Three
Dare
The lounge was a place where boundaries and kinks were tested.
Thick doors and soundproofed walls were the basic requirements of Club Lyrics.
Most people would spit on the ground and frown like they'd tasted lemons each time discussions about BDSM came up.
It was funny how people who'd never stepped inside BDSM love to name it from the outside.
Abomination, deviant or sick were words I'd heard every single time.
I'd chalked it up to people being ignorant and shrinking the lifestyle down to a slur, so they don't have to look at the whole thing. Abomination was calling something evil when you hadn’t bothered to learn what it was about.
Abomination should be assuming the worst of strangers and what they do sexually to feel better about yourself and the choices you make regarding sex.
BDSM wasn't just one thing. It was an umbrella housing Bondage and Discipline, Dominance and Submission, Sadism and Masochism.
Some folks are into one letter and not all six.
Some like being tied up with scarves, giving orders or taking them.
Lumping every BDSM scene under whips and chains was like calling every sport ball.
The whole concept of BDSM ran on consent.
I used to think it was about people who didn't care about limits, but I was dead wrong.
Core members of the lifestyle talk more about consent in one night than most couples do in a year.
Negotiating before anything happened was a must. Questions like; what was okay, what was not, what word would stop everything and what word meant continue.
BDSM was not abuse with permission. It was about temporarily giving power with rules and the ability to take it back instantly.
The submissive was the one with real control because they set the limits and can end the scene anytime.
Dominance and Submission isn’t about someone getting hurt, it’s about someone trusting you not to hurt them beyond what they asked for.
Being a Dom isn’t about being a jerk. I like to think of it as being a steward.
It involved memorizing your Sub's limits like they were passwords, studying anatomy so you'd know where a whipping left bruises and checking in twice as much as you gave orders, and knowing how to untie a knot when your Sub panicked. Being a Dom was knowing what your Sub needed, asking questions and stopping when the safe word is uttered. It’s building trust until someone would fall apart in your hands and know you'd put them back together. The control a Dom held was real, but it’s loaned.
The mistake most folks make was going into the lifestyle with assumptions.
One myth I'd constantly heard people yap about was Subs being broken.
They attached some sort of trauma to anyone who felt okay letting a Dom guide a scene.
Subs aren't broken or filled with trauma.
They are fucking brave because it takes guts to say, “I want to surrender. Here are my terms.”
BDSM didn't invent power exchange, it just took it out of the shadows. Every couple has dynamics which they subconsciously follow, ranging from who decides where to eat, who initiates sex, and who apologizes first. They just never gave it a name, but we do.
The fuckers who spew bullshit about our lifestyle are not mad about the sex because I know they had bad, thoughtless, coercive vanilla sex and nobody called it a sin, but when you sit two adults down to discuss limits, safe words, and aftercare, suddenly you're a deviant, sick or perverted because we brought power, desire and consent into the light and put a label on them.
And one thing muthafuckas hated were labels in situations where they'd been getting away with guesswork.
An abomination would be using someone and not knowing your partner's hard limits. It was fucking doing shit and phrasing it as, “I thought you'd like it” as an excuse for the harm you caused.
And the best part of BDSM was the aftercare. People don't just roll over and go to sleep. Nah, we don't do shit like that. We check in, hydrate, cuddle, talk and process every fucking move that had happened.
The door opened without a knock, and I didn't bother to look up 'cause only two types of people skip the knock here; people I invited and people who knew I wouldn't throw them out for it. I knew which one it was before I saw him.
K.
We'd known each other long enough that we didn’t need names in most rooms. It was a fucking long time to understand that when he showed up, it was never for a drink.
He checked the hall first before closing the door. Smirking, I picked my glass of whiskey from the table, took a sip and raised my brows at his choice of outfit; black Henley with the sleeves pushed up. It wasn't his usual denim pants I'd come to recognize as his scene gear.
“Dare.” He grinned like he got something he knew I would be interested in.
“K.” I watched him and didn't bother hiding how suspicious I was of his motives.
