by Ashlee Price
No woman had ever made me feel the way that she did tonight. It didn’t seem to matter to my body or my mind that she hadn’t known it was me. I would have thought that it would have, but it didn’t, not in the least bit.
Going back to the office, I watched another girl go in and help her down. I didn’t want her to see me or I would have done it myself. She was sore. I could tell by the way she was rubbing her wrists. Mariah had made the most delicious moans and screams. It was something else that was burned into my brain that I would never forget as long as I lived. I already wanted more.
After she left, I watched a little of the action going on in some of the other rooms, but I was bored with it. It was all the same. Even Sasha wasn’t showing the same sparkle she usually did. When she was done with her customer, I called her into my office and bent her over my desk. I didn’t tell her why I was so horny when she asked, just that I was. I would never tell her that I was thinking of her little blonde friend while I slammed inside of her from behind. I was cocky, but I wasn’t stupid.
Pouring inside of Sasha did nothing more than take the edge off. I still wanted Mariah just as badly as before, but at least now I didn’t think I was going to go insane.
“Where were you earlier, Elie?”
Sasha was pulling her skirt up, and I admired the long, dark brown legs that were still exposed from our fucking.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean your car was here and you weren’t. I tried calling you for the longest time and I never got an answer. Where were you?”
I shouldn’t have snapped at her, but I felt like she was getting uppity. She had to know her place, and I wanted to keep what I’d done with Mariah a secret. No one needed to know that it was me in there with her.
“It’s not your job to know where I am. I thought you knew how this worked, Sasha. This is not how it’s going to work with me and you. I’m not going to explain myself to you, ever.”
Her face crumbled, and I started to feel bad about the hard line that I’d taken with her. Sasha was a good woman to have around, but not if she was going to start playing the jealous girlfriend card. This was no place for that, and I wasn’t in the mood for it. I was never in the mood for that kind of behavior.
“I’m sorry, Elie. I didn’t mean it like that.”
She was already trying to get me to forgive her. I told her that I would, but she was going to have to do something for me. Sasha was always up for something new, and I had a client in mind for her who was going to take all of her experience to handle.
Chapter 9 – Mariah
“I just don’t understand why you have to be gone for so long, Sasha!”
“It’s no big deal. Sometimes clients want you to go with them somewhere. I’ve been seeing Lawrence since I got here, and the price is right. I’m going to be on a huge boat for the next couple of weeks, and when I’m done, Elie says I won’t have to work for a week or two. It’s worth it to me.”
I didn’t know whether this was normal. I couldn’t imagine going off with any of the guys that I saw. Well, maybe one, but I still wasn’t sure I would want to see what they were really like. At the club, the men got to be whoever they wanted to be, and we were whoever they wanted us to be, but in real life, I didn’t know if I could do it. There were too many games played for me to want to do it twenty-four seven. It would be exhausting, I was sure of it.
“I know, I’m just going to miss you. Kimmie is gone all of the time, and anyway I can’t talk to her about a lot of the stuff that goes on at the club. She just wouldn’t understand.”
“She understands more than you think she does, Mariah. Kimmie has done her own dirt as well. Now she’s doing something else, but she has done something like this too.”
I hadn’t known that, but it didn’t really surprise me. All four of us were a little freaky. Kallie was just as bad as Sasha. Thinking of her made me ask if Sasha had heard from her. Those two had always been a little closer to each other because of how similar they were.
“Have you seen or heard from Kallie?”
“She called me the other day and told me that as soon as she gets rid of Tommy, the guy she’s seeing, she’s going to come stay here for a while. It’s going to be cramped…”
“Are you kidding me? I haven’t seen her in so long! I’ll share a room with her if you want. That’s never a problem. Remember that time we all went to camp and stayed in that tiny cabin together? We could barely move around in there. Here will feel like a fancy hotel compared to that.”
Sasha smiled with the memory, not to mention the fact that even as tight as those quarters were, we still ended up inviting boys over as well. The cabin was trashed by the end of our stay, and if it wasn’t for Kallie’s parents paying for the damage, we would have all been taken to court over it. Those were the days that I missed so much.
“I just miss us all together, Sasha. It’s been so long, and I feel like we’ve all grown apart.”
Sasha shrugged and told me that that was the way it was sometimes.
“Not for us, though. We’ve known each other too long to let life get in the way. When Kallie gets here, I think we should all take a week off and go do something.”
She laughed at me and asked me what we would do.
“I don’t know, but something without men.”
“Yeah, I think I can agree to that as well.”
“Are you getting sick of the club yet? It gets easier, but it also can get mundane after a while.”
“I’m not to the mundane part yet. I look forward to it most of the time. I don’t really like new clients all that much, but I’ve got a couple that I see every week, one I see a few times a week.”
“I heard about Scott. That’s a good thing. If you could talk him into going exclusive, you could really get to a place that you didn’t even need to go into the club at all.”
