by Kim Dare
“Strip.”
Jerry took his coat off. He was sure he’d hid his hesitation, but he couldn’t stop a touch of colour rising to his cheeks. He knew it would get easier to strip down in front of the other man once he was more used to him, but no matter how many times he moved from the protection of a new master or mistress, the first time with a new dominant always left him blushing.
“Shy?” Mr. Greenwood asked.
Jerry felt his blush deepen.
“Look up.”
He did as he was told.
The older man looked quietly amused. He brushed a knuckle over his cheek bone. “By the way you blush, no one would believe that you’d ever had a master.”
Jerry was about to apologise, then he placed the tone of voice. Mr. Greenwood liked that idea. Suddenly mentioning that he was as experienced as any man who’d had over half a dozen previous masters and mistresses dropped to the bottom of his list of priorities.
His new master walked around him a few times while he stood in the middle of the room. Jerry took a deep breath and tried not to be nervous as he waited for a reaction. If the man made a fuss over him the way some masters were inclined to, he knew the blushing would just get worse.
Mr. Greenwood merely offered him a single nod of approval.
“Over the table.”
He stepped forward without any hesitation and bent over the table that stood in front of the window. Automatically shifting his feet just over shoulder width apart so he was accessible to his master, he settled his hands behind his back.
“Neatly done,” his master said, stepping up behind him.
He ran his hands across his shoulder and down his arms. When he reached his wrists, he moved them into a position that pleased him more. Jerry made a mental note of that as he began to push the details of the submission that had pleased his former master out of his head and replace them with those that would please Denton.
Slicked fingers slid against his exposed hole. No preamble, no hesitation. Complete confidence in the knowledge that neither was necessary. He was left in no doubt that he belonged to the other man. Jerry rested his cheek on the cold surface of the table as he felt a new sense of peace settle over him. He’d always had been quick to get a good sense of the men and women he submitted to. Denton felt different.
No, not just different—better. That sort of certainty of exactly who belonged to whom in the relationship was rarer than people thought. Jerry swallowed rapidly as his master’s fingers rubbed against his prostate.
He bit his tongue but he couldn’t hold back a whimper.
“Silence isn’t required,” Denton informed him.
“Thank you, sir.”
The fingers slid away, three came back in their place, stretching him open wider. He wasn’t in so much of a rush to settle them into their new roles that he wasn’t taking the opportunity to get to know him. He wasn’t rushing to top a body he wasn’t familiar with.
Jerry wanted to feel his master inside him. He wanted that connection so badly he could taste it. But he lay exactly where his master wanted him and let the other man explore his body as he pleased.
Twenty minutes later his breaths were coming in pants, his eyes were closed so tight he could see stars behind his lids. Or maybe that had nothing to do with his eyes and everything to do with the fingers that were still playing inside him, along with the hand that had wormed its way under his stomach to wrap around his cock.
“Please, master,” he whispered, unable to hold on to any sort of control.
Denton took his touch away. Jerry held his breath until he thought his lungs would explode with his need for oxygen, until he thought his mind would disintegrate with his sudden and overwhelming need for the other man. His desire to please and serve the other men and women he’d belonged to paled in comparison.
When his master’s hand returned, they settled on his flanks and held him still. A blunt pressure pushed against his lubed up hole. Jerry took a deep breath, relaxing as his master pushed into him, slow and steady.
A few thrusts and Jerry knew there was no way he would be able to last long enough to impress the other man. There was only one thing he could do to at least show that he understood the sort of obedience that a master could rightly expect.
“Permission, master?” he stuttered out.
Another hard thrust set his prostate on fire. His teeth drew blood as they cut into his bottom lip as he scrambled for control. Another thrust and he knew it was a lost cause. Then, just in time—
“Come.”
No master had ever given him any order that was easier to follow. Jerry came, hard and fast against the top of the padded table. His master must have been close to the edge too. As Jerry clenched around him, the older man buried himself deep inside him and yelled his own pleasure as he jerked and tightened his grip on his sides.
His master didn’t rush to pull away from him, he stayed inside him as they caught their breath. When he eventually pulled away, he left him bent over the table while Jerry listened to the sounds of him tidying up his clothes.
“Up.”
Jerry straightened up on command. His master steadied him as he turned him around to face him.
“I think this might work out very well, Jerry,” Denton said after a while.
Jerry smiled up at the other man, “I’d like that, master. I—”
“It’s Jerry, isn’t it?”
Jerry blinked and did his best to focus back in on the real world. Tugging at his shirt collar he automatically tried to pull it further up his neck so it would cover the skin left bare since Denton took away his collar.
A quick glance at the posture and dress of the man standing next to him confirmed his status as a dominant. Jerry nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“You used to belong to Denton Greenwood.”
Used to…Jerry swallowed. A collar failed to shift around his wind pipe. He looked down. “Yes, sir.”
The dominant frowned at the place where he’d scratched his skin in his haste to try to take his collar off. He reached out to touch the marks, as if trying to work out if they were serious and how they might have been inflicted. Jerry stepped back, a shot of alarm going through him at the unexpected contact with a stranger.
