by J. D. Chase
I don’t know who I’m begging when I say stuff like that. I can tell you it’s not God. The evil that I’ve witnessed puts me firmly in Stephen Fry’s camp on that one. If there is a God, I don’t want anything to do with him. And not just from my suffering . . . I don’t know half of The Kid’s story yet. What I do know is enough to shake anyone’s faith. It’s enough to shake the faith I have in myself to help him to lead a normal life one day. I don’t believe in any of that spiritual shit.
Out of nowhere, Dan’s face appears in my mind’s eye. I close my eyes to hang on to it as the ache in my chest threatens to overwhelm me. The appearance of his face changes, becoming more life-like.
‘Believe in angels, FG,’ he says, with a smile. ‘Because I am your guardian angel. Don’t forget about me.’
And immediately his image fades. His smiling face is burned in my memory, along with his words. And weirdly, the ache in my chest is lighter. No tears are streaming down my face. I feel oddly serene and peaceful . . .
. . . until I realise that Dean is spilling his guts and I’ve not heard a word.
Thankfully, because of his tendency to ramble and repeat himself, I manage to get the gist of it quickly.
‘You contacted a former lover who’s a hotel inspector and tried to bribe them into staging a fake inspection. Just so that you could exact revenge on your boss? Is that what you’re telling me?’
He looks utterly miserable when he nods. ‘But I didn’t go through with it. How could I? I don’t have thousands of pounds to spunk on something like that. I was pissed—it was the beer talking. I was angry and lashed out. How was I to know she’d go ahead and do the inspection anyway, the stupid cow? You’d think she wouldn’t risk her job until she received the cash.’
‘Fucking hell, Dean. This is why you should stay away from the beer. You are not a nice drunk. Have a beer or two then stop. Know your limits. In fact, from now on, in Vouloir that is your limit. Two pints. And don’t even think about drinking somewhere else first. There are breathalyser kits behind the bar that are used if we suspect someone wants to play when they’ve had too much to drink. I will make them test you if they suspect you’ve already had a few.’
If he looked utterly miserable before, he looks disconsolate now.
‘Before that night with your boss, did you get pissed often?’
He shakes his head. ‘No, I worked such long hours and, to be honest, working behind the bar, seeing people making idiots out of themselves when they’d had too much, used to put me off. I hardly ever got pissed. I don’t like the way I lose control of myself, of rational thought and common sense. But once Isla made me feel so low, all I wanted was to numb it.’
I nod, understanding completely. ‘Okay, so when you’re back at work, you’re unlikely to drink?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So you have no choice—you have to take her up on her offer. To be honest, Dean, she is perfectly within her rights to fire you. You’re lucky she’s giving you a chance. She’s obviously not a vindictive person.’
He pulls a face that tells me I’m wrong. Very wrong.
‘She was pissed at Xander—who owns the hotel, or used to . . . nobody seems to know what the hell’s going on there. He’s married but I think he’s fucking Isla. Anyway, she hired security guards—and not just any security guards—no, she got the best. Former Royal Marines, for fuck’s sake. And she kept him from setting foot inside his own hotel.’
I raise my eyebrows but inside I feel like high-fiving the woman. I knew the moment I met her that she was a feisty devil—one of the things that attracted me to her. That and the fact that she’s such a sexual creature. No wonder Dean couldn’t satisfy her. I’ll bet she has exacting standards. And she’s never been with a woman before . . .
Oh shit! I’m getting distracted again.
‘Oh yeah,’ Dean says. He’s getting animated now. ‘When he tried, they took him to the ground and dragged him off the premises. Then she tracked down the car that he’d reluctantly sold a few weeks previously and bought it using hotel funds. She had it parked outside the hotel so he could see it from the street outside, where he was being forced to watch from an old banger. Then, when he saw me kiss her and take her upstairs in my arms, he flew at the door and got inside the hotel. I only just got us into the lift safely. He’d have pulled my head from my shoulders if he’d caught me. I thought he was threatening her at the time but, since then it’s all made more sense. She told Jones that she wasn’t sleeping alone when she left Vouloir the other night. If I’d known she was sleeping with him, I wouldn’t have gone near her.’
