by Joey W. Hill
Ella remembered the last scene Naomi had done. The Dom had been a suspension artist, tying her up in a web of crimson rope before applying a violet wand on her in ways that had her climaxing several times. He’d pushed Naomi to surrender herself completely into his hands, a level Ella had rarely seen her pushed to give. But when she’d achieved obvious, true bliss, it had been a beautiful thing to witness. Naomi had relinquished all control to him, and he’d sent her soaring on that subspace cloud.
Ella remembered Naomi had seemed unbalanced by the intensity of the experience, not reappearing at the club for a week. But when she did, she acted like her normal self, except she claimed not to remember much about the session when Ella invited her to talk about it. That had been a month ago. Around the time she expected all this had started to come to fruition. “Naomi, I really am happy for you. But are you sure you can be content leaving this side of yourself behind?”
“Of course.” Naomi’s tone took on a slight edge of irritation. “I love being here, Ella, but this world is a fantasy, you know? It works because it’s insular, but it's time for me to leave the carnival and grow up.”
“Maybe he would—”
“No. He wouldn’t. I pretended I’d stumbled onto a couple BDSM sites while he was around, just to gauge his reaction.” A shadow crossed Naomi’s gaze. “He scoffed at the people in them, said they were a bunch of freaks. ‘Takes all kinds in this world, but maybe not that kind.’ Quote, unquote.”
Ella blinked. “Maybe he just needs a better understanding of what it’s about.”
“No. Even if he did understand it better, he wouldn’t ever want to be a part of it. Don’t look like that. He’s a good guy.”
Ella spread out her hands, a placating gesture. “No, I’m not trying to—”
Naomi shook her head, cutting across Ella’s words. “Just because he has the same opinion about this as ninety percent of everyone else doesn’t make him bad. This isn’t about him. It’s about all of us. Why do you think James doesn’t see you the way you want him to? He’s a vanilla guy who found a good-paying job helping out at a BDSM club. He views it like doing security at the circus. He’s part of the real world going on around it, the world that sees us all as deviants or bored people spicing up our sex lives.”
“James doesn’t see us that way,” Ella said, stung.
“Not consciously.” Naomi shrugged. “He’s a ‘not my thing, but as long as you don’t shove it in my face, we’re cool’ kind of guy. But he shows his preferences in the choices he makes. When James finds someone, it’s going to be like my Frank, only in girl form. Frank is a good and loving man. I’ve had enough time to sow those wild oats. I’m in my thirties. I’m ready to have kids. You’re not getting any younger yourself, Ella. You should think about that.”
Ella was still in her twenties. Maybe her expression was making her look older. Even though she told herself not to do it, Naomi’s defensive goad made it impossible for Ella not to ask the question. “Why would you want someone who doesn’t love you for who you are? Someone you can’t tell everything about yourself.”
“Because nobody loves you for everything you are,” Naomi said impatiently. “They love certain parts of you, and they accept the others, or learn to work around them, because they love the most important things about you. I didn’t make the decision lightly, Ella. I even talked to my therapist about it. She said people grow and change all the time. It happens subconsciously, responding to environmental influences, but they have many different faces during their lives, and most are content with them. This is just that. I’ve enjoyed being Naomi the sub. Now I’ll enjoy being Naomi, Frank’s wife who sells furniture, works with him, has kids, and a great life together.”
Ella didn’t know what to say to that. But Naomi reached out and closed a hand on hers. “This feels really normal to all of us, because we're here, in this closed box. But take it outside and shine a light on it, that light's not really kind. We are freaks, Ella.”
No, we’re not. But Ella found her tongue frozen as Naomi continued, still holding her hand in that co-conspirator kind of way, her expression earnest.
“He's kind. I need kind in my life. A lot of kind. If getting that requires staying inside prescribed boundaries, that's what I'm going to do. I’m going to be happy that way. I know you all might judge me, and not think so, but we’re all different. I’ve had enough time to explore this side of myself, and I can move on with no regrets. Can you be okay with that?”
