Breath on the Wind (10 page)

“Ten strokes, wasn’t it.”  Chiz stated, as he pulled the paddle out of the paper sack, and took his position by her side.

“Yes, Sir.”

“Raise your ass a little more.”  Elmo lowered her shoulders and arched her back as she complied.  Chiz had arranged her with her legs a little more than shoulder width apart. 

“One.”  Chiz brought the paddle down, using the smooth side, just at the juncture of the top of her thighs so that the blow would be received across her pussy as well as the cheeks of her ass. 

Elmo grunted, but she didn’t ask him to stop. 

“Quiet, doll.  Two.”

By the time Chiz had counted out ten blows Elmo hadn’t made any sounds other than brief gasps.  Chiz ran his palm over her flushed reddened cheeks, pleased that she squirmed, apparently undecided whether to move away from his touch or to push back into it.

“Sore, doll?”

She had to try twice to get the words out. When she did, her voice was roughened.  “Only in the best ways.”

Chiz was about ready to burst.  In seconds he had his cock free and wrapped.  He took hold of Elmo’s hips, not missing, even in his haste, that his fingers were covering bruises that he’d left the night before.  He pulled her back onto him until he was buried in her right to his balls.

“Oh, fuck, Chiz!” 

“Too much for you, doll?”  He wasn’t sure he could stop if she asked, but Elmo flexed her back and those hot, intimate muscles clenched around him.

“No.  More.”

Chiz was more than happy to oblige.  Elmo had to keep her grip on the back of the sofa, and couldn’t move to help or hinder him in any way, or she’d land face-first on the sofa.  Chiz had complete control of her body.  He fucked her hard and fast. 

Elmo was making breathy little moans each time he went deep, and each little moan tugged at him deep in his balls until he was sure he was going to come before she was ready to join him.  And then the magic happened.  Elmo’s moans increased in volume with each thrust of his hips until she was almost screaming.  Her body gripped his like a fist, demanding his release from him.

Chiz came with a yell that he knew for an absolute fact would be heard by Elmo’s neighbors.

He wanted to take a moment to get his breath back, but he could feel Elmo’s knees buckling.  He pulled out, and as he pulled the condom off and tied it, Elmo half collapsed onto the sofa, still blindfolded and cuffed.  Chiz tucked his softening cock back into his jeans and dropped down next to her.  He didn’t feel too steady himself, but he’d be damned before he’d show it.  He untied the blindfold and dropped it to the floor.  Then he pulled a limp and panting Elmo back against his chest.  He reached around her body to undo the cuffs, rubbing gently up and down her arms to get the blood moving again as she caught her breath.

“Hmmmm, revenge is sweet.”

“Yeah I s’pose I deserved that.”  Elmo smiled sleepily as she dropped her head back against his shoulder. 

Chiz reached for the lace of her bra, tugging the cups up and into place over her breasts so that she’d be more comfortable.  He settled himself as best he could on the sofa so that Elmo could relax against him.

“You’ve got a talent there, doll.”  He found himself still running his hands over her arms, which were lightly crossed over her stomach, but he couldn’t bring himself to find anything wrong in that.  He felt at peace.

“Thank you.”  Elmo’s eyes were closed, but she wasn’t asleep. 

After several more moments, she heaved herself off the sofa with a groan.  Chiz was about to ask if she was okay again, but she’d already left the room.  When she returned she was carrying their glasses of whiskey, both refilled.  She paused on her way across the room, by a miniature stereo system, switched it on, and tuned it to a banal radio station.  She turned the volume down until it was only background noise.  She also detoured to fiddle with some sort of control on the wall that dimmed the lights to a muted glow.

Elmo handed Chiz his glass and then settled herself next to him on the sofa.  She made a little sound as she sat down and shifted, obviously feeling the effects of their little game.  Chiz felt his cock stir again at that.  Her ass had been a wonderful shade of red by the time he had finished with the paddle.  He liked that she’d be feeling that tenderness for the rest of the night, probably longer.  She hadn’t re-buttoned her shirt, either, and the sight of her tits, gift-wrapped and trying to escape, made him shift uncomfortably, too.

They drank in companionable silence.  Chiz relaxed, surprised, but pleased that neither of them seemed to feel a need to make small talk.  He was curious about the lack of photographs or mementos, but asking about that might be delving into something outside of the boundaries of what they were doing.

