by E J Frost
I’ve got the phone propped on my teddy again, and I’m already under the covers with the doors locked, and my teeth brushed. I’m also already dressed for bed, or, in this case, undressed, since I’m hoping to tempt him into a little mutual masturbation before my bedtime story.
“Hey, baby doll,” he says as the call connects. He’s in bed, too, with the white pillows around his head. I can only see his head and shoulders, but the neckline of his green camo T-shirt is visible. Maybe I can convince him to take it off so I can drool over his chest.
“Hi, sir. Good timing. I just got home from spending my day in the mall police pokey.”
He grins. “Thought you were going to call me if you got busted.”
“I’m just kidding. Nothing bad happened, and I found lots of cute jammies.”
“Did you? Are you wearing them now?”
“No.” I turn the phone so he can see below my neck.
He grunts. “You’re killing me. Where are your pajamas?”
“In my luggage. I don’t want to be packing at the last minute. I might forget something.”
“Uh-huh. Likely story. You can sleep nude if you want, baby, but pull the covers up over you now.”
I pout into the phone. “Boo.”
“No arguing. Pull the covers up. You’re too tempting, all naked and needy, and I promised myself not to play with you until you’re back in my bed.”
My pout deepens.
“Stop pouting. It doesn’t work on me. I want you back in my bed as soon as possible. This way you have lots of incentive, don’t you, baby doll?”
“Yes, sir,” I say resentfully, but I pull up the covers and angle the phone at my face again. “I wasn’t going to miss the train. Not for anything.”
“Good.” He yawns and stretches, tucking his arm behind his head. “Have you picked out a story for tonight?”
I nod. “The Three Apples.” The second story I read to my mother today. I want to read it to Logan to overwrite that sad memory. “Before I read it, would you tell me about your day? We have time before bed, don’t we?”
Logan lifts a dark eyebrow. “Sure. Why?”
“Um.” I work my lower lip between my teeth. “Communication?”
“Communication, baby doll. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
“I’m just a little worried that you’re not getting anything out of this. It’s been all about me. A little’s supposed to take care of her Daddy, too.”
“Mmm, good communication, sweetheart. For the record, I’m getting everything I want out of this so far, and I promise to tell you if that changes. But since one of the many things to come out of my five hours of phone calls with the Pink Pearl people today was a complete waiver for you, we can talk about my day. It’s not very nice, though. You sure you want to hear about it before bed?”
I read horror novels before bed. Although this is real life and that’s fiction, if Joe Hill and Nancy Collins don’t keep me awake, whatever he’s been doing shouldn’t, either. “I’m okay with dark and ugly, sir.”
Logan’s mouth twitches. “You’d have to be, to be with me.”
He’s anything but dark and ugly. I’m still not sure whether Logan’s handsome, but he’s the most beautiful man I’ve ever met. “If I was there, I’d ask to kiss your jaw.” I look straight into the phone so he knows I’m serious, and stroke the edge of the phone case, wishing it were his skin. “You’re so beautiful, Daddy.”
“Thank you, baby doll, but I think we need to get you some glasses before we get on the boat. Really thick ones.”
I have twenty-twenty vision, but I can play along. “Yes, sir, I’ll get right on that.”
“Mmm.” He scratches his jaw, which is as heavily stubbled as the day we met. “The calls today were mostly with the cruise line’s in-house security and HR people, as well as their staff doctor. They’ve hired me to investigate a death on their Mexican Sunset cruise. A poor bastard named Bill Black.”
“Oh, no,” I say softly. “He died while he was on the cruise?”
“The night he got back.” Logan rubs his chin before he continues. “The coroner’s verdict on Black was heart failure, but the widow didn’t buy it and she had a private lab run tests. First tests showed a bacteria that can cause food poisoning, and Mrs. Black filed suit against the cruise line for negligence. Her lawyer’s demanding the company disclose any other food poisoning victims. The cruise people contacted everyone who has complained about food poisoning in the past six months, and had private blood tests done. The staff doctor explained the tests for an hour, and I barely followed any of it, but the really bad news is that it looks like Black and four others took a sex enhancement drug while they were on the ship.”
