Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
“ I have what we need to get you started,” Vera told Ren Borgata. For the past half hour, she and the new senior account manager had been parked in her office, handling the forms required for every new hire.
Ren was attractive, as most people on the front lines of marketing were, and projected his experience in the field with an appealing confidence. He’d be supervising the project team that had been led by Grenadine. Last New Year’s Eve, Dina had announced her resolution, to save up and sail around the world with her husband. Since she’d left three weeks ago, she’d been posting regular pictures on her social media pages and sending love to her former coworkers.
Usually TRA promoted from within, but they didn’t have a team member seasoned enough to take over Dina’s accounts as lead, so an external hire had been recruited.
“Good deal,” Ren said, sitting back and putting his ankle on his knee. He wore a tropical weight suit that fit his body well. While the office’s daily dress code was casual professional, he was showing respect for the final steps of the hiring process. She appreciated that in a man. “Gotta say, I didn’t expect to get the job,” he added.
“Why is that?”
“Scuttlebutt in the industry was that you only hire women or…” he paused. “Well, women.”
“Women or beta males,” she said. “John Turner?”
His brows rose. “Dead center.”
“John has applied here before. He didn’t have the qualifications we were seeking.”
“Let me guess.” He gave her a wry smile. “You were looking for someone who isn’t an egomaniac with impulse control problems?”
“There’s only room for one egomaniac here. I refuse to share the limelight.”
Vera’s gaze shifted to Cyn, leaning in her door frame. “You’re no egomaniac. But as far as impulse control problems…”
“Uptight people often think normal people have impulse control issues.” Cyn crossed her eyes at Vera, then turned her attention to a grinning Ren. “I know you don’t start for a couple weeks, but before you head back to your hotel, I thought we’d do lunch with your team.”
“I’d planned on it. If you have other things to do, I can take them solo. We can get to know one another before I’m formally their boss.”
“That would work.” Cyn tossed Vera an approving glance. This was going to be a good choice.
Ren rose and shook Vera’s hand with a firm but not overcompensating grip. “I’ll shoot the copies of your benefits paperwork and contract to your email,” she said.
“Great. I’m looking forward to working with you all.”
Cyn stepped aside. “I’ll meet you at Bastion’s desk in a few minutes to do the hand off, so they know I okayed it.”
“You got it, boss.”
“Supreme Bitch in Charge is sufficient.”
Vera sighed as Ren took his leave of them with another chuckle. “The bad thing is he thinks you’re joking.”
“Not at all. My winning personality came through loud and clear during our interview. Bastion took a decided interest in him, by the way. Nothing inappropriate, HR nazi,” she added. “I could just tell. Hard to say if Ren’s bread is buttered on the bisexual side, though. Sexual preference really should be part of the hiring process. Stupid EOE guidelines.”
“Said no smart HR rep for a company, ever ,” Vera responded. “Using the workplace as a dating pool isn’t wise. Just ask Watt.”
“Wisdom and sex have nothing to do with one another.” Cyn grinned. “You want to be my date at Progeny this weekend? Mick won’t be back from Quantico until Monday.”
Vera straightened the two pens on her desk. “I may bring Rev. He’s not ready to be thrown into the deep end, but he can take a stroll around the pool.”
“And you’re going to be his lifeguard to keep him from falling in.”
“Or to keep him from being pushed.” Vera did the watching you gesture at her friend.
“No pushing.” Cyn glanced over her shoulder, confirming no employees from the lower levels were visiting Skye, Ros or Abby’s offices. “But if he decides he wants to be slathered in oil and strapped to a fucking machine, I’ll help choose the right sized rubber dick to put up his ass. Because the right size is everything. How’s his, by the way? Dick, I mean, because his ass looks superb.”
“Cynbad Marigold…you are in a forever, until the end of time relationship, with a male whose stamina has to compete with a racehorse’s to keep up with you.”
“Just because I’ve chosen the cake I want doesn’t mean I don’t notice how good the others in the case look. And Mick hasn’t lost a race yet.”
