(Author's Note: Thank you for the positive feedback!)

There are so many "first things" I could've done the morning after meeting Claire for the first time. Research. Drafting up a good backstory for Billie Easter. Even sorting through my closet for some semblance of sexy clothing, which I do not own.

Instead, I threw some sweatpants on, went to Walmart, and bought a three dollar journal that says "Wild GRL" on the front. No, I didn't buy it because of my, um, current situation. It was either "Wild GRL" or "2 Corinthians 5:7", and you can probably guess why I didn't buy that one.

Most undercover missions require formal documentation, but the last thing I need is Jarod hacking my computer and reading about my, um, escapades. But I also know that I need a place to vent about all of this, because shit's probably about to get real weird.

I throw open the cover, grabbing a nearby pen.

Dear Diary,

I immediately scratch it out. Dear Diary? I'm not a ten-year-old girl. All I need to do is put the date.

June 10th

Then I hesitate. What is someone supposed to write in a diary? Do I really want to document my innermost thoughts and feelings? That would require confronting them, and that's kind of the last thing I want to do right now.

Then I think: what do I even say? Nothing's actually happened yet. All I did was have coffee. With Claire Redfield. Who wants to make me her bitch. Well, her and Leon's bitch. Chris Redfield's sister wants to share a man with me, "both in and out of the bedroom".

After several seconds of thinking, I finally scribble something down.

What the fuck, man?

The light on my webcam flashes. Actually, it's probably been flashing for a while. I toss Wild GRL to the side and straighten up.

Jarod's voice angrily blasts through my speakers as soon as I turn them on. "The hell are you doing, Valentine? I've been trying to catch you for almost an hour!" Everything is so dramatic with him.

"I had stuff I had to take care of." It's technically not a lie.

"What stuff?"

"Lady stuff."

"You had lady stuff yesterday."

"Do you have any idea how menstrual cycles work, Jarod?"

He twists his face, then sort of squints his eyes, like he's trying to see something far away, except there's nothing to see far away, because the asshole spends his whole life in front of a damn computer.

"Are you topless, Valentine?"

I glance down. I'm still in my ratty Walmart-trip tank top. The straps had fallen down. I quickly slip them back up. Motherfucking pervert.

"Clearly there's something important you wanted to tell me, so get on with it," I mutter.

He rubs his face. "Christ, it's like you've got your head up your own ass sometimes. Or maybe someone else's."

"Jarod."

"There was a break-in early this morning in the London BSAA headquarters. Happened at about one AM our time, seven theirs."

I hesitate before responding. "And?" Now I'm being a bitch. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the break-ins are someone looking for money, only to be disappointed that BSAA doesn't magically have stacks of cash just floating around.

"There were only a few men involved in the break-in. As far as we know, they're not tied to any known organizations, but they did hold an intern hostage and demanded access to classified files on the Umbrella case. Central thinks they might be tied to someone who's trying to create a copycat virus." Jarod's voice sounds so tired and monotone. I almost wonder if he's lying. Then again, it's too big of a situation to lie about.

"Jarod! What the fuck? Why didn't you tell me earlier?"

He grips his hands onto his desk, leaning closer to the webcam. "Because you're too busy wiping your panties with blood, Valentine."

Gross.

"What ended up happening? Do you think there's a chance the US headquarters will be attacked?" I figure if I press him for details, I can get my mind off of, um, yesterday.

He sort of waves me off. "The situation is managed. Security got the punks off the property really fast, but unfortunately nobody got documentation of their faces or names. We don't know who, or what, was behind all of it. As for our headquarters, we've amped up security. Had to ask a couple of our guys to work overtime, but I'm sure they're not complaining about the extra money."

"What happened to the intern? The one held hostage?"

"He got shot," he says nonchalantly.

"What?!"

"He's in the ICU. He'll be fine. He's just an intern."

"You're such an asshole," I sigh. "If the whole thing is managed, why was it so urgent to get a hold of me? You don't sound all that concerned about what went down."

"Because the break-in isn't what's important right now. What's concerning is knowing there's at least one active group, however big or small, trying to dig up dirt on the Umbrella case. They're probably going to go after those who were on the front lines back in Raccoon City a few years ago."

"Like me."

"Like Chris."

"So you think Chris might be held hostage by some punks in London?"