“Like Viagra?”
“More like ecstasy, only this stuff causes serious organ damage. Bill Black had a dodgy ticker. The huprin-methylenedioxypyrovalerone pushed him right over the edge into heart failure.”
“Wha-what’s it called?”
Logan grunts. “Don’t make me say it again, baby doll. The doctor says the street name is ‘brick,’ because it makes you hard as one.”
“Is it illegal?”
“It’s being criminalized. It’s very new. The doctor says he’s just seeing warnings about it. But the tests confirmed that all the victims took the drug while they were on the cruise. Three separate cruises. That’s really bad news. One cruise, it could be a passenger that snuck the drugs on board. Three cruises, that smells like an inside job.”
“You mean, it’s being sold on the ship?”
“Mmm-hmm. That’s why they’ve brought me in. The company Veep who hired me is afraid their own security people are in on it. Their ships go into Mexico all the time, which is a big source of cocaine and heroin, so they have serious security on these ships. All passenger bags are scanned and screened coming and going. But according to the staff doctor, there’s no question the passengers took the drug during the cruise. Evidently this stuff can be detected in your hair even months later. Hair grows at a certain rate, so they can figure out when the drug was taken. The cruise line is facing massive exposure if the drugs have been supplied on the boat. They’re freaking out. In a very laid-back, West Coast way, but still.”
“Wow, they must be. How many people are on each cruise?”
“Two hundred and fifty.”
“That’s a lot of potential victims, sir.”
“A lot of potential lawsuits. So, you can see the source of the freak-out.”
“I can. Do you really think it’s being sold to the passengers by the crew?”
Logan shrugs. “I do. Without wanting to sound jaded, baby doll, about two-thirds of my cases turn out to be inside jobs.”
That’s depressing, but it doesn’t surprise me, human nature being what it is. “I guess you can’t just ask the crew if they supplied an illegal sex drug to the passengers?”
Logan snorts. “No. And going over it today with the cruise people, there are a dozen ways on and off these ships. If a crew member’s bringing drugs on-board, they only have to find a one hole in security. If the security people are in on it, they wouldn’t even have to find a hole.”
“So how do you find out whodunit, sir?”
“Old fashioned detecting.” He stretches. My muscles envy his stretch and I follow his example, pushing my toes down under the covers. That’s such a nice feeling, stretching in a cozy bed. “Or, in this case, a lot of interviews. I’ll keep comparing stories until I find the gaps. I don’t know anything about cruises, but I know about running a boat. It takes a schedule, sometimes a damn tight schedule. If the crew are selling drugs to passengers, there will be deviations from the schedule. People in places they shouldn’t be, when they shouldn’t be there. That’s what I’m looking for.”
“That sounds hard to spot.”
Logan shrugs. “That’s what I do, sweetheart.”
“Can I help?” I ask.
“Sure. If you want to go over each day’s interviews with me at ni
ght, that’d be a big help. I often have my best insights while I’m talking things through with my partner.”
“I’d love that.” Then a thought strikes me that’s more likely to keep me awake than anything else he’s told me. “Sir, when you say your partner, is that Manny or your old sub, Miranda?”
Logan’s lips tighten. “Mir. Although I can call Manny if I need to. Why?”
I shrug. He clearly doesn’t want to talk about her. “I’m just wondering how I can help, you know, like she used to.”
“Baby doll, it doesn’t matter how she used to help. She’s not here. You are. If you’re comparing yourself to Miranda, stop.”
“I’m not.” At his lifted eyebrow, I amend that statement. “Okay, I am. It’s just that you were with her for a long time.”
“Yeah, I was. And she was helpful sometimes. Other times she was a pain in my ass. Our relationship wasn’t perfect, baby doll, although I probably thought it was at the time.” He rubs his hand over his face. “Hindsight’s twenty-twenty, isn’t it? When I look back now, I can’t see past the things she said which turned out not to be true. Or the things she didn’t say, which turned out to be truer than the things she did.”