The penny drops. ‘Jones is one of the security guards that she hired?’
He nods. ‘Yeah. She hired Smith and Jones—great names, huh?’
Fake names? Why the hell would he use a fake name? Maybe his name is Jones and his partner’s just nicknamed Smith as a joke.
But if Jones has a security job at the hotel, how can he be spending so much time with The Kid? Unless he’s doing the early shift . . . but then he’d need to sleep sometime, wouldn’t he?
My question is answered and, for a second, I thought I’ve voiced it aloud.
‘Apparently they’ve sorted their differences and Xander’s left his wife so security isn’t required. He’s got another hotel and, when I went in last night, most of his staff seem to be working at Rouge Passion now so they’ll have no problem finding a replacement head barman. I just don’t think that I can work there. Xander doesn’t know what I did . . . if he finds out, he’d probably beat me to a pulp.’
I frown. ‘But you said the inspection went well, that the party last night was a celebration. I’m confused. Your friendly inspector was supposed to give a bad grading—that was what you asked for.’ ‘She was rumbled. They found her notes in her room and she confessed. She dropped me right in it. She told them that it was me who’d bribed her and Xander bullied her into giving a five star grading or he’d have her fired. I called her last night—she was well pissed at me for not sending her any money. She slammed the phone down before I could get to the bottom of why she’d done it. I guess she’d acted on trust. Maybe she needed the money, I don’t know.’
‘But you just said that Xander doesn’t know what you did.’
He gives me a look that says ‘keep up.’ I feel like telling him that I’m trying but that he’s fucking up too often for me to be able to.
‘He doesn’t know that I fucked Isla. If he finds that out, I’m a dead man.’
I contemplate offering him a job at Vouloir but it’s too soon. He’s not stable enough and he needs to face up to what he did. Going back to work would make him do that. With a bit of luck, his boss will keep her mouth shut and this Xander guy won’t find out what happened. Once Dean’s issues are sorted and some time has passed, if he behaves himself, everything might settle down. Then he can work towards promotion there or look for work elsewhere.
He needs this job to get away from his controlling mother. She’s at the root of a lot of his issues.
‘So you accept that you fucked up and you take the job she’s offering. You become a model employee and hope that she has the common sense not to tell him what happened that night. Something tells me she stands to lose as much as you if he finds out. You need that job. You need the stability of it and the independence it brings. Sure, your salary will be lower. But you can find a flat-share. They’re much cheaper and can be great fun if you find the right person to share with.’
Shaking his head, he says, ‘Like I say, my mother can’t afford for me to move out. I couldn’t force her to move out of the house she’s lived in all my life because she couldn’t afford the rent.’
‘Dean, you said she was mid-thirties when she had you. Is that correct?’
He nods, looking confused.
‘That makes her a pensioner—she’s over sixty, correct?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You do realise that if she’s on a low income and was living there a
lone, she would have her rent paid or at least partially paid, don’t you? That’s unless you’ve both been living in a ridiculous six-bedroomed mansion or something . . . ’
He frowns. ‘No. It’s a two-bedroomed semi. Nothing special. But even if she could afford it, I couldn’t force her to live there alone. She’d be lonely.’
She’d be lonely! Can he hear himself?
I sit and regard him like he’s a kid in nursery who’s smeared shit up the toilet walls.
He gets the message. ‘She would! She tells me that she’d never cope and that if I love her, I’ll never leave her. Remember, there’s only been me and her for twenty years. I really am all she’s got. My aunt and uncle just wind her up . . . they have a lot more money and my cousin is the perfect son. So she doesn’t have that much to do with them.’
‘Would you like to move out? Let’s assume we could solve your mother’s worries somehow.’
‘God, yes. I could do whatever I wanted. Drink beer. Play loud music. Watch whatever I liked on TV or DVD. Bring girls home . . . ’
‘Wank in peace? Fuck in every room in the house? Allow women to fulfil your every fantasy . . . and then some?’ I suggest he nods enthusiastically, eyes like saucers.
