by Adira August
“Yes, Mr. Woodward.”
He made her climb the staircase three more times. He made her acknowledge his order every time. A few people noticed. He ignored them. After the third, she stood before him slightly sweaty and out of breath.
“Unless a person has a physical issue, everyone should seek out stairs and avoid elevators. Unnecessary elevator rides are an example of poor decision-making. You’ve demonstrated a lack of trust in me, the caretaker appointed by your Dom, and made another kind of poor decision: questioning my actions. You made an unwarranted assumption: that you knew things I didn’t. You lost sight of the fact that everything is done for your benefit. Do not lose sight of the fact that things done for your benefit are not always pleasant.”
He led her up to the fourth floor without waiting for a response. When they reached it, she gasped and moved to the side, out of sight of the central aisle of tables. Hiding.
He scanned the area for threat.
Hunter Dane was at one of the tables working at a laptop. Woodward walked Avia further into the stacks.
“Why is this a problem?”
“I told Ben I wanted to see Hunt today and he said ‘no’.”
Woodward already knew this. Hart had kept him apprised of everything concerning Avia.
“Did you arrange to meet him here?”
“No, I never contacted him, at all.”
Woodward knew these decisions were his to make. “I know what books you need. I’ll get them and you’ll have a few minutes to say hello. You know your orders about not dwelling on the past.”
“Yes, Mr. Woodward.”
OUT OF LONG HABIT, Hunter Dane had taken a seat facing the open entrance at the table furthest away. No one could sit behind him. He automatically looked up when someone entered. He didn’t expect a deadly threat in the religion section of the Denver Public Library. It was just a cop thing. But cops didn’t forget there was a time when no one expected a deadly threat inside a post office or a suburban high school.
A threat would have surprised him less than seeing Kevin Woodward walk in with Avia Rivers. Wood gave him a nod of recognition and peeled off into the stacks. She continued toward him with a smile.
Avia was wearing her collar.
She’d been wearing the distinctive choker necklace when he’d met her. The very Alpha Ben Hart had given it a subtle tug to remind her to do as she was told. Hunter had understood their relationship immediately.
But she’d taken it off when her sister was kidnapped, and Ben had refused to put it back on her. That was months ago. Things seemed to have changed.
She slid into a seat at the end of the table facing him. They’d been friends long enough for her to know not to block his view. She folded a leg under herself and leaned forward on her arms crossed in front of her on the tabletop. Apparently Ben Hart administered another round of discipline.
“Hey! What are you doing here?” she asked quietly.
“Enjoying the quiet,” he said. “They’re remodeling the office next door. Lots of hammering.”
She looked around.“You’re alone? Cam’s not bothered by hammering?”
“He’s the one telling them what to hammer.”
“Ah. Listen, I’m glad I ran into you. I wanted to tell you I deleted the files Cam sent me. You were right. I didn’t need them.”
”You didn’t need them or didn’t watch them?”
“Both.”
“Okay. So why are you here? Did Hart trace my phone and you just came to tell me that?”
“It’s coincidence, and I know you don’t believe in them. I’m researching ecstatic orgasm,” she said. “But I do want to ask you a sex question.”
“Theoretical?”
“Not sure. Would you ever do TPE?”
Hunter Dane was protective of his own sexual preferences and even more of his relationship with Cam. Avia knew he was a switch and could assume that meant he was submissive with Cam. But what they did with each other wasn’t chat fodder.
Still, Avia was struggling.
“If Cam asked, I would. Not with anyone else.”
“Why would you?” She searched his face. “I mean, if you can tell me.”
“If he asked me, it would be important to him. So of course I would.”
“And just ... trust him with everything? And not even know why he wanted it?”
He shrugged. “I don’t need to know. My choice is to love him.”
She shook her head. “It’s weird, you talking about love. You said you’d never love anyone.”
“No, I said ‘attach’ to anyone. Connect emotionally. Love’s about actions, not feelings nobody can define.”
“Do you think… I mean, what happens if one loves more than the other? If the one won’t do as much as the other?”
“You’re assuming there’s some way to measure. Or that we should. That there’s some halfway point we should be standing either side of, reaching across. You can keep score if you want, but that’s all crap. The way you love is about you, only you. It wouldn’t matter what Cam gave or didn’t. If he needs it, I’ll give it to him.”
He didn’t tell her he and Cam were already in TPE and had been for a while.
“What if he doesn’t need it? What if he just thinks you do?”
“What’s the difference?”
Woodward appeared with two heavy tomes in his hands.
“Lieutenant.”
Avia stood up, and he handed her the books. “Thanks,” she said to Hunter and moved away to a table near the entrance.
“Wood. You’re getting around. Last time I saw you, you were with Nicky. Now Avia. Hart find himself a new man?”
“Last time I saw you, you had special offices and a special unit. Public library seems a bit of a comedown.”
Hunter noticed Woodward positioned himself so he could watch Avia while talking to him. Wood was a good man who’d once saved Hunter’s life. And he was a professional who wasn’t going to give any hints as to what his assignment was.