“Oh, sir.” I scoot close to the phone and cup it in my hands, wishing I were cupping his face. “I understand. I spent years remembering those things. The promises he made which were nothing but air. They haunted me for a long time. It doesn’t really get better, sir. But it gets dimmer.”
“Dimmer?” He lifts an eyebrow.
“That’s the best way I can describe it. It still hurts, if I let myself think about it. But I don’t think about it as often as I did, and the pain’s gotten distant. More like the memory of pain than pain itself.”
Logan takes a deep breath and blows it out. “Did you hate yourself for missing him?”
“Yes. And I hated everyone who told me that I needed to move on. Easy for them to say. They didn’t waste five years of their life on him.”
“I don’t feel like I wasted five years.” He shifts and settles deeper into the pillows. “But anyone who tells me I need to move on is risking a punch in the face.”
“I’ll never say that to you, sir,” I promise.
“You won’t need to, baby doll. I want you to stop comparing yourself to her, or the other women I’ve topped, because there’s no comparison. I haven’t thought about her, or anyone else, since I’ve been with you. Topping you takes up all my headspace. Maybe that’s what’ll make it dimmer for me, huh? When the cruise doctor was boring me to death on the phone today, you know what I was doing?” When I shake my head, he continues, “I was writing out more ideas for scenes. Making lists of things I want to do with you, stuff I’ll need. I told you, I haven’t been this fired up in years, and that includes the time I was with Mir. This feels like a big new adventure, baby doll. Like when I first discovered kink. It’s that exciting for me. I know it’s not for you, but I hope you’ll catch a little of my fire—”
“Oh, sir,” I protest. “This is exciting for me. It’s so exciting, and I can’t wait to do all those scenes with you.”
“Good. Let’s focus on that, huh? What we’re going to do together, instead of what someone else did or would have done.”
“Yes, sir.” I get it. He doesn’t walk to talk about his other subs or his past. His reasons are different than I’ve heard before, but the effect is the same.
“You know, you haven’t called me Daddy once since I called.” Logan rubs his hand over his face. “Is everything okay, baby doll? Have I done something wrong?”
“Oh, no! No, not at all.” I almost call him Daddy, but it feels forced, so I don’t. “I guess I’m just not feeling little tonight. Today was a pretty adult day.”
“Seeing your mum and going to the mall. That second one is a nasty, adult thing to do, I agree.”
I shake my head at him. Men and their aversion to shopping. “For someone who hates the mall, you dress pretty snappy, sir.”
“Yeah, thank God for online shopping.” I roll my eyes at him. As if I’d ever believe he ordered the suit he wore to the club online; I know bespoke tailoring when I see it. He chuckles. “Seriously, though, was your visit with your mum okay?”
I nod. “She doesn’t remember who I am. She hasn’t for about six months.” When he reaches for the phone as though he’s reaching for me, I say hurriedly, “It’s okay. I mean, I knew it was coming. Her doctors are really good. They explained what I should expect.”
“She has, what, Alzheimer’s?”
I shake my head. “Dementia with Lewy bodies. It’s like Alzheimer’s. A lot of the symptoms are the same. Hers are mostly memory problems and cognitive difficulties but she’s developing tremor as well as the disease affects her nervous system.”
“Oh, baby doll. I’m so fucking sorry.”
He looks it, too. He looks destroyed as he peers into the phone. I run my finger down the edge and smile as bravely as I can. “It’s okay. Like I said, her doctors are really good, and the care home is amazing. They’re reading The Princess Bride to her.”
“That’s good, sweetheart. That’s good. But, fuck, I wish I was there with you.”
“It’s okay, Daddy.” Now it feels natural. “Can we read my bedtime story now?”
“Yes, we can. It’s getting late and my baby needs her sleep. One story.”
I reach over to the bedside table and pick up One Thousand and One Nights again and flip it open to the story I’ve picked out for tonight. Before I start the story, I look at him and smile. “Ta very much, Daddy. Ta for everything. It really, it means the world to me.”
“You’re very welcome, baby doll.” He strokes the edge of his phone as though he’s stroking my hair.
