It was hopeless. There was no way I was going to be able to accomplish all of that and stay sane in the process. And even if I could, I doubted there would be enough money to pay for classes, books, and the dorm room. I was fucked! It was then that I had to contemplate for the first time that I’d end up just like my parents. Uneducated and living by the skin of my teeth. A chill ran through my body.
I had to find a way to pay for school and fast. My parents were in their fifties. Dad had lost his job and chances were, at his age, he’d have a hell of a time finding another one. And if he did, it wouldn’t pay nearly as much as he was making at a job he’d had for years.
“New York is so expensive to live in, Asia. You should think about coming back to Queens. I’m sure you could commute. Maybe live here with your father and I for a while. You could help out with bills. I don’t think your father is going to get another job that pays as well as that one.”
And there it was. They needed me. Guilt piled up like a ton of bricks.
“Yeah, I could do that, Mom. You can count on me. I’ll figure it all out. I will. You and Dad took good care of us all, I can help you out when I get a good job after I graduate. You’ll have to hold out until then, but I’ll be there for you guys. I promise.”
The sigh of relief she made had my heart hurting. My parents were in dire straits. Any savings they had would run out, and they’d be left living on crumbs. I had to make it all work out. There were no other choices. I’d do whatever it takes.
“You have no idea how good that is to hear, Asia. I’d never ask this of you if I had any other choice. I’m going to tell my boss that I need a raise and we’ll get rid of any bills we can. I don’t want you to have to live with us forever. The house will be paid off in five years. If you can live with us and help us until that bill is gone, then we’ll be fine after that.”
Five years!
She’s a bit out of her mind even though I do love her. I couldn’t let her know how much that would affect me, “I can do that, Mom.” I’m stretching the truth, because I most certainly won’t last five years, but I will help when I can and stay as long as I can.
“You’re such a good girl, Asia. I know I’ve told you that a million times, but I have to say it again. You’re good as gold. Always such a good girl and my little helper. I don’t know what we’d do without you. Your sisters have their own lives and families; I could never ask them for anything. But you’re alone and will have a great paying job in just a bit over a year. We can make it until then. We have enough in savings to do that.”
“I’m glad I can help. So, let me get off here and check out the internet to start searching for a summer job.”
“Hold on. Why do you suddenly need a job? I mean, your scholarship pays for everything.”
She finally caught on that things weren’t exactly as I was letting on. “I might have to pay some, that’s all. Don’t worry.”
“Why would you have to pay some suddenly?” Shit, her voice was changing and that wasn’t a good sign.
I was searching for an answer when one came to me. “Extra classes that the scholarship won’t cover. I want to take a few to get ahead of the game.”
“Oh,” she sounded relieved, thank goodness. “For a moment there I thought you were having some problems of your own. You’d tell me if you were, right?”
With all that’s going on, why the hell would I do a thing like that?
“Sure, I would, Mom. I gotta go. Love you,” I said in the most convincing bullshit voice I could muster.
“Love you. Talk to you soon.”
Finally, the call ended and I buried my face in the pillow I had been laying on. I was up shits creek without a paddle, as my granddad used to say. With no clue of how I was going to make it all work, I did what any girl does. I started to cry.
Jett
Sipping a cold beer as I sat on the deck of my Malibu beach house, I got a message from a guy I went to high school with back in Maplewood, New Jersey. Hot on the heels of my mother’s news of a huge family vacation, came the news that our high school was having our ten-year reunion on July 25th, in the gym. Josh was one of my best buddies back in the old days. He was already married with two kids, and anytime I talked to him, his wife was shouting out female names. She wanted to pair me up with one of her single female friends so we could all pal around together. I, of course, wasn’t into it.
In college, I messed around with a few different women, not a ton, only a few. I wasn’t quite the playboy my family thought I was. When I turned twenty-five, a friend of mine took me to an exclusive club in Portland, Oregon. He told me I’d find women there that would be more my speed. Ron and I went out with a couple of women we met at a bar one night. He noticed the way I treated the one I was with. I had certain expectations that she couldn’t seem to comply with.
