by Golden Angel
He was too busy castigating himself for needing everything spelled out to him by Olivia, rather than realizing it on his own. Maybe he really was an idiot. Or maybe Olivia just understood women better than any of them ever could, which was probably a more realistic explanation.
Adam caught his eye and gave him a rueful grimace. Seeing the look, Justin raised his beer just a tiny bit, as if in acknowledgement and Rick knew they were all thinking the same thing: one day, it would be really nice to be the one to explain things to Olivia.
Chapter 9
Maria was moving so fast for the stall that she’d occupied before that she barely even noticed the startled looks she got from the few women who were in the locker room as she went past them. Fortunately all the stalls were empty. She barged right into the one she'd been in before and locked the door behind her, sitting down on the seat and wrapped her arms around herself as she tried to get her panic under control.
Something inside of her jibbered, screaming at her to get out and away from Rick. Like, seriously, what the hell? That woman had been begging to be let go, pleading to escape her punishment, and not a single person had made a move to help her. They'd all just stood there watching - including Rick. The scene with Lloyd upstairs had been one thing, although it had made her uncomfortable, but how was she supposed to be okay with what was going on in the Dungeon? She'd justified the man's spanking by the fact that he'd obviously enjoyed it, but he hadn't been asking for mercy. He hadn't been tied up and unable to escape.
Her breathing was getting faster as her fear and panic coiled around inside of her, confusing thoughts and terrifying images swirling around her head and only escalating her anxieties. Even though she hadn’t seen the marks that long, awful stick had left on the woman downstairs, her imagination was supplying her with all sorts of possibilities. Bruises. Welts. Cuts. Maybe even blood. What the fuck?!
"Maria?"
It was a woman calling her name. Not Rick. Thank heavens. Maria couldn’t face him yet. Why had he chased after her instead of helping that woman? She’d been begging her Master to stop! And apparently no one care.
"Maria? We know you're in here, where'd you go?"
Although she couldn't completely distinguish who went with which voice, she knew immediately who had followed her in. Footsteps moved closer into the bathroom area, probably pointed in the right direction by the women in the locker room.
A tentative knock on the door and she recognized the pink heels as being Hilary's; she couldn't see Angel or Jessica's feet but she knew they were there.
"Maria? Can you come out? We just want to talk to you... we know you saw... look, can you come out and we can explain?"
"Explain?!" Even to her own ears her voice sounded a bit screechy. "How can you explain..." Her voice trailed off. She couldn't even bring herself to say the words.
"Maria, I know this is going to sound a little weird, but I promise you, Christina liked what was happening. She wanted it."
That just sounded like a rapist's defense. Weird was an understatement. But then again, her brain reminded her, Lloyd had liked what was happening to him too, hadn't he? At first Maria hadn't understood that either.
"It freaked me out too, the first time I saw them." That was Hilary again. "Liam and I do role play, but not like Christina and Paul do it."
"Role play?" Maria lifted her head. Yeah, that hadn't looked anything like any role play she'd ever heard of - what happened to something nice and simple like French maid outfits? But her panic was slowly subsiding under the other women's calm; they'd all seemed like reasonable women before. Not the kind of people who would stand by while someone was being beaten and raped. Then again, she hadn't thought Rick would be either.
There was silence on the other side of the door for a long moment. A silence that was fraught with tension, as if there was an unheard conversation happening.
"Maria?" She was pretty sure that was Jessica talking. "How much did Rick tell you about Stronghold?"
"Nothing before we got here," she replied, feeling a small surge of anger over the fact that he'd been so close-mouthed. Then again, he'd probably been afraid she wouldn't want to come. He might have been right. Three small gasps outside the door made her feel a bit more justified in her anger.
"He told you nothing?!"
"That... that..."
"Nincompoop!"
Maria couldn't help it, she burst out laughing. The epithet was just so unexpected and yet so completely true that it surprised some humor out of her. She could hear the others giggling too.
