by JA Huss
Hell, I’m learning more about myself right now than I even knew. I’ve just discovered that even when I’m not in control, I’m still in control. My aura is too strong. My chi is too powerful. Even stripped and gagged, I am the master of my domain. I am the king of my jungle, and there is no one and nothing that can—
OH MY HOLY FUCK, FUCK ME IN MY ASSHOLE, MYRTLE JUST LIT A CANDLE AND THERE IS, IN FACT, A TIGER IN THE CAGE NEXT TO ME WITH ITS FACE UP AGAINST THE BARS! AND IT’S DROOLING ON MY DICK!
Um... OK... This was not in the book...
CHAPTER ELEVEN - MYRTLE
The sound he makes comes out like, “Thewuhnaanunduhboot!!”
“Sorry? What was that? You thought we were… knocking boots?”
He shakes his head. Hard. “Thi. Wah. Nah. Ii. Da. Boot.”
“Oooooh.” I realize what he’s trying to say. “Yeah, no, you’re right. This was not in any book. Because you’re not in a fiction now, Anastasia. This is real life.”
Pierce stares at me, candlelight flickering off his wide eyes. And then he reaches around and pulls the gag off.
I smirk. I can’t help it. Because I called it, didn’t I? It’s probably been a little more than ten minutes since he stepped through the door, but not much. He’s going to run out of here and in two minutes I’ll be making my way down the hill to Katherine’s house to enjoy a bottle of wine through fits of laughter.
“This is crazy. This is weird! What are you doing? Where did you get this tiger? What the hell is going on and when the hell can I leave?”
“You can leave right now, Anastasia. You’re the one in control, remember?”
“Myrtle,” he says, teeth clenched, his voice low and angry.
“Pierce.”
“Are you going to explain?”
“I thought I did.”
“You didn’t.” And that’s when Sebastian roars. So loud even I jump a little. He’s a true kitty cat. And he’s almost twenty years old. True, he’s never been in a situation like this, but he’s been in some weird situations in his life, so that roar was really more of a yawn. His way of saying, Let’s get this show on the road.
Plus, he’s not even in the same cage as Pierce. I’m not worried about Sebastian. Pierce, on the other hand—let’s just say I hope he doesn’t have a heart condition. Because he scoots away to the farthest side of his cage, back pressed up against the bars, and yells, “Get me the fuck out of here!”
I feel obligated to put up a fight. Make a big deal about him quitting. So I do that. “Are you sure?” I say. “Just say the word. The word you chose. But be sure. Because once you say it, once you quit, you quit for good. And this wasn’t enough to erase your debt to me.”
“What do you want from me?”
“Submission,” I deadpan. “And don’t tell me I didn’t make that clear, because I did.”
“This is a wild animal,” he says, pointing to Sebastian. “You never said anything about being eaten by tigers!”
“Don’t be dramatic. The whole point of submission is to trust that your mistress will take care of you. How would letting my tiger eat you build trust?”
“You say that like owning a tiger is normal!”
He’s losing control now. There are about thirty seconds until he grabs his clothes and runs to his car, and I want to make the most of those moments. I want him to think about my words as he’s driving home, tomorrow as he gets ready for breakfast, and all the days that come after when I’m no longer in his life because he fired me for stripping him down to his underwear, stuffing a ball gag in his mouth, and putting him in a cage.
It’s sad, really. That this is how my seven years of servitude to Pierce and Le Man magazine will end. But that’s the way it has to be. Because I cannot go on working for him as the VP of Social Media.
I just can’t.
“It is normal, Pierce. Because this is who I am.”
“You’re a crazy tiger lady!”
“No,” I say, voice even and low. “I’m a sane tiger lady.”
“Oh, well,” he huffs. “That explains everything!” He takes a deep breath, side-eyes Sebastian the way he did Dave and Betty upstairs, and then looks at me and says, “I always knew you were… different. But this is… this is…”
“This is what?” I ask, truly interested in whatever new opinion he’s forming about me.
