by Grant, Livia
“Because I can’t trust myself,” she said. “To choose anymore. To choose a partner.”
The man grew a considering look. The slightest tilt of his head. He moved close to slip a hand up under her breast. To test and squeeze the small mound there. To pinch a nipple—but careful, experimental, not cruel—and watch her reaction.
“Why can’t you trust yourself?”
His exploratory touch moved to her arm. He picked up her hand, wildly intimate, and turned it over, looking at what, she didn’t know. He didn’t seem like the sort of guy who was into palm reading.
“I thought I could in the past, Sir,” Violet said, as he brought a knuckle to tip her chin up. “And it turned out I was wrong.”
Those eyes weighed every part of her answer. Fingers tilted her face to one side and then the other. A gloved thumb pulled at her lower lip, and Violet had never felt so under a microscope. And yet it wasn’t terrible, but the reasons why were only still trying to coalesce into something she could make sense of.
“What did you put down for limits tonight?”
The question spun her. “Um …” How was he chasing every last thought from her brain? “Needles?” Why did it come out like that? Was she no longer sure?
“Mm?” He prompted her, brows up, while making the choice to examine her piercing. The metal tugged at her nipple and, with his gloved fingers moving the jewelry, it sent her back to the piercing parlor when she’d had it done.
Violet chewed the inside of her lip to summon her other limits. “Age play, Sir.” The man grunted along with a single nod, as though he approved. “Fisting. Humiliation.”
“I see pain isn’t on the list.” He brought the ring away from her breast until the nipple stretched with it. Until she inhaled through her nose. He let go and she wanted to scream. Not at any hurt—he’d barely started pulling—but at not knowing how to handle a Dom like this.
Brian would have had her on her knees already, crawling. Making a big scene. How was she supposed to just stand here, unmoving, and deal with this quiet, concentrated force of a man?
“Why not humiliation?”
It was getting a little scary how he seemed to zero in on the heart of her issues with every new question. Her features tightened. “My last Dom… liked it.”
“And?” He was circling again. Probably enjoyed the way it put her on edge. She fussed with her fingers at her sides.
“He liked to degrade me,” she said. “That was his thing. In front of others. Have them take part.” Some of it had happened right here in this club. “It was more about his ego than us having fun. Together. Sir.”
The man gave a short humph at her back. “Sloppy,” he said, and Violet felt some thrill to hear even the one-word judgment of her ex.
He was pushing her hair over her shoulder again to bare her back. Asking his questions in a low voice. It was clearer by the minute this man didn’t give one shit about the night’s competition. He wasn’t making their conversation loud, so an audience could hear. His tone was personal, his entire focus on her, as though there were no other people in the noisy, crowded space.
Gloved fingertips traced out the angles of her shoulder blades, both at once in symmetrical precision. She felt like he was marking her up for a surgery.
“And where is this unobservant Dom of yours now?” he asked.
“Unobservant? Sir?”
“If he’d been paying even half the attention he should have been to your reactions,” he said, voice coming from right above her ear, “he would have seen right away you’re not here to be part of a show. So.” Thumbs pressed in above her tailbone. “Where is he?”
She’d been all night wanting to forget, but with that voice melting her now, saying every unnerving true thing, Violet wanted to curl back against his chest. She didn’t, because he hadn’t told her to do any such thing but, plied this way, she had no problem throwing Brian under the fucking bus.
“I found out he was married,” she said. “And his wife didn’t know about me. That was the end of it. I was done.”
“Hmm. So you didn’t want to be humiliated. And you didn’t want to be shared. But neither of those things caused you to end it.”
Who are you, my fucking therapist?
“That’s why I can’t trust myself, Sir.”
Another considering hum, but then his warmth left her back. Mister M had stepped away to the table of lubes.
She’d tried talking to Brian about not wanting to be shared. Not wanting to hear the cruel words from him or anyone else. But the cocky pharmaceutical rep had brushed her complaints off as just another stiff place she needed to stretch. Her boundaries had been easy to smudge, and she’d wanted approval so bad she’d never mustered the courage to safe word when she should have. Finding out about his wife had just been a convenient excuse.
And now he’d gone somewhere else to play, but the entire year’s membership he’d bought her in advance still had several months on it. Every time she showed up, Violet half expected someone on staff to tell her the membership had been cancelled, but it never happened. Probably covering his own ass: trying not to rock the boat with someone who could rat him out to his wife. Destroy his career.
Violet didn’t care about his career. She just wanted to start over. And she had zero problem using what was left of that asshole’s membership money to do it.
Mister M returned with a small container in hand and stood in front of her. “We can’t play these games without honesty, can we, Miss Payne.”
This man was relentless.
“No, Sir.”
“That’s right,” he said, “which is why I need you to be honest tonight. With me. With yourself.”
Violet swallowed. There might have been no one else in the club, the way he spoke to her.
“Don’t wait,” he went on. “If you need to safe word. I’ve heard latex makes some people claustrophobic.” He raised brows as though she might pipe up about the fear, but that wasn’t one of her problems. When she said nothing, Mister M continued.
