The Interrogation Page 7

  I figured that. Jasmine was straight

  "You must be in heaven," she said.

  "Yeah." I looked down, and I felt a tear. "What am I going to do after I go home? I was frustrated before. Now it's going to be impossible."

  "You can look for work here," she said. "You can stay with me for a while, maybe long term if we get along. I have a guest room and never any guests to use it. It could be yours. We'd figure out something about rent." She grinned. "I'll make you dress like that and clean the house once a week while I sit back and eat bon-bons."

  I laughed.

  Katrina made noise coming back into the living room; Jasmine and I laughed, one of us more weakly than the other, when we realized what Katrina was doing.

  "Done talking about me?" she asked.

  "Yes," I said.

  "I was just offering Bethany a place to stay if she decides to move out here. I wasn't going to, but seeing in that outfit changed my mind. Katrina, does your company have any openings?"

  Katrina smiled but didn't say anything.

  Jasmine ate a little more of the food then pushed it away. "You two leave now. I am going to nap."

  "Do you want us to leave this here," I said, gesturing to the try of food. "Will you eat more?"

  "No," she said.

  "All right." I cleaned it all up and returned to the kitchen. I cleaned the kitchen quickly, leaving it in good shape for her, then stepped back out. Jasmine was lying on the sofa, her eyes closed, and Katrina looked at me impatiently. I waited until we were out of the house before I apologized. "I didn't want to leave the kitchen a mess."

  "It's okay," she said. "I figured. You're a very thoughtful woman." She led me to her car then asked me which hotel I was staying at. She drove quietly for a moment before asking, "She doesn't know why you're here."

  "No."

  She glanced over. "Our game from last night is still active then," she said. "We'll talk about what you want to see today, then tonight I'll take you to dinner. If I can get your secrets from you by the time I pay the check, I win."

  I smiled. I wasn't worried. "What are we playing for?"

  She smiled, and there was something wicked in the smile. "I don't know yet. I'll think of something by the time we finish lunch."

  During the rest of the drive to the hotel, she quizzed me in greater depth about what I had already done since arriving and whether there was anything in particular I wanted to do. I didn't really have a clue. "I don't know," I finally admitted. "I just want to know if I like it here."

  "All right. Are you an indoor kind of girl or do you like the outdoors."

  "I like to hike in the mountains back home," I said. "It's a drive, but not that bad."

  "Ever been to the ocean?"

  "Sure. We go a lot."

  We arrived at the hotel, and she held my hand as we walked to my room. Harmon Software was small, only sixteen people. I reported directly to the owner, Ted, and I knew he was retiring with the sale. He was only fifty-eight, but he was making enough from the sale he could retire. I didn't think it would stick. His wife would be tired of him within a week. So he wasn't here, and several of the other people were married to spouses who didn't want to leave North Carolina, but there were still eight of us for the meetings on Monday. I knew three of the guys weren't arriving until tomorrow; I had made their reservations for them. I knew three arrived today, but I wasn't sure when. I wasn't sure about the last one.

  In other words, I had no idea what the likelihood was I was about to run into a coworker. I didn't want to explain it to Katrina if I did, and I didn't want to explain Katrina -- or more exactly my outfit -- to anyone from work.

  But I couldn't tell any of that to Katrina. One person here for an interview was one thing, but two people from the same company meant exactly one thing: we were being sold. I wasn't supposed to share that.

  I decided the chances of meeting anyone from the office was slim, but I wished I had her mask.

  Still, I was nervous all the way to my room, and I hurried Katrina inside once we were there. She seemed put out. "Ashamed of me?" she asked inside. Okay, she was more than a little put out.

  Shit.

  "No," I said.

  She studied me, then her expression grew darker. "You're not out of the closet!"

  "I am!" I said. "Even to my parents. You saw Jasmine. She was surprised to see you with me, but she wasn't that surprised to see a woman with me."