He blows out a long breath of air and stays silent.
“You think I’m into Halloween. You think I’m motivated by money. By a new title and a big office. You think you can buy my forgiveness with expensive furniture. But your most egregious sin was that you thought I was the Sexpert.”
Sebastian gets up, prowls the length of his large cage, and then flops down on the other end. Bored.
But all Pierce sees is the wild animal. He sees teeth, and claws, and stripes. He’s imagining all the ways this living, breathing death-machine can hurt him.
“But you’re so sexy,” he finally says. “I don’t understand why you’d be offended by it. I mean, it was a clever-as-hell idea.”
“Oh, it’s not the idea of the Sexpert that offended me.”
“Then what’s the problem? I don’t get it!”
“I know,” I say, suddenly sad. “That’s the problem.”
“Would you stop talking in circles and just… explain?”
“I thought you were leaving?”
“Well, I’m not. OK? I’m not. I’m not leaving.”
“I’m going to tell you the truth now. And the truth is…” I pause. “You don’t get to know me, Pierce. You don’t get to understand what’s happening. Because I’ve worked for you for seven years. And the reason you’re confused right now—the reason you think I’m into Halloween—is because you don’t know me. I realized that as I was dragged out of the auditorium when you told the whole world I… lied to you.”
“What?”
“You thought I lied to you. You thought I was keeping secrets from you.”
“Well, obviously you are! Why the hell do you have a tiger?”
“This has nothing to do with the tiger. Or this place. Or any of that. None of this is secret. My problem with you is that you don’t trust me. After seven years of me having your back, seven years of me running interference on your behalf, seven years of taking your side in every way I could possibly think of, you thought I was lying. You thought I was trying to screw you over. And that… that is a sin that might not be forgivable. So why don’t I just do the grown-up thing here and quit so you don’t have to fire me tomorrow?”
“Quit?” he yells. “You are not quitting, lady! I didn’t come all the way out to your… your… your jungle castle, strip myself down to my skivvies, and crawl into a cage so you could quit on me! No! I’m here. I’m present. I’m invested, OK? So do whatever you have to do to set this right. I’m not leaving and you’re not quitting!”
He crosses his arms like a little kid. Makes a stern face that says he’s serious. And for a moment my heart beats fast. Panic, I realize. “What do you mean you’re not leaving?”
“I’m not leaving. Look,” he says, picking up the ball gag and pulling the strap back around his head. “Imf. Nof. Leafing. Lefs fuffing wo tis shik.”
But… he has to leave. He has to. That was the plan. If he stays… Jesus Christ. If he stays, I’ll have to actually do this! I’ll have to dominate him, and smack his ass, and handcuff him! My boss will have to submit to me and I’ll have to dom the fuck out of him! Because that was the promise I made. That’s the whole point. And if I don’t do all that then… then I lose again!
I thought for sure he’d run when he saw Sebastian. And hell, that was being generous. I really thought he’d run the moment he saw Dave and Betty.
But the cats aren’t enough.
So now what?
How do I scare him out of this? How do I hand in my resignation as the winner?
Because that was always the end game. I have no future at Le Man as a VP. I don’t even want to be a VP. I do
n’t even need the fucking money. I stay there for him. It’s always been for him. And this stupid job is… well, stupid. I can’t go on working there as Myrtle Rothschild, VP of Social Media. I just can’t.
And I refuse to leave with my tail tucked between my legs. If I’m walking out on Pierce Chevalier, then I’m walking out on my terms, not because I lost playing this stupid game.
Pierce drags the gag down his face. “Myrtle?”
“What?” I whisper.
“Are you going to show me?”
“Show you what?” I ask, turning away from him. Because I suddenly have no idea what I’m doing. What the fuck was I thinking? Inviting my boss down here? He’s in a cage, for fuck’s sake!
“Who you are.”
I press my lips together and shake my head. “No. That’s not why you’re here, Pierce.”
