Make Me: Twelve Tales of Dark Desire

by Aleatha Romig

  My calendar was now thriving with engagements. A few appointments to see if I could get into a regular job doing documentaries, a place in a comedy tour going into the outback towns and down into New South Wales. Maybe even a place touring overseas if my luck held. If.

  Let’s face it, I was still going to be eating beans soon. The outback tour was a crap one that’d earn me a pittance for basically getting heckled every second night. I’d wasted a month, let myself have the most demeaning, most painful things done to me, and all for footage I couldn’t use. And Klaus had walked out on me.

  Without explaining why. That was what hurt the most. That he hadn’t even bothered to say. I’d asked him and only received answers that perplexed me more.

  I stared at the PC screen again, like it could sit up and answer all my deep and meaningful questions. I shut my eyes. Like it could tell me why I craved what he’d done. It bothered me. When I wondered about him, the same question popped up. Did he blame me? Had I done something wrong, something bad? Or, and this one seemed more and more possible the more I thought about it, did he blame himself in some way? The note had pretty much stated that.

  I can’t be with you without hurting you. I’m not safe.

  I couldn’t understand truly why because he hadn’t explained. Now he’d blocked my calls, and didn’t answer texts or emails. My next step would be to turn up at his apartment, but even to me that seemed too desperate. Because facing him turning me away from his home would likely devastate me.

  I wasn’t a stalker, was I?

  I sniffed back tears. They hadn’t come much the last few days, just sometimes when I was lonely. Maybe Adrianna was right and I should go out with the girls?

  Or maybe, I should answer the emails that had been sitting in my inbox for days. I could even see one from Moghul and one from, of all people, Kat, or FieryKat as she called herself on Fetlife. I knew about Fetlife though I hadn’t joined. It seemed full of scary people, Kat included. How had they gotten my email? One possibility emerged—Klaus.

  Was this him trying to help me?

  I leaned back in the chair and folded my arms, did some rocking back and forth, maybe hoping that would jar my obviously decrepit brain into working. In a week and a half this tour started. In a week I could knuckle down and see if there was anything in the footage I could use. There must be friggin days of footage, even if he had turned off the cameras after he got really kinky. If I drummed up the courage, and edited severely, I could have a bestseller in there.

  ’Kay. I stuck my knuckle in my mouth and bit down, stayed that way until the pain got to me. Then I reached out and turned the computer back on. Go, Jodie. Let’s become a BDSM porn star. Not.

  The first file was the first day. Those bits were boring. So, heart thumping away, sweat at my temples, I jumped ahead and looked at a later file.

  Through my fingers caging my eyes, I watched myself, naked, getting cropped by Klaus while my hands were tied overhead. Ohmigod, I melted into the chair and slouched there, riveted. Then I switched and watched him—he was so enthralled in what he did that he never looked away from me once.

  When the video file ended, I rested my chin on my hands, thought awhile then announced my decision out loud, in a very firm voice, as if that made it a fairytale wish that would magically come true.

  “I have to go see him.”

  What we had might have been perverted by the average person’s standards, but I wanted it back. I wanted to see if we could be together, somehow. Not just me and any random Dom, I wanted to be together with Klaus. But I could see the problem now there was distance. Our month together had been artificial and, in the end, that had hurt us both, maybe even, I had a sudden thought, maybe Klaus more than me?

  He was a formidable man, so what had made him run like that? I’d ask him to his face.

  After all, what could he do if I accosted him at his home? Uh. Yeah. Lots of nasty things, possibly. Somewhere else then? If I was determined, I could do this.

  *

  The office was the best in-between place where I could find Klaus. Not too personal. Not too private.

  So, here I was, on the beach across the road from the office, in a Mexican sombrero and big sunglasses plus an itsy bitsy mauve bikini top and purple skintight shorts. The office closed at midday on Saturdays, so just before that, I sauntered across the road.

  Only, to my dismay, the plaque with the opening hours said it closed at eleven thirty. Shit.

  I knocked on the glass door but the secretary was gone and no one answered. Frantic, I walked around to the side window and peered in.

  Oh, thank God.