  "Yeah, she's an internet friend. That's not the same thing, is it? You're not out, and you're used to hiding your relationships. I don't play that way."

  "It's not that! I swear. It's the walk of shame."

  She made a disgusted sound. "Are you ashamed of how you spent the night?"

  Fuck.

  "No. Katrina, please."

  "Please what?"

  I tried to move into her arms, but she pushed me away. "Please what?" she asked again.

  "Please don't be angry," I said. "I am not flamboyant at home. I don't necessarily hide, but I don't go out of my way to draw attention, either. North Carolina is not California. I have habits."

  "You're not telling me something. You will tell me. Right now."

  I turned away, not sure what to do. She was far too perceptive, and she was going to figure too much out. She didn't pull me back to her, and that alone told me she was honestly angry with me. I paced around the room before finally turning back to her.

  I spoke very quietly. "I am not ashamed to be with you. I am very proud to be with you. No one has ever made me feel like you have, and I enjoy your company a great deal. I enjoy how you treat me a great deal. I want to spend every moment I can with you. My parents are not exactly supportive of my lifestyle, but they know about it. I don't rub their noses in it, and they have expressed exactly zero interest in meeting any girlfriends, but in the past, if I've been with a girlfriend and run into a family member, I don't hide my relationship with her."

  Katrina was watching me carefully, her arms folded.

  "I will let you treat me however you want between now and when I have to leave, but I don't want you to take me to any tourist destinations when you do so."

  Now it was time for the hard part.

  "I'm not going to say anything else about this. If what I've said isn't good enough, and you don't want to be with me anymore, I'll understand. That's all I can say."

  Her jaw dropped, then slowly she closed it. I did my best to look into her eyes, but it was very difficult to avoid looking at the floor submissively.

  "Are you trying to get rid of me?" she asked.

  "Oh god, No! Katrina. No!"

  "So I am supposed to have noticed your furtive behavior and forgive you for it without a real explanation?"

  "Yes."

  "And are you going to be equally furtive leaving the hotel?"

  "Yes."

  "Do you want me to meet you in the car so no one sees us together?"

  I hesitated before opening my mouth to answer, but she cut me off. "God damn it, Bethany!"

  "No, I don't want you to meet me in the car. I want you to wait while I change, and then we'll leave together, holding hands, but I don't want to dawdle, either, and I'm going to check the hall before we step out the door."

  "And you aren't going to tell me why?"

  "No."

  "Is this part of the secrets you can't tell me?"

  "I'm not answering that. I'm not answering anything else, in fact. I have my reasons. Take it or leave it."

  She headed for the door, and it was like the bones in my body all evaporated. I fell to my knees, and a sob escaped me. I completely lost track of her, bent over with my head to the floor, trying not to sob explosively.

  But the door didn't open, and a moment later, her feet appeared in front of me. She was wearing sandals with a low heel, and her foot couldn't have been bare for the amount of skin that was covered.

  "Kiss them," she ordered, and I immediately placed my lips onto her toes, kissing them thoroughly. She
let me kiss for a while before she said gently, "Come on. Get up."

  She helped me to my feet, then held me by the shoulders. I lifted my eyes to her. "I am going to ask a question, and you are either going to answer it, or I am leaving. Is this furtive behavior permanent?"

  "No!" I said. "I promise."

  "Follow-up question. If I were to visit you back home, how would you behave?"

  "I wouldn't dress like this, and I wouldn't want to flaunt the kinkier aspects of our relationship. Because it's North Carolina, I wouldn't flaunt our sexuality around strangers. But I wouldn't be furtive, either."

  "You would introduce me to your friends as your girlfriend?"

  "My girlfriend? You want to be girlfriends?"

  "Answer the question."

  "If we were girlfriends, then I would introduce you that way. If we flew home together right now, I'd introduce you as my lover."

  Her eyes bored into mine then finally she said, "All right. I don't like the secrecy. Is that permanent?"

