When Leah was out of earshot, Seth leaned in and whispered, “Don’t worry. I think she’s getting close to the end of her address book.”
“Yeah, but she’s got a lot of contacts putting feelers out. She won’t stop until she either fixes me up or I find someone on my own.”
“That’s such a bad thing? A woman’s got to have a hobby.”
“Why can’t her hobby be sucking your dick?”
He grinned. “It is, but this is her other hobby.”
* * * *
Returning home a little after eleven that night, Tony put his keys and wallet in the dish on the bookcase by the front door and didn’t bother turning on the living room lights. He didn’t have to look at the empty house if it was dark inside.
Yes, sure, it’d be nice to have a relationship. It wasn’t something he needed, however.
Missed? Of course. But not the parts with the drama. His last attempt at a relationship had been a disaster, with the woman turning into Queen Clingy the minute he agreed to being exclusive with her and had collared her as his submissive. Hell, the last two play partners he’d had, despite making it clear to them from the beginning that he didn’t want a relationship with them, still tried to pursue one. Even after they assured him they understood and were fine with just being friends and play partners.
They’d both hoped they could convince him to change his mind and make him come around. The only thing they’d succeeded in doing was driving him away.
He had no room for a drama llama corral in his life, much less any interest in keeping it stocked.
The next morning, he spent his first meeting of the day idly imagining Darren naked, hands cuffed behind him, on his knees with a ring gag in his mouth while his fellow department managers used his mouth as a cum dump.
Tony rubbed his face with his hands as the image drifted away when it was his turn to speak. He hated these damn daily meetings. He didn’t see why they couldn’t be done through e-mail so he could spend his time actually working instead of in a corporate circle jerk. “We had a sev-1 incident yesterday when a backup server went down. Got it up and running in thirty minutes. Still troubleshooting what happened, but no customers were impacted.”
Darren nodded without even looking at Tony and called upon the next manager.
Prick.
After lunch, he took a moment to thumb through his personal e-mail on his phone and found a message from Valerie.
It was nice meeting you last night. I might be at the club Saturday night. If you’re going, let me know if you’re interested in setting up a scene.
He stared at the message, his thumbs hesitating over the virtual keyboard. Instead of replying, he closed the message.
It can wait until later.
Upon having a night to think it over, he didn’t know if he wanted to play with her. Plus he thought he might be up for a turn as a volunteer dungeon monitor that weekend. If so, it would give him a perfect excuse not to play with her. He couldn’t play if he was supposed to be watching out for others.
I could always cancel. It was understood that with his job he might have to bow out of a DM stint at the last minute. He was never scheduled to be a primary DM, and they always had others working the club so his absence wouldn’t leave them shorthanded.
He’d deal with it later. He wasn’t poly, he wasn’t interested in recreational sex or in lots of casual play, and he didn’t want to lead the woman on and hurt her feelings, either.
Or end up having to extricate himself from a sticky situation if she got clingy. So far, his relationship with Seth and Leah hadn’t suffered from any of the matchmaking failures, but he didn’t believe in tempting fate.
By the time he got home that night and checked his e-mail on his laptop, he’d forgotten about Valerie’s e-mail. After looking at his schedule and discovering that no, his DM turn was next weekend, he hit reply.
Sounds good. I won’t know what my schedule is like until later in the week though. I’ll have to let you know.
He hit send.
He stared at the screen. You’re a fucking chickenshit. No, it wasn’t a lie, exactly. Emergencies cropped up at work all the time. Meetings were added at the last minute. Critical upgrades to fix a system failure or security issues could have him going in to work in the middle of the night.
He grabbed leftovers from the fridge and nuked himself a plate of food. Eating alone sucked more and more every day. He missed companionship, conversation, the camaraderie having someone in his life provided.
Although he didn’t miss drama.
At all.
He’d had enough of that to last him several lifetimes. After extricating himself from a nasty divorce from a woman whose apparent mission in life was to drive him crazy when she realized he’d really meant what he’d said before they got married about him not wanting kids, he was loathe to enter anything remotely resembling a drama-filled relationship. Queen Clingy had only cemented that resolve.
It didn’t hurt that after the divorce he’d discovered he wasn’t the only person who had dark, delicious fantasies about tying women up and spanking them. Once he’d learned he wasn’t alone, he wasn’t a freak, and that there were women out there who enjoyed being tied up and spanked, he’d refused to settle for vanilla.
Although after ten years of not finding the right long-term partner, he admitted it was difficult not to just give up on the prospect.
He knew it was doable. Ross and Loren were a prime example. And Seth and Leah. Before Seth, she had Kaden. Then there were Tilly and her guys, although many of their friends, himself included, thought at first she was nuts to welcome Cris back into her life after the way he’d dumped her.
Those were just the couples and triads he could think of off the top of his head. He had lots of friends who had found happiness in the lifestyle. He knew it was perfectly possible for lightning to strike, for the heavens to open, and to find one’s perfect, kinky mate.
Living close to the lightning capital of the world, however, he found it ironic that lightning had yet to strike him.
