The Unicorn

by Delphine Dryden

  The look on her face, the way her big blue eyes got even bigger, was priceless. She even blushed. Dimples kept appearing, then disappearing at the corners of her mouth. Everything always showed on Delia’s face.

  “Yes, Master. I like this adventure already, though!”

  He held the door for her, but let her set her own pace inside the store. She opted to follow a few steps behind him, and Daniel suspected she was toying with the role, trying out different ways to act like a sub in public. Figuring out what felt right.

  He walked straight to the back counter because he already knew what he wanted, then turned to her as he gestured to the clerk.

  “I’ll be here for a few minutes. Go pick a lube. Flavored is fine. But no piña colada, that stuff’s nasty.”

  “All right, Master.”

  She blushed again, because the clerk was there, listening. Absolutely freaking adorable.

  Daniel felt about ten feet tall, knowing the dude behind the counter had overheard. And could see his collar—his collar—on that stone fox’s neck. Did people even say “stone fox” anymore? Maybe not, but who the fuck cared?

  Mine.

  Ten feet tall with a dick made of pure steel.

  In your face, kinky toy store dude.

  The kinky toy store dude was checking out his wife’s ass. But he decided that was okay, because his ownership was so very evident and all the dude could ever do was look and wish he had one of his own.

  “Nice.” The dude tilted a casual nod in Delia’s direction. Then he looked at Daniel every bit as appreciatively, his mouth curving in a blatantly sensual way. “So what can I help you find this evening, sir?”

  Daniel felt only about eight feet tall by the time he’d finished making his selections. He was pretty open-minded, but he was also very straight. He wasn’t so much uncomfortable with guys flirting with him as he was baffled. He sort of wished he could give back as good as he got, but the wiring simply wasn’t there.

  On the other hand, when he looked over his shoulder for Delia and realized she was staring dreamily at a rack of lesbian porn videos, he almost forgot about iron control.

  “Honey?”

  She looked up with a guilty flinch and scurried over, handing him the lube bottle with both hands as though presenting the king with an important message. He took it without a word and the clerk rang it up and added it to the bag.

  Daniel remembered he was trying new things tonight. Blowing out all the stops. He put on the stern Dom face he’d practiced in the mirror for an hour yesterday afternoon, and turned to look at his wife. Then he raised an eyebrow because he knew she found the Spock thing kind of sexy.

  “Dee, did you see something else you liked?”

  It was a challenge. She blinked, then nodded hesitantly. He cleared his throat, and after a second the lightbulb popped on over her head.

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Show me.”

  As if he did this sort of thing all the time, he sauntered after her to the video rack, where she pointed as briefly as possible at the girlie videos before her nerve failed her and she wrapped her arms behind her back. Stared at the floor, blushing up a storm.

  He took a deep breath and tried to pretend he was observing the covers like a connoisseur. But he couldn’t get the image out of his mind of watching Delia as she watched any of these videos. On the television in their bedroom. Naked. Wearing only the collar. And doing any number of obscene things to him at his behest. Suffering torments at his hands in exchange for the privilege to see each new scene. It made him hot but possessive, territorial, to think about; he liked to picture her with women—knew she liked that too, and that she’d dated on both sides of the fence before their relationship—but he wanted to be the one she came home to, always.

  “Any one of those.” He stabbed his finger at three random covers. He’d hit it lucky; one of them had obviously already caught her interest. She didn’t even blink, just snatched it and handed it to him.

  “Thank you, Master.”

  “Go wait for me by the door.”

  Because he needed the distance. Or he would have to throw her on the floor and ravish her in the middle of the kinky toy store, and he was pretty sure that would tip the clerk off that he wasn’t exactly the suave, jaded Dom he seemed to be.

  But the clerk already knew. Oh, he knew. He smiled a bit too broadly when Daniel returned to the register to buy the video. But it wasn’t an unsympathetic smile.

  “You’re doing great.” He said it softly enough that Delia wouldn’t be able to hear. “She’s hooked.”

