Something Real

by Abigail Grey

  The way his arm rested, his hand would have been restfully stroking Sara’s hair by now. She would have been sitting, her back against the chair, her knees drawn up to hold her book. Those silly books she had read for book club were fluff, not usually accurate to the true nature of relationships like theirs. Occasionally, though, they would have included some act that would inspire her. Those moments that she would have gone to her knees in his view and held out an open page for him to read were few, but fun. They had found several new toys and play styles that way, the rooms having been filled with moans if their play echoed that of the author’s imagination. He’d found himself loving the other nights even more. Sometimes they’d have tried something from a scene that would have them collapsing on each other in laughter once they’d realized the ridiculousness and impossibility of the author’s unresearched suggestions.

  Aaron stood, moving to the kitchen to dispose of the empty bottle. He again was reminded of her, the way she would dance while preparing meals, like she was in the kitchen at work. The music would reflect her menu choices—Latin beats for her flautas, Sinatra when she wanted gnocchi, or some headbanging thrasher band when she went carnivore. The restaurant she had worked in, having made it to sous chef, had owed much of its success to the passion of the kitchen staff. Sara had come alive as she prepared food, in a way that he knew she never would for anything else—even him.

  After his nightly routine, staring at the cup that now only held one toothbrush while he brushed, Aaron crossed to what he had always referred to as her corner.

  His bookshelves, two eight-feet-tall monstrosities of carpentry, seemed stark and strict now. His manuals for work, with subjects like coding, development and systems administration, dominated one. The other held his collections of the classics, but he hadn’t found the books to fill Sara’s bookshelf. Hers was smaller, only six feet, so she could reach every shelf. The lighter wood looked almost juvenile next to the deep tones of his. The spines of her books had come in each color of the rainbow and every color in between. Pinks and oranges and purples and teals… He thought he finally knew what color chartreuse was, thanks to her. Even her classics had been pretty paperbacks—Pride and Prejudice in pink, a collection of Sherlock Holmes in green, and Great Expectations in royal purple.

  The only thing she had left behind sat on the center shelf. He didn’t know what to do with it. It felt wrong to throw it away. Aaron ran a finger over the braided leather. Even now, after seeing her wear it almost constantly for four years, he marveled at the fact that the circle was large enough to fit around a person’s neck. The charm she had threaded onto it—a pretty gold heart—was dull with dust and wear. The leather had complemented almost everything she had worn, unobtrusive enough to be unremarkable to any who were unaware of the connotation.

  He missed her—the everyday of seeing her. At the end, when she hadn’t been able to take the possibility of missing out on her dream and they had fought—he even missed that. The innately dominant part of his psyche had ranted and railed at her, wanting her to stay with him where he knew she would be safe and happy. He knew, though, in the rational part of his mind, that he couldn’t stand in her way. When the call had come that they were opening the new restaurant on the coast and the owners wanted her, Aaron could not have in good conscience kept her from it. The lack of her physical form did not keep him from thinking of her here, though.

  Tonight he would have had her in… Hmm, what would it be this evening? A skirt, maybe? A demure blouse, something librarian-like. A smirk quirked the corner of his mouth. Maybe something blue.

  Again laughing in the silence, Aaron allowed that, despite the memories, the mystery woman seemed to be in his mind yet again. He lay down on his unmade bed, staring at the ceiling. Thinking about the woman from the café, he calculated the differences he knew.

  Sara had been a quintessential chef, never serving a dish she had not sampled. She had been constantly frustrated by the extra pounds it put on her, lamenting the lack of free time in which to get the appropriate exercise. She had dressed almost solely in her uniform pieces, the pants sometimes seeming baggier than necessary, continually bought to disguise her increasing curves. She had complained and protested when he’d reminded her he loved the curves that softened her frame. The woman from the café seemed to have accepted her curves and dressed to enhance her shape rather than hide it.

