Going Too Far (The Curvy Submissive) (2 page)

“Dad wanted the world for you, Kat. That’s what he told me
before they put the tubes down his throat. He said,
I want the world for my
little girl
.”

Dad.
I stopped in my tracks at the door, one hand
hovering over the knob, fully intending to slam it on both of them. I didn’t
even know why I was angry with Josh except that he was Brian’s BFF first and my
hero second. I didn’t doubt Josh thought I was wasting my time too. How could
he not? Proof was in my back pocket.

I slowly turned back to face my brother. He shrugged as if
suddenly disinterested in this game.

“Which is why he’d be so fucking disappointed in you if he
could see you now.”

Josh closed his eyes briefly as these words fell on all of
us. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes and welled there, but I refused to
shed them for Brian. He’d get too much satisfaction out of them.

“You know Brian, you really suck sometimes.”

I stalked out of the office into the dusty, empty bar and
halted right in the middle of the dance floor. A shaft of light fell through a
dirty window and brightened a square of space crisscrossed by scratches,
scuffs, and tears. I yearned to be surrounded by the press of bodies, the
anonymity of strangers chasing a good time like it might be their very last.

Behind me I heard Brian and Josh throwing hard, angry words
at each other, but they kept their voices down. Before Josh came barreling out
of the office, I heard him bark an order that shut Brian’s argument down. The
next words out of his mouth were tempered with calm violence like I’d never
heard in Josh before.

“You ever lay a hand on her again and I swear we’re done.
You’ll be lucky if I don’t break your arm when I throw your ass out on the
street. Do you understand me?”

____________

Josh

“Yeah, I got it. Why don’t you go play the hero, Josh?
You’re so good at it when it comes to my sister.” Brian dropped down into the
chair behind the desk and simmered. I knew the look well enough to know we were
done for now, but it wouldn’t be the last we argued about Kat. Any more it was
his favorite topic of ridicule and my tolerance for it had about reached its
limit.

“You know, you could try being her hero sometimes, too.”

Brian looked away and for a second I hated him even if he
was my best friend. He floundered pathless and I rarely saw him pursue anything
with any sort of passion. He’d become increasingly more convinced he’d been
screwed in life, dealt the shitty hand, but he could make up for it by exerting
his will over everyone around him. He thought controlling people, controlling
his sister in particular, would ease his misery. I hated seeing him go this
way. It hadn’t always been like this.

I turned to leave the office when something on the floor
caught my eye. Halloween costume cat ears. Kat’s no doubt. I snagged them off
the floor as I left the office. It took every ounce of my control to walk
instead of storm and draw the door shut instead of slam it.

Kat stood in the middle of the room in her calf-high leather
boots, one toe drawing shapes along the scratches and worn patina of the dance
floor. Kat had scratched her name many nights on that floor over the years.

She kept her back to me, pins and patches and Sharpie drawings
decorating her backpack to celebrate all the geeky things she loved. As I
approached she turned lazily, falling from the toe of her boot to her heel like
she might have been imagining herself dancing even then. I held up the glitter
dusted cat ears and she accepted them from me without a word. Her fingertips brushed
mine, cold and a little damp and when she looked up I realized she’d been
crying.

“Hey, hey, it’s ok.” I hesitated, but she looked so beaten,
so on the verge of breaking in two that I couldn’t stop myself from touching my
thumb to her cheek to wipe away the collected tears there. She clutched the cat
ears between her hands and looked down at the space between us.

“He shouldn’t have said that about our dad.” She sniffed and
quickly slid the cat ears into her hair, strands of fat blond curls falling messily
across her cheek. She gazed up at me through her damp lashes. “Thanks for
grabbing them. Superheroes need their costumes after all.”

“You’re welcome.
Katrina
.”

She snorted. “Cute. You get girls with that charm? I
disbelieve.”

I grinned and offered her my arm which she dove into without
needing to be asked twice. She tucked herself against me and I dragged her over
to the bar, neither of us minding that she was too old to be treated like a
kid, if just this one time.

