Page 17 of After Dark
“Tell me, Arlo,” Frederick said, conversationally, “hasanything changed or been renegotiated between you and Josette?”
“Nothing has changed to my knowledge,” Arlo said, with, perhaps, a slight emphasis on the wordmy. “I assume that Josette knows that she, too, is not to speak in a scene with you unless explicitly asked to do so. But she has been away some time. Many of her hard limits could have changed.”
He and Frederick hadn’t discussed this, but the two of them had been friends for a long time. They’d shared a great many women in their time. More than that, they had shared Josette before. Too many times to count. It was easy—and hot—to slip right back into their usual rhythm.
Frederick sighed. “How unsafe. And distressing, for many reasons. Very well then, Josette. Are there any hard limits he would like to make known to me? I planned this as a training exercise for my Iris. Why don’t you tell her what is available for me tonight?”
Arlo watched different emotions chase each other over Josette’s lovely face. Something mutinous. Something hot. The usual dislike mixed with lust she felt when Frederick was handling her, and then, as ever, the ultimate softening—because she knew that Arlo wanted this no matter how she felt about it.
Just like always, it was that part that won out. He could see it.
He hadn’t been imagining it before.
It was a shock to him that some part of him had decided he might have, but the relief he felt right now told its own tale.
“You may speak,” Frederick told her.
“Thank you, sir,” Josette said, and her voice was as raw as her throat must feel.
Frederick slid a glance Arlo’s way, his eyes gleaming as he correctly guessed what had gone on earlier. Arlo only shrugged.
Josette kept going. “You have, as always, access to any of my holes that might entice you. And any punishments that you deem necessary are yours to administer. My —” She stuttered over that, but Arlo didn’t step in to help her. She knew better than to look at him, but he saw her tremble, and he liked that, too. “My master asks only that you leave no permanent marks, that you do not draw blood, and that anything new or unusual you discuss with him first.”
“Very good,” Frederick said.
He moved his hand, running it over Josette’s cheek and then curling his fingers into her hair to form a fist. Then he pulled her head back, exposing her throat, but he kept his gaze trained on Iris, who was still not doing a good job of staying still.
“Iris, your job is to do everything that Josette does. You will watch and then imitate. No one expects you to swallow a cock quite the way Josette can, of course. You haven’t had her experience. My friend Arlo will guide you. I expect you to worship his cock as if it was mine. Do you have any questions?”
Iris didn’t look like she had questions. She looked as if she might have a heart attack, Arlo thought. All she did was shake her head, her eyes wide.
“I have a question,” Arlo said then, mostly for the girl’s benefit. “Does Iris know why you’re training her on me, rather than you?”
“Excellent point.” Frederick’s cold voice sounded almost warm, then. “I know this might surprise you as what you know of me is based on fuzzy memories of teenageyears long gone, Iris, but I’m known for a number of specific things.”
Arlo filed theteenage yearspart away, having never heard his friend talk much about his childhood on the East Coast. Much less anyone connected with that childhood.
“Chief among them is the excellence of my submissives’ deep-throating technique,” Frederick was saying, his voice dark and low. Arlo could see the way it was working on Iris. Her skin was flushed. Her eyes were huge. Unlike Josette, she was not keeping her gaze where it belonged. She was looking at Frederick instead.
Arlo had no intention of correcting her. If she was overawed by a frank discussion of face fucking, they needed to start slow. That thiswasslow would likely be lost on her, but that was part of the fun.
Taking care of submissives when they couldn’t take care of themselves—when they didn’t even know that theyshouldtake care of themselves—was as close as Arlo got to religion.
Though as he thought that, he recognized that he’d had something of a crisis of faith.
Until tonight.
“Arlo is no slouch in that department himself,” Frederick was continuing, very nearly conversationally, as if they were talking about the local sports team. Or the weather. “As a result, Josette has developed particular talents in that arena. If she were mine, I would offer her like a party favor to any of my business associates who need a little buttering up and make certain that she remained supple and grateful for such notice. Tragically, she is not mine to share broadly.” He shifted his gaze to Josette. “I’ve asked.”
Arlo was already hard, but watching the way Josette reacted to the picture that Frederick painted—and the ideathat Frederick had requested her as a party favor— made him harder still.
He’d refused becausehissubmissive did not need to play the role of Frederick’s pet brand emblem. More importantly, he’d thought she was more fragile than she pretended. And she’d gone off and tried it herself, hadn’t she? Thrown herself out there, given herself in every way she could, and it still hadn’t worked.
Because at the end of the day, what worked for the two of them was each other.
He hoped that her return meant she understood that. Though he knew Frederick wasn’t wrong. It could easily be said that Arlo was putting hope over experience and cutting his own throat in the process.
That didn’t make him any less hard.
