Siren Radio

By Jessica Nelson Hardy

Detective John Barnett joined the anti-supernatural taskforce to take down the werewolf who killed his son, but he finds more there than just his fruitless search when he stumbles into a kinky relationship with a beautiful and strong-willed radio show host domme⁠, unaware she’s secretly a siren⁠.

When their worlds crash together, he&

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jessica Nelson Hardy
• Release date: Jan 24, 2020
• ISBN: 9781916304208

Book preview

To Wanda, without whom I would not

have watched the thing that gave

me the dream that gave me this.

And also I would not have written

nor finished it without your support.

And to Val, Ben and Sirius, for always,

always having my back and my heart.

Part 1

It’s hard to concentrate, staring at papers strewn all over the desk, listening to the tinny, crackling music emitting from the radio seated squarely in the center of his corner of his corner of the Nineteenth Precinct. He doesn’t resent the radio, but he does resent the music no one has considered it might be polite to turn off.

He’s studying the information on his latest case to solve like he does every day, the latest one to stump him harder than even the ones before it. Nothing ever helps when he’s this stuck, nothing except—

The music cuts off and Detective John Barnett’s head snaps up, his eyes landing on the gold radio and then cutting across the room to find someone closer to it than him. Hey, he calls out to one of the other detectives, turn that up, would ya? It’s almost time for my program.

A few of the other men and women around him mutter and complain among themselves, but it’s his buddy Mal who rocks to their feet, steps over and cranks the dial all the way up. There ya go!

Thanks. John tosses his pen down onto the stack of notes he’s been working on—a pile of yellowing papers, covered in thoughts and feelings all scrawled down in his untidy scribble—and slides his chair out from beneath his desk. He kicks his feet up onto it, the heels of his shoes coming to rest beside his telephone, and stretches out, fingers laced at the base of his skull, head leaning back against his seat, eyes closed.

Ever since the radio was installed (a kind gift from the wife of one of the other detectives) he’s been skipping his break, preferring to wait until Siren Radio comes on and then kick back in his seat and listen to that instead. He doesn’t smoke, he gets pee breaks throughout the day, and he can’t really spend his government mandated break drinking, so it’s not like he needs to leave his desk anyway. No, he’s pretty content staying right here until he leaves for the night.

His coworkers of course all think he’s an idiot, and he’s not one to disagree with them on that, but ever since he started listening to the show his cases have just gotten easier to close, which is a good thing in a city like this. He hardly thinks anyone should care where he comes by his inspiration, as long as he comes by it.

—time of the day, Siren Radio, the announcer on the radio says in his crisp, unaccented voice.

Although he’d only started listening to it a few months back, the show had started a few years ago. He’d heard people talk about it off and on, how a new show had sprung up, created and developed by a woman named Esther Carmichael.

It was an odd concept at the time; crime and corruption had risen in North Port and with it so had apathy, to the point that a report had come out in the local press that more and more people were simply not buying newspapers, not reading the news and not caring about what was going on in their world. The only time they were listening to the world around them was the radio in their cars, and so out of the dark abyss had sprung Esther Carmichael’s baby: Siren Radio.

Before he’d heard the show for himself he’d been of the opinion that it was a dumb idea. Three times a day (the morning commute, the lunchtime rush, and mid-afternoon) Esther Carmichael would read aloud from the newspaper to the busy commuters and workers who tuned into her show, letting them sit back and multitask. The idea was, so he’d heard, that they wouldn’t have to take time out of their busy lives to hear about the events in the world around them, and that way they would listen.

Apparently it worked, but not for John. No, John preferred to sit back and let her words wash over him. She deserved his full attention, whether she knew she had it or not.

There’s just something special about her, something wonderful and enchanting about her thick accent and the way she reads the stories aloud with such passion, not only embodying the journalists who wrote them and bringing them to life in his ears but also caring about every single person listed in every story. There’s also something about the way she reads aloud the stories about his cases, something that opens his mind up and lets him see things he’d missed before.

What’s your obsession with this gal anyway, John? Mal calls over, feet up on their desk, bouncing a ball between their hands. You thinking of goin’ down the middle aisle with her?

He tries to imagine a world where a girl like Esther Carmichael would go for a guy like him, but the concept is completely out of the range of his imagination. It’s probably because of how perfect his crafted internal image of her has become in the months he’s been listening to her show, or maybe it’s just because she’s a celebrity and he’s just John Barnett.

Either way, it’s not a thought he’s ever entertained. Sure, he has a passing attraction to her voice (light and high pitched but soft, so damn soft) and he imagines that she’s probably as beautiful as she sounds, but he’s not thought about her that way, except in a few odd dreams he’s had.

