The Dom Project

by Heloise Belleau

  “Robin...” John slotted the next reel, then stopped and sighed. When the next movie didn’t start, she looked to him. “I know I said I want...everything, and I do, but if you just want to be friends, I’ll do that too. I want you in my life, whatever that means. But I won’t lie and pretend that I don’t want more. I’ll always want more from you. Even if you give me yourself, even if you give me everything, I’ll want more.”

  “Greedy son of a bitch.” Seeing her wry little smile and knowing he’d put it there made the moment perfect, made this close, dark space seem more intimate than a bedroom. Over her shoulder, another corgi scene rattled into life.

  “Only for you. I’m actually pretty low maintenance, outside of...this. Maybe even too low maintenance. But you make me—”

  “Want to be a better man?” she finished, sweetly.

  “Hell no. You make me a possessive asshole.” He tightened his hands into fists, then released them again. “I want to say I don’t like this side of myself, but...”

  “Excuse you. Who was it that said ‘You can’t change me. People don’t change, Robin!’” Her imitation of him was terrible, a fake baritone and a bizarre bobblehead back and forth. She turned and jabbed him in the chest with the tip of her finger. “John Sun, you’ve always been an asshole. I’m only giving you a focus. Yes. A focus, for your not-so-latent asshole tendencies.”

  “Like how Irina Mareau unleashes your inner exhibitionist?” He didn’t wait for her answer, just grabbed a wet wipe from the pack he’d brought down to clean the dust from the cans. The large one he held cleaned up nicely, but its label was blank. He wound up the reel inside—a thicker one, at least ten minutes by the look of it. Ten minutes of corgis. Riveting.

  “Yes. And so do you.” She was so close now, looking up at him with those wise, innocent eyes. “You know who you are. You like who you are. And I’m on my way to being like that too. I want you to take me there.”

  John wanted that too. He’d always wanted it, but wanting wasn’t enough. There were obstacles to overcome, inside each of them, between them, but coming from the outside world too.

  Robin’s email. Tear up the contract.

  “And what about my brother, and my family?”

  Her shoulders fell, then straightened again with new resolve. “Well, I can’t say what happened at that dinner wasn’t my personal nightmare. But I think it’s time to close up shop on The Picky Submissive anyway. Start a new journey, and a new blog to go with it. I can email my regular dedicated readers with the new address, and be more careful about identifying information. And as for your brother calling me a whore in front of your family...well, I can’t be your whore if I’m your girlfriend, now can I?”

  “He’s sorry already. He’s sorry in general, but—wait, you want to be my girlfriend?” The word sounded so strange to his ears, as if they were in a 1950s movie...well, the 1930s were close enough, and tradition had its own appeal.

  “That’s what giving you everything means, isn’t it? Or marriage—” she put her hand over her mouth, still smiling with her eyes “—but let’s not go overboard.”

  Marriage. Holy shit. “For me, it’s seeing you wear my collar. That doesn’t mean we have to be 24/7. I just need to know that you really want to be mine, even in public, even when it’s not 100 percent safe and in a controlled setting. No more tearing up contracts at the first sign of trouble. No more—oh my God. I can’t fucking believe it.”

  “What?” Robin said, her hand flying away, hugging herself.

  “Turn around.”

  John had problems focusing in that moment, torn between the images on the screen and Robin, the curve of her neck rising from a crisp collar to her hair in a bun.

  The images won out for now.

  Irina Mareau unwound pearls from her body with supernatural smoothness of motion, coming to life right in front of them. He could reach out and touch a strand, his hand turning the color of old ivory as it slipped through time into the black-and-white world. As the pearls came away, Irina herself seemed to transform, a sweet shyness coming over her features. She cocked her head. Brushed her bangs across her forehead and ran her fingers through the pin curls over her ear, breaking them to ribbons. And then she laughed.

  No sound, of course, but there was no mistaking the motion, the way she covered her mouth with one hand and her eyes lit up.

