Trahison due Coeur (Ryan)

[Adele D'Alteau]

Beyond your borrowed dreams
Your whole life turns back to grey
Beyond your borrowed dreams
Your sad life will fade away
Fade away, fade away

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

Babylon
South Padre Island, Texas

For the past several weeks with the fallout from the famine, riots, and other undesirable natural and man-made cataclysms, the most she'd seen of their modestly-sized condo by the sea was the well-worn path from the biometric front door to their bedroom where she'd packed several changes of clothes. The normally mostly quiet emergency room at Valley Baptist had seen a large increase in the number of incidences which required the use of the adept hands of a skilled trauma surgeon. Following the second risky surgery of the day—the patient had somehow been stabbed through the heart with a knife and had managed to survive his initial triage in the ambulance—she was more than looking forward to returning home for the next few days so that she could recover. Even then, she'd still be on call, though there were more than enough other surgeons on duty who could take her place.

She was nearing the end of her 48 hour shift as she stripped out of her operating room clothes and peeled the bloodstained surgical gloves from her hands, disposing of them in the red biohazard container next to the sink. With the patient stabilised at least for the moment, she could allow herself to breathe a sigh of relief, knowing that she would soon be bringing good news to the rest of his family.

Taking a few moments to sit down and gather her thoughts, she could feel the exhaustion steadily creeping its way into her bones as it so often did after a particularly painstaking surgery. She ambled her way to the doctor's lounge, which consisted of a locker room and showers, and a few individual rooms with cots stacked bunkbed style against the walls. Most of the time, the sleeping porches were empty, but had lately seen an increase in their occupancy rate.

In a sleepy haze, she tried to remember the combination of the lock on her locker. Stress and lack of sleep had mounted a battle against her basic memory skills, and it took her several tries to prise the lock apart. The next time she was at the market, she was going to have to remember to get a decent Master lock with a key. Remembering combinations, even ones she used with regularity, was getting a bit wearing.

Adele grabbed her 'away' bag from where it hung on a hook inside the locker and unzipped its centre compartment. Reaching with one hand into the bag, she pushed aside a few shirts and spare pairs of undergarments and fished out her car keys, wallet, and phone from within the bag's depths. After navigating through the hospital's numerous corridors, she found herself in the lobby of the waiting area and temporarily deposited her belongings behind the counter of the nurse's station. Making her way into the waiting room, she encountered the worried faces of the young man's family and put them at ease.

“Your son is stable for the moment. We were able to extricate the knife without causing additional damage to his heart tissue, but it is quite literally a miracle that he managed to survive. The blade came within a hair's breadth of severing his aorta.” The next several minutes were spent explaining to the family what they could expect to have happen in the coming days. The cardiac surgeon had done a masterful job of piecing back together what needed to be done, but their patient would need to be monitored closely for the next few days. He would mostly be staying there for the remainder of the week, if not longer. “I'm actually on my way home now. It's been a long two days.” She reached into her breast pocket where she kept an assortment of pens, a Post-It pad, and a dozen or so business cards. “If you have any additional questions, please don't hesitate to call me. I live right over the bridge.”

She would need to log the full details of the surgery, but she could always dictate those over the phone to her secretary. All of the goings on in the operating room were video and audio-taped to ensure that there was no negligence occurring behind closed doors.

Adele dismissed herself from the family and retrieved her bag of belongings. Since she was barely in a state to drive, she figured it would be best to drive to one of her and Ryan's local haunts and pick up a few entrees to go. As she resumed her walk through the hallways and eventually to the elevator that would take her to her garage, she once again delved into the bag and pulled out her phone. Or at least what she thought was her phone, but felt distinctly different. Her Vertu Ti was a somewhat bulky phone, given its titanium carriage, though it was remarkably light. This felt more like Ryan's silver iPhone 5. In her haste to get out the door in the dark in the middle of the night, she probably hadn't noticed that she'd grabbed the wrong phone.

She took out the phone and slid her finger across the screen to unlock it. Whereas she protected the contents of her phone behind passwords, Ryan wasn't as privacy conscious. Although she wasn't intending on being nosy, there were a few text message notifications that had popped up when the lock on the phone had been disengaged. The texts were probably from Ryan wondering where his phone was.

Without intending to pry into the messages, she decided to lay the phone on the passenger's seat and accidentally brushed her finger over the menu item which brought up Ryan's most recent text and chat logs. She picked up the phone and was about to lock the screen when the subject matter of the most recent series of chat logs became more than clear to her. She had been known to send Ryan messages of a tawdry and sensual nature, but the words being exchanged were not her own. And the more of them she read, the more she felt a blinding, seething rage stealthily wrap its tendrils around her heart. There was the emotional pain of betrayal there as well which would no doubt erupt in the near future. Her head started pounding as she fought the urge to throw the phone out of the car and run over it, though not before attempting to get an address out of whoever it was that he'd been corresponding with. Dishonesty was not something she could stomach, and that was something she assumed Ryan knew quite well.





Apparently, she'd been mistaken.





Steeling herself against the anger simmering in her gut, she set the phone down in her lap and viciously twisted the key in the Zonda's ignition. The engine roared to life, practically begging to be unleashed on the road. She wasn't sure how she'd managed to make it across the causeway without killing anyone, but having an Italian-made supercar that could easily top 200 miles per hour certainly helped. Right now, her only goal was to get back to the condo as quickly as possible to gather her thoughts. Acting on satisfying the anger inside her would have to wait.

**********

Ryan wasn't home when she arrived, which was just as well. She needed some time to sit with her own thoughts and reason out how she was going to broach the topic. Minding her temper was also something she would need to do, given that when she was prone to bouts of rage, someone usually died.

While she waited for Ryan to return, she took a long bath with a bottle of red wine in one hand, and a tightly packed blunt in the other. Both of the drugs would keep her sedated and less inclined to flay the skin from Ryan's flesh when he finally did make his way through the front door. She let herself soak in the tub for the better part of an hour before she got out and dried herself off with a towel. Bottle of wine in hand, she slipped into a red silk nightgown, patterned with birds standing atop whorled patterns of flowering bushes.

She retrieved another bottle of wine from the first floor of their condo, which was more or less functioning as a wine cellar-slash-hydroponics laboratory, grabbed a quart-sized bag of marijuana, and returned to the kitchen. Adele sat down at the large oak dining table in the kitchen and reached for the herb grinder in front of her, and proceeded to dump a large number of the pungent buds into the small handheld contraption. She ground them up until they were at her desired consistency and dumped the concoction onto a sheet of cigarette paper. Eventually she'd invest in one of those fancy manual cigarette rollers. For now, however, she would make do with what she had.

Ryan's phone was set on the placemat across from her. She kicked her feet up onto the chair where he usually sat, leaned back, and enjoyed her last few minutes of solitude. Adele uncorked the second bottle of wine and let it breathe while she poured herself a glass from the bottle of bordeaux she'd opened previously. By the time she finished off the first bottle, the second would be more than ready to drink.