Vera eyed her. “Get out of my office. Your tender smile creeps me out.”
Cyn’s sexy laugh trailed over her shoulder as she headed for the stairs. “See you later, HR nazi.”
Two days later, Vera had a meeting with the client near Rev’s middle school again. She’d called the school that morning to verify Rev was working today, and that he usually took his lunch break around one-thirty. She could have left a “call me back” message for him, but for certain things, she was on the same page as he was about the phone. Asking him if he was ready to join her at Club Progeny, now that they’d had their first date, was a face-to-face thing.
She let Bastion know she was taking a long personal lunch hour. When she told him it was none of his business who she was meeting, he smugly informed her she’d told him exactly who it was. She didn’t confirm. Or deny.
When she arrived, she went to the admin offices for her visitor pass. “I can page Rev for you,” Cherry, the school secretary, told her. Mavis was at a school board meeting.
“If you know where he takes his lunch, I’ll go there, so he doesn’t waste any of it coming up here to fetch me.”
“Where you met Mavis on your last visit, the shed by the playing fields? You’ll probably find him with one or more of the kids. They like to talk to him during their lunch breaks.”
“Mavis said he’s the kid whisperer.”
“Not just with kids. He has this knack...” Cherry stopped. “Anyway. He’s good with people.”
“I went to his church this past Sunday.” Vera turned as if starting for the office door, but casually threw that out. “I saw him help a sick woman, just by holding her hand and talking to her. Singing to her.”
“Yes. That’s just like him.” Cherry’s more open expression told Vera she’d knocked on the right door to find out what the admin had been going to say. Her voice dropped a little. “My husband and I, we were going through a rough patch about a year ago.”
“I’m so sorry.” Vera’s sympathy was genuine. She came back to the desk. “I hope that means you’re okay now.”
“We are. Much better.” Cherry offered a grateful smile. “Thank you. Anyway, Rev happened to come by my car when I was feeling low about it. He took my hand and told me it was going to be okay. He asked to pray with me. For me.”
She waved a hand. “I’m not really into that, but he said I wouldn’t have to do anything. He put his hand on my shoulder, and prayed, and I did feel better.
“Later that day, I felt like my husband and I had just been looking at the problem in the wrong way, drawing battle lines instead of working together. I was about to call him when he called me, and we both said how sorry we were…”
She shook her head. “That all sounds just like common sense, stepping back from the problem, giving it time to breathe. Maybe that’s all it was, but honestly, that day before I saw Rev, I was reaching my wit’s end. I was considering whether we needed to separate. I don’t know what it is about him, but it’s something special.”
Her blue eyes fastened on Vera. “He’s important to all of us here.”
“Is that a warning?”
Cherry’s cheeks warmed. “I apologize. I wasn’t trying…”
“Watching out for a friend isn’t anything to apologize for. Not in my book. I’m asking if I’ve given you reason to think I need the warning.”
“Not at all.” Cherry tapped her pencil on her desk. “Rev doesn’t need anyone’s protection. Most people, if they have the wrong intentions, they won’t make any headway with him. He’s not a pushover.”
Vera agreed with the assessment, but still… “Most?”
“Just a general qualifier,” Cherry said.
She was covering the slip, and Vera could let it go, but Rev’s wellbeing was becoming important to Vera as well.
I am a Mistress. Don’t fuck with my toys.
A T-shirt message Vera had seen on Lace M. Tight, a Mistress/switch who did whip demos, as well as bondage performance art. Her real name was Laci Montague, and when she’d shared a drink with them at the BDSM conference they’d all been attending, she’d told the TRA women she liked being a rope bunny for the Zen of it all, and using the whip to exercise her inner warrior. She refused to be classified and changed her preferences all the time. Whatever served her art, she would follow.
Vera thought Rev would like her. Lace would like him, far too much. But she’d also fully understand what drove Vera’s surge of protective feelings now. “When I was at the church, I noticed some not-so-friendly vibes from his cousin and aunt,” Vera said. “I expect that’s who you mean by ‘most’?”
