Pleasure for Pleasure (8 page)

To complicate matters, in the past, the local neighborhood association had vehemently fought large business chains moving in, and Trent himself wasn't even sure he could stomach seeing two locally owned businesses replaced by a MegaBooks. But the money they were offering was very, very good.

He couldn't dwell on that right now, not with Josie looking so forlorn. “Do you think your mother is trying to teach you some kind of lesson or something, putting you in this situation?”

Josie shrugged, and they began walking toward Trent's car. “That thought has occurred to me. But what's the lesson? How not to save a dying business?”

“Knowing Rafaela, it would never be something so obvious. Maybe she's trying to force you and the cat to get along.”

They both laughed, while Trent opened the car door for Josie and she climbed in. He closed the door and as he headed to the driver's side of the car, the stabbing feeling in his gut turned to a dull ache. It wasn't just the thought of selling the properties and leaving San
Francisco that nagged at him—it was the whole idea of giving up his connection to Josie for good.

And if the sex lessons weren't enough to keep him tossing in his bed at night, that thought sure as hell was.

 

J
OSIE SUPPRESSED A YAWN
, adjusted her black leather corset, and peeked at the clock over the rim of her reading glasses. It was only six thirty-five, which meant she had roughly three hours and twenty-five minutes before she could go home to try to catch up on the sleep she'd lost the night before while looking for Eros and replaying her near-miss in the office with Trent in her head.

She absolutely was
not
going to think about that embarrassing scene again right now.

One of the attendees of tonight's seminar, Introductory S&M, was explaining his hesitance to try bondage. Josie tried to pay attention, but in those rare moments when she managed to force all sexual thoughts of Trent from her mind, the myriad problems at the center took over. Aside from the late rent, there were also all the other late bills. There was Erika's salary to pay—one thing Josie wouldn't let slide, no matter what—and there was Josie's own salary. She'd cut her paychecks down to the bare minimum, but that still didn't leave much cash to pick up the slack elsewhere.

But then thoughts of her financial woes inevitably led her on a mental path back to Trent and their scandalous arrangement. After two nights in a row of sexual frustration, Josie was a mess on the job. Aside from her inability to focus, and her constant thoughts of sex, she'd begun to think of everything in terms of their future sex lessons. Even now, she was imagining how she might incorporate her newly learned dominatrix skills into a lesson for Trent.

“…and that's a big part of my problem,” Mr. Vowell was saying. He paused and stared at Josie, awaiting her response.

Too bad she hadn't been listening. Josie tried to focus her brain on the present. She opened her mouth and mentally commanded a response to appear. “Your penisship is long.”

“Excuse me, Ms. Marcus? My penis
what
is long?”

Josie blinked. Her cheeks burned. “Did I just say—er, I meant to say your
partnership
is
strong.
”

Mr. and Mrs. Vowell stared at her, mouths simultaneously agape. The rest of the class was silent, probably wondering what they were doing in a seminar taught by a bumbling imbecile.

“I'm so sorry,” Josie said, covering her face with her hands for a moment. “I got very little sleep last night. I'm afraid it's adversely affecting me. Please, let's continue.”

She didn't want to be here now, leading this silly seminar, dressed up like a dominatrix. Aside from the fact that she had no experience in the subject matter, and that her bustier was about to cut off the oxygen supply to her brain, she was a total mess after last night.

But at the last minute she'd decided she couldn't afford to cancel the seminar, regardless of the fact that there was no instructor.

The rest of the group seemed undaunted by Josie's slip-up. They simply sat in their circle, waiting for Mr. Vowell to continue discussing his reservations about trying bondage. There really was no need to be embarrassed about making a penis slip among people who were comfortable talking to strangers about how hard their spouses like to be whipped on the fanny. But still…

“Please go ahead, Mr. Vowell. You were discussing your fear of disrupting the trust in your relationship.”

“Yes, and I agree with you, Amelia and I do have a strong partnership. But I just think it might be violated if we start tying each other up and engaging in spankings.”

His wife seemed to have regained her composure for the moment. “But I want to be tied up! I don't see how it's violating anything if we're both consenting adults.”

Josie intervened when Mr. Vowell failed to respond. “Could it be that you have some issues surrounding sadomasochism? Perhaps it doesn't fit your idea of what respectable married people do?”

