Once Upon A (Stained Duet Book 1)

by Charlotte E Hart

  “Why are so many of these stories written about a Dom who’s unbalanced? You know, bad upbringing, fucked up childhood, abusive parents etc.” I don’t lift my head or bother to look at Bree as I ask the question. We don’t do that. We’re both perfectly capable of multitasking our way through several things at the same time and retaining information. When we’re interested enough.

  “Everyone loves a truly bad boy, Lana. You’d know that if you ever dropped you panties below your knees for longer than ten minutes.” What the actual fuck? My head shoots up at her, almost to the point of lifting myself off the bench. “And before you start,” she continues, still not lifting her head so I can slap the face she’s not showing me as she keeps writing. “I don’t mean those stupid one nighters you do. You think you can assess depth from a one-night affair? Some would say you don’t even know sex from the occasional quickie in some hotel room.”

  “Listen, Bree. I’ve had just about enough of your digging. I have sex. Often. Just because I don’t choose to share it with you all the time doesn’t mean that…” She lifts her head, a wry smile plastered across her lips as she pushes the laptop to the side and inches herself towards my end of the bench.

  “Don’t get those panties in a knot, now. You know I don’t give a shit how you get your kicks, but if you want to know the substance of why the ladies love these big, bad bdsm boys, you need to understand how that particular variety affects the psyche.” Why does she always do that? My irritated backside is instantly deflated into accepting mode again, reminding me that she is my best friend and, as always, she’s mostly right.

  “Okay, I sort of see your point. But I can’t seriously have to get involved with this shit to be able to write a good book about it. Surely? I’m doubting Cassandra Evels has ever seen the broad end of a belt, and she managed that trilogy that sold off the charts.”

  She stands up with a sigh, digging out her wallet and pointing at the drinks vendor over in the corner of the square.

  “You want a tea?” I nod, grabbing five dollars from my black trench coat and offering it to her, but she waves it off. “You need to have a hard think, Lana. ‘Cause I’m thinking if you wanna get this right, you’re gonna have to give the reader something a little different. This shit ain’t some romance level that Valerie can sweet-talk her way through.” That’s the last thing I want to write, again. I want the excitement as much as readers do, but this, really?

  “Seriously? You really think I should ask him to help me understand it in that way?” She smirks then dives into her phone, flicking through something until she holds up her screen at me.

  “See that? That’s my PA’s account.” She’s one of her own PA’s, even though she has a different name for that. It’s very confusing. She swipes left, showing me a picture of a fully erect piece of manhood on display. “I don’t know about you, but I get those daily, mostly along with some depiction or description of Dom like connotations.” I roll my eyes at the thought. “Don’t you want to tell a real story and know that you did your bit to help the real scene hold its own in the middle of this craze? ‘Cause I’m thinking this shit ain’t real.”

  “But that doesn’t mean I have to—”

  “Yeah, it does, Lana. Or I could slap you seven ways from Sunday so you know what pain feels like, but I doubt you’ll get the same sexual thrill when I do it, ya know?”

  She walks off after that, leaving me with my mouth hanging open as I try to find a sensible reproach to her argument. Sexual thrill. It’s plainly outlandish. I’m not sure anybody gets a sexual thrill out of anything that happens in those places. It’s more likely that they simply appease the man’s need to be savage in some way. Men are, after all, hunters who are now limited to what a civilized world has persuaded them into. I mean, we all become a little on the excitable front when we have sex, throwing caution to the wind while saying and doing things that would normally be frowned upon. A nip on the neck, the occasional scratch here and there. We don’t, however, strap each other into apparatus and beat each other with leather, no matter how bored we may have become. And it’s not surprising it’s mainly women who seem to take the brunt of this pain. We have a higher pain tolerance. That’s fact. Still, it doesn’t compute as logical or acceptable in my mind. And it certainly doesn’t strike me, excuse the pun, as appealing in any way, regardless of this strange thing that happens around Chanel dowsed men in suits. Blaine Jacobs included.

