by Liz Crowe
He grins and pinches the end of my nose. “Sleep. You earned it. And Kimmie?”
“Yes, Master?”
“I’ll be thankful that you’re mine every day for the rest of my life. I won’t ever take you for granted.”
“I won’t ever take you for granted either.” I put my hands on his cheeks and look into his eyes. “You’re the greatest gift I’ve ever been given.” One of his hands clasps mine and drags it to his lips so he can kiss my palm. “Thank you.”
“No. Thank you. Sleep, precious.” One of his hands rises and rests on my head, and he drags his fingers through my hair absentmindedly as he breathes into my crown. As I drift to sleep, I hear him whisper, “You’re everything to me, Kimmie. Everything.” I don’t know if I manage to get a smile to show on the outside, but I’m definitely smiling on the inside.
*****
We have a long talk and decide that we’ll try to go to the club every Thursday night. Being there has been important for us, at least for me, for a long time. Now my position is different. I have a permanent Dominant, so other members now have to show me a different kind of respect, especially the unattached Doms. One of the things we discuss is the fact that, because of the performance areas and the furnishings, there are opportunities to explore things there that we can’t at home. Some day we might have room for a St. Andrew’s cross, or a bondage table, or a whipping horse, but right now, that’s not an option. We also have nowhere for him to practice suspension with me, and the club can offer us that. It just makes sense. Along with all of that, it cements our union in the eyes of the kink community here, and that’s one thing we both want.
I warned him that I might be running late – my last client had to come after work and she’s very, very hard to fit – so he knew that six might be impossible for me to make. When I pull into the parking lot of the club and stroll into the building with my backpack in hand, his car is already here, and my heart gives a little jump knowing that he’s going to be just inside, waiting for me.
It takes me almost a minute for my eyes to adjust to the darkness inside, and when they finally do, I do a sweep around the room for Jaz. And I have one of those red-letter, white-hot rage, what-the-fuck moments.
Jaz is sitting on a sofa across the room with a blond, and I’m not talking about your average blond. I’m talking about a bombshell. She looks to be barely over thirty, and not only do I see red, but I have flashbacks of Phil and all the shit he put me through. I stand there, not quite sure what to do or say, and I’m shocked when he turns, looks at me, and then goes right back to talking with her.
A shrieking sets up in my brain and I feel like the top of my head is going to blow off. I know he can hear me stomping across the room toward him, and yet he never turns to look. When I’m finally standing stock-still at the end of the sofa, I wait, but he still doesn’t turn to look at me. I finally clear my throat and force out, “Aaaa-hemmmm. Jaz?”
He turns and smiles, a passive smile that makes my blood boil. “Submissive?”
I know my voice is shaky when I blurt out, “Would you like to tell me what the hell is going on?”
Rising from the sofa, he takes the two steps to me and stands right in front of me, looking down into my flaming face. There’s no anger or malice in his voice when he says, “You’ll not speak to your master that way, submissive. Go to the locker room, dress out, and wait for me at the bar.”
My eyes go so wide that I’m pretty sure my eyelids completely disappear. “What the fuck?”
His next words are a little more forceful and dispassionate. “Submissive, you’ll not speak to your master that way. One more disrespectful address and you’ll suffer punishment. Are we clear?”
“Crystal clear, Master.” I just stare at him as, without a smile or any hint of an expression, he turns and sits back down to resume his conversation with the blond.
It takes me about thirty seconds to process what’s just happened, and I turn on my heel and head for the dressing room. More than following his directions and dressing out, I really want to just walk back out, get in my car, and drive away. I have three-quarters of a tank of gas, and I wonder how far I could get before I just run out.
When the bag’s unzipped, I find what he packed for me that morning: an emerald green lace shelf bra with a matching flounced garter belt. No panties. That seems to be his thing. And a pair of silver stiletto sandals, strappy and sexy. He even found green stockings to go with the outfit. If I weren’t so fucking furious, I’d be impressed, but it’s all lost on me at the moment.
Suddenly, it occurs to me that in looking over that contract, I never saw anything allowing more than one submissive, but I never saw anything forbidding it either, and my heart sinks. Is that what he’s up to? Fifteen minutes earlier, I’d been the happiest woman in Chicago. Now, I’m just trying to figure out how to save face and get through the evening as my hopes and dreams are crushed.
