Daddy Issues

  “You’re still too stiff,” Stevens ob­jec­ted. “Re­lax.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “This is just so weird. I’m a grown wo­man—I shouldn’t be sit­ting on any­one’s lap.”

  “Andi…come,” Salt said in my ear. And then I felt his long, mus­cu­lar arms en­fold­ing me, draw­ing me closer so that the side of my body was pressed to his broad chest and my face was against the strong column of his throat.

  “Salt!” I pro­tested but I made no move to stop him.

  “Just be still, Andi,” he mur­mured in that deep, com­mand­ing voice of his. “Just breathe.”

  I wanted to squirm or protest but there was a note of au­thor­ity in his tone that I didn’t dare to dis­obey. With a sigh, I closed my eyes and tried to let my­self re­lax.

  After a mo­ment, I found that I didn’t have to pre­tend any more. It was nice sit­ting in Salt’s lap. He was big and warm and com­fort­ing and his af­ter­shave smelled like the ocean. Not a trop­ical ocean though—some­thing cold and rugged like the Baltic sea… I real­ized my thoughts didn’t really make sense but then I de­cided I didn’t care. I liked the feel­ing of be­ing so close to my part­ner, of be­ing held and pro­tec­ted by him.

  Shouldn’t like it so much, whispered a little voice in my head. You know you can’t trust this feel­ing—you can’t trust any man to really pro­tect you. You have to look after your­self, Andi!

  I knew it was true and yet for a little while, at least, I wanted to pre­tend it wasn’t. Wanted to pre­tend that Salt’s arms really were the safe haven they seemed to be and re­lax against him, feel­ing the mo­tion of his breath­ing, and tak­ing in the warm scent of his skin.

  “That’s good. Very good,” Stevens’ voice was hushed, as though he was afraid to break the spell that had some­how fallen over me. “Now, De­tect­ive Salt, touch your Baby­girl.”

  “Touch her in what way?” Salt asked flatly. I could al­most see the frown on his face.

  “Firmly…pos­sess­ively…pro­tect­ively. Touch her in such a way that any other Daddy who hap­pens by will know she is yours without a shadow of a doubt.”

  “Very well,” Salt rumbled.

  I tensed again for a minute in his arms, not cer­tain what to ex­pect. But then I felt Salt’s hand on my hair, strok­ing gently but firmly, caress­ing me in the most sooth­ing way ima­gin­able. At the same time his other hand came to rest on my thigh. He cradled me against him, hold­ing me close in a gentle but un­break­able grip. Not that I wanted to break it.

  “Mmm…” I sighed con­ten­tedly and snuggled closer to him. Maybe this as­sign­ment wouldn’t be so bad, after all.

  Salt seemed to think so too.

  “This is good, Andi…my little mishka,” he mur­mured. “I like hold­ing you like this.”

  “I like it too,” I con­fessed in a low voice. I snuggled even closer, shift­ing my bot­tom on his lap. Sud­denly I felt some­thing hot and hard pok­ing my hip. Was this turn­ing Salt on? Giv­ing him a hard-on?

  For a mo­ment, I froze. It should have freaked me out and it did…a little. But not quite as much as it should have. I felt sort of com­pli­men­ted ac­tu­ally. Still, we couldn’t just ig­nore it.

  “Um…Salt?” I mur­mured, shift­ing again.

  “Sorry.” He shrugged. “Can­not help it. You are too beau­ti­ful and too close and so my body re­acts.”

  “It cer­tainly does,” I muttered back. The lump was now un­der my ass and it seemed to be grow­ing every minute. God, what caliber weapon was he pack­ing in his trousers?

  “Does it bother you?” Salt asked in the same low, in­tim­ate tone.

  “I…guess not,” I said hes­it­antly. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to make you…you know, re­act.”

  “There is noth­ing to apo­lo­gize for,” Salt as­sured me. “Just re­lax, Andi. Wig­gling all over like a little fish makes it worse.”

  “A-hem…” Stevens cleared his throat and I real­ized I had com­pletely for­got­ten he was there. I’d been so caught up in be­ing close to my part­ner, be­ing held in his arms, that everything else had just slipped my mind.

  “Yes, Dr. Stevens?” Salt asked him poin­tedly. “You have cri­ti­cism of our tech­nique, per­haps?”