He laughs it off instead of saying any of this aloud. Yeah, Mal, he says, and lifts his hand to catch the ball when they fling it his way, bouncing it a couple of times against the floor and then tossing it back towards them. I’m absolutely planning to meet and marry Esther Carmichael. This is definitely a universe that’s going to happen in. You gonna be my best person?

Mal lets out a hearty laugh, catching the ball again and tossing it between their hands. So why the obsession then?

John shrugs. He wants to explain, really he does—he feels like Mal is probably the only person in this damn place he can explain it to, the only one who’d get it—but he doesn’t understand it himself, at least not deeply enough to put into words. He just knows that her voice works for him, everything about the way she presents herself on the air is just right. It just helps.

Okay, whatever, Mal says and shoots him a grin. I’ll shut up so you can pay attention.

I’d appreciate that, John drawls, too fond of Mal to really be mad they were potentially going to talk over his show, and leans back again, shutting his eyes to listen to his show uninterrupted.

It starts off slow like it always does, and he’d never want that to change.

Hello, North Port, and I hope you’re all having a lovely afternoon wherever in the city you are, Esther says. I’ve heard that it’s a lovely day in the north part of the city, but a little duller in the south. I imagine all of you down there must be ever so jealous of those of you up there, but I’ll try and bring the sunshine for you all today, regardless of the weather. She takes a breath, lets it sink in. In case this is your first time tuning in, I’m Esther Carmichael and this is Siren Radio, in which I read to you the most important news articles of the day. If you have any suggestions or requests, the office is always open to mail of any kind.

He always thinks that’s asking for trouble, really. He wonders how many nasty letters she receives, and how many she receives from stalkers, obsessed fans desperate to get her alone.

He doesn’t get offended when Mal jokes about him being obsessed, they both know as well as each other that he isn’t. They’ve both dealt with obsessed fans before, people they’ve had to subdue to keep from getting too close to the object of their desire, and they both know he’s nothing like that. Being a fan is a far cry from being the kind of guy who’d take her up on her offer.

He thinks opening herself up to mail of any kind is a mistake, and that’s in his professional opinion.

It briefly crosses his mind to contact the station—he has the name somewhere, tucked away safe—and point this out, but then she’s talking again, starting off with a more detailed weather report, reading aloud, word-for-word, how Jesse Martin describes the oncoming storms to North Port.

She always does every journalist and writer justice, he’s noticed, to the point she doesn’t need to read their bylines for him to know exactly whose voice she’s speaking with, adding inflections to her speech that match how they write in their articles.

It’s a joy to listen to, and a joy to think about after the show is done.

But he isn’t interested in the weather.

What he’s interested in—rather than the drab headlines or the front page news about sightings of celebrities in the city—is relegated down to third place on her docket, even after the headlines are through, all because he’s not getting anywhere with the case. If he was getting somewhere with it, it’d be higher up her docket, it’d be up on the headlines in screaming bold letters: CASE SOLVED BY JOHN BARNETT.

It isn’t.

Instead, it’s down in the articles section, a small little thing written by Benjamin Blossom about a killing that happened months ago, a dead family that is still just as dead as they were back then, and how terribly John is doing at his job.

He’s always been John’s biggest fan.

—and an update on the Hilton murder investigation, Esther’s voice says, taking on a lower, more annoyed tone. He wishes she’d read more of the articles written by other journalists, maybe ones who don’t despise him. He thinks it’d be pretty nice to hear her like him, even if she’s just putting on a voice, pretending to be someone else. Detective John Barnett was quoted today— He has no idea when he was quoted, since he’s pretty sure he hasn’t spoken to anyone in weeks. —as saying that the investigation is still open, and that no moves have been made to give up on finding justice for the dead. Well, he thinks glumly, that isn’t incorrect. Moving on from that—

He snaps upright in his seat and glares across at the radio as Esther keeps talking, this time reading aloud about news of the war with Barcados (which he cares about but not as much as his case, which is probably a thought he should work out in therapy some time) and he grabs his copy of the Evening Times from under his typewriter (how did it end up under his typewriter?) and shakes it open, perusing the pages for—

There’s nothing. The only mention of his case is the one tiny article she read out, the one that doesn’t even have a real quote.

"God damnit!" He snaps the paper back down onto his desk and turns away, away from the typewriter, away from the desk and away from his own failure, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with his fingertips.

You all right, John? Mal asks and John looks around at them, letting out a sigh. They’re halfway out of their chair to come and check on him. I’m not used to seeing you this agitated.

It’s fine, he says and turns back to his typewriter, taking in a breath and calming himself down. There’s no point getting riled up, it won’t fix anything. He puts it aside.

