Giving It Up: Pushing the Boundaries, Book 1 (3 page)

She also didn’t want him to think she would do this with anybody else.

But
that
wasn’t something she could tell him.

Besides, he probably didn’t care.

She took a deep breath. “Well, I need money. And you need someone to do—something with you. To you. I don’t really know. But it sounds like this might actually be a good opportunity for both of us.”

He scowled. “It’s one thing to hire a professional service, Beatrice. Hiring you is a different story.”

She looked down at her hands. Of course. Because she had no skill at being dominating and confident, like how every woman in the Queen Dommes ads looked. She might be able to pull it off in a sentence or two, here and there. But she wasn’t smoldering and sexy and able to bring a man to his knees with role-play alone. She couldn’t even get Warren to
look
at her half the time!

But she needed money for Nana, and besides…she wanted him. He’d barely talked to her before this happened. Most likely this was her only chance to have him, even if it was only a fantasy.

“Why not?” she whispered.

He sighed and leaned his head back against the bench. “Like I said, you’re a nice girl—”

Nice.
She hated that word almost as much as “refined”.

“—but I can’t afford to get involved. I thought it would get easier as Nate got older, but it didn’t. He needs me more than ever now. He needs a man. He comes to me way more than Kelly, looking for guidance and advice. And when I’m not working or with Nate, I’m paying bills or cutting the lawn or—” He stopped abruptly, as though he’d revealed too much without realizing. For a moment, he looked as though he wasn’t going to say any more, but then he sighed, his shoulders slumping, and said, “Even if I hadn’t sworn off girlfriends a long time ago, how am I supposed to fit dating in there?”

He’d sworn off girlfriends? Why? And how long was “a long time”?
But then the rest of what he’d said sank in, and she gave a small shake of her head. “You call this dating? You said you kissing me would be wrong.”

He gave a bitter laugh. “Exactly, Beatrice. That’s the point.”

She wrinkled her nose in confusion. “But I don’t expect that from you. I wouldn’t ask—”

“Do you even know what you’re agreeing to?” His voice was rough now.

An idea, anyway. She was a journalist, after all. Even if she told her stories in pictures, rather than words, she knew how to research her subjects before she went on assignment, knew how to be still and wait for the moment to come, and when to let her shutter fly.

She’d spent her life observing others, most often through a lens.

So yes, she had an idea.

She managed a jerky nod. “I did a photo shoot at Queen Dommes. And I looked some things up online this morning, before I came here. There’s, well, I have a lot to learn still, but maybe you can tell me what you were thinking—”

“I wasn’t thinking anything.”

“But you must have had
some
expectations.”

He slumped lower on the bench and looked up at the sky. “Frankly, I really don’t know. I don’t even know why I called them. All I could think was that I wanted something for myself for once.” His mouth twisted sardonically. “I sound like a woman.”

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she snorted, but immediately clapped a hand over her mouth. Her mother would have punished her for an entire week for speaking that way. Mother would have agreed with Warren, in fact. Women in Beatrice’s old life were supposed to be needy and deferential to men.

But ever since she’d walked out of the house where she’d grown up, carrying only a suitcase and two hundred dollars in her purse, it had grown harder to keep up that façade at all times, no matter how ingrained.
Especially
around Warren. Something about him managed to push every button she had.

To her surprise, he actually laughed. “I suppose I deserved that.”

She nodded, then said, “I’ll do it for five hundred dollars.”

He stiffened. “I’m not trying to bargain you down, Beatrice. Fuck, if you really need money that badly, I’ll lend you the five hundred bucks.”

Beatrice closed her eyes in dismay.
No.

“I earn my money,” was all she could say, swallowing the sudden desire to scream, wondering how she could possibly end this so that she could walk away with at least some of her dignity still intact.

But the brush of a hand, large, warm and callused, over her arm, had her opening her eyes and staring into his. His dark blue gaze was boring into hers, as though trying to divine some secret simply by looking at her. It felt like an eternity passed as he looked at her, first shaking his head, and then cocking it to one side, that usual scowl of his softening a bit.

And then, finally, he pitched his voice low and asked, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

Not at all.

She nodded.

He let out a long breath, his hand squeezing on her arm. “I get off early on Wednesdays. We could meet then, every week for five weeks. I’ll give you one hundred dollars an hour.”

Her eyes went wide. She hadn’t expected him to agree to it just like that. God, she hoped it hadn’t been out of pity. She couldn’t bear having a man like him feel sorry for her.