I thought of what Elie had said when we’d talked about it a little bit. He told me that it would have to be arranged so he still got money for it. He still wanted his percentage as a finder’s fee, whether I was actually in the club or not. Anything that I did with a client I met at the Fetish Club was part of my earnings that he got a chunk of. At first I hadn’t minded the percentage that he wanted. It hadn’t seemed like it was too bad, but the more I made, the more I started to realize the error of my ways.
“Well, Elie will still get his twenty percent, so there’s really nothing that I can do. Even if I did go exclusive with someone, there isn’t any point going somewhere else. If he’s going to take my money, I might as well make him work for it. That’s what I think, anyway.”
I’d burst all of that out before I remembered that she was going out with him. I didn’t want to offend her, and I didn’t want it to cause tension between us, but I couldn’t stand Elie. He was a pervert, that’s all there was to it, and I tried to stay away from him. Not only was he not my type, but Sasha cared for him, and that made me feel bad about the ‘training’ session.
“Sorry, Sasha, I didn’t mean to complain. You two have been great in helping me…”
She waved me off and smiled. “Girl, he gets on my nerves too. Last week I asked him where he was and he just blew up. That’s why when I got the offer to go, I took it. I knew he didn’t want me to, not really, but I have to remember that we’re not really together. Not like that, anyway.”
“It must be hard with him owning that place.” I thought about the training that he’d given me in the beginning. I knew that I would never want someone I was with to do that with anyone, let alone everyone I worked with. It was all just too intimate, and I knew I wasn’t enough of a grownup to do something like that, even if I’d wanted to.
“You’ve got no idea. There are so many secrets, and I know that I don’t really even want to know everything. He has been good to me in some ways, but it’s not like this is love. This is something else. None of these guys can really ever love you.”
“I had someone ask me to go exclusive. Well,
two people actually.”
“Don’t do it, Mariah, you’re just going to be setting yourself up for failure. What you have to get is that these guys want to own you, not love you. They’ll expect your undying love and affection, obedience, but you’ll never get what you need out of it. So if you’re going to go exclusive, make sure that you have fun with him and that he’s worth leaving the club for financially.”
“You sound like you know from experience.”
“Yes, you know how I like to learn the hard way. You do as well, but just don’t this time. I know that it’s tempting, but they’re fickle and dominant. That can be fun for an hour or two, but it gets old.”
“So then why are you going on the boat?”
Sasha shrugged and sat on her suitcase to get it to close. She’d brought too much, but I already knew that she would bring another bag if her stuff wouldn’t fit in this one. This was her third bag, after all. It felt like she was going away forever the way she was packing.
“It’s really good money. They’re paying the same rate that they would in the club. We’ll be able to move after this job.”
I started to do the math in my head. I didn’t know her going rate, but I had an idea of the threshold. She would make enough to do just that. But was it worth it?
“Do you like the guy?”
My friend stopped and fiddled with her long braids a little bit. “I do, actually. He’s sweet. I don’t know if that’s all going to change, but I’m looking forward to this a little bit. I’ve never been on that kind of a boat before. I don’t even know how to swim, but he says that doesn’t matter.”
I tried to envision what it would be like to do something like that. Sasha had built up a wall between herself and her job. I needed to do that before I started to think that they really cared about me. It was the way to do this kind of work long term. If not, I would get my heart broken over and over again, trying to make it something that it never was. I still had a lot to learn from her.
After another hour of folding and packing way too many clothes, I drove Sasha down to the airport and gave her a hug. I don’t know why it felt so strange to see her go. We’d all spent over a year apart. This time felt different, even though it was only going to be for two weeks. I had a feeling that something was going to happen, and I tried to push it away as I watched her meet up with a tall, dashing man I thought I’d seen in the club before. If Sasha was going to be stuck on a boat with a complete stranger, I think she could have done worse.
It was still so warm as I was driving back home. I thought of it as home, too. That was why I hadn’t really looked for anything else. I could afford it now, so could Kimmie, but it was nice to have all of us together again. We’d met in a program for troubled youth when we were all fifteen, and years later, it still felt more comfortable being together. Back then it was a survival thing in a place that had long since been shut down because of what went on there.
I was feeling nostalgic, so I called Kimmie to see what time she was going to get off work. It was the first time in a long time that I was there alone, and all of the old memories of the past were coming back full tilt. This was one of the times that I wished that there was a full house and lots of noise to drown it all out.
Chapter 10 – Scott
“Are you okay, sir?”
I told Alice I was fine, but it was hard to focus. It was always hard to focus now. That wasn’t a problem that I’d had before, but before I hadn’t had something weighing on me so heavily. I’d fallen in love with the wrong woman.
“You’ve been acting kind of strange lately. Is the firm about to go down and I just don’t know it?”
The idea caught me off guard. I’d been off of my game, but was it that obvious that she would question the ability of the company to keep going?
“Nothing is wrong with the firm. We’re not going down. Why would you even think that?” I had to wonder in the back of my mind if she’d heard something from the board that I hadn’t.
