by Diane Leyne
Club Libertine 8
Submission 101
Abby Smith writes erotic ménage romance in her spare time but has never experienced it. Doctors Dex Maplethorpe and Pat McGrath hire her as their research assistant, but haven't told her that they are also hoping to fill the position of permanent submissive.
Because Abby's spending the summer in London, the three of them have to do their research planning via Skype. By the end of the summer, Abby's in love, but she's convinced the hot doctors would never be interested in a plump, older woman.
Back in Seattle, Abby's best friend Lindy convinces her to visit Club Libertine, where Abby's two worlds collide when she sees Dex and Pat there and realizes that they are Doms. Soon, she finds herself under contract to the hot docs for one month of training they dub, Submission 101, but will that be enough?
Genre: BDSM, Contemporary, Ménage a Trois/Quatre
Length: 35,957 words
SUBMISSION 101
Club Libertine 8
Diane Leyne
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
SUBMISSION 101
First E-book Publication: September 2013
Cover design by Harris Channing
All art and logo copyright © 2013 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
Letter to Readers
Dear Readers,
If you have purchased this copy of Submission 101 by Diane Leyne from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.
Regarding E-book Piracy
This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.
The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.
This is Diane Leyne’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Leyne’s right to earn a living from her work.
Amanda Hilton, Publisher
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DEDICATION
I thought I had moved on from Club Libertine to Libertine Island, but it seems that there are still many more tales to be told from the Club.
Enjoy!
PS – if you want to know more about Lindy’s story, please check out Club Libertine 2, The Librarian and the Dom, at www.bookstrand.com/the-librarian-and-the-dom.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
About the Author
SUBMISSION 101
Club Libertine 8
DIANE LEYNE
Copyright © 2013
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Chapter One
The End.
There were no two sweeter words to a writer. Abby rested her hands on the keyboard and sighed. She’d just put the finishing touches on her fourth novel, Mindy and the Two Doms. All she had to do now was fill out the submission e-mail form, attach her manuscript, and send it off to Seductress Publishing. Her publisher, Seductress Publications, had accepted the first three, but she was still nervous as she hit the send button. What if they didn’t like it? What if they rejected it?
She still couldn’t believe she was a published author. Her first book, The Domination of Emily, had just been released, and she spent far too much time each day monitoring its progress up the charts. She’d never actually participated in any of the activities she wrote about, not bondage, not ménage, not any aspect of BDSM, but she fantasized about them and she enjoyed reading and really enjoyed writing about them.
The writing career had come about partially thanks to her ex, Norton, but not the juicy parts. Norton had been as vanilla as they came. When she’d once mentioned, early in their relationship, that maybe he’d like to tie her up or spank her, he’d looked at her like she’d lost her mind and she hadn’t brought it up again.
They had been together almost fifteen years. She couldn’t believe she’d wasted all that time on him. They’d met as undergrads and moved in together senior year, and she’d put off getting her master’s degree to help support Norton while he got his MBA. After all, once he started working, he would support her while she went back to school, but somehow that had never happened. She had looked after him, their home, and had tried to be the best partner she could be. She worked at the university library, all the time envying the students.
She had been young and eager like them, once. And she did enjoy her job, but she wanted more. One day when she had lunch with her best friend Lindy, who worked in the public library system, she’d been talking to Edna Markinson, Lindy’s coworker. Edna treated Lindy like a daughter, and she’d adopted Abby, too.
“Time to give you a kick in the pants, young lady, metaphorically, of course.” She handed Abby several brochures for master’s programs and an application form. “If you don’t fill it in, I will. I’ll submit it too.”
“But, Edna, I’m too old to go back to school. I’m thirty. I can only go part-time. It will take me five years to finish. By then, I’ll be thirty-five.”
“And how old will you be in five years if you don’t take courses?”
It was one of those lightbulb moments. She could be thirty-five without a master’s or with one. She decided she’d rather t
he latter. Hugging Edna, she’d completed her application and had waited on pins and needles until she was accepted. It wasn’t until she had the acceptance letter in her hand that she’d realized just how much she wanted this.
