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“What would you do with Woodstock, if you had him for an hour?”
Jonah shook his head. “I don’t think there’s anything you can do for him in an hour. Ziggy has let this go so far, it’ll take days, maybe longer, of positive reinforcement for good behavior, and getting down off him and leaving him alone for hours when there’s bad behavior. I’m thinking we offer Zig another horse to train while Woodstock is misbehaving. See if it bothers Woodstock for Zig to leave him and pay attention to another horse.”
“I think I can do something in an hour, though I agree it’ll take longer to make the lesson stick.” She asked the question she’d wanted to ask earlier, before she lost her nerve. “Do you treat your submissives with the same care you give the horses?”
He moved his head to the side and back to center. Not really shaking his head, but Heather took it as ano.
“Apples-and-oranges,” he told her. “Submissive men come to me of their own free will. Theywantme to own them, and they get to help define the boundaries of how far my Dominance of them can go. The horses we have here are these incredible creatures who’ve been brought to me for training, but they didn’t make the choice to be trained. They’re not here of their own free will. It’s my job to make them as happy with their life as I can make them. We generally only get the ones here who are thriving, the ones who enjoy learning and growing and competing, so we get to treat them like high level athletes in training. We push them as a coach would, but they’re pushing themselves harder than we could ever push them. So, when we have a horse acting like Woodstock, who isn’t happy and is acting out, deliberately not working towards being good, we all have to take a step back and figure out what the problem is.”
Heather looked at Marcus and Kyle, then back at Jonah. “Let me word my question differently. In order to work with the horses, you have to be in charge. Some horses need a strong hand, others need a light touch. All of them need a certain level of intuition for us to know what they may need on a particular day. Do you use that same level of intuition, of being in tune with the horses — do you use any of that when you’re with a partner or a submissive or whatever the hell terminology I should be using?”
Jonah looked at Marcus and Kyle. “Are the two of you comfortable hearing about this? It seems you’re both fine with the fact I’m gay, but knowing it and hearing details about it are two different things. Heather wants details, and since she appears to be finding her way into the lifestyle, I’m inclined to give them to her.”
Marcus gave a bit of a smirk. “Kyle and I have no problems with details, and you’re right, Heather is absolutely finding her way.”
Jonah looked at Kyle, clearly wanting him to speak for himself, and Kyle said, “I’m good, but we should move back to the house for this conversation, to be sure no one overhears.”
Heather pointed to a wall with monitors. “It’s just us in the barn, and we’ll see anyone approaching. There are also sensors that ring a bell if anyone pulls into the driveway. We house expensive horses here, and obtaining insurance meant a state-of-the-art alarm system. We’re good.”
Kyle nodded at Heather and looked back at Jonah. “Then by all means, please continue.”
Jonah walked towards Heather, grabbing a stool on the way and settling it near Heather as she continued to rub Phantom down.
“The gay D/s scene can be a lot harsher than the hetero one. Not saying there aren’t some harsh hetero couples, just that, as a general rule, there’s more action and less emotion when it’s just men in the equation. In a long-term relationship the emotion is there, but guys don’t generally have hang-ups about no-emotion hookups strictly intended to engage our kinks. I have a couple of submissives I can call on who see themselves as slaves. When they arrive, they’re here for my pleasure, and my pleasure can be harsh. In those instances, no, I don’t really think about their needs other than to make sure they have an erection and to see that they eventually get off, assuming they behave well enough to deserve an orgasm. In a relationship, I certainly have to consider how the other person is feeling — but if someone comes to me to be used, I use them.”
“So, you’re saying that guys can be treated harsher than girls?”
Jonah shook his head. “Not at all. There are undoubtably women who can take more than a lot of submissive men, but that isn’t the point. The gay leather scene can get rough from the start, and my understanding is the average hetero let’s-have-a-scene discussion is all about limits and boundaries. The leather scene doesn’t allow for much of that.” He shifted on the stool. “When I play with someone, unless I see true distress, I don’t check in with them to make sure they’re okay. They have a safeword, and if they aren’t using it, I trust they’re good with whatever I’m doing. If it isn’t working for them and they safeword, I release them and they leave. No hard feelings. I tell them my rules before we start, so it’s clear what I expect of them — total submission, but only for the duration of the scene. Nothing after. No strings. If I feel they expect more than I’m prepared to give, it stops before anything happens.”
“And in a relationship?”
“In a relationship, they’ve already submitted to me and been able to handle the basics of what I require. As I take them farther, sure, I keep an eye on how they’re dealing with it. I use the carrot and stick, but my style is to use a lot more stick than carrot, which is the opposite of how I operate with the horses. I see the correlation you’re trying to make between the training of horses and submissives, but it’s completely different for me.”
This would take some more thought, but later. “Thanks for your honesty. I’m done with Phantom. I’ll get him some hay and then I’ll go see what I can do about Zig and Woodstock.”
Chapter 27
Heather took extra time to make sure she didn’t miss anything when she shaved, and spent a little more time with the coconut oil, after.
And she thought about what she was willing to give up.
She’d rented an apartment five minutes from the airport. Other than the proximity, she wasn’t especially attached to it.
Kyle and Marcus lived fifteen minutes from the airport, so it wasn’t like she’d have a long commute, and she could still escape to the ranch if she needed a break from them. In fact, she had the funds to get started on the extra boarding rooms she wanted, and while she was at it, she could have a suite built as her own personal space, so she wouldn’t have to impose on Jonah.
She enjoyed sitting up talking with him until early morning hours, and loved waking up to his breakfasts, but they could still do that if she built her own place there.
Logically, it made sense for her to move in with Kyle, but should this decision be made based on logic? Also, would it alienate Marcus, if she moved in with Kyle?
The biggest bugaboo wasn’t so easy to resolve, though. Now, if she needed alone time, she went to her apartment to veg out. No one bothered her at home, but people would knock on the door to a suite at the ranch, if they knew she was there and they needed something. Or they’d text her and ask her to step outside. She knew this because it happened frequently when she stayed with Jonah. They saw her car and assumed she was available.
Heather’s rather large apartment had vaulted ceilings, huge windows, and a large private patio. It also included a two-car garage, which was barely big enough for her to stow her gear. Between hang-gliding, rock climbing, kayaking, camping, and everything else she did, she had a lot of gear. Kyle had a three-car garage. He parked his car in one bay, and had his workout equipment spread out in the rest of the garage. Something told her he’d happily move the equipment closer together and give her a bay for her stuff, but she couldn’t see how he could give her two full bays to cram her things into.
Then there was the problem of her being basically a messy person. She kept her gear in good shape, so her garage was in perfect order, but her apartment was a different story. She paid someone to come in and take care of her laundry as well as clean the kitchen and bathroom and do the vacuuming and dusting and everything else involved in keeping the place clean. Kyle and Marcus both lived in huge sprawling mansions. Marcus seemed to be like Heather — happy to pay someone to keep his place clean and organized. Kyle, however, was a neat freak who put things to rights the second he saw it out of order. Would she get on his nerves too bad with her lack of domestic skills?
She was nowhere near ready when she heard a knock at the door. A glance at the clock told her she was supposed to have another thirty minutes before the men arrived.
She was wearing panties and nothing else, but she didn’t bother with a robe — though she did check the peep hole first. When she saw only Kyle and Marcus, she opened the door and walked away from it, back to her bedroom.
