Submission: Guilty Pleasures #3 (BBW Erotic Romance) (2 page)

“No, not at all. It’s fine.”

The waitress appeared and I
ordered a decaf coffee and pie. I’d be up late anyway, no use compounding it
with a caffeine jag. Stacy was watching me, her blue eyes intent.

“You want to talk about Chase?”
She started working through the hash browns, waiting for my reply.

“Actually, no. I’d like to talk
about someone else. Her name is Jane.” I waited for her reaction, not surprised
that she had none. She wiped her mouth, took a drink of coffee.

“Jane? What do you want to know?”
Her tone was neutral but I sensed tension behind the suddenly serious blue
gaze.

“I was wondering if you could tell
me about her and Jake...Jake Meyers. Chase told me that you knew her from working
at the same dance club. I know she disappeared, had some trouble sometime back.
I wondered if you could tell me a bit more about that.”

Stacy looked at me over the edge
of her coffee cup. “Jane had a lot of problems. I think she tried to work them
out by being a submissive or something. Can’t say that’s the best route to take
when you have that kind of history, but we all do what we think is right, you
know?”

I nodded, unsure as to what she
meant exactly, but desperate for her to continue.

“But between you and I, I really think
she chose the wrong guy to be her Dom. Jake was completely out of his league
with her. Almost anyone would have been, really. She was a handful. A real lost
soul with the kind of pain that you just don’t mess around with.” Stacy set
down her cup, motioning to the waitress for a refill. She waited until the
waitress had left our table before speaking again.

“Did Chase tell you that she had
been abused?” Her question caught me off guard.

It occurred to me she didn’t know Jake
was my Dom. I nodded.
Close enough to the truth.

“He did something that sent her
over the edge. She’d told me some of the things he’d done to her so I wasn’t all
that surprised.” Stacy was studying me, watching my face closely.

“Abby, are you okay? You got real
pale all of a sudden.”

I shook my head. “Yeah, I’m fine.”
My voice sounded totally unconvincing, even to myself. I shrugged, fidgeted for
a minute and then gave up trying to bluff my way through this.

“Jake is my Dom.” I met Stacy’s
gaze, expecting some kind of negative reaction. She reached across the table,
her hand on top of mine.

“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know
that but you really need to rethink that decision.”

Stacy spent the next twenty
minutes recalling every conversation she had with Jane about Jake. The more she
talked, the harder it became to listen to all that she had to say. Nothing she
said sounded anything like the Jake I knew. I finally held up my hands in
protest, unable to stomach any more.

“Please...this isn’t...it can’t be
true. Maybe it’s Jane’s version of the truth, but it can’t be right.” My head
hurt. Stacy had described some very dark and intense things, things that made
my heart thud uncomfortably in my chest, made me incredibly uncomfortable. Jake
had said their sessions were intense, but what Stacy had just described seemed
almost surreal.

I looked down at my pie, pushing
the half-eaten bits around on my plate, my appetite suddenly gone.

“Well, you can always ask her
yourself, if you want her side of the story.” I looked up, startled.

“I thought she’d disappeared, that
no one knew where she was?”

“Yeah, she did, for a time. But
she came back to the club not long ago. You’ve already seen her.”

“I have?” I was more confused now
than ever.

“She was at the club the night
Chase brought you there.”

I shook my head. I hadn’t met
anyone named Jane. And I certainly didn’t think Chase would have introduced me
to her.

“You watched her in a session.”
Stacy tipped her head, her eyes bright.

“She was the woman on the St.
Andrew’s cross.”

––––––––

T
he woman on the St. Andrews’
cross.
The black-haired woman that was being whipped by a man named Martin.
I’d watched her, watched the ecstasy blossom on her face as the whip bit into
her skin, as the man cracked it higher and higher. I’d been so turned on by
watching the scene that I’d practically begged for Chase to take me in the hall
outside the session room. He’d given me exactly what I wanted, taken me
upstairs, to a different room. We’d come together with such force, such incredible
passion, it still took my breath away to think about it.

Stacy was still watching me. “You
really got it bad for Chase, don’t you?”

