“Really?”
“Yes. Let me—will you get off me, woman!”
Beth laughed, but she did as she was told. “Of course. I’m only here to do as you ask, Master.”
Hearing another woman call Dan Master sickened Karen to the very core. Hearing Beth use the title veiled her vision in deep, pulsing crimson. Adrenaline flushed her limbs and set each one tingling while a rhythmic pounding threatened to drown out all other sounds. She saw the familiar way Dan’s hands lingered on those pale, round hips. His lips and chin glistened to match Beth’s inner thighs. Then Beth rolled free, sliding along Dan’s chin and chest. In her wake a shining trail of juice stained Dan’s shirt. Karen took a step forward and saw the gleam of handcuffs around those tiny wrists.
Denise touched her shoulder. She jumped, having forgotten, he was there. “Do you want to come with us, again, sweetheart? This looks like a bad time.”
Karen watched Dan struggle to his feet. He flexed his jaw and wiped a slick of Beth’s sex-juice from his stubble. She gritted her teeth but her hands shook. “Yes, please.”
She didn’t look at Denise, but kept her gaze on the man she loved.
“Kaz, no. Wait.”
“No!” she roared.
His voice was almost Dan “The Dom”, almost commanding. As always, it filled her body with lust and longing, but those feelings couldn’t compete with white-hot fury. The quickening of desire melted away, replaced by a yearning to scratch at his eyes.
Karen tore the slave band from her wrist and hurled it to the floor. It hit the carpet with a thump far louder than the delicate piece of jewelry warranted. It was the sound of all her hopes and dreams of a future with this man hitting the dust.
“Don’t you dare tell me ‘no’ like you have any right. You’ve lost that right—no, that privilege.”
“Please listen—”
“So you can tell me more half-truths and bald face lies?”
Dan stopped dead. “What lies?”
“You told me you’ve never subbed. Explicitly. But she says you did with her. First I thought she was lying but this...” Her throat tightened so much that words stopped flowing.
He whirled away from her to face Beth. “What did you tell her?”
The smile vanished from the smaller woman’s lips. She backed toward the bed. “The truth.” Beth’s face contorted, an ugly expression of fury, and she pointed with her chained hands. “I told her what we meant to each other and how you threw it away. Like you’re probably planning to do with her.”
Karen folded her arms. More than pain, she heard the acidic edge of jealousy in Beth’s voice. It pleased her, a wicked spike of vindictive glee.
A short silence followed, filled only with the sound of tense breathing. Then Dan bent and scooped a pile of condoms into a small green bag.
“I’m not going to tell you again, Beth. Get out. You’ve done enough damage to last forever.”
“But my cuffs—”
“Out!” Dan threw the bag. “Out!” It hit her in the face. “Get out before you leave on your ass.”
Beth turned to flee but Karen stepped in to block the way out. She stared into that mean, ugly face and felt her hands bunch into fists. It would feel so good to hit her, to feel her knuckles grind into that sharp, square jaw. Hear bone crack. A shriek of pain. In that moment Karen understood why Cindy always aimed for the nads; dealing pain seemed such a quick way to ease her own.
A gentle hand dropped on to her shoulder. Karen turned to see Denise shaking his head. “Don’t.” His voice soothed, pitched low and steady, serene, like a yoga instructor.
Her hands itched.
“She’s not worth it, sweetheart. Please don’t. You’ll get thrown out. They might even call the police.”
The rage dropped to a gentle simmer.
“They could even ban you,” Denise continued. “You’ll never be able to come back. Is that what you want?”
Who the hell would I come here with if not Dan? Karen gnawed her bottom lip. But she’s not worth a criminal record. Karen stepped to one side. Head high, unconcerned by her nudity, Beth walked past her. On reaching the hallway she stopped and turned. “He doesn’t know what a collar really is, Karen. He’ll hurt you.”