  “So, is it going to be me or him?” Bree says, dumping a takeaway cup down in front of me. My mouth is still hanging open. “Because if it’s going to be me, I need to gym it a bit. You’re a big girl.”

  “Screw you. I am not.”

  Well, I am, but that’s not the point. She laughs.

  “Screw you back. You’re touching six foot in those heels, and most definitely built for comfort.”

  I could be offended, but the raise of her brow as she performs some sort of pumping motion with her hips has me giggling before I’ve had time to close my mouth again.

  “I am not built for comfort.”

  “You’re not built for anything if you don’t let something fuck you better than your one nighters do. Let him beat the story into you.”

  “Jesus, Bree.”

  She spits out another laugh and wanders herself around to her side of the bench again, sipping her hot chocolate as she goes. Which is topped with extra marshmallows and cream. Not that I’m jealous or anything.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Not telling.”

  “Suggest you keep your mouth closed better next time. Blaine sounds intriguing.”

  “What the fuck?”

  “You mumbled it.”

  “I did not.”

  “Yeah, ya did. When you were writing sex. It was all breathy and shit,” she says, leaning her arms onto the table and grinning from ear to ear.

  “I did not breathily moan out his name.” I didn’t.

  “I didn’t say anything about moaning. You’re moaning about him, too?” I’m not winning this argument any time soon. I can tell. She’s gone into attack mode. “He’s cute, right?”

  “Oh, fuck off,” I splutter out, knowing nothing is going to stop the tirade of quick thinking perfection that falls from her mouth effortlessly when she’s focused. And why does it matter if he’s cute or not? It’s not like there’s any way I’m going to concede to this ludicrous reasoning regardless of his looks, no matter the intrigue that’s building. “I suppose he’s attractive. Pleasant in an impassive way.” Which is an outright lie, one that makes me squirm to avoid looking at her, because he’s absurdly good looking. A dream boat. The sort that makes girls believe they’ve won the damn lottery by just looking at his form. It’s unfortunate for my well-being.

  “And so the problem with fucking him is?”

  “Do you have to be quite so crude about it?”

  “Yep. No time for anything else.” She’s got a point. It’s one that makes me sigh as she taps her fingers on her hot chocolate cup and she tilts her head at me. “Look, Lana, you’ve got one shot at making a new pen in this game. You know the crack. Fuck it up and you’re a no one. You wanna run the risk of that?”

  “Of course not,” is my reply, as I sigh again, barely able to think coherently about the pressure that would cause to mount up. It’s already enough that I can’t move, think, or attempt anything other than what I need to do. Heaping more burden onto what I just about manage would be an impossibility. I’m almost done as it is, let alone adding more into the fold. There’s just too much noise lately. It’s all becoming too much.

  “So, what’s the plan?” I look back at her, neither knowing the answer nor understanding my want to throw this laptop I’m hovering over into the trash.

  “You’re really going to make me do this?”

  “I’m not making you do anything. I’m just telling you what a sensible writer who wants to write the best book possible already knows,” she says, shifting her body back along the bench so
she can get behind her laptop again. Bitch. “We heading for seven or eight K today?”

  Words. Eight thousand words. They seem so much easier than the thought of research all of a sudden, and yet so much harder than they’ve ever been before.

  “Ten.” With any luck, one of us will have come up with a better plan than me fucking the Dominant for research purposes by the end of it, hopefully proving it unnecessary.

  ~

  Neither of us came up with a better plan than originally suggested by the time we had finished our sprint. In fact, I didn’t even achieve six thousand words by the time she’d hit the target. The very thought of being strung up seemed to interfere with writing in a major way, which is interesting in itself. I can’t remember anything interfering with writing for a long time, short of boredom. I’ve spent so long doing it now I don’t even think about it that much. It just flows without real engagement. It’s the editing that takes thought and true substance. Today, though, sitting at that bench and beginning to give real thought to letting him touch me, well, that threw all normal behaviour out of the window. Of course, that amused Bree no end. I heard her snickering to herself every time my hand hovered over the keyboard mid-stream. And, I swear to God she kept saying his name just to build the impetus, or I did.

