by Diane Leyne
“Sorry, Nicola. If you did, you’d have no reason to spend alone time with either me or Dace. I generally don’t have personal relationships with the staff. You’ll be the exception, a temporary exception, because we’ll say you are doing me a favor by filling in for Cara. But to do that, you have to be my sub first and waitress second, kitten.” Micah smiled at her raised eyebrow at the endearment. “The club’s pretty quiet right now. We’ll show you around, the equipment, some of the protocols. You can watch Doms and subs in action and then decide what your comfort level is. With both me and Dace accompanying you, you’ll be less exposed, but you will have to strip down a bit.”
“Maybe we should just take her into the control room,” Dace offered, “and let her watch on the monitors? I mean, if she’s…”
“No.” Her words were firm and her expression resolved, even if the no did wobble a bit.
“No?”
“No!”
* * * *
What the hell was she thinking? Nicola turned to the two men, their expressions confused and expectant. Hopeful? Well, in for a penny, in for a pound. She’d been looking for something to take her mind off what had happened, and had even fantasized on giving a ménage or maybe playing at BDSM a try. Well, this would do it. Boy, would this do the trick. Two hot guys. Doms. Clients.
She took a deep breath. She’d lied to them. She didn’t want them to know just how much she did know about BDSM and ménage and clubs. She wasn’t sure why she was pretending not to know anything. She was a bit embarrassed, she realized, at the thought of them knowing about her secret stash of hot BDSM books. And it would be her first time physically in a club. The place that she’d visited dozens, no hundreds of times, via books and her own imagination, didn’t count, and they never had to know.
The thought of losing herself in subspace and forgetting everything but the sensations she was experiencing, of not having to constantly be on guard and worried for her life, of being able to let go and have someone else take charge, and yes, take care of her, was something she dreamed of, but she’d always thought it was just a fantasy, never to be realized.
She’d lied about something else, too. When she’d come into the bar, she’d immediately recognized both Micah and Dace from the photos Quin had shown her from his own commitment ceremony with Micah’s sister and Doc. Three people couldn’t actually marry, but that hadn’t stopped them from throwing a big party and exchanging rings and vows, even if it wasn’t legally binding. She’d seen a photo of Dace giving away the sub and another of him and Micah with their arms around a cute blonde woman with a pixie cut that she’d seen in the bar tonight waiting tables.
She’d felt an immediate jolt of awareness when she’d seen them in person. She hadn’t examined her feelings when she’d originally seen the photo, only knowing that she didn’t like the looks of the blonde at all, thinking she didn’t deserve the two of them. Had she been jealous? It was a crazy notion considering she hadn’t met any of the people in the photo, but since her therapist was insisting that she examine her own feelings more and not repress them, she had to admit that jealousy was what she had felt.
Was that their girlfriend? She wouldn’t do this if either of them were involved.
“Is there a woman, either a girlfriend or a sub or maybe both, who would have a problem with this arrangement?”
Both men shook their heads. She realized that the butterflies in her stomach were now fluttering happily at the thought. Well, here goes nothing.
She turned and raised one booted foot and balanced it on the chair she’d been sitting on. She undid the laces and pulled it and her sock off. Then she did the other one.
Taking a deep breath, she reached inside her tank top and unfastened her bra. A few contortions later, and she pulled out her black bra and dropped it on Micah’s desk. The tank was pretty low-cut and almost exposed her nipples, which she realized were hard, jutting against the thin material of her tank. Then she reached down and unfastened her leather pants. This was going to be harder. The pants were tight. It took some wriggling, but they finally got past her hips. She pushed them down and off.
Their responses were gratifying if embarrassing. Both were obviously turned on and desperately trying not to show it. The big bad Doms were shy? Or maybe they were just gentlemen at heart and were worried their arousal would make her feel uncomfortable. It actually made her feel flattered. It had been a while since she’d been the object of so much masculine attention from hot guys that she was attracted to, even if she had to pretend it was just a job.
Gaining confidence and wanting to take control back, if only temporarily since she was supposed to play at being their submissive, she deliberately turned her back to them, knowing the tank only came down halfway over her ass. She folded her pants carefully and placed them on the chair before turning back to the men.
“I, er, I’ll be right back.” Dace rushed out the door.
“I’ll, um…I’m just going to make sure he’s okay. Make yourself at home. Check out the video monitoring system.” He pushed a keyboard and remote control toward her, and then Micah was gone, too.
Okay, that wasn’t the response she was expecting. She might not be a centerfold, but men usually didn’t run away when she took her clothes off.
Mentally shrugging, she moved over to Micah’s chair, sat down, and clicked a key. The monitors all came alive. It only took a few minutes to figure out the system. There were dozens of camera feeds, but she could bring up four at a time.
She clicked around until she found a couple, a man and a woman, in a room that looked like a doctor’s office, but what the Dom was doing to the woman who was strapped down to the exam table with her legs spread wide in stirrups wasn’t covered by the Hippocratic Oath. She watched as he snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and examined the woman, intimately, paying special attention to her clit until she was squirming against the restraints.
