The Institute: Daddy Issues (5 page)

“Does it bother you?” Salt asked in the same low, in­tim­ate tone.

“I…guess not,” I said hes­it­antly. “I’m sorry too. I didn’t mean to make you…you know, re­act.”

“There is noth­ing to apo­lo­gize for,” Salt as­sured me. “Just re­lax, Andi. Wig­gling all over like a little fish makes it worse.”

“A-hem…” Stevens cleared his throat and I real­ized I had com­pletely for­got­ten he was there. I’d been so caught up in be­ing close to my part­ner, be­ing held in his arms, that everything else had just slipped my mind.

“Yes, Dr. Stevens?” Salt asked him poin­tedly. “You have cri­ti­cism of our tech­nique, per­haps?”

“Only to say that if you want to fit in at the In­sti­tute, you’ll have to make things a little more sexual,” the pro­fessor said mat­ter-of-factly. “This is a highly sexu­al­ized en­vir­on­ment you’re go­ing into. You have to make the people you meet really be­lieve you’re into each other.”

“How sexual are we talk­ing?” I asked, sit­ting up and frown­ing at him. “Be­cause Salt and I don’t…”

“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.”

“What is­sues?” I de­man­ded, frown­ing.

“Spe­cific­ally, what most people call ‘daddy is­sues’,” Stevens said. “Tell me, De­tect­ive Sug­ar­baker, how was your re­la­tion­ship to your father?”

“I didn’t have one,” I said flatly. “He left when I was nine and I never saw him again. So I can’t have Daddy is­sues when I never really had much of a father, right? I mean, I barely even re­mem­ber him at all.” Which was true. The memor­ies of my father were blurred and ob­scured—hardly there at all, really.

“Let me get this straight,” Stevens said frown­ing. “Your father aban­doned you at age nine to the care of an al­co­holic mother—ba­sic­ally leav­ing you at the most vul­ner­able time in your life to an un­re­li­able care­taker. And you
don’t
think you have is­sues?”

“I
know
I don’t. I man­aged just fine.” I lif­ted my chin. “Look at me—I have a ca­reer, a life…”

“Any long term re­la­tion­ships?” Stevens asked quietly.

“Well…” I shif­ted un­com­fort­ably on Salt’s lap. “No, but that doesn’t mean any­thing. I can get by just fine on my own.”

“It
prob­ably
means you don’t trust men and feel like you have to take care of your­self,” Stevens said bluntly. “Which is also why it’s dif­fi­cult for you to form any kind of last­ing re­la­tion­ship with a man.”

“I have Salt—he’s a man,” I pro­tested. “We’ve been to­gether the last three and a half years—what’s that if not a last­ing re­la­tion­ship?”

“That is a
part­ner­ship,”
Stevens em­phas­ized. “Not a sexual, com­mit­ted, lov­ing re­la­tion­ship.”

“It may not be sexual,” Salt said, frown­ing. “But it
is
very com­mit­ted and lov­ing. I care for Andi deeply. I will not al­low any­one to harm her.”

“Thank you, Salt.” I smiled at him and he gave me one of his rare smiles back. Some­times I thought I was the only one who ever got to see him smile at all. Which was fine with me.

“All right, you don’t want to ad­mit your is­sues—I can see that.” Pro­fessor Stevens sighed. “Just don’t be sur­prised if some troub­ling emo­tions sur­face when you’ve been role play­ing for a while.”

“I can deal with whatever hap­pens,” I said evenly. “I’m an adult and I take re­spons­ib­il­ity for my­self.”

“You are now.” He shook his head. “Let’s see how you are after some time at the In­sti­tute.”

“Leave Andi be,” Salt rumbled warn­ingly. “Do not give her need­less fears.”

“They’re
not
need­less or un­war­ran­ted, De­tect­ive Salt,” Stevens said. “But let us turn our at­ten­tion to
you
for a while. What kind of re­la­tion­ship did you have with
your
father?”

Salt frowned. “My father? He was very stern—very what I think you call ‘strict.’”

“And?” Stevens prod­ded. “Was he lov­ing to­wards you? To­wards your mother and sib­lings?”

Salt’s face grew dark. “He liked his vodka,” he said shortly.

