Author’s Note: Transgender policewoman Penelope Bishop made her first appearance in my story ‘Cop Town Girl’ and then the sequel ‘Sleeping Beauties’. Although not essential, readers might like to read those stories first to put this story into a better context although this story stands on its own. I hope you enjoy my latest offering and feel free to comment or critique my work.

Michele Nylons May 2021

Felicity Benson ruled the stage as the Master of Ceremonies at Balwyn College’s amateur talent evening. In her drag persona as Felicity Goodnite her witty acerbic commentary was well received by the audience. Her act was bawdy, bordering on lewd. The jokes were crammed with sexual innuendo and she openly displayed a lot of body and leg. No one had questioned how and why this slim, shy, effete eighteen-year-old man could present as a woman so perfectly because she did it so well.

She was a ‘fishy queen’ meaning that she presented as very feminine and was a convincing female impersonator. Francis Benson suffered from gender dysphoria and was unsure of his sexual identity and had done since before puberty. Presenting himself as Felicity Goodnite was a short term solution to a long term problem.

Benjamin Roach, Carl Huntley, Jamaal Washington, Spencer Duvall and William Turner sat in the audience watching Felicity on stage. They were impressed with how she presented herself.

“What do you think boys? Should we try something different?” Ben asked his cohorts.

The five young athletes, members of the starting line-up for the college football team were not much more than spoiled brats who came from wealthy powerful families. College was a stepping stone to a life of privileged entitlement. They were pledged to the Eta Lambda Pi fraternity and they used the frat house to host debauched drunken parties, seldom socialising with their fraternity brothers.

“Yeah, let’s try something different,” Spencer Duvall sniggered and the others all agreed.

*****

Francis Benson was not a member of the Eta Lambda Pi fraternity but he had been invited to a fancy dress party there. Drag had become a form of mainstream entertainment, made famous by RuPaul’s Drag Race and it was not unusual for drag acts to appear on college campuses. But the question remained… where had Francis Benson learned how to present so convincingly as a woman?

The answer was simple… or complicated… depending on your point of view but let’s not get ahead ourselves.

Francis Benson received his invite to the fancy dress party delivered personally by one of frat boys. Jamaal Washington was the same age as Francis and was a dreamy, good looking, fit jock. Felicity Goodnite, Francis Benson’s alter-ego, thought he was a dish. The dreamboat with the caramel skin and beatific smile handed the invitation to Francis and said… “Come as Felicity Goodnite, we all think she’s a hoot.”

The proviso to come to the party in the persona of Felicity Goodnite was even stipulated on the invitation.

The night of the party Francis transformed and assumed the guise of Felicity Goodnite, sitting in front of her mirror applying her heavy but perfect makeup, squeezing into a bra, pantyhose and panties, slipping her ‘chicken-fillet’ falsies into the cups of her bra and then shimmying into the figure-hugging red satin sequined evening gown. She put up her own shoulder-length brunette hair under the stocking cap, taped it and put on her platinum blonde lace-front wig. Stepping into her four-inch red high heels she thought she looked like a young Marilyn Munroe.

Felicity practiced her facial expressions and theatre voice in the mirror. She portrayed herself as a mixture of Joan Rivers and Nancy Grace. The frat guys and sorority sisters were going to expect her to do her act to its full potential.

As soon as she entered the Eta Lambda Pi frat house she knew that something was wrong. Carl Huntley answered the door holding a beer and was obviously well under the influence of alcohol as he gave her an appreciative once-over and motioned for her to come inside but he seemed pleasant enough. But there were no party noises; there was no throng of inebriated co-eds dancing to blaring music. There was only silence.

Felicity looked around anxiously convincing herself that a crowd was suddenly going to spring out of hiding and yell ‘Surprise!’ but they didn’t. All she could hear was muffled voices coming from a room across the hall.

She went into the room and saw Benjamin Roach, Jamaal Washington, Spencer Duvall and William Turner standing around drinking beer and passing a blunt. They stared at her when she walked into the room, a miasma of perfume announcing her arrival. The looks on their faces ranged from curiosity to out and out lust and when Carl Huntley closed and locked the door her stomach fell.

It was then that she knew.

“Where’s the party?” Felicity forced herself to smile.

“You are the party honey,” Benjamin Roach stepped forward and grinned at her.

Felicity knew right then that her fate was sealed. The academic administration advertised Balwyn College as a modern inclusive university where students of all races, religion, gender, sexuality were respected by both faculty and students. The campus was a melting pot where acceptance, tolerance and inclusivity were intrinsically practiced.

But there were always exceptions to the rule. The frat and sorority houses were controlled by their Executive Boards and some were less diligent in exercising the college’s code of conduct than others. Eta Lambda Pi fraternity was rumoured to play very loosely with the rules regarding philogyny and an undercurrent of misogyny ran through a certain faction of the fraternity.

Two female students had accused some members of the fraternity of slut-shaming them after they attended a party at the frat house where they were filmed having sex with multiple partners. Other girls had complained that they had been coerced into having sex with the five frat boys although the term ‘rape’ was never actually used because the Campus Police who investigated the complaint deemed the sex consensual. Some members of the Executive Board of Eta Lambda Pi were reprimanded but the complaints progressed no further, the complainants were paid off by wealthy parents or intimidated into silence.

Felicity considered her predicament. She was not technically a virgin but she was relatively inexperienced sexually. The two sexual encounters she had experienced were quickly consummated; fumbling, unsatisfying contrivances resulting in sticky panties and feelings of post-coital regret.

The five young men confronting her were handsome virile young men who were undoubtedly very experienced. Not that that gave them leave to force themselves on her. The moral and conscionable part of her psyche told Felicity to fight with every ounce of her very being. The pragmatic and amoral part of her psyche recollected the pornographic videos that she watched compulsively online where pretty young trans-women took on multiple partners simultaneously. It was her favourite form of titillation.

Her moral consciousness won out.

