by Sophia Reed
Yeah. That was why.
"Tell me what you do," I said to my dinner companion, prepared for her to bounce a little and tell me of course she worked for the adult entertainment company that had sent her here.
Only she didn't. She didn't because just then a bell rang and servers cleared the table and in between bits of business still being transacted and women still sitting still, their various attributes on display, there were suddenly mirrors revealed behind the draperies that hung floor to ceiling against two walls of the dining room. And there were two women climbing onto the table to shed their clothes and begin caressing each other.
I blinked. Well. This was more entertaining than the parties I used to throw, back before everyone scattered. This might be interesting after all.
My companion pouted a little, one lock of hair twisted around her finger. I found myself smiling at that. I'm not one to object to obvious ploys. I still didn't know who she belonged to, but I reached out and ran a hand over the nearest boob, avoiding the barb stuck through the nipple. She made a little O face and licked her lips. Her legs spread encouragingly. I looked around the table, wondering if one took or asked.
The man across from me said, "Go ahead." He was in the process of pulling one of the girls off the table and across his lap, one hand fisting in her hair, shoving her head down toward the floor, the other starting to rub quite hard at her ass. "Tip for you? She hates anal." He winked.
That was enough for me. I was stiff and aching instantly. Since Annie had left –
No. Not thinking about her. Only that since she had left, enough didn't seem to be, and the pain master in me wanted to punish more and more.
"Hates anal, huh?"
The girl next to me jumped. Her eyes went wide and she glared at the man across the table, who winked at both of us. For a second I considered if maybe she actually liked what he was telling me, but no, she looked like she was seconds away from begging.
The sadist in me flared white hot. From a bowl on the table between the wine and the commingling girls, I selected a foil packet and slipped my cock out and the rubber on. She was looking across the table, all former poutiness fled. She was very desperately trying to signal her Dom she didn't want this.
I saw no reason she should communicate in silence. "Oh, he understands, sweetheart," I said, and let the condom snap a little around the base of my cock. "He wants you to do this."
That got the attention of a couple other people at the table. The girl looked at me, eyes wide, then probably without meaning to, looked down at my cock.
I smiled, feeling almost satisfied already. "Come here." My voice was stern, hard as my erection. She opened her mouth, staring at me, probably willing to barter for something less. Whatever she saw in my face changed her mind. She lowered her eyes. "Yes, sir."
She slid from her seat and knelt at my feet, her forehead touching my knees. Very pretty, but no way for me to fuck her in that position.
"Stand up, girl," I said, not unkindly. When she did I put my hands on her hips and turned her so she faced away from me. Then I guided her down until she was essentially doing a squat over my lap, her skirt tucked up into its own waistband, out of my way.
"Pull your cheeks apart," I said in a low voice.
She gave a stifled cry and complied, spreading herself open.
"Now ease yourself down."
She sank a couple inches and touched the tip of my erection with her tight hole, gave a little sob and stopped moving.
I put both hands on her hips and pulled her down hard at the same time I thrust up. If her owner knew she hated this, then he'd done it to her. She could take a random thrust or two.
She made a sound, muffled it, put her hands flat on the table top as though she'd been trained to keep them out of the way. I thought about ordering her to play with her nipples, then realized with those piercings in place, I'd much rather do it myself. She wouldn't hurt herself like I would.
I touched between her legs and came away with a physical representation that however much she hated anal, it excited her. That was more than I needed to know before I started to pump into her. "Pull your skirt up and play with yourself," I said, and my hands came away from her hips and began squeezing her nipples and sliding the barbed piercings back and forth, just to the point of nicking her with them each time. The man across the table looked nearly overcome, and I noticed a head bobbing up and down on him, almost under the table. The girls on the table had climbed down and gone away. I dimly thought that one of them had muttered something like "Fuck this," and that I'd heard the sounds of clothing and the front door closing.
One man's meat…
I pounded into her. She cried out, her hands busy between her legs, her tits starting to bleed, just a little, but any blood without consent to blood play meant finishing up and letting the sub clean up, disinfect, and dress. She would be done for the night…
…just as soon…
…as I came deep inside her ass.
She cried out and I grunted, exploding and feeling her contract around me, a powerful orgasm triggered by my being buried in her ass and her hands being buried between her legs.
She all but fell off me.
"I didn't tell you to move," I said. I wasn't even quite finished coming. Without thinking, I reached down and slapped her hard across the face.
Seconds later I realized she wasn't my sub to punish. Not without permission. The little man seemed unconcerned. He was too far gone into his own pleasure, but the man next to me said, "Not acceptable, St. Martin," and I nodded. "If you have a system?"
They did. A charity. Odd how many of the charities out there received regular influxes of money from billionaires with "unsavory" habits. I helped the girl up and asked if she wanted ice or Advil or any natural painkillers. Her dazed eyes said the slap hadn't registered as much as the O had. I put my hand out to stroke her face, wondering if she'd shy away. Instead she leaned into me, nearly purring, then adjusted her skirt and said dreamily, "I have to go clean up and dress."
