by Joey W. Hill
Maybe after tonight, she’d believe he was okay, too, and lay off the shrink stuff.
Then everything would be perfect. Or rather, far better than he’d ever expected his life to be—which was his definition of perfect.
Arriving at the club, Tina, the hostess, looked at his guest pass closely. Her brow creased over it, but she nodded cordially and let him in. Not overly friendly, but not hostile.
Yeah, that was going to be the awkward part of tonight. Everyone knew his situation and his shit. Thinking about how he’d acted, he really couldn’t blame Tyler anymore for what he’d had to do. And Regina…Tyler had given Marius the chance with Regina, when he’d done nothing to deserve her.
But he’d changed since then. He’d prove it. Then those sons of bitches could say what they liked about him, shit on him as much as they wanted, to each other. But he’d be above and beyond reproach for his Mistress. She’d show them. He’d show them.
He didn’t like the way the thought made him feel and didn’t really want to examine the why all that closely. Even though it was early for too many people to be here, he felt like everyone was staring at him, particularly the Dommes, and he didn’t want to get thrown off balance by that. He knew he’d done wrong things to them, but he was different now.
He remembered that night he’d wondered how to make amends. He hadn’t gone back to that idea much since, but maybe he would at some point. For tonight, his focus was this. Doing what she’d told him to do.
Once he arrived in the relative privacy of the locker room, he could breathe a little easier. Until he opened the locker. He whistled, muttering an oath under his breath. His Mistress was pulling out all the stops tonight. Just a thong with a codpiece style front that would barely cover his dick.
This was all he’d be wearing? No, not all. His gaze flicked to his ID bracelet at the same moment he lifted his hand to the collar around his throat.
He only took them off to shower, with her permission. Or when he had his fights, which had been about once a week this month. So far he hadn’t needed to call her to avoid going to a fight angry. The fights were still a channel for his aggression, yeah, some of his demons taking over as he hammered an opponent, but that had always been the case, making him a good fighter. It wasn’t the same as going there all worked up. She didn’t totally agree, but she didn’t argue with him over it. Much.
As he put on the barely-nothing item and checked himself out in the mirror, he might have blushed, if he knew what modesty was anymore. He was bare-assed, and the cod piece revealed the creases between thigh and groin area, which would give anyone looking glimpses of his balls as he moved.
Closing the locker, he came back out to the floor and found Alex, who was the DM on shift. He didn’t have to tell him what was needed. Alex gave him a polite but stiff nod and led him to the jail.
It was a tall rectangular cage, with enough height for a man to stand up in it, but not wide enough to sit down. Which meant a Mistress or Master could reach through the bars and do pretty much anything to a sub that was part of the scene. Electrical zapping, pinching. Sometimes a Mistress or Master might order a male sub to put his cock and balls out between the bars. Then they’d bind his waist and thighs flush against them with straps so he couldn’t move, couldn’t do anything to keep his hanging dick from being fondled, sucked or slapped by anyone passing by, if that was the Dominant’s decision.
He wasn’t sure if that was her intent. She hadn’t seemed eager to let other Mistresses touch him ever since they’d gotten together, but maybe putting him in a public cage with that green light to the other Dommes was her way of proving he could pass the test.
“Did she leave any instructions on…access?” he asked Alex.
“No,” the man said shortly. “But you can safe word out if it gets to be too much. Tell me what it is.”
“Fight Club.”
“Got it. Get in.” Alex opened the jail cell door. Marius looked at it, suddenly feeling uneasy. There was a weird energy here tonight. Alex’s distant behavior toward him was to be expected, so it wasn’t that. Maybe he was feeling antsy because he’d been under Regina’s dominion for weeks, and he wasn’t used to trusting or following direction from someone else.
He thought about waiting until Regina showed herself. He’d assumed this whole thing was part of the reapplication process, some kind of test run Regina had arranged with Tyler. However, if he felt uncomfortable, she’d be all right with him waiting on her to show herself. She had to be watching because, even with Alex’s supervision, she wouldn’t delegate his care to anyone, though it might serve her purposes to stay out of sight.