  No other beauty in the world could compare. In photographs and film, Irina was said to be flirtatious, but poised, withdrawn even as she bared her entire body. More impenetrable than Greta Garbo, with a stare more piercing than Joan Crawford’s.

  Here, she was shy, but somehow more open in that shyness. Did she know she was being filmed? Maybe not, although with a hand-cranked camera it seemed like stealth wouldn’t be possible—if John were the cameraman and wanted this shot, he might have made up some lie about needing to wind the film, or run through to the end of the strip and the excess would be cut. Maybe that’s what this man had done, all those years ago.

  She chatted with the cameraman. Reached out of the shot to retrieve a robe, which she wrapped around her lithe, lovely body and tied. Not too neatly, not too primly, not bothering to hide the bare line of skin that fell from between her breasts down to her navel.

  John counted under his breath. If the camera was the kind he assumed, shooting at silent speed, each hand-cranked shot wouldn’t last more than forty seconds. And midhand gesture, the image jumped.

  Robin gasped.

  Irina lay on the bed stomach down, foxy chin resting on her hands, feet kicking backward in the air. She looked straight at the camera and arched an eyebrow. I know, the look said. Almost as if she’d seen John that night so long ago when he wrapped his fist around his cock and pumped himself to completion thinking of her kneeling at his feet.

  I know, and I don’t mind.

  “Do you think that’s him behind the camera?” Robin asked in a breathy whisper barely audible above the Eiki’s rustle and hum. “Her lover?”

  He reached out and touched her for the first time that night, settling his hands on her hips and drawing her to him, keeping his eyes fixed on the screen. She was warm and yielding against his body, fitting into his arms like she was made for him. “Let’s pretend he is. She’s playing with him, you know.”

  “Yes,” Robin said, arching into him. If he looked down he’d see the curve of her throat, bared and inviting. “Playing.”

  He took the invitation, cupping her throat and stroking her skin, testing the softness.

  Irina opened her mouth to speak. No words in the silent reels, of course. Just the hypnotic hum of the projector, his own heartbeat pounding in his chest and Robin’s breaths.

  “I wish we could hear her,” he mused, tracing Robin’s jawline with his forefinger.

  “What—what do you want me to say?” So eager to play her part. So fucking eager he couldn’t hold back a second longer. He’d have settled for a reunion with candles and flowers and slow kisses, but a hard fuck in a dark basement suited him even more.

  “Please,” he told her, and let go of her tempting throat to pull the chair in front of her. He held her hips with his left arm. Pushed down against the small of her back with his right hand until she bent at a beautiful angle, ass in the air and totally available to him.

  Irina rolled on to her back on the bed, the robe falling open along the long line of her thigh. She stroked herself there, in silent longing, beckoning.

  “Please,” Robin moaned. “Please. Sir.”

  * * *

  Robin was torn. Tugged between two life-changing events, two compelling personalities from across time, and she was the point where they intersected. Behind her, John, performing the by-now-familiar ritual of rucking up her skirt, baring the thigh-high stockings she wore clipped to her garter. In front of her, Irina Mareau, lying on her back and looking wide-eyed at the camera, her expression that of an attentive listener.

  Did Irina Mareau feel this same passion, this same shameless desire,
this same need to be wanted and coveted and taken?

  Irina kicked one leg into the air and held it there, defying gravity. Defying history.

  John pulled down Robin’s panties and expertly kicked her heels apart. She gripped the chair harder to keep from falling over. In front of her, the image of Irina smirking at the camera went still, flickered, became white light. She was gone.

  Passed into history again, but alive in Robin, a secret second life that—just for now—was Robin’s and John’s alone to keep.

  Here in the present, John hooked two fingers unceremoniously inside her, using them to lift her ass higher to him. She lowered her head, forced her way through the shame until she could present herself to him properly.

  “I hope you’re not expecting some kind of courtship ritual.” His growling voice nearly drowned out the sound of the tearing condom wrapper. “Because, sweetheart, I am not wasting any time with you today.”

