Retraining the Dom

by Jennifer Denys

  Hoping he hadn’t noticed the slight jolt between them she clinked bottles in camaraderie. “Look, Trey. I’m sure you had every reason to get carried away with the sub the other night … what was her name again?”

  Olivia made a silent bet that he didn’t remember.

  He didn’t answer immediately. Just looked at her suspiciously. “She had it coming.”

  Yup, he doesn’t remember. It fitted in with the profile of him that she was beginning to piece together ever since Sean dropped this on her. Trey really didn’t give his subs any consideration at all. They could be a piece of equipment for all he cared. She wondered whether he ever did or if there had been an incident to make him that way.

  It was something to contemplate, but in the meantime Olivia deliberately mentioned the sub’s name. “I’m sure Marilyn did deserve her punishment.”

  Trey winced when she reminded him of the sub’s name.

  That’s intriguing. She kept pushing, determined to see how much he would tell her. “But did you really have to go that far with her?”

  “She’s a pain slut. She wanted it.” Trey’s response was too quick, too practiced, too arrogant.

  “And the insults?”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “Some subs get off on degradation.”

  “But in her case she was saying her safe word.”

  “I—I didn’t hear her. It was a mistake, and I apologized.” He dropped his foot and slouched in his chair. There was a defensive tone in his manner and voice now. This was unusual for Trey. He was the sort to take the offensive first.

  More food for thought.

  “Yes, I know. It was enough that Sean didn’t throw you out immediately. But there have been complaints from others, too, not just Marilyn. In fact, it was the last straw for Sean as he’d had several protests about your conduct lately, hence why he felt the need to arrange this retraining.”

  It was a good thing Olivia was watching his body language closely. As Trey surged to his feet, smoking with anger, the beer sloshing wildly in his bottle, she got out of the way quickly so he didn’t corner her against the desk. Backing up a step so he didn’t dominate her, since he was as tall as she was even in her killer heels, she pretended to place her bottle on the table.

  “Complaints?” His voice was deceptively quiet, belying his edgy body language, fingers tightly gripping the bottle he held.

  “Yep. Quite a number.” Olivia hoped he didn’t hear the quiver in her voice.

  “Do you know how many years I’ve been a Dom?” He walked toward her, coming face to face as he snarled at her. She held her ground, tilting her chin up, metallic grey eyes full of anger against her own, light brown with orange tints. She’d been told in the past that her eyes were warm. But now she hoped they reflected strength and determination.

  “I do know you’ve been doing this a long time. Maybe that’s the problem. You need to be reminded of the basics.” She regretted that as soon as it was out of her mouth.

  “The basics!” He was clearly shocked.

  Dammit! If she wasn’t careful he’d leave without a backward glance, and that was exactly what Sean was trying to avoid. But Olivia had to be firm on this point. She crossed her arms in an attitude of authority. “Yes. By going over standard techniques I will be able to see where your strengths and weaknesses lie.”

  “Oh, I can show you my strength any day.”

  Of that, I have little doubt.

  “And can you tell me your weaknesses?” She wagered that he needed more time to answer that.

  Trey turned away to pace, and Olivia relaxed her stance, leaning against the desk for support, but making it look like she was being nonchalant.

  “According to you—and Sean—I hit a bit too hard when punishing a sub from time to time.”

  Olivia shook her head. “That proves you need retraining when you can’t see your own faults.”

  He snarled at her. “And you don’t have any?”

  “Yep. But I’m not the one being retrained.”

  She decided to try the “buddy” approach again. “As I said before, we can learn from each other. You are the expert with impact play, for example. You can demonstrate how to be firm, yet subtle.” That was a wry suggestion, as he was anything but.

  Trey frowned. “So how will I show you that? You gonna watch me with a sub?”

  “Possibly.”

  “What, in front of everyone else?”

  Uh oh. Olivia nodded warily.

  “With everyone knowing I’ve been a naughty boy?”

