Chapter 5 #2
“Okay, let’s start with what you said inside. You’re submissive but you’re not my submissive. What’s that mean?”
“It means that just because I’m submissive, doesn’t mean I agree to submit to you or any Dom in particular.
Submission has to be earned. It’s a little different with the club.
The Doms there are vetted and trained already, so I’ll usually submit to them with just basic negotiation.
But there are a few Doms there I won’t submit to, either. ”
“Why not?” I ask, taking a sip of my beer and feeling the rabbit-hole yawning at my feet. There’s so much I want to know.
“I don’t get along with them or I’m not into the things they’re into. Just because they’re Doms doesn’t mean I like all of them.” She laughs her low, warm laugh. “Plenty of personality clashes between Doms and subs at the club, just like anywhere. Has Logan taken you?”
I shake my head. “He’s invited me, but I’m not sure I’m ready. Rick’s friend Daisy was talking it up last weekend. I gather you know her. She mentioned you.”
“Yeah, I know her. I held her hair when she was puking into the sink last night.” Brenna’s smile twists at the memory. “She’s a sweetie. I know she doesn’t look it—”
I wave that off. “I agree. And I don’t hold being Rick’s friend against her.”
“Yeah, no, me neither. Rick’s party went really bad. I understand you didn’t want to say anything in front of Theo, but I’m guessing you’re more than just Logan’s old friend from the Navy?”
I nod. “I handle most of the IT side of Logan’s investigations.”
“He is utterly clueless when it comes to computers. Well, social media and networking, anyway. I remember when he tried to set up a chat group for the house submissives. It was a disaster. Austin and I finally took pity on him and did it. And Emily says he’s on InLinked. I mean, come on.”
I smother a chuckle in another sip of beer. “Yeah. So, I noticed you didn’t get him coffee or tea. Any reason why not?”
“This is kind of a gray area,” she says, drawing up a knee and resting her elbow on it.
“Submission’s a spectrum, okay? I’m on the service submissive end of the spectrum, which means I get off on performing personal services for Doms. Usually that’s part of a negotiated scene.
But this morning, I was surrounded by Doms who top me pretty regularly and I just kind of fell into it.
Another submissive might not have or might have gotten coffee just for the Dom topping her at the time. ”
“But not Logan?”
She takes a sip of beer. “No. Look, Logan and I aren’t pally. I know he’s your friend, but he barely tolerates me. I try to stay out of his way. Also, he and Emily are exclusive. I wouldn’t generally do service sub kind of things for a Dom who is exclusive with another sub.”
“But you did for Jiro,” I observe.
She squirms. “Yeah, okay, you caught me. I try to stay under Logan’s radar. Please don’t tell him, okay? I just don’t want him to prevent Emmy from spending time with me. Not that I think he would, but, you know.”
I make a locking gesture over my lips. “I don’t think he’d do that, either, but just for tonight, let’s say everything said here stays between the two of us.”
Mischief dances in those deep brown eyes. I don’t think she minds having a secret from Logan.
“Sounds good.”
“Tell me about Theo owning your ass until midnight tomorrow?”
“Okay, now that’s a good question. Theo and I negotiated a scene earlier in the week.
He’s a big fan of something called humiliation play or erotic embarrassment.
So, the idea of the scene was that he gave me some tasks to do at the club.
I can’t tell you what they were because there’s stuff about the club I’m not allowed to talk about to non-members, but let’s just say they were designed to embarrass me in front of an audience, or it was embarrassing if I failed—”
“Just a sec. I get why that might be fun for Theo.” And my blood’s running warm at the idea. “What do you get out of it?”
Brenna rubs her thighs together as she wriggles on the bench.
“It’s a turn on. Don’t ask me why, it just is.
And it’s a challenge to see if I can do the things he wants me to do.
So, it’s kind of a double-whammy. I win if I succeed, and by succeeding, I get my Dom’s approval, and we were doing the scene in front of an audience, so I get their approval, too. See?”
I nod. “Yeah, okay.”
“Anyway, I failed to, uh, complete one of the tasks. If I’d won, he’d have had to let me orgasm whenever I wanted for the rest of the night and for the next three scenes we do.
But I blew it, so my forfeit was to give him total control until midnight Sunday.
With Theo that means no orgasms until then.
” She rolls her eyes eloquently. “That’s orgasm denial.