“Well… I am here. So you better deal with it. Because I’m not leaving.”
Get your shit together, Myrtle. You have to do something and you have to do it now.
I reach into the top of my corset and pull out a lighter and I start lighting candles. Because I have no clue what’s happening right now. This started out as a joke. A way to get even. A way to get out of this stupid relationship. Which is also stupid, because it’s not a relationship. I thought it was at least a friendship, but I was wrong about that too.
So I just light the candles. There are dozens of them around the room. Tall candelabras with thick pillars on top. Two on each side of my… equipment.
And when I’m done, I turn back to him, his face flickering with the soft glow of candlelight. He stares back at me, then slips the gag back in place and nods his head.
“First,” I say, walking over to a table. There’s various paddles, whips, and devices neatly laid out on top of crushed red velvet. Other things too. Hoods, and collars, and spreader bars. I make a selection, still unsure of how this night went so spectacularly wrong, walk back over to him, open the cage, and say, “Give me your wrists. I’m going to handcuff you now.”
He does this. Willingly. And I can’t help but be a little impressed. My first trip down to a dungeon certainly didn’t go this way. I was scared to death. And maybe he is scared? Maybe he’s just better at hiding it than I was.
But he doesn’t look scared. Not when I lock the cuffs around his wrists and not when I fasten them to the bars of the cage. Not even when Sebastian walks over to the side of the cage next to Pierce, flops down, and begins to chuff—that weird half-purr, half-growl thing only tigers do.
Pierce just looks at him and huffs some air out his nose. As if they’re sharing a moment. Some kind of caged-animal camaraderie.
I lock the cage back up and walk over to the first piece of equipment. Then I clear my throat and say, “OK. Welcome to BDSM 101. I’m your mistress and this is what you can expect.”
I start with the most daunting piece of dungeon furniture.
“This is the stockade,” I say, picking up a candle so he can get a good look at it. “Your wrists will go in here. Your ankles are fastened down here.” I point to the bar between those two parts. “And you bend over this. Any questions?”
He smiles through the ball gag and shakes his head.
“This,” I say, walking on to the next piece of furniture, “is the punishment bench. Extreme deluxe version. I think it’s self-explanatory.”
I walk on, stopping again. “This is the lock-down system. I call it the rack, but it’s not for stretching you out like the torture device of the same name, just… immobilizing you in an upright position.”
I move on, going over each piece of furniture, then make my way to the table and start picking up the smaller things. “This is a spreader. I don’t think I’ll use it on you, but I like to have it just in case. This is a cock cage. This is a thigh sling. This is a…” It goes on like that for several minutes. I look back at him after each explanation, trying to decipher his thoughts.
But I have no idea what Pierce is thinking right now. None.
All I know is that he nods. He just… agrees.
When I’m done explaining things I walk back over to the cage, open the door, and uncuff him, leaving the restraints attached to the bar. I grab him by the hair, fist it, gripping tight, and pull him forward until he understands that I want him out of the cage.
He crawls, looking up at me.
God, my heart is beating so fast.
“You may stand,” I say.
He does.
I remove the ball gag and drop it onto the tray set aside for used items. “Any questions?” I ask.
“When do we start?” he says, smiling.
“We’re done for tonight.”
“What?” He laughs. “You’re kidding.”
“Your mistress does not joke when she’s in the dungeon.”
“But…” He looks down. Which makes me look down. He’s hard. There’s no way to miss it.
“Not tonight,” I say, forcing my eyes back up. “Now put your clothes back on and leave.”
I want to die right now. Because tomorrow morning I have to walk into work and see this man outside of my pleasure room. And that is not how this game is usually played. Things are kept separate. The lifestyle never meets real life. Not when I play.
God, I did not think this through. At all.
I walk over to a red velvet couch and sit down, crossing my long legs seductively because Pierce is watching.
I watch him back.
