by Multiple
“Not with that attitude.” My mouth twisted into a smile. Her eyes bored into mine, and I could tell she was fighting the desire to tell me I was being ridiculous.
“Please.” She swallowed, her eyes flickering down to the floor. “Please, Master, can I suck your cock?”
I gave a single nod.
She moaned as I slid into her mouth.
I’d made her ask, so she was grateful, eager, like I was actually doing her a favor. Like she had to beg, to be worthy of me. The act of asking permission made it come true. She was enraptured.
And she was going to hate me.
***
She didn’t come back for a few more weeks.
The next time she rang my doorbell, she was quiet. Subdued. She walked through the front door without a word, still in her crisp suit from the office, tendrils of her hair starting to fall out of her tight bun.
“Last time, you said we can’t keep doing...’this.’“ She cleared her throat, softly, glancing at me. “What do you mean by this?”
“Lauren,” I said. “Please.”
Her face was drawing tight, a desperate sadness taking over her features. “I know I’m...I know I was...” She shook her head, starting over. “I know I’m difficult sometimes. Most of the time. All the time. It seems like I don’t know what I want. But I do know, now. I’ve figured it out.” She let out a long breath. “I mean, sure, it goes against everything I thought I wanted, everything I thought I was...but that’s not the point. I get it now. I get it.”
It was something I’d heard before. Not those exact words, maybe, but the way she said them, or something in her face. I hated what I was about to do. I hated that I’d never see the fire in her eyes again.
“Lauren, please sit down.”
She looked at me with apprehension, but she followed me to the couch anyway.
“Whatever it is you’re looking for,” I told her, softly, watching the tears start to gather in her eyes already. “It’s not me. Trust me on this.”
“I don’t know what that means,” she insisted. “I’m telling you that I want you. I’m not...looking for anything.”
I sighed. “Lauren, I’ve known a lot of people who used this lifestyle as a drug. It’s hard to tell, sometimes, at first. By its nature, it’s over-the-top, sometimes it’s risky, and it’s always addictive. Some people use it to heal from pain, or abuse, or loneliness. But what you need - you’re not going to find it here.”
Tears were slipping down her cheeks. She wasn’t looking at me anymore.
“I feel like I’m in a goddamn coma, most of the time.” She stared at the wall, unseeing. “Every accomplishment, everything I do, every beautiful thing that happens to me, it’s like it doesn’t even matter. I always feel like I’m waiting to wake up.” Slowly, she glanced over at me. “Except when I’m with you.”
There was nothing but raw honesty in her eyes, and it almost physically hurt to look at her.
“I can’t be your happiness, Lauren,” I told her, quietly. “No one can.”
Her hands clenched into tight fists in her lap. “I knew you’d say some bullshit like that,” she muttered. “I should’ve stayed away. Kept my fucking mouth shut.”
I reached for a small notepad on the coffee table, and a pen. I scrawled a note and folded it tightly.
“What’s that?” she asked, quietly.
“It’s my friend’s number,” I told her, pushing the paper into her hand. Her fingers clutched around it, reflexively. “I want you to call him.”
“Does he do what you do?” She was still hurt, confused, but the mask was beginning to go back up.
“No,” I said. “But he can help you.”
Her eyes hardened. “I don’t need a goddamn shrink.”
“Please, Lauren,” I said. “For me.”
She smiled bitterly. “Why don’t you just order me to do it?”
“Lauren.” I closed my eyes for a moment, resisting the urge to shout at her. To scold her for her interminable stubbornness. That wasn’t what she needed from me. She didn’t need anything from me at all.
“Fine,” she said, brushing the tears away and clearing her throat. Her mouth curved up, into half of a bitter smile. “I get it. You don’t want to deal with me. I don’t blame you. Nobody else does, either.”
“Trust me.” I fought the urge to reach out and brush a lock of hair behind her ear. “This could only end in tears.”
