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Regina shot him a calculating look. "Do I get a two-for-one discount?"
Dale shrugged blandly, but with a twinkle in his blue-green eyes. "It's a known fact that most dogs and cats are happier if they have another animal companion in the home, especially when most families have to work nine to five so they're alone a big chunk of the day."
"How about that striped brown tabby who looks pissed at the world?"
Dale chuckled. "That's Bad Attitude. I call him Badat for short. He's a feral who catches rats around the junkyard, though he's become socialized enough he'll occasionally let me pet his head and not try to take my hand off at the wrist. Some days, like today, he snarls at me until I let him into the cat building to hang out for awhile on his observation perch. He's pretty dug in here, and considers himself the lord of the cat habitat. Otherwise, I'd let you try your Mistress wiles on him. You seem to have a touch for the male hard cases."
He cocked his head, the light glinting off the silver strands in his short hair. "But the mom of that kitten needs a home. She's barely nine months old herself, so she still has plenty of kitten in her to be a good playmate. She's also a tough little lady. Reserves judgment and does some heavy screening of her own before she decides to be friendly with a human. I think the two of you would be a good match."
"All right." Regina rose. "I'll talk to Marius. I'll text you if we're coming back to pick them up before we leave. I can meet her then."
"No problem." Dale sat back. "He's a good kid who's been mindfucked in the worst nightmare kind of way. He doesn't believe it, but I'm in his corner. I'd really like him to provide a home for this little mite. It's not a bad idea to have two imperious females in his life looking out for him."
Regina chuckled, and touched his hand fondly. "I know you're in his corner. And I appreciate you being straight about it. The truth is the best way to go with him, though his reaction to it can be challenging. He's a workout."
"Some of the best ones can be," Dale noted. "Good luck, Mistress."
She left the office, petted and spoke to the dogs lying in the shade of the rollout awning in front. As she walked along the gravel drive to the entrance, she saw Marius leaning against the back bumper of their car, gazing down the road. Sliding through the front gate, she moved to prop next to him, hip to hip. The New Orleans sun was starting to set, but the humidity was still high. She could see the dampness of the soft hairs on his nape.
"Hungry?" she asked. "Someone promised me dinner."
He lifted a shoulder and straightened. "Yeah."
"Hey." She stopped him, moving into his space. Cradling his jaw, she put a kiss on his tense mouth. It eased under the pressure of hers, and his lips parted. She swept in to tangle with his tongue and bring their mouths even closer together. It reflected the same closeness she was bringing to the contact between their two bodies, her breasts against his chest, hips and thighs brushing.
His hands went to her waist, holding her even closer. Making a soft noise of pleasure, she slid her arm over his shoulder, hand resting on his neck, stroking as she took the full measure of the kiss that spun out under a lazy, warm sun. She was vaguely aware of the sounds of frogs from a nearby pond, the rasping song of crickets.
When she lifted her head, breaking the kiss, his eyes held desire along with the confusion, but the confusion wasn't as jagged and painful. She stroked his jaw.
"Buy me dinner, sweet boy."
Food always seemed to level out even the most uncertain male temperament. Marius started out the meal cordial though quiet, but as it progressed, she made him talk about random subjects. She added in the reminder he had to be a good date or she'd leave him for one of New Orleans many street buskers. Under that kind of gentle teasing, he started to relax again. But it wasn't until they were done with their meal, and she was seeing the occasional smile out of him, that she decided to head back toward more serious topics.
"So I told you how I got into the Domme thing. How did you first figure out your submissive craving?"
They were walking along the outskirts of Jackson Square. They'd paused to hear the musical stylings of a man with Marley-style dreadlocks playing a trio of upside down buckets and improvising lyrics about the foot traffic around him. But as they moved on, she posed the question.
Marius shrugged. "Kind of fell into it. Regular relationships weren't working."
"Oh? How so?" She directed him up the ramp over the trolley tracks to the sidewalk that followed the river. It took them away from the Jackson Square congestion.
He didn't say anything right away. But she waited him out and eventually he collected his thoughts and gave her more. "Couldn't...you know. Perform. I'd get with a girl, start making ou
t the way any other high school kid did, and all the stuff would pile up in my head, these images from the past, things she didn't know about me, and...nothing. I covered it by getting really good at getting her off."
A dry smile touched his lips. "Not a bad skill to have. One girl I was with for a little while, she enjoyed it a lot, and started being kind of bossy about it. Think I stumbled onto an aspiring Domme, neither one of us understanding then why we were so well-matched.
"She'd tell me what to do, how she wanted it, and the more she ordered me around...well, I realized I was getting turned on by it. First time I came while with a woman. All over her dress."
Regina winced and he chuckled painfully. "Nothing like being a teenager, right? After that, I figured out what my trigger was and could finally masturbate like a normal kid."
"You never had, until then?"
"Not successfully." A shadow crossed his expression and his gaze was elsewhere again. "I'd have the urge, but couldn't make it go anywhere. That mindfuck invasion from my past again." He cleared his throat. "When I turned twenty-one, I went looking for the pro-Dommes. I was more comfortable with that scenario than finding it through a relationship. But the pro-Domme thing only worked once or twice."
"Because they were a paid service."
He looked toward her, surprise flickering in his expression. "Yeah. They were there to take care of my needs. No matter how cloaked it was in me doing things for them, that was the deal. They were pros, so they could have been enjoying it, not enjoying it, and been tops or bottoms in their real lives, or neither."