He nodded, giving the matter some thought. “Yes, I suppose that's true. I mean, we're parents, for goodness sake! We're not supposed to be gallivanting around the bedroom with whips and chains.”

Mrs. Vowell looked to Josie for help.

“It's up to both of you to decide what is acceptable within the boundaries of your marriage. This is an issue I think you should discuss in further depth privately, or I'd be happy to hold a private session with you if you think it would help.”

The rest of the class looked relieved that they would be moving on from Mr. Vowell's sexual hang-ups and getting back to the subject at hand.

“Could we have a demonstration of what all these tools are for?” Ellen Taylor, a demure thirty-something R.N., asked as she held up a small mace from the table full of implements in the center of the room.

Josie cringed. She'd spent the morning sorting through the S&M paraphernalia Erika had found in a box in the storage room. Between the two of them they'd figured out what most of the tools were used for,
but a few items had left them perplexed. There was that doohickey with all the straps and buckles…and that stick with the
thing
on the end of it.

“Of course, we'll have time for that.” Panic seized her chest—or maybe it was just the corset—and she knew she needed to take a quick breather. Josie stood. “I'm going to step out of the class for a few moments. While I'm gone, sort through the tools on the table, and feel free to discuss them amongst yourselves.”

She hurried out of the room, hoping her rear end didn't look too atrocious in the skin-tight black leather miniskirt, and paused in the empty hallway to take a deep breath. The corset bound her so tightly that she couldn't fill her lungs all the way up, couldn't quite breathe the way she normally did.

The sound of sandals slapping against wood alerted her to Erika's approach. She turned and forced a smile.

“You should at least take your glasses off. Dominatrixes don't wear wire-rimmed frames,” Erika said, inspecting Josie from head to toe.

“The cat dander in the building has my eyes all itchy. I can't wear contacts right now.”

Erika reached up and removed the frames. “You only wear these for reading, right?”

“Right, and I need to read my class notes.” Josie reached for the glasses, and Erika hid them behind her back.

“You have a visitor out front. Normally I wouldn't interrupt class to tell you, but seeing as how you're dressed up like you are, I was going to pop in and let you know—”

“Who is it?”

“Hunk-a-licious from next door.”

“Trent?”

“He says he left something in your office last night?” Erika raised an eyebrow.

Last night. Josie had to somehow keep her mind off of the events that had led to her confusing words like “partnership” and “penis.”

“Let him see you like this and he'll be putty in your hands. I'll just send him on back.” Erika turned and headed toward the lobby, but Josie grabbed her arm.

“Wait!”

“Hey, I've got it—I'll tell him you need some help with a class, and he can be your volunteer whipping boy.”

Josie giggled at the idea and then sobered. Maybe Erika had something there. She'd intended to ask for a volunteer from the class to help her, but it would be far more effective to use someone whose wife wasn't sitting a few feet away.

“Send him back here.”

Erika flashed an alligator grin, then hurried to the lobby. A moment later Trent appeared in the hallway. As he approached he took in Josie's attire, surveying her head to toe, and back up again.

“Damn, I came dressed all wrong.”

“I need your help.” She grasped his hand. “I'm doing a demonstration in this seminar, and I need an assistant.”

“Isn't that Erika's job?”

“A
male
assistant.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Nothing really. Just sit there and look cute.”

“I thought I wasn't allowed to drop in on your classes anymore.”

“I'm making an exception.”

A slow smile spread across his lips. “Honey, wear that outfit and I'll go wherever you want.”

Josie smiled. “Good. Come on in.”

She led Trent to the chair where she'd previously been sitting, and he took a seat.

“Everyone, I'd like you to meet my partner for the evening, Trent. He'll be helping me in a demonstration.”

Trent eyed the table, with its assortment of leather-and-metal implements, then shot Josie a warning look. She ignored him. Now was the time to adopt her dominatrix persona. One of the goals of the class was to give participants concrete ways to get started in S&M. The inexperienced in the class needed a clear idea of how to behave in the beginning, so that they could build their confidence and become more adventurous.

