Friends Like These

by Tymber Dalton

  This was something she’d desperately needed, no doubt. And she felt incredibly grateful not just to her friends for making it happen, but to her men for insisting it happen.

  With the unexpected earlier addition of the Sybian races to the program, Tilly and Loren decided to forego the other two games, even though they set the items out in case anyone wanted to make impromptu challenges to each other.

  Which, immediately, Rusty and Gilo did, to the surprise of absolutely no one in attendance.

  Max, Sean, and Cali, who ran an online store selling BDSM implements, custom wearables like collars, and portable bondage frames, had brought a few new things for R&D testing with their friends.

  Tonight, it was the latest model of their Doom bondage frames. This one had been powder-coated in a pretty shade of dark blue.

  “I heard about the ugly neon one,” Leigh said as she and Tilly stood out of the way and watched Max and Sean assemble it.

  Tilly let out a shudder. “It was horrible. Seth and Leah could have turned out all their lights that night and it still would have cast an eerie glow of its own.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Max groused.

  “Yes, it was,” half the room replied, making him stand up and look around.

  Cali leaned in and kissed him. “Stop with the pouty face. It was your own damn fault, if you’ll recall. Someone trying to save a buck with cheaper powder-coating.”

  “That rigger out in California bought it, didn’t he?”

  “Only because I offered it to him for cost and I called him personally and begged him to take it off our hands,” she said. “It was hideous.”

  “Dude,” Sean said, “it was ugly.”

  This newest version of their Doom line of bondage frames had a few new features. It articulated in a couple of different ways, had extra straps and padding, and even more adjustable attachment points for things like vibrators, dildoes, and other…extras.

  Once it was fully assembled and the men had made sure it was secure, the three of them looked at each other.

  “Who’s on top tonight?” Tilly asked.

  “We haven’t decided yet,” Cali said. She held out a fist. “Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock.”

  “Dammit,” Sean grumbled. “I always lose this.”

  The three of them put their fists together, and in unison said, “Rock-Paper-Scissors-Lizard-Spock.” Cali threw lizard, while Max threw Spock and Sean threw paper.

  “Ha!” Cali said.

  “Finally,” Sean said.

  “Dammit,” grumbled Max.

  “I don’t get it,” Leigh said to Tilly.

  Tilly explained. “Lizard poisons Spock and eats paper, paper disproves Spock. That means Max is totally on the bottom. Had there been a tie between two of them, they probably would have had a run-off.”

  “How do you even know this?” Leigh asked.

  Tilly must have correctly interpreted Leigh’s bewildered tone, because she shrugged. “So sue me. I watch a lot of The Big Bang Theory reruns. I have had too much free time on my hands lately.”

  * * * *

  Cali wanted to make sure they were the first ones to use the frame tonight. While they’d tested it at home under weight and stress, they hadn’t had time to do a full scene on it yet.

  The last thing she wanted was someone—especially one of their friends—getting nonconsensually hurt by one of their bondage frames.

  Consensually getting hurt on one of them was another matter entirely, and usually a desired outcome by all parties.

  “Strip, buddy,” she told Max. “You’re in the hot seat.”

  Sean grinned. “Ooh, feels good not to be the test dummy for a change.”

  “Oh, stop it,” Cali scolded. “You like being the test dummy and you know it.”

  “I didn’t say I didn’t. I said it feels good not to be it for a change.”

  One of the things Cali loved about her dynamic with her men was its fluid nature. At any time, any of the three of them could step into whatever role they felt like occupying. Sometimes, she liked being the one totally on the bottom, at the mercy of her two hunkalicious men.

  And then there were times, like tonight, where she wanted to be in the driver’s seat.

  There was already play getting started elsewhere, both on the lanai, including on the suspension frame, and on some of the other play equipment set up inside. Unlike some private parties, they didn’t have to worry how much noise they made out on the lanai. With the large property Leigh and her men owned, and the privacy fencing around the backyard, they could get as rowdy as they wanted. The only other place they had few worries about sound was at Seth and Leah’s house, which was set back on a wooded piece of property in a development of similarly wooded properties. Usually, any “noisy” kind of play, like impact play, had to be confined to the house so as not to disturb neighbors.