He shrugs. "It's possible. There's a chance he's working for the punks in London, or some other organization. The longer we don't know his whereabouts, the more dangerous these theoretical situations become. Do you not understand how urgent this is, Valentine?"

I slam my hands on my desk, making sure to keep my body at an angle where he can't see my Wild GRL diary in the background. "I told you, I'm following a lead! I've got something! It's been twelve hours and you've already completely lost faith in me. You've got to be more patient than that."

"Well it doesn't help that you won't tell me what this supposed lead is."

There's no way I can bring myself to tell him. I try to tell myself it was because it was too early on, and I didn't know whether this whole unicorn arrangement was going to work out, but deep down, I know it's because I'm about to go through a potentially humiliating experience just to find stupid fucking Chris.

"I'm handling it."

"How?"

I'll breadcrumb him, I decide. "I may have found a lead on his sister. Claire."

"You did? How?"

"That's all I can tell you."

My speakers ding. My billie12345 email pops up with a new notification. It's from Claire. The subject line is a series of winky emotes. I have to take a few deeps breaths to keep from getting flustered in front of Jarod.

"I have to go, Jarod. I'll keep you posted." I throw the tape back over the webcam and turn my speakers off.

I hesitate a little before clicking open the email. I'm not sure what I'm going to find. The whole situation is ridiculously unpredictable.

Billie,

Hope you're having a good day so far! I wanted to give you my number. Give me a call whenever you get the chance. I'd love to touch base and see if all three of us can get together in the near future!

There's a phone number typed at the bottom. Part of me wants to wait as long as socially acceptable to give her a call. The other part of me wants to bite the bullet and get it over with.

You can probably guess which part of me I listened to.

I dial the number, then close my eyes as the dial tone rings, just like people do all dramatically in the movies. It's not calming my nerves. Why is that a thing people do in movies, anyways?

"Hello?" I hear Claire's voice.

"Hey," I stutter after a few seconds. I was too busy concentrating on the whole closing-your-eyes-in-movies thing to focus. "It's, uh, me. Billie."

"Oh! Great! Well it's-a-me, Claire." She tries to imitate Mario. It doesn't go well. "Sorry, video game references are so cheesy, but I couldn't help it."

I start laughing at how awkward the whole twenty-seven second phone conversation has been thus far. I'll just let her think I'm laughing at her stupid joke.

"How are you, Billie?" she asks in a cheerful tone.

Stressed.

"I'm good! I'm good. Uh, I just got your email, so I wanted to, you know, give you a call."

"Yeah! Yeah! That's great!" she muses. I can hear her footsteps in the background. She's probably pacing around in whatever room she's in. Also a classic movie move. "So, I really enjoyed meeting you yesterday."

"I did, too," I reply quickly.

"Great! I told Leon a little bit about you, and how our meeting went and stuff, and he's super excited. I showed him the picture you sent, and he told me he thought you were really pretty, and I was like, oh, you know, she's so much prettier in person!"

"Oh. That's, uh, great. Thank you."

There's a moment of silence between us. She's probably waiting for me to give her a compliment, too.

"You're really pretty, too. And uh, so is Leon. Er, he's handsome. Hot? I don't know. Whichever word is the least offensive."

She laughs, thankfully. "Glad we all find each other attractive! It'll make jumping in the sack way less awkward in the future."

I haven't let myself think about that part yet.

"So," she continues on. "Let's maybe do a coffee date between all three of us? We can meet in public next time since it's a little less intimidating." She's still giggling. Is it from nerves? "No pressure this time either. This is just a chance to see if we all sort of vibe well together. Like, we get a chance to feel out what this might be like, you know?"

Her words are music to my ears. Meeting in public. No pressure. Just feeling each other out. I wonder how many times I can pull off "feeling each other out" before it progresses to, well, you know.

"Um." I don't know why I'm still stuttering my words.

Claire's clearly the kind of person who rambles when she's nervous. "Or we can meet at the house if you're wanting to jump straight into things. We'll just have to make sure Sherry's with a friend or something."

"No!" I try not to shout. "Let's, uh, let's do the coffee. I like that. Getting to know each other. Vibing. Yeah."

She giggles. She's a serious giggler. Is that a word? "Vibing. How naughty of you. Haha, just kidding, promise! Let's meet at Cafe Origin. It's real close by. How's tomorrow around four sound for you? Leon's off at three, so he can change real quick and then we can meet you there."