The man raised an eyebrow at him when he glanced up.
“I’m sorry, sir. I don’t mean any offence, I…” He trailed off, having no idea how to explain that he wasn’t pulling away from him in particular.
“If you’re not ready to look for a new master, perhaps you shouldn’t be in this sort of club tonight,” he said. His tone was kind, as if he was worried about him rather than annoyed with him.
Jerry could only nod his agreement. If Mr. Vickery and Benedict hadn’t insisted that he join them at the club, he would never have set foot in the place. Going to a leather bar without a collar around his neck was…he closed his eyes for a moment and suppressed a rush of emotion.
The older man looked down at him somewhat regretfully. Jerry hesitated, not sure what to say to him.
“Whose protection are you under now?” he asked.
“I’m staying with Mr. Vickery and Benedict until I…”
The man took out a business card and wrote something on the back of it. “For when you are ready to begin your search for a new master.”
“Thank you, Mr. Nolan,” he said, looking down at the small rectangle. Along with the name, the card indicated man was a barrister, evidently a very successful one if the address on the card was anything to judge by.
Mr. Nolan offered him a small smile and walked through into the lounge at the back of the club. Jerry stared blankly at the business card. He’d have to start looking for a master again at some point. A few years ago, he knew he wouldn’t have hesitated to take Mr. Nolan up on his offer. When Mr. Fullerton had introduced him to Denton, it had never occurred to him that he should need to wait and try to clear his head before he could change his allegiance from one dominant to another.
If he h
adn’t been under the dominance of a man he loved for so long then…Jerry sighed and slipped the card into the back pocket of the jeans he’d borrowed from Benedict.
“You okay?” Benedict asked.
Jerry nodded and forced a smile as he turned towards the other man. “Are you having a good time?”
“Sure, I’m having a great time. Everyone seems to have crawled out of the woodwork. Caught up with a few guys I haven’t seen for months.” Benedict studied him carefully as he said it all, his mouth apparently working on automatic while his mind was on something else. “I noticed you were talking to Mr. Nolan for quite a while.”
Jerry pushed his hands into his pockets to resist the temptation to reach up and rub his neck, to brush away any touch that didn’t belong to his real master. He shrugged away his conversation with Mr. Nolan.
Benedict looked from him across to where Mr. Vickery stood by the bar. “There’s someone else who wants to speak to you.”
Jerry cleared his throat. “I’m not really…I mean, I haven’t started looking for…I don’t think I’m ready to…” he pushed his hands further into his pockets and wondered if there was somewhere quiet he could slip away to, so he could lose himself back in his daydreams.
Benedict continued to study him, no doubt waiting for him to actually finish a sentence at some point.
“I swear I’m not taking up permanent residence in your spare room. I’m looking for work, and I’ve got an interview next week, and I’ll get my own place as soon as my first cheque comes in. I’m just not ready to start looking for a new master yet,” he blurted out.
Benedict shook his head. “No! That wasn’t what I meant. You know you’re welcome to stay with us for as long as you want. We love having you with us. Trust me, having someone in the house who actually knows how to cook is fantastic!”
Jerry smiled slightly. Everything else might have fallen apart but the working for his keep part of the plan had proved wonderfully easy once he’d tasted Benedict’s attempt at a home cooked meal.
“But I think you should at least hear this guy out,” Benedict added. “No pressure or anything, I promise. Just listen to what he has to say?”
Holding back a sigh, trying to look at least vaguely interested in doing what the other submissive asked of him, Jerry nodded and let Benedict lead him towards the back of the club.
“He’s in room seven.”
Walking along side Benedict, Jerry hesitated when he realised that he was heading towards a private room and not into the lounge as he supposed. “I…” he trailed off as he realised what he was about to say made absolutely no sense. It was pointless to say his master would have a fit if he went into one of the clubs private rooms with another man. He didn’t have a master.
Hurrying away from that thought, brought him quickly to a door with number seven marked on the front. He tapped on the door. It swung inwards a few inches. He looked across at Benedict, who nodded encouragingly. Seeing nothing else to do, Jerry pushed the door open a little further. A curtain hung over the doorway on the inside. Jerry tentatively moved the material back far enough to slip through the gap he created and step into the private space. The door swung nearly closed with the weight of the curtain.
“Hello?”
The room was almost pitch dark when the curtain dropped back into place behind him, sealing out the light from the ajar door. Only the shadowy outlines of a few pieces of furniture were visible in the muted light that made it in from somewhere. A few years ago he would have loved that sort of drama. Right then, he could have cheerfully done without it. His nerves were already shot. He didn’t need anything making them worse.
Jerry cleared his throat and tried and hide his anxiety as he wondered if he was allowed to look for a light switch. “You wanted to speak to me, sir?” he asked the darkness, trying to make out the shape of a dominant somewhere in the room, but not even able to find the lines of the walls.
A bulb burst into life overhead. Blinking at the sudden explosion of light, Jerry’s eyes went straight to the person kneeling in the floor in the middle of the room.
