Going Too Far (The Curvy Submissive) (10 page)

“What a night,” she murmured. “I love getting dressed up,
but after a couple of hours I just want to take my bra off and throw on some
sweats.”

“You,” I warned, “are the last person I want to see right
now. Leave.”

She stopped abruptly, her red mouth forming an
Oh
.
The surprise lasted only a moment before being shuttered. She smoothed a hand
across the front of her dress and reverently began winding the ribbons on her
mask. “Well, that wasn’t the reaction I expected.”

“I’m sorry, did you expect me to thank you?” I turned away,
unable to stomach her calm. I curled my hands over the railing and stared out
at the dark lake. Moonlight cast silver streaks across its surface, but the
woods beyond created such darkness that it was impossible to see where the
shore ended and the water began. “Am I supposed to be grateful to you for
ruining one of the most important relationships I had?”

“Yes, actually.” She took two measured steps towards me. “I
thought you’d be relieved. Happy. Finally.”

“Happy?” My anger tensed the muscles in my arms, made me
want to destroy something pretty. If she were a man, I’d have knocked her out.
Since I had never hit a woman outside the playroom and had no intention of
starting now, I kept a firm grip on the railing and refused to look at her. “I
was happy six hours ago when my life was mine. You had no right to out me and
we are not ok. If I tell anyone what you did, you’d be barred from the community.
You’d be blacklisted.”

She stayed silent for a long time, but I could feel her
panic. The air vibrated with it. My threat wasn’t subtle and she knew the
consequences of outing someone’s secret beyond the privacy of our community. A
part of me wanted revenge, wanted to ruin her place in society just as she’d
ruined mine outside it.

When she didn’t say anything, I shook my head and turned to
face her. “Why would you do this to me? What did I do to deserve this?”

Kelli set her shoes and mask on the table between us then
crossed her hands in front of her and tilted her chin down a fraction of an
inch. Even now, threatened and cornered, she remained demure and proper from
years of training and practice. This sign of respect seemed oddly sad all the
sudden, and for a moment I felt very old and very tired. This tantalizing
world, full of short-lived but limitless intimacy, had been dreamlike and abundant
for so long. Now it just left me feeling trapped and lonely.

“Two months ago, I guess, we were at a party. Jorn’s place.
Do you remember?” She cleared her throat softly but didn’t wait for me to
answer. “It was a good party. Good atmosphere, good people. You were playing
with Michelle that night. She was beautiful as usual, in this leather bikini
thing, and she was so pleased with herself because it was just assumed you’d
play with her and only her. You
always played with her, though I can’t
imagine why. I have no patience for divas.”

I rolled my eyes at the dig, but let it go. “What’s the
point?”

“I’m getting to it. You want to know, so I’m telling you.”
Kelli gave me a punishing look so I obliged her for the moment and waved my
hand for her to continue. She nodded once. “I watched you set out each of your
toys. They all had a special place on the table, all carefully arranged. Your ritual
was hypnotizing and I realized no one was watching you but me. Michelle was
fussing with her hair and others lingered in conversation nearby. But you, you
were already getting into your headspace. You were already beginning the scene
even if no one else realized it. I couldn’t take my eyes off you. There was
this…
power
that just vibrated around you. I was actually quite jealous of
Michelle and it pains me to admit that. I’d deny it if you ever told anyone.”

Nothing about it felt particularly special and I couldn’t
see how it connected to Kat. It felt like Kelli hid a secret about me even I
didn’t know, which just fueled my disquiet.

I also did not want to talk about Michelle when Kat slept
twenty feet away. As illogical and ridiculous as it sounded, even thinking
about my past playmates made me feel like the worst kind of bastard.

“It took you, I don’t know, ten minutes to prepare
yourself,” she said. “You were giving Michelle instructions and she kept saying
‘
yes, yes, I know. I know how to play the role. I got it.
’ But she
really didn’t get it. She forgot to appreciate the power of being someone’s
chosen. She’d forgotten what a gift it was. And you, the great and terrible
villain, strong and capable…you didn’t even notice. Or care. I was so sad
watching you accept such mediocrity. Instead of feasting on rich molten chocolate
cake, you’d resigned yourself to a handful of Skittles.”