  She should have been humiliated. Maybe she was. But she almost came right there and then, a spasm clenching her cunt tight like a fist, then clawing pleasure through the rest of her body. So close. “Please. Please.”

  “Fuck.” He shoved into her, hard and fast and filling her completely on the first stroke, and she wailed at the shock to her body. She was wet and ready and begging for him and still—oh God he’s everywhere. “You let someone else cane your ass. It fucking turns me on, but that’s my ass.” He spread his palms across both her cheeks, laying his claim. “I’m going to show you.”

  He pulled out of her then, slow and slick, pulled out until she could barely feel him at all, and the lack of him was just as intense a sensation as having every inch of him inside her. Her hips twitched, a desperate and automatic response because she couldn’t move.

  She couldn’t move, and she loved it. Held there between the cold steel chair and his warm, hard body. She couldn’t think of any place in the world she’d rather be, especially when he reached down and slid the hard tip of his thumb up along the line of her slit, skirting cruelly past her clit.

  “So fucking wet,” John said in a voice that was half growl and half moan, and slammed into her again, jolting the chair loudly against the cement floor and knocking a yelp out of Robin...especially when she felt his pussy-slicked thumb shoved knuckle-deep into her ass. “There. Mine.” Something like pain but softer jolted up her spine, and then the pleasure took her all the way at last, harsh and unforgiving and leaving her sobbing and tightening around him, around all of him.

  He pumped his hips, fucking her with deep, deliberate strokes, and the whole time he kept his thumb hooked inside her, the fingers of the same hand digging into the soft flesh of her ass cheek. Keeping her spread open for him. Even when her climax faded, the carnal pleasure still shattered her. She couldn’t think.

  She could barely breathe from the wanting.

  She wondered how she must look, pussy swollen and tender and wet, ass pink and stretched and clenching, all of it raised up, shamelessly presented, all his.

  “Come inside me,” she gasped out, not even thinking, just driven by primal instinct.

  He laughed through what sounded like gritted teeth. “Oh, I plan on it. Eventually. But not today, baby. Safety first.”

  “God, please.” I hate this. I hate condoms, I don’t want to wait anymore to be yours. Completely. Because I’m ready for everything you want from me. Everything. “My mouth.”

  He pulled out, the friction of his thumb against tightened flesh overwhelming every other feeling. “My mouth, and fuck, yes, get it open.”

  He spun her around and seated her on the cold chair with the brutal skill she’d never get tired of worshipping, tugged off the condom and pulled her face forward onto his cock.

  Thank you. The heavy weight of his shaft, the way he rubbed against her lips, the musky smell invading her senses—God, she’d forgotten who was taking and giving in this moment, but she was so, so grateful.

  She choked and gasped when the hot streams of come flooded her mouth.

  He pushed in harder, and groaned, and finished his claim.

  She swallowed, still grateful to the core. Fulfilled.

  “Robin. Robin.”

  “Was—was I good for you?”

  He fell to his knees and laid his head on her lap. “Always. Love you. Always.”

  She folded herself across his back and soaked in his warmth, his strength, his wild pounding heartbeat. The projector still hummed behind them, casting light against the wall, light that was pure and unfiltered through the past.

  Everything and always.

  Epilogue

  “How was your visit with your brother?” Robin asked after she put down her hair dryer.

  The John in the mirror over her shoulder spat out a mouthful of toothpaste into the sink and gave her a look that said he’d rather talk about anything else, but he answered just the same. “About as good as could be expected. Mom wants us to bury the hatchet, but I’m not ready to forgive and forget yet. Maybe once he’s sober he’ll apologize to you—us—and really mean it. But until that happens, I’m not interested in being buddy-buddy, and I don’t care what kind of shrieking she wants to do about family and his illness and all the rest of it. If she wants to enable him and excuse his behavior, that’s her deal, not mine.”

  “Do you think he will? Get sober?” She didn’t have any anger left at Jim. Life was too short to hold grudges, especially since the blog fallout, other than shutting the thing down and starting afresh at a new URL, had amounted to nil. Not that she was planning on inviting Jim over for dinner parties either.

