by Sophia Reed
I was on my feet, my voice still low because this was a hospital even if this time he was in a private room, not CICU.
"How do I find someone who gets that I'm going to be gone for three, six, nine months, a year? I know I've never been under that long, but people do go under that long."
"They're not usually married," Dad said quietly.
I looked at him, breathing hard, feeling tears at the backs of my eyes. Because I did love Mark. And because I did want someone in my life.
And because I wasn't going to let go of the job, not while I could still go undercover and make a difference and change things. There were teenagers dying. There were children dying. On the whole I didn't give a damn about most drugs. Marijuana a gateway drug? Give me a break. Ecstasy? Teach responsible use and who cares? I thought psychedelics and hallucinogens, when not cut with something deadly, could be mind expanding and fascinating.
But cocaine, meth, heroin, fentanyl? They were deadly. They were killing people in all walks of life and there were people getting rich off their misery.
"You are," I said to my father, and then, without thinking, "What's up with the case?"
He shrugged. "Probably nothing. Maybe something. I won't see jail time, if that's what you're worried about. And I'm already retired, so there's no job to throw me out of."
"Your pension?" I asked, suddenly worried for a whole new reason.
He made a face, tucking his lips under and trying to look super innocent. He looked rather the opposite and he kind of looked like Woody Harrelson for a second.
"What's that mean?" I asked.
"Um, it might mean I put a little something-something aside for a rainy day," my hero cop father told me.
I sat down again without meaning to. "For real? For real no jail? For real you're set if they go after your money?"
"Would I lie to you?"
"Every Christmas."
He smiled. "I had to. You always guessed what you were getting."
"I always found what I was getting," I said, and he looked appropriately shocked. Everything still ached, my stomach was still upset, and the drive was catching up with me, but I was glad we'd had our time together.
I gave him a kiss on the forehead, and held his hand for a minute, and said I'd be back in the morning.
He let me get as far as the door before he stopped me with a single word.
"Princess?"
My hand was actually on the doorknob. I was so close to getting out of there unscathed. I turned back. He was watching me with the eyes that had made a million perps confess.
"Are you straight yet?" he asked.
Fuck. There hadn't been enough time with Cole. There'd been too many other chances. Too many other traumas. Therapy was no more useful than I'd ever thought it was. And admitting it might get me hospitalized and that might actually work, but the chances I'd be undercover again after that were nonexistent.
"I'm working on it," I said.
He nodded. "Is there anything I can do?"
My automatic reply – No, I've got this – stuttered out. I didn't need money. I didn't need somewhere to stay. I needed the job. I needed the fentanyl. I needed the promised cure.
"I'll let you know," I said, and slipped out of his room.
16
Cole
The call from the hospital reported that her father was doing better. He'd probably be released for the second time within days.
I'd give her time and then I'd bring her back. She fascinated me. She still needed me.
And she was my property. My motives weren't all altruistic. I was more concerned with my pleasure than her salvation, and my healing cures over her eventual cure.
Marilyn had gone for the day. Michelle had come and gone, begging me to take her back. Michelle was such a true masochist, I wasn't certain but that my refusals spurred her pleasure.
But Lily. Annie. Whatever name she was going by now. She was special. She was a fighter and even knowing she needed help, she hated to reach out for it so much she'd fight it all the way down.
Because she had to be broken before she could be mended.
So I walked through the room where I intended to break her and I touched the things that were already there and cataloged those I needed. Benches. Crosses. Chairs. Restraints. Leather, metal, rope. Brushes, crops, whips, slappers, paddles. Canes. A variety of lovely canes.
She'd feel those soon enough. With every implement that met her flesh, every cry I wrung from her, she'd fight harder. With every step she took away from her addiction she'd feel change and fight it, because that was her nature.
The drug could help her. The discipline could help her. Being broken and mended would help her.
And she'd fight every step. She'd fight me every step.
She'd fight.
And then she'd submit.
Her submission would be a gift. Her debasement would be the salvation she sought, and the pleasure I demanded.
The latest reports said she was in Seattle again. Her father was ill, again, but recovering. She'd be free of that soon and find the family's hospital bills strangely already covered. She'd know, but no one else could.
She'd redouble her efforts to find me.
Maybe I'd allow it. Or maybe not. Because the PD was ready to put her back on and in short order, put her back undercover.
I thought then she'd fall. I thought her fall was necessary before the cure. To bring her back in now, when she was using but coping, it wouldn't be as close to losing everything as she loved. It wouldn't be as close to total collapse.
So I'd wait. And I'd build up the room where I would enjoy her every scream.
17
Annie
The end of school came and went. I wouldn't be undercover in the high schools until fall, though I thought I'd be able to go back. I'd lost weight on my sojourn and with my addiction. Some women look older when they lose.
I looked even younger. When I bought beer or wine, I got carded.
My CO said I'd be back undercover. My shrink said I was cleared for duty but I had to keep visiting. That was fair. I covered stuff about addiction with her, both of us talking in a way that never came out and said I was addicted and never came out and said this was how to get help.
