Her Darkest Desires (11 page)

Claire headed back to the buffet, filling a plate with scrambled eggs and fresh fruit. At the last minute, she added a fluffy biscuit topped with a spoonful of thick, white peppery gravy, studded with bits of sausage. On the way back to their table, she caught the eye of Marge. This morning the woman was sporting yet another costume, this time that of a harem girl. Marge’s face was draped with an opaque scarf that hung down from a headband fitted to a long black wig. Only her big brown eyes were visible, heavily outlined with kohl. Ample breast spilled out of a purple bejeweled bra top trimmed in silver fringe. Sheer flowing pants gathered at the ankles completed her attire. Although it was a bizarre outfit for a casual morning meal, she wore it proudly, showing off a surprisingly trim bare midriff decorated with a huge purple jewel in her navel. Her companions this morning were Mistress Jade’s black attendants, Theo and Aaron. They too were outfitted as though they had just stepped out of a tale from the Arabian Nights—bare chests gleaming under short, sleeveless purple vests, colorful sashes holding up loose white trousers that reached just below their knees.

“Good morning, Miss Claire! You look radiant today.” Marge waved gaily, as though she’d never bent Claire over a table just a few hours ago and soundly paddled her bare ass. “Had a good night, did you?” she asked, lowering her voice and giving Claire a wink.

“Yes, thanks. You look like you’re ready to enjoy your last day here.”

Marge nodded. “We’re fixin’ to have us a play date. I always wanted to be a belly dancer. I have a private lesson later with Mistress Jade and the boys here—in the Sultan’s quarters,” she added.

Sultan’s quarters?
Claire waved and headed back to her table. Apparently there were whole areas of this resort that she’d never even seen, entire menus of activities from which to choose. The women she’d spoken with before signing up told her this was an X-rated Disneyworld, recommending that she sample all the rides. Claire shook her head. One intensely real fantasy was all she could handle for now.

“I’m beginning to understand why people would come back here again,” she commented when she sat down.

Kyle smiled. “Marge is rather unusual. Most of our guests don’t participate in such a wide variety of experiences on their first trip here. But Marge’s circumstances are a little different from most of our patrons. If you spent any time with her, she’d tell you that she’s here to fulfill the dying wishes of her beloved husband.”

Claire glanced back at Marge. She certainly didn’t look the part of a grieving widow. Kyle saw her look of disbelief and shook his head. “I know. It may be hard for anyone else to understand. Marge married very young, to a wealthy older man. At first, he assumed she’d married him for his money, and he was willing to accept that just to have her in his life. They traveled, saw the world. But then he fell ill, and Marge spent the last eight years caring for him, rarely leaving his bedside. She genuinely loved Clyde, and he came to believe that as the years passed. But the constant care had taken a toll on her, and when she arrived here, she was old before her time.”

“Clyde watched Marge give up her life for him. She never complained, never gave him a reason to feel even a moment of jealousy with her behavior. As the years passed, she spent hours telling him stories—erotic fantasies she made up to entertain him and take his mind off his pain. When he could no longer make love to her, she found a way to make love to him. She seduced his mind, knowing how much he still desired her and how hard it was for him to accept that his body could no longer perform.”

“Clyde made her promise that when he died, she’d live out those fantasies. He wanted her to experience all the passion and pleasure she’d created for him with her stories, all the sensuous moments she’d been denied for so many years. He left Lady Gwen an enormous amount of money with the instructions that Marge be invited to come here as often as she likes, to spend part of his fortune living out every tempting, wicked tale she’d ever spun for him. This is her first trip to The Dark Side,” Kyle added. “But from what I’ve seen, I doubt if it will be her last.”

“Does everyone here have a fascinating story?” Claire looked around, seeing her fellow guests through new eyes.

“Let’s head up the mountain. I’ll tell you about some of the others along the way.”

