Safeword Quinacridone (26 page)

Cara’s insides ignited at the idea of being used until sore, and then used some more, without regard for how tender her holes might be. She wasn’t so sure about the fetish club, though.

“There’s enough speculation about how kinky I am without the two of us attending a fetish club, don’t you think?”

He smiled. “No worries, I’ll be in disguise and you’ll wear a mask. The head of the organization’s a friend and knows who I am, but everyone else knows me by another name. I promised to shield you from the media as much as possible and I meant it. I’m sorry they follow you around and take pictures even when you aren’t with me, but if you’ll let me provide a car and driver I can stop some of it, you know.”

“No.” She held her hands up in emphasis. “I don’t want to be driven around. Eventually they’ll get bored following me to the art supply stores and your office, and’ll realize following me is a waste of time and will stop. Right?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure it’ll happen anytime soon. A kinky payoff would be worth a whole lot, and they’re certain they’ll uncover something if they stick it out long enough. Speaking of which, it might prove wise to lose them before you meet Jacob for your shopping trip. Let me know what the two of you schedule and I’ll make arrangements.” He rolled his eyes. “I can just imagine the speculation if they see him helping you shop.”

Cara’s temper threatened to take over but she took a deep breath and reached for her wine. Travis’ past may have brought this on, but it wasn’t fair to blame him. Besides, he’d gone out of his way to shield her as much as possible. She reigned in her temper and managed to sound merely grumpy when she said, “I
hate
having to think of them before we do anything.”

“I know, and I’m sorry.”

Feeling guilty for putting him on the defensive, she shrugged and said, “It’s part of the package, I guess. Part of being with you. I have to accept the good with the bad, right? Tell me about the fetish club and why you want to take me.”

“I want to take you because their rules are set up perfectly for me to
let you experience a different
form of objectification.
I don’t want to explain the specifics too far in advance or it’ll take away from the experience. Which art pieces are you planning to offer the New York gallery?
”

Chapter Nineteen

Cara’s nerves were all over the place. The paparazzi were awful in New York, and she was more thankful than ever Travis had made sure she’d dressed fashionably. She looked like she belonged with these people, even if she didn’t feel it.

If she’d tried to navigate the New York art world without Travis’ help, she’d have appeared a total country bumpkin. And the paparazzi
...
well, if Travis hadn’t shielded her and talked her through it as they braved gauntlets of questions and cameras, she may have broken down in tears on more than one occasion. He took them in stride but she didn’t think she’d ever become accustomed to them.

During one of the final meetings, she’d been feeling as if she owed Travis for her success when the gallery owner said, “It’s too bad I didn’t discover you before you became Travis Winslow’s girlfriend; I think I’d have finagled a better deal without him in the picture.”

She’d almost said he wouldn’t have been interested in her art before she’d been well known, until she realized he meant the opposite; he’d have taken her artwork into his gallery with or without her connection to Travis. If the meeting weren’t so formal with everyone exercising their best manners, she’d have been tempted to hug him for his kind words.

It’d been a whirlwind three days, and while she was thrilled with the results and felt a bit like a fairy tale princess at times, she was relieved it was over. And nervous about what came next.

Travis sported a wig slightly darker and much longer than his hair, pulled into a ponytail trailing to the base of his shoulder blades. His black leather pants sinfully hugged his hips and, combined with the tucked in charcoal tee, the outfit made his lean body look like a sexy rock star about to walk on stage. All he needed to complete the look was an electric guitar. And maybe some eyeliner.

She eyed the brown leather mini-skirt and teeny leopard halter draped across the bed, complete with leopard fuck-me shoes on the floor below.

“If I’ll be wearing a mask why do I have to spray stuff in my hair to make it darker?”

“Because we need to get away from the hotel without anyone recognizing us. I’ve arranged for someone to return our rental car later this
evening
and there’s another waiting in a parking lot down the street, but we still have to get from here to there. I have a backup plan if we’re spotted but it’ll be much simpler if we aren’t.”

She sighed and turned to the mirror, hating the sparkly lavender eye shadow but layering it on anyway. Jacob had sent a picture of how it should look, and a map of which colors went where. She’d never used purple shimmery eyeliner before, much less such a thick application, but surprisingly it didn’t look half-bad. Definitely not her style, but the face in the mirror looked like something from a magazine and the spray had magically tamed her hair. She smiled as she reached for the darker purple eyeliner and crooked her finger at Travis. “Jacob’s notes say I should put this on you. C’mere.”

The penthouse had its own elevator with a direct route to the lobby, but Travis took her down the steps to a lower floor where they boarded a public elevator on the other side of the hotel. Neither looked anything like themselves, but she was nevertheless surprised when they strolled out and made it to the car without anyone following. Still, they didn’t talk until safely out of the parking garage and battling traffic.

“The place we’re staying’s a normal Bed and Breakfast most of the time, but
this
club rents the entire facility for a weekend every four months. We have reservations for a small suite, but if we decide to stay the night we’ll have to remain in disguise until we leave tomorrow afternoon.”

Travis stopped at a red light and turned to meet Cara’s gaze. “There are some club rules you may not like, but you’ll be expected to follow them if you go as my slave. If you don’t agree to them we can go home and play on our own.” He hesitated, as if choosing his words. “The group is based on an Owner and property dynamic, and the rules are crafted to keep the fantasy real for all present. If you break a rule, the options are to leave or accept punishment. As your Owner I’ll be given two options
. O
ne will likely include impact along with a consequence designed to address the offense, and the other will involve painful bondage devised to discipline for the specific transgression. If you safeword out of the punishment we’ll also have to leave.”

