DARK BLISS (Dangerous Games,)

by Smart, Madison

  “She is now.” Oaks handed him another small photo. This one showed a dusky woman with fashion model looks and flaming red hair. Rock whistled.

  “Keep it, the others too. Littlejohn will see someone gets you a full file on Oberon. Come in tomorrow to do whatever paperwork HR has for you. We’ll also see you get an office or at least a cubicle.” Oaks rose and held his hand across the desk, favoring Rock with a rare smile.

  . “Welcome back, Raptor.”

  Toys

  Rock took a taxi to the hotel, where the desk clerk told him his room number and gave him a key card. He knocked at the door. If Sullivan was any kind of bodyguard, walking in unannounced could be dangerous.

  “Who's there?” said Sullivan’s voice.

  “Rock.”

  Sullivan let him in. “She’s napping in the next room.”

  “Fine. Thanks for babysitting.”

  “No problem.” The Irishman left a moment later.

  Rock surveyed the room. Turner had gotten them a full suite: living room and two bedrooms. The décor was Scandinavian in soft pastels. “Hi,” said Rory’s voice.

  Rock turned. She was at the bedroom door, yawning and running a hand through her tangled hair. “Thought you were asleep,” he said.

  “I woke up a few minutes before you came. How did your secret meeting go? Or am I allowed to ask?”

  “Well enough, I guess. I took a temporary assignment.”

  Her eyes went wide. “You did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Will you be working in DC?”

  “I’ll be doing a lot of traveling but I’ll be based here.”

  She flew into his arms. “Oh, that’s wonderful! I am so happy!” She pressed against him and they exchanged a long kiss. After a bit, she pulled away and smiled mischievously. “Oh my! I feel someone downstairs.”

  “That’s Jones. He has no sense of time or place.”

  “Sounds like my kind of guy! No time like now.”

  “Unfortunately, now’s not a good time. I have meetings this afternoon and I need to buy some things first.”

  She frowned. “Phooey. What sort of things?”

  “You know, office type stuff.”

  “Well, I need some clothes. I could look for those while you do your shopping. Then we could meet for lunch.”

  “Sounds like a plan. I’ll give you my card.”

  “Not necessary. I called Richard and Daddy. Richard gave me the number for his card.”

  “You told them about the kidnap?”

  “Yes and they took about it about the way you’d expect, but the fact that I was in a Washington hotel with an ex-cop for a bodyguard did a lot to reassure them. They can’t wait to meet the white knight who rescued me.”

  Rock suppressed a sigh. He knew there was no way to get out of this but he wasn’t looking forward to it. The family would make much of him, to be sure, deeply grateful for what he’d done. Things would get complicated when they realized the two had a relationship beyond rescuer and rescued. “I’m looking forward to meeting them,” he said.

  “You’ll like them. Daddy is an old dear and Richard is one of a kind. Big man, like you and very, ah, alpha. But that’s tomorrow. Tonight, after you get back from your meetings, we can order room service and have a candlelight dinner. And then…”

  Rock cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I, uh, I have another meeting tonight.”

  “You do?” She looked disappointed, also baffled. “How late?”

  “Very late, I’m afraid. I’ll be gone from eight to midnight.”

  She stepped away from him and put her hands on her hips. “Midnight! You just got into town and you’re already working nights? Late nights at that. What the hell do you do, Rock? Just what is this agency anyway?”

  “I told you. It’s law enforcement and sometimes that involves odd hours. Criminals don’t work nine-to-five.”

  “Will you be out catching criminals?”

  “This is, uh, more like a practice session.”

  “And is this going to be a pattern?” she said irritably.

  “It might but there will be down time, plenty of time for the two of us.”

  “There better be,” she said sulkily, sounding to Rock more like an aggrieved wife than a new girlfriend. Alarms rang. Better be careful; he might be on a slippery slope. Then she managed a smile. Rock could see she was making an effort not to act annoyed, however annoyed she might actually feel. “Well, let me comb my hair and put on some make-up,” she said in an cheerful voice. “And we’ll go shopping!”