Numb and shaking, I make my way out to the bar. I can see Jaz and the blond still across the room. He’s pretty still, but she’s animated and smiling. It’s taking all I have to sit there when I feel a presence beside me.
Well fuck me. It’s Angus.
“Hello, slut. What are you looking for tonight?”
“Hello to you too, asshole.”
His eyes pop open wide and he jerks back. “Well, well, well! For somebody who’s begged me to fuck her senseless and use her like a common whore, you’re full of piss and vinegar tonight.”
“Yeah, well, sorry for your luck, but I have a Dominant.”
“Yeah, and looks like he’s got himself some hot ass tonight,” Angus says with a belly laugh. I can feel my face burning and I’m working to keep the tears at bay. It takes me by surprise when he reaches over, pinches my nipple, and says, “I think you’re really going to need a fucking tonight.”
“Stop, Angus,” I manage to snort out and push his hand away.
He’s laughing outright at me now. “You weren’t saying, ‘Stop, Angus!’ a bit ago, now were you?” Before I can move away, he grabs the back of my neck and smashes his lips against mine. I thrash around to find something, anything, to grab hold of. Stationary, I’ll pull away from him; moveable, I’ll smash him in the back of the head with it. I’m clawing around when I hear this odd sound against my lips and open my eyes to see his bulging back at me. His face pulls away from mine and I see a hand around his throat.
Then that voice like molten metal says, “Keep your hands off my submissive.” By now, Angus’s face is blood red and he’s grappling at the hand around his neck when it just tidily sets him on a bar stool and turns loose. I watch in horror as he immediately takes a swing, but a neat upward-bound fist knocks him right off the stool and on his ass. When I turn, Jaz’s eyes are glowing at me and he grips my upper arm. “You okay?”
“What the hell do you care?” I spit out and try to wrest out of his grasp, but he’s got me tight.
“Your submissive?” I hear Angus growl as he’s scrambling to stand. “Looks to me like you’re looking to trade up.”
I watch Jaz’s eyes flicker darkly as they rotate to Angus. “You’d do well to watch your mouth. If you ever touch her again, I’ll kill you with my bare hands. Do you understand me?”
Angus sing-songs back toward Jaz, “Well, if you weren’t so busy chatting up Goldilocks over there . . .”
“Who I talk to and what I do is none of your fucking concern. You’ve got two minutes to vacate the premises or I’m going to clear the room with pieces of your sorry ass. Got that?”
Angus snorts, then turns to me. “Well, slut, you know I can deliver when he’s otherwise occupied,” he chortles. “Show up without your Dominant,” he says, almost spitting the word, “and I’ll supply what you’ve always wanted.”
“Go to hell,” I snarl back at him.
“Ungrateful bitch.” Those words are followed by the sound of skin against skin, and Angus goes down again.
Jaz towers over him. “Speak to my s
ubmissive that way again, and you’ll never utter another word.”
When Angus stands, he holds his arms up in the air. “Well, you all heard him! This Dominant just threatened me! So if anything happens to me, well, here’s your man!” He lets out a laugh, but no one joins him; they all just stand and stare, and I want the floor to open up and swallow me. “Okay, okay, I’m going. But I’ll be back.” He turns to me. “I’ll fuck you soon, you can bet on it.”
I toss back, “Piss off.” We all stand and watch as his back disappears into the darkness of the front hallway on his way out.
Jaz turns back to me. “Are you okay?”
I don’t even look at him. “Yeah. I’m fine.”
“Did you invite that in any way?”
That just pisses me off to no end. “No. I did not.”
I hear a voice from the bar say, “No. I was sitting right here the whole time. She’s telling the truth.”
Jaz’s hand lands on the back of my neck, pretty much in the same spot Angus’s did, but it’s gentle. “Okay. I just need to know you’re okay.”
Now’s my chance. “No. I’m not okay. I’m being ignored by my Dominant who’s over there . . .” And it hits me. “You’re negotiating a scene with her, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I am.”