She was very beautiful, very naked and very…there. Jerry stared at her for several long moments trying to work out what the hell was going on and what Benedict could have been thinking.
The door clicked properly closed behind him. Jerry spun around. His throat closed up as he saw his master leaning against the curtains. Black material covered all the walls of the room hiding the door from anyone who couldn’t remember where it was.
Jerry stared blankly at his former master. “I don’t…” he whispered. “Benedict said…”
Denton looked him up and down, but made no move to approach him. “He and Peter have been taking good care of you?” he asked.
“They were driving past when I—” His gaze flashed up to meet his master’s eyes. “You asked Mr. Vickery to take me in,” he realised for the first time.
“Did you really think I’d leave you standing on the kerb?”
Jerry dropped his gaze to Denton’s shoes. He stared at the polished leather for a long time before he could bring himself to speak. “I don’t belong to you anymore, Mr. Greenwood. I don’t expect you to ask your friends for favours on my account.”
“You really think it ended as simply as taking off a collar?” Denton said. “Some things run even deeper than leather, Jerry. You should know that by now.”
Jerry closed his eyes as he turned away from his master. When he opened his eyes again, they fell on the naked woman still kneeling with her head bowed in the middle of the room.
He looked back over his shoulder to his master for an explanation.
“She’s for you,” Denton said.
Jerry looked from him to the woman and back again.
“I can’t belong to my master any more. I’m bi, and my belonging to him and being bi is just not possible anymore,” Denton quoted at him, in a blank, emotionless tone of voice Jerry had never heard from him before.
Jerry looked to where he remembered the door being, wondering if Benedict was still on the other side of it, and if he could strangle him for repeating to his master what he’d told another submissive in confidence.
Turning his attention back to the woman, he tried to think of what he could say to her to explain this whole mess. Failing to find any words at all, he looked back to his master.
Denton never had learnt how to do things by halves. If he intended to accept that he was bi, he obviously wasn’t going to play about with it. “I didn’t ask you to find me a girl, master,” he whispered.
“I may be far more besotted with you than a dominant should be, but I’m still your master, Jerry. If you occasionally have to have a woman in your life, perhaps I can learn to tolerate that. But she won’t be a mistress. I won’t hand you over to another dominant, male or female.”
Each word was perfectly pronounced as Denton made an obvious and conscious effort to control his temper. It was also a lie. Jerry knew that, even if his master seemed able to fool himself. He wasn’t tolerating anything. He hated the idea of anyone else laying a hand on his submissive just as much as Jerry did.
“I asked around. I spoke to men who’ve seen you with women. She’s your type where women are concerned,” he said.
Jerry shook his head looking from the naked woman—who was indeed his type—to his master and back again. “I didn’t mean…I never asked you to find any sort of woman for me, master. I never said I wanted anyone but you.”
Denton caught the woman’s eye and nodded his dismissal, obviously not exactly heartbroken that Jerry wasn’t going to take him up on the offer of her services for the rest of the night.
“Master! You can’t just…” Jerry chided without thinking. He hurried across to the woman but he wasn’t sure how to help her up without ending up putting his hands where he shouldn’t. “Please get up. This is all just a huge misunderstanding. I’m really sorry. Where are your clothes?”
The woman looked past him to Denton
then back to him. As she lifted her eyes and met his gaze, Jerry saw unexpected amusement shining in her expression. He studied her carefully, wondering if she was trying to hide some other emotion, but she didn’t seem to be the least bit surprised or offended by the abrupt dismissal.
He looked back to his master, trying to work out if he was playing some sort of game with him. Denton looked equally surprised with her reaction once he focused in and noticed she was expressing anything at all.
“Peter told me you wouldn’t be interested. Pity…” she said, looking Jerry up and down. Taking his hand to get to her feet she absentmindedly dusted off her knees as she continued. “You’re sweet. He’s hot. We could have all had some fun together.”
Stepping over to a bit of curtain covered wall that didn’t look at all different to the rest, she nudged the material aside and opened a door leading into a small storage space. Taking out a long coat and a pair of high heels, she put them all on.
Looking them both over one more time, she turned around and walked out of the room, finding the door through the curtains without the slightest hesitation.
Jerry took a step towards the door. “I should make sure she has cab fare or—”
Denton closed the door behind her and let the curtain fall back into place. “She’s fine. Peter will no doubt see she gets to wherever she wants to go.”
Jerry took another step towards the door anyway. “Then I should go back to Benedict and Mr.…”
Denton stayed in front of the piece of curtain covering the door. He didn’t appear to have any intention of moving out of his way.
Jerry shifted his weight back and forth from one foot to the other. He pushed his hands into his back pockets. A small rectangle of card stabbed into his palm. He snatched his hands away from it as if his master would somehow see that he’d taken a card from another man. Blushing bright red, he crossed his arms in front of him.
Denton was still studying him very carefully, the way a man might observe a frightened animal that might spook and run at the slightest sudden movement.