Truly Helpless

by Joey W. Hill

  The thought gave him a grim smile, but didn't change his focus. Maybe the reason she hadn't noticed these two was because her subconscious knew she was with someone more than capable of protecting her from their type.

  Because she damn well was.

  As she touched his arm, letting him know it was time to go, he saw she was holding his shirt. When he reached for it, she hugged it to her, refusing to give it back, a little smile playing around her lips. He liked that, but when she would have drawn him toward the door, he squeezed her hand, a mute request to wait a moment as he handled what needed to be handled.

  He caught her quizzical expression a flash before he turned and closed the distance between himself and the two men. One had started to rise from his chair, probably preparing to tail them as soon as they left the place.

  Marius put him back down with a casual shove and got into the face of the seated male, the smarter-looking one. Though, on closer inspection, that wasn't saying a whole lot.

  The deliberate act, as well as his expression and body language, created a sudden lull of conversation in the tattoo parlor.

  "I earned that money from fucking up guys far bigger and meaner than you two assholes," he said. "So you want to go to the hospital, you follow me. And if either of you threatens my Mistress to get me to give it up"--his gaze hardened--"You won't need a hospital. The morning street crew can hose what's left of you down the fucking drains."

  Straightening, he waited only long enough to confirm the message had been received. Then he rejoined Regina, cordially holding the door for her, his hand resting on the small of her back as she stepped out and he followed.

  They'd moved into the awakening energy of a glittering New Orleans night, but his Mistress had other things on her mind. She walked less than two steps with him before pulling him into the lee of the building. Curling her hands in his shirt front, she kissed him hard and deep. He gripped her hips, wanting her to feel the urgency of his body, how much he wanted to serve her whenever, however. She'd said that was a drug to a Mistress. He wanted to be that drug for her.

  "I'm not saying the testosterone surge always works on me," she declared as she pulled free. "But occasionally it does."

  He grinned, and she sobered. "I like you thinking of me as your home, Duncan. Hearing you wish for that...makes me wish for it, too."

  As always, such a gift from her had the ability to simultaneously arouse, thrill and terrify him. She touched his face, seeing all of it, if her words were any indication.

  "I know you're still going to be a pain in my ass. I don't need you to be perfect to want you. I just need to know you're trying to be the best person you can be with me, and you're always, always trying to be honest."

  He'd never wanted to be what a person wanted him to be. Probably because he'd never thought he could even come close. But as he felt the sunburn ache of the tattoo on his shoulder, and the weight of her fingers in his hand, the desire was there...and it wasn't a bad feeling at all.

  He just didn't want to fail.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Hell, why was he nervous? Why should he be nervous? He looked again at the message in his Zone account, which he'd accessed from the cell phone he carried now, more evidence of how his life had changed in the past month.

  Temporary guest pass to The Zone has been approved. Your Mistress orders you to arrive at seven o'clock tonight. Wear what's in locker #23. DM will lock you in jail cage. Your Mistress will know when you're ready for her appearance.

  He was surprised, but then he wondered if that was the plan. Regina volunteered to do one orientation a month for new Dommes at The Zone, which would have been tonight. However, last week she'd had to call another Mistress to switch dates. She'd claimed to have a class commitment that would run late. It wasn't even one of Marius's scheduled days to come see her.

  He slept at her place three nights a week. She'd given him a protocol to follow. He could come over whenever he wanted on that day, watch TV, sleep, whatever, as long as he kept things neat. But when she texted him a thirty-minute heads up, he stopped whatever he was doing to run through the shower and shave. He would put on a ball gag and cuffs and get on the bed on all fours. He'd attach the cuffs to four chains he pulled out from the mattress at the corners, and hook his collar to the tether fastened to the center of the head board, a restraint screened by the colorful pillows she kept there.

  He could do all that one-handed, because the cuffs were Velcro, not intended to keep him from getting out of them if an emergency required it in her absence. Their purpose was to switch gears in his head, become his Mistress's pure boy toy--or man toy, as she liked to call him--helping her defuse after a day at work. And fuck, serving such a functional, purely sexual purpose for her never failed to turn him on.

