Chapter 56

The rest of Valerie’s work week glided easily by; but her dreams grew more vivid, erotic, and distracting.

Friday morning, an extra lap around Lucca’s property and a cold shower were barely enough to let her focus on the day’s work; but she blessedly managed to lose herself in designing, implementing, and documenting another of the system components she was tasked to build.

Valerie jerked in surprise when she felt Lucca’s hand on her shoulder. She pulled borrowed headphones off her head and blinked dry, aching eyes.

“Sorry, did you say something?”

“It’s half past six and it’s Friday, I think you can call it a day. You’ve really done great this week.”

They squeezed her shoulder reassuringly, and feeling the strength of their hand through the thin material of her t-shirt set Valerie’s heart racing.

She would have rather not stopped, preferring instead to bury herself in work until she was exhausted enough to collapse into sleep. She knew without asking that Lucca would not permit that.

With a sigh of frustration that had nothing to do with Lucca or her work, she closed the laptop lid and stood up, her back aching from the hours of poor posture that the folding chair encouraged. She winced as she tried to stretch the tightness out of it.

“You okay there, girlie?”

“Yeah, yeah. I mean… no, yeah. I’m okay.”

“Right,” they replied drily, unconvinced. “Sure. What is it?”

Valerie turned to face Lucca. Their face showed genuine concern; but she was distracted, for an embarrassingly long moment, staring at their hands. She could not help but imagine those same strong hands wrapped around her neck, pushing her back against a wall. She worried she was panting.

“It’s just… the pills that Dana sent. Do you know what they are?”

“The letter said not to tell you.”

Valerie shook her head.

“No, no. I know. I’m not asking… I just mean, do you know?”

“I recognize a few of them, but they’re not labeled. Just numbered bottles. One of this, two of that, three of the other.”

“One of them… or, I don’t know, several of them, are… distracting. Very distracting.”

Lucca placed a hand against the girl’s cheek gently, an honest expression of concern. Valerie shuddered slightly as their fingers brushed her jaw, grazing her neck.

“If there’s a side effect or something, I can ask Dana…”

They’ll help, a part of her thought, thirsty and desperate. Just tell them. Ask them. They’ll help.

Valerie, sighing, gently removed Lucca’s hand from her face. She stroked her thumb across their skin, hoping to signal something between gratitude and approval.

“I’m okay. I don’t think it’s a… side effect. I just… I’m going to rinse off in the shower before dinner, if that’s okay.”

Dana had punished her once already for allowing Lucca to bring her pleasure. She was sure whatever the woman had in mind as penance for a second infraction would be significantly more severe.

She did not what to think what Dana might dream up as punishment if she learned Valerie had begged Lucca to break the rules.

Valerie was sure that Dana had sent the mixture of hormones and vasodilators purposefully, with full knowledge of the effect they would have on her, and that the distraction and frustration were intentional and planned.

In the silence of Lucca’s guest room, Valerie rested on her back and stared up at the darkness. Even as her eyes eventually dark-adjusted, the scattered fragments of moonlight that found their way through the window blinds only let her dimly see shapes and faint washes of light across white drywall.

She drifted off to sleep, trying not to think of Lucca’s fingertips brushing along her jawbone.

Her dreams were scattered images of shattered stoneware, claustrophobia, and the mixed aromas of gasoline, car exhaust, and asphalt. Car exhaust became the smell of leather, which shifted into the sensation of a leather collar on her neck.

The collar’s grip became the feeling of Lucca’s hand wrapped around her throat, while the other held her arms above her head, her back to the kitchen wall. They pressed her back by her throat, and the other hand released her wrists and slid down the side of her body, around to her stomach, and headed even lower.

In the way of dreams, Lucca lifted her off of her feet one-handed, though she felt no fear of suffocation, only a racing heart and the feeling of herself hard, straining against the tight steel cage. She raised her hands to grip the forearm that held her, but the muscles there were like marble, and she could do nothing other than hang on.

Valerie moaned, and suddenly snapped awake, realizing that she had vocalized the moan aloud, even from beneath the veil of dreams.

Her ardor cooled as she lay alone in the guest room, steadfastly forcing her thoughts elsewhere. She was unable to descend back into sleep. Her mind worked itself in circles instead, chewing over her internal debate about staying with Dana versus casting herself on the mercy of the larger world.