"Seriously? Nincompoop?" she heard Angel said. "Come on Hil, you can do better than that."
"I kind of like nincompoop," Maria said, ruefully, getting up off the toilet seat and unlocking the door. That little bout of humor had washed away the last of her fear, along with the obvious support she was getting from the three other women. It didn't sound like they were going to try to push Rick on her or chastise her for her reaction.
Three smiles greeted her as the door opened, showcasing various degrees of sympathy, encouragement and relief.
"Come on," Hilary said, reaching out and taking Maria's hand, her voice full of sympathy. "Let's go sit down and talk."
"Yeah, we'll do what Rick should have done and actually tell you about the club, and then you can ask us any questions you want," Angel said, turning and heading back towards the locker room type area and the benches that were there. Her curls bounced as she shook her head angrily. "What the hell was he thinking? Stupid idiot."
"Shhh," Jessica hissed at her, looking around the locker room quickly. Fortunately it had been deserted, as if the previous occupants knew that Maria would need both support and privacy. That or the other two just hadn't wanted to get mixed up in whatever was going on. "Look around before you say things like that! You know the Dommes will tell on you to Adam if they hear you disrespecting a Dom."
Maria tensed and Hilary squeezed her hand encouragingly, as if reassuring her that Angel wouldn't be in any real trouble.
"They'd also agree with me."
"That won't save you from getting spanked," Jessica scolded as she sat down on one of the benches.
Turning back around, Angel caught the look on Maria's face and her almond shaped eyes went wide. Even with the explanations that Rick had given and the casual way Jessica and Angel were talking about it, Maria couldn’t help the reaction she had after what she’d seen downstairs. "Oops, sorry. I didn't think about how all of that would sound... trust me, I don't mind getting spanked. Well. Most of the time. Shit..." She looked at Jessica and Hilary. "How do we explain this?"
"Let's start with this," Jessica said, as Hilary and Maria sat down on the opposite bench, facing them. "Maria, how much do you know about BDSM and kink?"
"Um... well Rick explained what BDSM stands for once we got here. And upstairs he explained that Lloyd had a safe word and he could have stopped the spanking if he wanted to. But... that woman downstairs... she was begging that guy to stop." Hearing the tremor in her voice, Maria felt her anxiety welling up again. Especially since neither Jessica nor Angel looked shocked, they just kind of shrugged at each other as it if it was completely normal for a woman to beg for mercy and not have it granted.
"Christina and Paul are a bad place to start," Hilary said. "They're kind of extreme. But trust me, Christina has a safe word and 'no' or 'please don't' aren't it. Red is the club safe word, which everyone will recognize, but she probably has her own personal one too."
"A safe word is a word that is easily recognizable as not belonging in the scene," Angel said, taking over the explanation. "Mine is 'uncle,' like in 'say Uncle.' Saying 'no' doesn't get me shit, but if I say my safe word, Adam will stop whatever he's doing immediately. Although the only time I've ever had to use it is when he accidentally made one of my wrist restraints too tight and my hand started to tingle." She rolled her eyes and exchanged a grin with Jessica. “He practically panicked when I said it, thinking that he was being too rough
with me, and then you should have seen the way he acted over my wrist. All I wanted was for him to loosen the cuff, not stop the scene entirely. Now I know better and I say ‘yellow’ if I have something I need to tell him like that, so that he doesn’t freak out.”
Their easygoing demeanor was just as reassuring as what they were telling her. In the privacy of the locker room, with no one else around, it wasn't like they could be pressured by their men or their friendship with Rick. This felt like girl talk, the kind she would have with her sisters - if her sisters ever talked about stuff like this.
"Safe words can mean different things to different couples," said Jessica, leaning forward earnestly. Which gave Maria an incredible view of her breasts. Not that Maria normally noticed things like that, but in the corsets that Jessica and Angel were wearing it was hard not to notice when either of them leaned forward. She couldn’t help but wonder what Rick’s reaction would be if she wore something like that. "For all of us, it stops the scene, but for some people a safe word is just like ‘pause.’ Like when Angel says yellow. I know in some of the Master-slave relationships it can actually end the relationship entirely, so it’s really rare for that to happen, but that choice is always in the submissives' hands. From what I've seen of Christina and Paul, I'm not sure what he could possibly do to get her to safe word. She's kind of an extreme masochist, and she likes rougher role play."
