“This is important.” He stared at each person in turn. “It’s the integrity of our community that’s at stake here.”
I could maybe just kick the chair legs now.
“Mimi, are you listening? I said, I’m sure you can do it.” He brought one hand down to stroke his tummy like an owner did to a favorite dog. “We have faith in your ability to do what’s right.”
We? Who the hell is
we
? Pompous ass. At least he’s not touching me
.
“Just go and see the place and put in a report that it should be shut down.” He held out his spare hand toward her, across the table. Mimi ignored it. Clammy was an understatement. She never shook hands with him if she could help it. Their first meeting as a new member of staff and the headmaster had been enough. As soon as she’d pulled her hand away, Mimi had immediately wanted to go to the bathroom. How she’d resisted wiping her palm on her skirt she never knew. If he’d been headmaster when she’d been offered the job, she would have turned it down. However, he’d started at the same time as she did. As he had worked at another school nearby, as a deputy head, it was a step up for him, and Mimi was darned sure it had gone to his head.
Eric frowned, twitched his fingers and withdrew his arm to rest his hand over the one still caressing his midriff. God knew why he was so fond of it. It was mundane in the extreme.
“Why?” Mimi asked now. She should have known the slimy asshole had more than a cup of coffee on his mind when he’d asked her to meet him before the forum convened. She’d been wary of him and his ‘I am God’ attitude ever since she’d been introduced to him. With good reason, it seemed. Mindful of the fact he wasn’t called Octopus Eric without justification—those wandering hands
were
clammy—she had made her apologies and said no. Now maybe it would have been better to have met him, sat well out of arm’s length and told him what she thought of his idea and where to stick it. Instead he’d hit her with the request halfway through the meeting.
Was it really better to be forewarned and forearmed? Probably, though Mimi was surprised at the frisson of excitement that coursed through her. Not that she intended to show it to him, of all people. She suddenly realized she didn’t trust Eric as far as she could throw him. And she had a shit throwing arm.
“Why?” He actually harrumphed. Mimi hadn’t heard anyone under sixty make that sort of noise. “Well, it corrupts, and we don’t want such things going on around here.” His hectoring tone made someone titter and his cheeks reddened as he dropped his chair onto all four legs with a thump. “You don’t need to see it properly. Just go and check the door or something, then put in your report. You won’t be lying about having been there now, will you?” He looked around the room once more, as if daring anyone to contradict him. No one did, although Mimi decided several people seemed distinctly uncomfortable.
Unethical or what?
“I would about anything else though,” Mimi said in as even a tone as she could manage. “How can I do that without knowing?”
He snorted.
How many other noises can he make? He’ll be honking or hissing next. And why hadn’t I noticed his shirt is almost identical to those hideous puce and pink curtains?
“It needs shutting down. I’m going to recommend it is closed and those people sent on their way to the clean living committee when we all agree it’s bad for the area,” Eric said pompously in a voice full of righteousness. He stared around the bland—let’s fade into the background—room. Mimi thought if it wasn’t for those hideous curtains, you’d walk past the place and miss it. “The trouble with the people around here? They’re so pathetic. They won’t say boo to a goose without it being verified. Let’s face it. We don’t want that sort of stuff in our neighborhood
.”
Mimi saw that no one nodded their agreement, but no one openly disagreed. Were they scared of him?
Asshole. You know that how? You’re as much of a newcomer as I am. Is it move and all must go to Eric’s plan?
A couple of the other forum members nodded. Mimi noticed one woman dipped her head and said nothing, and the chairperson—a woman—looked from each of them in turn.
So, then it beggars the question, who doesn’t? And who says it corrupts? Something weird here… Why not have this mentioned in the meeting’s agenda and not in such a creepy crawly underhand manner? Surely you can’t demand people leave the area just because they enjoy themselves in the way they want?
“
Corrupts who, Eric?” How on earth she kept her tone level, Mimi had no idea.
You? Because it sure as hell hasn’t corrupted me. Each to their own.