‘Hell, yeah. If I had a partner, I’d fuck her everyway till Saturday. We’d watch porn. Go to bed late. Sleep in. Fuck as soon as we were awake. Shower together. Bath together.’
‘Allow her to command you to kneel before her? Allow you to satisfy her sexual cravings? And yours? Allow you to further your training? Allow you to submit to her out of respect and reverence? Allow her to blow your fucking mind?’
I STARE AT HER as penny drops. At the moment, whatever I learn at Vouloir, stays at Vouloir. My exploits are limited to what I can arrange at the club. Veuve has spoken about her D/s relationships . . . how she used to have live-in subs, if the relationship progressed that far—out of the club and beyond. I have no beyond. And no chance of a beyond for years.
And even without a formal D/s arrangement in place—I’m not sure I’m heading for that yet—my head’s too fucked up. I want to enjoy a healthy sex life. Frequent sex . . . learning as I go. She’s right—I’m twenty-seven years of age . . . and my only relationship is with my mother. And if I stay at home, that’s the way it will stay.
‘But you’ve had men move in. Did you used to take them back to your flat before that? I could find a woman who takes me back to hers . . . ’ Even I can hear the desperation in my voice.
Veuve smiles. ‘You could, yes. But Dean, if you wish to pursue a full-on D/s relationship, Dommes don’t grow on trees. I can’t have a live-in slave or take anybody home nowadays—I have The Kid. You’ll find some other Dommes have the same issue. And you can’t just take up with a woman because she’s a Domme—you have to connect. You can’t pick and choose just because she can take you back to hers. You may end up only having time together at the club and it may work for you. Eventually, you may be happy playing at the club and not getting in too deep. However, my concerns run deeper than that.’
I hadn’t thought about that. There weren’t many Dommes in the club—not compared with male Dominants. I wonder if it’s the same in all clubs. I ask her, blurting out the question abruptly.
She smiles. ‘Dean, I sense your reaction to such a predicament. Can you feel it? If I said that all clubs were the same, that Dommes are hard to find, what would you say? Be honest? I want your gut reaction.’
‘Panic,’ I say flatly. ‘At best, huge disappointment. At worst, sheer panic.’
She leans forward and holds up her hand. I high five her out of courtesy—I haven’t a fucking clue what she’s doing.
‘Good job, Mr Rogers,’ she says, her expression one of pride.
I take a moment to revel in her praise. I just sit back and let it wash over me. It feels good. I can’t say how but the impending panic I was feeling has abated and I feel good. Really good. As if I share her feeling of pride, although I haven’t the faintest what’s going on.
She smiles and—I’ll never know whether it was orchestrated as a tease or a reward or merely a fortunate accident—she uncrosses and crosses her legs in a leisurely fashion. I can’t feel her eyes on me, so I can’t be sure she’s watching me but I suspect not. I can usually feel her gaze. But I can’t tear my own away from her legs. I see lacy stocking tops around the pale flesh of her thighs. Thighs that I’ve felt against me when I pushed my face into her wet slit.
My cock lurches at the memory, making me sit up abruptly. I look at her when her legs are crossed once more but she’s leaning toward her desk, scribbling furiously on a notepad, an expression of intense concentration on her face. If that move was orchestrated, then she’s one hell of a multi-tasker.
My eyes are drawn back down, past those humungous tits to her legs. The heel of the shoe that’s on her suspended foot has slipped out so the shoe’s only held on by her toes now. Her foot is flexing slowly and repetitively, making the dangling shoe move to and fro. My eyes sweep back up her leg, to the hem of her skirt, the memory of those lacy stockings fresh in my mind’s eye. Then I let them slide back down her leg to that shoe. A beam of sunlight coming through the window catches the shiny heel as it swings. I’m fascinated. So is my cock. Man, it aches when it twitches.