I thought of the way he’d told me his father had beaten him with a belt earlier. Had he been ab­us­ive? Maybe an al­co­holic like my mom? But my mom had never been a mean drunk—she’d just been neg­lect­ful. I couldn’t count the times I’d gone to school in dirty clothes be­fore I learned how to work the washer and dryer my­self. And we both would have starved if I hadn’t learned to cook.

“That’s all you have to say? You can’t tell me any­thing else?” Stevens frowned. “What about your mother? Were you close to her?”

Salt nod­ded. “She was won­der­ful. She loved us very much, me and my sis­ters.”

“So you had sis­ters,” Stevens probed. “How did you feel about them?”

Salt frowned. “They had to be pro­tec­ted. My father was not of­ten around but when he was…” He shook his head. “Any­way, I was the old­est. I had to keep them safe.” He sud­denly looked sad—an ex­pres­sion that centered more in his eyes than any­where else. “I was not al­ways suc­cess­ful. But I
did
try.”

Wow, I was learn­ing more about my part­ner’s past today than I had in the whole three and a half years we’d been to­gether! Salt of­ten spoke of Rus­sia to me but he only told me the good things, the happy memor­ies. Did he have pain in his child­hood to match my own?

“Well, at least you’ve had good ex­per­i­ences with the wo­men in your life,” Stevens re­marked. “It sounds like you had to be the man of the house at an early age. No won­der you feel pro­tect­ive of your part­ner.”

“I feel pro­tect­ive of Andi
be­cause
she is my part­ner,” Salt growled. “Not for any reason in my past.”

Stevens shook his head. “Well, I wish the two of you the best of luck. Your cap­tain can brief you on the de­tails of the case in the morn­ing. I be­lieve you’re ex­pec­ted at the In­sti­tute for their wel­come din­ner to­mor­row even­ing. So you have un­til then to get your minds right.”

“We’ll be fine,” I said de­fens­ively.

“I’m sure you will.” But the pro­fessor didn’t sound at all cer­tain. He got up and star­ted gath­er­ing the other out­fits I had ve­toed but Salt stopped him.

“Wait. The dress with all the ruffles—leave that one too.”

“What?” I frowned at him. “Salt, I’m not wear­ing that! It’s sick.”

“Is just in case,” he as­sured me but his eyes were flinty. “Be­sides, you can­not go with only one out­fit.”

“There’s a cos­tume shop at the In­sti­tute which should sup­ply all your needs. But here.” Stevens draped the puffy blue party dress over the arm of the couch and nod­ded at Salt. “Thank you for din­ner but I really have to go. I have a Kink in Clas­sic Lit­er­at­ure class to get to.”

“Wait? There’s kink in Clas­sic Lit­er­at­ure?” I asked.

Stevens only rolled his eyes.

“Oh my dear De­tect­ive Sug­ar­baker, if only you knew.” He shook his head. “No, I’ll find my own way out. The two of you look too com­fort­able to­gether to dis­turb.”

His words made me real­ize that I was still sit­ting on Salt’s lap as though it was a nor­mal state of af­fairs for us. I jumped off hast­ily and went to get the door for Stevens any­way.

“Good night,” I said. “And thank you, I guess.”

“You’re wel­come.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a busi­ness card which he pressed into my hand. “And here. This is for after.”

“After?” I raised an eye­brow at him.

“After the two of you get back from the In­sti­tute.” He sighed and shook his head. “I’ll be blunt—send­ing someone with
your
is­sues to that place is like throw­ing a lamb to the wolves. You’re go­ing to need to talk to someone when you get back—I can make some re­com­mend­a­tions.”

“I don’t have is­sues! So thanks but no thanks.” I tried to shove the card back in his hand but he re­fused to take it.

“Good night, De­tect­ive,” he said and left me star­ing after him, clutch­ing the card and frown­ing. He was wrong, I told my­self. Salt and I were go­ing to be just fine. After all, we had each other. True, I was go­ing to be put into an in­tensely vul­ner­able po­s­i­tion but I knew that my part­ner al­ways had my back. We would be all right in the end.

Wouldn’t we?

“I told you, Salt—I don’t want to wear this one. It’s sick!” I stared down at the ruffled blue party dress in dis­may. How had I al­lowed my part­ner to talk me into this?

