Fluff

by Kailee Reese Samuels

  With the questions heavy on my heart, I jumped down, slipped on his favorite cut-offs, and meandered to the kitchen. I found a beer in the fridge and thought about popping the cap until I realized the evidence I would leave behind. Across the room, I spotted the bar with a liquor cabinet full of welcome goodies.

  Shot after shot—clear, amber, and even red—I drank the goodness until I was warm and giddy. I turned the stereo on and danced on the coffee table until the doorbell startled me. I hopped down and answered the door.

  “Hi, I have one package I need a signature for.”

  “Sure,” I said, scrawling my name across his ledger.

  “Here you go, have a good day!”

  Closing the door, I looked at the package and furrowed my brow—D.L. Archer. It had never really occurred to me that just like my name wasn’t Mae East, maybe his wasn’t Cyclone Blonde. I felt young, and dumb, and naive. Running up the stairs, I made haste through the paperwork until I found it—Dale Lee Archer.

  With my heart pounding in my chest, I put everything back in its place. I left the package on the desk, but I noticed a bank statement with way too many commas. Pulling it carefully from the pile, my heart sank as my belly turned queasy—Dale and Virginia Archer.

  After pushing it back into the pile, I ran from the room only to run smack dab into Cy. “Hi!”

  He moved to kiss me, but I dodged him. Before I knew what happened, he grabbed my arms and forced me to look at him.

  “You’ve been drinking.”

  It wasn’t a question, but a declaration of a fact. I knew it; he knew it. I was drunk. I couldn’t deny it. The truth stunk and so did I.

  Cy said nothing as he walked away.

  A half hour later, I was knelt in front of his sparking white toilet bowl, puking my guts out. He held my hair and blotted my mouth, taking care of me and saying nothing. I broke his trust in me.

  We spent the better part of the night in the bathroom in silence. I was angry with myself for being so foolish and pissed off with him for not telling me he was married.

  How could he do this to me? To us?

  At 3:34 AM, he finally took me to bed, but instead of sleeping with me as he had done for the five weeks previously, he went to the great room—alone. I hated myself and him, but an hour later, I finally worked up the courage to go say something. I stumbled into the room and found him laying on the sofa. “Were you sick again?”

  “No,” I answered, “Not since the last time.”

  Sitting up, he grumbled, “Come here.”

  Going to sit next to him, he quickly corrected, “No. Not there.” He pointed to his lap. “Here. Get on all fours and straddle over the top of me.”

  “Yes, Sir.”

  The spanking that proceeded was one of the worst. “You will not get drunk like that again,” he declared over and over as his hand impacted my ass.

  The punishment felt juvenile and humiliating, but I was just as mad at myself for my stupidity. I welcomed the blows, arching my hips and sticking my ass out even farther. I wanted the bruises; I needed the abuse. I crossed the line every fucking day under the guise of fetish-play, and that guilt was on my hands. I always pushed Cy for more, and he took the inch after inch when I offered him a mile. But he never would have done that if I hadn’t suggested it in the first place. I was warped, demented, and sad.

  “Never,” he walloped one final time as he dipped in hand low by my cunt. He inserted one finger, and then two. “I want to fist you.”

  “Okay,” I eagerly chimed, always ready to push the needle further. He removed his wet finger, wiping the dampness against my cheeks. I had no fear of his anger that night, and I deserved everything I got. He calmed and soothingly rubbed my skin, his touch intoxicating.

  I had done the one thing he couldn’t stand—endangering his property. His open-handed wallops had met with my already bruised flesh. It had stung, but I didn’t move or cry. I realized then the one thing I didn’t want to know. I could hold my own – without tears – if I didn’t care.

  The disturbing part wasn’t in my disconnectedness with the spanking, but in the fact I had already spent five weeks crying.

  DALE

  SPENDING THE NIGHT holding onto the woman of my dreams, I wake up to find her missing. In the rapid seconds following, I imagine her out in the cold morning air, lost and alone.

  Fuck, not again.

