by L. DuBois
“Your turn.” She turned and grabbed a towel.
“Holy shit.”
She barely heard the whispered words over the sound of the shower. Looking over her shoulder she saw Liam staring at her, his eyes roaming up and down her body.
“No.” He held up his hands, swallowing hard.
“Liam?”
“No. No. I’m so sorry. What kind of monster…” He started shaking his head.
She must be mishearing him. Rosalicia leaned into the shower and turned off the water.
“You’re…you’ve been beaten.”
Now she could clearly hear the horror in his words. Oh no.
She went to him naked, wet, and vulnerable. “Hey, hey, I’m okay. I’m okay.”
“Your ass is black and blue. You’re covered in bruises.” His gaze darted over her, from her shoulders to her breasts, then down her legs. “You’re going to have bruises on your shoulders because I…because I fucked you so hard I rammed you into that thing.”
“I’m okay,” she murmured, hoping to soothe him. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“No, you’re not. You winced when I touched you. I touched you.” The way he said it made it sound like touching her was a crime.
“It’s a good hurt.”
“I shouldn’t have…I should have stopped them.” He was stammering, stopping and starting sentences, but not finishing them, his words darting around even as his gaze flicked from one part of her body to another.
“Liam, please don’t freak out.”
He stiffened. “Freak out? I’m sorry that I don’t think it’s okay that my girlfriend is black and blue.”
She didn’t know what hurt worse—to hear the word “girlfriend”, a reminder that she was only that, not his fiancée or wife—or the disgust in his voice. Just a minute ago, she’d been admiring the hickeys on her legs. But she disgusted him.
“I just need a little bit of TLC. And they’re not bruises.” She pointed to her legs. “They’re hickeys, remember?”
She’d hoped he’d laugh, or at least smile.
He turned and walked away.
Rosalicia pressed a fist to her sternum, as if that could stop her battered heart from breaking once more. She dashed for a towel. Grabbing it, she wiped a spot clear on the mirror and twisted so she could see her ass. The cheeks were an angry red, headed towards maroon with one or two purple blotches that would darken to black by morning. Her sides, back, and legs were all marked by small pink, red, and purple ovals.
It looked bad, she could acknowledge that.
Wrapping a towel around herself, she raced into the bedroom. Liam sat on the side of the bed, head in his hands.
“Don’t do this.” She took a steadying breath. “Please.”
“You’re trying to pretend that this is normal.” He didn’t look up. “I know I’m not the most adventurous person, that I’m—”
“Do not say bland.”
“Well, I am. And you’re not, I know that. But look what I did to you, when I tried to be...” He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes.
“Don’t make what we did bad. It wasn’t. It was amazing.”
“Amazing?” Now there was fire in his words. “I let another man take you. Put you in his harem. Harem. Fuck, that place is so God-damn ridiculous.”
He’d enjoyed it. She knew he had. She’d seen it in his face, felt it in the way he fucked her. But he was going to make this something ugly. She tried to speak but couldn’t get words out.
He didn’t look at her. He just kept going. Kept talking. “I watched people beat you, then I fucked you while you were trapped. I ground against you when you were already black and blue. I watched those bruises happen, and I enjoyed watching it.”
He leapt to his feet, fisting his hands in his hair. “I’m an abuser.”
That snapped her out of the temporary state of muteness. “No. You’re not! Please, please. Just calm down.”
“I am calm.”
“No, you’re freaking out.”
“Did you see yourself? You want me to take a picture? You know what people would say if they saw you now?”
“I don’t care about what other people would say. I care about you. I care that I felt close to you for the first time in…in a long time.”
“This is what you want, all the time?” Disgust dripped from the words.
She stepped back, as if he’d slapped her. “That’s not what I’m saying and you know it.”
“Then what are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I felt like you were really…really my Master. Like for the first time since…” Again her sentence faded out. They were both doing that a lot. “You were actually paying attention to me. You were looking at me.”
“Because normal me, the regular me, isn’t enough for you. I’m just this boring guy.”
Rosalicia closed her eyes. “Don’t do this.”
“Do you have any idea what I wanted to do to you?”
She opened her eyes, and he was looming over her. She was barefoot and naked except for a towel. He was still dressed and in shoes. The disparity both frightened and thrilled her. “What did you want to do to me?”
She hoped, oh she hoped, that he would grab her by the hair and show her. That he would bend her over their bed and fuck her.
“I wanted to leave you in the stocks. I wanted to watch as more people touched you. Hurt you. Then I’d work through the checklist. Hairbrush spanking. That’s one of our items. Maybe I would have used a hairbrush on your ass, added bruise on top of bruise until you screamed.” He practically spat the words at her, and they weren’t foreplay. “I would have done…I would have done savage things to you.” His voice lowered to a desperate whisper. “I was a monster.”
“You weren’t. You aren’t.” How could he call himself boring and then in the next breath think he was a monster? “Oh, Liam, come here.” She opened her arms, but he stepped back, panic in his eyes.