Josie herself had to rely on the how-to video she'd watched and taken notes on a few hours before, in place of any real experience at whipping men into submission. She picked up her class notes and tried to scan them one last time, but her eyes couldn't focus on the jumble of letters. So much for preparation.

“It's really up to you as a couple to decide who plays the dominant role and who will be the submissive. Some couples prefer to switch roles back and forth.”

She went to the table and selected a black strip of cloth, a pair of handcuffs and a whip. When she turned to Trent, she could have sworn she'd caught him staring at her with raw, unabashed lust. Maybe she was a more convincing dominatrix than she thought.

Recalling the posture of the woman in the video, Josie puffed up her chest as best she could and assumed an authoritative stance, her feet spread wide apart. She
pulled back the whip and, just as she'd practiced with Erika earlier, cracked it in the air near Trent's chair.

Except, instead of cracking in the air, she managed to hit Trent's thigh.

“Ouch!” He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender.

Okay, minor setback. She'd just act as though she'd meant to whip him. This was a lesson in domination and submission, after all, right? She just had to think of what a real dominatrix would say.

“Shut up, Slave Boy. I'll let you know when it's your turn to speak.”

S
LAVE BOY
? Since when had he earned that title?

Josie gave him a private look that pleaded for him to play along. Okay, he would, for the sake of curiosity. He could hardly wait to see what she'd do next.

He mentally slipped into his new slave-boy persona. “Yes, Mistress. I'm sorry for being such a bad slave. I deserve to be punished.”

Trent winced at the lingering pain in his thigh. Just what he needed—a clumsy dominatrix. Only when Josie headed toward him with handcuffs did he realize what a fool's mission he was on. He'd dropped by the center in the guise of looking for his wallet, which wasn't really lost at all, but the sight of Josie in that shiny black latex getup had distracted him from his plan.

He'd spent last night wide awake, just as he'd feared he would, agonizing over that feeling in his gut that he'd let emotions get involved in his relationship with Josie.

So tonight he'd decided he would drop by, spend some time hanging out with her, just long enough to convince himself that he'd been dead wrong last night; that his attraction to her was purely sexual.

There was no denying the sexual attraction, that was for sure. He could hardly remember his own name, watching Josie perform her little act. He generally pre
ferred women in satin and lace, not latex and metal, but on Josie the look was wholly, undeniably
hot.

“I'll have to handcuff you tonight, Slave.”

She bent over him, her corseted cleavage making a lovely picture only inches from his nose, slipped a metal cuff around his wrist, then pulled both his hands behind the chair, where she cuffed them together. Trent heard the click of the locking mechanism and wasn't sure whether to be turned on or worried. Being totally at Josie's mercy couldn't be the smartest position he'd ever put himself in.

Trent stared at the circle of people watching him. There were seven couples present, of varying ages and degrees of weirdness. Poor saps. This is what happened when people got married and then got bored with each other. They had to start taking classes on how to tie each other up and give spankings.

If Trent was foolish enough to buy into the kind of mumbo jumbo taught at the Lovers for Life Center, he'd be living in the 'burbs, driving his two-point-five kids around in a minivan and dressing up as a Viking on Saturday nights to revitalize his dull married sex life.

Just the thought of it made him yawn. Contrary to popular belief, he'd had a few longish relationships, and after the initial new-person thrill wore off, they'd been about as exciting as plain white bread. That was why he preferred the one-week variety.

Okay, that and the fact that he refused to end up like his father. After a passionless twenty-five-year marriage to Trent's mother, the widower Tony O'Reilly had spent the past few years making a complete ass of himself. Once he'd recovered from his wife's death to cancer seven years ago, he'd run around like a horny teenager, getting it on with every sweet young thing in a skirt.

Trent figured the best way to avoid a passionless marriage was to cut things off before they had the opportunity to get boring. So Josie could instruct him as much as she wanted to about deep emotional commitments and how to give a woman toe-curling oral sex. He was way ahead of her, immune to the former and already an expert on the latter.

Josie cracked the whip again, this time managing not to hit him with it.

She turned to the class. “Some people find it arousing to be blindfolded. It increases the sense of powerlessness and the element of surprise. Others find the visual stimulation of the bondage scene to be more arousing.”

To Trent she said, “Slave, you have no choice tonight. You don't deserve to look at me, so you'll be blindfolded.”