"Yeah, tell me about it," Hilary said, and Maria turned her head to look at the pretty blonde. She was wrinkling her nose, but her soft brown eyes were filled with amusement. "First time I saw them together, he had her hog-tied and she was screaming 'rape' while everyone watched. I was lucky; we came in at the end of their scene, so she orgasmed about thirty seconds later, otherwise I might have been traumatized, even with Liam reassuring me that she was fine."
"What is her safe word?" Angel asked the other two, sounding curious. "Does anyone know?" Hilary and Jessica shook their heads. "I might have to ask her sometime."
"So... she likes pretending that she's being raped?" Maria asked, still a little confused.
Angel gave her a lopsided smile. "Yeah. I don't get it either, but Stronghold's very much 'to each their own.' All the dominants and submissives have their own personal kinks, and a lot of them are looking for a partner whose kinks match theirs. We can tell you with absolute certainty that Rick's kinks don't involve anything extreme. There's not a lot of secrets here, and especially in their group of friends."
"What do you mean, his kinks?" Maria asked, a little worried about what Angel might consider extreme. Not because Angel seemed untrustworthy, but Maria because just didn't have a barometer for this kind of thing.
"Well, all the guys are kind of into different things, although they also have a lot of similaritie," Angel said. "Adam's got a major thing for spanking and bondage-"
"Also he's a complete ass man," Jessica interjected with a giggle. "And I don't just mean to look at." Out of the corner of her eye, Maria could see Hilary make a face, her own head was trying to catch up with exactly what Jessica meant.
"You guys are going to scare the newbie," Hilary said, her tone slightly scolding although she also sounded amused. She turned to Maria. "Liam's not at all into anal sex, fortunately, because no matter how much these two talk it up I'm not really interested. We do a little bit of anal play with toys and stuff sometimes, but that's about as far as I want to go and thankfully that's all he wants too."
"What if he wanted more?" Maria asked, almost surprising herself by asking a question now.
Listening to this conversation was fascinating, still girl talk, but worlds away from anything she'd ever talked about with her sisters. And it really was helping her that all three of them were so open, although she still wasn't sure if this was the kind of thing for her. She felt like she was soaking up the knowledge, storing it all away for further contemplation.
Hilary made a face. "I guess if he really wanted it, I'd try it, but if I didn't like it, that would be that. We don't have the kind of relationship that includes me doing things I don't like, although some people are turned on by that. Like Christina."
"I like it when Justin and Chris push me," Jessica said, blushing a little bit. "But they never do anything I can't handle, although there are certain things we don't do very often."
"So... you're with both of them?" Maria asked, hoping that her voice didn't sound judgmental. She truly wasn't trying to judge, it was just that she'd never heard of such a thing, although it did explain the dynamics she'd seen earlier.
"Oh good grief, he really didn't tell you anything," Hilary muttered.
"Yes, I'm with both of them," Jessica said, her voice even. Obviously she was used to people not being entirely sure what to make of such a revelation. She’d blushed over talking about them pushing her boundaries but not about the fact that she was in a relationship with two men. "Last summer I went to this um... kink school basically, like a summer camp but for adults who want to learn about sex and different kinds of kink, and they were both instructors there." She rolled her eyes. "Little did I know. We all worked at the same company back then, and they knew I was going to be there. I was so pissed off when I got home and realized that they'd known who I was all along... but we really connected at school and they both wanted to date me and they were sure that they wouldn't break up their friendship over trying to date me, but I just couldn't choose between them. Didn't help that they taught the ménage a trois class together at the school so I knew how good it could be with both of them. It's not always easy, but we're making it work."
