The Collector by Kay Jaybee

the hall mirror. Not too business-like; she’d rejected her suit jacket in favour of a soft lilac cashmere sweater, but held onto the suit trousers and medium heels for the required professional gloss.
    As Karen settled into the back of the cab she’d hailed, she produced the evening’s brief out of her shoulder bag. “The Executive School. A safe and friendly environment to expand those lost skills of fulfilment.” That was all the flyer said. Her editor, Charles, hadn’t been able to expand that much. He’d just heard that the education dished out was based on sexual fulfilment and that, as their readers were always in pursuit of new techniques, it would be worth a look. He’d arranged it all he said, and they were expecting her.
    Her mobile phone buzzed in her bag.
‘Karen?’
‘I’m just on my way Charles, don’t worry.’
‘I thought I’d better come clean before you got there.’ Charles
sounded slightly uncomfortable as he spoke.
    Karen was immediately suspicious. ‘What do you mean? Come clean about what?’
‘You aren’t going along to report, well not just to report. You’re going in undercover. As far as the class are concerned, you’re one of them.’
‘WHAT?!’ Karen shouted down her phone, causing the cab driver to look around in concern.
Charles elaborated. ‘You are to join in and write about the experience afterwards.’
‘Join in?’ Karen spoke slowly, not quite believing what she was hearing. ‘Exactly what am I joining in?’
‘Look honey, this job gets to people. I should know, I’ve been doing it along time. Too much exposure and not enough action, it’s bad for you to forget what it’s like to feel. You can become desensitised if you’re not careful.’
Karen could almost hear her last boyfriend’s words as her editor spoke.
‘Charles, I really don’t want…’
‘You’ll love it.’
‘But I can’t! Watching, being apart from it is one thing, but honestly,’ Karen dropped her voice to a whisper. ‘What if they want me to take my clothes off?’
‘Lucky them.’
‘Charles!’
‘Karen. This has cost the company big,’ Charles put his chief editor’s voice back on. Do not waste our money. I want a full, indepth, personalised report written tomorrow morning.’
‘But…’
‘The man you report to is called Mark. He thinks you are a bored divorced career woman who wants a bit of pep to her life.’
‘How dare…’
‘AND,’ Charles raised his voice to stem her flood of complaints. ‘He thinks you are loaded. The fees he charges, you’d have to be. Call me the second it’s over.’ He hung up.
Sweat prickled across Karen’s palms. She was a reporter, not a participant. No one ever gave Kate Adie a gun and told her to go shoot someone to see how it felt for God’s sake. She read the flyer again. It still said nothing.
The taxi pulled up outside the hotel where the class was to be held. Karen paid the driver with shaking hands and stood, uncertain, on the pavement. She could run, but she really didn’t want Charles to sack her. Maybe she should blow her cover and ask to be a casual observer. Or perhaps, a small voice nagged at her from the back of her mind: ‘ You might enjoy yourself. It might help you to remember the point of all this stuff you write. The magazine was designed to turn people on for heaven’s sake; why not you?’
Taking another calming breath, she marched into the foyer, headed to Reception, and asked for the Fountain Suite. Karen chanted silently under her breath, ‘I’m a reporter. I’m a professional. I can be involved without being truly involved, I CAN do this.’ She pushed her shoulders back, stood up straight and headed to the door of the suite.
Her tentative knock caused the door to be opened by a young woman, beyond which stood a well built middle-aged man. Mark, she presumed. He was accompanied by two men and one other woman. Instant partners. Karen’s stomach contracted with nerves, she felt like a high class hooker on