"Hello Mr. Bond. My name is Tress Galore."
"By any chance are you related to... Oh never mind."
James Bond had met and bedded many a beautiful woman, but he felt a little unsettled as he stood in front of Ms. Galore. She was unlike any woman he had ever met. She was nearly as tall as he, with deeply tanned skin. She was dressed rather consrvatively, in a gray business suit, but she still looked like she would bust out of it, her curves were that dramatic.
What caught his eye though, was a massive mound of sun-bleached blonde hair that enveloped her head. Hair went at least four inches to each side of her head, eight inches to the rear, and towered at least a foot above the crown of her head. He knew that this woman had more hair by far than any woman he had ever met.
James Bond carried a secret with him. While it was widely known that he loved women, and the more the merrier, he was especially attracted to, sometimes dangerously, to long haired women. Solitaire, with her thck, hip-length tresses, was exotically beautiful and innocent. Melina, daughter of a slain Greek-American couple in the wrong place at the wrong time, was deceptively strong, and very feminine, with her waist length black tresses. He even thought that if Moneypenny had waist length hair, he might have done more than flirt and tease whenever he paid a visit to M.
"Your name appears to fit you well."
"Yes, I do have a lot of hair."
"I'd like to verify that sometime," Bond replied, feeling out of sorts, and wishing he had come up with a more humorous line.
Bond was working to neutralize Chow Fat, a chinese industrialist and techno-terrorist, who was looking to destroy most of the world's semiconductor industry in order to corner the market for himself. If he were to succeed, Fat would be swimming in hundreds of billions of dollars, and would have Silicon Valley on it's hands and knees, begging him for table scraps. Control of the world's computers would soon follow.
Tress Galore was a freelance computer programmer and engineer, working for the last four years as an expat in Hong Kong. She had a british passport, but hadn't seen fit to leave in 1997 when the colony was turned over to the chinese. She was also the only person outside of Chow Fat's inner circle who understood what he was trying to do and how he planned to accomplish it.
She had barely survived one hit attempt, a rather clumsy effort by low level tong gangsters, and now was enlisted by James Bond to help him bring down Chow Fat.
It was the wildest week of her life, as she had several brushes with death , only to be saved by Bond's ability to escape impossible situations, as well as a healthy dose of her computer know-how. Through the shootout on the Star Ferry, the intruder at the Peninsula Hotel, the bomb on the MTR subway train, the stabbing at the racetrack and a wild taxi ride through the crowded streets of Kowloon; she felt as though she had made it on adrenaline alone.
Chow Fat was finally vanquished, drowned or burned in a vat of acid in his main semiconductor plant in the New Territories, his associates either dead or arrested, and his plant damaged beyond repair. And James and Tress had formed a tight and intimate bond, so to speak.
This case was different, James thought. While he had risked his life several times to save a beautiful woman who had either helped him, or was escaping the clutches of his evil nemesis, he had done it out of chivalry, a sense of honor, or just because it was the right thing to do. During this week, though, he and Tress took the extra step. Yes, James Bond had fallen in love.
Tress Galore was everything, and then some, he thought. She was not just a nice piece, a trophy to show off, a fling after a hard case. Under her delicious exterior was a woman unlike any he had met. And her hair! Through the week, James realized he was not just fighting for the queen and country, he was fighting almost in desparation at times to keep Tress out of harm's way. He wanted her in a different way than any woman since his wife, bless her soul. He was almost scared by this. His love had affected his performance, as he was often unable to perform with his customary detachment.
Like most women, Tress fell for the legendary charm of the one and only James Bond. He was attractive, exciting, and a true gentleman who knew his way around everything, including her. But she also saw a Bond that few women had ever seen. Vulnerable, occasionaly tongue tied, and obviously smitten. They had shared a lot more over the last week than adventures that boggled the mind. They had shared themselves, and she was surprised that Bond had opened up so much to her. She knew that something incredibly special was happening.
And now they were finally safe, and on a junk in the harbor. A well appointed junk, which functioned as a safe house for the CIA. He had his friend Felix Leiter to thank for this- four days uninterrupted with Tress. And for the first time, he would see her let her hair down.
"James, could you help me?" she asked from the bedroom. He emerged from the bath dressed only in a towel around his waist, and found her clothed in a sheer negligee, her perfect body like a shadow underneath. She motioned him behind her, and told him to start removing the pins in her hair.
At this moment, his cell phone rang, with a tone that meant M was calling to congratulate him on another successful mission. He grabbed the phone off the dresser, and as only Bond could do, tossed it off the bathroom door and into the toilet. She laughed and took his hand, moving it up to her hair.
His heart beat rapidly, not unlike the feeling he got in a chase. He was finally going to see Tress' tresses. He felt around the gigantic mass of silky blond hair, that had stayed put like a rock through the past week, and started pulling pins. After ten, the mound started to move. He continued pulling pin after pin, and the excitement built and built. Time seemed to freeze as her hair slowly started to fall.
His hands moved through a sliding mass of silk, and the sensation was unlike anything he had ever felt, yet there were more pins to pull, more hair on top of her head. It didn't seem to end.
The moment a clump of hair landed on his toes, he knew his life had changed forever. He found the last of the pins, and ran his hands down her hair to her waist, his excitement showing under the towel. She turned to face him, surrounded by a cloak of shimmering blonde and a large heap of silk at their feet. Thicker than two normal heads of hair put together, at least twice as long as she was tall, by his estimation, and softer than anything he had ever felt; he knew that Tress' hair was the best he had seen, or would ever see.
"Do you like it, James?" she asked.
"Every last inch," he replied, breathless. They embraced and fell into bed, covered in yards of incredible hair.
"I'm glad you do," Tress said. "I couldn't bear to cut it, even just a little."
James Bond murmured an affirmation, then grew silent. This incredible woman with Rapunzel's hair had left him totally speechless.
He had done more than his part, saving the world several times, and nipping eveil empires in the bud. He always knew that he could give up the glamorous and dangerous life of an agent licenced to kill for the right reasons. The moment he felt her hair on his toes, Bond knew that his days of service to the crown were over. At the end of these four days, he would return to London with Tress, and tender his retirement letter to M. James Bond had finally been conquered.
"It's about time" he whispered, more to himself than anything.
"What did you say, dear?"
"Just thinking about the lengths we've gone through to get here, darling."
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