Kingsley turned away from them both and stared blankly at a yellow smiley-face poster.
“I was doing some work in Eastern Europe last January,” Kingsley finally said, his tone as casual as possible under the circumstances. “Don’t ask me what I was doing, because I’m not allowed to say. But I was taken prisoner and shot. At the hospital they said…they said I’d been assaulted. While I was unconscious, I mean.”
In his peripheral vision he saw the doctor studying his face.
“You were sexually assaulted?” Her tone was neutral, calm. He appreciated that.
“Very likely,” he said.
“Do you have any lingering pain or symptoms?”
“I have f lashbacks sometimes. Nightmares. No memories.”
“Sounds likes post-traumatic stress disorder,” Dr. Sutton said. “I can refer you to someone who is an expert in that f ield.”
“No therapists,” Kingsley said. “I hate them even more than doctors.”
“When were you last tested?” Dr. Sutton asked.
“I was tested in the hospital, and I was supposed to get tested again six months later. I didn’t.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He turned his head and met her eyes.
“Told you—I hate doctors.”
She smiled at him.
“I hear that a lot,” she said. “So…after what you went through, I take it we’re testing you for…”
Kingsley took a nervous breath.
“Everything.”
16
DR. SUTTON TOOK HIS VITALS, TWO VIALS OF HIS blood, made him piss in a cup and then did something with a Q-tip that men routinely paid upward of five-hundred dollars for a dominatrix to do to them. She told him the results would come back in two weeks.
“Two weeks?” he repeated. “I have to wait two weeks?” She gave him a look of deepest compassion.
“I know. It’s the scariest two weeks of anyone’s life waiting on the lab results. And they might come sooner, but two weeks is average. Try not to think about it.”
“That’s not going to happen.” “I’m advising you not to have intercourse until your results are in.”
“Not possible,” he said.
“It is possible,” Søren said. “I’ll chain you to the f loor if I have to.”
“I’ve had sex chained to the f loor before. Remember when—”
“Kingsley.”
“You have to think about your future,” Dr. Sutton said. “You’re putting your life at risk. You’re putting your fertility at risk. Even if you don’t want children—”
“I do.”
Søren looked up sharply. Kingsley had no idea where those words came from. Did he just say he wanted children? He did? When was he planning on telling himself that?
“Then you should use protection,” Dr. Sutton continued. “Every time. Until, of course, you’re ready for children.”
“No other options?” Kingsley asked.
“You could try celibacy,” Søren suggested, and Kingsley f licked a tongue depressor at him.
“Unnatural,” Kingsley said. “No one should be celibate.”
“I agree,” Dr. Sutton said, and winked at Søren.
Dr. Sutton promised to call as soon as the results were in. He and Søren walked out into the sunshine.
“She’s your doctor, too, yes?” Kingsley asked.
“She is.”
“And she goes to your church?”
“She does.”
“And she doesn’t believe priests should have to be celibate?”
“Now you know why she’s my doctor.” Søren grinned. The smile faded, and he put his hand on Kingsley’s shoulder. “Whatever happens, I’ll be here.”
“Two weeks. I’m going to die while waiting to find out if I’m going to die.”
“You don’t have my permission to die.”
“I’ll never make it. What do people who don’t have sex do with their time? Other than plan their suicide?”
“I don’t have sex. Do I seem suicidal to you?”
“What do you do in your free time?”
“I’ll show you. Meet me at Central Park on the North Meadow at three.”
“Don’t you have a job?” Kingsley demanded.
“I said morning Mass at ten. I took the rest of the day off for you. Come to the park. Wear clothes you can run in.” “I don’t want to run.”
“North Meadow. Three.”
Søren held up three fingers.
In response, Kingsley held up one finger.
Once Søren was gone, Kingsley stopped at a pay phone and called Sam.
“You paged me?” he asked as soon as Sam picked up his office phone.
“You have messages. Most important message—Blaise wants you to escort her to some fund-raiser Friday night.”
“Do I have to?” Kingsley asked.
“If you don’t take her, I will,” Sam said with an amorous tone in her voice.
“I’ll take Blaise to the thing. You’re not allowed to steal my chouchou.”
“We need to renegotiate my terms of service, then.”
“What else?” Kingsley asked.
“An Officer Cooper called. He’s at the twenty-sixth precinct. I don’t know what this message means, but he said ‘Tell King I’ve got a live one for him.’”
Ahh…that sounded promising.
“I’ll go right now,” he said.
“What’s a live one? Who’s a live one?”
“I told you we needed professionals—dominatrixes, dominants, submissives. I have some contacts keeping an eye out for me for anyone who might fit in well at the club.”
“A beat cop is one of your contacts?”
“Cooper puts the beat in beat cop.”
He hung up on Sam and hailed a cab. He was almost as fond of police stations as he was fond of doctor’s offices. He’d already been to the doctor today, so he might as well go play with the police, too. If today continued along this trajectory, he’d be attending Mass by nightfall.
All of this was Søren’s fault—getting sober, getting an assistant, getting tested, working. Fucking priest. He was so glad he’d come back to him, Kingsley could barely breathe thinking about it.
Officer Cooper, twenty-five, black, tall, muscular and handsome, met Kingsley in the lobby. He didn’t speak a word until they were halfway to the holding cells.
“Who is she?” Kingsley asked.
“Name’s Irina Harris, born Irina Zhirov. Age, twenty-two.”
“A Russian, eh?”
“Came to the States as an eighteen-year-old mail-order bride,” Officer Cooper said. Kingsley laughed. “I’m serious, King. We see it a lot. Russian women so desperate to get out of the country they marry American men, total strangers most of the time. They hook up through matchmaking agencies. Sometimes it works out and they live happily ever after. Sometimes the lovely bride tries to poison his dinner.”