She'd only just lit up the second joint when she heard the hydraulic hiss of the biometric front door, signifying that someone was attempting to gain entry. It had to be Ryan. The door would only open for them and a handful of family members. She took a long drag on the joint and inhaled, letting the sweet-smelling smoke transfer its narcotic properties through the walls of her lungs and into her bloodstream. “I'm in the kitchen,” she called out to him as she heard the sound of retreating footsteps. When he finally made his way into the kitchen, she silently watched him go about his business, preparing a sandwich. She exhaled a cloud of smoke through her nostrils. Coupled with the redness tinging her eyes from the mixture of drugs now in her system, it gave her a dragon-like appearance. “Oh, by the way, I found your phone.” She observed the slight stiffening of his muscles and his sudden hesitation to look at her. “I grabbed the wrong phone when I got called in in the middle of the night and didn't notice it until this afternoon when I left. Unfortunately, the hospital's been keeping me incredibly busy.”

Adele took a sip from her glass of wine, set it back down on the table, and smiled at him, though the amicable look failed to reach her eyes. Ryan was familiar with that look; he'd often seen it on her face before she lashed out at someone who said something she found to be distasteful. She waited to see if he'd remove the phone from the table and think nothing of it, but her fiancé was much smarter than that. He'd known her long enough to be able to read her moods as clearly as the scars on his skin. “Would you care to elaborate on who 'Mistress Emi' is?” In spite of the drugs coursing through her system, they weren't clouding her judgement or the pain that she felt radiating through her chest. If she hadn't known any better, she would have thought that she was experiencing the symptoms of a heart attack, though in reality she wasn't. “I really hope for your sake she was worth losing my trust over.” The words came out laced with the iciness of a winter wind. “And before you chastise me about prying into your personal texts, it was an accident. But in the grand scheme of things, I think that infidelity ranks well above accidentally hitting a menu button on your iPhone.”

Taking the now empty bottle of wine into her hand, she contemplated throwing it at him, but quickly realised that wouldn't have accomplished anything and would only have left a shattered mess for her to clean up. Given the fact that she didn't feel much like risking a trip back to the hospital if she happened to slice her finger on a splintered glass shard, resorting to such a primitive means of communication was out. “So. Was she worth it?” She was usually more given to yelling when she was upset. Now, however, she was speaking with an almost detached coldness. The only thing keeping her rooted where she was at the present moment was the knowledge that she was far from being sober enough to drive, let alone murder someone and properly dispose of the evidence.

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

† Word count: 2211
۵ Mood: There, done. lol
† Outfit: In post.
۵ Lyrics / Quote: Beyond Your Borrowed Dreams, L'Ame Immortelle
† Illustrations: In post.
۵ Comment / Informational links: None

[Ryan D'Alteau]

I've looked outside. But I've never wandered out.
I'd like to pull you into me. Intercept you in between.
But I will never walk without. Outside.
That way, I'll always stay away from you!

______________________________Deftones - "Mein"

So that was how it felt. The memories of his weekend away in Harlingen were still fresh in his mind and, whenever the world around him fell silent, he was easily able to pick through all of the things he'd done while he literally hadn't been himself. He really didn't know how to rationalise or otherwise make sense of the divide between himself and Calla; this alternate side of himself who had grown far beyond a way to evade the watchful eyes of the government. In hindsight, that was an utterly stupid way to explain the turmoil he'd been going through. Even after his initial meetings with Sophie Nyström, he had denied that a burgeoning sense of femininity was something which applied to him. Dressing up had simply been a situation into which he'd been forced and, therefore, any reactions he'd experienced could be discounted as a reflex mechanism to avoid further embarrassment.

Of course, as time went on, this gradually failed to be the case. He enjoyed what he'd been made to do that night, just as he enjoyed his sporadic meetings with Leah and the rest of the circle of friends Sophie had introduced to him. On a more unusual note, he'd even enjoyed his work for Maurelle. Although, by its very nature, it made him an accessory to untold numbers of illegal acts, the tasks he'd been issued were enough of a diversion from the norm to keep him enthused and interested. He'd been a scantily-dressed secretary in an office as well as being one of the serving staff at a charity fundraiser, dressed up in a Star Trek-inspired dress made out of latex.

Regardless of how much she accepted this new facet of his life, Ryan was abundantly aware that the one thing that his fiancée didn't approve of was his frequent departures to indulge in the more... sordid activities he'd found himself tempted to do. Adele had, on numerous occasions, insisted that their relationship was built on a foundation of honesty between them. For the past year, she'd been drumming one thing in particular into his skull; that they should never keep secrets from one another. Adele, at least, had been forthcoming with just about everything Ryan had asked her. But it was clear that the understanding hadn't been reciprocated. Adele had been forced to find out about some of the things he'd done after he'd left or, arguably worse still, after he'd returned.

Of course, this wasn't to say that Ryan didn't have his own reasons for doing what he'd done. He had never been comfortable with simply asking his fiancée to assist him in the things he'd wanted to do. He'd been afraid that Adele would, for whatever reason, take some sort of issue with what he wanted and either turn him down or find some way to stop him. It had been the reason he'd driven out to Missouri alone to gun down members of Marcus Grant's family. It had been the reason he'd continued to work for Maurelle despite her disapproval. And it was also the reason why he'd snuck off to Harlingen for a weekend with a dominatrix. She hadn't been Adele, which meant that, for him, it wasn't as weird to ask her to humour him.

So, when he heard Adele casually remark that she'd found his phone; a phone which he'd mislaid for the last couple of days, the slightly nauseous void slammed into his gut like a cannonball. When she'd found out about his earlier "transgressions", their bond had managed to withstand the bout of arguing and reconciliation which had resulted from the fallout of Adele's revelation. This time, however, knowing full well the things he'd done over that weekend? Ryan simply wasn't sure. And, just like that, the dread began to creep into his head. He thought Adele would kick him out of the condo for this. He thought Adele would gut him with a steak knife, toss him into the Gulf and have his Zonda scrapped for this.

If she hadn't been delving through his inbox and internet history, Adele would have simply handed the phone back and remarked no further on the subject. But she didn't. On both counts. There was a constrained rumble in her voice; the one which told him and only him that he was in a mound of shit about as deep as the Mariana Trench. He was so fucked that a porn star would have winced and thought it a painful spectacle. There was going to be no getting out of this, leaving him no other recourse but to stand there like a bunny in the headlights and take what was about to come his way. "Would you care to elaborate on who Mistress Emi is?"