“And I have told you, the other out­fit is too much, at least to start. What do you not like about it?” He pulled the car into a park­ing space be­hind the broad, gray build­ing with no win­dows.

The In­sti­tute was loc­ated on the far end of Ybor City, Tampa’s his­toric dis­trict. Ybor used to be home to large ci­gar rolling factor­ies and the Cuban im­mig­rants that worked in them. Now many of the old, his­toric build­ings had been turned into nightclubs, tat­too par­lors, ci­gar bars and tour­ist traps selling kitschy Flor­ida souven­irs.

I sup­posed I shouldn’t be sur­prised that a re­sort de­voted to Age Play was loc­ated down here. Ybor was also the heart of the Tampa kink scene. “Leather Daddy’s” was right down the street as well as an­other club called “Crimes of Pas­sion.” I had no in­terest in what they held but I’d been to both of them at one time or an­other dur­ing my stint in Vice.

But even in those kinky clubs, my little girl out­fit would have stood out as odd. I’d been will­ing to ac­cede to Salt’s re­quest to wear it in­stead of the slutty school girl out­fit, mainly be­cause I felt shy about wear­ing the trans­par­ent blouse without a bra on un­der it. But the more I looked down at my­self in the plain light of day—well, the dy­ing light of the even­ing, any­way—the weirder I felt. Hadn’t I
had
a dress some­thing like this, back when I was a kid? The memory was hazy but it seemed like maybe some­thing my father had bought for me be­fore he skipped town and never looked back…

Stop it,
I told my­self fiercely.
You’re not even in the front door yet and you’re already hav­ing repressed memor­ies or whatever they call them. Do you want to prove Pro­fessor Stevens right about your “Daddy is­sues” be­fore this case even gets star­ted?

“I just don’t like it,” I said, frown­ing up at Salt. “I mean, I’ve got bows in my hair and shiny little pat­ent leather shoes on my feet. It feels
per­ver­ted
.”

He raised an eye­brow at me. “More per­ver­ted than the other where your body is on dis­play? At least in this you are covered.” He nod­ded ap­prov­ingly at the dress.

“Covered in a pe­do­phile’s wet dream,” I muttered sulkily. “Come on, Salt, this is gross.”

“Look, Andi…” He blew out a breath in ob­vi­ous frus­tra­tion. “The reason I asked you to wear this one in­stead of the other is simple—the other is too dis­tract­ing. We both of us must keep our minds on the case. I find that very hard to do when you are so ex­posed.”

His words made me pause. Could he mean what I
thought
he meant? Could it be that see­ing me in the slutty school girl out­fit was hard for him be­cause he wanted me? Sexu­ally? But surely not—we were just part­ners, weren’t we? Then I thought of the hard lump I’d felt un­der my ass when I sat on his lap the night be­fore.

“Salt,” I said hes­it­antly. “Are you say­ing…what are you say­ing?”

He sighed and looked at me.

“I am say­ing you are very beau­ti­ful wo­man, Andi. Most of the time I can re­mind my­self you are my part­ner and is easy to deal with. But if you are wear­ing
that
out­fit, climb­ing me like tree and sit­ting in my lap…well, will be much more dif­fi­cult.” He leaned for­ward and stroked my cheek gently. “So please…for me will you wear the dress? At least for a little while? Is much easier this way. Much less sexual.”

“Well…okay,” I said at last. I was taken aback be­cause this was the first time Salt had ad­mit­ted he found me sexu­ally arous­ing. I mean, there were al­ways little things like the com­ments about my eyes or telling me I was pretty but he’d never ac­tu­ally come out and said I made him hot.

I should have been up­set or taken aback but, just like the night be­fore when he’d got­ten hard for me, I kind of
liked
it. It made me feel beau­ti­ful…power­ful to know my part­ner was at­trac­ted to me.

Care­ful, Andi,
I told my­self sternly.
You’re on a slip­pery slope here. Go too far in the wrong dir­ec­tion and you could ruin the best part­ner­ship of your life. Hell, the best re­la­tion­ship period. So be care­ful—be
damn
care­ful.

Yes, I would, I re­solved to my­self. I would watch what I said and did and if Salt found it easier for me to play this age than the slutty teen­ager, I could man­age it. I would
have
to man­age it.

“Come, is time to go. We will be late for din­ner.” Salt got out of the car and came around to get the door for me, as he al­ways did. When he opened the door and held out a hand, I took it with a coquet­tish smile.

