Chapter 6
Chapter Six
Audrey
It was clear that asking about subs was making everyone really uncomfortable, and Audrey almost backed off, but she wanted to know what Noelle had meant.
Not knowing made her feel left out, like there was some big secret that everyone knew that she didn’t.
Even Noelle and Zeus, who didn’t seem to be accepted by everyone in the group, knew. So, why shouldn’t she?
“She’s probably going to find out, eventually,” Cassidy said to David, patting his shoulder sympathetically. “At game night, if not at book club.”
“Find out what?” Audrey wasn’t used to being pushy, but sometimes, a girl just had to know.
It didn’t hurt that whatever it was, Mason was obviously involved, too.
Maybe it would be something that would turn her off from him, since being engaged to another woman hadn’t fully wiped out her reaction to him.
Knowing that their relationship was arranged made some part of her feel like it was okay to be attracted to him, even though if she could make a conscious decision about it, finding out he was engaged would have cut that off cold turkey.
“You know how I explained that hucow is a kink? Well, there are other types of kinks, too, and we all belong to a club where people can explore those kinks,” Cassidy said quickly.
Beside her, David groaned and put his hand over his face. He could be a bit of a drama queen sometimes. Grandma was right about that. Beside him, Mason was shifting in place uncomfortably and looking anywhere but at her, which she tried to ignore.
“The submissives at the club call them the Spice Doms and gave them the nickname.”
“Doms?”
“Dominants. As opposed to submissives.”
“And the submissives are the hucows?” Audrey was so lost, but she was trying to understand, she really was, and also trying not to show any judgment on her face.
She wasn’t judging, she was just… surprised.
Uncertain. But she didn’t want to make them feel bad, especially Cassidy, who had already been so nice and was trying so hard. David groaned.
“No, well, yes, a hucow would probably be a submissive, but that’s just one type of kink. There are lots of submissives who aren’t into that.” Cassidy blew out a long breath. “I feel like I’m doing a bad job of this. Mason, you’re a psychologist, how would you explain it?”
Mason froze. Audrey got the impression he kind of wanted to run. She should probably let him off the hook, but she was intrigued now, as well as confused. And, honestly, it would be nice to have someone other than her brother or her brother’s girlfriend explaining this kink stuff to her.
“Ah, well… different strokes for different folks, first of all,” he said, flashing a grin at Audrey as he reached up to run his fingers through his hair.
The tone of his voice had changed to more of a lecturing one, so he was giving off a sexy professor vibe.
“There are all sorts of reasons people get into kink, and there have been some studies that give us reason to believe that genetics do play a part in it.”
“I’m out. I can’t be here while he talks about kinks being genetic to my sister,” David said, throwing his hands up in the air and stalking away.
Cassidy followed him, her voice low and chiding.
While she couldn’t hear exactly what Cassidy was saying, Audrey got the impression that she was scolding him.
And now she was alone with Mason.
Sexy, unavailable, engaged to another woman, Mason. Audrey looked up at him as he watched Cassidy and David go.
“You don’t have to keep talking about this with me,” she reassured him. Did she want to hear what he had to say? Yes. But he was uncomfortable. And engaged. Maybe it would be different if he was single, but he wasn’t. “I can look it up later. Do my own research.”
“Well, there’s a lot of information out there, and not all of it is correct.
” He cleared his throat. “If you have any questions, feel free to come to me. Or any of the women. Well, maybe not Noelle. But Cassidy, Claudia, Naomi, Yasmine… they’re all members of the club, too.
Jennifer is also in the scene, although she doesn’t go to the club, and she’d be able to answer questions as well. ”
“They’re all submissive?”
“Oh, no.” He practically choked on his drink, laughing and coughing as he slapped his hand against his chest. “Claudia is definitely not submissive. She’s one of the Spice Doms, too, and there’s a reason the subs chose her to be Scary. Trust me, you do not want to be on that woman’s bad side.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to be on Naomi’s bad side either,” she muttered. But apparently, Naomi was submissive since Mason didn’t name her as another dominant. “So, the dominants are in charge? But Naomi and Claudia seem like they’re both in-charge personalities.”