She also hadn’t told Norton about the application. She knew that he would tell her not to get her hopes up because she wasn’t good enough to get into grad school, so she held off telling him, hoping that when he saw her acceptance, he would be happy for her, but of course he wasn’t. All he could think of was how it would impact him.
They’d muddled along two and a half more years. Abby loved school and was so busy that she didn’t notice the warning signs until she came home from school early one night in February. Class had been cancelled because the professor was ill. She hadn’t called Norton because she thought he was working late. Instead, she found him in bed with the colleague he had claimed to be working late with so often.
She’d been tempted to walk out, but not only was she furious, it was also in her name on the apartment lease, so, for the first and only time in her life, she’d caused a huge scene and Norton and gone running with his big-boobed blonde colleague.
The satisfaction had been short lived. The lease was in her name, but there was no way she could pay for it alone, so she decided to terminate it when it came up for renewal at the end of April. But in the meantime, she decided to deal with her grief and anger by heading to the grocery store for all of her favorite snacks, including ice cream and a good bottle of wine, downloaded a bunch of books, and had planned to spend the weekend wallowing in erotic novels with hot, dominant men and the women who loved them, books that Norton had despised and had tried to get her to stop reading.
The post-Norton book-and-ice-cream orgy had lasted for twenty-four hours before she had run out of reading material. When she’d signed onto the Seductress Publishing site to check out what other books her favorite authors had for sale, she’d noticed the Submissions button at the top of the page. Well, that wasn’t totally accurate. She’d noticed it before, but that was the first time she’d actually clicked on it.
Half a bottle of wine later and she had the outline of her first book done. A week later the book was written. It was short, only twenty-two thousand words, but The Domination of Emily was finished and she’d sent it off to the submissions editor.
In the meantime, she applied for and got accepted to a summer program in London. She got a full scholarship, which included a room in residence, and found an inexpensive bachelor apartment for when she returned to Seattle at the end of the summer. She had also applied for a number of research positions for the fall. She was trying to avoid applying for financial assistance so she’d finish school without a pile of debt. With luck and a little hard work, she would be able to find a job that would pay the bills while she finished her last few courses. Unfortunately, she would have to head off to London without knowing if she got any of them, as the interviewing wouldn’t start until May.
In the meantime, she’d been waiting to hear back about her book submission. She alternated between anticipation and fear. Sometimes she was afraid they wouldn’t accept it. Other times she was afraid they would. In the end, she waited for three weeks for a response to her book submission, obsessively checking her e-mail. It was the longest three weeks of her life. She passed the time sketching out ideas for her next two books. Finally she just started writing again and had book two completed on the day she got the acceptance e-mail from Seductress.
She had been at work when it arrived. She’d looked around for someone to share the news with but quickly realized that it might not be a good idea. She liked her coworkers and her boss, but not everyone approved of erotica. She decided to celebrate in private and went to the ladies room. Once she determined that there was no one in any of the three stalls, she did her happy dance for a good five minutes until the door opened and she had to pretend to be shaking off a charley horse in her leg.
Because the e-publishing world was different than the print world, her first book had just been released. It had quickly reached the top five in her category, and she’d done another lonely happy dance. She had three more books being released over the summer. She wouldn’t get rich from her writing, but it would help pay the bills and make her less dependent on financial aid if she didn’t get one of the research positions.
In the end, three had contacted her for interviews. The first two were okay. The topics weren’t really her area of interest, but they would provide additional income and wouldn’t take up a lot of time. This third one was the one she was most interested in. The interview was scheduled for nine a.m. Seattle time, which was seven p.m. in London. She’d gone out to get a bite to eat and had ended up spilling tomato soup down the front of her white top when a careless diner had bumped her.
If it had just been a telephone interview like the other two, it wouldn’t have mattered, but it was a Skype session, and she couldn’t Skype with a big red stain down her front. She’d planned on using the university’s video conference room since it would provide a better atmosphere than just using the camera on her small laptop, which meant she was too far away to head home and change. As she walked back to the office, she looked for a store where she could buy an inexpensive top to wear. The first three shops were far too expensive. She was starting to get worried when she noticed the small store beside the curry shop she frequently visited for lunch. She’d often looked in their window but had never gone in because she didn’t have a budget for new clothes.
