Saving Sunni (15 page)

Cobb regarded him skeptically. “But these people were all wearing leather. Are they bikers?”

“No, not for the most part,” Sir said, smiling. “There are some, of course, who ride motorcycles, but there are very few people in the community who would consider themselves ‘bikers.’ Almost all lead perfectly average lives, raising children and holding down respectable jobs. That is why we agree to protect each other’s privacy. Many people have lost careers, families, or social standing because their fetishes were discovered and broadcast to the public. I myself am in jeopardy of losing my job over this…situation.”

He looked a little angry again and visibly forced himself to relax.

“You mentioned—what was it?—bdsm, I believe. Can you tell me more about that?” the reporter asked, trying to salvage some drama from the situation. This was obviously not at all what he had expected.

“bdsm stands for bondage and discipline, domination and submission, and sadism and masochism,” Sir explained. “That is simply a way to encompass most of the activities of the fetish, or kink, or leather, community. It sounds extreme, but as I said, it is mostly playacting or role-playing. Everyone who engages in such activities does so for a reason, and most find it a good way to fulfill their more…unconventional needs and desires. It can also be a very productive basis for relationships.”

Sir spoke a little slower now, and I wondered if he was debating just how far to take this explanation. He seemed to decide that he was in it all the way, however, and plunged on. Cobb’s eyebrows were raised a little at his last remark, so he picked up from that.

“If two—or more—people decide to enter into a conscious and negotiated relationship,” Sir said, picking his words carefully, “the power exchange, or domination and submission, arrangement can be very useful. It obligates you to be honest with each other about what you want and what you are—and are not—willing to provide in exchange for it. Each person is expected to take full responsibility for making sure they get what they need and deliver on what they’ve promised. There is less room for power struggles or hidden resentments. Each person’s duties are agreed upon at the beginning.”

“Did you say there can be more than two people in the relationship?” Cobb asked. Sir restrained himself from rolling his eyes and asking the reporter if he was a complete idiot. He nodded instead.

“Yes. That is called polyamory. While by no means all of the people in the leather community are polyamorous, many are. The term refers to the fact that a person can have ‘many loves.’”

Cobb looked interested again. “How does that work?” he asked, almost breathlessly.

“It can work many different ways,” Sir said, amused. “There is no set way to do this kind of lifestyle. It all depends on the people involved and their choices. You can all live together, or see each other only a couple of times a year. You can have as many partners as you wish, as long as it is above-board and negotiated. If your partners don’t know about each other, it’s called cheating. If they do, and everyone’s needs have been taken into consideration, that’s polyamory.”

“And are you polyamorous?”

Sir hesitated, but he nodded his head before he spoke. I knew he wasn’t seriously considering denying it, although it wouldn’t help his work situation at all.

“Yes, I am,” he said. “I have two partners. We are a poly-fidelitous triad, which means we do not have sex with other people. We live together and engage in a power exchange relationship.”

“Are they both female?”

Sir nodded.

“So you have two female partners, but they are not allowed to be with other men?” Cobb looked like a cat gloating over a mouse. I suspected he thought he had finally found the angle he was going to use to take Sir down.

“They are certainly allowed to be with other men if they negotiate it with me and each other,” Sir replied calmly. “In today’s world it is imperative to be responsible and safe. This is one of those things in life that seems frightening at first. But once you understand it a little bit, it really isn’t that shocking, mysterious, or scary.”

Cobb deflated. He looked furtively at his watch and then picked up the stack of papers in front of him, tapping them against the table as if that action concluded the interview.

“Well, we certainly appreciate your time, Mr. Wulfgar,” he said formally. “This is no doubt a lifestyle that is completely foreign to many of our viewers, and we will be watching the police investigation with a great deal of interest.”

The screen flickered to a commercial, and sage and I turned to look at Sir. He gave us a self-conscious smile. “Well? Did I disgrace you?”

“No,” sage breathed in awe. “That was amazing!”

I almost laughed at her gaping adoration, but when Sir looked questioningly at me, I just smiled and said, “It really was, Sir. How did you manage not to slap him?”

He laughed. “It was difficult, I admit. Now go get us some more cookies. We’ve all had a long day.”

Chapter 14

On Friday morning I called Geri to see how she was doing. I was very tempted to drive to the store to see if anything was happening, but I knew Sir would definitely not approve, so I settled for calling.

“Fringe Element,” said a bored female voice on the other line.

“Hi,” I said, trying to decide whether to sound cheerful or somber. “Is Geri available?”

“sunni? Is that you?” The voice changed abruptly, and I recognized Debi. She sounded completely different when she wasn’t doing the sullen teenager thing. Was she aware of that?

“Yes, it is. How are things there?” It gave me a warm feeling to hear her being so friendly and surprisingly, I had a strong stab of homesickness for the store. That was silly. I’d be back to work in no time, and I’d only worked there a few days.

“Geri is having kittens,” Debi stage whispered. “Her daughter’s church group has been picketing us!”

“I saw it on the news,” I told her. “Has it been causing a lot of problems?”

“Not really for the store. A lot of people are coming in and buying stuff just to show they support us, I think. But Geri is a total wreck. Her daughter came by, and they had a shouting match yesterday outside. Thank God there weren’t any cameras around then.”

“Does she blame me?” I asked.

“You? Why? Oh—I get it. Because of the other story? No, I don’t think so. She’s just mad at her daughter for stabbing her in the back. She kept telling her that yesterday. ‘I worked my ass off for you and this is how you show your gratitude?’ kind of stuff. She sounded like my dad, only I kind of understood where she was coming from. It was freaky.”

I wanted to laugh and tell her it was a sure sign of getting old when you could see your parents’ point of view, but I stopped myself.

