Free Dangerous by Sandra Kishi Glenn

In my mind’s eye, I imagined the sheet as being robin’s egg blue. “You’d better pray this doesn’t slip off. I’m not stopping to fix you,” she warned. Then she opened the glove compartment and slipped a pair of bulky sunglasses over my blindfold. They didn’t sit quite right with the blindfold covering my nose, but it was snug enough. She withdrew, closed the door, and walked smartly around to her side and got in. The wind rocked the car slightly. In this small space, the air felt close.
    The car beeped as it woke up, and then we were off, gliding in her strangely quiet electric car down the winding road that lead to the freeway, with only the sound of tires on roadway and airflow over the canopy. I hoped the tinting on her windows was darker than I remembered it.
    This time there was no stopping , the safeword could not halt this scene; I was committed. My clothes, my very identity, had been left behind. For the very first time I’d let Val maneuver me into total vulnerability, which was terrifying, yet shockingly erotic. Could I trust her?
    I prayed Val wouldn’t have an accident, that she wouldn’t get pulled over by the highway patrol, that no busybody housewife in a passing SUV would see down into our car and phone in a kidnapping. I mentally pictured the Amber Alert sign at the White Oak exit glowing with the urgent message:
    ABDUCTION IN PROGRESS
BLK SPORTSCAR LIC#7PYJ643
    I clutched the thin sheet tightly and tried not to think about the million ways this could go horribly wrong.
    Usually Val played music while driving, but not this time. I think she she wanted me to hear every car we passed.
    §
    By the time we pulled into a sloped, curving driveway, twenty minutes later, I was slightly motion-sick from the blind ride. I knew we were near the ocean from the sound of gulls and the breaking of waves to my right. I could smell it, too, and the air was cooler. I guessed we were somewhere in Malibu.
    She stopped the car and got out. My stomach fluttered with the knowledge that whatever Val had in mind, it began now. She opened my door and took the sheet and sunglasses from me, but left the blindfold as it was. After putting the things in the trunk she helped me rise from the car, apologizing when I bumped my my head lightly on the roof. The sensation of warm sunlight and cool wind swirling over my bare body was delicious, made sweeter by my lack of vision.
    The concrete driveway was almost too hot for my bare feet. But it was only about twenty paces before she brought me into shadow, up a couple of steps. A door opened, and I was led inside. Here I heard voices and the sounds of activity in another room. The door closed behind me.
    Val untied the blindfold, and my dark-adapted eyes took a moment to adjust. I stood in the foyer of a large house at least as large as Val’s, and saw open crates stacked against the wall as if equipment had been brought in and set up. She explained: “This is a friend’s house. She was kind enough to lend its use while she’s away in Europe. Isn’t it lovely?"
    As I looked around, taking it all in, she had eyes only for me. Presently she said, “Doll will stay here,” and walked down the hall. Left there by myself I felt small and lost, unsure of what to do with my hands. Presently she returned with a man, saying, “Stephan, this is my doll Koishi; she’ll be our model today.” She pronounced it Steh-FAHN , accent on the second syllable, making it sound Continental, or maybe just pretentious. I noticed, also, that she made no counter introduction, him to me.
    “Hello, Koishi.” His handshake was light, pleasant. He was younger than Val, about my age, but I could easily imagine them existing in the same social spaces. He also had a slightly vampiric flavor about him, though more tan and dark-haired. He wore dark slacks and a sky-blue buttoned shirt that complimented his blue-gray eyes.
    “Give us a nice little turn, pet,” Val told me, and I obeyed