“Well how about me and you get a picture of something and add some things to it and pull his leg right back?” he asks with a grin on his little face.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about. I saw a fish one time that had the bottom half of it covered in hair. That had to be a joke,” I say as we get to our hunting blind and I help him climb up to the long seat that’s up in a tall tree.
“I like it up here, Dad,” he says as he climbs up and gets all settled in.
I pull the safety bar up in front of us and settle in for our front-row seat to nature’s movie studio for the next few hours. “I like it up here too, Carter. My grandfather and I would sit up here almost every morning and every evening during hunting season when I was a kid.”
* * *
“Yeah, but you actually shot the animals with a gun, Dad.” He looks at me and shakes his head. “You said I can’t have a gun yet.”
“You’re a bit on the young and small side yet, son. Learn how to shoot them with a camera and later on when you’re old enough to make your own decision about actually shooting them then we’ll talk about getting you a gun and teaching you how to shoot. It might not be a thing you want to do.”
He nods and points to a squirrel at the bottom of our tree. “You think he’ll come up here?”
“No,” I say and point to a hole in the bottom. “I think he’ll go into that hole. I bet that’s his home.”
We sit and watch the little animal scurry around for a while then he slips into that hole and Carter seems amazed. “How did you know that?”
“When you spend a lot of time in the woods, you learn things. So how was school today?” I ask him as we settle back and look up into the tree above us. The sun’s light is filtered through the already sparse leaves as fall is setting in well and most of the leaves have fallen off the branches.
* * *
“It was okay,” he says then he bumps his shoulder to mine. “I think this girl likes me. Her name is Trudy and she’s kind of pretty. She’s missing one of her front teeth right now but I can see past that and see that she’s pretty.”
“Well, that’s good. But the main thing is this,” I tell him. “Is she nice?”
“Well, she had an apple in her lunch today and she asked me if I wanted it cause she hates them now on account of it was one of them she bit into and that’s how her tooth came out. So I think that was a nice thing for her to do,” he says then points at a cardinal as it flies into the tree and lands on a branch not too far from us.
“You should get out your camera,” I tell him.
As he takes his backpack off and digs through it to find the elusive camera, the bird flies away with the noise. But he finally finds it and takes it out. “I’m ready now.”
With a nod, I look around and so does he. A little baby deer comes out of the brush and I touch his shoulder to get him to look that way. He pulls the camera up and takes the picture then shows it to me as he whispers, “I got it!”
“You did!” I whisper back and pat him on the back.
When I was a kid with my gramps I just thought I loved doing this. But I found out it’s even better on this side of the game. The teaching side.
Every single day these kids teach me a little something I never knew about myself. I learned from Rogan that I am an expert diaper changer. I’m much faster than Mercy is at it. A thing I wish I hadn’t gloated about so much because now she uses that to get me to do most of the diaper duty.
Mia taught me that I can braid hair like a professional. She likes the way I do her hair so that’s another thing that I’m the go-to guy for. And Carter has taught me that being a good role model is my top priority. That little guy watches my every move so I have to be on my game when he’s around.
Never did I think the thing that would make my life better than it had ever been would be having a family to call my very own. Life is good and it just keeps getting better.
Mercy
Sitting in a rocking chair on the wrap-around porch of the ranch house we recently bought, I rock little Rogan to sleep as I watch Jude teaching Carter and Mia how to rides the horses he just brought home for them.
He spoils these kids the same way he was spoiled. Not a thing comes out of their mouths that they have the slightest interest in that he doesn’t show up with one day out of the blue.
At first, I was all over him about doing that. But in true Jude fashion, he was going to do what he was going to do. So, like everything Jude-related, I got over it and let him have his way. There’s no stopping the man, anyway.
That determined spirit he has might seem like a real pain in the butt at times but it got him through a patch of his life that would’ve been devastating if he didn’t have that. So I have to respect that aspect of him.
* * *
Jude has made my life so much more than what my initial plan was. To become a lonely woman who lived her life merely to work and raise kids and leave romance and relationships out of it.
He forced his way into my world and I can’t stop thanking God that he did that for me. Pulling the baby off my shoulder, I look at his sleeping face. He’s a combination of me and the man I love with all of my heart. A testament to our love and our commitment to one another.
Our family will be strong because if Jude and his love for us all. And I’ll never take that man for granted. He is a gift to us and I’ll always treat him like that.
The day Jude Hurst came into my life is a day I’ll never forget and I will cherish the gift I was given on that day for the rest of my life, and then some.
The End
Bonus - Secluded
Submissives’ Secrets
With one question on a BDSM message board, Jade Thomas sparked something inside of me that had never been lit up before.
Our discussion of my world as we talked online woke things up in me I had no idea were lying dormant. My dominant side was calling out to me to take her and make her into what I knew she could be. But she was young, afraid, and had a fragility about her that was daunting.
