by Sophia Reed
"Annie," he said simply and honestly. "It's time for her to return to her real life."
Outside the desert sky was painted in reds and corals. "You're the best judge of what her real life is?"
"I'm her fiancé."
"Mr. Tomlin. Annie isn't available to take your call, and I don't want to speak with you. You put her in danger with your stunt, because through it, people who needed not to know where Annie was found out."
Instantly he was shouting but this time I didn't hang up because this time he was afraid. "Is that where she is? Did something happen to her?"
"Something happened to her before you and her father pulled off your ridiculous raid. I don't know if you understand this, but Annie is a fully grown woman who works a job far more harrowing than anything you've done yet, and actually more difficult and dangerous than what her father did."
He had no patience for that. He was mid-bluster when I cut him off.
"When Annie returns from her trip, I'll ask her if she wants to visit you. I'll leave it up to her if she sees you in Seattle or if we offer to fly you somewhere neutral where you can talk. And I'll offer her use of a bodyguard."
I waited until he got done bellowing before adding, "That way she might think it's safe to go where you are."
And I disconnected.
32
Annie
Weekday morning. I had lost track of the days but Claude's routine generally at least let me know if it was a weekday or not. I'd only been in their "care" for going on three weeks and the days were schizophrenic in their psychotic predictability.
Weekdays Claude would go to his office, maybe stop for something on his way home, a beer, the gym, a swim somewhere, for all I knew a quick fuck. He was a goat, always ready and creepy.
But three weeks in he had yet to touch me and he had yet to spank me. In some ways it was worse than anything else he could do. Because the waiting was distracting.
Three weekends passed. They were not enjoyable. Claude wasn't just a sadist, he was – fucked up - was the best and most deep and introspective term I could give it. I'd come to the conclusion the man I'd thought kind at the dinner party St. Martin gave had been on his best behavior. Possibly his only best behavior.
Because this Claude was a consummate game player. He set impossible tasks and stupid ones, vying us against each other, Chloe and I pitted against each other in Trivial Pursuit or something else, and then the results were stored away on his phone against the day that he – what? Worked up the courage to touch me?
During those times I didn't even like Chloe. She became a dark eyed bitch who would as soon scratch my eyes out.
I was staying because...
Because one addiction had been cured and not the other. I was still trying to find my way back to a sustainable life for myself. I didn't think I was being purposefully stupid about it. I knew this wasn't going to be my real life. I didn't even think the people whose real life it was did it forever. Kind of the way most humans, at least the ones I know, moved in and out of passions. One day they were totally in love with running and the next their running shoes had cobwebs. I didn't mean those people who followed trends. I just meant that new excites a lot of people and the lifestyle had new happening all the time.
To an extent, I was hiding. I knew that. After all the stress in my life with Jesse and the gang, with Jesse's death and my own fet addiction, my father's ill health, when PD started looking to put me back undercover I had a talk with both the department shrink (actually, there were a lot of those) and an uncomfortable and overly personal one with my CO. Both of them had been shocked when I asked to tell Mark that I was going under on assignment. Not because I couldn't.
But because I hadn't before.
He knew what my job was, I said to both of them, and they had the same response. You just left? He must have been out of his mind for you! Do you actually love him?
Of course I did. But that was personal. This was work.
But the shrink had gone one further and asked, Do you always run when the going gets tough?
The answer seemed to be yes. I ran physically. I ran emotionally. I ran into work. I ran into a needle.
Staying with St. Martin had been hiding too, until Kie and Vincent fucked it up and St. Martin changed. I'd been comfortable with him, knowing what to expect. If there were indignities and humiliations and worse yet things I longed for and then was appalled by when they happened, so what? Deep cover had the same things a lot of the time.
Telling myself it wasn't safe to go back to Real Life yet because I was too fragile. Wouldn't want to become addicted again.
St. Martin hadn't said so but I was pretty sure he considered me clean.
That was one reason I was staying, despite feeling physically uncomfortable around Claude and waiting for whatever he'd eventually do.
Another part of it was St. Martin. He'd changed. So much. He was so violent and angry and depressed now and I wanted to be there but he'd sent me away and that snake was still in the basement and that scared me.
And I wanted to see, when he came out of that anger and fury, if he'd ever tell me about his Emily. If he'd ever tell me anything.
If there was anything there. I didn't expect him to change. I'd never gone into any relationship, as a cop or a woman, expecting the person to change.
Except maybe this time – I could?
So - weekday morning. Claude was up and out and the two of us, Chloe and I, were running companionably through the tremendous amount of desert the ultra rich enclave had greedily absorbed.
It was beautiful up in the neighborhood above the valley floor. There was a good view of everything spread out below. Chloe was a good running partner for me. She didn't stop a lot but she didn't run super fast either. I was used to keeping up with St. Martin – who definitely didn't wait for me – but the time off had taken its toll. It was nice to start getting some cardiovascular back without him there to egg me on with threats of beatings or promises of not having fish. In my real life, not having fish wasn't a reward, it was a way of life.