She might punish him for not following her direction immediately, but if she knew he had an honest concern, she wouldn’t chastise him any more than their mutual pleasure demanded.
Hell, he was being a chickenshit. If he got in and things bothered him, he’d only need to safe word out to Alex. He stepped into the cage.
“Wrists,” Alex said shortly. Marius put them through the bars to be cuffed to them, his fingers curling as Alex decreased his mobility within the already small space. Looking at his impassive countenance, Marius felt a twinge of conscience.
“I’m sorry I caused you problems, Alex. I know I didn’t deserve to be here anymore. I want to change that.”
Alex’s eyes shifted to his and held. Marius saw a coldness there, more than he would have expected. “I’m paid to deal with shit like you caused,” the DM said. “You want to really change things and deserve to be here? Think about how to fix what you did to the Mistresses you fucked with.”
So, okay, he’d been lying, somewhat, about not thinking over the amends issue much. He had thought about the things he’d done. Most often in the early morning hours when Regina slept and it was just him, stuck with the darkness of his soul. He thought of Siren, who’d been on board when his train derailed with his personal shit. Alex’s words brought all that to the forefront, in vivid color.
He swallowed pride. “Okay. Thanks, man.”
Alex’s gaze flickered at the laconic but sincere response. Rather than answering, he checked that the cuffs were secure. They were threaded over a bar so Marius could slide them up and down, but not pull his hands and wrists back into the cage. “I’ll be watching. Any problems, just signal me.”
As he began to step away, Alex glanced over his shoulder at Marius, that cold look returning. “Are you playing Regina?”
“No.” Marius’s lips tugged in a grim smile. “I couldn’t even if I tried, and I did try at first. She’s a big part of why I’m here tonight, trying to be better.”
Alex pursed his mouth. “She’s one tough bitch, in all the right ways. You have a long way to go to deserve her.”
When the man moved away, Marius thought about how he would have reacted to such blunt words weeks ago. With sneering hostility. Now, he knew it to be simple truth. And sometimes, uncomfortably, he knew he needed to be doing more to fix his shit. But he was, and would. Regina had helped get him this far. He could make this relationship work.
The protocol on the jail cell cage was anyone could reach in and touch if they wanted to do so. Only the sub’s genitals were off limits to any but the Dom-in-command, so to speak, unless they were purposefully put on display in the way Marius had recalled. He was kind of glad she hadn’t required that. He wasn’t sure he really wanted some other Mistress’s hands getting his cock worked up, particularly if his Mistress wasn’t standing where he could see her, giving her stamp of approval to it. Maybe not even then.
On a normal night, a sub in the cage got plenty of attention, some good-natured teasing from passing Doms and even some subs. Yet though the room had become more populated, more people using the different stations, he was starting to feel invisible. Except to the Mistress who now stood in the doorway to this public play room.
He vaguely remembered her as a one-time scene. She’d gotten frustrated halfway through and simply cut him loose.
When
she met his gaze, it was automatic to paste on the mocking, charming grin. He caught himself a blink later, realizing it for the defensive mechanism it was. Regina had taught him that bullshit was no longer acceptable. He was too late to fix it, though, because the Mistress had pivoted and disappeared, though he’d caught a hostile look in her gaze before she did.
Well, fuck it, what did it matter if he gave them his usual charm and fuck-you attitude? He wasn’t here for them. He was here for Regina. She knew him, knew how to handle him, bring out the best in him.
Did he know how to bring out the best in himself? The question was unexpected and unsettling. She’d asked him that in a couple different ways these past few weeks. He hadn’t been sure of her meaning, but the jagged feeling in his gut now was starting to give him a clue. This whole set up was making him face the painful truth that, while he might be at his personal best with her, she was the why factor. He was still who he was on his own. Someone who didn’t have the respect of a guy like Alex. He’d been a shit to too many people here, disrespected what this was all about, as well as the job Tyler had given him.
