H is for...: BDSM Checklist

by L. DuBois

  This man she’d just met was spanking her. Rosa raised her head, looking for Liam—Master Liam—but her view was blocked by the back of the couch.

  Smack, smack, smack.

  Now the spanking was starting to hurt in truth. She hadn’t been counting. Should she have? Should she be thanking Master Khan after every blow? She didn’t know what to do, how to behave.

  She squeezed her eyes closed.

  Luscious took her hand off Rosa’s shoulders, and the couch shifted as Master Khan sat back.

  A minute passed with nothing happening. Rosa opened her eyes. From this angle she couldn’t see Master Khan’s face, but he was reclining against the corner of the couch, seemingly at ease.

  He wasn’t asking her if she was okay. Wasn’t rubbing lotion into her or cuddling her.

  Unsure what she should do, Rosa held her position for a count of thirty and then pushed herself off the couch and sat back on the cushion. When her ass hit her heels, she winced. She looked at Master Khan, then lowered her gaze to his knees. “I’m sorry, Master Khan.”

  “It was my pleasure to correct you. You will apologize to Master Liam, but later.” Master Khan stroked Luscious’s head.

  Liam had touched her like that, stroked her hair, picked up a piece. It had been an unprompted, spontaneous show of both affection and possession. That single, simple touch to her hair had felt more intimate than when they’d had sex two weeks ago. How could he touch her like that and then not two minutes later walk away?

  Watching Master Khan stroke Luscious was making her stomach hurt. She tried to peer around the crowd in the Library, to catch sight of Liam at the bar, but she couldn’t see him.

  “Three is a small harem, but a harem none the less. Come, my pets. It’s time for us to go explore our letter.” Master Khan rose and held out a hand to Luscious. She placed her fingers in his, rising gracefully to her feet.

  “Hachiro, help Rosa up.”

  The man who’d been kneeling slightly behind her and Luscious rose easily to his feet and then offered his hand the same way Master Khan had.

  Rosa let him pull her up. Standing, her view was a bit better, but she still didn’t see Liam.

  “Enough looking for your Master to save you. He wanted you to do this. Honor him by being obedient.” Hachiro coupled the hard words with a tug to her elbow. Rosa hesitated when her fellow concubine started walking. He had to yank her forward to get her moving.

  When she’d been in the Subs’ Garden she’d accepted that her relationship with Liam was all but over. One too-brief touch to her hair had rekindled a hope that should have been long dead.

  The fact that a simple touch had affected her so deeply put paid to the idea that she was anything but deeply in love with him still. After all this time. After all this heartbreak.

  She finally caught sight of him—he was at the far end of the bar, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed. Their gazes met, and then Hachiro pulled her out of the Library.

  She kept looking back, expecting to see Liam appear in the doorway. Expecting him to follow her.

  He didn’t.

  Three

  Master Khan fastened a matching leash to the D ring in the nylon dog collar he’d buckled around Rosa’s neck. “There’s something delightful about having two women on leashes.”

  A shiver worked its way down her back as the metal end of the leash settled against the base of her throat. The open door let a mishappen rectangle of mingled starlight and light from the lamps in the courtyard spill into the small dressing room.

  The trembling prickled and pulled at her skin. It made her aware of how little she wore. It had been a long time since wearing just a corset made her feel naked. She was showing only slightly more skin than she would have in a one-piece bathing suit, but uncertainty and a sense of…abandonment…made every inch of exposed skin seem vulnerable.

  Abandonment.

  The word, the idea, bounced around, then dropped, settling in the back of her mind—heaviness pressing against the base of her skull, weighty and dark.

  “Come, my lovely things. Hachiro.” Master Khan started to walk away, not bothering to look at Luscious, Rosa, or Hachiro. He led with the assurance that they would follow.

  That they would obey.

  Hachiro nudged her with a hand to the small of her back. Rosa jerked away. Hachiro wasn’t her Master. He touched her with the surety of a Dom, but he was part of this harem, same as she was.

