by Smith, Maren
“Please don’t make me go alone,” Pony said softly, still not looking up, not even when Puppy sank down to sit on the edge of her bed across from her. “I don’t want to have to go alone.”
“You don’t have to go at all.”
Raising her head, Pony stared at her in forlorn dismay. “I love him. Don’t you remember how that felt? Don’t you, in some small part of you, still love him too?”
The knots inside her were growing, expanding their strangling range all the way up into her throat. To be honest, all she felt when she thought about Ethen was anger—over all the promises he’d made… and broken; over the things he’d done, to the others as much as to her. Yes, once upon a time she’d loved him, and yes, if she let herself think about it, she not only knew what that felt like, but she sometimes could feel it still.
She turned her head away so she wouldn’t have to think about it. She tried instead to think about doing something that might get her out of here and away from her mother, Pony, and Ethen. Like walking to the library and reserving time on the computers so she could job hunt online. This time, she wasn’t going to let her anxieties rule over her. She’d get up every single day and she’d go to work, in clean clothes that she picked out herself and which weren’t pink. She wouldn’t let herself get overwhelmed when her job required that she talk to people. For a change, she would be strong. She wouldn’t fall apart, or hate every second that she was there, or walk off the job just because she couldn’t bear that everyone was staring at her because she was shaking, and scared, and strange.
Just once, she would do something normal. Something that wouldn’t leave her feeling useless, helpless. Pathetic.
Bending, Pony covered her too-thin face with too-thin hands. “I want to die,” she whispered.
Sharp anger drilled through Puppy, only to be swallowed by guilt. Pony wasn’t saying that to be mean or to gain attention. She was saying it because she meant it, and she meant it because the only person Puppy thought about these days was herself. What she wanted. What she could bear. What she desired.
She was selfish. She was unbelievably selfish.
“I’ll call a cab,” she whispered. Jumping off the bed, she ran down the hall so Pony wouldn’t see or hear it when she burst into tears.
She didn’t want to see Ethen, and yet when the cab pulled up into their driveway a half hour later, she was in perfect menagerie step right behind Pony as they walked out to it together. In the backseat, they held hands the whole way to the bus station, and again during most of the long ride to the penitentiary in West Virginia, where he was being housed. It wasn’t until they walked across the prison parking lot that Pony released her grip on Puppy and stepped into the lead, adopting the haughty strut that they’d all practiced to perfection.
She looked proud. She looked strong. When she reached the door and tossed that smile back at Puppy over her shoulder, she looked happier than she had been all year, and all Puppy wanted to do was to get through this without getting sick.
She really was selfish.
* * *
It was probably too much to hope that Puppy would come back to Black Light two nights in a row. After all, Carlson thought, trying not to get his hopes up, he’d been a part-time employee/member here for eight months and he hadn’t ever seen her until now. Also, he was working tonight, so as much as he might wish he could, he just couldn’t devote his time to just hanging out and talking with her.
Still, every time he heard the door open or spotted movement near the door out of the corner of his eye, his excitement would blossom. And then, every time he saw it wasn’t her, that same blip of excitement promptly crashed.
“Looking for someone?”
Carlson startled. He was standing in the shadows near the wall, an unobtrusive sentry watching over two dommes as they alternately tickle-tortured their slave boy and shocked the hell out of him with the violet wands humming quietly at the ready in a secondary helper’s hands. Despite his growls of frustration during the tickling or his grunts and shouts during the zapping, the slave had a high-standing hardon, and no safeword had yet been uttered. Still, one of those dommes was known to get a little carried away when she got deep in a scene. So here he was, keeping close watch to make sure everything went all right.
That being true, it was more than a little embarrassing not to have noticed Spencer walking up behind him.
“Not really,” Carlson said, more than a little embarrassed to have been caught not paying attention, and by the boss.
“Are you expecting her back tonight?” Spencer asked.
Blinking twice, Carlson dismissed the scene playing out in front of him and gave his boss his complete attention. “Who?”
Spencer gave him a withering look. “You know who.”
All right. Now he really had Carlson’s attention. “Am I stepping on toes by talking with her? She didn’t tell me she was high protocol or even that she was someone else’s submissive.”
Spencer watched the tickle-torture scene playing out before them, the lines of his body perfectly relaxed and yet the subtle nuances of his normally unflappable expression anything but. He looked… not angry, really. But there was an intensity about him that immediately raised every one of Carlson’s suspicion-flags, especially when his boss ignored his question and countered with another of his own. “What did she talk about last night?”
“To be honest, I was the one who did most of the talking. She was pretty quiet. What’s this about?”
“Probably nothing,” Spencer hedged.
And now his irritation was pricked right alongside his doubts.
“No,” Carlson said, in a voice he normally reserved for smart-ass recruits too new to have figured out they’d just stepped past the point where they should have shut up. He apparently even said it loud enough to draw attention from some of the voyeurs watching from the perimeter of the scene. Aware they were now being watched too, Carlson caught Spencer’s arm and pulled him aside.
