“I’ve known you for a long time, my friend. The green-eyed monster is glowing from your eyes every time you look through that mirror.” Gene patted Donovan’s shoulder affectionately. “Hey, your secret’s safe with me. It’s okay to be a little jealous, as long as you don’t let it control you. It means you care.”
Donovan regarded Gene, both relieved and annoyed to have been called out on his feelings, feelings he hadn't shared with Jordan because he knew they were unfair. “It’s hard,” he admitted finally. “Hard to watch her with those other guys.”
Gene nodded. “I know. You Dom types are especially jealous. I guess it comes with the territory.” He shrugged. “Why do you think I never scene at the club? Annette would tear me a new one. You think you’re possessive!” He laughed, placing his hand over his crotch. Donovan knew he wore a leather chastity belt while out of the house, as a constant reminder of Annette’s ownership. He also knew that Gene had been the one to petition for the device.
Donovan lifted his chin in acknowledgment of Gene’s words, aware of the deep love between Annette and Gene. Annette’s total control of all aspects of Gene’s life worked between them, but would it work between Jordan and him? Would he want Jordan in a chastity belt, forbidden to scene, except with him? His head answered with a staunch no! But his heart wasn’t so sure. But was it his heart, or something else at play?
The client was dressing, the scene apparently over. Once she was alone, Jordan moved toward the mirror, examining her face and reapplying her lipstick as if she didn’t remember there might be people watching her on the other side. She looked spectacular in her black velvet vest and skirt, her breasts bunched alluringly together to create a deep cleavage, the slits in the skirt revealing her long legs. Donovan’s cock twitched with desire and his heart fairly ached with longing.
A moment later Jordan turned back to the door, probably in response to a knock they couldn’t hear, and then moved toward it, opening it to a young man Donovan hadn't seen around the club before. He was tall and way too good looking, with a head of thick blond hair and a chiseled jaw. He was dressed in a business suit, of all things, his expensive-looking tie loosened around his neck.
“Oh I remember this guy’s session card,” Gene said eagerly. “He’s some kind of high powered business dude by day, total pain slut by night. Looks like he stepped right out of GQ, huh?” Donovan made no reply as he stared through the mirror. Jordan had picked up the session card, which contained the details of what the client wanted, and was reading it. Gene had come up with the idea of creating the cards in advance when he took payment, so Mistress Jordan could focus on the scene without having to tease the client’s fantasy out of them.
Jordan moved to the supply cabinet while the man was stripping. The guy’s physique was an upside down triangle, his broad shoulders narrowing to the point of his slender waist and hips. His lines were long and lean, his body hairless, his dick, even while semi-flaccid, porn-star huge.
Donovan realized his hands had curled into fists at his sides, and a part of him would have loved to smash one of them right across that square jaw and then into those six-pack abs. Cool it, he told himself, trying to calm down. This is not sexual. Jordan belongs to you. That’s not even Jordan behind the mirror, it’s Mistress Jordan. It didn’t work. Donovan bounced lightly on the balls of his feet, his eyes burning through the glass.
Mr. GQ extended his arms and stood patiently while Jordan cuffed his wrists to the chains hanging overhead. Jordan attached clothespins in a ring around each of the man’s nipples. She added more pins to his denuded balls, catching the loose skin of his scrotum in a fan of clothespins. Mr. GQ winced in pain each time she attached another pin, but his cock elongated to an obscene length, and was dripping with pre-come by the time she was done.
Jordan selected a single tail from the rack and began to expertly flick the clothespins from the man’s chest, one by one. Each time the whip met its mark and a clothespin flew, the man mouthed the words, “Thank you, Mistress,” while flinching in pain.
When all the clothespins had been flicked from his chest, his nipples were ringed with angry red splotches. The man was panting, his eyes scrunched shut, his chest heaving. Jordan’s back was to the mirror, but she must have said something, because the man opened his eyes and took a deep breath.
He nodded, now mouthing the words, “Yes, Mistress. Please, Mistress.”