While Ella’s kneejerk reaction was to wonder why Naomi was asking not to be judged when she was throwing judgment on those around her like a suffocating blanket, she stopped herself, thought it through. She didn’t understand Naomi’s choice, didn’t agree with it, but Naomi was right. They were two different people. Everything Naomi was saying might be absolutely true—for Naomi.
Naomi interpreted her silence in the wrong way, because she frowned. “Do you remember when you went to that other club and got into trouble? How Anwyn ordered you not to go anywhere but Club Atlantis from then on?”
Ella stiffened. She wasn’t aware that the other subs knew about that, but she guessed it made sense. While the Atlantis staff could be trusted with their members’ deepest secrets, among their inner circle, everything was known.
A guest Dom had told Ella his normal club was bringing in a new piece of equipment on their Saturday demo night. It was an Inquisition-style stretcher wheel kind of thing. The sales rep would pay a sub a couple hundred dollars to work the booth, explain the equipment’s workings, and demo it. It was the club’s busiest night of the month, partially because from nine to midnight the public play sections and demos were open to lightly vetted guests.
At first it went fine. She demo’ed it for two Masters and one Mistress who wanted to see the way it worked, but who didn’t have a sub with them. Each live demonstration attracted an audience, so when the demos evolved into mini sessions, increasing interest in the product, the sales rep was pretty happy. Ella enjoyed the three Doms who put her through the equipment’s paces, and drummed up some potential business for Atlantis, because they were all three interested in Anwyn’s more exclusive club.
Then Ella had a Mistress ask her if she was okay with sensory deprivation on the wheel. They went over some parameters, and since she was here as a visiting sub, just showing off the equipment like a game show hostess, she wasn’t expecting a problem.
She’d been gagged, hooked up to the device, hooded. She and the Mistress had worked out a safe word signal. All reasonable precautions. But the Mistress was easily distracted, and became involved with the audience, more into performing for them than focusing on her submissive. She didn’t notice when Ella signaled. Not the first time, second time, or when she was doing it frantically.
A sharp-eyed Dungeon Master patrolling the area noted her distress. However, before she was pulled off of the wheel, she’d gotten nauseous, thrown up inside the hood and nearly choked. Plus the Mistress’s overenthusiastic turning of the stretcher control had wrenched Ella’s shoulder badly, something the adrenaline spike of panic masked until the next day. Ella ended up at an Urgent Care, needing an X-ray and then meds and some PT to remedy the injury.
Ella had been shaken, but all was well that ended well. The sales rep, likely worried about how she would talk about the incident, had paid her four hundred dollars for her time. Most of it went to the treatment she’d needed for the shoulder. But Ella accepted it as an honest mistake on the Mistress’s part, one that the truly chagrined woman would use as an important lesson to avoid future incidents.
However, word had gotten back to Anwyn. The Mistress of Atlantis was a strong, self-sufficient woman, and treated the women on her staff, Doms or subs, with a similar respect. But she had another side, a protective streak closely linked to her Mistress identity. Ella was a sub under her protection, and unfortunately it wasn’t the first time Ella had gotten in over her head by trusting a Dominant too much.
“You play here
exclusively, or you don’t play here at all, Ella. You’ll give me your word.”
“You were ashamed you didn't have the judgment to take care of yourself. I remember that,” Naomi said, bringing Ella out of her head and back to their conversation. “Have you ever asked yourself if things like that happen to you because you embrace this side of yourself too much? Eventually you’ve got to abandon this romantic fantasy that you can surrender all of yourself to someone, and face the reality. You can’t trust anyone a hundred percent to watch after you. That’s too much to put on them, and there’s no one in the world you can trust that much anyway.”