It’s a frequent punishment, although a lot of submissives kink on being denied, so it can be a funishment instead of a punishment. Do you know the difference?”
“What it says on the tin? A punishment hurts. A funishment is really a game.”
Brenna see-saws her free hand. “Kinda. But remember how I said submission’s a spectrum?
Some submissives don’t want any pain at all, like not even compressive pain from binding or cuffs.
Some like a little pain, like a mild spanking.
Some totally get off on pain, even serious pain like piercing and branding.
That’s me. I’m a pain-slut. Pain is a huge turn on for me.
Not all kinds of pain. I’m not into cutting or scratching sensations.
But sting and thump, like from a spanking or a flogging? Sign me the fuck up.”
“You enjoy spankings?”
“Erotic spankings, yeah, absolutely. I’ve never had a true punishment spanking; they’re a different beast. One of my friends at the club, her old Dom used to give her true punishment spankings.
There wasn’t any warmup or any sexual stuff during the spanking.
He was just hitting her to make sure she knew she’d done something to piss him off and not to do it again. She says they were awful.”
“Explain a warmup.”
“Okay, have you watched erotic spankings?” At my nod, she continues, “Porn or have you watched Logan and Emily?”
“Porn,” I say, not yet willing to explain Pixie.
“Porn isn’t really the best representation of kink, so don’t take what you see in porn too literally.
The negotiation happens before they shoot—if at all—and other stuff happens off camera, too.
But usually, in an erotic spanking, the Dom isn’t just whaling away at my ass.
They’ll touch me a bunch first to make sure I’m aroused.
It’s much easier to handle pain if I’m turned on.
They’ll start with lighter hits until my skin’s warm to the touch.
That helps desensitize the area a little before the heavier hits.
There are also places that hurt more than others.
The crease between the butt cheek and the thigh?
Fucking ouch. Backs of the thighs? Also ouch.
Top of my ass near my spine? Motherfucking ouch.
Also, it’s not a good idea to hit someone there unless you really know what you’re doing because you can damage their spine. ”
I gulp.
“I’ll be honest with you, that’s one of the things I’m most afraid of. I watch some of these videos and it looks like the girl’s going to be crippled for fucking life and . . . it makes me crazy. I want to charge in and save her.”
“Ah.” She nods. “First of all, you’re probably not a sadist. Which is totally fine. Lots of Doms aren’t. But a sadist would have a different reaction. Second, this is a good time to talk about safe words. Do you know what safe words are?”
“I have an idea. Logan had Emily repeat her safe words before the scene I watched. But she didn’t use them. What happens if she uses them?”
“Depends on the safe word. Lots of players use the traffic light system. So green is all good, keep going. Yellow is this is getting really scary or painful and it might be better if we did something else. Red means stop. Really stop. Not think about stopping. Fucking stop and find out what’s wrong.
It might mean the scene is over completely and it’s time for aftercare, or it might mean stop and fix the thing that’s gone wrong and then we can keep going.
But you have to stop straight away. Did Logan have Emily say yellow and red? ”
I nod.
“Those are common. Not universal, though, so if you’re negotiating a scene, it’s a good idea to just make sure the submissive knows what the traffic lights mean.
It’s also important for you as the Dom to make the submissive understand that it’s okay to use their safe words.
Safe words are no good to anyone if the submissive is too intimidated or reluctant to use them. ”
“Does that happen?” I ask.
“Sure. I mean, most submissives are a little reluctant to use their safe words. Not all. Some submissives use safe words like an offensive weapon.” Brenna rolls her eyes.
“Other than those guys, most submissives don’t want to use a safe word, because they don’t want the scene to end prematurely.
The whole point of a scene is that everyone in it wants what’s happening, at least at some level.
We can talk about consensual non consent another time, because that’s a whole different ball game.
But in most scenes, everyone’s there because they want to be.
It’s fun, it’s exciting, it’s sexy, there are probably going to be orgasms, although kink isn’t always about sex, but everyone gets something out of a scene.
No one wants to stop it too early. What’s more, unless the Dom’s really experienced and chill, a submissive using a safe word freaks out the Dom.
So even if the submissive is okay to keep going after whatever was wrong has been fixed, the Dom might not want to.
Here’s an example. I was doing a rigging scene last week with a pretty new Dom—