She found herself stifling a laugh. “We got seltzer, too, if you want something sugar free that isn’t like mad-science paint stripper.”
“Thanks.” He opened the bottle carefully, letting out a little pressure at a time. She liked that. Cautious, didn’t spray it everywhere. And at this distance, which was to say almost no distance at all, he didn’t smell…
Really, Neesha? Have you set the expectations that low?
“So are you big on Settlers like your brother?” Diego asked.
She didn’t want to insult him if it was a favorite, but at the same time, if this was a getting-to-know-you mission, lying was counterproductive. “I know a lot of deep board-game nerds love it, but I actually find it boring as hell.”
“Then why are you here?” he blurted, seeming alarmed.
Oh shit, was that him being insulted? She tried to backtrack. “I mean, I’m sure it’s got some good theory behind it and all—”
“I think it’s boring, too,” he added hurriedly. “I mean, so, if you’re not going to play, you can, um, keep me company minding the store.” His blush darkened his cheeks and made them look edible. “What’s your favorite game? Are you into video games more or is that too much like work?”
“Oh no, I love playing video games. First person shooters, MMORPGs, you name it. You don’t go into game development if you don’t love that stuff. I could be programming financial databases for pharmaceutical companies or something if all I wanted to do was code.” She sipped her Mountain Dew. “Plus, it’s the only job in the world where you can hop on Warcraft from your office and claim it’s research.”
“Oh my God, War-crack. I confess. I’m addicted.” He held up his hand like a stop sign. “Actually, as a professional in the video game industry, maybe you can answer something for me.”
Taneesha felt herself flinch for half a second before the reality set in that Diego was sincerely calling her a professional programmer and treating her like one, rather than using it as some kind of backhanded compliment. “Sure. What’s the question?”
“Add-ons. I just don’t get it. Why doesn’t Blizzard just make them part of the standard program? Like literally everyone I know uses a damage meter. Shouldn’t that just be part of the package?”
“The damage meter does seem like a no-brainer, but a lot of the other ones just erode your skills,” Taneesha said. “They’ve probably got stats on how many people use any given add-on. If it were really everyone maybe they would make it standard. Or maybe it increases server load somehow.” She shrugged. “Generally it’s a feature and not a bug that the game is so customizable.”
“Yeah, I know. And there are so many ways to play it. I’ve got a level sixty-two ore-collecting shadow priest and as I level him up I’m doing hardly any raiding and mostly expanding his business interests. It’s… weirdly capitalist? But I’m enjoying it.”
And I’m enjoying listening to you geek out about it, Taneesha thought with a small smile to herself. “I still get a lot of satisfaction out of raiding. And even fighting PvP. Haven’t done that in a while, actually. I kind of miss it.”
“See? I knew you were badass. From the moment you walked in. Oh shit, was that my outside voice?”
She laughed, not at him but to put him at ease. “Tell me more about your shadow priest.”
“Well, I know if I really want to be capitalist about it, I should sell stuff in the auction houses, but I feel like maybe that takes too much advantage of noobs.”
“I dunno. I think it isn’t noobs so much as rich dudes who are too lazy to get their own stuff so they’d rather throw money at the problem,” Taneesha said. “I have no problem taking advantage of those guys.” There were some assholes among her co-workers, in fact, whom she strongly felt should know better and do better, being gaming pros themselves. But to each their own.
The last thing she wanted to do right now was think about work, though. She wanted to change the subject, but here she’d literally just asked Diego to tell her more. Damn that job for sucking the joy out of everything in life.
MICHELLE
Michelle checked the time. There was no way around it. It was time for the BDSM workshop. No other appointment had cropped up, no more urgent option. What are you afraid of? she asked herself. Come on. You’re not going to sit upstairs working on Noah Ward’s manuscript.
Definitely not. Ward’s book was a royal mess, the very highly anticipated next book in a long-running series. Preorders were through the roof, they had secured front-of-store placement in Barnes and Noble, and even Target and Costco had put in huge initial buys… all of which meant the book had to be on time or they risked tanking the sales. They had already pushed back the release date twice, but this time Faraday had gone ahead with announcing the date because the manuscript was supposedly in. Ward’s old editor had given the green light to go to copy editing right before he was sacked. Michelle could see why. From what she’d read of the manuscript so far, she got the feeling he hadn’t even read it or touched it before he’d foisted it onto the copy editor, who had gamely tried to work through for several chapters before contacting Faraday to ask if perhaps she had received the wrong draft? Michelle didn’t blame her at all. She couldn’t even blame the author, who relied on his editor to point out plot holes and structural problems. And boy did it have those. She had to get all the way through the book and send it back to him ASAP if there was any hope of it turning around in time. It was exhilarating to “rescue” a book but exasperating that someone else’s incompetence had turned it into an emergency.
At this point Michelle had been wrestling with Ward’s prose for hours and her brain needed to think about something else for a while. A BDSM workshop would be just the thing, even if she did have a knot in her stomach about it.