  I barge into the bedroom only to find her curled in the closet on the floor. She is sleeping, tucked under some jackets. Her eyes open, and she darts away afraid.

  “Amber?”

  Silence.

  “Amber Leigh Rosen, get your ass out of there now,” I scold. “Now!”

  Silence.

  This is not her baiting me; this is genuine fear. I understand why. Without kneeling down, in not so many words, I proposed to her last night. That requires – caring, bending, giving in – things Amber isn’t very good at honestly. Of course, I don’t care. I accept her limitations, welcoming her as she is.

  Some would call this a subdrop. It isn’t her first emotional collapse, and it won’t be her last. This is out of her normal spectrum of crying or manipulating. And how I know she is actually freaking the fuck out.

  I could pull her ass out. I am damn sure strong enough. If I do that though, we don’t get anywhere. We make no progress forward.

  She is pinned against the back wall on top of shoes and under the rack of clothes. I can hardly see her. She is wearing nothing, naked from the night before.

  Wedging my six-four frame into the space, I lay beside her on my back, looking up at the clothes. I breathe deep and lift my hand, opening my fingers for her to take. She doesn’t, and I am not surprised.

  “You know, these shoes are kind of painful,” I admit as a boot heel jabs me in the ass. I am thankful I have on my soft, grey cotton shorts as I locate the intruder and thump it to the corner. “I know you aren’t going to talk to me, so I am going to tell you a story about a young man.”

  I gaze over at her. Big blue doe eyes blink at me. There are no tears. There is no fight. There is only an empty, apathy. I want to feel guilty, pushing her to this point, but I don’t. She has had a rough week, and I sort of expected it eventually.

  “Years ago, I walked into The Holding Room for the very first time. I met a young sub girl named… Hell, I don’t even remember, but it doesn’t matter. She had a few scenes on me and agreed to go with me to the theater. You know the stage where live performances get put on display for the crowd. It was my first time ever holding a whip to flesh, and I was so nervous the moment we left the stage, I ran to the bathroom and puked my guts out. My sister happened to be there and chased after me. The moment was horrible, but Serene ended up teaching me everything she knew. A couple weeks passed, I got back in there and up on that stage.”

  Tilting my head, I rolled my body towards her. Maybe close face-to-face contact will knock her out of it. “Amber, the point here is—I worked the problem. We need to work through our problems. We cannot just keep playing the same record, there are too many other great songs we should be dancing to.”

  My hand caresses her cheek, and I feel her quivering ever so slight. “What can I do for you? Tell me. Give me one word. And it is yours.”

  She blinks several times and barely whispers, “Master.”

  Knowing exactly what she wants, I nod, refusing to let the hurt of rejection show. I crawl out of the hole and call the one person she wants.

  * * * *

  A few days after the incident, I found myself distancing from her. I worried I would never get her to trust me with her heart. I could’ve done almost anything I wanted to her body, but if I showed any tenderness at all, she shut down.

  In perhaps my most stupid move ever, I decided it was time to give her an enormous push. I hoped to garner her heart if I gave her body exactly what she had been demanding.

  Hardcore, rough, kinky sex.

  I was well aware what we had been doing, and it was fa
r beyond anything I had ever done before. I was handling it alright. I had probably made some mistakes, but what new Dom doesn’t?

  In preparation for my grand event, I had Celeste buy my Mae an outfit, box it up, and have it delivered to her dressing room. We would go to a fetish club in Georgia, one I had personally never been to but heard plenty about from Celeste. The two ladies would go to the club and meet me there.

  I wore my normal club attire—jeans, t-shirt, and leather jacket. The odds of remaining anonymous were slim to none, but if I really wanted Amber to open to a new level, I had to show her the possibilities.

  Parking my ass on a barstool in the corner, I scoped out the scene. The crowded, middle-aged, and well-to-do mingled under the twinkling ceiling. It was a decent club—not the pampered excellence of Juliet, but definitely not the slum of The Holding Room.