“I don’t know, sir. It’s really just the way that you’re acting lately. I don’t know what’s going on with you lately, but you can’t tell me that everything is fine. You’re coming in late with a hangover and leaving earlier and earlier. I just want to help. We’ve worked together for so long.”
I stopped her before she got into language that should be saved for an intervention. Was it really that obvious that I was tearing up inside? It felt so clear to me because I couldn’t help but feel it, but I hated the idea that everyone else could see it so clearly as well. I must not being doing a very good job of hiding it. Not near as good as I’d thought.
“I’m fine, really.”
Alice cocked her head to the side and showed me with an expression how much she believed that statement.
“Really, I am. I just have a lot going on. You know that this is a bad time of year for me anyway.”
Her face changed. Although I didn’t like to bring it up, I still would when it was convenient. It was the perfect way to explain away my recent antics without having to say that I was in love with a fetish girl that I couldn’t have. I didn’t have to mention the idea of how many guys touched her besides me and how it consumed everything that I did.
“I forgot, Scott, I’m sorry. I didn’t even think about it. I just worry about you.”
That was the reason she was still here. She’d long since been overwhelmed with the caseload, but she cared, and I needed that on my side more than a brilliant mind. Alice was there to keep all of the practical things together.
“I’m fine, really. I’ve just been dealing with it in my own way. It’s getting better.”
I felt lousy bringing up my parents’ death to sidetrack her from the truth, but she didn’t bring it up again throughout the rest of the morning briefing. She was right, though, it was almost noon and I’d missed two meetings because I wasn’t here. And it was also right that I had a hangover most of the time. It was just eating me up inside, and I had to find a way to fix it. I was a fixer, after all. I put it in my head that I was going to talk to Elie tonight before I saw Mariah.
The thought of her got me through the day. I tried not to dwell on what she did the other days and hours that I didn’t see her. I didn’t want to. Alice had made it clear with her concern this morning that I was slipping and I had to get it together. This was no time to be losing it, and the last thing that I needed was people thinking that I was slipping. The board was always ready to pounce if I made once false step.
Looking at the clock, I could see that it was only three, but I wanted to leave. If Alice wasn’t at her desk with her judgmental eyes, I think I would have. I wouldn’t get to see Mariah until seven tonight. That left hours that I would have to kill elsewhere, and most likely the drinking would start not too long after I left the building.
Instead of leaving when I wanted, I stayed till five and about crawled out of my skin waiting. I waved to Alice on my way out, and I saw her eyes flick to the clock on the bottom of her computer. It wasn’t like I was staying there all night, but at least I wasn’t leaving earlier than everyone else. Tomorrow I would try to get there a little earlier, but tonight I had other things that I had to think about.
***
“Tonight I want to talk for a few minutes, Mariah, without the games.”
Mariah’s hair was all teased and curled, giving the impression that it was longer than it was. I wanted to touch her. The silken strands always felt good running through my fingers.
“Okay, Scott.” There was a disappointment on her face that I didn’t quite understand. What was going through her mind? Did she really want to be with me that badly? Did she really look forward to us being together as much as I did?
While I would have liked to believe that, it was a hard one to wrap my brain around. All of it was. Although I’d spent years at the club looking for the perfect girl, I’d never actually thought I would find her. If I had, I would have thought about the consequences of such a feat. The very fact of mee
ting her here at the club had made it hard to pursue her as I wanted to. I was stuck with only seeing her for the very limited amount of time that she could be booked. Something had to change.
“What do you want to talk about?”
“I want to talk about you leaving this place.”
Her eyes went to mine and she shook her head. I didn’t know what she meant by that. Did it mean she didn’t want to go? Mariah turned her back to me and told me to come with her to the shower. It wasn’t a place that we usually went, and she’d never suggested anything to me before, so it took my mind a minute to compute it.
Mariah was already in the shower and starting to strip when I got into the bathroom. I wasn’t thinking about anything else then. The conversation that had been so important then was not as important anymore. Now her bare breasts and round ass bending down were all I could think about.
“What are you doing?” Was this the moment that she was going to allow me to have all of her? This was not part of the script, and I wasn’t used to a submissive changing things up so drastically on her own accord.
“Come in here, Scott, so we can talk.”
Mariah closed the curtain and I started to take off my clothes. There was no other choice. I was the one who wanted to talk before the games. I just didn’t fathom why she wanted it to be like this. I had high hopes for a minute that it was because she’d changed her mind on other things, but the vibe I was getting did not cement the idea.
When I finally got in, Mariah was standing there under the water and I was hypnotized by the water droplets falling down her frame. Every inch of her was perfect, and my first instinct was to grab her to me and pull her in so that I could feel her against me. We’d been intimate in many ways, but this was something new. Her body felt so good next to mine that I was instantly hard and sliding between her thighs. Mariah jumped and pushed me back.
“No, Scott. This is so that we can talk.”