  “Only to say that if you want to fit in at the In­sti­tute, you’ll have to make things a little more sexual,” the pro­fessor said mat­ter-of-factly. “This is a highly sexu­al­ized en­vir­on­ment you’re go­ing into. You have to make the people you meet really be­lieve you’re into each other.”

  “How sexual are we talk­ing?” I asked, sit­ting up and frown­ing at him. “Be­cause Salt and I don’t…”

  “Like to do sexual things in pub­lic?” he fin­ished for me. “I’m afraid you’re go­ing to have to get over that.”

  “I was go­ing to say that Salt and I don’t have that kind of re­la­tion­ship,” I snapped.

  “You don’t?” Stevens looked con­fused and sur­prised. “Really? The two of you aren’t already sleep­ing to­gether?”

  “Of course not,” I ex­claimed. “Salt is my part­ner. It’s against PD reg­u­la­tions.”

  “But the way you in­ter­act with each other…the way you’re so com­fort­able in each other’s spaces…” He shook his head. “I would have bet my ten­ure the two of you were already to­gether.”

  “Well, we’re not,” I said.

  “Well that’s go­ing to be a prob­lem.” He sighed.

  “Why should it be prob­lem?” Salt asked, frown­ing.

  “Be­cause you’re go­ing to be ex­pec­ted to act a cer­tain way—both in pub­lic and in private,” Stevens ex­plained. “Not many people know this but the In­sti­tute has cam­eras in every room and someone is al­ways watch­ing. If they see you act­ing strangely, sus­pi­cions will be aroused and you’ll never find the source of the Please.”

  “So we have to act these roles all the time?” I asked, frown­ing.

  “Every minute of every day you’re there,” Stevens af­firmed. “Or you’ll be kicked out in a heart­beat. They’re very sens­it­ive to any­one be­ing there who doesn’t be­long. A few years back an un­der­cover re­porter tried to do an ex­pose on them. I don’t like to tell you what happened to her when they found out her Daddy was ac­tu­ally just the cam­era­man her pa­per had sent with her.”

  “Wow. Not good.” I was def­in­itely non­plussed.

  “Are the cam­eras in the rooms wired for sound?” Salt asked, which I thought was a good ques­tion.

  “No, they’re not but they are con­stantly on and re­cord­ing. Ru­mor has it that Jonathan Berkley, the man who built and owns the In­sti­tute, re­views the feed from every suite each night. He is…” Stevens coughed. “Some­thing of a voyeur.”

  “Ugh!” I ex­claimed. “So he’s watch­ing all these people play their sick little games? Isn’t there a law against that?”

  “Con­sent for the cam­eras is bur­ied in the con­tract each par­ti­cipant signs when they enter the In­sti­tute,” Stevens ex­plained. “He puts it un­der a ‘safety clause.’ So there’s no pro­sec­ut­ing Berkley for that.”

  I sighed. “Fine, I guess we’ll just have to stay in char­ac­ter.”

  “You have to get into char­ac­ter first,” he poin­ted out. “And that means you need to be all over your Daddy—al­ways beg­ging for his touch.”

  Well, I didn’t know about all the fawn­ing and beg­ging but I did know I didn’t mind Salt’s hands on me. He touched me con­stantly any­way—not in a creepy way, though.

  My part­ner touched me in small ways, like put­ting his big, warm hand at the small of my back to guide me through a crowd. Or the way he would brush a lock of hair out of my face to see my eyes bet­ter when we were talk­ing. Nice touches—I liked them. The ques­tion was, how would I deal with it if those ‘nice touches’ sud­denly be­came sexual?

  “I’ll try,” I said at last.

  “
Do you think you’re up to it as well, De­tect­ive Saltanov?” the pro­fessor asked.

  “I know I do not mind touch­ing Andi,” Salt said in a low voice. “But it will be up to her if she wants to be touched by me in such a way.”

  I took a deep breath. “I think I’ll be okay with it as long as it’s only you, Salt,” I told him. “You and I have a pretty solid part­ner­ship—I don’t think a few days of pre­tend­ing we’re in some weird sexual re­la­tion­ship is go­ing to ruin that.”

  Salt nod­ded, look­ing re­lieved.

  “I agree. Very well, if you do not mind, I do not mind.”

  “There is one other thing to con­sider,” Stevens said. “Speak­ing from a psy­cho­lo­gical stand­point, be­ing in this kind of en­vir­on­ment and pre­tend­ing to be in this kind of re­la­tion­ship can bring up is­sues from your past. So you need to deal with those now—be­fore you go.”