I watch him pull on his pants. Shrug on his shirt. Button all those expensive little buttons. I watch him fasten his belt, and put on his shoes, and pick up his coat. And when he’s all put back together he smiles at me. “So. Same time tomorrow?”
“Same time tomorrow,” I reply back. “Now leave.”
He turns to go, but then he turns back. “Myrtle?”
“What?”
“Can I ask you one thing?”
“What?”
“What is this place?”
“My dungeon.”
“No. This house.”
“Oh,” I say, looking at him. He seems… at ease now. All traces of panic and fear gone. God, did I ever get him wrong. “It’s a big cat sanctuary,” I say. “My father was a lion tamer in the circus before I was born. Then he trained tigers and lions for movies. Then he opened up the main sanctuary up north. That’s where most of them go. The ones people get for pets and then decide they’re not really pet material when they eat the family dog. But this is our family estate. He turned it into a retirement center for the older performing cats so they could live out their days being pampered. Sebastian was never going to eat you. He’s as tame as they come.”
Pierce chuckles a little as he turns to the stairs, slowly walking up. But he stops halfway and says, “I know.”
CHAPTER TWELVE - PIERCE
“I got dominated last night, dude.”
I know I thought that I would never tell someone what I did last night if they asked, but Andrew didn’t ask. I just find myself unexpectedly excited to share the news with my old friend.
“What?” he asks, mouth full of breakfast burrito.
“Jesus, chew, man. Were you raised in a barn?”
“Yeah,” he says.
Oh right. He grew up on a horse farm. Forgot that. In any case… “Dude, last night… man.”
I plop down in the chair facing his desk. He begins to speak. I wave my finger at him, forcing him to swallow before he speaks again. Once the bite has cleared his gullet, he says, “What the hell are you talking about?”
I lean in close, lower my voice. I don’t know why I do it. There’s no one else here. But I do. “Last night…” I look around for a reason I can’t identify. “Last night, I went to Myrtle’s house.”
“O-kay.”
“And she stripped me down to my underwear, put me in a cage with a lion, shoved a ball gag in my mouth, slapped me, showed me her torture toys, gave me a hard-on, and then sent me away. Dude… it was fucking awesome.”
&
nbsp; I lean back in my chair and smile. He stares at me for a second, picks up his napkin, wipes his mouth, throws the napkin and the rest of the burrito in the trash can, nods, and says, “Come again?”
“I know. I know. You were right, man. I needed to prostrate myself. But what we didn’t consider is that I didn’t just need to prostrate myself for her. I needed to do it for me.”
He pinches the place between his eyebrows. Shit. Now I feel like I need to get him to a neurologist too.
“Lemme… lemme see if I can parse through what you’re saying.” He takes a breath. “Are you saying that when I suggested you needed to cow yourself before Myrtle, you took that literally? I mean, are you saying that you went to Myrtle’s place to do some kind of BDSM thing? Is that what you’re saying? ’Cause it sounds like that’s what you’re saying.”
“Yeah. That’s what I’m saying. It was great.” I pop my shirt cuffs and tweak my cufflinks because… I dunno. Because I think it looks cool.
“Dude…”
“Hey, listen, do me a favor. Don’t tell anybody. OK?”
“Who’m I gonna tell?”
“Um, your girlfriend?”
“Dude. C’mon. You know me a little. There’s no way I would—”
“I’m sorry, what did you do, exactly?” Eden asks as she barrels into the room. Declan, Andrew’s development guy, is on her tail.
“Andrew, I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” says Declan, “she stopped by my desk on her way to see you and I was showing her what we’re working on and I just opened the app on your phone remotely, and… shit. Sorry. Hey, Pierce.”
“Declan.”
“Dev.”
“Sure.”
“What did you do?” Eden asks again.
“Honey,” Andrew starts, but Eden throws up a ‘talk to the hand’ hand and he backs off.
“OK!” says Dev. “Feels like my work is done here! See ya!” And he takes off. Can’t believe I forgot that Andrew has a developer called Dev. Funny.