  "No."

  "So a year from now-"

  "I'll answer anything you want to know."

  "All right." She smiled. It was tentative, and I could tell she was still annoyed. "Today I think we should explore Silicon Valley. Tomorrow we'll go to Santa Cruz and Monterrey. We'll walk along the beach and visit the aquarium."

  I smiled. "I'd like that."

  "We will hold hands, and I will be fingering your collar. A lot. In front of other people."

  I lifted my chin. "Good," I said, smiling. And then she offered a real smile. "Thank you, Katrina."

  "Go ahead and change." She moved to the bed, sitting down and smiling at me. "Pack the rest."

  I smiled and picked out my clothing for the day. I put on a little show for Katrina while I changed, which seemed to amuse her. Ten minutes later I was packed.

  "Am I checking out?" I asked her. She nodded slowly. I smiled. "All right."

  "Bethany, I will wait in the car for you."

  "You don't have to do that."

  "I'm not stupid. You're afraid we're going to bump into someone you know. And you're not worried about them seeing me. You're afraid I'll see them."

  I stared at her and avoided swearing.

  "That's why you don't want me to take you to the tourist places, either, because whoever we might bump into might be at the tourist places. I don't know why you're afraid. I don't know if whoever is in this hotel is your lover, but if so, I'd expect to see her things in this room. Or his. It's not anyone who expects to spend time with you, but someone you know is staying in this hotel, and you don't want me to see them."

  "Katrina-"

  "Hush," she said. "I'll wait for you in the car. If we remain friends after you return to North Carolina, I expect you to someday tell me the entire story. Will you be able to?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "All right then. I'm not going to let this ruin our time together."

  "Are you doing this to leave without watching me cry again?"

  "No. Do you honestly think I am afraid of your tears?"

  "No. If you were going to dump me, you'd do it openly." I paused. "I have a car here," I said.

  "Oh of course." She grabbed a pad from the nightstand and wrote her address down. "My address and cell number," she said. "I'll wait for you out front and you can follow me, but if we get separated, you should be able to find it. We'll drop your things at my place, and then this is behind us."

  "Thank you, Katrina," I said.

  * * *

  Katrina spent the afternoon giving me a good tour of Silicon Valley. We had lunch at a lovely little outdoor cafe, took a tour of Stanford University, and drove past the Apple office park as well as that of Google and several other companies. She took me to a lovely Japanese garden, which I found adorable. "This is where I come to think," she told me. "It's a little off the beaten track, but worth it.

  We spent an hour at her favorite mall and she introduced me to a smoothie. We sat in the food court, smiling at each other, and she asked me about southern cooking. "Do people really drink mint juleps?"

  "Yes."

  "Are they hard to make?"

  "No." I smiled. "If you want me to make you one tonight, we'll need to stop by the store. If you are really curious, then I should make sweet tea, too."

  "And grits. You promised me grits."

  "You won't like the grits, but I can make them for breakfast."

  So we stopped by a liquor store and the grocery store. I bought what I would need for the drinks I had promised and supplies for breakfast. Then she took me home so we could change for dinner.

  Everywhere we went, she made a point of fingering my collar, frequently in front of other people. No one paid us the slightest bit of attention. If she treated me like this at home, it would have been quite different.

  She made me wear my outfit from last night. I had casual clothes and business attire, but no date clothes except the leather I had bought for the party. She dressed in her own leather, although not the domme outfit from last night. Still, I thought she looked pretty hot and told her so.

  Dinner was at an upscale restaurant, one that was well beyond my normal ability to pay. Katrina hadn't allowed me to bring my purse, so I wasn't able to even offer to pick up the check. I wondered if that had been part of her plan.

  Over dinner, she flirted with me outrageously, which I loved. I loved we could be so open with each other. I loved not worrying that Mama would come storming into the restaurant and ask me what she had ever done that I would do this to her. Katrina caught me frowning when I had that thought, so I was obligated to share it with her.

