Bound To

by Sionna Fox

  I stood and started toward the bedroom, stopped, and turned to face him. “Matthew? I—”

  I couldn’t bring myself to say the words that wanted to bubble up. I’d given up trying to convince myself that my feelings were nothing but a byproduct of all the sex, but I knew he didn’t want that from me. It would only hasten the end. He crossed the room and folded me in his arms.

  “What’s wrong, little mouse?”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For telling me all that. It helps.”

  He rested his chin on the crown of my head and held me without saying anything. Then he took my hand and led me into the bedroom where we had plain old vanilla sex, holding each other in the dark, before we fell asleep with our limbs tangled together.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “I’d like you to meet some of my friends,” Matthew announced over breakfast on Sunday.

  “Okay.” I’d barely left his bed for the better part of forty-eight hours. He’d been gentler with me in the wake of the incident on Friday, but I was still thoroughly fucked, and would have agreed to almost anything. “From work?”

  “Ah, no.” His lips twitched. “Friends from the scene.”

  My eyes popped once I registered what he was talking about.

  “It’s a social thing, not a party or anything like that.”

  That was only slightly less daunting than the prospect of public play. “Okay. So what is this social thing?”

  “Just people getting together for drinks. No one would even know they were in a room full of deviants unless they were eavesdropping pretty hard.”

  I wasn’t worried about being seen with Matthew’s kinky friends, even if they were fully kitted out in leather and latex and toting whips. I had no reputation to protect here. But meeting new people? New people who might have strict codes of conduct based on the role you played in your sex life? New people who probably didn’t have panic attacks in the middle of a scene so beginner it practically had training wheels? That was fucking scary. “How am I supposed to behave?”

  “Be yourself, little mouse.”

  I glared at him. “Not helpful. Aren’t there rules and etiquette? What if I screw up?” What if I embarrass you and you realize I’m not worth it? What if your friends realize I have no idea what I’m doing and I don’t belong?

  He pushed my hair out of my face and petted me like a nervous animal, which would have been mildly embarrassing if it didn’t work so well. “It’s drinks, little mouse. Only assholes would fault you for breaking rules that aren’t even yours. Consent goes both ways. You have to consent to their rules, and if you don’t, that’s their problem, not yours. But if you’re not sure, ask, and I’ll try to point out anyone who has hang-ups about protocol.”

  I looked at him dubiously.

  “There’s always a risk one or two people might be self-righteous, ‘one twue way’ dicks, but the majority are kind and welcoming. I promise.”

  Clear expectations might have been easier for me to navigate. If these people were his friends, these were the people whose opinions of me would matter to him. I didn’t want to fuck that up.

  “What am I supposed to call you? What the hell do you even call yourself at these things?” If I could squeeze us into the right box, then maybe I could figure out how to behave.

  “What do you want to call me, little mouse?” He smirked.

  I poked his chest. He grabbed my finger and bit it lightly, sending a rush of pleasure through my system. “Answer the question, please, sir.”

  “I don’t necessarily identify strongly with a particular name for my role at this point. Some people need labels and definitions. It can be a convenient shorthand for expressing in basic terms what you like, and whether you’re more inclined to be the giver or receiver. I prefer to take the active role, and don’t enjoy being acted upon.”

  I raised an eyebrow. He sure seemed to enjoy being acted upon in some ways.

  “Obviously, I enjoy being on the receiving end of certain activities, but you know what I’m getting at.” He leaned over the table and pitched his voice dangerously low. “And even when you’re on your knees sucking my cock, little mouse, don’t forget it’s because I put you there.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. The lick of wet heat deep in my belly didn’t either.

  “I thrive on control, but I don’t need or want it to be absolute. I like your questions and your smart-ass comments, and that thing you do where you narrow your eyes at me and think you look stern is adorable. You’re my partner, sometimes you’re submissive, sometimes you’re a brat, sometimes you’re stubborn as fuck and I want to take you over my knee and spank the hell out of you.”