Chapter Three
Shayla began her research for the article series on BDSM the next day despite how tempting she found it to procrastinate.
The sooner I do it, the faster I can move on to something else.
She looked at the printout Kimberly had shared from the local BDSM group’s webpage. They advertised a monthly Munch at a local restaurant, in addition to having parties every month.
Sounds like a good place to start.
She sent an e-mail to the contact address on the page before turning her focus to other projects.
Part of her hoped no one would get back to her. That maybe there was some sort of code of silence. Like in the mob.
She silently swore when she checked her e-mail an hour later and found a polite reply from the leader of the group, a man named Ross.
Sure, I’ll be happy to answer your questions and put you in contact with people to interview. I can also arrange a tour of a local club, and interviews with instructors, if you’d like.
She stared at his response.
Instructors?
She had no idea there were such things.
There went my easy excuse.
She tapped out a quick reply detailing what she was looking for and hit send.
Deliberately ignoring her e-mail until just before lunch, she found another reply from Ross. He and his wife, Loren, were a Master and slave couple.
First of all, I’m going to state what’s probably obvious, and that is while we don’t mind you quoting us, please do not reveal our real names, or any information that would out us to the general public. I’ll do my best to answer some of your questions, but it might be better if we meet to talk in person. Some of this doesn’t make sense unless you can actually discuss it face-to-face.
What we do is completely consensual. Although Loren is my collared slave, she does have limits, which I respect. We are not poly. While I sometimes do play with
others, it’s nonsexual in nature. We’ve been married for over twenty years, and our BDSM dynamic is nearly as old. There is a very active BDSM community in the Tampa Bay area. The local club we’re a member of here in Sarasota has frequent classes anyone can pay to attend, although to come to dungeon playtimes you must be a vetted member. I’ve included a list of classes for you, one of which is taking place this week. My cell number is 941-555-1246 if you’re interested in setting up a time to talk in person. Feel free to call or text.
Ross.
Her rapidly pounding pulse caught her by surprise. Quickly, she punched her mouse button to close her e-mail.
I’ll deal with it after lunch.
* * * *
Shayla had packed her lunch that morning. She took it to the meeting room, along with a book to read.
Bill Melling stuck his head in the door. “Not going out with us?”
Shayla held up her sandwich. “No thanks. I’m good.”
He glanced down the hall before stepping inside and pulling the door closed behind him. “You okay? You look a little… My grandmother would have called it ‘vexated.’”
Crap. “I’m fine. I already started my research on the BDSM piece. I got an e-mail from a guy who runs a local group. He’s going to put me in touch with some others to talk to.”
He nodded. “Good. So you’re okay working on it?”
“I wouldn’t be doing the research if I wasn’t.” She hoped that didn’t come out as snarky as it felt in retrospect.
Must not have, because he smiled. “I’ll leave you alone with your vexation, then. See you later.”
She tried to lose herself in the book, a quirky, lighthearted vampire romance, but couldn’t. Her mind bounced back and forth between the porn images she’d discovered James had downloaded, to the seemingly harmless and forthright e-mail exchange she’d had thus far with Ross.
Classes? It made it sound like a community college course.
After ten minutes of rereading the same three paragraphs, she dog-eared the page she was on and closed the book. She slowly munched on grapes from her zippy bag full of them and thought about how to approach the article.
How could any woman want to be a slave? It didn’t make sense. Women had struggled for decades to gain equality and independence. What made them want to throw all that away?
Then again, she’d been willing to forgive and forget James the first time around in exchange for what she thought would be love and security.
She gathered her things and headed back to her desk. Before she did anything else, she put on her big-girl panties, pulled up her e-mail, and replied to Ross.
When can we get together in person to talk?
* * * *
Shayla had spent the better part of the night before doing web searches on BDSM and trying to come up with something more substantial than the porn sites or sensationalized news articles about the Fifty Shades of Grey books that wanted to show up. She also didn’t want to rely on fictional books for her research. She’d spent over an hour reading essays on one site she discovered, Leather and Roses, including a heartbreaking account written by a slave whose Master husband had died in the 9/11 attacks.
It put a human face on the issue she never considered before. It certainly wasn’t the cut-and-dry kinky porn of the sites James had visited.
These were people. Real people, passionate about what they did.
She mentally smacked herself. I need to forget about James and focus on my assignment.
Despite her misgivings over accepting the assignment, she was determined to be as unbiased as possible. To that end, she looked up the classes Ross had mentioned and sent an e-mail to the listed contact e-mail address to reserve her spots. She’d be attending Submission 101, Beginning Ropework, and Whips for Fun, whatever that meant. The first, Submission 101, would be held late that Saturday afternoon. The other two were a week from Saturday, the whip class first, followed immediately by the ropework class.
She met them at the Village Inn on US 41 the next evening. Shayla waited for the couple in the front foyer of the restaurant. “Ross and Loren?” Shayla tentatively asked when a couple walked in, looking like they were waiting for someone.