Definitely not a question Ryan wanted to hear asked by the woman sitting on the couch before him. His gaze was already all over the place, suddenly feeling too ashamed to look Adele in the eyes. Once again, he'd found himself faced with a problem and chosen the absolute worst way to go about solving it. And why? Because of his fear. The subject of his gender identity - whatever it might have been - was a long way from being something he could easily broach and take in his stride. It would likely remain like this until he'd finally made sense of it and accepted it as a part of what he was. But, in order to do that, he had to find someway to sate his curiosity. Experimentation was often the best way to do that. It was just he was scared of asking Adele to help him do it. "I really hope, for your sake, she was worth losing my trust over. And, before you chastise me about prying into your personal texts, it was an accident. But, in the grand scheme of things, I think that infidelity ranks well above accidentally hitting a menu button on your iPhone."

Still, Ryan remained silent. Was it really cheating; what he'd done? As far as he was concerned, cheating implied that he'd felt - however fleeting - a romantic attraction to another woman and made good on the urges associated with it. This wasn't anything like that. This had been something he felt he'd needed to do. Honestly, he was surprised that Adele hadn't thought about doing something similar, even if only to get back at him for his sneaky departures. Right now, though, Adele seemed to have made up her mind on the subject. "So. Was she worth it?"

For the briefest of perceptible moments, Ryan was tempted to say yes. The three days and two nights in Esmeralda's company had been enlightening in all manner of ways and, while he wasn't as close to a solution on a few of his questions as he would have liked, the experiences had certainly helped. He'd gone through things he'd enjoyed as well as things he hadn't and was somewhat wiser for it. The latter question was going to be one he'd dodge for the time being. "She's a dominatrix, if you're that intent on findin' out." With the way Adele often got when she was angry, Ryan knew that simply coming out of this argument alive was going to be tricky. She'd proved on multiple occasions that, when she was sufficiently pissed off, not even he was immune from her rage. The conversation Adele had likely seen would have been the one dated after his return; after Esmeralda had found out - presumably from Sophie - that Calla hadn't been all she first appeared. Biokinesis was a tricky thing, sometimes. Nevertheless, she'd taken it well and remained in contact. "I met 'er in Harlingen one night and... well, the session lasted a whole weekend."

Ryan wasn't going to say if his weekend had been worth it if he could help it. If he said yes, Adele would have likely flown off the deep end of whatever reservoir of anger was fuelling her and killed him. If he'd said no, she would have accused him of lying and done it anyway. So he attempted to move onto why. "I did it because I was scared, okay?" His eyes slid shut for a moment. He could feel Adele's eyes glaring in his direction. "I was afraid of what you'd say if I asked you to take a strap-on to me, out o'th'fucking blue." He hated being shy about the more "exotic" parts of his sex life with Adele, just as he hated "losing her trust" in order to get what he felt he wanted. A strangely dry laugh left his throat. Why was it that his apparent fear seemed to dispel itself when he was neck-deep in trouble with the woman to whom he was meant to be faithful? "So, yeah! I got what I wanted without feelin' like shit over wonderin' how best to ask you for it. Fuckin' sue me!!"

Slumping himself into the single-berth armchair, Ryan's gaze lifted up to the ceiling, his eyes closing once again. The conflict between what was right as per the tenets of his relationship and what he wanted was tearing him apart in that one place which mattered. He wanted to both be faithful to Adele and to experience the sordid things he felt he'd been forced into Esmeralda's presence in order to find. And, right now, he simply couldn't muster the courage to do both. Because that meant asking Adele instead of the dominant southern belle he'd met in Harlingen; the woman who seemed like she totally understood his problem. Adele understood too, of course, but that was different. Somehow.

[Adele D'Alteau]

It's our past that holds us captive
That made us who we are
That blinds us when we have to see
Beyond every scar

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

He was keen to dance around the point that had obviously incensed her. Hadn't he learned over the years that they'd been engaged that he could share quite literally anything with her without fear of judgement? She couldn't have cared less if he had a mistress or four on the side as long as she knew about them and he ultimately returned to her arms at night. If that was what it would take to make him happy, then she was more than willing to oblige.

But this blatant disregard for her trust had wounded her, and there was only just so much the combination of alcohol and THC could hide. As much as she wanted to remove his head from his body with the Damascus steel Santoku knife on the across from them, her conscience wouldn't allow her. Besides, physical pain only cut superficially deep; emotional pain sank into the bones.

“She's a dominatrix, if you're that intent on findin' out." Ryan informed her. She tapped the ashes from the joint in her hand and stared at him blankly. No, she hadn't been 'that' intent on finding out. Adele raised her eyebrows and gestured for him to continue with a graceful flick of her fingers. She wasn't trying to be flippant with him; she still hadn't completely processed precisely what she'd found in his phone. Granted, she knew about his frequent forays delving into the more feminine side of his nature as Calla, but she couldn't quite grasp what he'd been aiming at accomplishing by spending an adulterous weekend away from her. “I met 'er in Harlingen one night and... well, the session lasted a whole weekend.”

“The session?” The anger she'd been doing her best to keep chained away started to test its restraints. Her fingers tightened around the delicate glass in her hand until she was certain it would shatter and she'd be left with nothing but the jagged, broken stem in her fist. The only thing that stopped her from crushing the glass and causing herself seriously bodily harm was remembering that she'd promised herself that she would hear him out. Closing her eyes, she relaxed her grip and took several deep breaths until her anger reached a more tolerable level that she could control.

Ryan looked conflicted. There was something in his eyes and the way that he submissively dropped his gaze that gave her pause. It was abundantly clear that in their relationship, she was the alpha to his omega. “I was afraid of what you'd say if I asked you to take a strap-on to me, out o'th'fucking blue.”

And in that instant, most of her anger dissipated. That was what he'd been so worried about? Considering the other things that they'd done during their more erotic encounters, a strap-on seemed . . . vanilla. She was still mad at him; of that there was no doubt. Whatever had transpired that weekend was in the past, and there was nothing she could do to change his experience.

By now, he'd taken a seat across the table from her and she found herself trying to read the expression on his face. Shame? Enjoyment? Fear? "So, yeah! I got what I wanted without feelin' like shit over wonderin' how best to ask you for it. Fuckin' sue me!!"

Fear. What did he have to be so afraid of?

She wasn't really shocked by his sudden revelation. Maybe it was the potent cocktail of drugs in her system, but there was just something incredibly funny about how serious and shy he was being. A strap-on? There must have been a missed connection somewhere in the wiring of his brain. Rather than take the much simpler route of just asking her, he'd had to over-complicate things and crush the trust that they'd worked so hard to build—over a simple request for use of a marital aid.

“Well, for one thing, I believe it would have been much more cost-effective to go the route of confiding in me rather than blowing . . . ” How many miles to the gallon did their Zondas get? Not much. “ . . . a lot of money making a weekend trip out to Harlingen and back.” A small chuckle left her lips and gradually crescendoed into unbridled laughter. Of all the things to be worried about considering the much more macabre things they tended to enjoy behind closed doors—a strap-on was what he was concerned about? At least they'd upgraded from using regular, unsanitary kitchen knives to sterile scalpels she procured online whenever they felt the need to express their adoration in more painful and permanent ways.