Looking around the table I saw an out for the rest of the festivities and suddenly I was very tired of all of it. All I wanted was to finish the business talk over cigars and port. That was coming. As far as I could tell, we had about thirty minutes of debauchery left.
Was I losing my edge? My mind? Or did I just want the person I hurt to be mine?
"Let me take care of you." It wasn't a question and she didn't refuse. She knew the house better than I did and led me to the guest bath, stocked with condoms, dental dams, morning after pills, laxatives, various deep heating rubs that obviously weren't there to soothe tired muscles. There were analgesic pills and analgesic creams, disinfectant wipes, bandages of all sizes and shapes, and a treasure trove of toys still in their wraps.
This was becoming a weirdly new normal. Though the caretaking with Marilyn had been because of an accidental injury, this girl I'd meant to hurt. But aftercare is supposed to be a part of it.
I wondered about my new companions, whether their kink went 24/7 or was hauled out for events. I wondered if they were Doms or Masters, or if any of them matched me for sexual savagery. I was a sadist first and foremost.
But I cleaned her nipples carefully, wearing gloves as I did so. "Are you bleeding anywhere else?" There was only one other place she would be.
"Do you wish to check?" she asked. She met my stare.
That was disconcerting. "If I check, it will mean a second time."
She continued to hold my gaze.
"Bend over the sink," I told her, reaching for another condom. Fifteen minutes later we’d learned she wasn't bleeding. I led her into a shadowy guest room and made her lay face down on the bed. Whatever she was expecting, it wasn't to have warm oil poured on her back and her shoulders and back massaged gently.
Until she fell asleep, a fleece throw pulled up to her chin, both hands fisted in it, keeping it over her. There was a smile on her face and one on mine that surprised me. I leaned down and kisse
d the top of her head, then turned the light off and left the room.
In the dining room the activity was drifting away. Leo Stark and John Fleet were smoking cigars and drinking bourbon.
"St. Martin," Fleet hailed me. "Have a seat. Have a smoke. Let's do some business."
The air was blue and hazy with good tobacco. I sat down, went through the ritual, lit up and puffed, poured two fingers of top of the line bourbon and sat back.
"Tell me about the day spa idea," I said.
It was the best I'd felt in weeks. I wasn't certain if it was talking business, drinking bourbon, a fine meal, a couple good fucks, hurting the girl and then comforting her –
Or having not thought about Annie for something like two hours straight.
7
Annie
By the second week of September I had the routine down. I could find my way between classes, and I'd read the text books cover to cover, making paragraph notes in the virtual margins to later study. Not because I was a great student but because if I left ponderous tomes to be read later, later would never arrive.
My best class was Constitutional Law with Stan Barnhill. He was a used-car-salesman-looking man of indeterminate late middle age, fat the way older men get and kind, curious about everything and fascinated with the mob. Anything mob got his attention. I got in the habit of carrying a paperback to class with me to read before it started. I was about the same age as most of the students, but it didn't feel like I had anything in common with them. Since I'd tested out of basic classes, I didn't have a background with them. They were nice enough, but it was like sitting through endless in-jokes.
Barnhill would come in every day and nudge the book I was reading upward until he could read the cover. When I started reading John D. MacDonald's Travis McGee series, he was excited and spent five minutes talking to me about it before he started class.
He was never as enthusiastic about the Jenny Crusie romances.
My other classes were corrections, all about the prison system, by a man older than God, it seemed, who gave interesting assignments in the real world like walking through the local prison. Interesting if it hadn't been your career for several years already.
The third CJ class was Procedure, taught by a local judge who wore immaculate suits and told funny stories about cases that had happened in Clark County. The following semester I'd have Principles of Investigation from the department chair, and a different constitutional law class from one of the retired heads of the GOP.
It was new, it was exciting, and it was just enough to keep my lusty thoughts at bay during the day. I could forget about St. Martin and his anger issues and my "training" and the fet and my father and Mark and everything else for entire minutes at a time.
Since evenings were long and there was only so long I could loiter in the gym before my muscles turned to suet, I joined the law club. Most of the students in it were headed more toward paralegal careers or on to law schools, but there were enough of us law enforcement types to make for some interesting conversations.
We'd meet at the Student Union's on-campus Starbucks and drink coffee and talk until our throats were raw. We raised money to have the district attorney come talk to us as September started to wane. We studied together and exchanged stories if we were already working in the field.
That was questionable from a common sense angle. What sounds harmless is sometimes information best left unshared. I talked very briefly about Seattle PD, and it probably didn't matter. I didn't talk about being undercover or what had led me to Las Vegas. Most people assumed the story went as far as I told it: I wanted to apply for the DEA while I looked young enough to get away with undercover in colleges if not high schools.
Two guys assured me I could pull off high school.
Two girls hmm'd and haw'd and pretended I needed night cream and eye cream and – dissolved into giggles.
