Safeword: Arabesque (Safewords Book 9) (36 page)

“I haven’t seen you try to get drunk since she left us, and you came close to losing it then.”

“But I didn’t.”

He kept tossing them back, as fast as he could pour.

“Are you getting anywhere?” Frisco noted several empty bottles of whiskey costing as much or more than this one.

Isaac shook his head. “I’ve had a few minutes of a buzz, here and there.”

“You can’t get drunk. Why are you drinking?”

“Why didn’t she want me around last night?”

“I don’t think she planned it.” He explained the lawyer coming and his bad news, her first time back to the dojo since Vegas, and then her accepting Frisco’s offer of dinner, and asking if they could drop her car off so she could get drunk. “I think she came up with kind of a spur-of-the-moment plan to get drunk and take something back. In this case? Her sex life.”

He told him the whole story, and Isaac threw shots back one after the other as Frisco talked.

When Frisco reached the part about asking her if he was only there to facilitate intimacy between Cassie and Cameron, Isaac put the whiskey bottle down and seemed to pay attention for the first time.

He listened to the rest of the story, and then leaned back to drink straight from the whiskey bottle instead of bothering with the shot glass.

Isaac should have been falling down sloppy drunk, but he seemed sober. Too sober.

“What do you propose?” Isaac finally asked.

Frisco shook his head. “It’s going to take a lot to get Cassie back to being okay, emotionally, but we need to take care of Cam now.”

Isaac nodded. “He needs to know where he stands with both of us, and needs something in writing. Formal.” He set the empty whiskey bottle on the table. “Do you want to work out your own agreement with him, and I have another? Or do the three of us hammer out one contract we’re all a party to?”

“The latter will be easier long term, but will be a bitch to work out.” Frisco finally asked the question burning him up inside. “Why did Cam come to you for a scene and sex, and not me?”

“You’ll have to ask Cam. He asked and I didn’t turn him down.” Isaac’s eyes were hard. Challenging. He paused, thought a second, and lost the confrontational attitude. “When I originally told him to come to me if he needed anything, it was with the understanding Cam and Cassie are a matched pair, and if I wanted Cassie I needed to woo Cam.” He shook his head. “But that isn’t why I fucked him.”

“Then why?”

“Because I wanted to. Plain and simple. I think I have to stop saying I’m heterosexual, but flexible when it comes to BDSM scenes. I’m not sure I’m comfortable saying I’m bisexual, but…I may have to
get
comfortable with it. I’ve always had a little bit of affection for the boy, but I’m starting to really care for him. I want him in my life. My bed.” He looked up and asked, “Don’t you see the irony? Cam accepted you back, got close to you, but came to me for sex. Cassie accepted me, got close to me, but went to you for sex.”

Frisco nodded as he realized why Cam had gone to Isaac. “You were safer. It was too dangerous to let me in. Cam was afraid of giving me power over him again.”

Isaac considered Frisco’s words a few minutes and said, “Do you think it’s the same for Cassie? She was afraid to let me get close?”

“Honestly? No. I think she wanted Cam to be part of it and she assumed Cam and I were already having sex.”

“So, you still think she used you?”

“Not used me, no. She showed me this morning she loves me, even without him around, but…” Frisco laughed. “I think we’re both going to have to accept how close the two of them are.”

Isaac shook his head. “Okay, so where do we start with Cam? I assume he’ll continue to live with Cassie?”

“I don’t want him calling me Master outside of a scene or the bedroom because I don’t want him to screw up and say it at work.” 

Isaac nodded. “I’m happy with Master anytime we aren’t in public, but should we try to be consistent? Or is it okay to have different rules with me than you? You’re more of a twenty-four / seven guy than I am.”

“I think he’s going to have to be okay with us having different requirements — for some things, at least.”

“I have a copy of your contract, from when you gave it to me when I kept him. Why don’t you, I, and Cam all go through it separately, write a version we’d be happy with, and then get together and see where we are?”

“An excellent plan,” Frisco said. Sometimes he forgot Isaac was a well-known and respected Dom, just in different circles.

“Okay, what about Cassie?” Isaac asked.

“I think we’re gonna have to be okay with the knowledge we’re nothing more than Service Tops until she heals emotionally.”

Chapter Thirty-Two

Isaac opened the door as Cam’s foot landed on the top step of his porch.

Cam took a breath, stepped up, and said, “You asked me to use the front door and stay clothed. Why?”

“Because we’re on equal footing until we negotiate the scene.”

Cam followed him in, and kept following until they got to the kitchen.

“Have a seat,” Isaac said as he sat, and pushed some paperwork towards an empty chair.

Cam read through it, then read it again, his heart thumping in apprehension. He looked up and asked, “So, I can’t stop the scene, I can only turn the lights on and off for twenty minutes?”

Isaac nodded. “I’ll keep a close eye on you, and if I think you’re panicking more than is acceptable, or hurting yourself beyond my ability to stop you, I’ll end the scene.”

“Do you have any idea how much you’re asking me to trust you?”

“I do, but since you were able to move through the dark to get upstairs when Cassie was in trouble, I believe you’re open to this. I think I can help you.”

“Ten minutes.”

“For a trial run? Sure. But, if it works and you can handle it, we need to give you a small break and go for another ten. We need a minimum of twenty minutes every time we do it.”

Cam struck out the old time, wrote in the new with a possibility of doing another ten if he okayed it, and signed the bottom.

He pushed it to Isaac and asked, “Can we do it now? If I have too much time to think about it I’ll chicken out.”

Isaac signed it, took a picture with his cellphone, and pushed the paper to Cam. “This is your copy. Do you want to call me Master, or Sir?”