She spun on her heels and raced for the door only to be cut off by Carl Huntley. He put his hands around her waist and dragged her across the room whilst the other youths laughed and jeered.

“Don’t fight us Felicity; you know you wanted this. Did you really think we invited you here to put on a drag show?” he chuckled as he manhandled her across the room.

Felicity struggled in vain. Carl outweighed her and her attempt to escape from him was easily overcome by his brute strength. Felicity considered screaming but she knew it would be useless and she was determined to keep some semblance of her dignity.

He dropped her on the carpet and the other young men formed a circle around her. She closed the split in her evening gown which had opened wide and exposed her long legs right to the very top.

“Aww, she’s being modest,” Benjamin Roach, chuckled.

Benjamin Roach was obviously the leader of the group. He was a line-backer on the college football team; he was a popular figure on campus and desired by the girls who had a thing for jocks. He was handsome and confident and exuded an air of entitlement and he leaned over Felicity and looked at her with wanton lust.

“There are about a hundred girls on this campus who would give up their right tit to be in your position,” he sniggered.

Ben tilted his beverage and poured a dribble of beer onto Felicity’s head. She scrambled out of the way but she couldn’t get far, the forest of the frat boy legs prevented her from escape.

Felicity wiped the beer from her brow and glared up at Benjamin Roach.

“You are an asshole Ben Roach. You boys have had your fun now let me go!” she shrieked up at them.

She hated the sound of her whiney effete voice. She hated that she didn’t have the gumption and courage to stand up to these bullies.

“Oh stop whining Felicity. We’ll let you go. Just give each of us a blowjob and you’re free to go. We all saw your Felicity Goodnite act at the amateur theatrics evening and my buddy Carl here thinks that you have perfect blowjob lips. We figure that all the sexual innuendo and overt eroticism and seductiveness you project on stage can’t just be an act,” Benjamin bent his knees so he was eye to eye with Felicity.

“You slimeballs! Of course it’s an act!” Felicity hissed, vainly trying to get to her feet.

“That’s what you all say. All you pretty little things showing off your tits and asses, talking nasty and suggestively. Then when you get called on it you go all coy and virginal. You’re not the first and you won’t be the last,” Ben flicked Felicity’s ankles so that she fell back on her ass.

“But I’m not really a woman! You know that! This is an act!” Felicity countered.

“That’s what makes it so exciting don’t you see. We’ve all seen tranny porn and wondered what it would be like to take on a tranny. Well tonight we are going to find out,” Ben’s face was inches from hers.

She could smell the beer and marijuana on his breath.

“You can take it easy or take it hard but either way you’re going to take it. There are only five of us so it won’t take a slut like you very long,” Ben chuckled.

“I’m not a slut! Don’t you get it? It’s all an act!” Felicity tried to get her point though Ben’s thick skull.

“I think the time for talking is over,” Ben Roach’s voice was thick with lust.

He dropped his shorts and exposed a long thick erection. The other youths hooted and hurrahed and then silence fell over the group. They drank from their plastic cups, their eyes glued to the tableaux before them. The pretty young drag queen dressed in the red sequined evening gown with the heavy makeup, blonde hair and red sensuous lips; her long legs sheathed in diaphanous nylons lay splayed on the expensive teak flooring. She looked so vulnerable, her face a mask of despair and fear; Benjamin Roach towering over her with his rampant penis inches from her face.

“Suck it,” Ben hissed.

Felicity couldn’t help but look at the engorged phallus. It was long and sleek with blue veins running along the shaft below the translucent skin; the glans pink and spongy, a bead of clear precum had formed at the eye. She tore her eyes from it and turned her head away.

Ben leaned down and took Felicity’s head in his hands and turned her face to his. She didn’t resist because she knew he would hurt her if necessary.

“I think she wants some foreplay,” Ben chuckled but the other boys remained silent.

Just like in the past when the five jocks had a girl trapped in their clutches it was Ben who went first. It was Ben who inspired them. It was Ben who was their leader, without him they wouldn’t have the nerve to do what they did.

Ben offered Felicity his hand and she instinctively took it. A faint glimmer of hope that it was all just a prank fluttered briefly but Ben pulled her into his arms and held her tight. She could feel his cock pressing into her belly. She could smell the beer and smoke on his breath and his expensive exotic aftershave. He stared into her ice-blue eyes and she saw the lust darken his gaze. The incongruity of it all was that given other circumstances Felicity would have probably gladly given herself to Benjamin Roach.

He lowered her lips to hers and held her face still when she tried to turn away. His lips crushed hers and he forced his tongue into her mouth. She struggled in his embrace and he squeezed her so hard that she thought that she was about to pass out. Ben stopped squeezing but he held her close, he gave her a questioning look and she nodded her consent.

At that moment Felicity felt nothing but self-loathing. She was a coward. She should have stamped her stiletto heel into his foot, squeezed his scrotum and bit his face. She should have kicked and screamed and scratched and howled and fought these jocks until she could fight no more. But what was the point? There were too many of them and they were too strong and they would take retribution.

Better to surrender, to capitulate, to succumb. Better to live to fight another day. To seek retribution sometime in the future when she had the upper hand or at least had a better chance of surviving.

This time when Ben pressed his lips to hers she didn’t struggle. She remained limp and compliant. When his tongue slid past her lips she didn’t bite it, she opened wider to allow Ben access to her mouth. Ben gasped and held her tighter.

Felicity felt like no other girl he had ever held in his arms. She was nearly as tall as him, her skin was soft, she was slim-waisted and firm buttocked, his hands squeezed her bottom. There was no padding there, it was all flesh. He knew that the small firm breast pressing into his chest were false and he snaked a hand into the top of her dress and pulled the chicken-fillet prosthetics from the cups of her bra and dropped them to the floor.

She had only small mounds of smooth flesh inside her bra cups but her nipples were sizable and they involuntarily hardened to his touch. He pulled down the bodice of her dress so he could use his mouth on her breasts. He knew that it was a reflex action that caused her ripe berries to engorge but it still excited him and he stroked and squeezed them as his kisses became more passionate.

