RecipeforSubmission (2 page)
Read RecipeforSubmission Online
Authors: Sindra van Yssel
A couple brushed by her, reminding her that she was blocking
the entranceway. She moved off to the side, close enough that she could hear
the man with the star. He was an older man, slightly overweight, with brown
curly hair streaked with gray and a bald spot. Ken, Rose had called him. That didn’t
sound like something a Dom would choose, although he was clearly in charge. So
it was probably a real name.
“Either you like it or you don’t, that’s up to you,” Ken was
saying. “But you can’t do that in this club. Read the rules and obey the rules,
or leave.”
What was it that couldn’t be done in a place like this? Kyra
blanched at the thought. Ken and the other man were standing toe to toe, and
Ken was about six inches shorter. The woman was standing off to the side,
looking helpless.
“It’s a stupid rule.”
“It keeps us legal.” The look on Ken’s face reminded her of
her grandfather. Somehow, her grandpa never stopped answering her questions.
Sometimes she liked to hear his explanations so much that she asked about
things she already knew, and that was when he got that look on his face, the
one that told her that he expected better. The difference was, Ken was doing it
to a man who was towering over him.
The woman put her hand on her man’s wrist. For a moment Kyra
thought he’d shake it off and yell. But then his shoulders relaxed. “All right,
Ken, we’ll be good from here on,” said the tall man.
“I’ll be watching,” Ken warned. He turned toward Kyra,
although she hadn’t been aware he had even noticed her. “Hi. I’m Ken. Welcome
to the club.” He stuck out his hand and smiled.
The couple hesitated for a moment and then wandered off. It
was hard to believe this kind-looking older man was the head honcho at a club
where people whipped other people. “Hi. I’m Kyra.”
So much for thinking of a
scene name.
“I’m new.”
“Yeah, I know.” He looked at her hand, where she was
clutching her ticket. “Sub, huh?”
Kyra opened her mouth to protest, but bit it down. She could
play the role, if it would get her the information she wanted. Ken would hardly
make a very good model for the villain in her book, so she wasn’t going to quiz
him. Kindly grandfather serial killers were too much of a stretch for her, even
if it did seem the neighbors of real-life killers were always quick with an
explanation of how nice the person had been. “Yes.” She handed him the ticket.
“Rose said to say she sent me.”
The side of Ken’s mouth turned up. “She did, did she? And
what was she sending you to me for, exactly?”
Kyra looked around. No one was listening to them. “To help
me find a Dom?” She hadn’t meant for it to sound like a question.
Ken looked at her for a long moment. She felt as if he was
trying to see right through her. He opened his mouth as if to say something and
then shut it again. “No. Sorry, can’t help you. Feel free to look around. Maybe
one will find you. There’s a lot of subs here tonight, though.”
She followed his gaze around the room. There were a lot of
people in the room, but she didn’t know which ones were submissives and which
ones were Dominants. And didn’t some people switch? Maybe she would have been
safer trying to get an education in an internet chat room, although she
suspected that many of the people in those didn’t have much more of a clue
about BDSM than she did. Pretending online took all the danger out of it, all
the sinister aspects she needed for her villain.
Some people were obvious, though. The forty-year-old woman
in the schoolgirl outfit, probably a sub. Some of the guys were obvious too,
half naked and wearing big leather collars. And definitely the slender blonde
kneeling at the edge of the room, her back to a wall, dressed only in a black
lacy bra and panties.
I can’t compete with that. And even if I could, I
won’t. My clothes are staying on.
Chapter Two
“Heya, Ken, what’s up?” Andrew Ryan reached out to clasp
hands.
“Drew!” The handshake Ken gave him back was warm. “Good to
see ya.”
“Rose said you wanted to see me.” As soon as he came in, the
pretty redhead had given him the message.
“Yeah. We’ve got a new girl here.”
“Staff?” Drew didn’t figure anything else would be worth
mentioning. New people came all the time. Some people were curious, some had decided
to make the jump from online to reality, and others were coming to grips with
their own desires.
“Hardly. See the brunette over there?”
