Stronghold (Stronghold 1) Page 7

  The first bit of the application was the standard personal information, including asking if she wanted to use a pseudonym in the club. She chose Angie. Again, close enough to her real name, but softer. Checked the box that she was new to the scene. Filled out a little blurb about what interested her in BDSM, why she wanted to try it.

  And then a page came up with a list of kinks and dirty deeds, asking her to indicate her interest on a scale of one to ten. One being "hell no absolutely not" and ten being "yes please!" At least that's how she interpreted it.

  There weren't too many things that she said no absolutely not to. Needles, knives and blood. Full hoods - she was too claustrophobic for that. Same thing with mummification. Shiver. Piercings. Anything to do with excrement or golden showers.

  A couple of the more severe toys scored a two. Especially the scarier looking whips. So did sex with a member of the same gender. While she didn't think she was entirely opposed to it, she didn't have an interest in it either. She wanted to be open minded, so she figured a two was probably the way to go. After all, it was almost a "hell no."

  In the middle were things like group sex (which she'd always been curious about but felt kinda slutty for indicating an interest) and double penetration, Shibari, electricity, and some of the heavy toys that didn't seem quite so scary. Clamps, paddles, a cane that didn't look too threatening, etc.

  Bondage restraints, spanking, the Saint Andrew's Cross, most of the anal toys (none of which were too big or frightening), anal sex, vibrators, verbal orders, etc. were all on the "yes please!" side. In fact just checking those things off was getting her hot and bothered.

  Feeling very daring, she clicked the 'submit' button (giggling a little too herself as she thought "yes please!" again). A little notification popped up that said she'd be hearing back from them within the week about her application.

  "Woo," she said, grinning.

  Okay, time to get off the computer. She needed to get some rest so that she could concentrate on sewing tomorrow. Maybe write a few proposals for some new locations for self-defense classes. Q had given her a pretty good template for churning those out, since he was a proposal writer when he wasn't gaming, and she only turned to him for edits now once she was done with a proposal. And she liked to try and keep a regular schedule so that she didn't end up sleeping too late. It was too easy to waste time sleeping in.

  Grabbing the book she was reading, she'd been getting into Steampunk novels lately, she tossed it onto the bed before stripping down and putting on her nightshirt. The sounds of the guys talking and laughing were faint enough that she could snuggle into her bed and shut them out, diving into a world of alternate Victorian history with automatons, wild inventions and vampires.

  Chapter 4

  Strumming his guitar, Adam absently went through the fingering he'd memorized in high school for Scarborough Fair. It was his go-to song for when he wanted to just sit and think; it was a soothing song to listen to and he'd played it so many times that his fingers went through the motions without him having to pay attention to what he was doing.

  His brother had been the one to teach him how to play guitar. Brian had been incredibly musically gifted; Adam knew that his friends were impressed with his ear for music and his apparent ease with stringed instruments, but he was nothing compared to how Brian had been. As he played, his eyes wandered around the den and over to the one family picture that he kept up there. That picture was the reason he hardly ever went into this room.

  It had been taken when he was seven and his brother was ten, the year before their parents' bitter divorce. At the time he hadn't understood why his mother had left so abruptly, although he'd completely understood his father's anger. Eventually he realized that he'd rarely seen his parents together during the last two years of their marriage; his father had always remained shut up in the basement working while his mother did her best to pretend that she wasn't lonely and didn't feel neglected. But the worst part of the divorce hadn’t been the separation, it had been the way both parents had used him and Brian as weapons against each other after the marriage had ended.

  For a long time after his brother had overdosed on drugs, he'd blamed both of his parents for Brian's descent into oblivion. It was during that time that he'd started refusing to choose between them for holidays. In high school and college he'd gone to friends' houses, and once he'd gotten old enough he'd started having his own celebrations. Ever since his brother had spiraled wildly out of control, Adam's life had been focused on maintaining control. In and out of bed.

  Sometimes he wondered if his parents' influence was the reason he'd held off on having a real relationship for so long. Well, that wasn't entirely true. He had really cared about Brooke, the closest he'd ever come to falling in love with someone, and it wasn't because of his parents that the relationship hadn't worked out. Actually it had been almost a relief to know that a relationship could end on good terms, that he wasn't necessarily destined to crash and burn like his parents had. Then again, he and Brooke had both been honest enough to know that they weren't meeting each other's needs. Last he'd heard she was very happy in a relationship with an accomplished sadist.

  And his parents weren't doing so badly themselves anymore. His dad had started dating a woman named Claire while Adam was in high school and they had been living together since then, although they didn't seem inclined to actually marry. Last year his mother had remarried, an Englishman named Sam who worshiped the ground she walked on and made her blissfully happy.

  Maybe his parents’ ability to move on was why he was finally feeling ready to have another go at a real relationship.

  So why the obsession with Mistress Angela? A woman who obviously wasn't right for him. All week he'd been debating whether or not to go see the show that she was in. Last weekend at Chained the answer had seemed obvious, but the more he thought about it the more he waffled.

  And waffling was not something Adam was used to.