Punishment? She wasn’t sure she liked the sound of this. “Would you be the one giving the punishment?”

Travis shook his head and returned his attention to the road as the light changed green and he moved forward in traffic. “I’m sorry, but no. I’ll be close, and will have the opportunity to add to it if I don’t feel the Punishment Master has given you enough for your transgression. I can also draw a stop to it, but if the Dungeon Master disagrees with my assessment of ‘
too much
’ we’ll be asked to leave.”

Her libido perked up but her common sense pushed it down. “How well do you know these people?”

“I’ve been active with this group as Dennis Johnson for many years. I’ve brought women before, and the members are accustomed to my bringing well-trained slaves. I don’t believe you’ll manage to be quite so obedient, but I have a few ideas for how to work around it, so as I tell you the rules I’ll explain how I’ll help you follow them.” He glanced at her, a question in his eyes as he said, “Okay?”

Cara’s insides had ignited at the notion of Owner and property, and again at the notion of being owned to the point of someone else making decisions on her behalf. She squeezed his hand and said, “Okay, but does that mean your...”

She stopped, searching for the right word, and Travis filled in for her with “Slave? Property? Both are used interchangeably with this group. Many of these couples live this way all the time, some only sporadically, but all are serious about their chosen lifestyle. The slave is property and she has absolutely no rights — most of the women don’t have safewords. The club has to respect them for legal purposes at the larger events like this one, but there are smaller gatherings in people’s homes where safewords don’t exist.”

“Really? Would you ever want to do things to me without a safeword?”

Travis glanced at her quickly before returning his eyes to the road. “Does the idea turn you on?”

“Yes. No. I mean, the fantasy does, but I’m not sure about actually doing it.”

“It intrigues me too, but I’m not certain it’s a good idea. Let’s save that discussion for another day.” He squeezed her hand and continued. “The house safeword is
red
, but I’ll be with you the entire time so if you say
quinacridone
I can let them know it’s your safeword. You were about to ask if a slave I brought has ever been punished, I believe?”

“Yeah, I was.”

Travis nodded. “Yes. These usually last from Friday evening until Sunday afternoon, and it’s difficult for slaves who don’t live the lifestyle 24/7 to follow the rules perfectly for an extended period.”

“What did they do to her?”

“On one occasion I was given a choice of 20 strokes of a cane while in stocks, or a complicated and painful bondage position while a fucking machine went to town on her ass for thirty minutes. I chose the stocks and cane, but also made her suffer a variation of the other.” He glanced at her quickly before returning his eyes to the road. “After she took the cane strokes I bound her in a slightly less painful position than had been suggested, and announced she was available to anyone who wanted to fuck her ass for the next hour. With protection, of course.”

The idea of punishment doled out by a stranger while Travis watched terrified Cara, and almost made her come. She pushed the hand he wasn’t holding under her right leg, sitting on it to make sure she didn’t use it to play with herself.

“What did she do to deserve that?”

“She moved out of position while someone was using her ass, causing them to come out. She lost her balance and sidestepped, so the punishment was mild, as the transgression was deemed unintentional. I added to it because I believed she’d lost her concentration and let her mind wander. It may not have been intentional, but she knew better than to lose focus. I was paying for a well-trained submissive and I wanted to make my point.”

She rubbed her legs together, arched her back, and realized how it looked. Forcing herself to sit still, she said, “Which would you choose for me?”

“I wouldn’t have expected you to hold the pose we put her in, so there wouldn’t have been a choice. I would’ve held you, or bound you in place. She’d gone through extensive training and I expected her to handle demanding tasks with poise and grace. You can’t compare yourself to her, because she was just someone paid to do a job, and you’re the love of my life who loves me back, and spends time with me because you want to, not because I’m paying you.”

A siren sounded in the distance behind them, and he stopped talking as he looked around, trying to locate it. The interruption gave her a moment to dwell on how he’d tried to have her trained, and how ill-equipped she was to handle his predilections since she hadn’t been through whatever ordeals Jonathan put women through, to teach them how to please someone with Travis’ wants and needs. It’d been more than a year since their aborted attempt and the notion she ought to step forward and offer to try again was increasingly weighing on her.

They’d finally found a way to tie her legs out of the way and cover them, to pretend they’d been cut off, but it wasn’t quite as good as if she were more bendable and she knew the illusion would be better for both of them if she worked on her flexibility. She could tell he was easy with her when binding and bending her, but sometimes he forgot and pushed a leg past the point of comfort. She hated the sound of her gasps, and the look on his face when he realized her leg wouldn’t go where he wanted.

The police car blew past them and Travis continued. “I’m bringing you this weekend to fulfill your fantasies as well as my own. We’ll have to adhere to the club rules, but I’ll find ways around the ones I think you’ll have trouble following. I think you’re going to love being treated as property, and I can’t wait to see what it does to you.”

He looked in his rear view mirror and behind him out the side window, and changed lanes. “In this traffic, we should arrive in about an hour and a half, and I need to explain the rules. The most difficult for you will be not speaking unless asked a direct question.”

He squeezed her hand reassuringly and glanced at her, his eyes returning to the road as he said, “Many questions will be worded as if they’re asking you, but I’ll be expected to respond on your behalf. Unless the query is preceded or followed by the word
slave
, you don’t answer. I’ll help you with this by keeping you gagged most of the time. I know your jaw can’t handle more than about fifteen or twenty minutes of a regular gag, so we’ll alternate between various gags, hoods, and short chopsticks on your tongue.”