I blinked, trying to keep from
showing any emotion. But I’ve been told, repeatedly, that my thoughts and
feelings are always clearly written across my face. I simply nodded.

“It’s complicated.”

Stacy laughed. “Most good things
in life are.” She regarded me for a moment, as if weighing her next words
carefully.

“He’s changed, you know...Chase has.
Since he met you, I mean.”

Her statement confused me, caught
me completely off guard. “How so?”

Stacy leaned forward, resting her
arms on the table. “The weekend he went away, left me in charge of the club...he
was with you?” I nodded. So did Stacy.

“Before that weekend, Chase
brought a different woman with him nearly every night the club was open. But
since then, he’s brought no one else until you. It really surprised me to see
him change so much...so quickly. I’d been dying to meet the woman who finally
tamed Chase Thomas.”

The smile on Stacy’s face was
genuine, her voice earnest. “I’ve known Chase a long time. I know a bit about
his past; he’s told me some. I guessed the rest. He’s not as good at keeping
secrets as he thinks he is. At least not with me”

“I see.”  I replied nodding
although I wasn’t sure exactly what I was agreeing to. Stacy’s words caught me
off guard. The idea of Chase being such a womanizer stung my heart like a swarm
of angry hornets. I suppose I was naive to think that someone as beautifully
broken as Chase wouldn’t catch the attention of other women or that he wouldn’t
perhaps take advantage of the fact that people are naturally drawn to him.
Still, the idea that right up until he met me he had been with so many women
was hard to swallow and I struggled to force the idea down my throat so that I
could once again breathe.

“For as long as I’ve worked with
Chase at the club... hell, even before that, he’s always had a revolving door on
his bedroom. He’d bring women to his club, show them off, take them back to wherever
he takes them and...before you know it, they’d be gone. Next night, a new girl,
same routine. I felt sorry for some of them...they were pretty taken by him. Some
knew the game though and played along and those that didn’t learned all too
quickly that Chase wasn’t the kind of man that would let women fall in love
with him.”

Stacy cocked her head again,
considering me in the bright fluorescent light of the diner.

“But you...he was different with you
from the minute I saw you two together. He treats you like you really mean
something to him, not like just another girl that he’s hooking up with for the
night. For one thing, he introduced me to you.”

Stacy pushed her empty plate away.
“I like seeing him like this. You’re really good for him.”

I didn’t know what to say. There
was a voice in the back of my mind telling me something wasn’t adding up here,
but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Stacy interrupted my thoughts.

“How did you meet Chase?”

Hadn’t she seen me with Jake?

I thought back to that night we
first met, when Jake had brought me to the club. I didn’t remember seeing
Stacy. But I’d been so focused and incredibly nervous on being in a submissive
role with Jake, then meeting Chase for the first time and the prospect of a
public session with a stranger, I could have missed seeing almost anyone.

“I first came to the club with Jake,
as his submissive. Chase...did some rope work with me in a session.” I wasn’t
sure how far to go into detail with Stacy. I figured she would get the general
idea without me having to spell it out.

It was her turn for her eyes to go
wide. “You’re
that
woman?”

I scowled. “What ‘woman’?”

Stacy burst into sudden laughter.
“You have a reputation. I only heard about the session after it was done. I
didn’t get to actually see it.  Chase had asked me to keep an eye on the
club that night, that he had guests that he wanted to spend time with. 
So, I was back in the private rooms with our regular clients. I had heard later
that Chase had a wild session and that it was just amazing.”

My frown must have deepened. I
wasn’t sure where this was going.

“It’s okay. Don’t look so shocked.
It’s just that every once in a while a session gains a kind of mythic
status...yours is one of them. And especially if Chase is involved. He doesn’t do
many sessions anymore. I’d heard he’d done some fantastic knot work and your reaction;
well...it was pretty intense by all accounts. You went off somewhere we all wish
we could go. I’m sorry I missed it.”

I felt a flush creeping up my
cheeks. I knew darned well the session was public, but I’d been so focused on
Chase and his knots I’d almost forgotten I had an audience.

Stacy gave me a sympathetic smile.
“Don’t worry...it’s okay. It’s what we want to have happen in the club...it’s good
for business.”