“Take care of her, Kevin.”
Wood nodded and went to Avia’s table. He gestured to her, and she followed him out into the hall. Hunt suspected they were on the way to a private study room. She was carrying the books.
So. Woodward wasn’t the servant right now. He was standing in for Hart. Hunter sent her a text.
THE OTHER REASON I’D DO IT
IS - IT’S REALLY HOT
BEN STARED CURIOUSLY at Hunter Dane’s text on Avia’s phone, wondering if Hunter was speaking as Dom or sub and what exactly “it” referred to. He felt an extra tingling in his balls imagining asking Avia all about this conversation. Not that he needed more stimulation after a solid hour watching porn videos.
He did discover she’d been correct in an assertion she’d once made about porn: The women in the videos weren’t aroused in the least.
He’d moved into his office at the rear of the plane to watch the example videos. He’d locked the door and armed himself with a box of tissues and some lube, just in case.
Ben had never really watched porn before and hadn’t been sure how he’d react. Growing up on the ranch, he had no access. Once he’d discovered what he wanted from girls, he didn’t need it. He had real women and actual experiences to feed his masturbation fantasies.
His afternoon of research had been filled with close-ups of cocks moving in and out of various women’s orifices. He found that he focused on the same place the camera did: the join—the place where the cock disappeared and reappeared. His fingers found that place automatically, and he stroked himself in rhythm with the video.
It wasn’t very arousing, though erotically pleasant in a distant, analytical way.
It was more exciting when the head of a cock was in a woman’s mouth and the close-up showed a lot of tongue action. It was very wet and shiny and there was a moaning from both sides. But it didn’t make him urgent. He didn’t experience a driving need to come.
He wanted to make porn for women, whic
h no one seemed to do. These videos were made for men, but even so, he barely responded. His excitement had always come from making women respond to him through the things he did to them.
There was nothing of that in the videos he watched.
He searched the selection he’d been sent for BDSM. It was marginally hotter because of the images of the women restrained. But what there wasn’t, regardless of whatever the man was was hitting her with—and hitting was all they seemed to do until they fucked them in the same unimaginative way—was interaction between players.
None of these women seemed to feel much but pain. It was real enough. Their skin pinked and reddened, the women cried out and sometimes fought their restraints. But Ben felt if he developed a realistic enough robot sub who did the same, the men would be just as happy—as would the women with a programmable Dom.
Ben loved restraining women. He loved it because they couldn’t avoid the experience he gave them; the suffering he inflicted tailored to each. He made them feel deeply, tormented them with their own desires.
He made them use his name, stay connected, aware. They reached depths of arousal they’d never imagined, felt pain in ways that fulfilled their need to experience their helplessness and humiliation. That kind of pain gave them sustained orgasms of depth and breadth—enervating, consuming.
Obliterating.
That’s what he wanted to see. He wanted to see a woman aroused beyond endurance. He believed women wanted it, too. To imagine themselves as receivers of that kind of expertise, that kind of care.
Benedict Hart knew exactly what he had to do to make that happen. He had to educate those who had mastered light and sound and camera angles. He had to find actors who knew how to do what he wanted to see, or would be willing to learn. But he couldn't be the one to teach them. This was something that had to be seen and felt. Live demonstration would be necessary.
He’d made a call to the manager of the most exclusive BDSM club in Denver.
“Sherrilynne, Ben Hart. You have a minute? … No, everything’s fine, you and Chez do a great job. I just have a question. Of all the Doms, which one is most sought after by the straight female subs? If there’s one who stands out … I see ... Uh-huh. … Just like that? There’s not even a close second? … I see.”
Avia wasn’t going to like this.
From Joy there is a scent of bliss, from Perfect Joy yet more.
The Joy of Cessation is passionless. The Joy of Sahaja is finality.
The first comes by desire for touch. The second by desire for bliss. The third from the passing of passion, thereby is Sahaja attained.
Avia reread the passage and the notes she’d made on Sahaja:
The co-emergence of spirit and matter … to arise together … mystic union … neither desire nor absence of desire … supreme bliss … sexual intercourse transformed … divine love … the highest spiritual realisation … the dissolution of the ego … the cessation of all willed efforts.
Ben …
“Companionship is a mutual exchange.” “You'll give me your complete trust.” “Through total submission achieved through perfect obedience.” “The only path to ecstasy is surrender …”
Her thoughts raced themselves—total submission, lack of ego, cessation of all willed efforts. TPE.
Mutual exchange.
“We have to do this together, Avia.
… human coupling and sexual love… a metaphor for union with God…
She stood suddenly, looking down at the books and notes and her open laptop. “The ecstasy of Saint Teresa,” she said aloud.
Woodward, standing at the large window reading a text, looked back over his shoulder.
“Avia?”
“It’s not about sex.”
“No, it’s not,” he agreed as if they were continuing an interrupted conversation.
“... love me the way I love you.”
“It’s not about how much I love him.”
“No, it isn’t.”
… the way I love you ...
“It’s about how.”
He nodded and put his phone away. She began cleaning up. Closing the books, shutting down her laptop. “Mr. Woodward?”