  There was a strange sound threaded through the delicate fingering of the guitar and it took him a moment to realize he was grinding his teeth. With a sigh he leaned his head back, resting his hand on the body of the guitar. He was losing it over a Domme. How had his life to come to this?

  Opening his eyes he looked up at the clock.

  Damn. He needed to get ready to go to Stronghold.

  Sighing, he set the guitar on its holder next to the chair he was sitting in. Patrick had decided the club needed more unattached subs and was accepting applications from a few newbies to the scene, which meant they needed Introduction Scenes. Subs with more experience in the lifestyle weren’t required to do the Introduction Scenes, although they were offered to get them used to the space and give them a Dom to relate to, but the newbies needed careful handling. It was something that all of their group of friends had occasionally done, but since Justin, Chris and Liam were now all in serious relationships, Rick never came to Stronghold during the week, and Jared and Marissa were back together, the duties were mostly falling to Andrew, Olivia and Adam.

  Tonight was his night.

  With a groan he got to his feet, trying to convince himself that this was a good thing. A good way to meet new subs to the club and see if he had any chemistry with any of them. In fact he was really getting a jump start on the other Doms by doing the Introduction Scenes.

  He needed to be meeting and thinking about submissives. Not about Angela.

  ******

  The club was pretty quiet when he first got there, which is why Patrick chose Thursday nights for the Introduction Scenes. There were less people, less of them were wearing their more scandalous, and overall it would be less intimidating for newbies. Allison was at the front desk, Jared at the door.

  "Intro scene tonight?" Jared asked after they greeted each other.

  "Yeah."

  Adam had read over the email that Patrick had sent him before leaving his house; the sub was apparently interested in doing everything. She'd indicated that she thoug
ht she was both a masochist and submissive but she had never tried anything so she was just going based off of what she had read in books. Something must have made Patrick think that she was more than a tourist though - the club had gotten a lot of those when BDSM erotica had first become big, but Patrick had weeded through them easily. Just in case, he still did interviews with each applicant before giving them over to a Dom for an Intro Scene. To tell the truth, Adam felt as though he would have preferred to introduce another Dom to the club tonight than a sub, then he could have just stepped back and monitored, maybe done a little bit of teaching.

  "She's cute," Jared offered, obviously seeing that Adam was less than thrilled about his duties for the evening.

  "She won't be my type."

  "You don't know that."

  "Yeah I do, she thinks she's a masochist."

  Jared shrugged his big shoulders, before both he and Adam nodded a greeting to a passing couple. "She might be wrong."

  This time Adam just slanted a look at the big man. He expected Jared to grin at him, but Jared was looking in the other direction, watching the main room of the club before the door closed after the couple that had just entered. Adam raised his eyebrow.

  "Is Marissa here?"

  The expression on Jared's face went stony. "Yeah."

  "Do you want me to check on her?"

  "No. She'll do whatever it is she wants to do." The bitterness in his friend's voice made Adam wince.

  He didn't completely understand how Marissa continued to have such a hold on Jared, but he wished he knew how to break it. It was Jared's life though and so far everyone except Olivia had pretty much stayed out of it. The rest of them just did their best to be civil to Marissa, although none of them managed to be actually friendly. Adam had had a few conversations with her over the years; she wasn't bad to talk to when she was in the mood to be friendly, she was just an essentially selfish person. She could play the part of a submissive, but she was constantly topping from the bottom and she was like a black hole for emotional investment. Which was probably what kept Jared around; he was the most giving person Adam had ever known, his most base instincts insisting that he take care of the people around him, and Marissa was the neediest and greediest. She'd latched onto Jared and was slowly sucking the life out of him. And she had a bad habit of flirting with his friends, which was why it had been a while since Adam had tried to be friendly with her even for Jared’s sake.

  "I'd better get in there before Patrick thinks I've blown him off," he said non-committedly. If he went in there and Marissa was flirting with another Dom then he wasn't sure he'd be able to stay out of it.

  Jared waved him through and he could feel the big man's eyes following him as he entered. Fortunately for all of them Marissa was in the lounge area with the one unattached submissive currently in the club, chatting. No wonder Jared was on edge though; just by being in that area Marissa made herself approachable to other Doms. It was a very Marissa-move, just enough to make Jared anxious and upset while not pushing the line so far that either he or anyone else could do anything about it. If questioned she'd just insist that she was keeping the other sub company and become affronted at anyone suggesting that she shouldn't be in the lounge area.

  As her Dom, Jared could insist on it, but they all knew it wouldn't work because Marissa would lay on the guilt if he tried to enforce it. And anyone else trying to interfere would have to deal with Jared's displeasure since no one but him had the right to give orders to his sub. Patrick might be able to get away with it, but Patrick was busy with the sub that Adam was going to be working with.

  For a moment he thought about going over and looming over the two of them, just to make his own displeasure with the situation known, but he was supposed to be in Patrick's office by now. Waving to Andrew behind the bar, he headed over to the club's access to Patrick's office and knocked on the door.

  ******

  "RED! RED!"