  “What is­sues?” I de­man­ded, frown­ing.

  “Spe­cific­ally, what most people call ‘daddy is­sues’,” Stevens said. “Tell me, De­tect­ive Sug­ar­baker, how was your re­la­tion­ship to your father?”

  “I didn’t have one,” I said flatly. “He left when I was nine and I never saw him again. So I can’t have Daddy is­sues when I never really had much of a father, right? I mean, I barely even re­mem­ber him at all.” Which was true. The memor­ies of my father were blurred and ob­scured—hardly there at all, really.

  “Let me get this straight,” Stevens said frown­ing. “Your father aban­doned you at age nine to the care of an al­co­holic mother—ba­sic­ally leav­ing you at the most vul­ner­able time in your life to an un­re­li­able care­taker. And you don’t think you have is­sues?”

  “I know I don’t. I man­aged just fine.” I lif­ted my chin. “Look at me—I have a ca­reer, a life…”

  “Any long term re­la­tion­ships?” Stevens asked quietly.

  “Well…” I shif­ted un­com­fort­ably on Salt’s lap. “No, but that doesn’t mean any­thing. I can get by just fine on my own.”

  “It prob­ably means you don’t trust men and feel like you have to take care of your­self,” Stevens said bluntly. “Which is also why it’s dif­fi­cult for you to form any kind of last­ing re­la­tion­ship with a man.”

  “I have Salt—he’s a man,” I pro­tested. “We’ve been to­gether the last three and a half years—what’s that if not a last­ing re­la­tion­ship?”

  “That is a part­ner­ship,” Stevens em­phas­ized. “Not a sexual, com­mit­ted, lov­ing re­la­tion­ship.”

  “It may not be sexual,” Salt said, frown­ing. “But it is very com­mit­ted and lov­ing. I care for Andi deeply. I will not al­low any­one to harm her.”

  “Thank you, Salt.” I smiled at him and he gave me one of his rare smiles back. Some­times I thought I was the only one who ever got to see him smile at all. Which was fine with me.

  “All right, you don’t want to ad­mit your is­sues—I can see that.” Pro­fessor Stevens sighed. “Just don’t be sur­prised if some troub­ling emo­tions sur­face when you’ve been role play­ing for a while.”

  “I can deal with whatever hap­pens,” I said evenly. “I’m an adult and I take re­spons­ib­il­ity for my­self.”

  “You are now.” He shook his head. “Let’s see how you are after some time at the In­sti­tute.”

  “Leave Andi be,” Salt rumbled warn­ingly. “Do not give her need­less fears.”

  “They’re not need­less or un­war­ran­ted, De­tect­ive Salt,” Stevens said. “But let us turn our at­ten­tion to you for a while. What kind of re­la­tion­ship did you have with your father?”

  Salt frowned. “My father? He was very stern—very what I think you call ‘strict.’”

  “And?” Stevens prod­ded. “Was he lov­ing to­wards you? To­wards your mother and sib­lings?”

  Salt’s face grew dark. “He liked his vodka,” he said shortly.

  I thought of the way he’d told me his father had beaten him with a belt earlier. Had he been ab­us­ive? Maybe an al­co­holic like my mom? But my mom had never been a mean drunk—she’d just been neg­lect­ful. I couldn’t count the times I’d gone to school in dirty clothes be­fore I learned how to work the washer and dryer my­self. And we both would have starved if I hadn’t learned to cook.

  “That’s all you have to say? You can’t tell me any­thing else?” Stevens frowned. “What about your mother? Were you close to her?”

  Salt nod­ded. “She was won­der­ful. She loved us very much, me and my sis­ters.”

  “So you had sis­ters,” Stevens probed. “How did you feel about them?”

  Salt frowned. “They had to be pro­tec­ted. My father was not of­ten around but when he was…” He shook his head. “Any­way, I was the old­est. I had to keep them safe.” He sud­denly looked sad—an ex­pres­sion that centered more in his eyes than any­where else. “I was not al­ways suc­cess­ful. But I did try.”

  Wow, I was learn­ing more about my part­ner’s past today than I had in the whole three and a half years we’d been to­gether! Salt of­ten spoke of Rus­sia to me but he only told me the good things, the happy memor­ies. Did he have pain in his child­hood to match my own?

  “Well, at least you’ve had good ex­per­i­ences with the wo­men in your life,” Stevens re­marked. “It sounds like you had to be the man of the house at an early age. No won­der you feel pro­tect­ive of your part­ner.”

