Red Hot Obsessions (166 page)

“Okay. Ma’am.”

“Where shall I have you stand?” Rae mused aloud. The bars bolted to the walls might be a good choice. Hard chairs and stools and odd benches, some of them built with curves, waited in rows in the middle of the room. A huge thing that looked like a commercial loom stood in the very middle.

She would have to figure out what all this stuff was for if she was going to work here.

The papers that she could write for her Abnormal Psychology class next year might shock the hell out of her professors. They might even reinstate her scholarship if she published something.

“You can stand over there, Bashful,” she said, pointing to a row of bars near the back of the room.

Bashful trotted over there and stood, waiting.

So, evidently, Rae needed to tell him exactly what to do, every step. “Turn around,” she said. Bashful pivoted and faced the wall. “Grab the bars.”

Loss of volition is symptomatic of a number of psychological issues, but Rae felt like Bashful was faking it as part of the game.

Well, she was here to play his game.

“What shall we restrain you with?” Rae mused, looking at all the options hanging from the bars. The manacles might hurt him, especially if he pulled at all. The studded leather seemed particularly cruel.

“Um, Ma’am?” Bashful asked.

“Would you prefer handcuffs or to be tied up?” She glanced down at him, checking for fear in his watery eyes.

Instead, he looked confused. If she didn’t know better, she might have thought he looked aghast, but she was being pretty nice to him, considering all the predilections he had listed on his form.

“Um, handcuffs?” Bashful said, and again Rae heard that questioning tone in his voice, which must be his normal cadence.

Funny, he hadn’t added the “Mistress” part that time.

Rae clipped the handcuffs around his wrists, squeezed them, but didn’t tighten them too much. She didn’t want to hurt him. “Is that all right?”

“Yes.” Bashful fidgeted back and forth. His feet must be getting cold, poor guy.

She rubbed the whip handle up his back because she really didn’t want to whip him. She was afraid that she might hurt him badly, but he was expecting some whipping. She hadn’t read his chart in depth, but the whole whip section was marked up. He had scribbled a happy face next to his “high pain tolerance.”

She had to whip him sometime soon. They only had about fifteen minutes left.

Rae pulled back her arm to lash him.