  “She was already hooked, she’s my wife.”

  “Yeah, I saw the matching rings. Cute. Was she in the lifestyle before?”

  “She’d dabbled some.” Daniel gripped the edge of the counter, white-knuckling it, willing his heart to stop racing. “I’m doing my best to keep up.”

  The clerk tilted his head, not quite flirting, and cocked his eyebrow at Daniel just as Daniel had done to Delia earlier. “I don’t normally say this with the cute married couples who come in on date night, but I think you’ll get there. You’re both into it, not one of you humoring the other. It turned you on long before you tried it, right?”

  “So fucking much.”

  They chuckled together, and Daniel relaxed his face enough to smile. He hadn’t realized he was so tense.

  “But . . . you’re worried she knows more than you do about it, so it’ll be hard for you to top. And you worry she likes chicks more than she likes you, maybe. I don’t think you need to worry too much about any of that.”

  “How did you—”

  “I talk to horny people all day, man. It’s my superpower.” He pulled a business card from his shirt pocket and slid it across the counter. “Look, take this. I think you might find it helpful. Your sub too.”

  Daniel flipped the card in his fingers, looking for more than the single phone number printed on one side. It was blank other than that.

  “It’s a club? Something local? We already go to a place . . .”

  “Not Onyx. A brand-new club. Friend of mine owns it. You have to call and talk to her for an invite and directions. Totally worth it, though. Solid equipment, nice atmosphere. And Dru, the owner, is great with newbies. She might be able to hook you up with a mentor.”

  “Okay, maybe I’ll check it out. Thanks.” Daniel slid the video into the plastic bag with the rest of his purchases, dropping the card in on top of it.

  By the time he had Delia back out to the car, he’d forgotten all about the business card.

  But the next day, as he mulled over the previous night’s scene, he found himself digging through the trash to retrieve the bag and find the thing. He fingered it for a good ten minutes, getting smudges of graphite on it, trying to decide what to do.

  The scene had been . . . less than ideal. Not terrible. But not what he’d been going for. He’d gone into it with high hopes, but at some point he’d lost the bubble and Delia’s brain had clicked on again. Not that he necessarily disagreed with her suggestion that he wait to try the new butt plug for another night when he was up for anal afterwards, but it had thrown him to have her pipe up with an opinion just when he felt he’d hit his Dominant stride. Not so much annoying as derailing. Maybe another setting would be the perfect thing . . .

  He picked up his cell and punched in the number before he could change his mind. The woman who answered had a voice for phone sex: low and husky and slightly amused.

  “Dru’s House of Delicious Horrors.”

  “Um . . .”

  She laughed. “Sorry. Escape. This is Dru. And you are? I don’t recognize the number. But I’ve been getting a lot of that this week.”

  “Ah. Gotcha. I’m Daniel, and the guy at Delights gave me your card.”

  “Adam! Oh, you were in with your wife, right? He mentioned you might call. I just got off the phone with another friend, and I may be getting a new member soon who could be a great mentor for you, if things play out a
s I hope they will. Well, more of a . . . volunteer tour guide. If you’re interested?”

  The fact she’d already been thinking about it was more all up in his business than Daniel would’ve normally gone for. But the phone-sex voice somehow made it a must-not-miss proposition. The woman made “volunteer tour guide” sound roughly akin to “magical kink fairy.” Maybe it was magic, and she really did know a kink fairy. That would be worth checking out, right?

  “I . . . yes. I’m pretty sure we’d—I mean I’d—we’d be interested. Tell me when and where.”

  Amie had called Mara to check up on her as promised. And she’d taken her to task for not calling the number on the business card she’d given her.

  “How do you know I haven’t called?”

  “Because you haven’t, that’s how I know. Besides, I just got off the phone with Dru, and she hadn’t talked to you. Which is a shame, because I think the two of you could help each other out. And yes, I’m aware that you hate taking help. But I think that’s so pointless for a sub. I mean, there’s masochism and then there’s masochism, you know?”