“I saw your sir on the news last night,” Debi continued after a couple of seconds. “He is…kind of…He looked pretty good.”

I wondered if she had been going to say that Sir was cute. Sir didn’t exactly strike me as “cute,” but that was probably Debi’s highest compliment for a man.

“Thanks,” I said. “This is such a messed-up situation. He might actually lose his job over it.”

“Really? Because of the news stories?”

“Well, I’m not sure if it’s because of the news or because he’s been ‘outed,’” I admitted. “But I don’t think his bosses approve of him talking about the lifestyle on television. He had to do it, though. The things they said were terrible, and he wanted to try to make people understand so they’d leave the club and the store alone.”

“Hmm.” Debi sounded thoughtful. “I wish they would leave the store alone. Geri’s head is about to explode, I think.”

“Should I talk to her?” I said shyly. If Geri was ranting, I didn’t know if it was a good idea.

“Yeah, if you want to,” Debi said, putting the receiver down on the counter. She yelled, “Geri! Phone!” before she came back and said, “You should try to come in again. It’s too quiet without you here, and Geri’s a basket case. She’s no help at all.”

I was chuckling to myself at the thought of Debi pretending she was running the whole place when Geri picked up the phone.

“Hello?” She sounded exhausted and suspicious, like she thought I might be a reporter calling to harass her. Had she been getting those kinds of calls?

“Geri? It’s sunni. How are you doing?”

From her delighted squeal you would have thought I was Ed McMahon calling to tell her she’d won the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.

“sunni! It’s so wonderful to hear your voice! How are you, sweetheart?”

Doing better than you,
I wanted to say. “I’m fine, Geri. I’m sorry to hear you’ve been having problems with…the media.”

“It’s my damn daughter,” she corrected me angrily. “Ever since Melissa got involved in that church group she’s given me nothing but grief about my business and my lifestyle. It’s ‘Jesus this’ and ‘Jesus that’ until I could just scream. This time I’ve had it, though. I’m not going to take it from her anymore.”

“What are you going to do?” I asked, alarmed.

She calmed down a bit. “I don’t know, honey, but I’ve got to do something. I’m not going to sit back and let her ruin my store.”

“I’m sorry. Don’t do anything rash or illegal.”

“Oh, it won’t be rash. But enough about me,” Geri said more cheerfully. “How are you doing? Has that nasty man been bothering you anymore?”

“Well, a little,” I admitted. “But it’s pretty much under control. I think he’ll go away soon. You haven’t seen him around the store, have you?”

“No, sweetie, I haven’t. And I’ve been watching, believe me! If he so much as steps foot inside my store, I’ll—” She broke off, and I pictured Geri chasing Randy out of the store with a barrage of shoes, clothes, mannequins, and anything else she could pick up on the way. I tried not to giggle.

“When do you think you can come back to work?” she asked wistfully.

“I’m not sure. I’d really like to—if you want me back—but I need to talk to Sir. He’s still kind of nervous about the idea.”

She sighed. “Okay,” she said. “You talk to him and see if he will consider letting you come back. You do know —” she paused as if debating whether to continue “— that you’re an adult and can make these decisions for yourself, right?”

I smiled. “I know,” I said, like I was speaking to a small child, but talking to Geri was a lot like that. “But as long as I’m in this kind of relationship, I need to stick to the rules. If it starts to not be good for me, I’ll get out of it, but right now it’s what I want.”

After we hung up, I felt a strange letdown. I really wanted to go back to the store, but I didn’t think Sir was going to approve. Part of me wanted to get in the car and drive over there right now, and Sir could react however he wanted to. But the other part knew that what I had told Geri was true: this was my choice of relationship style, and it wouldn’t be right to throw away the rules just because I had the urge to do something. There was a reason for Sir’s decisions, and if I wanted to continue the relationship I had to work with him, not against him.

I sat in the apartment all day thinking about that. I felt like practicing jujitsu, but I decided to wait for sage to get home and see if she wanted to do it too. I didn’t want her to think I was trying to get better than her at it.

When Sir came home, sage and I were sitting at the kitchen table. Neither of us had been in the mood to work out, so we just made tea and sat quietly, not knowing how to discuss the problem. We both jumped up to do our greeting routine and knelt in front of him. He went through the words with a gloomy air, reaching down after a minute to help us to our feet and pointing to the table.

“If one of you would make me a cup as well,” he said, “I think we should have a talk.”

I imagined all kinds of terrible things by the time we all sat back down. Sir was being fired. Sir was being deported. Sir was getting death threats over the phone. The police were coming to arrest him or take him to the airport to be sent back to Austria.

He looked very serious as he picked up his cup to sample the tea and put it back down.

“I had a meeting with my bosses at work today,” he said finally. “They’ve put me on administrative leave until the investigation is over. They hinted that it would be better for everyone involved if I resigned from my position. I asked them what would happen if I didn’t, but they didn’t give me a clear answer. I believe they might fire me, but they would rather have it resolved quietly by my leaving voluntarily. I could probably hire a lawyer to fight it, but that would cost a lot of money and the results are far from certain. It might actually make me get deported faster. I just don’t know.”

Hearing Sir say he didn’t know what to do was eerily unsettling. I was getting so used to him always having a plan that I couldn’t quite grasp the fact that this time he didn’t.

sage looked defeated, as if Sir was already packing, and her melodramatic face actually calmed me down a little. There was
something
she and I could do to help. There had to be.

“What if sage and I go back to work?” I said suddenly, snapping my fingers and making them both jump. Sir turned a somewhat disapproving face in my direction.

“I know we don’t make nearly as much as you do,” I continued, “but we can both work while we’re getting this sorted out. It would at least help. If you resign your job you wouldn’t have to leave immediately, would you?”