But it didn’t really matter. It
couldn’t
. She had two more weddings lined up this month, and with Warren’s money, she’d finally have enough for the last payment of Nana’s bill. And after that, maybe she’d have time to start thinking about her own exhibit.

She took a deep breath.
Here goes.
“Okay. We can schedule an hour each time, but wait to give me the money until it’s all done. I don’t want to be paid by the hour. It’s too—” She closed her eyes briefly, resisting the urge to tell him to forget the whole deal.

His hand slid up her arm. Was it the reflection of the sun, or was the heat back in his eyes? She certainly felt overly warm now.

“I understand. And that’s fine.” His leg pressed harder against hers. “But one more thing.”

“Yes?”
Please don’t say the word
kiss
again or I might spontaneously combust.

“We have to do it at your place.”

“My place? W-why?” She was suddenly alarmed at the thought of his tall, broad body crammed into her small studio apartment, tanned skin sprawled all over her linens. Having him in her space would make it so very
personal
. It would be a challenge, to say the least, to keep a professional distance if she could smell him in her sheets even when he wasn’t there.

“I don’t have my own.”

That made her blink in surprise. She’d never even considered he might not live alone. He certainly
acted
like a loner. But she didn’t press him for details on who he lived with, or where, or why. Now that it was finally within reach, she found she wanted this too much. Wanted
him
, no questions asked.

Naïve.

Maybe that meant she was a product of her sheltered upbringing after all, despite how hard she’d fought to break away.

“We can start this Wednesday, if you want. Seven o’clock okay?”

Wednesday. Less than four days from now. That didn’t give her much time to learn about being a Domme, but it was enough to get started. She wanted to do this right.

For him, and for herself.

She nodded.

“It’s a deal, then,” he told her, and then they were shaking hands, and it was done.

Chapter Three

Beatrice pressed the buzzer for Suite 300 and waited in the archway of the beautiful old brownstone.

A husky, feminine voice came over the intercom. “May I help you?”

The words echoed around the archway, making Beatrice cringe and lean forward, putting her mouth close to the intercom as though to whisper a secret.

“Uh, yes, hi. I-I’m Beatrice Lawrence. I’m supposed to be meeting—um, Mistress Michelle.” She said that last part even more quietly, not wanting to attract attention from anyone who might be walking by on the street.

“Enter,” the voice commanded, and then came the rattling sound of the door being unlocked remotely.

Beatrice rushed forward to pull it open, stepping inside the hushed entryway. The interior had been remodeled at some point, clean lines and white walls replacing the ornate woodwork and dark paneling she had seen in some of the restored buildings in this area. A short hallway in front of her ended in a frosted glass door etched with the name
Harrington and Associates
, while a narrow staircase on the right led upstairs to the other businesses housed in this building.

She had been here once before, to do the photo shoot with Mistress Michelle. But this time, she’d come without her camera, and now she regretted that decision. She felt much more vulnerable not having the protection of a lens between herself and the world, and it took a brief mental pep talk before she could manage to put one foot in front of the other and continue onward.

She ascended the stairs to the third floor and turned to the right, heading toward the ebony lacquered door with no lettering, only a painted image of a large gold crown, crossed through with a whip.

Queen Dommes.

There was another button on this door, this one a pleasant chiming bell below a video camera. She pressed it and immediately the door swung open to reveal Mistress Michelle herself, looking lovely in a white pantsuit and a large, gold collar necklace, her honey blonde hair swept up in a French twist. If Beatrice hadn’t seen her only weeks before, dressed in a black leather catsuit and six-inch stilettos, she’d never guess this lady-who-lunched was one of the highest paid Dommes in the country.

“Miss Lawrence. A pleasure to see you again. Please, come in.” Mistress Michelle smiled and gestured for Beatrice to enter the suite.

“Good morning, Mistress Michelle,” Beatrice replied, walking forward. The door swung shut behind her, a heavy, thudding sound.

Too late to back out now.

“Please, call me Michelle. I’m not ‘Mistress’ unless I’m doing a scene.” Her easygoing friendliness was such a contrast to the cool, leather-clad Dominatrix version of Michelle that Beatrice had photographed last time. But the confidence was still there, the same intelligence and self-assurance behind those bright green eyes.

They were standing in a small waiting area, modern sofas along two walls with a Kubrick-esque table between them. To one side, behind a large, wraparound desk, a gorgeous African American woman sat, looking down at something behind the blind of the desk. Beatrice could see two leather straps of a halter top crossing the woman’s shoulders.

