Chapter Text
The tip of Olivia’s pencil snapped mid-sentence. She fed it into the electric sharpener and the sound of it whirling had Elliot sprinting back to his desk from the filing cabinet. He sat in his chair and watched through the corner of his eye as she pursed her lips and blew a puff of air on the new point, clearing away the wood shavings. Sometimes she inspected it and decided it wasn’t right, and he could watch her repeat the process.
“What?” she asked.
He flinched, realizing his stare wasn’t as subtle as he’d thought. He shrugged and opened the file on his desk. The way his new partner sharpened a pencil was one of many small gestures that inexplicably drove him wild. With lust. With guilt. Another was the way she tucked one side of her dark hair behind an ear. It was such a small movement, but it was graceful and alluring, briefly baring the underside of her wrist.
He was fucked.
Absolutely fucked, because he couldn’t tell Cragen things weren’t working out with Detective Benson after three weeks because the way she sharpened a pencil made him hard. Sent him running to the confessional, onto his knees, reciting his sins and the Act of Contrition.
The phone on his desk rang and he answered with a gruff, “Stabler.” He scribbled something on a piece of paper and hung up. He looked at Olivia. “M.E. is ready for us.” She dropped her pencil back into the cup where she had an assortment of writing instruments, and Elliot had the childish urge to break the tip off every pencil.
Dr. Taylor shined a blue light on the victim’s hand, revealing a stamp that wasn’t visible to the naked eye.
“Is that an apple?” Elliot asked, bending closer to the body, squinting.
“It is. I ran a search,” the doctor explained. “Didn’t find anything.”
Olivia cleared her throat. “It’s a place called Eden.”
The men looked at her, expectant.
She sighed. “It’s a sex club. A kink club, really.”
Elliot bit back a grin.
“Well, whatever it is,” Dr. Taylor said, “if she was there in the last twelve hours it’s probably where she was killed.”
He waited until they were in the sedan to ask the question he’d been choking back. “How do you know about this place?”
“It was in my old beat. We got called there a couple times. It’s pretty underground and exclusive, but sometimes they get people who don’t jive with their whole aesthetic and won’t leave willingly.”
“And what’s their aesthetic? And how is this place legal?”
Olivia laughed. “According to the owners no sex acts take place on the premises. They say it’s a place for like-minded people to be themselves when the rest of the world doesn’t allow for it.”
“What does that mean? Some guy who likes to pretend he’s a cheetah when he has sex feels repressed because his office on Wall Street won’t let him dress up as an exotic cat?”
“Yes, kind of,” she told him. “Look, why don’t we take a ride there and you can see for yourself what it’s like.”
Eden was located at the corner of 23rd and 10th in Chelsea. The façade was painted black. The awning was red but there was no sign identifying it by name. The door opened to a narrow corridor and a brawny, bald man was seated behind an open window carved into the wall. They flashed their badges, and the man made a phone call, preceding the arrival of a woman wearing a professional looking skirt and blazer.
Elliot explained why they were there, and the woman, Sylvia, led them into the club itself. It was off hours, she explained, and they were preparing for that night’s themed event. “What’s the theme?” he asked.
“Impact play.”
He cast a glance at his partner, but she seemed unfazed. As he looked around at the bar and the velvet couches, stripper poles, and doors that led to God knows where, he forgot they were there to find out if their victim was a frequent patron and who she may have spent time with.
After Sylvia answered their questions she handed Elliot a glossy pamphlet. “Take this with you, Detective. It seems like your curiosity is piqued.”
He blushed and walked away, trying to give the impression he’d toss it in the trash. But as they climbed back into the sedan, he opened it across the steering wheel. “They have theme nights once a week,” he said, reading the small print. “What is som-no-phil-ia?” he asked, sounding it out. It was a rhetorical question, and he was shocked when Olivia responded.
“Sex when someone is asleep.”
“What? That’s… a crime.”
“Not in this context,” she told him. “It’s consensual. It means one person would agree to be fondled when they’re asleep, or have their partner masturbate over them, or you might pretend not to wake up when your partner has sex with you.”
Elliot shifted in the seat. He folded the pamphlet and put it in his suit coat pocket. “How do you-”
“I read a lot,” Olivia told him. “I did a lot of research before I joined the unit. I think it’s important to have an understanding of what’s truly depraved and what’s a perfectly safe kink.”