Positioning herself, Jordan flicked the whip toward the man’s scrotum and one of the pins flew to the ground. The man’s mouth opened in an O of agony, but his cock remained hard as steel. The whip struck again, and again, each time hitting its target dead on.
All at once a flush of color washed over the man’s neck, his tongue suddenly snaking over his lips as his eyes flew open. It took Donovan a moment to realize what he was seeing. As the tethered man stared with wild eyes at Jordan, he began to shudder and his cock erupted in a stream of ejaculate.
“God damn it!” Donovan roared, turning abruptly from the scene.
“Donovan!” Gene hissed. “Keep your voice down. They heard you.”
“I don’t care. Pull a curtain on that fucking thing. I can’t stand it.” He strode from the office, fury propelling him, though he had no idea where he was going. He found himself heading toward the back exit. He shoved the door open with his shoulder and stepped out into the cool, foggy night. He slammed himself against the wall of the building and hit the back of his head against the bricks again and again, glad for the distraction of the pain.
After a moment the door of the building opened, and Gene came out to stand beside him. Donovan was breathing hard and adrenaline was skittering through his blood, as if he’d just been in a fight. Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Donovan drew in a deep breath as he tried to clear his head and slow his thudding heart. He knew he was being a jerk. He just didn’t know how to stop.
“I remember what it felt like,” Gene began softly, his eyes straight ahead, “when I used to go to Madame Anika.” That, Donovan knew, had been Annette’s professional name when she had worked as a pro Domme. “When I first started in the scene,” Gene continued, “I didn’t really know what I wanted. Or no, correct that. I knew what I wanted, but I had a very hard time admitting my submissive and masochistic needs. I worked in construction, for god’s sake. I grew up in a house with three brothers and a father who taught us from an early age that real men didn’t cry. Real men had no emotions of any sort, when it came down to it, except maybe rage and righteous anger. And women were made for two things—to make babies and clean the kitchen. Definitely not to serve and worship.”
The pain in Gene’s voice shocked Donovan out of his own narcissistic funk. He knew Gene’s early history in a vague sort of way, but this was the first time Gene had spilled his guts like this. Donovan put his hand gently on his old friend’s shoulder. Gene continued to stare straight ahead, but he didn’t stop talking.
“Ever since I was sexually aware, I knew I had different feelings inside. Unacceptable feelings. Dirty feelings. It took me years to get up the courage to even begin to explore them. I’d visited other Dommes before Annette, but they’d always treated me in a way that confirmed my own secret shame. They would call me names, like sniveling worm, or worthless piece of shit, and one even spit on me.” He sighed and then continued, “Madame Anika was different. She was a tough taskmaster, make no mistake, but she treated me with respect. She understood my masochistic needs and longing to submit, without making me feel less than, if you follow me.”
He turned at last to Donovan and smiled. “I fell in love with her the very first session, though at the time I was too fucking clueless to realize it. I nearly bankrupted myself that first year booking sessions with her.” He laughed ruefully. “But it was never going to work, you see?” He shook his head with a snort.
“She was a pro and I was just a client, right?” he asked rhetorically, though he didn’t pause long enough for Donovan to answer, even if he’d wanted to. �
�But as time went on, something started to change between us. We didn’t just scene. She would talk to me afterwards, sometimes for an hour or longer. A real connection was developing between us, but I was terrified to do anything about it, because I kept rationalizing why she would want to hang out with me—she felt sorry for such a loser, she was really bored that day, anything to avoid confronting my own feelings. I kept my mouth shut about how I really felt for a long time. I wasn’t willing to risk the humiliation. I wasn’t willing to be vulnerable in front of her. I wasn’t willing to trust her.”
He paused for a long time before finally continuing. “Annette continued to be a pro Domme for a few years into our relationship, you know. And yeah, I’ll admit sometimes it was hard for me to know what she was doing to some other guy. It took me a while to really accept it wasn’t about sex, and it sure as hell wasn’t about love.” He turned at last to look Donovan in the eye. “Annette and I have been together for a long time. There is no way we would have lasted this long, no matter how much we loved each other, without the most essential thing of any relationship. It’s the bedrock of BDSM, and it’s also the bedrock of love. You know what I’m talking about, Donovan, I know you do. You’re too good at what you do not to know it. And once you find it, once you share it with another person, you can surmount any odds.”