  If he kept talking like that, I was going to turn into a puddle.

  He smiled, his face soft and relaxed. “I understand why people use labels that they feel clearly define their desires and their roles, but I don’t need that with you.”

  A small part of me cheered. We were partners. “Do you usually need that? To have the roles clearly defined?”

  “I used to. Most of my partners in the last few years have been strictly casual. It can be easier to rely on a more explicitly defined role when you’re with someone only occasionally and for the express purpose of fulfilling specific sexual needs. It’s different when I’m more comfortable with someone. I like ordering you around and having you obey, and I like that you call me ‘sir,’ but I don’t think of myself as your Dom with a capital D.”

  Oh. Partner didn’t mean the same thing to him as it did to me. But this was different for him. My head spun trying to parse his words. “I still don’t know what I’m supposed to call you to other people. In my head, you’re not really anything, you’re just you.”

  “Most of the people there will know me either as a dom or a top, so why don’t we try using top and bottom. It describes the basics of our roles without the same trappings of dom and sub. Does that make sense?”

  “Yes, sir, thank you.” I laughed then, struck by the strangeness of it all.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing. It hit me how weird it is to be stressing out over how to describe our sex life to a bunch of strangers, like that’s a totally normal thing.”

  He chuckled. “It is pretty weird when you think about it.”

  “So when is this shindig?”

  “Tomorrow night after whip practice.”

  My brain slammed on the brakes. “Whip. Practice?”

  He grinned wickedly. “Did you think I magically knew how to handle a flogger? It takes practice. A few of us get together and do that, sometimes with live subjects, sometimes with dummies, then we’ll join up with some others for drinks.”

  “Sorry, still trying to wrap my brain around the words whip and practice. Is this every Monday?”

  “We try to meet up once a month or so. I haven’t been in a while.” He smiled sheepishly. “Not since you.”

  “Why?”

  “Why what, little mouse?”

  “Why did you stop going?”

  He smiled darkly and waggled his eyebrows at me. “Maybe you should ask why I’m going again.”

  Oh boy. “Why? What am I in for now?”

  He kept smiling, the dirty tease. “You’ll find out. Eventually. Will you come?”

  “I don’t know, will I?” Two can play at that game, sir.

  “If you join us, I promise you will.”

  Matthew: 1 Jolene: 0

  “Holy shit, Matt. You didn’t tell me she was this cute.” A woman whose platform heels put her nearly at eye level with Matthew smacked his shoulder. She turned to me and extended her hand. “Hi, I’m Sarah.”

  My mouth refused to cooperate, and my hand went limp as I lifted it to shake hers. She was so tall and so gorgeous, with flawless dark skin and a cloud of curly hair. And she had turned her attention and her huge smile on me.

  “Hi.” My voice came out as more of a breathy whisper, barely audible in even my
own ears. Matthew rested a reassuring hand on the small of my back. I cleared my throat and tried again. “Hi, Sarah. I’m Jolene.”

  “Oh my god, Matt, she’s adorable,” she said over my head. “You’re adorable. And you need a drink. Come with me, my dear.”

  There was no denying her. I swiveled my head to look at Matthew as she tugged me in the direction of the bar. One hand covered his mouth and his eyes crinkled with suppressed amusement in a way that turned me to mush.

  We got in line at the bar and I tried not to stare. It was impossible to tell how old she was. Her face was unlined, and if she had gray hair, it was well-concealed. She wore painted on skinny jeans with her boots and a bustier-style top that mightily accentuated her cleavage, which was inconveniently at my eye level. A soft cardigan covered her shoulders in a nod to the weather. She could have walked straight out of a pin-up girl calendar. She was intimidating, far too cool and beautiful. But she also hadn’t let go of my hand. The gesture of comfort and warmth wasn’t lost on me.

  She leaned on the bar and grinned at me. “You have no idea how excited I am to meet you. Matt’s delighted with you. He wouldn’t shut up about you at Thanksgiving.”