"Works for me."

"Great! We'll see you there!"

Click.

Cool. That gives me a solid day and a half to plan a backstory. Or find something cute. Or figure out something to write in my journal.

— —

I can't remember the last time I ever seriously contemplated my outfit. I'm not a girly-girl. I can't remember the last time I put on makeup. I'm a BSAA operative, for fucks sake.

But here I am, standing in front of my closet that's mostly tank tops, jeans, and unsexy activewear, trying to find something that could even be remotely considered sexy. Like, just sexy enough for Cafe Origin and Leon and I guess Claire, but not so sexy that I'm ticketed for public indecency. It takes me a solid thirty minutes of rummaging to almost give up. Not that I had anything better to do.

Finally, I stumbled upon an old blue tube top and slightly-out-of-style jean skirt from my college days. Even after gaining some weight post-Raccoon City, the top's still a little loose. My poor boobs took a big hit in STARS training and apparently haven't recovered. The skirt fits okay, but I still slip some shorts on underneath, more so to cover the fact that I'm wearing the ugliest granny panties you've ever seen in your life. The top's threatening to come down, so I tie a sweater around it. Is it fashionable? I don't know. But it works, and it's sexy, I guess.

Thankfully, Cafe Origin is on the other side of town, and my odds of running into someone are super low. Then again, I don't really know that many people out here to begin with. What the hell are friends, anyways?

I'm a little less nervous this time, not clutching the wheel as hard for the twenty-two minute drive it takes to get to Cafe Origin. I'm not even nervous when Claire shouts "Billie!" way too loudly from across the cafe.

Then I see Leon in person for the first time.

There's an entire class of people who look better in person than they could ever hope to look in pictures. It's a very frustrating problem at work, when you're trying to hunt fugitives for an operation using only photographs compiled by undercover researchers. It's also very frustrating when you're trying to work up the nerve to have a threesome with your former work partner's sister, so, you know.

Nerves.

They're standing in a corner, hovering above a table but not necessarily wanting to commit to sitting at it. They've already bought me a coffee. I hope Claire worked her magic again.

Claire pulls me into a hug, then holds her arm out, gesturing toward Leon as if I'd somehow miss him. "Hey girl! Nice to see you! This is my partner, Leon."

Leon doesn't say anything at first. In fact, he doesn't move a damn muscle. He bores his eyes into me. Like he's deciding if he can trust me. Or maybe if my loose tube top and outdated skirt are sexy enough for him.

I pass the test, I guess, because after several seconds, he extends his hand. "Leon Kennedy."

I return the gesture. I almost say "Jill Valentine" without thinking, then catch myself. "Billie Easter." The more I say the name, the stupider and stupider it sounds.

Claire quickly jumps in. "I got you a coffee. Cream and sugar, right?"

I slide the vacant coffee cup toward me and take a sip. Perfect, again. Maybe Claire's coffee-making skills will be the one positive out of this whole endeavor.

Claire nudges Leon, then sticks her tongue out. "See what I told you? She likes both?" She leans closer to the both of us. "Get it?"

Leon chuckles a bit, but doesn't say much. I can't tell if he's actually a shy person, or if he's nervous, or if he's already decided from the get-go that I'm not worthy of their intense sexual escapades.

It occurs to me that I can't let Claire do all the talking, or I'll lose their interest. "So, um, how did you two meet?"

Apparently, that was the wrong question to ask. Claire and Leon sort of look at each other with wild eyes, like I'm about to uncover their deepest, darkest secret. How bad could it actually be? Did they meet at a sex party or something? Did one of them, ahem, hire the other, and sparks flew? Maybe they're the real life Pretty Woman.

"It was my first day on the job. I was working for a different police department at the time. We had an incident, and Claire was involved. She was kind of the damsel in distress, and I came to rescue her."

Claire smiles, but she's gritting her teeth. "I wasn't a damsel in distress. We were both working on the same, um, thing."

"What thing?" Now I'm mildly interested.

More silence. They're deciding what the next detail to their cover story is. I have to admit, I'm intrigued. I'll have to get the truth out of them, sooner or later.

Leon runs a hand through his, admittedly, gorgeous hair. "Um, a missing persons case."

