Kill Switch Read online

  Amber cleared her throat, interrupting Igloo’s thoughts.

  “Just promise me you’re not going to distract Diana and Ben with your project.”

  Igloo stared, but Amber just stared back. “Fine, I won’t poach them.”

  “Thanks. If you need to borrow anyone else, let me know and try to give me a few weeks’ notice, so I can plan around your request.”

  “Sure, fine.” Shit. When had Tapestry become so bureaucratic?

  Amber stood and waved a goodbye, which Igloo halfheartedly returned.

  Igloo didn’t believe Angie could be as out of touch as Amber made her out to be. She hopped off the drum stool and left her office to find Angie, whose office was at the opposite corner of the building.

  Matt sat guard outside Angie’s office. From her position partway down the hallway, Igloo debated with herself. Should she stride past, ignoring his control over Angie’s calendar, thereby asserting that she had the right to meet with Angie and would not be subject to his power? That would probably anger him. Or engage directly with him, cultivating future goodwill but fostering his own belief in his power over her? He was staring down at his desk. Maybe this was her chance to make a run for it.

  Her phone vibrated. She pulled it out. A message from Matt.

  Matt > She’s not here. She left a day early. She’s in NY.

  She looked up. Matt waved at her from his desk. She sighed and walked down the hallway.

  “She’s on the road visiting all the offices.”

  “When’s she back?”

  “Next Tuesday, for a day. Then she goes to Boulder for a board retreat. Then she’s delivering the keynote at DevOps Enterprise Summit.”

  “When can I actually talk to her?”

  Matt glanced down at his computer “I can get you thirty minutes when she comes back on the 20th.”

  “In two weeks? No, thanks.”

  “You want a fifteen minute Skype on Monday?”

  “Never mind.”

  Igloo turned and stalked back to her office, almost bumping into Maria.

  “Hi, Igloo.”

  “Hi Maria.” Igloo tried to sidestep her and keep going without breaking stride, but Maria stepped the same way. Igloo shrank, tried to slip by, but Maria held out a hand.

  “Let’s get coffee together,” Maria said.

  “I’m working on something important. I kind of need to get back.”

  “That’s what I want to talk about. I want to learn more about what you’re doing. It won’t take long.”

  “How about tomorrow?”

  “I’m free now. How do you take your coffee?”

  Shit. She wasn’t getting out of this. “Espresso shots, and a lot of them.”

  “Great. Let’s go to my office.”

  They passed the espresso stand and the break room and wound their way to Maria’s small, interior office. Igloo wondered where the coffee was coming from, since they’d passed up all the sources of caffeine.

  “You don’t have a window,” Igloo said.

  “Nah. It would have felt funny, with so many people who have been here longer than me, to have co-opted one of those suites. What right do I, a newcomer, have to a premium office space? I should earn it, right? If there’s one available when we move to a bigger building, great. If not, no biggie.”

  As Maria talked, she pulled a hotplate out of a cabinet and plugged it in. She set a small copper pot on the hotplate, poured water in from a pitcher. She glanced at Igloo. “As long as I have out the ibrik, we’ll do the whole thing the traditional way.”

  She measured coffee beans in the palm of her hand, then emptied them into a handmade clay bowl and pulverized them with a ceramic pestle.

  Igloo watched with rapt attention. This was different.

  “Can I convince you to take it with sugar?” Maria said. “It’s the traditional way.”

  “Sure.”

  Maria carefully measured and added sugar to the water and stirred in the coffee grounds. She removed the spoon and turned the plate on. She didn’t speak as she waited for the coffee to simmer. When it did, she removed it from the heat, waited a bit, then put it back on to boil again. She repeated the heating a third time, the coffee forming a thick foam on top.

  After the final iteration, she turned the heat off, let the coffee sit for a minute before pouring it into two ceramic cups.

  “That’s quite a process,” Igloo said, putting her hand on the cup.