  He was in there still. I unfolded and plastered my sign against the window, then I tapped. I took off the sombrero and the sunglasses. He was just getting up from his chair when he saw me. His gaze locked on mine.

  I desperately wanted to emphasize the importance of this, my need, but couldn’t think of a way, so I merely swiveled the paper on the glass a little, and I waited, trying not to shake, trying to look lost and forlorn.

  Which I was.

  The sign was simple: Meet me at the park. Please. I HAVE to talk. I beg you.

  I stared some more then he nodded. The hairs on the back of my neck rose. Cold shivers ran all the way down my arms. He’d said yes. Oh fuck.

  The park was up the hill a little to the right, farther along the beach road. We’d often met there to share a picnic lunch back in the days when we were couple.

  Even next to the beach, with the breeze coming off the water, it was hot at midday on Magnetic Island—especially hiking up a small hill. His jeep growled past me on the way and he never slowed at all. Okay, I could take that. He hadn’t wanted to meet me. This was my idea.

  It did hurt, though. This was what I could look forward to—more distancing, and more rejection. If he blamed himself and thought he was dangerous, I had to be ready to rebut his arguments. Think of this as a kinky debate. One that had our future riding on it.

  The last twenty yards as I approached the bench where he sat were fraught with both a severe case of oh-my-god-what-am-I-going-to-say, and a joy that I’d see him again. The tree overhead left the seat in the coolness of shade and the ground covered in leaves that crunched underfoot.

  I arrived to the sound of fractured leaves and the whine of the wind.

  He’d draped himself with his arm along the back of the iron and slatted timber bench, with a big, long section un-sat in and unoccupied. I eyed it but wasn’t game to sit. Though I wanted to so very much. The warm swell that built inside me as I waited before Klaus shook me. He was pretending I hadn’t arrived, and watching something, or nothing, in the distance.

  The wind flung my hair across my face, and I pulled it from my mouth, then I waited until the tension tore at my heart too much. “Sir?”

  His eyes were sadder but still pretty, if a man’s could be called that. The long pants and button-up cotton shirt from work emphasized his masculinity. There were muscles under there, ones that could hold me down with ease while he did things to me, evil, nasty, wonderful things. I wanted to touch his jaw and feel the stubble against my skin. I wanted to look up and see him looking down at me, his property.

  “I’m not your Sir,” he said gently. “What do you want, Jodie?”

  Not. The negative made my eyes ache.

  You, of course. I want you. I dredged up a better answer. “I want to know why you left me.”

  A pause. He seemed into letting me wait forever for his answers. I wasn’t going away without them, even if he took a hundred years.

  “I told you why.”

  “That didn’t make sense.” More silence. “Yes, you hurt me, but I wanted you to.”

  A frown slowly crept onto his brow. “You’ve forgotten that Kat wanted to stick a needle through your nipple? Maybe you have but that doesn’t change anything. You were terrified. I knew it. I saw it and ignored it. I can’t trust myself with you.” Now he saw me properly, dissected me from my feet to
my face. “Let me loose and one day I’d probably hurt you badly. I’m a sadist and a sociopath. Now do you understand?”

  Uh. I remembered. I saw that needle again, at my breast. “Yes, she was scaring me, but you stopped her.”

  “Because she kept at me until I woke up. Are you wearing only that?”

  “What?” Confused, I glanced down at my scanty clothes. “I’ve got a T-shirt.” Maybe if I stuck out my chest and flirted?

  “You’ll get sunburnt. Put it on.”

  His concern for my well-being startled me and the sting returned to my eyes. He did still care. For a moment I let myself imagine he was still my Master and this was his command, but the feeling dwindled to a pitiful nothing. He wasn’t, of course. It wasn’t. This was nothing more than what he’d say to anyone. Despite the sombrero, my shoulders did feel burnt just from the walk here.

  I sighed. Miserable, I took off the sombrero, found the T shirt in my cloth bag and pulled it on.

  I understood now. More than I had.

  He was so terribly patient with me. I might have had to drag him to this meeting but he was explaining this to me without yelling or looking angry. Even now he simply waited for me to process what he’d said. Like if maybe he got this told to me right and done with, he’d not have to repeat it? He was wrong though, wasn’t he?