  She was warned by the biting sarcasm in his words. He moved toward her again. His movement was deliberate—and threatening. If she had been a sub she would have known for sure she was in for a vigorous punishment. There was something about a Dom about to admonish his sub that was palpable.

  His voice was menacingly quiet. “You think you are going to tell me how to wield an implement? Ha!” Trey continued pacing, like a caged tiger, and she breathed a silent sigh of relief. “And if I get it wrong, according to your rules, you are going to show me up in front of the Club’s entire membership. Humiliation—is that to be my punishment?”

  Trey had stopped directly in front of Olivia, his face full of fury. She swallowed apprehensively, but before she got a chance to respond, Trey flung his bottle on the table so forcefully the beer slopped all over the paperwork, drowning it in a fizz, as he stormed to the door. He was so angry it slammed against the frame, and Olivia jumped.

  “Fuck the lot of them. I’ll go elsewhere.”

  Before he had a chance to charge through the doorway Olivia shouted after him, having regained her nerve. “When you don’t get accepted at another venue, you know where to find me. The offer of retraining is still on.” The likelihood was he would have trouble at other clubs as word would have gotten out. But whether he would let her retrain him was another matter.

  The look he gave her on departing was pure hatred, and it made her shiver. If she ever chose to be dominated, he was someone who could do it.

  Chapter Two

  “Trevor Knight. Your real name is Trevor!”

  Trey scowled at the woman sitting at the table opposite him. Leaning forward he quietly said, “For God’s sake, Livvy, keep your voice down.” He had always been aware that Olivia was loud, but never been conscious of it so much as now. He was thankful that there were no club members present in the restaurant, although a few of the patrons looked in their direction.

  Olivia’s face was alight with amusement. “What? You don’t like the name ‘Trevor’? I think it’s cute.”

  “Say it one more time and I’m out of here.” This was said through gritted teeth as he glared at her.

  Having tried to join a couple of other BDSM clubs in town, Trey had swiftly come to the conclusion that his reputation had preceded him. He’d been told that he was barred. He guessed he would continue to be banned until he undertook the dreaded training that Sean had insisted on.

  So after stewing for a couple of weeks he had very reluctantly contacted Olivia and arranged a meeting, but insisted that it be on neutral ground, hence meeting in this restaurant. The one thing he was concerned about was it appearing in front of the submissives that he could be controlled. They would never respect him again. Well, that and the thought of this woman telling him what to do. He grimaced. He’d have to get over that one, for the time being, although he was sure it would get out about the retraining.

  Shaking her head, Olivia replied in a slightly quieter voice. “If you leave you are back at square one. Do you want this retraining or not?”

  She could be so irritating, particularly when she was right. He really hated that condescending look that she had. It was one of the reasons he called her by her nickname as it was one of the few times he got the better of her. Not that he’d had much to do with her. Their areas of interest differed—he liked using impact equipment, and rarely saw her using any.

  Trey huffed and sat back. “Not.”

  She g
ave him a look of bafflement.

  He then ran a hand through his hair. “But I don’t have a choice. However, leave ‘Trevor’ out of it, will you?”

  Olivia leaned an elbow on the table and cupped a cheek in the palm of one hand. “Hmm. If you are being good I will call you Trey, and if you are bad...” She clearly left that unsaid for him to insert what he wished. “But remember to call me Mistress Olivia, and ‘Trey’ it is more likely to be. I don’t seem to recall you calling me by my title once since you arrived.”

  Trey narrowed his eyes. “Of course, Mistress O-livia. Anything for you, Mistress O-livia.”

  He chuckled when she glared at him. He wasn’t someone who usually noticed the color of a person’s eyes, but he found himself admiring the lovely color of hers. Amber. Very unusual. He was starting to think this could be a fun training session if she could be provoked so easily. Generally, Trey avoided the Dommes at any club he was in, but there was something about Olivia that he was beginning to like. Or maybe it was because he sensed he might be able to get around her. Time would tell. It was just a pity that he was still as angry as hell over Sean’s dictates.

