Saving Sunni (32 page)

Sir stepped in, waving his arm and shouting, “Enough!” Sir Matthew stepped back and returned the latex to the table, after rushing at me and sage brandishing the brush. We ran from him, screeching. Sir watched us, trying not to laugh himself, before he returned to pacing back and forth in front of the chair. Just after turning at the end of each pass he would alternately call out, “Repent!” and “Confess!”

After three repetitions of this, he stopped directly in front of Debi and inquired pleasantly, “Are you ready to confess your perverse nature?”

“No, never!” she insisted in a mock distressed voice.

“You leave us no choice,” he sighed wearily, signaling Sir Matthew to approach him.

“Yes, your psychoness?” Matthew approached, bowing deeply.

Sir took a deep breath and then blew it out loudly. “The sinner has left us no choice. Stretch her on the rack until you hear her scream and then turn it some more.”

Sir Matthew turned and quizzically examined the chair, the yellow caution tape and Debi, then looked back at Sir. He opened his mouth and snapped it shut several times, turning back and forth between the chair and Sir. Finally, making an obvious effort, he worked up enough nerve to object, “But your most excellent religious nastiness, she is in a chair. What do I turn?”

“Details, details. Don’t bother me with details. Just make it happen.” Sir waved his hand airily and turned away.

Mumbling to himself and sticking his tongue out at Sir’s back, Sir Matthew stomped back to Debi and mimed turning a crank at the side. At first he turned his face away as if distancing himself from the absurdity of what he was doing, but then he seemed to get an idea and turned back to whisper to Debi.

She listened for a moment, then began screaming. “Oh, please stop! For the love of all that’s holy, stop! You’re killing me! Nooooooo!” She made a lot of noise, but it might have been more believable if she hadn’t broken into a fit of giggles at the end.

Sir stalked back to stand in front of Debi once more, growling. “Are you now ready to confess or must we subject you to further torture?”

“Please, Sir, you have the wrong maiden. I am pure of spirit and flesh. Can’t you just let me go?” She looked pleadingly up at him, batting her eyelashes.

He looked at the people surrounding the play space, opening his eyes wide in surprise and slowly turned his head back to Debi. “Pure of spirit and flesh? Do you expect us to believe that? You are a harlot and a pervert, and I
will
hear your confession. Cardinal Snaggletooth, it seems I must handle this next part myself.”

Sir sidled up to Debi and with viper-like quickness shot his hand out and grabbed a curling edge of the dried latex, pulling just enough to give her an idea of what he was going to do. Debi gasped in alarm and Sir crowed, “Confess, or I will skin you alive!”

With a flourish, he jerked the first bit of latex from Debi’s skin. Debi let out a brief screech, then closed her eyes and held her breath for a few seconds before letting it go in a rush. After a moment, she opened her eyes and directed a sly smile at Sir.

“Oh, that was intense.”

“Intense? Intense? What the hell!” He was screaming, but I thought I saw him give her a small conspiratorial wink. “Confess, damn it! You are making me look bad, and the Pope is a tough taskmaster. You don’t want me to get in trouble, do you? Come on, confess!”

Sir’s screaming had changed to a whine, and his face had the most pathetic look I had ever seen.

“Oh, all right,” Debi sighed. “But only if you promise to pull the rest of the sticky goo off.”

Chapter 31

When the laughter died down, Sir stood up straight and turned to the crowd. In his normal voice he said, “Thank you, friends, for witnessing the deflowering of this young lady. This was her first scene, public or otherwise, and I appreciate your cooperation in allowing us the chance to share with you one of my favorite Monty Python Flying Circus skits. I have always wanted to pervert the Spanish Inquisition skit and make it my own. This young lady is under my protection this evening and will only be known as ‘girl’ for now. If she doesn’t run screaming into the night and decides to remain under my protection, I will bestow a scene name on her at a later date and share it with all of you. Thank you, Sir Matthew, for playing a very capable partner in crime.”

