Chapter 4
My mind’sall over the place today.
It’s with my baby doll, who is happily heading off to the 6BC Botanical Garden with Mac, Bren, Warrin, Aggie, Jack, and Sammi for a picnic.
It’s with Max, who is packing to fly to England tomorrow in De Leon’s tiny, private plane.
It’s in London, where my daughter’s getting discharged from the ICU where she’s been since her complicated birth.
It’s at Blunts, where the problems with the house submissives seem to be spinning further out of control with Annabelle’s resignation.
It’s in New Jersey, where I’m headed to finish wiring in the CCTV system that I hope will finally catch a thief.
My business partner, Manny, drops me off before heading down the Turnpike to a job in Elizabeth. I’d like to say that Manny and I coordinated our jobs so he’s not shlepping over half of Jersey but it’s all Max. He’s made our lives so much better in the few weeks he’s been onboard. I always know where I’m going, how much time I have on a job, and where I’m going next. I wish he’d joined us a year ago.
Max has also entered the wrangle between my insurance company and Pink Pearl’s insurance company over my medical bills with both guns and his keyboard blazing. I have no idea where he gets his information—and I probably don’t want to know—but he’s already gotten Pink Pearl’s insurer to cough up half of the costs. He’s now going after my insurer for the other half plus the selling costs on Emmy’s house and emotional distress. I would feel sorry for them if they hadn’t been such utter asshats, hiding behind subrogation clauses for so long that I thought I was going to lose my house to the debt collectors.
Given that so many of the things that were weighing on me over the summer have been settled, and settled in my favor, I should be relaxed.
I’m not.
I sigh and roll my shoulders as I use an electronic fob to disarm the security I’ve recently installed on the employee entrance of Sacrum, Blunts’ sister club, and enter its cool, dark confines. I collect my kit out of the club office, grab the note taped to the office door with my name on it, and get to work, wiring in the last cameras in the new CCTV net I’ve created for the club.
These are cameras I didn’t think I’d need. This project didn’t initially call for coverage of the administrative areas of the club. I was hired to bring the club into the 21st century and make sure there was coverage in the play spaces and the kitchen, where the club might have liability. I expected the cameras I installed for the initial spec would also catch whoever’s been dipping their fingers in the club’s petty cash.
I didn’t anticipate I’d be going up against a master thief.
Whoever has been getting into the club at night—something I’ve been able to document at last—is substantially wilier than I anticipated. They’ve evaded all my cameras like they know exactly where I’ve installed each one. They have a bloody Ph.D. in lock-picking and it’s taken the fob access, which is substantially out of the spec for this job, to finally keep them out of the office. No such luck with the kitchen. According to a text I got as I set off from Manhattan, a tray of sandwiches intended for today’s social committee meeting disappeared overnight, along with a new jar of instant coffee. The thief never steals much; nothing worth involving the police over. But the thefts have freaked out the club’s owners and rumors are spreading among the members.
I’d probably be freaked, too, if the thief hadn’t started leaving me notes.
Today’s reads:
Sorry, Master Logan. I couldn’t keep my bratty paws off the “sarnies.” That’s what British people call sandwiches, right? I think you need to punish me. Love, The Joker’s B
I fold it and tuck it into my back pocket to add to my collection.
The other notes have all been in the same vein. I’ve noodled them around with Mac and Max. We agree the thief isn’t malicious. We also agree this is an inside job, although I’m certain it’s not the club’s founders or the members of the management committee. Pinning the blame on one of the club’s subs doesn’t feel like a perfect fit, either. I have pretty good instincts and something about labeling “The Joker’s B” as an experienced submissive feels off.
Brenna and Emily have spent a lot of time whispering over the notes, too. Other than telling me she thinks “The Joker’s B” is a girl, my little font of theories has dried up. I’m willing to wait, though. While I never want to exclude my baby doll from my investigations, I don’t want to involve her more than she wants to be, either. When she’s ready, she’ll tell me what she thinks.
And she’ll probably be close to the mark. Her natural empathy has been honed—and possibly twisted—by her novel-writing. She knows what makes characters tick, and when she applies that to the people around her, she’s terrifyingly astute.
I reach into what Emily laughingly calls my Batman utility belt, pull out my small caulk gun, and caulk around the plate I’ve screwed in. While the caulk dries, I pop into the kitchen, grab the hand vac, and tidy up. I got read the riot act about “Doms who can’t clean up after themselves” by Miss Vizzi, who runs the club’s cleaning committee, the first day I was here. I’ve made sure she doesn’t have anything to blister my ears about again.
The lady herself arrives as I’m returning the hand vac to its place on the wall. She gives me the side-eye. “You emptied it, right?”
I open the vac to show her the empty canister before sliding it into its holder. She loves having something to be irritated about, and I take a sadist’s glee in thwarting her. Smiling to myself, I move around her to the counter and make myself a cup of tea.
