by L. DuBois
“Come here, Red.” He opened his arms.
That was the last straw. Mae couldn’t take it anymore.
Whirling, she ran from him. Stumbling down the steps, she lost a shoe, and would have fallen if someone hadn’t reached out to catch her. Pushing away from the helper she kicked off her other heel and ran, tears streaming down her face.
*****
Xavier stood alone in the firelight, watching her go. The crowd was muttering, and Mistress Faith came up to say something. He didn’t hear her.
He crouched on the steps and picked up her discarded heels. Cradling the silly gold things in his hand, he straightened. Without a word, Master Xavier clenched his fist around Mae’s shoes and took off after her.
Chapter Ten
Mae stumbled into the Conclave. The elegant barn was deserted, the board bearing the alphabet letters the overseers had used to explain this horrible game still in the middle of the open space.
She didn’t know how to turn on the lights, so she left the door open. There was enough moonlight from that and the windows to guide her as she pushed open the heavy doors of what had been horse stalls and were now either elegant “cells” for naughty subs, or pens for horse and pony play. She found one that had a twin bed in it. With a sob she threw herself down on the mattress, grateful for whatever person had left soft cotton sheets in place.
She jerked her ruined stockings off, then removed the corset, dropping both carelessly onto the floor. Rolling onto her side she laid her palm over the hot place on her ass. The skin was sensitive to the touch, the residual pain equal to the deepest marks on her breast.
“Mae.”
She rolled, looking at the open stall door where a man stood silhouetted in the faint moonlight. She wasn’t surprised, but she wasn’t happy either. “Go away.”
He disappeared, and Mae blinked back tears. It was totally unfair of her to be disappointed that he’d left when she told him to, but right now she couldn’t manage fair. Her feelings were too jumbled.
Xavier returned, toting two heavy floor candelabras. The massive iron things went with the elegant Spanish style of the mansion, but when he placed them on either side of the room and flicked a lighter, all she cared about was that he’d made it light when she wanted dark.
“Leave me alone, Xavier.” She didn’t call him Master, using it to push him away.
“I won’t.”
“What more could you want from me?”
He dropped to sit on the floor, back against the wall. “I have no right to ask for anything more.”
“That’s right, you don’t.”
“But I want to know why you ran.”
“You almost branded me. Me.” Mae spread her arms. “I don’t even have a tattoo, because I couldn’t commit to a design. I was going to let you brand me, burn me, with whatever you wanted.”
“Is that why you’re upset?”
Mae clenched her fists, longing to lash out at him, to break that calm until he felt what she did. “Yes. And no.” She ground out the last word.
“Then why?” His eyes bored into her, and despite the walls of anger she’d erected, she felt herself responding to the command in his gaze.
“I ran because…because I was disappointed that you didn’t do it.” Mae leapt to her feet. “I don’t even know you. I’ve never seen your face. But I wanted you to do it. I wanted to have you brand me so that it would always be there. I’d always feel you touching me.”
Xavier rose slowly to his feet. She held out her hands. “No. Don’t touch me. I can’t stand it. Can’t stand that you’re so calm when I feel like I’m breaking apart inside.”
She knelt on the bed, inching back until she hit the wall, now as far away from him as she could be. “You make me feel things that I can’t even understand, and it didn’t mean anything to you.”
“You think that I don’t feel.” Xavier’s voice was thick with pain. “There are days the rage inside me is enough to make me want to rip my own skin off. I hate myself for wanting this.” He cast his hand out, seeming to include all of Las Palmas in the gesture. “But it’s the only thing that gives me any fucking peace. You think I don’t feel what you do? When I touched you for a minute everything was quiet. Everything was okay. No one’s given me that before.”
Mae let out a breath, her shaking subsiding as she listened to him.
“You have no idea how much I wanted to brand you. To mark you. But I can’t have you.”
“Why not?” Mae whispered. Couldn’t he see that she wanted him, needed him, for more than just the game?
“Is that really what you’d want, Mae? You’re ready to always be the obedient submissive, to spend your time bound and gagged instead of petted and fucked?”
She opened her mouth to say yes, but then looked away.
“I didn’t think so.” There was defeat in his voice.
That irritated her. “You need to understand, my whole life is built around being a submissive.” She shook her head. “No, that’s not right, at least not totally. How I’ve played, before—the bratty sub, the girl who gets spanking and cuddles and wears cute lingerie… that defines me. And has since I was sixteen.”
Xavier’s gaze sharpened. “Sixteen?”
Mae leaned back against the wall. “I grew up in this nowhere town. My mom wasn’t around, and my grandma raised me, but her health was bad, and she didn’t really know what to do with me. When I was in high school, I started playing around online. I found these men who were willing to send me things in exchange for watching me play with myself on webcam.”
“I’m sorry, Mae.”
“It’s not like that. I mean looking back I’m horrified, but I was lucky. Nothing really bad happened to me. Eventually there was this one guy. He told me that I was his baby girl, his sweet little girl, and that meant I had to do what he said. I got stuffed animals and cute toys in the mail.”
“A Daddy Dom?”
“Exactly, though it took me a long time to learn the terms. He introduced me to D/s.”
