by Dae, Harlem
“Well, you know…” He grinned. Charming, a grin that would set many a woman’s clit on fire, but not mine.
I did know exactly why he was here—at least I thought I did. To watch a sex show, or, he’d been mistakenly informed, like so many were, that he could pay for a prostitute.
“No, I don’t,” I said, biting my bottom lip out of boredom. “So please tell me so I can get along with running my business.”
He turned his head to stare at Fifi then focused back on me. “I heard…” He cleared his throat. “I heard you were a goer.”
If he’d been my slave I would have slapped him six ways to Sunday. Thankfully, he wasn’t. “I may well be, but that isn’t your concern, nor is it polite to show up here and tell me such a thing. Please leave.”
He stretched out his hand and curled his fingers around my forearm. I glared down at where he touched, noting the fine hairs on the back of his hand, his manicured thumbnail, his expensive gold cygnet ring on his middle finger.
“Take your hand off me,” I said quietly. “Otherwise my receptionist will have no alternative but to call the police.”
He drew his hand away as though burned and eyed me with an expression that told me all I needed to know. He thought this was a game, part of some role play only he knew the script to.
“No need for that,” he said, treating me to a smile that almost broke my heart.
So like Victor’s.
“It’s just that, well…” he said, “I wanted to ask if you fancied coming out for a drink with a real man.” He chuckled. “I mean, Victor’s a nice bloke and all that, but he hasn’t quite got it going on down there, has he?” He glanced at his groin.
I had the urge to slap him again but refrained.
“What Victor has going on down there is none of your concern—unless he wishes to tell you. I certainly shan’t be spilling any beans.”
“He spilled plenty, though, so I heard.” He smiled again, lasciviously.
“I beg your pardon?” Far be it for me to become all high and mighty, but who the fuck did this man think he was?
“Look, we’ve got off on the wrong foot, Zara. I just—”
“We most certainly have, Mr Partridge, and I don’t appreciate your coming in here to discuss my former lover and his beans. Now, if I ever see you in here again, you can be sure I’ll—”
“I want you to be my Mistress.”
Well, that brought me up short. I hadn’t expected that at all. I would have put him down firmly on the Master list. My Dom/sub radar had bleeped loud and clear on the Master front as soon as I’d seen him strutting through the main door after Fifi had pressed the buzzer to let him in.
I stared at him, hard, assessing whether he was pulling my leg, trying to get me alone so he could see whether I was a goer or not. “I don’t teach anymore.”
“Why not?” He tilted his head, smiled yet again—the bastard already knew the answer.
“That’s none of your business. Fifi, however, might like to play with you—if you can bear her inch-long, dangerous-as-hell nails raking down your back. Or your cock, whichever you prefer.”
He paled. Ah, so he had a soft spot in there somewhere. Why on earth would he want me to be his Mistress if he couldn’t handle fingernails on his cock?
“I don’t want Fifi, I want you.”
The way he’d said it reminded me of a spoilt child. There was a part of me that wanted to teach him, show him a bloody lesson or two. Take him down a whole bag full of pegs and the damn washing line. But the other part…my God, I just wanted him to go away. He was disturbing my previous calm, something I’d only managed to have within myself since…
“I don’t care what you want,” I said, testy and hoping he felt every last drop of venom I was directing towards him. “I don’t teach. I don’t play one on one. I only fuck—and that is for one night only, no more—and that offer doesn’t apply to you.”
“Why not?”
Christ, he was so sure of himself. I was almost tempted to take him to my office and spin him the line I’d spun to all my one-nighters since I’d split with Geoffrey. Lick my cunt. But I really didn’t want him licking that or any other part of me. There was something about him that I didn’t like.
His whole personality, perhaps.
“I don’t have to explain myself to you or anyone,” I said. “I fail to see why you’d think I should. What, are you so used to being in charge, having people do as you say, when you say it, that you think it’ll wash with me? I’m a Domme.” I leaned closer. “I don’t take orders, I dish them out.”
“But that’s exactly what I need. To be taught a lesson or two.” He looked at me, perhaps genuinely contrite, perhaps not. “I badly need taking in hand.”
Like I hadn’t heard that line before.
I sighed. “Fifi, are you interested in this gentleman as a slave?”