Kyle grabbed two bottles of water from an ice bucket on the buffet and took Claire’s arm, escorting her down the wide flagstone steps and across the lawn to a path that led through the trees. The air was cooler once they stepped into the shade of the huge pines along the trail, and Claire was glad to have the warmth of her sweater. Kyle led the way along the path, and within a few minutes, they were out of sight and sound of the lodge. Spring wildflowers bloomed in patches of sunlight where the leaves of the oaks and poplars above were still tightly furled buds. Clumps of delicate yellow trout lilies bloomed here and there. Tall, deep-purple wild irises decorated the banks of a tiny stream flanking one side of the trail. Across the stream, thousands of pink buds swelled on a glossy patch of mountain laurel covering the steep slope, ready to burst open when the temperature rose a few more degrees.

Their footsteps were muffled by a blanket of pine needles covering the path. The only sounds were the songs of twittering birds calling to each other high above in the trees. As they walked, Claire fell under the spell of the ancient mountains. She could almost see the ghost of a Cherokee maiden moving soundlessly through the forest, harvesting daylily tubers and wild onions, stopping to gather a handful of flowers.

“Remember the four men who were part of last night’s show?” Kyle spoke softly as they made their way through the woods. “Well, they are also paying guests here. The youngest guy is someone whose name you’d probably never recognize. He made a fortune designing computer games, locking himself away in his fantasy world as a young man, while the other guys were out getting laid. Now he can afford to make his fantasies come true—starting with making love to a supermodel. Same goes for the football player. He can’t afford to have any more scandals reported in the tabloids, but he still wants to have a wild time. So he comes here, where Lady Gwen arranges new, exotic thrills for him in an atmosphere of complete confidentiality.”

Kyle moved on ahead, telling her interesting tidbits about several of the other people she’d seen at the resort. Claire wanted to ask so many questions, but the trail rose steadily, and she was soon out of breath, struggling just to keep up. Gradually she became aware of the sound of rushing water growing louder as they climbed. Claire was so busy watching her footing on the narrow path that when Kyle stopped abruptly in front of her, she nearly bumped into him. He reached for her hand, drawing her close. “Look,” he said.

Claire gasped. Laid out before her was a scene straight from a storybook. A magical clearing, bathed in sunlight. The tiny stream led them back to its source—a waterfall that sprang from the cliff face far above them. It wound down from high on the mountain, spilling over moss-covered rocks and ledges, splintering here and there into streams that trailed off like narrow fingers as it fell. They stepped onto a wide grassy ledge where miles of unbroken forest stretched out around and below them.

“Oh, Kyle, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful. Thank you so much for bringing me here.”

“This is one of my favorite places,” he replied. “I come here when I need to get some perspective on my life.” Kyle led her to a seat on a flat boulder warmed by the sun. “Claire, we need to talk.”

Her heart sank. The last time she’d heard those words, her husband went on to announce that he was leaving her. Was Kyle going to say goodbye? Had the time come to hand her over to some other companion for her final day?

“What I did last night…” he began.

Claire nodded. “It’s okay. I understand. We lived out my fantasy, and now it’s time for you to move on to another guest. After all, this is your job.”

“Now would be a good time for you to shut up, Claire.” Kyle’s voice held the stern tone she’d come to love, the one that sent delicious shivers up her spine.

He waited a moment to make sure she complied, then went on. “What I did last night—it wasn’t part of The Dark Side package. Those of us who work here play elaborate erotic games with our guests. We spank, we tease, we role play a whole array of forbidden fantasies. We use sex toys to bring them to orgasm, and if our guest requests a dom scenario, we may even force a patron to touch us, just to make it more realistic. We allow, even arrange, for our guests to have sex with each other under any circumstances they willingly choose, as Lady Aidin did last night. But we aren’t prostitutes. We don’t fuck our paying guests. We don’t make them give us blow jobs, and we do not kiss them.”

Claire just stared at him, her eyes filled with confusion and hurt. What was he saying?

“I got carried away, Claire. I wanted it to be real—for both of us. I wanted to be your dom. I wanted to take you soaring over the edge and seduce you with a combination of pleasure and pain you’d never felt before. What I did was wrong. I took advantage of your vulnerable state.”

“But… but you were only doing what I wanted, what I requested,” she stammered.

