Missing Ink

by E J Frost

  “She was crying , Daddy. Like her heart was broken in fifty thousand pieces. She wouldn’t have cried like that if he’d given her good cuddles.”

  Logan runs his hand through his hair. I can’t see any response he can give, and apparently Logan can’t, either.

  “Well,” I say. “If the Navy taught me anything, it was how to give good cuddles.”

  Emily giggles and that breaks the tension around the table.

  “Em, I promise, if she gives me the chance, I’ll cuddle the fuck out of her.”

  She smiles at me and wiggles in her chair.

  *****

  The African soup is a big hit.

  Brenna eats all of hers in less than five minutes. When I see those chocolate eyes, now lit with a mischievous twinkle, straying to my bowl, I offer her the rest of mine.

  She reaches for my bowl, but I shake my head.

  “Give me your spoon, bold girl.”

  Other than depriving her of panties, I haven’t tried to top her, yet. She told me she doesn’t live the lifestyle twenty-four-seven. I want to show her I can be flexible. She’s shown up for lunch in a date outfit: an off-the-shoulder, baby-blue sweater paired with a leather skirt that hits just above the knee. Her dreadlocks are bound up in a huge bun and she’s wearing a little makeup. She’s definitely treating this like a date.

  So I’ll give her a date. Mostly.

  Brenna hands me her soup spoon warily. I behave myself, feeding her my soup spoonful by spoonful, careful not to drip it on the table that Emily’s left so prettily set. I love the sensuality of feeding my sub. The movement of her lips and throat. The soft noises that speak to her enjoyment of each taste. I sure enjoy the hell out of every spoonful. With the last one, I tease her, running the tip of the spoon along her lower lip before sliding it onto her tongue. When I take the spoon away, she’s grinning.

  The main course is a dipping bowl of lamb cubes in a dark brown sauce, strongly scented with ginger and garlic. I tear up the flatbread and use a small piece to scoop up some lamb. She opens her mouth and takes the bite delicately between her teeth. Her eyes widen when the spices hit her palate.

  “Good pick, Master Mac,” she says after she swallows the mouthful.

  “Thanks.” I chew my own bite and clear my throat against the kick of the hot peppers and ginger. “Whew.”

  “Too hot for you?” She winks at me.

  “Nothing’s too hot for me, bold girl. When’d you discover spicy food?”

  “Birth.” She purrs around another bite. “My grandmother’s from Jamaica. She put chilies in my baby formula.”

  I chuckle.

  “Where’s the rest of your family from?”

  “Not Ireland, Master Mac,” she says with a smart-assed grin. “Dad’s side was from Italy. Ma’s side, Jamaica and Canada.”

  That explains the golden-pale skin with the black eyebrows and the dreadlocks.

  “What led you into tattooing?”

  She shrugs. “A friend of mine wanted one of my sketches as a tattoo. When the tattoo artist asked who did the sketch, my friend dragged me into the artist’s shop. He offered me a job on the spot. I worked for him for three years before he retired, and I went out on my own.”

  “Where’d you learn to draw?”

  Another shrug. “I always have. Since I could hold a crayon.”

  “Any of your tattoos your own design?”

  “All of them.” She pauses to take another offered mouthful. “Totally enough about me.”

  I have been interrogating her, I admit, but only because I’m interested in what makes her tick.

  “You caught me, bold girl. Anything you want to know about me?”

  “Why’d you invite me to lunch?”

  “The pleasure of your company.”

  “Try again.” Her eyes search mine. There’s that direct eye contact that sends blood rushing straight to my dick. “You don’t need to wine and dine me before a scene.”

  “Your Doms don’t feed you before they flog and fuck you?”

  Her eyes widen, and warm. “Is that what we’re doing?”

  “Flogging, maybe. Fucking, no. Not for our first scene.”

  “Why not?” Two spots of color bloom on her high cheekbones. “I’m clean. I get tested twice a month. Everyone at Blunts does.”

  “I appreciate you telling me, but that has nothing to do with it. Sex is a privilege. It’ll take you more than one scene to earn it.”