She glanced up, still filing her nail, and laughed, hard and long, the sound of it crushingly cruel.
“I think I have my answer to that,” I said and smiled at her. “It’s just that this gentleman here, if he can be called that, wants me to be his Mistress, and I really don’t think that’s a good idea. It seemed the right thing to do to offer him to you, because I know how much you like the brash types.”
She nodded, raising one hand to blow nail dust off her finger. “He might be just what you need, though, Zara. Get your mind well and truly off The Virgin.”
Oh, I could have killed her for that.
I pursed my lips and widened my eyes at her, silently saying: Oh, you little cow, I’ll get you back for that one.
“Virgin?” Ollie said, pressing the tip of his finger into the indent he had in his chin—the exact same kind as Victor’s. “You never… I mean, underage?”
I sighed. “Oh, will you be quiet?” I snapped, flapping my hand at him so he wouldn’t open that sodding mouth of his for at least a few seconds. I needed time to think. Fifi could be right, he might take my mind off Victor, but did I want him near me in that way? Sexually? No, I didn’t. He wasn’t floating my boat in any shape or form.
Yet I’d found him attractive in the coffee shop…
Fifi coughed. “Worth a try. You haven’t exactly had any fun time since you opened this place. Not even a one-night stand as far as I know. What was it you’d said about The Virgin once? All work and no play makes Vic—”
“And you can shut up as well,” I said, frowning, glowering at her so she would also zip that baggy little mouth of hers. The pair of them were going to drive me into a bad mood if they kept on.
I stared at the main door, not seeing the small frosted window in the top half, or the brass handle. I saw Victor in my mind, beautiful, adorable Victor, and wondered what he was doing right now. It was coming on for eleven at night, so I supposed he’d be watching TV or be tucked up in bed. Or maybe he had a new woman, someone he could practice being a Dom with. It hurt to think about that, but finishing it with him had been the best course of action. He’d wormed his way into my heart, and I hadn’t been able to allow that to continue.
I didn’t do relationships.
Someone knocked on the door, startling me stupid. I shook my head to clear it and went around the desk, standing behind Fifi look at the CCTV screen to see who was outside. Sighed because it was Mr Dresden, the doll man. That wasn’t his real name, of course, but he liked to watch one of my Dommes in her show. Vicky dressed as a doll, and he couldn’t get enough of her. She was on at midnight, which meant he was early, wanting to get the best viewing room.
“Let him in—after myself and Mr Partridge have left reception,” I said to Fifi, then gestured to a beaming Ollie that he follow me. “And don’t get any ideas, you,” I said as I pushed open a door that led to a short corridor. “Because you may think we’re a nest of prostitutes here, but I assure you, we’re far from that.”
I walked ahead, knowing he was right behind me, gaze most probably on my arse. My office was at the end of the hallway, and
I drew a bunch of keys from my red suit jacket pocket then unlocked the door. Flicked on the light switch and stood aside to let him go in first. Watched him stroll to my desk and sit in my chair. My chair.
“Get the hell up and sit on the other side,” I said. “How dare you!”
He grinned—the bloody bastard grinned—and rose, sauntering to the other side and sitting on the spare seat. “Sorry, habit of mine. I do it to Vic to piss him off.”
“Well, I don’t appreciate the liberty, Mr Partridge.” I strode to my chair and sat, planting my elbows on the desk and lacing my fingers. “This does not bode well for us. You’ve already shown me how incredibly insolent you are, and I’m beginning to wonder whether you can ever learn to be submissive. You have too much of the Dom in you. Anyone can see that.”
“But that’s what I need sorting. I need to stop being so bloody aggressive.”
“Aggressive?” I asked, straightening my spine in alarm. “That isn’t a good word to be hearing. I don’t like aggressive, and if you think being a Dom or Domme is about being like that, then you’re mistaken. Do you know anything about the lifestyle, Mr Partridge?”
“Ollie, please. Call me Ollie.” He rolled his eyes.
“I’ll call you whatever I damn well want and you’ll accept it,” I said. “If I decide to teach you.”
“You’re going to, aren’t you. I can see you’re already wavering.” He grinned that wildly irritating grin of his.
“That depends.” I cursed myself for the heat blooming on my cheeks.