“You’re right. At least in the beginning. But I felt a connection with you in a way I’ve never connected with anyone before—not here, not anywhere. The other night when we stayed up talking for hours… well, all I can say is over the last few days I discovered an amazing woman, one who I believe has never come in contact with her true self. As time went on, I found myself wanting to be the one who awakened you. I wanted to bring you into my world, introduce you to the thrill, the addictive power of submission.”

He saw the disbelief in her eyes and went on. “I know. Power of submission? It sounds crazy. But the sub is really the one in control. Her dark fantasies and desires guide their play. A good dom learns to read his sub, to instinctively know how to punish or please in order to heighten her desire. We make you do things you secretly yearn to do deep inside but dare not admit, even to yourself. And then, when we uncover those wicked cravings, we whet your appetite and feed off your hunger. Our satisfaction comes from making you go places you’ve never gone before. When you start out refusing, unwilling to go there, it only excites us more.”

“But beneath it all lies trust. In a good dom/sub relationship, the sub knows she can let go completely, do whatever she is told to do—because her dom will never hurt her. I may blindfold you, tie you up, paddle your ass into submission, even make you feel humiliated by the things I force you to do. But I will never harm you. And because you believe that, you can surrender your will to me—and in pleasing me, you will experience your greatest satisfaction.”

Kyle reached for her hand. “Last night, you were to have a fantasy initiation as a sub. But when the time came, I couldn’t go through with it. It would have been unfair to you, to both of us. I don’t want fantasy with you, Claire. When—or if—it happens, I want it to be real. I want you to come to me willingly, after you’ve had time to process all of this. I want you to go out and experience life now that you’ve been awakened to these exciting new aspects of your sexuality. Then, if you decide you’d like to have an exclusive dom/sub relationship with me, that’s when I’ll initiate you. But it will be a private ceremony, with only those who matter to both of us in attendance, not some make-believe ritual to put on a titillating show for paying customers.”

He fell silent. Claire’s mind was whirling.
He really cares about me. It isn’t just a game to him, or even worse, just a job.
She stared out at the vista before her, unseeing.

“I don’t know what to say,” she finally admitted. “You’re right. This place is a fantasy land. It’s hard to know what’s real and what isn’t. Will I still crave these naughty, nasty things when I’m back in the outside world? Or will I look at myself in the mirror and decide it was all fun to experience once, but that’s not who I am?”

Kyle nodded. “Exactly. If I’m to have you, Claire, I want all of you. Your body, your mind—your heart. I won’t settle for anything less. And I don’t want you to wake up one morning and realize you’ve settled for less either. You gave yourself to one man. But he didn’t respect and treasure that gift.”

“I know this place,” he went on. “It’s easy to be seduced and soothed by forbidden pleasures. It’s easy to confuse lust with love. You’ve been hurt deeply. You came here looking for a way to ease that pain. I want you to embrace the rest of your stay here, Claire. I want you to choose another companion—even several at once if that idea intrigues you. Explore, experiment. Spread your wings. If you come back to me, I want you to be sure that it’s what you truly want.”

She turned to him and captured his face in her hands. “You’ve already given me more than any other man I’ve ever met. You’ve given me permission to discover who I am, and you’ve made me feel that whoever I find inside me will be accepted.” She leaned forward and gently kissed his lips.

“I’m heading back to the lodge,” Kyle said. “Why don’t you stay here for a while? When you’re ready to come back, just follow the path. I’ll let Lady Gwen know that you’ll be coming to see her later. Together, you can plan the rest of your stay.”

Claire nodded, her throat tight with unshed tears. She turned her back, unwilling to watch him walk away. She felt lost again.
But he’s telling me I can have him all to myself—if that’s what I truly want. Can I believe him? He’s younger than I am. He’s smart. He’s sexy. He can have any woman he wants. What if he changes his mind later? Do I dare risk being hurt again?

She sat there alone, allowing the peace of the sunlit clearing to flow into her, while Kyle’s melody from the other night played over and over in her head. Phrases popped unbidden into her mind, and she found herself honing and shaping the words, fitting them to his music. Finally, she jumped up and raced back down the path. Somehow it seemed important to get all those fragile thoughts down on paper before they disappeared.