She abandoned her glass of wine and left the remainder of her joint smouldering in an ashtray as she stood up and made her way into the kitchen. Oh, she was still mad as hell at him, but that would dissipate in time. At the very least he was being honest with her right now, and that was more than she could have hoped for, given her bushmaster-like temperament when she was overcome with rage.

The scalpels were stashed in drawers all over the house purely for the sake of convenience. She knew where they were by muscle memory alone, and retrieved one from the drawer nearest the sink. Grabbing a packaged sterile scrubber doused in rubbing alcohol, she bumped the drawer shut with her hip and briskly walked back to the table, placing the handful of surgical implements on the table in front of Ryan. Much to his surprise she sat astride his hips, facing him, and grabbed the hem of his shirt, cautiously lifting upwards to reveal his chest, which was patterned with a number of delicate scars that she'd carved into his flesh. Reaching behind her, she grabbed both the scalpel and the alcohol-laced scrubber and removed each of them from their plastic packaging. She wrinkled her nose as the potent stench of the alcohol wafted into her nostrils and placed the scrubber over the first scar she'd ever put on his body; her name. Counting silently in her head, she rubbed the area in an expanding circular motion for roughly half a minute, then used the pad to briefly rub down the blade of the scalpel. Sterilisation had always been paramount in their blood-play; neither of them wanted to end up with gangrene or some other severe bacterial infection.

The tip of the blade kissed his skin and the blood began to flow as she followed the lines of the scar that she'd first created years ago. “You really do vex me sometimes, you know that?” She completed the downstroke on the d and retraced it a second time. “That you're afraid of how I might react.” Adele lifted her eyes. Her laughter had ceased, and she could feel the sting of tears in her eyes. “ . . . that you're afraid of me.” There had been times when she'd lashed out at him—but those circumstances had been extreme. Adele sighed and resumed deftly tracing the collection of grayish-pink lines on his chest which comprised her name. “When we first met, I fell in love with you. Everything else is secondary. But I can't be there for you if you don't let me in.”

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

† Word count: 1310
۵ Mood: work, yey!
† Outfit: Same as previous posts.
۵ Lyrics / Quote: Sometimes Love is Not Enough, L'Ame Immortelle
† Illustrations: None.
۵ Comment / Informational links: Mmmyeeeh. Meh.

[Ryan D'Alteau]

First, there was the one who challenged all my dreams and all my balance.
She could never be as good as you.
You could be my unintended choice to live my life, extended.
You should be the one I'll always love. I'll be there as soon as I can.
But I'm busy mending broken pieces of the life I had before.
...before you.
______________________________Muse - "Unintended"

With the state Ryan was in, it was actually slightly harrowing to watch his fiancée react to everything he said and did. He knew full well that the way he'd gone about fulfilling his fantasy had been far from the best he could have come up with but, as ever, he had over-complicated the entire situation. Regardless of the things they'd done in bed together, it was precisely these things to which he found himself mentally blind whenever he was faced with a desire to try out something new. Be it masquerading as Calla McKnight for his job as Maurelle's assistant or something as simple as wearing a cute dress and lingerie around the house, he'd always done them without consulting with the one person on the planet - at least, the only one within easy reach - who would completely understand where he was coming from.

He'd forgotten that there was a colossal walk-in wardrobe filled to the proverbial rafters with an assortment of BDSM and fetish gear in their bedroom. He'd forgotten that, on multiple occasions across the past half-decade, they had taken bladed implements to each other's flesh in a macabre and almost sickening display of their boundless devotion. He'd forgotten that, contrary to what many men would have believed about the subject, he had had a threesome between himself, his fiancée and his ex-girlfriend and, to put a further maddening spin on the proceedings, it had been Adele who had come up with it! Compared to all of this and the myriad activities besides, cinching a rubber representation of what was stashed between his thighs to Adele's crotch and asking her to use it on him sounded almost mundane.

"Well, for one thing," Adele began, sighing as her dark frown began to crack. "I believe it would have been much more cost-effective to go the route of confiding in me rather than blowing..." Ryan hadn't been all too good at reading facial expressions at the best of times and, with his mind ravaged by anxiety as it was, trying to discern what his fiancée was thinking was bordering on the impossible. For a fleeting second, Ryan's mind hung on the hesitation in Adele's words, wondering just which of the many contexts she was going for. Was she doing this deliberately? "...a lot of money making a weekend trip to Harlingen and back."

The fuel consumption figures for a Pagani Zonda made for painful reading at the best of times. Even when following the speed limit and driving safely, the Italian-built V12 engine struggled to perform well on an economy run and, when Ryan planted his foot to the floor, he would have been lucky to see such figures making it to double digits. As had been said on his favourite motoring show, his engine produced the sound of money exploding. With the city he'd chosen - mostly to get away from Adele - being forty miles away, he'd ended up using around four gallons of fuel over the weekend; a figure he realised was being generous. It may have been somewhat expensive to refuel the car so regularly but, now that he was making seventy-five grand a year - the source of which was best glossed over in polite conversation - it wasn't as much of a concern as others might have thought.

But it was what Adele's mood did next that baffled him most of all. He could smell the odd, yet familiar mixture of red wine and the fruits of their small subterranean hydroponic farm in the air and, with the regularity with which they indulged in both, it was a wonder the police hadn't kicked down the door already. Of course, Ryan was worried about this eventuality. Adele wasn't. She had spent the vast majority of the time following her return home almost incensed with rage, trying desperately to rein herself in before the wine glass in her hand snapped beneath her grip. But now, she couldn't help but laugh. And not the kind of laugh that berated the futility of an impending victim, either. This was a full-on laugh of amusement.

It was a laugh she maintained until she got up to leave the room. Of course, Ryan certainly knew better by now than to think that Adele's apparent amusement was a sign of forgiveness. It was nothing of the sort. She'd simply seen how silly he was being and had found herself amused by it. He had paid attention to the woman as she'd left his company, but he found himself paying quite a lot more when she came back. In her hands sat quite a familiar bundle of paraphenalia. Having realised that their penchant for etching their love for one another into their flesh carried far more than its fair share of risks, especially for Adele, they had invested in some medical-grade tools with which to do the job; tools to which Adele, being a clinician, had easy and almost unrestricted access. She was able to order or steal the disinfecting wipes and scalpels pretty much with impunity.

Realising what was likely to come, Ryan made no effort to resist as his fiancée sat herself astride his legs and gently lifted the hem of his shirt up. Taking the hint, he quickly tugged the garment off, allowing Adele access to his bare chest. The scrubbing wipe was applied first, transferring the sterilising alcohol onto his skin as though she was preparing him for surgery. Satisfied that both it and the blade were as clean as they were going to get, Adele began to gently cut into Ryan's chest; retracing the downstroke on the d which contributed to her name. Now, the laughter had been replaced again; this time by the threat of tears. "You really do vex me sometimes, you know that?" Her irises, clear of the ebon darkness of her ability which usually presented when she was emotional or just plain pissed off, were instead glistening with moisture as the tears tried to force their way out. "That you're afraid of how I might react. That you're afraid of me."

