Knowing the Ropes (23 page)

“Got bored. A girl can’t job hunt all day, the house is clean, I don’t have enough money for retail therapy, and I’m joining the crew for Cambodian tonight, so there was no point in cooking. So I was just… Well, want to see?”

Pleased at the friendly overture and admittedly curious about Natalie’s brain-candy choices, Selene nodded. Natalie opened the laptop cover, and the machine sprang back to life.

Selene looked over Natalie’s shoulder, blinked slowly. Felt heat flare in the pit of her belly and rise up her body until she was sure not just her cheeks but her entire torso were flaming. “Please tell me that’s Photoshopped,” she said, looking at the picture of the intricately bound, intricately bruised and battered woman. It wasn’t the bruises that bothered her so much as the apparent blood. Bruises could be fun to get, but the model looked like a rope-wrapped road accident.

“Don’t tell me Nick hasn’t used the singletail on you yet?”

“N…no.”

And if that was its effect, he wouldn’t be. Selene liked a few bruises, but something that seemed to remove chunks? Thanks, she’d pass. “That’s like something out of a costume drama. You know, where the hero’s flogged by the evil ship captain? Always kind of turned me on,” she admitted, “but not…for real, you know? I always figured that for real, it would hurt like hell in a bad way.”

Natalie smiled dreamily. “Oh, you’ll love it. It’s the most beautiful kind of pain I know. Kind of like being stung by a thousand bees, only erotic. I can’t explain it right, because that sounds horrible.”

“Yeah, it does. It looks horrible too.”

“Too bad they have her tied so you can’t see her pussy. I bet she’s wet as anything, just off in a world of her own, waiting for her master to use her. I know I would be.”

There was something odd in Natalie’s manner that Selene couldn’t quite put her finger on. She was so dreamy, clearly off in happy fantasyland, putting herself in the place of the bound and whipped woman, who, on second glance, was either a very good actress or was enjoying herself. At the same time, Selene sensed a challenge in her words, a kind of one-upsmanship. Damn it, they both knew Natalie was far more experienced. Natalie’s most recent experiences had been seriously nasty, but not all of them had been.

Not the ones with Nick, for instance. Selene knew those would have been wonderful. Nick was very, very good at what he did.

She took another look at the picture. Okay, it was hot in a purely theoretical way, but she was so not ready for that level of pain play yet, if she ever would be. The only time she’d be up for voluntary bloodshed would be if she needed surgery. The ropework, though, fascinated her.

“I like the bondage,” she said, surprised to catch such a wistful note in her voice. “It’s so pretty with the different colors of rope, and I do like being restrained. We haven’t tried anything that elaborate yet,” she added. It must take a lot of time to rig someone up like that in a confining but elegant gown of rope that accented the breast and waist so temptingly. Time and attention. How would it feel to be the center of that much focus, that kind of artistry? “I’d like to.” She caught the dreamy tone slipping into her voice.

“The fancy stuff’s not Nick’s favorite thing. He mostly likes simple restraints,” Natalie said, as if that settled the matter.

“But if I asked him…”

Natalie’s jaw dropped, as if Selene had calmly suggested flying to the moon under her own power. “You can’t just ask him for things. Don’t you know anything?”

Apparently not, because she had been asking for things—and more often than not, Nick was delighted to try anything she suggested.

“Slaves don’t get to ask, except maybe once in a while when we’ve pleased our master.” Selene could hear the capital M. “We exist to please our masters. It’s not about us. We get our pleasure from pleasing.” She had an evangelical quality to her voice, someone who had Seen the Light
^TM
and wanted to share it with anyone who was willing to listen or didn’t get out of the way fast enough. She put one small, bony hand on Selene’s arm, very gently. Even though it was warm for September, Natalie’s hand was like ice.