The room was crowded. And it wasn’t a small room, either. BDSM really was a hot topic, apparently, as hundreds of women (and a few men) took their seats. Michelle made her way almost all the way to the front before she found a seat in the second row. On the low stage, Richard was talking to Felice, saying something into her ear that made her giggle, and then he cupped her face with one hand. Felice looked into his eyes with an expression Michelle wasn’t sure she’d ever seen in real life: radiant devotion. Richard returned the look with a kind of blazing indulgence.
I want that.
Michelle was unaware how hard she was gripping the program in her hands. She was accustomed to setting goals and then working methodically to achieve them, but this wasn’t like that. This was a base need, an almost primal desire, an irrational hunger for something she hadn’t thought she required in her life. She wanted to be on fire for someone. Almost as strong was the desire for someone to be equally on fire for her. Although the room was buzzing and hundreds of people were there, Richard and Felice appeared to be in their own little bubble, utterly consumed in each other.
When Michelle and Ted had been new, there had been puppy love, there had been doting, there had even been some erotic discovery in their intimacy. But had there been passion and she’d simply forgotten? Or had they never had the delicious edge of mystery that seemed to be tantalizing her now? Was BDSM the missing ingredient?
That’s why you’re at this workshop, she told herself firmly. To find out the answers to all these questions. Be prepared for the answer to be no. Be prepared for the answer to simply be that there’s no magic bullet. Realism. They said this would stress realistic BDSM relationships and not the fluff of romance novels.
She had never taken her eyes off the entrancing pair since sitting down, so she was watching when Richard took a step back from Felice and drew himself up to his full height. That turned some heads. And then when he pointed to a spot on the stage, and Felice sank gracefully to her knees, a hush started at the front and swept over the room, taking Michelle’s breath with it.
That was like some kind of magic trick, making five hundred chatting women fall silent with only a gesture.
Richard was miked. He touche
d the clip on the back of his belt and spoke without preamble, his voice filling the room. “Some people, when they see a dom/sub relationship, see authority in the bedroom. They see power. They see cruelty. You know what I see?”
Michelle was sure she wasn’t the only one holding her breath to hear the answer.
Richard gazed dotingly at Felice, who basked in his attention. “I see love.”
Audible sighs came from somewhere behind her. Michelle held in a sigh but rolled her eyes, the cynical part of her insisting that the word love simply couldn’t be used so baldly. Too facile, too on point.
He went on. “I see two people who have bonded their souls at the deepest level. I see a woman who I don’t merely believe will walk through fire for me, I know it. Because she’s done it. When we play with pain or bondage or denial, with fire or leather or chain, we push the limits of our physical selves, which pushes the limits of our inner selves, whatever word you want to use for that: our hearts, our souls, our spirits, our minds, our ideas of self and each other.”
That made a scary amount of sense, though. Love is strongest when it’s tested.
“Some couples climb mountains together. Some meet the challenge of raising children together. Whatever test you set for yourselves, when you pass it together your bonds grow stronger.”
When Michelle thought of tests and her marriage, the tests were always of patience, or tolerance, like could she stand another harangue about her cooking. A test you pass together. What did he mean by that? Wasn’t it the dom who set forth tests for a sub to pass?
She listened to the lecture, which continued through a discussion of various different styles of BDSM relationships, the difference between roles like master/slave versus owner/pet, the distinctions of slave, servant, submissive, and sex doll. But she held that question in her mind, waiting for the Q&A. When the time came, her hand shot upward.
“Yes?” Richard said, calling on her with a warm recognition in his smile and indicating that she should stand.
He remembers me. “Earlier you talked about a test you pass together. But isn’t the sub the one who passes the tests the dom invents?”
His smile turned almost indulgent, as if this were one of his favorite lessons to teach, and Michelle felt goose bumps rise across her shoulders.
“Would you be willing to take part in a little demonstration?” Richard said.
“Yes,” Michelle said, before she could think about it.
The other women in her row moved their legs aside so she could make her way to the aisle and then up onto the stage. Goodness, there were a lot of people filling that ballroom. She could feel all their eyes on her.
But then there was Richard’s voice—“Look at me.”—and it seemed as if his eyes were suddenly the only ones in the room. “Felice, lie down at the edge of the stage.”
“Yes, sir,” Felice said from behind her.
“Michelle, may I tie your hands loosely for purposes of this demonstration?”
“Yes,” she said. It sounded unfinished without the honorific but she felt too unsure about including it to do so. She held up her hands.
“Behind you, I mean,” he said mildly, gesturing for her to face the rear of the stage.
“Oh.” She turned around and held her hands back, then heard the sound of cloth against cloth. Was he taking off his tie? She guessed so from the sound and the murmur that went through the audience, but she knew it wouldn’t look right if she turned around to see.
The tie was still warm from his body, making this demonstration suddenly more intimate than she’d expected, a detail only she could discern. Her breath stuttered in her lungs.
“Stay still,” he said.
She held her position while he moved to the podium. Had he positioned her facing the back so that she wouldn’t stare out at the audience and get nervous? Could he tell how nervous she already was? He had probably felt the trembling in her hands. Was he being that thoughtful and deliberate or was it her imagination?