In no time at all, she had me wanting to get her obstinate ass into my hands. Mold her, shape her into the submissive I wanted her to be. Capture her spirit using sex and pain.
What happened blindsided me and changed me forever …
* * *
Pierce Langford answered a question I’d left on the BDSM message board for a club called “The Dungeon of Decorum.”
No matter how hard I tried to keep it all above board, he was determined to reel me into his dark world, a place I was curious about but also afraid of.
Like a persistent hunter, Pierce never let up on me, keeping the pressure up to get what he wanted: me, as his submissive.
My body was on fire for the man from the get go. I yearned to feel his actual touch on my flesh—flesh, he wanted to torment. Pierce Langford wanted to show me his world and all that went with that: pain, pleasure, and there would be no room for love.
Or so he thought …
Jade
Romance has been in my blood since I was only a girl of sixteen. An avid reader of anything in the romance genre, I’m especially keen on the darker side of the romantic spectrum, the side where pain and pleasure meet in an ebbing and flowing stream of both calm and frantic nuances. A place where sin and evil meet with good and innocence, leaving their residue on each.
My curiosities have come all the way to the surface, and they won’t allow me to shove them down any longer. I sit at my computer, searching the vast Internet to find someone who will help me. I need help to understand the reality that is BDSM, something that won’t leave my mind.
The books I’ve read are great, enjoyable, and pleasing. But I think they’re purely fictional, with little to do with the reality of that lifestyle. And I want to know more about it all; the why’s, where’s, and how’s of the whole thing. Why do people do it? Where do they find others who want the same things they do? How do they take society’s sideways glares that let them know everyon
e knows what they’re doing, and that most think it’s disgusting?
What immoral behavior is has been adjusted since the days of old when women wore nightgowns that covered them from their necks to their feet, and men were covered too. Small slits were made in the front for sexual activity, an activity that was not for pleasure but for procreation and procreation alone.
Masturbation, if one was caught doing such a horrible thing, was more than merely frowned upon. One was punished for it, and harshly, at that. Nowadays when one is punished, per their requests, mind you, they’re deemed immoral. It’s a common belief that if one practices BDSM or any variety of that, then the person must’ve had a bad upbringing or something terrible happened to them. Most people think something sexually abusive occurred.
I have to admit that I have favored that mindset. Recently, for reasons I cannot explain, I’ve had other thoughts about the people who practice the lifestyle. I just can’t imagine why anyone would want to dole out punishment or receive it, as an adult. But deep in the recesses of my heart, I long to understand. The core belief resides in me that not all who seek out this type of attention have been broken in one way or another.
Being an erotic author is my dream, my passion. I simply love to go away in my head to worlds where anything is possible. Worlds where an ordinary woman can meet up with an abnormally handsome, viral, and of course, heavily muscled man. He would be filthy rich and just plain filthy in the bedroom, or any room, really.
The world of erotic romance is where I dwell so often in my mind. Damsels in distress are no longer acceptable heroines. No, today’s heroines are smart, sharp as tacks in the wit department, strong in all ways, and take-no-shit kind of broads. The majority of these fictional women aren’t looking for love; they seem to stumble upon it. And with that little stumble, they find themselves in the arms of a man.
Not any man will do in today’s erotic romances. He must be alpha, clean to his core. In many of these novels, for some reason, our hero loves to hit women. And they love to be hit by him. And that is where my writer’s brain has found a dilemma.
I can see falling for a big, strong, handsome man. Who can’t?
But falling for one who wants to tie you up and beat your ass while you cook his dinner and iron his clothes, well, I can’t see it at all. BDSM makes no sense to me, and I’m striving to make sense of it. For my career!
I was a writer before I was anything else. I told stories before I could read. I looked at scenes and made up why things were going as they were. Making up stories has always been like second nature to me.
Being only one year away from graduating with a Master’s Degree in Creative Arts at Bangor University in North Wales, United Kingdom, I’m dangerously close to the part of life where I will need to make my own living in this world. Soon to be cut off from my father’s dime, I have to focus, and that means I must have some belief in what I’m writing about, or I will never see my dreams come true.
My dreams aren’t huge. I want to see my name on the cover of books. Oh! And best sellers’ lists as well, of course. I don’t want to be a mediocre writer. I want to be one of those authors who goes the distance to get to the meat of the story, somewhat like a reporter, only I want to get creative with my truths. I want to make my characters, and the world they live in, seem realistic while having fantasy-like lives.
And there is little to no reality in normal women finding men with voracious sexual appetites and a penchant for beating them. So, here I am, searching the Internet, hoping no one ever looks at my browser’s history and thinks I’m a woman of ill repute. I am far from that.
At the ripe old age of twenty-three, I haven’t found Mr. Right. And by that, I mean my cherry is still intact. I’m not a prude, though one might think that. I’m just very into my own head a lot of the time. A writer’s thing, my professors tell me. I’ve been told I’m normal, for a writer.