I snuggle down in my pillows and read him “The Three Princes and the Princess Nouronnihar.”
Without visiting hours to get to, I can sleep in, and I do, rolling over the way Logan’s told me to do and going back to sleep the first two times I wake up. The third time it’s ten a.m. and the sun is shining outside my black-out blinds and although I still have five hours to kill before my train, the thought that I’ll see Logan in eleven hours has me jumping out of bed.
He’s sent me several texts while I’ve been sleeping, so I take a minute to text him back and reassure him that I’m okay and can’t wait to see him, before I dive into the shower. I need to write two more blog posts before I go and my college roomie, Gracie, has invited me over for a quick lunch before my train. Lunch with Gracie is always touch and go, depending on whether her son is having a bad day, but I’d never turn down an invite. Gracie gets out even less than I do.
When I’m dressed, I check my phone again. Two messages. The first is from Gracie. Connor’s having a really bad day, so lunch is off. Tension drains out of me, followed by a cold rush of shame. Gracie was two hundred percent there for me during my divorce. I want to be two hundred percent there for her. I’m just not always sure how to be.
The second message is from Logan, and it makes me smile again.
Someone slept in late. At one spank for every minute overslept, how many spanks does BD get?
I contemplate how cheeky—and how brave—I want to be.
None, because you haven’t given me a schedule yet, Daddy, I finally text back.
While I’m making myself a late breakfast of grapefruit, toast and tea, his message pings back.
Nice logic for a baby girl. I’ll rectify that immediately. Every minute’s deviation from today’s schedule = one smack with an implement of Daddy’s choosing.
Jeez, I’ll be punctual. That paddle he likes so much is Satan’s own. Yes, Daddy.
I’m almost finished my grapefruit when he texts me back, Better pray your train’s not delayed.
I shake my head at the phone, knowing he can’t see it. It’s unfair of him to hold me responsible for Amtrak’s schedule. I know he doesn’t care about that, either, and I don’t mind that he’s looking for excuses to discipline me. I’ll give
him one sooner or later anyway.
My email icon pops up a minute later. I open the attachment and read while I sip my tea.
I rub my fingers over the screen, wiping away happy tears when they spot the glass.
I’m just finishing up my last post for the blog tour and contemplating what I can scrape together for lunch, since I didn’t do any grocery shopping over the weekend while I was with Logan, when my phone goes. Expecting Mitchy to be calling about the blog post I’ve sent her to proof-read and format, I pick up the phone without looking at the caller.
Logan’s voice fills my ear. I can tell from the first word he’s irritated, but not with me. “Baby, I hate to do this to you. I need to leave early. I’m actually calling on the way to the airport.”
“Oh,” I choke, not knowing what to say, feeling like the wind’s been knocked out of me. He’s going without me?
“The widow who’s suing, Mrs. Black, she’s finally agreed to meet me. She’s given me an hour tomorrow morning. I’m taking the next flight. I won’t even get in until midnight. I know you must still have a million things to do and I don’t want to ask you to take this crazy flight with me.”
I could finish packing in five minutes and be ready, but it will take me hours to get to Newark. I’ll never make the flight. I feel my lower lip quiver at the idea of being left behind. I suck it into my mouth fiercely and bite down. I’m not going to cry on the phone with him, not when I can hear he’s already got too much going on.
“This is what I want you to do,” Logan continues. “You stick to the plan. Manny will pick you up at Penn Station and take you to my place. He’ll show you how to get in and out. I’ve ordered dinner for you. It’ll be delivered at quarter to nine. It’s already paid for. I want you to sleep in my bed, where I know you’re safe. I’ve booked a taxi to take you to the airport tomorrow. You take the flight as scheduled and I’ll pick you up at LAX. I’m sorry you’ll have to fly alone—”
“Don’t be,” I breathe. He’s not leaving me behind, and he’s made all these arrangements for me. My heart feels so full in my chest it should burst out like an alien, only that’s not very romantic. “I’ll write and nap on the plane, I promise. Oh, Daddy, thank you for not leaving me behind.”