by Penny Aimes
She thought about asking why do you own a bar? but realized he would just be obnoxious and evasive, and instead asked, “Why are you telling me?”
His eyes stopped roaming the mural and moved to her face. “I want to hire you to work there.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Like as a waitress?”
“What? No.” He scowled at her, a don’t be an asshole face. “Some light bookkeeping, event planning, social media...community stuff, like better rules and like keeping an ear to the ground for troublemakers. I don’t know. All the stuff you already do that we don’t pay you for.”
She opened her mouth to say that was ridiculous, that it wasn’t enough to be a full-time job, but she stopped as her mind turned over the possibilities. It was a lot, actually, it was something that absorbed at least several hours from her every week and sometimes whole weekends. And she had a whole list of ideas she’d considered or suggested but hadn’t had time to volunteer for.
There was so much they could do—education for people new to the lifestyle on a recurring basis, more guest trainings and events, an official membership roster. Right now she practically was the membership roster; as imperfect as her memory and opportunities to meet people were, they didn’t have anything better. The bookkeeping she could probably do in her sleep after all these years of Excel.
“What about Vic? And the other managers?” she said instead.
“Everybody but Vic is part-time, anyway. And what Vic knows is how to run a bar and throw people out so they stay thrown out. He knows the vendors. But he’s shit at the math and just about everything else. Vic couldn’t have handled those asshole magicians the way you did...he could do nothing or he could throw them out, because those are his two settings, but you’ve got, you know, nuance and shit.”
Some of his cagey intensity receded and he looked downright sincere, if only for a moment. “Besides...you know how to make it the bar I want it to be.”
For a moment, she let herself imagine the bar Jason wanted it to be—that they both wanted it to be. A kink bar where queer people of all stripes could be not just safe but at home. A place where no one was overlooked and left to the predators. A hub; a community for people whose identities and desires separated them from their own communities. For a moment, it flared into existence in her mind, and her heart swelled.
She tried to shove herself back to earth. Asked: “Why are you doing this? We’re not...we’re not friends. Are you just doing this for Dennis?” She scanned his face, wanting this but wanting to be sure it was happening for the right reasons.
“I’m not doing it for Dennis. I mean—it’s obvious to both of us that it’s going to be easier for you and Dennis to get back together if you have a job, so let’s not pretend that’s not in the mix. And Dennis is my best friend. Me and him...it’s ride or die. So yeah, it’s part of it. But this isn’t just about him. I thought about this even before he moved to Austin. You’re perfect for this, French. You’re pretty much already doing it. You’re...”
“Mama April?”
He gave her a flat look. “You make a joke out of it, but you’re the beating heart of that place. You’re the only person who cares about it as much as I do. And you’ve got the time now. You need a job. You need health insurance. Take it.”
She stared at him. “Is this a real job, or are you just trying to be nice to me and don’t really know how it goes?” Millionaires could be really...frustrating, she had learned.
Jason gritted his teeth. “It can be two things. Will you take the fucking job? C’mon, Halloween sucked on ice without you planning it.”
She’d heard that, too. She sipped hot chocolate while she absorbed. While her head caught up to her out of control heart. “...on one condition.”
He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Well. Since you’ve got me over a barrel here, I guess I have no choice. What?”
“You said you renamed it. Who’s Frankie?” She’d always wondered.
He smirked. “Just a guy I met a long time ago. Sometimes the weirdos you meet in shitty bars can change your life, French. Don’t you know that by now?”
Dennis
Dennis almost didn’t go to the Shibari workshop. He’d considered April’s idea of taking Caroline, but he genuinely couldn’t muster enthusiasm about tying up anyone else. He was interested in the ornate Japanese bondage tradition—had been since the event in the summer—but his mood was dismal and there were plenty of YouTube tutorials.
It was Jason who forced him to get off the couch and throw on real clothes; Jason who basically frog-marched him into the demonstration room with the stage. Tables were set up in the front for the participants in the workshop, who would be binding their partners under the guidance of the Oshiros—Caroline was there, having found another playmate for the evening—but the rest of the room was occupied by a small crowd of interested observers. It was a beautiful and erotic art. Dennis felt a little weird about standing around and watching others participate.
(He might have been more interested in demonstrating, he realized. Definitely more of an exhibitionist than a voyeur. Well, we live and learn.)
Then April stepped out on the stage, and he stopped breathing. She was wearing a Shibari-inspired sheath dress of watered silver silk. The silk cords webbed over the dress framed her tight waist and generous hips, and exaggerated her bust by wrapping tightly above and below. The halter neckline left her shoulders bare, and the skirt wound in coils around her legs, revealing glimpses of thigh through the binding. The straps of her heels winding up her bare legs followed the theme and her sandy hair hung in two ropes of braids that started at her temples and fell down her back. Even her jewelry was twists of gold rope. She was wearing the cuffs he had given her, stark steel and black leather against the luminous gold and silver.