“No,” he said again, much softer. “If there’s something you want to know, you better tell me why. Otherwise, my conversations with other members and potential play partners is absolutely none of your business. Sir,” he added, just so they both knew he was well aware of how low on the employee totem pole he stood.
Spencer huffed a sigh, his expression now wavering between annoyed and embarrassed. “It’s probably nothing.”
“Then nothing is exactly what we talked about.”
The two men frowned at one another, but it was Spencer who gave in first. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s none of my business. But if she brings up the name Ethen O’Dowell, will you do me the favor of letting me know? Please?”
Again, that name tickled at the back of Carlson’s head, but already his boss was walking away, back stiff, arms folded, eyes restlessly scanning the room and—although that might have been a trick of Carlson’s pricked suspicions—more than once drifting to the club’s entrance where his mystery girl was not standing.
She didn’t arrive until hours later when he was clocking off work. Like a modern-day Cinderella with the rules in reverse, she shyly stepped out of the entrance at just after midnight, dressed in jeans and a pink kitty-cat shirt that had him wondering if she was a Little.
Not ten seconds from her arrival, here came Spencer, emerging from his office with his dark stare fixed on her like a hawk on a rabbit. He started toward her, kicking every one of Carlson’s protective instincts into overdrive. He had no idea why or even what Spencer might have said to her had he not beat his boss and reached Puppy first.
“Hello again,” he greeted, pasting on a smile that wasn’t hard to find or to maintain, especially not when she offered a very hesitant smile of her own and willingly took those last few steps that closed the distance between them herself.
“Hi.” She seemed happy to see him, which was nice. He also liked that she was in a heavier shirt than she had been last night, it wasn’t a coat and that struck him as a littl
e concerning. The color of her hands was off, showing how cold she was. After last night, she’d have known she would be, so did she not have a coat?
Now he was really looking at her. As ill-suited as her outfit was for this time of year in D.C., it was equally unsuited for a place like Black Light. This was an upscale environment. Most—not everyone—but most people, whether they came to play or watch, came dressed as they identified. Submissives wore less—seductive club dresses that could easily be trimmed down to underwear, or bedroom lingerie and heels. Doms wore leather, especially those who identified as ‘Old Guard’ or who affiliated themselves with the Bloods, Leather, Wolf, or other such primal groups. Those who didn’t still wore pleather, latex, or something black and tight-fitting, and they carried their playbags with them. Even if all they had was a toy or two, they still carried a bag to show they could and were interested in playing.
Not only did she have no bag with her, but nothing about her clothes really belonged in a BDSM dungeon. They didn’t even fit her well. Several sizes too big, her shirt hung on her and her jeans were actually baggy. She was really thin to his eye, and those dark circles under hers showed she wasn’t sleeping well.
She didn’t need to be here, Carlson suddenly realized, much as he’d been hoping all night to see her. She needed to be someplace that served a good, hot meal. She needed to be in warm clothes, including a coat, and she needed to be tucked into bed so she could sleep. Exactly what was her situation? Surely she wasn’t homeless; she couldn’t possibly be a member here if she were.
And why was he even thinking along these lines? He’d known this girl for twenty-four hours, and now he was, what? Setting himself up as her pity Dom? Unlike everyone else here, he knew next to nothing about her and judging by how they were all acting —including Spencer who was, hands down, one of the most caring Doms he’d ever known when it came to the members of this club. Something in the back of his head was whispering he might want to re-think getting involved.
And yet, his gut kept him rooted where he was, ticking off all the little things he was noticing, her wind tussled hair which might not have seen a brush today, the contrast of the dark circles under her eyes against the paleness of her complexion, and he already knew he wasn’t prepared to walk away. She wasn’t his submissive—he didn’t know if she was anybody’s submissive—but she needed somebody. Right now, he was the only one standing here.
“I was about to grab my bag and find a quiet spot on the floor,” he offered.
“Oh.” She pulled her reddened hands into her shirt sleeves, rubbing them together as she looked around the busy play area. In sharp contrast to the night before, almost all the stations were in use and a few even had waiting lines. “A-are you sceneing with someone? I can just stay back here and watch.”
“Nobody’s waiting for me,” he assured her, although a quick scan of the room showed at least two of his regular rope bunnies trying not to be obvious about looking his way. The minute he came back in here with his bag slung over his shoulder, unless he had another submissive on his arm, the race would be on to see who came bounding through the crowd to reach him first. “Are you doing anything tonight? Because I certainly wouldn’t mind if you wanted to keep me company.”
It might have been a trick of his hopeful imagination, but the set of her shoulders seemed to relax before she nodded. “I can do that.”
With a glance back over his shoulder meant to ward Spencer off, he left her standing in the doorway and quickly made his way to the locker where his bag was stored. He moved quickly, glad to see Puppy still waiting where he’d left her. So was Spencer. Arms folded, he stood at the bar, not far from his office door, watching her and frowning.
“Let’s go find a quiet spot,” Carlson offered, determined not to care although he knew his boss was following them, albeit at a respectful distance. Spencer had been an active member of this community for far too long to ever interrupt another’s scene, at least so long as the rules of Black Light were obeyed.