I’m hit by something that I can only describe as nausea. I’m not sure what it is, but I feel my heart start to hammer so hard that I can hear it in my ears. All I can think is, Oh, god, please don’t let this be happening to me. Please. Not again. I try to get up and walk away, but my legs are like lead and I can’t feel my feet. If I could figure out what to say, I still couldn’t say it. When I finally make it to my feet, his hand is still on the back of my neck, and I try to shake it loose, but I can’t. The only thing I can get to come out of my mouth is, “Don’t.”
There’s an edge to his voice when he orders me, “Follow me, submissive. Now.” He turns toward a performance platform and I follow, blindly and silently, my heart breaking in a thousand pieces. I hear him talking to someone, and then there’s movement around me. When I manage to catch a glimpse, a bondage table has been moved up onto one end of the platform, and Jaz points to the floor in front of it. “Present yourself, submissive.”
So this is what I am. I’m a sex slave. I knew it was all too good to be true, and here I am, finding out that’s correct. I kneel and I’m getting as comfortable as possible when he leaves the platform and returns with the blond. They stand right in front of me, and Jaz orders her, “Strip.”
I watch in horror and humiliation as she removes every article of clothing, and her toned, tanned, perfect body is on full display for Jaz and everyone else to enjoy. A burning sets up in my gut, and I’m having trouble breathing as I watch him readying things off to the side. To my utter amazement, he turns to me and says, “Submissive, watch and enjoy.” I’m feeling a lot of things at this moment, but pleasure is definitely not one of them. And, because of his command, looking away is not an option.
From seemingly out of nowhere, a photographer steps into the light, camera ready. Rope in hand, Jaz begins to bind the woman in intricate, beautiful work that spreads around and across her body. It isolates her breasts until they begin to redden, and I know they’ll soon be throbbing in pain from the binding at his hands. As he works, she beams at him, her eyes sparkling and clear, and I feel a tear start down my cheek, followed by another. The whole club gets to witness my embarrassment and, throughout it all, the photos will bear witness to the whole scene. I notice with confusion and then shame that the guy’s making a special effort to not get me in any of the photos. How nice. I don’t even rate that. That’s the icing on the cake for me, and all my efforts to keep my shoulders from shaking with sobs are breaking down and abandoning me.
Jaz continues on, seemingly unaware that I even exist, and I grow numb in a short while. It helps – it lets me watch them as though I don’t know either of them, as though they’re strangers I haven’t even met, and right now, that’s how I feel about the man I pledged my life to. Out of the corner of my eye, I see movement and I notice Michael and Robyn standing there, just out of the light. When Michael sees me looking at them, he nods and points back toward Jaz and the blond.
They knew. They’re my friends and they knew this was going to happen. Had it all been arranged beforehand? Obviously so. The photographer, the crowd that’s here tonight, all no coincidence. But my friends?
I’m alone. I’m utterly, completely alone. Jeffrey and Greta live far away. I have no family here. Apparently, I have no friends. And any dignity I might’ve had has evaporated. I had some savings, but I’ve spent it all trying to do something important for him, and now I know it’s all been wasted. It seems to me that the best thing I can do when this debacle is over is to go to the locker room, change, get in my car, and just leave. I wonder briefly about Alexander, but I’m pretty sure that, after watching me dressed down this way, no one at this club will ever want to touch me again. I’ll be that submissive who fell in love with the Dominant, the Dominant who made a fool of her in a very intimate yet public way. Not a good line on a submissive’s resume. My mind goes in all kinds of directions, none of them healthy or helpful, and I just sit there and watch her ecstasy grow.
The one thing I do notice that seems odd to me is the expression on Jaz’s face. Complete dispassion. He doesn’t seem to be enjoying it at all, just performing some kind of task, kind of like sweeping a floor or drying his hair – like it’s not a big deal. He’s paying close attention to the rope, straightening it, adjusting it, but as for her body, he hasn’t really touched her anywhere. I do note that he uses his fingers to spread her labia apart, but then he draws a rope up her slit and never touches her again. I find that strange. Maybe he’s at least going to be that merciful to me by keeping his hands off her. If I have to watch him fuck her, I’ll die. That’ll be the end for me.