A hysterical laugh burbled from her lips. “As if you give a shit, you two-faced, banshee-haired bitch.” The stunned stare she received in return more than made up for the satisfaction lost from staying her fists. It also reminded her of why Cindy was the one to lash out, and she wasn’t.
“Get out of here,” she muttered.
“He doesn’t understand what it means to girls like us—”
“Don’t you dare couple yourself with me. There’s no ‘us,’ just you, bringing cretins like Bones into what was once a safe environment, and me forced to deal with the fallout of your neurotic, egocentric, anti-commitment bullshit. Now, fuck off.”
Silence. From the corner of her eye Karen thought she saw Dan smile. With effort she tamped down the pride swelling her chest and focused on the other woman. Beth shook her head. Flicked her hair. Walked away.
Denise held out his hand. “Come with us, sweetheart. We’ll look after you.”
“Get your hairy paws off my girlfriend.” Dan stepped forward. “She’s not going with you.”
A look of horror crossed Denise’s face. Karen forced herself between them and gave Dan the full weight of her gaze. “Asshole. I knew you had a problem with them from the second we sat down. At least they don’t pretend to be anything other than what they are.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She rolled her eyes, no longer surprised at his willingness to remain blind to his prejudices. “It doesn’t matter. Come on guys, let’s go.” She turned. Denise put his arm around her shoulders. Henrietta grabbed her hand and squeezed it. They led her back along the corridor.
“Karen, please.”
She didn’t turn. Not even when Dan’s pounding footsteps chased after her. His hand touched her arm as if to pull her back and she jerked away from all three men. “What?” she cried, horrified to hear the threat of tears in her voice. She sniffed to keep them at bay.
With Beth gone, her anger lost all focus. It transformed into cold, creeping anguish that sapped her strength and left her knees weak.
“Aren’t you going to let me explain?”
“I don’t see the point.”
“The point?” He clutched great fistfuls of hair with both hands. “The point is that I love you. Doesn’t that deserve a chance?”
The words, so incredible mere hours ago, bounced off her like drops of rain. They didn’t—couldn’t penetrate. She felt hollow.
She looked at Denise.
“Well if you ask me—” he began.
“I didn’t ask you, Dennis. Get your greasy, pointed nose out of my face and let me talk to my girlfriend.”
Karen sighed. “Dan—”
Again he interrupted. “No! Look, Karen, there’s things I’ve not told you about my past relationships because I was scared or ashamed. Maybe both. I’m not proud of some of the things I’ve done and I wasn’t ready to share that with you. I couldn’t stand the thought of you thinking less of me.”
Karen rolled her eyes. She looked at Dan’s flushed face and the traces of a dying boner at the front of his pants. “Well that went well, didn’t it?”
He flinched. “Okay, I deserved that, but it’s true. And now I’ve got nothing left to lose.”
She tried to think of something sensible to say, or at least something meaningful, but the threat of tears clogged the back of her throat and made speaking all but impossible. She shook her head.
“I know this is bad. I know I’ve fucked up—again—but please hear me out. That’s all I’m asking. Let me tell you everything.”
Once more Karen looked to Denise, but this time to gently pat his arm. “It’s okay. I’m sorry he’s being such a prick. He’s always been uncomfortable around transvestites.”
“
Lots of men are, sweetheart.”
“It’s no excuse to be rude. He’s going to apologize when we’re done.”
“There’s no need for that.” A look of mild embarrassment crossed Denise’s face.
“Yes, there is,” she said. “I’ll come to your room later.”
Denise nodded. With a last look at Dan, he tucked his arm around Henrietta’s shoulder and steered them both away.
Karen tilted her chin and stared Dan straight in the eye. She saw him lower his shoulders. “Ten minutes,” she told him.
***
“I was new. I didn’t really get it.” Dan sat on the end of the bed with his head in his hands. He talked to the floor. “I knew I wanted to control women. I knew I liked the power trip and that it was important to me sexually. There were no words for it, but I understood that much about why other relationships I’d had didn’t work. Finding the BDSM scene introduced me to ideas I’d never considered before and suddenly there were websites full of women who wanted what I did. When Beth came along she was so fiery and pretty and sexy and obedient. She’d do anything I told her.”