"What police department did you work for?" I ask.

Another tough question, apparently. "A really small town back east. There's no way you would've even heard of it."

Jill Valentine would've pressed for more details, but I can't be secret agent Valentine right now. Billie Easter has to pretend to be oblivious, or I lose Claire.

"Oh. Well thank you for your service," I chirp.

Leon nods, his shy-dude way of saying "you're welcome".

"Anyways." You can hear how desperate Claire is to change the subject. "Billie is a writer. How cool is that?"

Leon raises his eyebrows. "No way! Far out. My sister's a writer. She does thrillers and sci-fi. Maybe you've heard of her? Eleanor Kennedy?"

I don't think I've read a book since boot camp.

"Oh, no," I stumble. "I, uh, write different stuff."

"She never told me what she writes," Claire says, still in a cheerful tone. She leans closer to the table, doing one of those loud-whispers that everyone can still hear. "I bet she writes sex stuff."

My eyes widen. She misreads my look of confusion, again. Girl's got to work on reading social cues.

"Did I guess it?" She nudges Leon. "She's so experienced with all this stuff. It would totally make sense."

I cannot remember a single moment where I said I had any actual experience with any of this, but I guess now we're operating under the assumption that I'm an experienced unicorn. And then, I realize quickly, I'm going to have to keep the ruse up or risk giving myself away.

Shit.

"Um, yeah. You caught me." I try to suppress a nervous giggle.

"No kidding," Leon replies. "Do you write books, articles, short stories?"

"Articles." I'm just taking whatever bait they throw at me at this point.

"Are they in magazines?" Claire asks. "We'll have to go out and read them."

"Uh, no, not quite."

"Online?" Leon asks.

I'm taking more of the bait. "Yes. Uh, online."

"That's super cool!" Claire enthuses. "What site do you write on?"

"I'm actually a ghost writer." It's my last-ditch attempt at being a good liar. Somehow it's working, because Claire and Leon are nodding along.

"A ghost writer. So mysterious," Claire replies.

I laugh along. "Yeah. It's why I can't tell you too much. Contract, you know?"

"Is there an article you're working on now?" I can't tell if Leon is suspicious or just really, really bad at conversation pacing.

"Um." I have to rack my brain for something, anything sexual. Obviously, it can't be "How to Have Sex". It's got to be something unique. Something that would actually make me look as experienced as Claire decided to assume I am.

"Feet." I blurt. People are attracted to feet, right? I think one of the guys on the STARS team used to brag about his foot fetish. Was it Barry or Brad?

"Oh, that's cool," Leon replies. "Are you into feet?"

Gross. No.

"Uh," I giggle nervously. Now I sound like Claire. "No, that's not my thing, personally. Uh, is that something you guys are, uh, into?"

Claire swirls her coffee cup around before taking a sip, then daintily setting it down. We literally sit in silence and watch her. "We tried doing a foot thing once, but we couldn't get into it. Feet just doesn't quite do it for us."

Then Leon takes a long sip of his coffee. "What are some of your fetishes and kinks, Billie? What are some things you've wanted to try in bed? Hopefully we'll all sort of match up."

I freeze. I have no idea. Literally, absolutely no earthly idea.

He continues on. "We've always wanted to try voyeurism and exhibitionism. Maybe some cuckolding, but that'll probably be later down the line."

I nod along as if I know what any of those words mean.

Claire slaps his arm. "Leon! We're in public! Let's talk about it more when we're together in private."

"Yeah, let's just get to know each other more first," I blurt. "You know. We're making sure we vibe?" I sound way more confident than I'm feeling.

"Totally agreed," Claire says.

The rest of the conversation sort of goes on in a blur, though. I think I chimed in here and there, but it was a lot about their hobbies, raising a teenager, and how Leon once skinny dipped in a lake in high school and apparently almost got arrested, which I find hard to believe with his stoic nature.

After about an hour, Sherry comes to my rescue. Well, kind of.

"Leon, we have to go pick Sherry up from Corrine's." Claire stands, sort of dragging Leon up with her. "I'm so sorry, Billie. Sherry's best friend's mom gets really pissy when we're late picking her up. You'd think the lady would take the pole out of her ass; she's known Sherry for two years now."

"Maybe she's into having a pole up her ass." That's the best joke I'll probably ever tell in my life.