  She looked down at some paperwork she had in front of her, and Trey frowned wondering what she was looking at.

  “I see you are forty-five, but it doesn’t say how long you’ve been a Dominant.”

  Sitting forward abruptly Trey tried to read upside down. “It does what? Are you telling me you have a file on me?” It was his turn to be irked.

  Olivia grinned at him. “Yep. Sean has a file on all his members, which is mostly their membership applications. Of course, it is usually confidential, but when you signed the agreement to be retrained there was a clause stating that your trainer gets to look at your file.”

  “Shit!” His mind went into overdrive wondering what on earth his file could possibly say. He’d never told anyone why he’d become a Dom, had he? He automatically reached out for it, but Olivia swiftly lifted it out of reach. Bitch!

  “Well?” She prompted an answer from him.

  “What?” He wasn’t sure what she was asking as he was still thinking about what incriminating things there could be on that file.

  She sighed. “How long have you been a Dom?”

  “Why should that matter? Christ, you’re not a shrink outside the club, are you?” Hell, if she is I’m out of here. I don’t want anyone getting into my mind. His crappy childhood was something that was staying well hidden.

  Olivia snorted. “No. But as to why, well, it should be obvious. You need retraining. If you are fairly new to BDSM then it could be that you started off with incorrect techniques, and it should be fairly easy to remedy that. But if you have been a Dom for years and have picked up some bad habits that will be more difficult to overcome.”

  Thank God she hadn’t considered other, deeper, psychological reasons for why he did what he did.

  She suddenly gave him an indecipherable look. It didn’t bode well, and he tensed. “Then again, since you raised the ‘shrink’ issue, that leads me to suspect it might be more than poor practice, and instead you had a very strong reason for becoming a Dom in the first place.”

  This one was way too clever. He stared hard at her and was startled to discover she looked away almost immediately. That was usually a sign of a sub. Very curious. She glanced at him again, and he tried hard to hold back a smile. He knew he could win this contest of holding a person’s gaze, so what would she do next?

  Olivia took the coward’s way out, to his way of thinking, and looked down at the file again. “Since you are refusing to answer me that tells me I am right.” When she looked up again he saw pity in her eyes and felt his face go tight. Her voice was unusually quiet. “What was it, Trey, abuse, abandonment, divorce, rejection, humiliation?”

  Shit! He had to move her away from that line of thinking. Leaning back in his chair he took a casual sip of his mineral water, trying to appear unaffected. He went back to her original question hoping to divert her. “I’ve been a Dom all my adult life. So you are going to have to work hard to get me to change my ways. What’s the saying? An old dog and all that.” He gave her a look of arrogance. Try and change me, if you can.

  She raised her eyebrows, but immediately came back at him with her next question. “What was it about Marilyn that bothered you?”

  Damn. Olivia got right to the crux of the problem. Marilyn was the sub he had gone way overboard with, but he wasn’t about to admit he didn’t like her because of her name, and even hated saying it. That sounded much too stupid. Nope, it was someone else who had been called that name a long time ago and the sub just reminded him of her. It hadn’t helped that she actually looked like his mother, too—olive complexion, close set eyes, big nose, with a dark fringe that came right down into her eyes as if to hide her intent. All his life he had avoided brunettes, usually going for blondes.

  But Olivia was waiting, drumming her fingernails on the file. He had to come up with something, so he said, “She was too young.” Dammit, that sounds lame. But it was all he could think of in the heat of the moment.

  About to take a sip of her drink Olivia sputtered it out. Trey was amused by her flushed cheeks as she grabbed hold of her napkin and dabbed at her mouth. “What’s that supposed to mean? All the subs in the club are generally young.”

  He shrugged. It actually was a reason why he was dissatisfied with being a Dom these days. “Tell me about it. As I get older they all seem to get younger and younger.”

  “So what’s wrong with that? I thought we Dominants liked constantly having fresh, beautiful subs at our disposal.”