“On?”
“On whether you can do as you’re told, and as far as I can see, you can’t.”
“I will. Once I sign a contract, I will.”
Ah, so he’d at least learned a bit about D/s relationships. But I wasn’t a Domme, a Mistress, not in that kind of way. The only one I’d ever taught was Victor. Before him my domination had been with Geoffrey, then after that had been kept firmly at work or when I’d taken a man home for a quick fuck and stated exactly what I wanted. My teaching Victor had been a spur-of-the-moment thing, a crazy offer because I’d found him maddening as hell. He’d thought he’d known it all, and I’d had the itch to prove he didn’t. Mr Partridge Number Two here was exactly the same, so why didn’t I want to give him a taste of my whip?
Because of who he is, who he looks like. Do you want to go through all of that again?
I wouldn’t. No, I wouldn’t go through that, because this time I’d keep my emotions in check. Lessons only. No dates. No sex.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, Mr Partridge, but do you have a pen handy?” I opened a drawer to see if I had any contracts there. Some customers asked for them from time to time.
He frowned, ferreting in the inside pocket of his jacket. “I do. Here.”
He tossed it through the air. It clattered onto the desk, skittered across the wood, then fell off and onto the floor. I stared at it, then back up at him.
“Pick that up,” I said, clenching my jaw.
“You’re closer, you do it.” He stared at me as if I were insane.
“I said, pick that up.”
“What? Like I’m going to get up, walk around to your side of the desk, bend down and pick it up, when you’re right there and only have to lean down to get it? You’re having a laugh, you are.”
“Do you see me laughing?”
“Err, nope, but it might not do you any harm if you did. Christ, Vic never said you were a comedienne, but I at least expected you to have a bit of humour in you.”
“I will ask you one more time. Pick that pen up.”
He shook his head.
“Then our business is concluded, Mr Partridge.”
We did battle across the desk with our eyes. Damned if I’d be the one to look away first. It took some time, but he couldn’t do it. He made out he was rolling his eyes again and stared at the ceiling.
“Didn’t I make myself clear?” I asked. “You need to leave.”
“Why, because I wouldn’t pick up the bloody pen?”
“Exactly. I gave you a simple order, and you refused to obey. How do you expect me to teach you to be a sub if you can’t do something as easy as that?”
He opened his mouth, spluttering out a torrent of incoherent words.
“Goodbye, Mr Partridge.” I stood, walked to the door, and opened it wide.
“But—”
“Goodbye.”
He rose, implored me with his gaze, but as far as I was concerned he’d fucked up. I didn’t have the energy for him. Didn’t have the energy to teach anyone. As he brushed past me, I caught his scent, and it brought back a slew of memories. Had he worn the same expensive cologne as Victor on purpose?
I followed him down the corridor and into reception. Fifi raised her eyebrows, and I silenced her with a slight shake of my head.
“Good evening, Mr Dresden,” I said to our doll-lover, then realised my error of using our nickname for him. “Oh, I do apologise, I thought you were someone else. Mr Kennett. Welcome. Not long before you see your Vicky.” I smiled warmly, watching Mr Partridge from the corner of my eye. He was at the main door, hand on the knob. “I just need to see this man out,” I said to Dresden, “then perhaps I could keep you company until Vicky’s show begins, hmm?”
Dresden nodded vigorously.
I left him to join Mr Partridge at the door. Once we were both outside, I said, “Now, if you ever come back here to ask me to be your Mistress again, be under no illusion that I’ll have your bollocks on a platter if you so much as breathe in my direction. Have I made myself clear?”
He smirked. He leered. He treated me to a smile complete with bared teeth. “Crystal.”
“Good.” I turned to go back inside.
“Victor said you wouldn’t take me on, you know. Said I’m too much of a man for you. That there was no way in hell even you could tame me. I hate to admit it, but he was right. You’re not a proper Domme. You’re just a fake, raking in the cash under the guise of being in the lifestyle.” He laughed bitterly.
“Oh, he did, did he?” I said, trying not to show my hurt. “Well, we’ll see about that. I’ve changed my mind, Mr Partridge. Get down on your knees and lick my boots.”
To continue reading, please purchase The Player by Harlem Dae