FOSTER! The captain’s voice booms through the precinct, echoing between the walls, and a few feet away Mal gets smaller in their chair and swings it around so the back is facing the captain’s office, like if they slink down far enough maybe they can hide.

Cap comes storming out of his office, sweeping the office area with his gaze, and John appraises him over his typewriter, weighing out his options.

Where the hell, Cap grates out, is that lazy layabout, Barnett?

He knows how this goes. Cap starts with lazy layabout and ends with misgendering Mal to their face and with his anger still simmering under the surface he just doesn’t have the patience for the Captain’s shit today, not after that useless broadcast.

Think they went out, cap, he says. Something I can help with?

He’s... pretty sure the captain knows that he’s lying, judging by the little squint on his beady blue eyes—it’s not like he’s a good liar when he’s not actively lying for a case—but the captain locks his attention on John’s face anyway. Fine, you get it instead.

Uh, John says, get what instead?

If it’s something shitty he’ll take it, no questions asked, but if he’s ended up with something good in his attempt to protect Mal from what an asshole the captain can be on any day ending in a Y then he’s just going to have to make it up to them somehow and he doesn’t have a whole lot to bargain with.

Maybe truffles.

Senator Jones has had some uncomfortable threats leveled against her, the captain says, resting his hands in front of him, wrists crossed. He doesn’t look away from John for even a second as he talks, which tells John that he’s pissed as hell with him, but John doesn’t care. "She needs an armed police escort at this fundraising event and I guess if Mal isn’t here then I choose you."

It’s definitely not a good job so John shrugs, relaxing. Just point me in the direction, cap. I got it covered.

Mmmm. The captain narrows his eyes for a moment like he’s trying to judge just how much he should distrust John, then he gestures as though John should immediately get to his feet and leave the room and says, Get a team together. I’ll send the details your way.

Great, sir, I can’t wait, John says.

Cap narrows his eyes, sweeps the room again in search of Mal, and then disappears back into his office, the glass in the door rattling when he bangs it closed.

Mal slowly returns to their usual size and looks over at him. I’ll be on your team, they say. You just bailed me out of that so it’s the least I can do.

It’s fine, John grumbles. I’ll get a bunch of folks together that have nothing better to do and feel like going to a fancy gala and it’ll be a great excuse for me to to get drunk.

Really, Mal says, you don’t have to take the brunt of this alone. It’s okay, I don’t mind.

"Do you want to come to some bullshit celebrity fundraiser?" John looks over at them.

Mal pauses. No.

Then shut up before I take you with me just to spite you. He grabs the newspaper from the desk, glares across at the radio as though it’s personally wronged him simply by continuing to exist after Siren Radio has finished for the day, and storms out to go get a team prepared.

***

John expects the fundraiser to be boring.

It absolutely is.

He drifts between the rich people mingling, downs drinks at the bar, and observes the security detail from afar, watching them as they all watch Senator Jones as though something bad is actually going to happen to her.

It isn’t. He’s read the reports and the threating letters and they’re not serious. He can tell a serious threat from two miles away in the dark and he only needed three seconds looking at the letter to know it wasn’t all that. The senator is in more danger from choking on the hors d'oeuvres she’s wolfing down, but John can’t blame her—they’re pretty damn delicious.

He shouldn’t drink on the job, he knows that, but he’s arrived at a time in his career where getting fired might actually be a blessing rather than a curse, so at some point he just stopped caring.

He’s just stopped caring about a lot of things, if he’s honest.

He’s making less and less progress on the Hilton investigation every minute somehow, even in the moments he isn’t staring at his notes or his files, and so he’s decided he’s going to drown his sorrows. What’s the worst that can happen? An aging detective doesn’t get the jump on an assassination attempt but the six or seven other, young and spry cops do?

Yeah, he thinks it’ll be just fine.

He slouches over the bar, nursing what he’s pretty sure is his sixth glass of whiskey, and glances up to see the bartender looking at him as he cleans a glass. He’s tall and pale skinned and his eyes are a piercing blue that reminds him of Mal’s. For a moment John thinks about going for it, asking how he’s doing, laying on the charm and going in for the flirt, but then he remembers where he is (a public function) and who he is (a detective) and instead turns away. There’s far higher a chance he’s pitying him for his drinking than that he might be attracted to him and it’s just not worth the risk of the weighted coin flip to find out which it is, so he focuses his attention on the senator instead, even as his vision starts to swim and blur.

Isn’t that Carmichael? a voice down the bar says, a woman whispering to her date. "I heard she was beautiful, but boy, she’s really something else, don’t you think?"