  “No wait, the coffee has to settle,” Maria said. “This was one of the more useful things I learned stationed over there.”

  Igloo glanced up reflexively. The military of all things? It didn’t get more hierarchical, or patriarchal, than that.

  Maria caught the look and shook her head. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to go all gung-ho on you. I did my time to pay for college, that’s all. I’m done with all that now. How about you? Where’d you go to college?”

  “MIT. And Stanford.” She felt guilty over her privilege. “I got lucky with scholarships.”

  Maria gestured toward the coffee. “Try it now.”

  Igloo raised the cup, smelled it, and took a sip. The coffee coated her mouth like something alive, dark, and bitter.

  “That’s nice,” Igloo said.

  “Glad you like it,” Maria said. “I understand we have you to thank for the AI personalities.”

  Igloo nodded, suddenly shy again. She hated talking about herself.

  “I’m sure you know this better than anyone else, but our data shows kids who are engaging with the AI are 30 percent happier than they were a year ago. Forty percent less likely to have suicidal thoughts. Most are doing better in school, especially females.”

  All true. Igloo knew the precise numbers off the top of her head, but experience told her people didn’t want exact numbers.

  “Angie gets most of the notice here, but I think you’re the real hero of this company. You ever think about doing more to raise your visibility? Giving talks?”

  “It’s not really my thing. Talking to people.”

  “Hence the AI.”

  Igloo nodded.

  “Well, there’s no pressure, but if it’s ever an interest, you’ve got a good story to tell, and you deserve recognition for it. At any rate, I hear from Angie that you’ve moved on to a new project for her. I was surprised. You’ve been involved with the AI bots since the beginning, and I assumed you’d keep working on that. What made you decide to change?”

  Angie had asked her to keep the project quiet, but it seemed like she’d told everyone else about it. Igloo sighed. She didn’t want to talk about getting bored. Wasn’t going to admit how distracting Essie was. Wasn’t even sure she was ready to admit that fully to herself.

  “Privacy is another passion of mine,” Igloo said, picking something that was true. “Everyone should have basic expectations that what they say or do online is theirs and theirs alone.”

  Igloo briefly imaged what would happen if she wasn’t careful to segregate her purchases with a different account, subtly different name. Rope, duct tape, and floggers would pop up in ads and as recommended purchases everywhere she went. She wouldn’t be able to browse the web in front of anyone else without them wondering about her. Of course, she ran an ad-blocker, so maybe the point was moot.

  “Tapestry has already done so much for privacy,” Maria said. “Simply by allowing users to take ownership of their own data. We’ve cut down on third party access dramatically and put it all under the control of the users. Is there a point at which we say we’ve done enough for privacy?”

  “We’ve done a lot in Tapestry itself,” Igloo said, “but everything you do that’s not on Tapestry is still vulnerable. Which websites you visit, all your communications with them if the connection isn’t encrypted. If a person wants to…” Igloo’s mind went right to her own fantasies. She wasn’t going to admit any of those things. She went for something relatively innocuous. “If they wanted to dress up as a panda and have sex, then isn’t
it their right to keep that information be secret? With that information in the wrong hands, they could be blackmailed, lose their job, their kids.”

  Maria smiled. “One could make the argument that only secrets can get you blackmailed, and that if all the information is out there, then nobody has any leverage on you. Keeping secrets is the problem. But—”

  Igloo set her cup down with a bang. “Privacy is not just about secrets. It’s about respect for the individual. If I want to keep something private, then it’s disrespectful and a violation of my desires to not do so. And it’s not just about—”

  “Hold on—” Maria tried to interrupt.

  Igloo raised her voice. “It’s not just about secrets. It’s about putting limits on power. The more someone knows about us, the more power they have over us. If I have a secret desire for a Tesla, but can’t really afford one, but Tesla uses knowledge of my interest to direct ever more persuasive advertising toward me, then they can manipulate me into buying a car, even though it’s not really in my best interests to have one.”

