“Yeah, but at least I was still acting as an adult, even if I was pretending to be a prostitute,” I pointed out.
Salt looked surprised. “You went undercover as a prostitute?”
“It was before your time—when I was in Vice for a while,” I assured him. “Don’t worry—nobody touched me.”
He frowned protectively. “They had better not.”
“And speaking of Vice,” I said to the Captain. “Why aren’t they in on this? It’s definitely more their wheelhouse than ours. Why not pick two of them to do this crazy thing?”
“Because none of the other detectives in your police department fit the very exacting criteria set by the Institute,” Professor Stevens said quietly. “I told you, they are very traditional—they only admit male Bigs and female Littles. And they prefer it when the Little in question is extremely petite—it makes her seem more childlike.”
“Ugh…” I shivered. “So Salt and I are getting this honor because I’m height challenged? Gotta tell you Captain, that hardly seems fair.”
“Sugarbaker…” He sighed and looked at me directly. “Have you seen what Please does to its users? Do you know how it got its name?”
I shrugged. “Sure, I heard about that viral video.”
“But have you watched it? Look…” The Captain turned his large, flat computer monitor around and nodded at the professor. “Could you hit the lights? These overhead fluorescents make it hard to see.”
The office was plunged into semi-gloom and then the Captain punched a button. The monitor flickered to life, showing a blonde girl who looked to be in her early to mid twenties. She was down on the floor, on her hands and knees, crawling towards a man wearing a dark gray suit and expensive looking shoes. I didn’t know what his face looked like because the shot didn’t go that high.
“See that?” the Captain asked. “We believe that man is the original creator of Please. If we could catch him, we could shut down a hell of a lot of production.”
“Who is he?” Salt asked but the Captain shook his head.
“Nobody knows. As you can see, they’re very careful not to show his face. But even if they did, I don’t think most people would be looking at it. She’s the interesting one.”
He nodded at the girl on the screen who was looking more and more distressed.
“Please, Daddy,” she moaned, rubbing against the man’s legs. “Please, I feel so empty inside—it hurts—it hurts. Please fill me up with your big, hard cock!”
I glanced at Salt to see how he was taking this. I didn’t know if he watched American porn or, indeed, if Russian porn was any different. His face was impassive, however—it’s impossible to read him sometimes.
“Daddy, please!” The girl in the video flipped up her skirt, showing pink and white Hello Kitty panties. Her blonde hair was done in two curly pigtails and she was wearing lacy white ankle socks and Mary Jane saddle shoes. I wondered uneasily if her outfit was an Age Play thing. Was I going to have to dress like this and beg Salt to…
But I pushed the thought away. Professor Stevens had said that it didn’t have to be sexual. So it wouldn’t be—and that was that. Not that I didn’t find Salt attractive—I’d have to be blind not to. But sleeping with your partner was bad news—a one way ticket to complications and messy emotions. I preferred to keep my work life and my sex life separate.
Right, your nonexistent sex life, whispered a little voice in my head. I hadn’t really dated anyone seriously since Salt and I had been partnered up. I didn’t really know why that was—probably it was intimidating for prospective dates to meet my partner, which they somehow, always invariably did. Possibly Salt was giving them a ‘don’t hurt my partner’ speech or maybe they were just scared of him.
For whatever reason, no guy I tried ever lasted more than a couple of dates. And for the past few years, I had sort of stopped trying. Maybe I was getting too comfortable just being on my own, or maybe I felt like I already had all the male companionship I needed. After all, I spent something like seventy-five percent of my time with Salt…