit? I want to make sure this is on properly... Just... I don't think I am ready to play this part... not yet in any case."

Doug covered Hope's hand for a moment.  "Just don't think that you have to be," he told her.  "Don't push yourself too far too fast or anything."  His own attitudes toward sex had been complex ever since taking up with Emma, and his relationship was...unorthodox, to be sure.  The job was different than what he shared with Laurie and Wade and Marie-Ange.  But it had taken a long time to sort through the jumble in his head to get to that point.

"I am trying not to." Hope lifted the adhesive and set about securing some of the edges safely to Doug's back. It would not do for things to slip. "But it seems to me more and more that it is vital I become more comfortable with that part of myself..." She was quiet for a moment before asking: "How did you get to be okay with doing... this?"

"In a very complicated way that I would not recommend to anyone else."  Doug chuckled dryly.  "And even with the various changes that have happened to me, it still took a long time for me to come to terms with the fact that I was never going to have that married with kids and a picket fence type of 'happy ending'."

"It was always assumed I would have family and children when I grew up... But now... it simply does not work to consider it. Things are too different at the moment." Hope finished with the adhesive and took a step back, running a critical eye over Doug. "We should do something about your nails though... they kinda fall out tone with the picture you present."

"Agreed.  Let's see what we've got.  Thinking something vaguely clawlike - this guy seems like the sort to be picking up visible mutants because he gets off on the vague sense of danger."  As they found some nail extensions and began applying them, Doug came back around to the other thread of the conversation.  "Just so long as you're the one making that decision for yourself," he told Hope.

"For now I think it's best to keep my options open... as long as there is no need for definite answers yet." Hope worked silently for a few moments. "You think all of this will hold up even if you have to get undressed completely?"

"Good.  Don't lock yourself into any particular path just because you think you have to," Doug advised her.  His own choices hadn't always been easy, but they'd always been his, even if his own code meant that only one particular choice was the one that he could live with.  "Yep, I borrowed it from Angie - like I said, we use this for undercover stuff, and the stakes are a bit higher usually, so it has to work.  Besides," he held up a small piece of technology, "I also...borrowed an image inducer."

"That I didn't think of that before..." Hope took a few steps back. "Turn it on and let me the see the whole effect?"

"Mostly to shift features some, make it less likely that someone might recognize me."  He'd actually brought it against the possibility of Darcy running into problems, but it also had a couple presets of Doug mixed in.  He tapped a button for the hologram to come up over his face.  "But they can't capture the feel of things, and I'm going to be up close and personal, so better to mix that with the prosthetics."

"Hmmm..." Hope walked around her mentor, eyeing him carefully. "Looking like you can pass to me... only thing... You sure you don't have a tighter pair of pants? I think that would add to the picture just a little more."

"Hm."  Doug hadn't exactly packed with this outcome in mind, but as he took mental inventory, he had an idea.  "I might have something, hold on."  He ducked into his portion of the suite, and a couple minutes later came back in a pair of jeans that was very well worn.  It clung to his backside and was almost indecently low in the hips, low enough to make it a bit obvious that he wouldn't be able to wear underwear with them.  "They're old - I normally just use them for lounging around."

"Yes, that is what I was talking about. I'd say you look ready?" Hope moved closer to check the prosthetics one last time.

"Let's go steal a delegate's questionable honor," Doug quipped.
***

And the plan is excuted.

Doug didn't often draw on his ability to project with his own body language - normally he preferred to be anonymous in the crowd and use his ability to read others' body language to find opportunities, avenues to exploit.  But his understanding of others also made it useful to focus the signals his own body sent at times like these.  And right this moment, those signals were saying NOTICE ME in giant neon letters.  Everything - the roll of his hips, the sway of his shoulders, was designed to draw attention to him.

Like any so many other nights the Delegate had asked Jefferson, his chauffeur to swing by the corner near the park. No other words had to be said, Jefferson knew what his boss expected, the town car he'd picked out for the day reflected that, anonymous and unremarkable. They pulled up to the corner under the cover of dark and Delegate Taylor (Name to be corrected when a name is picked :P) glanced briefly out at of the window, it was much the same crowd as normal, apart from the one new arrival who stood out of the crowd as if he had a spotlight on him. The Delegate leaned forward and spoke to Jefferson, nodding in the direction of the new arrival as the chauffeur got out of the car and made his way over.

~Reel him in,~ Doug thought to himself, catching the motion from the corner of his eye.  He recognized the driver, and allowed the other man to approach him, seeming like he was paying attention to others around him more than his mark.  When the driver reached him, he turned and visibly sized the man up.  "Heeeey," he drawled slowly, affecting that sort of speech pattern that marked someone who'd had a couple drinks or a tab of something to loosen up before coming out.

The driver, Jefferson, looked Doug up and down with an near audible sniff as he nodded at the car. "Someone would like to meet you," he told Doug shortly, opening the driver side rear door and gesturing in. Delegate Taylor was obscured by the shadows, but he was staring out of the window, not giving Doug a glance through the open door, the same thoughts chasing around in his head, twin exclamations of shame and excitement.

"Someone, huh?"  It didn't really matter what the driver thought, and in fact given the context, disapproval was practically a given there unless he was hyper-loyal to the delegate he worked for.  The driver wasn't the mark, after all.  Doug sashayed up to the car and leaned against the roof and open door in a way that would make it difficult for him to simply be forced into the vehicle.  He didn't want to appear too eager, more choosy.  "How you doin', sugah?" he asked, doing his best impression of Rogue's folksy Southern drawl.

The delegate gave into the urge to break his tradition, and turned to examine the man standing in the doorway, his eyes tracking up and down the man's face, twin pools of lust and disgust tracking up and down Doug's body before he turned away to stare out of the window. "Fine," he grunted, indicating the seat across from him without sparing Doug another glance.

The one glance had told Doug everything he needed to know, though.  He bent down and got into the car.  "You got a place to go, or should we use mine?" he asked playfully, stretching his legs out in front of him almost like a cat.

Jefferson scoffed as he got into the car, "Nothing like that," Delegate Taylor noted still staring out of his window, "you won't be here long enough to get comfortable, a dark alley should do for us. The usual Jefferson;."

It fit the man - hide his sins in the dark.  And Doug was reasonably sure that he could predict exactly what would happen - he'd get shoved to his knees, do his 'duty', and then get left in the alleyway with his payment.  "One hundred," he said firmly, since the delegate didn't appear interested in preliminaries.

The delegate finally looked over at Doug again, looking him up and down before nodding. "One hundred," he agreed, before looking away from the mutant again, "find somewhere near the park Jefferson, then get yourself a coffee while you wait."

Doug had a suspicion that Jefferson knew every alleyway around the park by this point.  He parked the car, and all three men exited the vehicle, one headed to a small local shop at the end of the block, two disappearing into the alleyway.  Doug brushed his hand against an older brick wall, leaving an unobtrusive fisheye lens in the mortar that would take nearly superhuman vision to spot, especially when he knew the delegate's eyes were on the way his hips were moving.

Once they were out of view of the alley entrance (but perfectly framed for the camera), he turned, producing a dental dam that seemed like it couldn't possibly have fit in his tight jeans.  "Can't be too safe," he murmured, suspecting that the delegate wouldn't be the sort to use a condom voluntarily - it would ruin the power differential.  "Anything in particular you want?" he asked, his voice dropping lower and husky.