Crossing her fingers, she opened the door. The clerk was clearly getting ready to close, but after seeing the soup stain, took pity on her. Checking prices, she realized she couldn’t really afford anything here, not unless she stopped eating lunch. Clearly she looked sad and pathetic because the clerk stopped her as she was leaving.
“Where are you going, honey? You need something to wear and we’ve got some things that would look great on you.”
“I do and you do. I have a job interview, but I can’t afford anything here. It’s by Skype. Maybe I can get enough of the soup out so they won’t notice.”
“Did you check the sale rack?”
“I did, but everything is too small. I need at least a size twelve or fourteen. I’m a bit top heavy.” The last words were meant to be self-deprecatory but just came out sad. “I mean, thanks, anyway.”
“I’m pretty sure I can find something in your size. Don’t go away.” The clerk went in the back room and came back with a beautiful white short-sleeved top with delicate fuchsia-and-turquoise flowers embroidered on it.
“Oh, that’s beautiful, but there’s no way I could afford it.”
“Sure you can. If you look closely, you’ll see that the buttons don’t match. The original buttons weren’t sewn on properly, and two of the buttons came off. I did my best to match them, but I can’t sell it for full price. And it’s from last season, so I can give it to you for seventy-five percent off. It’s size fourteen.”
Abby did some quick mental calculations. She could just afford it, although it meant she’d be eating peanut butter sandwiches for lunch and dinner for a week. She gratefully paid for the top and hurried back to the university. She got there with fifteen minutes to spare and hustled to the ladies room to change.
And that was when she realized that British sizes weren’t the same as American sizes. The top was snug and much lower cut in front than she expected, emphasizing her ample cleavage. She checked her watch. No time to change. She just prayed the buttons that the clerk had sewed on held or she’d be giving the professors quite an eyeful.
* * * *
“I don’t know why we are even bothering, Pat. We’ve seen eight candidates already and haven’t agreed on one.” Dr. Dexter P. Maplethorpe the third, known as Dex to his friends, Percy to his mother when she was happy with him and Percival when she wasn’t, and Dr. M. to his students, was just plain tired of the search. Dex played up the image of the academic, wearing his sandy-brown hair just a little too long
and wire-rimmed glasses. The idea of the research paper and hiring an assistant had originally been his idea, but now he was growing increasingly frustrated. If he liked a candidate, Pat hated them and vice versa.
“Nine times lucky? Come on, Dex. You just have to be patient. There’s got to be one decent researcher out there who we both agree on.” Patrick Xavier McGrath was Dex’s opposite. Whereas Dex looked like the academic he was, Pat looked like the popular conception of a truck driver or a construction worker, with unruly dark hair, silver-gray eyes, and perpetual stubble, which contrasted with his subject of expertise, Victorian poetry.
They were both thirty, but where Dex was lean, hiding his fit runner’s body under baggy khakis, Pat was muscular and wore skin-tight jeans and tees to show off his physique. Everything about them was opposite. Dex wore tweed jackets with leather elbow patches to further the academic look and rode a bicycle. Pat wore a leather jacket and drove a Harley.
They were sitting together in the office they shared at the university. It had been Pat’s turn to pick up lunch so they were eating pizza with everything on it. They had both taught a class in the morning and the afternoon would be used to see students who needed assistance, but it was looking like they wouldn’t get many visitors today so it was the perfect time to discuss the applicants they’d interviewed during the week for the research assistant job they’d advertised for.
They needed someone who could help with their research beginning in the fall. The ideal candidate was smart, self-motivated, knowledgeable in the area of Victorian erotica, although this late item was more of a nice to have than a mandatory requirement since there were few specialists in this area. They also had to weed out the pervs who didn’t take the line of research seriously and just wanted to look at pictures of naked Victorian ladies.