Yeah, I knew that was coming.
“Let’s get inside.” I grab her hand and take her inside my office, closing the door behind us. I take her to the large couch at the end and I grab the bottle of whisky sitting on the coffee table. I fill both our glasses trying to gain some time as I ponder how much I should tell her.
It fucking hurts that I just can’t come clean with her, but it's Strokes’ story and I can’t dishonor my promise to her. Not even for the woman I think I’m fucking falling in love with.
I’m sorry, but that’s just not my story to tell, and I wouldn’t do it without Strokes’ permission.
And as paranoid as she is about our operation, I doubt she’d
ever let anyone not involved in the nitty gritty of what we do to ever find out. There are just too many risks.
“I know you don’t want to tell me, and I just want to understand the why of it, Austin…”
“Look, Destiny, all I can promise you is that there’s no sex trafficking going on in here,” I look her straight in the eye, trying to make a believable face.
It’s so fucking hard to keep a straight face when you’re trying to have someone else believe you. “I swear to you, I’m not that kind of man. In fact, if you have ever thought Python is part of a sex trafficking operation, we’re just the opposite of it.”
Right.
You thought I was moving girls around because I was trafficking them, didn’t you?
Don’t fucking lie if you’re shaking your head.
Well, I’m not.
“I know what kind of man you are, Austin,” Destiny is saying to me. “And I don’t believe you’ve ever be involved in something like that, but this woman you call Mistress Strokes? Who is she?” Destiny asks me.
“I know nothing about what’s going on, Austin, and it’s making me fucking crazy!” She throws her hands up in the air in an exasperated motion, and then sinks in her seat, putting down her glass of whiskey after looking at it and almost giving a shocked look.
“Mistress Strokes,” I say and then trail off. “Fuck, Destiny, it’s complicated. I wish I could tell you all about Strokes, but her secrets and her story aren’t mine to tell.”
Destiny looks at me and raises her eyes. “But I fucking trust her, and that’s all I can tell you,” I finish.
“That’s alright, Austin,” I hear someone say from just outside my office, and both Destiny and I turn to look at the newcomer at the same time. Standing in the doorway, her hand still around the doorknob, is Mistress fucking Strokes.
She straightened her hair and cut it just below the shoulders, but she kept it dyed blue. Destiny is looking at her, and I can tell she’s appraising her.
She’s never seen the Mistress up this close. Judging by the look in her eyes, I realize that Destiny never thought Strokes was this beautiful.
“Destiny, right?” Mistress Strokes asks her with a smile, sitting down in the twin sofa facing us.
“That’s me…” Destiny says quietly, subdued. “And you’re Mistress Strokes,” Destiny says, more a statement of fact than anything else and I notice her voice fraught with caution.
She knows that she’s about to get her answers, and she wants to tread lightly now.
“That’s right, darlin,” Mistress Strokes says. “In the flesh,” Strokes adds as she turns to face me. “Do you trust her, Austin?”
“I do,” I reply without hesitation. “I trust her with my life. I love her.” I don’t need to say anything else; Strokes trusts me completely, and I know that she only needs to hear what I just said to trust Destiny. Its been a long process for her to accept that someone so entangled in Lester’s web can be trusted, but I guess that she’s finally ready for it.
“Very well then,” she whispers, lowering her voice, “I have a story for you, Destiny.”
And here we go; it’s time for our secrets to be let out in the open.
81
Destiny
I lean toward Mistress Strokes in my seat, ready to finally find out what’s really happening.