He looked where Ken nodded. There were several dark-haired
women in that direction, but after a few seconds he figured out who he must
mean. One was watching a whipping scene intently. He recognized the
participants, Clyde and his girl Dora. The woman Ken was talking about kept flinching
back from Clyde’s backswing, even though she wasn’t particularly close. She was
wearing blue jeans and a black T-shirt that hugged a nicely rounded figure. Her
curly brown hair looked as if it would be heaven to run his fingers through. A
would-be Domme? Pretty clueless if she was, but subs didn’t usually dress like
that at Carpe Noctem. Years ago he had been that clueless, meeting a woman he’d
known online at another club. She’d never shown up, but what he saw had changed
sex for him forever.
“Yeah, she’s new all right. She asked me to find her a Dom.”
“Really?” Not all submissives looked and acted the part.
That was fine as far as Drew was concerned. The chase was part of the fun, and
a clothed submissive was like a present with wrapping paper. He was intrigued.
“Yeah, really. And she
has
chased off the half dozen
or so guys who’ve offered to worship her. No Dom has made a run, though.”
He knew what Ken was up to. He was trying to make the girl
sound like a challenge because he figured Drew couldn’t resist. Drew smiled.
“I’m just here to socialize tonight, Ken, not looking for someone to play
with.”
“I don’t see Jane here today.”
Jane was his last submissive. He’d been upfront with Jane,
like he always was. Catch and release, that was what he did. A few playdates,
hopefully more than a few orgasms for his partner, and he let them go. He’d
worked hard since his first experience to acquire the skills to please a kinky
woman. He hoped Jane wasn’t sulking. She was a good woman, and it wasn’t either
of their faults that what she really wanted was a Dominance and submission
lifestyle, not a few nights of fun. That wasn’t him, never was and never would
be. “If Jane doesn’t want to show up to party on any given week, that’s her
call.”
“I don’t think she’s really a sub. But I also think it’s not
that simple.”
“Jane?” The problem with Jane wasn’t that she wasn’t
submissive enough, it was that she was too submissive. She wanted a life, he
wanted some fun. Simple. She’d make some man a great slave, or pet. And probably
a good wife to boot. “She’s really a sub, Ken.”
“No. The brunette. Her name is Kyra. Don’t tell me you’re
smitten with Jane.”
Drew laughed. “Of course not. That doesn’t mean I’m going to
chase every tail you throw in front of me.”
Ken grinned. “It’s good-looking tail.”
“It is.” Ken was only tossing his own word back at him, but
it annoyed him. “She is. What’s your angle? I get the feeling this is about
more than making sure one new customer gets hooked up with someone.”
“Well, here’s the thing.” Ken smiled with the look of a
fisherman who has gotten a bite. No doubt Ken thought he was going to reel him
in, but Drew knew better.
Still, let him try.
“Before she asked me to
find her a Dom, Rose asked her if she was a sub and she said no, like she was
insulted or something.”
Drew shrugged. “So she’s a tourist and doesn’t want us to
know it.” A few months back, after the club had gotten a bit of publicity in
the local indie rag, Carpe Noctem had been full of tourists. Ken was raking it
in for a while, but it drove away most of his regulars, and after that the
tourists didn’t have much of a show to watch. “Or she’s a reporter.”
“That thought
had
occurred to me.”
“And what did that thought have to do with me?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all. Forget I mentioned it.” Ken walked
off, leaving Drew staring. But not at Ken, at the new girl, Kyra. She was
biting her lip, still watching Clyde and Dora. Clyde had switched to a nasty
little flogger with knots in it, and each one raised a mark on Dora’s back. The
girl looked as if she were watching a train wreck—horrified, but unable to turn
away. Dora’s loud moans carried all the way across the room. If he didn’t know
what a pain slut Dora was, he’d probably have reached the conclusion that she
was having a bad time of it. But he’d gone out with Dora, years ago. He was her
second Dom, and the first one who was competent. She’d been about to give up on
the scene after the first. They’d played together a month and he’d discovered
that Dora’s pain threshold was higher than he cared to give. She knew it too.
Catch and release. She’d found a good match in Clyde.
Clyde was taking her down now, undoing the cuffs on her
wrists and ankles. Good. Dora could probably take more but he wasn’t sure that
Kyra could. He saw Kyra relax. He meant what he said about socializing, and he
had no wish to get mixed up with a reporter, whatever Ken thought.
