Exchange

by Katherine Rhodes

  “It’s Emma’s parents. You know Emma, and you know her parents. Pleeeeeease?”

  Fischer held up a finger and mouthed the words Make her work for it. “Who’s Emma’s father again?”

  “You work with him, Wren,” she said. “He’s an attending at Penn. They love the Hamptons and they’re flying there for a holiday party and I really want to go and hang out with Emma and she asked and please, please? You said you wanted me to be a teenager…”

  “Teenagers do chores and homework,” he teased.

  “I’ll do the laundry for a whole month!”

  I laughed hard. “You can’t even get your socks in the hamper, child. You will not do laundry for a month.”

  “Wren, Fischer…please?”

  “Yes, yes,” I said. “You can go. But you’ll answer every text and call from me and Fischer that we send, understood?”

  “Yes, yes, absolutely!”

  “Do you need an advance on your allowance?” Fischer asked.

  Mister practical.

  “No, thank you. I’ve got most of last week’s left because I was hoping you’d say yes, and I didn’t want to ask. Thank you! I’m going to go tell Emma!”

  “Ellie!” I snapped into the phone. “Have her father call me. And you know the rule.”

  Her voice was quiet. “Any time, any place, if I think I’m in danger I get out and I call you.”

  “Good, doll,” Fischer said. “Dinner at seven.”

  “Thank you!”

  The connection cut and the phone went quiet.

  “You didn’t have to torture her.” I laughed.

  “Please, that’s fun.”

  “Why the advance?”

  “Because if I didn’t, my parents would, and we really don’t need them spoiling her. For now.” He grabbed his watch off the dresser where he always left it, and strapped it on his wrist. I pursed my lips watching him buckle the band and realized he was staring at me.

  Striding over to the desk, he leaned across and pulled me in for a hard, thorough kiss. After he stole my breath, his words danced on my lips. “That was pretty fucking hot, little bird. Maybe you should order some cuffs for our bed.”

  I licked at his lips. “If you let me loose on that Adam and Eve site, you’re in big, big trouble.”

  “As long as that trouble includes hours and hours of raucous sex this weekend, let me give you my card.”

  Dusting a kiss over him this time, I smiled. “Better yet, let me go to that adult store we spied…”

  “Oh, the classy one in Jersey?”

  “That’s the one.”

  He pulled out his wallet. “Seriously, take my card.”

  I slapped it away playfully. “Nope. I got this covered.”

  Sighing deeply, he looked at his watch. “Shit. I got a consult at nine.” He backed away from the desk and sighed. “Are you serious about the adult store?”

  “Yes.”

  His lips twisted and he adjusted his pants. Heh, bastard. Got him hard with dirty suggestions. Staring at me, he shook his head slowly. “No butt plugs.”

  “Oh, yes there will be,” I said.

  “For who?”

  I quirked an eyebrow, and Fischer spun on his heel, heading for the door. “Goddamn it, I hope I can get rid of this hard-on before I get to work.”

  “I can help!” I called after him.

  He paused in the door and smiled at me over his shoulder. “No you can’t, little bird. Just know that when I have to jack this off later, it’s all your fault and you’re all I’m going to be thinking about.”

  I whimpered, “Love you.”

  “Love you,” he answered.

  He smiled, closing the door behind himself. Dropping back into the chair, I sighed. I was wet. The man always made me wet. I was just glad I had gotten back at him this time for the filthy innuendos.

  Wren: I need to go shopping.

  Miri: You just went shopping.

  Wren: I need to go somewhere else shopping.

  Laxmi: You really did just go shopping the other day.

  Wren: I’m not clothes shopping. I’m toy shopping.

  Laxmi: Isn’t Ellie a bit old for toys?

  Miri: [insert laughter] You’re not going shopping for Ellie, are you?

  Wren: No. He buckled his watch this morning.

  Miri: Seriously? He turned you on by putting on a watch.

  Wren: It wasn’t the watch I was thinking of.