There was no spotlight—no real light board, just a bunch of gels pointed at the stage. Yet for Dennis she was outlined in light. Everyone in the room seemed to appreciate her; there were yells of greeting and a couple of cheerful whistles.
She smiled at the crowd, coloring. He watched her scan the room, settle on him, and flit away, a nervous quality infiltrating her smile. She had a microphone, and she switched it on with a pop.
“Hi, everybody, and welcome to tonight’s event. In just a second, Doug and Madeline Oshiro are going to give us the follow-up workshop to their awesome demonstration, back in July, but I just have a few quick announcements first.”
She looked out over the crowd again. “I guess...the big one is, starting tonight, I have a new position as Frankie’s community manager. That means I’ll be formally handling things like booking events like this, our social media, mediating complaints, and things like that. Some of you know me. If you do, you know how passionate I am about this place and our community.”
It sounded like an amazing job for her. She would be great at it, and more than that, he could see how happy she was—not just the radiant smile, but the loose limbs, relaxed posture, spirited gestures. The urge to go to her, to throw aside the past and leap up on the stage and kiss her in front of all these people, was so visceral he had to grit his teeth. She looked ecstatic, and he wanted to be a part of it, celebrate with her, twirl her around.
“For those of you who don’t know me, I look forward to learning about what Frankie’s means to you and how I can support that. We’ve got some amazing plans for the coming year that I think you’re all going to love, but we always want to stay in tune with what’s going on with you.”
“If any of you are here for the first time tonight...welcome, virgins!” There was a titter of laughter and some hooting and hollering. “I hope you discover just how special a place like this can be, where you can live your truth among people who won’t judge. How life-changing it can be.”
She hesitated.
“Six months ago, I met someone here who changed my life. And I felt like, because I was
me, it wouldn’t last, couldn’t last, so I made some choices to make sure it would crash and burn. And I did that because I thought it was impossible that someone could love me.” The room was silent now, and her face dipped down into shadow, before she raised it to the lights again. It felt like the whole room was holding its breath. Dennis knew he was. It felt like everything in the last six months, everything in their entire lives, was coming down to this moment; this time and place and these words.
“But it turns out someone can love me. It turns out someone does. I made a mistake. I did it to protect myself, and I don’t apologize for that. But I see now it was a mistake. There is love in this world for me, and for all of you, and it’s a mistake to live without hope because you think it will hurt less when the crash comes. Because the secret is, sometimes it doesn’t.”
She looked down again for a moment.
“So get out there and love each other, folks. Make mistakes. Get hurt. Trust your friends—and I’m telling you right now that I’m your friend, ride or die—to pick you up, dust you off, and make you laugh about it. Because love is real, and it happens everywhere. It even happens here. So what if you gave it a chance?”
From the groups of couples in the front, Caroline shouted, “Just say it!” April lifted the mike again.
“I love you, Dennis Martin.”
The room was applauding. Dennis was stunned. He didn’t know half of these people. He realized April knew the majority of them, though, and they knew her. They were rooting for her. She handed the microphone off to the Oshiros and glided through the crowds towards him, towering over everyone in her heels and shining like a beacon in her gown. Now he was the one underdressed, in his jeans and blazer.
She reached him in the back, and she had to lean down to whisper in his ear. “I’m sorry I didn’t believe I was good enough to keep you. I won’t make that mistake again.” She pulled back, just enough to look pensively into his eyes. “Did I get it right?”
One hand settled on her hip, fingers threading into the twisted silk cords. “Exactly right, doll. Exactly.” The other cupped her flushed face and brushed against a tear. He felt incandescent with happiness, every nerve ending shouting in a way that threatened to shatter his careful composure. His right hand and left hand argued about whether the silk or her skin were softer. He wanted to kiss her but couldn’t decide if he should start with her pink mouth or the tear on her face or the hollow of her throat.
“I’m so glad,” she said, beaming. “Because I put this dress on your card and it was so expensive.” He drew down her face and kissed her like the world was ending.
When they came up for air he said, “What if we got out of here?”
Her eyes darted to Jason for some reason. “Um...it’s my first night in this job...”
Jason rolled his eyes. “Get the fuck out of here, French.”
She beamed and took Dennis’s hand. “In that case...yes please, Sir.”
April & Dennis
April could feel every nerve in her body singing. As she had sat in front of the mirror doing her makeup for tonight, she’d felt something very like the dreamy unrealness and floaty drift of subspace filling her up; in her surrender to the moment, in her helplessness to know how he would react, in her fear and longing and pride to be on that stage, she had transcended herself and her body for a moment. She already felt as raw and vulnerable as she ever had, and she knew the night had just begun.
Her fingers laced with his and raised his hand to her lips. She kissed each of his fingertips and flicked her tongue over his thumb in a way that caused the knuckles of his other hand to tighten on the steering wheel. She could see his self-control charring in his eyes, and the fire lit her up.
He cleared his throat as they got on the highway. Most of the traffic was going the other way, thank God, into the city for the night. “Have you come yet, doll?”
“No, Sir,” she said softly. “I was hoping...”