Sir beckoned to sage and me and we joined him. He gave us each a kiss and whispered thanks for our help. “Ladies, please help me free our little flower and clean up this mess so everyone else can play.”

After helping to get the dungeon back into shape, Sir led the three of us to the social area and directed us to go put on the real outfits he had packed for the night. When we came back, he asked sage to get us each a drink and me to get some small snack items. We joined him on one of the larger couches where he had Debi lie next to him with her head in his lap. sage and I cuddled up to his knees on cushions on the floor. While he chatted with some of the other dominants in the room, he caressed Debi’s hair, and I once again marveled at how effortlessly he managed to make the aftercare look, not missing a thing. sage was resting her head on his right knee with a dreamy look in her eye. I looked from her to Debi and experienced a stab of jealousy that caught me completely by surprise. I took a steadying breath, pushing the thought down to be examined later. I settled myself closer and allowed the energy of the room to make me feel better.

After a couple hours of general conversation, Sir stood up and handed me the bag that held all of our clothes. We ushered Debi into the restroom and surprised her by pulling out the outfit she had shown up in.

“What are we doing now?” she asked, pulling her tiny black purse out of the bag and rummaging through it. sage and I smiled ruefully at each other and covered our noses and mouths as she re-spiked her hair and sprayed it heavily.

“We’re going out for pie. What do you have in there?” sage queried, trying to peer into the narrow space as Debi tucked the hair spray back in and pulled out mascara and eyeliner.

“Oh, just necessities,” Debi answered airily, checking her perfect skin while we changed quickly and repacked Sir’s bag with the scene costumes and dungeon clothes.

Sir, Matthew, and amy were waiting by the front door when we filed out. Sir glanced at his watch and raised his eyebrows. I tilted my head toward Debi, and he nodded.

“Oh, my God, that was so much
fun!”
Debi squeaked as we got in the car. sage and I, who had wordlessly taken the back seat, gave each other a sardonic look. While I could be a little giddy at times, and even sage had her moments, I really wouldn’t have expected it from Debi. She looked at Sir as if he had just carried her on his shoulder out of a burning building. He smiled down at her and even in the dark car I saw sage’s eyes narrow a bit. A shot of guilty pleasure went through me at the thought that now sage would experience what it was like to not be the new girl. I didn’t know if Debi even wanted to join our family, but considering the way she was fawning over Sir, telling him how clever his scene was and how much she admired anyone who could act so well, I had to admit that it was a strong possibility.

By the time we sat down at our table at the Village Inn, Debi had calmed down a little but was still giggling over the sparkly cross Sir had given her as a memento of the evening. The waitress had seemed apprehensive when we’d all come in together, looking dubiously at Sir and Matthew’s leather pants and vests. She’d hustled us through the restaurant to a back room. I couldn’t decide whether to be amused or offended at the implication that we were too alarming for the main room. But it was actually convenient, since we often had conversations that might have freaked out the normal clientele.

amy, with her usual thoughtful demeanor, turned to Sir as she stirred creamer into her coffee. “Sir, do you think Roger is really going to cancel Decadence?”

Sir thought about it for a moment. “No, not this year,” he said finally, “but I don’t think we can count on him to continue it much longer.”

“Neither do I,” Matthew said, leaning forward, his face turning serious. “And I wanted to talk to you about that.”

Sir nodded gravely and leaned back in his chair to listen. I was struck again by his air of confident, efficient leadership. As he sat at the table sipping his coffee, he looked as if there wasn’t any situation he couldn’t handle with ease. A surge of love and submissiveness went through me, and I wished I could go sit at his feet while he discussed whatever it was Matthew had in mind.

“I think you and I should buy Decadence,” Matthew said, and Sir looked surprised.

“You and I?” he repeated. “You do know I’ve just lost my job and there’s a chance I will be deported?”