  Eyes half-shut, still puzzling over the ramifications, I shook my head. “I remember that—Kat, the needle, and being really panicky, but you stopped her, you stopped yourself.” I looked in his eyes. “You never truly hurt me more than I could stand. It was part of what made it all worthwhile for me. I liked it.” I searched for a word, clenched my fist to my chest. “I reveled in it. I want it to be us again. Please. Please, try.”

  “No. I want you to contact Moghul or Kat though. I gave them your email. Talk to them. I think perhaps you do need someone. Just not me. It’s over, Jodie.” He raised his hand toward me, as if he’d been struck by the urge to touch.

  “Over? No. No, please.” If I could communicate the depth of my need with my eyes I would have. I should show him with some other gesture. I slipped to my knees in the grass and dirt. “Sir. Please. Let us try again.”

  “No,” he grated out, and for once I could see the depth of the pain on his face.

  Oh God. It hurt me to see that and know. He was hurting, more than me.

  How selfish had I been? I’d organized this month-long experiment without a thought as to how it might affect him. He seemed so strong, yet I’d seen torture in his expression. If he’d let me I would have gone to him and hugged him, kissed him, drawn his arms around me so we were together again in the way a man and woman should be. Whole.

  Something twisted inside me. Awareness blossomed.

  That was the moment my heart truly let him in. I saw him as a man, not just my Master, because he needed me. I wanted more than just to kneel for him. I wanted to help him when he was sad, to be there for him, to make the pain go away.

  I raised my head. “Please.” This time, my heart and my soul bled out into my eyes.

  But he stood and stepped back like I had some disease that might infect him. “Go home, Jodie.”

  And he walked away.

  Dismayed, I watched him go.

  What could I do? Nothing. It had been useless. I’d achieved nothing much at all except for understanding. I understood how hopeless this was. How implacable his stance. I’d not convince him in a century of begging.

  Every part of my body seemed disassociated from the real me.

  Oh, and I’d achieved one other paltry thing. I’d found out I loved him.

  I picked myself up, dusted off my knees, sat in a crumpled heap on the bench, and thought a long time. Only one or two tears slipped down my face. Then I went home. I had no idea what I should do. None, at all.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Klaus

  ‡

  Funny how they called it nursing a beer, but it fitted. The thing had gone flat long ago and I only hung onto it for something to do. The outdoor beer garden of the Yellow Cockatoo Hotel was crowded enough that I could sit by myself and not be noticed in all the noisiness. The night air was crisp and filled with the scent of tropical flowers hanging off the trellises, barbecued meat from the kitchens, the sound of mingled voices, and now and then the distant roll of waves on the shore. I was peaceful yet alone, yet also empty.

  Give it another year maybe, I’d be over it.

  Jodie was here somewhere. I’d seen her inside with some of her girlfriends, including the craziest one, Adrianna. Though on a crazy scale the other two were up there in the nine out of ten range too. The island’s smallness meant seeing each other was unavoidable. So I hadn’t bothered doing anything more than move out here under the stars where the lights were dimmer.

  “Hello, Klaus.”

  Shit. I almost jumped. I eyed Jodie. She was breathtaking, as always. The short blue dress suited her—showing off her long legs and gorgeous feminine muscles. Again, there came that tightness as I imagined what I could do to her…if I had her.

  I swallowed some beer, checked her out again, decided to meet her head on. We were adults. We could figure this out. Even if having my guts pulled out inch by inch would hurt me less. Just holding her for a moment would heal my world. Do. Not. Touch.

  “Hello, Jodie. Not Sir anymore?”

  Such a bold look in her eyes. “Not until you say so…Klaus.”

  She flicked back her hair from her shoulders then slid into the chair opposite me. Her curls bounced in glossy waves. I remembered the cool feel of her hair sliding through my fingers.

  There was no glass in her hands, her voice was unslurred, her movements were simply those of a young, beautiful woman. “Not drinking tonight?”