  Sara had been tall for a woman, standing at five-ten to his six-feet-four. She’d rarely wore heels, the hard tile she stood on for hours having stressed her knees and ankles. That afternoon he had noticed the shoes worn by the woman in the coffee shop, belatedly appreciating the dainty appearance of them. She had carried herself in a way that likely would be deceiving of her actual height. She was far shorter than Sara, but appeared to have a presence that seemed to take more space than her small frame.

  Sara had been blonde, her hair usually in a ponytail or under a toque so often that he had always loved seeing it down and brushing her chin. Her eyes had been as blue as his, but always open wide to give her a slightly wondrous look. The assessing gaze the woman in the coffee shop had leveled on him that afternoon was piercing in a way. He chastised himself, realizing he hadn’t had the presence of mind to catalog the color.

  In every way, from their first meeting to their last, he had never doubted Sara’s submissive nature. She had blushed and stammered in front of him, to the point of breaking down in tears completely when he had smiled at her during her public speaking presentation in their business management class in college years before he had collared her.

  His brow furrowed as he realized the café woman had given no clues in that respect. He had noticed her companion, knew he had seen the man at events, but couldn’t remember where or in what regard. Given her carriage and the charisma she projected, he chalked her up to fantasy fodder only. Most likely she had as much of a dominant nature as he did.

  If she would be fantasy fodder, then he would make the most of the fantasy, Aaron decided. His boxers tented as he remembered the curve that his hands had wanted to trace from her breasts to waist to hips and ass. The top had looked like a silky soft fabric that would have clung to her when he made her sweat, and his hand on her elbow had proven it. Suddenly rock hard, he imagined what she would have felt like pressed against his body, tucked against his chest and his hips thrusting forward to grind the evidence of his desire for her against her softness. He ran a hand over his straining dick, a slight grumble in the back of his throat becoming audible as his eyes closed, the better to see her.

  He imagined the way her head would have had to tip back to give the slight surprised gasp. With one hand sliding into her tightly pinned hair, his palm would cradle and support her head while his mouth claimed hers. He thought she would grip his arms, her little hands cool against his skin. He shoved at his boxers, revealing himself to the air and he circled his cock, beginning to pump slowly.

  The cut of her nails digging into the muscle of his shoulders would spur him on. His free hand would drift from her waist to skim over her ass. He thought she was tall enough that his arm would be able to stretch, to catch the hem of her skirt as his fingers tripped up the soft skin of her inner thigh. Aaron moaned as he pulsed around his own hardness, his hips thrusting upward into his grip.

  The angle of his body would be bending her backward, just slightly off balance so that she relied on him to keep her upright. His hand, still sliding up her skirt, would rub against the line where her panties met the skin of her ass cheek. His hands were large, he knew, but her ass would fill his palm and the tips of his fingers would be able to tease the hot wetness becoming apparent on her satin panties.

  Aaron began to pump his fist faster. Cupping the hot heaviness of his balls, he felt them draw up in preparation. He slowed a little, wanting to draw the fantasy out. His mind wanted to tell him he could smell her, hear her little gasps and moans, see the flush of her cheeks.

  The fantasy seemed to take on a life of its own. I
n the space of a blink, he suddenly looked down at her where she was now perched on her knees. Her eyes kept changing color and he called himself ten kinds of idiot again for not knowing which hue was right. She looked up at him, her back straight and her tits thrust out, though covered. She licked her full lips and whispered, “Sir… Please?”

  The shout barked from him, a growl following as he felt the pulsing of his orgasm. As the jets shot onto his stomach, he stroked slowly to prolong it as much as possible. He saw her lean forward with her mouth open.

  A shudder coursed through him then he opened his eyes to see the lazy circling of his ceiling fan. With a deep breath, he rose to take another shower.

  Chapter Five

  “You’re kidding, right? You liked it? How could you read that trash and have liked it?”

  Marcy sighed. “Adriana, we’ve talked about this. Everyone’s entitled to their opinion.” Turning to the woman being attacked, she asked, “Willa, what is it you liked about it?”

  “Well,” the housewife began quietly. “I just thought the sex scenes were pretty hot. I mean, the way he just…threw her down and yanked her skirt up. That was pretty…you know…hot.”

