“You and your collar thing.”
“Oh, collars melt me. Big, black, leather ones—”
“Okay, okay, you pervert.” He looked around and leaned closer. “So then what? You're collared and panting…”
“Then he'd leash me and lead me around in front of her while she stared as if she were horrified at what she was seeing. She was a great actress.”
Jeremy chuckled. “Maybe I know her.”
I shrugged. “She could have been a professional actress. The first time we played the scene I was absolutely convinced that she was a novice, a reluctant partner, but by the end I kind of figured out the game. By the fifth or sixth time, I really started admiring her acting talent. Her distress was beautiful. She would stare and gasp while her Dom put me through the paces, flogged me, made me masturbate. He'd talk to her the whole time. 'See how she does what I ask as soon as I ask it? Whatever I demand? That's what you'll do too.' Then he would make us stand together, and he'd take whatever he'd put on me and put it on her. Collars, clamps, cuffs, harnesses. Sometimes he made me put it on her instead.”
He looked over at me. “You liked it.”
“I got off on it a little, yeah. She played the innocent so well. I felt like her sister, her mentor.”
“And you and she…” He seemed enthralled by the possibilities.
“Yeah. I would pretend to console her, soothe her while he watched. It went on from there.”
“Wait, you can't just say that. What do you mean, it went on from there? Details.”
I shrugged. “You know, it went on. He would dom us both then, tell us what to do to each other, make us get each other off while he watched.”
“You ate her out? She ate you out?”
“Not allowed. We did other things.”
“Like?”
I laughed. “There was lots of licking and sucking. Making out. We kissed and toyed with each other's tits. There was lots of grinding our horny little hips together and talking dirty by the end.”
“Oh yeah, that's good stuff.” He shifted beside me. “So how did that make you feel?”
“Pretty horny, Jeremy.”
“It's making me a little horny too. Was she talented?”
“Yes. Crazy talented, a hell of a lot more talented than me. And gorgeous. Huge, perky tits, responsive nipples. I could feel them harden right under my tongue, and I'd tug on her nipple rings with my teeth.” I was just teasing Jeremy now. He was all but quivering beside me. “And she had this amazing mane of long blonde hair I would twist up in my fists. Even the way she smelled was gorgeous, sort of musky and woodsy when I'd bury my face in the side of her neck.”
“Go on,” Jeremy breathed.
I shrugged. “Well, it was just work, you know? Ultimately the scene was between her and her Dom. I was kind of beside the point.”
“Just the facilitator.”
“No, not at all. He was the facilitator; I was only the prop. I was always the prop, the thing people used to get off.”
“'The thing people used.' Did you really think of yourself that way?”
“Yes, Jeremy, I still do. That's what I am. It's what I've made a career out of. I don't care.”
His lips pursed a little, and he leaned close to me.
“I think you do care.”
I looked down at my book. I really wanted to get back to Väinämöinen and the Maid of the North.
“What's your real name?” he asked.
“I don't tell anyone my real name.”
“Why?”
“I don't know, maybe for the same reason you keep employees instead of girlfriends. Personal space.”
He crossed his arms over his chest and sat back with a frown. So he didn't like that. Too bad. My real name was mine and mine only; it wasn't for use at a sex club, by a dominant, or by anyone who was paying me for my time.
“Nell is part of it, though? At least tell me that much. Nell is short for your real name?”
“Yes,” I said. “I'll tell you that much. Nell is short for my real name.”
“Lucynell?”
I laughed. “No.”
“Janelle?”
I closed my book with a sigh and put it away. It was going to be a long, long flight.
“Danielle?”
I shook my head. I leaned against the window, trying to wedge the flimsy airline pillow into some semblance of comfort.
“Here,” he said with impatience. “Lean against me if you're going to try to sleep.” He took my pillow and leaned it against his shoulder, and I rested gratefully against his warmth and solidness. He was quiet a long time, until the hum of the airplane had nearly put me to sleep.
“Eleanor?”
I shook my head against his shoulder, and finally, somewhere over the black ocean, I fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
* * *
Taking off had been nerve-racking, but arriving in Bangkok was completely insane. A massive press of humanity waited outside the airport: photographers, fans, crazy people yelling and gesticulating. “Jeremy Gray! Over here! Over here!” My instinct was to hang back, to hide behind someone, but Jeremy propelled me forward with his hand on my back.