That afternoon, he took the pamphlet from his pocket to throw it away. Instead, he opened it and started reading again. “Liv,” he whispered.
“Hmm?”
“What’s, uh, inter-cruuu-”
“Intercrural?” she guessed.
He nodded.
Olivia stood up and circled around to his desk. She leaned over his shoulder, reading the pamphlet. “It means between the legs,” she said softly.
Her voice was a raspy breath that he felt on the shell of his ear, and it pulsed through his body. Electric. Warm. “Isn’t that all sex?” he asked quietly. She huffed a laugh that he felt on his neck, the sound reverberating through him. Reaching through him, down to the bone.
“It’s non-penetrative.” She spoke clearly, a little too loudly, as she leaned away. Leaving him to absorb the definition and visualize the act.
He tossed the pamphlet into the trash can under his desk, and then he dug it out and buried it at the bottom of a drawer.
Eight months into Elliot’s partnership with Olivia he knew not to put sugar in her coffee and that as far as she was concerned there was no such thing as too much relish on a hot dog. She preferred indoor rock climbing to the treadmill. Blue was her favorite color. He knew why she grew up without a father and why she rarely spoke to her mother.
The only thing he didn’t know about Olivia by then was where she went on the rare occasions she left work at a reasonable hour. It wasn’t a date, because she always told him about those, and she would first touch up her makeup and change into a dress or jeans. Every other week or so there was one day where she’d stand from her seat before six o’clock and tell everyone to have a good night. The times he’d asked where she was headed, Olivia seemed reluctant to answer and gave a vague reason, like an errand to run or meeting a friend.
Elliot didn’t press much because every other Wednesday he had his own secret destination. He had to be on the FDR by quarter to five in order to make it to St. Michael’s in time for counseling with Kathy and Father Steven. It felt like a thankless task, because no matter what he said during their sessions, his wife was still distant and resentful.
“What did I do wrong?” he asked one night, from bed, after he’d maneuvered from missionary to fuck her from behind and Kathy lost interest in continuing; she thought not wanting to look her in the eye meant something.
She thought he’d been behaving differently in recent months, and she wasn’t mistaken. During a blow job in the shower, he’d started talking dirty, saying things that she’d never heard come out of anyone’s mouth. He gifted her crotchless panties and over a childless weekend he’d asked her to tie him to the bedposts.
“Kath, we’ve been together for sixteen years. I’m just trying to, you know, spice things up,” he’d said, but she thought it was odd, unhealthy really, for a sex crimes detective to suddenly be interested in more salacious behavior. She was paranoid too, that his new adventurous side had been sparked by his new, attractive female partner.
In retrospect he could see the gradual erosion of the marriage, and it started before Olivia. Years before her. It predated the twins. It had never been only about sex. That was easier to blame than admitting they made a lifelong commitment before they knew exactly what they wanted from life. It was easier to blame than any of the children they loved but had not deliberately conceived.
After several weeks of counseling, Kathy reached the conclusion that he should ‘get it out of his system.’
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“I feel like we’ve grown apart. I feel like you resent me because you never got to have those years of being young and unattached.”
“Kath, that’s not- I made decis-”
“Elliot, I haven’t forgotten that you wanted to go to college in the Everglades because Playboy ranked it high for its sexual temperature. And I resent you because this isn’t the marriage I expected. You’re never here. I do everything alone. I think we should… separate.”
“A divorce?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. We can’t really afford a divorce. But maybe we should live separately as much as we can and if after a while we both realize we want the life we had, maybe we can go back to normal. And if not…” She shrugged again.
Elliot cycled through hurt and anger and an odd sense of relief. His wife was giving him permission to step out on her. To experiment. Sending him on something of a sexual walkabout.
And he didn’t have a clue what to do.
Not until one afternoon when he was hunting for a file and found the pamphlet from Eden.
“You okay?” Olivia asked from where she sat in the passenger seat of the sedan. Her partner was quiet. He seemed morose.
Elliot scrubbed a hand down his face, resetting, flashing a smile before he said, “Fine. Just tired.”
“You sure? You’ve been just tired a lot lately, El.”
He smiled, touched by her concern. He wanted to confess the state of his marriage, but he feared that would lead to another confession. One that would disrupt their partnership and their friendship. One that could cost him a great deal when he was already on the verge of losing so much. Ever since Kathy had released him into the wild, so to speak, he couldn’t stop thinking about Olivia’s lips and how soft her skin must have been and the shape his hand would make if he could cup her breast.