  Now we’re here in my apartment, getting ready for a Publisher’s Awards Convention at Carnegie Hall tonight. Bree’s going as my partner, because I don’t have anyone else I’d rather take, and because she, being indie and a woman writing as a man, which no one knows about, doesn’t get to go to these things any other way. I’m not sure what she gets out of the experience. It’s not like she wants a publisher. I think she just likes being around the writer types, even though she doesn’t give out any information about who she is or what she does.

  “You know, I don’t think you get to fuck the Dominant. I think he gets to fuck you,” she says, mid way through yanking on a slim fitting black dress. “Pretty sure that’s the way it works.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Enough with the damned topic,” is my slightly snippy response.

  The more I’ve thought about it, and the more she’s peppered the evening with comments about it, the more I’m thinking about just jacking the idea off as ill thought out. I cannot seriously contemplate screwing a man for research. It’s ludicrous. I may have gotten ideas in my other one-night stands on occasion, but fiddling in this type of thing is not up my alley at all, regardless of my intrigue that keeps biting my arse. I mean, what idiot would do that for a book? Some of them are sadists—him included apparently. I’m pretty sure that involves huge amounts of pain, and bleeding, and things I don’t even think are acceptable for humanity.

  I pick up the end of my green evening gown, shrugging the end of the silk out to ensure it flows properly behind me before slipping my feet into my matching Louboutin’s.

  “It’s not normal, Bree.”

  “Neither’s your ass in that dress.” What the hell’s wrong with my arse in this dress? I swing around to her, just about managing to contain my breasts in the little covering they have.

  “Why? What’s the matter with it?”

  “It’s…obscene.” This is a concern coming from Bree, given that she is happy to have anything on show most of the time. “The fuck have you strapped that in?”

  I storm directly back into the one bedroom I have and try to get a good look at the back of myself in the full length mirror. Okay, it’s fitted, probably a little more so since the last time I wore it given the amount of sitting on my arse I do, but it’s not obscene. The boob thing is a little more worrying to be frank, as I pull on the halter-neck, trying to arrange them into some semblance of order.

  “I’m more worried about my nipples escaping.”

  “I’m not. They could do with some licking. Your ass gets plenty of that most of the time.”

  “It does not.”

  “Does, too. You’re going to be fawned over all night. Queen fucking Du Font, literary goddess of the romance world.”

  Sadly, she’s right. At twenty-seven, I’m beginning to hit a rising peak in my career. I’m tried and tested, and so far I’ve had three offers from other big publishing houses to sign with them next time round, which is in six month’s time. It’s the main reason there’s so much arse licking going on, something I despise for my own reasons. I’m starting to feel like a fraud at these events, one who simply puts fingers to keyboards and tells the same old same old because my publisher makes me do it that way. It’s what the reader appears to want, well, wants from Valerie anyway, but I’m getting jaded with it for all the same reasons I thought would make it easier. Somethings changed since the first few I wrote. I can’t work out what, or why, but something has. It’s becoming more apparent every day. It’s just a sea of the same words, synonyms changing the meaning on occasion, but fundamentally just a blur of similarity. And each and every time I try to go outside their boundaries, change the story or offer a different perspective, they damn well halt me.

  “You know I’m not interested in that,” I eventually huff out, making one final rearrangement to my boobs and turning back to her. “Hair?”

  “Looks groovy. I’m digging the new purple tones.” So am I. I don’t know why I did them—perhaps its escapism, because writing doesn’t appear to be providing that anymore, but blonde just seemed boring all of a sudden, and straight even more so.

  “You like the curls?”

  “Yep. For a white chick they look funky.”