  The leash pulled nearly taut, and she would have been jerked by the neck if Hachiro hadn’t nudged her. Rosa’s cheeks heated when she realize the other man was trying to help her. She couldn’t turn to look at him or thank him, not with the leash demanding she walk or be pulled.

  Master Khan had stressed when he buckled the collar around her neck that it was a dog collar—a tool, a prop. Not a collar with all the connotations and promises that would have implied.

  Beside her, Luscious wore a matching collar, but unlike Rosa she didn’t seem uncomfortable.

  Rosa felt disconnected—as if a large part of her couldn’t really believe this was happening. The day had been too strange, from the quiet, tense drive to Malibu with Liam, to the announcement of the game.

  Most startling and strangest of all was the moment back in the library when Liam had touched her hair and she looked up to see the man she’d once loved beyond reason looking out through the eyes of a familiar stranger.

  And the day was continuing its journey of strange—because now she was starting her new role as a member of Master Khan’s harem.

  Maybe what she’d felt earlier had been some sort of emotional defense mechanism. In the face of something both terrifying and darkly thrilling, her mind had tried to trick her into thinking that safety was in reach—that Liam, whom she’d loved half her life, who knew all the scars on her soul, was right there and that he still loved her. Would always love her.

  “Let’s put on a little show. What do you think, my pretties?”

  Put on a show?

  “Rosa, tell me, have you ever been with a woman.”

  “Yes, Master Khan.”

  “Very well. Then you and Luscious will enjoy one another’s company. Hachiro, set it up.”

  They went to the Constellation Court. There were people everywhere, and Rosa swallowed as she looked around at all the potential viewers of the “show” she was about to be a part of.

  Hachiro returned carrying a tall, backless stool. He set it off to one side of the courtyard, out of the way of the main action.

  “Present yourself, let us all enjoy you,” Master Khan said.

  The insulating detachment was fading, and Rosa started to panic. “What?”

  “You’re going to get in trouble,” Luscious whispered. “Jump up on the stool and spread your legs.”

  Rosa blinked at her, then slowly backed up, until the stool hit her mostly bare ass.

  Bracing the heels of her hands, she shimmied up, then spread her knees, hooking the spikes of her heels on the rung of the stool.

  “Bind her,” Master Khan said.

  Hachiro stepped up beside her and hooked a rope through a short chain that dangled from the end of one of the roof beams that poked out into the courtyard. He must have known it was there, and known he’d need to do this, because the stool was perfectly positioned under it. Once the rope was secured, Hachiro grabbed her right wrist, forcibly pulled it above her head, and slid it into the slipknot he’d created. He did the same with her other wrist.

  “Don’t pull,” he warned her, and then stepped back.

  She looked up, her balance wavering for a second. She turned her wrists and grabbed onto the knots, holding on as if it were the handle on a subway train.

  “Luscious, my sweet” Master Khan reached into his pocket and pulled out a knife. Rosa sucked in air, but no one else seemed alarmed. “I believe in fairness in all things. For every orgasm you bring her to, I will insist she give you an equal pleasure.”

  Master Khan reac
hed between her legs, fingers casually brushing her labia. He pulled her thong away from her body, and cut through it with a knife.

  Cool air hit her now exposed pussy and Rosa fought the urge to close her legs. This was insane, it was all happening so fast.

  Luscious’s fingers danced up the inside of her thigh. She’d positioned herself at Rosa’s back, her arm reaching around, her hand between Rosa’s spread legs.

  Despite the strangeness and suddenness of the situation, Rosa felt herself getting wet. It wasn’t the hard, sharp arousal she would have felt if this hadn’t been such an odd moment, but she was undeniably turned on—by being treated like a submissive in a way she hadn’t before, by being put on display, by the bondage, simple as it was.

  Luscious slid two fingers over her labia, and the touch of the other woman’s nails was a foreign sensation.

  Her pussy was spread open, and two people walked down the open air hallway on that side of the square courtyard stopped and turned to watch.

  Rosa licked her lips, twitching at the first glancing touch of a fingertip on her clit.