“They are, but what someone wants inside the bedroom—or in a platonic kink relationship—might not match up with how they are in their day-to-day life. There are some people who are in charge all day who want nothing more than to give up control to someone else when they get home. And there are some people who are extremely passive outside of the club, but they’re dominant in their kink life.
Everyone is different, and so is every couple. Or throuple. Or polyamorous group.”
Well, she wasn’t in Kansas anymore.
She wondered if there were kinky people in Kansas. In which case, saying she wasn’t in Kansas anymore wouldn’t really make sense. Not that she’d ever been to Kansas.
And why she was focusing on this inane thought cycle, she had no idea.
“Claudia is a dominant. The rest of the team are also dominants?” She tried to ask it as nonchalantly as she could since his answer would also be personal to him.
“Yes, the whole team is, although that’s not indicative of anything. The other Black Fox team has a submissive with them. Anyone can be submissive or dominant, or completely vanilla and not interested in kink at all.”
“Vanilla means not interested in kink?”
“Yeah, you know. Vanilla. Basic. Nothing unusual.”
Audrey stared at him.
“You know that vanilla is the second most expensive spice in the world, right?” she asked.
“It’s incredibly labor intensive. It only grows in a very specific warm climate; it can take up to three years before the vanilla orchid even starts producing the flowers that become a bean, and it takes another nine to ten months before it’ll produce a vanilla pod.
Every orchid has to be pollinated by hand because the vanilla bean bee is now extinct, and there’s a really small window of time for that pollination process, and even if you get it right, the orchid will only produce one single vanilla bean.
And then there’s the whole harvesting process, which is an ordeal in and of itself! ”
Holding up his hands in front of him, Mason was smiling at her in a way that made her blush. Partly because she hadn’t meant to rip into him, but also partly because, well, his smile did melty things to her insides that she should absolutely be ignoring.
“Hey, I didn’t coin the term. Although I’ll admit, I also had no idea that vanilla took all of that. Especially considering how it’s everywhere.”
“Artificial vanilla is,” she admitted. “If you want to call artificial vanilla basic, I can live with that. Not real vanilla though. Real vanilla is… it’s not basic at all.”
“I can see that.”
He was still smiling at her.
Dammit.
Why did he have to be taken?
Mason
Watching Audrey get flushed and passionate about vanilla was far more interesting than it should have been. Part of him knew he should walk away. Find someone else to talk to.
But he couldn’t do that without bringing her over to someone else. Leaving her alone in the corner here would hardly be welcoming. Everyone else had already abandoned them. Besides, surely the more they talked, the more the luster on her would dim.
Exposure therapy, remember?
They’d been talking about kink. Of course, his brain had gone straight to his attraction to her, to wondering if she’d like a demonstration.
He wasn’t proud of it, but now that he had the opportunity, he could change the conversation.
If they moved onto more mundane topics, more boring topics, then surely the attraction would go away.
She was just another woman, after all. They didn’t really know each other.
They just happened to have met at a time when he was settling down and committing to someone.
Once he got to know her, he’d know that she was just like every other woman he’d met before, regardless of his initial reaction to her.
“Is vanilla your favorite flavor?” he asked.
“No, chocolate is,” she admitted. “I do like vanilla, though. As long as it’s real vanilla. I am a bit of a vanilla snob.”
“Well, now I don’t know if I’ve ever had real vanilla.” He’d had vanilla ice cream and such, but now that she’d gone into a description of what it took to get the real stuff, he was pretty sure the ice cream at the store didn’t contain it.
She laughed. Mason didn’t want to admit how much he liked making her laugh. Knowing she was laughing because of a joke he’d made. Especially since he didn’t think anyone would ever call him ‘the funny one’ on his team. But he wanted to be funny for her.
“I’ll make sure you get to try some sometime soon.” She grinned at him. “How do you feel about crème br?lée?”
“I’ll try anything once. Your baklava was amazing.”
“You still haven’t picked a favorite.”
“It was too difficult. I think you’ll just need to keep making all three for me until I can decide.” He rubbed the bottom of his chin, doing his best to hide his smile and knowing he was failing. Which was fine since he wanted her to know he was joking, so she didn’t feel obligated.
Though if she made them, he’d eat them.
He wasn’t kidding about not being able to decide.
Audrey laughed again. “I can do that.”