Not that she had a hell of a clue what she was talking about, but the man pissed her off big time. Such a shame he was her boss. She had an inkling they’d clash before long and that sadly would not make for an easy work environment. However, she knew it was a case of needs must and tough. She’d weather it. “Do they sacrifice innocents or snatch grown-ups in from the road and make them do whatever? Force people to do things that they don’t want?”
He hissed and his nostrils flared.
I knew he’d bloody hiss.
Her normally placid temper changed in a second. Mimi slammed her palms on the table so hard her pencil jumped five inches into the air and landed on the boring, bland, beige carpet.
Grief, this room is depressing. Thank goodness I don’t have to come in here much.
The conference room wasn’t used very often, as it rarely got sunlight and looked out onto a blank wall and a row of rubbish bins. “Eric, listen up.”
So what if he’s my boss. Not here, he’s not
. “If you don’t want whatever it is around,
you
do something. However, do not involve me unless you want something all legal and above board. I’ll go. Oh yes, I’ll go, but by God you’ll get my honest opinion whether you like it or not.”
“I think it would best if you went undercover,” he said stubbornly.
Undercover? Does he think he’s M, or whoever runs the CIA?
Mimi rolled her eyes. “In your dreams,” she said slowly and clearly. “If you think I’m going to don a wig and a French maid’s costume, you’re delusional.”
He looked as if she’d taken his dummy away.
Interesting.
“Of course you won’t,” Theresa Martin, the chairperson said calmly. “Dominique, if you’ll do this, you’ll go and ask questions openly. They have a ‘Meet the Dom and chat to the sub’ night every so often. I believe the next one is on Friday. You’ll need to put your name down.” She handed Mimi a card. “That’s the phone number and the name of the guy who is in charge of it. I believe you’ll find it’s run by people just like us. All of us.”
Someone clapped.
Eric harrumphed. “Hmm, not normal.”
Who’s he to say what’s normal and what isn’t?
Mimi shoved the card in her pocket, half listened for the rest of the meeting and was pleased when she escaped at the end without having to talk to anyone else. She needed to think it all through.
With wine and chocolate. She had wine in the fridge, but she’d been trying hard to cut back on the chocolate. However, needs must. She headed for the supermarket near her home in a village a half dozen miles from the renovated castle the club was set in. One good thing about living where she did? The local shop stayed open until late and had a good selection of basics.
She grabbed her supplies, headed for her comfy cottage and wondered why fate conspired to laugh at her. What on earth had she done to deserve it?
Mimi unlocked her front door and pondered over the meeting she’d just left. After all his machinations, it seemed that Eric, the creepy one, hadn’t needed to put her name forward. The chairperson of the committee—a sub-committee involved in assessing what the area needed—politely thanked him for his unexpected addition to the agenda. He’d gone white then red again but merely nodded stiffly.
Theresa Martin had smiled at Mimi and asked if she would please talk to whoever the club offered as a spokesperson and report back to them what the next step ought to be. Theresa had added, with a smile, that it would work perfectly, as Mimi was new to the area and had no preconceived ideas.
“Which the rest of us might have.” She’d stared at Eric, who’d stirred uneasily.
Guilty conscience? Wants it, but won’t admit it?
As she had no idea whatsoever about what really happened in a BDSM club, Mimi couldn’t refute the statement. Books were all well and good, but as some completely disagreed with others, the only thing she was confident about was that she had no idea what was right and what was not.
Mimi poured a glass of Chenin blanc, grabbed some chocolate, mixed nuts and raisins, and took the card out of her pocket. She stared at the oblong piece of hard paper and wondered why Theresa’d had the details to hand.
A matte silver card with elegant black script. The writing was sparse. Just a name—Alex Sunderland—and a phone number. Nothing else? Not
Dom for hire
? She rolled her eyes at her idiotic thoughts. Anyone would think he was advertising his traits—or whatever they were called—and she was damned sure, if nothing else, it didn’t work like that.