  Laxmi: You know, this guy is my partner. Somehow I don’t think I need to be in this conversation right now.

  Miri: Did he tie you up?

  Wren: No.

  Wren: He buckled me down.

  Miri: Whoa.

  Laxmi: WHOA. TMI.

  Laxmi: But what has that got to do with toys.

  Wren: She’s adorably naïve, Miri.

  Miri: Well, if we’re going toy shopping, she won’t be much longer.

  Laxmi: Why am I suddenly very turned on?

  Miri: You just wait.

  Wren: You just wait.

  I chuckled as the last two messages appeared on the screen at the same time. Glancing at the time, I sighed. It was time to head to the office and get my work started for the day.

  Being in love with a world renown doctor while being a highly respected doctor was crap. But even though it could get tricky for me and Fischer to find time for each other, knowing we were there made it better.

  We were bound in ways very few people could understand. He had killed for me, and our girl Elutheria. It did something funny to a relationship when the person you were with did something so drastic.

  Scott Woodall—a sex trafficker with the code name Mr. Passyunk—would have bought his way out of any and all charges related to his illegal activities. So, Fischer had taken matters into his own hands, and saved another little girl in the process. She was safely back with her family and they were changing their names and moving.

  When someone had suggested that to us, mere days after the house in Collingswood had been destroyed, I laughed. I was going nowhere. Let them come after me and mine. They didn’t understand what they were dealing with.

  Also, I was going to give up everything I’d worked for? Nope. If someone else chose that life, that was fine. Running and hiding was not for me.

  I walked into the halls of St. Christopher’s Children’s Hospital, and headed up to my office. There were still a few of Haden’s kids on the acute ward that I wanted to check on.

  “Hey, Doc!”

  I turned and saw the charge nurse, Andy, waving as he walked by. Then, I realized he was motioning me to follow him. Trotting down the hall, I joined him in a conference room, where he shut the door behind us.

  “Just wanted to give you a run down on all the kids,” he said. “Most of them are home safe with their parents now, but as usual we have a few who are lingering…”

  “Paige?”

  He pursed his lips and nodded.

  “Motherfucker. That woman…”

  “I know she’s trying to be helpful.”

  “We don’t really have an option, Andy. We have to get these kids into homes. I just wish she was more careful because someone like Jonas needs special care.” I glanced up at him from the clipboard I had grabbed. “Jonas is back?”

  He nodded and sighed. “Had an episode. But, We both know that, Doc. She doesn’t seem to get that a kid who was sex trafficked can’t just go into a home with a massive teenaged linebacker.”

  “Damn. We have to find a better home for him. Let me see what Miriam can do in Jersey. We have to make sure he has the right kind of environment.”

  “Can I be frank?” he asked.

  “Go for it.”

  “He needs a lesbian couple. He was brutalized by those fuckers, and two women would do much better than any other couple out there.”

  I cocked my head. “That’s a brilliant suggestion. Let me see what we can do for that. I hadn’t considered that implication.”

  “I hadn’t eith
er until I saw the fosters’ son,” Andy said. “It’s not his fault that he’s a massive dude who could take down a moose, but it scared the shit out of Jonas. I could tell he was trying very hard not to be afraid, but it wasn’t working. The poor kid just started retreating.”

  “Well, your idea has merit. Maybe we can give the family a young girl who needs that protective older brother environment.”

  “That also sounds like a fabulous idea. Merry could use that. She needs to know someone is there for her.”

  I tapped my nose. “I’ll get those emails out today. Everything else going well?”

  Andy nodded. “As well as can be expected for a children’s hospital.”

  I chuckled. “True story. Lemme get up to my office—”

  “Doc, there’s something else. There’s been a man hired recently, and he’s not…” Andy pursed his lips. “Look, I don’t know much about psychics and fortune telling. But there is something seriously wrong with this guy. He feels cold and dark and we had to move him away from the infants and toddlers more than once. They don’t react to him well.”