  Maria held up both hands, but Igloo kept going.

  “It’s about maintaining reputation and appropriate boundaries. If I’m sexually assaulted, that’s my own personal business to disclose or not. I don’t want other people judging me or seeing me through a particular filter unless I choose to tell them. Privacy is freedom. When governments and businesses make decisions about me based on data they’re sniffing about me without my awareness, I lose autonomy and control over my own life.”

  “Are you done?” Maria asked. “I was trying to say that I don’t believe in the privacy-is-obsolete argument, but I could see how others would pitch it. It’s good you’re ready with counter-arguments.”

  “Oh.” Igloo shrank down inside her hoodie.

  “It’s okay. Look, I really appreciate your passion on this topic, and now I see why Angie wants you working on this project.” Maria glanced down at her phone and swiped a notification away.

  “Thanks,” Igloo said, her voice small once again.

  Maria stared hard at her phone and started typing fast. She glanced up. “Anything you need in way of support, just let me know.” She gestured with the phone. “I’m really sorry and don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve got to deal with this.”

  Igloo stood up and made her way toward the door.

  “Hey,” Maria called. “Next time, you show me your favorite coffee.”

  Igloo nodded, but Maria had her head buried in her device. She walked back to her office, a slight bounce in her step. Contrary to her initial opinion, Maria wasn’t so bad. Downright nice, almost.

  Chapter 5

  Igloo loaded the last of the rope in the toy bag. It had taken a few weeks of asking around in the community to find someone she actually had interest in. Charlotte, a friend of a friend, was looking for a rigger. They’d chatted online at first, then met for a drink to negotiate a scene, and now, almost before she knew it, their date was here.

  She was excited about tonight, but also nervous about playing with someone new, and even a little panicky to be going out without Essie. Brimming with strange feelings, she desperately wanted to talk to Essie about everything. But it was too bizarre and scary to talk with Essie about these feelings. She felt too guilty to describe how excited she was, for starters.

  A flash of red in the bag caught her eye. The leash she bought for Essie after they started dating, when she learned that Essie liked to be led around at public parties. She grabbed the leather lead and held onto it tightly. The leather was alive in her hand, filled with memories: the first time she clipped it onto Essie’s collar, the first time she led Essie up the stairs at Deviance to one of the private rooms, the look in Essie’s eyes as she stared into Igloo’s eyes, so full of trust and love and fear and want. So full of memories.

  She could never use the leash with anyone else. Essie was on the bed right behind her, and she didn’t want to pull out the leash and draw more attention to it. She wasn’t sure she could explain her feelings. She squished it further down into the bag. She’d keep it safe, just for Essie. She zipped up the bag and turned around.

  “Well, that’s—”

  Essie sat on the bed, shaking, her face held in her hands.

  “What’s the matter?” Igloo climbed up next to her, and wrapped Essie in her arms. “What’s going on?”

  Essie shook her head but said nothing.

  Igloo stroked her hair. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have a good time with her, then leave me.”

  Igloo suppressed a nervous laugh. The idea was absurd. “It’s just a play date. We’re going to play. Nothing more. I love you. I don’t want to leave you at all.”

  “What if she’s more fun than me?”

  Igloo felt sudden relief. She’d read an article about polyamory by a therapist who had the perfect answer for this worry. It felt good to know what to say for once. “I’m sure I will meet people who are different than you, maybe better at certain things, and worse at others. I’m not going to lie. It’s inevitable, I will meet people who are smarter or funnier or sexier. Everyone does, sooner or later. But I will still choose to be with you because you are unique and not replaceable.”

  She went on hugging Essie, resisting the urge to look at the clock. She needed to go soon, but she didn’t want to leave Essie in distress.

  “Why aren’t I enough for you?” Essie said.