  Her frown joined mine. "I thought you said you were out with your family."

  "I am, but that doesn't mean Mama wants me flaunting it in public." I looked down, which I knew annoyed her, but I couldn't help it.

  "You better not be having another self esteem moment, Bethany," she said.

  "No," I said. "They aren't going to offer me a job, but they paid for me to come out, so I wasn't going to say 'no'. I'm going to have to go back home."

  She tapped her fingernails on the table. "Look at me." It was said firmly. I looked up, and she was scowling at me. "I want to know why you are so sure you wouldn't be offered a position. If they took the trouble to fly you out, you must be something special."

  "There are extenuating circumstances," I said, "and you know I can't say more than that."

  She'd been trying to pull information out of me all afternoon. We had our game, after all. She'd been setting traps for me all day, but so far I had avoided most of them. I knew, however, if I spent enough time with her, she'd figure it all out on her own based on what I wouldn't answer more than on what I would.

  "Are you good at your job?"

  "Yes, but-"

  She held a hand up. "You weren't sure you were going to like the area."

  "I love it," I said. "Thank you so much. It's so beautiful. North Carolina is beautiful, too, and Winston-Salem has a charm far, far different from California."

  The check arrived. Katrina ignored it. Instead she studied me. "Have you ever been involved in a hostile takeover?"

  I frowned. "Yes," I said finally.

  She lifted an eyebrow. "Do tell."

  "When I was a kid, we visited some relatives in Minnesota for Christmas and New Year's Eve. They taught us to make snow forts, and then we had a snowball fight. The other side had all the big kids, and they raided our snow fort, taking it over from us."

  She stared at me then began laughing. "Good one," she said finally.

  "Have you?" I asked.

  "Yes. A number of times. I've lost my job once due to a hostile takeover, kept my job for another, and have been involved in acquiring other companies, sometimes in a more friendly fashion than others." She paused. "My boss likes to send me when the company we bought is suffering from bad work ethic amongst the acquired employees."

  "Because you whip them into shape?"

  She grinned.
"Yep."

  "Does he know about-" I trailed off.

  "No, he doesn't. He just knows I get results."

  "I bet you do," I said.

  "So, have you been visited by someone like me, someone to come tell you to sit up straight or lose your job?"

  She was fishing, and she wasn't that far off. "I don't care to talk about work, Katrina."

  She reached across the table and tugged on my collar. "As long as you wear my collar, we will talk about whatever I want to talk about. Won't we?"

  "Yes, Katrina," I said, humbled. "No, I haven't ever been visited by someone like that."

  "Harmon Software," she said. "That's who you work for?" That was safe, and I nodded. She asked what we produced, so I told her. "That doesn't sound at all interesting to the defense industry," she said when I was done.

  "We have no government contracts, to the best of my knowledge."

  She continued to grill me, working around the three secrets I wouldn't answer. Finally she started making guesses and watching my reaction. She'd given me so much warning, I was able to maintain a bland expression, even when she stumbled across something relatively close to the truth. I shrugged a lot, not answering, offering non-committal responses.

  "You will answer properly!" she ordered.

  "You know I won't," I told her. "I know what you're after, but I'm not answering any more questions related to work."

  That didn't stop her from trying, and I stopped answering any of her questions at all. She got further and further from the truth, and inwardly I smiled, but I maintained my non-committal reaction. Then when she was sufficiently off-target, I tried offering a few false starts as if she was on the right track. I tried to look contrite after I did it, and then I feigned being upset when she narrowed in on the completely incorrect answer.

  Finally she sighed and set her credit card on top of the bill.

  "What did I win?" She hadn't ever told me.

  "You haven't won yet. You haven't won until I sign the credit card slip. You've given me some hints."

  I shrugged again.

  It was fun avoiding her questions. It was fun being the center of her attention. It was fun foiling her.