Leaving his office, Shelby tried not to be noticed. And to her surprise, the atmosphere outside Mr. Harold’s office was perfectly normal. Not one sidelong glance, not one stare or snicker.
“His office must be soundproof,” she thought to herself.
As she scooted off toward the restroom to repair herself, she knew that this had been the very worst thing that had ever happened to her, and yet, there was the most awesome feeling of warmth and lust racing through her. She could have masturbated on the spot… if she’d had the time. She blushed to herself thinking how wicked it all was. Her fantasies would now be all the more inflamed by the stimulating moments with Mr. Harold and his leather spanker.
Chapter Ten
Reggie stood on the edge of the hot tub looking down at the bubbling hot water.
“You coming in?” Will looked up at him and asked.
“Yeah, for a while. I should be getting back.”
“Back to what?”
“I have some work at the office,” he explained, settling in across from his friend. He’d had a hellacious work out so he was aching all over, that good kind of ache after strenuous exercise. It had been good therapy for a day too filled with too many reminders to suit him.
“You know, Reg, you look stressed. Something bothering you?” Will asked.
“Not my usual relaxed and peaceful self?” he joked.
“Hell no.” Will waited a moment before he said it. “It’s Jocelyn, isn’t it?”
“She’s been gone two weeks.”
“God, you’re probably horny too,” Will snickered.
“That’s not my problem. I can have all the sex I want,” Reggie replied.
“Can you now?” Will didn’t believe him.
“You trying to say something?” Reggie looked at his friend suspiciously.
“Yeah, you don’t have all the sex you want because you want it with Jocelyn,” Will went right straight to the point.
Reggie stared off for some minutes. The thoughts in his head were as agitated as the water around him, one bubbling cauldron. He didn’t really like the heat in either place.
“Dammit, Will, I’m breaking every relationship rule I’ve ever had.”
“And is that a problem?”
“For me it is. I’m courting a woman who’s as strong and pig-headed and controlling as I am. And I’m cherishing every minute with her like I was an eighteen year old kid. I wasn’t even like this when I was eighteen. I’m used to my life one way and she’s tearing all my order apart.”
“That sounds serious.”
“I warned her, she couldn’t be the submissive I needed. And so she practically demands we begin a relationship. And now I’m in a relationship that I never wanted.”
“So now you don’t know how to let her down gracefully?”
“No, I don’t want to let her down gracefully, I don’t
want
to let her down at all.”
Will shook his head. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this way.”
“What way?”
“You’re smitten.”
“Smitten, good god.” The word made him shudder.
“You’re more than smitten, you’re fucking in love with the brat.”
“In love?”
“Look at yourself. She’s gone, you’re miserable, how else would describe your state of mind? You’re right, you’re just like an eighteen year old school kid.” He tried to keep from laughing.
“Will, she’s not the kind of woman that I’m accustomed to. I’ve been a sexual dominant for years and it’s satisfied me. And now, something else comes along that’s so absurd and I have my friends telling me I’m smitten.”
“You should have heard Alex after you left the other night.”
“What did she say?”
“The same thing. Let me see…I quote, ‘
Reggie is hopelessly in love, and the first opportunity I get I’m going to throw it in his pretty face’.
”
“I’ll paddle her ass for that one,” Reggie said dryly.
“But, it’s true.”
“It’s true.” He shrugged. “I tested myself today. A little spanking aficionado, little nymph of a naughty brat, just hired her. And I find out after she’s already on the payroll that she likes to be ‘disciplined.’ My God, I was going back in time, way back, farther back than Alex, farther back than…”
“So you paddled her butt, then what happened?” Will asked.
“I didn’t say I paddled her butt. I told her I was out of the business.”
“But you paddled her anyway.”
“She was a charming little thing,” Reggie admitted. “But I don’t want to do it anymore. It isn’t what I need. It’s a lot more complex than that, and a lot simpler too. I need something more substantial.”
“And that’s Jocelyn,” Will said, as if he knew it all along.
Reggie sighed deeply, the warm eyes of his nurturing friend had helped him pick up pieces of broken plans a number of times in his life. He’d helped Will, too, mostly with Alex. It was a good gift to give a friend as good as Will. If he was going to admit anything, it was a perfectly good time and the easiest place he’d find. “And that’s Jocelyn,” he repeated Will’s remark as if it was mantra to be repeated over and over, just to see how well he could handle the news. He’d thought around the idea for days, for weeks in fact. All his musings on the nature of himself and his bizarre relationship boiled down to this one fact.
Chapter Eleven
Jocelyn picked over the fruit in the tiny grocery store, looking for something choice. Nothing seemed to suit her, and she ended up putting a little bit of everything in the basket. Quandaries, puzzles and decisionless days were never her best. Two days back from London, however, and she’d still not reached an answer to her present haunting problem.
“Jocelyn, is that you?” a female voice cut through her thoughts.
She turned.
“Alex!” The lovely blonde’s amiable face appeared just steps away from her. “What a surprise to see you here.”
“I don’t come down to this market often, but I love the produce. The best in town don’t you think?”
“Exactly,” Jocelyn replied. Such a change from weeks before when she first met the woman. There was none of the tension that was present in that first and very bizarre evening.
“You know we really should get to know each other better,” Alex said. “Our dinner party, well you know how that ended up. I’m really sorry. I was a little screwed up about the whole thing. Reggie has always had a way of shaking me up so much, I manage to screw things up even more. Of course, that’s in the past.”
“Reggie does have a distinct effect on people,” Jocelyn agreed.