“Yes, Mistress,” he said, trying not to grin.

Trent wondered exactly how far she planned to take this little scenario. Not even her overly intellectual explanations of S&M could tame his raging libido—and he was enjoying this more than he cared to admit. Maybe it was time to spice things up even more.

As she approached him with a blindfold, he gave her his most earnest expression. “First, Mistress, may I lick your cleavage? Just once before you put the blindfold on?”

Josie stopped, her look of determination replaced by momentary shock. Then she recovered. “No, Slave, you may not.”

“Your toes, then? I've always wanted to lick your toes.”

Several class members snickered, and Josie's cheeks colored.

To Trent, she gave a warning glare and mouthed the words, “Quit it!” Then louder, for the class's benefit, “Tonight we'll learn the punishment for slaves who make unreasonable requests.”

Trent smiled. “That's not what you said last night.”

She wrapped the blindfold around his head and tied it in place. He then heard her footsteps heading in the direction of the table full of implements.

“What do you think, class? How should he be punished?”

A female voice said, “How about that thing with the spikes on it?”

“No, the muzzle,” a male voice offered. “Make him wear the muzzle!”

Snickers and whispers traveled around the room as her footsteps approached him again.

“Slave, since you can't control your tongue, I'll have to control it for you.”

All sort of lines about what he might do with his tongue came to mind, but before he could utter a word, Trent felt leather against his mouth and then straps being fastened behind his head.

“Mumph,” he said, to test out exactly how much noise he could make with the thing on.

This was a first. He could honestly say he'd never been blindfolded and muzzled before.

Then he smelled the sweet citrus scent of Josie's perfume, and felt her breath against his cheek. “I'm sorry we had to resort to this, Slave. You'll respond to all further questions by nodding or shaking your head. Do you understand?”

Trent had a notion to lock his legs around his leather-clad captor and trap her there against him, but he thought of the whip she wielded like a drunken Zorro
and decided against it. Instead he nodded, and she seemed to back away.

“One of the most fun aspects of bondage is the sensual teasing that can take place. When you have your spouse completely at your mercy, don't hesitate to drive him or her wild—that's the whole purpose! Seduction is all about the build-up, and your job as the dominant party is to leave your spouse begging and pleading for more.”

Fine words from a woman who'd historically proven to be all build-up and no grand finale, Trent mused. She certainly could claim to be an expert on leaving men begging and pleading for more.

And then it struck him exactly how much trouble he might be in right now. Possibly major trouble. A whole heap of it.

“What do you think, Slave? Do you deserve to be tempted?”

Definitely major trouble.

Trent shook his head no.

“You're right, Slave. You don't. But for the sake of instruction, we're going to have a little fun without the blindfold.”

He felt her undo the blindfold, and then he could see again. Josie stood in front of him, and as his gaze traveled up the length of her, she lifted one thigh-high boot to place the pointy toe right between his legs on the chair.

“Mumph,” Trent said.

If he hadn't been muzzled, it would have come out as something slightly more explicit.

“I didn't give you permission to speak, Slave,” Josie said with a playful glint in her eyes, “but I do give you
permission to look now and to appreciate what you can't have.”

Apparently she'd gotten over her discomfort with the role of dominatrix and was starting to enjoy it. She nudged her toe forward until she bumped against his crotch. It was a gentle bump, but still, she was trespassing on sacred ground.

There would be time for retribution later. For now, Trent had little choice but to play along.

She leaned forward on her knee to offer him a prime view of her cleavage. Then her tongue flicked out and slowly traced her full lower lip.

“It's too bad you're so naughty, Slave, because I'm feeling very,
very
amorous,” she whispered. “Would you like to watch me touch myself?”

Trent suspected she was looking for an affirmative answer, and given the proximity of her boot, he nodded his head.

She smiled. “Maybe later.”

And then she turned back to the class.

“Obedience, authoritarian roles, submission, level of punishment—these are all issues you'll have to work out between yourselves as a couple,” Josie said, using her teacher voice again. “I encourage you to come up and try out the various devices on the table, and there are also books and videos in the lobby, available for purchase.”

“Where do we get this stuff?” someone asked.

“In your class handouts I've included a list of local retailers who carry bondage equipment.”