Felicity hated her body for betraying her. Her tongue spontaneously slipped into Ben’s mouth as her non-compliance turned into allusive coerced consent. Not only were her nipples engorged but so was her penis. It strained at the tucking tape that held it against her perineum.

She couldn’t help but compare Ben’s passionate and articulate foreplay to the fumbling, unsatisfying groping during her previous sexual encounters. Ben might for all intents and purposes be raping her but he was forcing her to enjoy it. Another ripple of self-contempt crossed her consciousness and she purposely subjugated it. She was doing what she had to survive.

Wasn’t she?

Ben and Felicity had all but forgotten that they were surrounded by four other goatish young men who were transfixed by the tableaux before them. When Ben took Felicity’s hand and guided it to his tumescent member and she began to slowly stroke it they all gasped.

The sleek member felt hot and hard in Felicity’s hand as she instinctively began to fondle it. The only other time she had done this with a man he had ejaculated as soon as she touched him but Ben’s cock felt steely hard, staunch and steadfast.

When Ben shifted his hands from her breasts to her buttocks and his mouth feel on her breasts she shivered. She didn’t know if it was trepidation or desire or an amalgamation of the two; in any event the premise was moot. Ben sighed and suckled her nipples whilst he kneaded her buttocks. He could feel the soft shimmery caress of her satin dress against her slinky panties. One hand slipped into the slit in her skirt and caressed her thigh. He moved his mouth back to hers.

Felicity bit Ben’s lip and put her arms around his neck to prevent herself from collapsing. When his fingers grazed the front of her panties she thought she would faint but Ben felt her swoon and he held her tight against him. The feel of her satin dress on his proud manhood was delightful. He stroked her thigh luxuriating in the feel of her cool silken pantyhose on his fingertips. The college co-eds thought pantyhose were archaic but Ben loved the feel of the diaphanous nylon encasing Felicity’s coltish legs.

Felicity panicked when Ben slipped his hand inside the waistband of her pantyhose and tore away her tucking tape. She began to struggle but Ben held her close.

“Shh, shh, shh. I'm not going to hurt you,” he whispered in her ear.

But Ben had broken the spell. Felicity was no longer raptured by his ministrations. The reality of the situation once again became manifest; she was being sexually assaulted by Benjamin Roach and four of his colleagues awaited their turn.

“Please don’t,” she whispered.

“Not here. Not now. Not while the others are watching,” Felicity offered him the premise of a future engagement in which she would willingly acquiesce to his carnal desires.

“It’s too late. We can’t stop what we’ve started,” there seemed to be some regret in Benjamin’s reply but that didn’t stop him putting his hands on her shoulders and forcing Felicity to her knees.

The circle closed around her. Five engorged cocks were levelled at her face.

“Easy or hard Felicity; your choice?” Ben sighed.

Felicity set her resolve. She leaned forward and took Ben’s cock into her mouth and began to suckle it. She had crossed the Rubicon and there was no turning back.

Spencer Duvall and William Turner took her hands and placed them on their manhood. Felicity began to stroke them. She was hoping that masturbating and fellating the frat boys might satisfy them; hoping that they wouldn’t want to penetrate her.

Carl Huntley and Jamaal Washington took out their phones and began to film Felicity's performance. She sucked on Ben’s cock using her lips on his shaft and her tongue on his glans, she was hoping he would finish soon and he did. He gripped her head and fucked her mouth as he filled it with his musky issue. Felicity had no choice but to swallow it. It didn’t taste as bad as she expected it would.

Ben stepped out of the circle and Carl Huntley, a defensive tackle who was carrying as much fat as muscle took his place and pushed her face into his groin. Felicity’s head was under his protruding belly and she had to turn her face sideways to take him in her mouth. He lasted only a few seconds before he filled her mouth with his fetid sperm which she struggled to swallow. Simultaneously William Turner ejaculated, spraying her with ropes of steaming semen.

It was all caught on video.

Jamaal Washington went next, his long thick black cock was a masterpiece and Felicity thought that if she had to suck anyone’s cock, at least it was nice to suck something appealing. Another cock found its way into her free hand and once again she was masturbating two boys whilst fellating another.

Felicity closed her mouth around Jamaal’s penis and slowly worked her lips along the shaft until she had most of it in her mouth then she began to use her tongue. She tried not to think about her own cock which was engorged and pushing against her panties. Her body continued to betray her.

Another cock exploded. This time steaming ejaculate splashed across her face and hair. There was nothing she could do about it so she continued to suckle Jamaal’s penis, listening to him sigh and whimper as she bought him close to extremis. When he came he spent so much semen into her mouth that she gagged as she swallowed it. He pushed her face away and the last of the boys who she was masturbating pulled his cock out of her hand and thrust it at her face

Felicity dutifully took it in her mouth and he came almost immediately.

She sat on her haunches, her face, hair and dress spattered with cooling semen. Someone handed her a napkin and she patted her face dry.

“Ok get up,” Benjamin Roach offered Felicity a hand which she gratefully took.

The ordeal was over finally. She was free to go.

How stupid she was to think so. Later she would curse her naiveté.

Ben led her to the couch and offered her a disposable cup.

“I don’t want a drink; I want to leave,” she hissed pushing the cup away from her face.

“You leave when you’ve finished your performance so you might as well take a drink,” Ben offered her the cup again.

Felicity took it in both hands and drank deeply. The strong alcohol washed away the taste of semen from her mouth.

“Here, fix your face,” Ben thrust Felicity’s handbag at her and she pulled out a package of facial wipes.

They didn’t want her leaving looking dishevelled; people might see her and suspect that something bad had happened to her she reasoned.

But that wasn't the case at all. They wanted her looking pretty when they fucked her.

And fuck her they did.

Benjamin, the leader, went first.

Felicity finished touching up her makeup, brushed her and made a feeble effort to close the bodice of her dress before Ben slapped her hands away.