“Speaking of Reg, he dropped by the other night and said you were in London?”
“I just got back.”
“So you’ve called him?”
“No, I haven’t,” she admitted. “I really needed some time to myself.”
“I can understand that. Reggie’s pretty intense.”
“Frankly, Alex, I’m not so sure that there’s going to be a relationship.”
“Really?” There was a look of concern on her face.
“Would like to go to coffee?” Jocelyn suddenly asked. It was a spur of the moment idea, but it seemed absolutely perfect for the situation.
“Now? Sure. I have about an hour before I’ve got to get home.”
The two women completed their purchases in the market, and walked down the street together to a small street-side cafe.
“Let’s go inside,” Jocelyn suggested. “It’s quieter.”
Alex followed the woman to the back of the restaurant where they found a table in one corner. They ordered lattes from a smiling faced teenage girl.
“If you don’t mind my observation,” Alex said, as she admired Jocelyn and her beautiful mass of auburn curls, “You look unsettled. Not that I know you very well, but I picture you being very self-assured.”
The waitress returned with their cappuccino, and the two women waited for her to leave before continuing.
“I am unsettled,” Jocelyn taking a sip of her latte. “And I’m not used to this kind of thing paralyzing me. I hate it. I don’t do it in business and usually never in my personal life. But…”
“But Reggie is a different sort of man,” Alex said, getting straight to the point.
Jocelyn didn’t have to answer, the two women were on a common wave length. “You know him well, don’t you?”
“I know of him. But know him? I don’t know if anyone could. Maybe you.”
“You’re giving me too much credit.” Jocelyn smiled.
They drank their coffee in the comfortable quiet, the kind of quiet where women get to know each other, sense their feelings for someone they hardly know and make conclusions on a potential friendship.
“Do you mind my asking you some personal questions?” Jocelyn finally ventured.
“About my relationship with Reggie?”
“I realize it’s a little forward, but then Reggie told me to.”
“What do you want to know?”
“I know a lot about his dominant sexual inclinations. I know some of what he’s done in the past, but it’s all a little vague. Reggie says he trained you? I asked him what that meant, he told me to ask you.”
“Now isn’t that a typical Reggie response.” Alex laughed.
“Is this too personal?”
“Not really, I don’t think you’ll go blabbing this everywhere.”
“Oh, no, please, I just want to understand him.”
“I can’t tell you what ‘training’ means for every submissive. In fact, I don’t really think he ‘trained’ me in the official sense, if there is an official sense. He did help Will and me through a very tough time. For many years, I was haunted by sexual fantasies, wild, crude, nasty fantasies. I didn’t know what to do with them. When Will came along, I thought I’d found my knight in shining armor, he was so perfect. For a while the fantasies died away and good sex with him was all I needed. But then, like some caged beast, the fantasies came roaring back and threatened to ruin our relationship. That was when Will suggested that I see Reg.”
“You lived with him, I gather?”
“For several months. Not too many people have friends like Reggie. I guess we can be glad that Will had one. I don’t know much about his relationships with other women, though Will told me that he took certain women and helped them live out their darkest desires. That’s what he would do for me.”
Jocelyn watched Alex’s eyes, how they glazed over with an obscure appearance, as she slipped away from the restaurant and Jocelyn and back into memory.
“I was young and naive and very scared. But my desire was unstoppable. Reggie spun a web of control around me that took me into this very odd sexual world. You notice his eyes and his chiseled face, the cold reserve, that incredible aloof persona. I thought I’d fallen into heaven. A wild carnal heaven. I’d do anything he said, just to have him talk to me, and command me, demand things of me that I’d never done, indecent and absurd things. It really didn’t matter. I did it all as his submissive.”
Jocelyn followed her new friend into her peculiar place, trying to look with her eyes into what Alex had experienced.
“He set up situations for me, and required that I submit to his sexual demands. He dressed me in exotic clothes, and gave me to other men who used me. They tied me up and spanked my bottom until it was raw, and then took me in the ass. As much as I often resisted the extremes he demanded, my months with him were deeply satisfying. There were softer scenes too. Group sex with women and men, when I discovered my bisexuality. I learned that the bounds of my real sexual appetites were very wide, and that at the very core of my sexuality, I’m basically submissive.”
“This was what you’d fantasized about, these scenes Reggie created?”
“Many times. But don’t get me wrong. Our relationship was hardly blissful. I was angry that he wasn’t going to be my lover. He demanded all these things and at best, he stood back and watched. Sometimes he completely ignored me once he set his plans in motion. It was a savage thorn in my side that he didn’t want to have me for himself, and it became my goal to become his lover.”
“You were never lovers?” Jocelyn asked.
“Only at the very end. The first time Reggie took me into his world was about four years ago. I wanted him so much that I forgot about Will altogether, and he knew that. Just before it was time for me to leave him, he gave me my great desire. He set up a scene that ended with just the two of us. That night, we tried to make a connection, and everything should have been perfect. I’m still not sure what happened. But after all he put me through, and considering his very intimate knowledge of me, the lovemaking was so impersonal. I was betrayed by his coldness, his inability to give back to me what I really wanted. There was so much inside me that I wanted to share with him, but he wasn’t able to go there. He seemed okay with that. But I certainly wasn’t.”
She paused letting the old sadness claim her again.
“I realized then that he wasn’t the man I really needed. I finally got my head on straight and moved back in with Will where I belonged.”
Jocelyn let the story settle, wondering for herself why Reggie would go to such lengths with a woman, when he asked for so little for himself.
“But you’ve been with him more recently, haven’t you?”