"What are you thinking about?" Chloe asked, sounding amused. "You don't usually smile when you run. In fact, I don't think most sane people do."
I laughed aloud at that. "I'm thinking about not having to eat fish."
She gave me a look. "Whatever makes you happy, I guess."
"Only now you'll tell Claude and there will be fish."
Chloe laughed, a little breathless. "Not hardly. I hate fish. But what you said doesn't make you sound any saner."
"True. I was actually thinking that you're a much nicer running partner than St. Martin. He doesn't wait for me and he's a mile high."
Chloe snorted. "Him and Claude. They don't throw their weight around as much as they throw their height around."
That struck us both as funny and we slowed to a walk. Giggling can take it out of you.
I wanted to ask her why she was so different when we were together with Claude but I thought it would either turn out to be jealousy – she was in great shape but the years still take their toll and I was maybe a dozen years younger than her – or maybe she didn't like having me there any more than I liked being there.
I didn't want to risk pissing her off.
I went back to thinking why I was still there and the answer came back each time with more than one part.
Because I wanted time to talk to St. Martin and see if he could ever be Cole again in my mind. If he would come down from the violent high of anger he was on or if what had happened with Vincent and Kie had triggered who he really was.
Or who he really was now.
I wanted time before I had to go back to Seattle and deal with the train wreck of a life I'd left there. Say goodbye to Mark before he did something stupid again. I needed to make it permanent. And I needed to tell my father that his riding to the rescue was probably something a good father should do but he was out of line and don't do it again.
Tell PD goodbye. I didn't thi
nk that would come as a surprise to them.
St. Martin had offered to fund my schooling until I could get my degree in criminal justice. If I took the partial retirement and the savings I had from PD and didn't have to pay for school, I could get my own place and attend classes without working. Or while working very part time maybe. Or something.
Or I could stay with St. Martin. If he'd revert to Cole.
It was the first time I had ever thought that and it was a rattling thought. Had just knowing about his sister made that much of a difference?
Did I actually have feelings for him?
I didn't like the questions. I doubted I'd like the answers. And there was always the question of was Chloe lying? For fun? To see if I'd ask him? Or maybe she was telling the truth for the same reasons, poking the bear, waking St. Martin to his memories and pains to see how ineptly I'd wade in.
That moment, running again under the desert sun as the day heated up, I realized I still didn't really have any female friends. I liked Chloe. I liked times like this when we'd been laughing or drinking coffee in her backyard. I liked having someone to run with.
But I didn't trust her. That seemed only right and proper and sensible and sane. I didn't trust her. She was married to a man I thought might be some shade of crazy. A man I was actively waiting to decide he could hurt me or have me or both.
If I stayed with St. Martin that loneliness wasn't going to change.
If I left him, there were no guarantees, but I'd be taking a positive step for myself.
Or would I just be running again when the going got hard?
"Slow down!" Chloe begged. She was falling behind.
I slowed instantly. Not because she'd asked but because I realized I was running flat out and my heartrate was going crazy. I was sweating and when I stopped there were black spots in front of my eyes.
"What the hell happened?" she demanded when she caught up to me. Her hands braced on her elbows. She hung her head and just panted.
"Um," I said. "Thinking about the future."
Chloe looked up at me, still bent double. "And you decided to run to it? Get yourself up to 88 miles an hour like a DeLorean?"
I grinned.
She shook her head. "Well, here's a taste of the future. I was going to wait and spring it on you but guess who's coming to dinner?"
Okay, there were a limited number of people we knew in common. There were other kinky billionaire types, and if she said that, I'd test how crazy Claude was by packing up and telling him I was leaving before any of them arrived.
And there was St. Martin.
"The president," I said.
She tsk'd. "Claude would take you over his knee for that."
"He hasn't for anything so far." I had my hands on my hips and was surveying the valley.
"I know."
I didn't like her tone. "What?"
She pursed her lips. "Just, sometimes when he doesn't do something you expect, it's worse when he does. Like he's been saving up."
And with that jolly thought, we ran back to her mansion to spend the day getting ready for dinner and Chloe spent the day drawing farther away from me.
That was okay. I spent the day withdrawing from her, too. Even if I thought she was my friend and even if in real life she was and I was making a mistake in not trusting her - I wouldn't be staying anyway.
It was time to make some kind of move for myself in my own life.
If only I knew what that was, and had the courage to do it.
33
Cole
Less than a month since Annie arrived at the house Claude and Chloe shared, this was my idea. Probably I could stop it by simply stating I was taking her back to the compound with me.
There'd been reasons to send her here. Remember that.
Chloe herself opened the door. She wore a deep blue evening dress that made her pale, nearly white blonde hair stand out like a halo. It clung like a second skin, outlining breasts and nipples, slim waist and almost outlining her mons. It was at once elegant and slutty. "Cole! Darling. Where have you been keeping yourself?"