  They caught a taxi and Rock had her conveyed to an upscale mall, then told the driver to take him to a strip mall in the suburbs. He was reluctant to let her go off alone but Turner was right. However long the arm of a Mexican white slave gang, there was no way they could know where she’d gone. He couldn’t have her watched day and night. It was his possessive nature that made him want to watch over her, not any real foreboding. If she was acting like an aggrieved wife, he was acting like a proprietorial husband.

  The taxi pulled into the strip mall. Sure enough, the shop was still there. Taboo for You said the sign in elegant neon cursive. It was a favorite of the kinksters at DARC. Rock had thrown away all his toys when he moved to Mexico, determined to put that part of his life behind as well. For the most part he succeeded. Every now and then, he went to Mexico City and played with a professional. She was pretty and fun, though it wasn’t the same thing as doing it with a loving partner, even if only a partner for the night.

  He chose a black leather vest with metal studs, expensive but appearance was everything in a club. They sold leather pants too but he preferred tight jeans. Dress up too much and you might as well wear a peaked military cap for the look so loved by gay doms. He picked a soft brown flogger with a nice walnut handle and a rattan cane and a “dragon tail” whip, made of a single piece of cowhide, pricey but from a first-rate company.

  What else did he need? Ah, yes. Handcuffs! Also leather straps with wool on the inside to prevent wrist chafing. A few other odds and ends: a rubber butt plug, the traditional red ballgag plus a bit gag, the bit part made of silicone for comfort. Subs in bondage were supposed to be uncomfortable but there was a difference in intended and unintended discomfort. Depending on the gag, anything more than an hour could be painful. You couldn’t be too careful. Luna liked bit gags. She didn’t at all care for gags that held the mouth open. Rock smiled and put one in his basket. It had a metal O ring in the center and handle-shaped “spider legs” on either side of the ring. He recalled Luna had a penchant for topping from the bottom. Not this time, subbie.

  He felt conflicted about working with Luna. She was beyond beautiful, a dark complexioned Brazilian with exotic good looks whose trade name was Chameleon, for her inclination to switch depending on partner: sub or dom, straight or lesbian. She was lean and fit, with a husky voice: sexy but low for a woman. Sometimes she liked to tuck her hair under a toupee, dress as a man and visit bars that served the college crowd. She favored sorority girls and never went home alone. He loved to play with her, vanilla or otherwise, but she had a longtime thing for him, or at least did when he left. She was pushing thirty and her clock was ticking. He wasn’t interested in an exclusive arrangement, which was what she clearly had in mind.

  Now that Rory was in his life, he was less interested than ever in anything serious with Luna. He’d have to work to keep their relationship strictly professional, no matter how hot a demo might get.

  And Rory? Explaining Luna to her wouldn’t be easy. Maybe best not to have to explain her at all. The more he could keep Rory in the dark about what he did and who he did it with, the better.

  He took his basket to the counter. The purchase came to $665.19. He’d overdone it. He kept everything though. You never know what you’re going to need, better to come with too much than have to borrow something at a critical moment. The checkout girl put everything in a couple of plain black sacks that simply said TfY in gold letters.
He left the store with an hour to kill. They were eating at 1:00 at a small bistro near the hotel that Oaks’ receptionist had recommended. He checked his phone for text messages. Nothing. Neither Luna nor McQueen had called yet.

  He took a taxi to the bistro and found an uncrowded outdoor café nearby where he ordered coffee and a burger, something to justify occupying a table at lunch hour. He ignored the burger and sipped the coffee, which wasn’t bad but nothing like Lucía’s. He was going to miss Casa Paradiso and Parajito, the pace of life there, not exactly leisurely but slow enough to savor things like kicking a soccer ball with boys, playing dominoes with old men, an afternoon roll with Lola.

  He watched the rush of traffic and people on the sidewalk, all of them in a hurry, all with important things to do. He’d once been part of this life, a rising star in law enforcement. His association with a controversial young agency only adding luster to his reputation. In the conservative world of lawmen, DARC might be a fringe agency but no one argued with its record. It made arrests, cracked cold cases, didn’t cave to political pressure, acquired valuable intel and, under Oaks’ shrewd guidance, shared with friends. The DEA drone was classic Zookeeper.

