Olaf stared at me with his eyes lost behind the dark sunglasses, but the intensity of his attention was still like weight on my skin. “If we are to date each other, Adler, I need to know certain things.”
“He can ask them when you’re not around, Anita,” Nicky said.
“No, if you’re going to answer, then I need to know what’s said, I think.”
“Even if it makes you incredibly uncomfortable?”
“Even if,” I said, and just like that, I got myself under control. It was just another kind of bravery, and I would be brave, damn it.
“Ask,” Nicky said.
“Do you only have sex with the other women with Anita present?” Olaf said.
“With Angel, yes.”
“What of Pe
tra?”
“She’s one of the ones who’s afraid of me and doesn’t like it rough.”
“So, you haven’t had sex with her?”
“No.”
“Okay, we’re done, right? We have a clue waiting for us, remember?” I said, and reached for the door handle.
“One more question,” Olaf said.
I actually rested my forehead against the window glass. “What?” I asked, and sounded tired even to myself.
“Anita must enjoy sex and bondage rough enough to satisfy you, but does she enjoy it rough enough for me?”
“For me, she’s great,” Nicky said. “Our kinks match up really well.”
“After seeing your videos, I’m surprised that Anita would agree to it.”
“My videos were mostly about work, about being scary enough to make people believe my old lion pride’s threat was good, or as an advertisement to what we could do for prospective customers. The stuff that Anita wouldn’t survive without scars or worse was torture to gain information or to make a business point. That’s what I meant earlier when I said that I enjoyed the interrogation only up to a point. After that point, it was just work.”
I sat there trying to go to that static, white-noise, empty part of me so that I wouldn’t care that a man I was in love with was saying such terrible things. I knew what Nicky was, or what he’d been when I met him. I knew that if I hadn’t possessed him, he’d probably still be happily torturing and killing his way across the world with his old lion pride of mercenaries, but it was still hard to hear him talk so casually about it. I realized that I wasn’t Nicky’s Jiminy Cricket. I was more his road-to-Damascus salvation.
“My videos are what I enjoy,” Olaf said.
“No one would survive that, so no, Anita doesn’t like it rough enough to keep you happy,” Nicky said.
“I would like to try,” Olaf said.
“I’m not sure how we can test your sexual preferences and keep Anita safe,” Nicky said.
“I would be willing to do a vanilla version of what I prefer, if there is such a thing,” Olaf said.
I couldn’t hold on to my peaceful white-noise place.
“Anita is too unhappy with this conversation for me to continue with it,” Nicky said.
“We need to go inside now,” I said. I opened the door and actually got my seat belt unbuckled and a foot outside before Olaf’s deep voice dragged me back.
“I would like your permission to speak with Nicky later in more detail to see if our kinks match.”