"Wow..." Maria blinked, trying to assimilate all the information that had been handed to her. The others waited patiently, although she got the feeling that mostly they were waiting for her reaction to Jessica's unusual relationship. Hey, she didn't think it was what she would want for herself, although now that she thought about it some aspects seemed like they could be pretty fascinating, but she didn't know what her mother and sisters would say. They'd probably have a meltdown of nuclear proportions. "I think I could use a school like that, after today. Would've helped a lot anyway."
Relaxing at Maria’s acceptance of everything she’d just been told, Jessica grinned at her in a conspiratorial way. "It was pretty fantastic... although it was also kind of weird. At first I felt a little slutty, because I was having sex with someone different in almost every class, but it was a lot of fun too. I don't think I could be where I am today if I hadn't gone, it really opened up my mind."
"Tell me about it... and then she comes home and she's all bondage this, bondage that..."
"Like you hadn't already been reading all the dirty books on my e-reader," Jessica said laughing, shaking her finger at Hilary. Her hazel eyes sparkled at the memory.
"So then I get dragged to Stronghold," Hilary said, ignoring Jessica. "Meet Liam... he's a total jerk at first and then the next thing I know I'm asking for an Introductory Scene, probably half because he told me to stay away from the club. Of course, Patrick makes sure that Liam’s assigned to me, and we did some role play with me for the scene... and then I was hooked. Both on the lifestyle and on him. We just clicked with what we like, fortunately. He's more into ordering me around and making me hold still while he teases me until I'm ready to beg him to let me cum than anything else, although we both really do have a good time with the role play." The dopey grin on her face was so cute, and yet so at odds with her words. It was incredibly charming. "It's fun."
The look that the three women exchanged then was the kind Maria sometimes had with her sisters. Not a conversation, just a camaraderie, a sharing of something special. They were all completely different in looks and - apparently - interests, but they all had the same self-satisfied, content expressions of women who were happy.
Expressions that she recognized from her sisters' faces. So apparently it didn't matter whether a relationship was more conventional or a little bit kinky, it could still affect a woman the same way. That was nice to know... that was, if she wa
s going to stick around Rick.
She was still mad that she was discovering all of this now from his friends, rather than from him. Not to mention that, even with their explanations and evident happiness, she didn't know if this kind of thing was for her.
"What are Rick's... um... kinks?" she asked, a little hesitantly. "He said he wanted to spank me..."
"Oh good, so he's communicating a little bit, at least." The new voice made Maria jump, along with the other three. She couldn't see Hilary's face, but both Angel and Jessica beamed at the woman who was coming towards them, having somehow slipped silently into the room without any of them noticing. The stunning redhead was the same woman Maria had seen in the locker room the first time she was there, the one who had smiled at her encouragingly. That same smile was on her face as she straddled the bench next to Jessica.
The tight leather pants she was wearing didn't look like they should be that flexible, but she didn't even wince as she settled down. Her top was leather too, showing off an expanse of pale midriff as well as a generous amount of cleavage. Somehow the combination was both sexy and intimidating.
The woman held out her hand, and Maria automatically took it without thinking.
"I'm Olivia."
"Oh!" The connection lit up in Maria's brain and she smiled as Olivia released her hand. Although Rick had never described his friends physically, the aura of authority and confidence around Olivia was just what she had always pictured. "Rick's told me about you."
"Well that's good, considering what he hasn't told you," Olivia said, rolling her eyes. Wide and grey, they were like calm, reassuring pools. Somehow, even though no one had said anything, Maria got the feeling that they were all deferring to Olivia in some way. Rick had said she was a ballbuster. That confident gaze regarded her thoughtfully, reminding her a bit of the way Jared had looked her over when she'd first come in, but in a decidedly more friendly manner. "So you want to know about Rick's kinks?"
"Yeah... I know it’s not any of you have had sex with him, so you won’t know personally, but anything…" Maria's voice trailed off as every head turned towards Jessica. Who had turned a beet red.
