Page 62 of Game Over

“They look fucking uncomfortable,” I said without thinking, making a sleek, ponytail-wearing sales girl nearby wince.

Her perfectly puffed lips tried valiantly to tick up into a smile as she moved to greet us. “Can I help you find anything today?”

“Just browsing, I think, thanks,” Charlie said, his hand finding the small of my back to lead me through the space.

“Thank you!” I called back to her, grateful to Charlie for taking the lead.

He was good at that, stepping up when I was unsure. The pair of us trading off dominance in our relationship with the kind of comfortability that was usually only created after long years together.

Though, the bond helped with that.

I brushed him in it now, the alpha meeting me with a caress of his own before his lips found the top of my head. “Feels good when you do that… You know, you’re funny.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah. But you’re also right… they do look uncomfortable as hell.”

“I’m really more of a sneakers girl, if only because I can’t be fucked to wobble around with blistered toes.”

“Hm, maybe this isn’t the right fit then,” Charlie said, leading me back out the door. “Jewelry, right?”

“Think so…” I said noncommittally as we continued our path down the hall, my eyes drawn to a bright blue storefront with glittering diamonds in the windows.

Charlie towed me inside, smiling at the sales girl as she started to approach. “Just give her a moment to look on her own first, please.”

“Of course, sir,” she said, going back to dusting some fiddly little rings with far too many gem facings.

My eyes widened to the size of saucers as my gaze caught on pair of platinum cuffs. They appeared to need a screwdriver to take them off and to secure them on, little diamonds adorning them in flecks of crystalline glitteriness that made the crow in my brain excited.

It’s not that I thought all women liked jewelry, because, hello? Wealth disparity is real. Especially in California. But we did all, generally, care for one thing:sparkly.

The little D attached to the sides of the cuffs warning they could be used for more than fashion made my stomach do a little dance break excitedly.

I always thought that rich people had weird, boring, repressed republican sex with the lights off.

But I was wrong.

Rich people were freaky.

Or at least Californian-rich people were, the bunch of fucking hippy artists and whatever else relocated here. This revelation was still somehow a surprise even after all the money that people who wereclearlyin a different tax bracket than me tipped.

I guess a little tiny part of me continued to assume that the people who dominated the top 25% of earners were, you know…. Bland AI loving robot fuckers who wanted to jerk off into some robotic sex doll or a pocket pussy and then close their eyes to go to sleep.

I don’t know… maybe that shit was freaky too.

I've watched Ex Machina one too many times.

“What about this?” Charlie suggested, leaning over the glass case to tap the surface overtop of what was—by all intents and purposes—a collar.

It was made of the same silvery metal as the cuffs, linked chains forming a braided circle that shone as they caught in the light. The lock dangling from the front was heart-shaped and reminded me a bit of that bridge where people left locks as a symbol of love or whatever… and a dog tag.

Though, I’d never seen a dog tag encrusted with genuine little white and pink diamonds before. There was a first time for everything.

“Ooooh,” I cooed, prompting Charlie to gesture for the sales girl to come pull it from the case.

“May I?” he asked softly, motioning to pick up the necklace.

“Of course, sir.”

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