Vera spoke plainly, so the woman could decide how she wanted to answer. And if she wanted to answer.
Cherry’s gaze flickered. “When they come to the school to pick him up for church events, they don’t seem to like how much we appreciate Rev. Truthfully, it seems to bug them, like they’d rather him not work here at all.”
“I thought Witford got him the job.”
“He helped him apply, because Rev insisted he needed a job outside of the church, but they really want him to come back to work fulltime with them.”
A teacher entered the office with a folder in hand and an expectant look for Cherry, so the secretary handed Vera her visitor pass. “I may have spoken out of turn,” she said, “but Mavis trusts you, and if you and Rev are becoming…closer, I wanted you to know.”
“What you told me is nothing Mavis wouldn’t have told me if I asked the same questions. You can verify that with her.”
The slight tension in her expression eased. “Thank you. And by the way,” her eyes danced, “Mavis loves knowing you’re interested in him. She says he deserves a good woman who’ll treat him right.”
“Tell her if she’s not going to pick up the slack and handle it, someone’s got to.”
Cherry’s laughter followed her to the door. Vera smiled at the incoming male student who held it for her. Under her approving smile, he nearly tripped over his own feet. He watched her head down the hall, something she noted in her peripheral vision, but his act of courtesy had earned him the look. It was never too early to teach boys the rewards for service to a Dominant woman.
The playing fields were overrun by kids on their lunch period. As Cherry had warned, Rev had company, but Vera wanted to watch him a few minutes before announcing herself, so she leaned against a post by the back entrance.
He sat on the bench that hid the first part of the intriguing quote. An open container with a half-eaten sandwich was on his right, his lunch companion on his left.
She had a blond ponytail, expressive eyes and even more expressive hands. She was signing to him. And he was signing back.
He wasn’t fluent, but he was learning. The girl giggled when he got it wrong and showed him the proper way to do the word he’d attempted. Then she gestured to the sky. Rev tilted his head, and they looked together before the girl said something and brought his attention back down to her.
That was when he saw Vera. He pointed toward her, and the girl turned. The teen mouthed a woo-hoo taunt and Rev executed a mock swat at her head. She ducked, lips parted in laughter.
Vera started moving toward him. The flat sound of the laughter confirmed the girl had been born deaf, or lost her hearing before her speech skills developed. By the time Vera reached Rev, she’d run down the hill to rejoin her friends. Rev rose, an act of deference that pleased Vera. She took his outstretched hand in a squeeze that locked and held.
“I wanted to reissue my earlier invite to the club I frequent,” she told him. “And I wanted to do it in person.”
His gaze flickered but swept over her, warm and very welcoming, taking in her heels, sheer hose, fitted skirt and silk blouse. “You a really nice surprise, Mistress.”
Between them was the shimmering memory of when they’d last been together, skin to skin, him inside her body. She reminded herself Mavis might frown on her ravishing him against the shed. She’d totally understand, but she’d frown on it.
“You’re learning sign language?”
“Yeah. She spends some of her lunch period teaching me, and she brought me a few picture books so I could learn more when she’s not around.”
“Your idea or hers?”
“Some of both. Kids have a lot of ways of talking. I like learning them, because it help me know when something’s not right with them. Also gives her someone else who can understand her in the way that’s easiest for her. Most of her life is the harder way, though she handles it good. She can speak, so she can say the words as she signs them.”
Vera glanced at the sky. “What was she pointing at?”
“She said that yesterday, right before sunset, there was two layers of cloud, one above and one right below the sun. The sun looked like the eye of an alligator, and the bottom clouds were split, so it looked like his mouth.” He pointed to his eye, then made a gesture that looked like an alligator’s jaw clapping together, straight up and down. “That’s alligator.”
“Yes, it is.” She made the same sign back. “Our information systems and graphic design VP, Skye, is mute, so we’ve all learned. You saw her the other day. The one on the second level, with the spiky hair?”
