I would have to talk to Samuelson, and that brought up the unnerving possibility that he’d recognized me the way I had him. I thought about it and could only sigh. If he’d seen me go into C&T, then he’d seen me and there was nothing at all I could do about that. I wasn’t exactly happy to be outed as a Dom, but I could live with it if I had to. There was also the faint possibility that he didn’t know the nature of the place, but I doubted that. Malcolm had always operated under the assumption that the police knew we were a BDSM club, but that they would leave us alone as long as we kept a low profile and followed every regulation to a T. Mostly we had managed that, although there had been some ‘surprise inspections’ back during the pandemic, to make sure that we were in fact locked down as required. So, people knew, and if Samuelson wasn’t one of them, I’d be highly surprised. It might be better to confront him and clear the air before we met in court again.

It’s not actually all that easy for a defence lawyer to meet with a senior policeman off the record. Although we weren’t, currently, opposing each other over a case, a request for a meeting would be unusual. I decided to take a leaf out of his own book and watch 51 Division. I’d see him coming out and would ask him what the hell was going on.

It took a couple of days, in part because I couldn’t hang around the corner of Parliament and Front indefinitely. There was a Starbucks a block away, but it was too far to see people clearly. I took to wandering by in the evening, when Samuelson was likely to be coming off shift. I was lucky; it didn’t really take me all that long before I saw him coming out of the building, and by himself.

“Good evening, Inspector,” I said, falling into step beside him.

“Mr. Tudor,” he said, unease in his tone. “What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to discuss your reasons for taking on stake-out duties at this stage in your career,” I said evenly. If he was unsettled, so much the better for me. I saw his nostrils flare as he drew a sharp breath, then he looked around.

“Not here,” he said. “Let’s go to my office, the place is quiet tonight, it’s only Wednesday.”

I briefly debated with myself about insisting on somewhere else. Using his office would give him the confidence of home ice advantage, but I decided it wasn’t worth arguing about; I could handle him here or anywhere. I let him lead the way back into the police station and up the stairs to the individual offices. I’d been here many times, of course, but usually to meet with a client in the holding cells; I rarely had business directly with the police themselves. He closed the door firmly behind us and turned to face me.

“So,” he said challengingly, “what do you care about what my duties are?”

“Because I highly doubt they involve staking out a legal private club.” I wanted to make him irritated, if not frankly angry, as I knew that would be the best way to break his control. I wasn’t exactly comfortable with this encounter, but I did recognize a feeling of familiarity; it was like being in court again, with the difference that he didn’t have the weight of his authority on his side this time -- I was sure of it.

“Let’s not beat around the bush,” I said confidently. “We both know that there’s no reason for you to be stationed outside that club.”

“I’m outside,” he said, “you are the one who went inside.”

So he was going to hold that over me.

“I have the right to do anything I want that involves consenting adults,” I responded fiercely.

“I never said you didn’t,” he said.

“Tell me, why were you there?” I tried to get the conversation back from my presence to his.

“Watching.” He looked at me a moment, almost as though he was checking me out, then said, “Listen, I really don’t give a damn about what you like to do in your own time. If you have needs, if you want to submit ...”

“What?” I broke in, astounded. “I don’t submit! How dare you assume that?” I was suddenly furious.

“You can admit it to me,” he said, “in total confidence.”

I stared at him a moment more, then reacted without thinking. I am a Dom and he would realize it.