The pay from her work with Lucca definitely changed the calculus, but the project had only just started. She tried to steel herself against the possibility that she would falter and fail. The likelihood, a small voice whispered in from the darker corners of her mind. The certainty.

Even if the work went well, she reminded herself, Lucca’s promise was no more than that. Promises were broken all the time, and as far as she could recall, other peoples’ promises to her had been broken far more often than kept.

She drifted into a listless half-sleep, but dawn light stabbing through the gaps in the window shades dragged her back to full wakefulness. She knew Lucca would not be awake for two or three more hours, and, with a sigh wistful for the quiet of sleep, she dragged herself out of bed and dressed for her morning run.

“I’m going to do some flying today, if you want to join.”

Lucca had slept in even later than Valerie had expected, so after her run and the subsequent shower, she had started laundry and then scrubbed the guest bathroom until it was spotless. She had waited for Lucca to be up before eating breakfast.

She paused eating her oatmeal and looked up at them across the kitchen island.

“Flying?”

“My plane, remember? Just some practice time.”

Valerie remembered the plane, though foggily. She had glimpsed it a few times in its hangar, of course; but the fragmented images from that night out on the highway were what she thought of. They were burned into her memory, somehow both indelible and indistinct.

Recalling that dark road, the car trunk, and the absolute certainty she had felt about her fate released a surge of adrenaline. Her hands trembled, her spoon clattering against the bowl. She pressed spoon and hand against the kitchen island, hoping Lucca did not notice the shaking.

In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to find somewhere dark and safe to hide.

“I’m…” she stumbled over her words. “I need to… I’m going to shower. And then clean up around here I think, if that’s okay. Maybe… maybe organize the office some?”

“Sure, no problem. Suit yourself,” Lucca shrugged, giving her a look that was half puzzlement, half suspicion. “Stay out of trouble, yeah?”

Valerie started her cleaning in the kitchen, since she had dirty dishes to tend to anyway; the work was enough to distract her. While she cleared off, scrubbed, and then re-organized the counters, she heard the plane engine start outside, followed not long after by the window-rattling white noise roar of takeoff.

She moved on to organizing Dana’s office, but that was slow going, and she found herself getting easily distracted by the dozens of half-started projects there were to sort through. She did her best to create neat piles, but figuring out what sheaves of paper, plastic prototypes, half-built electronics, and obscure electronic components ought to be grouped together was no simple task.

More than a few of Lucca’s projects turned out to be kinky, similar to her collar or the sculptural bondage wall in Dana’s bedroom. Valerie tried her best to move past these quickly, especially after she caught herself zoning out and fantasizing for fifteen or twenty minutes.

She had been absent-mindedly running her fingers along her inner thigh, bare below her running shorts, while staring at a sketch for something that was rigid steel, either a sort of body harness or a wearable cage that would lock on around shoulders, chest, torso, hips, and upper thighs.

Valerie eventually abandoned the office cleaning project when her growling stomach reminded her that it was closing in on dinner time, and she had forgotten to eat lunch. She had made progress, tidying the space without changing too much the location of each project. The papers and objects in the various piles did not have homes, but the space felt neater and more orderly after her work, and that was satisfying enough.

After a brief internal debate, she decided to wait for Lucca before eating, even just a snack. For want of any better distraction, she re-opened the lid of her laptop and started digging in to the following week’s work.

A short time later, just as the sky was beginning to fade into dusk, Valerie heard the distant hum of an aircraft engine, and she saved the notes and files she had been working on and closed the laptop. She did not think it was a grave infraction, but she knew Lucca would not be thrilled about finding her working in their absence.

Lucca had flown to Oakland, they explained, seen to some personal business, and brought back what they described as the best pizza in the Bay Area.

The food had cooled a little in flight, but it was easily revived by a few minutes in the oven, and Valerie happily ignored any reservations she had about the meat toppings Lucca had ordered. She was ravenous and the pizza was, indeed, some of the best she had eaten.

She collapsed into bed that night, stuffed with a little too much pizza and mentally drained from all the cleaning, organization, and other work.

Two more weeks, she thought. Not even. Thirteen days. Three hundred twelve hours. I can last two weeks.