Chapter 10
Jessica
Late Saturday morning, Jessica woke up groggy and not well-rested at all. The sun was streaming into her bedroom through the gap in the curtain. A sense of dread overcame her, but she didn’t know why.
“Misty?” Oh, she was fine. The cat stretched and then jumped down, chirping her way out of the room, obviously wanting breakfast.
The instant Jessica’s feet hit the floor, she remembered.
“Oh, fuck. What the fuck did I do?” She reached for her phone on the bedside stand.
“Oh, no no no no no.” Without her glasses, she couldn’t see the stupid screen.
She put them on and blinked the sleepiness from them.
Once in the Kinks app, she saw that she had three messages.
Her heart thumped in her chest. “I’m such an ass.
So impulsive. I direct-messaged her. She probably reminded me of the many boundaries I had crossed and left the group.
Or, more likely, she was polite and let me down gently.
“I can’t look.” She clicked her phone off and headed for the bathroom.
She needed to do her Saturday morning routine, which included both coffee and feeding the queen.
Misty’s breakfast was several hours overdue, such a poor, abused little thing.
Once Jessica was adequately caffeinated and Misty adequately fed, Jessica sat at her desk in the living room. It was the place she paid bills and graded papers, and apparently, today it was where she faced the music for being way too forward with someone.
“I’m going in, Misty,” Jessica said to the calico without looking at her.
Jessica reopened her phone, opened the Kinks app, and hovered her finger over the message icon. Chickening out, she said to Misty, “I lied. I’m not going in.”
Instead, she found the post about one-night stands and casual sex.
Wow, Jessica most certainly had been there, done that.
Still doing it, right? Every time she went to Dominique’s, she scoured the common rooms for Dommes willing to play.
Ever since she’d thought the pasture was greener on the other side and broken up with Mistress Marta, she’d discovered that, no, it really hadn’t been greener.
Casual sex at the dungeon with strangers or repeat partners like Cazadora Catalina or online with Maistresse Marguerite and others hadn’t done much to sustain her.
Sustain…was that the word Daddy Vic used?
A quick look at the post confirmed that, yes, sustain was the word she’d used.
Topic: Casual sex. One-night stands.
Question: Can one-night stands sustain you?
Jessica’s response was short.
Juicy_Babe: No.
Should she leave her answer like that? Was it too short?
Others left lengthy responses. She had a lot of thoughts on the matter, and if anyone asked for more from her, she’d elaborate.
It was kind of black-and-white to her. She was absolutely not sustained by her casual liaisons and was frankly getting tired of them.
Ever since she’d turned thirty, right around the time she left Miss Marta, she’d been searching for someone who sparked something in her.
Someone she could make a connection of the heart with, and not just the lustful bits.
She wanted someone who might turn into a more permanent partner.
Mistress Marta, as wonderful as she was, simply wasn’t the right Domme for her.
It was time. She looked at the message icon, which showed that she had three messages.
Maybe none of them were from Daddy Vic. Maybe Daddy Vic had chosen not to reply.
And that would be fine. Jessica had kind of overstepped, anyway.
She girded her loins and clicked open the messages.
Her stomach dropped. Daddy Vic had replied three times.
Daddy Vic: Daddy Cheese here. LOL. It’s absolutely fine to DM me. I appreciate your compliments about my participation in the group. I think you’ve created an awesome space, away from the thirsty zone that prevails on Kinks. And your posted questions make me think, too.
Jessica visibly relaxed. Daddy Vic wasn’t mad at her or offended. She took a deep breath and read on.
Daddy Vic: I’ve also recently moved (back to the city where I grew up), and I get what you’re saying about finding comfort in the things you’ve surrounded yourself with—friends, community, job (not being the newbie again).
It’s hard. And you’re right. It’s hard for me to admit that I’m lonely and searching for connections, because I’m supposed to be strong and resilient all the time as a Domme.
Weakness just isn’t in my nature. But as I stare at these four walls (here at work), I wonder WTF I got myself into.
But it’s more about what I felt I had to leave, I guess.
I’m NOT going to pull you into my drama, but I think I needed to step back from the situation to give them all some freedom from me and to give myself time to just think. I’m trying to figure shit out.
