by Amy Valenti
CHAPTER TEN
Spencer
Callum walked off-set as soon as the director called for a break, his eyes on me. “You okay?”
I kept my voice low. “No, I’m not fucking okay. I wrapped Alex in rope and spanked her ass last night.”
Callum grinned and offered his hand for a high-five. “I’d say that’s more cause for celebration than gloom and doom, wouldn’t you?”
I reminded myself that grabbing his arm and twisting it behind his back would serve no purpose—though it would be satisfying. “You know why I’m not celebrating.”
Callum shook his head. “You’re still not convinced this is a good thing?” Wordlessly, he motioned for us to start walking, and I fell into step beside him as we headed for the actors’ trailers. His was the biggest and the best—he was the star of this movie, after all.
“She loved it.” Even now, my cock stirred slightly at the memory of her reddened ass, her intense cries of pained pleasure and the way she’d anticipated my every command as I’d tied her into a simple body harness.
“And you loved it even more,” Callum said—a statement, not a question.
If I’d been sitting down, I would have buried my head in my hands. “Yeah.”
He glanced over. “Do I detect a little bit of a smile there? I think I do…”
I scowled to cover the expression, but I was no actor. That said, a thought hit me that sobered me right up. “Fuck. She acts for a living. What if she didn’t actually like it or has concerns she’s not telling me about?”
Callum rolled his eyes and opened the door to his trailer. “Did she come?”
“Three times.”
“It must have been terrible for you both,” Callum said dryly, and headed inside.
Sarcastic ass.
I followed him into the trailer and shut the door firmly behind me before resuming the conversation. “Okay, leaving my over-caution aside, I only did it because she came out to me as submissive and begged me to let her try.”
“Tell her about Kristin?” Callum asked, and I winced.
“I alluded to a scene gone wrong. Nothing specific.”
“She trusts you, and she’s right to. You were a responsible Dom, Spence. You taught me the basics and I’m doing fine, right?” He peeled off his shirt and reached for a fresh one, obviously sent from the costume department for the next scene he was filming.
I didn’t bother to answer that. If there was anyone who didn’t need reassurance, it was Callum.
He sat down and sighed, gesturing for me to take a seat too. “Look, Spence. It really boils down to this: did you both enjoy yourselves? Because you can what-if yourself until the world ends, but it’s not gonna help either of you. And frankly, I’ve been telling you variations of this at least once a month since Kristin left—stop blaming yourself. Make roleplay a hard limit if you have to, just…push past this. For Alex, if not for yourself. You both deserve it.”
I sighed. “If you ever tell anyone I said this, I’ll fuckin’ kill you, but…I’m scared.”
His face was compassionate. “Of losing her?”
“Losing her. Hurting her. Pushing a button I didn’t even know was there. Letting her close enough to hurt me.”
Callum gave a wry shrug. “Welcome back to Domhood. If you weren’t worried about her, you’d be a terrible Dom—but don’t get neurotic with it, or you’ll end up with the shakes and I’m pretty sure you won’t be able to flog for shit.”
I snickered despite myself. Callum was a good friend, despite how much he pissed me off on a regular basis. He told me everything I didn’t want to hear but needed to.
“Is it actually sinking in this time? Now you’ve remembered how it feels to have a responsive subbie in your thrall?”
I wasn’t sure about it sinking in, but the rest… “I’d forgotten how good it could feel. I mean, sex is fun, but it’s just one-dimensional compared to kink. Alex is…” I shook my head. “So new and eager to learn, but far from innocent. She knows how to provoke me and push my buttons. It felt like we’d been scening for months already.”
Callum sighed. “Dude, you have. Submission by any other name is nowhere near vanilla.”
“Shakespeare’s turning in his grave right now, Cal.”
“Shakespeare was probably a sub.” Callum waved a hand dismissively.
I sighed and shook my head. “I promised her one full scene. Last night was just a taste…and she’s a goddamn masochist.”
Callum snorted. “You’re going to stop scening with a masochist? Sounds like someone has a little masochistic tendency of his own these days. And Alex is not gonna go for that. You know it. I know it. Why even bother trying to keep the inevitable from happening?”
My gut tightened. “You already know the answer to that.”
Callum’s cell phone beeped. Glancing at it, he sighed. “Duty calls. I’m shooting in fifteen minutes so I need to head across the lot.”
We both stood up, but Callum hesitated. “Seriously, Spence. You could kill this relationship by trying to save it. Just be the guy you are. Vanilla doesn’t suit you.”
I looked away rather than answer him. It was easier that way.
* * * *
Alex
Things with Spencer were occupying my mind so much that when my agent called, I had no idea what she wanted. “Hi, Barbara.”
“Alex!” Barbara was using her happy voice, which was always a good sign. She tended to swing between extremes like the Mayor of Halloween Town in The Nightmare Before Christmas, but she was a great agent in a lot of ways, so I cut her some slack when she got pissy. “Good news for you!”
“Really? What might this be?” I sat down on the edge of the coffee table and waited.
“Owen Hayward called about his kinky project, For Him? He wants to offer you the part of Mandy.”