They stayed that way, as if frozen. If he would only come to her, it would be okay. They would be okay. They’d work through it.
He broke the silence first. “I’m going to sleep in the spare room.”
“No.” Her voice shook with suppressed emotion. “No.”
“If I roll over I might touch you. Hurt you.”
He turned to leave. She couldn’t let him go.
“You owe me aftercare,” she blurted out the words. “You said you’d take care of me.”
Liam stopped, shoulders tight. He nodded once. “Of course.”
Rosa watched as he crossed to the bathroom to fetch a fresh towel. She waited, breath trapped in her chest, as he approached. He gathered her hair carefully, wrapping a hand towel awkwardly around it. Then he took a second towel and began to dry her, touching her with the detached efficiency of a nurse. She dropped the towel she had tucked around her, hoping he’d see that as an invitation, but he kept up the impersonal touches.
Once she was dry, he inspected every mark on her skin. Then he applied balm, rubbing it in with light, tentative strokes.
She tried to lean into him, but he pulled away. She ran her fingers through his hair, but he ducked.
When he turned down the covers and motioned her to climb in, she accepted defeat and got into bed, rolling away from him.
He pulled the covers over her with a tenderness that only made his unwillingness to love her all the more stark.
“Maybe you should sleep in the spare room.” She forced the words past the lump in her throat, hoping she could keep the sob locked in until he left.
“I’m sorry,” he said softly.
Then he walked out, closing the door quietly behind himself. She waited until she heard the door to the spare room close, then buried her face in the pillow and wept.
Six
Two weeks later, Liam returned from his business trip. In that time he’d exchanged a handful of texts and emails with Rosalicia, but hadn’t heard her voice. All the texts had been about practical matters�
�transferring money into their mortgage account, an agenda item for their HOA meeting, and a question about the water bill.
He had nearly a dozen draft emails half-written. He’d never finished, and certainly never sent, any of them. He had no idea what to say to her. He had no idea how to even begin to go about apologizing.
There were so many things he needed to apologize for.
He needed to apologize for how he’d treated her at the club. He should have been more careful with her. He wouldn’t apologize for fucking her, but he should have taken her out of the stocks, taken care of her ass, before he touched her. He’d prioritized himself over her, and that was reprehensible.
He needed to apologize for trying to walk away before giving her appropriate aftercare.
He needed to apologize for not canceling this business trip to stay with her and work through their stuff. After he’d gotten to Seattle he’d realized this client wasn’t ready for his help. They were still in the whining phase, and he’d spent a frustrating two weeks listening to them gripe. He could have postponed this, or cut it short. And that led him to the last thing he needed to apologize for.
He needed to apologize for being a coward, because the truth was, he was afraid to face her.
Every time he considered that hard truth—that he’d avoided her because he didn’t know how to face her—he pulled back from the thought, turning away from it because he wasn’t ready to deal with it. A small voice insistently whispered that he was a fool, and a bigger coward than he knew.
It was easier to focus on how he’d failed to take care of her.
He stood outside the door to their home, weary and travel-fatigued, and still he hesitated. When his aching feet threatened to mutiny, he opened the door and walked into the condo. It was spotlessly clean. It took him a minute to register why that was bad—after all, it was Friday, and the cleaning service usually came on Thursday, so there was no reason it shouldn’t be clean. Still, something was wrong. He dropped his coat and case, only then realizing what was missing.
There was no clutter.
No shoes strewn by the door. No game controllers perched on the arm of the couch. No half empty glasses on the counter by the sink.
Liam dropped his bags. “’Licia?”
He walked through the condo, dread and certainty building with each step. “Rosalicia?”
He opened the closet. Half her clothes were gone. Back into the living room to stare at the TV stand. Two of her three game consoles were absent. Her desk was practically spotless except for her monitor. Both of her computers were missing.
Liam sank to the floor as his knees gave out.
She’d left him.
She was gone.
Seven
Several weeks later.
People were stupid.
Luscious leaned against her lover’s legs and looked at Rosa. The gorgeous blonde looked miserable. She thought she was hiding it, but she wasn’t. In the weeks since Rosa had been coming to Las Palmas as a secondary submissive to Master Khan, the woman had done her best to keep up appearances, but Luscious could tell she was dying inside.
She missed her lover. Her Master.
Luscious could only imagine how the woman must feel. She would be a blubbering mess if she lost Khan.
Tragic love stories had their place, mostly in literature. In real life, there was no need for such tragedy.
So Luscious was going to fix it.
Rosa loved Master Liam. From the few things Rosa had said, Luscious had pieced together the story—Rosa was a bit more hardcore than Master Liam. After the first weekend of the game, and particularly the scene in the Iron Court that had gotten really intense, Master Liam had freaked out.
That was a difficulty, but not unusual. Men were so sensitive.
