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I shrugged. "Sure. It's not like my fiancé – ex-fiancé – would have been free to introduce me as his undercover narc girlfriend."
Chloe kind of shrugged by tilting her head to one side and then upright again. "Those are your rules and you expected him to live by them."
For a minute all I really got out of that was a reminder that I needed to talk with Mark at some point and get off the lease and clean my stuff out of our shared apartment, though where I'd put it I didn't know. A storage unit? And then I realized Chloe was moving on.
"Cole St. Martin has a more intense view of the lifestyle. He wants a sub 24/7. He expects to be obeyed, and to do what he wants, exclusive of controls other than no permanent harm and stopping at hard limits."
I sat up on the chaise lounge and scrubbed my hands over my face. "I didn't ask to be his sub, though."
"Didn't you?" Chloe wasn't looking at me. Her face was tilted up to the sun and her eyes were probably closed behind her dark glasses. "You went back to him more than once. He took you in each time. You knew who he was and what he expected and you knew he hadn't dragged you back to him even when he knew where you were. That sounds like submission to me."
"Fine!" Because she was right and now I was anxious and antsy and angry. "But he's doing stupid things! Kie is in his fucking dungeon and he's taking his time getting rid of the bitch! That's stupid! I kept him from getting hurt by her more than once. Me. Because I'm a cop and because I knew what to do and because I, unlike St. Martin, was paying attention."
"Was that really the only reason?" she asked. "Or are you jealous?"
I wasn't, I realized. Because Cole St. Martin, because he was horrified by what she'd done to me and there was no hesitation in him at all in insisting she couldn't stay.
"I want to keep him safe," I muttered.
"Not your job," Chloe said, and after that she didn't say anything until it got to be too hot and she suggested we go inside.
But we didn't move then, just continued sipping ice water and watching the sun as it climbed up above the Las Vegas valley floor. There was bird song all around us. Despite the huge acreages each mansion had, there were other homes in sight, but they were each fairly well isolated from each other.
There was a kind of eeriness to the desert, all that vast space and horizon. I found the sun blissful but the horizon and all that space was daunting.
Out of nowhere, Chloe started talking again. The morning sun had lulled me. Apparently there was mandatory workout later, which I'd welcome, and mandatory yoga, which I wouldn't. I had no idea if I was to be included in the next maintenance spanking or what to expect from Claude. St. Martin had sent me to live in his house by his rules until whatever time he’d take me back. I assumed it had something to do with learning to live within the contractual agreement, but maybe it was just until Kie was gone, the source of most of the tension between us. Or until he figured out whatever he was mulling over with the woman named Ariel who was apparently also in the maze or dungeon or whatever it was called. I hadn't seen her when we were down there and I was still creeped out by her presence even if I hadn't seen her. The idea that Cole St. Martin attracted women with suicidal ideation didn't bode well for me.
"I know a lot of your Master's dictates seem random," Chloe said and I startled at the sound of her voice.
"No," I said cautiously, wondering if there was a hierarchy in place. Was I subbier than she was? My goal for the moment was to avoid anything that would cause Claude to want to punish me. I was no more tempted to allow him to than I was to allow St. Martin.
Something had changed in Cole St. Martin but something had changed in me too. Or maybe it had just reset itself.
"No?" She sounded curious, as if we were having a normal conversation between normal people, not slaves.
"It’s not just random. A lot of it is a game. I know there are people out there who believe in punishment." Because I'd read about them, setting up impossible tasks for each other in order to fail and be punished because they apparently couldn't just say, Hey, that feels good, hit me again.
Human egos are weird things.
"But with him it's like I'm somehow just supposed to divine the rules. They don't even exist until I violate them. But if this is punishment, I have to tell you, I'm not having fun."
That made Chloe raise up on one elbow and look at me over the tops of her glasses. "Wait, you don't like any of it? Because if not, what are you doing with him? It's still a choice."
And there it was.
And wasn't.
Because no, it wasn't a choice when you're using opiates and you're supposed to be undercover stopping opiates and dealers and you don't want to lose your job or your life, because you haven't yet determined your life isn't quite what it's supposed to be. That's not a choice. It's not a choice when some asshole crooked cop sells you to the CEO of a huge pharmaceutical company either. A man so rich he's virtually untouchable.
I didn't say any of that.
"I don't like it the same as he likes it," I said finally. This woman had been in bed with me while her husband fucked me after the Kie-slash-dinner-party incident. I guessed I could speak openly to her.
There are different forms of naked.
"That's part of the game," she said easily but she was still watching me. "The pushing of soft limits, the control, the fantasy of ohh, don't make me do that! When that's what you want."
I laughed at her breathy little ooh and said, "I don't think I'm unusual in that I want it until it's happening. I mean, when it's pain. I'm not someone who in the midst of being beaten says more, more! Unless it's to see what I can take."