He follows the voice with his eyes, wondering if there’s even the slimmest of changes he might be sharing a building with Esther Carmichael. He’s never looked into her enough to know if she does public appearances, especially not at a senator’s behest, but if she does it makes sense she’d be here. Everyone knows her, and a lot of people must feel the same way the woman does, the same way he does. She’d be an attention magnet, and that’s exactly what fundraisers are after.

He hesitates, not wanting to make a fool of himself, but then the drink and the giddy idea of seeing her face spurs him on and he slides down the bar towards the couple. I couldn’t help but overhear, he says. Did you mention Esther Carmichael?

Yes! The woman gives him a giant, beaming smile. She’s just as drunk as he is if not more. That’s her there, I think! I’ve heard her described!

She points across the ballroom and John follows her gesture with his eyes, jaw dropping open slightly when he sees the woman she’s referring to. If that’s truely Esther Carmichael then she’s stunning. Not only is her voice the most beautiful thing he’s ever heard but she’s gorgeous too. A teal dress with black lace clings to and hugs her short, slender frame and the colours contrast beautifully against her deep brown skin. She’s leaning in to a conversation with an older man, her left hand fidgeting with her shiny gold drop-earring and the other cradling a half-drunk glass of sparkling mineral water. There’s a golden pin that matches her earrings in her hair, which is fluffy and twisted up into two buns on either side of her head.

She’s smiling, all teeth and wrinkles in her nose, fully engaged in the conversation.

He finds himself getting up and drifting closer to her across the dance floor, weaving between the groups of people talking about things he doesn’t care about, desperate to hear her voice or her real opinions on something, anything.

She’s taken his breath away, stolen it for herself, and he can’t imagine getting it back without her help.

She’s still talking to the man when he reaches her, but the conversation seems to have turned sour. He’s handsome, wearing a suit that’s fitted perfectly to his muscular body, but the man does nothing for John when compared to her. He’s like a candle beside a spotlight. Unimportant.

He buries his nose in his drink and loiters near to the two of them, listening in on their conversation, too drunk to listen to the voice in his head that knows better.

—all really, she’s saying. I’m an immigrant.

Really? the man says in surprise. I would never have guessed! You even have the accent!

I learned it. Esther’s smiling with her lips pressed firmly together now. It’s hard for someone like me to get a job somewhere like this if I don’t fit in, you know?

Oh, absolutely! He definitely doesn’t know. When I first came here from Los Arcos, it was almost impossible to get a job!

He hears the tone shift in Esther’s voice as her patience wears thin. Is that because of your accent? Your skills? Because you couldn’t speak the language?

It was because there weren’t any jobs, the man says with a laugh. Of course, once I settled in, I made my own!

The sound of Esther sucking in a sharp, irritated breath has John covering his laughter by coughing into his drink. If she hears him, she doesn’t show it. Instead she offers an airy, I’d like another drink, and drifts away to the bar without offering to get the man one too.

Cold. John loves it.

He doesn’t follow her. He sticks to his own drink and navigates the crowds, listening in on a conversation here and a conversation there, checking for any sign of actual danger to the senator. There doesn’t seem to be any, not even a man complaining about her policies on invading other countries, so when he notices Esther’s stopped to talk to another man he drifts that way to listen in.

He knows full well that what he’s doing is... questionable. He shouldn’t be eavesdropping and he definitely shouldn’t be following her around. There’s laws against stalking and that’s for a very good reason, but it isn’t like he’s peeking in her windows (he would never), and until this point he hasn’t even looked her up, but the whiskey’s burning in his mouth and in his veins and it’s fueling his desperate need to know more about her, to hear or see something he can take home and think about later when he’s drinking there, too.

He follows her around for most of the night, until midnight is rolling closer and the first people are starting to go home, offering comments of, I have to relieve my babysitter, or passing judgments on how late it is, or how drunk their significant others are. Some receive airy replies about nannies, and others say something about having work tomorrow—and yeah, he has work tomorrow too, but he’ll live and they could too if they tried hard enough, surely—and there’s some people who simply politely say that they are tired and slip away with someone they didn’t arrive with.

The ballroom clears out, leaving a few couples to sway in the middle of the floor and a couple of people to get in a last drink before the hotel closes. The senator is long gone, along with her detail and his team, and as everything starts to go quiet, the band packing up, John sees Esther, still hanging around, ordering another drink from the bar.

The whiskey is starting to ease, he’s closer to tipsy and about to slip into hungover and hasn’t ordered a new drink since he saw her across the room, but he still can’t find a good reason not to come closer, so he does.

He leans against the bar a few stools down and looks for the bartender. He’s off slightly around the corner, packing up for the night.

Why are you following me around?