Ryan really didn't know what to say. He wouldn't have said he feared her all the time. But, with a woman who often viewed herself in some way predatory and inhuman, there were times when he genuinely did. There were times when she had lashed out - either at someone they barely knew or him, specifically - where, deep down, he'd actually feared her and what she might do. She could quite easily have killed him along with Agents Matheson and Valensi all those years ago, dumped him on the Staten Island ferry and forgotten all about him. But she hadn't. For whatever reason, she had always been dragged back from the brink of doing something she would find herself regretting when it came to being angry at Ryan.

So, instead, he waited for her to finish speaking. "When we first met, I fell in love with you. Everything else is secondary." Occasionally, he would let out a tiny noise of pain as the scalpel blade sundered the scarred flesh she'd left on his chest long ago but, by now, he'd mostly grown accustomed to the pain which radiated outward from the intentional wounds she gave him. It was either adrenaline from the pain or endorphins from the knowledge that Adele was reponsible and he was getting morbidly turned on by it. He didn't know which. He'd have to ask her. She was the doctor, after all. If anyone had an idea, it would be her. "But I can't be there for you if you don't let me in."

She was right. Again. He'd wanted to let her in. He'd wanted so very much to be able to take the easier, less complicated option and just ask for what he craved. For all the things he'd done, Adele still hadn't left him and, with the world the way it was right now, it had to count for something. The least he could do was try to follow her advice. Try to be a better husband for her. "You're right," he sighed, slowly leaning back in the couch and allowing Adele to work her magic on his chest. "I'm sorry. You know, I tried finding the courage to ask you; before I... found advice elsewhere. But, for some reason, I just couldn't do it. I am afraid of you. Sometimes. But I still can't stop loving you and... I guess that's what keeps making me make stuff like this more complicated." It had always been the way he'd dealt with problems, even before he'd met Adele. He simply bottled them up until something caused them to spill uncontrollably. Whether it was a murderous rampage or a sexual fantasy, the principle was always the same. It was why the Company had thought of him as Adele's subservient lapdog, he surmised. He simply had a much greater tolerance for the various wrongs and slights levelled against them but, once that tolerance faded, he was just as fearsome, if not more so, than his shorter fiancée.

"Y'know something..?" Ryan eventually asked, his head shifting down slightly to look at Adele once more. He was mostly ignoring the blood slowly spilling down his chest. He knew that Adele's ability was already on top of the situation and would stop it from getting out of control. "I'm actually... kinda surprised you haven't done something like this. Well, not this; not what I did, but... well, tried to entertain some... fantasy you've always wanted. I mean, you let me have a threesome with my ex." Yes, the threesome may have been Adele's idea, but Shelly hadn't been her ex-girlfriend, had she? "It'd only be fair. C'mon, there's gotta be something. Anythin' you want, I'll go along with it. For you."

So what if he was deflecting? It was only fair that he try to make a fantasy of hers into reality.

[Adele D'Alteau]

Pardon the way that I stare
There's nothing else to compare
The sight of you makes me weak
There are no words left to speak

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

"I'm sorry.” Ryan sighed, attempting to offer up an apologetic gesture. Her tears had ceased for the time being; now the only moisture on his chest was from the blood weeping from the precise strokes of the scalpel over his skin. Before the sanguine liquid could reach the top of his waistband, her ability was already in full sway, staving off the flow as she continued. You know, I tried finding the courage to ask you; before I... found advice elsewhere. But, for some reason, I just couldn't do it. I am afraid of you.”

She lifted an eyebrow questioningly. What had she ever done to him that would have made him fear her? The only time she'd attempted to kill him was when she believed him to be dead in Level 5 and believed that he'd somehow come back to haunt her, not realising that he wasn't a grief-induced hallucination. Adele knew that she had a rather nasty temper when it came to Ryan (or someone else—Maurelle came to mind) putting himself in immediate danger.

“Sometimes,” he clarified, seeing the confused look on her face. “But I still can't stop loving you and... I guess that's what keeps making me make stuff like this more complicated."

That didn't make a lick of sense to her. If he loved her so much, discussing such matters should have come naturally. But she wasn't going to press him about it. She thought back to the beginning of their relationship and traced it's nearly five year timeline in her head, trying to think of any instances where she'd feared Ryan, but came up empty. There had been countless times when she had feared for him, but she never had a fear of him. Of the two of them, she still considered herself to be the one who had a more volatile nature and fearsome temper when her ire was aroused.

"Y'know something..?" A few minutes had passed, and she'd added yet another inscription to his chest just underneath the five bleeding letters which spelled out her name. Tu es à moi. While it was only three letters longer than her name, she'd taken great care to scribe it into his flesh with the flair and perfection of a calligrapher. She looked up at him and shook her head. "I'm actually... kinda surprised you haven't done something like this. Well, not this; not what I did, but... well, tried to entertain some... fantasy you've always wanted. I mean, you let me have a threesome with my ex."

She paused in her gruesome work and stared at him through the darkness in her eyes. It gave the chilling impression that she was piercing through the levels of his mind down to the centre of his being. The question had given her pause during which time she had to ask herself whether she had any fantasies that she wanted to act upon, and she came up empty. "It'd only be fair. C'mon, there's gotta be something. Anythin' you want, I'll go along with it. For you."

Adele took a deep breath and set the scalpel back onto the table so that she wouldn't risk accidentally cutting his face. After giving herself a moment to think, a smile settled on her lips and she lifted her bloody hand to stroke his cheek. “Chaque jour que nous sommes ensemble, c'est mon fantasme.” Unlike Ryan who was English-born and bred, she was French which made her slightly more predispositioned towards being a hopeless romantic. She really didn't have many fantasies and the ones that she did have, she'd already acted out countless times with Ryan. “Mon seul fantasme est de passer le reste de ma vie à côté de vous.”

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

† Word count: 721
۵ Mood: Awwww.
† Outfit: Same as previous posts.
۵ Lyrics / Quote: Can't Take My Eyes Off You, Muse's version of the famous song
† Illustrations: None.
۵ Comment / Informational links: Short, but sweet. D'awww, Adele.

[Ryan D'Alteau]

Today, I've seen the shallow face I wear.
Inside this shell, a living hell endures!
I'm held captive by my fears: decaying hope and wasted years!
The knife of time carves another line around these eyes!
Good and evil! Lust primeval! Dragging me into a sea of lies!
______________________________Symphony X - "Sea Of Lies"

Ryan couldn't help but glance down as his fiancée's calligraphic hand continued to scribe into his chest. Over these past few years, the sensations of pain from having Adele take a scalpel to him - and, more importantly, being able to stomach the prospect of watching her do it - were things to which he'd become accustomed. He knew that his reaction to what was going on was far from normal. He wasn't moaning in pain, nor was he trying to shove the short doctor away and dash for the door. He was sitting still, remaining mostly quiet while the woman he loved set about proving it. Under her careful concentration, Ryan was in no danger. Her medical training meant that her hand wouldn't slip and her ability would mean that his blood loss would be kept to a minimum.