  Marcy could see the way the middle-aged woman was wringing her hands, was aware of the importance the vague declaration had in Willa’s journey to claim sexuality back after her husband had revealed he was leaving for a younger woman. “Was there anything else that appealed to you about it, Willa?”

  “He just seemed so…strong, like a guy who could keep a girl safe?” Her voice seemed to get quieter as she spoke, leading Marcy to lean closer to hear the end.

  Marcy threw a glance to Jen, taking in the still blissed-out and distracted smile on her face. She envied her friend’s post-coital state. Lately the only post-anything Marcy was getting was the ice cream binge headache. With a sigh, she wistfully thought of an after-sex tangle of limbs on her bed, with her hair being tugged as he laid his arm on it, and as she brushed her knee too close to his sensitive parts, the sound of breathless laughter would be saturated with the physical satisfaction they had wrung from one another. With apologies scattered among the stickiness of their skin adhered by the drying sweat, they would try to untangle their trembling limbs. A brush of his hand across her breast, her splaying a hand over his shoulder, a brief meeting of their eyes… She would bite her lip. He would rake his gaze over the curve of her hip. In moments the air would be charged again, their meeting lips in light sucks and nips. He would tuck his hands under his body, hitching one of her legs high on his thigh to grind their hips together again. She would lick the taste of his sweat from the side of his neck as he moved his hands to capture her wrists above her head. Marcy would drop her head back to the mattress, feeling her eyelids heavy as she stared up at his blue eyes.

  She snapped back to reality to see the conversation drifting off course. Once again regretting her direction to get David laid earlier in the week, Marcy continued leading the discussion in Jen’s mental absence. “Okay, so for Willa, Jen and Kayla, the alpha male archetype means security. Does anyone else have a strong feeling about that stereotypical big, burly, built, rough-and-tumble type?”

  A consensus of murmurs circled the group, mostly made up of assenting “mm-hmmm” and “rawr”.

  “Alpha males are total bullshit,” Adriana spat. “It’s just a fairy tale created by women who are too weak to take care of themselves, so they want some big, hulking bear of a man to come take care of the little woman.”

  Shocked silence descended over the group as all eyes turned to Adriana. Marcy saw, from the corner of her eye, David stood slowly from the nearby table at the bookstore café they met in. She took in the breadth of his chest, the slow inhale of air that flared his nostrils, his height and the redness creeping up his neck that clearly shouted ‘pissed off Dom’.

  Marcy stood, holding a hand out to David, and placed the other on Willa, who had shrunk back in her chair. Turning a glare on Adriana, she felt her words escape, clipped and curt. “Adriana, I don’t know if there’s an issue for you outside the group, but I need to ask you to refrain from comments like that. It’s uncalled for.”

  Marcy looked up at David, who appeared to be slightly calmer. “I think we’ve had a good discussion for this week. Jen, could you and David run Willa home? I think I’m going to stick around for a minute.” Turning back, Marcy pinned Adriana to her seat with a glare. The other women left quickly in sets of two and three, as they had ridden together.

  When they were alone, Marcy hitched her long sleeves up and crossed her arms over her chest. “Okay, what the fuck, Adriana?”

  The girl looked at the tabletop in front of them. After minutes of silence, the emotion trembled the girl’s lips. Marcy slid from chair to chair around the table until she sat next to Adriana. Laying a hand on the girl’s shoulder, Marcy asked gently, “What happened?”

  With the outpouring of words that followed, Marcy gathered that Adriana, a bit newer to the group, had been assaulted in years past by a very dominant, very alpha male type. The scars had never quite healed, it seemed, leading her to her current arrangement—live-in submissive to a Dominant woman.

  “I love Betty, Marce. I do. I really do. I just feel like all of it is always going to be there and it’ll never go away,” Adriana sobbed into the handful of napkins she had pulled from the table. “She’s good for me. I’m just too broken.”