The waitress arrived with the
checks. “Sorry if that sounded a little cold...I get into business mode sometimes
without thinking of how it comes across. But the energy from a session like
that just buzzes through the whole place. You know; I was there when you saw
Jane and you had quite a reaction.”

I blushed again.

She winked. “It’s okay, it’s all
so intense. Not exactly something you experience every day, you know?” With one
quick gesture, she grabbed both checks.

––––––––

S
tacy had given me a number where
I could try to reach Jane. I gave it a day, thinking about what I wanted to say
to her so that I didn’t sound like a maniac or scare her off. It was after
dinner when I finally punched the number into the phone, my heart beating in an
erratic little dance in my chest.

The phone rang for a long time and
I realized there probably wasn’t going to be any voice mail system that would
allow me to leave a message. I sighed. This wasn’t going to be easy.

Just as I was about to hang up the
ringing stopped. I wasn’t sure if a machine picked up, the phone had
disconnected or if someone had answered.

“Hello?” There was a groggy female
voice on the other end.

“I’m sorry to bother you. I’m
looking for Jane?”
You don’t even know her last name, Abby.

“Who the hell is this? If you’re a
telemarketer, I’ve got a police whistle here and I’m not afraid to use it.” The
voice had lost its groggy tone; it sounded more like an angry bear someone woke
up early from hibernation.

“My name is Abby Phillips. You
don’t know me...”

“You’re damned right I don’t know
you. And I’m not buying anything you’re selling.”

I knew she was going to hang up
any moment and in desperation I shouted, “I’m Jake Meyers’ submissive, so please
don’t hang up!”

There was silence on the other end
of the line. I thought I’d lost her but I finally heard a muttered sigh...or a quiet
curse.

“What do
you
want?” I heard
the sound of a match, then a long exhale.

“I wanted...I was hoping I could
meet you, talk to you about...well, Jake.”
Smooth. Well planned, Abby.

There was a snort of laughter on
the other end, followed by another long whoosh of breath. I could almost smell
the cigarette smoke through the receiver.

“Is he being a bad Dom?” There was
another laugh, just as unpleasant. “Yeah, okay. I’ll meet you. Only because I’m
curious to see who Jake’s with now.”

Jane gave me an address, a small
bar in a rundown neighborhood a long way from my apartment. She said she’d be
there at some time around ten o’clock, when her shift started.

“If I remember, I’ll try to be
there a little early. But don’t count on it.” The line went dead.

Why do all these people stay up
all night?
 I tried to take a nap, but I was too restless to actually
sleep. I finally gave up, changed into jeans and a simple t-shirt and drove to
the address Jane had given me.

The bar was on a long block lined
with other sleazy bars, a dance club and, incongruously, a church.
Well,
maybe they need some place to go on Sunday that’s still in the neighborhood.

I pushed open the heavy wooden
door. Even though there’s no smoking in bars anymore, I still felt the
accumulated nicotine from decades of cigarette smoke immediately coat my skin.

The bar was dim, barely lit by the
neon lights of the back bar and a faded, flickering beer sign near the door
with one ‘e’ missing. There was no pool table, just a long bar and a few small
tables scattered in the remaining open space.

A few heads turned my way, giving
me a once over as I made my way into the bar. I knew Jane had black hair, but I
wasn’t sure I’d recognize her face. I peered down the length of the bar,
finally seeing a dark-haired woman seated on the last barstool, elbow on the
bar, nursing a drink.

She barely looked up at me as I
sat down but she did straighten up on the stool.

“So, you’re Jake’s new sub. Not
what I would have pictured, but then again, who knows what his latest kink is.”

I watched as she drummed her
fingers on the bar, fiddling with a book of matches. I was nervous meeting her
but I suspected her nerves stemmed from a strong desire for a cigarette.

“You want to know about Jake? What
my time with him was like?” She motioned to the bartender, who ambled down,
refilling Jane’s drink. He cocked an eyebrow at me and I pointed to Jane’s glass.
He nodded and wandered down the bar, eventually returning with a glass of what
I hoped was soda. I took an experimental sip; it was.