  Her eyes narrow. Bold girl has a competitive streak.

  “What if it’s a really, really good scene?” she asks.

  “Then you’ll earn it faster, but you still won’t be getting fucked during our first scene.”

  Her full, rosy-pink, lower lip juts out. She’s adorable when she’s thwarted. Denial is going right on my list next to humiliation play.

  “How I can I earn privileges?”

  Fuck, she’s so tasty. The boldness is the frosting. The cake of this girl is her genuine desire to please.

  “Tell me what you think will earn privileges and I’ll tell you if you’re on the mark.”

  “Calling you sir or master.”

  I feed her another mouthful of bread and lamb while I say, “I prefer sir. Showing respect is a good start.”

  “Submitting to you.”

  “I’d expect that in a scene unless we’ve negotiated resistance. I don’t do brats.”

  “Oh.” The lip juts again. “I guess obeying your commands falls into the same category?”

  “It does.”

  Her eyes narrow. “What about honesty? If I’m always honest with you, does that earn me privileges?”

  “Yes.”

  That makes her smile. “You taught Master Logan, didn’t you? He’s all about the honesty,”

  I wonder if that’s something she’s observed or if it’s something Emily has told her.

  “Indirectly. He served in my unit for several years. We’ve talked a lot about our kinks, but we’ve never done a scene together.”

  She considers this, her head tipped to the side, while she chews another mouthful. “Will you, now that you’re here?”

  “Depends on how the submissive I’m with feels about being exhibited.”

  “Would being exhibited earn me privileges?”

  “If you’re honest with me about how it makes you feel.”

  “I can do that, sir.”

  I notice she didn’t tell me how she’d feel about being exhibited. Either she’s trying to keep me guessing, or she isn’t sure how it will work with me. I like that she’s keeping her options open. Clever girl.

  “Tell me about your favorite scene.”

  “Ever?”

  At my nod, she rubs her forehead with long fingers. Short, bare nails. A sneaky tattoo on the side of her index finger in a scrolling script says, “Crescendo.” I like it.

  “That’s hard,” she says. “I mean, my favorite, you couldn’t do on your own.”

  “This isn’t about replicating your favorite scene. It’s about understanding what turns you on.”

  “Oh.” She smiles and her hand drops back to the table. “Okay.”

  While I feed her the rest of the lamb, she tells me about her favorite scene, which is the club’s bi-annual slave auction. Unfortunately, I’ve just missed the last one and the next isn’t for several months. Disappointing. It sounds like a damn lot of fun.

  “What do you like best about the auction?” I ask, to pick apart what flips her switches.

  “Everything,” she says dreamily. “The build-up is amazing. It’s like this crazy fluttering in my chest. I’m on edge for days. Being displayed all day before the auction turns my head inside out. Anyone can do anything they want while we’re being displayed so long as we’re not moved off the pedestal and it doesn’t breach our hard limits. I’ve been whipped, fingered, fucked, had ice cubes pushed up my ass. Anything goes. I never know what’s going to happen next. I’m in subspace the whole time.” Her cheeks pinken with the memori
es. “The auction itself is terrifying. We’re blindfolded so we can’t see who’s bidding. Sometimes they bid out-loud and I strain to place the voice, but a lot of the bidding is silent, so all I can hear is the number going up and up. At the end of the bidding, the winner comes up and leads me off the stage. I can smell them and hear them if they talk to me, but sometimes I don’t know until the very end of the auction who has bought me. Karl, he’s one of the club’s crazier Doms, he bought me one year and never let me take the blindfold off. Not for the entire day he ‘owned’ me. It drove me completely insane.”

  I tick off boxes on my mental checklist. Anticipation. Exhibitionism. Public use. Uncertainty. Sensory deprivation.

  “Sounds exciting. What about being owned after the auction?”

  Her flush deepens. “Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s kind of a let-down. But the auction itself is so good it doesn’t really matter.”

  “Okay. Not to bring the mood down but tell me about the worst scene you’ve done.”