  And this party was getting cranked up, for sure.

  Max stripped and, with Sean’s help, started adjusting the frame to fit him. Cali picked out a few implements and waited until Max was completely immobilized facedown on the device to step up behind him.

  “We gagging him?” Sean asked with more than a hint of glee.

  “You can gag him with your cock, if you want,” she said. “I’m going to make him make some noise.” She reached underneath Max to find his cock already hard. That made her chuckle. “I think someone was protesting a little too much about being on the bottom.”

  “Never said I was protesting,” Max replied. “I just said—”

  And that was the last thing he said, because Sean had shoved down his shorts and fed his cock into Max’s mouth with a needy groan of his own.

  “Dude,” Sean gasped. “Just shut up and enjoy it.”

  She slowly stroked Max’s cock with her hand. “What he said.” She watched as Max tried to flex his hips in time with her movements, but the straps around his waist and thighs kept that part of his body perfectly immobilized.

  There was a fine line between restraint and discomfort. Sure, in some of the bondage porn the models were tied up in what looked to be horribly uncomfortable ways.

  The average kinky, middle-aged John and Jane Smith of Nowhere, USA, with a disposable income, they weren’t looking to be porn stars. They were looking for equipment that they could use, that a bottom could stay in, comfortably, for a period of time, without compromising their safety or their bank account. Even masochists liked their scenes to last a little longer than five minutes of kneeling on a rock-hard surface.

  She stepped between Max’s outspread legs and grabbed onto the two handles they’d built into this one. With as much strength and vigor as she could muster, she started slamming her hips into his ass, as if fucking him, rocking the frame and Max and making both him and Sean moan.

  This was to test its durability.

  Then she leaned over, along Max’s back, and allowed the majority of her weight to rest on him.

  The frame didn’t budge.

  Sean stopped fucking Max’s mouth, but kept his cock buried between his partner’s lips. “We good?”

  “I think so. It seems to be as sturdy as any of the others.”

  They’d pretty much nailed the basic foundation of their Doom line of benches. What now changed with each model were things like how it articulated and where, the padding, the straps, and additional attachment points for accessories.

  Max mumbled something around Sean’s cock.

  Sean pulled out. “What was that?”

  “Then can we please get on with the beating? I’m horny, here.”

  Cali laughed and stood behind him, smacking him on the ass with her bare hands. “Be careful what you wish for, buster.”

  Sean returned to fucking Max’s mouth while she dug into their bag for her vampire gloves. Wicked things, the leather gloves had tiny metal spikes embedded in the palms and undersides of the fingers. Great for violet wand play, or for sensation play.

  Or, in this case, for torture-Max pla
y.

  She lightly slapped his ass with them, drawing a muffled yelp of pain from him as he jumped against his restraints.

  Sean giggled. “Do that again.”

  She lightly swatted Max’s ass, along the backs of his thighs, alternating that with lightly and carefully dragging them along his flesh. Caution was mandatory, because the gloves could easily shred flesh if used improperly.

  Not to mention, payback was a switch…and so were all three of them. It was a great way to self-regulate and not board an out-of-control crazy train. What one dished out, they had to be prepared to receive in return.

  Fortunately, Cali loved receiving play with the vampire gloves as much as she loved giving it.

  After a few more minutes of this, she removed the gloves and started with some good old-fashioned paddling with one of their lighter paddles. This was also a new product, made of acrylic and with strategically placed holes all along its surface. As she started reddening his ass and the backs of his thighs with it, he started squirming even more against his restraints.

  Sean laughed with evil, sadistic glee as he buried his cock deep in Max’s throat. “You can take it, you big puss. Ow isn’t a safeword and you know it.”

