Brat and Master (3 page)

Jeremy shrugged and stepped forward. “I’ll do it.”

Amanda had a lovely smile, Jeremy discovered. The look she gave him was very different than the bratty grin that had been on display during the negotiating demonstration, but no less appealing.

“Thank you! I’m Amanda.” She stretched out her hand.

“Jeremy.” He clasped her hand. It was cool and soft, and he held on to it a moment too long. Their gazes met.

“Would you mind taking your shirt off?”

He shook his head and unbuttoned his shirt. There was a table with a few other floggers there. It was an eclectic collection. One was made out of a zillion little plastic laces.
I bet that stings.
The tails were short, though, so they wouldn’t hit with the same speed as a longer flogger. There were a few traditional floggers of various weights, each with a ball-shaped Turk’s-head knot at the end of the handle. There was a short little flogger, less than a foot long, with flat suede tails called a “pussy whip” because it would hit lightly enough to be useful on sensitive areas. Mixed in with the floggers was a riding crop with a pink heart at the end of it rather than the conventional flap. He folded the shirt and put it on the table.

“Where do you want me?” he asked.

“Oh, just facing the cross. You can hug it if you want. That’s what I like to do.” She winked. “I’m not really a domme, but I know what I’m doing.”

“That’s okay. I’m not really a bottom.” He moved over to the cross but looked backward when someone asked a question.

“If you’re not a domme, why do you know how to swing a flogger?” asked the woman in the leather jacket. Jeremy thought she must be roasting in it. Excess was kept at a temperature where nudity would be comfortable.

“Because it’s fun. And because not everyone fits into neat categories. I can be what is called a service top, which means I can hit someone who wants to be hit, and get a charge out of that because I’m providing good service by doing so. But I also sometimes find it fun to do this.” Amanda took a step back, getting some distance from everyone, and started the floggers moving. The blue-and-red tails flew through the air, creating a lovely pattern, and simple twists of her wrists were enough to change the angles. It was like a kinky form of pom-poms, but far more elegant and beautiful than any of the cheerleaders Jeremy could remember. “It’s very relaxing. A good way to pass the time while waiting for a subway train.”

She delivered the line so flatly Jeremy thought for a moment she was serious.

Apparently so did someone else. “Doesn’t that bother security?” asked a man.

“Little bit.” Amanda winked. “The Maori people invented a performance art using what they call poi. People do it with big flaming things, or ribbons, or all sorts of things. For the Maori, it’s also a martial art. I’ve got some poi with the same balance but pretty glowing LED balls at the end, and no one can tell I’m being kinky. Anyway, anything that can be done with poi can be done with a flogger. Master Gray can tell you all about how to use a flogger effectively, and a flogging given by him is better than one given by me, I’m sure, although I’ve never been on the receiving end of mine.” She flicked the flogger back over her shoulder. “Much.” She did the other one. “Hardly ever.” She wiggled, and did both at once. “Mmm, baby,” she said and then pretended to come out of a trance. “Anyway. Sorry. I get distracted.”

By this point, she had people laughing. Jeremy was smiling too. Amanda was a natural ham. But he thought he detected something underneath all that, something that suggested that the attention-grabbing display was less than natural to her. Clearly, it met a need. But what was that need, exactly?

And why do I want to fill it? I don’t know her.
The image of Cheri appeared to him. Amanda might be a sub and not a domme, but there the comparison ended. Cheri had been shy and wanted an order for every move at a club. She soaked in direction, flourished under it, and struggled when it was taken away. Amanda, on the other hand, seemed proudly self-sufficient and comfortable with a certain amount of ambiguity about her submissive role that would never have sat well with Cheri.

He wasn’t sure if he felt less or more faithful, being attracted to a woman who was different.

“Anyway, Master Gray can show you a lot about pleasing your bottom. What I can show you is how to look good doing it. And if you look good doing a flogging in a dungeon, you’re more likely to get partners asking you to flog them.” Amanda turned back to him. “Ready to go, Jeremy?”

“Yep.” Reluctantly, he turned his head away. He wanted to watch her, but as a dom he knew he’d want his sub facing away. Floggers were difficult to control precisely, and Amanda’s technique, while beautiful, wouldn’t make that any easier. If a tail did go higher than expected, one didn’t want it hitting someone’s face or, worse, their eye. A margin for error helped the top relax. However skilled Amanda was at waving floggers in the air, he suspected she didn’t do it on someone’s back nearly as often.