Yappy broads are a thing I couldn’t stand. I liked quiet women, who spoke only when they had something interesting to say. Small talk bored me. I liked intelligent women who didn’t mind letting me take charge. That’s a hard combination to find.
I didn’t consider myself bossy or controlling. I thought of myself as a self-assured man who knew what he wanted and how he liked things to be. Not that the world should revolve around me or anything like that. It’s just that I didn’t like to explain every little thing I did or wanted to a woman. And that’s why I’m always single. Not many women want that in a man. But at that club, many, many women wanted that.
The Dungeon of Decorum was a dream come true for me. I had taken on three different subs at different times. I also dabbled with quite a few of the women in the club, without making them mine. It was easy to let all of them go. Nothing was ever overly emotional, a thing I liked about the entire setup.
With my subs, there were contracts made where all my rules were laid out in detail for them. The women understood what I wanted and complied with everything. I wasn’t into any kinks at that time. Normal sex was all I wanted. Mostly, I wanted control. I wanted a woman who did as I told her to. She kept quiet, did anything I asked of her without so much as an eye roll and laid down for me when I wanted her to. Simple and easy.
After a while, I added in a few things. I found I liked to bind their hands behind their back or over their heads. I liked to cuff them to the bed. And on occasion, I liked to spank them with my hand or a paddle. Nothing overly painful. To me, I’d have to get too into their heads to know what they wanted or needed. I wasn’t a typical Dom. A lot of the men in the club cherished their roles as Dom.
Part of the pleasure they got out of it all was thinking about their sub and what they could do for her. I just wasn’t that into it. I wanted that lifestyle for me, not anyone else. Did that make me selfish? Hell, yes it did. I didn’t care, though. I wasn’t in it to making life-long friends. I had a lot of those already.
When Josh’s wife started naming off the women she knew that I could take to the reunion, I added to my lie. I told Josh I’d gotten married since we last talked. I’ll be taking her to the reunion, he could tell his wife to forget about setting me up anymore. Now I had two functions I needed a wife for during that summer. A few days later, I received an invitation in the mail from my college roommate. He was getting married on the third Saturday in June. I hated going to weddings alone. It was just too depressing and all the bridesmaids hitting on me.
I didn’t enjoy being hit on. I was the hunter, not the prey.
And as I sat on the deck, finishing off my beer, I got a text from my cousin back in New York. She was getting married at the end of August and wanted me to be there. Two weddings, a reunion, and a week-long vacation with my extended family and Hamptons’ royals. What was I to do?
Not one of the subs I’d ever had was the right kind of woman to play that part. They were all a bit on the nasty and sinister side. I needed a good girl. One you’d find next door. But she’d have to be easy for me to get along with for three months. We’d have to live together to make it look real. I’d have to b
uy rings. A house in New York would be a great prop too, I thought. I could pull that all together in a short time, that was the better question. The only thing I couldn’t figure out was how to get a good girl to become my fake wife sooner than later. I needed a miracle.
The doorbell rang, and I went traipsing through the house to answer it. My neighbor was standing there with a chocolate cake in her hand. “Hey there, handsome.” She was the last person I needed to deal with right now.
“Maggie. What’s with the cake?” I stepped back to let her in and went to the kitchen to grab another beer. Not brothering to get her one, because she most definitely wasn’t staying.
“I made it for you. Isn’t today your birthday, Jett?” That coy voice was enough to drive me completely out of my skin.
“Nope.” I opened the beer and took a long drink. Maggie always came up with some excuse to come over to my house. This one was probably the most clever of excuses.
She placed the cake on the dining room table and put her hand on her round hip as she threw her stringy black hair behind her shoulder. “Oh, my bad.” Her finger touched her lower lip as she made a vain attempt at looking sexy. “Well, you can have the cake, anyway. Got an extra beer in there, Jett?”