Esther’s voice has him reeling, snapping his gaze around onto her to join his attention.

Oh. He isn’t a subtle drunk, is he?

She’s looking dead at him, brown eyes piercing into his very soul, one gloved hand wrapped around a tall glass of water, a piece of lemon clinging to the rim and drops of condensation dripping down onto the silk.

He decides right then and there that he’s going to lie.

He’s going to say that following her around because he’s concerned for her safety, or because he suspects she might be responsible for the letter to the senator. The first seems like a better thing to say, so he answers, I like you.

That isn’t at all what he had planned. He shakes his head, trying to dislodge the confusion blurring it. Maybe alcohol has made him extra truthful.

What do you want from me? she asks.

He has a lot of answers to that all cooked up in his head. He wants to spend time with her, he wants to listen to her talk, he wants her to read the articles that actually help his investigation on her show, or maybe make some up when no one writes about it anymore. He doesn’t know which one of his list to pick, maybe he could ask her out on a date so she can shoot him down and he can move on from this whole bizarre experience.

Her dark eyes never stop being locked on his and it makes it hard for him to breathe, speak or remember his own name, so he chokes out, I want you to tie me to your bed and read to me about my investigations.

That’s far more truth than he’s comfortable spilling to a complete stranger. It’s far more truth than he’s even spilled to himself. It’s truth, that’s for sure, but he wasn’t aware of it being so until this exact moment and now he’s stuck with it. Now he just has to know forever that he wants that from her—with her—and, more than that, get laughed at, rejected and probably reported for sexual harassment when he really, truly, intended on saying, Nothing, ma’am, and moving on.

She’s not doing any of those things though, he notices. She’s looking at him over the top of her water glass, dipping the lemon in and out of her drink, her red lower lip pressing to the very edge of the glass as she appraises him.

She sets her drink down and he holds her breath as though she could break him as easily as she could smash the glass.

She picks her purse up from the bar.

She’s going to leave, he realises. She’s going to leave and he can’t blame her because this was horribly inappropriate.

He opens his mouth to start apologising, even though it’ll probably make it ten times worse if his track record is anything to go on, but then she pulls a key from the purse and places it down on the bar.

It’s a key to a room in this very hotel.

Thirty minutes, she says and slides off the bar stool. Wait for me.

It’s the key to her room.

He stares at the key and then at her as she starts to step away.

He should absolutely not go to her room and he should definitely not wait for her. He should go home and crawl into his bed and sleep off the liquor that’s still buzzing in his brain.

His hand picks up the key without his permission and slides it into the breast pocket of his tuxedo. Yes, ma’am.

He doesn’t know if she hears him as she doesn’t respond, simply rejoining a small cluster of people nearby instead, leaving him to lean against the bar and stare at the spot where the key had been resting just a few moment earlier in a daze.

This can’t really be happening. None of this is real. It’s all an elaborate practical joke.

Maybe Mal hired someone to pretend to be Esther for him to help scratch an itch but— No. He’d know her voice anywhere. It’s her.

If this is really happening, if it’s real and not some strange delusion cooked up by a mixture of trauma and alcohol, then it’s happening with the real Esther Carmichael.

Somehow that’s scarier than it not being real.

He steals her abandoned glass of water and buries his nose in it.

Once the glass is empty he starts walking like his legs are possessed, striding right out of the dance hall and up the stairs to the main hall, where drunk party-goers are still mingling and bellboys are gently trying to herd them out or to their rooms.

The main elevator is full of people as drunk as he is so he avoids it completely, taking the stairs instead and following them all the way up to floor seven. He trails down the corridor until he finds room fifteen and unlocks it with the heavy bronze key, stepping inside. The door swings closed behind him once he’s in the room but he doesn’t lock it behind him.

It’s a nice room, caught somewhere between fancy and simple, like it’s just right for the level of celebrity Esther is. There’s a large, old-fashioned metal bedframe and king sized mattress, a large window overlooking the city he tries so hard to protect and an en-suite bathroom. There’s electric lamps on the ceiling and the side tables, and an assortment of candles on the dresser.

His stomach lurches at the thought that maybe she prepared for this, that maybe she set the scene with romantic candlelighting, that maybe he wasn’t her first choice or—worse still—that she does this all the time, that he isn’t unique.

Why would he be unique?

He snaps the curtains closed, shrugs out of the jacket of his tux and places it down on the chair near the dresser, folded and smooth and taken care of like it should be, then pops the cuffs of his shirt, removes the links and tucks them into the pocket of the jacket. He takes his badge off his hip and places it down on top of the jacket, then undoes the top two buttons of his shirt, takes the bow tie he’s wearing from his collar and sets that down on his jacket.