  The beer was cold and the waitress was cute. A simple guy like myself couldn’t ask for more. If they knew who I was, they wouldn’t think me simple at all. But I really was. I wanted a stable relationship that led to a wife and two-point-five kids, I assume the point-five included a dog.

  It had been my goal all along. Get into the business, make the money, invest it wisely, and get the fuck out before it ate me alive.

  But the plan got derailed.

  And it all started this night.

  With a hot little slave dancing in a cage beside me, she kept making eyes in my direction. Focusing on the stage, I ignored her with the prime view I had.

  Several couples had come on, doing the standard paddle or whip routine as the audience cheered. The lights dimmed as the red velvet table rolled out onto the floor covered in a black sheet. The silhouette underneath defined clear as a woman.

  Immediately, another woman dressed in a sequined blue leotard and feathered headdress appeared, escorted by a slight man in a suit. I did a double take, recognizing Celeste in the get up.

  My heart sank.

  She had to have misunderstood.

  I wanted to be the Dom – Amber – practiced with, not some poon in a suit. In awe and anger, I watched as they popped the sheet off her naked body. With fluffy hair and lots of makeup, Amber laid upon the table as the man teased and taunted her ass with a cane. My fists clenched in anger as every mistake I made came aiming back at me.

  I claimed her.

  But she never truly believed it.

  The cane whooshed through the air, striking her skin and leaving the marks that I should have been from me. I didn’t want to be getting boned, but I couldn’t stop it either. Walking closer, I stood behind the tables, leaning against the wall.

  My girl was up there taking the welts, she consented to. She invited it, and I watched the whole thing with my hand dangerously close to my johnson. Suddenly, the caged girl appeared and looped her arm in mine. Following her through the club to backstage, she smelled good and had a nice ass.

  Her hands slipped my jacket off as she suggested, “What’s your tool of choice?”

  “I like torture,” I growled as her eyes opened wide.

  “A taste for the unusual, I see. How about a paddle with holes?”

  “Boring,” I said, gazing out on stage and watching Amber take the caning. Pushing my way through the crew backstage, I grumbled, “Fuck this.”

  Stepping out on stage, I felt the lights immediately spotlight me. I pulled off my shirt, letting my physique speak for itself. “Celeste, what the fuck are you doing?”

  “Cyclone, what are you doing here?”

  I was pretty damn certain she mentioned my name on purpose as I heard the rumblings in the audience of, “It’s Cyclone Blonde, the famous porn star!”

  Pointing at Celeste, I muttered, “You are fired!”

  Heading over to the chump abusing my girl, I glared down at him. “You got five-seconds to get away from my girl before I twist your nuts into your ass.”

  As the poon scampered away, I gazed at Amber - naked and blindfolded, face down on the table. Her ass was a mess of red lines and blood blisters. I wanted to kill the son-of-a-bitch, but I saved it for another day as I needed to teach Amber something in this opportunity.

  Helping her up, I removed the blindfold as she blinked above a curtain of raccoon stains from the mascara. My dick throbbed painfully, but I wouldn’t give this crowd the satisfaction. I pushed the table off to the side and grabbed a chair, plopping it down center stage.

  “Dance, Mae.”

  “Yes, Sir,” she said with a stunned expression.

  The gyrations and seductions started nice and slow. She used the chair as she had done weeks ago, but this time with me in it. Her lurid gymnastic abilities left the audience gasping and speechless.

  She mounted me in a twirl, spun cartwheels over me with her crotch in my face, and dove down low in the splits with her head in my lap. Her routine proved an artistic and expressive dance piece of submissive to Dominant.

  The raucous crowd wanted me to own the moment, but Amber and I were sacred, pushing our lines further than most. I knew they wouldn’t understand, finding ways to dismantle our intimacy one piece at a time and cheapening the bond down to nothing but live porn and come shots.

  So I did the only thing I could—as she knelt before me, I wrapped the leather collar around her neck. She was mine and everyone would know. But I could hear the crowd elevated with a yearning for her to put on a show.

