The knock sounded again. I threw down the knife and, leaving the half finished carrots and celery on the cutting board, went to answer the door.
Salt was standing there looking very tall and grim with the flash drive curled in one large fist. He has his own key to my place so he could have just let himself in but clearly he wanted to keep things formal. Well, fine—I could do that too.
“Good evening, Detective Saltanov,” I said evenly.
Salt didn’t look happy but he returned my greeting in kind.
“Detective Sugarbaker,” he rumbled, inclining his head.
“Won’t you come in?” I stepped aside to let him enter. Normally when we went to each other’s houses we made ourselves at home. Salt always went right to my refrigerator to see what I had to eat. But now he stepped inside and then just stood there. It was a reminder to me that things weren’t “normal” between us and never would be again.
“This way,” I said shortly, and led him to my living room as though he didn’t know the way.
Salt followed me silently and had a seat on the couch when we got there.
“The flash drive?” I asked.
Wordlessly, he dropped it into my hand.
I went over to my laptop and plugged in the flash drive. Thanks to Salt, who had found a way to hook my computer to my television, I was able to bring the images up on my large flat-screen.
I grabbed the remote and, since Salt was sitting on the couch, I took the loveseat which sat perpendicular to it.
It hurt my heart to do that—to sit away from him. I couldn’t help remembering all the times we had sat together on my couch to watch movies. Salt had never actually put his arms around me or cuddled me—we hadn’t gotten that physical until our time at the Institute—but we always sat close, our thighs touching. And sometimes when the movie was long or I was tired, I would lean my head on his broad shoulder and just rest there. Once or twice I even fell asleep and only woke up when Salt was tucking an afghan around me to keep me warm.
I would never be able to do that again, I realized. Never be able to draw comfort from having his big, warm body so close to mine. We were never going to have another movie night and I was never going to fall asleep with my head against his shoulder. We would never— Get over it, I advised myself roughly. He doesn’t want you anymore. And can you blame him? Look how needy you let yourself get at the Institute. Look at all the weird things you did together. Salt was probably just acting but not you, Sugarbaker—no, you got into it. Deep into it. You liked being a Little—playing the Babygirl to Salt’s Papa. He probably knows that and it disgusts him. You drove him away yourself by being too damn needy and strange so don’t start mooning over him now. Just because he’s sitting on your couch right now doesn’t mean he’ll ever want you back as a partner or anything else. He’s already gone.
My lecture to myself didn’t make me feel any better but it did make me feel a little stronger. I pointed the remote at the screen and clicked it on, ready to watch.
“Wait,” Salt said, as a scene of the two of us entering the room at the Institute came on the screen.
“What?” I paused the image for a moment and looked at him.
“I think it would be mistake to erase all images of the two of us.” He gestured at the screen. “Would be better to keep some of the less…embarrassing ones.”
“Right. Makes sense to avoid suspicion,” I acknowledged. “So I think we can agree that this one stays?” It was just the two of us getting comfortable in the room and looking around. It must have been the first night we were there.
“Yes.” Salt nodded.
I picked up a yellow legal pad and pen I’d placed on the arm of the loveseat earlier for just this purpose and made a note.
“All right. Moving on.” I fast forwarded the image and saw the two of us sitting on the couch together. Then I saw Salt pulling my feet into his lap and taking off my shoes and socks. I couldn’t help remember how wonderful his big warm hands felt when he massaged me.
“Do you wish to leave this part or not?” Salt asked me.
I cleared my throat. “Well, it is kind of awkward but not, you know, obscene.”
“Nothing we did was obscene,” he said quietly.
“Oh no? You pretending to be my ‘Papa’ and me pretending to be your ‘Babygirl’ wasn’t obscene?” I snapped.
“No,” he said simply.
“Right.” I didn’t believe him a bit. I had heard how he really felt about what went on in the Institute loud and clear when he’d told Berkley that it was sick and he was disgusted by it. Disgusted by you, don’t you mean, Andi? whispered a little voice in my head. Yes—that was exactly what I meant. I forced myself to look at the TV again and tried not to think about it.
On screen, the foot massage was finally over. There was vid feed from the bathroom too but the camera in there had been focused on the tub so you couldn’t see either Salt or I showering or doing anything else—for which I was grateful.
Salt and I went about our nightly routine—well except for the part where I examined his back which made me uncomfortable to watch because I remembered the past pain he had revealed to me. At last, I went to bed. The camera angle switched to the bedroom—did they have some kind of motion sensors so the cameras only clicked on when someone was in the room? Or did whoever was watching just assume the action would be wherever I was?
I thought the scene would be normal but I had forgotten about my nightmare that first night. There was no sound and only minimal light but I saw my small shape huddled under the covers and watched as I sat up, clearly agitated. Then the bedroom door burst open and Salt’s tall frame was silhouetted by the light shining behind him. He came to the bed and gathered me into his arms. Tenderly, he cradled me to his chest and sat down in the large rocking chair to rock me like a child.