Beneath the letters which comprised her name, Adele had been busy crafting more, deftly working the scalpel until the small sentence was revealed in a series of deep red lines. Tu es à moi, it said. You are mine. It was a sentence which could be construed in a variety of ways, whether it was Adele proclaiming it to Ryan or vice-versa. They had been intertwined and inseparable for years and this, like just about everything else, was only another act by which they proved the point. She remained utterly silent while he spoke, both out of a need to retain her concentration and to think about her upcoming response. Ryan, on the other hand, was struggling to fathom just how he was able to get away with this much.

He'd ventured out on his own volition to do a number of things which his fiancée had taken issue with though, as much as he might have thought so, Adele's issues rarely resided under the purview of him being wrong. More often than not, she understood his reasons for doing what he done, especially over the past year or so. He'd murdered Marcus Grant's family because, in a fit of rage during their parting of ways with the Company, he had vaguely promised such. Although she was now alive and well after the fact, Ryan's mind had been unable to get over the fact that the former Staff Sergeant had - out of his loyalty to Grace Harper - restrained him; stopped him from trying to save Adele's life. It didn't matter that there was little he could have done at the time. What had mattered was that he'd been prevented from making the attempt.

He'd taken up Maurelle's job offer because a sense of gentlemanly pride had commanded he do so. If there was one thing Ryan hated, it was to appear as though someone was pulling his weight for him. No matter how many times Adele insisted that it was fine, the fact that he wasn't helping to pay for the lifestyle they shared never really sat right with him. To him, the fact that he was working under a criminal and masquerading as his feminine alter-ego in the process was mostly irrelevant. With the seventy-five thousand dollar annual salary, he was more than able to field "his share" of their collective expenses. And now, not so long ago, he had spent the weekend with Esmeralda Duquesne - Lady Emi - because he had felt an unyielding need to experience a rather unusual fantasy with the assistance of a certain biokinetic.

And, once again, Adele wasn't really angry with him. Sure, she'd mentioned that he'd destroyed their trust with his so-called infidelity but, if precedent was anything to go by, that trust would be as good as new in a couple of weeks. In all honesty, they had already been through far worse and, while he wasn't going to say it, Ryan knew damn well that Adele knew it. It wasn't long before his rambling explanation - why he couldn't simply get to the point, he'd never know - managed to give his fiancée pause and, when it did, her gaze finally rose to once more be level with his own. As he'd expected, her eyes were utterly black while her ability worked to stem his bleeding and, after a moment or two, she returned the scalpel to the nearby table and smiled.

"Chaque jour que nous sommes ensemble, c'est mon fantasme." Ryan sighed through his nose as Adele's bloodied hand caressed his cheek. This wasn't what he'd meant though, with Adele being firmly rooted in a French ancestry, it was almost stereotypical for her to be something of a romantic. "Mon seul fantasme est de passer le reste de ma vie à côté de vous." Her only fantasy, apparently, was to spend the rest of her life with him. They'd both said that hundreds of times already. They knew that it would take nothing less than a cataclysmic disaster to pry them apart and, even then, betting on their separation would have been pushing it.

"Ce n'est pas ce que je voulais dire." So he might have been a little bit horny. So what? "We already know we're gonna be together forever." The strength of their relationship was about as much a certainty as the sky being blue because of the science surrounding the atmosphere's interaction with sunlight, that much was obvious. "But I'm serious, Adele. With what you've got fillin' that wardrobe upstairs, y'can't seriously expect me to believe that you've got no fantasies aside from some melodramatic one-liners y'prob'ly stole from a soap opera." He wasn't sure why Adele hadn't come up with anything. Whether it was because she was wary about voicing an idea for fears of how he'd react or simply that there was nothing left they hadn't done, Ryan was almost tempted to goad her into coming up with something, but chose not to force the issue. "I mean, I've already told you what I want ya t'do to me and, honestly, what I want right now is somethin' fun. No guilt, no worryin' about whatever arm of the government's gonna come after us next; just something we've not done before. Even if it's a threesome you're callin' the shots on. I bet ya could talk me into anythin' if you put your mind to it."

[Adele D'Alteau]

Such ugliness laid eyes on you in conversation, plain to see.
Your signals, clearly advertising, stressing the obvious to me!
Oh, bite your tongue, is it too much to ask for, can't you just for once, keep it in.
Oh, please don't say it , - spare me your painful arrogance!

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

"Ce n'est pas ce que je voulais dire."

Of course that wasn't what he meant. “Je n'aime pas ce que vous vouliez dire.” Adele paused. The only reason why she'd given him the rather 'soap opera-ish' sounding answer was because she was stalling. There were fantasies that she'd entertained with him, and they'd acted out most of them—short of making love on a public beach, but only because she didn't feel like digging out grains of sand from some rather uncomfortable places.

Sexual fantasies weren't something that she gave much thought to since her mind was usually entertaining more gruesome ideas outside her line of work. She and Ryan had already acted out their own personal version of Natural Born Killers which had gone over about as well as a lead balloon. At least the Company had lived up to their end of their parting bargain; the authorities hadn't followed and charged them with anything. The murders which had taken place in Level 5 had been swept under the rug, all but erased from the Company's history.

“In that case, I'd be open to the idea of meeting your dominatrix lady friend.” Whether she would allow Ryan's lady friend to keep her current life or thrust her into Amentet with a mere glimmer of thought, she really couldn't say. She knew she couldn't hide her true motivations from Ryan since he could easily pluck them out of her mind if the mood struck to possess her. “I also wouldn't mind having a swimming pool filled with blood at my disposal. I'd settle for a jacuzzi or a bathtub at the very least” She knew he'd never oblige to the latter even though she was more than capable of making it happen. Aside from the fact that they would have needed to procure enough blood for each of the devices which could have kept the entire American Red Cross stocked for at least a year, there were blood-borne pathogens to think about. That, and given blood's rather annoying habit of liking to clot in hard scabs unless it was constantly in motion, her dream of literally swimming in a pool of blood would have to wait. “In the meantime, however, I'll settle for meeting your mistress.”

Hopefully that particular meeting would have a more positive outcome than the meeting that she and Ryan had had with Maurelle Lacroix, his employer. She'd never liked that woman even though she said that she had Ryan's best interests in mind. As far as Adele was concerned, only she and Ryan had his best interests in mind, and Maurelle was little more than an annoying interloper in their life's story. Ever since their initial meeting, they'd been cordial, though it was a struggle for her to maintain her composure all the time, and Ryan knew as much, which was probably why he kept his two lives very separate.