Trent watched Josie's sweet ass as she walked away—and out the door!—while students continued to mill around.

Hey, what about Slave Boy here? Was she just going
to leave him like this while students milled about? Was he supposed to be the test dummy for the novice sadists in the class?

“Mumph!”

“Ms. Marcus?” someone standing nearby called out. “I think your assistant wants to say something.”

Trent stared at the doorway and listened for the sound of those spiked heels to return. Minutes ticked by, and his nose began to itch. Then a spot under the muzzle began to itch, too. He moved his jaw in a failed attempt to ease the itching.

If he'd come here looking for a renewed sense of resolve to keep on tormenting Josie, he'd certainly found it, and then some.

When the entire room had emptied, Trent sat wondering exactly how long she planned to leave him here. The contrast between leather-clad Josie and business Josie was striking. It surprised him to realize that he preferred the latter—though he had some ideas of what he might do with leather-clad Josie if she gave him half a chance.

Trent watched fifteen minutes tick by on the wall clock before Josie returned to the room. He'd expected her to have changed back into her business clothes, but she was still wearing the dominatrix getup. She carried a garment bag with what he assumed were her other clothes in it.

When she closed and locked the door behind her, his interest was piqued. The view of her backside, perfectly rounded and full in all the right places, designed for a man to grab on to during sex, didn't hurt.

She crossed the room and leaned over him again to remove the muzzle. But this time, her proximity and the lush upper halves of her breasts exposed by the corset,
combined with the conveniently empty room, gave Trent an instant erection. Sex for him definitely wasn't a spectator sport. But given half a chance, he'd love to prop Josie up on that fold-out table full of bondage equipment and drive his cock into her until they were both gasping and sweating.

Whoa.
Now that was exactly the kind of thinking that was going to ruin his plan. He was supposed to be exacting revenge on Josie, pleasure for pleasure, until she understood with painful certainty what it felt like to be left wanting more. Instead, he was spending way too much time thinking about what it would feel like to share with her a night of toe-curling orgasms.

“I guess you think that was funny, leaving me here bound and muzzled.”

“It was necessary,” she said, but a little smile revealed her true feelings.

“I had no idea you could be so kinky. Do you use those things with your boyfriends?” he asked, nodding to the muzzle.

Josie's smile transformed into a wicked grin. “Only when they need to be taught a lesson.”

“And do I need to be taught a lesson?”

“You did hire me to do precisely that.”

“I didn't agree to being bound and left alone when I'm supposed to be getting back to work.”

Josie slid one corset strap off her shoulder, and Trent forgot what he'd just been protesting.

“So what's my lesson?”

“The importance of anticipation.” She slid the other strap down, then began to unfasten the hooks on the front of the corset as she held her gaze level on him.

“Care to explain?” Trent said, pretending not to be absolutely riveted by her little show.

“Sometimes, what matters most about a satisfying sexual experience is the buildup. Not just the buildup of foreplay, but the buildup created by days or weeks of anticipation.”

“You mean, playing the tease.”

There was no mistaking the way her cheeks colored. But she didn't falter.

“No, because there's a real payoff at the end. There's a promise of good things to come.”

She had reached the middle eye hooks and the corset was gaping open in the front, but not quite enough to reveal her breasts.

“So, what? You're going to get naked in front of me?”

“I'd call it a striptease, except I don't have any music.”

She reached the last hook on the corset. Slowly she let it open and fall to her feet. Her brown nipples formed tight peaks, pulling her breasts taut. Trent almost couldn't look away, but somehow he managed to let his gaze travel down to her skintight black miniskirt, her thigh-high boots.

“Come over and sit on my lap and I'll give you your own little lesson about anticipation,” he said, his voice sounding more strained than he'd hoped.

“No touching today—just looking. Next time, we touch.”

She reached behind and unzipped her skirt, then pushed it over her hips and down her thighs. She was wearing a sheer little black lace thong for underwear. Beads of sweat broke out on the back of his neck.

“This is completely unfair. I ought to fire you.”

“Do you feel a strong sense of anticipation?”

“I'm feeling a strong sense of anticipation to turn
you over my knee and spank you with one of those paddle things over there on the table,” Trent lied.