I felt a wave of longing as I watched the scene and then an equal wave of shame raced over me. I was a grown woman, for God’s sake—why was I wishing to be rocked and comforted like a little girl? It was stupid and weak and it made me angry with myself and with Salt too for acting the way he had.
“Look at this,” I complained, pointing at the TV. “Why did you have to do that instead of just waking me up and telling me I was having a bad dream? Now we don’t have anything even remotely normal to leave in the video.”
“I wanted to take care of you,” Salt said in a low voice.
“Oh, you took care of me all right,” I muttered. “You son of a bitch.”
“Andi—”
“No. Don’t start.” I held up a hand to stop him. “You do not get to feel better about being a complete shit by trying to explain it away. Just keep your mouth shut and let’s get through this.”
“How am I being ‘complete shit?’” he asked, his voice a low, angry growl. “I am giving you what you should want.”
“I should want to be betrayed and deserted by my partner?” I demanded. “No, stop—don’t answer that. Let’s just go on.”
Before he could protest I fast forwarded the video, which was just a normal one of us sleeping, to the next night.
“Oh boy,” I muttered as I watched Salt bathing me in the big tub. “This has to go for sure.” I started to fast forward it but he said, “Wait.”
“What are we waiting for?” I demanded, frowning at him.
“I just…want to see it.” His deep voice held a note of wistfulness.
“What—you want to watch us being perverted together?” I said roughly, fast forwarding.
“How is this perverted?” he ask
ed softly. “I am washing you, that is all.”
“Yeah and in a minute you’re going to be shaving me,” I pointed out, my cheeks getting pink. “Look—there.” I pointed to the screen where he was performing the extremely intimate service for me. It was hard to watch, hard to see myself being so naked and vulnerable and stupid, letting Salt into my heart as I let him touch my body. How much more cliché could I get? “And there,” I continued pointing at the screen again. “Where you kissed me in a very, uh, inappropriate place. How is that not perverted?”
“I should not have done that,” Salt acknowledged in a low voice. “But I wanted so badly to taste you.”
I felt my breath catch in my throat and I fumbled with the remote. I meant to fast forward the scene on double speed but instead my thumb hit the pause button. The screen froze just at the place where Salt was placing a soft, gentle kiss on my freshly shaved pussy.
“Crap!” I tried to unpause the scene on the TV but I was all thumbs.
“Here. Allow me.”
To my surprise, Salt got up and came to sit beside me on the small loveseat. He took the remote from me and pressed play, resuming the action.
Of course that meant that we had to watch him drying me off and taking me into the bedroom where he rubbed the cooling ointment onto my bare behind. Then I turned over for him and he started rubbing my pussy while I writhed shamelessly like a cat in heat under his touch.
“God!” I could feel my cheeks burning as I watched my own wanton display. Clearly this part of the video needed to be erased for sure. It looked like my partner and I had decided to make our own private sex tape. “I can’t believe I acted like that!” I muttered.
“I can,” Salt said in a low voice.
“Thanks a lot.” I glared at him, reaching for the remote.
“I am not making a comment on your virtue, Andi,” Salt said stiffly, keeping the remote just out of my reach with one long arm. “I am talking about the drug that was in your system, making you act as you did.”
“What?” I turned to him, uncomprehending. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The Please,” he said. “It was in the punch.”
“Yes, I know—I drank a whole glassful of the stuff like a fucking idiot,” I snapped.
“You were tricked by Berkley—we both were,” Salt pointed out. “But lab reports showed that punch was drugged every night—not just during our last dinner. You were drinking it all the time, Andi. It was building up in your system, making you react to me in the way that you did.”
“Bullshit,” I said flatly. “I barely touched it those other nights.”
“You must have drunk more than you thought. Look,” he said and finally hit the fast forward button.
The scene jumped again, this time showing the medical wing. At first Berkley and the damn security guard were spanking my pussy as I writhed in my bonds. I felt Salt tense next to me and a low growl rose in his throat.
“I should have gotten there sooner,” he said in a tense, angry voice. “I should not have allowed them to hurt you.”
“You got there as soon as you could,” I said neutrally. “See?” As we watched, Salt burst into the room, dislocated the security guard’s arm and nearly choked him to death. Then he argued angrily with Berkley who handed him the thick, black plug.
Just seeing it, even on screen, made me feel incredibly uncomfortable. I squirmed in my seat as we watched Salt go down on me, licking and sucking my pussy as he inserted the plug into my tight rosebud.
Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Salt,” I said through gritted teeth. “Is there a reason we’re watching this? It’s fucking embarrassing!”
“Yes,” he growled. “To prove a point. You would not have acted like this—would not have allowed me to treat you in this way—if you had not been compromised by the drug in your system.”