Adele moved out of his lap and set about cleaning up the small mess that she'd made, throwing out the used scalpel into a bright red biohazard bin she'd installed on the foremost wall of the kitchen. She returned to the table and pulled a thin sheet of cigarette paper from the from the compact Zig-Zag box she'd set next to her herb crusher and the bag of loose marijuana. With the deftness of a skilled pro, she rolled a large joint and lit it with her lighter, inhaled, then passed both of the items to Ryan, blowing a thick cloud of smoke out her nostrils. “You could even go as Calla, if you like.” Unlike several of her peers in college, she'd never experimented much with sex and considered herself fairly straight. The thought of finding another woman attractive, while it wasn't unsettling, just wasn't encoded in her DNA. That being said, she would do what she could to change and honour Ryan's wishes. “I can't make any guarantees that your lady friend will necessarily survive the encounter, but I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.”

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

† Word count: 817
۵ Mood: CO, plz 2 unfuck my headers. ): Oh, wait, is not Adele's headers. I mean unfuck Felicia's headers. Plz kthxbai
† Outfit: Same as previous posts.
۵ Lyrics / Quote: Always Within the Hour, Sopor Aeternus
† Illustrations: None.
۵ Comment / Informational links: Ten bucks says the CO's next CC will be Anna Varney-Cantodea.

[Ryan D'Alteau]

So you see I try. I cannot ever displace.
You see I'm jaded at times. From nowhere, leaving this place.
So you see me die right in front of your face.
See? I'm jaded at times. From nowhere, leaving this place.
______________________________Orgy - "Revival"

"In that case," Adele began, dodging her fiancée's veiled request. "I'd be open to the idea of meeting your dominatrix lady friend." For a moment, Ryan's eyebrows quirked upward. He knew perfectly well what likely transpired whenever Adele expressed a desire to meet someone - especially a woman - that he'd met. Even though his fidelity was (relatively) beyond reproach, there was just something about Adele's mindset whenever she was faced with a potential romantic rival that never failed to whip her into a frenzy. Whether it was a scathing threat or something more proactive, witnessing Adele doing something was a near-certainty.

"I saw that one coming," Ryan sighed, basking in the hot throbbing stemming from the wounds on his chest. His fiancée had already worked on halting the usual blood flow from his reopened scalpel wounds and, free from the danger of passing out from exsanguination, all that really remained after the fact was the pain from his sundered skin and even that could be abated through the use of Adele's ability. She was great whenever he fell ill. These days, he was lucky if a cold lasted for an entire weekend. "Anythin' else you want?"

"I also wouldn't mind having a swimming pool filled with blood at my disposal." Ryan's face instinctively wrinkled in disgust. The sight of blood on its own didn't bother him, given how much of it he'd spilled over the years, but the thought of Adele intentionally bathing in it like that Bathory woman made him shudder. "I'd settle for a jacuzzi or a bathtub at the very least." Not a chance. Ryan was more than happy to do anything he could for his fiancée, but this was out of the question. In addition to the fact that he'd need to steal enough blood to make even Dracula think his actions excessive, there was the matter of blood-borne disease. If this was really one of Adele's fantasies, then it was one which would have to remain in her mind. Unless, of course, they managed to find a harmless substitute which happened to look like blood.

But that was a thought for another day. "In the meantime, however, I'll settle for meeting your mistress." She knew that this was a fantasy Ryan wouldn't dream of entertaining verbatim and was using it to play him; to steer him into giving her another thing she wanted by way of compromise. "Well, I'm not seeing the guns, masks and other stuff we'd need to rob th'nearest blood bank," he grumbled. Ryan knew he was being played. But he also didn't want to throw up any red flags for the government to see. At least, when he was working for Maurelle, he had an alias to hide behind. So meeting Esmeralda it was, then. "So I guess I'll settle for letting you meet her. As long as you behave."

Even if Ryan had to strap her down to a chair, he was going to make sure Adele behaved. He'd grown tired of her antics when it came to meeting people he'd befriended. Even when she felt she had a damn good reason for reacting the way she did, such as when she had strangled Michelle at the Hallowe'en party, Ryan only came away from such events feeling annoyed at the woman beside him. Were he in a relationship with anyone less, he would have likely left them then and there. Adele was different. Adele was his guide as much as he was hers. They needed one another and, as Adele cleaned up the mess and returned with a large joint, they reached the unspoken consensus that they needed that too.

"You could even go as Calla, if you like." That would certainly have been a way to make the encounter more interesting. Once he was hidden beneath his prosthetics, he was a different person entirely. After so much practice, it wasn't all that difficult to transform himself from one persona into the other. Calla was even a less abrasive version of himself; perfect for hiding in public. She was the friendly and polite side to Ryan's usual brand of baleful disdain. It was relaxing to be Calla. He got far more out of it than just wearing the feminine clothes. "I think I will," he mused, taking the joint from his fiancée. Of course, with Adele being Adele, it wasn't exactly going to be plain sailing. "I can't make any guarantees that your lady friend will necessarily survive the encounter, but I suppose we'll cross that bridge when we get to it."

"I'll just stop you," he responded flatly. All he'd need to do is flex his mind and his will would be so. It worked on just about anyone and Adele was no different. She knew it. Getting up for a moment, he grabbed his phone from where Adele had left it and returned to his seat. "And we could always see if she ain't busy. It'd take a while for her to come out here, though." Forty miles was quite the trek for anyone. But, if anyone knew how to ply a person with rewards, then it was Adele. After all, she'd had the two Pagani Zondas delivered to their condo from Las Vegas rather than the two of them driving the cars back.

Ryan was a little surprised that Adele seemingly hadn't discovered Esmeralda's number on his phone. Then again, she could quite easily have spotted it and just not said anything. There was no telling with her, sometimes. After a few navigated menus, Ryan turned the phone around until the screen faced his fiancée, with a small smile on his face. "Well? What do you say?" A single press of a button would place the call. "Wanna see if we can do something more fun than getting high?"

[Adele D'Alteau]

There's no magic-man wandering here,
who's wand I'd want to touch!
Well, I don't mind a handsome face
but none shall ever make me blush!
I never bowed before a statu(r)e
for I'm the Gorgon's work of art,
I am not dying to be kissed
there's no fire in my well-sedated heart

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

She could tell by the way he occasionally winced as his upper torso twisted to follow her movements that he was in a certain amount of pain. Good. She wanted him to feel the pain; let it be a physical manifestation of her own internal rage at him for lying to her. If he was looking to her to ameliorate the impulses of pain being relayed from the highway of nerves which criss crossed his chest along with her elegantly scribed scabs, he was sorely mistaken.

"I saw that one coming."

Adele snorted at him. No, what he'd seen coming was the not-so-thinly veiled threat that his 'mistress' would be leaving their apartment in a handful of plastic litre-sized bags filled with chum-sized morsels of her dismembered body parts. Living close to the Gulf had its benefits. She could easily rent a paddle boat and paddle a few miles off shore to go feed the sharks she knew lingered just off the shoals, stalking the warm waters for fish.

