Out of the Dungeon (11 page)

"Yeah," Roman said. "He was dying before he
landed in the ICU."

"Because of Dare?" Vanessa asked.

"Of course not. Because of me. Because I'm an
arrogant ass too caught up in what I wanted to notice that Jeff was
suffering. Too excited about Dare to realize I was screwing up
Jeff, the guy who's the best thing that ever happened to me. Who
was both my opposite and my complement." Roman dropped his head
into his hands.

"Come on, it's not all your fault."

"No?" Roman asked. "What, because he puts my
happiness before his own? He's supposed to. That's the deal. It's
my job to be aware that he's doing it, though, because it's my job
to make sure this deal is working for him. Part of why he trusts me
is because he trusts me to do that. And I failed him."

"But he never told you."

"Yeah, but I never asked the proper
questions. Probably because I didn't want to know if everything
wasn't as perfect as I wanted. Instead I railed at Dare for holding
back, for protecting himself from me by walking away sometimes, for
keeping his room at Doc's and refusing to live here. If I had asked
Jeff the proper questions, he would have told me. Trust, truth, and
transparency. It's the only way this kind of relationship can ever
survive."

Vanessa dared to slip her arm across his
shoulders. "Few things are un-fixable," she said. "You and Jeff
have been partners for a long time. You can put this to
rights."

Roman nodded. "But at what expense to Dare? I
have to be fair to him, as well."

"Yes. And you said yourself that Dare wants
something different than Jeff. So you might have to cut Dare loose
to fix things with Jeff."

Roman was nodding. "Yeah, maybe. I found
Jeff's journal yesterday, while I was looking for his mom's phone
number. I assumed he typed and emailed me the entries, but maybe
not everything. He never sent me this."

"Don't read the journal if it's going to make
everything harder."

"So what if it does? I took over his whole
life. It's not supposed to be easy. I made a commitment to him,
too, you know, to love and protect. To be worthy of his servitude.
To put in the time to understand what makes him tick, and what he
needs for happiness. You know about the contract, right?"

Vanessa nodded. Yes, Jeff had told her in
great detail about his slave contract. That Jeff loved going to the
extreme was one of the things she liked about him. He was always
ready to take huge risks for love. Being loved in return was the
payback.

Roman went on, "The contract isn't supposed
to be a prison or a trap for anyone. That's why it's renewable, not
permanent. That's why there are weekly check-ins built into the
terms. Every Sunday we have a check in meeting. We're supposed to
shake off our roles of Master and slave and have a genuine
discussion of how things are going. I'm supposed to ask, and he's
supposed to tell me. But Dare's been around most Sundays the past
few months, and it didn't occur to me that his presence might skew
the conversation, might make Jeff hold back his true feelings. The
contract is supposed to guarantee Jeff a safe place to be himself,
not just as a slave, but a beloved, cherished slave. And as a
man."

"I still say don't read the journal. Wait and
talk to Jeff in person. Things change. How can you know what Jeff
will need or want after suffering nonconsensual trauma? Reading it
might only be torturing yourself."

"Perhaps I deserve a little torture."

"You don't. You certainly don't." Roman might
be controlled and controlling, but he was also kind. "By the way…"
she started to say, and felt her face flush. "I'm sorry for taking
advantage of you in the night."

It had to be said. The sooner the better, and
sitting beside him on the bed made her aware of the faint ache
between her legs.

"Is that how you see it?" he asked, with a
soft laugh. "Because I could make the same apology."

"You think you took advantage of me?" she
asked, surprised. "You were just innocently sleeping. I provoked
the rest."

"Says you. I never really slept until
afterward. I had my own racing thoughts to contend with. Worry
about Jeff. Worry about how much this is all going to cost, and how
I'll manage to pay for it. Worry that I was poking the vulnerable
girl in my arms in the butt." He smiled at her, and his smile was
filled with mirth.

"Suede made me climax on the stage, but
somehow the completion was never there for me. Until you rubbed me
in all the right ways. Actually, I was surprised to find you poking
me in the butt. Thought you were all gay, all the way."