  “Sir…”

  “Don’t say a word. You are mine.”

  I couldn’t stand for their judgment of her, and I damn sure wasn’t going to let them pick her apart. We both knew the bruises on her ass tonight were far less than anything I had given her, and the challenge she presented for the dickhead Dom was far less than normal.

  Tossing her ass over my shoulder, I walked the fuck out of the fetish world for the very last time. Little did I realize, I would vanish from acting in porn in less than a month.

  The gravel parking lot crunched beneath my boots as I walked with Amber perched upon my shoulders. I threw my jacket over her back to cover her ass as I sloshed through puddles. With few lights in the lot, the rain left a thin fog hanging as I stayed alert and aware. Every single person in that building had just been privy to my girl naked and writhing on stage. I wasn’t about to let some drunk asshole harass us.

  I had parked my truck near the back by the woods butting next to the lot. Popping the tailgate, I sat her in the back and went to grab her clothes I brought from the truck. Amber smiled at me and whispered, “Thank you for getting me out of there. I love you.”

  Her body shimmered beautifully in the moonlight. In the shadows, I could see the hues of her skin changing colors where that asshole bruised her on the stage. Live performance my ass, he downright abused my girl. And while it was one thing if she and I agreed to do such, it was another if some vile asshat did. Lifting my body up with strong forearms, I kissed her lips as she leaned down. “I love you, babygirl.”

  The moment passed in slow motion as I unlocked and opened the door. In that second that passed, a large man I didn’t know appeared behind me. He knocked my body into the truck, bashing my face into the steering wheel and holding me down. The thirty-seconds that followed would single-handedly destroy everything.

  Taking a few steps away from her out of my reach—out of my grasp—I didn’t comprehend the severity of the mistake. I didn’t realize I would hear her screams echoing in my mind for the rest of my life. I didn’t get how much I wanted her woman, needed her slut, loved her girl… my Amber.

  And I damn sure didn’t know the monster inside of me until she was gone.

  AMBER

  LAYING ON THE floor, I hear the familiar knock and the commotion between the two men that follows. I wonder how he managed to get here so fast. He had to have flown in. If Dale called concerned about me, it was highly possible he hopped a chartered plane.

  Under the crack of the closet door, the dark bedroom brightens. One door closes and another opens as I inhale the woodsy scent of Sal, the familia
rity brings me comfort.

  “What the hell are you doing in the closet?” Sal asks, moving his agile frame atop me. He doesn’t bother to try and figure me out, he just dives in head first to pull me off the ledge. “You know I am going to whip your ass for this when we get outta here, right?”

  My fingers quickly find his curls. “I don’t know how to do this. I don’t know how to trust him. And now you are here and he is going to be upset about my need for you.”

  “Bullshit,” Sal argues, running his fingertips over my cheek. “He ain’t gonna say crap. He knows I have been working with you for years. You know who handled your breakdowns and picked you up off the floor? This guy. But if there is one thing I know about Dale Archer, he loves you more than life itself. But you—you need to trust him.”

  “He asked me to marry him, Sally…”

  “I hope to fuck you said yes.”

  “I didn’t really say anything. I have this incredible man willing to do anything for me and to me and I am so fucking broken I can’t let him in.”

  “Wrong,” Sal corrects in his heavy blended accent. “The problem isn’t letting him in. The problem is you already have. And you are pissed off with yourself about what that means. I have watched you pine after that man for years, don’t be a dumbass and say no to the thing you want the most.”

  “If I hurt him…”

  “Say your sorry?”

  “You make it sound so simple,” I laugh.

  “Only for everyone else,” Sal assures. “I know he hurt you once, but he isn’t that guy anymore. He is the upgraded and improved version of the same man you fell head-over-heels in love for fifteen years ago.”

  “And what does that make me?”

  “Beautifully broken,” he whispers. I can feel his breath – hinted with cigarettes and mints – brush against my lips. “He isn’t asking for you to be anyone other than who you are. He knows you got issues.”