The Return of Detective Sanders

I burst into Helen's office, not wanting to waste anymore time. That voice in my head did try to stop me to use the remote, but this time I was able to fight it off. I'm not touching that thing until I can tell Helen about what's been going on.

When I enter, I see the blonde woman typing away at her desk while looking through some paperwork. Despite my reckless entrance, she doesn't even look over at me. I am slightly upset that my presence didn't even get a passing glance, but I know Helen always has something important she's working on, so I'll won't fuss too much about it.

"Helen! I need your help! Something's wrong! It's-"

"Violet's missing. I already know," Helen interrupts me, remaining completely calm as she does so.

"Wait, what? How did you know that?" I ask.

"I always know when you have a problem. Call it my intuition."

Oh, that's right. Sometimes I forget that Helen can sense when I need something. Funny how she just assumes she has good intuition rather than a magic power. Although, to be fair, she also does have a pretty good intuition. Also, does that mean that Helen is aware of every time something bothers me? Like when I was having difficulties with Julia or when I was conflicted about Liz's transformation? It's weird to think that a person could just know that kind of stuff without being told. Still, I'm honestly happy I was able to sort those out myself. Maybe that's why she never brought them up. She knew I could handle it and there were other issues that needed her attention, though that's just a guess.

Dang it. I'm getting distracted again. It doesn't matter how Helen's weird psychic ability works. All that matters is that she apparently knows about Violet already.

"So if you know that Violet has disappeared, does that mean-"

"I've already started looking into it, yes. In fact, that's what I'm doing as we speak," Helen once again interrupts as she continues to type.

"Okay, first of all, can you please stop cutting me off? I'd rather be able to finish my thought, even if you already know what I'm going to say," I tell her.

For the first time since I walked in, Helen turns to look at me. There is a bit of self-consciousness in her eyes as she meets my gaze.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Sir. I didn't mean to bother you. I thought I was saving us both time. I won't do it again."

That's just like Helen, always thinking about efficiency. While I do appreciate the thought, and I know she means well, it's not exactly the most comforting way of speaking to me right now. Though, I suppose that Helen was always more of a number cruncher than a people person. Violet's the charmer of the group. Aaand there I go thinking about her again...

"How long have you been working on this?" I ask. Helen, true to her word, waits for me to finish before giving her answer.

"Well, the thought only came to me this morning, so I haven't had a ton of time. That being said, I know how much she means to you, so I've made finding her whereabouts a top priority," Helen responds.

I guess that makes sense. I only started to feel like something was wrong when Violet wasn't at the bus stop, so it stands to reason that Helen wouldn't have known about the issue until then either.

"Any luck so far?"

"Unfortunately, no. My first thought was maybe she took a sudden trip back home, but according to the information I have on file, her family lives a few towns over. So unless she has a car I'm not aware of..."

"No. No car. I think she mentioned once that her dad promised to give her his old car after she graduated, but she mostly just gets around by walking now," I reply.

"That's what I figured. I also figured that you already knew all this information. Next, I looked into Violet's teachers, both current and past, to see if there was any conflict there, but I can't find any evidence of someone disliking her. You know Violet. She's a hard person not to get along with."

"You think that someone is out to get her?" I ask, trying my best not to panic.

"It was just a theory. And like I said, Violet is friendly to just about everyone, so I find it rather unlikely," Helen tries to reassure me. I take a deep breath before continuing.

"Right. And that wouldn't make any sense given that Violet was the one who left her apartment saying she had somewhere important to be..." I point out.

Suddenly, Helen stops what she's doing and turns toward me slowly, raising an eyebrow as she does so.

"What?" I ask.

"How do you know that?"

"Bianca told me. Violet and I eat lunch with her every Monday and Wednesday."

"Her roommate! Why didn't I think of that? I'm such an idiot!" Helen exclaims while lightly hitting herself on the head. If Helen's an idiot, than what does that make me? "Mr. Anderson, do you think you could tell me everything that you and Bianca talked about?"