  “I feel pro­tect­ive of Andi be­cause she is my part­ner,” Salt growled. “Not for any reason in my past.”

  Stevens shook his head. “Well, I wish the two of you the best of luck. Your cap­tain can brief you on the de­tails of the case in the morn­ing. I be­lieve you’re ex­pec­ted at the In­sti­tute for their wel­come din­ner to­mor­row even­ing. So you have un­til then to get your minds right.”

  “We’ll be fine,” I said de­fens­ively.

  “I’m sure you will.” But the pro­fessor didn’t sound at all cer­tain. He got up and star­ted gath­er­ing the other out­fits I had ve­toed but Salt stopped him.

  “Wait. The dress with all the ruffles—leave that one too.”

  “What?” I frowned at him. “Salt, I’m not wear­ing that! It’s sick.”

  “Is just in case,” he as­sured me but his eyes were flinty. “Be­sides, you can­not go with only one out­fit.”

  “There’s a cos­tume shop at the In­sti­tute which should sup­ply all your needs. But here.” Stevens draped the puffy blue party dress over the arm of the couch and nod­ded at Salt. “Thank you for din­ner but I really have to go. I have a Kink in Clas­sic Lit­er­at­ure class to get to.”

  “Wait? There’s kink in Clas­sic Lit­er­at­ure?” I asked.

  Stevens only rolled his eyes.

  “Oh my dear De­tect­ive Sug­ar­baker, if only you knew.” He shook his head. “No, I’ll find my own way out. The two of you look too com­fort­able to­gether to dis­turb.”

  His words made me real­ize that I was still sit­ting on Salt’s lap as though it was a nor­mal state of af­fairs for us. I jumped off hast­ily and went to get the door for Stevens any­way.

  “Good night,” I said. “And thank you, I guess.”

  “You’re wel­come.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a busi­ness card which he pressed into my hand. “And here. This is for after.”

  “After?” I raised an eye­brow at him.

  “After the two of you get back from the In­sti­tute.” He sighed and shook his head. “I’ll be blunt—send­ing someone with your is­sues to that place is like throw­ing a lamb to the wolves. You’re go­ing to need to talk to someone when you get back—I can make some re­com­mend­a­tions.”

  “I don’t have is­sues! So thanks but no thanks.” I tried to shove the card back in his hand but he re­fused to take it.

  “Good night, De­tect­ive,” he said and left me star­ing after him, clutch­ing the ca
rd and frown­ing. He was wrong, I told my­self. Salt and I were go­ing to be just fine. After all, we had each other. True, I was go­ing to be put into an in­tensely vul­ner­able po­s­i­tion but I knew that my part­ner al­ways had my back. We would be all right in the end.

  Wouldn’t we?

  Chapter Three

  “I told you, Salt—I don’t want to wear this one. It’s sick!” I stared down at the ruffled blue party dress in dis­may. How had I al­lowed my part­ner to talk me into this?

  “And I have told you, the other out­fit is too much, at least to start. What do you not like about it?” He pulled the car into a park­ing space be­hind the broad, gray build­ing with no win­dows.

  The In­sti­tute was loc­ated on the far end of Ybor City, Tampa’s his­toric dis­trict. Ybor used to be home to large ci­gar rolling factor­ies and the Cuban im­mig­rants that worked in them. Now many of the old, his­toric build­ings had been turned into nightclubs, tat­too par­lors, ci­gar bars and tour­ist traps selling kitschy Flor­ida souven­irs.

  I sup­posed I shouldn’t be sur­prised that a re­sort de­voted to Age Play was loc­ated down here. Ybor was also the heart of the Tampa kink scene. “Leather Daddy’s” was right down the street as well as an­other club called “Crimes of Pas­sion.” I had no in­terest in what they held but I’d been to both of them at one time or an­other dur­ing my stint in Vice.

  But even in those kinky clubs, my little girl out­fit would have stood out as odd. I’d been will­ing to ac­cede to Salt’s re­quest to wear it in­stead of the slutty school girl out­fit, mainly be­cause I felt shy about wear­ing the trans­par­ent blouse without a bra on un­der it. But the more I looked down at my­self in the plain light of day—well, the dy­ing light of the even­ing, any­way—the weirder I felt. Hadn’t I had a dress some­thing like this, back when I was a kid? The memory was hazy but it seemed like maybe some­thing my father had bought for me be­fore he skipped town and never looked back…