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Abby had invited him to sit down with the five of them one night, and asked him what was happening. Fortunately, he’d been frustrated enough to tell them.
“The Mistresses here, they bring it all to the table, and I love every minute of it.” Though he glanced around the table, including everyone in the conversation, they remained silent, letting Abby taking the lead, which meant his self-consciousness dropped, revealing an intriguing depth of need in his body language.
He liked smart Dommes. He’d never disrespect one by trying to lie to her. There was just no way to hide that he had tons more to give, even after she’d gone as far as she intended to go.
“They get this disappointed look in their eyes. Like they think they’ve been alone during the whole thing, that I didn’t take the journey with them. But I did. I really did. I can’t explain it to her, though. Not in a way that doesn’t come off as a lame-ass, ‘It’s not you, it’s me.’”
He’d sighed and rubbed a hand over his neck. “Maybe I should hire myself out as a sub. A Mistress has less expectations. It doesn’t bug her to see a hired sub doing multiple sessions in the same night.”
It was clear he didn’t want to be a hired sub, though. “I’m asking too much, I know it,” he told Abby suddenly. “But in a session, I give her my all. Maybe that doesn’t feel special to her when I do it more than once in the same night. But that’s how I go home with an easier mind and gut.” He shot her a miserable look. “No win situation, right?”
“I wouldn’t say that.” Abby had glanced around the table. “How about you try it with us? I’ll be your first Mistress of the night. One of our group will be the second. And the third, if you need it. No starting each session from scratch. Continuous session, one Mistress handing you off to the next.”
Not only did the TRA Mistresses have the kind of bond that could make that happen, it had been the perfect solution for Abby herself. Because of what had been going on in her head, hints of what would come later, the starting session worked best for her. Ros, Vera, and even Cyn had taken that second slot once or twice, but it had been a couple months before Skye took her turn.
She liked Tiger, and what she’d heard of him from the others, seen in him herself, had deepened that liking. She didn’t want to lose that, if he turned out to be one of the male subs who saw her communication style as a limitation.
During her first solo session with any submissive, she had a process. She would use noise-cancelling headphones to help him focus on the nonverbal cues. If that worked, in subsequent scenes, she’d transition to foam earplugs, where sound could still get through, but it was muted. Eventually, if he became one of her small handful of regulars, he no longer needed that.
She remembered the first time she’d done a session with him after Abby slid from the room. He’d had his head down, a waiting submissive posture. Yet when Skye put her hand on him, there was a recognition between their flesh, and she’d known she wouldn’t be disappointed by him.
From that point forward, it was almost always her and Abby who had sessions with him. If he needed a third Mistress, Vera or Ros stepped in, at least until she and Lawrence had gotten together.
Cyn could do it, but she had to curtail her preferences, since they fell well within his hard limits. Tiger didn’t want to leave her unsatisfied.
One night, when he was invited to join them at the group table for a post-session drink, he’d raised his beer in a toast. “Thank you, ladies,” he’d said. “I no longer go home feeling like a dick.”
“Well, at least not for that reason,” Sy had said, grinning at him from his spot next to Vera.
Vera had elbowed him. “Your honesty with Abby, your integrity, the type of person you are, meant the solution was just waiting for you to find it,” she’d told Tiger. Her gaze slid over the club, the play areas, the lounge, the people at the bar, all in various stages of prep, play or aftercare. “You don’t ever have to doubt this world. As soon as you think you’re asking for something that isn’t there, it will prove it had way more to offer than you ever knew.”
Prophetic words, since that world had brought Skye a man who was starting to seem like a match for her, as much in the outside world as inside the club. Though she wouldn’t have wished for him to be deaf, it was undeniably helpful that he could now understand many of the communication challenges that permeated her own life.
She surfaced from those thoughts to find Tiger had taken a seat next to her, legs stretched out and beer in hand as the steaks cooked. He’d recognized her head was elsewhere, and hadn’t interrupted. His hand was on her chair, though, fingertips brushing her shoulder, as he looked up at the sky. The sun had set a little while ago, clouds turning smoky gray against a sky tinged with orange and deep blue.
Though he could have just been enjoying the look of it, he seemed to be seeking something in particular, turning his head to scan the firmament. Closing down her laptop and setting it aside, Skye drew his attention to her typed question. “What are you looking for?”
“The moon,” he said. “I have this theory that when she appears while the sky is still lit up some, she’s watching the sun painting it all these twilight colors. Same for the sunrise, when you can still see the moon in the sky. I tell Aubrey the sun puts a little extra effort into those sunrises and sunsets, using every last bit of time to impress her.”
When she gazed at him, she was tenderly amused to see his ears get a little red. But when he reached for a cigarette to cover it, she closed her hand on his, stopping him.
“I like that,” she typed. “Do you think riding brings out your poet side?”
He chuckled. “I wouldn’t call it that, but yeah, I think it unlocks something inside you. Riding a bike in the middle of the night on an empty road, the moon over the fields. Or at sunrise, or even in a rainstorm, feeling the water trickling down the back of your neck. You're just closer to all of it, you know?”
He shrugged. “Quid pro quo. What were you thinking about? You seemed to be staring into space more than doing email.”
“How we started, our earlier sessions,” she typed. “Your need for more than one Mistress a night. That has to do with the MC, doesn’t it?”
He grimaced. “Yeah, somewhat. I was given a cut and told ‘this is who you are.’ I believed it enough, was enough of that person, that leaving the Fallen Angels was the hardest decision I ever made. When you kick an addiction, you discover that helplessness they talk about, the power it has over you. I thought nothing would ever feel like the high of being part of them, but that was false. I had to figure that out. When I got free of it, I found out who I truly wanted to be. Ichosewho I am now.”
His jaw set. “What's real and true may not take me to the same place, give me the same feeling, but that drop into hell after the high isn't there, either. I had to give that power to something else, give it a chance to grow into something just as strong. That's what I stumbled into with the submission.”
He lit a cigarette and drew on it thoughtfully. “What Rock said, about me never being a part of it. That was trash talk, but remembering being part of the club is like thinking about an old girlfriend. You remember how you met, fell in love, and the good times you had. The potential. What you felt when you thought it would be forever. But then you remember what drove you apart.”
He sent her a rueful grin. “How she cheated on you, tried to stab you in your sleep, and slashed the tires on your bike. You could let the first two go, but touching your bike? That’s fucking crossing the line.”
He rose to check the steaks. He pronounced them ready and started setting things on the table, asking her what she wanted to drink. He didn’t let her do anything, making it clear he wanted to wait on her and let her relax. In the darkness beyond the firepit’s light, she could hear the sounds of other groups laughing and talking, music being played. It was a comfortable background, not intrusive.