“Tea or coffee?” I offer.
She tosses her glossy, black hair back over her shoulders. “Tea, thanks. I hear a tray of sandwiches went missing.”
I nod.
“And there was another note.”
It’s a statement, not a question but I nod again.
“Are you actually trying to catch this Joker person, or just flirting with them?” she demands.
I’ll admit I’ve been more amused by the Joker’s B’s notes than anything else but I am taking the job seriously.
“I’m trying to catch them,” I say. “The lack of routine in the club isn’t helping. There were eleven people in and out of here after the club closed last night.”
“Clean up. Coffee and tea for stragglers. Getting things ready for today’s meeting and tonight’s event. I’m honestly surprised it wasn’t more,” Vizzi responds tartly.
I sigh and push a teacup toward her. To be fair, there are probably more people in and out of the staff spaces in Blunts after closing on any given night. But Blunts has a rigorous security system. There are two layers of security at every entrance. We change the entry codes weekly. After hours, anyone passing through a doorway needs a key card. With the new chips in them, the key cards are hard to duplicate. Members and house submissives know that loss of a key card means suspension from the club, and most of them are conscientious about club security anyway. We haven’t had a key card lost or stolen yet.
Until I got here last month, Sacrum barely had a lock on any door other than the office and bathrooms. More than upgrading the physical security, getting the staff to adopt a security-first mindset has been a challenge. They all understand the need for it but I think they’ve liked being the more relaxed, casual, and friendly sister club. Me coming from Blunts and telling them they need to trim their jib has been greeted with resentment.
Which makes the animosity Ten expressed over me working here a particularly bitter pill to swallow.
“I’m wiring in the last of the cameras today,” I tell her. “Hopefully that will solve the problem.”
“And if it doesn’t?” she asks.
I don’t have an answer to that. I don’t have a Plan B. The club doesn’t have enough money for a physical security guard. I know Jaimie and Olaf are trying to keep membership dues low, particularly in the face of rising living costs but it leaves the club with very little float. They’ve blown their budget, and then some, with the CCTV system. And I gave them a hefty discount. If it doesn’t work, it might be me and Mac camping out in the club for a few nights gratis, because I don’t really know how else to catch their thief.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” I say.
She gives me a glower that would absolutely have me shaking in my boots if I had an ounce of submission in my blood. Instead, I just raise an eyebrow at her and pass the milk when she waves a hand at it.
“You’ve never offered me any theory about who you think it is,” I note.
Jaimie and Olaf both had views but I’ve found nothing to substantiate their theories.
Vizzi shrugs. “I just hope it’s not one of us.”
“I hope that, too. Sacrum’s as much of a family as Blunts, from what I’ve seen. Nothing hurts worse than betrayal by a member of your family. I sincerely hope that’s not what this is.”
“But you think it’s an inside job,” Vizzi says. “You told Jaimie that.”
“I think it would be hard for someone who isn’t very familiar with the club to evade the cameras I initially installed. That doesn’t mean it’s a current member of Sacrum. It could be someone who used to be a member and has a bit of an axe to grind. It could be someone involved in the renovation two years ago. There are plenty of possibilities that don’t involve a current club member.”
Vizzi’s shoulders drop an inch. “I hope that’s the case.”
“Me, too.” I finish the last of my tea and salute her with the cup before I wash it and leave it in the draining rack to dry. “Back to work.”
Vizzi grunts softly then says, “I’m making a run to the store to replace the sandwiches. If you’re a good boy, I’ll bring you one. Ham and cheese or tuna?”
I chuckle. I will never be a good boy. And Emily packed me a three-course lunch. “I’m all set, thanks but I appreciate the offer.”
She shakes her head at me as I back out of the kitchen.
Once I have all of the cameras wired in, including the two panning cameras, I spend the early afternoon calibrating and testing the system. When I’m happy with everything, I pull up Max’s instructions on my laptop and connect the system to the cloud account he’s set up. I’ll admit I’m not sure exactly how it works but Max and his back-up guy in Singapore will be able to monitor the system in real-time, including overriding the cameras’ programming and redirecting them.
I assume Max will be too preoccupied with his trip to pay attention to this job today but, as always, he’s on top of it. He pings me almost as soon as the system connects to the cloud account.
Max: Squid and I are going to run some fire drills. We’ll set the system to go live at midnight. If you want to take off for the day, I’ll send Manny your way.
I smile at his message. People underestimate Max because he’s better with machines than humans. Their mistake. He’s twice as smart as I am and almost as perceptive as my baby doll. I’d give a lot for a few free hours.
That would be great.
I begin packing up my kit. I leave the tools I need to tweak the system if there are physical adjustments to be made but box up my heavy drill and other power equipment. I collect the drop cloths from the hallway where I was working and pack all but one of them away, then return the ladder to the office closet.