He remembered awkwardly asking a gay leatherman to give him a flogging. That must have been over twenty years ago, but he was a firm believer that he didn’t want to do anything to someone else that he hadn’t felt himself. The would-be doms watching Amanda might not want to be flogged, but they were missing an education by not volunteering.

Amanda draped the flogger over his shoulder, letting him feel the tails. He smiled. She knew, as he did, that familiarity with the texture went a long way to helping the body process what came next. Since the two she had in her hand were a matched pair, she didn’t have to do it twice, but she did. He turned his head briefly to grin at her.

She seemed surprised, but after a second grinned back.
She thinks I’m a complete novice.
He wasn’t going to correct her. It had been a long time. He supposed she thought his grin meant he was looking forward to the flogging rather than appreciation of her technique.
Well, fine. She probably needs that to put her heart into it, if she’s a service top.

She swished the floggers through the air, but he had turned his head so he couldn’t see. He could hear, however, and feel the swoosh of the wind against his back. More psychology, but she was also probably getting the range, as well as showing off for the crowd. He reflected on her comment about how an attractive technique could get you noticed and get more play partners. He wondered, since she wasn’t a domme, if she then turned the tables and asked, “How about if you flog me?”

That would be the critical point. He could bring himself to flog a woman who wanted it. But he preferred that to be part of an intimate scene, and the memory of Cheri made that difficult. He imagined Amanda’s breasts in his hands, cupped through her thin blouse, and his cock twitched.
I’m sorry, Cheri.

He knew, deep down, that Cheri would want him to move on. Even the fact that they were monogamous had always been at his insistence, not Cheri’s. She had never wanted to make any demands of him except that he give her regular instruction. At times, that had been burden enough, but on the whole, it had been wonderful. Cheri would definitely want him to move on, but for that final step, he felt that he was the one who needed instruction. Yet Cheri wasn’t going to be able to give it to him from heaven.

The slap of the flogger against his back was enough to jolt him back into the now. It was followed swiftly by another. The floggers were lightweight, probably made from deerskin, and Amanda kept up a steady beat. The leather heated his back, the breeze of the floggers as they moved through the air providing a little cooling. He could take that all day if need be. Longer than Amanda’s arms could keep it up. Her technique virtually required her to keep the floggers in constant motion. Form and function both, perfectly combined. He bet that there were a few dozen subs who’d come for the evening who would love to have Amanda work on their back.

How ironic that the first semi-scene I’ve been in since Cheri has me on the receiving end.

Amanda was talking behind him, mostly for the benefit of those watching. “You can swing them in an X,” she said, “Or a figure eight. Or this crossing pattern, which is a mix of both. The hard part is finding a pattern that makes sure that the floggers aren’t getting all tangled up in each other and aren’t hitting your own back. Feels good, mind you—” Jeremy thought he could hear a grin in her voice. “But it doesn’t make you look like a smooth top.”

She set down the floggers and put her hand on his back. Her hand was soft and cool. “Any questions?” she asked. After a moment’s silence, she said, “My card’s on the table, feel free to take one in case you want to send me questions later.” She turned to Jeremy and stroked his back gently. It was as if she was reading the lines of his muscles by Braille. “You were wonderful,” she told him. “Thank you.”

He turned his head to look at her. “I didn’t do anything.”

She laughed. “Which was perfect. Thank you for volunteering.” She picked up his shirt and handed it to him. “You look better without it.”

And you’d look better without yours.
He moved off from the cross. People were moving away, but a new audience was arriving. He buttoned his shirt, trying to clear his head, aware of Amanda’s gaze on him. He’d never been shy around women.

And now the first kinky woman I’ve spent a few seconds with since—since Cheri—is causing my heart to beat faster.
“Thanks for the demo,” he said. He pocketed one of the cards without looking at it, then turned away and walked out of the room.

Chapter Two

“Intro to Kink” was over, and now the regulars were coming in to play. Amanda had put her collection of floggers away. They were safely locked up in Betsy and Gray’s office.