“Me too,” he said. “So much.”
“I missed you,” she said. Her voice was vibrating with emotion and she wasn’t trying to hide it. He let his free hand fall to where her neck met the rising slopes of her shoulders. His fingers clasped the back of her neck and just squeezed, as he had the night they first met. The pressure of his fingers wrung out the tension of her moment onstage, of the slow terrible walk through that crowd. The clasp of his hand brought her back under control with a click that felt like it should’ve been audible and a moan that just barely was. Her eyelids fluttered shut.
Dennis could see that they were dusted with gold. Every inch of her presentation was perfect; she’d made a wonderful shimmering doll just for him, and his lust for the image she’d created and his love for the woman who knew him so well twisted and tangled and planted deep roots in his chest.
“I missed you,” he said huskily. Her skin was soft and hot under his hand, the seam between them burned and sizzled, and he wanted to make this heat grow, to press together skin to skin and let the flames engulf them.
They came to a stop in the driveway of his house, and he was already pulling her towards him, lips searching for hers, painted pink pink pink to guide him in.
They kissed in the car for long stolen moments: her twisted sideways in the seat and half-climbing up onto it and over the center console, him pinned in by the steering wheel but too enthralled to suggest a change of venue. They devoured each other, and he let his control slip entirely for a moment, knowing that inside he would have to pick up the role of dom again for both of them, eager for that, but eager first to plunder her mouth with his and wrap his hands in her silky hair and ruck up the gorgeous dress she’d let him pay for. To lose his mind in the car after a date like he was sixteen again. Until—
April saw him seemingly seize control of himself and the situation all at once, like a shutter closed behind his eyes, and his strength made her shiver. “Come on, doll,” he growled, and pulled himself away from her needy pawing.
For a moment she couldn’t disentangle herself from the car. She was too tall to sit like this, limbs too disarranged to successfully back out the passenger side door, but then he was there, and he solved it by the simple expediency of gripping her hips and lifting her out. The bite of his fingers and the flex of his arms (and the spikes of her heels) made her wobble and fall against him, and she could feel his heart pounding.
He took her hand and drew her towards the house. She was fascinated to see it finally finished, but he didn’t leave her much time to look around, leading her up the dark stairs, past his bedroom to a door further down the hall. He opened it and tugged her inside, flipping on the lights.
“Ohhhh, Sir...”
It was a playroom, or dungeon, or whatever you wanted to call it. The lighting was warm and soft. Custom-built and fully outfitted. Built-in storage overhead to keep the floor open, benches of different widths, suspension points and D-rings anchored in the ceiling and along a load-bearing wall. Quirts of rope, handcuffs, spreaders and other bondage delights hung from hooks. It looked like the well-organized workshop of a meticulous professional who worked in a very strange craft. Which in a way was what it was. The floor was slightly springy underfoot—some kind of rubbery mat stuff.
“It’s wonderful,” she said, stumbling forward on the squashy floor and sinking onto a padded bench.
“I like how it came out,” he admitted. “It’s been torturing me, these last few weeks,” he added in a grumble.
“Oh Sir, I’m—”
“No.”
Dennis said it with as much force as he could bring to bear on one word. Which right now, was a lot. “No more apologies tonight.” He stepped forward and drew her to her feet, snagging a length of rope off the wall and threading it through the rings of her cuffs. “I just need you to wait a moment.” Using the rope, he pulled her arms up into the air and looped the rope over a suspended hook, drawing it taut and tyin
g it off.
“Good?” he said.
“Well, it’s not comfortable,” she said, in a teasing tone.
He snorted and walked towards another door set in the wall.
April could see a bathroom through it—the en suite for his bedroom. Then he shut it behind him and left her to wait. She sighed and let her weight hang from her arms for a moment, feeling the deep knot between her shoulders and the kinks of anxiety in her back protest and then give in. Soaked in her helplessness. If she stood up straight, she could lift the rope off the hook, but...that wasn’t the point.
He was gone long enough to let her start to become bored, then squirmy; long enough to wonder if doms got together and traded notes about the optimal amount of time to leave a sub in suspense.
Suspense. That was a good one! You could also say he left her hanging...
Round and round her mind went, from boredom to silly amusements to frustration to surrender to boredom again, and again and—then the door was opening,
Her arousal had never flagged, even in her waiting, but now a delirious spike of need hit her, ripping from her groin to her chest and making it hard to catch her breath. He had gone into the other room to change.
He was just fixing onyx cufflinks in the cuffs of a crisp white shirt, half-unbuttoned over a bare chest she wanted very much to kiss. Black slacks, and the oxblood Oxfords she loved. “Now,” he said, with a voice like a razor. For a moment in the car she’d seen him almost unmanned, but now the Sir was back with a capital S, and he was ready for her. “Let’s begin.”
He circled behind her, and she didn’t try to follow, although she hated to take her eyes off him. She felt his fingers trailing over her back, touching her skin through the gaps in the weave of silk ropes. “Hm... I could cut this off,” he said thoughtfully.