  Outside the club, Amie’s mannerisms often translated as a bit too blunt, to the point of being unkind.

  “I’ll call when I hang up on you, how about that?”

  “If you don’t, I’ll know. Have you had at least two big glasses of water today? You were sweating really hard last night.”

  “Yes.”

  “Liar. You’ve had a cup of tea and maybe a Coke.”

  “And you’ve already been to the gym, showered, and done your hair and makeup.”

  Amie laughed. “Of course I have. It’s nine in the morning. Just because it’s Saturday—”

  “That’s no excuse to stay in bed all day,” Mara finished for her. “Yeah. I’m in, like, sweats and a wifebeater that I dug out of the laundry hamper. But I’ve been playing this awesome public beta, and I’ve leveled my new dwarf cleric to ten already this morning. So, you know, I got that going for me.”

  After a long, pointed moment of silence and a very telling sigh, Amie asked, “Are you at least eating the baked kind of chips?”

  “Oh God, no. I ran out of cheese puff balls so now I’ve moved on to snack cakes. I don’t even know what this filling is, but it sure as hell isn’t real cream.”

  “Okay, I have to go now. Mara, call that number. And at least . . . go outside in the sunshine for a while or something, okay?”

  “I will. Call the number, I mean. I’m not going outside, are you nuts? You know if I go in the sun, my skin will spontaneously combust.”

  “Good-bye, Mara.”

  “Bye, Amie!”

  She turned the phone off and put it down on the desk, freeing her hands to slaughter a few more dozen wildebeest to finish her current quest in the game. But she’d no sooner turned the quest in and leveled up than she noticed a hint of white near her hand.

  Something was sticking out from under the keyboard. She picked up the hardware, brushed a fine layer of yellow cheese ball dust from the edge of the white card she’d found underneath, and turned it over.

  “Oh, fuck me.”

  Amie’s friend had subtle taste in stationery, apparently. The card had a nice feel in the hand. It seemed expensive and trustworthy. But what would she be trusting this Dru with, exactly? To guide her along whatever the next stage of her kink journey happened to be? Hadn’t Amie just given her an earful of unasked-for advice? She was pretty sure she didn’t need more.

  But that earful would only be the first of many if Mara didn’t at least put in an effort. And Mara couldn’t entirely fault Amie for that. She might not have been the best girlfriend, but it had to be said that she was a great friend.

  Mara reached for the phone before she even realized what she was doing. She put it down again and tapped the card on the desk thoughtfully, trying to decide whether there was more risk in calling or not calling. She finished the “cream”-filled cupcake she’d been working on before Amie called, but it held no answers for her.

  She thought about her recent ex, Jeremy, who was probably also awake and playing a different computer game. The game she no longer liked to play because it had been something they had in common. But it hadn’t been nearly enough.

  “Freak,” he’d called her. The first few times it had been a joke. He hadn’t minded trying a smidgen of slap and tickle. He’d liked sex on the rough side, like a lot of guys. But it had awakened his inner asshole. And when she’d tried to latch on to that, to coax it into something else . . .

  Freak.

  No, he hadn’t wanted to try bondage. He certainly had not. Not when it was clear she wasn’t asking out of curiosity, but very real desperation. That she wasn’t merely a girl who liked to mix it up in the sack on occasion, but was in fact the kind of girl who owned several whips and paddles, a lot of things like leather handcuffs that weren’t remotely fluffy or pink, and a bunch of other exotic devices Jeremy didn’t even have names for.

  His fault for opening her toy chest while she wasn’t in the room.

  Her fault for forgetting to lock it when she knew he was coming over.

  The look on his face when he’d held up the anal beads was certainly something she’d never forget. But it was the strap-on that had sent him running.

  That might not have been the best time to try to explain pegging. But she’d known he was out the door anyway, really. And he’d called her a freak, and meant it in the worst possible way. His expression of horror when he thought she wanted to fuck him in the ass with a dildo was entirely worth it.