She squeezed her eyes shut, tight.

~~~~~

Wulf Watches

Wulf arrived in the security booth moments after he left Reagan (what a perfect name and such a shame that she couldn’t use it professionally) with one of his favorite clients, Irish Setter. Irish Setter would submit to anything she dished out. Neurosurgeons occasionally need to relinquish their obsessive control.

In the security booth, a dark room where the feeds from all twelve dungeon cams glared on monitors hovering around the long desk, Wulf lowered himself into an office chair next to his Head of Security, Jeffrey Jackson.

The black man pushed his headphones off his ears and wound his muscled arms over his chest as far as he could. “Afternoon, Boss.”

“And to you, Mr. Jackson.”
Boss
was not an alternate appellation that Wulf usually allowed, but Jeffrey received some leeway. Their friendship stretched over five years, and yet even Jeffrey did not know the name “Wulf,” let alone the rest of it.

Wulf asked, “How is our new little Domme doing?”

“I’m not sure.” Jeffrey pointed to the screen in the upper left corner of the monitor bank marked
Play Room 1.
From the camera’s high vantage in the corner of the room, they could see the two people standing near the door. The angle afforded them a great view down Reagan’s beautiful cleavage.

Oh, how Wulf had enjoyed those lovely, real breasts last night. She smelled like peaches and flowers under her clothes. He could have chewed on her softness all night long. He had been disappointed when she had opted out of the usual business opportunity this afternoon. Perching her on his desk and sucking on those luscious tits until she came would have made for a memorable afternoon, if he didn’t get carried away and bite her. Even so, Wulf felt sure that a gorgeous handful like Reagan could handle some biting. He wanted to leave bite marks all over her under her clothes, her inner thighs, so that every time the bites hurt her, she would know that his mouth had been there.

No, the real temptation would have been to flip her over and take her on his desk, holding onto her scrumptious hips.

Jeffrey flipped a switch among dozens on the soundboard.

Rae’s dulcet voice sounded over the speakers, “Maybe we should start with you standing. Should we do that?”

Jeffrey said, “She keeps asking him questions.”

Wulf shrugged. “I’ll have to remind her that she’s not on
Jeopardy
. Being a Domme means never having to say ‘please.’”

They sat back and listened to Rae perform her scene with Irish Setter.

The sub said, “Okay, Ma’am.” Irish Setter wiggled a foot in discomfort.

Wulf frowned. He would have stung the sub for fidgeting, perhaps constructed the whole scene as a lesson around proper submissive stillness.

Irish Setter was giving her an opportunity to punish him.

On the monitor, Reagan turned around, seeming disoriented in the playroom. “Where shall I have you stand?” Her voice, tinny over the speakers, sounded tentative. “You can stand over there, Bashful.”

Irish Setter, finally given an order, hurried over to where she pointed.

“Why does she call him ‘Bashful?’” Wulf asked Jeff.

“She gave him a sub name of her own choosing,” Jeff said.

Wulf leaned back, more confident in her dominating skills. Stripping away even the client’s usual sub name was a nice touch.

“Turn around,” Reagan said.

Irish Setter faced the wall.

Wulf could see excitement tensing the sub’s body at her increasingly confident orders.

Reagan said, “Grab the bars.”

Wulf stretched his long legs out under the security board and folded his hands across his lean middle. She needed to take control earlier, but the scene was progressing. Wulf’s strategy from this point onward would have been to scrutinize the sub, finding faults that needed correcting. Subs liked to feel that they had developed in their submission during a scene.

“What shall we restrain you with?” Rae asked.

“See there?” Jeffrey said, pointing to the monitor that looked down on the two in the playroom. “Questions.”

“It’s not a fatal fault. At least it sounded hypothetical.”

Jeffrey twiddled a dial so the sub’s voice grew louder in the dark control room. “Um, Ma’am?”

“She’s confusing him with all the questions.” Jeffrey sipped his coffee. Whipped foam clung to his dark upper lip.

“She’ll come around. This is her first scene as a professional. She indicated that she had ‘extensive’ Domme experience in a private relationship.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed it.”

On the monitor, Reagan asked, “Would you prefer handcuffs or to be tied up?”

Wulf and Jeffrey groaned, as if watching a long golf putt slide past the hole instead of dropping in. Reagan was giving the sub far too much autonomy. Irish Setter came to The Devilhouse to relinquish his tightly wound control, not to answer a bunch of questions about would-he-like-chocolate-chip-or-strawberry?

On the monitor, Irish Setter said, “Um, handcuffs?”

“Whoa!” Jeffrey barked at the sub’s insubordination, and Wulf frowned. The sub had not used the Domme’s honorific, such as Mistress or Madam. He was begging for a beating. The sub wanted to know that this world was safe because rule infractions were punished, preferably harshly.

They watched Reagan on the monitor, peering at her from the camera above as she squeezed the handcuffs around the sub’s chubby wrists, waiting her for swift reaction to such an affront.

Instead of whacking a stripe on his back, she asked him, “Is that all right?”

Over the speakers, Irish Setter said, “Yes.”

Wulf stood, ready to intervene because this scene was spiraling into chaos. “Jeffrey, find Lena. She’s in the building. Tell her to meet me in Play Room One.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Reagan pulled back her arm to lash the sub and squeezed her eyes closed.

Wulf could tell by the awkward way that Reagan held the brutal signal whip that she had never whipped anyone with a single-tail whip, the most dangerous kind. If she lashed that sub from that terrible angle, she would flay him open to the bone.

Jeffrey stood, pointing at monitor where Reagan was posed as if he could reach through the camera and stop her.

Wulf ran.

~~~~~

Holding the Whip

Rae held the long, black snake of a whip until her fist cramped.

She didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to do this,
really
didn’t want to do this. She didn’t want to hurt this poor, nerdy little man who probably just wanted a girl to talk to him because no one dated the IT guys.

Lady Macbeth would whip the heck out of this guy. Lady Macbeth told her husband that she would stab and kill the king if she were physically strong enough to do it.

Lady Macbeth must not have been nearly six feet tall and probably hadn’t grown up on a ranch, wrestling calves that didn’t want to be branded and gelded. Though Rae had used a cattle prod rather than a bullwhip, she was pretty sure that she could crack this whip on this guy’s ginger-haired back. She just didn’t want to hurt him.

Rae sucked in some air, readying herself. She peeked at Bashful, hoping to see that he was leering at her, ready for a lash.

Instead, Bashful’s watery blue eyes widened with real horror. “Hippocampus!” he shouted.
“Hippocampus!”

Rae closed her eyes and wound up to strike him.

The door crashed open. “Lady Macbeth!”

Oh, yes,
she
was Lady Macbeth. Rae opened her eyes.

Bashful slumped forward, resting his head on the bars.