“That good to know. I’ll have another couple teachers to help me learn more, and impress Debbie when I see her here. Skye isn’t deaf?”
“No. But she’s told us the same thing you just did. It’s nice to find people who can sign. She communicates with electronic voices for others.”
“That rare, a person being mute but not deaf. Something happen to her throat?” Rev gestured to the bench. “Will you sit with me?”
At her agreement, he ducked into the shed, returning with a clean towel. He laid it on the bench. “It not dirty, but it’s outdoors and you wearing nice clothes.” His gaze slid over her again. Today it was a purple skirt and green and purple striped blouse, with amethyst and silver jewelry.
It was a short bench, so their legs and hips touched when she sat down. She glanced down at her slim and delicate heel, aligned with his work shoe.
“They don’t know,” she said, returning to his question about Skye. “She was in a car accident with her father when she was very young. It was fatal for him, and they think it was a neurological injury of some sort.” Vera recalled the times their group had touched on that story, with care, when Skye wanted to talk about it. “She has this odd memory, that her father told her he was taking her voice with him to Heaven, to remember her by. She thinks he’d give it back if she asked, but she wants him to have it.”
Though Skye had never said it was a secret, it was one of those things Vera wouldn’t say casually to someone, but she didn’t feel like she was.
Rev gave her a solemn look. “She loved her daddy. It makes her still feel connected to him.”
“Yes. Skye also feels she’s lucky, because learning to talk a whole different way is a lot easier when you’re a child than when you’re an adult.”
“Yeah. Debbie was born deaf. It was harder for her to learn how to talk with her vocal cords, not being able to hear the sounds she was making, but her parents wanted her to know how to do both things.”
“Smart parents.” Vera considered if she was about to put her foot into something she shouldn’t, but decided to go there anyway. “Have you ever thought of going back to school? Formally?”
“Why you ask?” His expression remained open, but she detected a guarded tone.
It was a legitimate question. Was she asking for herself? Or for him? Could it be for both?
“You like learning. There are opportunities that come with more formal education. Just looking at these kids, we all know that. Why not for adults, too?”
“I never been moved in that direction, Veracity. But maybe one day I will be. I respect your opinion and will keep it in mind.” He fished in his lunch tote and brought out a package of Oreo Cakesters. “Want half?”
The switch from odd formality to the offer made her blink. Noting it, he smiled. “Be easy with it, Mistress. You didn’t offend me. Just made me think. I liked visiting your office. I like the dancing woman statue in your gardens.”
“I picked that one out.” She took the sweet and bit into it. “I’ll need to walk a few miles to work this off.”
“You look good. Them clothes are lucky to have a body like yours to show them off.”
She nudged him, and he gave her that boyish smile. “You’ve used that line before.”
“No,” he said, with dignity. “Mrs. Everett Meriweather says that to me at church. She about ninety and likes to flirt.”
“You learn any other moves from her?”
“I best hold them as a surprise.” He grinned and his gaze went down past the hem of the skirt. “You have beautiful legs.”
“That your studied opinion, is it?”
“It’s a school. Right place for lots of studying.”
Somehow, they seemed to be sitting even closer now. She delicately brushed a bit of cream off her bottom lip, and enjoyed watching his attention rest there.
“So this club, it’s a place where people, Mistresses, go to…play.”
“Mistresses and Masters, and those who want to serve them.” She gave him a serious look. “Do you feel ready to go with me, now that we’ve had our date?”
“You feel ready to go with me?”
“Would I be asking if I wasn’t?”
He lifted a shoulder. Vera wiped her fingers on the napkin he’d provided. “Tell me what’s in your head, Rev.”
“Thinking of what’s ahead. What’s changing, what’s about to change. How that’s going to touch the people I care about. My family. Weighing what I should do.”
“Anything I can do to help with that?”
“No. But thank you,” he added with grave courtesy. “Some things a man has to think through. But yes, I would like to go with you. When?”
“Friday night. This time, let me pick you up, if you don’t mind. Do you have other questions?”
