Page 21 of The Cartographer

Tom pauses in his backswing, the strands of the flogger flopping limply over his elbow.

“What?”

“Can you not see this?” I step forward to where Julie is tethered to the wall by a pair of leather cuffs. Her shoulders are rising and falling too rapidly, her breath uneven and her knees have locked. “Look at how she’s breathing, how she’s standing. You need to check in with her.”

“She’s fine,” he says dismissively. Well, sure, she’s fine. I wouldn’t let him go until she wasn’t fine. What kind of cut-rate production does he think this is?

I want to smack him upside the head in a nonconsensual way, but roughing him up is not what I get paid for. Not by him anyway.

“Yeah, she’s fine now, but you understand if you keep this up, she won’t be and you’ll have to stop.”

I lay a hand on Julie’s back and feel her heart pounding through layers of muscle and bone. She’s slumped against the wall, her forehead pressed against the cool surface and her fingers curled loosely around the bars attached to the cuffs. I stroke my thumb over her skin, warmed pink by the strokes of the flogger. At least Tom had picked up the motion quickly and she hadn’t had to endure the clumsy falls bottoms sometimes do with someone new.

“Look. I know it’s a pain in the ass to check in with your sub when you’re in the groove. You feel like it messes with your rhythm, and it takes you out of your headspace. That can be true.”

Tom pulls a face, and again I itch to give him a good whack, but only my fingers twitching on the hand I’m not using to soothe Julie would give that away and I have no illusions Tom’s paying that close attention. “So why would I—”

“Because if you do, you’ll be able to play with her harder and for longer. You might be taking two steps forward, one step back, but at the end of the day you will have gone further than you would have if you’d forged straight ahead. Get it?”

The corners of Tom’s mouth pull out to the sides in a not-quite-frown. Maybe that doesn’t matter to him. Maybe he just wants to whale on her for a while and then fuck. If that’s true, I hope Julie wises up and finds a better match because, from what I’ve seen of her, submission means more to her than that. “So what am I supposed to do?”

His tone is grudging, but he asked the question. A small surge of victory pulses through me. Perhaps Tom can be taught. So I coach him into coming up behind her, wrapping an arm tight across her collarbones, and laying a hand over her heart so he can feel how it beats. I don’t tell him to nuzzle at the side of her neck, but he does it anyway. I want to pump my fist in the air and yell,Fuck, yeah. Because in that moment, I’m pretty sure Tom and Julie are going to be okay.

He’s talking to her softly, and she nods, whispering something back to him. I watch with a great deal of satisfaction as he uses his own knees to nudge hers to slightly bent while he strokes the side of her ribcage. I’m tempted to turn my back and give them this moment, but I can’t quite look away.

It’s one of the best parts of my job, to see couples click. And no, there isn’t a lick of jealousy there. Not a one. I’ve got Matthew, hopefully I’ll have Hart as a new fuck buddy, and I’ve got an invitation to a play party this weekend I’d been indifferent about, but it’s seeming like a better and better idea with every passing second.

There’ll be at least half a dozen people I know there, and the playspace is one of the nicer ones. I’ll bring my bag of tricks and let loose for a few hours. Well, as loose as I ever do.

Tom pulls away from Julie, though he doesn’t take his hands totally off her when he turns to me. “We’re good. Now what?”

I want to high-five Tom for the plural:We.Yes, grasshopper, yes. Instead, I give him half a wry smile. “Now you get to smack her around some more.”

They both laugh—short, breathy, barely tonal things that reek of adrenaline and anticipation. He kisses her cheek and gives her a squeeze before he lets go and then drifts the strands of the flogger across her back that’s paled in the interim. I point it out to him. “There’s another perk. You get to pink her up all over again.”

Julie’s fingers tighten around the bars, and Tom finds the right distance, bringing his arm back once more. When the strands land across her ribcage with a satisfying crack, Julie squeals and yanks at her wrists, pushing her body into the wall. Too hard. He forgot he has to warm her up again. There’s no miracle cure and he’ll have to work hard, but he’ll get it. I really think he’ll get it.

*

After bidding Tomand Julie farewell, I head back to where Matthew is working diligently at his desk. The man’s focus is impressive.

Seeing his straight back, his long neck…if it weren’t for our new arrangement, I’d come up behind him, grab his throat, and sink my teeth into his earlobe. The minute I did, he’d melt and then we’d take an hour break to do…whatever I felt like. Because that’s what we both like best. As things stand, I can’t do that, and it makes me particularly eager to see if he’s completed his task of digging up more information on my friend Hart.

I make my footsteps heavy so he knows I’m coming, and if it’s possible, he sits up even straighter. He’s so lovely, my Matthew. Though he’s not mine anymore. Hopefully, given our many years together, I’ll still have a place in his heart. He certainly has one in mine.

So I lay my hands on his shoulders—surely so innocent a touch is allowed?—and he bends his graceful neck to rest his head against my forearm, docile as a cat wanting to be petted. I oblige him, stroking his head and neck as I would with any loyal pet and then scritching him behind the ear to make him laugh.Please never leave me.

Finishing that brief connection, I ask him what he’s been up to this morning.

He hands me a thick file folder. “I’ve got the information you asked for.”

“Hart?” I flip it open without waiting for his response, and yes, there’s Allie, staring back at me from an unfortunate driver’s license photo. It’s no wonder he shaves his head. He looks impossibly boyish with hair, even close-cropped to his shapely skull.

“Yes, sir.”

There’s something about Matthew’s tone that makes me look up. His lips are pressed slightly together, rendering them into a reluctant line. I cock my head, and Matthew’s eyes widen accordingly. Every particle of him is paying attention to me, which is the next best thing to having him sucking me off under the desk or strapped to the cross downstairs.

“And? Any highlights you’d like to share?”

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