“So then she says, why do you have to do that to me? Can you imagine? After telling me she liked it, and it was exactly what she wanted.”

Amanda nodded politely at the speaker, the self-styled Sir Percival. She didn’t know his real name. He wasn’t a bad dom. She’d played with him a couple of times, but there wasn’t any real chemistry there. Now she was in an all too familiar situation. Sitting at a table, she found it hard to stand up and move away. She was a magnet for doms, and not usually in the best way. They wanted advice or help with their scenes with some other woman. Amanda had a reputation for being selfless and easy to please. And she enjoyed pleasing people and making their lives better. Right now, however, she wished Sir Percival thought of her as a heartless bitch. That way, he wouldn’t be sharing his problems with her. She had enough of her own. She’d wanted to be his sub once, but the idea of him complaining about her to another sub stopped that yearning in its tracks. Her mind drifted to her job situation. She needed to find something steady. The company she’d been a trainer for had gone belly-up.

“Well,” she started. She was usually an attentive listener, but this time she’d lost track of what it was that set Sir Percival’s sub, Lucy, off. “Sometimes people don’t like what they think they’ll like. Learning what works for you is part of what makes all this kinky stuff fun.”

“Maybe if I get different clamps.”

Oh, right. Lucy didn’t like nipple clamps. “What kind do you have?”

“Tweezer clamps.”

“Give it up, then.”

“Excuse me?” Clearly, it wasn’t the advice Sir Percival wanted.

“If you started with the easy ones, and she doesn’t like them, she’s not going to like clover clamps. Have you ever had clamps on your nipples?”

“Well, um, no.”

Amanda shrugged. “Then you don’t know how it feels, do you? Not that it’s the same from person to person. That’s just not something Lucy is going to be into. You guys did a cool flogging scene the other day. Why don’t you go back to that, and then try other things from there.”
And leave this poor, lonely, self-pitying submissive alone.

“But isn’t she out of line? I mean, she asked for it.”

Amanda had lost her job two months ago, and while temp work was paying the most urgent bills, it wasn’t sustainable. She was having to work fifty hours a week, and she had no health insurance. Normally, she’d have cut out membership in the club as a frivolous expense until she had things under control, but Gray and Betsy had offered to waive the fee. Which she’d refused out of pride. Now she felt obligated to show up, but increasingly she didn’t want to. She’d watched her friends pair off and the best doms at Excess get snapped up. Betsy and Susan were lovely people, and she was happy for them.
But now it’s my turn.

If she didn’t mesh right with any of the experienced doms and no one wanted her for more than a few play sessions, she’d have to train a Master to fit her needs. One of the newbies, perhaps.

Her mind instantly flew to Jeremy, the one she’d flogged. He was older than she was, but he had nice muscles. He’d taken the flogging like…well, like a man. She would have enjoyed it more if he’d been able to get into it, but his willingness to take some leather for the team indicated he was the kind of man she was looking for. Betsy and Gray had held a meeting to talk about the importance of looking after the newbie subs, to make sure the experienced doms didn’t take advantage of them. But newbie doms? They were fair game.

“Amanda?” asked Sir Percival.

“Sorry, Percy, I’ve got to go talk to Mistress Elizabeth a second.” In private, she called Elizabeth “Betsy” most of the time. In the club, however, she preferred to reinforce Elizabeth’s authority. The place worked better that way. The leather-clad domme was all the way across the club, but at least she wasn’t occupied for a change. Amanda pushed back her chair and started heading that way.

“What did you call me?”

Oh, shit. I said it out loud.
She’d thought it a few times.
Having things in my head is dangerous. They tend to come out.
“Sir Percival. Look, talk to Lucy if you have issues to resolve with her. Don’t talk to me. It won’t do you any good.” She didn’t stay to see what he thought of that. A few words with Betsy were all she needed.

Safety first. Especially if I’m going to play with a newb.

It was more packed than usual at Excess. While she was still making her way through the crowds, she saw one of the newbies approach Elizabeth, who shook her head politely and pointed across the room. Subs flocked to the confident, curvy domme like moths to a flame. But Betsy was now happily married, and when and if she played with anyone for anything but demonstration purposes, it was always with her husband, Gray. Not all subs were deterred by that—Amanda had gone a few rounds with the couple herself—but many were, and the two of them were very picky.