If Elliot was going to pursue sex outside of his marriage, it was going to have to be outside of his job too.
Olivia left work early and Elliot opened his desk drawer, staring at the pamphlet from Eden.
He was curious. He just wanted to see what the place looked like at night. When it was inhabited by the kind of people who needed a place to go where they wouldn’t be judged for their proclivities. He was curious and tense and wondered if taking a peek into this other unfamiliar world would be some kind of release. Something that wouldn’t hurt anyone. Something that would make him realize he had everything he needed at home and there was no reason to break his vows and sin against his God.
He almost needed a drink to be brave enough to open the door. Elliot took a deep breath and entered Eden. There was a sign on the second entrance announcing it was leather and latex night. He flashed his badge, gaining entrance under false pretenses but without any trouble.
The place was unrecognizable. It was dark, lit only by candles and dusky pools of light from scattered lamps shrouded by sheer, black cloth. Elliot stood out, still wearing his suit, when almost everyone else was dressed head to toe in black leather or various colors of shiny latex. He was drawn to a woman in a black latex bodysuit. Her back was to him, and he traced the contours of her slender, shapely body, and he felt lightheaded when he realized there was a slit in the material; he could see the smallest slant of bare skin between her legs and up the middle of her backside. His entire body was tight and flooded with heat and all he could think was I don’t belong here. But then the woman turned around, and a rush of blood straight to Elliot’s cock had him reaching for something sturdy to hold onto.
“Olivia,” he breathed her name into the darkness. Her skin, smooth as marble, was starkly pale in the pervasive midnight of the club. The bodice of the suit was cut in a deep V that extended almost to her belly button. “W-what are you…”
Shortly after a case had brought them to Eden, she had made a spur-of-the-moment decision to return to the club. Working SVU had started to infringe on her healthy, active sex life, and Olivia thought Eden could be a place where she could reclaim that part of herself without judgment. Where she could be pinned down by leather straps if that was what she wanted, and not feel like she was betraying the victims she sought justice for. Where she could remind herself about the difference between safe, consensual, kinky sex and the crimes she investigated.
On that particular night, she had left work and gone to Eden where she chose a garment to wear and slathered her naked body with oil so the latex would lay smoothly against her skin. She liked being there because she could be anonymous. She could watch if that was all she wanted, or she could find out what happened behind the many closed doors.
The two of them stood an arm’s length away. Staring.
Me? she thought. The real question was why her married, Catholic, had-to-ask-what-impact-play-was partner was doing in the club. But it felt ridiculous to grill him while she was standing there in a latex suit that was practically painted on her body. And if she spread her feet a millimeter apart, he would see the recently waxed skin between her legs and the shine of her suddenly intense arousal.
“This was a mistake,” Elliot said, and he turned and bolted toward the exit.
“Fuck,” she whispered through gritted teeth. She scrambled to find her coat and held it closed around her torso as she chased him out onto the street. He started jogging to his vehicle when he became aware of her presence, and Olivia darted after him, opening the passenger side door.
“Liv,” he protested as she settled on the seat.
She pulled the door closed. “Did you really think you could leave, and we would never breathe a word of this?”
Elliot let go of a ragged breath.
“Not long after I joined the unit, my personal life… things changed. I’d be on a date and when I said what I did for a living, the guy would either be way too excited or understandably disturbed. I wanted to be touched without having to first reveal things about myself. I wanted a sure thing, I guess. Just once in a while.” Olivia looked at his profile. He was half-hidden by shadows; the only source of light through the tinted windows was a streetlamp with a bulb that glitched, flashing and buzzing. “This is where you explain what brought you to Eden.”
He reclined his head back, resting it on the seat.
She could see his throat flex as he swallowed. As he tried to formulate the words to voice something that was clearly difficult for him to say. “You can tell me anything, El.”
“Kathy and I, uh, we’re separating.”
“Oh. I’m… sorry.”
A smile pushed at his cheeks, briefly. “There’s more than one reason. But for the first time since I was seventeen I have her, I don’t know… blessing? To, uh-” He cleared his throat. Coughed into the side of his closed fist. “Explore. She says we’re growing apart. That I’m changing. She knows I’m curious about that.” He pointed a thumb over his shoulder, indicating Eden.