Roman shrugged. "For romance, absolutely. As
far as arousal, well, BDSM blurs the lines. Submissive is
submissive, no matter the gender. Vulnerability is, obviously, a
huge turn on for me."

"A-ha. The secret whispers of a Dominant.
It's vulnerability, more than general sadism?"

"And trust," he said. "Don't forget
trust."

"Hmm. Interesting."

"Why is it interesting?"

"I don't know, I guess because I thought it
was the ability to control that turned you on. Or the omniscient
sense that you might get from inflicting the pain of your
creativity on someone."

"Yeah, it's not really that. Well, part of it
is. But the huge turn on is that someone would allow me to inflict
the pain of my creativity on them. At its basic level, anyway.
Although there is some eroticism in controlling. The first time
Dare saw a plug attached to a chair and realized I wanted him to
sit on it, and then realized that yes, he was going to sit on it,
there was this element of horror in him, terror, actually. And I
was guiding his ass onto the chair, pushing him toward the
inevitable, and it was a small plug, I knew it couldn't hurt or
damage him, not physically anyway. And he was this close," Dare
showed her a space about half an inch between his thumb and
forefinger, "to totally freaking out. And I talked him through it.
I helped him lower his body toward the plug, guiding him down. And
there came a moment of capitulation, where he accepted the
inevitability of doing as I willed, and I watched his face as he
settled his weight and was impaled. Totally vulnerable.

"That was control, at its finest. Knowing
that he would give in to me, and that giving in, even when he was
afraid, made his cock hard. Just the thought that he wouldn't
choose it, would have never even thought of doing such a thing on
his own. Mmm. His submission, his agreement to be vulnerable, that
was eroticism."

Vanessa had been watching Roman's face as he
remembered out loud, and she'd almost gone into a trance. She could
understand his point of view, but mostly she had put herself in
Dare's position, imagined Roman asking something unfamiliar of her,
and imagining herself bending to his will, and that almost defeated
her attempts to make sure they were both comfortable with what
happened last night. Because she was definitely turned on.

She sucked in a deep breath, then blew it
out. "Stop it, you're killing me. Before I met Suede, I almost
asked Jeff to approach you on my behalf. The idea of being
submissive is really intriguing to me, but I knew I would have no
patience for trying to learn it from some kind of amateur. And
there's no way I could pay your hourly fee."

"Did Jeff know this?"

"Of course. And he teased me unmercifully
about it. How I'd wet myself if you ever took me to the dungeon.
The little shit."

Roman laughed. "I'm surprised he never told
me."

"I didn't want him to tell you."

"Shy?" Roman asked. "Scared?"

"Terrified. And I was pretty sure you
wouldn't be interested in doing it just for fun anyway. You know,
me being a girl and all. And mostly, well, I couldn't imagine being
submissive to you in front of Jeff."

"What, you think you're too highbrow for
that?"

"No! Jesus. No. Just… I don't know, Jeff and
I are best friends, almost like a brother and a sister, and the
thought of some kind of submissive triangle thing makes me really
uncomfortable. I mean, I love the stories he writes, and they turn
me on, but I don't know. I've never wanted to have sex with him.
And I'd hate for things between me and him to get weird. Especially
if they got weird because I wanted to get kinky with you. He
probably hated the idea, and that's why he never mentioned it. He's
a total hetero-phobe, you know."

"I know. It's pretty funny, the lengths he'll
go to, to avoid seeing men and women together in compromising
positions," Roman said with a laugh.

"Exactly. Which I could take as an insult,
considering I've never dated a woman until Suede."

Roman was quiet for a minute, and then he
said, "I would do it, you know." His expression was stoic, masking
something that Vanessa couldn't fathom. "Say, if you were
dissatisfied with Suede, or having difficulty trusting her."

Vanessa didn't know what to say. The way he
was looking at her sent a thrill of fear all the way to her toes.
"You would?" she squeaked, and felt her face turn red all over
again. "Why?"