Maybe I didn't have that many female friends ever because I found them confusing and inexplicable. But I liked Jenna and Julie and the guys in the club, and it was nice to be part of something, especially since they didn't probe deeply. They were on a trajectory from high school to college to law enforcement or law school or paralegal studies. They knew I was heading to the DEA. It was obvious I was in the program so I didn't have to hide that, and I was hell and gone from Seattle – it seemed okay to say I'd been a cop. It was also nice that saying so didn't seem so overwhelmingly Wow! that there were a lot of questions.
The whole thing suited me.
Then James asked me out.
8
Annie
I couldn't stop pacing. Two hours until my date and everything I owned was spread across my apartment as if my closet had blown up. There were shoes, skirts, shirts, dresses, things I couldn't remember buying but must have worn in my real life. Because I seemed to recognize everything I'd worn when I was with Jesse and the Brotherhood did that make me a bad fiancée? That I remembered times with a man who sold drugs and had once dislocated my jaw?
But I already knew I was a bad fiancée. And now I wasn't any sort of fiancée and that was okay.
I considered calling one of the girls in my classes but I didn't want anyone to know I was dating someone from our program. Partly because it might not work out. Partly I suppose because I thought he had more at stake than I did. I could do school without people around, I just enjoyed having company for a change.
In the end I called my sister Emily. Maybe Emily because I kind of got along with her sometimes. None of my three sisters were anything like me. I was the outlier in polite speak, and the family black sheep in reality.
"Annie? This is a surprise."
Though she didn't sound like she thought it was a horrible one. That surprised me enough I almost spent some time chatting before asking her my questions but then I had less than two hours and my nerves were thrumming and so I – messed up.
"Em, hey, I know it's been a while and I promise if you want we can have a long conversation soon but right now I need advice."
She didn't quite sigh. Emily is somewhat proper, like she was born into the wrong time. By maybe a hundred years. But she gave the impression of it. "What's up, Anne?"
"I have a date," I said, no longer hoping for much. Outside the sun was going down in a beautiful array of pinks and golds.
To my surprise, Emily was instantly excited for me. "That's great! Hey, Dad said you enrolled in college. And you've moved! What's up? Are you still getting married?"
I bit my lip and checked the time on the microwave. I could talk to Em for thirty minutes and still have enough time to get ready. This was unusual enough – her being excited about anything in my life – that I kind of wanted to.
Which is why I had been dressed in nice jeans, boots, a white scoop neck t-shirt and red beads and earrings for about ten seconds when James arrived.
"Hey, you look great."
So did he. Long dark hair, big dark eyes, the kind of guy who five o'clock shadows by three p.m. He was wearing a white heavy cotton button-down and clean dark jeans. I drew in a breath, half wishing I could suggest we stay in. We could have a good time without ever taking in the Fremont Street Experience. Who needs ziplines?
But that wasn't fair. It also wasn't normal. This was a date, not a hookup. He deserved a chance to run like hell, I told myself, before he finds out what a freak you are.
And then strangely Cole St. Martin was in my head, telling me I didn't get to talk that way about me. It was unexpected. It was also really nice.
"So there's this place in Portland, tell me if you know it, because I was only there once and I wasn't – ahem! – in a strictly legal state of mind, at least at the time, and I've never been able to find it again."
I narrowed my eyes at him across the table. We'd ended up, after ziplining and going through a bunch of small shops and taking in all the new tech, in a taproom, looking at sandwiches and salads and local brews. "You realize I was in Seattle and that Seattle is not Portland?"
He made a face of shocked incomprehension which made me laugh. "Mercy! And you never were ever allowed out of Seattle?"
"Shut up. Yes, I went to Portland. The really big bookstore that takes up a full block, it's called – "
"Now you shut up," he said. "Not Powell's. I'm talking about the other necessity in life. Not books – food. There was this place in Portland, a tiny tea room, only open like during blue moons or something funky, had the best – "
"Brownies," I said dreamily. "Or crème brulée. Or anything. If you ordered it, it was the best you ever had. It's open on fairy schedules, I think, and it's in an old house that should have been condemned but probably the city condemner is a fan."
He raised both dark brows. "Condemner?"
"I'm sure it's a thing. When were you there? It helps to be stoned, by the way. Makes it easier to see the fairies and find the restaurant."
Then we were both talking volubly about food and books and Portland and Seattle and then we were talking about a girl he knew who was a friend, not a girlfriend, he emphasized, as if I might care despite it being in the past. The girlfriend – girl, who was a friend – asked him to go with her to Lucky Devil Body Piercing and didn't tell him she was getting her hood pierced. He described all the fuss and undressing and no sheets – Well, they have to be able to see where they're piercing, I said, hoping he'd see reason.
He didn't. He was blushing as he told me how she squeezed his hand so hard he thought he'd have to go to emergency afterwards only he couldn't think what to tell them.
"It's Portland," I said. "The truth."
He choked on his beer, laughed, blushed again, and said, "She kept asking me to go around and tell her hot it looked. How it looked! Like metal in a very bad place for metal and blood somewhere I didn't want to see blood and oh, yeah, right, something I didn't want to see in someone I wasn't dating!"
And I laughed with him and thought how cute he was, how easily embarrassed and how we obviously weren't going to be ending up in bed together if that was his attitude.