Helen rummages through her desk before pulling out a small notebook and a pen. She glances back and forth between me and the paper, waiting for me to start. Bianca wasn't able to provide me with much information, but maybe there's something that Helen can do with it that I can't. I do my best to go over everything the two of us talked about as well as any other details I think she might want to know. Leaving the apartment Saturday morning, not taking her phone with her, her lower-than-average (at least for her) sex drive. Everything. When I'm done, Helen spend a solid five minutes just staring at her notes while thinking.

"So? Any ideas?"

"I'm... not sure. I think I might have some theories, but nothing concrete. I'll be honest, the last time you asked me to solve a mystery, it was Violet who helped me when I was stuck. It turns out the two of us make a pretty good team, at least if you ask me. I understand why you like her so much. I've come to appreciate her too. All that said, I'm not sure if I'll be able to figure this out..." Helen muses.

"Oh, come on. That's ridiculous. You're Helen Sanders. You're probably the smartest person I know. Without you, there's no way I would have been able to make it this far. I couldn't ask for a better assistant. And you know, Violet told me a little bit about your investigation. I think her exact words were 'You should have seen Helen. She was a badass, super genius hottie.' Or something along those lines," I say as Helen listens quietly.

"She really said that?" She asks after a moment.

"Absolutely. She told me that if you didn't keep her focused, she would have just been drooling over your ass the whole time."

"Well... she did still stare quite a bit..." Helen chuckles.

"The point is that you're both incredible, whether alone or together. I'm sure that if you keep working at it, you can solve this," I encourage.

"Thanks, Sir... or, I mean... thanks, Matt. That means a lot coming from you..." Helen smiles. After a few second, another look of contemplation crosses her face as she picks her notebook back up. "Actually... there was one thing you mentioned that struck me as particularly strange. Was Violet really not that aroused when her roommate was giving her oral?"

"That's what Bianca said. I found that surprising too," I respond.

"'Surprising' is the word I would use. More like impossible," Helen reaches into her desk and pull out a much larger notebook. How many notes does this woman take? "According to what you've told me, Violet's first attribute makes it so she is always aroused. Supposedly, there's a minimum level of arousal that she can never fall below, correct?"

"That's... wait, that's true. Then how did she get less horny all of a sudden?"

"She shouldn't be able to, at least not under normal circumstances. However, there is one scenario where it could be possible..."

"Wait, are you implying that the person Bianca ate out wasn't Violet at all? It was an imposter?!" I gasp in shock.

"What? No. That doesn't make sense for so many reasons." Oh. Well, now I'm just embarrassed. "No, I'm talking about Violet's second attribute. The one that makes her find almost every sexual scenario enticing?" Helen reminds me.

"Oh, you mean OMNI-KINK. What about it?" I ask.

"Well, there's a stipulation at the end. It doesn't work in situations where Violet is exposed to something she finds disgusting or disagrees with morally. What if being in a situation like that actually allowed her to drop below that minimum arousal? Like for example... being **** to go somewhere dangerous and not being able to tell anyone..."

Hmm... that's an interesting theory. Violet does like being submissive as much as she likes dominating, but even subs have limits. Could it really be possible for someone to push her so far that it actually activated that part of her attribute? We always figured that it was mainly there so she didn't start getting into illegal stuff. I mean, that probably is what it's intended for, but maybe it could work in this scenario too. But that still doesn't answer the question of where she went.

"Okay, let's assume for a second that you're right. What then?" I ask.

Helen thinks to herself before turning back to her computer.

"Hold on just a second. I want to check something," she tells me.

I watch as Helen immediately gets to work. She begins scrolling through her computer, presumable looking for some kind of information. While she does that, she simultaneously reaches over to her notebook and begins paging through it. Watching her work is a bit intense, if I'm being real. I decide to give her some space until she finds whatever it is she's looking for.

I walk over to a window and stare up at the sky. As I do, I just keep thinking about how crazy this whole thing is. Sure, there have been some bumps along the way, but nothing like this. I've felt sick for quite some time now and it doesn't seem like I'm going to start feeling better anytime soon. All of the other women in my life start to fade from my mind as I just keep worrying about my girlfriend. What if she's hurt? What if I never see her again? If Helen's right about her being so opposed to whatever's going on that she actually started getting turned off, then it has to be bad. I need to stop thinking like that. I'm only making things worse for myself. But it's just so hard to keep a level head right now. Ugh...

Where are you, Violet?