Socially, I am a bit inept. Sure, I talk with ease to others, part of my reporter’s instinct, I suppose. But I share little about myself, preferring to steer people in directions that allow me to learn more about them, rather than talking about myself.
With a click of my mouse, an awkward picture fills my computer screen. A woman deep throating an enormous penis!
Hurrying to get the picture off my screen, I notice the small writing at the bottom of the page. It’s about some auction that’s about to come up. Only after seeing that do I notice that the link I clicked on that took me to this sexual place belongs to BDSM club in Portland, Oregon, in the States.
Several clicks later, I find out this place is a haven for those types of people, and there are many clubs in that city. It’s the number one city in America to find things of this nature. And it seems like the perfect place to begin my search for people who might be helpful enough to be truthful with me and offer me more insight into the dark world that’s shrouded in mystery.
Another click sends me to a picture of a naughty young woman wearing leather clothing and holding her hand to her mouth as she looks surprised. I suppose she never saw the man coming who’s behind her. Hard to believe, as he has a whip in his hand, and it’s aimed for her round and firm ass. Somehow, he’s surprised her with what he’s about to do.
No fear is in her eyes. No tears from pain. Only a surprised look covers her pretty face. The man wears a firm expression on his ruggedly handsome facade. I can hear him now, in my mind, “Gertie, you have this coming to you. You forgot the salt in my soup again.”
I giggle to myself, as that was an actual line in one of the novels I read, recently. Even then I thought it was silly and dimwitted. If a man told me I was about to get whipped with an actual whip because of something so small and easily fixed with the jiggle of a salt shaker, I’d most likely laugh and walk away. He would obviously be an idiot and not worth my attention or time.
My mind is too strong, and so is my will, to ever be involved in any of that stuff. But it’s such a fantasy for many women that it bears investigating. My first novel in the erotic realm should have more than a grain of truth to it. I want some real grit mixing in with the fairy tale of a story I will create. None of that phony crap!
I wonder if I can find a real Dom or Master to ask questions to. I wonder if any of them would even want to take time away from whipping asses to talk to a lowly, vanilla virgin about things she knows little to nothing about.
Doubt clouds my vision as I sit back and gaze at the next thing that’s popped up on my screen. A couple of women, clad in nothing but black panties, stand with their backs to a whip-wielding man who wears a black mask and looks like he’s about to bring down the rain on them both.
“Run, you morons,” I say out loud, as I notice an open door to their right.
Is it humanly possible to stand still and take the pain of a whip when you’re steps away from escape?
Is it possible that, in some people, the need to feel pain is overwhelming, like a drug addict who hates the after effects of a certain drug but can’t stop taking it?
The sharp eyes of the women as they look over their shoulders while holding hands, waiting for the whip to meet one of their bodies, haunt me. How can they be so bright eyed with pain on the way?
If I see a hot burner on the stove, I don’t touch it. If I saw a man running wildly down the street with his belt in his hand, striking out at people, I’d hide. So why do some seek this out?
And what chance do I have of finding even one of the people who practice BDSM who would be willing to help me understand them? And why would they want to?
I’m offering no compensation for their time. I’m offering nothing. I merely want to satisfy my own curiosity, nothing more than that. I want to use what I’m given to make money, as a matter of fact.
No, it’s doubtful that I will be able to find anyone in the BDSM scene to answer my questions. Perhaps I should end this silliness. Maybe I should put this idea to rest and focus on romantic comedy, instead. That would be so much easier, wouldn’t it?
* * *
Pierce
Her ass sways as she leaves the room. Strands of leather cover it, and red marks cover the places the straps don’t. After an hour of cuddling my bottom, Tasha, for the evening, she feels safe enough to leave my company in the private room I rented at The Dungeon of Decorum. She wanted no sex, only punishment. And I gave her what she asked for, like any good Dom would.
Relaxing on the small bed in the room made for torturing the flesh of submissives, also known in the BDSM world as bottoms, I can’t help but recall the first time I came here. It was a mere three years ago, yet it feels like a century.
Bogged down in business, I was burning out fast. Being the new CEO of Waterson Mutual, a business finance company in Portland, Oregon, I was trying to prove my worth to the board, busting my ass far more than I needed to. And it was catching up to me.
Grant Jamison became my friend and eventual hero. Older than me by five years, he took me under his wing and taught me that work is great, but one should always leave time for play.
Grant’s idea of play was very different from what my idea was. I thought he was suggesting playing racquetball with him and the friends he talked about. What he brought me into was far more serious than a ballgame.
In the matter of one month, I was inducted into the brotherhood of the Dominants at a local BDSM club, aptly named The Dungeon of Decorum, a place I now visit often.
Being a Dom comes naturally to me, as if I was born to lead, teach, and rule women. At thirty- five, I’ve been told I should be settling down and finding a woman to marry. I’ve been told I can keep my dark hobby a secret and lead a normal life in every other way, but that sounds boring to me.
Billionaire Games Page 167