Marius shifted. There was a spanking scene going on at a nearby station, a male Dom and female sub. Usually he’d enjoy watching the reddening of a pretty ass just as much as the next guy. But everything around him was turning gray.
Gray. Fuck. He tried to push down the panic the realization brought. How could it be so close, just waiting to resurface, unless he really hadn’t changed that much, if all the shit was still there, waiting to grab him by the throat?
Had Regina arranged for this with Tyler? Maybe she’d anticipated him needing to do some reparation and suggested this as the best way to prove he could handle being here again. He wished she would show herself. He could handle most things if he could see her.
A glance to the left made him realize why no one had approached the cage. A red ribbon had been tied to the hook holding the keys. That meant a sub was on display only, no touching.
That should have made him feel better, but it didn’t. Bad feelings continued to build, more uneasiness and a wrong sense of…helplessness. It underlined what he’d just realized. He was nothing without her. He was still that powerless kid, prey to the predator. Darkness started to rise, bringing fear.
“Exactly where you need to be.”
He tuned in to see Siren standing in front of the cage, several other Mistresses arrayed in a semi-circle around him. He couldn’t see Alex. Had he left the fucking room? He was there, Marius was sure of it. He wouldn’t leave his post when sessions were ongoing, when he had been specifically charged to watch over a sub who couldn’t get out of a cage without assistance.
Siren’s eyes were fixed on him, her mouth tight. She had her hair pulled up in a severe knot, increasing the strain of her features. She was a beautiful woman, but an inner ugliness had taken hold. He was responsible for that. All he had to do was look to see the shattered confidence, the anger at what he’d done to her. She was carrying a dense veneer of righteous anger, but the hunger for revenge still bled through.
Withdrawing a folded paper from the bodice of her corset, she opened it, showing a printed news clip. She slapped it against the bars in front of his face, the writing on the page toward her so the other women could see it. Through the translucence of the paper, he got the gist of it, though.
“Murderer of Clerk Put to Death.”
His stomach dropped.
“Look at the picture, taken when his daddy was put in prison. He looks like him, doesn’t he?”
The women shifted, muttering and agitated. “You are him, aren’t you?” Siren demanded. “Just a little psycho-in-training.”
Pivoting, she looked up toward the darkened executive offices. Their vacancy didn’t stop her from pointing an accusatory finger toward the space. “He never should have been here. And the owners of this club knew it. They had to have known it. He was their employee. They let this bastard be here, fuck with our heads.”
“They didn’t know,” Marius said, fighting past a thickness in his throat. What the hell was happening? He felt like he was shrinking before their accusing eyes, shrinking back into that small boy, standing in a cold, desolate corner, watching, trying not to listen, not to hear… But he wasn’t that boy. He was a man, and he wouldn’t let Tyler get blamed for this. “None of them knew. I didn’t tell anyone.”
She turned and stared at him. “There’s no way to make you suffer,” she said dully. “Pain doesn’t bother you. I could electrocute you, cut you, beat you, and you’d just take it all. You’re not human. They should have strapped you in with your father so you two demons could go straight to Hell together.”
“I’m not…him.” He tried to summon the things Regina had said to him, how she’d touched him, what she’d made him feel. Siren was wrong about him and pain. He felt like he was being beaten the way his father had beaten him. His knees were weakening strangely, breath shortening, and the cell seemed three times smaller than it had a moment ago. “Alex. Fight Club.” He wasn’t sure how loudly he’d spoken, if the words had made it over the roaring in his ears.
He should have been able to handle this, would have, only a few weeks before. He would have leaned indolently against the bars, stared her down, told her to fuck off. Regina had taken away his shields and defenses, those bulwarks against anyone reaching him. He’d let go of them in favor of pleasing his Mistress, learning how to truly love her. But a boy cowering in a corner couldn’t fight back or love anyone.