  Cali, herself getting more than a little wet and aroused by the activity of beating Max and watching Sean use his mouth, paused the spanking and reached around Max again. She wrapped her fingers around his cock, slowly slicking his juices along his shaft as she stroked it.

  “He’s enjoying this,” she said. “Don’t let him fool you.”

  “I’m not, don’t worry.” He started fucking Max’s face, hard, deep.

  Cali knew from experience Sean wouldn’t last much longer. She swapped out the paddle for a carbon-fiber cane and laid several stripes across Max’s ass and thighs with that, just in time for her to watch Sean’s eyes drop closed as his orgasm hit.

  She put down the cane and stroked Max’s ass with her hands. “There, see? He’s done.”

  “Who says?” Sean snarked, eyes still closed.

  “You’re done. I want everyone to have a chance to use the frame.”

  He let out a sad sigh. “Damn your logic.” He finally pulled his cock out of Max’s mouth, kneeling in front of him to kiss him. “Let’s get you out of there and hit the pool.”

  “Thank you,” Max mumbled, sounding more than a little subspacey.

  Five minutes later, they’d vacated and cleaned the frame, moved all their stuff out of the way, and were now skinny dipping in the pool. Keith had already gotten Noel up on the frame, Scott helping to get her strapped to it.

  Sean captured one of the sex doll rafts and straddled it.

  “These are kind of ingenious kinky pool rafts. I wouldn’t have thought of it.”

  “I have.” Max reached out, snagged Cali’s arm, and pulled her in for a long, deep kiss that made her clit start throbbing again. Before she knew it, he had her legs wrapped around his waist and his cock buried in her pussy.

  Sean paddled over behind them and reached around her front to play with her nipples. “I’ll provide logistics support,” he joked. Then he started nibbling on the side of her neck, in addition to rolling her nipples between his fingers.

  Between that, and the way Max was fucking her, it started Cali’s climb up the slope toward her own release. Her men knew her body better than she did, it seemed. They never failed to wring pleasure out of her, even when she thought she couldn’t give them just…one…more.

  Sometimes, especially when she didn’t think she could.

  They were men who enjoyed a challenge.

  Max’s fingers dug into her ass as he fucked her. “Come on, baby,” he softly urged. “Give us what we want.”

  Sean’s nibbles along her neck turned into nips that helped push her over the edge into pleasure. Max picked up the pace, fucking her harder, faster, able to fuck her at an angle in the water he couldn’t normally easily achieve on land and hitting all the perfect spots inside her with every stroke.

  Laying her head back against Sean and his pornographic pool float, she closed her eyes and let the pleasure wash over and through her, her pussy squeezing Max’s cock inside her as he soon caught up. He finished with a final deep, hard thrust, embedded inside her, leaning forward to kiss the hollow of her throat.

  Sean released her and let Max pull her against his body, cradled on his chest. “Better?” Max murmured in her ear.

  She sighed. “Much better.” When she finally lifted her head from his shoulder, she kissed him, long and tenderly. “You two always make everything better.”

  Sean, who still hovered nearby on the pool float, leaned in for a kiss, too. “You made our whole world better, baby. And we won’t let you forget that.”

  Chapter Eight

  “Yep, now I’ve seen it all,” Tilly joked from where she stood in the kitchen.

  “What?” Leigh asked.

  Tilly, who now wore nothing but a long T-shirt because Landry and Cris had tag-teamed her a few minutes earlier on one of the spanking benches, hooked a thumb toward the pool. “The pool floats. Just when I think we’ve outdone ourselves with one of these parties, we outdo ourselves.”

  “Well, they’re multi-taskers,” Leigh joked. “The floats, I mean. Hey, safety first. If anyone starts drowning, we’ll shove a sex toy at them.”

  “Yeah, I can see us trying to explain that to the EMS crew who draws the short straw to arrive on-scene.”

  “It’ll give them something to talk about for years.”

  Tilly snorted. “You got that right.” Landry motioned for Tilly from across the room. “Excuse me, I think Sir Fussypants is calling.”

