Kat seemed to understood. I did look at her then, pure self defense on my part. If I was going to wake up in a stranger's arms, I was at least going to know what they looked like in case I ran into them again.
She was pretty. Dark hair falling softly around her face. Her eyes had a glint of steel in them and I had no doubt she was the person who had wielded the flogger. But there was kindness there too and that might have undone me if I hadn't just grunted, said a brusque thank you and gotten up.
I was still half dressed, which was a given once I thought about it. I kept the blanket pulled around me until I found my clothes, because now I was self conscious. Someone showed me where to change. Maybe other people had some weird version of buyer’s remorse when they came to.
By the time I'd gotten my boots on again, my bra and t-shirt, by the time I'd checked through the limited amount of personal ID and cash I'd brought with me, the ID a fake – there are advantages to dealing with scum on a daily basis; you learn things – Kat had disappeared. Maybe to make it less awkward. Maybe feeling rebuffed.
Maybe she just had something else to do. I was both grateful she'd left, and sad not to see her again. I didn't want to consider that second emotion too closely.
8
Cole
She'd disappeared.
Interesting.
The girl in my bed was unmarked. Easily my equal when it came to sadism, she hadn't a masochistic bone in her body. But she could fuck like a madwoman all night.
Currently she lay in bed with a pair of thick black-rimmed glasses on the end of her nose, which managed to make her look like a damn porn star. It helped that she was naked, the sheet down to her waist, her torso propped up on pillows. She was reading Stephen King.
I stood by the window, staring at the messages coming in on my phone. When Annie left, I didn't mark her. No chip. No tracker of any sort. But I didn't just open the door and let her trot out into the world. I had a network of people on her, checking in. Not all day every day. Just periodically. Until I had built up an idea of her daily life in Seattle when she wasn't actively working on the job.
Some time between check ins by the various eyes on her, she disappeared.
Interesting.
Annie Knox is a cop. She's got special training. I should have been worried or at least concerned that she could stay on the run and out of my reach for an indefinite period of time.
I'm not worried.
I'm more intrigued.
"Are you coming back to bed?"
"Should I?"
In answer, she lefts the glasses perched on her pert nose but yanked the sheet off, showing off her creamy, surgically perfect breasts, her tiny waist, her sculpted bush and all the treasures that lay between those legs and in that mouth.
Annie Knox would keep. I'm a sadist and I wanted my masochist back but when I'm ready, I'll find her and bring her to heel.
In the meantime, I'm also a hedonist. I can entertain myself.
9
Annie
It was dark when I left the dungeon. Dark in a dodgy section of San Francisco, by myself. Unarmed, because it's not a good idea for a cop from another jurisdiction on a sort of questionable leave to carry concealed. Or even unconcealed.
There were messages on my phone. In the dungeon, after that first abortive call, they'd stopped, either because reception is never good underground, surrounded by concrete, or because the hulking menace who took my phone turned it off. It was off when I discovered I had it back. I didn't like the idea of someone messing with my clothes while I was out, even if the only ID I’d brought was my fake one.
My phone was real enough, though there were such a limited number of contacts in it no one would much be fooled by it. If they'd gone through my contacts, most of what they would have determined was that I was hiding something.
Like who I was.
"To sum up," I mumbled to myself. "I did something that made me actually hate myself a little bit more. And I learned nothing in the process."
Only I had learned something. I kept moving on the dark street, but my mind had come to a screeching halt.
What do you mean, hate yourself a little bit more?
When had I started hating myself?
I don't know when I started running. I was dressed for it, even if my back hurt under the jogging bra and the shirt rasped against sore flesh. By the time a voice out of the darkness stopped me, I was lost. That was okay. The city might sleep and most of its residents with it, but there were cabs and busses and probably scary Uber cars driven by what seemed to be teenage girls.
"Hey, babe. Looking to score?"
That stopped me in my tracks. My reaction plunged from No badge here, can't arrest to Holy shit, thank god.
"Depends," I said. "What've you got?"
I had money. Not that I was stupid enough to carry all of it at one time. But strangely enough, I'd carried enough to buy.
"What d'you want?"
To not play games on the street after dark with some punk. "China white."
He whistled. He was several inches shorter than me and missing quite a few teeth. But he was clean and well dressed and I wouldn't have pegged him for what he was without the missing teeth.
You learn to read clues, clothes, culture, conversations – all manner of things that lead to who a person is. It's a gradual knowledge and almost impossible to fake.
So how, exactly, had Kat made me so easily?
I brushed that aside. Good question for another day when I wasn't standing exposed and unarmed, waiting on a dealer. He might be shorter than my five-six, but he was also one of those lean guys whose wiry strength takes people by surprise, and he had a bunch of scars on his face and throat. Some people see scars as battles lost. Others see them like the the t-shirt that reads: You're stronger than the thing that tried to kill you.
"Know what you're getting in to?" he asked. He hadn't moved away from the wall his shoulders were propped against.
Not getting into, I thought. Already in the middle of. "Yeah."
"You know what it is?" He was looking me up and down, probably the way I'd sized up my driver.
"You want the buy or not?"
"All right, all right, don't get your panties in a bunch. Just saying."
"Well, don't." I almost waved the money at him, like he was a fast food worker who should shut the fuck up and get a move on with my order. That would have been foolish.
He stood with a hand in his pocket, weighing the situation. "You a cop?"
There's just something about the job that's hard to shake. Or fake. "Yeah."
He nodded like he'd known that, which he probably had. "Still are?"
I gaped at him. "What do you think?" And now I really did hold out the money.
He considered it for another minute, then sighed and took it, at the same time holding out his right hand, palm down, shaking mine very professionally. The fentanyl dropped into my hand.
A little bit of redemption for the damned.
The street was more deserted than I would have liked. The thing about being a cop is you get used to being armed. When you're not, you feel every bit as vulnerable as anyone else. Probably because you are. There are a lot more dangerous people out there than anyone wants to think about. A lot more of them are armed than should be.