My heart jumped, then sank. “Oh… Barbara, I think I need to turn that role down.”
Zing! Instantly she was in pissy mode. “What?”
I steeled myself and lied through my teeth. “I don’t know what I was thinking. It wouldn’t be good for my public image at all. I mean, if Walk on Glass does well and people want to check out the rest of my work, and the first project on my IMDB list is some indie kink movie? People might get scared off.”
That was the last thing I was worried about, but she wasn’t exactly the type to understand why I wanted to put my relationship before my acting career. Especially since she was on commission.
Barbara was silent for a few minutes, then snapped, “Fine, you have a point. I’ll turn this down, but make sure this doesn’t happen again, Alexandra. I have to eat too, you know.”
Bam. Phone connection cut. I lowered the phone from my ear, breathing slowly and deeply. She was an asshole, but only when it was kind of justified. I wouldn’t begrudge her the bad mood.
I started to paint my toenails, startled in the middle of the delicate task by my cell phone ringing again. This time, I didn’t recognise the number, but I picked it up anyway, in case it was a friend in trouble calling from a stranger’s phone or something. “Hello?”
“Is this Alexandra Ashford?” I vaguely recognised the warm male voice, but couldn’t quite place it.
“It is.”
“Alex, it’s Owen Hayward. I just heard from your agent and had to beg her for your number. You’re turning us down? How come? Your agent wouldn’t say.”
I scowled at a point across the room, imagining it was Barbara. Maybe it was time to get a new agent, if she was pulling shit like this. “Mr. Hayward, hi. I’m sorry—I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”
“Call me Owen. I don’t usually deal with actors directly until they’re on set, but in your case I just really wanted to reach out. We’d love for you to be Mandy and think you’re perfect for the part. Is there any way we can change your mind?”
I screwed the top back onto my nail polish one-handed—a feat not easily accomplished—and sighed. How was I going to deal wit
h this one?
“I’ll be honest with you, Mr… Owen. I went to read for that part having only done a tiny amount of BDSM research, but since then I’ve discovered my boyfriend is pretty much a Dom, and he’s against me doing a D/s movie for various reasons. I need to put my relationship ahead of my career in this case, though I would have loved to accept the part under any other circumstances.”
“Ahh… That does make sense. You were seen on the red carpet a couple of months ago with Spencer Hyde. Is he the boyfriend you mean?”
Disconcerted—I’d hoped to keep things vague—I nodded, then realised he couldn’t see it. “Umm, yes.”
“I’ll level with you. Spencer may have already told you this, but we used to frequent the same club downtown, and I’m aware of what happened in his past. If he’s decided to get back into D/s with you, that’s a really good thing for him, and I’m assuming for you as well. I wish you well and hope you guys get onto the club scene at some point. It’s been a long time since we’ve seen him. Give him our regards.”
“Okay,” I said, still slightly at a loss. “Umm, did you have a second choice for the part, or will you have to hold more auditions?”
“We have a second preference, though we’re disappointed not to be working with you. Don’t worry about us. We’ll get on with filming and send you some premiere tickets through your agent.”
“Great. Okay, thanks for thinking of me, and I’m sorry to let you down.”
We said our goodbyes, and I put down the phone feeling discomfited. Had I said too much to him? He seemed like a really nice guy, but it didn’t seem wise for me to be admitting my private inclinations to him. Then again, he’d all but told me he was a Dom.
I finished off my toenails, slightly down about having refused the part. But where Spencer was concerned, I’d probably made the right choice.
* * * *
Spencer
That night, I had a class full of hyperactive young boys—and a couple of determined girls whom I had a suspicion would one day kick every single one of the boys’ asses—to teach mixed martial arts. Alex had promised to come by later and spend the evening. I’d been worrying about her mental state all day, so it was a relief to know I’d be seeing her.
As my young students gathered around and I showed them a few basic moves by demonstrating them on my assistant, Alex walked in. She was wearing sunglasses, so no one would recognise her—which was a trick I could never quite believe worked—so after a curious glance at her, the kids turned their attention back to me.
Oliver and I finished up the demo and I told the kids to pair off. Inevitably, one of the three girls was left alone. Always the same one, since the two other female students were friends and always paired up together. I opened my mouth to ask Oliver to go over and work with her again, but before I could get the words out Alex had shrugged out of her jacket, tossed her sunglasses and purse on top of it and stepped over to the girl. I was just close enough to hear the words between them.
“Hey there—need a partner for this one?”
The girl—Rachel? Rosie? I couldn’t quite remember—nodded shyly. “Do you know how to do this stuff?”
Alex took up position opposite her. “I’m an actor, but I think you’re a little young to have seen any of the things I’ve been in. I had a movie coming up to shoot, and I needed bigger arm muscles and stuff, so I came to train with Spencer.”
A couple of the other kids were glancing around now, and from their nudges and whispers, I could tell Alex had been recognised. Whether something was aired after the watershed or not, there were always kids who watched the grown-up shows. Alex’s character had been memorable in Callum’s show, One Last Look.
I kept quiet for a minute or two more, waiting for Alex to finish bonding with her session partner.
