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I blushed but laughed. "Or fight off a mugger."
He nodded.
"Is that why – ?" I started and he leaned over and put a finger to my lips. I had wanted to ask if that was why he was pushing me, not only because he was a sadist and enjoyed what he was doing.
"One question, or I wash your mouth out, and I haven't yet answered it."
I swallowed. It made sense that he would try and trigger the reaction and then create a negative association. A kind of psychological conditioning to go along with the rainforest cure.
Only this was Cole St. Martin. I wasn't sure I bought it.
"What happens next is that we continue to work until I see you've developed into a place I'm comfortable with and then there will be some real world tests to see how you do." He appraised me, frank blue eyes raking my face. "Though honestly, if you were to be street-ready tomorrow I wouldn't let you go. My contract is for longer, with exclusivity and for at least three-quarters of a year and after that, with you returning on schedule."
As if I'd forgotten that for even a second.
There were no other questions I could ask. He'd told me what the future held. I hadn't managed to work into my one question when that future would be upon us or what the real world tests would be, since I hadn't known about them.
For the next couple of days I was buoyed up by the idea that Cole thought I was doing better, that there might be some real world tests. It wasn't the tests I was excited about, but the real world.
The desert was beautiful, blooming with colors at different times of day. The distant mountains took on browns and grays in the day and blues and purples at twilight. At night we were far enough away from the city to see the Milky Way and to watch some of the many October shooting star displays, the Draconids and the Orionids, and now that November was moving along, the Leonids.
But watching shooting stars wasn't enough. In Seattle there was always something to do when I was in school or when I was first on the job. When Mark and I were first together it seemed like we spent every free moment going out with friends.
Those friends had fallen away as life took its toll. That wasn't a bad thing, but it was isolating. First friends coupled, then married, then had children or careers or both. They moved to suburbs or were simply too busy to hang out.
Mark's school became intense and though he probably wouldn't remember it or admit it, he was the one to pull back first, with less and less time for the two of us. I understood – med school was hard, it was hard on me and I wasn't the one going through it. He studied day and night, in groups and solo, one on one with a lab partner who looked like a professional wrestler and wanted to be a surgeon. I thought if he walked into an operating room where I was waiting for something delicate like my appendix to be extracted, I might run screaming, even if already sedated. He simply looked too huge to be as graceful as Mark assured me he was.
Then I started working toward being a narc, into the tri-county drug program, and before I took step one in it, there were superiors talking about how young I looked and suggesting stings where I went to school.
I believe I protested. High school was bad enough the first time and I was actually going to have to do homework. Mark had a laughing fit when I first told him that which left him doubled over and gasping for breath. I was less amused. When he could breathe again, he tackled me and dragged me downstairs and into my car and we drove to a secluded scenic outlook and made out in the backseat. When I finally came up for air and asked him what the hell that was about, he said it was like we were both back in school and at that point I was the one laughing too hard to breathe.
But after that I realized how much Mark had retreated into his school work. Because whatever he thought, I didn't have the same. It didn't matter what marks I got, as long as I got to the right people, and I did. It was almost creepy how fast I found and started hanging out with the dealers and the users. I made friends. I actually did some homework. And I didn't see much of my boyfriend.
Since I was undercover, I wasn't seeing my parents, either, who were a couple cities away, so there was little chance of running into them.
It was lonely. I didn't quite miss my sisters – I wasn't desperate – but Mark had been the first to choose career over our relationship and I was the one to follow up right away and do the same thing, perhaps spitefully, perhaps competitively. Or maybe just naturally.
Now I watched sunrises as I ran into them and watched sunsets as I tried to argue my way into smaller portions of the things I hated. Some nights it was a game, trading something I didn't like to avoid something else I didn't like. Other nights I would see Cole's face change, his blue eyes taking on a stormy quality, and I would shut up and eat whatever it was.
That one breakfast had made an impact.
But even with the discipline, the time in his special room, the lessons and the rainforest cures, I was growing restive and bored. The idea of testing out my newfound sobriety on the real world was welcome.
That didn't mean there weren't traps everywhere. I was aware of that. Cole thought that real life would throw curveballs my way and so he did too, long before anything like real life was even introduced.
The tests and traps didn't matter. Cole could and sometimes did, simply punish me for his pleasure. So far, that was the extent of it. What he did in the shower after was his business. Mine was to go as long as I could without having sex with him.
Because I wasn't ready to leave yet. Bored and restless as I was, hungry for information from the real world and for getting it unvetted, I wasn't taking a chance on leaving too soon again and winding up using. That meant not rocking the boat now. He'd said my having sex would be up to me but that was the first agreement. I was aware that sex between us was definitely on the table now and would eventually become something I could no longer ignore.
At the height of pain, at the height of anticipation, those times I craved it and looked hungrily at his pale, muscular body.
Every other moment I was there I hated the idea. He wasn't my fiancé. He wasn't Jesse. He wasn't someone I even liked. He was the means to an end, the same as I was his play toy for now. I was learning to adapt. Being exposed – to the cameras, to his eyes, to his staff – still bothered me. His playroom still terrified me. There were things we hadn't gone near yet that I could sense would someday happen.
But the promise of real world kept me going.
Until the night of the dinner party.