It was satisfying and useless.
Life fell into a pattern. I went to work, I worked around cops, doing nothing of any importance. I went to the firing range. I went to the gym. I went home and hung out with Mark. He'd ask about the wedding. I'd tell him of course I was planning the wedding, which I kind of was, and I'd bring out my notebook where I was jotting down ideas on the left hand pages. He'd add his ideas on the right.
They never coincided. He wanted to explore parts of Mexico on our honeymoon. I wanted to first be certain I'd have the time for a honeymoon without jeopardizing my career.
I didn't say that part.
And second I wanted to be sure we'd both live through the honeymoon. That meant no Mexico.
I did say that.
We argued. A lot. We fixed up the apartment. We ate dinner together. We had sex that pleased neither of us.
Until the day my CO told me I'd be going back undercover by mid-September.
"I'd like to tell my fiancé that I'm going to be on assignment," I said, standing with my feet evenly spread and my hands behind me. Parade rest, really. I hadn't been invited to sit.
John looked up at me. He was a florid man with jowls but no other body fat. Kind of a mystery, or nature just really wanted to be unkind to him. "Sit down," he barked, and when I did, "Why wouldn't you tell him you're going undercover? Can't tell him any other goddamned thing, but what have you told him in the past?" The way he glared at me reminded me of the cartoons of Peter Parker's editor boss in Spider-Man, always glowering and chomping a cigar. John didn't have a cigar. Otherwise…
"Nothing," I said honestly.
He stared at me. "You just vanished?" He sounded appalled. He sounded angry, too, but John always did.
I tried not to shrug. "He knows what my job is."
"Jesus!" John said, managing to break the word into more syllables than it usually has. "He must have been out of his mind for you."
I didn't know if he meant with worry or that Mark was crazy about me and that's why he hadn't left.
"But he knows what I do," I said. Didn't other people do it this way?
John leaned forward, elbows on the desk. "This your longest relationship?"
This was my longest anywhere near personal conversation with my CO. "Yes." It came out almost a question. I'd had the same boyfriend all through high school, but between high school and Mark, there'd been more fly-by-night hookups than anything else.
It was easier.
"Uh huh." He nodded, still staring at me. "You love him?"
None of your business. "Yeah."
"Jesus. Look, at least give him warning it’s coming up. Leave him a note."
This wasn't his business. But it was the same thing the shrink had said. In a way, the same thing Dad had said.
The shrink had gone one step further. In one of our addiction talks where neither of us had said the word she'd asked, "Have you always run when the going gets tough?"
I'd bristled all over. I didn't run. I wasn't running now. I was sticking the therapy, for all the damn good it was doing. I hadn't run from Jesse. Or from the job. Or from my family when they were all being nasty about my job versus my responsibility to them.
I didn't answer her.
But the answer was yes. I've always run when it gets hard. Prided myself on the hard stuff I can do. Like Jesse. Like going along with all the hate and violence and drugs and deaths with the gang so I could bring them down.
That had to matter too. And it wasn't like I hadn't tried to give Mark his freedom.
"That you, babe?"
Weird conversations with commanding officers aside, I felt fantastic by the time I got home. Lighter than air. Better than fentanyl. I ran into the kitchen, saw he was making spaghetti sauce, and threw my arms around him.
Mark, driven backwards a few steps, laughed, caught me, steadied us both. "What's up?"
"How many days without a heart attack or an emergency or without you coming home to find me fucked up?"
"How many days since a dinosaur attack at work?" It was a favorite poster of Mark's.
"How many days since an appliance broke around here?"
"Um, actually, the vacuum – "
"No! bad question! Things are going great, Mark!" At the same time I said it, I realized he wouldn't think so. I was thrilled to be going back to work.
He'd hate it.
So I kissed him. Let him have this at least. It would be the goodbye John thought I should give the people in my life before heading into danger.
Let him have this and let me have it. Because it probably was goodbye. When Mark understood how happy I was to be going back to work, maybe he'd finally be ready to let go.
There. I didn't always run.
Sometimes I hoped the other person would.
Mark carried me into the bedroom. His teeth were on my neck, in my shirt, ripping the shirt, tearing at my bra. His hands stretched mine over my head. His teeth grazed down my chest, found my nipples, bit, hurting, making me arch against him, my breath hissing out of my throat.
I wrapped my legs around him the way I had with Jesse, trying to banish that image. I fought to free my hands from his and he held me down, forcing my legs apart with his knee, grinding it into me, making me grind back against him, feeling the building of tension in that sweet spot.
"Mark," I said.
"Shut up." He growled it.
I'd told him over dinner. Something had changed. Over dinner. He'd fed me wine, more glasses than I was used to. He fed me spaghetti, and garlic bread, bites of salad. He kissed me hard enough to bruise. He'd grabbed me and carried me in here and now he was holding me down, now he was using my own cuffs to shackle my wrists to the headboard.
"Mark."
"Shut. Up." He looked around for something, anything, found my panties already stripped off, wadded them up and stuffed them in my mouth.