She moved on to a trio, two men who appeared to be having sex with a single woman whose face showed a level of bliss that made Nicola jealous.
And then there was the big man with the naked woman across his lap. He was spanking her and she writhed against his hold, but he was immovable and she was hampered by the fact that her hands were tied behind her back. Nick was shocked to realize that her thong was getting damp. Tentatively she slid her left hand down and under the elastic band to touch her swollen clit while her right stayed on the remote.
Quickly, she clicked again, but she didn’t remove her hand. Now the scene was of an open lounge, and there were several men sitting on couches having a drink. It could have been any bar in any city, except for the fact that there was a single woman kneeling between two of the men. She was naked except for her collar and cuffs, and the man on her right held a leash.
A leash? She looked again. Yes, the man held the woman’s leash and ruffled her hair with his hand as she leaned against his knee while he talked with the other men. On the other couch, there were also two men. There was a woman stretched out across both of their laps, her hands bound behind her. One man played with her nipples and the other had his hand buried between her legs. She was blindfolded and writhing against their touch, but as far as Nick could tell, the writhing was in ecstasy. She wasn’t trying to get away. In fact, she seemed to be on the verge of coming.
All of the scenes seemed too personal, and she felt like she shouldn’t be spying. She wanted to turn off the video feed but couldn’t make herself do it, just like she couldn’t stop touching herself. She wanted to come. She needed to come.
“They all know they are being watched, you know.”
Chapter Five
Micah smiled as she jumped guiltily, pulling her hand out of…Was her hand down her panties while she was watching? Oh my!
“Like what you see, kitten?” He heard footsteps and watched Dace coming back into his office. “Dace, our little kitten seems to have been enjoying herself while watching some of the members play. I saw where your hand was, kitt
en.”
“I wasn’t spying or anything. I mean, I was…”
Micah couldn’t let her struggle.
“I told you, kitten. They knew they were being watched, and it turns them on to know this or they’d stay home. Dace?”
“Yup, Micah’s right. For some people, being watched while having sex is a big turn-on. Does it do anything for you, kitten?”
Micah watched her as she tried to frame an answer and had trouble getting any words to come out.
“Let’s start with an easy question. When you were watching those monitors, did any of the scenes turn you on?”
“I, uh, yes, no. It’s just research so I can become accustomed to what I’ll be seeing when I’m in the club.”
Micah and Dace both frowned. Dace looked stern. “Naughty kitten. That was an outright lie. You were turned on by what you saw. One of the first things you have to understand is that a sub never lies to their Master. Ever.”
“What happens if they do?” She sounded genuinely curious, but there was an undercurrent of arousal. She was turned on despite herself, he thought with satisfaction.
“Then they get punished.”
“Punished?”
“Yes, so they won’t repeat the transgression.”
“Oh. You mean like spanking?”
“Sometimes. Depends on the sub. Some enjoy getting spanked, so that’s not a real punishment for them.”
“What would you do to someone like that?”
“Tie them up and eat their pussy until they were on the verge of coming and then stop. Then when their orgasm had retreated, do it again and again until they beg me to let them come.”
Micah wanted to laugh at her expression, either that or pull her close and kiss her senseless. He glanced over to Dace and saw an expression that he was sure he was wearing as well. They’d talked in the bathroom like a couple of women, except that they were in separate stalls rubbing one out, which he was pretty sure was not what women did when they went to the bathroom together.
He looked at Nicola. She looked a little bit lost, or maybe wistful. Perhaps the realization that what she was seeing actually turned her on was coming as a surprise. Or maybe she was lonely after a year spent undercover. He couldn’t imagine what that would be like, always having to watch your back, always lying, pretending, having no one who would look after you, care for you, put you first. Never being able to let your guard down and just be.
Maybe he could show her that pretending to be their sub would give her more than just a cover. It might be something she would enjoy. But would she have the courage to give it a try, or would she make an excuse and get the hell out of Satisfaction?
He glanced at Dace and then back at Nick.
“So, what do you want to do?”
She turned in the chair and looked at him, having a seemingly hard time turning away from the monitor. The threesome had changed position. The blindfolded woman was now bent over the arm of the couch, and the man who had been eating her pussy was now fucking it vigorously while the other man had his fingers curled in her hair and his cock was plundering her mouth.
“I made a commitment. I’m going to do this job like I do every job, and that’s by giving it one hundred percent. Show me how to be a sub.” She hesitated and then glanced back at the screen, seemingly unable to look at Dace of Micah as she spoke. “Are you…are you going to do that to me?”
“Do you want us to?”
* * * *
Nick found herself swallowing hard. She wanted to scream yes and fling herself over the arm of the couch. She also wanted to grab her clothes and run far, far away. She was turned on. She couldn’t deny that. She also couldn’t explain why, but she knew she needed this.
“I don’t know. Maybe. I shouldn’t. I’m here to do a job.” She paused. That sounded so, so pathetic. She was a strong woman. She owned her sexuality. She had a chance to live out her fantasies. She was just going to play a sub, not commit to a relationship. She would be able to find out if it was as hot in real life as it was to read about, and she wasn’t going to squander the chance. Oh, and she’d help them with their problem. She’d find out who was behind the troubles they were having and fix things, because that’s what she was good at.
