Page 35 of Callback
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Jude
Iwas infull-on teacher mode. My mom was always trying to get me to go for higher education—get a job teaching at a collegiate level. Being a Hollywood actor? It was just about the most appalling profession I could have picked in her mind… outside of a gigolo. No, scratch that. She would have seen a male escort as being progressive. Just like she’d probably be fine with my BDSM lifestyle, had I stayed a submissive. Not that she’d want it out in the public… but privately? She would have applauded that shit.
Marly and I sat on the floor across from each other. We’d already gone over the Dom/sub contract in detail and filled it out as if we were entering a real relationship. Ass play, a soft limit. That one shocked me. And if she was mine? Truly mine? That soft limit would be explored. Literally. With lots of lube.
Shit. I took a deep breath, trying to clear my mind. Get it off of anything sexy with Marlena. I imagined a cold shower. Diving into the Atlantic Ocean in the middle of January. Baseball. Anything to calm down my raging libido.
Hard limit. Public nudity. Sharing. Exhibitionism. We had that in common. Although surprisingly, she wasn’t opposed to watching others. I’d asked her specifically to clarify that, especially since she seemed so uncomfortable with the public blowjob happening in the circle across from us yesterday.
She laughed, her cheeks turning pink and her freckles darkening with the flush. “I just wasn’t ready for it. If you prepare me… give me a head’s up what we’re walking into… I think I’ll be okay watching.”
“Watching… a Dom have sex with his submissive?” I asked and she nodded. “Watching him tie her up?” Another nod. “Watching him take a paddle to her ass until there are welts covering her naked body?” She swallowed… hesitating. Then, nodded. “Okay, then,” I said, surprised, making a note on the contract. “I will let you know before we walk into a scenario like that. LnS has designated rooms for it, so I doubt you’ll accidentally walk in on it anywhere.”
Marly’s red hair was down, framing her heart-shaped jaw like a glossy, rippled curtain.That fucking hair is incredible,I thought, remembering the satin strands as I brushed it last night. Would it feel just as silky cloaking my thighs as she worked my cock in and out of her mouth?
I squeezed my eyes shut quickly, taking a sobering breath.Get your head in the game, Jude. When I looked up from the contract, she had moved from picking at her cuticles, to biting her nails. Something was on her mind. Reaching out, I tugged her finger free from her lips and her face fell. Seemingly embarrassed, she wrung her hands together, dropping them to her lap. “What is it?” I asked.
She sighed before answering. “I always thought BDSM was like a giant orgy. Or… maybe not an orgy. Maybe more like a sequence of one night stands. I thought it was casual. But this… God, this is like, a lot of effort just to have sex.”
“Not everyone does it like this… but they should. Without mentioning names, some people do the one-night stand thing. They go over rules quickly with submissives that they know are trained in the lifestyle. But they don’t have anything like this.” I lifted the contract like a visual aid to drill my point home.
“But not you?”
“No. Not me.” The silence stretched between us like chewed bubble gum around a finger. Did she need more of an answer than that? “They don’t always last a long time,” I clarified. “Sometimes, I only have a submissive for a weekend. Other times, we stay together a few weeks. But for me? I need this piece of paper. I need control. I need to know that we are entering a relationship with all the facts laid out in front of us.”
Marly swallowed. “When was the last time you had a submissive?”
“Seventeen months ago. Layla left me almost two years ago. And after her, I had a couple submissives who only lasted a weekend or two, as I mentioned.” My stomach tightened, an acid-like burn rising up my throat. “And one who lasted a few months.” I tried to swallow that lump down, but it got lodged at my Adam’s apple. “But it’s not a time I really like to talk about.” In other words: Please don’t ask me anymore.
Her lips pressed into a tight line. “Okay,” she said. “Just answer one more question and I promise to stop prying.”
Fucking hell. I wanted to say it was fine. It was her job to pry this week. That my life was an open book. But those seven months after Layla? It was anything but an open book. It was a fucking diary. Locked in a safe. Sealed in the basement. “Okay,” I managed to say.
“Did all your submissives have to go through this?” She pointed at the contract. “Or were any of them casual? Like… one night stands?”
By her blade-sharp tone, I expected a much heavier question. One that would slice me down the center and spill my past all over the floor by her feet. Did I ever cross a hard limit line? Or did any of my subs ever go running and never look back?Yes, and yes. This question? This, I could handle. “Poppy,” I said, a smile relaxing my face. “I’ve never likedanythingcasual. Not sex. Not submissives. Hell, not even jeans.”
“Okay,” she said, matching my smile. “So, what’s next? We’ve got almost a week together. What the hell are we going to do for a week?”
“Well, to start with…” I stood up, moving to check my watch, only to be met with my bare wrist. Damn. I kept forgetting I gave my Rolex to Marly. Instead, I tugged my phone free from my back pocket. “As you saw in our contract, before I enter a weekend with a submissive, I pamper her the day before.”
Marly turned her head to the side, looking at me from the corner of her eyes. “Okay…”
“You, my sweet Poppy, have a massage coming in fifteen minutes. After that, Lynne will give you a facial.”
Her grin widened and she leaned forward, fake whispering, “I thought we said ‘no sex.”
God, she was sweet. “Not that kind of facial, dirty girl.” She rose to her feet and rested her hands on her hips, still smiling in a way that robbed me of my breath. “After the facial, you’ll get a manicure and a pedicure and we’ll meet up for dinner after that.”
“Wow,” she said. “A whole day of pampering. And you’re not even getting laid afterward.”
I barked a laugh that caught me by surprise. “At some point before the week is over, I’m going to get through to you that getting laid is the least of this lifestyle.”
Backing out of the room, I gave her a final wink. “Enjoy, Poppy.”