Olivia said, “You can go back in right now. I didn’t mean to ruin whatever-”
“Not tonight. And you didn’t.”
“You can… ask me about it.”
Elliot chanced a look at her. At her long legs pressed together. “The theme. What, um, why do-”
“It feels good,” she said. She released her hold on the lapels of her coat, letting it spill open around her torso. Olivia reached across the seat and peeled his hand away from his thigh to place his palm on her leg. Above her knee. “Doesn’t it?”
He swallowed. Hard. Loud. The material was smooth. Molded to her. A second skin.
She let go of his hand, leaving it heavy on her thigh, and removed her coat. “You can look at me. You can touch me. If you want.”
If I want, he thought, almost laughing at the absurd notion anyone wouldn’t want to. He shifted closer to her. Turned himself at an angle, feasting his eyes on the expanse of bare skin between the deep V of the suit’s bodice. He traced the edge of the latex, barely touching her skin, from the bottom to the top, his finger grazing her nipple.
Olivia peeled one side away from her chest, baring her breast.
Elliot’s hand trembled as he let the tips of his fingers whisper across the slope. There was hardly a difference between the texture of her flawless skin and the latex. He watched her nipple pucker from the cold air and drew a circle around the dusky pink flesh. He was distracted when she parted her knees, daring him to look between her legs. “W-what were you… hoping for tonight? In there?”
She reached for his hand again and flattened the underside of his fingers to her exposed labia. She let go and gradually felt the pressure of his touch deepen. “I wanted someone else’s fingers to make me come,” she told him.
The implication was that she’d had to get herself off recently, and the image had him impossibly hard, leaking through the cotton of his briefs. He was emboldened by the way her eyes fluttered closed and her body slackened on the seat, and Elliot drew one finger along her folds. Her legs widened and he pushed harder, feeling the slick of her warm flesh. At first, he explored for himself – for his own knowledge of her body and for his own pleasure. Then he started to pay attention to the sound of her breath and her moans, and he focused his touch on her clit.
“Yes,” she sighed. “Right there.”
He pulled a frustrated grunt from her when he stopped, but then she gasped, satisfied, when he scooted even closer and pushed a finger inside her. “Jesus Christ,” he whispered. She was tight and hot and wet, and he felt his balls tighten. Like he was a teenager about to spill in his pants. He didn’t care though, and he added a second finger and pumped in and out of her. He bent his head and sucked as much of her breast into his mouth as he could, his tongue lashing across the hard bud.
The sensation of his lips, the thrust of his fingers, and the graze of his thumb against her clit was deliciously overwhelming. When Olivia ran her fingers along her ribcage and her hips to her thighs, feeling the latex molded to her fevered body, her back arched and she cried out a string of nonsensical words and sounds.
Elliot felt the pulse of her muscles as she climaxed. He was powerless to his body’s reaction, and he used his other hand to stroke himself through his pants. He grunted, his cock jerking under the confining layers as he came with sudden force.
As she quieted and stilled, he let go, looking at his fingers damp with her arousal.
“Taste me,” she told him.
He lifted his hand and sucked his fingers into his mouth, humming at the sharp tang of her on his tongue. He could see her hand moving toward his lap and he grasped her wrist, pushing her away. He settled fully in the driver’s seat, putting distance between them. “I don’t… it’s…”
Olivia nodded. She knew he was embarrassed, holding an arm across his lap, but she was flattered. She told him, “I don’t usually come that fast,” to let him know he wasn’t alone in his lack of control. He wasn’t the only one who had been fighting such a deep desire that it took so little stimulation to ignite every nerve ending in her body.
“I should, you know, get home,” he said, even though he really didn’t need to. Kathy wasn’t expecting him, and the kids were asleep. But he’d made a mess in more ways than one and it was late, and they had to work in the morning. Together. “Do you want a ride home?”
“I left some of my things inside.”
“I can wait,” he offered, but he was relieved when she turned him down.
Olivia adjusted the latex to cover her breast and slid her arms into her coat. She held the garment closed around her and climbed out of the car. “See you tomorrow, El,” she said, as if it were any other night. As if he hadn’t just made her come with his fingers and licked her clean from his skin.
He said, “Goodnight, Liv,” but there was a tremor to his voice. A note of anxiety and guilt because he knew better. He knew what had happened was going to change everything.