She took in a long breath, then let it out. “I know,” she whispered, finally. “I just thought, maybe...maybe I’d turn out to be wrong.”
She smiled, a real smile, more or less. And I smiled back.
When I saw her to the door, she paused and turned around, seeming to consider her words for a moment.
“Just so you know,” she said, “I’m going to miss your cock.”
***
As Dalton drifted off, he looked at me for the first time in a long while. I realized I was flushed, leaning forward in my seat, with my hands clutching the edge of the cushion. With an effort, I settled back and tried my best to look calm.
“Well,” I said, in a voice that was only a little unsteady. “That’s quite a parting line.”
He smiled. “It certainly left an impression.”
I stared at my notebook for a long while, trying to absorb the story.
“Well?” he said, finally. “What do you think of that one?”
“It was so...” I swallowed, with difficulty. It was hard to think of the right word. Not cruel, exactly. Not brutal. “You were so cold with her sometimes.”
Dalton shrugged, his face impassive. “She would have eaten me alive, given half the chance. She wasn’t one to treat with tenderness.”
“But you did,” I pointed out. “When you realized she was developing feelings for you. You could have broken her heart. What changed?”
For a moment, his eyes were downcast. “I did break her heart,” he said. “That was something I couldn’t stop, even if I wanted to. I just tried to minimize the fallout. She needed help that I couldn’t give her.”
“You didn’t answer,” I said.
“What changed?” he repeated. “I don’t know. When you first meet someone, all they show you is the person they’re pretending to be. You have to take them at their word. If I’d been gentle with her from the beginning, she would have used it as a weapon against me.” He took a sip of wine. “Not everyone is ready to accept compassion.”
God damn it, Grace, stop chewing on the end of your pen. “I don’t know if I believe that,” I said, more to myself than to him.
“Really?” He sat up straighter, leaning forward onto his elbows. “Has anyone ever used you for your kindness?”
“Yes,” I said. “Better me than someone else. I’m strong enough to take it.”
He considered this for a moment, then smiled slightly. “How many times did you have to get hurt, before you arrived at that philosophy?”
I scribbled some more notes, ignoring his question. It was redundant, anyway. He was just trying to make a point, and it wasn’t something I needed to be taught. And certainly not by somebody like him.
“Do you think everyone deserves your compassion?” he asked, finally.
Looking up, I saw genuine curiosity in his eyes.
“No,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t do it for them. I pick my battles, I stay away from conflict, I ‘do unto others’ as much as I can do, and sometimes, yeah, I get stepped on. It happens. But I forgive. People don’t change, so you can either fight them until you’re exhausted, and get nothing in return, or you can accept them for who they are. And you can forgive them for it. At the end of the day, that’s the only power you really have.”
He was staring at me, his fingers steepled together. “I don’t try to change people,” he said. “I only uncover the layers they keep hidden.”
“And then what happens?” I felt emboldened by the wine, sitting up straighter in my chair, my eyes challenging him. “You get
a chance to see something most people don’t, you have one more to pin to your collection card, then what?”
There was no hostility in my tone, but the words still felt harsh, falling on the silence of the room. Except for the ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner.
“I hope,” he said, quietly, “I hope they’re happier for it. I hope Lauren has found some brighter days. I hope Madison is...” He stopped, his forehead creasing. “...finally happy.”
I felt an irrational surge of bitterness in my chest, at the sound of her name.
“But you don’t think she is,” I hazarded.
His mouth was a thin line. “She went back to the man who broke her heart,” he muttered, staring down at his desk. “She didn’t want me to know, but I did. I could tell. He made her sad, but it was a sadness that was familiar. That day I went to see her, to find out why she hadn’t called in so long - she was standing behind him when he answered the door. She wouldn’t look at me, not in the eyes. She pretended not to know me, of course. I wouldn’t expect anything less. But with his back to her, she wouldn’t even look at me. She didn’t want me to see that she’d settled for less than she deserved.”