Cam’s heart skipped a beat. “I’d love to call you Master, if you’ll allow it.”

“I will, but for today’s purposes you can call me whatever you want. Master, Sir, Isaac, or even a fucking bastard.”

“Sir, I would never!”

Isaac chuckled. “Don’t make promises just yet. C’mon, boy.”

Cam noted the heavy-duty shackles with super thick foam padding. Almost like they were hospital grade. Or maybe for mental patients.

Isaac buckled them onto both wrists and then knelt on the floor and buckled them onto his ankles.

“These cuffs are…different, Master.” Cam experimented with how it felt to call him Master, and liked it.

“Yes. I don’t want you to hurt yourself.” Isaac stood, fiddled with a remote, and said, “When I point at you, say ‘
Lights On
’, and when I point again, say ‘
Lights Off
’, okay?”

A few minutes later Cam was stretched out and bound in place standing at the base of Isaac’s bed.

Isaac wrapped something around the base of Cam’s cock, put electrodes on his balls, and had him stick his ass out so Isaac could slide a butt plug in.

“I’ll start the program in a minute,” Isaac said. “When the lights are turned on, there’ll be pain. When the lights go off you’ll have two seconds of nothing, and then the plug in your ass will vibrate and I’ll wrap my arms around you and hold you.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You order the lights back on? I step away and the TENS comes back on. Every five seconds the lights are on, the pain levels go up. You’ll be entirely in control of whether the lights are on or off.” He caressed Cam’s arm. “The door is still open for now. Use the commands a half a dozen times to be sure the software will recognize your voice. I haven’t started the program, so there won’t be any pain yet, and the open door will keep it from being dark when the lights are off.”

Cam said “Lights Off,” and then, “Lights On,” a dozen times before Isaac stopped him.

Isaac’s footsteps reminded Cam of a movie he’d seen once, where the executioner walked a certain way, and the sound of his footsteps was terrifying. Cam’s insides were shaking as Isaac walked back to him after closing the door.

“My command to turn them off will start the program,” Isaac told him. “After that, you’ll be in control.”

Cam took a deep breath as Isaac wrapped his arms around him and then gripped Cam’s cock. His fist was slippery and he stroked him until Cam was nice and hard in spite of Cam’s fear. Or perhaps, in some demented way, because of it.

“Lights Off.”

The darkness was total, and Cam tried to breathe through it. Isaac was holding him, his hand no longer on his cock — just holding him. Supporting him. The plug in his ass vibrated and he tried to focus on it, but it didn’t work.

Cam lasted as long as he could, and said, “Lights On.”

Isaac stepped back and Cam felt a shock in his ass, another on his right ball, one to his cock, to his left ball, and then back to his ass. The program was on a random generator, and Cam had no way of knowing what order it would go. Sometimes it hit one body part three or four times before traveling. When the pain was too much Cam gasped, “Lights Off!”

Isaac was immediately back and talking to him. “You’re okay. Just breathe through it. You can do it, boy. It’s just the dark. You know everything in the room. Nothing in here will hurt you while the lights are off.”

And so it went for ten minutes that felt like an hour.

When the lights came on and there was no pain, and Isaac asked if he could go another ten minutes, Cam planned to say no but instead asked, “How long should this take? I mean, how many sessions until it works?”

“You lasted seven seconds in the dark the first time, and twenty-three seconds the last time.”

What could he make it to, in another ten minutes? He was still alive. It’d been hell, but now that the lights were on and he wasn’t in danger of them going off? He felt silly.

“Start it again. Ten minutes, please.”

Isaac wrapped his arms around Cam and his deep voice said, “Lights Off.”

When the program ended this time, Cam hung limp from the ropes, exhausted.

Isaac released him from his bondage in seconds, walked him into another room, and pointed to a massage table.

“Lie down. You did excellent and deserve a reward.”

Cam collapsed onto the table and caught his breath as Isaac removed his wrist and ankle cuffs, situated him until he was comfortable, and said, “Music.”

A relaxing, new-age type song came across the speakers, and Isaac began the massage.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Cassie pulled into Frisco’s driveway and just sat.

Cam’s car was here, but Isaac’s wasn’t. She closed her eyes, rested her head on the steering wheel, and breathed.

She heard a car but didn’t look. When it parked, she opened her eyes and got out.

“You okay?” Isaac asked.

“Yeah, just nervous. I adore all of you but I’m not sure about everyone at once.”

“Which is why we’ll talk about what’s going to happen, first. No one wants to push you farther than you’re ready. We’re here to have dinner and discuss the possibilities, right?”

“I read the contract you and Frisco signed with Cam, and I understand why I don’t have one yet.”

Isaac touched her chin. “Tell me what you understand.”

“I’m not ready. I can barely have sex without freaking.”

“You haven’t tried it with me. Just Frisco.”

She thought he probably meant it as a reminder, a statement of fact, but it came out a little defensive and she realized she’d hurt his feelings.

“Oh, Isaac! Please don’t be jealous! It’s just the way it worked out. Maybe you and I should go to your house? Let Frisco and Cam have the night together, and maybe we try it with all four of us later?”

He cupped her cheek in his palm. “I want whatever you think will work best for you.”

Cassie looked at the house and back to Isaac. “I don’t want to go in there. I was sitting in the car, waiting as long as I could before I had to.”

Isaac lifted his phone and said, “Text Frisco. Can the two of you come out here, please.”

He looked at the screen, touched it, put it back in his pocket, and opened his arms.

Cassie stepped forward and let him enfold her in his warm, strong embrace.

Frisco was in jeans and an apron, Cam was naked with an apron, when they came out.

“Our girl is a little nervous about the evening. She was sitting in her car when I arrived.”