June 13, 2014
"Nice night," he called out softly from somewhere over her shoulder, and in the darkness Olivia scowled.
"Don't you have somewhere better to be?" she asked coolly, keeping her back resolutely turned towards him, refusing to let him see her face. The last thing she wanted was to stand out here in the warmth of an almost-summer night and speak to that man, and she had half a mind to tell him so. But the last time Kosta had come to the house his guard dog had come out onto the terrace, and there had been no reason for Olivia to suspect that he wouldn't again; maybe she'd known from the moment she stepped outside that Elliot Stabler would find her here. Maybe she'd wanted him to. She'd rather die than admit it, though.
"Nah," he said easily. Behind her she could hear the steady sound of his footfalls drawing ever nearer to her, his boots thud thud thudding on the concrete steps of the terrace, and really, really she should have seen this coming. "Kosta's busy talking shop with Sinatra. Told me to get lost."
"Sounds like Kosta had the right idea," Olivia grumbled.
It was a warm night, a clear night, the kind of night she'd love to spend playing with Noah or sitting with her girls, laughing, but it was a Friday, and Friday meant business. No party, tonight, no fifteen thousand dollars in her pocket before the first drink was served payday, but there were guests, still, including Sinatra and Kosta conspiring together in the corner in a way she did not like, but could not stop. The men had every right to use her couch to plan their war, and she had left them to it, left Brian drifting through the parlor, keeping an eye on things while she got some fresh air. The second she'd stepped outside he'd leveled a look at her like he knew exactly what she was doing and he didn't approve of it, but it wasn't like she needed his permission. It was her fucking house, she'd go where she pleased.
"You're angry," Stabler said, and she almost gasped; he was suddenly, unexpectedly very, very close to her, standing right behind her shoulder, closer now than she ever let any other man get, apart from Brian. If he'd been anyone else she'd have snapped at him, told him to back up, reminded him that entry to the house was reliant upon a certain decorum in the guests, but she didn't want to show vulnerability to this man, didn't want him to think for one second that she was afraid of him.
"Wow, no wonder you're a detective," she answered mockingly. "Intuition like that-"
"You were never the target, Olivia," he said.
She didn't believe him, not for one second.
"But as soon as you walked through that door I got caught in the crosshairs," she pointed out. On reflex she turned her head towards him, only remembering at just the last second that she didn't want to look at him, her gaze slanting off his face as she spoke over her shoulder. He really did have a nice face, even with the beard. The beard just made his eyes seem warmer, softer somehow, made up for the lack of hair on his head, made him seem strong in a way she liked. None of the other men who frequented her house wore beards; his was something of a novelty.
"We're both just doing our jobs," he said, not unkindly.
He had a point.
It wasn't that she hated his job. That was just the way the world worked; good guys, bad guys, and the innocents caught in the crossfire. Someone had to go after people like Kosta, like Sinatra - like her - but it was a fight that would never end. For every bad guy taken down a new one would assume his place, and some new lawman would come for him, and on and on it would go into eternity. There was no good without bad, no law without crime, no light without dark. The duality of nature called for both of them, Elliot and Olivia, to play the parts that had been written for them. She didn't hate him for being a cop.
But oh, she wanted to hate him for lying. When he'd talked to her that night a few weeks ago when they'd first stood out on the terrace together, he'd told her he was impressed with her, asked her how she'd got into the business, and she'd thought…she'd let herself think that maybe, just maybe, he actually meant it. That he was actually interested in her, that he did actually want to know, that for the first time in a decade she'd found someone besides Brian and Noah who looked at her and saw a person, and not just the madam. But it was all a lie; he'd been interrogating her, without her even knowing it, had only been asking because he was a cop, because when this job was through he was going to take her down, whatever assurances he tried to give her now.
"I still want to know, by the way," he said, and as he spoke he began to circle slowly around her, coming to a stop right in front of her. The only way to avoid his gaze now would be to actually turn around, but that felt too childish, no matter how petulant her heart was at present. If he wanted to see her face that damn bad, let him look; he'd see the anger in her eyes, and maybe if he was smart he would relent.
"Know what?" she asked.
"About your tat."
The answer threw her and she stared at him for a moment, caught off guard. She'd expected him to ask about the business, to ask once again how she'd ended up here, how she'd managed to build her empire and protect it, all the questions a cop would need to ask about a criminal enterprise before he knocked it down, but he hadn't. In deference to the warmth of the night she'd pulled her long hair up into a loose ponytail, and he must have glimpsed the lines of ink on her skin beneath it while he'd stood behind her, and it had made him curious, made him want to know what it was. That thought didn't sit too well with her; she didn't want him fixated on it, didn't want him to keep asking about something she had no intention of sharing with him. The mark was too personal, and no one got to see it, no one but Brian, who had glimpsed it first fifteen years ago, when it was still a work in progress, who had known all along what it was, what it meant, how much it cost.
"It's a long story," she said. Don't hold your breath, she thought, but as he stood there in front of her, hands tucked in his pockets and a thoughtful expression on his face, she found some of her anger fading. She couldn't trust this man, but she couldn't afford to piss him off; there was no point in being angry, now. The pair of them, they'd need to be careful with one another, each of them holding the other's life in their hands. No, she'd need to tread lightly, with him, and continuing to antagonize him tonight would do her no favors in the end.