“Don’t keep going because you’re trying to impress me or anyone else watching,” he said. “Or because you’re trying to win the month of membership. You want a free month—I’ll pay for it. I just need you to be clear if I take you too far. Understood?”
Holy hell, he’d thrown a lot at her. But it all boiled down to her one trouble area: recognizing her limits. And honesty.
Well you’re here to start over, so…
“I understand, Sir.”
Now don’t fuck it up.
“Very good, Miss Payne.” He nodded and offered her the container he had in his hand. “Now cover yourself in powder, or we’ll never get you into this suit.”
He was right. If they took any longer, a DM would probably come and disqualify them from the event. She took the powder from him and began squeezing it out in little puffs into her palm. Smoothing it over calves, shins, thighs. Higher, she worked, getting her stomach, her breasts, her butt. Mister M stood there holding the catsuit while she finished her arms and shoulders. The upper part of her back probably didn’t matter—the suit had a zipper up to the high neck, and she wouldn’t have to force herself into that part like she would a sleeve or leg.
Her Dom handed over the oil-slick in clothing form, zipper already undone to the lower back, and Violet leaned a palm on the pillory for balance. Then she realized her mistake—there was no way she was going to stand on one leg, even leaning on the wood, and wrangle herself into latex without falling on her ass.
Mister M saw it, too, because he was transferring equipment from the top of the stool to the floor.
“Thank you, Sir,” she said as she sat and tried again.
The latex was stiffer than she’d imagined. It took effort to pull past a foot, and then she had to spend time smoothing out creases, shimmying it back down, pulling up and smoothing again. With one leg in place to the knee, she started work on the second. This suit didn’t have gloves or feet to it like some othe
rs she’d seen, which probably gave it just a little more wiggle room for people of different heights. Not much, but some.
For whatever reason, getting the top part of the legs up her thighs wasn’t nearly as time-consuming, though the benefits of the powder were already making themselves clear. She had to stand and wriggle the whole thing past her asscheeks after that and, once it was in place to the waist, the first half of the suit felt like a really aggressive pair of tights. If tights were made out of a thick party balloon.
The crotch of it was already snug up against her bare lips, and Violet didn’t miss the way the back zip travelled all the way under to end above her mound in front. In fact, there was a second pull for opening the suit just there.
The arms were the last part she could take care of herself, and they went quicker than the legs. At the end, she scooped her hair off her back, and her Dom was stepping in without her having to ask to slide the zipper up to the top of the high neck. As it sealed closed, Violet stood up straight.
She couldn’t help it. Everything now felt like a bra. Hoisting. Compressing. Even her tits stood up on their own; modest half-rounds, suspended in black gloss. She could make out the contour of her nipple ring on the one side, where the material smoothed out everything but the metal.
Mister M moved back to the stool and dipped down to grab something. He turned back, spreading open the cincher, and Violet let the prickles of arousal radiate from just under that zipper between her legs. The man didn’t wait but came around behind to wrap the thing in place and start tightening down buckles.
“This suit fits you well, Miss Payne,” he said while fitting the cincher down with small jerks.
“Thank you, Sir.” Her words were almost inaudible over the music and crowd. After a few more tugs, he made some satisfied grunt, and then he was pulling her hair into his hands.
Violet braced for him to get a fistful. For him to yank her head back or pull her off her center of gravity and into some dominant, growled question or promise, but instead there were intricate motions at the back of her neck. Nitrile gloves brushing her nape.
The man was braiding her hair.
There were little tugs at the bottom of her scalp as he went, and it made her not know what to do with herself. Like she had as a child, she had to just stand there, useless, and wait for it to be done. Where had he even learned how?
“Do you know why I’m doing this?” he asked.
She blinked. “No, Sir?”
An amused huff of air hit the back of her neck. “Because you have way too much hair, Miss Payne. It’ll never fit inside the hood. But I don’t want it all over the place.”
Violet couldn’t help a smile at this. She did have a ton of hair, and it always got into everything. And she was never cutting it off, either. She could just get old and look like a witch.
“Hold this.” He handed her the end of the braid when he finished and returned to reach for something under the stool. She’d already had a glimpse of what he came back with, and it had made her shiver the first time: a clothespin. There had been several. He folded the loose end of her braid in a loop and clamped it down with the little wood peg, which was good enough, because she hadn’t brought a hair tie.
It was when he brought over the hood that her breaths began to deepen, and the cincher exaggerated the feeling.
“I’ll help you zip,” he said, and handed her latex.
As she got the halves of it spread apart, Violet knew at least some relief. It wasn’t any of those hardcore styles that had a respirator built in, or the creepy condom-like mouth insert. This one was just a simple head-covering with wide eye and mouth holes, though she did take note of the attached blindfold dangling by one of its undone buckles.
Well. Here we go.
She brought the thing up and over the crown of her head. There was some molding to the structure of it, and it took a few tugs to position the nose—which also had two breathing holes, thank goodness—where it belonged, but that seemed to align everything else. Her eyes and mouth were free, but damn if the rest of her face didn’t feel like she’d stretched a rubber glove over it.
“Um, it’s on, Sir.”