  My cheeks heated and I stared at her shoes. “Thanks.” These were the friends he spent the holiday with, and he’d talked to Sarah about me. What had he told her? And why? I suddenly had a burning need to know what her relationship to Matthew was or had been.

  She squeezed my hand. “It’s good to see him happy.” Her smile was soft, her eyes warm.

  “How long have you known him?” I worked up the nerve to ask once I’d ordered for him and me.

  She looked at the ceiling. “Fifteen years, maybe? I think he was a freshman in college. You should have seen him, he was so fucking cute. Little baby dom who had no idea what the hell he was doing. Thank god he had the stones to seek us out before he did any damage to some poor girl in a dorm room. I wish more eighteen-year-old boys owned their shit like that.”

  I tried to imagine Matthew, eighteen, clueless, and horny. I couldn’t do it.

  Sarah laughed. “I know, it’s hard to picture, right? He’s always been one of the good ones. How did you two meet? He was too busy telling us how amazing you are, he never told us.”

  Us? Who else was he talking to me about? What was he saying? I blushed again. “My roommate and I bumped into him at a bar. Izzy was friends with his sister in high school. Molly wanted us to take him out. She thought he was spending too much time at work.” I rolled my eyes at the idea of Molly asking us to take pity on her poor, nerdy big brother who needed his sister’s friends to drag him away from the lab bench. If only she knew.

  “It wouldn’t be the first time someone had to stage a work-life balance intervention with him. Though I can see from the look on your face he’s not indulging in his workaholic tendencies lately.” She lifted an eyebrow knowingly. “Better things to do.”

  “He warned me at first about working a lot, but it must be slow right now.”

  Sarah cackled and picked up the drink that had been set down in front of her. “You’re too cute.” She spotted someone coming in the door and raised her glass in greeting. “I have to go, but I’m so happy you’re here. You two should come for dinner soon!”

  She rushed off, and I took our drinks and carried them over to the small table Matthew had claimed.

  “Sorry about Sarah. She does that. I meant to warn you.”

  “She is—I don’t actually think there’s a word for her. She seems nice, though.”

  “She is.” He paused, considering. “Until you’re on the receiving end of her.”

  “Sarah’s a domme?” She had a big personality and a huge presence, but she didn’t exactly send out giver of viciously awesome beatings vibes. I couldn’t picture her submitting either.

  “A switch. She only bottoms for her wife, Evie, now.”

  “But she’s so…nice. And bubbly and warm.”

  “I’m not nice?”

  “No. That’s not—I can’t picture her being scary or doing the face or the voice.”

  He chuckled darkly. “Who do you think taught me? Believe me, I have seen her cheerfully make hardcore pain sluts cry.”

  “She taught you?”

  “She did. She makes a great teacher, because she’s been on both sides of the equation. Sarah’s like our den mother. I met her at the first workshop I got up the nerve to go to, and I’ve been in her orbit ever since.”

  We watched her flit around the room, greeting everyone who came in the door, directing traffic to and from the bar, stopping to chat and give hugs and warm smiles to everyone in her path. She definitely had a gravitational pull.

  “That first time, I was so scared and relieved. Other people did these things. Real people, not porn actors or strangers on the internet. Sarah took me under her wing and taught me how to do it right. She’s been a good friend.”

  People started stopping by our table and Matthew made all the necessary introductions. Most were, as promised, welcoming and friendly. But he never called me his girlfriend, or his partner, or his bottom. Everyone we met treated me like his, but he never used those words himself. He’d talked about me with Sarah and whoever else was at Thanksgiving, had apparently told them I was amazing, but amazing for him? Amazing for a newbie? Amazing for a temporary place in his bed until he got bored?

  Matthew chatted amiably with everyone who stopped at our table. I tried to keep up, but by the time Matthew went to the bar for another beer, I was tracing my fingers over water marks on the table and smiling vaguely. I had nothing to add to the conversation and felt increasingly like a vanilla in kinkster’s clothing. I didn’t belong here. These people didn’t have panic attacks over too much oral sex. There was no way Matthew wasn’t going to be bored with me, and soon.