Except that he wasn’t sure what the boundaries were, or when the borders had started becoming blurred.  He did know that he currently felt more comfortable and satisfied with a woman than he had in a very long time.  There was something happening that he didn’t have a complete hold on.  He wasn’t sure if that was cause for concern or not. 

Chiz took another drink and pushed those thoughts aside.  Reality was waiting for him back in Absolution; for now he would simply enjoy his reprieve.

He had laid his arm over the back of the sofa when Elmo had gone for the whiskey.  He hadn’t moved it when she sat down.  He dropped his fingers onto her shoulder, so that she wouldn’t jump when he spoke, and interrupted the quiet.  She didn’t flinch at his touch.

“You ridden before?”

“On a bike? One like yours?”  Elmo shook her head.  “No.”

“You want to?”

Elmo dropped her head back against his arm and turned to face him.  “Really?  I’d probably be a terrible passenger.  Too much of a control freak.”

Chiz kept stroking her shoulder.  Elmo kept letting him.  “Nah, doll.  I think you’d be a natural.”

“Okay.  I’m working tomorrow, but you could pick me up from there.  I’ll be done by five.”

That surprised him, it didn’t fit with some of the assumptions he’d made.  “Workin’?  On a Sunday?”

“Yeah.  I own a club.  It’s open all week.”

“Own a club, huh, doll?  That’s impressive.  What kinda club?”

Elmo paused before she answered, which caught his attention, but he realized why when she answered. 

“A strip club.  The Pumpkin Patch.  It’s downtown, a ways downtown.”

There had to be a story behind that, but asking about that story fit in the same box with asking about her house.  Chiz bit his tongue and finished his drink.

“Okay.  Give me the address, and I’ll see you there tomorrow at five.  You should wear jeans and a jacket, leather if you’ve got one.”  Chiz reluctantly pulled his arm from behind Elmo and pushed himself off the sofa.  “I better go.  If you’re workin’ tomorrow you’re gonna need some sleep.”

Elmo got to her feet, too.  She winced, but didn’t complain.  She found something to write down the address and directions on, and handed him the slip of paper.  He caught her fingers when she passed it over.

“You should get some lotion on.  I’d offer to help, but then I don’t think I’d end up leavin’, and you wouldn’t end up gettin’ your rest.”

“I’m tempted to say that wouldn’t be a problem.”

“And I’m tempted to let you, but I want you back in shape tomorrow.”

Chiz bent and pressed a kiss to Elmo’s cheek before he let her show him out.  As he rode through the little toy house town he wondered again about the lines that were rapidly disappearing.

Chapter Nine

By the time Andy arrived at the club early on Sunday afternoon, she was sore, but not unbearably so.  She had applied a selection of creams, body lotions with various soothing ingredients and an Arnica gel, which had taken care of the redness, and most of the tenderness.

She should have known, when she’d left the bag of toys available, that Chiz would have gone for the paddle over the flogger, but she hadn’t put anything into the bag that she’d taken to the motel that she hadn’t been prepared for Chiz to turn around and use on her.  That was one of her first rules of safe play, never to use anything that she hadn’t experienced for herself.  Andy felt that it was the best way to properly gauge the effect she was having on her submissive and thus the point at which she needed to stop, even if they begged her not to.

But it wasn’t her ass that was distracting her, it was her head.  She was fortunate that the client she was expecting that afternoon had booked for an hour of sensation play, nothing heavier than tickling.  It would be physically demanding, but not dangerous.  She wouldn’t have trusted herself with a paddle or a whip, or god forbid, a cane, without being able to guarantee that her head was one hundred percent in the game.  There were so many details that she had to be aware of to make sure that the client was safe, more than just the marks on their skin.  Their tone of voice and facial expression, everything from the smallest breath to the loudest scream, was information about the sub’s state of mind and body.  If she wasn’t able to accurately decipher those signs, then there was a good chance that someone could get hurt.

Sure, it had been a while between fuck buddies, but Andy suspected that it wasn’t just a dry spell, ending in spectacular fashion, that accounted for her spending more time than was prudent thinking about Chiz.  The man was fine, no doubt.  The bruises he’d had on the first night that she’d met him were fading, and the small indications of stiffness when he moved had gone entirely.  She’d thought about asking what had happened, but since he hadn’t volunteered the information, it seemed like a very personal question. 