  “This isn’t about you,” Igloo said, trying to keep her voice even. Fudge, this had all been Essie’s idea in the first place. “This is about us trying new things, exploring. Figuring out what works for us and not mindlessly taking on the structures dictated by society. Remember? We want to design the relationship that works for us, not just adopt the same template everyone else uses.”

  Essie nodded slightly but pulled Igloo closer. Igloo resisted the urge to pull away, and instead went on holding her tight.

  Eventually Essie drew back. “You need to go, or you’ll be late. I’ll be okay.” Her voice cracked.

  “You’ll be more than okay,” Igloo said, her heart aching for Essie. Why was she so worried? If only she could feel what Igloo felt, if only she could understand that Igloo would never do anything to put their relationship at risk. “We went into this together. You want to date, remember? You’ll find someone soon, and then it’ll be my turn to be consoled.”

  “You seem to be totally fine,” Essie said, turning to face Igloo, and reaching up to touch Igloo’s cheek.

  “Because I know I love you and I won’t leave you, not for anyone else I meet, and certainly not for a random play date.” That was true, to the depths of Igloo’s soul. Now if only she could get out of here and get to her date.

  Essie grabbed Igloo’s hand. “Okay. I trust you.”

  Igloo leaned in and kissed her. “I will be worthy of that trust.”

  Igloo lay out the jute, one length after another, six of the eight-meter hanks first, then two shorter four-meter pieces. The jute she’d use for bodywork. She had hemp for her uplines, because she liked the safety margin of the stronger rope.

  Unlike some of the other venues that had more mood lighting, the space was well-lit. Since tonight’s party theme was rope, the floor was covered with foam pads, and the black and red bondage furniture that would normally have been spread throughout the main dungeon room was pushed up against the walls. There was room for at least eight scenes, maybe more if people really crammed in.

  Throughout the room, other riggers prepared their own kits or were already starting in on ties. Around the perimeter, people gathered to watch. Some came to the party merely to spectate, but most were looking to play.

  Essie had insisted on doing her nails earlier, and now her black metallic polish glittered as she handled the rope. Given the freakout right before she left, it was surprising Essie had been willing to help her get ready.

  She couldn’t think about that now. She was too nervous. She’d never tied anyone
but Essie.

  “Hey, Igloo.”

  Igloo looked up to see Charlotte standing next to her. From her photos, Igloo could tell she was attractive and lithe, with a dancer’s body. There was a special joy in the anticipation of tying someone smaller than herself and getting to use her body to dominate the other person. Here in person, Charlotte was even cuter.

  She swallowed hard. She was really going to do this.

  Many people dropped their Fetlife handles in real life and went by first names, but Igloo had lived too much of her life online for that. She liked handles, liked that people could choose who and what they were, could tailor their identity the way they wanted. On the other hand, she couldn’t very well go around calling someone BabySlut. So Charlotte it was.

  The room was warm, kept that way intentionally since most of the bottoms would end up naked or nearly so. Igloo had left her usual hoodie at home and was wearing what she thought of as her rigger’s uniform: a pair of black gi pants and a black racer-back tank.

  Igloo stood. “Can I give you a hug?”

  Charlotte nodded and they embraced.

  Charlotte’s skin was soft and smooth, and she smelled good. Really good. Maybe this would be fun after all.

  “I’m a little nervous,” Charlotte said.

  Igloo held back a wry smile. Ironic that she was nervous, too. Well, as the Dominant here, she wasn’t going to let on that she was nervous. It’s not that it would scare the bottom, per se, but it wouldn’t reinforce the Domme-in-charge balance that was so tricky to maintain. She’d have to fake it until she made it.

  “There’s nowhere I’d rather be than right here,” Igloo said. “We’re going to have a great scene.”

  “I’ve only been tied a few times,” Charlotte said.

  They’d discussed all this online during negotiations. When Igloo had told her rope teacher she was going to be playing with others, he’d suggested she use written negotiations to avoid ambiguity and misunderstanding. “Everyone’s happier when they get what they expect,” he’d said.