The Institute, Daddy Issues(15)

“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.”