Victoria found herself consistently enchanted with Seattle whenever she had the opportunity to spend a late evening gazing out of her living room windows at the twinkling lights of the Alki district of Seattle.  In all the time she had lived in this apartment, since the divorce, she had never gone to the tiny coastal crescent of night lights, an illuminated oasis of hope. Every other community in the discontiguous suburbs of Puget Sound was fair game, but she desperately needed Alki to remain a twinkling dreamland.  

Even the name, Alki, lilted in her ear.  It was like a distant land where she could create the perfect place in her mind.  Even as a detective she had studiously avoided the tiny community.  It wasn’t large or significantly populated, so her deception in avoiding the strip of land, had gone largely unnoticed.  No matter the investigation, every clue that might lead her to her little fantasy community had been handed to her partner.  She clung to the place while eschewing it.  In her mind, the spell would be broken if she stepped into the magical land.  Even now, she felt the need to slightly avert her gaze just the slightest amount, for fear of seeing the reality of the place.  

As she reached to fill her wine glass, she accidentally gazed into her mirror and saw the reflection of Robert as he sat at her computer credenza, working diligently on her crashed system.  She sipped her wine while she resisted asking Robert if he had been to Alki.  She had intended to review other sections of town for a new club.  Votes from her team had included Alki, she resisted them, alternately suggesting Redmond, for the Microsoft freaks who must need some play; or Freemont, an artists area that could use more kink; or Queen Anne, were ironically there were few drag queens; or Kirkland, where all the wealth bearing sea farers lived would make sense, after all it cost good money to have great kink; but not Mercer Island, where the wealthy and uptight build hugely expensive monuments to success on the lake.  Alki would be an excellent business location if it were not cursed with being perfect in her mind.  She had been on the hunt for a location for the sister club for Power Exchange when her system locked up in a cascading thingy failure.  Thingy failure had been the most descriptive phrase she could come to for Robert.  She resisted the technology with slightly less effort than she resisted entering Alki.  And now, in the corner of her vision she could see both Robert and Alki.  Not a bad evening at all, to her way of thinking.

Robert couldn’t calm his jangling nerves as he worked at Victoria’s computer center in her home office.  The place was so much like her.; carefully stylish, refined, functional, and a bit threatening.  He was there to fix a computer problem that had popped up with her home system that didn’t seem to be affecting the exact replica in her office at the club.  It was nearly impossible for him not to wonder what additional data he might find if he mined her system.  Could he learn more and did he want to know?  As always in his life, the answer was yes and no.  He desperately yearned for more knowledge.  That was at the core of his being, especially when it came to this woman.  No, was the immediate screaming emotional id in his brain.  

Searching her hard drive could only lead to two intractable realities, one, he would learn that she had a personal life out side the club and that might crush him, and two, he would find himself falling even more deeply in love with her.  His mind jolted, “Jesus, he thought, I’m in love.  Damn. Damn. Damn.”  He clicked the wrong box and accidentally closed a diagnosis window. He peered over his shoulders feeling something like a twelve year old having peeked in the window of the sixteen year old girl next door.  He reinstituted the diagnosis and forced his eyes back to the screens in front of him.  Oh god, he thought, she saw, she knows I fucked up, she can see into my head, just like she does her clients.  Never fall in love with a cop, ex or otherwise, they know too much.  If she didn’t know, well that would be painful too.  

Victoria was fighting her own nerves as she tried to slide casually into a chair that wasn’t too close to him.  She needed some distance; trying not to be too close if she had any chance to avoid throwing herself at him.  Restraint had been an issue for her lately, but she didn’t want to be so far away as to suggest she wasn’t participatory in the process. God, he was adorable she thought. She inquired politely, “Any luck?”

Robert barely heard her voice over the screaming voices in his hormone addled head, “Um, it will take… the program is running and, no.  Not yet.”

“Thanks for coming.  I’m sure you had something better to do with your night off.”

Robert flushed.  Did she think he spent all his time chasing girls?  He had never been good at that.  Did she think he sat out side her apartment stalking her.  Thank god the times he had driven by with nowhere else to go, hadn’t turned into that, yet.  The software pinged a warning sound.  He spotted a problem and focused on the information.  Hackers were working like the obsessed little horn dogs they were to break into her system.  He could see them in his head, sweaty little teens with boners bigger than their brains; desperate to break into a system they had somehow found was linked to a sex club.  He wondered for a moment if any of those little fist humping freaks, who undoubtedly used their pathetic dicks to push the enter key, had somehow violated his magnificent boss’ personal data.  

Victoria pondered his movements, when he was computing he could be so focused and not on her.  She tried again, “Did I screw up your hump night?  He blinked at her.  She heard the question in her head on playback.  “I mean, Wednesday night, you know, hump, not, oh hell, do you want a beer or something?”  

He smiled and shook his head no. He couldn’t let alcohol force him to miss something that would endanger her.  You never know what kind of freaks could be hunting her. She strolled to the window and he watched her stare out the window and wondered what had her so stressed tonight.  He finally closed down the attempted incursion and smiled with relief.  He pushed back the leather office chair, “The system is fixed.  Guess I better go now.”

She hurried back to him, “You, could stay for a bit, to make sure.  It’s OK.

Robert waved at the group of screens, “Here’s the club’s personals page.  That’s where the problem was, you had hackers trying to peek at adult profiles.”

Suddenly Victoria’s attention was on the screen.  She clicked the mouse and an application photo enlarged.  The picture that materialized was of Sara and Eddie, decked out in leather outfits.  Eddie wore the collar.  Sara held the leash.

Victoria’s voice changed to her firm detective tone, “She looks really familiar.  I’m not sure I recognize her.  I used to know everyone at the club.”

Robert clicked around on the screen, “You’ll know her the next time you see her; she’s coming to the next party, paid in advance.”

Victoria completely forgot Alki and hump nights, “Something’s familiar here and I’m not sure if it is a good familiar.”
 

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