She kicked and struggled as he climbed on top of her. He was naked and his cock was rampant. The other four boys took a limb each and held Felicity down as Ben probed at her sphincter with his engorged phallus. Felicity briefly recalled the videos she liked to watch of pretty trans girls taking on multiple partners. This was nothing like that. This was reality.

None of her protestations were filmed. Not her pathetic pleas to stop, not her legs cycling as she tried to kick the men holding her, not her arms flailing as she tried to get free.

Ben lay on top of her holding her down. He had jammed a pillow under the small of her back so that her pelvis was raised off the couch. He eased aside the gusset of her panties and pressed his glans into her sphincter. Ben was well prepared and had slavered his cock with lubricant. Felicity was tight but he managed to slowly force his cock inside her.

Felicity screamed as Ben’s cock invaded her anus, the pain was almost intolerable.

Shh, shh, shh, relax and it will be much better,” Ben smiled down at her.

In a moment of clarity Felicity thought that Benjamin Roach was an imbecile. How was relaxing her sphincter going to make her rape any better.

But it turned out that he was right. When Ben had himself fully inside her he stopped pushing and just let his cock fill her anus. Felicity was so tight that Ben was scared that he could cum if he moved in the slightest and he wanted to enjoy the beautiful woman who lay beneath him.

Felicity took a couple of deep breaths and forced herself to relax her sphincter. The relief was instantaneous and the pain went away. What surprised her was the tingling feeling of intense pleasure that replaced the pain. Felicity had used vibrators and dildos on herself many times but this was different. Actually having a flesh and blood penis inside her was a totally different feeling and a feeling she could come to enjoy under different circumstances.

A cloud of self-contempt and disgust passed over her but she pushed it deep down inside. If she was going to survive this ordeal with any modicum of sanity and self-respect she had to stop being a victim. Besides, struggling against these youths was causing her unnecessary pain.

Felicity capitulated.

She stopped struggling and the others let go of her limbs one at a time. Out came the mobile phones as the boys gathered around to watch would happen next.

Ben’s cock was pressing against Felicity’s prostate and her own cock was rampant inside her satin panties. Ben’s belly was pressing on her penis and when he moved he invoked delicious scintillas of pleasure, coupled with little sparkles of delight radiating from her sphincter and the deep ripples of pleasure emanated from her prostate, Felicity finally came to realise why the trans-women in the videos she watched enjoyed anal sex so much.

For some reason a masochistic trope flashed across her mind: ‘If rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it’.

Felicity knew that it was ridiculous but it was the position she found herself in and when Ben lowered his handsome face to hers and tried to kiss her she turned away but only briefly. He began to slowly fuck her and her pleasure centres lit up.

She moaned like a slattern and opened her mouth wide to accept Ben’s tongue. His cock was doing things inside her that she had never experienced before, a mixture of pleasure and pain that was almost indescribable radiated from her anus. She found that if she concentrated she could clamp the walls of her anus tight around Ben’s long thick cock and then release it.

Even though the pressure made her anus feel like it was burning from inside out there was something seductive about controlling the intensity of her own pain. It gave her power where she really had none. She felt a sense of control, even though she was a prisoner.

Carl Huntley was filming the event and he made sure that he caught Felicity wrapping her legs around Ben’s flanks and her arms stroking his torso as she mewed underneath him. Ben’s face was screwed up with the intensity of the pleasure he was experiencing and he was trying desperately not to come. He wanted this to go forever.

The feel of Felicity’s body draped in her satin gown, the sensuality of her sheer-stockinged legs against his tender flesh, the carnality of her fingernails raking his back, the feel of her anus squeezing his cock like a velvet glove. He could feel her hard cock against his belly but it didn’t disgust him. On the contrary, the feel of Felicity’s throbbing cock through the layers of silky fabric intensified his desire.

Felicity was gasping and rising to meet his thrusts as Ben began to pound his cock in and out of her anus. Feelings of intense sexual synergy wracked her and her whole body convulsed as she orgasmed. Hot semen flooded her panties and soaked her dress. Ben felt the scalding fluid on his belly and he pulled Felicity hard against him, drove his cock deep inside her and ejaculated.

He smothered her cries by putting her mouth on her and she kissed him passionately as her heels drummed on his back and her nails raked his shoulders. Two of the youths watching the performance were so excited by it that they too ejaculated, one against Felicity’s gossamer-clad calf and the other in her hair.

As Ben’s orgasm began to subside he climbed off Felicity and stood next to the couch looking down at her.

“Now that was a good show!” he gasped.

“She’s all yours boys,” he waved at his frat buddies as he walked away to get a drink.

The five youths took Felicity ceaselessly over the next four hours. They invaded her mouth and her anus repeatedly. They used her one at a time or ganged up on her as they saw fit. By the time they were finished with her it was the early hours of the morning and her dress was a semen-soaked tattered rag, her panties long discarded, her stockings laddered, her makeup ruined and her blonde wig had been torn away and her own brunette hair was stiff with drying cum.

Her anus felt like it was prolapsed and her jaw ached, but to her shame Felicity had orgasmed twice more during the ordeal. One of the boys had even fellated her while his pal was fucking her doggy-style.

She felt betrayed and degraded but also ashamed and disgusted with herself. She tried to justify her actions as self-preservation but found it hard to do so when she recalled begging Jamaal Washington to fuck her harder as he ravaged her anus with his giant cock.

Benjamin Roach, Carl Huntley, Jamaal Washington, Spencer Duvall and William Turner were all guilty of the sexual assault of Felicity Benson but there was no way she was ever going to prove it. They had already edited the videos they had taken of her into a thirty minute featurette of Felicity actively participating and obviously enjoying being gangbanged.

Spencer Duvall even showed it to Felicity on his phone while she tried her best to clean herself up.

“Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube not to mention Pornhub and XHamster,” Spencer mocked her.

“We prefer to keep our home movies to ourselves but one squeak out of you about what happened here tonight and we will post this on all those sites and more,” he threatened.

“And of course should you claim that you were forced to have sex with us I’m sure the campus police will find the video compelling evidence to the contrary,” Ben chimed in.