  “Maybe, maybe not. I’m not sure if he’s really ready to yet, but we’ll see. I’d say the guilt of knowing how much Mom and Dad are spending on rehab might help him think twice about relapsing, but guilt hasn’t really factored into his decision-making before, so I don’t know why he’d magically start now.” John rinsed his mouth and started spreading shaving cream on his cheeks. She admired the rolling muscles of his shoulders, how the chrysanthemum petals broadened subtly on his skin with certain movements.

  “So...Christmas with my family, then?” She laughed, but she meant it. She hadn’t been back to Saskatchewan in a few years, and her parents had never met John in the boyfriend context, or even one-on-one, so the fact that she and Jim weren’t to be in the same room as one another seemed like the perfect excuse.

  John did a mock shiver, rubbing his arms like the temperature in the room had dropped twenty degrees. “Can’t we meet in the middle somewhere? Christmas in Hawaii? No?”

  “Let me.” She took the razor from his fingers. “Oh, you hardly need it.”

  “I shave once a week whether I need it or not,” he said. “I’m terrified of growing those damn corner wisps.”

  He sat on the edge of the bathtub, pulling his face taut and smileless for the blade, and let her go to work. It felt good to do this for him, almost shiveringly good. When she’d gently wiped his face clean with a warm, damp towel and applied aftershave lotion, he finally broke into a smile, beautiful and crooked and radiating regal satisfaction. “Let’s make that a regular thing.” He rose to his feet and pulled her close, stroking her hips through her bathrobe.

  She didn’t say yes, sir. She hadn’t put on his collar yet. That was for later tonight.

  The house in Los Feliz. No masks, this time, but she didn’t need one anymore.

  “All right,” she said, laughing, and kissed his chest before pushing herself away. “But I need the bathroom now. Out.”

  “I’ll be waiting in the living room, looking up erotic shaving videos.” John winked at her as he closed the door.

  She looked at herself in his mirror. No, her mirror as well, now. Moving in together hadn’t been too difficult. They’d already done it once before, after all—shared a kitchen and a bathroom before, if not a bed.

  The bed was the best part.

  She practiced a flirty smile that fell apart into a giggle at the end. And it didn’t even bother her ho
w girlish she looked right then, not in the slightest. That was just one side of her. She turned to one side, then looked at the mirror while resting her chin on one hand, lowered her eyelids, licked her lips, hot and cold like Irina Mareau. Yes. She’d try that one on John tonight.

  It didn’t take long to finish her hair and makeup. She went to the living room, then sat down next to John, who, true to his word, was watching erotic shaving videos. “These are mostly gross,” he informed her. “Do you need to check your work email?”

  She nodded and nestled in next to him as he passed her the laptop. Work was the one thing that came between them in the early days of living together. For John, work stopped the second he left university grounds, and his real life, colorful and project-filled and above all complicated, was elsewhere. Her work was more a part of who she was. They’d come to understand that fundamental difference, and had made peace with it.

  She opened up a fresh tab and logged in. “Al Henderson’s daughter emailed me. I met her at the hospice yesterday.”

  “That didn’t go too well, did it?” John had been there himself, separately. He’d warned her how hard it was, but in the end, she hadn’t gotten depressed or cried. The place was a way station, as bright as it could be, filled with pain but also love.

  “Well, he couldn’t talk. At all. But his daughter was there, and a few friends. Saylor owns the footage now, but I still felt obligated to ask about it. They told me not to worry about what he would have wanted for the footage...just keep it away from private collectors and use my best judgment.” She sighed. “She’s saying it’s probably going to be less than a week now.”

  Robin tapped the side of the keyboard for a while before she finally came up with the right reply, couched in words that didn’t seem too sad and awkward. Then she snapped the laptop closed and took a deep, cleansing breath.

  John put an arm around her shoulder and she leaned into him, her rock. “About Christmas...”

  “My parents can’t afford to go somewhere like Hawaii.”