“Probably a hundred of them, but I’m guessing the best thing to do is to trust it will make sense once I’m there with you. Learning some of it up front might make me more nervous about it than I am already.”
“You don’t look nervous.”
He closed a hand on hers and squeezed, a little tighter than expected. “It’s that thing I told you about. Feeling a lot of mixed-up things inside, wanting and needing you so much, but also wanting and needing to do what makes you happy.”
He glanced at his watch and grimaced. “I got to get some things done before the end of the workday, because I have to be at the church tonight. I not meaning to cut this short…”
“I have a little time. Can I tag along? I promise not to get in the way.”
The skin alongside his eyes crinkled. “Never known a woman that didn’t get in a man’s way, but it not a bad thing. Sure. You get bored, I can walk you back out to the parking lot.”
“I can find my way.”
“It’s not about that. I like walking with you.” He sent a meaningful glance toward her legs, his gaze sliding over her hips in a far-too-appealing way. “And I like watching you walk, Mistress.”
His tasks were in an empty classroom, one used to teach math. The bulletin board was pinned with equations and amusing math puns. She asked Rev if she could help him. He was appalled by the idea, but when she pressed, he told her she could erase the board, something he did on certain days because Mr. Jones was a single father who had to “high tail” it at the end of his last class to pick up his two kids from the elementary school.
After Rev replaced two rusted window locks, he cleaned the blinds, glass and sills. Erasing the board had given her some interesting ideas, so after she used a handwipe from Mr. Jones’ desk to wipe her fingers and took a seat at a student desk, she percolated on those thoughts. All while watching Rev do the windows, which involved plenty of backside and shoulder flexing.
“There’s a Progeny member, Whistler, who operates a cleaning service,” she said. “If you ever need extra work or decide on a job change, he’d be delighted to have someone with your work ethic.” And your great ass .
Rev glanced over his shoulder. “He like to be the one in charge, or is he on the other side?”
“Dominant or submissive,” she said. “Those are two of the terms we often use. As well as Master or Mistress, top and bottom, slave.” At his troubled look, she clarified. “In the BDSM world, it doesn’t mean what it does outside of it. Even inside our world, the terms have various meanings, depending on the desires of the person using them.
“A person with a Dominant sexual orientation may not be an alpha in the outside world, or in a position of power at all. And a sexually submissive male doesn’t mean a weak or docile personality. Far from it. Whistler enjoys submission, and he's also a business owner.”
A driven overachiever, Whistler needed the break that surrendering to a Mistress in session gave him, but it had also spawned a creative twist to his successful cleaning operation.
“He hires submissives for his cleaning business, those with a strong service bent, and many of his clients come from the club. They can get a regular cleaning, but his staff also offers BDSM perks upon request. Role playing and wearing certain kinds of clothing while cleaning. Or…”
The sound of sneakers squeaking down the hallway stopped her. The last period bell had rung, but kids who’d remained for after school activities were still around, as well as other faculty members. Rising, Vera went to the door and closed it. Rev had turned from the windows, wiping his squeegee with a towel as he watched her.
“Wearing restraints,” she finished. “Or having devices strapped to them, or inside them, that stimulate them as they work, so they have to put extra effort into doing the job right. Vibrators, sex toys…”
His eyes widened. “It would be mighty hard to get a window clean with all that going on.”
“Some Doms hope for that. So they can find a missed spot and then punish the sub to ‘improve’ their focus.”
“Does the sub ever mess up on purpose?”
She laughed. “You catch on quick. Sure you haven’t been doing a little Internet surfing?”
He shook his head, but she suspected he didn’t seem more shocked because his own fantasies had wandered down some of those roads. History had proven the human mind didn’t need visual aids to spawn Dominant or submissive cravings—they were already there, and the human mind was more than capable of pursuing them in creative ways.
“Sometimes the Master or Mistress just wants to watch them clean the house. The sub might do additional things if they’ve negotiated that, and both find pleasure in it.”