  That part of her pussy was still dry, but Luscious played with her clit anyway, manipulating rather than rubbing it.

  The watching crowd gathered.

  Luscious opened her further, then dipped one finger between her inner labia, finding the pooled wetness there and spreading it up to her clit. Twice more Luscious dipped her finger into the entrance to Rosa’s vagina, then glided that same digit up to stroke her clit.

  By the time she was done with that, Rosa was breathing hard, her nipples tight within her corset.

  She started working Rosa’s clit in earnest. It felt good—really good.

  But she wasn’t going to come. It was too strange, and that sense of distance between herself and the situation was enough to keep her from feeling anything more than a pleasant warmth.

  “What’s the matter, sweetie?” Luscious whispered in her ear. “Not used to girls? Don’t answer me, I don’t want us to get in trouble for chatting when we should be giving them a show.”

  Since she wasn’t supposed to talk, Rosa shrugged, hoping it looked like she was adjusting her shoulders.

  Luscious adjusted her fingers, the edge of her nails alongside Rosa’s clit.

  “Are you more of a pain slut?”

  Luscious dug her nails into Rosa’s clit. She screamed. That hurt.

  But damn her body was now throbbing with arousal more acute than she’d felt before. She wasn’t a masochist, at least not the way she’d seen some of these people get into it, seeming to revel in things that made Rosa wince.

  The crowd had grown when she screamed, and Rosa looked over the staring faces. Most people were looking at her pussy, which was embarrassing, but arousing. How many times would she think that tonight—that something she hadn’t thought she’d find enjoyable was unexpectedly arousing.

  Her gaze arrested on a familiar face. Liam was there, standing at the back of the crowd. His face was half in shadow, making him seem dark and dangerous.

  Liam was here. He was watching her.

  Luscious’s fingers circled her clit, and the muscles in her stomach drew tight. She breathed deep and licked her lips. She didn’t look away from Liam, though she was aware of the others. The audience.

  He lifted a glass to his lips and took a small sip, without looking away from her. There was something menacing in that, though Liam was anything but menacing.

  Liam was never menacing. Or he never had been before.

  Her body pulsed with pleasure.

  Luscious’s fingers sped up, circling her clit, then just when she was getting used to that, switched to an up and down stroke. The other sub worked her clit expertly, apparently able to read each gasping breath Rosa took.

  “You may come,” Master Khan said.

  She and Liam had never done that permission to come thing—it had seemed a bit forced—so Master Khan’s words didn’t register as important.

  But Liam sucked an ice cube into his mouth and bit down on it, and that show of force, that sign of sexual frustration from the man she wanted to frustrate, wanted to drive wild, pushed Rosa over the edge.

  She closed her eyes, let her head fall back, and yielded to the orgasm, which Luscious kept going long past the time when Rosa would have stopped touching.

  “Enough,” she sobbed. “Please, please.”

  Finally, Luscious slid her fingers away from her clit, instead playing with Rosa’s inner labia.

  Rosa opened her eyes and searched the thinning crowd for Liam.

  He was gone.

  “Hey, man, are you busy?”

  Liam looked up from his glass of whiskey. He’d given up on mixed drinks yesterday after watching Rosa come noisily and beautifully for Luscious. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been the one to cause her to make those noises. Today he was nursing a scotch on the rocks.

  The dark-haired man standing by his chair looked like he should be on the front of Men’s Health. Did the guy have an eight pack? For fuck’s sake. Liam tugged the front of his shirt self-consciously, aware that he was not a walking anatomy lesson, and he was currently drinking his calories in the form of booze.

  “No, I’m not busy.”

  Liam was hit with a sense of déjà vu and studied the man from his seated position. Not deja vu, recognition. He’d seen Abs before, talking to Master Khan.

  Master Khan who had Rosa. Who’d touched Rosa, mastered her, had her obeying with a sort of ease Liam simply didn’t understand. He took a sip of his drink to hide the anger that tugged at the corners of his lips.