  His mind drifted to tonight. Imagine, a demo at the Satyricon! That was exciting. He was sure that Luna, always meticulous, had a scene already planned. He wondered what. He envisioned her strapped to a St. Andrew’s cross, an image that aroused Jones’ interest. He found himself looking forward to an evening back in his old hangout, where no one knew or cared about his day job. There he was just Dom Miguel, a play on the traditional Spanish title of Don.

  That was Littlejohn’s idea, typically clever, helping to distinguish him from the other masters at the club. The deputy director wasn’t himself kinky, though he was gay, with a twenty-year partner, two adopted children and a life so blandly wholesome that he joked Jim and he could have been featured as a “cover story for Good Housekeeping.”

  DARC had any number of what Littlejohn called field agents, not exactly undercover but whose law enforcement backgrounds were discreetly muted. They worked as investigators but were also frequenters of gay leather bars, lesbian advocacy groups, B&D clubs, suburban swapping circles, kinkster dating services or anywhere that people practiced the pursuit of happiness in an “alternate lifestyle community” – as it was put in DARC’s deliberately convoluted name.

  But these agents didn’t pretend to be gay or lesbian or kinky or, in the case of one attractive young newcomer, transgender. They were. They were part of the communities they policed. And it worked. When an investigator was dispatched to Denver to help police in the suicide of a blackmailed gay man or to Atlanta to determine if the death of a woman playing bondage games with a pickup was manslaughter or murder, the DARC agent had insights into behavior and a connection to locals that a straight cop never would.

  Rock was mentally thrashing Luna with the rattan cane, eliciting cries and moans from her, when he remembered to check the time. Ten after 1:00. Shit! Bad form to tell your girl you had to work late and then show up late for lunch too. He put money on the table, grabbed his bags and jogged down the sidewalk with the rest of the hurrying crowd.

  The bistro, the Golden Ox, was still busy but the lunch crunch had passed. Rory was sitting at a corner table, wearing heels and a sleeveless green cocktail dress that contrasted nicely with her crimson hair. Their time together had been so brief that he’d mostly seen her in a t-shirt and jeans, attractive but not especially girly. Dressed up, she was a real head-turner, a woman any man would be proud to have on his arm.

  She was annoyed. “I’ve been here twenty minutes,” she announced when he joined her. He mumbled something about traffic and quickly scanned the menu. The waiter arrived and he ordered green enchiladas. That was TexMex food, not real Mexican cooking but as close as he was likely to get in DC.

  He told her that she looked terrific. She smiled and brushed a strand of wavy strawberry hair from her eyes. “I got this and something a little more demure for tomorrow. Richard is so old-fashioned. He doesn’t like it when I wear anything too revealing. I think if he had his way I’d be in a burka twenty-four/seven. Thank God for Anne, she’s more open-minded.”

  “Anne is his wife?”

  “Third wife, actually. She drinks a little too much but she’s sweet.”

  They chatted some more about her purchases. She asked him about his own. He responded vaguely and turned the conversation back to female fashion. In his experience, women liked to talk about clothes but knew that men tuned out after a minute or so. If you showed real interest, they’d chatter for half an hour.

  After a while he excused himself to go the restroom. When he checked his phone, he found a lengthy email from Littlejohn, a warm “welcome back” filled with chatty gossip about agency doings and personalities. Though Hamilton Oaks was the head of the agency, John Littlejohn was DARC’s heart, its guiding spirit. His trade name was Kookaburra, for his braying laugh, heard often in the Zoo’s hallways.

  Rock lingered to read the entire email. Returning to the dining room, he saw that their table was empty. Rory must have left to visit the restroom herself. Then he noticed other diners staring at the table, a couple of them laughing and pointing. Hastily dodging around a pair of waiters, he saw why. Several of his Taboo for You purchases lay on the table, the butt plug resting prominently point-up. Red-faced, he hurriedly threw them back in the bags. Women! Stupid of him to have left his shopping bag where the girl, a true daughter of Pandora, couldn’t resist a peek. God knows what she thought.