Should she ring? Why did it feel as if she was about to change her life? Gah, too much late night reading.
Mimi took a sip of wine.
Do it now while you have the nerve.
She reached for her landline and almost dropped the wine as the phone rang. The caller ID wasn’t a number she recognized. Her hand hovered over the receiver. After years of annoyance, Mimi had made a pact with herself not to answer unknown numbers. She was sick of “I’m not trying to sell you anything but…” callers. However, she recognized this was a local number, even if she had no idea who it was. If it was Octopus Eric she could give him a well-needed mouthful.
It wasn’t. The answer machine clicked in.
“Hi, Dominique, this is Theresa Martin here. I just wanted to thank you for going to Diomhair. I know you didn’t offer, you were pushed, but it is really…”
Mimi picked up the phone.
“It’s Mimi,” she said. “If you call me Dominique I think I’ve done something wrong. And I know what you mean. Oct…er, Eric is a…”
“Pain?” Theresa said and her laugh echoed down the line. “A slimy, slobbering, wandering hands, self-important, pain. He always has been. I was at high school with him and he hasn’t improved. And I will refute that I said that. But you can understand why it’s important we get an impartial view. He’s a bombastic fu…er, person. I…I assume you are impartial?”
Mimi nodded then remembered she was on the phone and not face time. “Well, I’m clueless but not biased. Each to their own, I would have thought.”
“Exactly,” Theresa said in a cheerful voice. “Have you rung that number yet?”
Mimi rolled her eyes, glad that Theresa couldn’t see her. “I’ve only just got in. Isn’t it a bit late? I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Rubbish,” the other woman said. “Tomorrow never comes. And it’s the perfect time for Alex. He’ll be home now and so you can chat to him without his mind on other things.”
It is?
He is? I can?
“Um…”
“Oh, and you can tell him I gave you his card. He’s my little brother,” Theresa said. “Much to his disgust.”
“Right. So how little?” Mimi guessed Theresa was in her late thirties, around ten years older than Mimi herself.
“Seven minutes. I never let him forget I came first.”
Mimi laughed. “My elder brother is like that but, in his case, it’s seven years.”
“Bossy?”
“Yes, and annoying.”
“I know what you mean. You’ll know all about dominant men, then. Hold on a sec.” There were muffled voices and Mimi was sure she heard Theresa say ‘yes, Sir’. Then Theresa came back on the line. “I’ll have to go. My lord and master is home. So you’ll ring Alex now?” She couched it like a question, but Mimi heard the chairman in her voice.
“Yes, I promise.” She ended the call and looked at the receiver as if it might bite. Why had she promised? Now she had to keep her word.
Why was it freaking her out? Okay, she might not know much about BDSM, except the little she’d gleaned from books, but it didn’t worry her, disgust her or make her want to run screaming for the hills. If she was honest, it intrigued her. The thought that some people might want, need and like pain made her shudder, but she
was
a firm believer in each to their own. Surely this was a good chance to satisfy her curiosity? And maybe discover if she’d be interested in any of it.
Whatever ‘it’ was.
She began to dial.
The phone was answered promptly.
“Sunderland.”
The voice made her insides quiver. Whoever said a voice wasn’t enough to make your skin tingle, your clit clench and your juices gather and plead for escape was oh so wrong. It was more than enough. If she hadn’t been trying to get enough saliva in her mouth to talk, she would have moaned in…in what?
“Hello…is anyone there? Or is this a heavy breathing phone call. Because I can tell you now you need to practice the breathing bit. It’s rubbish.” His voice was harsh, but laced with humor and made her want to apologize in every way possible.
“Oh, um, sorry, yes.” How could she say, one word from you and I was in a sexual haze? That would be a great way to introduce herself. Mimi bit back a hysterical giggle. “My name is Dominique Leman. I’ve been given your card by your sister, to book a place on the ‘Meet the Dom’”—she stumbled over the word—“Dom and chat to a sub night on Friday.”