  The schedule had led to the discovery of other, more surprising things that fulfilled him. Sometimes she left things undone, like making her bed or washing her dishes, so he could do those things for her. He liked serving her that way, too.

  When he was on the bed and heard the lock turn, his cock would already be straining inside the condom he used to protect her bed linens. She'd put down her laptop case, glance through the mail he'd leave neatly arranged on the kitchen table. She'd hum a little tune when she came down the hall, and he knew she'd be untying her hair, letting it fall soft down her back and over her shoulders.

  She'd shrug out of her jacket, slip off her slacks and pick up the lubed strap-on he'd leave sitting on the dresser. Sometimes he left other things for her. A couple chocolates, or a trio of roses he'd put in a vase he'd found in her cabinets. She didn't mind him being familiar with her home. Didn't mind him considering it his home. Or him leaving her little touches like that she didn't expect, so long as they didn't mess with her instructions.

  Once she slipped on the strap-on with its clitoral stimulator, she'd put her knee on the bed, positioning herself behind him. He was required to stay quiet and still as she ran her hands over him, purring her pleasure.

  Sometimes, if she was in a particularly sadistic mood, she'd have ordered him to wear the cock harness, buckling it tight enough it cut into him as he got harder and harder.

  Other times he was required to don the stallion mask and insert the tail butt plug before she arrived, the thick hair sliding along the back of his thighs from his every move. When she got home on those days, she'd replace the plug with the strap-on.

  If he'd been a pain in the ass, which still happened more often than he wished, the dildo was thicker on those days. As she fucked his ass like she was a beefy lumberjack, instead of a beautiful woman half that weight, she'd make him strangle out a muffled proper apology.

  It all turned him on, but the most intense moments were those first few, when he shuddered with the anticipation of her being home, of her touching him. When she wouldn't speak to him directly, and wouldn't allow him to speak. He was there to relieve her sexual need after a hard day at the office, and he would serve her well. That was what was required of him. She'd slide the dildo into his ass with a hum of pleasure and start thrusting, undulating, a dance against his body as she let the stimulator get her worked up while she thrust and withdrew, thrust and withdrew.

  His cock would ache, feel so hard it could split, especially as he listened to her start to breathe faster and heavier, little moans breaking from her luscious lips. He wished there was a mirror before him so he could look at her, but that wasn't permitted. Not until after.

  When she came, sometimes it was like a dove's cry; sometimes a hawk's sharpness, a guttural shriek he felt all the way down into his gut and balls. He'd be so near that edge he almost couldn't hold back any longer. But he'd wait on his Mistress to relent.

  "Come for me, sweet boy."

  He would jet into the condom, his body humping and working the air, wishing he could be thrusting into her. That came later in the evening, if she welcomed him into her bed. If not, he at least didn't have to be far away from her. Unless he was really an ass
hole. Then she'd chain him up in the playroom for the night. He hated that, so he fought his demons extra hard to keep that from happening.

  She'd moved the pallet on the floor of her bedroom next to her bed, so at night she could let her fingers trail over his shoulder, his side, as she laid on her stomach and they looked at each other in the dim lamplight, talking about whatever.

  Christ, it was so many different things, belonging to her like this. He'd thought it wouldn't be much different from being in a club environment, but then he'd never been a Mistress's personal sub, in a relationship with her. Like so many things in his life, he'd had no way to anticipate what this would feel like. There was the sex part, which was mind-blowing. But it was the other stuff--room for tenderness, for practical moments, for laughter, for living a life with a woman he seemed to need like air--that blew away all his foundations, all the crap bullshit defenses he'd erected.

  He'd named the kitten he'd adopted Dot. She lived at Regina's with Magenta, her mother. He'd expected Dot to gravitate toward Regina, but Dot made clear from Day One Marius was her person, in ways he thought only dogs did. She was in the window watching for him when he pulled up on his visiting days. She slept on the pallet with him. When he and Regina watched TV, she curled up in his lap or perched on the sofa back behind his head. Regina would recline against his side, her head on his shoulder. Life didn't get better than that.