She looked up at the screen. “Yes, yes I do. I need to immerse myself into the lifestyle to do my best, but I need to know more about what your expectations would be. From what I’ve read so far”—she kept her tone casual, hoping to imply that she’d just done a quick bit of reading up—“I understand that there are various approaches to the lifestyle.”
“Fair enough, and yes.” Dace and Micah took up the seats opposite her before Dace continued. “BDSM means different things to different people. If you look at the couple in the left-hand monitor…” He paused until Nick turned to look at the woman in the “doctor’s” office. She was on her stomach now, bound securely to the table with her legs spread wide. The “doctor” was flogging her back, her ass, and the backs of her thighs. It even looked like a few of the strokes were landing between her spread thighs. She looked like she was screaming. Micah reached out and took the keyboard from her. A few clicks later, and she could hear the woman’s voice.
“More, more, please, Sir. Please let me come!”
“Doesn’t that hurt?” As soon as the words popped out, Nick realized she genuinely wanted to know. Pain was pain, wasn’t it? How could it be pleasurable? She’d read it could be, that it paved the way to subspace, but actually seeing a real woman being flogged…How could she be so turned on by seeing someone experiencing pain?
“Oh, yes. And he’ll hurt her even worse when he moves on to the next implement, a leather strap.” Micah’s tone was amused.
“But why?”
“Why what? Why does he beat her, or why does she let him?”
“Both, I guess.”
“Could be one or many reasons, or a combination of them. Maybe he gets off on the control. It’s a heady thing when your sub gives you total ownership over their body to this extent. Or maybe he knows that she needs this.” She glanced at Micah who shrugged with a grin. “She could be a masochist and can’t come without pain. It could be because crying can be a very purging experience. If she’s dealing with a lot of difficult emotions and has been holding them in, the pain of the flogging will help her release them and give her a great sense of peace. It’s most likely a combination of all of the above, and that combination will be different for everyone.”
“Peace?” Nick knew her tone was incredulous, but she knew it also held longing. Having that kind of sense of peace sounded heavenly. She had so much inner turmoil that some mornings she felt like she was more tired than when she went to bed the night before. She was interested in anything that could give her peace…well, almost anything. Even with all the reading she had done, she still wasn’t convinced that having her ass beaten could really do that.
“Yeah, the pain causes the endorphins and adrenaline to surge through her system, taking her into what is called subspace. Look at her face now that he’s using the strap. That has to hurt worse than the flogger, but now she is almost trying to move back into his strokes. She’s begging again, begging for more. You can talk to Dace’s sister, Jules, about what it’s like. It has been described to me as being very freeing. She says once you’re in subspace, it’s like the whole world falls away and all that is left are the sensations you are feeling. It’s an almost out-of-body experience for some subs.
“And as a sub, all you have to do is absorb the strokes, the pain, and at some point, if the Dom is doing it right and paying attention to the sub’s responses, the pain becomes pure sensation. When this happens, the feelings are almost indistinguishable from pleasure, the way that pleasure at its most intense, can be almost become pain. Subs say the orgasms in subspace are the strongest kind. Murphy and Cole were in last week playing with Jess, and they drew things out for so long that when they let her finally come while they were both fucking her, she actually passed out fro
m the intensity of coming. Scared the hell out of them. They thought they’d killed her with pleasure.”
Nick swiveled her head and looked at Micah. He appeared to be totally serious. An orgasm that actually caused you to pass out from the intensity? Holy shit! That could really happen? She turned back to the scene on the screen.
“Watch and listen now, kitten,” Dace interrupted. “She’s begging now. She wants more. She needs more. She’s at the point that all the Dungeon Monitors watch very carefully for. She has a safe word, and all good Doms honor it. If they don’t, one of the Monitors will step in. And if we think they did it deliberately,” Nick found herself shivering as Dace’s tone grew colder, “we’ll kick them out and get them blackballed from the regional clubs. If they just got carried away and express proper remorse, we may put them on probation and they won’t be able to play in a private room until they’ve spent a year re-proving themselves.”
“So all new Doms have to play in public, too?”
“For the first six months,” Micah confirmed. “Longer, if we think they need it. Safety comes first.”
He turned to the screen, and Nick followed his gaze. The man had thrown down the strap and was now massaging his sub’s ass. Even on the black-and-white monitor, she could see the marks he’d left. The man massaged them before sliding his fingers inside the restrained woman. She was begging him now, desperate to come, but he was refusing her permission.
“Why won’t he let her come? Hell, why does she have to ask?”
“Remember, kitten. The parameters of the scene, and of their entire Dom-sub relationship have been worked out in advance.” Micah’s voice was taking on the tone of a school teacher giving a lecture, but the subject matter wasn’t on the curriculum anywhere she’d ever gone to school. “Doms don’t just play it by ear. The subs have agreed to the limits, and one of the most common limits is that the sub only gets to come when her Dom gives her permission. If things get too much for her, remember, she can use her safe word. But maybe she gets off on giving up control. It reinforces that she’s his property.”