Brian had grown increasingly more embarrassed by her
brashness, her youth. At first glance she could have passed for a teenager,
especially when she showed up at the bar with bright pink streaks framing her
face and a wrist full of black plastic bracelets. Today she wore striped
knee-high socks with a black skirt that might have otherwise been professional.
She worked at home, kept odd hours, and spent many nights at the bar,
just
because
. Sometimes she helped the waitresses out and without getting paid
for it. It wasn’t odd for her to take over a corner booth, order nachos and a
cherry coke and spend four hours reading Harry Potter.

But all of those things were superficial, things she took
pleasure in because she was still young and bright enough to be unashamed of
the things she loved.

I envied that about her. She made living in the world look
so damn easy.

Kat climbed onto a barstool and then slid up onto the bar
top, which I’d told her a million times not to do, but I let it go today. She
sat cross-legged as I slipped back behind the bar to finish putting glasses
away.

“I’ve got a party to go to tonight, but I can help out
tomorrow with the Halloween rush if you want.”

“Only if you let me pay you.” Her cheeks reddened at the
mention of money, Brian’s set down a little too fresh. I regretted bringing it
up again, but she shrugged it off easily and stole a cherry from the dish
behind the bar I’d just filled. I watched her tie the stem into a knot between
her bright pink painted fingernails.

“You and I both know I’ve scammed so many free drinks off
you I’ll be working my tab off until I’m an old spinster.”

 “And you know I don’t even keep track.” I started making
her a pomegranate Shirley Temple, her new favorite, which recently replaced
amaretto and sprite, her old favorite. “And I strongly doubt you’re going to
end up a spinster. Maybe surrounded by cats, but probably not a spinster.”

“Brian says, and I quote,
No one will ever marry you
because you’re an intolerable brat and I’m going to be stuck taking care of you
for the rest of my life
. End quote. He’s a self-pitying jerk, but I’m not
entirely sure he’s wrong about that part.” She shrugged. “I’m not even sure I
mind all that much. I like cats.”

I couldn’t imagine anyone thinking Kat was a burden though.
She took care of herself better than most of us.

“Want to know a secret?” Kat pulled her backpack into her
lap and dug out a manila folder. She dropped it between us and folded it open
to a mess of pictures and glossy printouts with South River’s logo emblazoned
across the top.

“God yes.”

“I’m secretly holding out for a kinky billionaire. Novels
have taught me they are like locusts. I just have to stand still long enough
for one of them to crash into me.” I almost dropped the glass I was holding,
catching it just in time. She raised an eyebrow at me but didn’t ask, thank
god. “We’ll fall in love, see, and I will make art for our dungeon. Or
ballroom. Or whatever kinky billionaires like to spend their money on. I’m not
picky.”

I cleared my throat and set the slippery glass aside. “Good
to see you have a plan for your future.”

“In the mean time I have the mock-ups for your web ad ready
for your approval. I know we took these great pictures of the model on the bar
and don’t get me wrong, she’s hot. I mean, who wouldn’t want to
do
her?
But I took these other pictures when we were fooling around after the shoot and
all the waitresses are hanging out with the model behind the bar and I think I
like them even better.”

She scooted closer and I settled my arm across the small of
her back to keep her from inadvertently tumbling off the bar top. “Show me.”

Kat was talented, no doubt about that. Her pictures popped
off the glossy paper and felt very real. She had a gift for capturing people at
their best.

“See, most women look like me. They’re normal, busty, curvy,
overweight, underweight, flat chested, and oddball. None of us look like this
hot model with legs that are just, oh my God, longer than should be legal. Put
these normal girls who are real South River waitresses on the website banner
and print ads. Remind your customers that all women are beautiful here, not
just the ones I photoshop.”

Kat leaned back to give me space to examine the pictures,
but instead I watched her, proud of herself and her work, Brian momentarily
forgotten. She carried a little extra weight in her chest and thighs mostly,
something she always bemoaned, but suited her even if she didn’t realize it herself.
Brian had no idea what he was missing out on. Secretly I was thankful she
didn’t walk out and only call on holidays.