“Nope.” I tossed the bottle into the trash and went back out on the deck. “Thanks for the cake. You know your way out.”
She followed behind me, “I didn’t see any take-out boxes in your trash. Have you eaten dinner yet?” She seemed dense not taking notice of my very obvious lack of interest in talking to her.
“I have not. I may call in.” Pulling my shades off my head, putting them on and looking out at the ocean, instead of at her.
Maggie annoyed me. She always had. It was just that she was so damn obvious. She wanted me. And that, in itself, was a turn off.
I knew to what lengths women would go when they wanted me. I wasn’t about to get trapped by any of these manipulative bitches. That’s why I liked the whole system of the Dom/sub relationship. If I said to take birth control, they did. If I said don’t get your ass pregnant, they obeyed me. Maggie and other women like her couldn’t be trusted.
When Maggie walked up to lean on the railing of the deck, she leaned way over as if she was looking at how high up she was. She was showing me her ass. Her large ass that was shoved in really short shorts. Funny how it didn’t tempt me at all. Not one little bit.
“I could make dinner for you. I make a mean spaghetti.” She turned around slow and easy, flaunting her plump breasts. Again, it gave me no rise. She just wasn’t the package I wanted.
“If I told you that you were wasting your time on me, would that stop this torture?” I took another drink and looked past her, instead of at her.
“Torture? You think a woman offering you cake and dinner is torture?”
“You’re offering me more than that.” I pulled my shades down to look over them at her. “If I told you to go to my bedroom. Put on the blindfold that’s in the left-hand nightstand drawer. Get naked and on your knees and wait for me, what would your answer be?”
“Which door goes to your bedroom?” She smiled, sinisterly.
“And that is why I don’t want you. You’re too damn easy, Maggie.”
“I’m not into games.” She took a few steps, shaking her ass as she went.
“You are into games. I’m not. I’m into straightforward sex with no strings.”
“I can do that.” She blew a kiss at me.
I took another drink. She was already boring me. “You’re not the right one, Maggie. You don’t have what I need. I need a good girl.”
“I can be your good girl, Jett. Try me.”
I got up and took her by the hand, leading her through the house. She was already breathing heavy then I opened the front door. “Bye, Maggie.”
She stopped the heavy breathing with one loud huff. “Jett Simmons, you’re a fucking dick!”
“I know.” I closed the door in her face and locked it. Then went back out to my deck to think about what I could do about getting myself a fake wife.
Asia
“Miss Jones, it looks like I’ll be seeing you again next semester.” Professor Laughton placed the sheet of paper face down on my desk.
I didn’t even have to look at it. But bet I wouldn’t be taking his class again, he was an ass. I’d find another Data Extracting teacher for my next round no matter how difficult that was with the other hellish classes. That also signaled the end of my free ride to college. My scholarship had gone down the drain and I was left with no idea how to come up with enough money to make next year’s tuition.
With my head hung low as I made my way back to the dorms. At least, I knew I’d have a roof over my head and food to eat until school got out in a couple of weeks. Bummed didn’t even come close to what I was feeling.
As I was strolling on the campus lawn, I bumped someone’s shoulder, taking my attention from the green grass, which I was flattening with every step. “I’ve seen better faces on a potato.” It was a friend of mine, Joy. She was one of those beautiful rich girls who had no problems and she’d never understood mine. “So, what’s up with it?”
“Nothing.” I plodded along, trying to get to my room before I burst into tears.
She got in front of me, stopping me, and taking my chin in her hand. Her nails were perfectly manicured with a shiny pink polish on them. Her hair, perfectly quaffed. She was just too perfect. “Something’s wrong. Come on, tell me, Asia. No reason to keep it all bottled up.”
The tears were stinging my eyes. “I’m about to cry, Joy. Just let me go.”