In return, she knew that he would shoot down her other request of a blood-filled bathtub or swimming pool; that was a battle she would need to put on the back burner, at least for a little while. Like any normal person, Ryan flashed her a look of disgust at the mere suggestion that what their condo needed was a hollowed out hole filled with gallons of the sanguine fluid. "Well, I'm not seeing the guns, masks and other stuff we'd need to rob th'nearest blood bank."

“Who said anything about robbing a blood bank? I could just as easily bleed you until I had enough.” She knew damn good and well that Ryan would be disinclined to acquiesce to her request. In all fairness, though, it wasn't like she'd let him die. She was far too skilled for that. She could keep replenishing his blood supply as quickly as he bled it out, provided that he kept himself adequately hydrated and filled with essential vitamins and minerals so that his body didn't go into shock.

To her vague threat that she might not be able to control herself around the woman Ryan was so keen to call his mistress, she narrowed her eyes at his response. "I'll just stop you.”

“I don't think you would. But we'll see.” The last time that he'd possessed her (albeit to save his own life), it had taken her months to finally forgive him for essentially invading her mind without her permission. She continued to glare at him as he got up to retrieve his phone, presumably to call his mistress and finished off the joint he'd left smouldering in the ash tray. She kicked her feet up in his lap when he sat down and made herself comfortable as Ryan contemplated what to do next.

"And we could always see if she ain't busy. It'd take a while for her to come out here, though." From what she recalled, Esmeralda lived roughly forty minutes from them. In Adele terms, that was a 10 minute drive. "Well? What do you say? Wanna see if we can do something more fun than getting high?"

“Yes. Tell her I'll give her four grand if she can get here in the next half hour. Two grand if she's a minute late.” That would give her enough time to drive to the bank and withdraw the money from their account, discretely tuck the bills into an envelope, and return back to their home in time for the festivities to begin.

†††
۵ ۵ ۵

† Word count: 710
۵ Mood: Annoyed Adele is annoyed.
† Outfit: Same as previous posts.
۵ Lyrics / Quote: The Virgin Queen, Sopor Aeternus
† Illustrations: None.
۵ Comment / Informational links: None.

[Ryan D'Alteau]

Don't you want to hold me, baby?
Disappointed, goin' crazy!
Not even from the sun! Don't you want me to run?!
______________________________Serj Tankian - "Sky Is Over"

"Yes. Tell her I'll give her four grand if she can get here in the next half hour. Two if she's a minute late."

It was certainly an enthralling incentive for anyone but, unlike Adele, Ryan was not the type to make demands of people which would change their existing plans too much. Not all the time, anyway. With the press of a button, his phone began to dial the number, placing a call to the enigmatic dominatrix he'd met not so long ago. Ever since spending the weekend in Harlingen, he had been unable to forget the nights he'd spent in her company, nor could he forget the things they'd done together. Adele probably didn't have the means or desire to replicate some of those things, but he hoped there were things he could talk her into in future.

Forty miles away, the buzzing of plastic on wood signalled the call reaching its destination. Across the room, the phone's owner stood imposingly over her "guest", watching as they carried out actions at her behest. The bed was in dire need of being remade, replacing all the dirty sheets and ensuring that everything was straightened out and, rather than stoop so low as to do it herself, Esmeralda had another course of action in mind. "Make sure you put two pillows on each side of the bed, Jessica," she ordered calmly, smiling as the woman quietly obeyed. Jessica was one of Esmeralda's regular clients and, whenever her finances allowed, she made an effort to try and have at least two appointments a month.

What she enjoyed most of all was to act out scenarios in which she played the part of some form of vocational subordinate. Whether it was assuming the guise of a secretary, a personal valet, a cook or, in this case, a hotel maid, there was something about willingly taking orders from Esmeralda in such a fashion that never failed to turn her on. She took the tasks and punishments in her stride, keeping her mind firmly set on the rewards at the end; rewards which often involved the loss of her uniform and a more personal encounter with her "boss". "Of course, Mistress," she chimed, straightening out the cute headpiece she'd been ordered to wear before adjusting the bunch of pillows.

Esmeralda had already noted the fact her phone was ringing, momentarily electing to keep her attention on Jessica in the hopes that whoever was calling would simply give up. The fact that her phone was still buzzing suggested that they were being persistent. "Keep working," she commanded. She knew full well that Jessica wouldn't but, as part of the woman's fantasy, the superior needed to be almost perpetually on top of her with regards to ensuring that she was doing her duty. "I need to take this." Treating it as part of the scenario, Esmeralda strode around her maid and snatched her phone from the bedside table, pressing the button to answer it before having a chance to look at the screen. "Hello..?"

"Uh, hey. It's.. Ryan." Now that Esmeralda was aware of his dual identity, he was once again a little unsure of how to refer to himself. "Are you busy?"

Glancing back, she continued to watch Jessica as she worked diligently on making the bed. "I'm in the middle of a session right now, Calla," she began, subtly emphasising Ryan's feminine name, both to let Jessica know who she was talking to and to reassure the conflicted person on the other end of the line. "But I can talk for a little while. What is it? Is there something you need?"

"Do you do housecalls?"

"I've been known to, occasionally." A smile crept across the dominatrix's lips. She'd been waiting for the moment when Ryan - or Calla; he hadn't yet made a full decision on which name he preferred - would call to book another session with her. Ryan made a great submissive, once he was fully immersed in the role set out for him. "Why do you ask? Want me to pay you a visit?"

"My fiancée and I do, yeah." Ryan didn't want to break up whatever she was in the middle of doing but, when Adele got an idea in her head, it was rather difficult to stand in her way. "She'd be willing to pay you quite a bit if you got here quickly."

"Define quite a bit."

"Four grand if you make it here inside half an hour. Two grand after that." Ryan knew that Adele had only said that the reduced payment was for being one minute late. He also knew that she was likely glaring daggers into the back of his skull at his latest response. He didn't care. He would do anything in his quite considerable power to make sure Adele behaved herself. Esmeralda, on the other hand, was momentarily stunned. Even if she didn't make it to the condo in half an hour, the housecall would still net her far more than her usual going rate. There was likely some sort of catch to this whole affair. "Sounds a little suspicious to me, to be honest." It was one of those too good to be true payouts. Normally, she would have flat-out refused such a thing but, with it being Ryan on the other end of the line, she felt content enough to take the plunge. "Tell your fiancée that I'll be there. I need to finish things up with someone first, so I likely won't make it inside a half-hour. Anything in particular you want me to bring along?"

"Adele does have quite a lot of stuff here already," he replied, smiling as he recalled the extent of the contents of the large closet in their bedroom. "Though I'd like to see the, uh... the outfit y'had me wear on Saturday night."

A brief chuckle rang though the speaker. "I'm sure we'd all like to see you in it. Consider it done. I'll see you later, Calla." And that was it. The invitation had been sent and Ryan's fate for at least the next couple of hours had been pretty much sealed. "She says she might not be able to make it in half an hour. But she'll be here. Promise me you won't carve up her, me or yourself."