“It’s all right,” Natalie added, and again Selene was reminded of a passionate preacher, except the one actual preacher she knew, Molly, was a lot more discreet about it. “It takes a while to understand it deep in your bones. Learning not to want is the hardest part of being a slave. Because we do need and want. We can’t help it; we’re human. Slaves just have to learn to fight it, to focus on our higher purpose.”

At this point, Selene had to correct the misapprehension. “I’ve told you before, I’m not a slave,” she said, not sure why the admission embarrassed her when it was a simple statement of her truth.

“Oh. Right.” The missionary had just been told no, thank you, we’re happy with our own religion. “That’s different. Perhaps that will be all right for both of you. I thought Nick wanted a slave, but perhaps he’s changed. Nothing wrong with just being a sub if that’s what you like.” Her tone suggested the opposite. “It’s good to take the time to figure out what you are, what you and Nick are together. But it’s a hard balance. I know he let me go when he started getting too attached. It’s hard to be a partner and a sub at the same time, and it almost looks to me that that’s what you guys are trying for. Neither fish nor fowl.”

Selene swallowed a sudden lump in her throat—tears, queasiness, some combination of both.

She and Nick were just friends and play partners, right? She’d known how he felt about love and kink, known this wasn’t a forever relationship. She’d thought she was okay with that, really she had.

So why did she feel like a little kid who’d just been told Santa didn’t exist?

Then a fierce determination took hold of her.

Relationships were made up of people. They weren’t things unto themselves, with inalienable rules of their own beyond those created by the people involved. What hadn’t worked for Nick and Natalie might work for Nick and her, because she wasn’t Natalie. She already knew that some of the problem with Natalie had been Natalie wanting to be too much the picture-perfect slave, to the point that she stopped being
her
. Well, at least Selene wouldn’t need to worry about that particular mistake.

But she did get a bit of a shiver—okay, more than a bit and more like a clench, a surge of heat and wetness—thinking about being more under Nick’s control. Not like Natalie’s last crazy relationship, but like Alison with Garth, loved but controlled, with status and respect but with rules and rituals to follow.

Alison could answer a lot of her questions, and Selene couldn’t imagine her red-haired friend putting the fun into dysfunctional with the same gusto that Natalie could. On the other hand, Natalie was here, and at the moment, Selene’s curiosity was piqued enough to risk asking the potentially dumb questions. Natalie might be a bit out there, might have made some mistakes—even before she wound up with a toxic man—but it was important to know what didn’t work too, right?

“So,” she asked, screwing up her courage, “I’m new to all this. I’m still trying to figure out where I fit, and the idea of being a slave is scary. Sexy but scary.”

Natalie smiled like a punk Mona Lisa. “It’s supposed to be scary. Giving up your control, your independence, giving all of yourself to a man… If that doesn’t scare you, it should.”

“Sounds like being in love to me. You give up something of yourself, and it’s scary but worth it.”

Again that smile. “Like and not like. The scary-but-worth-it part, yes. But it’s not giving up something of yourself. It’s giving up just about all of it.” She shrugged. “Of course, some masters—Nick was like this—will give a lot of it back to you, let you make decisions about everyday stuff that doesn’t matter much to them. Not everyone is like Mas…like Derrick, wanting to control every bite you eat, every time you pee, how you think, how you pray. He took it to an extreme that was hurting me. I know that now. But being a slave means someone has the option of that kind of control, and you hope they’re careful with it, but they don’t have to be. After a while, you can’t imagine doing certain things without their permission, including coming. And you have no idea how strong that makes your orgasms.” She grinned dreamily, and Selene wondered which master she was thinking of, Nick or Derrick.

“We’ve played that game.” And God, it was hot. A couple of days of directed playing with herself, without orgasm, and when she saw Nick again and he let her come, it was like a nuclear detonation.

“It’s not a game. That’s the difference. For you, now—for a part-time sub—it’s a game. A really great, intense game.”

“And how!” Selene laughed, fanning herself, making a joke out of it so she didn’t let on how hot the memory was making her, how deliciously moist and open and tender she felt, how much she regretted that Nick wasn’t home yet and that it might be in poor taste to drag him off to the bedroom immediately with Natalie there. Not that Natalie had any illusions as to their chastity and propriety, but they’d been trying not to be downright rude about it.