  Adam sighed. That was the fourth time in the past hour that Stephanie had yelled out her safe word. Immediately he let the paddle drop to his side and knelt by her head where it was resting on the spanking bench, cupping her face in his hand and lifting it slightly to look at him. Her eyes were wide and horrified, not at all turned on.

  "Stephanie, I don't think you're a masochist," he said in the most patient tone that he could, considering that it was the sixth time he'd said that since they'd started playing with equipment.

  The initial meeting had gone well enough. The pretty blonde was attractive and obviously eager to try things out, but almost as soon as they'd gotten to the Dungeon it had gone downhill from there. She spent as much time trying to top from the bottom and control the scene as she did actually trying something out. At first she'd wanted to try some bondage, so he'd used a Saint Andrew's cross to string her up, but then she'd wanted to be let out of the bondage before trying anything else. Frowning, Adam had told her that she needed to let go and submit if she was going to be submissive and give her bottom a sharp slap.

  Which had initiated the first time she'd said the safe word. Apparently she hadn't been ready to be spanked. Although she'd obviously liked that he'd taken her control away from her.

  It was quite possibly the most frustrating Introduction Scene he'd ever done in his life because she kept insisting on trying things that were painful and yet she couldn't take the slightest amount of pain. Eventually he'd taken complete control of the scene, put her down on the spanking bench - although they'd compromised and he had only bound her legs to it and not her arms - and smacked her with the paddle. About as hard as he'd done the first spank. This time she'd gotten through three sharp smacks before saying her safe word, but he could see the disappointment in her eyes that her fantasy wasn't living up to reality.

  "But... I like it so much when I read about it," she said, looking completely confused. "That's what gets me the hottest. But this doesn't feel like pleasure-pain, it feels like pain pain."

  Adam couldn't help but chuckle. The poor thing was definitely submissive, she'd responded very well when he'd stopped letting her top from the bottom, but she was also very sensitive and barely had a medium tolerance for pain. Not the qualities a masochist was made of. Real pain didn't turn her on at all.

  "We're not all made the same," he said. "But a masochist would have loved what I just did to you. I can give you a spanking that will feel like pleasure pain, but I have to recommend that you absolutely not advertise to any Doms that you're a masochist. We have several Sadists here at Stronghold that are looking for partners and would probably love to try you out, but I can guarantee you wouldn't enjoy it." He pressed his thumb against her lip as she opened her mouth to give another protest. "That doesn't mean that you won't continue to enjoy your fantasies, but I think that you'll find a lot more pleasure in submission than in attempting to force your fantasies onto yourself."

  The woman made a face that said she didn't want to give up yet but that she was reluctant to let him near her tender backside with another implement of pain. "Can we try the spanking that you think I'll enjoy?"

  "Absolutely," Adam said, grinning wickedly at her. He ran his hand over her hair approvingly, watching her face light up and her pupils dilate. Definitely submissive. Not for him, but he could already think of several Doms around the club who would be interested in her; she was adventurous and eager to please, not everyone wanted a brat. He certainly didn’t. If he was looking for a play partner instead of a real connection he might have suggested to Stephanie that they do a few more scenes together, but he could tell that she was definitely the kind of woman who would want a deeper connection pretty quickly and he already knew that she wasn’t quite a match for what he wanted.

  Angela’s wide eyed excitement after she’d toured Chained popped into his head before he forced it back down. Dammit. Why was the best chemistry he’d had in years with a Domme?! It made absolutely no sense and yet there it was. Which pretty much explained his preoccupation with her and his very dee
ply hidden hope that maybe she had her inclinations wrong. That did happen, especially with people who were new to the scene. Just look at Stephanie and her insistence that she was a masochist when she was the farthest thing from.

  Trying to overcome his distraction, he finished out the Introduction scene with a light spanking for Stephanie and giving her an orgasm with a vibrator. He was somewhat aroused, but more because he kept fantasizing rather than focusing on the woman at hand. They just didn’t have the kind of connection that he wanted, even when it came to a play partner for more than one night.

  So when she tried to flirt with him before leaving, he gently but firmly let her know that while he was happy to be a Dominant for her as she explored her boundaries, he’d be introducing her to other Doms who would suit her. The disappointment on her face wasn’t very deep, but he still made a mental note to make sure to introduce her around the club before she could get too attached to him. There was always the risk of inexperienced players misinterpreting the intensity of the scene for intensity of emotion.

  As he was seeing Stephanie out he saw Olivia at the bar and motioned to her that he’d be there to talk in a moment.

  “Tough night?” The sultry redhead asked when he sat down on the barstool next to her with a heavy sigh.

  For a moment he just looked his friend over. She was gorgeous, with that flaming red hair and eyes that shifted from grey to blue, flawless skin that a Dom who didn’t know better might dream about whipping, and had all the requirements that he’d want in a woman (other than being submissive in the bedroom) and yet he’d never had a lick of attraction to her. Because they just didn’t mesh that way, so the issue of sexual attraction never came up. So why with Mistress Angela?

  “That bad?”

  “No,” he said, shaking his head and pushing his recent obsession away. He needed to get a grip on himself. “It wasn’t terrible, she just didn’t want to admit that she wasn’t a masochist.”