“Is that what you think? That’s just…it’s not true, Salt.”
“It is true,” he insisted. “I took advantage of you, Andi. Did things I should not have done—things you would not have allowed me to do if you had been yourself.”
Which self is that? I wanted to ask. The tough-as-nails, feminist cop who doesn’t take shit off anyone or the woman who’s willing to put on a little girl’s clothes and call you “Papa” and let you take care of her in every way—physically, emotionally, and sexually? God, I was so incredibly screwed up.
I couldn’t sit still any longer. I jumped up and started pacing. On screen, the image shifted again. This time it was Berkley and Mandy and Salt and me in the Daddies' Lounge. Salt fast-forwarded through all the angry conversation and went to the scenes of me begging him to fuck me and him putting me over his knee.
“Watch,” he said, his deep voice hoarse.
I stood still for a moment and watched the spanking, saw myself writhing against him, begging him for what I knew I shouldn’t have but wanted so badly anyway.
“What does that prove?” I asked. “It just shows that when you knew I was under the influence of Please, you did the right thing. You spanked me instead of…of fucking me.” The words seemed to stick in my throat but I forced them out anyway.
On the screen, Salt pushed me off his lap and rose to unfasten his belt. I watched myself walk on shaky legs to the arm of the leather couch and drape myself over it with my skirts raised. Then Salt’s arm rose and the belt descended, making me jump and gasp.
Watching the beating, now that I was clear-eyed and completely free of the Please which had been in my system when it happened, was damn difficult. It wasn’t just the savagery of the act, though it was clear that Salt was beating me hard, it was also the frozen look on his face as he did what was necessary. I remembered thinking that this must have been hard for him—now I wondered how he had been able to bring himself to do it at all.
“Oh!” I whispered, unable to help myself as the belt rose and fell, striping my naked ass with lines of fire. I shifted from foot to foot, feeling the pain all over again.
I saw Salt wince as the small sound left my lips. The look on his usually impassive features was difficult to see. There was pain and shame in his ice blue eyes as he forced himself to watch the scene we had played out together. And self-loathing so deep it made my stomach twist.
“Do you see this?” he said hoarsely, turning to me at last when the scene changed to show him throwing down the belt and gathering me into his arms. “Do you see what I did to you? Why I do not deserve to be your partner anymore?”
“I know what you did to me, Salt—I was there, remember?” I said. “You saved my life.”
“By beating you. The way that I was beaten.” He rubbed a hand over his face and hit the off button so that the screen went black. “The way I never wanted to beat anyone. I never wanted to hurt you, Andi—I swear it.”
“There was no other way,” I reminded him. “Other than—you know.”
“I could not do that to you,” he said harshly. “Could not take from you what you would not have given me without that damn drug clouding your judgment.”
“So that’s why you told Captain Douglas you want a new partner?” I demanded. “Because you hurt me to save me?”
“That and because of the way I took advantage of you the other nights we were at the Institute,” he said stiffly. “I thought you were acting in such a way because you wanted me as…” He sighed. “As I have wanted you, from first moment I saw you.” He shook his head. “I should have known you would not act in this way on your own. Should have known only the damn drug could be responsible for s
uch behavior.”
For a moment I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I finally understood what he was saying—he couldn’t believe I would ever let myself be vulnerable and open to him without some kind of chemical in my bloodstream to loosen my inhibitions. If only he knew…
“There was a drug involved, Salt,” I said through numb lips. “But it wasn’t Please.”
“What?” He looked at me, frowning and clearly confused. “Did Berkley put something else in your drink?”
“No. And if you’ll remember, I barely took a tiny sip of my punch the other two meals we had at the Institute—I drank the water in your glass instead,” I pointed out.
He shook his head. “Then what drug are you talking of?”
For a moment, I felt everything inside me clench. I couldn’t tell him the truth—it would make me sound sick and needy. It would make him hate me and feel disgusted. Yet somehow, I couldn’t help blurting it out.
“It was the Age Play,” I said, looking away from him. “Getting into Little-space. Remember that Professor Stevens said it could induce an altered state of consciousness—almost like a drug?”
He frowned. “Yes, but that is for those who truly want to be doing what we were doing. You were only pretending, Da?”
“No,” I whispered, looking down at my hands. “I guess Stevens was right about me and my ‘Daddy issues.’ I know…” I glanced up at him for a moment and then had to look away. “I know you were just pretending, Salt. But I wasn’t—not after that first night. You…you were giving me everything I wanted—everything I needed—even though I didn’t know that I needed it. It was…addictive.”
“Andi—” he began but I held up my hand to stop him.
“No, let me finish. I know it sounds sick and I know it disgusts you but I liked what we did—liked the way we were together at that crazy place.” I took a deep breath. “I liked giving up control to you and being your…your mishka.”
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