  There’s only one person in the world who could call me a white chick and get away with it. Breana Jenkins is that person, and she only does it because she’s mixed race. Actually, that’s not why she gets away with it. She gets away with it because she’s my friend. Other than that, I hate all forms of separation in colour, creed or religion. I hate the sense that we even notice ourselves as different to each other. We’re human, and should live happily together without allocating borders around ourselves. When I first started talking to Bree online I didn’t even know her colour, or his at the time because I thought she was a man, obviously. It wasn’t until he suggested a meet that I eventually found out who she was. It was the most bizarre meeting I’ve ever had, and to this day I don’t really know why she decided to ‘come out’ to me in particular, other than the fact that we live close to each other, which she only knew as Manhattan when we first started talking. Anyway, meeting a black woman when I thought I was meeting a white man was highly amusing, and at the time made me question her choice of pen. We’ve since talked it through quite thoroughly, and it seems she doesn’t sell as well as a black man. Her figures prove that point succinctly, which fucking annoys me no end, but I suppose that’s still the world we live in. My aunt was black, and I watched the taunting my dad’s family got because of it in a rural community, so I know how small-minded the world can still be. She’s gone now, as is my uncle, but that doesn’t stop the memory of it reminding me how closed people are sometimes.

  The thought makes me hover, suddenly unsure of my reaction to Blaine and the scene I’m researching. Have I been unfair? Made it seem as though I believe it a joke, or something that should be frowned upon for its eccentricity? I’m instantly disgusted with myself, my insides boiling at the very idea of discrimination of a kind. I stare blankly into the mirror, listening to my thoughts on his world, recanting words I’ve said to him, questions I’ve asked. I aimed for professional, needing to show my sense of control and ability, proving he and his world doesn’t fluster me, but now, thinking back, did I just come across as rude? Shit.

  “What’s up?” Bree asks, for some reason slapping her cheeks as she stands in the doorway watching me. I’m a bitch, that’s what’s up. I’ve turned into a bitch. When the hell did that happen? It makes me shake my head and brush my dress down again, hopefully getting rid of the bitch lingering about that I do not understand at all.

  “Why are you doing that?” I ask, deflecting the topic from my thoughts.

  “It
’s like natural rouge.”

  “Oh, right.” Interesting technique, seems like I could do with some of it myself. “You sure you don’t want to go experiment in this BDSM world for me?”

  “Fuck that. I’m not an idiot.”

  “And I am?”

  “You’re the one writing the book. How are you doing with that, anyway?”

  I turn away from the mirror, grabbing my bag as I go and checking my earrings and boobs are secure for the last time, as we wander back into the lounge. How am I doing with it? I lift my glass of Champagne and stare out of the window to gaze at the facing buildings. Well, it’s drafted, plotted. The story is sort of secure. It’s just the practical nature of the acts I’ve described that I need more assistance with, if they’re even possible. That, and the fact that I have no comprehension of what the feelings associated with the scenes or acts are.

  “Fine, really. I’m not all that sure I need his input to finish it correctly.”

  She snorts behind me, reminding me that she is not a fool, I cannot lie to her, and that if I try, I will be burnt at the stake as she cackles gloriously.

  “Right. Let’s see then,” she says, as I hear her footsteps move somewhere. I swing round, my feet ambling towards my office behind her as I continue to chastise my thoughts. I’m a bitch, it’s an inconceivable thought to me. I don’t even know where it’s come from. Has it built? Become a part of me because of the pressure I’m under. I don’t know. By the time I turn into the room, she’s already staring at my open laptop, flicking through files to find a BDSM story.

  “That’s private,” I mutter, leaning on the doorframe with no real intention of trying to stop her. It’s a buried file; she’ll never find it, and anyway, it’s not even titled.

  “Do you really have a novel called ‘The Western Way’?” she says, chuckling to herself and scanning one of my current works. “Is Valerie now doing old school westerns? Jesus, Lana.”