Daddy Vic: Okay, I am totally NOT going to burden you with a bored and soul-searching Vic this morning, or ever.
No, you don’t need to use honorifics—You’re not my sub, JB.
But many of my subs have called me ‘Ma’am,’ and some have called me ‘Sir.’ Isn’t that interesting?
I always tell them that either of those works.
Anyway, I appreciate this group you created.
It gives me a chance to share my knowledge and to learn from others (now that I realize that I don’t know it all.
LOL). And, sure, feel free to DM me anytime.
“Whoa,” Jessica said as she sat back in her executive chair. She needed to read all of that again, but one thing was for sure: she had dodged a bullet. Her impulsive messages to Daddy Vic were totally out of character for her and could have been ill-received.
“But she’s so obviously hurting,” Jessica said as if trying to justify her actions to the action police. “And, right, she didn’t ask for your help.” Jessica stood up. “Okay, fine. I am officially done meddling.” She sat back down and replied, short and sweet.
Juicy_Babe: I guess we’re both starting over, aren’t we? Feel free to DM me anytime, too.
She couldn’t think of anything else to add without prying or making herself a pest, so she simply signed out and closed the app.
“Time for lesson plans,” she said, although she typically left schoolwork for Sundays.
She kind of didn’t know what to do with herself, so schoolwork it was. It had to be done anyway.
She loaded her school laptop and reviewed her Intro to Hamlet lesson.
All seemed well, and the video links were working.
She checked the entire week’s worth of Shakespeare lessons and was satisfied that they would accomplish the task of pushing Shakespeare into the resistant brains of ninth-grade students.
Satisfied with that, she went back to her opening grammar lesson on adjectives.
She wanted to modify it. Something Daddy Vic said in one of her messages had stayed with her.
“Her subs can call her Ma’am or Sir. Was Daddy Vic non-binary or genderfluid?
Was Daddy Vic trans? An evil thought came to mind.
She had to do it. It was a bit passive-aggressive and a sly way to teach an important life lesson.
Yes, yes. This could work. She set about rewriting Monday’s ten-minute grammar lesson.
After that, she basically spent the rest of the weekend catching up on her recorded shows and cooking so much that she’d have ample leftovers for lunches during the week.
On Monday morning, she felt more relaxed and rested, probably because she’d stayed away from Kinks.
Monday morning had started the beginning of the second quarter, and as she hustled back to her classroom after cafeteria duty, she was grateful that her first few classes of the day had gone well.
She prayed the Principal Herrera wouldn’t make an appearance, though.
Word may have already gotten around about the grammar lesson in Ms. Bennett’s room.
During teacher prep week, one of her new colleagues tipped her off that the man was very predictable, so whatever period he observed the first time would most likely be the one he came to every time.
Her colleague had also said that newbies were observed frequently. Great, no pressure there.
She unlocked her classroom door, and as her period seven students filed in, she said a prayer to the universe for a smooth class with no one observing. Her grammar lesson could be misconstrued as something else—a teacher with a ‘woke’ agenda. Heaven forbid that.
She got her class notes in order and as soon as the bell rang, handed Kai the kitchen timer and said, “Ten minutes of knowledge—”
“Gets us into college,” the students enthusiastically finished.
She projected the first part of the grammar lesson onto the whiteboard behind her.
“Adjectives,” she said. “We know what they are. They’re words that describe nouns or pronouns.
You learned this forever ago.” She pointed to the first sentence and read, “The lovable cat slept. The word lovable is clearly the adjective that describes the noun cat.” She nodded and said, “Nothing new here.
Adjectives can come after the noun, too, like in this example.
“Misty is cute and furry. Misty is the noun, while the adjectives cute and furry come after the noun using the linking verb is.”
She clicked to the next page. “Adjectives can answer several types of questions. Which one? What kind? How many?” She pointed to the cat sentences. “What kind of cat?”
“Lovable, cute, and furry,” several students said out loud.
“Yep, and it’s so true,” she said with a grin. Several students smiled back. She read the next sentence off the board, “Those kids are rambunctious.”