“Thank you, Papa,” I said de­murely—might as well get into char­ac­ter now. Salt seemed to feel the same way be­cause he smiled and nod­ded.

“You’re wel­come my little
mishka.”

Tuck­ing my arm through his, he led me through the park­ing lot around to the front of the build­ing, which didn’t look much bet­ter than the back.

“Sheesh,” I said un­der my breath. “It’s not much to look at, is it? Are you sure we’re in the right place? It just looks like an old aban­doned ci­gar fact­ory.”

“This is it,” Salt as­sured me. “Hope­fully will be bet­ter on the in­side.”

“Hope­fully,” I said. “It could hardly be worse.”

The big build­ing was a dull, uni­form gray with peel­ing paint and a rusty fire es­cape cling­ing to one side. The few win­dows at the front were boarded up like blind eyes. Only the broad wooden double doors at the top of the long row of crum­bling brick steps gave any in­dic­a­tion of wealth. They, at least, looked new and when Salt rang the bell soft, rich chimes soun­ded from within.

A small pee­p­h­ole I hadn’t no­ticed be­fore slid open in one of the doors.

“Name?” a cul­tured voice asked.

“I am Viktor Saltanov from Mo­scow,” Salt said, de­lib­er­ately deep­en­ing his ac­cent. “I was told to be here at this time for din­ner? Yes?”

“Oh, yes of course.” The small pee­p­h­ole shut and the front doors swung open, re­veal­ing an op­u­lent hall­way flooded with golden light—the ex­act op­pos­ite of the out­side of the build­ing. “Do come in,” said the but­ler—be­cause he
had
to be a but­ler. Dressed as he was in black and white with white gloves there was noth­ing else he
could
be.

“Thank you.” Salt entered with me still on his arm.

I looked around, my eyes nar­rowed as I searched for pos­sible threats. The Cap­tain had told us that Berkley, the man who owned and ran the In­sti­tute, was a dan­ger­ous guy, pos­sibly with ties to the Mob. We weren’t ab­so­lutely
sure
he was the one dis­trib­ut­ing Please, but it was a pretty safe bet he was in­volved in one way or an­other.

But all I saw in my scan of the entry­way was a broad, open area with hard­wood floors and an old fash­ioned crys­tal chan­delier hanging from the high ceil­ing. There were two curving stair­cases, one on either side of the entry­way but I couldn’t see where either of them led. Ex­pens­ive look­ing paint­ings hung on the walls as well as an an­tique mir­ror with an or­nate, scrolled frame. When I looked at my re­flec­tion, I got a nasty shock. I saw a little girl wear­ing a fluffy party dress hanging on her father’s arm like she was about to go to a Daddy/daugh­ter dance.

The Valentine’s Day dance—that’s why he bought me the dress! But he left be­fore it happened. I never got to wear it and Mom threw it out. She said—
I shut down the memory hast­ily and looked away. I really had to get hold of my­self if this was go­ing to work!

“We’re very glad to have you here, Mr. Saltanov,” the but­ler said. “Dir­ector Berkley is ex­pect­ing you.”

“So I am and it’s good to see you got here safely.” A tall man with iron gray hair sud­denly ap­peared, smil­ing at Salt. I real­ized he must have come up to us while I was star­ing in the mir­ror, hav­ing mor­bid thoughts. “You had a com­fort­able flight from Mo­scow, I hope?” he said, hold­ing out his hand.

“Mod­er­ately com­fort­able.” Salt made a see-saw ges­ture with one hand. “First class is not what it once was. Still, my little
mishka
was happy. She loves plane rides. Isn’t that right,
mishka?
”

He looked down at me af­fec­tion­ately and I tried to re­turn his smile but the sight of the two of us in that damn mir­ror kept tug­ging at me. There was a long si­lence and I real­ized Salt was wait­ing for me to agree with him.

“Yes, Papa,” I man­aged. “It was fun.”

It soun­ded lame, even to me but it was too late to take it back.

“Well…” Dir­ector Berkley smiled and bent down, put­ting his hands on his knees. “And this must be your Little,” he said in sing­song voice as though he was talk­ing to a small child.