He unlocked the door to the room which now reeked of booze, marijuana and sex. He checked that the coast was clear and led Felicity to the front door of the frat house. Felicity could hardly walk and she felt pathetic in her ruined dress, carrying her wig and her handbag, limping in her high heels. At least they had let her fix her makeup and brush her hair.

She turned to him at the door and gave him a look of complete sorrow and despair.

“Why?” she whispered.

“Because we can,” he grinned at her.

She turned her face away when he tried to kiss her.

“Have it your way then, but just remember to keep your mouth shut,” Ben slammed the door shut behind her.

*****

Ten years later…

Penelope Bishop was running hard through Balwyn City park dodging the early morning power-walkers and ‘yummy-mommies’ pushing strollers the size of small articulated vehicles, their daily exercise regime more an excuse to show off their lycra-clad tits and asses than it had anything to do with keeping fit. Most of them were wearing full makeup for fuck sake!

Penelope ran because she needed to, it was an addiction. Twelve months sober, she had replaced drinking with exercise. Normally she would be running alongside her partner, FBI agent Bradley Wilson, but he had been summoned to Austin to attend mandatory annual training and to receive his FITREP.

She and Bradley had worked together on the ‘Sleeping Beauties’ serial killer case and had fallen in love. At that time Penelope had been on the verge physical, moral and professional suicide with a self-destructive lifestyle of booze, promiscuity and neglect.

Bradley Wilson had saved her but not before Michael Kendal, the Sleeping Beauty Killer, had drugged her, abducted her and fucked her while she lay paralysed and unable to resist. The ordeal had brought about a crisis of conscience and Penelope had stepped close to the precipice but had stepped back into the arms of Bradley Wilson.

Not that Penelope Bishop wasn’t a strong willed woman. When she was still a rookie she had single-handedly brought down the Balwyn City Police Department, exposing the Mayor, the Chief of Police and several high-ranking police officers involved in corruption and murder including the murder of her father. She had shot the Chief of Police dead in a shootout at a meth lab where the Chief and his henchmen intended to kill Penelope and blame the drug dealers.

Her smartwatch vibrated on her wrist and she read the scrolling text without missing a step or slowing down. She took the next exit from the park and ran back to her apartment texting a response to Silvia Bickle, her partner and best friend. She drank orange juice straight from the carton knowing that Bradley would have admonished her for doing so had he been home.

She showered, put on her makeup and came out of the bathroom to dress. Penelope looked at herself critically in the full-length mirror.

Approaching forty she was still an attractive woman with a great body. She had recently changed her hairstyle and her honey-blonde tresses fell in waves and framed her face, resting lightly on her shoulders. Her lips were full and sensual and the fine lines on her forehead and in the corners of her mouth enhanced rather than detracted from her beauty. The facial feature that attracted everyone’s attention were her emerald-green eyes.

She followed her long elegant neck down to her shoulders and her full, perky breasts and berry-coloured nipples and then her gaze continued down to her slim waist and curvy hips. She turned sideways and looked at her pert buttocks and long shapely legs.

“Not bad for an old gal,” she whispered and began to dress.

She had laid out her clothes on the bed before she had taken a shower: a charcoal-grey skirt-suit, white blouse, full-cut white satin panties and matching bra and a package of Haynes fifteen denier flesh-toned pantyhose. She sat on the bed and pulled on the pantyhose and then she stood and pushed her testes into her inguinal canals and pulled her penis and scrotum back along her perineum. She pulled the gusset of her pantyhose tight and stepped into her panties and pulled them up.

She put on her bra, blouse and skirt and padded over to the wardrobe and opened the gun-safe and took out her service weapon, holster, speed-loader and her police credentials. She put on the holster, checked her weapon and holstered it and clipped it to the waistband of her skirt, her credentials went into the inside pocket of her jacket. She put on her black low heels in which she could still outrun most of the police officers on the force. Putting on her jacket she picked up her keys off the hallstand and went outside into the brisk morning air.

Penelope punched the address she had been given into her BMW’s navigation system and hit the streets. No need for lights or siren she listened to her favourite rock and roll station on the way to the crime scene. She was craving coffee but didn’t stop to get any hoping that Silvia had stopped at Starbucks and gotten her a house roast venti.

Alighting from her vehicle and clipping her detective’s shield to her breast pocket Penelope was pleased to see that Silvia Bickle had done exactly that and she stood on the other side of the police tape holding two containers of coffee. Penelope ducked under the tape, the young patrolman guarding the crime scene nodding respectfully at her.

“You are a goddess!” Penelope snatched the proffered coffee from Silvia’s outstretched hand.

“I am indeed. I have the finest black ass in the city of Balwyn and arguably in the whole state,” Silvia said in a Texan drawl that some people thought was affected but was actually her speaking voice.

A native Texan, Silvia was thirty seven, slim but powerful and was wearing her signature dark-grey pantsuit, dazzling white blouse and polished black low heels. Her makeup was perfect and complemented her flawless caramel complexion; her loose black curls cascaded to her shoulders. Silvia was a proud African American lesbian and had been Penelope’s partner and best friend for five years.

“What have we got?” Penelope followed Silvia towards the swank townhouse.

“Thirty-five year old white male, deceased. Possibly death by misadventure but more likely a homicide,” Silvia referred to her notes.

“Why are we here?” Penelope asked.

Penelope and Silvia comprised Balwyn PD’s special two-person taskforce who worked only the most complicated or high-profile cases.

“The DOA is Spencer Duvall of the ‘Armadillo Oil and Gas’ Duvall’s,” Silvia sipped her coffee and looked over the rim of her cup to catch Penelope’s reaction.

Armadillo Oil was no Exxon Mobile but it was still a major player and headquartered in the Energy Corridor area of Houston. The Duvall family held a controlling interest in the company.

“Rich kid fucks up and the family leans on the Mayor who leans on the Chief of Police,” Penelope sighed.