  “I’m just kidding, dipshit. I only use it to fuck other girls. See? It goes both ways. Two dildos in one!”

  No, thinking back, that had been the thing that made him run screaming. But still, totally worth it.

  Just as well she’d never tried to feel him out on the whole polyamory thing. She had a feeling if he knew the term at all, he was one of those guys who assumed it was code for “down for a threesome with another girl to indulge your male gaze.” Not that she was averse to a threesome for other purposes. But with Jeremy? It wouldn’t have worked out to anybody’s satisfaction.

  It had taken months before she’d broken down and called Amie. She’d tried to resist. She’d tried to find somebody else. But it was tricky; St. Andrews wasn’t that big a place, and everybody knew her at the one bondage club in town. She’d already been with most of the people she had any remote interest in. Amie had been hands down the best of that bunch, at least when it came to giving Mara what she needed in a scene.

  Because you can do a lot of things to yourself, but you can’t give yourself a thorough beating. And sometimes, nothing else would do.

  Her fingers had tapped out half the phone number already. The number clearly wanted her to dial it. Which meant that, deep down, she really wanted to dial the number. She needed help, as much as she hated to admit it. Submitting to herself was so much harder than submitting to another person. She finished entering the numbers and was gratified when somebody answered almost right away.

  “Hi, this is Dru.”

  Amie’s friend had one hell of a voice. Deep, controlled. Even in that simple greeting, she sounded like every sub’s wet dream of a Dom.

  “Hi there. Um, a friend of mine gave me this card . . .?”

  “Amie Templeton. Yes, I’ve been expecting your call, Mara.”

  “You— Okay, that’s kind of creepy.”

  The dream voice laughed. She had a good laugh too. Soothing. “It’s nothing sinister, I promise. You came up on my caller ID. Amie gave me your number, and I didn’t have anything to write it down with right then so I put it in my phone. She sounded pretty sure you’d be calling today.”

  The woman sounded friendly enough. And Mara trusted Amie, and Amie said this woman was a friend, somebody she trusted. So . . . okay.

  “Yeah, this is Mara. I’m . . . still not exactly sure why I’m calling.”

  “But I’m really glad you decided to call when you did. Becaus
e I have a problem and could use your help, as it turns out. For something Amie said might be right up your alley. By any chance are you free this evening?”

  As it happened, Mara was free that evening. And while she might not enjoy accepting help, she was sort of a sucker for giving it when asked nicely by somebody who sounded like they were really in a bind.

  Which was how she found herself in a slightly dodgy part of town at about nine that evening, pulling up to a valet parking attendant in front of a building that looked nothing like a club. She wouldn’t have been able to identify it at all if it weren’t for the small black-and-brass sign by the door.

  Escape.

  Classy sign, polite valet, huge bald doorman who looked as if he were about to go fight the Leather Wars on some distant planet. And probably kick all kinds of alien ass.

  Right inside the door, Mara was greeted warmly by a woman who looked somewhat like a classed-up version of herself. A few inches taller, more curves, but the same coloring and the hint of Goth that went with it whether she liked it or not. Long black hair, fair skin, short red dress, matte red lipstick. Fishnet tights and some really killer boots—but she could have walked down the street without anybody knowing she’d come from a kink club. Especially since she was carrying a clipboard, an accessory that lent almost anyone an air of legitimacy and general competence.

  She introduced herself as Dru, and it was clear she was in charge from the way she walked through the place, leading Mara over to the bar and ordering a cup of coffee and an ice water.

  Mara felt over the top in a black leather corset, even with jeans still covering up the matching boy shorts. She hadn’t been sure how to dress, whether she should go the normal club route or wear something more conservative. Looking at Dru’s outfit, she started to fear she’d gone the wrong direction. Though she was certainly covered up compared to most of the more obvious subs she spotted among the gathering crowd.

  Dru looked at her over the steaming cup of coffee. “Thank you for coming on such short notice, by the way.”