I felt like there was a vise in my chest, squeezing everything very tight.
“It’s like you said.” I shifted in my seat, slightly. “She needed you to be a stranger. You were more helpful to her that way.”
“But she didn’t want to find out if I could be anything else,” he said, his voice hollow. A moment later, he seemed to forcibly snap himself out of the bitter mood he was in. “But it doesn’t matter, really. That’s all ancient history.”
You said it happened just a few years ago.
Already, the subject of Madison had become like a toothache. The more I poked at it, the more it hurt, and the more I wanted to keep poking. I couldn’t rationalize my feelings about her, except that she’d clearly meant something to Dalton. There was no escaping that. A dark cloud fell over him when he’d first told me her story, and now, thinking about her, he was downcast again. He still cared for her, maybe even loved her, and here I was, entertaining fantasies that a man like Dalton could ever take any real interest in a girl like me.
He had his pick of experienced submissives, beautiful ingénues like Madison, spitfires like Lauren, all of whom trembled under his gaze. And then there was plain old boring me.
Sure, he flirted with me - because he didn’t know how to switch it off. I was almost sure of that. Dalton Alexander just had a certain way of dealing with women, and I was reading into it. Pathetic. I was no better than my ex, who always thought every waitress was flirting with him.
“Penny for your thoughts.” Obnoxious as he was, Dalton was actually flipping a penny with his thumb, catching it smoothly on the back of his hand. He smiled at me.
“I’m going to need payment in advance,” I told him, and he flicked the penny in my direction. It landed at my feet. “I was thinking about my ex,” I said, picking up the shiny copper from the carpet. “To be perfectly honest.”
“What about him?”
“He used to always think that female servers were flirting with him, and he liked to rub it in my face.” I shrugged. “I don’t know what made me think of that.”
“Charming,” said Dalton. “I hope he made up for it in other departments.”
I laughed, closing my notebook. “Did you just ask me if my ex was any good in bed?”
“If that’s how you interpreted the question.” Dalton grinned. “Maybe I was asking if he’s a good dancer.”
I rolled my eyes. “Isn’t that the same question?”
“It is, if you’re my grandmother.” His smile softened a little. “She always used to ask my sister if her flavor-of-the-month was ‘a good dancer,’ but we all knew what it meant.”
He has a sister.
Of course. Dalton Alexander wasn’t grown in a pod. He had a family, maybe even friends, and I didn’t know about. That I would never meet. That thought was decidedly depressing, and I banished it quickly.
“Well,” I said, “as it turns out, he had two left feet.”
“How unfortunate.” Dalton’s eyes lit up as they drifted over my face, searching for something. “Have you ever had good sex?”
I blinked a few times. “Excuse me?”
“You don’t have to answer,” he said, lightly. “But don’t pretend like you didn’t understand the question.”
It was an absurdly intimate thing to ask. On the other hand, he’d just spent the last hour telling me about his throbbing cock. Maybe I was the one being unreasonable. It made sense, if he just wanted a little quid pro quo. But still, I was blushing.
I considered the emphasis of his words. The question wasn’t: have you ever had good sex? And it wasn’t: have you ever had good sex?
Have you ever had good sex?
He didn’t just mean adequate sex. He meant really great sex, the kind that supposedly made your toes curl and your body tingle all over. The kind where two souls bonded, or whatever else people always said.
“Sure,” I said, my eyes flicking briefly to his face. He was looking at me with gentle amusement.
“No,” I amended. “I guess not. God, that’s depressing to admit.”
“It’s not anything you have to ‘admit,’“ he said. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
I relaxed slightly in my seat, but my ears still burned slightly. “You don’t think it affects my qualifications?”
“Of course not,” he said, with a dismissive gesture. “You could be a virgin. It doesn’t matter.”
Skeptical, I folded my arms across my chest. “You really think a virgin could tell these stories?”
