The Favor (4 page)

It was exactly one of those nights that Mistress Kayla had escaped to his house. Her dad had come home and her mom had accused him of being with another woman. They'd torn into one another with ferocity, sending Mistress Kayla down the back stairs and out the door as their enraged voices echoed through the house.

She fled through the forest to Charles’ property, freezing as she heard moans and screams coming from the apartment over his garage. Perplexed, and following her inquisitive nature, she headed up the stairs and tried to peer through the windows, only to see what she thought was Charles abusing a woman.

Mistress Kayla, being who she was, didn't run. She didn't scream and she didn't call the police. Instead, she burst through the door and confronted Charles. The incident turned out to be her first lesson in the BDSM lifestyle. It was also the start of her first five years of education in it.

It took me a moment to let it all sink in. Mistress Kayla had known who and what she was since she was seventeen, and I found myself wishing I'd had the bravery to discover that about myself at such a young age. It would have saved me years of struggling.

“Now,” Mistress Kayla said, raising her head as her fingers continued stroking my leg gently. “I want to explain why we're here.”

Throughout my years of living this lifestyle, I'd never once felt like a whore. Not until that evening, in that room, with a woman I trusted implicitly. I'd done so many things that could be taken the wrong way and looked upon as promiscuous, but this request was beyond all of that. It wouldn't have been so bad if she hadn't offered me money for it. She knew the moment she'd said it that it hadn't gone down well. I was submissive, but I wasn't weak or cowardly. I knew how to stand up for myself.

Mistress Kayla and I very rarely spoke out of our respective roles in our relationship, but there were isolated moments when we spoke openly and frankly and she wanted my reactions to be my own, not born from my compulsive need to be compliant. This was one of those instances. She wanted me to test Charles' grandson to see if he was into kink, with Dominant tendencies. The old man was too afraid to ask him outright and had invited us there to help. He had heard Mistress Kayla had a sub and that she was much younger than her, which I was. From the sounds of it, I'd been talked up to be the perfect candidate.

“Kit, talk to me.”

Silence was how I chose to deal with this. Mistress Kayla was all about keeping the lines of communication open. Whenever I shut down, it not only pissed her off, it scared her, too. I didn't do it intentionally most of the time. I'd always turned my hurt feelings inwards to process and analyze them before saying my piece. This was no different. I just hated seeing that questioning look as she watched me pace in front of the huge windows that looked out over the bayou. It was almost as though she expected me to just call it quits and walk away. She poised herself for that blow and it pissed me off. I had given her all the things I'd kept from every other lover I'd ever had. She had my heart and my absolute trust, and in that moment, all I could see was that the trust wasn't reciprocated.

“Stop it, Kayla.”

Her frown made me cease my pacing, my arms crossed over my chest as I stared at her. I was not going to let her switch on her dominance and shut me down. Leaving off the Mistress’ when I spoke let her know I meant business, and I wasn't going to be steamrolled into something I wasn't comfortable doing.

“Then talk to me, Katherine. You're an adult. I understand you're upset, but throwing a tantrum will get you nowhere.”

“You made me feel like a whore.”

She cringed, her finger tracing the pattern on the comforter idly as she averted her eyes.

“Then you go and add insult to injury by doing that thing where you act like you've given up on us. After all this time, why don't you trust me enough to believe I'm going to stay?”

“I do, but when you're upset and you step out of your submission...”

“I haven't stepped out of it. I only ever truly leave that part of me behind when I go to work.”

“Yet, you miss it.” She raised her hand before I could answer and met my eyes, making my knees grow weak. She wasn't even trying to take control; it was just built into who she was. “You're one of the most breathtaking and obedient subs I have ever met, Kitty. If you don't want to do this, we can go home and salvage what we have left of the weekend.”

“You know I'll do it to please you, but if one cent is offered, I'm using my safe word.”

Her quiet intake of breath told me she understood. That was one thing I had never once used with her. No matter how much pushing she did, I accepted it with love and trust. She knew my body's limits better than I did, and just the knowledge that I had that safety net there always kept me calm. I'd use it if I had to; I'd just never had that inclination before.