“Yes, Avia?”
“Do you play racquetball?”
“My brother and I were both on our high school team.”
She zipped her bag closed. “Will you play with me? Teach me?”
“I will.”
“Thank you, Mr. Woodward.”
“You’re more than welcome, Avia. Open that bag back up and take out the cubes.”
She sat back down.
“J.J.! YOU WANT TO come to my office. Now.” Carson Sanchez, genius programmer and head of everything that kept The Week online, dropped the handset. He didn’t need to wait for a response. While J.J. was technically the editor and his boss, he was too busy and too vital to waste his time on the niceties of status.
“”What have you got?” J.J.came inside and shut his door, looking over his shoulder at the large monitor on the wall that lorded it over the six smaller monitors on either side. Carson was scrolling through a list of names and dates and-
“Are those room numbers?” she asked.
“Oh yeah. Someone just sent me the registration logs for Cheong Palace Macau for the last four months. With credit card numbers.”
She locked the door and grabbed a visitors chair. “What’re those notes?” They both studied the last two columns. “Carson,” she said. “This isn’t room registration.”
“It’s their client database,” he said. “With personal information, contact numbers, preferences in … J.J.?”
“I see it. Their preferences in sexual services.” Her finger almost touched the screen. “Isn’t that the head of Sicherheits-Handelsbank?”
He scrolled and searched. “These are some of the richest people in the world. Politicians. Bankers. Ambassadors.”
“Stop.” She put a hand on his forearm. “Just …”
He sat back.
“Why didn’t this come to me, like the other stuff?”
“You aren’t secure. This came encrypted direct to my private email. And there’s more.”
“More.”
“There are video files. I haven’t opened them, yet.”
“But it’s in our server?”
“No. My private email. I have the monitor hooked to my laptop. I’m offline now.”
“Cloud?”
“No. Just my laptop. Actually, my external hard drive.”
Carson sat back so he could see her better. J.J. was white under her black bangs. “You realize what’s probably on those video files.”
“Something even worse than the ads. Somehow coordinated with the names on this list. So. Any idea how we can stay alive long enough to publish?”
“This is not a stupid person,” she said. “Somehow they know who you are and how to get to you. It’s possible only three people in the world know about this right now. Staying alive before isn’t a problem because no one knows they want to kill us. Killing us after we publish is pointless. C’mon.”
“Where?”
“We can’t work on this here. I’ll grab my pad for the online stuff.”
“Okay. But where?”
“The library. Private study room. We’ll use their WiFi.”
“HEADLIGHTS FACE RIGHT … good. Repeat the last sequence and you’re done.”
Avia took a nervous breath. She’d made notes of the four sequences of moves Woodward had shown her to solve the last layer of her cube. Even with the notes, she’s managed to mess them up. This was the first time she’d gotten almost to the end in the hour since they’d started.
“Avia.”
She looked up at his sharp tone.
“Yes, sir?”
“Not ‘sir’, ‘Mr. Woodward’,” he reminded her, not unkindly. “What happens when you make a mistake?”
She hesitated, looking for the trap, as if it were a trick question. “I … I fix it?”
“What did I tell you to do?”
“Repeat the last sequence.”
“How were you instructed to obey?”
“Um … with no hesitation.”
He looked pointedly at the pocket of her skirt.
Avia checked the position of the cube, keeping what he termed the “working face” toward herself, holding it firmly to maintain its shape.
Right up… top left twice …. right down … top back once ….
She repeated each step to herself. She lowered the left one last time and checked the cube. Solved. She’d solved it. “Thank you.”
He nodded. “You’ll need to keep practicing. We’ll be at the penthouse the next two nights. I have a racquetball court for us in the morning.”
“Oh.” That meant …
“What is it?”
She twisted the cube, randomizing it again. “We’ll be playing at Denver Sport. It’s just”—her eyes filled—“the last time I was there was with Hank.” She continued to fiddle with the cube. “I assumed something. I shouldn’t have.”
“What did you assume?”
“That we’d be at my place and we’d go to the Tech Center club.” She smoothed the sides of the cube and started solving it again, making a daisy on the yellow face. “You didn’t work for Ben when Henry Eustace did, did you? You came … after.”
He nodded.
She smiled at her cube, “It’s so weird. I hardly knew him at all, but I just loved him so much.” She dropped the cube and covered her face with her hands as she sobbed.
He looked in her bag and found a packet of tissues he put in front of her. She was distantly aware of his actions and appreciative of his patience. But she couldn’t stop or think or want to. She only wondered why she had never cried for him, before?
After a few minutes, she picked up the tissues. “He never tried once to make me like him,” she gasped out between hiccoughs, wiping her face. “He was so immensely professional. I don’t understand it. I don’t understand how we got so close.”
Now she looked at him, seeking an answer she was sure he wouldn’t have.
“He played racquetball with you?”
She laughed. “He tortured me with racquetball. No quarter given. I sucked and I’d do it until I didn’t.” She shook her head and got a clean tissue to blow her nose.