He doesn’t have anyone to call and let know he’ll be gone until morning except Mal maybe, but Mal won’t worry about him until at least nine or ten if he doesn’t show up at work, so he doesn’t have to worry about them.

It hits him in the chest that barely anyone will notice or care if he disappears tonight, that he’s alone in the world aside from Mal, and he sits down on the end of the bed, shoving the thought from his mind and putting it aside like his jacket.

He doesn’t know what Esther expects him to do aside from wait. Does she want him to take his clothes off? No, that’s too forward. Should he tie himself to the bed? No, that’s too weird.

He stretches out on the bed and just sits, his head resting back against the wall, and does as he’s told: waits.

***

The sound of the door to the room opening jerks him awake from an impromptu nap and he blinks open his heavy eyelids to see Esther walking into the room.

He startles himself the rest of the way awake, nearly banging his head into the wall behind him, and stares.

It—

He can’t believe this is actually happening, that it—and, for that matter, she—is real. He can’t seem to digest as reality that Esther Carmichael is really walking into his room.

But she is, complete with a coat folded over her arm and a large purse clutched in the same hand, still wearing the beautiful teal dress from earlier.

She pushes the hotel room door closed behind her.

He finds himself fixated on that. She’s shutting the door. It’s so improper of her to walk into a hotel room to join a strange man and shut the door behind her, lock them both in together, in private, where anything can happen.

Where anything will happen, he thinks hopefully.

He glances over at the clock. She’s late, but maybe she meant to go up to the room in thirty minutes then wait for her, rather than go to the room and wait thirty minutes. He should’ve checked, but that would’ve required asking her, which would have meant communicating more than just a statement of what he wanted and receiving the key in return. Neither of them were going to do that, perhaps both afraid they’d change their minds.

He isn’t sure if now is the time for communication either, and he’s not sure he cares.

He tracks her with his eyes as she folds her coat up and sets it on the dresser at the end of the bed. Where he’d opted to use the chair by the window for his things—much like in his own home—she keeps hers closer by. She follows her coat with her purse, placing it down on top of the folded cloth. It’s a large, tasseled handbag, and he suspects it contains everything she needs for any eventuality. Maybe even this one.

He keeps his mouth shut, the back of his skull resting against the hard, cold wall, and watches her.

She finishes setting down her items and then turns towards him. You’re Detective John Barnett.

"You don’t have to tell me that," he says in amusement.

Are you drunk? she says.

He offers her a wobbly hand gesture and shrugs. Not really anymore. He figures since she already knows, it won’t hurt to dryly say, It mostly wore off while I was following you around.

That seems to amuse her, which pleases him greatly, and her eyes sparkle, the corners of her mouth twitching upwards. You’re obedient, she says, I’ll give you that.

He rolls his eyes. I have my moments. He stretches back out and never takes his eyes off her. He no longer feels like he’s drunk enough that he’ll answer everything she says with the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth—even the truths he doesn’t realise are the truth—so he settles down into just observing her. They’re few and far between. You should be flattered you got to see one!

You can drop the sarcasm, she says. We both know why you’re here.

He sulks like a chastised teenager, lowers his hands to his lap and pout across at her. "Yeah, but we don’t both know why you’re here."

An odd expression passes over her face and then is quickly tucked aside before he can figure out what it is. She clasps her hands in front of herself and lifts her chin slightly. You had a request.

He did and the second he’d verbalised it he knew he wanted it, but now he’s here he doesn’t quite know what to do with himself. He’s never done this before, at least not quite like this. There have been moments, sure—there’ll always be moments—but they’re fleeting and unsafe moments stolen whenever he can, no matter how dangerous it might be.

Something about this is dangerous too, but it rings as more dangerous for her than it could ever be for him. If they get caught in a hotel room together her name will be dragged through the dirt. If he gets caught tied to a bed he’ll—He’s not sure what’ll happen to him. He doesn’t want to find out.

I do, he says and sits up a bit, leaning towards her. So tell me what to do.

She licks her lips and turns away, back to her purse. I don’t have anything to tie you with, she says as she opens it up, so we’ll have to improvise.

His heart and stomach and mind finally agree on one thing: this is actually happening. He breaks into a slow grin, watching her as she retrieves a pair of dark flesh coloured stockings and tests them between her hands.

If you pull too hard they’ll break, so I don’t recommend it, she says.

How do you want me? he asks.

She rakes her gaze over him, the stockings stretched taut between her fists. There’s something utterly disarming in the way she looks at him. He’s still dressed, but he feels naked. Do you just want me to read to you?

He shrugs. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t hoping to get sexual gratification from it too?

