Welcome to the Masquerade

"Duel" by Bond

AN: A quick shout out to the lovely @BananaMuffin99 for her much needed encouragement also my sounding board @gafrogge Who convinced me to put pen to paper in the first place. I get very excited for every vote and comment that shows up in my notifications. On to the main event. Standard disclaimer! I only own Lory. Everything else is the property of C.L.Stone. Constructive criticism is welcome and even requested, but flames will be used to make s'mores. I love votes and views. Please let me know your favorite lines and moments. Happy Reading.

"Alright, Sunshine," Lory said as she sat with her nails drying. Gabe had decided on blue for her nails. He laughed himself silly when he realized the description of his color choice was "little blue box blue". Yes that blue. Then Gabe decided she need polka dots on one nail on each hand, she had not been permitted to argue. "Let's begin as we mean to go on. You need to choose a word. It needs to be an easy word to think of when you're stressed and yet not something you are going to say in a normal conversation."

"I don't understand."

"It's a safe word. Part of your training is going to be working with me. Alone. I am going to make you uncomfortable. I am going to push your boundaries and I am going to make you afraid. Unfortunately, that's just part of working through your issues. Part of a standard Academy training is Psychological. Dealing with your trauma is one of the things most Academy students get help with. Maybe not right up front, but still."

"Did you have to?" Sang asked as she worried her fingers.

"I'm sitting in a room full of men." Lory said with a serious look as though that answered everything. For Sang it did. It just left the boys confused.

"What's your word?"

"It was Simon. I may choose a new one."

"Why Simon?"

"Um.....remind me -- much, much later-- to introduce smutty Firefly fanfiction to you."

Kota starts choking on air and turning red.

"Oy what did you do?" Gabe laughed.

"Embarrassed Bossman. But back to the subject at hand."

"Now wait a minute, You nearly killed Kota talking about safe words and fanfiction. What the fuck?" Gabe smirked.

"It really makes more sense if you are into the fandom..." Lory hedged before turning back to Sang. "But Safewords are most commonly used in two ways. The first is a distress phrase for someone in an undercover situation. If you watched Numb3rs, their distress word was 'Mexico'.."

"What the hell was Numb3rs about?"

"Math genius who uses applied mathematics to help his FBI Agent brother solve crimes...not the point of this conversation!" Lory huffed in annoyance.

"Who watched shit like that?"

"My mother did and I bet Kota would at least enjoy the premise despite being more into physics than applied mathematics." Annoyance now clearly written across her face. By now the boys had clued in that they could get her to react and were now out to sabotage her conversation.

"The other most common use is as part of the BDSM lifestyle or with those who practice rough or kinky sex when you really need to trust your partner." Lory said over the boys trying to upset her.

Silence. Lory -1 Boys - 0

"So, since a huge part of your training is trust, you need to pick a word. I need to trust that you will use the safeword if you are feeling like what is going on is too much. And YOU need to trust that I will respect it when you use it. It is there for a reason." North picks that moment to walk in.