Donovan stared at Gene, the tension and anger suddenly draining from his body as if a plug had been pulled. In its place a curious, rising joy was pushing its way into his consciousness. All at once he knew what Gene was saying. He understood it, deep in his bones, beyond the level of thought or words. It was the missing piece of the puzzle, the thing he’d never really shared in an intimate relationship, the thing that had enabled him to keep others at arm’s length, the thing that had kept him alone. The thing he wanted suddenly with Jordan, more than he’d ever wanted anything before.
“Trust,” he whispered.
Gene laughed, nodding. “You got it. It’s a matter of trust.”
Chapter 17
Jordan lay in the bed, drifting in that space between consciousness and dreams. She could feel Donovan’s warm, solid presence beside her and hear the soft rumble of his quiet snore.
Opening her eyes, Jordan glanced at the clock beside the bed. It was only nine o’clock on Sunday morning—they had the whole glorious weekend to themselves. She rolled toward Donovan, examining the sleeping man in the gold wash of early light filling the room. She examined the lines and planes of his face and watched the soft rise and fall of his chest. It was too early to wake him, even by kissing his cock, her favorite way to rouse the Master.
As they were drifting off to sleep the night before, or technically earlier that morning, Donovan had held her face in his hands, gazing at her with a solemn, almost fierce gaze. The moon shone through the window, casting the room in a shimmery, ephemeral light. “It’s going to be different now, Jordan,” he said softly, his voice cracking with emotion. “I promise.”
She hadn't understood him, at least not with her head. Yet when he spoke those words, a tightness she didn't realize had been constricting her heart eased and softened.
Aloud, she’d asked, “What’s going to be different?”
He had answered with a kiss. It hadn't been like the teasing, playful kisses they shared over breakfast or while stopped at a traffic light, or the intense, claiming kiss of the Master, but something different, something achingly tender and sweet. She had fallen asleep with the imprint of that kiss on her lips.
Now she touched the snakes coiling around his biceps, tracing the bright triangles of color along their scaly backs with her finger. She became aware Donovan was awake, his blue eyes tracking the movement of her finger along his biceps.
“Morning, sexy,” he said sleepily.
“Morning to you. I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“Nah, I’ve been drifting in and out for a while now.”
He reached for her, but before she fell into his arms, Jordan said, “I keep meaning to ask what’s behind this tattoo.” She grinned. “But somehow you keep distracting me before I can find out.”
Donovan smiled. “Well, I could tell you I got shitfaced drunk one night and when I woke up, there it was.”
Jordan lifted her eyebrows, examining his face to see if he was joking. He laughed, shaking his head. “Actually, if you knew me back in my early twenties, that definitely would have been a possibility. But no,” he shook his head at her unasked question, “luckily I never did anything that dumb, or at least nothing that left any permanent evidence.”
“So…?” Jordan prompted, her curiosity piqued.
Donovan hoisted himself onto an elbow as he turned to face her. “A really cool tattoo artist did that for me, a Domme, as a matter of fact, who I met when I was first getting really involved in the scene in my mid-twenties. She was always talking about the trinities of BDSM, as she referred to it. Everything, she said, came in threes.”
This time when he reached again for her, Jordan allowed herself to be pulled into Donovan’s arms. As she snuggled against his chest, he continued. “She said you have the three divisions of BDSM—B&D, D/s and S&M, and then you have the three-way core tenets of safe, sane and consensual, and then you have the divisions common in the community—Top or Dom, sub or bottom, and switch.
“She wanted to give me the traditional BDSM emblem, you know the one, it looks sort of like a ying-yang symbol, except there are three sections?” When Jordan nodded, Donovan continued, “Well, I didn’t want that. I’ve always been fascinated with snakes, which are symbols of rebirth and transformation in a lot of mythology. So I thought, why not combine the two concepts? And”—he touched the snakes on his upper arm—“that’s what she did.”