She nods for a moment, the pads of her fingers playing against the stockings like a guitar string. Take your shirt and your shoes off. Leave your pants on. Lie back on the bed.

He wants to make some snarky comment about that being the opposite of what he’s here for, but she’s looking at him with an intensity in her stare that makes him not want to question a damn thing she says or order she gives, so he rolls his legs off the bed and leans down to unlace his shoes.

She watches him the whole time, her stare burning holes into him. He glances up as he pulls his right shoe off. I’m curious and I won’t judge, he says, do you do this often?

No, she says and licks her lips, clearly nervous. That okay?

Relief floods him. Maybe she’s as overwhelmed and lost as he is. They can figure it out together.

He pulls his left shoe off, places it down beside his own by the side of the bed, and looks up at her, grinning. Definitely. He gets to work unbuttoning his shirt, thick fingers and thumbs struggling with the tiny buttons in his distraction. He can feel himself getting into this whole thing they’re doing already; he’s getting hard in his pants just from her stare and the stockings clutched in her hands. His body’s aching to be touched, by her in particular, and to maybe to be inside her, and his mind just wants to please her.

What do you want me to call you? she asks as he swings back onto the bed and stretches out, his head on the pillow and his hands up by the headboard, ready for her.

Oh, I... don’t mind, he says. Whatever feels right. He pauses. What about you?

She comes over and sits on the edge of the bed beside him. It’s the closest she’s come to him all night, just a few inches between his bare chest and the thin fabric over her body. She wraps one of the stockings around his wrist and then around the headboard, the silk tightening as she starts to tie it off. He never takes his eyes off her face.

Esther’s fine outside of here, she says, but while we’re doing this: ma’am, or mistress or— She hesitates, like she’s unsure of the last option. —miss. He’ll never call her hat one. Something respectful.

Yes, ma’am, he says, a smile tugging at his lips.

She looks him over for a moment—checking the restraints and how he’s dressed—and he shivers. If just a look has him worked up, he can’t imagine what more might do. Once she’s satisfied, she drifts around to the other side of the bed, repeating the same process with his other wrist. He’s almost disappointed she didn’t lean her body across his, didn’t touch him more intimately than the tying, but he’s not going to question or argue with her, not right now.

"Is there anything you’d rather not be called?" she asks as she starts tying again.

Barny, he says. Her attention shifts from the tying to his face, genuine confusion in her eyes. He shrugs. High school. Her face softens into a sort of sympathy. Also the cap.

Her expression twists up into disgust. "Your captain calls you Barny?" she says, standing up from the bed and moving back to her purse.

Yeah, he says. He thinks it’s funny.

I’m guessing you don’t agree, she says in distaste.

Not at all, ma’am, he says and watches her as she opens up her purse and rifles around inside.

What do you want me to read you? she asks.

Here’s the moment. This is the moment where he gets what he wants. Articles about me.

It’s only once the words are out of his mouth and sound so absolutely horrifying Esther is giving him a bemused look that he realises how self-obsessed and conceited this whole thing seems and sounds.

I mean my cases, he says, voice ascending in pitch. It helps me process.

The next thing she pulls from her bag is a newspaper. He doesn’t find it hard to believe she’d have an entire newspaper (or two, or more—he’d love to get a look and see) inside her purse, just waiting for the right moment to whip it out and use it for some reason. Maybe she wants to use it for her radio show, or maybe she just knew she’d need it for a conceited guy like him one day. Maybe she’s a prophet or an angel or maybe she’s just someone who comes prepared for anything and everything.

She works her way through the newspaper, scanning for his name. The non-bloody cases?

He shakes his head. He isn’t sure he even has non-bloody cases. All of the current ones. The Hilton murder especially.

She casts her gaze over to him again, eyeing him up as though she’s trying to see into his soul and figure him out. Why?

I told you, he says with a sigh, it helps me process. He feels very put on the spot all of a sudden, especially tied to a bed. Journalists report the investigations in the newspaper in a different way than the newsreaders on the radio do, and differently to how the cops go through the cases too. Then when you read the articles, they come out with different— He can’t find the right words. The way you read them just helps. He drops his head back against the pillow and studies the ornate ceiling. You’ve helped me crack at least six of the cases you’ve read about.

She’s silent. He looks over to see she’s surprised, her eyes wide and her mouth fallen open. Really? It comes out choked.

Yeah, he says, sitting up a little, even with his hands stuck against the headboard. And this case, the Hilton murders, it’s—I don’t know how to solve it. I really don’t. And everyone’s giving up on me and on it, all the journalists, they’re not— they’re not writing about the murders anymore because they were so long ago the case is going cold and none of them believe there’s a chance in hell I’ll solve it, but I met these people. I met the ones left behind and they need it solved. They need to know who killed— He trails off with a sigh and drops head back down. He’s getting riled up and passionate about his case, and, judging from how she’s clutching the newspaper and the intense stare she’s giving him, she seems to like that, but it doesn’t do much for him. All it does is get him worked up and angry and not even his dick likes that. It’s given up on him too, it seems.