Claire laughs as if it's the best joke she's ever heard in her life. Leon sort of chuckles along.

"I'll call you later," Claire says. "Let's plan a dinner date. And then, you know, see where things go."

They're out the door quickly. I stay at the table for a few moments.

Fetishes. Dinner. "Let's see where things go". It's getting real this time.

— —

The obvious solution, or maybe the only solution, is to start researching kinks and fetishes. I thought it would be as easy as typing "kink" and "fetish" into the search bar, but it keeps coming up with a lot of porn. I don't think I can stomach "Ella Mae Hot Fetish XXX Golden Shower".

So then I refer back to the fetishes that Leon told me about. That gets me a little bit further.

Voyeurism: Observing unsuspecting people in erotic situations, such as undressing or engaging in sexual activities.

Gross. What the fuck?

In the kink community, however, most find it important to stress consent, and set boundaries on what is and isn't okay to watch.

Okay, I guess that's a tiny bit better. So they want to watch me undress?

Exhibitionism: A broad term encompassing sexual acts in public, or exposing of one's private areas in an untraditional setting.

Um, no thank you.

Cuckolding: A female sleeping with other men (or other people) to humiliate her male partner. Often paired with degrading talk.

Okay, double no thank you.

All of those sound equally uncomfortable, but I've got to come up with something. Maybe there's something super mild that I can pretend to be into so I'm not, you know, exposing my ass in the middle of Cafe Origin.

I try "List of Kinks", and then find an article on how people who are into kinky sex used to be considered deviants by society and, apparently, were considered to be psychologically damaged, but we've moved on from that. Useful, maybe. Good to know. But it's not helping my predicament here.

So then I try "List of Fetishes".

Katoptronophilia: Having sex in front of a mirror

Knismolagnia: Being aroused by tickling

Nasolingus: Sucking someone's nose

Eproctophilia: Being aroused by anal flatulence.

Farts? People are into farts? That's got to be the least sexy thing on the entire planet. I hope to god Claire and Leon aren't into that one. Finding Chris is not worth it.

I'm on an article on "Looners", which is apparently a term for people who are into balloons, when Jarod calls. Of course Jarod decides to call at the worst fucking possible time ever.

"Valentine!" he screams.

"It's seven PM. What do you want?"

"There's been another break-in at the London headquarters." He sounds a little more fired up about it this time.

"Isn't it, like, one AM there?" I ask.

"It happened around 12:30 their time. Someone managed to get in with a key card. Security didn't arrive on the premises until about 12:45, so the intruder had at least fifteen minutes' access to the building."

"Did they take any files?"

"They've got security searching the premises now. We won't have confirmation on what, if anything, was taken for probably another hour or so."

I should be panicking. But it's really hard to take Jarod seriously when I've got an article on balloon sex open in another window.

"Is there a chance they got the Umbrella files?" I ask, trying to stifle a laugh.

"Is this funny to you, Valentine?"

"No," I quickly blurt. "I'm just, uh, in disbelief?"

"The Umbrella files are still there, but there's evidence they may have been tampered with. We can't know for sure, but there's a chance somebody's gotten their hands on it. There's a ton of classified information in there, and we could be in big trouble if someone did get their hands on it."

Looners are generally divided into two subsections: "poppers" and "non-poppers". Poppers find the act of popping balloons to be sexual, while non-poppers believe that balloons should only be stroked gently and squeezed, but not popped.

"I, uh..." I'm trying not to become flustered. "What should we do?"

"There's nothing we can do right now." That's got to be a hard thing for Jarod to say. "But we have to keep an eye out. Start documenting any suspicious behavior."

"Got it."

I've never been more thankful for him hanging up quickly. The break-in should seriously concern me. But all I can think of is the fact that I've probably got maybe, like, twenty-four hours tops to come up with a list of fetishes and kinks for Billie Easter.

My billie12345 email dings.

Billie,

I wanted to call but Leon's asleep. He had a long day. Let's do dinner this Saturday? We can maybe get dressed up and head to a nice restaurant, then come back to our place and just let things happen. I think it'll go really well. What do you think?

- Claire

It's showtime, whether I like it or not. I'm too far in to turn back now.

Claire,

Saturday sounds good. Give me a time and I'll meet you at your house.

- Billie