  Pausing, I considered what he was saying. “And you’re going on the heightened conscious theory of infant awareness.”

  “Well, yes.” He nodded. “Cats and kids.”

  “What was he hired for?”

  He snorted. “Therapist. Physical therapist.”

  I didn’t know how much I believed in psychics and fortune telling, either, but after the past few months, I was way more open to the unknown than I had been. “Not good, eh?”

  “No. Because above and beyond the infants and toddlers running away from him, even the young kids want to get away from him. The preteens are really uncomfortable, and the teens are asking for someone else. We’re going to have to replace him. We can’t overload the therapists like this because he lets out creeper vibes.”

  “What’s wrong with him?”

  “He’s cold. Not like aloof-cold, but actually chilling to be around. His eyes always seem dead to everyone. He’s got this crazy deep voice that just rumbles all the wrong spots.” Scratching his chin, he shook his head. “And I’m not one of those guys who has a problem with finding another guy attractive, but this also isn’t hitting those spots either. He’s just effing creepy.”

  “I’ll talk to the director—”

  “That’s the problem. She hired him. I don’t even know why. But the fuckingest thing happens when she walks near him. She goes blank. There’s nothing there, just emptiness, and praise for him.”

  “So what are you thinking?”

  He coughed. “Like I said, I don’t know how much I believe psychics and weird abilities, but this is pushing me that way, hard. And for some reason it’s making me seek you out to let you know, as if you could do something about it.”

  I blinked. I was afraid he was more right than he knew. “I’ll check it all out, and see what we can do about everything. For now, let’s see if we can call in contractors to help with the PT overloads.”

  Nodding, he seemed satisfied with that idea. “Thanks, Doc. I’m glad you get this.”

  Pushing the door open, we walked out into the hallway again, and Andy waved as he trotted away. I meandered to the stairs and started wandering up.

  That Andy had picked me to chat about weird shit had me worried. Lots of weird things had been happening around me and Fischer since we got back together after our one week break. There were things that had me…thinking. We were already insanely close, and I was madly in love with him. But there were visions that appeared between us, that we shared, that seemed to be glimpses into another life. We also had them apart from each other, showing us other aspects of that life.

  The night they told us Mr. Passyunk—Scott Woodall—had been found dead from an apparent heart attack, Fischer had been able to share with me all the memories of witnessing the man’s heart attack. I hadn’t even freaked out about the death he caused and witnessed.

  I’d had one of the best orgasms ever when he’d passed the memories to me. It was…well I didn’t know what it was.

  We didn’t always have the visions. They were actually totally random, but that didn’t change what they were. Bizarre and otherworldly.

  I took a deep breath and pushed into the office I used at the hospital. It was time to get to work. I could worry about the other shit later.

  “Hello, ladies,” the woman behind the counter called.

  I offered a hardy hello, and smiled. Miriam did too.

  Laxmi looked positively petrified.

  The smirk tried to crawl onto my face, and I wasn’t having much luck trying to keep it off. She was so delightfully terrified by the simple things in the front of the store, I couldn’t wait to get her to the back where the real toys were.

  “Why are we here?” she hissed, terrified.

  “You need toys,” I said. “I need toys.”

  She looked at Miriam. “Am I doing something wrong?”

  “Honey, you are doing everything right.” Miriam smiled. “This is just for fun.”

  I heard her gulp, and I finally lost it laughing.

  Slapping me on the arm, she was clearly offended. “Shut up! Sex was not something we talked about in my house. I’m not exactly comfortable with it.”

  Miriam tapped her finger on her chin. “Mmm, you screaming my name last night says you’re lying.”

  “Shut up,” Laxmi snarled.

  Leaning in I whispered in her ear, “And you were ready to hop in the sack with me...”

  “I’m going to wait in the car.” She turned on her heel and headed for the door.

  I grabbed her elbow and stopped her. “Come on, we’re just messing with you. This is fun. These toys are fun. It just adds another layer to everything.”

  “I’m so terribly uncomfortable right now.”