“Yes, this is my
mishka,”
Salt said. “She is…how do you say? New to the con­cepts your In­sti­tute is foun­ded on. We are both here to learn.”

“Is that right?” Berkley looked at me with in­terest. “How long have you been your Daddy’s little girl, my dear?”

“Just a few months,” I said tightly. I knew I ought to act shy or coy like a real little girl might but this guy’s sim­per­ing, con­des­cend­ing at­ti­tude was get­ting on my nerves and the im­age in the mir­ror seemed to be mock­ing me.

“And do you like it?” Berkley per­sisted.

“Sure,” I said flatly. “It’s great.”

He stood up­right, frown­ing. “You don’t seem too thrilled about it, my dear.” He looked at Salt. “Mr. Saltanov, I hate to ask, but are you
cer­tain
your Little is as com­mit­ted to this re­la­tion­ship as you are? We want only happy Daddy/Baby­girl couples here at the In­sti­tute. One un­will­ing or un­happy par­ti­cipant can spoil the mood for every­one.”

“My little
mishka
is simply tired from the long trip,” Salt said quickly. He drew me against his side, his arm firm around my shoulders, mak­ing sure I couldn’t get away. “Is a long flight from Mo­scow. Very long.”

“I see.” Berkley still didn’t look con­vinced. “Well, as you’ve come all this way we will of course, give you a trial as we do all of our par­ti­cipants.”

“Thank you,” Salt said with dig­nity. “I be­lieve we were sup­posed to ar­rive in time for din­ner. Are we too late?”

“Not at all! In fact, you’re a bit early.” Berkley smiled. “Why don’t I give you a tour of the In­sti­tute while we wait for din­ner to be served?”

“Very well. I am eager to see all of your fa­cil­it­ies.” Salt nod­ded.

“Good! This way if you please.” Dir­ector Berkley led us through the entry­way, past the two stair­cases.

“What’s up the stairs?” I asked in im­pulse.

He frowned at me. “Young lady, in the fu­ture it’s bet­ter to re­mem­ber that Littles should be seen and not heard. But since you’re new here I will an­swer your ques­tion. The right hand stair­case leads to the guest suites, one of which has been re­served for you and your Daddy. The
left
hand stair­case, how­ever, leads to the pun­ish­ment areas. Never fear—you will see those soon enough.”

Pun­ish­ment areas?
That soun­ded omin­ous. I grabbed Salt’s hand just like a real little girl would and felt in­stantly bet­ter when he en­twined our fin­gers and squeezed. Then I felt ashamed of my re­ac­tion. We’d been on plenty of dan­ger­ous mis­sions be­fore and I’d never felt the urge to hold Salt’s hand. Why should I need his re­as­sur­ance now? But the fact re­mained that the touch of his big hand on mine made me feel bet­ter and try though I might, I couldn’t make my­self let go.

“Now this is the main hall­way,” Dir­ector Berkley was say­ing. “Most of the other pub­lic areas lead off from it. This is the way to the din­ing room,” he poin­ted at one door. “And fur­ther down here you’ll find the play­room. Does your Little like play-dates with other Baby­girls?” he asked Salt. “We al­ways have two or three Baby­girls play­ing there dur­ing the af­ter­noons. All we ask is that every­one play nicely.”

He shot me a side­long glance as though he wasn’t sure I was cap­able of that. I didn’t even try to smile back—the man was ser­i­ously creep­ing me out with his talk of play-dates and Baby­girls.

“
Mishka
al­ways plays nicely with oth­ers,” Salt said firmly and squeezed my hand again.

“Um, yeah. I do,” I chimed in.

Berkley shot me an­other dis­ap­prov­ing glance and nod­ded. Huh—had it been wrong of me to an­swer? Did he really mean that seen and not heard crap? What a load of bull­shit! Still, there was noth­ing to do but try to smile at him—I wasn’t very suc­cess­ful—and go on with the tour.

“So then, fur­ther down on the other side is the In­sti­tute cos­tume shop.” He poin­ted to a wooden door which had the thespian sign of two masks—one sad and one happy—painted on it. “Any­thing you need or de­sire for any age can be found there,” he told Salt. “And there’s no need to pay right away—it will simply be charged to your room.”

“Thank you—is good to know,” Salt said. “
Mishka
and I had to pack lightly so we have not many out­fits for her.”