Chapter Eight

I sat parked on the street outside of Dani's apartment, waiting. She had dropped a couple of hints that she was busy Saturday night, and I had assumed it was with Julian - so I waited, resting in the passenger seat of my locked car, reclined, watching the door to her building. Worst case, I was wrong and wasting my night, but I was willing to bet that she was either going to meet him somewhere, or he was going to pick her up.

Sure enough, about an hour later, she walked out of the building and to her Prius. I wished I had already gotten a chance to get my hands on her phone and set up a tracking signal. Following someone the old fashioned way left both the chance of losing her and the chance of being caught. I was confident in my ability to play it off if we "ran into" each other in public, but if she saw me following her while driving... that would be tougher to explain.

I slipped to the driver's seat, moving my butt over the console and sliding down, waiting three beats before I fired up the engine and began following her. She was headed downtown - Sunnyvale had a nice little downtown area not terribly far from her place. As I pulled into the parking space across the lot from her and watched her walk toward the restaurants, I took a moment to wind my hair up into a bun - an unusual style for me - and tie it back before slipping on my reading glasses and following her on foot. I watched her step into a Mexican restaurant and hug a blond man an inch or two shorter than she was, before they sat down at a table together.

Could be a friend, could be Julian. No way of knowing yet. I settled into a table outside the Irish pub across the way, a spot where I could watch them and ordered a burger and fries - something simple so I could stay focused. I snapped a couple of photos under the guise of getting a few shots of the downtown and ate my subpar burger, paying early and leaving a 100% tip so the server didn't try to shoo me away. I watched as the two of them laughed and ate, shared a pitcher of margaritas - naughty girl, once again - and enjoyed each other's company. Their body language didn't speak of old friends, they were still feeling each other out, still finding the shape of one another.

Following him back to his car was easy, as was memorizing his plate number. White Accord, California plates - I had all the info I needed. I watched as Dani climbed back into her car - he waited for her, they were going somewhere else next. I frowned - I had gotten a good long look at him, he seemed like the engineer-wants-to-be-management type, white polo and khakis, short cut blond hair and a pearly smile. He oozed "normal" - I hated him already. Normal was always hiding something. Normal never hurt, surrounded by all the other normals and lauded for their conformity.

Growth came from pain - the kind of pain you never felt growing up as a straight white male. Sure, I was prejudiced in my own way, prejudiced against the overwhelming majority of people that looked exactly like Julian in the world, but I felt somewhat justified - I suffered enough at the hands of "normal" and the pursuit of conformity. I sat behind the wheel of my car and sent an encrypted text to Seth. I'd do some cursory checking myself as well, but if both of us were digging too deep on the same target, we'd set off alarms. He was back to his usual routine during the week and there was very little chance of doing the social engineering these kinds of dives required on a Saturday night, so I'd have to wait.

And settle for making some newbies suffer at the hands of my smurf. I wasn't feeling particularly gracious tonight.

* * *

I groaned as I rolled out of bed at the crack of noon on Sunday, kicking over a couple of hard cider empties on my way to the kitchen. I'd clean all that up in a bit. Sunday was cleaning day, after all. I spotted the green light on my phone flashing from where it rested on the couch - I had forgotten to plug it in last night. I'd stayed up way too late on Overwatch, drinking. I grabbed my phone and tapped the fingerprint sensor, opening my messages.

DANI: How's your job in Redwood going? Any chance you're free Tuesday night?

Well shit, it was from two hours ago. Why'd she have to pick Tuesday of this week? I had to take Jess out, it was important. Tuesday was great usually - lots of places declared it Ladies' Night in an attempt to bring in female clientele, often so the males had a better chance and finding someone... but I wasn't opposed to getting into places free even though the boys had zero chance with me.

The job is stressful but it's going well. I can't do Tuesday, sorry. I'm meeting a friend for drinks. How about Wednesday night?

I sent the message and began my weekly routine, tidying and sorting, cleaning and recycling. There was one room in the apartment that never needed tidying... though I wanted it to desperately. I stood in the doorway and stared at the empty crib, a sigh passing my lips as the phone chimed again.

DANI: Wednesday sounds good - where are we going?

The way she asked brought a smile to my face. It wasn't so hard to imagine Dani in this room, in that crib - she wanted someone to care for her. She didn't even want to suggest a restaurant, she wanted to be the submissive partner, she wanted someone else to be in control. This week was going to be busy.

I have an idea. How is your emotionally compromised worker? Have you been able to help them?