My mum calls stilettos ‘slut shoes.’ Needless to say, she doesn’t own a pair. I’ve only ever seen her in flat shoes. I’ve wondered whether that’s why I love heels so much. I love how they make women’s legs look, I love the sound of the heels click, clacking across the floor. On the few occasions I’ve seen porn, I love the image of a woman being fucked, legs in the air . . . with a pair of what my mates call ‘fuck me’ heels still on her feet. It’s so damned horny. And I know a lot of blokes think the same—that’s why it’s in the film.
I imagine Veuve’s legs in the air . . . not wearing those thigh-high boots she wears so much, although they have spiky heels—and don’t get me wrong, they do it for me every time. But no, I imagine her legs ending with shoes over her stockings, like these she’s wearing now. I imagine the feel of the sheer nylon under my fingertips as I run my hands along them. I picture her shoes on my shoulders as I fuck her.
But then, if I were her sub, it wouldn’t be up to me whether that ever happened, would it? She’d be the one dictating how she was fucked. When she was fucked. Whether she was fucked. If I’d pleased her . . . if I’d earned it, maybe she’d let me fuck her like that.
Two things happen simultaneously. Firstly, I gasp as my cock decides it’s a good idea to do its best impression of a scaffold pole and secondly, I vow to please her so that my fantasy becomes a reality.
I adjust the clothing at my crotch, although it’s not going to abate the pain I’m feeling . . . nor is it going to abate the fierce erection that’s causing the pain.
I look up to find Veuve watching me, one eyebrow raised in silent enquiry. No, she’s not enquiring. She knows.
She’s taunting. Mocking me.
I have a dilemma. My mother raised me to be respectful around women. Ogling and openly admiring a woman was ungentlemanly and unbecoming. Being bold or forthright about your opinion of women or an attraction to one was vulgar and crude. In my mother’s world, you treated a lady like royalty and friendship was most important of all. I think she’d prefer it if friendships didn’t lead to anything more. I know, without a doubt, that my mother hasn’t had sex, or even been intimate with a man, since my dad left all those years ago. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t had sex since I was conceived . . . something that may have had something to do with him fucking off, I realise now.
But La Veuve Noire . . . she’s a different kettle of vaginas. She’s upfront, inappropriate, unabashed, shameless and many other adjectives besides. By her own admission she lives and breathes sex. Her life revolves around it. She wouldn’t be backwards in coming forwards . . . or coming any other way. But she’s a Domme. She walks around half naked, expecting to be admired. No, demanding it!
I’m naturally submissive. What’s my role here? Do I openly admire? Do I flaunt my erection just so that she can see what she does to me? Or is it my role to be respectful and humble? I know I feel subservient but how should I demonstrate that?
She’s cocked her head to one side now and I’m damned sure she’s having a good go at reading my mind. I pretty much think she can when she says, ‘It’s okay Dean. This is your therapy time, not your training time. You take the lead here.’
For a split second, I contemplate taking the lead, charging over there, throwing her legs in the air and fucking her.
Sadly, I realise that she probably doesn’t mean that . . . she means that I can say whatever I feel inclined to say. That I can take control of the direction of our chats.
Disappointment douses my newfound courage . . . and my aching hard-on.
I feel her studying me. ‘Dean, in these sessions, there is no right and wrong. It’s not a test. All I need from you is honesty. About whatever we’re discussing. Frankness and honesty are a central part of our other sessions too—but that involves training, and there, you’ll find there is right and wrong. If you want to impress me and reap the rewards . . . ’
She leaves it there . . . dangling in the air, along with her shoe which is still bouncing gently up and down. There’s no need to tempt me . . . I want to experience those rewards, especially if it involves those shoes.
But all she wants from me right now is honesty. I wonder whether she can handle me telling her the thoughts that have been tumbling around my head for the last few minutes.
I decide to do just that. I tell her everything: the fact that I’ve been barely able to keep my eyes of her tits; that she flashed her stockings; what her dangling shoe does to me and what I’d like to do to her and those shoes. Then I tell her how easily she arouses me and my worries about saying or doing the wrong thing when it happens.