“Like taking care of the Master or Mistress, too?”
“Yes.”
The cleaning cloth was twisted in his fingers. He’d put the vinegar solution to the side and was studying her.
She laced her hands on the top of the desk. Her legs were folded at an attractive slant, her ankles crossed. “Are you thinking about kissing me, Rev?”
“I am. I also thinking about how you taste.” His gaze drifted down, then back up. “And the way you felt against me. How much you are, how much you might offer me. What I might be able to ask for. It overtakes me, how much I want to ask for.”
It took effort, but she managed not to betray her own “overtaken” reaction, and focus on what he needed to know.
“You’ll see a lot of things at Progeny that can make you feel that way. Some of them may make you uncomfortable.” She tapped her nails on the desk. “What’s important to remember is that everything that happens there is consensual. If something goes over the line, there are monitors, we call them DMs, for dungeon monitors, who are always circling, watching. If they think somebody has gotten so lost in it they’re missing a safety issue, or their sub is in distress and hasn’t been able to voice it, they step in to help.”
“That’s good.” When his expression relaxed, she appreciated the reminder of his guardian instincts.
“You’ll see things you like, that speak to the fantasies you’ve had about a Mistress. But don’t be surprised if you’re intrigued by things you didn’t think you’d find appealing. You might feel uncomfortable with that reaction, but we can talk about any of it, and see if they’re things you would like me to do to you.”
“Or have me do for you?”
“I like that you think of how to serve me first, Rev. But taking you places in your head you don’t expect, and having you discover the bliss in deeper levels of pleasure and service, that’s where I like to go with a sub, though it takes the right connection for it to happen.”
Those windows might never get finished if she kept distracting him like this. But she wasn’t likely to cut the conversation short, not with his full attention on her and his eyes telling her he was tasting every word the way he wanted to taste her.
“The men you find that with…you aren’t with them right now?” When he asked the question, his tone was neutral, but that warned of what lay behind it.
“Sometimes a Dom and sub are only seeking an outlet for those desires in a controlled environment,” she said. “Like at the club, in a scheduled play session. They don’t desire a relationship outside of that. I have several male submissives with whom I share that kind of relationship, though I also consider them my friends. Whistler is one of them.”
She paused, holding his gaze. “It’s something you figure out as you get deeper into that world, the difference between play and friendship, and what happens between a Dom and sub looking for something deeper together.”
“Is play and friendship what you looking for with me? To be another one of them kinds of subs?” He met her gaze. “Cause that don’t interest me.”
Yes, Cherry was right. Rev had no trouble speaking his mind when necessary. She appreciated and respected that, even as she had no problem asserting herself in kind.
“I can’t tell you what the parameters of our relationship will be right now. I don’t think either of us can.” She pushed down the wall that her fear of the past told her to put up. “But wherever we end up going together, I think this is different from what I’ve known before.”
His expression relaxed again, but his eyes still held a measured look. “You asked me if I’d been married,” he said. “Have you?”
“Yes. We divorced some years ago. He’s not part of my life, and we didn’t have any children.”
“Was he…a submissive?”
“No,” she said shortly. “We never got there together. Not in any lasting or real way. We were just young, and Donovan was the right choice for my family, but not for me. I confused the two, because I loved my family and wanted to honor their wishes for me. I didn’t realize then that to truly honor my family, I had to know and be true to myself, and love and respect them from that place of strength.”
She realized her hands on the desk had tightened into a knot, matching what was in her stomach. “I’d rather talk about something else.”
“Okay.” He was studying her in that penetrating way he had, but it didn’t feel like an invasion, someone outside her door she didn’t want there. More like he was the house itself, who understood what kind of haven she needed from what had happened outside that sanctuary. “But I sorry it didn’t work out. It’s hard, for love to end that way.”
“Yes. Rev…really. Ask me something else.”
He set aside his cleaning tools and came to her, dropping to a knee and putting his hand on the arm of the chair. A few seconds of silence ensued between them, him looking at her, eye to eye. “I here for you, Mistress. Will you tell me something you imagining doing to me, from that world you know?”