“You weren’t even legal.”
She shrugged one shoulder, not wanting to defend her past right now. “Without him and that relationship I wouldn’t be who I am now. When we started you called me ‘little girl.’ For a long time that’s who I was. That was my kind of submission.”
Xavier shook his head. “A Daddy/little relationship is not the same as a Master sub relationship.”
“I know. That’s why I’m here. After a while it wasn’t enough. I got older and the man who’d introduced me to all this wasn’t as interested, especially because I wasn’t happy playing with stuffed animals while I had a plug in my ass. I wanted something more. But that kind of submission is part of who I am.”
“There’s more to you.”
“You’ve proved that.” Her words were wry.
Xavier reached for her, but stopped just short of touching her. “Just because you’re masochistic doesn’t mean you have to have pain play. How you submit is your choice.” He retreated to the far wall. “Because who you submit to is your choice. There are plenty of excellent Doms here who’d be careful with you.”
“But not you?”
“I will not collar or be bound to a sub. That’s a personal rule I’ve had for a long time.”
It wasn’t unexpected, but still hurt.
They were only a few feet apart, but it felt farther. They hadn’t explicitly acknowledged that they wanted this relationship to continue. That was the issue they were skirting as they talked about all the reasons it couldn’t work.
“Why?”
“I don’t have to explain myself to you.”
Mae’s hand itched to slap him again. Each word was like the jab of a knife telling her that she wanted him more than he wanted her.
“No, you don’t, Master Xavier.” She made sure her tone was completely neutral, the words flat.
“Don’t do that, Red. Don’t hide from me.” There was pain in his voice.
She wanted
to comfort him, she wanted to scream at him for making her feel this way only to turn around and tell her that he wouldn’t be her Master in the truest sense of the word.
“I can’t be the only one who’s vulnerable.”
At that he looked up, eyes stark behind the mask. He held her gaze just long enough for her to detect a hint of resignation.
Pushing away from the wall, Xavier turned his back to her. In the candlelight he was all smooth gold muscles that she longed to touch, to mark with her nails the way he’d marked her with a whip.
He reached up, and Mae sucked in a breath as he began to undo the hidden zipper along the back of the mask. Inch by inch the leather parted, until he’d opened it all the way to the crown of his head. With his back still to her, Master Xavier pulled the mask off.
His hair was plastered to his head, but a few combs with his fingers loosened it. At first she thought it was blond, but he shifted slightly and she realized it was more silver than gold. For a moment she wondered if he was far older than she realized, and he’d gone gray.
Xavier turned to the left, just enough so she could see his profile and Mae sucked in a breath. He was gorgeous with a classically handsome profile—arched nose, high cheekbones, and strong jaw. There was a faint line along his cheek where the edge of the mask had pressed against him.
“You’re the only one I would break that rule for.” He didn’t look at her as he spoke.
“Why do you wear the mask?” He was being so deliberate about not facing her, not letting her see him, that Mae began to wonder.
“I wear it because I prefer it. I am a better Master with it on.”
She examined his handsome face. “Are you famous?”
He sputtered out a laugh, in his surprise almost turning toward her before he caught himself. “Why would you ask that?”
“You’re ridiculously good looking. You hide your identity. That makes me think movie star. Or rock star.”
He didn’t smile or laugh. “You think I’m handsome?”
She examined his profile again, wondering why he was behaving so oddly. “Yes, I do.”
Xavier turned to face her.
The first thing she noticed was that he looked like a Disney prince with his classic features. He was younger than his graying hair led her to believe. There were faint lines around his eyes and brackets around his mouth, and at a guess she’d say he was in his early forties.
In the second it took her brain to process that information, she also picked out what was wrong with the picture. Mae scrambled off the bed, her stomach in knots.
Jaw set, Xavier turned so that the right side of his face and head was clearly visible. A massive scar marred his face from his right temple all the way down the side of his cheek to his neck. His ear was mangled, the lobe missing. He pushed his hair up, showing that the scar tissue continued back from his temple and cheekbone, eating up a portion of his scalp.
“Xavier.” She raised trembling fingers, but didn’t touch. “Does it hurt?”
“Not anymore. It’s been a long time.”
She had questions, there were things she wanted to say, but they could wait. Mae gingerly placed a palm on each of his cheeks, pulling him down so she could kiss him.
He was stiff, almost awkward, but when she traced the seam of his lips with her tongue he came alive. Between one heartbeat and the next they went from standing to lying on the bed with Xavier’s big body over hers. Mae spread her legs, cradling his hips. He covered her jaw and neck with hot open mouthed kisses as she reached between them to fumble with his pants. Together they got them off, shoving them down to his knees. His cock was long and hard, and when he slid into her, Mae clung to him. Xavier turned his head, presenting the unmarred side of his face. She kissed his jaw, wanting him to know that it didn’t matter, she didn’t care.
Then he was thrusting into her, and it was familiar. She looked into his eyes.
“I had a dream you fucked me,” she whispered.
“It wasn’t a dream.”
“You, ah—” She had to stop as one particularly strong thrust hit her G spot, distracting her. “—fucked me while I was asleep?”