K was a reckless muthafucka and was willing to get into multiple shits. I, on the other hand, was always conscious and looked before I leap.
“What do you want?” I quizzed in resignation when he just stood like a damn mannequin and stared at me.
“Like I said, I got something you like.”
I nodded at the chair across from me, but he didn't sit. K stood by the door with his arms crossed.
“Bro,” I exhaled. “You better not be on some bullshit.”
“You think less of me,” he snickered and shook his head. “It's about a woman. She might be a Sub though.”
I set the now watered down whiskey. “Then why are you in my lounge and not with her?”
“Because she wants to be dominated and fucked by two men,” he shrugged. “She's so damn fine though. You should see her. She's green and I don't want to spoil her first BDSM experience. I need it to be something she would like.”
“You have a dozen Dom’s you could ask to join in.” I furrowed my brows. “Men who owe you.”
“I don’t want them.” He grinned. “I want you.”
“K,” I gritted out, drumming my fingers on the armrest. “Quit saying shit like that. People would think we're fucking.”
“So?” He raised his brows and chuckled. “Fuck what they say. I want you. She wants you too.”
“Is she cool with me being in the room? You did say she's green.”
“She consented. Paperwork’s done.”
I didn't doubt his words. K might be an annoying fucker, but he's clean on consent and always had been.
“And if I say no?”
“Then I'll follow you everywhere and cry until you do.”
I scowled and glared at the fool in disbelief.
K flashed a smile and rolled his eyes. It was tempting to toss him out of my room, but I was intrigued by his offer.
He and I were no strangers to sharing a Sub, and he was the only dude I was cool with seeing naked.
Silence stretched as I considered his offer.
I knew what my answer would be, but I loved tormenting him.
I had no doubt that he would pester the shit out of me until I got irritated and agreed to being a third in his short poly experience.
“When?” I voiced out.
“Tonight. Room 2508. By Nine.”
My eyes strayed to the clock. That was twenty minutes away.
“Send me her hard limits and safe word before I walk in.”
He pulled out his phone and tapped twice. Within seconds, my phone buzzed on the table.
“Good!” He clapped his hands. “I await your presence.”
I scoffed and watched him bounce out without a word of thanks.
My phone beeped again and I looked at it, exhaling when I saw new messages.
K had sent neatly typed words of his new Sub's hard limits and safe words.
I rolled my eyes at the puppy eye emoji and thumbs up he sent next. The fool was always doing fluffy shit.
The whiskey tasted like water and insane decisions as I gulped it down.
I had no plans of joining any scene today, but K was the one dude I always accommodated.
Standing up, I buttoned my jacket and headed for Room 2508.
I knocked once at the door and K opened up.
The foolish nigga smirked and stepped back, giving me room to enter.
I scowled and wondered why he got a look like he was about to see me unravel. I gave him the middle finger and walked past him.
Then I saw her.
Love at first sight was a fucking myth, so I was going to summarize all the hooting, hollering and pounding my heart decided to do as an allergic reaction to the air in the room.
The flipping and fluttering happening in my stomach was probably because I forgot to take a damn antacid after eating all that seafood boil.
My eyes stayed on the woman sitting on the edge of the settee far too long than I would like to admit.
She wasn't kneeling or posed in any submissive posture.
She was just sitting with her hands folded in her lap and her back straight.
I was no damn Shakespeare, but she was pretty like the sun setting over the beach and very impossible to look away from.
Her hair was in thick, neat braids pulled back from her face, with a few baby hairs curling at her temples.
She glanced up when I entered and didn't drop her gaze like some new Subs did. Her eyes watched me carefully before she looked away shyly. There was a softness to her that stopped me in my tracks. Her skin caught the lamp's glow like it was made for it. And it fucking was.
I took in the curve of her cheeks which looked fuller and the way her hands rested protectively low on her stomach even though she was not thinking about it.
She had the kind of body that had lived, carried life and was still carrying it in the gentle roundness of her arms and the width of her hips.