The pain around her heart loosened, a sensual warmth replacing it. “The list is long, Rev.”
Sparks of light flickered in his eyes. “One thing, then?”
Rising, making sure her hip and thigh brushed his shoulder, her hand following that track, she moved back to the board. Aware of him turning to watch her, she lifted the eraser.
She patted it across the surface, creating layered rectangles of chalk. Then she picked up a piece of chalk and printed words in block lettering.
I dreem of kneeling. For Her.
Beneath that, she wrote in her own flowing cursive.
I dream of You kneeling.
With a quiet rap, she dropped the chalk in the tray and turned. “Come here, Rev.”
She loved these moments, when she issued a command, and a man responded to it, a million reactions in his muscles, in his expression, behind his eyes. That vitality reached out and wrapped her up, so that when she closed her hand over Rev’s wrist, the connection felt blessed by whatever power was behind it, and meant to be, this incredible intimacy. Waves of power shifted between them, carried them.
Lifting his palm to the dusted area, she had him press it there. She kept her hand on his forearm.
“I imagine having you stripped, Rev,” she murmured. “Both hands on the board like this. I’ll pick up that wooden pointer,” she nodded at the cane-like item, “and mark your beautiful ass and thighs. Not enough to cause real pain. Just enough to let you know I like punishing you.”
“Why?”
“Because you let me. Because you want me to.”
His reactions confirmed it. Shortened breath, pupils getting darker and larger, body more tense, closer to her, the energy drawing them together.
“When I tell you that you can remove your hands, your prints will remain on the board, evidence of what I did to you there.” Her gaze shifted. “I might use the eraser on your backside, because I’ll like seeing the chalk mark there, too. When I’m done, I’ll have you stay naked while you write these two lines, over and over, until the board is covered.”
He lifted his other hand and touched her cursive. “Do you really dream of that?”
From the moment I met you. From the moment I felt your hands on me.
But she only said, “Yes.”
Then, lightening the mood, she added, “School scenes are a role-playing favorite in BDSM. Plenty of useful props.”
He looked amused, though his gaze returned to the board. “Why did you capitalize Her and You that way?”
She hadn’t intended to introduce the subject now, worried it could drive a wedge between them before they knew one another well enough to navigate those waters. But her subconscious had had other ideas, and it was right. They’d swim together, or not.
“Because in Tantric terms, we’re reaching out to the divine in ourselves. Shiva to Shakti. Shakti to Shiva. For my faith, Wicca, it’s Lord to Lady, Lady to Lord.”
“You’re not Christian.” His gaze moved to her pentacle.
She stiffened, but his tone and body language held no censure. “There are beautiful truths in that faith,” she said. “But Wicca was the path where I felt the Divine’s presence the most strongly, where it spoke to me in a way I wanted to answer. You can straighten.”
The breath he drew in was unsteady. When he turned, and she stepped up to him, her breasts brushing his chest, her hand dropping, she knew she’d find the erection beneath his work clothes. She stroked it, enjoying a Mistress’s right.
“Veracity,” he said low, but he didn’t stop her. One hand gripped the chalk tray.
“I have the right to touch what’s mine when I want to do so. Is this mine?”
His expression was tight with self-restraint. “Yes. I want it to be.”
A little unsettled by how strong the desire to voice that had felt, she reined herself in and stepped back. The heat of him through his clothes seared her empty palm.
He read her intent to take a breath, and as he pulled himself back in line with it, he touched her pentacle. “This is a symbol of your faith. Like the cross is for mine.”
“Yes. The four points represent the elements, the top point the divine in all. The circle around it symbolizes the cycles of the seasons. It’s also a reminder of how life and death itself is a never-ending circle.” She closed her hand over it, and he brushed his fingers over her knuckles.
“What is the most important rule in it? Wicca.” He pronounced the new term carefully.
“And it harm none, do as you will. Which I interpret as love one another and respect all life.”