  Leigh giggled. “Sure. Go on.”

  Leigh was doing her level best not to let any melancholy thoughts seep into her mind. She was trying to stay in the moment, not think about how as the evening went on, it meant less time with their friends.

  Where she’d been so proud of herself before, now she felt herself backsliding.

  Nolan and Kenny were standing in the kitchen and talking with Tony, who was apparently waiting for his turn on the suspension frame. She’d noticed that the two normally chipper men seemed uncharacteristically somber tonight. Usually, they would have joined in on the games, or at least played. It didn’t even look like they might play tonight.

  Eliza joined Leigh in the kitchen, draping an arm around Leigh’s shoulders.

  “So how you holding up?” she asked.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You look a little tired. You feeling all right?”

  “Yeah. I am a little tired, but it’s the good kind of tired.” She leaned in and whispered, “What’s up with Kenny and Nolan? Are they all right?” It was always easier to focus on someone else’s problems rather than her own.

  “Yeah, they had a go-round with Kenny’s step-father this morning while at Kenny’s mom’s house. They’re just a little bummed.”

  “I thought his mom knew about them.”

  “She does. But they’d kept the knowledge from her husband to keep the peace.”

  “Ah.” Leigh really liked the two men. They’d paired up a couple of times here and there with a woman as a third, either as a play partner or sometimes more, but they’d never seemed to find a permanent third for them.

  When Leigh realized the matchmaking thoughts were starting in her head, she quashed them. That was Tilly and Eliza’s department. So far, those two friends had damn good track records in pairing people up. And Leigh wasn’t going to take the blame if she did manage to hook the men up with someone and it went horribly wrong.

  City of Nopesville, in the great state of Nopesakota, in the country of Nofuckingwayistan, zip code nope-nope-nope-nope-nope.

  Then again, maybe she could privately put a bug in Eliza’s or Tilly’s ear about it. The last beginner’s class at Venture had brought in several new single submissive women who’d started regularly attending play parties and events. It wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world if they managed
to get the men paired off.

  Would it?

  Eliza ended up pulled into another conversation in the dining room, leaving Leigh free to amble over and slide in between Kenny and Nolan.

  “So how are you two doing?”

  Kenny stared down at the cup of soda in his hand. Nolan offered her an apologetic smile. “Sorry we’re downers tonight. This really is a good party.”

  She hooked her arms through theirs so they couldn’t escape her. “Trouble?”

  The men exchanged a glance, then Kenny continued. “Family bullshit. I’ll be all right. That’s why I didn’t want to cancel on tonight.”

  “Are you two going to play later?”

  His answer pleasantly surprised her.

  “Yeah, I’m going to let Nolan beat my ass once some others have had their chance at the equipment. I know some people here have babysitters they’ll have to get home to. We don’t mind waiting and hanging back.”

  “Is there anything I can do, or get you? Need any food or cake or anything?” Tilly and Loren had also gotten a kick-ass sheet cake, decorated with a naked pregnant woman on it.

  A couple of people had ended up wearing their pieces and getting them licked off them, but that was all good.

  “No, this has been a great night,” Nolan said. “And the games were funny.”

  “I’m surprised you guys didn’t play.”

  Kenny shrugged, and there was such a weight and sadness in the gesture, it nearly drove her to tears.

  Then again, maybe those were the pregnancy hormones finally kicking into overdrive.

  “It’ll be all right,” Kenny told her. “One more bump in the road of life.”

  “Well, we love you guys. You’re always welcomed in our home. Well, when we’re here. Sorry we’re not here very much right now. But you’ve got my phone number. You can always call and kvetch. In fact, I insist on it. It’d be nice to feel like I’m local even if I’m stuck out there.”

  “I’ve never been out to LA,” Kenny said. “Do you like it?”

  How to answer?

  Truthfully, of course. “It has its perks and drawbacks. I can’t wait until we can move everything back to Florida on a permanent basis. Hey, I don’t suppose either of you are looking for a job, are you?”