  Conversation flowed around me while I waited for him to come back. A woman with dyed black hair, heavy eyeliner, and pancake foundation approached the table and sat next to me. She looked like she belonged here, with her black skirt, black tights, heavy boots, and leather jacket. I knew better now than to believe in stereotypes, but the only thing she was missing was a collar. I’d come from work, in faded corduroys and my favorite green sweater. She made me want to shove it to the back of my closet as soon as I got home.

  “So you’re Matt’s new project.”

  My stomach climbed into my throat. “I’m sorry?”

  “Listen, you should know this is what he does. He’ll train you for a while, then when he gets bored, he’ll foist you off on someone else.” Her words were matter-of-fact, even kind.

  I fumbled for something to say. She’d obviously experienced Matthew’s rejection firsthand. How had he dumped her, when she looked like that? And what was he doing with me when I still looked like I’d slumped off a college campus and I hadn’t been a student in over six years? Was this why he wanted me to meet his friends? So he could set me up with someone else?

  Matthew walked up behind her, eyes narrowed, his lips a thin line. “Simone.”

  The woman turned. “Matt.”

  “What are you doing?”

  “I was leaving.” She glanced back at me. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Matthew sat and took a sip of his beer. “What did she say to you?”

  “Nothing. It’s fine.” Nothing except confirm my biggest fears about my one-sided relationship with Matthew. I twisted my hands in my lap under the table, staring at the wood grain. She’d said it without malice or bitterness, a heads-up for someone who obviously didn’t know what she’d gotten herself into.

  “Hey.” He grabbed my hand and kissed my knuckles. “I know you’re not fine, but can you wait until we get home to talk about it? She pretends to be nice, but Simone gets off on stirring up shit. I don’t want you to give her the satisfaction.”

  “Okay.”

  Matthew downed his beer and ushered us to the door.

  Sarah met us on our way out and wrapped me in a bone-crushing hug. “
I’m so glad you came out tonight, Jolene.” She set me away from her and slipped a card into my palm. “That has my number and my email. Call me if you need anything or you have any questions.” I gave her a watery smile and she narrowed her eyes at Matthew. “Or if this one is being an idiot and you need backup to knock some sense into him.”

  I slipped the card into my pocket. “Thanks, Sarah. It was nice to meet you.”

  Sarah whispered something into Matthew’s ear as she hugged him goodbye, but I couldn’t make out the words. He squeezed her back and said, “Thanks, Sarah,” before he let her go.

  “Evie’s gonna be so jealous. Dinner at our house soon?” We both nodded, and Sarah returned to her table.

  Matthew helped me into my coat, and we scuttled out into the cold, holding hands, looking for all the world like any other couple who’d stayed too long at happy hour and would regret it in the morning. I wanted to fall asleep spooned up to his big, warm body with my nose tucked between his shoulder blades, safe, happy, and his. I asked him to take me back to my apartment instead.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened? What did she say to you?”

  “I’m tired, Matthew. Can we talk about this later?”

  “Of course.”

  He took me home. I didn’t kiss him at the curb, just squeezed his hand and got out. In bed that night, I tossed around, wishing everything we’d said and done when it was the two of us outweighed the words of a woman I’d never met before.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sarah called me the next day. “You want to get dinner? Matt gave me your number.”

  “Why?” I crossed my arms over my chest reflexively, even though she couldn’t see me.

  “He thought you might want to talk about this stuff with someone who wasn’t him. And that you ran into Simone.”

  “Oh. Yeah. I think she ran into me.”

  Sarah chuckled. “She has a knack for that. Come on, have a burger with me.”

  For some reason, I agreed. I needed to know someone other than Matthew who did the things we did. I met her at a place in Cambridge, crowded with students and locals.