Chapter 23 #3
I was getting off on a tangent, so I brought it back. “Maintenance frequency is going to have to be negotiated outside of power exchange. I’m not asking you to lessen the severity of it, though fuck, I wish I could find a valid reason to. However, every month is more than I need.”
“Careful,” he said, his flat, unyielding voice dropping an octave. “Don’t confuse a conversation outside protocol with an invitation to dictate terms. You don’t get to file a grievance every time I push past one of your perceived limits. Our agreement says I decide what you can handle. Not you.”
And then, like before, he focused on my off-topic tangent, and quickly added, “So maybe you get a small apartment closest to the city you get called to the most, and move here permanently. Won’t get you there from here right away, but if you know things are about to break, it’ll give you a home-base to stay at so you can be on-scene even faster.
Maybe a pied-a-terre in Jersey or Virginia, a short drive or taxi away. ”
I just stared at him, unwilling to drop the maintenance schedule but unsure of how to bring it up again.
I didn’t want to say that I could cancel our agreement at any time, mostly because I didn’t fucking want to do that, and he damned well knew it.
Plus, I didn’t want it to sound like a threat, since I didn’t figure that would go over well.
Thankfully, he ended my dilemma by saying, “You want quarterly? Prove to me why thirty days is too soon. Is it physically too much, or are you just trying to put distance between yourself and my cock in your ass because you’re scared of how much you yield when I’m buried deep in your ass and you don’t have your safeword? ”
I shook my head. “It’s about balance. I’m not a SAM or a brat. I behave. I like behaving, and I get that the frequency is your decision, but monthly is more than I need, Sir.”
He stared at me a good two or three minutes, his gaze dark, before he said.
“Agreed, you’re an exceptionally well-behaved little fuckslave, but quarterly isn’t often enough for a reset.
At least, not yet. I’ll schedule the second session at two months, and then I’ll consider switching to quarterly, but no promises. ”
I nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Not happy with two months, but it’s a compromise. As to the other, I’m not ready to talk about the future until we get me out of this alive and then look at the landscape.”
I’d worried having the conversation might spoil things, but it didn’t.
We kept plugging along, following the schedule right up into the final weeks, when my time in high-protocol had to be drastically shortened, and the daily chores didn’t happen because Mad Dog showed up in an RV.
Skippy and a biker from Chattanooga named McGyver had turned the front living-room area into a full-on control room, and the men had blocked off part of Magnum’s front yard to approximate the building they’d be infiltrating.
This meant our evenings were spent practicing — everyone doing their part, just like we would when we were actually there.
They threw wrenches into the plans, had things screw up or go bad, and it was on us, as oversight, to help keep our people safe.
I’d started out thinking they were putting me off to the side, by not letting me go in, but I soon realized that wasn’t the case.
I know a whole lot of the movers and shakers in DC, and we were likely to see them, as guests or customers or whatever.
It would be up to me to tip our guys off to who they were seeing, plus I had tons of other duties, watching what they could see out of their helmet cams while also keeping an eye on the other cams.
It would be me, Gears, Skippy, and McGyver acting as overwatch while more than a dozen bikers plus two Drake operatives invaded fight weekend at three in the morning, and our job was to first keep our people alive, and second, to help them get to the fighters and get them out.
But the worst news of this time period came when we game-planned how things would go after, and it was decided I would leave the op with Ember and Sloan, who would be my bodyguards while I broadcast everything to the world. I wouldn’t be coming back here, after.
I needed to go back out into the world and do my job, but it was still an unexpected, crushing blow, and I had to keep a straight face during the meeting, but as soon as everyone was gone, Magnum had just held me, completely silent.
“If this goes to shit,” he said, “it might never be safe for you to come here again.”
“Well then, we’d better make sure it doesn’t go to shit, assuming you want me to be able to come back.”
“Fuck, I’d move you in permanently if it was plausible, but that remains to be seen.”
It was apparently time for us to have the difficult talk. The one we kept putting off.
My insides cartwheeled and did a little happy-dance at his blunt statement, and I pushed away from him so I could see his face.
“Let’s assume everything goes off mostly as planned.
Minor stuff won’t, but all the big stuff does.
Means unless a story brings me to Birmingham, I might not be able to come back for a month or two…
” I sighed. “Or three. I know ya’ll aren’t going to want me to do a story on Mason, but if there’s another Birmingham victim who wants to go public, it’ll give me a reason to be here. ”
He shook his head. “Don’t do that — don’t choose your story to be near me. Figure out what to report on the same as you’ve always done. If we’re going to work, we’ll figure it out.”
I nodded. “Yeah, you’re right, but…” I kicked the pavement with my sport sandal and then turned and started walking to the house. “You’ll want a snack, and I’d like some popcorn.”