Perhaps if they’d been merely a slightly mismatched Dom and submissive they could have worked through it in a mediated scene. But—and this was another bit of information Luscious had gleaned from her conversations with Rosa—Rosa and Liam were in a vanilla relationship outside of the club.
The aftermath of the scene had spilled over into their romantic relationship. That was far more dangerous than anything that happened at Las Palmas.
There were times Luscious thought that even Las Palmas’s strict vetting process wasn’t enough—some people just didn’t have what she and Khan did. Some people just couldn’t handle their kink.
Rosa had left her partner. Luscious only pieced this together by hearing a few references to picking up clothes when “he” wasn’t home, and a few sad comments she made about living in hotels.
Master Khan, her beloved Dom and husband, though they kept their marriage a secret here at Las Palmas, stroked her hair.
She tipped her head back to look up at him. “Master?”
“Yes, oh beautiful one?”
That made her smile. All these years and silly pet names still made her heart flutter. “I did something naughty.”
He raised a brow. “As is your nature, and the reason I have need to manage your more wayward tendencies. Perhaps you’ve earned a spanking.”
“Oh, I will need at least a spanking.”
Her Master’s eyes narrowed, his ornate vocabulary he used only here slipping. “What did you do?”
“Rosa is miserable.”
“Uh huh.”
“And she and Master Liam could be so good together.”
“Luscious…” The word hummed with warning.
Asking forgiveness instead of permission was a risky proposition when the person you were asking forgiveness of was a sadist.
Luscious turned on her knees to face him, laying her head in his lap.
He fisted her hair, hard enough to make her wince. And make her wet. “What did you do?”
“I called Master Liam. I told him he needed to come to the club this weekend. I told him Rosa needed him and had been asking for him.”
“Damn it, woman. That’s too far.” His voice was pure aggrieved So-Cal surfer boy, and he sounded like Khan Olson, celebrated cinematographer and a leading voice for diversity in Hollywood.
If he was slipping out of Dom mode, he really was pissed. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re not.” He flipped back to being Master Khan. “It is not your place to make that decision.”
“I know, Master, but I thought—”
“You think I am not Master enough for her?” His fist tightened on her hair. “Perhaps your motives are not so pure, and it is jealousy instead that motivates you. If that is it, I warn you neither of us will enjoy the punishment I’m forced to mete out.”
Crap. “They’re a couple, and I think he freaked out over that scene in the Iron Court. Then she left him, but I don’t think she really left him, if you see what I mean.”
“No one could possibly see what you mean.”
“What I’ve deduced is that he panicked that he’d been too hard on her, and before he had time to get everything right in his head, she left him. I mean moved out of their house.”
Master Khan blinked. “How do you know all this?”
“I sort of pumped her for information once or twice.”
He shook his head. “That does not excuse what you’ve done.”
It was bold, but she reached up and took his hands. “I did it because I wish someone had done it for us.”
His face softened. “I understand, but I cannot allow this. I will call Master Liam and tell him not to come.”
“Yes, Master.” She bowed her head.
“And as for your punishment, you will be caned and no orgasms for a week.”
She hissed out a breath, but didn’t object. He had every right.
And just to be on the safe side, she wouldn’t tell him that Master Liam was currently traveling—at least that was the case according to his voicemail. If Master Khan called the number the club had on file—a work number—it was possible Liam wouldn’t get that message, and would only get her message, left on his cellphone number, which she�
��d lifted from Rosa’s own phone one night in the Subs’ Garden.
If the world worked the way it should—the way her romantic soul wanted it to—Liam would show up.
Until then, she was going to have a very frustrating week.
Rosa lounged with her fellow harem members in one of the sunken seating areas in the dining room. Hachiro, who had more or less accepted his submission, was kneeling on the low table in the center. His cock was erect and looked painful in the series of five connected cock rings call the “gates of hell”.
Master Khan—try as she might she couldn’t think of him as her master—had her and the other two submissives lounging around mostly naked, essentially serving as eye candy.
“Petal,” Master Khan said to the woman to Rosa’s right. “Pleasure Rosa.”
The words should have filled her with something—some emotion be it pleasure, worry, or discomfort.
Rosa leaned back and spread her bare legs, exposing her pussy to the other woman, and felt nothing.
Petal slid to her knees and went straight for Rosa’s pussy—no kissing up her thigh, no stroking with her fingers. Just mouth on pussy.
Still Rosa felt nothing.
The dining room was full, and there were still plenty of people finishing up their portion of the checklist game. The time limit originally set hadn’t been realistic, but the game had done what the overseers wanted. Las Palmas was alive with new and altered pairings and grouping. There was a bit of a commotion as a dark haired woman with Cleopatra bangs, wearing a spike-studded muzzle-like mask, and bearing writing on her golden skin started walking through the dining room towards them.
Rosa didn’t know her, but clearly Master Khan did.
“Saffron, my delicate flower.” He gestured for the woman to join them.
Petal stopped half-heartedly licking Rosa’s labia and looked up.