Max texts as I’m debating over my caulk gun.
Max: Manny’s on the way. ETA 5 min.
I toss the caulk gun into the satchel I’m leaving, pick up my box, and head out to meet Manny. We might not have the precision we had in the Navy but with Max coordinating things now, we’re not far off.
Manny’s not sorry to beat the worst of rush hour traffic as we head back into the City. He tells me about the job he’s been on and I listen with half an ear as I consider how to spend the hours I’ve been gifted.
First, I flip my phone over to the app Max created for me, which is a modified version of the app he uses with his little. The app tracks what I’ve come to think of as “subbie wellness.” It covers the physical aspects of a submissive’s health: eating properly, drinking enough water, getting enough exercise and sleep. But it also tracks their moods with blood pressure and heart rate monitoring as well as asking them questions at random intervals to establish their mental state.
Emily’s not a fan of the app, so I’ve only asked her to log her water consumption. I’m constantly in touch with Emily and can evaluate her without mechanical assistance.
I didn’t give Lucy or Cappa the choice. I only see Lucy once a week for scheduled scenes. I still see Cappa most days but it’s less than immediately after his injury. He’s back at work and the club full time. He was evicted from his apartment at the beginning of the month, even though I offered to help him with the rent. He’s moved in with Fleur; as far as I can tell, that’s working out well. The app lets me keep tabs on both of them from a distance, and alerts me when I need to step in.
Both of them have had good days. Cappa’s blood pressure is way down from where it was after his eviction, which was stressful for him despite the offers of assistance and having a place to land. Lucy’s been having a little trouble at work, some kind of conflict with a co-worker but her signs are all good today. I tap in rewards for both of them, then flip over to the message string with my baby doll.
She’s been on a high since Halloween. Her “Halloween Eve-Eve” party was a huge success. This book that she and Bren are working on is coming together and although she won’t let me see it, Mac says the artwork he’s seen Bren working on brought a tear to his jaded eye. Despite her ongoing tussle with Mac for control of the kitchen, Emmy’s loving living with “the Mac Grandaddy” and her “Big Sub Bestie.” Every night’s a sleepover.
But the changes turning my world on its ear are going to impact Emmy. It’s inevitable. The biggest is Olivia’s arrival in a few days. Although Emily says she wants to be the “best little babysitter in the world” to Livvy, the truth is that we’re suddenly going to be parents of an infant. Emily’s preparing for it like she’s prepping for the apocalypse but neither of us has any idea what it’s going to be like.
I need to make it as easy for Emily as possible. And put some mechanisms in place so that if she’s not okay, I know before she spirals.
“Man,” I say to my business partner, “how do you know when Jen’s struggling with the kids?”
He flexes his hands on the steering wheel. “Easy. It’s the five o’clock check in. If I call at five and ask her how things are goin’ and she says, ‘fine,’ I head straight home and take the kids for the night so she can chill. If she tells me that Tabby broke a toy and Mickey colored all over the walls, I don’t have to worry, she’s got it under control.”
I chuckle. “Fine is code red, huh?”
“When a woman tells you somethin’s fine, put your emergency recovery plan into action, hermano. Nothin’ is fucking fine.”
Thinking of the times the women in my life told me things were fine, when they absolutely were not, I smile.
“I’m worried about how Emmy’s going to take having a baby dumped on her. Someone else’s baby.”
“She’s gonna take it like everyone else does when they become a parent, whether it’s expected or unexpected. She’s gonna do her damn best. There’ll be things she’s absolutely unprepared for and there’ll be things she thinks she’s prepared for and ain’t. Just take it one day at a time. Things went bad yesterday? Baby cried all night or puked all over the place? You forgot to pack their lunch or didn’t buy them the right pair of school shoes? Take it easy on yourself. Most shit is fixable and I can guarantee someone’s made the same mistake before. New parents think they’re all alone, doin’ everything for the first time. They’re not.”
I pat him on his very solid shoulder. “Very true. Thanks, Man.”
“You and Em are going to be fine. I know this has been a big fucking shock but you’re doing the right thing. And as soon as you said Emmy’d started writing a book about Olivia, I knew it was gonna be okay. She’s already involving the baby in her inner world.”
That’s astute. Manny isn’t always the most perceptive guy but he’s on the mark with that observation.
“I hadn’t thought of it that way but you’re right,” I tell him.
“And you got one big advantage. Em didn’t give birth. The gates of hell are still open, buddy.”
I shake my head at him. “Idiot. I’m amazed Jen hasn’t kicked you to the curb yet.”
He sticks out his tongue and waggles it like he’s licking the windshield. “Never. She knows I got the goods.”
He keeps me laughing all the way back to Manhattan.