Karen glared, thinking back to Beth’s bright green hair and nails. “Is this supposed to help? I want to know how she ended up sitting on your face.”
“You need to understand. I don’t know how else to explain other than to start at the beginning.”
“You’ve got eight minutes.” She glanced at the wall clock to emphasize the point.
He dragged his fingers through his hair. “I wanted to learn more, and munches were a waste of time, so I went to clubs. I met different people and explored different styles. We even tried it the other way.”
Karen winced. “Then she didn’t lie.”
“What?”
“She told me you switched. I didn’t believe her. I’m such an idiot.”
Dan sighed. “You’re not an idiot. Why would you believe her?”
“Why, indeed?” She gave a soft, disparaging chuckle.
“I liked switching at first. She used clamps. Light impact. Candle wax. Food. Ropes. Then she talked about water sports. Needles. Cock plugs.”
Karen flinched. “You hate that stuff.”
“I know.”
She looked at Dan’s lowered head and felt a sudden need to touch him. Her hands fluttered as if to reach out, but she jerked them back at the last moment. “I didn’t know. You never told me you’d tried it.”
“How would I know what I liked if it didn’t try? Anyway, what was the point? You already knew you didn’t like that stuff. But Beth ignored my safe words and I ended up with an infection that laid me out for two weeks.”
“How did you end up with someone like that? Why did you stay?”
“She got carried away.”
“You believe that?” Karen gazed at him, seeing and hearing through him the voices of hundreds if not thousands of domestic violence victims.
“Sometimes. Then I think about it some more and...” He scratched the back of his neck. “It takes a lot of control to control someone and keep a grip on that power trip. It’s a big rush. She needed practice. But after that night I only switched in clubs with other people around.”
“You were scared.”
“I suppose.”
“You were scared and still you stayed. You’re a fucking idiot.” Irritation tiptoed back into her tone.
Dan nodded in miserable resignation. “There was one guy who called himself The Big D. He liked to really hurt women. Beth idolized him. She told me that if I wanted to be a ‘proper Dom’, I should take some tips from him about how to treat subs and slaves.”
The next pause lasted longer than Karen expected. “And?”
“I hurt her.”
“So?”
“No, I really hurt her.” Dan didn’t look away from the floor, but his shoulders trembled. He gripped his knees until the knuckles turned white. “I had her tied over the bed. Ropes. She had a ball gag. She wanted me to whip her.”
Watching him shake like that, Karen realized that she wasn’t ready to hear this story. Her own body chilled. Her mind raced through different ways to make him stop talking but words refused to leave her mouth.
“I couldn’t hear her use the safe word, if she did at all. I have no idea. But she didn’t signal me either. She let me keep whipping her. I didn’t know what I was doing, nothing about danger zones or soft spots, I just hit her over and over.”
Nausea boiled through her stomach. She pressed one hand to her midriff. “Dan—”
“She passed out. I didn’t realize. Some other guy had to tell me she wasn’t moving and then it took half an hour to wake her up.”
Karen bit her lip until it bled. Silence filled the room.
In the distance, as though from another world, voices of other visitors to the club floated through the walls. In one of the rooms nearby a woman screamed in accompaniment to loud, rhythmic pounding against the walls.
Dan took a deep breath. “We woke her up. I apologized. But she laughed. Said it was the best time of her life. She told me she’d never been so wet or so horny in her life and that the whole thing was perfect. But later that night I saw the marks. She’s still got scars, did you see? I did that. That was me.”
Karen thought back to the crisscrossing network of raised scars on Beth’s shoulders and chest. Her knees wobbled and she leaned against the wall. “Shit.”
“It was awful. I kept trying to say sorry, but she liked it. She loved the idea that I’d marked her forever. She wanted me to do it again in a place where the scars would be visible for everyone to see.”