Our conversation continued on and off throughout the day, mostly small talk - she wasn't the worker in question's manager, but she was taking on that role somewhat. Apparently the actual manager wasn't very good at the human interaction part of the job, but very good at the logistics part - it was a shame, logistics were easy but a manager who could actually handle their subordinates well was worth their weight in gold.

I felt relaxed as I tidied up, enjoying the casual ease with which we conversed, but my relaxation was shattered by an unexpected message.

UNKNOWN: Call Kailee. Aubrey.

I sighed wearily, all of the good feelings I had been gaining from talking with Dani shattered and washed away. Kailee didn't have the ability to call me - I had the phone set to send any of the numbers she usually used directly to voicemail and then delete the message. I allowed unknown texts only because I got job leads that way frequently enough that it was worth deleting a rogue message every now and again. I sat down on the couch in my freshly cleaned living room and dialed the one person I really, deeply did not want to talk to right now.

"Hewwo mommy," her cutesy voice greeted me. "You said you wanted to be fwiends, but you never called me."

"I do, Kailee - but I've been busy this week, I'm sure Aubrey has told you that."

"Aubrey says you're going to her company to make people sad," she accused. "Why do you do that? Why do you hurt people?"

"I don't set out to hurt people," I countered, "My job is to keep companies from collapsing - and sometimes the problem is that they have too many people, or the wrong people. I'll be able to talk to you more after the job is done."

"I want to see you," I could see the pout on her face from her voice. "I miss you." It was baffling to me now that I had ever found that pout cute, those mannerisms. I had thought it was simple cover atop a hidden depth, but that turned out to be false - Kailee was shallow and uncaring, her pout wasn't some game, some façade - it's how she really was. My day with Jess had just reinforced how things could be, with the right partner - and Jess still had a lot of learning and growing to do herself, but she was leaps and bounds ahead of Kailee.

"I know," I said soothingly, "I know you do. You're probably feeling a little lonely right now. But you have Aubrey, don't you? Are you guys going to watch some cartoons today?"

"Aubrey doesn't want to play with me that way," she groused. "I want my mommy back."

"I'm not anyone's mommy right now, Kailee. And I can't be yours, either. We both hurt, we need to focus on being friends first. Have you tried going to the club?" The easist solution to my whole problem would be Kailee finding another dom, someone to hold her attention. She was a bad sub, she was selfish and uncaring and didn't want to devote the time and trust it took to have a deeper relationship... but there were plenty of bad doms out there that fit her just fine. I knew that for a fact, I had met a few at the club.

"The club is stupid," the pout was back in full force, "They told me I can't come back any more." Well, that was good news at least, maybe I'd have to visit again. "But I don't wanna meet anyone else, I want you." I couldn't say I was terribly surprised that she had been kicked out, after all. She had probably violated someone else's scene, tried to force her way into a play for attention - Kailee's grasp of boundaries was tenuous at best.

"You want someone to take care of you, right?"

"Yes mommy," her cutesy voice still turned my stomach, but I pressed on.

"That can't be me right now, I have too much work to do. You need someone who can devote their time to caring for you, to helping you find your best self."

"Aubrey said you have to do what I want." There it was. I had been expecting this one.

"Oh, you want to be the mommy?"

"No! I want you to be the mommy," she whined. "You hafta!"

"I don't believe the Little gets to tell the mommy what they have to do, is that how it works? You want to be the boss, you want to make the decisions?"

"No, no... I want you to be the boss," she sounded frustrated, confused.

"Then I don't have to do what you want - if you want me to be the boss, we have to be friends again first. You know I'm right."

"Yes mommy," she replied sullenly.

"I have work to do, Kailee. I'll talk to you later, okay?"

"Okay but don't make me wait so long next time." She was petulant, still trying to top from the bottom in the worst way. There was a right way to do it and a wrong way - the right way involved communicating your needs and expectations, maybe even having the upper hand over the caregiver for a short time... but it wasn't about forcing the caregiver to play their role the way the Little wanted. That had to be a gift freely given, and it didn't seem like Kailee was ever going to understand that.

"You have a decision to make for yourself," I told her simply. "You keep talking like you want to be the boss, but you also want someone to take care of you, to command you. If you want someone else in control, you have to let them take that control on their own, and only someone - a friend - you trust very well can do that. Think on it, Kailee. We can still be friends, but you have to want that first."

And with that, I hung up on her. She had come close to learning that lesson a few times, but I honestly didn't think she would ever get there. She wasn't interested in real growth, she was interested in short-term pleasure and it didn't really matter who she hurt - including herself - to get it.