It's a complicated relationship. Claude can order Chloe to be submissive to me. Left to our own devices, she's Chloe.
She went up on tiptoes and kissed my cheek, then pried the wine from my fingers like a small, greedy child.
"That's meant for the man of the house," I admonished her, stepping over the threshold.
"I'll see that he gets it," she said. "You don't happen to have a corkscrew on you?"
I breathed in. "Screw, maybe."
She rolled her eyes. Shut the door behind me. Waved me into the living room.
I looked around. "Where's Annie?" The cold feeling that hit me from every angle was surely nothing more than leftover fear from Vincent taking her. I wasn't scared. I was hoping this could be an actual evening, as close to vanilla as our lot ever got.
I wanted to see Annie as Annie, not strung up in some fashion. Until this minute I hadn't been thinking about how Claude could get.
To my relief, Annie was sitting on the couch in the living room beside Claude. Unfettered. Unafraid. She wore a dress of a similar cut to Chloe's, but a deep green that set off her auburn curls. When she'd been brought back from France I'd almost buzzed her hair off completely. It was growing back into a mop of curls that made her look even younger than her usual twenty-four-looking-seventeen.
Just seeing her there was relief. I missed her. It wasn't anything I wanted to admit.
She looked up when I came in, contrary to what I had told her to do, and took in my face as if taking inventory. The expression that crossed her features was complicated. It was longing and anger, hatred and something I didn't want to think too closely about. It was something else, too. Something that looked surprisingly like pity.
The idea of taking her back to the compound fell away. She wasn't ready.
There was something surreal about the evening. The first time Annie had met Claude and Chloe had been at the compound for a dinner party, one of the charity events. She'd liked them both then and after the party at which Kie had hurt her, I'd let her stay the night under my roof but in one of the guest beds with both of them.
Now she watched Claude with an expression of distrust and near loathing. Interesting. But there was a marked change in her, as well. She sat up straight, she ate what she was given (not that she was given anything she disliked from what I could tell.) She and Chloe held a quiet conversation between themselves and when called upon between salad and main course to strip naked and resume their seats, they did so.
It wasn't anything I wouldn't have done but I hadn't done it and that made it strange.
"You read about the latest outbreak in Africa?"
"What is it this time?"
"Master, do we have to discuss such things?"
"Put the food in your mouth and otherwise keep it closed."
"He does that sometimes."
"Claude, you can't very well expect her not to worry."
"Of course I can. I told her not to."
"Seriously, Claude – "
Our voices around the table. We all sounded more like siblings than an old married couple and a temporarily separated Master and slave.
There was nothing that said Claude had taken her as his. That was strange. During one long exchange between Claude and Chloe I leaned over and asked Annie if she was all right. The look she gave me was distant and either cold or scared, I wasn't certain which.
Next instant she smiled and everything seemed okay again.
After dinner Claude ordered the women to serve, clearing the dishes and bringing back sorbet for the gentlemen and coffee for everyone. Seated next to Annie, it seemed natural to feed her bites of sorbet. When one fell onto her naked breast, it seemed natural to catch it in my palm and mold it to her nipple, holding it there until it had melted into warm syrup.
Annie held still and said nothing, so I fished an ice cube out of her water and held it there until pain showed on her
face. She said nothing, didn't protest, didn't say no.
Didn't safe word, either.
Perhaps leaving her with a more masterful Master was working.
For her. For me, I just felt diamond hard and with very definite and unconfused thoughts about what I wanted to do to her. Take her home and fill her orifices with ice cubes. Take her home in that dress and make her kneel on my dining table as I slid it up her ass and took her there, maybe in the ass, something I'd never done to her.
Holding her across my lap and using the paddle I'd seen in Claude's living room, holes drilled in its surface.
Chloe's bottom was mottled.
Annie's was pristine.
He wasn't using her.
Why?
34
Annie
Guess who's coming to dinner?
Seeing St. Martin was confusing. He was still beautiful. That sideways smile, the way his eyes glittered when he got ready to do something. He had a definite tell. Just, it didn't do me any good since I couldn't flinch away from whatever it was he was going to do after the smile.
It wasn't the lock, stock and barrel contract he thought I'd signed in good faith.
It was refusing to back down.
Naked dinner. The main course was fine, fillet steak that was buttery and delicious, with salad every bit as naked as Chloe and I. As someone who hates salad, not having to gak down dressing helps. Dessert was sorbet. St. Martin's interest in what cold would do to my body parts was mild in comparison to what I might have expected.
After dinner Chloe and I served. Whatever I expected after, the most that happened came at the end of the evening.
I was getting bored. The desire to go lie on the couch beside St. Martin and put my head in his lap was almost irresistible except he hadn't changed. Of course he hadn't. I'd only been gone a couple weeks. He was still mad about whatever was driving the extreme violence in him
"Claude, thank you for the evening. You cook an amazing steak."