“Wait until you see the crime scene; this one is interesting to say the least,” Silvia opened the front door to the townhouse.

The two detectives signed into the crime scene and put on the Tyvek boots and surgical gloves provided by Alice Leasingham, a member of the CSI team. They followed the CSI tech to the master bedroom where they found Bob Tanner, Balwyn PD’s CSI team leader and Brendan Scott the medical examiner hard at work.

“Ah… my two favourite ladies,” Bob Tanner opened his arms towards them as they entered and indicated the tiles that the CSIs had placed on the plush carpet to prevent cross-contamination.

Only Bob could get away with such a condescending comment because the women knew he was genuine. They worked closely with him and considered Bob a colleague and a friend.

“What have we got here Bob?” Penelope stepped on the tiles and approached the bed.

Silvia approached from the other side.

A man lay naked on the king-sized bed; his wrists were handcuffed to the bedhead and a stocking was tightly wound around his neck; so tight in fact that it was embedded in the flesh.

“Jesus! What do you think Doc; sex-play gone wrong?” Silvia directed the question to Brendan Scott who approached the bed from the other side.

“I’ll need to conduct an autopsy of course but my initial hypothesis is death by strangulation. You can see the conjunctival and facial petechial haemorrhages here and his tongue and oropharynx are swollen,” the doctor pointed to Spencer Duvall’s bloodshot eyes and enlarged tongue.

“Ligature and manual strangulation injuries occur when a force that is independent of the patient’s body is applied to the neck. Strangulation injuries can also be divided into categories of intent which include: homicidal, suicidal, accidental, and auto-erotic. The material involved in a ligature or hanging may also have implications on pathology and subsequent forensics,” Brendan liked to lecture his small audience.

“Bob is the scene of crime expert but that stocking is so firmly embedded in the victim’s neck that I’d probably rule out autoerotic asphyxiation and with his hands cuffed to the bedposts it obviously wasn’t suicide, although accidental death during autoerotic asphyxiation by a third party cannot be ruled out just yet,” Brendan moved away from the corpse so that Bob could take over.

“You can see here the abrasions to his wrists where he struggled while he was being strangled but my guess is he allowed himself to be cuffed to the bed, likely as some sort of sexual role-play. There are no other contusions and no sign of a struggle. Plus…” Bob nodded in the direction of Spencer’s groin.

There was lipstick on the head and shaft of Spencer Duvall’s engorged penis.

“Also this… get the lights please Alice,” Bob called to his tech.

The drapes were fully closed and when the lights went out the room was completely dark. Bob switched on his forensic light source, basically a fancy UV torch, and played it over Spencer Duvall’s body. The area around his groin, belly and chest lit up like a Christmas tree as did patches on the sheets and duvet. He called for Alice to turn the lights back on when he’d made his point.

“It certainly looks like a lot of sex took place. Most body fluids will fluoresce under UV, but the filter I used is designed to enhance semen and vaginal fluids. That is a lot of semen ladies; I’ll defer to Doc Scott again,” Bob nodded at Brendan Scott.

“The International Society for Sexual Medicine suggests that males expel, on average, 1.25 to 5 ml of semen each time they ejaculate. This is roughly 1/4 to 1 teaspoon. Obviously we do not know how many times Spencer Duvall ejaculated and that is likely dependent on how long he participated in the sexual activity,” Brendan began.

“We know from witness accounts that he returned home late yesterday evening and I estimate his time of death at around two to three am, I’ll need to take a liver temperature to confirm,” Brendan pointed to the dead man.

It was only now that they were discussing it that Penelope and Silvia became aware of the musky stench of the semen that pervaded the air around the bed.

“I’ll conduct the autopsy later today and provide my findings to Bob but I expect to find more than one ejaculator. The use of the stocking and the presence of lipstick tend us to believe there was a female presence,” Brendan gave Bob a pointed look indicating he should take over.

“Look. We've yet to fully process the crime scene and Brendan is yet to conduct the autopsy but a cursory inspection of the scene supports a theory that there was at least one other man and a woman present. Whether they were both involved in the death of the victim is not certain. Whether this was a role-play sex party that went wrong or a murder is also for you to ascertain. We will get you preliminary results at the end of the day and we will update you as we learn more,” Bob Tanner summed up the situation.

“Ok gentlemen, we’ll leave you to it while we do the policework. Come on Silvia it’s time to get head down and ass up interviewing potential witnesses,” Penelope indicated the door.

“Oh one more thing ladies. We were so engrossed with the deceased I forget to point out something else that is likely to be important. Look on the wall above the bed,” Bob said.

The letters Ā Ĥ П were written on the wall in red lipstick.

“My Greek is rusty but is that Eta Lambda Pi?” Silvia asked, staring at the wall.

“Indeed Miz Bickle; although I have no inkling what the significance is. That falls under your domain,” Bob turned back to the crime scene and Penelope took out her phone and snapped a picture of the Greek lettering.

“Likely to be important… Bob can be an asshole sometimes,” Penelope grumbled as they left the bedroom.

“You know he just likes to project an air of superiority,” Silvia replied, scrolling through her messages.

“Fuck! Gary Rasmussen is waiting for us outside. Hope you wore your big girl panties today Penny,” Silvia ribbed her partner.

“How do you know I’m wearing any?” Penelope punched Silvia in the arm playfully.

Gary Rasmussen was Balwyn PD’s Chief of Detectives. He and Penelope Bishop went way back. He had handpicked Penelope to join his detective squad over the objections of other senior police officials; she was still not popular with some of the hierarchy. Whistle-blowers were never really trusted by other cops.

Penelope had history and came with considerable baggage. She had become a brilliant detective but her marriage to Sargent Randy Cody began to break down when she spent more time attending to the job than to her marriage. When her husband was killed by a hit and run driver whilst attending a vehicular accident Penelope spiralled out of control using drugs and sex to try to ease the pain.