Wulf stood in the doorway. He straightened his shirt cuffs under his suit coat. “My Lady, if you would do me the honor of retiring to the Dominants’ lounge area, I will deal with this disobedient sub. He is beneath you.” He held out his hand for the long, black whip.

Even though Wulf had been kind enough to make it seem like she hadn’t screwed up royally, Rae knew that she was done at The Devilhouse. “Yes. Thank you, Sir.”

She held her head high, leaving Bashful handcuffed to this iron bar, and handed Wulf the whip, handle first.

Just as she walked past him, Wulf leaned and whispered in her ear, “My office. I’ll join you presently.”

She glanced up at him, dreading that she should see anger or derision or disappointment, but the expression in his deep blue eyes remained impassive. His left eyelid shuddered, almost a wink.

She strode out of the dungeon so she wouldn’t embarrass him further in front of his clients. As she pulled the heavy door behind her, Wulf stood behind Bashful, right behind where the little redheaded man was cuffed to the iron bar, very close to him but not touching.

Wulf murmured, so low that Rae almost didn’t hear him, “Mistress Rage will be here shortly. Shall we continue, Irish Setter?”

“Yes, Sir!” Bashful said.

Rae peeked through the door, watching.

Wulf coiled the long whip and laid it aside. Louder, he asked, “Did you think you could get away with such insubordination, sub? Lady Macbeth is a new Domme, and I trusted that you would be properly submissive. You have betrayed my trust, and you need a lesson in submission. Prepare yourself.”

“Sir, yes Sir! I mean no, Sir! Oh, yes, Sir!” Bashful chortled.

“Too much talking.” Wulf selected a riding crop from the glassed cabinet and then returned to Bashful. His low voice turned menacing, and his German accent strengthened. “I think you need a lesson in
silent
subservience. No more talking, or screaming, for that matter. Suffer in silence.”

Bashful said, “Yes, Sir!”

Wulf flicked the riding crop, an economical move born of practice, and Bashful recoiled from the lash. Wulf said, “I said, silence.”

This time, Bashful did not answer, and Rae eased the door shut.

In the red and black waiting room, Grumpy, Doc, Chubby, and Lumpy sat rigid on the edges of the red leather couches, waiting their turns in the dungeon.

Rae walked past them without speaking. She had no idea what she should say to them beyond apologizing for being a failure at what they wanted.

While she walked through the innocuous-looking office corridors and past the bruised receptionist, Rae breathed in her nose and out her mouth, controlling her emotions, or at least her appearance.

She didn’t want to cry. She certainly didn’t want Wulf to find her red-eyed and snot-nosed.

In The Dom’s office, she sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk, the penitents’ chairs, and fished her phone from her purse. Her head was starting to ache from tying her hair back so tightly. She opened her book app.

Reading a textbook for school would make her feel worse because she had lost her dang scholarship and this chance to stay in school, too.

Looking up “how to be a dominatrix” was fruitless, now. She should have studied that this morning instead of reading her abnormal psych textbook in the coffeehouse, which seemed obvious now because, without this job, she wouldn’t be taking any more classes.

Maybe, if she had prepared like a proper actress, she would have succeeded at this audition instead of failing so miserably.

Dang it.

Reading a novel or playing a game seemed like an additional waste of time. The only thing that might be a useful task was inputting the navigation to drive back to Pirtleville. She should pack her few clothes and toiletries and leave tonight. Even their dorm fridge belonged to Hester. A couple suitcases and some plastic grocery bags would hold all her possessions and stupid dreams.

Her eyes and nose stung.

She held back the tears, opened an app on her phone, and downloaded free ringtones for twenty long minutes.

The door behind her clicked open, and Rae tapped the home key to hide the stupid, useless thing that she was doing. At least she wasn’t teary any more.

Wulf walked over to his side of the desk. “I took care of Curtis. Why did you not stop when he said his safe word?”

“I didn’t know what to do.” She still didn’t know what a safe word was, but she bet that’s why Bashful started yelling
hippocampus
.

Wulf explained, “The safe word means stop, always, even in mid-stroke. Everything stops. You leap to unbind them. When something goes so terribly wrong, the only thing to do is stop everything.”

Everything had gone
so terribly wrong
. Rae should just leave now and spare them both any further embarrassment.

“You should not feel bad.” Wulf waved his hand toward the window, indicating that it should all blow away. “Do not take it to heart. Curtis was thrilled to receive some time with The Dom,” Wulf rolled his eyes a little, indicating his own amusement, “and then with Lena, who is one of our most experienced Dominatrices. I used to charge two thousand dollars an hour, back when I had time to play, and most of my clients were friends.” One of his blond eyebrows drifted up. “I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it.”