  “Ooo, Mistress Olivia. That sounded distinctly snippy. Are you feeling your age, methinks? How old are you? And, let me ask you the same question. How long have you been a Domme?” He’d nearly said “sub”. Mentally he was beginning to regard her as a sub, and started to wonder why. He was ruminating on this, so he nearly missed her answer.

  “I’m fifty, and I’ve been a Domme for twenty-two years. And I actually echo your comment. They do seem to get younger as we get older. But I want to know why you said it.”

  He shrugged. “They just seem a different generation. Well, I know they are, but they just seem stupid and ignorant, just doing it because it is fashionable. I don’t ever remember being that shallow.”

  Olivia laughed a deep throaty chuckle that warmed him. “Okay, that’s a whole other debate. Let’s move on and get the basic rules out of the way.”

  She looked at him expectantly, and he returned her look with one of disbelief. I know the fucking rules. When she raised an eyebrow he barked out an exclamation. “You have to be kidding!”

  “Why? This whole thing would make sense if you’ve forgotten them.”

  Trey rolled his eyes. For crying out loud. “Be safe, be sane, be consensual.” He spat this out then took a swig of his drink. “I suppose you are going to tell me what I did was none of those.”

  Her voice was soft. “What do you think?”

  His fingers clenched around his glass. “Maybe, but she consented, and I would have stopped when she called her safe word.” He ignored whether what he had done was sane or not.

  “As I understand it Sean had to pull you off her when she did cry her word.”

  Trey’s stomach clenched. He had been so out of it he hadn’t been aware, just furious that he had been stopped. But as soon he had rounded on the owner of the club he knew he had gone too far.

  “I’m sorry. That was wrong. I’ve always stopped at that point before.”

  Olivia nodded and continued. “Okay, but what about the second rule?”

  He frowned. “I said it. To stop when the sub uses their safe word.”

  “Yep, but that comes under the category of consent, and we’ve covered that.”

  “I’m not sure what you are getting at.” He was confused.

  She cocked her head on her side. “You obviously know the standard rules, so don’t parrot them back at me. But did you ever get a
ny pleasure out of beating her that way?”

  “Pleasure?” Where the hell is she going with this?

  “My rules are very simple—as long as you are consensual and safe and using your implements safely, then have fun.”

  “What the fuck?”

  She raised one of her haughty eyebrows again. “If you aren’t enjoying it, why are you doing it?”

  Oh, I am so not going there. Holding her gaze he turned the tables on her. “So why are you in the lifestyle? Why do you do it?”

  Olivia dropped his stare to look at the file once more. Trey pondered whether she was using the file as a prop to avoid looking at him. However, he wasn’t expecting her next question.

  "What about hard limits, Trey?"

  He frowned trying to follow her rapid changes of conversation. “My subs know they have to accept all forms of implement with me.”

  “That’s not what I meant. What about you? Do you as a recipient have any boundaries?”

  As he tried to hide his grimace, Olivia shook her head. "I know you don't want to do this, but I need to know if you are going to freak out on me. It's the first thing we ask any new sub."

  Trey glared at her. She may well be right, but he wasn't a sub, and she certainly wasn’t using any instrument on him!

  Olivia sighed. "Well?"

  He tried to hold his temper and not storm out.

  "Do you have something you need to tell me?"

  Her voice was gentle, and when Trey looked at her, startled by her question, he could see compassion in her face.

  Shit!

  He put all his disgust of the situation into his expression and noted a score for him when she visibly shrank back.

  "What exactly are you digging for, Livvy? Some deep, dark secret? Maybe the reason I became a Dom?" His voice was rasping.

  However, she came right back at him, quick in her delivery. "So why did you?"

  Oh no. There's no way I'm divulging that! He decided to change tactics and stop being defensive. He grinned mischievously. "I used to be a sub, but my first Mistress decided to switch and wanted me to paddle her. I didn’t look back after that." He was surprised by how pale she suddenly went. Did she have a hidden secret, too? Curious. "And what's your reason for becoming a Domme, Livvy?"