Gary finally issued her an ultimatum, get sober or get out. At the same time Penelope met and fell in love with an FBI agent named Bradley Wilson. Penelope considered that both of those men had saved her life and she and Gary Rasmussen had the utmost respect for each other and she had regained his trust. But Gary was still her boss.

They found him leaning against Penelope’s BMW drinking coffee and smoking a Tareyton. As soon as she smelled the tobacco Penelope began jonesing but she had been smoke free for almost as long as she had been sober.

“You detectives know who Spencer Duvall is, right?” Gary launched straight into it.

“Yes we know,” Silvia sighed.

“Bob Tanner gave me the gist of what he found up there,” Gary indicated the townhouse with his chin.

“Sex, murder and money. The media are going to have a field day with this shit. Keep a tight lid on it ladies. Spencer was married and has two kids, let’s try and keep the sordid details away from the press,” he threw his butt on the road and ground it out.

“I don’t suppose the fact that he comes from one of the most powerful and influential families in the State has anything to do with the importance that Balwyn PD is putting on this case?” Penelope sniped.

“Asses and elbows ladies. Everything goes through me. Your budget on this is unlimited. Get it solved and keep it quiet,” Gary pushed his girth off Penelope’s car and turned away from the two detectives.

He turned around after a few paces.

“Has that lanky clotheshorse who wears an FBI shield proposed to you yet Penelope?” Gary gave her a sardonic smile.

“Not yet Chief but like with everything else, you will be the first to know,” Penelope replied sarcastically.

“If he doesn't do it soon I’m going to throw my hat in the ring,” he chuckled.

“You know that Balwyn PD has strict rules about superiors fucking their subordinates,” Penelope smiled at Gary.

Gary Rasmussen was happily married and would never play up on his wife but he Penelope and Silvia liked to joke around.

“Check your texts. Duvall’s wife is in town. She’s been informed of his death and the Chief of Police met her at the airport and settled her into the Hilton. She’s allowing you to interview her later this morning,” Gary rummaged in his pockets for his car keys.

“Allowing?” Silvia said incredulously.

“She’s rich and she’s a bitch. Don’t fuck with her Bickle; play nice,” Gary found his keys and waddled over to his service vehicle.

*****

“Which one of you has the dick and which one of you is the box-biter? I’m guessing the one wearing the pants is the pillow princess so you must be packing under that skirt,” Cynthia Duvall waved a hand at Penelope.

Penelope and Silvia looked at each other and nodded imperceptibly. They had dealt with entitled affluent bitches like Cynthia Duvall before and they knew that they needed to keep their cool to get anywhere with her.

Cynthia had opened the door to the penthouse and turned her back on the two detectives immediately and sauntered back into the suite leaving the door open. They had followed her in and stood in the middle of the opulent living room.

Cynthia settled into one of the white leather couches and folded her legs under her. She was wearing a designer white skirt suit with a black silk blouse, her expensive hosiery glittered on her long legs and the red soles on her heels indicated they were Christian Louboutin. Her hair and makeup was perfect. She did not look like a grieving widow.

“Sorry for your loss Mrs Duvall,” Penelope replied, ignoring the sleight.

“Oh please… Mrs Duvall is my mother-in-law,” Cynthia guffawed and reached for her gin and tonic.

It wasn’t even noon but Penelope couldn’t take anyone’s inventory. She knew that she was only one drink away from becoming the lush she had been before she found AA.

“May we sit?” Silvia asked, indicating the sofa adjacent to where Cynthia reposed on the couch.

Cynthia just nodded and guzzled her drink.

Both women took out their credentials but Cynthia waved them away.

“I know who you are. Your Chief of Police tells me that you are Balwyn’s finest,” she looked at the two women like they were dogshit on her shoe.

“We would like to ask you a few questions about your husband,” Penelope began.

“Do I need a lawyer?” Cynthia dropped ice chips into a crystal glass and topped it up with gin.

“You are not under investigation Ms Duval, you were in Houston when your husband died but if you say anything incriminating we will stop you and Mirandize you. This isn’t like on TV, we’re not here to trap you,” Penelope opened her notebook.

Cynthia nodded and reached for her cigarettes. The hotel had a strict no-smoking policy but Cynthia was the type of person who believed that rules did not apply to her. She offered the pack to Penelope who shook her head.

“But you want to. I can tell by the way you watched me light up. You’re fucking jonesing for that cigarette, this too,” Cynthia held up her drink so that the light reflected off the cut crystal.

“What was your husband doing in Balwyn?” Penelope ignored Cynthia's taunts and began her questioning.

“He keeps a townhouse here. His parents bought it for him when he went to college. He could have gone to any of the big colleges, even the University of Houston, but he wanted to play football and he was average at best. Daddy paid Balwyn College a handsome stipend on the proviso he be guaranteed a position in their starting line-up,” Cynthia blew smoke at the ceiling.

“It was money wasted really. He and his cronies spent most of their time drinking and fucking co-eds. He likes to come to Balwyn to cat around. Both the family and I prefer it. Nobody cares what he does in this shithole city. He can carouse as much he likes here but when he comes home to Houston he’s the respectable family man and successful businessman,” Cynthia paused to take a drink.

“You knew about his extramarital affairs? Have you been informed of the circumstances of his death?” Silvia interjected.

“He liked to do kinky shit in bed in which I have no interest. I allowed him to do whatever he liked with whomever he liked so long as he didn’t disgrace the family name or bring home a venereal disease. I wouldn’t let him fuck me after he returned from each little excursion until he produced a doctor’s certificate,” Cynthia said matter-of-factly.

“You’re very candid,” Silvia postulated.

“I’m a breeder Ms Bickle. I come from the right family, I have the right upbringing and I have an unblemished reputation. Spencer’s father breeds longhorns as well as drills for oil so he has an eye for good breeding stock. He personally selected me to be Spencer’s wife,” Cynthia tapped ash into a vase on the side table.

“That’s rather archaic,” Penelope commented.