  Miriam put her arm around her girlfriend. “Listen, Laxi. We’re actually just here to help Wren pick out some stuff for her and Fischer. We’re not under any obligation to buy anything. If you see something that you’re curious about, ask. I’m not nearly as shy about this stuff and I’m happy to explain.”

  She nudged her chin at the display case of vibrators. “Why are there so many?”

  “They all do different things,” Miriam said.

  “Different things like what?” Laxmi was clearly petrified and confused. She picked one up. “This looks like a torture device!”

  “That’s a rabbit.” I took the vibrator from her. “See? This little bit has ears.”

  She stared at it a minute. “So the large bit goes in, and the ears tickle the...”

  “Yes, the ears tickle the.” I nodded.

  She was quiet and looked through the rest while Miriam stood by watching. A moment later, she pointed to what looked like a bracelet. Miriam picked it up, and grabbed Laxmi’s hand. She pressed the top of it to her palm and turned it on.

  “Ohmygod holyshit!” Laxmi yanked her hand away and rubbed her palm. “What the hell was that?”

  Miriam grinned. “It’s an oral imitation dildo. It’s meant to imitate the tongue.”

  Laxmi looked between her hand and the ring and back again. “Oh. Well. That was a pretty good imitation.”

  I snorted and walked to the back of the store. They’d be a few more minutes, but Miriam would win this one. After Laxmi—

  “How much?!”

  —saw the price tags. I chuckled again. She was so cute in her naivete. She was fairly good dealing with her homosexuality, but her sexuality was a whole other game. And Miriam was down to play.

  Meanwhile, I went to the very back wall of the store. Most of the stuff toward the front was for light play and couples who were trying to titillate each other. Feathers, lingerie. Just games for the plain vanilla with a cherry on top. The kinky stuff was in the back. Whips, ropes, clamps.

  And, bindings.

  I really liked when Fischer had tied me to the bed the other night and I wanted to try doing the same to him. But I also wanted someth
ing we could get off our wrists easily if something happened. Handcuffs were a really bad idea for that. So I found some soft cuffs that attached to bed post and could be buckled closed, but had a fast release carbineer attached to them. It seemed a good choice, and I plucked them off the shelf.

  I turned and caught Miriam smirking at me. She knew I had no reservations about sex. There were more than a few nights in the years I’d known her she and I had wound up in the same bed. That had all changed the night I brought Laxmi home after our one and only date—and now they were happy, just as much as Fischer and I were.

  We both watched as Laxmi played with yet another toy. They were so leaving with something from here. I could see Laxmi getting curious about what exactly those things did. I grabbed a bottle of cooling lube off the shelf and chucked it at Miriam.

  “My treat. Buy her one.”

  “No...” Laxmi said, putting it back on the shelf. “I...I’ll buy it.”

  “Yay!” Miriam said, clapping like a seal. She leaned in and whatever she said to Laxmi had the slim Indian woman turning bright red.

  “Keep it down over there,” I called.

  Miriam chuckled as her girlfriend went even more red.

  I walked to the counter and put the cuffs there, ready to pay while Miriam showed Laxmi around the store a little bit more. It was a fun store. There were lots of fun things, but I really was only here for the cuffs. Fischer and I have some things at home already, and I didn’t really need to share the more filthy things that we were checking out. Not even with my former bed partner. Or her girlfriend.

  The buzz and shriek of my phone cut through the store rudely. I grabbed the phone and silenced it all at once, apologizing to the woman behind the counter. Glancing at the face, my heart started galloping, and I quickly answered.

  “Hey, doll, what’s up?” I asked Ellie. Nothing but a terrified sob ripped through the speaker, and I could feel my whole body tense up. “Ellie? Ellie, please answer me, doll.”

  “He...he tried to rape me...”

  My heart shattered. “Where are you, Ellie?”

  “I'm at a hotel, down the road from the house.”

  “Are you alone?”

  I imagined her shaking her head. “No. Emma came with me.”

  “Did you call the cops?”