He was writing something. She could hear pen against paper. Then the sound of paper folding.
“Michelle, turn around.”
She did as asked and saw three pieces of folded paper, each standing up like a hat atop Felice’s body. One was between her breasts, one was on her stomach, and one was on her thighs very close to her crotch.
“I’ve written one request on each paper. One is something I want. One is something Felice wants. And one lets you ask for what you want.”
Michelle felt her heart race. So this was the test. The test was about whether she would go through with it, right? The only way to fail was to back down. Was that what he’d meant about them both succeeding: choosing a test the sub could pass so that they would both win, essentially?
“So what I want you to do is pick one up with your mouth and deliver it to me. That’s all.”
“Okay.” She kicked off her heels and lowered herself carefully to the stage next to Felice, no easy feat with the slightly tight suit skirt she was wearing and her bound hands unable to counterbalance her.
But which paper to choose? The one balanced on Felice’s fine corset was probably the safest choice, at least in that picking it up with her mouth wouldn’t look too embarrassingly sexual for a public demo. Except what were the chances that was the paper that had the “safe” choice on it? Michelle was conscious of everyone watching and how boring it must be to see her just sitting there.
She had the middle paper in her mouth before the thought struck her: Wait, which option do I consider the “safe” choice?
Her heart felt like it was beating in her throat as she tried to stand up gracefully. Well, she stood up, at least, and faced Richard wondering if he could read all the churning emotions inside her: trepidation, attraction, the exhilaration of being in public mixed with the confusion of wondering why she’d agreed to do the demonstration at all. She remembered her first impression of Richard from the photo, that his eyes could see right through to her secrets. The idea made her cheeks heat intensely.
“Thank you,” Richard said with a slight nod as he plucked the paper from her lips. “You did very well.”
A surge of excitement ran through her, his approval pouring through her like a sweet intoxicant. Maybe that explained why tests were a thing. Was he feeling that good, too?
And then he opened the paper. “You chose the one that lets you have anything you want. So tell me, what’s your heart’s desire?”
For you to kiss me and tell me I did well, she thought, but she couldn’t say that! She couldn’t let him kiss her in front of this whole room of people, couldn’t admit that inside what she craved most was to be patted on the head like a schoolgirl.
But wait. “What I want most is to…” She had it. She knew exactly what to answer. “… pass the test.”
Richard beamed. “Aha! And that, my dear, you have done with flying colors. May I untie you?”
As Richard reclaimed his tie, she felt herself smiling, unsure exactly why, but she felt both relieved and proud of herself for being clever, and for being bold enough to get up there, even if she really wasn’t sure what lesson she was supposed to have learned. None of it really made sense, but she was flushed with euphoria and arousal.
“Now,” Richard said with a flourish, picking up the other two pieces of paper and helping Felice to her feet, “Would you like to see what the other papers said?”
Clapping from the audience made it clear he was addressing them. He unfolded both and held them aloft, turning them back and forth to gasps and ohhhs from the audience. They were both blank. They were all blank.
Michelle felt her throat tighten as the surprise hit her. “So it wasn’t a test after all?”
“On the contrary! I tested your obedience, your resolve, your agility, your decision-making, and your desire. And your results pleased me very well. Thank you.”
The audience applauded on that cue and Richard bowed, then indicated that Michelle and Felice should as well. Michelle picked
up her shoes and he helped her down the few steps to the floor. She opted to slip into the front row instead of trying to get all the way back to her former seat. The woman on one side of her, a stranger who was fanning herself with her program, switched to fanning Michelle instead. Michelle found herself smiling. That was… that was not anything like what I was expecting.
The lecture went on as Richard talked about the psychological and emotional depth of BDSM relationships, but Michelle was sold. She was convinced. There was more to all this than just dressing up in costumes to make sex more exciting. Her mind spun alternately through fantasies of what kind of tests Richard could come up with in more private circumstances and intricate re-imaginings of the relationships in some of her favorite books and movies.
“It takes two to tango,” Richard was telling the audience, but Michelle barely heard him. “I could order Felice, my slave, to do something merely because it is my whim, but if I am setting her up to fail, who has truly failed? If I damage her self-esteem, bring negative emotions into our bed or our bond, or physically injure her by asking her to do something that is beyond her ability, then it would be me who failed. That’s what I mean when I say we pass tests together.”
Michelle was still deep in her own head when the workshop ended. She took the handout that a conference volunteer handed her as she went out the door expecting it to be a workshop evaluation, but stopped short as she realized what it was. A recommended reading list of BDSM how-to books.
“Hey.”
Michelle jumped at the voice from behind her. “Oh, hi, Aditi.”
“Was the workshop good? I arrived late and couldn’t even get in the door!” Aditi grinned. “You look like you just had your mind blown.”
Michelle cleared her throat. Now wasn’t the time to go off into la-la land. She straightened her suit jacket and skirt. “Oh, you know. Good food for thought.”
Geek Actually Season 1 Omnibus Page 16