“What? You don’t think they’re vivid enough?” He half-smiled, lifting a questioning eyebrow.
“I think they’re plenty vivid,” I said, laughing a little. “But a virgin wouldn’t know what it was like. What any of those feelings are. I may not have had ‘good sex,’ but I can...”
Put myself in their shoes.
“I think you underestimate virgins,” he said. “Before you ever had sex, didn’t you have a vivid fantasy life?”
I shrugged, uncomfortably. “I guess.”
“And it wasn’t too far off from reality, in the end - was it? Except maybe a little more exciting.”
“Well, no,” I said, my cheeks burning hotter and hotter. “I was well-educated. I grew up with the internet.”
He rested his hands on his desk, long fingers interlaced. “I read a comment on one of these books. The sort of thing I want you to write for me. A woman said that she had her first orgasm, ever, while she was reading. Her first orgasm at age thirty-eight. Can you imagine?”
“Honestly?” I chewed my lip. “Not really.”
“If my stories can do that for someone...” He shook his head slightly, smiling. “That’s powerful, isn’t it? That’s something no amount of money can buy. Forget hostile corporate takeovers. Stock acquisitions. You’re going to help me bring people happiness. No matter how fleeting.”
The corner of my mouth quirked up. “That’s very romantic, Dalton.”
“And now you know my secret.” He looked at me, searchingly. “You’ll have to forgive me, Grace, but...you have had an orgasm at some point in your life, yes?”
A small, uncontrollable laugh burst out of me. “Yes,” I gasped, pulling myself up even straighter in my chair. “Several, in fact.”
His eyes sparkled. “Good,” he said. “I wasn’t sure how to interpret your answer back there.”
“What if I’d said no?”
“Well.” He tapped his index finger on the desk. “I hadn’t thought that far ahead, honestly.”
I didn’t believe him. I didn’t believe him for one moment, but I knew that this line of questioning could only lead to a place I really didn’t want to go.
Except that I did. And that was the problem.
I had to turn the conversation away from sex, somehow. If that was possible.
/>
Folding my notebook open again, I scanned over what I’d written. There had to be something I could ask him that would distract him from my sex life.
“Have you ever been in love?”
Oh, yeah, that was much better.
He raised his eyebrows. “What makes you ask that?”
“I don’t know. It’s an interesting question.” I hadn’t written it down, but it had been echoing in the back of my mind since last session. Or, more accurate, were you in love with Madison? Are you still?
“It is,” he said. “And it’s a loaded question. Have you ever been in love?”
I clasped my hands in my lap. “I guess it depends on what that means.”
“Not so easy, is it?”
“Well, no,” I admitted. “But I figured you’d have an answer. You always seem to have an answer.”
He let out a small, almost-chuckle. “And that’s your very polite, compassionate way of telling me that I’m obnoxious.”
My face started to burn. “No,” I insisted, “that’s not what I meant at all. Just that you...you know, you seem to have a lot of things figured out. You’ve got a lot more experience than I do.”
“The more experience you have, the less that question makes any sense,” he said, with a rueful smile. “A fourteen-year-old in their first relationship will proclaim themselves to be in love, more confidently than anyone my age.”
“Love is complicated,” I conceded. “But I think there’s plenty of sixty-year-olds who are happily married, and they’ll tell you that they’re in love.”
“Sure,” said Dalton. “If you ask them in front of their spouse.”
“That’s very cynical.”
“You just said I was a romantic.” He was playing with the tiny sandbox on his desk, dragging the miniature rake in circular patterns.
“You’re a complicated man,” I said. “How come you weren’t mad when you caught me downstairs?”
The rake stopped moving.
After our last meeting, when Dalton sank into a mood and abruptly sent me out, I’d been unable to resist the urge to sneak down to his not-so-secret room. I’d seen the St. Andrew’s cross, the plush bed, all the diabolical toys and devices that he’d used on so many women...and the two locked doors that remained a mystery.