  She must be outside, likely looking for a cab. He dashed out of the bistro and scanned the street. There she was, half a block away, long strawberry hair bobbing as she strode quickly down the sidewalk. His phone rang and he checked it as he ran to catch up, weaving in and out of the crowd. It was Jaime McQueen. They had to talk but now was not the time.

  He caught up with her. She glanced in his direction, then walked faster, mouth set in a angry scowl. “Listen, Rory, I—”

  “What the FUCK is going on?” she yelled, not turning to look at him. “Two days we’ve known each other and you’re already cheating on me.”

  “Let me ex—”

  “And kinky cheating at that! My God, no wonder you’re so secretive!”

  They plowed into a tourist family, almost knocking over a pair of grandparents. “Watch where you’re going!” a woman holding a child yelled.

  “Sorry, very sorry,” Rock apologized. “Rory, this isn’t what—“

  “What is it then? I found HANDCUFFS! And that scary-looking black rubber thing! What the hell is that for? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.”

  Rock noticed they were drawing amused glances from passers-by. “If you’ll just—”

  “I suppose you’re going to tell me those handcuffs are for crooks?”

  He pulled her off the sidewalk into the alcove of a store and held her by the shoulders. She tried to shake him off but he gripped her tightly. “Let GO of me!” she yelled angrily. “Let go, you asshole!”

  “Listen to me, just list listen,” he said firmly.

  She glared at him. “You’ve got one minute. Then I scream my head off.”

  He took his hands from her shoulders. “I’m on temporary assignment with my old agency, DARC. It’s a federal law enforcement agency that investigates sex crimes, not just ordinary ones but those in what we call alternate lifestyles. We’re mounting a sting operation to catch a serial kidnapper. Are you with me so far?”

  Her mouth was still set and her brows still fretted but her voice had lost a little of its edge. “I give you points for improvisation.”

  “It’s true, all of it, so help me God. The sting is set up for a Washington B&D club. B&D stands for—”

  “I know what B&D stands for.”

  “I’m doing a demonstration there tonight with another agent, a woman. We’re hoping to get the kidnapper’s attention. This was all set up weeks ago. That’s why they flew me back by jet.�
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  “Why you? Why do they have to have you?”

  Rock sighed. He’d hoped to put this off for a long time, maybe forever. “I have a reputation in that world.”

  She gazed at him wide-eyed. “What do you mean? What sort of reputation?”

  “I go by the name ‘Dom Miguel.’ I’m a dominant.”

  “Are you telling me you like to tie up women and whip them? You’re a sadist?”

  “I’m a dominant. That’s not the same thing as a sadist.”

  “Uh-huh. Were you planning on tying me up?”

  “No. Absolutely not.”

  She didn’t look like she believed him but she didn’t press the point. “So you’re telling me you’re a pervert who works for a secret government agency—”

  “I’m not a pervert and it’s not a secret agency. It’s just, ah, low profile.”

  “And I’m supposed to believe this bullshit?”

  His phone rang. Undoubtedly Jaime again. The man was known for his impatience. “The guy calling now is also an agent. We’re supposed to go over tonight’s operation. You can ask him about DARC and about me. He’ll confirm everything.”

  “How do I know the two of you don’t belong to some weird role-playing game and it’s all make-believe?”

  He pulled out the phone and hit the answer key. “Jaguar? Can you hold?” He turned to Rory. “Just talk to him. Please? If you don’t believe him either, I’ll take you to the Zoo and you can see for yourself.”

  “Where?”

  “The Zoo. It’s what we call agency headquarters.”

  “Did you just call this guy ‘Jaguar?’”

  “Yeah, it’s his trade name.”

  “And Turner, he said something to you about this Zookeeper guy who told him to bring back ‘Rapper.’”

  “Raptor. That’s my trade name.”

  “Like in Jurassic Park? You’re named for a dinosaur?”

  “No. A raptor is a hawk or eagle, a bird of prey.”

  She gave him a long, wondering look. “Even if this is real, you guys are a little nuts, you know that?”