“I don’t even know what you’re even talking about now.” Without
thinking, I shoved away from the railing and paced, furious energy making my
hands sting and itch. I wanted to handle something,
someone
. I wanted to
demonstrate exactly what sort of great and terrible villain I could be. The
energy made my muscles hot and tense, clench and release, until it felt like there
was fire beneath my skin. “Michelle and I didn’t even end up playing that night.
What does this have to do with…?”

My voice trailed off and I looked through the window to
where she dreamed alone.
Kat
. I couldn’t even say her name without being
sucker punched by guilt.

Kelli sighed as if I were missing the point, as if this
whole game were somehow lost on me. That just made the fire worse.

“I know you didn’t end up playing. You got her on the table.
You restrained her. You started to strip her down…and then your phone started
buzzing. You’d forgotten to turn it off I guess, and you stopped. You actually
checked your phone in the middle of a scene which was so incongruent with the
meticulous Master of his domain I’d witness minutes before. Michelle looked fit
to kill you.
Don’t you dare
, she warned, but you were already gone. You asked
someone to untie her as you just walked out of the room.”

I froze. The fire in my hands extinguished and I suddenly
understood
exactly
where this story was headed.

“I followed you out of curiosity. You went outside and I only
had to listen for a second to recognize you were talking to Kat. She inspires
us to be young and ridiculous, you know? You were smiling and relaxed and far,
far from the Master I’d just watched laying out his lovely toys. You were out
there for more than an hour talking to her in the middle of the night. By the
time you came back to the party, it was more or less wrapping up. And I don’t
think you even cared.”

Kelli paused then and absently tugged at her bottom lip
while she worried over some troubling thought. It took her several long minutes
before she continued.

“That’s when I knew you were just passing the time with
Michelle. With any of us. How could we compete with a girl you’d abandon a
house full of your closest, half-naked friends to just chat with? I knew that
you didn’t care if Michelle was into the scene or not because you were just killing
time until you could be with the person you actually cared about. It’s sort of
twisted, really. Most of us pretend to be happy in our vanilla lives while we
dream of spanking the hell out of our lovers, and here you were with the most creative
pleasure at your fingertips, dreaming of spending your Sunday morning making
breakfast with the girl next door.”

“Kat’s not…”

Lie
.

“She’s not…but we’re not…”

Lie.

I growled, frustrated. “You don’t know anything about us. I
don’t think about her that way.”

Kelli laughed. “Like hell you don’t. In the fifteen minutes
you spent trussing up her fully clothed arms, you demonstrated more profound
empathy with that girl than I’ve seen you experience with any other capable, beautiful
sub before. I’m betting it was the only time you’d ever actually experienced
true connection with your partner instead of just going through the pretty
motions.”

The damn woman dropped her deference and crossed the deck to
stand right in front of me, five foot nothing, and stared me right in the face.

“Look me in the eye, Josh, and tell me you didn’t go cosmic
in that room tonight. Tell me you even noticed the rest of us
existed
.”

“You don’t fucking get it, do you?” I pointed at the wall of
windows. “She was my
friend
. I cared about her and now we will
never
be able to go back to how things used to be. You’ve destroyed our friendship,
even before I tied her up. Just by being in the same room together you unmade the
last ten years of our lives. We’ll never be able to take that back.”

“Oh boo hoo.” She dismissed me and turned away. “You know
how rare it is for any of us to find unconditional love and support in a
committed, healthy relationship? That girl in there, the way she looked at you
tonight? You only have to ask and she’d give you her heart and soul, the moon,
the stars, and her whole universe. She’d take your collar and fall in love with
you all over again every night. You get to have everything any of us ever
wanted, so you get no sympathy from me.”

“Damn it, Kelli, I don’t want her collared!”