Though she hated to ask, Karen knew she had to. “Did you?”
“No.”
She waited, hiding a slow exhalation of relief behind one raised hand.
“I couldn’t touch her at all after that. She wanted me to be someone else—like The Big D. But I couldn’t. I’m not that person. I’m not...”
“You use whips with me,” she whispered. “We do impact play all the time.”
“Not like that. And I take precautions now. Why do you think I love chains so much?”
She shrugged, wrapping both arms tight around her body.
“I can hear them. They make a sound every time you move. So I know you’re able to communicate if you need to. A safe word or a hand gesture. I don’t really want to hurt you. And you don’t really want to be hurt. What we do is completely different to anything I saw or did while with Beth.”
Karen hunched down into her shoulders, reaching for her ears as if to block out Dan’s words. “But you collared her.”
“Yes, before I understood what it meant.”
“You got her a slave band.” She pointed to her own bracelet, lying on the floor where she’d thrown it.
“No.” A little of the fire returned to his voice. “I bought her a pretty piece of jewelry. It’s not the same thing.”
“She saw mine and made a big deal of it.”
“Of course she did.” Dan sounded bitter. “But the slave band thing is me and you. No one else has ever had one like it—not the way I offered it. When I collared Beth, I actually bought her a collar. A big leather brute with a ring on the front. I told her she had to wear it all the time because she was mine. And she did. It’s what she wanted. She was the type of woman who didn’t feel safe or whole without a Dom around. Male, female, it didn’t matter, so long as she had someone to tell her what to do 24/7.”
“Some couples do that.”
“I know. Fred and Georgie are 24/7. But me? I need a woman to fight me every now and then. Or straight up tell me when I’m being an asshole. I like kink, but it’s not my whole life. I need someone I can take to my work’s Christmas lunch. Go to the movies with. Introduce to my family without frightening my dad or terrorizing my mother.”
Despite herself, Karen smiled. “So what happened?”
“I panicked and bailed. I’m not proud of it, but I didn’t know what else to do.”
Karen sat on the floor.
She pressed her hands against her eyes and leaned the back of her head against the door. “How could you keep all that from me?”
“Shame? Fear?”
“Yesterday, when we met Beth in the foyer, you told me she wasn’t important.”
“She’s not part of my life anymore. She isn’t important, but our history is. You’re right. I should have told you.”
“Damn right you should have.” Though the words were harsh, the tone softened with each passing syllable. “You can’t keep things like that from me. It’s not fair.”
“Like you and the Slave Library?” His calm voice and steady gaze dampened some of her righteous fire.
“That’s not the same.”
“Yes, it is. I didn’t tell you about Beth. You didn’t tell me how much you hated the Library. If our dynamic is going to work, we both need to be honest with each other. Otherwise it falls apart. I should know.”
Karen searched her mind for something to say but nothing seemed appropriate. Instead she gazed at the floor and replayed all the times she’d thought something and kept it to herself. All the times she’d resented Hannah or Rebecca slurping at his cock while she watched. God, I’m such a fucking hypocrite. Do I even deserve him? Shame coiled in her stomach and refused to budge. At last, Dan stood and began to gather their clothes and toys, separating everything into two obvious piles.
She frowned. “What are you doing?”
“Packing. I’ll take you back to your flat. Or anywhere else you want.”
Karen watched him fold clothes and remembered the feel of his powerful fingers skimming over her skin. She watched the tight, stiffness of his shoulders and the jerky motions as he stuffed everything into bags.
She walked toward him. “Stop, please.”
“Why?” He balled an odd pair of socks and tossed them on top of a shirt.
“I don’t want to leave.”
He dropped a pair of jeans and spun to face her. His hands trembled over her shoulders as if afraid to touch. Hope leapt into his eyes. “Really?”
In answer, she put her hands over his and pushed them down to rest on her shoulders. “I’ve not forgiven you yet. And we’ve got a lot to talk about. But I’m not leaving.”
Sugar Dust Page 14