Xavier nipped her lower lip. “No one comes that hard while they’re really asleep, but nice try.”
Then there was no more time for words, no space to be Master and submissive. It was just two people, looking for something, someone, to help them make sense of the world.
For one shining moment they found that peace with one another.
Chapter Eleven
The sound of a spanking woke her.
Mae blinked, trying to orient herself. She was lying on a narrow bed in a small room with walls whose upper halves were vertical bars. In a second it all came rushing back—the branding, the talk, and most of all Xavier’s face.
She checked all around the bed, but there was no note from him. No sign of him at all, except for one of her shoes from last night, sitting on the ledge of the stall door.
The sound of a beating—the distinct thwack, thwack, thwack of leather hitting flesh—echoed through the main part of the Conclave. Mae grabbed the sheet of the bed, folding and wrapping it around herself. Her body and emotions were both raw after the last few days, and if she was going to slink back to the Subs’ Garden, she’d rather not do it naked. Her fellow members had seen more than enough of her yesterday.
She opened the stall door and peeked out. It was mid-morning judging by the light that spilled in through the windows in the end wall. To her left, a half-naked male sub was chained up, his arms stretched above his head, his lower body partially covered by silky boxers. Mistress Faith stood beside him, crop in hand. When she snapped the tool against the sub’s ass, Mae winced. She did not want to interrupt one of the overseers at play.
“Aren’t you going to thank me, boy?”
“Thank you, Mistress.”
Mae gasped. That was Xavier.
Mistress Faith’s attention whipped to her. “Good morning, Mae. Join me.”
Feeling like Alice down the rabbit hole, Mae padded over to where Xavier was chained up, circling around so she could see him. He raised his head and a rueful smile twitched the corners of his mouth.
Mistress Faith struck his ass again and Xavier snarled, chain rattling. The change from hello smile to barely leashed fury was frightening.
The Mistress laughed. “Oh, you really have changed. A pity. You were a delightful sub.”
Mae could not have been more shocked. Staggering over to a bench, she took a seat, gaze ping-ponging between them.
Mistress Faith touched Xavier’s shoulder, her expression one of both affection and worry, and Mae felt the first stirrings of jealousy. “This boy used to be one of my favorite subs. He started out as a rich kid playing games, but he was born for this. After he was…hurt, he couldn’t submit anymore. I taught him to top, taught him to be a Dom.”
He turned his head, and Mae saw the full extent of the damage to his face in the daylight. Whatever had happened to him had burned most of the right side of his head. He’d been lucky that it missed his eye, but his ear was mangled as was the flesh all down the side of his face. In the morning light she could see the twisted ridges of the scar tissues, the skin both paler than the rest of his face and darker in places where it seemed a permanent red-wine color.
He cleared his throat. “After I was burned, I took some time away from this life. Years, actually.” He shifted, the chains that bound him rattling musically. “Sessions with Mistress Faith were not only enjoyable, but how I dealt with stress, before. For a while I was too busy recovering, and making some other changes in my life, to miss this. But then I came back.” He seemed at a loss for words, as if he didn’t know how to tell the rest of the story.
Mistress Faith tucked the whip under her arm. “When he did come back he was a much darker person. Before, he was smart, sweet, and a bit sassy. Does that sound familiar?”
Mae nodded slowly.
Xavier looked surprised by th
e comparison, but that didn’t stop him from continuing the tale. “I couldn’t submit anymore. Any loss of control was horrifying, yet I wanted pain. I wanted to feel something besides anger.
“Mistress Faith taught me to be a Dom. She saved my sanity.”
Mistress Faith smiled softly and touched his cheek. “You deserve to be happy, Xavier.”
He nodded, but didn’t smile.
“Is that why you won’t collar someone?” Mae asked. “Because you might go back to being a sub?”
Xavier growled and tried to reach for her, but the chains brought him up short. “I’m not a switch,” he snapped.
Mae raised one eyebrow. “Weren’t you just getting spanked with a crop?”
Mistress Faith laughed while Xavier glowered. “Oh yes, I knew you two would be good for one another.”
Mae tried to smile, but the need to understand was choking her. “Why?” she asked him.
Xavier’s gaze locked with hers. “If I could do it for anyone, I’d do it for you.”
Tears sprang to Mae’s eyes. Rising to her feet, she dropped the blanket and ran to him, throwing herself against his body. She wrapped her arms around his neck. With his hands bound, all he could do was bend his head to hers.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she said.
“I wanted you to understand that I know what it’s like to change.”
Before he could explain further, Mistress Faith cleared her throat, tapping Mae’s ass with the crop. Mae jumped when the Domme touched her. She took a step back and bowed her head, nervous at being so close to someone powerful enough to have topped Xavier and yet angry that she was still here. Angry that this other woman had touched Xavier, and that she clearly felt affection for him, and he for her.
“I’ll leave you two to talk.” The Mistress used the butt end of her crop to lift Xavier’s chin, and Mae realized where he’d gotten that particular habit. “Don’t hurt each other.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Mae said politely.
“The controls for the chains are over there.” The older woman laughed softly. “I suggest you make use of your time with him.”