There aren’t many articles in here about it, she says. But I have— She pulls from her purse a large binder. He almost asks if there’s a whole other dimension in there in which she keeps all these things, or maybe about her upper body strength—oh, yes, the woman has biceps for days and he wants to lick them, both of them—and whether it comes from carrying around more things than she could ever hope to need in her lifetime or if she frequents a gym (and, if so, can he come along and watch some time?).

She puts the binder down nearby. I have some old ones.

He feels himself perk up, mentally and physically, and he tries to sit up enough he can see the binder, but his wrists drag him back down and keep him in place. She was right about the stockings, he can feel them start to give if he pulls too hard which makes this a willing submission; there’s nothing holding him firmly in place, he has to want to stay, and he does, so he sinks back down.

Really? he says. Which ones?

A lot of them, she says. I keep the older articles for the unclosed cases.

That surprises him. Why?

Fascination with the macabre, I suppose. For the first time since he met her, he starts to realise how much they might have in common. I find some of them more interesting than others and I like to— She considers her words, he can see it on her face as she works her way through the binder, looking for the right articles. I like to try and figure the cases out myself. I question if I have any idea who did them, and then I see if those hunches match up against the truth when it comes out. She pulls a face. "If it comes out."

He’s fascinated by her. How often are you right?

She shrugs. More often than not, but not enough that I could ever do what you do. She finds the right page and holds the binder in her arms. He stares some more at her biceps where they show through the translucent mesh of her sleeves. Do you have any other requests? Anything you want to discuss before we begin?

He’d like to kiss her. He’d like to ask what they’re going to do after she’s done reading aloud. He wants to think about the future but the fear of the unknown and the big looming blackness of not knowing what will come next is almost intoxicating. She’s keeping him in the dark and he likes that, but he still has a couple of questions, so he picks one to ask.

This is your room. Somehow that isn’t a question.

Yes, she agrees. Is that a problem?

No— He looks around. —but I’m in it? Somehow he thinks he’s already lost all of his intelligence somewhere along the line and he hopes she’s attracted to men with only two brain cells to rub together. I mean, don’t you need to sleep in it?

Oh. She smiles a little. Do you not want me to sleep with you?

Oh, no he desperately wants her to sleep with him. That isn’t it, he says. I just don’t want to make assumptions of how long you want to spend with me. If you want me to leave after—

Absolutely not. She shakes her head. When we’re done with this— She gestures at his status of being bound to the bed as though she doesn’t quite have a word for it either. —we’ll snuggle. I’ll hold you.

The masculinity he’s been schooled to protect screams for him to argue with that, but the soft side that wants her arms around him says, Okay, yes. Please.

No sex, she says. He frowns in surprise, and she shakes her head. We’ll snuggle. I’ll wear my nightie. We won’t have sex. You won’t touch me sexually.

No? he says, not questioning her decision so much as asking as to why.

I’m not interested in doing that with you, she says. Is that a deal breaker?

He wants to touch her, but that isn’t important in this situation so he shakes his head. No, he says. That’s not a deal breaker.

Good. She smiles and sets the binder down. Do you have pyjamas with you? Something warm to sleep in?

He shakes his head. I was going home for the night, I don’t have a room here.

They didn’t give you a— She doesn’t finish her thought, just shakes her head to clear it. You can sleep in your underwear and your shirt, all right?

You allergic to skin or something? he teases. He hopes he doesn’t come off rude or like he’s trying to get her to change her mind.

She giggles a little. No, I’m just not attracted to you.

Oh. Well, now he’s confused. Then why are you here?

I’m attracted to the situation, she says. I found the idea surprising and interesting when you suggested it.

I don’t remember suggesting it so much as blurting it out, he grumbles. "I was going to lie and say I was trying to protect you and that I wanted to buy you a drink and then this."

Are you complaining? she says, smirking at him a little.

He offers that the three seconds of consideration it deserves. Not really. I guess it depends how the evening goes.

What do you want out of this? she asks.

He considers that. Primarily a breakthrough on my case. She laughs outright at that and it’s too nice a sound for him to feel too offended. He decides to go for it, admit to what he wants and see what happens. Sexual gratification would be nice. I can do that for myself though, since you’re not attracted to me.

Do you have a problem with me touching you? she says.

No! The question comes completely out of left field for him, as he can’t imagine a world in