  Abs ran his hands through his dark hair. “This might sound awkward, but do you want to help me with a gang bang?”

  Liam choked on a mouthful of scotch.

  “I probably could have been a bit more subtle. I’m Master Dowell.”

  Liam finished coughing and set his glass down with a clink. “Weirdly, I’m not as shocked as I should be by what you just said. I’m Master Bland.”

  “Master Bland?”

  He’d been so flustered he’d forgotten he’d said “Master Liam” before.

  Or maybe it was that while watching Rosa serve in Master Khan’s harem, he’d given up his momentary delusion that he was anything other than bland. That he and Rosa had a chance.

  Rosa had been happy with Master Khan. He’d been able to top her in a way Liam never had.

  It was time to let her go, at least as his submissive. Maybe if she had a different Dom, and was sexually satisfied by someone else, their relationship might stand a chance. Assuming he could function knowing she was routinely getting fucked by someone else.

  “Gang bang?” Liam repeated the words, both trying to bring himself back to the present and to make sure he’d heard Master Dowell correctly.

  “Yep. I got G. What letter do you have?”

  Liam pushed to his feet. “I’m not really playing.”

  “Oh, sorry.”

  “No need.” Liam tugged his shirt once more, then adjusted his glasses. He’d have to change back to his contacts. Gang bangs were a contacts activity. “Where is this gang bang going to be?”

  Four

  Rosa trailed behind Luscious, who followed Master Khan. Hachiro was at Rosa’s back. The little procession was oddly familiar, but that didn’t mean pleasant, or eventful. After the intense scene yesterday with Luscious—first getting and then giving a hand job for an audience—she’d spent most of her time watching other club members working through their letters and lounging with her fellow “concubines.”

  She followed placidly behind Luscious, perking up with a sort of anxiety-laced interest when they passed into the Iron Court. Instead of flowers and padded outdoor seating, this courtyard was filled with statuary. The playrooms that opened off this court catered to a darker, more intense form of play. She and Liam had played here only once—he’d steered clear of some of the most interesting items, focusing instead on putting her in a cage, which sounded sexier
than it had ended up being.

  A scene was in progress in the center of the courtyard. Onlookers rested on chairs surrounding a tall, backless stool. A beautiful Indian woman was perched on the stool, her hands braced on the seat behind her. She was leaning back, her black hair reflecting the torchlight, throwing off red highlights. Her legs were hooked over the arms of her Master, who was fucking her with a raw passion that made Rosa wet. The submissive cried out as she came, and Rosa had to stop herself from walking over to join the crowd of voyeurs. Conscious of her position, her role as a part of Master Khan’s harem, she stayed in line, quietly thrilled when Master Khan led them towards the tableau.

  The Master pulled out, his cock glistening. From Rosa’s position she couldn’t see between the woman’s spread legs, but she could imagine the sight of the other woman’s pussy—vulva wet and swollen, skin slick and glistening, entrance gaping slightly—evidence of her master’s penetration.

  Damn it, all this watching and no action had her aching for any sort of contact. If she had her choice, she’d want Liam, even after he’d walked away, but right now she’d take anything.

  That was a dangerous state of mind.

  “That’s Master Dowell,” Luscious whispered to Rosa. “And the woman is actually Hachiro’s submissive Sejal. He gave her to Master Dowell, as part of the game.”

  “Gave her?” Rosa whispered.

  “Given away to another Dom is one of the items for G.” Hachiro spoke from Rosa’s left shoulder, and she jumped a bit guiltily, though Luscious had been the one gossiping.

  Master Khan shot all of them a stern look. Rosa pressed her lips together and dropped her gaze. Luscious made a small apologetic sound, but there was no real fear or shame in it. Luscious was sure of her place in Master Khan’s harem. Not just his harem, in his life.

  Sejal wobbled and nearly fell off the stool, deprived of the anchor of Master Dowell’s cock deep within her. Master Dowell’s hands were there, holding Sejal, keeping her safe. Rosa’s heart ached, even as her pussy pulsed watching the possessive way Master Dowell handled the submissive.