“Alex isn’t here.” Siren leaned in, her eyes glittering. “He had a problem he had to address in the other room. But if you scream like the little bitch you are, maybe he’ll come. Eventually.”
She wants the demon? Give it to her.
Those shields weren’t as dormant as he’d feared. Siren had come too close. A short yelp was all she managed when he clamped his cuffed hands around her throat. The chain linking the cuffs to the bars made a harsh shriek as he yanked her against the steel. Fury and violence swamped him, despair clinging to the small sinking island of his consciousness that had hoped he could be something else.
Other parts of his black soul were far louder. Regina had put them to sleep, but Siren woke them with nothing more than a clap of her hands, showing they were as strong as they had ever been.
Just do it. Crush her throat. It doesn’t matter. You’ll always be connected to him, just as she said. Doesn’t matter if you never did what he told you to do. He always knew you were the same. Regina wanted to believe differently, but she was as stupid as you were.
He shoved all that aside. He didn’t want to think about anything, now or ever again, and this was the way to do that. He constricted his fingers on Siren’s throat, making it clear he was too strong to be dislodged, and bared his teeth, savagely satisfied at the sudden fear in her eyes. But it wasn’t her. It was his father, both afraid and laughing at him. He’d stop the laughing forever.
Some part of him was vaguely aware of someone trying to loosen his grip, but he wouldn’t be budged. “This time we will go to hell together,” he snarled.
Electricity shocked through him, propelling him back, loosening his fingers. His father was yanked away, and then disappeared, replaced by a dazed and pale Siren, held in the hands of the other Mistresses, all out of range. His howl of rage and despair sent them skittering back even more. Unfriendly eyes, angry faces. He saw a male sub—one of Siren’s regulars before Marius—holding the hot stick. The man looked as if he thought he should hit Marius with it again, despite his imprisoned state. Marius snarled at him, daring him to do it.
He could hear sounds, that roaring, but words only distantly. Present kept disappearing into images of the past and returning, overlapping, making him feel dizzy and nauseous.
“Who’s responsible for him? Who’s looking after him?”
Alex was back, shouldering through a mob of shouting people, all of them too close. The inability to breathe, the sense of being buried alive, returned. He co
uldn’t sit down, but he slumped against the cage side, grasping the bars.
“Move, goddamn it.”
His Mistress. She sounded more pissed than he’d ever heard. But she also sounded frightened. He didn’t like that. Why had she done this?
“He tried to choke her… Tried to kill Siren…”
“From what I picked up, she deserved it,” Regina snapped. “I would have choked her myself, if I could have gotten here any faster.”
She plucked the keys off the hook and unlocked the cell. When Alex came closer, she shot him a searing look. “You fucking stay back,” she said. “You’ve done enough. Clear this damn room.”
“Duncan,” she said. “The door’s open. Come here.” She reached in, but it wasn’t her again. It was his father, pulling him to the table, and it was Dot under his knife. He struck out, missed and hit the bars. The pain was welcome, bringing Regina and the present back into focus. He did it again, and wanted to keep doing it, just hammer his fists into blood and fragments of bone so the agony wouldn’t let the past swallow him again.
But Regina’s hands rested on his fists, curved over them. She held his gaze, wouldn’t let him go away. She wasn’t restraining him, but she didn’t need to do so. He wouldn’t beat on the bars if her fragile fingers were between his fists and the unrelenting steel. His gaze clung to her, the one thing of color in a gray world.
He still couldn’t breathe. Regina eased him out of the cell and put him on his ass, using the outside of the cage to prop him up in a sitting position. She crouched next to him. She was still in her teaching clothes, her trim slacks and crisp blouse.
“Easy,” she murmured. “It’s a panic attack. Nothing’s wrong with you. Just slow everything down. Easy.”
He was gripping her too hard, though not as hard as he’d wanted to grip Siren’s neck. “I tried to kill her,” he rasped. “I tried…”