“As a sub, you still have the ‘fuck you’ option. You can always say, ‘Fuck you, that’s not fun.’ Might get into a fight about it, might get ‘punished’”—she made air quotes—“but it’s not a deal-killer.”

“But you can always safe-word if things are going really badly.”

“No.” Natalie’s voice was uncharacteristically firm. “
You
can. A real slave can’t. I mean, Nick was nice about saying I should let him know if anything was dangerous, like if my circulation was getting cut off. But that’s optional, your owner’s choice. Otherwise, you don’t get to stop scenes. You can only stop the relationship.”

“I’m not sure I understand. Why would you want that setup?” And why would Nick, or any dom, set up rules like that? Control was one thing, but that was way too much responsibility for someone else’s life and safety, like having a perpetual toddler. How could the dom ever relax?

“That,” Natalie said pityingly, “is because you’re not a slave at heart. If you’re meant to be a slave, submission isn’t a game, isn’t something you do in the bedroom when it amuses you both. It’s a state of being. You’d hear this and know you’d found your way home.”

Half of Selene felt like smacking the smugness out of Natalie’s voice, except she might enjoy the smacking. As far as Selene knew, Natalie was straight, but she was bored too and had obviously recovered enough from her ordeal to be horny again.

The other half felt something click in her brain. It was partly anger, the implication that she was somehow lacking, not good enough,
incapable
of being a slave.

And partly recognition that she wasn’t nearly as appalled by the concepts Natalie presented as she’d like to be. She’d toyed with the idea of being someone’s helpless plaything—treasured property, but property, for most of her adult life. But it didn’t seem like a feasible fantasy, too much trust to put in one person. After seeing what had happened to Natalie in her eagerness to fulfill what she seemed to feel was her destiny, talking about it in general terms was damn scary. There were dangerous people out there, and others who might not mean any harm but shouldn’t be trusted with the responsibility of a goldfish, let alone another person.

But Selene was weighing the idea of being
Nick’s
slave, and that was an entirely different story.

And if that level of yielding was what it took to make their casual relationship into something more committed, she could learn to do it.

“Tell me more,” Selene begged.

“I’m not the most articulate,” Natalie admitted. “I get too emotional. Let me point you at some websites.”

Nick heard a murmur of female voices as he reached the front door. He couldn’t make out any words, but it was definitely Selene and Natalie, chatting away.

Good.

There’d been some strain between them. No surprise there, but he was pleasantly surprised there hadn’t been more. The ex and the current were bound to be a little judgmental and harsh toward each other, each wondering
what does he see in her?
And they were very different people. Selene, for all her submissiveness in some areas, was strong, a go-getter. Natalie, he realized more than ever, needed to get her act together before she could survive outside “captivity”. She could be struck by lightning and turned vanilla as a vanilla bean, and she’d still feel like she needed someone to guide her, help her make decisions.

Maybe they’d be good for each other.

He opened the door as quietly as possible, then stood in the doorway to watch the dark head and the fair bent together.

Over a laptop, he noticed.

Cool. Selene must be helping Natalie job hunt. He’d been hesitant to help much, afraid he’d pull her back into depending on him for too much. Perhaps a woman would be safer, a good example rather than a crutch—especially another submissive woman.

So good to see his women getting along so well.

His women? Ha! Nice thought, but his inner caveman needed to take it easy.

Natalie wasn’t his anymore. She still had a place in his heart, though, as a dear friend and someone who’d taught him a lot, including lessons he was pretty sure she’d never meant for him to learn.

Like he was a dominant but not a master, that he loved the sensation of possession and control in the bedroom but didn’t want that kind of full-time responsibility over another adult human. Hell, he hadn’t even been settled enough to think about owning a pet until recently. Why had he thought owning a slave would work for him?