“I never intended for you to feel that way. I didn't think... Well, that says it all, doesn't it? I didn't think.”

“Can I ask you one last question?”

She inclined her head, her smile slowly returning as my calmness settled over me. She would be well within her rights to get upset at me for this one.

“Why doesn't Charles just ask him?”

Mistress Kayla paused thoughtfully, her eyes once again glazing as she engaged some part of her memory. I could see the hesitance as they met mine again, not because she didn't want to answer. I knew exactly what that looked like. This was her making a decision to talk about someone she held in high esteem. Someone whose privacy she respected.

“The older Charles gets, the more his family means to him. He won't admit it to anyone else, but he's terrified that if Jared's not kink inclined, he will look at him as a dirty old abuser of women.”

Having been immersed in kink for four years, including my circle of friends, I hadn't thought much about how that would impact someone's life. I dealt with some of the stigma at work, sure, but this was New Orleans, where people seemed to just accept the unusual as normality. I hadn't spoken to my mother in any depth since I'd moved out at eighteen. Much like Mistress Kayla's parents, her relationships with the slew of men she dragged through the house had been toxic. I’d been born to try and salvage a relationship and had it thrown in my face as they argued the finer points of my existence downstairs. My birth father left when I was six, and I'd been a thorn in my mom’s side ever since. What would they think of my lifestyle choices? Honestly, I didn't know, and I really didn't care.

I didn't care, but Charles very obviously did, and I had to put myself in his shoes for a moment. If I were concerned with my family's view of me, how would I deal with it? Would I send out feelers and tiptoe around it? Probably.

Looking up at Mistress Kayla, I saw the hope in her eyes. She too was a part of this family, and she still loved Charles. I had no doubt of that in my mind. You just had to see the two of them together to know. I could do this for her. If I forgot about the offer of money, I could get through this knowing I'd made her happy and proud.

“Okay. I'll do it, Mistress.”

Her smile was on high beam when her eyes met mine and her hands shot out to beckon me to her. I stepped forward, my eyes sliding closed as her arms pulled me against her, and her cheek came to rest on top of my head. She was grateful, happy and proud of me, while the frustration and disparagement melted away as though it never happened.

For an evening, I was going to get to play. My prowess would be unleashed and set free on some poor, unsuspecting guy who thought he was coming to visit his jolly old granddad. For a fleeting moment, I felt like a predator. What if he didn't want this?

Well, I didn't have to force anything on him. The reality of the situation was, there was no guarantee I was even his type. This could well be over before it even began.

I just had to think of it as an adventure.

“We're going to have dinner with him after he arrives. You're perfect, sweetheart, but I'm a tad overdressed and might just give away what we're trying to do. So go explore while I have a bath, and don't let that old goat rattle you.”

“Thank you, Mistress. I won't.” I slipped from the bed in one fluid motion, my hands pushing the creases from the skirt of the dress I was wearing.

“And, Kit?”

I turned around to face her, averting my eyes until I saw the signal to look up and complied. Finding the deep green of her eyes as they bored into mine, I saw all the love she couldn't form into words, aimed directly at me. With a hand over my heart, I bowed my head and left the room, taking my thoughts with me.

It took me a while to appreciate my surroundings again. I'd been so lost in thought when I left the room that I’d sat on the sweeping circular staircase with my legs pulled close to my chest. My eyes were focused on some priceless antique in my line of sight, my mind attempting to formulate ways of doing this without bending over and asking him to spank me.

“Your Mistress used to do her thinking on the swing in the gazebo,” Charles said from behind me. I froze, startled and unsure as to whether I should look at him or not. I went with my gut and kept my eyes on the ground.

“I'm sorry, Sir. I didn't mean to block the stairs.”

“Nonsense. You're not blocking anything, Kit.” He groaned, lowering himself to sit beside me. He had such a welcoming smile. I couldn't help but return it. “I'm sorry to ask you to do this.”