  While she considers the question, I cut up the peppermint crisp tart that the restaurant recommended for dessert and take a bite. Fuck, that’s good. Chocolatey and minty and crunchy with a very slight alcoholic edge. I tease Brenna by pulling the take-out container in front of me and cupping my hands around it. When that cute lower lip peeks out again, I relent and offer her a spoonful, which she eats greedily, licking her lips. I like seeing her play my game, and I like even more seeing her enjoy dessert. Amy wouldn’t eat anything sweet, and she shamed Naomi into not eating dessert even when she was a kid, which always made me sad.

  “Worst scene really wasn’t all that bad,” Brenna says after a sip of water. “It was just disappointing.”

  “What was disappointing about it?”

  She lifts a shoulder. My mouth waters to lick the soft skin she exposes, trace the edges of the floral tattoo peeking out of the wide collar of her sweater with my tongue. I swallow the urge in my own sip of water.

  “It was my second scene. The first one was so good. I started coming half-way through the flogging and never stopped.” She laughs, low and throaty, at the memory. “The second one was a sensation scene. He used fur and feathers. It was just . . . dull. I know that’s terrible to say, but the first scene was so intense and then the second scene didn’t do anything for me at all. He finished off with all these different flower petals. There were really strongly scented lilies in what he used, and they made me queasy. I offered him a blow job just to get the scene over with.”

  I tap her lower lip with the spoon. “That’s topping from below.”

  “I know.” She sighs. “I’m guessing that won’t earn me sex privileges.”

  “Definitely not. Why didn’t you just safe word?”

  She grimaces. “It was only my second scene. I thought, maybe, I was the problem. I mean, he was trying. It just didn’t do anything for me.”

  “So we’re clear, bold girl, if the scene I’ve planned isn’t doing anything for you, you’d better tell me. Trying to manipulate me into ending the scene will not go well for you.”

  She widens her eyes at me. Minx. I tap her lip with the spoon again.

  She laughs. I love the sweet, alto notes of her laugh. They make my chest light, and my balls tight.

  “Will you punish me?”

  “For topping from below? Yes, I will. That’s challenging my dominance. Same as breaking a rule. You don’t want to go there, bold girl. You’ll find I’m just like Logan in that way.” I tap the spoon gently against her teeth just to see her shiver. “Funishments? You’ll love those, and I’ll be happy to give ‘em to you all day long. Punishments, you will not like. No matter what a little masochist you are.”

  She lifts one of those long-fingered hands that I have a strange hankering to see coated in latex and lifts her thumb. “Topping from below gets me a punishment. What else?”

  “Breaking rules.”

  “You haven’t given me any rules yet,” she points out.

  “Don’t worry, I will.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Lying to me. Otherwise, I’m pretty straight-forward, as Doms go.”

  She grins. “As Doms go.”

  Over the last few bites of tart and then through coffee, black for her, milk and sugar for me, we talk through her hard and soft limits. She doesn’t have many and the few she has aren’t any kind of problem. We wouldn’t brush up against them during initial scenes, anyway. Her experience is a little daunting: she’s been serving at Blunts for over five years, since she turned twenty-one. Before that, she used fake ID to play in the underground clubs. Bold girl that she is, she freely admits her lawbreaking, which earns her another rap on the teeth with the spoon.

  I finish up by asking about her medical issues. I know she’s had surgery on her hip, and she tells me she has a plate and pins in her leg as well, so I’ll have to watch her flexibility and be careful with electrical play. She has nerve damage in her arms and back that she says can be aggravated by prolonged bondage. I make a mental note to look for scars when I’ve got her naked, and to find out what gave her nerve damage, but that’s definitely not a subject for our first scene.

  “What do you know about me, bold girl?” I ask, to segue into where I want to end our lunch.

  “Only what Em spilled. You’re Logan’s oldest friend. He worked for you in the Navy—”

  I chuckle. “He served in my unit.”

  Her cheeks tint. “That’s what I meant. You’ve been married, but were separated for, like, a decade and made the divorce official recently because your ex wanted to remarry. You have a daughter who is only six years younger than me and you’re worried that I might think that’s weird. Which I don’t. I mean, it is a little weird that you’re old enough to be my dad, but it doesn’t really matter for a scene, does it?”

