2. Salt
TWO
SALT
I needed to be locked up.
There’d been something about the woman at the coffee shop. I couldn’t remember the last time someone had sparked the feral side of me.
Dark brown hair with silver strands framing her heart-shaped face. Hips I wanted to trace with my calloused fingers. An ass I wanted to bite.
Of course, I hadn’t really seen her ass, given she was wearing a coat.
But every ass was biteable. Spankable.
She didn’t see how the room moved for her. It was frustrating. Her phone held to her ear, shoulders beyond tense. I’d heard snippets of whatever the fucker on the other side of the call said, and it’d infuriated me. I couldn’t believe she’d let anyone speak to her that way.
My head tipped back as I stroked my cock faster. Soft whimpers echoed through my bathroom. Hot water streaked down my back muscles, heating my skin and scalding me with the same burn my thoughts carried.
She wouldn’t even look at me.
I’d called her a good girl.
It had slipped out before I could stop myself.
Like I said, I needed to be locked up. I couldn’t just go around dominating people in coffee shops on random Thursday mornings. Not only was that probably against the ethics of practicing good and safe kink, it was fucking weird.
Most people would have looked back, but not her. Why wouldn’t she fucking look at me? Why couldn’t she have yelled at me? Scoffed at me?
A growl left me as I stroked faster, my calloused palm gliding over every inch. So close, so close, so close ? —
My thoughts became dirtier. They were wrong. But that wrongness seeped down to my bones, and I knew the only thing that would make me come was imagining Pepper getting on her knees for me. That’d been her name, right? Pepper.
Salt and Pepper.
I wondered if Pepper was her real name. Salt was my real name, but it wasn’t my first, it was my last.
Had her parents really named her Pepper?
Her coat had been so fucking expensive. A five-thousand-dollar coat. She reeked of the kind of wealth I would never see. I imagined coming on her face and watching her pink tongue dart out to lap up every drop, even watching it drip down to her luxurious coat, staining the fine wool.
“Fuck,” I grunted, giving one final pump.
Cum burst from my cock, the endorphins swallowing me up in their waves of pleasure. The thoughts of the stranger faded with the orgasm, my moans melting along with the rest of my body.
I breathed out, basking in the momentary relief.
Just a few seconds of bliss.
My mind didn’t allow me to feel content for long. Instead, all my problems came flooding back in once my cock stopped throbbing. I stood still for a moment and then reached for my soap, washing down quickly.
The numbness set back in, colors leached away. I flipped off the water and dragged the shower curtain back, snatching my towel from the bar on the wall.
I hated this bathroom. I hated this house. The last time I was here was seven years ago, the night I’d run away from my father for good. It’d been the last time I saw him alive, too.
I dried off quickly, stepped out of the shower, and opened the door to let steam swirl out. While I knew my father was dead, every single muscle tensed in my body as I thought about all the times I’d been scared to leave the bathroom. All the times I’d been yelled at or hit.
The mirror reflected my misery. I sucked in a breath, trying to pull it together.
It’d been six months since I’d gotten the call that he died. After years of alcoholism, his body had finally given out.
That part didn’t shock me.
What did was the fact that he’d left the house to me, along with all the money he had in the bank. Not that it’d been a lot, but it was enough to help me bury him properly.
I’d let the house sit empty for three months. I couldn’t bring myself to walk through the front door at first, but then my apartment lease was up, and I’d needed more space for the band to practice. Doing that in a house instead of an apartment made a lot more sense, and I wanted us to be as perfect as possible.
So, I’d moved in. And I was looking forward to the day I could move out.
About a year ago, I started posting videos online of songs I’d written. I never dreamed it would go anywhere. Music was just an outlet for me, a way to pour all of my dark parts into something healthy. In fact, my therapist was the one who’d recommended I do that.
But then people liked it. They liked it a lot. And I started having fun with it, bringing all the stuff I enjoyed most to my songs. Sex. Fucking. Kink.
And people really, really liked that.
Now, I had a band and was playing Nashville. I wasn’t sure how long I’d be able to make it in this house, but for now, I had to stay.
One day, I’d sell it for good. I’d have enough money to finally leave the ghosts who haunted these broken and bruised walls. I’d be able to get rid of the guitar my asshole father gave me years ago, and buy something shiny and new.
It was fucked up that the one thing he’d given me, aside from multiple broken bones and a sadistic streak, was a love for music.
Music kept me alive years ago, and it kept me alive now.
I stepped out into the hall and stood still for a moment, listening for the creak of footsteps, as if his ghost lingered. I’d seen his body put in the ground, but the fear I harbored while living here stained the walls like cigarette smoke—permeating the floorboards, the ceilings, the windows.
