“If she’s sleeping with him, then it’s casual,” Adam mused.
“She’s not.” He did believe her on that count. “I would bet they’ve been on a couple of dates and she’s using him like a shield.”
Adam shrugged one shoulder. “She didn’t run to him, man. I would not let that get in my way.”
“Yeah, we all know about that.” Jake’s eyes rolled. “But in this case, I agree. She used you as cover, not the guy she’s seeing. She’s about to get a crash course in corsets, spanking, and walking with butt floss between her cheeks. Ian said she’s a total newbie, and he wasn’t sure if he would call her submissive.”
“Oh, sexually she’s entirely submissive. She requires it. We didn’t know what to call it when we were kids, but all our sex was D/s. It was awkward D/s, but D/s all the same. Maddie needs to be in control of her career and her life, but she also needs someone to force her to take care of herself, to pay attention to something beyond her big old brain.” He sighed. “At least she used to be.”
“Ah, that type doesn’t change.” Adam started for the doors. “Serena requires two. See where you are at the end of the weekend and don’t push too hard. Let her come to you. I bet she will.”
Deke wished he was half as certain. He followed the guys in, ready to start this particular op.
* * * *
Maddie breathed in as Serena Dean-Miles proved she had some serious upper-body strength as she pulled on the corset. “Does it have to be so tight?”
“Oh, you’ll love how pretty it is,” Serena assured her. “And most of the time I’ve found that when I begin the evening in a corset, I rarely end in one.”
“You change?” She hoped so because she could barely breathe in this sucker.
“Well, if by change you mean end up naked, then yes.” Serena tied off the back of the corset. “There you go. I went easy on you.”
Maddie rose to her feet, trying to get used to the sensation of being caged in a corset. “This is why they do the corset thing, isn’t it? It’s so we’re so uncomfortable, we would rather be naked than in this thing.”
“I wouldn’t put it past some sneaky Dom to come up with that plan.” Serena had walked her through the club while the guys had been outside talking. She’d given her a brief history of the place and then brought her down to the locker room to try on what she called “proper fet wear.”
“Proper fet wear,” it seemed, included a lot of uncomfortable-looking costumes. She’d been given the choice of a PVC body suit with all the wrong cutouts or a selection of corsets. Serena had explained that they kept the small wardrobe of new fet wear for visitors who weren’t prepared for the club’s rules. No street clothes were allowed in the dungeon when the club was open.
The club wouldn’t open for a couple of hours, but she was supposed to start getting used to playing the role she needed to play.
The role of Deke’s submissive.
Had she thought about this at all? Or was she running on pure instinct? It wasn’t the way she usually worked. She was logical. She didn’t leap without looking. And then she only leapt after making a very thorough study of what she was leaping into, including a decision matrix that weighed the pros and cons of leaping at all.
Yet she’d dove right into this stupid lake. She’d taken the plunge without a second thought.
What’s your Dom’s name?
Deke. His name is Deke and we’ve been friends for a long time, but D/s really took our relationship to another level.
Why? Why had she said that? Why couldn’t she have come up with some other name? Some completely falsified construct that allowed her room to maneuver?
“It gets easier,” Serena assured her. “You get used to it, and there are some things you’ll even come to love about corsets.”
“Like what?”
“It changes your posture for one thing. Feel how straight your back is. I like the sensation. I spend all day hunched over a computer and when I put on a corset, I get to become someone else.”
“You get to pretend?” Maddie had friends who cosplayed a lot. She could understand the concept, though she’d never particularly wanted to dress up herself.
“Not pretend, exactly,” Serena mused. “I put that wrong. You would think a writer would be careful with words. No. It’s not pretending, not at the core. Sure, playing out scenes can be fun. You pretend to be the nurse and your husbands are doctors who need some special time. Or it can be fun to be the virginal villager who gets pillaged hard.”
Maddie couldn’t help but snort at the thought. “I don’t see myself doing that.”