Wrapping her arm around me, I noticed the delicate scent of her perfume. It smelled expensive. “You come with me. I’m not about to leave you to cry alone.” She whisked me away before I could protest.
The next thing I knew, we were sitting in her apartment. She was making margaritas and serving up some chips and salsa. I was soon drowning my sorrows as I ate the spicy food. But I still wasn’t feeling any better about things.
Taking a seat at the table across from me, Joy was ready to hear my pitiful story. “Spill it, Asia. All of it.”
The words spilled out of my mouth as tears spilled out of my eyes, “I can’t finish college! I failed a class, and my scholarship is going to get revoked! I have to make a shit-ton of money to pay for everything now, and I don’t know how I’m going to do it!” I bellowed and whined then laid my head on the table and gave up.
“Oh, that’s an easy fix. You can do what I did. I didn’t have any money for college, and I found a way to pay for that and then some.” Her words were crazy. She made no sense to me.
She didn’t have money for college?
The girl reeked of expensive things. She had all the latest brand named everything. A great car. A bad ass apartment. She had it all and was going to school.
“How?” That’s all I could say as I wiped my eyes and shook my head in disbelief.
Did she really have a great way to make all the money I needed?
“There’s this place in Oregon…”
I cut her off. “I can’t get there. I don’t have money to do that.” It was hopeless. I’d never get to finish school.
“Listen to me, Asia. I signed up for an auction. I put myself up to be a man’s submissive partner. The one I was in was for a two-month contract. The club pays for the plane ticket to get you there. They dress you in their clothes, and when a man purchases you, they take over everything else. They provide you with clothing, food, drink, shelter. You are theirs to take care of for whatever time the contract says.”
“That sounds a little bit too good to be true, Joy.” I just wasn’t believing her. It couldn’t be real.
“Well, there are things you must do, of course.”
I picked up a napkin and blew my nose. “Of course.” I knew there was a catch!
“You have to do whatever he wants. But you have control over it all.”
“That’s an oxymoron if I ever heard one.
Do what he wants, yet I’m in control.” I wasn’t buying it.
“Yes, you see you fill out a list of things you will and won’t do. For instance, I won’t ever do knife or gun play.”
“Fuck! What kind of shit do these men want?” I was shocked.
“It’s BDSM, Asia. I know you’ve heard about it. Who hasn’t?” She took a little sip of the margarita and looked up as if I was a fool.
“BDSM? The hitting stuff? The tying up stuff? The men dominating women stuff?” I shook my head the whole time and wondered what kind of females sign themselves up for that.
A wry grin curled her lips. “Oh, you’d be shocked how great it all feels. You go to another place and time when you’re doing it. And this club makes sure the Doms are well-trained. There’s nothing to worry about. You learn so much about your mind and body, and you get paid to do it. It’s a win-win.”
“More like a lose-lose. You’re talking about selling your body, Joy.” I was feeling a bit sick to my stomach. My friend wasn’t who I thought she was at all!
“If it’s that, then why did I never feel that way. Hell, I felt like I was getting paid to feel pleasure beyond my wildest dreams. The things that were done to me, I’d have gladly paid someone to do. It was that good, Asia.”
Somehow I was becoming more intrigued than disgusted. “And how will I be in control?”
“A safe word and the fact that there will be no kind of play you don’t previously approve of. Talking about what you’ll do is almost as enticing as the doing it part.” She licked her lips and closed her eyes. “And you’ll have those memories forever! Sometimes, I can still hear my Dom telling me to sit still or he’ll spank my ass. Then I’d wiggle just to get him to do it. It make me wet and horny every single time.”
I was back to being disgusted. “There’s something wrong with you, Joy.”
“If that’s true, then I’m cool with that. And I’m not the only one, either. There were hundreds of women at the club. Not all were in the auction. Some were there to be pleasured by the men without accepting any form of payment for it.”
Filthy Commitments: A Submissives’ Secrets Novel Page 2