She’s bound beautifully, I’ll give him that. When he seems to be satisfied with the arrangements of the knots and lines, he attaches lines to her just as he had me and begins to hoist her upward. Unlike me, however, when she gets to a certain point, the ropes in which she’s bound are used to secure her, their long, tendril-like extensions apparently tied into the pattern for that purpose. The original lines are undone and removed, and she hangs there, one arm up and pointed forward, the other crossed across her ribcage. Her legs are wide open, and one arches upward toward her back, while the other is straight and pointed downward at an angle toward the floor. Unlike when he bound me in the hammock-like arrangement, she looks very graceful, almost ballerina-like in her pose. After he takes a minute to stand back and admire his work, he moves back to her and, taking a smaller, thinner cord, braids it into her hair, then secures it to one of the ropes on her back, drawing her head back with it. She’s completely immobilized, barely able to breathe, and even though my heart is broken, I have to admit, he’s done a beautiful job. She’s a gorgeous, alluring woman, and his work is amazing.
Jaz turns toward the crowd and begins to speak. “At the request of the management, I have been honored to give this demonstration tonight. Known in various forms as shibari or kinbaku, you are witness to a form of Japanese rope bondage in which I was instructed by a kinbaku master on the west coast, Master Morris Davidson. I usually perform this art only with my own submissive, but tonight I employed the assistance of Master Davidson’s daughter, Amelie. Raised in a household where her father worked out intricate knot arrangements using her mother as his submissive, Amelie is quite accustomed to the practice and not prone to the panic that an inexperienced submissive might suffer. While I have worked with my own submissive to begin her familiarization with the art, this particular demonstration is far too rigorous for someone who does not practice on a regular basis. I’d like to thank Master Aaron,” he says, and points to an equally attractive blond man standing in the shadows, “for allowing me to work with his submissive tonight. This scene is far from over. For my part, I will complete it wi
th my own submissive to allow her to experience it as well.”
Jaz turns to me for the first time and I have to wonder what he thinks about my tear-stained face. Does he even realize what he’s done? How much he’s hurt me? He steps in front of me and simply says, “Submissive, rise.” Once I’m on my feet, he points to the girl in the ropes. “Kimberly, please step in front of the bound submissive.” Great. She gets to laugh at my discomfort. That’s going to be fun for me, I’m sure, and I can’t imagine what he hopes to accomplish by breaking me down this way. Addressing her, Jaz states, “Amelie, eyes on me.” Her eyes open and she looks directly at him. He turns back to me and asks, “Are you ready?”
I have no idea what I’m supposed to be ready for, so I just stand there, mute. He puts a finger under my chin, tips my head up, and kisses my forehead, then turns back to the girl. “Amelie, tonight I finish this scene with my own submissive. Her name is Kimberly, but to you, she is Mistress Kimberly. For the rest of this scene, Mistress Kimberly is in control of your orgasms. You will not climax unless she allows it. Disobedience will result in punishment. The safeword we negotiated earlier in the evening remains in play.” He turns to me and says, “Her safeword is sky.” Returning his eyes to her, he states firmly, “Submissive, address your Mistress.”
In a shallow, breathy groan, her ribcage restricted in its expansion by the ropes, Amelie looks at me and says, “My orgasms belong to you, Mistress Kimberly. I beg your mercy.”
I’m dumbstruck. I don’t understand what’s happening. Nothing is making sense until he looks back to her and announces, “I will finish the scene with my submissive and you will watch. Although you will want to come, you will not do so until Mistress Kimberly approves.” Without another word, Jaz takes my hand and leads me to the bondage table. He climbs up, sits down, and reaches out toward me. “Come to me, Kimmie.” I don’t know what to do. Part of me wants to run, and part of me wants to be with him. When I reach the edge of the table, he smiles. “Shoes off.” I toe them off and climb up, wondering what to do. He takes my hand and I stare down at him. “Stay standing. Okay, stand astride my legs. Move right up in front of me, baby, up, up, right there – stop. Put your hands on my head. And don’t worry for a single second – I’ve got you. I won’t let you fall.” With that, he buries his face in my slit and drags his tongue upward.