“She poisoned her husband?”
“That’s the charge.”
“You brought me down here to meet a murderess?”
“Attempted murderess. I don’t know. You know what I like,” Officer Cooper said. “And I like her. I get that feeling about her. Want to meet her?”
“A Russian mail-order who tried to kill her husband? Of course I want to meet her.”
This day was looking up.
“I don’t have any excuse for bringing you down here, so if anyone asks, lie and say you’re her translator or something.”
“Da,” he said in Russian. “>Q AC4=> =0 2>74CH=>9 ?>4CH:5 ?>;=>
[email protected]”
“Whatever you say,” Cooper said, nodding. “And you’ve got ten minutes before I have to get you back out again. Good luck.”
Kingsley slapped Cooper on the arm. They’d met at a party, and Cooper claimed he was such a good submissive, he could pick out a dominatrix in a lineup of five other women simply by listening to her voice. “It takes a sub to know a domme,” he’d said. Now they would find out if he
was right.
A woman sat alone in a cell on a gray metal bench. She had her back to the door and didn’t turn around when Cooper let Kingsley in the cell.
Cooper left them alone together.
From the back he could see she had black hair, stylishly coiffed, and she wore designer clothes. He walked around to stand in front of her and found her staring into the corner of the room, refusing to make eye contact.
“My name is Kingsley,” he said in Russian. If his f luency surprised her, she didn’t betray it with so much as a blink. “You’re Irina Zhirov.”
“Harris,” she said, in thickly accented English. “I’m married.”
“I heard someone tried to poison your husband.”
“I’m a bad cook. His stomach overreacted.”
Interesting answer. Kingsley studied her as she picked at her nail polish. She had an elegant profile, undeniably Russian, undeniably lovely. But she had a hard set to her mouth, as if she hadn’t smiled in so long her lips had calcified into a pale tight line of bitterness.
“Does your husband overreact often?”
Irina met his eyes before looking away again without speaking.
“I’m not with the police,” Kingsley said. “And I’m not a lawyer. I’m not a translator.”
“Who are you?” she asked in Russian, finally meeting his eyes.
“A friend,” he said. “If you need a friend.”
“I need a lawyer.”
“I can help you get a lawyer. Tell me more about your husband overreacting.”
She cocked her head, tried to look innocent. “He’s a man. They all overreact. A man you’ve never met before smiles at you, and now you’re sleeping with him. You don’t do his ironing right, so you hate him. You cook the food bad, and you’re poisoning him.”
“Your husband sounds like a little poisoning would be good for him.”
“A lot of poisoning would be better for him.”
She had a hard cold voice. Her dark eyes sparked like struck f lint when she spoke. The anger in her went all the way to her toes. He could work with that.
Kingsley knelt on the f loor in front of her. Her eyes widened in surprise, but she made no objection. A good sign that she had no issue with men kneeling in front of her.
“Did you poison him?” Kingsley asked, studying her face and neck.
“I didn’t want him to fuck me,” she whispered. “If he’s sick he can’t fuck me. I wanted to make him sick. That’s all.”
“Most wives I know like getting fucked by their husbands.”
“Those wives aren’t married to my husband.”
He raised his hand and lifted her hair off her neck. She closed her eyes as Kingsley examined four small black bruises that marred the otherwise unblemished skin under her hairline.
Kingsley positioned his hand until his fingertips lined up with the bruises. “He tried to choke you. Was this in bed or out of bed?”
“He does it all the time,” she whispered. “I think…someday he will kill me.”
“Why do you stay with him?”
“I’m not a citizen,” she said. “Not yet. I’d rather die than go back to Russia. My father’s worse than my husband.”
Kingsley sighed heavily.
“How tall are you?” he asked. Irina gave him a puzzled look.
“Five foot ten.”
“Are you very strong?”
“Stronger than I look.”
“I believe that. How would you feel if I kissed the tip of your shoe?”
Irina narrowed her eyes at him. “Why would you do that?”
“Why not?”
“Kiss it, then. I don’t care.”
“I would if we weren’t in a holding cell. Against my will, I find I have a new lease on life these days,” he said. “I’d hate to catch something.”
She smiled, and that one little smile transformed her face. In an instant she was rendered unspeakably lovely.
“You can kiss it later, then,” she said, an imperious look on her face. It was there an instant and then gone again. But he’d seen it—arrogance, self-importance, power. Cooper was right.
“Did you ever want to fight your husband off?”
“Every time,” she said. “I wanted to break him and beat him into the ground. But he had the money, and if he divorced me, I wouldn’t be able to stay here.”
“You like the thought of hitting men.”
“Most men need a good beating to teach them how the world really works.”
She smiled as she spoke, a dark dangerous smile.
“You might be surprised to find I agree with you.”
She looked at him now, full-on at him, and for the first time, it seemed she noticed his existence.
“Who are you?” she asked again. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you, my name is Kingsley. I own a club in town, a strip club. But I’m starting a new club. I need people to work the club. Special people. People like you.”
“Like me?”
“Like you.”
“I don’t know anything about working in a club,” she said.
“I can teach you everything you need to know.”
“What would I do?”
“Beat the shit out of men. Some women, too, but mostly men.”
Irina looked at him as if he’d grown a second head.
“Does that pay well? Beating up men?”
“It can, if you do it well enough.”
“Sounds like a dream come true.”
“Can you be brutal?” he asked.
“I am brutal,” she said. “My husband will be in the hospital for a week because of what I gave him last night. I couldn’t stop laughing while he was sick.”