Beatrice nodded to Michelle. “Of course. And please, call me Beatrice.”

“Would you care for some refreshment? We have a selection of beverages in the kitchen.”

God, this was all so well mannered and orderly. Beatrice found herself slipping into the skin of her youth, when Sundays meant a full docket of social activities at church and Beatrice would have to spend the entire day smiling and being demure and generally frustrated with the repressive politeness while simultaneously too afraid to be anything but achingly polite. Not that any of those people from her youth were bad. In fact, they were all unfailingly
nice
.

“No, thank you,” she answered, barely checking herself in time before she made some inane comment about the weather, or chattered on about how much the men enjoyed playing golf. There should be a button that allowed one to erase certain things from one’s mind.

If Michelle noticed how she had faltered then, it didn’t register in the other woman’s expression. Instead, Michelle merely inclined her head in acknowledgment and gestured toward a door along the long corridor that led off the waiting area. “Why don’t we talk in my office? We take privacy very seriously here, so anything we speak about in the public areas will still be kept confidential, but it will be more comfortable in there.”

She didn’t wait for an answer before she turned and walked down the hallway, and Beatrice followed, noticing how straight and tall the other woman walked, how she kept her head up and her shoulders squared, every inch of her commanding and powerful in the most feminine way. It was nothing like the shrinking, acquiescing version of femininity Beatrice had been taught was the
only
version.

She found herself consciously preferring Michelle’s interpretation, and wishing she could have that same confidence.

She felt like she was perpetually faking it.

You’re here, aren’t you?

Sure, but she’d been embarrassed to be. Still kind of was.

The office was large and carpeted in a plush purple, and Beatrice was surprised to find it resembled a cozy sitting room rather than an executive’s office, as she’d expected. There was a glass and metal desk along the side wall, but most of the room was taken up by a group of designer chairs clustered around a large, white table.

Michelle directed her there, and after they were settled into their seats, Beatrice entwined her fingers in her lap and tried to hide her nervousness. “Thank you so much for agreeing to speak with me. I apologize for intruding on your time—”

Michelle put up a hand, stopping her from saying anything more. “There is no need for that. I’m not
doing this out of charity; I’m doing this out of respect. Your photos for the feature on Queen Dommes were brilliant. You don’t need to apologize to me for something I’m happy to do.”

Beatrice blushed. That was hardly what she had been taught growing up. The way she’d been instructed, women were supposed to be grateful for every last crumb thrown their way, not to act like they were entitled to, well,
any
thing.

“Oh, well. Uh. Thank you.”

She cringed at the clumsiness of her words, but Michelle simply nodded and gave Beatrice an encouraging look, as though she expected something more. But the silence dragged a bit too long.
She probably wants to know why you’re here! Say something!

“What would you like to know?” Michelle’s voice was quiet, but it sounded like a cannon shot in the hushed space.

Here goes nothing.
“I want to know why men come to you.”

Goodness. She hoped it wasn’t possible for one’s face to be incinerated by the heat of a blush. How could she have thought she could go through with this?

Think of Warren. Think of how you’ll get to be with him, if only for a few weeks.

Michelle smiled, but at least she didn’t laugh Beatrice out of the building. After a long moment of silence, though, she gave an elegant shrug. “Men come to us for many reasons because they imagine different things when they read our advertisements. To try to narrow it down to an answer that would fit into the time we have…” She shook her head. “Impossible.”

Beatrice furrowed her brow in confusion. “I don’t understand. The only text on your ads says ‘give it up’. It seems like that was referring to something specific. What is it that men see in that slogan that makes them want to-to…” She trailed off, not certain how to complete the thought.

Michelle cocked her head to the side. “And what else is in those ads?”

Beatrice didn’t even have to think. She’d spent all of yesterday evening going through the Queen Dommes website, committing the poses, the costumes, to memory. “The one I’ve seen the most around town has you in a catsuit, posing with one foot on a shirtless man, like a hunter with his kill.”

Michelle nodded. “Exactly. What do you think men imagine giving up when they look at that image?”

Beatrice shook her head. She felt so out of her element here. Yes, she had imagined so many things when she had seen that ad, some relatively new from the research she had been doing on BDSM, some because of her own desire for Warren. But she didn’t really know anything about men. Apart from her own disinterested father, the condescending church boys whom her parents had tried to get her to marry and those two brief flings she’d had after leaving her parents’ house—emotionless entanglements borne solely out of anger and a need for revenge—there had been no men who were really
in
her life.

“I don’t know,” she replied, her voice nearly breaking on the last word.