  Marcy bit her lip. Why did today have to be the day Jen was all spaced out? She was so much better at all this feelings stuff. With a hard gulp and a deep inhale, Marcy put her hands on Adriana’s. “Listen, we’re all broken in some way. Whether it’s family or friends or past relationships or whatever, we all come to today with baggage. It’s all about how you carry it and who you trust to help you carry it. Does Betty know about what happened?”

  Adriana sniffled and shook her head. “I never told her.”

  “How can she help? How is she supposed to know, then, how best to take care of you? You should really talk to her. Okay?” Marcy shrugged. “Why don’t you call her? Have her come get you.” At Adriana’s nod, Marcy stood. “I’ll give you a little space. See you next time, all right?”

  With her purse slung over her shoulder, Marcy walked through the stacks of books. In her favorite section, a comfy armchair came available. She nabbed it quickly, curling her denim-clad legs under her to open a new bestseller in the genre and relax on her weekend.

  The calm wouldn’t come easily. Adriana’s situation had hit far too close to home for Marcy to ignore. It seemed a cruel joke that men and women sometimes assumed the title of Dominant in order to manipulate those who would submit to them. In Marcy’s case, she had the example of healthy dynamics set by friends back home. With a girl like Adriana, in her early twenties at the oldest, she likely didn’t have peers who had stable relationships, much less lifestyle and kink ones. Marcy thought back to her own beginnings.

  As a teenager, she had discovered sex almost accidentally. Her mother’s bodice-ripper romances had found their way into the hands of the voracious reader, inspiring her imagination with their scenes of terribly romantic adventure. High seas, sumptuous hotel suites, expansive Southern plantations… They had all become backdrops as Marcy had devoured the scenes where the hero would finally have his lady love bare and trembling underneath him. The energy between the two lovers had felt like it leaped off the page and into her veins, heating her blood until she was filled with wonder about the possibility.

  She hadn’t known then that she was too young for it. A product of parents who’d refused to communicate with each other had made her an island of ignorance when it had come to people and relationships. So when an older boy had whistled at her on the way home from school one afternoon, all she’d done was smile at him and fall bit by bit in love.

  From that first time, Marcy had been hooked. The rush of endorphins that had come from pleasing another person, from fulfilling the fantasy they’d presented to her in a way that made them l
ose all control, had made Marcy crave the sexual contact like an addict craved their next fix. It had taken Jason Abbott to make her understand what it was she’d needed.

  He had always joked that he’d needed a legal-sized page to numerate every relationship tie he’d had. Married to a woman outside the auspices of kink, his polyamorous ties had reached far and wide. As a very loving and loveable person, he’d rarely lost touch with a partner, no matter the distance or situation that forced their time apart. It had been a running joke in the small community that as long as someone had known Jason, they were in the circle.

  Marcy’s first meeting with him had been nerve-wracking. She had grown up with the instilled values of monogamy and propriety and had not been able to understand how this should, would or could work. He had been friendly, though, and openly honest. He’d expressed interest in her, but hadn’t pressed the issue when she’d seemed hesitant. At their first parting, he had done nothing more than shake her hand with a teasing wink.

  At a munch held a few weeks later, Marcy had met part of his extensive ‘family’ in kink. His wife had been present, though not active in the lifestyle. His baby girl had sat beside her, talking about their respective kids. A puppy boy had joked with Jason’s masochist and his rope bottom. A man he’d introduced as a brother had struck up conversation with Marcy that had centered on the geek culture T-shirt she had worn. Jason had greeted others as friends and equals, introducing them as students and protectees and playmates. The discussion that night had been educational for her, making her feel young and inexperienced as she had been introduced to the spectrum of alternative relationships and activities. She had thanked him before she’d left, noting as she had the way his hand rested affectionately on the leg of the puppy boy she had seen earlier.

  Her time in the circle that surrounded Jason had given Marcy the confidence to seek and the words to define what it was she was open to. She now knew, irrevocably, that she was a submissive. In many ways she would submit to a deeper level than others because of the depths of depravity she was willing to experience. With another definition, she knew she would never be titled a man’s slave. She knew that her level of intelligence and self-awareness cringed at the thought of handing all control to someone, safeguards or not.