She had been surprised by the strength of her physical reaction to Chiz allowing her to cuff and blindfold him.  It had made her all kinds of hot to be in complete charge of that powerful body, because he’d handed over control.  She rarely had any sort of personal reaction to her clients; she was there to do a job, not get involved.  There were very definite boundaries that were in place, which she had never crossed, not once, in more than a decade.  And giving Chiz control, allowing him to do what he liked with her body… Andy kept flashing back to the previous night, and every time she did she lost a little time, whole minutes.

Sundays were hit and miss in terms of the church protestors.  They were around, but sometimes they spent the whole day praising the Lord inside their church and left the club alone.  The electronic strains of hymns, and the disembodied voice of the Pastor, floated down the generally quiet street without cease.  Sometimes they seemed to have designated the whole day to disrupting her business, and held their day-long prayer meet on the street corner. 

There were no protestors around when Andy arrived, and the street seemed to be taking advantage of their devotion.  Most of the other bars and clubs were open, and the sounds of jukebox rock and sound-system pop drowned out the promises of salvation and the threats of damnation.

Shane was cutting his typically imposing figure at her door, standing to his full seven feet, with his hands clasped loosely in front of him.

“Hey, Shane.  How’re we doing?”

“Good.  About the usual for a Sunday, maybe a bit busier.  We haven’t had any interruptions today.”

“That’s good.  Let’s hope it stays that way.”

Shane grunted.  “I prefer ‘em where I can see ‘em.”

Andy didn’t care whether she could see them or not; she just wanted them gone and out of her hair.  “I’m expecting someone, about five o’ clock.  Just send a message back when they arrive.”

The only reaction Shane gave was a small twitch of one eyebrow.  “A fella?”

Andy answered only because it was pertinent information that would help Shane recognize Chiz.  “Yes.  If he asks for me it might be by the name of Elmo.”  She realized, belatedly, that she had never given Chiz her real name, and that he hadn’t asked for it.  He always called her ‘doll.’  “He goes by ‘Chiz.’  Might be riding a Harley.  Shaved head.  Big, in the way of us normal, little people that you giants have to avoid tripping over.”

Apart from a corner of his mouth twisting up in the same direction as his eyebrow, Shane offered no judgment.  “Sure thing, boss lady.  I’ll make sure you’re told when he gets here.”

Andy suspected that this new development in her life would end up as the subject of some discussion between the people who worked at the club, but if she’d wanted to avoid being the topic of their gossip, she really shouldn’t have suggested that Chiz meet her at the club.  She was just going to have to grin and bear it now.

Shane had been right, the strip club, at least, was doing brisk business for a Sunday, but then it was still technically the holiday season, and some people would do whatever they could to prolong the party spirit until New Year’s.  Andy said her hellos to Jackie, and a couple of the girls who were working the room to encourage the customers to buy lap dances.

The upstairs portion of the club was much busier.  All of the rooms were occupied.  When Andy checked the diary she found that they were booked up through the day until about ten that night.  They never accepted bookings beyond eleven at night.  Andy had found that beyond midnight was when clients turned up drunk, stoned or high, or when the rubber-neckers who’d gotten wind of the dungeon tried their hardest to get a sneak peek. 

They did good business during the week with the people who didn’t want their family or co-workers to find out about their enjoyments, and booked their sessions at the dungeon as facials, long meetings or working after hours.  At weekends they saw the clients who couldn’t take the time from their day jobs, or who were fully comfortable with their sexuality and spent their leisure time exactly as they wanted to.  The few couples that frequented the dungeon usually visited over weekends.

Andy got the opportunity to chat with several of the other professionals while she took care of some of the more mundane housekeeping and bookkeeping chores from her desk.  By the time she was ready to prepare for her own client, it was obvious that word of her expected visitor had gotten around.  She had endured plenty of good-natured teasing, but had been confronted with few outright questions.

Andy changed into a blue satin corset, a short skirt formed of layers of blue and black net, fishnet stockings, and matching blue heels, and prepared to spend some quality time with a Wartenberg Pinwheel and a feather duster, amongst other toys.

~o0o~

She’d worked up a sweat, having spent a full thirty minutes tickling a semi-professional bodybuilder with her fingers, so Andy showered before changing into a pair of jeans, a long-sleeve, emerald-green turtle neck, flat boots and a black leather jacket as Chiz had advised.  By the time she came out to her desk, Emma was waiting for her with the news that Chiz was enjoying a beer downstairs while he waited for her.

“He’s a looker, in that rugged ‘I can beat you to a pulp without blinking’ kinda way.”  Emma’s green cat eyes were sparkling with amusement.