"Something to do with how you got here?"
"Why do you want to know?" she answered, careful not to sound too pugnacious. "What good does it do your case, knowing where I came from?"
"Not building a case against you," he replied. "I'm just asking 'cause I wanna know. For me. I'm curious."
"Nothing good comes of a cop getting curious about a whore."
"Hey, don't call yourself that."
The funny thing was, she thought, he seemed sincere in his defense of her. Like he really didn't like it, her saying whore, like he really thought she deserved better.
"It means something different here than it does out there," Olivia told him, waving her hand towards the fence, towards the world beyond the walls of the house that had become her home, and her prison. "In here it's more of a job title than an insult."
Oak House had always been an old-fashioned sort of place, and the language used there had always been old-fashioned, too. At least, it had been when Olivia was young, when she first came to this place, hungry and scared, when Liz had been in charge, and everyone deferred to her like she was the fucking queen. Olivia had let a lot of the old traditions - like the mark - die off when she took over, but she could still see the evidence of the old madam's hand on her life, on her soul, in so many ways.
"Still," he said. "It's not like that's really your job anymore, anyway."
"You think I'm not for sale, Detective?"
His eyes widened, slightly, as if he sensed that he'd walked into a trap and didn't quite know how to find his way out of it.
"You told me once you have a price," he said slowly. "You telling me there's guys who pay it?"
"Nobody recently," she answered. It had been about five years since she'd last taken a customer, but somehow she didn't want to tell Elliot that, didn't want to get into specifics. "But, yeah."
"How much?" he asked curiously.
"Seriously?"
"Yeah, seriously. How much?"
"Fifty thousand."
"Dollars?" he choked, alarmed, and she couldn't help but laugh.
"Told you you couldn't afford me," she reminded him smugly. "If somebody wants the top prize he's gotta be willing to pay top dollar."
The amount was important. It had to be egregious, astronomical, more than any other woman in the city could command for a single evening. It had to be preposterous, but finite. An amount that could be paid, if a gentleman was so inclined. An amount that made customers fantasize, in idle moments, about what sort of woman could be worth so much, and what it might be like to spend a night in her bed. It kept the balance of power swung in her favor, and the old timers knew that it had been paid, at least once, and so could pass that information along, could give the new blood something to aspire to, even if none of them were ever brave or reckless enough to pay it themselves. It made her a dream.
"Jesus," Elliot said faintly.
"Which part of it makes you uncomfortable?" she asked him. "The amount, or the thought of me taking a customer upstairs?"
"I dunno. Both," he answered.
Just standing there, looking at him, thinking about the last man who'd bought her for a night, thinking about the possibility of someone doing it again, made her a little antsy, and she began to pace, then. She didn't go too far or too fast, just started to walk, to get her limbs moving, get her blood flowing, give her something to do besides stare into his eyes, and see the sorrow there.
"A man could do a lot with fifty k. Seems…wrong to blow it all on one night."
"Maybe I'm worth it."
"I'm sure you are," he murmured, and she shouldn't have liked the way his rough voice offering that reassurance made her feel, but god she did.
"But you deserve to fuck for free. 'Cause you want to, not 'cause you have to."
The word fuck fell from his lips so easily, and it threw her off balance, a little. So far tonight, when he was just Elliot and not Eddie, he'd been almost gentlemanly. Hadn't leered, or tried to pick a fight, had spoken to her with respect. She'd thought he might use a softer word for sex, but he didn't, and she couldn't decide how she felt about it.
"Maybe I already do," she said softly. Maybe she was toying with him, insinuating that she had a sex life outside the job, and maybe that wasn't wise, but she couldn't help it, the words just slipped out, some part of her wanting to defend herself.
"Brian," Elliot said, like that was the only possible explanation, like it was a foregone conclusion.
"I told you he's not my boyfriend."
"That doesn't really mean anything."
He was right about that, too, because Brian had never been her boyfriend, but that had never stopped them having sex in the past.
"I'm not sleeping with anyone, right now."
She wanted him to stop talking about Brian and she didn't want him to think that Brian had any claim over her and she didn't want to explain her motivations for any of those desires too closely. And besides, it was true; she hadn't sex with anyone in over a year. Not since Lewis.
"That's good to know," Elliot said, his teeth flashing at her in the darkness as he grinned. He was being almost playful, but the turn of the conversation had just brought memories of Lewis washing over her, and her skin began to crawl. She stopped pacing, planted her feet firmly on the concrete and tried to focus on her breathing, tried to draw herself back to the present, and away from the clutching darkness that threatened to drag her under.
"Hey," Elliot said, moving suddenly towards her. "You ok?"
"Fine," she answered.
"You wanna talk about something else?"
God, yes, please.
"I should probably go back inside."
She'd feel better under the lights, would feel more in control back in her parlor, her domain, with customers around and Brian to guard her steps.
"Can I ask one last question?"
"You can ask. Doesn't mean I'll answer."
"Who's Noah?"