"Because you were amazing on that stage. You
gave Suede everything she asked for, you worked for it, for sure.
Even when you hated the public idea of the thing, you still offered
yourself to her. You submitted beautifully. And when it was over,
you shut down, and I could tell it was absolutely real, that you'd
given up everything. You should have expected, and known that you
deserved, her to give you aftercare, to fill you up again, soothe
and protect you. And even then, you didn't fall apart."

"But I would have, if you hadn't taken me
downstairs."

"Lucky break. I saw her lining up her next
customer, so I took you out of there. If I hadn't, you might have
fallen apart. Which might have forced Suede to take care of you. So
maybe it was the wrong thing for me to do, maybe I should have
waited. It's hard to say."

"Except that you know her."

"True. If Doc's around when Suede plays, he
keeps an eye on her – sometimes he picks up the castaways and does
the aftercare. The thing is, it's all a game to Suede. She's got
the look, for sure, and she's got the Dominant aura – damn straight
– but she doesn't take the serious part seriously. She's in it for
a good time. The only thing she takes seriously is her
addiction."

"So you think she's an alcoholic?" Vanessa
asked.

"Eh," Roman made a dismissive gesture. "It's
not even that specific. The substance doesn't matter. I think she's
addicted to feeling numb, more than anything. So whether it's
alcohol, cocaine, BDSM, or you, whatever she immerses herself in,
is just another way to escape being Suede."

"Whoa. Maybe too much information for me
right now," Vanessa said. "I mean, I am pretty much in a hard core
relationship with her."

"Sorry," Roman said, and winked at her. "I
tend to rant when I think a Top is mistreating her bottom."

"S'alright. I just need to process all the
new information, and integrate it with what I already know, and
then figure out what to do about it. Which might be nothing, just
so you know, because I'm crazy in love with her, and maybe I'm not
willing to give that up just yet."

"Just yet?"

"Well. I already know it's not going to last
forever. I don't have any grand illusions."

"Fantasies but not illusions?"

"Right. I have moments where I think,
yeah, maybe I am the one,
but at the same time I'm aware
that Suede isn't surrounded by long time friends and lovers. Most
of the people in her life are peripheral to her life, or fairly new
in their involvement with her. Including me."

"She wears people out," Roman said flatly.
"She works harder to escape the inside of her head than she works
at anything else, so eventually they just fade away. And I don't
mean that she's a bad person. I don't think she is. I think she can
be awesome sometimes. But I'm standing in for Jeff here by voicing
my reservations. Being that he's not available to look out for you.
So don't take this as a better offer, or anything like that. For
you, it might not be.

"For a lot of people, most of them, actually,
they leap into kink, and finding some acceptance, potential play
partners, and the like, people like them, puts them on a high. And
it's all they can think about, they fantasize constantly, talk
endlessly by instant message or email or chat rooms. And then the
reality isn't like the fantasy, and they become less obsessed or a
bad experience leaves them disenchanted. And ultimately, kink turns
out to be about ten per cent of their lives. Jobs and families, and
all the other life stuff, takes up the other ninety per cent. Very,
very few live as Jeff and I do. Very few even want to, beyond that
initial rush.

"But you've got guts and you've got game. I
didn't know that before. So yes, I would do it, under certain
circumstances, and only when you were done with Suede. But I would
require more from you than she ever will. I would require absolute,
genuine submission."

"I don't know if I can give that," Vanessa
said. "I'm probably a lot more like Dare than like Jeff."

"Probably," Roman said. "And speaking of
Jeff. I need to get to the hospital. Maybe I can see him for a few
minutes."

"I hope so. Call me after you see him,
please? I have no idea what I'll do with myself today. I'm sort of
at loose ends."

I
can hear
noises, voices even, though it's hard to make sense of words. My
throat is full of the apparatus that keeps my chest heaving, and
each expansion of my chest is agony, and I fight the machine,
wanting shallower, gentler breaths. I want to rail and thrash and
fight and scream, but somehow I remember Roman's voice commanding
me to be still, and I am bound to obey him. If I can't talk, I
can't break my contract. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a
bad thing. It is just a thing that is.