I wasn’t sure how he’d managed to keep the house. I thought about that as I padded down the hall to my bedroom, picked up my guitar, and sprawled out on my bed, fingering the neck while the fan made lazy, squeaky laps.
My eyes closed as I played, my fingers moving on autopilot. I needed to text the band. Jack was my bass player, Tyler was my drummer, and Eric was my pianist—and making sure they were ready for the show tomorrow was a priority. I needed to plan some thirst traps for my social media accounts. I also needed to put together a fresh setlist, something that had a mix of original work and familiar songs to keep the crowd engaged.
Being a songwriter in Nashville was the equivalent of being a shiny penny in a fountain. We were all used up wishes waiting to be picked up and dried off, or forever forgotten.
Regardless, I still wrote my songs. And enough people liked them now that maybe, just maybe, I’d be able to grow into something substantial.
Wearing a mask and being shirtless on stage helped.
That reminded me, I needed to finish making the leather harness I’d started a few days ago. I sighed, trying to wade through the clouds of stress. Normally, I didn’t feel this way, but being in this house made me feel like I was suffocating.
Music was technically my secondary job. My primary source of income was creating custom leather goods and sex furniture. I’d been doing it for a few years now, and enjoyed everything about it. I liked working with my hands. I liked making client’s erotic fantasies some true.
Anytime I told someone what I built, they always got a glazed look of surprise on their face. Jack, Tyler, and Eric liked to give me shit about it, though they were certainly jealous.
I’d always been good with my hands. I’d always been creative, too. Working with hard wood, the kind that came from trees, was second nature to me.
It was how I ended up joining the kink community to begin with.
My mentor was a fifty-seven-year-old lesbian Dominatrix named Nancy. She’d been in the BDSM community for over two decades and had shown me immense kindness. Truly, I wouldn’t have been who I was today without her and her wife, Beth.
Seven years ago, I met her outside a sex club, and she’d kept me from doing something stupid with a stranger. At the time, I had no money. I’d run from my father the year before but never found a place to live. Somehow, I made it work, working odd jobs here and there. A man offered me a hundred bucks to let him fuck me, and that had seemed like a lot of money then. It would have been enough to keep me fed for the month if I was smart with it.
I’d been lucky, though.
Nancy intervened, and it’d been a whirlwind from there. I ended up going home with her and sleeping in her guest bedroom for two days straight. She and Beth kept me fed without asking any questions.
It was the first time I’d ever slept under a roof and felt safe.
Beth was a professional woodworker. Nancy was a professional Dominatrix. They’d given me a home, a job, and sent me to therapy. They’d been patient with me while I figured out how to navigate being an adult.
If Nancy ever found out I’d called a random woman a good girl in the middle of a coffee shop, she’d disown me.
Well, she probably wouldn’t—but she’d give me an icy stare down that would make me piss myself.
I sighed and put my guitar down.
Maybe this weekend I’d finish gutting the house of my father’s belongings. His bedroom and office were all that was left, but even touching the doorknob made my heart feel like it was going to burst out of my chest.
Really, I just wanted to light everything on fire and watch it all burn to ash.
Despite the desire to rot in bed, I reached for my phone and opened up Instagram. One of my videos went viral last week, and the comments never failed to make me laugh.
Men, in general, were an insecure bunch of fuckwads. Most of the comments were positive, until it landed on the wrong side of the algorithm. Then videos of me playing my songs were flooded with comments from right-wing idiots trying to hurl insults at me.
They weren’t good at it, though. I wasn’t really sure what the goal was, but the last thing that would actually fuck me up was a comment from someone who couldn’t tell the difference between their , there , and they’re .
Also, they were just helping my videos get to more people.That was the kicker of it all.
I scrolled for a bit, thinking about what I’d post next. I had a song I was working on, but the riff wasn’t exactly where I wanted it yet. It was torturing me.
A text message flashed across the top of the screen from Beth and I sighed.
We have two St. Andrew's crosses to build today and a spanking bench. Stop playing with your little band and get your ass to the workshop.
I snorted.
Yes, ma’am
Pick me up some of that bubble tea too. The one with the balls. And don’t tell Nancy. I’m supposed to be off sugar
I rolled my eyes.
I’m not supposed to encourage you being a brat
Respect your elders
I barked out a laugh and sat up. Beth was right, unfortunately.
I had sex furniture to build, songs to write, and money to make. Wallowing in my dead father’s house didn’t fit into that picture.
Neither did fantasizing about a stranger in a coffee shop.