His usual rope bunnies showed their disappointment when he came walking through the dungeon with Puppy trailing along behind him. At first, they must not have recognized her. He knew the exact moment when that changed, however, because that was when he noticed the double-takes. Then the startled stares and the whispers began, and he knew it wasn’t because of anything he was doing.
He also knew by their faces the exact moment when Puppy’s already frayed nerves gave out and she turned to run, because suddenly all of their faces followed her rapid retreat toward the exit. He caught up with her halfway to the door. His hand grabbed her elbow and she snapped around, head already ducking the blow she expected and which he would never have thrown.
That she didn’t make a sound surprised him. Anyone else would have thrown up a blocking arm or yanked out of his grasp, or at the very least, snapped out a startled, irritated, or perhaps even frightened, ‘Get off me!’
She didn’t. In fact, apart from that slight duck of her head, Puppy just dropped to her knees. He didn’t know which of them that startled more, him, her, or everyone openly watching from the sidelines.
Her face flushed a deep beet red. She trembled, her deer-in-the-headlights gaze silently locking on him for almost three full seconds before she scrambled to her feet.
“Wait, please.” He wasn’t half as calm as his voice said he was. He held onto her arm just above the elbow, sternly telling himself if she pulled, even just one time, he’d let her go. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to grab you. I’ll let go, okay?”
That she didn’t swing on him or scream, causing an even bigger scene was nothing short of a miracle considering how horribly embarrassed she seemed. She kept her head down, her eyes averted, and her body stiff throughout every ticking second that it took his hand to grudgingly obey the order his brain kept sending.
“Please don’t run,” he said, just before his fingers relaxed that final -enth of a degree and then she was free.
That she didn’t run was his second surprise. She ducked her head, looking both left and right, and although he knew better than to touch her again, he couldn’t help himself. They weren’t play partners. She wasn’t his submissive. It was extremely poor dungeon etiquette for anyone to put hands on another person, whether dominant or submissive, without their express consent, but he did. Catching her by the chin, he gently brought her nervous gaze back to his. Upset as she was, her breath caught and her eyes locked on his, and her whole body tensed, but it was a different kind of tension.
She stared at him. Not just as a woman in an uncomfortable situation, but as a submissive waiting to be commanded.
Pure anticipation zinged through him, tingling in his fingertips where he touched her. This was wrong. Let go, he told himself, but only one finger moved and it was not to obey him. His thumb caressed a slow path along her jawline, moving towards her lips.
“You’re safe with me,” he promised.
Her eyebrows buckled. Her lips parted, but she didn’t argue. She didn’t pull away either.
“I’m not going to let anyone hurt you, do you understand?”
Her trembling intensified, but in the gentle cup of his hand, she nodded. “Y-yes, Sir.”
The unanticipated honorific was almost enough to make him tremble too.
“We’re going to go back to the corner we were in last night,” he directed. “Can you do that, or do you need me to blindfold you?”
Her trembling became shaking. In swift, tiny jerks, she shook her head no.
No blindfolds.
“You have as much right to be here as anybody else,” he told her. “I want you right by my side. Let’s go.”
She dropped her eyes the instant he let go of her chin, but the rest of her was straight and almost regal as she attached herself to his side. Shouldering his bag again, he spotted Spencer at the mouth of the locker room area, arms folded, jaw clenching.
Turning on his heel, Carlson led the way into the very back of the dungeon. He ignored
the whispers and the stares. Hell, nearly every scene they passed stopped in the middle of whatever they were doing to watch her go by.
Something was very wrong here. He didn’t know what, but he was going to get to the bottom of it tonight.
Chapter 6
Few people played in the very back nook where Carlson took her. It was the perfect ‘out of the way’ spot for a rope enthusiast to practice his knots. There were two play areas here, each separated from the other by heavy, red velvet curtains. Each had its own mechanical hoist. Varying lengths and weights of chain hung in neat coils on the wall of each space, and the only time either saw any real use was the rare times that someone did actual suspension work or if someone wanted to do a little blood play and the medical room was already booked. The floor here was tile, with a slight dip and a drain in the center making this an easy area to scrub down.
In the two years that Puppy had been coming here with Ethen, she had only ever seen this nook in use once and that was when a visiting dominant did a class on hook suspension. It had been one of the worst classes she’d ever attended. Not just because blood play made her squeamish, but because she’d been in trouble that night and all through the class Ethen kept whispering, “What do you think? Shall I tell him you’d like to try this? Do you want the hooks in your breasts or your back? How long shall I leave you hanging? Do you think your skin will split?”
Refusing to look at the hoist, Puppy knelt on the floor in front of Carlson with her hands on her knees. Sometimes if she forgot to pay attention or became lulled by his soft and constant talking, she’d suddenly realize she had turned her hands palm up or spread her knees into Ethen’s preferred Display position. Each time she caught herself doing it, she quickly moved her hands higher on her thighs, or put her palms flat on her jeans, or squeezed her knees together. She was wearing pants, thank goodness, so it wasn’t as if she was flashing anything. She just hoped he didn’t notice. With Carlson, she quickly learned, it was hard to tell.