“I’m Rina.”
“How come you’re doing MMA, Rina?” Alex asked.
The kid shrugged. “One of the boys down the street is kinda mean. I’m trying to get tough so he doesn’t steal my stuff when I go outside.”
Alex looked as though she wanted to go give the boy a piece of her mind. I suppressed a smile as she said, “Good for you. I used to do kickboxing when I was growing up, because my brother did it. He was kinda mean too, but he got bored of kickboxing pretty quick. I had to beg my mom to keep letting me go to classes even though I was a girl.”
I hadn’t known that. The thought of Alex determined to kick her brother’s ass made me grin.
“Your mom didn’t think girls should fight either?” Rina sighed. “Moms suck sometimes.”
“Sometimes,” Alex agreed. “And sometimes they can be pretty cool. Anyway, I got my green belt and my brother could never win a fight against me. So it’s totally worth doing this stuff.”
Beside me, Oliver leaned over and asked, “You gonna actually start these kids off, or are you just gonna drool over your girlfriend all night?”
I glared at him and raised my voice. “Everyone paired up? Choose who’s striking first and who’s blocking, and practice your roundhouses. Oliver and I will be walking around like usual, so if you need help, come and grab us.”
The kids got to work, and I tried to focus on my small protégés, gently correcting stances and giving tips for improving the forms of a few of them on my way around the room. A couple of the boys really reminded me of myself back when I’d started MMA. I’d been so angry at the world, and this had been my only outlet. I’d probably hurt one or two of my sparring partners pretty badly before my instructor had taken me aside and reprimanded me for it.
These days, I was glad I’d gotten out all that aggression when I had. If I’d come to the D/s lifestyle without martial arts and the gym to vent my anger at, God knows what I’d have become.
You became it anyway, a small voice at the back of my head reminded me, but it was fainter than usual, as though one scene with Alex had been enough to silence some of the self-loathing that still hid within me.
I diverted my attention back to my group before I got too caught up in thoughts of scenes and Alex in general.
Alex
I helped Rina gently through the exercises Spencer had assigned. Since I was way too tall to be roundhouse kicking her properly, I let her strike the whole time rather than switching roles halfway through.
Poor kid—from the looks of her resigned expression when everyone had paired off, this wasn’t the first time she’d been excluded. This had happened to me as a kid too. Making it in a predominantly male group could be difficult sometimes, even when the group members were pre-pubescent. Rina looked as though she was only about eight.
As I worked with her, I kept an eye on the kids around me. Some of them were focused more on what Rina and I were doing than on their own exercises—those would be the kids whose parents hadn’t cared enough to shield them from the graphic blood-and-guts crime scenes in One Last Look, I guessed. It was always nice to be recognised, but geez.
Spencer had stopped next to a boy who was really giving his sparring partner a beatdown. The other boy had tears in his eyes but was valiantly trying not to show he was hurting. Spencer caught my eye and gestured from Rina to the bruised kid, and I nodded, getting his drift. Spencer sent the boy over and I stepped out of my pairing with Rina to let her do some blocking while the boy struck.
I just hoped the boy wouldn’t get teased by his male classmates for getting almost beaten up and then ‘having to work with a girl’ for the rest of the session. Kids could be assholes sometimes.
Meanwhile, Spencer took the aggressive boy into his office, I assumed for a reprimand. Little bully. God.
After the session, Rina came over and thanked me for my help before running over to the bored-looking woman who’d come to pick her up; I assumed it was her mother. I just hoped she ended up more understanding of Rina’s choice of hobby than my mother had of mine. If not for my father’s intervention, I’d never have been able to carry on kickboxing for as long as I had, and I might never have felt confident
enough to read for the action role that led to my introduction to Spencer.
As Spencer’s assistant, Oliver, saw the kids out of the hall, I went into the office, where Spencer was just saying goodbye to the boy who’d gone nuts against his partner. I kept my face neutral until we were alone, but then sighed. “Ugh. Little brat. Some kids are just horrible.”
Spencer shrugged. “Tell that to nine-year-old me. I was just like him.”
I stared at him, unable to reconcile the calm control in Spencer with the pummelling the boy had unleashed earlier. “Seriously?”
He looked faintly embarrassed. “Bad childhood. Anger management issues.”
Oliver interrupted us, so I didn’t get back onto the topic until we were upstairs in Spencer’s apartment, looking over the takeout menus.
“I still can’t see you as the kind of child who’d take all his rage out on another kid like that. You’re always so in control, even when you’re…” I trailed off, knowing he’d get what I meant after our scene the night before.
“Yeah, but if not for the martial arts, I probably wouldn’t be half as in control. If I’d bottled it all up inside, it might have come out in other ways.” He shook his head. “I’ve made mistakes, but taking out anger on a sub has never been one of them.”
I smiled. I’d never doubted that for a second. “Then thank God for martial arts, huh?”
His answering smile was crooked, as though he was remembering bad times past. “You can say that again. After my mom left us, it kept me sane through a lot of childhood shit. Hopefully I can help Dwayne keep it together as well. He’s having a tough time with his parents splitting up.”