Ella shook her head. “I don’t ask someone to do that for me. It’s not like that, Naomi. You don’t understand why—”
“Oh my God, Naomi, Leann told me he gave you a rock. Let me see…”
The unwitting disruption of their conversation had come from Mavis, Club Atlantis’s gift store manager. She ran the shop several nights a week and ran her own erotica store in town during the off days. Seeing Ella and Naomi talking, she’d stopped to join in on what she’d perceived to be a social chat.
Ella knew she could take the out, simply nod, smile and walk away. However, though she’d sent Mavis a half-smile, Naomi was still holding Ella’s gaze. Ella saw a mix of things there, but expectation was one of them. She was waiting for an answer from Ella. A blessing of sorts.
Wow. “You’re right,” Ella said, stopping Mavis mid-enthusiastic sentence. “We’re responsible for our own decisions and the consequences of them. Someone like me, my okay doesn’t count for much, does it? I do wish you happiness, though. I would always wish that.”
She walked away from the two women with a forced pleasant expression for Mavis. She paused at the security office, where Stan had finished his conversation with Wendy, the other security guard. “I’m headed out into the alley to be with the cats. I might take a walk after that. Don’t worry if I go out of camera range.”
She knew he might object to that, but she didn’t wait for his response. She escaped out the side door. Being around Anwyn’s feral colony was calming, some of the cats friendly enough to approach. There was no judgment here.
For a moment, she stood where she was, taking deep breaths, settling the emotions in her gut. She knew when she was in dangerous territory and sure enough, here it came, the sudden surge of temper, strong enough to make her lightheaded. She shut her eyes, kept breathing. Working back toward who she was. Who she wanted to be.
Anwyn’s disappointment and worry for her had shamed Ella to the core. It had taken her a while to get over it. Even though she suspected Anwyn letting her plan theme nights might have been due to some regret at coming down so hard on Ella, she had valued every step toward winning Anwyn’s respect and trust again.
She didn’t want Naomi’s words to make her doubt that, but she still felt as if she’d taken a body blow. She needed time to regroup, meditate, before she re-entered the club, and she didn’t want to be where she was under anyone’s watchful eye.
So she headed to the place near Atlantis she went when she needed to be alone.
Ella lifted a shoulder, coming back to the present. “That’s all of it. That was why I was on the loading dock.”
Wolf stayed silent, holding her, stroking her hair. So she kept talking, even though she told herself to stop.
“My first real experience as a sub was being a rope bunny. I was nineteen. The top wanted to believe I was twenty-one, like him, and I let him. He needed a date for a play party, and I was game. I’d never seen anything like it and yet, while we were there, and he was tying me up, I felt centered and at peace, in a way I’d never felt before. It didn’t take me long after to realize this was a world that could keep me balanced, no matter what else was happening in my life or what I had to face.”
She shook her head. “Hearing Naomi say what she said, it wasn’t different from what others say about it; it’s just normally people on the outside who say things like that. Not someone inside, who knows how it’s different. It threw me off. And I guess I was still more raw from the set down by Anwyn than I should have been. That had happened months before, after all. But what she thinks of me matters so much. Probably too much.”
She wasn’t asking for confirmation from him. It was a legitimate question she asked herself. “Naomi had no clue that I’ve been taking care of myself most of my life. I do hair and nails, and waitress. I work as a courier. I’m good at those things, but I don’t have an interest in making a career of anything. I do jobs that give me the freedom and flexibility to live the life I want to live. Club Atlantis and being a submissive are at the center of it.”
He spoke against her ear, a low vibration. “‘I’m fully capable of caring for myself. I’ve been doing it my whole life.’ I remember how you said it, that night. With the fierceness of a bobcat.”
“Yes.” She lay in his arms, was content to be there forever, and that was the other side of it. The two sides of who she was. “Even though she upset me, afterward, thinking about it, I knew why Naomi thought that about me. What I want is supposed to be wrong.”
“What do you want, Ella? Tell me here, in the darkness.”
She wanted to tell him. At least for right now, he’d taken away a lot of her shields, built to address her worries that someone might think what she wanted was an obligation she intended to pin on someone, make their responsibility. Like him.