“Smile, look happy to be with me,” he directed under his breath.
I was exhausted and sore from the flight, but I looked up into the wall of blinding flashes and gave what I hoped was a movie-star-girlfriend-caliber smile. The crowd converged on us, and I slowed. There was absolutely nowhere to go.
“Keep walking. Don't stop. They'll move out of the way.”
He pulled me closer, guiding me through the crowds. I was jostled and pulled, and then I felt Kyle at my back, urging us both forward. “There's the car,” he said.
The three of us dived into the limo, and the driver shut the door. The sudden silence was shocking after the pandemonium outside. I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.
“You okay?” Jeremy asked.
“Yes,” I said. “No. I don't know. That was crazy.”
I was sitting beside him, and though I wanted him to hold me, to comfort me, instead he leaned away from me, his face drawn and tired. He still looked like a movie star, even exhausted, but I thought I must look like absolute hell. Kyle rode backward, across from the two of us, wearing his usual smart-ass grin.
They talked about the hotel arrangements and the schedule for work while I drifted. I watched Kyle from under my lids. We'd had a few tense conversations since our rendezvous at my apartment. I flat out hated the man, but the vibe I got from him was more that of a jealous friend. I suppose he'd been Jeremy's golden go-to pal until I got thrown into the mix.
I watched Kyle lean forward and explain the hotel arrangements. There was something between them that struck me. A closeness. No. It couldn't be. Jeremy was straight as an arrow. But it was a little weird, the way they talked to each other. The way they worked so easily together. As if they shared some kind of intimate connection. To be honest, I suspected Kyle wasn't totally straight. The man had highlights in his hair, for God's sake. He was a flaming metrosexual, and looking at his tight, sexy body and supermodel face… I suppose someone as sexy as that could swing just about any way he wanted to. If I'd learned anything the last few days, it was that anything was possible in the world of the rich.
But no. No.
No
. Kyle was his personal assistant; that was the only reason they seemed so close.
Kyle looked over at me then, and I quickly looked away, but not before I saw it again, that same look.
Jealousy
. A moment later he was looking at Jeremy. Jeremy didn't notice. His face was propped on his hand as he stared out the window. My own eyes started to close. I was too tired to analyze it anymore.
“How far to the hotel?” I asked.
I don't remember any answer. The next thing I knew, I was in Jeremy's arms in an elevator, the beat of his heart against my ear. Then I vaguely remember him carrying me down the hall to our hotel suite and laying me in bed.
* * *
When I woke fully rested, I realized to my chagrin that it was night again, nearly ten. I was still wearing my jeans and top from the flight, and my shoes were arranged beside the bed. I was alone in a beautifully appointed hotel room, my suitcases stacked in the corner beside a tufted armchair, a bureau, and a huge decorative vase. There were two paintings and a small desk on the other wall, and a door that opened to the bathroom. The other door, I assumed, let out to the main room of the suite.
So I would have my own room. I lay back on the starched white sheets and pulled the coverlet up. I was wide awake, and the long, dark night stretched ahead of me. It was utterly silent. Jeremy was either away or sleeping or engaged in some activity that made no noise at all. There was no window in my room, which made it feel strangely confining, even though the door was open wide.
I got out of bed with a sigh and ran my hands through my unruly hair. A trip to the luxurious, mirror-walled bathroom revealed that I looked just as bad as I thought I did.
A shower was in order. I went to my suitcase and dug out a pair of the formfitting pajamas that Jeremy bought me before we left, which were, thankfully, as comfortable as they were sheer and sexy. I went back into the bathroom, which we apparently would be sharing, since his things were spread out on one side of the counter and his toiletries were in the shower.
I stared at them as the hot water ran over me. Jeremy's soap, Jeremy's exfoliating face wash, Jeremy's shampoo and conditioner right there next to mine. Surreal.
It still felt great to get clean, to shave and wash and just stand in the steam and steep. I probably showered for twenty minutes or more, then got out and wrapped up in a lovely, fluffy thick towel. No thin, sandpaper-like hotel towels at this place. I put on the pajamas, which left nothing to the imagination, and considered the spa robes hanging on the wall. They didn't say
His
or
Hers
anywhere, and neither looked as if it had been worn, so I chose the one closest to me and wrapped up in it.