When she caught me staring, a pink blush colored her cheeks
and worked its way down her neck.

“The pictures,” she insisted. I tore my eyes away from her
and her crazy adorable black cat ears.

“You’re right; the waitresses feel more like South River
than the model. Do it. You’ve got my full support.” I cleared my throat and
eased into my next sentence carefully watching her reaction. “I can pay you
before it’s done, if you need me to.”

Her cheeks darkened and she hunched forward to pull her
pictures back into the folder. “It’s not gotten that desperate yet.”

“You’ll come to me if it does, right?”

She waved me off, but didn’t look at me. “You don’t have to
worry about me, Josh. I’m cool.”

“I know you’re cool, Kat, but just in case you’re ever not. Don’t
go to Brian.”

It was dangerous coming between them, I knew that. I mostly
stayed out of it if I could because I couldn’t afford to piss off either one of
them. And I didn’t want to. But in this I felt comfortable blocking Brian’s
immediate threat.

She hesitated, her hand came to linger over the silver
heart-shaped necklace she wore at the hollow of her throat, a gift from
someone, but I didn’t know who. She lifted her eyes towards Brian’s office and
frowned.

“Yeah, alright,” she murmured. “What would I do without you,
Josh?”  

“Luckily, Kitty Kat, you’ll never have to find out.”

____________

Kat

“Get your ass off the bar.”

Brian lurched out of his office and soldiered to the bar
with laptop and vendor files in hand. I sighed and Josh stepped back, offered
me his hands, and I let him capture my waist and lift me down. I didn’t point
out that I was like, forty pounds too heavy for him, and he didn’t act like he
noticed. I leaned against the bar and fed myself peanuts while Josh leaned
against the back bar and went back to wiping down his glasses. 

“I don’t know how many times you have to be told,” Brian
went on. “This isn’t your personal playground.”

I rolled my eyes and Josh rolled his. I nudged his boot with
my toe and he nudged back.

“Maybe just once more. I think I’ve almost got it.”

Brian looked up and frowned. “That’s not funny.”

Brat
, Josh mouthed as he set one glass down only to
pick up another. I grinned.

“So what’s this party you’re going to tonight? Will there be
drinking? Dancing? Boys?” Josh raised a teasing eyebrow. At the mention of the
party, my heart gave a little stumble and I nearly choked on a peanut.

“It’s, sort of, I guess a costume party? Julie’s picking me
up. It’s nothing special. You know, pretty dresses and masks sort of thing. Lots
of shameless, anonymous flirting.”

Not a lie, but not even close to the truth. The truth made
my palms sweat and sent a creeping tingle up my arms to my shoulder blades.

Because it was something special. Something I couldn’t say
out loud, especially not to adorable Josh who was, as far as I could tell, also
kind of boring even though I loved him to death anyway. The bar kept him from
dating much, so calmly telling him that I was going to a super-secret private
bondage party for beginners was as impossible as inviting him to come with.

I’m going to learn about spanking and submission, Josh.
What are you doing tonight? Movie and popcorn with my brother? Cool, cool.

Instead I smiled and tried not to turn bright red.

“So, like a masquerade?”

“That’s exactly it.”

He grinned. “Sounds hot.”

I shoved a handful of peanuts into my mouth and nodded
dutifully without answering.

“You’re working tomorrow though, right?” Brian scowled.
“Because you know Halloween is a huge night for…”

“She’s not actually an employee,” Josh interrupted. “If she
shows up, she shows up. We’re not enslaving her.”

An image of leather wrist cuffs and strips of nylon rope
flooded my thoughts. There was nothing you couldn’t learn from the internet and
I’d spent every night for a week looking up whatever I could on bondage. It had
been… educational. Surprising. Hot. A little embarrassing. Kind of scary.

Without realizing it I’d wrapped my fingers around my right
wrist and almost touched middle finger to thumb. When I glanced up, Josh was
watching me, expressionless.