Picking at the hem of my dress, I chose my words very carefully. This man was important to Mistress Kayla, which meant by default, he was important to me. The last thing I wanted to do was offend him.

“Sir, I honestly don't mind helping. I'm honored you asked.”

“The money was a step too far, though?”

I ducked my head further down and took a breath. I needed to give myself time to swallow the immediate response.

“I'm so used to people who want my money, Kit. It's an odd thing when I come across someone who has no interest in it. It never once occurred to me you would agree to it simply to please your Mistress. It's been a long time since I've had a sub that gains pleasure merely from pleasing the person they love. You're a rare and wonderful woman.”

Unable to help myself, my smile grew, and I peeked up at him from the curtain of my hair. In one easy motion, he drew my hair away from my face and grinned at me.

“I'm only that way because of my Mistress. She understands me, what I need, what I crave.”

“Let me tell you a secret, Kit. Some of the best Dominants come from submission. Not knowing what they are, they take on that role. Most struggle because it's not in their nature and eventually rediscover themselves by doling out the orders and pain. Having lived as a submissive, they have a deeper understanding of what's needed. The rest falls in line behind that.”

He'd given me so much to think about. I’d never considered that someone who had been in my place could ever turn it around to be the alpha in the situation, at least, not until Mistress Kayla had mentioned her past, and even then I hadn't put the pieces together. Once again, I felt like a fish out of water, or more accurately, a child who’d just had to have the training wheels screwed back onto her bike. Every day seemed to be a new lesson, and this one day had brought me several.

I thanked him for the food for thought and excused myself, deciding that I wanted to find the swing after all and see if it, too, had any pearls of wisdom for me, too.

Night fell quickly on early fall evenings, and this one was no exception. The swing was more magical than I could have imagined, even with Mistress Kayla's description. The water on the bayou was murky, but the coverage of green, from a plant I couldn't name, made it feel like a dream. Each roll of the swing seemed to take me higher, the warm breeze shimmering over my skin and pushing my hair over my shoulders as I bent and straightened my legs to gain height.

It really did feel like flying. At one point I was parallel with the sky and the huge trees that bathed in the waters, their limbs twisted and tangled with one another to reach the sunlight above. The moss hung lazily along the boughs, some longer than others in ragged paths that made the scene look like something from a fantasy rather than real life.

While swinging and wiggling my bare toes at the sky, I decided I could live like this – out in the middle of nowhere, where I was free to be who and what I wanted to be while never having to worry about modern convention. It was magical and freeing in a way I hadn't thought about before.

I gave another hard push and squealed, throwing my head back and narrowing my eyes to search for the first star of the night so I could make a wish. I spotted it about the same time a husky and broad British accent washed over me, making me curse out loud and sit up in the seat.

“How the bloody hell are you not getting eaten alive by mosquitoes?”

My feet dragged along the bare wooden planks of the gazebo to stop my swinging, and I realized too late that I didn't have shoes on. Another few choice words slipped from my mouth as I drew my splintered feet up and let my momentum slow by itself.

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” the man asked sardonically, his tone implying I was beneath him.

“No, I kiss
your
mother with this mouth, asshole. Don't you think it would have been prudent to announce yourself rather than sneaking up on somebody?”

As I rocked back and forth ever slower, I turned my head to look at the guy who'd joined me, my frustration immediately falling to the wayside. He was gorgeous. His dark brown hair was slightly overgrown, hanging over his ears shaggily, and he looked like he hadn't shaved in a week. The shadow danced merrily over his beautifully square jaw, almost hiding his criminally plump lips. My eyes trailed up his roman nose to his eyes that were hidden in the murkiness of night. It wasn't until he stepped forward that I noticed they were the same shape as Charles’, but an icy blue that screamed alpha male as they narrowed on me. I swallowed once, twice and still couldn't get past the lump in my throat. There was also no question in my mind that he was dominant. I felt it down to my very bones, and my body responded accordingly. Sweet Jesus, he could give Mistress Kayla a run for her money.