Sir Matthew waved away his objections with one hand. “I have no doubt you will have all of that sorted out by morning,” he said confidently. “Think about what a great opportunity Decadence is for us to do public education about the lifestyle. Roger always tried to hide from the media and pretend nothing was going on, but I think, in the right hands, we could do a lot of good for the community. Like you’ve been doing lately with your press interviews.”

“Those were not exactly my choice,” Sir reminded him, smiling.

Matthew smiled back easily. “Exactly. And you’ve done a great job. Imagine what you could do if it was intentional instead of forced. With them dropping the investigation and you handling Cobb as well as you have, this is a great time for you to build a reputation as a spokesperson for leather people. It’s not like you need to hide anymore, like you said at the meeting. You and your leather family have already been outed, and you have the right kind of presence to represent us. This could be fate telling you it’s time to stand up for what you believe in.”

Sir looked around the table. He was probably thinking about sage’s career as a kink- and poly-friendly counselor and my job at The Fringe Element. None of us needed to hide who we were. He had the option now to go back underground by getting a chemistry job in another city and hoping the media attention wouldn’t follow him, or he could stand up as a representative of the leather community and try to make a difference. The only question was how we were going to live on my salary while sage finished school. Sir was very limited on the number of jobs he could get without his citizenship, and I guessed that being a media representative didn’t pay too well, at least at first. I imaged him doing the round of talk shows, looking imposing and a little intimidating as he answered questions and promoted the books that we would all write together.

“What’s a leather family?” Debi asked suddenly from across the table. The rest of us came back from our individual thoughts and turned to look at her.

“A leather family is a group of individuals who are, of course, involved in the leather lifestyle, and decide to form an alliance of sorts,” Sir said, and I wondered if he were thinking about how often he had been explaining things lately and whether he wanted to make a career out of it.

“What kind of alliance?”

“It’s more like an extended family than anything else,” Sir went on, and Matthew nodded in agreement. “They consider each other family in the sense that they get together often, share their lives, and provide support when it’s needed. There are different words for it, such as leather tribe, clan, house, as well as leather family, and occasionally people argue over the terminology and how it ‘should’ be done. But it is like any negotiated relationship: it is completely up to the participants to determine how they identify, how they relate to one another, and what kind of structure they desire.”

Debi looked around the table. “And are you all a leather family?”

Matthew and Sir looked at each other, and sage, amy, and I all exchanged surprised glances. It wasn’t something we’d ever discussed, although we fulfilled most of the criteria Sir had mentioned.

“I hadn’t thought about it before, but it wouldn’t be a bad idea,” Matthew said thoughtfully.

Sir nodded at him. “Interesting,” he murmured. “Especially if we decide to work together on Decadence.” He and Matthew regarded each other for a minute. “I suppose,” Sir said, “it will mostly depend on whether I am allowed to stay here and how I will be making a living. I will not be supported by my girls.”

“Of course not,” Matthew agreed, as his food was placed in front of him. He picked up his knife and fork and dug in. “But like I said, you’ll have that sorted out any minute now and we can get on with our plans.”

Chapter 32

Sir called me at work on Monday to say he was having lunch with Mary. “She was able to set up that appointment for today,” he said, “but she still wouldn’t tell me exactly what it’s about.”

“Okay,” I said, hoping this would be good news. Our problems were by no means over, but I felt much better now that we had cleared the air. I fixed breakfast this morning for sage and Sir, and we actually chatted around the table as we ate. It was almost like old times, except that sage excused herself early to go to the library.

I was humming to myself and working on the front window when something outside caught my eye. Randy was loping up the sidewalk toward the store, followed by a small group of people. One of them looked familiar, and I thought I recognized Melissa, Geri’s daughter, walking behind Randy, her mouth moving and a hand on his arm. My first instinct was to go out to meet them, but I checked myself as I reached for the door, remembering my promise to Sir. I knew that Randy wasn’t here to hurt me, and that he would inevitably give up whatever quest he was on, but I couldn’t just deal with this in my own way anymore. If I was going to be in an M/s relationship, I had to follow orders, even if I saw them as unnecessary.