He didn’t look angry, but Rae was determined to make this right. She said, “Look, I need to apologize. I didn’t know what I was doing in there. My friend and I just played around, nothing like this.”

Wulf’s calm demeanor didn’t change but, still standing, he braced his fingertips on the desktop and leaned forward. His clear, blue eyes were implacable, and his face was as serene as still water. “Was there a friend?”

Rae felt like she was at a crossroads. Lizzy and Georgie had insisted that Rae should not lie to The Dom, not even a little bit, and yet she had padded her resume a little to try to get this all-important job.

No. She had padded it
a lot
.

Now, she either had to come clean or double-down on her lie.

Wulf had been trying to help her, and Rae didn’t lie to her friends. “No. There was no friend.”

Wulf didn’t have to ask why she had lied. Her reasons—desperation for money, pathetic lack of sexual experience—were written all over her application.

He did ask, “Is there anything else on your application that needs to be amended?”

Everything else, those sparse encounters, she had actually tried all those. “The rest is all true.”

“Even the orgy?”

She hadn’t overstated that particular night. “The cast party for
Hair
got pretty wild. At least five couples were using the bed in the back room. You couldn’t help but grope and be groped.”

“You liked it?”

The fumbling in the dark had exhilarated her in a way that no coupling ever had before. She had ended up necking with Laird while Dave had screwed her from behind and while Gennifer rode Laird. “Yeah.”

Wulf nodded. “That is a start.” He unbuttoned his suit coat and sat behind his desk. “I stand by what I said: you are a natural Domme.”

Rae thought he was mistaken but didn’t argue.

“Your lack of experience is problematic. Most consultants have more relevant life experience.”

“Um, yeah.” Before she came to The Devilhouse, she had been ashamed of having had five sexual partners, which included Dave but not Laird at the cast party and still seemed like far too many. After seeing the five men waiting to be spanked, Rae regarded herself as more prudish than most people considered Hester.

Wulf continued, “Our consultants can separate sex from love and play from a relationship because they have had those experiences.”

Rae felt compelled to give it one more shot. “I’m working on a double major in college: psych and theater. I’m an actor. I’ve done plays. I can act the same role every day for weeks and make the other actor and the audience believe it, and then go home at the end of the day, have a cup of hot cocoa, and blow it all off.”

Wulf nodded, then stretched his hands out on his desk. “I would not feel comfortable putting you in even as a trainee at this point.”

“I understand.” This was going nowhere. She needed to save them both from more mortification. Rae swiped her purse from the floor. “Thank you for your time, Wulf, um, Mr. van Hanover. You’ve been very kind, and I appreciate it.”

She tilted her head up, smiled grimly, and stood, ready to leave his office and this college town. She held out her hand across the desk to shake so she could flee. At least she hadn’t been so undignified as to break down and sob.

Wulf waved for her to sit down. “Wait. Let us speak for another moment.”

Rae sank down into the chair and hugged her purse in front of her like a teddy bear. Surely he wouldn’t give her another chance. He had to be smarter than that.

Wulf’s level gaze was businesslike. “Do you want be a Domme?”

“Yes,” Rae said and, for the first time, really meant it. She wanted to stay in college, she wanted to do some of the unfettered things she had checked on that list, and for some reason, she wanted Wulf’s approval instead of his disappointment.

No, she knew why, and she was fooling herself if she thought she didn’t. She wanted him to like her. She wanted him to think she was strong and smart and, yes, sexy, because she thought he was all those things.

“We could try private lessons,” he said.

“Pardon me?” That slipped out before she could catch it.

“Private lessons with me, so you understand the techniques of BDSM.”

She could search for that acronym,
BDSM,
when she got back to the dorm. “Okay.”

“You do not have to do this. We could find a way for you to stay in college. Loans, perhaps.”

“I know. I want to. I want to learn.” She didn’t add
with you,
but those words almost popped out of her mouth.

“Very good,” he said. “We can start now.”

“Now?” She had really hoped to look up that acronym first.

“Do you have somewhere to go?”

“No, it’s just, um,” she spread her hands out in defeat, “better than I had hoped.”

“Good. I am pleased.” He walked around the desk and held out his hand to her. “I’ll find us a nice, quiet play room.”

This time, his smile was toothier, and the sharp gleam in his blue eyes was wicked.

~~~~~