  One evening, when Regina was in the middle of her post-work fucking of his ass, Dot jumped on Marius's back, kneading and cutting a couple circles before she curled up in the small of it for a catnap, utterly oblivious to what they were doing, or the rhythmic movement of their bodies, though she did rub her face against Regina's fingers, gripping Marius's hip.

  Her timing had been so perfect, Regina on the cusp of climax. His Mistress had muttered "screw it," laughter in her voice, and had her orgasm then and there, commanding Marius to come, which he'd managed, though they'd been laughing throughout it. Which had been silly and fun. Another surprise.

  Dot also had a command post on the top of the home office chair, kneading his shoulder when he used Regina's computer with her permission and looked at job options. He was considering enrolling in a program to become a certified nursing assistant, with the thought he might be able to train to be a nurse if he did well as a CNA. Or become an EMT and train to be a paramedic, something like that. Regina had put him in touch with a job counselor at the community college where she was doing her corporate stuff, and that counselor had given him some material to study and work on until enrollment opened for the next semester.

  Sometimes he thought he was crazy, but when he'd finally worked up the courage to tell Regina the options that interested him, she'd brightened.

  "I think you'd be great in any of those fields," she said. "You like taking care of people, particularly women. Let me know how I can help."

  She still kept after him about talking to a different kind of counselor, but he dodged it. The fights they had over it, how ugly he'd get, were what got him banished to the playroom most often. One time he walked out, and she texted him that he wasn't allowed to come home for a week. That had sucked so badly he'd vowed never to lose it like that again. But he still wasn't seeing a damn shrink.

  He was doing fine. He was past it. Why could she see so much, and not see that? His father was dead and had no more hold on him. Everything was going in the right direction. He wasn't having any more urges to fuck with Regina's head, except for the occasional flare up that, like a headache, Regina could see coming and handled. And he was getting better at managing them himself, learning that self-discipline she'd talked about.

  Yeah, he had some weird flashbacks sometimes, and more nightmares lately, which didn't make a lot of sense, because things were going right. But she helped him with those, too.

  So he didn't need anyone else's help. All he'd needed was her, the chance to serve a Mistress who understood him.

  He could pretty much pass as normal. So why the hell should he be nervous about a scene at The Zone, being conducted by the Mistress he'd learned to trust more than anyone he'd ever trusted in his life?

  He wondered what she'd left for him in the locker. The question, as well as the rest of the text, had his cock hardening. Hell, lately it had been a matter of when was his cock not hard? She could get him erect as fast as a dog trained to beg. On command.

  Maybe after tonight, she'd believe he was okay, too, and lay off the shrink stuff.

  Then everything would be perfect. Or rather, far better than he'd ever expected his life to be--which was his definition of perfect.

  Arriving at the club, Tina, the hostess, looked at his guest pass closely. Her brow creased over it, but she nodded cordially and let him in. Not overly friendly, but not hostile.

  Yeah, that was going to be the awkward part of tonight. Everyone knew his situation and his shit. Thinking about how he'd acted, he really couldn't blame Tyler anymore for what he'd had to do. And Regina...Tyler had given Marius the chance with Regina, when he'd done nothing to deserve her.

  But he'd changed since then. He'd prove it. Then those sons of bitches could say what they liked about him, shit on him as much as they wanted, to each other. But he'd be above and beyond reproach for his Mistress. She'd show them. He'd show them.

  He didn't like the way the thought made him feel and didn't really want to examine the why all that closely. Even though it was early for too many people to be here, he felt like everyone was staring at him, particularly the Dommes, and he didn't want to get thrown off balance by that. He knew he'd done wrong things to them, but he was different now.

  He remembered that night he'd wondered how to make amends. He hadn't gone back to that idea much since, but maybe he would at some point. For tonight, his focus was this. Doing what she'd told him to do.