At the back of her head, Mister M began tucking the open sides of the hood together. Shoving strands of her hair underneath. Then the careful draw of tiny teeth down the back of her head, and the whole thing tightened like a second skin. He did some final straightening work where the neck of the thing overlapped the catsuit, and then Violet stood there, encased from top to bottom in latex.
It was almost as good as the fox tail, as far as costumes went. She wasn’t used to it, but it did make her feel like someone else. Someone who was up for this tonight.
“If you’ll put your shoes back on please,” he directed.
The heels stood at the base of a pillory leg where she’d left them, and Violet slipped the pair back on. She was a few inches taller in an instant, but not quite as tall as her Dom.
The man paced a slow path around her, inspecting. He stuffed a finger between the top of the cincher and her ribs, to check the fit. To trace the zippers down the back of her skull and along her spine, stopping for the first time to palm a handful of her ass, fingertips hooking way into the cleft to smash the latex between her lips. And then his hand left to come back in a swift smack to her cheek. Violet sucked in a breath.
When he came to face her again, the Dom took the time to smooth out some creases at her shoulders. To trace the hood’s opening around her mouth with a fingertip. His eyes flicked from one area to another, meticulous. There was something about the combination of boldness and unfamiliarity: as though he wanted something but wasn’t entirely sure how to go about getting it.
“I can see the appeal of this,” he said, almost to himself. “One last thing.”
So can I.
But it wasn’t necessarily the latex. It was more his attention. She was the entire focus, and that focus was intense.
Mister M moved over to the pillory and began unscrewing some hardware where the restraint plank met one of the legs. She wasn’t sure what he was doing until one entire end of the crosspiece shifted down over a foot. He made a similar adjustment on the opposite side, and Violet couldn’t help the widening of her eyes.
He was undoing a latch on the left side of the plank. Parting it like a huge jaw on a hinge at the other end to open the neck and wrist holes. Where she’d thought he might be restraining her in the thing in a more-or-less standing position, now she saw he’d have her bent over at the waist, torso nearly parallel to the floor. It would take way more effort to keep her feet under her.
“Miss Payne?”
The Dom turned in her direction and made a sweeping gesture with an arm, as though he were unveiling a prize on a game show. Who the winner was remained to be seen. There was nothing to do but go where he wanted, the rope of her new braid and its clothespin tapping her on the ass as she went.
‘Inviting’ was the wrong word for the open restraint plank, but she did see now that someone had engineered in some leather-covered padding on the inner circumferences of the holes. At least the edges of the wood wouldn’t be bruising visible lines into her body. She had to go to work on Monday.
Violet exhaled and set her wrists into the cutouts. Leaned—allll the way down— and placed her neck in the center.
“Will you be able to keep your footing at this level, Miss Payne?”
“I think so, Sir.” Maybe. Hell, she’d try.
“Perfect.” He moved around to the side of the pillory where her head stuck out, and she heard metal hardware clink. And then wood clacked on wood, dull but definite, and the opposite halves of the leather pads closed around her wrists and neck.
Your safe word is ‘red’, tonight. Not the usual.
Which was fine, because this probably wasn’t a guy she could tell her normal safe word was ‘Pisces.’
The latches snapped into place off to her left, and then Mister M was squatting on his heels in front of he
r face. She lifted her head as much as she could to look at him.
“Are you afraid of the dark, Miss Payne?”
They were in a room full of neon. “No, Sir?”
His hand came up to catch hold of something near her face. She’d forgotten about the fucking blindfold.
“A shame.” Latex swung over her face.
Lights out.
“Still,” he said, working the buckle at her right temple, “I want you to tune this room out. Focus on what you feel.”
What she felt was knuckles sliding over her latex-covered jaw. The blood rushing in her ears when she couldn’t see anything anymore, not even a hint of light, because latex-on-latex made a perfect seal.
And now she stood there—leaned there?—trying to keep her forward weight on her wrists and not her throat, her feet planted at least shoulder-width apart, because straight legs together seemed like an unsteady choice. The barrier of the hood over her ears muffled the din of the club somewhat, but not so much that she couldn’t hear sounds nearby. And the smell of it: medical and a little creepy, just like those gloves he’d put on.
Yeah, but who knew you’d like it?
She did feel everything now, the first thing being one of those same gloved hands trailing down her spine. God, what did she look like back there? Glossy and propped up for use. His touch dipped under her ribs to smooth over the suspended package of her breasts; to knead and circle a thumb around a tightening areola. Her body’s reaction spread, and it was as if he knew it, because his palms began to migrate.
The attention returned to her ass, both hands palming and massaging cheeks now. She could feel the vibrations of his steps on the raised platform telling her he’d stepped directly behind her. All she could do was maintain the posture, presenting herself like a cat in heat while he cupped and squeezed, separated the globes of her buttocks with thumbs until the zipper sank way down into her crack. While his splayed fingers slipped down the backs of her thighs and her skin prickled all over at the unexpected warmth of him through the material.
An actual moan came out of her when the man bent over her back to reach around and claim handfuls of both tits—sure, the attention to her latex-coated breasts was novel and exciting, but it was more the obvious press of trousered erection he wanted her to feel lining up along the cleft of her body.