Then he saw Kyra’s eyes go wide. Clyde wasn’t done with
Dora, he was turning her around to work on her front. Dora’s eyes were brimming
with tears, but that didn’t mean she didn’t want more. The little undulations
of her hips spoke volumes. Dora wanted more and Clyde would see that she got
it. Kyra looked as if she was trying to decide whether to run, throw up or
faint.
His protective instinct aroused, Drew was halfway across the
room before he knew his feet were moving. He reached her as Clyde switched
floggers, to one with narrow tails that would leave lines of red all over Dora.
At least it didn’t have the knots. In fact, it didn’t look nasty at all, but narrow
tails had less air resistance than broad ones, and concentrated their increased
speed on a much smaller patch of skin. He stepped in between Kyra and the
scene. “Hello. I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m Drew.”
She was nearly a foot shorter than him, and he watched her
as she slowly raised her gaze to his eyes. “Hi. Kyra.”
“This doesn’t look like it’s your kind of scene.”
Kyra stepped to the side and looked past him. “You’re
wrong.” She winced. He heard the flogger hiss and could imagine what it was
doing to Dora. The fact that Dora was probably loving it didn’t stop him from
wincing on the inside too.
He didn’t try to obstruct her view again. “That’s why you’re
grimacing every time she gets struck.” He turned around to face Clyde and Dora
and, sure enough, there were red lines across her breasts. Dora’s nipples were
two hard buds, supersensitive by now, he was sure. He noticed a cane sticking
out of a big black bag on the floor. Clyde’s. He didn’t doubt they’d be using
that too.
“Maybe I like feeling her pain.” She didn’t sound convinced,
or convincing. But he was sure she’d ruled out running. Throwing up might still
be an option, especially if Clyde brought out the cane. So she was sensitive.
“You’re a sadist, then?”
“No.” She said it with vehemence. And, he thought, disgust.
He hadn’t intended to try to get her to play with him when
he came over. But it was only a question of time before Clyde scared her away.
And the challenge of a race against time appealed to him. She was a mystery,
and that appealed to him too. He dropped his voice low. “You’ve never seen
anything like this, have you, Kyra?”
“No.” She took a deep breath.
“And I don’t think you came here to experience it, either.
Close, maybe. But not that.”
“Well, you don’t know maybe.” She shivered and didn’t turn
to meet his gaze.
“And maybe I do.”
She set her jaw, and as she did, it was as if a mask fell
from her face, as if he were seeing the real her for the first time. “He’s
brutalizing her.”
“She likes it.”
“She’s got a self-image problem and he’s taking advantage of
it.”
“And you’re a very judgmental person. She’s wired
differently. Different from you, different from me, different from how I like
my women. But just different. Not wrong.”
She turned to him, eyes blazing. “And what the hell do you know
about anything, anyway?”
He chuckled. “You’re a little spitfire, aren’t you? I know
this.” He paused, choosing his words carefully. Whether she was a reporter or a
tourist or whatever, his words should still work. “You’re looking for something
here, for some experience.”
“And you think you can give it to me.” Her chin jutted out.
He grinned. “I know I can. Only under one condition.”
“And what’s that? That I do everything you say?”
He shook his head. “That might be part of it, but even that
only within limits. No, that’s not the condition. There’s only one way I can
make sure that you have the experience you came for, and that’s for you to tell
me what it is.”
“You’re a sub?” That was said with nearly as much disgust as
sadist, but she also didn’t sound as if she believed it.
He laughed. “Not hardly. But I’m not psychic.”
She looked him over again. “You’re a Dom.”
“Yep.”
“All right. I’ll do what you’ve asked. I’ll tell you what I
came for. And you’ll give it to me?”
He smiled. “We’ll see, hmm?” There was a couch free,
miraculously, at the edge of his vision. It wasn’t as popular as a few of the
other couches because its back wasn’t against a wall and people walked behind
it a lot, but it would do fine for a conversation. “Let’s talk.” He walked
away, toward the couch, gambling that she would follow. Maybe she would, maybe
she wouldn’t. He didn’t mind strong-willed women—in fact he loved the
challenge—but he wasn’t entirely sure she’d do anything without challenging it.
That would get tiresome fast.
So if she doesn’t follow, fine.