  Once he arrived in the relative privacy of the locker room, he could breathe a little easier. Until he opened the locker. He whistled, muttering an oath under his breath. His Mistress was pulling out all the stops tonight. Just a thong with a codpiece style front that would barely cover his dick.

  This was all he'd be wearing? No, not all. His gaze flicked to his ID bracelet at the same moment he lifted his hand to the collar around his throat.

  He only took them off to shower, with her permission. Or when he had his fights, which had been about once a week this month. So far he hadn't needed to call her to avoid going to a fight angry. The fights were still a channel for his aggression, yeah, some of his demons taking over as he hammered an opponent, but that had always been the case, making him a good fighter. It wasn't the same as going there all worked up. She didn't totally agree, but she didn't argue with him over it. Much.

  As he put on the barely-nothing item and checked himself out in the mirror, he might have blushed, if he knew what modesty was anymore. He was bare-assed, and the cod piece revealed the creases between thigh and groin area, which would give anyone looking glimpses of his balls as he moved.

  Closing the locker, he came back out to the floor and found Alex, who was the DM on shift. He didn't have to tell him what was needed. Alex gave him a polite but stiff nod and led him to the jail.

  It was a tall rectangular cage, with enough height for a man to stand up in it, but not wide enough to sit down. Which meant a Mistress or Master could reach through the bars and do pretty much anything to a sub that was part of the scene. Electrical zapping, pinching. Sometimes a Mistress or Master might order a male sub to put his cock and balls out between the bars. Then they'd bind his waist and thighs flush against them with straps so he couldn't move, couldn't do anything to keep his hanging dick from being fondled, sucked or slapped by anyone passing by, if that was the Dominant's decision.

  He wasn't sure if that was her intent. She hadn't seemed eager to let other Mistresses touch him ever since they'd gotten together, but maybe putting him in a public cage with that green light to the other Dommes was her way of proving he could pass the test.

  "
Did she leave any instructions on...access?" he asked Alex.

  "No," the man said shortly. "But you can safe word out if it gets to be too much. Tell me what it is."

  "Fight Club."

  "Got it. Get in." Alex opened the jail cell door. Marius looked at it, suddenly feeling uneasy. There was a weird energy here tonight. Alex's distant behavior toward him was to be expected, so it wasn't that. Maybe he was feeling antsy because he'd been under Regina's dominion for weeks, and he wasn't used to trusting or following direction from someone else.

  He thought about waiting until Regina showed herself. He'd assumed this whole thing was part of the reapplication process, some kind of test run Regina had arranged with Tyler. However, if he felt uncomfortable, she'd be all right with him waiting on her to show herself. She had to be watching because, even with Alex's supervision, she wouldn't delegate his care to anyone, though it might serve her purposes to stay out of sight.

  She might punish him for not following her direction immediately, but if she knew he had an honest concern, she wouldn't chastise him any more than their mutual pleasure demanded.

  Hell, he was being a chickenshit. If he got in and things bothered him, he'd only need to safe word out to Alex. He stepped into the cage.

  "Wrists," Alex said shortly. Marius put them through the bars to be cuffed to them, his fingers curling as Alex decreased his mobility within the already small space. Looking at his impassive countenance, Marius felt a twinge of conscience.

  "I'm sorry I caused you problems, Alex. I know I didn't deserve to be here anymore. I want to change that."

  Alex's eyes shifted to his and held. Marius saw a coldness there, more than he would have expected. "I'm paid to deal with shit like you caused," the DM said. "You want to really change things and deserve to be here? Think about how to fix what you did to the Mistresses you fucked with."

  So, okay, he'd been lying, somewhat, about not thinking over the amends issue much. He had thought about the things he'd done. Most often in the early morning hours when Regina slept and it was just him, stuck with the darkness of his soul. He thought of Siren, who'd been on board when his train derailed with his personal shit. Alex's words brought all that to the forefront, in vivid color.