The Boss by Monica Belle Page B

installed soon people would be getting photos of themselves dropping a bubblegum wrapping through the post, accompanied by a £50 fine. I don’t claim to know the answers, but I don’t want that.
    The trouble was: what to do? Maybe I could somehow sabotage the system so that it failed, but if so I was going to have to be very clever about it. Anything technical and I was sure to be spotted, but it was hard to see what else was possible. Also, just thinking about it made me feel guilty and I couldn’t bear the thought of Stephen English catching me.
    So I brooded over it, moving between hare-brained but satisfying schemes to a state of deep guilt, all the rest of the day and that evening. The next day both Stephen and Paul were extremely busy preparing equipment and software so that they could move fast and show how efficient they were when they got the go-ahead from the council. Stephen had also been out early to retrieve the cameras they’d set up in the woods and came to me with the discs shortly after I’d made the second coffee of the morning.
    â€˜Felicity, these are the discs from our test. Could you look through them and flag up anything that might be of interest?’
    â€˜Sure . . . I mean, certainly, Mr English.’
    He grinned.
    â€˜I rather like the sound of that.’
    I felt my tummy flutter and an immediate flush of irritation at my own reaction. He put the discs on my desk and went back into the warehouse, whistling a classical air which I’d learnt meant he was both busy and happy. I put the first DVD in, one from a static ZX-2, and began to search for action. The camera had been positioned about three metres up a tree, and showed a section of logging track much like any other, only rather more overgrown. There were dense stands of young pine to either side and ferns and brambles in the middle with just a narrow path between. The first living thing I saw was a large fly, and for a moment I expected a huge and hideous head to appear in the window displaying the recorded data. It didn’t, fortunately, but after a moment a deer strolled into view. That was labelled as 0000014 and clearly a candidate for a fine or some community service as it relieved itself at the side of the path.
    For a while I watched the deer browse, only for it to suddenly take fright and bound off among the pines. Again I was left looking at the empty path, and about to move the disc forward when a man appeared. He was in his twenties, fairly tall, with a receding hairline and dressed in sports casuals. I also recognised him, but it took me a moment to place him as the younger of the two men who ran the bookshop where Mum had worked briefly the summer before. He was duly recorded as 0000015 and moved on, once more leaving the path empty.
    Nothing more happened and I ran the disc on, only to stop at a flicker of movement. Twenty minutes ofdisc time had passed and 0000015 was back, only this time with a companion, who was promptly added to the data base. 0000016 was another man, older but in good condition and dressed in tight running shorts and a vest top. They were talking earnestly together and it wasn’t about jogging.
    I watched in fascination as the younger man gave a nervous smile and sank slowly to his knees, his face at the height of the older one’s crotch. The older man had set his legs apart and now put his hands on his hips as he looked down, a pose suggesting dominance and not a little contempt as he watched his thick, white cock being extracted from his shorts. I was about to witness a gay blow job.
    I felt a regular little peeping Thomasina as I watched, but I was not going to stop. It was too good, too rude, watching one man’s cock grow slowly to erection in another’s mouth, also the way the young man handled his lover’s balls, stroking beneath them and occasionally sticking out a finger to stimulate the anus. He was so dirty about it, so uninhibited,