“I want to belong to a Master, be owned by him. I want to know, all the way down to my soul, that he watches over my every move. I want to give him everything, and take care of him, like no one else. I want that totally out of control, over the top kind of relationship, and I want it to last forever.”
She lifted a shoulder against his solid chest. “Might as well wish big if you’re wishing for the impossible. If that makes me a disappointment to womankind, I’m sorry, but I think I’d feel that way if I was a guy, too. I’ve never thought about it as a gender thing. I just want to be owned, totally, and feel safe with my Master.”
She took a breath. “So she’s right. That is a fantasy, a wish I carry around every day. But she’s wrong, thinking that I don’t know that there aren’t a lot of people you can trust with that much of yourself. That want that level of responsibility. I get it. I do.”
“You’ve thought about it a lot since then.”
“Of course. Incessant self-analysis is the road to enlightenment. Or a great way to drive yourself batshit.”
He smiled, his jaw shifting against her temple. He passed a hand over her hair, to her neck and shoulder, thumb caressing her collar bone. “It helps stop the screaming, doesn’t it? When you’re in session.”
He’d remembered what she’d told him on the loading dock. Perhaps a little too well. When she stiffened, he made a noise, part reproof, part gentling.
“Yes. I like having lots of jobs when I’m not here,” she admitted. “Because when I’m busy, I don’t have this anxious feeling that I’m as alone now as I was then, in that corner, watching the flames close in. I know I’m not,” she said quickly, before he could point it out. “I know I have a family here. But I can’t get that message to penetrate all the way, if that makes sense.”
“It doesn’t sink in soul deep,” he said slowly.
“Yes,” she said, surprised he understood. “Probably because I’m not connected to anyone to that level. But maybe no one is. After considering what Naomi said, I thought, okay, if James had been interested in me, maybe I could have made just loving and taking care of him be enough, without the overt Master stuff, because of my strong service side. But I don’t think it would have stopped the screaming. The only one who can do that is someone who can be down at the bottom of my soul, in that darkness with me.”
Her cheeks heated as she realized he might construe that as a deliberate hint, drawing his attention to the two of them together, in the darkness of her massage room. “I didn’t tell you any of this because…”
“I know that. I told
you to tell me, Ella. You did as I required. Be still now. I’m pleased with you, in every way.”
He said it with such assurance, she believed him. A relief.
He moved from her hair to stroke her face, her mouth, and she pressed her cheek to his palm. She was still weak. He’d been brutally demanding, as much as he was gentle with her now. His fingers slipped up to bracket her neck and ear, the side of her head, and he tucked her under his chin again, letting her rest her head against his thudding heart. It had an odd beat, slow. Then he made hers speed up.
“Ella, as of tonight, I consider myself your Master. Within these walls. Do you understand and accept that?”
“W-What?” Despite being unable to see him, she lifted her face, and felt like she was meeting those piercing eyes.
“I don’t think I need to repeat myself.”
“No, sir. But…you do? Consider yourself my Master?”
“Yes. Within these walls.” His touch eased, fingertips stroking her jaw, a light caress.
“I think I missed a turn, or a step.”
He chuckled. “I don’t think you did. I suspect you already wondered why I kept seeking you out recently. You were being respectful, trying not to assume until I stated my intentions. My offer isn’t motivated by what you’ve told me tonight. Only reinforced.”
Each time she’d wondered what his intentions were, if she should ask him to clarify, yes, there’d been that feeling inside her. But it was an additional relief to hear him acknowledge it, confirm that he wasn’t offering out of obligation.
A confirmation which made her toes curl.
“I…I’ve never really had a relationship here. Nothing committed like that.”
“First things first.” He gripped her chin. “Do you have a problem with me being your Master at Club Atlantis?”
“Not at all.” Even if he didn’t mean it in the all-encompassing way she would want it. “If I won’t be a disappointment to you,” she said.