“Like do unto others, the golden rule.”
“Yes. A lot like that. It also believes that any harm we do will be visited upon us, three times over. Not just as a punishment, but as a lesson and a balance, to bring us closer to the Lord and Lady’s path.”
He glanced at the windows. “I better finish that.”
“You’d better. Yes.”
He ran a hand down her arm, then returned to his task. When she sat back down at the student desk, she checked her phone for work messages, and once again enjoyed the view as he worked. The vinegar cleaner smell was sharp but not unpleasant. When he finally spoke again, his mind had returned to their upcoming plans. “What should I wear?”
“There’s no dress code, but any excessively revealing clothing has to be covered outside the club. Inside the club, people wear everything from suits and fancy nightclub dresses to jeans and T-shirts or fetish wear. Leather, latex, costumes. Some may be naked, if that’s what their Masters and Mistresses desire.”
“In front of everyone?”
“In front of everyone.”
“And they don’t have no say in it?”
“They have a say in everything. Everything is consensual,” she reminded him. “The relationship is negotiated up front, altered by mutual agreement as they grow together. That can include what’s called consensual non-consent, where a submissive has agreed to turn over all choices to the Dom, unless there’s a medical emergency.
“They have a way of signaling that, if the Domme doesn’t catch it herself, which she should, but it’s always good to know your sub is looking out for himself as much as you are. Even if you’re also hoping they’ll trust you to move outside their comfort zone into an area you both might enjoy more.”
“All this is tumbling through my head like a dryer full of warm socks.” He finished the last window and turned to her. “I didn’t say it right. What would you like me to wear?”
Her eyes wandered downward, taking her time. “Jeans that fit the right way.”
“What’s the right way?”
“Not too tight, but I want to be able to see your backside, and get a good reminder of how much cock you’re carrying.” She liked the stain of color the words brought to his cheeks, the spark of fire in his eyes, but continued in a casual tone. “Choose a shirt you think I’d like, but I might have you take it off while we’re there.”
“So you can…show me off?”
As soon as he spoke the words, she detected the resistance in them. Rising, she came to him and rested her fingertips on his chest. “So I can touch your bare skin whenever I wish. But if you’re uncomfortable with being exposed like that, I’ll reserve that as a private pleasure.”
He shifted. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have?—"
“You absolutely should have,” she said. “I told you how I feel about honesty, Rev. The only rule I have about you expressing it to me is that you be respectful. Creativity earns extra credit. I’ll give you an example. ‘Mistress, may I ask that you have me undress only for you, in private?’”
The appreciation in his chuckle made it even sexier. She could tell he was internalizing everything, a man used to taking notes in his head. “The only way you can disappoint me is if I demand something that makes you uncomfortable in the wrong ways, and you don’t let me know.”
Her piercing Mistress look stilled him, pulling his focus to her. “If I’m paying attention the way I should,” she said, “I’ll know. But I don’t recommend having me find out that way. As I said, I want to feel like you are mine. You asking me if it’s okay to do something or not do something honors that, while protecting our pleasure, the beauty and power of our time together. Do you understand?”
So many things could change that gingerbread color in his irises, creating intriguing lights and shadows. “Yes, Mistress. I think I do.” He let out another breath. “I’m smack in the middle of things I dreamed about, but there’s more there than I understand. I want to, though.”
“You’ll understand more as we go along, just as you suspected. But you have the right and ability to protect yourself at all times, to let me know your desires, and to ask questions. If you keep that in mind, we’ll have a good time. That said, if the club isn’t your scene, if you find you really don’t like it there, you can tell me and we’ll go.”
He frowned. “But won’t that mean you won’t want to see me no more?”
“If it does, then that’s what’s meant to be.” She tapped his chest. “But it won’t necessarily mean that. There are plenty of ways to explore domination and submission that don’t involve a formal venue at all.” Her gaze slid around the classroom. “As I think I just demonstrated.”
His tense expression morphed into a rueful half smile.
“Yes ma’am. You sure did.”