I tugged against the cuffs, tried to force the cloth out of my mouth.
His hands were on my boobs, his thumbs on my nipples, then his teeth, then he was using both hands, pinching and twisting and pulling them, the bra long since shredded and discarded. His mouth, his teeth, his hands. He slapped them once, twice, half a dozen times in each direction and I bucked under him, naked now and wanting him the same.
It was his fingers he used on me, though, jabbing three of them in, rough and hard, fucking me with them. My ears were ringing, my senses blurred with shock and alcohol. I think he called me a bitch. I think he ordered me to come.
I did, whether or not I’d got that right. Came so hard I screamed into the makeshift gag. Came so hard he could feel me contracting hard around his fingers.
"God," he breathed, and pulled the panties from my mouth, covering my lips with his. He bit even then, broke the skin on my lip, grabbed both boobs, squeezing as he sat up and positioned himself and thrust into me so hard I would have shouted but his hand went over my mouth.
"Fuck me," he said, and I did, wrapping my legs around him again and pumping my hips until the urgency sent him over the top and he took over, driving into me over and over until we were both drenched and coming.
He collapsed on top of me, breathing hard. We were both wet with sweat and I was both laughing and humming under my breath, shocked and happy and a tiny bit afraid.
"Let me out of these," I said, shaking the cuffs.
Mark rose up on one elbow and looked down into my face, considering. "No," he finally said and got up, naked and shiny with sweat, and walked into the bathroom, shut the door, and ran a shower.
By the time he came back I was livid. He stood at the end of the bed, looking calm. Water still beaded his skin and he absently used his bath towel to dry off.
I shook my hands at him, making the cuffs sing. "Take. These. Fucking. Things. Off of me."
He looked at me, completely impassively. He sat down on the bed near my hip and reached out to stroke my face with the backs of his fingers. I yanked my head away and glared.
"So this is what you want?" he asked. His voice was calm. The voice of a doctor imparting bad news that doesn't affect him.
"Goddamn it."
He blinked, very slowly. Somehow he felt like a man in a dream to me. "So this is what you want?"
"Mark."
"Answer the question." His hand trailed down until his fingers rested on one nipple. Lightly, but with threat.
Despite myself I felt the heat begin to rekindle between my legs. I drew in a breath as slowly as I could. "Yes."
"Every time?" His fingers tightened, as if daring me to lie.
"No."
He relaxed. Considered. "Why?"
Jesus. Fuck. "How would I know? Why do you like blow jobs?"
"Because it feels good. This hurts." He raised his hand and slapped the hell out of my breast. "Doesn't it?"
I let out the breath between my teeth. "Fuuuuuuuck."
Mark let go of me, got up and ran both hands through his hair, and abruptly got dressed as fast as he could. He sat back down beside me.
"Please uncuff me," I said, suddenly scared he'd just walk away and leave me there.
He nodded absently. "You're going undercover again."
I'd tried to tell him during dinner. In between the weirdness of being fed spaghetti. "Yes."
"For how long?"
I'd covered that too.
"I don't know."
"How long?"
"I don't know."
"One week? One month? Two months? Six? A year? Forever? Are you just going to join the other side and sometimes report them? Are you ever coming back? Shall we plan the wedding? The honeymoon? The divorce? Should we buy all the houses now so you don't have to come back and sign papers? Do your parents know?" A considering second. "Doe
s your father know?"
"Mark!"
He seemed to shake himself out of some kind of fugue or maybe into a different one. He rose like an automaton and fetched the key from the dresser, inserted it into the cuffs and unlocked them.
I sat up instantly, moving across the bed to the far side in case he changed his mind. Before he could start up again, I said, "I don't know how long I'm going to be gone, Mark. I know what the assignment is, okay? I know where I'm going to be. I know very little more than that. I don't have a cover yet." Though probably I'd just be Lily, resurfacing after the death of her man. Looking for something new, someone new. "I don't know exactly what I'm going after. I don't know how long it will be. I can try to send you messages – "
I can't! I can't!
"But it puts me in danger and it puts everyone else in some danger and it's not fair."
"It's not fair." He said it so flatly I felt sick. "How about fair to me?"
I stood on the far side of the bed, wishing I had a direct line between me and the door. Not because I wanted to run from the relationship.
Because I wanted to run from whoever Mark had turned into.
"I don't know how long I'll be gone. I know what I'm doing is important and it matters. You do too. You've seen the results of what I'm fighting. You've seen kids brought in who die on the tables. You've seen – "
"Fuck!" He slammed a hand down on the bed. "Of course I have. Of course I know what you're doing. I just think you've done it. When is our time?"
"When will you be done with residencies? When will you not be the walking dead when you get home and when will you have more than one day off a month? When – "
"It's not the same!"
"It's exactly the same! Do you think you're the only one saving lives?"
We glared at each other, standing tense and unmoving across the bed, until all at once Mark seemed to crumble. His hands fell down by his sides. He looked at me sadly. "No. But I think I'm the only one trying to save yours."