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per­haps?”
    “Only to say that if you want to fit in at the In­sti­tute, you’ll have to make things a little more sexual,” the pro­fessor said mat­ter-of-factly. “This is a highly sexu­al­ized en­vir­on­ment you’re go­ing into. You have to make the people you meet really be­lieve you’re into each other.”
    “How sexual are we talk­ing?” I asked, sit­ting up and frown­ing at him. “Be­cause Salt and I don’t…”
    “Like to do sexual things in pub­lic?” he fin­ished for me. “I’m afraid you’re go­ing to have to get over that.”
    “I was go­ing to say that Salt and I don’t have that kind of re­la­tion­ship,” I snapped.
    “You don’t?” Stevens looked con­fused and sur­prised. “Really? The two of you aren’t already sleep­ing to­gether?”
    “Of course not,” I ex­claimed. “Salt is my part­ner. It’s against PD reg­u­la­tions.”
    “But the way you in­ter­act with each other…the way you’re so com­fort­able in each other’s spaces…” He shook his head. “I would have bet my ten­ure the two of you were already to­gether.”
    “Well, we’re not,” I said.
    “Well that’s go­ing to be a prob­lem.” He sighed.
    “Why should it be prob­lem?” Salt asked, frown­ing.
    “Be­cause you’re go­ing to be ex­pec­ted to act a cer­tain way—both in pub­lic and in private,” Stevens ex­plained. “Not many people know this but the In­sti­tute has cam­eras in every room and someone is al­ways watch­ing. If they see you act­ing strangely, sus­pi­cions will be aroused and you’ll never find the source of the Please.”
    “So we have to act these roles all the time?” I asked, frown­ing.
    “Every minute of every day you’re there,” Stevens af­firmed. “Or you’ll be kicked out in a heart­beat. They’re very sens­it­ive to any­one be­ing there who doesn’t be­long. A few years back an un­der­cover re­porter tried to do an ex­pose on them. I don’t like to tell you what happened to her when they found out her Daddy was ac­tu­ally just the cam­era­man her pa­per had sent with her.”
    “Wow. Not good.” I was def­in­itely non­plussed.
    “Are the cam­eras in the rooms wired for sound?” Salt asked, which I thought was a good ques­tion.
    “No, they’re not but they are con­stantly on and re­cord­ing. Ru­mor has it that Jonathan Berkley, the man who built and owns the In­sti­tute, re­views the feed from every suite each night. He is…” Stevens coughed. “Some­thing of a voyeur.”
    “Ugh!” I ex­claimed. “So he’s watch­ing all these people play their sick little games? Isn’t there a law against that?”
    “Con­sent for the cam­eras is bur­ied in the con­tract each par­ti­cipant signs when they enter the In­sti­tute,” Stevens ex­plained. “He puts it un­der a ‘safety clause.’ So there’s no pro­sec­ut­ing Berkley for that.”
    I sighed. “Fine, I guess we’ll just have to stay in char­ac­ter.”
    “You have to get into char­ac­ter first,” he poin­ted out. “And that means you need to be all over your Daddy—al­ways beg­ging for his touch.”
    Well, I didn’t know about all the fawn­ing and beg­ging but I did know I didn’t mind Salt’s hands on me. He touched me con­stantly any­way—not in a creepy way, though.
    My part­ner touched me in small ways, like put­ting his big, warm hand at the small of my back to guide me through a crowd. Or the way he would brush a lock of hair out of my face to see my eyes bet­ter when we were talk­ing. Nice touches—I liked them. The ques­tion was, how would I deal with it if those ‘nice touches’ sud­denly be­came sexual?
    “I’ll try,” I said at last.
    “Do you think you’re up to it as well, De­tect­ive Saltanov?” the pro­fessor asked.
    “I know I do not mind touch­ing Andi,” Salt said in a low voice. “But it will be up to her if she wants to be touched by me in such a