“I’m glad you approve,” Andy replied dryly.  She wasn’t offended by the teasing, it was indicative of the kind of relationship that all the people who worked in the dungeon had.  There were professional boundaries, but they all took an interest in each other’s well-being.

“Approve?  Honey, if he ever wants to play doctor, you send him my way.”

“I think I can take care of that myself, thank you.”  Andy cursed the fact that she blushed as she spoke, especially when Emma saw it and almost doubled over with gleeful laughter.

“Well, it’s about time.  Don’t let me keep you.  Go get him, tiger.”

“Raawwr,” Andy deadpanned as she left the office and headed for the stairs.

She spotted Chiz perched on a stool at the bar.  He was idly watching one of the girls on stage as she conducted her gymnastics around the pole in a gold bikini, but he noticed when Andy stepped through the door, and then his blue eyes were completely focused on her as she crossed the room to him.  He didn’t look away once, not even when the girl on the pole executed a particularly complicated move that involved doing the splits while upside-down. 

Andy had the feeling that their game had changed subtly again.

“Hey.”

“Hey yourself.  This is a nice place.  Classy.”

“Thank you.  They take care of you?”

“Oh yeah.”  Chiz tilted his half-finished bottle of beer in her direction.  “You look good, doll.  I like the sexy secretary look, a lot.  But I like you like this, too.”

“Thank you.”  Andy felt like a broken record, but she wasn’t sure what else to say.  Chiz was looking his usually uber-masculine self.  More so since the t-shirt he was wearing was almost too small to contain the muscles of his chest and shoulders.  The seams on the arms looked to be on the verge of splitting.  His incredibly defined torso and back had no ink, but the upper half of his right arm, from shoulder to elbow, and the whole of his left arm down to his wrist, were covered in religious motifs.  There was no color anywhere in his ink.  Andy hadn’t had a chance to study the tattoos yet, but she had noted the predominant image on his right arm was hands clasped in prayer with a rosary tangled between the fingers.  The crucifix was just visible below the sleeve of his shirt.

Chiz grinned, as if he could sense her discomfort.  “Come on, doll.  Let’s get gone before we lose the daylight.”  He put his unfinished bottle down on the bar, picked up his jacket from the stool next to him, and stood.  Andy waited while he pulled his jacket on, and then preceded him through the club, surprised, but very pleased, to feel the warmth of Chiz’s palm on the small of her back.

Shane was still at the door, which explained why Chiz had felt comfortable enough to leave his bike by the curb.  The machine was huge, black and imposing.  Andy had no idea how the damn things stayed upright in motion.  She was fairly sure that there was no way they were going to get away with this little excursion without her causing him to crash.

“Night, Shane.”

“Night, boss lady.”  He nodded towards the bike and addressed Chiz.  “You ride with the Priests?”

Andy looked, but she couldn’t see anything on the bike that would have given Shane that information.  The only decoration was a silver rosary painted on the gas tank.  She hadn’t seen that before.  She wondered if – other than the ink and his bike - Chiz was particularly religious.

“Yeah.  You know us?”  Chiz asked Shane.

“I’ve heard of y’all.  Word is, you’re a solid crew.”

Chiz only nodded.  Andy wasn’t quite sure what most of the conversation meant. There seemed to be a lot being said between the lines. 

“You ride?”

“Yeah.  But on my own these days.  Used to ride with the Dirty Rats, but when the new Pres came in, the club changed.  Didn’t like how they operated after that.”

“You patch out?”

“Yeah.  They let me keep the ink, but I got rid of that myself.  Shane motioned at the tattoos on his arm.  Andy had never had the inclination to study and make sense of the conglomeration of images on Shane’s tree-trunk-sized arms.

Chiz nodded, but did not smile.  Andy was sure there was some meaning to what Shane had said, but she had no idea what it was.  More interestingly, it was now apparent that her fuck buddy was a biker, although, at the moment, she felt like a third wheel on her own date.  Andy didn’t think she’d made a point of feeling ignored.  Okay, maybe she’d popped her hip a little.  Ether way, Chiz and Shane took their leave of each other, and Chiz, his hand still at her back, guided her to his bike.

He rummaged in the saddlebags and came up with two helmets.  He handed the smaller one to her.  “Here, you’ll need this.”

Had he bought it for her?  Borrowed it from somewhere?  Was that a thing you could do?  She wasn’t going to ask in front of Shane.