“It’s a matter of practicality. My family has the right name, we’re Texas aristocracy so to speak, but we can’t rub two nickels together so a marriage of convenience suits us both. Besides, I let his Daddy ‘try before you buy’ so to speak,” Cynthia winked at Penelope who shuddered at the thought.

“Do you know if Spencer had any girlfriends, lovers, or women he met on a regular basis? I know these questions are painful,” Silvia brought the interview back on track.

“That was part of our agreement. No relationships! Hook up with girls in bars, use callgirls or hookers but nothing long-term or with any emotional attachment. Not that I was worried. Spencer only cared for himself and his children and of course his college buddies,” Cynthia went about the business of making herself another drink.

“Do his college buddies live in Balwyn?” Silvia asked.

“Fucked if I know; fucked if I care. They get together a couple of times a year and relive their glory days, which means an orgy of booze drugs and girls,” Cynthia sniffed.

“I do know that Jamaal Washington lives in Houston because Spencer got him a job with Armadillo Oil. I let him fuck me once bent over the garden wall at the annual Christmas ball. I wanted to know if it was true what they said about black men. It is. I was walking bowlegged for a week after,” Cynthia said flippantly.

“You’d know about that wouldn’t you Detective Bickle… oh no you wouldn’t… you’re a rug muncher aren’t you,” Cynthia glared at Silvia Bickle.

Silvia ignored the racial slur and the insult regarding her sexuality.

“Do you know if your husband had a predilection for bondage or sadomasochism?” Penelope asked bitingly.

“If there was a kink then Spencer was into it. He and his college cronies got up to all manner of perversions. He’d sometimes try to shock me by showing me videos on his phone. He did it once too often and I pointed to some random penis and told him that it looked just like his Daddy’s.”

“Are we finished now ladies? That isn’t a question by the way,” Cynthia got up from the couch and was steady on her feet despite the amount of alcohol she had consumed

“One last question,” Penelope said as she and Silvia arose to leave.

“Does the phrase Eta Lambda Pi mean anything to you?” they were walking to the door.

“Ah! That’s was Spencer’s college fraternity. All his freaky pals were pledged. Fucking gown men behaving like delinquent teenagers,” Cynthia guffawed.

“Good luck ladies. I hope you find out who killed my husband and if you don’t, well she probably deserves to get away with it. He probably deserved what he got if he treated her the same way he treats the other floozies,” Cynthia closed the door on Penelope and Silvia who just stared at each other dumbfounded.

“She could have hired someone to murder her husband; there’s certainly no love lost there,” Silvia speculated.

“I don’t think she would have been so candid if she had but let’s not rule it out,” Penelope replied as they made their way to the elevator.

Back at Police Plaza the CSI team and Medical Examiner had news.

“Cause of death was strangulation, Mister Duvall was strangled with the nylon stocking we found at the scene, just as we suspected,” Brendan Scott began.

“The stocking was so deeply and firmly embedded in the flesh of the neck that the murderer must have sat astride him, holding Duvall down, pulling on the stocking at the same time. That corroborates how we found his body at the crime scene.”

“Mister Duvall had very recently had sex and was likely engaged in coitus when he was killed, it is also likely that the sex was protracted and extremis had been achieved more than once. His blood test revealed he had ingested high concentrations of alcohol, cocaine hydrochloride and Sildenafil,” Brendan Scott completed his summary and handed the autopsy report to Silvia Bickle.

“Sildenafil? Isn’t that…” Penelope began to ask.

“Viagra or the generic equivalent. He had ingested four times the recommended dose for a man of his age and medical condition. Hence the priapism we observed at the crime scene,” Doctor Scott concluded.

“Okay… Bob what did you and your team find?” Silvia turned to Bob Tanner.

“There was definitely sex involved in the murder. A lot of sex. We found semen from two donors all over Mister Duvall’s body and on the bedding. We will assume that Mister Duvall is one donor but we won’t who the other donor is until we run the DNA. The second donor is a non-secretor,” Bob Tanner began.

“Interestingly there was no sign of any vaginal fluids either on his body or in the bedding. We swabbed his penis and found only semen, lipstick, and microscopic faecal matter which suggests anal sex,” Bob was reading from a summary sheet so the women were unable to see the expression on his face.

“But the lipstick?” Penelope asked.

“Yes the same lipstick that we found on Mister Duvall’s penis was used to write the inscription on the wall. We also found traces of it on Mister Duvall’s lips and on the pillow, as well as mascara and face powder. We are analysing the makeup to see if we can find out what brand it is,” Bob tapped the summary sheet.

“We have collected a number of hairs and fibres, in particular a number of long hairs that have brunette roots but are dyed blonde. We didn’t find the second stocking to match the one used to strangle the victim so the perp either brought only one stocking to the scene or took the other one with them.”

“The place is covered in fingerprints and we've lifted all the prints that are likely to be useful and we will run them through IAFIS and see if we get a hit,” Bob handed the summary sheet to Silvia who put it alongside the autopsy report.

“CSI is finished with the crime scene and we have released it to the PD so you’re free to examine it. Alice Leasingham has taken a laptop computer and mobile phone into evidence and is examining them; she’ll get back to you with her findings,” Bob concluded.

“Bob, fast-track the DNA and fingerprints, we have the budget to jump the queue. Brendan, don’t release the body to the mortuary yet in case we need to run further tests. Silvia and I will retrace Spencer Duvall’s comings and goings on his final evening. Let’s get this case solved,” Penelope wheeled out her storyboard and began to lay out the case evidence.

“We’ll start at the crime scene and spiral out,” Penelope said to Silvia.

*****

In the manager’s office of ‘Ride em’ Cowgirl’ nightclub, one of Balwyn’s LGBTI friendly venues, Felicity Benson pulled a nylon stocking out of her purse and examined it under the desklamp. It was an exact match for the stocking found wrapped around Spencer Duvall’s neck.

She held the stocking over the litter bin and ignited it with her gold cigarette lighter and watched it burn, releasing it when the flames licked her fingertips. She lit a cigarette and watched the last of the diaphanous garment disintegrate.

She was smiling.

To be continued