But instead of comforting her, Michelle banged her hand on the table, making Beatrice jump. “You are a photographer, Beatrice. A brilliant one. And you cannot look at it and even begin to conceive of the feeling behind the pose?”

Michelle leaned forward, bringing her face only inches from Beatrice’s. “Rule number one. Never, ever lie. Not to anyone else, but especially not to yourself.”

Wow. That was unexpected. Rather perversely, the same people who had insisted that girls be “pure” in thought and deed had encouraged her to tell white lies anytime she needed to in order to make someone else feel better. It had been a habit she’d struggled hard to break, and she’d been proud of herself for doing so.

But she’d never considered not lying to
herself
.

Slowly, she composed herself and thought about what Michelle had said. She tried to accept the words—that she was a brilliant photographer—as truth so she could figure out how to respond. But it was hard to believe it. Granted, she usually saw everything through a photographer’s eye, and had viewed the Queen Dommes posters this way, as well. As a younger woman, keeping a lens between herself and her subjects had helped to keep her detached from the discomfort she felt with the rest of the world. And after she’d left the house, it had helped her hide. But above all else, it had taught her how to assess a situation with nothing more than a look.

She knew what those posters were about. She was too afraid to say it out loud.

Amazing, how deep shame went.

Michelle had been watching Beatrice in silence for the past minute, but now she sat back and sighed. “As women, so often treated like lesser beings in a society that seems hell-bent on keeping us in the kitchen, we sometimes forget about the flip side of the standards that want to hold us back. Men, like women, are bound by expectation in our culture that requires them to be responsible for so many things. Doling out advice and justice, having to hide their softer feelings, paying the bills and feeding a family…the list may well be endless. Imagine the toll such expectations take on a man, when they feel they cannot ask someone else to share their burdens, or even to accept someone might already be doing so, without sacrificing a part of the very things that define them as men.”

I sound like a woman.

Warren’s words echoed in Beatrice’s head. The fear in his voice when he’d said them, the disappointment in himself. As much as those words had chafed when he’d said them, she’d heard the same for years growing up—from
nice
people like her parents, for whom that kind of thinking made sense. It worked for them. She refused to let it be her fate.

“That is not to say men cannot be selfish, or that conforming to those expectations is an acceptable way to live,” Michelle continued. “But men are both weaker and stronger than we often give them credit for. And sometimes, it feels good to have a break from the demands of real life. To give up
control
to someone else.”

All I could think was that I wanted something for myself for once.

“That’s why he called,” Beatrice breathed.

Michelle raised an eyebrow at Beatrice’s use of
he
, but tactfully chose not to pursue the topic. Instead, she sat up and put out her hand again, this time holding the palm flat. “Ultimately, life is about balance. Not necessarily equality. But balance. And when the scales tip too far on one side or another…” she moved her hand back and forth, showing it tipping, “…you either have to find the weight that will balance you out again, or you have to recalibrate entirely. Many of our clients come to us to get an adjustment, so speak.”

“An adjustment? Like going to the chiropractor?” Beatrice wasn’t sure whether to be shocked or intrigued.

“Yes, in fact. Very much like visiting a medical professional, whether it is a surgeon or a psychotherapist. When someone first comes to us, we spend at least half an hour in consultation to understand what their needs and motivations are, then we provide the role-play we think will best benefit them, and they leave with more equilibrium. Much like a therapeutic exchange of any other nature. And it is important to understand that we are not a mere BDSM service, as many people believe. We do not engage in
solely
sexual dominant and submissive behavior. And we do not form attachments outside of this office. Queen Dommes provides only role-play. It might have a sexual component, but it might not.”

Interesting…

What if Warren wasn’t looking for their interaction to be sexual in nature? What if she’d assumed incorrectly and—

No. They’d talked about dating, and how he was doing this because he didn’t have time to date. They’d talked about
kissing
, even if only how it wouldn’t be the right thing to do. But he’d brought it up like the thought had crossed had mind. And there’d been heat between them. She’d
felt
it.

Either way, she should find out how to handle it. “But—if there’s no, um, illegal interaction, how are you really different from going to a therapist?” Beatrice furrowed her brow, but then shook her head, blushing. “I mean, if I may ask?”

Michelle laughed. “The law does not prevent our clients from removing their clothes, or from touching
themselves
as we work. Despite that we do not engage in illicit sexual activity, many of our clients who prefer sexual role-play scenarios do reach orgasm during a session, whether through their own manual stimulation or use of an inanimate object.”