“I want a tattoo,” Jordan said, suddenly excited by the idea.
Donovan laughed. “Eventually, maybe. Once you’d had plenty of time to get used the idea. Tattoos are definitely not something you do on the spur of the moment.”
Untangling himself gently from her embrace, Donovan rolled from the bed. Leaning over her, he pulled the sheets from Jordan and ran his hand proprietarily over her bare body, his eyes hooding with lust. “Let’s take a shower.”
Jordan followed him into the bathroom. They both used the toilet and brushed their teeth with as much ease and familiarity as if they’d been together for years, instead of just the few weeks it actually had been. Their eyes met in the mirror as they set their toothbrushes down and Jordan saw the sudden spark of masterful fire in Donovan’s gaze and felt her own answering rush of hot, submissive desire.
He led her to the large shower stall and pulled open the glass door, stepping in first to adjust the temperature. When he’d got it just right, he beckoned for her to enter and Jordan joined him, pulling the glass door closed behind her.
The water felt wonderful, hot and steamy, and Jordan let it sluice over her head and body for a moment before reaching for the soap. In the several times they’d showered together a pattern had been established. Jordan would wash Donovan’s body, spending extra time on his cock and balls until he would pull her up into his arms.
This time however, Donovan stopped her hand with his. “This morning I will wash you. Today is for you, slave girl. All for you.”
Slave girl.
Of course, she wasn’t actually his slave girl. Theirs was a consensual and continually negotiated erotic dance between Dom and sub, rather than a Master/slave relationship where the slave, albeit willingly, gave up all semblance of decision or control. Nevertheless, when he called her that, when he said the words slave girl, the submissive embers banked at the core of Jordan’s being burst into flame, and a small oh of pure thrill was pulled from her lips.
Donovan took the bar of soap and rubbed it in his hands, creating a thick, creamy lather. He moved his hands sensually over her skin, his touch sending shivery jolts of electricity through her muscle and bone. He squirted shampoo into the palm of his hand and washed her hair, massaging her scalp with his stron
g fingers. He had her lean her head back while he rinsed her hair and then pulled conditioner through, before rinsing it, too, beneath the hot rush of water.
“Hands over head, legs apart,” Donovan instructed. Jordan lifted her arms high and clasped her hands together over her head, her heart thudding in her chest. He picked up her pink razor. “Stay still. I’m going to groom you.” With his skillful, careful touch he shaved her underarms. Crouching in front of her, he smoothed baby oil over her calves and stroked the razor along her skin. Standing with her arms high over her head, her lover kneeling before her, even this potentially mundane task took on an erotically charged aspect.
Finally he had her sit on the tile-covered bench at the back of the stall, her legs spread wide, her cunt exposed to the sharp multi-bladed razor. Jordan closed her eyes, a frisson of fear shivering its way through her body, even though she trusted Donovan completely and implicitly. He stroked her with the blades, the tips of his fingers following in their wake. He set aside the razor but his fingers remained, gliding over her labia.
He lifted the removable showerhead from its base and pointed it directly at her spread cunt. Even after all the soap was washed away, he kept the pulsing water aimed at her, adjusting the spray to a fine, directed point.
“Hold your cunt open for me,” he ordered. “Push yourself out to meet the spray.” Jordan obeyed, closing her eyes against the onslaught of hot water pummeling her clit. Already extremely aroused by the washing and grooming, it wasn’t long before Jordan approached orgasm.
“Come for me,” Donovan ordered, at just the right moment that made it easy to obey. Jordan let herself go, shuddering and gasping as the spray pulsed steadily against her spasming sex. Her hands started to slip as she came. “Hold your position,” Donovan said sternly. “I didn’t give you permission to let go of your cunt.”
A second orgasm rolled over the first as Jordan struggled to hold herself open to the intense, continual stimulation of the streaming water. “Oh god!” she cried, as yet a third climax crashed through her. “Help me!”