The man offered her a friendly smile and a handshake, as did Loren. “Yes, that’s us,” he said. “Shayla?”
“Yes. Nice to meet you.”
Ross looked like a regular, everyday middle-aged guy. He stood a little over six feet tall, with sandy brown hair and brown eyes and an average build. He wore khakis and a light blue Oxford shirt with the sleeves rolled halfway to his elbows. Loren, a good six inches shorter than him, wore black jeans and a pretty turquoise and magenta blouse that perfectly matched her reddish blonde hair and hazel eyes.
After they were seated and had given their drink orders to the waitress, Shayla pulled out her notebook and a digital voice recorder. “I’ll be honest that I don’t have any idea where to start,” Shayla said. “Is it okay if I record this?”
Ross nodded. “Like I said, as long as you don’t use any information that will out us, you’re free to quote us.”
Shayla nodded and activated the recorder, setting it on the table between them. “Okay. I did some web searches last night. I’m really in the dark here. I think everything I read left me more confused than when I started.”
Ross looked at his wife. “You’re usually the designated newbie whisperer,” he teased with a smile. “You want to talk and let me fill in later?”
She gently elbowed him in the side. “Okay, let’s start like this,” Loren said. “Forget all the hype and bullshit and negative radical feminist hyperbole. And the porn. Definitely forget the porn.”
“I wish I could,” Shayla said as she reached for her glass of water. “I don’t think there’s enough eye bleach in the world to wash away some of the stuff I saw.” Not just from last night, but some of the images she found when discovering what James had been up to were indelibly burned into her mental corneas.
“Probably not,” Loren agreed. “But remember, what the porn producers put out there is designed to make money. Or it’s exhibitionist amateurs getting their own kink on. There is very little in between that’s an even slightly accurate representation of what the average person does when they’re involved in BDSM. In other words, it’s not what most people would call real. Or realistic, at least.”
“Fair enough.”
Loren clasped her hands together in front of her on the table and lowered her voice after glancing to a nearby table where an older couple had just been seated. “I’m going to give you what everyone teases me is my ‘Newbie 101’ spiel. Just like everything in life, from golf to fishing to fantasy football leagues, to any pastime you can think of, there is a bell curve.
“Now, on this bell curve, you’ll have at the one end, let’s call that the vanilla end, the people who only dip their feet in every once in a while. You’ll have at the other end of the bell curve the really hard-core, extreme edge players who make some of the porn you watched look like a Disney cartoon. Then you’ll have the hump of the curve, where the majority of participants fit.
“The biggest misconception out there is that all people involved in BDSM are sex maniacs and swingers and every gathering is basically one big free-for-all sex party. And going by the bell curve theory, yes, you’ll have a few people like that, and maybe even a few gatherings like that. But they are the exception and not the norm. While sex is a big part of play for some people, for others, sex doesn’t have anything to do with their play or their dynamic. And again, there are people everywhere in between.”
Shayla nodded, her notepad and pen lying forgotten in front of her as Loren talked. This woman, if Shayla had to describe her, did not fit any kind of mousy, abused spouse stereotype she was aware of. In fact, if she didn’t know Loren was her husband’s slave, she would never have thought it. Not from the strength of her voice, or the intensity of her words, to the direct way Loren’s piercing gaze didn’t flinch from her ow
n.
She didn’t know what Loren did for a living, but she suspected she was a formidable opponent when crossed.
“So we get all that fantasy crap out of the way for starters,” Loren continued. “There are people in the lifestyle from all walks of life and all economic backgrounds and all ages. There are professionals and blue-collar workers, everyone you can possibly think of. From college-aged to retirees.”
Ross spoke up, a quirky smile on his face. “There are an inordinate number of nurses.”
Loren laughed but gently nudged him again. “Yes, our local group does count more than our fair share of nurses amongst our ranks, but there are a lot of hospitals and doctor offices and senior citizens in this area. It’s a retirement and snowbird haven. Meaning a high demand for nurses and other medical professionals. If you’re in a large steel town, there are probably a lot of steel plant workers in the local lifestyle.” She glanced at him. “Are you done interrupting me?”
Shayla caught the twinkle in his eye. “Yep.”
She nodded at him and returned her attention to Shayla. “And as you can see from us, there are times we’re just a normal husband and wife. BDSM is one facet of who we are. Yes, it’s a large part of our lives. But first and foremost, we’re people. We never lose sight of that fact.”
“Why do people want to be in this lifestyle?” Shayla asked, unable to contain the question. “Why do it?”
Loren shrugged. “Why not?” She smiled. “Sorry. I don’t mean to come off sounding flippant, but the truth of the matter is there are as many reasons for being in the lifestyle as there are people in the lifestyle.”
“I just don’t get what makes a person want to be beaten is all.”
Ross burst out laughing and clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle it when the nearby couple looked at him. He lowered his voice. “Loren doesn’t want to be beaten.”
“Not all the time,” she said with a grin.
He glanced at her but picked up his thought. “Impact play is only one part of our BDSM dynamic, a small part, and not everyone is into impact play.”