She jumped and my voice seemed to carry for miles and miles out
over the lake. We both glanced guiltily towards the sleeping girl on the other
side of the glass doors. Kat stirred but didn’t rouse. Her lips parted, still
stung red from my earlier abuse, and I watched her chest rise and fall in slow,
deep cadence. Her blanket had fallen slightly askew and I badly wanted to go in
and tuck it back under her chin the way she liked it. I wanted to run my
fingers through her blonde hair and inhale the scent of her skin. The scent I
now feared might fade away.

“Josh…” she started, but I held up a hand to stop her.

“I don’t want this for her,” I said quietly. “I don’t want
her here.”

“That ship, my darling, has sailed. She came to me. She
wanted this adventure, just like we did once upon a time. And I think she’s
smitten. She’s a rope girl. And lucky for her, you’re a rope boy.”

“You still think you did me a favor.” I pushed past her and
headed for the sliding door. I wanted to go home. I wanted to be far away from
this place and these people. I wanted to put distance between me and Kat so I
could clear my head. “You broke my heart tonight and now I’m going to break
hers and you think you did me a
favor
. You should have told me she was
coming here. I should have been given the choice.”

“No…my god. Tell me you’re screwing with me.” Kelli followed
me to the door, but stopped short of getting too close. Her cool exterior
cracked and she looked helpless standing there in her pretty dress and
windblown hair.

I felt sorry for her, despite everything, as she realized
what I already knew.

She shook her head. “You’re not going to keep her. After all
this, knowing how she feels about you and your world, you’d let her go. Have
you lost your mind?”

“There’s the problem, Kel.” I didn’t want to hear anymore,
didn’t want Kelli’s romantic but irresponsible version of my life. “You assume
I wanted her in the first place. What you’re suggesting is out of the question.
But I could have told you that if you’d asked before meddling.”

 “Josh…I’m sorry.” She reached out to touch my arm but I
shot her a warning look and she snapped her hand back. “I thought I was doing
the right thing for the both of you. There was no way you’d keep your secret
once she joined our community and this way you didn’t have to share her either.”

 “You’re sorry?” I laughed. “You think I’ll forgive you for
forcing me to break her heart? You’ll be lucky if I don’t destroy you for it.
You don’t deserve my mercy and you sure as shit won’t get my forgiveness.”

Before she could answer, I jerked the door open and left her
there.

I left them both there and went in search of my own self-destruction.

Because if I had to pay the price for this bittersweet
transgression, I’d make sure I never recovered from it.

____________

Kat

Ka-thunk
.
Ka-thunk
.
Ka-thunk
. I stirred
from a beautiful dream to the sound of tires on asphalt and the pre-dawn light
of rolling highway sweeping by. I blinked my eyes open and as I rubbed them
free of sleep I remembered.

I remembered everything.

I glanced at the seat next to me where Julie drove, eyes
held straight ahead, sleepy but awake and nursing a to-go coffee cup that
smelled like hazelnut.

“Julie?”

My last memory was of me in bed with Josh, falling away into
the glow of our mutual orgasms. I had no memory of getting into Julie’s car.

She didn’t look at me. “Hey sleepy head.”

“How…?” I glanced around me, found my purse and my shoes at
my feet. “How did I get here? What time is it?”

“You were dead to the world, doll. You’ve been asleep for
hours.”

My jaw ached and the memory of why sent a blush straight
through me. I touched my sore lips and startled when I saw the ring of bruises
around my wrist. Both wrists. I covered them as best I could before Julie saw.

The memory of them made me tremble all over again, but I was
too exhausted to indulge them.

“How did I get to the car?”

What I wanted to ask was, what happened to Josh?

She cleared her throat and reached her free hand to crank
the heat. Outside fall had turned the world bright yellow and orange, but it
also brought a chill that had seeped into my toes while I slept. It felt like
we’d been gone from the world for years, not hours.

“You fell asleep during the party. You were carried out to
my car and buckled in when it was time to go.”