  I don’t like that. Not at all. I’m not thinking of this as a single scene, and I don’t like that she is.

  “Does it?” I ask.

  She folds her lips in and pinches them between her teeth, then blows out a breath before she says. “I said too much, didn’t I?”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah, I did. You’re doing that Dom thing where you repeat questions back to me until I realize how stupid I’ve been and roll over and show my belly.”

  The warm chuckle in my chest blooms into a laugh. This girl. I love that she’s so experienced she knows all the standard Dom tricks. It’ll keep me on my toes. And just because she knows the tricks, doesn’t mean they won’t still work on her.

  “Is that what I’m doing?”

  “I’m sorry for the verbal vomit.” She wipes her hands down her leather skirt before she circles them around her coffee cup again. “I guess I’m a little nervous.”

  “Why are you nervous?”

  “I’m sure Emily and Logan told you.” She gesticulates vaguely with her hands. “Submission. It’s not working for me anymore. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but my headspace is really off. It has been for a while. I, um, I guess I’m just afraid that I can’t do it anymore.”

  “You can’t submit? Okay, let’s put that to bed right now. Stand up and lift your skirt to your waist.”

  She gapes at me for a moment before she flushes as bright as a stop light. Trembling, she stands and pulls her skirt up over her smooth thighs, revealing that beautiful hip piece she showed me before, another tattoo around her left thigh that’s a double band of barbed wire, and a gloriously bare pussy flushed a shade lighter than her cheeks. No underwear, just as instructed. Perfect.

  “Run your fingertips through your pussy and show them to me.”

  She bites her lip before she does as she’s told. Her eyes are glistening as much as her fingers when she holds them out to me.

  “Well done, bold girl,” I say softly. “Lick your fingers clean, lower your skirt, and sit down. We’re almost done here, but I think it’s safe to say that you can still submit.”

  She licks her fingers before she puts
them over her face. “That’s the first time in months I’ve actually wanted to.”

  “Good. Take your hands away and look at me, sweetheart.”

  She does, her chocolate eyes glossy and vulnerable.

  “That’s a good girl. How about we take a breather, and you think about the things we’ve talked about and done today? I’ll call you tomorrow and you can tell me anything else you want me to know. Then we’ll set a time for our scene. Logan’s happy for us to use the playroom here. He’ll monitor. Or we can go to Blunts if you feel more comfortable there.”

  “Here, please,” she whispers. “Blunts might be a little weird. Don’t ask me why. That’s just how it feels.”

  “I have no problem with that.”

  “Sir, could you—” She bites at her lips.

  “Finish that thought, bold girl.”

  “Could we do the scene tomorrow? I just—I want that feeling again.”

  Poor girl. Is this the source of the sadness in her eyes? Was she really afraid she couldn’t submit anymore?

  I reach over and cup her chin my palm, then slide my fingers to press against her throat. Not cutting off her air, just so I can feel the flutter of her pulse.

  “Can you wait that long? Do you need it tonight? Be honest with me.”

  She swallows hard. “I’d like it tonight, but it feels like I’m asking too much.”

  I agree. Not that she’s asking too much, but that a scene tonight would be rushed. Phone sex could give her what she needs and would release a little of the constant, pounding pressure in my nuts when I think about this girl. “How about I call you and we do a scene over the phone?”

  “No scene tomorrow?” Her black brows draw together and her pulse pounds against my fingers.

  “Definitely a scene tomorrow. I’d say eight, but you know Emily’s going to want to feed us first if we’re doing the scene here.”

  The grin finally breaks through her anxiety. “You’re not wrong about that.”

  “When do you finish tomorrow?”

  “Six. I could be here for six-thirty.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” I stroke her throat. “Rules between then and now.”

  I watch her eyes. Her inky pupils expand, and her throat vibrates against my fingers as she swallows. She’s aroused by the idea of me topping her until our next scene. “Yes, sir?”