  I guess I’d half-expected her to fall back into her old ways where she almost seemed to deliberately attempt to gain my sympathy by getting drunk.

  “No. I’m being good.”

  “Oh? Glad to hear that.”

  “Yes. I can help you better when I’m sober.” She’d said that so matter-of-factly that it took me a second to digest it.

  What the hell?

  I put my glass down on the coaster. “Can you now?” I suppressed a smile.

  While I watched curiously, she took out her phone, dialed it and held it to her ear a moment. “Here.” She held it out to me. “It’s for you.”

  “Who? What are you trying to do?”

  “It’s Moghul. You convinced me I couldn’t change your mind, so here. You need to talk to another man who can tell you the truth about yourself.” She jiggled the phone at me. “Afraid, Mr. Big Bad Dom?”

  “This is not a game,” I growled.

  “I know that.” Carefully she placed the phone on the table beside my drink. “I do. This is important to me. I…care for you, a lot, and I am not giving up without a fight. Talk to him or I promise you, I will never leave you alone.” Then she sat back in the chair, folded her arms beneath her breasts and glared at me.

  I lifted one eyebrow. If looks could kill she’d just had a SWAT team take out her ass with extreme prejudice.

  I picked it up, and squashed it to my ear so I could hear above the noise. “Hi.”

  “Hi yourself. Where are you?”

  “Hotel. Jodie just gave me her phone and said to talk.”

  “Yeah, well, go find somewhere quieter. I’ll wait. You do need to know some things.”

  I moved outside and sat on a brick fence. Jodie had followed and sat a few yards away but I ignored her for the moment. This was so intrusive, and yet I sensed the importance she placed on this. And I did value Moghul’s opinion.

  It wouldn’t change me but maybe I could help set things up for her.

  “Go ahead.”

  For a few seconds he said nothing. “Okay, I’ll start with this. You and Jodie have been so foolish. Playing with fire is the best way I can put it. She told me about her documentary.”

  I grunted and listened some more.

&n
bsp; “Yes, you could have hurt her badly, but mostly due to ignorance. What you did…BDSM is consensual, always. Playing around with that concept when you are new to it all. Terrible. Just terrible. I’m not surprised you’ve damaged yourself. But I can tell you this. You’re not a sociopath. You’re not a bad person. You’re simply untrained and uninformed.”

  I put my fingers to the bridge of my nose, pressed down. “I wanted to see her bleed. She’d not given me permission and, man, I don’t know if I’d have stopped if I were in the wrong situation, alone. I can’t trust myself.”

  Quiet came for a moment.

  “Some of us get closer to the dark edge than others. I promise you that with help, you’ll discover how to be her Dom without overstepping the mark. I promise you. You just need boundaries and rules. If you’re who I think you are, you can control yourself. If you’re worried, keep it public until you’re sure. There are ways, man, there are.”

  I took a long breath, exhaled. Damn. He made it sound doable. Not easy, but doable.

  “After the party, I warned you about subdrop. Remember?”

  “Yes, I do.” I glanced at Jodie, waiting patiently, waiting like a good girl. My appreciation of her as a woman stirred to life again.

  “I forgot to say that sometimes Doms, Tops, can get Top Drop.”

  “What the fuck? You’re joking. That sounds like a wine.”

  I listened to him chuckle. “No, it’s like subdrop though. I think you got it. Along with all the mistakes you let yourselves make, I’m not surprised. If I’d known what a mess you two were in, I’d never have let you in to play. Now, I want you and Jodie to talk about this. As far as I can tell, she wants you back, as her Dom.”

  “That’s not news. Talking to her…” My head was stuffed full of all this new information. Did I believe him? No one knew me like I did. He hadn’t been there. Still, a big what-if sign had lit up in my head. “Not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “Klaus, I can’t tell you what you have to do. Yes, people can get hurt physically because others have not thought things through, or have not done their homework, or because they are out-and-out sadists. We don’t condone that in the community. If I thought that was you, I’d not be sitting out here on my patio getting eaten by mozzies when I could be watching the football. Think hard before you run away. If you were bad, you’d not have crashed like this. Caring is the crucial point. You care for her.”